CHAPTER III
THE CAPTAIN MAKES HISTORY
One day George entered the churchyard and set his face towards a bigsycamore, with the resolution of setting his back against it. He hadbeen tempted by the wide trunk and smooth bark for a long time; but hisattempt to reach the tree failed entirely because it stood upon theunfrequented side of the churchyard, and was surrounded by anentanglement of brambles and nettles some yards in depth.
Determined to reach that sycamore somehow, George complained to hisuncle about the abominable condition of the churchyard; and CaptainDrake reprimanded the vicar for "allowing the resting places of ourhistoric dead to become a trackless jungle;" and the vicar once moreimplored the sexton to give up the public-house; and the sexton declaredthere were no such blackberries in all the parish as could be gatheredfrom those brambles.
The matter would have ended there had it not been for Captain Drake, whovisited the territory, explored to within fifteen feet of the sycamore,then called a meeting of parishioners and, with the aid of diagrams,showed how the foremost line of nettles was advancing so rapidly in anorth-westerly direction as to threaten the main approach to the vestry;while a screen of brambles had already reached a nameless altar tombwhereon the youth of the place by traditional right recorded theirinitials.
The seriousness of the weed peril had not been realised until then; asthe Dumpy Philosopher remarked, they had all been asleep and thus hadbeen taken unprepared; but, when the parishioners did realise it, anarmy of offence was raised quickly; the nettles were eradicated and thebrambles uprooted; that portion of the churchyard was thrown open to thepublic; and George attained his resting place beside the sycamore.
He had lounged against it several times before his eyes fell upon aninscription which appeared familiar, although obscured by moss andyellow lichen. As the tombstone was not more than three yards away, hewas able to reach it without much difficulty. Reclining upon the turf,he summoned up energy to open his pocketknife and to scrape away thelichen until the full meaning of the discovery burst upon him.
Later in the day the Yellow Leaf met Squinting Jack, and said, "I sawMr. Drake running like wildfire down the street this forenoon. If Ihadn't seen 'en wi' my own eyes, I wouldn't ha' believed it."
"I saw 'en too wi' my own eyes," replied Squinting Jack. "And still Idon't believe it."
Captain Drake would have run too had there been less of him. George hadnever been a liar--the poor fellow had no imagination and rarely pickedup a newspaper--still his story sounded too impossible to be true. Theyreached the newly discovered tombstone; the Captain read theinscription; and in a voice trembling with emotion murmured, "AmeliaDrake, of Black Anchor Farm, in this parish."
The portion of stone which bore the date of her departure had sunk intothe ground.
"George, my lad," cried the Captain, "this is the grave of my long-lostgreat-grandmother."
"The missing link," added the nephew, with the joyous certainty of oneabout to negotiate a loan.
"Our pedigree is now complete. I am certain my father used to speak of arumour which insisted that his grandmother's name was Amelia; and now wehave discovered she lived in this parish, at Black Anchor Farm, which nodoubt had passed to her husband--who is down on the pedigree as havingbeen probably lost at sea--from the lineal descendant of the greatFounder himself. The name of the farm proves that. You see, George, thereference is to a black anchor, a new freshly tarred anchor, not to anold rusty red one. I must have the stone cleaned. And we will show ourrespect by planting roses here."
"If it hadn't been for me, this grave would never have been discovered,"said George, ready to produce a statement of his bankruptcy.
"That's true, my lad. It's the best day's work you have ever done inyour life."
"Skilled labour, too," reminded George, still advertising.
"I won't forget," his uncle promised.
Black Anchor Farm was situated about two miles from the centre of thevillage. It was not a place to covet, consisting of a mean littlethatched house; stable and barn of cob walls propped up by pieces oftimber; and half a dozen fields which brought forth furze and bracken ingreat abundance. People named Slack occupied the place; the man was alame dwarf who tried to work sometimes, but honestly preferred poaching;the woman went about in rags and begged; while the children were littlesavages, kept from school by their father, and trained to steal by theirmother.
The Captain refused to be discouraged when he visited the home of hisancestors and discovered a hovel; but wrote to the owner forinformation, interviewed the vicar, turned up the registers, andconsulted the Yellow Leaf.
The letter was answered by a solicitor, who expressed his sorrow atnever having heard of the family of Drake. The vicar mentioned that thename Anchor occurred frequently in the neighbourhood, and wasundoubtedly a corruption of Anchoret, which signified a person whosought righteousness by retiring from a world of sin. He considered itprobable that the site had been occupied formerly by the cell of ahermit who had distinguished himself by wearing a black cloak.
Although the Captain gave days and nights to the registers, he couldfind no entry concerning his family, of whom most, he was convinced, hadbeen lost at sea, apart from the funeral of Amelia Drake. The YellowLeaf, after remaining some days in a state of meditation, distinctlyrecalled a tradition concerning a lady (the Captain thanked him for thelady) who had lived alone at Black Anchor Farm for a number of years,receiving no visitors, and leaving the place only to obtain freshsupplies of liquid consolation. The end of her history was so unpleasanthe did not care to dwell upon it, but apparently this lady wasdiscovered at last ready for her funeral, and according to report it wasa pity she had not been discovered earlier.
Still the Captain refused to be discouraged. His nobility of characterwould not permit him to disown the memory of his great-grandmother,although he thought it terribly sad she should have sunk so low. If she,during recurring fits of temporary insanity, had disgraced the greatname, he had added lustre to it. If the former country residence of SirFrancis Drake had fallen into a ruinous condition, it should be hisprivilege to restore it with a few magic touches of the pen. He resolvedto devote the remaining years of his life to the writing of _A Historyof the Parish of Highfield_.
"The vicar was not altogether mistaken, my love," he remarked to Mrs.Drake. "He associates the name of Black Anchor with a hermit who wore adark coloured vestment of some description, and no doubt he is right. Myunfortunate great-grandmother did live there entirely alone, and wouldnaturally be regarded as a hermit by the superstitious people of thisparish. And we need not be surprised to discover that she always woreblack--silk or velvet, I presume--the last poor remnants of her formergreatness. It is an established fact, I believe, that elderly ladiesgenerally wear black."
As a compiler of history the Captain was in many ways well equipped. Hewrote rapidly, which was of great importance, because the least relevantchapter in the life of a parish required a vast number of words. Hepossessed a gift of making the past real because he owned a powerfulimagination. While confidence in his own abilities freed him from aslavish adherence to facts which could serve no useful purpose.Realising the importance of concentrating upon some particular feature,in order that the narrative might be made continuous, he had not theslightest difficulty in selecting that feature. The keynote of theentire work was sounded by the opening sentence:
"Although the Parish of Highfield is but little known to Englishmen, andoccupies an extremely small portion of the map, being entirely excludedfrom the standard Atlas used in schools--in our opinionunjustifiably--it must nevertheless remain for ever famous on account ofits associations with the sublime name of Drake."
The opening chapter dealt with the destruction of the Spanish _Armada_.The second gave an account of the arrival of Sir Francis Drake inHighfield parish, fully describing his purchase of a site and theerection of a stately manor house, of which unfortunately nothingremained except a few fragments "fraught with sweet Elizabe
thanmemories." The site was still known as Black Anchor, which wasundoubtedly the name conferred by the great Admiral upon his countryresidence, because he regarded it as a place to which he could retirefrom the world, where he could muse amid the solitude of nature, wherehe could rest, or, in the phrase of the seaman, "cast his anchor." Itwas here that Queen Elizabeth visited him, and, according to someauthorities who seemed to deserve serious attention, it was here, andnot in London, that the Queen conferred the honour of knighthood uponthis magnificent bulwark of her throne.
The third chapter was devoted entirely to the royal visit, concerningwhich tradition was happily not silent. It was indeed a simple matter tofollow the Queen's progress towards its culminating point, which wasunquestionably Highfield Manor, as Black Anchor Farm was known in thosedays, through the adjoining parishes, all possessing manors of whichsome had survived to the present time, but most had fallen down, at eachof which the royal lady had enjoyed a few hours' slumber.
Several pages were allotted to this habit of Elizabeth, who wasapparently unable to travel more than five miles without going to bed;and in these the author sought to prove the existence of some malady, akind of travelling sickness, no doubt exaggerated by the roughness ofthe roads and constant jolting of the coach, so that the physician inattendance felt himself compelled to advise his royal mistress to sleepat every village through which she passed.
The peculiarities of monarchs, remarked the author, are more conspicuousthan the virtues or vices of ordinary people. The nervousness of KingCharles the Second was no less remarkable than Queen Elizabeth'srecurring fits of somnolence: he was continually retiring intocupboards, standing behind doors, or climbing into oak trees, owing to amorbid dread of being looked at. King Charles had secreted himselfinside a cupboard within the boundaries of Highfield parish, but thiswas not to be regarded as a coincidence, for a patient inquiry intolocal traditions elicited the fact that, wherever Queen Elizabeth hadslept in the best bed of the manor house, King Charles had climbed atree (usually the common oak, _Quercus robur_) in the garden. As thewriter was dealing with the parish of Highfield only, it would beoutside the scope of his work to give a list of villages, in Devonshirealone, which claimed to possess pillows upon which Elizabeth had deignedto rest her weary head; but he was satisfied that the Highfield pillowhad been stored away in precisely the same cupboard used by Charlesduring one of his secretive moments. Both these interesting relics hadbeen destroyed, as was customary, by fire.
The fourth chapter flourished the Drake pedigree, copied from theoriginal document in the author's possession; and went on to give apathetic account of Amelia, the lonely and eccentric lady who was thelast representative of the famous family to reside at Highfield Manor.Three facts concerning her could be stated with certainty: she was of asingularly retiring nature, she was accustomed to wear a black silkdress upon all occasions, and she was murdered by some unknown ruffianfor the sake of certain valuable heirlooms she was known to possess. Itappeared probable that she was a poetess as, according to localtradition, she could frequently be heard singing; while her fondness forcats, a weakness which had descended to her great-grandson, was aclearly marked feature of her character.
The fifth chapter was a triumph of literary and artistic handiwork. EvenMrs. Drake, who did not approve of the undertaking because she had tomeet the expenses of publication, felt bound to admit that, if Williamhad not chosen to become a great sea-captain, a certain other William,who had written plays for a living, might conceivably have been toppledfrom his eminence; for nothing could have been more thrilling than thestory of a family vault, "filled with the bones and memories of thegreatest centuries in British history," becoming first neglected, thenforgotten, and finally overgrown by brambles and nettles: a vault, letthe reader remember, not containing rude forefathers of the hamlet, butmembers of the family of Drake; a vault, not situated in the Ethiopiandesert, nor abandoned within some Abyssinian jungle, but built beneaththe turf of an English churchyard hard by a simple country Bethel. Thisvault became entirely lost! Summer followed spring, autumn precededwinter, year after year, while the nettles increased, and the bramblesencroached yet more upon the consecrated ground, until the very site ofthe famous vault was lost to sight--this sentence being the one literaryflaw upon an otherwise perfect chapter--and the oldest inhabitant hadceased to tell of its existence.
Here the _History of the Parish of Highfield_ was interrupted by somechapters dealing with the birth, education, early struggles, voyages,adventures, success, and retirement of Captain Francis Drake; togetherwith an account of Mrs. Drake and her relations; with a flatteringnotice of George Drake, Esquire, who was later to win renown as theexplorer of Highfield churchyard and the discoverer of the long-missingvault. It was shown also how the Captain had been guided by Providenceto the village, formerly the home of his ancestors, and how "the lure ofthe place had been nothing but the silver cord of an hereditaryattraction stretched through the centuries to reach the golden bowl ofhis soul." Mrs. Drake objected to this sentence, and the printer madestill stranger stuff of it; but George upheld his uncle's contentionthat poetical prose could not be out of place in a work dealing with theorigin and progress of a wayside village.
At this point the author interpolated, by means of footnotes, a fewremarks, which he owned were unconnected with the purport of his work:Domesday Book alluded to Highfield in one deplorably curt sentence; thechurch contained nothing of interest; an oak tree, which had formerlyshaded the village green, no longer existed; the views were local,charming, and full of variety; the streams contained fish; botanistswould discover furze and heather upon the adjacent moorland; the name ofthe place was derived probably from two Anglo-Saxon words whichsignified a field standing in a high place.
The author arrived at that fateful day when George, led by his interestin arboriculture to inspect a magnificent specimen of sycamore upon thesouth side of the churchyard, found his progress checked by tangledgrowths which, to the eternal disgrace of the parish, had been permittedto conceal "the precious memorial and cradle of British supremacy uponthe main." Mrs. Drake opposed this sentence still more strongly, but theCaptain pleaded inspiration and retained it.
There followed a stirring account of "the wave of indignation that burntwith its hot iron the souls of the villagers, when their attention hadbeen drawn to a state of neglect which threatened to deprive them of theobvious benefits of their own burying ground, and was rapidly making itimpossible for the mourner to drop the scalding tear or the fragrantflower upon the sepulchre of some dear lost one." A vivid page describedthe destruction of brambles and nettles, the removal of five cart loads,the subsequent bonfire in which "these emblems of Thor and Woden meltedinto flame and were dissipated into diaphanous smoke clouds."
The style unfortunately became confused when the author dealt at lengthwith the actual Discovery, and represented himself as head of the familykneeling in humble thankfulness beside the mouldering stone marking thehallowed spot where Drakes lay buried.
The work included with an account of Windward House, a description ofthe furniture, a complete list of the antiquities, among which, owing toa printer's error, appeared the names of Kezia and Bessie; with areference to the cats, monkeys, parrots, and giant tortoise. ThenCaptain Drake lay down his pen, put aside the well-thumbed dictionary,and, calling wife and nephew, informed them solemnly, "The last wordsare written. I have rounded off my existence with a book."
Nothing much was said for some minutes. The author was obviouslystruggling with emotion; Mrs. Drake put her handkerchief to her eyes;George smiled in a nervous fashion and trifled with the coppers in bothpockets. Kezia and Bessie were called in and the news was broken tothem: the Parish of Highfield now possessed a history.
"This," said the Captain gently, "is one of the great moments in thethrilling record of a most distinguished family. I feel as the sublimefounder must have done while standing with wooden bowl in his handgazing across the sparkling sea." Then he murmured brokenly, "Heaven
bless you all," and stumbled from the room.
When the publisher sent in his estimate, Mrs. Drake was quite unable tounderstand how a newspaper could be sold for one halfpenny. The leadingitem, which was a charge for sufficient paper to print one thousandcopies, came as a revelation to her; for she had always supposed thatpaper, like string and pins, could be had for nothing. As the publisherpressed strongly for a few illustrations of local scenery, the Captainwas compelled to sacrifice, for economical reasons, three chapters ofhis voyages, together with the whole of his valuable footnotes. WhenGeorge suggested that the history of the parish itself did not appear tobe treated with that fullness the Captain was capable of giving it, theold gentleman replied, "What we lose in the letterpress we'll make up bythe pictures. I quite agree with the printer, my lad: the beauty anddignity of my work will be enhanced considerably by the addition of afew engravings."
Six photographs were therefore taken exclusively for this volume, by theson of the postmistress who was an expert with the camera; andreproduced by the usual special process upon a particularly valuablekind of Oriental paper. The frontispiece represented Captain FrancisDrake in a characteristic attitude. The five other illustrationsdepicted Windward House from the southeast; present day aspect of BlackAnchor Farm; George Drake, Esquire, discoverer of the missing vault;stone marking site of vault and bearing the name of Amelia Drake; andfinally, Captain Francis Drake in another characteristic attitude, withMrs. Drake in the background. The lady, having shifted behind herhusband during the moment of exposure, has disappeared entirely.
Two copies were sold. The vicar bought one out of a sense of duty, whilethe Dismal Gibcat purchased the other, to discover whether there wasanything in it which would justify him in bringing an action for libel.Both were disappointed.