Faith Tresilion

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I A Hunting Morning i

II The End of the Duel 13

Chapter I

Perhaps few sportsmen of this generation will know the meaning of a "trencher" pack ; but in the olden days a good many such hunted the country. The hounds were kept by different people scattered over a small area, and, in the case of Daleham, most of them lived within sound of the hunter's horn, when it was blown at the market cross.

Tom Otter blew it now and had not long to wait. He was a lean and wiry person of middle-age, and he sat on a raw-boned mare of eighteen hands. A weatherstained coat of doubtful pink he wore, and a big jockey cap of black velvet, time-worn as the coat and sizes too large for his round head. His face was rat-like, with a broken nose and beady eyes.

Beside him, on a white horse, somewhat fat for the work ahead, sat Henry Sidebottom, publican and host of Daleham's first inn, The Sailors' Joy. He was a big, grey man, with a fleshy face, clean shaved, and large blue eyes — a gentle creature and no man's enemy. Yet he rated himself high since marriage, having, very wisely, taken his wife's estimate of him as his own. Late in life he had married a fisherman's widow, and she had brought Henry to weigh himself more seriously;

I for he was no mere publican, but a man of rare gifts. He possessed imagination and made verses. Love, which blossomed late in Mr. Sidebottom, naturally quickened this rare accomplishment. He had wooed with rhymes.

Tom Otter, the factotum of the Vicar of Daleham and a man of character, liked well enough the hunting days, for they brought him into prominence among the better sort of his native village; and when, as often happened, he showed good sport, a more material reward than fame awaited him. Now he blew his old French horn, and the somewhat melancholy note won instant response. Hounds, children, and a time- foundered fisherman or two began to run and crawl from the little streets and alley-ways round about. Those who kept the pack liberated them at the clamour of the horn, and, familiar enough with the summons, a dozen rough fox-hounds made their appearance, bade each other "good morning," and saluted the huntsman.

Others of the field also appeared. Tom Otter's master, the Reverend Upcott Baldwin, D.D., rode up on his great chestnut — a handsome man in a grey wig — one of the olden time, a scholar, a parish priest, a sportsman. He was five-and-fifty and numbered many black sheep in his fold, but took human nature in a large spirit and never sufifered life to intrude too painfully upon his own existence.

Beside him rode a young man of burly frame with a mean face set on a splendid figure. He was red-haired, and his pink coat harmonized ill with his colour. This was one Lieutenant Warner Baldwin, the vicar's nephew, invalided home from the recent wars. He had not seen service, and his ailments, whatever they might have been, swiftly disappeared in the brisk and salubrious air of

Daleham. In friendship his lUncle had invited him for a lengthened visit, but now the youth had worn out his welcome, and the elder secretly wished him gone again. For his nephew made no appeal to Doctor Baldwin. He was intelligent, but crafty, and aired opinions the clergyman disliked.

There came, too, the Lord of the Manor, Sir Simeon Glanvil, a baronet of long descent, and his daughters, Jennie and Selina. They were dark, handsome women, attired in black and plum-coloured habits, with long feathers in their hats ; while beside them rode another girl, whose costume and mien showed her not English. Honorine Deschamps was dark also, slight of figure, and full of vivacity. Her brown eyes laughed and her shoulders moved as she talked to her cousin, the soldier. Then rode another young man, at present stopping with , the Glanvils. His name was Gilbert Oxenham, and he claimed descent from the famous sea captain, John Oxenham, who served under Sir Francis Drake at Nombre de Dios, and earned no small part of the glory of that great victory over Spain. The Oxenhams of Tawton were his kinsmen, and he always vowed that the famous white bird of the house would not forget him when his end was at hand. He was fair and of a frank and agreeable manner. He smiled and listened to Jennie Glanvil's banter ; but his eyes roamed elsewhere and regarded Honorine Deschamps. He admired her green habit, and thought that she looked like a flower-bud thrust up from its sheath.

Others arrived, until the field numbered twenty, and Tom Otter sounded his horn again. Oxenham laughed at the hounds, while Honorine Deschamps supported them.

"Wait till you see them at work," she said. "They are not' much to look at, and they do kill cats and eat them sometimes; but "

"No doubt they'll do their mangey best, poor beggars. His reverence assures me they seldom have a blank day."

"Let us start, Tom," cried Doctor Baldwin. "We have nine couples. It is enough."

"I don't go without 'Susan,' " replied the huntsman.

"What a cowardice of curs!" commented Lieutenant Baldwin; whereupon his uncle stood up for the local pack.

"They are good enough hounds," he said. "You are to remember the instinct of the gregarious hunters — the creatures that hunt together. Your wolf is not brave alone; your tiger or eagle is brave. The use of a fox-hound does not demand bravery. It is the same with men. As a soldier you should know that. The leaders are brave, the rank and file look to them for that spirit which inspires a fighting regiment. There are men "

"Here's 'Susan' !" cried Honorine. "Poor dear — she grows old."

An ancient hound appeared, acknowledged Tom Otter's affectionate greeting, and, as though she knew that the company had only waited for her, went forward without stopping. The pack followed, and the field came after.

"We'll go up over to the Appleby fuzz brakes," decreed Mr. Otter, and within half an hour the hunters had climbed a mile and a half inland, where stood a thatched farmhouse with white-washed walls surrounded by orchards, now grey and leafless. The Dale river ran here, in a long, placid reach under the trees, and beyond the farm there spread fallow lands which ended at a stone wall. On the other side of it extended half a mile of furze and heath, with a spinney or two of birch, that streaked silvery up through its purple ramage and overhung the Dale on her way to the sea; while beyond stretched the great woods of Sir Simeon Glanvil's seat, Tudor Towers.

The huntsman winded his horn, and at the sound a man emerged from the rear of the farm and came to the gate with a fox-hound.

"Be going to draw my fuzzes, Tom? You'll find for sartain, for I lost four chicken only yester night. You can see the feathers by the stepping-stones. Good morning, your honours, good sport, your honours ! And you too, Sidebottom, I see — game as a pebble for all your flesh!"

. The man was tall and thin, with a pleasant voice, gracious manners and evasive eyes. He opened a gate for the field, and chattered incessantly while horses and hounds passed through.

"Did 'e hear that the death-coach walked again two nights agone, your reverence?" he inquired of Doctor Baldwin, and the clergyman answered that he had.

"A fearsome thing, and you'll have to take bell, book and candle I'm thinking, your holiness."

"The same idea occurred to me, Ned Cawdle," answered the vicar. "It is not well in a Christian land that these unquiet spirits still move in the habit of life, to frighten the living and keep in memory their own troubled and evil days. I'm considering the matter of an exorcism."

Mr. Cawdle fell back, shouting, "Good luck, good sport, your honours!" and the vicar turned to a young man who rode beside him.

"One of my black sheep," he said. "Hand in glove with the smugglers, but such a clever man that nothing ever happens to him. Lees, our preventive ofi&cer, foams at the mouth when Cawdle' s name is mentioned. But

John Tresilion irks him more, and I much fear that the bitter feud between those men will end in shedding of blood."

The other's hand tightened on his rein at Tresilion's name. He was a striking youth of graceful build and haughty carriage. But neither his dress nor seat on horseback were English in the eyes of English sportsmen, though none denied him splendid horsemanship, together with pluck that often over-stepped the limits of wisdom. His eyes were dark, beautiful, and not without a touch of melancholy.

"I don't think you are quite so angry with the smugglers as you would have us believe. Uncle Upcott," he said.

He was the brother of Honorine Deschamps, and they dwelt with their widowed mother, the sister of the clergyman.

"The question of free trade, Paul, is a difficult one," answered his uncle, "and these ignorant fishermen have a measure of my sympathy in what they do. There are certain precious products, like the brandy of France, which certainly ought to be free to the world. However — law and order are the first considerations. My philosophy in these matters is exceedingly simple. Having once convinced myself that a question has two sides, I pursue my invariable rule and let it entirely alone. I desire to be friends with my flock, and am their minister, not their judge. When, however, a question can have but one side, for a Christian man, then you will find me exceedingly definite and obstinate. One may example the unspeakable outrage of wrecking which until recently lurked in our midst. If the hand of God wills that a craft should perish on our iron-bound cliffs, then I say nothing, and my concern is only with human life; but if, as has happened too surely once and again, a good ship has been lured to her doom by false lights, then my soul cries out with horror at the infamy that can plot and plan so damnable a crime. It is Cornish custom, and a Penzance parson of my acquaintance has pointed out that wreckers and stalwart churchgoers are usually found within one skin. But we must argue nothing for this coincidence; though, indeed, Cawdle, and a few others who stand attainted, all come to church."

Tom Otter was drawing the furze-brakes, and soon there rose a solitary tongue.

"Hark to 'Susan' !" he shouted, and instantly the rest of the pack echoed the old hound. The field proceeded after the huntsman, but Dr. Baldwin and Mr. Sidebottom waited and watched.

"He'll go over yonder ploughed lands," foretold the inn-keeper, "and, if to the left he turns, that means the cliffs, and, if to the right, Tudor Towers. Either way we shall do better by waiting and watching."

"In almost every event that is presented to human calculation, my dear Sidebottom, man does better by waiting and watching, if he possibly can," answered the other. "Equilibrium of mind is the first essential of dignified living, and, if we lack it at half a century, there is little hope of usefulness in us."

The fox turned left over the red earth; the hunters, knowing their way, walked slowly off in an opposite direction, and saved themselves three miles of heavy going.

"Down Blackthorn Lane we'll trot, your reverence," said Mr. Sidebottom, "and have a care not to head the fox. Then, unless something unexpected happens, we shall cut a good figure in the run."

"The man who heads Tom Otter's fox makes an enemy for life," answered Doctor Baldwin. "Tom has a. large power of charity in most affairs, but stupidity in the field he will not forgive."

They waited presently, on an open down above the sea, and heard the music of the hounds ringing out upon the west wind.

Then, unseen by them, but not three hundred yards distant, reynard slipped by, and ten minutes later came the pack.

"A gallant sight and should make a poem for you, Henry. In my humble judgment a woman of the right build never looks more superb than on horseback," declared the vicar.

"Sir Glanvil's maidens are a brave pair, sure enough," admitted Mr. Sidebottom, "but Miss Deschamps is the fairy for me. She rideth as sweetly as her brother. Who would think now that their father was a Frenchman?"

"Why not? That is an insular remark and unworthy a poet," answered the Doctor. "The French are a very noble nation, and Monsieur Deschamps was a very noble man. He fell as heroes fall, and I for one am thankful that the wars are ended, otherwise my stormy nephew might soon have done the like."

"Born for trouble, to say it with respect," answered the inn-keeper. "You can see it in his eyes, your reverence. He has an eagle's eyes, and he smarts under the sorrows of the world, as though they were his own."

"I know it, inn-keeper, I know it. His heart is young and not seared by fighting. His master was Napoleon — I had almost said 'his God'; and Bonaparte's downfall hath stricken him hard. But I hope he will turn to the peaceful career of an English country gentleman now, and save his mother and me from further anxieties."

The other shook his head.

"Not with those eyes, your reverence."

The field was abreast of them now, and they trotted out and joined the hunters. Behind them came one or two others who had followed their example. The party swept over arable land that extended to cliff edge, now crossing stubble, whence the harvest had come in the past autumn, now avoiding acres sown with wheat ; now galloping, when the chase took them on to the springy turf of the downs. They vanished heading east, and the clifif fox responsible for their gallop, guessing little at the termination of the run, went steadily ahead for a distant holt five miles away. He had stood before hounds on half a dozen occasions, and felt in no fear for his mask at this stage of the adventure.

Our business is now with him, and we follow him over hill and lee, with the cliffs and the grey waters of the Channel on his right, and farmlands and forests on his left. But, save for a detour inland through a wood and over a stream, where he stopped for a moment to lap, he held to the cliffs, and presently, ahead of him, towered a promontory. The land climbed here, and upon it stood a wood of naked beech, the aged and mossgrown trees stunted and blown out of straightness by unsleeping winds from the sea. In the midst of the wood was a large ruin, a place known as Hordell's Hall, famous in olden time as the stronghold of an ancient family, but now sunk into decay and rendered sinister by evil rumours of supernatural things. The fox, upon whom hounds had gained considerably, headed for the ruin. He darted through a pair of lordly gateposts, that still stood, with the battered griffins of the Hordells upon them, to mark the entrance-way; then he ran half a mile up the forlorn avenue of time-stricken beeches, and, at last, climbing over broken walls, made haste through a lo FAITH TRESILION

ruined and grass-grown courtyard and plunged into the darkness of a low door beyond. Here, it seemed, he knew his way in the intricate ground-plan of the ruin, for he turned and twisted, then jumped down where rubbish had blocked the entrance of a cellar and soon crept through a conduit that took his carcase, but would not have admitted a hound.

And then a tragic surprise awaited him, for, exhausted now and beat, he ran almost between the legs of a man. In a subterranean chamber of Hordell's — a place only known to half a dozen in Daleham — there sat a youth of five-and-twenty, with curly hair and a strong countenance. He was a thought underhung, but the expression of his eyes and the lines of his mouth banished any forbidding cast that this peculiarity might have imparted to him. His fair face, strong, tanned neck and flaxen hair had spoken a sailor, without his sea boots and guernsey. The latter was of blue and white in alternate stripes; while on his head he wore a dirty, red knitted cap that hung over one ear, and in his ears were small gold rings. His face was weather-worn for so young a man, but it was handsome, and a slight droop of the right eyelid added piquancy to the expression.

He sat smoking a pipe, with a lighted candle in a horn lantern and a pistol beside him ; and he kept guard over a mingled pile of boxes and kegs packed together here, with a tarpaulin drawn over them, to throw off the wet which dripped through the cellar roof.

Power of will marked the features of Nicholas Tresis lion. He had been brought up in a stormy school and trained to danger and difficulty. His wits were ready and he needed them now, for the advent of the fox spoke of sudden peril. There was another way into the cellar than that by which the fox had entered, and through that

A HUNTING MORNING ii

hounds might come. He saw in a moment that they would do so, and, before the hunted creature could escape, he had gripped its back with both hands, leapt to his feet, and carried the struggling thing to its doom.

He crept out of the cellar by a narrow exit, dropped into another, where one ray from above sent a thread of white daylight through it, and then, after some turning and twisting through the labyrinth of the ruins, reached an unceiled chamber with two doors.

The indignant fox had contrived to get in one bite, but Nicholas held on, and, knowing the line that hounds must pursue, ran as fast as he was able to meet them. Fortune favored him, for the pack was ahead of the field, and none witnessed the extraordinary sight of a sailor hastening to the hounds with their quarry. Soon he met them, and, as most of the creatures were his friends, they merely swarmed round him, while he held the fox above his head and did not throw it to them.

Then came Tom Otter, Paul Deschamps, Selina Glanvil and young Gilbert Oxenham, with others also well up. They stood now nearly a quarter of a mile from the ruin, and the leaders were in at the death. But some diversion held back the majority of the field, and, while the sailor explained that a fox had fallen at his feet forty yards ahead of the hounds, and that he had picked him up to save brush and mask, Paul Deschamps and Oxenham turned to where a dozen riders had suddenly stopped half a mile further back. There stood Doctor Baldwin, on a smoking horse, at the clifif edge, and beside him were Lieutenant Baldwin, Honorine Deschamps, Jennie Glanvil. Sir Simeon, Mr. Sidebottom and the rest. Some had dismounted, and the attention of all was attracted by two objects beneath them on the beach.

That the young fisherman, Nicholas Tresilion, should be upon the cliffs was not surprising, and the tragedy now discovered by the fox-hunters gave colour to his explanation that he was seeking his father.

Soon Tom Otter, with the trophies of the chase at saddle bow, rode back to his master, but Tresilion did not go with him. Little guessing at the matter of their concern, he walked in the other direction, stood upon the head of the cliff awhile, and then, when all was quiet, returned to his den. But, before doing so, he piled up stones at the exit and heaped them as high as his head, so that no inquisitive hound might presently penetrate the secret of a smuggler's storehouse.

Chapter II

On the beach, under the troubled eyes of the watchers, there lay two men, closely locked in hate and death. Each had a hand on the other's throat, and, from the standpoint of those on the cliff, two hundred feet above them, it was impossible to recognize with certainty what men they were. Yet none who knew Daleham felt any doubt.

To climb the precipices at this spot was impossible, and, as the tide was making and would soon be over the bodies, little time remained for action.

Sir Simeon took command, and others hastened to do his bidding.

"Too certainly John Tresilion, the smuggler, and Exciseman Lees lie there," he said. "Get home, girls. This is no sight for you. Now, which is the nearest place of descent, and have we time to get there before the sea is on them?"

Tom Otter, who knew the cliffs as well as any glede or jackdaw that homed upon them, made reply.

"You can only get down at the Red Goyle, three miles nearer to Daleham, Sir Simeon."

"Then gallop to the nearest farmhouse for their well-rope, and see it can be trusted. Some of the young men have got to descend as quickly as possible. These poor creatures may not even be dead, though there is little reason to hope they live. At any rate they must not be washed to sea."

Otter rode away, with the hounds after him, and both Deschamps and Oxenham offered to descend. They dismounted and hunted the cliffs, while Doctor Baldwin, hearing that Nicholas was at hand, sought him, that he might break in his ear the evil news. But Nicholas was back in his burrow and the vicar hunted in vain.

Mr. Sidebottom reminded him of a recent prophecy.

" 'Tis seldom a prediction comes true so swift," he said, "but not about an hour ago your reverence foretold to your nephew that blood would be shed between those men. I heard you speak. For five years — ever since Albert Lees set foot in Daleham — has the feud run between them, and Tresilion won ever. What made them fall to fighting here we shall never know, though doubtless the son could tell us. They're a crafty folk, the Tresilions, yet who can quarrel with them ? The daughter's a grand girl, and the mother, for all her mountain of flesh, is the cleverest woman in Daleham — after my wife."

"By the same token," answered the Doctor, "I must see them to-day and break this shocking news."

"I feel sure that it can be no great surprise," answered the inn-keeper, "for he has carried his life in his hand these many years. He was as different from our easy Daleham fishermen as his Cornish lugger is different from their trawling ketches."

Meanwhile, Paul Deschamps, at some risk to his own neck, had found a way to descend the precipice. A band of scrub grew half way down ; but there was no visible means of reaching it from above or below; yet from here it appeared that the men must have fallen, since no mark of a struggle occurred on the summit of the cliff, and from no other possible spot could they have reached their present position. Deschamps shouted up the news that the men were indeed Lees and Tresilion, and that both were dead. The tide already lapped about them where they lay gripped at the cliff foot. Paul was powerless to return by the way he came ; but he found it possible to draw the dead under the cliff, above the reach of the sea. Then Tom Otter returned with a stout well-rope, equal to the strain to be put upon it, and soon the end was swung over the cliff and was lowered to the beach below.

In turn Deschamps made fast the dead and they were dragged slowly aloft. The corpse of John Tresilion went first. He was a tall and wiry man of sixty, with curly hair and eyes, like his son's ; but the hair was grey and the face wrinkled. His neck had been broken by the fall ; while in the case of the exciseman, who fell undermost, it appeared that he must have dropped on a rock, for his right side had been terribly mutilated, and pieces of a tobacco pipe in his pocket driven into his body.

Presently the rope descended for the third time, and Paul Deschamps, making it fast round his own shoulders and under one thigh, was drawn aloft.

Then a farmer brought up a "truck-a-muck" — a little sledge commonly used in agriculture at that period — and the dead, side by side, were drawn back to Daleham. Lees was a bachelor, and none existed to mourn his loss ; but Tresilion possessed a wife, children, and many friends. For years the smuggler had been the most popular man in the village and a sort of uncrowned king among the folk. Strength of character and kindness of disposition won for him this distinction. He was free and generous, and no man or woman could speak ill of him, though the State held him an enemy. Nominally a fisherman, there existed no doubt that his great lugger, The Grey Bird, never returned to port without good harvest from the sea ; but, though he often used his drift nets industriously enough, it was not upon fishing that his prosperity depended. Men said in jest that, while everybody had seen The Grey Bird set sail and stand out for the trawling grounds with the rest of the Daleham fleet, none ever saw her return. She would vanish away, and be gone for an uncertain period of days or weeks, then suddenly, when some morning dawned, there would she be lying at her moorings again.

Daleham rejoiced uneasily in the operations of Tresilion and his crew. They told how he had outsailed the Government cutters from Plymouth and outwitted the excise officers for a dozen years. Only Albert Lees and his coast-guardsmen were actively against them, and now the inveterate battle, for reasons that none could guess, had ended in the simultaneous death of Tresilion and his enemy.

There was mourning in Daleham as the truck-a-muck drew up at the home of the dead. Lees they had deposited at his eyrie on the cliffs ; but the other man they brought home to his wife and daughter.

Doctor Baldwin came also to comfort the women, and with him he brought Mademoiselle Deschamps, who knew Faith Tresilion exceedingly well. The girls had grown to womanhood together, and, while their ways in life ran far apart, Honorine never lost sight of her childhood's playmate, and found in the smuggler's daughter a spirit more congenial than that of her companions in the society of the neighbourhood.

Emma Tresilion, a woman with a massive body, great, dark eyes and a voice like a man's, was bed-ridden, and lived behind a screen in the kitchen of her home. But from her bed of sickness she ruled her household, for her will was iron and her sense unerring.

The news of her husband's death had reached her before Doctor Baldwin arrived, and she was sitting up in a big pea-jacket which burst open at her immense bosom and showed a dirty red shirt underneath. Her grey hair was covered by a black cap that descended over her ears ; the bulk of her enormous body was hidden under the bed-clothes; her hands were loading a tobacco pipe when the visitors entered. Her daughter wept on the old woman's breast ; but Emma shed no tear.

"I've been counting for this to happen for twelve yea,r, Upcott Baldwin," she said, "and now it's come and I'm ready, and so will my boy be ready. You can't say Albert Lees bested my John — nobody can ever say that."

She lighted her pipe, smoked and stared in front of her. Her eyes blazed out of her huge face like live coals. She had been handsome once, but was now a mere mass of flesh. Doctor Baldwin, familiar with her ways and methods, answered calmly, as though the matter were no more important than a game of cards ; then Honorine put her arms round Faith Tresilion to comfort her. Times were harder then and sentiment rare in the homes of the poor.

"Don't snivel, Faith," said her mother. "Get down the village to Mrs. Hooker, and give her my compliments, and tell her to come up this instant moment and lay John Tresilion out ; and Egg had best be called to measure him for his coffin. And tell 'em to bring my poor man's carcase in here till the doctor comes."

"We heard Nicholas was on the clififs, but did not see him," said the Doctor. The old woman considered, but kept her thoughts to herself. Then she heaved a sigh that shook her great four-post bed.

"Cut oflf in the flower of his might by a damned gauger," she said. "I knowed that would be the end. As good a man as ever left a widow and children to bless his name. And not only them. You mark me, Upcott Baldwin, all Daleham will be at his grave-side — all but me ; and I'd be carried there, dead or alive, only the winter air would kill me, and I can't leave my boy and girl now."

She stood in no need of consolation and her heart was hidden from him.

"None respected John's great nature more than I did," declared Doctor Baldwin. "Upon the subject of free trade with France it is possible to have two opinions ; on the question of your John's character two opinions were impossible. Generous, genial, gentle to the weak, courteous to his betters, and even a churchgoer upon occasion. In fact, he was on the side of the angels, Emma, and I wish there were more like him."