Pengarron Land

by Pengarron Land (retail) (epub)

  As the younger Trembath enthusiastically took in all this information Clem was looking behind them to see if anyone was coming up the cliff path. There was no one to be seen but he heard a noise and his body froze. Primitive instinct told him it was not a smuggler. Creeping along the side of the ponies, Clem urgently nudged the man nearest to him.

  Daniel Berryman of Orchard Hill Farm, a short stocky man of middle years, looked around. Acting as batman and armed with a staff to deter the Revenue men, or in the event, troublemakers of a different sort, he whispered hoarsely, ‘What is it, Clem?’

  ‘I think we’re being watched,’ he hissed back.

  Daniel moved forward to peep past the ponies. His head moved from side to side as he concentrated hard while staring into the misty darkness. Straightening up he beckoned Clem to his side. ‘You’re right, boy. See over there? There’s about five of ’em.’

  Clem followed Daniel’s pointing finger to where the outline of a small group of men could just be defined.

  ‘Do you think it’s the Preventive men?’

  ‘Dunno. We’ll wait till they get closer, boy. We don’t want a panic for no good reason.’

  Davey and Ted Trembath spotted the mysterious group of men advancing steadily towards the smuggling party at the same instant. Ted clutched his brother’s arm. ‘Quiet, boy. Don’t move.’ Ted’s voice was harsh.

  ‘They’ve got uniforms on…’ Davey sounded frightened.

  ‘Hush, Davey.’

  ‘Who are they, Ted? Tes the Preventive men. It is, isn’t it?’ The boy squirmed against Ted’s tightening grip. ‘What’ll we do, Ted!’

  The boy’s voice had risen steadily; the other men on the clifftop became quickly aware of what was going on.

  ‘Damn it!’ exclaimed Daniel Berryman to Clem. ‘Keep they ponies still, boy. I’ll see who tes.’

  A cry went up: ‘We’ve been betrayed! Ambush!’

  It was repeated by others. Ted, the eldest of four brothers, gave Davey, the youngest, a hard push. ‘Run, Davey! Run for home!’

  At the outbreak of shouting there was a sudden panic among the strangers and two turned and ran away.

  Davey took off across the springy grass, dodging out of the way of a smuggler running in the opposite direction towards his brother.

  ‘Light the beacon, Ted!’ the man cried, amidst the growing commotion. ‘There’s not enough Preventive men to do anything ’gainst we but there may be a cutter out there after the ship.’

  After making sure that Davey was on his way Ted was already racing to the cliff edge. He dashed his lantern into a huge pile of damp furze and kicked at the pile until the beacon was well ablaze as a warning to the smuggling vessel of the possible danger.

  The cry of ambush had been taken up below. Oliver dumped the tub of brandy he was lifting back into the rowing boat that had come ashore.

  ‘Out of here!’ he ordered, at the top of his voice. ‘Move!’

  With the help of the towering Matthew King, Oliver pushed the boat out into waist-high, freezing water then they turned together to join the scramble up to the clifftop. They gathered up a fallen man in one co-ordinated sweep of powerful arms and guided him as he stumbled over the shingle.

  Amid the shouts and scuffles Daniel Berryman thrust himself forward, and by the light thrown out from the beacon saw he was facing three uncertain-looking Revenue men. They were taking steps forward and then backward, as if they didn’t know whether to exert their authority and try to make an arrest or turn tail and run after their fleeing companions. Daniel was not going to risk having a musket ball tearing into his body, and slashed at the legs of the nearest Revenue man with his staff. The man fell like a dead fly, howling in agony, and Daniel snatched up his musket.

  Clem tried for all he was worth to hold on to the ponies but they were alarmed and whinnying and edging themselves forward. Their restlessness turned to panic as more and more men rushed past them, and Clem was threatened with being dragged under their hooves. He decided it was safer for himself and the ponies to let them go. As they bolted away he found himself on the end of a musket barrel held by a Revenue man who, although nervous, looked as if he intended to take a prisoner, perhaps thereby ensuring he had something to bargain with for his own safety at the end of the night’s fray.

  Clem’s heart missed its next beat but was whipped up with fury. He hadn’t come here tonight to take part in his enemy’s misdemeanour only to be robbed of the opportunity to challenge him by being taken into custody or perhaps killed by another. With a cry of rage he ducked rapidly under the firearm and thumped both his clenched fists with all his might into the softest part of the Revenue man’s belly. The musket went off, its ball thundering harmless up into the air. The Revenue man doubled over. Clem pushed him to the ground, ripped the musket from his hands and smashed it useless on a granite boulder.

  Now he was stirred up, Clem looked around for more Revenue men. He pushed through two miners attempting to put a tub of brandy on a skittish mule then saw the back of the last Revenue man scampering off into the darkness. He had tossed aside his musket and it quickly joined the other in a broken heap on the turf under Clem’s furious hands.

  Four or five others of the back ponies had panicked at the outbreak of the fracas and the sudden light from the beacon. They broke away from the line of agitated animals, heading off in all directions. Men cried to one another to get out of their way. Two fishermen reaching the top of the cliff path in front of Hunk Hunken were knocked off their feet and trampled by flailing hooves. Hunk shouted and waved his arms at the ponies, and checked by his actions from doing further injury to the fallen men, they raced away inland, rapidly becoming engulfed in the darkness.

  Another pony slipped and checked itself on the greasy surface before rearing up in front of a small thin boy who had appeared across its path. Ted Trembath, running back from the beacon, recoiled in horror and shouted something to the boy. Unable to hear in the confusion, Davey Trembath, who hadn’t been able to get through the mêlée of milling bodies and animals, raised his arms and attempted to grasp the pony’s reins. He succeeded, but the pony, its eyes bulging in terror, kicked the boy to the ground, his arm breaking in several places as the animal resumed its crazed journey.

  Ted ran after them, screaming in abject horror. The pony, with Davey being dragged along with his broken arm tangled in the reins, was heading for the cliff edge.

  ‘Davey! Davey! For God’s sake, boy, let go!’ Ted’s anguished words were lost among the shouts of the other men and the surge of the sea fifty feet below. He watched in frozen horror as the terrified pony and his thirteen-year-old brother hurtled out of sight.

  Ted moved on trembling legs to the cliff edge. Some of the other smugglers, including Clem and Daniel Berryman and the two Revenue men they now held prisoner, slowly joined him. They all looked down in stunned silence where the boy and the pony had disappeared. Nothing could be seen but inky blackness. Murmuring broke out but the horror remained. Davey’s last scream was still echoing inside their heads. Ted Trembath began to moan, then sobbed and wailed, holding his sides and shaking.

  Oliver had been the last to come up from the cove, ensuring first that the other men had safely reached the top. He skirted round the men attending the trampled fishermen and roughly pushed through to the group huddled near the dying embers of the beacon. After the commotion all had gone quiet.

  ‘What on earth is going on here!’ he shouted. ‘Has someone gone over?’

  Ted Trembath answered, his voice thick and throaty. ‘It was Davey. He was dragged over the side by one of the runaway ponies.’

  Oliver glanced over the cliff. From that position it was a sheer drop on to treacherous rocks. He drew in a long deep breath through his nose; no one could survive such a fall.

  ‘What frightened the ponies?’ he asked severely.

  No one answered. Throats were cleared, feet were shuffled, heads lowered. But no one spoke.

  ‘Speak up, one of you!�
�� he demanded, looking from face to face, resting momentarily on Clem’s. ‘Was it the shout of ambush? What’s been going on up here? Was there a good reason for the panic or—’

  When he saw the two terrified men in uniform trying to conceal themselves among the other men, he reached out and grasped the one in Daniel Berryman’s clutches. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he shouted in fury.

  ‘Nothing like this was supposed to have happened, sir,’ the Revenue man blurted out, while quaking in his boots. He was terrified he and his companion were about to follow Davey Trembath over the cliff.

  ‘Then just what was supposed to have happened?’ Oliver hissed, pulling the man closer and shaking him violently. ‘Out with it, man!’

  ‘It… it was the old Riding Officer… at… at Marazion, sir.’

  ‘What about him!’

  ‘He… he… he informed us there’d be a landing here tonight. Said if we didn’t… didn’t come along… and… and… he’d report us for being slack in our duties. We didn’t mean no harm, sir, not on one of your runs. We was hoping just to seize some of the goods and scarper.’

  ‘Have you any idea why the Riding Officer was so keen for you to come here tonight?’ Oliver snarled, gripping the Revenue man even tighter.

  ‘I… I don’t know for sure, sir. But there was a strange little man coming out of his office this evening, all wrinkled up he was, ugly and dirty, with only one long tooth in his whole head.’

  ‘Old Tom Trelynne!’ spat Ted Trembath, who had been listening intently. ‘Was it him who informed the Riding Officer, man?’

  The Revenue man shook with fear as Ted advanced on him. ‘It could’a been, mister. I don’t know for sure.’

  ‘I believe the old man said he lived here, sir,’ the other Revenue man put in hastily, hoping the smugglers would go easy on them if they seemed co-operative.

  ‘Aye, he—’

  ‘Sounds like Old Tom,’ Oliver said grimly, interrupting now he had heard enough.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Ted, his voice unusually low. ‘I’ll get that little bastard for this, if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.’

  ‘Go back to Ashley Hinton,’ Oliver told the quaking Revenue men. ‘Remind him that I pay him well to turn a blind eye to my free trading ventures. If anything comes of this tonight, I swear there will be hell to pay. Now get out of here, and be very sure to keep your mouths shut!’ He pushed the Revenue man he was clutching towards his colleague. Daniel Berryman and Clem let him go too. In an instant they had both turned on their heels and scurried off, one limping badly, the other holding his stomach.

  Hunk Hunken looked after them. ‘D’reckon they’ll find their way back to Marazion in the dark, sir?’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about them! Get this place tidied up, Hunken, and make sure the fishermen sail back to Perranbarvah. I don’t want a single trace left to show we were here. We’ll take the goods we’ve managed to bring ashore to one of the hides. You can tell the men I’ll pay them as usual.’

  Oliver turned to speak to Ted Trembath but found Clem standing in his way. The younger man stood his ground.

  ‘Get out of my way, Trenchard!’ Oliver snapped.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Sir Oliver,’ he said coldly.

  ‘This is not the time for discussions, pleasant or pretty, and if it’s about what I think it is, I certainly have nothing to say to you on the matter. Now help get these animals out of here.’

  Clem realised he would be foolish to carry on with what he wanted to say, but saw no reason not to rub salt in the baronet’s recent wound.

  ‘It’s your fault the boy’s dead,’ he said, as if triumphant over something.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Oliver repeated, ‘if you don’t want to follow him over the cliff.’

  Clem’s face was strangely aglow in the firelight as he stepped aside and wandered off into the darkness.

  Oliver kicked at the embers of the beacon, sending a shower of red sparks up into the night sky.

  Unaware of the tragedy that had happened on shore, Hezekiah Solomon, owner and captain of the vessel Free Spirit, shouted orders to weigh anchor and put to sea. A careful watch was kept for any patrolling Revenue cutters but none were sighted, and Free Spirit, her captain and crew, sailed to safety further along the coast, to the lee side of Pengarron Point.

  Long after the last of the men had left, and there was no sign of the Free Spirit, Ted Trembath remained on the clifftop looking out over Trelynne Cove. He pulled off the red handkerchief he always wore around his neck and wept bitter tears into it for his beloved lost brother.

  * * *

  Mrs Tregonning was up early bustling her large, sombrely dressed frame around the parsonage kitchen.

  Clem tapped on the door, opened it slightly, and softly called out, ‘Mrs Tregonning, are you there?’

  ‘Come on in Clem,’ she called back. ‘I saw you pass the window. Sit yourself down and we’ll have a nice cup of tea.’

  As he entered the big cosy room Clem noticed the woman’s puffy red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘I take it you’ve heard about Davey Trembath, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, sniffing back fresh tears, ‘Jack rode over and told the Reverend about it a short while ago. It’s dreadful, dreadful. Fancy taking that poor little boy out like that last night. And his poor mother, how’s she going to bear it, that’s what I want to know. Isn’t it bad enough that he up there involves half the neighbourhood in his wrong doings, without children getting involved in them too.’

  The tears of the distraught woman could be held back no longer and ran freely down her chubby face. Clem rounded the table and with an effort he enclosed Mrs Tregonning in his arms. After a moment or two she pushed him aside, her face a picture of embarrassment as she noisily blew her nose.

  ‘Better now?’ Clem asked kindly.

  ‘Yes, my handsome. Sorry about that,’ she answered briskly, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘Come on now, sit yourself down. I’ll pour us a nice cup of tea.’

  Clem sat down at the table laden with things in readiness for the breakfast of the Reverend and his guest. He sipped his tea, keeping silent until Mrs Tregonning was quite composed.

  Carefully he said, ‘Does Kerensa know what’s happened?’

  ‘Yes, poor little maid. Been crying her eyes out she has, what with Old Tom being more than likely responsible for the boy’s death. Now everyone knows I don’t hold with smuggling, although it’s no wonder that men do it with times being so hard, and the government not giving a darn about what happens to we down here, but like everyone else, I believe there’s none worse than a man who informs on his own kind. As if that poor little maid hasn’t got enough to put up with already…’ She threw up her podgy hands in a helpless gesture and sighed deeply.

  ‘Can I see Kerensa?’ Clem pleaded, ‘Just for a little while.’

  Mrs Tregonning very slowly placed her cup in its saucer.

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, Clem, she—’

  ‘I promise I won’t upset her,’ he interrupted urgently.

  ‘I’m sorry, Clem. It’s up to the Reverend, not me, who sees his guests in his house, but I’m quite sure he wouldn’t allow it. Besides, it will do no good to either of you at the moment. Why not leave things as they are for the time being?’

  ‘There might not be much time left for us, Mrs Tregonning. I need to know if Kerensa’s had the chance to speak to Sir Oliver. She’s hoping to talk to him out of this marriage he’s got planned.’

  ‘If you were in church on Sunday, Clem, you would have heard the first banns being called.’

  ‘I know about that,’ he said, grimacing at the reminder. ‘I managed to talk to Kerensa out in the garden, the day before yesterday. She told me up till then he hadn’t sent word to her about anything, or been over to see her. I have to know what is happening, you do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, Clem. I only wish there was something I could do to he
lp you, but I do know he hasn’t been in touch with the dear maid. I don’t want to turn you out, but you really ought to go now, Clem. With this dreadful business over young Davey Trembath, he might well ride over to see the Reverend. It will only make matters worse if he catches you here.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Clem said reluctantly. ‘I’ll leave it this time, but I’ll look for another chance to see Kerensa. Thanks for the tea… tell Kerensa I called and I… just tell her I called will you, please?’

  Mrs Tregonning nodded understandingly.

  Charity was waiting for Clem outside the kitchen door. She jumped about excitedly at her master’s feet, then sensing his doleful mood as he strode off, she fell in soberly at his heels.

  ‘What are you doing here, Trenchard?’

  The stinging question hurled at his back came from Sir Oliver Pengarron. Clem turned sharply round to face his father’s landlord. Clem was six feet two inches tall but Oliver looked down on him by a good three inches more. Five yards of hard frosted ground lay between them and Clem stared back into the dark eyes that pierced keenly into his.

  ‘I called at the Parsonage to find out how Kerensa is,’ Clem muttered, his voice as cold as his feelings were for this man he had always disliked and now hated.

  ‘The girl is to be my wife, Trenchard, it’s of no concern to you how she is,’ Oliver snapped. ‘In future keep away from her, or your father will be the only Trenchard to farm on my land.’

  Clem said nothing. Their eyes parried for supremacy in a silent battle of unspoken challenges; Oliver tapped his riding crop against his leg, Clem clenched his fists. It was Clem who looked down first. Charity nuzzled his hand but he pushed her away.

  With a jerk of his head he said coldly, ‘I’ve got work to do.’ Turning again he followed Charity, as she bounded on before him, to begin his day’s work.

  Oliver smiled superciliously after the fair-haired youth, then with long strides he reached the Reverend Ivey’s front door. Mrs Tregonning showed him into the parson’s neat study and with her disapproving nose up in the air retreated to inform the Reverend of his visitor and to fetch Kerensa from her room.