Part 6

'"Look at this," he says to my father, showing him the lock, "I picked it up off a starving brass-worker in Lisbon, and it is not one of your common locks that one word of six letters will open at any time. There's _janius_ in this lock; for you've only to make the rings spell any six-letter word you please and snap down the lock upon that, and never a soul can open it--not the maker, even--until somebody comes along that knows the word you snapped it on. Now, Johnny here's goin', and he leaves his drum behind him; for though he can make pretty music on it, the parchment sags in wet weather, by reason of the sea-water getting at it; an' if he carries it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give him another. And, as for me, I sha'n't have the heart to put lip to the trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together, and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, an' he'll take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody beside knows the word. And if you marry and have sons, you can tell 'em that here are tied together the souls of Johnny Christian, drummer of the Marines, and William George Tallifer, once trumpeter of the Queen's Own Hussars. Amen."

'With that he hung the two instruments 'pon the hook there; and the boy stood up and thanked my father and shook hands; and the pair went forth of the door, towards Helston.

'Somewhere on the road they took leave of one another; but nobody saw the parting, nor heard what was said between them. About three in the afternoon the trumpeter came walking back over the hill; and by the time my father came home from the fishing the cottage was tidied up, and the tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house and tilling the garden. And all the while he was steadily failing; the hurt in his head spreading, in a manner, to his limbs. My father watched the feebleness growing on him, but said nothing. And from first to last neither spake a word about the drummer, John Christian; nor did any letter reach them, nor word of his doings.

'The rest of the tale you'm free to believe sir, or not, as you please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he was ready to kiss the Book upon it, before judge and jury. He said, too, that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn; and he defied anyone to explain about the lock, in particular, by any other tale. But you shall judge for yourself.

'My father said that about three o'clock in the morning, April fourteenth, of the year 'fourteen, he and William Tallifer were sitting here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had put on his clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller by the light of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight to haul the trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all. Towards the last he mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing in the elbow-chair where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then (my father said) with his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a knock sounded upon the door, and the door opened, and in walked an upright young man in scarlet regimentals.

'He had grown a brave bit, and his face was the colour of wood-ashes; but it was the drummer John Christian. Only his uniform was different from the one he used to wear, and the figures "38" shone in brass upon his collar.

'The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood by the elbow-chair and said:--

'"Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?"

'And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered, "How should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy? If you come, I count: while you march, I mark time: until the discharge comes."

'"The discharge has come to-night," said the drummer; "and the word is Corunna no longer." And stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked the drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock, spelling the word aloud, so,--C-O-R-U-N-A. When he had fixed the last letter, the padlock opened in his hand.

'"Did you know, trumpeter, that, when I came to Plymouth, they put me into a line regiment?"

'"The 38th is a good regiment," answered the old Hussar, still in his dull voice; "I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At Corunna they stood in General Fraser's division, on the right. They behaved well."

'"But I'd fain see the Marinys again," says the drummer, handing him the trumpet; "and you, you shall call once more for the Queen's Own. Matthew," he says, suddenly, turning on my father--and when he turned, my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had a round hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling there--"Matthew, we shall want your boat."

'Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while they two slung on, the one his drum, and t'other his trumpet. He took the lantern and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they breathed heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my father pushed off.

'"Row you first for Dolor Point," says the drummer. So my father rowed them out past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and there, at a word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William Tallifer, put his trumpet to his mouth and sounded the _Revelly_. The music of it was like rivers running.

'"They will follow," said the drummer. "Matthew, pull you now for the Manacles."

'So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close outside Carn dû. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the edge of the reef: and the music of it was like a rolling chariot.

'"That will do," says he, breaking off; "they will follow. Pull now for the shore under Gunner's Meadow."

'Then my father pulled for the shore, and ran his boat in under Gunner's Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to the meadow. By the gate the drummer halted, and began his tattoo again, looking out towards the darkness over the sea.

'And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed up,--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars, riding their horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no clatter of hoofs or accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound all the while like the beating of a bird's wing; and a black shadow lying like a pool about the feet of all. The drummer stood upon a little knoll just inside the gate, and beside him the tall trumpeter, with hand on hip, watching them gather; and behind them both my father, clinging to the gate. When no more came, the drummer stopped playing, and said, "Call the roll."

'Then the trumpeter stepped towards the end man of the rank and called, "Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons!" and the man answered in a thin voice, "Here!"

'"Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?"

'The man answered, "How should it be with me? When I was young, I betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for these things I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!"

'The trumpeter called to the next man, "Trooper Henry Buckingham!" and the next man answered, "Here!"

'"Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?"

'"How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in Lugo, in a wine-shop, I killed a man. But I died as a man should. God save the King!"

'So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each man answered to his name, and each man ended with "God save the King!" When all were hailed, the drummer stepped back to his mound, and called,--

'"It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you. Wait, now, a little while."

'With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern, and lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks of dead men cheer and call, "God save the King!" all together, and saw them waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading off a pane.

'But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the drummer turned in the lantern light--and my father could see the blood still welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the trumpet-sling from around the other's neck, and locked drum and trumpet together again, choosing the letters on the lock very carefully. While he did this he said:--

'"The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an 'n' in Corunna, so must I leave out an 'n' in Bayonne." And before snapping the padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--"B-A-Y-O-N-E." After that, he used no more speech, but turned and hung the two instruments back on the hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm; and the pair walked out into the darkness, glancing neither to right nor left.

'My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of sigh behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's heart jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But, after a bit, he went up to the man asleep in the chair and put a hand upon him. It was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched; but though the flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.

'Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father was minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But the day after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston market; and the parson called out: "Have'ee heard the news the coach brought down this mornin'?" "What news?" says my father. "Why, that peace is agreed upon." "None too soon," says my father. "Not soon enough for our poor lads at Bayonne," the parson answered. "Bayonne!" cries my father, with a jump. "Why, yes;" and the parson told him all about a great sally the French had made on the night of April 13th. "Do you happen to know if the 38th Regiment was engaged?" my father asked. "Come, now," said Parson Kendall, "I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But as it happens, I _do_ know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they that held a cottage and stopped the French advance."

'Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked into Helston and bought a "Mercury" off the Sherborne rider, and got the landlord of the "Angel" to spell out the list of killed and wounded, sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John Christian, of the 38th Foot.

'After this, there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall, and told the whole story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then asked,--

'"Have you tried to open the lock since that night?"

"I han't dared to touch it," says my father.

'"Then come along and try." When the parson came to the cottage here, he took the things off the hook and tried the lock. "Did he say '_Bayonne_'? The word has seven letters."

'"Not if you spell it with one 'n' as _he_ did," says my father.

'The parson spelt it out--B-A-Y-O-N-E. "Whew!" says he, for the lock had fallen open in his hand.

'He stood considering it a moment, and then he says, "I tell you what. I shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead nor alive, shall frighten the secret out of me."

'"I wish to gracious you would, parson," said my father.

'The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by force, nobody will ever separate those twain.'

'THAT THERE MASON'

BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL

'THAT THERE MASON'

I was in Ramsgate, in the pier-yard, and noticed the figure of a boatman leaning against the wall of a building used by the Trinity people. I stepped close, and looked at him. He was a little man, curved; his hands were buried to the knuckles' end in his breeches pockets; he wore a yellow sou'wester, and under it was a sour, sneering, wicked face. His eyes were damp and sunk, and seemed to discharge a thin liquor like pale ale, and he would not pull out his hands to wipe them.

'What's your name?' said I.

He looked at me slowly, beginning at my waistcoat, and answered: 'What's that got to do with you?'

'Do you want a job?'

'What sorter job?' he replied, continuing to lean against the wall, without any motion of his body, merely looking at me.

'The job of answering a civil question with a civil answer,' said I.

He turned his head, and gazed at the sea without replying.

'What's that obelisk?' said I.

His head came back to its bearings, and he answered: 'What's what?'

'That thing in granite, yonder; that tall stone spike. What is it?'

'Can yer read?'

'Better than you, I expect,' I answered.

'Then why don't you go and find out for yourself?' said he, uttering a small, hideous laugh.

'I rather fancy,' said I, 'that that spike was erected to commemorate the landing of George IV. He was kind enough to condescend to land at Ramsgate. Wasn't that good of him, Tommy? Blown here, maybe, vomiting, to the pier-head, and rejoicing, under his waistcoats, to get ashore anywhere and anyhow. And the snobs of Ramsgate go to the expense of erecting that unwholesome and shocking memorial of so abject a trifle as the landing of a fat immoral man at this port on his way to London. Why don't you, and the like of you, level it,--knock the blamed thing into blocks of stone, and build a house with them for a good man to live in?

His eyes had come to the surface; they were running harder than ever. He was in a rage.

'Look here,' said he; 'I don't know who y'are, but don't yer like that there pillar?'

'No,' I answered.

'Then why don't yer go home? There's nothen' to keep yer 'ere, I 'ope? Plenty of trains to all parts, and I'll carry yer bag for nothen', allowin' you've got one, only for the satisfaction of seein' the last of yer.'

I told him I would remember that, and, bursting into uncontrollable laughter at his peculiarly ugly, wicked face, I walked off, scarce knowing but that I should feel the blow of ''arf a brick' in the back of my head as I went.

I met a boatman with whom I had gone fishing on some occasions.

'Thomas,' said I, pointing to the leaning figure, 'who is that queer little chap?'

'Jimmie Mason,' replied Thomas, with a half-glance at the wall-scab, then turning his back upon it.

'Has he ever been hung?' said I.

'Don't think he could have been quite old enough for it,' he replied, turning again to look at the little man. 'They cut a man down from the gibbet on the sand hills yonder,' said he, pointing in the direction of Deal, 'when my father was a boy, and he used to say that, when the man got sprung, he'd relate, in beautiful language, how he felt when he was turned off.'

'A dose of turning-off would do that gent in the sou'wester a great deal of good,' said I. 'He's a sort of man, you know, to murder you when you're out fishing with him. He's a sort of man to stab you in the back with a great clasp knife, and drag your body into the empty house, which never lets ever after.'

'Old Jim Mason's just the worst-tempered man on the coast. His heart was turned black by a disappointment,' said Thomas.

'Love?' said I.

'Why, not exactly love,' he replied; 'it was more in the hovelling line.'

'Is it a good yarn?' I asked. 'If so, I'll stand two drinks; a pint for you and a half-pint for me.'

'It might be worth recording,' said Thomas, taking the time occupied by the harbour clock in striking: twelve to reflect. 'Anyways, pint or no pint, here it is,' and, folding his arms, this intelligent longshoreman' started thus:--

'Some years ago, a gemman and a lady went out for a sail, and, as is not always customary in these 'ere parts,--though we've got some thick heads among us, I can tell you,--they were capsized. The gemman was drowned, the lady and the boatman saved, and the boat was picked up and towed in,--there she lies, "The 'Arbour Bud."

'The widder, as was natural, was in dreadful grief; and, in a day or two, police bills was pasted about the walls, offering a reward of 50l. to any one who should recover the body. That there Mason, as you see a-leaning agin that house, was just the party for a job of this sort. He called 'em soft jobs. He was one of them men as would walk about the rocks and sands arter a breeze of wind, hunting for whatever he might find,--be it a corpse that had come ashore to keep him in good spirits, or the 'arf of a shoe. Him and Sam Bowler was a-huntin' arter jewellery down among the rocks one day, and that there Mason picked up a gold ring. He offered it to Bowler, who gave him five shullens for it, and that night, at the sign of the "Welcome 'Arp," that there Mason swallowed some of his front teeth, and got both eyes plugged, for Bowler, who weighs fourteen stun, had discovered that the ring was brass.

'Well, that there Mason takes it into his head to go for a walk one day arter the bills about the body had been pasted on the walls. He walked in the direction of Broadstairs, and, comin' to the coastguard station, he falls in with one of the men, a sort of relation of his. They got yarning. The coastguard had a big telescope under his arm. That there Mason asked leave to have a look, and he levels the glass and begins to work about with it. The line of the Good'in Sands was as plain as the nose on his face. It was low water, the whole stretch of the shoal was visible, and it was a clear bright afternoon.

'"What's taken yer heye?" says the coastguard presently.

'"Nothen, oh, nothen," answered that there Mason. "Sands show oncommon plain to-day."

'He handed back the glass to the coastguard, and then, instead of continuing his walk, he returned to this here yard, and got into his boat and pulled away out of the harbour.

'Now what do yer think he had seen in that telescope? A dead man stranded on the Good'in Sands. There could be no mistake. That there Mason belonged to the cocksure lot; _he_ never made a blunder in all his life. It mightn't be the body as was advertised for, but, if it was, 'twas a fifty-pound job; and that there Mason, without a word, pulled out o' 'arbour feelin', I daresay, as if he'd got the gold in his pocket, and the heavens was beginnin' to smile upon him.

''Tis a long pull to the Good'ins, tide or no tide. None took any notice of his goin' out. There was some boats a-fishin' in Pegwell Bay, and if any man looked at that there Mason a-rowing out to sea, he'd expect to see him bring up and drop a line over the side. He rowed and rowed. The body lay upon the edge of the Sand, a long distance away from the Gull lightship. He rowed and rowed. By-and-bye, standin' up, he pulls out a bit of a pocket glass, and then discovers that what he'd taken to be a man's dead body was nothen but a small balk of timber, black with black seaweed, stretched out on either side, so that at a distance it looked exactly like a corpse on its back with its arms out.

'That there Mason might ha' burst himself with passion if he hadn't been too dead beat with rowing. Even in them times he wasn't no chicken. Well, thinks he to himself, since I've had all this here labour merely to view a balk of timber, I may as well step ashore for a spell of rest, and take a short cruise round, for who knows what I might find? So what does the joker do but head his boat right in for the sand, and then he jumps ashore. He made his boat fast to the balk of timber. It was arter five, and the sun westerin' fast. He drives his 'ands deep into his pockets, and slowly meanders, always a-looking. What was there to find? _He_ couldn't tell. There was expectation, yer see, and that was a sort of joy to the 'eart of that there Mason. Y'u'd hardly think it of a boatman, but it's true: whilst that bally idiot was a-wandering about them sands searching for whatever there might be, his boat, giving a tug at her painter, frees the rope and drifts away on the tide, with that there man as you are now a-looking at walking about the sands, his 'ands buried deep and his eyes fixed, dreaming of lighting upon a sovereign or a gold chain,--you can never tell what passes in such an 'ead. By'm-bye he turns to look for his boat, and lo and be'old she's gone. There she was half a mile off, quietly floating away to the norr'ard. The sun was beginning to sink low; the night was coming along. The people aboard the Gull lightship didn't see him or take any notice; what was that there Mason going to do? There was no wreck to shelter him. It might be that at Ramsgate they'd see a lonely man a-walking about, and send a boat; but, as I've said, dusk was at 'and, and he knew bloomin' well that if they didn't see him soon they'd never see him again.

'He'd taken notice afore the darkness had drawn down of a cutter bearing about northeast. He watched her now whilst it was light, for it looked to him as if she was making a straight course for the sands. It was plain she wasn't under no government. The wind blew her along, and at eight o'clock that evening, when the moon was rising and the tide making fast all about the sands, I'm blest if that cutter didn't come quietly ashore, and lie as sweetly still as if she was a young woman wore out with walkin'.

'I allow that it didn't take that there Mason a lifetime to scramble aboard of her. She was a fine boat, 'bout sixteen or eighteen ton, newly sheathed, and her sails shone white and new in the moon. When he got aboard he sung out, "Anybody here?" and he received no reply. There was a bit of a forehatch; he put his 'ead into it and sung out, and several times he sung out, and got no answer; he then walked aft. I must tell you, it was a very quiet night, with a light breeze and plenty of stars, and a growing moon. He looks through the bit of a skylight, and sees nothen; puts his head in the companion-way and sings out as afore. An abandoned wessel, he thinks to himself, and his 'eart, you may be sure, turns to and rejoices.

'What should he do? Try to kedge her off himself? That was beyond him. Send up a rocket, if he should find such a thing in the vessel? S'elp me, he was that greedy he couldn't make up his mind to ask for 'elp. He took a look round the sea and considered. There was some big lump of shadow out behind the sands,--she looked like a French smack; his boat was out of sight in the dark, but the cutter, he noticed, carried a little jolly boat, amidships, right fair in the wake of the gangway, easy to be launched, smack fashion, so that there Mason felt his life was saved.