The Astonishing History of Troy Town | Page 9

ever yet capable of describing it. If you doubt me, visit the town and see for yourself. I will for the moment suppose you to do so. What happens?
On the first day you take a boat and row about the harbour. "Scenery!" you exclaim, "why, what could you have more? Here is a lovely harbour flanked by bold hills to right and left; here are the ruined castles, witnesses of the great days when Troy sent ships to carry the English army to Agincourt; here axe grey houses huddled at the water's edge, hoary, battered walls and quay-doors coated with ooze and green weed. Such is Troy, and on the further shore quaint Penpoodle faces it, where a silver creek, dividing, runs up to Lanbeg; further up, the harbour melts into a river where the old ferry-boat plies to and from the foot of a tiny village straggling up the hill; further yet, and the jetties mingle with the steep woods beside the roads, where the vessels lie thickest; ships of all builds and of all nations, from the trim Canadian timber-ship to the corpulent Billy-boy. Why, the very heart of the picturesque is here. What more can you want?"
On the second day you will see all this from the harbour again, or perhaps you will cross the ferry and climb the King's Walk on the opposite bank; you will see it all, but with a change. It is more lovely, but not the same.
On the third day you will cast about in your mind to explain this; and so in time you will come to find that it is the spirit of Troy that plays this trick upon you. For you will have learnt to love the place, and love, as you know, dear sir or madam, is apt to affect the eyesight.
The eyes of Mr. Fogo, as Caleb pulled sturdily up with the tide, were passing through the first of these stages.
"This," he said at length, reflectively, "is one of the loveliest spots I have looked upon."
Caleb, in whom humanity and Trojanity were nicely compounded, flushed a bright copper-colour with pleasure.
"'Tes reckoned a tidy spot," he answered modestly, "by them as cares for voos an' such-like."
"There, now," he went on, after a pause, and turning round, "yonder's Kit's House, wi' Kit's Cottage, next door. You can't see the house so plain, 'cos 'tes behind the trees. But there 'tes, right enough."
"Is the cottage uninhabited, too?"
"Both on 'em. Ha'nted they do say. By the way, I niver axed 'ee whether you minded ghostes?"
"Ghosts?"
"Iss, ghostes. This 'ere place was a Lazarus one time, where they kept leppards."
"Leopards? How very singular!" murmured Mr. Fogo.
"Ay, leppards as white as snow, as the sayin' goes."
"Oh, I see," said Mr. Fogo, suddenly enlightened. "You mean that this was a Lazar-house."
"That's so--a Lazarus. The leppards used to live there together, and when they died, they was berried at dead o' night down at thicky spit you sees yonder. No one had dealin's wi' 'em nor went nigh 'em, 'cept that they was allowed to make ropes. 'Tesn' so many years that the rope-walk was moved down to th' harbour mouth."
Caleb stopped rowing, and leant forward on his paddles.
"These 'ere leppards in time got to be quite a happy famb'ly--'cept, of course, they warn't happy, 'cos nobody wudn' have nuthin' to say to 'em. Well, the story goes as one on 'em got falled in love wi' by a very nice gal down in Troy, and one fine day she ups an' tells her sorrowin' parents that she's agoin' to marry a leppard. 'Not ef we knows et,' says they; 'we forbids the banns'; and wi' that they went off to bed thinkin' as they'd settled et. 'But,' says Parson Lasky--"
"Who was he?" interrupted Mr. Fogo.
"On'y a figger o' speech, sir, and nothin' to do wi' the yarn, as the strollin' actor said when his theayter cotched a-fire. Wot I meant was, that very night the gal gets a boat an' rows up to Kit's House, arter leavin' a letter to say as she'd drownded hersel'. An' there she lived in hidin', 'long wi' the leppards for the rest of her days, which, by the tale, warn't many, an' she an' her sweetheart was berried in wan grave." Caleb paused for breath.
"And the ghosts?" said Mr. Fogo, much interested.
"Some ha' seed her rowin' about here in a boat, o' dark nights; and others swear to seein' all the leppards a-marchin' down wi' her corpse to the berryin'-ground. Leastways, that's the tale. Jan Spettigue was the last as seed 'em, but as he be'eld three devils on his own chimbly-piece the week arter, along o' too much rum, p'r'aps he made a mistake. Anyways, 'tes a moral yarn, an' true to natur'. These young wimmen es a