All hunger had gone from Mary, and she had to force her food. She drank two cups of scalding tea and then pushed her plate away. Neither of the women spoke. Aunt Patience kept looking towards the door. When they had finished supper they cleared the things away silently. Mary threw some turf on the fire and crouched beside it. The bitter blue smoke rose in the air, stinging her eyes, but no warmth came to her from the smouldering turf.
Outside in the hall the clock struck six o'clock with a sudden whirring note. Mary held her breath as she counted the strokes. They broke upon the silence with deliberation; it seemed an eternity before the last note fell and echoed through the house and died away. The slow ticking of the clock continued. There was no sound from the parlour, and Mary breathed again. Aunt Patience sat at the table, threading a needle and cotton by candlelight. Her lips were pursed and her forehead puckered to a frown as she bent to her task.
The long evening past; and still there was no call from the landlord in the parlour. Mary nodded her head, her eyes closed in spite of herself, and in that stupid, heavy state between sleeping and waking she heard her aunt move quietly from her chair and put her work away in the cupboard beside the dresser. In a dream she heard her whisper in her ear, "I'm going to bed. Your uncle won't wake now; he must have settled for the night. I shan't disturb him." Mary murmured something in reply, and half-consciously she heard the light patter of footsteps in the passage outside, and the creaking of the stairs.
On the landing above, a door closed softly. Mary felt the lethargy of sleep steal upon her, and her head sank lower into her hands. The slow ticking of the clock made a pattern in her mind, like footsteps dragging on a highroad… one… two… one… two… they followed one another; she was on the moors beside the running brook, and the burden that she carried was heavy, too heavy to bear. If she could lay it aside for a little while, and rest herself beside the bank, and sleep…
It was cold, though, much too cold. Her foot was wringing wet from the water. She must pull herself higher up the bank, out of the way…. The fire was out; there was no more fire…. Mary opened her eyes and saw that she was lying on the floor beside the white ashes of the fire. The kitchen was very cold, and the light was dim. The candle had burnt low. She yawned and shivered and stretched her stiff arms. When she lifted her eyes she saw the door of the kitchen open very slowly, little by little, an inch at a time.
Mary sat without moving, her hands on the cold floor. She waited, and nothing happened. The door moved again, and then was flung wide, crashing against the wall behind it. Joss Merlyn stood on the threshold of the room, his arms outstretched, rocking on his two feet.
At first she thought he had not noticed her; his eyes were fixed on the wall in front of him, and he stood still where he was, without venturing further into the room. She crouched low, her head beneath the level of the table, hearing nothing but the steady thump of her heart. Slowly he turned in her direction and stared at her a moment or two without speaking. When his voice came, it was strained and hoarse, hardly above a whisper. "Who's there?" he said. "What are you doing? Why don't you speak?" His face was a grey mask, drained of its usual colour. His bloodshot eyes fastened themselves upon her without recognition. Mary did not move.
"Put away that knife," he whispered. "Put it away, I tell you."
She stretched her hand along the floor and touched the leg of a chair with the tips of her fingers. She could not hold onto it unless she moved. It was just out of reach. She waited, holding her breath. He stepped forward into the room, his head bent, his two hands feeling the air, and he crept slowly along the floor towards her.
Mary watched his hands until they were within a yard of her and she could feel his breath on her cheek.
"Uncle Joss," she said softly. "Uncle Joss—"
He crouched where he was, staring down at her, and then he leant forward and touched her hair and her lips. "Mary," he said, "is it you, Mary? Why don't you speak to me? Where have they gone? Have you seen them?"
"You've made a mistake, Uncle Joss," she said; "there is no one here, only myself. Aunt Patience is upstairs. Are you ill? Can I help you?"
He looked about him in the half-light, searching the corners of the room.
"They can't scare me," he whispered. "Dead men don't harm the living. They're blotted out, like a candle…. That's it, isn't it, Mary?"
She nodded, watching his eyes. He pulled himself to a chair and sat down, his hands outstretched on the table. He sighed heavily and passed his tongue over his lips. "It's dreams," he said, "all dreams. The faces stand out like live things in the darkness, and I wake with the sweat pouring down my back. I'm thirsty, Mary; here's the key; go into the bar and fetch me some brandy." He fumbled in his pocket and produced a bunch of keys. She took them from him, her hand trembling, and slipped out of the room into the passage. She hesitated for a moment outside, wondering whether she should creep upstairs at once to her room, and lock the door, and leave him to rave alone in the kitchen. She began to tiptoe along the passages to the hall.
Suddenly he shouted to her from the kitchen. "Where are you going? I told you to fetch the brandy from the bar." She heard the chair scrape as he pushed it away from the table. She was too late. She opened the door of the bar and felt in the cupboard amongst the bottles. When she returned to the kitchen he was sprawling at the table, his head in his hands. At first she thought he was asleep again, but at the sound of her footstep he lifted his head, and stretched his arms, and leant back in the chair. She put the bottle and a glass on the table in front of him. He filled the glass half full, and held it between his two hands, watching her all the while over the rim of it.
"You're a good girl," he said. "I'm fond of you, Mary; you've got sense, and you've got pluck; you'd make a good companion to a man. They ought to have made you a boy." He rolled the brandy around on his tongue, smiling foolishly, and then he winked at her, and pointed his finger.
"They pay gold for this upcountry," he said; "the best that money can buy. King George himself hasn't better brandy than this in his cellar. And what do I pay? Not one damned bloody sixpence. We drink free at Jamaica Inn."
He laughed and put out his tongue. "It's a hard game, Mary, but it's a man's game, for all that. I've risked my neck ten, twenty times. I've had the fellows thundering at my heels, with a pistol shot whistling through my hair. They can't catch me, Mary; I'm too cunning; I've been at the game too long. Before we came here I was at Padstow, working from the shore. We ran a lugger once a fortnight with the spring tides. There were five of us in it, besides myself. But there's no money working in a small way; you've got to do it big, and you've got to take your orders. There's over a hundred of us now, working inland to the border from the coast. By God, I've seen blood in my time, Mary, and I've seen men killed a score of times, but this game beats all of it — it's running side by side with death."
He beckoned her to his side, winking again, glancing first over his shoulder to the door. "Here," he whispered, "come close, down here by my side, where I can talk to you. You've got guts in you, I can see that; you're not scared like your aunt. We ought to be partners, you and I." He seized hold of Mary's arm and pulled her on the floor beside his chair. "It's this cursed drink that makes a fool of me," he said. "I'm as weak as a rat when it has hold of me, you can see that. And I have dreams, nightmares; I see things that never scare me when I'm sober. Damn it, Mary, I've killed men with my own hands, trampled them under water, beaten them with rocks and stones; and I've never thought no more about it; I've slept in my bed like a child. But when I'm drunk I see them in my dreams; I see their white-green faces staring at me, with their eyes eaten by fish; and some of them are torn, with the flesh hanging on their bones in ribbons, and some of them have seaweed in their hair…. There was a woman once, Mary; she was clinging to a raft, and she had a child in her arms; her hair was streaming down her back. The ship was close in on the rocks, you see, and the sea was as flat as your hand; they were all coming in alive, the whole bunch of 'em. Why, the water in places didn't come above your waist. She cried out to me to help her, Mary, and I smashed her face in with a stone; she fell back, her hands beating the raft. She let go of the child, and I hit her again; I watched them drown in four feet of water. We were scared then; we were afraid some of them would reach the shore…. For the first time we hadn't reckoned on the tide. In half an hour they'd be walking dry-shod on the sand. We had to pelt at 'em all with stones, Mary; we had to break their arms and legs; and they drowned there in front of us, like the woman and her child, with the water not up to their shoulders — they drowned because we smashed them with rocks and stones; they drowned because they couldn't stand…."