Nurse Heatherdale's Story

'You must take nurse a good walk to-day, children,' said my lady as she left the room. 'I shall be busy with your papa, but you might get as far as the sea, I think, if you took old Jacob and the little cart for Baby if she gets tired, and for Francis if his leg hurts him. How has it been, by the by, for the last day or two, Francis?'

Her tone was rather cold, but still I could see a little flush of pleasure come over the boy's face.

'Oh! much better, thank you, auntie,' he said eagerly. 'It's only just after the day in the railway that it seems to hurt more.'

'Then try to be bright and cheerful,' she said. 'Remember you are not the only one in the world that has troubles to bear.'

The boy didn't answer, but I could see his thin little face grow pale again, and I just wished that my lady had stopped at her first kindly inquiry. A deal of mischief is done, it seems to me, by people not knowing when it is best to stop.

Jacob, the donkey, was old and no mistake. Larkins's 'Peter' was young compared to him, and the cart was nothing but a cart such as light luggage might be carried in. It had no seats, but we took a couple of footstools with us, which served the purpose, and many a pleasant ramble we had with the shabby little old cart and poor Jacob.

'Which way shall we go?' said Miss Bess, as we started down the drive. 'You know, nurse, there's ever so many ways to the sea here. It's all divided into separate little bays. You can't get from one to the other except at low tide, and with a lot of scrambling over the rocks, so we generally fix before we start which bay we'll go to.'

'Oh! do let's go to Polwithan Bay!' said Miss Lally.

'It's not nearly so pretty as Trewan,' said Miss Bess, 'and there are the smugglers' caves at Trewan. We often call it the Smugglers' Bay because of that. We've got names of our own for the bays as well as the proper ones.'

'There's one we call Picnic Bay,' said Master Francis, 'because there are such beautiful big flat stones for picnic tables. But I think the Smugglers' Bay is the most curious of all. I'm sure nurse would like to see it. Why do you want to go to Polwithan, Lally? It is rather a stupid little bay.'

'Can we go to the Smugglers' Bay by the village?' asked Miss Lally, and then I understood her, though I did not know that tightly clutched in her hot little hand were the shilling and the three or four pennies she had taken out of her money box on the chance of buying the wool for her stockings.

'It would be ever such a round,' said Miss Bess; but then she added politely – she was very particular about politeness, when she wasn't put out – 'but of course if nurse wants to see the village that wouldn't matter. We've plenty of time. Would you like to see it, nurse?'

A glance at Miss Lally's anxious little face decided me.

'Well, I won't say but what it would interest me to see the village,' I replied. 'Of course it's just as well and might be handy for me to know my way about, so as to be able to find the post-office or fetch any little thing from the shop if it were wanted.'

This was quite true, though I won't deny but that another reason was strongest and Miss Lally knew it, for she crept up to me and slid her little hand into mine gratefully.

'Very well, then,' said Miss Bess, 'we'll go round by the village. But remember if you're tired, Lally, you mustn't grumble, for it was you that first spoke of going that way.'

'There's the cart if Miss Lally's tired,' I said. 'Three could easily get into it, and Jacob can't be knocked up if only Miss Baby goes in it all the way there.'

'Nurse,' said Miss Lally suddenly – I don't think she had heard what we were saying – 'there's two shops in the village.'

'Are there, my dear,' I said; 'and is one the post-office? And what do they sell?'

'Yes, one is the post-office, but they sell other things 'aside stamps,' Miss Lally replied. 'They are both everything shops.'

'But the not the post-office one is much the nicest,' said Master Francis. 'It's kept by old Prideaux – he's an old sailor and – ' Here the boy looked round, but there was no one in sight. Still he lowered his voice. 'People do say that after he left off being a proper sailor he was a smuggler. It runs in the family, Mrs. Brent says,' he went on in the old-fashioned way I noticed in all the children. 'His father was a regular smuggler. Brent says she's seen some queer transactions when she was a girl in the kitchen behind the shop.'

'I thought Mrs. Brent was a stranger in these parts by her birth and upbringing,' I said.

'So she is,' said Master Francis, 'but she came here on a visit when she was a girl to her uncle at the High Meadows Farm, and that's how she came first to Treluan. Grandfather was alive then, and papa and Uncle Hulbert were boys. Even then Prideaux was an old man. Uncle Hulbert says he knows lots of queer stories – he does tell them sometimes, but not as if they had happened here, and you have to pretend to think he and his father had nothing to do with them themselves.'

'It was he that told us first about the smugglers' caves, wasn't it?' said Miss Bess. 'Fancy, nurse, some treasures were found in one of the caves, not so very long ago, hid away in a dark corner far in. There was lace and some beautiful fine silk stockings and some bottles of brandy – '

'And a lot of cigars and tobacco, but they had gone all bad, and some of the brandy hadn't any taste in it, though some was quite good. But grandpapa was a dreadfully honest man; he would send all the things up to London, just as they were found, for he said they belonged to the Queen.'

'I wonder if the Queen wored the silk stockings her own self?' said Miss Lally.

'If we found some treasures,' said Miss Bess, 'do you think we'd have to send them to the Queen too? It would be very greedy of her to keep them, when she has such lots and lots of everything.'

'That's just because she's queen; she can't help it. It's part of being a queen, and I daresay she gives away lots too. Besides, you wouldn't care for brandy or cigars, Bess?' said Master Francis.

'We could sell them,' answered Miss Bess, 'if they were good.'

'P'raps the Queen would send us a nice present back,' said Miss Lally. 'Fancy, if she sent us a whole pound, what beautiful things we could buy.'

'It would be great fun to find treasures, whatever they were,' said Miss Bess. 'If we see old Prideaux to-day, I'll ask him if he thinks possibly there's still some in the caves. Only it wouldn't do to go into his shop on purpose to ask him – he'd think it funny.'

'And you'll have to be very careful how you ask him,' said Master Francis. 'Besides, I'm quite sure if there were any to be found, he'd have found them before this.'

'Does he sell wool in his shop, do you think, Miss Bess?' I inquired, and I felt Miss Lally's hand squeeze mine. 'Wool, or worsted for knitting stockings, I mean. I want to get some, and that would be a reason for speaking to him.'

'I daresay he does; at least his daughter's always knitting, and she must get wool somewhere. Anyway we can ask,' answered Miss Bess, quite pleased with the idea.

'Now, nurse,' said Master Francis suddenly, 'keep your eyes open. When we turn into the field at the end of this little lane – we've come by a short-cut to the village, for the cart can go through the field quite well – you'll have your first good view of the sea. We can see it from some of the windows at Treluan and from the end of the terrace, but nothing like as well.'

I was glad he had prepared me, for we had been interested in our talking, and I hadn't paid much attention to the way we were going. Now I did keep my eyes open, and I was well rewarded. The field was a sloping one – sloping upwards, I mean, as we entered it – and till we got to the top of the rising ground we saw nothing but the clear sky above the grass, but then there burst upon the view a wonderful surprise. The coast-line lay before us for a considerable distance at each side. Just below us were the rocky bays or creeks the children had told me of, the sand gleaming yellow and white in the sunshine, for the tide was half way out, though near enough still for us to see the glisten of the foam and the edge of the little waves, as they rippled in sleepily. And farther out the deep purple-blue of the ocean, softening into a misty gray, there, where the sky and the water met or melted into each other. A little to the right rose the smoke of several houses – lazily, for it was a very still day. These houses lay nestled in together, on the way to the shore, and seemed scarcely enough to be called a village; but as we left the field again to rejoin the road, I saw that these few houses were only the centre of it, so to speak, as others straggled along the road in both directions for some way, the church being one of the buildings the nearest to Treluan house.

'It is a beautiful view,' said I, after a moment's silence, as we all stood still at the top of the slope, the children glancing at me, as if to see what I thought of it. 'I've never seen anything approaching to it before, and yet it's a bare sort of country – many wouldn't believe it could be so beautiful with so few trees, but I suppose the sea makes up for a good deal.'

'And it's such a lovely day,' said Master Francis. 'I should say the sun makes up for a good deal. We've lots of days here when it's so gray and dull that the sea and the sky seem all muddled up together. I'm not so very fond of the sea myself. People say it's so beautiful in a storm, and I suppose it is, but I don't care for that kind of beauty, there's something so furious and wild about it. I don't think raging should be counted beautiful. Shouldn't we only call good things beautiful?'

He looked up with a puzzle in his eyes. Master Francis always had thoughts beyond his age and far beyond me to answer.

'I can't say, I'm sure,' I replied. 'It would take very clever people indeed to explain things like that, though there's verses in the Bible that do seem to bear upon it, especially in the Psalms.'

'I know there are, but when it tells of Heaven, it says "there shall be no more sea,"' said Master Francis very gravely. 'And I think I like that best.'

'Dear Francie,' said Miss Lally, taking his hand, as she always did when she saw him looking extra grave, though of course she could not understand what he had been saying.

We were out of the field by this time, and Miss Bess caught hold of Jacob's reins, for up till now the old fellow had been droning along at his own pace.

'Come along, Jacob, waken up,' she said, as she tugged at him, 'or we'll not get to Polwithan Bay to-day, specially if we're going to gossip with old Prideaux on the way.'

We passed the church in a moment, and close beside it the Vicarage.

'That's where Miss Kirstin lives,' said Miss Bess. 'Come along quick, I don't want her to see us.'

'Don't you like her, my dear?' I said, a little surprised.

'Oh yes! we like her very well, but she makes us think of lessons, and while it is holidays we may as well forget them,' and by the way in which Master Francis and Miss Lally joined her in hurrying past Mr. Kirstin's house, I could see they were of the same mind.

Miss Kirstin, when I came to know her, I found to be a good well-meaning young lady, but she hadn't the knack of making lessons very interesting. It wasn't perhaps altogether her fault; in those days books for young people, both for lessons and amusement, were very different from what they are now. School-books were certainly very dry and dull, and there was a sort of feeling that making lessons pleasant or taking to children would have been weak indulgence.

The church was a beautiful old building. I am not learned enough to describe it, and perhaps after all it was more beautiful from age than from anything remarkable in itself. I came to love it well; it was a real grief to me and to others besides me when it had to be partly pulled down a few years ago, and all the wonderful growth of ivy spoilt. Though I won't say but what our new vicar – the third from Mr. Kirstin our present one is – is well fitted for his work, both with rich and poor, and one whom it is impossible not to respect as well as love, though Mr. Kirstin was a worthy and kind old man in his way.

A bit farther along the road we passed the post-office, which the children pointed out to me. The mistress came to the door when she saw us, and curtsied to the little ladies, with a smile and a word of 'Welcome home again, Miss Penrose!' She took a good look at me out of the corner of her eye, I could see. For having lived so much in small country places, I knew how even a fresh servant at the big house will set all the village talking.

Miss Lally glanced in at the shop window as we passed. There was indeed, as she had said, a mixture of 'everything,' from tin pails and mother-of-pearl buttons to red herrings and tallow-candles.

'Nurse,' she whispered, 'in case we can't get the wool at Prideaux', we might come back here, but I'm afraid Bess wouldn't like to turn back. Oh! I do hope' – with one of her little sighs – 'they'll have it at the other shop.'

And so they had, though when we got there a little difficulty arose. The two elder children both wanted to come in, having got their heads full of asking the old man about the smugglers' caves, and thinking it was for myself I wanted the wool. Never a word said poor Miss Lally, when her sister told her to stay outside with Miss Baby and the cart; but I was getting to know the look of her little face too well by this time not to understand the puckers about her eyes, and the droop at the corners of her mouth.

'We may as well all go in,' I said, lifting Miss Baby out of the cart. 'There's no one else in the shop, and I want Miss Lally's opinion about the wool.'

'Lally's!' said Miss Bess rather scornfully; 'she doesn't know anything about wool, or knitting stockings, nurse.'

'Ah! well, but perhaps she's going to know something about it,' I said. 'It's a little secret we've got, Miss Bess; you shall hear about it all in good time.'

'Oh, well, if it's a secret,' said Miss Bess good-naturedly – she was a nice-minded child, as they all were – 'Franz and I will keep out of the way while you and Lally get your wool. We'll talk to old Prideaux.'

He was in the shop, as well as his daughter, who was knitting away as the children had described her, and the old wife came hurrying out of the kitchen, when she heard it was the little gentry from Treluan that were in the shop. They did make a fuss over the children, to be sure; it wasn't easy for Miss Lally and me to get our bit of business done. But Sally Prideaux found us just what we wanted – the same wool that she was knitting stockings of herself, only she had not much of it in stock, and might be some little time before she could get more. But I told Miss Lally there'd be enough for a short pair of socks for her cousin – boys didn't wear knickerbockers and long stockings in those days – adding that it was best not to undertake too big a piece of work for the first.

The wool cost one-and-sixpence. It was touching to see the little creature counting over the money she had been holding tightly in her hand all the way, and her look of distress when she found it only came up to one and fourpence halfpenny.

'Don't you trouble, my dear,' I said, 'I have some coppers in my pocket.'

She thanked me as if I had given her three pounds instead of three halfpence, saying in a whisper – 'I'll pay you back, nursie, when I get my twopence next Saturday;' and then as happy as a little queen she clambered down off the high stool, her precious parcel in her hand.

'Won't Francie be pleased?' she said. 'They must be ready for his birthday, nurse. And won't mamma be pleased when she finds I can knit stockings, and that she won't have to buy any more?'

CHAPTER VI

THE SMUGGLERS' CAVES

The others seemed to have been very well entertained while Miss Lally and I were busy. Mrs. Prideaux had set Miss Baby on the counter, where she was admiring her to her heart's content – Miss Baby smiling and chattering, apparently very well pleased. Miss Bess and Master Francis were talking eagerly with old Prideaux; they turned to us as we came near.

'Oh, nurse!' said Miss Bess, 'Mr. Prideaux says that he shouldn't wonder if there were treasures hidden away in the smugglers' caves, though it wouldn't be safe for us to look for them. He says they'd be so very far in, where it's quite, quite dark.'

'And one or two of the caves really go a tremendous way underground. Didn't you say there's one they've never got to the end of?' asked Master Francis.

'So they say,' replied the old man, with his queer Cornish accent. It did sound strange to me then, their talk – though I've got so used to it now that I scarce notice it at all. 'But I wouldn't advise you to begin searching for treasures, Master Francis. If there's any there, you'd have to dig to get at them. I remember when I was a boy a deal of talk about the caves, and some of us wasted our time seeking and digging. But the only one that could have told for sure where to look was gone. He met his death some distance from here, one terrible stormy winter, and took his secret with him. I have heard tell as he "walks" in one of the caves, when the weather's quite beyond the common stormy. But it's not much use, for at such times folk are fain to stay at home, so there's not much chance of any one ever meeting him.'

'Then how has he ever been seen?' asked Miss Bess in her quick way; 'and who was he, Mr. Prideaux? do tell us.'

But the old man didn't seem inclined to say much more. Perhaps indeed Miss Bess was too sharp for him, and he did not know how to answer her first question.

'Such things is best not said much about,' he replied mysteriously; 'and talking of treasures, by all accounts you'd have a better chance of finding some nearer home.'

He smiled, as if he could have said more had he chosen to do so. The children opened their eyes in bewilderment.

'What do you mean?' exclaimed the two elder ones. Miss Lally's mind was running too much on her stockings for her to pay much attention. Prideaux did not seem at all embarrassed.

'Well, sir, it's no secret hereabouts,' he said, addressing Master Francis in particular, 'that the old, old Squire, Sir David, the last of that name – there were several David Penroses before him, but never one since – it's no secret, as I was saying, that a deal of money or property of some kind disappeared in his last years, and it stands to reason that, being as great a miser as was ever heard tell of, he couldn't have spent it. Why, more than half of the lands changed hands in his time, and what did he do with what he got for them?'

'That was our great, great grand-uncle,' said Master Francis to me; 'you remember I told you about him, but I never thought – ' he stopped short. 'It is very queer,' he went on again, as if speaking to himself.

But just then, Miss Baby having had enough of Mrs. Prideaux' pettings, set up a shout.

'Nurse, nurse,' she said, 'Baby wants to go back to Jacob. Poor Jacob so tired waiting. Dood-bye, Mrs. Pideaux,' and she began wriggling to get off the counter, so that I had to hurry forward to lift her down.

'We'd best be going on,' I said, 'or we'll be losing the finest part of the afternoon.'

I didn't feel quite sure that Prideaux' talk was quite what my lady would approve of for the children. They had a way of taking things up more seriously than is common with such young creatures, and certainly they had got in the way – and I couldn't but feel but what my lady was to blame for this – of thinking too much of the family troubles, especially the want of wealth, which seemed to them a greater misfortune than it need have done. Still, being quite a stranger, and them seeming at liberty to talk to the people about as they did, I didn't feel that it would have been my place to begin making new rules or putting a stop to things, as likely as not quite harmless. I resolved, however, to find out my lady's wishes in such matters at the first opportunity.

Another half hour brought us close to the shore; the road was a good one, being used for carting gravel and sea-weed in large quantities to the village and round about from the little bay – Treluan Bay, that is to say – it led directly to. But as we were bound for Polwithan Bay, where the smugglers' caves were, and had made a round for the sake of coming through the village, we had to cross several fields and follow a rough track instead of going straight down to the sands. Jacob didn't seem to mind, I must say, nor Miss Baby neither, though she must have been pretty well jolted, but it was worth the trouble.

'Isn't it lovely, nurse?' said Miss Bess, when at last we found ourselves in the bay on the smooth firm sand, the sea in front of us, and so encircled on three sides by the rocks that even the path by which we had come was hidden.

'This bay is so beautifully shut in,' said Master Francis. 'You could really fancy that there was no one in the world but us ourselves. I think it's such a nice feeling.'

'It's nice when we're all together,' said Miss Lally; 'it would be rather frightening if anybody was alone.'

'Alone or not,' said Miss Bess, 'it wouldn't be at all nice when tea-time came if we had nothing to eat. And fancy, what should we do at night – we couldn't sleep out on the sand?'

'We'd have to go into the caves,' said Master Francis. 'It would be rather fun, with a good fire and with lots of blankets.'

'And where would you get blankets from, or wood for a fire, you silly boy?' said Miss Bess.

'Can we see the caves?' I asked, for having heard so much talk about them, I felt curious to see them.

'Of course,' said Master Francis. 'We always explore them every time we come to this bay. Do you see those two or three dark holes over there among the rocks, nurse? Those are the caves; come along and I'll show them to you.'

I was a little disappointed. I had never seen a cave in my life, but I had a confused remembrance of pictures in an old book at home of some caves – 'The Mammoth Caves of Kentucky,' I afterwards found they were – which looked very large and wonderful, and somehow I suppose I had all the time been picturing to myself that these ones were something of the same kind. I didn't say anything to the children though, as they took great pride in showing me all the sights. And after all, when we got to the caves, they turned out much more curious and interesting than I expected from the outside. The largest one, though its entrance was so small, was really as big as a fair-sized church, and narrowing again far back into a dark mysterious-looking passage, from which Master Francis told me two or three smaller chambers opened out.

'And then,' he said, 'after that the passage goes on again – ever so far. In the old days the smugglers blocked it up with pieces of rock, and it isn't so very long ago that this was found out. It was somewhere down along that passage that they found the things I told you of.'

We went a few yards along the passage, but it soon grew almost quite dark, and we turned back again.

'I can quite see it wouldn't be safe to try exploring down there,' I said.

'Yes, I suppose so,' said Master Francis, with a sigh. 'I wish I could find some treasure, all the same. I wonder – ' he went on, then stopped short. 'Nurse,' he began again, 'did you hear what old Prideaux said of our great grand-uncle the miser? Could it really be true, do you think, that he hid away money or treasures of some kind?' and he lowered his voice mysteriously.

'I shouldn't think it was likely,' I replied. For I had a feeling that it would not be well for the children to get any such ideas into their heads. It sounded to me like a sort of fairy tale. I had never come across anything so romantic and strange in real life. Though for that matter, Treluan itself, and the kind of old-world feeling about the place, was quite unlike anything I had ever known before.

We were outside the cave again by this time; the sunshine seemed deliciously warm and bright after the chill and gloom inside. Miss Bess had been listening eagerly to what Master Francis was saying.

'I can't see but what old Sir David might have hidden treasures away, as he was a real miser,' she said.

'And you know that misers are so suspicious, that even when they're dying they won't trust anybody. I know I've read a story like that,' said the boy. 'Oh! Bess, just fancy if we could find a lot of money or diamonds! Wouldn't uncle and aunt be pleased?'