understand he was, not in the action. He simply bore the tidings.'
`Did your discuss the Travail at all?'
The captain hesitated. `A few words, ma'am. But from, my own experience I can tell you that survival in a shipwreck is much a matter of good or ill fortune. If the frigate came in up on a beach there must be a very good chance of a large number being saved. That I'm afraid we shall not be likely to know for a little while, for, such survivors as there are will necessarily be prisoners, of the French.'
CHAPTER FOUR
May came in windy an d wet, and stayed so. It seemed long years to Demelza since they had had one of, those idyllic Mays of brilliant s unshine and gentle breezes when the whole peninsula had swum out into the calm blue sea of summer, when the flowers had bloomed unharassed and the warmth of the day had been o n your back wherever you went. last year had been the same As this rain and wind almost - all the time, with a break in the middle of dull quiet cool weather - the time she had gone to Werry House to the ball. (A vile memory - she could not bear to think of it.) The May before there had been that party at the Trevaunances at which everyone had expected Unwin to announce his engagement to Caroline Penvenen, and he had not done so. All the time then the weather had been grey and cold.
The ye ar before that Ross and Francis had taken the decision to reopen Wheal Grace, and Ross had met George Warleggan at the Red Lion Hotel and they had had words and Ross had thrown George over the banisters . . . And she had been carrying Jeremy ... She remembered the endless blustering winds.
Now she was pregnant again, though so far she had no difficulty in keeping the fact a secret from everyone but Ross. And now they were passing rich and could afford as much coal on the fires as they pleased. And the old gaunt library where she had first learned to play a few notes on the spinet was going to be repaired. And her younger brother, Drake, was to work on it, being a handy man with his plane and saw. And S am was down the mine - not as a trib uter but as a tutworker: that was to say he broke the ground at so much a fathom: he stood neither to gain nor lose by the quality of the ground he spent, It was not so profitable as tributing but neit her was it so much a gamble, an d it was, a livelihood, steady work for steady pay. One could feed, one's body and have time to consider one's soul.
Sam and Drake, offered a room in old Aunt, Betsy Triggs , had asked instead if they might repair and occupy Reath Cottage just over the hill - the little cob-walled cottage Mark Daniel had built with his , own hands for his pretty young wife - before he killed her with the same hands a few months later. The roof had long since fallen in, and much of the rest, built in such haste, had not stood the test of wind, and weather. The people of Mell in and Marasanvose would not go near the place after dusk: they said that the little moonflower face of Keren could be seen any ti me lolling out, of the window, its tongue swollen and its bloodshot eyes staring. But the Carves were made of sterner stuff. As Sam put it, no hurt or harm could come to the souls of men who had been saved from the toils of Satan by the perfect love of Jesus.
So in their spare time they hammered and sawed and patched and chiselled, and the stuff that came out of the old li brary was often useful to Drake to carry across to their cottage. That their choice of a cottage of their own, however ruinous, in preference to a share with Aunt Betsy had any secondary intent did not occur to Demelza until early in May when she heard that Sam was hoping to extend the lower room of Reath Cottage, and that he had already held a small prayer meeting there.
Indeed, Samuel considered that there was no time to waste. Methodism in most counties went up and down in popularity and enthusiasm with the years; but this was especially so in Cornwall where the population was more volatile in
`Did your discuss the Travail at all?'
The captain hesitated. `A few words, ma'am. But from, my own experience I can tell you that survival in a shipwreck is much a matter of good or ill fortune. If the frigate came in up on a beach there must be a very good chance of a large number being saved. That I'm afraid we shall not be likely to know for a little while, for, such survivors as there are will necessarily be prisoners, of the French.'
CHAPTER FOUR
May came in windy an d wet, and stayed so. It seemed long years to Demelza since they had had one of, those idyllic Mays of brilliant s unshine and gentle breezes when the whole peninsula had swum out into the calm blue sea of summer, when the flowers had bloomed unharassed and the warmth of the day had been o n your back wherever you went. last year had been the same As this rain and wind almost - all the time, with a break in the middle of dull quiet cool weather - the time she had gone to Werry House to the ball. (A vile memory - she could not bear to think of it.) The May before there had been that party at the Trevaunances at which everyone had expected Unwin to announce his engagement to Caroline Penvenen, and he had not done so. All the time then the weather had been grey and cold.
The ye ar before that Ross and Francis had taken the decision to reopen Wheal Grace, and Ross had met George Warleggan at the Red Lion Hotel and they had had words and Ross had thrown George over the banisters . . . And she had been carrying Jeremy ... She remembered the endless blustering winds.
Now she was pregnant again, though so far she had no difficulty in keeping the fact a secret from everyone but Ross. And now they were passing rich and could afford as much coal on the fires as they pleased. And the old gaunt library where she had first learned to play a few notes on the spinet was going to be repaired. And her younger brother, Drake, was to work on it, being a handy man with his plane and saw. And S am was down the mine - not as a trib uter but as a tutworker: that was to say he broke the ground at so much a fathom: he stood neither to gain nor lose by the quality of the ground he spent, It was not so profitable as tributing but neit her was it so much a gamble, an d it was, a livelihood, steady work for steady pay. One could feed, one's body and have time to consider one's soul.
Sam and Drake, offered a room in old Aunt, Betsy Triggs , had asked instead if they might repair and occupy Reath Cottage just over the hill - the little cob-walled cottage Mark Daniel had built with his , own hands for his pretty young wife - before he killed her with the same hands a few months later. The roof had long since fallen in, and much of the rest, built in such haste, had not stood the test of wind, and weather. The people of Mell in and Marasanvose would not go near the place after dusk: they said that the little moonflower face of Keren could be seen any ti me lolling out, of the window, its tongue swollen and its bloodshot eyes staring. But the Carves were made of sterner stuff. As Sam put it, no hurt or harm could come to the souls of men who had been saved from the toils of Satan by the perfect love of Jesus.
So in their spare time they hammered and sawed and patched and chiselled, and the stuff that came out of the old li brary was often useful to Drake to carry across to their cottage. That their choice of a cottage of their own, however ruinous, in preference to a share with Aunt Betsy had any secondary intent did not occur to Demelza until early in May when she heard that Sam was hoping to extend the lower room of Reath Cottage, and that he had already held a small prayer meeting there.
Indeed, Samuel considered that there was no time to waste. Methodism in most counties went up and down in popularity and enthusiasm with the years; but this was especially so in Cornwall where the population was more volatile in
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