Book 3 — chapter three: “The Best Tall Script, Flourished”

I MAY say I went over the distance to the town quicker than it’s been done this long while. I hid the carving-knife in the hedge, for fear of tripping over it. The apothecary’s was open, as I thought, for he was churchwarden, and couldna go agen the parson. I never saw the big green and red bottles look so beautiful, as if they were full of water from Paradise river. Inside there was a pleasant dusk, for the little window was so close-set with liniments and medicines, drenches for horses, simples for cows, plaisters, cordials, and bunches of yarbs that you couldna see at all. It smelt very pleasantly of peppermint, yarbs and soap, and the apothecary looked at me kindly over his spectacles and asked what the matter was.

“Why, sir, it’s murder, pretty nigh,” I says. “I do beseech you to shut up the shop and come, or such a man as this town never saw afore, nor will again, will be done to death.”

He pulled on his boots, good man, at that.

“What remedies must I bring?” he says. “You can tell me the rest as we run.”

So I told him summat for dog-bites and summat to bring a man round when he was near death. In a minute he clapped his hat on, and off we went.

“Take a sup of brandy,” he says. “You’re nigh done.”

But I told him, no, only if I fell behind he must hasten on to the bull-ring.

I fell back just afore we got to the carving-knife, and caught up again at the field gate. As we came in I could see an awful struggle going on, for we were only just in time. He’d finished but for Grimble’s dog.

As we came up there was a roar. He’d got the dog chained. Then there was another roar, and I saw (oh, my dear love!) that the dog had got him by the throat.

I caught Grimble’s shoulder.

“Take yer dog off!” I said.

Grimble never stirred.

A second of that grip and he as I loved so dear ud be dead and cold.

I rushed forrard, I, that had never wilfully hurt any living creature, and as the great beast stood reared with his teeth in my maister’s throat, I ran him through the heart.

The blood spurted, and the heavy body fell down all of a heap, and Kester with it.

I pulled him away and dragged the dog’s jaws apart. There seemed to be no life in Kester.

“Water!” I says to Huglet, who chanced to be nighest.

“Fetch water, you murderer! Brandy, Mister Camlet, please!”

He stooped over Kester.

“I mun burn the bite,” he said. “Best do it afore we bring him round. But how to heat the iron?”

I stood up. I cared for nobody. They couldna have been more feared if I’d been a savage queen.

“Six men pick up sticks!” I says. “And quick about it! And you, Grimble, find flint and tinder.”

“I hanna got one,” he muttered.

“Find one!” I screamed like a wild thing, holding up the knife. “Find one, or—”

The fire was blazing quicker than it takes to tell it. We poured a little brandy down Kester’s throat, to keep the spark of life in, then Mister Camlet burnt the bite, and Kester awoke with a shout of agony, for being in a dead swound he hadna been ready for the pain.

“There, there, my dear!” I says. For the shriek went through my heart. “There, there. It be done now! None shall touch you now.”

Mister Camlet bound him up, and I washed his face with cold water and gave him more brandy.

“Not a deep wound,” says Mister Camlet. “We were only just in time, though.”

“We couldna help but be in time,” I says, “I be his angel for to-day.”

And with that the green field swam up afore me and I swounded clean away. When I came to myself there were Gideon and Jancis sitting by me on the grass, and all the folks were gone.

“Where be he?” I says.

“Who? Weaver?” says Jancis. “He be all right and cared for. They’ve took him back to Lullingford, and Missis Callard’ll stop with him.”

“She’s mighty pleased with the little bull,” said Gideon. “You saved that chap’s life, and no mistake, Prue. I never saw the like! We were just coming in at the field gate, and I looked across and saw you. ‘By gum!’ I says. And that was all I did say. I ran, and Jancis ran, but you’d done for the owd dog afore we could come at you. You take the medal, Prue!”

“You canna ride home, Prue. Shall I run and ask Miller to take her, Sarn? And couldna I come back and give her a hand with the work for a day or two?”

“You can ask Miller and welcome. It’s a good thought. But as for coming back, you know very well you’re Grimble’s vessel-maid now, till three years.”

“I didna want to be. It’s you and Feyther made me.”

“Well, but you’ve seen the house, hanna you? You’ll be working for that and the ’unt Ball and the silver plate.”

“Ah. I’ve seen the house, and I think it looks a dark, bitter old place, for all it’s new, and I’d liefer never go to no ’unt Ball than lead the life of a driven slave.”

She was crying, but it made no manner of difference to Gideon.

“You’ve got to go to Grimble’s and you’ve got to go to the ’unt Ball in good time, so why make such a ding-dong?”

“But why must I, Sarn?”

“Because my mind’s set.”

It was almost as if he said, “Because I’m in the stocks.” As if his maid called him to come maying, but, feet and hands, he was fast bound.

When she was gone, they gave me a sup of tea at the Mug o’ Cider, for I was all of a tremble still, and then Miller helped me up into the gig, and the old coach horse, that had known the merry sound of the horn tooting, and the sudden light and commotion at the turnpikes, when they rushed out in the dead dark to open, laboured into a trot. For indeed he seemed much of Missis Miller’s mind, caring not if he never saw home again. Missis Miller had nought to say, Miller as usual had nought also, and Polly was asleep. After a while Missis Miller and Tim went to sleep too. We drove on sadly in the chilly evening. It was dusk, and then it was dark. Gideon was far ahead, for Bendigo was a good trotter, though aged. The mill pony, tied to the back of the gig, clopped onwards with a sorrowful sound.

It suited me, the quiet and the melancholy, for I was sad and quiet too. He that I loved was hurt, and I couldna get to him. There he lay, as weak as a babe, and only Missis Callard to tend him. I forgot that she, having six, was well knowledged in tending helpless folk, for it is the way of lovers to think that none can bless or succour their love but their own selves. And there is a touch of truth in it, maybe more than a touch. We went on and on, through country that was neither hilly nor flat, in a night neither dark nor gleamy, feeling neither glad nor sorry. I thought we were like people bound for some place beyond the world that was neither hell nor heaven. Our six heads, counting the nag’s, all nid-nodded, and I think we were all asleep, even the old coach horse, when the miller spoke, out of his sleep, I do believe.

“I canna abide ’em,” he said, with a nod toerts his wife and children. “I wish they were kit-cats, to drown in mill-pond. I wish the world and all was a kit-cat.”

He said no more. It was like when they say the creed, solemn and choppy. That was all the miller ever said to me, and I do think he said it in his sleep. On we went, till we came to the dark mill, the soundless water, like soft black crape. The others got out and untied the pony, and Miller drove me back to Sarn. The night was full of the smell of water and moss, with a drift of primrose scent now and again. I thought of the weaver’s house, that seemed built of a spell, and him, lying there in the kitchen with the loom, his face barred with the shadow of it, cast by the rushlight, his hair all tousled and damp with the sweat of pain.

“If Missis Callard spoke unkind to him, I could slap her babby,” I thought. But I knew she wouldna. She was a good soul, though I always thought she must have had a mind like a shell, hollow, to echo other people as she did.

When we came to our place, there was Mother on the door-sill, very consarned. She said what nobody else had, and what I’d never thought of.

“You met ha’ been killed, Prue!”

She sat down and began to cry, so I had to laugh at her and ask for summat to eat, to show I was alive all right. So then she got me such a meal as never was, though she should by rights have been asleep hours. Seemingly Gideon had told her some sort of tale, but she must know more. She wasna to be satisfied, but kept on wanting more. She put on her spectacles and looked at me very attentive, sitting there in the big oak chair. I was quite put-about with her staring so, with that still look of a sitting bird when somebody comes and spies at her, and she never winks nor flinches, but just looks back with sharp brown eyes, as much as to say, “I’ll stand by what’s mine.” Mother seemed to be looking past me at summat that threatened me. Maybe it was my Fate, as she thought it to be. It was summat that threatened to do me harm, I’m sure, for after a bit Mother looked very defiant and sat up ever so straight and said—

“We’ll have the weaver.”

Just as if somebody forbade her to have him.

She said nought of all I’d told her, never a word about it being a foolish or forrard thing to save a strange young man’s life without with your leave or by your leave. She only kept on giving little nods now and again, and saying—

“Ah. Come summer, we’ll have weaver.”

Then she said she’d go to bed now, and I went and wrote in my book.

There was no change in our lives, only it was quieter without Jancis coming in of a Sunday. The Stone House seemed very lonesome lacking her, and Missis Beguildy not half the woman she had been. She seemed to cling to me, and kept talking of the little ways and sayings of Jancis as if she was dead. This made Beguildy very angry, for in truth he was sorry Jancis was gone, not only because of the young squire, but because in her unhandy way she’d got through a good bit of work. He’d say, “Now, hush thy noise, woman. The wench’ll be back in no time, with twenty pound in hand, dear me. Now, dunna go to talk of her as if she was dead, fool! A gamesome lusty young woman the like of that! Many’s the golden pound her’ll put in our pockets, when she’s learnt her duty, and given over hankering after a man as was born under the threepenny planet, and’ll come to be drowned. No offence meant, Prue, and none taken I’m in behopes. You ploughed the gorsty bit right tidy, Prue, and us’ll do word of four synnables this day, if you’ve a mind.”

Oh, there’s no doubt Beguildy was a very queer old man. I was used to think if he’d had a good education he met have been one of these great men we all think so much of. A great scholar he could have been, or a music-man, or a rhymer, or a preacher. And maybe if all of his mind had been used proper, he wouldna have brought ruination on hisself as he did. Ah! And on more than hisself. But that we cannot know. We are His mommets that made us, I do think. He takes us from the box, whiles, and saith, “Dance now!” or maybe it must bow, or wave a hand or fall down in a swound. Then He puts it back in box, for the part is played. It may be a Mumming, or a Christmas or Easter play, or a tragedy. That is as He pleases. The play is of His making. So the evil mommets do His will as well as the good, since they act the part set for them. How would it be if the play came to the hour when the villainous man must do evilly, and see! he is on his knee-bones at his prayers. Then the play would be in very poor case. There was a mommet once called Judas, and if he had started away from his set part in fear, we should none of us have been saved. Which is all a very strange mystery, and so we must leave it. But it being so, I think we do wrongly to blame ill-doers too hardly. It is a dreadful fate to be obleeged to act in a curst ugly way, when surely none would choose it. “Needs be that offences come.” How should Gabriel show his skill with a two-edged sword if Lucifer wouldna fight? “But woe be to him by whom they come.” Ah! So if the play has a murder in it, or if a good maid is brought to shame, a mommet must be found to do the bad work, though very like, if they could choose, never a one but would say, “Not me, Maister!” Only they know nought. For I think we be not very different from the beasts, that work deathly harms in the dark of their minds, knowing nothing, weltering in blood, crouching and springing on their prey, with a sound of shrieks in the night, and yet all the while as innicent as a babe. And I think we be not very much other than the storms that raven in the forest, and the hungry fire that licks up lives in a moment, and the lips of the water, sucking in our kin. It is all in the Play. But if we be chosen for a pleasant, merry part, how thankful we ought to be, giving great praise, and helping those less fortunate, and even being grateful to that poor mommet which goeth about night and day to work our destruction. For it might have been the other way.

So, in spite of all, I was always sorry for Beguildy, though, dear knows, he was the villain in our story.

We had a very middling crop that summer, both of grass and grain. Our lives went to the same tune, with no change, saving that Mother was as good as her word and did send for Kester.

I thought she seemed very busy all that June, spinning as if it was ever so, till even Gideon gave a word of praise. Then one day she said—

“There’s such a deal spun, I shall be obleeged to send for Weaver.”

But I was settled in my mind not to see him, so the day he was coming, about the end of hay harvest, I took the brummock and went hedging in the far fields where none would find me.

“I’m going hedging, Mother,” I says, “I’ll take some bread and cheese. Can you see to the young turkeys and tell Gideon he must make shift with the milking, for I shanna be back till dark.”

What must she do but begin to wring her hands and keep on saying under breath—

“Oh, the pity, the pity, to be so curst!”

But go I did. And when I raught home, there in my attic were the bits of wool and thread he’d left, and a very pleasant smell of tobacco. For he liked to smoke a bit while he worked. And just by the corner of the loom what should I find but a blue-and-white handkerchief, which I very dishonestly did put in my locker, and turned the key with great satisfaction. I said to myself in a kind of gloating way that some day I’d launder it, and roll it up with a bit of lavender, and send it back. But not yet.

Mother was full of tales about the weaver. Oh, he was such a kind man, and strong, and so considerate! I thought I could have told her that. Like a son to her, he’d been, she said. I should ha’ seen him a-sitting on the settle at his tea. I dare say, I thought, and lose my heart worse than ever! “Wanted to know if I’d any other family besides Sarn,” she said. “So I told un.”

“Oh, Mother, what did you tell him?” I said.

“I told un I’d got the best girl in the ’orld, and a good daughter to me, and very jimp and slender, with a long, silky plait to the knees, and dark, meltin’ eyes, and such pleasant ways, merry and mocking and pitiful. Ah! I told un! Proper, I did! And I told un you could do the tall script and the short, and that Beguildy was learning you to read, and that you could do words of four synnables now.”

“Dear to goodness, Mother,” I said, “what a tale you made out!”

“No tale, my dear, for ’tis the truth.”

“Did you say ought of Gideon’s letters? I mean, did you say I wrote ’em?”

“Why, no, my dear. Sarn met not ha’ liked it, nor Jancis, nor you.”

“No. You’ve got a lot of sense, Mother.”

“It was always said in our family as I had, my dear.”

“So Weaver thinks we’re a very well educated family, I make no doubt, Mother, and he’ll take it for gospel that Gideon writes the letters.”

After, when I was helping her to bed, I took courage to say—

“Did you tell Weaver I was hare-shotten?”

“No, no, my dear! What for should I do that?”

“Only he met be thinking of me a bit, seeing you said such things, and then if he met me ever—”

“Well, my dear, if he met you, and he’s the man I think him, he’d be bound to like you right well,” says Mother roundly.

When I’d tucked her in, she catched my hand.

“Prue, should you care if he’d got but one leg, or one arm, or was all pitted with the smallpox?”

“Care, Mother?” I cried out all in a minute and never thinking, “of course I shouldna care. I should love un the more for it!”

“I knowed you did, my dear,” says Mother, very contented. “I knowed you loved the man. And I’m right glad of it. Now, dunna you hide from him, Prue. Be well plucked and risk all, like a good player in the game of Costly Colours.”

“No, no! Never will I. Oh, Mother, it was unkind in you to catch me like that!”

“I only wanted to know, Prue. I be getting ancient and old, and the time draws nigh when life’ll be a burden. I’d lief know as there was good in store for the best girl ever.”

She looked out and away through the little moony window, with the dark round blots that were red roses pressed on the panes, and the silver sky dim, and not starry, but very kind-seeming, and she seemed to be listening to summat. Then she said—

“I do believe all shall be well with you, Prue. It’s come to my heart as soft as dew, and as sweet as a red rose, that you’ll get love as well as give it. After my time, though, after my time. But no matter for that, so I do know it’s to come.”

I felt a shiver of strangeness in the night.

“What is it, my dear?” I asked her. “Is it the second sight?”

“No. I see nought. But I feel it within me.”

“You be well, be you, Mother?” I said, for I was afraid she might be slipping from me, since the dying are ever so.

But she said, yes, she was in her daily health, and well, and not going to die this many a day, only it came on her at the thought of Weaver, and how he’d said—

“Well, single I am, and single shall stay, I do believe. But if ever I did think of asking to wed, it ud be just such another as that’n.”

At the end of corn harvest Gideon asked me to write his second letter to Jancis.

We were having our suppers on the bench under the dairy window. After, I fetched the ink and said what should I write? So he said I must write that he was well and hoped she was, and she was to be a good girl and work hard and not ask for any early money for clo’es or boots, but think of all that was to come, and it was a middling harvest, and her father still in the same mind about the young squire, who was about coming back from the Low Countries next year with his pockets full of money, and the big longhorn cow had calved, but dropped her calf like the gwerian she was, and to tell Mister Grimble he could do with a few lambs when he fetched them off the hills for the winter, but no sign of fut-rot, or home they’d come, dang-swang, and so no more from G. Sarn.

Then he said, “Put in as I’ll see her, Christmas market, if Grimbles ool bring her.”

I said I’d do the best I could, and did it matter if I put in a bit more? And I couldna help but laugh, for it did seem such a peculiar letter for a fellow to write to his sweetheart. And Gideon looked up very sharp and said, why did I want to write more? So I said the pen did run away sometimes, and he said he supposed it wunna easy to know quite what you were at when you started writing, and God save him from such foolishness, and so long as I put in all he’d told me I might put in some as well, if I’d a mind.

So I wrote it.

Sarn.

September Twenty-six.

My dear Sweetheart—

It do seem a long while since your letter, which was a beauty, and I kissed it a good few times. You know very well how to do a love letter. I can see the two of you at it, your golden hair shining and your pretty face bent down, and Weaver smiling a bit, and looking well amused, with those eyes that would ’tice any girl away from her own man, and mind you dunna fall in love with anybody but me, if possible. Maybe I shall see you at the Christmas market. Tell Weaver that all Mother’s tales of our Prue be made-ups, for she’s very ornary in every way. Tell Mister Grimble I could do with a few lambs. Tell Weaver when he goes nigh Huglet’s he might carry a gun as well as not, for Huglet’s got an awful dog now, and I hope all’s well betwixt Weaver and Grimble. If there’s ever any sewing work Weaver wants done, being a lone womanless man, I’ve got two women in my house, Mother and sister, both glad of a job at a fair price, and red cabbage pickle and damson cheese they maken, which pays them very well to sell at half market price, and a charity to employ them. It’s a middling harvest, longhorn’s dropped her calf, young Camperdine’s expected back next year, and if they’ve gotten fut-rot, back they’ll come, dang-swang, and so good-bye for now, and take all care of self. In the beginning of a cough take a lemon and crushed honeycomb fire-hot, and you be my dearest, dearest love as I’d spend my life for very willing any time, and die for you by bite of dog or any way, my dear, and so good night, from your lover

Gideon Sarn.

That is a nice text, “The Maister be come.”

I often wondered as the autumn went on, and the cold nights, what they thought of my letter. We knew they had it all right, for one market day Gideon came back with the lambs, that Grimble had put in pen for him at the Mug o’ Cider, and they were good ones, with no fut-rot. But it was drawing on to Christmas when the letter came from Jancis, and I mind it was a wild night, with a lashing of rain on the window, when I read it to Gideon. But it was warm within. It made a good Christmas for me, in spite of work, and Mother very ailing, so as we had to send for the doctor’s man all the way from Silverton, for Gideon wouldna hear of the doctor, saying the expense was more than enough as it was. He kept on grumbling and saying she was a burden, and Mother would ask me: “Does Sarn think I be a burden?” So it was very awkward for me. But that letter was as heartening as a platter of good hot soup, and lest Gideon should take it to his own keeping, I made a copy of it, and this is it.

The High Farm, Outrack.

December 1.

My dearest Acquaintance—

I am thinking of Sarn as I write this, and of the best of lovers. Mister Woodseaves ud be very glad of the sewing and the pickle and the damson cheese Sarn was so kind as to mention. Perhaps might speak to your sister one day about it. Mister Woodseaves says that is the best cough cure ever, and tried it one foggy night after getting back from here to Lullingford, but thinks it ud take a woman to mix it proper. Sorry about the harvest and the calf, but no need to worry about Huglet’s dog, not being afraid of any dog, nor of Huglet neither. But that was a near shave at the Baiting, by gum, and a plucky woman to rush in the like of that and save a poor fellow. For Mister Woodseaves hears tell it was a woman did it, a tall slim woman with beautiful dark eyes, so they do say. It inna for me to say anything, as you know, Sarn. But others will talk. Weaver says if ever he had an acquaintance he’d lief she was that sort. And so good night, and a merry Christmas from

Jancis Beguildy.

I love you already, and if these things be done in the dry tree, what shall be done in the green?