Jeremy Poldark Read Online Free PDF Page B

Carkeek, nee Coad, was not the
sort who faded away, given half a chance, but he had been relieved when the
fourth and fifth days were past without any sign of childbed fever. She should
do well enough now. He followed her into the stone but it was hardly more stooping
his head on the threshold, and saw Ted Carkeek sitting over a small fire
stirring some sort of an herb brew. Ted and Betty had only been married a
month, but staying home when there was work to do, and work so hard to get,
seemed a poor way of showing your devotion.
    He
nodded to the young man and went to look at the baby. Ted got up and moved to
go out, but Betty stopped him, and he grunted and went back to watching his
brew. The child was snuffly with a cold and its breathing rapid Dwight wondered
what the inexperienced girl had done; one was always struggling against
ignorance and neglect.
    "
Your mother not here, Betty?"
    "No,
sur. Mother's some slight."
    Of
course. Kempthorne had mentioned the Coads. The ague?"
    "Yes,
I reckon."
    The
stuff on the stove begin to bubble and the fire spat as beads of moisture fell
on it. Smoke curled away from the open chimney and wove itself about the
blackened rafters.
    "And
yourself?"
    "Proper,
you. But Ted's not so smart”
    Hold
your clack," said Ted from the fireplace.
    Dwight
took no notice. "You're up too soon," he said to the girl. "If
Ted is home he can look after you."
    “Tis
I been tending on he, more like.”
    Ted
made another impatient movement, but she went on: " Let Surgeon see ee,
Ted. There's nought to be gained by sceedling there by the fire. He's no
telltale, we did ought to know that."
    Ted
grumpily rose and came into the light of the door. "I sprit open my
shoulder, that's all. Physic won't do him no good."
    Dwight
pulled back the sack the boy had over his shoulder. A musket ball had glanced
off the bone and come out, leaving in the first place; a clean enough wound.
But there was a good deal of inflammation now, not improved by the poultice of
boiled yarrow leaves.
    "
Have you clean water here? What's that you're brewing on the fire?" Dwight
went about dressing the wound, making no comment on the circumstances.
    And
because he didn't ask, the explanation came, though not until the dressing was
done and he had bled the man and was ready to leave - Ted Carkeek was partner
with four others in a cockleshell of a boat with which in quiet weather they
would venture the long and hazardous voyage to France to pick up spirits and
bring them back for sale. Theirs was no large-scale business like Mr.
Trencrom's; but by means of four or five runs a year they were able to make
enough to help things along. They had left last Saturday and returned
Wednesday, putting in to Vaughan's Cove, a strip of beach connecting at times
with Sawle, Cove, to find Vercoe and two other excisemen waiting ready to lay
hands on them. There had been a scuffle, their boat had sunk, drifting on the
rocks in the confusion, and Ted Carkeek had been shot in the shoulder. A
disagreeable affair, and one which might have repercussions.
    "
Twasn't as if we was doin' wrong," Ted said indignantly.
    “Tis
only turning a penny like other folk-and now we've, to start again from naught,
if so be as we're let be.” “Like as not we'll have soldiers in searching the
houses, like what they did in St. Ann's!"
    Betty
said: "What we all d'want to know is, how the gaugers knowed where they
was going to land. Tisn't natural. Someone's been talking."
    Dwight
fastened the clasps of his leather bag, giving a last uneasy glance in the direction
of the child. There was little he could do for so young a baby; in any case
Mrs. Coad would certainly make her daughter disobey him and give it some
witch's brew of her own. The child would survive or not according to its constitution.
He said: "The excise men have long ears. You'll need to rest that
shoulder, Ted."
    "It
edn the first time that's: happened," said Ted. ; "Old man Pendarves
and Foster Pendarves was caught