The Wreckers Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I always stop here for a moment. Prettiest sight this side of Plymouth.”
    “Where?” I said.
    “Why, right ahead.” He raised a hand and pointed.
    I had to lean over to see around him. And there, under his arm, windows aglow with lamplight, was a white house twice the size of my London home. Behind it was a cottage and a small stable. Surrounded by hedgerows, nestled in a valley by a brook, the house was so sheltered from the breeze that the chimney smoke lay around it like a wreath.
    Mawgan set the horse forward at a walk. The saddle creaked as he turned slightly toward me. “I like it on the moor,” he said. “I’m far enough from the sea that I only rarely hear the surf. Yet I’m close enough I can hear a pistol shot.”
    It was a curious way to gauge distance. Before I could answer, he was talking again.
    “Mary will have the dinner ready. Oh, she’s a fine cook.” We passed through the hedgerows. There was no gate; the road merely ended there at the house. “With any luck she’ll have starry-gazy.”
    I said, “What’s starry-gazy?”
    “Why, pilchards, lad. Pilchard pie.” Simon Mawgan shook his head. “You say you’re from London, and you don’t know starry-gazy?”
    He swung his leg across the horse’s neck and slipped from the saddle as easily as a boy. I sprang down beside him.
    “Eli!” he cried. Then, “Blast him! Where are you, Eli?”
    Out from the cottage came a teetering, shuffling figure. He was like a bit of old sausage—thin and brown and bent—and he came with his arms cocked back, as though someone behind was pushing him on. He saw me but asked no questions. Without a word at all, he took the reins and led the horse toward the stables.
    Mawgan clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Eli’s a fright to look at, but he gets the work done. Don’t try talking to him.” He ushered me toward the house. “He’s got no tongue, you see.”
    “No tongue?” I said.
    “A dreadful thing,” said Mawgan. “A wicked thing.”
    The smoke smelled of peat and lay on the ground as thick as sea mist. It swirled round our legs as we climbed to the porch, then flurried with us in through the door. And there I stopped.
    I’d been to the homes of barons and lords. I’d been to palaces and castles. But none was as fine or as rich as the home of Simon Mawgan. The entire floor of the parlor was covered by a huge Persian carpet, and half of that was covered again by another carpet twice as thick. In the middle stood a round table made from a ship’s wheel. Pulled up to its rim were high-backed chairs plush with leather, and on its polished top sat chalices of silver, crystal decanters, rows and rows of delicate glasses. Ships’ figureheads were mounted like hunting trophies; a round-topped sea chest stood below a corner window. All around, on every shelf and level surface, were golden figurines, intricate carvings of wood, and small boxes inlaid with shells and sparkling jewels. And this was only one room of the house.Through a doorway I could see a dining table so big that it was laid like a trestle across the barrels of English cannons.
    Mawgan popped his thumbs into his waistband. “Everything here,” he said, “comes from the sea.”
    “From wrecks,” I said.
    He squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “That’s right, my boy. It’s a bountiful thing, the sea.”
    This made me more angry than I could say. For every bauble that he owned there was a drowned sailor. For each bit of finery a man lay buried in the moor. I shook off his hand and turned away.
    “What’s the matter?” he said. “Why, John Spencer, I do believe you’re angry.”
    I didn’t look at him. I stood there, shaking.
    “Oh,” he said then. “Oh, I see. Why, you’ve come from the other side, haven’t you?” He touched me again, his fingers on my back. “Well, I’ll ask you this: Did
I
steer those ships onto the rocks? Did
I
miss stays or lose my way on a dark night? ’Course I didn’t. So why—”
    “You