Thus Noy's own furious l.u.s.t for revenge was easily and naturally elevated into a mandate from the Highest--into a message echoed and reiterated upon his ear by the mult.i.tudinous voices of that wild night. The rain whispered it on the roof-trees, the wind and sea thundered it; out of elemental chaos the awful command came, as from primal lips which had spoken since creation to find at last the ultimate destination of their message within a human ear. To Noy, his purpose, not yet an hour old, seemed ancient as eternity, a fixed and deliberate impression which had been stamped upon his mind at a period far earlier than his life in time. For one end had he been created; that by some sudden short cut he should hurry to its close a vile life, fill up G.o.d's bitter curse upon this man, destroy the destroyer, and speed a black soul into the torment awaiting it.

Irresolute and deep in thought as to his future actions, Joe Noy walked unconsciously forward. He felt unequal to returning to his home in Mousehole after what he had learned at Newlyn; and he wandered back, therefore, toward Penzance. A glare of gas lamps splashed the wet surface of the parade with fire; while below him, against the sea wall, a high tide spouted and roared. Now and again, after a heavy m.u.f.fled thud of sea against stone, columns of glimmering, gray foam shot upward, like gigantic ghosts out of the water. For a moment they towered in the air, then, wind-driven, swept hissing across the black and shining surfaces of the deserted parade.

Noy stood here a moment, and the cold wind cooled him, and the riot and agony of the sea boiling against the granite face of the breakwater chimed with the riot and agony of his mind, whose hopes were now rent in tatters, riven, splintered and disannulled by chance. He turned a moment where the Newlyn harbor light flashed across the darkness to him. From his standpoint he knew that a line drawn through that light must fall upon the cottage of the Tregenzas beyond it on the sh.o.r.e, and, fixing his eyes where the building lay hidden, he stretched out his hand and spoke aloud.

"May G.o.d strike me blind and daft if ever I looks 'pon yon light an' yonder cot again till the man be dead."

Then he turned, and was about to seek the station, with a vague purpose to go straight to London at the earliest opportunity, when a wiser thought arrested this determination. He must learn all that it was possible to learn concerning the last days of Joan. Mrs. Tregenza had explained her stepdaughter's life at Drift. To Drift, therefore, the sailor determined to go; and the stress upon his mind was such that even the prospect of conversation with Mary Chirgwin--a thing he had certainly shrunk from under other circ.u.mstances--caused him no uneasiness.

Over the last road that Joan had ever walked, and under similar conditions of night and storm, he tramped up to Drift, entered through the side gate, and surprised Mr. Chirgwin and his niece at their supper. As before with the Tregenzas, so now again in company of Uncle Thomas and Mary, Joe Noy formed the third in a trio of curious significance. Though aware that the sailor was due from his voyage, this sudden apparition of him at such a time startled his former friends not a little. Mary indeed was unnerved in a manner foreign to her nature, and the candle-lighted kitchen whirled in her eyes as she felt her hand in his. Save for an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n from the old man, which conveyed nothing beyond his astonishment, Noy was the first to speak; and his earliest words relieved the minds of his listeners in one great particular; he already knew the worst that had happened.

"I be come from Newlyn, from the Tregenzas. Thomasin have tawld me of all that's falled out; but I couldn't bide in my awful trouble wi'out comin'

up-long. I reckon you'll let the past be forgot now. I'm punished ugly enough. You seed her last, dead an' alive; you heard the last words ever she spoke to any of her awn folks. That drawed me. If I must ax pardon for comin', then I will."

"Nay, nay, my poor sawl; sit you down an' eat, Joe, an' take they wet boots off a while. Our hearts have bled for 'e this many days, Joe Noy, an' never more'n now."

"I thank you, uncle; an' you, Mary Chirgwin--will 'e say as much? 'Tis you I wants to speak with, 'cause you--you seed Joan arter 'twas awver."

"I wish you well, Joe Noy, an' if I ever done differ'nt 'tis past an'

forgot. What I can tell 'e 'bout our poor la.s.s, as lived the end of her days along wi' me an' uncle, you've a right to knaw."

"An' G.o.d bless 'e for sayin' so. I comed rough an' ready, an' thrust in 'pon you; but this news be but two hour auld in my heart, you see, an'

'tedn' easy for such as me to make choice o' words at a time like this."

"Eat, my son, an' doan't 'e fancy theer's any here but them as be friends.

Polly an' me seed more o' Joan through her last days than any; an' I do say as she was a lamb o' G.o.d's foldin', beyond all manner o' doubt; an' Polly, as feared it mightn't 'sactly be so, be of my 'pinion now. Them as suffered for the sins o' other folk, like what she done, has theer h.e.l.l-fire 'pon this side o' the graave, not t'other."

"I lay that's a true sayin'," declared Noy shortly. "I won't keep 'e ower-long from your beds," he added. "If you got a drink o' spirits I'll thank you for it; then I'll put a question or two to she--to Mary Chirgwin, if she'll allow; an' then I'll get going."

The woman was self-possessed again now, although Joe's voice and well-remembered gestures moved her powerfully and made it difficult to keep her voice within absolute control.

"All you can ax that I knaw, I'll tell 'e, though Joan shut her thots purty close most times. Us awnly got side views of her mind, and them not often."

"The man," he said. "Tell me all--every-thin' you can call home--all what her said of him."

"Fust she thot a 'mazin' deal 'bout en," explained the farmer; "then time made her mind get stale of en, an' she begin to see us was right. He sent money--a thousand pound, an' I--poor fool--thot Joan weern't mistook at fust. But 'twas awnly conscience money; an' now Thomasin's the better for't by will."

But this sensational statement was not appreciated, Joe's mind being elsewhere.

"You never heard the name of en?"

"Awnly the christening name, as was 'Jan.' You may have heard tell she got a letter the night she pa.s.sed. Us found the coverin' under the table next day, an' Mary comed across the letter itself in her pocket at the last."

"'Tis that I be comed for. If you could tell so much as a word or two out of it, Mary? They said you burned it an' the crowner was mighty angry, but I thot as p'raps you'd looked at it all the same, awnly weern't pleased to say so."

"No," she answered. "Tis true I found a letter, an' I might a read some of it if I would, but I judged better not. 'Tweern't fair to her like."

"Was theer anything else as shawed anything 'bout en?"

"No--awnly a picksher of a ship he painted for her. I burned that tu; an'

I'd a burned his money if I could. He painted her--I knaw that much. She tawld us wan night--a gert picksher near as large as life. He took it to Lunnon--for a shaw, I s'pose."

"I'd think of en no more if I was you, Joe," said Uncle Chirgwin. "Leave the likes of en to the G.o.d of en. Brace yourself agin this sore onset an'

pray to Heaven to forgive all sinners."

Noy looked at the old man and his great jaw seemed to spread laterally with his thought.

"G.o.d have gived the man to me! that's why I be here: to knaw all any can teach me. I've got to be the undoin' o' that devil--the undoin' an' death of en. I'll be upsides wi' the man if it takes me fifty year to do it.

Awnly 'more haste, more let.' I shall go slow an' sure. That's why I comed here fust thing."

Mr. Chirgwin looked extremely alarmed, and Mary spoke.

"This be wild, wicked talkin', Joe Noy, an' no mort o' sorrer as ever was can excuse sich words as them. 'Tedn' no task o' yourn to take the Lard's work out His hand that way. He'll pay the evil-doer his just dues wi'out no help from you."

"I've got a voice in my ear, Mary--a voice louder'n any human voice; an' it bids me be doin' as the instrument of G.o.d A'mighty's just rage. If you can help me, then I bid you do it, if not, let me be away. Did you read any o'

that theer letter--so much as a word, or did 'e larn wheer 'twas writ from?"

"If I knawed, I shouldn't tell 'e, not now. I'd sooner cut my tongue out than aid 'e 'pon the road you'm set. An' you a righteous thinkin' man wance!"

He looked at her and there was that in his face which showed a mind busy with time past. His voice had changed and his eyes softened.

"I be punished for much, Mary Chirgwin. I be punished wi' loss an' wi' sich work put on me as may lead to a terrible ugly plaace at the end. But theer 'tis. Like the chisel in the hand o' the carpenter, so I be a sharp tool in the Lard's grip."

"Never! You be a poor, dazed worm in the grip o' your awn evil thots! You'm foxing [Footnote: _Foxing_--Deceiving.] yourself, Joe; you'm listenin'

to the devil an' tellin' yourself 'tis G.o.d--knawin' 'tedn' so all the while. Theer's no religion as would put you in the right wi' sich notions as them. Listen to your awn small guidin' voice, Joe Noy; listen to me, or to Luke Gosp'lers or any sober-thinkin', G.o.d-fearin' sawl. All the world would tell 'e you was wrong--all the wisdom o' the airth be agin you, let alone heaven."

"If 'twas any smaller thing I'd listen to 'e, Mary, for I knaw you to be a wise, strong wummon; but theer ban't no mistakin' the message I got down-long when they told me what's fallen 'pon Joan Tregenza. No fay; my way be clear afore me; an' the angel o' G.o.d will lead my footsteps nearer an' nearer till I faace the man. Windin' ways or short 'tis all wan in the end, 'tis all set down in the Book o' the Lard."

"How can the likes o' you dare to up an' say what be in the Book o' the Lard, Joe?" asked Uncle Chirgwin, roused to words by the other's sentiments. "You've got a gashly, b.l.o.o.d.y-minded fit on you along of all your troubles. But doan't 'e let it fasten into your heart. Pray to G.o.d to wipe away these here awful opinions. Else they'll be the ruin of 'e, body an' sawl. If Luke Gosp'ling brot 'e to this pa.s.s in time o' darkness an'

tribulation, 'tis a cruel pity you didn't bide a church member."

"I wish I thot you was in the right, uncle," said the sailor calmly, "but I knaws you ban't. All the hidden powers of the airth an' the sea edn' gwaine to keep me from that man. Now I'll leave 'e; an' I'm sorry, Mary Chirgwin, as you caan't find it in your heart to help me, but so the Lard wills it. I won't ax 'e to shake my hand, for theer'll be blood on it sooner or later--the d.a.m.nedest blood as ever a angry G.o.d called 'pon wan o' His creatures to spill out."

"Joe, Joe, stay an' listen to me! For the sake of the past, listen!"

But Noy rose as Mary cried these words, and before she had finished speaking he was gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE SEEKING OF THE MAN

Thus the sailor, Noy, wholly imbued with one idea, absolutely convinced that to this end it had pleased Providence to give him life, went forth into the world that he might seek and slay the seducer of Joan. After leaving Drift he returned to Penzance, lay there that night, and upon the following morning began a methodical visitation of the Newlyn studios. Five he called at and to five artists he stated something of his case in general terms; but none of those who heard him were familiar with any of the facts, and none could offer him either information or a.s.sistance. Edmund Murdoch was not in Newlyn, Brady had gone to Brittany; but at the seventh studio which he visited, Joe Noy substantiated some of his facts. Paul Tarrant chanced to be at home and at work when he called; and the artist would have told Joe everything which he wished to learn, but that Noy was cautious and reserved, not guessing that he stood before one who knew his enemy and entertained no admiration for him.

"Axing pardon for taking up any of your time, sir," he began, "but theer'm a matter concerning a party in your business as painted a maiden here, by name o' Joan Tregenza. She weern't n.o.body--awnly a fisherman's darter, but the picksher was said to be done in these paarts, an' I thot, maybe, you'd knaw who drawed it."