I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales written by Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch

A >> Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch >> I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales

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The next moment, like a wind, this thing went by us in the moonlight--
a man upon a black horse that splashed the stream all over us as he
dashed through it and up the hill. 'Twas the scarlet dragoon with his
ashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a little
shape that tugged and wailed and raved. As I stand here, sir, 'twas the
shape of a naked babe!

Well, I won't go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in the
water, or how my mother fainted off. The thing was gone, and from that
moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket.
The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into a
decline, and early next fall the old man--for he was an old man now--had
to delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but held
on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as
soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time.

But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in the
yard alone: for 'twas a small child's grave, and in the loosest soil,
and I was off on a day's work, thatching Farmer Tresidder's stacks.
He was digging away slowly when he heard a rattle at the lych-gate, and
looking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching his
horse there by the bridle.

'Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered
with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father
saw that 'twas the dashing dragoon. His face was still a slaty-grey,
and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a
whisper, with a shiver therein.

"Bedman," says he, "go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell me
what you see."

My father went, with his knees shaking, and came back again.

"I see a woman," says he, "not fifty yards down the road. She is
dressed in black, an' has a veil over her face; an' she's comin' this
way."

"Bedman," answers the dragoon, "go to the gate an' look back along the
Plymouth road, an' tell me what you see."

"I see," says my father, coming back with his teeth chattering, "I see,
twenty yards back, a naked child comin'. He looks to be callin', but he
makes no sound."

"Because his voice is wearied out," says the dragoon. And with that he
faced about, and walked to the gate slowly.

"Bedman, come wi' me an' see the rest," he says, over his shoulder.

He opened the gate, unhitched the bridle and swung himself heavily up in
the saddle.

Now from the gate the bank goes down pretty steep into the road, and at
the foot of the bank my father saw two figures waiting. 'Twas the woman
and the child, hand in hand; and their eyes burned up like coals: and
the woman's veil was lifted, and her throat bare.

As the horse went down the bank towards these two, they reached out and
took each a stirrup and climbed upon his back, the child before the
dragoon and the woman behind. The man's face was set like a stone.
Not a word did either speak, and in this fashion they rode down the hill
towards Ruan sands. All that my father could mind, beyond, was that the
woman's hands were passed round the man's neck, where the rope had
passed round her own.

No more could he tell, being a stricken man from that hour. But Aunt
Polgrain, the house-keeper up to Constantine, saw them, an hour later,
go along the road below the town-place; and Jacobs, the smith, saw them
pass his forge towards Bodmin about midnight. So the tale's true
enough. But since that night no man has set eyes on horse or riders.

A BLUE PANTOMIME.

I.

HOW I DINED AT THE "INDIAN QUEENS."

The sensation was odd; for I could have made affidavit I had never
visited the place in my life, nor come within fifty miles of it.
Yet every furlong of the drive was earmarked for me, as it were, by some
detail perfectly familiar. The high-road ran straight ahead to a notch
in the long chine of Huel Tor; and this notch was filled with the yellow
ball of the westering sun. Whenever I turned my head and blinked, red
simulacra of this ball hopped up and down over the brown moors. Miles
of wasteland, dotted with peat-ricks and cropping ponies, stretched to
the northern horizon: on our left three long coombes radiated seaward,
and in the gorge of the midmost was a building stuck like a fish-bone,
its twisted Jacobean chimneys overtopping a plantation of ash-trees that
now, in November, allowed a glimpse, and no more, of the grey facade. I
had looked down that coombe as we drove by; and catching sight of these
chimneys felt something like reassurance, as if I had been counting, all
the way, to find them there.

But here let me explain who I am and what brought me to these parts.
My name is Samuel Wraxall--the Reverend Samuel Wraxall, to be precise:
I was born a Cockney and educated at Rugby and Oxford. On leaving the
University I had taken orders; but, for reasons impertinent to this
narrative, was led, after five years of parochial work in Surrey, to
accept an Inspectorship of Schools. Just now I was bound for Pitt's
Scawens, a desolate village among the Cornish clay-moors, there to
examine and report upon the Board School. Pitt's Scawens lies some nine
miles off the railway, and six from the nearest market-town;
consequently, on hearing there was a comfortable inn near the village, I
had determined to make that my resting-place for the night and do my
business early on the morrow.

"Who lives down yonder?" I asked my driver.

"Squire Parkyn," he answered, not troubling to follow my gaze.

"Old family?"

"May be: Belonged to these parts before I can mind."

"What's the place called?"

"Tremenhuel."

I had certainly never heard the name before, nevertheless my lips were
forming the syllables almost before he spoke. As he flicked up his grey
horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I
put him a fourth question--a question at once involuntary and absurd.

"Are you sure the people who live there are called Parkyn?"

He turned his head at this, and treated me quite excusably to a stare of
amazement.

"Well--considerin' I've lived in these parts five-an'-forty year, man
and boy, I reckon I _ought_ to be sure."

The reproof was just, and I apologised. Nevertheless Parkyn was not the
name I wanted. What was the name? And why did I want it? I had not
the least idea. For the next mile I continued to hunt my brain for the
right combination of syllables. I only knew that somewhere, now at the
back of my head, now on my tongue-tip, there hung a word I desired to
utter, but could not. I was still searching for it when the gig climbed
over the summit of a gentle rise, and the "Indian Queens" hove in sight.

It is not usual for a village to lie a full mile beyond its inn: yet I
never doubted this must be the case with Pitt's Scawens. Nor was I in
the least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with the
black peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which its
end windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts of
departed coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land's End.
I knew the sign-board over the porch: I knew--though now in the twilight
it was impossible to distinguish colours--that upon either side of it
was painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, taking
two black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree.
I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside the
porch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of the
door, and the dummy window immediately over it. Only the landlord was
unfamiliar. He appeared as the gig drew up--a loose-fleshed, heavy man,
something over six feet in height--and welcomed me with an air of
anxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained for
many years.

"You received my letter, then?" I asked.

"Yes, surely. The Rev. S. Wraxall, I suppose. Your bed's aired, sir,
and a fire in the Blue Room, and the cloth laid. My wife didn't like to
risk cooking the fowl till you were really come. 'Railways be that
uncertain,' she said. 'Something may happen to the train and he'll be
done to death and all in pieces.'"

It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomy
anticipations referred not to me but to the fowl.

"But if you can wait half an hour--" he went on.

"Certainly," said I. "In the meanwhile, if you'll show me up to my
bedroom, I'll have a wash and change my clothes, for I've been
travelling since ten this morning."

I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the dusk
while the landlord was fetching a candle. Yes, again: I had felt sure
the staircase lay to the right. I knew by heart the Ionic pattern of
its broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the first
turn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on the
stable-yard. When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and a
candle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for the
twentieth time--'When--in what stage of my soul's history--had I been
doing all this before? And what on earth was that tune that kept
humming in my head?'

I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began to
fling off my dusty clothes. I had almost forgotten about them by the
time I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust out
of my hair. My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange my
plans for the next day. The prospect of dinner, too, after my cold
drive was wonderfully comforting. Perhaps (thought I), there is good
wine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boast
that they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe. When my
landlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down to
the first landing in the lightest of spirits.

Therefore, I was startled when, as the landlord threw open the door and
stood aside to let me pass, _it_ came upon me again--and this time not
as a merely vague sensation, but as a sharp and sudden fear taking me
like a cold hand by the throat. I shivered as I crossed the threshold
and began to look about me. The landlord observed it, and said--

"It's chilly weather for travelling, to be sure. Maybe you'd be better
down-stairs in the coffee-room, after all."

I felt that this was probable enough. But it seemed a pity to have put
him to the pains of lighting this fire for nothing. So I promised him I
should be comfortable enough.

He appeared to be relieved, and asked me what I would drink with my
dinner. "There's beer--I brew it myself; and sherry--"

I said I would try his beer.

"And a bottle of sound port to follow?"

Port upon home-brewed beer! But I had dared it often enough in my
Oxford days, and a long evening lay before me, with a snug armchair, and
a fire fit to roast a sheep. I assented.

He withdrew to fetch up the meal, and I looked about me with curiosity.
The room was a long one--perhaps fifty feet from end to end, and not
less than ten paces broad. It was wainscotted to the height of four
feet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so larded
with dark blue paint that its texture could not be discovered.
Above this wainscot the walls were covered with a fascinating paper.
The background of this was a greenish-blue, and upon it a party of
red-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while they
hunted a stag. This pattern, striking enough in itself, became
immeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of one
hunt chased the riders of the next, and the riders chased the hounds,
and so on in an unbroken procession right round the room. The window at
the bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtains
and a blue-cushioned seat beneath. In the corner to the right of it
stood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with two
plated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and an
ormolu clock under glass--the sort of ornament that an Agricultural
Society presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirty
miles of somewhere or other. The floor was un-carpeted save for one
small oasis opposite the fire. Here stood my table, cleanly spread,
with two plated candlesticks, each holding three candles. Along the
wainscot extended a regiment of dark, leather-cushioned chairs, so
straight in the back that they seemed to be standing at attention.
There was but one easy-chair in the room, and this was drawn close to
the fire. I turned towards it.

As I sat down I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the
fireplace. It was an unflattering glass, with a wave across the surface
that divided my face into two ill-fitting halves, and a film upon it,
due, I suppose, to the smoke of the wood-fire below. But the setting of
this mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthy
objects in the whole room. I set myself idly to examine them.

It was an open hearth, and the blazing faggot lay on the stone itself.
The andirons were of indifferently polished steel, and on either side of
the fireplace two Ionic pilasters of dark oak supported a narrow
mantel-ledge. Above this rested the mirror, flanked by a couple of
naked, flat-cheeked boys, who appeared to be lowering it over the fire
by a complicated system of pulleys, festoons, and flowers.
These flowers and festoons, as well as the frame of the mirror, were of
some light wood--lime, I fancy--and reminded me of Grinling Gibbons'
work; and the glass tilted forward at a surprising angle, as if about to
tumble on the hearth-rug. The carving was exceedingly delicate.
I rose to examine it more narrowly. As I did so, my eyes fell on three
letters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of wood
immediately over the frame, and I spelt out the word _FVI_.

_Fui_--the word was simple enough; but what of its associations?
Why should it begin to stir up again those memories which were memories
of nothing? _Fui_--"I have been"; but what the dickens have I been?

The landlord came in with my dinner.

"Ah!" said he, "you're looking at our masterpiece, I see."

"Tell me," I asked; "do you know why this word is written here, over the
mirror?"

"I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that
used to own this house. Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire,
built it. You'll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the
frame--R. C.--one letter in each corner."

As he spoke it, I knew this name--Cardinnock--for that which had been
haunting me. I seated myself at table, saying--

"They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose. Is the family gone?--died out?"

"Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too."

"You might sit down and tell me about it," I said, "while I begin my
dinner."

"There's not much to tell," he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm not
the man to tell it properly. My wife is a better hand at it, but"--
here he looked at me doubtfully--"it always makes her cry."

"Then I'd rather hear it from you. How did Tremenhuel come into the
hands of the Parkyns?--that's the present owner's name, is it not?"

The landlord nodded. "The answer to that is part of the story.
Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock--Squire Philip
Cardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property when
he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
to let the old place. He was wild, they say--thundering wild; a
drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
money like water through a sieve. That was bad enough: but when it came
to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
running the country, I put it to you it's worse."

"Did he disappear?"

"That's part of the story, too. When matters got desperate and he was
forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
out of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when the
militia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast his
affections upon old Sir Felix Williams's daughter. Miss Cicely--"

I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heard
the name, and for a few seconds the landlord's voice sounded like that
of a distant river as it ran on--

"And as Sir Felix wouldn't consent--for which nobody blamed him--
Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night.
But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and
got six inches of cold steel for his pains. However, he kept his girl,
and Squire Philip had to fly the country. He went off that same night,
they say: and wherever he went, he never came back."

"What became of him?"

"Ne'er a soul knows; for ne'er a soul saw his face again. Year after
year, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of his
right pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being no
heir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock's shoes
with a 'by your leave' to nobody, and there his grandson is to this
day."

"What became of the young lady--of Miss Cicely Williams?" I asked.

"Died an old maid. There was something curious between her and her only
brother who had helped to stop the runaway match. Nobody knows what it
was: but when Sir Felix died--as he did about ten years after--
she packed up and went somewhere to the North of England and settled.
They say she and her brother never spoke: which was carrying her anger
at his interference rather far, 'specially as she remained good friends
with her father."

He broke off here to fetch up the second course. We talked no more, for
I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics.
Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill. I suppose
I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a
bottle of port, with a plate of biscuits and another of dried raisins,
that I woke out of my musing. While I drew the arm-chair nearer the
fire, he pushed forward the table with the wine to my elbow.
After this, he poured me out a glass and fell to dusting a high-backed
chair with vigour, as though he had caught it standing at ease and were
giving it a round dozen for insubordination in the ranks. "Was there
anything more?" "Nothing, thank you." He withdrew.

I drank a couple of glasses and began meditatively to light my pipe.
I was trying to piece together these words "Philip Cardinnock--
Cicely Williams--_fui_," and to fit them into the tune that kept running
in my head.

My pipe went out. I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh when
a puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke out
into the room.

The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirror
confronting me. I followed it lazily with my eyes. Then suddenly I
bent forward, staring up. Something very curious was happening to the
glass.

II.

WHAT I SAW IN THE MIRROR.

The smoke that had dimmed the mirror's face for a moment was rolling off
its surface and upwards to the ceiling. But some of it still lingered
in filmy, slowly revolving eddies. The glass itself, too, was stirring
beneath this film and running across its breadth in horizontal waves
which broke themselves silently, one after another, against the dark
frame, while the circles of smoke kept widening, as the ripples widen
when a stone is tossed into still water.

I rubbed my eyes. The motion on the mirror's surface was quickening
perceptibly, while the glass itself was steadily becoming more opaque,
the film deepening to a milky colour and lying over the surface in heavy
folds. I was about to start up and touch the glass with my hand, when
beneath this milky colour and from the heart of the whirling film, there
began to gleam an underlying brilliance after the fashion of the light
in an opal, but with this difference, that the light here was blue--
a steel blue so vivid that the pain of it forced me to shut my eyes.
When I opened them again, this light had increased in intensity.
The disturbance in the glass began to abate; the eddies revolved more
slowly; the smoke-wreaths faded: and as they died wholly out, the blue
light went out on a sudden and the mirror looked down upon me as before.

That is to say, I thought so for a moment. But the next, I found that
though its face reflected the room in which I sat, there was one
omission.

_I_ was that omission. My arm-chair was there, but no one sat in it.

I was surprised; but, as well as I can recollect, not in the least
frightened. I continued, at any rate, to gaze steadily into the glass,
and now took note of two particulars that had escaped me. The table I
saw was laid for two. Forks, knives and glasses gleamed at either end,
and a couple of decanters caught the sparkle of the candles in the
centre. This was my first observation. The second was that the colours
of the hearth-rug had gained in freshness, and that a dark spot just
beyond it--a spot which in my first exploration I had half-amusedly
taken for a blood-stain--was not reflected in the glass.

As I leant back and gazed, with my hands in my lap, I remember there was
some difficulty in determining whether the tune by which I was still
haunted ran in my head or was tinkling from within the old spinet by the
window. But after a while the music, whencesoever it came, faded away
and ceased. A dead silence held everything for about thirty seconds.

And then, still looking in the mirror, I saw the door behind me open
slowly.

The next moment, two persons noiselessly entered the room--a young man
and a girl. They wore the dress of the early Georgian days, as well as
I could see; for the girl was wrapped in a cloak with a hood that almost
concealed her face, while the man wore a heavy riding-coat. He was
booted and spurred, and the backs of his top-boots were splashed with
mud. I say the backs of his boots, for he stood with his back to me
while he held open the door for the girl to pass, and at first I could
not see his face.

The lady advanced into the light of the candles and threw back her hood.
Her eyes were dark and frightened: her cheeks damp with rain and
slightly reddened by the wind. A curl of brown hair had broken loose
from its knot and hung, heavy with wet, across her brow. It was a
beautiful face; and I recognised its owner. She was Cicely Williams.

With that, I knew well enough what I was to see next. I knew it even
while the man at the door was turning, and I dug the nails of my right
hand into the palm of my left, to repress the fear that swelled up as a
wave as I looked straight into his face and saw--_my own self_.

But I had expected it, as I say: and when the wave of fear had passed
over me and gone, I could observe these two figures steadfastly enough.
The girl dropped into a chair beside the table, and stretching her arms
along the white cloth, bowed her head over them and wept. I saw her
shoulders heave and her twined fingers work as she struggled with her
grief. The young Squire advanced and, with a hand on her shoulder,
endeavoured by many endearments to comfort her. His lips moved
vehemently, and gradually her shoulders ceased to rise and fall.
By-and-by she raised her head and looked up into his face with wet,
gleaming eyes. It was very pitiful to see. The young man took her face
between his hands, kissed it, and pouring out a glass of wine, held it
to her lips. She put it aside with her hand and glanced up towards the
tall clock in the corner. My eyes, following hers, saw that the hands
pointed to a quarter to twelve.

The young Squire set down the glass hastily, stepped to the window and,
drawing aside the blue curtain, gazed out upon the night. Twice he
looked back at Cicely, over his shoulder, and after a minute returned to
the table. He drained the glass which the girl had declined, poured out
another, still keeping his eyes on her, and began to walk impatiently up
and down the room. And all the time Cicely's soft eyes never ceased to
follow him. Clearly there was need for hurry, for they had not laid
aside their travelling-cloaks, and once or twice the young man paused in
his walk to listen. At length he pulled out his watch, glanced from it
to the clock in the corner, put it away with a frown and, striding up to
the hearth, flung himself down in the arm-chair--the very arm-chair in
which I was seated.

As he sat there, tapping the hearth-rug with the toe of his thick
riding-boot and moving his lips now and then in answer to some
question from the young girl, I had time to examine his every feature.
Line by line they reproduced my own--nay, looking straight into his eyes
I could see through them into the soul of him and recognised that soul
for my own. Of all the passions there I knew that myself contained the
germs. Vices repressed in youth, tendencies to sin starved in my own
nature by lack of opportunity--these flourished in a rank growth.
I saw virtues, too, that I had once possessed but had lost by degrees in
my respectable journey through life--courage, generosity, tenderness of
heart. I was discovering these with envy, one by one, when he raised
his head higher and listened for a moment, with a hand on either arm of
the chair.

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