"Eh?" Mr. Jope put forth his head. "Ah, I see--public-house!"

He alighted, and entered; returned with a pot of porter in one hand and a gla.s.s of brandy in the other; dexterously tipped half the brandy into the porter, and handed up the mixture. The driver took it down at one steady draught.

The pot and gla.s.s were returned and we jogged on again. We were now well beyond the outskirts of Stoke and between dusty hedges over which the honeysuckle trailed. b.u.t.terflies poised themselves and flickered beside us, and the sun, as it climbed, drew up from the land the fragrance of freshly mown hay and mingled it with the stuffy odour of the coach. By and by we halted again, by another roadside inn, and again Mr. Jope fetched forth and administered insidious drink.

"If this is going to last," said the charioteer dreamily, "may I have strength to see the end o't!"

I did not catch this prayer, but Mr. Jope reported it to me as he resumed his seat, with an ill-timed laugh. The fellow, who had been gathering up his reins, lurched round suddenly and gazed in through the gla.s.s front.

"You was sayin'?" he demanded.

"Nothing," answered Mr. Jope hastily. "I was talking to myself, that's all."

"The point is, Am I, or am I not, an objic of derision?"

"If you don't drive on this moment, I'll step around and punch your head."

"Tha's all right. Tha's right as ninepence. It's not much I arsk-- only to have things clear." He drove on.

We halted at yet another public-house--I remember its name, the Half a Face--and must have journeyed a mile or so beyond it when the end came. We had locked wheels in the clumsiest fashion with a hay-wagon; and the wagoner, who had quartered to give us room and to spare, was pardonably wroth. Mr. Jope descended, pacified him, and stepped around to the back of the coach, the hinder axle of which, a moment later, I felt gently lifted beneath me and slewed clear of the obstruction.

"My word, mister, but you've a tidy strength!" exclaimed the wagoner.

"No more than you, my son--if so much: 'tain't the strength, but the application. That's 'Nelson's touch.' Ever heard of it?"

"I've heard of _him_, I should hope. Look y' here, mister, did you ever know him? Honour bright, now!"

"Friends, my son: dear, dear friends! And the gentleman 'pon the box, there, drunk some of the very rum he was brought home in.

He's never recovered it."

"And to think of my meeting you!"

"Ay, 'tis a small world," agreed Mr. Jope cheerfully: "like a cook's galley, small and cosy and no time to chat in it. Now then, my slumb'ring ogre!"

The driver, who from the moment of the mishap had remained comatose, shook his reins feebly and we jogged forward. But this was his last effort. At the next sharp bend in the road he lurched suddenly, swayed for a moment, and toppled to earth with a thud. The horse came to a halt.

Mr. Jope was out in a moment. He glanced up and down the road.

"Tumble out, youngster! There's no one in sight."

"Is--is he hurt?"

"Blest if _I_ know." He stooped over the prostrate body. "Hurt?" he asked, and after a moment reported, "No, I reckon not: talkin' in his sleep, more like--for the only word I can make out is 'Jezebel.'

That don't help us much, do it?" He scanned the road again.

"There's only one thing to do. I can't drive ye: I never steered yet with the tiller lines in front--it al'ays seemed to me un-Christian.

We must take to the fields. I used to know these parts, and by the bearings we can't be half a mile above the ferry. Here, through that gate to the left!"

We left the man lying and his horse cropping the hedgerow a few paces ahead; and struck off to the left, down across a field of young corn interspersed with poppies. The broad estuary shone at our feet, with its beaches uncovered--for the tide was low--and across its crowded shipping I marked and recognised (for Mr. Trapp had often described them to me) a line of dismal prison-hulks, now disused, moored head to stern off a mudbank on the farther sh.o.r.e.

"Plain sailing, my lad," panted Mr. Jope, as the cornfield threw up its heat in our faces. "See, yonder's Saltash!" He pointed up the river to a small town which seemed to run toppling down a steep hill and spread itself like a landslip at the base. "I got a sister living there, if we can only fetch across; a very powerful woman; widowed, and sells fish."

We took an oblique line down the hillside, and descended, some two or three hundred yards below the ferry, upon a foresh.o.r.e firm for the most part and strewn with flat stones, but melting into mud by the water's edge. A small trading ketch lay there, careened as the tide had left her; but at no great angle, thanks to her flat-bottomed build. A line of tattered flags, with no wind to stir them, led down from the truck of either mast, and as we drew near I called Mr.

Jope's attention to an immense bunch of foxgloves and pink valerian on her bowsprit end.

"Looks like a wedding, don't it?" said he; and turning up his clean white trousers he strolled down to the water's edge for a closer look. "Scandalous," he added, examining her timbers.

"What's scandalous?"

He pointed with his finger. "Rotten as touch"; and he pensively drew out an enormous clasp-knife. "A man ought to be fined for treating human life so careless. See here!"

He drove the knife at a selected spot, and the blade sank in to the hilt.

From the interior, prompt on the stroke, arose a faint scream.

CHAPTER X.

I GO ON A HONEYMOON.

"Sure-ly I know that voice?" said Mr. Jope.

He drew out the knife reflectively. It relieved me to see that no blood dyed the blade.

"Oh, Mr. Jope, I was afraid you'd stabbed him!"

"'Tisn't a him, 'tis a her. I touched somebody up, and that's the truth."

"Ahoy there!" said a voice immediately overhead; and we looked up.

A round-faced man was gazing down on us from the tilted bulwarks.

"You might ha' given us notice," he grumbled.

"I knew 'twas soft, but not so soft as all that," Mr. Jope explained.

"Got such a thing as a sc.r.a.p o' chalk about ye?"

"No."

The round-faced man felt in his pocket and tossed down a piece.

"Mark a bit of a line round the place, will ye? I'll give it a lick of paint afore the tide rises. It's only right the owner should have it pointed out to him."

"Belong to these parts?" asked Mr. Jope affably, having drawn the required circle. "I don't seem to remember your face."

"No?" The man seemed to think this out at leisure. "I was married this morning," he said at length with an air of explanation.

"Wish ye joy. Saltash maid?"