John Falkner - Moonfleet

More than once on winter evenings, when men were drinking in the Why Not?, I had stood outside, and listened to them singing ‘Ducky-stones’, or ‘Kegs bobbing One, Two, Three’, or some of the other tunes that sailors sing in the west. Such songs had neither beginning nor ending, and very little sense to catch hold of in the middle. One man would crone the air, and the others would crone a solemn chorus, but there was little hard drinking, for Elzevir Block never got drunk himself, and did not like his guests to get drunk either. On singing nights the room grew hot, and the steam stood so thick on the glass inside that one could not see in; but at other times, when there was no company, I have peeped through the red curtains and watched Elzevir Block and Ratsey playing backgammon at the trestle-table by the fire. It was on the trestle-table that Block had afterwards laid out his son’s dead body, and some said they had looked through the window at night and seen the father trying to wash the blood-matting out of the boy’s yellow hair, and heard him groaning and talking to the lifeless clay as if it could understand. Anyhow, there had been little drinking in the inn since that time, for Block grew more and more silent and morose. He had never courted customers, and now he scowled on any that came, so that men looked on the Why Not? as a blighted spot, and went to drink at the Three Choughs at Ringstave.

My heart was in my mouth when Ratsey lifted the latch and led me into the inn parlour. It was a low sanded room with no light except a fire of seawood on the hearth, burning clear and lambent with blue salt flames. There were tables at each end of the room, and wooden-seated chairs round the walls, and at the trestle table by the chimney sat Elzevir Block smoking a long pipe and looking at the fire. He was a man of fifty, with a shock of grizzled hair, a broad but not unkindly face of regular features, bushy eyebrows, and the finest forehead that I ever saw. His frame was thick-set, and still immensely strong; indeed, the countryside was full of tales of his strange prowess or endurance. Blocks had been landlords at the Why Not? father and son for years, but Elzevir’s mother came from the Low Countries, and that was how he got his outland name and could speak Dutch. Few men knew much of him, and folks often wondered how it was he kept the Why Not? on so little custom as went that way. Yet he never seemed to lack for money; and if people loved to tell stories of his strength, they would speak also of widows helped, and sick comforted with unknown gifts, and hint that some of them came from Elzevir Block for all he was so grim and silent.

He turned round and got up as we came in, and my fears led me to think that his face darkened when he saw me.

‘What does this boy want?’ he said to Ratsey sharply.

‘He wants the same as I want, and that’s a glass of Ararat milk to keep out autumn chills,’ the sexton answered, drawing another chair up to the trestle-table.

‘Cows’ milk is best for children such as he,’ was Elzevir’s answer, as he took two shining brass candlesticks from the mantel-board, set them on the table, and lit the candles with a burning chip from the hearth.

‘John is no child; he is the same age as David, and comes from helping me to finish David’s headstone. ’Tis finished now, barring the paint upon the ships, and, please God, by Monday night we will have it set fair and square in the churchyard, and then the poor lad may rest in peace, knowing he has above him Master Ratsey’s best handiwork, and the parson’s verses to set forth how shamefully he came to his end.’

I thought that Elzevir softened a little as Ratsey spoke of his son, and he said, ‘Ay, David rests in peace. ’Tis they that brought him to his end that shall not rest in peace when their time comes. And it may come sooner than they think,’ he added, speaking more to himself than to us. I knew that he meant Mr Maskew, and recollected that some had warned the magistrate that he had better keep out of Elzevir’s way, for there was no knowing what a desperate man might do. And yet the two had met since in the village street, and nothing worse come of it than a scowling look from Block.

‘Tush, man!’ broke in the sexton, ‘it was the foulest deed ever man did; but let not thy mind brood on it, nor think how thou mayest get thyself avenged. Leave that to Providence; for He whose wisdom lets such things be done, will surely see they meet their due reward. “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”.’ And he took his hat off and hung it on a peg.

Block did not answer, but set three glasses on the table, and then took out from a cupboard a little round long-necked bottle, from which he poured out a glass for Ratsey and himself. Then he half-filled the third, and pushed it along the table to me, saying, ‘There, take it, lad, if thou wilt; ’twill do thee no good, but may do thee no harm.’

Ratsey raised his glass almost before it was filled. He sniffed the liquor and smacked his lips. ‘O rare milk of Ararat!’ he said, ‘it is sweet and strong, and sets the heart at ease. And now get the backgammon-board, John, and set it for us on the table.’ So they fell to the game, and I took a sly sip at the liquor, but nearly choked myself, not being used to strong waters, and finding it heady and burning in the throat. Neither man spoke, and there was no sound except the constant rattle of the dice, and the rubbing of the pieces being moved across the board. Now and then one of the players stopped to light his pipe, and at the end of a game they scored their totals on the table with a bit of chalk. So I watched them for an hour, knowing the game myself, and being interested at seeing Elzevir’s backgammon-board, which I had heard talked of before.

It had formed part of the furniture of the Why Not? for generations of landlords, and served perhaps to pass time for cavaliers of the Civil Wars. All was of oak, black and polished, board, dice-boxes, and men, but round the edge ran a Latin inscription inlaid in light wood, which I read on that first evening, but did not understand till Mr Glennie translated it to me. I had cause to remember it afterwards, so I shall set it down here in Latin for those who know that tongue, Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima jactura arte corrigenda est , and in English as Mr Glennie translated it, As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws . At last Elzevir looked up and spoke to me, not unkindly, ‘Lad, it is time for you to go home; men say that Blackboard walks on the first nights of winter, and some have met him face to face betwixt this house and yours.’ I saw he wanted to be rid of me, so bade them both good night, and was off home, running all the way thither, though not from any fear of Blackbeard, for Ratsey had often told me that there was no chance of meeting him unless one passed the churchyard by night.

Blackbeard was one of the Mohunes who had died a century back, and was buried in the vault under the church, with others of his family, but could not rest there, whether, as some said, because he was always looking for a lost treasure, or as others, because of his exceeding wickedness in life. If this last were the true reason, he must have been bad indeed, for Mohunes have died before and since his day wicked enough to bear anyone company in their vault or elsewhere. Men would have it that on dark winter nights Blackbeard might be seen with an old-fashioned lanthorn digging for treasure in the graveyard; and those who professed to know said he was the tallest of men, with full black beard, coppery face, and such evil eyes, that any who once met their gaze must die within a year. However that might be, there were few in Moonfleet who would not rather walk ten miles round than go near the churchyard after dark; and once when Cracky Jones, a poor doited body, was found there one summer morning, lying dead on the grass, it was thought that he had met Blackbeard in the night.