Part 27

“I am used to storms—”

“God knows, dear, yes!” and he held her hand.

The coach drew up before an inn close to the quay, with a few sailors lounging on the benches under the windows, and a weathered sign-board bearing a rude painting of the “King Harry” creaking on its rusty hinges above the door.

Jeffray sprang out of the coach and crossed the footway with his sword under his arm. A few hairy and inquisitive faces were pressed against the windows of the tap-room. Jeffray eyed them keenly, alive to the possibilities of old Grimshaw’s malice. He looked round the tap-room as he entered, scanning the sailors, who smoked their pipes and stared at him in turn. He found the innkeeper coming down the dark passage from the kitchen, a little man, bald, buckled, and white-aproned, with a red wart in the middle of his forehead.

“Good-morning, landlord. I hear a brig is to sail for France to-day.”

The innkeeper bowed, rubbed his double chin, and pointed Jeffray to the door of the parlor. The sound of voices came from the room, bluff with the burliness of the sea.

“Captain George, of the _Sussex Queen_, is within, sir,” he said, pushing open the door, and giving Jeffray a glimpse into the foggy atmosphere of the room. Richard walked in.

“Thanks. Captain George, I believe?”

A big man in a blue coat and white breeches, with dirtier buckles on still dirtier shoes, rose cumbrously from a leather-backed chair, and held out a paw to the Squire of Rodenham. A second seafaring gentleman occupied the oak settle, and spat rhythmically on the floor, while the reek of tobacco battled with the abominable odor of stale beer.

“I’m Captain George, sir, to be sure.”

Jeffray took stock of the red-faced and loose-jointed seaman, and summed him up as a sloven and a drunkard.

“You are sailing to-day for France, captain?”

“Well, sir, that’s as it may be,” and the courtier knocked out his pipe, and spat into the empty grate.

“I desire passage for two, a lady and myself.”

Captain George’s mate had sidled to the window, and was peering like a bird at the hurrying sky.

“Looks uncommon dirty,” he remarked, thrusting out his lower lip.

“It does, mate, to be sure,” and the master of the _Sussex Queen_ appeared to have made one of the discoveries of his life.

Jeffray showed impatience, and glanced at the sky in turn.

“Maybe the gentleman’s in a partic’lar hurry,” and the worthy at the window looked profound as he saw Bess in the coach.

Captain George accepted the hint.

“To be sure; my cargo ain’t full, sir. I was just about thinking of letting my boat lie another week in port.”

Jeffray understood the methods of these hard-mouthed men of the sea. They were apt at a bargain, and ready to invent difficulties in order to draw more gold. He fell back upon the desired argument, and consented to be plundered in the interests of romance.

“I can pay you well, captain,” he said.

“To be sure,” came the inevitable response.

“You can fix your own passage-money, within reason.”

“Well, captain, I reckon that’s a gentleman’s offer,” and the seaman by the window took snuff, and sneezed as though it were a joy to him.

Jeffray pulled out his purse and sat down before the black oak table.

“Then you will sail to-day?” he said.

“Well, maybe I will.”

The glitter of Jeffray’s guineas decided the issue, and Captain George wiped his mouth, gathered up the money, and stuffed it into the leather purse he wore buckled to his belt.

Opening the parlor door he bawled at the men who were lounging in the tap-room, and ordered them to carry “my lord’s” baggage down to the quay.

Jeffray, who had conceived no very high opinion of the captain of the _Sussex Queen_, felt that his pistols were safe, and buckled on his sword. It was not as though Captain George had to sail them to the Indies. Sloven and drunkard that he seemed, the fellow could do no great mischief in a day’s sail across the Channel. Yet even Jeffray, landsman that he was, could not but mark the sinister spoiling of the weather as he stood on the inn steps and caught a glimpse of the gray sea beyond the harbor mouth. It was possible to judge by the faces of the sailors who were hauling the boxes down from the top of the coach that they were none too eager to leave the tap-room of the King Harry.

“Curse the old tub,” quoth one with silver earrings and a face like leather, “a fine prize cruise for the cap’n if he can hold the old hulk together between Beachy and Dieppe.”

“Dieppe, mate, Calais Roads, more like. What’s the young cockerel in such a hurry for, eh?”

The man with the earrings jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the coach.

“Pair of black eyes, mate. Running across the water, most probable, with another gen’leman’s Susan.”

“The young fool!”

“Drat this box, it be made up o’ corners.”

Jeffray, who had caught nothing but the man’s mutterings and their surly looks, went down the steps to help Bess from the coach. Her eyes were sparkling with the excitement of it all, and the color had come back to her cheeks. Captain George gave her a clumsy bow as she passed him on the footway, and winked at Gladden behind his master’s back.

Jeffray took Bess into the parlor, where tobacco smoke still hung like a sea-fog, dimming the air. He opened one of the lattices, as the landlord brought in wine and glasses on a tray, a cold chicken, fruit, a great white loaf of bread. He looked suspiciously at the gray sky as he laid the table, the sign-board creaking and groaning on its hinges, the wind whistling and sighing in the chimneys.

“Bad weather for summer, sir.”

Jeffray nodded, and poured out Bess a glass of wine.

“May I be wishing, sir, that the lady don’t mind a rough sea?”

Bess glanced at Richard, and smiled, without fear.

“I would rather go,” she said.

“The weather looks uncommon dirty.”

“True, landlord. What sort of sea-boat is the _Sussex Queen_?”

The innkeeper pursed up his lips, and stood with his hands folded under his apron.

“Good as most, sir, I suppose,” he said. “Rather rickety in her spars, I have heard. Perhaps the lady would be wishing to stay the night? We have a good room up-stairs, and could make ye very comfortable.”

The insinuation was not without its charm, but Bess shook her head as Jeffray questioned her with his eyes.

“No, I am not afraid,” she said.

“Thanks, landlord, I think we will slip across before the weather holds us back.”

It was well past noon when Bess and Jeffray went down to the quay, and found the _Sussex Queen_ moored close in with a gangway from the quay to her quarter-deck. All Bess’s bridal-baggage had been hauled on board, the new trunks filled with the rich stuffs, laces, and brocades that Jeffray had bought for her at Lewes. Two boats’ crews of Newhaven men were already getting out the hawsers to tow the _Sussex Queen_ into the open sea. Jeffray took leave of Gladden, who had followed them from the inn, and pressed some money into the old man’s hand.

“Good-bye, Gladden,” he said, joyous and untroubled, “you shall hear from me in France. Mr. Wilson has my affairs in hand.”

“Good-bye, sir, good-bye. May you get safe across. I don’t like the look of the weather—”

“Ah, we are not afraid of it, Gladden. Look to my father’s books. Mr. Bitson, of Lincoln’s Inn, will see that certain moneys are paid to you quarterly. I want the old house to look well for the day when we shall return. Good-bye,” and he crossed the gangway.

Gladden stood watching, Jeffray’s money still in his palm, as the seamen cast off the ropes and the Newhaven men tugged at their oars. The hawsers tightened, and rose dripping above the water; the ship began to glide from the quay, and to move towards the narrow vista of foam-ribbed sea that showed beyond the harbor’s mouth.

Captain George had taken Bess to the state cabin under the poop, a dark den of a place whose stern windows gave a last view of the little town and the green flats that stretched beyond. Jeffray stayed with her a moment, and then went on deck, to find the _Sussex Queen_ gliding out from the harbor’s mouth. Captain George was standing on the quarter-deck, trumpet in hand. The boatswain’s whistle piped, and the men went swarming up the rigging to loose the sails, and give the ship her wings for France.

Bess joined Jeffray on the quarter-deck, with her old scarlet cloak about her, and the hood turned forward over her coal-black hair. They stood close together, looking at the stretch of gray and white-maned sea. It was cheerless and threatening, a wild waste of waters tossing under a sullen sky. The sails were bellying out above, and the bluff bows of the brig began to plunge and buffet with the waves. Soon the Newhaven men dropped the tow-ropes, and pulled back to harbor with a faint cheer. The whistling breeze, the creaking and straining of the cordage, the salt spume flying with the wind, even these could not chill the hearts of the two who watched the white shores dwindling beyond the waves. They stood close to the bulwarks, Bess with her cloak wrapped round her and Jeffray’s arm about her body. England was sinking into the north, and the cliffs grew gray and ghostly under the hurrying sky.

Bess turned and looked into Jeffray’s eyes, wondering whether there was any sadness for him in this going forth into the unknown. He seemed to guess what was in her heart, and holding her close to him, gazed back towards England with a quiet smile.

“Bess, I am thinking that you are safe with me at last.”

“Isaac cannot follow us over the sea.”

“No, we are rid of the past. And you are not afraid?”

“No, I am very happy.”

He buttoned the red cloak close about her throat, for the wind was keen and the scud flying.

“Take a last look at England for some years,” he said.

Peter Gladden and the Rodenham servants were still drinking and gossiping at the Royal Harry, when Isaac Grimshaw came limping down the street, with the brim of his battered beaver flapping over his face, and his holly stick tapping the stones. He looked worn out and weary, yet spiteful to the last stride. Isaac saw the Rodenham coach waiting outside the inn, and his face flushed almost boyishly, as though Bess and her lover were still within reach of his pistol’s snout. Slinking past the Royal Harry and meeting the full fluster of the wind, he made for the quay where a few fishermen were idling before the warehouses. Isaac hailed a tall fellow in heavy sea-boots and a filthy smock, and stood leaning on his stick, and looking back at the inn with the great coach waiting in the roadway.

“Good-day, mate; fresh breeze this. Any shipping moving?”

The man in the smock leaned against a windlass as though for a gossip, and then cocked his head towards the sea.

“_Sussex Queen_, Cap’n George, sailed an hour ago.”

“Any passengers, mate?”

“Lady and gen’leman, came in the coach yonder. Took a lot o’ stuff aboard.”

Isaac leaned heavily on his stick for a moment, one hand fumbling at the butts of the pistols under his coat. The fellow in the smock stared at him, and then went on talking, beating one heavy boot on the stone paving of the quay.

“Damned rough weather comin’. Rather be ashore meself than out in the Channel with this sou’wester.”

Isaac nodded, yet did not follow what the fellow said.

“You look cold, father; have a nip at the Royal Harry. What—” He stopped open-mouthed, for Isaac had turned, and was limping away towards the town. The sailor watched him curiously, thinking the old man in his dotage, and that he had wasted his pity on such a crab-apple. He saw Isaac cross the roadway and disappear up an alley that led towards the low cliffs above the beach.

Old Grimshaw’s body seemed like a dry leaf quivering in the wind as he forced his way forward against the growing gale. A haze of rain was drifting over the sea, yet far beyond the gray fringe thereof the vague whiteness of a sail showed above the foam. Isaac, breathless and half fainting, leaned upon his stick, and stared out over the waste of waters. The rain came beating on him, and the wind flicked the wet brim of his hat into his face. But still he stood there like some inexorable harbinger of evil, and cursed Bess and the ship that carried her towards the shores of France.

XLVIII

The storm that swept the Channel in the summer of 17—, was long remembered by the folk along the Sussex coast. Hail fell in many places, and fierce squalls of wind, like huge beasts galloping with the lesser herd, uprooted trees, sent chimneys crashing through the roofs, and scattered tiles in many a street. At one village the church-spire fell, and all along the coast ran the rumor of ships lost and fishing-vessels caught in the storm.

Off the French coast, and still tangled in the lifting fringes of the night, the _Sussex Queen_ lay rolling heavily with the waves washing her lower decks. A squall had struck her soon after sundown, beaten down her masts, and left her drifting like a wounded gull with wings trailing in the water. Two men had been killed by the falling of the masts, and another washed overboard by a heavy sea. All through the night the pumps had been clanging, and water gushing from the brig’s black sides.

About two o’clock in the morning Captain George lurched down the short stairway leading to the poop-cabin. He was bleeding from a wound over the left temple and had the look of a man who was utterly unnerved. Moreover, he smelled of liquor, and his great raw hands trembled as he fumbled at the latch of the cabin door.

A ship’s lantern creaked and rocked from the beacon, throwing an uncertain light about the cabin. Ever and again the poop-windows were drenched and darkened by the waves that broke over the stern of the ship. Bess was half lying on her bunk, with her red cloak wrapped round her, Jeffray leaning against the bulkhead, with the _St. Thomas à Kempis_, that had been his father’s, open in his hand. Captain George looked at them as though half dazed, blood running down his face to soak into his ragged beard.

“Well, captain, what news for us?”

“News!” and the man laughed with a spasmodic croaking in the throat. “We’re going to the bottom as fast as the ship can take in water.”

“The ship sinking!”

Captain George’s hands had been working at the buckle of his belt.

“Here, take it back, I say,” and he threw the belt and purse upon the floor; “take back your damned money. But for the gold I should be safe in the King Harry, and not here to drown like a rat.”

Jeffray looked at Bess and then at the unnerved sot, who was leaning against the panelling by the door. A wave struck the ship full on the poop, breaking the glass in the windows, the black water pouring in upon the floor. The lamp flared and spluttered with the wind and spray, and the narrow cabin seemed full of the gurgling and plashing of the sea.

Jeffray sprang forward and laid his hand on the captain’s shoulder.

“Come, man, are you going to drown without a fight?”

The fellow shuddered, and shook the blood out of his eyes.

“It ben’t any use,” he said, sullenly; “it ben’t any use.”

“By God, man, where’s the English grit in you? Why aren’t the pumps working? We can’t be far from the French coast now.”

Captain George shook off Jeffray’s hand.

“Let be,” he said, savagely, “the men have got the liquor out. They’re sick of pumping, I tell ye, and they’re going down drunk, bad blood to ’em!”

Jeffray stood back against the table and looked at the long-limbed sloven with a flash of scorn. The man had no courage left in him; he was sulky and sodden with his death grapple with the sea. Jeffray turned to the bunk where Bess was lying, took out his pistols from a valise, and levelled one of them calmly at the captain’s head.

“Take down the lantern,” he said, quietly.

The man stared at the muzzle of Jeffray’s pistol, and hesitated.

“Take down the lantern, or by the love of God I’ll fire on you!”

Captain George climbed the table, and, swaying from side to side, took down the lantern from its hook. Jeffray turned and spoke to Bess, steadying himself against the bunk as the ship rolled with the waves.

“God keep you, dear; it may be our last chance! I must do my best.”

She looked up at him and smiled.

“I am not afraid of the dark,” she answered.

Jeffray had thrown his cloak over his shoulders, and he kept his pistols covered so that the priming should not be damped in the pans.

“Where are your men, captain?”

“In the fo’c’sle.”

“Lead on, and let me see what I can do with them.”

They went out together, Jeffray closing the cabin door and calling back to Bess to shoot the bolts. Captain George, sulky and silent, leaned against the hand-rail, shading the lamp behind his coat. To Jeffray it seemed that the force of the wind had lessened, and that the ship groaned and tumbled less in the troughs of the sea. A wet moon shone out now and again through the ragged clouds, lighting up the dishevelled waters that raced under the hurrying sky.

Captain George and Jeffray took the lower deck where the darkness was utter save for the lamp the seaman carried. The port-holes oozed with every thundering up of the sea, the perpetual thudding of the waves reverberating through the body of the ship. Piled about the shaft of the main-mast were the trunks and boxes that the Rodenham coach had brought from Lewes, and Jeffray looked at them with a tightening of the mouth. There was a depth of pathos in the thought that all these rich stuffs that he had bought for Bess might be torn to shreds by the remorseless sea. The pity of it strengthened all the manhood in him, and made him realize for what he fought.

Captain George had halted suddenly, and stood listening, the lantern swinging in his hand.

“D’yer hear ’em? It ben’t no use, sir, I tell you, it ben’t no use.”

Jeffray heard laughter and rough voices rising above the racket of the storm. There was a note of fierce defiance in the sound, as though the tired and disheartened men were going to death with blasphemy upon their lips.

Captain George shivered as though cold.

“They’re getting the drink in ’em,” he said, peering forward into the darkness.

Jeffray pushed the coward forward.

“Our duty’s clear,” he said, “we must pitch the devil’s juice into the sea.”

A dirty lamp was burning in the fo’c’sle, the ill-trimmed wick smoking and flaring in the wind. On the floor sat three men, half naked, with a keg of rum between them, and a tin cup passing from hand to hand. In one of the bunks, a man, whose back had been broken by a falling spar, lay groaning and biting the coat that covered him, in a paroxysm of pain. Near him on an upturned bucket another fellow sat with his head between his hands, as though the dread of death were heavy on his soul.

Jeffray stood on the threshold, holding his pistols behind his back. The rough faces, the faces of men who drank to drown despair, were turned to him half threateningly under the light of the flaring lamp. The man in the bunk was groaning, and trying to pray. From without came the roar and ferment of the sea.

“Well, lads, tired of pumping, eh?”

They looked at him sullenly, as though resenting any authority at such an hour.

“What d’ yer want?”

“Pass the mug, Jim; let the dandy go to the devil.”

Jeffray steadied himself against the door-post, and brought his pistols from behind his back. He was cool and resolute, a man whose grimness was not to be denied.

“Drop that drink—drop it, or by Heaven, I’ll send a bullet through your body.”

The men gaped at him, huddling back a little across the floor, their eyes fixed on Jeffray’s unflinching face and the pistol that covered them.

“Drop the drink. One—two—”

The man who held the tin mug, with neat rum swelling over the lip thereof, let the thing fall as though it burned his fingers.

“Good. Stand up, all of you. Now, listen to me.”

They obeyed him sullenly, like men in whom utter weariness of soul and body had numbed all strength and self-respect. Jeffray understood the crude pessimism that possessed them. They had lacked leadership, for the shivering sot who held the lamp had been the first to confess defeat at the hands of the sea.

“Come, lads, we’ll have no more drinking. Captain George, will you have the stuff thrown over into the sea? Steady, steady, stand back for the captain.”

The man who had been crouching on the bucket, started up, and, pushing his comrades aside, seized on the keg of rum and carried it to the door.

“I’m with you, sir,” he said; “you’ve got the right stuff in you, by damn, you have!”

From that moment Jeffray’s personality dominated the ship. He spoke to the men bluntly, bravely, and the frank manliness of his words went home into each rough heart.

“Come, lads,” he said, “we are all British to the bone. Who says die?”

He tossed his pistols aside on to a bunk, stripped off his coat and waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves.

“I’m one of you, and I’ll work till my back breaks. I have my lass on board, and I’ll fight to the last before I see her drown.”

That touch of humanism perfected it. The men gave him a cheer, shook the hands he held out to them, and went to work like heroes at the pumps.

For an hour Bess knelt in the cabin under the poop with Jeffray’s _St. Thomas à Kempis_ in her hands. She was listening, listening through the rush of wind and waters, for any sound that might betray the purpose of the night. All the past happenings of the year seemed to flash before her eyes, even as memories flash through the brain of a drowning man. She held Jeffray’s book against her bosom, careless of how the water from the broken windows soaked her dress.

Bess was growing cold and hopeless as she knelt, when she heard a voice calling to her through the weakening wailing of the wind.

“Bess! Bess!”

She sprang up and unlocked the door, to find herself in Jeffray’s arms.

“We have won! We have won!”

He was drenched to the skin, but warm and aglow with working at the pumps.

“The old ship will float.”

“Thank God!”

“Come out with me and see the dawn.”

She unclasped her cloak and wrapped it round him, though he tried to protest against the deed. Together they went out on the deck, and stood hand in hand, sheltered by the bulwarks from the wind. In the east, above the grayness of the sea, the first golden breaking of the day fired the clouds with burning light. The storm was dying, and the _Sussex Queen_ lay like a sick woman who rests in peace after the delirium of the night.

Jeffray stood with one arm about Bess’s body, his head thrown back as though in triumph. He pointed southward over the sea to where, not a mile away, the shores of France were lit by the rising sun.

“The sea gave you to me, dear,” he said, “and I have fought to save you from the sea.”

Bess held close to him and smiled.

“I shall wear my wedding-clothes for you,” she answered.

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. Obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note.

[The end of _Bess of the Woods_ by Warwick Deeping]