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                          Transcriber’s Note:

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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