FURZE THE CRUEL
BY
JOHN TREVENA
AUTHOR OF "A PIXY IN PETTICOATS" AND "ARMINEL OF THE WEST"
LONDON
ALSTON RIVERS, LTD.
BROOKE ST., HOLBORN BARS, E.C.
1907
Almost everywhere on Dartmoor are Furze, Heather, and Granite. The
Furze seems to suggest Cruelty, the Heather Endurance, and the
Granite Strength. The Furze is destroyed by fire, but grows again;
the Heather is torn by winds, but blossoms again; the Granite is
worn away imperceptibly by the rain. This work is the first of a
proposed trilogy, which the author hopes to continue and complete
with "Heather" and "Granite."
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY
I. ABOUT THE TAVY FAMILY
II. ABOUT BRIGHTLY
III. ABOUT PASTOR AND MASTER
IV. ABOUT BEETLES
V. ABOUT THOMASINE
VI. ABOUT VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
VII. ABOUT FAIRYLAND
VIII. ABOUT ATMOSPHERE
IX. ABOUT A KNAVE AND A FOOL
X. ABOUT THE VIGIL OF ST. GOOSE
XI. ABOUT THE FEAST OF ST. GOOSE
XII. ABOUT THE OCTAVE OF ST. GOOSE
XIII. ABOUT VARIOUS EMOTIONS
XIV. ABOUT A STRUGGLE AT THE GATE OF FAIRYLAND
XV. ABOUT JUSTICE
XVI. ABOUT WITCHCRAFT
XVII. ABOUT PASTIMES
XVIII. ABOUT AUTUMN IN FAIRYLAND
XIX. ABOUT THE GOOD RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP
XX. ABOUT THE PASSOVER OF THE BRUTE
XXI. ABOUT WINTER IN REAL LIFE
XXII. ABOUT THE PINCH
XXIII. ABOUT A HOUSE ON THE HIDDEN LANES
XXIV. ABOUT BANKRUPTS
XXV. ABOUT SWALING-FIRES
XXVI. ABOUT "DUPPENCE"
XXVII. ABOUT REGENERATION AND RENUNCIATION
FURZE THE CRUEL
INTRODUCTORY
ABOUT RAINDROPS
The river of Tavy is a great mountain-carver. From its mud-holes of
Cranmere to the walls of Tavistock it is a hewer of rocks. Thenceforth
it becomes a gardener, raising flowers and herbs; it becomes idyllic.
It goes into Arcadia. And at last it floats ships of war.
There is a story in Hebrew literature of a king called Solomon, a man
reputed wise, although a fool with women, who desired to build a temple
to his God. There was a tradition which forbade the use of hammer or
chisel in the erection of a place of worship, because, according to the
Mischna, "Iron is used to shorten life, the altar to prolong it." The
stones were not to be hewn. The temple was to be built noiselessly. The
narrative suggests that Solomon had the stones cut and shaped at some
distance from the building site, which was a decidedly Jesuitical way of
solving the problem. Myth suggests that the king sought the aid of
Asmodeus, chief of the devils, who told him where he could discover a
worm which would split the toughest rock. The introduction of the devil
to assist in the building of the temple was no doubt of Persian origin,
since Persian thought influenced Hebrew literature just as Grecian
thought was later to influence that of Rome. The idea of noiseless
building, of an altar created by supernatural powers, of burrowing for
minerals and metals without tools, is common to the literature of every
country. It is one of the stock tales of folk-lore found everywhere. In
one place it is a worm which shatters the mountains; in another a black
stone; and in another a herb, such as the innocent forget-me-not, and
the various saxifrages of the cottage garden. All the stories agree upon
three points: the name of the rock-shatterer signifies irresistible
force; it is invariably a small and insignificant object; and it is
brought to mankind by a bird. That bird is the cloud; and the worm,
pebble, or herb, which shatters mountains is the raindrop.
This is the story of the river Tavy, its tors and cleave, just as the
pixy grandmother told it to the little round-eyed ones on a stormy
night, when the black-winged raven-cloud was bringing the rain over
Great Kneeset, and the whist hounds were yip-yip-yipping upon the
"deads"--
"It all happened a long time ago, my impets, a very long time ago, and
perhaps I shan't be telling you the story quite right. They say the
dates are cut upon the Scorhill Rocks. I couldn't make them out the last
time I was there, but then my eyes are getting feeble. You know the
Scorhill Rocks, my dears? They are just by the Wallabrook, and near our
big dancing stone which the silly mortals call a tolmen. You remember
how we danced there on All Hallows E'en. What a beautiful night it was,
sure 'nuff! And then you went and pinched the farm maids in their beds,
and made them dream of their lovers, mischievous young toads! Well, I
don't blame ye, my dears. I liked a bit of a gambol when I was a winikin
bit of a pisky maid myself.
"This old Dartymore was a gurt big solid mountain of granite in those
days, my pretties. You can't imagine what it was like then, and I can't
either. There was no grass on it, and there were no nice vuzzy-bushes to
dance round, and no golden blossoms to play with, and no fern to see-saw
on, and no pink heather to go to sleep in--and worse and worse, my
dears, there wasn't a single pixy in those days either."
"Oh, what a funny old Dartymore!" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"It wasn't an old Dartymore, my pets. It was a brand-new one. There were
no bullocks or ponies. There were no bogs and no will-o'-the-wisps.
There were no stone remains for stupid mortals to go dafty over, for as
you and I know well enough most of 'em are no more stone remains than
any other rocks, but are just as the wind and rain made them. There was
not a single mortal in those days either, and none of the triumphs of
their civilisation, such as workhouses, prisons, and lunatic asylums.
There was just the sun and the gurt grey mountain, and right upon the
top of the mountain was a little bit of jelly shivering and shaking in
the wind."
"But how did it get there?" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"Oh, my loves, you mustn't ask such silly questions. I don't know.
Nobody can know. It was there, and we can't say any more. Perhaps there
was a little bit of this jelly on the top of every mountain in the
world. I can't tell you anything about that. But this little bit on the
top of Dartymore was alive. It was alive, and it could feel the wind and
the sun, and it would have kicked if it had got any legs to kick with.
You will find it all written on the Scorhill Rocks. I couldn't find it,
but it must be there, because they say it is. Well, this little bit of
jelly shivered away for a long time, and then one day it began to rain.
That was a wonderful thing in those days, though we don't think anything
of it now. The little bit of jelly didn't like the rain. If it had been
a pixy it would have crawled under a toadstool. If it had been a mortal
it would have put up its umbrella. But toadstools and umbrellas hadn't
been invented. So the poor thing shivered and got wet, because it was a
very heavy shower. They say it lasted for several thousand years. While
it rained the little bit of jelly was thinking. At last it said to the
rain, 'Where do _yew_ come from?' But the rain only replied that it
hadn't the least idea.
"'What are ye doing?' went on the bit of jelly; and the rain answered,
'Making the world ready for you to live in.' The piece of jelly thought
about that for a million years, and then it said to the wind--the rain
had stopped, and it was the First Fine Day--'Someone must have made me
and put me here. I want to speak to that Someone. Can't you tell me what
to do?'
"'Ask again in a million years,' said the wind.
"'I think I'll go for a walk,' said the piece of jelly. You see, my
dears, it was getting tired of sitting still, and besides, it had
discovered little bits of things called legs. They had grown while it
had been thinking. So it got up, and stretched itself, and perhaps it
yawned, and then it went for a long walk. I don't know how long it
lasted, for they thought nothing of a few thousand years then; but at
last it got back to the top of Dartymore, and found everything changed.
The big mountain had been shattered and hewn into cleaves and tors.
There were rivers and bogs; grass and fern; vuzzy-bushes and golden
blooms. In every part, my dears, the mountain had been carved into tors
and cut into gorges; but there were still no pixies, and no mortals.
Then the piece of jelly went and looked at itself in the water, and was
very much astonished at what it saw. It was a piece of jelly no longer,
but a little hairy thing, with long legs and a tail, and a couple of
eyes and a big mouth."
"Was it the same piece of jelly? What a long time it lived!" cried the
little round-eyed ones. They didn't believe a word of the story, and
they were going to say so presently.
"Well, my pretties, it was, and it wasn't. You see, little bits of it
kept breaking off all those years, and they had become hairy creatures
with long legs and a tail. Part of the original piece of jelly was in
them all, for that was what is called the origin of life, which is a
thing you don't understand anything about, and you mustn't worry your
heads about it until you grow up. The little hairy creature stood beside
the Tavy, and scratched its ear with its foot just like a dog. A million
years later it used its hand because it couldn't get its foot high
enough, and the wise men said that was a sign of civilisation. It was
raining and blowing, and presently a drop of rain trickled down the nose
of the little hairy creature and made it sneeze.
"'Go away,' said the little hairy creature. 'I wun't have ye tickling my
nose.' You see, my dears, it knew the Devonshire dialect, which is a
proof that it is the oldest dialect in the world.
"'Let me bide. I be fair mazed,' said the Devonshire raindrop. 'I've
been drap-drappiting on this old Dartymore for years and years.'
"'You bain't no use. You'm only a drop o' rainwater,' said the little
hairy thing.
"'That's all. Only a drop o' rain-water,' came the answer. 'This gurt
big mountain has been worn away by drops o' rain-water. These tors were
made by drops o' rainwater. These masses of granite have been split by
drops o' rain-water. The river is nought but drops o' rain-water."
"'You'm a liar,' said the little hairy thing. You see, my dears, it
couldn't believe the raindrop."
The little round-eyed ones didn't believe it either. They were afraid to
say so because Grandmother might have smacked them. Besides, they knew
they would not have to go to bed in the pink heather until she had
finished her story. So they listened quietly, and pinched one another,
while Grandmother went on--
"It was a long time afterwards. There were bullocks and ponies and
plenty of pixies, and the little hairy thing had become what is called a
primitive man. Tavy Cleave was very much the same as it is now, and Ger
Tor was big and rugged, and Cranmere was full of river-heads. The
primitive man had a primitive wife, and there were little creatures with
them who were primitive children. They lived among the rocks and didn't
worry about clothes. But there was one man who was not quite so
primitive as the others, and therefore he was unpopular. He used to
wander by himself and think. You will find it all upon the Scorhill
Rocks, my dears. One evening he was beside the Tavy, which was known in
those days as the Little Water, and a memory stirred in him, and he
thought to himself: I was here once, and I asked a question of the wind;
and the wind said: 'Ask again in a million years.' Someone must have
made me and put me here. I want to speak to that Someone. Then the
Little Water shouted; and it seemed to say: 'I have worn away the
mountain of granite. I have shattered the rocks. Look at me, primitive
man! I have given you a dwelling-place. I was made by the raindrops. The
cloud brought the raindrops. And the wind brought you, primitive man.
That Someone sent you and the wind together. You want to speak to that
Someone. You must seek that Someone in a certain place. Look around you,
primitive man!'
"So he looked, my dears, and saw what the Little Water had done during
those millions of years. On the top of every little mountain it had
carved out a tor. They were rough heaps of rock, shapeless, and yet
suggesting a shape. They were not buildings, and yet they suggested a
building. The primitive man went up on the highest tor, and spoke to
that Someone. But, my pretties, I'm afraid you can't understand all
this."
The little round-eyed ones were yawning dreadfully. Grandmother was
getting wearisome in her old age. They thought they would rather be in
bed.
"The primitive man made himself a hut-circle. You see, my dears, the
Little Water had taught him. He had become what is called imitative.
When he made his hut-circle he just copied the tors. Later on he copied
them on a larger scale and built castles. And then the time came when
another man stood beside the Tavy and asked: 'I have had dreams of
treasure in the earth. How can I get at that treasure?'
"Then the Little Water shouted back: 'Look at me. I have worn away the
rocks. I have uncovered the metals. Work in the ground as I have done.'
"So the man imitated the river again and worked in the ground, until he
found tin and copper; and the river went on roaring just as it does now.
You see, my children, there would have been no river if there had been
no raindrops; and without the river no tors and cleaves, no vuzzy-bushes
and golden blossoms, no ferns or pink heather, no buildings, no mortals,
and no pixies. Dartymore would have remained a cold grey mountain of
granite, and the piece of jelly would never have become a primitive man
if it hadn't rained."
"But what is the rain doing now?" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"Just the same, my pretties. Making the river flow on and on. And the
river is making the cleave deeper, and Ger Tor higher, just as it has
always been doing. Only it works so slowly that we don't notice any
change. Now you must run away to bed, for it is quite late, and you are
gaping like young chickens. Come and kiss your old granny, my dearies,
and trot away and have your dew-baths. And when you are tucked up in the
pink heather don't be afraid of the black cloud and the raindrops, for
they won't harm little pisky boys and maids if they're good. They are
too busy wearing away the granite, and cutting the cleaves deeper, and
making the mountains higher and our dear old Tavyland stronger and
fresher. There, that's all for to-night, my impets. I'll tell ye another
story to-morrow."
"Funny old thing, G'an'mother," whispered the little round-eyed ones,
while they washed their pink toes in the dew. "She'm old and dafty."
That's the story of river Tavy and its cleave; not all of it by any
means, but the pixy grandmother did not know any more. Nobody knows all
of it, except that Someone who sent the wind, which swept up the cloud,
which brought the rain, which wetted the piece of jelly, which shivered
on the top of the big grey mountain of Dartmoor.
The pixy grandmother was right about the primitive man who wanted so
much to know things. She was right when she said that the river taught
him. He looked about him and he imitated. The river had made him models
and he copied them. The tor to which he ascended to speak to that
Someone was the first temple and the first altar--made without noise, a
temple of unhewn stone, an altar of whole stones over which no man had
lifted up any iron. It was the earliest form of religion; a better and
purer form than any existing now. It was the beginning of folk-lore. It
was the first and best of mysteries: the savage, the hill-top, and the
wind; the cloud and the sun; the rain-built temple; the rain-shaped
altar. It was the unpolluted dwelling-place which Hebrew literature
tried to realise and failed; which philosophers and theocrats have tried
to realise and failed; which men are always trying to realise and must
always fail, because it is the beginning of things, the awakening of the
soul, the birth of the mind, the first cry of the new-born. It is the
first of all stories, therefore it cannot die; but the condition can
never come again. The story of the rain-shattered rocks must live for
ever; but only in the dimly-lighted realm of folk-lore.
Thus, in a sense, Peter and Mary, and the other folk to be described in
these pages, are the children of the river, the grandchildren of the
cloud and the rain. Ages have passed since the cloud first settled upon
Dartmoor and the rain descended. Pandora's box has been opened since
then, and all the heavenly gifts, which were to prove the ruin of
mortals, escaped from it long ago, except hope left struggling in the
hinge. What have the ignorant, passionate, selfish creatures in common
with the freshness and purity of the wind and rain? Not much perhaps. It
is a change from the summit of Ger Tor, with its wind and rain-hewn
altar, to Exeter Cathedral, with its wind instrument and iron-cut
sculpture--a change for the worse. It is a change from the primitive
man, with his cry to the river, to Mary and Peter, and those who defile
their neighbours' daughters, and drink to excess. A change for the
worse? Who shall tell? Men cast back to primitive manners. The world was
young when the properties of the fruit of the vine were discovered; and
we all know the name of the oldest profession upon earth.
The river of Tavy flows on and on, dashing its rain sea-ward. Go upon
the spectral mount of Ger Tor. Let it be night and early spring. Let
there be full moonlight also. Hear the water roaring: "I have worn away
the mountain of granite. I have shattered the rocks. Look at me,
civilised man. I have made you a dwelling-place, but you will not have
it. You swarm in your cities like bees in a rotten tree. Come back to
the wind and the rain. They will cool your passions. They will heal your
diseases. Come back to Nature, civilised man."
CHAPTER I
ABOUT THE TAVY FAMILY
"Coop, coop!" called Mary Tavy. "Cooey, cooey! Aw now, du'ye come, my
dear. He be proper contrairy when he'm minded to," she cried to Farmer
Chegwidden as she shook a gorse-bush, which was her shepherd's staff,
towards a big goose waddling ahead of her in the path of its own
selection, and spluttering and hissing like a damp firework.
"Did ever see such a goosie?" said Mary. "When I wants 'en to go one way
he goes t'other. There he goes, down under, to Helmen Barton. If he lays
his egg there they'll keep 'en, and say one of their fowls dropped 'en.
He wun't come home till sundown. Contrairiest bird on Dartmoor be Old
Sal."
"I don't hold wi' old geese," said Farmer Chegwidden. "They'm more
trouble than they'm worth. When they gets old they'm artful."
"So be volks," said Mary. "Goosies be cruel human. Old Sal knows as much
as we. He'm twenty-two years old. He lays an egg every month. He'm the
best mother on Dartmoor, and Peter says he shan't die till he've a mind
to." By her continued use of the masculine gender any one might have
thought Mary was not quite convinced herself as to her goose's sex; but
it was not so really. There is nothing feminine on Dartmoor except
tom-cats.
Mary lived with brother Peter close to the edge of Tavy Cleave, a little
way beyond Wapsworthy. There was a rough road from the village of St.
Peter Tavy, passing round the foot of Lynch Tor, and ending in a bog
half-a-mile further on. Ger Cottage--so named because the most prominent
feature of the landscape was Ger, or Gurt, Tor--which was the home of
the Tavys, the man and the woman, not the river, nor the cleave, nor the
stannary town, nor the two villages of that ilk, appeared amid boulders
and furze between the rough road and the gorge cut by the river. The
cottage, or to be strictly accurate, the cottages, for Peter and Mary
had separate apartments, which was quite right and proper, was, or were,
in a situation which a house-agent would have been justified in
describing as entirely detached. There was no other dwelling-place
within a considerable distance. The windows looked out upon romantic
scenery, which has been described in somewhat inflated language,
six-syllabled adjectives, and mixed metaphors, as something absolute and
unassailable; and has been compared to the Himalayas and Andes by
excitable young people under commission to write a certain number of
words for cheap guide-book purposes. However, the ravine of the Tavy is
perhaps the finest thing of its kind on Dartmoor; and "gentle readers"
who go abroad every winter have some reason to feel ashamed of
themselves if they have not seen it.
When the New Zealander comes to explore England, he will, perhaps,--if
he is interested in such things--write letters to such newspapers as may
have survived concerning the source of the Tavy. He will probably claim
to have discovered some new source which the ignorant and vanished race
of Anglo-Saxons never happened on. Most people will say that the Tavy
rises at the south side of Cut Hill. Others, who do not wish to commit
themselves, will make the safe statement that its source is upon
Cranmere. As a matter of fact the Tavy would be a very wise river if it
knew its own head. By the time it has assumed any individuality of its
own and received its first titled tributary, which is the Rattle Brook,
it has come through so many changes, and escaped from such a complicated
maze of crevasses, that it would have to be provided with an Ariadne's
clue to retrace its windings to its source. In the face of general
opinion it seems likely that the Tavy begins its existence rather more
than two miles north of its accredited source, at a spot close to
Cranmere Pool, and almost within a stone's cast of the Dart. It would be
impossible, however, to indicate any one particular fissure, with its
sides of mud and dribble of slimy water, and declare that and none other
was the river of Tavy in extreme and gurgling infancy.
There is no doubt about the Tavy by the time it has swallowed the Rattle
Brook and a few streams of lesser importance, and has entered the cleave
which it has carved through the granite by its own endless erosion. It
is an exceedingly self-assertive river; passing down with a satisfied
chuckle in the hot months, when the slabs of granite are like the floors
of so many bakers' ovens; and in the winter roaring at Ger Tor, as
though it would say, "I have cut through a thousand feet of granite
since I began to trickle. I will cut through a thousand more before the
sun gets cold." It is a noble little river, this shallow mountain
stream, the proudest of all Dartmoor rivers. More romance has gathered
around the Tavy than about all the other rivers in England put together,
leaving out the Tamar. The sluggish Thames has no romance to compare
with that of the Tavy. The Thames represents materialism with its
pleasure-boats and glitter of wealth. It suggests big waistcoats and
massive watch-chains. The Tavy stands for the spiritual side. Were the
god of wine to stir the waters of each, the Thames would flow with beer;
good beer possibly, but nothing better; while the Tavy would flow with
champagne. The Tavy is the Rhine of England. It was beside the Tavy that
fern-seed could be gathered, or the ointment obtained, which opened the
eyes of mortals to the wonders of fairyland. It was on the banks of the
Tavy that the pixies rewarded girls who behaved themselves--and pinched
and nipped those who didn't. Beside the Tavy has grown the herb
forget-me-not, which not only restored sight to the blind, but life also
to the dead; and the marigold which, when touched early on certain
mornings by the bare foot of the pure-minded, gave an understanding of
the language of birds. Many legends current upon the big Rhine occur
also beside the shallow Tavy. There are mining romances; tales of
success, struggles, and failures, from the time of the Phoenicians;
tales of battles for precious tin; tales of misery and torture and human
agony. That is the dark side of the Tavy--the Tavy when it roars, and
its waters are black and white, and there are glaciers down Ger Tor. The
tiny Lyd runs near the Rattle Brook, the bloody little Lyd in which the
torturers of the stannary prison cleansed their horrible hands. The
Rattle Brook knew all about it, and took the story and some of the blood
down to Father Tavy; and the Tavy roared on with the evidence, and
dashed it upon the walls of Tavistock Abbey, where the monks were
chanting psalms so noisily they couldn't possibly hear anything else.
That was the way of the monks. Stannary Laws and Tavistock Abbey have
gone, and nobody could wish for them back; but the Tavy goes on in the
same old way. It is no longer polluted with the blood of tin-streamers,
but merely with the unromantic and discarded boots of tramps. The
copper-mines are a heap of "deads"; and Wheal Betsey lies in ruin; but
the Tavy still brings trout to Tavistock, although there are no more
monks to bother about Fridays; and it carries away battered saucepans
and crockery for which the inhabitants have no further use. This
attention on the part of the townsfolk is not respectful, when it is
remembered that the Tavy brought their town into being, named it, and
has supplied it always with pure water. It is like throwing refuse at
one's godfather.
The Tavy is unhappily named, so is its brother the Taw--both being sons
of Mother Cranmere--if it is true their names are derived the one from
the Gaelic _tav_, the other from the Welsh _taw_. The root word is
_tam_, which appears appropriately enough in Thames, and means placid
and spreading. The Tavy and the Taw are anything but that. They are
never placid, not even in the dog-days. They brawl more noisily than all
the other rivers in Devon. Perhaps they were so named on the _lucus a
non lucendo_ principle; because it is so obvious they are not placid.
The river Tavy has a good deal of property. Wherever it winds it has
bestowed its name. The family of Tavy is a very ancient one. It was rich
and important once, possessing a number of rights, many valuable mines,
much romance, to say nothing of towns abbeys, and castles; but, like
most old families, it has decayed, and its property is not worth much
now. It possesses Tavy Cleave; the villages of St. Peter and St. Mary
(they were twins, exceedingly healthy in their youth, but growing feeble
now); Mount Tavy, which is of no importance; Tavystoc, the fortified
place upon the Tavy, which has been turned into Tavistock and has become
famous, not for its Abbey, nor for its great men, but solely and simply
for its Goose Fair; and Mary and Peter Tavy, who were not made of cob,
or granite, or water, or tin, or any of those other things which made
the fortune of the Tavy family, but were two simple animals of the human
race, children of the river out of that portion of Dartmoor which it
owns, two ignorant beings who took life seriously enough and were like
the heather and gorse which surrounded them. Evolution has accomplished
such marvels that Peter and Mary may possibly have been lineally
descended from antediluvian heather and gorse; or perhaps Nature had
intended them for heather and gorse, and while making them had come
across a couple of shop-soiled souls which were not of much use, and had
stirred them into the mixture which, after a certain treatment only to
be explained by a good deal of medical dog-Latin, resulted in Mary and
Peter being brought forth as divine images upon the edge of Tavy Cleave.
Peter and Mary were savages, although they would have used strange
language had any one called them so. They did not display their
genealogical tree upon their cottage wall. Had they done so it would
have shown, had it been accurate, that they were descended from the
Gubbingses, who, as every man knows, were as disreputable a set of
savages as have ever lived. This pedigree would have shown that a
certain young Gubbings had once run away with a certain Miss Gubbings to
whom he was attached, and with whom he was probably related more or less
intimately. Fearing capture, as they had conveyed from the gorge of the
Lyd as much of the portable property of their connections as they could
conveniently handle, the young couple assumed the name of Tavy from the
river beside which they settled. They had a number of little Tavies,
who, it was said, founded the villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy,
which good Christians subsequently canonised; and who, by intermarriage
without much respect for the tie of consanguinity, or for such a form of
religious superstition as a marriage service--if, indeed, they had ever
heard of such a thing--became in time a rival band of Scythians almost
as formidable to law-abiding commoners as their relations in Gubbings
Land. Peter and Mary were direct descendants of these pleasant people.
They didn't know it, however. It was just as well they were in
ignorance, because knowledge of the truth might have turned their heads.
The chief of the Gubbings was a king in his own land; therefore Peter
and Mary would certainly have boasted that they were of royal blood; and
Peter would assuredly have told his neighbours that if every man had his
rights he would be occupying the throne of England. He would have gone
on acquiring knowledge concerning those things which appertain unto
ancient families, and no doubt would have conferred upon himself,
although not upon Mary, a coat-of-arms such as a sheep in one quarter, a
bullock in another, a bag of gold in the third, and in the fourth a
peaceful commoner's head duly decollated, with the motto: "My wealth is
in other men's goods." Peter would have become an intolerable nuisance
had he known of his royal ancestry.
Mary was quite a foot taller than her brother. Peter was like a gnome.
He was not much more than four feet in height, with a beard like a
furze-bush, a nose like a clothes-peg, and a pair of eyes which had
probably been intended for a boar, but had got into Peter by mistake.
His teeth were much broken and were very irregular; here a tooth like a
tor, there a gap like a cleave. In that respect he resembled his
neighbours. Dartmoor folk have singularly bad teeth, and none of them
submit to dentistry. They appear to think that defective teeth are
necessary and incurable evils. When they are ill they send for the
doctor at once; but when they have toothache they grin and bear it.
Perhaps they know that dentists are mercenary folk, who expect to be
paid for their labours; whereas the doctor who has any claim to
respectability works solely for the love of his profession, and is not
to be insulted by any proposal of payment. A doctor is a sort of
wandering boon-companion, according to the Dartmoor mind. There is
nothing he enjoys so much as being called from his bed on a bitter
winter's night, to drive some miles across the moor that he may have a
pleasant chat with some commoner who feels dull. He will be invited to
sit by a smouldering peat-fire, and the proposal, "Have a drop o' cider?
you'm welcome," will fall gratefully upon his ears. He will be
encouraged to talk about certain ailments, and to suggest remedies for
the same. Then he will be pressed to finish the crock of cider, and be
permitted to depart. After such hospitality he would be a base-minded
man if he made any suggestion of a fee. Peter had often consulted a
doctor, but he could not remember ever parting with cash in return for
advice. The doctor could not remember it either.
Peter generally wore a big leather apron, which began somewhere about
the region of his neck and finished at his boots. He had taken it, in a
fit of absent-mindedness, out of the blacksmith of Bridestowe's smithy
some years ago. He was a bit of a traveller in those days. Peter often
boasted of his wanderings. That expedition to Bridestowe was one of
them. It would have been six miles across the moor from Tavy Cleave, and
yet Peter had made light of it. He had done much greater things. He had
put to silence one of those objectionable, well-washed, soft-handed,
expensively-dressed creatures who call themselves gentlemen. One of
these had described to Peter his wanderings about the world, mentioning
such fabulous countries as India, China, Mexico, and Peru. Peter
listened in an attitude which expressed nothing if not contempt. He
allowed the traveller to go oh some time before crushing him. "I've
travelled tu," he said at last. Then, with the manner of one dropping a
brick upon a butterfly, he added, "I've been to Plymouth." Peter often
mentioned that the traveller had nothing more to say.
Peter had been absent-minded when he procured the blacksmith's apron,
somewhat after the manner of his early ancestors who had inhabited Lyd
Gorge or Gubbings Land. He was liable to such fits. They were generally
brought on by beer. One evening Mary had sent him to a farm--or rather
he had permitted her to send him--with a can and a string-bag in order
that he might receive payment of a debt in the form of ducks' eggs and
buttermilk. On the way Peter became absent-minded. The attack was fully
developed by the time he reached the farm. He forced the eggs into the
can and poured the buttermilk into the string-bag.
Mary also must have been made during a fit of Nature's temporary
insanity. She had been started as a man; almost finished as one; then
something had gone wrong--Nature had poured the buttermilk into the
string-bag, so to speak, and Mary became a female to a certain extent.
She had a man's face and a man's feet. Larger feet had never scrambled
down Tavy Cleave since mastodons had gone out of fashion. The impression
of Mary's bare foot in the snow would have shocked a scientist. She was
stronger than most men. To see Mary forking fern, carrying furze-reek,
or cutting peat was a revelation in female strength. She wore stout
bloomers under a short ragged skirt; not much else, except a brown
jersey. The skirt was discarded sometimes in moments of emergency. She
was flat-chested, and had never worn stays. She was as innocent
concerning ordinary female underwear as Peter; more so, perhaps, for
Peter was not blind to frills. Mary would probably have worn her
brother's trousers sometimes, had it not been for that muddle-headed act
of Nature, which had turned her out a woman at the last moment. Besides,
Peter was a foot shorter than his sister, and his legs were merely a
couple of pegs.
Somewhere in his head Peter despised Mary. He did not tell her so, or
she might have beaten him with a furze-bush. He was far superior to her.
Peter could read, write, and reckon with a dangerous facility. He was
also an orator, and had been known to speak for five minutes at a
stretch in the bar-room. He had repeated himself certainly, but every
orator does that. Peter was a savage who knew just enough to look
civilised. Mary was a savage who knew nothing and was therefore
humorous. It was education which gave Peter the upper hand, Mary could
not assert her superiority over one who read the newspapers, spoke in a
bar-room, and described characters on a piece of paper which would
convey a meaning to some one far away.
Ger Cottage, or the twin huts occupied by the Tavys, had been once
hut-circles, belonging to the aboriginal inhabitants of Dartmoor. They
were side by side, semi-detached as it were, and the one was Peter's
freehold, while the other belonged to Mary. They had the same legal
rights to their property as rabbits enjoy in their burrows. Legal rights
are not referred to on Dartmoor, unless a foreigner intervenes with a
view to squatting. "What I have I hold" is every man's motto. The
hut-circles had been restored out of all recognition. They had been
enlarged, the walls had been built up, chimneys made, and roofs covered
with furze and held in place by lumps of granite had been erected. Peter
and Mary were quite independent. Peter was the best housewife, just as
Mary was the best farmer. Peter also called himself a handy man, which
was merely another way of saying that he was no good at anything. He
would undertake all kinds of jobs, ask for a little on account, then
postpone the work for a few years. He never completed anything. Mary was
the money-maker, and he was really her business-manager. Mary was so
ignorant that she never wondered how Peter got his money. It was
perfectly simple. Peter would sell a twelve-pound goose at eightpence a
pound. When he collected the money it naturally amounted to eight
shillings. When he paid it over to Mary it had dwindled to five
shillings. "Twelve times eight be sixty," Peter would explain. "Sixty
pence be five shilluns." Mary knew no better. Then Peter always asked
for a shilling as his commission, and Mary had to give it him. Peter had
studied ordinary business methods with some success; or perhaps it came
to him naturally. He had some ponies also. There is plenty of money in
pony-breeding as Peter practised it. He would go out upon the moor, find
a young pony which had not been branded, drive it home without any
ostentation, and shut it-up in his linhay. After a time he would set his
own brand upon it and let it run loose. When the annual pony-drift came
round he would claim it, subsequently selling it at Lydford market for
five pounds. Sometimes he would remove a brand, and obliterate all
traces of it by searing his own upon the same spot; but he never went to
this extreme unless he was hard pressed for money, because Peter had
certain religious convictions, and he always felt when he removed a
brand that he was performing a dishonest action.
The only other member of the Tavy family was Grandfather. He was the
reprobate. Peter and Mary had morals of their own, not many, but
sufficient for their needs; but Grandfather had none. He was utterly
bad; a wheezing, worn-out, asthmatic old sinner, who had never been
known to tell the truth. Grandfather was always in Peter's hut. Mary had
often begged for him to keep her company at nights, but Peter
steadfastly refused to let the old rascal leave his quarters. So
Grandfather lived with Peter, and spent his time standing with his back
to the wall, wheezing and chuckling and making all sorts of unpleasant
noises, as if there was some obstruction on his chest which he was
trying always to remove.
Grandfather's hands were very loose and shaky, and his face was
dreadfully dirty. Peter washed it sometimes, while the old fellow
wheezed and groaned. Sometimes Peter opened his chest and examined
Grandfather's organs, which he declared were in a perfectly healthy
condition. There appeared to be no excuse for Grandfather's mendacious
habits. He had got into the way of lying years back, and could not shake
it off. Grandfather was well over a hundred years old, and he was not
the slightest use except as a companion. Some people would have been
afraid of him, because of his unpleasant noises, but Peter and Mary
loved him like dutiful grandchildren. They recognised in Grandfather the
true Gubbings spirit. He was a weak, sinful creature like themselves.
Grandfather had commenced life as a clock, but he had soon given up that
kind of work, or something had occurred to turn him from a useful
career; just as Peter had been meant for some sort of quadruped, and
Mary had been a man up to the last possible moment. Some evil spirit
must have entered into Grandfather; a malicious impet from the Tavy
river perhaps; or possibly the wild wind of Dartmoor had passed down the
cleave one day, to enter Grandfather's chest and intoxicate him for
ever. The fact remained that Grandfather was hopelessly bad; he was a
regular misanthrope; his ticks were so many curses, his strikings were
oaths. He did his best to mislead the two grandchildren, although it
didn't matter much, because time is of no account on Dartmoor. "He'm a
proper old brute, Gran'vaither," Peter would say sometimes, but never in
the old clock's hearing.
Mary's mission in life was to breed geese. She had been sent into the
world for the express purpose of supplying folk with savoury meat
stuffed with sage and onions at Christmas time. She succeeded admirably.
She was the best goosewoman on Dartmoor, and her birds were always in
demand. One year Peter had obtained a shilling a pound for three
unusually fine young birds; but Mary didn't know that. She fattened her
geese, and incidentally Peter also.
"They'm contrairy birds," observed Farmer Chegwidden, while he smoked
and rested himself upon a boulder, watching Mary's efforts to collect
her flock. "Never goes the way us want 'em to. Like volks," he added,
with philosophic calm. He might have been assisting Mary, only he didn't
believe in violent exercise which would not be suitably rewarded.
"Volks calls 'en vulish, but they bain't. They'm just vull o' human
vices," said Mary, flopping to and fro and waving her furze-bush.
"They'm vulish to look at," explained Farmer Chegwidden.
"'Tis their artful way. Peter looks vulish tu, and he knows plenty.
More'n any of they goosies, I reckon. Coop, coop! Drat the toad! I'll
scat 'en."
The leader of the feathered choir was off again. Chegwidden could have
headed it off, only he had finished his day's work. He managed to summon
up the energy to remark, "They gets over the ground surprising, wi'
their wings spread."
"He'm a proper little brute. I wun't waste no more time over 'en," said
Mary, as she wiped her forehead with a bunch of fern. "He'll come home
when he've a mind to, and lay his egg in the linny likely, where
Peter'll tread on 'en in the morning. Peter be cruel clumsy wi' his
boots. Will ye please to step inside, Varmer Chegwidden?"
"I mun get home. Got the bullocks to feed."
"Fine bullocks tu. I seed 'em down cleave last night. Cooey, cooey! Come
along home, my purty angels. Wish ye good-night, Varmer Chegwidden."
"Why du'ye call 'em angels?" asked the farmer, making strange sounds of
laughter behind his hand.
"Aw now, I'll tell ye. There was a lady down along, a dafty lady what
painted, and her come to Peter, and her ses, 'I wants they goosies to
paint.' Well, us wouldn't have it. Us thought her wanted to paint 'em,
one of 'em red, 'nother green likely, 'nother yellow maybe, and it might
be bad for their bellies. But us found her wanted to put 'em on a
picture. Her had got a mazed notion about the cleave and resurrection,
wi' angels flapping over, and her wanted my goosies for angels. Peter
ses he didn't know goosies were like angels. Knows a lot, Peter du."
"Angels be like gals," declared Chegwidden. "Like them gals to Tavistock
what pulls the beer, wi' pert faces and vuzzy hair. That's what angels
be like. I've seed the pictures in a Bible."
"Aw now. Us couldn't make she out," went on Mary. "The lady said 'twas
just the wings her wanted. Her said angels ha' got goosies' wings, and
us couldn't say 'em hasn't, 'cause us ain't seed any. Her knew all about
it. So Peter druve the goosies down cleave, and her painted 'em for
angels sure 'nuff. Us never knew angels has goosies' wings, but the lady
knew. Her was sure on't."
Mary stalked towards the hut-circles at the head of her row of geese,
grave, waddling, self-important, and blissfully unconscious of anything
in the nature of sage and onions. There was a touch of humour about the
procession. It was not altogether unlike the spectacle to be witnessed
in certain country boroughs of the mayor and corporation walking into
church.
"Goosies be cruel human," said Mary.