ABOUT THE OCTAVE OF ST. GOOSE
Things had gone wrong with Peter and Mary ever since the festival.
Excitement, Plymouth liquors, and ignorance were largely to blame for
the general "contrairiness" of things; but the root of the trouble lay
in the fact of their refusal to be decent savages; of Peter's claims to
be a handy man, and of Mary's desire to be civilised.
Old Sal had last been seen wandering towards Helmen Barton; that was the
principal grievance. Others were the complete failure of Peter as an
electrical engineer; the discovery that nearly a pound's worth of
precious shillings had been dissipated at the fair in idle pleasures
alone; and the loss of a number of little packages containing such
things as tea, sugar, and rice, which Mary had bought in Tavistock and
placed, as she thought, in a position of safety. The pills and
flower-seeds had proved also a source of trouble. A bottle of almighty
pills had been thrust upon Peter for his liver's sake, and Mary had
later on acquired packets of sweet-peas and mignonette in order that her
garden might be made glorious.
The loss of the groceries caused the first lamentation. Mary had a clear
recollection of buying them, or at least she remembered paying for them,
but beyond that memory did nothing for her. She had no impression of
walking about the streets with her arms full of packages; they were not
in her pocket, nor had they ever been in Peter's; she could not have
left them in the shop; she was ready to swear she had not dropped them.
The only possible conclusion was that the pixies had stolen them. Peter
the hypocrite grunted at that. Although he offered sacrifice continually
to the pixies that dwelt in Grandfather's bosom, he declared there were
no such things. School-master had told him they were all dead. Education
had in some obscure way shot, trapped, or poisoned the lot.
"You'm a gurt vule," was Mary's retort. "Dartmoor be vull o' piskies,
allus was, and allus will be. When I was a little maid and went to
schule wi' Master, though he never larnt I more than ten fingers and ten
toes be twenty, though I allus remembered it, for Master had a brave way
of larning young volks--What was I telling, Peter? Aw ees, I mind now.
'Twas when I went to schule wi' Ann Middleweek, her picked up a pisky
oven and broke 'en all to bits, 'cause her said the piskies were proper
little brutes, and her was beat cruel that night wi' brimmles and
vuzzy-bushes 'cause her'd broke the oven, and her was green and blue
next day. 'Twas the piskies stole my tea and sugar, sure 'nuff. If I'd
ha' spat on 'em, and marked 'em proper wi' a cross betwixt two hearts,
they'd ha' been here now."
Mary worried so much over her lost groceries that she felt quite ill. As
Peter also became apprehensive of the state of his health every time
that he looked at the bottle of pills, they decided to take a few. Then
Peter went out into the garden to sow the flower-seeds, while Mary
tramped over the moor to search for her missing goose.
Peter imagined that he had mastered the science of horticulture. At
least he would not have accepted advice upon the subject from any one.
Vegetables he had grown all his life, and in exactly the same way as
they had been grown in his boyhood, and he was quite as successful as
his neighbours. He was a ridiculous little man, and in several ways as
much of a savage as his ancestors, but he had inherited something from
them besides their unpleasant ways. His pretensions to being skilled
with his hands and clever with his brain were grotesque enough; but he
possessed a faculty which is owned by few, because it is not required by
civilised beings, a faculty which to strangers appeared incredible. When
a bullock or a pony was pointed out to him, as it stood outlined against
the sky on the top of some distant tor, or even as it walked against the
dull background of the moor, he would put his hand to his eyes, and
almost at once, and always correctly, give the owner's name. He earned
several shillings at certain seasons of the year, and could have earned
more had he not been lazy, by going out to search for missing animals.
Peter was always in demand by the commoners about the time of the drift.
Flowers were useless things according to Peter, and concerning their
culture he knew nothing. However, Mary insisted upon the seeds being
planted, to give her garden a civilised appearance, so Peter set about
the task. The packet of sweet-peas had broken in his pocket during the
fair, and upon returning he had placed them in a small bottle. The
mignonette was his first care. The instructions outside stated that the
seed was to be sown "in February, under glass." Peter shook his head at
that. February was a long way off, but he went on to argue that if the
seed would grow during the winter it was certainly safe to sow it during
the far warmer month of October. It was the "under glass" that puzzled
him. This was evidently something new in gardening, and Peter objected
to new-fangled methods. It occurred to him that the expression might
have been intended for "under grass," but that seemed equally absurd.
School-master would know, but Peter was not going to expose his
ignorance by asking questions. Besides, it would mean a long walk, and
Master's cottage possessed the distinct disadvantage of being a
considerable distance from the inn. Peter had no idea what sort of a
plant mignonette might be, but he supposed it was a foreign growth which
managed to flourish upon certain nutritive qualities possessed by glass.
There were plenty of bottles in the linhay. Peter broke up a couple with
the crowbar, collected the fragments--the instructions omitted to state
how much glass--scattered the seeds in an unimportant corner of the
garden, strewed the pieces of glass over them, and trod the whole down
firmly. Then he dug a trench and buried the sweet-peas.
Soon afterwards he began to feel ill; and when Mary returned without
news of Old Sal she said she was "cruel sick-like tu." They conferred
together, agreed that the trouble was caused by "the oil in their
livers," and concluded they had better go on with the pills. Presently
they were suffering torments; the night was a sleepless time of groans
and invocations; and in the morning they were worse. Peter was the most
grievously afflicted, at least he said he was; and described the state
of his feelings with the expressive phrase: "My belly be filled wi'
little hot things jumping up and down."
"So be mine. Whatever be the matter wi' us?" groaned Mary.
"They pills. Us ha' took tu many."
"Mebbe us didn't tak' enough. Us ha' only took half the bottle, and he
said dree bottles for a cure."
"Us wun't tak' no more. I'll smash that old bottle on they seeds. 'Twill
dung 'em proper," said Peter, shuffling painfully across the floor and
reaching for the bottle.
A moment later he began to howl. He had discovered something, and terror
made him own to it.
"Us be dead corpses! Us be pizened! Us ha' swallowed they peas!" he
shouted.
"Aw, my dear life! Where be the pills, then?" cried Mary.
"I've tilled 'em," said Peter. "They be in the garden, and them peas be
growing in our bellies."
"Aw, Peter, us will die! I be a-going to see Master," groaned Mary.
Peter said he should come too. He was afraid to be left alone, with
Grandfather ticking sardonically at him, and sweet-peas germinating in
his bowels. If it had been only Mary who was suffering he would have
prescribed for her; but as he was himself in pain he argued that it
would be advisable to seek outside assistance. Master was a "brave
larned man," and he would know what ought to be done to save their
lives. They made themselves presentable, and laboured bitterly across
the moor to St. Mary Tavy village.
Master was never out. He lived in a little whitewashed cottage near the
road, gazing out of his front window all day, with a heap of books on a
little table beside him, and pedantic spectacles upon his nose. He was
nearly eighty, and belonged to the old school of dames and masters now
practically extinct, an entirely ignorant class, who taught the children
nothing because they were perfectly illiterate themselves. Master was
held in reverence by the villagers. That pile of books, and the
wonderful silver spectacles which he was always polishing with knowing
glances, were to them symbols of unbounded knowledge. They brought their
letters to the old man that he might read them aloud and explain obscure
passages. Not a pig was killed without Master's knowledge, and not a
child was christened until the Nestor of the neighbourhood had been
consulted.
"Please to come in, varmer. Please to sot down, Mary," said Master, as
he received the groaning pilgrims into his tiny owlery, "varmer" being
the correct and lawful title of every commoner. "Have a drop o' cider,
will ye? You'm welcome. I knows you be main cruel fond of a drop o'
cider, varmer."
Peter was past cider just then. He groaned and Mary moaned, and they
both doubled up in their chairs; while Master arranged his beautiful
spectacles, and looked at them in a learned fashion, and at last hit
upon the brilliant idea that they were afflicted with spasms of the
abdomen.
"You've been yetting too many worts?" he suggested with kindly sympathy.
"Us be tilling peas in our bellies," explained Mary. .
Master had not much sense of humour. He thought at first the remark was
made seriously, and he began to upbraid them for venturing on such
daring experiments. But Mary went on: "Us bought pills to Goosie Vair,
'cause us ha' got too much oil in our livers, and us bought
stinking-peas tu. Us ha' swallowed the peas, and tilled the pills. Us be
gripped proper, so us ha' come right to wance to yew."
Master replied that they had done wisely. He played with his books,
wiped his spectacles, and dusted the snuff from his nose with a
handkerchief as big as a bath-towel. Then he folded his gnarled hands
peacefully across his brass watch-chain, and talked to them like a good
physician.
"I'll tell ye why you'm gripped," he said. "'Tis because you swallowed
them peas instead o' the pills. Du'ye understand what I be telling?"
Peter and Mary answered that so far they were quite able to follow him,
and Mary added: "A cruel kind larned man be Master. Sees a thing to
wance, he du."
"Us ha' got innards, and they'm called vowels," Master went on. "Some
calls 'em intestates, but that be just another name for the same thing.
Us ha' got five large vowels, and two small ones. The large ones be
called _a, e, i, o, u_, and the small ones be called _w_ and _y_. I
can't tell ye why, but 'tis so. Some of them peas yew ha' swallowed have
got into _a_, and some ha' got into _o_, and mebbe some ha' got into _w_
and _y_. Du'ye understand what I mean?"
The invalids replied untruthfully that they did, while Peter stated that
Master had done him good already.
"They be growing there, and 'tis the growing that gripes ye. Du'ye
understand that?" continued Master.
Peter ventured to ask how much growth might be looked for.
"They grows six foot and more, if they bain't stopped," said Master
ominously.
"How be us to stop 'em?" wailed Mary.
"I'll tell ye," said Master. "Yew mun get home and bide quiet, and not
drink. Then mebbe the peas will wilt off and die wi'out taking root."
"Shall us dig up the pills and tak' some?" Suggested Peter.
"Best let 'em bide. They be doing the ground good," said Master. "It
bain't nothing serious, varmer," he went on. "Yew and Mary will be well
again to-morrow. Don't ye drink and 'twill be all right. The peas will
die of what us calls instantaneous combustion. If yew was to swallow
anything to pizen 'em 'twould pizen yew tu. Aw now, you might rub a
little ammonia on your bellies just to mak' 'em feel uneasy-like. I'll
get ye a drop in a bottle. Nothing's no trouble, varmer."
"It taketh a scholard to understand it," said Mary. "When he putched
a-telling I couldn't sense 'en, but I knows now it bain't serious. A
brave larned man be Master. There bain't many like 'en."
The invalids were pretty well by that evening. Their pains were
departing, and Mary was able to hunt again for Old Sal and bewail her
lost groceries, while Peter turned his attention towards establishing
electric light into the two hut-circles. He had brought back from
Tavistock two little bottles with taps, hairpins, and bits of rope
complete, also mystic circles made of china, which, he had been
informed, were used for securing the completed article to the roof, and
nearly a mile of thin wire, which he had picked up very cheaply, as it
was getting rusty.
The wire had excited Mary's amazement, but Peter refused to give her any
information concerning it. He had enjoyed an instructive conversation
with the man in the shop, who perceived that Peter was a savage, but did
not on that account refuse to sell him the required articles. Peter
asked how the light was made, and the answer "with water," or words to
that effect, so stunned him that he heard nothing for the next few
moments. If it could be true that fire and heat were made out of water
he was prepared to believe anything. The man seemed to be serious and
not trying to make a fool of him; for he went on to explain that the
light was conveyed from the water by a wire which communicated with the
little bottles--he showed Peter that what he had mistaken for a piece of
rope was in reality twisted wires--over any distance, although more
power would be required if the house to be lighted was far from the
water. The word "power" was explained to Peter's satisfaction as meaning
a strong current, preferably a waterfall. The entire art of electrical
engineering became clear to Peter at once. He remembered how the
ignorant little girl in the lodging-house had mentioned the telegraph
wires which had been put about the house. The child could not be
expected to understand what the wires were for--Peter had not much
tolerance for such stupidity--but it was evident, after the shopman's
explanation, that those wires communicated with the Tavy and brought the
light into the lodging-house from its waters. If the river at Tavistock,
which is wide and shallow, could give forth light of such excellent
quality, what might not be expected from the rushing torrent of Tavy
Cleave? Peter perceived that every difficulty had been smoothed away.
"Best tak' they old lamps to the village and sell 'em," he said, with
vast contempt for old and faithful servants. "Us ha' done wi' they. Us
will ha' lights in our bottles avore to-night." He had hung them up
already, one in his own hut, the other in Mary's, and they looked
splendid hanging from the beams. "Like a duke's palace," according to
the electrician.
"Aw ees, I'll sell 'em," said Mary, getting out a bit of sacking to wrap
the old lamps in. "Us won't be mazed wi' paraffin and wicks and busted
glasses. I'll tak' 'em' to Mother Cobley, and see if her will give us
two or dree shilluns for 'em."
Mary went off with the lamps, which Peter's science was about to render
superfluous, while the little man took up his bundles of wire and
stumbled down the cleave, to put the hidden radiance of the Tavy into
communication with their humble dwellings.
It was very pleasant down by the river that crisp October afternoon; the
rich autumnal sun upon the rocks, the bracken in every wonderful tint of
brown and gold, the scarlet seed-clumps of bog asphodel, and the
trailing red ropes of bramble sprinkled with jetty berries, full of
crimson blood like Thomasine's cheeks. It was nearly a month past
Barnstaple Fair, and yet the devil had not put his foot upon the
blackberries. The devil is supposed to attend Barnstaple Fair in state
and tread on brambles as he goes home; which is merely the pleasant
Devonshire way of saying that there is generally a frost about
Barnstaple Fair week which spoils the fruit. The fairy cult was much
prettier than all this demonology, but when education killed the little
people there was only the devil to fall back upon; and though education
will no doubt kill him in due time it has not done so yet.
Peter trampled among the brambles and swore at them because they caught
his legs. He saw nothing beautiful in their foliage. It was too common
for him to admire. The colours had been like that the year before; they
would be the same the year after. Peter appreciated bluebells and
primroses because they were soft to walk upon; but the blood-red
"brimmles" only pricked his legs and made him stumble; and the golden
bracken was only of use in the cow-shed, or in his hut as a
floor-litter; and the gracious heather was only good for stuffing
mattresses; and the guinea-gold gorse would have been an encumbrance
upon the side of the moor had it not been so useful as a thatch for his
hut, and a fence for his garden, and a mud-scraper for his boots. Peter,
though very much below the ordinary moorman, was artistically like them
all--insensible to beauty which is not of the flesh. Not a Dartmoor
commoner would pause a moment to regard the sun setting and glowing in a
mist upon the tors. Yet a Cornish fisherman would; and a Norman peasant
perhaps would take off his hat and cross himself, not so much with a
sense of religion, as because there is something in his mind which can
respond to the beauty and poetry and romance of the sun in a mist.
Possibly, with the Dartmoor commoner, it is his religion which is to
blame. His faith is as dark and ugly as the bottom of a well. The
Cornish fisherman has his Cymric blood, his instincts, his knowledge of
folklore, to help him through. The Norman peasant has the daily help of
gleaming vestments, glowing candles, clouds of sun-tinted
incense--pretty follies perhaps, but still pretty--the ritual of his
mass, and the Angelus bell. But the Dartmoor commoner has little but his
hell-fire.
In the midst of all the splendour of Tavy Cleave on fire with autumn,
Peter the ridiculous unwound a portion of the first roll of wire, and
pondered deeply. It seemed absurd even to him to place the end into the
water and leave Nature to do the rest; but he couldn't think of any
other method. The shopman had distinctly mentioned wire and waterfalls,
and both were ready to hand. As Peter went on to consider the matter it
became clearer in his mind. The ways of Nature are incomprehensible.
There were lightning-conductors, for instance. They were just bits of
wire sticking aimlessly into the air, and apparently they caught the
lightning, though Peter was not sure what they did with it. To put a
piece of wire into a waterfall to attract light could not be more absurd
than to erect a bit of wire into space to catch lightning. It was
amazing certainly, but Peter had nothing to do with marvels, except to
turn them to practical account. Once, when he was ill, a doctor had come
to visit him armed with a little instrument which he had put against his
chest and had then looked right inside him. Peter knew the doctor had
looked inside him, because he was able to describe all that he saw. That
was another marvellous thing, almost as wonderful as extracting light
and heat from cold water.
There was a waterfall lower down, and below it a pool fringed with fern
and boiling with foam. It was an ideal spot, thought Peter, so he went
there, and after fastening his wire to a stone, dropped it into the pool
at the foot of the falls. The silver foam and the coloured bubbles
laughed at him, and had Peter been blessed with anything in the form of
an imagination, he might have supposed they were inviting him to play
with them, and the sunlight made a rainbow out of flying foam. The scene
was so full of radiance that Peter easily believed how brilliantly the
hairpins in the bottles would presently be glowing.
It was a lengthy business laying the wire up the side of the cleave
among the boulders, fern, and brambles, and the task was not finished
until twilight. The wire was rotten stuff, breaking continually, and had
to be fastened together in a score of places.
Peter reached the top of the cleave at last, and discovered Mary waiting
to inform him in an angry way how Mother Cobley had given her only a
shilling for the two lamps, and that only under pressure, because they
were old and worn out. Mary wanted light in her bottle at once, as she
had to mix the bread and make the goose-feed. "That Old Sal be a proper
little brute. He bain't come home, and I can't hear nothing of 'en," she
concluded.
Peter replied that he would not be able to introduce the light into both
huts that evening. Mary would have to wait for hers, for it did not
occur to him that it would be possible to illumine Mary's hut before his
own.
"How be I to work in dimsies?" said Mary.
"Can't ye mix bread in my house?" replied Peter.
Mary admitted the thing was possible, so she stalked off for the
bread-pan, while Peter completed the installation by running the wire
through his door, along the roof, and twisting it about the "bit o'
rope" holding the little bottle which he fondly imagined would soon be
radiant.
"Bain't a first-class job, but I'll finish him proper to-morrow," he
said.
"Turn thikky tap!" cried excited Mary. "Aw, Peter, wun't the volks look
yaller when they sees 'en?"
The folks were not destined to look yellow, but Peter and Mary were soon
looking blue when repeated turning of the tap failed to lighten their
darkness. It was not such a simple matter as tapping a cask of cider
after all. They turned and twisted until the hut was dark and dreary,
but not a farthing's worth of rush-light was produced.
"Mebbe the wire's been and broke," suggested Peter hopefully.
He lighted his lantern, and they tramped together down the cleave,
following the wire all the way to the river and finding it intact.
Presumably it was the waterfall which was not doing its duty.
They returned to their gloomy huts, the one sorrowful, the other angry.
"You'm a gurt dafty-headed ole vule! That's what yew be!" cried the
angry one, when they reached the top of the cleave.
Peter received this opinion with unwonted humility; and replied as
meekly as any Christian martyr: "He be gone wrong somehow. I'll put 'en
right to-morrow."
"Put 'en right, will ye?" cried Mary scornfully. "How be I to mix bread'
and get supper? You'm a proper old horniwink, and I hopes the dogs 'll
have ye."
These curses aroused Peter. He spat upon the ground, and drew mystic
figures with his boot between Mary and himself. Having done what he
could to avert the evil, he turned upon Mary and threatened her with the
lantern. She continued her insults, having lost her temper completely,
not so much because Peter had failed in his electrical engineering, as
because she had an idea he had been making a fool of her. They were both
ignorant, but one did not know it and was brazen, while the other was
aware of it and was sensitive. She went on calling him weird names, and
hoping the whist hounds would hunt him, until he lost his temper too.
They had never quarrelled so violently before, but Peter was helpless in
spite of his big threats, for Mary could have tackled and beaten two men
as strong as her little brother. When he came to close quarters she
picked him up, lantern and all, cuffed him, carried him into her hut,
and snatching up her bulging umbrella whacked him well over the head
with it.
Peter was immediately overwhelmed, not merely by the umbrella, but with
packages which tumbled upon his shoulders, then to the floor, and were
revealed to Mary's eyes by the dull gleam of the lantern, which was
giving a very different light from that which had been anticipated from
what had been the little glass globe hanging from the roof--had been and
was not, for Mary had utterly demolished it with an upward sweep of her
immense umbrella.
"Lord love us all!" she cried, her good-humour returning at once. "If
there hain't the tea, and sugar, and t'other things what I bought to
Goosie Vair, and thought the piskies had been and took!"