From Ross Poldark, two months after that fateful day and their hasty marriage, Ross, the reluctant romantic, decides to take Demelza out by moonlight to witness the momentous event of the pilchards being caught. And tonight there was a moon. THE PILCHARD SCENE from Ross Poldark Rosss eyes followed her as she rose from the table and went to trim the wicks of the candles before they were lighted. He had been at the mine all day and had enjoyed this supper in the shadowy parlour with the warm quiet evening stealing into and about the room. There was no real difference between now and that evening two months ago when he had come home defeated and it had all begun. Jim Carter was still in prison. There was no real change in the futility of his own life and efforts. But something had changed. He was content. Demelza, he said. Um? It is low tide at eleven, he said. And the moons up. What if we rowed round to Sawle and watched them putting down the tuck net. Her eyes lit up. Ross, that would be lovely! Shall we take Jud to help row us? This to tease. No, no, let us go, just the two of us! Let us go alone. You and I, Ross. She was almost dancing before his chair. I will row. I am as strong as Jud any day. Well go an watch, just the two of us alone. He laughed. Youd think it was a ball I had invited you to. Dyou think I cant row you that far myself? When shall we start? In an hour. Good, good. Ill make ready something to eat an brandy in a flask, lest it be cold sitting, an a rug for me, and a basket for some fish. She fairly ran from the room. He got up from the table more slowly and went upstairs for a pair of high boots. Were his faculties dulled or atrophied, he wondered, because he had no such vivid appreciation as hers? But he could and did find pleasure in her pleasure. They set off for Nampara Cove shortly after nine. It was a warm still evening with the three-quarter moon already riding high. In Nampara Cove they dragged their small boat from the cave where it was kept, across the pale firm sand to the seas edge. Demelza got in and Ross pushed the boat through the fringe of whispering surf and jumped in as it floated. The sea was very calm tonight and the light craft was quite steady as he pulled towards the open sea. Demelza sat in the stern and watched Ross and looked about her and dipped a hand over the gunnel to feel the water trickling between her fingers. She was wearing a scarlet kerchief about her hair and a warm skin coat which had belonged to Ross as a boy and now just fitted her. They skirted the high bleak cliffs between Nampara Cove and Sawle Bay, and the jutting rocks stood in sharp silhouette against the moonlit sky. The water sucked and slithered about the base of the cliffs. They passed two inlets which were inaccessible except by boat at any tide, being surrounded by steep cliffs. All this was as familiar to Ross as the shaped of his own hand, but Demelza had never seen it. She had only once been out in a boat before. They passed the Queen Rock, where a number of good ships had come to grief, and then rounded a promontory into Sawle Bay and came upon the first of the fishers. They had let down the seine net a fine strong mesh of great length, with corks on the upper side and lead on the lower some distance past the promontory and about half a mile from the shore. With this great net the seiners had enclosed about two acres of water and, they hoped, many fish. There was always the possibility, of course, that they had been wrongly directed by the man on the cliff who alone could see the movement of the shoal, or that some flaw on the sea-bed should have prevented the net from falling cleanly and so allowed the fish room to slip away. But short of such accidents there was every hope of a good catch. And although in calm weather it might be possible to keep the net in position by means of grapnels for ten days or a fortnight, no one had the least intention of relying on the good weather a minute longer than they had to. And tonight there was a moon. As low tide approached, the boat known as the follower and carrying the tuck net was rowed cautiously into the enclosed area marked by the bobbing corks supporting the great stop-seine. The boat was rowed round within the area while the tuck-net was lowered and secured at various points. This done, they began to haul in the tuck-net again. It was at this crucial stage that Ross and Demelza came closely upon the scene. They were not the only spectators. Every boat that would float and every human being that could sit in them had come out from Sawle to watch. And those who had no craft or were too infirm stood on the shelving beach and shouted advice or encouragement. There were lights and lanterns in the cottages of Sawle and all along the shingle bar and moving up and down on the blue-white waters of the cove. The moon lit up the scene with an unreal twilight. Seagulls flapped and screamed low overhead. No one took much notice of the new arrivals. One or two called friendly greetings. The arrival of Ross on the scene did not embarrass them as the arrival of others of the gentry might have done. He rowed his boat close to where the master-seiner was standing in his craft giving brief orders to the men who were within the circle hauling in the net. As it became clear that the net was heavy a short silence fell. In a moment or two it would be known whether the catch was a fine or a poor one, whether they had trapped a good part of the shoal or some part with fish too small for salting and export, whether by some mischance they might have caught a shoal of s--s instead, as had happened a couple of years ago. On the result of the next few minutes the prosperity of half the village hung. The only sound now was the bobble and swish of water against fifty keels and the deep Yo...ho! Hoy...ho! chorus of the men straining to haul in the net. Up and up came the net. The master-seiner had forgotten his words of advice and stood there biting his fingers and watching the waters within the tuck-net for the first sign of life. It was not long in coming. First one of the spectators said something, then another exclaimed: then a murmur spread round the boats and increased to what was more of a shout of relief than a cheer. The water was beginning to bubble, as if in a giant saucepan; it boiled and frothed and eddied, and then suddenly broke and disappeared and became fish. It was the miracle of Galilee enacted over again in the pale light of a Cornish moon. There was no water any more: only fish, as big as herrings, jumbled together in their thousands, jumping, wriggling, glinting, fighting and twisting to escape. The net heaved and lurched, the big boats heeled over as the men strained to hold the catch. The noise of people talking and shouting, the splash of oars, the excited shouts of the fishers broke out with extra vehemence: the earlier noise was nothing to this. The tuck-net was now fast and the fishermen were already dipping baskets into the net and tipping them full of fish into the bottom of the boat. It seemed as if everyone was mindful of the haste necessary to take full advantage of good fortune. It was as if a storm waited just over the summit of the nearest cliffs. Two big flat bottomed boats like barges were ferried alongside and men hanging over the side began to work with fury to fill them. Other smaller boats quickly surrounded the net to take in the catch. Sometimes the moonlight seemed to convert the fish into heaps of coins, and to Ross it looked like sixty or eighty dark faced sub-human pygmies scooping at an inexhaustible bag of silver. Soon men were up to their ankles in pilchards, soon up to their knees. Boats broke away and were rowed gingerly towards the shore, their gunnels no more than two inches above the lapping water. On shore the activity was no less; lanterns were everywhere while the fish were shovelled into wheel-barrows and hurried towards the salting cellars for picking over and inspection. Still the work round the net went on amongst the springing gleaming fish. At the other side of the bay another but lesser catch was being hauled in. Ross and Demelza ate their cakes and took a sip of brandy from the same flask and talked in lowered voices of what they saw. Home now? Ross said presently. A small bit longer, Demelza suggested. The night is so warm. It is grand to be ere. He found, quite to his surprise, that he was happy. Not merely happy in Demelzas happiness but in himself. He couldnt think why. The condition just existed within him. Everything had moved into place. Everything was just right. The shy visitor had come. They waited and watched until the tuck-net was almost cleared and the fishermen were going to lower it again. Then they waited to see if the second haul would be as big as the first. Each time they were about to leave some fresh interest held them. And the night was so warm that time passed unnoticed while the moon on her downward path came near the coastline and picked out a silver stitching on the water. At last Ross slowly exerted his strength on the oars and the boat began to move. As they passed near the others Pally Rogers recognized them and called, good night! Some of the others paused sweating from their labours and also spoke in friendly fashion. Good catch, eh, Pally? Ross said. And some. Moren a quarter of a million fish, I reckon, afore were done. Im very glad. It will make a difference next winter. Night, sur. Good night. Night, sur. Night. They rowed away, and as they went the sounds of all the voices and human activity slowly faded, into a smaller space, into a little confined murmur in the great night. They rowed out towards the quiet open sea and the sharp cliffs and the black dripping rocks. Everyones happy tonight, Ross said, half to himself. Demelzas face gleamed in the stern. They like you, she said in an undertone. Everyone dlike you. He grunted. Little silly. No, tis the truth. I know, because Im one of em. You and your father was different from the others. But mostly you. Youre youre... She stumbled. Youre half a gent and half one of them. And then you tryin to help Jim Carter and givin food to people... And marrying you. They passed into the shadow of the cliffs. No, not that, she said soberly. Maybe they dont like that. But they like you all the same. Youre too sleepy to talk sense, he said. Cover your head and doze off till were home. She did not obey, but sat watching the dark line where the shadow of the land ended and the glinting water began. She would have preferred to be out there. The shadow had lengthened greatly since they came out, and she would have rather made a wide circuit to keep within the soft friendly light of the moon. She stared into the deep darkness of one of the deserted coves they were passing. To these places no man ever came. They were desolate and cold. She could picture unholy things living there, spirits of the dead, things come out of the sea. She shivered and turned away. Ross said: Take another nip of brandy. No. She shook her head. No. Not cold, Ross. In a few minutes they were turning into Nampara Cove. The boat slipped through the ripples at the edge and grounded in the sand. He got out and as she made to follow caught her about the waist and carried her to dry land. He kissed her before he put her down. When at last the boat was drawn up into its cave and the oars hidden where a casual vagrant could not find them he rejoined her where she was waiting just above high water mark. For a while neither of them made a move and they watched the moon set. As it neared the water it began to grow misshapen and discoloured like an over-ripe blood orange squeezed between sea and sky. The silver sword across the sea became tarnished and shrank until it was gone and only the old moon remained, bloated and dark, sinking into the mists. Then without words they turned, walked across the sand and shingle, crossed the stream at the stepping stones and walked together hand in hand the half mile to the house. She was quite silent. He had never done what he had done tonight. He had never kissed her before except in passion. This was something different. She knew him to be closer to her to-night than he had ever been before. For the very first time they were on a level. It was not Ross Poldark, gentleman farmer, of Nampara, and his maid, whom he had married because it was better than being alone. They were a man and a woman, with no inequality between them. She was older than her years and he younger; and they walked home hand in hand through the slanting shadows of the new darkness. I am happy, he thought again. Something for the time has sloughed off from me; and I have full and true companionship with a person, with my wife - strange thought - something that cant be forced and cant be bought and cant be enticed. I picked her out of the dust of Redruth Fair, and now something is happening to me, to us, transmuting our shabby little love affair. Keep this mood, hold on to it. Let there be no slipping back. The only sound all the way home was the bubbling of the stream beside their path. The house greeted them whitely. Moths fluttered away to the stars and the trees stood silent and black. The front door creaked as they closed it, and they climbed the stairs with the air of conspirators. When they reached their room they were laughing breathlessly at the thought of waking Jud and Prudie with such gentle noises. She lit the candles and closed the windows to keep the moths out, took off the heavy coat and shook out her hair. Oh yes she was pale-skinned and lovely tonight. He put his arms about her, his face still boyish in its laughter and she laughed back at him, her mouth and teeth gleaming moist in the candlelight. At this his smile faded and he kissed her. Ross, she said. Dear Ross. I love you, he said, and am your servant. Demelza, look at me. If Ive done wrong in the past, give me leave to make amends. So he found that what he had half despised was not despicable, that what had been for him the satisfaction of an appetite, a pleasant but commonplace adventure in disappointment, owned wayward and elusive depths he had not known before and carried the knowledge of beauty in its heart.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 12:55:59 +0000
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