at the head of a diminutive creek of the tamar river, a little above saltash on the cornish shore, stands the village of botusfleming, or bloflemy, and in early summer, when the cherry orchards come into bloom, you will search far before finding a prettier.
the years have dealt gently with botusfleming. as it is today, so, or nearly so, it was on a certain sunny afternoon in the year 1807, when the rev. edward spettigew, curate in charge, sat in the garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while he meditated a sermon. that is to say, he intended to meditate a sermon. but the afternoon was warm; bumblebees hummed drowsily among his wallflowers and tulips. from his bench the eye followed the vale’s descent between overlapping billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone the silver tamar: not, be it understood, the part called hamoaze, where lay the warships and the hulks containing the french prisoners, but an upper reach seldom troubled by shipping.
parson spettigew laid the book face downward on his knee while his lips murmured a part of the text he had chosen: “a place of broad rivers and streams . . . wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. . . .” his pipe went out. the book slipped from his knee to the ground. he slumbered . . .
p. 244the garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a start. in the pathway below him stood a sailor, a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged out in best shore-going clothes: shiny tarpaulin hat, blue coat and waistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and white duck trousers with broad-buckled waistbelt.
“beggin’ your reverence’s pardon,” began the visitor, touching the brim of his hat, and then upon second thought uncovering, “but my name’s jope, ben jope—”
“eh? what can i do for you?” asked parson spettigew, a trifle flustered at being caught napping.
“—of the vesoovious bomb, bos’n,” pursued mr. jope, with a smile that disarmed annoyance: so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withal so respectful; “but paid off at eight this morning. maybe your reverence can tell me whereabouts to find an embalmer in these parts?”
“a—a what?”
“embalmer.” mr. jope chewed for a moment or two upon a quid of tobacco, and began a thoughtful explanation. “sort of party you’d go to supposin’ your reverence had a corpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency. you take a lot of gums and spices, and first of all you lays out the deceased, and next—”
“yes, yes,” the parson interrupted, hurriedly; “i know the process, of course.”
“what—to practice it?” hope illumined mr. jope’s countenance.
“no, most certainly not. . . . but, my good man, an embalmer!—and at botusfleming, of all places!”
the sailor’s face fell. he sighed patiently. p. 245“that’s what they said at saltash, more or less. i got a sister living there—sarah treleaven her name is—a widow woman, and sells fish. when i called on her this morning, ‘embalmer?’ she said; ‘go and embalm your grandmother!’ those were her words, and the rest of the population wasn’t scarcely more helpful. but as luck would have it, while i was searchin’, bill adams went for a shave, and inside o’ the barber’s shop what should he see but a fair-sized otter in a glass case. bill began to admire it, careless like, and it turned out the barber had stuffed the thing. maybe your reverence knows the man? ‘a. grigg and son’ he calls his-self.”
“grigg? yes, to be sure; he stuffed a trout for me last summer.”
“what weight?—making so bold.”
“seven pounds.”
mr. jope’s face fell again. “well-a-well,” he suggested, recovering himself, “i daresay the size don’t matter, once you’ve got the knack. we’ve brought him along, anyway; an’ what’s more, we’ve made him bring all his tools. by his talk, he reckons it to be a shavin’ job, and we agreed to wait before we undeceived him.”
“but—you’ll excuse me—i don’t quite follow—”
mr. jope pressed a forefinger mysterious to his lip, then jerked a thumb in the direction of the river. “if your reverence wouldn’ mind steppin’ down to the creek with me?” he suggested, respectfully.
parson spettigew fetched his hat, and together the pair descended the vale beneath the dropping petals of the cherry. at the foot of it they came p. 246to a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded and almost overbrimmed. hard by the water’s edge, backed by tall elms, stood a dilapidated fish store, and below it lay a boat with nose aground on a beach of flat stones. two men were in the boat. the barber, a slip of a fellow in rusty top hat and suit of rusty black, sat in the stern sheets face to face with a large cask: a cask so ample that, to find room for his knees, he was forced to crook them at a high, uncomfortable angle. in the bows, boathook in hand, stood a tall sailor, arrayed in shore-going clothes, similar to mr. jope’s. his face was long, sallow, and expressive of taciturnity, and he wore a beard, not where beards are usually worn, but as a fringe beneath his clean-shaven chin and lantern jaw.
“well, here we are!” asserted mr. jope, cheerfully. “your reverence knows a. grigg and son, and the others you can trust in all weathers, bein’ william adams, otherwise bill, and eli tonkin: friends o’ mine an’ shipmates both.”
the parson, perplexed, stared at the tall seaman, who touched his hat by way of acknowledging the introduction.
“but—but i only see one!” he protested.
“this here’s bill adams,” said mr. jope, and again the tall seaman touched his hat. “is it eli you’re missin’? eli’s in the cask.”
“oh!”
“we’ll hoick him up to the store, bill, if you’re ready. it looks a nice cool place. and while you’re prizin’ him open, i’d best explain to his reverence and the barber. here, ship out the shore plank; and you, a. grigg and son, lend a hand to heave. . . . aye, you’re right; it weighs more’n p. 247a trifle—bein’ a quarter-puncheon, an’ the best proof sperrits. tilt her this way. . . . ready? . . . then w’y-ho! and away she goes!”
with a heave and a lurch that canted the boat until the water poured over her gunwale, the huge tub was rolled overside into shallow water. with a run and a tremendous lift they hoisted it up to the turfy plat, whence bill adams steered it with ease through the ruinated doorway of the store, while mr. jope returned, smiling and mopping his brow.
“it’s this-a-way,” he said, addressing the parson. “eli tonkin his name is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish.”
here mr. jope paused, apparently for confirmation.
“tonkin?” queried the parson. “there are no tonkins surviving in botusfleming parish. the last of them was a poor old widow i laid to rest the week after christmas.”
“belay there! . . . dead, is she?” mr. jope’s face exhibited the liveliest disappointment. “and after the surprise we’d planned for her!” he murmured ruefully. “hi, bill!” he called to his shipmate, who, having stored the cask, was returning to the boat.
“wot is it?” asked bill adams, inattentively. “look ’ere, where did we stow the hammer an’ chisel?”
“take your head out o’ the boat an’ listen. the old woman’s dead!”
the tall man absorbed the news slowly. “that’s a facer,” he said at length. “but maybe we can fix her up, too? i’ll stand my share.”
“she was buried the week after christmas.”
p. 248“oh!” bill scratched his head. “then we can’t—not very well.”
“times an’ again i’ve heard eli talk of his poor old mother,” said mr. jope, turning to the parson. “w’ch you’ll hardly believe it, but though i knowed him for a west-country man, ’twas not till the last i learned what parish he hailed from. it happened very curiously—bill, rout up a. grigg and son, an’ fetch him forra’d here to listen; you’ll find the tools underneath him in the stern sheets.”
bill obeyed, and, possessing himself of a hammer and chisel, returned to the shore. the little barber drew near and stood at mr. jope’s elbow; his face wore an unhealthy pallor and he smelt potently of strong drink.
“brandy it is,” apologized mr. jope, observing a slight contraction of the parson’s nostril. “i reckoned ’twould tauten him a bit for what’s ahead. . . . well, as i was sayin’, it happened very curiously. this day fortnight we were beatin’ up an’ across the bay o’ biscay, after a four months’ to-an’-fro game in front of toolon harbor. blowin’ fresh it was, an’ we makin’ pretty poor weather of it—the vesoovious bein’ a powerful wet tub in anything of a sea, an’ a slug at the best o’ times. aboard a bombship everything’s got to be heavy.
“well, sir, for a couple of days she’d been carryin’ canvas that fairly smothered us, an’ cap’n crang not a man to care how we fared forra’d, so long’s the water didn’ reach aft to his own quarters. but at last the first mate, mr. wapshott, took pity on us an’—the cap’n bein’ below, a-takin’ a nap after dinner—sends the crew o’ the maintop aloft to take a reef in the tops’l. poor eli was one. whereby the men had scarcely reached the top p. 249afore cap’n crang comes up from his cabin an’ along the deck, not troublin’ to cast an eye aloft. whereby he missed what was happenin’. whereby he had just come abreast o’ the mainmast, when—sock at his very feet there drops a man! ’twas eli, that had missed his hold an’ dropped clean on his skull. ‘hallo!’ says the cap’n, ‘an’ where the deuce might you come from?’ eli heard it—poor fellow—an’ says he, as i lifted him, answerin’ very respectful, ‘if you please, sir, from botusfleming, three miles t’other side of saltash.’
“‘then you’ve had a mighty quick passage, that’s all i can say,’ answers cap’n crang, an’ turns on his heel.
“well, sir, we all agreed the cap’n might ha’ showed more feelin’, specially as poor eli’d broke the base of his skull an’ by eight bells handed in the number of his mess. five or six of us talked it over, agreein’ as how ’twasn’ hardly human, an’ eli such a good fellow, too, let alone bein’ a decent seaman. whereby the notion came to me that as he’d come from botusfleming—those bein’ his last words—back to botusfleming he should go; an’ on that we cooked up a plot. bill adams bein’ on duty in the sick bay, there wasn’ no difficulty in sewin’ up a dummy in eli’s place; an’ the dummy, sir, nex’ day we dooly committed to the deep,—as the sayin’ goes,—cap’n crang hisself readin’ the service. the real question was what to do with eli. whereby, the purser an’ me bein’ friends, i goes to him an’ says, ‘look here,’ i says, ‘we’ll be paid off in ten days or so, an’ there’s a trifle o’ prize money, too. what price’ll you sell us a cask o’ the ship’s rum?—say a quarter-puncheon for choice?’ ‘what for?’ says he. ‘for shore-going p. 250purposes,’ says i; ‘bill adams an’ me got a use for it.’ ‘well,’ says the purser,—a decent chap, an’ by name wilkins,—’i’m an honest man,’ says he, ‘an’ to oblige a friend you shall have it at store valuation rate. an’ what’s more,’ says he, ‘i got the wind o’ your little game, an’ll do what i can to help it along, for i al’ays liked the deceased, an’ in my opinion cap’n crang behaved most unfeelin’. you tell bill to bring the body to me, an’ there’ll be no more trouble about it till i hands you over the cask at plymouth.’ well, sir, the man was as good as his word. we smuggled the cask ashore last evenin’, an’ hid it in the woods this side o’ mount edgcumbe. this mornin’ we reshipped it, as you see. first along we intended no more than just to break the news to eli’s mother an’ hand him over to her; but bill reckoned that to hand him over, cask an’ all, would look careless; for, as he said, ‘’twasn’t as if you could bury ’im in a cask.’ we allowed your reverence would draw the line at that, though we hadn’ the pleasure o’ knowin’ you then.”
“yes,” agreed the parson, as mr. jope paused; “i fear it could not be done without scandal.”
“that’s just how bill put it. ‘well, then,’ says i, thinkin’ it over, ‘why not do the handsome while we’re about it? you an’ me ain’t the sort of men,’ i says, ‘to spoil the ship for a ha’porth o’ tar.’ ‘certainly we ain’t,’ says bill, ‘and we’ve done a lot for eli,’ says i. ‘we have,’ says bill. ‘well, then,’ says i, ‘let’s put a coat o’ paint on the whole business an’ have him embalmed!’ bill was enchanted.”
“i—i beg your pardon?” put in the barber, edging away a pace.
p. 251“bill was enchanted. hark to him in the store, there—knockin’ away at the chisel.”
“but there’s some misunderstanding,” the little man protested, earnestly. “i understood it was to be a shave.”
“you can shave him, too, if you like.”
“if i th-thought you were s-serious—”
“have some more brandy.” mr. jope pulled out and proffered a flask. “only don’t overdo it, or it’ll make your head shaky. serious? you may lay to it that bill’s serious. he’s that set on the idea, it don’t make no difference to him—as you may have noticed—eli’s mother not bein’ alive to take pleasure in it. why, he wanted to embalm her, too! he’s doin’ this now for his own gratification, is bill; an’ you may take it from me when bill sets his heart on a thing he sees it through. don’t you cross him—that’s my advice.”
“but, but—”
“no, you don’t!”—as the little man made a wild spring to flee up the beach mr. jope shot out a hand and gripped him by the coat collar. “now, look here,” he said very quietly, as the poor wretch would have groveled at the parson’s feet, “you was boastin’ to bill, not an hour agone, as you could stuff anything.”
“don’t hurt him,” parson spettigew interposed, touching mr. jope’s arm.
“i’m not hurtin’ him, your reverence, only—eli? what’s that?”
all turned their faces toward the store.
“your friend is calling to you,” said the parson.
“bad language, too?—that’s not like bill, as a rule. ahoy, there! bill!”
“ahoy!” answered the voice of mr. adams.
p. 252“what’s up?” without waiting for an answer, mr. jope ran the barber before him up the beach to the doorway, the parson following. “what’s up?” he demanded again, as he drew breath.
“take an’ see for yourself,” answered mr. adams, darkly, pointing with his chisel. a fine fragrance of rum permeated the air of the store.
mr. jope advanced and peered into the staved cask. “gone?” he exclaimed, and gazed around blankly.
bill adams nodded.
“but where? . . . you don’t say he’s dissolved?”
“it ain’t the usual way o’ rum. and it is rum?” bill appealed to the parson.
“by the smell, undoubtedly.”
“i tell you what’s happened. that fool of a wilkins has made a mistake in the cask . . . ”
“an’ eli?—oh lord! eh?” gasped mr. jope.
“they’ll have returned eli to the victuallin’ yard before this,” said bill, gloomily.
“i overheard wilkins sayin’ as he was to pass over all stores an’ accounts at nine-thirty this mornin’.”
“an’ once there, who knows where he’s got mixed? he’ll go the round of the fleet, maybe. oh, my word! an’ the ship that broaches him!”
bill adams opened his mouth and shut it, finding no speech; opened it again, and: “they’ll reckon they got a lucky bag,” he said, weakly.
“an’ wilkins paid off with the rest, an’ no address. even if he could help, which i doubt.”
“eh? i got a note from wilkins, as it happens.” bill adams took off his tarpaulin hat and extracted a paper from the lining of the crown. p. 253“he passed it down to me this mornin’ as i pushed off from the ship. said i was to keep it, an’ maybe i’d find it useful. i wondered what he meant at the time, me takin’ no particular truck with pursers ashore. . . . it crossed my mind, as i’d heard he meant to get married, that maybe he wanted me to stand best man at the weddin’. w’ich i didn’ open the note at the time, not likin’ to refuse him after he’d behaved so well to us.”
“pass it over,” commanded mr. jope. he took the paper and unfolded it, but either the light was dim within the store, or the handwriting hard to decipher.
“would your reverence read it out for us?”
parson spettigew carried the paper to the doorway. he read its contents aloud and slowly:
“to mr. bill adams,
capt. of the fore-top h.m.s. vesuvius,
“sir: it was a dummy capt. crang buried. we cast the last e. tonkin overboard the second night in lat. 46-30, long. 7-15, or thereabouts. by which time the feeling aboard had cooled down and it seemed such a waste of good spirit. the rum you paid for is good rum. hoping that you and mr. jope will find a use for it.
“your obedient servant,
“s. wilkins.”
there was a long pause, through which mr. adams could be heard breathing hard.
“but what are we to do with it?” asked mr. jope, scratching his head in perplexity.
“drink it. wot else?”
“but where?”
“oh,” said mr. adams, “anywhere!”
p. 254“that’s all very well,” replied his friend. “you never had no property, an’ don’t know its burdens. we’ll have to hire a house for this, an’ live there till it’s finished.”
sir arthur t. quiller-couch.
