In August they brewed two casks of strong beer at Nampara, and Jeremy, usually up to his mischief, and always seeking to do a favour to his friends, the new Ebb and Flow, gave them the beer grounds out of both barrels. When Demelza went out the pigs had collapsed in a drunken stupor and Jeremy was in tears thinking he had killed them. The animals slept all through the rest of that day, two palely hairy snoring mountains whom no one could rouse, and next morning by a happy coincidence – Ross thought – Sir Hugh Bodrugan called hoping to find Ross up at the mine, to admire his Berkshire wonders and to see if he could squeeze Demelza a couple of times in tender places.
It didn’t work out that way. Demelza was there, and apparently on her own, but was even more adroit than usual at keeping him at arm’s length. She led him through the house into the kitchens where he had never been before and where he was peered at fearfully by a couple of serving wenches and an older woman, until they passed through the still-room and out into the back yard where Ross was sitting on a keg helpless with laughter while Gimlett tried to persuade the pigs out of their torpor. First he would get Ebb on to his two front feet and try to lever him up on to the back two. Whereupon the front two would cross, like a dandy at a street corner, and the whole ponderous bulk would slowly collapse snout down on to the straw and cobbles. Flow was in better shape and able to stand on all legs, but the legs had no cohesion and she lurched from side to side as if she were on a boat in a rough sea. Every now and then she thumped into a wall and all but went down. Her snout quivered and turned, and once in a while she would open her mouth in a cavernous yawn.
‘Ecod,’ said Sir Hugh. ‘They’ve got the staggers! Tis a complaint not uncommon in horses, but never have I seen the like in pigs! Mistress Demelza, you cured my valuable horse once with your spells. Tis time you said something over these or they’ll be dead before dark!’
‘Do you smell nothing?’ Ross asked.
‘Of course I smell something, sir! Find me the farmyard devoid of stinks and I’ll ask for a new nose. It is all part and parcel of animal life, though Connie’s pet menagerie, I’ll grant you, reeks like a jakes when you open it first thing in the morning!’
‘Does it ever reek of the taproom?’
Sir Hugh stared from under his beetling brows. ‘Nay, now, come to think of it . . . Damn me, have they got at the ale?’
‘My small son tried to kill them with kindness.’
‘Damn me, where can I sit down?’ He glowered heavily about him and found another barrel. There he sat down and began to laugh. In all their acquaintance Demelza had never seen him properly laugh before. (Perhaps one didn’t when one was feeling concupiscent, as he always did when he saw her.) It was a horrible sound, compounded of a lion’s roar and a donkey’s bray, and it produced scared faces peering out from the kitchen and raised Jack Cobbledick’s heavy head from the barn beyond. It even brought Flow up short. She stood for a few moments steady on all four trotters, staring at this extraordinary hairy apparition that was bellowing at her, then she turned about, tail wagging like an eccentric worm, and disappeared into the darkest corner of her sty.
After a while Sir Hugh Bodrugan limped back into the parlour, demanding Demelza’s arm to support him. There he refused a light canary but took a glass of brandy and sprawled in their best chair, his short stout legs stiff in front of him, a tear still escaping now and again to trickle down his cheek.
To his disappointment Ross joined them and, in spite of hints, showed no signs of going up to the mine. Presently Sir Hugh, making the best of a bad job, observed that he was glad now that Ross had refused him a part of Wheal Grace, since he heard it was likely to be closed within the year. Ross said that he knew Sir Hugh liked a little flutter: would he care to wager a thousand guineas that Wheal Grace would still be open when the new century came in? Sir Hugh, never quite at his ease with Ross – you never knew how the feller would jump; totally undependable and bad blood somewhere – downed his brandy at a gulp and extended his glass for more.
‘Nay, sir, for that’s no more than I would have lost if I’d made the investment.’ This unassailable piece of logic convinced Sir Hugh that he had had the last word, so he changed the subject. ‘Things are looking up on the war front, eh? France nearly at war with the United States. Mad Paul becoming anti-French. They say we shall be in negotiations with him before Christmas. And this rebellion in Ireland coming to a dismal, bloody end.’
‘And Hoche dead,’ said Ross.
‘Who?’
‘Hoche. General Hoche. At thirty-one. As great a general as Buonaparte. It means the risk of an invasion of England is so much less.’
‘And what of Buonaparte? What mischief is he up to?’
‘The latest report by overland courier from Constantinople is that he landed in Egypt in July, took Alexandria, and was known to be moving on Cairo.’
Sir Hugh scratched under his wig. ‘You young fellers know it all, don’t you. And now, of course, you being a member of Parliament . . . What d’ye do in that place? Talk, I suspicion. Hot air, sir. The production of hot air. If hot air would run your mine, Poldark, I guess there’d be plenty to spare in Westminster, if ye could but bottle it like one of these gases and release it where it could be of use to you! Sir Horatio What’s it should take it on his ships and blow it out through his fourteen-pounders!’ Hugh Bodrugan rumbled with the subterranean amusement that Demelza was more used to. ‘But maybe I have local news for you. Are you invited to this Warleggan party that’s to be held at Trenwith at the end of the month?’
‘Did you suppose we should be?’ Ross asked.
Hugh rumbled again. ‘No. Seeing how the wind blows, sir, I would imagine no. But tis to be quite a considerable affair from all reports. Many of the county, as you’d suppose – the Trevaunances, the Trenegloses, the Teagues, the Choakes, the Devorans, the Hawkinses. But also some odd characters from up country – a number of MPs, I’m told. What George Warleggan lacks in breeding he makes up in enterprise. I learn he’s going to enter Parliament himself again soon. Rather him than me. I’d no more sit in that noisy chapel day after day listening to fellers talking through their hats than I’d sit on the close stool after my business there was discharged!’
‘You put it well,’ said Ross. ‘So I take it you’re not going to Trenwith.’
‘Me? Not going? Why, blast me, I’ve no wish to powder and flig myself up like a macaroni, but Connie has a taking to go, and, by God, if Connie wants to go, I rather suspect we shall be there!’ Sir Hugh Bodrugan began to palpitate with laughter.
‘You find the prospect amusing?’ Ross asked.
‘Nay, I was thinking of the pigs. Next time we have a little party – which God knows is infrequent enough these days – I’ve a mind to try the potion on a couple of porkers of my own. Twould be a valuable source of entertainment for us all!’
III
Nights are seldom warm in Cornwall, but in the last week of August a quiet spell descended on sea and land, and the usual breezes did not get up. Walking home from Grambler in the afternoon Ross met Paul Daniel and said: ‘When’s your next night fishing, Paul?’
‘Tonight, sur. Tes the right sort of weather and there should be a fair chance of catching ’em inshore.’
‘And rabbiting after?’
‘’S I reckon.’
‘Watch you don’t go on Treneglos land. Now Mr John is in charge he’s more particular that way.’
‘We keep to the coast, sur. In the main, that is.’ Paul Daniel cocked a wary eye at his questioner.
Ross smiled. ‘How many are you tonight?’
‘Oh . . . Dozen or more. Zacky Martin, Henry Curnow, Jud Paynter, Bone, Tregirls, Ellery, Hoblyn; you know ’em all.’
‘Jud? Isn’t he too old?’
‘Not too old to hang on the end of a line – and to use ’is cunning.’
Ross looked up at the sky. ‘Would you accept another recruit?’
‘Mean you, sur, do ee? Well, twould be handsome. Just like old ti
mes.’
‘When d’you start?’
‘’Bout eleven, I reckon. Curnow don’t get off mine till ten, and tis low water at midnight.’
‘I’ll be there.’
Line and net fishing in Cornwall had been indulged in for centuries: it was a valuable additional source of food, and it existed not in the tiny fishing ports and harbours where seiners could go out commercially, but on the long beaches where the sea thundered and the sand was flat and uninterrupted for miles. On these beaches, on which the sea rushed in and receded twice daily over great areas, where no rock or shelf existed to break the Atlantic surf, where necessarily the water was shallow and the sand firm there was a fair share of marine life: the mackerel, the flounder, the bass, the skate, even the gurnard, could be caught in nets and lines artfully put out.
As a boy Ross had had his share of this kind of fishing. Encouraged by his father, by Tholly Tregirls, and to a lesser extent by Jud Paynter, he had been in and out of the water at all hours and all seasons, from the times when a harvest moon had cast warm mellow shadows of the men working on the beach to cold February nights when hail had pelted on one’s bare skin like peas from a shooter.
In line fishing a strong line with perhaps fifty baited hooks was carried down to the beach at low tide, someone swam out with a heavy stone to anchor it; and hours later, after the tide had been in and out again, you garnered the result by pulling in the line and seeing what had been caught on the hooks. Net fishing was more complicated. You took down to the beach a fine small-mesh light-weight net made of thin twine or even cotton; the upper length of the net was tied with corks to make it float, the lower length with one-ounce weights to keep it on or near the bottom. One man, or if the net were a big one, two, swam out with the leading line while another man or so held on to the trailing line. After the swimmers had gone out to sea, perhaps three or four hundred yards, they would turn and swim parallel with the shore and then come in again, with the leading line still in their hands – or round their waists – so that they had described roughly a semi-circle in the sea. Then, once they were ashore, they would begin to draw in the net and hope – usually rightly – that they had caught some fish in their trawling. This again was always done at low tide, partly because that was where the fish were, partly because the surf then was lighter.
It was net fishing that was in progress the night Ross joined them, and not one but four parties were on the beach. As a boy he had often wondered what moved the fishers so that perhaps for four or five perfectly good days there was no activity at all, and then suddenly they would all go down and make a night of it. He had never met anyone who could give a reason for the decisions arrived at; some tribal instinct moved.
On this occasion the nearest net was just below the now derelict Wheal Leisure mine on Treneglos ground, and a light had been lit near where the old adit came out. The light came from a beer cask, which long years ago had been filled with paraffin wax, and a rope dipped in saltpetre thrust into the centre. Every now and then more wax was added; sometimes the rope-wick was renewed; but the old barrel seemed to go on for ever. This when lit was like a great flaring candle which gave not only light but a little warmth to the beach, and round it there were always a few fishermen taking their noggins of rum. Drink was as much a part of the scene as fish.
As Ross approached the scene a worn half-moon was just rising over the sandhills like a counterfeit penny that had been bitten in half. Three men were squatting by the barrel and one had a bottle up-ended to his mouth. Needless to say, this was Jud Paynter. Dressed in brown patched corduroy trousers, scuffed leggings over heavy boots, a shirt, a coat and a sacking about his shoulders, with an old felt hat down over his ears, he looked dressed for a December vigil in his graveyard rather than a night’s fishing in temperate September air.
‘Ah, Jud,’ said Ross. ‘Busy as usual? And who’ve you been teeling this week?’
Jud did not allow the sudden materialization of his late employer out of the shadows to disturb the rhythm of his Adam’s apple. He put the bottle down and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Then he licked his hand to make sure no flavour was lost.
‘Aw, Cap’n Ross. Ye will have yer little jest, an? Prudie say to me, Cap’n Ross he always d’have his little jest, she say.’
‘How is Prudie?’
‘Aw, she’ve the toothache and as sour as a grab ‘cause of it. She d’sit glumped up in a corner, making grief wi’ everything I do, like twas my fault! Glad to be out of ‘n, I am. Else I’d not be here in the dark ’alf of the night messen my proper sleep!’
‘But having your proper tot, too, I see.’
‘Well, Cap’n, tes the only comfort I d’have, see. That and a drag o’ baccy. I’m old, and no misment. Tes cruel hard work setten folk underground. Harder’n planting taties. Harder’n seeking tin! Ted’n right I should ’ave to do it. Ted’n proper!’
Ross opened his bag. ‘I’ve brought two jars of rum to add to the store. But not all for you, Jud.’
Jud showed his two teeth in what looked like a snarl but might charitably have been taken for a smile. ‘Thur be fine antics over to the big ’ouse, Cap’n. Seen ’em, ’ave ee? Lumpous great coaches! Fair dring of folk coming and going. Old men in gossan wigs riding ascrode gurt horses! And poor folk like Grambler folk standing goggle-for-gapes a-watching of it all. Tes all to pass off tomorrow eve, I reckon. Goin’, are ee, Cap’n?’
‘No,’ said Ross.
‘There now,’ said Jud, squinting cunningly up at Ross. ‘Reckon tes a proper disgrace what that there Warleggan man done. What have he done? I’ll tell ee. All them fences. All them keepers. They edn God’s laws. God d’say, thou shalt not move thy neighbour’s landmark. Ted’n Christian!’
‘Where’s Paul?’
‘Here, sur, just comin’,’ said Ellery, who had politely got up from his squatting position when Ross arrived.
Walking towards them across the beach were Paul Daniel and his eldest son, Mark – known universally as Young Mark to distinguish him from his still-mourned uncle – and Jacka Hoblyn, Rosina’s father. Young Mark was naked and dripping.
‘Even, sur, Even, sur, Even, sur,’ they said as they came up, and Paul added: ‘We done one drag; a poor catch, but the tide ‘ve still to fall. Zacky and Henry are sorting and clearing the net.’
‘You’ve not used the bigger net?’ Ross asked.
‘We thought to try un next. But tis ’eavy for a youngster so I thought to take ’n out myself.’
‘How are the others faring?’
Paul peered up the beach to where groups of dark figures were just discernible in the ochreous light that a ground haze had given to the low moon. ‘Don’t think they’ve drawn yet. Zacky d’say there’ll be a better catch at the far end.’
There had been a moderate surf at high tide, but now, nearing dead low, it was a thin white line like a painter’s brushstroke dividing two elements.
‘I’ll take it out myself,’ said Ross. ‘Jud shall come and hold the end for me.’
There was a moment’s hesitation. Jacka sniffed and rubbed his knuckle across his nose.
‘I think twould be better wi’ two, sur,’ said Paul. ‘This net’s a tidy weight just so soon as he gets damp.’
‘It’s no heavier than many a one I swam out with twenty years ago.’
‘Nay, sur, but—’
Ross glanced round at the men. ‘And d’you think I’m so flabbed and pot-bellied I can’t do the same thing today?’
Jacka glowered and spat.
Paul said: ‘Been in the sea this year, ’ave ee, sur?’
Jacka muttered: ‘All this London tra-ade. Reckon there edn no sea London ways, es there?’
Jud took out his pipe and began to stuff it with some obnoxious mixture of his own. ‘Nay, Cap’n, think again. Ee be zeer wi’ all this high living. Ted’n time yet to be measuring ee for a windan sheet. Go ee for a fore-stroll along the beach and leave the swimmun be.’
Ross smiled i
n the dark. Whatever concern the others were showing for his health, Jud was only thinking that if Ross went he was to be employed as the anchor and must stand on the edge of the water with maybe his feet in an inch or two of it, with the rope round his waist, and wait while the net was carried out and then have to help to pull it in when Ross landed with the other end further down the coast. If Ross didn’t go he’d probably be allowed to sit by the guttering tar barrel to smoke his pipe and drink his tots in peace.
Ross said: ‘The care that you all have for me touches me deep. You know I’m but three or four years younger than Paul and Paul is a thought shaky on his feet these days and could hardly wrestle with his own shadow; and I know my life is soft and comfortable for I spend all my days in London sprawling in the salons of rich and beautiful women, so gladly I’d acknowledge your concern for my health and safety and take no part in the swimming tonight. But for one thing I cannot bear to disappoint Jud.’
There was a mutter of laughter that gradually grew. While he was speaking Ross had realized that the sarcasm he was using, the prolonged nature of the phrases, were something not suited to his present audience – that in a sense he had changed – so it was with a touch of relief that he heard the point of the joke go home.
He began to take off his clothes. ‘Come on, boy,’Jacka Hoblyn said, grasping Jud’s arm. ‘Put the jar down – twill still be here in ’alf an hour.’
Protesting, Jud was hauled to his feet. Protesting, he was allowed to thrust a piece of straw into the tar barrel and from it to light his old clay pipe. Then, hat pulled firmly on head, he shuffled off in the wake of Ross and Paul Daniel, who insisted on carrying the net as far as the water.