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                              KITTY ALONE




                 MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH




                              KITTY ALONE

                         A STORY OF THREE FIRES






                                   BY

                            S. BARING GOULD

                               AUTHOR OF
              “IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA” “THE QUEEN OF LOVE”
                 “MEHALAH” “CHEAP JACK ZITA” ETC. ETC.




                            IN THREE VOLUMES

                                 VOL. I




                             METHUEN & CO.
                         36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
                                 LONDON
                                  1894

                           CONTENTS OF VOL. I

                               ----------

           CHAP.                                           PAGE
              I. THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE                      7
             II. A LUSUS NATURÆ                              15
            III. ALL INTO GOLD                               25
             IV. THE ATMOSPHERIC RAILWAY                     35
              V. ON A MUD-BANK                               44
             VI. A CAPTURE                                   55
            VII. A RELEASE                                   64
           VIII. AN ATMOSPHERE OF LOVE                       73
             IX. CONVALESCENCE                               83
              X. THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER                        90
             XI. DISCORDS                                   101
            XII. DAFFODILS                                  112
           XIII. THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY                      122
            XIV. TO THE FAIR                                132
             XV. A REASON FOR EVERYTHING                    140
            XVI. THE DANCING BEAR                           150
           XVII. INSURED                                    157
          XVIII. BRAZIL NUTS                                167

                              KITTY ALONE




                               CHAPTER I
                        THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE


With a voice like that of a crow, and singing with full lungs also like
a crow, came Jason Quarm riding in his donkey-cart to Coombe Cellars.

Jason Quarm was a short, stoutly-built man, with a restless grey eye,
with shaggy, long, sandy hair that burst out from beneath a battered
beaver hat. He was somewhat lame, wherefore he maintained a donkey, and
drove about the country seated cross-legged in the bottom of his cart,
only removed from the bottom boards by a wisp of straw, which became
dissipated from under him with the joltings of the conveyance. Then
Jason would struggle to his knees, take the reins in his teeth, scramble
backwards in his cart, rake the straw together again into a heap, reseat
himself, and drive on till the exigencies of the case necessitated his
going through the same operations once more.

Coombe Cellars, which Jason Quarm approached, was a cluster of roofs
perched on low walls, occupying a promontory in the estuary of the
Teign, in the south of Devon. A road, or rather a series of ruts, led
direct to Coombe Cellars, cut deep in the warm red soil; but they led no
farther.

Coombe Cellars was a farmhouse, a depôt of merchandise, an eating-house,
a ferry-house, a discharging wharf for barges laden with coal, a
lading-place for straw, and hay, and corn that had to be carried away on
barges to the stables of Teignmouth and Dawlish. Facing the water was a
little terrace or platform, gravelled, on which stood green benches and
a green table.

The sun of summer had blistered the green paint on the table, and
persons having leisure had amused themselves with picking the skin off
these blisters and exposing the white paint underneath, and then, with
pen or pencil, exercising their ingenuity in converting these bald
patches into human faces, or in scribbling over them their own names and
those of the ladies of their heart. Below the platform at low water the
ooze was almost solidified with the vast accumulation of cockle and
winkle shells thrown over the edge, together with bits of broken plates,
fragments of glass, tobacco-pipes, old handleless knives, and sundry
other refuse of a tavern.

Above the platform, against the wall, was painted in large letters, to
be read across the estuary--

                            PASCO PEPPERILL,
                        HOT COCKLES AND WINKLES,
                      TEA AND COFFEE ALWAYS READY.

Some wag with his penknife had erased the capital H from “Hot,” and had
converted the W in “Winkles” into a V, with the object of accommodating
the written language to the vernacular. One of the most marvellous of
passions seated in the human heart is that hunger after immortality
which, indeed, distinguishes man from beast. This deep-seated and awful
aspiration had evidently consumed the breasts of all the “’ot cockle and
vinkle” eaters on the platform, for there was literally not a spare
space of plaster anywhere within reach which was not scrawled over with
names by these aspirants after immortality.

Jason Quarm was merciful to his beast. Seeing a last year’s teasel by
the wall ten yards from Coombe Cellars’ door, he drew rein, folded his
legs and arms, smiled, and said to his ass--

“There, governor, enjoy yourself.”

The teasel was hard as wood, besides being absolutely devoid of
nutritious juices, which had been withdrawn six months previously. Neddy
would have nothing to say to the teasel.

“You dratted monkey!” shouted Quarm, irritated at the daintiness of the
ass. “If you won’t eat, then go on.” He knelt up in his cart and whacked
him with a stick in one hand and the reins in the other. “I’ll teach you
to be choice. I’ll make you swaller a holly-bush. And if there ain’t
relish enough in that to suit your palate, I’ll buy a job lot of old
Perninsula bayonets and make you munch them. That’ll be chutney, I
reckon, to the likes of you.”

Then, as he threw his lame leg over the side of the cart, he said,
“Steady, old man, and hold your breath whilst I’m descending.”

No sooner was he on his feet, than, swelling his breast and stretching
his shoulders, with a hand on each hip, he crowed forth--

                   “There was a frog lived in a well,
                     Crock-a-mydaisy, Kitty alone!
                   There was a frog lived in a well,
                   And a merry mouse lived in a mill,
                     Kitty alone and I.”

The door opened, and a man stood on the step and waved a salutation to
Quarm. This man was powerfully built. He had broad shoulders and a short
neck. What little neck he possessed was not made the most of, for he
habitually drew his head back and rested his chin behind his stock. This
same stock or muffler was thick and folded, filling the space left open
by the waistcoat, out of which it protruded. It was of blue strewn with
white spots, and it gave the appearance as though pearls dropped from
the mouth of the wearer and were caught in his muffler before they fell
and were lost. The man had thick sandy eyebrows, and very pale eyes. His
structure was disproportioned. With such a powerful body, stout nether
limbs might have been anticipated for its support. His thighs were,
indeed, muscular and heavy, but the legs were slim, and the feet and
ankles small. He had the habit of standing with his feet together, and
thus presented the shape of a boy’s kite.

“Hallo, Pasco--brother-in-law!” shouted Quarm, as he threw the harness
off the ass; “look here, and see what I have been a-doing.”

He turned the little cart about, and exhibited a plate nailed to the
backboard, on which, in gold and red on black, figured, “The Star and
Garter Life and Fire Insurance.”

“What!” exclaimed Pepperill; “insured Neddy and the cart, have you? That
I call chucking good money away, unless you have reasons for thinking
Ned will go off in spontaneous combustion.”

“Not so, Pasco,” laughed Jason; “it is the agency I have got. The Star
and Garter knows that I am the sort of man they require, that wanders
over the land and has the voice of a nightingale. I shall have a policy
taken out for you shortly, Pasco.”

“Indeed you shall not.”

“Confiscate the donkey if I don’t. But I’ll not trouble you on this
score now. How is the little toad?”

“What--Kate?”

“To be sure, Kitty Alone.”

“Come and see. What have you been about this time, Jason?”

“Bless you! I have hit on Golconda. Brimpts.”

“Brimpts? What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know Brimpts?”

“Never heard of it. In India?”

“No; at Dart-meet, beyond Ashburton.”

“And what of Brimpts? Found a diamond mine there?”

“Not that, but oaks, Pasco, oaks! A forest two hundred years old, on
Dartmoor. A bit of the primæval forest; two hundred--I bet you--five
hundred years old. It is not in the Forest, but on one of the ancient
tenements, and the tenant has fallen into difficulties with the bank,
and the bank is selling him up. Timber, bless you! not a shaky stick
among the lot; all heart, and hard as iron. A fortune--a fortune, Pasco,
is to be picked up at Brimpts. See if I don’t pocket a thousand pounds.”

“You always see your way to making money, but never get far for’ard
along the road that leads to good fortune.”

“Because I never have had the opportunity of doing more than see my way.
I’m crippled in a leg, and though I can see the road before me, I cannot
get along it without an ass. I’m crippled in purse, and though I can
discern the way to wealth, I can’t take it--once more--without an ass.
Brother-in-law, be my Jack, and help me along.”

Jason slapped Pasco on the broad shoulders.

“And you make a thousand pounds by the job?”

“So I reckon--a thousand at the least. Come, lend me the money to work
the concern, and I’ll pay you at ten per cent.”

“What do you mean by ‘work the concern’?”

“Pasco, I must go before the bank at Exeter with money in my hand, and
say, I want those wretched scrubs of oak and holm at Brimpts. Here’s a
hundred pounds. It’s worthless, but I happen to know of a fellow as will
put a five pound in my pocket if I get him some knotty oak for a bit of
fancy-work he’s on. The bank will take it, Pasco. At the bank they will
make great eyes, that will say as clear as words, Bless us! we didn’t
know there was oak grew on Dartmoor. They’ll take the money, and
conclude the bargain right on end. And then I must have some ready cash
to pay for felling.”

“Do you think that the bank will sell?”

“Sell? it would sell anything--the soil, the flesh off the moors, the
bones, the granite underneath, the water of heaven that there gathers,
the air that wafts over it--anything. Of course, it will sell the
Brimpts oaks. But, brother-in-law, let me tell you, this is but the
first stage in a grand speculative march.”

“What next?”

“Let me make my thousand by the Brimpts oaks, and I see waves of gold
before me in which I can roll. I’ll be generous. Help me to the oaks,
and I’ll help you to the gold-waves.”

“How is all this to be brought about?”

“Out of mud, old boy, mud!”

“Mud will need a lot of turning to get gold out of it.”

“Ah! wait till I’ve tied up Neddy.”

Jason Quarm hobbled off with his ass, and turned it loose in a paddock.
Then he returned to his brother-in-law, hooked his finger into the
button-hole of Pepperill, and said, with a wink--

“Did you never hear of the philosopher’s stone, that converts whatever
it touches into gold?”

“I’ve heard some such a tale, but it is all lies.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Never!” Pasco started, and turned round and stared at his
brother-in-law in sheer amazement.

“I have it. Here it is,” and he touched his head. “Believe me, Pasco,
this is the true philosopher’s stone. With this I find oaks where the
owners believed there grew but furze; with this I bid these oaks bud
forth and bear bank-notes. And with this same philosopher’s stone I
shall transform your Teign estuary mud into golden sovereigns.”

“Come in.”

“I will; and I’ll tell you how I’ll do it, if you will help me to the
Brimpts oaks. That is step number one.”




                               CHAPTER II
                             A LUSUS NATURÆ


The two men entered the house talking, Quarm lurching against his
companion in his uneven progress; uneven, partly because of his lame
leg, partly because of his excitement; and when he wished to urge a
point in his argument, he enforced it, not only by raised tone of voice
and cogency of reasoning, but also by impact of his shoulder against
that of Pepperill.

In the room into which they penetrated sat a girl in the bay window
knitting. The window was wide and low, for the ceiling was low. It had
many panes in it of a greenish hue. It commanded the broad firth of the
river Teign. The sun was now on the water, and the glittering water cast
a sheen of golden green into the low room and into the face of the
knitting girl. It illumined the ceiling, revealed all its cracks, its
cobwebs and flies. The brass candlesticks and skillets and copper
coffee-pots on the chimney-piece shone in the light reflected from the
ceiling.

The girl was tall, with a singularly broad white brow, dark hair, and
long lashes that swept her cheek. The face was pale, and when in repose
it could not be readily decided whether she were good-looking or plain,
but all hesitation vanished when she raised her great violet eyes, full
of colour and sparkling with the light of intelligence.

The moment that Quarm entered she dropped the knitting on which she was
engaged; a flash of pleasure, a gleam of colour, mounted to eyes and
cheeks; she half rose with timidity and hesitation, but as Quarm
continued in eager conversation with Pepperill, and did not notice her,
she sank back into her sitting posture, the colour faded from her cheek,
her eyes fell, and a quiver of the lips and contraction of the mouth
indicated distress and pain.

“How is it possible to turn mud into gold?” asked Pepperill.

“Wait till I have coined my oak and I will do it.”

“I can understand oaks. The timber is worth something, and the bark
something, and the tops sell for firewood; but mud--mud is mud.”

“Well, it is mud. Let me light my pipe. I can’t talk without my ’baccy.”

Jason put a spill to the fire, seated himself on a stool by the hearth,
ignited his pipe, and then, turning his eye about, caught sight of the
girl.

“Hallo, little Toad!” said he; “how are you?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, he returned to the mud.

“Look here, Pasco, the mud is good for nothing where it is.”

“No. It is a nuisance. It chokes the channel. I had a deal of trouble
with the last coal-barge; she sank so deep I thought she’d be smothered
and never got in.”

“That’s just it. You would pay something to have it cleared--dredged
right away.”

“I don’t know about that. The expense would be great.”

“You need not pay a half-crown. It isn’t India only whose shining
fountains roll down their golden sands. It is Devonshire as well, which
pours the river Teign clear as crystal out of its Dartmoor reservoir,
and which is here ready to empty its treasures into my pockets and
yours. But we must dispose of Brimpts oak first.”

“I’d like to know how you are going to do anything with mud.”

“What is mud but clay in a state of slobber? Now, hearken to me,
brother-in-law. I have been where the soil is all clay, clay that would
grow nothing but moss and rushes, and was not worth more than five
shillings an acre, fit for nothing but for letting young stock run on.
That is out Holsworthy way. Well, a man with the philosopher’s stone in
his head, Goldsworthy Gurney, he cut a canal from Bude harbour right
through this arrant clay land. With what result? The barges travel up
from Bude laden with sand. The farmers use the sand over their clay
fields, and the desert blossoms as the rose. Land that was worth four
shillings went up to two pound ten, and in places near the canal to five
pounds. The sand on the seashore is worthless. The clay inland is
worthless, but the sand and clay married breed moneys, moneys, my
boy--golden moneys.”

“That is reasonable enough,” said Pasco Pepperill, “but it don’t apply
here. We are on the richest of red soil, that wants no dressing, so full
of substance is it in itself. Besides, the mud is nothing but our red