Misfortune did not daunt Ortho for long; the promising state of the home fields put fresh heart in him. He plunged at the work chanting a p?an in praise of agriculture, tore through obstacles and swept up his tasks with a speed and thoroughness which left Eli and Bohenna standing amazed. The Penhale brothers harvested a record crop that season—but so did everybody else. The market was glutted and prices negligible. Except that their own staple needs were provided for, they were no better off than previously. Eli did not greatly care—he had done what he had set out to do, bring a good crop home—but Ortho fell into a state of profound gloom; it was money that he wanted.
It seemed to make little difference in agriculture whether you harvested a bumper yield or none at all. He had no capital to start in the second-hand horse trade again—even did he wish to—and he had no knowledge of any other business. He was on the desperate point of enlisting in the army on the chance of being sent abroad and gathering in a little loot, when opportunity rapped loudly on his door.
He had run down towards Tol-Pedn-Penwith with Jacky’s George one afternoon in late September. It was a fine afternoon, with a smooth sea, and all the coves between Merther Point and Carn Scathe were full of whitebait. They crowded close inshore in dense shoals, hiding from the mackerel. When the mackerel charged them they stampeded in panic, frittering the surface like wind-flaws. The gig’s crew attacked the attackers and did so well that they did not notice the passage of time.
Jacky’s George came to his senses as the sun slipped under, and clapped on all sail for home. He appeared in a hurry. By the time they were abreast of the Camper, the wind, which had been backing all the afternoon, was a dead-muzzler. Jacky’s George did what he was seldom known to do; he blasphemed, ported his helm and ran on a long leg out to sea. By ten o’clock they had leveled Boscawen Point, but the wind fell away altogether and they were becalmed three miles out in the Channel. Jacky’s George blasphemed again and ordered oars out. The gig was heavy and the tide against them. It took Ortho and three young Baragwanaths an hour and a half to open Monks Cove.
Ortho could not see the reason of it, of wrenching one’s arms out, when in an hour or two the tide would carry them in. However, he knew better than to question Jacky’s George’s orders. Even when Monks Cove was reached the little man did not go in, but pointed across for Black Carn. As they paddled under the lee of the cape there came a peculiar whistle from the gloom ahead, to which the bow-oar responded, and Ortho made out a boat riding to a kedge. They pulled alongside and made fast. It was the second Baragwanath gig, with the eldest son, Anson, and the remainder of the brothers aboard.
“Who’s that you got wid ’e?” came the hushed voice of Anson.
“Ortho Penhale,” his father replied. “Hadn’t time to put en ashore—becalmed way out. Has a showed up yet?”
“Naw, a’s late.”
“Ess. Wind’s felled away. All quiet in Cove?”
“Ess, sure. Every road’s watched and Ma’s got a furze stacked up to touch off if she gets warning.”
“All right . . . well, keep your eye peeled for his signal.”
Light suddenly broke on Ortho. There was a run on and he was in it—thrilling! He leaned towards Jacky’s George and whispered, “Who’s coming? Roscoff boat?”
Jacky’s George uttered two words which sent an electric quiver through him:
“King Nick.”
King Nick. Captain Nicholas Buzza, prince of Free Traders, the man who had made more runs than all the rest put together, who owned a fleet of armed smugglers and cheated the Revenue of thousands a year. Who had fooled the riding officers times out of number and beaten off the Militia. Who had put to sea after a big privateer sent to suppress him, fought a running fight from Godrevy to Trevose and sent her diving down the deep sea. The mercurial, dare-devil King Nick who was said to be unable to sleep comfortably unless there was a price on his head; who had raided Penzance by the light of the moon and recaptured a lost cargo; who had been surprised by the gaugers off Cawsand, chopped to bits with cutlasses, left for dead—and then swam ashore; who was reported to walk through Peter Port with all the Guernsey merchants bowing low before him, was called “Duc de Roscoff” in Brittany, and commanded more deference in Schiedam than its own Burgomaster. King Nick, the romantic idol of every West Country boy, coming to Monks Cove that very night, even then moving towards them through the dark. Ortho felt as if he were about to enter the presence of Almighty God.
“Is it a big run?” he whispered to Jacky’s George, trembling with excitement.
“Naw, main run was at Porthleven last night. This is but the leavings. A few trifles for the Kiddlywink to oblige me.”
“Is King Nick a friend of yours, then?” said Ortho, wide-eyed.
“Lord save you, yes! We was privateering together years ago.”
Ortho regarded the fisherman with added veneration.
“If a don’t come soon a’ll miss tide,” Anson hissed from the other boat.
“He’ll come, tide or no tide,” snapped his father. “Hold tongue, will ’e? Dost want whole world to hear?”
Anson subsided.
There was a faint mist clouding the sea, but overhead rode a splendor of stars, an illimitable glitter of silver dust. Nothing was to be heard but the occasional scrape of sea-boots as one cramped boy or other shifted position, the wail of a disturbed sea bird from the looming rookeries above them, the everlasting beat of surf on the Twelve Apostles a mile away to the southwest and the splash and sigh of some tired ninth wave heaving itself over the ledges below Black Carn.
An hour went by. Ashore a cock crowed, and a fisherman’s donkey, tethered high up the cliff-side, roared asthmatically in reply. The boats swung round as the tide slackened and made. The night freshened. Ripples lapped the bows. The land wind was blowing. Ortho lay face-down on the stroke thwart and yawned. Adventure—if adventure there was to be—was a long time coming. He was getting cold. The rhythmic lift and droop of the gig, the lisp and chuckle of the water voices had a hypnotic effect on him. He pillowed his cheek on his forearms and drowsed, dreamt he was swaying in gloomy space, disembodied, unsubstantial, a wraith dipping and soaring over a bottomless void. Clouds rolled by him big as continents. He saw the sun and moon below him no bigger than pins’ heads and world upon glittering world strewn across the dark like grains of sand. He could not have long lain thus, could not have fallen fully asleep, for Anson’s first low call set him wide awake.
“Sail ho!”
Both boats’ crews sat up as one man.
“Where away?”
“Sou’-east.”
Ortho’s eyes bored into the hollow murk seawards, but could distinguish nothing for the moment. Then, as he stared, it seemed to him that the dark smudge that was the corner of the Carn was expanding westwards. It stretched and stretched until, finally, a piece detached itself altogether and he knew it was a big cutter creeping close inshore under full sail. Never a wink of light did the stranger show.
“Hast lantern ready?” hissed Jacky’s George.
“Aye,” from Anson.
“Cast off there, hoist killick and stand by.”
“Aye, aye!”
The blur that was the cutter crept on, silent as a shadow, almost indistinguishable against the further dark, a black moth on black velvet. All eyes watched her. Suddenly a green light glowed amidships, stabbing the inky waters with an emerald dagger, glowed steadily, blinked out, glowed again and vanished. Ortho felt his heart bound into his throat.
“Now,” snapped Jacky’s George. “Show lantern . . . four times, remember.”
Anson stood up and did as he was bid.
The green lantern replied, the cutter rounded up in the wind and drifted towards them, tide-borne.
“Out oars and pull,” said Jacky’s George.
They swept within forty yards of the cutter.
“?’Vast pulling,” came a voice from her bows.
“Back water, all!” Jacky’s George commanded.
“Is that George Baragwanath?” came the voice again, a high-pitched, kindly voice, marvelously clear.
“Aye, aye!”
“What’s the word then, my dear?”
“Hosannah!”
“What’s that there boat astern of ’e?”
“Mine—my second boat.”
“Well, tell him to keep off a cable’s length till I’ve seen to ’e,” the amiable voice continued. “If he closes ’fore I tell en I’ll blow him outer the water as God is my salvation. No offense meant, but we can’t take chances, you understand. Come ahead, you.”
The gig’s crew gave way and brought their craft alongside the smuggler.
“One at a time,” said the voice somewhere in the darkness above them, mild as a ringdove. “George, my dear soul, step up alone, will ’e, please?”
Jacky’s George went over the rail and out of sight.
Ortho heard the voice greet him affectionately and then attend to the helmsman.
“Back fore-sail, Zebedee; she’ll jam ’tween wind and tide. No call to anchor. We’ll have this little deck load off in ten minutes, please God, amen! There it is all before you, George—low Hollands proof, brandy, sugar, and a snatch of snuff. Tally it, will you, please. We’re late, I’m afraid. I was addressing a few earnest seekers after grace at Rosudgeon this afternoon and the word of the Lord came upon me and I spake overlong, I fear, trembling and sweating in my unworthiness—and then the wind fell very slight. I had to sweep her along till, by God’s infinite mercy, I picked up this shore draught. Whistle up your second boat and we’ll load ’em both sides to once. You haven’t been washed in the blood of the Lamb as yet, have you, George? Ah, that it might be vouchsafed this unworthy vessel to purge you with hyssop! I must have a quiet talk with you. Steady with them tubs, Harry; you’ll drop ’em through the gig.”
For the next quarter of an hour Ortho was busy stowing casks lowered by the cutter’s crew, but all the time the sweet voice went on. It seemed to be trying to persuade Jacky’s George into something he would not do. He could hear the pair tramping the deck above him side by side—one, two, three, four and roundabout, one, two, three, four and roundabout—the voice purling like a melodious brook; Jacky’s George’s gruff negatives, and the brook purling on again unruffled. Nobody else on the cutter uttered a sound; it might have been manned by a company of mutes.
Anson called from the port side that he was loaded. Jacky’s George broke off his conversation and crossed over.
“Pull in then. Soon’s you’ve got ’em stowed show a spark and I’ll follow.”
Anson’s gig disappeared shorewards, wallowing deep. Jacky’s George gripped a stay with his hook and swung over the rail into his own boat.
“I can’t do it, cap’n,” he called. “Good night and thank ’e kindly all the same. Cast off!”
They were away. It burst upon Ortho that he had not seen his hero—that he never would. In a minute the tall cutter would be fading away seawards as mysteriously as she had come and the great King Nick would be never anything to him but a voice. He could have cried out with disappointment.
“Push off,” said Jacky’s George.
Ortho leant on his oar and pushed and, as he did so, somebody sprang from the cutter’s rail, landed on the piled casks behind him as lightly as a cat, steadied himself with a hand on his shoulder and dropped into the stern-sheets beside the fisherman.
“Coming ashore wid ’e, George,” sa............