News from the Duchy | Page 9

to get inside any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know what Christ feels, or felt--for an instance, in the Judgment Hall, when Peter denied?"
"Once I did, sir," said Pilot Matthey, smoothing the worn knees of his trousers. "It was just that. I'll tell you:"
"It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on the old Early and Late--yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldest daughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw him get aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was all nervous about it--my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on the East Coast after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be back in time for it--this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so well as we could calculate) any time between Christmas an' New Year. Well, there was no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home-- the weather up there keepin' monstrous, an' the catches not worth the labour. So we turned down Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul-- south at first, then west-sou'-west--headin' us all the way, and always blowin' from just where 'twasn't wanted. This lasted us down to the Wight, and we'd most given up hope to see home before Christmas, when almost without warnin' it catched in off the land-- pretty fresh still, but steady--and bowled us down past the Bill and halfway across to the Start, merry as heart's delight. Then it fell away again, almost to a flat calm, and Daniel lost his temper. I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and Late--nor, for that matter, on any other boat of mine; but if Daniel didn't swear a bit out of hearin', well then--poor dear fellow, he's dead and gone these twelve years (yes, sir--drowned)--well then I'm doin' him an injustice. One couldn't help pitying him, neither. Didn't I know well enough what it felt like? And the awe of it, to think it's happenin' everywhere, and ever since world began--men fretting for the wife and firstborn, and gettin' over it, and goin' down to the grave leavin' the firstborn to fret over his firstborn! It puts me in mind o' the old hemn, sir: 'tis in the Wesley books, and I can't think why church folk leave out the verse--
"The busy tribes o' flesh and blood, With all their cares and fears--"
Ay, 'cares and fears'; that's of it--
"Are carried downward by the flood, And lost in followin' years."
"Poor Daniel--poor boy!"
Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out over the water in the wake of the boats that already had begun to melt into the shadow of darkness.
"'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I mind," he resumed. "One o' those calm spells that happen, as often as not, just about Christmas. I remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, one Christmas when I passed you the compliments of the season; and you put it down to kingfishers, which I thought strange at the time."
"Kingfishers?" echoed I, mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes"--as light broke on me--"Halcyon days, of course!"
"That's right," Pilot Matthey nodded. "That's what you called 'em. . . . It took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. Then, about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to Bolt Tail, and after that we mostly drifted all night, with here and there a cat's-paw, down across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were inside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon we was just in the very same place. It was Christmas Eve, sir.
"I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion struck me. It was foolish I hadn't thought of it before.
"'See here, boys,' I says. (There was three. My second son, Sam, Daniel, and Daniel's brother, Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so.) 'Get out the boat,' I says,' and we'll tow her into Plymouth. If you're smart we may pluck her into Cattewater in time for Daniel to catch a train home. Sam can go home, too, if he has a mind, and the youngster can stay and help me look after things. I've seen a many Christmasses,' said I, 'and I'd as lief spend this one at Plymouth as anywhere else. You can give 'em all my love, and turn up again the day after Boxin' Day--and mind you ask for excursion tickets,' I said.
"They tumbled the boat out fast enough, you may be sure. Leastways the two men were smart enough. But the boy seemed ready to cry, so that my heart smote me. 'There!' said I, 'and Dicky can go too, if he'll pull for it. I shan't mind bein' left to myself. A redeemed man's never lonely--least of all at Christmas time.'
"Well, sir,