Book 3 — chapter one: The Hiring Fair

ON May Day, there being a deal of stuff for market, I borrowed the Mill pony again and set out with Gideon very early, while yet the purple blossom and the green leaves of the lilac trees were all of a grey blur. I’d pulled some lilac overnight for market, so we rode with the sighing of it and the good smell of it all about us. It was a very still morning. Not a breath stirred the young red oak leaves, and even the silver birches, that will shift and shiver in any breeze, like water-weeds at the lake-side, were all becalmed like weeds far down where not a ripple comes. Save for our horse-hoofs on the wet flinty road there was no sound, neither from the grey fields on either side, nor from the water, the woods or the sky. So still! It seemed to me some miracle might come to pass on such a day. The dawn could not hold its breath more if Judgment was to break that eve, and the dead rise. When the colour came in the hedges, the bird’s eye, that was in great plenty, looked upon us, very simple and innocent, as if thousands of blue-eyed children watched us go by. The ollern-trees that fringed the road dripped with yellow catkins. Beyond stood the hills, mounded out of sapphire stones like the new Jerusalem, and all becalmed under a sky without so much as a cloud. Not a bird nor a trail of mist or smoke stirred in all the plain. It seemed to me, as I rode alongside of Gideon without a word, while he frowned and darkened, thinking of Beguildy, that it was like a great open book with fair pages in which all might read. Only it was written in a secret script like some of Beguildy’s books that he never locked away, knowing they were safe. For indeed every tree and bush and little flower and sprig of moss, every least herb, sweet or bitter, bird that furrows the air and worm that furrows the soil, every beast going heavily about its task of living be to us a riddle with no answer. We know not what they do. And all this great universe that seems so still is but like a sleeping top, that looks still from very swiftness. But why it turns, and what we and all creatures do in the giddy steadfastness of it, we know not.

I said to Gideon that it was like a book.

“Book?” he says. “Why, no, I see no book. But I see a plenty of good land running to waste, as might be under corn.”

So we see in the script of God what we’ve a mind to see, and nought else.

We came beneath a wild pear tree in early blow, and it put me in mind of Jancis.

“Now I wonder,” I said, “where Jancis’ll sleep this night?”

“At Grimbles’.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can tell because I say it is to be. Missis Grimble is for ever changing dairymaids, and I hear tell she’s after one this year.”

“It’s a long ways off, Gideon.”

“None the worse for that, she’ll be out of young Camperdine’s way.”

“She’ll be terrible lonesome.”

“You can write me a letter to her now and again.”

“And welcome. But how’ll she answer?”

“I thought of that.”

Gideon spoke triumphing-like.

“It’s such a great big place that they have the weaver every month or two. Weaver can write for Jancis.”

“What?” I says, with my breath very short, knowing I was going to say that name, “what, Mister Woodseaves?”

“No other.”

Why, dear to goodness, here was a queer trick of fortune for me! I was to write love-letters for him I loved to read, and he was to write letters back for me to read, once in every few weeks. I let the pony go her own pace, and we fell behind, for Mill pony was like Mill folk, and took everything sad and quiet, as if she’d been discouraged above a bit.

There’d be letters coming in the summer days, written in his own script, with his own wording and turns of speech. His hand would ha’ moved slow along every page, over and over, while he looked down at the lettering with those long-shapen blue eyes that pierced to the heart’s core. Of course they’d be letters to somebody else from somebody else, and it ud be all the wrong way round, for his would be in the name of Jancis, to Gideon, and mine would be in the name of Gideon, to Jancis. It would all be moithered and twisted and topsy-turvy like the water-lily shadows in the mere, when I’d lief it met be clear and real. Still, I could speak my heart out. I could say the things I’d thought never to say. I could lay my soul as naked afore him as I myself had been, for no eyes but hisn would read my letters. Not that my soul was anything to show, but yet I greatly desired to show it. This is a very strange thing, and ever to be found in lovers. I couldna help but laugh to think what a figure of fun Gideon would look dizened out in my soul, and how dumbfounded Jancis would be, hearing things read out of Gideon’s letters that no power of angel nor devil would ever make Gideon say, and how she’d pucker up her face and wonder if weaver was making game of her, and then think, “Oh, well, folks inna themselves when they’re writing.” I was laughing over it all when I heard Gideon shouting—

“Hi! Hi! Where bin ’e going? Pony’ll put fut in the ditch in a minute and break her leg and all the eggs in your basket into the bargain. What ails you, dreaming?”

It was but just in time. Pony and I got out of the ditch as best we might and went on, a bit crestfallen and very mim and careful. Then it came over me on a sudden that I should see the mind of Kester Woodseaves in those letters as open as the sky. I should know him as if I lived along of him. For it inna by the deal that’s said, but by what’s in the things said, that you can know a person. Just as it inna the extra length or breadth of a gown that keeps you warm, but the quality of the stuff. In all he wrote, I’d find him. For you canna write a word, even, but you show yourself—in the word you choose, and the shape of the letters, and whether you write tall or short, plain or flourished. It’s a game of I spy and there’s nowhere to hide. I thought how Mister Woodseaves would go tramping home, pleased to ha’ done a kindness, and very pleased to be unlocking his own door, lighting his own fire, and keeping himself to himself. And all the while he’d have showed himself to me, let me into the house of his mind, bid me to sit down by the fire of his great kindness.

“He brought me to his noble house.

His banner it was love.”

“Prue!” shouted Gideon. “Dang the girl! Oh, dang the girl! Pony’s got her foot in the reins and her teeth in the grass, and here I’ve been obleeged to come back half a mile. Market day and all! Whatever ails you? Be you sickening for summat? Dear to goodness! Anybody ud think you were in love!”

After that, pony and I were very careful. We kept our thoughts on the road and the market, and as you always come, at long last, where your thoughts are, so we came to Lullingford and found the Hiring Fair just beginning.

The long row of young folks, and some not so young, who were there to be hired, began near our stall. Each one carried the sign of his trade or hers. A cook had a big wooden spoon, and if the young fellows were too gallus she’d smack them over the head with the flat of it. Men that went with the teams had whips, hedgers a brummock, gardeners a spade. Cowmen carried a bright tin milk pail, thatchers a bundle of straw. A blacksmith wore a horseshoe in his hat, and there were a tuthree of them, for a few big farms would club together and hire a blacksmith by the year. Shepherds had a crook and bailiffs a lanthorn, to show how late they’d be out and about after robbers. Though, as Gideon said, having a lanthorn is no more promise that a man’ll so much as put his nose out of the bedclothes after dark than it’s promise when a chap agrees to the text, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house,” of a Sunday that he wunna spend all the week trying to compass it. Which was just what Gideon did himself.

There were tailors and weavers, wool carders and cobblers too, for the farmers clubbed together for them also. The carders had a hank of coloured wool, and the tailors made great game running up and down the line of young women and threatening to cut their petticoats short.

Jancis laughed with the rest, but I could see she’d been crying. She looked a real picture in her print gown and bonnet, with the dairymaid’s milking stool. They were a tidy set of young women, the housemaids with broom on shoulder, the laundrymaids with dollies. It was no wonder that many a young farmer, who wanted neither cook nor dairymaid, should linger a bit, and that it should come into his mind that he wanted a wife.

“There’s Grimble,” said Gideon “I made sure he’d come, because of the bull-baiting. He’s just got a new dog, I hear tell, as fierce as fire.”

There was most always a bull-baiting after the May Fair, and it was a thing I couldna abide. I looked where Gideon pointed and saw Mister Grimble, a man with a long nose that looked as if he poked it into everybody’s business and stirred up trouble.

“Be that his missus?” I said.

Gideon looked at the woman, like a gingerbread doll, flat and baked pale, with curranty eyes, and said it was.

“Very near, and a driver,” I said.

“Well, Jancis’ll take a deal of driving. The pretty ones be always the idle ones. And she’s used to being clemmed at home. She’ll see she dunna clem too much.”

He seemed quite unconsarned.

“She’d be better, a power, at a small place with nice folk that ud treat her kind,” I said. “What for do you want her to go to Grimble’s?”

“More money. They give a better wage than smaller folk. We mun think of that first.”

“The bane!” I whispered. “The precious bane!”

For indeed this talk of money was beginning to wear on me like a song sung over and over, and a song misliked to start with. Gideon had spoken to Farmer Grimble about Jancis, so, as she never dared to go against his word, she beckoned to Beguildy and said—

“Mister Grimble’s missus’ll hire me, Feyther, if you please.”

“Oh, ’er will, will ’er? And what’ll you give me for the wench, for dree year?”

“Eighteen pound.”

“Make it twenty and you shall take her.”

“Nay, nay, it’s too much.”

“She can work if she’s a mind. She’s strong. I give you leave if you make it twenty, to drive if she wunna be led.”

“If you lay finger on my girl it’ll be the worse for ye,” said Gideon. “And she’s to have the money, not you, Beguildy.”

“Hearken, hearken! Did ever you hear the like! A fellow that was born under the threepenny planet and sleeps on face and’ll come to be drowned!”

Gideon fell into a sudden rage and gave him a great clout with the flat of his hand, and Beguildy screamed out—

“I’ll pay ye! I’ll pay ye for this! Curse ye! The very spit of your dad you be. You owe me a crown,” he says, going by me on a blast of air. “And you canna leave me and mine alone. Curse ye! In sowing and harvesting. In meadows and housen. By fire and by water. A waxen man! I’ll make a waxen man this night, and call it Sarn. Slow, slow, it’ll consume away—Sarn, the sin-eater!”

Gideon looked at him, making no sign. The people drew back a bit, fearing they knew not what. Just then, elbowing through the crowd, came the young squire, Mister Camperdine’s nephew.

“I heard,” he says to Beguildy, “that Venus was come to the Hiring Fair. My aunt wants a still-room maid, and I came to see if Venus—”

“If you mean Jancis Beguildy, sir,” says Gideon, speaking quick, “she’s prenticed already.”

“What, so soon?”

“Ah, to a farmer a great way off.”

He looked hard at Mister Camperdine, and Mister Camperdine looked hard back.

“It’s a great disappointment,” says Mister Camperdine, “for my good aunt.”

“Your lady-aunt, sir,” says Gideon very dry-like, “will soon find another maid. Never faithful to one long, if I may make so bold, your lady-aunt inna, sir!”

The young squire frowned, but looking around and seeing nobody but Jancis, short and plump, he supposed the one he was after had gone already, and so thought further argling but waste of time. He sighed and said to himself—

“So Venus vanishes!” and went away. And very glad I was to see the last of him.

Beguildy and Jancis went to the inn with the Grimbles to sign the prentice paper binding Jancis for three years. She was to drive back with them that night. She was free till then, and Gideon said seeing she was going to work for Lullingford New House, she ought to have a look at it. So off they went, while I minded the stall.

I’d all but done, for the place being fuller than ordinary, the things went off pretty quick. The lines of young people had shrunken till there were only a few left that were wanted by none. These were such as were known to be over-fond of the bottle or to have a base-born child, or to be incurables of some crippling disease, or not to know rightly what was their own and what was other people’s. I used to wonder how they felt, poor folk, going jogging along in the evening, back where they came from. I was glad I worked at whome, and had no need to go and be hired, for certain sure nobody ud have taken me. It was a bitter thought, that.

The market-place was emptying fast, for the people were getting some refreshment afore the bull-baiting. But I’d still got some daffodillies to sell, and Gideon didna like anything to go back. So I sat still, in the quiet afternoon, looking down the empty street where the shadows of the lilacs and seynty trees lay very dark and pleasant. I noticed that Missis Grimble was there too.

She was packing up, and as she put each pat of butter into the basket she gave it a look as much as to say that she’d give it a bit of her mind after, for not being sold.

In a while she came across to me.

“You be sister to my new dairymaid’s young man, binna you?”

“Ah.”

“I’m in behopes they’re serious?”

“Oh, ah!”

“That’s right. I like my wenches to be walking out afore they come, and with a chap at a distance. I’ve got sons, and it’s a deal safer. And so long as the chap’s at a distance and canna be got at, it dunna hinder the work. Well, I’ll be going now. They loose the first dog on the bull in an hour, and I must get a cup of tea first. I never can enjoy anything proper, nor take notice, if I’m clemmed. Whether it’s a wedding or a confinement, a baiting or the Lord’s Supper, I canna truly enjoy it as it should be enjoyed unless I’ve got a pint or two of good strong tea inside me. Well, good day. It’s a great affliction for ye.”

She went back to her stall to gather her baskets.

There now! Never could I be left in peace. Never could I be let to get away from my misfortune. Here I sat, as peaceful as could be, till she must come up and say that. “A great affliction.” But afore she said it I’d forgotten it, so I hadna got it. I was out of the cage till she put me in again. I was vexed, and the tears stood in my eyes.

Suddenly, along the quiet road, through the shadows, and through the mist on my own eyelashes, I saw somebody coming. A man, it was. And if there be any meaning in the word as I hanna thought on, let them that read put it in. Let them put the strength and the power, the kindness and the patience, the sternness and the stately righteousness of all good men into that word, and let him wear it. For it was himself, Kester Woodseaves, the maister.

He came along without haste, as if he had some great business to attend. I saw that he was in his best—the black beaver hat, green coat, flowered weskit, and the Wellington boots.

“Weaver, weaver!” called Missis Grimble. “When’ll you work for me next?”

He looked up, and came our way.

What did I do, I, that knew his smile was my summer? Why, I got up so hasty that I upset the daffodillies. I left all our baskets and butter-cloths, and the jam-pots for flowers, and I ran from the place as if summat was after me. But, being that the market was at the end of the road, and only open in front, there was nowhere for me to go but into the market-keeper’s office, which was a dark room at the back of the market, and had a small window with no glass, looking on the stalls. So I couldna help but hear all they said.

“Why, lookye!” Missis Grimble screamed out like a cackling hen, “her’s fled away as if you were the murrain or the Lord or the bailiffs. What ails the wench? Mostly I see ’em run to and not from when a young chap comes along.”

“Who be she?” asked Kester.

He had ever a very out-of-the-ornary voice. It was like as if, when he spoke, the sound of the speaking made the world new for itself, not caring about the old world. It was like a wide, blossomy thorn-tree on a sweltering day in early June. You could sit down under it and rest you. And it was like the still hearth-fire on a winter night, when wild Edric’s out in the forest, and the curtains be close, candles snuffed, all fast, and the master of the house raught whome.

“Who be she?” he says. And even though it be only a passing thought and three words, I’m a flower that knows the sun.

“Why, her be Sarn’s sister from away yonder at the mere. Prue Sarn. The woman with the hare-shotten lip. A very queer creature. But it makes ’em queer, you mind, to be born the like of that. Some say she’s a bit of a witch.”

He said nought, but he went across and picked up my flowers, setting them in the jam-pots man’s fashion, a bit clumsy and all thumbs, enough to make you cry with love. I could see from the dark at the back of the office.

“A very neat, tidy figure she’s got,” he said. And in a minute I knew that he knew I’d heard, and so would ease the wound. Oh, most kind maister, the very marrow of Him that loved the world so dear!

“Be you going to the baiting, Mister Woodseaves?” asked Missis Grimble.

“Why, yes and no to that.”

“Eh?”

“You’ll see in good time, Missis Grimble.”

With that he went on his way. And what did I do? I did a thing I never thought to do for any man, so forrard it was. I came out of the dark room, straight into the sunlight, and step by step along the road I followed him, as if I’d no bashfulness at all, such as every girl should have. I kept a long way back, for fear he might turn about and see me, but I never let him out of my sight. It seemed as if I couldna. I was drawn on and on. If I lost sight of his green coat round a turn of the road, I was all distraught till I’d got sight of it again.

The bull-ring was well beyond the town, in a green meadow where a brook ran. And though if you’d gone a-walking in that green meadow any other day in the year, to gather lilies or forget-me-nots, or to walk beside the water, folk would have thought it a soft thing to do, it was all right and proper to-day, because they were going to kill a creature there.

The people in the road never noticed me, in my plain black, with my face hid in my bonnet. From a good way off I could see the ring, and the bright colours of the gowns and coats all jumbled together, and a deal of sad-colour from the coats of the working men who could seldom afford a best coat save the funeral coat of the family. I could see the bull, a little white one, tied to a staple in the wall of the bull-ring, which was a semicircle built of rough grey stones. The bright yellow sunshine held them all, as if they were bees in the mid of the honeycombs, and the blue air, the brown water, the green meadow were all so fair, I could not believe blood must be shed on such a day. I wonder to myself, times, if it was fair, clear weather on Golgotha when Mary looked up at the cross, and whether there was some small bird singing, and the bees busy in the clover. Ah! I think it was glass-clear weather, and bright. For no bitter lacked in that cup, and surely one of the bitterest things is to see the cruelty of man on some fair morning with blessing in it.