Part 5 (1/2)

There was no public demonstration. They might as well have come in the dead of night. Miss Limpenny was almost the sole witness of their arrival, and Miss Limpenny's observations were cut short by a terrible occurrence.

She had taken stock of the Honourable Frederic, and p.r.o.nounced him ”aristocratic-looking”; of the Honourable Mrs. Frederic's travelling-dress, and decided it to be _c.u.meelfo_; she had counted the boxes twice, and made them seven each time; she was about to count the b.u.t.tons on the liveried youth, when--

To this day she sinks her voice as she narrates it. She saw--the unseemliness, the monstrous indelicacy of it!--she saw--the nightcap and shoulders of Admiral Buzza craning out of the next-door window!

What happened next? Whether she actually fainted, or merely kept her eyes shut, she cannot clearly remember. But for weeks afterwards, as she declares, the sight of a man caused her to ”turn all colours.”

It was significant, this nightcap of Admiral Buzza--as the ram's horn to Jericho, the Mother Carey's chicken to the doomed s.h.i.+p.

It announced, even as it struck, the first blow at the old morality of Troy.

CHAPTER IV.

OF CERTAIN LEPERS; AND TWO BROTHERS, WHO, BEING MUCH ALIKE, LOVED THEIR SISTER, AND RECOMMENDED THE USE OF GLOBES.

I must here clear myself on a point which has no doubt caused the reader some indignation. ”We remarked,” he or she will say, ”that, some chapters back, the Admiral described Troy as a 'beautiful little town.' Why, then, have we had no description of it, no digressions on scenery, no word-painting?”

To this I answer--Dear sir, or madam, no one who has known Troy was ever yet capable of describing it. If you doubt me, visit the town and see for yourself. I will for the moment suppose you to do so.

What happens?

On the first day you take a boat and row about the harbour.

”Scenery!” you exclaim, ”why, what could you have more? Here is a lovely harbour flanked by bold hills to right and left; here are the ruined castles, witnesses of the great days when Troy sent s.h.i.+ps to carry the English army to Agincourt; here axe grey houses huddled at the water's edge, h.o.a.ry, battered walls and quay-doors coated with ooze and green weed. Such is Troy, and on the further sh.o.r.e quaint Penpoodle faces it, where a silver creek, dividing, runs up to Lanbeg; further up, the harbour melts into a river where the old ferry-boat plies to and from the foot of a tiny village straggling up the hill; further yet, and the jetties mingle with the steep woods beside the roads, where the vessels lie thickest; s.h.i.+ps of all builds and of all nations, from the trim Canadian timber-s.h.i.+p to the corpulent Billy-boy. Why, the very heart of the picturesque is here.

What more can you want?”

On the second day you will see all this from the harbour again, or perhaps you will cross the ferry and climb the King's Walk on the opposite bank; you will see it all, but with a change. It is more lovely, but not the same.

On the third day you will cast about in your mind to explain this; and so in time you will come to find that it is the spirit of Troy that plays this trick upon you. For you will have learnt to love the place, and love, as you know, dear sir or madam, is apt to affect the eyesight.

The eyes of Mr. Fogo, as Caleb pulled st.u.r.dily up with the tide, were pa.s.sing through the first of these stages.

”This,” he said at length, reflectively, ”is one of the loveliest spots I have looked upon.”

Caleb, in whom humanity and Trojanity were nicely compounded, flushed a bright copper-colour with pleasure.

”'Tes reckoned a tidy spot,” he answered modestly, ”by them as cares for voos an' such-like.”

”There, now,” he went on, after a pause, and turning round, ”yonder's Kit's House, wi' Kit's Cottage, next door. You can't see the house so plain, 'cos 'tes behind the trees. But there 'tes, right enough.”

”Is the cottage uninhabited, too?”

”Both on 'em. Ha'nted they _do_ say. By the way, I niver axed 'ee whether you minded ghostes?”

”Ghosts?”

”Iss, ghostes. This 'ere place was a Lazarus one time, where they kept leppards.”

”Leopards? How very singular!” murmured Mr. Fogo.

”Ay, leppards as white as snow, as the sayin' goes.”