The balance has come out of my pocket--from two to three
pounds for each. From the beginning the Squire refused to help to
bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn't a local claim."
"Hullo!" said Taffy, for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this
entry:--
Jan 30th, 187-. S.S. "Rifleman" (all hands). Cargo, China
clay: W. P., age about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short
and curled, height 5ft. 10 and 3/4 in. Initials tattooed on
chest under a three-masted ship and semicircle of seven stars;
clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked
with same initials in red cotton: pockets empty--
"But he was in the Navy!" cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry.
"Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You'll see it on the opposite
page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbour, and shipped on board a
tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on
the voyage back. William Pellow he was called: his mother lives but
ten miles up the coast: she never heard of it until six weeks after."
"But we--I, I mean--knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on
Joby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at
_Indian Queens'?_ He showed me his tattoo marks that day."
And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted
hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some
from near, but all had hung muted and arrested.
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