Kitabı oku: «Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon», sayfa 9
“As I looked down, the distance had only seemed a few feet; but the moonlight was deceptive, and I found that the next ledge was beyond my reach. I could not look down to see if I could drop, and it was only by an effort that I kept the cold chill of fear from seizing upon me again. A moment’s thought reassured me; and dangerous as it seemed right up there, on the face of such a precipice, I closed my eyes and dropped.
“Then, all trembling as I was, I laughed; for I had only dropped a few inches, and it was upon a broader ledge than before; and without stopping to rest, I searched along for another place to lower myself, and soon found it; when, thoroughly desperate from my position – half drunk, you may say, with excitement – I climbed along here, down there, now with loose stones slipping from beneath me, now nearly falling, but always making my way lower and lower, till I was quite half-way down, when I stopped, regularly beaten, upon a ledge down to which I had slipped. There was the silvered water below me; the black face of the rock overhanging me; and on either side rugged masses that would give me no hold either to climb up, down, or side-wise. To lower myself was impossible, for the rock sloped away; to my left there was a large split, while it seemed perfectly hopeless to try and climb again, and find another way of getting down.
“However, I felt that if I stopped still I should soon turn giddy with fright, and fall, for the ledge was only a few inches wide where I stood; so, again rousing myself, I made an effort to climb up once more. You may think that it would have been wiser to have stayed where I was, in the hopes of attracting attention in the morning, and getting assistance either from one of the quarrymen or by signalling one of the boats that would be putting out from the cave; but, as I tell you, I dared not keep still, and the only way I could keep off the horrible dread was by trying to escape, and so exerting myself to my full strength. At last seizing a projecting fragment of the rock, just within reach of my fingers as I stood, I drew myself up, and got my chin above my hands, seeking all the while for a resting-place for my feet, and at last getting my right foot upon a tiny ledge.
“I think I told you that my foot were bare and bleeding – painful, too, they were – but I could not stop to think of that in the struggle I was making for life; but all at once, as I was making an effort to get a little higher, just at the moment when I put forth my whole strength, my bloody foot slipped from the ledge, and I was hanging by my hands to the rough piece of rock, my body swinging to and fro, my nails being torn from their roots, while what I fancied then was the death-sweat stood upon my face, and seemed to be trickling among the roots of my hair.
“As a young man I was always active, strong, and full of vigour, ready to join in any athletic sports; proud, too, of my muscles, and the feats I could perform. But in those seconds – drawn out, as it were, into hours – what a poor, frail, weak mortal I felt! The strength upon which I had so much prided myself seemed, as it were, nothing; and the brawny arms, whose corded muscles I had been so fond of rolling up my shirt sleeves to display, I felt were getting weaker and weaker every moment; while beneath me, in an ever increasing, angry roar, I could hear the waves, as if exulting and longing for their prey.
“As an earnest man, perhaps I should have prayed then; but what control have we in great peril over our thoughts? I think I once exclaimed, ‘God help me!’ and then my brain was one wild state of confusion; whilst the great difficulty seemed to me to realise that I was going to die – to fall headlong into the sea. But even in my horror I could picture how the water would fly sparkling up in the moonlight; while falling from such a height I should be killed by striking upon one of the rocks just beneath – all below me being a mass of foam. Now, I thought, how long would my arms bear the weight of my body, and why had I not practised them more to such exertion? Then, rousing myself once more, I made an effort, and tried to find a resting-place for my feet. Could I have reached the ledge on which I had been standing, I would have given years of my life; and then a sort of feeling of contempt for myself came upon me, as I thought I was trying to bargain with Death by offering him a few years of my unworthy life in exchange for the whole. But to reach the ledge I found was impossible, since I had leaped sideways from it to gain the piece of rock I hung by, while every effort made me weaker and weaker. I should have shouted, but my mouth and throat were dry. A horrible pain seized the back of my neck, and I could feel my eyes strained, and as if starting. Once I thought I would loose my hold and end my misery; but I was clinging for life, and I held on.
“It could only have been for a minute or two, but the time seemed endless; while the thoughts flashed through my mind in a wild confusion, faster and faster, as I felt my muscles giving way. At last I felt that I must fall, for my arms would bear the dead weight no longer; so, in a last despairing effort, I drew myself up, found for an instant a resting-place for my feet, then one knee was up by my hands, and the next instant I should have been lying panting upon a shelf; but the effort was made too late, and I believe a wild cry tore from my throat as I lost my hold, and could feel the air whistling by my ears as I fell down, down, what seemed an endless distance.
“Then came the cold plunge in the water – down into darkness, with the waves thundering in my ears, and the strangling water gushing into my nose. I could not think; but nature seemed to be prompting me to struggle on for my life, and, as I rose uninjured to the surface, I struck out feebly to reach the rocks.
“It was a wonder that I was not killed, for all along beneath us the shore is sown, as it were, with rocks of all sizes, covered at high water; but I fell in a deep part – there I think it must have been, where I throw this stone. Seems a long time falling, don’t it? Now, there, where you see the splash, and that’s just in front of the cave, that runs further in than we’ve ever found a man to penetrate as yet – for it’s always got water for a floor, and a boat can only go in for about thirty yards when it grows narrow, and any one would have to swim as I did that night, swimming on and on as the tide bore me, and that was right into the black mouth of the cave, while I was too weak to struggle against it – all I could do being to keep afloat.
“Now I was floating in; then, as the waves receded, I was drawn back, shivering and shuddering, as I felt the long brown slimy strands of the seaweed twining about my body like some horrible sea monster. Now I tried to hold by the rocky wall; but it was slippery, and glided by my fingers. But the cold shock of the water had done something to renew my energy, and instead of growing more helpless, I found that I could swim with more vigour after a few seconds; and once, as I floated over it, I managed to get a resting-place upon a smooth piece of rock about a foot under water. But the next minute it was three feet from the surface, as a wave came rolling in with the rising tide; and I was lifted off and borne many yards farther into the darkness of the cave.
“The moonlight penetrated for some distance; but beyond that all looked black and horrible, except where now and then I could see a wave break over a rock, and then there was a flash of light, and the water sparkled with the pale phosphorescent light – foul water, as the fishermen here call it. It was a horrible-looking place for an unnerved man to swim into; but in my weak state I dare not try to face the rough water at the mouth; so, as every wave came and bore me farther in, I swam on into the darkness, with the fear upon me that some dreadful monster would lace its arms round me and drag me under. More than once I shrieked out, for the seaweeds were thick here, and my feet were entangled; but I swam on, till after many trials I found a piece of rock upon which I could climb, and sit with the water washing round me and nearly hearing me off.
“And now I drooped, helpless and miserable; my remaining strength seemed to go away, and I hung down my head, and cried like a child. But that fit went off, and rousing up a little I looked about me; but only to see the moonlit, beautifully solemn mouth of the cave, with the silvery water rushing in. It looked beautiful and solemn to me, even then; while the hollow, deep, echoing, musical roar of the waves at the mouth, and in the lulls, the strange tinkling, mournful splash of the water dripping from the roof, farther in, where it was all dark, sounded dreadful to me.
“But the tide was rising, and I soon found that I must leave the rock I was on, and swim or wade farther in; while now the horrible thought came – would the tide fill the cavern, and should I be drowned at last? The thought was so horrible, that I was very nearly jumping off and trying to swim to the mouth, where, in my weak state, I must have lost my life; for a strong man could not battle with the waves as the tide rises. I had often heard tell of this ‘Hugo,’ as they call it here, but no one had ever explored it that I know of; for it is only in the calmest of weather that a boat could come near. However, I sat still for a few more moments, trying to pierce the darkness, and find a resting-place higher up. I dared not lower myself into the water again, for thought after thought kept coming of the strange sea creatures that might make the cave their home; but my indecision was put an end to by a heavy wave that came rolling in, and I was lifted from my seat and borne in again for some distance, and dashed against a stone, to whose slimy sides I clung as the water rushed back. Then I tried to find the bottom with my feet, but all in vain; and striking out, I swam on farther and farther into the darkness, helped on by a wave now and then, and clinging to some projection to keep from being sucked back – for once down again in the water, the dread seemed to some extent to leave me.
“On reaching a rock that I could climb upon, to my great joy I found that I could get beyond the reach of the water; but I had to feel my way, for by a bend of the cave I could now see no moonlit mouth, only a shining reflection upon one of the wet walls of the place; while all around me was a horrible black darkness, made ten times more dreadful by the strange echoing wash and drip of the water in the far recesses.
“Perhaps a bolder man would have felt his nerves creep, as it were, sitting, dripping and trembling, upon a slimy piece of stone in that dreadful darkness, conjuring up horrors of a kind that at more calm moments he could not describe; but knowing all the while, by merely stretching out a foot now and then, that the tide was rising higher and higher to sweep him off. Now my feet were under water, then my knees, and soon it rose so high that at every ninth wave – ‘the death wave,’ as we call it down here on the coast – I could feel myself lifted a little; and at last, just as it was before, I was swept off, and swimming again in the darkness to find another rock on which I could creep. More than once I touched something, with hand or foot, and snatched it shudderingly back; while at such times the waves bore me backwards and forwards as they ebbed and flowed. As far as I could tell, the bottom was quite beyond my reach, for I let down my feet again and again. But the cave grew much narrower; for now I struck my head against one side, and then against the other, as I laboriously swam along farther and farther, as it were, into the depths of the earth, till once more I came against a part of the rock which I could climb up – this time, by feeling carefully about, till I struck my head against the roof; and then crouched once more shiveringly down, waiting in a half-dazed, swoon-like state for the next time when I should have to make a struggle for life. I felt dull and listless, my senses seemed to be numbed, and it was almost in a dream that I half sat, half lay upon the wet rock, listening to the wash of the waves, and the dull roar echoing from the cave mouth; while close by me there seemed to be strange whispering sounds mingling with the dripping from the roof, which fell always with a little melodious plash.
“Sometimes I seemed to doze – a sort of stuporlike sleep from exhaustion – and then I started with a cry, expecting that I was hanging once more to the rock outside, or being swept away by a wave from the rock upon which I was resting; and at last, far in as I was, there came what to me was like hope of life – for at first very faint and pale, but by degrees stronger, the light of day came down into the thick blackness of that awful hole, cutting it like arrows, and striking upon the waters before it became broken and spread around.
“As far as I could see, it came down from the roof eight or ten yards from where I sat, but it was a long time before I could summon courage to lower myself into the water, and swim along till I came beneath the bright rays, when I found that they beamed through a rift in the roof some ten feet above me; though, as I again drew myself out of the water on to the rugged side, and then clambered into the rough, long rift, I was so stiff and weak that every movement made me groan with pain.
“Now, come here again to where the rift is, and you can look down, and listen to the roar and bubbling of the water. A strange, wild place, but I made my way up to light and life once more; though I have never found any man here yet with courage to go down, while how much farther the hole penetrates into the bowels of the earth no one knows. There are plenty of such caves along the coast here, made by the water gradually eating out a soft vein of stone from one that is harder; while as to my leaving my bed like that, and climbing to where I had been the day before, it must have been from over-excitement, I suppose. But there, such cases are common, and as a boy I often walked in my sleep, and went by night to places where I could not have gone had I been awake.”
Chapter Fourteen.
My Patients the Fishermen
I dreamed about that cave night after night, and it was a long time before I could get its weird echoes out of my mind. I had only to go down to the shore and listen to the wash of the waves to have my mason friend’s narrative come back in full force, till I felt quite a morbid pleasure in listening to the fancied beating and echoing of the tide in the hollow place.
I used to meet a good many of the fishermen down about the little pier, and after a little bit of a case that I managed with one poor fellow who had been for years leading a weary existence, I found that I might have commanded the services of every fisherman there and had their boats at pleasure. There was always a pleasant smile for me when I went down, and whenever a boat came in if I was seen upon the pier there was sure to be a rough sunburnt face looking into mine as a great string of fish was offered to me.
“They’re fresh as daisies, doctor,” the giver would say: a man, perhaps, that I had hardly seen before, while the slightest hint at payment was looked upon as an offence.
“And there’s no knowing, doctor,” said one man who presented me with a delicious hake, “I may be down at any time and want your help and advice. Didn’t you cure Sam Treporta? Lookye here doctor, don’t you go away again, you stop and practice down here. We’ll be ill as often as we can, and you shan’t never want for a bit of fish so long as the weather keeps fine.”
It was one afternoon down on the little rugged granite pier that I heard the story of Tom Trecarn and the bailiffs, and being rather a peculiar adventure I give it as it was told to me.
“‘Is that you, Tom?’
“‘Iss, my son,’ replied Tom, a great swarthy, black-whiskered, fierce-looking, copper-coloured Cornish giant, in tarry canvas trousers, and a blue worsted guernsey shirt – a tremendous fellow in his way – but with a heart as soft and tender as that of his wife, whom he had just addressed in the popular fashion of his part as ‘my son.’ Tom had just come home from mackerel fishing off the Scilly Isles. The take had only been poor, for the wind had been unfavourable; but the few hundred fish his lugger had brought in were sold, and with a few hake in his hand for private consumption, Tom Trecarn had come home for a good night’s rest.
“‘Oh, Tom,’ burst out his wife, throwing down that popular wind instrument without which upon a grand scale no fisherman’s granite cottage is complete – ‘Oh, Tom,’ said Mrs Trecarn, throwing down the bellows, there known as the ‘Cornish organ’ – ‘Oh, Tom, you’re a ruined man.’
“‘Not yet, my son,’ replied Tom, stoically; ‘but if things don’t mend, fishing won’t be worth the salt for a score of pilchards.’
“‘But Dan Pengelly’s broken, Tom,’ sobbed Mrs Trecarn.
“‘Then we’ll get him mended, my son,’ said Tom, kissing her.
“‘How many fish had ye?’ sang a voice outside the cottage, in the peculiar pleasant intonation common amongst the Cornish peasantry.
“‘Thousand an’ half,’ sang back Tom to the inquiring neighbour.
“‘Where did you shoot, lad?’ sang the voice again.
“‘West of Scilly, Eddard. Bad times: wind heavy, and there’s four boats’ fish.’
“‘Pengelly’s got the bailiffs in, Thomas,’ sang the neighbour, now thrusting his head in at the door.
“‘Sorry for him,’ sang Tom, preparing for a wash.
“‘And I’m sorry for you, Thomas,’ sang the neighbour.
“‘What for?’ said Tom, stoically.
“‘Why, aint all your craft in his store, Tom?’ inquired the neighbour.
“‘Oh, yes – every net,’ sobbed Mrs Trecarn; ‘and we’re ruined. Eighty-four pounds fifteen and seven-pence, too, those nets cost.’
“‘But’t aint nothing to us,’ said Tom, turning a different colour, as an ordinary man would have turned pale.
“‘Why, your craft’s seized too, lad; and ye’ll lose it all,’ cried the neighbour, singing it right into the great fellow’s ear.
“Down went the pitcher of water upon the stone floor in a wreck of potsherds and splash, and crash went the staggering neighbour against the side table set out with Mrs Trecarn’s ornaments, as Tom rushed out of the house, and up the street to Daniel Pengelly’s store.
“Dan Pengelly’s store was a well-known building in Carolyn, being a long, low, granite-built and shale-roofed shed, where many of the fishermen warehoused their herring and pilchard nets during the mackerel season – the mackerel nets taking their turn to rest when dried, on account of the pilchards making their appearance off the shores of Mount’s Bay. For, as in patriarchal days men’s wealth was in flocks and herds, so here in these primitive Cornish fishing villages it is the ambition of most men to become the owner of the red-sailed, fast-tacking luggers which, from some hitherto unexplained phenomenon, sail like the boats of every other fishing station – faster than any vessel that ploughs the waves. Failing to become the owner of a boat, the next point is to be able to boast of having so many nets, many a rough-looking, hard-handed fisherman being perhaps possessor of a couple or three hundred pounds’ worth, bought or bred (netted) by his wife and daughters.
“To Dan Pengelly’s store went Tom Trecarn, to find there a short, fresh-coloured, pudgy man leaning against one of the doorposts, holding the long clay pipe he smoked with one hand, and rubbing his nose with the key he held in the other.
“‘I want my nets out,’ said Tom, coming up furious as a bull. ‘I’ve got eighty pound worth of craft in here as don’t belong to the Pengellys.’
“‘So have I,’ and ‘So have I,’ growled a couple of the group of men lolling about and looking on in the idle way peculiar to fishermen when winds are unfavourable.
“‘Can’t help that,’ said the man, ceasing to rub his nose, and buttoning up the key in his pocket. ‘I’m in possession, and nothing can’t come out of here. The goods are seized for debt.’
“‘But I ain’t nothing to do with Pengelly’s debts,’ said Tom. ‘My nets ain’t going to pay for what he owes. I earned my craft with the sweat of my brow, and they’re only stored here like those of other lads.’
“‘Iss, my son – ’tis so – ’tis so,’ said one or two of the bystanders, nodding their heads approvingly.
“‘I’ve got nothing to do with that,’ said the man in possession; ‘the goods are seized, and whatever’s in Daniel Pengelly’s store will be sold if he don’t pay up; and that’s the law.’
“‘Do you mean to tell me that the law says you’re to sell one man’s goods to pay another man’s debts?’ said Tom.
“‘Yes, if they’re on the debtor’s premises,’ said the man, coolly.
“‘Then I’m blest if I believe it,’ cried Tom, furiously; ‘and if you don’t give up what belongs to me – ’
“Here he strode so furiously up to the bailiff that a couple of brother-fishermen rushed in, and between them hustled Trecarn off, and back to his cottage, where the poor fellow sat down beside his weeping wife, while the two ponderous fellows who had brought him home leaned one on either side of the door, silent and foil of unspoken condolence.
“‘Eighty-four pound!’ groaned Tom.
“‘Fifteen and seven-pence!’ sobbed his wife.
“‘Eight bran-new herring nets of mine,’ said one of his friends.
“‘And fifteen pound worth of my craft,’ muttered the other.
“‘And this is the law of the land, is it?’ growled Tom.
“‘They took Sam Kelynack’s little mare same way as was grazing on Tressillian’s paddock,’ said friend number one; and then they all joined in a groan of sympathy.
“Now, in most places the men would have adjourned to a public-house to talk over their troubles; but here in the Cornish fishing villages a large percentage of the men are total abstainers; and Mrs Trecarn having brewed a good cup of tea, and fried half-a-dozen split mackerel, they all sat down and made a hearty meal; while during the discussion that followed, some comfort seemed to come to the troubled spirits of the men, so that about eight o’clock that night they went arm-in-arm down the ill-paved street, singing a glee in good time, tune, and the harmony so well preserved, that a musician would have paused in wonder to find such an accomplishment amongst rough fishermen – an accomplishment as common as brass bands amongst the Lancashire and Yorkshire artisans.
“‘Not another drop, I thanky,’ said the bailiff to one of Tom’s friends, who stood by him tumbler in hand, stirring a stiff glass of grog.
“It was a fine night though it had been raining, and the water lay in pools around, one of the largest being in front of the door stone of Pengelly’s store, beside which the bailiff stood; for though carefully locked up, the man felt a disinclination to leave it, and he equally disliked shutting himself inside and sleeping upon a heap of nets; so he had treated the advances made by the man who had protected him from Trecarn with pleasure, and between them they had finished one strong tumbler of rum and water, and were well on with the second.
“‘Not another drop! thanky,’ said the bailiff; so Nicholas Harris again broke his pledge, taking a moderate sip, and passed the glass once more to the bailiff, who took it, sipped long and well, and then sighed; while it was observable that the last draught had so paved the way for more, that he made no further objections even when the glass was filled for the third and fourth time – each time the liquor being made more potent.
“At the filling of the fifth glass at eleven o’clock, when nearly the whole village was asleep, Nicholas Harris, who seemed wonderfully sober, considering, stopped and whispered to a couple of men in one of the corners behind the store; and in another half-hour, the said two shadowy figures came up to find the bailiff sitting in the pool of water in front of the store, and shaking his head in a melancholy way at his companion.
“‘I don’t feel well,’ said Harris, ‘and I’m going home. P’r’aps you’ll help that gentleman up to the King’s Arms.’
“Neither of the new-comers spoke; but each seized the bailiff by an arm, and tried to lift him to his feet. But he did not wish to be lifted to his feet, and sat him down down again in the wettest spot of the road, making the water fly from beneath him, while every fresh attempt to get him away was fiercely resisted.
“‘Have you got it?’ whispered one of the new-comers.
“‘Ay, lad!’ said the other, ‘it’s all right.’
“‘Then fetch a barrow.’
“The man spoken to came back in a few minutes with a wheelbarrow, by which time the bailiff seemed in a state of hopeless collapse, and remained so when he was lifted into the barrow.
“‘Don’t laugh,’ whispered one man, as the other held his sides, and stamped about with mirth to see his companion’s efforts to get the man in position; for he could not sit down, nor lie down, nor be placed side-wise, nor cross-wise. Once he was in a sitting posture and, seizing the handles, the man started the barrow; but the bailiff slowly slid down till his head rested upon the barrow wheel, and ground against it.
“‘P’raps you’ll wheel him yourself next time,’ he grumbled to his laughing companion, who stepped up, seized the collapsed bailiff round the waist and carried him in his arms as easily as a girl would a baby, till he reached the village public-house, where he deposited his burden beneath a cart-shed, while the peace of that end of the village was disturbed no more until morning.
“The next day there was an application to the magistrates respecting the nets that had been stolen from Pengelly’s store – nets of the value of over one handled pounds having been removed no one knew whither Nicholas Harris was taken to task as having been seen with the bailiff drinking; but he swore truthfully that he had gone home directly he quitted him, and had lain in bed all the next day with a fearful headache. His nets were amongst those taken. Pengelly proved that the other nets taken were Trecarn’s and Pollard’s, but upon their places being searched only some old nets were found, while the men themselves had put off for sea early that morning. However upon the magistrate learning from Pengelly that every article belonging to him was safe upon his premises, he turned round and whispered for some little time to his clerk, and it was arranged that the case should be adjourned.
“That case was adjourned, and, as the sequel proved sine die, for no further notice was taken. Daniel Pengelly got into difficulties, and his goods were sold – Tom Trecarn purchasing some of his nets; whilst it was observable on all sides that both Tom and his friends were in excellent spirits, though that might have been owing to the large take of mackerel they brought in. As to the proceedings of that night, the morality is very questionable; but still, by way of excuse, it does seem hard that under the present state of the law, even though a man can substantially prove that goods upon a defaulter’s premises are his own, he must still lose them, as many a poor fellow has found to his cost. However, the above narrative is a fact, and one’s sympathies cannot fail of tending towards the annexation of the nets.”
