Corporal Sam and Other StoriesQuiller-Couch, Arthur
General
Corporal Sam and Other Stories
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Short stories, English
'She sold poultry and pork, eggs and butter, and vegetables; lard
sometimes, and straw, with other odds and ends. (The prisoners used
the straw for plaiting bonnets.) Scores of salesmen used to travel to
the prison every day, from Tavistock, Okehampton, Moreton, and all
around the Moor: Jews, too, from Plymouth, with slop-clothing.
But in all this crowd my grandmother held her own. The turnkeys knew
her; the prisoners liked her for her good looks and good temper, and
because she always dealt fair; and the agent (as they called the
governor in those days) had given orders to set aside a table and
trestles for her twice a week, close inside the entrance of the
market square, on the side where the bettermost French prisoners
lived in a building they called the Petty Caution.
'But with the prisoners, though many a time her heart melted for
them, she was always very careful, and let it be known that she never
smuggled tobacco or messages even for her best customers. After a
while they got to understand this, and (though you may think it
queer) liked her none the less. The agent, on his part, trusted
her--and the turnkeys and the military officials--and didn't respect
her the less because she never told tales, though they knew she might
have told many.
'This went on, staid and regular, for close upon three years; and
then, one fine October evening, my grandmother, after reaching home
with her little cart, unharnessing and bedding up the donkey in his
stable, walked out to the orchard, where my grandfather was looking
over his cider apples, and says she to him,--
'"William, I've a-done a dreadful deed."
'My grandfather took off his hat, and rubbed the top of his head.
"Good Lord!" he says. "You don't tell me!"
'"I've helped a prisoner to escape," says she.
'"Then we'm lost and done for," says my grandfather. "How did it
come about?" And with that he waited a little, and said, "Damme, my
dear, if any other person had brought me this tale I'd have tanned
his skin." For I must tell you my grandfather and grandmother doted
on one another.
'"I know you would," said my grandmother, dismally. "And I can't
think how the temptation took me. But the poor creatur' was little
more'n a boy--and there were a-something in the eyes of him--"
She meant to say there was a-something that reminded her of her own
eldest, that she had lost a dozen years before.
'I don't know whether my grandfather understood or whether he didn't.
But all he said was, "However did you contrive it?"
'"It came," she said, "of my takin' they six white rabbits to market.
I sold mun all; and when they were sold, and the hutch standin'
empty--" My grandmother pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed her
eyes.
'"You drove him out in the rabbit hutch?" asked my grandfather.
'"With a handful of straw between him and the bars," she owned.
"He's nobbut a boy. You can't think how easy. And the look of him
when he crep' inside--"
'"Where is he?" asked my grandfather.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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