The Admiral's Daughter

Spring had come to the West Country, a joyous spring laden with soft airs and odours of distant flowering lands, and filling the hearts of men with a restless delight. It seemed impossible not to be happy, with a blue sky flecked by little clouds running down to meet a blue sea, the hedgerows gleaming with blackthorn, and the pink tips of the beeches shining in the sun. Children were out in the copses, picking primroses; farmers counted their lambs in the pasture, and down in the harbour sailor boys watched the rising tide and were all impatience to be aboard.

On the highest point of a headland to the west of the village of Garth a youth was sitting, staring out on the Channel. A jutting ledge of rock, with a tall boulder at its back, formed a natural chair of stone, and from it the green sward dipped steeply to the cliff. The boy's long, loosely set limbs, showing thin under the wrinkles of his knee breeches, sprawled restlessly across the rocky seat; the heels of his riding boots tore at the grass. In his fixed, seaward gaze there was nothing of the expectancy and hope that marked the faces of the youths in the harbour below. His eyes, that could be so merry, with gold lights dancing in the brown, were sad and dark under the black lashes, and his mouth, losing its shape of laughter, was set in hard lines. The world might be full of glamour, but 'twas not for him; fortune and the hour were all awry; he was out of tune with the spring. And when from the cobbled streets below rose the sound of sailors singing, mingled with the noises which to a practised ear betokened tide and time, the boy's black head dropped, and with a smothered word he set his knees together and drew his hands across his ears.

Sitting there he was unaware of the approach of light footsteps along a narrow path that wound over the headland, and only when a hand tapped his shoulder did he raise his head.

'Marion!' he said, springing to his feet, a smile banishing his dark looks; 'where have you been all this time?'

The brown eyes, now all alight, met a pair of steady grey ones whose owner dropped him a mock curtsey, then stood looking at him from head to foot and back again.

'You are a most uncomfortable person to know, Roger,' she said. 'I cannot keep the same impression of you two months together. You are inches taller than when I saw you last; your shoulders bid fair to burst your jacket seams; your eyebrows are several degrees blacker. I wish you would determine what length you are going to be, and abide by it.'

The boy looked ruefully down at the long limbs, all unaware (as the girl knew) how generously nature had dealt out her gifts to him, so that his great size was carried with an easy grace.

'You'll have to bear with it, I fear,' he said, with a shyness that always overcame him when considering his length and girth. 'I suppose it comes of having tall forbears. Sit down and talk to me. What is in that basket?'

'Bake-meats for your funeral, I judged, coming along. Ah! This is good.'

The girl settled on the stone seat, folding her hands in her lap, and turned her face to the sea. She did not at once begin to speak, and her companion, knowing her ways, sat silent. He took the occasion to steal one or two sidelong looks at the profile offered him, and in doing so was assailed (not for the first time) by the disquieting thought that his little playmate was altering fast. The chin was still a shade long, the nose rather short, the mouth still drooped at the corners, the freckles still over-ran the colourless skin: all the peculiarities which Roger had not failed to bring to the owner's notice, whenever an opportunity offered itself during the last ten years, were without doubt unchanged. According to Marion, Roger's progress towards manhood was measurable in square feet. Her own advancing womanhood was much less tangible a growth. Stealthily eyeing the averted face, Roger found himself at a loss to define the change, and not being given to habits of analysis, he left the mystery unsolved.

For a while the girl watched the sea-gulls flashing in the sunlight; then turned to her companion.

'This is good,' she repeated. 'For the first time for six weeks I feel free. All this age I have been in attendance on Aunt Keziah. She left us yesterday, you know, and before she went she must needs turn the house topsy-turvy. Curnow has been at her wits' end. My aunt had the guest-chamber hangings down, and discovered a flaw in the gold stitch; and nothing must serve but that Elise and I should sit with our needles-and-in all this lovely weather-and go over the whole pattern. And then, after that-oh la! I won't talk about it. That is where I've been. And you?'

'Lambs,' said the young man shortly. 'Calves, pigs, chickens. Twenty acres ploughed.' The unhappy expression came into his face.

The girl's grey eyes rested on him a moment. 'Still the same?' she asked, her voice soft.

Roger looked at her and looked away again to the sea, making no reply. His companion waited, sitting motionless. Twenty times in his growing manhood he had tried to shut the door on his sorrows, and twenty times it had opened at the sound of those gentle tones.

'I do not know how long I can go on bearing it,' he said, after a time. 'Last night I spoke to my mother again, and she wept and begged me to wait another little while ... gave me once more, as if I should forget-or as if it could make any difference-the story of my father's drowning. For that matter, what sailor would wish to die abed? But women can never understand that.' Roger poked the grass with his holly stick and went on, not seeing the look of mingled pity and amusement that ran across his hearer's face. 'Do you know that down yonder in the harbour is the Fair Return, put in from Plymouth, outward bound for-oh-the other end of the world. They are picking up Jack Poole here. Jack Poole. And here am I, my father's son, who had sailed to the Indies and back before he was my age; and I am-a prosperous young farmer. Bah! Did you see her, the Fair Return?'

'I did.'

'I cannot bear to see her set sail, and I cannot bear not to. That is why I am up here. In another hour the tide will turn and she will go. I cannot bear to look at the sea, even, and I cannot bear not to. All my life slipping away from me. Pigs, calves, lambs. Twenty acres ploughed. And yonder'-the boy's eyes sought the west-'uncharted seas to cross, lands to explore, fortunes to find; the great, great world. No one knows how big the world is. And I shall never know because my mother weeps and bids me wait-wait. Do you know what the sea is like when it calls?'

The girl's face was turned away.

'Really, Roger,' she said lightly, after a moment's pause. 'How old are you? I should know, for there are but twelve months between us. Eighteen and a half, are you? And you say your life is slipping away. You are truly laughable. You might be an old man of thirty. Patience, Roger!' she went on, her voice deepening a little. 'What guarantee have you from fate that what has happened must continue so to happen-that life must needs go on for ever as it is now? Patience for another little while! Who knows what fortune, what great fortune, is awaiting you? What adventure, what discoveries, what honours? And how worth while the little waiting will have been! A ship seven times fairer than the Fair Return-nay, seven ships. Seven uncharted seas to cross-nay, seven worlds to sail round!' She laughed a brave little laugh, and the youth turned his eyes from the sea and his discontent.... 'I should like to shake you! Now come along with me to old Mother Poole's. I have a dozen of eggs and one of Curnow's spiced cakes for her in this basket, to comfort her somewhat for the departure of that rascal of a son.'

Roger sprang to his feet and drew a long breath. 'And if I have seven ships, they shall all be called Marion. You always put heart in me, little Mawfy. You are wiser than I.'

The girl made a grimace. 'I feel as old as Aunt Keziah this minute, but don't make me also feel I should wear cassock and bands, sir.'

Turning inland, the two walked slowly across the hill.

'So Mistress Penrock has gone away,' said Roger. 'I'm very glad. I am mortally afraid of your Aunt Keziah, although I only saw her once, when she was walking with the Admiral. Where is she going to stay now?'

'At Bath, where she says she will hear a little of the world, and not be dependent on a news sheet. How we live in this monstrously dull hole she cannot conceive. She said so her last night at supper.'

'And your father?'

'My father laughs at her. He loves to hear her talk. So does Elise, although she and my aunt are sworn enemies'-Marion smiled-'But Aunt Keziah has unsettled Elise a little, I think. Elise has a great hankering after gaiety. Do you know, Roger, my father has written asking my Aunt Constance to visit us from London. I have never seen her, but like you with my Aunt Keziah, I am in terror of her already. Aunt Keziah says (rather scornfully, I think, to hide her envy) that Aunt Constance is one of the greatest ladies at Court.'

'Why did the Admiral ask her then?' innocently inquired Roger. 'Garth is not the place for a Court beauty.'

'My father loves to be entertained. Apart from that, he thinks I am growing up entirely lacking in the airs and graces that do become a young lady,' said Marion demurely. 'And if my aunt will not come here, perhaps I may go to her.'

'What! You go to London-you?'

'I, sir, I. Why not?'

Roger stood still and looked down at the mocking face, the black bars of his eyebrows drawn together.

'I think the Admiral must be going mad! London! Pshaw! The Court!-airs, graces, forsooth! Intrigues and ferments. Discontent with the simple life you are so contented with now. Why cannot the Admiral let well alone?'

Marion gave one of her father's sudden chuckles.

'You won't be here to see the result of my father's folly, you know. You'll be out on the seven seas adventuring. What can the happenings down here count for a sailor? Now, if you cannot hold that basket carefully, give it to me.'

'I say the Admiral is mad,' said the young man again, kicking at the stones in his path. 'What would the world be were one ten times a sailor, without places like Garth and Marions living in them? 'Tis for men to go abroad, and maids to stay at home-or, if one of you must go, let Elise go, who has a craving for society, and to become an elegant lady.'

'Yes, but, Roger, I am my father's daughter, and Elise is but his ward. It is only fair that I should go first and Elise later. But all this is idle talk. It may never happen at all. Look! is not that beautiful?'

The path had wound round the head of a copse that curled like a snake in and out of the folds of the hills. For some time their eyes had been on the trees and bushes of the glades, the primroses starring their path. Suddenly, bearing round the edge of the wood, they were come in view of the village and open harbour again, the cottages at the waterside nestling in the soft haze, and beyond the twin headlands of the water mouth, the sapphire bar of the sea. The young man looked once, but his eyes were caught by the lines of the Fair Return, and with a pang he turned his face inland again.

'Yes!' he said constrainedly. 'It is beautiful.' His keen gaze swept the valley. 'Ah-look there-horsemen coming down the Bodmin Road. What can be wanting in Garth?'

'Mother Poole will tell us,' said Marion. 'She knows everything.'

The fisherwife's cottage lay about a mile up the valley, and the two, bearing down to it on narrow paths, lost for a time the sight of the high road.

'See! There are the horsemen still!' exclaimed Marion when the prospect widened again. 'They have turned into the lane. They are making for Mother Poole's cottage. Oh Roger'-Marion gripped his arm-'surely, surely 'tis nothing about Jack and that terrible rising. I thought it was forgotten long ago.'

'The spies of Jeffreys never forget,' replied Roger quietly. 'And Jack broke out of gaol, you remember. He is still in the eyes of the law a prisoner. Brave lad, Jack! But if 'tis he they're after, with luck they'll miss their man. He should be aboard by now, and Jeffreys will need a long arm to catch Poole on the Fair Return once past the mouth. I think I'll just run down and see what they're about.'

'Roger'-Marion's hand tightened-'you cannot, you cannot. There are six horsemen yonder, all armed. A word from you and they'll take you as well.'

'I cannot let Jack be caught like a rat in a trap,' said Roger. 'Let go my arm, Mawfy.'

At that moment the cottage door opened and a man in sailor's garb came down the path. An old woman, her apron at her eyes, stood in the doorway looking after him. Not till he reached the gate-perhaps because the sadness of his mother's farewell dimmed his eyes-did he become aware of the horsemen in the path. He gave one glance round, a step backward, and then stood still. It was too late. In three minutes the sorry little act was played out. A couple of the horsemen swung from their saddles. Another covered the sailor with his carbine. The old woman, running to her son's side, was roughly thrust away.

'No, Roger, no,' came Marion's whisper on the slope above, almost in earshot of the group in the lane. 'No.' Both her hands, white at the knuckles, gripped his sleeve, the boy dragging away from her. At that moment the leader of the soldiers caught sight of the two above. The young man's attitude and desire were clear to his eyes. A few low words passed between the men. One set his horse at the slope and was recalled; some urgency bade the group go on their way: one of the swift decisions that serve to toss a straw into the balance of fate. They turned their horses, the sailor running at the stirrup of his captor.

But the leader looked again, a searching look, at the motionless youth on the slope. And as he cantered off, Marion dropped the arm she held and stared after him, shivering slightly.

'I shall know him if I see him again, anyhow,' said Roger, smiling. 'Come, Mawfy, there's old Mother Poole sorely in need of comfort now.'