Part 5

Well, at first the mankind at the Fish and Anchor allowed that Sal couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy; and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until four days later, at highwater, when the folks that happened to be idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard, and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright as a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that had lain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the _Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the sternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all the world to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her mates paddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes of the whole town.

There was a deal of laughing up at the Fish and Anchor that night, the most of the customers still treating the affair as a joke. But Landlord Oke took a more serious view.

"'Tis all very well for you fellows to grin," says he, "but I've been trying to make up in my mind the crew that's going to beat these females, and, by George! I don't find it so easy. There's the boat, too."

"French-built, and leaks like a five-barred gate," said somebody. "The Admiralty condemned her five year' ago."

"A leak can be patched, and the Admiralty's condemning goes for nothing in a case like this. I tell you that boat has handsome lines--handsome as you'd wish to see. You may lay to it that what Sal Hancock doesn't know about a boat isn't worth knowing."

"All the same, I'll warrant she never means to row a race in that condemned old tub. She've dragged it out just for practice, and painted it up to make a show. When the time comes--if ever it do--she'll fit and borrow a new boat off one of the war-ships. We can do the same."

"Granted that you can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has her thwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe a dozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business, I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools we shall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' to all the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match a passel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and Ann Pengelly--"mothers of long families."

They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this way and that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew. There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. con._ to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizes in his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth men had been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave up racing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old Roper Retallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth on Regatta-day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 went with no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name of Tremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thick in the waist. As for strength, he could break a pint mug with one hand, creaming it between his fingers. Then there was Jago the Preventive man, light but wiry, and a very tricky wrestler: "a proper angle-twitch of a man," said one of the company; "stank[1] 'pon both ends of 'en, he'll rise up in the middle and laugh at 'ee." So they picked Jago for boat-oar. For No. 5, after a little dispute, they settled on Tippet Harry, a boat-builder working in Runnell's yard, by reason that he'd often pulled behind Ede in the double-sculling, and might be trusted to set good time to the bow-side. Nos. 2 and 3 were not so easily settled, and they discussed and put aside half a score before offering one of the places to a long-legged youngster whose name I can't properly give you: he was always called Freckly-Faced Joe, and worked as a saddler's apprentice. In the end he rowed 2: but No. 3 they left vacant for the time, while they looked around for likely candidates.

[Footnote 1: Stank = tread.]

Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour--'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clays with sealing-wax--and says she--

"What's the matter with your menkind?"

"Restin'," says Oke with a grin. "I don't own 'em, missus; but, from what I can hear, they're restin' and recoverin' their strength."

"I've brought you the stakes from our side," says Sally, and down she slaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table.

"Take 'em up, missus--take 'em up. I don't feel equal to the responsibility. This here's a public challenge, hey?"

"The publicker the better."

"Then we'll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold the stakes." Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reason being that he'd managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galley belonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubt she could show her heels to the _Indefatigable Woman_. He unlocked his strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached his hat off its peg. "I suppose 'twouldn't do to offer you my arm?" says he.

"Folks would talk, Mr. Oke--thanking you all the same."

So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at the Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the cheesemongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke up very politely to attend to his visitors' business.

"Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes," said he: "and I'll see it put in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of visitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ no good. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll never be able to crow over her."

"Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?" put in Sal.

"Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke." And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord Oke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he.

"Well," says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a challenge, and I mustn't go back on it." Indeed, in her secret heart she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad: and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well all the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing long course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from nearabouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay.

"My dears," she said to her mates later on, "I don't mind telling you I was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Oke was holding back--he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But if he've no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy."

"Seth Ede's a powerful strong oar," Bess Rablin objected.

"_Was_, you mean. He've a-drunk too much beer these four years past to last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance. And here's another thing: they've picked Tremenjous Hosken for one th'art."

"And he's as strong as a bullock."

"I dessay: but Seth Ede pulls thirty-eight or thirty-nine to the minute all the time he's racing--never a stroke under. I've watched him a score o' times. If you envy Hosken his inside after two miles o' _that_, you must be like Pomery's pig--in love with pain. They've hired or borrowed the Preventive boat, I'm told; and it's the best they could do. She's new, and she looks pretty. She'll drag aft if they put their light weights in the bows: still, she's a good boat. I'm not afeared of her, though. From all I can hear, the _Woman_ was known for speed in her time, all through the fleet. You can _feel_ she's fast, and _see_ it, if you've half an eye: and the way she travels between the strokes is a treat. The Mounseers can build boats. But oh, my dears, you'll have to pull and stay the course, or in Saltash the women take second place for ever!"

"Shan't be worse off than other women, even if that happens," said Rebecca Tucker, that was but a year married and more than half in love with her man. Sally had been in two minds about promoting Rebecca to the bow-oar in place of Ann Pengelly, that had been clipping the stroke short in practice: but after that speech she never gave the woman another thought.

Next evening the men brought out their opposition boat--she was called the _Nonpareil_--and tried a spin in her. They had found a man for No. 3 oar--another of the Water-Guard, by name Mick Guppy and by nation Irish, which Sal swore to be unfair. She didn't lodge any complaint, however: and when her mates called out that 'twas taking a mean advantage, all she'd say was: "Saltash is Saltash, my dears; and I won't go to maintain that a Saltash crew is anyways improved by a chap from Dundalk."

So no protest was entered. I needn't tell you that, by this time, news of the great race had spread to Plymouth, and north away to Callington and all the country round. Crowds came out every evening to watch the two boats at their practising; and sometimes, as they passed one another, Seth Ede, who had the reputation for a wag, would call out to Sal and offer her the odds by way of chaff. Sal never answered. The woman was in deadly earnest, and moreover, I daresay, a bit timmersome, now that the whole Borough had its eyes on her, and defeat meant disgrace.

She never showed a sign of any doubt, though; and when the great day came, she surpassed herself by the way she dressed. I daresay you've noticed that when women take up a man's job they're inclined to overdo it; and when Sal came down that day with a round tarpaulin-hat stuck on the back of her head, and her hair plaited in a queue like a Jack Tar's, her spiteful little husband fairly danced.

"'Tis onwomanly," said he. "Go upstairs and take it off!"

"Ch't," said she, "if you're so much upset by a tarpaulin-hat, you've had a narra escape; for 'tis nothing to the costume I'd a mind to wear--and I'd a mind to make you measure the whole crew for it."

And as it was, I'm told, half the sightseers that poured into Saltash that day in their hundreds couldn't tell the women's crew from the men's by their looks or their dress. And these be the names and weights, more or less--

The _Indefatigable Woman_: Bow, Ann Pengelly, something under eleven stone; No. 2, Thomasine Oliver, ditto; No. 3, Mary Kitty Climo, eleven and a half; No. 4, Long Eliza, thirteen and over, a woman very heavy in the bone; No. 5, Bess Rablin, twelve stone, most of it in the ribs and shoulders; Stroke, Sarah Hancock, twelve stone four; Coxswain, Ann Pengelly's fourth daughter Wilhelmina, weight about six stone. The _Indefatigable Woman_ carried a small distaff in the bows, and her crew wore blue jerseys and yellow handkerchiefs.

The _Nonpareil_: Bow, T. Jago, ten stone and a little over; No. 2, Freckly-faced Joe, twelve stone; No. 3, M. Guppy, twelve stone and a half; No. 4, Tremenjous Hosken, eighteen stone ten; No. 5, Tippet Harry, twelve stone eight; Stroke, Seth Ede, eleven six. And I don't know who the boy was that steered. The _Nonpareil_ carried a red, white, and blue flag, and her crew wore striped jerseys, white and blue.

They were started by pistol; and Seth Ede, jumping off with a stroke of forty to the minute, went ahead at once. In less than twenty strokes he was clear, the _Nonpareil_ lifting forward in great heaves that made the spectators tell each other that though 'twas no race they had seen something for their money. They didn't see how sweetly the other boat held her way between the strokes, nor note that Sally had started at a quiet thirty-four, the whole crew reaching well out and keeping their blades covered to the finish--coming down to the stroke steadily, too, though a stiffish breeze was with them as well as the tide.

I suppose the longest lead held by the _Nonpareil_ during the race was a good forty yards. She must have won this within four minutes of starting, and for half a mile or so she kept it. Having so much in hand, Ede slowed down--for flesh and blood couldn't keep up such a rate of striking over the whole course--and at once he found out his mistake. The big man Hosken, who had been pulling with his arms only, and pulling like a giant, didn't understand swinging out; tried it, and was late on stroke every time. This flurried Ede, who was always inclined to hurry the pace, and he dropped slower yet--dropped to thirty-five, maybe, a rate at which he did himself no justice, bucketting forward fast, and waiting over the beginning till he'd missed it. In discontent with himself he quickened again; but now the oars behind him were like a peal of bells. By sheer strength they forced the boat along somehow, and with the tide under her she travelled. But the _Indefatigable Woman_ by this time was creeping up.

They say that Sally rowed that race at thirty-four from the start to within fifty yards of the finish; rowed it minute after minute without once quickening or once dropping a stroke. Folks along shore timed her with their watches. If that's the truth, 'twas a marvellous feat, and the woman accounted for it afterwards by declaring that all the way she scarcely thought for one second of the other boat, but set her stroke to a kind of tune in her head, saying the same verse over and over--

_But she was took out of his side, His equal and partner to be: Though they be yunited in one, Still the man is the top of the tree! With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay--We'll see about_ that!

The _Indefatigable Woman_ turned the mark not more than four lengths astern. They had wind and tide against them now, and with her crew swinging out slow and steady, pulling the stroke clean through with a hard finish, she went up hand-over-fist. The blades of the _Nonpareil_ were knocking up water like a moorhen. Tremenjous Hosken had fallen to groaning between the strokes, and I believe that from the markboat homeward he was no better than a passenger--an eighteen-stone passenger, mind you. The only man to keep it lively was little Jago at bow, and Seth Ede--to do him justice--pulled a grand race for pluck. He might have spared himself, though. Another hundred yards settled it: the _Indefatigable Woman_ made her overlap and went by like a snake, and the Irishman pulled in his oar and said--

"Well, Heaven bless the leddies, anyway!"

Seth Ede turned round and swore at him vicious-like, and he fell to rowing again: but the whole thing had become a procession. "Eyes in the boat!" commanded Sal, pulling her crew together as they caught sight of their rivals for the first time and, for a stroke or two, let the time get ragged. She couldn't help a lift in her voice, though, any more than she could help winding up with a flourish as they drew level with Saltash town, a good hundred yards ahead, and heard the band playing and the voices cheering. "Look out for the quicken!"--and up went a great roar as the women behind her picked the quicken up and rattled past the Quay and the winning-gun at forty to the minute!

They had just strength enough left to toss oars: and then they leaned forward with their heads between their arms, panting and gasping out, "Well rowed, Sal!" "Oh--oh--well rowed all!" and letting the delight run out of them in little sobs of laughter. The crowd ashore, too, was laughing and shouting itself hoarse. I'm sorry to say a few of them jeered at the _Nonpareil_ as she crawled home: but, on the whole, the men of Saltash took their beating handsome.

This don't include Sal's husband, though. Landlord Oke was one of the first to shake her by the hand as she landed, and the Mayor turned over the stakes to her there and then with a neat little speech. But Tailor Hancock went back home with all kinds of ugliness and uncharitableness working in his little heart. He cursed Regatta Day for an interruption to trade, and Saltash for a town given up to idleness and folly. A man's business in this world was to toil for his living in the sweat of his brow; and so, half-an-hour later he told his wife.

The crowd had brought her along to her house-door: and there she left 'em with a word or two of thanks, and went in very quiet. Her victory had uplifted her, of course; but she knew that her man would be sore in his feelings, and she meant to let him down gently. She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: but when, after searching the house, she looked into the little back workshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged and solemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't hold back a grin.

"Why, whatever's the matter with you?" she asked.

"Work," says he, in a hollow voice. "Work is the matter. I can't see a house--and one that used to be a happy home--go to rack and ruin without some effort to prevent it."

"I wouldn't begin on Regatta Day, if I was you," says Sal cheerfully. "Has old Smithers been inquiring again about that waistcoat?"

"He have not."

"Then he's a patient man: for to my knowledge this is the third week you've been putting him off with excuses."

"I thank the Lord," says her husband piously, "that more work gets put on me than I can keep pace with. And well it is, when a man's wife takes to wagering and betting and pulling in low boat-races to the disgrace of her sex. _Someone_ must keep the roof over our heads: but the end may come sooner than you expect," says he, and winds up with a tolerable imitation of a hacking cough.

"I took three pairs of soles and a brill in the trammel this very morning; and if you've put a dozen stitches in that old waistcoat, 'tis as much as ever! I can see in your eye that you know all about the race; and I can tell from the state of your back that you watched it from the Quay, and turned into the Sailor's Return for a drink. Hockaday got taken in over that blue-wash for his walls: it comes off as soon as you rub against it."

"I'll trouble you not to spy upon my actions, Madam," says he.

"Man alive, _I_ don't mind your taking a glass now and then in reason--specially on Regatta Day! And as for the Sailor's Return, 'tis a respectable house. I hope so, anyhow, for we've ordered supper there to-night."

"Supper! You've ordered supper at the Sailor's Return?"

Sal nodded. "Just to celebrate the occasion. We thought, first-along, of the Green Dragon: but the Dragon's too grand a place for ease, and Bess allowed 'twould look like showing off. She voted for cosiness: so the Sailor's Return it is, with roast ducks and a boiled leg of mutton and plain gin-and-water."

"Settin' yourselves up to be men, I s'pose?" he sneered.

"Not a bit of it," answered Sal. "There'll be no speeches."

She went off to the kitchen, put on the kettle, and made him a dish of tea. In an ordinary way she'd have paid no heed to his tantrums: but just now she felt very kindly disposed t'wards everybody, and really wished to chat over the race with him--treating it as a joke now that her credit was saved, and never offering to crow over him. But the more she fenced about to be agreeable the more he stitched and sulked.

"Well, I can't miss _all_ the fun," said she at last: and so, having laid supper for him, and put the jug where he could find it and draw his cider, she clapped on her hat and strolled out.

He heard her shut-to the front door, and still he went on stitching. When the dusk began to fall he lit a candle, fetched himself a jugful of cider, and went back to his work. For all the notice Sal was ever likely to take of his perversity, he might just as well have stepped out into the streets and enjoyed himself: but he was wrought up into that mood in which a man will hurt himself for the sake of having a grievance. All the while he stitched he kept thinking, "Look at me here, galling my fingers to the bone, and that careless fly-by-night wife o' mine carousin' and gallivantin' down at the Sailor's Return! Maybe she'll be sorry for it when I'm dead and gone; but at present if there's an injured, misunderstood poor mortal in Saltash Town, I'm that man." So he went on, until by-and-by, above the noise of the drum and cymbals outside the penny theatre, and the hurdy-gurdies, and the showmen bawling down by the waterside, he heard voices yelling and a rush of folks running down the street past his door. He knew they had been baiting a bull in a field at the head of the town, and, the thought coming into his head that the animal must have broken loose, he hopped off his bench, ran fore to the front door, and peeked his head out cautious-like.

What does he see coming down the street in the dusk but half-a-dozen sailor-men with an officer in charge! Of course he knew the meaning of it at once. 'Twas a press-gang off one of the ships in Hamoaze or the Sound, that was choosing Regatta Night to raid the streets and had landed at the back of the town and climbed over the hill to take the crowds by surprise. They'd made but a poor fist of this, by reason of the officer letting his gang get out of hand at the start; and by their gait 'twas pretty plain they had collared a plenty of liquor up the street. But while Hancock peeped out, taking stock of them, a nasty monkey-notion crept into his head, and took hold of all his spiteful little nature; and says he, pushing the door a bit wider as the small officer--he was little taller than a midshipman--came swearing by--

"Beg your pardon, Sir!"

"You'd best take in your head and close the door upon it," snaps the little officer. "These fools o' mine have got their shirts out, and are liable to make mistakes to-night."

"What, _me_?--a poor tailor with a hackin' cough!" But to himself: "So much the better," he says, and up he speaks again. "Beggin' your pardon humbly, commander; but I might put you in the way of the prettiest haul. There's a gang of chaps enjoyin' theirselves down at the Sailor's Return, off the Quay, and not a 'protection' among them. Fine lusty fellows, too! They might give your men a bit of trouble to start with----"

"Why are you telling me this?" the officer interrupts, suspicious-like.

"That's my affair," says Hancock boldly, seeing that he nibbled. "Put it down to love o' my country, if you like; and take my advice or leave it, just as you please. I'm not asking for money, so you won't be any the poorer."

"Off the Quay, did you say? Has the house a quay-door?"

"It has: but you needn't to trouble about that. They can't escape that way, I promise you, having no boat alongside."

The little officer turned and whispered for a while with two of the soberest of his gang: and presently these whispered to two more, and the four of them marched away up the hill.

"'_HANCOCK--TAILOR_,'" reads out the officer aloud, stepping back into the roadway and peering up at the shop-front. "Very well, my man, you'll hear from us again----"

"I'm not askin' for any reward, Sir"

"So you've said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to be a trick, you'll hear from us again, and in a way you'll be sorry for. And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. 'Tis my duty to act on information, but I don't love informers."