Dead Mans Rock | Page 3

have crossed the threshold of Lantrig, having duly
performed all the said Instructions. And furthermore that the said Task
be not undertaken lightly or except in direst Need, under pain of
Grievous and Sore Affliction. This I say, knowing well the Spiritual
and worldly Perils that shall beset such an one, and having myself been
brought near to Destruction of Body and Soul, which latter may Christ
in His Mercy avert.
"Thus, having eased my mind of great and pressing Anguish, I
commend my soul to God, before Whose Judgment Bar I shall be
presently summoned to stand, the greatest of sinners, yet not without
hope of Everlasting Redemption, for Christ's sake. Amen.
"AMOS TRENOWETH."
Such was the Will, written on stiff parchment in crabbed and
unscholarly characters, without legal forms or witnesses; but all such
were needless, as I have pointed out. And, indeed, my father was wise,
as I think, to show it to nobody, but go his way quietly as before,
managing the farm as he had managed it during the old man's last years.
Only by degrees he broke from the seclusion which had been natural to
him during his parents' lifetime, so far as to look about for a
wife--shyly enough at first--until he caught the dark eyes of Margery

Freethy one Sunday morning in Polkimbra Church, whither he had
gone of late for freedom, to the no small tribulation of the
meeting-house. Now, whether this tribulation arose from the
backsliding of a promising member, or the loss of the owner of Lantrig
(who was at the same time unmarried), I need not pause here to discuss.
Nor is it necessary to tell how regularly Margery and Ezekiel found
themselves in church, nor how often they caught each other's eyes
straying from the prayer-book. It is enough that at the year's end
Margery answered Ezekiel's question, and shortly after came to Lantrig
"for good."
The first years of their married life must have been very happy, as I
gather from the hushed joy with which my mother always spoke of
them. I gather also that my first appearance in this world caused more
delight than I have ever given since--God forgive me for it! But shortly
after I was four years old everything began to go wrong. First of all,
two ships in which my father had many shares were lost at sea; then the
cattle were seized with plague, and the stock gradually dwindled away
to nothing. Finally, my father's bank broke--or, as we say in the West,
"went scat!"--and we were left all but penniless, with the prospect of
having to sell Lantrig, being without stock and lacking means to
replenish it. It was at this time, I have since learnt from my mother, that
Amos Trenoweth's Will was first thought about. She, poor soul! had
never heard of the parchment before, and her heart misgave her as she
read of peril to soul and body sternly hinted at therein. Also, her
best-beloved brother had gone down in a squall off the Cape of Good
Hope, so that she always looked upon the sea as a cruel and treacherous
foe, and shuddered to think of it as lying in wait for her Ezekiel's life. It
came to pass, therefore, that for two years the young wife's tears and
entreaties prevailed; but at the end of this time, matters growing worse
and worse, and also because it seemed hard that Lantrig should pass
away from the Trenoweths while, for aught we knew, treasure was to
be had for the looking, poverty and my father's wish prevailed, and it
was determined, with the tearful assent of my mother, that he should
start to seek this Elihu Sanderson, of Bombay, and, with good fortune,
save the failing house of the Trenoweths. Only he waited until the
worst of the winter was over, and then, having commended us both to

the care of his aunt, Elizabeth Loveday, of Lizard Town, and provided
us with the largest sum he could scrape together (and small indeed it
was), he started for the port of Plymouth one woeful morning in
February, and thence sailed away in the good ship Golden Wave to win
his inheritance.
CHAPTER II.
TELLS HOW MY FATHER WENT TO SEEK THE TREASURE;
AND HOW MY MOTHER HEARD A CRY IN THE NIGHT.
So my father sailed away, carrying with him--sewn for safety in his
jersey's side--the Will and the small clasped Bible; nor can I think of
stranger equipment for the hunting of earthly treasure. And the great
iron key hung untouched from the beam, while the spiders outvied one
another in wreathing it with their webs, knowing it to be the only spot
in Lantrig where they were safe from my mother's broom. It is with
these