(To J. S. of Croyde)
THE story of the Tiger’s great climb is still told in the village, although it happened a dozen or more years ago.
The headland runs out into the Atlantic for nearly two miles, and is a mile wide across its base. They grow oats there, for the ground is starved. Some of it, indeed, is so poor that the plough never furrows it, and only sheep stray upon the sward. Gorse grows plentifully, hiding many rabbits’ holes, and in summer near the cliff-edge at the Point the curled cast feathers of the gulls tremble in the wind.
At the Point the cliff drops almost sheer to the rocks three hundred and ten feet below, forming an indentation in the headland known as the Hole. Gulls dwell in colonies upon the ledges and in the crannies, and like drifting snowflakes a swirl of birds floats on the air, uprising from the sea and uttering gabbling cries of alarm when an intruder passes near the lip of the Hole.
The village historian told me the story one rainy night in the Nightcrow Inn. He was a great friend of mine, and universally known as “Muggy”; he had been in most places on the earth, returning eventually to his remembered village, happy in the open air with his simple livelihood. The returned wanderer did all kinds of jobs in the hamlets round about, gathered and sold watercress and mushrooms in their seasons, arranged for the purchase of patent manures by the farmers, representing many firms, and was also—“I be nothing if I be not up to date, zur, do ee see?”—an agent for fire insurance in the big town eight miles away. For generations his family had lived in the village; his grandfather had bought the wreckage of H.M.S. Weasel, that went on the rocks of the Hole over a century ago, all but one man being drowned. He had the newspaper cuttings of the wreck, and sure enough, his ancestor was mentioned. He cherished that cutting.
One night we had finished our game of whist with the frayed cards, and were talking. The Inn has a low ceiling of black oak beams, roughly shaped, and is lit by a paraffin lamp having a permanent black fringe to its orange flame. In a momentary silence we heard the sharp patter of rain flung against the window by a rapidly rising wind.
“It would be dangerous at the Point to-night,” I murmured, shivering.
Amid a chorus of assent my friend Muggy remembered the epic story of the climb of Raven Rock. Had I heard tell of it? No, I hadn’t, and I settled my elbows more comfortably on the oak table, and prepared for the yarn. More beer first, of course. Muggy would not have any; he drank but a pint every night, he said.
The pots were brought back, foaming with home-brew, the landlord adjusted the milled screw of the lamp so that less dark soot-shadows slipped against the whitewashed guard above, and we listened in silence while the wind drove hard against the western face of the house, bringing the rain-clouds straight from over the wild wastes of the Atlantic.
They had tried to get the robbers in many ways, but rarely were they seen. Evidence of their visitations was much against them. Dead lambs had been found in their pens—little gray bundles lying still while their mothers bleated above them. One morning Voley, the shepherd, came to the yeaning field and found that a ewe itself had been attacked, and had lost an eye. After that he carried the great ten-bore flighting gun that was usually brought out in the frosty winter when wildfowl haunted the great lonely wastes by the estuary formed of the confluence of two rivers. The robbers were too cunning, however, perceived him from invisibility, and never came near.
Muggy had a job at the time trapping rabbits for the bailiff of a gentleman’s farm. He was paid by results, being given so much a head for perfect rabbits; and rabbits did not pass as perfect to the dealer at the market town when half their heads had been battered as though by the blows of some mighty instrument. The curious thing was that he did not know for a long while what caused the damage. He thought of a fox, but a fox would not have mauled rabbits like that; he would have carried them away. The idea of a badger being the aggressor came to him, but he could find no spoor of a badger’s pad, which, once seen, is never forgotten. And still the mysterious depredations went on. Farmer Smith of Crowberry, later on in the year, lost seven chicks one morning, with no sign of how they had gone. He thought of hawks, and waited all that afternoon with a gun, but nothing came. He knew that had it been a kestrel the bird would have returned for more. Another morning he lost seventeen. Nine of them had been left—mutilated lumps of stained feathers. They looked as though a spike had been driven through their bodies. He knew that it was no ordinary thing that caused the destruction.
Mortality among the lambs continued. And then, one night in the Nightcrow Inn, light came to them. They slapped their thighs, and rattled their pint mugs; of course, it could only be “thay” ravens! Till closing time that night it was the only subject talked about.
The Tiger was there and his brother Aaron—two men who belonged to a family that has been famous for cliff scaling in the district for many generations. They had immense arms, being blacksmiths.
The following day a boat pulled round the headland, and the stronghold of the robbers was detected, though no sign of them could be seen. Aaron was in the boat, and he fixed the place by a peculiar formation of the edge of the cliff. This done, he grunted, and a long pull back to the sands began.
The waning moon of dawn had floated above the Exmoor hills when the next morning three men left the village and set off along the road to the base of the headland. They carried ropes, hauling blocks, a great crowbar, and a sledge-hammer. John Smith of Crowberry was one, and his companions were the blacksmith brothers.
They were going to rob the robbers.
Now ravens are rare birds, having been persecuted during the centuries almost to extinction. The reasons for that persecution are easily understandable. There was no compensation for the dead lambs, no money paid out for the slaughtered chicks, and many farmers, especially in the remote districts, found it hard enough to live, without being preyed upon by ravens. Still, the ravens were now heavily protected by law; in the village it was reckoned that any one who took their eggs or shot the parent birds would be imprisoned for at least a month. By reason of their rarity, a certain visiting bird-fancier from the town had mentioned that he would give ten shillings a bird for any fledgelings brought to him. It was a grand price, they agreed at the Nightcrow Inn; not knowing, of course, that the dealer would make a huge and assured profit by sending them to London.
Along one of the sheep-wrought paths, among the springing brakeferns and blackthorns, sea-bleached holly-bushes and gorse clusters, just beginning to respond to the sunbeams, the three men went that spring morning. Already the larks were singing high in an azure sky, the kestrels hanging in the light wind, the buzzard wheeling in lone circles far above them. They did not pause to watch, however, for there was a dangerous job on hand, and it was three miles to the Point.
The three hunters kept a sharp look-out for the ravens, but saw nothing, even when they neared the lip of the Hole.
Aaron dropped his bar, the tackle was flung on the sward, and coats were stripped off. Work began in earnest. The first few powerful twangs of the sledge-hammer on the bar woke echoes in the Hole, and a thousand gulls spread pearly wings tipped with jet and slipped into the air. An uproar of hoarse voices came upwards, and, mounting high, a great seabird, spanning near six feet, dived at them with a soughing of vast wings and passed a bare two feet over their heads. But the men took no notice. Time was precious, and they feared that the policeman might discover them; the terrifying thought of prison was ever behind the thought of golden sovereigns in their pockets. Deep into the sward Aaron drove the bar, until it remained rigid, leaning backwards from the line of the cliff-face. Under his arms Tiger passed the hempen rope and the thinner guide-rope, while John Smith of Crowberry adjusted the hauling blocks.
“Thaat be aa-right, reckons.”
“Aiy aiy!”
Aaron and John Smith of Crowberry took a strain on the rope and began to pay out hand over hand. The Tiger leaned outwards over the Hole and slowly disappeared over the edge.
Two tugs on the guide-rope, and the men remained still. Next came three tugs, and Aaron whispered to Farmer John that Tiger was near the ledge. They held on tight.
Meanwhile Tiger was spinning slowly on the rope. He started to swing, backwards and forwards, aiming for the ledge whereon was the mass of twigs and sticks comprising the ravens’ nest. He was about two hundred feet above the rocks, and looking down he noticed how the waves slid smoothly over them, churning and boiling white with foam afterwards. Sometimes a gull passed near him, showing its yellow beak with the reddish blotch at the end. Now he was swinging nearer the ledge—in and out, in and out. Once or twice he looked upwards and wondered what he should do if the old ravens came for him. He had no stick, and their beaks could easily pierce a lamb’s skull. But not so much as a croak was to be heard. He decided—as he heaved to and fro—that with his share of the money he would buy a purse-net for shore-fishing. Nearer and nearer he swung to the nest, and at last he could touch it with his foot. But the time was not yet, so he pushed hard away with his feet, and a loose fragment of stone, dislodged from above, hissed past him, and grew smaller as it dropped towards the sea. Once more he pushed away from the ledge, which was about two feet wide, swung towards it, grasped a projecting stone, clung hard with his left hand, and gave one tug on the guide-rope. Up above they lowered him one foot, and he clambered to the ledge, panting.
In the centre of the cradle of sticks, a yard across, gaped three fledgeling ravens. At sight of Tiger they opened their big black beaks in fear and croaked dolefully. He put his hand over and one pecked at it; he struck it a sharp blow and it croaked the more, deep, rasping, and hoarse.
Tiger knew he would have to hurry. He seized one of the three birds by the leg and dragged it from the fouled nest, to which it clung gawkily. But at last it was free, its legs tied with the twine already looped to his belt, and thrust into his basket. Quickly he seized the other two and tied them, noticing while he did so that pieces of dead gulls, rabbits, chickens, lamb’s wool, fish, frogs, and broken ducks’ eggs lay about on the twigs. At last he had secured them, and left the ledge. The old birds, if they were near, made no sign. For a while Tiger swung idly, satisfied, looking lazily at the tide below. A few stones hurtled down, and one hit his wrist, numbing it; the fledgelings kicked and struggled, squawking. Three minutes, and his swinging was much lessened; he gave five tugs for the hauling signal.
There was no response, for just before John Smith and Aaron had realised with fear that the crowbar had worked loose in the sward. Unthinkingly they had relaxed the strain, and the loose stratum had yielded.
The Tiger tugged away, but there was no answering lift. Five times he tugged, slowly. He hung still over the rocks, whence the tide was now ebbing, leaving them gaunt and gray.
Up above the two men held tight. They dared not move, for fear of the bar coming right out of the ground. If there had been one more man it would have been possible to haul Tiger up, bit by bit. As it was, they could only remain still. The weight on the rope was heavy, but they could stop so for hours if need be; till help came, at any rate.
Presently Tiger realised what had happened, and grunted in disgust. He started to climb, using his arms only, for he was frightened lest he should hurt the birds and so lessen their value. Dimly he realised that if he tired and dropped, the rope would jerk the other two over the cliff-edge, and all three, with the birds, would crash to their death. He climbed twenty feet, feeling no fatigue. There was another hundred feet to go, easy work, before the cliff bulged slightly. Slabs of dislodged rock hurtled past him, and one cut his brow. The blood poured into his eye, and he spat angrily.
When the first ache came to his damaged wrist he wound the rope round his right leg and stood upon it. He cared no longer about the birds. But he knew that to rest thus was no rest at all, so upwards he went again—a terrible laboured climbing, slowly and with a strained wrist, blood running from broken knuckles, and the sweat pouring from his body. He began to feel the weight of the dragging loop of rope below him, but still he struggled upwards. A shower of dust spat into his face, and he wondered if he were blinded. His arms shook, his muscles burned, and his palms, in spite of their coating of horn, were beginning to tear. He could hardly see for the blood and sweat in his eyes, and as he breathed he snored heavily, with great shuddering gasps.
The jutting-out cliff was just above him now. Here the rope lay flat and taut against the loose rubble, but he dug each hand alternately into the shale and literally dragged himself up, fist over fist. Then it was possible to press his toes into the slight slope, and rest.
For a minute he lay thus, in agony. But he knew that to rest much was fatal; reaction would set in. He wound his left leg round the rope, seized the guide-rope (which ran through another loose belt) and patiently pulled its lower end through so that there should be no slack between him and the two men above. After an eternity of patient hauling the line lay straight between him and the lip of the Hole. Then he wound it twice round his thick neck, and bit on it firmly with his teeth. This done, he gave five tugs on it, and saw it tighten. Crushing his jaws together, he took the mighty strain, and was drawn up a foot. Arching his back, and leaning out nearly at right angles to the face of the cliff, he put one foot above the other. All the weight of his ascent was borne by his teeth; they were his last hope. Tiger’s teeth were yellow like old ivory, and the best in the village. Many a time he had taken a hundredweight sack in them and moved about with it; many a time he had swung from a beam by them, holding a rope in his jaws. Now they were to save his life. Both the haulers and himself were well-nigh exhausted when his beard covered with blood-stained froth appeared over the lip of the cliff, and they dragged him sobbing and cursing on the matted grass.
Ten minutes later they had coiled up their ropes, taken up the bar, and were walking quickly to the village. The three ravens were alive and well, quite unhurt by Tiger’s struggles. The men spoke seldom as they walked; their fear was that the policeman would see them.
They reached Tiger’s cottage in safety and closed the door behind them. His wife had a two-gallon jar of small ale for them, and Tiger drank a gallon, only pausing to fill his basin. Then he licked his moustache, and sat down on a chair. The other two men had thrown the tackle on the table, and were taking deep draughts of the beer. They had finished the two gallons when a succession of heavy blows came on the door; these ceased, and there was a great thudding on the roof.
At first they thought it was the policeman. Rural folk are usually terrified at the idea of the law; they have the simple imagination of children.
“Come in, zur,” quavered Mrs. Tiger.
Aaron, who was a devout chapel-goer, began to tremble.
“It be a ghostie!” he whispered.
“Git out!” scoffed Mrs. Tiger, for she had seen two large black shapes that she recognised pass across the little window.
Sure enough, the old ravens had discovered their young. The curious thing, Muggy emphasised, was that there had been no sign of them either during Tiger’s climb or afterwards, while the three men were tramping the three miles to his cottage, nor had they heard any croaking.
Meanwhile, the people in the cottage were fearful that the policeman would come their way and discover everything. The old birds kept banging away at the thatch, tearing out great mouthfuls of it in an endeavour to get at the fledgelings. Tiger did not dare to use his gun; the situation frightened him; so he opened the door. Immediately the cat pounced at a young bird, but one of the old birds swooped down and gave the cat a tap on the head that sent it spinning away, to drop dead with a hole in its skull that Tiger could put two fingers in. The youngsters, with nobody to stop them, got right away, half flying and half hopping.
“And since that day, zur,” Muggy said solemnly, “no raven has been known to touch a lamb. That’s as true as I’m sitting here.”
The ravens have nested on the headland again this year, using their old breeding ledge; and I am glad that at least one pair of these rare birds haunts the solitudes by the sea. No one interferes with them, except the peregrines, but the raven is too much for that fierce swift raider, turning on his back in mid-air and holding his beak upwards like a javelin as the falcon is about to strike. A quick eye the raven needs, for the hawk plunges at about two hundred miles an hour. But they never harm one another, and I know for a fact, having seen it myself, that the ravens practise their turning movement. They love to float in an uprushing wind just below the cliff-edge, and roll over like a twirled distaff, sideways, and then back again. And I think that if any stranger tried to shoot one, the Nightcrow Inn would rise in anger against him. The ravens have earned their sanctuary.