Chapter III A Fight in Luscombe Market
Jack was accompanied to the gate in quite a friendly way by Comely. He smiled as he heard the click of the lock and bolts behind him, and thought a good deal about Joe Gumley as he made his way down the steep cliff path to the fishing village below. It was quite a small village: a few cottages clustered about a cobbled square, with others climbing the cliff, each with its little bit of garden.
The harbor was protected by a natural breakwater of rock running out to sea, and forming an excellent defense against the southwest gales. A few brawny fishermen were lounging about in jerseys and sou’westers, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth. Jack tried to enter into conversation with them, but found them strangely taciturn. They looked hard at him before answering his questions, used few words, and gave him very little information. Mr. Bastable laughed when, meeting Jack at luncheon, he learned how he had spent the morning.
“They’re not a talkative set,” he said, “and were probably somewhat overcome by the presence of a king’s officer.”
“But how did they know I’m a king’s officer, cousin? We fellows don’t go blabbing about: I didn’t tell ’em, and only Gumley and old Gudgeon know, besides you and my cousins.”
“Perhaps it was Kate that told them. Ladies are great gossips, they say.”
“I’m sure Kate doesn’t go gossiping with fishermen; do you, Kate?”
“Indeed, no,” said Kate, “’tis a shame to say so, father.”
“I didn’t say so, now did I, Jack? I said ‘perhaps.’ You don’t suppose I went and boasted of having a king’s officer as my guest, Mr. Midshipman Hardy; and Mr. Gudgeon and Gumley keep themselves to themselves, as they told you, my boy.”
“Well, I can’t make it out, and it doesn’t matter.”
“Probably they won’t know you again in your uniform, Jack.”
“Do you wear a dirk, cousin, and a belt with pistols in it?” asked Arthur eagerly.
“You may be sure he does,” said Mr. Bastable; “looks a regular bucaneer, I’ve no doubt. You’ll give old Gudgeon the flutters if he sees you in all your war-paint, Jack.”
“Oh, come now, cousin!” protested Jack. “Our fellows don’t look half so fierce as you yeomen. Boney will be terrified if he catches sight of your big hats and red coats.”
“De uniform of de yeomen is ver’ fine,” said Monsieur de Fronsac, smiling. “It is quite beautiful. Dat is vat I say to Monsieur Arthur; dat de Monstair Bonaparte vill tr-r-emble ven he see de brave English yeomen.”
Jack was interested in Monsieur de Fronsac. He had never met a Frenchman before, and he studied him as he might have studied a strange animal. After lunch he spent some time with the tutor, and learned something of his history. It appeared that on leaving France, a few years before, he had gone to live on his estates in Martinique, hoping there to escape the dangers to which, as a royalist, he would be exposed at home. But on the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte to power his property had been confiscated by the Bonapartist governor. He himself had been proscribed; he fled to Jamaica, thence to London. It was hard for poor émigrés to pick up a living. Happening to hear that a school in Wynport required a teacher of mathematics he had come down from London, only to find that the place had been filled. But luckily Mr. Bastable was at the time in search of a tutor for his son. De Fronsac heard of it from the master of Wynport school: he applied and was accepted.
“But I hope vun day to get back my estates, ven dat Monstair, dat impertinent from Corsica, lose his life, or ven he shall be reject from de throne he goes so impudent to seize.”
Jack became a little tired of Monsieur de Fronsac’s references to the Monstair. He never spoke of Bonaparte without tacking on the epithet. Of course, he had good reason for hating the First Consul if he had lost all his property and been compelled to teach for a living; but it was not the English way to call names—and always the same name. Jack set it down as one of the peculiarities of Frenchmen.
That evening, after dinner, the conversation once more came back to the subject which was then discussed more often than any other among the good people of the south coast—the expected landing of the French. Mr. Bastable was inclined to think that with so long a coast-line open to him, and so many possible landing-places, Bonaparte would only have to choose his time carefully to be able, with any kind of luck, to make his descent. But Jack scoffed at the idea.
“What about Nelson, and Collingwood, and Keith, cousin? They’d smash him before he got half-way across.”
“But Nelson is away in the Mediterranean, isn’t he? He can’t be everywhere at once, Jack.”
“And every one can’t be a Nelson, but we can do our best.”
“I wonder where Boney would think of landing. Somewhere west, not Pevensey like the Conqueror: too near London. The Conqueror sailed from Boulogne, didn’t he?”
“Don’t think so, cousin: Boulogne isn’t in Normandy.”
“Still, I’m pretty sure it was Boulogne. Monsieur will know. We’ll ask him.”
“I’ll go and find him; hope I shan’t interrupt his flow of poetry.”
Jack hurried off, and learned that the tutor had gone out some little time before.
“He said he were gwine fur a promenade,” said the servant whom Jack asked.
“Which way did he go?”
“Down along by Congleton’s Hollow, sir.”
“Well, I’ll go after him. Tell your master I’ll be back soon.”
A footpath over the fields led to Congleton’s Hollow, about a mile and a half from the Grange. Jack had visited the spot in the afternoon with his cousin Arthur. They had climbed over the half-ruined wall, and wandered about in the dense plantation. Under the trees it was quite dim, even in daylight; and where there were no large trees the ground was thickly covered with a tangle of bushes and ferns. Blackberries and nuts grew in abundance, and the boys had gathered them by handfuls, regardless of scratches, or rents in their clothes. Rabbits scurried across the path from patches of tall brake; squirrels blinked out of the foliage. The place had a wild beauty of its own—the romantic charm of a spot seldom visited by men.
Delightful as it had been in the afternoon sunlight, it seemed to Jack more delightful still in the dusk of this beautiful September evening. The moon was just rising, throwing pale shafts of light through the trees, deepening the shadows. An owl hooted from the top of the Folly; as Jack picked his way through the brake he heard the whisk of scared rabbits. By the time he reached a part of the ruined wall whence he could look over a stretch of open country he had almost forgotten his errand. He sat on the wall, dangling his legs. There, across the fields to his right, the moonbeams shone on the weathercock on Gudgeon’s roof. Luscombe was out of sight in the dip of the cliffs, but he fancied he could hear the grinding of the surf on the shingle.
Suddenly he started. The light southeast breeze blowing toward him brought the sound of low voices a little way ahead. Was it Monsieur de Fronsac speaking? Jack thought he recognized the low smooth tones. Should he go on? That would be to risk overhearing the speakers. He hesitated; he heard another voice, deeper, rougher; then both voices together, as if in altercation.
“This won’t do!” thought Jack. “I’d better clear out.” So he sprang lightly down from his perch and began to retrace his steps, walking slowly as he had come, and looking back every now and again to see whether the tutor was following. At last, just as he reached the first of half a dozen stiles between himself and the Grange, he saw Monsieur de Fronsac’s figure come into the moonlight from the shade of the trees half a mile behind. He was alone. Jack sat on the stile and waited.
The Frenchman walked with downcast eyes and for a few moments did not perceive him. Catching sight of him at length, he seemed to be startled, for he halted and made a strange upward movement of the right hand. But his pause was only momentary. He came on again, and as soon as he was near enough to see clearly who was sitting on the stile, he showed his teeth in a brilliant smile, and called softly:
“Hi! Monsieur Jack, I see you.”
“Well, I’m pretty solid, Monsieur,” returned Jack with a smile. “The place looks lonely enough for a ghost, don’t it? I’d come to meet you; got a question to ask.”
“Ah! truly de place is romanesque. It demand poesy. Often do I come here, in evenings ven de moon is bright, to compose poesy. It please me, it console me in my miseries. I come dis minute from composing a poem about de moon. Vill I declaim it? Is Monsieur interested?”
“Oh, fire away!” said Jack. He thought he might as well humor this singular Frenchman. “Stop a bit, is it in French or English? If it’s in French it’ll be clean over my head.”
“No, it is in English. I compose alvays in English since dat Monstair have maltreat me. I recite it: listen:
“‘De moon, she shine in de sky
O lovely! O sharming!
Ven I look, vat can I? I sigh.
Vat fine zing for farming!’
“I explain dat: Your so difficult language have not good rhymes: and dere needs one for ‘sharming.’ I recollect myself to have seen de farmers making hay by de moonlight. Dat also vas sharming sight, so I put him in my verse.”
“First-rate,” said Jack. “Go on; I like that bit.”
“I have no more complete at present. It take so much to seek your English rhymes. Now in my language—”
And Monsieur de Fronsac began a long course on French poetry, keeping up a steady flow of talk which lasted till they reached the Grange. Not till they were entering the drawing-room together did Jack remember the question he had gone to ask.
“Well, Jack, I’m right, eh?” called Mr. Bastable.
“‘Pon my life, cousin, I forgot to ask. Monsieur has been entertaining me with poetry and things, and drove the question clean out of my head. Where did William the Conqueror sail from, Monsieur?”
“I do not know, I regret to say.”
Mr. Bastable laughed.
“Well, we’re none the wiser. Come, Jack, take a hand at cards. We’ve been waiting this half-hour.”
When Jack was alone in his bedroom, and thought of his meeting with De Fronsac, he felt vaguely uneasy. Why had the tutor been so anxious to explain his walk? Why had he talked on and on so glibly about such a dull subject as French poetry, with the evident desire to prevent Jack from talking? Why had he made no reference to his companion in the Hollow? His friends, his private business, were, of course, no concern of Jack’s; but the position of De Fronsac in the Bastable household scarcely seemed consistent with stealthy meetings in retired spots, and Jack, without knowing why, did not like it. But he slept none the less soundly, and had almost forgotten it by the morning.
The third day of his visit Jack had pretty much to himself. The ladies drove early into Wynport to see a dressmaker, and would not return till late; Arthur was engaged with his tutor; and Mr. Bastable had to go to the county town on yeomanry business. Jack spent part of the day in roaming about the cliffs, and in the afternoon went down to the shore, to bathe and watch the fishing-boats go out. Dinner had been put back an hour, so that he delayed his return to the Grange somewhat later than usual.
As he made his way up the hill, turning off through a narrow lane to the left, he tripped over a cord that had suddenly been drawn tight in front of him. There had been rain during the morning, and the place had been carefully chosen by the practical jokers, who betrayed their presence by a subdued chuckle from an alley-way on Jack’s right as he fell head forward into a pool of mud.
Jack had served an apprenticeship in the art of practical joking in the Ariadne. Not for nothing had he been for two years a “youngster” in a midshipman’s mess. He knew that the best way to discourage the gentle sport in others was to take summary vengeance on the joker—if he could get at him. He picked himself up in a trice, dashed into the alley-way—so narrow that there was scarcely room for more than one to pass at a time—and saw before him the back of a hulking form disappearing into the dusk, and hiding, as Jack judged from the clumping of heavy boots, a number of his fellow conspirators in front.
The fugitive was tall, but his clumsy body seemed too heavy for his short legs, and he moved slowly. Jack was upon him just as he emerged from the narrow alley into the open square of the village. Catching sight, with the readiness of one accustomed to use his eyes, of a convenient muck-heap—there were always convenient muck-heaps in town or country a hundred years ago, when sanitary inspection was still undreamed of—Jack neatly tripped the burly figure into its soft and odorous embrace. There was a great yell from the other fugitives, who stopped their flight when they found that they were not in immediate danger; and as they closed in toward the spluttering victim, now slowly raising himself, Jack saw that they were some of the boys and youths of the village, whose eyes he had often noticed upon him as he passed through. And there was something strangely familiar in the attitude of the hobbledehoy struggling clumsily to his feet. He was not a fisher lad; where had Jack seen him before? The cries of the crowd enlightened him.
“Fight un, Bill Gudgeon!”
“Heave un into midden, Billy.”
“Black his eyes!”
“Give un a nobbier!”
But Bill Gudgeon, like his father, was inclined to keep himself to himself.
“Not if I knows it,” he said slowly, as he sheered off. “Maister and me be quits now.”
“Chok’ it all!” cried one of his companions, a sturdily built, black-browed, bullet-headed fisher youth of some eighteen years. “If so be you woan’t fight, Billy Gudgeon, I will, so there then. Be you afeard, maister?”
“No, I don’t think I’m afraid of you,” said Jack, “but I don’t see what we’ve got to fight about. As your friend yonder said, we’re quits. And I’m in a hurry. Good night.”
“Boo! boo!” yelled the rest, encouraged by this seeming display of the white feather. “Rare plucked un to fight Boney! Afeard of Jan Lamiger! Boo! boo!”
Jan Lamiger slouched forward as Jack was turning away, and as an earnest of battle cleverly flicked off his hat. Jack was round in an instant.
“Very well, Jan, or whatever your name is, if you’re set on fighting, I suppose I must oblige you.”
He took off his coat, folded it, and placed it carefully on a stone pillar hard by: then he picked up his hat, set it on top, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. The young fisherman meanwhile divested himself of his jersey, and listened with a smug smile to the encouraging hints and practical instructions of his mates.
Jack felt a trifle bored. It was much beneath his dignity as a midshipman of his Majesty King George to be fighting fisher lads in the open fish-market of Luscombe, but it would have been still more beneath his dignity to refuse the challenge and have the pack of fisher lads at his heels. He was relieved to find that the Square was quite deserted save for the group about him. A few seconds earlier he had had an impression that there were a number of fisher folk about. The people had, in fact, hastily retired into their cottages when they saw what was afoot. They had no objection to the lad’s trouncing a king’s officer, but when that officer happened to be a relative of Squire Bastable at the Grange it was perhaps just as well not to countenance the fight openly. For they had no doubt that Jan Lamiger would win. He stood half a head higher than the midshipman, and was probably three stone heavier. And, moreover, he had some little reputation in the neighborhood as a boxer and wrestler. Had he not thrown all comers at Wickham Fair? And knocked Tom Buggins, the light-weight, clean out of time at Casterbridge only last month?
It was a somewhat rough battle-ground; the cobbles of the Square would make a hard fall; but neither of the combatants had chosen the spot, nor did it occur to them to seek a more convenient place for their encounter.
Those were the days in which skill in the use of the fists was a real title to consideration among all classes, high and low. And fortunately for Jack, it was an art cultivated with great perseverance by the young gentlemen of H.M.S. Ariadne. A new midshipman had to fight his way into the right to call anything his own. So frequent were the battles on board, that the art had reached a very high degree of perfection. Even the muscular heroes of the prize-ring might have envied the quickness of eye, the wariness, the nimbleness of movement, the skill in feint, of these young warriors.
The group had become by this time enlarged by the addition of several other boys, big and small, eager to see the fight and the imminent discomfiture of the king’s officer. They drew away to give the principals fighting room. The two at once got to work. In the first half-minute Jack found that he had no novice to deal with, and that in sheer physical strength he was hopelessly outmatched. But the big lumbering fisher had nothing like the quickness of wit or the science of the slighter midshipman. Hitherto he had won his bouts by staying power added to a certain rudimentary knowledge of fisticuffs that might pass for skill among the yokels at a country fair. But in all his previous battles he had never met an opponent who forced the pace like this one. Where was he? He seemed to be on all sides at once. Jan dealt what he firmly believed was a staggering right-hander, only to hit air and to feel a smart tap on the left side of his chin. He flung out his left hand, and before he knew what was happening, he felt a similar tap on the right side. This kept things even, but it spoilt Jan’s temper. He forgot his science in his irritation, and lurched forward to give full effect to his weight and height. The result was disastrous. Where did that whack in the left eye come from? He had hardly realized that he could not see quite so well as usual, when something very hard and knobby came into his right eye, and while the stars were still dancing before him a neat left-hander from Jack sent him reeling back on to the cobblestones, where he sat up and peered about him dazedly.
It was clear that the battle was over in a single round. There was no fight left in Jan. The crowd was silent now. Several were assisting Jan to rise, and Jack quickly rolled down his sleeves, put on his hat and coat, and walked away, leaving the Square by the alley through which he had entered it. Perfect stillness reigned in the village; but Jack was conscious that the windows and doorways were now filled with faces watching the scene. He smiled as he left the village behind him.