The first winter had interrupted all
work upon the rock; but Taffy and his men had used
the calm days of the following spring and summer to
such purpose that before the end of July the foundations
began to show above high-water neaps, and in September
he was able to report that the building could be pushed
forward in any ordinary weather. The workmen
were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser
and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected
them from the beat of the sea. Progress was
slow, for each separate stone had to be dovetailed
above, below, and on all sides with the blocks adjoining
it, besides being cemented; and care to be taken that
no salt mingled with the fresh water, or found its
way into the joints of the building. Taffy studied
the barometer hour by hour, and kept a constant look-out
to windward against sudden gales.
On November 16th the men had finished
their dinner, and sat smoking under the lee of the
wall, when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his hand,
gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for
shore. They stared. The morning had been
a halcyon one; and the northerly breeze, which had
sprung up with the turn of the tide and was freshening,
carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels,
abrigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily
reaching down-channel before it, the brigantine leading;
at two miles’ distance they could see distinctly
the white foam running from her bluff bows, and her
forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she heeled
to it.
One or two grumbled. Half a
day’s work meant half a day’s pay to them.
It was all very well for the Cap’n, who drew
his by the week.
“Come, look alive!” Taffy
called sharply. He pinned his faith to the barometer,
and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the brigantine
and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, flattening
the forward canvas. “See there, boys.
There’ll be a gale from the west’ard
before night.”
For a minute the brigantine seemed
to have run into a calm. The schooner, half a
mile behind her, came reaching along steadily.
“That there two-master’s
got a fool for a skipper,” grumbled a voice.
But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback or
would have done so had the crew not been preparing
for it. Her stern swung slowly around into view,
and within two minutes she was fetching away from
them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and
closer as she went. Already the schooner was
preparing to follow suit.
“Snug down, boys! We must
be out of this in half an hour.”
And sure enough, by the time Taffy
gained the cliff by the old light-house, the sky had
darkened, and a stiff breeze from the north-west,
crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty
sea around the rock and lop it from time to time over
the masonry and the platforms where half an hour before
his men had been standing. The two vessels had
disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared in
their direction a spit of rain the first took
him viciously in the face.
He turned his back to it and hurried
homeward. As he passed the light-house door
old Pezzack called out to him:
“Hi! wait a bit! Would
‘ee mind seein’ Joey home? I dunno
what his mother sent him over here for, not I. He’ll
get hisself leakin’.”
Joey came hobbling out, and put his
right hand in Taffy’s with the fist doubled.
“What’s that in your hand?”
Joey looked up shyly. “You won’t
tell?”
“Not if it’s a secret.”
The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown
piece.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“The soldier gave it to me.”
“The soldier? nonsense! What tale are
you making up?”
“Well, he had a red coat, so
he must be a soldier. He gave it to me,
and told me to be a good boy and run off and play.”
Taffy came to a halt. “Is he here up
at the cottages?”
“How funnily you say that!
No, he’s just rode away. I watched him
from the light-house windows. He can’t
be gone far yet.”
“Look here, Joey can you run?”
“Yes, if you hold my hand; only
you mustn’t go too fast. Oh, you’re
hurting!”
Taffy took the child in his arms,
and with the wind at his back went up the hill with
long stride. “There he is!” cried
Joey as they gained the ridge; and he pointed; and
Taffy, looking along the ridge, saw a speck of scarlet
moving against the lead-coloured moors half
a mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat
the child down, for the cottages were close by.
“Run home, sonny. I’m going to have
a look at the soldier, too.”
The first bad squall broke on the
headland just as Taffy started to run. It was
as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and
within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the
skin. So fiercely it went howling inland along
the ridge that he half expected to see the horse urged
into a gallop before it. But the rider, now
standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went
plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared
over the rise; but Taffy guessed that on hitting the
cross-path beyond it they would strike away to the
left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he began
to slant his course to the left in anticipation.
The tide, he knew, would be running in strong; and
with this wind behind it he hoped and caught
himself praying that it would be high enough
to cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford
impassable; and if so, the horseman would be delayed
and forced to head back and fetch a circuit farther
up the valley.
By this time the squalls were coming
fast on each other’s heels, and the strength
of them flung him forward at each stride. He
had lost his hat, and the rain poured down his back
and squished in his boots. But all he felt was
the hate in his heart. It had gathered there
little by little for three years and a half, pent up,
fed by his silent thoughts as a reservoir by small
mountain streams; and with so tranquil a surface that
at times poor youth! he had honestly
believed it reflected God’s calm, had been proud
of his magnanimity, and said “forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against
us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same
God to delay the traitor at the ford.
Dusk was falling when George, yet
unaware of pursuit, turned down the sunken lane which
ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when
the small waves lapped against his mare’s fore-feet,
he heard Taffy’s shout for the first time and
turned in his saddle. Even so it was a second
or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging
down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only
by wild clutches at the swaying elder boughs.
“Hello!” he shouted cheerfully.
“Looks nasty, doesn’t it?”
Taffy came down the beach, near enough
to see that the mare’s legs were plastered with
mud, and to look up into his enemy’s face.
“Get down,” he panted.
“Hey?”
“Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse
and put up your fists!”
“What the devil is the matter?
Hello! . . . Keep off, I tell you! Are
you mad?”
“Come off and fight.”
“By God, I’ll break your
head in if you don’t let go. . . . You
idiot!” as the mare plunged and tore
the stirrup-leather from Taffy’s grip “She’ll
brain you, if you fool round her heels like that!”
“Come off, then.”
“Very well.” George
backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle and
faced him on the beach. “Now perhaps you’ll
explain.”
“You’ve come from the headland?”
“Well?”
“From Lizzie Pezzack’s.”
“Well, and what then?”
“Only this, that so sure as
you’ve a wife at home, if you come to the headland
again I’ll kill you; and if you’re a man,
you’ll put up your fists now.”
“Oh, that’s it?
May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with
Lizzie Pezzack?”
“Whose child is Lizzie’s?”
“Not yours, is it?”
“You said so once; you told your wife so; liar
that you were.”
“Very good, my gentleman.
You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!”
He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to
tie his reins to. The mare hung back, terrified
by the swishing of the whipped boughs and the roar
of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged
her forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones
on the beach. After a minute he desisted and
turned on Taffy again.
“Look here; before we have this
out there’s one thing I’d like to know.
When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you
there?”
“If you must know yes.”
“And when when this happened, she
stopped the supplies?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I didn’t know it. She
never told me.”
“She never told me.”
“You don’t say ”
“I do. I never knew it until too late.”
“Well, now, I’m going
to fight you. I don’t swallow being called
a liar. But I tell you this first, that I’m
damned sorry. I never guessed that it injured
your prospects.”
At another time, in another mood,
Taffy might have remembered that George was George,
and heir to Sir Harry’s nature. As it was,
the apology threw oil on the flame.
“You cur! Do you think
it was that? And you are Honoria’s
husband!” He advanced with an ugly laugh.
“For the last time, put up your fists.”
They had been standing within two
yards of each other; and even so, shouted at the pitch
of their voices to make themselves heard above the
gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted
his whip. His left hand held the bridle on which
the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action was
merely instinctive, to guard against sudden attack.
But as he did so his face and uplifted
arm were suddenly painted clear against the darkness.
The mare plunged more wildly than ever. Taffy
dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him,
the black contour of the hill, the whole sky welled
up a pale blue light which gathered brightness while
he stared. The very stones on the beach at his
feet shone separate and distinct.
“What is it?” George gasped.
“A ship on the rocks! Quick, man!
Will the mare reach to Innis?”
“She’ll have to.”
George wheeled her round. She was fagged out
with two long gallops after hounds that day, but for
the moment sheer terror made her lively enough.
“Ride, then! Call up the
coast-guard. By the flare she must be somewhere
off the creek here. Ride!”
A clatter of hoofs answered him as
the mare pounded up the lane.