Of High Descent
Volume One – Chapter One.
“In the West Countree.”
“Take care, Mr Luke Vine, sir. There’s a big one coming.”
The thin, little, sharp-featured, grey-haired man on a rock looked sharply round, saw the big one coming, stooped, picked up a large basket, and, fishing-rod in hand, stepped back and climbed up a few feet, just as a heavy swell, which seemed to glide along rapidly over the otherwise calm sea, heaved, flooded the rock on which he had been standing, ran right up so high as to bathe his feet, then sank back in a series of glittering falls which sparkled in the glorious sunshine: there was a hissing and sighing and sucking noise among the rocks, and the wave passed on along the rugged coast, leaving the sea calm and bright once more.
“Many a poor lad’s been took like that, Mr Luke, sir,” said the speaker, “and never heard of again. Why, if I hadn’t called out, it would have took you off your legs, and the current’s so strong here you’d have been swept away.”
“And there’d been an end of me, Polly, and nobody a bit the worse, eh?”
The last speaker seemed to fill his sharp, pale face full of tiny wrinkles, and reduced his eyes to mere slits, as he looked keenly at the big robust woman at his side. She was about fifty, but with her black hair as free from grey as that of a girl, her dark eyes bright, and her sun-tanned face ruddy with health, as she bent forward with a great fish-basket supported on her back by means of a broad leather strap passed over her print sun-bonnet and across her forehead.
“Nobody the worse, Mr Luke, sir?” cried the woman. “What a shame to talk like that! You arn’t no wife, nor no child, but there’s Miss Louise.”
“Louisa, woman, Louisa,” said the fisher sharply.
“Well, Louisa, sir. I only want to be right; but it was only yes’day as old Miss Vine, as stood by when I was selling her some hake, shook her finger at me and said I was to say Miss Louise.”
“Humph! Never mind what my sister says. Christened Louisa. – That ought to fetch ’em.”
“Yes, sir; that ought to fetch ’em,” said the woman in a sing-song way, as the elderly man gave the glistening bait at the end of his running line a deft swing and sent it far out into the bright sea. “I’ve seen the water boiling sometimes out there with the bass leaping and playing. What, haven’t you caught none, sir?”
“No, Polly, not one; so just be off about your business, and don’t worry me with your chatter.”
“Oh, I’m a-going, sir,” said the woman good-humouredly; “only I see you a-fishing, and said to myself, ‘Maybe Mr Luke Vine’s ketched more than he wants, and he’d like to sell me some of ’em for my customers.’”
“And I haven’t seen a bass this morning, so be off.”
“Toe be sure, Mr Luke Vine, sir; and when are you going to let me come up and give your place a good clean? I says to my ’Liza up at your brother’s, sir, only yes’day – ”
“Look here, Polly Perrow,” cried the fisher viciously, “will you go, or must I?”
“Don’t be criss-cross, sir, I’m going,” said the woman, giving her basket a hitch. “Here’s Miss Louise – isa – coming down the rocks with Miss Madlin.”
“Hang her confounded chatter!” snarled the fisher, as he drew out his bait, unwound some more line, and made another throw, “bad as those wretched stamps.”
He cast an angry glance up at the mining works high on the cliff-side, whose chimney-shaft ran along the sloping ground till it reared itself in air on the very top of the hill, where in constant repetition the iron-shod piles rose and fell, crushing the broken ore to powder. “A man might have thought he’d be free here from a woman’s tongue.”
He gave another glance behind him, along the rocky point which jutted out several hundred yards, and formed a natural breakwater to the estuary, which ran, rock-sheltered, right up into the land, and on either side of which were built rugged flights of natural steps, from the bright water’s edge to where, five hundred feet above, the grey wind-swept masses of granite looked jagged against the sky.
Then he watched his great painted float, as it ran here and there in the eddies of the tremendous Atlantic currents which swept along by the point. The sea sparkled, the sun shone, and the grey gulls floated above the deep blue transparent water, uttering a querulous cry from time to time, and then dipping down at the small shoals of fry which played upon the surface.
Far away seaward a huge vessel was going west, leaving behind a trail of smoke; on his right a white-sailed yacht or two glistened in the sun. In another direction, scattered here and there, brown-sailed luggers were passing slowly along; while behind the fisher lay the picturesque straggling old town known as East and West Hakemouth, with the estuary of the little river pretty well filled with craft, from the fishing luggers and trawlers up to the good-sized schooners and brigs which traded round the coast or adventured across the Bay of Storms, by Spain and through the Straits, laden with cargoes of pilchards for the Italian ports.
“Missed him,” grumbled the fisher, withdrawing his line to re-bait with a pearly strip of mackerel. “Humph! now I’m to be worried by those chattering girls.”
The worry was very close at hand, for directly after, balancing themselves on the rough rocks, and leaping from mass to mass, came two bright-looking girls of about twenty, their faces flushed by exercise, and more than slightly tanned by the strong air that blows health-laden from the Atlantic.
As so often happens in real life as well as in fiction, the companions were dark and fair; and as they came laughing and talking, full of animation, looking a couple of as bonny-looking English maidens as the West Country could produce, their aspect warranted, in reply to the greetings of “Ah, Uncle Luke!”
“Ah, Mr Vine!” something a little more courteous than —
“Well, Nuisance?” addressed with a short nod to the dark girl in white serge, and “Do, Madelaine?” to the fair girl in blue.
The gruffness of the greeting seemed to be taken as a matter of course, for the girls seated themselves directly on convenient masses of rock, and busied themselves in the governance of sundry errant strands of hair which were playing in the breeze.
The elderly fisher watched them furtively, and his sour face seemed a little less grim, and as if there was something after all pleasant to look upon in the bright youthful countenances before him.
“Well, uncle, how many fish?” said the dark girl.
“Bah! and don’t chatter, or I shall get none at all. How’s dad?”
“Quite well. He’s out here somewhere.”
“Dabbling?”
“Yes.”
The girl took off her soft yachting cap, and fanned her face; then ceased, and half closing her eyes and throwing back her head, let her red lips part slightly as she breathed in full draughts of the soft western breeze.
“If he ever gives her a moment’s pain,” said the old man to himself, as he jerked a look up at the mining works, “I’ll kill him.” Then, turning sharply to the fair girl, he said aloud – “Well, Madelaine, how’s the bon père?”
“Quite well, and very busy seeing to the lading of the Corunna” said the girl with animation.
“Humph! Old stupid. Worrying himself to death money-grubbing. Here, Louie, when’s that boy going back to his place?”
“To-morrow, uncle.”
“Good job too. What did he want with a holiday? Never did a day’s work in his life. Here! Hold her, Louie. She’s going to peck,” he added in mock alarm, and with a cynical sneering laugh, as he saw his niece’s companion colour slightly, and compress her lips.
“Well, it’s too bad of you, uncle. You are always finding fault about Harry.”
“Say Henri, pray, my child, and with a good strong French accent,” cried the old man, with mock remonstrance. “What would Aunt Marguerite say?”
“Aunt