pyramus came down earlier than usual that year. the tenth of december saw his smoke-grimed wigwams erected in the little wood, the cloaks and scarves of the romany women making bright blots of color among the somber trees, bronze babies rolling among bronze leaves.
ortho was right; the gypsy chief had been hard hit and was open to any scheme for recouping his fortunes. after considerable haggling he consented to a fee of six shillings per horse per run—leaders thrown in—which was a shilling more than ortho had intended to give him and two shillings more than he would have taken if pressed. the cavalry had not arrived as yet, and ortho did not think it politic to inform pyramus they were expected; there were the makings in him of a good business man.
the first run was dated for the night of january the third, but the heavy ground swell was rolling in and the lugger lay off until the evening of the fifth. king nick arrived on the morning of the third, stepped quietly into the kitchen of the “admiral anson” as the baragwanath family were sitting down to breakfast, having walked by night from germoe. the meal finished, he gave melodious thanks to heaven, sent for ortho, asked what arrangements had been made for the landing, condemned them root and branch and substituted an entirely fresh lot. that done, he rode off to st. just to survey the proposed pack route, taking ortho with him.
he was back again by eight o’clock at night and immediately held a prayer-meeting in the kiddlywink, preaching on “lo, he thirsteth even as a hart thirsteth after the water brooks”—a vindication of the gin traffic—and passing on to describe the pains of hell with such graphic detail that one cove woman fainted and another had hysterics.
the run came off without a hitch two nights later. ortho had his horses loaded up and away by nine o’clock. at one-thirty a crowd of enthusiastic diggers (all armed with clubs) were stripping his load and secreting it in an old mine working on the outskirts of st. just. he was home in bed before dawn. fifty-six casks of mixed gin, claret and brandy they carried that night, not to mention five hundredweight of tea.
on january 17th he carried forty-three casks, a bale of silk and a hundredweight of tea to pendeen, dumping some odds and ends outside gwithian as he passed by. and so it went on.
the consumption of cheap spirits among the miners was enormous. john wesley, to whose credit can be placed almost the whole moral regeneration of the cornish tinner, describes them as “those who feared not god nor regarded man,” accuses them of wrecking ships and murdering the survivors and of taking their pleasure in “hurling, at which limbs are often broken, fighting, drinking, and all other manner of wickedness.”
in winter their pastimes were restricted to fighting and drinking—principally drinking—in furtherance of which ortho did a roaring trade. between the beginning of january and the end of march he ran an average of five landings a month without any one so much as wagging a finger at him. the dragoons arrived at christmas, but instead of a regiment two troops only appeared and they speedily declared a policy of “live and let live.” their commanding officer, captain hambro, had not returned to his native land after years of hard campaigning to spend his nights galloping down blind byways at the behest of a civilian riding officer.
he had some regard for his horses’ legs and more for his own comfort. he preferred playing whist with the local gentry, who had fair daughters and who were the soul of hospitality. he temporized good-humoredly with the collector, danced quadrilles with the fair daughters at the “ship and castle,” and toasted their bright eyes in excellent port and claret, the knowledge that it had not paid a penny of duty in nowise detracting from its flavor. occasionally—when he had no other appointment and the weather was passable—he mounted his stalwarts and made a spectacular drive—this as a sop to the collector. but he never came westwards; the going was too rough, and, besides, st. just was but small potatoes compared with big mining districts to the east.
for every cask landed at monks cove, king nick and his merry men landed twenty either at prussia cove, porthleven, hayle or portreath—sometimes at all four places simultaneously. whenever capt. hambro’s troopers climbed into their saddles and took the road to long rock, a simple but effective system of signals flashed ahead of them so that they found very little.
there was one nasty affair on marazion beach. owing to a misunderstanding the cavalry came upon a swarm of tinners in process of making a landing. the tinners (who had broached a cask and were full of spirit in more senses than one) foolishly opened hostilities. the result was two troopers wounded, six miners killed—bearing out king nick’s warning that the soldiers might easily be fooled, but they were by no means so easily frightened. the trade absorbed this lesson and there were no more regrettable incidents that season.
ortho was satisfied with his winter’s work beyond all expectations. it was a common tenet among free traders of those days that one cargo saved would pay for two lost, and ortho, so far from losing a single cargo, had only lost five tubs in all—three stove in transshipping and two when the mule carrying them fell into a pit. everybody was satisfied. the district was flooded with cheap liquor. all the covers in turn assisted in the boat-work and so picked up money in the off-season, when they needed it most. pyramus, with his animals in constant employment, did so well that he delayed his northern trip for a month.
the only person (with the exception of his majesty’s collector of customs) who was not entirely pleased was eli. in defrauding the revenue he had no scruples whatever, but it interfered with his farming. this smuggling was all very fine and remunerative, but it was a mere side line. bosula was his lifework, his being. if he and bohenna had to be up all night horse leading they could not be awake all day. the bracken was creeping in again. however, they were making money, heaps of it; there was no denying that.
with the instinctive dislike of a seaman for a landsman, and vice versa, neither jacky’s george nor pyramus would trust each other. the amphibious ortho was the necessary link between them and, as such, paid out more or less what he thought fit—as has been the way with middlemen since the birthday of the world. he paid jacky’s george one and six per cask for landing and pyramus three shillings for packing (they went two to a horse), making a profit of ten shillings clear himself. eli, the only person in the valley who could read, write or handle figures, kept the accounts and knew that at the end of march they were three hundred and forty pounds to the good. he asked ortho where the money was.
“hid up the valley,” said his brother. “put away where the devil himself wouldn’t find it.”
“what are you hiding it like that for?” eli asked.
“mother,” said ortho. “that last rip-roar she had must have nigh baled her bank dry and now she’s looking for more. i think she’ve got a notion who bubbled her last year and she’s aiming to get a bit of her own back. she knows i’ve got money and she’s spying on me all the time. i’d tell you where it is only i’m afeard you’d let it out without meaning to. i’m too sly for her—but you, you’re like a pane of glass.”
wholesale smuggling finished with the advent of spring. the shortening nights did not provide sufficient cover for big enterprises; dragoons and preventive men had not the same objections to being out of their beds in summer as in winter, and, moreover, the demand for liquor had fallen to a minimum.
this was an immense relief to eli, who now gave himself heart and soul to the farm, haling bohenna with him; but two disastrous seasons had impaired ortho’s vaunted enthusiasm for “the good old soil,” and he was absent most of the week, working up connections for next winter’s cargo-running—so he told eli—but it was noticeable that his business appointments usually coincided with any sporting events held in the hundred, and at hurling matches, bull-baitings, cock-fights and pony-races he became almost as familiar a figure as his mother had been, backing his fancy freely and with not infallible judgment. however, he paid his debts scrupulously and with good grace, and, though he drank but little himself, was most generous in providing, gratis, refreshment for others. he achieved strong local popularity, a priceless asset to a man who lives by flouting the law.
the money was not all misspent.
he developed in other ways, began to be particular about his person in imitation of the better-class squires, visited a penzance tailor of fashion and was henceforth to be seen on public occasions in a wide-skirted suit of black broadcloth frogged with silver lace, high stockings to match and silver-buckled shoes, very handsome altogether.
he had his mother’s blue-black hair, curling, bull-like, all over his head, sparkling eyes and strong white teeth. when he was fifteen she had put small gold rings in his ears—to improve his sight, so she said. at twenty he was six feet tall, slim and springy, moving among the boorish crowds like a rapier among bludgeons. his laugh was ready and he had a princely way with his money. women turned their eyes his way, sighing—and he was not insensible.
rumors of his brother’s amorous affairs drifted home to eli from time to time. he had cast off the parish clerk’s daughter, tamsin eva, and was after a farmer’s young widow in st. levan. now he had quarreled with the widow and was to be seen in trewellard courting a mine captain’s daughter. again he had put the miner’s daughter by, and st. ives gossips were coupling his name with that of the wife of a local preacher and making a great hoity-toity about it—and so on. it was impossible to keep track of ortho’s activities in the game of hearts.
he came home one morning limping from a slight gunshot wound in the thigh, and on another occasion brought his horse in nearly galloped to death, but he made no mention of how either of these things came about. though his work on the farm was negligible, he spent a busy summer one way and another.
pyramus was down by the eighth of november, and on the night of the fourteenth the ball was opened with a heavy run of goods, all of which were safely delivered. from then on till christmas cargo after cargo was slipped through without mishap, but on st. stephen’s day the weather broke up, the wind bustled round to the southeast and blew great guns, sending the big seas piling into monks cove in foaming hills. the cove men drew their boats well up, took down snares and antique blunderbusses and staggered inland rabbiting.
eli turned back to his farm-work with delight, but prosaic hard labor had no further attraction for ortho. he put in a couple of days sawing up windfalls, a couple more ferreting with bohenna, then he went up to church-town and saw tamsin eva again.
it was at a dance in the long room of the “lamb and flag” tavern and she was looking her best, dressed in blue flounced out at the hips, with a close-fitting bodice. she was what is known in west cornwall as a “red dane,” masses of bright auburn hair she had and a soft white skin. ortho, whose last three little affairs had been pronounced brunettes, turned to her with a refreshened eye, wondering what had made him leave her. she was dancing a square dance with her faithful swain, tom trevaskis, when ortho entered, circling and curtseying happily to the music of four fiddles led by jiggy dan.
the mine captain’s daughter glowed as rosy as a pippin, too rosy; the preacher’s spouse was an olive lady, almost swarthy. tamsin eva’s slender neck might have been carved from milk-ivory and she was tinted like a camellia. ortho’s dark eyes glittered. but it was her hair that fascinated him most. the room was lit by dips lashed to decorated barrel hoops suspended from the rafters, and as tamsin in her billowy blue dress swept and sidled under these the candlelight played tricks with her burnished copper head, flicked red and amber lights over and into it, crowned her with living gold. the black penhale felt his heart leap; she was most lovely! why on earth had he ever dropped her? why?
deep down he knew; it was because, for all her physical attraction, she wearied him utterly, seemed numbed in his presence, had not a word to say. that trewellard wench at least had a tongue in her head and the widow had spirit; he could still almost feel his cheek tingle where she had hit him. but that queenly crown of hair! he had an over-mastering desire to pull it down and bury his face in the shining golden torrent. he would too, ecod! dull she might have been, but that was two years ago. she’d grown since then, and so had he, and learnt a thing or two; a score of women had been at pains to teach him. he hadn’t gone far with tamsin previously—she’d been too damned soft—but he would now. he’d stir her up. apparently shallow women were often deep as the sea, deep enough to drown one. he’d take the risk of drowning; he fed on risks. that the girl was formally betrothed to trevaskis did not deter him in the slightest. there was no point in the game in which he could not out-maneuver the slovenly yokel.
he waited till the heated boy went to get himself a drink, and then shouldered through the press and claimed tamsin for the next dance, claiming her smilingly, inevitably, as though she was his private property and there had not been a moment’s break between them. the girl’s eyes went blank with dismay, she tried to decline. he didn’t seem to hear, but took her hand. she hung back weakly. there was no weakness in ortho’s grip; he led her out in spite of herself. she couldn’t resist him, she never had been able to resist him. fortunately for her he had never demanded much. poor tamsin! two years had not matured her mentally. she had no mind to mature; she was merely a pretty chattel, the property of the strongest claimant. ortho was stronger than trevaskis, so he got her.
when the boy returned she was dancing with the tall free trader; the golden head drooped, the life had gone out of her movements, but she was dancing with him. trevaskis tried to get to her at every pause, but always ortho’s back interposed. the farmer went outside and strode up and down the yard, glaring from time to time through the window; always tamsin was dancing with penhale. trevaskis ground his teeth. two years ago he had been jockeyed in the same way. was this swart gypsy’s whelp, whose amorous philanderings were common talk, to have first call on his bright girl whenever he deigned to want her? trevaskis swore he should not, but how to frustrate him he did not know. plainly tamsin was bewitched, was incapable of resistance; she had admitted as much, weeping. thrash ortho to a standstill he could not; he was not a brave man and he dared not risk a maul with the smuggler. had penhale been a “foreigner” he could have roused local feeling against him, but penhale was no stranger; he was the squire of bosula and, moreover, most popular, far more popular than he was himself. he had a wild idea of trying a shot over a bank in the dark—and abandoned it, shuddering. supposing he missed! what would penhale do to him? what wouldn’t he do to him? trevaskis hadn’t courage enough even for that. he strode up and down, oblivious of the rain gusts, trying to discover a chink in the interloper’s armor.
as for ortho, he went on dancing with tamsin, and when it was over took her home; he buried his face in that golden torrent. he was up at church-town the very next night and the next night and every night till the gale blew out.
trevaskis, abandoning a hopeless struggle, followed in the footsteps of many unlucky lovers and drowned his woes in drink. it was at the kiddlywink in monks cove that he did his drowning and not at the “lamb and flag,” but as his farm lay about halfway between the two there was nothing remarkable in that.
what did cause amusement among the covers, however, was the extraordinary small amount of liquor it required to lay him under the bench and the volume of his snores when he was there.
