Book 2 — chapter four: The Wizard of Plash

CHRISTMAS went by us and nought stirred the quiet, unless you count killing the pig. Nobody came Christmassing, for there was nowhere for them to come from, and nothing for them to come for. Mother was very middling with a cough, and took to her bed, so I didna go for a lesson till the New Year. But on New Year’s Day I went, and, as I ever liked to pay first, I took the oxen straight away to the field I was ploughing for Beguildy. He couldna abide ploughing, so for every lesson I did so many furrows. I could plough nearly as well as most men, though not so well as Gideon. He drove the straightest furrow I ever saw. It was impossible to him to do anything ill. What he did, whether it was to be seen or not, whether it was done once in a way or every day, must be done as if his life was on it. He’d have no makeshifts. He’d thatch the ricks, even though they were to be cut into straight away, as well as if he was working for the thatchers’ medal. Working by his lonesome in the fields, hedging or binding sheaves, with only the tall clouds for watchers, and the woods, floating on the summer mist, he’d still labour like a man showing his mettle at a hiring fair. Times, I thought it was pitiful, the way he’d give himself no rest. And times I could almost see the crowd of folk, the farmers watching, the judge sitting in his waggon or trotting to and agen on his cob. I could almost hear the muttering of the folks, the jeering when Gideon bungled, the roar of cheering when he did well, and the judge saying in his loud voice, “I give the prize to Gideon Sarn, best man in the hedging, the binding, and the ploughing.”

Then I’d come to myself and see only the tall clouds, that hadna stirred, the tall hedges with meadowsweet below, the woods and the hills and the sweet blue air with larks hanging in it as if them above had let them down on threads, and shaking so with their joyful song that they threatened to break their threads. Not a bit did they care who won the prize, nor which of them sang best or loudest, so long as all sang, so long as none lacked nest or cropful, drink of dew and space to sing in.

These things I thought while I was ploughing the five-acre field at Plash with the white oxen, that looked yellow in the deathly white of the hoar-frost which lay over the earth like a shroud, though not too hard for ploughing.

As the share went onwards, the reddish, turned earth shone richly, and the rooks followed, for they were sore clemmed, poor things, walking stately in the furrows.

In a while Jancis came running across from the house with her mother, all agog to tell me of the handfasting of her and Gideon and of how angered Beguildy was. Jancis did truly look as lovely as a fairy, with her rosy face and yellow curls. Missis Beguildy came panting after, apron flying, and loaded with news, like one of the French frigates folk tell of.

“But we wunna starve here like crows,” she said.

“Come you in and have a sup of tea. Sarn brought me a pound canister, no less!”

I knew he must be very deep in love to bring more than a quarter, but I said nought, only finished my furrow and unspanned the cattle.

“We can have a nice chat, for Dad’s busy in his room, curing Miller’s Polly,” says Jancis.

“What’s to do with Polly?”

“It’s what inna to do with the child,” says Missis Beguildy.

“First she got the chin-cough and now she’s got the ringworm. She’s always got summat. He’s put her in a chair with a string of roasted onions round her neck, and I’m sure I cried quarts getting ’em ready. Dunna you ever be wife to a wizard, Prue. It’s like what it says in the good book, and I wish I could go to church Christian and hear it, it be like it says, ‘I die daily.’ Ah, it’s like that, being wife to a wizard. If it inna onions it’s summat else. I’m sure I near broke my neck fetching bletch from the church bells for this very child, to cure the chick-pox, the maister being a deal too bone-idle to fetch it himself.”

“Never you mind, Mother, when I’m married I’ll look after you,” says Jancis.

I couldna but sigh to think what a many plans they were all making, and each plan cutting the throats of the others. I put the oxen in the shippen and came in. There was a good fire and a pleasant scent of tea, and I was bound to feel a bit glad that Polly was such a measly child, though it was unkind, for I knew Beguildy ud be a long while curing her. Mother always said the mill children were measly because the water-fairy in the pool under the mill-race put her eye on their mother afore they were born, but Gideon said it was because they were fed on the flour the rats got into, and Missis Beguildy said it was because they sent ’em to Beguildy to be cured.

“A dose of brimstone and treacle, that be what she wants, and some good food. But the mill’s no place for good bread, no more than the farm’s a place for good butter, seeing it means cash, and the home folk get the leavings.”

Just then Beguildy popped his head in, and looking dreamily at his missus said—

“I want some May butter.”

“May butter! You met as well ask for gold. How dun you think I’ve got any May butter, nor June nor July butter neither, when we sell every morsel of butter we make almost afore it be out of the churn, and never taste nought but lard?”

“I’m bound to have May butter or the charm wunna work,” says Beguildy in his husky voice.

“What be it for?”

“To fry the mid bark of the elder and cure the chin-cough.”

“Well, for all the butter, May or December, as she’ll get in our place, she may die of the chin-cough!” shouts Missis Beguildy. And with that, a loud roaring came from the inner chamber, because poor Polly thought she was at death’s door.

“Go and read in your old books, and find summat easier,” says Missis Beguildy. “I’ve summat better to think of than charms.”

“You be above yerself, woman. You think to see our Jancis wedded and bedded and rounding to a grandchild all in a lantun-puff. But I tell ye not every troth ends in church, not every ring holds wedlock, not every bridegroom takes his vargin, and I dunna like the match! Owd Sarn still begrutches me that crown, though he be where crowns buy nought. And I tell you young Sarn was born under the threepenny planet and’ll never keep money. Sleeps on his face, too. And them as does that drowns. My gel’s not for Sarn. You may ride rough-shod over my wish and will. You may send out bidding letters for a love-spinning, which is all to the good. But still I’ll bide for a higher bidder. Why, she be as white as a lady and as sound as a well-grown tater! No squire nor lord even but ud take it kind to be asked to lie beside her.”

“But not to wed with her.”

“What of it? He’d pay, wouldna he?”

By this, Jancis was roaring-crying as well as Polly. Beguildy popped into his room again, and we set to work to comfort her. We drew close in to the fire with our tea and planned for me to write the bidding letters for the love-spinning.

“And a caking into the bargain,” says Missis Beguildy. “You make money by a caking. And weaver shall come and stop a tuthree days and make up all we’ve spun.”

Jancis clapped her hands.

“Oh! I dearly love a Do!” she said.

“Ah, so do I.”

“But a caking be the best of all. Oh, I love Gideon dearly for asking me to wed!”

All the while as we talked we could hear poor Polly coughing and whooping sore, and Beguildy shouting—“Quiet now, hush yer noise, I say! Curse ye! Ye’re cured!”

Then Missis Beguildy asked me to write down the biddings for them to see. So I did, and they were mighty pleased, for all they couldna read what I’d written any more than two butterflies in the hedge can read the mile stone.

“Put down,” says Missis Beguildy, “as Jancis, only daughter of Mister Felix Beguildy and Hepzibah his wife, is promised and trothed to Mister Gideon Sarn, farmer, living on his own land at Sarn. And put down as they’ll be wed as soon as may be, and that Jancis invites ’em to a love-spinning.”

“And put down,” says Beguildy, popping his head in again, “that you’re a parcel of fools, and that this marriage shall not be till Sarn Mere goeth into the earth whence it came. For I’ve seen in a glass darkly a young squire that rides this way with his pockets full of gold.”

When Polly was gone, coughing as bad as ever, and I went into the other room for my lesson, I gave Jancis a little pat on shoulder, for I was sorry for the child. She looked more than ever like a petal of the may on a day of cold rain.

“Well, well now,” says Beguildy, “I make no doubt you’ve ploughed a tidy bit?”

“Ah.”

“Well, what’ll I learn ye?”

“Learn me to write ‘Marriages be made in heaven,’ Mister, and ‘Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder.’ ”

He chuckled a bit.

“Clever wench! Clever wench! But you’ll not get the better of me. Rather shall you write, ‘Intermeddle not with high matters.’ Dunna a wizard, as knows the fortunes of a parish, know what be best for his own?”

“Leave be, Mister! There’s enough agen the poor child, what with Fate and such a pig-headed man as Gideon. If you meddle, maybe you’ll do harm as you canna mend.”

“Namore, namore! I’ve said me say. Dunna weary me.”

He beat lightly on his little music, which was a sign that his patience was over. As the notes tinkled out, I knew it was useless to argle any more. For as there was no power or sweetness in his flinty music, such as there is from harp and fiddle, so there was none in his soul. It gave a small and flinty music because it was a small and flinty thing. He’d got no pity because he’d got no strength. For it inna weaklings and women that pity best, but the strong, mastering men. They may put it from them as my brother Sarn did. But even so it will come upon them some day, and the longer they deny it the stronger it will be when it comes. Ah! It met even be such an agony as will make a man hate his life.