A Drake by George!. Trevena John
sexton declared there were no such blackberries in all the parish as could be gathered from those brambles.
The matter would have ended there had it not been for Captain Drake, who visited the territory, explored to within fifteen feet of the sycamore, then called a meeting of parishioners and, with the aid of diagrams, showed how the foremost line of nettles was advancing so rapidly in a north-westerly direction as to threaten the main approach to the vestry; while a screen of brambles had already reached a nameless altar tomb whereon the youth of the place by traditional right recorded their initials.
The seriousness of the weed peril had not been realised until then; as the Dumpy Philosopher remarked, they had all been asleep and thus had been taken unprepared; but, when the parishioners did realise it, an army of offence was raised quickly; the nettles were eradicated and the brambles uprooted; that portion of the churchyard was thrown open to the public; and George attained his resting place beside the sycamore.
He had lounged against it several times before his eyes fell upon an inscription which appeared familiar, although obscured by moss and yellow lichen. As the tombstone was not more than three yards away, he was able to reach it without much difficulty. Reclining upon the turf, he summoned up energy to open his pocketknife and to scrape away the lichen until the full meaning of the discovery burst upon him.
Later in the day the Yellow Leaf met Squinting Jack, and said, "I saw Mr. Drake running like wildfire down the street this forenoon. If I hadn't seen 'en wi' my own eyes, I wouldn't ha' believed it."
"I saw 'en too wi' my own eyes," replied Squinting Jack. "And still I don't believe it."
Captain Drake would have run too had there been less of him. George had never been a liar—the poor fellow had no imagination and rarely picked up a newspaper—still his story sounded too impossible to be true. They reached the newly discovered tombstone; the Captain read the inscription; and in a voice trembling with emotion murmured, "Amelia Drake, of Black Anchor Farm, in this parish."
The portion of stone which bore the date of her departure had sunk into the ground.
"George, my lad," cried the Captain, "this is the grave of my long-lost great-grandmother."
"The missing link," added the nephew, with the joyous certainty of one about to negotiate a loan.
"Our pedigree is now complete. I am certain my father used to speak of a rumour which insisted that his grandmother's name was Amelia; and now we have discovered she lived in this parish, at Black Anchor Farm, which no doubt had passed to her husband—who is down on the pedigree as having been probably lost at sea—from the lineal descendant of the great Founder himself. The name of the farm proves that. You see, George, the reference is to a black anchor, a new freshly tarred anchor, not to an old rusty red one. I must have the stone cleaned. And we will show our respect by planting roses here."
"If it hadn't been for me, this grave would never have been discovered," said George, ready to produce a statement of his bankruptcy.
"That's true, my lad. It's the best day's work you have ever done in your life."
"Skilled labour, too," reminded George, still advertising.
"I won't forget," his uncle promised.
Black Anchor Farm was situated about two miles from the centre of the village. It was not a place to covet, consisting of a mean little thatched house; stable and barn of cob walls propped up by pieces of timber; and half a dozen fields which brought forth furze and bracken in great abundance. People named Slack occupied the place; the man was a lame dwarf who tried to work sometimes, but honestly preferred poaching; the woman went about in rags and begged; while the children were little savages, kept from school by their father, and trained to steal by their mother.
The Captain refused to be discouraged when he visited the home of his ancestors and discovered a hovel; but wrote to the owner for information, interviewed the vicar, turned up the registers, and consulted the Yellow Leaf.
The letter was answered by a solicitor, who expressed his sorrow at never having heard of the family of Drake. The vicar mentioned that the name Anchor occurred frequently in the neighbourhood, and was undoubtedly a corruption of Anchoret, which signified a person who sought righteousness by retiring from a world of sin. He considered it probable that the site had been occupied formerly by the cell of a hermit who had distinguished himself by wearing a black cloak.
Although the Captain gave days and nights to the registers, he could find no entry concerning his family, of whom most, he was convinced, had been lost at sea, apart from the funeral of Amelia Drake. The Yellow Leaf, after remaining some days in a state of meditation, distinctly recalled a tradition concerning a lady (the Captain thanked him for the lady) who had lived alone at Black Anchor Farm for a number of years, receiving no visitors, and leaving the place only to obtain fresh supplies of liquid consolation. The end of her history was so unpleasant he did not care to dwell upon it, but apparently this lady was discovered at last ready for her funeral, and according to report it was a pity she had not been discovered earlier.
Still the Captain refused to be discouraged. His nobility of character would not permit him to disown the memory of his great-grandmother, although he thought it terribly sad she should have sunk so low. If she, during recurring fits of temporary insanity, had disgraced the great name, he had added lustre to it. If the former country residence of Sir Francis Drake had fallen into a ruinous condition, it should be his privilege to restore it with a few magic touches of the pen. He resolved to devote the remaining years of his life to the writing of A History of the Parish of Highfield.
"The vicar was not altogether mistaken, my love," he remarked to Mrs. Drake. "He associates the name of Black Anchor with a hermit who wore a dark coloured vestment of some description, and no doubt he is right. My unfortunate great-grandmother did live there entirely alone, and would naturally be regarded as a hermit by the superstitious people of this parish. And we need not be surprised to discover that she always wore black—silk or velvet, I presume—the last poor remnants of her former greatness. It is an established fact, I believe, that elderly ladies generally wear black."
As a compiler of history the Captain was in many ways well equipped. He wrote rapidly, which was of great importance, because the least relevant chapter in the life of a parish required a vast number of words. He possessed a gift of making the past real because he owned a powerful imagination. While confidence in his own abilities freed him from a slavish adherence to facts which could serve no useful purpose. Realising the importance of concentrating upon some particular feature, in order that the narrative might be made continuous, he had not the slightest difficulty in selecting that feature. The keynote of the entire work was sounded by the opening sentence:
"Although the Parish of Highfield is but little known to Englishmen, and occupies an extremely small portion of the map, being entirely excluded from the standard Atlas used in schools—in our opinion unjustifiably—it must nevertheless remain for ever famous on account of its associations with the sublime name of Drake."
The opening chapter dealt with the destruction of the Spanish Armada. The second gave an account of the arrival of Sir Francis Drake in Highfield parish, fully describing his purchase of a site and the erection of a stately manor house, of which unfortunately nothing remained except a few fragments "fraught with sweet Elizabethan memories." The site was still known as Black Anchor, which was undoubtedly the name conferred by the great Admiral upon his country residence, because he regarded it as a place to which he could retire from the world, where he could muse amid the solitude of nature, where he could rest, or, in the phrase of the seaman, "cast his anchor." It was here that Queen Elizabeth visited him, and, according to some authorities who seemed to deserve serious attention, it was here, and not in London, that the Queen conferred the honour of knighthood upon this magnificent bulwark of her throne.
The third chapter was devoted entirely to the royal visit, concerning which tradition was happily not silent. It was indeed a simple matter to follow the Queen's progress towards its culminating point, which was unquestionably Highfield Manor, as Black Anchor Farm was known in those days, through the adjoining parishes, all possessing manors of which some had survived