Book 3 — chapter five: Dragon-flies

FROM the time when Jancis went to Callard’s Dingle, through the spring and summer, there is nothing written in my book saving of my own special concerns, such as the progress I made in reading hard books and the thoughts that came to me in the attic. These, as they had no bearing on the lives of others at that time, are not of any interest, and I will not weary you with them. Gideon went to Callard’s Dingle every Sunday, and worked like three men in between. I ploughed furrow for furrow along of him, and dug spade for spade. Our farm was rich with corn. Never afore or since did I see any fields in our part of the country in such good case, for it was a year of sweet, growing weather, with enough rain to swell the grain and not enough to make it ackerspire. Sunday after Sunday I saw Gideon, on the way to Callard’s, stop and lean over the gate at the top of the sloping meadow, where you could look over the whole place, like a miser with his gold. And now and agen I went with him, and was glad to see such a glowing content in anybody’s face, but a deal more glad since it was Gideon’s, that was seldom what you met call a happy face. When he’d gone striding along, whistling pretty near out loud, I’d sit a while afore going back to Mother. I’d think to myself that when he was wed to Jancis, the corn sold and Fortune knocking at the door, then at long last he’d whistle out loud. I got a great longing to hear that, for it seemed to me an unhealthy sort of thing for folks to whistle or sing or speak to their mommets all the while.

“Come harvest!” I’d think. And I’d begin to dream of being as beautiful as a fairy.

It was a great delight to me, apart from the thought of all this, to look at the standing corn and see it like a great mere under the wind. Times it was still, without a ripple; times it went in little waves, and you could almost think the big bosses of wild onion flowers under the far hedges were lilies heaving gently on the tide; and times there was a great storm down in those hollows, like the storm in Galilee Mere, that the King of Love did still. So I watched the grain week by week, from the time when it was all one green till it began to take colour, turning raddled or abron or pale, each in his kind. And it shone, nights, as if there was a light behind it, with a kind of soft shining like glow-worms or a marish light. I never knew, nor do I know now, why corn shines thus in the nights of July and August, keeping a moonlight of its own even when there is no moon. But it is a marvellous thing to see, when the great hush of full summer and deep night is upon the land, till even the aspen tree, that will ever be gossiping, durstna speak, but holds breath as if she waited for the coming of the Lord. I make no doubt that if any read this book it will seem strange to them that a farm woman should look at the things about her in this wise, and indeed it is not many do. But when you dwell in a house you mislike, you will look out of window a deal more than those that are content with their dwelling. So I, finding my own person and my own life not to my mind, took my pleasure where I could. There were things I waited for as a wench waits for her sweetheart at the edge of the forest. This rippling and shining of the corn was one, and another which came about the time of the beginning of the troubling of the water, was the marvellous sight of the dragon-flies coming out of their bodies. We had a power of dragon-flies at Sarn, of many kinds and colours, little and big. But every one was bound in due season to climb up out of its watery grave and come out of its body with great labour and pain, and a torment like the torment of childbirth, and a rending like the rending of the tomb. And there was no year, since the first time I saw it, that I missed to see this showing forth of God’s power.

I went down by the mere to gather honeysuckle wrathes to bind besoms. And being sad in calling to mind what Miss Dorabella had said, for besoms ever made me think on it, and seeing that the troubling of the water was even now beginning, with a slow gentle simmering all over the mere, I thought I would go to a place I knew where there were always a mort of dragon-flies, and take comfort from seeing them coming out of their bodies. Dragon-fly, I say, because I doubt some wouldna know what our name for them meant. We called the dragon-fly the ether’s mon or ether’s nild at Sarn, for it was supposed that where the adder, or ether, lay hid in the grass, there above hovered the ether’s mon as a warning. One kind, all blue, we called the kingfisher; and another one, with a very thin body, the darning-needle. Mother was used to tell Gideon that if he took dog’s leave or did other mischief the devil would take needle to him and use the dragon-flies to sew up his ears, so he couldna hear the comfortable word of God and would come to damnation. But I could never believe that the devil could have power over such a fair thing as a dragon-fly.

That was the best time of year for our lake, when in the still, hot noons the water looked so kind, being of a calm, pale blue, that you would never think it could drown anybody. All round stood the tall trees, thick-leaved with rich summer green, unstirring, caught in a spell, sending down their coloured shadows into the mere, so that the tree-tops almost met in the middle. From either hand the notes of the small birds that had not yet given up singing went ringing out across the water, and so quiet it was that though they were only such thin songs as those of willow wrens and robins, you could hear them all across the mere. Even on such a burning day as this, when I pulled the honeysuckle wrathes, there was a sweet, cool air from the water, very heady and full of life. For though Sarn was an ill place to live, and in the wintry months a very mournful place, at this one time of the year it left dreaming of sorrow and was as other fair stretches of wood and water. All around the lake stood the tall bulrushes with their stout heads of brown plush, just like a long coat Miss Dorabella had. Within the ring of rushes was another ring of lilies, and at this time of the year they were the most beautiful thing at Sarn, and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The big bright leaves lay calm upon the water, and calmer yet upon the leaves lay the lilies, white and yellow. When they were buds, they were like white and gold birds sleeping, head under wing, or like summat carven out of glistering stone, or, as I said afore, they were like gouts of pale wax. But when they were come into full blow they wunna like anything but themselves, and they were so lovely you couldna choose but cry to see them. The yellow ones had more of a spread of petals, having five or six apiece, but the white ones opened their four wider and each petal was bigger. These petals are of a glistering white within, like the raiment of those men who stood with Christ upon the mountain top, and without they are stained with tender green, as if they had taken colour from the green shadows in the water. Some of the dragon-flies look like this also, for their lacy wings without other colour are sometimes touched with shifting green.

So the mere was three times ringed about, as if it had been three times put in a spell. First there was the ring of oaks and larches, willows, ollern-trees and beeches, solemn and strong, to keep the world out. Then there was the ring of rushes, sighing thinly, brittle and sparse, but enough, with their long trembling shadows, to keep the spells in.

Then there was the ring of lilies, as I said, lying there as if Jesus, walking upon the water, had laid them down with His cool hands, afore He turned to the multitude saying, “Behold the lilies!” And as if they were not enough to shake your soul, there beneath every lily, white and green or pale gold, was her bright shadow, as it had been her angel. And through the long, untroubled day the lilies and their angels looked one upon the other and were content.

There were plenty of dragon-flies about, both big and little. There were the big blue ones that are so strong they will fly over top of the tallest tree if you fritten them, and there were the tiny thin ones that seem almost too small to be called dragon-flies at all. There were rich blue kingfisher-flies and those we called damsels, coloured and polished in the manner of lustre ware. There were a good few with clear wings of no colour or of faint green, and a tuthree with a powdery look like you see on the leaves of ’rickluses. Some were tawny, like a fitchet cat, some were rusty or coloured like the copper fruit-kettle. Jewels, they made you think of, precious gems such as be listed in the Bible. And the sound of their wings was loud in the air, sharp and whirring, when they had come to themselves after their agony. Whiles, in some mossy bit of clear ground between the trees, they’d sit about like so many cats round the hearth, very contented in themselves, so you could almost think they were washing their faces and purring.

On a tall rush close by the bank I found one just beginning to come out of its body, and I leaned near, pretty well holding my breath, to see the miracle. Already the skin over its bright, flaming eyes was as thin as glass, so that you could see them shining like coloured lamps. In a little, the old skin split, and it got its head out. Then began the wrostling, and the travail to get free, first its legs, then its shoulders and soft wrinkled wings. It was like a creature possessed, seeming to fall into a fit, times, and, times, to be struck stiff as a corpse. Just afore the end, it stayed a long while still, as if it was wondering whether it durst get quite free in a world all new. Then it gave a great heave and a kind of bursting wrench and it was out. It clomb a little way further up the bulrush, very sleepy and tired, like a child after a long day at the fair, and fell into a doze, while its wings began to grow. “Well,” I says, with a bit of a laugh and summat near a bit of a sob, “well, you’ve done it! It’s cost you summat, but you’ve won free. I’m in behopes you’ll have a pleasant time. I suppose this be your Paradise, binna it?”

But of course it couldna make any sign, save to go on growing its wings as fast as might be. So there I stood, with my armful of wrathes, and there it clung, limp on the brown rush, in the golden light that had come upon Sarn like a merciful healer. I was wasting my time, which was deadly sin at our place, and I turned to go. But just as I turned, there was a bit of a rustle, and there stood Kester Woodseaves.

I made to run away, and indeed I’d have jumped into the mere sooner than he should see me. But he put his hand on my shoulder, and for all it was gentle, it was a wrostler’s hand, and not to be said no to.

“What? Oot run away? Why, Prue Sarn?” he said.

I hung my head and wished I was the dragon-fly. I said nought.

I gave a despert pull, but it was no manner use. He only laughed.

“I do think,” he said, in the voice that made its own summer, “that it be a very funny way to treat a chap as comes to thank ye kindly for saving of his life, Prue Sarn, to take off the like of that’n, and try to jump in the lake!”

His hand sent such a throbbing through me that I could scarce stand.

“What were you looking at when I came?” he asked me.

“The damsel fly, coming out of its shroud.”

“Once out,” he says, “they’re out for good. It costs a deal to get free. But once free, they never fold their wings.”

“No,” I said, “and some of ’em go so high, I think, times, they might flitter right into heaven.”

“We’d all like to do that, I’ll be bound, if we could choose our heaven. I’m not very choice of golden streets myself. And I’d like my heaven afore I die.”

“And what ud it be?” I asked him. I was so interested, I declare I’d clean forgot my curse.

“I’m not quite sure yet,” he says, “but come a year, maybe, I’ll know.”

“There’s a long while,” I says, mocking at him, “to be hiver hovering, choosing your bit of paradise.”

“Could you think of yours sooner, Prue Sarn?” says he.

I looked at his green coat, which made him a very personable man, and I fixed on a place on the left side, just betwixt the sleeve of it and the breast of it, where I’d lief lay my head, and I said—

“Ah. I’ve thought of mine.”

“Oh! Well, what is it?”

“I said as I’d thought of it, Mister Woodseaves. But my thoughts be my own.”

He laughed. Then he says—

“You can write a dommed good letter, Prue.”

“They were Gideon’s letters.”

“I take it very kind in Sarn to tell me to change my stockings when they be wet. It inna often you find a man as thinks of such things, and Sarn least of all, I’d have said.”

He let me have the full light of his eyes, and I hung my head and found nothing to answer.

“And the sewing work, and the damson cheese and the pickle at half market price, well, I tell you, it fairly bowled me over, for I’d heard Sarn was a hard man, very near in a bargain, asking nothing and giving nothing. And then for him to offer me those victuals! I must have misjudged the chap cruel.”

But by this I’d remembered that the stockings were in the letter I wrote for Jancis after she ran away. So I said, it was Jancis mentioned stockings.

“Oh, yes, so it was!” he says. “I liked that letter. A very nice girl, that. For whoever wrote the letter, she made it up, of course!”

He looked at me again, and I found nought to say.

“ ‘I be more choice of him I love than of all else in the world beside!’ That’s a woman worth summat to a fellow,” he went on. “And, ‘I love him past telling, and shall to the end.’ And in especial that about, ‘spend my life any time very willing, and die for you by bite of dog or any way, my dear.’ I liked that. But when I come to think of it, ’twas Sarn said that to Jancis Beguildy. What a lover the man must be. You must be main fond of him, Prue Sarn.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, all in a flush, “I be.”

“Indeed yes, and only what you should be. Good feeling he has too, about the choice of texts, and Jancis the same. For that text, ‘The Maister be come,’ was in the letter Jancis wrote to me, as well as in the one Sarn wrote to Jancis.”

“Only natural,” I said.

“I’m coming to Sarn’s love-carriage, and I’ll be bound to thank him for his kind thoughts about the sewing and the damson cheese and the pickle,” he said.

“Oh, dunna!” I cried out, knowing how angry Gideon would be.

“There’s a grudging girl,” he says, “not wanting her brother to be thanked.”

He had a look of satisfaction on his face, as if he’d found out what he wanted to know.

“Well, it’s no use ifting and anding any more,” he says. “You wrote the letters, and you made ’em up. And all I can say is, the chap you were thinking of when you said the things you did say is a lucky chap, whoever he is.”

“I hanna got an acquaintance.”

“Dear me! That’s pity, to my mind. But anyway, you’ve got a friend. You write in your book, when you go back, that Kester Woodseaves is your friend till Time stops.”

I thanked him very kindly for that, and then he said, should we go and look for some more dragon-flies coming out of their shrouds? So we did, and had a tidy bit of talk, one way or another, about this and that. We watched the dragon-flies take off from the tops of the rushes, and we saw the water simmering in its troubling, and the lilies looking at their angels.

But it was a long time before I remembered to say, how did he know about my book that I wrote in? For it seemed I couldna remember anything very well when he was by.

“Well,” he says, “maybe a bird told me. Or an old ancient woman like a little bird.”

“But how did you get to know all the other things you do seem to know about me?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s a tuthree people know you, Prue. And there’s few know you and dunna love you. And I expect I’ve been leasing in their hearts a bit. And I think there’s not much that I dunna know about you, Prue.”

There was rest in that saying. And oh, the summer in his voice, then and always! I forgot the time and all. Yes, indeed to goodness, I forgot milking time! But when I saw the light of evening long upon the mere, and heard the evening breezes lifting up the leaves in the forest, I turned to go. Then he said—

“There’s a thing I’m bound to ask you.”

He stood looking straight into my eyes, for we were almost of a height, though he was a little the taller.

“What for did you do all you did for me that day at the baiting?” he said. “What for did you stand above me with the knife, and run to Lullingford and all, to save me?”

There was a deep silence, with only the lifting of the summer boughs, the lapping of the quiet water. How was I to answer? Yet he would have an answer, I could see.

Then I thought, seeing the lilies looking at their angels, how I’d called myself Kester’s angel at the baiting.

“Why, it was only that I was your angel for that day,” I said at long last. “A poor daggly angel too.”

“If you’re ever wanting an angel’s situation, you can send to me for a written character,” he said, and though his words were merry, his eyes were as grave as grave could be. And then, as we said good night and I turned home, he called out after me—“Not so daggly, neither!”

And I could hear him laughing in the wood.