the return of ortho penhale, nearly seven years after his supposed death, caused a sensation in west cornwall. the smuggling affair at monks cove was remembered and exaggerated out of all semblance to the truth. millions of gallons had been run through by ortho and his gang, culminating in a pitched battle with the dragoons. nobody could say how many were killed in that affray, and it was affirmed that nobody ever would know. midnight buryings were hinted at, hush money and so on; a dark, thrilling business altogether. ortho was spoken of in the same breath as king nick and other celebrities of the “trade.” his subsequent adventures lost nothing in the mouths of the gossips. he had landed in barbary a slave and in the space of two years become a general. the sultan’s favorite queen fell in love with him; on being discovered in her arms he had escaped by swimming four miles out to sea and intercepting an east indiaman, in which vessel he had visited india and seen the great mogul.
ortho discovered himself a personage. it was a most agreeable sensation. men in every walk of life rushed to shake his hand. he found himself sitting in penzance taverns in the exalted company of magistrates and other notables telling the story of his adventures—with picturesque additions.
and the women. even the fine ladies in chapel street turned their proud heads when he limped by. his limp was genuine to a point; but when he saw a pretty woman ahead he improved on it to draw sympathy and felt their softened eyes following him on his way, heard them whisper, “ortho penhale, my dear . . . general in barbary . . . twelve times wounded. . . . how pale he looks and how handsome!”
a most agreeable sensation.
to insure that he should not pass unnoticed he affected a slight eccentricity of attire. for him no more the buff breeches, the raffish black and silver coats; dressed thus he might have passed for any squire.
he wore instead the white trousers of a sailor, a marine’s scarlet tunic he had picked up in a junk shop, a colored kerchief loosely knotted about his throat, and on his bull curls the round fur cap of the sea. there was no mistaking him. small boys followed him in packs, round-eyed, worshipful. . . . “ortho penhale, smuggler, barbary lancer!”
if he had been popular once he was doubly popular now. the monks cove incident was forgiven but not forgotten; it went to swell his credit, in fact. to have arrested him on that old score would have been more than the collector’s life was worth. the collector, prudent man, publicly shook penhale by the hand and congratulated him on his miraculous escape.
ortho found his hoard of six hundred and seventy pounds intact in the hollow ash by tumble down and spent it freely. he gave fifty pounds to anson’s widow (who had married a prosperous cousin some years before, forgotten poor anson and did not need it) and put a further fifty in his pockets to give to tamsin eva.
bohenna told him the story as a joke, but ortho was smitten with what he imagined was remorse.
he remembered tamsin—a slim, appealing little thing in blue, skin like milk and a cascade of red gold hair. he must make some honorable gesture—there were certain obligations attached to the r?le of local hero. it was undoubtedly somewhat late in the day. the trevaskis lout had married the girl and accepted the paternity of the child (it was a boy six years old now, bohenna reported), but that made no difference; he must make his gesture. fifty pounds was a lot of money to a struggling farmer; besides he would like to see tamsin again—that slender neck and marvelous hair! if trevaskis wasn’t treating her properly he’d take her away from him, boy and all; b’god, he would!
he went up to the trevaskis homestead one afternoon and saw a meager woman standing at the back of a small house washing clothes in a tub. her thin forearms were red with work, her hair was screwed up anyhow on the top of her head and hung over her eyes in draggled rat’s-tails, her complexion had faded through long standing over kitchen fires, her apron was torn and her thick wool socks were thrust into a pair of clumsy men’s boots.
it was some seconds before he recognized her as tamsin. tamsin after seven years as a working man’s wife. a couple of dirty children of about four and five were making mud pies at her feet, and in the cottage a baby lifted its querulous voice.
she had other children then—two, three, half a dozen perhaps—huh!
ortho turned about and limped softly away, unnoticed, the fifty pounds still in his pockets.
making amends to a pretty woman was one thing, but to a faded drudge with a school of trevaskis bantlings quite another suit of clothes.
he gave the fifty pounds to his mother, took her to penzance and bought her two flamboyant new dresses and a massive gold brooch. she adored him. the hard times, scratching a penny here and there out of eli, were gone forever. her handsome, free-handed son was back again, master of bosula and darling of the district. she rode everywhere with him, to hurling matches, bull baitings, races and cock-fights, big with pride, chanting his praises to all comers.
“that eli would have seen me starve to death in a ditch,” she would say, buttonholing some old crony in a tavern. “but ortho’s got respect for his old mother; he’d give me the coat off his back or the heart out of his breast, he would, so help me!” (hiccough.)
mother and son rode together all over the hundred, teresa wreathed in fat, splendid in attire, still imposing in her virile bulk; ortho in his scarlet tunic, laughing, gambling, dispensing free liquor, telling amazing stories. eli stayed at home, working on the farm, bewildered, dumb, the look in his eyes of a suffering dog.
christmas passed more merrily than ever before at the owls’ house that year. half gwithian was present and two fiddlers. some danced in the kitchen, the overflow danced in the barn, profusely decorated with evergreens for the occasion so that it had the appearance of a candlelit glade. few of the men went to bed at all that night and, with the exception of eli, none sober. twelfth night was celebrated with a similar outburst, and then people settled down to work again and ortho found himself at a loose end. he could always ride into penzance and pass the time of day with the idlers in the “star,” but that was not to his taste. he drank little himself and disliked the company. furthermore, he had told most of his tales and was in danger of repeating them.
ortho was wise enough to see that if he were not careful he would degenerate from the local hero into the local bore—and gave penzance a rest. there appeared to be nothing for it but that he should get down to work on the farm; after his last eight years it was an anti-climax which presented few allurements.
before long there would be no excuse for idleness. the kiddlywink in monks cove saw him most evenings talking blood and thunder with jacky’s george. he lay abed late of a morning and limped about the cliffs on fine afternoons.
the luddra head was his favorite haunt; from its crest he could see from the lizard point to the logan rock, some twenty miles east and west, and keep an eye on the shipping. he would watch the mount’s bay fishing fleets flocking out to their grounds; the welsh collier brigs racing up-channel jib-boom and jib-boom; mail packets crowding all sail for open sea; a big blue-water merchantman rolling home from the world’s ends, or a smart frigate logging nine knots on a bowline, tossing the spray over her fo’csle in clouds. he would criticize their handling, their rigs, make guesses as to their destinations and business.
it was comfortable up on the head, a slab of granite at one’s back, a springy cushion of turf to sit upon, the winter sunshine warming the rocks, pouring all over one.
one afternoon he climbed the head to find a woman sitting in his particular spot. he cursed her under his breath, turned away and then turned back again. might as well see what sort of woman it was before he went; you never knew. he crawled up the rocks, came out upon the granite platform pretending he had not noticed the intruder, executed a realistic start of surprise, and said, “good morning to you.”
“good afternoon,” the girl replied.
ortho accepted the correction and remarked that the weather was fine.
the girl did not contest the obvious and went on with her work, which was knitting.
ortho looked her all over and was glad he had not turned back. a good-looking wench this, tall yet well formed, with a strong white neck, a fresh complexion and pleasant brown eyes. he wondered where she lived. gwithian parish? she had not come to his christmas and twelfth night parties.
he sat down on a rock facing her. “my leg,” he explained; “must rest it.”
she made no remark, which he thought unkind; she might have shown some interest in his leg.
“got wounded in the leg in barbary.”
the girl looked up. “what’s that?”
ortho reeled slightly. was it possible there was anybody in england, in the wide world, who did not know where barbary was?
“north coast of africa, of course,” he retorted.
the girl nodded. “oh, ’es, i believe i have heard father tell of it. dutch colony, isn’t it?”
“no,” ortho barked.
the girl went imperturbably on with her knitting. her shocking ignorance did not appear to worry her in the least; she did not ask ortho for enlightenment and he did not feel like starting the subject again. the conversation came to a full stop.
the girl was a ninny, ortho decided; a feather-headed country ninny—yet remarkably good looking for all that. he admired the fine shape of her shoulders under the blue cloak, the thick curls of glossy brown hair that escaped from her hood, and those fresh cheeks; one did not find complexions like that anywhere else but here in the wet southwest. he had an idea that a dimple would appear in one of those cheeks if she laughed, perhaps in both. he felt he must make the ninny dimple.
“live about here?” he inquired.
she nodded.
“so do i.”
no reply; she was not interested in where he lived, drat her! he supplied the information. “i live at bosula in the valley; i’m ortho penhale.”
the girl did not receive this enthralling intelligence with proper emotion. she looked at him calmly and said, “penhale of bosula, are ’e? then i s’pose you’m connected with eli?”
once more ortho staggered. that any one in the penwith hundred should be in doubt as to who he was, the local hero! to be known only as eli’s brother! it was too much! but he bit his lip and explained his relationship to eli in a level voice. the ninny was even a bigger fool than he had thought, but dimple she should. the conversation came to a second full stop.
two hundred feet below them waves draped the luddra ledges with shining foam cloths, poured back, the crannies dribbling as with milk, and launched themselves afresh. a subdued booming traveled upwards, died away in a long-drawn sigh, then the boom again. great mile-long stripes and ribbons of foam outlined the coast, twisted by the tides into strange patterns and arabesques, creamy white upon dark blue. jackdaws darted in and out of holes in the cliff-side and gulls swept and hovered on invisible air currents, crying mournfully. in a bed of campions, just above the toss of the breakers, a red dog fox lay curled up asleep in the sun.
“come up here often?” ortho inquired, restarting the one-sided conversation.
“no.”
“ahem!—i do; i come up here to look at the ships.”
the girl glanced at him, a mischievous sparkle in her brown eyes. “then wouldn’t you see the poor dears better if you was to turn and face ’em, squire penhale?”
she folded her knitting, stood up and walked away without another word.
ortho arose also. she had had him there. not such a fool after all, and she had dimpled when she made that sally—just a wink of a dimple, but entrancing. he had a suspicion she had been laughing at him, knew who he was all the time, else why had she called him “squire”?
by the lord, laughing at him, was she? that was a new sensation for the local hero. he flushed with anger. blast the girl! but she was a damned handsome piece for all that. he watched her through a peep-hole in the rocks, watched her cross the neck of land, pass the earth ramparts of the luddra’s prehistoric inhabitants and turn left-handed along the coast path. then, when she was committed to her direction, he made after her as fast as he was capable. despite his wound he was capable of considerable speed, but the girl set him all the pace he needed.
she was no featherweight, but she skipped and ran along the craggy path as lightly as a hind. ortho labored in the rear, grunting in admiration.
catch her he could not; it was all he could do to keep her in sight. where a small stream went down to the sea through a tangle of thorn and bramble she gave him the slip.
he missed the path altogether, went up to his knees in a bog hole and got his smart white trousers in a mess. ten minutes it took him to work through that tangle, and when he came out on the far side there was no sign of the girl. he cursed her, damned himself for a fool, swore he was going back—and limped on. she must live close at hand; he’d try ahead for another mile and then give it up.
within half a mile he came upon roswarva standing among its stunted sycamores.
he limped up to the door and rapped it with his stick. simeon penaluna came out. ortho greeted him with warmth; but lately back from foreign parts he thought he really must come and see how his good neighbor was faring. simeon was surprised; it was the first time the elder penhale had been to the house. this sudden solicitude for his welfare was unlooked for.
he said he was not doing as badly as he might be and asked the visitor in.
the visitor accepted, would just sit down for a moment or two and rest a bit . . . his wounds, you know. . . .
a moment or two extended to an hour. ortho was convinced the girl was somewhere about—there were no other houses in the neighborhood—and, now he came to remember, penaluna had had a daughter in the old days, an awkward child, all legs like a foal; the same girl, doubtless. she would have to show up sooner or later. he talked and talked, and talked himself into an invitation to supper. his persistency was rewarded; the girl he had met on the cliffs brought the supper in and simeon introduced her as his daughter mary. not by a flicker of an eyelash did she show that she had ever seen ortho before, but curtsied to him as grave as a church image.
it was ten o’clock before ortho took his way homewards. he had not done so badly, he thought. mary penaluna might pretend to take no interest in his travels, but he had managed to hold simeon’s ears fast enough.
the grim farmer had laughed till the tears started at ortho’s descriptions of the antics of the negro soldiers after the looting at figvig and the equatorial mummery on board the indiaman.
mary penaluna might pretend not to be interested, but he knew better. once or twice, watching her out of the tail of his eye, he had seen her lips twitch and part. he could tell a good story, and knew it. in soldier camps and on shipboard he had always held his sophisticated audiences at his tongue’s tip; it would be surprising if he could not charm a simple farm girl.
more than ever he admired her—the soft glow on her brown hair as she sat sewing, her broad, efficient hands, the bountiful curves of her. and ecod! in what excellent order she kept the house! that was the sort of wife for a farmer.
and he was a farmer now. why, yes, certainly. he would start work the very next day.
this wandering was all very well while one was young, but he was getting on for thirty and holed all over with wounds, five to be precise. he’d marry that girl, settle down and prosper.
as he walked home he planned it all out. his mother should stop at bosula of course, but she’d have to understand that mary was mistress. not that that would disturb teresa to any extent; she detested housekeeping and would be glad to have it off her hands. then there was eli, good old brother, best farmer in the duchy. eli was welcome to stop too and share all profits. ortho hoped that he would stop, but he had noticed that eli had been very silent and strange since his home-coming and was not sure of him—might be wanting to marry as well and branch out for himself. tregors had gone, but there was over four hundred pounds of that smuggling money remaining, and if eli wanted to set up for himself he should have every penny of it to start him, every blessed penny—it was not more than his due, dear old lad.
as soon as mary accepted him—and he didn’t expect her to take more than a week in making up her mind—he’d hand the money over to eli with his blessing. before he reached home that night he had settled everybody’s affairs to his own satisfaction and their advantage. ortho was in a generous mood, being hotly in love again.
