Lying Prophets - Eden Phillpotts

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lips. Those he rejoiced in, for they showed that she still remained a free thing, primitive, innocent of School Boards, or like frost-biting influences.

      Barron took mental notes. Joan Tregenza was a careless young woman, it seemed. Her dress had a button or two missing in front, and a safety-pin had taken their place. Her drab skirt was frayed a little and patched in one corner with a square of another material. But the colors were well enough, from the artist's point of view. He noted also that the girl's stockings were darned and badly needed further attention, for above her right shoe-heel a white scrap of Joan was visible. Her hands were a little large, but well shaped; her pose was free and fine, though the field-glasses spoiled the picture and the sun-bonnet hid the contour of her head.

      "So you walked out from Mouzle to see the last of Joe's ship?" he asked, quite seriously and with no light note in his voice.

      "From Newlyn. I ed'n a Mouzle maid," she answered.

      "Is the 'Anna' coming home again soon?"

      "No, sir. Her's bound for the Gulf of Californy, round t'other side the world, Joe sez. He reckons to be back agin' come winter."

      "That's a long time."

      "Iss, 'tis."

      But there was no sentiment about the answer. Joan gazed without a shadow of emotion at the vanishing ship, and alluded to the duration of her sweetheart's absence in a voice that never trembled. Then she gave the glass back to Barron with many thanks, and evidently wanted to be gone, but stopped awkwardly, not quite knowing how to depart.

      Meanwhile, showing no further cognizance of her, Barron took the glasses himself and looked at the distant ship.

      "A splendid vessel," he said. "I expect you have a picture of her, haven't you?"

      "No," she answered, "but I've got a lil ship Joe cut out o' wood an' painted butivul. Awnly that's another vessel what Joe sailed in afore."

      "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, "because you were good enough to explain all about the fishing-boats. I'll make a tiny picture of the 'Anna' and paint it and give it to you."

      But the girl took fright instantly.

      "You'm a artist, then?" she said, with alarm in her face and voice.

      He shook his head.

      "No, no. Do I look like an artist? I'm only a stranger down here for a day or two. I paint things sometimes for my own amusement, that's all."

      "Pickshers?"

      "They are not worth calling pictures. Just scraps of the sea and trees and cliffs and sky, to while away the time and remind me of beautiful things after I have left them."

      "You ban't a artist ezacally, then?"

      "Certainly not. Don't you like artists?"

      "Faither don't. He'm a fisherman an' caan't abear many things as happens in the world. An' not artists. Genlemen have arsked him to let 'em take my picksher, 'cause they've painted a good few maidens to Newlyn; an' some of 'em wanted to paint faither as well; but he up an' sez 'No!' short. Paintin's vanity 'cordin' to faither, same as they flags an' cannels an' moosic to Newlyn church is vanity. Most purty things is vanity, faither reckons."

      "I'm sure he's a wise man. And I think he's right, especially about the candles and flags in church. And now I must go on my walk. Let me see, shall I bring you the little picture of Joe's ship here? I often walk out this way."

      He assumed she would take the picture, and now she feared to object.

       Moreover, such a sketch would be precious in her eyes.

      "Maybe 'tis troublin' of 'e, sir?"

      "I've promised you. I always keep my word. I shall be here to-morrow about mid-afternoon, because it is lonely and quiet and beautiful. I'm going to try and paint the gorse, all blazing so brightly against the sky."

      "Them prickly fuzz-bushes?"

      "Yes; because they are very beautiful."

      "But they'm everywheres. You might so well paint the bannel [Footnote: Bannel—Broom.] or the yether on the moors, mightn't 'e?"

      "They are beautiful, too. Remember, I shall have Joe's ship for you to-morrow."

      He nodded without smiling, and turned away until a point of the gorse had hidden her from sight. Then he sat down, loaded his pipe, and reflected.

      "'Joe's ship,'" he said to himself, "a happy title enough."

      And meantime the girl had looked after him with wonder and some amusement in her eyes, had rubbed her chin reflectively—a habit caught from her father—and had then scampered off smiling to herself.

      "What a funny gent," she thought, "never laughs nor nothin'. An' I judged he was a artist! But wonnerful kind, an' wonnerful queer, wi' it, sure 'nough."

       Table of Contents

      THE TREGENZAS

      Joan Tregenza lived in a white cottage already mentioned: that standing just beyond Newlyn upon a road above the sea. The cot was larger than it appeared from the road and extended backward into an orchard of plum and apple-trees. The kitchen which opened into this garden was stone-paved, cool, comfortable, sweet at all times with the scent of wood smoke, and frequently not innocent of varied fishy odors. But Newlyn folk suck in a smell of fish with their mothers' milk. 'Tis part of the atmosphere of home.

      When Joan returned from her visit to Gorse Point, she found a hard-faced woman, thin of figure, with untidy hair, wrinkled brow and sharp features, engaged about a pile of washing in the garden at the kitchen-door. Mrs. Tregenza heard the girl arrive, and spoke without lifting her little gray eyes from the clothes. Her voice was hard and high and discontented, like that of one who has long bawled into a deaf man's ear and is weary of it.

      "Drabbit you! Wheer you bin? Allus trapsing out when you'm wanted; allus caddlin' round doin' nothin' when you ban't. I s'pose you think breakfus' can be kep' on the table till dinner, washing-day or no?"

      "I don't want no breakfus', then. I tuke some bread an' drippin' long with me. Wheer's Tom to?"

      "Gone to schule this half-hour. 'Tis nine o'clock an' past. Wheer you bin,

       I sez? 'Tain't much in your way to rise afore me of a marnin'."

      "Out through Mouzle to Gorse P'int to see Joe's ship pass by; an' I seen en butivul."

      "Thank the Lard he's gone. Now, I s'pose, theer'll be a bit peace in the house, an' you'll bide home an' work. My fingers is to the bone day an' night."

      "He'll be gone a year purty nigh."

      "Well, the harder you works, the quicker the time'll pass by. Theer's nuthin' to grizzle at. Sea-farin' fellers must be away most times. But he'm a good, straight man, an' you'm tokened to en, an' that's enough. Bide cheerful an' get the water for washin'. If they things of faither's bant dry come to-morrer, he'll knaw the reason why."

      Joan accepted Mrs. Tregenza's comfort philosophically, though her sweetheart's departure had not really caused her any emotion. She visited the larder, drank a cup of milk, and then, fetching an iron hoop and buckets, went to a sunken barrel outside the cottage door, into which, from a pipe through the road-bank, tumbled a silver thread of spring water.

      Of the Tregenza household a word must needs be spoken. Joan's own mother had died twelve years ago, and the anxious-natured woman who took her place proved herself a good step-parent enough. Despite a disposition prone to worry and to dwell upon the small tribulations of life, Thomasin Tregenza was not unhappy, for her husband enjoyed prosperity and a reputation for godliness unequaled in Newlyn. A great, weather-worn, gray, hairy man was he, with a big head and a furrowed cliff of a forehead

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