ABOUT 'DUPPENCE'
Down the hill from St. Mary Tavy to Brentor came Brightly, most
irrepressible of unwanted things, his basket on his arm, feeding on air
and sunshine. It was early spring, there were pleasant odours and a fine
blue sky, all good and gratuitous. Brightly had been discharged from
prison as a man of no reputation, to be avoided by some and trampled on
by others. His one idea was to get back to business; rabbit-skins ought
to have accumulated, he thought, during' the months of his confinement;
there would be a rich harvest awaiting him, which might mean the pony
and cart at last, with prosperity and a potato-patch to cheer his
closing days. He went for his basket, and it was not until it was slung
upon his arm and he had bent himself into the old half-hoop shape to
carry it over the moor, that he comprehended its emptiness. Formerly his
stomach was empty and the basket was full; now both were empty; and the
crushing difficulty of starting afresh without capital was with him
again.
Brightly determined to subsist for a little on charity, but he soon made
the discovery that Samaritanism was no longer included among the
Christian virtues. People refused to do business with him on a
benevolent basis. They slammed the doors in his face, and called him
unpleasant names. They reminded him he had been in prison, as if he had
forgotten it; and some of them added an opinion that he had got off far
too cheaply. Others said if he came there again they would set the dog
on him. Brightly soon became very hungry, and almost longed for the
comforts of prison. It had been no easy matter to make a sort of living
during those days when he thought himself honest. Now that he knew he
was a criminal it appeared impossible.
Brightly was in danger of becoming an atheist. He stopped his
hymn-singing; verses descriptive of the wonderful dairy were no longer
found in his mouth, nor did he use the jingling refrain which concludes:
"Jesu, Master, us belongs to yew." What was the use of belonging to some
one who did nothing for him? Wise men have puzzled over that question,
so it was not surprising if it bewildered poor foolish Brightly. He had
been told in the prison that if he prayed for anything it would be
granted; and his informer had added it was obviously his duty to pray
for honesty. Brightly did nothing of the kind; he prayed for the pony
and cart, throwing himself heart and soul into the business, as he had
plenty of time. Instead of being a purveyor of rabbit-skins he became a
praying machine. He considered that if there was any truth in the theory
that prayers are answered, he ought to find the pony and cart awaiting
him at the door of the prison. He did see one as he came out, but it
could not have been intended for him, as the name upon the board was not
A. Brightly, and near it was a man looking like a sweep who would
probably have resisted Brightly's claims with every prospect of success.
His teacher would have said the prayer was not answered because it was
not a proper one, but that would not have helped Brightly in the least.
The little man went down the hill sniffing at the sweet wind, but
conscious that it was not invigorating as it used to be. The truth of
the matter was he was getting tired of life. He had become feeble, his
cough was worse, and his eyes troubled him so much that he had to stop
often, take off his spectacles, and rub them. But he couldn't rub the
darkness away. The eyes were getting bigger than ever because he
strained them so, trying to find the road. Sometimes he found himself
sinking in a bog; his eyes had never played him such a trick before he
became a criminal. As he walked he would look back and whistle or say:
"Us will pitch presently." He was always forgetting that Ju had ceased
to exist; and when he sat down to rest he would talk to her or stroke
the heather beside him.
He entered the village of Brentor, but trade remained "cruel dull," so
he gave it up and tramped along the road towards the church on the tor.
As he went an idea came to him. He must give up the old stretch and try
a new one. He might take the eastern side of the moor, Moreton to
Ashburton, with the villages between, taking in Widdecombe where the
devil dwelt. His old road had been dominated in a sense by St. Michael's
Church upon its mount, but the connection had proved of no service to
him, and the devil might be a better patron. He could get across to the
other side in two days, and perhaps he would find there some one who
would give him half-a-crown and set him up in business again.
Brightly was not entirely without capital, for Boodles had given him
twopence with his basket, saying she was sorry it was so little, but she
too was poor. That was another blow to Brightly; the angel had her
limitations, and seemed to have lost her power of working wonders for
the time. She too looked ill and miserable, and when celestial beings
suffered what chance was there for him? Brightly was not going to invest
that twopence in the rabbit-skin business, nor did he regard it as the
nucleus round which the fund for his pony and cart would gather. He
wrapped it up in many changes of paper, vowing not to touch it until he
should require food. The time had almost come, he thought, when he
should want food, not to stimulate his body, but to cease its action
entirely. The twopence was set aside for his funeral as it were, or
rather for the rat-poison which would make the funeral necessary. It
amused Brightly to think that people would have to spend money upon him
when he was dead, though they refused to give him anything while he was
living.
He left Brentor behind and went along the winding road; and the sun came
out so pleasantly he wondered if the gods or human beings would be
offended if he whistled. He decided to remain silent, as the constable
might be in hiding behind one of the furze-bushes, and he would be sent
back to prison for making obscene noises. He knew every yard of the
country, though he could see so little of it. Higher up was a big slab
of granite, flat and smooth like an altar-tomb, upon which he had often
sat and watched the tower of St. Michael's juggling with the big ball of
the setting sun. He went up there, and it was not until his boot touched
the flat stone that he discovered it was already occupied. A woman was
sitting on it. Brightly apologised most humbly for his intrusion, for
walking along the road, and for cumbering the face of the earth. He was
always meeting people, and he felt he had no right to do so.
"You'm welcome," said the woman.
Then Brightly opened his nearly useless eyes wider and found that she
was Thomasine, the young woman who had been so good to him and Ju, and
had fed them when they were starving, and helped them on the way to
Tavistock. He had always associated Thomasine with a well-stocked
kitchen and food in abundance. She had become mixed up in his mind with
Jerusalem, and he had thought of her as presiding over the milk and
honey, and ladling them out in large quantities at the back door to
hungry men and dogs. And there she was sitting on the big stone looking
miserable, with her clothes bedraggled and boots muddy. Brightly began
to think hard and to reason with himself. He was not the only miserable
creature after all; there were other human things belonging to the
neuter gender besides himself. Even the angel was miserable and had
confessed to poverty; and not a scrap of food surrounded the former Lady
Bountiful of Town Rising. Brightly was in Thomasine's debt, and he was
prepared to pay what he owed as well as he could. He was willing to
share his twopence with Thomasine; she should have an equal portion of
the rat-poison if she was hungry for it; and they could wash the meal
down with sweet water from the moor. As for Thomasine, the little
dried-up fragment which had once represented a mind responded to
Brightly's presence and she recognised a friend.
"I be in trouble," she said.
Brightly was glad to hear it, though he did not say so. It was good to
find a partner who would enter into an alliance with him against the fat
constable, the Bench of Magistrates, and all the wigs and ermine of
oppression. Here was another Ju, a human being this time, and perhaps
she too had been sentenced to be destroyed because she was savage, and
was trying to hide from the constable and the crowd. Brightly was
prepared to show her all sorts of secret places where she would be safe.
"Be yew a criminal tu?" he asked.
Thomasine was not sure, but thought she must be.
"I be one. I be the worst criminal on Dartmoor," said Brightly, trying
to draw himself up and look conceited. He had never done any good in his
business, but as a criminal he was entitled to regard himself as a
complete success.
"I ain't got no friends. My volks wun't ha' me to home, and I've lost my
character," said Thomasine.
"I never had no friends, nor volks, nor yet character," said Brightly.
"You'm the man what went to prison for robbing Varmer Chegwidden," she
said, using her memory with some success.
"Dree months wi' hard labour," said Brightly proudly.
"Yew never done it. I know who done it. 'Twas Varmer Pendoggat," she
said.
"I thought mebbe I might ha' done it and never knowed," explained
Brightly. "Why didn't 'em tak' he then?"
"No one knows 'cept me, and I only guesses. He was wi' I just avore I
heard master galloping over the moor, and he mun ha' passed master lying
in the road. 'Twas no good me speaking. They wouldn't ha' took my word,
and he'd ha' killed I if I'd spoke. 'Tis through he I be here now."
Adversity had sharpened Thomasine's tongue. She could not remember when
she had last made such a lengthy speech.
"Where be yew going?" asked Brightly.
"Nowheres," said the girl. "Where be yew?"
"Anywhere," said Brightly, which meant the same thing. "Shall us get
on?" he added.
Thomasine accepted the invitation, rose from the stone, and they walked
on, up the road and the steep tor, and came out at last beside the
church with its tiny burying-place of granite and its weather-beaten
gravestones. They sat down to rest upon the edge of the precipice, and
Thomasine wanted to know why they had come there.
"I wun't never be here again. I used to come up here to whistle and
sing, and now I be come to look out for the last time," said Brightly.
"I reckon I'll try t'other side o' the moor. Mebbe volks bain't so cruel
wicked there."
"I reckon 'em be," said Thomasine.
"Du ye reckon they'll know I be a criminal?"
"Sure 'nuff. Policeman will tell 'em."
"My cough be cruel bad got, and I can't hardly see. If I can't mak' a
living what be I to du?" asked Brightly.
This was much too difficult a question for Thomasine, and she did not
attempt to answer it.
"B'est hungry?" she asked.
"I've ha' been hungry for years and years, 'cept when I was in prison,
and then I was hungry for air," said Brightly.
"Got any money?"
"Duppence."
"I ain't got nothing," she said.
"Shall us get on?" said the restless little man. He felt business
calling him, though he could do nothing with his empty basket.
They went back the way they had come, through Brentor village, and
towards Lydford, Brightly walking on one side of the road and Thomasine
upon the other. The only remark the girl made was: "This bain't the way
to Plymouth;" and Brightly replied: "It bain't the place for yew." He
had some knowledge of the world, and knew that it could not be well for
a girl without home or friends or character to walk about the streets of
a big town.
They stopped at Lydford, and Thomasine went to a cottage where people
dwelt whom she had known in the days of respectability, and they gave
her food which she brought out and shared with her companion. They went
to the foot of the cascade in the gorge and ate their meal to the
subdued murmur of the long white veil of water sliding down the face of
the precipice. They were alone in the gorge, where the Gubbingses had
once dwelt, as the place is deserted during the early months of the
year.
"Have ye got a home?" asked Thomasine.
"Ees, a proper old cave to Belstone Cleave."
"What be I to du?" she murmured.
"Come wi' I," said Brightly gallantly. "I be going home."
The girl tried to think, but soon gave up in despair. She was barely
twenty-three, and her life seemed done already. Her parents had shut the
door upon her, and erased her name from the book of life--the family
Bible which retained the record of those who were respectable--not so
much because she had done wrong as because the man who had led her
astray would not marry her. It was quaint logic, but the world reasons
that way. She was ready to go with Brightly because he was friendly and
she required friendship badly; she hardly looked upon him as a man; he
was such a poor incomplete thing; if a man, without the power of sinning
like a man. She would go with him to the cave in the cleave, and cook
for him, if there was anything to be cooked, with the old frying-pan
with a bottom like a sieve.
"Ees, I've got a butiful home," muttered ridiculous Brightly with pride.
He was regarding Thomasine as the reincarnation of Ju. The little dog
had come back to him in the form of a woman. He could talk to her, tell
her trade was dull, and he was hungry; could whistle, and sing for her
amusement, and pat her gently when she rested upon the heather. She
could reply to him in a manner that was better than tail-wagging. Ju had
come to the cave gladly and found it homelike, so why not Thomasine? He
would not be called on to pay seven-and-sixpence a year for her; but on
the other hand she was so big, larger than himself in fact, and he was
afraid she would want a lot of food. Brightly became prouder every
minute. He had a woman of his own and "duppence" wrapped up in bits of
paper. He would not touch his hat to the next man he met on the road. He
would stare him in the face and say: "How be ye?" just as if he had been
a man himself.
"Shall us get on?" he said again.
They went on and reached windy Bridestowe that night. Brightly, who knew
every building upon that part of the moor, found a shelter for Thomasine
in a peat-linhay, and a resting-place for himself in a farmyard. They
started off early in the morning, and Brightly produced eggs with the
half-apologetic and half-proud explanation: "Us be criminals." He had
stolen them. Up to the time of his conviction he had never been a thief,
but since leaving prison he had felt it was necessary to live up to his
reputation as a desperate character, and so he took anything he could
find. Under the oil-cloth of his basket was a feathered fowl, and
Thomasine was informed there would be a good supper for her that
evening.
"Yew stoled 'en?" exclaimed the girl.
"Volks wun't give I nothing," said Brightly. "They ses 'you'm a thief,'
and 'tis no use being called a thief if yew bain't. Yew fed me and Ju
when us was starving, and now I be going to feed yew."
They reached the cave, and Brightly produced all his possessions with
pride, explaining to his housekeeper that a fire must not be lighted
until after dark lest the commoners should see the smoke. The girl
shivered at the wretched prospect, but resigned herself; and that night
she told Brightly her story, and he told her all about his ambitions,
and about the pony and cart which would not come in spite of the vain
repetitions which he called prayers.
Miserable days followed. The spell of fine weather ceased and frost
returned; with it a biting wind which swept across the moor and got into
the cave, the outside of which became a pretty piece of architecture
with icicles hanging from the rock to the ground like bars of cold steel
through which the prisoners gazed into the depths of the gorge. Brightly
had become a real criminal at last; and the basket, which had been the
symbol of honesty, was then a receiver of stolen goods. He sallied out
every day to rob fowl-houses and dairies; to gather articles of clothing
from hedges and furze-bushes where they had been put out to dry. His
eyes had been opened by necessity and justice; dishonesty was the only
way in business; had he practised it from the start he would have
obtained all those good things which he had always desired; the cottage
and potato-patch, the pony and cart; perhaps his asthma and blindness
would have been stayed as well. It would have been better for Brightly
had he died in prison; he was living too long, and had become a moral
failure, a complete failure now in every sense.
One Sunday evening they crept out of their hole in the gorge and went to
Sticklepath. Thomasine wanted to hear the pure gospel preached again,
and she persuaded Brightly to come with her to the big chapel in the
middle of the village that he might have his frosted soul warmed by
listening to a realistic account of the place "down under" towards which
he was hurrying. A strange preacher arose in the pulpit, an old
white-bearded man near the end of his days, and he preached from the
text: "I have been young, and now am old, and yet saw I never the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." He seemed a pious
old man, although he could not have been observant, or perhaps he had
gone about with his eyes shut, as the psalmist must have done; but he
was eloquent, and his words thundered upon the congregation like
Dartmoor rain upon a tin roof.
When they left the chapel Thomasine was weeping, and Brightly seemed to
have become quite blind. Still he could not understand things. He had
been righteous, as he had comprehended it, slipping into a church or
chapel as often as he dared, and singing "Jerusalem the Golden" at every
opportunity. Yet he had been forsaken and had begged his bread; Ju had
been taken from him; he had been cast into prison. Who could explain
these things? Perhaps he had not endured long enough; if he had held out
another year the pony and cart might have been brought to him driven by
the angel; but he could not hold out when people would not permit him to
do business, and when he was starving. It was too late then to go back
and tread the old road, for he had fallen at last, become dishonest in
act; and if he went on in his wicked ways the policeman would run him
down again; and if he reverted to honesty the poorhouse would claim him.
There was only one way out. He must buy a ticket for Jerusalem. It would
only cost twopence.
They returned to the cave, and Thomasine went on crying. She said she
could stand it no longer. The moor was black with storm clouds, a thaw
had set in, and water was trickling everywhere. Brightly sat huddled up
and moaning. His eyes were nearly useless, and rheumatism racked his
poor limbs. He knew that the decree had been given against him, he had
been found guilty in the higher court, judgment had been signed against
"A. Brightly. Rabbit-skin merchant. Abode Nowhere."
"Us mun get on," he said firmly.
"I can't bide here," sobbed Thomasine.
"Us will walk to-morrow," said Brightly.
"I'll go to Plymouth," she said.
"Live honest;" he begged. "Don't ye go to the dirty trade."
"I wun't," she cried. "I'll live clean if they'll let me. No one knows
me there, and I'll get some job mebbe."
"I ha' been young, and now I be getting old," said Brightly. "I ha' been
righteous tu, and I ha' begged, and I ha' prayed, and got nought."
"What be yew going to du?" she asked.
"I be coming wi' yew as far as Okehampton. I'll set ye on the road to
Plymouth."
"Wun't ye come tu?"
"'Twould kill me," said Brightly. "I be that blind I'd get run over, and
my asthma be got so cruel bad I wouldn't be able to breathe. I reckon
I'll stop on Dartmoor."
"You'll live honest?" she said.
"I wun't tak' what bain't mine no more," Brightly promised.
In the morning they set out. It was raining, but they did not notice
that. They crossed the Taw river, passed through Belstone, and struck
into the lane which would bring them down to the Okehampton road. They
had not gone far before they came upon a pony and cart fastened to a
gate, belonging to the washerwoman, but the cart was empty and there was
no one in sight. It carried a lamp, and a board was at the side
revealing the owner's name, and the bottom was covered with fern.
Brightly brought his pinched face near the cart, stopped to regard this
revelation of his life-long dream, and then he succumbed to the great
temptation. He unfastened the pony, climbed into the cart, and drove in
majesty up the lane.
"What be yew doing?" cried Thomasine in great fear. "It bain't yourn."
Brightly did not hear her. He knew at last what it was like to jog along
the lane in a little pony-cart, and for five precious minutes he was in
dreamland. In that short space of time he completed the allotted span of
human existence. He was returning to the littlie cottage in the midst of
the potato-patch, after a day of successful work. The cart behind was
piled high with rabbit-skins, and in her own little corner Ju was
sitting, fat and content. Brightly put up his ridiculous head and
whistled "Jerusalem the Golden" for the last time. Then he got down,
tied up the pony to another gatepost, and tramped through the mud with
Thomasine.
In the town they passed a window where a notice was displayed: "Men
wanted," and the girl drew his attention to it, but Brightly only
coughed. The dream had faded and he had returned to realism. Men were
wanted to dig foundations, build houses, work in stone, hairy-armed men
who could lift granite, not a poor creeping thing who had hardly the
strength to strangle a fluttering fowl.
They went through the town, up the long hill on the other side, and near
a quarry of red stone they stopped.
"It be the way to Plymouth," Brightly said.
"Thankye kindly," said Thomasine. "Be yew going back?"
"Ees; I be going back," he answered.
"Be yew going far?"
"A bit o' the way towards Meldon."
"Yew ha' got no money," she said pityingly.
"I ha' got duppence," he reminded her.
"You'll live honest?" she said again.
"It wun't be long. I ha' a sort o' choking feeling," he said, putting a
raw hand to his throat.
"Be ye going down under?" Thomasine was looking over the hedge and
between the bare trees. Some way below, beside the river, she could just
see the workhouse.
"I be a going to walk towards Meldon, and sot by the river. If the pains
get bad I'll fall in mebbe."
"No," she cried. "Don't ye du that."
"Us mun get on," said Brightly, mindful of business. "I wish ye
good-bye."
They shook hands, and Thomasine began to cry again. She did not like the
idea of walking along a lonely road all the way to distant Plymouth.
"Thankye kindly," she sobbed.
"You'm welcome," said Brightly.
They parted, and the little man shuffled back to the town. Upon the
bridge which spans the Okement he stopped, and took out the little
packet which contained the "duppence." It was a wonderful sum of money,
after all, if it would procure for him admission to the celestial dairy,
where he could feast, and listen to, an organ playing, and see people
dancing; and perhaps Ju would be sitting at his feet, wagging her tail,
looking up, and enjoying it all too. It would be better than the wet
cave, better than the workhouse, better than going back to prison. He
would have to be quick, or they might discover how he had attempted to
steal the pony and cart. He seemed to have become quite blind suddenly,
and his heart was thumping against his side. He had to feel his way
along towards the chemist's, which was the ticket office where he could
obtain his twopenny pass into Palestine. There would be no stop on the
journey, and they would be certain to let him in. Already he seemed to
hear some one like Boodles saying: "Please to step inside, Mr. Brightly.
Have a drop o' milk, will ye?" And there was another Boodles coming
towards him with the pleasant words: "Be this your little dog, mister?
Her's been whining vor ye cruel."
Brightly held the precious "duppence" for his fare tightly in his raw
hand. He was smiling as he entered the chemist's shop.