The Mayor of Troy - Arthur Quiller-Couch

THE BATTLE OF TALLAND COVE.

"Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.…"

The avant-garde of the Looe Diehards occupied, and had been occupying for two dark hours—in a sitting posture—the ridge of rock which, on its eastern side, sheltered Talland Cove. One may say, considering the heavy dew and the nature of the ridge—of slate formation and sharply serrated—they had clung to it obstinately. Above them the clear and constellated dome of night turned almost perceptibly around its pole. At their feet the tide lapped the beach, phosphorescent, at the last draught of ebb.

Somewhere in the darkness at the head of the beach—either by the footbridge where the stream ran down, or in the meadow behind it—lay the main body. A few outposts had been flung wide to the westward, and Captain Pond for the second time had walked off to test their alertness and give and receive the password—"Death to the Invader."

"And a more cold-running act of defiance I don't remember to have heard—no, not in all my years of service," said Gunner Israel Spettigew, a cheerful sexagenarian, commonly known as Uncle Issy, discussing it with his comrades on the ridge. "There's a terrible downrightness about that word 'death.' Speaking for myself, and except in the way of business, I wouldn' fling it at a cat."

"'Tis what we must all come to," said Gunner Oke, a young married man, gloomily shifting his seat.

"True, lad, true. Then why cast it up against any man in particular, be he French or English? Folks in glass houses, simmin' to me, shouldn' throw stones."

"I reckon you fellows might find something more cheerful to talk about." Gunner Oke shifted his seat again, and threw a nervous glance seaward.

"William Oke, William Oke, you'll never make a sojer! Now I mind back in 'seventy-nine when the fleets of France an' Spain assembled and come together agen us—sixty-six sail of the line, my billies, besides frigates an' corvettes an' such-like small trade; an' the folks at Plymouth blowing off their alarm-guns, an' the signals flying from Maker Tower—a bloody flag at the masthead an' two blue uns at the outriggers. Four days they laid to, in sight of the assembled multitude of Looe, an' Squire Buller rode down to form us up to oppose 'em. 'Hallo!' says the Squire, catching sight of me. 'Where's your gun? Don't begin for to tell me that a han'some, well-set-up, intelligent chap like Israel Spettigew is for hangin' back at his country's call!' 'Squire,' says I, 'you've a-pictered me to a hair. But there's one thing you've left out. I've been turnin' it over, an' I don't see that I'm fit to die.' 'Why not?' says he. 'I'm not a saved man like them other chaps,' says I. 'I've had a few convictions of sin, but that's as far as it's gone.' 'Tut,' says he, 'have you ever broken the Commandments?' 'What's that?' I asks. 'Why, the things up at the end of the church, inside the rails.' 'I never married my gran'mother, if that's what you mean,' I says. 'That's the Affini-ety Table,' says he, 'but have 'ee ever made to yourself a graven image?' 'Lord, no,' I says, 'I leaves that nigglin' work to the I-talians.' 'Have 'ee honoured your father an' your mother?' 'They took damgood care about that,' says I. 'Well, then, have 'ee ever coveted your neighbour's wife?' 'No,' I says, 'I never could abide the woman.' 'Come, come,' says he, 'did 'ee ever commit murder upon a man?' 'That's a leadin' question from a magistrate,' I says; 'but I don't mind ownin', as man to man, that I never did.' 'Then,' says he, 'the sooner you pitch-to and larn the better.'"