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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/556-0.txt b/556-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..727d1bb --- /dev/null +++ b/556-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9118 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rewards and Fairies + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Release Date: June, 1996 [Etext #556] +Posting Date: November 28, 2009 +Last Updated: October 7, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jo Churcher + + + + + +REWARDS AND FAIRIES + +By Rudyard Kipling + + + +Contents + + A Charm + Introduction + Cold Iron + Cold Iron + Gloriana + The Two Cousins + The Looking-Glass + The Wrong Thing + A Truthful Song + King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + Marklake Witches + The Way through the Woods + Brookland Road + The Knife and the Naked Chalk + The Run of the Downs + Song of the Men’s Side + Brother Square-Toes + Philadelphia + If-- + Rs + ‘A Priest in Spite of Himself’ + A St Helena Lullaby + ‘Poor Honest Men’ + The Conversion of St Wilfrid + Eddi’s Service + Song of the Red War-Boat + A Doctor of Medicine + An Astrologer’s Song + ‘Our Fathers of Old’ + Simple Simon + The Thousandth Man + Frankie’s Trade + The Tree of Justice + The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + A Carol + + + + +A Charm + + + Take of English earth as much + As either hand may rightly clutch. + In the taking of it breathe + Prayer for all who lie beneath-- + Not the great nor well-bespoke, + But the mere uncounted folk + Of whose life and death is none + Report or lamentation. + Lay that earth upon thy heart, + And thy sickness shall depart! + + It shall sweeten and make whole + Fevered breath and festered soul; + It shall mightily restrain + Over-busy hand and brain; + it shall ease thy mortal strife + ‘Gainst the immortal woe of life, + Till thyself restored shall prove + By what grace the Heavens do move. + + Take of English flowers these-- + Spring’s full-faced primroses, + Summer’s wild wide-hearted rose, + Autumn’s wall-flower of the close, + And, thy darkness to illume, + Winter’s bee-thronged ivy-bloom. + Seek and serve them where they bide + From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, + For these simples used aright + Shall restore a failing sight. + + These shall cleanse and purify + Webbed and inward-turning eye; + These shall show thee treasure hid, + Thy familiar fields amid, + At thy threshold, on thy hearth, + Or about thy daily path; + And reveal (which is thy need) + Every man a King indeed! + + + + +Introduction + + +Once upon a time, Dan and Una, brother and sister, living in the English +country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow, +alias Nick o’ Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, the last survivor +in England of those whom mortals call Fairies. Their proper name, of +course, is ‘The People of the Hills’. This Puck, by means of the magic +of Oak, Ash, and Thorn, gave the children power + + To see what they should see and hear what they should hear, + Though it should have happened three thousand year. + +The result was that from time to time, and in different places on the +farm and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and talked to +some rather interesting people. One of these, for instance, was a Knight +of the Norman Conquest, another a young Centurion of a Roman Legion +stationed in England, another a builder and decorator of King Henry +VII’s time; and so on and so forth; as I have tried to explain in a book +called PUCK OF POOK’S HILL. + +A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and though they +were then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly instead of going +barefooted when they got the chance, Puck was as kind to them as ever, +and introduced them to more people of the old days. + +He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their walks and +conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not interfere; and Dan +and Una would find the strangest sort of persons in their gardens or +woods. + +In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about those +people. + + + + +COLD IRON + + +When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not +remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the +otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; +and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of +the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. +Dan took a few steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his +black footprints. + +‘I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,’ he said. ‘They’ll get +horrid wet.’ + +It was their first summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took +them off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over +the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in +the East. The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of +the night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of +otter’s footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between +the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds shouted with +surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a smear, as though a +log had been dragged along. + +They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the +Forge, round Hobden’s garden, and then up the slope till it ran out +on the short turf and fern of Pook’s Hill, and they heard the +cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them. + +‘No use!’ said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. ‘The dew’s drying +off, and old Hobden says otters’ll travel for miles.’ + +‘I’m sure we’ve travelled miles.’ Una fanned herself with her hat. ‘How +still it is! It’s going to be a regular roaster.’ She looked down the +valley, where no chimney yet smoked. + +‘Hobden’s up!’ Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. ‘What +d’you suppose he has for breakfast?’ ‘One of them. He says they eat good +all times of the year,’ Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants +going down to the brook for a drink. + +A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped, +and trotted off. + +‘Ah, Mus’ Reynolds--Mus’ Reynolds’--Dan was quoting from old +Hobden,--‘if I knowed all you knowed, I’d know something.’ [See ‘The +Winged Hats’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] + +I say,’--Una lowered her voice--‘you know that funny feeling of things +having happened before. I felt it when you said “Mus’ Reynolds.”’ + +‘So did I,’ Dan began. ‘What is it?’ + +They faced each other, stammering with excitement. + +‘Wait a shake! I’ll remember in a minute. Wasn’t it something about a +fox--last year? Oh, I nearly had it then!’ Dan cried. + +‘Be quiet!’ said Una, prancing excitedly. ‘There was something happened +before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills--the play at the +theatre--see what you see--’ + +‘I remember now,’ Dan shouted. ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your +face--Pook’s Hill--Puck’s Hill--Puck!’ + +‘I remember, too,’ said Una. ‘And it’s Midsummer Day again!’ The young +fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped +rush. + +‘Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here’s a happy meeting,’ said he. They +shook hands all round, and asked questions. + +‘You’ve wintered well,’ he said after a while, and looked them up and +down. ‘Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.’ + +‘They’ve put us into boots,’ said Una. ‘Look at my feet--they’re all +pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.’ + +‘Yes--boots make a difference.’ Puck wriggled his brown, square, hairy +foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the next. + +‘I could do that--last year,’ Dan said dismally, as he tried and failed. +‘And boots simply ruin one’s climbing.’ + +‘There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,’said Puck, or folk +wouldn’t wear them. Shall we come this way?’ They sauntered along side +by side till they reached the gate at the far end of the hillside. Here +they halted just like cattle, and let the sun warm their backs while +they listened to the flies in the wood. + +‘Little Lindens is awake,’ said Una, as she hung with her chin on the +top rail. ‘See the chimney smoke?’ + +‘Today’s Thursday, isn’t it?’ Puck turned to look at the old pink +farmhouse across the little valley. ‘Mrs Vincey’s baking day. Bread +should rise well this weather.’ He yawned, and that set them both +yawning. + +The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. They +felt that little crowds were stealing past. + +‘Doesn’t that sound like--er--the People of the Hills?’ said Una. + +‘It’s the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before people +get about,’ said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper. + +‘Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.’ + +‘As I remember ‘em, the People of the Hills used to make more noise. +They’d settle down for the day rather like small birds settling down for +the night. But that was in the days when they carried the high hand. Oh, +me! The deeds that I’ve had act and part in, you’d scarcely believe!’ + +‘I like that!’ said Dan. ‘After all you told us last year, too!’ + +‘Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget everything,’ said +Una. + +Puck laughed and shook his head. ‘I shall this year, too. I’ve given you +seizin of Old England, and I’ve taken away your Doubt and Fear, but your +memory and remembrance between whiles I’ll keep where old Billy Trott +kept his night-lines--and that’s where he could draw ‘em up and hide ‘em +at need. Does that suit?’ He twinkled mischievously. + +‘It’s got to suit,’ said Una, and laughed. ‘We Can’t magic back at you.’ +She folded her arms and leaned against the gate. ‘Suppose, now, you +wanted to magic me into something--an otter? Could you?’ + +‘Not with those boots round your neck.’ ‘I’ll take them off.’ She threw +them on the turf. Dan’s followed immediately. ‘Now!’ she said. + +‘Less than ever now you’ve trusted me. Where there’s true faith, there’s +no call for magic.’ Puck’s slow smile broadened all over his face. + +‘But what have boots to do with it?’ said Una, perching on the gate. + +‘There’s Cold Iron in them,’ said Puck, and settled beside her. ‘Nails +in the soles, I mean. It makes a difference.’ + +‘How?’ ‘Can’t you feel it does? You wouldn’t like to go back to bare +feet again, same as last year, would you? Not really?’ + +‘No-o. I suppose I shouldn’t--not for always. I’m growing up, you know,’ +said Una. + +‘But you told us last year, in the Long Slip--at the theatre--that you +didn’t mind Cold Iron,’ said Dan. + +‘I don’t; but folks in housen, as the People of the Hills call them, +must be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near side of +Cold Iron--there’s iron ‘in every man’s house, isn’t there? They handle +Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune’s made or spoilt +by Cold Iron in some shape or other. That’s how it goes with Flesh and +Blood, and one can’t prevent it.’ + +‘I don’t quite see. How do you mean?’ said Dan. + +‘It would take me some time to tell you.’ + +‘Oh, it’s ever so long to breakfast,’ said Dan. ‘We looked in the +larder before we came out.’ He unpocketed one big hunk of bread and Una +another, which they shared with Puck. + +‘That’s Little Lindens’ baking,’ he said, as his white teeth sunk in +it. ‘I know Mrs Vincey’s hand.’ He ate with a slow sideways thrust and +grind, just like old Hobden, and, like Hobden, hardly dropped a crumb. +The sun flashed on Little Lindens’ windows, and the cloudless sky grew +stiller and hotter in the valley. + +‘AH--Cold Iron,’ he said at last to the impatient children. ‘Folk in +housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold Iron. +They’ll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to put it +over the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the Hills slip +in, find the cradle-babe in the corner, and--’ + +‘Oh, I know. Steal it and leave a changeling,’ Una cried. + +‘No,’ said Puck firmly. ‘All that talk of changelings is people’s excuse +for their own neglect. Never believe ‘em. I’d whip ‘em at the cart-tail +through three parishes if I had my way.’ + +‘But they don’t do it now,’ said Una. + +‘Whip, or neglect children? Umm! Some folks and some fields never alter. +But the People of the Hills didn’t work any changeling tricks. +They’d tiptoe in and whisper and weave round the cradle-babe in the +chimney-corner--a fag-end of a charm here, or half a spell there--like +kettles singing; but when the babe’s mind came to bud out afterwards, +it would act differently from other people in its station. That’s no +advantage to man or maid. So I wouldn’t allow it with my folks’ babies +here. I told Sir Huon so once.’ + +‘Who was Sir Huon?’ Dan asked, and Puck turned on him in quiet +astonishment. + +‘Sir Huon of Bordeaux--he succeeded King Oberon. He had been a bold +knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a long while back. +Have you ever heard “How many miles to Babylon?”?’ + +‘Of course,’ said Dan, flushing. + +‘Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But about tricks +on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, on just such a +morning as this: “If you crave to act and influence on folk in housen, +which I know is your desire, why don’t you take some human cradle-babe +by fair dealing, and bring him up among yourselves on the far side +of Cold Iron--as Oberon did in time past? Then you could make him a +splendid fortune, and send him out into the world.” + +‘“Time past is past time,” says Sir Huon. “I doubt if we could do it. +For one thing, the babe would have to be taken without wronging man, +woman, or child. For another, he’d have to be born on the far side of +Cold Iron--in some house where no Cold Iron ever stood; and for yet the +third, he’d have to be kept from Cold Iron all his days till we let +him find his fortune. No, it’s not easy,” he said, and he rode off, +thinking. You see, Sir Huon had been a man once. ‘I happened to attend +Lewes Market next Woden’s Day even, and watched the slaves being sold +there--same as pigs are sold at Robertsbridge Market nowadays. Only, +the pigs have rings on their noses, and the slaves had rings round their +necks.’ + +‘What sort of rings?’ said Dan. + +‘A ring of Cold Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just like +a quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave’s neck. They +used to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, and ship +them to all parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. But, as I was +saying, there was a farmer out of the Weald who had bought a woman with +a babe in her arms, and he didn’t want any encumbrances to her driving +his beasts home for him.’ + +‘Beast himself!’ said Una, and kicked her bare heel on the gate. + +‘So he blamed the auctioneer. “It’s none o’ my baby,” the wench puts in. +“I took it off a woman in our gang who died on Terrible Down yesterday.” + “I’ll take it off to the church then,” says the farmer. “Mother +Church’ll make a monk of it, and we’ll step along home.” + +‘It was dusk then. He slipped down to St Pancras’ Church, and laid the +babe at the cold chapel door. I breathed on the back of his stooping +neck--and--I’ve heard he never could be warm at any fire afterwards. I +should have been surprised if he could! Then I whipped up the babe, and +came flying home here like a bat to his belfry. + +‘On the dewy break of morning of Thor’s own day--just such a day as +this--I laid the babe outside the Hill here, and the People flocked up +and wondered at the sight. + +‘“You’ve brought him, then?” Sir Huon said, staring like any mortal man. + +‘“Yes, and he’s brought his mouth with him, too,” I said. The babe was +crying loud for his breakfast. + +‘“What is he?” says Sir Huon, when the womenfolk had drawn him under to +feed him. + +‘“Full Moon and Morning Star may know,” I says. “I don’t. By what I +could make out of him in the moonlight, he’s without brand or blemish. +I’ll answer for it that he’s born on the far side of Cold Iron, for he +was born under a shaw on Terrible Down, and I’ve wronged neither man, +woman, nor child in taking him, for he is the son of a dead slave-woman.” + +‘“All to the good, Robin,” Sir Huon said. “He’ll be the less anxious to +leave us. Oh, we’ll give him a splendid fortune, and we shall act and +influence on folk in housen as we have always craved.” His Lady came up +then, and drew him under to watch the babe’s wonderful doings.’ ‘Who was +his Lady?’ said Dan. ‘The Lady Esclairmonde. She had been a woman once, +till she followed Sir Huon across the fern, as we say. Babies are no +special treat to me--I’ve watched too many of them--so I stayed on the +Hill. Presently I heard hammering down at the Forge there.’Puck pointed +towards Hobden’s cottage. ‘It was too early for any workmen, but it +passed through my mind that the breaking day was Thor’s own day. A slow +north-east wind blew up and set the oaks sawing and fretting in a way I +remembered; so I slipped over to see what I could see.’ + +‘And what did you see?’ ‘A smith forging something or other out of Cold +Iron. When it was finished, he weighed it in his hand (his back was +towards me), and tossed it from him a longish quoit-throw down the +valley. I saw Cold Iron flash in the sun, but I couldn’t quite make out +where it fell. That didn’t trouble me. I knew it would be found sooner +or later by someone.’ + +‘How did you know?’ Dan went on. + +‘Because I knew the Smith that made it,’ said Puck quietly. + +‘Wayland Smith?’ Una suggested. [See ‘Weland’s Sword’ in PUCK OF POOK’S +HILL.] + +‘No. I should have passed the time o’ day with Wayland Smith, of course. +This other was different. So’--Puck made a queer crescent in the air +with his finger--‘I counted the blades of grass under my nose till the +wind dropped and he had gone--he and his Hammer.’ + +‘Was it Thor then?’ Una murmured under her breath. + +‘Who else? It was Thor’s own day.’ Puck repeated the sign. ‘I didn’t +tell Sir Huon or his Lady what I’d seen. Borrow trouble for yourself if +that’s your nature, but don’t lend it to your neighbours. Moreover, +I might have been mistaken about the Smith’s work. He might have been +making things for mere amusement, though it wasn’t like him, or he might +have thrown away an old piece of made iron. One can never be sure. So I +held my tongue and enjoyed the babe. He was a wonderful child--and the +People of the Hills were so set on him, they wouldn’t have believed me. +He took to me wonderfully. As soon as he could walk he’d putter forth +with me all about my Hill here. Fern makes soft falling! He knew when +day broke on earth above, for he’d thump, thump, thump, like an old +buck-rabbit in a bury, and I’d hear him say “Opy!” till some one who +knew the Charm let him out, and then it would be “Robin! Robin!” all +round Robin Hood’s barn, as we say, till he’d found me.’ + +‘The dear!’ said Una. ‘I’d like to have seen him!’ ‘Yes, he was a boy. +And when it came to learning his words--spells and such-like--he’d sit +on the Hill in the long shadows, worrying out bits of charms to try on +passersby. And when the bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for +pure love’s sake (like everything else on my Hill), he’d shout, “Robin! +Look--see! Look, see, Robin!” and sputter out some spell or other that +they had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn’t the heart to +tell him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the +wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast spells for +sure, as we say, he took more and more notice of things and people in +the world. People, of course, always drew him, for he was mortal all +through. + +‘Seeing that he was free to move among folk in housen, under or over +Cold Iron, I used to take him along with me, night-walking, where he +could watch folk, and I could keep him from touching Cold Iron. That +wasn’t so difficult as it sounds, because there are plenty of things +besides Cold Iron in housen to catch a boy’s fancy. He was a handful, +though! I shan’t forget when I took him to Little Lindens--his first +night under a roof. The smell of the rushlights and the bacon on the +beams--they were stuffing a feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm +night--got into his head. Before I could stop him--we were hiding in +the bakehouse--he’d whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights +and voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl +overset a hive there, and--of course he didn’t know till then such +things could touch him--he got badly stung, and came home with his face +looking like kidney potatoes! ‘You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and +Lady Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was never to +be trusted with me night-walking any more--and he took about as much +notice of their order as he did of the bee-stings. Night after night, +as soon as it was dark, I’d pick up his whistle in the wet fern, and +off we’d flit together among folk in housen till break of day--he asking +questions, and I answering according to my knowledge. Then we fell into +mischief again!’ Puck shook till the gate rattled. + +‘We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his wife with +a bat in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over his own +woodlump when the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him. Of course the +woman took her husband’s part, and while the man beat him, the woman +scratted his face. It wasn’t till I danced among the cabbages like +Brightling Beacon all ablaze that they gave up and ran indoors. The +Boy’s fine green-and-gold clothes were torn all to pieces, and he had +been welted in twenty places with the man’s bat, and scratted by the +woman’s nails to pieces. He looked like a Robertsbridge hopper on a +Monday morning. + +‘“Robin,” said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a bunch of +hay, “I don’t quite understand folk in housen. I went to help that old +woman, and she hit me, Robin!” + +‘“What else did you expect?” I said. “That was the one time when you +might have worked one of your charms, instead of running into three +times your weight.” + +‘“I didn’t think,” he says. “But I caught the man one on the head that +was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?” + +‘“Mind your nose,” I said. “Bleed it on a dockleaf--not your sleeve, for +pity’s sake.” I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde would say. + +‘He didn’t care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, and the +front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, looked like +ancient sacrifices. + +‘Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The Boy could +do nothing wrong, in their eyes. + +‘“You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in housen, when +you’re ready to let him go,” I said. “Now he’s begun to do it, why do +you cry shame on me? That’s no shame. It’s his nature drawing him to his +kind.” + +‘“But we don’t want him to begin that way,” the Lady Esclairmonde +said. “We intend a splendid fortune for him--not your flitter-by-night, +hedge-jumping, gipsy-work.” + +‘“I don’t blame you, Robin,” says Sir Huon, “but I do think you might +look after the Boy more closely.” + +‘“I’ve kept him away from Cold Iron these sixteen years,” I said. “You +know as well as I do, the first time he touches Cold Iron he’ll find +his own fortune, in spite of everything you intend for him. You owe me +something for that.” + +‘Sir Huon, having been a man, was going to allow me the right of it, but +the Lady Esclairmonde, being the Mother of all Mothers, over-persuaded +him. + +‘“We’re very grateful,” Sir Huon said, “but we think that just for the +present you are about too much with him on the Hill.” + +‘“Though you have said it,” I said, “I will give you a second chance.” + I did not like being called to account for my doings on my own Hill. I +wouldn’t have stood it even that far except I loved the Boy. + +‘“No! No!” says the Lady Esclairmonde. “He’s never any trouble when he’s +left to me and himself. It’s your fault.” + +‘“You have said it,” I answered. “Hear me! From now on till the Boy has +found his fortune, whatever that may be, I vow to you all on my Hill, by +Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, and by the Hammer of Asa Thor”--again Puck made +that curious double-cut in the air--‘“that you may leave me out of +all your counts and reckonings.” Then I went out’--he snapped his +fingers--‘like the puff of a candle, and though they called and cried, +they made nothing by it. I didn’t promise not to keep an eye on the Boy, +though. I watched him close--close--close! + +‘When he found what his people had forced me to do, he gave them a piece +of his mind, but they all kissed and cried round him, and being only +a boy, he came over to their way of thinking (I don’t blame him), and +called himself unkind and ungrateful; and it all ended in fresh shows +and plays, and magics to distract him from folk in housen. Dear heart +alive! How he used to call and call on me, and I couldn’t answer, or +even let him know that I was near!’ + +‘Not even once?’ said Una. ‘If he was very lonely?’ ‘No, he couldn’t,’ +said Dan, who had been thinking. ‘Didn’t you swear by the Hammer of Thor +that you wouldn’t, Puck?’ + +‘By that Hammer!’ was the deep rumbled reply. Then he came back to his +soft speaking voice. ‘And the Boy was lonely, when he couldn’t see me +any more. He began to try to learn all learning (he had good teachers), +but I saw him lift his eyes from the big black books towards folk in +housen all the time. He studied song-making (good teachers he had too!), +but he sang those songs with his back toward the Hill, and his face +toward folk. I know! I have sat and grieved over him grieving within a +rabbit’s jump of him. Then he studied the High, Low, and Middle Magic. +He had promised the Lady Esclairmonde he would never go near folk in +housen; so he had to make shows and shadows for his mind to chew on.’ +‘What sort of shows?’ said Dan. + +‘Just boy’s Magic as we say. I’ll show you some, some time. It pleased +him for the while, and it didn’t hurt any one in particular except a few +men coming home late from the taverns. But I knew what it was a sign of, +and I followed him like a weasel follows a rabbit. As good a boy as ever +lived! I’ve seen him with Sir Huon and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping +just as they stepped to avoid the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or +walking wide of some old ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or +spade there; and all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk +in housen all the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine +fortune for him--but they could never find it in their heart to let him +begin. I’ve heard that many warned them, but they wouldn’t be warned. So +it happened as it happened. + +‘One hot night I saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his flaming +discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, and rush on +rush of shadows down the valley till the shaws were full of his hounds +giving tongue, and the woodways were packed with his knights in armour +riding down into the water-mists--all his own Magic, of course. Behind +them you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches +of moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all +turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his +own young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy’s Magic doesn’t +trouble me--or Merlin’s either for that matter. I followed the Boy by +the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I +grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and +forth like a bullock in a strange pasture--sometimes alone--sometimes +waist-deep among his shadow-hounds--sometimes leading his shadow-knights +on a hawk-winged horse to rescue his shadow-girls. I never guessed he +had such Magic at his command; but it’s often that way with boys. + +‘Just when the owl comes home for the second time, I saw Sir Huon and +the Lady ride down my Hill, where there’s not much Magic allowed except +mine. They were very pleased at the Boy’s Magic--the valley flared with +it--and I heard them settling his splendid fortune when they should +find it in their hearts to let him go to act and influence among folk in +housen. Sir Huon was for making him a great King somewhere or other, and +the Lady was for making him a marvellous wise man whom all should praise +for his skill and kindness. She was very kind-hearted. + +‘Of a sudden we saw the flashes of his discontents turned back on the +clouds, and his shadow-hounds stopped baying. + +‘“There’s Magic fighting Magic over yonder,” the Lady Esclairmonde +cried, reigning up. “Who is against him?” + +‘I could have told her, but I did not count it any of my business to +speak of Asa Thor’s comings and goings. + +‘How did you know?’ said Una. + +‘A slow North-East wind blew up, sawing and fretting through the oaks in +a way I remembered. The wildfire roared up, one last time in one sheet, +and snuffed out like a rushlight, and a bucketful of stinging hail fell. +We heard the Boy walking in the Long Slip--where I first met you. + +‘“Here, oh, come here!” said the Lady Esclairmonde, and stretched out +her arms in the dark. + +‘He was coming slowly, but he stumbled in the footpath, being, of +course, mortal man. + +‘“Why, what’s this?” he said to himself. We three heard him. + +‘“Hold, lad, hold! ‘Ware Cold Iron!” said Sir Huon, and they two swept +down like nightjars, crying as they rode. + +‘I ran at their stirrups, but it was too late. We felt that the Boy +had touched Cold Iron somewhere in the dark, for the Horses of the Hill +shied off, and whipped round, snorting. + +‘Then I judged it was time for me to show myself in my own shape; so I +did. + +‘“Whatever it is,” I said, “he has taken hold of it. Now we must find +out whatever it is that he has taken hold of, for that will be his +fortune.” + +‘“Come here, Robin,” the Boy shouted, as soon as he heard my voice. “I +don’t know what I’ve hold of.” + +‘“It is in your hands,” I called back. “Tell us if it is hard and cold, +with jewels atop. For that will be a King’s Sceptre.” + +‘“Not by a furrow-long,” he said, and stooped and tugged in the dark. +We heard him. ‘“Has it a handle and two cutting edges?” I called. “For +that’ll be a Knight’s Sword.” + +‘“No, it hasn’t,” he says. “It’s neither ploughshare, whittle, hook, +nor crook, nor aught I’ve yet seen men handle.” By this time he was +scratting in the dirt to prise it up. + +‘“Whatever it is, you know who put it there, Robin,” said Sir Huon to +me, “or you would not ask those questions. You should have told me as +soon as you knew.” + +‘“What could you or I have done against the Smith that made it and laid +it for him to find?” I said, and I whispered Sir Huon what I had seen at +the Forge on Thor’s Day, when the babe was first brought to the Hill. + +‘“Oh, good-bye, our dreams!” said Sir Huon. “It’s neither sceptre, +sword, nor plough! Maybe yet it’s a bookful of learning, bound with iron +clasps. There’s a chance for a splendid fortune in that sometimes.” + +‘But we knew we were only speaking to comfort ourselves, and the Lady +Esclairmonde, having been a woman, said so. + +‘“Thur aie! Thor help us!” the Boy called. “It is round, without end, +Cold Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and there is writing on +the breadth of it.” + +‘“Read the writing if you have the learning,” I called. The darkness had +lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again. + +‘He called back, reading the runes on the iron: + + “Few can see + Further forth + Than when the child + Meets the Cold Iron.” + +And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining +slave-ring round his proud neck. + +‘“Is this how it goes?” he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried. + +‘“That is how it goes,” I said. He hadn’t snapped the catch home yet, +though. + +‘“What fortune does it mean for him?” said Sir Huon, while the Boy +fingered the ring. “You who walk under Cold Iron, you must tell us and +teach us.” + +‘“Tell I can, but teach I cannot,” I said. “The virtue of the Ring is +only that he must go among folk in housen henceforward, doing what they +want done, or what he knows they need, all Old England over. Never will +he be his own master, nor yet ever any man’s. He will get half he gives, +and give twice what he gets, till his life’s last breath; and if he lays +aside his load before he draws that last breath, all his work will go +for naught.” + +‘“Oh, cruel, wicked Thor!” cried the Lady Esclairmonde. “Ah, look see, +all of you! The catch is still open! He hasn’t locked it. He can still +take it off. He can still come back. Come back!” She went as near as +she dared, but she could not lay hands on Cold Iron. The Boy could have +taken it off, yes. We waited to see if he would, but he put up his hand, +and the snap locked home. + +‘“What else could I have done?” said he. + +‘“Surely, then, you will do,” I said. “Morning’s coming, and if you +three have any farewells to make, make them now, for, after sunrise, +Cold Iron must be your master.” ‘So the three sat down, cheek by wet +cheek, telling over their farewells till morning light. As good a boy as +ever lived, he was.’ + +‘And what happened to him?’ asked Dan. + +‘When morning came, Cold Iron was master of him and his fortune, and +he went to work among folk in housen. Presently he came across a maid +like-minded with himself, and they were wedded, and had bushels of +children, as the saying is. Perhaps you’ll meet some of his breed, this +year.’ + +‘Thank you,’ said Una. ‘But what did the poor Lady Esclairmonde do?’ + +‘What can you do when Asa Thor lays the Cold Iron in a lad’s path? She +and Sir Huon were comforted to think they had given the Boy good store +of learning to act and influence on folk in housen. For he was a good +boy! Isn’t it getting on for breakfast-time? I’ll walk with you a +piece.’ + +When they were well in the centre of the bone-dry fern, Dan nudged Una, +who stopped and put on a boot as quickly as she could. ‘Now,’ she said, +‘you can’t get any Oak, Ash, and Thorn leaves from here, and’--she +balanced wildly on one leg--‘I’m standing on Cold Iron. What’ll you do +if we don’t go away?’ + +‘E-eh? Of all mortal impudence!’ said Puck, as Dan, also in one boot, +grabbed his sister’s hand to steady himself. He walked round them, +shaking with delight. ‘You think I can only work with a handful of dead +leaves? This comes of taking away your Doubt and Fear! I’ll show you!’ + + +A minute later they charged into old Hobden at his simple breakfast of +cold roast pheasant, shouting that there was a wasps’ nest in the fern +which they had nearly stepped on, and asking him to come and smoke it +out. ‘It’s too early for wops-nests, an’ I don’t go diggin’ in the Hill, +not for shillin’s,’ said the old man placidly. ‘You’ve a thorn in your +foot, Miss Una. Sit down, and put on your t’other boot. You’re too old +to be caperin’ barefoot on an empty stomach. Stay it with this chicken +o’ mine.’ + + + + +Cold Iron + + + ‘Gold is for the mistress--silver for the maid! + Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.’ + ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall, + ‘But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of them all!’ + + So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, + Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege-- + ‘Nay!’ said the cannoneer on the castle wall, + ‘But Iron--Cold Iron--shall be master of you all!’ + + Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong, + When the cruel cannon-balls laid ‘em all along! + He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall, + And Iron--Cold Iron--was master of it all! + + Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!) + ‘What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?’ + ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, ‘mock not at my fall, + For Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all.’ + + ‘Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown-- + Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.’ + ‘As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small, + For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!’ + + Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!) + ‘Here is Bread and here is Wine--sit and sup with me. + Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall + How Iron--Cold Iron--can be master of men all!’ + + He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread. + With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said: + ‘Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall + Show Iron--Cold Iron--to be master of men all! + + ‘Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong, + Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong. + I forgive thy treason--I redeem thy fall-- + For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!’ + + ‘Crowns are for the valiant--sceptres for the bold! + Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.’ + ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, kneeling in his hall, + ‘But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all! + Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!’ + + + + +GLORIANA + + + +The Two Cousins + + + Valour and Innocence + Have latterly gone hence + To certain death by certain shame attended. + Envy--ah! even to tears!-- + The fortune of their years + Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. + + Scarce had they lifted up + Life’s full and fiery cup, + Than they had set it down untouched before them. + Before their day arose + They beckoned it to close-- + Close in destruction and confusion o’er them. + + They did not stay to ask + What prize should crown their task, + Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for; + But passed into eclipse, + Her kiss upon their lips-- + Even Belphoebe’s, whom they gave their lives for! + + + + +Gloriana + + +Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like +Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom +when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep +it most particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them +every time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old +Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there +without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the +calico and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: ‘Grown-ups +not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.’ + +Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon, +as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving +among the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the +potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam. + +‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said Una. ‘We thought it was people.’ ‘I saw you +were angry--from your legs,’ he answered with a grin. + +‘Well, it’s our own Kingdom--not counting you, of course.’ + +‘That’s rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.’ + +‘What about?’ said Dan cautiously. ‘Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She +knows about Kingdoms.’ + +There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid +everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered +by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look +in the least as if she motored. + +Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best +dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, +deep, slow, billowy one. + +‘Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,’ she said, ‘I can +do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.’ She turned sharply on +staring Dan. ‘What’s in your head, lad? Manners?’ + +‘I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,’ he answered. + +She laughed a rather shrill laugh. ‘You’re a courtier already. Do you +know anything of dances, wench--or Queen, must I say?’ + +‘I’ve had some lessons, but I can’t really dance a bit,’ said Una. + +‘You should learn, then.’ The lady moved forward as though she would +teach her at once. ‘It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies +time to think how she shall win or--lose. A woman can only work in man’s +play-time. Heigho!’ She sat down on the bank. + +Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung +his sorrowful head over the fence. + +‘A pleasant Kingdom,’ said the lady, looking round. ‘Well enclosed. And +how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?’ + +Una did not quite understand. ‘We don’t play that,’ she said. + +‘Play?’ The lady threw up her hands and laughed. + +‘We have it for our own, together,’ Dan explained. + +‘And d’you never quarrel, young Burleigh?’ + +‘Sometimes, but then we don’t tell.’ + +The lady nodded. ‘I’ve no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a +secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! + +But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm’ +small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is +example’--she pointed to Middenboro--‘yonder old horse, with the face of +a Spanish friar--does he never break in?’ + +‘He can’t. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,’ said Una, ‘and we let +Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.’ + +The lady laughed like a man. ‘I see! Hobden catches conies--rabbits--for +himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of +his coney-catching?’ + +‘We never ask,’ said Una. ‘Hobden’s a particular friend of ours.’ +‘Hoity-toity!’ the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. ‘But I forget. +It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this +to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked ‘em +no questions either.’ + +‘Was she trying to grow flowers?’ said Una. + +‘No, trees--perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.’ The lady leaned +her head on her hand. + +‘They do if you don’t look after them. We’ve got a few. Would you like +to see? I’ll fetch you some.’ Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade +behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. ‘Aren’t +they pretty?’ she said. ‘They’re Virginia stock.’ + +‘Virginia?’ said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask. + +‘Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?’ + +‘Not herself--but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or to +plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.’ + +‘And was she?’ said Dan cheerfully. + +‘Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled abroad she +toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.’ + +‘And what was she called?’ + +‘Gloriana--Belphoebe--Elizabeth of England.’ Her voice changed at each +word. + +‘You mean Queen Bess?’ + +The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. ‘You name her lightly +enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?’ said she. + +‘Well, I--I’ve seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall +House--down the road, you know. They’re in a glass case--awfully tiny +things.’ + +‘Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!’ she laughed. ‘You are a courtier too soon.’ + +‘But they are,’ Dan insisted. ‘As little as dolls’ shoes. Did you really +know her well?’ + +‘Well. She was a--woman. I’ve been at her Court all my life. Yes, I +remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. They say she +danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the +price of a pair of old shoes--hey?’ + +She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its broad +flashing buckle. + +‘You’ve heard of Philip of Spain--long-suffering Philip,’ she said, her +eyes still on the shining stones. ‘Faith, what some men will endure at +some women’s hands passes belief! If I had been a man, and a woman had +played with me as Elizabeth played with Philip, I would have--’ She +nipped off one of the Virginia stocks and held it up between finger +and thumb. ‘But for all that’--she began to strip the leaves one by +one--‘they say--and I am persuaded--that Philip loved her.’ She tossed +her head sideways. + +‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Una. + +‘The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!’ She swept the flowers +from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that the wind chased +through the wood. + +‘I should like to know about the shoes,’ said Dan. + +‘So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. ‘Twill be as good +as a play.’ + +‘We’ve never been to a play,’ said Una. + +The lady looked at her and laughed. ‘I’ll make one for you. Watch! You +are to imagine that she--Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth--has gone on a +progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic), +and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village--what was its name?’ +She pushed Puck with her foot. + +‘Norgem,’ he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam. + +‘Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a +Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I’d +made ‘em in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.’ + +‘You whipped?’ said Dan. + +‘Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship, +makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus’--(the +lady yawned)--‘Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and yet +be dog-wearied of ‘em ‘in body and mind--and so sits down’--her skirts +foamed about her as she sat--‘to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here +for her sins she is waited upon by--What were the young cockerels’ names +that served Gloriana at table?’ + +‘Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,’ Puck began. + +She held up her long jewelled hand. ‘Spare the rest! They were the best +blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes +and plates. Wherefore’--she looked funnily over her shoulder--‘you +are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully +expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or +devotion, spatter it with sauces and wines. The gown was Philip’s gift, +too! At this happy juncture a Queen’s messenger, mounted and mired, +spurs up the Rye road and delivers her a letter’--she giggled--‘a letter +from a good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called--Don Philip.’ + +‘That wasn’t Philip, King of Spain?’ Dan asked. + +‘Truly, it was. ‘Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young Burleigh, these +kings and queens are very like men and women, and I’ve heard they write +each other fond, foolish letters that none of their ministers should +open.’ + +‘Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth’s letters?’ said Una. + +‘Faith, yes! But she’d have done as much for theirs, any day. You are +to think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty hand), excusing +herself thus to the company--for the Queen’s time is never her own--and, +while the music strikes up, reading Philip’s letter, as I do.’ She drew +a real letter from her pocket, and held it out almost at arm’s length, +like the old post-mistress in the village when she reads telegrams. + +‘Hm! Hm! Hm! Philip writes as ever most lovingly. He says his Gloriana +is cold, for which reason he burns for her through a fair written page.’ +She turned it with a snap. ‘What’s here? Philip complains that certain +of her gentlemen have fought against his generals in the Low Countries. +He prays her to hang ‘em when they re-enter her realms. (Hm, that’s as +may be.) Here’s a list of burnt shipping slipped between two vows of +burning adoration. Oh, poor Philip! His admirals at sea--no less than +three of ‘em--have been boarded, sacked, and scuttled on their lawful +voyages by certain English mariners (gentlemen, he will not call them), +who are now at large and working more piracies in his American ocean, +which the Pope gave him. (He and the Pope should guard it, then!) Philip +hears, but his devout ears will not credit it, that Gloriana in some +fashion countenances these villains’ misdeeds, shares in their booty, +and--oh, shame!---has even lent them ships royal for their sinful +thefts. Therefore he requires (which is a word Gloriana loves not), +requires that she shall hang ‘em when they return to England, and +afterwards shall account to him for all the goods and gold they have +plundered. A most loving request! If Gloriana will not be Philip’s +bride, she shall be his broker and his butcher! Should she still +be stiff-necked, he writes--see where the pen digged the innocent +paper!---that he hath both the means and the intention to be revenged +on her. Aha! Now we come to the Spaniard in his shirt!’ (She waved +the letter merrily.) ‘Listen here! Philip will prepare for Gloriana a +destruction from the West--a destruction from the West--far exceeding +that which Pedro de Avila wrought upon the Huguenots. And he rests and +remains, kissing her feet and her hands, her slave, her enemy, or her +conqueror, as he shall find that she uses him.’ + +She thrust back the letter under her cloak, and went on acting, but in +a softer voice. ‘All this while--hark to it--the wind blows through +Brickwall Oak, the music plays, and, with the company’s eyes upon her, +the Queen of England must think what this means. She cannot remember the +name of Pedro de Avila, nor what he did to the Huguenots, nor when, nor +where. She can only see darkly some dark motion moving in Philip’s dark +mind, for he hath never written before in this fashion. She must smile +above the letter as though it were good news from her ministers--the +smile that tires the mouth and the poor heart. What shall she do?’ Again +her voice changed. + +‘You are to fancy that the music of a sudden wavers away. Chris Hatton, +Captain of her bodyguard, quits the table all red and ruffled, and +Gloriana’s virgin ear catches the clash of swords at work behind a wall. +The mothers of Sussex look round to count their chicks--I mean those +young gamecocks that waited on her. Two dainty youths have stepped +aside into Brickwall garden with rapier and dagger on a private point of +honour. They are haled out through the gate, disarmed and glaring--the +lively image of a brace of young Cupids transformed into pale, panting +Cains. Ahem! Gloriana beckons awfully--thus! They come up for judgement. +Their lives and estates lie at her mercy whom they have doubly offended, +both as Queen and woman. But la! what will not foolish young men do for +a beautiful maid?’ + +‘Why? What did she do? What had they done?’ said Una. + +‘Hsh! You mar the play! Gloriana had guessed the cause of the trouble. +They were handsome lads. So she frowns a while and tells ‘em not to be +bigger fools than their mothers had made ‘em, and warns ‘em, if they do +not kiss and be friends on the instant, she’ll have Chris Hatton horse +and birch ‘em in the style of the new school at Harrow. (Chris looks +sour at that.) Lastly, because she needed time to think on Philip’s +letter burning in her pocket, she signifies her pleasure to dance with +‘em and teach ‘em better manners. Whereat the revived company call down +Heaven’s blessing on her gracious head; Chris and the others prepare +Brickwall House for a dance; and she walks in the clipped garden between +those two lovely young sinners who are both ready to sink for shame. +They confess their fault. It appears that midway in the banquet the +elder--they were cousins--conceived that the Queen looked upon him with +special favour. The younger, taking the look to himself, after some +words gives the elder the lie. Hence, as she guessed, the duel.’ + +‘And which had she really looked at?’ Dan asked. + +‘Neither--except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the while +they’d spill dishes on her gown. She tells ‘em this, poor chicks--and it +completes their abasement. When they had grilled long enough, she says: +“And so you would have fleshed your maiden swords for me--for me?” + Faith, they would have been at it again if she’d egged ‘em on! but their +swords--oh, prettily they said it!---had been drawn for her once or +twice already. + +‘“And where?” says she. “On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?” + +‘“On my own ship,” says the elder. “My cousin was vice-admiral of our +venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling +children.” + +‘“No, no,” says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. “At +least the Spaniards know us better.” + +‘“Admiral Boy--Vice-Admiral Babe,” says Gloriana, “I cry your pardon. +The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly +than I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break +your Queen’s peace?” ‘“On the sea called the Spanish Main, though ‘tis +no more Spanish than my doublet,” says the elder. Guess how that warmed +Gloriana’s already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be +called Spanish in her private hearing. + +‘“And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid +it? Disclose,” says she. “You stand in some danger of the gallows for +pirates.” + +‘“The axe, most gracious lady,” says the elder, “for we are gentle +born.” He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction. +“Hoity-toity!” says she, and, but that she remembered that she was +Queen, she’d have cuffed the pair of ‘em. “It shall be gallows, hurdle, +and dung-cart if I choose.” + +‘“Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held +her to blame for some small things we did on the seas,” the younger +lisps. + +‘“As for treasure,” says the elder, “we brought back but our bare lives. +We were wrecked on the Gascons’ Graveyard, where our sole company for +three months was the bleached bones of De Avila’s men.” + +‘Gloriana’s mind jumped back to Philip’s last letter. + +‘“De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d’you know of him?” she +says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back +between the yews. + +‘“Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that +coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics--eight hundred +or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De +Avila’s men, and very justly hung ‘em all for murderers--five hundred or +so. No Christians inhabit there now, says the elder lad, though ‘tis a +goodly land north of Florida.” + +‘“How far is it from England?” asks prudent Gloriana. + +‘“With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it again +soon.” This was the younger, and he looked at her out of the corner of +his innocent eye. + +‘Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall Hall, where +she dances--thus. A woman can think while she dances--can think. I’ll +show you. Watch!’ + +She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured satin, +worked over with pearls that trembled like running water in the running +shadows of the trees. Still talking--more to herself than to the +children--she swam into a majestical dance of the stateliest balancings, +the naughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, the most dignified +sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined together by the elaboratest +interlacing steps and circles. They leaned forward breathlessly to watch +the splendid acting. + +‘Would a Spaniard,’ she began, looking on the ground, ‘speak of his +revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who loved a woman +might threaten her ‘in the hope that his threats would make her love +him. Such things have been.’ She moved slowly across a bar of sunlight. +‘A destruction from the West may signify that Philip means to descend on +Ireland. But then my Irish spies would have had some warning. The Irish +keep no secrets. No--it is not Ireland. Now why--why--why’--the red +shoes clicked and paused--‘does Philip name Pedro Melendez de Avila, +a general in his Americas, unless’--she turned more quickly--unless he +intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did he say De Avila +only to put her off her guard, or for this once has his black +pen betrayed his black heart? We’--she raised herself to her full +height--‘England must forestall Master Philip. But not openly,’--she +sank again--‘we cannot fight Spain openly--not yet--not yet.’ She +stepped three paces as though she were pegging down some snare with her +twinkling shoe-buckles. ‘The Queen’s mad gentlemen may fight Philip’s +poor admirals where they find ‘em, but England, Gloriana, Harry’s +daughter, must keep the peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her--as +many men and boys do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help +England?’ + +She raised her head--the masked head that seemed to have nothing to do +with the busy feet--and stared straight at the children. + +‘I think this is rather creepy,’ said Una with a shiver. ‘I wish she’d +stop.’ + +The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking some one +else’s hand in the Grand Chain. + +‘Can a ship go down into the Gascons’ Graveyard and wait there?’ she +asked into the air, and passed on rustling. + +‘She’s pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn’t she?’ said Dan, and +Puck nodded. + +Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw she was +smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her breathing hard. + +‘I cannot lend you any of my ships for the venture; Philip would hear +of it,’ she whispered over her shoulder; ‘but as much guns and powder as +you ask, if you do not ask too--‘Her voice shot up and she stamped her +foot thrice. ‘Louder! Louder, the music in the gallery! Oh, me, but I +have burst out of my shoe!’ + +She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. ‘You will go +at your own charges,’ she whispered straight before her. ‘Oh, enviable +and adorable age of youth!’ Her eyes shone through the mask-holes. ‘But +I warn you you’ll repent it. Put not your trust in princes--or Queens. +Philip’s ships’ll blow you out of water. You’ll not be frightened? Well, +we’ll talk on it again, when I return from Rye, dear lads.’ + +The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on her except +the rush of the shadows. + +‘And so it was finished,’ she said to the children. ‘Why d’you not +applaud?’ + +‘What was finished?’ said Una. + +‘The dance,’ the lady replied offendedly. ‘And a pair of green shoes.’ + +‘I don’t understand a bit,’ said Una. + +‘Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?’ + +‘I’m not quite sure,’ Dan began, ‘but--’ + +‘You never can be--with a woman. But--?’ + +‘But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons’ +Graveyard, wherever that was.’ + +‘’Twas Virginia after-wards. Her plantation of Virginia.’ + +‘Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn’t she say +she’d lend ‘em guns?’ + +‘Right so. But not ships--then.’ + +‘And I thought you meant they must have told her they’d do it off their +own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?’ + +‘Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the +lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye +Royal--knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they +met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through +her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it. + +‘“YOU would not birch them when I gave you the chance,” says she to +Chris. “Now you must get me half an hour’s private speech with ‘em in +Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may +repent!”’ + +‘She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself?’ said Una. + +The lady shook her head. ‘That was never her way. I’ve seen her walk +to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight +there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What +else--what else in England’s name could she have done?’ She lifted her +hand to her throat for a moment. ‘Faith,’ she cried, ‘I’d forgotten +the little green shoes! She left ‘em at Brickwall--so she did. And I +remember she gave the Norgem parson--John Withers, was he?---a text +for his sermon--“Over Edom have I cast out my shoe.” Neat, if he’d +understood!’ + +‘I don’t understand,’ said Una. ‘What about the two cousins?’ + +‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. +I told you I gave ‘em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de +mi!), she asked no more of ‘em at first than to wait a while off that +coast--the Gascons’ Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced +to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only +to watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip +always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a +hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from +England? By my dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none--none!’ +She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a +second. + +‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before +the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ‘em that if Philip +sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), +their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with +submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ‘em again +that there could be only one end to it--quick death on the sea, or slow +death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death +for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ‘em, and +slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical +young men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes +me--ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’ Her chest sounded +like a board as she hit it. ‘She showed ‘em all. I told ‘em that this +was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they +prevailed against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For +England’s sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ‘em so) to +give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle +escaped Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, +they must lie--oh, I told ‘em all--under my sovereign displeasure. She +could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a +finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it. + +‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that +my face was made for the day.) + +‘“Either way--any way--this venture is death, which I know you fear not. +But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried. + +‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the +younger. ‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.” + +‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We +will go!” They knelt at my feet. + +‘“Nay, dear lads--but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and I +kissed them. + +‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old +tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to +Court.” + +‘“Hire whom you please,” says the elder; “we are ruled by you, body and +soul”; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed ‘em, says between +his white lips, “I think you have power to make a god of a man.” + +‘“Come to Court and be sure of’t,” I said. + +‘They shook their heads and I knew--I knew, that go they would. If I had +not kissed them--perhaps I might have prevailed.’ + +‘Then why did you do it?’ said Una. ‘I don’t think you knew really what +you wanted done.’ + +‘May it please your Majesty’--the lady bowed her head low--‘this +Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a +Queen. Remember her when you come to your Kingdom.’ + +‘But--did the cousins go to the Gascons’ Graveyard?’ said Dan, as Una +frowned. + +‘They went,’ said the lady. + +‘Did they ever come back?’ Una began; but--‘Did they stop King Philip’s +fleet?’ Dan interrupted. + +The lady turned to him eagerly. + +‘D’you think they did right to go?’ she asked. + +‘I don’t see what else they could have done,’ Dan replied, after +thinking it over. + +‘D’you think she did right to send ‘em?’ The lady’s voice rose a little. + +‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t see what else she could have done, either--do +you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?’ + +‘There’s the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, +and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what +had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make +you alter your mind, young Burleigh?’ ‘I expect they were drowned, then. +Anyhow, Philip didn’t score, did he?’ + +‘Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won, +would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads’ lives?’ + +‘Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.’ + +The lady coughed. ‘You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen, +I’d make you Minister.’ + +‘We don’t play that game,’ said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady +as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through +Willow Shaw. + +‘Play!’ said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly. +The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash +till Una’s eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on +his knees picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate. + +‘There wasn’t anybody in the Shaw, after all,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you +think you saw someone?’ + +‘I’m most awfully glad there isn’t,’ said Una. Then they went on with +the potato-roast. + + + + +The Looking-Glass + +Queen Bess Was Harry’s daughter! + + The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old, + Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. + Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, + Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was! + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair, + There came Queen Mary’s spirit and it stood behind her chair, + Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways you may pass, + But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!’ + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore, + There came Lord Leicester’s spirit and it scratched upon the door, + Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, + But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!’ + + The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head; + She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said: + ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways though I’ve been, + Yet I am Harry’s daughter and I am England’s Queen!’ + And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was), + And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass + In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass + More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was! + + + + +THE WRONG THING + + + + +A Truthful Song + + + THE BRICKLAYER: + + I tell this tale, which is strictly true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things were made + Things have altered in the building trade. + + A year ago, come the middle o’ March, + We was building flats near the Marble Arch, + When a thin young man with coal-black hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn’t a trick in brick or stone + That this young man hadn’t seen or known; + Nor there wasn’t a tool from trowel to maul + But this young man could use ‘em all! + Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold, + Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold: + ‘Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly say what your name might be?’ + + The young man kindly answered them: + ‘It might be Lot or Methusalem, + Or it might be Moses (a man I hate), + Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great. + + ‘Your glazing is new and your plumbing’s strange, + But other-wise I perceive no change, + And in less than a month, if you do as I bid, + I’d learn you to build me a Pyramid.’ + + THE SAILOR: + + I tell this tale, which is stricter true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things was made + Things have altered in the shipwright’s trade. + + In Blackwall Basin yesterday + A China barque re-fitting lay, + When a fat old man with snow-white hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn’t a knot which the riggers knew + But the old man made it--and better too; + Nor there wasn’t a sheet, or a lift, or a brace, + But the old man knew its lead and place. + + Then up and spake the caulkyers bold, + Which was packing the pump in the after-hold: + ‘Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly tell what your name might be?’ + + The old man kindly answered them: + ‘it might be Japhet, it might be Shem, + Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), + Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark. + + ‘Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange, + But otherwise I perceive no change, + And in less than a week, if she did not ground, + I’d sail this hooker the wide world round!’ + + BOTH: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, etc. + + + + +The Wrong Thing + + +Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the +schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned +him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr Springett’s +yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old Mr +Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and +his yard, which opened off the village street, was always full of +interesting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a +ladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold-planks, tins of paints, +pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here +by the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard +below, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter’s bench near the +loft window. Mr Springett and Dan had always been particular friends, +for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when railways were being +made in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed to +drive dogs in carts. + +One hot, still afternoon--the tar-paper on the roof smelt like +ships--Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner’s +bow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He +said he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any +man, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the +Village Hall at the entrance of the village, which he had finished a few +weeks before. + +‘An’ I don’t mind tellin’ you, Mus’ Dan,’ he said, ‘that the Hall will +be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn’t make ten pounds--no, +nor yet five--out o’ the whole contrac’, but my name’s lettered on the +foundation stone--Ralph Springett, Builder--and the stone she’s bedded +on four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five hundred +years, I’ll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec’ so +when he come down to oversee my work.’ + +‘What did he say?’ Dan was sandpapering the schooner’s port bow. + +‘Nothing. The Hall ain’t more than one of his small jobs for him, but +‘tain’t small to me, an’ my name is cut and lettered, frontin’ the +village street, I do hope an’ pray, for time everlastin’. You’ll want +the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who’s there?’ Mr +Springett turned stiffly in his chair. + +A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan +looked, and saw Hal o’ the Draft’s touzled head beyond them. [See ‘Hal +o’ the Draft’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] + +‘Be you the builder of the Village Hall?’ he asked of Mr Springett. + +‘I be,’ was the answer. ‘But if you want a job--’ + +Hal laughed. ‘No, faith!’ he said. ‘Only the Hall is as good and honest +a piece of work as I’ve ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts, +and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master +mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.’ + +‘Aa--um!’ Mr Springett looked important. ‘I be a bit rusty, but I’ll try +ye!’ + +He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have +pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always +keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat +down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr Springett’s +desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr Springett about +bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on +with his work. He knew Mr Springett was pleased, because he tugged +his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two +men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they +interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal +said something about workmen. + +‘Why, that’s what I always say,’ Mr Springett cried. ‘A man who can only +do one thing, he’s but next-above-fool to the man that can’t do nothin’. +That’s where the Unions make their mistake.’ + +‘My thought to the very dot.’ Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg. +‘I’ve suffered ‘in my time from these same Guilds--Unions, d’you call +‘em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, what +does it come to?’ + +‘Nothin’! You’ve justabout hit it,’ said Mr Springett, and rammed his +hot tobacco with his thumb. + +‘Take the art of wood-carving,’ Hal went on. He reached across the +planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he +wanted something. Mr Springett without a word passed him one of Dan’s +broad chisels. ‘Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and +have a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a’ Heaven’s name take chisel +and maul and let drive at it, say I! You’ll soon find all the mystery, +forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!’ Whack, came the +mallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr +Springett watched like an old raven. + +‘All art is one, man--one!’ said Hal between whacks; ‘and to wait on +another man to finish out--’ + +‘To finish out your work ain’t no sense,’ Mr Springett cut in. ‘That’s +what I’m always sayin’ to the boy here.’ He nodded towards Dan. ‘That’s +what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster’s Mill in Eighteen +hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job +‘thout bringin’ a man from Lunnon. An’ besides, dividin’ work eats up +profits, no bounds.’ + +Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined in till +Dan laughed too. + +‘You handle your tools, I can see,’ said Mr Springett. ‘I reckon, if +you’re any way like me, you’ve found yourself hindered by those--Guilds, +did you call ‘em?---Unions, we say.’ + +‘You may say so!’ Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. ‘This +is a remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons on Magdalen +Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave. +They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.’ + +‘I know them accidents. There’s no way to disprove ‘em. An’ stones ain’t +the only things that slip,’ Mr Springett grunted. Hal went on: + +‘I’ve seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirty +foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break--’ ‘Yes, +natural as nature; an’ lime’ll fly up in a man’s eyes without any breath +o’ wind sometimes,’ said Mr Springett. ‘But who’s to show ‘twasn’t a +accident?’ + +‘Who do these things?’ Dan asked, and straightened his back at the bench +as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter. + +‘Them which don’t wish other men to work no better nor quicker than they +do,’ growled Mr Springett. ‘Don’t pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus’ +Dan. Put a piece o’ rag in the jaws, or you’ll bruise her. More than +that’--he turned towards Hal--‘if a man has his private spite laid up +against you, the Unions give him his excuse for workin’ it off.’ + +‘Well I know it,’ said Hal. + +‘They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer in +Eighteen hundred Sixty-one--down to the wells. He was a Frenchy--a bad +enemy he was.’ ‘I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto. +I met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my +trade-or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he +came to be my singular good friend,’ said Hal as he put down the mallet +and settled himself comfortably. + +‘What might his trade have been--plastering’ Mr Springett asked. + +‘Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco--fresco we call it. Made +pictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the hand in +drawing. He’d take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on his stuff, +and roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and croppy-topped +trees quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. Oh, Benedetto could +draw, but ‘a was a little-minded man, professing to be full of secrets +of colour or plaster--common tricks, all of ‘em--and his one single talk +was how Tom, Dick or Harry had stole this or t’other secret art from +him.’ + +‘I know that sort,’ said Mr Springett. ‘There’s no keeping peace or +making peace with such. An’ they’re mostly born an’ bone idle.’ + +‘True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We two came +to loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a youngster then. Maybe I +spoke my mind about his work.’ + +‘You shouldn’t never do that.’ Mr Springett shook his head. ‘That sort +lay it up against you.’ + +‘True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o’ me, the +man lived to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a plank or a +scaffold. I was mighty glad to be shut of him when he quarrelled with +his Guild foreman, and went off, nose in air, and paints under his arm. +But’--Hal leaned forward--‘if you hate a man or a man hates you--’ + +‘I know. You’re everlastin’ running acrost him,’ Mr Springett +interrupted. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ He leaned out of the window, and shouted +to a carter who was loading a cart with bricks. + +‘Ain’t you no more sense than to heap ‘em up that way?’ he said. ‘Take +an’ throw a hundred of ‘em off. It’s more than the team can compass. +Throw ‘em off, I tell you, and make another trip for what’s left over. +Excuse me, sir. You was sayin’-’ + +‘I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury to +strengthen the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.’ + +‘Now that’s just one of the things I’ve never done. But I mind there was +a cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred Seventy-nine, an’ +I went an’ watched ‘em leadin’ a won’erful fine window in Chichester +Cathedral. I stayed watchin’ till ‘twas time for us to go back. Dunno as +I had two drinks p’raps, all that day.’ + +Hal smiled. ‘At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. He +had painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory--a +noble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.’ + +‘Ah! Jonah an’ his whale. I’ve never been as far as Bury. You’ve worked +about a lot,’ said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the carter below. + +‘No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion that +withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish grey-beard +huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis. +This last, being a dead thing, he’d drawn it as ‘twere to the life. But +fierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his cold +prophecy was disproven--Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children +of Nineveh running to mock him--ah, that was what Benedetto had not +drawn!’ + +‘He better ha’ stuck to his whale, then,’ said Mr Springett. + +‘He’d ha’ done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off the +picture, an’ shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d’ye see?’ + +‘“Tis good,” I said, “but it goes no deeper than the plaster.” + +‘“What?” he said in a whisper. + +‘“Be thy own judge, Benedetto,” I answered. “Does it go deeper than the +plaster?” + +‘He reeled against a piece of dry wall. “No,” he says, “and I know it. +I could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if I +live, I will try, Hal. I will try.” Then he goes away. I pitied him, but +I had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. ‘You was talkin’ so +fast I didn’t understand what you was drivin’ at. I’ve seen men--good +workmen they was--try to do more than they could do, and--and they +couldn’t compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their hearts +like. You was in your right, o’ course, sir, to say what you thought o’ +his work; but if you’ll excuse me, was you in your duty?’ + +‘I was wrong to say it,’ Hal replied. ‘God forgive me--I was young! +He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it all +came evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o’ one +Torrigiano--Torrisany we called him?’ + +‘I can’t say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?’ + +‘No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain as +a peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. More +than that--he could get his best work out of the worst men.’ + +‘Which it’s a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,’ said Mr +Springett. ‘He used to prod ‘em in the back like with a pointing-trowel, +and they did wonders.’ + +I’ve seen our Torrisany lay a ‘prentice down with one buffet and raise +him with another--to make a mason of him. I worked under him at building +a chapel in London--a chapel and a tomb for the King.’ + +‘I never knew kings went to chapel much,’ said Mr Springett. ‘But I +always hold with a man--don’t care who he be--seein’ about his own grave +before he dies. ‘Tidn’t the sort of thing to leave to your family after +the will’s read. I reckon ‘twas a fine vault?’ + +‘None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, as +you’d say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts--England, France, +Italy, the Low Countries--no odds to him so long as they knew their +work, and he drove them like--like pigs at Brightling Fair. He called us +English all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft. +If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great hands +he’d rive it out, and tear it down before us all. “Ah, you pig--you +English pig!” he’d scream in the dumb wretch’s face. “You answer me? You +look at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I +will teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!” But when +his passion had blown out, he’d slip his arm round the man’s neck, and +impart knowledge worth gold. ‘Twould have done your heart good, Mus’ +Springett, to see the two hundred of us masons, jewellers, carvers, +gilders, iron-workers and the rest--all toiling like cock-angels, and +this mad Italian hornet fleeing one to next up and down the chapel. Done +your heart good, it would!’ + +‘I believe you,’ said Mr Springett. ‘In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, I +mind, the railway was bein’ made into Hastin’s. There was two thousand +navvies on it--all young--all strong--an’ I was one of ‘em. Oh, dearie +me! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy workin’ with you?’ + +‘Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He painted +pictures on the chapel ceiling--slung from a chair. Torrigiano made +us promise not to fight till the work should be finished. We were both +master craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I never +went aloft to carve ‘thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning. +We were never far from each other. Benedetto ‘ud sharpen his knife on +his sole while he waited for his plaster to dry--wheet, wheet, wheet. +I’d hear it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we’d nod to +each other friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his +hate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the +models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me +before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I +came out. He was slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.’ + +‘Workin’ himself up to it?’ said Mr Springett. ‘Did he have it in at ye +that night?’ + +‘No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh, +well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of +myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I’--Hal +broke into a laugh--‘I lay there was not much odds ‘twixt me and a +cock-sparrow in his pride.’ + +‘I was pretty middlin’ young once on a time,’ said Mr Springett. + +‘Then ye know that a man can’t drink and dice and dress fine, and keep +company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus’ Springett.’ + +‘I never held much with dressin’ up, but--you’re right! The worst +mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,’ Mr Springett +answered. ‘We’ve all been one sort of fool or t’other. Mus’ Dan, Mus’ +Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you’ll be spluttin’ her stem works +clean out. Can’t ye see the grain of the wood don’t favour a chisel?’ + +‘I’ll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called +Brygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King’s Ships, a little, smooth, +bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin’--a +won’erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o’ me, and asked me to +draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the +bows of one of the King’s Ships--the SOVEREIGN was her name.’ + +‘Was she a man-of-war?’ asked Dan. + +‘She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the +King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did not +know at the time, but she’d been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and +fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour, +all of a heat after supper--one great heaving play of dolphins and a +Neptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his +harp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine +foot deep--painted and gilt.’ + +It must ha’ justabout looked fine,’ said Mr Springett. + +‘That’s the curiosity of it. ‘Twas bad--rank bad. In my conceit I must +needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs, +hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through a +sleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were never far apart, I’ve +told you. + +‘“That is pig’s work,” says our Master. “Swine’s work. You make any more +such things, even after your fine Court suppers, and you shall be sent +away.” + +‘Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. “It is so bad then, Master?” he +says. “What a pity!” + +‘“Yes,” says Torrigiano. “Scarcely you could do things so bad. I will +condescend to show.” + +‘He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it was too bad +for that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in slowly. Then he sets +me to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as he said, the taste +of my naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron’s sweet stuff if you don’t +torture her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reason +and a support for every curve and bar of it. A week at that settled +my stomach handsomely, and the Master let me put the work through the +smithy, where I sweated out more of my foolish pride.’ + +‘Good stuff is good iron,’ said Mr Springett. ‘I done a pair of lodge +gates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.’ + +‘Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my draft of the +ship’s scroll-work, and would not give it back to me to re-draw. He said +‘twould do well enough. Howsoever, my lawful work kept me too busied to +remember him. Body o’ me, but I worked that winter upon the gates and +the bronzes for the tomb as I’d never worked before! I was leaner than +a lath, but I lived--I lived then!’ Hal looked at Mr Springett with his +wise, crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back. + +‘Ouch!’ Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner’s after-deck, +the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his left thumb,--an +ugly, triangular tear. + +‘That came of not steadying your wrist,’ said Hal calmly. ‘Don’t bleed +over the wood. Do your work with your heart’s blood, but no need to let +it show.’ He rose and peered into a corner of the loft. + +Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs from a +rafter. + +‘Clap that on,’ was all he said, ‘and put your handkerchief atop. ‘Twill +cake over in a minute. It don’t hurt now, do it?’ + +‘No,’ said Dan indignantly. ‘You know it has happened lots of times. +I’ll tie it up myself. Go on, sir.’ + +‘And it’ll happen hundreds of times more,’ said Hal with a friendly nod +as he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan’s hand was tied up +properly. Then he said: + +‘One dark December day--too dark to judge colour--we was all sitting and +talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk there), when +Bob Brygandyne bustles in and--“Hal, you’re sent for,” he squeals. I +was at Torrigiano’s feet on a pile of put-locks, as I might be here, +toasting a herring on my knife’s point. ‘Twas the one English thing our +Master liked--salt herring. + +‘“I’m busy, about my art,” I calls. + + +‘“Art?” says Bob. “What’s Art compared to your scroll-work for the +SOVEREIGN? Come.” + +‘“Be sure your sins will find you out,” says Torrigiano. “Go with him +and see.” As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a black +spot when the eyes are tired, sliddering up behind me. + +‘Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a doorway, +up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a little cold +room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except a +table and my draft of the SOVEREIGN’s scrollwork. Here he leaves me. +Presently comes in a dark, long-nosed man in a fur cap. + +‘“Master Harry Dawe?” said he. + +‘“The same,” I says. “Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?” + +‘His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again in a stiff +bar. “He went to the King,” he says. + +‘“All one. Where’s your pleasure with me?” I says, shivering, for it was +mortal cold. + +‘He lays his hand flat on my draft. “Master Dawe,” he says, “do you know +the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked gilding of yours?” + +‘By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of the +King’s Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it worked +out to thirty pounds--carved, gilt, and fitted in place. + +‘“Thirty pounds!” he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. “You +talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None the +less,” he says, “your draft’s a fine piece of work.” + +‘I’d been looking at it ever since I came in, and ‘twas viler even than +I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months, +d’ye see, by my iron work. + +‘“I could do it better now,” I said. The more I studied my squabby +Neptunes the less I liked ‘em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atop +of the unbalanced dolphins. + +‘“I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again,” he says. + +‘“Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he’ll never pay me for +the second. ‘Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it,” I says. + +‘“There’s a woman wishes it to be done quickly,” he says. “We’ll stick +to your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty pounds is thirty pounds. +You must make it less.” + +‘And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit me +between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it back +and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thought +comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, It was quite +honest.’ + +‘They ain’t always,’ says Mr Springett. ‘How did you get out of it?’ + +‘By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I says, +“I’ll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable man. Is the +SOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the high +seas?” + +‘“Oh,” he says quickly, “the King keeps no cats that don’t catch mice. +She must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She’ll be hired to merchants for +the trade. She’ll be out in all shapes o’ weathers. Does that make any +odds?” + +‘“Why, then,” says I, “the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into’ll +claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she’s +meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I’ll porture you a +pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she’s meant for the +open--sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry that +weight on her bows.” + +‘He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip. + +‘“Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?” he says. + +‘“Body o’ me! Ask about!” I says. “Any seaman could tell you ‘tis +true. I’m advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my own +concern.” + +‘“Not altogether “, he says. “It’s some of mine. You’ve saved me thirty +pounds, Master Dawe, and you’ve given me good arguments to use against +a willful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We’ll not +have any scroll-work.” His face shined with pure joy. + +‘“Then see that the thirty pounds you’ve saved on it are honestly paid +the King,” I says, “and keep clear o’ women-folk.” I gathered up my +draft and crumpled it under my arm. “If that’s all you need of me I’ll +be gone,” I says. “I’m pressed.” + +‘He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. “Too pressed to be made +a knight, Sir Harry?” he says, and comes at me smiling, with +three-quarters of a rusty sword. + +‘I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that moment. +I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. + +‘“Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe,” he says, and, in the same breath, “I’m +pressed, too,” and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuck +calf. + +‘It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master +craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King’s +tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d’ye see, +I was made knight, not for anything I’d slaved over, or given my heart +and guts to, but expressedly because I’d saved him thirty pounds and a +tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille--she that had asked for the +ship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding away +my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you’ll see why--I began to grin +to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I +should say--because I’d saved him the money; his smile as though +he’d won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish +expectations that some day he’d honour me as a master craftsman. I +thought of the broken-tipped sword he’d found behind the hangings; the +dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns, +scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and +the bronzes about the stately tomb he’d lie in, and--d’ye see?---the +unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till +I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I +could laugh no more. What else could I have done? + +‘I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his +arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay +on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my +heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my +holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark +crazed for the time. + +‘“Laugh,” he said. “Finish the laughter. I’ll not cut ye short. Tell +me now”--he wrenched at my head--“why the King chose to honour +you,--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now. +I have waited so long.” Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury +Refectory, and what I’d said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which +all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), and +a whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years. + +‘“Ease off your arm a little,” I said. “I cannot die by choking, for I +am just dubbed knight, Benedetto.” + +‘“Tell me, and I’ll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There’s a long +night before ye. Tell,” says he. + +‘So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as well +and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper with +Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was a +craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I’d ever tell top of mortal +earth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the Lodge. All +art’s one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d’ye +see, were catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth’s +vanities foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from a +cathedral scaffolding. I told him what befell, and what I thought of it. +I gave him the King’s very voice at “Master Dawe, you’ve saved me thirty +pounds!”; his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the +badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemish +hangings. Body o’ me, ‘twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I thought, my +last work on earth. + +‘“That is how I was honoured by the King,” I said. “They’ll hang ye for +killing me, Benedetto. And, since you’ve killed in the King’s Palace, +they’ll draw and quarter you; but you’re too mad to care. Grant me, +though, ye never heard a better tale.” ‘He said nothing, but I felt him +shake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, his +left dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on my +shoulder--shaking--shaking! I turned me round. No need to put my foot +on his knife. The man was speechless with laughter--honest craftsman’s +mirth. The first time I’d ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that +cuts off the very breath, while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs? +That was Benedetto’s case. + +‘When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I haled him +out into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it all +over again--waving our hands and wagging our heads--till the watch came +to know if we were drunk. + +‘Benedetto says to ‘em, solemn as an owl: “You have saved me thirty +pounds, Mus’ Dawe,” and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad-drunk--I +because dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he said +afterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up +and carried away by laughter. His very face had changed too. + +‘“Hal,” he cries, “I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, you English, +you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on the dirty sword? +Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with joy. Oh, let us tell the +Master.” + +‘So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other’s necks, and +when we could speak--he thought we’d been fighting--we told the Master. +Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new cold +pavement. Then he knocked our heads together. + +‘“Ah, you English!” he cried. “You are more than pigs. You are English. +Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in the +fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool, +Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King.” + +‘“And I meant to kill Hal,” says Benedetto. “Master, I meant to kill him +because the English King had made him a knight.” + +‘“Ah!” says the Master, shaking his finger. “Benedetto, if you had +killed my Hal, I should have killed you--in the cloister. But you are a +craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, very +slowly--in an hour, if I could spare the time!” That was Torrigiano--the +Master!’ + +Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished. +Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed and +wheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he was +laughing, but it surprised Hal at first. + +‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Mr Springett, ‘but I was thinkin’ of some stables +I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was +stables in blue brick--very particular work. Dunno as they weren’t the +best job which ever I’d done. But the gentleman’s lady--she’d come +from Lunnon, new married--she was all for buildin’ what was called +a haw-haw--what you an’ me ‘ud call a dik--right acrost his park. A +middlin’ big job which I’d have had the contract of, for she spoke to me +in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o’ springs just +where she wanted to dig her ditch, an’ she’d flood the park if she went +on.’ + +‘Were there any springs at all?’ said Hal. + +‘Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain’t there? +But what I said about the springs put her out o’ conceit o’ diggin’ +haw-haws, an’ she took an’ built a white tile dairy instead. But when +I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it ‘thout +even lookin’ at it, and I hadn’t forgotten nothin’, I do assure you. +More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the +library, an’ “Ralph,” he says--he allers called me by name--“Ralph,” he +says, “you’ve saved me a heap of expense an’ trouble this autumn.” I +didn’t say nothin’, o’ course. I knowed he didn’t want any haws-haws +digged acrost his park no more’n I did, but I never said nothin’. No +more he didn’t say nothin’ about my blue-brick stables, which was really +the best an’ honestest piece o’ work I’d done in quite a while. He +give me ten pounds for savin’ him a hem of a deal o’ trouble at home. I +reckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.’ + +Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn’t quite understand what they +thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without +speaking. + +When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his +green-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief. + +‘Bless me, Mus’ Dan, I’ve been asleep,’ he said. ‘An’ I’ve dreamed a +dream which has made me laugh--laugh as I ain’t laughed in a long day. +I can’t remember what ‘twas all about, but they do say that when old +men take to laughin’ in their sleep, they’re middlin’ ripe for the next +world. Have you been workin’ honest, Mus’ Dan?’ + +‘Ra-ather,’ said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. ‘And look +how I’ve cut myself with the small gouge.’ + +‘Ye-es. You want a lump o’ cobwebs to that,’ said Mr Springett. ‘Oh, I +see you’ve put it on already. That’s right, Mus’ Dan.’ + + + + +King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + + Harry our King in England from London town is gone, + And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton. + For there lay the MARY OF THE TOWER, his ship of war so strong, + And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong. + + He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go + (But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show, + In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark; + With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk. + He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide, + And saw the MARY haled into dock, the winter to abide, + With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own; + But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone. + + They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree, + And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea. + But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go, + To maken beds for their own wives and little children also. + + There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck, + Crying: ‘Good felawes, come and see! The ship is nigh a wreck! + For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell, + Alack! it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!’ + + With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch, + While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch; + All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good, + He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud. + + ‘I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, + After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. + Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There’s no clean hands in the trade. + Steal in measure,’ quo’ Brygandyne. ‘There’s measure in all things made!’ + + ‘Gramercy, yeoman!’ said our King. ‘Thy counsel liketh me.’ + And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. + Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, + And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town. + + They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, + And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King’s commands. + But ‘Since ye have made your beds,’ said the King, ‘ye needs must lie + thereon. + For the sake of your wives and little ones--felawes, get you gone!’ + + When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips, + Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships. + ‘Nay, never lift up thy hands to me--there’s no clean hands in the trade. + But steal in measure,’ said Harry our King. ‘There’s measure in all things + made!’ + + God speed the ‘Mary of the Tower,’ the ‘Sovereign’ and ‘Grace Dieu,’ + The ‘Sweepstakes’ and the ‘Mary Fortune,’ and the ‘Henry of Bristol’ too! + All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand, + That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland! + + + + +MARKLAKE WITCHES + + + + +The Way Through the Woods + + + They shut the road through the woods + Seventy years ago. + Weather and rain have undone it again, + And now you would never know + There was once a road through the woods + Before they planted the trees. + It is underneath the coppice and heath, + And the thin anemones. + Only the keeper sees + That, where the ring-dove broods, + And the badgers roll at ease, + There was once a road through the woods. + + Yet, if you enter the woods + Of a summer evening late, + When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools + Where the otter whistles his mate + (They fear not men in the woods + Because they see so few), + You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet + And the swish of a skirt in the dew, + Steadily cantering through + The misty solitudes, + As though they perfectly knew + The old lost road through the woods... + But there is no road through the woods! + + + + +Marklake Witches + + +When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the farmer’s wife +at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey milks in the pasture +in summer, which is different from milking in the shed, because the +cows are not tied up, and until they know you they will not stand still. +After three weeks Una could milk Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry, +without her wrists aching, and then she allowed Dan to look. But milking +did not amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone in the +quiet pastures with quiet-spoken Mrs Vincey. So, evening after evening, +she slipped across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the fern-clump +beside the fallen oak, and went to work, her pail between her knees, and +her head pressed hard into the cow’s flank. As often as not, Mrs Vincey +would be milking cross Pansy at the other end of the pasture, and would +not come near till it was time to strain and pour off. + +Once, in the middle of a milking, Kitty Shorthorn boxed Una’s ear with +her tail. + +‘You old pig!’ said Una, nearly crying, for a cow’s tail can hurt. + +‘Why didn’t you tie it down, child?’ said a voice behind her. + +‘I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off--and this is what +she’s done!’ Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired +girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious +high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar +and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She wore a +yellow velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried a real hunting-crop. +Her cheeks were pale except for two pretty pink patches in the middle, +and she talked with little gasps at the end of her sentences, as though +she had been running. + +‘You don’t milk so badly, child,’ she said, and when she smiled her +teeth showed small and even and pearly. + +‘Can you milk?’ Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard Puck’s +chuckle. + +He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding Kitty Short-horn’s +tail. ‘There isn’t much,’ he said, ‘that Miss Philadelphia doesn’t +know about milk--or, for that matter, butter and eggs. She’s a great +housewife.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Una. ‘I’m sorry I can’t shake hands. Mine are all milky; but +Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.’ ‘Ah! I’m +going to London this summer,’ the girl said, ‘to my aunt in Bloomsbury.’ +She coughed as she began to hum, ‘“Oh, what a town! What a wonderful +metropolis!” + +‘You’ve got a cold,’ said Una. + +‘No. Only my stupid cough. But it’s vastly better than it was last +winter. It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. D’you like +doctors, child?’ + +‘I don’t know any,’ Una replied. ‘But I’m sure I shouldn’t.’ + +‘Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon,’ the girl laughed, for +Una frowned. + +‘I’m not a child, and my name’s Una,’ she said. + +‘Mine’s Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. I’m +Squire Bucksteed’s daughter--over at Marklake yonder.’ She jerked her +little round chin towards the south behind Dallington. ‘Sure-ly you know +Marklake?’ + +‘We went a picnic to Marklake Green once,’ said Una. ‘It’s awfully +pretty. I like all those funny little roads that don’t lead anywhere.’ + +‘They lead over our land,’ said Philadelphia stiffly, ‘and the coach +road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went +to the Assize Ball at Lewes last year.’ She spun round and took a few +dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to her side. + +‘It gives me a stitch,’ she explained. ‘No odds. ‘Twill go away in +London air. That’s the latest French step, child. Rene taught it me. +D’you hate the French, chi--Una?’ + +‘Well, I hate French, of course, but I don’t mind Ma’m’selle. She’s +rather decent. Is Rene your French governess?’ + +Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again. + +‘Oh no! Rene’s a French prisoner--on parole. That means he’s promised +not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman. +He’s only a doctor, so I hope they won’t think him worth exchanging. My +uncle captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, +and he cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that +we couldn’t let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and +so he stays with us. He’s of very old family--a Breton, which is nearly +next door to being a true Briton, my father says--and he wears his hair +clubbed--not powdered. Much more becoming, don’t you think?’ + +‘I don’t know what you’re--’ Una began, but Puck, the other side of +the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking. ‘He’s going to be a +great French physician when the war is over. He makes me bobbins for my +lace-pillow now--he’s very clever with his hands; but he’d doctor our +people on the Green if they would let him. Only our Doctor--Doctor +Break--says he’s an emp--or imp something--worse than imposter. But my +Nurse says--’ + +‘Nurse! You’re ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?’ Una finished +milking, and turned round on her stool as Kitty Shorthorn grazed off. + +‘Because I can’t get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she +says she’ll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone. +She thinks I’m delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you +know. Mad--quite mad, poor Cissie!’ + + +‘Really mad?’ said Una. ‘Or just silly?’ + +‘Crazy, I should say--from the things she does. Her devotion to me is +terribly embarrassing. You know I have all the keys of the Hall except +the brewery and the tenants’ kitchen. I give out all stores and the +linen and plate.’ + +‘How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things.’ + +Ah, it’s a great responsibility, you’ll find, when you come to my +age. Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, and he +actually wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our housekeeper. +I wouldn’t. I hate her. I said, “No, sir. I am Mistress of Marklake Hall +just as long as I live, because I’m never going to be married, and I +shall give out stores and linen till I die!” + +And what did your father say?’ + +‘Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coat-tail. He ran away. +Every one’s afraid of Dad, except me.’ Philadelphia stamped her foot. +‘The idea! If I can’t make my own father happy in his own house, I’d +like to meet the woman that can, and--and--I’d have the living hide off +her!’ + +She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol-shot across +the still pasture. Kitty Shorthorn threw up her head and trotted away. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ Philadelphia said; ‘but it makes me furious. Don’t +you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers and fronts, +who come to dinner and call you “child” in your own chair at your own +table?’ + +‘I don’t always come to dinner, said Una, ‘but I hate being called +“child.” Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things.’ + +Ah, it’s a great responsibility--particularly with that old cat Amoore +looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing +happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you +of, she took three solid silver tablespoons.’ + +‘Took! But isn’t that stealing?’ Una cried. + +‘Hsh!’ said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. ‘All I say is she took +them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says--and +he’s a magistrate-, it wasn’t a legal offence; it was only compounding a +felony. + +‘It sounds awful,’ said Una. + +‘It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and +I’d never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big +house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand +later. “Fetching up in the lee-scuppers,” my uncle calls it. But next +week I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night, +and she said I wasn’t to worry my heart for trifles!’ + +‘Isn’t it like ‘em?’ Una burst out. ‘They see you’re worried over +something that really matters, and they say, “Don’t worry”; as if that +did any good!’ + +‘I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the +spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief +were found, he’d be tried for his life.’ ‘Hanged, do you mean?’ Una said. + +‘They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for +a forty-shilling theft. They transport ‘em into penal servitude at +the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their +natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror. +Then she cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn’t for my life +understand what it was all about,--she cried so. Can you guess, my dear, +what that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it +together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the +Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!’ + +‘Put a charm on you? Why?’ + +‘That’s what I asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know +this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to +London. She was troubled about that, and about my being so thin, and +she told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver +spoons, that he’d charm my cough away and make me plump--“flesh up,” she +said. I couldn’t help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to +put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself +to sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed--I +suppose I can cough in my own room if I please--she said that she’d +killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her +to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.’ + +‘How awful! What did you do, Phil?’ + +‘Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a +new lash on my whip. Oh, I was furious! Witchmaster or no Witchmaster, I +meant to--’ + +Ah! what’s a Witchmaster?’ + +‘A master of witches, of course. I don’t believe there are witches; but +people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours +at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war’s man, and now he +pretends to be a carpenter and joiner--he can make almost anything--but +he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can +cure them after Doctor Break has given them up, and that’s why Doctor +Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts +when I was a child.’ Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate +shiny little nails. ‘It isn’t counted lucky to cross him. He has his +ways of getting even with you, they say. But I wasn’t afraid of Jerry! +I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and +double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, +for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my Troubadour (I wish you +could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out +into the hedge-top. Most undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his +side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn’t +care. “Now, Jerry,” I said, “I’m going to take the hide off you first, +and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why.” + +‘“Oh!” he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. “Then I reckon +you’ve come about old Cissie’s business, my dear.” “I reckon I justabout +have,” I said. “Stand away from these hives. I can’t get at you there.” + “That’s why I be where I be,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Phil, +I don’t hold with bein’ flogged before breakfast, at my time o’ life.” + He’s a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives +that--I know I oughtn’t to--I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at +the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, “Then give +me back what you made poor Cissie steal!” + +‘“Your pore Cissie,” he said. “She’s a hatful o’ trouble. But you shall +have ‘em, Miss Phil. They’re all ready put by for you.” And, would you +believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his +dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff. “Here they be,” he says, +and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I’d come to have my +warts charmed. That’s the worst of people having known you when you were +young. But I preserved my composure. “Jerry,” I said, “what in the world +are we to do? If you’d been caught with these things on you, you’d have +been hanged.” + +‘“I know it,” he said. “But they’re yours now.” + +‘“But you made my Cissie steal them,” I said. + +‘“That I didn’t,” he said. “Your Cissie, she was pickin’ at me an’ +tarrifyin’ me all the long day an’ every day for weeks, to put a charm +on you, Miss Phil, an’ take away your little spitty cough.” + +‘“Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!” I said. “I’m much +obliged to you, but I’m not one of your pigs!” + +‘“Ah! I reckon she’ve been talking to you, then,” he said. “Yes, +she give me no peace, and bein’ tarrified--for I don’t hold with old +women--I laid a task on her which I thought ‘ud silence her. I never +reckoned the old scrattle ‘ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for +your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an’ stole, I tell ye, as +cheerful as a tinker. You might ha’ knocked me down with any one of them +liddle spoons when she brung ‘em in her apron.” + +‘“Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?” I +screamed at him. + +‘“What else for, dearie?” he said. “I don’t stand in need of +hedge-stealings. I’m a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I +won’t trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she’d ha’ stole +the Squire’s big fob-watch, if I’d required her.” + +‘“Then you’re a wicked, wicked old man,” I said, and I was so angry that +I couldn’t help crying, and of course that made me cough. + +‘Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his +cottage--it’s full of foreign curiosities--and he got me something to +eat and drink, and he said he’d be hanged by the neck any day if it +pleased me. He said he’d even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That’s a +great comedown for a Witchmaster, you know. + +‘I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and +said, “The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a +charm for me.” + +‘“Yes, that’s only fair dealings,” he said. “You know the names of the +Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your +open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But +mind you, ‘twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, +right down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, +and let it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There’s virtue for +your cough in those names spoke that way. And I’ll give you something +you can see, moreover. Here’s a stick of maple, which is the warmest +tree in the wood.”’ ‘That’s true,’ Una interrupted. ‘You can feel it +almost as warm as yourself when you touch it.’ + +‘“It’s cut one inch long for your every year,” Jerry said. “That’s +sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, +and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I’ve +said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints.” + +“I haven’t any complaints, Jerry,” I said. “It’s only to please Cissie.” + +‘“I know that as well as you do, dearie,” he said. And--and that was all +that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made +poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting +even with people.’ + +‘I wonder,’ said Una. ‘Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?’ + +‘What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he’s a doctor. +He’s going to be a most famous doctor. That’s why our doctor hates him. +Rene said, “Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing,” and he put up +his eyebrows--like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window +from the carpenter’s shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick +fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the +window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles +properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day, +though he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new +hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state--as a fellow-physician. Jerry +never guessed Rene was making fun of him, and so he told Rene about +the sick people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after +Doctor Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers’ French, of +course, and I had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn’t so +shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like +gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn’t much to do, except +to fiddle about in the carpenter’s shop. He’s like all the French +prisoners--always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at +his cottage, and so--and so--Rene took to being with Jerry much more +than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty when Dad’s away, and +I will not sit with old Amoore--she talks so horridly about every +one--specially about Rene. + +‘I was rude to Rene, I’m afraid; but I was properly served out for it. +One always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects +to the General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the +Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India--he +was Colonel of Dad’s Regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the +Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the +other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, +and I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early +mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old +Amoore nearly cried. + +‘However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the +fish didn’t arrive--it never does--and I wanted Rene to ride to Pevensey +and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he always +used, unless I requested his presence beforehand. I can’t send for Rene +every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don’t you ever do what I +did, child, because it’s in the highest degree unladylike; but--but +one of our Woods runs up to Jerry’s garden, and if you climb--it’s +ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten--there’s an old hollow oak +just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. +Truthfully, I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him +and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I +slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. Rene +had never shown me any of these trumpets.’ + +‘Trumpets? Aren’t you too old for trumpets?’ said Una. + +‘They weren’t real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short-collar, and +Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry’s chest, and put his +ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against Rene’s chest, and +listened while Rene breathed and coughed. I was afraid I would cough +too. + +‘“This hollywood one is the best,” said Jerry. “‘Tis won’erful like +hearin’ a man’s soul whisperin’ in his innards; but unless I’ve a +buzzin’ in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o’ +noises as old Gaffer Macklin--but not quite so loud as young Copper. It +sounds like breakers on a reef--a long way off. Comprenny?” + +‘“Perfectly,” said Rene. “I drive on the breakers. But before I strike, +I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little +trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in +his chest, and what the young Copper also.” + +‘Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the +village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, “You +explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities +to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen +to them through my trumpet--for a little money? No?”--Rene’s as poor as +a church mouse. + +‘“They’d kill you, Mosheur. It’s all I can do to coax ‘em to abide it, +and I’m Jerry Gamm,” said Jerry. He’s very proud of his attainments. + +‘“Then these poor people are alarmed--No?” said Rene. + +‘“They’ve had it in at me for some time back because o’ my tryin’ your +trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they +won’t stand much more. Tom Dunch an’ some of his kidney was drinkin’ +themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an’ +mutterin’s an’ bits o’ red wool an’ black hens is in the way o’ nature +to these fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do ‘em real service is +devil’s work by their estimation. If I was you, I’d go home before they +come.” Jerry spoke quite quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders. + +‘“I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm,” he said. “I have no home.” + +‘Now that was unkind of Rene. He’s often told me that he looked on +England as his home. I suppose it’s French politeness. + +‘“Then we’ll talk o’ something that matters,” said Jerry. “Not to name +no names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own opinion o’ some one +who ain’t old Gaffer Macklin nor young Copper? Is that person better or +worse?” + +‘“Better--for time that is,” said Rene. He meant for the time being, but +I never could teach him some phrases. + +‘“I thought so too,” said Jerry. “But how about time to come?” + +‘Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don’t know how odd a +man looks blowing his nose when you are sitting directly above him. + +‘“I’ve thought that too,” said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I could scarcely +catch. “It don’t make much odds to me, because I’m old. But you’re +young, Mosheur--you’re young,” and he put his hand on Rene’s knee, and +Rene covered it with his hand. I didn’t know they were such friends. + +‘“Thank you, mon ami,” said Rene. “I am much oblige. Let us return to +our trumpet-making. But I forget”--he stood up--“it appears that you +receive this afternoon!” + +‘You can’t see into Gamm’s Lane from the oak, but the gate opened, and +fat little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen +of our people following him, very drunk. + +‘You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully. + +‘“A word with you, Laennec,” said Doctor Break. “Jerry has been +practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they’ve +asked me to be arbiter.” + +‘“Whatever that means, I reckon it’s safer than asking you to be +doctor,” said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed. + +‘“That ain’t right feeling of you, Tom,” Jerry said, “seeing how clever +Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter.” Tom’s wife +had died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor +Break danced with rage. + +‘“This is all beside the mark,” he said. “These good people are willing +to testify that you’ve been impudently prying into God’s secrets by +means of some papistical contrivance which this person”--he pointed +to poor Rene--“has furnished you with. Why, here are the things +themselves!” Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand. + +‘Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying +from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet--they called +it the devil’s ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on +people’s skins, and dried up their lights, and made ‘em spit blood, and +threw ‘em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a +noise. I took advantage of it to cough. + +‘Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry +fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You +ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one +to Rene. + +‘“Wait! Wait!” said Rene. “I will explain to the doctor if he permits.” + He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, “Don’t touch +it, Doctor! Don’t lay a hand to the thing.” + +‘“Come, come!” said Rene. “You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?” + +‘Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry’s pistol, and Rene +followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and +put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked +of la Gloire, and l’Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched +jerry’s pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud. + +‘“Now listen! Now listen!” said Rene. “This will be moneys in your +pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich.” + +‘Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn +an honest living in their own country creeping into decent houses and +taking advantage of gentlemen’s confidence to enrich themselves by base +intrigues. + +‘Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best bows. I knew +he was angry from the way he rolled his “r’s.” + +‘“Ver-r-ry good,” said he. “For that I shall have much pleasure to +kill you now and here. Monsieur Gamm,”--another bow to Jerry--“you will +please lend him your pistol, or he shall have mine. I give you my word I +know not which is best; and if he will choose a second from his friends +over there”--another bow to our drunken yokels at the gate--“we will +commence.” + +‘“That’s fair enough,” said Jerry. “Tom Dunch, you owe it to the Doctor +to be his second. Place your man.” ‘“No,” said Tom. “No mixin’ in +gentry’s quarrels for me.” And he shook his head and went out, and the +others followed him. + +‘“Hold on,” said Jerry. “You’ve forgot what you set out to do up at the +alehouse just now. You was goin’ to search me for witch-marks; you +was goin’ to duck me in the pond; you was goin’ to drag all my bits +o’ sticks out o’ my little cottage here. What’s the matter with you? +Wouldn’t you like to be with your old woman tonight, Tom?” + +‘But they didn’t even look back, much less come. They ran to the village +alehouse like hares. + +‘“No matter for these canaille,” said Rene, buttoning up his coat so +as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad +says--and he’s been out five times. “You shall be his second, Monsieur +Gamm. Give him the pistol.” + +‘Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene +resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the +matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever. + +‘“As for that,” he said, “if you were not the ignorant which you are, +you would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not +for any living man.” + +‘I don’t know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he +spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite +white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat, +and choked him black. + +‘Well, my dear, as if this wasn’t deliciously exciting enough, just +exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of +the hedge say, “What’s this? What’s this, Bucksteed?” and there was my +father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was +Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening +with all my ears. + +‘I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a +start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty +roof--another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall--and then +I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of +bark. Imagine the situation!’ + +‘Oh, I can!’ Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool. + +‘Dad said, “Phil--a--del--phia!” and Sir Arthur Wesley said, “Good Ged” + and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. But Rene was +splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist Doctor Break’s +neckcloth as fast as he’d twisted it, and asked him if he felt better. + +‘“What’s happened? What’s happened?” said Dad. + +‘“A fit!” said Rene. “I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be +alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear +Doctor?” Doctor Break was very good too. He said, “I am vastly obliged, +Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now.” And as he went out of the +gate he told Dad it was a syncope--I think. Then Sir Arthur said, “Quite +right, Bucksteed. Not another word! They are both gentlemen.” And he +took off his cocked hat to Doctor Break and Rene. + +‘But poor Dad wouldn’t let well alone. He kept saying, “Philadelphia, +what does all this mean?” + +‘“Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve only just come down. As far as I could see, +it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure.” That was +quite true--if you’d seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. “Not much +change there, Bucksteed,” he said. “She’s a lady--a thorough lady.” + +‘“Heaven knows she doesn’t look like one,” said poor Dad. “Go home, +Philadelphia.” + +‘So I went home, my dear--don’t laugh so!---right under Sir Arthur’s +nose--a most enormous nose--feeling as though I were twelve years old, +going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!’ + +‘It’s all right,’ said Una. ‘I’m getting on for thirteen. I’ve never +been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been +funny!’ + +‘Funny! If you’d heard Sir Arthur jerking out, “Good Ged, Bucksteed!” + every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, ‘“‘Pon my +honour, Arthur, I can’t account for it!” Oh, how my cheeks tingled when +I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, +the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, +and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left +shoulder. I had poor mother’s lace tucker and her coronet comb.’ + +‘Oh, you lucky!’ Una murmured. ‘And gloves?’ + +‘French kid, my dear’--Philadelphia patted her shoulder--‘and morone +satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice +things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little +curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande +tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at +her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved +of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the +Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where +my little bird’s-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I +looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, “I always send her +to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall.”’ + +‘Oh, how chee--clever of you. What did he say?’ Una cried. ‘He said, +“Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it,” and he toasted +me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir +Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle +in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but +Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party--I suppose +because a lady was present.’ + +‘Of course you were the lady. I wish I’d seen you,’ said Una. + +‘I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and +Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they +told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and +said, “I heard every word of it up in the tree.” You never saw two men +so frightened in your life, and when I said, “What was ‘the subject of +your remarks,’ Rene?” neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed +them unmercifully. They’d seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.’ + +‘But what was the subject of their remarks?’ said Una. + +‘Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh +was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something +unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn’t my triumph. Dad asked me to +play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising +a new song from London--I don’t always live in trees--for weeks; and I +gave it them for a surprise.’ + +‘What was it?’ said Una. ‘Sing it.’ + +‘“I have given my heart to a flower.” Not very difficult fingering, but +r-r-ravishing sentiment.’ + +Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat. + +‘I’ve a deep voice for my age and size,’ she explained. ‘Contralto, you +know, but it ought to be stronger,’ and she began, her face all dark +against the last of the soft pink sunset: + + ‘I have given my heart to a flower, + Though I know it is fading away, + Though I know it will live but an hour + And leave me to mourn its decay! + +‘Isn’t that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse--I wish I had my harp, +dear--goes as low as my register will reach.’She drew in her chin, and +took a deep breath: + + ‘Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, + I charge you be good to my dear! + She is all--she is all that I have, + And the time of our parting is near!’ + +‘Beautiful!’ said Una. ‘And did they like it?’ ‘Like it? They were +overwhelmed--accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn’t seen it, I +shouldn’t have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to +the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn’t endure +it! He’s all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, “Assez, +Mademoiselle! C’est plus fort que moi! Assez!” And Sir Arthur blew his +nose and said, “Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!” While Dad sat with +the tears simply running down his cheeks.’ + +‘And what did Doctor Break do?’ + +‘He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little +fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I +never suspected him of sensibility.’ + +‘Oh, I wish I’d seen! I wish I’d been you,’ said Una, clasping her +hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering +cock-chafer flew smack against Una’s cheek. + +When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that +Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her +strain and pour off. ‘It didn’t matter,’ said Una; ‘I just waited. Is +that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?’ + +‘No,’ said Mrs Vincey, listening. ‘It sounds more like a horse being +galloped middlin’ quick through the woods; but there’s no road there. +I reckon it’s one of Gleason’s colts loose. Shall I see you up to the +house, Miss Una?’ + +‘Gracious, no! thank you. What’s going to hurt me?’ said Una, and she +put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps +that old Hobden kept open for her. + + + + +Brookland Road + + + I was very well pleased with what I knowed, + I reckoned myself no fool-- + Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road + That turned me back to school. + + Low down--low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- + Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + ‘Twas right in the middest of a hot June night, + With thunder duntin’ round, + And I seed her face by the fairy light + That beats from off the ground. + + She only smiled and she never spoke, + She smiled and went away; + But when she’d gone my heart was broke, + And my wits was clean astray. + + Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be-- + Let be, O Brookland bells! + You’ll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea, + Before I wed one else! + + Old Goodman’s farm is rank sea sand, + And was this thousand year; + But it shall turn to rich plough land + Before I change my dear! + + Oh! Fairfield Church is water-bound + From Autumn to the Spring; + But it shall turn to high hill ground + Before my bells do ring! + + Oh! leave me walk on the Brookland Road, + In the thunder and warm rain-- + Oh! leave me look where my love goed + And p’raps I’ll see her again! + Low down--low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- + Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + + + *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?) + + + + +THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK + + + + +The Run of the Downs + + + The Weald is good, the Downs are best-- + I’ll give you the run of ‘em, East to West. + Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, + They were once and they are still. + Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry + Go back as far as sums’ll carry. + Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring, + They have looked on many a thing; + And what those two have missed between ‘em + I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ‘em. + Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down + Knew Old England before the Crown. + Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood + Knew Old England before the Flood. + And when you end on the Hampshire side-- + Butser’s old as Time and Tide. + The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, + You be glad you are Sussex born! + + + + +The Knife and the Naked Chalk + + +The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint +village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from +home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had +known their Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like +their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for +farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. +He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife +made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal +fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney’s sheep-dog’s father, lay at +the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give +a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the +Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did. + +One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street +smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as +usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them +in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the +distances were very distant. + +‘It’s Just like the sea,’ said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade +of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. ‘You see where you’re going, +and--you go there, and there’s nothing between.’ + +Dan slipped off his shoes. ‘When we get home I shall sit in the woods +all day,’ he said. + +‘Whuff!’ said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long +rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone. + +‘Not yet,’ said Dan. ‘Where’s Mr Dudeney? Where’s Master?’ Old Jim +looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked again. + +‘Don’t you give it him,’ Una cried. ‘I’m not going to be left howling in +a desert.’ + +‘Show, boy! Show!’ said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of +your hand. + +Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr +Dudeney’s hat against the sky a long way off. + +‘Right! All right!’ said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone +carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the +old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels +hung bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the +white edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the +heat, and so did Mr Dudeney’s distant head. + +They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves staring into +a horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, whose steep sides were +laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock grazed on the flat at the +bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr Dudeney sat comfortably knitting +on the edge of the slope, his crook between his knees. They told him +what Old Jim had done. + +‘Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The closeter +you be to the turf the more you see things. You look warm-like,’ said Mr +Dudeney. + +‘We be,’ said Una, flopping down. ‘And tired.’ + +‘Set beside o’ me here. The shadow’ll begin to stretch out in a little +while, and a heat-shake o’ wind will come up with it that’ll overlay +your eyes like so much wool.’ + +‘We don’t want to sleep,’ said Una indignantly; but she settled herself +as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade. + +‘O’ course not. You come to talk with me same as your father used. He +didn’t need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.’ + +‘Well, he belonged here,’ said Dan, and laid himself down at length on +the turf. + +‘He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among them messy +trees in the Weald, when he might ha’ stayed here and looked all about +him. There’s no profit to trees. They draw the lightning, and sheep +shelter under ‘em, and so, like as not, you’ll lose a half-score ewes +struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father knew that.’ + +‘Trees aren’t messy.’ Una rose on her elbow. ‘And what about firewood? I +don’t like coal.’ + +‘Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you’ll lie more natural,’ said Mr +Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. ‘Now press your face down and +smell to the turf. That’s Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown +mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, ‘twill cure anything +except broken necks, or hearts. I forget which.’ + +They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft +thymy cushions. + +‘You don’t get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?’ said +Mr Dudeney. + +‘But we’ve water--brooks full of it--where you paddle in hot weather,’ +Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell close to +her eye. + +‘Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep--let alone foot-rot +afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.’ + +‘How’s a dew-pond made?’ said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr +Dudeney explained. + +The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind +whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed +easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after +another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on +their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with +the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, +the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in +the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went +on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept +halfway down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his +back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some +work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least +noise and movement reached them like whispers up a water-Pipe. + +‘That is clever,’ said Puck, leaning over. ‘How truly you shape it!’ + +‘Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!’ The +man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between +Dan and Una--a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the +maker’s hand. + +The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a +snail-shell. + +‘Flint work is fool’s work,’ he said at last. ‘One does it because one +always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast--no good!’ He +shook his shaggy head. ‘The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,’ +said Puck. + +‘He’ll be back at lambing time. I know him.’ He chipped very carefully, +and the flints squeaked. + +‘Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go +home safe.’ + +‘Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I’ll believe it,’ +the man replied. ‘Surely!’ Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands +round his mouth and shouted: ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ + +Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides--‘Wuff!’ Wuff!’ like +Young jim’s bark. + +‘You see? You hear?’ said Puck. ‘Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone. +Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.’ + +‘Wonderful!’ The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. ‘Who +drove him away? You?’ + +‘Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you +one of them?’ Puck answered. + +The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word +pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars. +His arms, too, were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white +dimples. + +‘I see,’ said Puck. ‘It is The Beast’s mark. What did you use against +him?’ ‘Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.’ + +‘So? Then how’--Puck twitched aside the man’s dark-brown cloak--‘how did +a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!’ He held out his little +hand. + +The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, from his +belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to Puck, who took +it with his head on one side, as you should when you look at the works +of a watch, squinted down the dark blade, and very delicately rubbed his +forefinger from the point to the hilt. + +‘Good!’ said he, in a surprised tone. + +‘It should be. The Children of the Night made it,’ the man answered. + +‘So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?’ + +‘This!’ The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like a Weald +starling. + +‘By the Great Rings of the Chalk!’ he cried. ‘Was that your price? Turn +sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.’ He slipped his hand +beneath the man’s chin and swung him till he faced the children up the +slope. They saw that his right eye was gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. +Quickly Puck turned him round again, and the two sat down. + +‘It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,’ said the man, in an +ashamed voice. ‘What else could I have done? You know, Old One.’ + +Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. ‘Take the knife. I listen.’ The +man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and while it still +quivered said: ‘This is witness between us that I speak the thing that +has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I speak. Touch!’ + +Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children wriggled +a little nearer. + +‘I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the +Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the Buyer +of the Knife--the Keeper of the People,’ the man began, in a sort of +singing shout. ‘These are my names in this country of the Naked Chalk, +between the Trees and the Sea.’ + +‘Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,’ said Puck. + +‘One cannot feed some things on names and songs.’ The man hit himself +on the chest. ‘It is better--always better--to count one’s children safe +round the fire, their Mother among them.’ + +‘Ahai!’ said Puck. ‘I think this will be a very old tale.’ ‘I warm +myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no one to light +me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I bought the Magic Knife +for my people. It was not right that The Beast should master man. What +else could I have done?’ + +‘I hear. I know. I listen,’ said Puck. + +‘When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast +gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind +the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he +leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out +alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our +boys threw flints at him; he crept by night ‘into the huts, and licked +the babe from between the mother’s hands; he called his companions and +pulled down men in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No--not always did +he do so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us +forget him. A year--two years perhaps--we neither smelt, nor heard, nor +saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our men did not always +look behind them; when children strayed from the fenced places; when our +women walked alone to draw water--back, back, back came the Curse of +the Chalk, Grey Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night--The Beast, The Beast, The +Beast! + +‘He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt spears. He +learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I think he knew when +there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not show till you bring it +down on his snout. Then--Pouf!---the false flint falls all to flinders, +and you are left with the hammer-handle in your fist, and his teeth in +your flank! I have felt them. At evening, too, in the dew, or when it +has misted and rained, your spear-head lashings slack off, though you +have kept them beneath your cloak all day. You are alone--but so close +to the home ponds that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth, +and a piece of driftwood. You bend over and pull--so! That is the minute +for which he has followed you since the stars went out. “Aarh!” he +“Wurr-aarh!” he says.’ (Norton Pit gave back the growl like a pack of +real wolves.) ‘Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein +in your neck, and--perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight +The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights +you--that is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men +desire so greatly, and can do so little?’ + +‘I do not know. Did you desire so much?’ said Puck. + +‘I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should +master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my Mother, the Priestess, +was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be +afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden--she was a +Priestess--waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off +the Chalk. Perhaps it was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to +learn how to do us new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. +The women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our flocks +grazed far out. I took mine yonder’--he pointed inland to the hazy +line of the Weald--‘where the new grass was best. They grazed north. I +followed till we were close to the Trees’--he lowered his voice--‘close +there where the Children of the Night live.’ He pointed north again. + +‘Ah, now I remember a thing,’ said Puck. ‘Tell me, why did your people +fear the Trees so extremely?’ + +‘Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can +see them burning for days all along the Chalk’s edge. Besides, all the +Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our +Gods, are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his +spirit; they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water. +But a voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched +my sheep there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the +Trees. By this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear +the Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He carried a +knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife. +The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would +never have done from a Flint-worker. The man went in among the Trees. I +looked for the dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way--by a single +deep, clean cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. +Wonderful! So I saw that the man’s knife was magic, and I thought how to +get it,--thought strongly how to get it. + +‘When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess +asked me, “What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your +face?” I said, “It is a sorrow to me”; and she answered, “All new things +are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow.” I sat down in her place by +the fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke +in my heart. One voice said, “Ask the Children of the Night for the +Magic Knife. It is not fit that The Beast should master man.” I listened +to that voice. + +‘One voice said, “If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night +will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here.” The other voice said, “Ask +for the Knife.” I listened to that voice. + +‘I said to my Mother in the morning, “I go away to find a thing for the +people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape.” She +answered, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your +Mother.” + +‘True,’ said Puck. ‘The Old Ones themselves cannot change men’s mothers +even if they would.’ + +‘Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who +waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.’ The man +laughed. ‘I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with +the knife. I lay out two days on the short grass before I ventured among +the Trees. I felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the +terrible talking Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of +the soft ground underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid, +above all, of the Change. It came!’ + +They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles +quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt. + +‘A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my +mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my +teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to +sing songs and to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the +same time I saw myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young +man, who was myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.’ + +‘I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man, if +he sleeps among them,’ said Puck. ‘Had you slept in any mists?’ + +‘Yes--but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three days I +saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the +Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires. +The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with +hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in +my mouth, and all I could say was, “Do not make that noise. It hurts my +head.” By this I knew that I was bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, +and prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were +cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to +answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they +led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water +on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like +water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit--not the strange, shouting +thing--was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the +shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear +me--women and men--each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their +Ears and their Mouth. + +‘I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in +order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming, +and those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my +people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and +lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the +Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They +were pleased. Their Priestess said, “For whose sake have you come?” I +answered, “The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our +people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast.” + +‘She said, “We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people +of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked.” + +‘When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are our Gods), +their Priestess said, “The God needs a proof that your words are true.” + I said, “What is the proof?” She said, “The God says that if you have +come for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be +put out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it. +This proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry.” + +‘I said, “This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?” + +‘She said, “Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in +your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for +your people.” + +‘I said, “It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed.” + +‘She said, “Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife +hot.” + +‘I said, “Be quick, then!” With her knife heated in the flame she put +out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She +was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.’ + +‘True! Most true,’ said Puck. ‘No common man’s work that. And, +afterwards?’ + +‘Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a +one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!’ + +At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint +arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. ‘It’s true,’ he +whispered to Una. ‘You can’t judge distances a bit with only one eye.’ + +Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at +him. + +‘I know it is so,’ said he. ‘Even now I am not always sure of my blow. +I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I +was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast’s mouth. +They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives +of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the +beatings. I can sing many charms.’ Then he began to laugh like a boy. + +‘I was thinking of my journey home,’ he said, ‘and of the surprised +Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him--I smelt his lairs as +soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife--I +hid it under my cloak--the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! +That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. “Wow!” he +would say. “Here is my Flint-worker!” He would come leaping, tail +in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of +merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap--and, oh, +his eye in mid-leap when he saw--when he saw the knife held ready for +him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no +time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes +I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his +brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the Knife! But The Beast +is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my +knife, and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as +a man should--the Master of The Beast! + +‘So came I back to my Mother’s house. There was a lamb to be killed. +I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She +said, “This is the work of a God.” I kissed her and laughed. I went to +my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be +killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. +She said, “It is the work of a God.” I laughed, but she pushed me away, +and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went +to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be +killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told +them all my tale. They said, “It is the work of a God.” I said, “We talk +too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will take +you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife.” + + +‘I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to +edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The +men talked among themselves. + +‘I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and +curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on +the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us +from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, “How is it +with your people?” I said “Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their +hearts as I used to.” She said, “That is because you have only one eye. +Come to me and I will be both your eyes.” But I said, “I must show my +people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how +to use my knife.” I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance +like the flint. She said, “What you have done, you have done for the +sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people.” I asked of her, +“Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?” + She answered, “Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to +a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. +Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry.” So +she hid herself. + +‘I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and making +it sing in the air--tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It +mutters--ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere +he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my +Mother’s brother--the Chief on the Men’s Side--he took off his Chief’s +necklace of yellow sea-stones.’ + +‘How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,’ said Puck. + +‘And would have put them on my neck. I said, “No, I am content. What +does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children +running about safely?” My Mother’s brother said to them, “I told you he +would never take such things.” Then they began to sing a song in the Old +Tongue--The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother’s brother said, +“This is your song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr.” + +‘Even then I did not understand, till I saw that--that no man stepped +on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God +Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.’ + +‘By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?’ Puck rapped out. + +‘By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow +as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. +I was afraid. I said to myself, “My Mother and my Maiden will know I am +not Tyr.” But still I was afraid, with the fear of a man who falls into +a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb +out. + +‘When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed +their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards also had seen +The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in +packs--howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at +last--at last! He knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden +among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made +the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the +Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother’s brother +made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the +Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer Mornings.’ + +‘I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!’ said Puck. + +‘Then I went away angrily to my Mother’s house. She would have knelt +before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, “Only a God would have +spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment +of the Gods.” I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy +laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A +young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first +arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old +Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his +hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me, +a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, “Call +the maiden.” She came also without fear--this very one that had waited +for me, that had talked with me, by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, +she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked +at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make +prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might +light the fire in my companion’s house--and that I should bless their +children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, +say, “Let it be as you desire,” and they went away hand in hand. My +heart grew little and cold; a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. +I said to my Mother, “Can a God die?” I heard her say, “What is it? What +is it, my son?” and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was +not.’ + +‘Oh, poor--poor God!’ said Puck. ‘And your wise Mother?’ + +‘She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back +I heard her whisper in my ear, “Whether you live or die, or are made +different, I am your Mother.” That was good--better even than the water +she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to +have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us +wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. +I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as +before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang. + +‘I said at last, “What is to be done to the people who say that I am +Tyr?” + +‘She said, “He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a +God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. +You cannot drive them off.” + + +‘I said, “This is a heavier sheep than I can lift.” She said, “In time +it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any +maiden anywhere. Be wise--be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you +except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God.” + +‘Oh, poor God!’ said Puck. ‘But those are not altogether bad things.’ + +‘I know they are not; but I would sell them all--all--all for one small +child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own house-fire.’ + +He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood +up. + +‘And yet, what else could I have done?’ he said. ‘The sheep are the +people.’ + +‘It is a very old tale,’ Puck answered. ‘I have heard the like of it not +only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees--under Oak, and Ash, +and Thorn.’ + +The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton Pit. The +children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim’s busy bark above them, and +they scrambled up the slope to the level. + +‘We let you have your sleep out,’ said Mr Dudeney, as the flock +scattered before them. ‘It’s making for tea-time now.’ + +‘Look what I’ve found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint +arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day. + +‘Oh,’ said Mr Dudeney, ‘the closeter you be to the turf the more you’re +apt to see things. I’ve found ‘em often. Some says the fairies made ‘em, +but I says they was made by folks like ourselves--only a goodish time +back. They’re lucky to keep. Now, you couldn’t ever have slept--not to +any profit--among your father’s trees same as you’ve laid out on Naked +Chalk--could you?’ + +‘One doesn’t want to sleep in the woods,’ said Una. + +‘Then what’s the good of ‘em?’ said Mr Dudeney. ‘Might as well set in +the barn all day. Fetch ‘em ‘long, Jim boy!’ + +The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of +delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt +mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes +dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The +sheep knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master, +and they all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their +ankles, and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of +giants. + + + + +Song of the Men’s Side + + + Once we feared The Beast--when he followed us we ran, + Ran very fast though we knew + It was not right that The Beast should master Man; + But what could we Flint-workers do? + The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears-- + Grinned at the hammers that we made; + But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife-- + And this is the Buyer of the Blade! + + Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass! + To left and right--stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan, + For he knew it was not right + (And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man; + So he went to the Children of the Night. + He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake. + When he begged for the Knife they said: + ‘The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!’ + And that was the price he paid. + + Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead--run ahead! + Shout it so the Women’s Side can hear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk, + As far as we can see them and beyond. + We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep + Tally at the shearing-pond. + + We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please, + We can sleep after meals in the sun; + For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade, + Feet-in-the-Night have run! + Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!), + Devil-in-the-Dusk has run! + + Then: + Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass! + To left and right--stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + + + +BROTHER SQUARE-TOES + + + + +Philadelphia + + + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn’t take my stories for a guide. + There’s little left indeed of the city you will read of, + And all the folk I write about have died. + Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand, + Or remember what his cunning and his skill did. + And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf, + Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded. + + It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-three ‘twas there for all to see, + But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn’t go by everything I’ve said. + Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages, + But the Limited will take you there instead. + Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen, + North Second Street--no matter when you call; + And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane + Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball. + + It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-four ‘twas a famous dancing-floor-- + But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel. + You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or the ‘Buck,’ + Though the Father of his Country liked them well. + It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos, + Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed--so + You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate + Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so. + + He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive, + But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning, + And wish to prove the truth of what I say, + I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behind + Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way. + Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune; + Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing. + Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk; + Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing. + They are there, there, there with Earth immortal + (Citizens, I give you friendly warning). + The things that truly last when men and times have passed, + They are all in Pennsylvania this morning! + + + + +Brother Square-Toes + + +It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned +themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and +strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead +low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along +the sands up the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey +Brighton, whose smoke trailed out across the Channel. + +They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. A +windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of +it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship’s +figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. ‘This +time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,’ said Una. ‘I hate +the sea!’ + +‘I believe it’s all right in the middle,’ said Dan. ‘The edges are the +sorrowful parts.’ + +Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope +at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew +smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, where neat piles of +white chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night. +‘Where’s Cordery going?’ said Una. + +‘Half-way to Newhaven,’ said Dan. ‘Then he’ll meet the Newhaven +coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with, +smuggling would start up at once.’ + +A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing: + + ‘The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye-- + On Telscombe Tye at night it was-- + She saw the smugglers riding by, + A very pretty sight it was!’ + +Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat +brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck. + + ‘Three Dunkirk boats was standin’ in!’ + +the man went on. ‘Hssh!’ said Puck. ‘You’ll shock these nice young +people.’ + +‘Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!’ He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his +ears--spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. ‘No comprenny?’ +he said. ‘I’ll give it you in Low German.’ And he went off in another +language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly +knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still +twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did +not suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, +and broad-brimmed hat. His hair was tied ‘in a short pigtail which +danced wickedly when he turned his head. + +‘Ha’ done!’ said Puck, laughing. ‘Be one thing or t’other, +Pharaoh--French or English or German--no great odds which.’ + +‘Oh, but it is, though,’ said Una quickly. ‘We haven’t begun German yet, +and--and we’re going back to our French next week.’ + +‘Aren’t you English?’ said Dan. ‘We heard you singing just now.’ + +‘Aha! That was the Sussex side o’ me. Dad he married a French girl +out o’ Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin’ day. She was an +Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven’t you ever come +across the saying: + + ‘Aurettes and Lees, + Like as two peas. + What they can’t smuggle, + They’ll run over seas’? + +‘Then, are you a smuggler?’ Una cried; and, ‘Have you smuggled +much?’ said Dan. + +Mr Lee nodded solemnly. + +‘Mind you,’ said he, ‘I don’t uphold smuggling for the generality o’ +mankind--mostly they can’t make a do of it--but I was brought up to the +trade, d’ye see, in a lawful line o’ descent on’--he waved across the +Channel--‘on both sides the water. ‘Twas all in the families, same +as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from +Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London Town, by +the safest road.’ + +‘Then where did you live?’ said Una. + +‘You mustn’t ever live too close to your business in our trade. We kept +our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all +honest cottager folk--at Warminghurst under Washington--Bramber way--on +the old Penn estate.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Puck, squatted by the windlass. ‘I remember a piece about the +Lees at Warminghurst, I do: + + ‘There was never a Lee to Warminghurst + That wasn’t a gipsy last and first. + +I reckon that’s truth, Pharaoh.’ + +Pharaoh laughed. ‘Admettin’ that’s true,’ he said, ‘my gipsy blood must +be wore pretty thin, for I’ve made and kept a worldly fortune.’ + +‘By smuggling?’ Dan asked. ‘No, in the tobacco trade.’ + +‘You don’t mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a +tobacconist!’ Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh. + +‘I’m sorry; but there’s all sorts of tobacconists,’ Pharaoh replied. +‘How far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her +foresail?’ He pointed to the fishing-boats. + +‘A scant mile,’ said Puck after a quick look. + +‘Just about. It’s seven fathom under her--clean sand. That was where +Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished +‘em up and rowed ‘em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland. +One thickish night in January of ‘Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me +came over from Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the +L’Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year’s +presents from Mother’s folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she’d +sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for +the French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was +all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their +King Louis’ head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English +man-o’-war. The news wasn’t a week old. + +‘“That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the +peace,” says Dad. “Why can’t King George’s men and King Louis’ men do on +their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?” + +‘“Me too, I wish that,” says Uncle Aurette. “But they’ll be pressing +better men than themselves to fight for ‘em. The press-gangs are out +already on our side. You look out for yours.” + +‘“I’ll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I’ve run +this cargo; but I do wish”--Dad says, going over the lugger’s side with +our New Year presents under his arm and young L’Estrange holding the +lantern--“I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to +run one cargo a month all this winter. It ‘ud show ‘em what honest work +means.” + +‘“Well, I’ve warned ye,” says Uncle Aurette. “I’ll be slipping off now +before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to Sister and take care +o’ the kegs. It’s thicking to southward.” ‘I remember him waving to us +and young Stephen L’Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we’d +fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me +to row ‘em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on +the beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack +playing on my fiddle to guide ‘em back. + +‘Presently I heard guns. Two of ‘em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette’s +three-pounders. He didn’t go naked about the seas after dark. Then come +more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was +open-handed with his compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I +stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o’ French up in +the fog--and a high bow come down on top o’ the smack. I hadn’t time to +call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the +gunwale pushing against the ship’s side as if I hoped to bear her off. +Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front +of my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped +through that port into the French ship--me and my fiddle.’ + +‘Gracious!’ said Una. ‘What an adventure!’ + +‘Didn’t anybody see you come in?’ said Dan. + +‘There wasn’t any one there. I’d made use of an orlop-deck port--that’s +the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been +open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on +to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men +was talking all round me, telling each other their names and sorrows +just like Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty +soon I made out they’d all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs, +and left to sort ‘emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a +thirty-six-gun Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two +days out of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican +French Ambassador of the name of Genet. They had been up all night +clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette +and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o’ day with each +other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted past ‘em. She never knew +she’d run down our smack. Seeing so many aboard was total strangers +to each other, I thought one more mightn’t be noticed; so I put Aunt +Cecile’s red cap on the back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like +the rest, and, as we French say, I circulated till I found the galley. + +‘“What! Here’s one of ‘em that isn’t sick!” says a cook. “Take his +breakfast to Citizen Bompard.” + +‘I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn’t call this Bompard +“Citizen.” Oh no! “Mon Capitaine” was my little word, same as Uncle +Aurette used to answer in King Louis’ Navy. Bompard, he liked it. He +took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and +thus I got good victuals and light work all the way across to America. +He talked a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this +Ambassador Genet got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the law +after dinner, a rooks’ parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I +learned to know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, +through waiting at table and hearing talk about ‘em. One of our +forecas’le six-pounders was called Danton and t’other Marat. I used to +play the fiddle between ‘em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out +Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o’ what France had done, and how the +United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this +war. Monsieur Genet said he’d justabout make the United States fight for +France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped +drink any healths that was proposed--specially Citizen Danton’s who’d +cut off King Louis’ head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked--but +that’s where my French blood saved me. + +‘It didn’t save me from getting a dose of ship’s fever though, the week +before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and what was left +of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living ‘tween +decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, kept me down there to help +him with his plasters--I was too weak to wait on Bompard. I don’t +remember much of any account for the next few weeks, till I smelled +lilacs, and I looked out of the port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge +and there was a town o’ fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the +green leaves o’ God’s world waiting for me outside. + +‘“What’s this?” I said to the sick-bay man--Old Pierre Tiphaigne he was. +“Philadelphia,” says Pierre. “You’ve missed it all. We’re sailing next +week.” + +‘I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks. + +‘“If that’s your trouble,” says old Pierre, “you go straight ashore. +None’ll hinder you. They’re all gone mad on these coasts--French and +American together. ‘Tisn’t my notion o’ war.” Pierre was an old King +Louis man. + +‘My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it +was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies +pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain +Bompard and his officers--yes, and some of the men--speechified to +all and sundry about war with England. They shouted, “Down with +England!”--“Down with Washington!”--“Hurrah for France and the +Republic!” I couldn’t make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that +crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen +said to me, “Is that a genuine cap o’ Liberty you’re wearing?” ‘Twas +Aunt Cecile’s red one, and pretty near wore out. “Oh yes!” I says, +“straight from France.” “I’ll give you a shilling for it,” he says, and +with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past +the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream--meadows, trees, +flowers, birds, houses, and people all different! I sat me down in +a meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets, +looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine +folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and +a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said “Merci” + without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the +fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than +ever I’d seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with +England. A crowd o’ folk was cheering after our French Ambassador--that +same Monsieur Genet which we’d left at Charleston. He was a-horseback +behaving as if the place belonged to him--and commanding all and sundry +to fight the British. But I’d heard that before. I got into a long +straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing +horses. I’m fond o’ horses. Nobody hindered ‘em, and a man told me it +was called Race Street o’ purpose for that. Then I followed some black +niggers, which I’d never seen close before; but I left them to run after +a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red +blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian +called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race +Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I’m fond +o’ fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker’s shop--Conrad Gerhard’s +it was--and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was +going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was +hungry. “Oh yes!” I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens +a door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty +little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the +window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was +knocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the +face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the pills +rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid. + +‘“Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!” the fat man screeches. + +‘I started picking ‘em up--hundreds of ‘em--meaning to run out under the +Indian’s arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man +went back to his fiddling. + +‘“Toby!” says the Indian after quite a while. “I brought the boy to be +fed, not hit.” + +‘“What?” says Toby, “I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder.” He put down +his fiddle and took a good look at me. “Himmel!” he says. “I have hit +the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why +are you not Gert Schwankfelder?” + +‘“I don’t know,” I said. “The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me.” + +‘Says the Indian, “He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the +hungry. So I bring him.” + +‘“You should have said that first,” said Toby. He pushed plates at me +and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine. +I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of +my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and +besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby +and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills. + +‘“You like pills--eh?” says Toby. “No,” I says. “I’ve seen our ship’s +doctor roll too many of em.” + +‘“Ho!” he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. “What’s those?” + +‘“Calomel,” I says. “And t’other’s senna.” + +‘“Right,” he says. “One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder +the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?” he +says. He’d just seen my kit on the floor. + +‘“Oh yes!” says I. + +‘“Oho!” he says. “What note is this?” drawing his bow across. + +‘He meant it for A, so I told him it was. + +‘“My brother,” he says to the Indian. “I think this is the hand of +Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the wharves +any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy and say what you +think.” + +‘The Indian looked me over whole minutes--there was a musical clock on +the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck. He looked +me over all the while they did it. + +‘“Good,” he says at last. “This boy is good.” + +‘“Good, then,” says Toby. “Now I shall play my fiddle and you shall sing +your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery and tell them you are +young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The horses are in Davy jones’s +locker. If you ask any questions you shall hear from me.” + +‘I left ‘em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He +wasn’t at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelder +that was. He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back-yard +without a word, and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a +basin, and she put me to bed, and oh! how I slept--how I slept in that +little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn’t know +Toby went to the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for +twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new +lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn’t long to live; so he put me +down as “discharged sick.” + +‘I like Toby,’ said Una. + +‘Who was he?’ said Puck. + +‘Apothecary Tobias Hirte,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘One Hundred and Eighteen, +Second Street--the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every year +among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his brown +mare used to go to Lebanon.’ + +‘Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones’s locker?’ Dan asked. ‘That was +his joke. He kept her under David Jones’s hat shop in the “Buck” tavern +yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited +him. I looked after the horses when I wasn’t rolling pills on top of +the old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. +I liked it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o’ clean clothes, a +plenty music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me +sit in their gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in +Moravian Alley; and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared +caps and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another, +and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a +nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby’s fiddle, and he +played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He +was the only one they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They +used to wash each other’s feet up in the attic to keep ‘emselves humble: +which Lord knows they didn’t need.’ + +‘How very queer!’ said Una. + +Pharaoh’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve met many and seen much,’ he said; ‘but I +haven’t yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the +Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I +ever forget my first Sunday--the service was in English that week--with +the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder’s garden where +the big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and +thinking of ‘tween decks on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a +boy, it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for +ever. But I didn’t know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck +midnight that Sunday--I was lying under the spinet--I heard Toby’s +fiddle. He’d just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. +“Gert,” says he, “get the horses. Liberty and Independence for Ever! The +flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is +come. We are going to my country seat in Lebanon.” + +‘I rubbed my eyes, and fetched ‘em out of the “Buck” stables. Red Jacket +was there saddling his, and when I’d packed the saddle-bags we three +rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling. +It’s a kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the +German towns, Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat +cattle, fat women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed +there. Toby sold medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French +war-news to folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell +was as well known as the stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous +Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket’s Indians, and he +slept in friends’ farmhouses, but he would shut all the windows; so Red +Jacket and me slept outside. There’s nothing to hurt except snakes--and +they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes.’ + +‘I’d have liked that!’ said Dan. + +‘I’d no fault to find with those days. In the cool o’ the morning the +cat-bird sings. He’s something to listen to. And there’s a smell of wild +grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into, after long rides +in the heat, which is beyond compare for sweetness. So’s the puffs out +of the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and +later on the fireflies dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the +corn! We were a week or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to +another--such as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata--“thou Bethlehem-Ephrata.” + No odds--I loved the going about. And so we jogged ‘into dozy little +Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage and a garden of +all fruits. He come north every year for this wonderful Seneca Oil the +Seneca Indians made for him. They’d never sell to any one else, and he +doctored ‘em with von Swieten pills, which they valued more than their +own oil. He could do what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried +to make them Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and +they’d had trouble enough from white men--American and English--during +the wars, to keep ‘em in that walk. They lived on a Reservation by +themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me up there, and they +treated me as if I was their own blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark +of my bare feet in the dust was just like an Indian’s and my style of +walking was similar. I know I took to their ways all over.’ + +‘Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?’ said Puck. + +‘Sometimes I think it did,’ Pharaoh went on. ‘Anyhow, Red Jacket and +Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the +tribe. It’s only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I +showed up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means +“Two Tongues,” because, d’ye see, I talked French and English. + +‘They had their own opinions (I’ve heard ‘em) about the French and the +English, and the Americans. They’d suffered from all of ‘em during the +wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of +the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with +him in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad. +His being President afterwards made no odds to ‘em. They always called +him Big Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their +notion of a white chief. Cornplanter ‘ud sweep his blanket round him, +and after I’d filled his pipe he’d begin--“In the old days, long ago, +when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-” If Red +Jacket agreed to the say-so he’d trickle a little smoke out of the +corners of his mouth. If he didn’t, he’d blow through his nostrils. +Then Cornplanter ‘ud stop and Red Jacket ‘ud take on. Red Jacket was the +better talker of the two. I’ve laid and listened to ‘em for hours. +Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter used to meet him at +Epply’s--the great dancing-place in the city before District Marshal +William Nichols bought it. They told me he was always glad to see ‘em, +and he’d hear ‘em out to the end if they had anything on their minds. +They had a good deal in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was +adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that +summer was about the French war with England and whether the United +States ‘ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with England. Toby +wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation buying his oils. +But most of the white men wished for war, and they was angry because +the President wouldn’t give the sign for it. The newspaper said men was +burning Guy Fawkes images of General Washington and yelling after him in +the streets of Philadelphia. You’d have been astonished what those two +fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little +I’ve learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket +on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He was +what they call a “Democrat,” though our Church is against the Brethren +concerning themselves with politics.’ + +‘I hate politics, too,’ said Una, and Pharaoh laughed. + +‘I might ha’ guessed it,’ he said. ‘But here’s something that isn’t +politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the newspaper +on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a peach tree and I was +fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora. + +‘“I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts,” he says. “I will +go to the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother, lend me a spare +pony. I must be there tomorrow night.” + +‘“Good!” says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. “My brother shall be +there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies.” + +‘I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking questions. +He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don’t ask questions +much and I wanted to be like ‘em. + +‘When the horses were ready I jumped up. + +‘“Get off,” says Toby. “Stay and mind the cottage till I come back. The +Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He hadn’t.” + +‘He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the doorstep +wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to wrap his +fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in +Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for +I was fond of Toby. We never said much to each other, but we fiddled +together, and music’s as good as talking to them that understand.’ + +‘Did Toby die of yellow fever?’ Una asked. + +‘Not him! There’s justice left in the world still. He went down to the +City and bled ‘em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket +that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the oils along to the +City, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket +was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw’s +business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was +a hard task-Master. We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy +grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn’t die the minute he +reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my +Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and +gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting ‘in the woods, or fishing in +the lake.’ Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. ‘But it’s best,’ +he went on suddenly, ‘after the first frosts. You roll out o’ your +blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow, +not by trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of ‘em, like +sunsets splattered upside down. On one of such days--the maples was +flaming scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder--Cornplanter +and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the very leaves look +silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin leggings, fringed and +tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their bridles feathered and shelled +and beaded no bounds. I thought it was war against the British till I +saw their faces weren’t painted, and they only carried wrist-whips. Then +I hummed “Yankee Doodle” at ‘em. They told me they was going to visit +Big Hand and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in +fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I reckon those +two would ha’ gone out on the war-path at a nod from Big Hand, but they +knew well, if there was war ‘twixt England and the United States, their +tribe ‘ud catch it from both parties same as in all the other wars. They +asked me to come along and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because +they always put their ponies up at the “Buck” or Epply’s when they went +to see General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger’s +job. Besides, I wasn’t exactly dressed for it.’ + +‘D’you mean you were dressed like an Indian?’ Dan demanded. + +Pharaoh looked a little abashed. ‘This didn’t happen at Lebanon,’ +he said, ‘but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that +particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and +sunburn went, there wasn’t much odds ‘twix’ me and a young Seneca buck. +You may laugh’--he smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat--‘but I +told you I took to their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was +bursting to let out the war-whoop like the young men had taught me.’ + +‘No, and you don’t let out one here, either,’ said Puck before Dan could +ask. ‘Go on, Brother Square-toes.’ + +‘We went on.’ Pharaoh’s narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. ‘We went +on--forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end--we three braves. And how +a great tall Indian a-horse-back can carry his war-bonnet at a canter +through thick timber without brushing a feather beats me! My silly head +was banged often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like +running elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they’d blown +their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we go? I’ll tell +you, but don’t blame me if you’re no wiser. We took the old war-trail +from the end of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego +country, right down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed +the Juniata by Fort Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by +the Ochwick trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it’s a bad one). From +Williams Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through +Ashby’s Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found the +President at the back of his own plantations. I’d hate to be trailed by +Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a stump. After +we’d left our ponies, we scouted forward through a woody piece, and, +creeping slower and slower, at last if my moccasins even slipped +Red Jacket ‘ud turn and frown. I heard voices--Monsieur Genet’s for +choice--long before I saw anything, and we pulled up at the edge of +a clearing where some niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding +horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen--but one was Genet--were talking +among felled timber. I fancy they’d come to see Genet a piece on his +road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near +to the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn’t need anybody +to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a little apart, +listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which never had more manners +than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as good as ordering him to declare war +on England at once. I had heard that clack before on the Embuscade. +He said he’d stir up the whole United States to have war with England, +whether Big Hand liked it or not. + +‘Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me, and my two +chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, “That is very forcibly +put, Monsieur Genet--” + +‘“Citizen--citizen!” the fellow spits in. “I, at least, am a +Republican!” + +“Citizen Genet,” he says, “you may be sure it will receive my fullest +consideration.” This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a piece. He rode +off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny. No gentleman! + +‘The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their way, they +said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was +France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the +United States’ stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French +was searching American ships on pretence they was helping England, but +really for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only +t’other way round, and besides searching, they was pressing American +citizens into their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that +those Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this +very clear to Big Hand. It didn’t look to them, they said, as though the +United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage to her, +because she only catched it from both French and English. They said that +nine out of ten good Americans was crazy to fight the English then and +there. They wouldn’t say whether that was right or wrong; they only +wanted Big Hand to turn it over in his mind. He did--for a while. I +saw Red Jacket and Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the +clearing, and how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then +Big Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.’ + +‘Hit ‘em?’ Dan asked. + +‘No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He--he blasted ‘em +with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen times over whether +the United States had enough armed ships for any shape or sort of war +with any one. He asked ‘em, if they thought she had those ships, to give +him those ships, and they looked on the ground, as if they expected to +find ‘em there. He put it to ‘em whether, setting ships aside, their +country--I reckon he gave ‘em good reasons--whether the United States +was ready or able to face a new big war; she having but so few years +back wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her own +troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before ‘em blasted +‘em, and when he’d done it was like a still in the woods after a storm. +A little man--but they all looked little--pipes up like a young rook +in a blowed-down nest, “Nevertheless, General, it seems you will be +compelled to fight England.” Quick Big Hand wheeled on him, “And is +there anything in my past which makes you think I am averse to fighting +Great Britain?” + +‘Everybody laughed except him. “Oh, General, you mistake us entirely!” + they says. “I trust so,” he says. “But I know my duty. We must have +peace with England.” + +‘“At any price?” says the man with the rook’s voice. + +‘“At any price,” says he, word by word. “Our ships will be searched--our +citizens will be pressed, but--” + +‘“Then what about the Declaration of Independence?” says one. + +‘“Deal with facts, not fancies,” says Big Hand. “The United States are +in no position to fight England.” + +‘“But think of public opinion,” another one starts up. “The feeling in +Philadelphia alone is at fever heat.” + +‘He held up one of his big hands. “Gentlemen,” he says--slow he spoke, +but his voice carried far--“I have to think of our country. Let me +assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will be made though every +city in the Union burn me in effigy.” + +‘“At any price?” the actor-like chap keeps on croaking. + +‘“The treaty must be made on Great Britain’s own terms. What else can I +do?” ‘He turns his back on ‘em and they looked at each other and slinked +off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was an old man. +Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the clearing from the far end +as though they had just chanced along. Back went Big Hand’s shoulders, +up went his head, and he stepped forward one single pace with a great +deep Hough! so pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to +behold--three big men, and two of ‘em looking like jewelled images among +the spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs’ war-bonnets sinking +together, down and down. Then they made the sign which no Indian makes +outside of the Medicine Lodges--a sweep of the right hand just clear +of the dust and an inbend of the left knee at the same time, and those +proud eagle feathers almost touched his boot-top.’ + +‘What did it mean?’ said Dan. + +‘Mean!’ Pharaoh cried. ‘Why it’s what you--what we--it’s the Sachems’ +way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of--oh! it’s a piece +of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you are a very big +chief. + +‘Big Hand looked down on ‘em. First he says quite softly, “My brothers +know it is not easy to be a chief.” Then his voice grew. “My children,” + says he, “what is in your minds?” + +‘Says Cornplanter, “We came to ask whether there will be war with King +George’s men, but we have heard what our Father has said to his chiefs. +We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell to our people.” + +‘“No,” says Big Hand. “Leave all that talk behind--it was between white +men only--but take this message from me to your people--‘There will be +no war.’” + +‘His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn’t delay him-, only Cornplanter +says, using his old side-name, “Big Hand, did you see us among the +timber just now?” + +‘“Surely,” says he. “You taught me to look behind trees when we were +both young.” And with that he cantered off. + +‘Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies again and a +half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter says to Red Jacket, “We +will have the Corn-dance this year. There will be no war.” And that was +all there was to it.’ + +Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished. + +‘Yes,’ said Puck, rising too. ‘And what came out of it in the long run?’ + +‘Let me get at my story my own way,’ was the answer. ‘Look! it’s later +than I thought. That Shoreham smack’s thinking of her supper.’ The +children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack had hoisted a +lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier lights ran out in a +twinkling line. When they turned round The Gap was empty behind them. + +‘I expect they’ve packed our trunks by now,’ said Dan. ‘This time +tomorrow we’ll be home.’ + + + + +IF-- + + If you can keep your head when all about you + Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; + If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, + But make allowance for their doubting too; + If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, + Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, + Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, + And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; + + If you can dream--and not make dreams your master; + If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim, + If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster + And treat those two impostors just the same; + If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken + Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, + Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, + And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools; + + If you can make one heap of all your winnings + And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, + And lose, and start again at your beginnings + And never breathe a word about your loss; + If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew + To serve your turn long after they are gone, + And so hold on when there is nothing in you + Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ + + If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, + Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch, + If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, + If all men count with you, but none too much; + If you can fill the unforgiving minute + With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, + Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, + And--which is more--you’ll be a Man, my son! + + + + +‘A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF’ + + + + +A St Helena Lullaby + + + How far is St Helena from a little child at play? + What makes you want to wander there with all the world between? + Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he’ll run away. + (No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!) + + How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street? + I haven’t time to answer now--the men are falling fast. + The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat + (If you take the first step you will take the last!) + + How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz? + You couldn’t hear me if I told--so loud the cannons roar. + But not so far for people who are living by their wits. + [‘Gay go up’ means ‘gay go down’ the wide world o’er!) + + How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France? + I cannot see--I cannot tell--the crowns they dazzle so. + The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance. + (After open weather you may look for snow!) + + How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar? + A longish way--a longish way--with ten year more to run. + It’s South across the water underneath a setting star. + (What you cannot finish you must leave undone!) + + How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice? + An ill way--a chill way--the ice begins to crack. + But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice. + (When you can’t go forward you must e’en come back!) + + How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo? + A near way--a clear way--the ship will take you soon. + A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do. + (Morning never tries you till the afternoon!) + + How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven’s Grace? + That no one knows--that no one knows--and no one ever will. + But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face, + And after all your trapesings, child, lie still! + + + + +‘A Priest in Spite of Himself’ + + +The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a tour +of inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it. Soon they +discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best hedge-gaps with stakes +and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up the hedges where the blackberries +were setting. + +‘It can’t be time for the gipsies to come along,’ said Una. ‘Why, it was +summer only the other day!’ + +‘There’s smoke in Low Shaw!’ said Dan, sniffing. ‘Let’s make sure!’ + +They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that leaned +above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the King’s Hill road. +It used to be an old quarry till somebody planted it, and you can look +straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow. + +‘I thought so,’ Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at the edge +of the larches. A gipsy-van--not the show-man’s sort, but the old black +kind, with little windows high up and a baby-gate across the door--was +getting ready to leave. A man was harnessing the horses; an old woman +crouched over the ashes of a fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a +girl sat on the van-steps singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking, +thin dog snuffed at a patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put +it carefully in the middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the +van and tossed her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and +they smelt singed feathers. + +‘Chicken feathers!’ said Dan. ‘I wonder if they are old Hobden’s.’ + +Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl’s feet, the old +woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the horses up to +the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as snakes over moss. + +‘Ah!’ said the girl. ‘I’ll teach you!’ She beat the dog, who seemed to +expect it. + +‘Don’t do that,’ Una called down. ‘It wasn’t his fault.’ + +‘How do you know what I’m beating him for?’ she answered. + +‘For not seeing us,’ said Dan. ‘He was standing right in the smoke, and +the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.’ + +The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned faster than +ever. + +‘You’ve fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,’ said Una. +‘There’s a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.’ + +‘What of it?’ said the old woman, as she grabbed it. + +‘Oh, nothing!’ said Dan. ‘Only I’ve heard say that tail-feathers are as +bad as the whole bird, sometimes.’ + +That was a saying of Hobden’s about pheasants. Old Hobden always burned +all feather and fur before he sat down to eat. + +‘Come on, mother,’ the man whispered. The old woman climbed into the +van, and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted shaw on to the hard +road. + +The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could not catch. + +‘That was gipsy for “Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,”’ said +Pharaoh Lee. + +He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm. ‘Gracious, you +startled me!’ said Una. + +‘You startled old Priscilla Savile,’ Puck called from below them. ‘Come +and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before they left.’ + +They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the ashes +together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns without flame, +and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh played a curious wavery air. + +‘That’s what the girl was humming to the baby,’ said Una. + +‘I know it,’ he nodded, and went on: + + ‘Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia! + Ai Luludia!’ + + +He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the children. +At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in Philadelphia and +among the Seneca Indians. + +‘I’m telling it,’ he said, staring straight in front of him as he +played. ‘Can’t you hear?’ + +‘Maybe, but they can’t. Tell it aloud,’ said Puck. + +Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began: + +‘I’d left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after Big Hand +had said that there wouldn’t be any war. That’s all there was to it. +We believed Big Hand and we went home again--we three braves. When we +reached Lebanon we found Toby at the cottage with his waistcoat a foot +too big for him--so hard he had worked amongst the yellow-fever people. +He beat me for running off with the Indians, but ‘twas worth it--I was +glad to see him,--and when we went back to Philadelphia for the winter, +and I was told how he’d sacrificed himself over sick people in the +yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn’t neither. +I’d thought that all along. That yellow fever must have been something +dreadful. Even in December people had no more than begun to trinkle back +to town. Whole houses stood empty and the niggers was robbing them out. +But I can’t call to mind that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It +seemed like they had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good +Lord He’d just looked after ‘em. That was the winter--yes, winter of +‘Ninety-three--the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby spoke in +favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but many thought +stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a third party which +always brought hickory coal foot-warmers to service and wouldn’t +speak either way. They ended by casting the Lot for it, which is like +pitch-and-toss. After my summer with the Senecas, church-stoves didn’t +highly interest me, so I took to haunting round among the French emigres +which Philadelphia was full of. My French and my fiddling helped me +there, d’ye see. They come over in shiploads from France, where, by what +I made out, every one was killing every one else by any means, and they +spread ‘emselves about the city--mostly in Drinker’s Alley and Elfrith’s +Alley--and they did odd jobs till times should mend. But whatever they +stooped to, they were gentry and kept a cheerful countenance, and after +an evening’s fiddling at one of their poor little proud parties, the +Brethren seemed old-fashioned. Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn’t +like my fiddling for hire, but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my +living by exercising my talents. He never let me be put upon. + +‘In February of ‘Ninety-four--No, March it must have been, because a +new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France, with no more +manners than Genet the old one--in March, Red Jacket came in from the +Reservation bringing news of all kind friends there. I showed him round +the city, and we saw General Washington riding through a crowd of folk +that shouted for war with England. They gave him quite rough music, +but he looked ‘twixt his horse’s ears and made out not to notice. His +stirrup brished Red Jacket’s elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, “My +brother knows it is not easy to be a chief.” Big Hand shot just one look +at him and nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over some one who +wasn’t hooting at Washington loud enough to please the people. We went +away to be out of the fight. Indians won’t risk being hit.’ + +‘What do they do if they are?’ Dan asked. + +‘Kill, of course. That’s why they have such proper manners. Well, +then, coming home by Drinker’s Alley to get a new shirt which a French +Vicomte’s lady was washing to take the stiff out of (I’m always choice +in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He +hadn’t long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He +sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel--his coat half torn off, his face cut, +but his hands steady; so I knew it wasn’t drink. He said his name +was Peringuey, and he’d been knocked about in the crowd round the +Stadt--Independence Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up +to Toby’s rooms, same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The +compliments he paid to Toby’s Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man, +for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all +about our great stove dispute in the church. I remember Pastor Meder and +Brother Adam Goos dropped ‘in, and although they and Toby were direct +opposite sides regarding stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made ‘em +feel as if he thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had +been a clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby’s +fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a +simple Huron. Senecas aren’t Hurons, they’re Iroquois, of course, and +Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose and left in a style +which made us feel he’d been favouring us, instead of us feeding him. +I’ve never seen that so strong before--in a man. We all talked him over +but couldn’t make head or tail of him, and Red Jacket come out to walk +with me to the French quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. +Passing Drinker’s Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, +and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all +alone, right hand against left. + +‘Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, “Look at his face!” + +‘I was looking. I protest to you I wasn’t frightened like I was when Big +Hand talked to his gentlemen. I--I only looked, and I wondered that +even those dead dumb dice ‘ud dare to fall different from what that face +wished. It--it was a face! + +‘“He is bad,” says Red Jacket. “But he is a great chief. The French have +sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us his lies. Now I +know.” + +‘I had to go on to the party, so I asked him to call round for me +afterwards and we’d have hymn-singing at Toby’s as usual. “No,” he says. +“Tell Toby I am not Christian tonight. All Indian.” He had those fits +sometimes. I wanted to know more about Monsieur Peringuey, and the +emigre party was the very place to find out. It’s neither here nor +there, of course, but those French emigre parties they almost make you +cry. The men that you bought fruit of in Market Street, the hairdressers +and fencing-masters and French teachers, they turn back again by +candlelight to what they used to be at home, and you catch their real +names. There wasn’t much room in the washhouse, so I sat on top of the +copper and played ‘em the tunes they called for--“Si le Roi m’avait +donne,” and such nursery stuff. They cried sometimes. It hurt me to +take their money afterwards, indeed it did. And there I found out about +Monsieur Peringuey. He was a proper rogue too! None of ‘em had a good +word for him except the Marquise that kept the French boarding-house on +Fourth Street. I made out that his real name was the Count Talleyrand de +Perigord--a priest right enough, but sorely come down in the world. He’d +been King Louis’ Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the +French had cut off King Louis’ head; and, by what I heard, that head +wasn’t hardly more than hanging loose before he’d run back to Paris and +prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the murder, to send him back +to England again as Ambassador of the French Republic! That was too much +for the English, so they kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he’d +fled to the Americas without money or friends or prospects. I’m telling +you the talk in the washhouse. Some of ‘em was laughing over it. Says +the French Marquise, “My friends, you laugh too soon. That man ‘ll be on +the winning side before any of us.” + +‘“I did not know you were so fond of priests, Marquise,” says the +Vicomte. His lady did my washing, as I’ve told you. + +‘“I have my reasons,” says the Marquise. “He sent my uncle and my two +brothers to Heaven by the little door,”--that was one of the emigre +names for the guillotine. “He will be on the winning side if it costs +him the blood of every friend he has in the world.” + +‘“Then what does he want here?” says one of ‘em. “We have all lost our +game.” + +‘“My faith!” says the Marquise. “He will find out, if any one can, +whether this canaille of a Washington means to help us to fight England. +Genet” (that was my Ambassador in the Embuscade) “has failed and gone +off disgraced; Faucher” (he was the new man) “hasn’t done any better, +but our Abbe will find out, and he will make his profit out of the news. +Such a man does not fall.” + +‘“He begins unluckily,” says the Vicomte. “He was set upon today in the +street for not hooting your Washington.” They all laughed again, and one +remarks, “How does the poor devil keep himself?” + +‘He must have slipped in through the washhouse door, for he flits past +me and joins ‘em, cold as ice. + +‘“One does what one can,” he says. “I sell buttons. And you, Marquise?” + +‘“I?”--she waves her poor white hands all burned--“I am a cook--a very +bad one--at your service, Abbe. We were just talking about you.” + +They didn’t treat him like they talked of him. They backed off and stood +still. + +‘“I have missed something, then,” he says. “But I spent this last +hour playing--only for buttons, Marquise--against a noble savage, the +veritable Huron himself.” + +‘“You had your usual luck, I hope?” she says. + +‘“Certainly,” he says. “I cannot afford to lose even buttons in these +days.” + +‘“Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your dice are +usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous,” she continues. I don’t know +whether she meant to accuse him of cheating. He only bows. ‘“Not yet, +Mademoiselle Cunegonde,” he says, and goes on to make himself agreeable +to the rest of the company. And that was how I found out our Monsieur +Peringuey was Count Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.’ + +Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing. + +‘You’ve heard of him?’ said Pharaoh. + +Una shook her head. ‘Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?’ Dan +asked. + +‘He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame +man had cheated. Red Jacket said no--he had played quite fair and was +a master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I’ve seen him, on the +Reservation, play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I +told Red Jacket all I’d heard at the party concerning Talleyrand. + +‘“I was right,” he says. “I saw the man’s war-face when he thought he +was alone. That’s why I played him. I played him face to face. He’s a +great chief. Do they say why he comes here?” + +‘“They say he comes to find out if Big Hand makes war against the +English,” I said. + +‘Red Jacket grunted. “Yes,” he says. “He asked me that too. If he had +been a small chief I should have lied. But he is a great chief. He knew +I was a chief, so I told him the truth. I told him what Big Hand said to +Cornplanter and me in the clearing--‘There will be no war.’ I could not +see what he thought. I could not see behind his face. But he is a great +chief. He will believe.” + +‘“Will he believe that Big Hand can keep his people back from war?” I +said, thinking of the crowds that hooted Big Hand whenever he rode out. + +‘“He is as bad as Big Hand is good, but he is not as strong as Big +Hand,” says Red Jacket. “When he talks with Big Hand he will feel this +in his heart. The French have sent away a great chief. Presently he will +go back and make them afraid.” + +‘Now wasn’t that comical? The French woman that knew him and owed all +her losses to him; the Indian that picked him up, cut and muddy on +the street, and played dice with him; they neither of ‘em doubted that +Talleyrand was something by himself--appearances notwithstanding.’ + +‘And was he something by himself?’ asked Una. + +Pharaoh began to laugh, but stopped. ‘The way I look at it,’ he said, +‘Talleyrand was one of just three men in this world who are quite by +themselves. Big Hand I put first, because I’ve seen him.’ ‘Ay,’ said +Puck. ‘I’m sorry we lost him out of Old England. Who d’you put second?’ + +‘Talleyrand: maybe because I’ve seen him too,’ said Pharaoh. + +‘Who’s third?’ said Puck. + +‘Boney--even though I’ve seen him.’ + +‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Every man has his own weights and measures, but +that’s queer reckoning.’ ‘Boney?’ said Una. ‘You don’t mean you’ve ever +met Napoleon Bonaparte?’ + +‘There, I knew you wouldn’t have patience with the rest of my tale after +hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come round to Hundred +and Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for his kindness. I didn’t +mention the dice-playing, but I could see that Red Jacket’s doings had +made Talleyrand highly curious about Indians--though he would call him +the Huron. Toby, as you may believe, was all holds full of knowledge +concerning their manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The +Brethren don’t study Indians much till they join the Church, but Toby +knew ‘em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his sound leg +over his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been adopted into the +Senecas I, naturally, kept still, but Toby ‘ud call on me to back up +some of his remarks, and by that means, and a habit he had of drawing +you on in talk, Talleyrand saw I knew something of his noble savages +too. Then he tried a trick. Coming back from an emigre party he turns +into his little shop and puts it to me, laughing like, that I’d gone +with the two chiefs on their visit to Big Hand. I hadn’t told. Red +Jacket hadn’t told, and Toby, of course, didn’t know. ‘Twas just +Talleyrand’s guess. “Now,” he says, “my English and Red Jacket’s French +was so bad that I am not sure I got the rights of what the President +really said to the unsophisticated Huron. Do me the favour of telling it +again.” I told him every word Red Jacket had told him and not one word +more. I had my suspicions, having just come from an emigre party where +the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual. + +‘“Much obliged,” he said. “But I couldn’t gather from Red Jacket exactly +what the President said to Monsieur Genet, or to his American gentlemen +after Monsieur Genet had ridden away.” + +‘I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn’t told him a +word about the white men’s pow-wow.’ + +‘Why hadn’t he?’ Puck asked. + +‘Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the President +had said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn’t repeat the talk, between +the white men, that Big Hand ordered him to leave behind. ‘Oh!’ said +Puck. ‘I see. What did you do?’ + +‘First I was going to make some sort of tale round it, but Talleyrand +was a chief too. So I said, “As soon as I get Red Jacket’s permission +to tell that part of the tale, I’ll be delighted to refresh your memory, +Abbe.” What else could I have done? + +‘“Is that all?” he says, laughing. “Let me refresh your memory. In a +month from now I can give you a hundred dollars for your account of the +conversation.” + +‘“Make it five hundred, Abbe,” I says. ‘“Five, then,” says he. + +‘“That will suit me admirably,” I says. “Red Jacket will be in town +again by then, and the moment he gives me leave I’ll claim the money.” + +‘He had a hard fight to be civil, but he come out smiling. + +‘“Monsieur,” he says, “I beg your pardon as sincerely as I envy the +noble Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit down while I explain.” + +‘There wasn’t another chair, so I sat on the button-box. + +‘He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President +meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found +out--from Genet, I reckon, who was with the President on the day the two +chiefs met him. He’d heard that Genet had had a huff with the President +and had ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he +wanted--what he begged and blustered to know--was just the very words +which the President had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left, +concerning the peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in +helping him to those very words I’d be helping three great countries as +well as mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I +couldn’t laugh at him. + +‘“I’m sorry,” I says, when he wiped his forehead. “As soon as Red Jacket +gives permission--” + +‘“You don’t believe me, then?” he cuts in. ‘“Not one little, little +word, Abbe,” I says; “except that you mean to be on the winning side. +Remember, I’ve been fiddling to all your old friends for months.” + +‘Well, then his temper fled him and he called me names. + +‘“Wait a minute, ci-devant,” I says at last. “I am half English and half +French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the +Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?” + +‘“Oh yes!” he sneers. “I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that +estimable old man.” + +‘“Then,” I says, “thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee +has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man +than thee.” + +‘“Go!” he whispers. “Before I kill thee, go.” + +‘He looked like it. So I left him.’ + +‘Why did he want to know so badly?’ said Dan. + +‘The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that +Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price, +he’d ha’ left old Faucher fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went +straight back to France and told old Danton--“It’s no good your wasting +time and hopes on the United States, because she won’t fight on our +side--that I’ve proof of!” Then Danton might have been grateful and +given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing +for sure who’s your friend and who’s your enemy. Just think of us poor +shop-keepers, for instance.’ + +‘Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?’ Una asked. + +‘Of course not. He said, “When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand +said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All that talk was left +behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell the Lame Chief there +will be no war. He can go back to France with that word.” + +‘Talleyrand and me hadn’t met for a long time except at emigre parties. +When I give him the message he just shook his head. He was sorting +buttons in the shop. + +‘“I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word of an +unsophisticated savage,” he says. + +‘“Hasn’t the President said anything to you?” I asked him. + +‘“He has said everything that one in his position ought to say, but--but +if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode off I believe +I could change Europe--the world, maybe.” ‘“I’m sorry,” I says. “Maybe +you’ll do that without my help.” + +‘He looked at me hard. “Either you have unusual observation for one so +young, or you choose to be insolent,” he says. + +‘“It was intended for a compliment,” I says. “But no odds. We’re off in +a few days for our summer trip, and I’ve come to make my good-byes.” + +‘“I go on my travels too,” he says. “If ever we meet again you may be +sure I will do my best to repay what I owe you.” + +‘“Without malice, Abbe, I hope,” I says. + +‘“None whatever,” says he. “Give my respects to your adorable Dr +Pangloss” (that was one of his side-names for Toby) “and the Huron.” I +never could teach him the difference betwixt Hurons and Senecas. + +‘Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call “pilly buttons,” + and that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.’ + +‘But after that you met Napoleon, didn’t you?’ said Una. ‘Wait Just +a little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to Lebanon and the +Reservation, and, being older and knowing better how to manage him, +I enjoyed myself well that summer with fiddling and fun. When we came +back, the Brethren got after Toby because I wasn’t learning any lawful +trade, and he had hard work to save me from being apprenticed to +Helmbold and Geyer the printers. ‘Twould have ruined our music together, +indeed it would. And when we escaped that, old Mattes Roush, the +leather-breeches maker round the corner, took a notion I was cut out for +skin-dressing. But we were rescued. Along towards Christmas there comes +a big sealed letter from the Bank saying that a Monsieur Talleyrand had +put five hundred dollars--a hundred pounds--to my credit there to use as +I pleased. There was a little note from him inside--he didn’t give any +address--to thank me for past kindnesses and my believing in his future, +which he said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished Toby to +share the money. I hadn’t done more than bring Talleyrand up to Hundred +and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby’s. But Toby said, “No! Liberty +and Independence for ever. I have all my wants, my son.” So I gave him +a set of new fiddle-strings, and the Brethren didn’t advise us any more. +Only Pastor Meder he preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and +Brother Adam Goos said if there was war the English ‘ud surely shoot +down the Bank. I knew there wasn’t going to be any war, but I drew the +money out and on Red Jacket’s advice I put it into horse-flesh, which +I sold to Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stage-coaches. That way, I +doubled my money inside the twelvemonth.’ ‘You gipsy! You proper gipsy!’ +Puck shouted. + +‘Why not? ‘Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing leading to +another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a worldly fortune +and was in the tobacco trade.’ + +‘Ah!’ said Puck, suddenly. ‘Might I inquire if you’d ever sent any news +to your people in England--or in France?’ + +‘O’ course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I’d made +money in the horse trade. We Lees don’t like coming home empty-handed. +If it’s only a turnip or an egg, it’s something. Oh yes, I wrote good +and plenty to Uncle Aurette, and--Dad don’t read very quickly--Uncle +used to slip over Newhaven way and tell Dad what was going on in the +tobacco trade.’ + +‘I see-- + + Aurettes and Lees-- + Like as two peas. + +Go on, Brother Square-toes,’ said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on. + +‘Talleyrand he’d gone up in the world same as me. He’d sailed to France +again, and was a great man in the Government there awhile, but they +had to turn him out on account of some story about bribes from American +shippers. All our poor emigres said he was surely finished this time, +but Red Jacket and me we didn’t think it likely, not unless he was quite +dead. Big Hand had made his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as +he said he would, and there was a roaring trade ‘twixt England and the +United States for such as ‘ud take the risk of being searched by British +and French men-o’-war. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen +told Big Hand ‘ud happen--the United States was catching it from both. +If an English man-o’-war met an American ship he’d press half the best +men out of her, and swear they was British subjects. Most of ‘em was! If +a Frenchman met her he’d, likely, have the cargo out of her, swearing +it was meant to aid and comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a +Dutchman met her--they was hanging on to England’s coat-tails too--Lord +only knows what they wouldn’t do! It came over me that what I wanted in +my tobacco trade was a fast-sailing ship and a man who could be French, +English, or American at a pinch. Luckily I could lay my hands on both +articles. So along towards the end of September in the year ‘Ninety-nine +I sailed from Philadelphia with a hundred and eleven hogshead o’ good +Virginia tobacco, in the brig BERTHE AURETTE, named after Mother’s +maiden name, hoping ‘twould bring me luck, which she didn’t--and yet she +did.’ + +‘Where was you bound for?’ Puck asked. + +‘Er--any port I found handiest. I didn’t tell Toby or the Brethren. They +don’t understand the ins and outs of the tobacco trade.’ + +Puck coughed a small cough as he shifted a piece of wood with his bare +foot. + +‘It’s easy for you to sit and judge,’ Pharaoh cried. ‘But think o’ what +we had to put up with! We spread our wings and run across the broad +Atlantic like a hen through a horse-fair. Even so, we was stopped by an +English frigate, three days out. He sent a boat alongside and pressed +seven able seamen. I remarked it was hard on honest traders, but the +officer said they was fighting all creation and hadn’t time to argue. +The next English frigate we escaped with no more than a shot in our +quarter. Then we was chased two days and a night by a French privateer, +firing between squalls, and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which +made him sheer off had the impudence to press another five of our men. +That’s how we reached to the chops of the Channel. Twelve good men +pressed out of thirty-five; an eighteen-pound shot-hole close beside our +rudder; our mainsail looking like spectacles where the Frenchman had +hit us--and the Channel crawling with short-handed British cruisers. +Put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you grumble at the price of +tobacco! + +‘Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our leaks, a +French lugger come swooping at us out o’ the dusk. We warned him to keep +away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed his Jabbering red-caps. We +couldn’t endure any more--indeed we couldn’t. We went at ‘em with all +we could lay hands on. It didn’t last long. They was fifty odd to our +twenty-three. Pretty soon I heard the cutlasses thrown down and some one +bellowed for the sacri captain. + +‘“Here I am!” I says. “I don’t suppose it makes any odds to you thieves, +but this is the United States brig BERTHE AURETTE.” + +‘“My aunt!” the man says, laughing. “Why is she named that?” + +‘“Who’s speaking?” I said. ‘Twas too dark to see, but I thought I knew +the voice. + +‘“Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L’Estrange,” he sings out, and then I was +sure. + +‘“Oh!” I says. “It’s all in the family, I suppose, but you have done a +fine day’s work, Stephen.” + +‘He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young +L’Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn’t seen since the night the smack +sank off Telscombe Tye--six years before. + +‘“Whew!” he says. “That’s why she was named for Aunt Berthe, is it? +What’s your share in her, Pharaoh?” + +‘“Only half owner, but the cargo’s mine.” + +‘“That’s bad,” he says. “I’ll do what I can, but you shouldn’t have +fought us.” ‘“Steve,” I says, “you aren’t ever going to report our +little fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter ‘ud laugh at it!” + +‘“So’d I if I wasn’t in the Republican Navy,” he says. “But two of our +men are dead, d’ye see, and I’m afraid I’ll have to take you +to the Prize Court at Le Havre.” + +‘“Will they condemn my ‘baccy?” I asks. + +‘“To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship. She’d make a +sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court ‘ud let me have her,” + he says. + +‘Then I knew there was no hope. I don’t blame him--a man must consider +his own interests, but nigh every dollar I had was in ship or cargo, and +Steve kept on saying, “You shouldn’t have fought us.” + +‘Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being the one time +we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o’ course we never saw +one. My cousin spoke his best for us at the Prize Court. He owned he’d +no right to rush alongside in the face o’ the United States flag, but +we couldn’t get over those two men killed, d’ye see, and the Court +condemned both ship and cargo. They was kind enough not to make us +prisoners--only beggars--and young L’Estrange was given the BERTHE +AURETTE to re-arm into the French Navy. + +‘“I’ll take you round to Boulogne,” he says. “Mother and the rest’ll be +glad to see you, and you can slip over to Newhaven with Uncle Aurette. +Or you can ship with me, like most o’ your men, and take a turn at King +George’s loose trade. There’s plenty pickings,” he says. + +‘Crazy as I was, I couldn’t help laughing. + +‘“I’ve had my allowance of pickings and stealings,” I says. “Where are +they taking my tobacco?” ‘Twas being loaded on to a barge. + +‘“Up the Seine to be sold in Paris,” he says. “Neither you nor I will +ever touch a penny of that money.” + +‘“Get me leave to go with it,” I says. “I’ll see if there’s justice to +be gotten out of our American Ambassador.” + +‘“There’s not much justice in this world,” he says, “without a Navy.” + But he got me leave to go with the barge and he gave me some money. That +tobacco was all I had, and I followed it like a hound follows a snatched +bone. Going up the river I fiddled a little to keep my spirits up, as +well as to make friends with the guard. They was only doing their duty. +Outside o’ that they were the reasonablest o’ God’s creatures. They +never even laughed at me. So we come to Paris, by river, along in +November, which the French had christened Brumaire. They’d given new +names to all the months, and after such an outrageous silly piece o’ +business as that, they wasn’t likely to trouble ‘emselves with my rights +and wrongs. They didn’t. The barge was laid up below Notre Dame church +in charge of a caretaker, and he let me sleep aboard after I’d run about +all day from office to office, seeking justice and fair dealing, and +getting speeches concerning liberty. None heeded me. Looking back on it +I can’t rightly blame ‘em. I’d no money, my clothes was filthy mucked; +I hadn’t changed my linen in weeks, and I’d no proof of my claims except +the ship’s papers, which, they said, I might have stolen. The thieves! +The door-keeper to the American Ambassador--for I never saw even the +Secretary--he swore I spoke French a sight too well for an American +citizen. Worse than that--I had spent my money, d’ye see, and I--I took +to fiddling in the streets for my keep; and--and, a ship’s captain with +a fiddle under his arm--well, I don’t blame ‘em that they didn’t believe +me. + +‘I come back to the barge one day--late in this month Brumaire it +was--fair beazled out. Old Maingon, the caretaker, he’d lit a fire in a +bucket and was grilling a herring. + +‘“Courage, mon ami,” he says. “Dinner is served.” + +‘“I can’t eat,” I says. “I can’t do any more. It’s stronger than I am.” + ‘“Bah!” he says. “Nothing’s stronger than a man. Me, for example! Less +than two years ago I was blown up in the Orient in Aboukir Bay, but +I descended again and hit the water like a fairy. Look at me now,” he +says. He wasn’t much to look at, for he’d only one leg and one eye, but +the cheerfullest soul that ever trod shoe-leather. “That’s worse than a +hundred and eleven hogshead of ‘baccy,” he goes on. “You’re young, too! +What wouldn’t I give to be young in France at this hour! There’s nothing +you couldn’t do,” he says. “The ball’s at your feet--kick it!” he says. +He kicks the old fire-bucket with his peg-leg. “General Buonaparte, for +example!” he goes on. “That man’s a babe compared to me, and see what +he’s done already. He’s conquered Egypt and Austria and Italy--oh! half +Europe!” he says, “and now he sails back to Paris, and he sails out +to St Cloud down the river here--don’t stare at the river, you young +fool!---and all in front of these pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he +makes himself Consul, which is as good as a King. He’ll be King, too, +in the next three turns of the capstan--King of France, England, and the +world! Think o’ that!” he shouts, “and eat your herring.” + +‘I says something about Boney. If he hadn’t been fighting England I +shouldn’t have lost my ‘baccy--should I? + +‘“Young fellow,” says Maingon, “you don’t understand.” + +‘We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with two in it. +‘“That’s the man himself,” says Maingon. “He’ll give ‘em something to +cheer for soon.” He stands at the salute. + +‘“Who’s t’other in black beside him?” I asks, fairly shaking all over. + +‘“Ah! he’s the clever one. You’ll hear of him before long. He’s that +scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand.” + +‘“It is!” I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run after +the carriage calling, “Abbe, Abbe!” + +‘A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I +had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped--and there just +was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I +wouldn’t have struck up “Si le Roi m’avait donne Paris la grande ville!” + I thought it might remind him. + +‘“That is a good omen!” he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he +looks straight at me. + +‘“Abbe--oh, Abbe!” I says. “Don’t you remember Toby and Hundred and +Eighteen Second Street?” + +‘He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard +at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into +the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd’s face. ‘“You go +there,” says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I +catched my first breath since I’d left the barge. Presently I heard +plates rattling next door--there were only folding doors between--and a +cork drawn. “I tell you,” some one shouts with his mouth full, “it was +all that sulky ass Sieyes’ fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred +saved the situation.” + +‘“Did it save your coat?” says Talleyrand. “I hear they tore it when +they threw you out. Don’t gasconade to me. You may be in the road of +victory, but you aren’t there yet.” + +‘Then I guessed t’other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at +Talleyrand. + +‘“You forget yourself, Consul,” says Talleyrand, “or rather you remember +yourself--Corsican.” + +‘“Pig!” says Boney, and worse. + +‘“Emperor!” says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of +all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew +open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his +pistol before I could stand up. + +“General,” says Talleyrand to him, “this gentleman has a habit of +catching us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing down.” + +‘Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. Talleyrand +takes my hand--“Charmed to see you again, Candide,” he says. “How is the +adorable Dr Pangloss and the noble Huron?” + +‘“They were doing very well when I left,” I said. “But I’m not.” + +‘“Do you sell buttons now?” he says, and fills me a glass of wine off +the table. + +‘“Madeira,” says he. “Not so good as some I have drunk.” + +‘“You mountebank!” Boney roars. “Turn that out.” (He didn’t even say +“man,” but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just went on.) + +‘“Pheasant is not so good as pork,” he says. “You will find some at that +table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pass him a clean plate, +General.” And, as true as I’m here, Boney slid a plate along just like +a sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow-skinned little man, as +nervous as a cat--and as dangerous. I could feel that. + +‘“And now,” said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his sound one, +“will you tell me your story?” ‘I was in a fluster, but I told him +nearly everything from the time he left me the five hundred dollars in +Philadelphia, up to my losing ship and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by +listening, but after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked +at the crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand called +to him when I’d done. + +‘“Eh? What we need now,” says Boney, “is peace for the next three or +four years.” + +‘“Quite so,” says Talleyrand. “Meantime I want the Consul’s order to the +Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his ship.” + +‘“Nonsense!” says Boney. “Give away an oak-built brig of two hundred and +seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She must be armed into my Navy +with ten--no, fourteen twelve-pounders and two long fours. Is she strong +enough to bear a long twelve forward?” + +‘Now I could ha’ sworn he’d paid no heed to my talk, but that wonderful +head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word of it that was useful +to him. + +‘“Ah, General!” says Talleyrand. “You are a magician--a magician without +morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, and we don’t want to +offend them more than we have.” + +‘“Need anybody talk about the affair?” he says. He didn’t look at me, +but I knew what was in his mind--just cold murder because I worried him; +and he’d order it as easy as ordering his carriage. + +‘“You can’t stop ‘em,” I said. “There’s twenty-two other men besides +me.” I felt a little more ‘ud set me screaming like a wired hare. + +‘“Undoubtedly American,” Talleyrand goes on. “You would gain +something if you returned the ship--with a message of fraternal +good-will--published in the MONITEUR” (that’s a French paper like the +Philadelphia AURORA). + +‘“A good idea!” Boney answers. “One could say much in a message.” + +‘“It might be useful,” says Talleyrand. “Shall I have the message +prepared?” He wrote something in a little pocket ledger. + +‘“Yes--for me to embellish this evening. The MONITEUR will publish it +tonight.” + +‘“Certainly. Sign, please,” says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out. + +‘“But that’s the order to return the brig,” says Boney. “Is that +necessary? Why should I lose a good ship? Haven’t I lost enough ships +already?” ‘Talleyrand didn’t answer any of those questions. Then Boney +sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he shies at +the paper again: “My signature alone is useless,” he says. “You must +have the other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos must sign. We +must preserve the Laws.” + +‘“By the time my friend presents it,” says Talleyrand, still looking out +of window, “only one signature will be necessary.” + +‘Boney smiles. “It’s a swindle,” says he, but he signed and pushed the +paper across. + +‘“Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre,” says +Talleyrand, “and he will give you back your ship. I will settle for the +cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What profit did you +expect to make on it?” + +‘Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I’d set out +to run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and so I couldn’t +rightly set bounds to my profits.’ + +‘I guessed that all along,’ said Puck. + + ‘There was never a Lee to Warminghurst-- + That wasn’t a smuggler last and first.’ + +The children laughed. + +‘It’s comical enough now,’ said Pharaoh. ‘But I didn’t laugh then. Says +Talleyrand after a minute, “I am a bad accountant and I have several +calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the +cargo?” + +‘Say? I couldn’t say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China +image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won’t say +how much, because you wouldn’t believe it. + +‘“Oh! Bless you, Abbe! God bless you!” I got it out at last. + +‘“Yes,” he says, “I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me +Bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing,” and he hands me the +paper. + +‘“He stole all that money from me,” says Boney over my shoulder. “A Bank +of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?” he shouts +at Talleyrand. + +‘“Quite,” says Talleyrand, getting up. “But be calm. The disease will +never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman found me in the +street and fed me when I was hungry.” + +‘“I see; and he has made a fine scene of it, and you have paid him, I +suppose. Meantime, France waits.” + +‘“Oh! poor France!” says Talleyrand. “Good-bye, Candide,” he says to me. +“By the way,” he says, “have you yet got Red Jacket’s permission to +tell me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode +away?” + +‘I couldn’t speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney--so impatient +he was to go on with his doings--he ran at me and fair pushed me out of +the room. And that was all there was to it.’ Pharaoh stood up and slid +his fiddle into one of his big skirt-pockets as though it were a dead +hare. + +‘Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,’ said Dan. ‘How you got +home--and what old Maingon said on the barge--and wasn’t your cousin +surprised when he had to give back the BERTHE AURETTE, and--’ + +‘Tell us more about Toby!’ cried Una. + +‘Yes, and Red Jacket,’ said Dan. + +‘Won’t you tell us any more?’ they both pleaded. + +Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column of +smoke that made them sneeze. When they had finished the Shaw was empty +except for old Hobden stamping through the larches. + + +‘They gipsies have took two,’ he said. ‘My black pullet and my liddle +gingy-speckled cockrel.’ + +‘I thought so,’ said Dan, picking up one tail-feather that the old woman +had overlooked. + +‘Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?’ said Hobden. + +‘Hobby!’ said Una. ‘Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley all your +goings and comings?’ + + + + +‘Poor Honest Men’ + + + Your jar of Virginny + Will cost you a guinea, + Which you reckon too much by five shilling or ten; + But light your churchwarden + And judge it accordin’ + When I’ve told you the troubles of poor honest men. + + From the Capes of the Delaware, + As you are well aware, + We sail with tobacco for England--but then + Our own British cruisers, + They watch us come through, sirs, + And they press half a score of us poor honest men. + + Or if by quick sailing + (Thick weather prevailing) + We leave them behind (as we do now and then) + We are sure of a gun from + Each frigate we run from, + Which is often destruction to poor honest men! + + Broadsides the Atlantic + We tumble short-handed, + With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend, + And off the Azores, + Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs + Are waiting to terrify poor honest men! + + Napoleon’s embargo + Is laid on all cargo + Which comfort or aid to King George may intend; + And since roll, twist and leaf, + Of all comforts is chief, + They try for to steal it from poor honest men! + + With no heart for fight, + We take refuge in flight, + But fire as we run, our retreat to defend, + Until our stern-chasers + Cut up her fore-braces, + And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men! + + Twix’ the Forties and Fifties, + South-eastward the drift is, + And so, when we think we are making Land’s End, + Alas, it is Ushant + With half the King’s Navy, + Blockading French ports against poor honest men! + + But they may not quit station + (Which is our salvation), + So swiftly we stand to the Nor’ard again; + And finding the tail of + A homeward-bound convoy, + We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men. + + ‘Twix’ the Lizard and Dover, + We hand our stuff over, + Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when; + But a light on each quarter + Low down on the water + Is well understanded by poor honest men. + Even then we have dangers + From meddlesome strangers, + Who spy on our business and are not content + To take a smooth answer, + Except with a handspike... + And they say they are murdered by poor honest men! + + To be drowned or be shot + Is our natural lot, + Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end-- + After all our great pains + For to dangle in chains, + As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men? + + + + +THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID + + + + +Eddi’s Service + + + Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid + In the chapel at Manhood End, + Ordered a midnight service + For such as cared to attend. + But the Saxons were keeping Christmas, + And the night was stormy as well. + Nobody came to service + Though Eddi rang the bell. + + ‘Wicked weather for walking,’ + Said Eddi of Manhood End. + ‘But I must go on with the service + For such as care to attend.’ + The altar candles were lighted,-- + An old marsh donkey came, + Bold as a guest invited, + And stared at the guttering flame. + + The storm beat on at the windows, + The water splashed on the floor, + And a wet yoke-weary bullock + Pushed in through the open door. + ‘How do I know what is greatest, + How do I know what is least? + That is My Father’s business,’ + Said Eddi, Wilfrid’s priest. + + ‘But, three are gathered together-- + Listen to me and attend. + I bring good news, my brethren!’ + Said Eddi, of Manhood End. + And he told the Ox of a manger + And a stall in Bethlehem, + And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider + That rode to jerusalem. + + They steamed and dripped in the chancel, + They listened and never stirred, + While, just as though they were Bishops, + Eddi preached them The Word. + + Till the gale blew off on the marshes + And the windows showed the day, + And the Ox and the Ass together + Wheeled and clattered away. + + And when the Saxons mocked him, + Said Eddi of Manhood End, + ‘I dare not shut His chapel + On such as care to attend.’ + + + + +The Conversion of St Wilfrid + + +They had bought peppermints up at the village, and were coming home +past little St Barnabas’ Church, when they saw Jimmy Kidbrooke, the +carpenter’s baby, kicking at the churchyard gate, with a shaving in his +mouth and the tears running down his cheeks. + +Una pulled out the shaving and put in a peppermint. Jimmy said he was +looking for his grand-daddy--he never seemed to take much notice of his +father--so they went up between the old graves, under the leaf-dropping +limes, to the porch, where Jim trotted in, looked about the empty +Church, and screamed like a gate-hinge. + +Young Sam Kidbrooke’s voice came from the bell-tower and made them jump. + +‘Why, jimmy,’ he called, ‘what are you doin’ here? Fetch him, Father!’ + +Old Mr Kidbrooke stumped downstairs, jerked Jimmy on to his shoulder, +stared at the children beneath his brass spectacles, and stumped back +again. They laughed: it was so exactly like Mr Kidbrooke. + +‘It’s all right,’ Una called up the stairs. ‘We found him, Sam. Does his +mother know?’ + +‘He’s come off by himself. She’ll be justabout crazy,’ Sam answered. + +‘Then I’ll run down street and tell her.’ Una darted off. + +‘Thank you, Miss Una. Would you like to see how we’re mendin’ the +bell-beams, Mus’ Dan?’ + +Dan hopped up, and saw young Sam lying on his stomach in a most +delightful place among beams and ropes, close to the five great bells. +Old Mr Kidbrooke on the floor beneath was planing a piece of wood, and +Jimmy was eating the shavings as fast as they came away. He never looked +at Jimmy; Jimmy never stopped eating; and the broad gilt-bobbed pendulum +of the church clock never stopped swinging across the white-washed wall +of the tower. + +Dan winked through the sawdust that fell on his upturned face. ‘Ring a +bell,’ he called. + +‘I mustn’t do that, but I’ll buzz one of ‘em a bit for you,’ said Sam. +He pounded on the sound-bow of the biggest bell, and waked a hollow +groaning boom that ran up and down the tower like creepy feelings down +your back. Just when it almost began to hurt, it died away in a hurry of +beautiful sorrowful cries, like a wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger. +The pendulum clanked--one loud clank to each silent swing. + +Dan heard Una return from Mrs Kidbrooke’s, and ran down to fetch her. +She was standing by the font staring at some one who kneeled at the +Altar-rail. + +‘Is that the Lady who practises the organ?’ she whispered. + +‘No. She’s gone into the organ-place. Besides, she wears black,’ Dan +replied. + +The figure rose and came down the nave. It was a white-haired man in +a long white gown with a sort of scarf looped low on the neck, one end +hanging over his shoulder. His loose long sleeves were embroidered with +gold, and a deep strip of gold embroidery waved and sparkled round the +hem of his gown. + +‘Go and meet him,’ said Puck’s voice behind the font. ‘It’s only +Wilfrid.’ + +‘Wilfrid who?’ said Dan. ‘You come along too.’ + +‘Wilfrid--Saint of Sussex, and Archbishop of York. I shall wait till +he asks me.’ He waved them forward. Their feet squeaked on the old +grave-slabs in the centre aisle. The Archbishop raised one hand with a +pink ring on it, and said something in Latin. He was very handsome, and +his thin face looked almost as silvery as his thin circle of hair. + +‘Are you alone?’ he asked. + +‘Puck’s here, of course,’ said Una. ‘Do you know him?’ + +‘I know him better now than I used to.’ He beckoned over Dan’s shoulder, +and spoke again in Latin. Puck pattered forward, holding himself as +straight as an arrow. The Archbishop smiled. + +‘Be welcome,’ said he. ‘Be very welcome.’ + +‘Welcome to you also, O Prince of the church,’ Puck replied. + +The Archbishop bowed his head and passed on, till he glimmered like a +white moth in the shadow by the font. + +‘He does look awfully princely,’ said Una. ‘Isn’t he coming back?’ + +‘Oh yes. He’s only looking over the church. He’s very fond of churches,’ +said Puck. ‘What’s that?’ + +The Lady who practices the organ was speaking to the blower-boy behind +the organ-screen. ‘We can’t very well talk here,’ Puck whispered. ‘Let’s +go to Panama Corner.’ + +He led them to the end of the south aisle, where there is a slab of iron +which says in queer, long-tailed letters: ORATE P. ANNEMA JHONE COLINE. +The children always called it Panama Corner. + +The Archbishop moved slowly about the little church, peering at the old +memorial tablets and the new glass windows. The Lady who practises the +organ began to pull out stops and rustle hymn-books behind the screen. + +‘I hope she’ll do all the soft lacey tunes--like treacle on porridge,’ +said Una. + +‘I like the trumpety ones best,’ said Dan. ‘Oh, look at Wilfrid! He’s +trying to shut the Altar-gates!’ + +‘Tell him he mustn’t,’ said Puck, quite seriously. + +He can’t, anyhow,’ Dan muttered, and tiptoed out of Panama Corner while +the Archbishop patted and patted at the carved gates that always sprang +open again beneath his hand. + +‘That’s no use, sir,’ Dan whispered. ‘Old Mr Kidbrooke says Altar-gates +are just the one pair of gates which no man can shut. He made ‘em so +himself.’ + +The Archbishop’s blue eyes twinkled. Dan saw that he knew all about it. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ Dan stammered--very angry with Puck. + +‘Yes, I know! He made them so Himself.’ The Archbishop smiled, and +crossed to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a certain padded +arm-chair for him to sit on. + +The organ played softly. ‘What does that music say?’ he asked. + +Una dropped into the chant without thinking: ‘“O all ye works of the +Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever.” We call +it the Noah’s Ark, because it’s all lists of things--beasts and birds +and whales, you know.’ + +‘Whales?’ said the Archbishop quickly. + +‘Yes--“O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,”’ Una +hummed--‘“Bless ye the Lord.” It sounds like a wave turning over, +doesn’t it?’ + +‘Holy Father,’ said Puck with a demure face, ‘is a little seal also “one +who moves in the water”?’ + +‘Eh? Oh yes--yess!’ he laughed. ‘A seal moves wonderfully in the waters. +Do the seal come to my island still?’ + +Puck shook his head. ‘All those little islands have been swept away.’ + +‘Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land +of the Sea-calf, maiden?’ + +‘No--but we’ve seen seals--at Brighton.’ + +‘The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means +Seal’s Eye--Selsey--down Chichester way--where he converted the South +Saxons,’ Puck explained. + +‘Yes--yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,’ said the +Archbishop, smiling. ‘The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As +our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow of +a seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the water, and scratched +his head with his flipper as if he were saying: “What does that excited +person with the pole think he is doing.” I was very wet and miserable, +but I could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked +us.’ + +‘What did you do?’ Dan asked. + +‘One couldn’t very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go +back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own +Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at +York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and--and I’m afraid I +lost my temper.’ + +‘It is said--’ Puck’s voice was wickedly meek--‘that there was a great +fight.’ + +Eh, but I must ha’ been a silly lad.’ Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick +burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again. +‘There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide +rose half an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed +off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full +of sleek seals watching the scuffle. My good Eddi--my chaplain--insisted +that they were demons. Yes--yess! That was my first acquaintance with +the South Saxons and their seals.’ + +‘But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?’ said Dan. + +‘Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long +shipwreck.’ He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden sometimes +looks into the fire. ‘Ah, well!’ + +‘But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?’ said Una, +after a little. + +‘Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important things. +Yes--yess! I went back to the South Saxons after twelve--fifteen--years. +No, I did not come by water, but overland from my own Northumbria, to +see what I could do. It’s little one can do with that class of native +except make them stop killing each other and themselves--’ ‘Why did they +kill themselves?’ Una asked, her chin in her hand. + +‘Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they +were the only people!) they would jump into the sea. They called it +going to Wotan. It wasn’t want of food always--by any means. A man would +tell you that he felt grey in the heart, or a woman would say that she +saw nothing but long days in front of her; and they’d saunter away to +the mud-flats and--that would be the end of them, poor souls, unless one +headed them off. One had to run quick, but one can’t allow people to +lay hands on themselves because they happen to feel grey. +Yes--yess--Extraordinary people, the South Saxons. Disheartening, +sometimes.... What does that say now?’ The organ had changed tune again. + +‘Only a hymn for next Sunday,’ said Una. ‘“The Church’s One Foundation.” + Go on, please, about running over the mud. I should like to have seen +you.’ + +‘I dare say you would, and I really could run in those days. Ethelwalch +the King gave me some five or six muddy parishes by the sea, and the +first time my good Eddi and I rode there we saw a man slouching +along the slob, among the seals at Manhood End. My good Eddi disliked +seals--but he swallowed his objections and ran like a hare.’ + +‘Why?’ said Dan. + +‘For the same reason that I did. We thought it was one of our people +going to drown himself. As a matter of fact, Eddi and I were nearly +drowned in the pools before we overtook him. To cut a long story short, +we found ourselves very muddy, very breathless, being quietly made fun +of in good Latin by a very well-spoken person. No--he’d no idea of +going to Wotan. He was fishing on his own beaches, and he showed us the +beacons and turf-heaps that divided his land from the church property. +He took us to his own house, gave us a good dinner, some more than good +wine, sent a guide with us into Chichester, and became one of my best +and most refreshing friends. He was a Meon by descent, from the west +edge of the kingdom; a scholar educated, curiously enough, at Lyons, +my old school; had travelled the world over, even to Rome, and was a +brilliant talker. We found we had scores of acquaintances in common. It +seemed he was a small chief under King Ethelwalch, and I fancy the King +was somewhat afraid of him. The South Saxons mistrust a man who talks +too well. Ah! Now, I’ve left out the very point of my story. He kept a +great grey-muzzled old dog-seal that he had brought up from a pup. He +called it Padda--after one of my clergy. It was rather like fat, honest +old Padda. The creature followed him everywhere, and nearly knocked down +my good Eddi when we first met him. Eddi loathed it. It used to sniff at +his thin legs and cough at him. I can’t say I ever took much notice +of it (I was not fond of animals), till one day Eddi came to me with +a circumstantial account of some witchcraft that Meon worked. He would +tell the seal to go down to the beach the last thing at night, and +bring him word of the weather. When it came back, Meon might say to his +slaves, “Padda thinks we shall have wind tomorrow. Haul up the boats!” I +spoke to Meon casually about the story, and he laughed. + +‘He told me he could judge by the look of the creature’s coat and the +way it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. One need +not put down everything one does not understand to the work of bad +spirits--or good ones, for that matter.’ He nodded towards Puck, who +nodded gaily in return. + +‘I say so,’ he went on, ‘because to a certain extent I have been made a +victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled at Selsey, +King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people to be baptized. I +fear I’m too old to believe that a whole nation can change its heart at +the King’s command, and I had a shrewd suspicion that their real motive +was to get a good harvest. No rain had fallen for two or three years, +but as soon as we had finished baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all +said it was a miracle.’ + +‘And was it?’ Dan asked. + +‘Everything in life is a miracle, but’--the Archbishop twisted the heavy +ring on his finger--‘I should be slow--ve-ry slow should I be--to assume +that a certain sort of miracle happens whenever lazy and improvident +people say they are going to turn over a new leaf if they are paid for +it. My friend Meon had sent his slaves to the font, but he had not come +himself, so the next time I rode over--to return a manuscript--I took +the liberty of asking why. He was perfectly open about it. He looked +on the King’s action as a heathen attempt to curry favour with the +Christians’ God through me the Archbishop, and he would have none of it. + +‘“My dear man,” I said, “admitting that that is the case, surely you, as +an educated person, don’t believe in Wotan and all the other hobgoblins +any more than Padda here?” The old seal was hunched up on his ox-hide +behind his master’s chair. + +‘“Even if I don’t,” he said, “why should I insult the memory of my +fathers’ Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my rascals to +christen. Isn’t that enough?” + +‘“By no means,” I answered. “I want you.” + +‘“He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?” He pulled the seal’s +whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he pretended to +interpret. “No! Padda says he won’t be baptized yet awhile. He says +you’ll stay to dinner and come fishing with me tomorrow, because you’re +over-worked and need a rest.” + +‘“I wish you’d keep yon brute in its proper place,” I said, and Eddi, my +chaplain, agreed. + +‘“I do,” said Meon. “I keep him just next my heart. He can’t tell a lie, +and he doesn’t know how to love any one except me. It ‘ud be the same if +I were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn’t it, Padda?” + +‘“Augh! Augh!” said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched. + +‘Then Meon began to tease Eddi: “Padda says, if Eddi saw his Archbishop +dying on a mud-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown and run. Padda knows +Eddi can run too! Padda came into Wittering Church last Sunday--all +wet--to hear the music, and Eddi ran out.” + +‘My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and flushed. +“Padda is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!” he cried, +and begged my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him. + +‘“Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician,” said Meon. “But +here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand it. You’ll find +my small harp beside the fireplace.” + +‘Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for quite +half an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched himself on his +flippers before him, and listened with his head thrown back. Yes--yess! +A rather funny sight! Meon tried not to laugh, and asked Eddi if he were +satisfied. + +‘It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi’s head. He looked +at me. + +‘“Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up +the chimney? Why not baptize him?” said Meon. + +‘Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself. + +‘“That’s not fair,” said Meon. “You call him a demon and a familiar +spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you +a chance to prove it you won’t take it. Look here! I’ll make a bargain. +I’ll be baptized if you’ll baptize Padda too. He’s more of a man than +most of my slaves.” + +‘“One doesn’t bargain--or joke--about these matters,” I said. He was +going altogether too far. + +‘“Quite right,” said Meon; “I shouldn’t like any one to joke about +Padda. Padda, go down to the beach and bring us tomorrow’s weather!” + +‘My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day’s work. +“I am a servant of the church,” he cried. “My business is to save souls, +not to enter into fellowships and understandings with accursed beasts.” + +‘“Have it your own narrow way,” said Meon. “Padda, you needn’t go.” The +old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once. + +‘“Man could learn obedience at least from that creature,” said Eddi, a +little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse. ‘“Don’t begin to +apologise Just when I am beginning to like you,” said Meon. “We’ll leave +Padda behind tomorrow--out of respect to your feelings. Now let’s go to +supper. We must be up early tomorrow for the whiting.” + +‘The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning--a weather-breeder, if I +had taken the trouble to think; but it’s refreshing to escape from +kings and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon’s +smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or +so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were +keen. Yes--yess! A perfect morning’s fishing! If a Bishop can’t be a +fisherman, who can?’ He twiddled his ring again. ‘We stayed there a +little too long, and while we were getting up our stone, down came the +fog. After some discussion, we decided to row for the land. The ebb was +just beginning to make round the point, and sent us all ways at once +like a coracle.’ + +‘Selsey Bill,’ said Puck under his breath. ‘The tides run something +furious there.’ + +‘I believe you,’ said the Archbishop. ‘Meon and I have spent a good many +evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I know is we found +ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung up round us out of the +fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, and she broke up beneath +our feet. We had just time to shuffle through the weed before the next +wave. The sea was rising. ‘“It’s rather a pity we didn’t let Padda go +down to the beach last night,” said Meon. “He might have warned us this +was coming.” + +‘“Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons,” said +Eddi, and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor’-west breeze had just +got up--distinctly cool. + +‘“Save what you can of the boat,” said Meon; “we may need it,” and we +had to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray planks.’ + +‘What for?’ said Dan. + +‘For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi had flint +and steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls’ nests and lit a +fire. It smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat-planks up-ended +between the rocks. One gets used to that sort of thing if one travels. +Unluckily I’m not so strong as I was. I fear I must have been a trouble +to my friends. It was blowing a full gale before midnight. Eddi wrung +out his cloak, and tried to wrap me in it, but I ordered him on his +obedience to keep it. However, he held me in his arms all the first +night, and Meon begged his pardon for what he’d said the night +before--about Eddi, running away if he found me on a sandbank, you +remember. ‘“You are right in half your prophecy,” said Eddi. “I have +tucked up my gown, at any rate.” (The wind had blown it over his head.) +“Now let us thank God for His mercies.” + +‘“Hum!” said Meon. “If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair chance of +dying of starvation.” + +‘“If it be God’s will that we survive, God will provide,” said Eddi. “At +least help me to sing to Him.” The wind almost whipped the words out of +his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and sang psalms. + +‘I’m glad I never concealed my opinion--from myself--that Eddi was +a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time--very hard! +Yes--yess! So the morning and the evening were our second day on that +islet. There was rain-water in the rock-pools, and, as a churchman, I +knew how to fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by +chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear fellows, when +I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his arms the second night, +just like a child. My good Eddi was a little out of his senses, +and imagined himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he was +beautifully patient with them. + +‘I heard Meon whisper, “If this keeps up we shall go to our Gods. I +wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I don’t believe in him. +On the other hand, I can’t do what Ethelwalch finds so easy--curry +favour with your God at the last minute, in the hope of being saved--as +you call it. How do you advise, Bishop?” ‘“My dear man,” I said, “if +that is your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far +better not curry favour with any God. But if it’s only your Jutish pride +that holds you back, lift me up, and I’ll baptize you even now.” + +‘“Lie still,” said Meon. “I could judge better if I were in my own +hall. But to desert one’s fathers’ Gods--even if one doesn’t believe in +them--in the middle of a gale, isn’t quite--What would you do yourself?” + +‘I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, steady +heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle arguments, +so I answered, “No, I certainly should not desert my God.” I don’t see +even now what else I could have said. + +‘“Thank you. I’ll remember that, if I live,” said Meon, and I must have +drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and beautiful France, for +it was broad daylight when I heard him calling on Wotan in that high, +shaking heathen yell that I detest so. + +‘“Lie quiet. I’m giving Wotan his chance,” he said. Our dear Eddi ambled +up, still beating time to his imaginary choir. + +‘“Yes. Call on your Gods,” he cried, “and see what gifts they will send +you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting.” + +‘I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old Padda shot +from the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself over the weedy +ledge, and landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod between his teeth. I +could not help smiling at Eddi’s face. “A miracle! A miracle!” he cried, +and kneeled down to clean the cod. + +‘“You’ve been a long time finding us, my son,” said Meon. “Now +fish--fish for all our lives. We’re starving, Padda.” + +‘The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward into the +boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, “We’re safe. I’ll +send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat and be thankful.” + +‘I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took from +Padda’s mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his plunges Padda +would hunch up and purr over Meon with the tears running down his face. +I never knew before that seals could weep for joy--as I have wept. + +‘“Surely,” said Eddi, with his mouth full, “God has made the seal the +loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda breasts the +current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch the chain of +bubbles where he dives; and now--there is his wise head under that +rock-ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little brother Padda!” + +‘“You said he was a child of the Devil!” Meon laughed. ‘“There I +sinned,” poor Eddi answered. “Call him here, and I will ask his pardon. +God sent him out of the storm to humble me, a fool.” + +‘“I won’t ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings with any +accursed brute,” said Meon, rather unkindly. “Shall we say he was sent +to our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your prophet Elijah?” + +‘“Doubtless that is so,” said Eddi. “I will write it so if I live to get +home.” + +‘“No--no!” I said. “Let us three poor men kneel and thank God for His +mercies.” + +‘We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head under Meon’s +elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So did Eddi. + +‘“And now, my son,” I said to Meon, “shall I baptize thee?” + +‘“Not yet,” said he. “Wait till we are well ashore and at home. No God +in any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him because I was wet +and cold. I will send Padda to my people for a boat. Is that witchcraft, +Eddi?” + +‘“Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by the skirts +of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to ask me to sing. +Only then I was afraid, and did not understand,” said Eddi. + +‘“You are understanding now,” said Meon, and at a wave of his arm off +went Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a war-boat till we lost +him in the rain. Meon’s people could not bring a boat across for some +hours; even so it was ticklish work among the rocks in that tideway. +But they hoisted me aboard, too stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us, +barking and turning somersaults all the way to Manhood End!’ + +‘Good old Padda!’ murmured Dan. + +‘When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had been +summoned--not an hour before--Meon offered himself to be baptized.’ + +‘Was Padda baptized too?’ Una asked. + +‘No, that was only Meon’s joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in +the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn’t looking) made a +little cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi’s hand. A +week before Eddi wouldn’t have touched him. That was a miracle, if you +like! But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A +rare and splendid soul that never looked back--never looked back!’ The +Arch-bishop half closed his eyes. + +‘But, sir,’ said Puck, most respectfully, ‘haven’t you left out what +Meon said afterwards?’ Before the Bishop could speak he turned to the +children and went on: ‘Meon called all his fishers and ploughmen and +herdsmen into the hall and he said: “Listen, men! Two days ago I asked +our Bishop whether it was fair for a man to desert his fathers’ Gods +in a time of danger. Our Bishop said it was not fair. You needn’t shout +like that, because you are all Christians now. My red war-boat’s crew +will remember how near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over +to the Bishop’s islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place, +at that time, hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a +Christian, counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers’ Gods. I +tell you now that a faith which takes care that every man shall keep +faith, even though he may save his soul by breaking faith, is the faith +for a man to believe in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in +Wilfrid His Bishop, and in the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been +baptized once by the King’s orders. I shall not have you baptized again; +but if I find any more old women being sent to Wotan, or any girls +dancing on the sly before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok +or the rest, I will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with +the Christian God. Go out quietly; you’ll find a couple of beefs on the +beach.” Then of course they shouted “Hurrah!” which meant “Thor help +us!” and--I think you laughed, sir?’ + +‘I think you remember it all too well,’ said the Archbishop, smiling. +‘It was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on that rock +where Padda found us. Yes--yess! One should deal kindly with all the +creatures of God, and gently with their masters. But one learns late.’ + +He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly. + +The organ cracked and took deep breaths. + +‘Wait a minute,’ Dan whispered. ‘She’s going to do the trumpety one. It +takes all the wind you can pump. It’s in Latin, sir.’ + +‘There is no other tongue,’ the Archbishop answered. + +‘It’s not a real hymn,’ Una explained. ‘She does it as a treat after her +exercises. She isn’t a real organist, you know. She just comes down here +sometimes, from the Albert Hall.’ + +‘Oh, what a miracle of a voice!’ said the Archbishop. + +It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises--every word +spoken to the very end: + + ‘Dies Irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla, + Teste David cum Sibylla.’ +The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward. The music carried on +by itself a while. + +‘Now it’s calling all the light out of the windows,’ Una whispered to +Dan. + +‘I think it’s more like a horse neighing in battle,’ he whispered back. +The voice continued: + + ‘Tuba mirum spargens sonum + Per sepulchre regionum.’ + +Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its deepest note +they heard Puck’s voice joining in the last line: + + ‘Coget omnes ante thronum.’ + +As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one of the +very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out through the +south door. + +‘Now’s the sorrowful part, but it’s very beautiful.’ Una found herself +speaking to the empty chair in front of her. + +‘What are you doing that for?’ Dan said behind her. ‘You spoke so +politely too.’ + +‘I don’t know... I thought--’ said Una. ‘Funny!’ + +‘’Tisn’t. It’s the part you like best,’ Dan grunted. + +The music had turned soft--full of little sounds that chased each other +on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But the voice +was ten times lovelier than the music. + + ‘Recordare Jesu pie, + Quod sum causa Tuae viae, + Ne me perdas illi die!’ + +There was no more. They moved out into the centre aisle. + +‘That you?’ the Lady called as she shut the lid. ‘I thought I heard you, +and I played it on purpose.’ + +‘Thank you awfully,’ said Dan. ‘We hoped you would, so we waited. Come +on, Una, it’s pretty nearly dinner-time.’ + + + + +Song of the Red War-Boat + + + Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! + Watch for a smooth! Give way! + If she feels the lop already + She’ll stand on her head in the bay. + It’s ebb--it’s dusk--it’s blowing, + The shoals are a mile of white, + But (snatch her along!) we’re going + To find our master tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster + Of shipwreck, storm, or sword, + A man must stand by his master + When once he had pledged his word! + + Raging seas have we rowed in, + But we seldom saw them thus; + Our master is angry with Odin-- + Odin is angry with us! + Heavy odds have we taken, + But never before such odds. + The Gods know they are forsaken, + We must risk the wrath of the Gods! + + Over the crest she flies from, + Into its hollow she drops, + Crouches and clears her eyes from + The wind-torn breaker-tops, + Ere out on the shrieking shoulder + Of a hill-high surge she drives. + Meet her! Meet her and hold her! + Pull for your scoundrel lives! + + The thunder bellow and clamour + The harm that they mean to do; + There goes Thor’s Own Hammer + Cracking the dark in two! + + Close! But the blow has missed her, + Here comes the wind of the blow! + Row or the squall’ll twist her + Broadside on to it!---Row! + + Hearken, Thor of the Thunder! + We are not here for a jest-- + For wager, warfare, or plunder, + Or to put your power to test. + This work is none of our wishing-- + We would stay at home if we might-- + But our master is wrecked out fishing, + We go to find him tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster-- + As the Gods Themselves have said-- + A man must stand by his master + Till one of the two is dead. + + That is our way of thinking, + Now you can do as you will, + While we try to save her from sinking, + And hold her head to it still. + Bale her and keep her moving, + Or she’ll break her back in the trough... + Who said the weather’s improving, + And the swells are taking off? + + Sodden, and chafed and aching, + Gone in the loins and knees-- + No matter--the day is breaking, + And there’s far less weight to the seas! + Up mast, and finish baling-- + In oars, and out with the mead-- + The rest will be two-reef sailing... + That was a night indeed! + But we hold that in all disaster + (And faith, we have found it true!) + If only you stand by your master, + The Gods will stand by you! + + + + + +A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE + + + + +An Astrologer’s Song + + + To the Heavens above us + Oh, look and behold + The planets that love us + All harnessed in gold! + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? + + All thought, all desires, + That are under the sun, + Are one with their fires, + As we also are one; + All matter, all spirit, + All fashion, all frame, + Receive and inherit + Their strength from the same. + + (Oh, man that deniest + All power save thine own, + Their power in the highest + Is mightily shown. + Not less in the lowest + That power is made clear. + Oh, man, if thou knowest, + What treasure is here!) + + Earth quakes in her throes + And we wonder for why! + But the blind planet knows + When her ruler is nigh; + And, attuned since Creation, + To perfect accord, + She thrills in her station + And yearns to her Lord. + + The waters have risen, + The springs are unbound-- + The floods break their prison, + And ravin around. + No rampart withstands ‘em, + Their fury will last, + Till the Sign that commands ‘em + Sinks low or swings past. + + Through abysses unproven, + And gulfs beyond thought, + Our portion is woven, + Our burden is brought. + Yet They that prepare it, + Whose Nature we share, + Make us who must bear it + Well able to bear. + + Though terrors o’ertake us + We’ll not be afraid, + No Power can unmake us + Save that which has made. + Nor yet beyond reason + Nor hope shall we fall-- + All things have their season, + And Mercy crowns all. + + Then, doubt not, ye fearful-- + The Eternal is King-- + Up, heart, and be cheerful, + And lustily sing: + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? + + + + +A Doctor of Medicine + +They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had +hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the +walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash +off when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and +disappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her +footsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener) +coughed in the corner of the herb-beds. + +‘All right,’ Una shouted across the asparagus; ‘we aren’t hurting your +old beds, Phippsey!’ + +She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light +they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned +hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the +man said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they +understood he was warning them not to catch colds. + +‘You’ve a bit of a cold yourself, haven’t you?’ said Una, for he ended +all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed. + +‘Child,’ the man answered, ‘if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with +an infirmity--’ + +‘Nay, nay,’ Puck struck In, ‘the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that +half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that’s a pity. +There’s honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.’ + +‘Good people’--the man shrugged his lean shoulders--‘the vulgar crowd +love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress her +to catch their eye or--ahem!---their ear.’ + +‘And what d’you think of that?’ said Puck solemnly to Dan. + +‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It sounds like lessons.’ + +‘Ah--well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessons +from. Now, where can we sit that’s not indoors?’ + +‘In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,’ Dan suggested. ‘He doesn’t +mind.’ + +‘Eh?’ Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the +light of Una’s lamp. ‘Does Master Middenboro need my poor services, +then?’ + +‘Save him, no!’ said Puck. ‘He is but a horse--next door to an ass, as +you’ll see presently. Come!’ + +Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out of +the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to the +shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyes +showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens’ +drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeper +stooped at the door. + +‘Mind where you lie,’ said Dan. ‘This hay’s full of hedge-brishings. + +‘In! in!’ said Puck. ‘You’ve lain in fouler places than this, Nick. +Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!’ He kicked open the top of the +half-door, and pointed to the clear sky. ‘There be the planets you +conjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable +star behind those apple boughs?’ + +The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked down +the steep lane. ‘Where?’ Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. ‘That? Some +countryman’s lantern.’ + +‘Wrong, Nick,’ said Puck. ‘’Tis a singular bright star in Virgo, +declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hath +lately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren’t I right, Una?’ Mr Culpeper +snorted contemptuously. + +‘No. It’s the village nurse going down to the Mill about some fresh +twins that came there last week. Nurse,’ Una called, as the light +stopped on the flat, ‘when can I see the Morris twins? And how are +they?’ + +‘Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,’ the Nurse called back, and +with a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner. + +‘Her uncle’s a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,’ Una explained, and if you +ring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed--not downstairs +at all. Then she ‘umps up--she always keeps a pair of dry boots in the +fender, you know--and goes anywhere she’s wanted. We help her bicycle +through gaps sometimes. Most of her babies do beautifully. She told us +so herself.’ + +‘I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,’ said Mr Culpeper +quietly. ‘Twins at the Mill!’ he muttered half aloud. “And again He +sayeth, Return, ye children of men.”’ + +‘Are you a doctor or a rector?’ Una asked, and Puck with a shout turned +head over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was quite serious. He told +them that he was a physician-astrologer--a doctor who knew all about the +stars as well as all about herbs for medicine. He said that the sun, +the moon, and five Planets, called Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and +Venus, governed everybody and everything in the world. They all lived +in Houses--he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy +forefinger--and they moved from House to House like pieces at draughts; +and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. If you +knew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them cure your +patient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret causes of things. +He talked of these five Planets as though they belonged to him, or as +though he were playing long games against them. The children burrowed +in the hay up to their chins, and looked out over the half-door at the +solemn, star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside down +into it, while Mr Culpeper talked about ‘trines’ and ‘oppositions’ and +‘conjunctions’ and ‘sympathies’ and ‘antipathies’ in a tone that just +matched things. + +A rat ran between Middenboro’s feet, and the old pony stamped. + +‘Mid hates rats,’ said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. ‘I wonder +why.’ + +‘Divine Astrology tells us,’ said Mr Culpeper. ‘The horse, being a +martial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the red +planet Mars--the Lord of War. I would show you him, but he’s too near +his setting. Rats and mice, doing their businesses by night, come under +the dominion of our Lady the Moon. Now between Mars and Luna, the one +red, t’other white, the one hot t’other cold and so forth, stands, as +I have told you, a natural antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which +antipathy their creatures do inherit. Whence, good people, you may both +see and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes +as decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face of +Heaven! Ahem!’ Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake with +laughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly. + +‘I myself’ said he, ‘have saved men’s lives, and not a few neither, by +observing at the proper time--there is a time, mark you, for all +things under the sun--by observing, I say, so small a beast as a rat +in conjunction with so great a matter as this dread arch above us.’ He +swept his hand across the sky. ‘Yet there are those,’ he went on sourly, +‘who have years without knowledge.’ + +‘Right,’ said Puck. ‘No fool like an old fool.’ + +Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while the children +stared at the Great Bear on the hilltop. + +‘Give him time,’ Puck whispered behind his hand. ‘He turns like a +timber-tug--all of a piece.’ + +‘Ahem!’ Mr Culpeper said suddenly. ‘I’ll prove it to you. When I was +physician to Saye’s Horse, and fought the King--or rather the man +Charles Stuart--in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at Cambridge), the +plague was very hot all around us. I saw it at close hands. He who +says I am ignorant of the plague, for example, is altogether beside the +bridge.’ + +‘We grant it,’ said Puck solemnly. ‘But why talk of the plague this rare +night?’ + +‘To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good people, being +generated among rivers and ditches, was of a werish, watery nature. +Therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water, and +laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I cured some of them. Mark +this. It bears on what shall come after.’ + +‘Mark also, Nick,’ said Puck, that we are not your College of +Physicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore be +plain, old Hyssop on the Wall!’ + +‘To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while +gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took by the +King’s men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, whom I warned +honestly that I had spent the week past among our plague-stricken. He +flung me off into a cowshed, much like this here, to die, as I supposed; +but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound. He was +a Sussex man like myself.’ + +‘Who was that?’ said Puck suddenly. ‘Zack Tutshom?’ + +‘No, Jack Marget,’ said Mr Culpeper. + +‘Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered so? Why +a plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?’ said Puck. + +‘He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop when the King +should have conquered the rebels, as he styled us Parliament men. His +College had lent the King some monies too, which they never got again, +no more than simple Jack got his bishopric. When we met he had had a +bitter bellyful of King’s promises, and wished to return to his wife and +babes. This came about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I could +stand of my wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among the +plague, and Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from their +camp. The King had done with Jack now that Jack’s College had lent the +money, and Blagge’s physician could not abide me because I would not +sit silent and see him butcher the sick. (He was a College of Physicians +man!) So Blagge, I say, thrust us both out, with many vile words, for a +pair of pestilent, prating, pragmatical rascals.’ + +‘Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?’ Puck started up. ‘High time Oliver +came to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack fare next?’ + +‘We were in some sort constrained to each other’s company. I was for +going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Sussex; +but the plague was broke out and spreading through Wiltshire, Berkshire, +and Hampshire, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even +then be among his folk at home that I bore him company. He had comforted +me in my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I +had a cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack’s parish. Thus we footed it +from Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars on +the left side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, or +the plague making men less cruel, we were not hindered. To be sure, they +put us in the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a village +under St Leonard’s forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales never +sing; but the constable very honestly gave me back my Astrological +Almanac, which I carry with me.’ Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. ‘I +dressed a whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward. + +‘Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against Jack +Marget’s parish in a storm of rain about the day’s end. Here our roads +divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, but +while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk, +as he conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, a +parishioner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himself +bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to follow +princes. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of it +neither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man’s head lay on +it.’ + +‘What’s a plague-stone?’ Dan whispered. + +‘When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut the +roads against ‘em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where such +as would purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper of +their wants, and depart. Those that would sell come later--what will +a man not do for gain?---snatch the money forth, and leave in exchange +such goods as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat +in the water, and the man’s list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in +his wet hand. + +‘“My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!” says Jack of a sudden, and makes +uphill--I with him. + +‘A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village is +stricken with the plague, and that for our lives’ sake we must avoid it. + +‘“Sweetheart!” says Jack. “Must I avoid thee?” and she leaps at him and +says the babes are safe. She was his wife. + +‘When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was not the +welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I was +clean. + +‘“Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now,” I said. +“These affairs are, under God’s leave, in some fashion my strength.” + +‘“Oh, sir,” she says, “are you a physician? We have none.” + +‘“Then, good people,” said I, “I must e’en justify myself to you by my +works.” + +‘“Look--look ye,” stammers Jack, “I took you all this time for a crazy +Roundhead preacher.” He laughs, and she, and then I--all three together +in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter, +which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical +Passion. So I went home with ‘em.’ + +‘Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?’ Puck +suggested. ‘’tis barely seven mile up the road.’ + +‘But the plague was here,’ Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed up the +hill. ‘What else could I have done?’ + +‘What were the parson’s children called?’ said Una. + +‘Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles--a babe. I scarce saw them at +first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. The +mother we put--forced--into the house with her babes. She had done +enough. + +‘And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. The +plague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed +‘em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the PRIME MOBILE, or source of +life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highest +degree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler’s, where they sell +forage to the carters, extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, and +scatteringly in other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Mark +here, that all forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn and +meat and wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was no +plague in the smithy at Munday’s Lane--’ + +‘Munday’s Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked about +the two Mills,’ cried Dan. ‘Where did we put the plague-stone? I’d like +to have seen it.’ + +‘Then look at it now,’ said Puck, and pointed to the chickens’ +drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough, +oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips, +who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for his +precious hens. + +‘That?’ said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. Mr +Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on. + +‘I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would have +you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plague +which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfordshire was +of a watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred +in, and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague of +ours here, for all that it flourished along watercourses--every soul at +both Mills died of it,--could not be so handled. Which brought me to a +stand. Ahem!’ + +‘And your sick people in the meantime?’ Puck demanded. ‘We persuaded them +on the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram’s field. Where +the plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would not +shift for fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their lives +to die among their goods.’ + +‘Human nature,’ said Puck. ‘I’ve seen it time and again. How did your +sick do in the fields?’ + +‘They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and even +then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. But +I confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, or +come at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flat +bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so--did what I +should have done before--dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions +that had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped +my vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned to +wait upon the stars for guidance.’ + +‘At night? Were you not horribly frightened?’ said Puck. + +‘I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly curious to +search out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In due +time--there’s a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun--I +spied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath the +dormer of an attic through which shined our Lady the Moon. Whilst I +looked on him--and her--she was moving towards old cold Saturn, her +ancient ally--the rat creeped languishingly into her light, and there, +before my eyes, died. Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him +down beside there, and in like fashion died too. Later--an hour or +less to midnight--a third rat did e’en the same; always choosing the +moonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, the +moonlight is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon; +and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would say, was hourly +strengthening her evil influence. Yet these three rats had been stricken +dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the window to see which of +Heaven’s host might be on our side, and there beheld I good trusty Mars, +very red and heated, bustling about his setting. I straddled the roof to +see better. + +‘Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram’s +field. A tile slipped under my foot. + +Says he, heavily enough, “Watchman, what of the night?” + +‘“Heart up, Jack,” says I. “Methinks there’s one fighting for us that, +like a fool, I’ve forgot all this summer.” My meaning was naturally the +planet Mars. + +‘“Pray to Him then,” says he. “I forgot Him too this summer.” + +‘He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of having +forgotten up in Oxfordshire, among the King’s men. I called down that +he had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but he +said he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from ‘em. He was +at his strength’s end--more from melancholy than any just cause. I have +seen this before among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him then +and there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, +but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.’ + +‘What were they?’ said Dan. + +‘White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of +pepper, and aniseed.’ ‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Waters you call ‘em!’ + +‘Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I was for the +Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind had +already shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles, +but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. That +practice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to make +judgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and +his lantern among the sick in Hitheram’s field. He still maintained +the prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by +Cromwell.’ + +‘You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,’ said Puck, ‘and Jack +would have been fined for it, and you’d have had half the money. How did +you come so to fail in your duty, Nick?’ + +Mr Culpeper laughed--his only laugh that evening--and the children +jumped at the loud neigh of it. + +‘We were not fearful of men’s judgment in those days,’ he answered. ‘Now +mark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, though +not to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, low +down in the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun’s rising-place. Our +Lady the Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak +astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed the +Maker of ‘em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew himself below +the sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright star +or vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up his +sword), and broke all about in fire. The cocks crowed midnight through +the valley, and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint +(though that’s an herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses’ +heads in the world! ‘Twas plain enough now!’ + +‘What was plain?’ said Una. + +‘The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had fought +for us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, and +this had made me overlook him in my computations, he more than any +of the other planets had kept the Heavens--which is to say, had been +visible some part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore +his fierce and cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, had +stretched out to kill those three rats under my nose, and under the nose +of their natural mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across +Heaven to deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his shield, +but I had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual.’ + +‘I don’t understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because he +hated the Moon?’ said Una. + +‘That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge’s men pushed me +forth,’ Mr Culpeper answered. ‘I’ll prove it. Why had the plague not +broken out at the blacksmith’s shop in Munday’s Lane? Because, as I’ve +shown you, forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for his +honour’s sake, Mars ‘ud keep ‘em clean from the creatures of the Moon. +But was it like, think you, that he’d come down and rat-catch in general +for lazy, ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse to +death. So, then, you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above +him when he set was simply this: “Destroy and burn the creatures Of the +moon, for they are the root of your trouble. And thus, having shown you +a taste of my power, good people, adieu.”’ + +‘Did Mars really say all that?’ Una whispered. + +‘Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear. +Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures +of the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the offender. My own +poor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge, +God’s good providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither. + +‘I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram’s field amongst ‘em all +at prayers. + +‘“Eureka, good people!” I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat which I’d +found. “Here’s your true enemy, revealed at last by the stars.” + +‘“Nay, but I’m praying,” says Jack. His face was as white as washed +silver. + +‘“There’s a time for everything under the sun,” says I. “If you would +stay the plague, take and kill your rats.” + +‘“Oh, mad, stark mad!” says he, and wrings his hands. + +‘A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he’d as soon die +mad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold fallow. They +laughed round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on his knees, and very +presumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save the +rest of his people. This was enough to thrust ‘em back into their +melancholy. ‘“You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack,” I says. “Take a +bat” (which we call a stick in Sussex) “and kill a rat if you die before +sunrise. ‘Twill save your people.” + +‘“Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat,” he says ten times over, like +a child, which moved ‘em to ungovernable motions of that hysterical +passion before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and at least +warmed their chill bloods at that very hour--one o’clock or a little +after--when the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a time for +everything; and the physician must work with it--ahem!--or miss his +cure. To be brief with you, I persuaded ‘em, sick or sound, to have +at the whole generation of rats throughout the village. And there’s a +reason for all things too, though the wise physician need not blab ‘em +all. Imprimis, or firstly, the mere sport of it, which lasted ten days, +drew ‘em most markedly out of their melancholy. I’d defy sorrowful +job himself to lament or scratch while he’s routing rats from a rick. +Secundo, or secondly, the vehement act and operation of this chase or +war opened their skins to generous transpiration--more vulgarly, sweated +‘em handsomely; and this further drew off their black bile--the mother +of sickness. Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats, +I sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as +handsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I had made +it a mere physician’s business; they’d have thought it some conjuration. +Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes, +sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses in +the village, and by good fortune (mark here that Mars was in opposition +to Venus) burned the corn-handler’s shop to the ground. Mars loves not +Venus. Will Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw +while he was rat-hunting there.’ + +‘Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by any +chance?’ said Puck. + +‘A glass--or two glasses--not more. But as I would say, in fine, when we +had killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from the smithy, +and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a brickyard belongs +to Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat-runs and buries, +and beneath all the house floors. The Creatures of the Moon hate all +that Mars hath used for his own clean ends. For example--rats bite not +iron.’ + +‘And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?’ said Puck. + +‘He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched a +loose cough, which I cured with electuaries, according to art. It is +noteworthy, were I speaking among my equals, that the venom of the +plague translated, or turned itself into, and evaporated, or went away +as, a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head, throat, and +chest. (Observe from my books which planets govern these portions of +man’s body, and your darkness, good people, shall be illuminated--ahem!) +None the less, the plague, qua plague, ceased and took off (for we only +lost three more, and two of ‘em had it already on ‘em) from the +morning of the day that Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.’ He +coughed--almost trumpeted--triumphantly. + +‘It is proved,’ he jerked out. ‘I say I have proved my contention, which +is, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the veritable causes +of things--at the proper time--the sons of wisdom may combat even the +plague.’ + +H’m!’ Puck replied. ‘For my own part I hold that a simple soul--’ + +‘Mine? Simple, forsooth?’ said Mr Culpeper. + +‘A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and stubborn +conceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. So I confess +truly that you saved the village, Nick.’ + +‘I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God’s +good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk as +that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my work +in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.’ + +‘Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer in +the pulpit.’ + +‘And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the +plague was stayed. He took for his text: “The wise man that delivered +the city.” I could have given him a better, such as: “There is a time +for--“’ + +‘But what made you go to church to hear him?’ Puck interrupted. ‘Wail +Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!’ + +Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily. + +‘The vulgar,’ said he, ‘the old crones and--ahem!---the children, Alison +and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by the hand. I +was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the mummeries of the +falsely-called Church, which, I’ll prove to you, are founded merely on +ancient fables--’ + +‘Stick to your herbs and planets,’ said Puck, laughing. ‘You should +have told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did you +neglect your plain duty?’ + +‘Because--because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the rest +of ‘em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the Hysterical +Passion. It may be--it may be.’ + +‘That’s as may be,’ said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. ‘Why, your +hay is half hedge-brishings,’ he said. ‘You don’t expect a horse to +thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?’ + +Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was coming +back from the mill. + +‘Is it all right?’ Una called. + +‘All quite right,’ Nurse called back. ‘They’re to be christened next +Sunday.’ + +‘What? What?’ They both leaned forward across the half-door. It could +not have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out with +hay and leaves sticking all over them. + +‘Come on! We must get those two twins’ names,’ said Una, and they +charged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and told +them. When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, and +they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight. + + + + +‘Our Fathers of Old’ + + + Excellent herbs had our fathers of old-- + Excellent herbs to ease their pain-- + Alexanders and Marigold, + Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane, + Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue, + (Almost singing themselves they run) + Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you-- + Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun. + Anything green that grew out of the mould + Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old. + + Wonderful tales had our fathers of old-- + Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars-- + The Sun was Lord of the Marigold, + Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars. + Pat as a sum in division it goes-- + (Every plant had a star bespoke)-- + Who but Venus should govern the Rose? + Who but Jupiter own the Oak? + Simply and gravely the facts are told + In the wonderful books of our fathers of old. + + Wonderful little, when all is said, + Wonderful little our fathers knew. + Half their remedies cured you dead-- + Most of their teaching was quite untrue-- + ‘Look at the stars when a patient is ill, + (Dirt has nothing to do with disease,) + Bleed and blister as much as you will, + Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.’ + Whence enormous and manifold + Errors were made by our fathers of old. + + Yet when the sickness was sore in the land, + And neither planet nor herb assuaged, + They took their lives in their lancet-hand + And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged! + Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door-- + Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled, + Excellent courage our fathers bore-- + Excellent heart had our fathers of old. + Not too learned, but nobly bold, + Into the fight went our fathers of old. + + If it be certain, as Galen says, + And sage Hippocrates holds as much-- + ‘That those afflicted by doubts and dismays + Are mightily helped by a dead man’s touch,’ + Then, be good to us, stars above! + Then, be good to us, herbs below! + We are afflicted by what we can prove; + We are distracted by what we know-- + So--ah, so! + Down from your Heaven or up from your mould, + Send us the hearts of our fathers of old! + + + + +SIMPLE SIMON + + + + +The Thousandth Man + + + One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. + And it’s worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + on what the world sees in you, + But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you. + + ‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show + Will settle the finding for ‘ee. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go + By your looks or your acts or your glory. + But if he finds you and you find him, + The rest of the world don’t matter; + For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim + With you in any water. + + You can use his purse with no more shame + Than he uses yours for his spendings; + And laugh and mention it just the same + As though there had been no lendings. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call + For silver and gold in their dealings; + But the Thousandth Man he’s worth ‘em all, + Because you can show him your feelings! + + His wrong’s your wrong, and his right’s your right, + In season or out of season. + Stand up and back it in all men’s sight-- + With that for your only reason! + Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, + But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + To the gallows-foot--and after! + + + + +Simple Simon + + +Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He +stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His +real name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and +years ago, he told them he was ‘carting wood,’ and it sounded so exactly +like ‘cattiwow’ that they never called him anything else. + +‘HI!’ Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had been +watching the lane. ‘What are you doing? Why weren’t we told?’ + +‘They’ve just sent for me,’ Cattiwow answered. ‘There’s a middlin’ big +log stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and’--he flicked his whip back +along the line--‘so they’ve sent for us all.’ + +Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under black +Sailor’s nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes +the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth +thuttered. + +The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you +see all the horses’ backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs. +Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman’s petticoat, belted at +the waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red +lips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth +too, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He +navigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their +faces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, +and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it +would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again. + +At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood +round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was +poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt was +driven up in front of the butt. + +‘What did you want to bury her for this way?’ said Cattiwow. He took his +broad-axe and went up the log tapping it. + +‘She’s sticked fast,’ said ‘Bunny’ Lewknor, who managed the other team. + +Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked their +ears forward, looked, and shook themselves. + +‘I believe Sailor knows,’ Dan whispered to Una. + +‘He do,’ said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the +others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all +the wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness +he might have been Bunny Lewknor’s brother, except that his brown eyes +were as soft as a spaniel’s, and his rounded black beard, beginning +close up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in ‘The Walrus and the +Carpenter.’ + +‘Don’t he justabout know?’ he said shyly, and shifted from one foot to +the other. + +‘Yes. “What Cattiwow can’t get out of the woods must have roots growing +to her.”’ Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before. + +At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools of +black water in the ling. + +‘Look out!’ cried Una, jumping forward. ‘He’ll see you, Puck!’ + +‘Me and Mus’ Robin are pretty middlin’ well acquainted,’ the man +answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses. + +‘This is Simon Cheyneys,’ Puck began, and cleared his throat. +‘Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only--’ + +‘Oh, look! Look ye! That’s a knowing one,’ said the man. + +Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and was +moving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it, +heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginning +with Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost to +their knees. The log shifted a nail’s breadth in the clinging dirt, with +the noise of a giant’s kiss. + +‘You’re getting her!’ Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. ‘Hing on! Hing +on, lads, or she’ll master ye! Ah!’ + +Sailor’s left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men +whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for +it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair. + +‘Hai!’ shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across +Sailor’s loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed +as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him. +The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt +ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor +snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and +snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather. + +‘Dat’s the very first time I’ve knowed you lay into Sailor--to hurt +him,’ said Lewknor. + +‘It is,’ said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. ‘But +I’d ha’ laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we’ll twitch her +down the hill a piece--she lies just about right--and get her home by +the low road. My team’ll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind +out!’ + +He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half +rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by +the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to +see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth +still shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints. + +‘Ye heard him?’ Simon Cheyneys asked. ‘He cherished his horse, but he’d +ha’ laid him open in that pinch.’ + +‘Not for his own advantage,’ said Puck quickly. ‘’Twas only to shift the +log.’ + +‘I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world--if +so be you’re hintin’ at any o’ Frankie’s doings. He never hit beyond +reason or without reason,’ said Simon. + +‘I never said a word against Frankie,’ Puck retorted, with a wink at the +children. ‘An’ if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so, +seeing how you--’ + +‘Why don’t it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowed +Frankie for all he was?’ The burly sack-clad man puffed down at cool +little Puck. + +‘Yes, and the first which set out to poison him--Frankie--on the high +seas--’ + +Simon’s angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immense +hands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly. + +‘But let me tell you, Mus’ Robin,’ he pleaded. + +‘I’ve heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look, +Una!’---Puck’s straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. ‘There’s +the only man that ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!’ + +‘Oh, Mus’ Robin! ‘Tidn’t fair. You’ve the ‘vantage of us all in your +upbringin’s by hundreds o’ years. Stands to nature you know all the +tales against every one.’ + +He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, ‘Stop +ragging him, Puck! You know he didn’t really.’ + +‘I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?’ ‘Because--because he +doesn’t look like it,’ said Una stoutly. + +‘I thank you,’ said Simon to Una. ‘I--I was always trustable-like +with children if you let me alone, you double handful o’ mischief.’ He +pretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his shyness overtook him +afresh. + +‘Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?’ said Dan, not liking being +called a child. + +‘At Rye Port, to be sure,’ said Simon, and seeing Dan’s bewilderment, +repeated it. + +‘Yes, but look here,’ said Dan. ‘“Drake he was a Devon man.” The song +says so.’ + +‘“And ruled the Devon seas,”’ Una went on. ‘That’s what I was +thinking--if you don’t mind.’ + +Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he swelled in +silence while Puck laughed. + +‘Hutt!’ he burst out at last, ‘I’ve heard that talk too. If you listen +to them West Country folk, you’ll listen to a pack o’ lies. I believe +Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his father +had to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours was +wishful to kill him, d’ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did, +an’ Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medway +river, same as it might ha’ been the Rother. Brought up at sea, you +might say, before he could walk on land--nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain’t +Kent back-door to Sussex? And don’t that make Frankie Sussex? O’ course +it do. Devon man! Bah! Those West Country boats they’re always fishin’ +in other folks’ water.’ + +‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dan. ‘I’m sorry. + +‘No call to be sorry. You’ve been misled. I met Frankie at Rye Port when +my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me off his wharf-edge +on to Frankie’s ship. Frankie had put in from Chatham with his rudder +splutted, and a man’s arm--Moon’s that ‘ud be--broken at the tiller. +“Take this boy aboard an’ drown him,” says my Uncle, “and I’ll mend your +rudder-piece for love.” + +‘What did your Uncle want you drowned for?’ said Una. + +‘That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus’ Robin. I’d a +foolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron. +Yes--iron ships! I’d made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat out +thin--and she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein’ a burgess of Rye, +and a shipbuilder, he ‘prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin’ trade, to +cure this foolishness.’ + +‘What was the fetchin’ trade?’ Dan interrupted. + +‘Fetchin’ poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o’ the Low Countries into +England. The King o’ Spain, d’ye see, he was burnin’ ‘em in those parts, +for to make ‘em Papishers, so Frankie he fetched ‘em away to our parts, +and a risky trade it was. His master wouldn’t never touch it while he +lived, but he left his ship to Frankie when he died, and Frankie turned +her into this fetchin’ trade. Outrageous cruel hard work--on besom-black +nights bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals on +all sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of a +Spanish galliwopses’ oars creepin’ up on ye. Frankie ‘ud have the tiller +and Moon he’d peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his skirts, till +the boat we was lookin’ for ‘ud blurt up out o’ the dark, and we’d lay +hold and haul aboard whoever ‘twas--man, woman, or babe--an’ round we’d +go again, the wind bewling like a kite in our riggin’s, and they’d drop +into the hold and praise God for happy deliverance till they was all +sick. + +‘I had nigh a year at it, an’ we must have fetched off--oh, a hundred +pore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie growed to be. +Outrageous cunnin’ he was. Once we was as near as nothin’ nipped by a +tall ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. She had the wind of us, and +spooned straight before it, shootin’ all bow guns. Frankie fled inshore +smack for the beach, till he was atop of the first breakers. Then he +hove his anchor out, which nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched us +round end-for-end into the wind, d’ye see, an’ we clawed off them sands +like a drunk man rubbin’ along a tavern bench. When we could see, the +Spanisher was laid flat along in the breakers with the snows whitening +on his wet belly. He thought he could go where Frankie went.’ + +‘What happened to the crew?’ said Una. + +‘We didn’t stop,’ Simon answered. ‘There was a very liddle new baby +in our hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some dry bed middlin’ +quick. We runned into Dover, and said nothing.’ + +‘Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?’ ‘Heart alive, maid, he’d +no head to his name in those days. He was just a outrageous, valiant, +crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, roarin’ up an’ down the narrer seas, with +his beard not yet quilted out. He made a laughing-stock of everything +all day, and he’d hold our lives in the bight of his arm all the +besom-black night among they Dutch sands; and we’d ha’ jumped overside +to behove him any one time, all of us.’ + +‘Then why did you try to poison him?’ Una asked wickedly, and Simon hung +his head like a shy child. + +‘Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because our cook was +hurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched adrift like in the bag, +an’ the more I biled the bits of her, the less she favoured any fashion +o’ pudden. Moon he chawed and chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed and +chammed his’n, and--no words to it--he took me by the ear an’ walked +me out over the bow-end, an’ him an’ Moon hove the pudden at me on +the bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!’ Simon rubbed his hairy +cheek. + +‘“Nex’ time you bring me anything,” says Frankie, “you bring me +cannon-shot an’ I’ll know what I’m getting.” But as for poisonin’--’ He +stopped, the children laughed so. + +‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Una. ‘Oh, Simon, we do like you!’ + +‘I was always likeable with children.’ His smile crinkled up through the +hair round his eyes. ‘Simple Simon they used to call me through our yard +gates.’ + +‘Did Sir Francis mock you?’ Dan asked. + +‘Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did--he was always laughing--but +not so as to hurt a feather. An’ I loved ‘en. I loved ‘en before England +knew ‘en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.’ + +‘But he hadn’t really done anything when you knew him, had he?’ Una +insisted. ‘Armadas and those things, I mean.’ + +Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow’s great log. +‘You tell me that that good ship’s timber never done nothing against +winds and weathers since her up-springing, and I’ll confess ye that +young Frankie never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured and +suffered and made shift on they Dutch sands as much in any one month +as ever he had occasion for to do in a half-year on the high seas +afterwards. An’ what was his tools? A coaster boat--a liddle box o’ +walty plankin’ an’ some few fathom feeble rope held together an’ made +able by him sole. He drawed our spirits up In our bodies same as a +chimney-towel draws a fire. ‘Twas in him, and it comed out all times +and shapes.’ ‘I wonder did he ever ‘magine what he was going to be? Tell +himself stories about it?’ said Dan with a flush. + +‘I expect so. We mostly do--even when we’re grown. But bein’ Frankie, he +took good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had I +rightly ought to tell ‘em this piece?’ Simon turned to Puck, who nodded. + +‘My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she had +gifts by inheritance laid up in her,’ Simon began. + +‘Oh, that’ll never do,’ cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. ‘Do +you remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as her +blood and get lasted?’ [See ‘Dymchurch Flit’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] +‘Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther through +a millstone than most,’ Dan answered promptly. + +‘Well, Simon’s Aunt’s mother,’ said Puck slowly, ‘married the Widow’s +blind son on the Marsh, and Simon’s Aunt was the one chosen to see +farthest through millstones. Do you understand?’ + +‘That was what I was gettin’ at,’ said Simon, ‘but you’re so desperate +quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin’ to people. My Uncle being a +burgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt she +couldn’t be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurted +her head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had ‘em, +he was all for nothin’ till she foretold on him--till she looked in +his hand to tell his fortune, d’ye see? One time we was at Rye she come +aboard with my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the life +out of her about it. + +‘“Oh, you’ll be twice wed, and die childless,” she says, and pushes his +hand away. + +‘“That’s the woman’s part,” he says. “What’ll come to me-to me?” an’ he +thrusts it back under her nose. + +‘“Gold--gold, past belief or counting,” she says. “Let go o’ me, lad.” + +‘“Sink the gold!” he says. “What’ll I do, mother?” He coaxed her like no +woman could well withstand. I’ve seen him with ‘em--even when they were +sea-sick. + +‘“If you will have it,” she says at last, “you shall have it. You’ll do a +many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world’s +end will be the least of them. For you’ll open a road from the East +unto the West, and back again, and you’ll bury your heart with your best +friend by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so long +as you’re let lie quiet in your grave.” + + +[The old lady’s prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now the +Panama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay where +Sir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, and +the road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.] + + +‘“And if I’m not?” he says. + +‘“Why, then,” she says, “Sim’s iron ships will be sailing on dry land. +Now ha’ done with this foolishness. Where’s Sim’s shirt?” + +‘He couldn’t fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the +cabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. ‘“My +Sorrow!” says my Aunt; “d’ye see that? The great world lying in his +hand, liddle and round like a apple.” + +‘“Why, ‘tis one you gived him,” I says. + +‘“To be sure,” she says. “‘Tis just a apple,” and she went ashore with +her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts. + +Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite +extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin’ trade, +we met Mus’ Stenning’s boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that +the Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English, +and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs’ +backs. Mus’ Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece, +knowin’ that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk +a great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin’ +at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in. + +‘“Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon,” says Frankie, +humourin’ her at the tiller. “I’ll have to open that other one your Aunt +foretold of.” + +‘“The Spanisher’s crowdin’ down on us middlin’ quick,” I says. “No odds,” + says Frankie, “he’ll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt +say I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?” + +‘“Till my iron ships sailed dry land,” I says. + +‘“That’s foolishness,” he says. “Who cares where Frankie Drake makes a +hole in the water now or twenty years from now?” + +‘The Spanisher kept muckin’ on more and more canvas. I told him so. + +‘“He’s feelin’ the tide,” was all he says. “If he was among Tergoes +Sands with this wind, we’d be picking his bones proper. I’d give my +heart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale, +and me to windward. There’d be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt say +she saw the world settin’ in my hand, Sim?” + +‘“Yes, but ‘twas a apple,” says I, and he laughed like he always did +at me. “Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be done with +everything?” he asks after a while. + +‘“No. What water comes aboard is too wet as ‘tis,” I says. “The +Spanisher’s going about.” + +‘“I told you,” says he, never looking back. “He’ll give us the Pope’s +Blessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There’s no knowin’ where +stray shots may hit.” So I came down off the rail, and leaned against +it, and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the wind, and his port-lids +opened all red inside. + +‘“Now what’ll happen to my road if they don’t let me lie quiet in my +grave?” he says. “Does your Aunt mean there’s two roads to be found and +kept open--or what does she mean? I don’t like that talk about t’other +road. D’you believe in your iron ships, Sim?” + +‘He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. ‘“Anybody +but me ‘ud call you a fool, Sim,” he says. “Lie down. Here comes the +Pope’s Blessing!” + +‘The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fell +short except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an’ I +felt most won’erful cold. + +‘“Be you hit anywhere to signify?” he says. “Come over to me.” + +‘“O Lord, Mus’ Drake,” I says, “my legs won’t move,” and that was the +last I spoke for months.’ + +‘Why? What had happened?’ cried Dan and Una together. + +‘The rail had jarred me in here like.’ Simon reached behind him +clumsily. ‘From my shoulders down I didn’t act no shape. Frankie carried +me piggyback to my Aunt’s house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied while +she rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith in +rubbing with the hands. P’raps she put some of her gifts into it, too. +Last of all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I was +whole restored again, but kitten-feeble. + +‘“Where’s Frankie?” I says, thinking I’d been a longish while abed. + +‘“Down-wind amongst the Dons--months ago,” says my Aunt. + +‘“When can I go after ‘en?” I says. + +‘“Your duty’s to your town and trade now,” says she. “Your Uncle he +died last Michaelmas and he’ve left you and me the yard. So no more iron +ships, mind ye.” + +‘“What?” I says. “And you the only one that beleft in ‘em!” + + +‘“Maybe I do still,” she says, “but I’m a woman before I’m a Whitgift, +and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay on ye to do +so.” + +‘That’s why I’ve never teched iron since that day--not to build a +toy ship of. I’ve never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of +evenings.’ Simon smiled down on them all. ‘Whitgift blood is terrible +resolute--on the she-side,’ said Puck. + +‘Didn’t You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?’ Dan asked. + +‘With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never +clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of +his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning +shifts and passes he’d worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands, +but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him +knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell +to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, +having set him on his won’erful road; but I reckon he’d ha’ gone that +way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in +his hand like an apple, an’ he burying his best friend, Mus’ Doughty--’ + +‘Never mind for Mus’ Doughty,’ Puck interrupted. ‘Tell us where you met +Sir Francis next.’ + +‘Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye--the same year +which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie’s +leave.’ + +‘The Armada!’ said Dan contentedly. ‘I was hoping that would come.’ + +‘I knowed Frankie would never let ‘em smell London smoke, but plenty +good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. ‘Twas the noise +of the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off +behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and +growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin’ in the streets. +Then they come slidderin’ past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished +with red gun-fire, and our ships flyin’ forth and duckin’ in again. The +smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was +edgin’ the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I +says to my Aunt, “The smoke’s thinnin’ out. I lay Frankie’s just about +scrapin’ his hold for a few last rounds shot. ‘Tis time for me to go.” + +‘“Never in them clothes,” she says. “Do on the doublet I bought you to +be made burgess in, and don’t you shame this day.” + +‘So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all. + +‘“I be comin’, too,” she says from her chamber, and forth she come +pavisandin’ like a peacock--stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a +notable woman.’ + +‘But how did you go? You haven’t told us,’ said Una. + +‘In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt’s. In the ANTONY OF RYE, to +be sure; and not empty-handed. I’d been loadin’ her for three days +with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three +sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of +clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and +gubs of good oakum, and bolts o’ canvas, and all the sound rope in the +yard. What else could I ha’ done? I knowed what he’d need most after a +week’s such work. I’m a shipbuilder, little maid. + +‘We’d a fair slant o’ wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell +light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by +Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending ‘emselves like dogs +lickin’ bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and +the ball ‘ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished +fightin’ for that tide. + +‘The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an’ +men was shorin’ ‘em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace, +his pumps clackin’ middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third, +mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus’ Drake +might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and +saw what we carried. + +‘“Lay alongside you!” he says. “We’ll take that all.” + +‘“‘Tis for Mus’ Drake,” I says, keeping away lest his size should lee +the wind out of my sails. + +‘“Hi! Ho! Hither! We’re Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or +we’ll hang ye,” he says. + +‘’Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn’t Frankie, and while he +talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides +splintered. We was all in the middest of ‘em then. + +‘“Hi! Hoi!” the green ship says. “Come alongside, honest man, and I’ll +buy your load. I’m Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out of +shot or bullets. Frankie knows me.” + +‘“Ay, but I don’t,” I says, and I slacked nothing. + +‘He was a masterpiece. Seein’ I was for goin’ on, he hails a Bridport +hoy beyond us and shouts, “George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He’s +fat!” An’ true as we’re all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to +acrost our bows, intendin’ to stop us by means o’ shooting. + +‘My Aunt looks over our rail. “George,” she says, “you finish with your +enemies afore you begin on your friends.” + +‘Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an’ +calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry +sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman. + +‘Then he come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistcloths +and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and +his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a +bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung. + +‘“Oh, Mus’ Drake! Mus’ Drake!” I calls up. + +‘He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and +his face shining like the sun. + +‘“Why, Sim!” he says. Just like that--after twenty year! “Sim,” he says, +“what brings you?” + +‘“Pudden,” I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. + +‘“You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an’ I’ve brought ‘em.” + +‘He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o’ brimstone Spanish, +and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine +young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to +unload us. When he saw how I’d considered all his likely wants, he +kissed me again. + +‘“Here’s a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!” he says. +“Mistress,” he says to my Aunt, “all you foretold on me was true. I’ve +opened that road from the East to the West, and I’ve buried my heart +beside it.” + +‘“I know,” she says. “That’s why I be come.” + +‘“But ye never foretold this”; he points to both they great fleets. + +‘“This don’t seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a +man,” she says. “Do it?” + +‘“Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he’s proper mucked up with +work. Sim,” he says to me, “we must shift every living Spanisher round +Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind’ll come +out of the North after this calm--same as it used--and then they’re our +meat.” + +‘“Amen,” says I. “I’ve brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and +ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?” + +‘“Oh, our folk’ll attend to all that when we’ve time,” he says. He turns +to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I +think I saw old Moon amongst ‘em, but he was too busy to more than +nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and +candles before we’d cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o’ useful +stuff I’d fetched him. ‘“Now, Sim,” says my Aunt, “no more devouring of +Mus’ Drake’s time. He’s sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to +speak to them young springalds again.” + +‘“But here’s our ship all ready and swept,” I says. + +‘“Swep’ an’ garnished,” says Frankie. “I’m going to fill her with devils +in the likeness o’ pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round +Dunkirk corner, and if shot can’t do it, we’ll send down fireships.” + +‘“I’ve given him my share of the ANTONY,” says my Aunt. “What do you +reckon to do about yours?” + +‘“She offered it,” said Frankie, laughing. + +‘“She wouldn’t have if I’d overheard her,” I says; “because I’d have +offered my share first.” Then I told him how the ANTONY’s sails was best +trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupations +we went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him. + +‘But Frankie was gentle-born, d’ye see, and that sort they never +overlook any folks’ dues. + +‘When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poop +same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played “Mary +Ambree” on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, little +maid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful! + +‘Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub +wiping his forehead. + +‘We’ve got the stick to rights now! She’ve been a whole hatful o’ +trouble. You come an’ ride her home, Mus’ Dan and Miss Una!’ + +‘They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the log +double-chained on the tug. + +‘Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?’ said Dan, as they straddled +the thin part. + +‘She’s going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin’-boat, +I’ve heard. Hold tight!’ + +‘Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, and +leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas. + + + + +Frankie’s Trade + + + Old Horn to All Atlantic said: + (A-hay O! To me O!) + ‘Now where did Frankie learn his trade? + For he ran me down with a three-reef mains’le.’ + (All round the Horn!) + + Atlantic answered: ‘Not from me! + You’d better ask the cold North Sea, + For he ran me down under all plain canvas.’ + (All round the Horn!) + + The North Sea answered: ‘He’s my man, + For he came to me when he began-- + Frankie Drake in an open coaster. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I caught him young and I used him sore, + So you never shall startle Frankie more, + Without capsizing Earth and her waters. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I did not favour him at all, + I made him pull and I made him haul-- + And stand his trick with the common sailors. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind, + And kicked him home with his road to find + By what he could see of a three-day snow-storm. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I learned him his trade o’ winter nights, + ‘Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights + On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘Before his beard began to shoot, + I showed him the length of the Spaniard’s foot-- + And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later. + (All round the Sands!) + ‘If there’s a risk which you can make + That’s worse than he was used to take + Nigh every week in the way of his business; + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘If there’s a trick that you can try + Which he hasn’t met in time gone by, + Not once or twice, but ten times over; + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘If you can teach him aught that’s new, + (A-hay O! To me O!) + I’ll give you Bruges and Niewport too, + And the ten tall churches that stand between ‘em.’ + Storm along, my gallant Captains! + (All round the Horn!) + + + + +THE TREE OF JUSTICE + + + + +The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + + + About the time that taverns shut + And men can buy no beer, + Two lads went up by the keepers’ hut + To steal Lord Pelham’s deer. + + Night and the liquor was in their heads-- + They laughed and talked no bounds, + Till they waked the keepers on their beds, + And the keepers loosed the hounds. + + They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind, + Ready to carry away, + When they heard a whimper down the wind + And they heard a bloodhound bay. + + They took and ran across the fern, + Their crossbows in their hand, + Till they met a man with a green lantern + That called and bade ‘em stand. + + ‘What are you doing, O Flesh and Blood, + And what’s your foolish will, + That you must break into Minepit Wood + And wake the Folk of the Hill?’ + + ‘Oh, we’ve broke into Lord Pelham’s park, + And killed Lord Pelham’s deer, + And if ever you heard a little dog bark + You’ll know why we come here!’ + + ‘We ask you let us go our way, + As fast as we can flee, + For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay, + You’ll know how pressed we be.’ + + ‘Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank + And drop the knife from your hand, + And though the hounds are at your flank + I’ll save you where you stand!’ + They laid their crossbows on the bank, + They threw their knives in the wood, + And the ground before them opened and sank + And saved ‘em where they stood. + ‘Oh, what’s the roaring in our ears + That strikes us well-nigh dumb?’ + ‘Oh, that is just how things appears + According as they come.’ + + ‘What are the stars before our eyes + That strike us well-nigh blind?’ + ‘Oh, that is just how things arise + According as you find.’ + + ‘And why’s our bed so hard to the bones + Excepting where it’s cold?’ + ‘Oh, that’s because it is precious stones + Excepting where ‘tis gold. + + ‘Think it over as you stand + For I tell you without fail, + If you haven’t got into Fairyland + You’re not in Lewes Gaol.’ + + All night long they thought of it, + And, come the dawn, they saw + They’d tumbled into a great old pit, + At the bottom of Minepit Shaw. + + And the keepers’ hound had followed ‘em close + And broke her neck in the fall; + So they picked up their knives and their cross-bows + And buried the dog. That’s all. + + But whether the man was a poacher too + Or a Pharisee so bold-- + I reckon there’s more things told than are true, + And more things true than are told. + + + + +The Tree of Justice + +It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou’-West wind singing through +Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set +out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months’ job in +the Rough at the back of Pound’s Wood. He had promised to get them a +dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice; +the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were +speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by +their own short cuts to the edge of Pound’s Wood, and heard a horse’s +feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the +vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches--some +perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips. + +‘Three more owls,’ said Dan, counting. ‘Two stoats, four jays, and a +kestrel. That’s ten since last week. Ridley’s a beast.’ + +‘In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.’ Sir Richard +Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. +[This is the Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK’S +HILL. See ‘Young Men at the Manor,’ ‘The Knights of the Joyous Venture,’ +and ‘Old Men at Pevensey,’ in that book.] ‘What play do you make?’ he +asked. + +‘Nothing, Sir. We’re looking for old Hobden,’ Dan replied.’He promised to +get us a sleeper.’ + +‘Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?’ + +‘Yes, a dormouse, Sir.’ ‘I understand. I passed a woodman on the low +grounds. Come!’ He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an +opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that +old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and +house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. + +Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his +lip. + +‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been +there this half-hour.’ + +The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry +ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse. + +‘Huhh!’ cried Una. ‘Hobden always ‘tends to his wires before breakfast. +He puts his rabbits into the faggots he’s allowed to take home. He’ll +tell us about ‘em tomorrow.’ + +‘We had the same breed in my day,’ Sir Richard replied, and moved off +quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the +close-trimmed beech stuff. + +‘What did you do to them?’ said Dan, as they repassed Ridley’s terrible +tree. + +‘That!’ Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls. + +‘Not he!’ said Puck. ‘There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang +a man for taking a buck.’ + +‘I--I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on +horseback while you are afoot?’ He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow +on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the +narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He +walked as though all the woods belonged to him. ‘I have often told my +friends,’ he went on, ‘that Red William the King was not the only Norman +found dead in a forest while he hunted.’ + +‘D’you mean William Rufus?’ said Dan. + +‘Yes,’ said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log. + +‘For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,’ Sir Richard went +on, ‘to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose +to hang his forester’s son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to +pleasure the King.’ + +‘Now when would that be?’ said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully. + +‘The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy +at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for +the war.’ + +‘What happened to the knight?’ Dan asked. + +‘They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. +I should have worn mail that day.’ + +‘And did you see him all bloody?’ Dan continued. + +‘Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, and +arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. The army +only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but +he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set +out for France.’ + +‘Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?’ Una demanded. + +‘If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, +men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was +his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De +Aquila’s duty to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was +a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and +scoured all the Honour of the Eagle--all De Aquila’s lands--to make a +fit, and, above all, a safe sport for our King. Look!’ + +The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound’s Hill Wood. Sir +Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that +showed like a woodcock’s breast up the valley. ‘Ye know the forest?’ +said he. + +‘You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!’ said Una. ‘I have +seen,’ said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. ‘Hugh’s +work and mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into +Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we +must choose some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands +within bowshot of the King. Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a +deer-drive a Saxon peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each +other. The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we +needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would answer in life, +cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye see?’ + +‘If one of the beaters shot the King,’ said Puck, ‘Sir Richard wanted to +be able to punish that man’s village. Then the village would take care +to send a good man.’ + +‘So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done +such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish +knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half +mad with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to +earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. And atop of their misery the +old rumour waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them +deliverance from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since +Santlache fight.’ + +‘But King Harold was killed at Hastings,’ said Una. + +‘So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons +always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work +any more easy.’ + +Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees +thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs +among the lumps of blackened ling. + +‘But we did it!’ he said. ‘After all, a woman is as good as a man to +beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and +crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list +of beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks--Saxon and +Norman priests. + +‘Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, +as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first +shooting-stand--by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I--it +was no work for hot heads or heavy hands--lay with our beaters on the +skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila’s +great horn blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see +the fat clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the +sober millers dusting the under-growth with their staves; and, like as +not, between them a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling +like a kite as she ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy +of the sport.’ ‘Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!’ Puck bellowed +without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils +cracking. + +‘Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!’ Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout. + +The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out +of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the +outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped +together on the same note. + +A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods. + +‘That’s old Hobden,’ said Una. + +‘Small blame to him. It is in his blood,’ said Puck. ‘Did your beaters +cry so, Sir Richard?’ + +‘My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot +where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to +the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the +stands flew fair over them. + +‘I cried, “‘Ware shot! ‘Ware shot!” and a knot of young knights new from +Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and +in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: “‘Ware Santlache arrows! +‘Ware Santlache arrows!” A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our +beaters answered in Saxon: “‘Ware New Forest arrows! ‘Ware Red William’s +arrow!” so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my +old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war), +they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters +ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We--they had +sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight +of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl’s jibe over +hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh +and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The +greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old +man, in the dress of a pilgrim. + +‘The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty +years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of +England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans +rest the chin on the left palm. ‘“Who answers for him?” said I. “If he +fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?” + +‘“Who will pay my fine?” the pilgrim said. “I have asked that of all the +Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! +They have not answered!” When he lifted his thin face I saw he was +one-eyed, and frail as a rush. ‘“Nay, but, Father,” I said, “to whom +hast thou commended thyself-?” He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: +“Whose man art thou?” + +‘“I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King’s jester,” said he +after a while. “I am, as I suppose, Rahere’s man.” + +‘He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, read it. + +‘It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere’s man, and that Rahere was the +King’s jester. There was Latin writ at the back. + +‘“What a plague conjuration’s here?” said Hugh, turning it over. +“Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?” + +‘“Black Magic,” said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at +Battle). “They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a +wizard than either. Here’s Rahere’s name writ, and there’s Rahere’s red +cockscomb mark drawn below for such as cannot read.” He looked slyly at +me. + +‘“Then read it,” said I, “and show thy learning.” He was a vain little +man, and he gave it us after much mouthing. + +‘“The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, says: ‘When +thou art once dead, and Minos’ (which is a heathen judge) ‘has doomed +thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor good works will restore +thee!’ A terrible thing! It denies any mercy to a man’s soul!” + +‘“Does it serve?” said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh’s cloak. “Oh, man +of the King’s blood, does it cover me?” + +‘Hugh was of Earl Godwin’s blood, and all Sussex knew it, though no +Saxon dared call him kingly in a Norman’s hearing. There can be but one +King. + +‘“It serves,” said Hugh. “But the day will be long and hot. Better rest +here. We go forward now.” + +‘“No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman,” he answered like a child. He +was indeed childish through great age. + +‘The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila’s great horn blew for a +halt, and soon young Fulke--our false Fulke’s son--yes, the imp that +lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See ‘Old Men at Pevensey’ in PUCK OF +POOK’S HILL.]--came thundering up a woodway. + +‘“Uncle,” said he (though he was a man grown, he called me Uncle), +“those young Norman fools who shot at you this morn are saying that +your beaters cried treason against the King. It has come to Harry’s long +ears, and he bids you give account of it. There are heavy fines in his +eye, but I am with you to the hilt, Uncle!” ‘When the boy had fled back, +Hugh said to me: “It was Rahere’s witless man that cried, ‘’Ware Red +William’s arrow!’ I heard him, and so did the Clerk of Netherfield.” + +‘“Then Rahere must answer to the King for his man,” said I. “Keep him by +you till I send,” and I hastened down. + +‘The King was with De Aquila in the Grand Stand above Welansford down in +the valley yonder. His Court--knights and dames--lay glittering on the +edge of the glade. I made my homage, and Henry took it coldly. ‘“How +came your beaters to shout threats against me?” said he. + +‘“The tale has grown,” I answered. “One old witless man cried out, +‘’Ware Red William’s arrow,’ when the young knights shot at our line. We +had two beaters hit.” + +‘“I will do justice on that man,” he answered. “Who is his master?” + +‘“He’s Rahere’s man,” said I. + +‘“Rahere’s?” said Henry. “Has my fool a fool?” + +‘I heard the bells jingle at the back of the stand, and a red leg waved +over it; then a black one. So, very slowly, Rahere the King’s jester +straddled the edge of the planks, and looked down on us, rubbing his +chin. Loose-knit, with cropped hair, and a sad priest’s face, under his +cockscomb cap, that he could twist like a strip of wet leather. His eyes +were hollow-set. + +‘“Nay, nay, Brother,” said he. “If I suffer you to keep your fool, you +must e’en suffer me to keep mine.” + +‘This he delivered slowly into the King’s angry face! My faith, a King’s +jester must be bolder than lions! + +‘“Now we will judge the matter,” said Rahere. “Let these two brave +knights go hang my fool because he warned King Henry against running +after Saxon deer through woods full of Saxons. ‘Faith, Brother, if thy +Brother, Red William, now among the Saints as we hope, had been timely +warned against a certain arrow in New Forest, one fool of us four would +not be crowned fool of England this morning. Therefore, hang the fool’s +fool, knights!” ‘Mark the fool’s cunning! Rahere had himself given us +order to hang the man. No King dare confirm a fool’s command to such a +great baron as De Aquila; and the helpless King knew it. + +‘“What? No hanging?” said Rahere, after a silence. “A’ God’s Gracious +Name, kill something, then! Go forward with the hunt!” + +‘He splits his face ear to ear in a yawn like a fish-pond. “Henry,” says +he, “the next time I sleep, do not pester me with thy fooleries.” Then +he throws himself out of sight behind the back of the stand. + +‘I have seen courage with mirth in De Aquila and Hugh, but stark mad +courage of Rahere’s sort I had never even guessed at.’ + +‘What did the King say?’ cried Dan. + +‘He had opened his mouth to speak, when young Fulke, who had come into +the stand with us, laughed, and, boy-like, once begun, could not check +himself. He kneeled on the instant for pardon, but fell sideways, +crying: “His legs! Oh, his long, waving red legs as he went backward!” + +‘Like a storm breaking, our grave King laughed,--stamped and reeled +with laughter till the stand shook. So, like a storm, this strange thing +passed! + +‘He wiped his eyes, and signed to De Aquila to let the drive come on. + +‘When the deer broke, we were pleased that the King shot from the +shelter of the stand, and did not ride out after the hurt beasts as Red +William would have done. Most vilely his knights and barons shot! + +‘De Aquila kept me beside him, and I saw no more of Hugh till evening. +We two had a little hut of boughs by the camp, where I went to wash me +before the great supper, and in the dusk I heard Hugh on the couch. + +‘“Wearied, Hugh?” said I. + +‘“A little,” he says. “I have driven Saxon deer all day for a Norman +King, and there is enough of Earl Godwin’s blood left in me to sicken at +the work. Wait awhile with the torch.” + +‘I waited then, and I thought I heard him sob.’ + +‘Poor Hugh! Was he so tired?’ said Una. ‘Hobden says beating is hard +work sometimes.’ + +‘I think this tale is getting like the woods,’ said Dan, ‘darker and +twistier every minute.’ Sir Richard had walked as he talked, and though +the children thought they knew the woods well enough, they felt a little +lost. + +‘A dark tale enough,’ says Sir Richard, ‘but the end was not all black. +When we had washed, we went to wait on the King at meat in the great +pavilion. Just before the trumpets blew for the Entry--all the guests +upstanding--long Rahere comes posturing up to Hugh, and strikes him with +his bauble-bladder. + +‘“Here’s a heavy heart for a joyous meal!” he says. “But each man must +have his black hour or where would be the merit of laughing? Take a +fool’s advice, and sit it out with my man. I’ll make a jest to excuse +you to the King if he remember to ask for you. That’s more than I would +do for Archbishop Anselm.” + +‘Hugh looked at him heavy-eyed. “Rahere?” said he. “The King’s jester? +Oh, Saints, what punishment for my King!” and smites his hands together. +‘“Go--go fight it out in the dark,” says Rahere, “and thy Saxon Saints +reward thee for thy pity to my fool.” He pushed him from the pavilion, +and Hugh lurched away like one drunk.’ + +‘But why?’ said Una. ‘I don’t understand.’ + +‘Ah, why indeed? Live you long enough, maiden, and you shall know the +meaning of many whys.’ Sir Richard smiled. ‘I wondered too, but it was +my duty to wait on the King at the High Table in all that glitter and +stir. + +‘He spoke me his thanks for the sport I had helped show him, and he had +learned from De Aquila enough of my folk and my castle in Normandy to +graciously feign that he knew and had loved my brother there. (This, +also, is part of a king’s work.) Many great men sat at the High +Table--chosen by the King for their wits, not for their birth. I have +forgotten their names, and their faces I only saw that one night. +But’--Sir Richard turned in his stride--‘but Rahere, flaming in black +and scarlet among our guests, the hollow of his dark cheek flushed with +wine--long, laughing Rahere, and the stricken sadness of his face when +he was not twisting it about--Rahere I shall never forget. + +‘At the King’s outgoing De Aquila bade me follow him, with his great +bishops and two great barons, to the little pavilion. We had devised +jugglers and dances for the Court’s sport; but Henry loved to talk +gravely to grave men, and De Aquila had told him of my travels to the +world’s end. We had a fire of apple-wood, sweet as incense,--and the +curtains at the door being looped up, we could hear the music and see +the lights shining on mail and dresses. + +‘Rahere lay behind the King’s chair. The questions he darted forth at me +were as shrewd as the flames. I was telling of our fight with the apes, +as ye called them, at the world’s end. [See ‘The Knights of the Joyous +Venture’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] ‘“But where is the Saxon knight that +went with you?” said Henry. “He must confirm these miracles.” + +‘“He is busy,” said Rahere, “confirming a new miracle.” + +‘“Enough miracles for today,” said the King. “Rahere, you have saved +your long neck. Fetch the Saxon knight.” + +‘“Pest on it,” said Rahere. “Who would be a King’s jester? I’ll bring +him, Brother, if you’ll see that none of your home-brewed bishops taste +my wine while I am away.” So he jingled forth between the men-at-arms at +the door. + +‘Henry had made many bishops in England without the Pope’s leave. I know +not the rights of the matter, but only Rahere dared jest about it. We +waited on the King’s next word. + +‘“I think Rahere is jealous of you,” said he, smiling, to Nigel of Ely. +He was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other--Wal-wist the Saxons +called him--laughed long. “Rahere is a priest at heart. Shall I make him +a bishop, De Aquila?” says the King. + +‘“There might be worse,” said our Lord of Pevensey. “Rahere would never +do what Anselm has done.” + +‘This Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had gone off raging to the Pope +at Rome, because Henry would make bishops without his leave either. I +knew not the rights of it, but De Aquila did, and the King laughed. + +‘“Anselm means no harm. He should have been a monk, not a bishop,” said +the King. “I’ll never quarrel with Anselm or his Pope till they quarrel +with my England. If we can keep the King’s peace till my son comes to +rule, no man will lightly quarrel with our England.” + +‘“Amen,” said De Aquila. “But the King’s peace ends when the King dies.” + +‘That is true. The King’s peace dies with the King. The custom then is +that all laws are outlaw, and men do what they will till the new King is +chosen. + +‘“I will amend that,” said the King hotly. “I will have it so that +though King, son, and grandson were all slain in one day, still the +King’s peace should hold over all England! What is a man that his mere +death must upheave a people? We must have the Law.” + +‘“Truth,” said William of Exeter; but that he would have said to any +word of the King. + +‘The two great barons behind said nothing. This teaching was clean +against their stomachs, for when the King’s peace ends, the great barons +go to war and increase their lands. At that instant we heard Rahere’s +voice returning, in a scurril Saxon rhyme against William of Exeter: + + ‘“Well wist Wal-wist where lay his fortune + When that he fawned on the King for his crozier,” + +and amid our laughter he burst in, with one arm round Hugh, and one +round the old pilgrim of Netherfield. + +‘“Here is your knight, Brother,” said he, “and for the better disport of +the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza +are clean carried away!” + +‘Hugh broke loose, white and sick, and staggered to my side; the old man +blinked upon the company. + +‘We looked at the King, but he smiled. + +‘“Rahere promised he would show me some sport after supper to cover his +morning’s offence,” said he to De Aquila. “So this is thy man, Rahere?” + +‘“Even so,” said Rahere. “My man he has been, and my protection he +has taken, ever since I found him under the gallows at Stamford Bridge +telling the kites atop of it that he was--Harold of England!” + +‘There was a great silence upon these last strange words, and Hugh hid +his face on my shoulder, woman-fashion. + +‘“It is most cruel true,” he whispered to me. “The old man proved it +to me at the beat after you left, and again in our hut even now. It is +Harold, my King!” + +‘De Aquila crept forward. He walked about the man and swallowed. + +‘“Bones of the Saints!” said he, staring. + +‘“Many a stray shot goes too well home,” said Rahere. + +‘The old man flinched as at an arrow. “Why do you hurt me still?” he said +in Saxon. “It was on some bones of some Saints that I promised I would +give my England to the Great Duke.” He turns on us all crying, shrilly: +“Thanes, he had caught me at Rouen--a lifetime ago. If I had not +promised, I should have lain there all my life. What else could I have +done? I have lain in a strait prison all my life none the less. There is +no need to throw stones at me.” He guarded his face with his arms, and +shivered. “Now his madness will strike him down,” said Rahere. “Cast out +the evil spirit, one of you new bishops.” + +‘Said William of Exeter: “Harold was slain at Santlache fight. All the +world knows it.” + +‘“I think this man must have forgotten,” said Rahere. “Be comforted, +Father. Thou wast well slain at Hastings forty years gone, less three +months and nine days. Tell the King.” + +‘The man uncovered his face. “I thought they would stone me,” he said. +“I did not know I spoke before a King.” He came to his full towering +height--no mean man, but frail beyond belief. + +‘The King turned to the tables, and held him out his own cup of wine. +The old man drank, and beckoned behind him, and, before all the Normans, +my Hugh bore away the empty cup, Saxon-fashion, upon the knee. + +“It is Harold!” said De Aquila. “His own stiff-necked blood kneels to +serve him. + +“Be it so,” said Henry. “Sit, then, thou that hast been Harold of +England.” + +‘The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between half-shut +eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who watched Rahere +as I have seen him watch a far sail on the sea. + +‘The wine and the warmth cast the old man into a dream. His white head +bowed; his hands hung. His eye indeed was opened, but the mind was +shut. When he stretched his feet, they were scurfed and road-cut like a +slave’s. + +‘“Ah, Rahere,” cried Hugh, “why hast thou shown him thus? Better have +let him die than shame him--and me!” + +‘“Shame thee?” said the King. “Would any baron of mine kneel to me if I +were witless, discrowned, and alone, and Harold had my throne?” + +‘“No,” said Rahere. “I am the sole fool that might do it, Brother, +unless”--he pointed at De Aquila, whom he had only met that day--“yonder +tough Norman crab kept me company. But, Sir Hugh, I did not mean to +shame him. He hath been somewhat punished through, maybe, little fault +of his own.” + +‘“Yet he lied to my Father, the Conqueror,” said the King, and the old +man flinched in his sleep. + +‘“Maybe,” said Rahere, “but thy Brother Robert, whose throat we purpose +soon to slit with our own hands--” + +‘“Hutt!” said the King, laughing. “I’ll keep Robert at my table for +a life’s guest when I catch him. Robert means no harm. It is all his +cursed barons.” + +‘“None the less,” said Rahere, “Robert may say that thou hast not always +spoken the stark truth to him about England. I should not hang too many +men on that bough, Brother.” ‘“And it is certain,” said Hugh, “that”--he +pointed to the old man--“Harold was forced to make his promise to the +Great Duke.” + +‘“Very strongly, forced,” said De Aquila. He had never any pride in the +Duke William’s dealings with Harold before Hastings. Yet, as he said, +one cannot build a house all of straight sticks. + +‘“No matter how he was forced,” said Henry, “England was promised to my +Father William by Edward the Confessor. Is it not so?” William of Exeter +nodded. “Harold confirmed that promise to my Father on the bones of the +Saints. Afterwards he broke his oath and would have taken England by +the strong hand.” + +‘“Oh! La! La!” Rahere rolled up his eyes like a girl. “That ever England +should be taken by the strong hand!” + +‘Seeing that Red William and Henry after him had each in just that +fashion snatched England from Robert of Normandy, we others knew not +where to look. But De Aquila saved us quickly. + +‘“Promise kept or promise broken,” he said, “Harold came near enough to +breaking us Normans at Santlache.” + +‘“Was it so close a fight, then?” said Henry. + +‘“A hair would have turned it either way,” De Aquila answered. “His +house-carles stood like rocks against rain. Where wast thou, Hugh, in +it?” + +‘“Among Godwin’s folk beneath the Golden Dragon till your front gave +back, and we broke our ranks to follow,” said Hugh. + +‘“But I bade you stand! I bade you stand! I knew it was all a deceit!” + Harold had waked, and leaned forward as one crying from the grave. + +‘“Ah, now we see how the traitor himself was betrayed!” said William of +Exeter, and looked for a smile from the King. + +‘“I made thee Bishop to preach at my bidding,” said Henry; and turning +to Harold, “Tell us here how thy people fought us?” said he. “Their sons +serve me now against my Brother Robert!” + +‘The old man shook his head cunningly. “Na--Na--Na!” he cried. “I know +better. Every time I tell my tale men stone me. But, Thanes, I will tell +you a greater thing. Listen!” He told us how many paces it was from some +Saxon Saint’s shrine to another shrine, and how many more back to the +Abbey of the Battle. + +‘“Ay,” said he. “I have trodden it too often to be out even ten paces. +I move very swiftly. Harold of Norway knows that, and so does Tostig my +brother. They lie at ease at Stamford Bridge, and from Stamford Bridge +to the Battle Abbey it is--” he muttered over many numbers and forgot +us. + +‘“Ay,” said De Aquila, all in a muse. “That man broke Harold of Norway +at Stamford Bridge, and came near to breaking us at Santlache--all +within one month.” + +‘“But how did he come alive from Santlache fight?” asked the King. “Ask +him! Hast thou heard it, Rahere?” “Never. He says he has been stoned too +often for telling the tale. But he can count you off Saxon and Norman +shrines till daylight,” said Rahere and the old man nodded proudly. + +‘“My faith!” said Henry after a while. “I think even my Father the Great +Duke would pity if he could see him.” + +‘“How if he does see?” said Rahere. + +‘Hugh covered his face with his sound hand. “Ah, why hast thou shamed +him?” he cried again to Rahere. + +‘“No--no,” says the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere’s cape. “I am +Rahere’s man. None stone me now,” and he played with the bells on the +scollops of it. + +‘“How if he had been brought to me when you found him?” said the King to +Rahere. + +‘“You would have held him prisoner again--as the Great Duke did,” Rahere +answered. + +‘“True,” said our King. “He is nothing except his name. Yet that name +might have been used by stronger men to trouble my England. Yes. I must +have made him my life’s guest--as I shall make Robert.” + +‘“I knew it,” said Rahere. “But while this man wandered mad by the +wayside, none cared what he called himself.” + +‘“I learned to cease talking before the stones flew,” says the old man, +and Hugh groaned. + +‘“Ye have heard!” said Rahere. “Witless, landless, nameless, and, but +for my protection, masterless, he can still make shift to bide his doom +under the open sky.” + +‘“Then wherefore didst thou bring him here for a mock and a shame?” + cried Hugh, beside himself with woe. + +‘“A right mock and a just shame!” said William of Exeter. + +‘“Not to me,” said Nigel of Ely. “I see and I tremble, but I neither +mock nor judge.” “Well spoken, Ely.” Rahere falls into the pure fool +again. “I’ll pray for thee when I turn monk. Thou hast given thy +blessing on a war between two most Christian brothers.” He meant the war +forward ‘twixt Henry and Robert of Normandy. “I charge you, Brother,” he +says, wheeling on the King, “dost thou mock my fool?” The King shook his +head, and so then did smooth William of Exeter. + +‘“De Aquila, does thou mock him?” Rahere jingled from one to another, +and the old man smiled. + +‘“By the Bones of the Saints, not I,” said our Lord of Pevensey. “I know +how dooms near he broke us at Santlache.” + +‘“Sir Hugh, you are excused the question. But you, valiant, loyal, +honourable, and devout barons, Lords of Man’s justice in your own +bounds, do you mock my fool?” + +‘He shook his bauble in the very faces of those two barons whose names +I have forgotten. “Na--Na!” they said, and waved him back foolishly +enough. + +‘He hies him across to staring, nodding Harold, and speaks from behind +his chair. + +‘“No man mocks thee, Who here judges this man? Henry of +England--Nigel--De Aquila! On your souls, swift with the answer!” he +cried. + +‘None answered. We were all--the King not least--over-borne by that +terrible scarlet-and-black wizard-jester. + +‘“Well for your souls,” he said, wiping his brow. Next, shrill like a +woman: “Oh, come to me!” and Hugh ran forward to hold Harold, that had +slidden down in the chair. + +‘“Hearken,” said Rahere, his arm round Harold’s neck. “The King--his +bishops--the knights--all the world’s crazy chessboard neither mock nor +judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, Harold of England!” + +‘Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled. + +‘“Good comfort,” said Harold. “Tell me again! I have been somewhat +punished.” ‘Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head +rolled. We heard him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud. + +‘“Out! I will have no Norman!” Harold said as clearly as I speak now, +and he refuged himself on Hugh’s sound shoulder, and stretched out, and +lay all still.’ + +‘Dead?’ said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk. + +‘That was his good fortune. To die in the King’s presence, and on the +breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. Some of us +envied him,’ said Sir Richard, and fell back to take Swallow’s bridle. + +‘Turn left here,’ Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. They +ducked down a narrow path through close ash plantation. + +The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged full-abreast +into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying home on his back. +‘My! My!’ said he. ‘Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?’ + +‘Sorry! It’s all right,’ said Una, rubbing her nose. ‘How many rabbits +did you get today?’ + +‘That’s tellin’!’ the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. ‘I +reckon Mus’ Ridley he’ve got rheumatism along o’ lyin’ in the dik to see +I didn’t snap up any. Think o’ that now!’ + +They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale. + +‘An’ just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin’ to the hounds +in our woods,’ said he. ‘Didn’t you hear? You must ha’ been asleep +sure-ly.’ + +‘Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?’ Dan cried. + +‘’Ere he be--house an’ all!’ Hobden dived into the prickly heart of the +faggot and took out a dormouse’s wonderfully woven nest of grass and +leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been precious lace, and +tilting it toward the last of the light he showed the little, red, furry +chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes that were shut for +their winter sleep. + +‘Let’s take him home. Don’t breathe on him,’ said Una. ‘It’ll make him +warm and he’ll wake up and die straight off. Won’t he, Hobby?’ + +‘Dat’s a heap better by my reckonin’ than wakin’ up and findin’ himself +in a cage for life. No! We’ll lay him into the bottom o’ this hedge. +Dat’s jus’ right! No more trouble for him till come Spring. An’ now +we’ll go home.’ + + + + +A Carol + + + Our Lord Who did the Ox command + To kneel to Judah’s King, + He binds His frost upon the land + To ripen it for Spring-- + To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, + According to His word; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + When we poor fenmen skate the ice + Or shiver on the wold, + We hear the cry of a single tree + That breaks her heart in the cold-- + That breaks her heart in the cold, good sirs, + And rendeth by the board; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + Her wood is crazed and little worth + Excepting as to burn + That we may warm and make our mirth + Until the Spring return-- + Until the Spring return, good sirs, + When people walk abroad; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + God bless the master of this house, + And all that sleep therein! + And guard the fens from pirate folk, + And keep us all from sin, + To walk in honesty, good sirs, + Of thought and deed and word! + Which shall befriend our latter end-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + +***** This file should be named 556-0.txt or 556-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/556/ + +Produced by Jo Churcher + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rewards and Fairies + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Release Date: November 28, 2009 [EBook #556] +Last Updated: October 7, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jo Churcher, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + REWARDS AND FAIRIES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Rudyard Kipling + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> A Charm </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_INTR"> Introduction </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> COLD IRON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> Cold Iron </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> GLORIANA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> Gloriana </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> The Looking-Glass </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE WRONG THING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> A Truthful Song </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> The Wrong Thing </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> King Henry VII and the Shipwrights </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> MARKLAKE WITCHES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> The Way Through the Woods </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> Marklake Witches </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> Brookland Road </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> The Run of the Downs </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> The Knife and the Naked Chalk </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> Song of the Men’s Side </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> BROTHER SQUARE-TOES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> Philadelphia </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> Brother Square-Toes </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> IF— </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> ‘A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF’ </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> A St Helena Lullaby </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> ‘A Priest in Spite of Himself’ </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> ‘Poor Honest Men’ </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> Eddi’s Service </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> The Conversion of St Wilfrid </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> Song of the Red War-Boat </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> An Astrologer’s Song </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> A Doctor of Medicine </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> ‘Our Fathers of Old’ </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> SIMPLE SIMON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> The Thousandth Man </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> Simple Simon </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> Frankie’s Trade </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> THE TREE OF JUSTICE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> The Ballad of Minepit Shaw </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> The Tree of Justice </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> A Carol </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + A Charm + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Take of English earth as much + As either hand may rightly clutch. + In the taking of it breathe + Prayer for all who lie beneath— + Not the great nor well-bespoke, + But the mere uncounted folk + Of whose life and death is none + Report or lamentation. + Lay that earth upon thy heart, + And thy sickness shall depart! + + It shall sweeten and make whole + Fevered breath and festered soul; + It shall mightily restrain + Over-busy hand and brain; + it shall ease thy mortal strife + ‘Gainst the immortal woe of life, + Till thyself restored shall prove + By what grace the Heavens do move. + + Take of English flowers these— + Spring’s full-faced primroses, + Summer’s wild wide-hearted rose, + Autumn’s wall-flower of the close, + And, thy darkness to illume, + Winter’s bee-thronged ivy-bloom. + Seek and serve them where they bide + From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, + For these simples used aright + Shall restore a failing sight. + + These shall cleanse and purify + Webbed and inward-turning eye; + These shall show thee treasure hid, + Thy familiar fields amid, + At thy threshold, on thy hearth, + Or about thy daily path; + And reveal (which is thy need) + Every man a King indeed! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Introduction + </h2> + <p> + Once upon a time, Dan and Una, brother and sister, living in the English + country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow, + alias Nick o’ Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, the last survivor in + England of those whom mortals call Fairies. Their proper name, of course, + is ‘The People of the Hills’. This Puck, by means of the magic of Oak, + Ash, and Thorn, gave the children power + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + To see what they should see and hear what they should hear, + Though it should have happened three thousand year. +</pre> + <p> + The result was that from time to time, and in different places on the farm + and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and talked to some + rather interesting people. One of these, for instance, was a Knight of the + Norman Conquest, another a young Centurion of a Roman Legion stationed in + England, another a builder and decorator of King Henry VII’s time; and so + on and so forth; as I have tried to explain in a book called PUCK OF + POOK’S HILL. + </p> + <p> + A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and though they were + then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly instead of going barefooted + when they got the chance, Puck was as kind to them as ever, and introduced + them to more people of the old days. + </p> + <p> + He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their walks and + conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not interfere; and Dan and + Una would find the strangest sort of persons in their gardens or woods. + </p> + <p> + In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about those + people. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + COLD IRON + </h2> + <p> + When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not + remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the otter + which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; and early + morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of the house + into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. Dan took a few + steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his black footprints. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,’ he said. ‘They’ll get + horrid wet.’ + </p> + <p> + It was their first summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took them + off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over the + dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in the + East. The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of the night + mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of otter’s + footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between the weeds + and the drenched mowing, while the birds shouted with surprise. Then the + track left the brook and became a smear, as though a log had been dragged + along. + </p> + <p> + They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the Forge, + round Hobden’s garden, and then up the slope till it ran out on the short + turf and fern of Pook’s Hill, and they heard the cock-pheasants crowing in + the woods behind them. + </p> + <p> + ‘No use!’ said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. ‘The dew’s drying off, + and old Hobden says otters’ll travel for miles.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m sure we’ve travelled miles.’ Una fanned herself with her hat. ‘How + still it is! It’s going to be a regular roaster.’ She looked down the + valley, where no chimney yet smoked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hobden’s up!’ Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. ‘What + d’you suppose he has for breakfast?’ ‘One of them. He says they eat good + all times of the year,’ Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants + going down to the brook for a drink. + </p> + <p> + A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped, + and trotted off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Mus’ Reynolds—Mus’ Reynolds’—Dan was quoting from old + Hobden,—‘if I knowed all you knowed, I’d know something.’ [See ‘The + Winged Hats’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] + </p> + <p> + I say,’—Una lowered her voice—‘you know that funny feeling of + things having happened before. I felt it when you said “Mus’ Reynolds.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So did I,’ Dan began. ‘What is it?’ + </p> + <p> + They faced each other, stammering with excitement. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait a shake! I’ll remember in a minute. Wasn’t it something about a fox—last + year? Oh, I nearly had it then!’ Dan cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Be quiet!’ said Una, prancing excitedly. ‘There was something happened + before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills—the play at the + theatre—see what you see—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember now,’ Dan shouted. ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face—Pook’s + Hill—Puck’s Hill—Puck!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember, too,’ said Una. ‘And it’s Midsummer Day again!’ The young + fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped rush. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here’s a happy meeting,’ said he. They + shook hands all round, and asked questions. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve wintered well,’ he said after a while, and looked them up and + down. ‘Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They’ve put us into boots,’ said Una. ‘Look at my feet—they’re all + pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—boots make a difference.’ Puck wriggled his brown, square, + hairy foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the + next. + </p> + <p> + ‘I could do that—last year,’ Dan said dismally, as he tried and + failed. ‘And boots simply ruin one’s climbing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,’ said Puck, or folk + wouldn’t wear them. Shall we come this way?’ They sauntered along side by + side till they reached the gate at the far end of the hillside. Here they + halted just like cattle, and let the sun warm their backs while they + listened to the flies in the wood. + </p> + <p> + ‘Little Lindens is awake,’ said Una, as she hung with her chin on the top + rail. ‘See the chimney smoke?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Today’s Thursday, isn’t it?’ Puck turned to look at the old pink + farmhouse across the little valley. ‘Mrs Vincey’s baking day. Bread should + rise well this weather.’ He yawned, and that set them both yawning. + </p> + <p> + The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. They + felt that little crowds were stealing past. + </p> + <p> + ‘Doesn’t that sound like—er—the People of the Hills?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before people get + about,’ said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As I remember ‘em, the People of the Hills used to make more noise. + They’d settle down for the day rather like small birds settling down for + the night. But that was in the days when they carried the high hand. Oh, + me! The deeds that I’ve had act and part in, you’d scarcely believe!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I like that!’ said Dan. ‘After all you told us last year, too!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget everything,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + Puck laughed and shook his head. ‘I shall this year, too. I’ve given you + seizin of Old England, and I’ve taken away your Doubt and Fear, but your + memory and remembrance between whiles I’ll keep where old Billy Trott kept + his night-lines—and that’s where he could draw ‘em up and hide ‘em + at need. Does that suit?’ He twinkled mischievously. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s got to suit,’ said Una, and laughed. ‘We Can’t magic back at you.’ + She folded her arms and leaned against the gate. ‘Suppose, now, you wanted + to magic me into something—an otter? Could you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not with those boots round your neck.’ ‘I’ll take them off.’ She threw + them on the turf. Dan’s followed immediately. ‘Now!’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Less than ever now you’ve trusted me. Where there’s true faith, there’s + no call for magic.’ Puck’s slow smile broadened all over his face. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what have boots to do with it?’ said Una, perching on the gate. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s Cold Iron in them,’ said Puck, and settled beside her. ‘Nails in + the soles, I mean. It makes a difference.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How?’ ‘Can’t you feel it does? You wouldn’t like to go back to bare feet + again, same as last year, would you? Not really?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No-o. I suppose I shouldn’t—not for always. I’m growing up, you + know,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you told us last year, in the Long Slip—at the theatre—that + you didn’t mind Cold Iron,’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t; but folks in housen, as the People of the Hills call them, must + be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near side of Cold + Iron—there’s iron ‘in every man’s house, isn’t there? They handle + Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune’s made or spoilt by + Cold Iron in some shape or other. That’s how it goes with Flesh and Blood, + and one can’t prevent it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t quite see. How do you mean?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘It would take me some time to tell you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it’s ever so long to breakfast,’ said Dan. ‘We looked in the larder + before we came out.’ He unpocketed one big hunk of bread and Una another, + which they shared with Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s Little Lindens’ baking,’ he said, as his white teeth sunk in it. + ‘I know Mrs Vincey’s hand.’ He ate with a slow sideways thrust and grind, + just like old Hobden, and, like Hobden, hardly dropped a crumb. The sun + flashed on Little Lindens’ windows, and the cloudless sky grew stiller and + hotter in the valley. + </p> + <p> + ‘AH—Cold Iron,’ he said at last to the impatient children. ‘Folk in + housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold Iron. + They’ll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to put it over + the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the Hills slip in, find + the cradle-babe in the corner, and—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I know. Steal it and leave a changeling,’ Una cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ said Puck firmly. ‘All that talk of changelings is people’s excuse + for their own neglect. Never believe ‘em. I’d whip ‘em at the cart-tail + through three parishes if I had my way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But they don’t do it now,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Whip, or neglect children? Umm! Some folks and some fields never alter. + But the People of the Hills didn’t work any changeling tricks. They’d + tiptoe in and whisper and weave round the cradle-babe in the + chimney-corner—a fag-end of a charm here, or half a spell there—like + kettles singing; but when the babe’s mind came to bud out afterwards, it + would act differently from other people in its station. That’s no + advantage to man or maid. So I wouldn’t allow it with my folks’ babies + here. I told Sir Huon so once.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was Sir Huon?’ Dan asked, and Puck turned on him in quiet + astonishment. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sir Huon of Bordeaux—he succeeded King Oberon. He had been a bold + knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a long while back. + Have you ever heard “How many miles to Babylon?”?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course,’ said Dan, flushing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But about tricks on + mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, on just such a morning + as this: “If you crave to act and influence on folk in housen, which I + know is your desire, why don’t you take some human cradle-babe by fair + dealing, and bring him up among yourselves on the far side of Cold Iron—as + Oberon did in time past? Then you could make him a splendid fortune, and + send him out into the world.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Time past is past time,” says Sir Huon. “I doubt if we could do it. For + one thing, the babe would have to be taken without wronging man, woman, or + child. For another, he’d have to be born on the far side of Cold Iron—in + some house where no Cold Iron ever stood; and for yet the third, he’d have + to be kept from Cold Iron all his days till we let him find his fortune. + No, it’s not easy,” he said, and he rode off, thinking. You see, Sir Huon + had been a man once. ‘I happened to attend Lewes Market next Woden’s Day + even, and watched the slaves being sold there—same as pigs are sold + at Robertsbridge Market nowadays. Only, the pigs have rings on their + noses, and the slaves had rings round their necks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sort of rings?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘A ring of Cold Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just like a + quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave’s neck. They used + to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, and ship them to all + parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. But, as I was saying, there + was a farmer out of the Weald who had bought a woman with a babe in her + arms, and he didn’t want any encumbrances to her driving his beasts home + for him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Beast himself!’ said Una, and kicked her bare heel on the gate. + </p> + <p> + ‘So he blamed the auctioneer. “It’s none o’ my baby,” the wench puts in. + “I took it off a woman in our gang who died on Terrible Down yesterday.” + “I’ll take it off to the church then,” says the farmer. “Mother Church’ll + make a monk of it, and we’ll step along home.” + </p> + <p> + ‘It was dusk then. He slipped down to St Pancras’ Church, and laid the + babe at the cold chapel door. I breathed on the back of his stooping neck—and—I’ve + heard he never could be warm at any fire afterwards. I should have been + surprised if he could! Then I whipped up the babe, and came flying home + here like a bat to his belfry. + </p> + <p> + ‘On the dewy break of morning of Thor’s own day—just such a day as + this—I laid the babe outside the Hill here, and the People flocked + up and wondered at the sight. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You’ve brought him, then?” Sir Huon said, staring like any mortal man. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes, and he’s brought his mouth with him, too,” I said. The babe was + crying loud for his breakfast. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What is he?” says Sir Huon, when the womenfolk had drawn him under to + feed him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Full Moon and Morning Star may know,” I says. “I don’t. By what I could + make out of him in the moonlight, he’s without brand or blemish. I’ll + answer for it that he’s born on the far side of Cold Iron, for he was born + under a shaw on Terrible Down, and I’ve wronged neither man, woman, nor + child in taking him, for he is the son of a dead slave-woman.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“All to the good, Robin,” Sir Huon said. “He’ll be the less anxious to + leave us. Oh, we’ll give him a splendid fortune, and we shall act and + influence on folk in housen as we have always craved.” His Lady came up + then, and drew him under to watch the babe’s wonderful doings.’ ‘Who was + his Lady?’ said Dan. ‘The Lady Esclairmonde. She had been a woman once, + till she followed Sir Huon across the fern, as we say. Babies are no + special treat to me—I’ve watched too many of them—so I stayed + on the Hill. Presently I heard hammering down at the Forge there.‘Puck + pointed towards Hobden’s cottage. ‘It was too early for any workmen, but + it passed through my mind that the breaking day was Thor’s own day. A slow + north-east wind blew up and set the oaks sawing and fretting in a way I + remembered; so I slipped over to see what I could see.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what did you see?’ ‘A smith forging something or other out of Cold + Iron. When it was finished, he weighed it in his hand (his back was + towards me), and tossed it from him a longish quoit-throw down the valley. + I saw Cold Iron flash in the sun, but I couldn’t quite make out where it + fell. That didn’t trouble me. I knew it would be found sooner or later by + someone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How did you know?’ Dan went on. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I knew the Smith that made it,’ said Puck quietly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wayland Smith?’ Una suggested. [See ‘Weland’s Sword’ in PUCK OF POOK’S + HILL.] + </p> + <p> + ‘No. I should have passed the time o’ day with Wayland Smith, of course. + This other was different. So’—Puck made a queer crescent in the air + with his finger—‘I counted the blades of grass under my nose till + the wind dropped and he had gone—he and his Hammer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was it Thor then?’ Una murmured under her breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who else? It was Thor’s own day.’ Puck repeated the sign. ‘I didn’t tell + Sir Huon or his Lady what I’d seen. Borrow trouble for yourself if that’s + your nature, but don’t lend it to your neighbours. Moreover, I might have + been mistaken about the Smith’s work. He might have been making things for + mere amusement, though it wasn’t like him, or he might have thrown away an + old piece of made iron. One can never be sure. So I held my tongue and + enjoyed the babe. He was a wonderful child—and the People of the + Hills were so set on him, they wouldn’t have believed me. He took to me + wonderfully. As soon as he could walk he’d putter forth with me all about + my Hill here. Fern makes soft falling! He knew when day broke on earth + above, for he’d thump, thump, thump, like an old buck-rabbit in a bury, + and I’d hear him say “Opy!” till some one who knew the Charm let him out, + and then it would be “Robin! Robin!” all round Robin Hood’s barn, as we + say, till he’d found me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The dear!’ said Una. ‘I’d like to have seen him!’ ‘Yes, he was a boy. And + when it came to learning his words—spells and such-like—he’d + sit on the Hill in the long shadows, worrying out bits of charms to try on + passersby. And when the bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for + pure love’s sake (like everything else on my Hill), he’d shout, “Robin! + Look—see! Look, see, Robin!” and sputter out some spell or other + that they had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn’t the heart to + tell him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the + wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast spells for + sure, as we say, he took more and more notice of things and people in the + world. People, of course, always drew him, for he was mortal all through. + </p> + <p> + ‘Seeing that he was free to move among folk in housen, under or over Cold + Iron, I used to take him along with me, night-walking, where he could + watch folk, and I could keep him from touching Cold Iron. That wasn’t so + difficult as it sounds, because there are plenty of things besides Cold + Iron in housen to catch a boy’s fancy. He was a handful, though! I shan’t + forget when I took him to Little Lindens—his first night under a + roof. The smell of the rushlights and the bacon on the beams—they + were stuffing a feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm night—got + into his head. Before I could stop him—we were hiding in the + bakehouse—he’d whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights and + voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl overset + a hive there, and—of course he didn’t know till then such things + could touch him—he got badly stung, and came home with his face + looking like kidney potatoes! ‘You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and Lady + Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was never to be + trusted with me night-walking any more—and he took about as much + notice of their order as he did of the bee-stings. Night after night, as + soon as it was dark, I’d pick up his whistle in the wet fern, and off we’d + flit together among folk in housen till break of day—he asking + questions, and I answering according to my knowledge. Then we fell into + mischief again!’ Puck shook till the gate rattled. + </p> + <p> + ‘We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his wife with a bat + in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over his own woodlump when + the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him. Of course the woman took her + husband’s part, and while the man beat him, the woman scratted his face. + It wasn’t till I danced among the cabbages like Brightling Beacon all + ablaze that they gave up and ran indoors. The Boy’s fine green-and-gold + clothes were torn all to pieces, and he had been welted in twenty places + with the man’s bat, and scratted by the woman’s nails to pieces. He looked + like a Robertsbridge hopper on a Monday morning. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Robin,” said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a bunch of + hay, “I don’t quite understand folk in housen. I went to help that old + woman, and she hit me, Robin!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“What else did you expect?” I said. “That was the one time when you might + have worked one of your charms, instead of running into three times your + weight.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I didn’t think,” he says. “But I caught the man one on the head that was + as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Mind your nose,” I said. “Bleed it on a dockleaf—not your sleeve, + for pity’s sake.” I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde would say. + </p> + <p> + ‘He didn’t care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, and the + front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, looked like + ancient sacrifices. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The Boy could do + nothing wrong, in their eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in housen, when + you’re ready to let him go,” I said. “Now he’s begun to do it, why do you + cry shame on me? That’s no shame. It’s his nature drawing him to his + kind.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But we don’t want him to begin that way,” the Lady Esclairmonde said. + “We intend a splendid fortune for him—not your flitter-by-night, + hedge-jumping, gipsy-work.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I don’t blame you, Robin,” says Sir Huon, “but I do think you might look + after the Boy more closely.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ve kept him away from Cold Iron these sixteen years,” I said. “You + know as well as I do, the first time he touches Cold Iron he’ll find his + own fortune, in spite of everything you intend for him. You owe me + something for that.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Sir Huon, having been a man, was going to allow me the right of it, but + the Lady Esclairmonde, being the Mother of all Mothers, over-persuaded + him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“We’re very grateful,” Sir Huon said, “but we think that just for the + present you are about too much with him on the Hill.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Though you have said it,” I said, “I will give you a second chance.” I + did not like being called to account for my doings on my own Hill. I + wouldn’t have stood it even that far except I loved the Boy. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No! No!” says the Lady Esclairmonde. “He’s never any trouble when he’s + left to me and himself. It’s your fault.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You have said it,” I answered. “Hear me! From now on till the Boy has + found his fortune, whatever that may be, I vow to you all on my Hill, by + Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, and by the Hammer of Asa Thor”—again Puck + made that curious double-cut in the air—‘"that you may leave me out + of all your counts and reckonings.” Then I went out’—he snapped his + fingers—‘like the puff of a candle, and though they called and + cried, they made nothing by it. I didn’t promise not to keep an eye on the + Boy, though. I watched him close—close—close! + </p> + <p> + ‘When he found what his people had forced me to do, he gave them a piece + of his mind, but they all kissed and cried round him, and being only a + boy, he came over to their way of thinking (I don’t blame him), and called + himself unkind and ungrateful; and it all ended in fresh shows and plays, + and magics to distract him from folk in housen. Dear heart alive! How he + used to call and call on me, and I couldn’t answer, or even let him know + that I was near!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not even once?’ said Una. ‘If he was very lonely?’ ‘No, he couldn’t,’ + said Dan, who had been thinking. ‘Didn’t you swear by the Hammer of Thor + that you wouldn’t, Puck?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By that Hammer!’ was the deep rumbled reply. Then he came back to his + soft speaking voice. ‘And the Boy was lonely, when he couldn’t see me any + more. He began to try to learn all learning (he had good teachers), but I + saw him lift his eyes from the big black books towards folk in housen all + the time. He studied song-making (good teachers he had too!), but he sang + those songs with his back toward the Hill, and his face toward folk. I + know! I have sat and grieved over him grieving within a rabbit’s jump of + him. Then he studied the High, Low, and Middle Magic. He had promised the + Lady Esclairmonde he would never go near folk in housen; so he had to make + shows and shadows for his mind to chew on.’ ‘What sort of shows?’ said + Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just boy’s Magic as we say. I’ll show you some, some time. It pleased him + for the while, and it didn’t hurt any one in particular except a few men + coming home late from the taverns. But I knew what it was a sign of, and I + followed him like a weasel follows a rabbit. As good a boy as ever lived! + I’ve seen him with Sir Huon and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping just as + they stepped to avoid the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or walking wide + of some old ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or spade there; + and all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk in housen all + the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine fortune for him—but + they could never find it in their heart to let him begin. I’ve heard that + many warned them, but they wouldn’t be warned. So it happened as it + happened. + </p> + <p> + ‘One hot night I saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his flaming + discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, and rush on rush + of shadows down the valley till the shaws were full of his hounds giving + tongue, and the woodways were packed with his knights in armour riding + down into the water-mists—all his own Magic, of course. Behind them + you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches of + moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all + turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his own + young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy’s Magic doesn’t trouble + me—or Merlin’s either for that matter. I followed the Boy by the + flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I grieved + for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and forth like a + bullock in a strange pasture—sometimes alone—sometimes + waist-deep among his shadow-hounds—sometimes leading his + shadow-knights on a hawk-winged horse to rescue his shadow-girls. I never + guessed he had such Magic at his command; but it’s often that way with + boys. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just when the owl comes home for the second time, I saw Sir Huon and the + Lady ride down my Hill, where there’s not much Magic allowed except mine. + They were very pleased at the Boy’s Magic—the valley flared with it—and + I heard them settling his splendid fortune when they should find it in + their hearts to let him go to act and influence among folk in housen. Sir + Huon was for making him a great King somewhere or other, and the Lady was + for making him a marvellous wise man whom all should praise for his skill + and kindness. She was very kind-hearted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of a sudden we saw the flashes of his discontents turned back on the + clouds, and his shadow-hounds stopped baying. + </p> + <p> + ‘“There’s Magic fighting Magic over yonder,” the Lady Esclairmonde cried, + reigning up. “Who is against him?” + </p> + <p> + ‘I could have told her, but I did not count it any of my business to speak + of Asa Thor’s comings and goings. + </p> + <p> + ‘How did you know?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘A slow North-East wind blew up, sawing and fretting through the oaks in a + way I remembered. The wildfire roared up, one last time in one sheet, and + snuffed out like a rushlight, and a bucketful of stinging hail fell. We + heard the Boy walking in the Long Slip—where I first met you. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Here, oh, come here!” said the Lady Esclairmonde, and stretched out her + arms in the dark. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was coming slowly, but he stumbled in the footpath, being, of course, + mortal man. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, what’s this?” he said to himself. We three heard him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hold, lad, hold! ‘Ware Cold Iron!” said Sir Huon, and they two swept + down like nightjars, crying as they rode. + </p> + <p> + ‘I ran at their stirrups, but it was too late. We felt that the Boy had + touched Cold Iron somewhere in the dark, for the Horses of the Hill shied + off, and whipped round, snorting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I judged it was time for me to show myself in my own shape; so I + did. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Whatever it is,” I said, “he has taken hold of it. Now we must find out + whatever it is that he has taken hold of, for that will be his fortune.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Come here, Robin,” the Boy shouted, as soon as he heard my voice. “I + don’t know what I’ve hold of.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“It is in your hands,” I called back. “Tell us if it is hard and cold, + with jewels atop. For that will be a King’s Sceptre.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Not by a furrow-long,” he said, and stooped and tugged in the dark. We + heard him. ‘“Has it a handle and two cutting edges?” I called. “For + that’ll be a Knight’s Sword.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No, it hasn’t,” he says. “It’s neither ploughshare, whittle, hook, nor + crook, nor aught I’ve yet seen men handle.” By this time he was scratting + in the dirt to prise it up. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Whatever it is, you know who put it there, Robin,” said Sir Huon to me, + “or you would not ask those questions. You should have told me as soon as + you knew.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“What could you or I have done against the Smith that made it and laid it + for him to find?” I said, and I whispered Sir Huon what I had seen at the + Forge on Thor’s Day, when the babe was first brought to the Hill. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, good-bye, our dreams!” said Sir Huon. “It’s neither sceptre, sword, + nor plough! Maybe yet it’s a bookful of learning, bound with iron clasps. + There’s a chance for a splendid fortune in that sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + ‘But we knew we were only speaking to comfort ourselves, and the Lady + Esclairmonde, having been a woman, said so. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Thur aie! Thor help us!” the Boy called. “It is round, without end, Cold + Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and there is writing on the + breadth of it.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Read the writing if you have the learning,” I called. The darkness had + lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again. + </p> + <p> + ‘He called back, reading the runes on the iron: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Few can see + Further forth + Than when the child + Meets the Cold Iron.” + </pre> + <p> + And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining + slave-ring round his proud neck. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Is this how it goes?” he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That is how it goes,” I said. He hadn’t snapped the catch home yet, + though. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What fortune does it mean for him?” said Sir Huon, while the Boy + fingered the ring. “You who walk under Cold Iron, you must tell us and + teach us.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Tell I can, but teach I cannot,” I said. “The virtue of the Ring is only + that he must go among folk in housen henceforward, doing what they want + done, or what he knows they need, all Old England over. Never will he be + his own master, nor yet ever any man’s. He will get half he gives, and + give twice what he gets, till his life’s last breath; and if he lays aside + his load before he draws that last breath, all his work will go for + naught.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, cruel, wicked Thor!” cried the Lady Esclairmonde. “Ah, look see, all + of you! The catch is still open! He hasn’t locked it. He can still take it + off. He can still come back. Come back!” She went as near as she dared, + but she could not lay hands on Cold Iron. The Boy could have taken it off, + yes. We waited to see if he would, but he put up his hand, and the snap + locked home. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What else could I have done?” said he. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Surely, then, you will do,” I said. “Morning’s coming, and if you three + have any farewells to make, make them now, for, after sunrise, Cold Iron + must be your master.” ‘So the three sat down, cheek by wet cheek, telling + over their farewells till morning light. As good a boy as ever lived, he + was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what happened to him?’ asked Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘When morning came, Cold Iron was master of him and his fortune, and he + went to work among folk in housen. Presently he came across a maid + like-minded with himself, and they were wedded, and had bushels of + children, as the saying is. Perhaps you’ll meet some of his breed, this + year.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you,’ said Una. ‘But what did the poor Lady Esclairmonde do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What can you do when Asa Thor lays the Cold Iron in a lad’s path? She and + Sir Huon were comforted to think they had given the Boy good store of + learning to act and influence on folk in housen. For he was a good boy! + Isn’t it getting on for breakfast-time? I’ll walk with you a piece.’ + </p> + <p> + When they were well in the centre of the bone-dry fern, Dan nudged Una, + who stopped and put on a boot as quickly as she could. ‘Now,’ she said, + ‘you can’t get any Oak, Ash, and Thorn leaves from here, and’—she + balanced wildly on one leg—‘I’m standing on Cold Iron. What’ll you + do if we don’t go away?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘E-eh? Of all mortal impudence!’ said Puck, as Dan, also in one boot, + grabbed his sister’s hand to steady himself. He walked round them, shaking + with delight. ‘You think I can only work with a handful of dead leaves? + This comes of taking away your Doubt and Fear! I’ll show you!’ + </p> + <p> + A minute later they charged into old Hobden at his simple breakfast of + cold roast pheasant, shouting that there was a wasps’ nest in the fern + which they had nearly stepped on, and asking him to come and smoke it out. + ‘It’s too early for wops-nests, an’ I don’t go diggin’ in the Hill, not + for shillin’s,’ said the old man placidly. ‘You’ve a thorn in your foot, + Miss Una. Sit down, and put on your t’other boot. You’re too old to be + caperin’ barefoot on an empty stomach. Stay it with this chicken o’ mine.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Cold Iron + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid! + Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.’ + ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall, + ‘But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all!’ + + So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, + Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege— + ‘Nay!’ said the cannoneer on the castle wall, + ‘But Iron—Cold Iron—shall be master of you all!’ + + Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong, + When the cruel cannon-balls laid ‘em all along! + He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall, + And Iron—Cold Iron—was master of it all! + + Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!) + ‘What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?’ + ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, ‘mock not at my fall, + For Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all.’ + + ‘Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown— + Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.’ + ‘As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small, + For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!’ + + Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!) + ‘Here is Bread and here is Wine—sit and sup with me. + Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall + How Iron—Cold Iron—can be master of men all!’ + + He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread. + With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said: + ‘Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall + Show Iron—Cold Iron—to be master of men all! + + ‘Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong, + Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong. + I forgive thy treason—I redeem thy fall— + For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!’ + + ‘Crowns are for the valiant—sceptres for the bold! + Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.’ + ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, kneeling in his hall, + ‘But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all! + Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!’ +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GLORIANA + </h2> + <p> + The Two Cousins + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Valour and Innocence + Have latterly gone hence + To certain death by certain shame attended. + Envy—ah! even to tears!— + The fortune of their years + Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. + + Scarce had they lifted up + Life’s full and fiery cup, + Than they had set it down untouched before them. + Before their day arose + They beckoned it to close— + Close in destruction and confusion o’er them. + + They did not stay to ask + What prize should crown their task, + Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for; + But passed into eclipse, + Her kiss upon their lips— + Even Belphoebe’s, whom they gave their lives for! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Gloriana + </h2> + <p> + Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like + Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom + when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep it + most particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every + time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden + would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without + leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico + and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: ‘Grown-ups not + allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.’ + </p> + <p> + Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon, + as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving among + the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the + potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said Una. ‘We thought it was people.’ ‘I saw you + were angry—from your legs,’ he answered with a grin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, it’s our own Kingdom—not counting you, of course.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What about?’ said Dan cautiously. ‘Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She + knows about Kingdoms.’ + </p> + <p> + There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid + everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered by + a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look in + the least as if she motored. + </p> + <p> + Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best + dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, + deep, slow, billowy one. + </p> + <p> + ‘Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,’ she said, ‘I can do + no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.’ She turned sharply on staring + Dan. ‘What’s in your head, lad? Manners?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,’ he answered. + </p> + <p> + She laughed a rather shrill laugh. ‘You’re a courtier already. Do you know + anything of dances, wench—or Queen, must I say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve had some lessons, but I can’t really dance a bit,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘You should learn, then.’ The lady moved forward as though she would teach + her at once. ‘It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies time to + think how she shall win or—lose. A woman can only work in man’s + play-time. Heigho!’ She sat down on the bank. + </p> + <p> + Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung + his sorrowful head over the fence. + </p> + <p> + ‘A pleasant Kingdom,’ said the lady, looking round. ‘Well enclosed. And + how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?’ + </p> + <p> + Una did not quite understand. ‘We don’t play that,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Play?’ The lady threw up her hands and laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘We have it for our own, together,’ Dan explained. + </p> + <p> + ‘And d’you never quarrel, young Burleigh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sometimes, but then we don’t tell.’ + </p> + <p> + The lady nodded. ‘I’ve no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a + secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! + </p> + <p> + But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm’ small, and + therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is example’—she + pointed to Middenboro—‘yonder old horse, with the face of a Spanish + friar—does he never break in?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He can’t. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,’ said Una, ‘and we let + Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.’ + </p> + <p> + The lady laughed like a man. ‘I see! Hobden catches conies—rabbits—for + himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of + his coney-catching?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We never ask,’ said Una. ‘Hobden’s a particular friend of ours.’ + ‘Hoity-toity!’ the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. ‘But I forget. It + is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this to + defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked ‘em no + questions either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was she trying to grow flowers?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, trees—perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.’ The lady + leaned her head on her hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘They do if you don’t look after them. We’ve got a few. Would you like to + see? I’ll fetch you some.’ Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade + behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. ‘Aren’t + they pretty?’ she said. ‘They’re Virginia stock.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Virginia?’ said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not herself—but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or + to plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And was she?’ said Dan cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled abroad she + toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what was she called?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Gloriana—Belphoebe—Elizabeth of England.’ Her voice changed + at each word. + </p> + <p> + ‘You mean Queen Bess?’ + </p> + <p> + The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. ‘You name her lightly + enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?’ said she. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I—I’ve seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall + House—down the road, you know. They’re in a glass case—awfully + tiny things.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!’ she laughed. ‘You are a courtier too soon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But they are,’ Dan insisted. ‘As little as dolls’ shoes. Did you really + know her well?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well. She was a—woman. I’ve been at her Court all my life. Yes, I + remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. They say she + danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the + price of a pair of old shoes—hey?’ + </p> + <p> + She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its broad flashing + buckle. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve heard of Philip of Spain—long-suffering Philip,’ she said, + her eyes still on the shining stones. ‘Faith, what some men will endure at + some women’s hands passes belief! If I had been a man, and a woman had + played with me as Elizabeth played with Philip, I would have—’ She + nipped off one of the Virginia stocks and held it up between finger and + thumb. ‘But for all that’—she began to strip the leaves one by one—‘they + say—and I am persuaded—that Philip loved her.’ She tossed her + head sideways. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!’ She swept the flowers + from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that the wind chased + through the wood. + </p> + <p> + ‘I should like to know about the shoes,’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. ‘Twill be as good as + a play.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We’ve never been to a play,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + The lady looked at her and laughed. ‘I’ll make one for you. Watch! You are + to imagine that she—Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth—has gone on + a progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic), + and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village—what was its + name?’ She pushed Puck with her foot. + </p> + <p> + ‘Norgem,’ he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam. + </p> + <p> + ‘Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a Latin + oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I’d made ‘em + in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You whipped?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship, + makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus’—(the + lady yawned)—‘Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and + yet be dog-wearied of ‘em ‘in body and mind—and so sits down’—her + skirts foamed about her as she sat—‘to a banquet beneath Brickwall + Oak. Here for her sins she is waited upon by—What were the young + cockerels’ names that served Gloriana at table?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,’ Puck began. + </p> + <p> + She held up her long jewelled hand. ‘Spare the rest! They were the best + blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes and + plates. Wherefore’—she looked funnily over her shoulder—‘you + are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully + expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or + devotion, spatter it with sauces and wines. The gown was Philip’s gift, + too! At this happy juncture a Queen’s messenger, mounted and mired, spurs + up the Rye road and delivers her a letter’—she giggled—‘a + letter from a good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called—Don + Philip.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That wasn’t Philip, King of Spain?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Truly, it was. ‘Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young Burleigh, these + kings and queens are very like men and women, and I’ve heard they write + each other fond, foolish letters that none of their ministers should + open.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth’s letters?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Faith, yes! But she’d have done as much for theirs, any day. You are to + think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty hand), excusing herself + thus to the company—for the Queen’s time is never her own—and, + while the music strikes up, reading Philip’s letter, as I do.’ She drew a + real letter from her pocket, and held it out almost at arm’s length, like + the old post-mistress in the village when she reads telegrams. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hm! Hm! Hm! Philip writes as ever most lovingly. He says his Gloriana is + cold, for which reason he burns for her through a fair written page.’ She + turned it with a snap. ‘What’s here? Philip complains that certain of her + gentlemen have fought against his generals in the Low Countries. He prays + her to hang ‘em when they re-enter her realms. (Hm, that’s as may be.) + Here’s a list of burnt shipping slipped between two vows of burning + adoration. Oh, poor Philip! His admirals at sea—no less than three + of ‘em—have been boarded, sacked, and scuttled on their lawful + voyages by certain English mariners (gentlemen, he will not call them), + who are now at large and working more piracies in his American ocean, + which the Pope gave him. (He and the Pope should guard it, then!) Philip + hears, but his devout ears will not credit it, that Gloriana in some + fashion countenances these villains’ misdeeds, shares in their booty, and—oh, + shame!—-has even lent them ships royal for their sinful thefts. + Therefore he requires (which is a word Gloriana loves not), requires that + she shall hang ‘em when they return to England, and afterwards shall + account to him for all the goods and gold they have plundered. A most + loving request! If Gloriana will not be Philip’s bride, she shall be his + broker and his butcher! Should she still be stiff-necked, he writes—see + where the pen digged the innocent paper!—-that he hath both the + means and the intention to be revenged on her. Aha! Now we come to the + Spaniard in his shirt!’ (She waved the letter merrily.) ‘Listen here! + Philip will prepare for Gloriana a destruction from the West—a + destruction from the West—far exceeding that which Pedro de Avila + wrought upon the Huguenots. And he rests and remains, kissing her feet and + her hands, her slave, her enemy, or her conqueror, as he shall find that + she uses him.’ + </p> + <p> + She thrust back the letter under her cloak, and went on acting, but in a + softer voice. ‘All this while—hark to it—the wind blows + through Brickwall Oak, the music plays, and, with the company’s eyes upon + her, the Queen of England must think what this means. She cannot remember + the name of Pedro de Avila, nor what he did to the Huguenots, nor when, + nor where. She can only see darkly some dark motion moving in Philip’s + dark mind, for he hath never written before in this fashion. She must + smile above the letter as though it were good news from her ministers—the + smile that tires the mouth and the poor heart. What shall she do?’ Again + her voice changed. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are to fancy that the music of a sudden wavers away. Chris Hatton, + Captain of her bodyguard, quits the table all red and ruffled, and + Gloriana’s virgin ear catches the clash of swords at work behind a wall. + The mothers of Sussex look round to count their chicks—I mean those + young gamecocks that waited on her. Two dainty youths have stepped aside + into Brickwall garden with rapier and dagger on a private point of honour. + They are haled out through the gate, disarmed and glaring—the lively + image of a brace of young Cupids transformed into pale, panting Cains. + Ahem! Gloriana beckons awfully—thus! They come up for judgement. + Their lives and estates lie at her mercy whom they have doubly offended, + both as Queen and woman. But la! what will not foolish young men do for a + beautiful maid?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? What did she do? What had they done?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hsh! You mar the play! Gloriana had guessed the cause of the trouble. + They were handsome lads. So she frowns a while and tells ‘em not to be + bigger fools than their mothers had made ‘em, and warns ‘em, if they do + not kiss and be friends on the instant, she’ll have Chris Hatton horse and + birch ‘em in the style of the new school at Harrow. (Chris looks sour at + that.) Lastly, because she needed time to think on Philip’s letter burning + in her pocket, she signifies her pleasure to dance with ‘em and teach ‘em + better manners. Whereat the revived company call down Heaven’s blessing on + her gracious head; Chris and the others prepare Brickwall House for a + dance; and she walks in the clipped garden between those two lovely young + sinners who are both ready to sink for shame. They confess their fault. It + appears that midway in the banquet the elder—they were cousins—conceived + that the Queen looked upon him with special favour. The younger, taking + the look to himself, after some words gives the elder the lie. Hence, as + she guessed, the duel.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And which had she really looked at?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Neither—except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the + while they’d spill dishes on her gown. She tells ‘em this, poor chicks—and + it completes their abasement. When they had grilled long enough, she says: + “And so you would have fleshed your maiden swords for me—for me?” + Faith, they would have been at it again if she’d egged ‘em on! but their + swords—oh, prettily they said it!—-had been drawn for her once + or twice already. + </p> + <p> + ‘“And where?” says she. “On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“On my own ship,” says the elder. “My cousin was vice-admiral of our + venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling + children.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No, no,” says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. “At least + the Spaniards know us better.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Admiral Boy—Vice-Admiral Babe,” says Gloriana, “I cry your pardon. + The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly than + I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break your + Queen’s peace?” ‘“On the sea called the Spanish Main, though ‘tis no more + Spanish than my doublet,” says the elder. Guess how that warmed Gloriana’s + already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be called Spanish + in her private hearing. + </p> + <p> + ‘“And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid it? + Disclose,” says she. “You stand in some danger of the gallows for + pirates.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“The axe, most gracious lady,” says the elder, “for we are gentle born.” + He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction. “Hoity-toity!” says + she, and, but that she remembered that she was Queen, she’d have cuffed + the pair of ‘em. “It shall be gallows, hurdle, and dung-cart if I choose.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held her + to blame for some small things we did on the seas,” the younger lisps. + </p> + <p> + ‘“As for treasure,” says the elder, “we brought back but our bare lives. + We were wrecked on the Gascons’ Graveyard, where our sole company for + three months was the bleached bones of De Avila’s men.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Gloriana’s mind jumped back to Philip’s last letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘“De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d’you know of him?” she + says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back + between the yews. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that + coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics—eight hundred + or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De + Avila’s men, and very justly hung ‘em all for murderers—five hundred + or so. No Christians inhabit there now, says the elder lad, though ‘tis a + goodly land north of Florida.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“How far is it from England?” asks prudent Gloriana. + </p> + <p> + ‘“With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it again + soon.” This was the younger, and he looked at her out of the corner of his + innocent eye. + </p> + <p> + ‘Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall Hall, where she + dances—thus. A woman can think while she dances—can think. + I’ll show you. Watch!’ + </p> + <p> + She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured satin, + worked over with pearls that trembled like running water in the running + shadows of the trees. Still talking—more to herself than to the + children—she swam into a majestical dance of the stateliest + balancings, the naughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, the most + dignified sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined together by the + elaboratest interlacing steps and circles. They leaned forward + breathlessly to watch the splendid acting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Would a Spaniard,’ she began, looking on the ground, ‘speak of his + revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who loved a woman might + threaten her ‘in the hope that his threats would make her love him. Such + things have been.’ She moved slowly across a bar of sunlight. ‘A + destruction from the West may signify that Philip means to descend on + Ireland. But then my Irish spies would have had some warning. The Irish + keep no secrets. No—it is not Ireland. Now why—why—why’—the + red shoes clicked and paused—‘does Philip name Pedro Melendez de + Avila, a general in his Americas, unless’—she turned more quickly—unless + he intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did he say De Avila + only to put her off her guard, or for this once has his black pen betrayed + his black heart? We’—she raised herself to her full height—‘England + must forestall Master Philip. But not openly,’—she sank again—‘we + cannot fight Spain openly—not yet—not yet.’ She stepped three + paces as though she were pegging down some snare with her twinkling + shoe-buckles. ‘The Queen’s mad gentlemen may fight Philip’s poor admirals + where they find ‘em, but England, Gloriana, Harry’s daughter, must keep + the peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her—as many men and boys + do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help England?’ + </p> + <p> + She raised her head—the masked head that seemed to have nothing to + do with the busy feet—and stared straight at the children. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think this is rather creepy,’ said Una with a shiver. ‘I wish she’d + stop.’ + </p> + <p> + The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking some one + else’s hand in the Grand Chain. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can a ship go down into the Gascons’ Graveyard and wait there?’ she asked + into the air, and passed on rustling. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn’t she?’ said Dan, and + Puck nodded. + </p> + <p> + Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw she was + smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her breathing hard. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot lend you any of my ships for the venture; Philip would hear of + it,’ she whispered over her shoulder; ‘but as much guns and powder as you + ask, if you do not ask too—‘Her voice shot up and she stamped her + foot thrice. ‘Louder! Louder, the music in the gallery! Oh, me, but I have + burst out of my shoe!’ + </p> + <p> + She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. ‘You will go at + your own charges,’ she whispered straight before her. ‘Oh, enviable and + adorable age of youth!’ Her eyes shone through the mask-holes. ‘But I warn + you you’ll repent it. Put not your trust in princes—or Queens. + Philip’s ships’ll blow you out of water. You’ll not be frightened? Well, + we’ll talk on it again, when I return from Rye, dear lads.’ + </p> + <p> + The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on her except + the rush of the shadows. + </p> + <p> + ‘And so it was finished,’ she said to the children. ‘Why d’you not + applaud?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was finished?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘The dance,’ the lady replied offendedly. ‘And a pair of green shoes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand a bit,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not quite sure,’ Dan began, ‘but—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You never can be—with a woman. But—?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons’ + Graveyard, wherever that was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas Virginia after-wards. Her plantation of Virginia.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn’t she say she’d + lend ‘em guns?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Right so. But not ships—then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I thought you meant they must have told her they’d do it off their + own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads + full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye Royal—knighting + of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they met her a mile down + the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. + Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“YOU would not birch them when I gave you the chance,” says she to Chris. + “Now you must get me half an hour’s private speech with ‘em in Brickwall + garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + The lady shook her head. ‘That was never her way. I’ve seen her walk to + her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight there + is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What else—what + else in England’s name could she have done?’ She lifted her hand to her + throat for a moment. ‘Faith,’ she cried, ‘I’d forgotten the little green + shoes! She left ‘em at Brickwall—so she did. And I remember she gave + the Norgem parson—John Withers, was he?—-a text for his sermon—“Over + Edom have I cast out my shoe.” Neat, if he’d understood!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand,’ said Una. ‘What about the two cousins?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. I + told you I gave ‘em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), + she asked no more of ‘em at first than to wait a while off that coast—the + Gascons’ Graveyard—to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass + that way—they had only one tall ship and a pinnace—only to + watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip always. + What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred + leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my + dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none—none!’ She stamped her + red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before + the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ‘em that if Philip + sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their + poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with + submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ‘em again + that there could be only one end to it—quick death on the sea, or + slow death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death + for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ‘em, and + slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young + men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me—ah, + it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’ Her chest sounded like a + board as she hit it. ‘She showed ‘em all. I told ‘em that this was no time + for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed + against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England’s + sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ‘em so) to give him up + their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped + Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must + lie—oh, I told ‘em all—under my sovereign displeasure. She + could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a + finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that + my face was made for the day.) + </p> + <p> + ‘“Either way—any way—this venture is death, which I know you + fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the + younger. ‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We + will go!” They knelt at my feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nay, dear lads—but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and + I kissed them. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old tarry-breeks + of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hire whom you please,” says the elder; “we are ruled by you, body and + soul”; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed ‘em, says between his + white lips, “I think you have power to make a god of a man.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Come to Court and be sure of’t,” I said. + </p> + <p> + ‘They shook their heads and I knew—I knew, that go they would. If I + had not kissed them—perhaps I might have prevailed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then why did you do it?’ said Una. ‘I don’t think you knew really what + you wanted done.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May it please your Majesty’—the lady bowed her head low—‘this + Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a + Queen. Remember her when you come to your Kingdom.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But—did the cousins go to the Gascons’ Graveyard?’ said Dan, as Una + frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘They went,’ said the lady. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did they ever come back?’ Una began; but—‘Did they stop King + Philip’s fleet?’ Dan interrupted. + </p> + <p> + The lady turned to him eagerly. + </p> + <p> + ‘D’you think they did right to go?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t see what else they could have done,’ Dan replied, after thinking + it over. + </p> + <p> + ‘D’you think she did right to send ‘em?’ The lady’s voice rose a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t see what else she could have done, either—do + you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, + and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what had + befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make you alter + your mind, young Burleigh?’ ‘I expect they were drowned, then. Anyhow, + Philip didn’t score, did he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won, + would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads’ lives?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.’ + </p> + <p> + The lady coughed. ‘You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen, + I’d make you Minister.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t play that game,’ said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady + as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through + Willow Shaw. + </p> + <p> + ‘Play!’ said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly. The + sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash till + Una’s eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on his knees + picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate. + </p> + <p> + ‘There wasn’t anybody in the Shaw, after all,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you think + you saw someone?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m most awfully glad there isn’t,’ said Una. Then they went on with the + potato-roast. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Looking-Glass + </h2> + <h3> + Queen Bess Was Harry’s daughter! + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old, + Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. + Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, + Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was! + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair, + There came Queen Mary’s spirit and it stood behind her chair, + Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways you may pass, + But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!’ + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore, + There came Lord Leicester’s spirit and it scratched upon the door, + Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, + But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!’ + + The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head; + She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said: + ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways though I’ve been, + Yet I am Harry’s daughter and I am England’s Queen!’ + And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was), + And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass + In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass + More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WRONG THING + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A Truthful Song + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE BRICKLAYER: + + I tell this tale, which is strictly true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things were made + Things have altered in the building trade. + + A year ago, come the middle o’ March, + We was building flats near the Marble Arch, + When a thin young man with coal-black hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn’t a trick in brick or stone + That this young man hadn’t seen or known; + Nor there wasn’t a tool from trowel to maul + But this young man could use ‘em all! + Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold, + Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold: + ‘Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly say what your name might be?’ + + The young man kindly answered them: + ‘It might be Lot or Methusalem, + Or it might be Moses (a man I hate), + Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great. + + ‘Your glazing is new and your plumbing’s strange, + But other-wise I perceive no change, + And in less than a month, if you do as I bid, + I’d learn you to build me a Pyramid.’ + + THE SAILOR: + + I tell this tale, which is stricter true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things was made + Things have altered in the shipwright’s trade. + + In Blackwall Basin yesterday + A China barque re-fitting lay, + When a fat old man with snow-white hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn’t a knot which the riggers knew + But the old man made it—and better too; + Nor there wasn’t a sheet, or a lift, or a brace, + But the old man knew its lead and place. + + Then up and spake the caulkyers bold, + Which was packing the pump in the after-hold: + ‘Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly tell what your name might be?’ + + The old man kindly answered them: + ‘it might be Japhet, it might be Shem, + Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), + Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark. + + ‘Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange, + But otherwise I perceive no change, + And in less than a week, if she did not ground, + I’d sail this hooker the wide world round!’ + + BOTH: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, etc. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Wrong Thing + </h2> + <p> + Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the + schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned + him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr Springett’s + yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old Mr + Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and his yard, + which opened off the village street, was always full of interesting + things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a ladder, where he + kept his iron-bound scaffold-planks, tins of paints, pulleys, and odds and + ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here by the hour watching + his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard below, while Dan gouged + and grunted at the carpenter’s bench near the loft window. Mr Springett + and Dan had always been particular friends, for Mr Springett was so old he + could remember when railways were being made in the southern counties of + England, and people were allowed to drive dogs in carts. + </p> + <p> + One hot, still afternoon—the tar-paper on the roof smelt like ships—Dan, + in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner’s bow, and Mr + Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He said he never + forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any man, woman, or child + he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the Village Hall at the + entrance of the village, which he had finished a few weeks before. + </p> + <p> + ‘An’ I don’t mind tellin’ you, Mus’ Dan,’ he said, ‘that the Hall will be + my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn’t make ten pounds—no, + nor yet five—out o’ the whole contrac’, but my name’s lettered on + the foundation stone—Ralph Springett, Builder—and the stone + she’s bedded on four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five + hundred years, I’ll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec’ + so when he come down to oversee my work.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did he say?’ Dan was sandpapering the schooner’s port bow. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing. The Hall ain’t more than one of his small jobs for him, but + ‘tain’t small to me, an’ my name is cut and lettered, frontin’ the village + street, I do hope an’ pray, for time everlastin’. You’ll want the little + round file for that holler in her bow. Who’s there?’ Mr Springett turned + stiffly in his chair. + </p> + <p> + A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan + looked, and saw Hal o’ the Draft’s touzled head beyond them. [See ‘Hal o’ + the Draft’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] + </p> + <p> + ‘Be you the builder of the Village Hall?’ he asked of Mr Springett. + </p> + <p> + ‘I be,’ was the answer. ‘But if you want a job—’ + </p> + <p> + Hal laughed. ‘No, faith!’ he said. ‘Only the Hall is as good and honest a + piece of work as I’ve ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts, and + being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master mason, I + made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aa—um!’ Mr Springett looked important. ‘I be a bit rusty, but I’ll + try ye!’ + </p> + <p> + He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have pleased + him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always keeping behind + the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat down on a trestle + in the dark corner at the back of Mr Springett’s desk. He took no notice + of Dan, but talked at once to Mr Springett about bricks, and cement, and + lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on with his work. He knew Mr + Springett was pleased, because he tugged his white sandy beard, and smoked + his pipe in short puffs. The two men seemed to agree about everything, but + when grown-ups agree they interrupt each other almost as much as if they + were quarrelling. Hal said something about workmen. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, that’s what I always say,’ Mr Springett cried. ‘A man who can only + do one thing, he’s but next-above-fool to the man that can’t do nothin’. + That’s where the Unions make their mistake.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My thought to the very dot.’ Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg. + ‘I’ve suffered ‘in my time from these same Guilds—Unions, d’you call + ‘em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades—why, + what does it come to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothin’! You’ve justabout hit it,’ said Mr Springett, and rammed his hot + tobacco with his thumb. + </p> + <p> + ‘Take the art of wood-carving,’ Hal went on. He reached across the planks, + grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he wanted + something. Mr Springett without a word passed him one of Dan’s broad + chisels. ‘Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and have a + fair draft of what ye mean to do, a’ Heaven’s name take chisel and maul + and let drive at it, say I! You’ll soon find all the mystery, forsooth, of + wood-carving under your proper hand!’ Whack, came the mallet on the + chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr Springett + watched like an old raven. + </p> + <p> + ‘All art is one, man—one!’ said Hal between whacks; ‘and to wait on + another man to finish out—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To finish out your work ain’t no sense,’ Mr Springett cut in. ‘That’s + what I’m always sayin’ to the boy here.’ He nodded towards Dan. ‘That’s + what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster’s Mill in Eighteen + hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job ‘thout + bringin’ a man from Lunnon. An’ besides, dividin’ work eats up profits, no + bounds.’ + </p> + <p> + Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined in till Dan + laughed too. + </p> + <p> + ‘You handle your tools, I can see,’ said Mr Springett. ‘I reckon, if + you’re any way like me, you’ve found yourself hindered by those—Guilds, + did you call ‘em?—-Unions, we say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may say so!’ Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. ‘This is a + remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons on Magdalen Tower, + because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave. They said + a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know them accidents. There’s no way to disprove ‘em. An’ stones ain’t + the only things that slip,’ Mr Springett grunted. Hal went on: + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirty + foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break—’ + ‘Yes, natural as nature; an’ lime’ll fly up in a man’s eyes without any + breath o’ wind sometimes,’ said Mr Springett. ‘But who’s to show ‘twasn’t + a accident?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who do these things?’ Dan asked, and straightened his back at the bench + as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Them which don’t wish other men to work no better nor quicker than they + do,’ growled Mr Springett. ‘Don’t pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus’ Dan. + Put a piece o’ rag in the jaws, or you’ll bruise her. More than that’—he + turned towards Hal—‘if a man has his private spite laid up against + you, the Unions give him his excuse for workin’ it off.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well I know it,’ said Hal. + </p> + <p> + ‘They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer in + Eighteen hundred Sixty-one—down to the wells. He was a Frenchy—a + bad enemy he was.’ ‘I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto. I + met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my trade-or + trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he came to be my + singular good friend,’ said Hal as he put down the mallet and settled + himself comfortably. + </p> + <p> + ‘What might his trade have been—plastering’ Mr Springett asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco—fresco we call it. Made + pictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the hand in + drawing. He’d take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on his stuff, and + roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and croppy-topped trees + quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. Oh, Benedetto could draw, but + ‘a was a little-minded man, professing to be full of secrets of colour or + plaster—common tricks, all of ‘em—and his one single talk was + how Tom, Dick or Harry had stole this or t’other secret art from him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know that sort,’ said Mr Springett. ‘There’s no keeping peace or making + peace with such. An’ they’re mostly born an’ bone idle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We two came to + loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a youngster then. Maybe I spoke + my mind about his work.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You shouldn’t never do that.’ Mr Springett shook his head. ‘That sort lay + it up against you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o’ me, the man lived + to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a plank or a scaffold. I was + mighty glad to be shut of him when he quarrelled with his Guild foreman, + and went off, nose in air, and paints under his arm. But’—Hal leaned + forward—‘if you hate a man or a man hates you—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know. You’re everlastin’ running acrost him,’ Mr Springett interrupted. + ‘Excuse me, sir.’ He leaned out of the window, and shouted to a carter who + was loading a cart with bricks. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ain’t you no more sense than to heap ‘em up that way?’ he said. ‘Take an’ + throw a hundred of ‘em off. It’s more than the team can compass. Throw ‘em + off, I tell you, and make another trip for what’s left over. Excuse me, + sir. You was sayin’-’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury to strengthen + the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now that’s just one of the things I’ve never done. But I mind there was a + cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred Seventy-nine, an’ I went + an’ watched ‘em leadin’ a won’erful fine window in Chichester Cathedral. I + stayed watchin’ till ‘twas time for us to go back. Dunno as I had two + drinks p’raps, all that day.’ + </p> + <p> + Hal smiled. ‘At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. He had + painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory—a + noble place for a noble thing—a picture of Jonah.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! Jonah an’ his whale. I’ve never been as far as Bury. You’ve worked + about a lot,’ said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the carter below. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion that + withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish grey-beard + huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis. + This last, being a dead thing, he’d drawn it as ‘twere to the life. But + fierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his cold + prophecy was disproven—Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the + children of Nineveh running to mock him—ah, that was what Benedetto + had not drawn!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He better ha’ stuck to his whale, then,’ said Mr Springett. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’d ha’ done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off the + picture, an’ shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d’ye see?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“Tis good,” I said, “but it goes no deeper than the plaster.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“What?” he said in a whisper. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Be thy own judge, Benedetto,” I answered. “Does it go deeper than the + plaster?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He reeled against a piece of dry wall. “No,” he says, “and I know it. I + could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if I live, + I will try, Hal. I will try.” Then he goes away. I pitied him, but I had + spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. ‘You was talkin’ so + fast I didn’t understand what you was drivin’ at. I’ve seen men—good + workmen they was—try to do more than they could do, and—and + they couldn’t compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their hearts + like. You was in your right, o’ course, sir, to say what you thought o’ + his work; but if you’ll excuse me, was you in your duty?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was wrong to say it,’ Hal replied. ‘God forgive me—I was young! + He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it all came + evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o’ one + Torrigiano—Torrisany we called him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain as a + peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. More + than that—he could get his best work out of the worst men.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Which it’s a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,’ said Mr + Springett. ‘He used to prod ‘em in the back like with a pointing-trowel, + and they did wonders.’ + </p> + <p> + I’ve seen our Torrisany lay a ‘prentice down with one buffet and raise him + with another—to make a mason of him. I worked under him at building + a chapel in London—a chapel and a tomb for the King.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I never knew kings went to chapel much,’ said Mr Springett. ‘But I always + hold with a man—don’t care who he be—seein’ about his own + grave before he dies. ‘Tidn’t the sort of thing to leave to your family + after the will’s read. I reckon ‘twas a fine vault?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, as you’d + say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts—England, France, + Italy, the Low Countries—no odds to him so long as they knew their + work, and he drove them like—like pigs at Brightling Fair. He called + us English all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft. + If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great hands he’d + rive it out, and tear it down before us all. “Ah, you pig—you + English pig!” he’d scream in the dumb wretch’s face. “You answer me? You + look at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I will + teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!” But when his passion + had blown out, he’d slip his arm round the man’s neck, and impart + knowledge worth gold. ‘Twould have done your heart good, Mus’ Springett, + to see the two hundred of us masons, jewellers, carvers, gilders, + iron-workers and the rest—all toiling like cock-angels, and this mad + Italian hornet fleeing one to next up and down the chapel. Done your heart + good, it would!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe you,’ said Mr Springett. ‘In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, I + mind, the railway was bein’ made into Hastin’s. There was two thousand + navvies on it—all young—all strong—an’ I was one of ‘em. + Oh, dearie me! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy workin’ with you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He painted + pictures on the chapel ceiling—slung from a chair. Torrigiano made + us promise not to fight till the work should be finished. We were both + master craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I never went + aloft to carve ‘thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning. We were + never far from each other. Benedetto ‘ud sharpen his knife on his sole + while he waited for his plaster to dry—wheet, wheet, wheet. I’d hear + it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we’d nod to each other + friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his hate spoiled + his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the models for the + bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me before all the + chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I came out. He was + slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Workin’ himself up to it?’ said Mr Springett. ‘Did he have it in at ye + that night?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh, + well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of + myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I—I’—Hal + broke into a laugh—‘I lay there was not much odds ‘twixt me and a + cock-sparrow in his pride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was pretty middlin’ young once on a time,’ said Mr Springett. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then ye know that a man can’t drink and dice and dress fine, and keep + company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus’ Springett.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I never held much with dressin’ up, but—you’re right! The worst + mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,’ Mr Springett + answered. ‘We’ve all been one sort of fool or t’other. Mus’ Dan, Mus’ Dan, + take the smallest gouge, or you’ll be spluttin’ her stem works clean out. + Can’t ye see the grain of the wood don’t favour a chisel?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called Brygandyne—Bob + Brygandyne—Clerk of the King’s Ships, a little, smooth, bustling + atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin’—a won’erful + smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o’ me, and asked me to draft him out + a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the bows of one of + the King’s Ships—the SOVEREIGN was her name.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was she a man-of-war?’ asked Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the + King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did not know + at the time, but she’d been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and fitted + that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour, all of a + heat after supper—one great heaving play of dolphins and a Neptune + or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his harp high + atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine foot deep—painted + and gilt.’ + </p> + <p> + It must ha’ justabout looked fine,’ said Mr Springett. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s the curiosity of it. ‘Twas bad—rank bad. In my conceit I + must needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs, + hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through a + sleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were never far apart, I’ve told + you. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That is pig’s work,” says our Master. “Swine’s work. You make any more + such things, even after your fine Court suppers, and you shall be sent + away.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. “It is so bad then, Master?” he + says. “What a pity!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes,” says Torrigiano. “Scarcely you could do things so bad. I will + condescend to show.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it was too bad + for that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in slowly. Then he sets me + to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as he said, the taste of my + naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron’s sweet stuff if you don’t torture + her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reason and a + support for every curve and bar of it. A week at that settled my stomach + handsomely, and the Master let me put the work through the smithy, where I + sweated out more of my foolish pride.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good stuff is good iron,’ said Mr Springett. ‘I done a pair of lodge + gates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my draft of the + ship’s scroll-work, and would not give it back to me to re-draw. He said + ‘twould do well enough. Howsoever, my lawful work kept me too busied to + remember him. Body o’ me, but I worked that winter upon the gates and the + bronzes for the tomb as I’d never worked before! I was leaner than a lath, + but I lived—I lived then!’ Hal looked at Mr Springett with his wise, + crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ouch!’ Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner’s after-deck, + the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his left thumb,—an + ugly, triangular tear. + </p> + <p> + ‘That came of not steadying your wrist,’ said Hal calmly. ‘Don’t bleed + over the wood. Do your work with your heart’s blood, but no need to let it + show.’ He rose and peered into a corner of the loft. + </p> + <p> + Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs from a + rafter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Clap that on,’ was all he said, ‘and put your handkerchief atop. ‘Twill + cake over in a minute. It don’t hurt now, do it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ said Dan indignantly. ‘You know it has happened lots of times. I’ll + tie it up myself. Go on, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And it’ll happen hundreds of times more,’ said Hal with a friendly nod as + he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan’s hand was tied up + properly. Then he said: + </p> + <p> + ‘One dark December day—too dark to judge colour—we was all + sitting and talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk + there), when Bob Brygandyne bustles in and—“Hal, you’re sent for,” + he squeals. I was at Torrigiano’s feet on a pile of put-locks, as I might + be here, toasting a herring on my knife’s point. ‘Twas the one English + thing our Master liked—salt herring. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’m busy, about my art,” I calls. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Art?” says Bob. “What’s Art compared to your scroll-work for the + SOVEREIGN? Come.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Be sure your sins will find you out,” says Torrigiano. “Go with him and + see.” As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a black spot + when the eyes are tired, sliddering up behind me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a doorway, up + stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a little cold room + vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except a table and + my draft of the SOVEREIGN’s scrollwork. Here he leaves me. Presently comes + in a dark, long-nosed man in a fur cap. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Master Harry Dawe?” said he. + </p> + <p> + ‘“The same,” I says. “Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?” + </p> + <p> + ‘His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again in a stiff + bar. “He went to the King,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“All one. Where’s your pleasure with me?” I says, shivering, for it was + mortal cold. + </p> + <p> + ‘He lays his hand flat on my draft. “Master Dawe,” he says, “do you know + the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked gilding of yours?” + </p> + <p> + ‘By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of the King’s + Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it worked out to + thirty pounds—carved, gilt, and fitted in place. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Thirty pounds!” he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. “You + talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None the less,” + he says, “your draft’s a fine piece of work.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I’d been looking at it ever since I came in, and ‘twas viler even than I + judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months, + d’ye see, by my iron work. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I could do it better now,” I said. The more I studied my squabby + Neptunes the less I liked ‘em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atop of + the unbalanced dolphins. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he’ll never pay me for the + second. ‘Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it,” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“There’s a woman wishes it to be done quickly,” he says. “We’ll stick to + your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty pounds is thirty pounds. You + must make it less.” + </p> + <p> + ‘And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit me + between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it back and + re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thought comes to + me, which shall save me. By the same token, It was quite honest.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They ain’t always,’ says Mr Springett. ‘How did you get out of it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I says, + “I’ll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable man. Is the + SOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the high + seas?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh,” he says quickly, “the King keeps no cats that don’t catch mice. She + must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She’ll be hired to merchants for the + trade. She’ll be out in all shapes o’ weathers. Does that make any odds?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, then,” says I, “the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into’ll + claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she’s + meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I’ll porture you a + pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she’s meant for the + open—sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry that + weight on her bows.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Body o’ me! Ask about!” I says. “Any seaman could tell you ‘tis true. + I’m advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my own + concern.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Not altogether “, he says. “It’s some of mine. You’ve saved me thirty + pounds, Master Dawe, and you’ve given me good arguments to use against a + willful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We’ll not have + any scroll-work.” His face shined with pure joy. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then see that the thirty pounds you’ve saved on it are honestly paid the + King,” I says, “and keep clear o’ women-folk.” I gathered up my draft and + crumpled it under my arm. “If that’s all you need of me I’ll be gone,” I + says. “I’m pressed.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. “Too pressed to be made a + knight, Sir Harry?” he says, and comes at me smiling, with three-quarters + of a rusty sword. + </p> + <p> + ‘I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that moment. I + kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe,” he says, and, in the same breath, “I’m + pressed, too,” and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuck + calf. + </p> + <p> + ‘It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master + craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King’s tomb + and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d’ye see, I was + made knight, not for anything I’d slaved over, or given my heart and guts + to, but expressedly because I’d saved him thirty pounds and a + tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille—she that had asked for the + ship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding away my + draft. On the heels of it—maybe you’ll see why—I began to grin + to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man—the King, + I should say—because I’d saved him the money; his smile as though + he’d won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish + expectations that some day he’d honour me as a master craftsman. I thought + of the broken-tipped sword he’d found behind the hangings; the dirt of the + cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns, scarcely + resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and the bronzes + about the stately tomb he’d lie in, and—d’ye see?—-the + unreason of it all—the mad high humour of it all—took hold on + me till I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till + I could laugh no more. What else could I have done? + </p> + <p> + ‘I never heard his feet behind me—he always walked like a cat—but + his arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay + on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my heart—Benedetto! + Even so I laughed—the fit was beyond my holding—laughed while + he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark crazed for the time. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Laugh,” he said. “Finish the laughter. I’ll not cut ye short. Tell me + now”—he wrenched at my head—“why the King chose to honour you,—you—you—you + lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now. I have waited so long.” + Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury Refectory, and what I’d + said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which all men praised and none + looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), and a whole parcel of words + and looks treasured up against me through years. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ease off your arm a little,” I said. “I cannot die by choking, for I am + just dubbed knight, Benedetto.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Tell me, and I’ll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There’s a long + night before ye. Tell,” says he. + </p> + <p> + ‘So I told him—his chin on my crown—told him all; told it as + well and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper with + Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was a + craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I’d ever tell top of mortal + earth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the Lodge. All art’s + one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d’ye see, were + catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth’s vanities + foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from a cathedral + scaffolding. I told him what befell, and what I thought of it. I gave him + the King’s very voice at “Master Dawe, you’ve saved me thirty pounds!”; + his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the badger-eyed + figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemish hangings. Body + o’ me, ‘twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I thought, my last work on earth. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That is how I was honoured by the King,” I said. “They’ll hang ye for + killing me, Benedetto. And, since you’ve killed in the King’s Palace, + they’ll draw and quarter you; but you’re too mad to care. Grant me, + though, ye never heard a better tale.” ‘He said nothing, but I felt him + shake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, his left + dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on my shoulder—shaking—shaking! + I turned me round. No need to put my foot on his knife. The man was + speechless with laughter—honest craftsman’s mirth. The first time + I’d ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that cuts off the very breath, + while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs? That was Benedetto’s case. + </p> + <p> + ‘When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I haled him out + into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it all over + again—waving our hands and wagging our heads—till the watch + came to know if we were drunk. + </p> + <p> + ‘Benedetto says to ‘em, solemn as an owl: “You have saved me thirty + pounds, Mus’ Dawe,” and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad-drunk—I + because dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he said + afterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up + and carried away by laughter. His very face had changed too. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hal,” he cries, “I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, you English, + you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on the dirty sword? + Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with joy. Oh, let us tell the + Master.” + </p> + <p> + ‘So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other’s necks, and when + we could speak—he thought we’d been fighting—we told the + Master. Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new + cold pavement. Then he knocked our heads together. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah, you English!” he cried. “You are more than pigs. You are English. + Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in the + fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool, + Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“And I meant to kill Hal,” says Benedetto. “Master, I meant to kill him + because the English King had made him a knight.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah!” says the Master, shaking his finger. “Benedetto, if you had killed + my Hal, I should have killed you—in the cloister. But you are a + craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, very + slowly—in an hour, if I could spare the time!” That was Torrigiano—the + Master!’ + </p> + <p> + Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished. Then he + turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed and wheezed + till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he was laughing, + but it surprised Hal at first. + </p> + <p> + ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Mr Springett, ‘but I was thinkin’ of some stables I + built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was stables + in blue brick—very particular work. Dunno as they weren’t the best + job which ever I’d done. But the gentleman’s lady—she’d come from + Lunnon, new married—she was all for buildin’ what was called a + haw-haw—what you an’ me ‘ud call a dik—right acrost his park. + A middlin’ big job which I’d have had the contract of, for she spoke to me + in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o’ springs just + where she wanted to dig her ditch, an’ she’d flood the park if she went + on.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Were there any springs at all?’ said Hal. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain’t there? But + what I said about the springs put her out o’ conceit o’ diggin’ haw-haws, + an’ she took an’ built a white tile dairy instead. But when I sent in my + last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it ‘thout even lookin’ at + it, and I hadn’t forgotten nothin’, I do assure you. More than that, he + slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the library, an’ “Ralph,” he + says—he allers called me by name—“Ralph,” he says, “you’ve + saved me a heap of expense an’ trouble this autumn.” I didn’t say nothin’, + o’ course. I knowed he didn’t want any haws-haws digged acrost his park no + more’n I did, but I never said nothin’. No more he didn’t say nothin’ + about my blue-brick stables, which was really the best an’ honestest piece + o’ work I’d done in quite a while. He give me ten pounds for savin’ him a + hem of a deal o’ trouble at home. I reckon things are pretty much alike, + all times, in all places.’ + </p> + <p> + Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn’t quite understand what they + thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without + speaking. + </p> + <p> + When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his + green-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + ‘Bless me, Mus’ Dan, I’ve been asleep,’ he said. ‘An’ I’ve dreamed a dream + which has made me laugh—laugh as I ain’t laughed in a long day. I + can’t remember what ‘twas all about, but they do say that when old men + take to laughin’ in their sleep, they’re middlin’ ripe for the next world. + Have you been workin’ honest, Mus’ Dan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ra-ather,’ said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. ‘And look how + I’ve cut myself with the small gouge.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ye-es. You want a lump o’ cobwebs to that,’ said Mr Springett. ‘Oh, I see + you’ve put it on already. That’s right, Mus’ Dan.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Harry our King in England from London town is gone, + And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton. + For there lay the MARY OF THE TOWER, his ship of war so strong, + And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong. + + He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go + (But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show, + In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark; + With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk. + He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide, + And saw the MARY haled into dock, the winter to abide, + With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own; + But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone. + + They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree, + And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea. + But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go, + To maken beds for their own wives and little children also. + + There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck, + Crying: ‘Good felawes, come and see! The ship is nigh a wreck! + For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell, + Alack! it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!’ + + With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch, + While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch; + All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good, + He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud. + + ‘I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, + After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. + Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There’s no clean hands in the trade. + Steal in measure,’ quo’ Brygandyne. ‘There’s measure in all things made!’ + + ‘Gramercy, yeoman!’ said our King. ‘Thy counsel liketh me.’ + And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. + Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, + And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town. + + They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, + And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King’s commands. + But ‘Since ye have made your beds,’ said the King, ‘ye needs must lie + thereon. + For the sake of your wives and little ones—felawes, get you gone!’ + + When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips, + Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships. + ‘Nay, never lift up thy hands to me—there’s no clean hands in the trade. + But steal in measure,’ said Harry our King. ‘There’s measure in all things + made!’ + + God speed the ‘Mary of the Tower,’ the ‘Sovereign’ and ‘Grace Dieu,’ + The ‘Sweepstakes’ and the ‘Mary Fortune,’ and the ‘Henry of Bristol’ too! + All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand, + That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MARKLAKE WITCHES + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Way Through the Woods + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + They shut the road through the woods + Seventy years ago. + Weather and rain have undone it again, + And now you would never know + There was once a road through the woods + Before they planted the trees. + It is underneath the coppice and heath, + And the thin anemones. + Only the keeper sees + That, where the ring-dove broods, + And the badgers roll at ease, + There was once a road through the woods. + + Yet, if you enter the woods + Of a summer evening late, + When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools + Where the otter whistles his mate + (They fear not men in the woods + Because they see so few), + You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet + And the swish of a skirt in the dew, + Steadily cantering through + The misty solitudes, + As though they perfectly knew + The old lost road through the woods... + But there is no road through the woods! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Marklake Witches + </h2> + <p> + When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the farmer’s wife + at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey milks in the pasture + in summer, which is different from milking in the shed, because the cows + are not tied up, and until they know you they will not stand still. After + three weeks Una could milk Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry, without + her wrists aching, and then she allowed Dan to look. But milking did not + amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone in the quiet pastures + with quiet-spoken Mrs Vincey. So, evening after evening, she slipped + across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the fern-clump beside the + fallen oak, and went to work, her pail between her knees, and her head + pressed hard into the cow’s flank. As often as not, Mrs Vincey would be + milking cross Pansy at the other end of the pasture, and would not come + near till it was time to strain and pour off. + </p> + <p> + Once, in the middle of a milking, Kitty Shorthorn boxed Una’s ear with her + tail. + </p> + <p> + ‘You old pig!’ said Una, nearly crying, for a cow’s tail can hurt. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why didn’t you tie it down, child?’ said a voice behind her. + </p> + <p> + ‘I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off—and this is what + she’s done!’ Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired + girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious + high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar + and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She wore a yellow + velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried a real hunting-crop. Her cheeks + were pale except for two pretty pink patches in the middle, and she talked + with little gasps at the end of her sentences, as though she had been + running. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t milk so badly, child,’ she said, and when she smiled her teeth + showed small and even and pearly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Can you milk?’ Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard Puck’s chuckle. + </p> + <p> + He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding Kitty Short-horn’s tail. + ‘There isn’t much,’ he said, ‘that Miss Philadelphia doesn’t know about + milk—or, for that matter, butter and eggs. She’s a great housewife.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh,’ said Una. ‘I’m sorry I can’t shake hands. Mine are all milky; but + Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.’ ‘Ah! I’m going + to London this summer,’ the girl said, ‘to my aunt in Bloomsbury.’ She + coughed as she began to hum, ‘“Oh, what a town! What a wonderful + metropolis!” + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve got a cold,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. Only my stupid cough. But it’s vastly better than it was last winter. + It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. D’you like doctors, + child?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know any,’ Una replied. ‘But I’m sure I shouldn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon,’ the girl laughed, for + Una frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not a child, and my name’s Una,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mine’s Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. I’m Squire + Bucksteed’s daughter—over at Marklake yonder.’ She jerked her little + round chin towards the south behind Dallington. ‘Sure-ly you know + Marklake?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We went a picnic to Marklake Green once,’ said Una. ‘It’s awfully pretty. + I like all those funny little roads that don’t lead anywhere.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They lead over our land,’ said Philadelphia stiffly, ‘and the coach road + is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went to the + Assize Ball at Lewes last year.’ She spun round and took a few dancing + steps, but stopped with her hand to her side. + </p> + <p> + ‘It gives me a stitch,’ she explained. ‘No odds. ‘Twill go away in London + air. That’s the latest French step, child. Rene taught it me. D’you hate + the French, chi—Una?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I hate French, of course, but I don’t mind Ma’m’selle. She’s rather + decent. Is Rene your French governess?’ + </p> + <p> + Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no! Rene’s a French prisoner—on parole. That means he’s promised + not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman. He’s + only a doctor, so I hope they won’t think him worth exchanging. My uncle + captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, and he + cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that we + couldn’t let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he + stays with us. He’s of very old family—a Breton, which is nearly + next door to being a true Briton, my father says—and he wears his + hair clubbed—not powdered. Much more becoming, don’t you think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know what you’re—’ Una began, but Puck, the other side of + the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking. ‘He’s going to be a + great French physician when the war is over. He makes me bobbins for my + lace-pillow now—he’s very clever with his hands; but he’d doctor our + people on the Green if they would let him. Only our Doctor—Doctor + Break—says he’s an emp—or imp something—worse than + imposter. But my Nurse says—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nurse! You’re ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?’ Una finished + milking, and turned round on her stool as Kitty Shorthorn grazed off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I can’t get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she says + she’ll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone. She + thinks I’m delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you know. + Mad—quite mad, poor Cissie!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really mad?’ said Una. ‘Or just silly?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Crazy, I should say—from the things she does. Her devotion to me is + terribly embarrassing. You know I have all the keys of the Hall except the + brewery and the tenants’ kitchen. I give out all stores and the linen and + plate.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things.’ + </p> + <p> + Ah, it’s a great responsibility, you’ll find, when you come to my age. + Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, and he actually + wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our housekeeper. I wouldn’t. + I hate her. I said, “No, sir. I am Mistress of Marklake Hall just as long + as I live, because I’m never going to be married, and I shall give out + stores and linen till I die!” + </p> + <p> + And what did your father say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coat-tail. He ran away. Every + one’s afraid of Dad, except me.’ Philadelphia stamped her foot. ‘The idea! + If I can’t make my own father happy in his own house, I’d like to meet the + woman that can, and—and—I’d have the living hide off her!’ + </p> + <p> + She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol-shot across + the still pasture. Kitty Shorthorn threw up her head and trotted away. + </p> + <p> + ‘I beg your pardon,’ Philadelphia said; ‘but it makes me furious. Don’t + you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers and fronts, who + come to dinner and call you “child” in your own chair at your own table?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t always come to dinner, said Una, ‘but I hate being called + “child.” Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things.’ + </p> + <p> + Ah, it’s a great responsibility—particularly with that old cat + Amoore looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing + happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you + of, she took three solid silver tablespoons.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Took! But isn’t that stealing?’ Una cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hsh!’ said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. ‘All I say is she took + them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says—and + he’s a magistrate-, it wasn’t a legal offence; it was only compounding a + felony. + </p> + <p> + ‘It sounds awful,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and + I’d never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big + house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand + later. “Fetching up in the lee-scuppers,” my uncle calls it. But next week + I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night, and + she said I wasn’t to worry my heart for trifles!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Isn’t it like ‘em?’ Una burst out. ‘They see you’re worried over + something that really matters, and they say, “Don’t worry”; as if that did + any good!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the + spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief were + found, he’d be tried for his life.’ ‘Hanged, do you mean?’ Una said. + </p> + <p> + ‘They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for a + forty-shilling theft. They transport ‘em into penal servitude at the + uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their natural + life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror. Then she + cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn’t for my life understand + what it was all about,—she cried so. Can you guess, my dear, what + that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it + together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the + Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Put a charm on you? Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s what I asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know + this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to + London. She was troubled about that, and about my being so thin, and she + told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver + spoons, that he’d charm my cough away and make me plump—“flesh up,” + she said. I couldn’t help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to + put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself to + sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed—I + suppose I can cough in my own room if I please—she said that she’d + killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her + to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How awful! What did you do, Phil?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a new + lash on my whip. Oh, I was furious! Witchmaster or no Witchmaster, I meant + to—’ + </p> + <p> + Ah! what’s a Witchmaster?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A master of witches, of course. I don’t believe there are witches; but + people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours + at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war’s man, and now he + pretends to be a carpenter and joiner—he can make almost anything—but + he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can + cure them after Doctor Break has given them up, and that’s why Doctor + Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts + when I was a child.’ Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate + shiny little nails. ‘It isn’t counted lucky to cross him. He has his ways + of getting even with you, they say. But I wasn’t afraid of Jerry! I saw + him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and + double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, + for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my Troubadour (I wish you + could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out + into the hedge-top. Most undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his side + and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn’t care. + “Now, Jerry,” I said, “I’m going to take the hide off you first, and send + you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh!” he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. “Then I reckon you’ve + come about old Cissie’s business, my dear.” “I reckon I justabout have,” I + said. “Stand away from these hives. I can’t get at you there.” “That’s why + I be where I be,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Phil, I don’t hold + with bein’ flogged before breakfast, at my time o’ life.” He’s a huge big + man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives that—I know + I oughtn’t to—I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at the wrong + time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, “Then give me back what + you made poor Cissie steal!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Your pore Cissie,” he said. “She’s a hatful o’ trouble. But you shall + have ‘em, Miss Phil. They’re all ready put by for you.” And, would you + believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his dirty + pocket, and polished them on his cuff. “Here they be,” he says, and he + gave them to me, just as cool as though I’d come to have my warts charmed. + That’s the worst of people having known you when you were young. But I + preserved my composure. “Jerry,” I said, “what in the world are we to do? + If you’d been caught with these things on you, you’d have been hanged.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I know it,” he said. “But they’re yours now.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But you made my Cissie steal them,” I said. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That I didn’t,” he said. “Your Cissie, she was pickin’ at me an’ + tarrifyin’ me all the long day an’ every day for weeks, to put a charm on + you, Miss Phil, an’ take away your little spitty cough.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!” I said. “I’m much + obliged to you, but I’m not one of your pigs!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah! I reckon she’ve been talking to you, then,” he said. “Yes, she give + me no peace, and bein’ tarrified—for I don’t hold with old women—I + laid a task on her which I thought ‘ud silence her. I never reckoned the + old scrattle ‘ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for your sake, Miss + Phil. But she did. She up an’ stole, I tell ye, as cheerful as a tinker. + You might ha’ knocked me down with any one of them liddle spoons when she + brung ‘em in her apron.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?” I + screamed at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What else for, dearie?” he said. “I don’t stand in need of + hedge-stealings. I’m a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I won’t + trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she’d ha’ stole the + Squire’s big fob-watch, if I’d required her.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then you’re a wicked, wicked old man,” I said, and I was so angry that I + couldn’t help crying, and of course that made me cough. + </p> + <p> + ‘Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his + cottage—it’s full of foreign curiosities—and he got me + something to eat and drink, and he said he’d be hanged by the neck any day + if it pleased me. He said he’d even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That’s a + great comedown for a Witchmaster, you know. + </p> + <p> + ‘I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and + said, “The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a charm + for me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes, that’s only fair dealings,” he said. “You know the names of the + Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your open + window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But mind + you, ‘twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, right + down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, and let + it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There’s virtue for your + cough in those names spoke that way. And I’ll give you something you can + see, moreover. Here’s a stick of maple, which is the warmest tree in the + wood.”’ ‘That’s true,’ Una interrupted. ‘You can feel it almost as warm as + yourself when you touch it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“It’s cut one inch long for your every year,” Jerry said. “That’s sixteen + inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, and thus + you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I’ve said words + over it which will have virtue on your complaints.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t any complaints, Jerry,” I said. “It’s only to please Cissie.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I know that as well as you do, dearie,” he said. And—and that was + all that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made + poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting + even with people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I wonder,’ said Una. ‘Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he’s a doctor. + He’s going to be a most famous doctor. That’s why our doctor hates him. + Rene said, “Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing,” and he put up his + eyebrows—like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window + from the carpenter’s shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick + fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the + window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles + properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day, though + he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new hat and + paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state—as a fellow-physician. Jerry never + guessed Rene was making fun of him, and so he told Rene about the sick + people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after Doctor Break + had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers’ French, of course, and I + had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn’t so shy. They called + each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like gentlemen. I + suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn’t much to do, except to fiddle about + in the carpenter’s shop. He’s like all the French prisoners—always + making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at his cottage, and so—and + so—Rene took to being with Jerry much more than I approved of. The + Hall is so big and empty when Dad’s away, and I will not sit with old + Amoore—she talks so horridly about every one—specially about + Rene. + </p> + <p> + ‘I was rude to Rene, I’m afraid; but I was properly served out for it. One + always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects to the + General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the Hall + afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India—he + was Colonel of Dad’s Regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the + Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the + other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, and + I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early + mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old + Amoore nearly cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the fish + didn’t arrive—it never does—and I wanted Rene to ride to + Pevensey and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he + always used, unless I requested his presence beforehand. I can’t send for + Rene every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don’t you ever do + what I did, child, because it’s in the highest degree unladylike; but—but + one of our Woods runs up to Jerry’s garden, and if you climb—it’s + ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten—there’s an old hollow oak + just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. + Truthfully, I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him and + Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I slipped + into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. Rene had never + shown me any of these trumpets.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Trumpets? Aren’t you too old for trumpets?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘They weren’t real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short-collar, and + Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry’s chest, and put his ear to + the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against Rene’s chest, and listened + while Rene breathed and coughed. I was afraid I would cough too. + </p> + <p> + ‘“This hollywood one is the best,” said Jerry. “‘Tis won’erful like + hearin’ a man’s soul whisperin’ in his innards; but unless I’ve a buzzin’ + in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o’ noises as + old Gaffer Macklin—but not quite so loud as young Copper. It sounds + like breakers on a reef—a long way off. Comprenny?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Perfectly,” said Rene. “I drive on the breakers. But before I strike, I + shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little trumpets. + Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in his chest, and + what the young Copper also.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the + village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, “You + explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities to + listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen to + them through my trumpet—for a little money? No?”—Rene’s as + poor as a church mouse. + </p> + <p> + ‘“They’d kill you, Mosheur. It’s all I can do to coax ‘em to abide it, and + I’m Jerry Gamm,” said Jerry. He’s very proud of his attainments. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then these poor people are alarmed—No?” said Rene. + </p> + <p> + ‘“They’ve had it in at me for some time back because o’ my tryin’ your + trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they + won’t stand much more. Tom Dunch an’ some of his kidney was drinkin’ + themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an’ mutterin’s + an’ bits o’ red wool an’ black hens is in the way o’ nature to these + fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do ‘em real service is devil’s work + by their estimation. If I was you, I’d go home before they come.” Jerry + spoke quite quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm,” he said. “I have no home.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Now that was unkind of Rene. He’s often told me that he looked on England + as his home. I suppose it’s French politeness. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then we’ll talk o’ something that matters,” said Jerry. “Not to name no + names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own opinion o’ some one who + ain’t old Gaffer Macklin nor young Copper? Is that person better or + worse?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Better—for time that is,” said Rene. He meant for the time being, + but I never could teach him some phrases. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I thought so too,” said Jerry. “But how about time to come?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don’t know how odd a + man looks blowing his nose when you are sitting directly above him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ve thought that too,” said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I could scarcely + catch. “It don’t make much odds to me, because I’m old. But you’re young, + Mosheur—you’re young,” and he put his hand on Rene’s knee, and Rene + covered it with his hand. I didn’t know they were such friends. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Thank you, mon ami,” said Rene. “I am much oblige. Let us return to our + trumpet-making. But I forget”—he stood up—“it appears that you + receive this afternoon!” + </p> + <p> + ‘You can’t see into Gamm’s Lane from the oak, but the gate opened, and fat + little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen of our + people following him, very drunk. + </p> + <p> + ‘You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully. + </p> + <p> + ‘“A word with you, Laennec,” said Doctor Break. “Jerry has been practising + some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they’ve asked me to be + arbiter.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Whatever that means, I reckon it’s safer than asking you to be doctor,” + said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That ain’t right feeling of you, Tom,” Jerry said, “seeing how clever + Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter.” Tom’s wife had + died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor Break + danced with rage. + </p> + <p> + ‘“This is all beside the mark,” he said. “These good people are willing to + testify that you’ve been impudently prying into God’s secrets by means of + some papistical contrivance which this person”—he pointed to poor + Rene—“has furnished you with. Why, here are the things themselves!” + Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying + from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet—they + called it the devil’s ear-piece; and they said it left round red + witch-marks on people’s skins, and dried up their lights, and made ‘em + spit blood, and threw ‘em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You + never heard such a noise. I took advantage of it to cough. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry + fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You ought + to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one to Rene. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Wait! Wait!” said Rene. “I will explain to the doctor if he permits.” He + waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, “Don’t touch it, + Doctor! Don’t lay a hand to the thing.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Come, come!” said Rene. “You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry’s pistol, and Rene + followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and + put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked of + la Gloire, and l’Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched + jerry’s pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Now listen! Now listen!” said Rene. “This will be moneys in your + pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn an + honest living in their own country creeping into decent houses and taking + advantage of gentlemen’s confidence to enrich themselves by base + intrigues. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best bows. I knew he + was angry from the way he rolled his “r’s.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ver-r-ry good,” said he. “For that I shall have much pleasure to kill + you now and here. Monsieur Gamm,”—another bow to Jerry—“you + will please lend him your pistol, or he shall have mine. I give you my + word I know not which is best; and if he will choose a second from his + friends over there”—another bow to our drunken yokels at the gate—“we + will commence.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“That’s fair enough,” said Jerry. “Tom Dunch, you owe it to the Doctor to + be his second. Place your man.” ‘“No,” said Tom. “No mixin’ in gentry’s + quarrels for me.” And he shook his head and went out, and the others + followed him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hold on,” said Jerry. “You’ve forgot what you set out to do up at the + alehouse just now. You was goin’ to search me for witch-marks; you was + goin’ to duck me in the pond; you was goin’ to drag all my bits o’ sticks + out o’ my little cottage here. What’s the matter with you? Wouldn’t you + like to be with your old woman tonight, Tom?” + </p> + <p> + ‘But they didn’t even look back, much less come. They ran to the village + alehouse like hares. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No matter for these canaille,” said Rene, buttoning up his coat so as + not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad says—and + he’s been out five times. “You shall be his second, Monsieur Gamm. Give + him the pistol.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene + resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the + matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘“As for that,” he said, “if you were not the ignorant which you are, you + would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not for any + living man.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he + spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite + white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat, + and choked him black. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, my dear, as if this wasn’t deliciously exciting enough, just + exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of the + hedge say, “What’s this? What’s this, Bucksteed?” and there was my father + and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was Rene + kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening with + all my ears. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a start + that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty roof—another, + before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall—and then I bounced + down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of bark. + Imagine the situation!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I can!’ Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dad said, “Phil—a—del—phia!” and Sir Arthur Wesley + said, “Good Ged” and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. + But Rene was splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist + Doctor Break’s neckcloth as fast as he’d twisted it, and asked him if he + felt better. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What’s happened? What’s happened?” said Dad. + </p> + <p> + ‘“A fit!” said Rene. “I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be alarmed. + He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear Doctor?” Doctor + Break was very good too. He said, “I am vastly obliged, Monsieur Laennec, + but I am restored now.” And as he went out of the gate he told Dad it was + a syncope—I think. Then Sir Arthur said, “Quite right, Bucksteed. + Not another word! They are both gentlemen.” And he took off his cocked hat + to Doctor Break and Rene. + </p> + <p> + ‘But poor Dad wouldn’t let well alone. He kept saying, “Philadelphia, what + does all this mean?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve only just come down. As far as I could see, it + looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure.” That was quite + true—if you’d seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. “Not much + change there, Bucksteed,” he said. “She’s a lady—a thorough lady.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Heaven knows she doesn’t look like one,” said poor Dad. “Go home, + Philadelphia.” + </p> + <p> + ‘So I went home, my dear—don’t laugh so!—-right under Sir + Arthur’s nose—a most enormous nose—feeling as though I were + twelve years old, going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s all right,’ said Una. ‘I’m getting on for thirteen. I’ve never been + whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been funny!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Funny! If you’d heard Sir Arthur jerking out, “Good Ged, Bucksteed!” + every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, ‘“‘Pon my + honour, Arthur, I can’t account for it!” Oh, how my cheeks tingled when I + reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, the + white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the + pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder. I + had poor mother’s lace tucker and her coronet comb.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you lucky!’ Una murmured. ‘And gloves?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘French kid, my dear’—Philadelphia patted her shoulder—‘and + morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. + Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little + curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande tenue, + old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at her, + which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved of the + dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the Marklake + silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where my little + bird’s-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I looked him + straight in the face, my dear, and I said, “I always send her to the + nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, how chee—clever of you. What did he say?’ Una cried. ‘He said, + “Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it,” and he toasted me + again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir + Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle + in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but + Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party—I + suppose because a lady was present.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course you were the lady. I wish I’d seen you,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and Doctor + Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they told me they + had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and said, “I heard + every word of it up in the tree.” You never saw two men so frightened in + your life, and when I said, “What was ‘the subject of your remarks,’ + Rene?” neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them + unmercifully. They’d seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what was the subject of their remarks?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was + turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something + unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn’t my triumph. Dad asked me to + play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a + new song from London—I don’t always live in trees—for weeks; + and I gave it them for a surprise.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was it?’ said Una. ‘Sing it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“I have given my heart to a flower.” Not very difficult fingering, but + r-r-ravishing sentiment.’ + </p> + <p> + Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve a deep voice for my age and size,’ she explained. ‘Contralto, you + know, but it ought to be stronger,’ and she began, her face all dark + against the last of the soft pink sunset: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘I have given my heart to a flower, + Though I know it is fading away, + Though I know it will live but an hour + And leave me to mourn its decay! +</pre> + <p> + ‘Isn’t that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse—I wish I had my + harp, dear—goes as low as my register will reach.‘She drew in her + chin, and took a deep breath: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, + I charge you be good to my dear! + She is all—she is all that I have, + And the time of our parting is near!’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Beautiful!’ said Una. ‘And did they like it?’ ‘Like it? They were + overwhelmed—accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn’t seen it, I + shouldn’t have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to + the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn’t endure it! + He’s all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, “Assez, + Mademoiselle! C’est plus fort que moi! Assez!” And Sir Arthur blew his + nose and said, “Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!” While Dad sat with + the tears simply running down his cheeks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what did Doctor Break do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little + fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never + suspected him of sensibility.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I wish I’d seen! I wish I’d been you,’ said Una, clasping her hands. + Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering cock-chafer + flew smack against Una’s cheek. + </p> + <p> + When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that + Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her + strain and pour off. ‘It didn’t matter,’ said Una; ‘I just waited. Is that + old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No,’ said Mrs Vincey, listening. ‘It sounds more like a horse being + galloped middlin’ quick through the woods; but there’s no road there. I + reckon it’s one of Gleason’s colts loose. Shall I see you up to the house, + Miss Una?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Gracious, no! thank you. What’s going to hurt me?’ said Una, and she put + her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps that old + Hobden kept open for her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Brookland Road + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I was very well pleased with what I knowed, + I reckoned myself no fool— + Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road + That turned me back to school. + + Low down—low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine— + Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + ‘Twas right in the middest of a hot June night, + With thunder duntin’ round, + And I seed her face by the fairy light + That beats from off the ground. + + She only smiled and she never spoke, + She smiled and went away; + But when she’d gone my heart was broke, + And my wits was clean astray. + + Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be— + Let be, O Brookland bells! + You’ll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea, + Before I wed one else! + + Old Goodman’s farm is rank sea sand, + And was this thousand year; + But it shall turn to rich plough land + Before I change my dear! + + Oh! Fairfield Church is water-bound + From Autumn to the Spring; + But it shall turn to high hill ground + Before my bells do ring! + + Oh! leave me walk on the Brookland Road, + In the thunder and warm rain— + Oh! leave me look where my love goed + And p’raps I’ll see her again! + Low down—low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine— + Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?) +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Run of the Downs + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The Weald is good, the Downs are best— + I’ll give you the run of ‘em, East to West. + Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, + They were once and they are still. + Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry + Go back as far as sums’ll carry. + Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring, + They have looked on many a thing; + And what those two have missed between ‘em + I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ‘em. + Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down + Knew Old England before the Crown. + Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood + Knew Old England before the Flood. + And when you end on the Hampshire side— + Butser’s old as Time and Tide. + The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, + You be glad you are Sussex born! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Knife and the Naked Chalk + </h2> + <p> + The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint village + on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from home. They + made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had known their + Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like their own people + in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for farm things, but + he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny + cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead from + thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire, while Old Jim, + who was Mr Dudeney’s sheep-dog’s father, lay at the door. They brought up + beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and + if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the + dog to take them to him, and he did. + </p> + <p> + One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street smell + specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as usual, and, + as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them in charge. The + sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the distances were very + distant. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s Just like the sea,’ said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade of a + lonely flint barn on a bare rise. ‘You see where you’re going, and—you + go there, and there’s nothing between.’ + </p> + <p> + Dan slipped off his shoes. ‘When we get home I shall sit in the woods all + day,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Whuff!’ said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long + rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not yet,’ said Dan. ‘Where’s Mr Dudeney? Where’s Master?’ Old Jim looked + as if he thought they were mad, and asked again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you give it him,’ Una cried. ‘I’m not going to be left howling in a + desert.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Show, boy! Show!’ said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of + your hand. + </p> + <p> + Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr + Dudeney’s hat against the sky a long way off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Right! All right!’ said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone + carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the old + barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels hung + bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the white + edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the heat, + and so did Mr Dudeney’s distant head. + </p> + <p> + They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves staring into a + horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, whose steep sides were laced + with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock grazed on the flat at the bottom, + under charge of Young Jim. Mr Dudeney sat comfortably knitting on the edge + of the slope, his crook between his knees. They told him what Old Jim had + done. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The closeter you + be to the turf the more you see things. You look warm-like,’ said Mr + Dudeney. + </p> + <p> + ‘We be,’ said Una, flopping down. ‘And tired.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Set beside o’ me here. The shadow’ll begin to stretch out in a little + while, and a heat-shake o’ wind will come up with it that’ll overlay your + eyes like so much wool.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t want to sleep,’ said Una indignantly; but she settled herself as + she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade. + </p> + <p> + ‘O’ course not. You come to talk with me same as your father used. He + didn’t need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, he belonged here,’ said Dan, and laid himself down at length on the + turf. + </p> + <p> + ‘He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among them messy + trees in the Weald, when he might ha’ stayed here and looked all about + him. There’s no profit to trees. They draw the lightning, and sheep + shelter under ‘em, and so, like as not, you’ll lose a half-score ewes + struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father knew that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Trees aren’t messy.’ Una rose on her elbow. ‘And what about firewood? I + don’t like coal.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you’ll lie more natural,’ said Mr + Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. ‘Now press your face down and + smell to the turf. That’s Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown mutton + beyond compare, and, my mother told me, ‘twill cure anything except broken + necks, or hearts. I forget which.’ + </p> + <p> + They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft thymy + cushions. + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?’ said Mr + Dudeney. + </p> + <p> + ‘But we’ve water—brooks full of it—where you paddle in hot + weather,’ Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell + close to her eye. + </p> + <p> + ‘Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep—let alone foot-rot + afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s a dew-pond made?’ said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr + Dudeney explained. + </p> + <p> + The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind whether + to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed easiest to go + downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after another slip and sidle + down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on their eyelids. The + little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the + wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and + rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk + beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his + knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway down + the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, + Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some work. The wind + had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least noise and movement + reached them like whispers up a water-Pipe. + </p> + <p> + ‘That is clever,’ said Puck, leaning over. ‘How truly you shape it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!’ The man + flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between Dan + and Una—a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the + maker’s hand. + </p> + <p> + The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a + snail-shell. + </p> + <p> + ‘Flint work is fool’s work,’ he said at last. ‘One does it because one + always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast—no good!’ + He shook his shaggy head. ‘The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has + gone,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’ll be back at lambing time. I know him.’ He chipped very carefully, + and the flints squeaked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go home + safe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I’ll believe it,’ + the man replied. ‘Surely!’ Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round + his mouth and shouted: ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ + </p> + <p> + Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides—‘Wuff!’ Wuff!’ + like Young jim’s bark. + </p> + <p> + ‘You see? You hear?’ said Puck. ‘Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone. + Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wonderful!’ The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. ‘Who drove + him away? You?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you + one of them?’ Puck answered. + </p> + <p> + The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word pointed + to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars. His arms, too, + were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white dimples. + </p> + <p> + ‘I see,’ said Puck. ‘It is The Beast’s mark. What did you use against + him?’ ‘Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So? Then how’—Puck twitched aside the man’s dark-brown cloak—‘how + did a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!’ He held out his little + hand. + </p> + <p> + The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, from his + belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to Puck, who took it + with his head on one side, as you should when you look at the works of a + watch, squinted down the dark blade, and very delicately rubbed his + forefinger from the point to the hilt. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good!’ said he, in a surprised tone. + </p> + <p> + ‘It should be. The Children of the Night made it,’ the man answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘This!’ The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like a Weald + starling. + </p> + <p> + ‘By the Great Rings of the Chalk!’ he cried. ‘Was that your price? Turn + sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.’ He slipped his hand + beneath the man’s chin and swung him till he faced the children up the + slope. They saw that his right eye was gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. + Quickly Puck turned him round again, and the two sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,’ said the man, in an + ashamed voice. ‘What else could I have done? You know, Old One.’ + </p> + <p> + Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. ‘Take the knife. I listen.’ The man + bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and while it still quivered + said: ‘This is witness between us that I speak the thing that has been. + Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I speak. Touch!’ + </p> + <p> + Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children wriggled a + little nearer. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the Priestess + who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the Buyer of the Knife—the + Keeper of the People,’ the man began, in a sort of singing shout. ‘These + are my names in this country of the Naked Chalk, between the Trees and the + Sea.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘One cannot feed some things on names and songs.’ The man hit himself on + the chest. ‘It is better—always better—to count one’s children + safe round the fire, their Mother among them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ahai!’ said Puck. ‘I think this will be a very old tale.’ ‘I warm myself + and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no one to light me a fire + or cook my meat. I sold all that when I bought the Magic Knife for my + people. It was not right that The Beast should master man. What else could + I have done?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hear. I know. I listen,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast + gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind + the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he + leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out + alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our + boys threw flints at him; he crept by night ‘into the huts, and licked the + babe from between the mother’s hands; he called his companions and pulled + down men in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No—not always did he + do so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us forget + him. A year—two years perhaps—we neither smelt, nor heard, nor + saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our men did not always look + behind them; when children strayed from the fenced places; when our women + walked alone to draw water—back, back, back came the Curse of the + Chalk, Grey Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night—The Beast, The Beast, The + Beast! + </p> + <p> + ‘He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt spears. He + learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I think he knew when + there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not show till you bring it + down on his snout. Then—Pouf!—-the false flint falls all to + flinders, and you are left with the hammer-handle in your fist, and his + teeth in your flank! I have felt them. At evening, too, in the dew, or + when it has misted and rained, your spear-head lashings slack off, though + you have kept them beneath your cloak all day. You are alone—but so + close to the home ponds that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, + teeth, and a piece of driftwood. You bend over and pull—so! That is + the minute for which he has followed you since the stars went out. “Aarh!” + he “Wurr-aarh!” he says.’ (Norton Pit gave back the growl like a pack of + real wolves.) ‘Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein in + your neck, and—perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight The + Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights you—that + is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men desire so + greatly, and can do so little?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do not know. Did you desire so much?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should + master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my Mother, the Priestess, was + afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be afraid of + The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden—she was a Priestess—waited + for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. Perhaps it + was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to learn how to do us new + harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. The women sang again; the + children were not so much guarded; our flocks grazed far out. I took mine + yonder’—he pointed inland to the hazy line of the Weald—‘where + the new grass was best. They grazed north. I followed till we were close + to the Trees’—he lowered his voice—‘close there where the + Children of the Night live.’ He pointed north again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, now I remember a thing,’ said Puck. ‘Tell me, why did your people + fear the Trees so extremely?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can + see them burning for days all along the Chalk’s edge. Besides, all the + Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our Gods, + are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his spirit; + they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water. But a + voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched my sheep + there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the Trees. By this + I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear the Trees more + than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He carried a knife like this + one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife. The Beast fell + dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would never have done + from a Flint-worker. The man went in among the Trees. I looked for the + dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way—by a single deep, clean + cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. Wonderful! So + I saw that the man’s knife was magic, and I thought how to get it,—thought + strongly how to get it. + </p> + <p> + ‘When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess asked + me, “What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your face?” I + said, “It is a sorrow to me”; and she answered, “All new things are + sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow.” I sat down in her place by the + fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke in my + heart. One voice said, “Ask the Children of the Night for the Magic Knife. + It is not fit that The Beast should master man.” I listened to that voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘One voice said, “If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night + will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here.” The other voice said, “Ask + for the Knife.” I listened to that voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘I said to my Mother in the morning, “I go away to find a thing for the + people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape.” She + answered, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your + Mother.” + </p> + <p> + ‘True,’ said Puck. ‘The Old Ones themselves cannot change men’s mothers + even if they would.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who waited + for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.’ The man laughed. + ‘I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with the knife. I + lay out two days on the short grass before I ventured among the Trees. I + felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the terrible talking + Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of the soft ground + underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid, above all, of the + Change. It came!’ + </p> + <p> + They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles + quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt. + </p> + <p> + ‘A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my mouth; + my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my teeth, and + my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to sing songs and + to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the same time I saw + myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young man, who was + myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man, if he + sleeps among them,’ said Puck. ‘Had you slept in any mists?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three days I + saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the + Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires. + The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with + hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in my + mouth, and all I could say was, “Do not make that noise. It hurts my + head.” By this I knew that I was bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, and + prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were + cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to + answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they led + me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water on + the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like water. I + slept. When I waked, my own spirit—not the strange, shouting thing—was + back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the shingle between + the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear me—women and + men—each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their Ears and + their Mouth. + </p> + <p> + ‘I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in order + when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming, and + those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my + people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and + lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the + Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They were + pleased. Their Priestess said, “For whose sake have you come?” I answered, + “The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our people die. + So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast.” + </p> + <p> + ‘She said, “We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people of + the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked.” + </p> + <p> + ‘When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are our Gods), + their Priestess said, “The God needs a proof that your words are true.” I + said, “What is the proof?” She said, “The God says that if you have come + for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be put + out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it. This + proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I said, “This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?” + </p> + <p> + ‘She said, “Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in your + head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for your + people.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I said, “It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed.” + </p> + <p> + ‘She said, “Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife hot.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I said, “Be quick, then!” With her knife heated in the flame she put out + my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She was a + Priestess. It was not work for any common man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True! Most true,’ said Puck. ‘No common man’s work that. And, + afterwards?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a + one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!’ + </p> + <p> + At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint + arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. ‘It’s true,’ he whispered + to Una. ‘You can’t judge distances a bit with only one eye.’ + </p> + <p> + Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know it is so,’ said he. ‘Even now I am not always sure of my blow. I + stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I was + the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast’s mouth. They + showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives of it. + They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the beatings. I + can sing many charms.’ Then he began to laugh like a boy. + </p> + <p> + ‘I was thinking of my journey home,’ he said, ‘and of the surprised Beast. + He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him—I smelt his lairs as soon + as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife—I + hid it under my cloak—the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! + That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. “Wow!” he would + say. “Here is my Flint-worker!” He would come leaping, tail in air; he + would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of merriness of + heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap—and, oh, his eye in + mid-leap when he saw—when he saw the knife held ready for him! It + pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no time to + howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes I missed my + blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his brains as he + cowered. He made no fight. He knew the Knife! But The Beast is very + cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my knife, + and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as a man + should—the Master of The Beast! + </p> + <p> + ‘So came I back to my Mother’s house. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut + it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She said, + “This is the work of a God.” I kissed her and laughed. I went to my Maiden + who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut + it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. She said, “It is + the work of a God.” I laughed, but she pushed me away, and being on my + blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went to the Men of the + Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be killed for their + meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told them all my tale. + They said, “It is the work of a God.” I said, “We talk too much about + Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will take you to the + Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to + edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The men + talked among themselves. + </p> + <p> + ‘I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and + curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on the + grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us from + among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, “How is it with + your people?” I said “Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their hearts + as I used to.” She said, “That is because you have only one eye. Come to + me and I will be both your eyes.” But I said, “I must show my people how + to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how to use my + knife.” I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance like the + flint. She said, “What you have done, you have done for the sake of a + woman, and not for the sake of your people.” I asked of her, “Then why did + the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?” She answered, + “Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to a woman. And I am + not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. Wait a little, and + you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry.” So she hid herself. + </p> + <p> + ‘I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and making it + sing in the air—tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It mutters—ump-ump. + The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere he ran away from us. + We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my Mother’s brother—the + Chief on the Men’s Side—he took off his Chief’s necklace of yellow + sea-stones.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘And would have put them on my neck. I said, “No, I am content. What does + my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children running + about safely?” My Mother’s brother said to them, “I told you he would + never take such things.” Then they began to sing a song in the Old Tongue—The + Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother’s brother said, “This is your + song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Even then I did not understand, till I saw that—that no man stepped + on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God + Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?’ Puck rapped out. + </p> + <p> + ‘By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow + as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. I + was afraid. I said to myself, “My Mother and my Maiden will know I am not + Tyr.” But still I was afraid, with the fear of a man who falls into a + steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb + out. + </p> + <p> + ‘When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed + their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards also had seen The Beast + flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in packs—howling! + He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at last—at last! He + knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden among the Priestesses. + She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made the sign to me that our + Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the Old Dead in the Barrows. + I would have spoken, but my Mother’s brother made himself my Mouth, as + though I had been one of the Old Dead in the Barrows for whom our Priests + speak to the people on Midsummer Mornings.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I went away angrily to my Mother’s house. She would have knelt + before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, “Only a God would have + spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment of + the Gods.” I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy + laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A young + man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first arrow, + and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old Tongue. He + asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his hands were on + his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me, a man, he had + no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, “Call the maiden.” She + came also without fear—this very one that had waited for me, that + had talked with me, by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, she lifted her + eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked at me. She spoke + in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make prayers to the Old + Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might light the fire in my + companion’s house—and that I should bless their children. I did not + kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, say, “Let it be as you + desire,” and they went away hand in hand. My heart grew little and cold; a + wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. I said to my Mother, “Can a God + die?” I heard her say, “What is it? What is it, my son?” and I fell into + darkness full of hammer-noises. I was not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, poor—poor God!’ said Puck. ‘And your wise Mother?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back I heard + her whisper in my ear, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I + am your Mother.” That was good—better even than the water she gave + me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to have fallen + down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us wished to lose + the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. I heaped the fire + for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as before I went away, + and she combed my hair, and sang. + </p> + <p> + ‘I said at last, “What is to be done to the people who say that I am Tyr?” + </p> + <p> + ‘She said, “He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a God. + I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. You + cannot drive them off.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I said, “This is a heavier sheep than I can lift.” She said, “In time it + will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any maiden + anywhere. Be wise—be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you + except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, poor God!’ said Puck. ‘But those are not altogether bad things.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know they are not; but I would sell them all—all—all for + one small child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own + house-fire.’ + </p> + <p> + He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood up. + </p> + <p> + ‘And yet, what else could I have done?’ he said. ‘The sheep are the + people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is a very old tale,’ Puck answered. ‘I have heard the like of it not + only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees—under Oak, and + Ash, and Thorn.’ + </p> + <p> + The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton Pit. The + children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim’s busy bark above them, and + they scrambled up the slope to the level. + </p> + <p> + ‘We let you have your sleep out,’ said Mr Dudeney, as the flock scattered + before them. ‘It’s making for tea-time now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Look what I’ve found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint + arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh,’ said Mr Dudeney, ‘the closeter you be to the turf the more you’re + apt to see things. I’ve found ‘em often. Some says the fairies made ‘em, + but I says they was made by folks like ourselves—only a goodish time + back. They’re lucky to keep. Now, you couldn’t ever have slept—not + to any profit—among your father’s trees same as you’ve laid out on + Naked Chalk—could you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘One doesn’t want to sleep in the woods,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then what’s the good of ‘em?’ said Mr Dudeney. ‘Might as well set in the + barn all day. Fetch ‘em ‘long, Jim boy!’ + </p> + <p> + The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of + delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt mixed + together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes dazzled + with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The sheep + knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master, and they + all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their ankles, + and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of giants. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Song of the Men’s Side + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Once we feared The Beast—when he followed us we ran, + Ran very fast though we knew + It was not right that The Beast should master Man; + But what could we Flint-workers do? + The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears— + Grinned at the hammers that we made; + But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife— + And this is the Buyer of the Blade! + + Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass! + To left and right—stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan, + For he knew it was not right + (And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man; + So he went to the Children of the Night. + He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake. + When he begged for the Knife they said: + ‘The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!’ + And that was the price he paid. + + Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead—run ahead! + Shout it so the Women’s Side can hear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk, + As far as we can see them and beyond. + We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep + Tally at the shearing-pond. + + We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please, + We can sleep after meals in the sun; + For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade, + Feet-in-the-Night have run! + Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!), + Devil-in-the-Dusk has run! + + Then: + Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass! + To left and right—stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BROTHER SQUARE-TOES + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Philadelphia + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn’t take my stories for a guide. + There’s little left indeed of the city you will read of, + And all the folk I write about have died. + Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand, + Or remember what his cunning and his skill did. + And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf, + Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded. + + It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-three ‘twas there for all to see, + But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn’t go by everything I’ve said. + Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages, + But the Limited will take you there instead. + Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen, + North Second Street—no matter when you call; + And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane + Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball. + + It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-four ‘twas a famous dancing-floor— + But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel. + You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or the ‘Buck,’ + Though the Father of his Country liked them well. + It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos, + Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed—so + You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate + Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so. + + He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther + (Never say I didn’t give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive, + But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning. + If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning, + And wish to prove the truth of what I say, + I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behind + Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way. + Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune; + Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing. + Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk; + Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing. + They are there, there, there with Earth immortal + (Citizens, I give you friendly warning). + The things that truly last when men and times have passed, + They are all in Pennsylvania this morning! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Brother Square-Toes + </h2> + <p> + It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned + themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and strolled + over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead low under + the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along the sands up + the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey Brighton, whose + smoke trailed out across the Channel. + </p> + <p> + They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. A + windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of + it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship’s + figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. ‘This time + tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,’ said Una. ‘I hate the sea!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe it’s all right in the middle,’ said Dan. ‘The edges are the + sorrowful parts.’ + </p> + <p> + Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope + at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew + smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, where neat piles of white + chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night. ‘Where’s + Cordery going?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Half-way to Newhaven,’ said Dan. ‘Then he’ll meet the Newhaven coastguard + and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with, smuggling would + start up at once.’ + </p> + <p> + A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye— + On Telscombe Tye at night it was— + She saw the smugglers riding by, + A very pretty sight it was!’ +</pre> + <p> + Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat + brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Three Dunkirk boats was standin’ in!’ +</pre> + <p> + the man went on. ‘Hssh!’ said Puck. ‘You’ll shock these nice young + people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!’ He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his + ears—spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. ‘No + comprenny?’ he said. ‘I’ll give it you in Low German.’ And he went off in + another language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they + hardly knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still + twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did not + suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, and + broad-brimmed hat. His hair was tied ‘in a short pigtail which danced + wickedly when he turned his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ha’ done!’ said Puck, laughing. ‘Be one thing or t’other, Pharaoh—French + or English or German—no great odds which.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, but it is, though,’ said Una quickly. ‘We haven’t begun German yet, + and—and we’re going back to our French next week.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aren’t you English?’ said Dan. ‘We heard you singing just now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! That was the Sussex side o’ me. Dad he married a French girl out o’ + Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin’ day. She was an Aurette, of + course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven’t you ever come across the + saying: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Aurettes and Lees, + Like as two peas. + What they can’t smuggle, + They’ll run over seas’? +</pre> + <p> + ‘Then, are you a smuggler?’ Una cried; and, ‘Have you smuggled much?’ said + Dan. + </p> + <p> + Mr Lee nodded solemnly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind you,’ said he, ‘I don’t uphold smuggling for the generality o’ + mankind—mostly they can’t make a do of it—but I was brought up + to the trade, d’ye see, in a lawful line o’ descent on’—he waved + across the Channel—‘on both sides the water. ‘Twas all in the + families, same as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff + across from Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London + Town, by the safest road.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then where did you live?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘You mustn’t ever live too close to your business in our trade. We kept + our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all honest + cottager folk—at Warminghurst under Washington—Bramber way—on + the old Penn estate.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ said Puck, squatted by the windlass. ‘I remember a piece about the + Lees at Warminghurst, I do: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘There was never a Lee to Warminghurst + That wasn’t a gipsy last and first. +</pre> + <p> + I reckon that’s truth, Pharaoh.’ + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh laughed. ‘Admettin’ that’s true,’ he said, ‘my gipsy blood must be + wore pretty thin, for I’ve made and kept a worldly fortune.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By smuggling?’ Dan asked. ‘No, in the tobacco trade.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a + tobacconist!’ Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m sorry; but there’s all sorts of tobacconists,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘How + far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her foresail?’ + He pointed to the fishing-boats. + </p> + <p> + ‘A scant mile,’ said Puck after a quick look. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just about. It’s seven fathom under her—clean sand. That was where + Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished + ‘em up and rowed ‘em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland. One + thickish night in January of ‘Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came + over from Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the + L’Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year’s + presents from Mother’s folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she’d sent + me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for the + French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was all the + fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their King Louis’ + head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English man-o’-war. + The news wasn’t a week old. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the peace,” + says Dad. “Why can’t King George’s men and King Louis’ men do on their + uniforms and fight it out over our heads?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Me too, I wish that,” says Uncle Aurette. “But they’ll be pressing + better men than themselves to fight for ‘em. The press-gangs are out + already on our side. You look out for yours.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I’ve run + this cargo; but I do wish”—Dad says, going over the lugger’s side + with our New Year presents under his arm and young L’Estrange holding the + lantern—“I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had + to run one cargo a month all this winter. It ‘ud show ‘em what honest work + means.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Well, I’ve warned ye,” says Uncle Aurette. “I’ll be slipping off now + before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to Sister and take care o’ + the kegs. It’s thicking to southward.” ‘I remember him waving to us and + young Stephen L’Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we’d fished + up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me to row + ‘em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the beach. So + he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack playing on my + fiddle to guide ‘em back. + </p> + <p> + ‘Presently I heard guns. Two of ‘em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette’s + three-pounders. He didn’t go naked about the seas after dark. Then come + more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was + open-handed with his compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I + stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o’ French up in the + fog—and a high bow come down on top o’ the smack. I hadn’t time to + call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the + gunwale pushing against the ship’s side as if I hoped to bear her off. + Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front of + my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped through + that port into the French ship—me and my fiddle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Gracious!’ said Una. ‘What an adventure!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Didn’t anybody see you come in?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘There wasn’t any one there. I’d made use of an orlop-deck port—that’s + the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been + open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on to + a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men was + talking all round me, telling each other their names and sorrows just like + Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty soon I made + out they’d all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs, and left to + sort ‘emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a thirty-six-gun + Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two days out of Le + Havre, going to the United States with a Republican French Ambassador of + the name of Genet. They had been up all night clearing for action on + account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette and Captain Giddens must + have been passing the time o’ day with each other off Newhaven, and the + frigate had drifted past ‘em. She never knew she’d run down our smack. + Seeing so many aboard was total strangers to each other, I thought one + more mightn’t be noticed; so I put Aunt Cecile’s red cap on the back of my + head, and my hands in my pockets like the rest, and, as we French say, I + circulated till I found the galley. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What! Here’s one of ‘em that isn’t sick!” says a cook. “Take his + breakfast to Citizen Bompard.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn’t call this Bompard + “Citizen.” Oh no! “Mon Capitaine” was my little word, same as Uncle + Aurette used to answer in King Louis’ Navy. Bompard, he liked it. He took + me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and thus I + got good victuals and light work all the way across to America. He talked + a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this Ambassador + Genet got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the law after dinner, a + rooks’ parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I learned to know + most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, through waiting at + table and hearing talk about ‘em. One of our forecas’le six-pounders was + called Danton and t’other Marat. I used to play the fiddle between ‘em, + sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genet + talked o’ what France had done, and how the United States was going to + join her to finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genet said he’d + justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude common + man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any healths that was + proposed—specially Citizen Danton’s who’d cut off King Louis’ head. + An all-Englishman might have been shocked—but that’s where my French + blood saved me. + </p> + <p> + ‘It didn’t save me from getting a dose of ship’s fever though, the week + before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and what was left of me + after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living ‘tween decks. + The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, kept me down there to help him with + his plasters—I was too weak to wait on Bompard. I don’t remember + much of any account for the next few weeks, till I smelled lilacs, and I + looked out of the port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge and there was a + town o’ fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the green leaves o’ + God’s world waiting for me outside. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What’s this?” I said to the sick-bay man—Old Pierre Tiphaigne he + was. “Philadelphia,” says Pierre. “You’ve missed it all. We’re sailing + next week.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks. + </p> + <p> + ‘“If that’s your trouble,” says old Pierre, “you go straight ashore. + None’ll hinder you. They’re all gone mad on these coasts—French and + American together. ‘Tisn’t my notion o’ war.” Pierre was an old King Louis + man. + </p> + <p> + ‘My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it was + like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies + pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain + Bompard and his officers—yes, and some of the men—speechified + to all and sundry about war with England. They shouted, “Down with + England!”—“Down with Washington!”—“Hurrah for France and the + Republic!” I couldn’t make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that + crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen + said to me, “Is that a genuine cap o’ Liberty you’re wearing?” ‘Twas Aunt + Cecile’s red one, and pretty near wore out. “Oh yes!” I says, “straight + from France.” “I’ll give you a shilling for it,” he says, and with that + money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past the entry-port + and went ashore. It was like a dream—meadows, trees, flowers, birds, + houses, and people all different! I sat me down in a meadow and fiddled a + bit, and then I went in and out the streets, looking and smelling and + touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine folk was setting on the white + stone doorsteps of their houses, and a girl threw me a handful of laylock + sprays, and when I said “Merci” without thinking, she said she loved the + French. They all was the fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags + in Philadelphia than ever I’d seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting + for war with England. A crowd o’ folk was cheering after our French + Ambassador—that same Monsieur Genet which we’d left at Charleston. + He was a-horseback behaving as if the place belonged to him—and + commanding all and sundry to fight the British. But I’d heard that before. + I got into a long straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen + was racing horses. I’m fond o’ horses. Nobody hindered ‘em, and a man told + me it was called Race Street o’ purpose for that. Then I followed some + black niggers, which I’d never seen close before; but I left them to run + after a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red + blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian called + Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race Street by Second + Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I’m fond o’ fiddling. The Indian + stopped at a baker’s shop—Conrad Gerhard’s it was—and bought + some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was going to have some + too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was hungry. “Oh yes!” I says. + I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens a door on to a staircase and + leads the way up. We walked into a dirty little room full of flutes and + fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the window, in a smell of cheese and + medicines fit to knock you down. I was knocked down too, for the fat man + jumped up and hit me a smack in the face. I fell against an old spinet + covered with pill-boxes and the pills rolled about the floor. The Indian + never moved an eyelid. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!” the fat man screeches. + </p> + <p> + ‘I started picking ‘em up—hundreds of ‘em—meaning to run out + under the Indian’s arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The + fat man went back to his fiddling. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Toby!” says the Indian after quite a while. “I brought the boy to be + fed, not hit.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“What?” says Toby, “I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder.” He put down his + fiddle and took a good look at me. “Himmel!” he says. “I have hit the + wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why are you + not Gert Schwankfelder?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I don’t know,” I said. “The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Says the Indian, “He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the hungry. + So I bring him.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You should have said that first,” said Toby. He pushed plates at me and + the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine. I told + him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of my mother + being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and besides I saw + that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby and the Indian + whispered and I went on picking up the pills. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You like pills—eh?” says Toby. “No,” I says. “I’ve seen our ship’s + doctor roll too many of em.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ho!” he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. “What’s those?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Calomel,” I says. “And t’other’s senna.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Right,” he says. “One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder the + difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?” he says. + He’d just seen my kit on the floor. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh yes!” says I. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oho!” he says. “What note is this?” drawing his bow across. + </p> + <p> + ‘He meant it for A, so I told him it was. + </p> + <p> + ‘“My brother,” he says to the Indian. “I think this is the hand of + Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the wharves any + more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy and say what you think.” + </p> + <p> + ‘The Indian looked me over whole minutes—there was a musical clock + on the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck. He looked + me over all the while they did it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Good,” he says at last. “This boy is good.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Good, then,” says Toby. “Now I shall play my fiddle and you shall sing + your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery and tell them you are young + Gert Schwankfelder that was. The horses are in Davy jones’s locker. If you + ask any questions you shall hear from me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I left ‘em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He wasn’t + at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelder that was. + He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back-yard without a word, + and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin, and she put + me to bed, and oh! how I slept—how I slept in that little room + behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn’t know Toby went to + the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for twelve dollars + and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new lace to his coat, + and he reckoned I hadn’t long to live; so he put me down as “discharged + sick.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I like Toby,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was he?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Apothecary Tobias Hirte,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘One Hundred and Eighteen, + Second Street—the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every + year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his + brown mare used to go to Lebanon.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones’s locker?’ Dan asked. ‘That was + his joke. He kept her under David Jones’s hat shop in the “Buck” tavern + yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited + him. I looked after the horses when I wasn’t rolling pills on top of the + old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. I liked + it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o’ clean clothes, a plenty + music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me sit in their + gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in Moravian Alley; + and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared caps and + handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another, and there + was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a nigger-boy to + blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby’s fiddle, and he played pretty much + as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He was the only one + they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They used to wash each + other’s feet up in the attic to keep ‘emselves humble: which Lord knows + they didn’t need.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How very queer!’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve met many and seen much,’ he said; ‘but I + haven’t yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the + Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I + ever forget my first Sunday—the service was in English that week—with + the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder’s garden where the + big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and + thinking of ‘tween decks on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a boy, + it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for ever. But I + didn’t know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck midnight that + Sunday—I was lying under the spinet—I heard Toby’s fiddle. + He’d just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. “Gert,” + says he, “get the horses. Liberty and Independence for Ever! The flowers + appear upon the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come. We + are going to my country seat in Lebanon.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I rubbed my eyes, and fetched ‘em out of the “Buck” stables. Red Jacket + was there saddling his, and when I’d packed the saddle-bags we three rode + up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling. It’s a + kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the German towns, + Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat cattle, fat + women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed there. Toby + sold medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French war-news to folk + along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell was as well known as the + stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous Seneca Oil which he had the + secret of from Red Jacket’s Indians, and he slept in friends’ farmhouses, + but he would shut all the windows; so Red Jacket and me slept outside. + There’s nothing to hurt except snakes—and they slip away quick + enough if you thrash in the bushes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’d have liked that!’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’d no fault to find with those days. In the cool o’ the morning the + cat-bird sings. He’s something to listen to. And there’s a smell of wild + grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into, after long rides + in the heat, which is beyond compare for sweetness. So’s the puffs out of + the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and later + on the fireflies dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the corn! We + were a week or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to another—such + as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata—“thou Bethlehem-Ephrata.” No odds—I + loved the going about. And so we jogged ‘into dozy little Lebanon by the + Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage and a garden of all fruits. He + come north every year for this wonderful Seneca Oil the Seneca Indians + made for him. They’d never sell to any one else, and he doctored ‘em with + von Swieten pills, which they valued more than their own oil. He could do + what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried to make them Moravians. + The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and they’d had trouble enough from + white men—American and English—during the wars, to keep ‘em in + that walk. They lived on a Reservation by themselves away off by their + lake. Toby took me up there, and they treated me as if I was their own + blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark of my bare feet in the dust was + just like an Indian’s and my style of walking was similar. I know I took + to their ways all over.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sometimes I think it did,’ Pharaoh went on. ‘Anyhow, Red Jacket and + Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the + tribe. It’s only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I showed + up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means “Two + Tongues,” because, d’ye see, I talked French and English. + </p> + <p> + ‘They had their own opinions (I’ve heard ‘em) about the French and the + English, and the Americans. They’d suffered from all of ‘em during the + wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of + the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with him + in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad. His + being President afterwards made no odds to ‘em. They always called him Big + Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their notion of a + white chief. Cornplanter ‘ud sweep his blanket round him, and after I’d + filled his pipe he’d begin—“In the old days, long ago, when braves + were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-” If Red Jacket agreed to + the say-so he’d trickle a little smoke out of the corners of his mouth. If + he didn’t, he’d blow through his nostrils. Then Cornplanter ‘ud stop and + Red Jacket ‘ud take on. Red Jacket was the better talker of the two. I’ve + laid and listened to ‘em for hours. Oh! they knew General Washington well. + Cornplanter used to meet him at Epply’s—the great dancing-place in + the city before District Marshal William Nichols bought it. They told me + he was always glad to see ‘em, and he’d hear ‘em out to the end if they + had anything on their minds. They had a good deal in those days. I came at + it by degrees, after I was adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon + and everywhere else that summer was about the French war with England and + whether the United States ‘ud join in with France or make a peace treaty + with England. Toby wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation + buying his oils. But most of the white men wished for war, and they was + angry because the President wouldn’t give the sign for it. The newspaper + said men was burning Guy Fawkes images of General Washington and yelling + after him in the streets of Philadelphia. You’d have been astonished what + those two fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The + little I’ve learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red + Jacket on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He was + what they call a “Democrat,” though our Church is against the Brethren + concerning themselves with politics.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hate politics, too,’ said Una, and Pharaoh laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘I might ha’ guessed it,’ he said. ‘But here’s something that isn’t + politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the newspaper + on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a peach tree and I was + fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts,” he says. “I will go to + the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother, lend me a spare pony. I + must be there tomorrow night.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Good!” says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. “My brother shall be there. + I will ride with him and bring back the ponies.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking questions. He + stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don’t ask questions much + and I wanted to be like ‘em. + </p> + <p> + ‘When the horses were ready I jumped up. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Get off,” says Toby. “Stay and mind the cottage till I come back. The + Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He hadn’t.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the doorstep + wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to wrap his fiddle-strings + in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in Philadelphia so + dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for I was fond of Toby. + We never said much to each other, but we fiddled together, and music’s as + good as talking to them that understand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did Toby die of yellow fever?’ Una asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not him! There’s justice left in the world still. He went down to the + City and bled ‘em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket + that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the oils along to the + City, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket + was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw’s + business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a + hard task-Master. We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy + grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn’t die the minute he + reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my + Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and + gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting ‘in the woods, or fishing in the + lake.’ Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. ‘But it’s best,’ he + went on suddenly, ‘after the first frosts. You roll out o’ your blanket + and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow, not by + trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of ‘em, like sunsets + splattered upside down. On one of such days—the maples was flaming + scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder—Cornplanter and + Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the very leaves look silly: + feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin leggings, fringed and tasselled, red + horse-blankets, and their bridles feathered and shelled and beaded no + bounds. I thought it was war against the British till I saw their faces + weren’t painted, and they only carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed “Yankee + Doodle” at ‘em. They told me they was going to visit Big Hand and find out + for sure whether he meant to join the French in fighting the English or + make a peace treaty with England. I reckon those two would ha’ gone out on + the war-path at a nod from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war + ‘twixt England and the United States, their tribe ‘ud catch it from both + parties same as in all the other wars. They asked me to come along and + hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because they always put their ponies up + at the “Buck” or Epply’s when they went to see General Washington in the + city, and horse-holding is a nigger’s job. Besides, I wasn’t exactly + dressed for it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘D’you mean you were dressed like an Indian?’ Dan demanded. + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh looked a little abashed. ‘This didn’t happen at Lebanon,’ he said, + ‘but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that particular + moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and sunburn went, + there wasn’t much odds ‘twix’ me and a young Seneca buck. You may laugh’—he + smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat—‘but I told you I took to + their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the + war-whoop like the young men had taught me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, and you don’t let out one here, either,’ said Puck before Dan could + ask. ‘Go on, Brother Square-toes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We went on.’ Pharaoh’s narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. ‘We went on—forty, + fifty miles a day, for days on end—we three braves. And how a great + tall Indian a-horse-back can carry his war-bonnet at a canter through + thick timber without brushing a feather beats me! My silly head was banged + often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running elk. + We had evening hymn-singing every night after they’d blown their + pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we go? I’ll tell you, but + don’t blame me if you’re no wiser. We took the old war-trail from the end + of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right + down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed the Juniata by + Fort Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by the Ochwick trail, + and then to Williams Ferry (it’s a bad one). From Williams Ferry, across + the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through Ashby’s Gap, and so + south-east by south from there, till we found the President at the back of + his own plantations. I’d hate to be trailed by Indians in earnest. They + caught him like a partridge on a stump. After we’d left our ponies, we + scouted forward through a woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at + last if my moccasins even slipped Red Jacket ‘ud turn and frown. I heard + voices—Monsieur Genet’s for choice—long before I saw anything, + and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some niggers in + grey-and-red liveries were holding horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen—but + one was Genet—were talking among felled timber. I fancy they’d come + to see Genet a piece on his road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid + in between two logs as near to the company as I be to that old windlass + there. I didn’t need anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, + his legs a little apart, listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which + never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as good as ordering + him to declare war on England at once. I had heard that clack before on + the Embuscade. He said he’d stir up the whole United States to have war + with England, whether Big Hand liked it or not. + </p> + <p> + ‘Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me, and my two + chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, “That is very forcibly put, + Monsieur Genet—” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Citizen—citizen!” the fellow spits in. “I, at least, am a + Republican!” + </p> + <p> + “Citizen Genet,” he says, “you may be sure it will receive my fullest + consideration.” This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a piece. He rode + off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny. No gentleman! + </p> + <p> + ‘The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their way, they + said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was France + and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the United + States’ stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French was + searching American ships on pretence they was helping England, but really + for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only t’other way + round, and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into + their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that those Americans was + lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this very clear to Big Hand. It + didn’t look to them, they said, as though the United States trying to keep + out of the fight was any advantage to her, because she only catched it + from both French and English. They said that nine out of ten good + Americans was crazy to fight the English then and there. They wouldn’t say + whether that was right or wrong; they only wanted Big Hand to turn it over + in his mind. He did—for a while. I saw Red Jacket and Cornplanter + watching him from the far side of the clearing, and how they had slipped + round there was another mystery. Then Big Hand drew himself up, and he let + his gentlemen have it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hit ‘em?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He—he blasted ‘em + with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen times over whether the + United States had enough armed ships for any shape or sort of war with any + one. He asked ‘em, if they thought she had those ships, to give him those + ships, and they looked on the ground, as if they expected to find ‘em + there. He put it to ‘em whether, setting ships aside, their country—I + reckon he gave ‘em good reasons—whether the United States was ready + or able to face a new big war; she having but so few years back wound up + one against England, and being all holds full of her own troubles. As I + said, the strong way he laid it all before ‘em blasted ‘em, and when he’d + done it was like a still in the woods after a storm. A little man—but + they all looked little—pipes up like a young rook in a blowed-down + nest, “Nevertheless, General, it seems you will be compelled to fight + England.” Quick Big Hand wheeled on him, “And is there anything in my past + which makes you think I am averse to fighting Great Britain?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Everybody laughed except him. “Oh, General, you mistake us entirely!” + they says. “I trust so,” he says. “But I know my duty. We must have peace + with England.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“At any price?” says the man with the rook’s voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘“At any price,” says he, word by word. “Our ships will be searched—our + citizens will be pressed, but—” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then what about the Declaration of Independence?” says one. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Deal with facts, not fancies,” says Big Hand. “The United States are in + no position to fight England.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But think of public opinion,” another one starts up. “The feeling in + Philadelphia alone is at fever heat.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He held up one of his big hands. “Gentlemen,” he says—slow he + spoke, but his voice carried far—“I have to think of our country. + Let me assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will be made though + every city in the Union burn me in effigy.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“At any price?” the actor-like chap keeps on croaking. + </p> + <p> + ‘“The treaty must be made on Great Britain’s own terms. What else can I + do?” ‘He turns his back on ‘em and they looked at each other and slinked + off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was an old man. + Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the clearing from the far end as + though they had just chanced along. Back went Big Hand’s shoulders, up + went his head, and he stepped forward one single pace with a great deep + Hough! so pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to behold—three + big men, and two of ‘em looking like jewelled images among the spattle of + gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs’ war-bonnets sinking together, down + and down. Then they made the sign which no Indian makes outside of the + Medicine Lodges—a sweep of the right hand just clear of the dust and + an inbend of the left knee at the same time, and those proud eagle + feathers almost touched his boot-top.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did it mean?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mean!’ Pharaoh cried. ‘Why it’s what you—what we—it’s the + Sachems’ way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of—oh! it’s + a piece of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you are a very + big chief. + </p> + <p> + ‘Big Hand looked down on ‘em. First he says quite softly, “My brothers + know it is not easy to be a chief.” Then his voice grew. “My children,” + says he, “what is in your minds?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Says Cornplanter, “We came to ask whether there will be war with King + George’s men, but we have heard what our Father has said to his chiefs. We + will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell to our people.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No,” says Big Hand. “Leave all that talk behind—it was between + white men only—but take this message from me to your people—‘There + will be no war.’” + </p> + <p> + ‘His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn’t delay him-, only Cornplanter + says, using his old side-name, “Big Hand, did you see us among the timber + just now?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Surely,” says he. “You taught me to look behind trees when we were both + young.” And with that he cantered off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies again and a + half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter says to Red Jacket, “We + will have the Corn-dance this year. There will be no war.” And that was + all there was to it.’ + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Puck, rising too. ‘And what came out of it in the long run?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me get at my story my own way,’ was the answer. ‘Look! it’s later than + I thought. That Shoreham smack’s thinking of her supper.’ The children + looked across the darkening Channel. A smack had hoisted a lantern and + slowly moved west where Brighton pier lights ran out in a twinkling line. + When they turned round The Gap was empty behind them. + </p> + <p> + ‘I expect they’ve packed our trunks by now,’ said Dan. ‘This time tomorrow + we’ll be home.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IF— + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + If you can keep your head when all about you + Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; + If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, + But make allowance for their doubting too; + If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, + Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, + Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, + And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; + + If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; + If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, + If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster + And treat those two impostors just the same; + If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken + Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, + Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, + And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools; + + If you can make one heap of all your winnings + And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, + And lose, and start again at your beginnings + And never breathe a word about your loss; + If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew + To serve your turn long after they are gone, + And so hold on when there is nothing in you + Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ + + If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, + Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, + If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, + If all men count with you, but none too much; + If you can fill the unforgiving minute + With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, + Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, + And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ‘A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF’ + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A St Helena Lullaby + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + How far is St Helena from a little child at play? + What makes you want to wander there with all the world between? + Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he’ll run away. + (No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!) + + How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street? + I haven’t time to answer now—the men are falling fast. + The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat + (If you take the first step you will take the last!) + + How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz? + You couldn’t hear me if I told—so loud the cannons roar. + But not so far for people who are living by their wits. + (‘Gay go up’ means ‘gay go down’ the wide world o’er!) + + How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France? + I cannot see—I cannot tell—the crowns they dazzle so. + The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance. + (After open weather you may look for snow!) + + How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar? + A longish way—a longish way—with ten year more to run. + It’s South across the water underneath a setting star. + (What you cannot finish you must leave undone!) + + How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice? + An ill way—a chill way—the ice begins to crack. + But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice. + (When you can’t go forward you must e’en come back!) + + How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo? + A near way—a clear way—the ship will take you soon. + A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do. + (Morning never tries you till the afternoon!) + + How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven’s Grace? + That no one knows—that no one knows—and no one ever will. + But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face, + And after all your trapesings, child, lie still! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ‘A Priest in Spite of Himself’ + </h2> + <p> + The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a tour of + inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it. Soon they + discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best hedge-gaps with stakes + and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up the hedges where the blackberries + were setting. + </p> + <p> + ‘It can’t be time for the gipsies to come along,’ said Una. ‘Why, it was + summer only the other day!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s smoke in Low Shaw!’ said Dan, sniffing. ‘Let’s make sure!’ + </p> + <p> + They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that leaned + above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the King’s Hill road. It + used to be an old quarry till somebody planted it, and you can look + straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow. + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought so,’ Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at the edge of + the larches. A gipsy-van—not the show-man’s sort, but the old black + kind, with little windows high up and a baby-gate across the door—was + getting ready to leave. A man was harnessing the horses; an old woman + crouched over the ashes of a fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a + girl sat on the van-steps singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking, + thin dog snuffed at a patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put it + carefully in the middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the van + and tossed her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and they + smelt singed feathers. + </p> + <p> + ‘Chicken feathers!’ said Dan. ‘I wonder if they are old Hobden’s.’ + </p> + <p> + Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl’s feet, the old woman + fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the horses up to the + shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as snakes over moss. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ said the girl. ‘I’ll teach you!’ She beat the dog, who seemed to + expect it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t do that,’ Una called down. ‘It wasn’t his fault.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you know what I’m beating him for?’ she answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘For not seeing us,’ said Dan. ‘He was standing right in the smoke, and + the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.’ + </p> + <p> + The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned faster than + ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,’ said Una. ‘There’s + a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What of it?’ said the old woman, as she grabbed it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing!’ said Dan. ‘Only I’ve heard say that tail-feathers are as + bad as the whole bird, sometimes.’ + </p> + <p> + That was a saying of Hobden’s about pheasants. Old Hobden always burned + all feather and fur before he sat down to eat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come on, mother,’ the man whispered. The old woman climbed into the van, + and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted shaw on to the hard road. + </p> + <p> + The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could not catch. + </p> + <p> + ‘That was gipsy for “Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,”’ said Pharaoh + Lee. + </p> + <p> + He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm. ‘Gracious, you + startled me!’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘You startled old Priscilla Savile,’ Puck called from below them. ‘Come + and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before they left.’ + </p> + <p> + They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the ashes + together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns without flame, and + they watched the smoke while Pharaoh played a curious wavery air. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s what the girl was humming to the baby,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know it,’ he nodded, and went on: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia! + Ai Luludia!’ +</pre> + <p> + He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the children. At + last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in Philadelphia and among + the Seneca Indians. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m telling it,’ he said, staring straight in front of him as he played. + ‘Can’t you hear?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Maybe, but they can’t. Tell it aloud,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began: + </p> + <p> + ‘I’d left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after Big Hand + had said that there wouldn’t be any war. That’s all there was to it. We + believed Big Hand and we went home again—we three braves. When we + reached Lebanon we found Toby at the cottage with his waistcoat a foot too + big for him—so hard he had worked amongst the yellow-fever people. + He beat me for running off with the Indians, but ‘twas worth it—I + was glad to see him,—and when we went back to Philadelphia for the + winter, and I was told how he’d sacrificed himself over sick people in the + yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn’t neither. + I’d thought that all along. That yellow fever must have been something + dreadful. Even in December people had no more than begun to trinkle back + to town. Whole houses stood empty and the niggers was robbing them out. + But I can’t call to mind that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It + seemed like they had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good + Lord He’d just looked after ‘em. That was the winter—yes, winter of + ‘Ninety-three—the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby spoke + in favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but many thought + stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a third party which always + brought hickory coal foot-warmers to service and wouldn’t speak either + way. They ended by casting the Lot for it, which is like pitch-and-toss. + After my summer with the Senecas, church-stoves didn’t highly interest me, + so I took to haunting round among the French emigres which Philadelphia + was full of. My French and my fiddling helped me there, d’ye see. They + come over in shiploads from France, where, by what I made out, every one + was killing every one else by any means, and they spread ‘emselves about + the city—mostly in Drinker’s Alley and Elfrith’s Alley—and + they did odd jobs till times should mend. But whatever they stooped to, + they were gentry and kept a cheerful countenance, and after an evening’s + fiddling at one of their poor little proud parties, the Brethren seemed + old-fashioned. Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn’t like my fiddling + for hire, but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my living by + exercising my talents. He never let me be put upon. + </p> + <p> + ‘In February of ‘Ninety-four—No, March it must have been, because a + new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France, with no more manners + than Genet the old one—in March, Red Jacket came in from the + Reservation bringing news of all kind friends there. I showed him round + the city, and we saw General Washington riding through a crowd of folk + that shouted for war with England. They gave him quite rough music, but he + looked ‘twixt his horse’s ears and made out not to notice. His stirrup + brished Red Jacket’s elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, “My brother knows + it is not easy to be a chief.” Big Hand shot just one look at him and + nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over some one who wasn’t + hooting at Washington loud enough to please the people. We went away to be + out of the fight. Indians won’t risk being hit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do they do if they are?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Kill, of course. That’s why they have such proper manners. Well, then, + coming home by Drinker’s Alley to get a new shirt which a French Vicomte’s + lady was washing to take the stiff out of (I’m always choice in my + body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He hadn’t + long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He sure-ly was + a pitiful scrattel—his coat half torn off, his face cut, but his + hands steady; so I knew it wasn’t drink. He said his name was Peringuey, + and he’d been knocked about in the crowd round the Stadt—Independence + Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up to Toby’s rooms, same as + Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The compliments he paid to Toby’s + Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man, for he opened a second bottle + and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all about our great stove dispute in + the church. I remember Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos dropped ‘in, and + although they and Toby were direct opposite sides regarding stoves, yet + this Monsieur Peringuey he made ‘em feel as if he thought each one was in + the right of it. He said he had been a clergyman before he had to leave + France. He admired at Toby’s fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting + by the spinet, was a simple Huron. Senecas aren’t Hurons, they’re + Iroquois, of course, and Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he + arose and left in a style which made us feel he’d been favouring us, + instead of us feeding him. I’ve never seen that so strong before—in + a man. We all talked him over but couldn’t make head or tail of him, and + Red Jacket come out to walk with me to the French quarter where I was due + to fiddle at a party. Passing Drinker’s Alley again we saw a naked window + with a light in it, and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey + throwing dice all alone, right hand against left. + </p> + <p> + ‘Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, “Look at his face!” + </p> + <p> + ‘I was looking. I protest to you I wasn’t frightened like I was when Big + Hand talked to his gentlemen. I—I only looked, and I wondered that + even those dead dumb dice ‘ud dare to fall different from what that face + wished. It—it was a face! + </p> + <p> + ‘“He is bad,” says Red Jacket. “But he is a great chief. The French have + sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us his lies. Now I + know.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I had to go on to the party, so I asked him to call round for me + afterwards and we’d have hymn-singing at Toby’s as usual. “No,” he says. + “Tell Toby I am not Christian tonight. All Indian.” He had those fits + sometimes. I wanted to know more about Monsieur Peringuey, and the emigre + party was the very place to find out. It’s neither here nor there, of + course, but those French emigre parties they almost make you cry. The men + that you bought fruit of in Market Street, the hairdressers and + fencing-masters and French teachers, they turn back again by candlelight + to what they used to be at home, and you catch their real names. There + wasn’t much room in the washhouse, so I sat on top of the copper and + played ‘em the tunes they called for—“Si le Roi m’avait donne,” and + such nursery stuff. They cried sometimes. It hurt me to take their money + afterwards, indeed it did. And there I found out about Monsieur Peringuey. + He was a proper rogue too! None of ‘em had a good word for him except the + Marquise that kept the French boarding-house on Fourth Street. I made out + that his real name was the Count Talleyrand de Perigord—a priest + right enough, but sorely come down in the world. He’d been King Louis’ + Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the French had cut off + King Louis’ head; and, by what I heard, that head wasn’t hardly more than + hanging loose before he’d run back to Paris and prevailed on Danton, the + very man which did the murder, to send him back to England again as + Ambassador of the French Republic! That was too much for the English, so + they kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he’d fled to the Americas + without money or friends or prospects. I’m telling you the talk in the + washhouse. Some of ‘em was laughing over it. Says the French Marquise, “My + friends, you laugh too soon. That man ‘ll be on the winning side before + any of us.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I did not know you were so fond of priests, Marquise,” says the Vicomte. + His lady did my washing, as I’ve told you. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I have my reasons,” says the Marquise. “He sent my uncle and my two + brothers to Heaven by the little door,”—that was one of the emigre + names for the guillotine. “He will be on the winning side if it costs him + the blood of every friend he has in the world.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then what does he want here?” says one of ‘em. “We have all lost our + game.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“My faith!” says the Marquise. “He will find out, if any one can, whether + this canaille of a Washington means to help us to fight England. Genet” + (that was my Ambassador in the Embuscade) “has failed and gone off + disgraced; Faucher” (he was the new man) “hasn’t done any better, but our + Abbe will find out, and he will make his profit out of the news. Such a + man does not fall.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“He begins unluckily,” says the Vicomte. “He was set upon today in the + street for not hooting your Washington.” They all laughed again, and one + remarks, “How does the poor devil keep himself?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He must have slipped in through the washhouse door, for he flits past me + and joins ‘em, cold as ice. + </p> + <p> + ‘“One does what one can,” he says. “I sell buttons. And you, Marquise?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I?”—she waves her poor white hands all burned—“I am a cook—a + very bad one—at your service, Abbe. We were just talking about you.” + </p> + <p> + They didn’t treat him like they talked of him. They backed off and stood + still. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I have missed something, then,” he says. “But I spent this last hour + playing—only for buttons, Marquise—against a noble savage, the + veritable Huron himself.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You had your usual luck, I hope?” she says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Certainly,” he says. “I cannot afford to lose even buttons in these + days.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your dice are + usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous,” she continues. I don’t know whether + she meant to accuse him of cheating. He only bows. ‘“Not yet, Mademoiselle + Cunegonde,” he says, and goes on to make himself agreeable to the rest of + the company. And that was how I found out our Monsieur Peringuey was Count + Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.’ + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve heard of him?’ said Pharaoh. + </p> + <p> + Una shook her head. ‘Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?’ Dan + asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame man + had cheated. Red Jacket said no—he had played quite fair and was a + master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I’ve seen him, on the Reservation, + play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I told Red Jacket + all I’d heard at the party concerning Talleyrand. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I was right,” he says. “I saw the man’s war-face when he thought he was + alone. That’s why I played him. I played him face to face. He’s a great + chief. Do they say why he comes here?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“They say he comes to find out if Big Hand makes war against the + English,” I said. + </p> + <p> + ‘Red Jacket grunted. “Yes,” he says. “He asked me that too. If he had been + a small chief I should have lied. But he is a great chief. He knew I was a + chief, so I told him the truth. I told him what Big Hand said to + Cornplanter and me in the clearing—‘There will be no war.’ I could + not see what he thought. I could not see behind his face. But he is a + great chief. He will believe.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Will he believe that Big Hand can keep his people back from war?” I + said, thinking of the crowds that hooted Big Hand whenever he rode out. + </p> + <p> + ‘“He is as bad as Big Hand is good, but he is not as strong as Big Hand,” + says Red Jacket. “When he talks with Big Hand he will feel this in his + heart. The French have sent away a great chief. Presently he will go back + and make them afraid.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Now wasn’t that comical? The French woman that knew him and owed all her + losses to him; the Indian that picked him up, cut and muddy on the street, + and played dice with him; they neither of ‘em doubted that Talleyrand was + something by himself—appearances notwithstanding.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And was he something by himself?’ asked Una. + </p> + <p> + Pharaoh began to laugh, but stopped. ‘The way I look at it,’ he said, + ‘Talleyrand was one of just three men in this world who are quite by + themselves. Big Hand I put first, because I’ve seen him.’ ‘Ay,’ said Puck. + ‘I’m sorry we lost him out of Old England. Who d’you put second?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Talleyrand: maybe because I’ve seen him too,’ said Pharaoh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s third?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Boney—even though I’ve seen him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Every man has his own weights and measures, but that’s + queer reckoning.’ ‘Boney?’ said Una. ‘You don’t mean you’ve ever met + Napoleon Bonaparte?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There, I knew you wouldn’t have patience with the rest of my tale after + hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come round to Hundred and + Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for his kindness. I didn’t mention + the dice-playing, but I could see that Red Jacket’s doings had made + Talleyrand highly curious about Indians—though he would call him the + Huron. Toby, as you may believe, was all holds full of knowledge + concerning their manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The + Brethren don’t study Indians much till they join the Church, but Toby knew + ‘em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his sound leg over + his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been adopted into the Senecas + I, naturally, kept still, but Toby ‘ud call on me to back up some of his + remarks, and by that means, and a habit he had of drawing you on in talk, + Talleyrand saw I knew something of his noble savages too. Then he tried a + trick. Coming back from an emigre party he turns into his little shop and + puts it to me, laughing like, that I’d gone with the two chiefs on their + visit to Big Hand. I hadn’t told. Red Jacket hadn’t told, and Toby, of + course, didn’t know. ‘Twas just Talleyrand’s guess. “Now,” he says, “my + English and Red Jacket’s French was so bad that I am not sure I got the + rights of what the President really said to the unsophisticated Huron. Do + me the favour of telling it again.” I told him every word Red Jacket had + told him and not one word more. I had my suspicions, having just come from + an emigre party where the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Much obliged,” he said. “But I couldn’t gather from Red Jacket exactly + what the President said to Monsieur Genet, or to his American gentlemen + after Monsieur Genet had ridden away.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn’t told him a + word about the white men’s pow-wow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why hadn’t he?’ Puck asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the President had + said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn’t repeat the talk, between the + white men, that Big Hand ordered him to leave behind. ‘Oh!’ said Puck. ‘I + see. What did you do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘First I was going to make some sort of tale round it, but Talleyrand was + a chief too. So I said, “As soon as I get Red Jacket’s permission to tell + that part of the tale, I’ll be delighted to refresh your memory, Abbe.” + What else could I have done? + </p> + <p> + ‘“Is that all?” he says, laughing. “Let me refresh your memory. In a month + from now I can give you a hundred dollars for your account of the + conversation.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Make it five hundred, Abbe,” I says. ‘“Five, then,” says he. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That will suit me admirably,” I says. “Red Jacket will be in town again + by then, and the moment he gives me leave I’ll claim the money.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He had a hard fight to be civil, but he come out smiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Monsieur,” he says, “I beg your pardon as sincerely as I envy the noble + Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit down while I explain.” + </p> + <p> + ‘There wasn’t another chair, so I sat on the button-box. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President + meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found out—from + Genet, I reckon, who was with the President on the day the two chiefs met + him. He’d heard that Genet had had a huff with the President and had + ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he wanted—what + he begged and blustered to know—was just the very words which the + President had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left, concerning the + peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in helping him to those + very words I’d be helping three great countries as well as mankind. The + room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I couldn’t laugh at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’m sorry,” I says, when he wiped his forehead. “As soon as Red Jacket + gives permission—” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You don’t believe me, then?” he cuts in. ‘“Not one little, little word, + Abbe,” I says; “except that you mean to be on the winning side. Remember, + I’ve been fiddling to all your old friends for months.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then his temper fled him and he called me names. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Wait a minute, ci-devant,” I says at last. “I am half English and half + French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the + Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh yes!” he sneers. “I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that + estimable old man.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then,” I says, “thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee + has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man + than thee.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Go!” he whispers. “Before I kill thee, go.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He looked like it. So I left him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did he want to know so badly?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that Washington + meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price, he’d ha’ left + old Faucher fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went straight back to + France and told old Danton—“It’s no good your wasting time and hopes + on the United States, because she won’t fight on our side—that I’ve + proof of!” Then Danton might have been grateful and given Talleyrand a + job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing for sure who’s your + friend and who’s your enemy. Just think of us poor shop-keepers, for + instance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?’ Una asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course not. He said, “When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand + said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All that talk was left + behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell the Lame Chief there will + be no war. He can go back to France with that word.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Talleyrand and me hadn’t met for a long time except at emigre parties. + When I give him the message he just shook his head. He was sorting buttons + in the shop. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word of an + unsophisticated savage,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hasn’t the President said anything to you?” I asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“He has said everything that one in his position ought to say, but—but + if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode off I believe I + could change Europe—the world, maybe.” ‘“I’m sorry,” I says. “Maybe + you’ll do that without my help.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He looked at me hard. “Either you have unusual observation for one so + young, or you choose to be insolent,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“It was intended for a compliment,” I says. “But no odds. We’re off in a + few days for our summer trip, and I’ve come to make my good-byes.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I go on my travels too,” he says. “If ever we meet again you may be sure + I will do my best to repay what I owe you.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Without malice, Abbe, I hope,” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“None whatever,” says he. “Give my respects to your adorable Dr Pangloss” + (that was one of his side-names for Toby) “and the Huron.” I never could + teach him the difference betwixt Hurons and Senecas. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call “pilly buttons,” and + that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But after that you met Napoleon, didn’t you?’ said Una. ‘Wait Just a + little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to Lebanon and the + Reservation, and, being older and knowing better how to manage him, I + enjoyed myself well that summer with fiddling and fun. When we came back, + the Brethren got after Toby because I wasn’t learning any lawful trade, + and he had hard work to save me from being apprenticed to Helmbold and + Geyer the printers. ‘Twould have ruined our music together, indeed it + would. And when we escaped that, old Mattes Roush, the leather-breeches + maker round the corner, took a notion I was cut out for skin-dressing. But + we were rescued. Along towards Christmas there comes a big sealed letter + from the Bank saying that a Monsieur Talleyrand had put five hundred + dollars—a hundred pounds—to my credit there to use as I + pleased. There was a little note from him inside—he didn’t give any + address—to thank me for past kindnesses and my believing in his + future, which he said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished + Toby to share the money. I hadn’t done more than bring Talleyrand up to + Hundred and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby’s. But Toby said, “No! + Liberty and Independence for ever. I have all my wants, my son.” So I gave + him a set of new fiddle-strings, and the Brethren didn’t advise us any + more. Only Pastor Meder he preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and + Brother Adam Goos said if there was war the English ‘ud surely shoot down + the Bank. I knew there wasn’t going to be any war, but I drew the money + out and on Red Jacket’s advice I put it into horse-flesh, which I sold to + Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stage-coaches. That way, I doubled my money + inside the twelvemonth.’ ‘You gipsy! You proper gipsy!’ Puck shouted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not? ‘Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing leading to + another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a worldly fortune and + was in the tobacco trade.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ said Puck, suddenly. ‘Might I inquire if you’d ever sent any news to + your people in England—or in France?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘O’ course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I’d made money + in the horse trade. We Lees don’t like coming home empty-handed. If it’s + only a turnip or an egg, it’s something. Oh yes, I wrote good and plenty + to Uncle Aurette, and—Dad don’t read very quickly—Uncle used + to slip over Newhaven way and tell Dad what was going on in the tobacco + trade.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I see— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Aurettes and Lees— + Like as two peas. +</pre> + <p> + Go on, Brother Square-toes,’ said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on. + </p> + <p> + ‘Talleyrand he’d gone up in the world same as me. He’d sailed to France + again, and was a great man in the Government there awhile, but they had to + turn him out on account of some story about bribes from American shippers. + All our poor emigres said he was surely finished this time, but Red Jacket + and me we didn’t think it likely, not unless he was quite dead. Big Hand + had made his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as he said he would, + and there was a roaring trade ‘twixt England and the United States for + such as ‘ud take the risk of being searched by British and French + men-o’-war. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen told Big + Hand ‘ud happen—the United States was catching it from both. If an + English man-o’-war met an American ship he’d press half the best men out + of her, and swear they was British subjects. Most of ‘em was! If a + Frenchman met her he’d, likely, have the cargo out of her, swearing it was + meant to aid and comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a Dutchman met + her—they was hanging on to England’s coat-tails too—Lord only + knows what they wouldn’t do! It came over me that what I wanted in my + tobacco trade was a fast-sailing ship and a man who could be French, + English, or American at a pinch. Luckily I could lay my hands on both + articles. So along towards the end of September in the year ‘Ninety-nine I + sailed from Philadelphia with a hundred and eleven hogshead o’ good + Virginia tobacco, in the brig BERTHE AURETTE, named after Mother’s maiden + name, hoping ‘twould bring me luck, which she didn’t—and yet she + did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where was you bound for?’ Puck asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Er—any port I found handiest. I didn’t tell Toby or the Brethren. + They don’t understand the ins and outs of the tobacco trade.’ + </p> + <p> + Puck coughed a small cough as he shifted a piece of wood with his bare + foot. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s easy for you to sit and judge,’ Pharaoh cried. ‘But think o’ what we + had to put up with! We spread our wings and run across the broad Atlantic + like a hen through a horse-fair. Even so, we was stopped by an English + frigate, three days out. He sent a boat alongside and pressed seven able + seamen. I remarked it was hard on honest traders, but the officer said + they was fighting all creation and hadn’t time to argue. The next English + frigate we escaped with no more than a shot in our quarter. Then we was + chased two days and a night by a French privateer, firing between squalls, + and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which made him sheer off had the + impudence to press another five of our men. That’s how we reached to the + chops of the Channel. Twelve good men pressed out of thirty-five; an + eighteen-pound shot-hole close beside our rudder; our mainsail looking + like spectacles where the Frenchman had hit us—and the Channel + crawling with short-handed British cruisers. Put that in your pipe and + smoke it next time you grumble at the price of tobacco! + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our leaks, a + French lugger come swooping at us out o’ the dusk. We warned him to keep + away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed his Jabbering red-caps. We + couldn’t endure any more—indeed we couldn’t. We went at ‘em with all + we could lay hands on. It didn’t last long. They was fifty odd to our + twenty-three. Pretty soon I heard the cutlasses thrown down and some one + bellowed for the sacri captain. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Here I am!” I says. “I don’t suppose it makes any odds to you thieves, + but this is the United States brig BERTHE AURETTE.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“My aunt!” the man says, laughing. “Why is she named that?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Who’s speaking?” I said. ‘Twas too dark to see, but I thought I knew the + voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L’Estrange,” he sings out, and then I was + sure. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh!” I says. “It’s all in the family, I suppose, but you have done a + fine day’s work, Stephen.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young + L’Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn’t seen since the night the smack + sank off Telscombe Tye—six years before. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Whew!” he says. “That’s why she was named for Aunt Berthe, is it? What’s + your share in her, Pharaoh?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Only half owner, but the cargo’s mine.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“That’s bad,” he says. “I’ll do what I can, but you shouldn’t have fought + us.” ‘“Steve,” I says, “you aren’t ever going to report our little + fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter ‘ud laugh at it!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“So’d I if I wasn’t in the Republican Navy,” he says. “But two of our men + are dead, d’ye see, and I’m afraid I’ll have to take you to the Prize + Court at Le Havre.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Will they condemn my ‘baccy?” I asks. + </p> + <p> + ‘“To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship. She’d make a + sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court ‘ud let me have her,” + he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I knew there was no hope. I don’t blame him—a man must + consider his own interests, but nigh every dollar I had was in ship or + cargo, and Steve kept on saying, “You shouldn’t have fought us.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being the one time + we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o’ course we never saw one. + My cousin spoke his best for us at the Prize Court. He owned he’d no right + to rush alongside in the face o’ the United States flag, but we couldn’t + get over those two men killed, d’ye see, and the Court condemned both ship + and cargo. They was kind enough not to make us prisoners—only + beggars—and young L’Estrange was given the BERTHE AURETTE to re-arm + into the French Navy. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ll take you round to Boulogne,” he says. “Mother and the rest’ll be + glad to see you, and you can slip over to Newhaven with Uncle Aurette. Or + you can ship with me, like most o’ your men, and take a turn at King + George’s loose trade. There’s plenty pickings,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘Crazy as I was, I couldn’t help laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ve had my allowance of pickings and stealings,” I says. “Where are + they taking my tobacco?” ‘Twas being loaded on to a barge. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Up the Seine to be sold in Paris,” he says. “Neither you nor I will ever + touch a penny of that money.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Get me leave to go with it,” I says. “I’ll see if there’s justice to be + gotten out of our American Ambassador.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“There’s not much justice in this world,” he says, “without a Navy.” But + he got me leave to go with the barge and he gave me some money. That + tobacco was all I had, and I followed it like a hound follows a snatched + bone. Going up the river I fiddled a little to keep my spirits up, as well + as to make friends with the guard. They was only doing their duty. Outside + o’ that they were the reasonablest o’ God’s creatures. They never even + laughed at me. So we come to Paris, by river, along in November, which the + French had christened Brumaire. They’d given new names to all the months, + and after such an outrageous silly piece o’ business as that, they wasn’t + likely to trouble ‘emselves with my rights and wrongs. They didn’t. The + barge was laid up below Notre Dame church in charge of a caretaker, and he + let me sleep aboard after I’d run about all day from office to office, + seeking justice and fair dealing, and getting speeches concerning liberty. + None heeded me. Looking back on it I can’t rightly blame ‘em. I’d no + money, my clothes was filthy mucked; I hadn’t changed my linen in weeks, + and I’d no proof of my claims except the ship’s papers, which, they said, + I might have stolen. The thieves! The door-keeper to the American + Ambassador—for I never saw even the Secretary—he swore I spoke + French a sight too well for an American citizen. Worse than that—I + had spent my money, d’ye see, and I—I took to fiddling in the + streets for my keep; and—and, a ship’s captain with a fiddle under + his arm—well, I don’t blame ‘em that they didn’t believe me. + </p> + <p> + ‘I come back to the barge one day—late in this month Brumaire it was—fair + beazled out. Old Maingon, the caretaker, he’d lit a fire in a bucket and + was grilling a herring. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Courage, mon ami,” he says. “Dinner is served.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I can’t eat,” I says. “I can’t do any more. It’s stronger than I am.” + ‘“Bah!” he says. “Nothing’s stronger than a man. Me, for example! Less + than two years ago I was blown up in the Orient in Aboukir Bay, but I + descended again and hit the water like a fairy. Look at me now,” he says. + He wasn’t much to look at, for he’d only one leg and one eye, but the + cheerfullest soul that ever trod shoe-leather. “That’s worse than a + hundred and eleven hogshead of ‘baccy,” he goes on. “You’re young, too! + What wouldn’t I give to be young in France at this hour! There’s nothing + you couldn’t do,” he says. “The ball’s at your feet—kick it!” he + says. He kicks the old fire-bucket with his peg-leg. “General Buonaparte, + for example!” he goes on. “That man’s a babe compared to me, and see what + he’s done already. He’s conquered Egypt and Austria and Italy—oh! + half Europe!” he says, “and now he sails back to Paris, and he sails out + to St Cloud down the river here—don’t stare at the river, you young + fool!—-and all in front of these pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he + makes himself Consul, which is as good as a King. He’ll be King, too, in + the next three turns of the capstan—King of France, England, and the + world! Think o’ that!” he shouts, “and eat your herring.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I says something about Boney. If he hadn’t been fighting England I + shouldn’t have lost my ‘baccy—should I? + </p> + <p> + ‘“Young fellow,” says Maingon, “you don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + ‘We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with two in it. + ‘“That’s the man himself,” says Maingon. “He’ll give ‘em something to + cheer for soon.” He stands at the salute. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Who’s t’other in black beside him?” I asks, fairly shaking all over. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah! he’s the clever one. You’ll hear of him before long. He’s that + scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“It is!” I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run after + the carriage calling, “Abbe, Abbe!” + </p> + <p> + ‘A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I + had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped—and there + just was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I + wouldn’t have struck up “Si le Roi m’avait donne Paris la grande ville!” I + thought it might remind him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That is a good omen!” he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he + looks straight at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Abbe—oh, Abbe!” I says. “Don’t you remember Toby and Hundred and + Eighteen Second Street?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard at + the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into the + house, and they slammed the door in the crowd’s face. ‘“You go there,” + says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I catched my first + breath since I’d left the barge. Presently I heard plates rattling next + door—there were only folding doors between—and a cork drawn. + “I tell you,” some one shouts with his mouth full, “it was all that sulky + ass Sieyes’ fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the + situation.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Did it save your coat?” says Talleyrand. “I hear they tore it when they + threw you out. Don’t gasconade to me. You may be in the road of victory, + but you aren’t there yet.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I guessed t’other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at + Talleyrand. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You forget yourself, Consul,” says Talleyrand, “or rather you remember + yourself—Corsican.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pig!” says Boney, and worse. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Emperor!” says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of + all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew + open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his pistol + before I could stand up. + </p> + <p> + “General,” says Talleyrand to him, “this gentleman has a habit of catching + us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing down.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. Talleyrand + takes my hand—“Charmed to see you again, Candide,” he says. “How is + the adorable Dr Pangloss and the noble Huron?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“They were doing very well when I left,” I said. “But I’m not.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Do you sell buttons now?” he says, and fills me a glass of wine off the + table. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Madeira,” says he. “Not so good as some I have drunk.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You mountebank!” Boney roars. “Turn that out.” (He didn’t even say + “man,” but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just went on.) + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pheasant is not so good as pork,” he says. “You will find some at that + table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pass him a clean plate, + General.” And, as true as I’m here, Boney slid a plate along just like a + sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow-skinned little man, as nervous + as a cat—and as dangerous. I could feel that. + </p> + <p> + ‘“And now,” said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his sound one, + “will you tell me your story?” ‘I was in a fluster, but I told him nearly + everything from the time he left me the five hundred dollars in + Philadelphia, up to my losing ship and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by + listening, but after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked at + the crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand called to + him when I’d done. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Eh? What we need now,” says Boney, “is peace for the next three or four + years.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Quite so,” says Talleyrand. “Meantime I want the Consul’s order to the + Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his ship.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nonsense!” says Boney. “Give away an oak-built brig of two hundred and + seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She must be armed into my Navy + with ten—no, fourteen twelve-pounders and two long fours. Is she + strong enough to bear a long twelve forward?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Now I could ha’ sworn he’d paid no heed to my talk, but that wonderful + head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word of it that was useful + to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah, General!” says Talleyrand. “You are a magician—a magician + without morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, and we don’t want to + offend them more than we have.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Need anybody talk about the affair?” he says. He didn’t look at me, but + I knew what was in his mind—just cold murder because I worried him; + and he’d order it as easy as ordering his carriage. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You can’t stop ‘em,” I said. “There’s twenty-two other men besides me.” + I felt a little more ‘ud set me screaming like a wired hare. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Undoubtedly American,” Talleyrand goes on. “You would gain something if + you returned the ship—with a message of fraternal good-will—published + in the MONITEUR” (that’s a French paper like the Philadelphia AURORA). + </p> + <p> + ‘“A good idea!” Boney answers. “One could say much in a message.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“It might be useful,” says Talleyrand. “Shall I have the message + prepared?” He wrote something in a little pocket ledger. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes—for me to embellish this evening. The MONITEUR will publish it + tonight.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Certainly. Sign, please,” says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out. + </p> + <p> + ‘“But that’s the order to return the brig,” says Boney. “Is that + necessary? Why should I lose a good ship? Haven’t I lost enough ships + already?” ‘Talleyrand didn’t answer any of those questions. Then Boney + sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he shies at the + paper again: “My signature alone is useless,” he says. “You must have the + other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos must sign. We must + preserve the Laws.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“By the time my friend presents it,” says Talleyrand, still looking out + of window, “only one signature will be necessary.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Boney smiles. “It’s a swindle,” says he, but he signed and pushed the + paper across. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre,” says + Talleyrand, “and he will give you back your ship. I will settle for the + cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What profit did you + expect to make on it?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I’d set out to + run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and so I couldn’t + rightly set bounds to my profits.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I guessed that all along,’ said Puck. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘There was never a Lee to Warminghurst— + That wasn’t a smuggler last and first.’ +</pre> + <p> + The children laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s comical enough now,’ said Pharaoh. ‘But I didn’t laugh then. Says + Talleyrand after a minute, “I am a bad accountant and I have several + calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the + cargo?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Say? I couldn’t say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China image + while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won’t say how much, + because you wouldn’t believe it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh! Bless you, Abbe! God bless you!” I got it out at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes,” he says, “I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me + Bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing,” and he hands me the + paper. + </p> + <p> + ‘“He stole all that money from me,” says Boney over my shoulder. “A Bank + of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?” he shouts + at Talleyrand. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Quite,” says Talleyrand, getting up. “But be calm. The disease will + never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman found me in the + street and fed me when I was hungry.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I see; and he has made a fine scene of it, and you have paid him, I + suppose. Meantime, France waits.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh! poor France!” says Talleyrand. “Good-bye, Candide,” he says to me. + “By the way,” he says, “have you yet got Red Jacket’s permission to tell + me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode away?” + </p> + <p> + ‘I couldn’t speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney—so + impatient he was to go on with his doings—he ran at me and fair + pushed me out of the room. And that was all there was to it.’ Pharaoh + stood up and slid his fiddle into one of his big skirt-pockets as though + it were a dead hare. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,’ said Dan. ‘How you got home—and + what old Maingon said on the barge—and wasn’t your cousin surprised + when he had to give back the BERTHE AURETTE, and—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell us more about Toby!’ cried Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and Red Jacket,’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Won’t you tell us any more?’ they both pleaded. + </p> + <p> + Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column of smoke + that made them sneeze. When they had finished the Shaw was empty except + for old Hobden stamping through the larches. + </p> + <p> + ‘They gipsies have took two,’ he said. ‘My black pullet and my liddle + gingy-speckled cockrel.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thought so,’ said Dan, picking up one tail-feather that the old woman + had overlooked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?’ said Hobden. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hobby!’ said Una. ‘Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley all your + goings and comings?’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ‘Poor Honest Men’ + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Your jar of Virginny + Will cost you a guinea, + Which you reckon too much by five shilling or ten; + But light your churchwarden + And judge it accordin’ + When I’ve told you the troubles of poor honest men. + + From the Capes of the Delaware, + As you are well aware, + We sail with tobacco for England—but then + Our own British cruisers, + They watch us come through, sirs, + And they press half a score of us poor honest men. + + Or if by quick sailing + (Thick weather prevailing) + We leave them behind (as we do now and then) + We are sure of a gun from + Each frigate we run from, + Which is often destruction to poor honest men! + + Broadsides the Atlantic + We tumble short-handed, + With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend, + And off the Azores, + Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs + Are waiting to terrify poor honest men! + + Napoleon’s embargo + Is laid on all cargo + Which comfort or aid to King George may intend; + And since roll, twist and leaf, + Of all comforts is chief, + They try for to steal it from poor honest men! + + With no heart for fight, + We take refuge in flight, + But fire as we run, our retreat to defend, + Until our stern-chasers + Cut up her fore-braces, + And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men! + + Twix’ the Forties and Fifties, + South-eastward the drift is, + And so, when we think we are making Land’s End, + Alas, it is Ushant + With half the King’s Navy, + Blockading French ports against poor honest men! + + But they may not quit station + (Which is our salvation), + So swiftly we stand to the Nor’ard again; + And finding the tail of + A homeward-bound convoy, + We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men. + + ‘Twix’ the Lizard and Dover, + We hand our stuff over, + Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when; + But a light on each quarter + Low down on the water + Is well understanded by poor honest men. + Even then we have dangers + From meddlesome strangers, + Who spy on our business and are not content + To take a smooth answer, + Except with a handspike... + And they say they are murdered by poor honest men! + + To be drowned or be shot + Is our natural lot, + Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end— + After all our great pains + For to dangle in chains, + As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men? +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Eddi’s Service + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid + In the chapel at Manhood End, + Ordered a midnight service + For such as cared to attend. + But the Saxons were keeping Christmas, + And the night was stormy as well. + Nobody came to service + Though Eddi rang the bell. + + ‘Wicked weather for walking,’ + Said Eddi of Manhood End. + ‘But I must go on with the service + For such as care to attend.’ + The altar candles were lighted,— + An old marsh donkey came, + Bold as a guest invited, + And stared at the guttering flame. + + The storm beat on at the windows, + The water splashed on the floor, + And a wet yoke-weary bullock + Pushed in through the open door. + ‘How do I know what is greatest, + How do I know what is least? + That is My Father’s business,’ + Said Eddi, Wilfrid’s priest. + + ‘But, three are gathered together— + Listen to me and attend. + I bring good news, my brethren!’ + Said Eddi, of Manhood End. + And he told the Ox of a manger + And a stall in Bethlehem, + And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider + That rode to jerusalem. + + They steamed and dripped in the chancel, + They listened and never stirred, + While, just as though they were Bishops, + Eddi preached them The Word. + + Till the gale blew off on the marshes + And the windows showed the day, + And the Ox and the Ass together + Wheeled and clattered away. + + And when the Saxons mocked him, + Said Eddi of Manhood End, + ‘I dare not shut His chapel + On such as care to attend.’ +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Conversion of St Wilfrid + </h2> + <p> + They had bought peppermints up at the village, and were coming home past + little St Barnabas’ Church, when they saw Jimmy Kidbrooke, the carpenter’s + baby, kicking at the churchyard gate, with a shaving in his mouth and the + tears running down his cheeks. + </p> + <p> + Una pulled out the shaving and put in a peppermint. Jimmy said he was + looking for his grand-daddy—he never seemed to take much notice of + his father—so they went up between the old graves, under the + leaf-dropping limes, to the porch, where Jim trotted in, looked about the + empty Church, and screamed like a gate-hinge. + </p> + <p> + Young Sam Kidbrooke’s voice came from the bell-tower and made them jump. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, jimmy,’ he called, ‘what are you doin’ here? Fetch him, Father!’ + </p> + <p> + Old Mr Kidbrooke stumped downstairs, jerked Jimmy on to his shoulder, + stared at the children beneath his brass spectacles, and stumped back + again. They laughed: it was so exactly like Mr Kidbrooke. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s all right,’ Una called up the stairs. ‘We found him, Sam. Does his + mother know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s come off by himself. She’ll be justabout crazy,’ Sam answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then I’ll run down street and tell her.’ Una darted off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you, Miss Una. Would you like to see how we’re mendin’ the + bell-beams, Mus’ Dan?’ + </p> + <p> + Dan hopped up, and saw young Sam lying on his stomach in a most delightful + place among beams and ropes, close to the five great bells. Old Mr + Kidbrooke on the floor beneath was planing a piece of wood, and Jimmy was + eating the shavings as fast as they came away. He never looked at Jimmy; + Jimmy never stopped eating; and the broad gilt-bobbed pendulum of the + church clock never stopped swinging across the white-washed wall of the + tower. + </p> + <p> + Dan winked through the sawdust that fell on his upturned face. ‘Ring a + bell,’ he called. + </p> + <p> + ‘I mustn’t do that, but I’ll buzz one of ‘em a bit for you,’ said Sam. He + pounded on the sound-bow of the biggest bell, and waked a hollow groaning + boom that ran up and down the tower like creepy feelings down your back. + Just when it almost began to hurt, it died away in a hurry of beautiful + sorrowful cries, like a wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger. The pendulum + clanked—one loud clank to each silent swing. + </p> + <p> + Dan heard Una return from Mrs Kidbrooke’s, and ran down to fetch her. She + was standing by the font staring at some one who kneeled at the + Altar-rail. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that the Lady who practises the organ?’ she whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. She’s gone into the organ-place. Besides, she wears black,’ Dan + replied. + </p> + <p> + The figure rose and came down the nave. It was a white-haired man in a + long white gown with a sort of scarf looped low on the neck, one end + hanging over his shoulder. His loose long sleeves were embroidered with + gold, and a deep strip of gold embroidery waved and sparkled round the hem + of his gown. + </p> + <p> + ‘Go and meet him,’ said Puck’s voice behind the font. ‘It’s only Wilfrid.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wilfrid who?’ said Dan. ‘You come along too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wilfrid—Saint of Sussex, and Archbishop of York. I shall wait till + he asks me.’ He waved them forward. Their feet squeaked on the old + grave-slabs in the centre aisle. The Archbishop raised one hand with a + pink ring on it, and said something in Latin. He was very handsome, and + his thin face looked almost as silvery as his thin circle of hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you alone?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Puck’s here, of course,’ said Una. ‘Do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know him better now than I used to.’ He beckoned over Dan’s shoulder, + and spoke again in Latin. Puck pattered forward, holding himself as + straight as an arrow. The Archbishop smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Be welcome,’ said he. ‘Be very welcome.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Welcome to you also, O Prince of the church,’ Puck replied. + </p> + <p> + The Archbishop bowed his head and passed on, till he glimmered like a + white moth in the shadow by the font. + </p> + <p> + ‘He does look awfully princely,’ said Una. ‘Isn’t he coming back?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes. He’s only looking over the church. He’s very fond of churches,’ + said Puck. ‘What’s that?’ + </p> + <p> + The Lady who practices the organ was speaking to the blower-boy behind the + organ-screen. ‘We can’t very well talk here,’ Puck whispered. ‘Let’s go to + Panama Corner.’ + </p> + <p> + He led them to the end of the south aisle, where there is a slab of iron + which says in queer, long-tailed letters: ORATE P. ANNEMA JHONE COLINE. + The children always called it Panama Corner. + </p> + <p> + The Archbishop moved slowly about the little church, peering at the old + memorial tablets and the new glass windows. The Lady who practises the + organ began to pull out stops and rustle hymn-books behind the screen. + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope she’ll do all the soft lacey tunes—like treacle on + porridge,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘I like the trumpety ones best,’ said Dan. ‘Oh, look at Wilfrid! He’s + trying to shut the Altar-gates!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell him he mustn’t,’ said Puck, quite seriously. + </p> + <p> + He can’t, anyhow,’ Dan muttered, and tiptoed out of Panama Corner while + the Archbishop patted and patted at the carved gates that always sprang + open again beneath his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s no use, sir,’ Dan whispered. ‘Old Mr Kidbrooke says Altar-gates + are just the one pair of gates which no man can shut. He made ‘em so + himself.’ + </p> + <p> + The Archbishop’s blue eyes twinkled. Dan saw that he knew all about it. + </p> + <p> + ‘I beg your pardon,’ Dan stammered—very angry with Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I know! He made them so Himself.’ The Archbishop smiled, and crossed + to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a certain padded arm-chair for him + to sit on. + </p> + <p> + The organ played softly. ‘What does that music say?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + Una dropped into the chant without thinking: ‘“O all ye works of the Lord, + bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever.” We call it the + Noah’s Ark, because it’s all lists of things—beasts and birds and + whales, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whales?’ said the Archbishop quickly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—“O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,”’ Una hummed—‘"Bless + ye the Lord.” It sounds like a wave turning over, doesn’t it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Holy Father,’ said Puck with a demure face, ‘is a little seal also “one + who moves in the water”?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? Oh yes—yess!’ he laughed. ‘A seal moves wonderfully in the + waters. Do the seal come to my island still?’ + </p> + <p> + Puck shook his head. ‘All those little islands have been swept away.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land of + the Sea-calf, maiden?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No—but we’ve seen seals—at Brighton.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means + Seal’s Eye—Selsey—down Chichester way—where he converted + the South Saxons,’ Puck explained. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,’ said the + Archbishop, smiling. ‘The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As + our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow of a + seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the water, and scratched his + head with his flipper as if he were saying: “What does that excited person + with the pole think he is doing.” I was very wet and miserable, but I + could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you do?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘One couldn’t very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go + back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own + Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at + York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and—and I’m afraid + I lost my temper.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is said—’ Puck’s voice was wickedly meek—‘that there was a + great fight.’ + </p> + <p> + Eh, but I must ha’ been a silly lad.’ Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick + burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again. ‘There + was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide rose half + an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed off. What I + wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full of sleek + seals watching the scuffle. My good Eddi—my chaplain—insisted + that they were demons. Yes—yess! That was my first acquaintance with + the South Saxons and their seals.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long shipwreck.’ + He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden sometimes looks into the + fire. ‘Ah, well!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?’ said Una, + after a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important things. Yes—yess! + I went back to the South Saxons after twelve—fifteen—years. + No, I did not come by water, but overland from my own Northumbria, to see + what I could do. It’s little one can do with that class of native except + make them stop killing each other and themselves—’ ‘Why did they + kill themselves?’ Una asked, her chin in her hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they were + the only people!) they would jump into the sea. They called it going to + Wotan. It wasn’t want of food always—by any means. A man would tell + you that he felt grey in the heart, or a woman would say that she saw + nothing but long days in front of her; and they’d saunter away to the + mud-flats and—that would be the end of them, poor souls, unless one + headed them off. One had to run quick, but one can’t allow people to lay + hands on themselves because they happen to feel grey. Yes—yess—Extraordinary + people, the South Saxons. Disheartening, sometimes.... What does that say + now?’ The organ had changed tune again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only a hymn for next Sunday,’ said Una. ‘“The Church’s One Foundation.” + Go on, please, about running over the mud. I should like to have seen + you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I dare say you would, and I really could run in those days. Ethelwalch + the King gave me some five or six muddy parishes by the sea, and the first + time my good Eddi and I rode there we saw a man slouching along the slob, + among the seals at Manhood End. My good Eddi disliked seals—but he + swallowed his objections and ran like a hare.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘For the same reason that I did. We thought it was one of our people going + to drown himself. As a matter of fact, Eddi and I were nearly drowned in + the pools before we overtook him. To cut a long story short, we found + ourselves very muddy, very breathless, being quietly made fun of in good + Latin by a very well-spoken person. No—he’d no idea of going to + Wotan. He was fishing on his own beaches, and he showed us the beacons and + turf-heaps that divided his land from the church property. He took us to + his own house, gave us a good dinner, some more than good wine, sent a + guide with us into Chichester, and became one of my best and most + refreshing friends. He was a Meon by descent, from the west edge of the + kingdom; a scholar educated, curiously enough, at Lyons, my old school; + had travelled the world over, even to Rome, and was a brilliant talker. We + found we had scores of acquaintances in common. It seemed he was a small + chief under King Ethelwalch, and I fancy the King was somewhat afraid of + him. The South Saxons mistrust a man who talks too well. Ah! Now, I’ve + left out the very point of my story. He kept a great grey-muzzled old + dog-seal that he had brought up from a pup. He called it Padda—after + one of my clergy. It was rather like fat, honest old Padda. The creature + followed him everywhere, and nearly knocked down my good Eddi when we + first met him. Eddi loathed it. It used to sniff at his thin legs and + cough at him. I can’t say I ever took much notice of it (I was not fond of + animals), till one day Eddi came to me with a circumstantial account of + some witchcraft that Meon worked. He would tell the seal to go down to the + beach the last thing at night, and bring him word of the weather. When it + came back, Meon might say to his slaves, “Padda thinks we shall have wind + tomorrow. Haul up the boats!” I spoke to Meon casually about the story, + and he laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘He told me he could judge by the look of the creature’s coat and the way + it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. One need not put down + everything one does not understand to the work of bad spirits—or + good ones, for that matter.’ He nodded towards Puck, who nodded gaily in + return. + </p> + <p> + ‘I say so,’ he went on, ‘because to a certain extent I have been made a + victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled at Selsey, + King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people to be baptized. I fear + I’m too old to believe that a whole nation can change its heart at the + King’s command, and I had a shrewd suspicion that their real motive was to + get a good harvest. No rain had fallen for two or three years, but as soon + as we had finished baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all said it was a + miracle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And was it?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Everything in life is a miracle, but’—the Archbishop twisted the + heavy ring on his finger—‘I should be slow—ve-ry slow should I + be—to assume that a certain sort of miracle happens whenever lazy + and improvident people say they are going to turn over a new leaf if they + are paid for it. My friend Meon had sent his slaves to the font, but he + had not come himself, so the next time I rode over—to return a + manuscript—I took the liberty of asking why. He was perfectly open + about it. He looked on the King’s action as a heathen attempt to curry + favour with the Christians’ God through me the Archbishop, and he would + have none of it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“My dear man,” I said, “admitting that that is the case, surely you, as + an educated person, don’t believe in Wotan and all the other hobgoblins + any more than Padda here?” The old seal was hunched up on his ox-hide + behind his master’s chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Even if I don’t,” he said, “why should I insult the memory of my + fathers’ Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my rascals to + christen. Isn’t that enough?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“By no means,” I answered. “I want you.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?” He pulled the seal’s + whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he pretended to + interpret. “No! Padda says he won’t be baptized yet awhile. He says you’ll + stay to dinner and come fishing with me tomorrow, because you’re + over-worked and need a rest.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I wish you’d keep yon brute in its proper place,” I said, and Eddi, my + chaplain, agreed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I do,” said Meon. “I keep him just next my heart. He can’t tell a lie, + and he doesn’t know how to love any one except me. It ‘ud be the same if I + were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn’t it, Padda?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Augh! Augh!” said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then Meon began to tease Eddi: “Padda says, if Eddi saw his Archbishop + dying on a mud-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown and run. Padda knows Eddi + can run too! Padda came into Wittering Church last Sunday—all wet—to + hear the music, and Eddi ran out.” + </p> + <p> + ‘My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and flushed. “Padda + is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!” he cried, and begged + my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician,” said Meon. “But + here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand it. You’ll find my + small harp beside the fireplace.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for quite half + an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched himself on his flippers + before him, and listened with his head thrown back. Yes—yess! A + rather funny sight! Meon tried not to laugh, and asked Eddi if he were + satisfied. + </p> + <p> + ‘It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi’s head. He looked + at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up the + chimney? Why not baptize him?” said Meon. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That’s not fair,” said Meon. “You call him a demon and a familiar spirit + because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you a chance + to prove it you won’t take it. Look here! I’ll make a bargain. I’ll be + baptized if you’ll baptize Padda too. He’s more of a man than most of my + slaves.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“One doesn’t bargain—or joke—about these matters,” I said. He + was going altogether too far. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Quite right,” said Meon; “I shouldn’t like any one to joke about Padda. + Padda, go down to the beach and bring us tomorrow’s weather!” + </p> + <p> + ‘My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day’s work. “I + am a servant of the church,” he cried. “My business is to save souls, not + to enter into fellowships and understandings with accursed beasts.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Have it your own narrow way,” said Meon. “Padda, you needn’t go.” The + old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Man could learn obedience at least from that creature,” said Eddi, a + little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse. ‘“Don’t begin to + apologise Just when I am beginning to like you,” said Meon. “We’ll leave + Padda behind tomorrow—out of respect to your feelings. Now let’s go + to supper. We must be up early tomorrow for the whiting.” + </p> + <p> + ‘The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning—a weather-breeder, if + I had taken the trouble to think; but it’s refreshing to escape from kings + and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon’s smallest + boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or so off shore. + Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were keen. Yes—yess! A + perfect morning’s fishing! If a Bishop can’t be a fisherman, who can?’ He + twiddled his ring again. ‘We stayed there a little too long, and while we + were getting up our stone, down came the fog. After some discussion, we + decided to row for the land. The ebb was just beginning to make round the + point, and sent us all ways at once like a coracle.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Selsey Bill,’ said Puck under his breath. ‘The tides run something + furious there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe you,’ said the Archbishop. ‘Meon and I have spent a good many + evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I know is we found + ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung up round us out of the + fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, and she broke up beneath + our feet. We had just time to shuffle through the weed before the next + wave. The sea was rising. ‘“It’s rather a pity we didn’t let Padda go down + to the beach last night,” said Meon. “He might have warned us this was + coming.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons,” said Eddi, + and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor’-west breeze had just got up—distinctly + cool. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Save what you can of the boat,” said Meon; “we may need it,” and we had + to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray planks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What for?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi had flint and + steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls’ nests and lit a fire. It + smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat-planks up-ended between the + rocks. One gets used to that sort of thing if one travels. Unluckily I’m + not so strong as I was. I fear I must have been a trouble to my friends. + It was blowing a full gale before midnight. Eddi wrung out his cloak, and + tried to wrap me in it, but I ordered him on his obedience to keep it. + However, he held me in his arms all the first night, and Meon begged his + pardon for what he’d said the night before—about Eddi, running away + if he found me on a sandbank, you remember. ‘“You are right in half your + prophecy,” said Eddi. “I have tucked up my gown, at any rate.” (The wind + had blown it over his head.) “Now let us thank God for His mercies.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hum!” said Meon. “If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair chance of + dying of starvation.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“If it be God’s will that we survive, God will provide,” said Eddi. “At + least help me to sing to Him.” The wind almost whipped the words out of + his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and sang psalms. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m glad I never concealed my opinion—from myself—that Eddi + was a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time—very + hard! Yes—yess! So the morning and the evening were our second day + on that islet. There was rain-water in the rock-pools, and, as a + churchman, I knew how to fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our + fire chip by chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear + fellows, when I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his arms the + second night, just like a child. My good Eddi was a little out of his + senses, and imagined himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he + was beautifully patient with them. + </p> + <p> + ‘I heard Meon whisper, “If this keeps up we shall go to our Gods. I wonder + what Wotan will say to me. He must know I don’t believe in him. On the + other hand, I can’t do what Ethelwalch finds so easy—curry favour + with your God at the last minute, in the hope of being saved—as you + call it. How do you advise, Bishop?” ‘“My dear man,” I said, “if that is + your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far better not + curry favour with any God. But if it’s only your Jutish pride that holds + you back, lift me up, and I’ll baptize you even now.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Lie still,” said Meon. “I could judge better if I were in my own hall. + But to desert one’s fathers’ Gods—even if one doesn’t believe in + them—in the middle of a gale, isn’t quite—What would you do + yourself?” + </p> + <p> + ‘I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, steady + heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle arguments, + so I answered, “No, I certainly should not desert my God.” I don’t see + even now what else I could have said. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Thank you. I’ll remember that, if I live,” said Meon, and I must have + drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and beautiful France, for it + was broad daylight when I heard him calling on Wotan in that high, shaking + heathen yell that I detest so. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Lie quiet. I’m giving Wotan his chance,” he said. Our dear Eddi ambled + up, still beating time to his imaginary choir. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes. Call on your Gods,” he cried, “and see what gifts they will send + you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old Padda shot from + the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself over the weedy ledge, and + landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod between his teeth. I could not + help smiling at Eddi’s face. “A miracle! A miracle!” he cried, and kneeled + down to clean the cod. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You’ve been a long time finding us, my son,” said Meon. “Now fish—fish + for all our lives. We’re starving, Padda.” + </p> + <p> + ‘The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward into the + boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, “We’re safe. I’ll + send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat and be thankful.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took from + Padda’s mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his plunges Padda + would hunch up and purr over Meon with the tears running down his face. I + never knew before that seals could weep for joy—as I have wept. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Surely,” said Eddi, with his mouth full, “God has made the seal the + loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda breasts the + current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch the chain of + bubbles where he dives; and now—there is his wise head under that + rock-ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little brother Padda!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“You said he was a child of the Devil!” Meon laughed. ‘“There I sinned,” + poor Eddi answered. “Call him here, and I will ask his pardon. God sent + him out of the storm to humble me, a fool.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I won’t ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings with any + accursed brute,” said Meon, rather unkindly. “Shall we say he was sent to + our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your prophet Elijah?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Doubtless that is so,” said Eddi. “I will write it so if I live to get + home.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No—no!” I said. “Let us three poor men kneel and thank God for His + mercies.” + </p> + <p> + ‘We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head under Meon’s + elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So did Eddi. + </p> + <p> + ‘“And now, my son,” I said to Meon, “shall I baptize thee?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Not yet,” said he. “Wait till we are well ashore and at home. No God in + any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him because I was wet and + cold. I will send Padda to my people for a boat. Is that witchcraft, + Eddi?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by the skirts + of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to ask me to sing. Only + then I was afraid, and did not understand,” said Eddi. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You are understanding now,” said Meon, and at a wave of his arm off went + Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a war-boat till we lost him in + the rain. Meon’s people could not bring a boat across for some hours; even + so it was ticklish work among the rocks in that tideway. But they hoisted + me aboard, too stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us, barking and + turning somersaults all the way to Manhood End!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good old Padda!’ murmured Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had been + summoned—not an hour before—Meon offered himself to be + baptized.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was Padda baptized too?’ Una asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that was only Meon’s joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in the + middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn’t looking) made a little + cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi’s hand. A week + before Eddi wouldn’t have touched him. That was a miracle, if you like! + But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A rare and + splendid soul that never looked back—never looked back!’ The + Arch-bishop half closed his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘But, sir,’ said Puck, most respectfully, ‘haven’t you left out what Meon + said afterwards?’ Before the Bishop could speak he turned to the children + and went on: ‘Meon called all his fishers and ploughmen and herdsmen into + the hall and he said: “Listen, men! Two days ago I asked our Bishop + whether it was fair for a man to desert his fathers’ Gods in a time of + danger. Our Bishop said it was not fair. You needn’t shout like that, + because you are all Christians now. My red war-boat’s crew will remember + how near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over to the Bishop’s + islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place, at that time, + hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a Christian, + counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers’ Gods. I tell you now + that a faith which takes care that every man shall keep faith, even though + he may save his soul by breaking faith, is the faith for a man to believe + in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in Wilfrid His Bishop, and in + the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been baptized once by the King’s + orders. I shall not have you baptized again; but if I find any more old + women being sent to Wotan, or any girls dancing on the sly before Balder, + or any men talking about Thun or Lok or the rest, I will teach you with my + own hands how to keep faith with the Christian God. Go out quietly; you’ll + find a couple of beefs on the beach.” Then of course they shouted + “Hurrah!” which meant “Thor help us!” and—I think you laughed, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think you remember it all too well,’ said the Archbishop, smiling. ‘It + was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on that rock where + Padda found us. Yes—yess! One should deal kindly with all the + creatures of God, and gently with their masters. But one learns late.’ + </p> + <p> + He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly. + </p> + <p> + The organ cracked and took deep breaths. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wait a minute,’ Dan whispered. ‘She’s going to do the trumpety one. It + takes all the wind you can pump. It’s in Latin, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is no other tongue,’ the Archbishop answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not a real hymn,’ Una explained. ‘She does it as a treat after her + exercises. She isn’t a real organist, you know. She just comes down here + sometimes, from the Albert Hall.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, what a miracle of a voice!’ said the Archbishop. + </p> + <p> + It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises—every word + spoken to the very end: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Dies Irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla, + Teste David cum Sibylla.’ +The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward. The music carried on +by itself a while. +</pre> + <p> + ‘Now it’s calling all the light out of the windows,’ Una whispered to Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘I think it’s more like a horse neighing in battle,’ he whispered back. + The voice continued: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Tuba mirum spargens sonum + Per sepulchre regionum.’ +</pre> + <p> + Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its deepest note + they heard Puck’s voice joining in the last line: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Coget omnes ante thronum.’ +</pre> + <p> + As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one of the + very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out through the + south door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now’s the sorrowful part, but it’s very beautiful.’ Una found herself + speaking to the empty chair in front of her. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you doing that for?’ Dan said behind her. ‘You spoke so politely + too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know... I thought—’ said Una. ‘Funny!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘’Tisn’t. It’s the part you like best,’ Dan grunted. + </p> + <p> + The music had turned soft—full of little sounds that chased each + other on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But the + voice was ten times lovelier than the music. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Recordare Jesu pie, + Quod sum causa Tuae viae, + Ne me perdas illi die!’ +</pre> + <p> + There was no more. They moved out into the centre aisle. + </p> + <p> + ‘That you?’ the Lady called as she shut the lid. ‘I thought I heard you, + and I played it on purpose.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thank you awfully,’ said Dan. ‘We hoped you would, so we waited. Come on, + Una, it’s pretty nearly dinner-time.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Song of the Red War-Boat + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! + Watch for a smooth! Give way! + If she feels the lop already + She’ll stand on her head in the bay. + It’s ebb—it’s dusk—it’s blowing, + The shoals are a mile of white, + But (snatch her along!) we’re going + To find our master tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster + Of shipwreck, storm, or sword, + A man must stand by his master + When once he had pledged his word! + + Raging seas have we rowed in, + But we seldom saw them thus; + Our master is angry with Odin— + Odin is angry with us! + Heavy odds have we taken, + But never before such odds. + The Gods know they are forsaken, + We must risk the wrath of the Gods! + + Over the crest she flies from, + Into its hollow she drops, + Crouches and clears her eyes from + The wind-torn breaker-tops, + Ere out on the shrieking shoulder + Of a hill-high surge she drives. + Meet her! Meet her and hold her! + Pull for your scoundrel lives! + + The thunder bellow and clamour + The harm that they mean to do; + There goes Thor’s Own Hammer + Cracking the dark in two! + + Close! But the blow has missed her, + Here comes the wind of the blow! + Row or the squall’ll twist her + Broadside on to it!—-Row! + + Hearken, Thor of the Thunder! + We are not here for a jest— + For wager, warfare, or plunder, + Or to put your power to test. + This work is none of our wishing— + We would stay at home if we might— + But our master is wrecked out fishing, + We go to find him tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster— + As the Gods Themselves have said— + A man must stand by his master + Till one of the two is dead. + + That is our way of thinking, + Now you can do as you will, + While we try to save her from sinking, + And hold her head to it still. + Bale her and keep her moving, + Or she’ll break her back in the trough... + Who said the weather’s improving, + And the swells are taking off? + + Sodden, and chafed and aching, + Gone in the loins and knees— + No matter—the day is breaking, + And there’s far less weight to the seas! + Up mast, and finish baling— + In oars, and out with the mead— + The rest will be two-reef sailing... + That was a night indeed! + But we hold that in all disaster + (And faith, we have found it true!) + If only you stand by your master, + The Gods will stand by you! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + An Astrologer’s Song + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + To the Heavens above us + Oh, look and behold + The planets that love us + All harnessed in gold! + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? + + All thought, all desires, + That are under the sun, + Are one with their fires, + As we also are one; + All matter, all spirit, + All fashion, all frame, + Receive and inherit + Their strength from the same. + + (Oh, man that deniest + All power save thine own, + Their power in the highest + Is mightily shown. + Not less in the lowest + That power is made clear. + Oh, man, if thou knowest, + What treasure is here!) + + Earth quakes in her throes + And we wonder for why! + But the blind planet knows + When her ruler is nigh; + And, attuned since Creation, + To perfect accord, + She thrills in her station + And yearns to her Lord. + + The waters have risen, + The springs are unbound— + The floods break their prison, + And ravin around. + No rampart withstands ‘em, + Their fury will last, + Till the Sign that commands ‘em + Sinks low or swings past. + + Through abysses unproven, + And gulfs beyond thought, + Our portion is woven, + Our burden is brought. + Yet They that prepare it, + Whose Nature we share, + Make us who must bear it + Well able to bear. + + Though terrors o’ertake us + We’ll not be afraid, + No Power can unmake us + Save that which has made. + Nor yet beyond reason + Nor hope shall we fall— + All things have their season, + And Mercy crowns all. + + Then, doubt not, ye fearful— + The Eternal is King— + Up, heart, and be cheerful, + And lustily sing: + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A Doctor of Medicine + </h2> + <p> + They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had hung + his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the walled + garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash off when + Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and disappear as + she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her footsteps, somebody + (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener) coughed in the corner of + the herb-beds. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right,’ Una shouted across the asparagus; ‘we aren’t hurting your old + beds, Phippsey!’ + </p> + <p> + She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light they + saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, + walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the man said + something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they understood + he was warning them not to catch colds. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve a bit of a cold yourself, haven’t you?’ said Una, for he ended all + his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Child,’ the man answered, ‘if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with + an infirmity—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nay, nay,’ Puck struck In, ‘the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that + half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that’s a pity. + There’s honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good people’—the man shrugged his lean shoulders—‘the vulgar + crowd love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress + her to catch their eye or—ahem!—-their ear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And what d’you think of that?’ said Puck solemnly to Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘It sounds like lessons.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah—well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take + lessons from. Now, where can we sit that’s not indoors?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,’ Dan suggested. ‘He doesn’t + mind.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh?’ Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the light + of Una’s lamp. ‘Does Master Middenboro need my poor services, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Save him, no!’ said Puck. ‘He is but a horse—next door to an ass, + as you’ll see presently. Come!’ + </p> + <p> + Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out of + the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to the + shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyes + showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens’ + drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeper + stooped at the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind where you lie,’ said Dan. ‘This hay’s full of hedge-brishings. + </p> + <p> + ‘In! in!’ said Puck. ‘You’ve lain in fouler places than this, Nick. Ah! + Let us keep touch with the stars!’ He kicked open the top of the + half-door, and pointed to the clear sky. ‘There be the planets you conjure + with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable star + behind those apple boughs?’ + </p> + <p> + The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked down + the steep lane. ‘Where?’ Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. ‘That? Some + countryman’s lantern.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wrong, Nick,’ said Puck. ‘’Tis a singular bright star in Virgo, declining + towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hath lately been + afflicted by Gemini. Aren’t I right, Una?’ Mr Culpeper snorted + contemptuously. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. It’s the village nurse going down to the Mill about some fresh twins + that came there last week. Nurse,’ Una called, as the light stopped on the + flat, ‘when can I see the Morris twins? And how are they?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,’ the Nurse called back, and with + a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner. + </p> + <p> + ‘Her uncle’s a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,’ Una explained, and if you + ring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed—not downstairs + at all. Then she ‘umps up—she always keeps a pair of dry boots in + the fender, you know—and goes anywhere she’s wanted. We help her + bicycle through gaps sometimes. Most of her babies do beautifully. She + told us so herself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,’ said Mr Culpeper quietly. + ‘Twins at the Mill!’ he muttered half aloud. “And again He sayeth, Return, + ye children of men.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you a doctor or a rector?’ Una asked, and Puck with a shout turned + head over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was quite serious. He told + them that he was a physician-astrologer—a doctor who knew all about + the stars as well as all about herbs for medicine. He said that the sun, + the moon, and five Planets, called Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and + Venus, governed everybody and everything in the world. They all lived in + Houses—he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy + forefinger—and they moved from House to House like pieces at + draughts; and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. + If you knew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them cure + your patient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret causes of + things. He talked of these five Planets as though they belonged to him, or + as though he were playing long games against them. The children burrowed + in the hay up to their chins, and looked out over the half-door at the + solemn, star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside down into + it, while Mr Culpeper talked about ‘trines’ and ‘oppositions’ and + ‘conjunctions’ and ‘sympathies’ and ‘antipathies’ in a tone that just + matched things. + </p> + <p> + A rat ran between Middenboro’s feet, and the old pony stamped. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mid hates rats,’ said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. ‘I wonder + why.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Divine Astrology tells us,’ said Mr Culpeper. ‘The horse, being a martial + beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the red planet Mars—the + Lord of War. I would show you him, but he’s too near his setting. Rats and + mice, doing their businesses by night, come under the dominion of our Lady + the Moon. Now between Mars and Luna, the one red, t’other white, the one + hot t’other cold and so forth, stands, as I have told you, a natural + antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which antipathy their creatures do + inherit. Whence, good people, you may both see and hear your cattle stamp + in their stalls for the self-same causes as decree the passages of the + stars across the unalterable face of Heaven! Ahem!’ Puck lay along chewing + a leaf. They felt him shake with laughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I myself’ said he, ‘have saved men’s lives, and not a few neither, by + observing at the proper time—there is a time, mark you, for all + things under the sun—by observing, I say, so small a beast as a rat + in conjunction with so great a matter as this dread arch above us.’ He + swept his hand across the sky. ‘Yet there are those,’ he went on sourly, + ‘who have years without knowledge.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Right,’ said Puck. ‘No fool like an old fool.’ + </p> + <p> + Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while the children + stared at the Great Bear on the hilltop. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give him time,’ Puck whispered behind his hand. ‘He turns like a + timber-tug—all of a piece.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ahem!’ Mr Culpeper said suddenly. ‘I’ll prove it to you. When I was + physician to Saye’s Horse, and fought the King—or rather the man + Charles Stuart—in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at Cambridge), the + plague was very hot all around us. I saw it at close hands. He who says I + am ignorant of the plague, for example, is altogether beside the bridge.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We grant it,’ said Puck solemnly. ‘But why talk of the plague this rare + night?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good people, being + generated among rivers and ditches, was of a werish, watery nature. + Therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water, and + laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I cured some of them. Mark this. + It bears on what shall come after.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mark also, Nick,’ said Puck, that we are not your College of Physicians, + but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore be plain, old + Hyssop on the Wall!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while + gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took by the + King’s men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, whom I warned + honestly that I had spent the week past among our plague-stricken. He + flung me off into a cowshed, much like this here, to die, as I supposed; + but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound. He was a + Sussex man like myself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that?’ said Puck suddenly. ‘Zack Tutshom?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Jack Marget,’ said Mr Culpeper. + </p> + <p> + ‘Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered so? Why a + plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop when the King + should have conquered the rebels, as he styled us Parliament men. His + College had lent the King some monies too, which they never got again, no + more than simple Jack got his bishopric. When we met he had had a bitter + bellyful of King’s promises, and wished to return to his wife and babes. + This came about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I could stand of my + wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among the plague, and + Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from their camp. The King + had done with Jack now that Jack’s College had lent the money, and + Blagge’s physician could not abide me because I would not sit silent and + see him butcher the sick. (He was a College of Physicians man!) So Blagge, + I say, thrust us both out, with many vile words, for a pair of pestilent, + prating, pragmatical rascals.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?’ Puck started up. ‘High time Oliver + came to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack fare next?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We were in some sort constrained to each other’s company. I was for going + to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Sussex; but the + plague was broke out and spreading through Wiltshire, Berkshire, and + Hampshire, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even then + be among his folk at home that I bore him company. He had comforted me in + my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I had a + cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack’s parish. Thus we footed it from + Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars on the left + side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, or the plague + making men less cruel, we were not hindered. To be sure, they put us in + the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a village under St + Leonard’s forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales never sing; but the + constable very honestly gave me back my Astrological Almanac, which I + carry with me.’ Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. ‘I dressed a whitlow on + his thumb. So we went forward. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against Jack + Marget’s parish in a storm of rain about the day’s end. Here our roads + divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, but while + Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk, as he + conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, a + parishioner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himself + bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to follow + princes. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of it + neither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man’s head lay on it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s a plague-stone?’ Dan whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut the roads + against ‘em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where such as would + purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper of their wants, + and depart. Those that would sell come later—what will a man not do + for gain?—-snatch the money forth, and leave in exchange such goods + as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat in the water, + and the man’s list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in his wet hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘“My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!” says Jack of a sudden, and makes uphill—I + with him. + </p> + <p> + ‘A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village is + stricken with the plague, and that for our lives’ sake we must avoid it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Sweetheart!” says Jack. “Must I avoid thee?” and she leaps at him and + says the babes are safe. She was his wife. + </p> + <p> + ‘When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was not the + welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I was + clean. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now,” I said. + “These affairs are, under God’s leave, in some fashion my strength.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, sir,” she says, “are you a physician? We have none.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then, good people,” said I, “I must e’en justify myself to you by my + works.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Look—look ye,” stammers Jack, “I took you all this time for a + crazy Roundhead preacher.” He laughs, and she, and then I—all three + together in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of + laughter, which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the + Hysterical Passion. So I went home with ‘em.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?’ Puck + suggested. ‘’tis barely seven mile up the road.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But the plague was here,’ Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed up the hill. + ‘What else could I have done?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What were the parson’s children called?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles—a babe. I scarce saw them + at first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. The + mother we put—forced—into the house with her babes. She had + done enough. + </p> + <p> + ‘And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. The + plague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed + ‘em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the PRIME MOBILE, or source of + life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highest + degree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler’s, where they sell + forage to the carters, extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, and + scatteringly in other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Mark here, + that all forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn and meat and + wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was no plague in + the smithy at Munday’s Lane—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Munday’s Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked about + the two Mills,’ cried Dan. ‘Where did we put the plague-stone? I’d like to + have seen it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then look at it now,’ said Puck, and pointed to the chickens’ + drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough, + oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips, who + never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for his precious + hens. + </p> + <p> + ‘That?’ said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. Mr Culpeper + made impatient noises in his throat and went on. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would have + you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plague + which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfordshire was of a + watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred in, + and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague of ours + here, for all that it flourished along watercourses—every soul at + both Mills died of it,—could not be so handled. Which brought me to + a stand. Ahem!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And your sick people in the meantime?’ Puck demanded. ‘We persuaded them + on the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram’s field. Where the + plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would not shift for + fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their lives to die among + their goods.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Human nature,’ said Puck. ‘I’ve seen it time and again. How did your sick + do in the fields?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and even + then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. But I + confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, or come + at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flat + bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so—did what I + should have done before—dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions + that had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped my + vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned to wait + upon the stars for guidance.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At night? Were you not horribly frightened?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly curious to search + out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In due time—there’s + a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun—I spied a + whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath the dormer of an + attic through which shined our Lady the Moon. Whilst I looked on him—and + her—she was moving towards old cold Saturn, her ancient ally—the + rat creeped languishingly into her light, and there, before my eyes, died. + Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him down beside there, and + in like fashion died too. Later—an hour or less to midnight—a + third rat did e’en the same; always choosing the moonlight to die in. This + threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, the moonlight is favourable, + not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon; and Saturn, being friends with + her, as you would say, was hourly strengthening her evil influence. Yet + these three rats had been stricken dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of + the window to see which of Heaven’s host might be on our side, and there + beheld I good trusty Mars, very red and heated, bustling about his + setting. I straddled the roof to see better. + </p> + <p> + ‘Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram’s field. + A tile slipped under my foot. + </p> + <p> + Says he, heavily enough, “Watchman, what of the night?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Heart up, Jack,” says I. “Methinks there’s one fighting for us that, + like a fool, I’ve forgot all this summer.” My meaning was naturally the + planet Mars. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pray to Him then,” says he. “I forgot Him too this summer.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of having forgotten + up in Oxfordshire, among the King’s men. I called down that he had made + amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but he said he would + not believe so till the plague was lifted from ‘em. He was at his + strength’s end—more from melancholy than any just cause. I have seen + this before among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him then and + there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, but + are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What were they?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of pepper, + and aniseed.’ ‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Waters you call ‘em!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I was for the + Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind had + already shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles, + but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. That + practice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to make judgment + sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and his + lantern among the sick in Hitheram’s field. He still maintained the + prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by + Cromwell.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,’ said Puck, ‘and Jack would + have been fined for it, and you’d have had half the money. How did you + come so to fail in your duty, Nick?’ + </p> + <p> + Mr Culpeper laughed—his only laugh that evening—and the + children jumped at the loud neigh of it. + </p> + <p> + ‘We were not fearful of men’s judgment in those days,’ he answered. ‘Now + mark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, though not + to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, low down in + the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun’s rising-place. Our Lady the + Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak + astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed the + Maker of ‘em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew himself below the + sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright star or + vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up his sword), + and broke all about in fire. The cocks crowed midnight through the valley, + and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint (though that’s an + herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses’ heads in the world! + ‘Twas plain enough now!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was plain?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had fought for + us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, and this had + made me overlook him in my computations, he more than any of the other + planets had kept the Heavens—which is to say, had been visible some + part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore his fierce and + cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, had stretched out to kill + those three rats under my nose, and under the nose of their natural + mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across Heaven to deal our + Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his shield, but I had never + before seen his strength displayed so effectual.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because he + hated the Moon?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge’s men pushed me + forth,’ Mr Culpeper answered. ‘I’ll prove it. Why had the plague not broken + out at the blacksmith’s shop in Munday’s Lane? Because, as I’ve shown you, + forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for his honour’s sake, + Mars ‘ud keep ‘em clean from the creatures of the Moon. But was it like, + think you, that he’d come down and rat-catch in general for lazy, + ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse to death. So, then, + you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above him when he set was + simply this: “Destroy and burn the creatures Of the moon, for they are the + root of your trouble. And thus, having shown you a taste of my power, good + people, adieu.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did Mars really say all that?’ Una whispered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear. Briefly, + he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures of the Moon. + The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the offender. My own poor wits + showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge, God’s good + providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither. + </p> + <p> + ‘I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram’s field amongst ‘em all at + prayers. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Eureka, good people!” I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat which I’d + found. “Here’s your true enemy, revealed at last by the stars.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nay, but I’m praying,” says Jack. His face was as white as washed + silver. + </p> + <p> + ‘“There’s a time for everything under the sun,” says I. “If you would stay + the plague, take and kill your rats.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, mad, stark mad!” says he, and wrings his hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he’d as soon die + mad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold fallow. They laughed + round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on his knees, and very + presumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save the rest + of his people. This was enough to thrust ‘em back into their melancholy. + ‘“You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack,” I says. “Take a bat” (which we + call a stick in Sussex) “and kill a rat if you die before sunrise. ‘Twill + save your people.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat,” he says ten times over, like a + child, which moved ‘em to ungovernable motions of that hysterical passion + before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and at least warmed their + chill bloods at that very hour—one o’clock or a little after—when + the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a time for everything; and + the physician must work with it—ahem!—or miss his cure. To be + brief with you, I persuaded ‘em, sick or sound, to have at the whole + generation of rats throughout the village. And there’s a reason for all + things too, though the wise physician need not blab ‘em all. Imprimis, or + firstly, the mere sport of it, which lasted ten days, drew ‘em most + markedly out of their melancholy. I’d defy sorrowful job himself to lament + or scratch while he’s routing rats from a rick. Secundo, or secondly, the + vehement act and operation of this chase or war opened their skins to + generous transpiration—more vulgarly, sweated ‘em handsomely; and + this further drew off their black bile—the mother of sickness. + Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats, I sprinkled sulphur + on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as handsomely suffumigated. + This I could not have compassed if I had made it a mere physician’s + business; they’d have thought it some conjuration. Yet more, we cleansed, + limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes, sinks, slews, and corners + of unvisited filth in and about the houses in the village, and by good + fortune (mark here that Mars was in opposition to Venus) burned the + corn-handler’s shop to the ground. Mars loves not Venus. Will Noakes the + saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw while he was rat-hunting + there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by any + chance?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘A glass—or two glasses—not more. But as I would say, in fine, + when we had killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from the + smithy, and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a brickyard + belongs to Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat-runs and + buries, and beneath all the house floors. The Creatures of the Moon hate + all that Mars hath used for his own clean ends. For example—rats + bite not iron.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched a loose + cough, which I cured with electuaries, according to art. It is noteworthy, + were I speaking among my equals, that the venom of the plague translated, + or turned itself into, and evaporated, or went away as, a very heavy + hoarseness and thickness of the head, throat, and chest. (Observe from my + books which planets govern these portions of man’s body, and your + darkness, good people, shall be illuminated—ahem!) None the less, + the plague, qua plague, ceased and took off (for we only lost three more, + and two of ‘em had it already on ‘em) from the morning of the day that + Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.’ He coughed—almost trumpeted—triumphantly. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is proved,’ he jerked out. ‘I say I have proved my contention, which + is, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the veritable causes + of things—at the proper time—the sons of wisdom may combat + even the plague.’ + </p> + <p> + H’m!’ Puck replied. ‘For my own part I hold that a simple soul—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mine? Simple, forsooth?’ said Mr Culpeper. + </p> + <p> + ‘A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and stubborn + conceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. So I confess + truly that you saved the village, Nick.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God’s + good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk as + that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my work + in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer in + the pulpit.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the + plague was stayed. He took for his text: “The wise man that delivered the + city.” I could have given him a better, such as: “There is a time for—“’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what made you go to church to hear him?’ Puck interrupted. ‘Wail + Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!’ + </p> + <p> + Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily. + </p> + <p> + ‘The vulgar,’ said he, ‘the old crones and—ahem!—-the + children, Alison and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by + the hand. I was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the + mummeries of the falsely-called Church, which, I’ll prove to you, are + founded merely on ancient fables—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stick to your herbs and planets,’ said Puck, laughing. ‘You should have + told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did you neglect + your plain duty?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because—because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the + rest of ‘em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the Hysterical + Passion. It may be—it may be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s as may be,’ said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. ‘Why, your hay + is half hedge-brishings,’ he said. ‘You don’t expect a horse to thrive on + oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?’ + </p> + <p> + Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was coming + back from the mill. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it all right?’ Una called. + </p> + <p> + ‘All quite right,’ Nurse called back. ‘They’re to be christened next + Sunday.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? What?’ They both leaned forward across the half-door. It could not + have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out with hay + and leaves sticking all over them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come on! We must get those two twins’ names,’ said Una, and they charged + uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and told them. When + they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, and they spent a + lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ‘Our Fathers of Old’ + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Excellent herbs had our fathers of old— + Excellent herbs to ease their pain— + Alexanders and Marigold, + Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane, + Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue, + (Almost singing themselves they run) + Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you— + Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun. + Anything green that grew out of the mould + Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old. + + Wonderful tales had our fathers of old— + Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars— + The Sun was Lord of the Marigold, + Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars. + Pat as a sum in division it goes— + (Every plant had a star bespoke)— + Who but Venus should govern the Rose? + Who but Jupiter own the Oak? + Simply and gravely the facts are told + In the wonderful books of our fathers of old. + + Wonderful little, when all is said, + Wonderful little our fathers knew. + Half their remedies cured you dead— + Most of their teaching was quite untrue— + ‘Look at the stars when a patient is ill, + (Dirt has nothing to do with disease,) + Bleed and blister as much as you will, + Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.’ + Whence enormous and manifold + Errors were made by our fathers of old. + + Yet when the sickness was sore in the land, + And neither planet nor herb assuaged, + They took their lives in their lancet-hand + And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged! + Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door— + Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled, + Excellent courage our fathers bore— + Excellent heart had our fathers of old. + Not too learned, but nobly bold, + Into the fight went our fathers of old. + + If it be certain, as Galen says, + And sage Hippocrates holds as much— + ‘That those afflicted by doubts and dismays + Are mightily helped by a dead man’s touch,’ + Then, be good to us, stars above! + Then, be good to us, herbs below! + We are afflicted by what we can prove; + We are distracted by what we know— + So—ah, so! + Down from your Heaven or up from your mould, + Send us the hearts of our fathers of old! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SIMPLE SIMON + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Thousandth Man + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. + And it’s worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + on what the world sees in you, + But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you. + + ‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show + Will settle the finding for ‘ee. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go + By your looks or your acts or your glory. + But if he finds you and you find him, + The rest of the world don’t matter; + For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim + With you in any water. + + You can use his purse with no more shame + Than he uses yours for his spendings; + And laugh and mention it just the same + As though there had been no lendings. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call + For silver and gold in their dealings; + But the Thousandth Man he’s worth ‘em all, + Because you can show him your feelings! + + His wrong’s your wrong, and his right’s your right, + In season or out of season. + Stand up and back it in all men’s sight— + With that for your only reason! + Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, + But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + To the gallows-foot—and after! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Simple Simon + </h2> + <p> + Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He + stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His real + name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and years + ago, he told them he was ‘carting wood,’ and it sounded so exactly like + ‘cattiwow’ that they never called him anything else. + </p> + <p> + ‘HI!’ Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had been + watching the lane. ‘What are you doing? Why weren’t we told?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They’ve just sent for me,’ Cattiwow answered. ‘There’s a middlin’ big log + stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and’—he flicked his whip back + along the line—‘so they’ve sent for us all.’ + </p> + <p> + Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under black Sailor’s + nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes the body of the + timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth thuttered. + </p> + <p> + The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you see + all the horses’ backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs. + Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman’s petticoat, belted at the + waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red lips + showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth too, with + a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He navigated the + tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their faces, and through + clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, and when they hit an + old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it would give way in + showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again. + </p> + <p> + At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood + round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was poached + and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt was driven up in + front of the butt. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you want to bury her for this way?’ said Cattiwow. He took his + broad-axe and went up the log tapping it. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s sticked fast,’ said ‘Bunny’ Lewknor, who managed the other team. + </p> + <p> + Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked their + ears forward, looked, and shook themselves. + </p> + <p> + ‘I believe Sailor knows,’ Dan whispered to Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘He do,’ said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the + others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all the + wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness he + might have been Bunny Lewknor’s brother, except that his brown eyes were + as soft as a spaniel’s, and his rounded black beard, beginning close up + under them, reminded Una of the walrus in ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t he justabout know?’ he said shyly, and shifted from one foot to the + other. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. “What Cattiwow can’t get out of the woods must have roots growing to + her.”’ Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before. + </p> + <p> + At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools of black + water in the ling. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look out!’ cried Una, jumping forward. ‘He’ll see you, Puck!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Me and Mus’ Robin are pretty middlin’ well acquainted,’ the man answered + with a smile that made them forget all about walruses. + </p> + <p> + ‘This is Simon Cheyneys,’ Puck began, and cleared his throat. ‘Shipbuilder + of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, look! Look ye! That’s a knowing one,’ said the man. + </p> + <p> + Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and was moving + them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it, heading + downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginning with + Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost to their + knees. The log shifted a nail’s breadth in the clinging dirt, with the + noise of a giant’s kiss. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re getting her!’ Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. ‘Hing on! Hing on, + lads, or she’ll master ye! Ah!’ + </p> + <p> + Sailor’s left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men + whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for + it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hai!’ shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across + Sailor’s loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed as + he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him. The thin + end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt ground + round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor snapped + on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and snorting, they + had the whole thing out on the heather. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dat’s the very first time I’ve knowed you lay into Sailor—to hurt + him,’ said Lewknor. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is,’ said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. ‘But I’d + ha’ laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we’ll twitch her down the + hill a piece—she lies just about right—and get her home by the + low road. My team’ll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind out!’ + </p> + <p> + He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half + rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by the + wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to see + but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth still + shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ye heard him?’ Simon Cheyneys asked. ‘He cherished his horse, but he’d + ha’ laid him open in that pinch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not for his own advantage,’ said Puck quickly. ‘’Twas only to shift the + log.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world—if + so be you’re hintin’ at any o’ Frankie’s doings. He never hit beyond + reason or without reason,’ said Simon. + </p> + <p> + ‘I never said a word against Frankie,’ Puck retorted, with a wink at the + children. ‘An’ if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so, + seeing how you—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowed Frankie + for all he was?’ The burly sack-clad man puffed down at cool little Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, and the first which set out to poison him—Frankie—on the + high seas—’ + </p> + <p> + Simon’s angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immense + hands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly. + </p> + <p> + ‘But let me tell you, Mus’ Robin,’ he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look, Una!’—-Puck’s + straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. ‘There’s the only man that + ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Mus’ Robin! ‘Tidn’t fair. You’ve the ‘vantage of us all in your + upbringin’s by hundreds o’ years. Stands to nature you know all the tales + against every one.’ + </p> + <p> + He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, ‘Stop ragging + him, Puck! You know he didn’t really.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?’ ‘Because—because he + doesn’t look like it,’ said Una stoutly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I thank you,’ said Simon to Una. ‘I—I was always trustable-like + with children if you let me alone, you double handful o’ mischief.’ He + pretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his shyness overtook him + afresh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?’ said Dan, not liking being called + a child. + </p> + <p> + ‘At Rye Port, to be sure,’ said Simon, and seeing Dan’s bewilderment, + repeated it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, but look here,’ said Dan. ‘“Drake he was a Devon man.” The song says + so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“And ruled the Devon seas,”’ Una went on. ‘That’s what I was thinking—if + you don’t mind.’ + </p> + <p> + Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he swelled in silence + while Puck laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hutt!’ he burst out at last, ‘I’ve heard that talk too. If you listen to + them West Country folk, you’ll listen to a pack o’ lies. I believe Frankie + was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his father had to run + for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours was wishful to kill + him, d’ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did, an’ Frankie was + brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medway river, same as it + might ha’ been the Rother. Brought up at sea, you might say, before he + could walk on land—nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain’t Kent back-door to + Sussex? And don’t that make Frankie Sussex? O’ course it do. Devon man! + Bah! Those West Country boats they’re always fishin’ in other folks’ + water.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Dan. ‘I’m sorry. + </p> + <p> + ‘No call to be sorry. You’ve been misled. I met Frankie at Rye Port when + my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me off his wharf-edge on + to Frankie’s ship. Frankie had put in from Chatham with his rudder + splutted, and a man’s arm—Moon’s that ‘ud be—broken at the + tiller. “Take this boy aboard an’ drown him,” says my Uncle, “and I’ll + mend your rudder-piece for love.” + </p> + <p> + ‘What did your Uncle want you drowned for?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus’ Robin. I’d a + foolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron. Yes—iron + ships! I’d made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat out thin—and + she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein’ a burgess of Rye, and a + shipbuilder, he ‘prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin’ trade, to cure + this foolishness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What was the fetchin’ trade?’ Dan interrupted. + </p> + <p> + ‘Fetchin’ poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o’ the Low Countries into + England. The King o’ Spain, d’ye see, he was burnin’ ‘em in those parts, + for to make ‘em Papishers, so Frankie he fetched ‘em away to our parts, + and a risky trade it was. His master wouldn’t never touch it while he + lived, but he left his ship to Frankie when he died, and Frankie turned + her into this fetchin’ trade. Outrageous cruel hard work—on + besom-black nights bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals + on all sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of a + Spanish galliwopses’ oars creepin’ up on ye. Frankie ‘ud have the tiller + and Moon he’d peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his skirts, till + the boat we was lookin’ for ‘ud blurt up out o’ the dark, and we’d lay + hold and haul aboard whoever ‘twas—man, woman, or babe—an’ + round we’d go again, the wind bewling like a kite in our riggin’s, and + they’d drop into the hold and praise God for happy deliverance till they + was all sick. + </p> + <p> + ‘I had nigh a year at it, an’ we must have fetched off—oh, a hundred + pore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie growed to be. + Outrageous cunnin’ he was. Once we was as near as nothin’ nipped by a tall + ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. She had the wind of us, and spooned + straight before it, shootin’ all bow guns. Frankie fled inshore smack for + the beach, till he was atop of the first breakers. Then he hove his anchor + out, which nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched us round end-for-end + into the wind, d’ye see, an’ we clawed off them sands like a drunk man + rubbin’ along a tavern bench. When we could see, the Spanisher was laid + flat along in the breakers with the snows whitening on his wet belly. He + thought he could go where Frankie went.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What happened to the crew?’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘We didn’t stop,’ Simon answered. ‘There was a very liddle new baby in our + hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some dry bed middlin’ quick. We + runned into Dover, and said nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?’ ‘Heart alive, maid, he’d no + head to his name in those days. He was just a outrageous, valiant, + crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, roarin’ up an’ down the narrer seas, with + his beard not yet quilted out. He made a laughing-stock of everything all + day, and he’d hold our lives in the bight of his arm all the besom-black + night among they Dutch sands; and we’d ha’ jumped overside to behove him + any one time, all of us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then why did you try to poison him?’ Una asked wickedly, and Simon hung + his head like a shy child. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because our cook was + hurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched adrift like in the bag, + an’ the more I biled the bits of her, the less she favoured any fashion o’ + pudden. Moon he chawed and chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed and + chammed his’n, and—no words to it—he took me by the ear an’ + walked me out over the bow-end, an’ him an’ Moon hove the pudden at me on + the bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!’ Simon rubbed his hairy + cheek. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nex’ time you bring me anything,” says Frankie, “you bring me + cannon-shot an’ I’ll know what I’m getting.” But as for poisonin’—’ + He stopped, the children laughed so. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Una. ‘Oh, Simon, we do like you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was always likeable with children.’ His smile crinkled up through the + hair round his eyes. ‘Simple Simon they used to call me through our yard + gates.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did Sir Francis mock you?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did—he was always laughing—but + not so as to hurt a feather. An’ I loved ‘en. I loved ‘en before England + knew ‘en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he hadn’t really done anything when you knew him, had he?’ Una + insisted. ‘Armadas and those things, I mean.’ + </p> + <p> + Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow’s great log. ‘You + tell me that that good ship’s timber never done nothing against winds and + weathers since her up-springing, and I’ll confess ye that young Frankie + never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured and suffered and made + shift on they Dutch sands as much in any one month as ever he had occasion + for to do in a half-year on the high seas afterwards. An’ what was his + tools? A coaster boat—a liddle box o’ walty plankin’ an’ some few + fathom feeble rope held together an’ made able by him sole. He drawed our + spirits up In our bodies same as a chimney-towel draws a fire. ‘Twas in + him, and it comed out all times and shapes.’ ‘I wonder did he ever ‘magine + what he was going to be? Tell himself stories about it?’ said Dan with a + flush. + </p> + <p> + ‘I expect so. We mostly do—even when we’re grown. But bein’ Frankie, + he took good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had I + rightly ought to tell ‘em this piece?’ Simon turned to Puck, who nodded. + </p> + <p> + ‘My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she had + gifts by inheritance laid up in her,’ Simon began. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’ll never do,’ cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. ‘Do + you remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as her + blood and get lasted?’ [See ‘Dymchurch Flit’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] + ‘Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther through a + millstone than most,’ Dan answered promptly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, Simon’s Aunt’s mother,’ said Puck slowly, ‘married the Widow’s + blind son on the Marsh, and Simon’s Aunt was the one chosen to see + farthest through millstones. Do you understand?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That was what I was gettin’ at,’ said Simon, ‘but you’re so desperate + quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin’ to people. My Uncle being a + burgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt she + couldn’t be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurted her + head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had ‘em, he was + all for nothin’ till she foretold on him—till she looked in his hand + to tell his fortune, d’ye see? One time we was at Rye she come aboard with + my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the life out of her + about it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, you’ll be twice wed, and die childless,” she says, and pushes his + hand away. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That’s the woman’s part,” he says. “What’ll come to me-to me?” an’ he + thrusts it back under her nose. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Gold—gold, past belief or counting,” she says. “Let go o’ me, + lad.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Sink the gold!” he says. “What’ll I do, mother?” He coaxed her like no + woman could well withstand. I’ve seen him with ‘em—even when they + were sea-sick. + </p> + <p> + ‘“If you will have it,” she says at last, “you shall have it. You’ll do a + many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world’s + end will be the least of them. For you’ll open a road from the East unto + the West, and back again, and you’ll bury your heart with your best friend + by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so long as you’re + let lie quiet in your grave.” + </p> + <p> + [The old lady’s prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now the Panama + Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay where Sir Francis + Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, and the road round + Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.] + </p> + <p> + ‘“And if I’m not?” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, then,” she says, “Sim’s iron ships will be sailing on dry land. Now + ha’ done with this foolishness. Where’s Sim’s shirt?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He couldn’t fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the cabin, + he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. ‘“My Sorrow!” + says my Aunt; “d’ye see that? The great world lying in his hand, liddle + and round like a apple.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, ‘tis one you gived him,” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“To be sure,” she says. “‘Tis just a apple,” and she went ashore with her + hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts. + </p> + <p> + Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite + extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin’ trade, we + met Mus’ Stenning’s boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that the + Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English, and + their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs’ backs. + Mus’ Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece, knowin’ + that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk a great + gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin’ at us. We + left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon,” says Frankie, + humourin’ her at the tiller. “I’ll have to open that other one your Aunt + foretold of.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“The Spanisher’s crowdin’ down on us middlin’ quick,” I says. “No odds,” + says Frankie, “he’ll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt say + I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Till my iron ships sailed dry land,” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“That’s foolishness,” he says. “Who cares where Frankie Drake makes a + hole in the water now or twenty years from now?” + </p> + <p> + ‘The Spanisher kept muckin’ on more and more canvas. I told him so. + </p> + <p> + ‘“He’s feelin’ the tide,” was all he says. “If he was among Tergoes Sands + with this wind, we’d be picking his bones proper. I’d give my heart to + have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale, and me to + windward. There’d be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt say she saw the + world settin’ in my hand, Sim?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yes, but ‘twas a apple,” says I, and he laughed like he always did at + me. “Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be done with + everything?” he asks after a while. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No. What water comes aboard is too wet as ‘tis,” I says. “The + Spanisher’s going about.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I told you,” says he, never looking back. “He’ll give us the Pope’s + Blessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There’s no knowin’ where + stray shots may hit.” So I came down off the rail, and leaned against it, + and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the wind, and his port-lids opened + all red inside. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Now what’ll happen to my road if they don’t let me lie quiet in my + grave?” he says. “Does your Aunt mean there’s two roads to be found and + kept open—or what does she mean? I don’t like that talk about + t’other road. D’you believe in your iron ships, Sim?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. ‘“Anybody + but me ‘ud call you a fool, Sim,” he says. “Lie down. Here comes the + Pope’s Blessing!” + </p> + <p> + ‘The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fell short + except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an’ I felt most + won’erful cold. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Be you hit anywhere to signify?” he says. “Come over to me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“O Lord, Mus’ Drake,” I says, “my legs won’t move,” and that was the last + I spoke for months.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? What had happened?’ cried Dan and Una together. + </p> + <p> + ‘The rail had jarred me in here like.’ Simon reached behind him clumsily. + ‘From my shoulders down I didn’t act no shape. Frankie carried me + piggyback to my Aunt’s house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied while she + rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith in rubbing + with the hands. P’raps she put some of her gifts into it, too. Last of + all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I was whole restored + again, but kitten-feeble. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Where’s Frankie?” I says, thinking I’d been a longish while abed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Down-wind amongst the Dons—months ago,” says my Aunt. + </p> + <p> + ‘“When can I go after ‘en?” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Your duty’s to your town and trade now,” says she. “Your Uncle he died + last Michaelmas and he’ve left you and me the yard. So no more iron ships, + mind ye.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“What?” I says. “And you the only one that beleft in ‘em!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Maybe I do still,” she says, “but I’m a woman before I’m a Whitgift, and + wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay on ye to do so.” + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s why I’ve never teched iron since that day—not to build a toy + ship of. I’ve never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of + evenings.’ Simon smiled down on them all. ‘Whitgift blood is terrible + resolute—on the she-side,’ said Puck. + </p> + <p> + ‘Didn’t You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never + clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of his + mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning shifts + and passes he’d worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands, but, + naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him knight, + he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell to. She + cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, having + set him on his won’erful road; but I reckon he’d ha’ gone that way all + withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in his hand + like an apple, an’ he burying his best friend, Mus’ Doughty—’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never mind for Mus’ Doughty,’ Puck interrupted. ‘Tell us where you met + Sir Francis next.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye—the same year + which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie’s leave.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The Armada!’ said Dan contentedly. ‘I was hoping that would come.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I knowed Frankie would never let ‘em smell London smoke, but plenty good + men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. ‘Twas the noise of the + gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off behind the + Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and growed, and by the + end of a week women was shruckin’ in the streets. Then they come + slidderin’ past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished with red + gun-fire, and our ships flyin’ forth and duckin’ in again. The smoke-pat + sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was edgin’ the + Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I says to my Aunt, + “The smoke’s thinnin’ out. I lay Frankie’s just about scrapin’ his hold + for a few last rounds shot. ‘Tis time for me to go.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Never in them clothes,” she says. “Do on the doublet I bought you to be + made burgess in, and don’t you shame this day.” + </p> + <p> + ‘So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I be comin’, too,” she says from her chamber, and forth she come + pavisandin’ like a peacock—stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a + notable woman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But how did you go? You haven’t told us,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘In my own ship—but half-share was my Aunt’s. In the ANTONY OF RYE, + to be sure; and not empty-handed. I’d been loadin’ her for three days with + the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three sizes; + and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of clean + three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and gubs of + good oakum, and bolts o’ canvas, and all the sound rope in the yard. What + else could I ha’ done? I knowed what he’d need most after a week’s such + work. I’m a shipbuilder, little maid. + </p> + <p> + ‘We’d a fair slant o’ wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell + light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by + Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending ‘emselves like dogs + lickin’ bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and + the ball ‘ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished + fightin’ for that tide. + </p> + <p> + ‘The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an’ men + was shorin’ ‘em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace, his + pumps clackin’ middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third, mending + shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus’ Drake might be, + and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and saw what we + carried. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Lay alongside you!” he says. “We’ll take that all.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“‘Tis for Mus’ Drake,” I says, keeping away lest his size should lee the + wind out of my sails. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hi! Ho! Hither! We’re Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or + we’ll hang ye,” he says. + </p> + <p> + ‘’Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn’t Frankie, and while he + talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides + splintered. We was all in the middest of ‘em then. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hi! Hoi!” the green ship says. “Come alongside, honest man, and I’ll buy + your load. I’m Fenner that fought the seven Portugals—clean out of + shot or bullets. Frankie knows me.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ay, but I don’t,” I says, and I slacked nothing. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was a masterpiece. Seein’ I was for goin’ on, he hails a Bridport hoy + beyond us and shouts, “George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He’s fat!” An’ + true as we’re all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to acrost our + bows, intendin’ to stop us by means o’ shooting. + </p> + <p> + ‘My Aunt looks over our rail. “George,” she says, “you finish with your + enemies afore you begin on your friends.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an’ + calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry + sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman. + </p> + <p> + ‘Then he come up—his long pennant trailing overside—his + waistcloths and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had + grappled, and his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like + candle-smoke in a bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, Mus’ Drake! Mus’ Drake!” I calls up. + </p> + <p> + ‘He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and + his face shining like the sun. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Why, Sim!” he says. Just like that—after twenty year! “Sim,” he + says, “what brings you?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pudden,” I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an’ I’ve brought ‘em.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o’ brimstone Spanish, + and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine young + captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to unload us. + When he saw how I’d considered all his likely wants, he kissed me again. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Here’s a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!” he says. + “Mistress,” he says to my Aunt, “all you foretold on me was true. I’ve + opened that road from the East to the West, and I’ve buried my heart + beside it.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I know,” she says. “That’s why I be come.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But ye never foretold this”; he points to both they great fleets. + </p> + <p> + ‘“This don’t seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a + man,” she says. “Do it?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he’s proper mucked up with + work. Sim,” he says to me, “we must shift every living Spanisher round + Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind’ll come out + of the North after this calm—same as it used—and then they’re + our meat.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Amen,” says I. “I’ve brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and + ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh, our folk’ll attend to all that when we’ve time,” he says. He turns + to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I think + I saw old Moon amongst ‘em, but he was too busy to more than nod like. Yet + the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and candles before + we’d cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o’ useful stuff I’d fetched + him. ‘“Now, Sim,” says my Aunt, “no more devouring of Mus’ Drake’s time. + He’s sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to speak to them young + springalds again.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But here’s our ship all ready and swept,” I says. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Swep’ an’ garnished,” says Frankie. “I’m going to fill her with devils + in the likeness o’ pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round Dunkirk + corner, and if shot can’t do it, we’ll send down fireships.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I’ve given him my share of the ANTONY,” says my Aunt. “What do you + reckon to do about yours?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“She offered it,” said Frankie, laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘“She wouldn’t have if I’d overheard her,” I says; “because I’d have + offered my share first.” Then I told him how the ANTONY’s sails was best + trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupations we + went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him. + </p> + <p> + ‘But Frankie was gentle-born, d’ye see, and that sort they never overlook + any folks’ dues. + </p> + <p> + ‘When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poop + same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played “Mary + Ambree” on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, little + maid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful! + </p> + <p> + ‘Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub + wiping his forehead. + </p> + <p> + ‘We’ve got the stick to rights now! She’ve been a whole hatful o’ trouble. + You come an’ ride her home, Mus’ Dan and Miss Una!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the log + double-chained on the tug. + </p> + <p> + ‘Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?’ said Dan, as they straddled + the thin part. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin’-boat, I’ve + heard. Hold tight!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, and + leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Frankie’s Trade + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Old Horn to All Atlantic said: + (A-hay O! To me O!) + ‘Now where did Frankie learn his trade? + For he ran me down with a three-reef mains’le.’ + (All round the Horn!) + + Atlantic answered: ‘Not from me! + You’d better ask the cold North Sea, + For he ran me down under all plain canvas.’ + (All round the Horn!) + + The North Sea answered: ‘He’s my man, + For he came to me when he began— + Frankie Drake in an open coaster. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I caught him young and I used him sore, + So you never shall startle Frankie more, + Without capsizing Earth and her waters. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I did not favour him at all, + I made him pull and I made him haul— + And stand his trick with the common sailors. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind, + And kicked him home with his road to find + By what he could see of a three-day snow-storm. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘I learned him his trade o’ winter nights, + ‘Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights + On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing. + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘Before his beard began to shoot, + I showed him the length of the Spaniard’s foot— + And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later. + (All round the Sands!) + ‘If there’s a risk which you can make + That’s worse than he was used to take + Nigh every week in the way of his business; + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘If there’s a trick that you can try + Which he hasn’t met in time gone by, + Not once or twice, but ten times over; + (All round the Sands!) + + ‘If you can teach him aught that’s new, + (A-hay O! To me O!) + I’ll give you Bruges and Niewport too, + And the ten tall churches that stand between ‘em.’ + Storm along, my gallant Captains! + (All round the Horn!) +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE TREE OF JUSTICE + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + About the time that taverns shut + And men can buy no beer, + Two lads went up by the keepers’ hut + To steal Lord Pelham’s deer. + + Night and the liquor was in their heads— + They laughed and talked no bounds, + Till they waked the keepers on their beds, + And the keepers loosed the hounds. + + They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind, + Ready to carry away, + When they heard a whimper down the wind + And they heard a bloodhound bay. + + They took and ran across the fern, + Their crossbows in their hand, + Till they met a man with a green lantern + That called and bade ‘em stand. + + ‘What are you doing, O Flesh and Blood, + And what’s your foolish will, + That you must break into Minepit Wood + And wake the Folk of the Hill?’ + + ‘Oh, we’ve broke into Lord Pelham’s park, + And killed Lord Pelham’s deer, + And if ever you heard a little dog bark + You’ll know why we come here!’ + + ‘We ask you let us go our way, + As fast as we can flee, + For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay, + You’ll know how pressed we be.’ + + ‘Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank + And drop the knife from your hand, + And though the hounds are at your flank + I’ll save you where you stand!’ + They laid their crossbows on the bank, + They threw their knives in the wood, + And the ground before them opened and sank + And saved ‘em where they stood. + ‘Oh, what’s the roaring in our ears + That strikes us well-nigh dumb?’ + ‘Oh, that is just how things appears + According as they come.’ + + ‘What are the stars before our eyes + That strike us well-nigh blind?’ + ‘Oh, that is just how things arise + According as you find.’ + + ‘And why’s our bed so hard to the bones + Excepting where it’s cold?’ + ‘Oh, that’s because it is precious stones + Excepting where ‘tis gold. + + ‘Think it over as you stand + For I tell you without fail, + If you haven’t got into Fairyland + You’re not in Lewes Gaol.’ + + All night long they thought of it, + And, come the dawn, they saw + They’d tumbled into a great old pit, + At the bottom of Minepit Shaw. + + And the keepers’ hound had followed ‘em close + And broke her neck in the fall; + So they picked up their knives and their cross-bows + And buried the dog. That’s all. + + But whether the man was a poacher too + Or a Pharisee so bold— + I reckon there’s more things told than are true, + And more things true than are told. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Tree of Justice + </h2> + <p> + It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou’-West wind singing through + Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set out + after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months’ job in the Rough + at the back of Pound’s Wood. He had promised to get them a dormouse in its + nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice; the long chestnut + leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with + scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own short + cuts to the edge of Pound’s Wood, and heard a horse’s feet just as they + came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the vermin. The poor + little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches—some perfectly good, + but most of them dried to twisted strips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Three more owls,’ said Dan, counting. ‘Two stoats, four jays, and a + kestrel. That’s ten since last week. Ridley’s a beast.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.’ Sir Richard Dalyngridge + reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. [This is the + Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL. See ‘Young + Men at the Manor,’ ‘The Knights of the Joyous Venture,’ and ‘Old Men at + Pevensey,’ in that book.] ‘What play do you make?’ he asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing, Sir. We’re looking for old Hobden,’ Dan replied.‘He promised to + get us a sleeper.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, a dormouse, Sir.’ ‘I understand. I passed a woodman on the low + grounds. Come!’ He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an + opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old + Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and house-faggots + before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. + </p> + <p> + Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his + lip. + </p> + <p> + ‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been + there this half-hour.’ + </p> + <p> + The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry + ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse. + </p> + <p> + ‘Huhh!’ cried Una. ‘Hobden always ‘tends to his wires before breakfast. He + puts his rabbits into the faggots he’s allowed to take home. He’ll tell us + about ‘em tomorrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We had the same breed in my day,’ Sir Richard replied, and moved off + quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the + close-trimmed beech stuff. + </p> + <p> + ‘What did you do to them?’ said Dan, as they repassed Ridley’s terrible + tree. + </p> + <p> + ‘That!’ Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not he!’ said Puck. ‘There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang a + man for taking a buck.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I—I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on + horseback while you are afoot?’ He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow on + the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the narrow + ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He walked as + though all the woods belonged to him. ‘I have often told my friends,’ he + went on, ‘that Red William the King was not the only Norman found dead in + a forest while he hunted.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘D’you mean William Rufus?’ said Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log. + </p> + <p> + ‘For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,’ Sir Richard went on, + ‘to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose to hang + his forester’s son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to pleasure the + King.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Now when would that be?’ said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy at + Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for the + war.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What happened to the knight?’ Dan asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. I + should have worn mail that day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And did you see him all bloody?’ Dan continued. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, and + arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. The army only + waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but he sent + word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set out for + France.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?’ Una demanded. + </p> + <p> + ‘If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, + men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was his duty + to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De Aquila’s duty + to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was a great burden! De + Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and scoured all the Honour + of the Eagle—all De Aquila’s lands—to make a fit, and, above + all, a safe sport for our King. Look!’ + </p> + <p> + The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound’s Hill Wood. Sir + Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that + showed like a woodcock’s breast up the valley. ‘Ye know the forest?’ said + he. + </p> + <p> + ‘You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!’ said Una. ‘I have seen,’ + said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. ‘Hugh’s work and + mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into Dallington + yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we must choose + some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands within bowshot + of the King. Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a deer-drive a Saxon + peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each other. The conquered + do not love their conquerors all at once. So we needed sure men, for whom + their village or kindred would answer in life, cattle, and land if any + harm come to the King. Ye see?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If one of the beaters shot the King,’ said Puck, ‘Sir Richard wanted to + be able to punish that man’s village. Then the village would take care to + send a good man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done + such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish + knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half mad + with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to earth + than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. And atop of their misery the old rumour + waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them deliverance + from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since Santlache fight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But King Harold was killed at Hastings,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons + always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work any + more easy.’ + </p> + <p> + Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees thin + out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs among the + lumps of blackened ling. + </p> + <p> + ‘But we did it!’ he said. ‘After all, a woman is as good as a man to beat + the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and crones + young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list of + beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks—Saxon and + Norman priests. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, as Lord + of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first shooting-stand—by + the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I—it was no work for + hot heads or heavy hands—lay with our beaters on the skirts of + Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila’s great horn + blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see the fat + clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the sober millers + dusting the under-growth with their staves; and, like as not, between them + a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling like a kite as she + ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy of the sport.’ ‘Ah! + How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!’ Puck bellowed without warning, and + Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils cracking. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!’ Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout. + </p> + <p> + The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out + of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the + outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped + together on the same note. + </p> + <p> + A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s old Hobden,’ said Una. + </p> + <p> + ‘Small blame to him. It is in his blood,’ said Puck. ‘Did your beaters cry + so, Sir Richard?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot + where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to + the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the + stands flew fair over them. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cried, “‘Ware shot! ‘Ware shot!” and a knot of young knights new from + Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and in + mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: “‘Ware Santlache arrows! ‘Ware + Santlache arrows!” A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our beaters + answered in Saxon: “‘Ware New Forest arrows! ‘Ware Red William’s arrow!” + so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my old mail + gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war), they ceased + shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters ale to wash + down their anger. They were excusable! We—they had sweated to show + our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight of hunting-arrows which + no man loves, and worse, a churl’s jibe over hard-fought, fair-lost + Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh and I assembled and called + the beaters over by name, to steady them. The greater part we knew, but + among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old man, in the dress of a + pilgrim. + </p> + <p> + ‘The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty + years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of + England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans + rest the chin on the left palm. ‘“Who answers for him?” said I. “If he + fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Who will pay my fine?” the pilgrim said. “I have asked that of all the + Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! They + have not answered!” When he lifted his thin face I saw he was one-eyed, + and frail as a rush. ‘“Nay, but, Father,” I said, “to whom hast thou + commended thyself-?” He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: “Whose man + art thou?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King’s jester,” said he after + a while. “I am, as I suppose, Rahere’s man.” + </p> + <p> + ‘He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, read it. + </p> + <p> + ‘It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere’s man, and that Rahere was the + King’s jester. There was Latin writ at the back. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What a plague conjuration’s here?” said Hugh, turning it over. + “Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Black Magic,” said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at + Battle). “They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a + wizard than either. Here’s Rahere’s name writ, and there’s Rahere’s red + cockscomb mark drawn below for such as cannot read.” He looked slyly at + me. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then read it,” said I, “and show thy learning.” He was a vain little + man, and he gave it us after much mouthing. + </p> + <p> + ‘“The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, says: ‘When + thou art once dead, and Minos’ (which is a heathen judge) ‘has doomed + thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor good works will restore thee!’ + A terrible thing! It denies any mercy to a man’s soul!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Does it serve?” said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh’s cloak. “Oh, man of + the King’s blood, does it cover me?” + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh was of Earl Godwin’s blood, and all Sussex knew it, though no Saxon + dared call him kingly in a Norman’s hearing. There can be but one King. + </p> + <p> + ‘“It serves,” said Hugh. “But the day will be long and hot. Better rest + here. We go forward now.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman,” he answered like a child. He was + indeed childish through great age. + </p> + <p> + ‘The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila’s great horn blew for a + halt, and soon young Fulke—our false Fulke’s son—yes, the imp + that lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See ‘Old Men at Pevensey’ in PUCK + OF POOK’S HILL.]—came thundering up a woodway. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Uncle,” said he (though he was a man grown, he called me Uncle), “those + young Norman fools who shot at you this morn are saying that your beaters + cried treason against the King. It has come to Harry’s long ears, and he + bids you give account of it. There are heavy fines in his eye, but I am + with you to the hilt, Uncle!” ‘When the boy had fled back, Hugh said to + me: “It was Rahere’s witless man that cried, ‘’Ware Red William’s arrow!’ + I heard him, and so did the Clerk of Netherfield.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then Rahere must answer to the King for his man,” said I. “Keep him by + you till I send,” and I hastened down. + </p> + <p> + ‘The King was with De Aquila in the Grand Stand above Welansford down in + the valley yonder. His Court—knights and dames—lay glittering + on the edge of the glade. I made my homage, and Henry took it coldly. + ‘“How came your beaters to shout threats against me?” said he. + </p> + <p> + ‘“The tale has grown,” I answered. “One old witless man cried out, ‘’Ware + Red William’s arrow,’ when the young knights shot at our line. We had two + beaters hit.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I will do justice on that man,” he answered. “Who is his master?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“He’s Rahere’s man,” said I. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Rahere’s?” said Henry. “Has my fool a fool?” + </p> + <p> + ‘I heard the bells jingle at the back of the stand, and a red leg waved + over it; then a black one. So, very slowly, Rahere the King’s jester + straddled the edge of the planks, and looked down on us, rubbing his chin. + Loose-knit, with cropped hair, and a sad priest’s face, under his + cockscomb cap, that he could twist like a strip of wet leather. His eyes + were hollow-set. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Nay, nay, Brother,” said he. “If I suffer you to keep your fool, you + must e’en suffer me to keep mine.” + </p> + <p> + ‘This he delivered slowly into the King’s angry face! My faith, a King’s + jester must be bolder than lions! + </p> + <p> + ‘“Now we will judge the matter,” said Rahere. “Let these two brave knights + go hang my fool because he warned King Henry against running after Saxon + deer through woods full of Saxons. ‘Faith, Brother, if thy Brother, Red + William, now among the Saints as we hope, had been timely warned against a + certain arrow in New Forest, one fool of us four would not be crowned fool + of England this morning. Therefore, hang the fool’s fool, knights!” ‘Mark + the fool’s cunning! Rahere had himself given us order to hang the man. No + King dare confirm a fool’s command to such a great baron as De Aquila; and + the helpless King knew it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“What? No hanging?” said Rahere, after a silence. “A’ God’s Gracious + Name, kill something, then! Go forward with the hunt!” + </p> + <p> + ‘He splits his face ear to ear in a yawn like a fish-pond. “Henry,” says + he, “the next time I sleep, do not pester me with thy fooleries.” Then he + throws himself out of sight behind the back of the stand. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have seen courage with mirth in De Aquila and Hugh, but stark mad + courage of Rahere’s sort I had never even guessed at.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did the King say?’ cried Dan. + </p> + <p> + ‘He had opened his mouth to speak, when young Fulke, who had come into the + stand with us, laughed, and, boy-like, once begun, could not check + himself. He kneeled on the instant for pardon, but fell sideways, crying: + “His legs! Oh, his long, waving red legs as he went backward!” + </p> + <p> + ‘Like a storm breaking, our grave King laughed,—stamped and reeled + with laughter till the stand shook. So, like a storm, this strange thing + passed! + </p> + <p> + ‘He wiped his eyes, and signed to De Aquila to let the drive come on. + </p> + <p> + ‘When the deer broke, we were pleased that the King shot from the shelter + of the stand, and did not ride out after the hurt beasts as Red William + would have done. Most vilely his knights and barons shot! + </p> + <p> + ‘De Aquila kept me beside him, and I saw no more of Hugh till evening. We + two had a little hut of boughs by the camp, where I went to wash me before + the great supper, and in the dusk I heard Hugh on the couch. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Wearied, Hugh?” said I. + </p> + <p> + ‘“A little,” he says. “I have driven Saxon deer all day for a Norman King, + and there is enough of Earl Godwin’s blood left in me to sicken at the + work. Wait awhile with the torch.” + </p> + <p> + ‘I waited then, and I thought I heard him sob.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poor Hugh! Was he so tired?’ said Una. ‘Hobden says beating is hard work + sometimes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think this tale is getting like the woods,’ said Dan, ‘darker and + twistier every minute.’ Sir Richard had walked as he talked, and though + the children thought they knew the woods well enough, they felt a little + lost. + </p> + <p> + ‘A dark tale enough,’ says Sir Richard, ‘but the end was not all black. + When we had washed, we went to wait on the King at meat in the great + pavilion. Just before the trumpets blew for the Entry—all the guests + upstanding—long Rahere comes posturing up to Hugh, and strikes him + with his bauble-bladder. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Here’s a heavy heart for a joyous meal!” he says. “But each man must + have his black hour or where would be the merit of laughing? Take a fool’s + advice, and sit it out with my man. I’ll make a jest to excuse you to the + King if he remember to ask for you. That’s more than I would do for + Archbishop Anselm.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh looked at him heavy-eyed. “Rahere?” said he. “The King’s jester? Oh, + Saints, what punishment for my King!” and smites his hands together. ‘“Go—go + fight it out in the dark,” says Rahere, “and thy Saxon Saints reward thee + for thy pity to my fool.” He pushed him from the pavilion, and Hugh + lurched away like one drunk.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why?’ said Una. ‘I don’t understand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, why indeed? Live you long enough, maiden, and you shall know the + meaning of many whys.’ Sir Richard smiled. ‘I wondered too, but it was my + duty to wait on the King at the High Table in all that glitter and stir. + </p> + <p> + ‘He spoke me his thanks for the sport I had helped show him, and he had + learned from De Aquila enough of my folk and my castle in Normandy to + graciously feign that he knew and had loved my brother there. (This, also, + is part of a king’s work.) Many great men sat at the High Table—chosen + by the King for their wits, not for their birth. I have forgotten their + names, and their faces I only saw that one night. But’—Sir Richard + turned in his stride—‘but Rahere, flaming in black and scarlet among + our guests, the hollow of his dark cheek flushed with wine—long, + laughing Rahere, and the stricken sadness of his face when he was not + twisting it about—Rahere I shall never forget. + </p> + <p> + ‘At the King’s outgoing De Aquila bade me follow him, with his great + bishops and two great barons, to the little pavilion. We had devised + jugglers and dances for the Court’s sport; but Henry loved to talk gravely + to grave men, and De Aquila had told him of my travels to the world’s end. + We had a fire of apple-wood, sweet as incense,—and the curtains at + the door being looped up, we could hear the music and see the lights + shining on mail and dresses. + </p> + <p> + ‘Rahere lay behind the King’s chair. The questions he darted forth at me + were as shrewd as the flames. I was telling of our fight with the apes, as + ye called them, at the world’s end. [See ‘The Knights of the Joyous + Venture’ in PUCK OF POOK’S HILL.] ‘“But where is the Saxon knight that + went with you?” said Henry. “He must confirm these miracles.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“He is busy,” said Rahere, “confirming a new miracle.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Enough miracles for today,” said the King. “Rahere, you have saved your + long neck. Fetch the Saxon knight.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Pest on it,” said Rahere. “Who would be a King’s jester? I’ll bring him, + Brother, if you’ll see that none of your home-brewed bishops taste my wine + while I am away.” So he jingled forth between the men-at-arms at the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘Henry had made many bishops in England without the Pope’s leave. I know + not the rights of the matter, but only Rahere dared jest about it. We + waited on the King’s next word. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I think Rahere is jealous of you,” said he, smiling, to Nigel of Ely. He + was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other—Wal-wist the Saxons + called him—laughed long. “Rahere is a priest at heart. Shall I make + him a bishop, De Aquila?” says the King. + </p> + <p> + ‘“There might be worse,” said our Lord of Pevensey. “Rahere would never do + what Anselm has done.” + </p> + <p> + ‘This Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had gone off raging to the Pope at + Rome, because Henry would make bishops without his leave either. I knew + not the rights of it, but De Aquila did, and the King laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Anselm means no harm. He should have been a monk, not a bishop,” said + the King. “I’ll never quarrel with Anselm or his Pope till they quarrel + with my England. If we can keep the King’s peace till my son comes to + rule, no man will lightly quarrel with our England.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Amen,” said De Aquila. “But the King’s peace ends when the King dies.” + </p> + <p> + ‘That is true. The King’s peace dies with the King. The custom then is + that all laws are outlaw, and men do what they will till the new King is + chosen. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I will amend that,” said the King hotly. “I will have it so that though + King, son, and grandson were all slain in one day, still the King’s peace + should hold over all England! What is a man that his mere death must + upheave a people? We must have the Law.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Truth,” said William of Exeter; but that he would have said to any word + of the King. + </p> + <p> + ‘The two great barons behind said nothing. This teaching was clean against + their stomachs, for when the King’s peace ends, the great barons go to war + and increase their lands. At that instant we heard Rahere’s voice + returning, in a scurril Saxon rhyme against William of Exeter: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘“Well wist Wal-wist where lay his fortune + When that he fawned on the King for his crozier,” + </pre> + <p> + and amid our laughter he burst in, with one arm round Hugh, and one round + the old pilgrim of Netherfield. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Here is your knight, Brother,” said he, “and for the better disport of + the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza are + clean carried away!” + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh broke loose, white and sick, and staggered to my side; the old man + blinked upon the company. + </p> + <p> + ‘We looked at the King, but he smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Rahere promised he would show me some sport after supper to cover his + morning’s offence,” said he to De Aquila. “So this is thy man, Rahere?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Even so,” said Rahere. “My man he has been, and my protection he has + taken, ever since I found him under the gallows at Stamford Bridge telling + the kites atop of it that he was—Harold of England!” + </p> + <p> + ‘There was a great silence upon these last strange words, and Hugh hid his + face on my shoulder, woman-fashion. + </p> + <p> + ‘“It is most cruel true,” he whispered to me. “The old man proved it to me + at the beat after you left, and again in our hut even now. It is Harold, + my King!” + </p> + <p> + ‘De Aquila crept forward. He walked about the man and swallowed. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Bones of the Saints!” said he, staring. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Many a stray shot goes too well home,” said Rahere. + </p> + <p> + ‘The old man flinched as at an arrow. “Why do you hurt me still?” he said + in Saxon. “It was on some bones of some Saints that I promised I would + give my England to the Great Duke.” He turns on us all crying, shrilly: + “Thanes, he had caught me at Rouen—a lifetime ago. If I had not + promised, I should have lain there all my life. What else could I have + done? I have lain in a strait prison all my life none the less. There is + no need to throw stones at me.” He guarded his face with his arms, and + shivered. “Now his madness will strike him down,” said Rahere. “Cast out + the evil spirit, one of you new bishops.” + </p> + <p> + ‘Said William of Exeter: “Harold was slain at Santlache fight. All the + world knows it.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I think this man must have forgotten,” said Rahere. “Be comforted, + Father. Thou wast well slain at Hastings forty years gone, less three + months and nine days. Tell the King.” + </p> + <p> + ‘The man uncovered his face. “I thought they would stone me,” he said. “I + did not know I spoke before a King.” He came to his full towering height—no + mean man, but frail beyond belief. + </p> + <p> + ‘The King turned to the tables, and held him out his own cup of wine. The + old man drank, and beckoned behind him, and, before all the Normans, my + Hugh bore away the empty cup, Saxon-fashion, upon the knee. + </p> + <p> + “It is Harold!” said De Aquila. “His own stiff-necked blood kneels to + serve him. + </p> + <p> + “Be it so,” said Henry. “Sit, then, thou that hast been Harold of + England.” + </p> + <p> + ‘The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between half-shut + eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who watched Rahere as + I have seen him watch a far sail on the sea. + </p> + <p> + ‘The wine and the warmth cast the old man into a dream. His white head + bowed; his hands hung. His eye indeed was opened, but the mind was shut. + When he stretched his feet, they were scurfed and road-cut like a slave’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah, Rahere,” cried Hugh, “why hast thou shown him thus? Better have let + him die than shame him—and me!” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Shame thee?” said the King. “Would any baron of mine kneel to me if I + were witless, discrowned, and alone, and Harold had my throne?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“No,” said Rahere. “I am the sole fool that might do it, Brother, unless”—he + pointed at De Aquila, whom he had only met that day—“yonder tough + Norman crab kept me company. But, Sir Hugh, I did not mean to shame him. + He hath been somewhat punished through, maybe, little fault of his own.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Yet he lied to my Father, the Conqueror,” said the King, and the old man + flinched in his sleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Maybe,” said Rahere, “but thy Brother Robert, whose throat we purpose + soon to slit with our own hands—” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hutt!” said the King, laughing. “I’ll keep Robert at my table for a + life’s guest when I catch him. Robert means no harm. It is all his cursed + barons.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“None the less,” said Rahere, “Robert may say that thou hast not always + spoken the stark truth to him about England. I should not hang too many + men on that bough, Brother.” ‘“And it is certain,” said Hugh, “that”—he + pointed to the old man—“Harold was forced to make his promise to the + Great Duke.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Very strongly, forced,” said De Aquila. He had never any pride in the + Duke William’s dealings with Harold before Hastings. Yet, as he said, one + cannot build a house all of straight sticks. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No matter how he was forced,” said Henry, “England was promised to my + Father William by Edward the Confessor. Is it not so?” William of Exeter + nodded. “Harold confirmed that promise to my Father on the bones of the + Saints. Afterwards he broke his oath and would have taken England by the + strong hand.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Oh! La! La!” Rahere rolled up his eyes like a girl. “That ever England + should be taken by the strong hand!” + </p> + <p> + ‘Seeing that Red William and Henry after him had each in just that fashion + snatched England from Robert of Normandy, we others knew not where to + look. But De Aquila saved us quickly. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Promise kept or promise broken,” he said, “Harold came near enough to + breaking us Normans at Santlache.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Was it so close a fight, then?” said Henry. + </p> + <p> + ‘“A hair would have turned it either way,” De Aquila answered. “His + house-carles stood like rocks against rain. Where wast thou, Hugh, in it?” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Among Godwin’s folk beneath the Golden Dragon till your front gave back, + and we broke our ranks to follow,” said Hugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘“But I bade you stand! I bade you stand! I knew it was all a deceit!” + Harold had waked, and leaned forward as one crying from the grave. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ah, now we see how the traitor himself was betrayed!” said William of + Exeter, and looked for a smile from the King. + </p> + <p> + ‘“I made thee Bishop to preach at my bidding,” said Henry; and turning to + Harold, “Tell us here how thy people fought us?” said he. “Their sons + serve me now against my Brother Robert!” + </p> + <p> + ‘The old man shook his head cunningly. “Na—Na—Na!” he cried. + “I know better. Every time I tell my tale men stone me. But, Thanes, I + will tell you a greater thing. Listen!” He told us how many paces it was + from some Saxon Saint’s shrine to another shrine, and how many more back + to the Abbey of the Battle. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ay,” said he. “I have trodden it too often to be out even ten paces. I + move very swiftly. Harold of Norway knows that, and so does Tostig my + brother. They lie at ease at Stamford Bridge, and from Stamford Bridge to + the Battle Abbey it is—” he muttered over many numbers and forgot + us. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ay,” said De Aquila, all in a muse. “That man broke Harold of Norway at + Stamford Bridge, and came near to breaking us at Santlache—all + within one month.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“But how did he come alive from Santlache fight?” asked the King. “Ask + him! Hast thou heard it, Rahere?” “Never. He says he has been stoned too + often for telling the tale. But he can count you off Saxon and Norman + shrines till daylight,” said Rahere and the old man nodded proudly. + </p> + <p> + ‘“My faith!” said Henry after a while. “I think even my Father the Great + Duke would pity if he could see him.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“How if he does see?” said Rahere. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh covered his face with his sound hand. “Ah, why hast thou shamed + him?” he cried again to Rahere. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No—no,” says the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere’s cape. “I + am Rahere’s man. None stone me now,” and he played with the bells on the + scollops of it. + </p> + <p> + ‘“How if he had been brought to me when you found him?” said the King to + Rahere. + </p> + <p> + ‘“You would have held him prisoner again—as the Great Duke did,” + Rahere answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘“True,” said our King. “He is nothing except his name. Yet that name + might have been used by stronger men to trouble my England. Yes. I must + have made him my life’s guest—as I shall make Robert.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I knew it,” said Rahere. “But while this man wandered mad by the + wayside, none cared what he called himself.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“I learned to cease talking before the stones flew,” says the old man, + and Hugh groaned. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Ye have heard!” said Rahere. “Witless, landless, nameless, and, but for + my protection, masterless, he can still make shift to bide his doom under + the open sky.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Then wherefore didst thou bring him here for a mock and a shame?” cried + Hugh, beside himself with woe. + </p> + <p> + ‘“A right mock and a just shame!” said William of Exeter. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Not to me,” said Nigel of Ely. “I see and I tremble, but I neither mock + nor judge.” “Well spoken, Ely.” Rahere falls into the pure fool again. + “I’ll pray for thee when I turn monk. Thou hast given thy blessing on a + war between two most Christian brothers.” He meant the war forward ‘twixt + Henry and Robert of Normandy. “I charge you, Brother,” he says, wheeling + on the King, “dost thou mock my fool?” The King shook his head, and so + then did smooth William of Exeter. + </p> + <p> + ‘“De Aquila, does thou mock him?” Rahere jingled from one to another, and + the old man smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘“By the Bones of the Saints, not I,” said our Lord of Pevensey. “I know + how dooms near he broke us at Santlache.” + </p> + <p> + ‘“Sir Hugh, you are excused the question. But you, valiant, loyal, + honourable, and devout barons, Lords of Man’s justice in your own bounds, + do you mock my fool?” + </p> + <p> + ‘He shook his bauble in the very faces of those two barons whose names I + have forgotten. “Na—Na!” they said, and waved him back foolishly + enough. + </p> + <p> + ‘He hies him across to staring, nodding Harold, and speaks from behind his + chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘“No man mocks thee, Who here judges this man? Henry of England—Nigel—De + Aquila! On your souls, swift with the answer!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘None answered. We were all—the King not least—over-borne by + that terrible scarlet-and-black wizard-jester. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Well for your souls,” he said, wiping his brow. Next, shrill like a + woman: “Oh, come to me!” and Hugh ran forward to hold Harold, that had + slidden down in the chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Hearken,” said Rahere, his arm round Harold’s neck. “The King—his + bishops—the knights—all the world’s crazy chessboard neither + mock nor judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, Harold of England!” + </p> + <p> + ‘Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Good comfort,” said Harold. “Tell me again! I have been somewhat + punished.” ‘Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head rolled. + We heard him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Out! I will have no Norman!” Harold said as clearly as I speak now, and + he refuged himself on Hugh’s sound shoulder, and stretched out, and lay + all still.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dead?’ said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk. + </p> + <p> + ‘That was his good fortune. To die in the King’s presence, and on the + breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. Some of us + envied him,’ said Sir Richard, and fell back to take Swallow’s bridle. + </p> + <p> + ‘Turn left here,’ Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. They ducked + down a narrow path through close ash plantation. + </p> + <p> + The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged full-abreast + into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying home on his back. ‘My! + My!’ said he. ‘Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sorry! It’s all right,’ said Una, rubbing her nose. ‘How many rabbits did + you get today?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s tellin’!’ the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. ‘I + reckon Mus’ Ridley he’ve got rheumatism along o’ lyin’ in the dik to see I + didn’t snap up any. Think o’ that now!’ + </p> + <p> + They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale. + </p> + <p> + ‘An’ just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin’ to the hounds in + our woods,’ said he. ‘Didn’t you hear? You must ha’ been asleep sure-ly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?’ Dan cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘’Ere he be—house an’ all!’ Hobden dived into the prickly heart of + the faggot and took out a dormouse’s wonderfully woven nest of grass and + leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been precious lace, and + tilting it toward the last of the light he showed the little, red, furry + chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes that were shut for their + winter sleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let’s take him home. Don’t breathe on him,’ said Una. ‘It’ll make him + warm and he’ll wake up and die straight off. Won’t he, Hobby?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dat’s a heap better by my reckonin’ than wakin’ up and findin’ himself in + a cage for life. No! We’ll lay him into the bottom o’ this hedge. Dat’s + jus’ right! No more trouble for him till come Spring. An’ now we’ll go + home.’ + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A Carol + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Our Lord Who did the Ox command + To kneel to Judah’s King, + He binds His frost upon the land + To ripen it for Spring— + To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, + According to His word; + Which well must be as ye can see— + And who shall judge the Lord? + + When we poor fenmen skate the ice + Or shiver on the wold, + We hear the cry of a single tree + That breaks her heart in the cold— + That breaks her heart in the cold, good sirs, + And rendeth by the board; + Which well must be as ye can see— + And who shall judge the Lord? + + Her wood is crazed and little worth + Excepting as to burn + That we may warm and make our mirth + Until the Spring return— + Until the Spring return, good sirs, + When people walk abroad; + Which well must be as ye can see— + And who shall judge the Lord? + + God bless the master of this house, + And all that sleep therein! + And guard the fens from pirate folk, + And keep us all from sin, + To walk in honesty, good sirs, + Of thought and deed and word! + Which shall befriend our latter end— + And who shall judge the Lord? +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + +***** This file should be named 556-h.htm or 556-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/556/ + +Produced by Jo Churcher, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rewards and Fairies + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Release Date: June, 1996 [Etext #556] +Posting Date: November 28, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jo Churcher + + + + + +REWARDS AND FAIRIES + +By Rudyard Kipling + + + +Contents + + A Charm + Introduction + Cold Iron + Cold Iron + Gloriana + The Two Cousins + The Looking-Glass + The Wrong Thing + A Truthful Song + King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + Marklake Witches + The Way through the Woods + Brookland Road + The Knife and the Naked Chalk + The Run of the Downs + Song of the Men's Side + Brother Square-Toes + Philadelphia + If-- + Rs + 'A Priest in Spite of Himself' + A St Helena Lullaby + 'Poor Honest Men' + The Conversion of St Wilfrid + Eddi's Service + Song of the Red War-Boat + A Doctor of Medicine + An Astrologer's Song + 'Our Fathers of Old' + Simple Simon + The Thousandth Man + Frankie's Trade + The Tree of Justice + The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + A Carol + + + + +A Charm + + + Take of English earth as much + As either hand may rightly clutch. + In the taking of it breathe + Prayer for all who lie beneath-- + Not the great nor well-bespoke, + But the mere uncounted folk + Of whose life and death is none + Report or lamentation. + Lay that earth upon thy heart, + And thy sickness shall depart! + + It shall sweeten and make whole + Fevered breath and festered soul; + It shall mightily restrain + Over-busy hand and brain; + it shall ease thy mortal strife + 'Gainst the immortal woe of life, + Till thyself restored shall prove + By what grace the Heavens do move. + + Take of English flowers these-- + Spring's full-faced primroses, + Summer's wild wide-hearted rose, + Autumn's wall-flower of the close, + And, thy darkness to illume, + Winter's bee-thronged ivy-bloom. + Seek and serve them where they bide + From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, + For these simples used aright + Shall restore a failing sight. + + These shall cleanse and purify + Webbed and inward-turning eye; + These shall show thee treasure hid, + Thy familiar fields amid, + At thy threshold, on thy hearth, + Or about thy daily path; + And reveal (which is thy need) + Every man a King indeed! + + + + +Introduction + + +Once upon a time, Dan and Una, brother and sister, living in the English +country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias Robin Goodfellow, +alias Nick o' Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the-Fire, the last survivor +in England of those whom mortals call Fairies. Their proper name, of +course, is 'The People of the Hills'. This Puck, by means of the magic +of Oak, Ash, and Thorn, gave the children power + + To see what they should see and hear what they should hear, + Though it should have happened three thousand year. + +The result was that from time to time, and in different places on the +farm and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and talked to +some rather interesting people. One of these, for instance, was a Knight +of the Norman Conquest, another a young Centurion of a Roman Legion +stationed in England, another a builder and decorator of King Henry +VII's time; and so on and so forth; as I have tried to explain in a book +called PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. + +A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and though they +were then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly instead of going +barefooted when they got the chance, Puck was as kind to them as ever, +and introduced them to more people of the old days. + +He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their walks and +conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not interfere; and Dan +and Una would find the strangest sort of persons in their gardens or +woods. + +In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about those +people. + + + + +COLD IRON + + +When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they did not +remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only wanted to see the +otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing their brook for weeks; +and early morning was the time to surprise him. As they tiptoed out of +the house into the wonderful stillness, the church clock struck five. +Dan took a few steps across the dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his +black footprints. + +'I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,' he said. 'They'll get +horrid wet.' + +It was their first summer in boots, and they hated them, so they took +them off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled joyfully over +the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong way, like evening in +the East. The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of +the night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of +otter's footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, between +the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds shouted with +surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a smear, as though a +log had been dragged along. + +They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice to the +Forge, round Hobden's garden, and then up the slope till it ran out +on the short turf and fern of Pook's Hill, and they heard the +cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them. + +'No use!' said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. 'The dew's drying +off, and old Hobden says otters'll travel for miles.' + +'I'm sure we've travelled miles.' Una fanned herself with her hat. 'How +still it is! It's going to be a regular roaster.' She looked down the +valley, where no chimney yet smoked. + +'Hobden's up!' Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge cottage. 'What +d'you suppose he has for breakfast?' 'One of them. He says they eat good +all times of the year,' Una jerked her head at some stately pheasants +going down to the brook for a drink. + +A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, yapped, +and trotted off. + +'Ah, Mus' Reynolds--Mus' Reynolds'--Dan was quoting from old +Hobden,--'if I knowed all you knowed, I'd know something.' [See 'The +Winged Hats' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] + +I say,'--Una lowered her voice--'you know that funny feeling of things +having happened before. I felt it when you said "Mus' Reynolds."' + +'So did I,' Dan began. 'What is it?' + +They faced each other, stammering with excitement. + +'Wait a shake! I'll remember in a minute. Wasn't it something about a +fox--last year? Oh, I nearly had it then!' Dan cried. + +'Be quiet!' said Una, prancing excitedly. 'There was something happened +before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills--the play at the +theatre--see what you see--' + +'I remember now,' Dan shouted. 'It's as plain as the nose on your +face--Pook's Hill--Puck's Hill--Puck!' + +'I remember, too,' said Una. 'And it's Midsummer Day again!' The young +fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped +rush. + +'Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here's a happy meeting,' said he. They +shook hands all round, and asked questions. + +'You've wintered well,' he said after a while, and looked them up and +down. 'Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.' + +'They've put us into boots,' said Una. 'Look at my feet--they're all +pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.' + +'Yes--boots make a difference.' Puck wriggled his brown, square, hairy +foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the next. + +'I could do that--last year,' Dan said dismally, as he tried and failed. +'And boots simply ruin one's climbing.' + +'There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,'said Puck, or folk +wouldn't wear them. Shall we come this way?' They sauntered along side +by side till they reached the gate at the far end of the hillside. Here +they halted just like cattle, and let the sun warm their backs while +they listened to the flies in the wood. + +'Little Lindens is awake,' said Una, as she hung with her chin on the +top rail. 'See the chimney smoke?' + +'Today's Thursday, isn't it?' Puck turned to look at the old pink +farmhouse across the little valley. 'Mrs Vincey's baking day. Bread +should rise well this weather.' He yawned, and that set them both +yawning. + +The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. They +felt that little crowds were stealing past. + +'Doesn't that sound like--er--the People of the Hills?'said Una. + +'It's the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before people +get about,' said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper. + +'Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.' + +'As I remember 'em, the People of the Hills used to make more noise. +They'd settle down for the day rather like small birds settling down for +the night. But that was in the days when they carried the high hand. Oh, +me! The deeds that I've had act and part in, you'd scarcely believe!' + +'I like that!' said Dan. 'After all you told us last year, too!' + +'Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget everything,' said +Una. + +Puck laughed and shook his head. 'I shall this year, too. I've given you +seizin of Old England, and I've taken away your Doubt and Fear, but your +memory and remembrance between whiles I'll keep where old Billy Trott +kept his night-lines--and that's where he could draw 'em up and hide 'em +at need. Does that suit?' He twinkled mischievously. + +'It's got to suit,'said Una, and laughed. 'We Can't magic back at you.' +She folded her arms and leaned against the gate. 'Suppose, now, you +wanted to magic me into something--an otter? Could you?' + +'Not with those boots round your neck.' 'I'll take them off.' She threw +them on the turf. Dan's followed immediately. 'Now!' she said. + +'Less than ever now you've trusted me. Where there's true faith, there's +no call for magic.' Puck's slow smile broadened all over his face. + +'But what have boots to do with it?' said Una, perching on the gate. + +'There's Cold Iron in them,' said Puck, and settled beside her. 'Nails +in the soles, I mean. It makes a difference.' + +'How?' 'Can't you feel it does? You wouldn't like to go back to bare +feet again, same as last year, would you? Not really?' + +'No-o. I suppose I shouldn't--not for always. I'm growing up, you know,' +said Una. + +'But you told us last year, in the Long Slip--at the theatre--that you +didn't mind Cold Iron,'said Dan. + +'I don't; but folks in housen, as the People of the Hills call them, +must be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near side of +Cold Iron--there's iron 'in every man's house, isn't there? They handle +Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune's made or spoilt +by Cold Iron in some shape or other. That's how it goes with Flesh and +Blood, and one can't prevent it.' + +'I don't quite see. How do you mean?'said Dan. + +'It would take me some time to tell you.' + +'Oh, it's ever so long to breakfast,' said Dan. 'We looked in the +larder before we came out.' He unpocketed one big hunk of bread and Una +another, which they shared with Puck. + +'That's Little Lindens' baking,' he said, as his white teeth sunk in +it. 'I know Mrs Vincey's hand.' He ate with a slow sideways thrust and +grind, just like old Hobden, and, like Hobden, hardly dropped a crumb. +The sun flashed on Little Lindens' windows, and the cloudless sky grew +stiller and hotter in the valley. + +'AH--Cold Iron,' he said at last to the impatient children. 'Folk in +housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold Iron. +They'll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to put it +over the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the Hills slip +in, find the cradle-babe in the corner, and--' + +'Oh, I know. Steal it and leave a changeling,'Una cried. + +'No,' said Puck firmly. 'All that talk of changelings is people's excuse +for their own neglect. Never believe 'em. I'd whip 'em at the cart-tail +through three parishes if I had my way.' + +'But they don't do it now,' said Una. + +'Whip, or neglect children? Umm! Some folks and some fields never alter. +But the People of the Hills didn't work any changeling tricks. +They'd tiptoe in and whisper and weave round the cradle-babe in the +chimney-corner--a fag-end of a charm here, or half a spell there--like +kettles singing; but when the babe's mind came to bud out afterwards, +it would act differently from other people in its station. That's no +advantage to man or maid. So I wouldn't allow it with my folks' babies +here. I told Sir Huon so once.' + +'Who was Sir Huon?' Dan asked, and Puck turned on him in quiet +astonishment. + +'Sir Huon of Bordeaux--he succeeded King Oberon. He had been a bold +knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a long while back. +Have you ever heard "How many miles to Babylon?"?' + +'Of course,' said Dan, flushing. + +'Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But about tricks +on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, on just such a +morning as this: "If you crave to act and influence on folk in housen, +which I know is your desire, why don't you take some human cradle-babe +by fair dealing, and bring him up among yourselves on the far side +of Cold Iron--as Oberon did in time past? Then you could make him a +splendid fortune, and send him out into the world." + +'"Time past is past time," says Sir Huon. "I doubt if we could do it. +For one thing, the babe would have to be taken without wronging man, +woman, or child. For another, he'd have to be born on the far side of +Cold Iron--in some house where no Cold Iron ever stood; and for yet the +third, he'd have to be kept from Cold Iron all his days till we let +him find his fortune. No, it's not easy," he said, and he rode off, +thinking. You see, Sir Huon had been a man once. 'I happened to attend +Lewes Market next Woden's Day even, and watched the slaves being sold +there--same as pigs are sold at Robertsbridge Market nowadays. Only, +the pigs have rings on their noses, and the slaves had rings round their +necks.' + +'What sort of rings?' said Dan. + +'A ring of Cold Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just like +a quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave's neck. They +used to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, and ship +them to all parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. But, as I was +saying, there was a farmer out of the Weald who had bought a woman with +a babe in her arms, and he didn't want any encumbrances to her driving +his beasts home for him.' + +'Beast himself!' said Una, and kicked her bare heel on the gate. + +'So he blamed the auctioneer. "It's none o' my baby," the wench puts in. +"I took it off a woman in our gang who died on Terrible Down yesterday." +"I'll take it off to the church then," says the farmer. "Mother +Church'll make a monk of it, and we'll step along home." + +'It was dusk then. He slipped down to St Pancras' Church, and laid the +babe at the cold chapel door. I breathed on the back of his stooping +neck--and--I've heard he never could be warm at any fire afterwards. I +should have been surprised if he could! Then I whipped up the babe, and +came flying home here like a bat to his belfry. + +'On the dewy break of morning of Thor's own day--just such a day as +this--I laid the babe outside the Hill here, and the People flocked up +and wondered at the sight. + +'"You've brought him, then?" Sir Huon said, staring like any mortal man. + +'"Yes, and he's brought his mouth with him, too," I said. The babe was +crying loud for his breakfast. + +'"What is he?" says Sir Huon, when the womenfolk had drawn him under to +feed him. + +'"Full Moon and Morning Star may know," I says. "I don't. By what I +could make out of him in the moonlight, he's without brand or blemish. +I'll answer for it that he's born on the far side of Cold Iron, for he +was born under a shaw on Terrible Down, and I've wronged neither man, +woman, nor child in taking him, for he is the son of a dead slave-woman." + +'"All to the good, Robin," Sir Huon said. "He'll be the less anxious to +leave us. Oh, we'll give him a splendid fortune, and we shall act and +influence on folk in housen as we have always craved." His Lady came up +then, and drew him under to watch the babe's wonderful doings.' 'Who was +his Lady?'said Dan. 'The Lady Esclairmonde. She had been a woman once, +till she followed Sir Huon across the fern, as we say. Babies are no +special treat to me--I've watched too many of them--so I stayed on the +Hill. Presently I heard hammering down at the Forge there.'Puck pointed +towards Hobden's cottage. 'It was too early for any workmen, but it +passed through my mind that the breaking day was Thor's own day. A slow +north-east wind blew up and set the oaks sawing and fretting in a way I +remembered; so I slipped over to see what I could see.' + +'And what did you see?' 'A smith forging something or other out of Cold +Iron. When it was finished, he weighed it in his hand (his back was +towards me), and tossed it from him a longish quoit-throw down the +valley. I saw Cold Iron flash in the sun, but I couldn't quite make out +where it fell. That didn't trouble me. I knew it would be found sooner +or later by someone.' + +'How did you know?'Dan went on. + +'Because I knew the Smith that made it,' said Puck quietly. + +'Wayland Smith?' Una suggested. [See 'Weland's Sword' in PUCK OF POOK'S +HILL.] + +'No. I should have passed the time o' day with Wayland Smith, of course. +This other was different. So'--Puck made a queer crescent in the air +with his finger--'I counted the blades of grass under my nose till the +wind dropped and he had gone--he and his Hammer.' + +'Was it Thor then?' Una murmured under her breath. + +'Who else? It was Thor's own day.' Puck repeated the sign. 'I didn't +tell Sir Huon or his Lady what I'd seen. Borrow trouble for yourself if +that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours. Moreover, +I might have been mistaken about the Smith's work. He might have been +making things for mere amusement, though it wasn't like him, or he might +have thrown away an old piece of made iron. One can never be sure. So I +held my tongue and enjoyed the babe. He was a wonderful child--and the +People of the Hills were so set on him, they wouldn't have believed me. +He took to me wonderfully. As soon as he could walk he'd putter forth +with me all about my Hill here. Fern makes soft falling! He knew when +day broke on earth above, for he'd thump, thump, thump, like an old +buck-rabbit in a bury, and I'd hear him say "Opy!" till some one who +knew the Charm let him out, and then it would be "Robin! Robin!" all +round Robin Hood's barn, as we say, till he'd found me.' + +'The dear!' said Una. 'I'd like to have seen him!' 'Yes, he was a boy. +And when it came to learning his words--spells and such-like--he'd sit +on the Hill in the long shadows, worrying out bits of charms to try on +passersby. And when the bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for +pure love's sake (like everything else on my Hill), he'd shout, "Robin! +Look--see! Look, see, Robin!" and sputter out some spell or other that +they had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn't the heart to +tell him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the +wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast spells for +sure, as we say, he took more and more notice of things and people in +the world. People, of course, always drew him, for he was mortal all +through. + +'Seeing that he was free to move among folk in housen, under or over +Cold Iron, I used to take him along with me, night-walking, where he +could watch folk, and I could keep him from touching Cold Iron. That +wasn't so difficult as it sounds, because there are plenty of things +besides Cold Iron in housen to catch a boy's fancy. He was a handful, +though! I shan't forget when I took him to Little Lindens--his first +night under a roof. The smell of the rushlights and the bacon on the +beams--they were stuffing a feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm +night--got into his head. Before I could stop him--we were hiding in +the bakehouse--he'd whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights +and voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl +overset a hive there, and--of course he didn't know till then such +things could touch him--he got badly stung, and came home with his face +looking like kidney potatoes! 'You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and +Lady Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was never to +be trusted with me night-walking any more--and he took about as much +notice of their order as he did of the bee-stings. Night after night, +as soon as it was dark, I'd pick up his whistle in the wet fern, and +off we'd flit together among folk in housen till break of day--he asking +questions, and I answering according to my knowledge. Then we fell into +mischief again!'Puck shook till the gate rattled. + +'We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his wife with +a bat in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over his own +woodlump when the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him. Of course the +woman took her husband's part, and while the man beat him, the woman +scratted his face. It wasn't till I danced among the cabbages like +Brightling Beacon all ablaze that they gave up and ran indoors. The +Boy's fine green-and-gold clothes were torn all to pieces, and he had +been welted in twenty places with the man's bat, and scratted by the +woman's nails to pieces. He looked like a Robertsbridge hopper on a +Monday morning. + +'"Robin," said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a bunch of +hay, "I don't quite understand folk in housen. I went to help that old +woman, and she hit me, Robin!" + +'"What else did you expect?" I said. "That was the one time when you +might have worked one of your charms, instead of running into three +times your weight." + +'"I didn't think," he says. "But I caught the man one on the head that +was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?" + +'"Mind your nose," I said. "Bleed it on a dockleaf--not your sleeve, for +pity's sake." I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde would say. + +'He didn't care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, and the +front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, looked like +ancient sacrifices. + +'Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The Boy could +do nothing wrong, in their eyes. + +'"You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in housen, when +you're ready to let him go," I said. "Now he's begun to do it, why do +you cry shame on me? That's no shame. It's his nature drawing him to his +kind." + +'"But we don't want him to begin that way," the Lady Esclairmonde +said. "We intend a splendid fortune for him--not your flitter-by-night, +hedge-jumping, gipsy-work." + +'"I don't blame you, Robin," says Sir Huon, "but I do think you might +look after the Boy more closely." + +'"I've kept him away from Cold Iron these sixteen years," I said. "You +know as well as I do, the first time he touches Cold Iron he'll find +his own fortune, in spite of everything you intend for him. You owe me +something for that." + +'Sir Huon, having been a man, was going to allow me the right of it, but +the Lady Esclairmonde, being the Mother of all Mothers, over-persuaded +him. + +'"We're very grateful," Sir Huon said, "but we think that just for the +present you are about too much with him on the Hill." + +'"Though you have said it," I said, "I will give you a second chance." +I did not like being called to account for my doings on my own Hill. I +wouldn't have stood it even that far except I loved the Boy. + +'"No! No!" says the Lady Esclairmonde. "He's never any trouble when he's +left to me and himself. It's your fault." + +'"You have said it," I answered. "Hear me! From now on till the Boy has +found his fortune, whatever that may be, I vow to you all on my Hill, by +Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, and by the Hammer of Asa Thor"--again Puck made +that curious double-cut in the air--'"that you may leave me out of +all your counts and reckonings." Then I went out'--he snapped his +fingers--'like the puff of a candle, and though they called and cried, +they made nothing by it. I didn't promise not to keep an eye on the Boy, +though. I watched him close--close--close! + +'When he found what his people had forced me to do, he gave them a piece +of his mind, but they all kissed and cried round him, and being only +a boy, he came over to their way of thinking (I don't blame him), and +called himself unkind and ungrateful; and it all ended in fresh shows +and plays, and magics to distract him from folk in housen. Dear heart +alive! How he used to call and call on me, and I couldn't answer, or +even let him know that I was near!' + +'Not even once?' said Una. 'If he was very lonely?' 'No, he couldn't,' +said Dan, who had been thinking. 'Didn't you swear by the Hammer of Thor +that you wouldn't, Puck?' + +'By that Hammer!' was the deep rumbled reply. Then he came back to his +soft speaking voice. 'And the Boy was lonely, when he couldn't see me +any more. He began to try to learn all learning (he had good teachers), +but I saw him lift his eyes from the big black books towards folk in +housen all the time. He studied song-making (good teachers he had too!), +but he sang those songs with his back toward the Hill, and his face +toward folk. I know! I have sat and grieved over him grieving within a +rabbit's jump of him. Then he studied the High, Low, and Middle Magic. +He had promised the Lady Esclairmonde he would never go near folk in +housen; so he had to make shows and shadows for his mind to chew on.' +'What sort of shows?' said Dan. + +'Just boy's Magic as we say. I'll show you some, some time. It pleased +him for the while, and it didn't hurt any one in particular except a few +men coming home late from the taverns. But I knew what it was a sign of, +and I followed him like a weasel follows a rabbit. As good a boy as ever +lived! I've seen him with Sir Huon and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping +just as they stepped to avoid the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or +walking wide of some old ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or +spade there; and all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk +in housen all the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine +fortune for him--but they could never find it in their heart to let him +begin. I've heard that many warned them, but they wouldn't be warned. So +it happened as it happened. + +'One hot night I saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his flaming +discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, and rush on +rush of shadows down the valley till the shaws were full of his hounds +giving tongue, and the woodways were packed with his knights in armour +riding down into the water-mists--all his own Magic, of course. Behind +them you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches +of moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all +turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his +own young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy's Magic doesn't +trouble me--or Merlin's either for that matter. I followed the Boy by +the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I +grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and +forth like a bullock in a strange pasture--sometimes alone--sometimes +waist-deep among his shadow-hounds--sometimes leading his shadow-knights +on a hawk-winged horse to rescue his shadow-girls. I never guessed he +had such Magic at his command; but it's often that way with boys. + +'Just when the owl comes home for the second time, I saw Sir Huon and +the Lady ride down my Hill, where there's not much Magic allowed except +mine. They were very pleased at the Boy's Magic--the valley flared with +it--and I heard them settling his splendid fortune when they should +find it in their hearts to let him go to act and influence among folk in +housen. Sir Huon was for making him a great King somewhere or other, and +the Lady was for making him a marvellous wise man whom all should praise +for his skill and kindness. She was very kind-hearted. + +'Of a sudden we saw the flashes of his discontents turned back on the +clouds, and his shadow-hounds stopped baying. + +'"There's Magic fighting Magic over yonder," the Lady Esclairmonde +cried, reigning up. "Who is against him?" + +'I could have told her, but I did not count it any of my business to +speak of Asa Thor's comings and goings. + +'How did you know?'said Una. + +'A slow North-East wind blew up, sawing and fretting through the oaks in +a way I remembered. The wildfire roared up, one last time in one sheet, +and snuffed out like a rushlight, and a bucketful of stinging hail fell. +We heard the Boy walking in the Long Slip--where I first met you. + +'"Here, oh, come here!" said the Lady Esclairmonde, and stretched out +her arms in the dark. + +'He was coming slowly, but he stumbled in the footpath, being, of +course, mortal man. + +'"Why, what's this?" he said to himself. We three heard him. + +'"Hold, lad, hold! 'Ware Cold Iron!" said Sir Huon, and they two swept +down like nightjars, crying as they rode. + +'I ran at their stirrups, but it was too late. We felt that the Boy +had touched Cold Iron somewhere in the dark, for the Horses of the Hill +shied off, and whipped round, snorting. + +'Then I judged it was time for me to show myself in my own shape; so I +did. + +'"Whatever it is," I said, "he has taken hold of it. Now we must find +out whatever it is that he has taken hold of, for that will be his +fortune." + +'"Come here, Robin," the Boy shouted, as soon as he heard my voice. "I +don't know what I've hold of." + +'"It is in your hands," I called back. "Tell us if it is hard and cold, +with jewels atop. For that will be a King's Sceptre." + +'"Not by a furrow-long," he said, and stooped and tugged in the dark. +We heard him. '"Has it a handle and two cutting edges?" I called. "For +that'll be a Knight's Sword." + +'"No, it hasn't," he says. "It's neither ploughshare, whittle, hook, +nor crook, nor aught I've yet seen men handle." By this time he was +scratting in the dirt to prise it up. + +'"Whatever it is, you know who put it there, Robin," said Sir Huon to +me, "or you would not ask those questions. You should have told me as +soon as you knew." + +'"What could you or I have done against the Smith that made it and laid +it for him to find?" I said, and I whispered Sir Huon what I had seen at +the Forge on Thor's Day, when the babe was first brought to the Hill. + +'"Oh, good-bye, our dreams!" said Sir Huon. "It's neither sceptre, +sword, nor plough! Maybe yet it's a bookful of learning, bound with iron +clasps. There's a chance for a splendid fortune in that sometimes." + +'But we knew we were only speaking to comfort ourselves, and the Lady +Esclairmonde, having been a woman, said so. + +'"Thur aie! Thor help us!" the Boy called. "It is round, without end, +Cold Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and there is writing on +the breadth of it." + +'"Read the writing if you have the learning," I called. The darkness had +lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again. + +'He called back, reading the runes on the iron: + + "Few can see + Further forth + Than when the child + Meets the Cold Iron." + +And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining +slave-ring round his proud neck. + +'"Is this how it goes?" he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried. + +'"That is how it goes," I said. He hadn't snapped the catch home yet, +though. + +'"What fortune does it mean for him?" said Sir Huon, while the Boy +fingered the ring. "You who walk under Cold Iron, you must tell us and +teach us." + +'"Tell I can, but teach I cannot," I said. "The virtue of the Ring is +only that he must go among folk in housen henceforward, doing what they +want done, or what he knows they need, all Old England over. Never will +he be his own master, nor yet ever any man's. He will get half he gives, +and give twice what he gets, till his life's last breath; and if he lays +aside his load before he draws that last breath, all his work will go +for naught." + +'"Oh, cruel, wicked Thor!" cried the Lady Esclairmonde. "Ah, look see, +all of you! The catch is still open! He hasn't locked it. He can still +take it off. He can still come back. Come back!" She went as near as +she dared, but she could not lay hands on Cold Iron. The Boy could have +taken it off, yes. We waited to see if he would, but he put up his hand, +and the snap locked home. + +'"What else could I have done?" said he. + +'"Surely, then, you will do," I said. "Morning's coming, and if you +three have any farewells to make, make them now, for, after sunrise, +Cold Iron must be your master." 'So the three sat down, cheek by wet +cheek, telling over their farewells till morning light. As good a boy as +ever lived, he was.' + +'And what happened to him?' asked Dan. + +'When morning came, Cold Iron was master of him and his fortune, and +he went to work among folk in housen. Presently he came across a maid +like-minded with himself, and they were wedded, and had bushels of +children, as the saying is. Perhaps you'll meet some of his breed, this +year.' + +'Thank you,' said Una. 'But what did the poor Lady Esclairmonde do?' + +'What can you do when Asa Thor lays the Cold Iron in a lad's path? She +and Sir Huon were comforted to think they had given the Boy good store +of learning to act and influence on folk in housen. For he was a good +boy! Isn't it getting on for breakfast-time? I'll walk with you a +piece.' + +When they were well in the centre of the bone-dry fern, Dan nudged Una, +who stopped and put on a boot as quickly as she could. 'Now,' she said, +'you can't get any Oak, Ash, and Thorn leaves from here, and'--she +balanced wildly on one leg--'I'm standing on Cold Iron. What'll you do +if we don't go away?' + +'E-eh? Of all mortal impudence!'said Puck, as Dan, also in one boot, +grabbed his sister's hand to steady himself. He walked round them, +shaking with delight. 'You think I can only work with a handful of dead +leaves? This comes of taking away your Doubt and Fear! I'll show you!' + + +A minute later they charged into old Hobden at his simple breakfast of +cold roast pheasant, shouting that there was a wasps' nest in the fern +which they had nearly stepped on, and asking him to come and smoke it +out. 'It's too early for wops-nests, an' I don't go diggin' in the Hill, +not for shillin's,' said the old man placidly. 'You've a thorn in your +foot, Miss Una. Sit down, and put on your t'other boot. You're too old +to be caperin' barefoot on an empty stomach. Stay it with this chicken +o' mine.' + + + + +Cold Iron + + + 'Gold is for the mistress--silver for the maid! + Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.' + 'Good!' said the Baron, sitting in his hall, + 'But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of them all!' + + So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege, + Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege-- + 'Nay!' said the cannoneer on the castle wall, + 'But Iron--Cold Iron--shall be master of you all!' + + Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong, + When the cruel cannon-balls laid 'em all along! + He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall, + And Iron--Cold Iron--was master of it all! + + Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!) + 'What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?' + 'Nay!' said the Baron, 'mock not at my fall, + For Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all.' + + 'Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown-- + Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.' + 'As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small, + For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!' + + Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!) + 'Here is Bread and here is Wine--sit and sup with me. + Eat and drink in Mary's Name, the whiles I do recall + How Iron--Cold Iron--can be master of men all!' + + He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread. + With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said: + 'Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall + Show Iron--Cold Iron--to be master of men all! + + 'Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong, + Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong. + I forgive thy treason--I redeem thy fall-- + For Iron--Cold Iron--must be master of men all!' + + 'Crowns are for the valiant--sceptres for the bold! + Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.' + 'Nay!' said the Baron, kneeling in his hall, + 'But Iron--Cold Iron--is master of men all! + Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!' + + + + +GLORIANA + + + +The Two Cousins + + + Valour and Innocence + Have latterly gone hence + To certain death by certain shame attended. + Envy--ah! even to tears!-- + The fortune of their years + Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. + + Scarce had they lifted up + Life's full and fiery cup, + Than they had set it down untouched before them. + Before their day arose + They beckoned it to close-- + Close in destruction and confusion o'er them. + + They did not stay to ask + What prize should crown their task, + Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for; + But passed into eclipse, + Her kiss upon their lips-- + Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for! + + + + +Gloriana + + +Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like +Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom +when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep +it most particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them +every time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old +Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there +without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the +calico and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown-ups +not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.' + +Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon, +as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving +among the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the +potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam. + +'Oh, it's you, is it?' said Una. 'We thought it was people.' 'I saw you +were angry--from your legs,' he answered with a grin. + +'Well, it's our own Kingdom--not counting you, of course.' + +'That's rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.' + +'What about?' said Dan cautiously. 'Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She +knows about Kingdoms.' + +There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid +everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered +by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look +in the least as if she motored. + +Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best +dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, +deep, slow, billowy one. + +'Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,'she said, 'I can +do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.' She turned sharply on +staring Dan. 'What's in your head, lad? Manners?' + +'I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,' he answered. + +She laughed a rather shrill laugh. 'You're a courtier already. Do you +know anything of dances, wench--or Queen, must I say?' + +'I've had some lessons, but I can't really dance a bit,' said Una. + +'You should learn, then.' The lady moved forward as though she would +teach her at once. 'It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies +time to think how she shall win or--lose. A woman can only work in man's +play-time. Heigho!'She sat down on the bank. + +Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung +his sorrowful head over the fence. + +'A pleasant Kingdom,' said the lady, looking round. 'Well enclosed. And +how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?' + +Una did not quite understand. 'We don't play that,' she said. + +'Play?' The lady threw up her hands and laughed. + +'We have it for our own, together,' Dan explained. + +'And d'you never quarrel, young Burleigh?' + +'Sometimes, but then we don't tell.' + +The lady nodded. 'I've no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a +secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! + +But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm' +small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is +example'--she pointed to Middenboro--'yonder old horse, with the face of +a Spanish friar--does he never break in?' + +'He can't. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,' said Una, 'and we let +Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.' + +The lady laughed like a man. 'I see! Hobden catches conies--rabbits--for +himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of +his coney-catching?' + +'We never ask,' said Una. 'Hobden's a particular friend of ours.' +'Hoity-toity!' the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. 'But I forget. +It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this +to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked 'em +no questions either.' + +'Was she trying to grow flowers?'said Una. + +'No, trees--perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.' The lady leaned +her head on her hand. + +'They do if you don't look after them. We've got a few. Would you like +to see? I'll fetch you some.' Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade +behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. 'Aren't +they pretty?' she said. 'They're Virginia stock.' + +'Virginia?' said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask. + +'Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?' + +'Not herself--but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or to +plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.' + +'And was she?' said Dan cheerfully. + +'Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled abroad she +toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.' + +'And what was she called?' + +'Gloriana--Belphoebe--Elizabeth of England.' Her voice changed at each +word. + +'You mean Queen Bess?' + +The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. 'You name her lightly +enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?' said she. + +'Well, I--I've seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall +House--down the road, you know. They're in a glass case--awfully tiny +things.' + +'Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!' she laughed. 'You are a courtier too soon.' + +'But they are,' Dan insisted. 'As little as dolls' shoes. Did you really +know her well?' + +'Well. She was a--woman. I've been at her Court all my life. Yes, I +remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. They say she +danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the +price of a pair of old shoes--hey?' + +She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its broad +flashing buckle. + +'You've heard of Philip of Spain--long-suffering Philip,' she said, her +eyes still on the shining stones. 'Faith, what some men will endure at +some women's hands passes belief! If I had been a man, and a woman had +played with me as Elizabeth played with Philip, I would have--' She +nipped off one of the Virginia stocks and held it up between finger +and thumb. 'But for all that'--she began to strip the leaves one by +one--'they say--and I am persuaded--that Philip loved her.' She tossed +her head sideways. + +'I don't quite understand,' said Una. + +'The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!' She swept the flowers +from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that the wind chased +through the wood. + +'I should like to know about the shoes,' said Dan. + +'So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. 'Twill be as good +as a play.' + +'We've never been to a play,' said Una. + +The lady looked at her and laughed. 'I'll make one for you. Watch! You +are to imagine that she--Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth--has gone on a +progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic), +and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village--what was its name?' +She pushed Puck with her foot. + +'Norgem,' he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam. + +'Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a +Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I'd +made 'em in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.' + +'You whipped?' said Dan. + +'Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship, +makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus'--(the +lady yawned)--'Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and yet +be dog-wearied of 'em 'in body and mind--and so sits down'--her skirts +foamed about her as she sat--'to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here +for her sins she is waited upon by--What were the young cockerels' names +that served Gloriana at table?' + +'Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,' Puck began. + +She held up her long jewelled hand. 'Spare the rest! They were the best +blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes +and plates. Wherefore'--she looked funnily over her shoulder--'you +are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully +expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or +devotion, spatter it with sauces and wines. The gown was Philip's gift, +too! At this happy juncture a Queen's messenger, mounted and mired, +spurs up the Rye road and delivers her a letter'--she giggled--'a letter +from a good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called--Don Philip.' + +'That wasn't Philip, King of Spain?'Dan asked. + +'Truly, it was. 'Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young Burleigh, these +kings and queens are very like men and women, and I've heard they write +each other fond, foolish letters that none of their ministers should +open.' + +'Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth's letters?' said Una. + +'Faith, yes! But she'd have done as much for theirs, any day. You are +to think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty hand), excusing +herself thus to the company--for the Queen's time is never her own--and, +while the music strikes up, reading Philip's letter, as I do.' She drew +a real letter from her pocket, and held it out almost at arm's length, +like the old post-mistress in the village when she reads telegrams. + +'Hm! Hm! Hm! Philip writes as ever most lovingly. He says his Gloriana +is cold, for which reason he burns for her through a fair written page.' +She turned it with a snap. 'What's here? Philip complains that certain +of her gentlemen have fought against his generals in the Low Countries. +He prays her to hang 'em when they re-enter her realms. (Hm, that's as +may be.) Here's a list of burnt shipping slipped between two vows of +burning adoration. Oh, poor Philip! His admirals at sea--no less than +three of 'em--have been boarded, sacked, and scuttled on their lawful +voyages by certain English mariners (gentlemen, he will not call them), +who are now at large and working more piracies in his American ocean, +which the Pope gave him. (He and the Pope should guard it, then!) Philip +hears, but his devout ears will not credit it, that Gloriana in some +fashion countenances these villains' misdeeds, shares in their booty, +and--oh, shame!---has even lent them ships royal for their sinful +thefts. Therefore he requires (which is a word Gloriana loves not), +requires that she shall hang 'em when they return to England, and +afterwards shall account to him for all the goods and gold they have +plundered. A most loving request! If Gloriana will not be Philip's +bride, she shall be his broker and his butcher! Should she still +be stiff-necked, he writes--see where the pen digged the innocent +paper!---that he hath both the means and the intention to be revenged +on her. Aha! Now we come to the Spaniard in his shirt!' (She waved +the letter merrily.) 'Listen here! Philip will prepare for Gloriana a +destruction from the West--a destruction from the West--far exceeding +that which Pedro de Avila wrought upon the Huguenots. And he rests and +remains, kissing her feet and her hands, her slave, her enemy, or her +conqueror, as he shall find that she uses him.' + +She thrust back the letter under her cloak, and went on acting, but in +a softer voice. 'All this while--hark to it--the wind blows through +Brickwall Oak, the music plays, and, with the company's eyes upon her, +the Queen of England must think what this means. She cannot remember the +name of Pedro de Avila, nor what he did to the Huguenots, nor when, nor +where. She can only see darkly some dark motion moving in Philip's dark +mind, for he hath never written before in this fashion. She must smile +above the letter as though it were good news from her ministers--the +smile that tires the mouth and the poor heart. What shall she do?' Again +her voice changed. + +'You are to fancy that the music of a sudden wavers away. Chris Hatton, +Captain of her bodyguard, quits the table all red and ruffled, and +Gloriana's virgin ear catches the clash of swords at work behind a wall. +The mothers of Sussex look round to count their chicks--I mean those +young gamecocks that waited on her. Two dainty youths have stepped +aside into Brickwall garden with rapier and dagger on a private point of +honour. They are haled out through the gate, disarmed and glaring--the +lively image of a brace of young Cupids transformed into pale, panting +Cains. Ahem! Gloriana beckons awfully--thus! They come up for judgement. +Their lives and estates lie at her mercy whom they have doubly offended, +both as Queen and woman. But la! what will not foolish young men do for +a beautiful maid?' + +'Why? What did she do? What had they done?' said Una. + +'Hsh! You mar the play! Gloriana had guessed the cause of the trouble. +They were handsome lads. So she frowns a while and tells 'em not to be +bigger fools than their mothers had made 'em, and warns 'em, if they do +not kiss and be friends on the instant, she'll have Chris Hatton horse +and birch 'em in the style of the new school at Harrow. (Chris looks +sour at that.) Lastly, because she needed time to think on Philip's +letter burning in her pocket, she signifies her pleasure to dance with +'em and teach 'em better manners. Whereat the revived company call down +Heaven's blessing on her gracious head; Chris and the others prepare +Brickwall House for a dance; and she walks in the clipped garden between +those two lovely young sinners who are both ready to sink for shame. +They confess their fault. It appears that midway in the banquet the +elder--they were cousins--conceived that the Queen looked upon him with +special favour. The younger, taking the look to himself, after some +words gives the elder the lie. Hence, as she guessed, the duel.' + +'And which had she really looked at?' Dan asked. + +'Neither--except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the while +they'd spill dishes on her gown. She tells 'em this, poor chicks--and it +completes their abasement. When they had grilled long enough, she says: +"And so you would have fleshed your maiden swords for me--for me?" +Faith, they would have been at it again if she'd egged 'em on! but their +swords--oh, prettily they said it!---had been drawn for her once or +twice already. + +'"And where?" says she. "On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?" + +'"On my own ship," says the elder. "My cousin was vice-admiral of our +venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling +children." + +'"No, no," says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. "At +least the Spaniards know us better." + +'"Admiral Boy--Vice-Admiral Babe," says Gloriana, "I cry your pardon. +The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly +than I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break +your Queen's peace?" '"On the sea called the Spanish Main, though 'tis +no more Spanish than my doublet," says the elder. Guess how that warmed +Gloriana's already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be +called Spanish in her private hearing. + +'"And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid +it? Disclose," says she. "You stand in some danger of the gallows for +pirates." + +'"The axe, most gracious lady," says the elder, "for we are gentle +born." He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction. +"Hoity-toity!" says she, and, but that she remembered that she was +Queen, she'd have cuffed the pair of 'em. "It shall be gallows, hurdle, +and dung-cart if I choose." + +'"Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held +her to blame for some small things we did on the seas," the younger +lisps. + +'"As for treasure," says the elder, "we brought back but our bare lives. +We were wrecked on the Gascons' Graveyard, where our sole company for +three months was the bleached bones of De Avila's men." + +'Gloriana's mind jumped back to Philip's last letter. + +'"De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d'you know of him?" she +says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back +between the yews. + +'"Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that +coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics--eight hundred +or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De +Avila's men, and very justly hung 'em all for murderers--five hundred or +so. No Christians inhabit there now, says the elder lad, though 'tis a +goodly land north of Florida." + +'"How far is it from England?" asks prudent Gloriana. + +'"With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it again +soon." This was the younger, and he looked at her out of the corner of +his innocent eye. + +'Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall Hall, where +she dances--thus. A woman can think while she dances--can think. I'll +show you. Watch!' + +She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured satin, +worked over with pearls that trembled like running water in the running +shadows of the trees. Still talking--more to herself than to the +children--she swam into a majestical dance of the stateliest balancings, +the naughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, the most dignified +sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined together by the elaboratest +interlacing steps and circles. They leaned forward breathlessly to watch +the splendid acting. + +'Would a Spaniard,' she began, looking on the ground, 'speak of his +revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who loved a woman +might threaten her 'in the hope that his threats would make her love +him. Such things have been.' She moved slowly across a bar of sunlight. +'A destruction from the West may signify that Philip means to descend on +Ireland. But then my Irish spies would have had some warning. The Irish +keep no secrets. No--it is not Ireland. Now why--why--why'--the red +shoes clicked and paused--'does Philip name Pedro Melendez de Avila, +a general in his Americas, unless'--she turned more quickly--unless he +intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did he say De Avila +only to put her off her guard, or for this once has his black +pen betrayed his black heart? We'--she raised herself to her full +height--'England must forestall Master Philip. But not openly,'--she +sank again--'we cannot fight Spain openly--not yet--not yet.' She +stepped three paces as though she were pegging down some snare with her +twinkling shoe-buckles. 'The Queen's mad gentlemen may fight Philip's +poor admirals where they find 'em, but England, Gloriana, Harry's +daughter, must keep the peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her--as +many men and boys do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help +England?' + +She raised her head--the masked head that seemed to have nothing to do +with the busy feet--and stared straight at the children. + +'I think this is rather creepy,' said Una with a shiver. 'I wish she'd +stop.' + +The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking some one +else's hand in the Grand Chain. + +'Can a ship go down into the Gascons' Graveyard and wait there?' she +asked into the air, and passed on rustling. + +'She's pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn't she?' said Dan, and +Puck nodded. + +Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw she was +smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her breathing hard. + +'I cannot lend you any of my ships for the venture; Philip would hear +of it,' she whispered over her shoulder; 'but as much guns and powder as +you ask, if you do not ask too--'Her voice shot up and she stamped her +foot thrice. 'Louder! Louder, the music in the gallery! Oh, me, but I +have burst out of my shoe!' + +She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. 'You will go +at your own charges,' she whispered straight before her. 'Oh, enviable +and adorable age of youth!' Her eyes shone through the mask-holes. 'But +I warn you you'll repent it. Put not your trust in princes--or Queens. +Philip's ships'll blow you out of water. You'll not be frightened? Well, +we'll talk on it again, when I return from Rye, dear lads.' + +The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on her except +the rush of the shadows. + +'And so it was finished,' she said to the children. 'Why d'you not +applaud?' + +'What was finished?' said Una. + +'The dance,' the lady replied offendedly. 'And a pair of green shoes.' + +'I don't understand a bit,' said Una. + +'Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?' + +'I'm not quite sure,' Dan began, 'but--' + +'You never can be--with a woman. But--?' + +'But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons' +Graveyard, wherever that was.' + +''Twas Virginia after-wards. Her plantation of Virginia.' + +'Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn't she say +she'd lend 'em guns?' + +'Right so. But not ships--then.' + +'And I thought you meant they must have told her they'd do it off their +own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?' + +'Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the +lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye +Royal--knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they +met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through +her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it. + +'"YOU would not birch them when I gave you the chance," says she to +Chris. "Now you must get me half an hour's private speech with 'em in +Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may +repent!"' + +'She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself?' said Una. + +The lady shook her head. 'That was never her way. I've seen her walk +to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight +there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What +else--what else in England's name could she have done?' She lifted her +hand to her throat for a moment. 'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten +the little green shoes! She left 'em at Brickwall--so she did. And I +remember she gave the Norgem parson--John Withers, was he?---a text +for his sermon--"Over Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd +understood!' + +'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?' + +'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. 'I was not to blame. +I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de +mi!), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a while off that +coast--the Gascons' Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced +to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only +to watch and bring me word of Philip's doings. One must watch Philip +always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a +hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from +England? By my dread father's soul, I tell you he had none--none!' +She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a +second. + +'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before +the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em that if Philip +sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), +their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with +submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed 'em again +that there could be only one end to it--quick death on the sea, or slow +death in Philip's prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death +for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I've refused 'em, and +slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical +young men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes +me--ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.' Her chest sounded +like a board as she hit it. 'She showed 'em all. I told 'em that this +was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they +prevailed against Philip's fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For +England's sake, to save war, I should e'en be forced (I told 'em so) to +give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle +escaped Philip's hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, +they must lie--oh, I told 'em all--under my sovereign displeasure. She +could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a +finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it. + +'"Be it the gallows, then," says the elder. (I could have wept, but that +my face was made for the day.) + +'"Either way--any way--this venture is death, which I know you fear not. +But it is death with assured dishonour," I cried. + +'"Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done," says the +younger. '"Sweetheart," I said. "A queen has no heart." + +'"But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget," says the elder. "We +will go!" They knelt at my feet. + +'"Nay, dear lads--but here!" I said, and I opened my arms to them and I +kissed them. + +'"Be ruled by me," I said. "We'll hire some ill-featured old +tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to +Court." + +'"Hire whom you please," says the elder; "we are ruled by you, body and +soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed 'em, says between +his white lips, "I think you have power to make a god of a man." + +'"Come to Court and be sure of't," I said. + +'They shook their heads and I knew--I knew, that go they would. If I had +not kissed them--perhaps I might have prevailed.' + +'Then why did you do it?' said Una. 'I don't think you knew really what +you wanted done.' + +'May it please your Majesty'--the lady bowed her head low--'this +Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a +Queen. Remember her when you come to your Kingdom.' + +'But--did the cousins go to the Gascons' Graveyard?' said Dan, as Una +frowned. + +'They went,' said the lady. + +'Did they ever come back?' Una began; but--'Did they stop King Philip's +fleet?' Dan interrupted. + +The lady turned to him eagerly. + +'D'you think they did right to go?' she asked. + +'I don't see what else they could have done,' Dan replied, after +thinking it over. + +'D'you think she did right to send 'em?' The lady's voice rose a little. + +'Well,' said Dan, 'I don't see what else she could have done, either--do +you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?' + +'There's the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, +and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what +had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make +you alter your mind, young Burleigh?' 'I expect they were drowned, then. +Anyhow, Philip didn't score, did he?' + +'Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won, +would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads' lives?' + +'Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.' + +The lady coughed. 'You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen, +I'd make you Minister.' + +'We don't play that game,' said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady +as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through +Willow Shaw. + +'Play!' said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly. +The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash +till Una's eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on +his knees picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate. + +'There wasn't anybody in the Shaw, after all,' he said. 'Didn't you +think you saw someone?' + +'I'm most awfully glad there isn't,' said Una. Then they went on with +the potato-roast. + + + + +The Looking-Glass + +Queen Bess Was Harry's daughter! + + The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old, + Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. + Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, + Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was! + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair, + There came Queen Mary's spirit and it stood behind her chair, + Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways you may pass, + But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!' + + The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore, + There came Lord Leicester's spirit and it scratched upon the door, + Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, + But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass. + The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass + As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!' + + The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head; + She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said: + 'Backwards and forwards and sideways though I've been, + Yet I am Harry's daughter and I am England's Queen!' + And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was), + And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass + In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass + More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was! + + + + +THE WRONG THING + + + + +A Truthful Song + + + THE BRICKLAYER: + + I tell this tale, which is strictly true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things were made + Things have altered in the building trade. + + A year ago, come the middle o' March, + We was building flats near the Marble Arch, + When a thin young man with coal-black hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn't a trick in brick or stone + That this young man hadn't seen or known; + Nor there wasn't a tool from trowel to maul + But this young man could use 'em all! + Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold, + Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold: + 'Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly say what your name might be?' + + The young man kindly answered them: + 'It might be Lot or Methusalem, + Or it might be Moses (a man I hate), + Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great. + + 'Your glazing is new and your plumbing's strange, + But other-wise I perceive no change, + And in less than a month, if you do as I bid, + I'd learn you to build me a Pyramid.' + + THE SAILOR: + + I tell this tale, which is stricter true, + just by way of convincing you + How very little since things was made + Things have altered in the shipwright's trade. + + In Blackwall Basin yesterday + A China barque re-fitting lay, + When a fat old man with snow-white hair + Came up to watch us working there. + + Now there wasn't a knot which the riggers knew + But the old man made it--and better too; + Nor there wasn't a sheet, or a lift, or a brace, + But the old man knew its lead and place. + + Then up and spake the caulkyers bold, + Which was packing the pump in the after-hold: + 'Since you with us have made so free, + Will you kindly tell what your name might be?' + + The old man kindly answered them: + 'it might be Japhet, it might be Shem, + Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), + Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark. + + 'Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange, + But otherwise I perceive no change, + And in less than a week, if she did not ground, + I'd sail this hooker the wide world round!' + + BOTH: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, etc. + + + + +The Wrong Thing + + +Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the +schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned +him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr Springett's +yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old Mr +Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and +his yard, which opened off the village street, was always full of +interesting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a +ladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold-planks, tins of paints, +pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here +by the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard +below, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter's bench near the +loft window. Mr Springett and Dan had always been particular friends, +for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when railways were being +made in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed to +drive dogs in carts. + +One hot, still afternoon--the tar-paper on the roof smelt like +ships--Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner's +bow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He +said he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any +man, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the +Village Hall at the entrance of the village, which he had finished a few +weeks before. + +'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall will +be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn't make ten pounds--no, +nor yet five--out o' the whole contrac', but my name's lettered on the +foundation stone--Ralph Springett, Builder--and the stone she's bedded +on four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five hundred +years, I'll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec' so +when he come down to oversee my work.' + +'What did he say?' Dan was sandpapering the schooner's port bow. + +'Nothing. The Hall ain't more than one of his small jobs for him, but +'tain't small to me, an' my name is cut and lettered, frontin' the +village street, I do hope an' pray, for time everlastin'. You'll want +the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who's there?' Mr +Springett turned stiffly in his chair. + +A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan +looked, and saw Hal o' the Draft's touzled head beyond them. [See 'Hal +o' the Draft' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] + +'Be you the builder of the Village Hall?' he asked of Mr Springett. + +'I be,' was the answer. 'But if you want a job--' + +Hal laughed. 'No, faith!'he said. 'Only the Hall is as good and honest +a piece of work as I've ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts, +and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master +mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.' + +'Aa--um!' Mr Springett looked important. 'I be a bit rusty, but I'll try +ye!' + +He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have +pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always +keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat +down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr Springett's +desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr Springett about +bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on +with his work. He knew Mr Springett was pleased, because he tugged +his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two +men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they +interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal +said something about workmen. + +'Why, that's what I always say,' Mr Springett cried. 'A man who can only +do one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man that can't do nothin'. +That's where the Unions make their mistake.' + +'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg. +'I've suffered 'in my time from these same Guilds--Unions, d'you call +'em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, what +does it come to?' + +'Nothin'! You've justabout hit it,' said Mr Springett, and rammed his +hot tobacco with his thumb. + +'Take the art of wood-carving,'Hal went on. He reached across the +planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he +wanted something. Mr Springett without a word passed him one of Dan's +broad chisels. 'Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and +have a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a' Heaven's name take chisel +and maul and let drive at it, say I! You'll soon find all the mystery, +forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!' Whack, came the +mallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr +Springett watched like an old raven. + +'All art is one, man--one!' said Hal between whacks; 'and to wait on +another man to finish out--' + +'To finish out your work ain't no sense,' Mr Springett cut in. 'That's +what I'm always sayin' to the boy here.' He nodded towards Dan. 'That's +what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster's Mill in Eighteen +hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job +'thout bringin' a man from Lunnon. An' besides, dividin' work eats up +profits, no bounds.' + +Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined in till +Dan laughed too. + +'You handle your tools, I can see,' said Mr Springett. 'I reckon, if +you're any way like me, you've found yourself hindered by those--Guilds, +did you call 'em?---Unions, we say.' + +'You may say so!' Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. 'This +is a remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons on Magdalen +Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave. +They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.' + +'I know them accidents. There's no way to disprove 'em. An' stones ain't +the only things that slip,' Mr Springett grunted. Hal went on: + +'I've seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirty +foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break--' 'Yes, +natural as nature; an' lime'll fly up in a man's eyes without any breath +o' wind sometimes,' said Mr Springett. 'But who's to show 'twasn't a +accident?' + +'Who do these things?' Dan asked, and straightened his back at the bench +as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter. + +'Them which don't wish other men to work no better nor quicker than they +do,' growled Mr Springett. 'Don't pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus' +Dan. Put a piece o' rag in the jaws, or you'll bruise her. More than +that'--he turned towards Hal--'if a man has his private spite laid up +against you, the Unions give him his excuse for workin' it off.' + +'Well I know it,'said Hal. + +'They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer in +Eighteen hundred Sixty-one--down to the wells. He was a Frenchy--a bad +enemy he was.' 'I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto. +I met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my +trade-or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he +came to be my singular good friend,' said Hal as he put down the mallet +and settled himself comfortably. + +'What might his trade have been--plastering' Mr Springett asked. + +'Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco--fresco we call it. Made +pictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the hand in +drawing. He'd take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on his stuff, +and roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and croppy-topped +trees quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. Oh, Benedetto could +draw, but 'a was a little-minded man, professing to be full of secrets +of colour or plaster--common tricks, all of 'em--and his one single talk +was how Tom, Dick or Harry had stole this or t'other secret art from +him.' + +'I know that sort,' said Mr Springett. 'There's no keeping peace or +making peace with such. An' they're mostly born an' bone idle.' + +'True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We two came +to loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a youngster then. Maybe I +spoke my mind about his work.' + +'You shouldn't never do that.' Mr Springett shook his head. 'That sort +lay it up against you.' + +'True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o' me, the +man lived to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a plank or a +scaffold. I was mighty glad to be shut of him when he quarrelled with +his Guild foreman, and went off, nose in air, and paints under his arm. +But'--Hal leaned forward--'if you hate a man or a man hates you--' + +'I know. You're everlastin' running acrost him,' Mr Springett +interrupted. 'Excuse me, sir.' He leaned out of the window, and shouted +to a carter who was loading a cart with bricks. + +'Ain't you no more sense than to heap 'em up that way?' he said. 'Take +an' throw a hundred of 'em off. It's more than the team can compass. +Throw 'em off, I tell you, and make another trip for what's left over. +Excuse me, sir. You was sayin'-' + +'I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury to +strengthen the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.' + +'Now that's just one of the things I've never done. But I mind there was +a cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred Seventy-nine, an' +I went an' watched 'em leadin' a won'erful fine window in Chichester +Cathedral. I stayed watchin' till 'twas time for us to go back. Dunno as +I had two drinks p'raps, all that day.' + +Hal smiled. 'At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy Benedetto. He +had painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of the Refectory--a +noble place for a noble thing--a picture of Jonah.' + +'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far as Bury. You've worked +about a lot,' said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the carter below. + +'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the pompion that +withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a peevish grey-beard +huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a pompion on a wooden trellis. +This last, being a dead thing, he'd drawn it as 'twere to the life. But +fierce old Jonah, bared in the sun, angry even to death that his cold +prophecy was disproven--Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children +of Nineveh running to mock him--ah, that was what Benedetto had not +drawn!' + +'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr Springett. + +'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off the +picture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?' + +'"Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster." + +'"What?" he said in a whisper. + +'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go deeper than the +plaster?" + +'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I know it. +I could not hate thee more than I have done these five years, but if I +live, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I pitied him, but +I had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper than the plaster.' + +'Ah!' said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. 'You was talkin' so +fast I didn't understand what you was drivin' at. I've seen men--good +workmen they was--try to do more than they could do, and--and they +couldn't compass it. They knowed it, and it nigh broke their hearts +like. You was in your right, o' course, sir, to say what you thought o' +his work; but if you'll excuse me, was you in your duty?' + +'I was wrong to say it,' Hal replied. 'God forgive me--I was young! +He was workman enough himself to know where he failed. But it all +came evens in the long run. By the same token, did ye ever hear o' one +Torrigiano--Torrisany we called him?' + +'I can't say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?' + +'No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian builder, as vain as +a peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark you, a master workman. More +than that--he could get his best work out of the worst men.' + +'Which it's a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' said Mr +Springett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a pointing-trowel, +and they did wonders.' + +I've seen our Torrisany lay a 'prentice down with one buffet and raise +him with another--to make a mason of him. I worked under him at building +a chapel in London--a chapel and a tomb for the King.' + +'I never knew kings went to chapel much,' said Mr Springett. 'But I +always hold with a man--don't care who he be--seein' about his own grave +before he dies. 'Tidn't the sort of thing to leave to your family after +the will's read. I reckon 'twas a fine vault?' + +'None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, as +you'd say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts--England, France, +Italy, the Low Countries--no odds to him so long as they knew their +work, and he drove them like--like pigs at Brightling Fair. He called us +English all pigs. We suffered it because he was a master in his craft. +If he misliked any work that a man had done, with his own great hands +he'd rive it out, and tear it down before us all. "Ah, you pig--you +English pig!" he'd scream in the dumb wretch's face. "You answer me? You +look at me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I +will teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!" But when +his passion had blown out, he'd slip his arm round the man's neck, and +impart knowledge worth gold. 'Twould have done your heart good, Mus' +Springett, to see the two hundred of us masons, jewellers, carvers, +gilders, iron-workers and the rest--all toiling like cock-angels, and +this mad Italian hornet fleeing one to next up and down the chapel. Done +your heart good, it would!' + +'I believe you,' said Mr Springett. 'In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, I +mind, the railway was bein' made into Hastin's. There was two thousand +navvies on it--all young--all strong--an' I was one of 'em. Oh, dearie +me! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy workin' with you?' + +'Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He painted +pictures on the chapel ceiling--slung from a chair. Torrigiano made +us promise not to fight till the work should be finished. We were both +master craftsmen, do ye see, and he needed us. None the less, I never +went aloft to carve 'thout testing all my ropes and knots each morning. +We were never far from each other. Benedetto 'ud sharpen his knife on +his sole while he waited for his plaster to dry--wheet, wheet, wheet. +I'd hear it where I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we'd nod to +each other friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his +hate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the +models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me +before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I +came out. He was slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.' + +'Workin' himself up to it?' said Mr Springett. 'Did he have it in at ye +that night?' + +'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh, +well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of +myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I'--Hal +broke into a laugh--'I lay there was not much odds 'twixt me and a +cock-sparrow in his pride.' + +'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr Springett. + +'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, and keep +company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus' Springett.' + +'I never held much with dressin' up, but--you're right! The worst +mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,' Mr Springett +answered. 'We've all been one sort of fool or t'other. Mus' Dan, Mus' +Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you'll be spluttin' her stem works +clean out. Can't ye see the grain of the wood don't favour a chisel?' + +'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called +Brygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King's Ships, a little, smooth, +bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin'--a +won'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o' me, and asked me to +draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the +bows of one of the King's Ships--the SOVEREIGN was her name.' + +'Was she a man-of-war?'asked Dan. + +'She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the +King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did not +know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and +fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour, +all of a heat after supper--one great heaving play of dolphins and a +Neptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his +harp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine +foot deep--painted and gilt.' + +It must ha' justabout looked fine,' said Mr Springett. + +'That's the curiosity of it. 'Twas bad--rank bad. In my conceit I must +needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs, +hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through a +sleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were never far apart, I've +told you. + +'"That is pig's work," says our Master. "Swine's work. You make any more +such things, even after your fine Court suppers, and you shall be sent +away." + +'Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. "It is so bad then, Master?" he +says. "What a pity!" + +'"Yes," says Torrigiano. "Scarcely you could do things so bad. I will +condescend to show." + +'He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it was too bad +for that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in slowly. Then he sets +me to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as he said, the taste +of my naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron's sweet stuff if you don't +torture her, and hammered work is all pure, truthful line, with a reason +and a support for every curve and bar of it. A week at that settled +my stomach handsomely, and the Master let me put the work through the +smithy, where I sweated out more of my foolish pride.' + +'Good stuff is good iron,' said Mr Springett. 'I done a pair of lodge +gates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.' + +'Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my draft of the +ship's scroll-work, and would not give it back to me to re-draw. He said +'twould do well enough. Howsoever, my lawful work kept me too busied to +remember him. Body o' me, but I worked that winter upon the gates and +the bronzes for the tomb as I'd never worked before! I was leaner than +a lath, but I lived--I lived then!' Hal looked at Mr Springett with his +wise, crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back. + +'Ouch!' Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner's after-deck, +the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his left thumb,--an +ugly, triangular tear. + +'That came of not steadying your wrist,' said Hal calmly. 'Don't bleed +over the wood. Do your work with your heart's blood, but no need to let +it show.' He rose and peered into a corner of the loft. + +Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs from a +rafter. + +'Clap that on,' was all he said, 'and put your handkerchief atop. 'Twill +cake over in a minute. It don't hurt now, do it?' + +'No,' said Dan indignantly. 'You know it has happened lots of times. +I'll tie it up myself. Go on, sir.' + +'And it'll happen hundreds of times more,' said Hal with a friendly nod +as he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan's hand was tied up +properly. Then he said: + +'One dark December day--too dark to judge colour--we was all sitting and +talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good talk there), when +Bob Brygandyne bustles in and--"Hal, you're sent for," he squeals. I +was at Torrigiano's feet on a pile of put-locks, as I might be here, +toasting a herring on my knife's point. 'Twas the one English thing our +Master liked--salt herring. + +'"I'm busy, about my art," I calls. + + +'"Art?" says Bob. "What's Art compared to your scroll-work for the +SOVEREIGN? Come." + +'"Be sure your sins will find you out," says Torrigiano. "Go with him +and see." As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, like a black +spot when the eyes are tired, sliddering up behind me. + +'Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a doorway, +up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a little cold +room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no furnishing except a +table and my draft of the SOVEREIGN's scrollwork. Here he leaves me. +Presently comes in a dark, long-nosed man in a fur cap. + +'"Master Harry Dawe?" said he. + +'"The same," I says. "Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?" + +'His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again in a stiff +bar. "He went to the King," he says. + +'"All one. Where's your pleasure with me?" I says, shivering, for it was +mortal cold. + +'He lays his hand flat on my draft. "Master Dawe," he says, "do you know +the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked gilding of yours?" + +'By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of the +King's Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it worked +out to thirty pounds--carved, gilt, and fitted in place. + +'"Thirty pounds!" he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of him. "You +talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the asking. None the +less," he says, "your draft's a fine piece of work." + +'I'd been looking at it ever since I came in, and 'twas viler even than +I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the past months, +d'ye see, by my iron work. + +'"I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my squabby +Neptunes the less I liked 'em; and Arion was a pure flaming shame atop +of the unbalanced dolphins. + +'"I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again," he says. + +'"Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he'll never pay me for +the second. 'Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it," I says. + +'"There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," he says. "We'll stick +to your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty pounds is thirty pounds. +You must make it less." + +'And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit me +between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it back +and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid thought +comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, It was quite +honest.' + +'They ain't always,' says Mr Springett. 'How did you get out of it?' + +'By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I says, +"I'll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable man. Is the +SOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she take the high +seas?" + +'"Oh," he says quickly, "the King keeps no cats that don't catch mice. +She must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She'll be hired to merchants for +the trade. She'll be out in all shapes o' weathers. Does that make any +odds?" + +'"Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into'll +claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she's +meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll porture you a +pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she's meant for the +open--sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can never carry that +weight on her bows." + +'He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip. + +'"Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?" he says. + +'"Body o' me! Ask about!" I says. "Any seaman could tell you 'tis +true. I'm advising you against my own profit, but why I do so is my own +concern." + +'"Not altogether ", he says. "It's some of mine. You've saved me thirty +pounds, Master Dawe, and you've given me good arguments to use against +a willful woman that wants my fine new ship for her own toy. We'll not +have any scroll-work." His face shined with pure joy. + +'"Then see that the thirty pounds you've saved on it are honestly paid +the King," I says, "and keep clear o' women-folk." I gathered up my +draft and crumpled it under my arm. "If that's all you need of me I'll +be gone," I says. "I'm pressed." + +'He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. "Too pressed to be made +a knight, Sir Harry?" he says, and comes at me smiling, with +three-quarters of a rusty sword. + +'I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that moment. +I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. + +'"Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe," he says, and, in the same breath, "I'm +pressed, too," and slips through the tapestries, leaving me like a stuck +calf. + +'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master +craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King's +tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d'ye see, +I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved over, or given my heart +and guts to, but expressedly because I'd saved him thirty pounds and a +tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castille--she that had asked for the +ship. That thought shrivelled me with insides while I was folding away +my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you'll see why--I began to grin +to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I +should say--because I'd saved him the money; his smile as though +he'd won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish +expectations that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. I +thought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the hangings; the +dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns, +scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and +the bronzes about the stately tomb he'd lie in, and--d'ye see?---the +unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till +I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I +could laugh no more. What else could I have done? + +'I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his +arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay +on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my +heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my +holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark +crazed for the time. + +'"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. Tell +me now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honour +you,--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now. +I have waited so long." Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury +Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which +all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was my fault!), and +a whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years. + +'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, for I +am just dubbed knight, Benedetto." + +'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. There's a long +night before ye. Tell," says he. + +'So I told him--his chin on my crown--told him all; told it as well +and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper with +Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad or sad, he was a +craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I'd ever tell top of mortal +earth, and I would not put out bad work before I left the Lodge. All +art's one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no malice. My spirits, d'ye +see, were catched up in a high, solemn exaltation, and I saw all earth's +vanities foreshortened and little, laid out below me like a town from a +cathedral scaffolding. I told him what befell, and what I thought of it. +I gave him the King's very voice at "Master Dawe, you've saved me thirty +pounds!"; his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the +badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the Flemish +hangings. Body o' me, 'twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I thought, my +last work on earth. + +'"That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They'll hang ye for +killing me, Benedetto. And, since you've killed in the King's Palace, +they'll draw and quarter you; but you're too mad to care. Grant me, +though, ye never heard a better tale." 'He said nothing, but I felt him +shake. My head on his chest shook; his right arm fell away, his +left dropped the knife, and he leaned with both hands on my +shoulder--shaking--shaking! I turned me round. No need to put my foot +on his knife. The man was speechless with laughter--honest craftsman's +mirth. The first time I'd ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that +cuts off the very breath, while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs? +That was Benedetto's case. + +'When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I haled him +out into the street, and there we leaned against the wall and had it all +over again--waving our hands and wagging our heads--till the watch came +to know if we were drunk. + +'Benedetto says to 'em, solemn as an owl: "You have saved me thirty +pounds, Mus' Dawe," and off he pealed. In some sort we were mad-drunk--I +because dear life had been given back to me, and he because, as he said +afterwards, because the old crust of hatred round his heart was broke up +and carried away by laughter. His very face had changed too. + +'"Hal," he cries, "I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, you English, +you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on the dirty sword? +Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with joy. Oh, let us tell the +Master." + +'So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other's necks, and +when we could speak--he thought we'd been fighting--we told the Master. +Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new cold +pavement. Then he knocked our heads together. + +'"Ah, you English!" he cried. "You are more than pigs. You are English. +Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in the +fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool, +Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King." + +'"And I meant to kill Hal," says Benedetto. "Master, I meant to kill him +because the English King had made him a knight." + +'"Ah!" says the Master, shaking his finger. "Benedetto, if you had +killed my Hal, I should have killed you--in the cloister. But you are a +craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, very +slowly--in an hour, if I could spare the time!" That was Torrigiano--the +Master!' + +Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished. +Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed and +wheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he was +laughing, but it surprised Hal at first. + +'Excuse me, sir,' said Mr Springett, 'but I was thinkin' of some stables +I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was +stables in blue brick--very particular work. Dunno as they weren't the +best job which ever I'd done. But the gentleman's lady--she'd come +from Lunnon, new married--she was all for buildin' what was called +a haw-haw--what you an' me 'ud call a dik--right acrost his park. A +middlin' big job which I'd have had the contract of, for she spoke to me +in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o' springs just +where she wanted to dig her ditch, an' she'd flood the park if she went +on.' + +'Were there any springs at all?' said Hal. + +'Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't there? +But what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' diggin' +haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. But when +I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it 'thout +even lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do assure you. +More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the +library, an' "Ralph," he says--he allers called me by name--"Ralph," he +says, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' trouble this autumn." I +didn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he didn't want any haws-haws +digged acrost his park no more'n I did, but I never said nothin'. No +more he didn't say nothin' about my blue-brick stables, which was really +the best an' honestest piece o' work I'd done in quite a while. He +give me ten pounds for savin' him a hem of a deal o' trouble at home. I +reckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.' + +Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn't quite understand what they +thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without +speaking. + +When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his +green-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief. + +'Bless me, Mus' Dan, I've been asleep,' he said. 'An' I've dreamed a +dream which has made me laugh--laugh as I ain't laughed in a long day. +I can't remember what 'twas all about, but they do say that when old +men take to laughin' in their sleep, they're middlin' ripe for the next +world. Have you been workin' honest, Mus' Dan?' + +'Ra-ather,' said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. 'And look +how I've cut myself with the small gouge.' + +'Ye-es. You want a lump o' cobwebs to that,' said Mr Springett. 'Oh, I +see you've put it on already. That's right, Mus' Dan.' + + + + +King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + + Harry our King in England from London town is gone, + And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton. + For there lay the MARY OF THE TOWER, his ship of war so strong, + And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong. + + He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go + (But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show, + In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark; + With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk. + He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide, + And saw the MARY haled into dock, the winter to abide, + With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own; + But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone. + + They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree, + And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea. + But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go, + To maken beds for their own wives and little children also. + + There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck, + Crying: 'Good felawes, come and see! The ship is nigh a wreck! + For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell, + Alack! it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!' + + With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch, + While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch; + All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good, + He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud. + + 'I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, + After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. + Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There's no clean hands in the trade. + Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne. 'There's measure in all things made!' + + 'Gramercy, yeoman!' said our King. 'Thy counsel liketh me.' + And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. + Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, + And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town. + + They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, + And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands. + But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie + thereon. + For the sake of your wives and little ones--felawes, get you gone!' + + When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips, + Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships. + 'Nay, never lift up thy hands to me--there's no clean hands in the trade. + But steal in measure,'said Harry our King. 'There's measure in all things + made!' + + God speed the 'Mary of the Tower,' the 'Sovereign' and 'Grace Dieu,' + The 'Sweepstakes' and the 'Mary Fortune,' and the 'Henry of Bristol' too! + All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand, + That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland! + + + + +MARKLAKE WITCHES + + + + +The Way Through the Woods + + + They shut the road through the woods + Seventy years ago. + Weather and rain have undone it again, + And now you would never know + There was once a road through the woods + Before they planted the trees. + It is underneath the coppice and heath, + And the thin anemones. + Only the keeper sees + That, where the ring-dove broods, + And the badgers roll at ease, + There was once a road through the woods. + + Yet, if you enter the woods + Of a summer evening late, + When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools + Where the otter whistles his mate + (They fear not men in the woods + Because they see so few), + You will hear the beat of a horse's feet + And the swish of a skirt in the dew, + Steadily cantering through + The misty solitudes, + As though they perfectly knew + The old lost road through the woods... + But there is no road through the woods! + + + + +Marklake Witches + + +When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the farmer's wife +at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey milks in the pasture +in summer, which is different from milking in the shed, because the +cows are not tied up, and until they know you they will not stand still. +After three weeks Una could milk Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry, +without her wrists aching, and then she allowed Dan to look. But milking +did not amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone in the +quiet pastures with quiet-spoken Mrs Vincey. So, evening after evening, +she slipped across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the fern-clump +beside the fallen oak, and went to work, her pail between her knees, and +her head pressed hard into the cow's flank. As often as not, Mrs Vincey +would be milking cross Pansy at the other end of the pasture, and would +not come near till it was time to strain and pour off. + +Once, in the middle of a milking, Kitty Shorthorn boxed Una's ear with +her tail. + +'You old pig!' said Una, nearly crying, for a cow's tail can hurt. + +'Why didn't you tie it down, child?' said a voice behind her. + +'I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off--and this is what +she's done!' Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly-haired +girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a curious +high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a high hunched collar +and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel clasp. She wore a +yellow velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried a real hunting-crop. +Her cheeks were pale except for two pretty pink patches in the middle, +and she talked with little gasps at the end of her sentences, as though +she had been running. + +'You don't milk so badly, child,' she said, and when she smiled her +teeth showed small and even and pearly. + +'Can you milk?' Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard Puck's +chuckle. + +He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding Kitty Short-horn's +tail. 'There isn't much,' he said, 'that Miss Philadelphia doesn't +know about milk--or, for that matter, butter and eggs. She's a great +housewife.' + +'Oh,' said Una. 'I'm sorry I can't shake hands. Mine are all milky; but +Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.' 'Ah! I'm +going to London this summer,' the girl said, 'to my aunt in Bloomsbury.' +She coughed as she began to hum, '"Oh, what a town! What a wonderful +metropolis!" + +'You've got a cold,' said Una. + +'No. Only my stupid cough. But it's vastly better than it was last +winter. It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. D'you like +doctors, child?' + +'I don't know any,' Una replied. 'But I'm sure I shouldn't.' + +'Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon,' the girl laughed, for +Una frowned. + +'I'm not a child, and my name's Una,'she said. + +'Mine's Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. I'm +Squire Bucksteed's daughter--over at Marklake yonder.' She jerked her +little round chin towards the south behind Dallington. 'Sure-ly you know +Marklake?' + +'We went a picnic to Marklake Green once,' said Una. 'It's awfully +pretty. I like all those funny little roads that don't lead anywhere.' + +'They lead over our land,' said Philadelphia stiffly, 'and the coach +road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went +to the Assize Ball at Lewes last year.' She spun round and took a few +dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to her side. + +'It gives me a stitch,' she explained. 'No odds. 'Twill go away in +London air. That's the latest French step, child. Rene taught it me. +D'you hate the French, chi--Una?' + +'Well, I hate French, of course, but I don't mind Ma'm'selle. She's +rather decent. Is Rene your French governess?' + +Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again. + +'Oh no! Rene's a French prisoner--on parole. That means he's promised +not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman. +He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him worth exchanging. My +uncle captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, +and he cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that +we couldn't let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and +so he stays with us. He's of very old family--a Breton, which is nearly +next door to being a true Briton, my father says--and he wears his hair +clubbed--not powdered. Much more becoming, don't you think?' + +'I don't know what you're--' Una began, but Puck, the other side of +the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking. 'He's going to be a +great French physician when the war is over. He makes me bobbins for my +lace-pillow now--he's very clever with his hands; but he'd doctor our +people on the Green if they would let him. Only our Doctor--Doctor +Break--says he's an emp--or imp something--worse than imposter. But my +Nurse says--' + +'Nurse! You're ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?' Una finished +milking, and turned round on her stool as Kitty Shorthorn grazed off. + +'Because I can't get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, and she +says she'll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets me alone. +She thinks I'm delicate. She has grown infirm in her understanding, you +know. Mad--quite mad, poor Cissie!' + + +'Really mad?' said Una. 'Or just silly?' + +'Crazy, I should say--from the things she does. Her devotion to me is +terribly embarrassing. You know I have all the keys of the Hall except +the brewery and the tenants' kitchen. I give out all stores and the +linen and plate.' + +'How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things.' + +Ah, it's a great responsibility, you'll find, when you come to my +age. Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, and he +actually wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our housekeeper. +I wouldn't. I hate her. I said, "No, sir. I am Mistress of Marklake Hall +just as long as I live, because I'm never going to be married, and I +shall give out stores and linen till I die!" + +And what did your father say?' + +'Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coat-tail. He ran away. +Every one's afraid of Dad, except me.' Philadelphia stamped her foot. +'The idea! If I can't make my own father happy in his own house, I'd +like to meet the woman that can, and--and--I'd have the living hide off +her!' + +She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol-shot across +the still pasture. Kitty Shorthorn threw up her head and trotted away. + +'I beg your pardon,' Philadelphia said; 'but it makes me furious. Don't +you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers and fronts, +who come to dinner and call you "child" in your own chair at your own +table?' + +'I don't always come to dinner, said Una, 'but I hate being called +"child." Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things.' + +Ah, it's a great responsibility--particularly with that old cat Amoore +looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a shocking thing +happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my Nurse that I was telling you +of, she took three solid silver tablespoons.' + +'Took! But isn't that stealing?' Una cried. + +'Hsh!' said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. 'All I say is she took +them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as Dad says--and +he's a magistrate-, it wasn't a legal offence; it was only compounding a +felony. + +'It sounds awful,' said Una. + +'It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten months, and +I'd never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, because a big +house offers so many chances of things being mislaid, and coming to hand +later. "Fetching up in the lee-scuppers," my uncle calls it. But next +week I spoke to old Cissie about it when she was doing my hair at night, +and she said I wasn't to worry my heart for trifles!' + +'Isn't it like 'em?' Una burst out. 'They see you're worried over +something that really matters, and they say, "Don't worry"; as if that +did any good!' + +'I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told Ciss the +spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if the thief +were found, he'd be tried for his life.' 'Hanged, do you mean?'Una said. + +'They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man nowadays for +a forty-shilling theft. They transport 'em into penal servitude at +the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for the term of their +natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her tremble in my mirror. +Then she cried, and caught hold of my knees, and I couldn't for my life +understand what it was all about,--she cried so. Can you guess, my dear, +what that poor crazy thing had done? It was midnight before I pieced it +together. She had given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the +Green, so that he might put a charm on me! Me!' + +'Put a charm on you? Why?' + +'That's what I asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! You know +this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as soon as I go to +London. She was troubled about that, and about my being so thin, and +she told me Jerry had promised her, if she would bring him three silver +spoons, that he'd charm my cough away and make me plump--"flesh up," she +said. I couldn't help laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to +put Cissie into my own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself +to sleep. What else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed--I +suppose I can cough in my own room if I please--she said that she'd +killed me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send her +to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.' + +'How awful! What did you do, Phil?' + +'Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, with a +new lash on my whip. Oh, I was furious! Witchmaster or no Witchmaster, I +meant to--' + +Ah! what's a Witchmaster?' + +'A master of witches, of course. I don't believe there are witches; but +people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the master of all ours +at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a man-of-war's man, and now he +pretends to be a carpenter and joiner--he can make almost anything--but +he really is a white wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can +cure them after Doctor Break has given them up, and that's why Doctor +Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off my warts +when I was a child.' Philadelphia spread out her hands with the delicate +shiny little nails. 'It isn't counted lucky to cross him. He has his +ways of getting even with you, they say. But I wasn't afraid of Jerry! +I saw him working in his garden, and I leaned out of my saddle and +double-thonged him between the shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, +for the first time since Dad gave him to me, my Troubadour (I wish you +could see the sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out +into the hedge-top. Most undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his +side and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn't +care. "Now, Jerry," I said, "I'm going to take the hide off you first, +and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why." + +'"Oh!" he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. "Then I reckon +you've come about old Cissie's business, my dear." "I reckon I justabout +have," I said. "Stand away from these hives. I can't get at you there." +"That's why I be where I be," he said. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Phil, +I don't hold with bein' flogged before breakfast, at my time o' life." +He's a huge big man, but he looked so comical squatting among the hives +that--I know I oughtn't to--I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at +the wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, "Then give +me back what you made poor Cissie steal!" + +'"Your pore Cissie," he said. "She's a hatful o' trouble. But you shall +have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you." And, would you +believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver spoons out of his +dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff. "Here they be," he says, +and he gave them to me, just as cool as though I'd come to have my +warts charmed. That's the worst of people having known you when you were +young. But I preserved my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world +are we to do? If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have +been hanged." + +'"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now." + +'"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said. + +'"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me an' +tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a charm +on you, Miss Phil, an' take away your little spitty cough." + +'"Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!" I said. "I'm much +obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!" + +'"Ah! I reckon she've been talking to you, then," he said. "Yes, +she give me no peace, and bein' tarrified--for I don't hold with old +women--I laid a task on her which I thought 'ud silence her. I never +reckoned the old scrattle 'ud risk her neckbone at Lewes Assizes for +your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an' stole, I tell ye, as +cheerful as a tinker. You might ha' knocked me down with any one of them +liddle spoons when she brung 'em in her apron." + +'"Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor Cissie?" I +screamed at him. + +'"What else for, dearie?" he said. "I don't stand in need of +hedge-stealings. I'm a freeholder, with money in the bank; and now I +won't trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft she'd ha' stole +the Squire's big fob-watch, if I'd required her." + +'"Then you're a wicked, wicked old man," I said, and I was so angry that +I couldn't help crying, and of course that made me cough. + +'Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me into his +cottage--it's full of foreign curiosities--and he got me something to +eat and drink, and he said he'd be hanged by the neck any day if it +pleased me. He said he'd even tell old Cissie he was sorry. That's a +great comedown for a Witchmaster, you know. + +'I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my eyes and +said, "The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss some sort of a +charm for me." + +'"Yes, that's only fair dealings," he said. "You know the names of the +Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your +open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But +mind you, 'twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, +right down to your pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, +and let it out slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There's virtue for +your cough in those names spoke that way. And I'll give you something +you can see, moreover. Here's a stick of maple, which is the warmest +tree in the wood."' 'That's true,' Una interrupted. 'You can feel it +almost as warm as yourself when you touch it.' + +'"It's cut one inch long for your every year," Jerry said. "That's +sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, +and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I've +said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints." + +"I haven't any complaints, Jerry," I said. "It's only to please Cissie." + +'"I know that as well as you do, dearie," he said. And--and that was all +that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made +poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting +even with people.' + +'I wonder,' said Una. 'Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?' + +'What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he's a doctor. +He's going to be a most famous doctor. That's why our doctor hates him. +Rene said, "Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing," and he put up +his eyebrows--like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window +from the carpenter's shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick +fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the +window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles +properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day, +though he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new +hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state--as a fellow-physician. Jerry +never guessed Rene was making fun of him, and so he told Rene about +the sick people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after +Doctor Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers' French, of +course, and I had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn't so +shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like +gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn't much to do, except +to fiddle about in the carpenter's shop. He's like all the French +prisoners--always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at +his cottage, and so--and so--Rene took to being with Jerry much more +than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty when Dad's away, and +I will not sit with old Amoore--she talks so horridly about every +one--specially about Rene. + +'I was rude to Rene, I'm afraid; but I was properly served out for it. +One always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects +to the General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the +Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India--he +was Colonel of Dad's Regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the +Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the +other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, +and I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early +mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old +Amoore nearly cried. + +'However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the +fish didn't arrive--it never does--and I wanted Rene to ride to Pevensey +and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he always +used, unless I requested his presence beforehand. I can't send for Rene +every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don't you ever do what I +did, child, because it's in the highest degree unladylike; but--but +one of our Woods runs up to Jerry's garden, and if you climb--it's +ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten--there's an old hollow oak +just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. +Truthfully, I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him +and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I +slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. Rene +had never shown me any of these trumpets.' + +'Trumpets? Aren't you too old for trumpets?' said Una. + +'They weren't real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short-collar, and +Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry's chest, and put his +ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against Rene's chest, and +listened while Rene breathed and coughed. I was afraid I would cough +too. + +'"This hollywood one is the best," said Jerry. "'Tis won'erful like +hearin' a man's soul whisperin' in his innards; but unless I've a +buzzin' in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o' +noises as old Gaffer Macklin--but not quite so loud as young Copper. It +sounds like breakers on a reef--a long way off. Comprenny?" + +'"Perfectly," said Rene. "I drive on the breakers. But before I strike, +I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little +trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in +his chest, and what the young Copper also." + +'Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the +village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, "You +explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities +to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen +to them through my trumpet--for a little money? No?"--Rene's as poor as +a church mouse. + +'"They'd kill you, Mosheur. It's all I can do to coax 'em to abide it, +and I'm Jerry Gamm," said Jerry. He's very proud of his attainments. + +'"Then these poor people are alarmed--No?" said Rene. + +'"They've had it in at me for some time back because o' my tryin' your +trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they +won't stand much more. Tom Dunch an' some of his kidney was drinkin' +themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an' +mutterin's an' bits o' red wool an' black hens is in the way o' nature +to these fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do 'em real service is +devil's work by their estimation. If I was you, I'd go home before they +come." Jerry spoke quite quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders. + +'"I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm," he said. "I have no home." + +'Now that was unkind of Rene. He's often told me that he looked on +England as his home. I suppose it's French politeness. + +'"Then we'll talk o' something that matters," said Jerry. "Not to name +no names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own opinion o' some one +who ain't old Gaffer Macklin nor young Copper? Is that person better or +worse?" + +'"Better--for time that is," said Rene. He meant for the time being, but +I never could teach him some phrases. + +'"I thought so too," said Jerry. "But how about time to come?" + +'Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don't know how odd a +man looks blowing his nose when you are sitting directly above him. + +'"I've thought that too," said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I could scarcely +catch. "It don't make much odds to me, because I'm old. But you're +young, Mosheur--you're young," and he put his hand on Rene's knee, and +Rene covered it with his hand. I didn't know they were such friends. + +'"Thank you, mon ami," said Rene. "I am much oblige. Let us return to +our trumpet-making. But I forget"--he stood up--"it appears that you +receive this afternoon!" + +'You can't see into Gamm's Lane from the oak, but the gate opened, and +fat little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen +of our people following him, very drunk. + +'You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully. + +'"A word with you, Laennec," said Doctor Break. "Jerry has been +practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they've +asked me to be arbiter." + +'"Whatever that means, I reckon it's safer than asking you to be +doctor," said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed. + +'"That ain't right feeling of you, Tom," Jerry said, "seeing how clever +Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter." Tom's wife +had died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor +Break danced with rage. + +'"This is all beside the mark," he said. "These good people are willing +to testify that you've been impudently prying into God's secrets by +means of some papistical contrivance which this person"--he pointed +to poor Rene--"has furnished you with. Why, here are the things +themselves!" Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand. + +'Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying +from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet--they called +it the devil's ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on +people's skins, and dried up their lights, and made 'em spit blood, and +threw 'em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a +noise. I took advantage of it to cough. + +'Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry +fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You +ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one +to Rene. + +'"Wait! Wait!" said Rene. "I will explain to the doctor if he permits." +He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, "Don't touch +it, Doctor! Don't lay a hand to the thing." + +'"Come, come!" said Rene. "You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?" + +'Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry's pistol, and Rene +followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and +put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked +of la Gloire, and l'Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched +jerry's pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud. + +'"Now listen! Now listen!" said Rene. "This will be moneys in your +pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich." + +'Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn +an honest living in their own country creeping into decent houses and +taking advantage of gentlemen's confidence to enrich themselves by base +intrigues. + +'Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best bows. I knew +he was angry from the way he rolled his "r's." + +'"Ver-r-ry good," said he. "For that I shall have much pleasure to +kill you now and here. Monsieur Gamm,"--another bow to Jerry--"you will +please lend him your pistol, or he shall have mine. I give you my word I +know not which is best; and if he will choose a second from his friends +over there"--another bow to our drunken yokels at the gate--"we will +commence." + +'"That's fair enough," said Jerry. "Tom Dunch, you owe it to the Doctor +to be his second. Place your man." '"No," said Tom. "No mixin' in +gentry's quarrels for me." And he shook his head and went out, and the +others followed him. + +'"Hold on," said Jerry. "You've forgot what you set out to do up at the +alehouse just now. You was goin' to search me for witch-marks; you +was goin' to duck me in the pond; you was goin' to drag all my bits +o' sticks out o' my little cottage here. What's the matter with you? +Wouldn't you like to be with your old woman tonight, Tom?" + +'But they didn't even look back, much less come. They ran to the village +alehouse like hares. + +'"No matter for these canaille," said Rene, buttoning up his coat so +as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad +says--and he's been out five times. "You shall be his second, Monsieur +Gamm. Give him the pistol." + +'Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene +resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the +matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever. + +'"As for that," he said, "if you were not the ignorant which you are, +you would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not +for any living man." + +'I don't know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he +spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite +white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat, +and choked him black. + +'Well, my dear, as if this wasn't deliciously exciting enough, just +exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of +the hedge say, "What's this? What's this, Bucksteed?" and there was my +father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was +Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening +with all my ears. + +'I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a +start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty +roof--another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall--and then +I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of +bark. Imagine the situation!' + +'Oh, I can!' Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool. + +'Dad said, "Phil--a--del--phia!" and Sir Arthur Wesley said, "Good Ged" +and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. But Rene was +splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist Doctor Break's +neckcloth as fast as he'd twisted it, and asked him if he felt better. + +'"What's happened? What's happened?" said Dad. + +'"A fit!" said Rene. "I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be +alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear +Doctor?" Doctor Break was very good too. He said, "I am vastly obliged, +Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now." And as he went out of the +gate he told Dad it was a syncope--I think. Then Sir Arthur said, "Quite +right, Bucksteed. Not another word! They are both gentlemen." And he +took off his cocked hat to Doctor Break and Rene. + +'But poor Dad wouldn't let well alone. He kept saying, "Philadelphia, +what does all this mean?" + +'"Well, sir," I said, "I've only just come down. As far as I could see, +it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure." That was +quite true--if you'd seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. "Not much +change there, Bucksteed," he said. "She's a lady--a thorough lady." + +'"Heaven knows she doesn't look like one," said poor Dad. "Go home, +Philadelphia." + +'So I went home, my dear--don't laugh so!---right under Sir Arthur's +nose--a most enormous nose--feeling as though I were twelve years old, +going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!' + +'It's all right,' said Una. 'I'm getting on for thirteen. I've never +been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been +funny!' + +'Funny! If you'd heard Sir Arthur jerking out, "Good Ged, Bucksteed!" +every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, '"'Pon my +honour, Arthur, I can't account for it!" Oh, how my cheeks tingled when +I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, +the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, +and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left +shoulder. I had poor mother's lace tucker and her coronet comb.' + +'Oh, you lucky!' Una murmured. 'And gloves?' + +'French kid, my dear'--Philadelphia patted her shoulder--'and morone +satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice +things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little +curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande +tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at +her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved +of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the +Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where +my little bird's-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I +looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, "I always send her +to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall."' + +'Oh, how chee--clever of you. What did he say?' Una cried. 'He said, +"Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it," and he toasted +me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir +Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle +in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but +Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party--I suppose +because a lady was present.' + +'Of course you were the lady. I wish I'd seen you,'said Una. + +'I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and +Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they +told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and +said, "I heard every word of it up in the tree." You never saw two men +so frightened in your life, and when I said, "What was 'the subject of +your remarks,' Rene?" neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed +them unmercifully. They'd seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.' + +'But what was the subject of their remarks?' said Una. + +'Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh +was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something +unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my triumph. Dad asked me to +play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising +a new song from London--I don't always live in trees--for weeks; and I +gave it them for a surprise.' + +'What was it?'said Una. 'Sing it.' + +'"I have given my heart to a flower." Not very difficult fingering, but +r-r-ravishing sentiment.' + +Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat. + +'I've a deep voice for my age and size,' she explained. 'Contralto, you +know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her face all dark +against the last of the soft pink sunset: + + 'I have given my heart to a flower, + Though I know it is fading away, + Though I know it will live but an hour + And leave me to mourn its decay! + +'Isn't that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse--I wish I had my harp, +dear--goes as low as my register will reach.'She drew in her chin, and +took a deep breath: + + 'Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, + I charge you be good to my dear! + She is all--she is all that I have, + And the time of our parting is near!' + +'Beautiful!' said Una. 'And did they like it?' 'Like it? They were +overwhelmed--accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn't seen it, I +shouldn't have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to +the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn't endure +it! He's all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, "Assez, +Mademoiselle! C'est plus fort que moi! Assez!" And Sir Arthur blew his +nose and said, "Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!" While Dad sat with +the tears simply running down his cheeks.' + +'And what did Doctor Break do?' + +'He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little +fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I +never suspected him of sensibility.' + +'Oh, I wish I'd seen! I wish I'd been you,'said Una, clasping her +hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering +cock-chafer flew smack against Una's cheek. + +When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that +Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her +strain and pour off. 'It didn't matter,' said Una; 'I just waited. Is +that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?' + +'No,' said Mrs Vincey, listening. 'It sounds more like a horse being +galloped middlin' quick through the woods; but there's no road there. +I reckon it's one of Gleason's colts loose. Shall I see you up to the +house, Miss Una?' + +'Gracious, no! thank you. What's going to hurt me?' said Una, and she +put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps +that old Hobden kept open for her. + + + + +Brookland Road + + + I was very well pleased with what I knowed, + I reckoned myself no fool-- + Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road + That turned me back to school. + + Low down--low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- + Oh! maids, I've done with 'ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + 'Twas right in the middest of a hot June night, + With thunder duntin' round, + And I seed her face by the fairy light + That beats from off the ground. + + She only smiled and she never spoke, + She smiled and went away; + But when she'd gone my heart was broke, + And my wits was clean astray. + + Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be-- + Let be, O Brookland bells! + You'll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea, + Before I wed one else! + + Old Goodman's farm is rank sea sand, + And was this thousand year; + But it shall turn to rich plough land + Before I change my dear! + + Oh! Fairfield Church is water-bound + From Autumn to the Spring; + But it shall turn to high hill ground + Before my bells do ring! + + Oh! leave me walk on the Brookland Road, + In the thunder and warm rain-- + Oh! leave me look where my love goed + And p'raps I'll see her again! + Low down--low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- + Oh! maids, I've done with 'ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + + + *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?) + + + + +THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK + + + + +The Run of the Downs + + + The Weald is good, the Downs are best-- + I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West. + Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, + They were once and they are still. + Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry + Go back as far as sums'll carry. + Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring, + They have looked on many a thing; + And what those two have missed between 'em + I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em. + Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down + Knew Old England before the Crown. + Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood + Knew Old England before the Flood. + And when you end on the Hampshire side-- + Butser's old as Time and Tide. + The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, + You be glad you are Sussex born! + + + + +The Knife and the Naked Chalk + + +The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint +village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from +home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had +known their Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like +their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for +farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. +He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife +made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal +fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney's sheep-dog's father, lay at +the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give +a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the +Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did. + +One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street +smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as +usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them +in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the +distances were very distant. + +'It's Just like the sea,' said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade +of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. 'You see where you're going, +and--you go there, and there's nothing between.' + +Dan slipped off his shoes. 'When we get home I shall sit in the woods +all day,' he said. + +'Whuff!' said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long +rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone. + +'Not yet,' said Dan. 'Where's Mr Dudeney? Where's Master?' Old Jim +looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked again. + +'Don't you give it him,' Una cried. 'I'm not going to be left howling in +a desert.' + +'Show, boy! Show!' said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of +your hand. + +Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr +Dudeney's hat against the sky a long way off. + +'Right! All right!' said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone +carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the +old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels +hung bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the +white edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the +heat, and so did Mr Dudeney's distant head. + +They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves staring into +a horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, whose steep sides were +laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock grazed on the flat at the +bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr Dudeney sat comfortably knitting +on the edge of the slope, his crook between his knees. They told him +what Old Jim had done. + +'Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The closeter +you be to the turf the more you see things. You look warm-like,'said Mr +Dudeney. + +'We be,' said Una, flopping down. 'And tired.' + +'Set beside o' me here. The shadow'll begin to stretch out in a little +while, and a heat-shake o' wind will come up with it that'll overlay +your eyes like so much wool.' + +'We don't want to sleep,' said Una indignantly; but she settled herself +as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade. + +'O' course not. You come to talk with me same as your father used. He +didn't need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.' + +'Well, he belonged here,' said Dan, and laid himself down at length on +the turf. + +'He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among them messy +trees in the Weald, when he might ha' stayed here and looked all about +him. There's no profit to trees. They draw the lightning, and sheep +shelter under 'em, and so, like as not, you'll lose a half-score ewes +struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father knew that.' + +'Trees aren't messy.' Una rose on her elbow. 'And what about firewood? I +don't like coal.' + +'Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you'll lie more natural,' said Mr +Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press your face down and +smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown +mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, 'twill cure anything +except broken necks, or hearts. I forget which.' + +They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft +thymy cushions. + +'You don't get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?' said +Mr Dudeney. + +'But we've water--brooks full of it--where you paddle in hot weather,' +Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell close to +her eye. + +'Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep--let alone foot-rot +afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.' + +'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr +Dudeney explained. + +The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind +whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed +easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after +another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on +their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with +the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, +the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in +the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went +on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept +halfway down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his +back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some +work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least +noise and movement reached them like whispers up a water-Pipe. + +'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!' + +'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!' The +man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between +Dan and Una--a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the +maker's hand. + +The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a +snail-shell. + +'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because one +always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast--no good!' He +shook his shaggy head. 'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,' +said Puck. + +'He'll be back at lambing time. I know him.' He chipped very carefully, +and the flints squeaked. + +'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go +home safe.' + +'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll believe it,' +the man replied. 'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands +round his mouth and shouted: 'Wolf! Wolf!' + +Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides--'Wuff!' Wuff!' like +Young jim's bark. + +'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone. +Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.' + +'Wonderful!' The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. 'Who +drove him away? You?' + +'Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you +one of them?' Puck answered. + +The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word +pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars. +His arms, too, were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white +dimples. + +'I see,' said Puck. 'It is The Beast's mark. What did you use against +him?' 'Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.' + +'So? Then how'--Puck twitched aside the man's dark-brown cloak--'how did +a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!' He held out his little +hand. + +The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, from his +belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to Puck, who took +it with his head on one side, as you should when you look at the works +of a watch, squinted down the dark blade, and very delicately rubbed his +forefinger from the point to the hilt. + +'Good!' said he, in a surprised tone. + +'It should be. The Children of the Night made it,' the man answered. + +'So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?' + +'This!' The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like a Weald +starling. + +'By the Great Rings of the Chalk!' he cried. 'Was that your price? Turn +sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.' He slipped his hand +beneath the man's chin and swung him till he faced the children up the +slope. They saw that his right eye was gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. +Quickly Puck turned him round again, and the two sat down. + +'It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,' said the man, in an +ashamed voice. 'What else could I have done? You know, Old One.' + +Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. 'Take the knife. I listen.' The +man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and while it still +quivered said: 'This is witness between us that I speak the thing that +has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I speak. Touch!' + +Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children wriggled +a little nearer. + +'I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the +Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the Buyer +of the Knife--the Keeper of the People,' the man began, in a sort of +singing shout. 'These are my names in this country of the Naked Chalk, +between the Trees and the Sea.' + +'Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,' said Puck. + +'One cannot feed some things on names and songs.' The man hit himself +on the chest. 'It is better--always better--to count one's children safe +round the fire, their Mother among them.' + +'Ahai!' said Puck. 'I think this will be a very old tale.' 'I warm +myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no one to light +me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I bought the Magic Knife +for my people. It was not right that The Beast should master man. What +else could I have done?' + +'I hear. I know. I listen,' said Puck. + +'When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast +gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind +the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he +leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out +alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our +boys threw flints at him; he crept by night 'into the huts, and licked +the babe from between the mother's hands; he called his companions and +pulled down men in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No--not always did +he do so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us +forget him. A year--two years perhaps--we neither smelt, nor heard, nor +saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our men did not always +look behind them; when children strayed from the fenced places; when our +women walked alone to draw water--back, back, back came the Curse of +the Chalk, Grey Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night--The Beast, The Beast, The +Beast! + +'He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt spears. He +learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I think he knew when +there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not show till you bring it +down on his snout. Then--Pouf!---the false flint falls all to flinders, +and you are left with the hammer-handle in your fist, and his teeth in +your flank! I have felt them. At evening, too, in the dew, or when it +has misted and rained, your spear-head lashings slack off, though you +have kept them beneath your cloak all day. You are alone--but so close +to the home ponds that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth, +and a piece of driftwood. You bend over and pull--so! That is the minute +for which he has followed you since the stars went out. "Aarh!" he +"Wurr-aarh!" he says.' (Norton Pit gave back the growl like a pack of +real wolves.) 'Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein +in your neck, and--perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight +The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights +you--that is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men +desire so greatly, and can do so little?' + +'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck. + +'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should +master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my Mother, the Priestess, +was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be +afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden--she was a +Priestess--waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off +the Chalk. Perhaps it was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to +learn how to do us new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. +The women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our flocks +grazed far out. I took mine yonder'--he pointed inland to the hazy +line of the Weald--'where the new grass was best. They grazed north. I +followed till we were close to the Trees'--he lowered his voice--'close +there where the Children of the Night live.' He pointed north again. + +'Ah, now I remember a thing,' said Puck. 'Tell me, why did your people +fear the Trees so extremely?' + +'Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can +see them burning for days all along the Chalk's edge. Besides, all the +Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our +Gods, are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his +spirit; they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water. +But a voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched +my sheep there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the +Trees. By this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear +the Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He carried a +knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife. +The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would +never have done from a Flint-worker. The man went in among the Trees. I +looked for the dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way--by a single +deep, clean cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. +Wonderful! So I saw that the man's knife was magic, and I thought how to +get it,--thought strongly how to get it. + +'When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess +asked me, "What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your +face?" I said, "It is a sorrow to me"; and she answered, "All new things +are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow." I sat down in her place by +the fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke +in my heart. One voice said, "Ask the Children of the Night for the +Magic Knife. It is not fit that The Beast should master man." I listened +to that voice. + +'One voice said, "If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night +will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here." The other voice said, "Ask +for the Knife." I listened to that voice. + +'I said to my Mother in the morning, "I go away to find a thing for the +people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape." She +answered, "Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your +Mother." + +'True,' said Puck. 'The Old Ones themselves cannot change men's mothers +even if they would.' + +'Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who +waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.' The man +laughed. 'I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with +the knife. I lay out two days on the short grass before I ventured among +the Trees. I felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the +terrible talking Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of +the soft ground underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid, +above all, of the Change. It came!' + +They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles +quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt. + +'A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my +mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my +teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to +sing songs and to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the +same time I saw myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young +man, who was myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.' + +'I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man, if +he sleeps among them,' said Puck. 'Had you slept in any mists?' + +'Yes--but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three days I +saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the +Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires. +The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with +hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in +my mouth, and all I could say was, "Do not make that noise. It hurts my +head." By this I knew that I was bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, +and prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were +cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to +answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they +led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water +on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like +water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit--not the strange, shouting +thing--was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the +shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear +me--women and men--each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their +Ears and their Mouth. + +'I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in +order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming, +and those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my +people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and +lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the +Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They +were pleased. Their Priestess said, "For whose sake have you come?" I +answered, "The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our +people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast." + +'She said, "We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people +of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked." + +'When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are our Gods), +their Priestess said, "The God needs a proof that your words are true." +I said, "What is the proof?" She said, "The God says that if you have +come for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be +put out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it. +This proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry." + +'I said, "This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?" + +'She said, "Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in +your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for +your people." + +'I said, "It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed." + +'She said, "Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife +hot." + +'I said, "Be quick, then!" With her knife heated in the flame she put +out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She +was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.' + +'True! Most true,' said Puck. 'No common man's work that. And, +afterwards?' + +'Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a +one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!' + +At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint +arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. 'It's true,' he +whispered to Una. 'You can't judge distances a bit with only one eye.' + +Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at +him. + +'I know it is so,' said he. 'Even now I am not always sure of my blow. +I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I +was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast's mouth. +They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives +of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the +beatings. I can sing many charms.' Then he began to laugh like a boy. + +'I was thinking of my journey home,' he said, 'and of the surprised +Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him--I smelt his lairs as +soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife--I +hid it under my cloak--the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! +That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. "Wow!" he +would say. "Here is my Flint-worker!" He would come leaping, tail +in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of +merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap--and, oh, +his eye in mid-leap when he saw--when he saw the knife held ready for +him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no +time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes +I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his +brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the Knife! But The Beast +is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my +knife, and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as +a man should--the Master of The Beast! + +'So came I back to my Mother's house. There was a lamb to be killed. +I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She +said, "This is the work of a God." I kissed her and laughed. I went to +my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be +killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. +She said, "It is the work of a God." I laughed, but she pushed me away, +and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went +to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be +killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told +them all my tale. They said, "It is the work of a God." I said, "We talk +too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will take +you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife." + + +'I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to +edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The +men talked among themselves. + +'I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and +curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on +the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us +from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, "How is it +with your people?" I said "Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their +hearts as I used to." She said, "That is because you have only one eye. +Come to me and I will be both your eyes." But I said, "I must show my +people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how +to use my knife." I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance +like the flint. She said, "What you have done, you have done for the +sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people." I asked of her, +"Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?" +She answered, "Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to +a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. +Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry." So +she hid herself. + +'I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and making +it sing in the air--tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It +mutters--ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere +he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my +Mother's brother--the Chief on the Men's Side--he took off his Chief's +necklace of yellow sea-stones.' + +'How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,' said Puck. + +'And would have put them on my neck. I said, "No, I am content. What +does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children +running about safely?" My Mother's brother said to them, "I told you he +would never take such things." Then they began to sing a song in the Old +Tongue--The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother's brother said, +"This is your song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr." + +'Even then I did not understand, till I saw that--that no man stepped +on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God +Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.' + +'By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?' Puck rapped out. + +'By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow +as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. +I was afraid. I said to myself, "My Mother and my Maiden will know I am +not Tyr." But still I was afraid, with the fear of a man who falls into +a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb +out. + +'When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed +their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards also had seen +The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in +packs--howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at +last--at last! He knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden +among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made +the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the +Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother's brother +made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the +Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer Mornings.' + +'I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!' said Puck. + +'Then I went away angrily to my Mother's house. She would have knelt +before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, "Only a God would have +spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment +of the Gods." I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy +laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A +young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first +arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old +Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his +hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me, +a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, "Call +the maiden." She came also without fear--this very one that had waited +for me, that had talked with me, by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, +she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked +at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make +prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might +light the fire in my companion's house--and that I should bless their +children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, +say, "Let it be as you desire," and they went away hand in hand. My +heart grew little and cold; a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. +I said to my Mother, "Can a God die?" I heard her say, "What is it? What +is it, my son?" and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was +not.' + +'Oh, poor--poor God!' said Puck. 'And your wise Mother?' + +'She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back +I heard her whisper in my ear, "Whether you live or die, or are made +different, I am your Mother." That was good--better even than the water +she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to +have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us +wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. +I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as +before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang. + +'I said at last, "What is to be done to the people who say that I am +Tyr?" + +'She said, "He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a +God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. +You cannot drive them off." + + +'I said, "This is a heavier sheep than I can lift." She said, "In time +it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any +maiden anywhere. Be wise--be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you +except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God." + +'Oh, poor God!' said Puck. 'But those are not altogether bad things.' + +'I know they are not; but I would sell them all--all--all for one small +child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own house-fire.' + +He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood +up. + +'And yet, what else could I have done?' he said. 'The sheep are the +people.' + +'It is a very old tale,' Puck answered. 'I have heard the like of it not +only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees--under Oak, and Ash, +and Thorn.' + +The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton Pit. The +children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim's busy bark above them, and +they scrambled up the slope to the level. + +'We let you have your sleep out,' said Mr Dudeney, as the flock +scattered before them. 'It's making for tea-time now.' + +'Look what I've found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint +arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day. + +'Oh,' said Mr Dudeney, 'the closeter you be to the turf the more you're +apt to see things. I've found 'em often. Some says the fairies made 'em, +but I says they was made by folks like ourselves--only a goodish time +back. They're lucky to keep. Now, you couldn't ever have slept--not to +any profit--among your father's trees same as you've laid out on Naked +Chalk--could you?' + +'One doesn't want to sleep in the woods,' said Una. + +'Then what's the good of 'em?' said Mr Dudeney. 'Might as well set in +the barn all day. Fetch 'em 'long, Jim boy!' + +The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of +delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt +mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes +dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The +sheep knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master, +and they all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their +ankles, and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of +giants. + + + + +Song of the Men's Side + + + Once we feared The Beast--when he followed us we ran, + Ran very fast though we knew + It was not right that The Beast should master Man; + But what could we Flint-workers do? + The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears-- + Grinned at the hammers that we made; + But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife-- + And this is the Buyer of the Blade! + + Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass! + To left and right--stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan, + For he knew it was not right + (And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man; + So he went to the Children of the Night. + He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake. + When he begged for the Knife they said: + 'The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!' + And that was the price he paid. + + Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead--run ahead! + Shout it so the Women's Side can hear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk, + As far as we can see them and beyond. + We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep + Tally at the shearing-pond. + + We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please, + We can sleep after meals in the sun; + For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade, + Feet-in-the-Night have run! + Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!), + Devil-in-the-Dusk has run! + + Then: + Room for his shadow on the grass--let it pass! + To left and right--stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade--be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + + + +BROTHER SQUARE-TOES + + + + +Philadelphia + + + If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn't take my stories for a guide. + There's little left indeed of the city you will read of, + And all the folk I write about have died. + Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand, + Or remember what his cunning and his skill did. + And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf, + Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded. + + It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-three 'twas there for all to see, + But it's not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You mustn't go by everything I've said. + Bob Bicknell's Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages, + But the Limited will take you there instead. + Toby Hirte can't be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen, + North Second Street--no matter when you call; + And I fear you'll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane + Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball. + + It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-four 'twas a famous dancing-floor-- + But it's not in Philadelphia this morning. + + If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, + You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel. + You needn't try your luck at Epply's or the 'Buck,' + Though the Father of his Country liked them well. + It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos, + Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed--so + You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate + Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so. + + He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive, + But he's not in Philadelphia this morning. + If you're off to Philadelphia this morning, + And wish to prove the truth of what I say, + I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind + Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way. + Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune; + Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing. + Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk; + Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing. + They are there, there, there with Earth immortal + (Citizens, I give you friendly warning). + The things that truly last when men and times have passed, + They are all in Pennsylvania this morning! + + + + +Brother Square-Toes + + +It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned +themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and +strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead +low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along +the sands up the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey +Brighton, whose smoke trailed out across the Channel. + +They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. A +windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of +it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship's +figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. 'This +time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,' said Una. 'I hate +the sea!' + +'I believe it's all right in the middle,' said Dan. 'The edges are the +sorrowful parts.' + +Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope +at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew +smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, where neat piles of +white chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night. +'Where's Cordery going?'said Una. + +'Half-way to Newhaven,'said Dan. 'Then he'll meet the Newhaven +coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with, +smuggling would start up at once.' + +A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing: + + 'The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye-- + On Telscombe Tye at night it was-- + She saw the smugglers riding by, + A very pretty sight it was!' + +Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat +brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck. + + 'Three Dunkirk boats was standin' in!' + +the man went on. 'Hssh!' said Puck. 'You'll shock these nice young +people.' + +'Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!' He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his +ears--spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. 'No comprenny?' +he said. 'I'll give it you in Low German.' And he went off in another +language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly +knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still +twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did +not suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, +and broad-brimmed hat. His hair was tied 'in a short pigtail which +danced wickedly when he turned his head. + +'Ha' done!' said Puck, laughing. 'Be one thing or t'other, +Pharaoh--French or English or German--no great odds which.' + +'Oh, but it is, though,' said Una quickly. 'We haven't begun German yet, +and--and we're going back to our French next week.' + +'Aren't you English?' said Dan. 'We heard you singing just now.' + +'Aha! That was the Sussex side o' me. Dad he married a French girl +out o' Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin' day. She was an +Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven't you ever come +across the saying: + + 'Aurettes and Lees, + Like as two peas. + What they can't smuggle, + They'll run over seas'? + +'Then, are you a smuggler?' Una cried; and, 'Have you smuggled +much?'said Dan. + +Mr Lee nodded solemnly. + +'Mind you,' said he, 'I don't uphold smuggling for the generality o' +mankind--mostly they can't make a do of it--but I was brought up to the +trade, d'ye see, in a lawful line o' descent on'--he waved across the +Channel--'on both sides the water. 'Twas all in the families, same +as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from +Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London Town, by +the safest road.' + +'Then where did you live?' said Una. + +'You mustn't ever live too close to your business in our trade. We kept +our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all +honest cottager folk--at Warminghurst under Washington--Bramber way--on +the old Penn estate.' + +'Ah!' said Puck, squatted by the windlass. 'I remember a piece about the +Lees at Warminghurst, I do: + + 'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst + That wasn't a gipsy last and first. + +I reckon that's truth, Pharaoh.' + +Pharaoh laughed. 'Admettin' that's true,' he said, 'my gipsy blood must +be wore pretty thin, for I've made and kept a worldly fortune.' + +'By smuggling?' Dan asked. 'No, in the tobacco trade.' + +'You don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a +tobacconist!' Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh. + +'I'm sorry; but there's all sorts of tobacconists,' Pharaoh replied. +'How far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her +foresail?' He pointed to the fishing-boats. + +'A scant mile,' said Puck after a quick look. + +'Just about. It's seven fathom under her--clean sand. That was where +Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished +'em up and rowed 'em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland. +One thickish night in January of 'Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me +came over from Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the +L'Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year's +presents from Mother's folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she'd +sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for +the French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was +all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their +King Louis' head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English +man-o'-war. The news wasn't a week old. + +'"That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the +peace," says Dad. "Why can't King George's men and King Louis' men do on +their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?" + +'"Me too, I wish that," says Uncle Aurette. "But they'll be pressing +better men than themselves to fight for 'em. The press-gangs are out +already on our side. You look out for yours." + +'"I'll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I've run +this cargo; but I do wish"--Dad says, going over the lugger's side with +our New Year presents under his arm and young L'Estrange holding the +lantern--"I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to +run one cargo a month all this winter. It 'ud show 'em what honest work +means." + +'"Well, I've warned ye," says Uncle Aurette. "I'll be slipping off now +before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to Sister and take care +o' the kegs. It's thicking to southward." 'I remember him waving to us +and young Stephen L'Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we'd +fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me +to row 'em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on +the beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack +playing on my fiddle to guide 'em back. + +'Presently I heard guns. Two of 'em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette's +three-pounders. He didn't go naked about the seas after dark. Then come +more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was +open-handed with his compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I +stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o' French up in +the fog--and a high bow come down on top o' the smack. I hadn't time to +call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the +gunwale pushing against the ship's side as if I hoped to bear her off. +Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front +of my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped +through that port into the French ship--me and my fiddle.' + +'Gracious!' said Una. 'What an adventure!' + +'Didn't anybody see you come in?' said Dan. + +'There wasn't any one there. I'd made use of an orlop-deck port--that's +the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been +open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on +to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men +was talking all round me, telling each other their names and sorrows +just like Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty +soon I made out they'd all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs, +and left to sort 'emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a +thirty-six-gun Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two +days out of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican +French Ambassador of the name of Genet. They had been up all night +clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette +and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o' day with each +other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted past 'em. She never knew +she'd run down our smack. Seeing so many aboard was total strangers +to each other, I thought one more mightn't be noticed; so I put Aunt +Cecile's red cap on the back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like +the rest, and, as we French say, I circulated till I found the galley. + +'"What! Here's one of 'em that isn't sick!" says a cook. "Take his +breakfast to Citizen Bompard." + +'I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn't call this Bompard +"Citizen." Oh no! "Mon Capitaine" was my little word, same as Uncle +Aurette used to answer in King Louis' Navy. Bompard, he liked it. He +took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and +thus I got good victuals and light work all the way across to America. +He talked a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this +Ambassador Genet got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the law +after dinner, a rooks' parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I +learned to know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, +through waiting at table and hearing talk about 'em. One of our +forecas'le six-pounders was called Danton and t'other Marat. I used to +play the fiddle between 'em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out +Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o' what France had done, and how the +United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this +war. Monsieur Genet said he'd justabout make the United States fight for +France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped +drink any healths that was proposed--specially Citizen Danton's who'd +cut off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked--but +that's where my French blood saved me. + +'It didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though, the week +before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and what was left +of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living 'tween +decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, kept me down there to help +him with his plasters--I was too weak to wait on Bompard. I don't +remember much of any account for the next few weeks, till I smelled +lilacs, and I looked out of the port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge +and there was a town o' fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the +green leaves o' God's world waiting for me outside. + +'"What's this?" I said to the sick-bay man--Old Pierre Tiphaigne he was. +"Philadelphia," says Pierre. "You've missed it all. We're sailing next +week." + +'I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks. + +'"If that's your trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight ashore. +None'll hinder you. They're all gone mad on these coasts--French and +American together. 'Tisn't my notion o' war." Pierre was an old King +Louis man. + +'My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it +was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies +pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain +Bompard and his officers--yes, and some of the men--speechified to +all and sundry about war with England. They shouted, "Down with +England!"--"Down with Washington!"--"Hurrah for France and the +Republic!" I couldn't make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that +crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen +said to me, "Is that a genuine cap o' Liberty you're wearing?" 'Twas +Aunt Cecile's red one, and pretty near wore out. "Oh yes!" I says, +"straight from France." "I'll give you a shilling for it," he says, and +with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past +the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream--meadows, trees, +flowers, birds, houses, and people all different! I sat me down in +a meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets, +looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine +folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and +a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci" +without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the +fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than +ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with +England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French Ambassador--that +same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at Charleston. He was a-horseback +behaving as if the place belonged to him--and commanding all and sundry +to fight the British. But I'd heard that before. I got into a long +straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing +horses. I'm fond o' horses. Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it +was called Race Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black +niggers, which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after +a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red +blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian +called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race +Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I'm fond +o' fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop--Conrad Gerhard's +it was--and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was +going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was +hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens +a door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty +little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the +window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was +knocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the +face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the pills +rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid. + +'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches. + +'I started picking 'em up--hundreds of 'em--meaning to run out under the +Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man +went back to his fiddling. + +'"Toby!" says the Indian after quite a while. "I brought the boy to be +fed, not hit." + +'"What?" says Toby, "I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder." He put down +his fiddle and took a good look at me. "Himmel!" he says. "I have hit +the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why +are you not Gert Schwankfelder?" + +'"I don't know," I said. "The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me." + +'Says the Indian, "He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the +hungry. So I bring him." + +'"You should have said that first," said Toby. He pushed plates at me +and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine. +I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of +my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and +besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby +and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills. + +'"You like pills--eh?" says Toby. "No," I says. "I've seen our ship's +doctor roll too many of em." + +'"Ho!" he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. "What's those?" + +'"Calomel," I says. "And t'other's senna." + +'"Right," he says. "One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder +the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?" he +says. He'd just seen my kit on the floor. + +'"Oh yes!" says I. + +'"Oho!" he says. "What note is this?" drawing his bow across. + +'He meant it for A, so I told him it was. + +'"My brother," he says to the Indian. "I think this is the hand of +Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the wharves +any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy and say what you +think." + +'The Indian looked me over whole minutes--there was a musical clock on +the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck. He looked +me over all the while they did it. + +'"Good," he says at last. "This boy is good." + +'"Good, then," says Toby. "Now I shall play my fiddle and you shall sing +your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery and tell them you are +young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The horses are in Davy jones's +locker. If you ask any questions you shall hear from me." + +'I left 'em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He +wasn't at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelder +that was. He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back-yard +without a word, and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a +basin, and she put me to bed, and oh! how I slept--how I slept in that +little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn't know +Toby went to the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for +twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new +lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn't long to live; so he put me +down as "discharged sick." + +'I like Toby,' said Una. + +'Who was he?' said Puck. + +'Apothecary Tobias Hirte,' Pharaoh replied. 'One Hundred and Eighteen, +Second Street--the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every year +among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his brown +mare used to go to Lebanon.' + +'Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones's locker?' Dan asked. 'That was +his joke. He kept her under David Jones's hat shop in the "Buck" tavern +yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited +him. I looked after the horses when I wasn't rolling pills on top of +the old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. +I liked it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o' clean clothes, a +plenty music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me +sit in their gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in +Moravian Alley; and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared +caps and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another, +and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a +nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby's fiddle, and he +played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He +was the only one they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They +used to wash each other's feet up in the attic to keep 'emselves humble: +which Lord knows they didn't need.' + +'How very queer!' said Una. + +Pharaoh's eyes twinkled. 'I've met many and seen much,' he said; 'but I +haven't yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the +Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I +ever forget my first Sunday--the service was in English that week--with +the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder's garden where +the big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and +thinking of 'tween decks on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a +boy, it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for +ever. But I didn't know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck +midnight that Sunday--I was lying under the spinet--I heard Toby's +fiddle. He'd just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. +"Gert," says he, "get the horses. Liberty and Independence for Ever! The +flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is +come. We are going to my country seat in Lebanon." + +'I rubbed my eyes, and fetched 'em out of the "Buck" stables. Red Jacket +was there saddling his, and when I'd packed the saddle-bags we three +rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling. +It's a kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the +German towns, Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat +cattle, fat women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed +there. Toby sold medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French +war-news to folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell +was as well known as the stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous +Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket's Indians, and he +slept in friends' farmhouses, but he would shut all the windows; so Red +Jacket and me slept outside. There's nothing to hurt except snakes--and +they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes.' + +'I'd have liked that!' said Dan. + +'I'd no fault to find with those days. In the cool o' the morning the +cat-bird sings. He's something to listen to. And there's a smell of wild +grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into, after long rides +in the heat, which is beyond compare for sweetness. So's the puffs out +of the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and +later on the fireflies dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the +corn! We were a week or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to +another--such as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata--"thou Bethlehem-Ephrata." +No odds--I loved the going about. And so we jogged 'into dozy little +Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage and a garden of +all fruits. He come north every year for this wonderful Seneca Oil the +Seneca Indians made for him. They'd never sell to any one else, and he +doctored 'em with von Swieten pills, which they valued more than their +own oil. He could do what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried +to make them Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and +they'd had trouble enough from white men--American and English--during +the wars, to keep 'em in that walk. They lived on a Reservation by +themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me up there, and they +treated me as if I was their own blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark +of my bare feet in the dust was just like an Indian's and my style of +walking was similar. I know I took to their ways all over.' + +'Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?' said Puck. + +'Sometimes I think it did,' Pharaoh went on. 'Anyhow, Red Jacket and +Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the +tribe. It's only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I +showed up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means +"Two Tongues," because, d'ye see, I talked French and English. + +'They had their own opinions (I've heard 'em) about the French and the +English, and the Americans. They'd suffered from all of 'em during the +wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of +the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with +him in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad. +His being President afterwards made no odds to 'em. They always called +him Big Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their +notion of a white chief. Cornplanter 'ud sweep his blanket round him, +and after I'd filled his pipe he'd begin--"In the old days, long ago, +when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-" If Red +Jacket agreed to the say-so he'd trickle a little smoke out of the +corners of his mouth. If he didn't, he'd blow through his nostrils. +Then Cornplanter 'ud stop and Red Jacket 'ud take on. Red Jacket was the +better talker of the two. I've laid and listened to 'em for hours. +Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter used to meet him at +Epply's--the great dancing-place in the city before District Marshal +William Nichols bought it. They told me he was always glad to see 'em, +and he'd hear 'em out to the end if they had anything on their minds. +They had a good deal in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was +adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that +summer was about the French war with England and whether the United +States 'ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with England. Toby +wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation buying his oils. +But most of the white men wished for war, and they was angry because +the President wouldn't give the sign for it. The newspaper said men was +burning Guy Fawkes images of General Washington and yelling after him in +the streets of Philadelphia. You'd have been astonished what those two +fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little +I've learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket +on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He was +what they call a "Democrat," though our Church is against the Brethren +concerning themselves with politics.' + +'I hate politics, too,' said Una, and Pharaoh laughed. + +'I might ha' guessed it,' he said. 'But here's something that isn't +politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the newspaper +on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a peach tree and I was +fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora. + +'"I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts," he says. "I will +go to the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother, lend me a spare +pony. I must be there tomorrow night." + +'"Good!" says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. "My brother shall be +there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies." + +'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking questions. +He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't ask questions +much and I wanted to be like 'em. + +'When the horses were ready I jumped up. + +'"Get off," says Toby. "Stay and mind the cottage till I come back. The +Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He hadn't." + +'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the doorstep +wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to wrap his +fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in +Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for +I was fond of Toby. We never said much to each other, but we fiddled +together, and music's as good as talking to them that understand.' + +'Did Toby die of yellow fever?'Una asked. + +'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down to the +City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket +that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the oils along to the +City, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket +was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw's +business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was +a hard task-Master. We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy +grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he +reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my +Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and +gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting 'in the woods, or fishing in +the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. 'But it's best,' +he went on suddenly, 'after the first frosts. You roll out o' your +blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow, +not by trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like +sunsets splattered upside down. On one of such days--the maples was +flaming scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder--Cornplanter +and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the very leaves look +silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin leggings, fringed and +tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their bridles feathered and shelled +and beaded no bounds. I thought it was war against the British till I +saw their faces weren't painted, and they only carried wrist-whips. Then +I hummed "Yankee Doodle" at 'em. They told me they was going to visit +Big Hand and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in +fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I reckon those +two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod from Big Hand, but they +knew well, if there was war 'twixt England and the United States, their +tribe 'ud catch it from both parties same as in all the other wars. They +asked me to come along and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because +they always put their ponies up at the "Buck" or Epply's when they went +to see General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger's +job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.' + +'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?'Dan demanded. + +Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at Lebanon,' +he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that +particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and +sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix' me and a young Seneca buck. +You may laugh'--he smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat--'but I +told you I took to their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was +bursting to let out the war-whoop like the young men had taught me.' + +'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before Dan could +ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.' + +'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. 'We went +on--forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end--we three braves. And how +a great tall Indian a-horse-back can carry his war-bonnet at a canter +through thick timber without brushing a feather beats me! My silly head +was banged often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like +running elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd blown +their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we go? I'll tell +you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took the old war-trail +from the end of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego +country, right down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed +the Juniata by Fort Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by +the Ochwick trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From +Williams Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through +Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found the +President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be trailed by +Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a stump. After +we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a woody piece, and, +creeping slower and slower, at last if my moccasins even slipped +Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard voices--Monsieur Genet's for +choice--long before I saw anything, and we pulled up at the edge of +a clearing where some niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding +horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen--but one was Genet--were talking +among felled timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his +road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near +to the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need anybody +to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a little apart, +listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which never had more manners +than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as good as ordering him to declare war +on England at once. I had heard that clack before on the Embuscade. +He said he'd stir up the whole United States to have war with England, +whether Big Hand liked it or not. + +'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me, and my two +chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, "That is very forcibly +put, Monsieur Genet--" + +'"Citizen--citizen!" the fellow spits in. "I, at least, am a +Republican!" + +"Citizen Genet," he says, "you may be sure it will receive my fullest +consideration." This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a piece. He rode +off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny. No gentleman! + +'The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their way, they +said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was +France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the +United States' stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French +was searching American ships on pretence they was helping England, but +really for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only +t'other way round, and besides searching, they was pressing American +citizens into their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that +those Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this +very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to them, they said, as though the +United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage to her, +because she only catched it from both French and English. They said that +nine out of ten good Americans was crazy to fight the English then and +there. They wouldn't say whether that was right or wrong; they only +wanted Big Hand to turn it over in his mind. He did--for a while. I +saw Red Jacket and Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the +clearing, and how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then +Big Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.' + +'Hit 'em?' Dan asked. + +'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He--he blasted 'em +with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen times over whether +the United States had enough armed ships for any shape or sort of war +with any one. He asked 'em, if they thought she had those ships, to give +him those ships, and they looked on the ground, as if they expected to +find 'em there. He put it to 'em whether, setting ships aside, their +country--I reckon he gave 'em good reasons--whether the United States +was ready or able to face a new big war; she having but so few years +back wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her own +troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em blasted +'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods after a storm. +A little man--but they all looked little--pipes up like a young rook +in a blowed-down nest, "Nevertheless, General, it seems you will be +compelled to fight England." Quick Big Hand wheeled on him, "And is +there anything in my past which makes you think I am averse to fighting +Great Britain?" + +'Everybody laughed except him. "Oh, General, you mistake us entirely!" +they says. "I trust so," he says. "But I know my duty. We must have +peace with England." + +'"At any price?" says the man with the rook's voice. + +'"At any price," says he, word by word. "Our ships will be searched--our +citizens will be pressed, but--" + +'"Then what about the Declaration of Independence?" says one. + +'"Deal with facts, not fancies," says Big Hand. "The United States are +in no position to fight England." + +'"But think of public opinion," another one starts up. "The feeling in +Philadelphia alone is at fever heat." + +'He held up one of his big hands. "Gentlemen," he says--slow he spoke, +but his voice carried far--"I have to think of our country. Let me +assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will be made though every +city in the Union burn me in effigy." + +'"At any price?" the actor-like chap keeps on croaking. + +'"The treaty must be made on Great Britain's own terms. What else can I +do?" 'He turns his back on 'em and they looked at each other and slinked +off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was an old man. +Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the clearing from the far end +as though they had just chanced along. Back went Big Hand's shoulders, +up went his head, and he stepped forward one single pace with a great +deep Hough! so pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to +behold--three big men, and two of 'em looking like jewelled images among +the spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs' war-bonnets sinking +together, down and down. Then they made the sign which no Indian makes +outside of the Medicine Lodges--a sweep of the right hand just clear +of the dust and an inbend of the left knee at the same time, and those +proud eagle feathers almost touched his boot-top.' + +'What did it mean?' said Dan. + +'Mean!' Pharaoh cried. 'Why it's what you--what we--it's the Sachems' +way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of--oh! it's a piece +of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you are a very big +chief. + +'Big Hand looked down on 'em. First he says quite softly, "My brothers +know it is not easy to be a chief." Then his voice grew. "My children," +says he, "what is in your minds?" + +'Says Cornplanter, "We came to ask whether there will be war with King +George's men, but we have heard what our Father has said to his chiefs. +We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell to our people." + +'"No," says Big Hand. "Leave all that talk behind--it was between white +men only--but take this message from me to your people--'There will be +no war.'" + +'His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn't delay him-, only Cornplanter +says, using his old side-name, "Big Hand, did you see us among the +timber just now?" + +'"Surely," says he. "You taught me to look behind trees when we were +both young." And with that he cantered off. + +'Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies again and a +half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter says to Red Jacket, "We +will have the Corn-dance this year. There will be no war." And that was +all there was to it.' + +Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished. + +'Yes,' said Puck, rising too. 'And what came out of it in the long run?' + +'Let me get at my story my own way,'was the answer. 'Look! it's later +than I thought. That Shoreham smack's thinking of her supper.' The +children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack had hoisted a +lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier lights ran out in a +twinkling line. When they turned round The Gap was empty behind them. + +'I expect they've packed our trunks by now,' said Dan. 'This time +tomorrow we'll be home.' + + + + +IF-- + + If you can keep your head when all about you + Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; + If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, + But make allowance for their doubting too; + If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, + Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, + Or being hated, don't give way to hating, + And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; + + If you can dream--and not make dreams your master; + If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim, + If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster + And treat those two impostors just the same; + If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken + Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, + Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, + And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; + + If you can make one heap of all your winnings + And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, + And lose, and start again at your beginnings + And never breathe a word about your loss; + If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew + To serve your turn long after they are gone, + And so hold on when there is nothing in you + Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' + + If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, + Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch, + If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, + If all men count with you, but none too much; + If you can fill the unforgiving minute + With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, + Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, + And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! + + + + +'A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF' + + + + +A St Helena Lullaby + + + How far is St Helena from a little child at play? + What makes you want to wander there with all the world between? + Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away. + (No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!) + + How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street? + I haven't time to answer now--the men are falling fast. + The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat + (If you take the first step you will take the last!) + + How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz? + You couldn't hear me if I told--so loud the cannons roar. + But not so far for people who are living by their wits. + ('Gay go up' means 'gay go down' the wide world o'er!) + + How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France? + I cannot see--I cannot tell--the crowns they dazzle so. + The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance. + (After open weather you may look for snow!) + + How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar? + A longish way--a longish way--with ten year more to run. + It's South across the water underneath a setting star. + (What you cannot finish you must leave undone!) + + How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice? + An ill way--a chill way--the ice begins to crack. + But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice. + (When you can't go forward you must e'en come back!) + + How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo? + A near way--a clear way--the ship will take you soon. + A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do. + (Morning never tries you till the afternoon!) + + How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven's Grace? + That no one knows--that no one knows--and no one ever will. + But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face, + And after all your trapesings, child, lie still! + + + + +'A Priest in Spite of Himself' + + +The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a tour +of inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it. Soon they +discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best hedge-gaps with stakes +and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up the hedges where the blackberries +were setting. + +'It can't be time for the gipsies to come along,' said Una. 'Why, it was +summer only the other day!' + +'There's smoke in Low Shaw!' said Dan, sniffing. 'Let's make sure!' + +They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that leaned +above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the King's Hill road. +It used to be an old quarry till somebody planted it, and you can look +straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow. + +'I thought so,' Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at the edge +of the larches. A gipsy-van--not the show-man's sort, but the old black +kind, with little windows high up and a baby-gate across the door--was +getting ready to leave. A man was harnessing the horses; an old woman +crouched over the ashes of a fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a +girl sat on the van-steps singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking, +thin dog snuffed at a patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put +it carefully in the middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the +van and tossed her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and +they smelt singed feathers. + +'Chicken feathers!' said Dan. 'I wonder if they are old Hobden's.' + +Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl's feet, the old +woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the horses up to +the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as snakes over moss. + +'Ah!' said the girl. 'I'll teach you!' She beat the dog, who seemed to +expect it. + +'Don't do that,' Una called down. 'It wasn't his fault.' + +'How do you know what I'm beating him for?' she answered. + +'For not seeing us,' said Dan. 'He was standing right in the smoke, and +the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.' + +The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned faster than +ever. + +'You've fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,' said Una. +'There's a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.' + +'What of it?' said the old woman, as she grabbed it. + +'Oh, nothing!' said Dan. 'Only I've heard say that tail-feathers are as +bad as the whole bird, sometimes.' + +That was a saying of Hobden's about pheasants. Old Hobden always burned +all feather and fur before he sat down to eat. + +'Come on, mother,' the man whispered. The old woman climbed into the +van, and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted shaw on to the hard +road. + +The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could not catch. + +'That was gipsy for "Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,"' said +Pharaoh Lee. + +He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm. 'Gracious, you +startled me!' said Una. + +'You startled old Priscilla Savile,' Puck called from below them. 'Come +and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before they left.' + +They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the ashes +together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns without flame, +and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh played a curious wavery air. + +'That's what the girl was humming to the baby,' said Una. + +'I know it,'he nodded, and went on: + + 'Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia! + Ai Luludia!' + + +He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the children. +At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in Philadelphia and +among the Seneca Indians. + +'I'm telling it,' he said, staring straight in front of him as he +played. 'Can't you hear?' + +'Maybe, but they can't. Tell it aloud,' said Puck. + +Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began: + +'I'd left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after Big Hand +had said that there wouldn't be any war. That's all there was to it. +We believed Big Hand and we went home again--we three braves. When we +reached Lebanon we found Toby at the cottage with his waistcoat a foot +too big for him--so hard he had worked amongst the yellow-fever people. +He beat me for running off with the Indians, but 'twas worth it--I was +glad to see him,--and when we went back to Philadelphia for the winter, +and I was told how he'd sacrificed himself over sick people in the +yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn't neither. +I'd thought that all along. That yellow fever must have been something +dreadful. Even in December people had no more than begun to trinkle back +to town. Whole houses stood empty and the niggers was robbing them out. +But I can't call to mind that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It +seemed like they had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good +Lord He'd just looked after 'em. That was the winter--yes, winter of +'Ninety-three--the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby spoke in +favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but many thought +stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a third party which +always brought hickory coal foot-warmers to service and wouldn't +speak either way. They ended by casting the Lot for it, which is like +pitch-and-toss. After my summer with the Senecas, church-stoves didn't +highly interest me, so I took to haunting round among the French emigres +which Philadelphia was full of. My French and my fiddling helped me +there, d'ye see. They come over in shiploads from France, where, by what +I made out, every one was killing every one else by any means, and they +spread 'emselves about the city--mostly in Drinker's Alley and Elfrith's +Alley--and they did odd jobs till times should mend. But whatever they +stooped to, they were gentry and kept a cheerful countenance, and after +an evening's fiddling at one of their poor little proud parties, the +Brethren seemed old-fashioned. Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn't +like my fiddling for hire, but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my +living by exercising my talents. He never let me be put upon. + +'In February of 'Ninety-four--No, March it must have been, because a +new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France, with no more +manners than Genet the old one--in March, Red Jacket came in from the +Reservation bringing news of all kind friends there. I showed him round +the city, and we saw General Washington riding through a crowd of folk +that shouted for war with England. They gave him quite rough music, +but he looked 'twixt his horse's ears and made out not to notice. His +stirrup brished Red Jacket's elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, "My +brother knows it is not easy to be a chief." Big Hand shot just one look +at him and nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over some one who +wasn't hooting at Washington loud enough to please the people. We went +away to be out of the fight. Indians won't risk being hit.' + +'What do they do if they are?' Dan asked. + +'Kill, of course. That's why they have such proper manners. Well, +then, coming home by Drinker's Alley to get a new shirt which a French +Vicomte's lady was washing to take the stiff out of (I'm always choice +in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He +hadn't long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He +sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel--his coat half torn off, his face cut, +but his hands steady; so I knew it wasn't drink. He said his name +was Peringuey, and he'd been knocked about in the crowd round the +Stadt--Independence Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up +to Toby's rooms, same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The +compliments he paid to Toby's Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man, +for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all +about our great stove dispute in the church. I remember Pastor Meder and +Brother Adam Goos dropped 'in, and although they and Toby were direct +opposite sides regarding stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made 'em +feel as if he thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had +been a clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby's +fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a +simple Huron. Senecas aren't Hurons, they're Iroquois, of course, and +Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose and left in a style +which made us feel he'd been favouring us, instead of us feeding him. +I've never seen that so strong before--in a man. We all talked him over +but couldn't make head or tail of him, and Red Jacket come out to walk +with me to the French quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. +Passing Drinker's Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, +and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all +alone, right hand against left. + +'Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, "Look at his face!" + +'I was looking. I protest to you I wasn't frightened like I was when Big +Hand talked to his gentlemen. I--I only looked, and I wondered that +even those dead dumb dice 'ud dare to fall different from what that face +wished. It--it was a face! + +'"He is bad," says Red Jacket. "But he is a great chief. The French have +sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us his lies. Now I +know." + +'I had to go on to the party, so I asked him to call round for me +afterwards and we'd have hymn-singing at Toby's as usual. "No," he says. +"Tell Toby I am not Christian tonight. All Indian." He had those fits +sometimes. I wanted to know more about Monsieur Peringuey, and the +emigre party was the very place to find out. It's neither here nor +there, of course, but those French emigre parties they almost make you +cry. The men that you bought fruit of in Market Street, the hairdressers +and fencing-masters and French teachers, they turn back again by +candlelight to what they used to be at home, and you catch their real +names. There wasn't much room in the washhouse, so I sat on top of the +copper and played 'em the tunes they called for--"Si le Roi m'avait +donne," and such nursery stuff. They cried sometimes. It hurt me to +take their money afterwards, indeed it did. And there I found out about +Monsieur Peringuey. He was a proper rogue too! None of 'em had a good +word for him except the Marquise that kept the French boarding-house on +Fourth Street. I made out that his real name was the Count Talleyrand de +Perigord--a priest right enough, but sorely come down in the world. He'd +been King Louis' Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the +French had cut off King Louis' head; and, by what I heard, that head +wasn't hardly more than hanging loose before he'd run back to Paris and +prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the murder, to send him back +to England again as Ambassador of the French Republic! That was too much +for the English, so they kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he'd +fled to the Americas without money or friends or prospects. I'm telling +you the talk in the washhouse. Some of 'em was laughing over it. Says +the French Marquise, "My friends, you laugh too soon. That man 'll be on +the winning side before any of us." + +'"I did not know you were so fond of priests, Marquise," says the +Vicomte. His lady did my washing, as I've told you. + +'"I have my reasons," says the Marquise. "He sent my uncle and my two +brothers to Heaven by the little door,"--that was one of the emigre +names for the guillotine. "He will be on the winning side if it costs +him the blood of every friend he has in the world." + +'"Then what does he want here?" says one of 'em. "We have all lost our +game." + +'"My faith!" says the Marquise. "He will find out, if any one can, +whether this canaille of a Washington means to help us to fight England. +Genet" (that was my Ambassador in the Embuscade) "has failed and gone +off disgraced; Faucher" (he was the new man) "hasn't done any better, +but our Abbe will find out, and he will make his profit out of the news. +Such a man does not fall." + +'"He begins unluckily," says the Vicomte. "He was set upon today in the +street for not hooting your Washington." They all laughed again, and one +remarks, "How does the poor devil keep himself?" + +'He must have slipped in through the washhouse door, for he flits past +me and joins 'em, cold as ice. + +'"One does what one can," he says. "I sell buttons. And you, Marquise?" + +'"I?"--she waves her poor white hands all burned--"I am a cook--a very +bad one--at your service, Abbe. We were just talking about you." + +They didn't treat him like they talked of him. They backed off and stood +still. + +'"I have missed something, then," he says. "But I spent this last +hour playing--only for buttons, Marquise--against a noble savage, the +veritable Huron himself." + +'"You had your usual luck, I hope?" she says. + +'"Certainly," he says. "I cannot afford to lose even buttons in these +days." + +'"Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your dice are +usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous," she continues. I don't know +whether she meant to accuse him of cheating. He only bows. '"Not yet, +Mademoiselle Cunegonde," he says, and goes on to make himself agreeable +to the rest of the company. And that was how I found out our Monsieur +Peringuey was Count Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.' + +Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing. + +'You've heard of him?' said Pharaoh. + +Una shook her head. 'Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?' Dan +asked. + +'He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the lame +man had cheated. Red Jacket said no--he had played quite fair and was +a master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I've seen him, on the +Reservation, play himself out of everything he had and in again. Then I +told Red Jacket all I'd heard at the party concerning Talleyrand. + +'"I was right," he says. "I saw the man's war-face when he thought he +was alone. That's why I played him. I played him face to face. He's a +great chief. Do they say why he comes here?" + +'"They say he comes to find out if Big Hand makes war against the +English," I said. + +'Red Jacket grunted. "Yes," he says. "He asked me that too. If he had +been a small chief I should have lied. But he is a great chief. He knew +I was a chief, so I told him the truth. I told him what Big Hand said to +Cornplanter and me in the clearing--'There will be no war.' I could not +see what he thought. I could not see behind his face. But he is a great +chief. He will believe." + +'"Will he believe that Big Hand can keep his people back from war?" I +said, thinking of the crowds that hooted Big Hand whenever he rode out. + +'"He is as bad as Big Hand is good, but he is not as strong as Big +Hand," says Red Jacket. "When he talks with Big Hand he will feel this +in his heart. The French have sent away a great chief. Presently he will +go back and make them afraid." + +'Now wasn't that comical? The French woman that knew him and owed all +her losses to him; the Indian that picked him up, cut and muddy on +the street, and played dice with him; they neither of 'em doubted that +Talleyrand was something by himself--appearances notwithstanding.' + +'And was he something by himself?' asked Una. + +Pharaoh began to laugh, but stopped. 'The way I look at it,'he said, +'Talleyrand was one of just three men in this world who are quite by +themselves. Big Hand I put first, because I've seen him.' 'Ay,' said +Puck. 'I'm sorry we lost him out of Old England. Who d'you put second?' + +'Talleyrand: maybe because I've seen him too,' said Pharaoh. + +'Who's third?'said Puck. + +'Boney--even though I've seen him.' + +'Whew!' said Puck. 'Every man has his own weights and measures, but +that's queer reckoning.' 'Boney?' said Una. 'You don't mean you've ever +met Napoleon Bonaparte?' + +'There, I knew you wouldn't have patience with the rest of my tale after +hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come round to Hundred +and Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for his kindness. I didn't +mention the dice-playing, but I could see that Red Jacket's doings had +made Talleyrand highly curious about Indians--though he would call him +the Huron. Toby, as you may believe, was all holds full of knowledge +concerning their manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The +Brethren don't study Indians much till they join the Church, but Toby +knew 'em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his sound leg +over his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been adopted into the +Senecas I, naturally, kept still, but Toby 'ud call on me to back up +some of his remarks, and by that means, and a habit he had of drawing +you on in talk, Talleyrand saw I knew something of his noble savages +too. Then he tried a trick. Coming back from an emigre party he turns +into his little shop and puts it to me, laughing like, that I'd gone +with the two chiefs on their visit to Big Hand. I hadn't told. Red +Jacket hadn't told, and Toby, of course, didn't know. 'Twas just +Talleyrand's guess. "Now," he says, "my English and Red Jacket's French +was so bad that I am not sure I got the rights of what the President +really said to the unsophisticated Huron. Do me the favour of telling it +again." I told him every word Red Jacket had told him and not one word +more. I had my suspicions, having just come from an emigre party where +the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual. + +'"Much obliged," he said. "But I couldn't gather from Red Jacket exactly +what the President said to Monsieur Genet, or to his American gentlemen +after Monsieur Genet had ridden away." + +'I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn't told him a +word about the white men's pow-wow.' + +'Why hadn't he?' Puck asked. + +'Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the President +had said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn't repeat the talk, between +the white men, that Big Hand ordered him to leave behind. 'Oh!' said +Puck. 'I see. What did you do?' + +'First I was going to make some sort of tale round it, but Talleyrand +was a chief too. So I said, "As soon as I get Red Jacket's permission +to tell that part of the tale, I'll be delighted to refresh your memory, +Abbe." What else could I have done? + +'"Is that all?" he says, laughing. "Let me refresh your memory. In a +month from now I can give you a hundred dollars for your account of the +conversation." + +'"Make it five hundred, Abbe," I says. '"Five, then," says he. + +'"That will suit me admirably," I says. "Red Jacket will be in town +again by then, and the moment he gives me leave I'll claim the money." + +'He had a hard fight to be civil, but he come out smiling. + +'"Monsieur," he says, "I beg your pardon as sincerely as I envy the +noble Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit down while I explain." + +'There wasn't another chair, so I sat on the button-box. + +'He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President +meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found +out--from Genet, I reckon, who was with the President on the day the two +chiefs met him. He'd heard that Genet had had a huff with the President +and had ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he +wanted--what he begged and blustered to know--was just the very words +which the President had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left, +concerning the peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in +helping him to those very words I'd be helping three great countries as +well as mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I +couldn't laugh at him. + +'"I'm sorry," I says, when he wiped his forehead. "As soon as Red Jacket +gives permission--" + +'"You don't believe me, then?" he cuts in. '"Not one little, little +word, Abbe," I says; "except that you mean to be on the winning side. +Remember, I've been fiddling to all your old friends for months." + +'Well, then his temper fled him and he called me names. + +'"Wait a minute, ci-devant," I says at last. "I am half English and half +French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the +Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?" + +'"Oh yes!" he sneers. "I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that +estimable old man." + +'"Then," I says, "thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee +has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man +than thee." + +'"Go!" he whispers. "Before I kill thee, go." + +'He looked like it. So I left him.' + +'Why did he want to know so badly?' said Dan. + +'The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that +Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price, +he'd ha' left old Faucher fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went +straight back to France and told old Danton--"It's no good your wasting +time and hopes on the United States, because she won't fight on our +side--that I've proof of!" Then Danton might have been grateful and +given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing +for sure who's your friend and who's your enemy. Just think of us poor +shop-keepers, for instance.' + +'Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?' Una asked. + +'Of course not. He said, "When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand +said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All that talk was left +behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell the Lame Chief there +will be no war. He can go back to France with that word." + +'Talleyrand and me hadn't met for a long time except at emigre parties. +When I give him the message he just shook his head. He was sorting +buttons in the shop. + +'"I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word of an +unsophisticated savage," he says. + +'"Hasn't the President said anything to you?" I asked him. + +'"He has said everything that one in his position ought to say, but--but +if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode off I believe +I could change Europe--the world, maybe." '"I'm sorry," I says. "Maybe +you'll do that without my help." + +'He looked at me hard. "Either you have unusual observation for one so +young, or you choose to be insolent," he says. + +'"It was intended for a compliment," I says. "But no odds. We're off in +a few days for our summer trip, and I've come to make my good-byes." + +'"I go on my travels too," he says. "If ever we meet again you may be +sure I will do my best to repay what I owe you." + +'"Without malice, Abbe, I hope," I says. + +'"None whatever," says he. "Give my respects to your adorable Dr +Pangloss" (that was one of his side-names for Toby) "and the Huron." I +never could teach him the difference betwixt Hurons and Senecas. + +'Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call "pilly buttons," +and that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.' + +'But after that you met Napoleon, didn't you?' said Una. 'Wait Just +a little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to Lebanon and the +Reservation, and, being older and knowing better how to manage him, +I enjoyed myself well that summer with fiddling and fun. When we came +back, the Brethren got after Toby because I wasn't learning any lawful +trade, and he had hard work to save me from being apprenticed to +Helmbold and Geyer the printers. 'Twould have ruined our music together, +indeed it would. And when we escaped that, old Mattes Roush, the +leather-breeches maker round the corner, took a notion I was cut out for +skin-dressing. But we were rescued. Along towards Christmas there comes +a big sealed letter from the Bank saying that a Monsieur Talleyrand had +put five hundred dollars--a hundred pounds--to my credit there to use as +I pleased. There was a little note from him inside--he didn't give any +address--to thank me for past kindnesses and my believing in his future, +which he said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished Toby to +share the money. I hadn't done more than bring Talleyrand up to Hundred +and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby's. But Toby said, "No! Liberty +and Independence for ever. I have all my wants, my son." So I gave him +a set of new fiddle-strings, and the Brethren didn't advise us any more. +Only Pastor Meder he preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and +Brother Adam Goos said if there was war the English 'ud surely shoot +down the Bank. I knew there wasn't going to be any war, but I drew the +money out and on Red Jacket's advice I put it into horse-flesh, which +I sold to Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stage-coaches. That way, I +doubled my money inside the twelvemonth.' 'You gipsy! You proper gipsy!' +Puck shouted. + +'Why not? 'Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing leading to +another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a worldly fortune +and was in the tobacco trade.' + +'Ah!' said Puck, suddenly. 'Might I inquire if you'd ever sent any news +to your people in England--or in France?' + +'O' course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I'd made +money in the horse trade. We Lees don't like coming home empty-handed. +If it's only a turnip or an egg, it's something. Oh yes, I wrote good +and plenty to Uncle Aurette, and--Dad don't read very quickly--Uncle +used to slip over Newhaven way and tell Dad what was going on in the +tobacco trade.' + +'I see-- + + Aurettes and Lees-- + Like as two peas. + +Go on, Brother Square-toes,' said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on. + +'Talleyrand he'd gone up in the world same as me. He'd sailed to France +again, and was a great man in the Government there awhile, but they +had to turn him out on account of some story about bribes from American +shippers. All our poor emigres said he was surely finished this time, +but Red Jacket and me we didn't think it likely, not unless he was quite +dead. Big Hand had made his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as +he said he would, and there was a roaring trade 'twixt England and the +United States for such as 'ud take the risk of being searched by British +and French men-o'-war. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen +told Big Hand 'ud happen--the United States was catching it from both. +If an English man-o'-war met an American ship he'd press half the best +men out of her, and swear they was British subjects. Most of 'em was! If +a Frenchman met her he'd, likely, have the cargo out of her, swearing +it was meant to aid and comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a +Dutchman met her--they was hanging on to England's coat-tails too--Lord +only knows what they wouldn't do! It came over me that what I wanted in +my tobacco trade was a fast-sailing ship and a man who could be French, +English, or American at a pinch. Luckily I could lay my hands on both +articles. So along towards the end of September in the year 'Ninety-nine +I sailed from Philadelphia with a hundred and eleven hogshead o' good +Virginia tobacco, in the brig BERTHE AURETTE, named after Mother's +maiden name, hoping 'twould bring me luck, which she didn't--and yet she +did.' + +'Where was you bound for?' Puck asked. + +'Er--any port I found handiest. I didn't tell Toby or the Brethren. They +don't understand the ins and outs of the tobacco trade.' + +Puck coughed a small cough as he shifted a piece of wood with his bare +foot. + +'It's easy for you to sit and judge,' Pharaoh cried. 'But think o' what +we had to put up with! We spread our wings and run across the broad +Atlantic like a hen through a horse-fair. Even so, we was stopped by an +English frigate, three days out. He sent a boat alongside and pressed +seven able seamen. I remarked it was hard on honest traders, but the +officer said they was fighting all creation and hadn't time to argue. +The next English frigate we escaped with no more than a shot in our +quarter. Then we was chased two days and a night by a French privateer, +firing between squalls, and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which +made him sheer off had the impudence to press another five of our men. +That's how we reached to the chops of the Channel. Twelve good men +pressed out of thirty-five; an eighteen-pound shot-hole close beside our +rudder; our mainsail looking like spectacles where the Frenchman had +hit us--and the Channel crawling with short-handed British cruisers. +Put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you grumble at the price of +tobacco! + +'Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our leaks, a +French lugger come swooping at us out o' the dusk. We warned him to keep +away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed his Jabbering red-caps. We +couldn't endure any more--indeed we couldn't. We went at 'em with all +we could lay hands on. It didn't last long. They was fifty odd to our +twenty-three. Pretty soon I heard the cutlasses thrown down and some one +bellowed for the sacri captain. + +'"Here I am!" I says. "I don't suppose it makes any odds to you thieves, +but this is the United States brig BERTHE AURETTE." + +'"My aunt!" the man says, laughing. "Why is she named that?" + +'"Who's speaking?" I said. 'Twas too dark to see, but I thought I knew +the voice. + +'"Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L'Estrange," he sings out, and then I was +sure. + +'"Oh!" I says. "It's all in the family, I suppose, but you have done a +fine day's work, Stephen." + +'He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He was young +L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the night the smack +sank off Telscombe Tye--six years before. + +'"Whew!" he says. "That's why she was named for Aunt Berthe, is it? +What's your share in her, Pharaoh?" + +'"Only half owner, but the cargo's mine." + +'"That's bad," he says. "I'll do what I can, but you shouldn't have +fought us." '"Steve," I says, "you aren't ever going to report our +little fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter 'ud laugh at it!" + +'"So'd I if I wasn't in the Republican Navy," he says. "But two of our +men are dead, d'ye see, and I'm afraid I'll have to take you +to the Prize Court at Le Havre." + +'"Will they condemn my 'baccy?" I asks. + +'"To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship. She'd make a +sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court 'ud let me have her," +he says. + +'Then I knew there was no hope. I don't blame him--a man must consider +his own interests, but nigh every dollar I had was in ship or cargo, and +Steve kept on saying, "You shouldn't have fought us." + +'Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being the one time +we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o' course we never saw +one. My cousin spoke his best for us at the Prize Court. He owned he'd +no right to rush alongside in the face o' the United States flag, but +we couldn't get over those two men killed, d'ye see, and the Court +condemned both ship and cargo. They was kind enough not to make us +prisoners--only beggars--and young L'Estrange was given the BERTHE +AURETTE to re-arm into the French Navy. + +'"I'll take you round to Boulogne," he says. "Mother and the rest'll be +glad to see you, and you can slip over to Newhaven with Uncle Aurette. +Or you can ship with me, like most o' your men, and take a turn at King +George's loose trade. There's plenty pickings," he says. + +'Crazy as I was, I couldn't help laughing. + +'"I've had my allowance of pickings and stealings," I says. "Where are +they taking my tobacco?" 'Twas being loaded on to a barge. + +'"Up the Seine to be sold in Paris," he says. "Neither you nor I will +ever touch a penny of that money." + +'"Get me leave to go with it," I says. "I'll see if there's justice to +be gotten out of our American Ambassador." + +'"There's not much justice in this world," he says, "without a Navy." +But he got me leave to go with the barge and he gave me some money. That +tobacco was all I had, and I followed it like a hound follows a snatched +bone. Going up the river I fiddled a little to keep my spirits up, as +well as to make friends with the guard. They was only doing their duty. +Outside o' that they were the reasonablest o' God's creatures. They +never even laughed at me. So we come to Paris, by river, along in +November, which the French had christened Brumaire. They'd given new +names to all the months, and after such an outrageous silly piece o' +business as that, they wasn't likely to trouble 'emselves with my rights +and wrongs. They didn't. The barge was laid up below Notre Dame church +in charge of a caretaker, and he let me sleep aboard after I'd run about +all day from office to office, seeking justice and fair dealing, and +getting speeches concerning liberty. None heeded me. Looking back on it +I can't rightly blame 'em. I'd no money, my clothes was filthy mucked; +I hadn't changed my linen in weeks, and I'd no proof of my claims except +the ship's papers, which, they said, I might have stolen. The thieves! +The door-keeper to the American Ambassador--for I never saw even the +Secretary--he swore I spoke French a sight too well for an American +citizen. Worse than that--I had spent my money, d'ye see, and I--I took +to fiddling in the streets for my keep; and--and, a ship's captain with +a fiddle under his arm--well, I don't blame 'em that they didn't believe +me. + +'I come back to the barge one day--late in this month Brumaire it +was--fair beazled out. Old Maingon, the caretaker, he'd lit a fire in a +bucket and was grilling a herring. + +'"Courage, mon ami," he says. "Dinner is served." + +'"I can't eat," I says. "I can't do any more. It's stronger than I am." +'"Bah!" he says. "Nothing's stronger than a man. Me, for example! Less +than two years ago I was blown up in the Orient in Aboukir Bay, but +I descended again and hit the water like a fairy. Look at me now," he +says. He wasn't much to look at, for he'd only one leg and one eye, but +the cheerfullest soul that ever trod shoe-leather. "That's worse than a +hundred and eleven hogshead of 'baccy," he goes on. "You're young, too! +What wouldn't I give to be young in France at this hour! There's nothing +you couldn't do," he says. "The ball's at your feet--kick it!" he says. +He kicks the old fire-bucket with his peg-leg. "General Buonaparte, for +example!" he goes on. "That man's a babe compared to me, and see what +he's done already. He's conquered Egypt and Austria and Italy--oh! half +Europe!" he says, "and now he sails back to Paris, and he sails out +to St Cloud down the river here--don't stare at the river, you young +fool!---and all in front of these pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he +makes himself Consul, which is as good as a King. He'll be King, too, +in the next three turns of the capstan--King of France, England, and the +world! Think o' that!" he shouts, "and eat your herring." + +'I says something about Boney. If he hadn't been fighting England I +shouldn't have lost my 'baccy--should I? + +'"Young fellow," says Maingon, "you don't understand." + +'We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with two in it. +'"That's the man himself," says Maingon. "He'll give 'em something to +cheer for soon." He stands at the salute. + +'"Who's t'other in black beside him?" I asks, fairly shaking all over. + +'"Ah! he's the clever one. You'll hear of him before long. He's that +scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand." + +'"It is!" I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run after +the carriage calling, "Abbe, Abbe!" + +'A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I +had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped--and there just +was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I +wouldn't have struck up "Si le Roi m'avait donne Paris la grande ville!" +I thought it might remind him. + +'"That is a good omen!" he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he +looks straight at me. + +'"Abbe--oh, Abbe!" I says. "Don't you remember Toby and Hundred and +Eighteen Second Street?" + +'He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard +at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into +the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd's face. '"You go +there," says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I +catched my first breath since I'd left the barge. Presently I heard +plates rattling next door--there were only folding doors between--and a +cork drawn. "I tell you," some one shouts with his mouth full, "it was +all that sulky ass Sieyes' fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred +saved the situation." + +'"Did it save your coat?" says Talleyrand. "I hear they tore it when +they threw you out. Don't gasconade to me. You may be in the road of +victory, but you aren't there yet." + +'Then I guessed t'other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at +Talleyrand. + +'"You forget yourself, Consul," says Talleyrand, "or rather you remember +yourself--Corsican." + +'"Pig!" says Boney, and worse. + +'"Emperor!" says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of +all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew +open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his +pistol before I could stand up. + +"General," says Talleyrand to him, "this gentleman has a habit of +catching us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing down." + +'Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. Talleyrand +takes my hand--"Charmed to see you again, Candide," he says. "How is the +adorable Dr Pangloss and the noble Huron?" + +'"They were doing very well when I left," I said. "But I'm not." + +'"Do you sell buttons now?" he says, and fills me a glass of wine off +the table. + +'"Madeira," says he. "Not so good as some I have drunk." + +'"You mountebank!" Boney roars. "Turn that out." (He didn't even say +"man," but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just went on.) + +'"Pheasant is not so good as pork," he says. "You will find some at that +table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pass him a clean plate, +General." And, as true as I'm here, Boney slid a plate along just like +a sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow-skinned little man, as +nervous as a cat--and as dangerous. I could feel that. + +'"And now," said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his sound one, +"will you tell me your story?" 'I was in a fluster, but I told him +nearly everything from the time he left me the five hundred dollars in +Philadelphia, up to my losing ship and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by +listening, but after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked +at the crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand called +to him when I'd done. + +'"Eh? What we need now," says Boney, "is peace for the next three or +four years." + +'"Quite so," says Talleyrand. "Meantime I want the Consul's order to the +Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his ship." + +'"Nonsense!" says Boney. "Give away an oak-built brig of two hundred and +seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She must be armed into my Navy +with ten--no, fourteen twelve-pounders and two long fours. Is she strong +enough to bear a long twelve forward?" + +'Now I could ha' sworn he'd paid no heed to my talk, but that wonderful +head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word of it that was useful +to him. + +'"Ah, General!" says Talleyrand. "You are a magician--a magician without +morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, and we don't want to +offend them more than we have." + +'"Need anybody talk about the affair?" he says. He didn't look at me, +but I knew what was in his mind--just cold murder because I worried him; +and he'd order it as easy as ordering his carriage. + +'"You can't stop 'em," I said. "There's twenty-two other men besides +me." I felt a little more 'ud set me screaming like a wired hare. + +'"Undoubtedly American," Talleyrand goes on. "You would gain +something if you returned the ship--with a message of fraternal +good-will--published in the MONITEUR" (that's a French paper like the +Philadelphia AURORA). + +'"A good idea!" Boney answers. "One could say much in a message." + +'"It might be useful," says Talleyrand. "Shall I have the message +prepared?" He wrote something in a little pocket ledger. + +'"Yes--for me to embellish this evening. The MONITEUR will publish it +tonight." + +'"Certainly. Sign, please," says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out. + +'"But that's the order to return the brig," says Boney. "Is that +necessary? Why should I lose a good ship? Haven't I lost enough ships +already?" 'Talleyrand didn't answer any of those questions. Then Boney +sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he shies at +the paper again: "My signature alone is useless," he says. "You must +have the other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos must sign. We +must preserve the Laws." + +'"By the time my friend presents it," says Talleyrand, still looking out +of window, "only one signature will be necessary." + +'Boney smiles. "It's a swindle," says he, but he signed and pushed the +paper across. + +'"Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre," says +Talleyrand, "and he will give you back your ship. I will settle for the +cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What profit did you +expect to make on it?" + +'Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I'd set out +to run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and so I couldn't +rightly set bounds to my profits.' + +'I guessed that all along,' said Puck. + + 'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst-- + That wasn't a smuggler last and first.' + +The children laughed. + +'It's comical enough now,' said Pharaoh. 'But I didn't laugh then. Says +Talleyrand after a minute, "I am a bad accountant and I have several +calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the +cargo?" + +'Say? I couldn't say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China +image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won't say +how much, because you wouldn't believe it. + +'"Oh! Bless you, Abbe! God bless you!" I got it out at last. + +'"Yes," he says, "I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me +Bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing," and he hands me the +paper. + +'"He stole all that money from me," says Boney over my shoulder. "A Bank +of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?" he shouts +at Talleyrand. + +'"Quite," says Talleyrand, getting up. "But be calm. The disease will +never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman found me in the +street and fed me when I was hungry." + +'"I see; and he has made a fine scene of it, and you have paid him, I +suppose. Meantime, France waits." + +'"Oh! poor France!" says Talleyrand. "Good-bye, Candide," he says to me. +"By the way," he says, "have you yet got Red Jacket's permission to +tell me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode +away?" + +'I couldn't speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney--so impatient +he was to go on with his doings--he ran at me and fair pushed me out of +the room. And that was all there was to it.' Pharaoh stood up and slid +his fiddle into one of his big skirt-pockets as though it were a dead +hare. + +'Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,'said Dan. 'How you got +home--and what old Maingon said on the barge--and wasn't your cousin +surprised when he had to give back the BERTHE AURETTE, and--' + +'Tell us more about Toby!' cried Una. + +'Yes, and Red Jacket,' said Dan. + +'Won't you tell us any more?' they both pleaded. + +Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column of +smoke that made them sneeze. When they had finished the Shaw was empty +except for old Hobden stamping through the larches. + + +'They gipsies have took two,' he said. 'My black pullet and my liddle +gingy-speckled cockrel.' + +'I thought so,' said Dan, picking up one tail-feather that the old woman +had overlooked. + +'Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?' said Hobden. + +'Hobby!' said Una. 'Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley all your +goings and comings?' + + + + +'Poor Honest Men' + + + Your jar of Virginny + Will cost you a guinea, + Which you reckon too much by five shilling or ten; + But light your churchwarden + And judge it accordin' + When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men. + + From the Capes of the Delaware, + As you are well aware, + We sail with tobacco for England--but then + Our own British cruisers, + They watch us come through, sirs, + And they press half a score of us poor honest men. + + Or if by quick sailing + (Thick weather prevailing) + We leave them behind (as we do now and then) + We are sure of a gun from + Each frigate we run from, + Which is often destruction to poor honest men! + + Broadsides the Atlantic + We tumble short-handed, + With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend, + And off the Azores, + Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs + Are waiting to terrify poor honest men! + + Napoleon's embargo + Is laid on all cargo + Which comfort or aid to King George may intend; + And since roll, twist and leaf, + Of all comforts is chief, + They try for to steal it from poor honest men! + + With no heart for fight, + We take refuge in flight, + But fire as we run, our retreat to defend, + Until our stern-chasers + Cut up her fore-braces, + And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men! + + Twix' the Forties and Fifties, + South-eastward the drift is, + And so, when we think we are making Land's End, + Alas, it is Ushant + With half the King's Navy, + Blockading French ports against poor honest men! + + But they may not quit station + (Which is our salvation), + So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again; + And finding the tail of + A homeward-bound convoy, + We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men. + + 'Twix' the Lizard and Dover, + We hand our stuff over, + Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when; + But a light on each quarter + Low down on the water + Is well understanded by poor honest men. + Even then we have dangers + From meddlesome strangers, + Who spy on our business and are not content + To take a smooth answer, + Except with a handspike... + And they say they are murdered by poor honest men! + + To be drowned or be shot + Is our natural lot, + Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end-- + After all our great pains + For to dangle in chains, + As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men? + + + + +THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID + + + + +Eddi's Service + + + Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid + In the chapel at Manhood End, + Ordered a midnight service + For such as cared to attend. + But the Saxons were keeping Christmas, + And the night was stormy as well. + Nobody came to service + Though Eddi rang the bell. + + 'Wicked weather for walking,' + Said Eddi of Manhood End. + 'But I must go on with the service + For such as care to attend.' + The altar candles were lighted,-- + An old marsh donkey came, + Bold as a guest invited, + And stared at the guttering flame. + + The storm beat on at the windows, + The water splashed on the floor, + And a wet yoke-weary bullock + Pushed in through the open door. + 'How do I know what is greatest, + How do I know what is least? + That is My Father's business,' + Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest. + + 'But, three are gathered together-- + Listen to me and attend. + I bring good news, my brethren!' + Said Eddi, of Manhood End. + And he told the Ox of a manger + And a stall in Bethlehem, + And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider + That rode to jerusalem. + + They steamed and dripped in the chancel, + They listened and never stirred, + While, just as though they were Bishops, + Eddi preached them The Word. + + Till the gale blew off on the marshes + And the windows showed the day, + And the Ox and the Ass together + Wheeled and clattered away. + + And when the Saxons mocked him, + Said Eddi of Manhood End, + 'I dare not shut His chapel + On such as care to attend.' + + + + +The Conversion of St Wilfrid + + +They had bought peppermints up at the village, and were coming home +past little St Barnabas' Church, when they saw Jimmy Kidbrooke, the +carpenter's baby, kicking at the churchyard gate, with a shaving in his +mouth and the tears running down his cheeks. + +Una pulled out the shaving and put in a peppermint. Jimmy said he was +looking for his grand-daddy--he never seemed to take much notice of his +father--so they went up between the old graves, under the leaf-dropping +limes, to the porch, where Jim trotted in, looked about the empty +Church, and screamed like a gate-hinge. + +Young Sam Kidbrooke's voice came from the bell-tower and made them jump. + +'Why, jimmy,'he called, 'what are you doin' here? Fetch him, Father!' + +Old Mr Kidbrooke stumped downstairs, jerked Jimmy on to his shoulder, +stared at the children beneath his brass spectacles, and stumped back +again. They laughed: it was so exactly like Mr Kidbrooke. + +'It's all right,' Una called up the stairs. 'We found him, Sam. Does his +mother know?' + +'He's come off by himself. She'll be justabout crazy,' Sam answered. + +'Then I'll run down street and tell her.' Una darted off. + +'Thank you, Miss Una. Would you like to see how we're mendin' the +bell-beams, Mus' Dan?' + +Dan hopped up, and saw young Sam lying on his stomach in a most +delightful place among beams and ropes, close to the five great bells. +Old Mr Kidbrooke on the floor beneath was planing a piece of wood, and +Jimmy was eating the shavings as fast as they came away. He never looked +at Jimmy; Jimmy never stopped eating; and the broad gilt-bobbed pendulum +of the church clock never stopped swinging across the white-washed wall +of the tower. + +Dan winked through the sawdust that fell on his upturned face. 'Ring a +bell,' he called. + +'I mustn't do that, but I'll buzz one of 'em a bit for you,' said Sam. +He pounded on the sound-bow of the biggest bell, and waked a hollow +groaning boom that ran up and down the tower like creepy feelings down +your back. Just when it almost began to hurt, it died away in a hurry of +beautiful sorrowful cries, like a wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger. +The pendulum clanked--one loud clank to each silent swing. + +Dan heard Una return from Mrs Kidbrooke's, and ran down to fetch her. +She was standing by the font staring at some one who kneeled at the +Altar-rail. + +'Is that the Lady who practises the organ?' she whispered. + +'No. She's gone into the organ-place. Besides, she wears black,' Dan +replied. + +The figure rose and came down the nave. It was a white-haired man in +a long white gown with a sort of scarf looped low on the neck, one end +hanging over his shoulder. His loose long sleeves were embroidered with +gold, and a deep strip of gold embroidery waved and sparkled round the +hem of his gown. + +'Go and meet him,' said Puck's voice behind the font. 'It's only +Wilfrid.' + +'Wilfrid who?' said Dan. 'You come along too.' + +'Wilfrid--Saint of Sussex, and Archbishop of York. I shall wait till +he asks me.' He waved them forward. Their feet squeaked on the old +grave-slabs in the centre aisle. The Archbishop raised one hand with a +pink ring on it, and said something in Latin. He was very handsome, and +his thin face looked almost as silvery as his thin circle of hair. + +'Are you alone?' he asked. + +'Puck's here, of course,' said Una. 'Do you know him?' + +'I know him better now than I used to.' He beckoned over Dan's shoulder, +and spoke again in Latin. Puck pattered forward, holding himself as +straight as an arrow. The Archbishop smiled. + +'Be welcome,' said he. 'Be very welcome.' + +'Welcome to you also, O Prince of the church,' Puck replied. + +The Archbishop bowed his head and passed on, till he glimmered like a +white moth in the shadow by the font. + +'He does look awfully princely,' said Una. 'Isn't he coming back?' + +'Oh yes. He's only looking over the church. He's very fond of churches,' +said Puck. 'What's that?' + +The Lady who practices the organ was speaking to the blower-boy behind +the organ-screen. 'We can't very well talk here,' Puck whispered. 'Let's +go to Panama Corner.' + +He led them to the end of the south aisle, where there is a slab of iron +which says in queer, long-tailed letters: ORATE P. ANNEMA JHONE COLINE. +The children always called it Panama Corner. + +The Archbishop moved slowly about the little church, peering at the old +memorial tablets and the new glass windows. The Lady who practises the +organ began to pull out stops and rustle hymn-books behind the screen. + +'I hope she'll do all the soft lacey tunes--like treacle on porridge,' +said Una. + +'I like the trumpety ones best,' said Dan. 'Oh, look at Wilfrid! He's +trying to shut the Altar-gates!' + +'Tell him he mustn't,' said Puck, quite seriously. + +He can't, anyhow,' Dan muttered, and tiptoed out of Panama Corner while +the Archbishop patted and patted at the carved gates that always sprang +open again beneath his hand. + +'That's no use, sir,' Dan whispered. 'Old Mr Kidbrooke says Altar-gates +are just the one pair of gates which no man can shut. He made 'em so +himself.' + +The Archbishop's blue eyes twinkled. Dan saw that he knew all about it. + +'I beg your pardon,' Dan stammered--very angry with Puck. + +'Yes, I know! He made them so Himself.' The Archbishop smiled, and +crossed to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a certain padded +arm-chair for him to sit on. + +The organ played softly. 'What does that music say?'he asked. + +Una dropped into the chant without thinking: '"O all ye works of the +Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." We call +it the Noah's Ark, because it's all lists of things--beasts and birds +and whales, you know.' + +'Whales?' said the Archbishop quickly. + +'Yes--"O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,"' Una +hummed--'"Bless ye the Lord." It sounds like a wave turning over, +doesn't it?' + +'Holy Father,' said Puck with a demure face, 'is a little seal also "one +who moves in the water"?' + +'Eh? Oh yes--yess!' he laughed. 'A seal moves wonderfully in the waters. +Do the seal come to my island still?' + +Puck shook his head. 'All those little islands have been swept away.' + +'Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land +of the Sea-calf, maiden?' + +'No--but we've seen seals--at Brighton.' + +'The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means +Seal's Eye--Selsey--down Chichester way--where he converted the South +Saxons,' Puck explained. + +'Yes--yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,' said the +Archbishop, smiling. 'The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As +our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow of +a seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the water, and scratched +his head with his flipper as if he were saying: "What does that excited +person with the pole think he is doing." I was very wet and miserable, +but I could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked +us.' + +'What did you do?' Dan asked. + +'One couldn't very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go +back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own +Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at +York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and--and I'm afraid I +lost my temper.' + +'It is said--' Puck's voice was wickedly meek--'that there was a great +fight.' + +Eh, but I must ha' been a silly lad.' Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick +burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again. +'There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide +rose half an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed +off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full +of sleek seals watching the scuffle. My good Eddi--my chaplain--insisted +that they were demons. Yes--yess! That was my first acquaintance with +the South Saxons and their seals.' + +'But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?' said Dan. + +'Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long +shipwreck.' He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden sometimes +looks into the fire. 'Ah, well!' + +'But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?' said Una, +after a little. + +'Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important things. +Yes--yess! I went back to the South Saxons after twelve--fifteen--years. +No, I did not come by water, but overland from my own Northumbria, to +see what I could do. It's little one can do with that class of native +except make them stop killing each other and themselves--' 'Why did they +kill themselves?' Una asked, her chin in her hand. + +'Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they +were the only people!) they would jump into the sea. They called it +going to Wotan. It wasn't want of food always--by any means. A man would +tell you that he felt grey in the heart, or a woman would say that she +saw nothing but long days in front of her; and they'd saunter away to +the mud-flats and--that would be the end of them, poor souls, unless one +headed them off. One had to run quick, but one can't allow people to +lay hands on themselves because they happen to feel grey. +Yes--yess--Extraordinary people, the South Saxons. Disheartening, +sometimes.... What does that say now?' The organ had changed tune again. + +'Only a hymn for next Sunday,' said Una. '"The Church's One Foundation." +Go on, please, about running over the mud. I should like to have seen +you.' + +'I dare say you would, and I really could run in those days. Ethelwalch +the King gave me some five or six muddy parishes by the sea, and the +first time my good Eddi and I rode there we saw a man slouching +along the slob, among the seals at Manhood End. My good Eddi disliked +seals--but he swallowed his objections and ran like a hare.' + +'Why?'said Dan. + +'For the same reason that I did. We thought it was one of our people +going to drown himself. As a matter of fact, Eddi and I were nearly +drowned in the pools before we overtook him. To cut a long story short, +we found ourselves very muddy, very breathless, being quietly made fun +of in good Latin by a very well-spoken person. No--he'd no idea of +going to Wotan. He was fishing on his own beaches, and he showed us the +beacons and turf-heaps that divided his land from the church property. +He took us to his own house, gave us a good dinner, some more than good +wine, sent a guide with us into Chichester, and became one of my best +and most refreshing friends. He was a Meon by descent, from the west +edge of the kingdom; a scholar educated, curiously enough, at Lyons, +my old school; had travelled the world over, even to Rome, and was a +brilliant talker. We found we had scores of acquaintances in common. It +seemed he was a small chief under King Ethelwalch, and I fancy the King +was somewhat afraid of him. The South Saxons mistrust a man who talks +too well. Ah! Now, I've left out the very point of my story. He kept a +great grey-muzzled old dog-seal that he had brought up from a pup. He +called it Padda--after one of my clergy. It was rather like fat, honest +old Padda. The creature followed him everywhere, and nearly knocked down +my good Eddi when we first met him. Eddi loathed it. It used to sniff at +his thin legs and cough at him. I can't say I ever took much notice +of it (I was not fond of animals), till one day Eddi came to me with +a circumstantial account of some witchcraft that Meon worked. He would +tell the seal to go down to the beach the last thing at night, and +bring him word of the weather. When it came back, Meon might say to his +slaves, "Padda thinks we shall have wind tomorrow. Haul up the boats!" I +spoke to Meon casually about the story, and he laughed. + +'He told me he could judge by the look of the creature's coat and the +way it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. One need +not put down everything one does not understand to the work of bad +spirits--or good ones, for that matter.' He nodded towards Puck, who +nodded gaily in return. + +'I say so,' he went on, 'because to a certain extent I have been made a +victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled at Selsey, +King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people to be baptized. I +fear I'm too old to believe that a whole nation can change its heart at +the King's command, and I had a shrewd suspicion that their real motive +was to get a good harvest. No rain had fallen for two or three years, +but as soon as we had finished baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all +said it was a miracle.' + +'And was it?' Dan asked. + +'Everything in life is a miracle, but'--the Archbishop twisted the heavy +ring on his finger--'I should be slow--ve-ry slow should I be--to assume +that a certain sort of miracle happens whenever lazy and improvident +people say they are going to turn over a new leaf if they are paid for +it. My friend Meon had sent his slaves to the font, but he had not come +himself, so the next time I rode over--to return a manuscript--I took +the liberty of asking why. He was perfectly open about it. He looked +on the King's action as a heathen attempt to curry favour with the +Christians' God through me the Archbishop, and he would have none of it. + +'"My dear man," I said, "admitting that that is the case, surely you, as +an educated person, don't believe in Wotan and all the other hobgoblins +any more than Padda here?" The old seal was hunched up on his ox-hide +behind his master's chair. + +'"Even if I don't," he said, "why should I insult the memory of my +fathers' Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my rascals to +christen. Isn't that enough?" + +'"By no means," I answered. "I want you." + +'"He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?" He pulled the seal's +whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he pretended to +interpret. "No! Padda says he won't be baptized yet awhile. He says +you'll stay to dinner and come fishing with me tomorrow, because you're +over-worked and need a rest." + +'"I wish you'd keep yon brute in its proper place," I said, and Eddi, my +chaplain, agreed. + +'"I do," said Meon. "I keep him just next my heart. He can't tell a lie, +and he doesn't know how to love any one except me. It 'ud be the same if +I were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn't it, Padda?" + +'"Augh! Augh!" said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched. + +'Then Meon began to tease Eddi: "Padda says, if Eddi saw his Archbishop +dying on a mud-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown and run. Padda knows +Eddi can run too! Padda came into Wittering Church last Sunday--all +wet--to hear the music, and Eddi ran out." + +'My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and flushed. +"Padda is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!" he cried, +and begged my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him. + +'"Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician," said Meon. "But +here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand it. You'll find +my small harp beside the fireplace." + +'Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for quite +half an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched himself on his +flippers before him, and listened with his head thrown back. Yes--yess! +A rather funny sight! Meon tried not to laugh, and asked Eddi if he were +satisfied. + +'It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi's head. He looked +at me. + +'"Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he flies up +the chimney? Why not baptize him?" said Meon. + +'Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself. + +'"That's not fair," said Meon. "You call him a demon and a familiar +spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and when I offer you +a chance to prove it you won't take it. Look here! I'll make a bargain. +I'll be baptized if you'll baptize Padda too. He's more of a man than +most of my slaves." + +'"One doesn't bargain--or joke--about these matters," I said. He was +going altogether too far. + +'"Quite right," said Meon; "I shouldn't like any one to joke about +Padda. Padda, go down to the beach and bring us tomorrow's weather!" + +'My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day's work. +"I am a servant of the church," he cried. "My business is to save souls, +not to enter into fellowships and understandings with accursed beasts." + +'"Have it your own narrow way," said Meon. "Padda, you needn't go." The +old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once. + +'"Man could learn obedience at least from that creature," said Eddi, a +little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse. '"Don't begin to +apologise Just when I am beginning to like you," said Meon. "We'll leave +Padda behind tomorrow--out of respect to your feelings. Now let's go to +supper. We must be up early tomorrow for the whiting." + +'The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning--a weather-breeder, if I +had taken the trouble to think; but it's refreshing to escape from +kings and converts for half a day. We three went by ourselves in Meon's +smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near an old wreck, a mile or +so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a yard, and the fish were +keen. Yes--yess! A perfect morning's fishing! If a Bishop can't be a +fisherman, who can?' He twiddled his ring again. 'We stayed there a +little too long, and while we were getting up our stone, down came the +fog. After some discussion, we decided to row for the land. The ebb was +just beginning to make round the point, and sent us all ways at once +like a coracle.' + +'Selsey Bill,' said Puck under his breath. 'The tides run something +furious there.' + +'I believe you,' said the Archbishop. 'Meon and I have spent a good many +evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I know is we found +ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung up round us out of the +fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, and she broke up beneath +our feet. We had just time to shuffle through the weed before the next +wave. The sea was rising. '"It's rather a pity we didn't let Padda go +down to the beach last night," said Meon. "He might have warned us this +was coming." + +'"Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons," said +Eddi, and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor'-west breeze had just +got up--distinctly cool. + +'"Save what you can of the boat," said Meon; "we may need it," and we +had to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray planks.' + +'What for?' said Dan. + +'For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi had flint +and steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls' nests and lit a +fire. It smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat-planks up-ended +between the rocks. One gets used to that sort of thing if one travels. +Unluckily I'm not so strong as I was. I fear I must have been a trouble +to my friends. It was blowing a full gale before midnight. Eddi wrung +out his cloak, and tried to wrap me in it, but I ordered him on his +obedience to keep it. However, he held me in his arms all the first +night, and Meon begged his pardon for what he'd said the night +before--about Eddi, running away if he found me on a sandbank, you +remember. '"You are right in half your prophecy," said Eddi. "I have +tucked up my gown, at any rate." (The wind had blown it over his head.) +"Now let us thank God for His mercies." + +'"Hum!" said Meon. "If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair chance of +dying of starvation." + +'"If it be God's will that we survive, God will provide," said Eddi. "At +least help me to sing to Him." The wind almost whipped the words out of +his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and sang psalms. + +'I'm glad I never concealed my opinion--from myself--that Eddi was +a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time--very hard! +Yes--yess! So the morning and the evening were our second day on that +islet. There was rain-water in the rock-pools, and, as a churchman, I +knew how to fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by +chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear fellows, when +I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his arms the second night, +just like a child. My good Eddi was a little out of his senses, +and imagined himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he was +beautifully patient with them. + +'I heard Meon whisper, "If this keeps up we shall go to our Gods. I +wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I don't believe in him. +On the other hand, I can't do what Ethelwalch finds so easy--curry +favour with your God at the last minute, in the hope of being saved--as +you call it. How do you advise, Bishop?" '"My dear man," I said, "if +that is your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far +better not curry favour with any God. But if it's only your Jutish pride +that holds you back, lift me up, and I'll baptize you even now." + +'"Lie still," said Meon. "I could judge better if I were in my own +hall. But to desert one's fathers' Gods--even if one doesn't believe in +them--in the middle of a gale, isn't quite--What would you do yourself?" + +'I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, steady +heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle arguments, +so I answered, "No, I certainly should not desert my God." I don't see +even now what else I could have said. + +'"Thank you. I'll remember that, if I live," said Meon, and I must have +drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and beautiful France, for +it was broad daylight when I heard him calling on Wotan in that high, +shaking heathen yell that I detest so. + +'"Lie quiet. I'm giving Wotan his chance," he said. Our dear Eddi ambled +up, still beating time to his imaginary choir. + +'"Yes. Call on your Gods," he cried, "and see what gifts they will send +you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting." + +'I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old Padda shot +from the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself over the weedy +ledge, and landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod between his teeth. I +could not help smiling at Eddi's face. "A miracle! A miracle!" he cried, +and kneeled down to clean the cod. + +'"You've been a long time finding us, my son," said Meon. "Now +fish--fish for all our lives. We're starving, Padda." + +'The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward into the +boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, "We're safe. I'll +send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat and be thankful." + +'I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took from +Padda's mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his plunges Padda +would hunch up and purr over Meon with the tears running down his face. +I never knew before that seals could weep for joy--as I have wept. + +'"Surely," said Eddi, with his mouth full, "God has made the seal the +loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda breasts the +current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch the chain of +bubbles where he dives; and now--there is his wise head under that +rock-ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little brother Padda!" + +'"You said he was a child of the Devil!" Meon laughed. '"There I +sinned," poor Eddi answered. "Call him here, and I will ask his pardon. +God sent him out of the storm to humble me, a fool." + +'"I won't ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings with any +accursed brute," said Meon, rather unkindly. "Shall we say he was sent +to our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your prophet Elijah?" + +'"Doubtless that is so," said Eddi. "I will write it so if I live to get +home." + +'"No--no!" I said. "Let us three poor men kneel and thank God for His +mercies." + +'We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head under Meon's +elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So did Eddi. + +'"And now, my son," I said to Meon, "shall I baptize thee?" + +'"Not yet," said he. "Wait till we are well ashore and at home. No God +in any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him because I was wet +and cold. I will send Padda to my people for a boat. Is that witchcraft, +Eddi?" + +'"Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by the skirts +of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to ask me to sing. +Only then I was afraid, and did not understand," said Eddi. + +'"You are understanding now," said Meon, and at a wave of his arm off +went Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a war-boat till we lost +him in the rain. Meon's people could not bring a boat across for some +hours; even so it was ticklish work among the rocks in that tideway. +But they hoisted me aboard, too stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us, +barking and turning somersaults all the way to Manhood End!' + +'Good old Padda!' murmured Dan. + +'When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had been +summoned--not an hour before--Meon offered himself to be baptized.' + +'Was Padda baptized too?' Una asked. + +'No, that was only Meon's joke. But he sat blinking on his ox-hide in +the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I wasn't looking) made a +little cross in holy water on his wet muzzle, he kissed Eddi's hand. A +week before Eddi wouldn't have touched him. That was a miracle, if you +like! But seriously, I was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A +rare and splendid soul that never looked back--never looked back!' The +Arch-bishop half closed his eyes. + +'But, sir,' said Puck, most respectfully, 'haven't you left out what +Meon said afterwards?' Before the Bishop could speak he turned to the +children and went on: 'Meon called all his fishers and ploughmen and +herdsmen into the hall and he said: "Listen, men! Two days ago I asked +our Bishop whether it was fair for a man to desert his fathers' Gods +in a time of danger. Our Bishop said it was not fair. You needn't shout +like that, because you are all Christians now. My red war-boat's crew +will remember how near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over +to the Bishop's islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place, +at that time, hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a +Christian, counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers' Gods. I +tell you now that a faith which takes care that every man shall keep +faith, even though he may save his soul by breaking faith, is the faith +for a man to believe in. So I believe in the Christian God, and in +Wilfrid His Bishop, and in the Church that Wilfrid rules. You have been +baptized once by the King's orders. I shall not have you baptized again; +but if I find any more old women being sent to Wotan, or any girls +dancing on the sly before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok +or the rest, I will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with +the Christian God. Go out quietly; you'll find a couple of beefs on the +beach." Then of course they shouted "Hurrah!" which meant "Thor help +us!" and--I think you laughed, sir?' + +'I think you remember it all too well,' said the Archbishop, smiling. +'It was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on that rock +where Padda found us. Yes--yess! One should deal kindly with all the +creatures of God, and gently with their masters. But one learns late.' + +He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly. + +The organ cracked and took deep breaths. + +'Wait a minute,' Dan whispered. 'She's going to do the trumpety one. It +takes all the wind you can pump. It's in Latin, sir.' + +'There is no other tongue,' the Archbishop answered. + +'It's not a real hymn,' Una explained. 'She does it as a treat after her +exercises. She isn't a real organist, you know. She just comes down here +sometimes, from the Albert Hall.' + +'Oh, what a miracle of a voice!' said the Archbishop. + +It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises--every word +spoken to the very end: + + 'Dies Irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla, + Teste David cum Sibylla.' +The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward. The music carried on +by itself a while. + +'Now it's calling all the light out of the windows,' Una whispered to +Dan. + +'I think it's more like a horse neighing in battle,' he whispered back. +The voice continued: + + 'Tuba mirum spargens sonum + Per sepulchre regionum.' + +Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its deepest note +they heard Puck's voice joining in the last line: + + 'Coget omnes ante thronum.' + +As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one of the +very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out through the +south door. + +'Now's the sorrowful part, but it's very beautiful.' Una found herself +speaking to the empty chair in front of her. + +'What are you doing that for?' Dan said behind her. 'You spoke so +politely too.' + +'I don't know... I thought--' said Una. 'Funny!' + +''Tisn't. It's the part you like best,' Dan grunted. + +The music had turned soft--full of little sounds that chased each other +on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But the voice +was ten times lovelier than the music. + + 'Recordare Jesu pie, + Quod sum causa Tuae viae, + Ne me perdas illi die!' + +There was no more. They moved out into the centre aisle. + +'That you?' the Lady called as she shut the lid. 'I thought I heard you, +and I played it on purpose.' + +'Thank you awfully,' said Dan. 'We hoped you would, so we waited. Come +on, Una, it's pretty nearly dinner-time.' + + + + +Song of the Red War-Boat + + + Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! + Watch for a smooth! Give way! + If she feels the lop already + She'll stand on her head in the bay. + It's ebb--it's dusk--it's blowing, + The shoals are a mile of white, + But (snatch her along!) we're going + To find our master tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster + Of shipwreck, storm, or sword, + A man must stand by his master + When once he had pledged his word! + + Raging seas have we rowed in, + But we seldom saw them thus; + Our master is angry with Odin-- + Odin is angry with us! + Heavy odds have we taken, + But never before such odds. + The Gods know they are forsaken, + We must risk the wrath of the Gods! + + Over the crest she flies from, + Into its hollow she drops, + Crouches and clears her eyes from + The wind-torn breaker-tops, + Ere out on the shrieking shoulder + Of a hill-high surge she drives. + Meet her! Meet her and hold her! + Pull for your scoundrel lives! + + The thunder bellow and clamour + The harm that they mean to do; + There goes Thor's Own Hammer + Cracking the dark in two! + + Close! But the blow has missed her, + Here comes the wind of the blow! + Row or the squall'll twist her + Broadside on to it!---Row! + + Hearken, Thor of the Thunder! + We are not here for a jest-- + For wager, warfare, or plunder, + Or to put your power to test. + This work is none of our wishing-- + We would stay at home if we might-- + But our master is wrecked out fishing, + We go to find him tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster-- + As the Gods Themselves have said-- + A man must stand by his master + Till one of the two is dead. + + That is our way of thinking, + Now you can do as you will, + While we try to save her from sinking, + And hold her head to it still. + Bale her and keep her moving, + Or she'll break her back in the trough... + Who said the weather's improving, + And the swells are taking off? + + Sodden, and chafed and aching, + Gone in the loins and knees-- + No matter--the day is breaking, + And there's far less weight to the seas! + Up mast, and finish baling-- + In oars, and out with the mead-- + The rest will be two-reef sailing... + That was a night indeed! + But we hold that in all disaster + (And faith, we have found it true!) + If only you stand by your master, + The Gods will stand by you! + + + + + +A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE + + + + +An Astrologer's Song + + + To the Heavens above us + Oh, look and behold + The planets that love us + All harnessed in gold! + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? + + All thought, all desires, + That are under the sun, + Are one with their fires, + As we also are one; + All matter, all spirit, + All fashion, all frame, + Receive and inherit + Their strength from the same. + + (Oh, man that deniest + All power save thine own, + Their power in the highest + Is mightily shown. + Not less in the lowest + That power is made clear. + Oh, man, if thou knowest, + What treasure is here!) + + Earth quakes in her throes + And we wonder for why! + But the blind planet knows + When her ruler is nigh; + And, attuned since Creation, + To perfect accord, + She thrills in her station + And yearns to her Lord. + + The waters have risen, + The springs are unbound-- + The floods break their prison, + And ravin around. + No rampart withstands 'em, + Their fury will last, + Till the Sign that commands 'em + Sinks low or swings past. + + Through abysses unproven, + And gulfs beyond thought, + Our portion is woven, + Our burden is brought. + Yet They that prepare it, + Whose Nature we share, + Make us who must bear it + Well able to bear. + + Though terrors o'ertake us + We'll not be afraid, + No Power can unmake us + Save that which has made. + Nor yet beyond reason + Nor hope shall we fall-- + All things have their season, + And Mercy crowns all. + + Then, doubt not, ye fearful-- + The Eternal is King-- + Up, heart, and be cheerful, + And lustily sing: + What chariots, what horses, + Against us shall bide + While the Stars in their courses + Do fight on our side? + + + + +A Doctor of Medicine + +They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. Dan had +hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the +walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry bushes ready to dash +off when Una should spy him. He saw her lamp come into the garden and +disappear as she hid it under her cloak. While he listened for her +footsteps, somebody (they both thought it was Phillips the gardener) +coughed in the corner of the herb-beds. + +'All right,' Una shouted across the asparagus; 'we aren't hurting your +old beds, Phippsey!' + +She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light +they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a steeple-crowned +hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They ran to meet him, and the +man said something to them about rooms in their head. After a time they +understood he was warning them not to catch colds. + +'You've a bit of a cold yourself, haven't you?' said Una, for he ended +all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed. + +'Child,' the man answered, 'if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict me with +an infirmity--' + +'Nay, nay,' Puck struck In, 'the maid spoke out of kindness. I know that +half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and that's a pity. +There's honesty enough in you, Nick, without rasping and hawking.' + +'Good people'--the man shrugged his lean shoulders--'the vulgar crowd +love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers must needs dress her +to catch their eye or--ahem!---their ear.' + +'And what d'you think of that?' said Puck solemnly to Dan. + +'I don't know,' he answered. 'It sounds like lessons.' + +'Ah--well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to take lessons +from. Now, where can we sit that's not indoors?' + +'In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,' Dan suggested. 'He doesn't +mind.' + +'Eh?' Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore blooms by the +light of Una's lamp. 'Does Master Middenboro need my poor services, +then?' + +'Save him, no!' said Puck. 'He is but a horse--next door to an ass, as +you'll see presently. Come!' + +Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They filed out of +the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning hen-house, to the +shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower pony lives. His friendly eyes +showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chickens' +drinking-trough outside, and pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeper +stooped at the door. + +'Mind where you lie,' said Dan. 'This hay's full of hedge-brishings. + +'In! in!' said Puck. 'You've lain in fouler places than this, Nick. +Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!' He kicked open the top of the +half-door, and pointed to the clear sky. 'There be the planets you +conjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable +star behind those apple boughs?' + +The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being walked down +the steep lane. 'Where?' Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. 'That? Some +countryman's lantern.' + +'Wrong, Nick,' said Puck. ''Tis a singular bright star in Virgo, +declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who hath +lately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren't I right, Una?' Mr Culpeper +snorted contemptuously. + +'No. It's the village nurse going down to the Mill about some fresh +twins that came there last week. Nurse,' Una called, as the light +stopped on the flat, 'when can I see the Morris twins? And how are +they?' + +'Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,' the Nurse called back, and +with a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner. + +'Her uncle's a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,' Una explained, and if you +ring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed--not downstairs +at all. Then she 'umps up--she always keeps a pair of dry boots in the +fender, you know--and goes anywhere she's wanted. We help her bicycle +through gaps sometimes. Most of her babies do beautifully. She told us +so herself.' + +'I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,' said Mr Culpeper +quietly. 'Twins at the Mill!' he muttered half aloud. "And again He +sayeth, Return, ye children of men."' + +'Are you a doctor or a rector?' Una asked, and Puck with a shout turned +head over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was quite serious. He told +them that he was a physician-astrologer--a doctor who knew all about the +stars as well as all about herbs for medicine. He said that the sun, +the moon, and five Planets, called Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and +Venus, governed everybody and everything in the world. They all lived +in Houses--he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy +forefinger--and they moved from House to House like pieces at draughts; +and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. If you +knew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them cure your +patient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret causes of things. +He talked of these five Planets as though they belonged to him, or as +though he were playing long games against them. The children burrowed +in the hay up to their chins, and looked out over the half-door at the +solemn, star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside down +into it, while Mr Culpeper talked about 'trines' and 'oppositions' and +'conjunctions' and 'sympathies' and 'antipathies' in a tone that just +matched things. + +A rat ran between Middenboro's feet, and the old pony stamped. + +'Mid hates rats,' said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. 'I wonder +why.' + +'Divine Astrology tells us,' said Mr Culpeper. 'The horse, being a +martial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the red +planet Mars--the Lord of War. I would show you him, but he's too near +his setting. Rats and mice, doing their businesses by night, come under +the dominion of our Lady the Moon. Now between Mars and Luna, the one +red, t'other white, the one hot t'other cold and so forth, stands, as +I have told you, a natural antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which +antipathy their creatures do inherit. Whence, good people, you may both +see and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes +as decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face of +Heaven! Ahem!' Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake with +laughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly. + +'I myself' said he, 'have saved men's lives, and not a few neither, by +observing at the proper time--there is a time, mark you, for all +things under the sun--by observing, I say, so small a beast as a rat +in conjunction with so great a matter as this dread arch above us.' He +swept his hand across the sky. 'Yet there are those,' he went on sourly, +'who have years without knowledge.' + +'Right,' said Puck. 'No fool like an old fool.' + +Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while the children +stared at the Great Bear on the hilltop. + +'Give him time,' Puck whispered behind his hand. 'He turns like a +timber-tug--all of a piece.' + +'Ahem!' Mr Culpeper said suddenly. 'I'll prove it to you. When I was +physician to Saye's Horse, and fought the King--or rather the man +Charles Stuart--in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at Cambridge), the +plague was very hot all around us. I saw it at close hands. He who +says I am ignorant of the plague, for example, is altogether beside the +bridge.' + +'We grant it,' said Puck solemnly. 'But why talk of the plague this rare +night?' + +'To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good people, being +generated among rivers and ditches, was of a werish, watery nature. +Therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water, and +laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I cured some of them. Mark +this. It bears on what shall come after.' + +'Mark also, Nick,' said Puck, that we are not your College of +Physicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore be +plain, old Hyssop on the Wall!' + +'To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while +gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took by the +King's men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, whom I warned +honestly that I had spent the week past among our plague-stricken. He +flung me off into a cowshed, much like this here, to die, as I supposed; +but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound. He was +a Sussex man like myself.' + +'Who was that?' said Puck suddenly. 'Zack Tutshom?' + +'No, Jack Marget,' said Mr Culpeper. + +'Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered so? Why +a plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?' said Puck. + +'He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop when the King +should have conquered the rebels, as he styled us Parliament men. His +College had lent the King some monies too, which they never got again, +no more than simple Jack got his bishopric. When we met he had had a +bitter bellyful of King's promises, and wished to return to his wife and +babes. This came about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I could +stand of my wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among the +plague, and Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from their +camp. The King had done with Jack now that Jack's College had lent the +money, and Blagge's physician could not abide me because I would not +sit silent and see him butcher the sick. (He was a College of Physicians +man!) So Blagge, I say, thrust us both out, with many vile words, for a +pair of pestilent, prating, pragmatical rascals.' + +'Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?' Puck started up. 'High time Oliver +came to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack fare next?' + +'We were in some sort constrained to each other's company. I was for +going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Sussex; +but the plague was broke out and spreading through Wiltshire, Berkshire, +and Hampshire, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even +then be among his folk at home that I bore him company. He had comforted +me in my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I +had a cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish. Thus we footed it +from Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars on +the left side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, or +the plague making men less cruel, we were not hindered. To be sure, they +put us in the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a village +under St Leonard's forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales never +sing; but the constable very honestly gave me back my Astrological +Almanac, which I carry with me.' Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'I +dressed a whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward. + +'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against Jack +Marget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end. Here our roads +divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, but +while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk, +as he conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, a +parishioner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himself +bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to follow +princes. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of it +neither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man's head lay on +it.' + +'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered. + +'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut the +roads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where such +as would purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper of +their wants, and depart. Those that would sell come later--what will +a man not do for gain?---snatch the money forth, and leave in exchange +such goods as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat +in the water, and the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in +his wet hand. + +'"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden, and makes +uphill--I with him. + +'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village is +stricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we must avoid it. + +'"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at him and +says the babes are safe. She was his wife. + +'When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was not the +welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I was +clean. + +'"Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now," I said. +"These affairs are, under God's leave, in some fashion my strength." + +'"Oh, sir," she says, "are you a physician? We have none." + +'"Then, good people," said I, "I must e'en justify myself to you by my +works." + +'"Look--look ye," stammers Jack, "I took you all this time for a crazy +Roundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I--all three together +in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter, +which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical +Passion. So I went home with 'em.' + +'Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?' Puck +suggested. ''tis barely seven mile up the road.' + +'But the plague was here,' Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed up the +hill. 'What else could I have done?' + +'What were the parson's children called?' said Una. + +'Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles--a babe. I scarce saw them at +first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. The +mother we put--forced--into the house with her babes. She had done +enough. + +'And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. The +plague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed +'em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the PRIME MOBILE, or source of +life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highest +degree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler's, where they sell +forage to the carters, extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, and +scatteringly in other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Mark +here, that all forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn and +meat and wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was no +plague in the smithy at Munday's Lane--' + +'Munday's Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked about +the two Mills,' cried Dan. 'Where did we put the plague-stone? I'd like +to have seen it.' + +'Then look at it now,' said Puck, and pointed to the chickens' +drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough, +oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips, +who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for his +precious hens. + +'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. Mr +Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on. + +'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would have +you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plague +which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfordshire was +of a watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred +in, and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague of +ours here, for all that it flourished along watercourses--every soul at +both Mills died of it,--could not be so handled. Which brought me to a +stand. Ahem!' + +'And your sick people in the meantime?'Puck demanded. 'We persuaded them +on the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram's field. Where +the plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would not +shift for fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their lives +to die among their goods.' + +'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How did your +sick do in the fields?' + +'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and even +then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. But +I confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, or +come at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flat +bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so--did what I +should have done before--dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions +that had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped +my vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned to +wait upon the stars for guidance.' + +'At night? Were you not horribly frightened?' said Puck. + +'I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly curious to +search out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In due +time--there's a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun--I +spied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath the +dormer of an attic through which shined our Lady the Moon. Whilst I +looked on him--and her--she was moving towards old cold Saturn, her +ancient ally--the rat creeped languishingly into her light, and there, +before my eyes, died. Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him +down beside there, and in like fashion died too. Later--an hour or +less to midnight--a third rat did e'en the same; always choosing the +moonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, the +moonlight is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon; +and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would say, was hourly +strengthening her evil influence. Yet these three rats had been stricken +dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the window to see which of +Heaven's host might be on our side, and there beheld I good trusty Mars, +very red and heated, bustling about his setting. I straddled the roof to +see better. + +'Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram's +field. A tile slipped under my foot. + +Says he, heavily enough, "Watchman, what of the night?" + +'"Heart up, Jack," says I. "Methinks there's one fighting for us that, +like a fool, I've forgot all this summer." My meaning was naturally the +planet Mars. + +'"Pray to Him then," says he. "I forgot Him too this summer." + +'He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of having +forgotten up in Oxfordshire, among the King's men. I called down that +he had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but he +said he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from 'em. He was +at his strength's end--more from melancholy than any just cause. I have +seen this before among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him then +and there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, +but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.' + +'What were they?' said Dan. + +'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of +pepper, and aniseed.' 'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!' + +'Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I was for the +Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind had +already shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles, +but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. That +practice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to make +judgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and +his lantern among the sick in Hitheram's field. He still maintained +the prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by +Cromwell.' + +'You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,' said Puck, 'and Jack +would have been fined for it, and you'd have had half the money. How did +you come so to fail in your duty, Nick?' + +Mr Culpeper laughed--his only laugh that evening--and the children +jumped at the loud neigh of it. + +'We were not fearful of men's judgment in those days,' he answered. 'Now +mark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, though +not to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, low +down in the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun's rising-place. Our +Lady the Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak +astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed the +Maker of 'em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew himself below +the sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright star +or vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up his +sword), and broke all about in fire. The cocks crowed midnight through +the valley, and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint +(though that's an herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses' +heads in the world! 'Twas plain enough now!' + +'What was plain?' said Una. + +'The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had fought +for us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, and +this had made me overlook him in my computations, he more than any +of the other planets had kept the Heavens--which is to say, had been +visible some part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore +his fierce and cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, had +stretched out to kill those three rats under my nose, and under the nose +of their natural mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across +Heaven to deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his shield, +but I had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual.' + +'I don't understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because he +hated the Moon?' said Una. + +'That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge's men pushed me +forth,'Mr Culpeper answered. 'I'll prove it. Why had the plague not +broken out at the blacksmith's shop in Munday's Lane? Because, as I've +shown you, forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for his +honour's sake, Mars 'ud keep 'em clean from the creatures of the Moon. +But was it like, think you, that he'd come down and rat-catch in general +for lazy, ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse to +death. So, then, you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above +him when he set was simply this: "Destroy and burn the creatures Of the +moon, for they are the root of your trouble. And thus, having shown you +a taste of my power, good people, adieu."' + +'Did Mars really say all that?' Una whispered. + +'Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear. +Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures +of the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the offender. My own +poor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge, +God's good providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither. + +'I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram's field amongst 'em all +at prayers. + +'"Eureka, good people!" I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat which I'd +found. "Here's your true enemy, revealed at last by the stars." + +'"Nay, but I'm praying," says Jack. His face was as white as washed +silver. + +'"There's a time for everything under the sun," says I. "If you would +stay the plague, take and kill your rats." + +'"Oh, mad, stark mad!" says he, and wrings his hands. + +'A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he'd as soon die +mad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold fallow. They +laughed round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on his knees, and very +presumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save the +rest of his people. This was enough to thrust 'em back into their +melancholy. '"You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack," I says. "Take a +bat" (which we call a stick in Sussex) "and kill a rat if you die before +sunrise. 'Twill save your people." + +'"Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat," he says ten times over, like +a child, which moved 'em to ungovernable motions of that hysterical +passion before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and at least +warmed their chill bloods at that very hour--one o'clock or a little +after--when the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a time for +everything; and the physician must work with it--ahem!--or miss his +cure. To be brief with you, I persuaded 'em, sick or sound, to have +at the whole generation of rats throughout the village. And there's a +reason for all things too, though the wise physician need not blab 'em +all. Imprimis, or firstly, the mere sport of it, which lasted ten days, +drew 'em most markedly out of their melancholy. I'd defy sorrowful +job himself to lament or scratch while he's routing rats from a rick. +Secundo, or secondly, the vehement act and operation of this chase or +war opened their skins to generous transpiration--more vulgarly, sweated +'em handsomely; and this further drew off their black bile--the mother +of sickness. Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats, +I sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as +handsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I had made +it a mere physician's business; they'd have thought it some conjuration. +Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out a hundred foul poke-holes, +sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses in +the village, and by good fortune (mark here that Mars was in opposition +to Venus) burned the corn-handler's shop to the ground. Mars loves not +Venus. Will Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw +while he was rat-hunting there.' + +'Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by any +chance?' said Puck. + +'A glass--or two glasses--not more. But as I would say, in fine, when we +had killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from the smithy, +and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a brickyard belongs +to Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat-runs and buries, +and beneath all the house floors. The Creatures of the Moon hate all +that Mars hath used for his own clean ends. For example--rats bite not +iron.' + +'And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?' said Puck. + +'He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched a +loose cough, which I cured with electuaries, according to art. It is +noteworthy, were I speaking among my equals, that the venom of the +plague translated, or turned itself into, and evaporated, or went away +as, a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head, throat, and +chest. (Observe from my books which planets govern these portions of +man's body, and your darkness, good people, shall be illuminated--ahem!) +None the less, the plague, qua plague, ceased and took off (for we only +lost three more, and two of 'em had it already on 'em) from the +morning of the day that Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.' He +coughed--almost trumpeted--triumphantly. + +'It is proved,' he jerked out. 'I say I have proved my contention, which +is, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the veritable causes +of things--at the proper time--the sons of wisdom may combat even the +plague.' + +H'm!' Puck replied. 'For my own part I hold that a simple soul--' + +'Mine? Simple, forsooth?' said Mr Culpeper. + +'A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and stubborn +conceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. So I confess +truly that you saved the village, Nick.' + +'I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God's +good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk as +that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my work +in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.' + +'Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer in +the pulpit.' + +'And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the +plague was stayed. He took for his text: "The wise man that delivered +the city." I could have given him a better, such as: "There is a time +for--"' + +'But what made you go to church to hear him?' Puck interrupted. 'Wail +Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!' + +Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily. + +'The vulgar,' said he, 'the old crones and--ahem!---the children, Alison +and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by the hand. I +was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the mummeries of the +falsely-called Church, which, I'll prove to you, are founded merely on +ancient fables--' + +'Stick to your herbs and planets,' said Puck, laughing. 'You should +have told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did you +neglect your plain duty?' + +'Because--because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the rest +of 'em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the Hysterical +Passion. It may be--it may be.' + +'That's as may be,' said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. 'Why, your +hay is half hedge-brishings,' he said. 'You don't expect a horse to +thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?' + +Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was coming +back from the mill. + +'Is it all right?' Una called. + +'All quite right,' Nurse called back. 'They're to be christened next +Sunday.' + +'What? What?' They both leaned forward across the half-door. It could +not have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out with +hay and leaves sticking all over them. + +'Come on! We must get those two twins' names,' said Una, and they +charged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and told +them. When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, and +they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight. + + + + +'Our Fathers of Old' + + + Excellent herbs had our fathers of old-- + Excellent herbs to ease their pain-- + Alexanders and Marigold, + Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane, + Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue, + (Almost singing themselves they run) + Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you-- + Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun. + Anything green that grew out of the mould + Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old. + + Wonderful tales had our fathers of old-- + Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars-- + The Sun was Lord of the Marigold, + Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars. + Pat as a sum in division it goes-- + (Every plant had a star bespoke)-- + Who but Venus should govern the Rose? + Who but Jupiter own the Oak? + Simply and gravely the facts are told + In the wonderful books of our fathers of old. + + Wonderful little, when all is said, + Wonderful little our fathers knew. + Half their remedies cured you dead-- + Most of their teaching was quite untrue-- + 'Look at the stars when a patient is ill, + (Dirt has nothing to do with disease,) + Bleed and blister as much as you will, + Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.' + Whence enormous and manifold + Errors were made by our fathers of old. + + Yet when the sickness was sore in the land, + And neither planet nor herb assuaged, + They took their lives in their lancet-hand + And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged! + Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door-- + Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled, + Excellent courage our fathers bore-- + Excellent heart had our fathers of old. + Not too learned, but nobly bold, + Into the fight went our fathers of old. + + If it be certain, as Galen says, + And sage Hippocrates holds as much-- + 'That those afflicted by doubts and dismays + Are mightily helped by a dead man's touch,' + Then, be good to us, stars above! + Then, be good to us, herbs below! + We are afflicted by what we can prove; + We are distracted by what we know-- + So--ah, so! + Down from your Heaven or up from your mould, + Send us the hearts of our fathers of old! + + + + +SIMPLE SIMON + + + + +The Thousandth Man + + + One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. + And it's worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + on what the world sees in you, + But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you. + + 'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show + Will settle the finding for 'ee. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go + By your looks or your acts or your glory. + But if he finds you and you find him, + The rest of the world don't matter; + For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim + With you in any water. + + You can use his purse with no more shame + Than he uses yours for his spendings; + And laugh and mention it just the same + As though there had been no lendings. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call + For silver and gold in their dealings; + But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all, + Because you can show him your feelings! + + His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, + In season or out of season. + Stand up and back it in all men's sight-- + With that for your only reason! + Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, + But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + To the gallows-foot--and after! + + + + +Simple Simon + + +Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He +stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His +real name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and +years ago, he told them he was 'carting wood,' and it sounded so exactly +like 'cattiwow' that they never called him anything else. + +'HI!' Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had been +watching the lane. 'What are you doing? Why weren't we told?' + +'They've just sent for me,' Cattiwow answered. 'There's a middlin' big +log stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and'--he flicked his whip back +along the line--'so they've sent for us all.' + +Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under black +Sailor's nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes +the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth +thuttered. + +The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you +see all the horses' backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs. +Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman's petticoat, belted at +the waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red +lips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth +too, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He +navigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their +faces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, +and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it +would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again. + +At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood +round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was +poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt was +driven up in front of the butt. + +'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow. He took his +broad-axe and went up the log tapping it. + +'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the other team. + +Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked their +ears forward, looked, and shook themselves. + +'I believe Sailor knows,' Dan whispered to Una. + +'He do,' said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the +others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all +the wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness +he might have been Bunny Lewknor's brother, except that his brown eyes +were as soft as a spaniel's, and his rounded black beard, beginning +close up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in 'The Walrus and the +Carpenter.' + +'Don't he justabout know?' he said shyly, and shifted from one foot to +the other. + +'Yes. "What Cattiwow can't get out of the woods must have roots growing +to her."' Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before. + +At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools of +black water in the ling. + +'Look out!' cried Una, jumping forward. 'He'll see you, Puck!' + +'Me and Mus' Robin are pretty middlin' well acquainted,' the man +answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses. + +'This is Simon Cheyneys,' Puck began, and cleared his throat. +'Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only--' + +'Oh, look! Look ye! That's a knowing one,' said the man. + +Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and was +moving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it, +heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginning +with Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost to +their knees. The log shifted a nail's breadth in the clinging dirt, with +the noise of a giant's kiss. + +'You're getting her!' Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. 'Hing on! Hing +on, lads, or she'll master ye! Ah!' + +Sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men +whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for +it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair. + +'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across +Sailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed +as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him. +The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt +ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor +snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and +snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather. + +'Dat's the very first time I've knowed you lay into Sailor--to hurt +him,' said Lewknor. + +'It is,' said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. 'But +I'd ha' laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we'll twitch her +down the hill a piece--she lies just about right--and get her home by +the low road. My team'll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind +out!' + +He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half +rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by +the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to +see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth +still shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints. + +'Ye heard him?' Simon Cheyneys asked. 'He cherished his horse, but he'd +ha' laid him open in that pinch.' + +'Not for his own advantage,' said Puck quickly. ''Twas only to shift the +log.' + +'I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world--if +so be you're hintin' at any o' Frankie's doings. He never hit beyond +reason or without reason,' said Simon. + +'I never said a word against Frankie,' Puck retorted, with a wink at the +children. 'An' if I did, do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so, +seeing how you--' + +'Why don't it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which knowed +Frankie for all he was?' The burly sack-clad man puffed down at cool +little Puck. + +'Yes, and the first which set out to poison him--Frankie--on the high +seas--' + +Simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his immense +hands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly. + +'But let me tell you, Mus' Robin,'he pleaded. + +'I've heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look, +Una!'---Puck's straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. 'There's +the only man that ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!' + +'Oh, Mus' Robin! 'Tidn't fair. You've the 'vantage of us all in your +upbringin's by hundreds o' years. Stands to nature you know all the +tales against every one.' + +He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, 'Stop +ragging him, Puck! You know he didn't really.' + +'I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?' 'Because--because he +doesn't look like it,' said Una stoutly. + +'I thank you,' said Simon to Una. 'I--I was always trustable-like +with children if you let me alone, you double handful o' mischief.' He +pretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his shyness overtook him +afresh. + +'Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?' said Dan, not liking being +called a child. + +'At Rye Port, to be sure,' said Simon, and seeing Dan's bewilderment, +repeated it. + +'Yes, but look here,'said Dan. '"Drake he was a Devon man." The song +says so.' + +'"And ruled the Devon seas,"' Una went on. 'That's what I was +thinking--if you don't mind.' + +Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he swelled in +silence while Puck laughed. + +'Hutt!' he burst out at last, 'I've heard that talk too. If you listen +to them West Country folk, you'll listen to a pack o' lies. I believe +Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his father +had to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours was +wishful to kill him, d'ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did, +an' Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medway +river, same as it might ha' been the Rother. Brought up at sea, you +might say, before he could walk on land--nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain't +Kent back-door to Sussex? And don't that make Frankie Sussex? O' course +it do. Devon man! Bah! Those West Country boats they're always fishin' +in other folks' water.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Dan. 'I'm sorry. + +'No call to be sorry. You've been misled. I met Frankie at Rye Port when +my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me off his wharf-edge +on to Frankie's ship. Frankie had put in from Chatham with his rudder +splutted, and a man's arm--Moon's that 'ud be--broken at the tiller. +"Take this boy aboard an' drown him," says my Uncle, "and I'll mend your +rudder-piece for love." + +'What did your Uncle want you drowned for?'said Una. + +'That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus' Robin. I'd a +foolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron. +Yes--iron ships! I'd made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat out +thin--and she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein' a burgess of Rye, +and a shipbuilder, he 'prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin' trade, to +cure this foolishness.' + +'What was the fetchin' trade?' Dan interrupted. + +'Fetchin' poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o' the Low Countries into +England. The King o' Spain, d'ye see, he was burnin' 'em in those parts, +for to make 'em Papishers, so Frankie he fetched 'em away to our parts, +and a risky trade it was. His master wouldn't never touch it while he +lived, but he left his ship to Frankie when he died, and Frankie turned +her into this fetchin' trade. Outrageous cruel hard work--on besom-black +nights bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals on +all sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of a +Spanish galliwopses' oars creepin' up on ye. Frankie 'ud have the tiller +and Moon he'd peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his skirts, till +the boat we was lookin' for 'ud blurt up out o' the dark, and we'd lay +hold and haul aboard whoever 'twas--man, woman, or babe--an' round we'd +go again, the wind bewling like a kite in our riggin's, and they'd drop +into the hold and praise God for happy deliverance till they was all +sick. + +'I had nigh a year at it, an' we must have fetched off--oh, a hundred +pore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie growed to be. +Outrageous cunnin' he was. Once we was as near as nothin' nipped by a +tall ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. She had the wind of us, and +spooned straight before it, shootin' all bow guns. Frankie fled inshore +smack for the beach, till he was atop of the first breakers. Then he +hove his anchor out, which nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched us +round end-for-end into the wind, d'ye see, an' we clawed off them sands +like a drunk man rubbin' along a tavern bench. When we could see, the +Spanisher was laid flat along in the breakers with the snows whitening +on his wet belly. He thought he could go where Frankie went.' + +'What happened to the crew?' said Una. + +'We didn't stop,' Simon answered. 'There was a very liddle new baby +in our hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some dry bed middlin' +quick. We runned into Dover, and said nothing.' + +'Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?' 'Heart alive, maid, he'd +no head to his name in those days. He was just a outrageous, valiant, +crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, roarin' up an' down the narrer seas, with +his beard not yet quilted out. He made a laughing-stock of everything +all day, and he'd hold our lives in the bight of his arm all the +besom-black night among they Dutch sands; and we'd ha' jumped overside +to behove him any one time, all of us.' + +'Then why did you try to poison him?' Una asked wickedly, and Simon hung +his head like a shy child. + +'Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because our cook was +hurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched adrift like in the bag, +an' the more I biled the bits of her, the less she favoured any fashion +o' pudden. Moon he chawed and chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed and +chammed his'n, and--no words to it--he took me by the ear an' walked +me out over the bow-end, an' him an' Moon hove the pudden at me on +the bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!' Simon rubbed his hairy +cheek. + +'"Nex' time you bring me anything," says Frankie, "you bring me +cannon-shot an' I'll know what I'm getting." But as for poisonin'--' He +stopped, the children laughed so. + +'Of course you didn't,' said Una. 'Oh, Simon, we do like you!' + +'I was always likeable with children.' His smile crinkled up through the +hair round his eyes. 'Simple Simon they used to call me through our yard +gates.' + +'Did Sir Francis mock you?' Dan asked. + +'Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did--he was always laughing--but +not so as to hurt a feather. An' I loved 'en. I loved 'en before England +knew 'en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.' + +'But he hadn't really done anything when you knew him, had he?' Una +insisted. 'Armadas and those things, I mean.' + +Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow's great log. +'You tell me that that good ship's timber never done nothing against +winds and weathers since her up-springing, and I'll confess ye that +young Frankie never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured and +suffered and made shift on they Dutch sands as much in any one month +as ever he had occasion for to do in a half-year on the high seas +afterwards. An' what was his tools? A coaster boat--a liddle box o' +walty plankin' an' some few fathom feeble rope held together an' made +able by him sole. He drawed our spirits up In our bodies same as a +chimney-towel draws a fire. 'Twas in him, and it comed out all times +and shapes.' 'I wonder did he ever 'magine what he was going to be? Tell +himself stories about it?' said Dan with a flush. + +'I expect so. We mostly do--even when we're grown. But bein' Frankie, he +took good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had I +rightly ought to tell 'em this piece?' Simon turned to Puck, who nodded. + +'My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she had +gifts by inheritance laid up in her,' Simon began. + +'Oh, that'll never do,' cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. 'Do +you remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as her +blood and get lasted?' [See 'Dymchurch Flit' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] +'Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther through +a millstone than most,' Dan answered promptly. + +'Well, Simon's Aunt's mother,' said Puck slowly, 'married the Widow's +blind son on the Marsh, and Simon's Aunt was the one chosen to see +farthest through millstones. Do you understand?' + +'That was what I was gettin' at,' said Simon, 'but you're so desperate +quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin' to people. My Uncle being a +burgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt she +couldn't be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurted +her head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had 'em, +he was all for nothin' till she foretold on him--till she looked in +his hand to tell his fortune, d'ye see? One time we was at Rye she come +aboard with my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the life +out of her about it. + +'"Oh, you'll be twice wed, and die childless," she says, and pushes his +hand away. + +'"That's the woman's part," he says. "What'll come to me-to me?" an' he +thrusts it back under her nose. + +'"Gold--gold, past belief or counting," she says. "Let go o' me, lad." + +'"Sink the gold!" he says. "What'll I do, mother?" He coaxed her like no +woman could well withstand. I've seen him with 'em--even when they were +sea-sick. + +'"If you will have it," she says at last, "you shall have it. You'll do a +many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world's +end will be the least of them. For you'll open a road from the East +unto the West, and back again, and you'll bury your heart with your best +friend by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so long +as you're let lie quiet in your grave." + + +[The old lady's prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now the +Panama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay where +Sir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, and +the road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.] + + +'"And if I'm not?" he says. + +'"Why, then," she says, "Sim's iron ships will be sailing on dry land. +Now ha' done with this foolishness. Where's Sim's shirt?" + +'He couldn't fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the +cabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. '"My +Sorrow!" says my Aunt; "d'ye see that? The great world lying in his +hand, liddle and round like a apple." + +'"Why, 'tis one you gived him," I says. + +'"To be sure," she says. "'Tis just a apple," and she went ashore with +her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts. + +Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite +extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin' trade, +we met Mus' Stenning's boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that +the Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English, +and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs' +backs. Mus' Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece, +knowin' that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk +a great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin' +at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in. + +'"Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon," says Frankie, +humourin' her at the tiller. "I'll have to open that other one your Aunt +foretold of." + +'"The Spanisher's crowdin' down on us middlin' quick," I says. "No odds," +says Frankie, "he'll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt +say I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?" + +'"Till my iron ships sailed dry land," I says. + +'"That's foolishness," he says. "Who cares where Frankie Drake makes a +hole in the water now or twenty years from now?" + +'The Spanisher kept muckin' on more and more canvas. I told him so. + +'"He's feelin' the tide," was all he says. "If he was among Tergoes +Sands with this wind, we'd be picking his bones proper. I'd give my +heart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale, +and me to windward. There'd be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt say +she saw the world settin' in my hand, Sim?" + +'"Yes, but 'twas a apple," says I, and he laughed like he always did +at me. "Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be done with +everything?" he asks after a while. + +'"No. What water comes aboard is too wet as 'tis," I says. "The +Spanisher's going about." + +'"I told you," says he, never looking back. "He'll give us the Pope's +Blessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There's no knowin' where +stray shots may hit." So I came down off the rail, and leaned against +it, and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the wind, and his port-lids +opened all red inside. + +'"Now what'll happen to my road if they don't let me lie quiet in my +grave?" he says. "Does your Aunt mean there's two roads to be found and +kept open--or what does she mean? I don't like that talk about t'other +road. D'you believe in your iron ships, Sim?" + +'He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. '"Anybody +but me 'ud call you a fool, Sim," he says. "Lie down. Here comes the +Pope's Blessing!" + +'The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fell +short except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an' I +felt most won'erful cold. + +'"Be you hit anywhere to signify?" he says. "Come over to me." + +'"O Lord, Mus' Drake," I says, "my legs won't move," and that was the +last I spoke for months.' + +'Why? What had happened?' cried Dan and Una together. + +'The rail had jarred me in here like.' Simon reached behind him +clumsily. 'From my shoulders down I didn't act no shape. Frankie carried +me piggyback to my Aunt's house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied while +she rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith in +rubbing with the hands. P'raps she put some of her gifts into it, too. +Last of all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I was +whole restored again, but kitten-feeble. + +'"Where's Frankie?" I says, thinking I'd been a longish while abed. + +'"Down-wind amongst the Dons--months ago," says my Aunt. + +'"When can I go after 'en?" I says. + +'"Your duty's to your town and trade now," says she. "Your Uncle he +died last Michaelmas and he've left you and me the yard. So no more iron +ships, mind ye." + +'"What?" I says. "And you the only one that beleft in 'em!" + + +'"Maybe I do still," she says, "but I'm a woman before I'm a Whitgift, +and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay on ye to do +so." + +'That's why I've never teched iron since that day--not to build a +toy ship of. I've never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of +evenings.' Simon smiled down on them all. 'Whitgift blood is terrible +resolute--on the she-side,'said Puck. + +'Didn't You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?'Dan asked. + +'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never +clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of +his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning +shifts and passes he'd worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands, +but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him +knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell +to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, +having set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone that +way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in +his hand like an apple, an' he burying his best friend, Mus' Doughty--' + +'Never mind for Mus' Doughty,' Puck interrupted. 'Tell us where you met +Sir Francis next.' + +'Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye--the same year +which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie's +leave.' + +'The Armada!' said Dan contentedly. 'I was hoping that would come.' + +'I knowed Frankie would never let 'em smell London smoke, but plenty +good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. 'Twas the noise +of the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off +behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and +growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin' in the streets. +Then they come slidderin' past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished +with red gun-fire, and our ships flyin' forth and duckin' in again. The +smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was +edgin' the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I +says to my Aunt, "The smoke's thinnin' out. I lay Frankie's just about +scrapin' his hold for a few last rounds shot. 'Tis time for me to go." + +'"Never in them clothes," she says. "Do on the doublet I bought you to +be made burgess in, and don't you shame this day." + +'So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all. + +'"I be comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she come +pavisandin' like a peacock--stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a +notable woman.' + +'But how did you go? You haven't told us,' said Una. + +'In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt's. In the ANTONY OF RYE, to +be sure; and not empty-handed. I'd been loadin' her for three days +with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three +sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of +clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and +gubs of good oakum, and bolts o' canvas, and all the sound rope in the +yard. What else could I ha' done? I knowed what he'd need most after a +week's such work. I'm a shipbuilder, little maid. + +'We'd a fair slant o' wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell +light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by +Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending 'emselves like dogs +lickin' bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and +the ball 'ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished +fightin' for that tide. + +'The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an' +men was shorin' 'em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace, +his pumps clackin' middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third, +mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus' Drake +might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and +saw what we carried. + +'"Lay alongside you!" he says. "We'll take that all." + +'"'Tis for Mus' Drake," I says, keeping away lest his size should lee +the wind out of my sails. + +'"Hi! Ho! Hither! We're Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or +we'll hang ye," he says. + +''Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't Frankie, and while he +talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides +splintered. We was all in the middest of 'em then. + +'"Hi! Hoi!" the green ship says. "Come alongside, honest man, and I'll +buy your load. I'm Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out of +shot or bullets. Frankie knows me." + +'"Ay, but I don't," I says, and I slacked nothing. + +'He was a masterpiece. Seein' I was for goin' on, he hails a Bridport +hoy beyond us and shouts, "George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He's +fat!" An' true as we're all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to +acrost our bows, intendin' to stop us by means o' shooting. + +'My Aunt looks over our rail. "George," she says, "you finish with your +enemies afore you begin on your friends." + +'Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an' +calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry +sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman. + +'Then he come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistcloths +and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and +his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a +bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung. + +'"Oh, Mus' Drake! Mus' Drake!" I calls up. + +'He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and +his face shining like the sun. + +'"Why, Sim!" he says. Just like that--after twenty year! "Sim," he says, +"what brings you?" + +'"Pudden," I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. + +'"You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an' I've brought 'em." + +'He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o' brimstone Spanish, +and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine +young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to +unload us. When he saw how I'd considered all his likely wants, he +kissed me again. + +'"Here's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!" he says. +"Mistress," he says to my Aunt, "all you foretold on me was true. I've +opened that road from the East to the West, and I've buried my heart +beside it." + +'"I know," she says. "That's why I be come." + +'"But ye never foretold this"; he points to both they great fleets. + +'"This don't seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a +man," she says. "Do it?" + +'"Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he's proper mucked up with +work. Sim," he says to me, "we must shift every living Spanisher round +Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind'll come +out of the North after this calm--same as it used--and then they're our +meat." + +'"Amen," says I. "I've brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and +ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?" + +'"Oh, our folk'll attend to all that when we've time," he says. He turns +to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I +think I saw old Moon amongst 'em, but he was too busy to more than +nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and +candles before we'd cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o' useful +stuff I'd fetched him. '"Now, Sim," says my Aunt, "no more devouring of +Mus' Drake's time. He's sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to +speak to them young springalds again." + +'"But here's our ship all ready and swept," I says. + +'"Swep' an' garnished," says Frankie. "I'm going to fill her with devils +in the likeness o' pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round +Dunkirk corner, and if shot can't do it, we'll send down fireships." + +'"I've given him my share of the ANTONY," says my Aunt. "What do you +reckon to do about yours?" + +'"She offered it," said Frankie, laughing. + +'"She wouldn't have if I'd overheard her," I says; "because I'd have +offered my share first." Then I told him how the ANTONY's sails was best +trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupations +we went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him. + +'But Frankie was gentle-born, d'ye see, and that sort they never +overlook any folks' dues. + +'When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poop +same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played "Mary +Ambree" on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, little +maid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful! + +'Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub +wiping his forehead. + +'We've got the stick to rights now! She've been a whole hatful o' +trouble. You come an' ride her home, Mus' Dan and Miss Una!' + +'They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the log +double-chained on the tug. + +'Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?'said Dan, as they straddled +the thin part. + +'She's going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin'-boat, +I've heard. Hold tight!' + +'Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, and +leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas. + + + + +Frankie's Trade + + + Old Horn to All Atlantic said: + (A-hay O! To me O!) + 'Now where did Frankie learn his trade? + For he ran me down with a three-reef mains'le.' + (All round the Horn!) + + Atlantic answered: 'Not from me! + You'd better ask the cold North Sea, + For he ran me down under all plain canvas.' + (All round the Horn!) + + The North Sea answered: 'He's my man, + For he came to me when he began-- + Frankie Drake in an open coaster. + (All round the Sands!) + + 'I caught him young and I used him sore, + So you never shall startle Frankie more, + Without capsizing Earth and her waters. + (All round the Sands!) + + 'I did not favour him at all, + I made him pull and I made him haul-- + And stand his trick with the common sailors. + (All round the Sands!) + + 'I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind, + And kicked him home with his road to find + By what he could see of a three-day snow-storm. + (All round the Sands!) + + 'I learned him his trade o' winter nights, + 'Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights + On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing. + (All round the Sands!) + + 'Before his beard began to shoot, + I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot-- + And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later. + (All round the Sands!) + 'If there's a risk which you can make + That's worse than he was used to take + Nigh every week in the way of his business; + (All round the Sands!) + + 'If there's a trick that you can try + Which he hasn't met in time gone by, + Not once or twice, but ten times over; + (All round the Sands!) + + 'If you can teach him aught that's new, + (A-hay O! To me O!) + I'll give you Bruges and Niewport too, + And the ten tall churches that stand between 'em.' + Storm along, my gallant Captains! + (All round the Horn!) + + + + +THE TREE OF JUSTICE + + + + +The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + + + About the time that taverns shut + And men can buy no beer, + Two lads went up by the keepers' hut + To steal Lord Pelham's deer. + + Night and the liquor was in their heads-- + They laughed and talked no bounds, + Till they waked the keepers on their beds, + And the keepers loosed the hounds. + + They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind, + Ready to carry away, + When they heard a whimper down the wind + And they heard a bloodhound bay. + + They took and ran across the fern, + Their crossbows in their hand, + Till they met a man with a green lantern + That called and bade 'em stand. + + 'What are you doing, O Flesh and Blood, + And what's your foolish will, + That you must break into Minepit Wood + And wake the Folk of the Hill?' + + 'Oh, we've broke into Lord Pelham's park, + And killed Lord Pelham's deer, + And if ever you heard a little dog bark + You'll know why we come here!' + + 'We ask you let us go our way, + As fast as we can flee, + For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay, + You'll know how pressed we be.' + + 'Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank + And drop the knife from your hand, + And though the hounds are at your flank + I'll save you where you stand!' + They laid their crossbows on the bank, + They threw their knives in the wood, + And the ground before them opened and sank + And saved 'em where they stood. + 'Oh, what's the roaring in our ears + That strikes us well-nigh dumb?' + 'Oh, that is just how things appears + According as they come.' + + 'What are the stars before our eyes + That strike us well-nigh blind?' + 'Oh, that is just how things arise + According as you find.' + + 'And why's our bed so hard to the bones + Excepting where it's cold?' + 'Oh, that's because it is precious stones + Excepting where 'tis gold. + + 'Think it over as you stand + For I tell you without fail, + If you haven't got into Fairyland + You're not in Lewes Gaol.' + + All night long they thought of it, + And, come the dawn, they saw + They'd tumbled into a great old pit, + At the bottom of Minepit Shaw. + + And the keepers' hound had followed 'em close + And broke her neck in the fall; + So they picked up their knives and their cross-bows + And buried the dog. That's all. + + But whether the man was a poacher too + Or a Pharisee so bold-- + I reckon there's more things told than are true, + And more things true than are told. + + + + +The Tree of Justice + +It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou'-West wind singing through +Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set +out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months' job in +the Rough at the back of Pound's Wood. He had promised to get them a +dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf Still clung to the beech coppice; +the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were +speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by +their own short cuts to the edge of Pound's Wood, and heard a horse's +feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the +vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches--some +perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips. + +'Three more owls,' said Dan, counting. 'Two stoats, four jays, and a +kestrel. That's ten since last week. Ridley's a beast.' + +'In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.' Sir Richard +Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. +[This is the Norman knight they met the year before in PUCK OF POOK'S +HILL. See 'Young Men at the Manor,' 'The Knights of the Joyous Venture,' +and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.] 'What play do you make?'he +asked. + +'Nothing, Sir. We're looking for old Hobden,'Dan replied.'He promised to +get us a sleeper.' + +'Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?' + +'Yes, a dormouse, Sir.' 'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low +grounds. Come!' He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an +opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that +old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and +house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. + +Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his +lip. + +'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle-trees. Ridley has been +there this half-hour.' + +The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry +ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse. + +'Huhh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before breakfast. +He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take home. He'll +tell us about 'em tomorrow.' + +'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and moved off +quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the +close-trimmed beech stuff. + +'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they repassed Ridley's terrible +tree. + +'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls. + +'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang +a man for taking a buck.' + +'I--I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on +horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow +on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the +narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He +walked as though all the woods belonged to him. 'I have often told my +friends,' he went on, 'that Red William the King was not the only Norman +found dead in a forest while he hunted.' + +'D'you mean William Rufus?'said Dan. + +'Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a dead log. + +'For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,' Sir Richard went +on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose +to hang his forester's son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to +pleasure the King.' + +'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully. + +'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy +at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for +the war.' + +'What happened to the knight?'Dan asked. + +'They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. +I should have worn mail that day.' + +'And did you see him all bloody?'Dan continued. + +'Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, and +arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. The army +only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but +he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set +out for France.' + +'Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?' Una demanded. + +'If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, +men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was +his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De +Aquila's duty to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was +a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and +scoured all the Honour of the Eagle--all De Aquila's lands--to make a +fit, and, above all, a safe sport for our King. Look!' + +The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound's Hill Wood. Sir +Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that +showed like a woodcock's breast up the valley. 'Ye know the forest?' +said he. + +'You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!' said Una. 'I have +seen,' said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. 'Hugh's +work and mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into +Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we +must choose some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands +within bowshot of the King. Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a +deer-drive a Saxon peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each +other. The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we +needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would answer in life, +cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye see?' + +'If one of the beaters shot the King,' said Puck, 'Sir Richard wanted to +be able to punish that man's village. Then the village would take care +to send a good man.' + +'So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done +such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish +knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half +mad with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to +earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. And atop of their misery the +old rumour waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them +deliverance from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since +Santlache fight.' + +'But King Harold was killed at Hastings,'said Una. + +'So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons +always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work +any more easy.' + +Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees +thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs +among the lumps of blackened ling. + +'But we did it!' he said. 'After all, a woman is as good as a man to +beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and +crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list +of beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks--Saxon and +Norman priests. + +'Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, +as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first +shooting-stand--by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I--it +was no work for hot heads or heavy hands--lay with our beaters on the +skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila's +great horn blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see +the fat clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the +sober millers dusting the under-growth with their staves; and, like as +not, between them a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling +like a kite as she ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy +of the sport.' 'Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!' Puck bellowed +without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils +cracking. + +'Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!' Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout. + +The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out +of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the +outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped +together on the same note. + +A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods. + +'That's old Hobden,'said Una. + +'Small blame to him. It is in his blood,' said Puck. 'Did your beaters +cry so, Sir Richard?' + +'My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot +where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to +the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the +stands flew fair over them. + +'I cried, "'Ware shot! 'Ware shot!" and a knot of young knights new from +Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and +in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: "'Ware Santlache arrows! +'Ware Santlache arrows!" A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our +beaters answered in Saxon: "'Ware New Forest arrows! 'Ware Red William's +arrow!" so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my +old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war), +they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters +ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We--they had +sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight +of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl's jibe over +hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh +and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The +greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old +man, in the dress of a pilgrim. + +'The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty +years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of +England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans +rest the chin on the left palm. '"Who answers for him?" said I. "If he +fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?" + +'"Who will pay my fine?" the pilgrim said. "I have asked that of all the +Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! +They have not answered!" When he lifted his thin face I saw he was +one-eyed, and frail as a rush. '"Nay, but, Father," I said, "to whom +hast thou commended thyself-?" He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: +"Whose man art thou?" + +'"I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King's jester," said he +after a while. "I am, as I suppose, Rahere's man." + +'He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, read it. + +'It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere was the +King's jester. There was Latin writ at the back. + +'"What a plague conjuration's here?" said Hugh, turning it over. +"Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?" + +'"Black Magic," said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at +Battle). "They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a +wizard than either. Here's Rahere's name writ, and there's Rahere's red +cockscomb mark drawn below for such as cannot read." He looked slyly at +me. + +'"Then read it," said I, "and show thy learning." He was a vain little +man, and he gave it us after much mouthing. + +'"The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, says: 'When +thou art once dead, and Minos' (which is a heathen judge) 'has doomed +thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor good works will restore +thee!' A terrible thing! It denies any mercy to a man's soul!" + +'"Does it serve?" said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh's cloak. "Oh, man +of the King's blood, does it cover me?" + +'Hugh was of Earl Godwin's blood, and all Sussex knew it, though no +Saxon dared call him kingly in a Norman's hearing. There can be but one +King. + +'"It serves," said Hugh. "But the day will be long and hot. Better rest +here. We go forward now." + +'"No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman," he answered like a child. He +was indeed childish through great age. + +'The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila's great horn blew for a +halt, and soon young Fulke--our false Fulke's son--yes, the imp that +lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See 'Old Men at Pevensey' in PUCK OF +POOK'S HILL.]--came thundering up a woodway. + +'"Uncle," said he (though he was a man grown, he called me Uncle), +"those young Norman fools who shot at you this morn are saying that +your beaters cried treason against the King. It has come to Harry's long +ears, and he bids you give account of it. There are heavy fines in his +eye, but I am with you to the hilt, Uncle!" 'When the boy had fled back, +Hugh said to me: "It was Rahere's witless man that cried, ''Ware Red +William's arrow!' I heard him, and so did the Clerk of Netherfield." + +'"Then Rahere must answer to the King for his man," said I. "Keep him by +you till I send," and I hastened down. + +'The King was with De Aquila in the Grand Stand above Welansford down in +the valley yonder. His Court--knights and dames--lay glittering on the +edge of the glade. I made my homage, and Henry took it coldly. '"How +came your beaters to shout threats against me?" said he. + +'"The tale has grown," I answered. "One old witless man cried out, +''Ware Red William's arrow,' when the young knights shot at our line. We +had two beaters hit." + +'"I will do justice on that man," he answered. "Who is his master?" + +'"He's Rahere's man," said I. + +'"Rahere's?" said Henry. "Has my fool a fool?" + +'I heard the bells jingle at the back of the stand, and a red leg waved +over it; then a black one. So, very slowly, Rahere the King's jester +straddled the edge of the planks, and looked down on us, rubbing his +chin. Loose-knit, with cropped hair, and a sad priest's face, under his +cockscomb cap, that he could twist like a strip of wet leather. His eyes +were hollow-set. + +'"Nay, nay, Brother," said he. "If I suffer you to keep your fool, you +must e'en suffer me to keep mine." + +'This he delivered slowly into the King's angry face! My faith, a King's +jester must be bolder than lions! + +'"Now we will judge the matter," said Rahere. "Let these two brave +knights go hang my fool because he warned King Henry against running +after Saxon deer through woods full of Saxons. 'Faith, Brother, if thy +Brother, Red William, now among the Saints as we hope, had been timely +warned against a certain arrow in New Forest, one fool of us four would +not be crowned fool of England this morning. Therefore, hang the fool's +fool, knights!" 'Mark the fool's cunning! Rahere had himself given us +order to hang the man. No King dare confirm a fool's command to such a +great baron as De Aquila; and the helpless King knew it. + +'"What? No hanging?" said Rahere, after a silence. "A' God's Gracious +Name, kill something, then! Go forward with the hunt!" + +'He splits his face ear to ear in a yawn like a fish-pond. "Henry," says +he, "the next time I sleep, do not pester me with thy fooleries." Then +he throws himself out of sight behind the back of the stand. + +'I have seen courage with mirth in De Aquila and Hugh, but stark mad +courage of Rahere's sort I had never even guessed at.' + +'What did the King say?' cried Dan. + +'He had opened his mouth to speak, when young Fulke, who had come into +the stand with us, laughed, and, boy-like, once begun, could not check +himself. He kneeled on the instant for pardon, but fell sideways, +crying: "His legs! Oh, his long, waving red legs as he went backward!" + +'Like a storm breaking, our grave King laughed,--stamped and reeled +with laughter till the stand shook. So, like a storm, this strange thing +passed! + +'He wiped his eyes, and signed to De Aquila to let the drive come on. + +'When the deer broke, we were pleased that the King shot from the +shelter of the stand, and did not ride out after the hurt beasts as Red +William would have done. Most vilely his knights and barons shot! + +'De Aquila kept me beside him, and I saw no more of Hugh till evening. +We two had a little hut of boughs by the camp, where I went to wash me +before the great supper, and in the dusk I heard Hugh on the couch. + +'"Wearied, Hugh?" said I. + +'"A little," he says. "I have driven Saxon deer all day for a Norman +King, and there is enough of Earl Godwin's blood left in me to sicken at +the work. Wait awhile with the torch." + +'I waited then, and I thought I heard him sob.' + +'Poor Hugh! Was he so tired?' said Una. 'Hobden says beating is hard +work sometimes.' + +'I think this tale is getting like the woods,' said Dan, 'darker and +twistier every minute.' Sir Richard had walked as he talked, and though +the children thought they knew the woods well enough, they felt a little +lost. + +'A dark tale enough,' says Sir Richard, 'but the end was not all black. +When we had washed, we went to wait on the King at meat in the great +pavilion. Just before the trumpets blew for the Entry--all the guests +upstanding--long Rahere comes posturing up to Hugh, and strikes him with +his bauble-bladder. + +'"Here's a heavy heart for a joyous meal!" he says. "But each man must +have his black hour or where would be the merit of laughing? Take a +fool's advice, and sit it out with my man. I'll make a jest to excuse +you to the King if he remember to ask for you. That's more than I would +do for Archbishop Anselm." + +'Hugh looked at him heavy-eyed. "Rahere?" said he. "The King's jester? +Oh, Saints, what punishment for my King!" and smites his hands together. +'"Go--go fight it out in the dark," says Rahere, "and thy Saxon Saints +reward thee for thy pity to my fool." He pushed him from the pavilion, +and Hugh lurched away like one drunk.' + +'But why?' said Una. 'I don't understand.' + +'Ah, why indeed? Live you long enough, maiden, and you shall know the +meaning of many whys.' Sir Richard smiled. 'I wondered too, but it was +my duty to wait on the King at the High Table in all that glitter and +stir. + +'He spoke me his thanks for the sport I had helped show him, and he had +learned from De Aquila enough of my folk and my castle in Normandy to +graciously feign that he knew and had loved my brother there. (This, +also, is part of a king's work.) Many great men sat at the High +Table--chosen by the King for their wits, not for their birth. I have +forgotten their names, and their faces I only saw that one night. +But'--Sir Richard turned in his stride--'but Rahere, flaming in black +and scarlet among our guests, the hollow of his dark cheek flushed with +wine--long, laughing Rahere, and the stricken sadness of his face when +he was not twisting it about--Rahere I shall never forget. + +'At the King's outgoing De Aquila bade me follow him, with his great +bishops and two great barons, to the little pavilion. We had devised +jugglers and dances for the Court's sport; but Henry loved to talk +gravely to grave men, and De Aquila had told him of my travels to the +world's end. We had a fire of apple-wood, sweet as incense,--and the +curtains at the door being looped up, we could hear the music and see +the lights shining on mail and dresses. + +'Rahere lay behind the King's chair. The questions he darted forth at me +were as shrewd as the flames. I was telling of our fight with the apes, +as ye called them, at the world's end. [See 'The Knights of the Joyous +Venture' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] '"But where is the Saxon knight that +went with you?" said Henry. "He must confirm these miracles." + +'"He is busy," said Rahere, "confirming a new miracle." + +'"Enough miracles for today," said the King. "Rahere, you have saved +your long neck. Fetch the Saxon knight." + +'"Pest on it," said Rahere. "Who would be a King's jester? I'll bring +him, Brother, if you'll see that none of your home-brewed bishops taste +my wine while I am away." So he jingled forth between the men-at-arms at +the door. + +'Henry had made many bishops in England without the Pope's leave. I know +not the rights of the matter, but only Rahere dared jest about it. We +waited on the King's next word. + +'"I think Rahere is jealous of you," said he, smiling, to Nigel of Ely. +He was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other--Wal-wist the Saxons +called him--laughed long. "Rahere is a priest at heart. Shall I make him +a bishop, De Aquila?" says the King. + +'"There might be worse," said our Lord of Pevensey. "Rahere would never +do what Anselm has done." + +'This Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had gone off raging to the Pope +at Rome, because Henry would make bishops without his leave either. I +knew not the rights of it, but De Aquila did, and the King laughed. + +'"Anselm means no harm. He should have been a monk, not a bishop," said +the King. "I'll never quarrel with Anselm or his Pope till they quarrel +with my England. If we can keep the King's peace till my son comes to +rule, no man will lightly quarrel with our England." + +'"Amen," said De Aquila. "But the King's peace ends when the King dies." + +'That is true. The King's peace dies with the King. The custom then is +that all laws are outlaw, and men do what they will till the new King is +chosen. + +'"I will amend that," said the King hotly. "I will have it so that +though King, son, and grandson were all slain in one day, still the +King's peace should hold over all England! What is a man that his mere +death must upheave a people? We must have the Law." + +'"Truth," said William of Exeter; but that he would have said to any +word of the King. + +'The two great barons behind said nothing. This teaching was clean +against their stomachs, for when the King's peace ends, the great barons +go to war and increase their lands. At that instant we heard Rahere's +voice returning, in a scurril Saxon rhyme against William of Exeter: + + '"Well wist Wal-wist where lay his fortune + When that he fawned on the King for his crozier," + +and amid our laughter he burst in, with one arm round Hugh, and one +round the old pilgrim of Netherfield. + +'"Here is your knight, Brother," said he, "and for the better disport of +the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza +are clean carried away!" + +'Hugh broke loose, white and sick, and staggered to my side; the old man +blinked upon the company. + +'We looked at the King, but he smiled. + +'"Rahere promised he would show me some sport after supper to cover his +morning's offence," said he to De Aquila. "So this is thy man, Rahere?" + +'"Even so," said Rahere. "My man he has been, and my protection he +has taken, ever since I found him under the gallows at Stamford Bridge +telling the kites atop of it that he was--Harold of England!" + +'There was a great silence upon these last strange words, and Hugh hid +his face on my shoulder, woman-fashion. + +'"It is most cruel true," he whispered to me. "The old man proved it +to me at the beat after you left, and again in our hut even now. It is +Harold, my King!" + +'De Aquila crept forward. He walked about the man and swallowed. + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said he, staring. + +'"Many a stray shot goes too well home," said Rahere. + +'The old man flinched as at an arrow. "Why do you hurt me still?" he said +in Saxon. "It was on some bones of some Saints that I promised I would +give my England to the Great Duke." He turns on us all crying, shrilly: +"Thanes, he had caught me at Rouen--a lifetime ago. If I had not +promised, I should have lain there all my life. What else could I have +done? I have lain in a strait prison all my life none the less. There is +no need to throw stones at me." He guarded his face with his arms, and +shivered. "Now his madness will strike him down," said Rahere. "Cast out +the evil spirit, one of you new bishops." + +'Said William of Exeter: "Harold was slain at Santlache fight. All the +world knows it." + +'"I think this man must have forgotten," said Rahere. "Be comforted, +Father. Thou wast well slain at Hastings forty years gone, less three +months and nine days. Tell the King." + +'The man uncovered his face. "I thought they would stone me," he said. +"I did not know I spoke before a King." He came to his full towering +height--no mean man, but frail beyond belief. + +'The King turned to the tables, and held him out his own cup of wine. +The old man drank, and beckoned behind him, and, before all the Normans, +my Hugh bore away the empty cup, Saxon-fashion, upon the knee. + +"It is Harold!" said De Aquila. "His own stiff-necked blood kneels to +serve him. + +"Be it so," said Henry. "Sit, then, thou that hast been Harold of +England." + +'The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between half-shut +eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who watched Rahere +as I have seen him watch a far sail on the sea. + +'The wine and the warmth cast the old man into a dream. His white head +bowed; his hands hung. His eye indeed was opened, but the mind was +shut. When he stretched his feet, they were scurfed and road-cut like a +slave's. + +'"Ah, Rahere," cried Hugh, "why hast thou shown him thus? Better have +let him die than shame him--and me!" + +'"Shame thee?" said the King. "Would any baron of mine kneel to me if I +were witless, discrowned, and alone, and Harold had my throne?" + +'"No," said Rahere. "I am the sole fool that might do it, Brother, +unless"--he pointed at De Aquila, whom he had only met that day--"yonder +tough Norman crab kept me company. But, Sir Hugh, I did not mean to +shame him. He hath been somewhat punished through, maybe, little fault +of his own." + +'"Yet he lied to my Father, the Conqueror," said the King, and the old +man flinched in his sleep. + +'"Maybe," said Rahere, "but thy Brother Robert, whose throat we purpose +soon to slit with our own hands--" + +'"Hutt!" said the King, laughing. "I'll keep Robert at my table for +a life's guest when I catch him. Robert means no harm. It is all his +cursed barons." + +'"None the less," said Rahere, "Robert may say that thou hast not always +spoken the stark truth to him about England. I should not hang too many +men on that bough, Brother." '"And it is certain," said Hugh, "that"--he +pointed to the old man--"Harold was forced to make his promise to the +Great Duke." + +'"Very strongly, forced," said De Aquila. He had never any pride in the +Duke William's dealings with Harold before Hastings. Yet, as he said, +one cannot build a house all of straight sticks. + +'"No matter how he was forced," said Henry, "England was promised to my +Father William by Edward the Confessor. Is it not so?" William of Exeter +nodded. "Harold confirmed that promise to my Father on the bones of the +Saints. Afterwards he broke his oath and would have taken England by +the strong hand." + +'"Oh! La! La!" Rahere rolled up his eyes like a girl. "That ever England +should be taken by the strong hand!" + +'Seeing that Red William and Henry after him had each in just that +fashion snatched England from Robert of Normandy, we others knew not +where to look. But De Aquila saved us quickly. + +'"Promise kept or promise broken," he said, "Harold came near enough to +breaking us Normans at Santlache." + +'"Was it so close a fight, then?" said Henry. + +'"A hair would have turned it either way," De Aquila answered. "His +house-carles stood like rocks against rain. Where wast thou, Hugh, in +it?" + +'"Among Godwin's folk beneath the Golden Dragon till your front gave +back, and we broke our ranks to follow," said Hugh. + +'"But I bade you stand! I bade you stand! I knew it was all a deceit!" +Harold had waked, and leaned forward as one crying from the grave. + +'"Ah, now we see how the traitor himself was betrayed!" said William of +Exeter, and looked for a smile from the King. + +'"I made thee Bishop to preach at my bidding," said Henry; and turning +to Harold, "Tell us here how thy people fought us?" said he. "Their sons +serve me now against my Brother Robert!" + +'The old man shook his head cunningly. "Na--Na--Na!" he cried. "I know +better. Every time I tell my tale men stone me. But, Thanes, I will tell +you a greater thing. Listen!" He told us how many paces it was from some +Saxon Saint's shrine to another shrine, and how many more back to the +Abbey of the Battle. + +'"Ay," said he. "I have trodden it too often to be out even ten paces. +I move very swiftly. Harold of Norway knows that, and so does Tostig my +brother. They lie at ease at Stamford Bridge, and from Stamford Bridge +to the Battle Abbey it is--" he muttered over many numbers and forgot +us. + +'"Ay," said De Aquila, all in a muse. "That man broke Harold of Norway +at Stamford Bridge, and came near to breaking us at Santlache--all +within one month." + +'"But how did he come alive from Santlache fight?" asked the King. "Ask +him! Hast thou heard it, Rahere?" "Never. He says he has been stoned too +often for telling the tale. But he can count you off Saxon and Norman +shrines till daylight," said Rahere and the old man nodded proudly. + +'"My faith!" said Henry after a while. "I think even my Father the Great +Duke would pity if he could see him." + +'"How if he does see?" said Rahere. + +'Hugh covered his face with his sound hand. "Ah, why hast thou shamed +him?" he cried again to Rahere. + +'"No--no," says the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere's cape. "I am +Rahere's man. None stone me now," and he played with the bells on the +scollops of it. + +'"How if he had been brought to me when you found him?" said the King to +Rahere. + +'"You would have held him prisoner again--as the Great Duke did," Rahere +answered. + +'"True," said our King. "He is nothing except his name. Yet that name +might have been used by stronger men to trouble my England. Yes. I must +have made him my life's guest--as I shall make Robert." + +'"I knew it," said Rahere. "But while this man wandered mad by the +wayside, none cared what he called himself." + +'"I learned to cease talking before the stones flew," says the old man, +and Hugh groaned. + +'"Ye have heard!" said Rahere. "Witless, landless, nameless, and, but +for my protection, masterless, he can still make shift to bide his doom +under the open sky." + +'"Then wherefore didst thou bring him here for a mock and a shame?" +cried Hugh, beside himself with woe. + +'"A right mock and a just shame!" said William of Exeter. + +'"Not to me," said Nigel of Ely. "I see and I tremble, but I neither +mock nor judge." "Well spoken, Ely." Rahere falls into the pure fool +again. "I'll pray for thee when I turn monk. Thou hast given thy +blessing on a war between two most Christian brothers." He meant the war +forward 'twixt Henry and Robert of Normandy. "I charge you, Brother," he +says, wheeling on the King, "dost thou mock my fool?" The King shook his +head, and so then did smooth William of Exeter. + +'"De Aquila, does thou mock him?" Rahere jingled from one to another, +and the old man smiled. + +'"By the Bones of the Saints, not I," said our Lord of Pevensey. "I know +how dooms near he broke us at Santlache." + +'"Sir Hugh, you are excused the question. But you, valiant, loyal, +honourable, and devout barons, Lords of Man's justice in your own +bounds, do you mock my fool?" + +'He shook his bauble in the very faces of those two barons whose names +I have forgotten. "Na--Na!" they said, and waved him back foolishly +enough. + +'He hies him across to staring, nodding Harold, and speaks from behind +his chair. + +'"No man mocks thee, Who here judges this man? Henry of +England--Nigel--De Aquila! On your souls, swift with the answer!" he +cried. + +'None answered. We were all--the King not least--over-borne by that +terrible scarlet-and-black wizard-jester. + +'"Well for your souls," he said, wiping his brow. Next, shrill like a +woman: "Oh, come to me!" and Hugh ran forward to hold Harold, that had +slidden down in the chair. + +'"Hearken," said Rahere, his arm round Harold's neck. "The King--his +bishops--the knights--all the world's crazy chessboard neither mock nor +judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, Harold of England!" + +'Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled. + +'"Good comfort," said Harold. "Tell me again! I have been somewhat +punished." 'Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head +rolled. We heard him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud. + +'"Out! I will have no Norman!" Harold said as clearly as I speak now, +and he refuged himself on Hugh's sound shoulder, and stretched out, and +lay all still.' + +'Dead?' said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk. + +'That was his good fortune. To die in the King's presence, and on the +breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. Some of us +envied him,' said Sir Richard, and fell back to take Swallow's bridle. + +'Turn left here,' Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. They +ducked down a narrow path through close ash plantation. + +The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged full-abreast +into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying home on his back. +'My! My!' said he. 'Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?' + +'Sorry! It's all right,' said Una, rubbing her nose. 'How many rabbits +did you get today?' + +'That's tellin'!' the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. 'I +reckon Mus' Ridley he've got rheumatism along o' lyin' in the dik to see +I didn't snap up any. Think o' that now!' + +They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale. + +'An' just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin' to the hounds +in our woods,' said he. 'Didn't you hear? You must ha' been asleep +sure-ly.' + +'Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?' Dan cried. + +''Ere he be--house an' all!' Hobden dived into the prickly heart of the +faggot and took out a dormouse's wonderfully woven nest of grass and +leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been precious lace, and +tilting it toward the last of the light he showed the little, red, furry +chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes that were shut for +their winter sleep. + +'Let's take him home. Don't breathe on him,' said Una. 'It'll make him +warm and he'll wake up and die straight off. Won't he, Hobby?' + +'Dat's a heap better by my reckonin' than wakin' up and findin' himself +in a cage for life. No! We'll lay him into the bottom o' this hedge. +Dat's jus' right! No more trouble for him till come Spring. An' now +we'll go home.' + + + + +A Carol + + + Our Lord Who did the Ox command + To kneel to Judah's King, + He binds His frost upon the land + To ripen it for Spring-- + To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, + According to His word; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + When we poor fenmen skate the ice + Or shiver on the wold, + We hear the cry of a single tree + That breaks her heart in the cold-- + That breaks her heart in the cold, good sirs, + And rendeth by the board; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + Her wood is crazed and little worth + Excepting as to burn + That we may warm and make our mirth + Until the Spring return-- + Until the Spring return, good sirs, + When people walk abroad; + Which well must be as ye can see-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + God bless the master of this house, + And all that sleep therein! + And guard the fens from pirate folk, + And keep us all from sin, + To walk in honesty, good sirs, + Of thought and deed and word! + Which shall befriend our latter end-- + And who shall judge the Lord? + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REWARDS AND FAIRIES *** + +***** This file should be named 556.txt or 556.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/556/ + +Produced by Jo Churcher + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +REWARDS AND FAIRIES + +RUDYARD KIPLING + + + + + +Contents + A Charm +Introduction +Cold Iron + Cold Iron +Gloriana + The Two Cousins + The Looking-Glass +The Wrong Thing + A Truthful Song + King Henry VII and the Shipwrights +Marklake Witches + The Way through the Woods + Brookland Road +The Knife and the Naked Chalk + The Run of the Downs + Song of the Men's Side +Brother Square-Toes + Philadelphia + If - +'A Priest in Spite of Himself' + A St Helena Lullaby + 'Poor Honest Men' +The Conversion of St Wilfrid + Eddi's Service + Song of the Red War-Boat +A Doctor of Medicine + An Astrologer's Song + 'Our Fathers of Old' +Simple Simon + The Thousandth Man + Frankie's Trade +The Tree of Justice + The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + A Carol + + + + +A Charm + + +Take of English earth as much +As either hand may rightly clutch. +In the taking of it breathe +Prayer for all who lie beneath - +Not the great nor well-bespoke, +But the mere uncounted folk +Of whose life and death is none +Report or lamentation. +Lay that earth upon thy heart, +And thy sickness shall depart! + +It shall sweeten and make whole +Fevered breath and festered soul; +It shall mightily restrain +Over-busy hand and brain; +it shall ease thy mortal strife +'Gainst the immortal woe of life, +Till thyself restored shall prove +By what grace the Heavens do move. + +Take of English flowers these - +Spring's full-faced primroses, +Summer's wild wide-hearted rose, +Autumn's wall-flower of the close, +And, thy darkness to illume, +Winter's bee-thronged ivy-bloom. +Seek and serve them where they bide +From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, +For these simples used aright +Shall restore a failing sight. + +These shall cleanse and purify +Webbed and inward-turning eye; +These shall show thee treasure hid, +Thy familiar fields amid, +At thy threshold, on thy hearth, +Or about thy daily path; +And reveal (which is thy need) +Every man a King indeed! + + + + +Introduction + + +Once upon a time, Dan and Una, brother and sister, living in the +English country, had the good fortune to meet with Puck, alias +Robin Goodfellow, alias Nick o' Lincoln, alias Lob-lie-by-the- +Fire, the last survivor in England of those whom mortals call +Fairies. Their proper name, of course, is 'The People of the Hills'. +This Puck, by means of the magic of Oak, Ash, and Thorn, gave +the children power + + To see what they should see and hear what they should hear, + Though it should have happened three thousand year. + +The result was that from time to time, and in different places on +the farm and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and +talked to some rather interesting people. One of these, for +instance, was a Knight of the Norman Conquest, another a young +Centurion of a Roman Legion stationed in England, another a +builder and decorator of King Henry VII's time; and so on and so +forth; as I have tried to explain in a book called PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. + +A year or so later, the children met Puck once more, and +though they were then older and wiser, and wore boots regularly +instead of going barefooted when they got the chance, Puck was +as kind to them as ever, and introduced them to more people of +the old days. + +He was careful, of course, to take away their memory of their +walks and conversations afterwards, but otherwise he did not +interfere; and Dan and Una would find the strangest sort of +persons in their gardens or woods. + +In the stories that follow I am trying to tell something about +those people. + + + + +COLD IRON + + +When Dan and Una had arranged to go out before breakfast, they +did not remember that it was Midsummer Morning. They only +wanted to see the otter which, old Hobden said, had been fishing +their brook for weeks; and early morning was the time to surprise +him. As they tiptoed out of the house into the wonderful stillness, +the church clock struck five. Dan took a few steps across the +dew-blobbed lawn, and looked at his black footprints. + +'I think we ought to be kind to our poor boots,'he said. 'They'll +get horrid wet.' + +it was their first summer in boots, and they hated them, so they +took them off, and slung them round their necks, and paddled +joyfully over the dripping turf where the shadows lay the wrong +way, like evening in the East. +The sun was well up and warm, but by the brook the last of the +night mist still fumed off the water. They picked up the chain of +otter's footprints on the mud, and followed it from the bank, +between the weeds and the drenched mowing, while the birds +shouted with surprise. Then the track left the brook and became a +smear, as though a log had been dragged along. + +They traced it into Three Cows meadow, over the mill-sluice +to the Forge, round Hobden's garden, and then up the slope till it +ran out on the short turf and fern of Pook's Hill, and they heard +the cock-pheasants crowing in the woods behind them. + +'No use!' said Dan, questing like a puzzled hound. 'The dew's +drying off, and old Hobden says otters'll travel for miles.' + +'I'm sure we've travelled miles.' Una fanned herself with her +hat. 'How still it is! It's going to be a regular roaster.' She looked +down the valley, where no chimney yet smoked. + +'Hobden's up!' Dan pointed to the open door of the Forge +cottage. 'What d'you suppose he has for breakfast?' +'One of them. He says they eat good all times of the year,' Una +jerked her head at some stately pheasants going down to the +brook for a drink. + +A few steps farther on a fox broke almost under their bare feet, +yapped, and trotted off. + +'Ah, Mus' Reynolds -Mus' Reynolds'-Dan was quoting from +old Hobden, - 'if I knowed all you knowed, I'd know something.' [See 'The +Winged Hats' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] + +I say,' - Una lowered her voice -'you know that funny feeling of +things having happened before. I felt it when you said "Mus' Reynolds."' + +'So did I,' Dan began. 'What is it?' + +They faced each other, stammering with excitement. + +'Wait a shake! I'll remember in a minute. Wasn't it something +about a fox - last year? Oh, I nearly had it then!' Dan cried. + +'Be quiet!' said Una, prancing excitedly. 'There was something +happened before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills - +the play at the theatre - see what you see -' + +'I remember now,' Dan shouted. 'It's as plain as the nose on +your face - Pook's Hill - Puck's Hill - Puck!' + +'I remember, too,' said Una. 'And it's Midsummer Day again!' +The young fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, +chewing a green-topped rush. + +'Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here's a happy meeting,' +said he. They shook hands all round, and asked questions. + +'You've wintered well,' he said after a while, and looked them +up and down. 'Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.' + +'They've put us into boots,' said Una. 'Look at my feet - +they're all pale white, and my toes are squidged together awfully.' + +'Yes - boots make a difference.' Puck wriggled his brown, +square, hairy foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the +big toe and the next. + +'I could do that - last year,' Dan said dismally, as he tried and +failed. 'And boots simply ruin one's climbing.' + +'There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,'said Puck, +or folk wouldn't wear them. Shall we come this way?' +They sauntered along side by side till they reached the gate at +the far end of the hillside. Here they halted just like cattle, and let +the sun warm their backs while they listened to the flies in the wood. + +'Little Lindens is awake,' said Una, as she hung with her chin +on the top rail. 'See the chimney smoke?' + +'Today's Thursday, isn't it?' Puck turned to look at the old pink +farmhouse across the little valley. 'Mrs Vincey's baking day. +Bread should rise well this weather.' He yawned, and that set +them both yawning. + +The bracken about rustled and ticked and shook in every direction. +They felt that little crowds were stealing past. + +'Doesn't that sound like - er - the People of the Hills?'said Una. + +'It's the birds and wild things drawing up to the woods before +people get about,' said Puck, as though he were Ridley the keeper. + +'Oh, we know that. I only said it sounded like.' + +'As I remember 'em, the People of the Hills used to make more +noise. They'd settle down for the day rather like small birds +settling down for the night. But that was in the days when they +carried the high hand. Oh, me! The deeds that I've had act and +part in, you'd scarcely believe!' + +'I like that!' said Dan. 'After all you told us last year, too!' + +'Only, the minute you went away, you made us forget +everything,' said Una. + +Puck laughed and shook his head. 'I shall this year, too. I've +given you seizin of Old England, and I've taken away your Doubt +and Fear, but your memory and remembrance between whiles I'll +keep where old Billy Trott kept his night-lines - and that's where +he could draw 'em up and hide 'em at need. Does that suit?' He +twinkled mischievously. + +'It's got to suit,'said Una, and laughed. 'We Can't magic back at +you.' She folded her arms and leaned against the gate. 'Suppose, +now, you wanted to magic me into something - an otter? Could you?' + +'Not with those boots round your neck.' +'I'll take them off.' She threw them on the turf. Dan's followed +immediately. 'Now!' she said. + +'Less than ever now you've trusted me. Where there's true +faith, there's no call for magic.' Puck's slow smile broadened all +over his face. + +'But what have boots to do with it?' said Una, perching on the gate. + +'There's Cold Iron in them,' said Puck, and settled beside her. +'Nails in the soles, I mean. It makes a difference.' + +'How?' +'Can't you feel it does? You wouldn't like to go back to bare +feet again, same as last year, would you? Not really?' + +'No-o. I suppose I shouldn't - not for always. I'm growing +up, you know,' said Una. + +'But you told us last year, in the Long Slip - at the theatre - that +you didn't mind Cold Iron,'said Dan. + +'I don't; but folks in housen, as the People of the Hills call them, +must be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near +side of Cold Iron - there's iron 'in every man's house, isn't there? +They handle Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune's +made or spoilt by Cold Iron in some shape or other. That's how it +goes with Flesh and Blood, and one can't prevent it.' + +'I don't quite see. How do you mean?'said Dan. + +'It would take me some time to tell you.' + +'Oh, it's ever so long to breakfast,' said Dan. 'We looked in the +larder before we came out.' He unpocketed one big hunk of bread +and Una another, which they shared with Puck. + +'That's Little Lindens' baking,' he said, as his white teeth sunk +in it. 'I know Mrs Vincey's hand.' He ate with a slow sideways +thrust and grind, just like old Hobden, and, like Hobden, hardly +dropped a crumb. The sun flashed on Little Lindens' windows, +and the cloudless sky grew stiller and hotter in the valley. + +'AH - Cold Iron,' he said at last to the impatient children. 'Folk +in housen, as the People of the Hills say, grow careless about Cold +Iron. They'll nail the Horseshoe over the front door, and forget to +put it over the back. Then, some time or other, the People of the +Hills slip in, find the cradle-babe in the corner, and -' + +'Oh, I know. Steal it and leave a changeling,'Una cried. + +'No,' said Puck firmly. 'All that talk of changelings is people's +excuse for their own neglect. Never believe 'em. I'd whip 'em at +the cart-tail through three parishes if I had my way.' + +'But they don't do it now,' said Una. + +'Whip, or neglect children? Umm! Some folks and some fields +never alter. But the People of the Hills didn't work any changeling +tricks. They'd tiptoe in and whisper and weave round the +cradle-babe in the chimney-corner - a fag-end of a charm here, or +half a spell there - like kettles singing; but when the babe's mind +came to bud out afterwards, it would act differently from other +people in its station. That's no advantage to man or maid. So I +wouldn't allow it with my folks' babies here. I told Sir Huon so +once.' + +'Who was Sir Huon?' Dan asked, and Puck turned on him in +quiet astonishment. + +'Sir Huon of Bordeaux - he succeeded King Oberon. He had +been a bold knight once, but he was lost on the road to Babylon, a +long while back. Have you ever heard "How many miles to +Babylon?"?' + +'Of course,' said Dan, flushing. + +'Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But +about tricks on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, +on just such a morning as this: "If you crave to act and influence +on folk in housen, which I know is your desire, why don't you +take some human cradle-babe by fair dealing, and bring him up +among yourselves on the far side of Cold Iron - as Oberon did in +time past? Then you could make him a splendid fortune, and send +him out into the world." + +'"Time past is past time," says Sir Huon. "I doubt if we could +do it. For one thing, the babe would have to be taken without +wronging man, woman, or child. For another, he'd have to be +born on the far side of Cold Iron - in some house where no Cold +Iron ever stood; and for yet the third, he'd have to be kept from +Cold Iron all his days till we let him find his fortune. No, it's not +easy," he said, and he rode off, thinking. You see, Sir Huon had +been a man once. +'I happened to attend Lewes Market next Woden's Day even, +and watched the slaves being sold there - same as pigs are sold at +Robertsbridge Market nowadays. Only, the pigs have rings on +their noses, and the slaves had rings round their necks.' + +'What sort of rings?' said Dan. + +'A ring of Cold Iron, four fingers wide, and a thumb thick, just +like a quoit, but with a snap to it for to snap round the slave's +neck. They used to do a big trade in slave-rings at the Forge here, +and ship them to all parts of Old England, packed in oak sawdust. +But, as I was saying, there was a farmer out of the Weald who had +bought a woman with a babe in her arms, and he didn't want any +encumbrances to her driving his beasts home for him.' + +'Beast himself!' said Una, and kicked her bare heel on the gate. + +'So he blamed the auctioneer. "It's none o' my baby," the +wench puts in. "I took it off a woman in our gang who died on +Terrible Down yesterday." "I'll take it off to the church then," +says the farmer. "Mother Church'll make a monk of it, and we'll +step along home." + +'It was dusk then. He slipped down to St Pancras' Church, and +laid the babe at the cold chapel door. I breathed on the back of his +stooping neck - and - I've heard he never could be warm at any fire +afterwards. I should have been surprised if he could! Then I +whipped up the babe, and came flying home here like a bat to his +belfry. + +'On the dewy break of morning of Thor's own day -just such a +day as this - I laid the babe outside the Hill here, and the People +flocked up and wondered at the sight. + +'"You've brought him, then?" Sir Huon said, staring like any +mortal man. + +'"Yes, and he's brought his mouth with him, too," I said. The +babe was crying loud for his breakfast. + +'"What is he?" says Sir Huon, when the womenfolk had +drawn him under to feed him. + +'"Full Moon and Morning Star may know," I says. "I don't. +By what I could make out of him in the moonlight, he's without +brand or blemish. I'll answer for it that he's born on the far side of +Cold Iron, for he was born under a shaw on Terrible Down, and +I've wronged neither man, woman, nor child in taking him, for +he is the son of a dead slave-woman. + +'"All to the good, Robin," Sir Huon said. "He'll be the less +anxious to leave us. Oh, we'll give him a splendid fortune, and we +shall act and influence on folk in housen as we have always +craved." His Lady came up then, and drew him under to watch +the babe's wonderful doings.' +'Who was his Lady?'said Dan. +'The Lady Esclairmonde. She had been a woman once, till she +followed Sir Huon across the fern, as we say. Babies are no special +treat to me - I've watched too many of them - so I stayed on the +Hill. Presently I heard hammering down at the Forge there.'Puck +pointed towards Hobden's cottage. 'It was too early for any +workmen, but it passed through my mind that the breaking day +was Thor's own day. A slow north-east wind blew up and set the +oaks sawing and fretting in a way I remembered; so I slipped over +to see what I could see.' + +'And what did you see?' +'A smith forging something or other out of Cold Iron. When it +was finished, he weighed it in his hand (his back was towards me), +and tossed it from him a longish quoit-throw down the valley. I +saw Cold Iron flash in the sun, but I couldn't quite make out +where it fell. That didn't trouble me. I knew it would be found +sooner or later by someone.' + +'How did you know?'Dan went on. + +'Because I knew the Smith that made it,' said Puck quietly. + +'Wayland Smith?' Una suggested. [See 'Weland's Sword' in PUCK +OF POOK'S HILL.] + +'No. I should have passed the time o' day with Wayland Smith, +of course. This other was different. So' - Puck made a queer +crescent in the air with his finger - 'I counted the blades of grass +under my nose till the wind dropped and he had gone - he and his +Hammer.' + +'Was it Thor then?' Una murmured under her breath. + +'Who else? It was Thor's own day.' Puck repeated the sign. 'I +didn't tell Sir Huon or his Lady what I'd seen. Borrow trouble for +yourself if that's your nature, but don't lend it to your neighbours. +Moreover, I might have been mistaken about the Smith's +work. He might have been making things for mere amusement, +though it wasn't like him, or he might have thrown away an old +piece of made iron. One can never be sure. So I held my tongue +and enjoyed the babe. He was a wonderful child - and the People +of the Hills were so set on him, they wouldn't have believed me. +He took to me wonderfully. As soon as he could walk he'd putter +forth with me all about my Hill here. Fern makes soft falling! He +knew when day broke on earth above, for he'd thump, thump, +thump, like an old buck-rabbit in a bury, and I'd hear him say +"Opy!" till some one who knew the Charm let him out, and then +it would be "Robin! Robin!" all round Robin Hood's barn, as we +say, till he'd found me.' + +'The dear!' said Una. 'I'd like to have seen him!' +'Yes, he was a boy. And when it came to learning his words - +spells and such-like - he'd sit on the Hill in the long shadows, +worrying out bits of charms to try on passersby. And when the +bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for pure love's sake +(like everything else on my Hill), he'd shout, "Robin! Look -see! +Look, see, Robin!" and sputter out some spell or other that they +had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn't the heart to tell +him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the +wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast +spells for sure, as we say, he took more and more notice of things +and people in the world. People, of course, always drew him, for +he was mortal all through. + +'Seeing that he was free to move among folk in housen, under +or over Cold Iron, I used to take him along with me, night- +walking, where he could watch folk, and I could keep him from +touching Cold Iron. That wasn't so difficult as it sounds, because +there are plenty of things besides Cold Iron in housen to catch a +boy's fancy. He was a handful, though! I shan't forget when I took +him to Little Lindens - his first night under a roof. The smell of +the rushlights and the bacon on the beams - they were stuffing a +feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm night - got into his +head. Before I could stop him -we were hiding in the bakehouse - +he'd whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights and voices, +which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl overset a +hive there, and - of course he didn't know till then such things +could touch him - he got badly stung, and came home with his +face looking like kidney potatoes! +'You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and Lady Esclairmonde +were with poor Robin! They said the Boy was never to be trusted +with me night-walking any more - and he took about as much +notice of their order as he did of the bee-stings. Night after night, +as soon as it was dark, I'd pick up his whistle in the wet fern, and +off we'd flit together among folk in housen till break of day - he +asking questions, and I answering according to my knowledge. +Then we fell into mischief again!'Puck shook till the gate rattled. + +'We came across a man up at Brightling who was beating his +wife with a bat in the garden. I was just going to toss the man over +his own woodlump when the Boy jumped the hedge and ran at him. +Of course the woman took her husband's part, and while the man +beat him, the woman scratted his face. It wasn't till I danced +among the cabbages like Brightling Beacon all ablaze that they +gave up and ran indoors. The Boy's fine green-and-gold clothes +were torn all to pieces, and he had been welted in twenty places +with the man's bat, and scratted by the woman's nails to pieces. +He looked like a Robertsbridge hopper on a Monday morning. + +'"Robin," said he, while I was trying to clean him down with a +bunch of hay, "I don't quite understand folk in housen. I went to +help that old woman, and she hit me, Robin!" + +'"What else did you expect?" I said. "That was the one time +when you might have worked one of your charms, instead of +running into three times your weight." + +'"I didn't think," he says. "But I caught the man one on the +head that was as good as any charm. Did you see it work, Robin?" + +'"Mind your nose," I said. "Bleed it on a dockleaf - not your +sleeve, for pity's sake." I knew what the Lady Esclairmonde +would say. + +'He didn't care. He was as happy as a gipsy with a stolen pony, +and the front part of his gold coat, all blood and grass stains, +looked like ancient sacrifices. + +'Of course the People of the Hills laid the blame on me. The +Boy could do nothing wrong, in their eyes. + +'"You are bringing him up to act and influence on folk in +housen, when you're ready to let him go," I said. "Now he's +begun to do it, why do you cry shame on me? That's no shame. +It's his nature drawing him to his kind. + +'"But we don't want him to begin that way," the Lady +Esclairmonde said. "We intend a splendid fortune for him - not +your flitter-by-night, hedge-jumping, gipsy-work." + +'"I don't blame you, Robin," says Sir Huon, "but I do think +you might look after the Boy more closely." + +'"I've kept him away from Cold Iron these sixteen years ," I +said. "You know as well as I do, the first time he touches Cold +Iron he'll find his own fortune, in spite of everything you intend +for him. You owe me something for that." + +'Sir Huon, having been a man, was going to allow me the right +of it, but the Lady Esclairmonde, being the Mother of all +Mothers, over-persuaded him. + +'"We're very grateful," Sir Huon said, "but we think that just +for the present you are about too much with him on the Hill." + +'"Though you have said it," I said, "I will give you a second chance." +I did not like being called to account for my doings on my own Hill. +I wouldn't have stood it even that far except I loved the Boy. + +'"No! No!" says the Lady Esclairmonde. "He's never any +trouble when he's left to me and himself. It's your fault." + +'"You have said it," I answered. "Hear me! From now on till +the Boy has found his fortune, whatever that may be, I vow to +you all on my Hill, by Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, and by the +Hammer of Asa Thor" - again Puck made that curious double- +cut in the air - '"that you may leave me out of all your counts and +reckonings." Then I went out'- he snapped his fingers -'like the +puff of a candle, and though they called and cried, they made +nothing by it. I didn't promise not to keep an eye on the Boy, +though. I watched him close - close - close! + +'When he found what his people had forced me to do, he gave +them a piece of his mind, but they all kissed and cried round him, +and being only a boy, he came over to their way of thinking (I +don't blame him), and called himself unkind and ungrateful; and +it all ended in fresh shows and plays, and magics to distract him +from folk in housen. Dear heart alive! How he used to call and call +on me, and I couldn't answer, or even let him know that I was +near!' + +'Not even once?' said Una. 'If he was very lonely?' +'No, he couldn't,' said Dan, who had been thinking. 'Didn't +you swear by the Hammer of Thor that you wouldn't, Puck?' + +'By that Hammer!' was the deep rumbled reply. Then he came +back to his soft speaking voice. 'And the Boy was lonely, when he +couldn't see me any more. He began to try to learn all learning (he +had good teachers), but I saw him lift his eyes from the big black +books towards folk in housen all the time. He studied song- +making (good teachers he had too!), but he sang those songs with +his back toward the Hill, and his face toward folk. I know! I have +sat and grieved over him grieving within a rabbit's jump of him. +Then he studied the High, Low, and Middle Magic. He had +promised the Lady Esclairmonde he would never go near folk in +housen; so he had to make shows and shadows for his mind to +chew on.' +'What sort of shows?' said Dan. + +'Just boy's Magic as we say. I'll show you some, some time. It +pleased him for the while, and it didn't hurt any one in particular +except a few men coming home late from the taverns. But I knew +what it was a sign of, and I followed him like a weasel follows a +rabbit. As good a boy as ever lived! I've seen him with Sir Huon +and the Lady Esclairmonde stepping just as they stepped to avoid +the track of Cold Iron in a furrow, or walking wide of some old +ash-tot because a man had left his swop-hook or spade there; and +all his heart aching to go straightforward among folk in housen all +the time. Oh, a good boy! They always intended a fine fortune for +him - but they could never find it in their heart to let him begin. +I've heard that many warned them, but they wouldn't be warned. +So it happened as it happened. + +'One hot night I saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his +flaming discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, +and rush on rush of shadows down the valley till the shaws were +full of his hounds giving tongue, and the woodways were packed +with his knights in armour riding down into the water-mists - all +his own Magic, of course. Behind them you could see great +castles lifting slow and splendid on arches of moonshine, with +maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all turned +into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his own +young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy's Magic +doesn't trouble me - or Merlin's either for that matter. I followed +the Boy by the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, +and oh, but I grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He +pounded back and forth like a bullock in a strange pasture - +sometimes alone - sometimes waist-deep among his shadow- +hounds - sometimes leading his shadow-knights on a hawk- +winged horse to rescue his shadow-girls. I never guessed he had +such Magic at his command; but it's often that way with boys. + +'Just when the owl comes home for the second time, I saw Sir +Huon and the Lady ride down my Hill, where there's not much +Magic allowed except mine. They were very pleased at the Boy's +Magic - the valley flared with it - and I heard them settling his +splendid fortune when they should find it in their hearts to let him +go to act and influence among folk in housen. Sir Huon was for +making him a great King somewhere or other, and the Lady was +for making him a marvellous wise man whom all should praise +for his skill and kindness. She was very kind-hearted. + +'Of a sudden we saw the flashes of his discontents turned back +on the clouds, and his shadow-hounds stopped baying. + +'"There's Magic fighting Magic over yonder," the Lady +Esclairmonde cried, reigning up. "Who is against him?" + +'I could have told her, but I did not count it any of my business +to speak of Asa Thor's comings and goings. + +'How did you know?'said Una. + +'A slow North-East wind blew up, sawing and fretting +through the oaks in a way I remembered. The wildfire roared up, +one last time in one sheet, and snuffed out like a rushlight, and a +bucketful of stinging hail fell. We heard the Boy walking in the +Long Slip - where I first met you. + +'"Here, oh, come here!" said the Lady Esclairmonde, and +stretched out her arms in the dark. + +'He was coming slowly, but he stumbled in the footpath, +being, of course, mortal man. + +'"Why, what's this?" he said to himself. We three heard him. + +'"Hold, lad, hold! 'Ware Cold Iron!" said Sir Huon, and they +two swept down like nightjars, crying as they rode. + +'I ran at their stirrups, but it was too late. We felt that the Boy +had touched Cold Iron somewhere in the dark, for the Horses of +the Hill shied off, and whipped round, snorting. + +'Then I judged it was time for me to show myself in my own +shape; so I did. + +'"Whatever it is," I said, "he has taken hold of it. Now we +must find out whatever it is that he has taken hold of, for that will +be his fortune." + +'"Come here, Robin," the Boy shouted, as soon as he heard +my voice. "I don't know what I've hold of." + +'"It is in your hands," I called back. "Tell us if it is hard and +cold, with jewels atop. For that will be a King's Sceptre. " + +'"Not by a furrow-long," he said, and stooped and tugged in +the dark. We heard him. +'"Has it a handle and two cutting edges?" I called. "For that'll +be a Knight's Sword." + +'"No, it hasn't," he says. "It's neither ploughshare, whittle, +hook, nor crook, nor aught I've yet seen men handle." By this +time he was scratting in the dirt to prise it up. + +'"Whatever it is, you know who put it there, Robin," said Sir +Huon to me, "or you would not ask those questions. You should +have told me as soon as you knew." + +'"What could you or I have done against the Smith that made it +and laid it for him to find?" I said, and I whispered Sir Huon what +I had seen at the Forge on Thor's Day, when the babe was first +brought to the Hill. + +'"Oh, good-bye, our dreams!" said Sir Huon. "It's neither +sceptre, sword, nor plough! Maybe yet it's a bookful of learning, +bound with iron clasps. There's a chance for a splendid fortune in +that sometimes." + +'But we knew we were only speaking to comfort ourselves, +and the Lady Esclairmonde, having been a woman, said so. + +'"Thur aie! Thor help us!" the Boy called. "It is round, +without end, Cold Iron, four fingers wide and a thumb thick, and +there is writing on the breadth of it." + +'"Read the writing if you have the learning," I called. The +darkness had lifted by then, and the owl was out over the fern again. + +'He called back, reading the runes on the iron: + + "Few can see + Further forth + Than when the child + Meets the Cold Iron." + +And there he stood, in clear starlight, with a new, heavy, shining +slave-ring round his proud neck. + +'"Is this how it goes?" he asked, while the Lady Esclairmonde cried. + +'"That is how it goes," I said. He hadn't snapped the catch +home yet, though. + +'"What fortune does it mean for him?" said Sir Huon, while +the Boy fingered the ring. "You who walk under Cold Iron, you +must tell us and teach us." + +'"Tell I can, but teach I cannot," I said. "The virtue of the Ring +is only that he must go among folk in housen henceforward, +doing what they want done, or what he knows they need, all Old +England over. Never will he be his own master, nor yet ever any +man's. He will get half he gives, and give twice what he gets, till +his life's last breath; and if he lays aside his load before he draws +that last breath, all his work will go for naught." + +'"Oh, cruel, wicked Thor!" cried the Lady Esclairmonde. +"Ah, look see, all of you! The catch is still open! He hasn't locked +it. He can still take it off. He can still come back. Come back!" She +went as near as she dared, but she could not lay hands on Cold +Iron. The Boy could have taken it off, yes. We waited to see if he +would, but he put up his hand, and the snap locked home. + +'"What else could I have done?" said he. + +'"Surely, then, you will do," I said. "Morning's coming, and +if you three have any farewells to make, make them now, for, +after sunrise, Cold Iron must be your master." +'So the three sat down, cheek by wet cheek, telling over their +farewells till morning light. As good a boy as ever lived, he was.' + +'And what happened to him?' asked Dan. + +'When morning came, Cold Iron was master of him and his +fortune, and he went to work among folk in housen. Presently he +came across a maid like-minded with himself, and they were +wedded, and had bushels of children, as the saying is. Perhaps +you'll meet some of his breed, this year.' + +'Thank you,' said Una. 'But what did the poor Lady +Esclairmonde do?' + +'What can you do when Asa Thor lays the Cold Iron in a lad's +path? She and Sir Huon were comforted to think they had given +the Boy good store of learning to act and influence on folk in +housen. For he was a good boy! Isn't it getting on for breakfast- +time? I'll walk with you a piece.' + +When they were well in the centre of the bone-dry fern, Dan +nudged Una, who stopped and put on a boot as quickly as she could. +'Now,' she said, 'you can't get any Oak, Ash, and Thorn leaves +from here, and' - she balanced wildly on one leg - 'I'm standing +on Cold Iron. What'll you do if we don't go away?' + +'E-eh? Of all mortal impudence!'said Puck, as Dan, also in one +boot, grabbed his sister's hand to steady himself. He walked +round them, shaking with delight. 'You think I can only work +with a handful of dead leaves? This comes of taking away your +Doubt and Fear! I'll show you!' + + +A minute later they charged into old Hobden at his simple breakfast +of cold roast pheasant, shouting that there was a wasps' nest in +the fern which they had nearly stepped on, and asking him to +come and smoke it out. +'It's too early for wops-nests, an' I don't go diggin' in the Hill, +not for shillin's,' said the old man placidly. 'You've a thorn in +your foot, Miss Una. Sit down, and put on your t'other boot. +You're too old to be caperin' barefoot on an empty stomach. Stay +it with this chicken o' mine.' + + + +Cold Iron + + +'Gold is for the mistress - silver for the maid! +Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.' +'Good!' said the Baron, sitting in his hall, +'But Iron - Cold Iron - is master of them all!' + +So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege, +Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege - +'Nay!' said the cannoneer on the castle wall, +'But Iron - Cold Iron - shall be master of you all!' + +Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong, +When the cruel cannon-balls laid 'em all along! +He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall, +And Iron - Cold Iron - was master of it all! + +Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!) +'What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?' +'Nay!' said the Baron, 'mock not at my fall, +For Iron - Cold Iron - is master of men all.' + +'Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown - +Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.' +'As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small, +For Iron - Cold Iron - must be master of men all!' + +Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!) +'Here is Bread and here is Wine - sit and sup with me. +Eat and drink in Mary's Name, the whiles I do recall +How Iron - Cold Iron - can be master of men all!' + +He took the Wine and blessed It; He blessed and brake the Bread. +With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said: +'Look! These Hands they pierced with nails outside my city wall +Show Iron - Cold Iron - to be master of men all! + +'Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong, +Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong. +I forgive thy treason - I redeem thy fall - +For Iron - Cold Iron - must be master of men all!' + +'Crowns are for the valiant - sceptres for the bold! +Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.' +'Nay!' said the Baron, kneeling in his hall, +'But Iron - Cold Iron - is master of men all! +Iron, out of Calvary, is master of men all!' + + + + +GLORIANA + + + +The Two Cousins + + +Valour and Innocence +Have latterly gone hence +To certain death by certain shame attended. +Envy - ah! even to tears! - +The fortune of their years +Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. + +Scarce had they lifted up +Life's full and fiery cup, +Than they had set it down untouched before them. +Before their day arose +They beckoned it to close - +Close in destruction and confusion o'er them. + +They did not stay to ask +What prize should crown their task, +Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for; +But passed into eclipse, +Her kiss upon their lips - +Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for! + + + +Gloriana + + +Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are +stacked like Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for +their very own kingdom when they were quite small. As they +grew older, they contrived to keep it most particularly private. +Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every time that he came in +to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden would no more +have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without leave, +given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico +and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown- +ups not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.' + +Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy +July afternoon, as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw +somebody moving among the trees. They hurled themselves +over the gate, dropping half the potatoes, and while they were +picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam. + +:Oh, it's you, is it?' said Una. 'We thought it was people.' +'I saw you were angry - from your legs,' he answered with a grin. + +'Well, it's our own Kingdom - not counting you, of course.' + +'That's rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.' + +'What about?' said Dan cautiously. +'Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She knows about Kingdoms.' + +There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that +hid everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was +half covered by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And +yet she did not look in the least as if she motored. + +Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the +best dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady +answered with a long, deep, slow, billowy one. + +'Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,'she said, +'I can do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.' She turned +sharply on staring Dan. 'What's in your head, lad? Manners?' + +'I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,' he answered. + +She laughed a rather shrill laugh. 'You're a courtier already. Do +you know anything of dances, wench - or Queen, must I say?' + +'I've had some lessons, but I can't really dance a bit,' said Una. + +'You should learn, then.' The lady moved forward as though +she would teach her at once. 'It gives a woman alone among men +or her enemies time to think how she shall win or - lose. A +woman can only work in man's play-time. Heigho!'She sat down +on the bank. + +Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the +paddock and hung his sorrowful head over the fence. + +'A pleasant Kingdom,' said the lady, looking round. 'Well +enclosed. And how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?' + +Una did not quite understand. 'We don't play that,' she said. + +'Play?' The lady threw up her hands and laughed. + +'We have it for our own, together,' Dan explained. + +'And d'you never quarrel, young Burleigh?' + +'Sometimes, but then we don't tell.' + +The lady nodded. 'I've no brats of my own, but I understand +keeping a secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi! + +But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm' +small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is +example' - she pointed to Middenboro -'yonder old horse, with +the face of a Spanish friar - does he never break in?' + +'He can't. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,' said Una, 'and +we let Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.' + +The lady laughed like a man. 'I see! Hobden catches conies - +rabbits - for himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he +make a profit out of his coney-catching?' + +'We never ask,' said Una. 'Hobden's a particular friend of +ours.' +'Hoity-toity!' the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. 'But I +forget. It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger +one than this to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences +stopped, she asked 'em no questions either.' + +'Was she trying to grow flowers?'said Una. + +'No, trees - perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.' The +lady leaned her head on her hand. + +'They do if you don't look after them. We've got a few. Would +you like to see? I'll fetch you some.' Una ran off to the rank grass +in the shade behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of +red flowers. 'Aren't they pretty?' she said. 'They're Virginia stock.' + +'Virginia?' said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of +her mask. + +'Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?' + +'Not herself - but her men adventured all over the earth to +pluck or to plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy +of them.' + +'And was she?' said Dan cheerfully. + +'Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled +abroad she toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to +come back to.' + +'And what was she called?' + +'Gloriana - Belphoebe - Elizabeth of England.' Her voice +changed at each word. + +'You mean Queen Bess?' + +The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. 'You name her +lightly enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?' +said she. + +, Well, I - I've seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall +House - down the road, you know. They're in a glass case - +awfully tiny things.' + +'Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!' she laughed. 'You are a courtier +too soon.' + +'But they are,' Dan insisted. 'As little as dolls' shoes. Did you +really know her well?' + +'Well. She was a - woman. I've been at her Court all my life. +Yes, I remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall. +They say she danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom +that day. Worth the price of a pair of old shoes - hey?' + +She thrust out one foot, and stooped forward to look at its +broad flashing buckle. + +'You've heard of Philip of Spain - long-suffering Philip,' she +said, her eyes still on the shining stones. 'Faith, what some men +will endure at some women's hands passes belief! If I had been a +man, and a woman had played with me as Elizabeth played with +Philip, I would have -' She nipped off one of the Virginia stocks +and held it up between finger and thumb. 'But for all that' - she +began to strip the leaves one by one - 'they say - and I am +persuaded - that Philip loved her.' She tossed her head sideways. + +'I don't quite understand,' said Una. + +'The high heavens forbid that you should, wench!' She swept +the flowers from her lap and stood up in the rush of shadows that +the wind chased through the wood. + +'I should like to know about the shoes,' said Dan. + +'So ye shall, Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. 'Twill be as +good as a play.' + +'We've never been to a play,' said Una. + +The lady looked at her and laughed. 'I'll make one for you. +Watch! You are to imagine that she - Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth - has +gone on a progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart +(maids are often melancholic), and while she halts at Brickwall +House, the village - what was its name?' She pushed Puck with +her foot. + +'Norgem,' he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam. + +'Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, +and a Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, +if I'd made 'em in my girlhood, I should have been +whipped.' + +'You whipped?' said Dan. + +'Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her +scholarship, makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth +outwards, thus'- (the lady yawned) -'Oh, a Queen may love her +subjects in her heart, and yet be dog-wearied of 'em 'in body and +mind - and so sits down'- her skirts foamed about her as she sat - +'to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here for her sins she is +waited upon by - What were the young cockerels' names that +served Gloriana at table?' + +'Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,' Puck began. + +She held up her long jewelled hand. 'Spare the rest! They were +the best blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in +handling the dishes and plates. Wherefore' - she looked funnily +over her shoulder - 'you are to think of Gloriana in a green and +gold-laced habit, dreadfully expecting that the jostling youths +behind her would, of pure jealousy or devotion, spatter it with +sauces and wines. The gown was Philip's gift, too! At this happy +juncture a Queen's messenger, mounted and mired, spurs up the +Rye road and delivers her a letter' - she giggled -'a letter from a +good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called - Don Philip.' + +'That wasn't Philip, King of Spain?'Dan asked. + +'Truly, it was. 'Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young +Burleigh, these kings and queens are very like men and women, +and I've heard they write each other fond, foolish letters that none +of their ministers should open.' + +'Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth's letters?' said Una. + +'Faith, yes! But she'd have done as much for theirs, any day. +You are to think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty +hand), excusing herself thus to the company - for the Queen's +time is never her own - and, while the music strikes up, reading +Philip's letter, as I do.' She drew a real letter from her pocket, and +held it out almost at arm's length, like the old post-mistress in the +village when she reads telegrams. + +'Hm! Hm! Hm! Philip writes as ever most lovingly. He says his +Gloriana is cold, for which reason he burns for her through a fair +written page.' She turned it with a snap. 'What's here? Philip +complains that certain of her gentlemen have fought against his +generals in the Low Countries. He prays her to hang 'em when +they re-enter her realms. (Hm, that's as may be.) Here's a list of +burnt shipping slipped between two vows of burning adoration. +Oh, poor Philip! His admirals at sea - no less than three of 'em - +have been boarded, sacked, and scuttled on their lawful voyages +by certain English mariners (gentlemen, he will not call them), +who are now at large and working more piracies in his American +ocean, which the Pope gave him. (He and the Pope should guard +it, then!) Philip hears, but his devout ears will not credit it, that +Gloriana in some fashion countenances these villains' misdeeds, +shares in their booty, and - oh, shame! - has even lent them ships +royal for their sinful thefts. Therefore he requires (which is a +word Gloriana loves not), requires that she shall hang 'em when +they return to England, and afterwards shall account to him for all +the goods and gold they have plundered. A most loving request! +If Gloriana will not be Philip's bride, she shall be his broker and +his butcher! Should she still be stiff-necked, he writes - see where +the pen digged the innocent paper! - that he hath both the means +and the intention to be revenged on her. Aha! Now we come to +the Spaniard in his shirt!' (She waved the letter merrily.) 'Listen +here! Philip will prepare for Gloriana a destruction from the West +- a destruction from the West - far exceeding that which Pedro de +Avila wrought upon the Huguenots. And he rests and remains, +kissing her feet and her hands, her slave, her enemy, or her +conqueror, as he shall find that she uses him.' + +She thrust back the letter under her cloak, and went on acting, +but in a softer voice. 'All this while - hark to it - the wind blows +through Brickwall Oak, the music plays, and, with the +company's eyes upon her, the Queen of England must think what +this means. She cannot remember the name of Pedro de Avila, +nor what he did to the Huguenots, nor when, nor where. She can +only see darkly some dark motion moving in Philip's dark mind, +for he hath never written before in this fashion. She must smile +above the letter as though it were good news from her ministers - +the smile that tires the mouth and the poor heart. What shall she +do?' Again her voice changed. + +'You are to fancy that the music of a sudden wavers away. +Chris Hatton, Captain of her bodyguard, quits the table all red +and ruffled, and Gloriana's virgin ear catches the clash of swords +at work behind a wall. The mothers of Sussex look round to +count their chicks - I mean those young gamecocks that waited on +her. Two dainty youths have stepped aside into Brickwall garden +with rapier and dagger on a private point of honour. They are +haled out through the gate, disarmed and glaring - the lively +image of a brace of young Cupids transformed into pale, panting +Cains. Ahem! Gloriana beckons awfully - thus! They come up for +judgement. Their lives and estates lie at her mercy whom they +have doubly offended, both as Queen and woman. But la! what +will not foolish young men do for a beautiful maid?' + +'Why? What did she do? What had they done?' said Una. + +'Hsh! You mar the play! Gloriana had guessed the cause of the +trouble. They were handsome lads. So she frowns a while and +tells 'em not to be bigger fools than their mothers had made 'em, +and warns 'em, if they do not kiss and be friends on the instant, +she'll have Chris Hatton horse and birch 'em in the style of the +new school at Harrow. (Chris looks sour at that.) Lastly, because +she needed time to think on Philip's letter burning in her pocket, +she signifies her pleasure to dance with 'em and teach 'em better +manners. Whereat the revived company call down Heaven's blessing +on her gracious head; Chris and the others prepare Brickwall +House for a dance; and she walks in the clipped garden between +those two lovely young sinners who are both ready to sink for +shame. They confess their fault. It appears that midway in the +banquet the elder - they were cousins - conceived that the Queen +looked upon him with special favour. The younger, taking the +look to himself, after some words gives the elder the lie. Hence, as +she guessed, the duel.' + +'And which had she really looked at?' Dan asked. + +'Neither - except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the +while they'd spill dishes on her gown. She tells 'em this, poor +chicks - and it completes their abasement. When they had grilled +long enough, she says: "And so you would have fleshed your +maiden swords for me - for me?" Faith, they would have been at +it again if she'd egged 'em on! but their swords - oh, prettily they +said it! - had been drawn for her once or twice already. + +'"And where?" says she. "On your hobby-horses before you +were breeched?" + +'"On my own ship," says the elder. "My cousin was vice- +admiral of our venture in his pinnace. We would not have you +think of us as brawling children." + +'"No, no," says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor +rose. "At least the Spaniards know us better." + +'"Admiral Boy - Vice-Admiral Babe," says Gloriana, "I cry +your pardon. The heat of these present times ripens childhood to +age more quickly than I can follow. But we are at peace with +Spain. Where did you break your Queen's peace?" +'"On the sea called the Spanish Main, though 'tis no more +Spanish than my doublet," says the elder. Guess how that +warmed Gloriana's already melting heart! She would never suffer +any sea to be called Spanish in her private hearing. + +'"And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where +have you hid it? Disclose," says she. "You stand in some danger +of the gallows for pirates." + +'"The axe, most gracious lady," says the elder, "for we are +gentle born." He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction. +"Hoity-toity!" says she, and, but that she remembered that she +was Queen, she'd have cuffed the pair of 'em. "It shall be +gallows, hurdle, and dung-cart if I choose." + +'"Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip +might have held her to blame for some small things we did on the +seas," the younger lisps. + +'"As for treasure," says the elder, "we brought back but our +bare lives. We were wrecked on the Gascons' Graveyard, where +our sole company for three months was the bleached bones of De +Avila's men." + +'Gloriana's mind jumped back to Philip's last letter. + +'"De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d'you know +of him?" she says. The music called from the house here, and they +three turned back between the yews. + +'"Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen +on that coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics - +eight hundred or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a +Gascon, broke in upon De Avila's men, and very justly hung 'em +all for murderers - five hundred or so. No Christians inhabit there +now, says the elder lad, "though 'tis a goodly land north of +Florida. " + +'"How far is it from England?" asks prudent Gloriana. + +'"With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it +again soon." This was the younger, and he looked at her out of +the corner of his innocent eye. + +'Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall +Hall, where she dances - thus. A woman can think while she +dances - can think. I'll show you. Watch!' + +She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured +satin, worked over with pearls that trembled like running water +in the running shadows of the trees. Still talking - more to herself +than to the children - she swam into a majestical dance of the +stateliest balancings, the naughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, +the most dignified sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined +together by the elaboratest interlacing steps and circles. +They leaned forward breathlessly to watch the splendid acting. + +'Would a Spaniard,' she began, looking on the ground, 'speak +of his revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who +loved a woman might threaten her 'in the hope that his threats +would make her love him. Such things have been.' She moved +slowly across a bar of sunlight. 'A destruction from the West may +signify that Philip means to descend on Ireland. But then my Irish +spies would have had some warning. The Irish keep no secrets. +No - it is not Ireland. Now why - why - why' - the red shoes +clicked and paused -'does Philip name Pedro Melendez de Avila, +a general in his Americas, unless' - she turned more quickly - +unless he intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did +he say De Avila only to put her off her guard, or for this once has +his black pen betrayed his black heart? We' - she raised herself to +her full height - 'England must forestall Master Philip. But not +openly,'- she sank again -'we cannot fight Spain openly -not yet +- not yet.' She stepped three paces as though she were pegging +down some snare with her twinkling shoe-buckles. 'The Queen's +mad gentlemen may fight Philip's poor admirals where they find +'em, but England, Gloriana, Harry's daughter, must keep the +peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her - as many men and boys +do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help England?' + +She raised her head - the masked head that seemed to have +nothing to do with the busy feet - and stared straight at the children. + +'I think this is rather creepy,' said Una with a shiver. 'I wish +she'd stop.' + +The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking +some one else's hand in the Grand Chain. + +'Can a ship go down into the Gascons' Graveyard and wait +there?' she asked into the air, and passed on rustling. + +'She's pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn't she?' said Dan, +and Puck nodded. + +Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw +she was smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her +breathing hard. + +'I cannot lend you any of my ships for the venture; Philip would +hear of it,' she whispered over her shoulder; 'but as much guns +and powder as you ask, if you do not ask too -'Her voice shot up +and she stamped her foot thrice. 'Louder! Louder, the music in the +gallery! Oh, me, but I have burst out of my shoe!' + +She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. 'You +will go at your own charges,' she whispered straight before her. +'Oh, enviable and adorable age of youth!' Her eyes shone through +the mask-holes. 'But I warn you you'll repent it. Put not your +trust in princes - or Queens. Philip's ships'll blow you out of +water. You'll not be frightened? Well, we'll talk on it again, when +I return from Rye, dear lads.' + +The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on +her except the rush of the shadows. + +'And so it was finished,' she said to the children. 'Why d'you +not applaud?' + +'What was finished?' said Una. + +'The dance,' the lady replied offendedly. 'And a pair of +green shoes.' + +'I don't understand a bit,' said Una. + +'Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?' + +'I'm not quite sure,' Dan began, 'but -' + +'You never can be - with a woman. But -?' + +'But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the +Gascons' Graveyard, wherever that was.' + +''Twas Virginia after-wards. Her plantation of Virginia.' + +'Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn't she +say she'd lend 'em guns?' + +'Right so. But not ships - then.' + +'And I thought you meant they must have told her they'd do it +off their own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was +I right?' + +'Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she +gave the lads full time to change their minds. She was three long +days at Rye Royal - knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back +to Brickwall, they met her a mile down the road, and she could +feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor +fool, was vexed at it. + +'"YOU would not birch them when I gave you the chance," +says she to Chris. "Now you must get me half an hour's private +speech with 'em in Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a +garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!"' + +'She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself?' said Una. + +The lady shook her head. 'That was never her way. I've seen +her walk to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that +cannot walk straight there is past praying for. Yet I would have +you pray for her! What else - what else in England's name could +she have done?' She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment. +'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten the little green shoes! She left 'em +at Brickwall - so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem +parson - John Withers, was he? - a text for his sermon - "Over +Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd understood!' + +'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?' + +'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. 'I was not to +blame. I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my +honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a +while off that coast - the Gascons' Graveyard - to hover a little if +their ships chanced to pass that way - they had only one tall ship +and a pinnace - only to watch and bring me word of Philip's +doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had +he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his +Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread +father's soul, I tell you he had none - none!' She stamped her red +foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second. + +'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly +before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em +that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not +well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They +answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own +concern. She showed 'em again that there could be only one end +to it - quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip's prisons. +They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many +men have prayed to me for life. I've refused 'em, and slept none +the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young +men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes +me - ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.' +Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it. +'She showed 'em all. I told 'em that this was no time for open +war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against +Philip's fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England's +sake, to save war, I should e'en be forced (I told 'em so) to give +him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle +escaped Philip's hand, and crept back to England with their bare +lives, they must lie - oh, I told 'em all - under my sovereign +displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their +names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if +Philip chose to ask it. + +'"Be it the gallows, then," says the elder. (I could have wept, +but that my face was made for the day.) + +'"Either way - any way - this venture is death, which I know +you fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour," I cried. + +'"Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done," +says the younger. +'"Sweetheart," I said. "A queen has no heart." + +'"But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget," says +the elder. "We will go!" They knelt at my feet. + +'"Nay, dear lads - but here!" I said, and I opened my arms to +them and I kissed them. + +'"Be ruled by me," I said. "We'll hire some ill-featured old +tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall +come to Court." + +'"Hire whom you please," says the elder; "we are ruled by +you, body and soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I +kissed 'em, says between his white lips, "I think you have power +to make a god of a man." + +'"Come to Court and be sure of't," I said. + +'They shook their heads and I knew - I knew, that go they +would. If I had not kissed them - perhaps I might have prevailed.' + +'Then why did you do it?' said Una. 'I don't think you knew +really what you wanted done.' + +'May it please your Majesty' - the lady bowed her head low - +'this Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a +woman and a Queen. Remember her when you come to your Kingdom.' + +'But- did the cousins go to the Gascons' Graveyard?' said Dan, +as Una frowned. + +'They went,' said the lady. + +'Did they ever come back?' Una began; but - 'Did they stop +King Philip's fleet?' Dan interrupted. + +The lady turned to him eagerly. + +'D'you think they did right to go?' she asked. + +'I don't see what else they could have done,' Dan replied, after +thinking it over. + +'D'you think she did right to send 'em?' The lady's voice rose a +little. + +'Well,' said Dan, 'I don't see what else she could have done, +either - do you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?' + +'There's the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from +Rye Royal, and there never came back so much as a single +rope-yarn to show what had befallen them. The winds blew, and +they were not. Does that make you alter your mind, young Burleigh?' +'I expect they were drowned, then. Anyhow, Philip didn't +score, did he?' + +'Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip +had won, would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those +lads' lives?' + +'Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.' + +The lady coughed. 'You have the root of the matter in you. +Were I Queen, I'd make you Minister.' + +'We don't play that game,' said Una, who felt that she disliked +the lady as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made +tearing through Willow Shaw. + +'Play!' said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands +affectedly. The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and +made them flash till Una's eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. +Then she saw Dan on his knees picking up the potatoes they had +spilled at the gate. + +'There wasn't anybody in the Shaw, after all,' he said. 'Didn't +you think you saw someone?' + +'I'm most awfully glad there isn't,' said Una. Then they went +on with the potato-roast. + + +The Looking-Glass + +Queen Bess Was Harry's daughter! + +The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old, +Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. +Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, +Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. +The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass +As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was! + +The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair, +There came Queen Mary's spirit and it stood behind her chair, +Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways you may pass, +But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass. +The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass +As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!' + +The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore, +There came Lord Leicester's spirit and it scratched upon the door, +Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass, +But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass. +The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass +As hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!' + +The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head; +She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said: +'Backwards and forwards and sideways though I've been, +Yet I am Harry's daughter and I am England's Queen!' +And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was), +And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty pass +In the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lass +More hard than any ghost there is or any man there was! + + + + +THE WRONG THING + + + +A Truthful Song + + + THE BRICKLAYER: + +I tell this tale, which is strictly true, +just by way of convincing you +How very little since things were made +Things have altered in the building trade. + +A year ago, come the middle o' March, +We was building flats near the Marble Arch, +When a thin young man with coal-black hair +Came up to watch us working there. + +Now there wasn't a trick in brick or stone +That this young man hadn't seen or known; +Nor there wasn't a tool from trowel to maul +But this young man could use 'em all! +Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold, +Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold: +'Since you with us have made so free, +Will you kindly say what your name might be?' + +The young man kindly answered them: +'It might be Lot or Methusalem, +Or it might be Moses (a man I hate), +Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great. + +'Your glazing is new and your plumbing's strange, +But other-wise I perceive no change, +And in less than a month, if you do as I bid, +I'd learn you to build me a Pyramid.' + + THE SAILOR: + +I tell this tale, which is stricter true, +just by way of convincing you +How very little since things was made +Things have altered in the shipwright's trade. + +In Blackwall Basin yesterday +A China barque re-fitting lay, +When a fat old man with snow-white hair +Came up to watch us working there. + +Now there wasn't a knot which the riggers knew +But the old man made it - and better too; +Nor there wasn't a sheet, or a lift, or a brace, +But the old man knew its lead and place. + +Then up and spake the caulkyers bold, +Which was packing the pump in the after-hold: +'Since you with us have made so free, +Will you kindly tell what your name might be?' + +The old man kindly answered them: +'it might be Japhet, it might be Shem, +Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), +Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark. + +'Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange, +But otherwise I perceive no change, +And in less than a week, if she did not ground, +I'd sail this hooker the wide world round!' + + BOTH: We tell these tales, which are strictest true, etc. + + + +The Wrong Thing + + +Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled +the schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, +they turned him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to +Mr Springett's yard, where he knew he could make as much mess +as he chose. Old Mr Springett was a builder, contractor, and +sanitary engineer, and his yard, which opened off the village +street, was always full of interesting things. At one end of it was a +long loft, reached by a ladder, where he kept his iron-bound +scaffold-planks, tins of paints, pulleys, and odds and ends he had +found in old houses. He would sit here by the hour watching his +carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard below, while Dan +gouged and grunted at the carpenter's bench near the loft +window. Mr Springett and Dan had always been particular +friends, for Mr Springett was so old he could remember when +railways were being made in the southern counties of England, +and people were allowed to drive dogs in carts. + +One hot, still afternoon - the tar-paper on the roof smelt like +ships - Dan, in his shirt-sleeves, was smoothing down a new +schooner's bow, and Mr Springett was talking of barns and +houses he had built. He said he never forgot any stick or stone he +had ever handled, or any man, woman, or child he had ever met. +just then he was very proud of the Village Hall at the entrance of +the village, which he had finished a few weeks before. + +'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall +will be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn't make ten +pounds - no, nor yet five - out o' the whole contrac', but my +name's lettered on the foundation stone - Ralph Springett, Builder +- and the stone she's bedded on four foot good concrete. If she +shifts any time these five hundred years, I'll sure-ly turn in my +grave. I told the Lunnon architec' so when he come down to +oversee my work.' + +'What did he say?' Dan was sandpapering the schooner's port bow. + +'Nothing. The Hall ain't more than one of his small jobs for +him, but 'tain't small to me, an' my name is cut and lettered, +frontin' the village street, I do hope an' pray, for time everlastin'. +You'll want the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who's +there?' Mr Springett turned stiffly in his chair. + +A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. +Dan looked, and saw Hal o' the Draft's touzled head beyond +them. [See 'Hal o' the Draft' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] + +'Be you the builder of the Village Hall?' he asked of Mr Springett. + +'I be,' was the answer. 'But if you want a job -' + +Hal laughed. 'No, faith!'he said. 'Only the Hall is as good and +honest a piece of work as I've ever run a rule over. So, being born +hereabouts, and being reckoned a master among masons, and +accepted as a master mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly +respects to the builder.' + +'Aa - um!' Mr Springett looked important. 'I be a bit rusty, but +I'll try ye!' + +He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must +have pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, +always keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head +showed, and sat down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of +Mr Springett's desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once +to Mr Springett about bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and +after a while Dan went on with his work. He knew Mr Springett +was pleased, because he tugged his white sandy beard, and +smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two men seemed to agree +about everything, but when grown-ups agree they interrupt each +other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal said +something about workmen. + +'Why, that's what I always say,' Mr Springett cried. 'A man +who can only do one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man +that can't do nothin'. That's where the Unions make their mistake.' + +'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight- +hosed leg. 'I've suffered 'in my time from these same Guilds - +Unions, d'you call 'em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of +their trades - why, what does it come to?' + +'Nothin'! You've justabout hit it,' said Mr Springett, and +rammed his hot tobacco with his thumb. + +'Take the art of wood-carving,'Hal went on. He reached across +the planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand +as though he wanted something. Mr Springett without a word +passed him one of Dan's broad chisels. 'Ah! Wood-carving, for +example. If you can cut wood and have a fair draft of what ye +mean to do, a' Heaven's name take chisel and maul and let drive at +it, say I! You'll soon find all the mystery, forsooth, of wood- +carving under your proper hand!' Whack, came the mallet on the +chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr Springett +watched like an old raven. + +'All art is one, man - one!' said Hal between whacks; 'and to +wait on another man to finish out -' + +'To finish out your work ain't no sense,' Mr Springett cut in. +'That's what I'm always sayin' to the boy here.' He nodded +towards Dan. 'That's what I said when I put the new wheel into +Brewster's Mill in Eighteen hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I +was millwright enough for the job 'thout bringin' a man from +Lunnon. An' besides, dividin' work eats up profits, no bounds.' + +Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr Springett joined +in till Dan laughed too. + +'You handle your tools, I can see,' said Mr Springett. 'I reckon, +if you're any way like me, you've found yourself hindered by +those - Guilds, did you call 'em? - Unions, we say.' + +'You may say so!' Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheekbone. +'This is a remembrance from the Master watching-Foreman of Masons +on Magdalen Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without +their leave. They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.' + +'I know them accidents. There's no way to disprove 'em. An' +stones ain't the only things that slip,' Mr Springett grunted. Hal +went on: + +'I've seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman +thirty foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can +break -' +'Yes, natural as nature; an' lime'll fly up in a man's eyes without +any breath o' wind sometimes,' said Mr Springett. 'But who's to +show 'twasn't a accident?' + +'Who do these things?' Dan asked, and straightened his back at +the bench as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get +at her counter. + +'Them which don't wish other men to work no better nor +quicker than they do,' growled Mr Springett. 'Don't pinch her so +hard in the vice, Mus' Dan. Put a piece o' rag in the jaws, or you'll +bruise her. More than that'- he turned towards Hal -'if a man has +his private spite laid up against you, the Unions give him his +excuse for workin' it off.' + +'Well I know it,'said Hal. + +'They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer +in Eighteen hundred Sixty-one - down to the wells. He was a +Frenchy - a bad enemy he was.' +'I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto. I met him +first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my trade +-or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he +came to be my singular good friend,' said Hal as he put down the +mallet and settled himself comfortably. + +'What might his trade have been - plastering' Mr Springett asked. + +'Plastering of a sort. He worked in stucco - fresco we call it. +Made pictures on plaster. Not but what he had a fine sweep of the +hand in drawing. He'd take the long sides of a cloister, trowel on +his stuff, and roll out his great all-abroad pictures of saints and +croppy-topped trees quick as a webster unrolling cloth almost. +Oh, Benedetto could draw, but 'a was a little-minded man, +professing to be full of secrets of colour or plaster - common +tricks, all of 'em - and his one single talk was how Tom, Dick or +Harry had stole this or t'other secret art from him.' + +'I know that sort,' said Mr Springett. 'There's no keeping peace +or making peace with such. An' they're mostly born an' bone idle.' + +'True. Even his fellow-countrymen laughed at his jealousy. We +two came to loggerheads early on Magdalen Tower. I was a +youngster then. Maybe I spoke my mind about his work.' + +'You shouldn't never do that.' Mr Springett shook his head. +'That sort lay it up against you.' + +'True enough. This Benedetto did most specially. Body o' me, +the man lived to hate me! But I always kept my eyes open on a +plank or a scaffold. I was mighty glad to be shut of him when he +quarrelled with his Guild foreman, and went off, nose in air, and +paints under his arm. But' - Hal leaned forward -'if you hate a +man or a man hates you -' + +'I know. You're everlastin' running acrost him,' Mr Springett +interrupted. 'Excuse me, sir.' He leaned out of the window, and +shouted to a carter who was loading a cart with bricks. + +'Ain't you no more sense than to heap 'em up that way?' he +said. 'Take an' throw a hundred of 'em off. It's more than the +team can compass. Throw 'em off, I tell you, and make another +trip for what's left over. Excuse me, sir. You was sayin'-' + +'I was saying that before the end of the year I went to Bury to +strengthen the lead-work in the great Abbey east window there.' + +'Now that's just one of the things I've never done. But I mind +there was a cheap excursion to Chichester in Eighteen hundred +Seventy-nine, an' I went an' watched 'em leadin' a won'erful fine +window in Chichester Cathedral. I stayed watchin' till 'twas time +for us to go back. Dunno as I had two drinks p'raps, all that day.' + +Hal smiled. 'At Bury, then, sure enough, I met my enemy +Benedetto. He had painted a picture in plaster on the south wall of +the Refectory - a noble place for a noble thing - a picture of +Jonah.' + +'Ah! Jonah an' his whale. I've never been as far as Bury. You've +worked about a lot,' said Mr Springett, with his eyes on the +carter below. + +'No. Not the whale. This was a picture of Jonah and the +pompion that withered. But all that Benedetto had shown was a +peevish grey-beard huggled up in angle-edged drapery beneath a +pompion on a wooden trellis. This last, being a dead thing, he'd +drawn it as 'twere to the life. But fierce old Jonah, bared in the +sun, angry even to death that his cold prophecy was disproven - +Jonah, ashamed, and already hearing the children of Nineveh +running to mock him - ah, that was what Benedetto had not +drawn!' + +'He better ha' stuck to his whale, then,' said Mr Springett. + +'He'd ha' done no better with that. He draws the damp cloth off +the picture, an' shows it to me. I was a craftsman too, d'ye see?' + +'"Tis good," I said, "but it goes no deeper than the plaster." + +'"What?" he said in a whisper. + +'"Be thy own judge, Benedetto," I answered. "Does it go +deeper than the plaster?" + +'He reeled against a piece of dry wall. "No," he says, "and I +know it. I could not hate thee more than I have done these five +years, but if I live, I will try, Hal. I will try." Then he goes away. I +pitied him, but I had spoken truth. His picture went no deeper +than the plaster.' + +'Ah!' said Mr Springett, who had turned quite red. 'You was +talkin' so fast I didn't understand what you was drivin' at. I've +seen men - good workmen they was - try to do more than they +could do, and - and they couldn't compass it. They knowed it, +and it nigh broke their hearts like. You was in your right, o' +course, sir, to say what you thought o' his work; but if you'll +excuse me, was you in your duty?' + +'I was wrong to say it,' Hal replied. 'God forgive me - I was +young! He was workman enough himself to know where he +failed. But it all came evens in the long run. By the same token, +did ye ever hear o' one Torrigiano - Torrisany we called him?' + +'I can't say I ever did. Was he a Frenchy like?' + +'No, a hectoring, hard-mouthed, long-sworded Italian +builder, as vain as a peacock and as strong as a bull, but, mark +you, a master workman. More than that - he could get his best +work out of the worst men.' + +'Which it's a gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' +said Mr Springett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a +pointing-trowel, and they did wonders.' + +I've seen our Torrisany lay a 'prentice down with one buffet +and raise him with another - to make a mason of him. I worked +under him at building a chapel in London - a chapel and a tomb +for the King.' + +'I never knew kings went to chapel much,' said Mr Springett. +'But I always hold with a man - don't care who he be - seein' +about his own grave before he dies. 'Tidn't the sort of thing to +leave to your family after the will's read. I reckon 'twas a fine vault?' + +'None finer in England. This Torrigiano had the contract for it, +as you'd say. He picked master craftsmen from all parts - +England, France, Italy, the Low Countries - no odds to him so +long as they knew their work, and he drove them like - like pigs at +Brightling Fair. He called us English all pigs. We suffered it +because he was a master in his craft. If he misliked any work that a +man had done, with his own great hands he'd rive it out, and tear +it down before us all. "Ah, you pig - you English pig!" he'd +scream in the dumb wretch's face. "You answer me? You look at +me? You think at me? Come out with me into the cloisters. I will +teach you carving myself. I will gild you all over!" But when his +passion had blown out, he'd slip his arm round the man's neck, +and impart knowledge worth gold. 'Twould have done your +heart good, Mus' Springett, to see the two hundred of us +masons, jewellers, carvers, gilders, iron-workers and the rest - all +toiling like cock-angels, and this mad Italian hornet fleeing one to +next up and down the chapel. Done your heart good, it would!' + +'I believe you,' said Mr Springett. 'In Eighteen hundred Fifty-four, +I mind, the railway was bein' made into Hastin's. There was +two thousand navvies on it - all young - all strong - an' I was one +of 'em. Oh, dearie me! Excuse me, sir, but was your enemy +workin' with you?' + +'Benedetto? Be sure he was. He followed me like a lover. He +painted pictures on the chapel ceiling - slung from a chair. +Torrigiano made us promise not to fight till the work should be +finished. We were both master craftsmen, do ye see, and he +needed us. None the less, I never went aloft to carve 'thout testing +all my ropes and knots each morning. We were never far from +each other. Benedetto 'ud sharpen his knife on his sole while he +waited for his plaster to dry - wheet, wheet, wheet. I'd hear it where +I hung chipping round a pillar-head, and we'd nod to each other +friendly-like. Oh, he was a craftsman, was Benedetto, but his +hate spoiled his eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished +the models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano +embraced me before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met +Benedetto when I came out. He was slavering in the porch Like a +mad dog.' + +'Workin' himself up to it?' said Mr Springett. 'Did he have it in +at ye that night?' + +'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied +him. Eh, well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never +thought too little of myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm +round my neck, I - I' - Hal broke into a laugh - 'I lay there was not +much odds 'twixt me and a cock-sparrow in his pride.' + +'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr Springett. + +'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, +and keep company above his station, but his work suffers for it, +Mus' Springett.' + +'I never held much with dressin' up, but - you're right! The +worst mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday +morning,' Mr Springett answered. 'We've all been one sort of +fool or t'other. Mus' Dan, Mus' Dan, take the smallest gouge, or +you'll be spluttin' her stem works clean out. Can't ye see the grain +of the wood don't favour a chisel?' + +'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called +Brygandyne - Bob Brygandyne - Clerk of the King's Ships, a +little, smooth, bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work +done for nothin' - a won'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made +much o' me, and asked me to draft him out a drawing, a piece of +carved and gilt scroll-work for the bows of one of the King's +Ships - the SOVEREIGN was her name.' + +'Was she a man-of-war?'asked Dan. + +'She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile +desired the King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. +I did not know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this +scroll-work done and fitted that the King might see it. I made him +the picture, in an hour, all of a heat after supper - one great +heaving play of dolphins and a Neptune or so reining in webby- +footed sea-horses, and Arion with his harp high atop of them. It +was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine foot deep - painted +and gilt.' + +It must ha' justabout looked fine,' said Mr Springett. + +'That's the curiosity of it. 'Twas bad - rank bad. In my conceit I +must needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his +legs, hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock +through a sleet-shower. Benedetto was behind him. We were +never far apart, I've told you. + +'"That is pig's work," says our Master. "Swine's work. You +make any more such things, even after your fine Court suppers, +and you shall be sent away." + +'Benedetto licks his lips like a cat. "It is so bad then, Master?" +he says. "What a pity!" + +'"Yes," says Torrigiano. "Scarcely you could do things so bad. +I will condescend to show." + +'He talks to me then and there. No shouting, no swearing (it +was too bad for that); but good, memorable counsel, bitten in +slowly. Then he sets me to draft out a pair of iron gates, to take, as +he said, the taste of my naughty dolphins out of my mouth. Iron's +sweet stuff if you don't torture her, and hammered work is all +pure, truthful line, with a reason and a support for every curve +and bar of it. A week at that settled my stomach handsomely, and +the Master let me put the work through the smithy, where I +sweated out more of my foolish pride.' + +'Good stuff is good iron,' said Mr Springett. 'I done a pair of +lodge gates once in Eighteen hundred Sixty-three.' + +'Oh, I forgot to say that Bob Brygandyne whipped away my +draft of the ship's scroll-work, and would not give it back to me +to re-draw. He said 'twould do well enough. Howsoever, my +lawful work kept me too busied to remember him. Body o' me, +but I worked that winter upon the gates and the bronzes for the +tomb as I'd never worked before! I was leaner than a lath, but I +lived - I lived then!' Hal looked at Mr Springett with his wise, +crinkled-up eyes, and the old man smiled back. + +'Ouch!' Dan cried. He had been hollowing out the schooner's +after-deck, the little gouge had slipped and gashed the ball of his +left thumb, - an ugly, triangular tear. + +'That came of not steadying your wrist,' said Hal calmly. +'Don't bleed over the wood. Do your work with your heart's +blood, but no need to let it show.' He rose and peered into a +corner of the loft. + +Mr Springett had risen too, and swept down a ball of cobwebs +from a rafter. + +'Clap that on,' was all he said, 'and put your handkerchief atop. +'Twill cake over in a minute. It don't hurt now, do it?' + +'No,' said Dan indignantly. 'You know it has happened lots of +times. I'll tie it up myself. Go on, sir.' + +'And it'll happen hundreds of times more,' said Hal with a +friendly nod as he sat down again. But he did not go on till Dan's +hand was tied up properly. Then he said: + +'One dark December day - too dark to judge colour - we was +all sitting and talking round the fires in the chapel (you heard good +talk there), when Bob Brygandyne bustles in and - "Hal, you're +sent for," he squeals. I was at Torrigiano's feet on a pile of +put-locks, as I might be here, toasting a herring on my knife's +point. 'Twas the one English thing our Master liked - salt herring. + +'"I'm busy, about my art," I calls. + + +'"Art?" says Bob. "What's Art compared to your scroll-work +for the SOVEREIGN? Come." + +'"Be sure your sins will find you out," says Torrigiano. "Go +with him and see." As I followed Bob out I was aware of Benedetto, +like a black spot when the eyes are tired, sliddering up +behind me. + +'Bob hurries through the streets in the raw fog, slips into a +doorway, up stairs, along passages, and at last thrusts me into a +little cold room vilely hung with Flemish tapestries, and no +furnishing except a table and my draft of the SOVEREIGN's scrollwork. +Here he leaves me. Presently comes in a dark, long-nosed +man in a fur cap. + +'"Master Harry Dawe?" said he. + +'"The same," I says. "Where a plague has Bob Brygandyne gone?" + +'His thin eyebrows surged up in a piece and come down again +in a stiff bar. "He went to the King," he says. + +'"All one. Where's your pleasure with me?" I says, shivering, +for it was mortal cold. + +'He lays his hand flat on my draft. "Master Dawe," he says, +"do you know the present price of gold leaf for all this wicked +gilding of yours?" + +'By that I guessed he was some cheese-paring clerk or other of +the King's Ships, so I gave him the price. I forget it now, but it +worked out to thirty pounds - carved, gilt, and fitted in place. + +'"Thirty pounds!" he said, as though I had pulled a tooth of +him. "You talk as though thirty pounds was to be had for the +asking. None the less," he says, "your draft's a fine piece of work." + +'I'd been looking at it ever since I came in, and 'twas viler even +than I judged it at first. My eye and hand had been purified the +past months, d'ye see, by my iron work. + +'"I could do it better now," I said. The more I studied my +squabby Neptunes the less I liked 'em; and Arion was a pure +flaming shame atop of the unbalanced dolphins. + +'"I doubt it will be fresh expense to draft it again," he says. + +'"Bob never paid me for the first draft. I lay he'll never pay me +for the second. 'Twill cost the King nothing if I re-draw it," I says. + +'"There's a woman wishes it to be done quickly," he says. +"We'll stick to your first drawing, Master Dawe. But thirty +pounds is thirty pounds. You must make it less.' + +'And all the while the faults in my draft fair leaped out and hit +me between the eyes. At any cost, I thinks to myself, I must get it +back and re-draft it. He grunts at me impatiently, and a splendid +thought comes to me, which shall save me. By the same token, +It was quite honest.' + +'They ain't always,' says Mr Springett. 'How did you get out of it?' + +'By the truth. I says to Master Fur Cap, as I might to you here, I +says, "I'll tell you something, since you seem a knowledgeable +man. Is the SOVEREIGN to lie in Thames river all her days, or will she +take the high seas?" + +'"Oh," he says quickly, "the King keeps no cats that don't +catch mice. She must sail the seas, Master Dawe. She'll be hired to +merchants for the trade. She'll be out in all shapes o' weathers. +Does that make any odds?" +'"Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose +into'll claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If +she's meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll +porture you a pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If +she's meant for the open- sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can +never carry that weight on her bows. + +'He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip. + +'"Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?" he says. + +'"Body o' me! Ask about!" I says. "Any seaman could tell you +'tis true. I'm advising you against my own profit, but why I do so +is my own concern. + +'"Not altogether ", he says. "It's some of mine. You've saved +me thirty pounds, Master Dawe, and you've given me good +arguments to use against a willful woman that wants my fine new +ship for her own toy. We'll not have any scroll-work." His face +shined with pure joy. + +'"Then see that the thirty pounds you've saved on it are +honestly paid the King," I says, "and keep clear o' women-folk." +I gathered up my draft and crumpled it under my arm. "If that's +all you need of me I'll be gone," I says. "I'm pressed." + +'He turns him round and fumbles in a corner. "Too pressed to +be made a knight, Sir Harry?" he says, and comes at me smiling, +with three-quarters of a rusty sword. + +'I pledge you my Mark I never guessed it was the King till that +moment. I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. + +'"Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe," he says, and, in the same breath, +"I'm pressed, too," and slips through the tapestries, leaving me +like a stuck calf. + +'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master +craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make +the King's tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and +here, d'ye see, I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved +over, or given my heart and guts to, but expressedly because I'd +saved him thirty pounds and a tongue-lashing from Catherine of +Castille - she that had asked for the ship. That thought shrivelled +me with insides while I was folding away my draft. On the heels +of it - maybe you'll see why - I began to grin to myself. I thought +of the earnest simplicity of the man - the King, I should say - +because I'd saved him the money; his smile as though he'd won +half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish expectations +that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. I +thought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the +hangings; the dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up +in his own concerns, scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered +the solemn chapel roof and the bronzes about the stately tomb +he'd lie in, and - d'ye see? - the unreason of it all - the mad high +humour of it all - took hold on me till I sat me down on a dark +stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I could laugh no more. +What else could I have done? + +'I never heard his feet behind me - he always walked like a cat - +but his arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till +my head lay on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb +over my heart - Benedetto! Even so I laughed - the fit was beyond +my holding - laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was +stark crazed for the time. + +'"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. +Tell me now" - he wrenched at my head - "why the King chose +to honour you, - you - you - you lickspittle Englishman? I am full +of patience now. I have waited so long." Then he was off at score +about his Jonah in Bury Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his +pictures in the chapel which all men praised and none looked at +twice (as if that was my fault!), and a whole parcel of words and +looks treasured up against me through years. + +'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, +for I am just dubbed knight, Benedetto." + +'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight. +There's a long night before ye. Tell," says he. + +'So I told him - his chin on my crown - told him all; told it as +well and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper +with Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad +or sad, he was a craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I'd ever +tell top of mortal earth, and I would not put out bad work before I +left the Lodge. All art's one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no +malice. My spirits, d'ye see, were catched up in a high, solemn +exaltation, and I saw all earth's vanities foreshortened and little, +laid out below me like a town from a cathedral scaffolding. I told +him what befell, and what I thought of it. I gave him the King's +very voice at "Master Dawe, you've saved me thirty pounds!"; +his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the +badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the +Flemish hangings. Body o' me, 'twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I +thought, my last work on earth. + +'"That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They'll +hang ye for killing me, Benedetto. And, since you've killed in the +King's Palace, they'll draw and quarter you; but you're too mad +to care. Grant me, though, ye never heard a better tale." +'He said nothing, but I felt him shake. My head on his chest +shook; his right arm fell away, his left dropped the knife, and he +leaned with both hands on my shoulder - shaking - shaking! I +turned me round. No need to put my foot on his knife. The man +was speechless with laughter - honest craftsman's mirth. The first +time I'd ever seen him laugh. You know the mirth that cuts off the +very breath, while ye stamp and snatch at the short ribs? That was +Benedetto's case. + +'When he began to roar and bay and whoop in the passage, I +haled him out into the street, and there we leaned against the wall +and had it all over again - waving our hands and wagging our +heads - till the watch came to know if we were drunk. + +'Benedetto says to 'em, solemn as an owl: "You have saved me +thirty pounds, Mus' Dawe," and off he pealed. In some sort we +were mad-drunk - I because dear life had been given back to me, +and he because, as he said afterwards, because the old crust of +hatred round his heart was broke up and carried away by +laughter. His very face had changed too. + +'"Hal," he cries, "I forgive thee. Forgive me too, Hal. Oh, +you English, you English! Did it gall thee, Hal, to see the rust on +the dirty sword? Tell me again, Hal, how the King grunted with +joy. Oh, let us tell the Master." + +'So we reeled back to the chapel, arms round each other's +necks, and when we could speak - he thought we'd been fighting - +we told the Master. Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till +he rolled on the new cold pavement. Then he knocked our heads together. + +'"Ah, you English!" he cried. "You are more than pigs. You +are English. Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put +the draft in the fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, +and you are a fool, Benedetto, but I need your works to please this +beautiful English King." + +'"And I meant to kill Hal," says Benedetto. "Master, I meant +to kill him because the English King had made him a knight." + +'"Ah!" says the Master, shaking his finger. "Benedetto, if you +had killed my Hal, I should have killed you - in the cloister. But +you are a craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a +craftsman, very, very slowly - in an hour, if I could spare the +time!" That was Torrigiano - the Master!' + +Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished. +Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he +coughed and wheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew +by this that he was laughing, but it surprised Hal at first. + +'Excuse me, sir,' said Mr Springett, 'but I was thinkin' of some +stables I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. +They was stables in blue brick - very particular work. Dunno as +they weren't the best job which ever I'd done. But the gentleman's +lady - she'd come from Lunnon, new married - she was all +for buildin' what was called a haw-haw - what you an' me 'ud call +a dik - right acrost his park. A middlin' big job which I'd have had +the contract of, for she spoke to me in the library about it. But I +told her there was a line o' springs just where she wanted to dig +her ditch, an' she'd flood the park if she went on.' + +'Were there any springs at all?' said Hal. + +'Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't +there? But what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' +diggin' haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. +But when I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he +paid it 'thout even lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do +assure you. More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my +hand in the library, an'"Ralph, he says - he allers called me by +name - "Ralph," he says, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' +trouble this autumn." I didn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he +didn't want any haws-haws digged acrost his park no more'n I +did, but I never said nothin'. No more he didn't say nothin' about +my blue-brick stables, which was really the best an' honestest +piece o' work I'd done in quite a while. He give me ten pounds for +savin' him a hem of a deal o' trouble at home. I reckon things are +pretty much alike, all times, in all places.' + +Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn't quite understand +what they thought so funny, and went on with his work for some +time without speaking. + +When he looked up, Mr Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes +with his green-and-yellow pocket-handkerchief. + +'Bless me, Mus' Dan, I've been asleep,' he said. 'An' I've +dreamed a dream which has made me laugh - laugh as I ain't +laughed in a long day. I can't remember what 'twas all about, but +they do say that when old men take to laughin' in their sleep, +they're middlin' ripe for the next world. Have you been workin' +honest, Mus' Dan?' + +'Ra-ather,' said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. +'And look how I've cut myself with the small gouge.' + +'Ye-es. You want a lump o' cobwebs to that,' said Mr +Springett. 'Oh, I see you've put it on already. That's right, Mus' +Dan.' + + + +King Henry VII and the Shipwrights + +Harry our King in England from London town is gone, +And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton. +For there lay the MARY OF THE TOWER, his ship of war so strong, +And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong. + +He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go +(But only my Lord of Arundel), and meanly did he show, +In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark; +With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk. +He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide, +And saw the MARY haled into dock, the winter to abide, +With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own; +But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone. + +They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree, +And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea. +But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go, +To maken beds for their own wives and little children also. + +There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck, +Crying: 'Good felawes, come and see! The ship is nigh a wreck! +For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell, +Alack! it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!' + +With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch, +While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch; +All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good, +He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud. + +'I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, +After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. +Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There's no clean hands in the trade. +Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne. 'There's measure in all things made!' + +'Gramercy, yeoman!' said our King. 'Thy counsel liketh me.' +And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. +Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, +And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town. + +They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, +And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands. +But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie +thereon. +For the sake of your wives and little ones - felawes, get you gone!' + +When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips, +Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships. +'Nay, never lift up thy hands to me - there's no clean hands in the trade. +But steal in measure,'said Harry our King. 'There's measure in all things +made!' + +God speed the 'Mary of the Tower,' the 'Sovereign' and 'Grace Dieu,' +The 'Sweepstakes' and the 'Mary Fortune,' and the 'Henry of Bristol' too! +All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand, +That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland! + + + +MARKLAKE WITCHES + + + +The Way Through the Woods + + +They shut the road through the woods +Seventy years ago. +Weather and rain have undone it again, +And now you would never know +There was once a road through the woods +Before they planted the trees. +It is underneath the coppice and heath, +And the thin anemones. +Only the keeper sees +That, where the ring-dove broods, +And the badgers roll at ease, +There was once a road through the woods. + +Yet, if you enter the woods +Of a summer evening late, +When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools +Where the otter whistles his mate +(They fear not men in the woods +Because they see so few), +You will hear the beat of a horse's feet +And the swish of a skirt in the dew, +Steadily cantering through +The misty solitudes, +As though they perfectly knew +The old lost road through the woods ... +But there is no road through the woods! + + + +Marklake Witches + + +When Dan took up boat-building, Una coaxed Mrs Vincey, the +farmer's wife at Little Lindens, to teach her to milk. Mrs Vincey +milks in the pasture in summer, which is different from milking +in the shed, because the cows are not tied up, and until they know +you they will not stand still. After three weeks Una could milk +Red Cow or Kitty Shorthorn quite dry, without her wrists +aching, and then she allowed Dan to look. But milking did not +amuse him, and it was pleasanter for Una to be alone in the quiet +pastures with quiet-spoken Mrs Vincey. So, evening after evening, +she slipped across to Little Lindens, took her stool from the +fern-clump beside the fallen oak, and went to work, her pail +between her knees, and her head pressed hard into the cow's +flank. As often as not, Mrs Vincey would be milking cross Pansy +at the other end of the pasture, and would not come near till it was +time to strain and pour off. + +Once, in the middle of a milking, Kitty Shorthorn boxed Una's +ear with her tail. + +'You old pig!' said Una, nearly crying, for a cow's tail can hurt. + +'Why didn't you tie it down, child?' said a voice behind her. + +'I meant to, but the flies are so bad I let her off - and this is what +she's done!' Una looked round, expecting Puck, and saw a curly- +haired girl, not much taller than herself, but older, dressed in a +curious high-waisted, lavender-coloured riding-habit, with a +high hunched collar and a deep cape and a belt fastened with a steel +clasp. She wore a yellow velvet cap and tan gauntlets, and carried +a real hunting-crop. Her cheeks were pale except for two pretty +pink patches in the middle, and she talked with little gasps at the +end of her sentences, as though she had been running. + +'You don't milk so badly, child,' she said, and when she smiled +her teeth showed small and even and pearly. + +'Can you milk?' Una asked, and then flushed, for she heard +Puck's chuckle. + +He stepped out of the fern and sat down, holding Kitty Short- +horn's tail. 'There isn't much,' he said, 'that Miss Philadelphia +doesn't know about milk - or, for that matter, butter and eggs. +She's a great housewife.' + +'Oh,' said Una. 'I'm sorry I can't shake hands. Mine are all +milky; but Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.' +'Ah! I'm going to London this summer,' the girl said, 'to my +aunt in Bloomsbury.' She coughed as she began to hum, '"Oh, +what a town! What a wonderful metropolis!" + +'You've got a cold,' said Una. + +'No. Only my stupid cough. But it's vastly better than it was +last winter. It will disappear in London air. Every one says so. +D'you like doctors, child?' + +'I don't know any,' Una replied. 'But I'm sure I shouldn't.' + +'Think yourself lucky, child. I beg your pardon,' the girl +laughed, for Una frowned. + +'I'm not a child, and my name's Una,'she said. + +'Mine's Philadelphia. But everybody except Rene calls me Phil. +I'm Squire Bucksteed's daughter - over at Marklake yonder.' She +jerked her little round chin towards the south behind Dallington. +'Sure-ly you know Marklake?' + +'We went a picnic to Marklake Green once,' said Una. 'It's +awfully pretty. I like all those funny little roads that don't lead +anywhere.' + +'They lead over our land,' said Philadelphia stiffly, 'and the +coach road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from +the Green. I went to the Assize Ball at Lewes last year.' She spun +round and took a few dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to +her side. + +'It gives me a stitch,' she explained. 'No odds. 'Twill go away +in London air. That's the latest French step, child. Rene taught it +me. D'you hate the French, chi - Una?' + +'Well, I hate French, of course, but I don't mind Ma'm'selle. +She's rather decent. Is Rene your French governess?' + +Philadelphia laughed till she caught her breath again. + +'Oh no! Rene's a French prisoner - on parole. That means he's +promised not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an +Englishman. He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him +worth exchanging. My uncle captured him last year in the +FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, and he cured my uncle of a +r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that we couldn't let him lie +among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he stays with +us. He's of very old family - a Breton, which is nearly next door +to being a true Briton, my father says - and he wears his hair +clubbed - not powdered. Much more becoming, don't you think?' + +'I don't know what you're -' Una began, but Puck, the other +side of the pail, winked, and she went on with her milking. +'He's going to be a great French physician when the war is over. +He makes me bobbins for my lace-pillow now - he's very clever +with his hands; but he'd doctor our people on the Green if they +would let him. Only our Doctor - Doctor Break - says he's an +emp - or imp something - worse than imposter. But my Nurse +says -' + +'Nurse! You're ever so old. What have you got a nurse for?' +Una finished milking, and turned round on her stool as Kitty +Shorthorn grazed off. + +'Because I can't get rid of her. Old Cissie nursed my mother, +and she says she'll nurse me till she dies. The idea! She never lets +me alone. She thinks I'm delicate. She has grown infirm in her +understanding, you know. Mad - quite mad, poor Cissie!' + + +'Really mad?' said Una. 'Or just silly?' + +'Crazy, I should say - from the things she does. Her devotion to +me is terribly embarrassing. You know I have all the keys of the +Hall except the brewery and the tenants' kitchen. I give out all +stores and the linen and plate.' + +'How jolly! I love store-rooms and giving out things.' + +Ah, it's a great responsibility, you'll find, when you come to +my age. Last year Dad said I was fatiguing myself with my duties, +and he actually wanted me to give up the keys to old Amoore, our +housekeeper. I wouldn't. I hate her. I said, "No, sir. I am Mistress +of Marklake Hall just as long as I live, because I'm never going to +be married, and I shall give out stores and linen till I die!" + +And what did your father say?' + +'Oh, I threatened to pin a dishclout to his coat-tail. He ran +away. Every one's afraid of Dad, except me.' Philadelphia +stamped her foot. 'The idea! If I can't make my own father happy +in his own house, I'd like to meet the woman that can, and - and - +I'd have the living hide off her!' + +She cut with her long-thonged whip. It cracked like a pistol- +shot across the still pasture. Kitty Shorthorn threw up her head +and trotted away. + +'I beg your pardon,' Philadelphia said; 'but it makes me furious. +Don't you hate those ridiculous old quizzes with their feathers +and fronts, who come to dinner and call you "child" in your own +chair at your own table?' + +'I don't always come to dinner , said Una, 'but I hate being +called "child." Please tell me about store-rooms and giving out things.' + +Ah, it's a great responsibility - particularly with that old cat +Amoore looking at the lists over your shoulder. And such a +shocking thing happened last summer! Poor crazy Cissie, my +Nurse that I was telling you of, she took three solid silver +tablespoons.' + +'Took! But isn't that stealing?' Una cried. + +'Hsh!' said Philadelphia, looking round at Puck. 'All I say is she +took them without my leave. I made it right afterwards. So, as +Dad says - and he's a magistrate-, it wasn't a legal offence; it was +only compounding a felony. + +'It sounds awful,' said Una. + +'It was. My dear, I was furious! I had had the keys for ten +months, and I'd never lost anything before. I said nothing at first, +because a big house offers so many chances of things being +mislaid, and coming to hand later. "Fetching up in the lee- +scuppers," my uncle calls it. But next week I spoke to old Cissie +about it when she was doing my hair at night, and she said I +wasn't to worry my heart for trifles!' + +'Isn't it like 'em?' Una burst out. 'They see you're worried over + + +something that really matters, and they say, "Don't worry"; as if +that did any good!' + +'I quite agree with you, my dear; quite agree with you! I told +Ciss the spoons were solid silver, and worth forty shillings, so if +the thief were found, he'd be tried for his life.' +'Hanged, do you mean?'Una said. + +'They ought to be; but Dad says no jury will hang a man +nowadays for a forty-shilling theft. They transport 'em into penal +servitude at the uttermost ends of the earth beyond the seas, for +the term of their natural life. I told Cissie that, and I saw her +tremble in my mirror. Then she cried, and caught hold of my +knees, and I couldn't for my life understand what it was all about, +- she cried so. Can you guess, my dear, what that poor crazy thing +had done? It was midnight before I pieced it together. She had +given the spoons to Jerry Gamm, the Witchmaster on the Green, +so that he might put a charm on me! Me!' + +'Put a charm on you? Why?' + +'That's what I asked; and then I saw how mad poor Cissie was! +You know this stupid little cough of mine? It will disappear as +soon as I go to London. She was troubled about that, and about +my being so thin, and she told me Jerry had promised her, if she +would bring him three silver spoons, that he'd charm my cough +away and make me plump - "flesh up," she said. I couldn't help +laughing; but it was a terrible night! I had to put Cissie into my +own bed, and stroke her hand till she cried herself to sleep. What +else could I have done? When she woke, and I coughed - I suppose +I can cough in my own room if I please - she said that she'd killed +me, and asked me to have her hanged at Lewes sooner than send +her to the uttermost ends of the earth away from me.' + +'How awful! What did you do, Phil?' + +'Do? I rode off at five in the morning to talk to Master Jerry, +with a new lash on my whip. Oh, I was furious! Witchmaster or no +Witchmaster, I meant to -' + +Ah! what's a Witchmaster?' + +'A master of witches, of course. I don't believe there are +witches; but people say every village has a few, and Jerry was the +master of all ours at Marklake. He has been a smuggler, and a +man-of-war's man, and now he pretends to be a carpenter and +joiner - he can make almost anything - but he really is a white +wizard. He cures people by herbs and charms. He can cure them +after Doctor Break has given them up, and that's why Doctor +Break hates him so. He used to make me toy carts, and charm off +my warts when I was a child.' Philadelphia spread out her hands +with the delicate shiny little nails. 'It isn't counted lucky to cross +him. He has his ways of getting even with you, they say. But I +wasn't afraid of Jerry! I saw him working in his garden, and I +leaned out of my saddle and double-thonged him between the +shoulders, over the hedge. Well, my dear, for the first time since +Dad gave him to me, my Troubadour (I wish you could see the +sweet creature!) shied across the road, and I spilled out into the +hedge-top. Most undignified! Jerry pulled me through to his side +and brushed the leaves off me. I was horribly pricked, but I didn't +care. "Now, Jerry," I said, "I'm going to take the hide off you +first, and send you to Lewes afterwards. You well know why." + +'"Oh!" he said, and he sat down among his bee-hives. "Then I +reckon you've come about old Cissie's business, my dear." "I +reckon I justabout have," I said. "Stand away from these hives. I +can't get at you there." "That's why I be where I be," he said. "If +you'll excuse me, Miss Phil, I don't hold with bein' flogged +before breakfast, at my time o' life." He's a huge big man, but he +looked so comical squatting among the hives that - I know I +oughtn't to - I laughed, and he laughed. I always laugh at the +wrong time. But I soon recovered my dignity, and I said, "Then +give me back what you made poor Cissie steal!" + +'"Your pore Cissie," he said. "She's a hatful o' trouble. But +you shall have 'em, Miss Phil. They're all ready put by for you." +And, would you believe it, the old sinner pulled my three silver +spoons out of his dirty pocket, and polished them on his cuff. +"Here they be," he says, and he gave them to me, just as cool as +though I'd come to have my warts charmed. That's the worst of +people having known you when you were young. But I preserved +my composure. "Jerry," I said, "what in the world are we to do? +If you'd been caught with these things on you, you'd have been +hanged." + +'"I know it," he said. "But they're yours now." + +'"But you made my Cissie steal them," I said. + +'"That I didn't," he said. "Your Cissie, she was pickin' at me +an' tarrifyin' me all the long day an' every day for weeks, to put a +charm on you, Miss Phil, an' take away your little spitty cough." + +'"Yes. I knew that, Jerry, and to make me flesh-up!" I said. +"I'm much obliged to you, but I'm not one of your pigs!" + +'"Ah! I reckon she've been talking to you, then," he said. +"Yes, she give me no peace, and bein' tarrified - for I don't hold +with old women - I laid a task on her which I thought 'ud silence +her. I never reckoned the old scrattle 'ud risk her neckbone at +Lewes Assizes for your sake, Miss Phil. But she did. She up an' +stole, I tell ye, as cheerful as a tinker. You might ha' knocked me +down with any one of them liddle spoons when she brung 'em in +her apron." + +'"Do you mean to say, then, that you did it to try my poor +Cissie?" I screamed at him. + +'"What else for, dearie?" he said. "I don't stand in need of +hedge-stealings. I'm a freeholder, with money in the bank; and +now I won't trust women no more! Silly old besom! I do beleft +she'd ha' stole the Squire's big fob-watch, if I'd required her." + +'"Then you're a wicked, wicked old man," I said, and I was so +angry that I couldn't help crying, and of course that made me cough. + +'Jerry was in a fearful taking. He picked me up and carried me +into his cottage - it's full of foreign curiosities - and he got me +something to eat and drink, and he said he'd be hanged by the +neck any day if it pleased me. He said he'd even tell old Cissie he +was sorry. That's a great comedown for a Witchmaster, you +know. + +'I was ashamed of myself for being so silly, and I dabbed my +eyes and said, "The least you can do now is to give poor Ciss +some sort of a charm for me." + +'"Yes, that's only fair dealings," he said. "You know the +names of the Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one +by one, before your open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, +five times a day fasting. But mind you, 'twixt every name you +draw in your breath through your nose, right down to your +pretty liddle toes, as long and as deep as you can, and let it out +slow through your pretty liddle mouth. There's virtue for your +cough in those names spoke that way. And I'll give you something +you can see, moreover. Here's a stick of maple, which is the +warmest tree in the wood."' +'That's true,' Una interrupted. 'You can feel it almost as warm +as yourself when you touch it.' + +'"It's cut one inch long for your every year," Jerry said. +"That's sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds +up the sash, and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day +and night. I've said words over it which will have virtue on your +complaints." + +"I haven't any complaints, Jerry," I said. "It's only to please +Cissie." + +'"I know that as well as you do, dearie," he said. And - and +that was all that came of my going to give him a flogging. I +wonder whether he made poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at +him? Jerry has his ways of getting even with people.' + +'I wonder,' said Una. 'Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?' + +'What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he's a +doctor. He's going to be a most famous doctor. That's why our +doctor hates him. Rene said, "Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is +worth knowing," and he put up his eyebrows -like this. He made +joke of it all. He can see my window from the carpenter's shed, +where he works, and if ever the maple stick fell down, he +pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the window up +again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles +properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next +day, though he had been there ever so many times before, he put +on his new hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state - as a +fellow-physician. Jerry never guessed Rene was making fun of +him, and so he told Rene about the sick people in the village, and +how he cured them with herbs after Doctor Break had given them +up. Jerry could talk smugglers' French, of course, and I had +taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn't so shy. They +called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like +gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn't much to do, +except to fiddle about in the carpenter's shop. He's like all the +French prisoners - always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a +little lathe at his cottage, and so - and so - Rene took to being with +Jerry much more than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty +when Dad's away, and I will not sit with old Amoore -she talks so +horridly about every one - specially about Rene. + +'I was rude to Rene, I'm afraid; but I was properly served out +for it. One always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay +his respects to the General who commanded the brigade there, +and to bring him to the Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a +very brave soldier from India - he was Colonel of Dad's Regiment, +the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the Army, and then he +changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the other way +about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, and I +knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early +mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store- +rooms. Old Amoore nearly cried. + +'However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, +but the fish didn't arrive - it never does - and I wanted Rene to +ride to Pevensey and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, +of course, as he always used, unless I requested his presence +beforehand. I can't send for Rene every time I want him. He +should be there. Now, don't you ever do what I did, child, +because it's in the highest degree unladylike; but - but one of our +Woods runs up to Jerry's garden, and if you climb - it's ungenteel, +but I can climb like a kitten -there's an old hollow oak just above +the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. Truthfully, +I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him +and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. +So I slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and +listened. Rene had never shown me any of these trumpets.' + +'Trumpets? Aren't you too old for trumpets?' said Una. + +'They weren't real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short- +collar, and Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry's chest, +and put his ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against +Rene's chest, and listened while Rene breathed and coughed. I +was afraid I would cough too. + +'"This hollywood one is the best," said Jerry. "'Tis won'erful +like hearin' a man's soul whisperin' in his innards; but unless I've a +buzzin' in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the +same kind o' noises as old Gaffer Macklin - but not quite so loud +as young Copper. It sounds like breakers on a reef - a long way +off. Comprenny?" + +'"Perfectly," said Rene. "I drive on the breakers. But before I +strike, I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my +little trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin +have made in his chest, and what the young Copper also." + +'Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in +the village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, +"You explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your +opportunities to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people +would let me listen to them through my trumpet - for a little +money? No?" - Rene's as poor as a church mouse. + +'"They'd kill you, Mosheur. It's all I can do to coax 'em to +abide it, and I'm Jerry Gamm," said Jerry. He's very proud of his +attainments. + +'"Then these poor people are alarmed - No?" said Rene. + +'"They've had it in at me for some time back because o' my +tryin' your trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the +alehouse they won't stand much more. Tom Dunch an' some of +his kidney was drinkin' themselves riot-ripe when I passed along +after noon. Charms an' mutterin's an' bits o' red wool an' black +hens is in the way o' nature to these fools, Mosheur; but anything +likely to do 'em real service is devil's work by their estimation. If I +was you, I'd go home before they come." Jerry spoke quite +quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders. + +'"I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm," he said. "I have +no home." + +'Now that was unkind of Rene. He's often told me that he +looked on England as his home. I suppose it's French politeness. + +'"Then we'll talk o' something that matters," said Jerry. "Not +to name no names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own +opinion o' some one who ain't old Gaffer Macklin nor young +Copper? Is that person better or worse?" + +'"Better - for time that is," said Rene. He meant for the time +being, but I never could teach him some phrases. + +'"I thought so too," said Jerry. "But how about time to come?" + +Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don't +know how odd a man looks blowing his nose when you are +sitting directly above him. + +I've thought that too," said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I +could scarcely catch. "It don't make much odds to me, because +I'm old. But you're young, Mosheur- you're young," and he put +his hand on Rene's knee, and Rene covered it with his hand. I +didn't know they were such friends. + +'"Thank you, mon ami," said Rene. "I am much oblige. Let us +return to our trumpet-making. But I forget" - he stood up - "it +appears that you receive this afternoon!" + +'You can't see into Gamm's Lane from the oak, but the gate +opened, and fat little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his +head, and half-a-dozen of our people following him, very drunk. + +'You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully. + +'"A word with you, Laennec," said Doctor Break. "Jerry has +been practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and +they've asked me to be arbiter." + +'"Whatever that means, I reckon it's safer than asking you to +be doctor," said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed. + +'"That ain't right feeling of you, Tom," Jerry said, "seeing +how clever Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last +winter." Tom's wife had died at Christmas, though Doctor +Break bled her twice a week. Doctor Break danced with rage. + +'"This is all beside the mark," he said. "These good people are +willing to testify that you've been impudently prying into God's +secrets by means of some papistical contrivance which this +person" - he pointed to poor Rene - "has furnished you with. +Why, here are the things themselves!" Rene was holding a +trumpet in his hand. + +'Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin +was dying from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the +trumpet - they called it the devil's ear-piece; and they said it left +round red witch-marks on people's skins, and dried up their +lights, and made 'em spit blood, and threw 'em into sweats. +Terrible things they said. You never heard such a noise. I took +advantage of it to cough. + +'Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. +Jerry fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. +You ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. +He passed one to Rene. + +'"Wait! Wait!" said Rene. "I will explain to the doctor if he +permits." He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate +shouted, "Don't touch it, Doctor! Don't lay a hand to the thing." + +'"Come, come!" said Rene. "You are not so big fool as you +pretend. No?" + +'Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry's pistol, +and Rene followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to +amuse a child, and put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how +it was used, and talked of la Gloire, and l'Humanite, and la Science, +while Doctor Break watched jerry's pistol and swore. I nearly +laughed aloud. + +'"Now listen! Now listen!" said Rene. "This will be moneys +in your pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich." + +'Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who +could not earn an honest living in their own country creeping into +decent houses and taking advantage of gentlemen's confidence to +enrich themselves by base intrigues. + +'Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best +bows. I knew he was angry from the way he rolled his "r's." + +'"Ver-r-ry good," said he. "For that I shall have much +pleasure to kill you now and here. Monsieur Gamm," - another +bow to Jerry - "you will please lend him your pistol, or he shall +have mine. I give you my word I know not which is best; and if he +will choose a second from his friends over there" - another bow +to our drunken yokels at the gate - "we will commence." + +'"That's fair enough," said Jerry. "Tom Dunch, you owe it to +the Doctor to be his second. Place your man." +'"No," said Tom. "No mixin' in gentry's quarrels for me." +And he shook his head and went out, and the others followed him. + +'"Hold on," said Jerry. "You've forgot what you set out to do +up at the alehouse just now. You was goin' to search me for +witch-marks; you was goin' to duck me in the pond; you was +goin' to drag all my bits o' sticks out o' my little cottage here. +What's the matter with you? Wouldn't you like to be with your +old woman tonight, Tom?" + +'But they didn't even look back, much less come. They ran to +the village alehouse like hares. + +'"No matter for these canaille," said Rene, buttoning up his +coat so as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a +duel, Dad says - and he's been out five times. "You shall be his +second, Monsieur Gamm. Give him the pistol." + +'Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if +Rene resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass +over the matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever. + +'"As for that," he said, "if you were not the ignorant which +you are, you would have known long ago that the subject of your +remarks is not for any living man." + +'I don't know what the subject of his remarks might have been, +but he spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor +Break turned quite white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene +caught him by the throat, and choked him black. + +'Well, my dear, as if this wasn't deliciously exciting enough, +just exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side +of the hedge say, "What's this? What's this, Bucksteed?" and +there was my father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the +lane; and there was Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was +I up in the oak, listening with all my ears. + +'I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me +such a start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to +the pigsty roof - another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty +wall - and then I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, +with my hair full of bark. Imagine the situation!' + +'Oh, I can!' Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool. + +'Dad said, "Phil - a - del - phia!" and Sir Arthur Wesley said, +"Good Ged" and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had +dropped. But Rene was splendid. He never even looked at me. He +began to untwist Doctor Break's neckcloth as fast as he'd twisted +it, and asked him if he felt better. + +'"What's happened? What's happened?" said Dad. + +'"A fit!" said Rene. "I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be +alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear +Doctor?" Doctor Break was very good too. He said, "I am vastly +obliged, Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now." And as he +went out of the gate he told Dad it was a syncope - I think. Then +Sir Arthur said, "Quite right, Bucksteed. Not another word! +They are both gentlemen." And he took off his cocked hat to +Doctor Break and Rene. + +'But poor Dad wouldn't let well alone. He kept saying, +"Philadelphia, what does all this mean?" + +'"Well, sir," I said, "I've only just come down. As far as I +could see, it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden +seizure." That was quite true - if you'd seen Rene seize him. Sir +Arthur laughed. "Not much change there, Bucksteed," he said. +"She's a lady - a thorough lady." + +'"Heaven knows she doesn't look like one," said poor Dad. +"Go home, Philadelphia." + +'So I went home, my dear - don't laugh so! - right under Sir +Arthur's nose - a most enormous nose - feeling as though I were +twelve years old, going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!' + +'It's all right,' said Una. 'I'm getting on for thirteen. I've never +been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must +have been funny!' + +'Funny! If you'd heard Sir Arthur jerking out, "Good Ged, +Bucksteed!" every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad +saying, '"'Pon my honour, Arthur, I can't account for it!" Oh, +how my cheeks tingled when I reached my room! But Cissie had +laid out my very best evening dress, the white satin one, +vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the pearl +knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder. +I had poor mother's lace tucker and her coronet comb.' + +'Oh, you lucky!' Una murmured. 'And gloves?' + +'French kid, my dear'- Philadelphia patted her shoulder - 'and +morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That +restored my calm. Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded +on my forehead with a little curl over the left ear. And when I +descended the stairs, en grande tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me +without my having to stop and look at her, which, alas! is too +often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved of the dinner, my dear: +the mackerel did come in time. We had all the Marklake silver out, +and he toasted my health, and he asked me where my little +bird's-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I looked +him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, "I always send her to +the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall."' + +'Oh, how chee - clever of you. What did he say?' Una cried. +'He said, "Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved +it," and he toasted me again. They talked about the French and +what a shame it was that Sir Arthur only commanded a brigade at +Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle in India at a place called +Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but Sir Arthur described it +as though it had been a whist-party - I suppose because a lady was +present.' + +'Of course you were the lady. I wish I'd seen you,'said Una. + +'I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene +and Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, +and they told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I +laughed and said, "I heard every word of it up in the tree." You +never saw two men so frightened in your life, and when I said, +"What was 'the subject of your remarks,' Rene?" neither of them +knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them unmercifully. They'd +seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.' + +'But what was the subject of their remarks?' said Una. + +'Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the +laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been +something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn't my +triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and +me, child, I had been practising a new song from London - I don't +always live in trees - for weeks; and I gave it them for a surprise.' + +'What was it?'said Una. 'Sing it.' + +'"I have given my heart to a flower." Not very difficult +fingering, but r-r-ravishing sentiment.' + +Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat. + +'I've a deep voice for my age and size,' she explained. +'Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her +face all dark against the last of the soft pink sunset: + + 'I have given my heart to a flower, + Though I know it is fading away, + Though I know it will live but an hour + And leave me to mourn its decay! + +'Isn't that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse - I wish I had +my harp, dear - goes as low as my register will reach.'She drew in +her chin, and took a deep breath: + + 'Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, + I charge you be good to my dear! + She is all - she is all that I have, + And the time of our parting is near!' + +'Beautiful!' said Una. 'And did they like it?' +'Like it? They were overwhelmed - accablEs, as Rene says. My +dear, if I hadn't seen it, I shouldn't have believed that I could have +drawn tears, genuine tears, to the eyes of four grown men. But I +did! Rene simply couldn't endure it! He's all French sensibility. +He hid his face and said, "Assez, Mademoiselle! C'est plus fort que +moi! Assez!" And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, "Good Ged! +This is worse than Assaye!" While Dad sat with the tears simply +running down his cheeks.' + +'And what did Doctor Break do?' + +'He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw +his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a +triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.' + +'Oh, I wish I'd seen! I wish I'd been you,'said Una, clasping her +hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering +cock-chafer flew smack against Una's cheek. + +When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to +her that Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long +before to help her strain and pour off. +'It didn't matter,' said Una; 'I just waited. Is that old Pansy +barging about the lower pasture now?' + +'No,' said Mrs Vincey, listening. 'It sounds more like a horse +being galloped middlin' quick through the woods; but there's no +road there. I reckon it's one of Gleason's colts loose. Shall I see +you up to the house, Miss Una?' + +'Gracious, no! thank you. What's going to hurt me?' said Una, +and she put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home +through the gaps that old Hobden kept open for her. + + + +Brookland Road + + +I was very well pleased with what I knowed, +I reckoned myself no fool - +Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road +That turned me back to school. + + Low down - low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine - + Oh! maids, I've done with 'ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! +'Twas right in the middest of a hot June night, +With thunder duntin' round, +And I seed her face by the fairy light +That beats from off the ground. + +She only smiled and she never spoke, +She smiled and went away; +But when she'd gone my heart was broke, +And my wits was clean astray. + +Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be - +Let be, O Brookland bells! +You'll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea, +Before I wed one else! + +Old Goodman's farm is rank sea sand, +And was this thousand year; +But it shall turn to rich plough land +Before I change my dear! + +Oh! Fairfield Church is water-bound +From Autumn to the Spring; +But it shall turn to high hill ground +Before my bells do ring! + +Oh! leave me walk on the Brookland Road, +In the thunder and warm rain - +Oh! leave me look where my love goed +And p'raps I'll see her again! + Low down - low down! + Where the liddle green lanterns shine - + Oh! maids, I've done with 'ee all but one, + And she can never be mine! + + + *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?) + + + + +THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK + + + +The Run of the Downs + + +The Weald is good, the Downs are best - +I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West. +Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, +They were once and they are still. +Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry +Go back as far as sums'll carry. +Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring, +They have looked on many a thing; +And what those two have missed between 'em +I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em. +Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down +Knew Old England before the Crown. +Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood +Knew Old England before the Flood. +And when you end on the Hampshire side - +Butser's old as Time and Tide. +The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, +You be glad you are Sussex born! + + + +The Knife and the Naked Chalk + + +The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint +village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away +from home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr +Dudeney, who had known their Father when their Father was +little. He did not talk like their own people in the Weald of Sussex, +and he used different names for farm things, but he understood +how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny cottage +about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead +from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire, +while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney's sheep-dog's father, lay at +the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must +never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened +to be far in the Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to +take them to him, and he did. + +One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made +the street smell specially townified, they went to look for their +shepherd as usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep +and took them in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was +very slippery, and the distances were very distant. + +'It's Just like the sea,' said Una, when Old Jim halted in the +shade of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. 'You see where you're +going, and - you go there, and there's nothing between.' + +Dan slipped off his shoes. 'When we get home I shall sit in the +woods all day,' he said. + +'Whuff!' said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across +a long rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone. + +'Not yet,' said Dan. 'Where's Mr Dudeney? Where's Master?' +Old Jim looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked +again. + +'Don't you give it him,' Una cried. 'I'm not going to be left +howling in a desert.' + +'Show, boy! Show!' said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as +the palm of your hand. + +Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob +of Mr Dudeney's hat against the sky a long way off. + +'Right! All right!' said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his +bone carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the +shadow of the old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children +went on. Two kestrels hung bivvering and squealing above them. +A gull flapped lazily along the white edge of the cliffs. The curves +of the Downs shook a little in the heat, and so did Mr Dudeney's +distant head. + +They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves +staring into a horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, +whose steep sides were laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock +grazed on the flat at the bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr +Dudeney sat comfortably knitting on the edge of the slope, his +crook between his knees. They told him what Old Jim had done. + +'Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The +closeter you be to the turf the more you see things. You look +warm-like,'said Mr Dudeney. + +'We be,' said Una, flopping down. 'And tired.' + +'Set beside o' me here. The shadow'll begin to stretch out in a +little while, and a heat-shake o' wind will come up with it that'll +overlay your eyes like so much wool.' + +'We don't want to sleep,' said Una indignantly; but she settled +herself as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade. + +'O' course not. You come to talk with me same as your father +used. He didn't need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.' + +'Well, he belonged here,' said Dan, and laid himself down at +length on the turf. + +'He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among +them messy trees in the Weald, when he might ha' stayed here and +looked all about him. There's no profit to trees. They draw the +lightning, and sheep shelter under 'em, and so, like as not, you'll +lose a half-score ewes struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father +knew that.' + +'Trees aren't messy.' Una rose on her elbow. 'And what about +firewood? I don't like coal.' + +'Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you'll lie more natural,' +said Mr Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press +your face down and smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme +which makes our Southdown mutton beyond compare, and, my +mother told me, 'twill cure anything except broken necks, or +hearts. I forget which.' + +They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the +soft thymy cushions. + +'You don't get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, +maybe?' said Mr Dudeney. + +'But we've water - brooks full of it - where you paddle in hot +weather,' Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded +snail-shell close to her eye. + +'Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep - let alone +foot-rot afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.' + +'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his +eyes. Mr Dudeney explained. + +The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind +whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it +seemed easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff +after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that +baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs +joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of +insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a +thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr +Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting. +They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway +down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his back +to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at +some work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground +every least noise and movement reached them like whispers up a +water-Pipe. + +'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!' + +'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!' +The man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It +fell between Dan and Una - a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head +still hot from the maker's hand. + +The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a +thrush with a snail-shell. + +'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because +one always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast - +no good!' He shook his shaggy head. +'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,' said Puck. + +'He'll be back at lambing time. I know him.' He chipped very +carefully, and the flints squeaked. + +'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through +and go home safe.' + +'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll +believe it,' the man replied. +'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round his +mouth and shouted: 'Wolf! Wolf!' + +Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides - 'Wuff!' +Wuff!' like Young jim's bark. + +'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'Nobody answers. Grey +Shepherd is gone. Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no +more wolves.' + +'Wonderful!' The man wiped his forehead as though he were +hot. 'Who drove him away? You?' + +'Many men through many years, each working in his own +country. Were you one of them?' Puck answered. + +The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a +word pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with +scars. His arms, too, were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with +horrible white dimples. + +'I see,' said Puck. 'It is The Beast's mark. What did you use +against him?' +'Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.' + +'So? Then how' - Puck twitched aside the man's dark-brown +cloak - 'how did a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!' +He held out his little hand. + +The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, +from his belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to +Puck, who took it with his head on one side, as you should when +you look at the works of a watch, squinted down the dark blade, +and very delicately rubbed his forefinger from the point to the hilt. + +'Good!' said he, in a surprised tone. + +'It should be. The Children of the Night made it,' the man answered. + +'So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?' + +'This!' The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like +a Weald starling. + +'By the Great Rings of the Chalk!' he cried. 'Was that your +price? Turn sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.' +He slipped his hand beneath the man's chin and swung him till +he faced the children up the slope. They saw that his right eye was +gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. Quickly Puck turned him round +again, and the two sat down. + +'It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,' said the man, in +an ashamed voice. 'What else could I have done? You know, Old +One.' + +Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. 'Take the knife. I listen.' +The man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and +while it still quivered said: 'This is witness between us that I speak +the thing that has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I +speak. Touch!' + +Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children +wriggled a little nearer. + +'I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the +Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the +Buyer of the Knife - the Keeper of the People,' the man began, in +a sort of singing shout. 'These are my names in this country of the +Naked Chalk, between the Trees and the Sea.' + +'Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,' said Puck. + +'One cannot feed some things on names and songs.' The man +hit himself on the chest. 'It is better - always better - to count +one's children safe round the fire, their Mother among them.' + +'Ahai!' said Puck. 'I think this will be a very old tale.' +'I warm myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no +one to light me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I +bought the Magic Knife for my people. it was not right that The +Beast should master man. What else could I have done?' + +'I hear. I know. I listen,' said Puck. + +'When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, +The Beast gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. +He came in behind the flocks at watering-time, and watched them +round the Dew-ponds; he leaped into the folds between our knees +at the shearing; he walked out alongside the grazing flocks, and +chose his meat on the hoof while our boys threw flints at him; he +crept by night 'into the huts, and licked the babe from between the +mother's hands; he called his companions and pulled down men +in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No - not always did he do +so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us +forget him. A year - two years perhaps - we neither smelt, nor +heard, nor saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our +men did not always look behind them; when children strayed +from the fenced places; when our women walked alone to draw +water - back, back, back came the Curse of the Chalk, Grey +Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night - The Beast, The Beast, The Beast! + +'He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt +spears. He learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I +think he knew when there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not +show till you bring it down on his snout. Then - Pouf! - the false +flint falls all to flinders, and you are left with the hammer-handle +in your fist, and his teeth in your flank! I have felt them. At +evening, too, in the dew, or when it has misted and rained, your +spear-head lashings slack off, though you have kept them beneath +your cloak all day. You are alone - but so close to the home ponds +that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth, and a piece +of driftwood. You bend over and pull - so! That is the minute for +which he has followed you since the stars went out. "Aarh!" he +"Wurr-aarh!" he says.' (Norton Pit gave back the growl like +a pack of real wolves.) 'Then he is on your right shoulder feeling +for the vein in your neck, and - perhaps your sheep run on +without you. To fight The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by +The Beast when he fights you - that is like his teeth in the heart! +Old One, why is it that men desire so greatly, and can do so little?' + +'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck. + +'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast +should master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my +Mother, the Priestess, was afraid when I told her what I desired. +We were accustomed to be afraid of The Beast. When I was made +a man, and a maiden - she was a Priestess - waited for me at the +Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. Perhaps it was +a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to learn how to do us +new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. The +women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our +flocks grazed far out. I took mine yonder'- he pointed inland to +the hazy line of the Weald -'where the new grass was best. They +grazed north. I followed till we were close to the Trees' - he +lowered his voice - 'close there where the Children of the Night +live.' He pointed north again. + +'Ah, now I remember a thing,' said Puck. 'Tell me, why did +your people fear the Trees so extremely?' + +'Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. +We can see them burning for days all along the Chalk's +edge. Besides, all the Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, +though they worship our Gods, are magicians. When a man goes +into their country, they change his spirit; they put words into his +mouth; they make him like talking water. But a voice in my heart +told me to go toward the north. While I watched my sheep there I +saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the Trees. By +this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear the +Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He +carried a knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched +out his knife. The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away +howling, which they would never have done from a Flint- +worker. The man went in among the Trees. I looked for the dead +Beast. He had been killed in a new way - by a single deep, clean +cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. Wonderful! +So I saw that the man's knife was magic, and I thought +how to get it, - thought strongly how to get it. + +'When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the +Priestess asked me, "What is the new thing which you have seen +and I see in your face?" I said, "It is a sorrow to me"; and she +answered, "All new things are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat +sorrow." I sat down in her place by the fire, where she talks to the +ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke in my heart. One voice +said, "Ask the Children of the Night for the Magic Knife. It is not +fit that The Beast should master man." I listened to that voice. + +,one voice said, "If you go among the Trees, the Children of +the Night will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here." The other +voice said, "Ask for the Knife." I listened to that voice. + +'I said to my Mother in the morning, "I go away to find a thing +for the people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my +own shape." She answered, "Whether you live or die, or are +made different, I am your Mother."' + +'True,' said Puck. 'The Old Ones themselves cannot change +men's mothers even if they would.' + +'Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess +who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things +too.' The man laughed. 'I went away to that place where I had +seen the magician with the knife. I lay out two days on the short +grass before I ventured among the Trees. I felt my way before me +with a stick. I was afraid of the terrible talking Trees. I was afraid +of the ghosts in the branches; of the soft ground underfoot; of the +red and black waters. I was afraid, above all, of the Change. It +came!' + +They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong +back-muscles quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt. + +'A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in +my mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot +between my teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a +stranger. I was made to sing songs and to mock the Trees, though +I was afraid of them. At the same time I saw myself laughing, and +I was very sad for this fine young man, who was myself. Ah! The +Children of the Night know magic.' + +'I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a +man, if he sleeps among them,' said Puck. 'Had you slept in any mists?' + +'Yes - but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three +days I saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I +saw the Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay +them in fires. The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the +soft stuff with hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the +words were changed in my mouth, and all I could say was, "Do +not make that noise. It hurts my head." By this I knew that I was +bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, and prayed the Children of +the Night to take off their spells. They were cruel. They asked me +many questions which they would never allow me to answer. +They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they +led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed +water on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me +like water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit -not the strange, +shouting thing - was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright +stone on the shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The +magicians came to hear me - women and men - each wearing a +Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their Ears and their Mouth. + +'I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like +sheep in order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can +count those coming, and those far off getting ready to come. I +asked for Magic Knives for my people. I said that my people +would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and lay them in the short +grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the Night would leave +Magic Knives for our people to take away. They were pleased. +Their Priestess said, "For whose sake have you come?" I +answered, "The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, +our people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast." + +'She said, "We do not know if our God will let us trade with the +people of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked." + +'When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are +our Gods), their Priestess said, "The God needs a proof that your +words are true." I said, "What is the proof?" She said, "The God +says that if you have come for the sake of your people you will +give him your right eye to be put out; but if you have come for +any other reason you will not give it. This proof is between you +and the God. We ourselves are sorry." + +'I said, "This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?" + +'She said, "Yes. You can go back to your people with your two +eyes in your head if you choose. But then you will not get any +Magic Knives for your people." + +'I said, "It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed." + +'She said, "Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my +knife hot." + +'I said, "Be quick, then!" With her knife heated in the flame she +put out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. +She was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.' + +'True! Most true,' said Puck. 'No common man's work that. +And, afterwards?' + +'Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also +that a one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!' + +At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint +arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. 'It's true,' he +whispered to Una. 'You can't judge distances a bit with only one +eye.' + +Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man +laughed at him. + +'I know it is so,' said he. 'Even now I am not always sure of my +blow. I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. +They said I was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in +a Beast's mouth. They showed me how they melted their red +stone and made the Magic Knives of it. They told me the charms +they sang over the fires and at the beatings. I can sing many +charms.' Then he began to laugh like a boy. + +'I was thinking of my journey home,' he said, 'and of the +surprised Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him - I +smelt his lairs as soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I +had the Magic Knife - I hid it under my cloak - the Knife that the +Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! That happy day was too short! See! A +Beast would wind me. "Wow!" he would say. "Here is my +Flint-worker!" He would come leaping, tail in air; he would roll; +he would lay his head between his paws out of merriness of heart +at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap - and, oh, his eye in +mid-leap when he saw - when he saw the knife held ready for +him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he +had no time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. +Sometimes I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer +and beat out his brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew +the Knife! But The Beast is very cunning. Before evening all The +Beasts had smelt the blood on my knife, and were running from +me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as a man should - the +Master of The Beast! + +'So came I back to my Mother's house. There was a lamb to be +killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my +tale. She said, "This is the work of a God." I kissed her and +laughed. I went to my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew- +ponds. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with +my knife, and told her all my tale. She said, "It is the work of a +God." I laughed, but she pushed me away, and being on my blind +side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went to the Men of the +Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be killed for +their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told them all +my tale. They said, "It is the work of a God." I said, "We talk too +much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will +take you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a +Magic Knife. " + +'I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from +edge to edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my +cloak. The men talked among themselves. + +'I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, +wool, and curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic +Knives laid out on the grass, as the Children of the Night had +promised. They watched us from among the Trees. Their Priestess +called to me and said, "How is it with your people?" I said +"Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their hearts as I used to." +She said, "That is because you have only one eye. Come to me +and I will be both your eyes." But I said, "I must show my people +how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how +to use my knife." I said this because the Magic Knife does not +balance like the flint. She said, "What you have done, you have +done for the sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your +people." I asked of her, "Then why did the God accept my right +eye, and why are you so angry?" She answered, "Because any +man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to a woman. And I am not +angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. Wait a little, +and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry. So she hid herself. + +'I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and +making it sing in the air - tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It +mutters - ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! +Everywhere he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked +over the grass my Mother's brother - the Chief on the Men's Side +- he took off his Chief's necklace of yellow sea-stones.' + +'How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,' said Puck. + +'And would have put them on my neck. I said, "No, I am +content. What does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat +sheep and fat children running about safely?" My Mother's +brother said to them, "I told you he would never take such +things." Then they began to sing a song in the Old Tongue - The +Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother's brother said, +"This is your song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr." + +'Even then I did not understand, till I saw that - that no man +stepped on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a +God, like the God Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a +Great Beast.' + +'By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?' Puck +rapped out. + +'By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way +for my shadow as though it had been a Priestess walking to the +Barrows of the Dead. I was afraid. I said to myself, "My Mother +and my Maiden will know I am not Tyr." But still I was afraid, +with the fear of a man who falls into a steep flint-pit while he runs, +and feels that it will be hard to climb out. + +'When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. +The men showed their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards +also had seen The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west +across the river in packs - howling! He knew the Knife had come +to the Naked Chalk at last - at last! He knew! So my work was +done. I looked for my Maiden among the Priestesses. She looked +at me, but she did not smile. She made the sign to me that our +Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the Old Dead in the +Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother's brother made +himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in +the Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on +Midsummer Mornings.' + +'I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!' +said Puck. + +'Then I went away angrily to my Mother's house. She would +have knelt before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, +"Only a God would have spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man +would have feared the punishment of the Gods." I looked at her +and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy laughing. They called +me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A young man with +whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first arrow, +and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old +Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were +lowered, his hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of +a God, but of me, a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not +kill him. I said, "Call the maiden." She came also without fear - +this very one that had waited for me, that had talked with me, by +our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, she lifted her eyes to me. As I +look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked at me. She spoke in the Old +Tongue which Priestesses use when they make prayers to the Old +Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might light the fire +in my companion's house -and that I should bless their children. I +did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, say, "Let it +be as you desire," and they went away hand in hand. My heart +grew little and cold; a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. +I said to my Mother, "Can a God die?" I heard her say, "What is +it? What is it, my son?" and I fell into darkness full of hammer- +noises. I was not.' + +'Oh, poor - poor God!' said Puck. 'And your wise Mother?' + +'She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit +came back I heard her whisper in my ear, "Whether you live or +die, or are made different, I am your Mother." That was good - +better even than the water she gave me and the going away of the +sickness. Though I was ashamed to have fallen down, yet I was +very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us wished to lose the +other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. I heaped the +fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as before I +went away, and she combed my hair, and sang. + +'I said at last, "What is to be done to the people who say that I +am Tyr?" + +'She said, "He who has done a God-like thing must bear +himself like a God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your +sheep till you die. You cannot drive them off." + + +'I said, "This is a heavier sheep than I can lift." She said, "In +time it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down +for any maiden anywhere. Be wise - be very wise, my son, for +nothing is left you except the words, and the songs, and the +worship of a God." + +'Oh, poor God!' said Puck. 'But those are not altogether +bad things.' + +'I know they are not; but I would sell them all - all - all for one +small child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our +own house-fire.' + +He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and +stood up. + +'And yet, what else could I have done?' he said. 'The sheep are +the people.' + +'It is a very old tale,' Puck answered. 'I have heard the like of it +not only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees - under +Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.' + +The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton +Pit. The children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim's busy +bark above them, and they scrambled up the slope to the level. + +'We let you have your sleep out,' said Mr Dudeney, as the flock +scattered before them. 'It's making for tea-time now.' + +'Look what I've found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint +arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day. + +'Oh,' said Mr Dudeney, 'the closeter you be to the turf the +more you're apt to see things. I've found 'em often. Some says the +fairies made 'em, but I says they was made by folks like ourselves +- only a goodish time back. They're lucky to keep. Now, you +couldn't ever have slept - not to any profit - among your father's +trees same as you've laid out on Naked Chalk - could you?' + +'One doesn't want to sleep in the woods,' said Una. + +'Then what's the good of 'em?' said Mr Dudeney. 'Might as +well set in the barn all day. Fetch 'em 'long, Jim boy!' + +The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were +full of delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and +the salt mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; +their eyes dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it +looked golden. The sheep knew where their fold was, so Young +Jim came back to his master, and they all four strolled home, the +scabious-heads swishing about their ankles, and their shadows +streaking behind them like the shadows of giants. + + + +Song of the Men's Side + + +Once we feared The Beast - when he followed us we ran, +Ran very fast though we knew +It was not right that The Beast should master Man; +But what could we Flint-workers do? +The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears - +Grinned at the hammers that we made; +But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife - +And this is the Buyer of the Blade! + + Room for his shadow on the grass - let it pass! + To left and right - stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + +Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan, +For he knew it was not right +(And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man; +So he went to the Children of the Night. +He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake. +When he begged for the Knife they said: +'The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!' +And that was the price he paid. + + Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead - run ahead! + Shout it so the Women's Side can hear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + +Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk, +As far as we can see them and beyond. +We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep +Tally at the shearing-pond. + +We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please, +We can sleep after meals in the sun; +For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade, +Feet-in-the-Night have run! +Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!), +Devil-in-the-Dusk has run! + +Then: + Room for his shadow on the grass - let it pass! + To left and right - stand clear! + This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid! + This is the great God Tyr! + + + + +BROTHER SQUARE-TOES + + + +Philadelphia + + +If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, +You mustn't take my stories for a guide. +There's little left indeed of the city you will read of, +And all the folk I write about have died. +Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand, +Or remember what his cunning and his skill did. +And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf, +Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded. + + It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-three 'twas there for all to see, + But it's not in Philadelphia this morning, + +If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, +You mustn't go by everything I've said. +Bob Bicknell's Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages, +But the Limited will take you there instead. +Toby Hirte can't be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen, +North Second Street - no matter when you call; +And I fear you'll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane +Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball. + + It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-four 'twas a famous dancing-floor - + But it's not in Philadelphia this morning. + +If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning, +You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel. +You needn't try your luck at Epply's or the 'Buck,' +Though the Father of his Country liked them well. +It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos, +Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed - so +You must treat as out-of-date the story I relate +Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so. + + He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther + (Never say I didn't give you warning). + In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive, + But he's not in Philadelphia this morning. +If you're off to Philadelphia this morning, +And wish to prove the truth of what I say, +I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind +Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way. +Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune; +Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing. +Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk; +Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing. + They are there, there, there with Earth immortal + (Citizens, I give you friendly warning). + The things that truly last when men and times have passed, + They are all in Pennsylvania this morning! + + + +Brother Square-Toes + + +It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned +themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, +and strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The +tide was dead low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled +waves grieved along the sands up the coast to Newhaven and +down the coast to long, grey Brighton, whose smoke trailed out +across the Channel. + +They walked to The Gap, where the cliff is only a few feet high. +A windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the +edge of it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an +old ship's figurehead of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall. +'This time tomorrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,' +said Una. 'I hate the sea!' + +'I believe it's all right in the middle,' said Dan. 'The edges are +the sorrowful parts.' + +Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his +telescope at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked +away. He grew smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, +where neat piles of white chalk every few yards show the path +even on the darkest night. +'Where's Cordery going?'said Una. + +'Half-way to Newhaven,'said Dan. 'Then he'll meet the +Newhaven coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done +away with, smuggling would start up at once.' + +A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing: + + 'The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye - + On Telscombe Tye at night it was - + She saw the smugglers riding by, + A very pretty sight it was!' + +Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in +very neat brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed +by Puck. + + 'Three Dunkirk boats was standin' in!' + +the man went on. +'Hssh!' said Puck. 'You'll shock these nice young people.' + +'Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!' He shrugged his shoulders almost +up to his ears - spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. +'No comprenny?' he said. 'I'll give it you in Low German.' And +he went off in another language, changing his voice and manner +so completely that they hardly knew him for the same person. +But his dark beady-brown eyes still twinkled merrily in his lean +face, and the children felt that they did not suit the straight, plain, +snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, and broad-brimmed +hat. His hair was tied 'in a short pigtail which danced wickedly +when he turned his head. + +'Ha' done!' said Puck, laughing. 'Be one thing or t'other, +Pharaoh - French or English or German - no great odds which.' + +'Oh, but it is, though,' said Una quickly. 'We haven't begun +German yet, and - and we're going back to our French next week.' + +'Aren't you English?' said Dan. 'We heard you singing just now.' + +'Aha! That was the Sussex side o' me. Dad he married a French +girl out o' Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin' day. She +was an Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. +Haven't you ever come across the saying: + + 'Aurettes and Lees, + Like as two peas. + What they can't smuggle, + They'll run over seas'? + +'Then, are you a smuggler?' Una cried; and, 'Have you +smuggled much?'said Dan. + +Mr Lee nodded solemnly. + +'Mind you,' said he, 'I don't uphold smuggling for the generality +o' mankind - mostly they can't make a do of it - but I was +brought up to the trade, d'ye see, in a lawful line o' descent on' - +he waved across the Channel -'on both sides the water. 'Twas all +in the families, same as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run +the stuff across from Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran +it up to London Town, by the safest road.' + +'Then where did you live?' said Una. + +'You mustn't ever live too close to your business in our trade. +We kept our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we +Lees was all honest cottager folk - at Warminghurst under Washington +- Bramber way - on the old Penn estate.' + +'Ah!' said Puck, squatted by the windlass. 'I remember a piece +about the Lees at Warminghurst, I do: + + 'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst + That wasn't a gipsy last and first. + +I reckon that's truth, Pharaoh.' + +Pharaoh laughed. 'Admettin' that's true,' he said, 'my gipsy +blood must be wore pretty thin, for I've made and kept a worldly +fortune.' + +'By smuggling?' Dan asked. +'No, in the tobacco trade.' + +'You don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and +be a tobacconist!' Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh. + +'I'm sorry; but there's all sorts of tobacconists,' Pharaoh +replied. 'How far out, now, would you call that smack with the +patch on her foresail?' He pointed to the fishing-boats. + +'A scant mile,' said Puck after a quick look. + +'Just about. It's seven fathom under her - clean sand. That was +where Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from +Boulogne, and we fished 'em up and rowed 'em into The Gap +here for the ponies to run inland. One thickish night in January of +'Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came over from +Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the +L'Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New +Year's presents from Mother's folk in Boulogne. I remember +Aunt Cecile she'd sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put +on then and there, for the French was having their Revolution in +those days, and red caps was all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us +that they had cut off their King Louis' head, and, moreover, the +Brest forts had fired on an English man-o'-war. The news wasn't +a week old. + +'"That means war again, when we was only just getting used +to the peace," says Dad. "Why can't King George's men and King +Louis' men do on their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?" + +'"Me too, I wish that," says Uncle Aurette. "But they'll be +pressing better men than themselves to fight for 'em. The press- +gangs are out already on our side. You look out for yours. " + +'"I'll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after +I've run this cargo; but I do wish" - Dad says, going over the +lugger's side with our New Year presents under his arm and +young L'Estrange holding the lantern - "I just do wish that those +folk which make war so easy had to run one cargo a month all this +winter. It 'ud show 'em what honest work means." + +'"Well, I've warned ye," says Uncle Aurette. "I'll be slipping +off now before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to +Sister and take care o' the kegs. It's thicking to southward." +'I remember him waving to us and young Stephen L'Estrange +blowing out the lantern. By the time we'd fished up the kegs the +fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me to row 'em +ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the +beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the +smack playing on my fiddle to guide 'em back. + +'Presently I heard guns. Two of 'em sounded mighty like +Uncle Aurette's three-pounders. He didn't go naked about the +seas after dark. Then come more, which I reckoned was Captain +Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was open-handed with his +compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I stopped fiddling +to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o' French up in the fog - +and a high bow come down on top o' the smack. I hadn't time to +call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me +standing on the gunwale pushing against the ship's side as if I +hoped to bear her off. Then the square of an open port, with a +lantern in it, slid by in front of my nose. I kicked back on our +gunwale as it went under and slipped through that port into the +French ship - me and my fiddle.' + +'Gracious!' said Una. 'What an adventure!' + +'Didn't anybody see you come in?' said Dan. + +'There wasn't any one there. I'd made use of an orlop-deck port +- that's the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should +not have been open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up +above. I rolled on to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to +sleep. When I woke, men was talking all round me, telling each +other their names and sorrows just like Dad told me pressed men +used to talk in the last war. Pretty soon I made out they'd all been +hove aboard together by the press-gangs, and left to sort +'emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a thirty-six-gun +Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two days out +of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican French +Ambassador of the name of Genet. They had been up all night +clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle +Aurette and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o' +day with each other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted +past 'em. She never knew she'd run down our smack. Seeing so +many aboard was total strangers to each other, I thought one +more mightn't be noticed; so I put Aunt Cecile's red cap on the +back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like the rest, and, as +we French say, I circulated till I found the galley. + +'"What! Here's one of 'em that isn't sick!" says a cook. "Take +his breakfast to Citizen Bompard." + +'I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn't call this Bompard +"Citizen." Oh no! "Mon Capitaine" was my little word, same as +Uncle Aurette used to answer in King Louis' Navy. Bompard, he +liked it. He took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one +asked questions; and thus I got good victuals and light work all +the way across to America. He talked a heap of politics, and so did +his officers, and when this Ambassador Genet got rid of his +land-stomach and laid down the law after dinner, a rooks' +parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I learned to +know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, +through waiting at table and hearing talk about 'em. One of our +forecas'le six-pounders was called Danton and t'other Marat. I +used to play the fiddle between 'em, sitting on the capstan. Day in +and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genet talked o' what France +had done, and how the United States was going to join her to +finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genet said he'd +justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude +common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any +healths that was proposed - specially Citizen Danton's who'd cut +off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been +shocked - but that's where my French blood saved me. + +'It didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though, the +week before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and +what was left of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors +from living 'tween decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, +kept me down there to help him with his plasters - I was too weak +to wait on Bompard. I don't remember much of any account for +the next few weeks, till I smelled lilacs, and I looked out of the +port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge and there was a town o' +fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the green leaves o' God's +world waiting for me outside. + +'"What's this?" I said to the sick-bay man - Old Pierre +Tiphaigne he was. "Philadelphia," says Pierre. "You've missed it +all. We're sailing next week. " + +'I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst +the laylocks. + +'"If that's your trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight +ashore. None'll hinder you. They're all gone mad on these coasts +- French and American together. 'Tisn't my notion o' war." +Pierre was an old King Louis man. + +'My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, +which it was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine +gentlemen and ladies pouring in and out. They sung and they +waved French flags, while Captain Bompard and his officers - +yes, and some of the men - speechified to all and sundry about +war with England. They shouted, "Down with England!" - +"Down with Washington!" - "Hurrah for France and the +Republic!" I couldn't make sense of it. I wanted to get out from +that crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the +gentlemen said to me, "Is that a genuine cap o' Liberty you're +wearing?" 'Twas Aunt Cecile's red one, and pretty near wore +out. "Oh yes!" I says, "straight from France." "I'll give you a +shilling for it," he says, and with that money in my hand and my +fiddle under my arm I squeezed past the entry-port and went +ashore. It was like a dream - meadows, trees, flowers, birds, +houses, and people all different! I sat me down in a meadow and +fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets, looking and +smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine folk was +setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and a girl +threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci" +without thinking, she said she loved the French. They all was the +fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than +ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war +with England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French +Ambassador - that same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at +Charleston. He was a-horseback behaving as if the place belonged +to him - and commanding all and sundry to fight the British. But +I'd heard that before. I got into a long straight street as wide as the +Broyle, where gentlemen was racing horses. I'm fond o' horses. +Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it was called Race +Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black niggers, +which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after a +great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red +blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red +Indian called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off +Race Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. +I'm fond o' fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker's shop - +Conrad Gerhard's it was - and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing +what the price was I was going to have some too, but the +Indian asked me in English if I was hungry. "Oh yes!" I says. I +must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens a door on to a staircase +and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty little room full of +flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the window, in a smell +of cheese and medicines fit to knock you down. I was knocked +down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the +face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the +pills rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid. + +'"Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!" the fat man screeches. + +'I started picking 'em up - hundreds of 'em - meaning to run +out under the Indian's arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat +down. The fat man went back to his fiddling. + +'"Toby!" says the Indian after quite a while. "I brought the +boy to be fed, not hit." + +'"What?" says Toby, "I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder." +He put down his fiddle and took a good look at me. "Himmel!" +he says. "I have hit the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are +you not the new boy? Why are you not Gert Schwankfelder?" + +'"I don't know," I said. "The gentleman in the pink blanket +brought me." + +'Says the Indian, "He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed +the hungry. So I bring him." + +'"You should have said that first," said Toby. He pushed +plates at me and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a +glass of Madeira wine. I told him I was off the French ship, which +I had joined on account of my mother being French. That was +true enough when you think of it, and besides I saw that the +French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby and the Indian +whispered and I went on picking up the pills. + +'"You like pills - eh?" says Toby. +'"No," I says. "I've seen our ship's doctor roll too many of +em.' + +'"Ho!" he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. "What's +those?" + +'"Calomel," I says. "And t'other's senna. + +'"Right," he says. "One week have I tried to teach Gert +Schwankfelder the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. +You like to fiddle?" he says. He'd just seen my kit on the floor. + +'"Oh yes!" says I, + +'"Oho!" he says. "What note is this?" drawing his bow across. + +'He meant it for A, so I told him it was. + +'"My brother," he says to the Indian. "I think this is the hand +of Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the +wharves any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy +and say what you think." + +'The Indian looked me over whole minutes - there was a +musical clock on the wall and dolls came out and hopped while +the hour struck. He looked me over all the while they did it. + +'"Good," he says at last. "This boy is good." + +'"Good, then," says Toby. "Now I shall play my fiddle and +you shall sing your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery +and tell them you are young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The +horses are in Davy jones's locker. If you ask any questions you +shall hear from me." + +'I left 'em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad +Gerhard. He wasn't at all surprised when I told him I was young +Gert Schwankfelder that was. He knew Toby. His wife she +walked me into the back-yard without a word, and she washed +me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin, and she put me to +bed, and oh! how I slept - how I slept in that little room behind the +oven looking on the flower garden! I didn't know Toby went to +the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr Karaguen for +twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen +wanted a new lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn't long to +live; so he put me down as "discharged sick." + +'I like Toby,' said Una. + +'Who was he?' said Puck. + +'Apothecary Tobias Hirte,' Pharaoh replied. 'One Hundred +and Eighteen, Second Street - the famous Seneca Oil man, that +lived half of every year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale +my own way, same as his brown mare used to go to Lebanon.' + +'Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones's locker?' Dan asked. +'That was his joke. He kept her under David Jones's hat shop in +the "Buck" tavern yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies +there when they visited him. I looked after the horses when I +wasn't rolling pills on top of the old spinet, while he played his +fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. I liked it. I had good victuals, +light work, a suit o' clean clothes, a plenty music, and quiet, +smiling German folk all around that let me sit in their gardens. +My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in Moravian Alley; +and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared caps +and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at +another, and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face +in, and a nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby's +fiddle, and he played pretty much as he chose all against the organ +and the singing. He was the only one they let do it, for they was a +simple-minded folk. They used to wash each other's feet up in the +attic to keep 'emselves humble: which Lord knows they didn't need.' + +'How very queer!' said Una. + +Pharaoh's eyes twinkled. 'I've met many and seen much,' he +said; 'but I haven't yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger +people than the Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in +Philadelphia. Nor will I ever forget my first Sunday - the service +was in English that week - with the smell of the flowers coming in +from Pastor Meder's garden where the big peach tree is, and me +looking at all the clean strangeness and thinking of 'tween decks +on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a boy, it seemed to me +it had lasted for ever, and was going on for ever. But I didn't +know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck midnight +that Sunday - I was lying under the spinet - I heard Toby's fiddle. +He'd just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. +"Gert," says he, "get the horses. Liberty and Independence for +Ever! The flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the +singing of birds is come. We are going to my country seat in +Lebanon." + +'I rubbed my eyes, and fetched 'em out of the "Buck" stables. +Red Jacket was there saddling his, and when I'd packed the +saddle-bags we three rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. +So we went travelling. It's a kindly, softly country there, back of +Philadelphia among the German towns, Lancaster way. Little +houses and bursting big barns, fat cattle, fat women, and all as +peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed there. Toby sold +medicines out of his saddlebags, and gave the French war-news to +folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell was as +well known as the stage-coaches. He took orders for that famous +Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket's Indians, +and he slept in friends' farmhouses, but he would shut all the +windows; so Red Jacket and me slept outside. There's nothing to +hurt except snakes - and they slip away quick enough if you +thrash in the bushes.' + +'I'd have liked that!' said Dan. + +'I'd no fault to find with those days. In the cool o' the morning +the cat-bird sings. He's something to listen to. And there's a smell +of wild grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop +into, after long rides in the heat, which is beyond compare for +sweetness. So's the puffs out of the pine woods of afternoons. +Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and later on the fireflies +dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the corn! We were a week +or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to another - such +as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata - "thou Bethlehem-Ephrata." +No odds - I loved the going about. And so we jogged 'into dozy +little Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage +and a garden of all fruits. He come north every year for this +wonderful Seneca Oil the Seneca Indians made for him. They'd +never sell to any one else, and he doctored 'em with von Swieten +pills, which they valued more than their own oil. He could do +what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried to make them +Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and they'd +had trouble enough from white men - American and English - +during the wars, to keep 'em in that walk. They lived on a +Reservation by themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me +up there, and they treated me as if I was their own blood brother. +Red Jacket said the mark of my bare feet in the dust was just like an +Indian's and my style of walking was similar. I know I took to +their ways all over.' + +'Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?' said Puck. + +'Sometimes I think it did,' Pharaoh went on. 'Anyhow, Red +Jacket and Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be +adopted into the tribe. It's only a compliment, of course, but +Toby was angry when I showed up with my face painted. They +gave me a side-name which means "Two Tongues," because, +d'ye see, I talked French and English. + +'They had their own opinions (I've heard 'em) about the French +and the English, and the Americans. They'd suffered from all of +'em during the wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But +they thought a heap of the President of the United States. Cornplanter +had had dealings with him in some French wars out West +when General Washington was only a lad. His being President +afterwards made no odds to 'em. They always called him Big +Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their notion +of a white chief. Cornplanter 'ud sweep his blanket round him, +and after I'd filled his pipe he'd begin - "In the old days, long ago, +when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said-" +If Red Jacket agreed to the say-so he'd trickle a little smoke out of +the corners of his mouth. If he didn't, he'd blow through his +nostrils. Then Cornplanter 'ud stop and Red Jacket 'ud take on. +Red Jacket was the better talker of the two. I've laid and listened to +'em for hours. Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter +used to meet him at Epply's - the great dancing-place in +the city before District Marshal William Nichols bought it. They +told me he was always glad to see 'em, and he'd hear 'em out to +the end if they had anything on their minds. They had a good deal +in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was adopted into the +tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that summer +was about the French war with England and whether the United +States 'ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with +England. Toby wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation +buying his oils. But most of the white men wished for war, +and they was angry because the President wouldn't give the sign +for it. The newspaper said men was burning Guy Fawkes images +of General Washington and yelling after him in the streets of +Philadelphia. You'd have been astonished what those two fine old +chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little I've +learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket +on the Reservation. Toby used to read the Aurora newspaper. He +was what they call a "Democrat," though our Church is against +the Brethren concerning themselves with politics.' + +'I hate politics, too,' said Una, and Pharaoh laughed. + +'I might ha' guessed it,' he said. 'But here's something that isn't +politics. One hot evening late in August, Toby was reading the +newspaper on the stoop and Red Jacket was smoking under a +peach tree and I was fiddling. Of a sudden Toby drops his Aurora. + +'"I am an oldish man, too fond of my own comforts," he says. +"I will go to the Church which is in Philadelphia. My brother, +lend me a spare pony. I must be there tomorrow night." + +'"Good!" says Red Jacket, looking at the sun. "My brother +shall be there. I will ride with him and bring back the ponies. + +'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking +questions. He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't +ask questions much and I wanted to be like 'em. + +'When the horses were ready I jumped up. + +'"Get off," says Toby. "Stay and mind the cottage till I come +back. The Lord has laid this on me, not on you. I wish He +hadn't." + +'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the +doorstep wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to +wrap his fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow +fever being in Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running +away. I was scared, for I was fond of Toby. We never said much +to each other, but we fiddled together, and music's as good as +talking to them that understand.' + +'Did Toby die of yellow fever?'Una asked. + +'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down +to the City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word +by Red Jacket that, if there was war or he died, I was to bring the +oils along to the City, but till then I was to go on working in the +garden and Red Jacket was to see me do it. Down at heart all +Indians reckon digging a squaw's business, and neither him nor +Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a hard task-Master. +We hired a nigger-boy to do our work, and a lazy grinning +runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he +reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went +with my Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, +running races and gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting 'in +the woods, or fishing in the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked +across the water. 'But it's best,' he went on suddenly, 'after the +first frosts. You roll out o' your blanket and find every leaf left +green over night turned red and yellow, not by trees at a time, but +hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like sunsets splattered +upside down. On one of such days - the maples was flaming +scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder - Cornplanter +and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the +very leaves look silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doeskin +leggings, fringed and tasselled, red horse-blankets, and their +bridles feathered and shelled and beaded no bounds. I thought it +was war against the British till I saw their faces weren't painted, +and they only carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed "Yankee +Doodle" at 'em. They told me they was going to visit Big Hand +and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in +fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I +reckon those two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod +from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war 'twixt +England and the United States, their tribe 'ud catch it from both +parties same as in all the other wars. They asked me to come along +and hold the ponies. That puzzled me, because they always put +their ponies up at the "Buck" or Epply's when they went to see +General Washington in the city, and horse-holding is a nigger's +job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.' + +'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?'Dan demanded. + +Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at +Lebanon,' he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and +at that particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, +moccasins, and sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix' me +and a young Seneca buck. You may laugh'- he smoothed down +his long-skirted brown coat -'but I told you I took to their ways +all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the +war-whoop like the young men had taught me.' + +'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before +Dan could ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.' + +'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and +danced. 'We went on - forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end - +we three braves. And how a great tall Indian a-horse-back can +carry his war-bonnet at a canter through thick timber without +brushing a feather beats me! My silly head was banged often +enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running +elk. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd +blown their pipe-smoke to the quarters of heaven. Where did we +go? I'll tell you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took +the old war-trail from the end of the Lake along the East +Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right down to Fort +Shamokin on the Senachse river. We crossed the Juniata by Fort +Granville, got into Shippensberg over the hills by the Ochwick +trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one). From Williams +Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through +Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found +the President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be +trailed by Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a +stump. After we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a +woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at last if my +moccasins even slipped Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard +voices - Monsieur Genet's for choice - long before I saw anything, +and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some +niggers in grey-and-red liveries were holding horses, and half-a- +dozen gentlemen - but one was Genet - were talking among felled +timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his road, for +his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near to +the company as I be to that old windlass there. I didn't need +anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a +little apart, listening to Genet, that French Ambassador, which +never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as +good as ordering him to declare war on England at once. I had +heard that clack before on the Embuscade. He said he'd stir up the +whole United States to have war with England, whether Big +Hand liked it or not. + +'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me, +and my two chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, +"That is very forcibly put, Monsieur Genet -" + +'"Citizen - citizen!" the fellow spits in. "I, at least, am +a Republican!" + +"Citizen Genet," he says, "you may be sure it will receive my +fullest consideration." This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a +piece. He rode off grumbling, and never gave his nigger a penny. +No gentleman! + +'The others all assembled round Big Hand then, and, in their +way, they said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to +him, here was France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, +right across the United States' stomach, and paying no +regards to any one. The French was searching American ships on +pretence they was helping England, but really for to steal the +goods. The English was doing the same, only t'other way round, +and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into +their Navy to help them fight France, on pretence that those +Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this +very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to them, they said, as though +the United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage +to her, because she only catched it from both French and +English. They said that nine out of ten good Americans was crazy +to fight the English then and there. They wouldn't say whether +that was right or wrong; they only wanted Big Hand to turn it +over in his mind. He did - for a while. I saw Red Jacket and +Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the clearing, and +how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then Big +Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.' + +'Hit 'em?' Dan asked. + +'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He - he +blasted 'em with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen +times over whether the United States had enough armed ships for +any shape or sort of war with any one. He asked 'em, if they +thought she had those ships, to give him those ships, and they +looked on the ground, as if they expected to find 'em there. He put +it to 'em whether, setting ships aside, their country - I reckon he +gave 'em good reasons - whether the United States was ready or +able to face a new big war; she having but so few years back +wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her +own troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em +blasted 'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods +after a storm. A little man - but they all looked little - pipes up like +a young rook in a blowed-down nest, "Nevertheless, General, it +seems you will be compelled to fight England." Quick Big Hand +wheeled on him, "And is there anything in my past which makes +you think I am averse to fighting Great Britain?" + +'Everybody laughed except him. "Oh, General, you mistake +us entirely!" they says. "I trust so," he says. "But I know my +duty. We must have peace with England." + +'"At any price?" says the man with the rook's voice. + +'"At any price," says he, word by word. "Our ships will be +searched - our citizens will be pressed, but -" + +'"Then what about the Declaration of Independence?" says one. + +'"Deal with facts, not fancies," says Big Hand. "The United +States are in no position to fight England." + +'"But think of public opinion," another one starts up. "The +feeling in Philadelphia alone is at fever heat." + +'He held up one of his big hands. "Gentlemen," he says - slow +he spoke, but his voice carried far - "I have to think of our +country. Let me assure you that the treaty with Great Britain will +be made though every city in the Union burn me in effigy." + +'"At any price?" the actor-like chap keeps on croaking. + +'"The treaty must be made on Great Britain's own terms. +What else can I do?" +'He turns his back on 'em and they looked at each other and +slinked off to the horses, leaving him alone: and then I saw he was +an old man. Then Red Jacket and Cornplanter rode down the +clearing from the far end as though they had just chanced along. +Back went Big Hand's shoulders, up went his head, and he +stepped forward one single pace with a great deep Hough! so +pleased he was. That was a statelified meeting to behold - three +big men, and two of 'em looking like jewelled images among the +spattle of gay-coloured leaves. I saw my chiefs' war-bonnets +sinking together, down and down. Then they made the sign +which no Indian makes outside of the Medicine Lodges - a sweep +of the right hand just clear of the dust and an inbend of the left +knee at the same time, and those proud eagle feathers almost +touched his boot-top.' + +'What did it mean?' said Dan. + +'Mean!' Pharaoh cried. 'Why it's what you - what we - it's the +Sachems' way of sprinkling the sacred corn-meal in front of - oh! +it's a piece of Indian compliment really, and it signifies that you +are a very big chief. + +'Big Hand looked down on 'em. First he says quite softly, "My +brothers know it is not easy to be a chief." Then his voice grew. +"My children," says he, "what is in your minds?" + +'Says Cornplanter, "We came to ask whether there will be war +with King George's men, but we have heard what our Father has +said to his chiefs. We will carry away that talk in our hearts to tell +to our people." + +'"No," says Big Hand. "Leave all that talk behind - it was +between white men only - but take this message from me to your +people - 'There will be no war.'" + +'His gentlemen were waiting, so they didn't delay him-, only +Cornplanter says, using his old side-name, "Big Hand, did you +see us among the timber just now?" + +'"Surely," says he. "You taught me to look behind trees when +we were both young." And with that he cantered off. + +'Neither of my chiefs spoke till we were back on our ponies +again and a half-hour along the home-trail. Then Cornplanter +says to Red Jacket, "We will have the Corn-dance this year. There +will be no war." And that was all there was to it.' + +Pharaoh stood up as though he had finished. + +'Yes,' said Puck, rising too. 'And what came out of it in the +long run?' + +'Let me get at my story my own way,'was the answer. 'Look! +it's later than I thought. That Shoreham smack's thinking of her supper.' +The children looked across the darkening Channel. A smack +had hoisted a lantern and slowly moved west where Brighton pier +lights ran out in a twinkling line. When they turned round The +Gap was empty behind them. + +'I expect they've packed our trunks by now,' said Dan. 'This +time tomorrow we'll be home.' + + + +If - + +If you can keep your head when all about you +Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; +If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, +But make allowance for their doubting too; +If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, +Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, +Or being hated, don't give way to hating, +And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; + +If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; +If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, +If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster +And treat those two impostors just the same; +If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken +Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, +Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, +And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; + +If you can make one heap of all your winnings +And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, +And lose, and start again at your beginnings +And never breathe a word about your loss; +If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew +To serve your turn long after they are gone, +And so hold on when there is nothing in you +Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' + +If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, +Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, +If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, +If all men count with you, but none too much; +If you can fill the unforgiving minute +With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, +Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, +And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! + + + + +'A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF' + + + +A St Helena Lullaby + + +How far is St Helena from a little child at play? + What makes you want to wander there with all the world between? +Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away. + (No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!) + +How far is St Helena from a fight in Paris street? + I haven't time to answer now - the men are falling fast. +The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat + (If you take the first step you will take the last!) + +How far is St Helena from the field at Austerlitz? + You couldn't hear me if I told - so loud the cannons roar. +But not so far for people who are living by their wits. + ('Gay go up' means 'gay go down' the wide world o'er!) + +How far is St Helena from an Emperor of France? + I cannot see - I cannot tell - the crowns they dazzle so. +The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance. + (After open weather you may look for snow!) + +How far is St Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar? + A longish way - a longish way - with ten year more to run. +It's South across the water underneath a setting star. + (What you cannot finish you must leave undone!) + +How far is St Helena from the Beresina ice? + An ill way - a chill way - the ice begins to crack. +But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice. + (When you can't go forward you must e'en come back!) + +How far is St Helena from the field of Waterloo? + A near way - a clear way - the ship will take you soon. +A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do. + (Morning never tries you till the afternoon!) + +How far from St Helena to the Gate of Heaven's Grace? + That no one knows - that no one knows - and no one ever will. +But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face, + And after all your trapesings, child, lie still! + + + +'A Priest in Spite of Himself' + + +The day after they came home from the sea-side they set out on a +tour of inspection to make sure everything was as they had left it. +Soon they discovered that old Hobden had blocked their best +hedge-gaps with stakes and thorn-bundles, and had trimmed up +the hedges where the blackberries were setting. + +'it can't be time for the gipsies to come along,' said Una. 'Why, +it was summer only the other day!' + +'There's smoke in Low Shaw!' said Dan, sniffing. 'Let's make sure!' + +They crossed the fields towards the thin line of blue smoke that +leaned above the hollow of Low Shaw which lies beside the +King's Hill road. It used to be an old quarry till somebody planted +it, and you can look straight down into it from the edge of Banky Meadow. + +'I thought so,' Dan whispered, as they came up to the fence at +the edge of the larches. A gipsy-van - not the show-man's sort, +but the old black kind, with little windows high up and a baby- +gate across the door - was getting ready to leave. A man was +harnessing the horses; an old woman crouched over the ashes of a +fire made out of broken fence-rails; and a girl sat on the van-steps +singing to a baby on her lap. A wise-looking, thin dog snuffed at a +patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put it carefully in the +middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the van and tossed +her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and they smelt +singed feathers. + +'Chicken feathers!' said Dan. 'I wonder if they are old Hobden's.' + +Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl's feet, +the old woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the +horses up to the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as +snakes over moss. + +'Ah!' said the girl. 'I'll teach you!' She beat the dog, who +seemed to expect it. + +'Don't do that,' Una called down. 'It wasn't his fault.' + +'How do you know what I'm beating him for?' she answered. + +'For not seeing us,' said Dan. 'He was standing right in the +smoke, and the wind was wrong for his nose, anyhow.' + +The girl stopped beating the dog, and the old woman fanned +faster than ever. + +'You've fanned some of your feathers out of the fire,' said Una. +'There's a tail-feather by that chestnut-tot.' + +'What of it?' said the old woman, as she grabbed it. + +'Oh, nothing!' said Dan. 'Only I've heard say that tail-feathers +are as bad as the whole bird, sometimes.' + +That was a saying of Hobden's about pheasants. Old Hobden +always burned all feather and fur before he sat down to eat. + +'Come on, mother,' the man whispered. The old woman +climbed into the van, and the horses drew it out of the deep-rutted +shaw on to the hard road. + +The girl waved her hands and shouted something they could +not catch. + +'That was gipsy for "Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,"' +said Pharaoh Lee. + +He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm. +'Gracious, you startled me!' said Una. + +'You startled old Priscilla Savile,' Puck called from below them. +'Come and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before +they left.' + +They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the +ashes together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns +without flame, and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh +played a curious wavery air. + +'That's what the girl was humming to the baby,' said Una. + +'I know it,'he nodded, and went on: + + 'Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia! + Ai Luludia!' + + +He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the +children. At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in +Philadelphia and among the Seneca Indians. + +'I'm telling it,' he said, staring straight in front of him as he +played. 'Can't you hear?' + +'Maybe, but they can't. Tell it aloud,' said Puck. + +Pharaoh shook himself, laid his fiddle beside him, and began: + +'I'd left Red Jacket and Cornplanter riding home with me after +Big Hand had said that there wouldn't be any war. That's all there +was to it. We believed Big Hand and we went home again - we +three braves. When we reached Lebanon we found Toby at the +cottage with his waistcoat a foot too big for him - so hard he had +worked amongst the yellow-fever people. He beat me for running +off with the Indians, but 'twas worth it - I was glad to see +him, - and when we went back to Philadelphia for the winter, and +I was told how he'd sacrificed himself over sick people in the +yellow fever, I thought the world and all of him. No, I didn't +neither. I'd thought that all along. That yellow fever must have +been something dreadful. Even in December people had no more +than begun to trinkle back to town. Whole houses stood empty +and the niggers was robbing them out. But I can't call to mind +that any of the Moravian Brethren had died. It seemed like they +had just kept on with their own concerns, and the good Lord He'd +just looked after 'em. That was the winter - yes, winter of +'Ninety-three - the Brethren bought a stove for the church. Toby +spoke in favour of it because the cold spoiled his fiddle hand, but +many thought stove-heat not in the Bible, and there was yet a +third party which always brought hickory coal foot-warmers to +service and wouldn't speak either way. They ended by casting the +Lot for it, which is like pitch-and-toss. After my summer with the +Senecas, church-stoves didn't highly interest me, so I took to +haunting round among the French emigres which Philadelphia was +full of. My French and my fiddling helped me there, d'ye see. +They come over in shiploads from France, where, by what I made +out, every one was killing every one else by any means, and they +spread 'emselves about the city - mostly in Drinker's Alley and +Elfrith's Alley - and they did odd jobs till times should mend. But +whatever they stooped to, they were gentry and kept a cheerful +countenance, and after an evening's fiddling at one of their poor +little proud parties, the Brethren seemed old-fashioned. Pastor +Meder and Brother Adam Goos didn't like my fiddling for hire, +but Toby said it was lawful in me to earn my living by exercising +my talents. He never let me be put upon. + +'In February of 'Ninety-four - No, March it must have been, +because a new Ambassador called Faucher had come from France, +with no more manners than Genet the old one - in March, Red +Jacket came in from the Reservation bringing news of all kind +friends there. I showed him round the city, and we saw General +Washington riding through a crowd of folk that shouted for war +with England. They gave him quite rough music, but he looked +'twixt his horse's ears and made out not to notice. His stirrup +brished Red Jacket's elbow, and Red Jacket whispered up, "My +brother knows it is not easy to be a chief." Big Hand shot just one +look at him and nodded. Then there was a scuffle behind us over +some one who wasn't hooting at Washington loud enough to +please the people. We went away to be out of the fight. Indians +won't risk being hit.' + +'What do they do if they are?' Dan asked. + +'Kill, of course. That's why they have such proper manners. +Well, then, coming home by Drinker's Alley to get a new shirt +which a French Vicomte's lady was washing to take the stiff out of +(I'm always choice in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a +paper of buttons at us. He hadn't long landed in the United States, +and please would we buy. He sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel - his +coat half torn off, his face cut, but his hands steady; so I knew +it wasn't drink. He said his name was Peringuey, and he'd been +knocked about in the crowd round the Stadt - Independence Hall. +One thing leading to another we took him up to Toby's rooms, +same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The compliments +he paid to Toby's Madeira wine fairly conquered the old +man, for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur +Peringuey all about our great stove dispute in the church. I +remember Pastor Meder and Brother Adam Goos dropped 'in, +and although they and Toby were direct opposite sides regarding +stoves, yet this Monsieur Peringuey he made 'em feel as if he +thought each one was in the right of it. He said he had been a +clergyman before he had to leave France. He admired at Toby's +fiddling, and he asked if Red Jacket, sitting by the spinet, was a +simple Huron. Senecas aren't Hurons, they're Iroquois, of +course, and Toby told him so. Well, then, in due time he arose +and left in a style which made us feel he'd been favouring us, +instead of us feeding him. I've never seen that so strong before - in +a man. We all talked him over but couldn't make head or tail of +him, and Red Jacket come out to walk with me to the French +quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. Passing Drinker's +Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, and there +sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all +alone, right hand against left. + +'Says Red Jacket, keeping back in the dark, "Look at his face!" + +'I was looking. I protest to you I wasn't frightened like I was +when Big Hand talked to his gentlemen. I - I only looked, and I +wondered that even those dead dumb dice 'ud dare to fall different +from what that face wished. It - it was a face! + +'"He is bad," says Red Jacket. "But he is a great chief. The +French have sent away a great chief. I thought so when he told us +his lies. Now I know." + +'i had to go on to the party, so I asked him to call round for me +afterwards and we'd have hymn-singing at Toby's as usual. +"No," he says. "Tell Toby I am not Christian tonight. All +Indian." He had those fits sometimes. I wanted to know more +about Monsieur Peringuey, and the emigre party was the very +place to find out. It's neither here nor there, of course, but those +French emigre parties they almost make you cry. The men that +you bought fruit of in Market Street, the hairdressers and fencing- +masters and French teachers, they turn back again by candlelight +to what they used to be at home, and you catch their real names. +There wasn't much room in the washhouse, so I sat on top of the +copper and played 'em the tunes they called for - "Si le Roi m'avait +donne," and such nursery stuff. They cried sometimes. It hurt me +to take their money afterwards, indeed it did. And there I found +out about Monsieur Peringuey. He was a proper rogue too! None +of 'em had a good word for him except the Marquise that kept the +French boarding-house on Fourth Street. I made out that his real +name was the Count Talleyrand de Perigord - a priest right +enough, but sorely come down in the world. He'd been King +Louis' Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the +French had cut off King Louis' head; and, by what I heard, that +head wasn't hardly more than hanging loose before he'd run back +to Paris and prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the +murder, to send him back to England again as Ambassador of the +French Republic! That was too much for the English, so they +kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he'd fled to the +Americas without money or friends or prospects. I'm telling you +the talk in the washhouse. Some of 'em was laughing over it. Says +the French Marquise, "My friends, you laugh too soon. That man +'ll be on the winning side before any of us." + +'"I did not know you were so fond of priests, Marquise," says +the Vicomte. His lady did my washing, as I've told you. + +'"I have my reasons," says the Marquise. "He sent my uncle +and my two brothers to Heaven by the little door," - that was one +of the emigre names for the guillotine. "He will be on the winning +side if it costs him the blood of every friend he has in the world." + +'"Then what does he want here?" says one of 'em. "We have +all lost our game." + +'"My faith!" says the Marquise. "He will find out, if any one +can, whether this canaille of a Washington means to help us to +fight England. Genet" (that was my Ambassador in the Embuscade) +"has failed and gone off disgraced; Faucher" (he was the new man) +"hasn't done any better, but our Abbe will find out, and he will +make his profit out of the news. Such a man does not fall." + +'"He begins unluckily," says the Vicomte. "He was set upon +today in the street for not hooting your Washington." They all +laughed again, and one remarks, "How does the poor devil keep +himself?" + +'He must have slipped in through the washhouse door, for he +flits past me and joins 'em, cold as ice. + +'"One does what one can," he says. "I sell buttons. And +you, Marquise?" + +'"I?" - she waves her poor white hands all burned - "I am a +cook - a very bad one - at your service, Abbe. We were just +talking about you." + +They didn't treat him like they talked of him. They backed off +and stood still. + +'"I have missed something, then," he says. "But I spent this +last hour playing - only for buttons, Marquise - against a noble +savage, the veritable Huron himself." + +'"You had your usual luck, I hope?" she says. + +'"Certainly," he says. "I cannot afford to lose even buttons in +these days." + +'"Then I suppose the child of nature does not know that your +dice are usually loaded, Father Tout-a-tous," she continues. I +don't know whether she meant to accuse him of cheating. He +only bows. +'"Not yet, Mademoiselle Cunegonde," he says, and goes on +to make himself agreeable to the rest of the company. And that +was how I found out our Monsieur Peringuey was Count Charles +Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord.' + +Pharaoh stopped, but the children said nothing. + +'You've heard of him?' said Pharaoh. + +Una shook her head. +'Was Red Jacket the Indian he played dice with?' Dan asked. + +'He was. Red Jacket told me the next time we met. I asked if the +lame man had cheated. Red Jacket said no - he had played quite +fair and was a master player. I allow Red Jacket knew. I've seen +him, on the Reservation, play himself out of everything he had +and in again. Then I told Red Jacket all I'd heard at the party +concerning Talleyrand. + +'"I was right," he says. "I saw the man's war-face when he +thought he was alone. That's why I played him. I played him face +to face. He's a great chief. Do they say why he comes here?" + +'"They say he comes to find out if Big Hand makes war against +the English," I said. + +'Red Jacket grunted. "Yes," he says. "He asked me that too. If +he had been a small chief I should have lied. But he is a great chief. +He knew I was a chief, so I told him the truth. I told him what Big +Hand said to Cornplanter and me in the clearing - 'There will be +no war.' I could not see what he thought. I could not see behind +his face. But he is a great chief. He will believe." + +'"Will he believe that Big Hand can keep his people back from +war?" I said, thinking of the crowds that hooted Big Hand +whenever he rode out. + +'"He is as bad as Big Hand is good, but he is not as strong as +Big Hand," says Red Jacket. "When he talks with Big Hand he +will feel this in his heart. The French have sent away a great chief. +Presently he will go back and make them afraid." + +'Now wasn't that comical? The French woman that knew him +and owed all her losses to him; the Indian that picked him up, cut +and muddy on the street, and played dice with him; they neither +of 'em doubted that Talleyrand was something by himself - +appearances notwithstanding.' + +'And was he something by himself?' asked Una. + +Pharaoh began to laugh, but stopped. 'The way I look at it,'he +said, 'Talleyrand was one of just three men in this world who are +quite by themselves. Big Hand I put first, because I've seen him.' +'Ay,' said Puck. 'I'm sorry we lost him out of Old England. +Who d'you put second?' + +'Talleyrand: maybe because I've seen him too,' said Pharaoh. + +'Who's third?'said Puck. + +'Boney - even though I've seen him.' + +'Whew!' said Puck. 'Every man has his own weights and +measures, but that's queer reckoning.' +'Boney?' said Una. 'You don't mean you've ever met +Napoleon Bonaparte?' + +'There, I knew you wouldn't have patience with the rest of my +tale after hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come +round to Hundred and Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for +his kindness. I didn't mention the dice-playing, but I could see +that Red Jacket's doings had made Talleyrand highly curious +about Indians - though he would call him the Huron. Toby, as you +may believe, was all holds full of knowledge concerning their +manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The Brethren +don't study Indians much till they join the Church, but Toby +knew 'em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his +sound leg over his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been +adopted into the Senecas I, naturally, kept still, but Toby 'ud call +on me to back up some of his remarks, and by that means, and a +habit he had of drawing you on in talk, Talleyrand saw I knew +something of his noble savages too. Then he tried a trick. Coming +back from an emigre party he turns into his little shop and puts it to +me, laughing like, that I'd gone with the two chiefs on their visit +to Big Hand. I hadn't told. Red Jacket hadn't told, and Toby, of +course, didn't know. 'Twas just Talleyrand's guess. "Now," he +says, my English and Red Jacket's French was so bad that I am +not sure I got the rights of what the President really said to the +unsophisticated Huron. Do me the favour of telling it again." I +told him every word Red Jacket had told him and not one word +more. I had my suspicions, having just come from an emigre party +where the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual. + +'"Much obliged," he said. "But I couldn't gather from Red +Jacket exactly what the President said to Monsieur Genet, or to +his American gentlemen after Monsieur Genet had ridden away. + +'I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn't +told him a word about the white men's pow-wow.' + +'Why hadn't he?' Puck asked. + +'Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the +President had said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn't repeat +the talk, between the white men, that Big Hand ordered him to +leave behind. +'Oh!' said Puck. 'I see. What did you do?' + +'First I was going to make some sort of tale round it, but +Talleyrand was a chief too. So I said, "As soon as I get Red +Jacket's permission to tell that part of the tale, I'll be delighted to +refresh your memory, Abbe." What else could I have done? + +'"Is that all?" he says, laughing. "Let me refresh your +memory. In a month from now I can give you a hundred dollars +for your account of the conversation." + +'"Make it five hundred, Abbe," I says. +'"Five, then," says he. + +'"That will suit me admirably," I says. "Red Jacket will be in +town again by then, and the moment he gives me leave I'll claim +the money." + +'He had a hard fight to be civil, but he come out smiling. + +'"Monsieur," he says, "I beg your pardon as sincerely as I +envy the noble Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit +down while I explain." + +'There wasn't another chair, so I sat on the button-box. + +'He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the +President meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. +He had found out - from Genet, I reckon, who was with the +President on the day the two chiefs met him. He'd heard that +Genet had had a huff with the President and had ridden off leaving +his business at loose ends. What he wanted - what he begged and +blustered to know - was just the very words which the President +had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left, concerning the +peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in helping him to +those very words I'd be helping three great countries as well as +mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I +couldn't laugh at him. + +'"I'm sorry," I says, when he wiped his forehead. "As soon as +Red Jacket gives permission -" + +'"You don't believe me, then?" he cuts in. +'"Not one little, little word, Abbe," I says; "except that you +mean to be on the winning side. Remember, I've been fiddling to +all your old friends for months." + +'Well, then his temper fled him and he called me names. + +'"Wait a minute, ci-devant," I says at last. "I am half English +and half French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee +something the Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?" + +'"Oh yes!" he sneers. "I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne +to that estimable old man." + +'"Then," I says, "thee will understand. The Red Skin said that +when thee has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a +stronger man than thee." + +'"Go!" he whispers. "Before I kill thee, go." + +'He looked like it. So I left him.' + +'Why did he want to know so badly?' said Dan. + +'The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that +Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any +price, he'd ha' left old Faucher fumbling about in Philadelphia +while he went straight back to France and told old Danton - "It's +no good your wasting time and hopes on the United States, +because she won't fight on our side - that I've proof of!" Then +Danton might have been grateful and given Talleyrand a job, +because a whole mass of things hang on knowing for sure who's +your friend and who's your enemy. just think of us poor shop- +keepers, for instance.' + +'Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?' Una asked. + +'Of course not. He said, "When Cornplanter and I ask you +what Big Hand said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All +that talk was left behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell +the Lame Chief there will be no war. He can go back to France +with that word." + +'Talleyrand and me hadn't met for a long time except at emigre +parties. When I give him the message he just shook his head. He +was sorting buttons in the shop. + +'I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word +of an unsophisticated savage," he says. + +'"Hasn't the President said anything to you?" I asked him. + +'"He has said everything that one in his position ought to say, +but - but if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode +off I believe I could change Europe - the world, maybe." +'"I'm sorry," I says. "Maybe you'll do that without my help." + +'He looked at me hard. "Either you have unusual observation +for one so young, or you choose to be insolent," he says. + +'"It was intended for a compliment," I says. "But no odds. +We're off in a few days for our summer trip, and I've come to +make my good-byes." + +'"I go on my travels too," he says. "If ever we meet again you +may be sure I will do my best to repay what I owe you." + +'"Without malice, Abbe, I hope," I says. + +'"None whatever," says he. "Give my respects to your +adorable Dr Pangloss" (that was one of his side-names for Toby) +"and the Huron." I never could teach him the difference betwixt +Hurons and Senecas. + +'Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call "pilly +buttons," and that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.' + +'But after that you met Napoleon, didn't you?' said Una. +'Wait Just a little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to +Lebanon and the Reservation, and, being older and knowing +better how to manage him, I enjoyed myself well that summer +with fiddling and fun. When we came back, the Brethren got after +Toby because I wasn't learning any lawful trade, and he had hard +work to save me from being apprenticed to Helmbold and Geyer +the printers. 'Twould have ruined our music together, indeed it +would. And when we escaped that, old Mattes Roush, the +leather-breeches maker round the corner, took a notion I was cut +out for skin-dressing. But we were rescued. Along towards +Christmas there comes a big sealed letter from the Bank saying +that a Monsieur Talleyrand had put five hundred dollars - a +hundred pounds - to my credit there to use as I pleased. There was +a little note from him inside - he didn't give any address - to thank +me for past kindnesses and my believing in his future, which he +said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished Toby to +share the money. I hadn't done more than bring Talleyrand up to +Hundred and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby's. But Toby +said, "No! Liberty and Independence for ever. I have all my +wants, my son." So I gave him a set of new fiddle-strings, and the +Brethren didn't advise us any more. Only Pastor Meder he +preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and Brother Adam +Goos said if there was war the English 'ud surely shoot down the +Bank. I knew there wasn't going to be any war, but I drew the +money out and on Red Jacket's advice I put it into horse-flesh, +which I sold to Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stage-coaches. +That way, I doubled my money inside the twelvemonth.' +'You gipsy! You proper gipsy!' Puck shouted. + +'Why not? 'Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing +leading to another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a +worldly fortune and was in the tobacco trade.' + +'Ah!' said Puck, suddenly. 'Might I inquire if you'd ever sent +any news to your people in England - or in France?' + +'O' course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I'd +made money in the horse trade. We Lees don't like coming home +empty-handed. If it's only a turnip or an egg, it's something. Oh +yes, I wrote good and plenty to Uncle Aurette, and - Dad don't +read very quickly - Uncle used to slip over Newhaven way and +tell Dad what was going on in the tobacco trade.' + +'I see - + + Aurettes and Lees - + Like as two peas. + +Go on, Brother Square-toes,' said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on. + +'Talleyrand he'd gone up in the world same as me. He'd sailed +to France again, and was a great man in the Government there +awhile, but they had to turn him out on account of some story +about bribes from American shippers. All our poor emigres said he +was surely finished this time, but Red Jacket and me we didn't +think it likely, not unless he was quite dead. Big Hand had made +his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as he said he would, and +there was a roaring trade 'twixt England and the United States for +such as 'ud take the risk of being searched by British and French +men-o'-war. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen +told Big Hand 'ud happen - the United States was catching it +from both. If an English man-o'-war met an American ship he'd +press half the best men out of her, and swear they was British +subjects. Most of 'em was! If a Frenchman met her he'd, likely, +have the cargo out of her, swearing it was meant to aid and +comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a Dutchman met her - +they was hanging on to England's coat-tails too - Lord only +knows what they wouldn't do! It came over me that what I wanted +in my tobacco trade was a fast-sailing ship and a man who could +be French, English, or American at a pinch. Luckily I could lay +my hands on both articles. So along towards the end of +September in the year 'Ninety-nine I sailed from Philadelphia +with a hundred and eleven hogshead o' good Virginia tobacco, in +the brig BERTHE AURETTE, named after Mother's maiden name, +hoping 'twould bring me luck, which she didn't - and yet she did.' + +'Where was you bound for?' Puck asked. + +'Er - any port I found handiest. I didn't tell Toby or the +Brethren. They don't understand the ins and outs of the tobacco trade.' + +Puck coughed a small cough as he shifted a piece of wood with +his bare foot. + +'It's easy for you to sit and judge,' Pharaoh cried. 'But think o' +what we had to put up with! We spread our wings and run across +the broad Atlantic like a hen through a horse-fair. Even so, we +was stopped by an English frigate, three days out. He sent a boat +alongside and pressed seven able seamen. I remarked it was hard +on honest traders, but the officer said they was fighting all +creation and hadn't time to argue. The next English frigate we +escaped with no more than a shot in our quarter. Then we was +chased two days and a night by a French privateer, firing between +squalls, and the dirty little English ten-gun brig which made him +sheer off had the impudence to press another five of our men. +That's how we reached to the chops of the Channel. Twelve good +men pressed out of thirty-five; an eighteen-pound shot-hole close +beside our rudder; our mainsail looking like spectacles where the +Frenchman had hit us - and the Channel crawling with short- +handed British cruisers. Put that in your pipe and smoke it next +time you grumble at the price of tobacco! + +'Well, then, to top it off, while we was trying to get at our +leaks, a French lugger come swooping at us out o' the dusk. We +warned him to keep away, but he fell aboard us, and up climbed +his Jabbering red-caps. We couldn't endure any more - indeed we +couldn't. We went at 'em with all we could lay hands on. It didn't +last long. They was fifty odd to our twenty-three. Pretty soon I +heard the cutlasses thrown down and some one bellowed for the +sacri captain. + +'"Here I am!" I says. "I don't suppose it makes any odds to you +thieves, but this is the United States brig BERTHE AURETTE." + +'"My aunt!" the man says, laughing. "Why is she named that?" + +'"Who's speaking?" I said. 'Twas too dark to see, but I +thought I knew the voice. + +'"Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L'Estrange," he sings out, and +then I was sure. + +'"Oh!" I says. "It's all in the family, I suppose, but you have +done a fine day's work, Stephen." + +'He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. He +was young L'Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn't seen since the +night the smack sank off Telscombe Tye - six years before. + +'"Whew!" he says. "That's why she was named for Aunt +Berthe, is it? What's your share in her, Pharaoh?" + +'"Only half owner, but the cargo's mine." + +'"That's bad," he says. "I'll do what I can, but you shouldn't +have fought us." +'"Steve," I says, "you aren't ever going to report our little +fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter 'ud laugh at it!" + +'"So'd I if I wasn't in the Republican Navy," he says. "But two +of our men are dead, d'ye see, and I'm afraid I'll have to take you + +to the Prize Court at Le Havre." + +'"Will they condemn my 'baccy?" I asks. + +'"To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship. She'd +make a sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court 'ud let me +have her," he says. + +'Then I knew there was no hope. I don't blame him - a man +must consider his own interests, but nigh every dollar I had was +in ship or cargo, and Steve kept on saying, "You shouldn't have +fought us." + +'Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being the +one time we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o' course +we never saw one. My cousin spoke his best for us at the Prize +Court. He owned he'd no right to rush alongside in the face o' the +United States flag, but we couldn't get over those two men killed, +d'ye see, and the Court condemned both ship and cargo. They +was kind enough not to make us prisoners - only beggars - and +young L'Estrange was given the BERTHE AURETTE to re-arm into the +French Navy. + +'"I'll take you round to Boulogne," he says. "Mother and the +rest'll be glad to see you, and you can slip over to Newhaven with +Uncle Aurette. Or you can ship with me, like most o' your men, +and take a turn at King George's loose trade. There's plenty +pickings," he says. + +'Crazy as I was, I couldn't help laughing. + +'"I've had my allowance of pickings and stealings," I says. +"Where are they taking my tobacco?" 'Twas being loaded on to a barge. + +'"Up the Seine to be sold in Paris," he says. "Neither you nor I +will ever touch a penny of that money." + +'"Get me leave to go with it," I says. "I'll see if there's justice to +be gotten out of our American Ambassador." + +'"There's not much justice in this world," he says, "without a +Navy." But he got me leave to go with the barge and he gave me +some money. That tobacco was all I had, and I followed it like a +hound follows a snatched bone. Going up the river I fiddled a little +to keep my spirits up, as well as to make friends with the guard. +They was only doing their duty. Outside o' that they were the +reasonablest o' God's creatures. They never even laughed at me. +So we come to Paris, by river, along in November, which the +French had christened Brumaire. They'd given new names to all +the months, and after such an outrageous silly piece o' business as +that, they wasn't likely to trouble 'emselves with my rights and +wrongs. They didn't. The barge was laid up below Notre Dame +church in charge of a caretaker, and he let me sleep aboard after I'd +run about all day from office to office, seeking justice and fair +dealing, and getting speeches concerning liberty. None heeded +me. Looking back on it I can't rightly blame 'em. I'd no money, +my clothes was filthy mucked; I hadn't changed my linen in +weeks, and I'd no proof of my claims except the ship's papers, +which, they said, I might have stolen. The thieves! The door- +keeper to the American Ambassador - for I never saw even the +Secretary - he swore I spoke French a sight too well for an +American citizen. Worse than that - I had spent my money, d'ye +see, and I - I took to fiddling in the streets for my keep; and - and, +a ship's captain with a fiddle under his arm - well, I don't blame +'em that they didn't believe me. + +'I come back to the barge one day - late in this month Brumaire +it was - fair beazled out. Old Maingon, the caretaker, he'd lit a fire +in a bucket and was grilling a herring. + +'"Courage, mon ami," he says. "Dinner is served." + +'"I can't eat," I says. "I can't do any more. It's stronger +than I am." +'"Bah!" he says. "Nothing's stronger than a man. Me, for +example! Less than two years ago I was blown up in the Orient in +Aboukir Bay, but I descended again and hit the water like a fairy. +Look at me now," he says. He wasn't much to look at, for he'd +only one leg and one eye, but the cheerfullest soul that ever trod +shoe-leather. "That's worse than a hundred and eleven hogshead +of 'baccy," he goes on. "You're young, too! What wouldn't I give +to be young in France at this hour! There's nothing you couldn't +do," he says. "The ball's at your feet - kick it!" he says. He kicks +the old fire-bucket with his peg-leg. "General Buonaparte, for +example!" he goes on. "That man's a babe compared to me, and +see what he's done already. He's conquered Egypt and Austria +and Italy - oh! half Europe!" he says, "and now he sails back to +Paris, and he sails out to St Cloud down the river here -don't stare +at the river, you young fool! - and all in front of these pig-jobbing +lawyers and citizens he makes himself Consul, which is as good as +a King. He'll be King, too, in the next three turns of the capstan - +King of France, England, and the world! Think o' that!" he +shouts, "and eat your herring." + +'I says something about Boney. If he hadn't been fighting +England I shouldn't have lost my 'baccy - should I? + +'"Young fellow," says Maingon, "you don't understand." + +'We heard cheering. A carriage passed over the bridge with two +in it. +'"That's the man himself," says Maingon. "He'll give 'em +something to cheer for soon." He stands at the salute. + +'"Who's t'other in black beside him?" I asks, fairly shaking +all over. + +'"Ah! he's the clever one. You'll hear of him before long. He's +that scoundrel-bishop, Talleyrand." + +'"It is!" I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run +after the carriage calling, "Abbe, Abbe!" + +'A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his +sword, but I had sense to keep on following till the carriage +stopped - and there just was a crowd round the house-door! I +must have been half-crazy else I wouldn't have struck up "Si le +Roi m'avait donne Paris la grande ville!" I thought it might remind him. + +'"That is a good omen!" he says to Boney sitting all hunched +up; and he looks straight at me. + +'"Abbe - oh, Abbe!" I says. "Don't you remember Toby and +Hundred and Eighteen Second Street?" + +'He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to +the guard at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I +skipped into the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd's face. +'"You go there," says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty +room, where I catched my first breath since I'd left the barge. +Presently I heard plates rattling next door - there were only + +folding doors between - and a cork drawn. "I tell you," some one +shouts with his mouth full, "it was all that sulky ass Sieyes' fault. +Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the situation." + +'"Did it save your coat?" says Talleyrand. "I hear they tore it +when they threw you out. Don't gasconade to me. You may be in +the road of victory, but you aren't there yet." + +'Then I guessed t'other man was Boney. He stamped about and +swore at Talleyrand. + +'"You forget yourself, Consul," says Talleyrand, "or rather +you remember yourself- Corsican." + +'"Pig!" says Boney, and worse. + +'"Emperor!" says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it +sounded worst of all. Some one must have backed against the +folding doors, for they flew open and showed me in the middle of +the room. Boney whipped out his pistol before I could stand up. + +"General," says Talleyrand to him, "this gentleman has a habit of +catching us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing down." + +'Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. +Talleyrand takes my hand - "Charmed to see you again, +Candide," he says. "How is the adorable Dr Pangloss and the +noble Huron?" + +'"They were doing very well when I left," I said. "But I'm +not." + +'"Do you sell buttons now?" he says, and fills me a glass of +wine off the table. + +'"Madeira," says he. "Not so good as some I have drunk." + +'"You mountebank!" Boney roars. "Turn that out." (He +didn't even say "man," but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just +went on.) + +'"Pheasant is not so good as pork," he says. "You will find +some at that table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pass +him a clean plate, General." And, as true as I'm here, Boney slid a +plate along just like a sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow- +skinned little man, as nervous as a cat - and as dangerous. I could +feel that. + +'"And now," said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his +sound one, "will you tell me your story?" +'I was in a fluster, but I told him nearly everything from the +time he left me the five hundred dollars in Philadelphia, up to my +losing ship and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by listening, but +after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked at the +crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand +called to him when I'd done. + +'"Eh? What we need now," says Boney, "is peace for the next +three or four years." + +'"Quite so," says Talleyrand. "Meantime I want the Consul's +order to the Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his +ship." + +'"Nonsense!" says Boney. "Give away an oak-built brig of +two hundred and seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She +must be armed into my Navy with ten - no, fourteen twelve- +pounders and two long fours. Is she strong enough to bear a long +twelve forward?" + +'Now I could ha' sworn he'd paid no heed to my talk, but that +wonderful head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word +of it that was useful to him. + +'"Ah, General!" says Talleyrand. "You are a magician - a +magician without morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, +and we don't want to offend them more than we have. " + +'"Need anybody talk about the affair?" he says. He didn't look +at me, but I knew what was in his mind -just cold murder because +I worried him; and he'd order it as easy as ordering his carriage. + +'"You can't stop 'em," I said. "There's twenty-two other men +besides me." I felt a little more 'ud set me screaming like a wired hare. + +'"Undoubtedly American," Talleyrand goes on. "You would +gain something if you returned the ship - with a message of +fraternal good-will - published in the MONITEUR" (that's a French +paper like the Philadelphia AURORA). + +'"A good idea!" Boney answers. "One could say much in a +message." + +'"It might be useful," says Talleyrand. "Shall I have the +message prepared?" He wrote something in a little pocket ledger. + +'"Yes - for me to embellish this evening. The MONITEUR will +publish it tonight." + +'"Certainly. Sign, please," says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out. + +'"But that's the order to return the brig," says Boney. "Is that +necessary? Why should I lose a good ship? Haven't I lost enough +ships already?" +'Talleyrand didn't answer any of those questions. Then Boney +sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he shies at +the paper again: "My signature alone is useless," he says. "You +must have the other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos +must sign. We must preserve the Laws." + +'"By the time my friend presents it," says Talleyrand, still +looking out of window, "only one signature will be necessary." + +'Boney smiles. "It's a swindle," says he, but he signed and +pushed the paper across. + +'"Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre," +says Talleyrand, "and he will give you back your ship. I will settle +for the cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What +profit did you expect to make on it?" + +'Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I'd +set out to run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and +so I couldn't rightly set bounds to my profits.' + +'I guessed that all along,' said Puck. + + 'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst - + That wasn't a smuggler last and first.' + +The children laughed. + +'It's comical enough now,' said Pharaoh. 'But I didn't laugh +then. Says Talleyrand after a minute, "I am a bad accountant and I +have several calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice +the cost of the cargo?" + +'Say? I couldn't say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a +China image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I +won't say how much, because you wouldn't believe it. + +'"Oh! Bless you, Abbe! God bless you!" I got it out at last. + +'"Yes," he says, "I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call +me Bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing," and he +hands me the paper. + +'"He stole all that money from me," says Boney over my +shoulder. "A Bank of France is another of the things we must +make. Are you mad?" he shouts at Talleyrand. + +'"Quite," says Talleyrand, getting up. "But be calm. The +disease will never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman +found me in the street and fed me when I was hungry." + +'"I see; and he has made a fine scene of it, and you have paid +him, I suppose. Meantime, France waits. " + +'"Oh! poor France!" says Talleyrand. "Good-bye, Candide," +he says to me. "By the way," he says, "have you yet got Red +Jacket's permission to tell me what the President said to his +Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode away?" + +'I couldn't speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney - so +impatient he was to go on with his doings - he ran at me and fair +pushed me out of the room. And that was all there was to it.' +Pharaoh stood up and slid his fiddle into one of his big skirt- +pockets as though it were a dead hare. + +'Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,'said Dan. 'How +you got home - and what old Maingon said on the barge - and +wasn't your cousin surprised when he had to give back the BERTHE +AURETTE, and -' + +'Tell us more about Toby!' cried Una. + +'Yes, and Red Jacket,' said Dan. + +'Won't you tell us any more?' they both pleaded. + +Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column +of smoke that made them sneeze. When they had finished the +Shaw was empty except for old Hobden stamping through the +larches. + + +'They gipsies have took two,'he said. "My black pullet and my +liddle gingy-speckled cockrel.' + +'I thought so,' said Dan, picking up one tail-feather that the old +woman had overlooked. + +'Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?' +said Hobden. + +'Hobby!' said Una. 'Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley +all your goings and comings?' + + + +'Poor Honest Men' + + +Your jar of Virginny +Will cost you a guinea, +Which you reckon too much by five shilling or ten; +But light your churchwarden +And judge it accordin' +When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men. + +From the Capes of the Delaware, +As you are well aware, +We sail with tobacco for England - but then +Our own British cruisers, +They watch us come through, sirs, +And they press half a score of us poor honest men. + +Or if by quick sailing +(Thick weather prevailing) +We leave them behind (as we do now and then) +We are sure of a gun from +Each frigate we run from, +Which is often destruction to poor honest men! + +Broadsides the Atlantic +We tumble short-handed, +With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend, +And off the Azores, +Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs +Are waiting to terrify poor honest men! + +Napoleon's embargo +Is laid on all cargo +Which comfort or aid to King George may intend; +And since roll, twist and leaf, +Of all comforts is chief, +They try for to steal it from poor honest men! + +With no heart for fight, +We take refuge in flight, +But fire as we run, our retreat to defend, +Until our stern-chasers +Cut up her fore-braces, +And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men! + +Twix' the Forties and Fifties, +South-eastward the drift is, +And so, when we think we are making Land's End, +Alas, it is Ushant +With half the King's Navy, +Blockading French ports against poor honest men! + +But they may not quit station +(Which is our salvation), +So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again; +And finding the tail of +A homeward-bound convoy, +We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men. + +'Twix' the Lizard and Dover, +We hand our stuff over, +Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when; +But a light on each quarter +Low down on the water +Is well understanded by poor honest men. +Even then we have dangers +From meddlesome strangers, +Who spy on our business and are not content +To take a smooth answer, +Except with a handspike ... +And they say they are murdered by poor honest men! + +To be drowned or be shot +Is our natural lot, +Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end - +After all our great pains +For to dangle in chains, +As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men? + + + + +THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID + + + +Eddi's Service + + +Eddi, priest of St Wilfrid +In the chapel at Manhood End, +Ordered a midnight service +For such as cared to attend. +But the Saxons were keeping Christmas, +And the night was stormy as well. +Nobody came to service +Though Eddi rang the bell. + +'Wicked weather for walking,' +Said Eddi of Manhood End. +'But I must go on with the service +For such as care to attend.' +The altar candles were lighted, - +An old marsh donkey came, +Bold as a guest invited, +And stared at the guttering flame. + +The storm beat on at the windows, +The water splashed on the floor, +And a wet yoke-weary bullock +Pushed in through the open door. +'How do I know what is greatest, +How do I know what is least? +That is My Father's business,' +Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest. + +'But, three are gathered together - +Listen to me and attend. +I bring good news, my brethren!' +Said Eddi, of Manhood End. +And he told the Ox of a manger +And a stall in Bethlehem, +And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider +That rode to jerusalem. + +They steamed and dripped in the chancel, +They listened and never stirred, +While, just as though they were Bishops, +Eddi preached them The Word. + +Till the gale blew off on the marshes +And the windows showed the day, +And the Ox and the Ass together +Wheeled and clattered away. + +And when the Saxons mocked him, +Said Eddi of Manhood End, +'I dare not shut His chapel +On such as care to attend.' + + + +The Conversion of St Wilfrid + + +They had bought peppermints up at the village, and were coming +home past little St Barnabas' Church, when they saw Jimmy +Kidbrooke, the carpenter's baby, kicking at the churchyard gate, +with a shaving in his mouth and the tears running down his cheeks. + +Una pulled out the shaving and put in a peppermint. Jimmy +said he was looking for his grand-daddy - he never seemed to take +much notice of his father - so they went up between the old +graves, under the leaf-dropping limes, to the porch, where Jim +trotted in, looked about the empty Church, and screamed like a +gate-hinge. + +Young Sam Kidbrooke's voice came from the bell-tower and +made them jump. + +'Why, jimmy,'he called, 'what are you doin' here? Fetch +him, Father!' + +Old Mr Kidbrooke stumped downstairs, jerked Jimmy on to +his shoulder, stared at the children beneath his brass spectacles, +and stumped back again. They laughed: it was so exactly like +Mr Kidbrooke. + +'It's all right,' Una called up the stairs. 'We found him, Sam. +Does his mother know?' + +'He's come off by himself. She'll be justabout crazy,' +Sam answered. + +'Then I'll run down street and tell her.' Una darted off. + +'Thank you, Miss Una. Would you like to see how we're +mendin' the bell-beams, Mus' Dan?' + +Dan hopped up, and saw young Sam lying on his stomach in a +most delightful place among beams and ropes, close to the five +great bells. Old Mr Kidbrooke on the floor beneath was planing a +piece of wood, and Jimmy was eating the shavings as fast as they +came away. He never looked at Jimmy; Jimmy never stopped +eating; and the broad gilt-bobbed pendulum of the church clock +never stopped swinging across the white-washed wall of the +tower. + +Dan winked through the sawdust that fell on his upturned face. +'Ring a bell,' he called. + +, I mustn't do that, but I'll buzz one of 'em a bit for you,' said +Sam. He pounded on the sound-bow of the biggest bell, and +waked a hollow groaning boom that ran up and down the tower +like creepy feelings down your back. just when it almost began to +hurt, it died away in a hurry of beautiful sorrowful cries, like a +wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger. The pendulum clanked - +one loud clank to each silent swing. + +Dan heard Una return from Mrs Kidbrooke's, and ran down to +fetch her. She was standing by the font staring at some one who +kneeled at the Altar-rail. + +'Is that the Lady who practises the organ?' she whispered. + +'No. She's gone into the organ-place. Besides, she wears +black,' Dan replied. + +The figure rose and came down the nave. It was a white-haired +man in a long white gown with a sort of scarf looped low on the +neck, one end hanging over his shoulder. His loose long sleeves +were embroidered with gold, and a deep strip of gold embroidery +waved and sparkled round the hem of his gown. + +'Go and meet him,' said Puck's voice behind the font. 'It's +only Wilfrid.' + +'Wilfrid who?' said Dan. 'You come along too.' + +'Wilfrid - Saint of Sussex, and Archbishop of York. I shall wait +till he asks me.' He waved them forward. Their feet squeaked on +the old grave-slabs in the centre aisle. The Archbishop raised one +hand with a pink ring on it, and said something in Latin. He was +very handsome, and his thin face looked almost as silvery as his +thin circle of hair. + +'Are you alone?' he asked. + +'Puck's here, of course,' said Una. 'Do you know him?' + +'I know him better now than I used to.' He beckoned over +Dan's shoulder, and spoke again in Latin. Puck pattered forward, +holding himself as straight as an arrow. The Archbishop smiled. + +'Be welcome,' said he. 'Be very welcome.' + +'Welcome to you also, O Prince of the church,' Puck replied. + +The Archbishop bowed his head and passed on, till he glimmered +like a white moth in the shadow by the font. + +'He does look awfully princely,' said Una. 'Isn't he coming +back?' + +'Oh yes. He's only looking over the church. He's very fond of +churches,' said Puck. 'What's that?' + +The Lady who practices the organ was speaking to the blower- +boy behind the organ-screen. 'We can't very well talk here,' Puck +whispered. 'Let's go to Panama Corner.' + +He led them to the end of the south aisle, where there is a slab of +iron which says in queer, long-tailed letters: ORATE P. ANNEMA JHONE COLINE. +The children always called it Panama Corner. + +The Archbishop moved slowly about the little church, peering +at the old memorial tablets and the new glass windows. The Lady +who practises the organ began to pull out stops and rustle hymn- +books behind the screen. + +'I hope she'll do all the soft lacey tunes - like treacle on +porridge,' said Una. + +'I like the trumpety ones best,' said Dan. 'Oh, look at Wilfrid! +He's trying to shut the Altar-gates!' + +'Tell him he mustn't,' said Puck, quite seriously. + +He can't, anyhow,' Dan muttered, and tiptoed out of Panama +Corner while the Archbishop patted and patted at the carved gates +that always sprang open again beneath his hand. + +'That's no use, sir,' Dan whispered. 'Old Mr Kidbrooke says +Altar-gates are just the one pair of gates which no man can shut. +He made 'em so himself.' + +The Archbishop's blue eyes twinkled. Dan saw that he knew all +about it. + +'I beg your pardon,' Dan stammered - very angry with Puck. + +'Yes, I know! He made them so Himself.' The Archbishop +smiled, and crossed to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a +certain padded arm-chair for him to sit on. + +The organ played softly. 'What does that music say?'he asked. + +Una dropped into the chant without thinking: '"O all ye +works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him +for ever." We call it the Noah's Ark, because it's all lists of things +- beasts and birds and whales, you know.' + +'Whales?' said the Archbishop quickly. + +'Yes - "O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,"' Una +hummed - '"Bless ye the Lord." It sounds like a wave turning +over, doesn't it?' + +'Holy Father,' said Puck with a demure face, 'is a little seal also +"one who moves in the water"?' + +'Eh? Oh yes - yess!' he laughed. 'A seal moves wonderfully in +the waters. Do the seal come to my island still?' + +Puck shook his head. 'All those little islands have been +swept away.' + +'Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you +know the land of the Sea-calf, maiden?' + +'No - but we've seen seals - at Brighton.' + +'The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. +He means Seal's Eye - Selsey - down Chichester way - where he +converted the South Saxons,' Puck explained. + +'Yes - yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,' said the +Archbishop, smiling. 'The first time I was wrecked was on that +coast. As our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old +fat fellow of a seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the +water, and scratched his head with his flipper as if he were saying: +"What does that excited person with the pole think he is doing'"I +was very wet and miserable, but I could not help laughing, till the +natives came down and attacked us.' + +'What did you do?' Dan asked. + +'One couldn't very well go back to France, so one tried to make +them go back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born +wreckers, like my own Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a +few things for my old church at York, and some of the natives laid +hands on them, and - and I'm afraid I lost my temper.' + +'it is said -' Puck's voice was wickedly meek -'that there was a +great fight.' + +Eh, but I must ha' been a silly lad.' Wilfrid spoke with a sudden +thick burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones +again. 'There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of +them, but the tide rose half an hour before its time, with a strong +wind, and we backed off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that +the seas about us were full of sleek seals watching the scuffle. My +good Eddi - my chaplain - insisted that they were demons. Yes - +yess! That was my first acquaintance with the South Saxons and +their seals.' + +'But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?' said Dan. + +'Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long +shipwreck.' He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden +sometimes looks into the fire. 'Ah, well!' + +'But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?" +said Una, after a little. + +'Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important +things. Yes - yess! I went back to the South Saxons after twelve - +fifteen - years. No, I did not come by water, but overland from +my own Northumbria, to see what I could do. It's little one can do +with that class of native except make them stop killing each other +and themselves -' +'Why did they kill themselves?' Una asked, her chin in her hand. + +'Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if +they were the only people!) they would jump into the sea . They +called it going to Wotan. It wasn't want of food always - by any +means. A man would tell you that he felt grey in the heart, or a +woman would say that she saw nothing but long days in front of +her; and they'd saunter away to the mud-flats and - that would be +the end of them, poor souls, unless one headed them off. One had +to run quick, but one can't allow people to lay hands on themselves +because they happen to feel grey. Yes - yess - Extraordinary +people, the South Saxons. Disheartening, sometimes. ... What does +that say now?' The organ had changed tune again. + +'Only a hymn for next Sunday,' said Una. '"The Church's +One Foundation." Go on, please, about running over the mud. I +should like to have seen you.' + +'I dare say you would, and I really could run in those days. +Ethelwalch the King gave me some five or six muddy parishes by +the sea, and the first time my good Eddi and I rode there we saw a +man slouching along the slob, among the seals at Manhood End. +My good Eddi disliked seals - but he swallowed his objections +and ran like a hare.' + +'Why?'said Dan. + +'For the same reason that I did. We thought it was one of our +people going to drown himself. As a matter of fact, Eddi and I +were nearly drowned in the pools before we overtook him. To +cut a long story short, we found ourselves very muddy, very +breathless, being quietly made fun of in good Latin by a very +well-spoken person. No - he'd no idea of going to Wotan. He was +fishing on his own beaches, and he showed us the beacons and +turf-heaps that divided his land from the church property. He +took us to his own house, gave us a good dinner, some more than +good wine, sent a guide with us into Chichester, and became one +of my best and most refreshing friends. He was a Meon by +descent, from the west edge of the kingdom; a scholar educated, +curiously enough, at Lyons, my old school; had travelled the +world over, even to Rome, and was a brilliant talker. We found +we had scores of acquaintances in common. It seemed he was a +small chief under King Ethelwalch, and I fancy the King was +somewhat afraid of him. The South Saxons mistrust a man who +talks too well. Ah! Now, I've left out the very point of my story. +He kept a great grey-muzzled old dog-seal that he had brought up +from a pup. He called it Padda - after one of my clergy. It was +rather like fat, honest old Padda. The creature followed him +everywhere, and nearly knocked down my good Eddi when we +first met him. Eddi loathed it. It used to sniff at his thin legs and +cough at him. I can't say I ever took much notice of it (I was not +fond of animals), till one day Eddi came to me with a circumstantial +account of some witchcraft that Meon worked. He would +tell the seal to go down to the beach the last thing at night, and +bring him word of the weather. When it came back, Meon might +say to his slaves, "Padda thinks we shall have wind tomorrow. +Haul up the boats!" I spoke to Meon casually about the story, and +he laughed. + +'He told me he could judge by the look of the creature's coat +and the way it sniffed what weather was brewing. Quite possible. +One need not put down everything one does not understand to +the work of bad spirits - or good ones, for that matter.' He +nodded towards Puck, who nodded gaily in return. + +'I say so,' he went on, 'because to a certain extent I have been +made a victim of that habit of mind. Some while after I was settled +at Selsey, King Ethelwalch and Queen Ebba ordered their people +to be baptized. I fear I'm too old to believe that a whole nation can +change its heart at the King's command, and I had a shrewd +suspicion that their real motive was to get a good harvest. No rain +had fallen for two or three years, but as soon as we had finished +baptizing, it fell heavily, and they all said it was a miracle.' + +'And was it?' Dan asked. + +'Everything in life is a miracle, but' - the Archbishop twisted +the heavy ring on his finger - 'I should be slow - ve-ry slow +should I be - to assume that a certain sort of miracle happens +whenever lazy and improvident people say they are going to turn +over a new leaf if they are paid for it. My friend Meon had sent his +slaves to the font, but he had not come himself, so the next time I +rode over - to return a manuscript - I took the liberty of asking +why. He was perfectly open about it. He looked on the King's +action as a heathen attempt to curry favour with the Christians' +God through me the Archbishop, and he would have none of it. + +'"My dear man," I said, "admitting that that is the case, surely +you, as an educated person, don't believe in Wotan and all the +other hobgoblins any more than Padda here?" The old seal was +hunched up on his ox-hide behind his master's chair. + +'"Even if I don't," he said, "why should I insult the memory of +my fathers' Gods? I have sent you a hundred and three of my +rascals to christen. Isn't that enough?" + +'"By no means," I answered. "I want you." + +'"He wants us! What do you think of that, Padda?" He pulled +the seal's whiskers till it threw back its head and roared, and he +pretended to interpret. "No! Padda says he won't be baptized yet +awhile. He says you'll stay to dinner and come fishing with me +tomorrow, because you're over-worked and need a rest." + +'"I wish you'd keep yon brute in its proper place," I said, and +Eddi, my chaplain, agreed. + +'"I do," said Meon. "I keep him just next my heart. He can't +tell a lie, and he doesn't know how to love any one except me. It +'ud be the same if I were dying on a mud-bank, wouldn't it, +Padda?" + +'"Augh! Augh!" said Padda, and put up his head to be scratched. + +'Then Meon began to tease Eddi: "Padda says, if Eddi saw his +Archbishop dying on a mud-bank Eddi would tuck up his gown +and run. Padda knows Eddi can run too! Padda came into Wittering +Church last Sunday - all wet - to hear the music, and Eddi ran out." + +'My good Eddi rubbed his hands and his shins together, and +flushed. "Padda is a child of the Devil, who is the father of lies!" +he cried, and begged my pardon for having spoken. I forgave him. + +'"Yes. You are just about stupid enough for a musician," said +Meon. "But here he is. Sing a hymn to him, and see if he can stand +it. You'll find my small harp beside the fireplace." + +'Eddi, who is really an excellent musician, played and sang for +quite half an hour. Padda shuffled off his ox-hide, hunched +himself on his flippers before him, and listened with his head +thrown back. Yes - yess! A rather funny sight! Meon tried not to +laugh, and asked Eddi if he were satisfied. + +'It takes some time to get an idea out of my good Eddi's head. +He looked at me. + +'"Do you want to sprinkle him with holy water, and see if he +flies up the chimney? Why not baptize him?" said Meon. + +'Eddi was really shocked. I thought it was bad taste myself. + +'"That's not fair," said Meon. "You call him a demon and a +familiar spirit because he loves his master and likes music, and +when I offer you a chance to prove it you won't take it. Look here! +I'll make a bargain. I'll be baptized if you'll baptize Padda too. +He's more of a man than most of my slaves." + +'"One doesn't bargain - or joke - about these matters," I said. +He was going altogether too far. + +'"Quite right," said Meon; "I shouldn't like any one to joke +about Padda. Padda, go down to the beach and bring us +tomorrow's weather!" + +'My good Eddi must have been a little over-tired with his day's +work. "I am a servant of the church," he cried. "My business is to +save souls, not to enter into fellowships and understandings with +accursed beasts." + +'"Have it your own narrow way," said Meon. "Padda, you +needn't go." The old fellow flounced back to his ox-hide at once. + +'"Man could learn obedience at least from that creature," said +Eddi, a little ashamed of himself. Christians should not curse. +'"Don't begin to apologise Just when I am beginning to like +you," said Meon. "We'll leave Padda behind tomorrow - out of +respect to your feelings. Now let's go to supper. We must be up +early tomorrow for the whiting." + +'The next was a beautiful crisp autumn morning - a weather- +breeder, if I had taken the trouble to think; but it's refreshing to +escape from kings and converts for half a day. We three went by +ourselves in Meon's smallest boat, and we got on the whiting near +an old wreck, a mile or so off shore. Meon knew the marks to a +yard, and the fish were keen. Yes - yess! A perfect morning's +fishing! If a Bishop can't be a fisherman, who can?' He twiddled +his ring again. 'We stayed there a little too long, and while we +were getting up our stone, down came the fog. After some +discussion, we decided to row for the land. The ebb was just +beginning to make round the point, and sent us all ways at once +like a coracle.' + +'Selsey Bill,' said Puck under his breath. 'The tides run +something furious there.' + +'I believe you,' said the Archbishop. 'Meon and I have spent a +good many evenings arguing as to where exactly we drifted. All I +know is we found ourselves in a little rocky cove that had sprung +up round us out of the fog, and a swell lifted the boat on to a ledge, +and she broke up beneath our feet. We had just time to shuffle +through the weed before the next wave. The sea was rising. +'"It's rather a pity we didn't let Padda go down to the beach +last night," said Meon. "He might have warned us this was coming." + +'"Better fall into the hands of God than the hands of demons," +said Eddi, and his teeth chattered as he prayed. A nor'-west breeze +had just got up - distinctly cool. + +'"Save what you can of the boat," said Meon; "we may need +it," and we had to drench ourselves again, fishing out stray +planks.' + +'What for?' said Dan. + +'For firewood. We did not know when we should get off. Eddi +had flint and steel, and we found dry fuel in the old gulls' nests and +lit a fire. It smoked abominably, and we guarded it with boat- +planks up-ended between the rocks. One gets used to that sort of +thing if one travels. Unluckily I'm not so strong as I was. I fear I +must have been a trouble to my friends. It was blowing a full gale +before midnight. Eddi wrung out his cloak, and tried to wrap me +in it, but I ordered him on his obedience to keep it. However, he +held me in his arms all the first night, and Meon begged his +pardon for what he'd said the night before - about Eddi, running +away if he found me on a sandbank, you remember. +'"You are right in half your prophecy," said Eddi. "I have +tucked up my gown, at any rate." (The wind had blown it over +his head.) "Now let us thank God for His mercies." + +'"Hum!" said Meon. "If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair +chance of dying of starvation." + +'"If it be God's will that we survive, God will provide," said Eddi. +"At least help me to sing to Him." The wind almost whipped the +words out of his mouth, but he braced himself against a rock and +sang psalms. + +'I'm glad I never concealed my opinion - from myself - that +Eddi was a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in my time - +very hard! Yes - yess! So the morning and the evening were our +second day on that islet. There was rain-water in the rock-pools, +and, as a churchman, I knew how to fast, but I admit we were +hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by chip to eke it out, and they +made me sit over it, the dear fellows, when I was too weak to +object. Meon held me in his arms the second night, just like a +child. My good Eddi was a little out of his senses, and imagined +himself teaching a York choir to sing. Even so, he was beautifully +patient with them. + +'I heard Meon whisper, "If this keeps up we shall go to our +Gods. I wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I +don't believe in him. On the other hand, I can't do what Ethelwalch +finds so easy - curry favour with your God at the last +minute, in the hope of being saved - as you call it. How do you +advise, Bishop?" +'"My dear man," I said, "if that is your honest belief, I take it +upon myself to say you had far better not curry favour with any +God. But if it's only your Jutish pride that holds you back, lift me +up, and I'll baptize you even now." + +'"Lie still," said Meon. "I could judge better if I were in my +own hall. But to desert one's fathers' Gods - even if one doesn't +believe in them - in the middle of a gale, isn't quite - What would +you do yourself?" + +'I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big, +steady heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for subtle +arguments, so I answered, "No, I certainly should not desert my +God." I don't see even now what else I could have said. + +'"Thank you. I'll remember that, if I live," said Meon, and I +must have drifted back to my dreams about Northumbria and +beautiful France, for it was broad daylight when I heard him +calling on Wotan in that high, shaking heathen yell that I detest so. + +'"Lie quiet. I'm giving Wotan his chance," he said. Our dear +Eddi ambled up, still beating time to his imaginary choir. + +'"Yes. Call on your Gods," he cried, "and see what gifts they +will send you. They are gone on a journey, or they are hunting." + +'I assure you the words were not out of his mouth when old +Padda shot from the top of a cold wrinkled swell, drove himself +over the weedy ledge, and landed fair in our laps with a rock-cod +between his teeth. I could not help smiling at Eddi's face. "A +miracle! A miracle!" he cried, and kneeled down to clean the cod. + +'"You've been a long time finding us, my son," said Meon. +"Now fish - fish for all our lives. We're starving, Padda." + +'The old fellow flung himself quivering like a salmon backward +into the boil of the currents round the rocks, and Meon said, +"We're safe. I'll send him to fetch help when this wind drops. Eat +and be thankful." + +'I never tasted anything so good as those rock-codlings we took +from Padda's mouth and half roasted over the fire. Between his +plunges Padda would hunch up and purr over Meon with the +tears running down his face. I never knew before that seals could +weep for joy - as I have wept. + +'"Surely," said Eddi, with his mouth full, "God has made the +seal the loveliest of His creatures in the water. Look how Padda +breasts the current! He stands up against it like a rock; now watch +the chain of bubbles where he dives; and now - there is his wise +head under that rock-ledge! Oh, a blessing be on thee, my little +brother Padda!" + +'"You said he was a child of the Devil!" Meon laughed. +'"There I sinned," poor Eddi answered. "Call him here, and I +will ask his pardon. God sent him out of the storm to humble me, +a fool." + +'"I won't ask you to enter into fellowships and understandings +with any accursed brute," said Meon, rather unkindly. "Shall we +say he was sent to our Bishop as the ravens were sent to your +prophet Elijah?" + +'"Doubtless that is so," said Eddi. "I will write it so if I live to +get home." + +'"No - no!" I said. "Let us three poor men kneel and thank +God for His mercies." + +'We kneeled, and old Padda shuffled up and thrust his head +under Meon's elbows. I laid my hand upon it and blessed him. So +did Eddi. + +'"And now, my son," I said to Meon, "shall I baptize thee?" + +'"Not yet," said he. "Wait till we are well ashore and at home. +No God in any Heaven shall say that I came to him or left him +because I was wet and cold. I will send Padda to my people for a +boat. Is that witchcraft, Eddi?" + +'"Why, no. Surely Padda will go and pull them to the beach by +the skirts of their gowns as he pulled me in Wittering Church to +ask me to sing. Only then I was afraid, and did not understand," +said Eddi. + +'"You are understanding now," said Meon, and at a wave of +his arm off went Padda to the mainland, making a wake like a +war-boat till we lost him in the rain. Meon's people could not +bring a boat across for some hours; even so it was ticklish work +among the rocks in that tideway. But they hoisted me aboard, too +stiff to move, and Padda swam behind us, barking and turning +somersaults all the way to Manhood End!' + +'Good old Padda!' murmured Dan. + +'When we were quite rested and re-clothed, and his people had +been summoned - not an hour before - Meon offered himself to +be baptized.' + +'Was Padda baptized too?' Una asked. + +'No, that was only Meon's joke. But he sat blinking on his +ox-hide in the middle of the hall. When Eddi (who thought I +wasn't looking) made a little cross in holy water on his wet +muzzle, he kissed Eddi's hand. A week before Eddi wouldn't +have touched him. That was a miracle, if you like! But seriously, I +was more glad than I can tell you to get Meon. A rare and splendid +soul that never looked back - never looked back!' The Arch- +bishop half closed his eyes. + +'But, sir,' said Puck, most respectfully, 'haven't you left out +what Meon said afterwards?' Before the Bishop could speak he +turned to the children and went on: 'Meon called all his fishers and +ploughmen and herdsmen into the hall and he said: "Listen, men! +Two days ago I asked our Bishop whether it was fair for a man to +desert his fathers' Gods in a time of danger. Our Bishop said it +was not fair. You needn't shout like that, because you are all +Christians now. My red war-boat's crew will remember how +near we all were to death when Padda fetched them over to the +Bishop's islet. You can tell your mates that even in that place, at +that time, hanging on the wet, weedy edge of death, our Bishop, a +Christian, counselled me, a heathen, to stand by my fathers' +Gods. I tell you now that a faith which takes care that every man +shall keep faith, even though he may save his soul by breaking +faith, is the faith for a man to believe in. So I believe in the +Christian God, and in Wilfrid His Bishop, and in the Church that +Wilfrid rules. You have been baptized once by the King's orders. I +shall not have you baptized again; but if I find any more old +women being sent to Wotan, or any girls dancing on the sly +before Balder, or any men talking about Thun or Lok or the rest, I +will teach you with my own hands how to keep faith with the +Christian God. Go out quietly; you'll find a couple of beefs on the +beach." Then of course they shouted "Hurrah!" which meant +"Thor help us!" and - I think you laughed, sir?' + +'I think you remember it all too well,' said the Archbishop, +smiling. 'It was a joyful day for me. I had learned a great deal on +that rock where Padda found us. Yes - yess! One should deal +kindly with all the creatures of God, and gently with their +masters. But one learns late.' + +He rose, and his gold-embroidered sleeves rustled thickly. + +The organ cracked and took deep breaths. + +'Wait a minute,' Dan whispered. 'She's going to do the +trumpety one. It takes all the wind you can pump. It's in Latin, sir.' + +'There is no other tongue,' the Archbishop answered. + +'It's not a real hymn,' Una explained. 'She does it as a treat after +her exercises. She isn't a real organist, you know. She just comes +down here sometimes, from the Albert Hall.' + +'Oh, what a miracle of a voice!' said the Archbishop. + +It rang out suddenly from a dark arch of lonely noises - every +word spoken to the very end: + + 'Dies Irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla, + Teste David cum Sibylla.' +The Archbishop caught his breath and moved forward. +The music carried on by itself a while. + +'Now it's calling all the light out of the windows,' Una whispered +to Dan. + +'I think it's more like a horse neighing in battle,' he whispered +back. The voice continued: + + 'Tuba mirum spargens sonum + Per sepulchre regionum.' + +Deeper and deeper the organ dived down, but far below its +deepest note they heard Puck's voice joining in the last line: + + 'Coget omnes ante thronum.' + +As they looked in wonder, for it sounded like the dull jar of one +of the very pillars shifting, the little fellow turned and went out +through the south door. + +'Now's the sorrowful part, but it's very beautiful.' Una found +herself speaking to the empty chair in front of her. + +'What are you doing that for?' Dan said behind her. 'You spoke +so politely too.' + +'I don't know ... I thought -' said Una. 'Funny!' + +''Tisn't. It's the part you like best,' Dan grunted. + +The music had turned soft - full of little sounds that chased each +other on wings across the broad gentle flood of the main tune. But +the voice was ten times lovelier than the music. + + 'Recordare Jesu pie, + Quod sum causa Tuae viae, + Ne me perdas illi die!' + +There was no more. They moved out into the centre aisle. + +'That you?' the Lady called as she shut the lid. 'I thought I +heard you, and I played it on purpose.' + +'Thank you awfully,' said Dan. 'We hoped you would, so we +waited. Come on, Una, it's pretty nearly dinner-time.' + + + +Song of the Red War-Boat + + +Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! +Watch for a smooth! Give way! +If she feels the lop already +She'll stand on her head in the bay. +It's ebb - it's dusk - it's blowing, +The shoals are a mile of white, +But (snatch her along!) we're going +To find our master tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster + Of shipwreck, storm, or sword, + A man must stand by his master + When once he had pledged his word! + +Raging seas have we rowed in, +But we seldom saw them thus; +Our master is angry with Odin - +Odin is angry with us! +Heavy odds have we taken, +But never before such odds. +The Gods know they are forsaken, +We must risk the wrath of the Gods! + +Over the crest she flies from, +Into its hollow she drops, +Crouches and clears her eyes from +The wind-torn breaker-tops, +Ere out on the shrieking shoulder +Of a hill-high surge she drives. +Meet her! Meet her and hold her! +Pull for your scoundrel lives! + +The thunder bellow and clamour +The harm that they mean to do; +There goes Thor's Own Hammer +Cracking the dark in two! + +Close! But the blow has missed her, +Here comes the wind of the blow! +Row or the squall'll twist her +Broadside on to it! - Row! + +Hearken, Thor of the Thunder! +We are not here for a jest - +For wager, warfare, or plunder, +Or to put your power to test. +This work is none of our wishing - +We would stay at home if we might - +But our master is wrecked out fishing, +We go to find him tonight. + + For we hold that in all disaster - + As the Gods Themselves have said - + A man must stand by his master + Till one of the two is dead. + +That is our way of thinking, +Now you can do as you will, +While we try to save her from sinking, +And hold her head to it still. +Bale her and keep her moving, +Or she'll break her back in the trough ... +Who said the weather's improving, +And the swells are taking off? + +Sodden, and chafed and aching, +Gone in the loins and knees - +No matter - the day is breaking, +And there's far less weight to the seas! +Up mast, and finish baling - +In oars, and out with the mead - +The rest will be two-reef sailing ... +That was a night indeed! + But we hold that in all disaster + (And faith, we have found it true!) + If only you stand by your master, + The Gods will stand by you! + + + + + +A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE + + + +An Astrologer's Song + + +To the Heavens above us +Oh, look and behold +The planets that love us +All harnessed in gold! +What chariots, what horses, +Against us shall bide +While the Stars in their courses +Do fight on our side? + +All thought, all desires, +That are under the sun, +Are one with their fires, +As we also are one; +All matter, all spirit, +All fashion, all frame, +Receive and inherit +Their strength from the same. + +(Oh, man that deniest +All power save thine own, +Their power in the highest +Is mightily shown. +Not less in the lowest +That power is made clear. +Oh, man, if thou knowest, +What treasure is here!) + +Earth quakes in her throes +And we wonder for why! +But the blind planet knows +When her ruler is nigh; +And, attuned since Creation, +To perfect accord, +She thrills in her station +And yearns to her Lord. + +The waters have risen, +The springs are unbound - +The floods break their prison, +And ravin around. +No rampart withstands 'em, +Their fury will last, +Till the Sign that commands 'em +Sinks low or swings past. + +Through abysses unproven, +And gulfs beyond thought, +Our portion is woven, +Our burden is brought. +Yet They that prepare it, +Whose Nature we share, +Make us who must bear it +Well able to bear. + +Though terrors o'ertake us +We'll not be afraid, +No Power can unmake us +Save that which has made. +Nor yet beyond reason +Nor hope shall we fall - +All things have their season, +And Mercy crowns all. + +Then, doubt not, ye fearful - +The Eternal is King - +Up, heart, and be cheerful, +And lustily sing: +What chariots, what horses, +Against us shall bide +While the Stars in their courses +Do fight on our side? + + + +A Doctor of Medicine + +They were playing hide-and-seek with bicycle lamps after tea. +Dan had hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore +bed in the walled garden, and was crouched by the gooseberry +bushes ready to dash off when Una should spy him. He saw her +lamp come into the garden and disappear as she hid it under her +cloak. While he listened for her footsteps, somebody (they both +thought it was Phillips the gardener) coughed in the corner of the +herb-beds. + +'All right,' Una shouted across the asparagus; 'we aren't +hurting your old beds, Phippsey!' + +She flashed her lantern towards the spot, and in its circle of light +they saw a Guy Fawkes-looking man in a black cloak and a +steeple-crowned hat, walking down the path beside Puck. They +ran to meet him, and the man said something to them about rooms +in their head. After a time they understood he was warning them +not to catch colds. + +'You've a bit of a cold yourself, haven't you?' said Una, for he +ended all his sentences with a consequential cough. Puck laughed. + +'Child,' the man answered, 'if it hath pleased Heaven to afflict +me with an infirmity -' + +'Nay, nay,' Puck struck In, 'the maid spoke out of kindness. I +know that half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar; and +that's a pity. There's honesty enough in you, Nick, without +rasping and hawking.' + +'Good people' - the man shrugged his lean shoulders - 'the +vulgar crowd love not truth unadorned. Wherefore we philosophers +must needs dress her to catch their eye or - ahem! - their ear.' + +'And what d'you think of that?' said Puck solemnly to Dan. + +'I don't know,' he answered. 'It sounds like lessons.' + +'Ah - well! There have been worse men than Nick Culpeper to +take lessons from. Now, where can we sit that's not indoors?' + +'In the hay-mow, next to old Middenboro,' Dan suggested. +'He doesn't mind.' + +'Eh?' Mr Culpeper was stooping over the pale hellebore +blooms by the light of Una's lamp. 'Does Master Middenboro +need my poor services, then?' + +'Save him, no!' said Puck. 'He is but a horse - next door to an +ass, as you'll see presently. Come!' + +Their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit-tree walls. They +filed out of the garden by the snoring pig-pound and the crooning +hen-house, to the shed where Middenboro the old lawn-mower +pony lives. His friendly eyes showed green in the light as they set +their lamps down on the chickens' drinking-trough outside, and +pushed past to the hay-mow. Mr Culpeper stooped at the door. + +'Mind where you lie,' said Dan. 'This hay's full of hedge- +brishings. + +'In! in!' said Puck. 'You've lain in fouler places than this, Nick. +Ah! Let us keep touch with the stars!' He kicked open the top of +the half-door, and pointed to the clear sky. 'There be the planets +you conjure with! What does your wisdom make of that wandering +and variable star behind those apple boughs?' + +The children smiled. A bicycle that they knew well was being +walked down the steep lane. +'Where?' Mr Culpeper leaned forward quickly. 'That? Some +countryman's lantern.' + +'Wrong, Nick,' said Puck. ''Tis a singular bright star in Virgo, +declining towards the house of Aquarius the water-carrier, who +hath lately been afflicted by Gemini. Aren't I right, Una?' +Mr Culpeper snorted contemptuously. + +'No. It's the village nurse going down to the Mill about some +fresh twins that came there last week. Nurse,' Una called, as +the light stopped on the flat, 'when can I see the Morris twins? And +how are they?' + +'Next Sunday, perhaps. Doing beautifully,' the Nurse called +back, and with a ping-ping-ping of the bell brushed round the corner. + +'Her uncle's a vetinary surgeon near Banbury,' Una explained, +and if you ring her bell at night, it rings right beside her bed -not +downstairs at all. Then she 'umps up - she always keeps a pair of +dry boots in the fender, you know - and goes anywhere she's +wanted. We help her bicycle through gaps sometimes. Most of +her babies do beautifully. She told us so herself.' + +'I doubt not, then, that she reads in my books,' said Mr +Culpeper quietly. 'Twins at the Mill!' he muttered half aloud. +"And again He sayeth, Return, ye children of men." ' + +'Are you a doctor or a rector?' Una asked, and Puck with a +shout turned head over heels in the hay. But Mr Culpeper was +quite serious. He told them that he was a physician-astrologer -a +doctor who knew all about the stars as well as all about herbs for +medicine. He said that the sun, the moon, and five Planets, called +Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, and Venus, governed everybody +and everything in the world. They all lived in Houses - he +mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy forefinger - +and they moved from House to House like pieces at draughts; +and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies. If +you knew their likes and dislikes, he said, you could make them +cure your patient and hurt your enemy, and find out the secret +causes of things. He talked of these five Planets as though they +belonged to him, or as though he were playing long games +against them. The children burrowed in the hay up to their chins, +and looked out over the half-door at the solemn, star-powdered +sky till they seemed to be falling upside down into it, while Mr +Culpeper talked about 'trines' and 'oppositions' and 'conjunctions' +and 'sympathies' and 'antipathies' in a tone that just +matched things. + +A rat ran between Middenboro's feet, and the old pony stamped. + +'Mid hates rats,' said Dan, and passed him over a lock of hay. 'I +wonder why.' + +'Divine Astrology tells us,' said Mr Culpeper. 'The horse, +being a martial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally +to the red planet Mars - the Lord of War. I would show you him, +but he's too near his setting. Rats and mice, doing their businesses +by night, come under the dominion of our Lady the Moon. Now +between Mars and Luna, the one red, t'other white, the one hot +t'other cold and so forth, stands, as I have told you, a natural +antipathy, or, as you say, hatred. Which antipathy their creatures +do inherit. Whence, good people, you may both see and hear your +cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes as decree the +passages of the stars across the unalterable face of Heaven! Ahem!' +Puck lay along chewing a leaf. They felt him shake with +laughter, and Mr Culpeper sat up stiffly. + +'I myself" said he, 'have saved men's lives, and not a few +neither, by observing at the proper time - there is a time, mark +you, for all things under the sun - by observing, I say, so small a +beast as a rat in conjunction with so great a matter as this dread +arch above us.' He swept his hand across the sky. 'Yet there are +those,' he went on sourly, 'who have years without knowledge.' + +'Right,' said Puck. 'No fool like an old fool.' + +Mr Culpeper wrapped his cloak round him and sat still while +the children stared at the Great Bear on the hilltop. + +'Give him time,' Puck whispered behind his hand. 'He turns +like a timber-tug - all of a piece.' + +'Ahem!' Mr Culpeper said suddenly. 'I'll prove it to you. When +I was physician to Saye's Horse, and fought the King - or rather +the man Charles Stuart - in Oxfordshire (I had my learning at +Cambridge), the plague was very hot all around us. I saw it at +close hands. He who says I am ignorant of the plague, for +example, is altogether beside the bridge.' + +'We grant it,' said Puck solemnly. 'But why talk of the plague +this rare night?' + +'To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good +people, being generated among rivers and ditches, was of a +werish, watery nature. Therefore it was curable by drenching the +patient in cold water, and laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I +cured some of them. Mark this. It bears on what shall come after.' + +'Mark also, Nick,' said Puck, that we are not your College of +Physicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore +be plain, old Hyssop on the Wall!' + +'To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while +gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took +by the King's men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge, +whom I warned honestly that I had spent the week past among +our plague-stricken. He flung me off into a cowshed, much like +this here, to die, as I supposed; but one of their priests crept in by +night and dressed my wound. He was a Sussex man like myself.' + +'Who was that?' said Puck suddenly. 'Zack Tutshom?' + +'No, Jack Marget,' said Mr Culpeper. + +'Jack Marget of New College? The little merry man that stammered +so? Why a plague was stuttering Jack at Oxford then?' said Puck. + +'He had come out of Sussex in hope of being made a Bishop +when the King should have conquered the rebels, as he styled us +Parliament men. His College had lent the King some monies too, +which they never got again, no more than simple Jack got his +bishopric. When we met he had had a bitter bellyful of King's +promises, and wished to return to his wife and babes. This came +about beyond expectation, for, so soon as I could stand of my +wound, the man Blagge made excuse that I had been among the +plague, and Jack had been tending me, to thrust us both out from +their camp. The King had done with Jack now that Jack's College +had lent the money, and Blagge's physician could not abide me +because I would not sit silent and see him butcher the sick. (He +was a College of Physicians man!) So Blagge, I say, thrust us both +out, with many vile words, for a pair of pestilent, prating, +pragmatical rascals.' + +'Ha! Called you pragmatical, Nick?' Puck started up. 'High +time Oliver came to purge the land! How did you and honest Jack +fare next?' + +'We were in some sort constrained to each other's company. I +was for going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his +parish in Sussex; but the plague was broke out and spreading +through Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Hampshire, and he was so mad +distracted to think that it might even then be among his folk at +home that I bore him company. He had comforted me in my +distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I had a +cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish. Thus we footed it +from Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave +wars on the left side henceforth; and either through our mean +appearances, or the plague making men less cruel, we were not +hindered. To be sure, they put us in the stocks one half-day for +rogues and vagabonds at a village under St Leonard's forest, +where, as I have heard, nightingales never sing; but the constable +very honestly gave me back my Astrological Almanac, which I +carry with me.' Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'I dressed a +whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward. + +'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over +against Jack Marget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end. +Here our roads divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at +Great Wigsell, but while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we +saw a man lying drunk, as he conceived, athwart the road. He said +it would be one Hebden, a parishioner, and till then a man of good +life; and he accused himself bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, +that had left his flock to follow princes. But I saw it was the +plague, and not the beginnings of it neither. They had set out the +plague-stone, and the man's head lay on it.' + +'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered. + +'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut +the roads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, +where such as would purchase victual from outside may lay +money and the paper of their wants, and depart. Those that +would sell come later - what will a man not do for gain? - snatch +the money forth, and leave in exchange such goods as their +conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat in the water, and +the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in his wet hand. + +'"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden, +and makes uphill - I with him. + +'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the +village is stricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we +must avoid it. + +'"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at +him and says the babes are safe. She was his wife. + +'When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this was +not the welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place +while I was clean. + +'"Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now," +I said. "These affairs are, under God's leave, in some +fashion my strength." + +'"Oh, sir," she says, "are you a physician? We have none." + +'"Then, good people," said I, "I must e'en justify myself to +you by my works." + +'"Look - look ye," stammers Jack, "I took you all this time for +a crazy Roundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I - all +three together in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or +clap of laughter, which none the less eased us. We call it in +medicine the Hysterical Passion. So I went home with 'em.' + +'Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?' +Puck suggested. ''tis barely seven mile up the road.' + +'But the plague was here,' Mr Culpeper answered, and pointed +up the hill. 'What else could I have done?' + +'What were the parson's children called?' said Una. + +'Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles - a babe. I scarce saw +them at first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart- +lodge. The mother we put - forced - into the house with her +babes. She had done enough. + +'And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this +case. The plague was worst on the north side of the street, for +lack, as I showed 'em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from the +PRIME MOBILE, or source of life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing +and purifying in the highest degree. The plague was hot too +by the corn-chandler's, where they sell forage to the carters, +extreme hot in both Mills, along the river, and scatteringly in +other places, except, mark you, at the smithy. Mark here, that all +forges and smith shops belong to Mars, even as corn and meat and +wine shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress. There was no +plague in the smithy at Munday's Lane -' + +'Munday's Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you +talked about the two Mills,' cried Dan. 'Where did we put the +plague-stone? I'd like to have seen it.' + +'Then look at it now,' said Puck, and pointed to the chickens' +drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a +rough, oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which +Phillips, who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had +used for his precious hens. + +'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared. +Mr Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on. + +'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I +would have you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my +mind. That plague which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford +in Oxfordshire was of a watery nature, conformable to +the brookish riverine country it bred in, and curable, as I have +said, by drenching in water. This plague of ours here, for all that it +flourished along watercourses - every soul at both Mills died of it, - +could not be so handled. Which brought me to a stand. Ahem!' + +'And your sick people in the meantime?'Puck demanded. +'We persuaded them on the north side of the street to lie out in +Hitheram's field. Where the plague had taken one, or at most +two, in a house, folk would not shift for fear of thieves in their +absence. They cast away their lives to die among their goods.' + +'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How +did your sick do in the fields?' + +'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, +and even then they died more out of distraction and melancholy +than plague. But I confess, good people, I could not in any sort +master the sickness, or come at a glimmer of its nature or +governance. To be brief, I was flat bewildered at the brute +malignity of the disease, and so - did what I should have done +before - dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions that had +grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped my +vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, +resigned to wait upon the stars for guidance.' + +'At night? Were you not horribly frightened?' said Puck. + +'I dared to hope that the God who hath made man so nobly +curious to search out His mysteries might not destroy a devout +seeker. In due time - there's a time, as I have said, for everything +under the sun - I spied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, +which sat beneath the dormer of an attic through which shined +our Lady the Moon. Whilst I looked on him - and her - she was +moving towards old cold Saturn, her ancient ally - the rat creeped +languishingly into her light, and there, before my eyes, died. +Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him down beside +there, and in like fashion died too. Later - an hour or less to +midnight - a third rat did e'en the same; always choosing the +moonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we +know, the moonlight is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures +of the Moon; and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would +say, was hourly strengthening her evil influence. Yet these three +rats had been stricken dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the +window to see which of Heaven's host might be on our side, and +there beheld I good trusty Mars, very red and heated, bustling +about his setting. I straddled the roof to see better. + +'Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in +Hitheram's field. A tile slipped under my foot. + +Says he, heavily enough, "Watchman, what of the night?" + +'"Heart up, Jack," says I. "Methinks there's one fighting for us +that, like a fool, I've forgot all this summer." My meaning was +naturally the planet Mars. + +'"Pray to Him then," says he. "I forgot Him too this summer." + +'He meant God, whom he always bitterly accused himself of +having forgotten up in Oxfordshire, among the King's men. I +called down that he had made amends enough for his sin by his +work among the sick, but he said he would not believe so till the +plague was lifted from 'em. He was at his strength's end - more +from melancholy than any just cause. I have seen this before +among priests and overcheerful men. I drenched him then and +there with a half-cup of waters, which I do not say cure the +plague, but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.' + +'What were they?' said Dan. + +'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two +sorts of pepper, and aniseed.' +'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!' + +'Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went downhill with me. I +was for the Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the +Heavens. My mind had already shadowed forth the reason, if not +the remedy, for our troubles, but I would not impart it to the +vulgar till I was satisfied. That practice may be perfect, judgment +ought to be sound, and to make judgment sound is required an +exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and his lantern among the +sick in Hitheram's field. He still maintained the prayers of the +so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by Cromwell.' + +'You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,' said Puck, 'and +Jack would have been fined for it, and you'd have had half the +money. How did you come so to fail in your duty, Nick?' + +Mr Culpeper laughed - his only laugh that evening - and the +children jumped at the loud neigh of it. + +'We were not fearful of men's judgment in those days,' he +answered. 'Now mark me closely, good people, for what follows +will be to you, though not to me, remarkable. When I reached the +empty Mill, old Saturn, low down in the House of the Fishes, +threatened the Sun's rising-place. Our Lady the Moon was +moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak +astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I +prayed the Maker of 'em for guidance. Now Mars sparkingly withdrew +himself below the sky. On the instant of his departure, which I +noted, a bright star or vapour leaped forth above his head (as +though he had heaved up his sword), and broke all about in fire. +The cocks crowed midnight through the valley, and I sat me +down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint (though that's an +herb of Venus), and calling myself all the asses' heads in the +world! 'Twas plain enough now!' + +'What was plain?' said Una. + +'The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had +fought for us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the +Heavens, and this had made me overlook him in my computations, +he more than any of the other planets had kept the Heavens +- which is to say, had been visible some part of each night +wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore his fierce and cleansing +influence, warring against the Moon, had stretched out to kill +those three rats under my nose, and under the nose of their natural +mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across Heaven to +deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his +shield, but I had never before seen his strength displayed so +effectual.' + +'I don't understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats +because he hated the Moon?' said Una. + +'That is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge's men +pushed me forth,'Mr Culpeper answered. 'I'll prove it. Why had +the plague not broken out at the blacksmith's shop in Munday's +Lane? Because, as I've shown you, forges and smithies belong +naturally to Mars, and, for his honour's sake, Mars 'ud keep 'em +clean from the creatures of the Moon. But was it like, think you, +that he'd come down and rat-catch in general for lazy, ungrateful +mankind? That were working a willing horse to death. So, then, +you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above him when +he set was simply this: "Destroy and burn the creatures Of the +moon, for they are the root of your trouble. And thus, having +shown you a taste of my power, good people, adieu."' + +'Did Mars really say all that?' Una whispered. + +'Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear. +Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the +creatures of the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of ill-aspect, was the +offender. My own poor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, +had the people in my charge, God's good providence aiding me, +and no time to lose neither. + +'I posted up the hill, and broke into Hitheram's field amongst +'em all at prayers. + +'"Eureka, good people!" I cried, and cast down a dead mill-rat +which I'd found. "Here's your true enemy, revealed at last +by the stars." + +'"Nay, but I'm praying," says Jack. His face was as white as +washed silver. + +'"There's a time for everything under the sun," says I. "If you +would stay the plague, take and kill your rats." + +'"Oh, mad, stark mad!" says he, and wrings his hands. + +'A fellow lay in the ditch beside him, who bellows that he'd as +soon die mad hunting rats as be preached to death on a cold +fallow. They laughed round him at this, but Jack Marget falls on +his knees, and very presumptuously petitions that he may be +appointed to die to save the rest of his people. This was enough to +thrust 'em back into their melancholy. +'"You are an unfaithful shepherd, jack," I says. "Take a bat" +(which we call a stick in Sussex) "and kill a rat if you die before +sunrise. 'Twill save your people." + +'"Aye, aye. Take a bat and kill a rat," he says ten times over, +like a child, which moved 'em to ungovernable motions of that +hysterical passion before mentioned, so that they laughed all, and +at least warmed their chill bloods at that very hour - one o'clock +or a little after - when the fires of life burn lowest. Truly there is a +time for everything; and the physician must work with it - ahem! +- or miss his cure. To be brief with you, I persuaded 'em, sick or +sound, to have at the whole generation of rats throughout the +village. And there's a reason for all things too, though the wise +physician need not blab 'em all. Imprimis, or firstly, the mere sport +of it, which lasted ten days, drew 'em most markedly out of their +melancholy. I'd defy sorrowful job himself to lament or scratch +while he's routing rats from a rick. Secundo, or secondly, the +vehement act and operation of this chase or war opened their skins +to generous transpiration - more vulgarly, sweated 'em handsomely; +and this further drew off their black bile - the mother of +sickness. Thirdly, when we came to burn the bodies of the rats, I +sprinkled sulphur on the faggots, whereby the onlookers were as +handsomely suffumigated. This I could not have compassed if I +had made it a mere physician's business; they'd have thought it +some conjuration. Yet more, we cleansed, limed, and burned out +a hundred foul poke-holes, sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited +filth in and about the houses in the village, and by good fortune +(mark here that Mars was in opposition to Venus) burned the +corn-handler's shop to the ground. Mars loves not Venus. Will +Noakes the saddler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw while +he was rat-hunting there.' + +'Had ye given Will any of that gentle cordial of yours, Nick, by +any chance?' said Puck. + +'A glass - or two glasses - not more. But as I would say, in fine, +when we had killed the rats, I took ash, slag, and charcoal from +the smithy, and burnt earth from the brickyard (I reason that a +brickyard belongs to Mars), and rammed it with iron crowbars +into the rat-runs and buries, and beneath all the house floors. The +Creatures of the Moon hate all that Mars hath used for his own +clean ends. For example - rats bite not iron.' + +'And how did poor stuttering Jack endure it?' said Puck. + +'He sweated out his melancholy through his skin, and catched +a loose cough, which I cured with electuaries, according to art. It is +noteworthy, were I speaking among my equals, that the venom +of the plague translated, or turned itself into, and evaporated, or +went away as, a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head, +throat, and chest. (Observe from my books which planets govern +these portions of man's body, and your darkness, good people, +shall be illuminated - ahem!) None the less, the plague, qua +plague, ceased and took off (for we only lost three more, and two +of 'em had it already on 'em) from the morning of the day that +Mars enlightened me by the Lower Mill.' He coughed - almost +trumpeted - triumphantly. + +'It is proved,' he jerked out. 'I say I have proved my contention, +which is, that by Divine Astrology and humble search into the +veritable causes of things - at the proper time - the sons of +wisdom may combat even the plague.' + +H'm!' Puck replied. 'For my own part I hold that a simple soul -' + +'Mine? Simple, forsooth?' said Mr Culpeper. + +'A very simple soul, a high courage tempered with sound and +stubborn conceit, is stronger than all the stars in their courses. +So I confess truly that you saved the village, Nick.' + +'I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, +under God's good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the +glory! You talk as that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached +before I went back to my work in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.' + +'Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his +stammer in the pulpit.' + +'And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse +when the plague was stayed. He took for his text: "The wise man +that delivered the city." I could have given him a better, such as: +"There is a time for-" ' + +'But what made you go to church to hear him?' Puck +interrupted. 'Wail Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, +and a dull dog he was!' + +Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily. + +'The vulgar,' said he, 'the old crones and - ahem! - the children, +Alison and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon +by the hand. I was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining +the mummeries of the falsely-called Church, which, I'll prove to +you, are founded merely on ancient fables -' + +'Stick to your herbs and planets,' said Puck, laughing. 'You +should have told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. +Again, why did you neglect your plain duty?' + +'Because - because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping +with the rest of 'em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the +Hysterical Passion. It may be - it may be.' + +'That's as may be,' said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. +'Why, your hay is half hedge-brishings,' he said. 'You don't +expect a horse to thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?' + +Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse +was coming back from the mill. + +'Is it all right?' Una called. + +'All quite right,' Nurse called back. 'They're to be christened +next Sunday.' + +'What? What?' They both leaned forward across the half-door. +it could not have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted +them out with hay and leaves sticking all over them. + +'Come on! We must get those two twins' names,' said Una, and +they charged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up +and told them. +When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, +and they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again +by starlight. + + + +'Our Fathers of Old' + + +Excellent herbs had our fathers of old - +Excellent herbs to ease their pain - +Alexanders and Marigold, +Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane, +Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue, +(Almost singing themselves they run) +Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you - +Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun. +Anything green that grew out of the mould +Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old. + +Wonderful tales had our fathers of old - +Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars - +The Sun was Lord of the Marigold, +Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars. +Pat as a sum in division it goes - +(Every plant had a star bespoke) - +Who but Venus should govern the Rose? +Who but Jupiter own the Oak? +Simply and gravely the facts are told +In the wonderful books of our fathers of old. + +Wonderful little, when all is said, +Wonderful little our fathers knew. +Half their remedies cured you dead - +Most of their teaching was quite untrue - +'Look at the stars when a patient is ill, +(Dirt has nothing to do with disease,) +Bleed and blister as much as you will, +Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.' +Whence enormous and manifold +Errors were made by our fathers of old. + +Yet when the sickness was sore in the land, +And neither planet nor herb assuaged, +They took their lives in their lancet-hand +And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged! +Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door - +Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled, +Excellent courage our fathers bore - +Excellent heart had our fathers of old. +Not too learned, but nobly bold, +Into the fight went our fathers of old. + +If it be certain, as Galen says, +And sage Hippocrates holds as much - +'That those afflicted by doubts and dismays +Are mightily helped by a dead man's touch,' +Then, be good to us, stars above! +Then, be good to us, herbs below! +We are afflicted by what we can prove; +We are distracted by what we know - +So - ah, so! +Down from your Heaven or up from your mould, +Send us the hearts of our fathers of old! + + + + +SIMPLE SIMON + + + +The Thousandth Man + + +One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. +And it's worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. +Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + on what the world sees in you, +But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you. + +'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show + Will settle the finding for 'ee. +Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go + By your looks or your acts or your glory. +But if he finds you and you find him, + The rest of the world don't matter; +For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim + With you in any water. + +You can use his purse with no more shame + Than he uses yours for his spendings; +And laugh and mention it just the same + As though there had been no lendings. +Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call + For silver and gold in their dealings; +But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all, + Because you can show him your feelings! + +His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, + In season or out of season. +Stand up and back it in all men's sight - + With that for your only reason! +Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, +But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + To the gallows-foot - and after! + + + +Simple Simon + + +Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber- +tug. He stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the +brakes. His real name was Brabon, but the first time the children +met him, years and years ago, he told them he was 'carting +wood,' and it sounded so exactly like 'cattiwow' that they never +called him anything else. + +'HI!' Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they +had been watching the lane. 'What are you doing? Why weren't +we told?' + +'They've just sent for me,' Cattiwow answered. 'There's a +middlin' big log stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and' - he +flicked his whip back along the line - 'so they've sent for us all.' + +Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost +under black Sailor's nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big +beam that makes the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on +behind while their teeth thuttered. + +The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the +woods, and you see all the horses' backs rising, one above +another, like moving stairs. Cattiwow strode ahead in his +sackcloth woodman's petticoat, belted at the waist with a leather +strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red lips showed under +his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth too, with a +flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He navigated +the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their faces, +and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, +and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew +whether it would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar +them back again. + +At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of +horses stood round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The +ground about was poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, +and a wave of dirt was driven up in front of the butt. + +'What did you want to bury her for this way?' said Cattiwow. +He took his broad-axe and went up the log tapping it. + +'She's sticked fast,' said 'Bunny' Lewknor, who managed the +other team. + +Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They +cocked their ears forward, looked, and shook themselves. + +'I believe Sailor knows,' Dan whispered to Una. + +'He do,' said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks +like the others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, +who knew all the wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size +and oily hairiness he might have been Bunny Lewknor's brother, +except that his brown eyes were as soft as a spaniel's, and his +rounded black beard, beginning close up under them, reminded +Una of the walrus in 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' + +'Don't he justabout know?' he said shyly, and shifted from one +foot to the other. + +'Yes. "What Cattiwow can't get out of the woods must have +roots growing to her."' Dan had heard old Hobden say this a +few days before. + +At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the +pools of black water in the ling. + +'Look out!' cried Una, jumping forward. 'He'll see you, Puck!' + +'Me and Mus' Robin are pretty middlin' well acquainted,' the +man answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses. + +'This is Simon Cheyneys,' Puck began, and cleared his throat. +'Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only -' + +'Oh, look! Look ye! That's a knowing one,' said the man. + +Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and +was moving them about with his whip till they stood at right +angles to it, heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took +the strain, beginning with Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war +team, and dropped almost to their knees. The log shifted a nail's +breadth in the clinging dirt, with the noise of a giant's kiss. + +'You're getting her!' Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. 'Hing +on! Hing on, lads, or she'll master ye! Ah!' + +Sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the +men whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw +Sailor feel for it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team +grunted in despair. + +'Hai!' shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice +across Sailor's loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse +almost screamed as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did +not know was in him. The thin end of the log left the dirt and +rasped on dry gravel. The butt ground round like a buffalo in his +wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor snapped on his five +horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and snorting, they had +the whole thing out on the heather. + +'Dat's the very first time I've knowed you lay into Sailor - to +hurt him,' said Lewknor. + +'It is,' said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. +'But I'd ha' laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we'll +twitch her down the hill a piece - she lies just about right - and get +her home by the low road. My team'll do it, Bunny; you bring the +tug along. Mind out!' + +He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log +half rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, +followed by the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute +there was nothing to see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up +dirt, the birch undergrowth still shaking, and the water draining +back into the hoof-prints. + +'Ye heard him?' Simon Cheyneys asked. 'He cherished his +horse, but he'd ha' laid him open in that pinch.' + +'Not for his own advantage,' said Puck quickly. ''Twas only +to shift the log.' + +'I reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the +world - if so be you're hintin' at any o' Frankie's doings. He never +hit beyond reason or without reason,' said Simon. + +'I never said a word against Frankie,' Puck retorted, with a +wink at the children. 'An' if I did, do it lie in your mouth to +contest my say-so, seeing how you -' + +'Why don't it lie in my mouth, seeing I was the first which +knowed Frankie for all he was?' The burly sack-clad man puffed +down at cool little Puck. + +'Yes, and the first which set out to poison him - Frankie - on +the high seas -' + +Simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin. He waggled his +immense hands, but Puck stood off and laughed mercilessly. + +'But let me tell you, Mus' Robin,'he pleaded. + +'I've heard the tale. Tell the children here. Look, Dan! Look, +Una!' - Puck's straight brown finger levelled like an arrow. +'There's the only man that ever tried to poison Sir Francis Drake!' + +'Oh, Mus' Robin! 'Tidn't fair. You've the 'vantage of us all in +your upbringin's by hundreds o' years. Stands to nature you +know all the tales against every one.' + +He turned his soft eyes so helplessly on Una that she cried, +'Stop ragging him, Puck! You know he didn't really.' + +'I do. But why are you so sure, little maid?' +'Because - because he doesn't look like it,' said Una stoutly. + +'I thank you,' said Simon to Una. 'I - I was always trustable- +like with children if you let me alone, you double handful o' +mischief.' He pretended to heave up his axe on Puck; and then his +shyness overtook him afresh. + +'Where did you know Sir Francis Drake?' said Dan, not liking +being called a child. + +'At Rye Port, to be sure,' said Simon, and seeing Dan's +bewilderment, repeated it. + +'Yes, but look here,'said Dan. '"Drake he was a Devon man." +The song says so.' + +'"And ruled the Devon seas,"' Una went on. 'That's what I +was thinking - if you don't mind.' + +Simon Cheyneys seemed to mind very much indeed, for he +swelled in silence while Puck laughed. + +'Hutt!' he burst out at last, 'I've heard that talk too. If you listen +to them West Country folk, you'll listen to a pack o' lies. I believe +Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his +father had to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the +neighbours was wishful to kill him, d'ye see? He run to Chatham, +old Parson Drake did, an' Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of +a ship moored in the Medway river, same as it might ha' been the +Rother. Brought up at sea, you might say, before he could walk +on land - nigh Chatham in Kent. And ain't Kent back-door to +Sussex? And don't that make Frankie Sussex? O' course it do. +Devon man! Bah! Those West Country boats they're always +fishin' in other folks' water.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Dan. 'I'm sorry . + +'No call to be sorry. You've been misled. I met Frankie at Rye +Port when my Uncle, that was the shipbuilder there, pushed me +off his wharf-edge on to Frankie's ship. Frankie had put in from +Chatham with his rudder splutted, and a man's arm - Moon's that +'ud be - broken at the tiller. "Take this boy aboard an' drown +him," says my Uncle, "and I'll mend your rudder-piece for love." + +'What did your Uncle want you drowned for?'said Una. + +'That was only his fashion of say-so, same as Mus' Robin. I'd a +foolishness in my head that ships could be builded out of iron. Yes +- iron ships! I'd made me a liddle toy one of iron plates beat out +thin - and she floated a wonder! But my Uncle, bein' a burgess of +Rye, and a shipbuilder, he 'prenticed me to Frankie in the fetchin' +trade, to cure this foolishness.' + +'What was the fetchin' trade?' Dan interrupted. + +'Fetchin' poor Flemishers and Dutchmen out o' the Low +Countries into England. The King o' Spain, d'ye see, he was burnin' +'em in those parts, for to make 'em Papishers, so Frankie he +fetched 'em away to our parts, and a risky trade it was. His master +wouldn't never touch it while he lived, but he left his ship to +Frankie when he died, and Frankie turned her into this fetchin' +trade. Outrageous cruel hard work - on besom-black nights +bulting back and forth off they Dutch roads with shoals on all +sides, and having to hark out for the frish-frish-frish-like of a +Spanish galliwopses' oars creepin' up on ye. Frankie 'ud have the +tiller and Moon he'd peer forth at the bows, our lantern under his +skirts, till the boat we was lookin' for 'ud blurt up out o' the dark, +and we'd lay hold and haul aboard whoever 'twas - man, woman, +or babe - an' round we'd go again, the wind bewling like a kite in +our riggin's, and they'd drop into the hold and praise God for +happy deliverance till they was all sick. + +'I had nigh a year at it, an' we must have fetched off - oh, a +hundred pore folk, I reckon. Outrageous bold, too, Frankie +growed to be. Outrageous cunnin' he was. Once we was as near +as nothin' nipped by a tall ship off Tergoes Sands in a snowstorm. +She had the wind of us, and spooned straight before it, shootin' all +bow guns. Frankie fled inshore smack for the beach, till he was +atop of the first breakers. Then he hove his anchor out, which +nigh tore our bows off, but it twitched us round end-for-end into +the wind, d'ye see, an' we clawed off them sands like a drunk man +rubbin' along a tavern bench. When we could see, the Spanisher +was laid flat along in the breakers with the snows whitening on his +wet belly. He thought he could go where Frankie went.' + +'What happened to the crew?' said Una. + +'We didn't stop,' Simon answered. 'There was a very liddle +new baby in our hold, and the mother she wanted to get to some +dry bed middlin' quick. We runned into Dover, and said nothing.' + +'Was Sir Francis Drake very much pleased?' +'Heart alive, maid, he'd no head to his name in those days. He +was just a outrageous, valiant, crop-haired, tutt-mouthed boy, +roarin' up an' down the narrer seas, with his beard not yet quilted +out. He made a laughing-stock of everything all day, and he'd +hold our lives in the bight of his arm all the besom-black night +among they Dutch sands; and we'd ha' jumped overside to +behove him any one time, all of us.' + +'Then why did you try to poison him?' Una asked wickedly, +and Simon hung his head like a shy child. + +'Oh, that was when he set me to make a pudden, for because +our cook was hurted. I done my uttermost, but she all fetched +adrift like in the bag, an' the more I biled the bits of her, the less +she favoured any fashion o' pudden. Moon he chawed and +chammed his piece, and Frankie chawed and chammed his'n, and +- no words to it - he took me by the ear an' walked me out over +the bow-end, an' him an' Moon hove the pudden at me on the +bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!' Simon rubbed his +hairy cheek. + +'"Nex' time you bring me anything," says Frankie, "you +bring me cannon-shot an' I'll know what I'm getting." But as for +poisonin' -' He stopped, the children laughed so. + +'Of course you didn't,' said Una. 'Oh, Simon, we do like you!' + +'I was always likeable with children.' His smile crinkled up +through the hair round his eyes. 'Simple Simon they used to call +me through our yard gates.' + +'Did Sir Francis mock you?' Dan asked. + +'Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did - he was always +laughing - but not so as to hurt a feather. An' I loved 'en. I loved +'en before England knew 'en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.' + +'But he hadn't really done anything when you knew him, had +he?' Una insisted. 'Armadas and those things, I mean.' + +Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow's great +log. 'You tell me that that good ship's timber never done nothing +against winds and weathers since her up-springing, and I'll +confess ye that young Frankie never done nothing neither. +Nothing? He adventured and suffered and made shift on they +Dutch sands as much in any one month as ever he had occasion for +to do in a half-year on the high seas afterwards. An' what was his +tools? A coaster boat - a liddle box o' walty plankin' an' some few +fathom feeble rope held together an' made able by him sole. He +drawed our spirits up In our bodies same as a chimney-towel +draws a fire. 'Twas in him, and it comed out all times and shapes.' +'I wonder did he ever 'magine what he was going to be? Tell +himself stories about it?' said Dan with a flush. + +'I expect so. We mostly do - even when we're grown. But bein' +Frankie, he took good care to find out beforehand what his +fortune might be. Had I rightly ought to tell 'em this piece?' +Simon turned to Puck, who nodded. + +'My Mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her +sister, she had gifts by inheritance laid up in her,' Simon began. + +'Oh, that'll never do,' cried Puck, for the children stared +blankly. 'Do you remember what Robin promised to the Widow +Whitgift so long as her blood and get lasted?" [See 'Dymchurch +Flit' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] +'Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther +through a millstone than most,' Dan answered promptly. + +'Well, Simon's Aunt's mother,' said Puck slowly, 'married the +Widow's blind son on the Marsh, and Simon's Aunt was the one +chosen to see farthest through millstones. Do you understand?' + +'That was what I was gettin' at,' said Simon, 'but you're so +desperate quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin' to people. +My Uncle being a burgess of Rye, he counted all such things +odious, and my Aunt she couldn't be got to practise her gifts +hardly at all, because it hurted her head for a week after-wards; but +when Frankie heard she had 'em, he was all for nothin' till she +foretold on him - till she looked in his hand to tell his fortune, d'ye +see? One time we was at Rye she come aboard with my other shirt +and some apples, and he fair beazled the life out of her about it. + +'"Oh, you'll be twice wed, and die childless," she says, and +pushes his hand away. + +'"That's the woman's part," he says. "What'll come to me-to +me?" an' he thrusts it back under her nose. + +'"Gold - gold, past belief or counting," she says. "Let go o' +me, lad." + +'"Sink the gold!" he says. "What'll I do, mother?" He coaxed +her like no woman could well withstand. I've seen him with 'em - +even when they were sea-sick. + +'"If you will have it," she says at last, you shall have it. You'll +do a many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man +beyond the world's end will be the least of them. For you'll open a +road from the East unto the West, and back again, and you'll bury +your heart with your best friend by that road-side, and the road +you open none shall shut so long as you're let lie quiet in your +grave." + + +[The old lady's prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for +now the Panama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the +very bay where Sir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken +through the Canal, and the road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis +opened is very little used.] + + +'"And if I'm not?" he says. + +'"Why, then," she says, "Sim's iron ships will be sailing on +dry land. Now ha' done with this foolishness. Where's Sim's shirt?" + +'He couldn't fetch no more out of her, and when we come up +from the cabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing +with a apple. +'"My Sorrow!" says my Aunt; "d'ye see that? The great world +lying in his hand, liddle and round like a apple." + +'"Why, 'tis one you gived him," I says. + +'"To be sure," she says. "'Tis just a apple," and she went +ashore with her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show +her gifts. + +Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his +mind quite extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for +some fetchin' trade, we met Mus' Stenning's boat over by Calais +sands; and he warned us that the Spanishers had shut down all +their Dutch ports against us English, and their galliwopses was +out picking up our boats like flies off hogs' backs. Mus' Stenning +he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece, knowin' that +Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk a +great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came +rampin' at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to +conquest in. + +'"Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon," says +Frankie, humourin' her at the tiller. "I'll have to open that other +one your Aunt foretold of." + +'"The Spanisher's crowdin' down on us middlin' quick," I says. +No odds," says Frankie, "he'll have the inshore tide against +him. Did your Aunt say I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?" + +'"Till my iron ships sailed dry land," I says. + +'"That's foolishness," he says. "Who cares where Frankie +Drake makes a hole in the water now or twenty years from now?" + +'The Spanisher kept muckin' on more and more canvas. I told +him so. + +'"He's feelin' the tide," was all he says. "If he was among +Tergoes Sands with this wind, we'd be picking his bones proper. +I'd give my heart to have all their tall ships there some night +before a north gale, and me to windward. There'd be gold in My +hands then. Did your Aunt say she saw the world settin' in my +hand, Sim?" + +Yes, but 'twas a apple," says I, and he laughed like he always +did at me. "Do you ever feel minded to jump overside and be +done with everything?" he asks after a while. + +'"No. What water comes aboard is too wet as 'tis," I says. +"The Spanisher's going about." + +'"I told you," says he, never looking back. "He'll give us the +Pope's Blessing as he swings. Come down off that rail. There's no +knowin' where stray shots may hit." So I came down off the rail, +and leaned against it, and the Spanisher he ruffled round in the +wind, and his port-lids opened all red inside. + +'"Now what'll happen to my road if they don't let me lie quiet +in my grave?" he says. "Does your Aunt mean there's two roads +to be found and kept open - or what does she mean? I don't like +that talk about t'other road. D'you believe in your iron +ships, Sim?" + +'He knowed I did, so I only nodded, and he nodded back again. +'"Anybody but me 'ud call you a fool, Sim," he says. "Lie +down. Here comes the Pope's Blessing!" + +'The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all +fell short except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my +back, an' I felt most won'erful cold. + +'"Be you hit anywhere to signify?" he says. "Come over to me." + +'"O Lord, Mus' Drake," I says, "my legs won't move," and +that was the last I spoke for months.' + +'Why? What had happened?' cried Dan and Una together. + +'The rail had jarred me in here like.' Simon reached behind him +clumsily. 'From my shoulders down I didn't act no shape. Frankie +carried me piggyback to my Aunt's house, and I lay bed-rid and +tongue-tied while she rubbed me day and night, month in and +month out. She had faith in rubbing with the hands. P'raps she +put some of her gifts into it, too. Last of all, something loosed +itself in my pore back, and lo! I was whole restored again, but +kitten-feeble. + +'"Where's Frankie?" I says, thinking I'd been a longish +while abed. + +'"Down-wind amongst the Dons - months ago," says my Aunt. + +'"When can I go after 'en?" I says. + +'"Your duty's to your town and trade now," says she. "Your +Uncle he died last Michaelmas and he've left you and me the yard. +So no more iron ships, mind ye." + +'"What?" I says. "And you the only one that beleft in 'em!" + + +'"Maybe I do still," she says, "but I'm a woman before I'm a +Whitgift, and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I +lay on ye to do so." + +'That's why I've never teched iron since that day - not to build a +toy ship of. I've never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure +of evenings.' Simon smiled down on them all. +'Whitgift blood is terrible resolute - on the she-side,'said Puck. + +'Didn't You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?'Dan asked. + +'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of +Rye, I never clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I +had the news of his mighty doings the world over. They was the +very same bold, cunning shifts and passes he'd worked with +beforetimes off they Dutch sands, but, naturally, folk took more +note of them. When Queen Bess made him knight, he sent my +Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell to. She cried +outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, having +set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone that way +all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world +in his hand like an apple, an' he burying his best friend, Mus' +Doughty -' + +'Never mind for Mus' Doughty,' Puck interrupted. 'Tell us +where you met Sir Francis next.' + +'Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye - the +same year which King Philip sent his ships to take England +without Frankie's leave.' + +'The Armada!' said Dan contentedly. 'I was hoping that +would come.' + +'I knowed Frankie would never let 'em smell London smoke, +but plenty good men in Rye was two-three minded about the +upshot. 'Twas the noise of the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind +favoured it our way from off behind the Isle of Wight. It made a +mutter like, which growed and growed, and by the end of a week +women was shruckin' in the streets. Then they come slidderin' +past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished with red gun-fire, +and our ships flyin' forth and duckin' in again. The smoke-pat +sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was +edgin' the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was +master. I says to my Aunt, "The smoke's thinnin' out. I lay +Frankie's just about scrapin' his hold for a few last rounds shot. +'Tis time for me to go." + +'"Never in them clothes," she says. "Do on the doublet I +bought you to be made burgess in, and don't you shame this +day." + +'So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch +breeches and all. + +'"I be comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she +come pavisandin' like a peacock - stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. +She was a notable woman.' + +'But how did you go? You haven't told us,' said Una. + +'In my own ship - but half-share was my Aunt's. In the ANTONY +OF RYE, to be sure; and not empty-handed. I'd been loadin' her for +three days with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon- +shot of all three sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; +and a nice passel of clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech- +ropes for his cannon, and gubs of good oakum, and bolts o' +canvas, and all the sound rope in the yard. What else could I ha' +done? I knowed what he'd need most after a week's such work. +I'm a shipbuilder, little maid. + +'We'd a fair slant o' wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it +fell light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle +over by Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending +'emselves like dogs lickin' bites. Now and then a Spanisher would +fire from a low port, and the ball 'ud troll across the flat swells, +but both sides was finished fightin' for that tide. + +'The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed +in, an' men was shorin' 'em up. She said nothing. The next was a +black pinnace, his pumps clackin' middling quick, and he said +nothing. But the third, mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty . +I asked him where Mus' Drake might be, and a shiny-suited man +on the poop looked down into us, and saw what we carried. + +'"Lay alongside you!" he says. "We'll take that all." + +'"'Tis for Mus' Drake," I says, keeping away lest his size +should lee the wind out of my sails. + +'"Hi! Ho! Hither! We're Lord High Admiral of England! +Come alongside, or we'll hang ye," he says. + +''Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't Frankie, and +while he talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with +her top-sides splintered. We was all in the middest of 'em then. + +'"Hi! Hoi!" the green ship says. "Come alongside, honest +man, and I'll buy your load. I'm Fenner that fought the seven +Portugals - clean out of shot or bullets. Frankie knows me." + +'"Ay, but I don't," I says, and I slacked nothing. + +'He was a masterpiece. Seein' I was for goin' on, he hails a +Bridport hoy beyond us and shouts, "George! Oh, George! Wing +that duck. He's fat!" An' true as we're all here, that squatty +Bridport boat rounds to acrost our bows, intendin' to stop us by +means o' shooting. + +'my Aunt looks over our rail. "George," she says, "you finish +with your enemies afore you begin on your friends." + +'Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his +hat an' calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to +pore dry sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a +notable woman. + +'Then he come up - his long pennant trailing overside - his +waistcloths and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had +grappled, and his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like +candle-smoke in a bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung. + +'"Oh, Mus' Drake! Mus' Drake!" I calls up. + +'He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the +middle, and his face shining like the sun. + +'"Why, Sim!" he says. just like that - after twenty year! +"Sim," he says, "what brings you?" + +'"Pudden," I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. + +'"You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an' I've +brought 'em. " + +'He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o' brimstone +Spanish, and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before +all his fine young captains. His men was swarming out of the +lower ports ready to unload us. When he saw how I'd considered +all his likely wants, he kissed me again. + +'"Here's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!" he says. +"Mistress," he says to my Aunt, "all you foretold on me was true. +I've opened that road from the East to the West, and I've buried +my heart beside it. " + +'"I know," she says. "That's why I be come." + +'"But ye never foretold this"; he points to both they +great fleets. + +'"This don't seem to me to make much odds compared to +what happens to a man," she says. "Do it?" + +'"Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he's proper +mucked up with work. Sim," he says to me, "we must shift every +living Spanisher round Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands +before morning. The wind'll come out of the North after this +calm - same as it used - and then they're our meat." + +'"Amen," says I. "I've brought you what I could scutchel up +of odds and ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?" + +'"Oh, our folk'll attend to all that when we've time," he says. +He turns to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of +our hold. I think I saw old Moon amongst 'em, but he was too +busy to more than nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to +prayers with their bells and candles before we'd cleaned out the +ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o' useful stuff I'd fetched him. +'"Now, Sim," says my Aunt, "no more devouring of Mus' +Drake's time. He's sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want +to speak to them young springalds again." + +'"But here's our ship all ready and swept," I says. + +'"Swep' an' garnished," says Frankie. "I'm going to fill her +with devils in the likeness o' pitch and sulphur. We must shift the +Dons round Dunkirk comer, and if shot can't do it, we'll send +down fireships." + +'"I've given him my share of the ANTONY," says my Aunt. +"What do you reckon to do about yours?" + +'"She offered it," said Frankie, laughing. + +'"She wouldn't have if I'd overheard her," I says; "because I'd +have offered my share first." Then I told him how the ANTONY's +sails was best trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was + +full of occupations we went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and +left him. + +'But Frankie was gentle-born, d'ye see, and that sort they never +overlook any folks' dues. + +'When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on +the poop same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his +musicianers played "Mary Ambree" on their silver trumpets +quite a long while. Heart alive, little maid! I never meaned to +make you look sorrowful!" + +Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the +birch scrub wiping his forehead. + +'We've got the stick to rights now! She've been a whole hatful +o' trouble. You come an' ride her home, Mus' Dan and Miss Una!' + +They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with +the log double-chained on the tug. + +'Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?'said Dan, as they +straddled the thin part. + +'She's going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft +fishin'-boat, I've heard. Hold tight!' + +Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and +tilted, and leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship +upon the high seas. + + + +Frankie's Trade + + +Old Horn to All Atlantic said: + (A-hay O! To me O!) +'Now where did Frankie learn his trade? +For he ran me down with a three-reef mains'le.' +(All round the Horn!) + +Atlantic answered: 'Not from me! +You'd better ask the cold North Sea, +For he ran me down under all plain canvas.' +(All round the Horn!) + +The North Sea answered: 'He's my man, +For he came to me when he began - +Frankie Drake in an open coaster. +(All round the Sands!) + +'I caught him young and I used him sore, +So you never shall startle Frankie more, +Without capsizing Earth and her waters. +(All round the Sands!) + +'I did not favour him at all, +I made him pull and I made him haul - +And stand his trick with the common sailors. +(All round the Sands!) + +'I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind, +And kicked him home with his road to find +By what he could see of a three-day snow-storm. +(All round the Sands!) + +'I learned him his trade o' winter nights, +'Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights +On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing. +(All round the Sands!) + +'Before his beard began to shoot, +I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot - +And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later. +(All round the Sands!) +'If there's a risk which you can make +That's worse than he was used to take +Nigh every week in the way of his business; +(All round the Sands!) + +'If there's a trick that you can try +Which he hasn't met in time gone by, +Not once or twice, but ten times over; +(All round the Sands!) + +'If you can teach him aught that's new, + (A-hay O! To me O!) +I'll give you Bruges and Niewport too, +And the ten tall churches that stand between 'em.' +Storm along, my gallant Captains! + (All round the Horn!) + + + +THE TREE OF JUSTICE + + + +The Ballad of Minepit Shaw + + +About the time that taverns shut + And men can buy no beer, +Two lads went up by the keepers' hut + To steal Lord Pelham's deer. + +Night and the liquor was in their heads - + They laughed and talked no bounds, +Till they waked the keepers on their beds, + And the keepers loosed the hounds. + +They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind, + Ready to carry away, +When they heard a whimper down the wind + And they heard a bloodhound bay. + +They took and ran across the fern, + Their crossbows in their hand, +Till they met a man with a green lantern + That called and bade 'em stand. + +'What are you doing, O Flesh and Blood, + And what's your foolish will, +That you must break into Minepit Wood + And wake the Folk of the Hill?' + +'Oh, we've broke into Lord Pelham's park, + And killed Lord Pelham's deer, +And if ever you heard a little dog bark + You'll know why we come here!' + +'We ask you let us go our way, + As fast as we can flee, +For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay, + You'll know how pressed we be.' + +'Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank + And drop the knife from your hand, +And though the hounds are at your flank + I'll save you where you stand!' +They laid their crossbows on the bank, + They threw their knives in the wood, +And the ground before them opened and sank + And saved 'em where they stood. +'Oh, what's the roaring in our ears + That strikes us well-nigh dumb?' +'Oh, that is just how things appears + According as they come.' + +'What are the stars before our eyes + That strike us well-nigh blind?' +'Oh, that is just how things arise + According as you find.' + +'And why's our bed so hard to the bones + Excepting where it's cold?' +'Oh, that's because it is precious stones + Excepting where 'tis gold. + +'Think it over as you stand + For I tell you without fail, +If you haven't got into Fairyland + You're not in Lewes Gaol.' + +All night long they thought of it, + And, come the dawn, they saw +They'd tumbled into a great old pit, + At the bottom of Minepit Shaw. + +And the keepers' hound had followed 'em close + And broke her neck in the fall; +So they picked up their knives and their cross-bows + And buried the dog. That's all. + +But whether the man was a poacher too + Or a Pharisee so bold - +I reckon there's more things told than are true, + And more things true than are told. + + + +The Tree of Justice + +It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou'-West wind singing +through Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. +The children set out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a +three months' job in the Rough at the back of Pound's Wood. He +had promised to get them a dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf +Still clung to the beech coppice; the long chestnut leaves lay +orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with scarlet- +lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own +short cuts to the edge of Pound's Wood, and heard a horse's feet +just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up +the vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the +branches - some perfectly good, but most of them dried to +twisted strips. + +'Three more owls,' said Dan, counting. 'Two stoats, four jays, +and a kestrel. That's ten since last week. Ridley's a beast.' + +'In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.' Sir Richard +Dalyngridge reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride +behind them. [This is the Norman knight they met the year before +in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL. See 'Young Men at the Manor,' 'The Knights +of the Joyous Venture,' and 'Old Men at Pevensey,' in that book.] +'What play do you make?'he asked. + +'Nothing, Sir. We're looking for old Hobden,'Dan replied.'He +promised to get us a sleeper.' + +'Sleeper? A DORMEUSE, do you say?' + +'Yes, a dormouse, Sir.' +'I understand. I passed a woodman on the low grounds. Come!' +He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an opening +to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old +Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and +house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver. + +Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his +finger on his lip. + +'Look!' he whispered. 'Along between the spindle-trees. +Ridley has been there this half-hour.' + +The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in +an old dry ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse. + +'Huhh!' cried Una. 'Hobden always 'tends to his wires before +breakfast. He puts his rabbits into the faggots he's allowed to take +home. He'll tell us about 'em tomorrow.' + +'We had the same breed in my day,' Sir Richard replied, and +moved off quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side +between the close-trimmed beech stuff. + +'What did you do to them?' said Dan, as they repassed Ridley's +terrible tree. + +'That!' Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls. + +'Not he!' said Puck. 'There was never enough brute Norman in +you to hang a man for taking a buck.' + +'I - I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I +on horseback while you are afoot?' He dismounted lightly, +tapped Swallow on the chest, so that the wise thing backed +instead of turning in the narrow ride, and put himself at the head +of the little procession. He walked as though all the woods +belonged to him. 'I have often told my friends,' he went on, 'that +Red William the King was not the only Norman found dead in a +forest while he hunted.' + +'D'you mean William Rufus?'said Dan. + +'Yes,' said Puck, kicking a clump of red toad-stools off a +dead log. + +'For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,' Sir +Richard went on, 'to whom Henry our King granted a manor in +Kent near by. He chose to hang his forester's son the day before a +deer-hunt that he gave to pleasure the King.' + +'Now when would that be?' said Puck, and scratched an ear +thoughtfully. + +'The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert +of Normandy at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at +Pevensey loading for the war.' + +'What happened to the knight?'Dan asked. + +'They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his +leather coat. I should have worn mail that day.' + +'And did you see him all bloody?'Dan continued. + +'Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horseshoes, +and arrow-sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. +The army only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in +Normandy, but he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt +with him here before he set out for France.' + +'Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?' Una demanded. + +'If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight +was killed, men would have said he feared being slain like the +knight. It was his duty to show himself debonair to his English +people as it was De Aquila's duty to see that he took no harm +while he did it, But it was a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I +ceased work on the ships, and scoured all the Honour of the Eagle - +all De +Aquila's lands - to make a fit, and, above all, a safe sport for +our King. Look!' + +The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound's Hill +Wood. Sir Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled +Dallington, that showed like a woodcock's breast up the valley. +'Ye know the forest?' said he. + +'You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!' said Una. +'I have seen,' said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his +hand. 'Hugh's work and mine was first to move the deer gently +from all parts into Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till +the King came. Next, we must choose some three hundred +beaters to drive the deer to the stands within bowshot of the King. +Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a deer-drive a Saxon +peasant and a Norman King may come over-close to each other. +The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we +needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would +answer in life, cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye +see?' + +'If one of the beaters shot the King,' said Puck, 'Sir Richard +wanted to be able to punish that man's village. Then the village +would take care to send a good man.' + +'So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King +had done such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of +the Kentish knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that +our folk were half mad with fear before we began. It is easier to +dig out a badger gone to earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. +And atop of their misery the old rumour waked that Harold the +Saxon was alive and would bring them deliverance from us +Normans. This has happened every autumn since Santlache fight.' + +'But King Harold was killed at Hastings,'said Una. + +'So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our +Saxons always believed he would come again. That rumour did +not make our work any more easy.' + +Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where +the trees thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his +long spurs among the lumps of blackened ling. + +'But we did it!' he said. 'After all, a woman is as good as a man +to beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes +cripples and crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh +told him over the list of beaters. Half were women; and many of +the rest were clerks - Saxon and Norman priests. + +'Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, +as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first +shooting-stand - by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I +- it was no work for hot heads or heavy hands - lay with our +beaters on the skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the +deer. When De Aquila's great horn blew we went forward, a line +half a league long. Oh, to see the fat clerks, their gowns tucked +up, puffing and roaring, and the sober millers dusting the under- +growth with their staves; and, like as not, between them a Saxon +wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling like a kite as she ran, +and leaping high through the fern, all for joy of the sport.' +'Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!' Puck bellowed +without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, +and nostrils cracking. + +'Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!' Sir Richard answered in a high clear +shout. + +The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a +heron rose out of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though +he kept time to the outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his +glorious tail. They stopped together on the same note. + +A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods. + +'That's old Hobden,'said Una. + +'Small blame to him. It is in his blood,' said Puck. 'Did your +beaters cry so, Sir Richard?' + +'My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They +forgot where the King and his people waited to shoot. They +followed the deer to the very edge of the open till the first flight of +wild arrows from the stands flew fair over them. + +'I cried, "'Ware shot! 'Ware shot!" and a knot of young knights +new from Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand +Stand, turned about, and in mere sport loosed off at our line +shouting: "'Ware Santlache arrows! 'Ware Santlache arrows!" A +jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our beaters answered in +Saxon: "'Ware New Forest arrows! 'Ware Red William's +arrow!" so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw +my old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same +as war), they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we +gave our beaters ale to wash down their anger. They were +excusable! We - they had sweated to show our guests good sport, +and our reward was a flight of hunting-arrows which no man +loves, and worse, a churl's jibe over hard-fought, fair-lost +Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh and I assembled and +called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The greater part +we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old man, +in the dress of a pilgrim. + +'The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for +twenty years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all +the shrines of England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head +between fists. We Normans rest the chin on the left palm. +'"Who answers for him?" said I. "If he fails in his duty, who +will pay his fine?" + +'"Who will pay my fine?" the pilgrim said. "I have asked that +of all the Saints in England these forty years, less three months +and nine days! They have not answered!" When he lifted his thin +face I saw he was one-eyed, and frail as a rush. +'"Nay, but, Father," I said, "to whom hast thou commended +thyself-?" He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: "Whose man +art thou?" + +'"I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King's jester," said +he after a while. "I am, as I suppose, Rahere's man." + +'He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh, coming up, +read it. + +'It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere +was the King's jester. There was Latin writ at the back. + +'"What a plague conjuration's here?" said Hugh, turning it +over. "Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?" + +'"Black Magic," said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a +monk at Battle). "They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool +and more of a wizard than either. Here's Rahere's name writ, and +there's Rahere's red cockscomb mark drawn below for such as +cannot read." He looked slyly at me. + +'"Then read it," said I, "and show thy learning." He was a +vain little man, and he gave it us after much mouthing. + +'"The charm, which I think is from Virgilius the Sorcerer, +says: 'When thou art once dead, and Minos' (which is a heathen +judge) 'has doomed thee, neither cunning, nor speechcraft, nor +good works will restore thee!' A terrible thing! It denies any +mercy to a man's soul!" + +'"Does it serve?" said the pilgrim, plucking at Hugh's cloak. +"Oh, man of the King's blood, does it cover me?" + +'Hugh was of Earl Godwin's blood, and all Sussex knew it, +though no Saxon dared call him kingly in a Norman's hearing. +There can be but one King. + +'"It serves," said Hugh. "But the day will be long and hot. +Better rest here. We go forward now." + +'"No, I will keep with thee, my kinsman," he answered like a +child. He was indeed childish through great age. + +'The line had not moved a bowshot when De Aquila's great +horn blew for a halt, and soon young Fulke - our false Fulke's son +- yes, the imp that lit the straw in Pevensey Castle [See 'Old Men +at Pevensey' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] - came thundering up +a woodway. + +'"Uncle," said he (though he was a man grown, he called me +Uncle), "those young Norman fools who shot at you this morn +are saying that your beaters cried treason against the King. It has +come to Harry's long ears, and he bids you give account of it. +There are heavy fines in his eye, but I am with you to the hilt, +Uncle!" +'When the boy had fled back, Hugh said to me: "It was Rahere's +witless man that cried, ''Ware Red William's arrow!' I heard him, +and so did the Clerk of Netherfield." + +'"Then Rahere must answer to the King for his man," said I. +"Keep him by you till I send," and I hastened down. + +'The King was with De Aquila in the Grand Stand above +Welansford down in the valley yonder. His Court - knights and +dames - lay glittering on the edge of the glade. I made my +homage, and Henry took it coldly. +'"How came your beaters to shout threats against me?" +said he. + +'"The tale has grown," I answered. "One old witless man +cried out, ''Ware Red William's arrow,' when the young knights +shot at our line. We had two beaters hit." + +'"I will do justice on that man," he answered. "Who is his +master?" + +'"He's Rahere's man," said I. + +'"Rahere's?" said Henry. "Has my fool a fool?" + +'I heard the bells jingle at the back of the stand, and a red leg +waved over it; then a black one. So, very slowly, Rahere the +King's jester straddled the edge of the planks, and looked down +on us, rubbing his chin. Loose-knit, with cropped hair, and a sad +priest's face, under his cockscomb cap, that he could twist like a +strip of wet leather. His eyes were hollow-set. + +'"Nay, nay, Brother," said he. "If I suffer you to keep your +fool, you must e'en suffer me to keep mine." + +'This he delivered slowly into the King's angry face! My faith, a +King's jester must be bolder than lions! + +'"Now we will judge the matter," said Rahere. "Let these two +brave knights go hang my fool because he warned King Henry +against running after Saxon deer through woods full of Saxons. +'Faith, Brother, if thy Brother, Red William, now among the +Saints as we hope, had been timely warned against a certain arrow +in New Forest, one fool of us four would not be crowned fool of +England this morning. Therefore, hang the fool's fool, knights!" +'Mark the fool's cunning! Rahere had himself given us order to +hang the man. No King dare confirm a fool's command to such a +great baron as De Aquila; and the helpless King knew it. + +'"What? No hanging?" said Rahere, after a silence. "A' God's +Gracious Name, kill something, then! Go forward with the +hunt!" + +'He splits his face ear to ear in a yawn like a fish-pond. +"Henry," says he, "the next time I sleep, do not pester me with +thy fooleries." Then he throws himself out of sight behind the +back of the stand. + +'I have seen courage with mirth in De Aquila and Hugh, but +stark mad courage of Rahere's sort I had never even guessed at.' + +'What did the King say?' cried Dan. + +'He had opened his mouth to speak, when young Fulke, who +had come into the stand with us, laughed, and, boy-like, once +begun, could not check himself. He kneeled on the instant for +pardon, but fell sideways, crying: "His legs! Oh, his long, +waving red legs as he went backward!" + +'Like a storm breaking, our grave King laughed, - stamped and +reeled with laughter till the stand shook. So, like a storm, this +strange thing passed! + +'He wiped his eyes, and signed to De Aquila to let the drive +come on. + +'When the deer broke, we were pleased that the King shot from +the shelter of the stand, and did not ride out after the hurt beasts as +Red William would have done. Most vilely his knights and +barons shot! + +De Aquila kept me beside him, and I saw no more of Hugh till +evening. We two had a little hut of boughs by the camp, where I +went to wash me before the great supper, and in the dusk I heard +Hugh on the couch. + +'"Wearied, Hugh?" said I. + +'"A little," he says. "I have driven Saxon deer all day for a +Norman King, and there is enough of Earl Godwin's blood left in +me to sicken at the work. Wait awhile with the torch." + +'I waited then, and I thought I heard him sob.' + +'Poor Hugh! Was he so tired?' said Una. 'Hobden says beating +is hard work sometimes.' + +'I think this tale is getting like the woods,' said Dan, 'darker and +twistier every minute.' +Sir Richard had walked as he talked, and though the children +thought they knew the woods well enough, they felt a little lost. + +'A dark tale enough,' says Sir Richard, 'but the end was not all +black. When we had washed, we went to wait on the King at meat +in the great pavilion. just before the trumpets blew for the Entry - +all the guests upstanding - long Rahere comes posturing up to +Hugh, and strikes him with his bauble-bladder. + +'"Here's a heavy heart for a joyous meal!" he says. "But each +man must have his black hour or where would be the merit of +laughing? Take a fool's advice, and sit it out with my man. I'll +make a jest to excuse you to the King if he remember to ask for +you. That's more than I would do for Archbishop Anselm." + +'Hugh looked at him heavy-eyed. "Rahere?" said he. "The +King's jester? Oh, Saints, what punishment for my King!" and +smites his hands together. +'"Go - go fight it out in the dark," says Rahere, "and thy +Saxon Saints reward thee for thy pity to my fool." He pushed him +from the pavilion, and Hugh lurched away like one drunk.' + +'But why?' said Una. 'I don't understand.' + +'Ah, why indeed? Live you long enough, maiden, and you shall +know the meaning of many whys.' Sir Richard smiled. 'I wondered +too, but it was my duty to wait on the King at the High +Table in all that glitter and stir. + +'He spoke me his thanks for the sport I had helped show him, +and he had learned from De Aquila enough of my folk and my +castle in Normandy to graciously feign that he knew and had +loved my brother there. (This, also, is part of a king's work.) +Many great men sat at the High Table - chosen by the King for +their wits, not for their birth. I have forgotten their names, and +their faces I only saw that one night. But' - Sir Richard turned in +his stride - 'but Rahere, flaming in black and scarlet among our +guests, the hollow of his dark cheek flushed with wine - long, +laughing Rahere, and the stricken sadness of his face when he was +not twisting it about - Rahere I shall never forget. + +'At the King's outgoing De Aquila bade me follow him, with +his great bishops and two great barons, to the little pavilion. We +had devised jugglers and dances for the Court's sport; but Henry +loved to talk gravely to grave men, and De Aquila had told him of +my travels to the world's end. We had a fire of apple-wood, sweet +as incense, - and the curtains at the door being looped up, we +could hear the music and see the lights shining on mail and +dresses. + +'Rahere lay behind the King's chair. The questions he darted +forth at me were as shrewd as the flames. I was telling of our fight +with the apes, as ye called them, at the world's end. [See 'The +Knights of the Joyous Venture' in PUCK OF POOK'S HILL.] +'"But where is the Saxon knight that went with you?" said +Henry. "He must confirm these miracles." + +'"He is busy," said Rahere, "confirming a new miracle." + +'"Enough miracles for today," said the King. "Rahere, you +have saved your long neck. Fetch the Saxon knight." + +'"Pest on it," said Rahere. "Who would be a King's jester? I'll +bring him, Brother, if you'll see that none of your home-brewed +bishops taste my wine while I am away." So he jingled forth +between the men-at-arms at the door. + +'Henry had made many bishops in England without the Pope's +leave. I know not the rights of the matter, but only Rahere dared +jest about it. We waited on the King's next word. + +'"I think Rahere is jealous of you," said he, smiling, to Nigel +of Ely. He was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other - +Wal-wist the Saxons called him - laughed long. "Rahere is a priest +at heart. Shall I make him a bishop, De Aquila?" says the King. + +'"There might be worse," said our Lord of Pevensey. "Rahere +would never do what Anselm has done." + +'This Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had gone off raging +to the Pope at Rome, because Henry would make bishops +without his leave either. I knew not the rights of it, but De Aquila +did, and the King laughed. + +'"Anselm means no harm. He should have been a monk, not a +bishop," said the King. "I'll never quarrel with Anselm or his +Pope till they quarrel with my England. If we can keep the King's +peace till my son comes to rule, no man will lightly quarrel with +our England." + +'"Amen," said De Aquila. "But the King's peace ends when +the King dies." + +'That is true. The King's peace dies with the King. The custom +then is that all laws are outlaw, and men do what they will till the +new King is chosen. + +'"I will amend that," said the King hotly. "I will have it so that +though King, son, and grandson were all slain in one day, still the +King's peace should hold over all England! What is a man that his +mere death must upheave a people? We must have the Law." + +'"Truth," said William of Exeter; but that he would have said +to any word of the King. + +'The two great barons behind said nothing. This teaching was +clean against their stomachs, for when the King's peace ends, the +great barons go to war and increase their lands. At that instant we +heard Rahere's voice returning, in a scurril Saxon rhyme against +William of Exeter: + + '"Well wist Wal-wist where lay his fortune + When that he fawned on the King for his crozier," + +and amid our laughter he burst in, with one arm round Hugh, and +one round the old pilgrim of Netherfield. + +'"Here is your knight, Brother," said he, "and for the better +disport of the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, +the gates of Gaza are clean carried away!" + +'Hugh broke loose, white and sick, and staggered to my side; +the old man blinked upon the company. + +'We looked at the King, but he smiled. + +'"Rahere promised he would show me some sport after supper +to cover his morning's offence," said he to De Aquila. "So this is +thy man, Rahere?" + +'"Even so," said Rahere. "My man he has been, and my +protection he has taken, ever since I found him under the gallows +at Stamford Bridge telling the kites atop of it that he was - Harold +of England!" + +'There was a great silence upon these last strange words, and +Hugh hid his face on my shoulder, woman-fashion. + +'"It is most cruel true," he whispered to me. "The old man +proved it to me at the beat after you left, and again in our hut even +now. It is Harold, my King!" + +'De Aquila crept forward. He walked about the man and swallowed. + +'"Bones of the Saints!" said he, staring. + +'"Many a stray shot goes too well home," said Rahere. + +The old man flinched as at an arrow. "Why do you hurt me +still?" he said in Saxon. "It was on some bones of some Saints that +I promised I would give my England to the Great Duke." He +turns on us all crying, shrilly: "Thanes, he had caught me at +Rouen - a lifetime ago. If I had not promised, I should have lain +there all my life. What else could I have done? I have lain in a strait +prison all my life none the less. There is no need to throw stones at +me. " He guarded his face with his arms, and shivered. +"Now his madness will strike him down," said Rahere. "Cast +out the evil spirit, one of you new bishops." + +'Said William of Exeter: "Harold was slain at Santlache fight. +All the world knows it." + +'"I think this man must have forgotten," said Rahere. "Be +comforted, Father. Thou wast well slain at Hastings forty years +gone, less three months and nine days. Tell the King." + +'The man uncovered his face. "I thought they would stone +me," he said. "I did not know I spoke before a King." He came to +his full towering height - no mean man, but frail beyond belief. + +'The King turned to the tables, and held him out his own cup of +wine. The old man drank, and beckoned behind him, and, before +all the Normans, my Hugh bore away the empty cup, Saxon- +fashion, upon the knee. + +"It is Harold!" said De Aquila. "His own stiff-necked blood +kneels to serve him. + +"Be it so," said Henry. "Sit, then, thou that hast been Harold +of England." + +'The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between +half-shut eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who +watched Rahere as I have seen him watch a far sail on the sea. + +'The wine and the warmth cast the old man into a dream. His +white head bowed; his hands hung. His eye indeed was opened, +but the mind was shut. When he stretched his feet, they were +scurfed and road-cut like a slave's. + +'"Ah, Rahere," cried Hugh, "why hast thou shown him thus? +Better have let him die than shame him - and me!" + +'"Shame thee?" said the King. "Would any baron of mine +kneel to me if I were witless, discrowned, and alone, and Harold +had my throne?" + +'"No," said Rahere. "I am the sole fool that might do it, +Brother, unless" - he pointed at De Aquila, whom he had only +met that day - "yonder tough Norman crab kept me company. +But, Sir Hugh, I did not mean to shame him. He hath been +somewhat punished through, maybe, little fault of his own." + +, "Yet he lied to my Father, the Conqueror, " said the King, and +the old man flinched in his sleep. + +'"Maybe," said Rahere, "but thy Brother Robert, whose +throat we purpose soon to slit with our own hands -" + +'"Hutt!" said the King, laughing. "I'll keep Robert at my table +for a life's guest when I catch him. Robert means no harm. It is all +his cursed barons." + +'"None the less," said Rahere, "Robert may say that thou hast +not always spoken the stark truth to him about England. I should +not hang too many men on that bough, Brother." +'"And it is certain," said Hugh, "that" - he pointed to the old +man - "Harold was forced to make his promise to the Great Duke." + +'"Very strongly, forced," said De Aquila. He had never any +pride in the Duke William's dealings with Harold before Hastings. +Yet, as he said, one cannot build a house all of straight sticks. + +'"No matter how he was forced," said Henry, "England was +promised to my Father William by Edward the Confessor. Is it +not so?" William of Exeter nodded. "Harold confirmed that +promise to my Father on the bones of the Saints. Afterwards he +broke his oath and would have taken England by the strong hand. " +'"Oh! La! La!" Rahere rolled up his eyes like a girl. "That ever +England should be taken by the strong hand!" + +'Seeing that Red William and Henry after him had each in just +that fashion snatched England from Robert of Normandy, we +others knew not where to look. But De Aquila saved us quickly. +'"Promise kept or promise broken," he said, "Harold came +near enough to breaking us Normans at Santlache. " + +"Was it so close a fight, then?" said Henry. + +"A hair would have turned it either way," De Aquila +answered. "His house-carles stood like rocks against rain. Where +wast thou, Hugh, in it?" + +'"Among Godwin's folk beneath the Golden Dragon till your +front gave back, and we broke our ranks to follow," said Hugh. + +"But I bade you stand! I bade you stand! I knew it was all a +deceit!" Harold had waked, and leaned forward as one crying +from the grave. + +'"Ah, now we see how the traitor himself was betrayed!" said +William of Exeter, and looked for a smile from the King. + +'"I made thee Bishop to preach at my bidding," said Henry; +and turning to Harold, "Tell us here how thy people fought us?" +said he. "Their sons serve me now against my Brother Robert!" + +'The old man shook his head cunningly. "Na - Na - Na!" he +cried. "I know better. Every time I tell my tale men stone me. +But, Thanes, I will tell you a greater thing. Listen!" He told us +how many paces it was from some Saxon Saint's shrine to another +shrine, and how many more back to the Abbey of the Battle. + +'"Ay," said he. "I have trodden it too often to be out even ten +paces. I move very swiftly. Harold of Norway knows that, and so +does Tostig my brother. They lie at ease at Stamford Bridge, and +from Stamford Bridge to the Battle Abbey it is -" he muttered +over many numbers and forgot us. + +'"Ay, " said De Aquila, all in a muse. "That man broke Harold +of Norway at Stamford Bridge, and came near to breaking us at +Santlache - all within one month." + +'"But how did he come alive from Santlache fight?" asked the +King. "Ask him! Hast thou heard it, Rahere?" +"Never. He says he has been stoned too often for telling the +tale. But he can count you off Saxon and Norman shrines till +daylight," said Rahere and the old man nodded proudly. + +'"My faith!" said Henry after a while. "I think even my Father +the Great Duke would pity if he could see him. + +'"How if he does see?" said Rahere. + +'Hugh covered his face with his sound hand. "Ah, why hast +thou shamed him?" he cried again to Rahere. + +'"No - no," says the old man, reaching to pluck at Rahere's +cape. "I am Rahere's man. None stone me now," and he played +with the bells on the scollops of it. + +'"How if he had been brought to me when you found him?" +said the King to Rahere. + +You would have held him prisoner again - as the Great Duke +did," Rahere answered. + +'"True," said our King. "He is nothing except his name. Yet +that name might have been used by stronger men to trouble my +England. Yes. I must have made him my life's guest - as I shall +make Robert." + +'"I knew it," said Rahere. "But while this man wandered mad +by the wayside, none cared what he called himself." + +'"I learned to cease talking before the stones flew," says the old +man, and Hugh groaned. + +'"Ye have heard!" said Rahere. "Witless, landless, nameless, +and, but for my protection, masterless, he can still make shift to +bide his doom under the open sky. +'"Then wherefore didst thou bring him here for a mock and a +shame?" cried Hugh, beside himself with woe. + +'"A right mock and a just shame!" said William of Exeter. + +'"Not to me," said Nigel of Ely. "I see and I tremble, but I +neither mock nor judge." +Well spoken, Ely." Rahere falls into the pure fool again. "I'll +pray for thee when I turn monk. Thou hast given thy blessing on a +war between two most Christian brothers." He meant the war +forward 'twixt Henry and Robert of Normandy. "I charge you, +Brother," he says, wheeling on the King, "dost thou mock my +fool?" +The King shook his head, and so then did smooth William +of Exeter. + +'"De Aquila, does thou mock him?" Rahere jingled from one +to another, and the old man smiled. + +'"By the Bones of the Saints, not I," said our Lord of Pevensey. +"I know how dooms near he broke us at Santlache. + +'"Sir Hugh, you are excused the question. But you, valiant, +loyal, honourable, and devout barons, Lords of Man's justice in +your own bounds, do you mock my fool?" + +'He shook his bauble in the very faces of those two barons +whose names I have forgotten. "Na - Na!" they said, and waved +him back foolishly enough. + +'He hies him across to staring, nodding Harold, and speaks +from behind his chair. + +'"No man mocks thee, Who here judges this man? Henry of +England - Nigel - De Aquila! On your souls, swift with the +answer!" he cried. + +'None answered. We were all - the King not least - over-borne +by that terrible scarlet-and-black wizard-jester. + +'"Well for your souls," he said, wiping his brow. Next, shrill +like a woman: "Oh, come to me!" and Hugh ran forward to hold +Harold, that had slidden down in the chair. + +'"Hearken," said Rahere, his arm round Harold's neck. "The +King - his bishops - the knights - all the world's crazy chessboard +neither mock nor judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, +Harold of England!" + +'Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled. + +'"Good comfort," said Harold. "Tell me again! I have been +somewhat punished." +'Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head rolled. We +heard him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud. + +'"Out! I will have no Norman!" Harold said as clearly as I +speak now, and he refuged himself on Hugh's sound shoulder, +and stretched out, and lay all still.' + +'Dead?' said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk. + +'That was his good fortune. To die in the King's presence, and +on the breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. +Some of us envied him,' said Sir Richard, and fell back to take +Swallow's bridle. + +'Turn left here,' Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. +They ducked down a narrow path through close ash plantation. + +The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged +full-abreast into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying +home on his back. +'My! My!' said he. 'Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?' + +'Sorry! It's all right,' said Una, rubbing her nose. 'How many +rabbits did you get today?' + +'That's tellin'!' the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. +'I reckon Mus' Ridley he've got rheumatism along o' lyin' in the +dik to see I didn't snap up any. Think o' that now!' + +They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale. + +'An' just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin' to the +hounds in our woods,' said he. 'Didn't you hear? You must ha' +been asleep sure-ly.' + +'Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?' +Dan cried. + +''Ere he be - house an' all!' Hobden dived into the prickly heart +of the faggot and took out a dormouse's wonderfully woven nest +of grass and leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been +precious lace, and tilting it toward the last of the light he showed +the little, red, furry chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes +that were shut for their winter sleep. + +'Let's take him home. Don't breathe on him,' said Una. 'It'll +make him warm and he'll wake up and die straight off. Won't he, +Hobby?' + +'Dat's a heap better by my reckonin' than wakin' up and findin' +himself in a cage for life. No! We'll lay him into the bottom o' this +hedge. Dat's jus' right! No more trouble for him till come Spring. +An' now we'll go home.' + + + +A Carol + + +Our Lord Who did the Ox command +To kneel to Judah's King, +He binds His frost upon the land +To ripen it for Spring - +To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, +According to His word; +Which well must be as ye can see - +And who shall judge the Lord? + +When we poor fenmen skate the ice +Or shiver on the wold, +We hear the cry of a single tree +That breaks her heart in the cold - +That breaks her heart in the cold, good sirs, +And rendeth by the board; +Which well must be as ye can see - +And who shall judge the Lord? + +Her wood is crazed and little worth +Excepting as to burn +That we may warm and make our mirth +Until the Spring return - +Until the Spring return, good sirs, +When people walk abroad; +Which well must be as ye can see - +And who shall judge the Lord? + +God bless the master of this house, +And all that sleep therein! +And guard the fens from pirate folk, +And keep us all from sin, +To walk in honesty, good sirs, +Of thought and deed and word! +Which shall befriend our latter end - +And who shall judge the Lord? + + + +****End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Rewards and Fairies**** + diff --git a/old/rwfrs10.zip b/old/rwfrs10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d48284e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rwfrs10.zip |