ABOUT BEETLES
There was a whitewashed cottage called Lewside beside the moorland road,
and at a window which commanded a view of that road sat a girl with what
appeared to be a glory round her face--it was nothing but soft red
hair--a girl of seventeen, called Boodles, or anything else sufficiently
idiotic; and this girl was learning doggerel and singing--
"'The West wind always brings wet weather,
The East wind wet and cold together;
The South wind surely brings us rain,
The North wind blows it back again.'
"And that means it's always raining, which is a lie. And as I'm saying
it I'm a liar," laughed Boodles.
It was raining then. Only a Dartmoor shower; the sort of downright rain
which makes holes in granite and plays Wagner-like music upon roofs of
corrugated iron.
"There's a bunny. Let me see. That's two buns, one man and a boy, a cart
and two horses, three wild ponies, and two jolly little sheep with horns
and black faces--all been along the road this afternoon," said Boodles.
"Now the next verse--
'If the sun in red should set.
The next day surely will be wet;
If the sun should set in grey.
The next will be a rainy day.'
"That's all. We can't go on lying for ever. I wish," said Boodles, "I
wish I hadn't got so many freckles on my nose, and I wish my hair wasn't
red, and thirdly and lastly, I wish--I wish my teeth weren't going to
ache next week. I know they will, because I've been eating jam pudding,
and they always ache after jam pudding; three days after, always three
days--the beasts! Now what shall I sing about? Why can't people invent
something for small girls to do upon a rainy day? I wish a battle was
being fought on the moor. It would be fun. I could sit here and watch
all day; and I would cut off bits of my hair and throw them to the
victorious generals. What a sell for me if they wouldn't pick them up! I
expect they would, though, for father says I'm a boodle girl, and that
means beautiful, though it's not true, and I wish it was. Another lie
and another wish! And when I'm dressed nicely I am boodle-oodle, and
that means more beautiful. And when the sun is shining on my hair I am
boodle-oodliest, and that means very beautiful. I suppose it's rather
nonsense, but it's the way we live here. We may be silly so long as we
are good. The next song shall be patriotic. We will bang a drum and wave
a flag; and sing with a good courage--
'It was the way of good Queen Bess,
Who ruled as well as mortal can,
When she was stugged, and the country in a mess,
She would send for a Devon man.'
"Well now, that's the truth. Miss Boodles. The principal county in
England is Devonshire, and the principal town is Tavistock, and the
principal river is the Tavy, and the principal rain is upon Dartmoor,
and the principal girl has red hair and freckles on her nose, and she's
only seventeen. And the dearest old man in Devon is just coming along
the passage, and now he's at the door, and here he is. Father," she
laughed, "why do people ask idiotic questions, like I'm doing now?"
"Because they are the easiest," said Abel Cain Weevil, in his gentle
manner and bleat-like voice.
"I was sitting here one day, and Mary Tavy came along," went on Boodles.
"She said: 'Aw, my dear, be ye sot by the window?' And I said: 'No,
Mary, I'm standing on my head.' She looked so frightened. The poor thing
thought I was mad."
"Boodles, you're a wicked maid," said Weevil fondly. "You make fun of
everything. Some day you will get your ears pulled."
The two were not related, except by affection, although they passed as
father and daughter. Boodles had come from the pixies. She had been left
one night in the porch of Lewside Cottage, wrapped up in a wisp of fern,
without clothing of any kind, and round her neck was a label inscribed:
"Take me in, or I shall be drowned to-morrow." Weevil had taken her in,
and when the baby smiled at him his eccentric old soul laughed back. He
entered into partnership at once with the baby-girl, and she had been a
blessing to him. He knew that she had been left in his porch as a last
resource; if he had not taken her in she would have been drowned the
next day. It was all very pretty to imagine that Boodles had come from
the pixies. The truth was nobody wanted her; the unmarried mother could
not keep the child, Weevil was believed to be a tender-hearted old fool,
so the baby was wrapped in fern and left in his porch; and the tenant of
Lewside Cottage lived up to his reputation. Boodles knew her history.
She sat at the cottage window every day, watching every one who passed;
and sometimes she would murmur: "I wonder if my mother went by to-day."
She had once or twice inserted an unpleasant adjective, but then she had
no cause to love her unknown parents. Much of her love was given to Abel
Cain Weevil; and all of it went out to some one else.
The old man was one of those mysteries who crop up in desolate places.
Nobody knew where he came from, what he had been, or what he was doing
in the region watered by the Tavy. He was poor and harmless. He kept out
of every one's way. "Quite mad," said St. Peter. "An honest madman,"
answered St. Mary. "He had at least the decency to recognise that child,
for of course she is his daughter." St. Peter had his doubts. He did not
like to think too highly of old Weevil. That was against his principles.
He suggested that Weevil intended to make some base use of the girl, and
St. Mary agreed. They could generally agree upon such matters.
Weevil was quite right to keep out of the world. He was handicapped in
every way. There was his name to begin with. He had no objection to
Abel, but he saw no necessity in the redundant Cain. It had been given
him, however, and he could not escape from it. Every one called him Abel
Cain Weevil. The children shouted it after him. As for the name Weevil,
it was objectionable, but no worse than many another. It was not
improper like some surnames.
"An insect, my dear," he explained to Boodles. "A dirty little beetle
which lives upon grain."
"I'm a weevil too," said she. "So I'm a dirty little beetle."
The old man wouldn't allow that. Boodles belonged to the angels, and he
told her so with foolish expressions; but she shook her glorious red
head at him and declared that beetles and angels had nothing in common.
She admitted, however, that she belonged to a delightful order of
beetles, and that on the whole she preferred chocolates to grain. The
silly old man reminded her that she belonged to the boodle-oodle order
of beetles, and so far she was the only specimen of that choice family
which had been discovered.
A man is eccentric in this world if he does anything which his
neighbours cannot understand. He may go out in the garden and cut a
cabbage-leaf. That is a sane action. But if he spreads jam on the
cabbage-leaf, and eats the same publicly, he is called a madman. Nothing
is easier than to be thought eccentric. You have only to behave unlike
other people. Stand in the middle of a crowded street and gaze vacantly
into the air. Every one will call you eccentric at once, just because
you are gazing in the air and they are not. Weevil was mad because he
was unlike his neighbours. The adoption of Boodles was not a sane
action; even if she were his daughter it was equally insane to
acknowledge her with such shameless publicity. A sane person would have
allowed Boodles to share the fate of many illegitimate children.
They were happy these two, papa Weevil and his Boodles. They had no
servant. The girl kept house and cooked. The old man washed up and
scrubbed. Boodles knew how to make, not only a shilling, but even the
necessary penny go all the way. She was a treasure, good enough for any
man; there were no dark spots upon her heart. If she had been made away
with one of the best little souls created would have gone back into
limbo.
No storm disturbed Lewside Cottage, except Dartmoor gales, and as for
religion they were sun-worshippers; like most people who come out in
fine raiment and glory in the sun, and when it is wet hide indoors, talk
of the sun, think of the sun, long for the sun, until he appears and
they can hurry out to worship. The savage calls the sun his god in so
many words; and the human nature which is in the savage is in the
primitive folk of open and desolate places also; it is present in the
most civilised of beings, but only those who live on a high moor through
the winter know what a day of sunshine means. The sun has places
dedicated to him upon Dartmoor. There is Bel Tor and there is Belstone.
A tradition of the Phoenician occupation still exists, handed down from
the remote time when the sun was directly worshipped. The commoners
still believe that good luck will attend the man who shall see the
rising sun reflected on the rock-basin of Bellivor. An altar to the sun
stood once upon that lonely tor. Weevil worshipped the sun quietly.
Boodles offered incense with enthusiasm. She deserved her name when the
sun shone upon her radiant head and made a glory round it. When the
greater gorse was in flower, and Boodles walked through it hatless,
wearing her green frock, she might have been the spirit of the prickly
shrub; and like it her head was in bloom all the year round.
"Have we got anything for supper, Boodle-oodle?" asked the silly old
male beetle.
"Ees, lots," said the small golden one.
It was not unpleasant to hear Boodles say "ees." She split the word up
and made a kind of anthem out of it. The first sound was very soft, a
mere whisper, and spoken with closed lips. The rest she sang, getting
higher as the final syllable was reached--there were more syllables in
the word than letters--then descending at the drawn-out sibilant, and
finishing in a whisper with closed lips.
"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "No eggs!"
They looked at each other with serious faces. In that simple household
small things were tragedies. There were no eggs. It was a matter for
serious reflection.
"Butter?" queried the old man nervously. "Milk? Cheese? Bread?"
"Heaps, piles, gallons. The kitchen is full of cheese, and you can't
move for bread, and the milk is running over and dripping upon
everything like a milky day," said penitent Boodles. "I have been saying
to myself: 'Eggs, eggs! Yolks, shells, whites--eggs!' I made puns that I
shouldn't forget. I egged myself on. I walked delicately, and said: 'I'm
treading on eggs.' I kept on scolding myself, and saying: 'Teach your
grandmother to suck eggs.' I reminded myself I mustn't put all my eggs
in one basket. Then I went and sat in the window, forgot all about them,
and now I'm a bad egg."
"Boodles, what shall we do?" said the chief beetle.
"I think you ought to torture me in some way," suggested the forgetful
one. "Drag me through the furze. Beat me with nettles. Torture would do
me a lot of good, I expect, only not too much, because I'm only a baby."
That was her usual defence. Whatever happened she was only a baby. She
was never likely to grow up.
"Don't jest. It is too serious. If I don't have two eggs for my supper I
shall have no sleep. I shall be ill to-morrow."
"I'll give you two poached kisses," promised Boodles.
"I cannot exist on spiritual food alone. I must have my eggs. Custom has
made it necessary."
"I'll make you all sorts of nice things," she declared.
But the eccentric old beetle could not be pacified. He had eggs upon the
mind. The produce of the domestic fowl had become an obsession. He
explained that if the house had been well stocked with eggs he might
have gone without. He would have known they were there to fall back upon
if desire should seize him during the silent watches of the night. But
the knowledge that the larder was destitute of eggs increased his
desire. He would have no peace until the deficiency was made good.
"Well," said Boodles resignedly, "it's my fault, so I'll suffer for it.
I don't want to hear you screaming for eggs all night. I'll go and get
wet for your salvation. I expect Mary can let me have some."
Weevil was himself again. He trotted off for the child's boots. He
always put her boots on, and took them off when she came in. Boodles was
a little sun-goddess, and as such she accepted adoration. It was part of
the tribute due to the sun-like head. When the boots were on--each ankle
having previously been worshipped as a part of the tribute--she assumed
a jacket, packed her hair under a fluffy green hat, stabbed it on four
times with long pins, picked up her walking-stick; and was off, Weevil
gazing after her adoringly until she passed out of sight. "There goes
the pride o' Devon," murmured the silly old man as the green hat
vanished.
The sight of Boodles took the weather's breath away. It forgot to go on
raining; and the sun was so anxious to shine upon her hair that he
pushed the clouds off him, as a late slumberer tosses away his blankets,
and came out to work a little before evening. It became quite pleasant
as Boodles went beside Tavy Cleave.
Peter was not visible, but Mary was. She was plodding about in her huge
boots with an eye upon her geese, especially upon the chief of the
flock. Old Sal, who, as usual, was anxious to seek pastures new. When
Boodles came up Mary smiled. She was very fond of the child. Boodles
seemed to have been made out of such entirely different materials from
the odds and ends which had gone towards her own construction. The
little girl's soft flesh was as unlike Mary's tough leather as the white
bark of the birch is unlike the rugged bark of the oak.
"Well, Mary, how are you?" said Boodles.
"I be purty fine, my dear, purty middling fine. Peter be purty fine tu.
And how be yew, my dear, and how be the old gentleman? Purty fine yew
be, I reckon."
"We are splendid," said Boodles. "How is the old goose, Mary?"
"Du'ye mean Old Sal, my dear? There he be trampesing 'bout Dartmoor as
though 'twas his'n. Aw, he be purty fine, sure 'nuff."
"She must be very old," said Boodles.
"Aw ees, he be old. He be a cruel old artful toad, my dear," said Mary.
"How old is she?"
"Well, my dear, he be older than yew. He be twenty-two come next
Michaelmas, I'm thinking."
"You will never kill her?" said Boodles. "You couldn't, after having her
for so long. You won't kill her, will you, Mary?"
"Goosies was made to kill. Us keeps 'en whiles they be useful, and then
us kills 'en," said Mary.
"But twenty-two years old!" cried Boodles. "She would be much too tough
to eat."
"Aw, my dear life," chuckled Mary. "He wouldn't be tough. I would kill
'en, and draw 'en, and rub a little salt in his belly, and hang 'en up
for a fortnight, and he would et butiful, my dear."
Boodles laughed delightfully, and said she thought no amount of salt or
hanging, to say nothing of sage and onions, could ever make the
venerable Sal palatable.
"Peter wun't let 'en be killed. Peter loves Old Sal," Mary went on. "He
laid sixteen eggs last year, and he'm the best mother on Dartmoor. Aw
ees, my dear. He be a cruel fine mother, and Peter ses he shan't die
till he've a mind to."
Then Boodles got to business and asked Mary for eggs, not those of Old
Sal, but the produce of the hen-house. Mary said she would go and
search. As it was dirty in that region Boodles declined to go with her.
"Please to go inside. There be only Gran'vaither. Go and have a look at
'en, my dear," said Mary, who always referred to Grandfather as if he
had been a living soul. "Hit 'en in the belly, and make 'en strike at
ye."
Boodles went into Hut Circle Number One, which was Peter's residence,
and stood in the presence of Grandfather. Obeying Mary's instructions,
she hit him "in the belly." The old sinner made weird noises when thus
disturbed. He appeared to resent the treatment, as most old gentlemen
would have done. He refused to strike, but he rattled himself, and
wheezed, and made sounds suggestive of expectoration. Grandfather was a
savage like Peter. He was a rough uneducated sort of clock, and he had
no passion for Boodles. Pendoggat would have been the man for him.
Grandfather would have shaken hands with Pendoggat had it been possible.
His own quivering hands were stretched across his lying face, announcing
quarter-past nine when it was really five o'clock. Grandfather was a
true man of Devon. He had no sense of time.
Boodles had nothing but contertipt for the old fellow. Having assaulted
him she opened his case. Evidently Grandfather had been drinking. His
interior smelt strongly of cider. There were splashes of it everywhere;
rank cider distilled from the lees; in one spot moisture was pronounced,
suggesting that Grandfather had recently been indulging. Apparently he
liked his liquor strong. Grandfather was a picker-up of unconsidered
trifles also. He was full of pins; all kinds of pins, bent and straight.
Item, Grandfather had a little money of his own; several battered
coppers, some green coins which had no doubt been dug up outside, or
discovered upon the "deads" beside one of the neighbouring wheals, and
there was a real fourpenny-bit with a hole through it. Fastened to the
back of the case behind the pendulum was a scrap of sheepskin as hard as
wood, and upon it some hand had painfully drawn what appeared to be an
elementary exercise in geometry. Boodles frowned and wondered what it
all meant.
"Here be the eggs, my dear. Twenty for a shillun to yew, and ten to a
foreigner," said Mary, standing in the door, making an apron out of her
ragged skirt, and blissfully unconscious that she was exposing the
sack-like bloomers which were her only underwear.
"Twenty-one, Mary. There's always one thrown in for luck and me,"
pleaded Boodles.
"Aw ees. One for yew, my dear," Mary assented.
That was the way Boodles got full value for her money.
"My dear life! What have yew been a-doing of?" cried Mary with alarm,
when she noticed Grandfather's open case. "Aw, my dear, yew didn't ought
to meddle wi' he. Grandfather gets cruel tedious if he be meddled with."
"I was only looking at his insides," said Boodles. "He's a regular old
rag-bag. What are all these things for--pins, coins, coppers? And he's
splashed all over with cider. No wonder he won't keep time."
"Shet 'en up, my dear. Shet 'en up," said superstitious Mary. "Aw, my
dear, don't ye ever meddle wi' religion. If Peter was to see ye he'd be
took wi' shivers. Let Gran'vaither bide, du'ye. Ain't ye got a pin to
give 'en? My dear life, I'll fetch ye one. Gran'vaither got tedious wi'
volks wance, Peter ses, and killed mun; ees, my dear, killed mun dead as
door nails; ees, fie 'a did, killed mun stark."
Boodles only laughed, like the wicked maid that she was. She couldn't be
bothered with the niceties of religion.
Peter and Mary were only savages. According to their creed pixies dwelt
in Grandfather's bosom; and it was necessary to retain the good-will of
the little people, and render the sting of their possible malevolence
harmless, by presenting votive offerings and inscribing spells. The rank
cider had been provided for midnight orgies, and, lest the pixies should
become troublesome when under the influence of liquor, the charm upon
the sheepskin had been introduced, like a stringent police-notice,
compelling them to keep the peace.
"It's all nonsense, you know," said Boodles, as she took the eggs, with
the sun flaming across her hair. "The pixies are all dead. I went to the
funeral of the last one."
Mary shook her head. She did not jest on serious matters. The friendship
of the pixies was as much to her as the lack of eggs had been to Weevil.
"Anyhow," went on wicked Boodles, "I should put rat-poison in there if
they worried me."
"Us have been bit and scratched by 'em in bed," Mary declared. "Peter
and me have been bit cruel. Us could see the marks of their teeth."
"Did you ever catch one?" asked Boodles tragically.
"Catch mun! Aw, my dear life! Us can't catch mun."
"You could, if you were quick--before they hopped," laughed Boodles.