Poison Island Read online

  CHAPTER VII.

  ENTER THE RETURNED PRISONER.

  Strange to say, although I paid six or eight visits after this toCaptain Coffin, and by invitation, and watched his whaleboatbuilding, and ate more of his delectable guava-jelly, I saw nothingmore of the chart for several months.

  On each occasion he treated me kindly, and made no secret of hishaving chosen me for his favourite and particular friend; butsomehow, without any words, he contrived to set up an understandingthat further talk about the chart and the treasure must wait untilthe boat should be ready for launching. In truth, I believe, a kindof superstitious terror restricted him. He trusted me, yet wasafraid of overt signs of trust. You may put it that during thiswhile he was testing, watching me. I can only answer that I had nosuspicion of being watched, and that in discussing the boat'sfittings with me--her tanks, wells, and general storage capacity--hetook it for granted that I followed and understood her purpose.If indeed he was testing me, in my innocence I took the best way toreassure him; for I honestly looked upon the whole business asmoonshine, and made no doubt that he was cracked as a fiddle.

  Christmas came, and the holidays with it. As Miss Plinlimmon sang--

  "Welcome, Christmas! Welcome, Yule! It brings the schoolboy home from school. [N.B.--Vulgarly pronounced 'schule' in the West of England.] Puddings and mistletoe and holly, With other contrivances for banishing melancholy: Boar's head, for instance--of which I have never partaken, But the name has associations denied to ordinary bacon."

  Dear soul, she had been waiting at the door--so Sally, the cook,informed me--for about an hour, listening for the coach, and greetedme with a tremulous joy between laughter and tears. Before leadingme to my father, however, she warned me that I should find himchanged; and changed he was, less perhaps in appearance than in theperceptible withdrawal of his mind from all earthly concerns.He seldom spoke, but sat all day immobile, with the lids of his blindeyes half lowered, so that it was hard to tell whether he brooded ormerely dozed. On Christmas Day he excused himself from walking tochurch with us, and upon top of his excuse looked up with a suddenhappy smile--as though his eyes really saw us--and quoted Waller'sfamous lines:

  "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made. . . ."

  To me it seemed rather that, as its home broke up, the soul withdrewlittle by little, and contracted itself like the pupil of an eye, toshrink to a pinpoint and vanish in the full admitted ray.

  This our last Christmas at Minden Cottage was a quiet yet asingularly happy one. It was good to be at home, yet the end of theholidays and the return to Stimcoe's cast no anticipatory gloom on myspirits. To tell the truth, I had a sneaking affection forStimcoe's; and to Miss Plinlimmon's cross-examination upon itsinternal economies I opposed a careless manly assurance as hardlyfraudulent as Mr. Stimcoe's brazen doorplate or his lady'sfront-window curtains. The careful mending of my linen, too--forMrs. Stimcoe with all her faults was a needlewoman--helped to disarmsuspicion. When we talked of my studies I sang the praises ofCaptain Branscome, and told of his past heroism and his sword ofhonour.

  "Branscome? Branscome, of the _Londonderry?_" said my father."Ay, to be sure, I remember Branscome--a Godfearing fellow and a goodseaman. You may take him back my compliments, Harry--my complimentsand remembrances--and say that if Heaven permitted us to meet againin this world, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to crack abottle with him."

  I duly reported this to Captain Branscome, and was taken aback by hisreception of it. He began in a sudden flurry to ask a dozenquestions concerning my father.

  "He keeps good health, I trust? It would be an honour to call andchat with the Major. At what hour would he be most accessible tovisitors?"

  I stared, for in truth he seemed ready to take me at my word andstart off at once, and at my patent surprise he grew yet more nervousand confused.

  "I have kept a regard for your father, Brooks--a veneration, I mightalmost call it. Sailors and soldiers, if I may say it, are not aptto think too well of one another; but the Major from the firstfulfilled my conception of all a soldier should be-a gentlemanfearless and modest, a true Christian hero. Minden Cottage, you say?And fronting the road a little this side of St. Germans? Tell me,pray--and excuse the impertinence--what household does he keep?"

  It is hard to write down Captain Branscome's questions on paper, anddivest them, as his gentle face and hesitating kindly manner divestedthem, of all offensiveness. I did not resent them at the time orconsider then impertinent. But they were certainly close and minute,and I had reason before long to recall every detail of his catechism.

  Captain Coffin, on the other hand, welcomed me back to Falmouth witha carelessness which disappointed if it did not nettle me.He fetched out the tea and guava-jelly, to be sure, but appeared totake no interest in my doings during the holidays, and wasuncommunicative on his own. This seemed the stranger because he hadimportant news to tell me. During my absence he and Mr. Goodfellowbetween them had finished the whaleboat.

  The truth was--though I did not at once perceive it--that upon itscompletion the old man had begun to drink hard. Drink invariablymade him morose, suspicious. His real goodwill to me had notchanged, as I was to learn. He had paid a visit to CaptainBranscome, and give him special instructions to teach me the art ofnavigation, the intricacies of which eluded his own fuddled brain.But for the present he could only talk of trivialities, andespecially of the barber's parrot, for which he had conceived aferocious hate.

  "I'll wring his neck, I will!" he kept repeating. "I'll wring hisneck one o' these days, blast me if I don't!"

  I took my leave that evening in no wise eager to repeat the visit;and, in fact, I repeated it but twice--and each time to find him inthe same sullen humour--between then and May 11, the day when the_Wellingboro'_ transport cast anchor in Falmouth roads with twohundred and fifty returned prisoners of war.

  She had sailed from Bordeaux on April 20, in company with five othertransports bound for Plymouth, and her putting into Falmouth torepair her steering-gear came as a surprise to the town, which atonce hung out all its bunting and prepared to welcome her poorpassengers home to England with open arm. A sorry crew they looked,ragged, wild eyed, and emaciated, as the boats brought them ashore atthe Market Stairs to the strains of the Falmouth Artillery Band.The homes of the most of them lay far away, but England was England;and a many wept and the crowd wept with them at sight of theirtatters, for I doubt if they mustered a complete suit of good Englishcloth between them.

  Stimcoe, I need scarcely say, had given us a whole holiday; andStimcoe's and Rogerses met in amity for once, and cheered in thethrong that carried the home-comers shoulder high to the Town Hall,where the Mayor had arrayed a public banquet. There were speeches atthe banquet, and alcoholic liquors, both affecting in operation uponhis Worship's guests. Poor fellows, they came to it after longabstinence, with stomachs sadly out of training; and the streets ofFalmouth that evening were a panoramic commentary upon the danger ofundiscriminating kindness.

  Now at about five o'clock I happened to be standing at the edge ofthe Market Stairs, watching the efforts of a boat's crew to take adozen of these inebriates on board for the transport, when I heard myname called, and turned to see Mr. George Goodfellow beckoning to mefrom the doorway of the Plume of Feathers public-house.

  "It's Coffin," he explained. "The old fool's sitting in the taproomas drunk as an owl, and I was reckonin' that you an' me between usmight get him home quiet before the house fills up an' mischiefbegins; for by the looks of it there'll be Newgate-let-loose inFalmouth streets to-night."

  I answered that this was very thoughtful of him; and so it was, and,moreover, providential that he had dropped in at the Plume ofFeathers for two-pennyworth of cider to celebrate the day.

  We found Captain Coffin seated in a corner of the taproom settle,puffing at an empty pipe and staring at vacancy. "Drun
k as an owl"described his condition to a nicety; for at a certain stage in hisdrinking all the world became mirk midnight to him, and he wouldgrope his way home through the traffic at high noon in profound,pathetic belief that darkness and slumber wrapped the streets; onwhich occasions the dialogue between him and the barber's parrotmight be counted on to touch high comedy. I knew this, and knew alsothat in the next stage he would recover his eyesight, and at the sametime turn dangerously quarrelsome. If Mr. Goodfellow and I couldstart him home quietly, he would have reason to thank us to-morrow.

  We were bending over him to persuade him--at first, with smallsuccess, for he continued to stare and mutter as our voices coaxedwithout penetrating his muddled intelligence--when a party of'longshoremen staggered into the taproom, escorting one of thereturned prisoners, a thin, sandy-haired, foxy-looking man, withnarrow eyes and a neck remarkable for its attenuation and the numberand depth of its wrinkles. This neck showed above the greasy collarof a red infantry coat, from which the badges and buttons had longsince vanished; and for the rest the fellow wore a pair of dirtywhite drill trousers of French cut, French shoes, and a roundjapanned hat; but, so far as a glance could discover, neither shirtnor underclothing. When the 'longshoremen called for drink helaughed with a kind of happy shiver, as though rubbing his body roundthe inside of his clothes, cast a quick glance at us in our dimcorner, and declared for rum, adding that the Mayor of Falmouth was awell-meaning old swab, but his liquor wouldn't warm the vitals of ababy in clouts.

  As he announced this I fancied that our persuasions began to haveeffect on Captain Coffin, for his eyes blinked as in a strong light,and he seemed to pull himself together with a shudder; but a momentlater he relapsed again and sat staring.

  "Hallo!" said one of the 'longshoremen. "Who's that you're a-coaxin'of, you two? Old Coffin, eh? Well, take the old shammick home, an'thank 'ee. We're tired of 'en here."

  As I looked up to answer I saw the returned prisoner give a start,turn slowly about, and peer at us. He seemed to be badly scared,too, for an instant; for I heard a sudden, sharp click in histhroat--

  "E-e-eh? Coffin, is it? Danny Coffin? Oh, good Lord!"

  He came towards our corner, still peering, and, as he peered,crouching to that he spread his palms on his knees.

  "Coffin? Danny Coffin?" he repeated, in a voice that, as it lost itswondering quaver, grew tense and wicked and wheedling.

  Captain Coffin's face twitched, and it seemed to me that his eyes,though rigid, expanded a little. But they stared into the stranger'sface without seeing him.

  The fellow crouched a bit lower, and still lower, as he drew closeand thrust his face gradually within a yard of the old man's.

  "Shipmate Danny--messmate Danny--tip us a stave! The old stave,Danny!--

  "'And alongst the Keys o' Mortallone!'"

  As his voice lifted to it in a hoarse melancholy minor (times andagain since that moment the tune has put me in mind of sea-birdscrying over a waste shore), I saw the shiver run across CaptainCoffin's face and neck, and with that his sight came back to him, andhe bounced upright from the settle, with a horrible scream, his handsfencing, clawing at air.

  The prisoner dropped back with a laugh. Mr. Goodfellow, at a chokingsound, put out a hand to loosen Captain Coffin's neckcloth; but theold man beat him off.

  "Not you! Not you! Harry!"

  He gripped me by the arm, and, ducking his head, fairly charged mepast the 'longshoremen and out through the doorway into the street.As we gained it I heard the stranger in the taproom behind me breakinto a high, cackling laugh.