Part 27 (1/2)

”I knew you yesterday at once,” she said. ”You write novels.”

”I wish,” said I feebly, ”the public were as quick at discovering me.”

”Somebody printed an 'interview' with you in '--'s Magazine a month or two ago.”

”There was not the slightest resemblance.”

”Please don't be silly. There was a photograph.”

”Ah, to be sure.”

”You can help me--help us all--if you will.”

”Is it about Fritz?”

She bent her head and signed to me to open the gate. Across the high-road a stile faced us, and a little church, with an acre framed in elms and set about with trimmed yews. She led the way to the low and whitewashed porch, and pushed open the iron-studded door. As I followed, the name of Van der Knoope repeated itself on many mural tablets. Almost at the end of the south aisle she paused and lifted a finger and pointed.

I read--

SACRED To the Memory of FRITZ OPDAM DE KEYSER VAN DER KNOOPE A Mids.h.i.+pman of the Royal Navy Who was born Oct. 21st MDCCCLXVII.

And Drowned By the Capsizing of H.M.S. Viper off the North Coast of Ireland On the 17th of January MDCCCLx.x.xV.

A youth of peculiar promise who lacked but the greater indulgence of an all-wise Providence to earn the distinction of his forefathers (of whom he was the last male representative) in his Country's service in which he laid down his young life

---------- Heu miserande puer! Si qua fata aspera rumpas Tu Marcellus eris.

”Uncle Melchior had it set up. I wonder what Fritz was really like.”

”And your Uncle Peter still believes--?”

”Oh yes. I am to marry Fritz in time. That is where you must help us.

It would kill Uncle Peter if he knew. But Uncle Melchior gets puzzled whenever it comes to writing; and I am afraid of making mistakes.

We've put him down in the South Pacific station at present--that will last for two years more. But we have to invent the gossip, you know.

And I thought that you--who wrote stories--”

”My dear young lady,” I said, ”let me be Fritz, and you shall have a letter duly once a month.”

And my promise was kept--until, two years ago, she wrote that there was no further need for letters, for Uncle Peter was dead. For aught I know, by this time Uncle Melchior may be dead also. But regularly, as the monthly date comes round, I am Fritz Opdam de Keyser van der Knoope, a young mids.h.i.+pman of Her Majesty's Navy; and wonder what my affianced bride is doing; and see her on the terrace steps with those b.u.t.terflies floating about her. In my part of the world it is believed that the souls of the departed pa.s.s into these winged creatures. So might the souls of those many pictured Admirals: but some day, before long, I hope to cross Skirrid again and see.

THE PENANCE OF JOHN EMMET.

I have thought fit in this story to alter all the names involved and disguise the actual scene of it: and have done this so carefully that, although the story has a key, the reader who should search for it would not only waste his time but miss even the poor satisfaction of having guessed an idle riddle. He whom I call Parson West is now dead. He was an entirely conscientious man; which means that he would rather do wrong himself than persuade or advise another man--above all, a young man--to do it. I am sure therefore that in burying the body of John Emmet as he did, and enlisting my help, he did what he thought right, though the action was undoubtedly an illegal one. Still, the question is one for casuists; and remembering how modest a value my old friend set on his own wisdom, I dare say that by keeping his real name out of the narrative I am obeying what would have been his wish. His small breach of the law he was (I know) prepared to answer for cheerfully, should the facts come to light. He has now gone where their discovery affects him not at all.

Parson West, then, when I made his acquaintance in 188-, had for thirty years been vicar of the coast-parish of Lansulyan. He had come to it almost fresh from Oxford, a young scholar with a head full of Greek, having accepted the living from his old college as a step towards preferment. He was never to be offered another. Lansulyan parish is a wide one in acreage, and the stipend exiguous even for a bachelor. From the first the Parson eked out his income by preparing small annotated editions of the Cla.s.sics for the use of Schools and by taking occasional pupils, of whom in 188- I was the latest. He could not teach me scholars.h.i.+p, which is a habit of mind; but he could, and in the end did, teach me how to win a scholars.h.i.+p, which is a sum of money paid annually. I have therefore a practical reason for thinking of him with grat.i.tude: and I believe he liked me, while despising my Latinity and discommending my precociousness with tobacco.

His pupils could never complain of distraction. The church-town--a single street of cottages winding round a knoll of elms which hide the Vicarage and all but the spire of St. Julian's Church--stands high and a mile back from the coast, and looks straight upon the Menawhidden reef, a fringe of toothed rocks lying parallel with the sh.o.r.e and half a mile distant from it. This reef forms a breakwater for a small inlet where the coombe which runs below Lansulyan meets the sea. Follow the road downhill from the church-town and along the coombe, and you come to a white-washed fis.h.i.+ng haven, with a life-boat house and short sea-wall.

The Porth is its only name. On the whole, if one has to live in Lansulyan parish the Porth is gayer than the church-town, where from the Vicarage windows you look through the trees southward upon s.h.i.+ps moving up or down Channel in the blue distance and the white water girdling Menawhidden; northward upon downs where herds of ponies wander at will between the treeless farms, and a dun-coloured British earthwork tops the high sky-line. Dwellers among these uplands, wringing their livelihood from the obstinate soil by labour which never slackens, year in and year out, from Monday morning to Sat.u.r.day night, are properly despised by the inhabitants of the Porth, who sit half their time mending nets, cultivating the social graces, and waiting for the harvest which they have not sown to come floating past their doors.

By consequence, if a farmer wishes to learn the spiciest gossip about his nearest neighbour, he must travel down to the Porth for it.