ABOUT THE VIGIL OF ST. GOOSE
Mary's greatest possession was her umbrella, which was no ordinary
article, and would have been of little service to the orthodox woman,
because she would have lacked strength to raise it aloft in a breeze.
When unfurled it covered about as much ground as a military tent, and
cast a shade like an oak-tree. Not that Mary often unfurled it. The
umbrella was far too precious to be used. She carried it about on those
rare occasions when she went abroad, as a sort of symbol of the state of
civilisation to which she had attained. It was with her very much what
the pastoral staff is to a bishop; a thing unused, but exhibited.
Umbrellas are useless things upon Dartmoor, because the wind makes
wreckage of them at once. The Marian gamp was a monstrous creation, very
old and patched, possibly had been used once as a carriage umbrella, and
it was more baggy than its mistress's bloomers. Its stock was made of
holly, not from a branch, but a good-sized stem, and a yard of twine was
fastened about it to keep the ribs from flapping. Mary carried it
usually beneath her arm, and found it always terribly in the way.
Grandfather was tacitly admitted to be Peter's property. He had no
proprietary interest in the umbrella. Mary never ventured to touch
Grandfather, and Peter had not been known to place his hands upon the
umbrella. Primitive people like to take their possessions about with
them, that they may show others how well off they are. A little servant
girl goes out to the revel smothered with all her wearing apparel,
winter things on top of summer things, regardless of season, and with
all the cut glass in rolled-gold settings stuck about her that she can
lay her hands on. Two sisters are able to present a fine show by going
out in turn. Annie ventures forth clad with all the property in common,
while Bessie stays at home, not much better draped than a Greek statue.
Mary took her umbrella about, not because she wanted it, but to convince
strangers that she owned something to be proud of. Nobody was jealous.
She could have left the umbrella anywhere, and not a soul would have
touched it. Peter would have taken Grandfather about with him had it
been possible; but as the clock was twice Peter's size, and could not be
attached to a brass chain and slung in his waistcoat pocket, it had to
remain in Number One, Hut-Circles, and wheeze away the hours in
solitude.
There was suppressed excitement in New Gubbings Land. Peter was more
absent-minded than ever, and Mary was quite foolish. She served up
before her brother the barley-meal which her geese did eat, after
scattering their own dinner to the birds. It was all because they were
going on a long journey. Peter had remained quiescent for years; and,
like most men who have travelled much, he felt at last the call of the
outer world and the desire to be again in motion. Mary had the same
feeling, which was the more strange as she had never travelled. It was
the fault of the concert. Since that festival Mary had become unsettled.
It had taught her there were experiences which she had not enjoyed. Mary
thought she had done a good deal, but as a matter of fact she had never
been in a train, nor had she slept a night out of the parish. When Peter
said he meant to travel again, Mary declared she was coming too. Peter
tried to discourage her, explaining that travelling was expensive, and
dangerous also. A hardened wanderer like himself was able to face the
risks, but she would not be equal to the strain. It was a terrifying
experience to be carried swiftly along the railway, and had frightened
him badly the first time. He advised Mary to walk, and let him have the
money she would otherwise have squandered. Arguments were useless. Comic
songs had ruined Mary's contentment. She was sorry she had not travelled
before, and declared she was going to take her umbrella and begin. So
they decided to venture to Tavistock to keep the festival of St. Goose.
Mary had been to Goose Fair before, walking there and back; and for
Peter the experience was nothing. Peter had trodden the streets of
Plymouth, and had been long ago to Winkleigh Revel, although he could
recall little of that expedition--the morning after the event he
remembered nothing--but the certainty that he had made the great journey
into the wilds of mid-Devon remained, and there was proof in the
presence of a large mug with a tin handle upon the mantelshelf, bearing
the touching inscription, "Tak' a drop o' gin, old dear," in quaint
lettering, which mug, Peter declared, had come with him from Winkleigh
Revel, although any one curious enough to have turned it upside down
might have discovered "Manor Hotel, Lydford," stamped underneath.
Peter had always felt superior to his sister, apart from the sublime
fact of his manhood. He was not only highly educated, but he had
travelled, and he feared that if Mary travelled too her eyes would be
opened, and she might consider herself his equal. Therefore he had a
distinct motive in begging her to bide at home, although his eloquence
was in vain, for Mary was going to travel. She stated her intention of
walking across the moor to Lydford and catching the train there, which
was needless expense, as she might have gone down to St. Mary Tavy
station; but she desired to make a great journey, something to boast of
in days to come.
A vigil suggests sleeplessness, a watching through the night which
precedes the day of the feast; and Mary observed the vigil more
thoroughly than any nun. Plenty of girls were equally devout at the same
time; keeping awake, not because they wanted to, but because excitement
rendered sleep impossible. Thomasine observed the vigil, and even
Boodles watched and wished the dark gone. It was a long night all over
Dartmoor. Even Siberian Princetown was aroused; and those who were being
punished for their sins had the additional mortification of knowing that
they would be behind prison bars on the day when the greatest saint in
the calendar according to the use of Dartmoor, the blatant and waddling
St. Goose, was to be honoured by a special service of excursion trains
and various instruments of music.
Dawn impelled every maid to glance at the chair beside her bed, to be
sure that the pixies had not run away with her fair-clothes. Thomasine
looked for her completed petticoat, Boodles for her boy's photograph,
Mary for her umbrella. There had been no pixy-pranks, and the day came
in with a promise of sunshine. There were no lie-a-beds that morning.
Even Peter had been restless, and Grandfather possibly noticed that the
little man had not snored so regularly as usual.
To the dweller in the wilds there is no getting away from fair-day, the
great country holiday of the year. Those who would wish to abolish such
festivals should remember that country-folk have few pleasures, and the
fair is about the last, and is certainly one of the greatest,
inducements to keep them on the land. To a large number it is the single
outing of the year; a thing to talk about for months before and
afterwards; the day of family reunion, when a girl expects to see her
parents, the young man meets his brother, and the old folk keep
associations going. The fair is to country-folk very much what Christmas
is to the better classes. And as for the pleasures they are nothing like
so lurid as have been represented. Individuals are vicious; a
pleasure-seeking crowd is not. There is a vast deal of drunkenness, and
this is by far the worst feature, and one which cannot be eliminated
except by compulsory closing of all houses of refreshment, which would
be only possible under a Saturnian régime. As evening approaches there
is also much of that unpleasantness which is associated with
drunkenness, and is described in police-reports as obscene language. The
fair-ground is not the best place for highly respectable people. It is
the dancing-place of the lower classes; and as such the fair is a
success and practically harmless. The girls are out for fun, and when
they see a good-looking young man are not above making advances; and the
stranger who steps up and introduces himself is sure of a welcome on his
face value. It is all free and natural. Nearly every one is the better,
and very few are the worse, for the holiday. Liquor is the principal
cause of what evils there are. Tavistock Goose Fair after dark is far
more respectable than Hyde Park at midnight.
Peter and Mary set forth on their walk across the moor to Lydford
station, both of them attired in the festive garments which had been
last assumed for the concert, Mary's large right hand clutching the
umbrella by its ribs, Peter smoking industriously. They made a bee-line
for their destination, heedless of mossy bogs, which were fairly firm at
that time of the year. There were no rocks to hinder them. It is a bald
stretch of moor between St. Mary Tavy and Lydford. Mary was breathing
furiously from sheer excitement and nervousness, being dreadfully afraid
they would miss the train. There was the station "down under," not more
than half-a-mile away, and the train was not due for an hour, but Mary
continued on the double. She did not understand mathematics and
timetables. Peter trudged behind in a state of phlegmatic calm, natural
to an old traveller, who had been to Plymouth by the sea and to
Winkleigh on the hill.
For some time they had the platform to themselves. Then the moor began
to give forth its living: young men and maidens, old men and wives, all
going a-fairing, some treating the matter irreverently with unmusical
laughter, others regarding the occasion as meet for an austere
countenance. Peter was among those who cackled, while Mary was on the
side of the anxious. She had to remind herself continually that she was
enjoying life, although she would much rather have been at home chasing
Old Sal among the furze-bushes. When the signals fell, and the bell
rang, and the station began to rumble as the train approached, she
clutched Peter and suggested they should return home. "Don't ye get
mazed," said Peter crossly. "Come along wi' I."
Mary endeavoured to do so, but lost her head entirely when the train
drew up, and went on to behave very much like a dog at a fair. She lost
sight of her brother, scurried up and down the platform looking for him,
and became still more confused when the cry, "Take your seats, please,"
sounded in her ears. The guard, who was used to queer passengers, took
her by the arm with the idea of putting her into a carriage, but Mary
defended herself against his designs with her umbrella, and breaking
loose endeavoured to join the engine-driver. Meeting with no
encouragement there she turned back, and was seized by Peter, who told
her plainly she was acting foolishly, and again commanded her to come
along with him. Mary obeyed, and everything was going favourably, and
they were just about to enter a compartment when the umbrella slipped
oat of her nervous hand, bumped upon the edge of the platform, and slid
beneath the train.
Mary resumed her normal condition at once, caring no longer for train,
crowd, or fair, while the fear of travelling ceased to trouble when she
perceived that the umbrella had departed from her. She stood upon the
platform, and declared with an oath that the system of the railway
should work no more until the umbrella had been restored to her hands.
Time was of no account to Mary. She refused to enter the train without
her umbrella; neither should the train proceed, for she would hold on to
it. Peter upheld his sister. The umbrella was a family heirloom. The
station-master and guard urged and blasphemed in vain. The homely
epithets of the porter were received with contempt and the response, "Us
bain't a-going. Us be going to bide."
Passengers in the adjoining compartment were perturbed, because it was
rumoured among them that the poor woman had dropped a baby beneath the
train, and they believed that the officials were contending that there
was nothing in the regulations about ordinary humanity, and it was
therefore their duty to let the child remain there. The guard and
station-master became unpopular. The passengers were in no great hurry
to proceed, as they were out for a day's enjoyment; and as for Mary,
great was her lamentation for the lost umbrella.
"'Tis a little gal, name of Ella," explained a stout commoner with his
head out of the window, for the benefit of others in the carriage.
"Sounded to me like Bella," replied his wife, differing from him merely
as a matter of principle.
"There's no telling. They give 'em such fancy names now-a-days," said
another excursionist.
"Her be screaming cruel," said the stout commoner.
"I don't hear 'en," declared his wife. They got along very well
together, those two, and made conversation easily, one by offering a
statement, the other by differing.
"I du," said a young woman in a white frock, which was already showing
about the waist some finger-impressions of her young man, who sat beside
her. "She'm right underneath the carriage. Don't ye hear she, Ben?"
Ben gave a nervous smile, gulped, arranged his tie, which would keep
slipping up to his chin, moistened his lips, then parted them to utter
the monosyllable which was required. He heard the child screaming
distinctly. Having stated as much, he proceeded to record his
fingerprints accurately upon the young woman's waist.
A farmer from Inwardleigh, who had entered the train at Okehampton, and
had slept peacefully ever since, woke up at that moment, looked out, saw
the bare moor, remarked in a decided voice that he wouldn't live on
Dartmoor for a thousand pounds, and went to sleep again. The stout
commoner took up his parable and said--
"There be a little man got out now, and he'm poking about wi' a stick,
trying to get the baby out. Did ever hear of trying to get a baby up wi'
an ash-stick, woman?"
His wife replied that she had never heard of a baby getting underneath a
train before, and she thought people ought to be ashamed of themselves
getting drunk so early in the morning.
"Babies oughtn't to be took to the vair," said the young woman in the
white frock. "I shan't tak' mine when I has 'em."
This remark caused young man Ben to smile nervously again.
The Inwardleigh farmer opened his eyes and wanted to know why the train
was motionless. He was getting so thirsty that he could sleep no more.
"Us might sing a hymn," he suggested; and proceeded forthwith to make a
noise like a chaff-cutting machine, preparatory to describing himself in
song as a pure and spotless being whose sins had been entirely washed
away. Had he given his face and hands the attention which, according to
his own statement, his soul had received, he would have been a more
presentable object. The young woman in the white frock knew the hymn,
and joined in vigorously, claiming for her soul a whiteness which her
dress could not equal. The farmer was so delighted with her singing that
he leaned forward and kissed the damsel rapturously. The unhappy Ben
dared not remonstrate with his elders and betters, but merely sat and
gulped. By this time Peter had dropped his stick beneath the train,
where it reposed side by side with the umbrella.
"They'm going to run the train back," said the stout commoner.
"The baby 'll be dead," remarked his wife cheerfully. She was not going
to be depressed upon a holiday.
Peter and Mary stood upon the platform, a statuesque, obstinate pair,
determined to give the railway company no mercy. It was nothing to them
that the train was being delayed. Their property was underneath it, and
all the Gubbings blood in them rebelled.
"I'll bide till I gets my umbrella. Tak' your mucky old train off 'en,"
said Mary, wagging her big hand at the men in authority; while Peter
added that his intention was also to bide until his ash-stick should be
returned to him.
Finally the train was backed, the umbrella and stick were recovered, and
the savages permitted themselves to be bundled into the first
compartment handy, amid laughter from the heads at the windows and
profanity from the mouths of the officials. The train drew out of the
station, and Mary subsided into a corner and held on tightly, shouting
to her brother, "Shet the window, Peter, du'ye. Us may be falling out."
Peter tried to explain that would not be easy, but Mary was unable to
listen. Her former fears had returned. She clutched her umbrella,
trembled, and prayed to the gods of Brentor and the gods of
Ebenezer--Mary's religion was a misty affair--for a safe deliverance
from the perils of the railway. She had a feeling as if she was about to
part with her breakfast. She had also a distinct admiration just then
for all those who went down to the towns in trains, and for her brother,
who sat calmly upon the cushions--it was a first-class compartment which
they had invaded--and spat contentedly upon the carpet. The speed of the
train exceeded thirty miles an hour, and poor Mary's bullet head was
rolling upon her shoulders.
"Aw, my dear life!" she moaned. "I feels as if my belly were running
back to home again. Where be us, Peter?"
"On the railway," her brother answered, with truth, but without
brilliance. The remark was reassuring to Mary, however. She thought the
train had got upon the moor somehow and was speeding furiously down a
steep place towards destruction upon the rocks. A glance from the window
gave no comfort. It was terrible to see the big tors tumbling past like
a lot of drunken giants.
"Mind what I told ye," observed Peter. "Yew wun't like travelling, I
ses. 'Tis easy when yew begins young, but yew be too old to begin."
"Us ha' got legs, and us was meant to use 'em. Us was never meant to run
abroad on wheels," said Mary. "If ever I gets home, I'll bide."
Peter refilled his pipe, and began to boast of his experiences upon sea
and land; how he had ventured upon the ocean and penetrated to a far
country. Mary had heard it all before, but she had never been so
impressed as she was then by her brother's account of his famous
crossing of the Hamoaze in a fishing-boat, and his alighting upon the
distant shore of Torpoint to stand upon Cornish soil. But while Peter
was describing how he had been rocked "cruel and proper" upon the waves
of what it pleased him to style the Atlantic, brakes fell heavily upon
the wheels, a whistle sounded, and the train dragged itself gradually to
a standstill. There was no station in sight. The moor heaved on both
sides of the line. Even Peter was at a loss to explain the sudden
stoppage for a moment.
"The train be broke," said Mary, who was bold now that she had ceased
from travelling. "They've run 'en over a nail, and us mun bide till 'em
blows the wheels out again."
Mary comprehended bicycles, and had contemplated tourists, who were so
foolish as to bring their machines upon Dartmoor, pumping away at
punctured tyres. Peter did not contradict because he was perturbed. He
understood that the train had not broken down; but he believed that an
accident was impending. Out of his worldly wisdom he spoke: "It be a
collusion, I reckon."
Suspiciously Mary demanded an explanation.
"'Tis when two trains hit one into t'other," explained Peter, striking
his left fist into his right palm. "That be a collusion. Same as if yew
was to run into a wall in the dark," he added.
The meaning of these words did not dawn upon Mary for some moments. When
she did grasp them she made for the door, with the intention of
abandoning the railway forthwith; but the train gave a sudden jerk,
which threw her upon the seat, and then began to glide back. Peter
thrust his head out of the window and perceived they were making for a
siding. He and his sister had delayed the train so long that an express
which was due to follow had almost caught them up, and had made it
necessary for the local train, which has to wait for everything, to get
off the main line. Peter did not understand that. Even old travellers
make mistakes sometimes. He considered that the situation was desperate.
"They'm trying to get away, trying cruel hard," he said drearily.
"What be 'em getting away from?" gasped Mary.
"T'other train," her brother answered.
"Aw, Peter, will 'em du it?"
"Bain't hardly likely," said Peter dolefully.
"Be t'other train going to run into we?"
Peter admitted that it was so, adding: "I told ye to bide to home."
"Will us get hurt?" moaned Mary.
"Smashed to bits. They newspapers will tell us was cut to pieces," said
Peter, in his gloomiest fashion. "How much have ye got in the
money-box?" he asked.
With prophetic insight Peter perceived that he would be spared. Mary
would be destroyed, together with all the other passengers, and Peter
naturally was anxious to know the amount of hard cash he was likely to
inherit.
But Mary gave no heed to the avaricious question. She groaned and rubbed
her eyes with the umbrella. It was the umbrella she was thinking of
rather than herself. Somehow she could not imagine her own body mangled
upon the line; but a melancholy picture of the wrecked umbrella was
clear before her eyes.
In the next compartment the farmer was still singing hymns, accompanied
by a chorus. Mary thought they were praying. This was travelling,
enjoying life, a day's pleasure, St. Goose's Day! Mary wished with all
her heart she had never left her geese and her hut-circle. In the
meantime Peter was keeping her well informed.
"They be running the train off on Dartmoor," he explained. "There's a
gurt cleave down under, and they be going to run us down that. Us mun
get smashed either way."
"Why don't us get out and run away?" suggested frightened Mary.
As she spoke the train stopped. It was safe in the siding, although the
savages did not know that. They supposed that the motive power had
failed, or the engine-driver had come to realise that escape was
hopeless, and had abandoned the train to secure his own safety. Peter
saw a man running along the line. He was only a harmless pointsman going
about his business, but Peter supposed him to be the base engine-driver
flying for his life, and he told Mary as much. Even Peter's nerve was
somewhat shaken by this time. Mary said plainly she should follow the
example of the engine-driver. "My legs be as good as his," she cried. "I
hain't a-going to bide here and be broke up like an old goosie's egg. I
be a-going out."
"They'll fine ye," cried Peter. "There be a notice yonder. For
trampesing on the line a sum not exceeding forty shilluns--"
"Bain't that better than getting smashed to pieces?" shouted Mary.
Peter was not sure. He could not translate the phrase "not exceeding,"
but he had a clear notion that it meant considerably more than forty
shillings.
Mary was struggling with the door. In another moment she would have
opened it, but a terrific interruption occurred. There sounded a wild
whistling, and a roar which stunned her, and caused her to fall back
upon the seat to prepare hurriedly for her doom, to recall various
religious memories and family associations, and to mutter fervently such
disjointed scraps of sun-worship and Christianity as: "Our Vaither,
hollered be the name, kingdom come. Angels and piskies, long-stones and
crosses, glory to 'em all. Amen."
Then the express thundered past, shaking everything horribly. The
tragedy was soon over, and Peter emerged into the light with worm-like
wrigglings. For all his courage and experience he had dived beneath the
seat, conscious somehow that any change of position would be better than
no change. Everything seemed to have become very quiet all at once. They
could hear the wind whistling gently over the moor, and the water
splashing below. Mary had no idea what had happened, but she quite
believed that Peter's worst fears had been realised, and that the
"collusion" had actually occurred. So she groaned, and did not venture
to move, and muttered feebly: "I be cut to pieces."
"No, you bain't," said Peter cheerfully. "Us got away after all."
With a little more encouragement Mary stretched herself, discovered that
she and the umbrella were both intact, and from that moment the joy of
life was hers again. They had escaped somehow. The express had missed
them, and Peter assured her it was not likely to return. He admitted
they had gone through a terrifying experience, which was as novel to him
as to Mary; and his conclusion of the whole matter was that the
engine-driver had undoubtedly saved their lives by cool and daring
courage in the presence of fearful danger.
"He saw t'other train coming, and got us out o' the way just in time.
Yew saw how near t'other train was. Only just missed us," explained
Peter.
"He'm a cruel larned man," declared Mary. "He ought to be given
something. Ought to be fined forty shilluns." Poor Mary was anxious to
learn the English language; but when she made use of strange words she
betrayed her ignorance.
"You means rewarded," Peter corrected out of the depths of his
education.
"Aw ees," said Mary. "Us will reward 'en wi' a shillun."
Peter did not see the necessity. As they were perfectly safe, and as no
further advantage could possibly accrue to them from the engine-driver's
heroism, he thought they might as well keep the shilling. The train drew
out of the siding, continued its journey, and Mary became quite
comfortable, even venturing to lean forward and look out of the window,
though the telegraph-poles and bridges frightened her at first. They
looked as if they were going to run into her, she said.
Nothing else eventful happened until they reached Tavistock, although
there was a good deal of human nature at work in the adjoining
compartment, where the Inwardleigh farmer had exchanged hymn-singing for
amorous suggestions, and had proceeded to appropriate the unfortunate
Ben's white-frocked young woman to himself. It was especially hard upon
the poor young clown, as he had paid for the railway tickets; but he had
only a couple of shillings for fairing, and the Inwardleigh farmer had
gold in his fob, so the girl naturally preferred to spend the day with
the man of well-filled pockets. Weak-minded young bumpkins sometimes
murder their sweethearts, and it is not very surprising. Even
degenerates get weary of playing the singularly uninteresting part of
the worm that is trampled on.
"Tavistock! Good Lord!" exclaimed Mary, with great relief, as the train
entered the station.
She and Peter tumbled out. Such people always tumble out of railway
carriages. They merely bang the door open, fall forward, and find their
feet somehow. It is easy to tell whether a person is well-bred or not by
the way he or she leaves a railway carriage. A young lady comes forth
after the manner of a butterfly settling on a flower. The country maid
emerges like a falling sack of wheat. Peter and Mary tumbled out, and
were considerably astonished not to find a procession of grateful
passengers advancing towards the engine to thank the driver for the
courage he had displayed in saving their lives. Every one seemed anxious
to quit the platform as soon as possible. Peter was shocked to discover
so much ingratitude. It was ignorance perhaps, indifference possibly,
but to Peter and Mary it seemed utter callousness. They felt themselves
capable of something better. So they pushed through the crowd, reached
the engine, and insisted upon shaking hands, not only with the driver,
but with the fireman also, and thanked them very much for bringing them
safely into Tavistock, and for having; avoided the "collusion," which
they, the speakers, confessed had at one time appeared to them as
inevitable. Peter invited them to come and have a drop of gin, and Mary
asked sympathetically after the "volks to home."
The men enjoyed the joke immensely. They thought that the quaint couple
were thanking them for having backed the train at Lydford in order that
Mary might recover her umbrella and Peter his ash-stick. They chaffed
them in a subtle fashion, and after a minute's complete mutual
misunderstanding bade them farewell with the ironical hope they might
some day save them again.
Mary was overflowing with generosity. As she and her brother turned away
she produced two shillings and instructed Peter to reward the heroes
suitably. Peter slipped the shillings unobtrusively into his own pocket.
With all his faults he was a strict man of business.