The Passion for Life. Hocking Joseph
I was a boy."
"That is a long time ago, Simpson."
"I am fifty-five, sir, but it doesn't seem long since I was a boy – that is, except for those two years when I was married; those seem very long."
Simpson's face looked so comical that I could not help laughing. It was the first time I had laughed since my interview with the doctor.
We passed by a great square tower and a low, many-gabled church, with the churchyard around it. I turned my eyes away. The place was not pleasant to me. Presently we began to descend a steep hill, and the sound of the waves rolling upon a hard and sandy beach became more and more clear. The carriage entered a narrow lane, which ended in a kind of copse close to a rugged cliff. A little later I saw, built within a few feet from the edge of the cliff, a wooden house. At the back of it a steep and almost precipitous piece of country, covered with brushwood, rose skyward. In front was the Atlantic. The house was in a bay looking towards the sea. The cliffs on the right side were not very high, but on the left they rose up almost perpendicular, rugged and imposing. I noticed that the rocks of which the cliffs were composed were in one place discolored, and I pointed it out.
"Yes, sir," replied Simpson. "When I was a boy there was a copper-mine here. There's a level under the hill now – at least, I believe so, sir. This is the house I have settled on, sir."
I alighted from the carriage and looked more closely at what was to be my future dwelling. As I have said, it was a wooden erection, and was evidently built with some care. All along the front was a veranda, the floor of which was roughly paved with granite slabs. The few yards of land between the veranda and the edge of the cliff had been cultivated, and flowers grew in wild profusion. At the back of the house many kinds of wild flowers bloomed. In the near distance, on the top of the cliffs, the land was covered with furze bushes and heather. I stood and took a deep breath and listened while the waves rolled on the golden sand hundreds of feet down.
"Won't you come into the house, sir?" asked Simpson. "I have paid the driver, and there is a man coming along with the luggage in a cart."
"Not yet," I replied. "I want to take my fill of this. This is wonderful – simply wonderful. I want to live."
Simpson stood watching me. I thought I saw his lips tremble.
II
MY NEW HOME
I liked the house the moment I entered it. It was snug, cozy, and warm. It had the feeling of home, too, and felt so quiet and restful that I threw myself into an armchair with a sigh of relief.
"You spent your holiday in getting this, I suppose, Simpson?"
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. I hope you like it, sir. It is not altogether what I would like, sir, but directly I saw it I thought it would suit you."
"To whom does it belong, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, I would rather not tell you, if you don't mind. You may rest assured that I got it on favorable terms, and everything is in order."
"But I do mind," I said, for by this time I had quite an interest in my surroundings. For days nothing had seemed to matter, but now I was quite eager to know how Simpson had happened upon this quaint yet comfortable place.
"You are sure you wish me to tell you, sir?" and Simpson looked at me almost beseechingly.
"I insist on it," I replied.
"Well, sir, I am afraid it was built by a kind of madman who came down to St. Issey about six years ago. Who he was I don't know. No one seems to know. But he took a lease of this piece of ground from the Squire and built the house with his own hands."
"He must have been a carpenter," I suggested. "It seems very well built. But what has become of him?"
"He is dead, sir."
"Was he old or young?"
"Quite an old man, I think, sir. Anyhow, he built it himself and would have no one near him. After it was built he lived here alone for several years, speaking to no one but the village idiot, who went by the name of Fever Lurgy, who bought all his food and did all his errands. No woman was allowed near the place, sir."
"Then he cooked his own food and did his own house-work?" I asked.
"It would appear so, sir. He seems to have made himself very comfortable, too. As you see, the furniture is not at all bad, and nearly everything is just as he left it."
I must confess to being interested. The thought of a man coming to this place and building a house for himself and living there without companionship of any sort appealed to me. I wondered how he spent his days and nights.
"Let me have a look around the place," I said, rising from the chair. "I want to see what rooms it contains."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," was Simpson's reply.
The room in which I had been sitting was about fifteen feet square – it might be a little more – and looked out upon the veranda, beyond which stretched the great Atlantic. It was comfortably furnished, and possessed an old-fashioned fireplace, evidently intended for logs of wood, and revealed the fact that the builder was not only ingenious in the matter of house-building, but that he possessed a good deal of taste. The whole apartment was carefully match-boarded, and was, as I said, snug and comfortable.
"This, sir, is the bedroom," said Simpson, opening the door at the end of the living apartment.
It was much smaller than the other, but quite big enough for a single bed, together with the simple necessities of a man living alone.
"And did he die here?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; no, sir – that is – I don't know, sir."
"What do you mean, Simpson?"
"Well, sir, that is why I didn't want to tell you about him; but there are all sorts of stories afloat. You don't mind, do you, sir?"
"Not a bit," I replied. "Whatever my ailments are, nerves don't trouble me."
"Well, sir," went on Simpson, "the fact that he lived here all alone caused people to talk about him – especially the women. You know what women are, sir, and people used to come and look from the hill above and see what he was doing. One day two women were bold enough to come close to the place, and they knocked at the door. There was no answer, sir. They knocked again and again and made a great noise. Still there was no answer. Then they rushed away to St. Issey and gave it as their opinion that something had happened to him. They hadn't been back in the village more than half an hour when Fever Lurgy came, pale as a ghost, and trembling like a leaf. He had gone to inquire whether he was needed for errands, and, on being unable to make any one hear, had burst open the door. In this bedroom he found evidences of a great struggle. He found blood, too, but the man was nowhere to be seen."
"That's interesting," I said. "What was the name by which this old fellow was known?"
"Fever Lurgy called him Father Abraham," was Simpson's reply.
"Well, go on," I urged.
"There's nothing more to tell you, sir. From that day he has never been seen. People believe, however, he was murdered here; that some tramps came and found him alone, stole his money, killed him, and threw his body over the cliff."
"And how long was this ago?"
"About four months, sir."
"And since that time no one has lived here?"
"No, sir, no one. Most people have been afraid to come near the place. That is why none of the things have been touched; besides, the Squire, as soon as he discovered what had taken place, told his men to keep an eye on it."
"And so you thought, Simpson," I said, "that this was the sort of place I would like to come to and end my days?"
"Well, Mr. Francis," was Simpson's response, "for one thing you told me you wanted a place that was cheap, that you wanted a place that was out of the world and yet in the world, and I immediately thought of St. Issey. When I came down here, however, I found that any lodgings you might like would be rather dear, and then, hearing of this place, I determined to come and see it."
Here