Book 2 — chapter two: The Mug of Cider

THE market was in the open, in a paven square by the church. Each had his own booth, and the cheeses stood in mounds between. There were a sight of old women in decent shawls and cotton bonnets selling the same as we had, butter and eggs and poultry. There was a stall for gingerbread and one for mince-pies. There was a sunbonnet stall and a toy stall, and one for gewgaws such as strings of coral and china cats, shoe buckles and amulets and beaded reticules. It was a merry scene, with the bright holly and mistletoe, the cheeses yellow in the sun, and the gingerbread as brown and sticky as chestnut buds.

The butcher stood at his door, which gave on to the market-place, shouting his meat, and holding up a long, shining knife, enough to make you think the French were coming. There was a woman selling hot potatoes and pig’s fry, and a crockman who put up his wares to auction, and every time the clock chimed he broke summat, keeping some “seconds” in readiness, which served to amuse the people. Then the mummers came along and gave us a treat, and in one corner the beast-leech was pulling teeth out for a penny each, and had a crowd watching. What with them all shouting, and the mummers mouthing their parts, and the crash of broken china, and beasts lowing and bleating from the fair ground close by, and the chimes ringing out very sweet at the half-hours, you may think there was a cheerful noise.

When we’d got rid of our goods, we went into the Mug of Cider for a snack. Ten or a dozen old men sat without, though the air was so nipping that they must have bin starved. Each one was holding a great pewter tankard, and they were roaring out at the top of their voices—

“The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not fear.”

Each one went his own way and made his own tune, and I thought how angered Mister Beguildy would be if he could hear ’em making such an untuneful sound, for he was very particular over his row of flints, and when he struck them he was troubled if they didna strike the note true.

But when we were come by these old ancients, every one held his mug where it was, and stopped in his singing, and so sat with his mouth open and his eyes fast on me. They were like those new-fangled mommet-shows with the little dolls that stop all together when the showman unhands them. There they sat, with the inn behind them and the frosty sunshine on their old, red, veiny faces, and a kind of frittened look. As we passed the bench, every head of them came round slow, and the score or so of eyes stared slantwise over the rims of their cups, as young owls will stare and turn their heads, watching you over their feathers.

As we went through the dark doorway, with its door studded with nails like a prison, and came into the inn parlour, where sat the more genteel, I saw their looks fasten on me too, but more shyly. The farmers and their ladies and two or three folk that had come by the early coach and were baiting here, and the Squire’s son, who was a parson in Silverton and was on the way home for Christmas and was taking some refreshment because his nag had cast a shoe, all of them looked up, quiet and careful but very curious, at me. All on a sudden I knew that all these folk, the grand ones within and the old fellows without, were staring at my hare-shotten lip. They were thinking, according to their station and their learning—

“Here’s a queer outlandish creature!”

“This is a woman out of a show, sure to goodness!”

“Here be a wench turns into a hare by night.”

“Her’s a witch, an ugly, hare-shotten witch.”

Maybe in the tuthree times I’d come to Lullingford in the past they’d stared so, but then I was but a child and didna see.

I could hear the old men without croaking like a lot of rooks, and one said—

“Dunna drink while she’s by. It’ll p’ison yer innards.”

Another said—

“Dunna look upon the baigle. Her’ll put the evil eye on you. You’ll dwine and dwine away.”

The folk inside looked each at other, and I wished I could die. For all the bitter cold and my thin gown and us being far from the fire, I was all in a swelter. For indeed I loved my kind and would lief they had loved me, and I felt a friendliness for the drovers and for the gentry, and the host and his missus. For they were part of my outing and part of Lullingford and of the world, that ever seized my heart in its hands, as a child will hold a small bird, which is both affrighted and comforted to be so held. I would lief have ridden forth and seen new folk, new roads, new hamlets, children playing on strange village greens, unknown to me as if they were fairies, come there I knew not whence nor how, singing their song and running away into the dusk; old folk wending their way along paths in meadows of which I knew not so much as the name of the owner, to churches deep in trees, with all the bells a-ringing, pulled by men I never saw afore. Ah, I should dearly ha’ liked that. Only the gist of it must ever be that the old folk looked kind as they saw me go by, and the children smiled or threw me a blossom, and that when I came to inn or tavern they’d say, “Draw in to the fire now, dear ’eart, for night thickens.” Ah, I’d dearly ha’ liked that!

This made it all the more of a shocking thing to me that the real world was thus toward me, for living so apart I had not truly felt my grief afore. But now I knew that I was fast bound in misery and iron, as the Book saith. Ah, prisoned beyond a door to which the great nailed door of the inn was but paper!

As I was bending over my plate so that my bonnet met hide the tears, a lady came in. She was a handsome piece if ever there was one! She was lissom as a wand, dressed in a long scarlet riding coat and a highwayman hat to match, with a great swath of chestnut hair tied in a bow. She’d got black eyes with no human soul in them, but sparkles instead, like a cat’s eyes on a frosty night. Gauntlets on her little hands, spurs on her boots, she came in laughing from a talk with the old men on the bench.

“A besom, host!” she says. “We want a besom here.”

Everybody smiled and sniggered a bit. I knew well what she meant, for once when Mother was talking to me she said that if folk began to speak of besoms I’d best go, since it was their way of saying I was a witch.

But Gideon never noticed, for not being afflicted like me he never thought of such things, and being used to me he didna have it in mind that other folk met not be. And he was very deep in considering over whether Jancis or the big house and the maids and men were best, so it all went by him.

The lady ran to the Squire’s son and clapped him on shoulder, which made him frown because of his dignity, and she says—

“So you’ve come Christmassing like a good lad! Who’s the woman with the hare-shotten lip?”

He made a sign to warn her to talk soft, and nodded towards Gideon ever so little.

“Why, if yonder isn’t young Sarn of Sarn!” she says, flushing a bit and coming running across to where Gideon sat, very handsome in the blue coat with the brass buttons and the black band for Father on the arm, and his eyes darkling over the thought of Jancis. I nudged him, and he stood up, and looked all the better for it, being such a fine figure.

She held out her hand, for the gentry were always friendly to the farmers, in especial to voters about election time, and she sparkled at him out of her black eyes and said—

“There’s to be an election soon, and Father’s got some work for you, Sarn. So you’d best come and see us one day, and take bite and sup, if your sweetheart can spare you.”

She looked very spitefully at me. Seemingly she thought Gideon was an only child, and so she chose to take me for his acquaintance, or else she chose to mock him, lashing him into her slavery by making him look a fool.

Now Gideon was altogether with the Squire as to politics, because of the corn tax, but he hadna made up his mind in good sadness whether he meant giving all those things up and settling down contented with Jancis and a crowd of little uns till death them parted. So he hummed and hawed a bit, and not being used to hiver-hover from a common man, she lost her temper.

“So! So! You’ve no time, Sarn. You’ve no time, I see,” she says. “You’ll be dancing on Diafoll Mountain next Thomastide no doubt. Oh, fine you’ll look, Sarn, with your missus here, and broomsticks all round and the moon shining!”

She laughed like a tinkle of jangled bells, and Gideon came to the knowledge of what she meant. He was ever slow, but sure. Eh, terrible sure.

That was one of the times I spoke of when I saw Gideon angered. His face had gone dark and his eyes had the look as if the mere was running behind them, cold, and bitter cold. He looked down at her so that she blenched, and he said very slow—

“Ma’am, this be my sister. If I’ve a mind to dance on the Diafoll Mountain along of witches, I ool. And if I’ve a mind to dance upstairs at the ’unt Ball along of the gentry, I ool. But I wunna ask you for a partner. And I doubt I wunna be able to vote for Squire neither, for can a man govern the land as canna govern his own womankind, but lets his girl go about like a ripstitch-rantipole? He should ha’ give you more stick, ma’am.”

“Dorabella!” calls her brother, very much put about at her being in such a brawl.

They went out, and Gideon sat down and went on with his victuals. Nor did he eat a bit less hearty for it all, though I could scarce touch a morsel. So soon as he went off to buy the oxen, I made haste to go from the place. There were plenty of errands to do, what with malt and sugar and tea to buy, and boots for us all, and Tivvy’s present, and a bit of baccy for Gideon, for he never bought any himself, since, if he was near with others, he was near with himself also. When I’d finished, and bought a tuthree extras for Christmas, and packed all into the panniers, Gideon was ready to go and see the house. He was pleased with the cattle. Brindled longhorns they were, and very strong. With so few people using oxen for farm work they were cheaper, a power, than they used to be. So he was cheerful, since neither then nor at any other time did he seem cast down by my sorrow. How could he know, indeed, that my heart was bleeding because of Miss Dorabella and the old men on the bench? He was angered because he thought it disgrace to himself that a hare-shotten lip should be cast up against one of his family, and a scent of witchcraft into the bargain. But for me he took no thought, any more than if I was one of the new-bought oxen that somebody prodded in passing by. He whistled under breath as we went along the by-road that led to the house he’d set his mind on. I’d never been along that way, for it lay outside the town on the other road from ours, and when we did come in we hadna much time for gadding about. We soon left the coach road and were in a lane with deep frozen ruts in it, and high hedges white-over with rime.

The evening was closing in a bit, but Gideon said never mind, we’d manage the beasts all right, for it ud be light as day when the moon rose. He was very wrought-up about the house, I could see, so I agreed to all he said, for I never liked to dampen down anybody’s pleasure. Lord knows there’s little enow in the world, and Gideon was ever one that took life hard. So when it turned out that he’d planned to treat me to a dish of tea after, at the Mug of Cider, and have a chat about all we meant to do, seeing we couldna when Mother was by, I said nought agen it, though I thought I’d liefer have gone into Hell’s mouth than face it. But Gideon wanted to talk while the holiday feeling was on him, afore the dumbness of Sarn got the better of him agen. For it was a most peculiar thing how you couldna speak your heart out at Sarn, and I never knew whether it was the big trees brooding, or the heavy rheumaticky feeling of being so close to the water, or the old ancient house full of the remembrances of old ancient people, or that there was summat foreboded. So Gideon kept his thoughts and turned them over and over in his mind like a snowball, till at last the snowball was too much for six strong men to shift, and nigh big enough to bury anybody.

We went through a gate into an avenue like a carriage drive. At the end there was another gate, with balls on posts, very grand. Within was a carriage sweep and flower knots, trimly kept.

We stood there, looking through the wrought-iron gates at the place that Gideon said was to be ours. It was new, built since Queen Anne died, and it was a despert big house, very solid, with four windows each side the door, and over the door a porch of stone. Above the eight windows were eight more, and over them dormer windows that Gideon said would be the windows of the men-servants and the maid-servants. There were steps up to the door, and a stone mounting-block with steps also, and a walled garden at one side, and a round pigeon cote.

No light showed, and the place had a melancholy look, so still it was, so dark, in its dark still trees.

“I’d lief there was a light,” I said.

“Dear to goodness, a light? It wunna be dark this hour, to call dark. What do they want with a light? The housekeeper can spin by firelight, I hope, and an old chap can sit in the chimney corner and set his mind on a better world without wasting tallow, let alone wax!”

Gideon had taken over the management already, seemingly, and I was bound to laugh.

“You seem pretty anxious the poor gentleman should set his mind on a better world,” I says.

“Why, so I am, but not too soon. It ud never do for the old chap to go out all of a lantun-puff afore we’ve got the money together. Say in about ten year.”

“So he’s to order his coffin in ten years’ time, poor gentleman.”

“You be very sharp to-day, Prue,” says he. “But he’s bound to go some day, no danger. We mun bide our time.”

“He’s Miss Dorabella’s great-uncle, inna he?”

“Ah.”

“Wunna they want it for young Mister Camperdine?”

“Laws, no! He’s after a bishop’s palace.”

“Nor yet his cousin?”

“Dear no! He’ll never bide long in a place, that lad wunna. A rolling stone, he be, and a caution. No, it’ll be put up to auction when the old man goes, and you and me must mind to get the money ready.”

“Why, look ye, a light!” I says.

“Where?”

“Why there, in that lower window on the garden side.”

I saw it as well as could be, a large pale light wandering from window to window downstairs and then sliding up, in a long window that seemed to go down the stairs, and beginning over again in the upper story. One window would shine for a minute and then go black, and another shine. It had a very strange, uncontented look, wandering like that. There’s nothing so contented as a steadfast light, but a flickering light going to and agen in a void is a sad thing to see. It went on like that a long time, and the cold strengthened. There was no sound at all. We stood there like beggars outside the gate, and the unquiet light wandered in the dark. All of a sudden it went out.

“Oh, it’s gone out!” I says. “Oh, deary, deary me!”

“What of that?” says Gideon.

“I wanted it to steady and come to rest in a window, and shine out with a heartening glow,” I said. “But now it’s gone out.”

It distressed me mightily that it should go out, so that I wrung my cold hands together, though why it should hurt me thus I couldna say.

“It was but the housekeeper looking for her knitting-needles or old Camperdine seeking his snuff-box. And now they’ve found it, they’ve douted the light. Very sensible too.”

“No!” I said. “No! It was love, lad, wanting to steady and shine. But the house was too much for it. The dark’s closed in now. The light’s douted.”

And I began to cry, which was a foolish thing to do. But Gideon wasna so angered as he met have been, for he was in a good temper about the oxen and the house. “You’re sickening for summat,” he said, “for you be no cry-baby, Prue. Come on to your tea, now, while I tell you all that’s in my mind. I’ve a deal to say, for that little vixen of Camperdine’s has changed my mind for me, so I must tell you the new plans as well as the old.”

We turned away from the shut gate, as dumb as stones, and we left all the twenty-four windows with no light in them, and the dark trees with no breath of air in them, lying there in the vast of night.