Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon

“The moonlight penetrated for some distance; but beyond that all looked black and horrible, except where now and then I could see a wave break over a rock, and then there was a flash of light, and the water sparkled with the pale phosphorescent light – foul water, as the fishermen here call it. It was a horrible-looking place for an unnerved man to swim into; but in my weak state I dare not try to face the rough water at the mouth; so, as every wave came and bore me farther in, I swam on into the darkness, with the fear upon me that some dreadful monster would lace its arms round me and drag me under. More than once I shrieked out, for the seaweeds were thick here, and my feet were entangled; but I swam on, till after many trials I found a piece of rock upon which I could climb, and sit with the water washing round me and nearly hearing me off.

“And now I drooped, helpless and miserable; my remaining strength seemed to go away, and I hung down my head, and cried like a child. But that fit went off, and rousing up a little I looked about me; but only to see the moonlit, beautifully solemn mouth of the cave, with the silvery water rushing in. It looked beautiful and solemn to me, even then; while the hollow, deep, echoing, musical roar of the waves at the mouth, and in the lulls, the strange tinkling, mournful splash of the water dripping from the roof, farther in, where it was all dark, sounded dreadful to me.

“But the tide was rising, and I soon found that I must leave the rock I was on, and swim or wade farther in; while now the horrible thought came – would the tide fill the cavern, and should I be drowned at last? The thought was so horrible, that I was very nearly jumping off and trying to swim to the mouth, where, in my weak state, I must have lost my life; for a strong man could not battle with the waves as the tide rises. I had often heard tell of this ‘Hugo,’ as they call it here, but no one had ever explored it that I know of; for it is only in the calmest of weather that a boat could come near. However, I sat still for a few more moments, trying to pierce the darkness, and find a resting-place higher up. I dared not lower myself into the water again, for thought after thought kept coming of the strange sea creatures that might make the cave their home; but my indecision was put an end to by a heavy wave that came rolling in, and I was lifted from my seat and borne in again for some distance, and dashed against a stone, to whose slimy sides I clung as the water rushed back. Then I tried to find the bottom with my feet, but all in vain; and striking out, I swam on farther and farther into the darkness, helped on by a wave now and then, and clinging to some projection to keep from being sucked back – for once down again in the water, the dread seemed to some extent to leave me.

“On reaching a rock that I could climb upon, to my great joy I found that I could get beyond the reach of the water; but I had to feel my way, for by a bend of the cave I could now see no moonlit mouth, only a shining reflection upon one of the wet walls of the place; while all around me was a horrible black darkness, made ten times more dreadful by the strange echoing wash and drip of the water in the far recesses.

“Perhaps a bolder man would have felt his nerves creep, as it were, sitting, dripping and trembling, upon a slimy piece of stone in that dreadful darkness, conjuring up horrors of a kind that at more calm moments he could not describe; but knowing all the while, by merely stretching out a foot now and then, that the tide was rising higher and higher to sweep him off. Now my feet were under water, then my knees, and soon it rose so high that at every ninth wave – ‘the death wave,’ as we call it down here on the coast – I could feel myself lifted a little; and at last, just as it was before, I was swept off, and swimming again in the darkness to find another rock on which I could creep. More than once I touched something, with hand or foot, and snatched it shudderingly back; while at such times the waves bore me backwards and forwards as they ebbed and flowed. As far as I could tell, the bottom was quite beyond my reach, for I let down my feet again and again. But the cave grew much narrower; for now I struck my head against one side, and then against the other, as I laboriously swam along farther and farther, as it were, into the depths of the earth, till once more I came against a part of the rock which I could climb up – this time, by feeling carefully about, till I struck my head against the roof; and then crouched once more shiveringly down, waiting in a half-dazed, swoon-like state for the next time when I should have to make a struggle for life. I felt dull and listless, my senses seemed to be numbed, and it was almost in a dream that I half sat, half lay upon the wet rock, listening to the wash of the waves, and the dull roar echoing from the cave mouth; while close by me there seemed to be strange whispering sounds mingling with the dripping from the roof, which fell always with a little melodious plash.

“Sometimes I seemed to doze – a sort of stuporlike sleep from exhaustion – and then I started with a cry, expecting that I was hanging once more to the rock outside, or being swept away by a wave from the rock upon which I was resting; and at last, far in as I was, there came what to me was like hope of life – for at first very faint and pale, but by degrees stronger, the light of day came down into the thick blackness of that awful hole, cutting it like arrows, and striking upon the waters before it became broken and spread around.

“As far as I could see, it came down from the roof eight or ten yards from where I sat, but it was a long time before I could summon courage to lower myself into the water, and swim along till I came beneath the bright rays, when I found that they beamed through a rift in the roof some ten feet above me; though, as I again drew myself out of the water on to the rugged side, and then clambered into the rough, long rift, I was so stiff and weak that every movement made me groan with pain.

“Now, come here again to where the rift is, and you can look down, and listen to the roar and bubbling of the water. A strange, wild place, but I made my way up to light and life once more; though I have never found any man here yet with courage to go down, while how much farther the hole penetrates into the bowels of the earth no one knows. There are plenty of such caves along the coast here, made by the water gradually eating out a soft vein of stone from one that is harder; while as to my leaving my bed like that, and climbing to where I had been the day before, it must have been from over-excitement, I suppose. But there, such cases are common, and as a boy I often walked in my sleep, and went by night to places where I could not have gone had I been awake.”

Chapter Fourteen.

My Patients the Fishermen

I dreamed about that cave night after night, and it was a long time before I could get its weird echoes out of my mind. I had only to go down to the shore and listen to the wash of the waves to have my mason friend’s narrative come back in full force, till I felt quite a morbid pleasure in listening to the fancied beating and echoing of the tide in the hollow place.

I used to meet a good many of the fishermen down about the little pier, and after a little bit of a case that I managed with one poor fellow who had been for years leading a weary existence, I found that I might have commanded the services of every fisherman there and had their boats at pleasure. There was always a pleasant smile for me when I went down, and whenever a boat came in if I was seen upon the pier there was sure to be a rough sunburnt face looking into mine as a great string of fish was offered to me.

“They’re fresh as daisies, doctor,” the giver would say: a man, perhaps, that I had hardly seen before, while the slightest hint at payment was looked upon as an offence.

“And there’s no knowing, doctor,” said one man who presented me with a delicious hake, “I may be down at any time and want your help and advice. Didn’t you cure Sam Treporta? Lookye here doctor, don’t you go away again, you stop and practice down here. We’ll be ill as often as we can, and you shan’t never want for a bit of fish so long as the weather keeps fine.”

It was one afternoon down on the little rugged granite pier that I heard the story of Tom Trecarn and the bailiffs, and being rather a peculiar adventure I give it as it was told to me.

“‘Is that you, Tom?’

“‘Iss, my son,’ replied Tom, a great swarthy, black-whiskered, fierce-looking, copper-coloured Cornish giant, in tarry canvas trousers, and a blue worsted guernsey shirt – a tremendous fellow in his way – but with a heart as soft and tender as that of his wife, whom he had just addressed in the popular fashion of his part as ‘my son.’ Tom had just come home from mackerel fishing off the Scilly Isles. The take had only been poor, for the wind had been unfavourable; but the few hundred fish his lugger had brought in were sold, and with a few hake in his hand for private consumption, Tom Trecarn had come home for a good night’s rest.

“‘Oh, Tom,’ burst out his wife, throwing down that popular wind instrument without which upon a grand scale no fisherman’s granite cottage is complete – ‘Oh, Tom,’ said Mrs Trecarn, throwing down the bellows, there known as the ‘Cornish organ’ – ‘Oh, Tom, you’re a ruined man.’

“‘Not yet, my son,’ replied Tom, stoically; ‘but if things don’t mend, fishing won’t be worth the salt for a score of pilchards.’

“‘But Dan Pengelly’s broken, Tom,’ sobbed Mrs Trecarn.

“‘Then we’ll get him mended, my son,’ said Tom, kissing her.

“‘How many fish had ye?’ sang a voice outside the cottage, in the peculiar pleasant intonation common amongst the Cornish peasantry.

“‘Thousand an’ half,’ sang back Tom to the inquiring neighbour.

“‘Where did you shoot, lad?’ sang the voice again.

“‘West of Scilly, Eddard. Bad times: wind heavy, and there’s four boats’ fish.’

“‘Pengelly’s got the bailiffs in, Thomas,’ sang the neighbour, now thrusting his head in at the door.

“‘Sorry for him,’ sang Tom, preparing for a wash.

“‘And I’m sorry for you, Thomas,’ sang the neighbour.

“‘What for?’ said Tom, stoically.

“‘Why, aint all your craft in his store, Tom?’ inquired the neighbour.

“‘Oh, yes – every net,’ sobbed Mrs Trecarn; ‘and we’re ruined. Eighty-four pounds fifteen and seven-pence, too, those nets cost.’

“‘But’t aint nothing to us,’ said Tom, turning a different colour, as an ordinary man would have turned pale.

“‘Why, your craft’s seized too, lad; and ye’ll lose it all,’ cried the neighbour, singing it right into the great fellow’s ear.

“Down went the pitcher of water upon the stone floor in a wreck of potsherds and splash, and crash went the staggering neighbour against the side table set out with Mrs Trecarn’s ornaments, as Tom rushed out of the house, and up the street to Daniel Pengelly’s store.

“Dan Pengelly’s store was a well-known building in Carolyn, being a long, low, granite-built and shale-roofed shed, where many of the fishermen warehoused their herring and pilchard nets during the mackerel season – the mackerel nets taking their turn to rest when dried, on account of the pilchards making their appearance off the shores of Mount’s Bay. For, as in patriarchal days men’s wealth was in flocks and herds, so here in these primitive Cornish fishing villages it is the ambition of most men to become the owner of the red-sailed, fast-tacking luggers which, from some hitherto unexplained phenomenon, sail like the boats of every other fishing station – faster than any vessel that ploughs the waves. Failing to become the owner of a boat, the next point is to be able to boast of having so many nets, many a rough-looking, hard-handed fisherman being perhaps possessor of a couple or three hundred pounds’ worth, bought or bred (netted) by his wife and daughters.

“To Dan Pengelly’s store went Tom Trecarn, to find there a short, fresh-coloured, pudgy man leaning against one of the doorposts, holding the long clay pipe he smoked with one hand, and rubbing his nose with the key he held in the other.

“‘I want my nets out,’ said Tom, coming up furious as a bull. ‘I’ve got eighty pound worth of craft in here as don’t belong to the Pengellys.’

“‘So have I,’ and ‘So have I,’ growled a couple of the group of men lolling about and looking on in the idle way peculiar to fishermen when winds are unfavourable.

“‘Can’t help that,’ said the man, ceasing to rub his nose, and buttoning up the key in his pocket. ‘I’m in possession, and nothing can’t come out of here. The goods are seized for debt.’

“‘But I ain’t nothing to do with Pengelly’s debts,’ said Tom. ‘My nets ain’t going to pay for what he owes. I earned my craft with the sweat of my brow, and they’re only stored here like those of other lads.’

“‘Iss, my son – ’tis so – ’tis so,’ said one or two of the bystanders, nodding their heads approvingly.

“‘I’ve got nothing to do with that,’ said the man in possession; ‘the goods are seized, and whatever’s in Daniel Pengelly’s store will be sold if he don’t pay up; and that’s the law.’

“‘Do you mean to tell me that the law says you’re to sell one man’s goods to pay another man’s debts?’ said Tom.

“‘Yes, if they’re on the debtor’s premises,’ said the man, coolly.

“‘Then I’m blest if I believe it,’ cried Tom, furiously; ‘and if you don’t give up what belongs to me – ’

“Here he strode so furiously up to the bailiff that a couple of brother-fishermen rushed in, and between them hustled Trecarn off, and back to his cottage, where the poor fellow sat down beside his weeping wife, while the two ponderous fellows who had brought him home leaned one on either side of the door, silent and foil of unspoken condolence.

“‘Eighty-four pound!’ groaned Tom.

“‘Fifteen and seven-pence!’ sobbed his wife.

“‘Eight bran-new herring nets of mine,’ said one of his friends.

“‘And fifteen pound worth of my craft,’ muttered the other.

“‘And this is the law of the land, is it?’ growled Tom.

“‘They took Sam Kelynack’s little mare same way as was grazing on Tressillian’s paddock,’ said friend number one; and then they all joined in a groan of sympathy.

“Now, in most places the men would have adjourned to a public-house to talk over their troubles; but here in the Cornish fishing villages a large percentage of the men are total abstainers; and Mrs Trecarn having brewed a good cup of tea, and fried half-a-dozen split mackerel, they all sat down and made a hearty meal; while during the discussion that followed, some comfort seemed to come to the troubled spirits of the men, so that about eight o’clock that night they went arm-in-arm down the ill-paved street, singing a glee in good time, tune, and the harmony so well preserved, that a musician would have paused in wonder to find such an accomplishment amongst rough fishermen – an accomplishment as common as brass bands amongst the Lancashire and Yorkshire artisans.

“‘Not another drop, I thanky,’ said the bailiff to one of Tom’s friends, who stood by him tumbler in hand, stirring a stiff glass of grog.

“It was a fine night though it had been raining, and the water lay in pools around, one of the largest being in front of the door stone of Pengelly’s store, beside which the bailiff stood; for though carefully locked up, the man felt a disinclination to leave it, and he equally disliked shutting himself inside and sleeping upon a heap of nets; so he had treated the advances made by the man who had protected him from Trecarn with pleasure, and between them they had finished one strong tumbler of rum and water, and were well on with the second.

“‘Not another drop! thanky,’ said the bailiff; so Nicholas Harris again broke his pledge, taking a moderate sip, and passed the glass once more to the bailiff, who took it, sipped long and well, and then sighed; while it was observable that the last draught had so paved the way for more, that he made no further objections even when the glass was filled for the third and fourth time – each time the liquor being made more potent.

“At the filling of the fifth glass at eleven o’clock, when nearly the whole village was asleep, Nicholas Harris, who seemed wonderfully sober, considering, stopped and whispered to a couple of men in one of the corners behind the store; and in another half-hour, the said two shadowy figures came up to find the bailiff sitting in the pool of water in front of the store, and shaking his head in a melancholy way at his companion.

“‘I don’t feel well,’ said Harris, ‘and I’m going home. P’r’aps you’ll help that gentleman up to the King’s Arms.’

“Neither of the new-comers spoke; but each seized the bailiff by an arm, and tried to lift him to his feet. But he did not wish to be lifted to his feet, and sat him down down again in the wettest spot of the road, making the water fly from beneath him, while every fresh attempt to get him away was fiercely resisted.

“‘Have you got it?’ whispered one of the new-comers.

“‘Ay, lad!’ said the other, ‘it’s all right.’

“‘Then fetch a barrow.’

“The man spoken to came back in a few minutes with a wheelbarrow, by which time the bailiff seemed in a state of hopeless collapse, and remained so when he was lifted into the barrow.

“‘Don’t laugh,’ whispered one man, as the other held his sides, and stamped about with mirth to see his companion’s efforts to get the man in position; for he could not sit down, nor lie down, nor be placed side-wise, nor cross-wise. Once he was in a sitting posture and, seizing the handles, the man started the barrow; but the bailiff slowly slid down till his head rested upon the barrow wheel, and ground against it.

“‘P’raps you’ll wheel him yourself next time,’ he grumbled to his laughing companion, who stepped up, seized the collapsed bailiff round the waist and carried him in his arms as easily as a girl would a baby, till he reached the village public-house, where he deposited his burden beneath a cart-shed, while the peace of that end of the village was disturbed no more until morning.

“The next day there was an application to the magistrates respecting the nets that had been stolen from Pengelly’s store – nets of the value of over one handled pounds having been removed no one knew whither Nicholas Harris was taken to task as having been seen with the bailiff drinking; but he swore truthfully that he had gone home directly he quitted him, and had lain in bed all the next day with a fearful headache. His nets were amongst those taken. Pengelly proved that the other nets taken were Trecarn’s and Pollard’s, but upon their places being searched only some old nets were found, while the men themselves had put off for sea early that morning. However upon the magistrate learning from Pengelly that every article belonging to him was safe upon his premises, he turned round and whispered for some little time to his clerk, and it was arranged that the case should be adjourned.

“That case was adjourned, and, as the sequel proved sine die, for no further notice was taken. Daniel Pengelly got into difficulties, and his goods were sold – Tom Trecarn purchasing some of his nets; whilst it was observable on all sides that both Tom and his friends were in excellent spirits, though that might have been owing to the large take of mackerel they brought in. As to the proceedings of that night, the morality is very questionable; but still, by way of excuse, it does seem hard that under the present state of the law, even though a man can substantially prove that goods upon a defaulter’s premises are his own, he must still lose them, as many a poor fellow has found to his cost. However, the above narrative is a fact, and one’s sympathies cannot fail of tending towards the annexation of the nets.”

Chapter Fifteen.

My Patient the Porter

My acquaintance with the engine-driver led on to one with a very broad porter. He was about the stoutest and tightest looking man I ever saw to be active, and active he really was, bobbing about like a fat cork float, and doing a great deal of work with very little effort, smiling pleasantly the while.

Dick Masson was quite a philosopher in his way, but his philosophy did not let him bear his fat with patience. Like Hamlet, he used to say, metaphorically of course, “Oh, that this too solid flesh would melt,” for he several times came to me to see if I could not give him something to make him thin.

“Really I can only recommend change of diet, Masson,” I said.

“Why I should have thought, sir,” he said, staring round the surgery, “that you’d got doctor’s stuff in some of them bottles as would have put me right in no time.”

I had to mix him a bottle of medicine to satisfy him: but it was the change in his diet and an increase of work that recalled him somewhat.

I used to know Dick at a little station on the Far Eastern line when I was staying in the neighbourhood, and on leaving there I lost sight of him for five years, when one day in London I happened upon a cab driven by an exceedingly stout man, and to my utter astonishment I found that it was my old friend Dick.

“Why Masson,” I exclaimed, “is that you?”

“Yes, doctor,” he said with an unctuous chuckle, “half as much again of me now as there used to be. I were obliged to put up portering and take to something easier. This life suits me exactly. It’s hard on the horse, certainly, but I was obliged to take to something lighter.”

“Better have kept to a porter’s life, Masson,” I said; “You were much lighter then.”

“So I was doctor, so I was,” he said, “but I were awful heavy then, and when you’ve got to carry somebody’s trunk or portemanty, and your precious heavy self too, it’s more than a man can stand.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dick to me one day in conversation, for he begged for my address, and came and asked for a prescription just to ease off a little of the taut, as he called it; “yes sir,” he said, “I’m a working man though I do drive a cab. One o’ them strange individuals that everybody’s been going into fits about lately as to what they should do with us and for us, and a deal – a great deal more, how to legislate us and represent us. We don’t want legislating an’ representing. I tell you what we want, sir – we want letting alone. Some people runs away with the idea that your working man’s a sort of native furrin wild animal that wants keepers and bars an’ all sorts to keep him in order – that he’s something different to your swell that holds up a ’sumtive umbrelly at me when he wants a keb, and tells me, ‘Aw – to – aw, dwive to the Gweat Westawn or Chawing Cwoss.’ Well, and p’r’aps they’re right to some extent; for your working man, air, is a different sort of thing. Supposing we take your human being, sir, as a precious stone; well, set down your working man as the rough pebble, whilst your swell’s the thing cut and polished.

“Fine thing that cutting and polishing, makes the stone shine and twinkle and glitter like anything; but I have heard say that it takes a little off the vally of the original stone; while, if it’s badly cut, it’s old gooseberry. Now, you know, sir, I have seen cases where I’ve said to myself, ‘That stone’s badly cut, Dick;’ and at other times I’ve set down a fare at a club or private house, or what not, and I’ve been ready to ask myself what he was ever made for. Ornament, p’r’aps. Well, it might be for that; but, same time, it seems hardly likely that Natur’ had time to make things without their having any use. You may say flowers are only ornamental, but I don’t quite see that sir; for it always seemed to me as the smallest thing that grew had its purpose, beginning with the little things, and then going on right up to the big things, till you get to horses, whose proper use is, of course, to draw kebs.

“I’ve been most everything in my day, sir, before I took to kebs, but of all lines of life there isn’t one where you get so much knowledge of life, or see so much, as you do on a box; while of all places in the world, there’s no place like London. I’ve never been out of it lately, not farther than ’Ampton Court, or Ascot, or Epsom – stop; yes, I did once have eight hours at the sea-side with the missis, and enough too. What’s the good of going all they miles when you can smell the sea air any morning early on London Bridge, if the tide’s coming in; or, easier still, at any stall where they sell mussels or oysters?