Dorrien of Cranston

“Ha-ha! The English of which is, that that basket which I see is going down there full of tobacco and snuff and tea, and coming back empty. You know the way to their hearts, you little witch,” laughed the rector, in reality pleased that this volatile favourite child of his should of her own accord undertake a work of benevolence – for anything in the shape of visiting was not her forte. “But I predict that you’ll get a soaking before you’re home again.”

“Now be quiet, you dear old ‘croaker.’ I shall get nothing of the kind, for the afternoon is turning out quite fine,” she answered, leaning over him with her arm on his shoulder and looking down on his desk. “And now I’ll leave you to your sermon-brewing – but oh! – this’ll never do. You really mustn’t write so badly, dad dear, or you’ll stick hopelessly, as you did last Advent – and everyone was making merry over the notion of the preacher not being able to read his own notes.”

“Out upon you for a profane person who dare to invade my sanctum sanctorum,” cried her father gleefully, as leaving a shower of kisses upon his forehead the girl sped from the room.

Left to himself the rector unconsciously let fall his pen.

“God keep my darling – and grant her a happy future,” were the words his thoughts would have taken. But with him we have no concern at present, so shall leave him to his meditations.

The little fishing colony in Minchkil Bay lay distant a mile and a half from Wandsborough. Its main features were roughly built cottages, sorrily kept potato plots, pigsties, and smells. The place seemed to have been dropped in a little hollow at the mouth of an attempt at a river, whose chronic state of “draininess,” combined with a whiff of fish in every stage of staleness, not to say putrefaction, engendered the savoury atmosphere aforesaid. There was a good beach, of course, with the regulation complement of weatherbeaten craft, when the latter were not at sea, that is – eke the regulation nets, corks and other fishing gear hanging about on poles. On one side, the high ground beyond which lay the town of Wandsborough; on the other a bare, turfy slope rose abruptly to the summit of Minchkil Beacon, nearly four hundred feet in the air, and whose rugged face to seaward consisted of a succession of almost perpendicular cliffs, broken by many a ledge, where the gulls had everything their own way.

The task which Olive had set herself was anything but congenial. However, she went through with it bravely, and for upwards of an hour she steeled herself to endure the smokiness of the cabins and the ancient and fish-like smells, the maunderings of the old crones and the distracting yells of the babies, without flinching. She had a bright smile and a cheerful word for all as they grumbled or whined – according to temperament – that it was “mortal long since she’d bin near them,” and pretended to think it was not one word for herself and six for the basket she carried, but the other way about. She endured all this right manfully, and when it came to an end, with a sigh of relief, she tripped lightly down the beach to revel in the fresh sea air and a sense of duty done.

“Well met!”

She started at the voice – a genuine start. Truth to tell she coloured.

“This is a piece of luck,” went on the speaker. He had been talking with one of the men, and both being behind a large fishing boat, Olive had not noticed them. “I had no idea any of your flock pastured here.”

“Yes, they do. But it isn’t often I do anything in the way of shepherding them. That isn’t in my line at all. In fact – I – I hate it.”

The candour of this avowal was delicious. They both burst out laughing.

“I can more than half believe that,” he said. “But then why don’t you delegate the rôle of Lord High Almoner to someone else? There’s Turner, for instance. It would be just in his line, I should think.”

A queer look, a wicked look, came into the girl’s face at the mention of Turner.

“He wouldn’t undertake it for me. He’s angry with me. Mr Dorrien, don’t you hate clergymen?”

“Truth compels me to state that I’m not partial to them as a rule.”

“Oh, indeed? And why don’t you look shocked at my question and say, ‘Er – not very flattering to your father, is it?’ or something to that effect? That’s how you ought to retort, by every known rule,” said Olive, wickedly demure.

“And why don’t you look shocked at my answer and say, ‘Er – kindly remember that you are reflecting on my father’? That’s how you ought to retort, etc, etc.”

“Because,” answered Olive, when she had recovered from the laughter into which his quizzical reply had launched her, “because I know you were making an exception in his favour as well as you knew I was. So we are agreed on that head.”

“Quite so. There’s nothing like a good understanding to begin with. And now by way of trying whether it’ll continue, let’s see if you’ll fall in with my idea. We must go for a sail. How does that idea strike you?”

“As perfection,” she rejoined, looking up at him with a light laugh. “Jem Pollock has the lightest boat here, but even that’s a shocking tub.”

It was. By the time they had put a couple of hundred yards between themselves and the beach Roland was fain to admit the justice of the stigma.

“Where are we going to?” asked Olive, as he suddenly turned the boat’s head and coasted along the shore.

“The Skegs. I’ve set my heart on exploring that pinnacle of scare, and was waiting until you could go with me. You were the first to unfold its dread mysteries, and you shall be the first to aid me in braving them.”

“Oh! But – I’m just the very least little bit afraid.”

“Naturally.”

“It’s fortunate – or unfortunate – you didn’t say where you intended going, or Jem Pollock wouldn’t have let us have his boat for love or money.”

“He wouldn’t?”

“Not he! They’re all in mortal terror of the place. To land there would bring them ill-luck for life. They even think they would hardly leave the rock alive. A boy was killed there once trying to get at some sea gulls’ nests. They put it down to his temerity in landing there at all.”

“A set of oafs! Well, we are going to land there – the tide is just right for it – and I wager long odds we don’t come to grief in any sort of way. Village superstition will receive a salutary check – and I, even I, shall place your father under a debt to me for my share in exploding such a pagan relic. Look,” he broke off, “there would be a good drop for a runaway horse or anyone tired of life.”

A bend in the coastline had shut out the fishing village behind them, for they had come some distance along the shore. The face of the cliff at this point rose sheer for a couple of hundred feet, where its surface was broken by a narrow ledge like a mere goat-path. Above this it slanted upwards to nearly twice that height.

“It would, indeed,” assented Olive. “That rejoices in the name of Hadden’s Slide.”

“Does it? And who was Hadden, and what the mischief possessed him to try his hand at toboganning on such a spot?”

Olive laughed. “Nobody knows. It is an old landslip, and it is supposed that a cottage belonging to one Hadden was carried away with it. But that is very old tradition.”

“A pity. I had quite thought another spectral wanderer had lighted on the place for his posthumous disportings, like my ancestor yonder at The Skegs.”

“Well, he would have a better right, for that is your property.”

“My property!”

“Yes. It is a part of Cranston,” answered Olive, looking surprised.

“Oh – ah! I see. But you said my property. Now Cranston is not my property, and very likely never will be.”

This remark was made with a purpose. How would that strike her? he thought, and he watched her narrowly. But, however it happened to strike her, she took care that he should be none the wiser.

“Why do you take me up so sharply?” she expostulated with pretty mock petulance. “Really I shall become quite afraid of you if you are going to be so precise. One can’t always think for five minutes or so before making every innocent little remark. Now can one?”

“Of course not. What’s that extraordinary looking fissure there in front? It seems as if a stroke of lightning had split the whole cliff from brow to base.”

“That is Smugglers’ Ladder. It is well worth seeing. I’ve only been there once. We must make up a picnic and go there some day. Are you fond of picnics, Mr Dorrien?”

“Passionately – under some circumstances. But can’t we get as far this afternoon?”

Olive looked dubious.

“It’s a long way. Further than it seems. And father was right. It’s coming on to rain.”

“So it is. Here we are at our destination, though, and we can shelter under the rock.”

Great drops began to plash on the water, and the cliffs above looked dim as through a mist. The tallest of The Skegs reared up its lofty turret overhead, the sea washing over a narrow sloping ledge of rock at its base with a hollow plash. This was the only landing place.

The landing was a good deal more difficult than it looked. There was something of a current swirling round the rock, and the boat, as it got within the recoil of the waves, danced about in lively fashion. Olive, a little overawed at finding herself for the first time in this uncanny place, looked about her in a half-scared, half-subdued manner, as if she expected to behold the spectral hound start open-mouthed from the waves. Then enjoyment of the adventure dispelled all other misgiving.

“Just in time,” she remarked gaily, as, her companion having secured the boat, they gained the desired shelter. A violent downpour followed, beating down the sea like oil. Not a soul was in sight on the lonely and desolate beach, and away on the horizon great cloud banks came rolling. Our two wanderers – three rather, for Roy was not slow to assert his claim – made the best they could of the limited shelter, contemplating the rushing deluge a yard in front of them with the utmost equanimity.