I
Very few matter-of-fact citizens of the present-day world will understand the part that the sea used to play in our young lives thirty years ago in Polchester.
It is very easy to look at the map and say that the sea is a considerable distance from Polchester,and that even if you stood on the highest ridge of the highest cornfield above the town you would not be able to catch the faintest glimpse of it.That may be true,although I myself can never be completely assured,possessing so vividly as I do a memory of a day when I stood with my nurse at the edge of Merazion Woods and,gazing out to the horizon,saw a fleet of ships full-sail upon the bluest of seas,and would not be persuaded that it was merely wrack of clouds.That may be or no;the fact remains that Polchester sniffed the sea from afar,was caught with sea breezes and bathed in reflected sea-lights;again and again of an evening the Cathedral sailed on dust and shadow towards the horizon,a great white ghost of a galleon,and the young citizens of the town with wondering eyes,watched it go.But there were more positive influences than mere cloud and light.We had,in the lower part of our town,sailors,quite a number of them.There were the old white-bearded ones who would sit upon tubs and tell smuggling tales;these haunted the River Pol,fished in it,ferried people across it,and let out boats for hire.There were younger sailors who,tired of the still life of their little villages and dreading the real hard work of a life at sea,lurched and slouched by the Pol's river bed,fishing a little,sleeping,eating and drinking a great deal.
And there were the true sailors,passing through perhaps on their way to Drymouth to join their ships,staying in the town for a day or two to visit their relations,or simply stopping for an hour or so to gaze open-mouthed at the Cathedral and the market-place and the Canons and the old women.These men had sometimes gold rings in their ears,and their faces were often coloured a dark rich brown,and they carried bundles across their backs all in the traditional style.
Then there were influences more subtle than either clouds or men.
There were the influences of the places that we had ourselves seen in our summer holidays--Rafiel and St.Lowe,Marion Bay or Borhaze--and,on the other coast,Newbock with its vast stretch of yellow sand,St.Borse with its wild seas and giant Borse Head,or St.
Nails-in-Cove with its coloured rocks and sparkling shells.Every child had his own place;my place was,like Jeremy's,Rafiel,and a better,more beautiful place,in the whole world you will not find.
And each place has its own legend:at Rafiel the Gold lured Pirates,and the Turnip-Field;at Polwint the Giant Excise Man;at Borhaze the Smugglers of Trezent Rock;at St.Borse the wreck of "The Golden Galleon"in the year 1563,with its wonderful treasure;and at St.
Maitsin Cove the famous Witch of St.Maitsin Church Town who turned men's bones into water and filled St.Maitsin Church with snakes.
Back from one summer holiday,treasuring these stories together with our collections of shells and seaweed and dried flowers,we came,and so the tales settled in Polchester streets and crept into the heart of the Polchester cobbles and haunted the Polchester corners by the fire,and even invaded with their romantic,peering,mischievous faces the solemn aisles of the Cathedral itself.
The sea was at the heart of all of them,and whenever a sea-breeze blew down the street carrying with it wisps of straw from the field,or dandelion seeds,or smell of sea-pinks,we children lifted our noses and sniffed and sniffed and saw the waves curl in across the shore,or breakers burst upon the rock,and whispered to one another of the Smugglers of Trezent or the Gold-laced Pirates of Rafiel.
But I think that none of us adored the sea as Jeremy did.From that first moment when,as a small baby,he had been held up in Rafiel Cove to see the tops of the waves catch the morning light as they rolled over to shore,he had adored it.He had never felt any fear of it;he had been able to swim since he could remember,and he simply lived for those days at the end of July when they would all,in a frantic hurry and confusion,take the train for Rafiel and arrive at Cow Farm in the evening,with the roar of the sea coming across the quiet fields to mingle with the lowing of the cows and the bleating of the sheep.He had in his bedroom a wonderful collection of dusty and sticky sea-shells,and these he would turn over and over,letting them run through his fingers as a miner counts his gold.
Let him catch the faintest glimpse of a shadow of a sailor in the street and he was after it,and he had once,when he was only four or five,been caught by the terrified Jampot,only just in time,walking away confidently down the market-place,his hand in the huge grasp of a villainous looking mariner.He was exceedingly happy in his home,but he did often wonder whether he would not run away to sea;of course,he was going to be a sailor,but it seemed so long to wait until he was thirteen or fourteen,and there was the sea all the time rolling in and out and inviting him to come.
Mrs.Cole warned Miss Jones of this taste of Jeremy's:"Never let him speak to a sailor,Miss Jones.There are some horrible men in the town,and Jeremy simply is not to be trusted when sailors are concerned."Miss Jones,however,could not be always on her guard,and Fate is stronger than any governess.
Early in February there came one of those hints of spring that in Glebeshire more than in any other place in the world thrill and stir the heart.Generally they give very little in actual reward and are followed by weeks of hail and sleet and wind,but for that reason alone their burning promise is beyond all other promises beguiling.
