The Birthright

by Joseph Hocking

But he would not answer. He hugged himself as though he were vastly pleased, and laughed, in his low guttural way, and after a time took his departure.

When I was left alone, I tried to think of my plans for the future, for Naomi's words kept ringing in my ears, "If I were you I would find work, and I would honourably make my way back to fortune." I saw now that for a year I had acted like a madman. Instead of meeting my reverses bravely, I had acted like a coward. I had sunk in the estimation of others as well as in my own. I had loafed around the lanes, and had made friends with the idle and the dissolute. Even my plans for vengeance were those of a savage. I, Jasper Pennington, could think of no other way of punishing my enemies than by mastering them with sheer brute force. Besides, all the time I had made no step toward winning back my home, and thus obeying my father's wishes. I felt this, too; I had deservedly lost the esteem of the people. I had become what the Tresidders said I was. I saw myself a vagrant and a savage, and although my fate had been hard, I deserved the punishment I was then suffering. I had forgotten that I was a Pennington, forgotten that I was a gentleman.

But what could I do? Houseless, homeless, friendless, except for the friendship of Eli Fraddam and his mother, and practically outlawed, what was there that I, Jasper Pennington, could put my hand to? I could not tell. The possibility of honourably making my way back to fortune seemed a dream impossible to be fulfilled.

For a long time I sat brooding, while the candle which Eli had brought burnt lower and lower, and finally went out. The darkness stirred new thoughts within me. Hitherto I had not troubled about Granfer Fraddam's ghost haunting the cave. The wind which wailed its way up through the cave till it found vent in the copse above explained the sounds which had been heard. But now all the stories which I had heard came back to me. Did Granfer Fraddam die there? and did his ghost haunt this dreary cavern? Even then I might be sitting on the very spot where he had died.

I started up and lit another candle. I looked around me, and shuddered at the black, forbidding sides of the cavern, then leaving the candle to cast its ghostly light around I crept toward the entrance. I saw the sea lapping the black rocks around, and heard its dismal surge. Then I heard a rushing noise whir past me, and it seemed as though a ghostly hand had struck my face. Directly afterward I heard a cry which made the blood run cold in my veins. Most likely it was only a seagull which I had frightened from its resting-place among the rocks, but to me it was the shriek of a lost soul.

Trembling, I found my way back to the cave again, where the candle still burnt, and cast its flickering light around. I was afraid to stay there any longer, and determined to get out by way of the copse. I had gone but a few steps in this direction, when I saw what had hitherto escaped my notice. It was a hole in the side of the cave, large enough for anybody to pass easily. For a moment curiosity overcame my fears, and I made my way toward it. Holding my candle close to the hole, I found that I was out of the current of air, and I saw that this was the entrance to another cave. But it was different from the one in which I had been hiding. It looked as though it had been hollowed out by the hands of man rather than by nature. This fact lessened my ghostly fears, and I entered it, and in doing so thought I detected a strange smell. A minute later, and my astonishment knew no bounds. Lying at my feet in this inner cave were casks of spirits and wines. There were, I afterward discovered, many other things there too. There were great packages of tobacco, and bales of stuff which at that time I did not understand. It was evident that Granfer Fraddam's trade was not abandoned, although it was thought that smuggling was not carried on to any extent in the neighbourhood of St. Eve. It is true that many things were obtained in the neighbourhood which the Preventive officers could not account for, but that was understood to be owing to Jack Truscott's gang, who defied the law, and did many wild deeds down by the Lizard and at Kynance. At Polventor the Preventive men were very keen, so keen were they that the dozen or two fishermen who lived there were not, as far as I knew, in any way suspected of unlawful deeds. And Polventor was the only fishing village within three miles of our parish where it seemed possible for smuggling to be carried on.

Not that we thought hardly of the smugglers, even of Jack Truscott and his men. We all regarded the law as very unjust, and owing to the fact that many things were obtained in the parish very cheaply by them, we winked at their doings, and looked sourly on the Preventive men and their doings. At the same time, as far as I knew, no one dreamed of smuggling being carried on near the coast of St. Eve. Thus it was that Granfer Fraddam's Cave was a mere tradition, and many people thought that the King's officers ought to be removed to some other part of the coast, where there would be some necessity for their existence.

I thought long of these things, and presently came to the conclusion that this cave was used as a kind of storage-place by some smuggler's gang. Probably this was one of Jack Truscott's many hiding-places, and would be used by him when the Government spies were busy watching elsewhere.

Anyhow, my discovery made me think of the cave more as the home of the living than the dead, and thus fears were dispelled. It is true my solitude might at any time be broken by a gang of desperate men, but that did not trouble me. So I fetched the blanket which old Betsey had lent me and took it into this inner cave, and after a while went to sleep.

Eli Fraddam brought some food to me again in the morning, but I did not tell him what I had discovered through the night, neither did I encourage him to stay. Usually he had sat with me for hours, and had talked with me in his strange disconnected way, but this morning he saw that I wanted to be alone, so, after patting and fondling my hands lovingly, he left me. All through the day I tried to make up my mind what to do, but no feasible plan came into my mind. I did not fear any difficulty in getting food and clothes, but how to raise money to buy back Pennington I knew not.