Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
most remarkable river, where no men live and where, probably, not more than two-score white men have ever been.—A.H. SIEGFRIED.
ADAM AND EVE
CHAPTER XXVI
By the time Reuben May entered the little town of Looe he had come to a decision about his movements and how he should carry out his plan of getting back to London. Not by going with Captain Triggs, for the monotonous inaction of a sailing voyage would now be insupportable to him, but by walking as far as he could, and now and then, whenever it was possible, endeavoring to get a cheap lift on the road. His first step must therefore be to inform Triggs of his decision, and to do this he must get back to Plymouth, a distance from Looe of some fifteen or sixteen miles.
In going through Looe that morning he had stopped for a few minutes at a small inn which stood not far from the beach; and having now crossed the river which divides West from East Looe, he began looking about for this house, intending to get some refreshments, to rest for an hour or so, and then proceed on his journey.
Already the town-clock was striking six, and Reuben calculated that if he started between nine and ten he should have time to take another good rest on the road—which he had already once that day traversed—and reach Plymouth Barbican, where the Mary Jane lay, by daybreak.
The inn found, he ordered his meal and informed the landlady of his intention.
"Why, do 'ee stop here till mornin', then," exclaimed the large-hearted Cornish woman. "If 'tis the matter o' the money," she added, eying him critically, "that's hinderin' 'ee from it, it needn't to, for I'll see us don't have no quarrel 'bout the price o' the bed."
Reuben assured her that choice, not necessity, impelled his onward footsteps; and, thus satisfied, she bade him "Take and lie down on the settle there inside the bar-parlor; for," she added, "'less 'tis the sergeant over fra Liskeard 'tain't likely you'll be disturbed no ways; and I shall be in and out to see you'm all right."
Reuben stretched himself out, and, overcome by the excitement and fatigue of the day, was soon asleep and dreaming of those happier times when he and Eve had walked as friends together. Suddenly some one seemed to speak her name, and though the name at once wove itself into the movement of the dream, the external sound had aroused the sleeper, and he opened his eyes to see three men sitting near talking over their grog.
With just enough consciousness to allow of his noticing that one was a soldier and the other two were sailors, Reuben looked for a minute, then closed his eyes, and was again sinking back into sleep when the name of Eve was repeated, and this time with such effect that all Reuben's senses seemed to quicken into life, and, cautiously opening his eyes, so as to look without being observed, he saw that it was the soldier who was speaking.
"Young chap, thinks I," he was saying, "you little fancy there's one so near who's got your sweetheart's seal dangling to his fob;" and with an air of self-satisfied vanity he held out for inspection a curious little seal which Reuben at once recognized as the same which he himself had given to Eve.
The unexpected sight came upon him with such surprise that, had not the height of the little table served as a screen to shelter him from view, his sudden movement must have betrayed his wakefulness.
"He's a nice one for any woman to be tied to, he is!" replied the younger of the two sailors. "Why, the only time as I ever had what you may call a fair look at un was one night in to the King o' Proosia's, and there he was dealing out his soft sawder to little Nancy Lagassick as if he couldn't live a minute out o' her sight."
"That's about it," laughed the soldier. "He's one of your own sort there: you Jacks are all alike, with a wife in every port. However," he added—and as he spoke he gave a complacent stroke to his good-looking face—"he may thank his stars that a matter of seven miles or so lays between his pretty Eve and Captain Van Courtland's troop, or there'd have been a cutting-out expedition that, saving the presence of those I speak before"—and he gave a most exasperating wink—"might have proved a trifle more successful than such things have of late."
"Here, I say," said the sailor, flaming up at this ill-timed jocularity, "p'ra'ps you'll tell me what 'tis you're drivin' at; for I've got to hear of it if you, or any o' your cloth either, ever made a find yet. You're mighty 'cute 'bout other folks, though when the spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through 'twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn't lay hold on a single cask. 'Tis true we mayn't have nabbed the men, but by jingo if 't has come to us bein' made fools of by the women!"
"There, now, stash it there!" said his older comrade, who had no wish to see a quarrel ensue. "So far as I can see, there's no cause for bounce 'twixt either o' us; though only you give us a chance of getting near to them, sergeant," he said, turning to the soldier, "and I'll promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy while her lover's cutting capers under Tyburn tree."
"'A chance?'" repeated his companion, despondingly: "where's it to come from, and the only one we'd got cut away from under us by those Hart chaps?"
"How so? where's the Hart off to, then?" asked the sergeant.
"Off to Port Mellint," said the man addressed. "Nothing but a hoax, I fancy, but still she was bound to go;" and so saying he tossed off the remainder of his grog and began making a movement, saying, as he did so, to his somewhat quarrelsomely-disposed shipmate, "Here, I say, Bill, come 'long down to the rendezvoos with me, and if there's nothin' up for to-night what d'ye say to stepping round to Paddy Burke's? He's asked us to come ever so many times, you know."
"Paddy Burke?" said the sergeant. "What! do you know him? Why, if you're going there, I'll step so far with you."
"Well, we're bound for the rendezvoos first," said the sailor.
"All right! I can find plenty to do while you're in there."
"Then come along;" and, only stopping to exchange a few words in passing with the landlady, out they all went, and Reuben was left alone, a prey to the thoughts which now came crowding into his mind.
For a few minutes he sat with his arms resting on the table as if communing with himself: then, starting up as if filled with a sudden resolve, he went out and asked the landlady a few commonplace questions, and finally inquired whereabouts and in what direction did the rendezvous lie.
"Close down by the bridge, the first house after you pass the second turning. Why?" she said: "be 'ee wanting to see anybody there?"
"No," said Reuben: "I only heard the fellows that came in there talking about the rendezvous, and I wondered whether I'd passed it."
"Why, iss, o' course you did, comin' in. 'Tis the house with the flag stream-in' over the doorways."
Reuben waited for no further information. He said something about not knowing it was so late, bade the landlady a rather abrupt farewell, and went his way.
Down the narrow street he hurried, turned a corner, and found himself in front of the house indicated, outside which all was dark. Nobody near, and, with the exception of himself, not a soul to be seen. Inside, he could hear voices, and the more plainly from the top sash of the window being a little way open. By the help of the iron stanchion driven in to support the flagstaff he managed to get up, steady himself on the window-sill and take a survey of the room. Several men were in it, and among them the two he had already seen, one of whom was speaking to a person whom, from his uniform, Reuben took to be an officer.
The sight apparently decided what he had before hesitated about, and getting; down he took from his pocket a slip of paper—one he had provided in case he should want to leave a message for Eve—and rapidly wrote on it these words: "The Lottery is expected at Polperro tonight. They will land at Down End as soon as the tide will let them get near."
Folding this, he once more mounted the window-sill, tossed the paper into the room, lingered for but an instant to see that it was picked up, then jumped down, ran with all speed, and was soon lost amid the darkness which surrounded him.
As he hurried from the house an echo seemed to carry to his ears the shout which greeted this surprise—a surprise which set every one talking at once, each one speaking and no one listening. Some were for going, some for staying away, some for