“Yes, if you’ll back me up.”
“Back you up, lad? I should think I will. Lead on, I’ll follow thee.”
“We’ll do it sensibly, then. If you speak before Uncle Luke in that theatrical way we shall come down faster than we go up.”
“I’ll talk to the old man like a young Solomon, and he shall say that never did youth choose more wisely for his friend than Harry Vine, otherwise Henri, Comte des Vignes.”
“Look here,” said Harry peevishly – “‘otherwise Comte des Vignes.’ Why don’t you say alias at once? Why, if the old man heard that he’d want to know how long it was since you were in a police court. Here, you’d better stay down here.”
“All right, my dear fellow. Anything to help you on.”
“No; I’d rather you came too.”
There was a pause in a niche of the rocks, and then, after the scratching of a match, the young men went up the cliff-path, smoking furiously, as they prepared themselves for the attack.
Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.
Diogenes in his Tub
Uncle Luke was in very good spirits. He had rid himself of his incubus, as he called the sum of money, and though he would not own it, he always felt better when he had had a little converse with his fellow-creatures. His lonely life was very miserable, and the more so that he insisted upon its being the highest form of happiness to exist in hermit fashion, as the old saints proved.
The desolate hut in its rocky niche looked miserable when he climbed up back on his return from Van Heldre’s, so he stopped by the granite wall and smiled.
“Finest prospect in all Cornwall,” he said, half aloud; “freshest air. Should like to blow up Leslie’s works, though.”
The door was locked, but it yielded to the heavy key which secured it against visitors, though they were very rare upon that rocky shelf.
He was the more surprised then, after his frugal mid-day meal, by a sharp rapping at the door, and on going he stared angrily at the two sturdy sailor-dressed pedlars, who were resting their packs on the low granite wall.
“Can we sell a bit o’ ’bacco, or a pound o’ tea, master?” said the man who had won over Liza to the purchase of his coloured silk.
“Bang!”
That was Uncle Luke’s answer as the man spoke to him and his fellow swept the interior of the cottage with one quick glance.
“Steal as soon as sell any day,” grumbled Uncle Luke. “Tobacco and tea, indeed!”
Outside one of the men gave his companion a wink and a laugh, as he shouldered his pack, while the other chuckled and followed his example.
Meanwhile Uncle Luke had seated himself at his rough deal table, and written a long business letter to his lawyer in London.
This missive he read over twice, made an addition to the paragraph dealing most particularly with the mortgage on which he had been invited to lend, and then carefully folded the square post-paper he used in old-fashioned letter shape, tucking one end into the other from objects of economy, so as to dispense with envelopes, but necessitating all the same the use of sealing-wax and a light.
However, it pleased him to think that he was saving, and he lit a very thin candle, took the stick of red wax from a drawer, a curious old-fashioned signet gold ring bearing the family crest from a nail where it hung over the fireplace, and then, sitting down as if to some very important piece of business, he burned his wax, laid on a liberal quantity, and then impressed the seal. This done, the ring was hung once more upon its nail, and the old man stood gazing at it and thinking. The next minute he took down the ring, and slipped it on one of his fingers, and worked it up and down, trying it on another finger, and then going back to the first.
“Used to fit too tightly,” he said: “now one’s fingers are little more than bone.”
He held up the ring to the light, his white hand looking very thin and wasted, and the worn gold glistened and the old engraved blood-stone showed its design almost as clearly as when it was first cut.
“‘Roy et Foy!’” muttered the old man, reading the motto beneath the crest. “Bit of vanity. Margaret asked where it was, last time I saw her. Let’s see; I lost you twice, once when I wore you as I was fishing off the pier, and once on the black rock you slipped off my bony finger, and each time the sea washed you into a crack.”
He smiled as he gazed at the ring, and there was a pleasant, handsome trace of what he had been as a young man in his refined features.
“Please the young dog – old family ring,” he muttered. “Might sell it and make a pound. No, he may have it when I’m gone. Can’t be so very long.”
He hung the ring upon the nail once more, and spent the rest of the afternoon gazing out to sea, sometimes running over the past, but more often looking out for the glistening and flashing of the sea beneath where a flock of gulls were hovering over some shoal of fish.
It was quite evening when there was a staid, heavy step and the click of nailed boots as the old fish-woman came toiling up the cliff-path, her basket on her back, and the band which supported it across her brow.
“Any fish to sell, Master Vine?” she said in a sing-song tone. “I looked down the pier, but you weren’t there.”
“How could I be there when I’m up here, Poll Perrow?”
“Ah, to be sure; how could you?” said the old woman, trying to nod her head, but without performing the feat, on account of her basket. “Got any fish to sell?”
“No. Yes,” said the old man. “That’s right. I want some to-night. Will you go and fetch it?”
“Yes. Stop there,” said Uncle Luke sourly, as he saw a chance of making a few pence, and wondered whether he would get enough from his customer.
“Mind my sitting down inside, Master Luke Vine, sir? It’s hot, and I’m tired; and it’s a long way up here.”
“Why do you come, then?”
“Wanted to say a few words to you about my gal when we’ve done our bit o’ trade.”
“Come in and sit down, then,” said the old man gruffly. And his visitor slipped the leather band from her forehead, set her basket on the granite wall, and went into the kitchen-like room, wiping her brow as she seated herself in the old rush-bottomed chair.
“I’ll fetch it here,” said Uncle Luke, and he went round to the back, to return directly with the second half of the conger.
“There,” said the old man eagerly, “how much for that?”
“Oh, I can’t buy half a conger, Mr Luke Vine, sir; and I don’t know as I’d have took it if it had been whole.”
“Then be off, and don’t come bothering me,” grunted the old man snappishly.
“Don’t be cross, master; you’ve no call to be. You never have no gashly troubles to worry you.”
“No, nor don’t mean to have. What’s the matter now?”
“My gal!”
“Serve you right. No business to have married. You never saw me make such a fool of myself.”
“No, master, never; but when you’ve got gals you must do your best for ’em.”
“Humph! what’s the matter?” Poll Perrow looked slowly round the ill-furnished, untidy place.
“You want a woman here, Master Luke Vine, sir,” she said at last. “Don’t talk nonsense!”
“It aren’t nonsense, Master Luke Vine, and you know it. You want your bed made proper, and your washing done, and your place scrubbed. Now why don’t you let my gal come up every morning to do these things?”
“Look