(March 1914)
The valley was so choked with fog that one could scarcely see a cow's
length across a field. Every blade, twig, bracken-frond, and hoof-print
carried water, and the air was filled with the noise of rushing ditches
and field-drains, all delivering to the brook below. A week's November
rain on water-logged land had gorged her to full flood, and she
proclaimed it aloud.
Two men in sackcloth aprons were considering an untrimmed hedge that ran
down the hillside and disappeared into mist beside those roarings. They
stood back and took stock of the neglected growth, tapped an elbow of
hedge-oak here, a mossed beech-stub there, swayed a stooled ash back and
forth, and looked at each other.
'I reckon she's about two rod thick,' said Jabez the younger, 'an' she
hasn't felt iron since--when has she, Jesse?'
'Call it twenty-five year, Jabez, an' you won't be far out.'
'Umm!' Jabez rubbed his wet handbill on his wetter coat-sleeve. 'She
ain't a hedge. She's all manner o' trees. We'll just about have to--' He
paused, as professional etiquette required.
'Just about have to side her up an' see what she'll bear. But hadn't we
best--?' Jesse paused in his turn, both men being artists and equals.
'Get some kind o' line to go by.' Jabez ranged up and down till he found
a thinner place, and with clean snicks of the handbill revealed the
original face of the fence. Jesse took over the dripping stuff as it
fell forward, and, with a grasp and a kick, made it to lie orderly on
the bank till it should be faggoted.
By noon a length of unclean jungle had turned itself into a cattle-proof
barrier, tufted here and there with little plumes of the sacred holly
which no woodman touches without orders.
'Now we've a witness-board to go by!' said Jesse at last.
'She won't be as easy as this all along,' Jabez answered. 'She'll need
plenty stakes and binders when we come to the brook.'
'Well, ain't we plenty?' Jesse pointed to the ragged perspective ahead
of them that plunged downhill into the fog. 'I lay there's a cord an' a
half o' firewood, let alone faggots, 'fore we get anywheres anigh
the brook.'
'The brook's got up a piece since morning,' said Jabez. 'Sounds like's
if she was over Wickenden's door-stones.'
Jesse listened, too. There was a growl in the brook's roar as though she
worried something hard.
'Yes. She's over Wickenden's door-stones,' he replied. 'Now she'll flood
acrost Alder Bay an' that'll ease her.'
'She won't ease Jim Wickenden's hay none if she do,' Jabez grunted. 'I
told Jim he'd set that liddle hay-stack o' his too low down in the
medder. I _told_ him so when he was drawin' the bottom for it.'
'I told him so, too,' said Jesse. 'I told him 'fore ever you did. I told
him when the County Council tarred the roads up along.' He pointed
uphill, where unseen automobiles and road-engines droned past
continually. 'A tarred road, she shoots every drop o' water into a
valley same's a slate roof. 'Tisn't as 'twas in the old days, when the
waters soaked in and soaked out in the way o' nature. It rooshes off
they tarred roads all of a lump, and naturally every drop is bound to
descend into the valley. And there's tar roads both two sides this
valley for ten mile. That's what I told Jim Wickenden when they tarred
the roads last year. But he's a valley-man. He don't hardly ever
journey uphill.'
'What did he say when you told him that?' Jabez demanded, with a little
change of voice.
'Why? What did he say to you when _you_ told him?' was the answer.
'What he said to you, I reckon, Jesse.'
'Then, you don't need me to say it over again, Jabez.'
'Well, let be how 'twill, what was he gettin' _after_ when he said what
he said to me?' Jabez insisted.
'I dunno; unless you tell me what manner o' words he said to _you_.'
Jabez drew back from the hedge--all hedges are nests of treachery and
eavesdropping--and moved to an open cattle-lodge in the centre of
the field.
'No need to go ferretin' around,' said Jesse. 'None can't see us here
'fore we see them.'
'What was Jim Wickenden gettin' at when I said he'd set his stack too
near anigh the brook?' Jabez dropped his voice. 'He was in his mind.'
'He ain't never been out of it yet to my knowledge,' Jesse drawled, and
uncorked his tea-bottle.
'But then Jim says: "I ain't goin' to shift my stack a yard," he says.
"The Brook's been good friends to me, and if she be minded," he says,
"to take a snatch at my hay, I ain't settin' out to withstand her."
That's what Jim Wickenden says to me last--last June-end 'twas,'
said Jabez.
'Nor he hasn't shifted his stack, neither,' Jesse replied. 'An' if
there's more rain, the brook she'll shift it for him.'
'No need tell _me_! But I want to know what Jim was gettin' _at_?'
Jabez opened his clasp-knife very deliberately; Jesse as carefully
opened his. They unfolded the newspapers that wrapped their dinners,
coiled away and pocketed the string that bound the packages, and sat
down on the edge of the lodge manger. The rain began to fall again
through the fog, and the brook's voice rose.
* * * * *
'But I always allowed Mary was his lawful child, like,' said Jabez,
after Jesse had spoken for a while.
''Tain't so.... Jim Wickenden's woman she never made nothing. She come
out o' Lewes with her stockin's round her heels, an' she never made nor
mended aught till she died. _He_ had to light fire an' get breakfast
every mornin' except Sundays, while she sowed it abed. Then she took an'
died, sixteen, seventeen, year back; but she never had no childern.'
'They was valley-folk,' said Jabez apologetically. 'I'd no call to go in
among 'em, but I always allowed Mary--'
'No. Mary come out o' one o' those Lunnon Childern Societies. After his
woman died, Jim got his mother back from his sister over to Peasmarsh,
which she'd gone to house with when Jim married. His mother kept house
for Jim after his woman died. They do say 'twas his mother led him on
toward adoptin' of Mary--to furnish out the house with a child, like,
and to keep him off of gettin' a noo woman. He mostly done what his
mother contrived. 'Cardenly, twixt 'em, they asked for a child from one
o' those Lunnon societies--same as it might ha' been these Barnardo
children--an' Mary was sent down to 'em, in a candle-box, I've heard.'
'Then Mary is chance-born. I never knowed that,' said Jabez. 'Yet I must
ha' heard it some time or other ...'
'No. She ain't. 'Twould ha' been better for some folk if she had been.
She come to Jim in a candle-box with all the proper papers--lawful child
o' some couple in Lunnon somewheres--mother dead, father drinkin'.
_And_ there was that Lunnon society's five shillin's a week for her.
Jim's mother she wouldn't despise week-end money, but I never heard Jim
was much of a muck-grubber. Let be how 'twill, they two mothered up Mary
no bounds, till it looked at last like they'd forgot she wasn't their
own flesh an' blood. Yes, I reckon they forgot Mary wasn't their'n
by rights.'
'That's no new thing,' said Jabez. 'There's more'n one or two in this
parish wouldn't surrender back their Bernarders. You ask Mark Copley an'
his woman an' that Bernarder cripple-babe o' theirs.'
'Maybe they need the five shillin',' Jesse suggested.
'It's handy,' said Jabez. 'But the child's more. "Dada" he says, an'
"Mumma" he says, with his great rollin' head-piece all hurdled up in
that iron collar. _He_ won't live long--his backbone's rotten, like. But
they Copleys do just about set store by him--five bob or no five bob.'
'Same way with Jim an' his mother,' Jesse went on. 'There was talk
betwixt 'em after a few years o' not takin' any more week-end money for
Mary; but let alone _she_ never passed a farden in the mire 'thout
longin's, Jim didn't care, like, to push himself forward into the
Society's remembrance. So naun came of it. The week-end money would ha'
made no odds to Jim--not after his uncle willed him they four cottages
at Eastbourne _an'_ money in the bank.'
'That was true, too, then? I heard something in a scadderin'
word-o'-mouth way,' said Jabez.
'I'll answer for the house property, because Jim he requested my signed
name at the foot o' some papers concernin' it. Regardin' the money in
the bank, he nature-ally wouldn't like such things talked about all
round the parish, so he took strangers for witnesses.'
'Then 'twill make Mary worth seekin' after?'
'She'll need it. Her Maker ain't done much for her outside nor yet in.'
'That ain't no odds.' Jabez shook his head till the water showered off
his hat-brim. 'If Mary has money, she'll be wed before any likely pore
maid. She's cause to be grateful to Jim.'
'She hides it middlin' close, then,' said Jesse. 'It don't sometimes
look to me as if Mary has her natural rightful feelin's. She don't put
on an apron o' Mondays 'thout being druv to it--in the kitchen _or_ the
hen-house. She's studyin' to be a school-teacher. She'll make a beauty!
I never knowed her show any sort o' kindness to nobody--not even when
Jim's mother was took dumb. No! 'Twadn't no stroke. It stifled the old
lady in the throat here. First she couldn't shape her words no shape;
then she clucked, like, an' lastly she couldn't more than suck down
spoon-meat an' hold her peace. Jim took her to Doctor Harding, an'
Harding he bundled her off to Brighton Hospital on a ticket, but they
couldn't make no stay to her afflictions there; and she was bundled off
to Lunnon, an' they lit a great old lamp inside her, and Jim told me
they couldn't make out nothing in no sort there; and, along o' one thing
an' another, an' all their spyin's and pryin's, she come back a hem
sight worse than when she started. Jim said he'd have no more
hospitalizin', so he give her a slate, which she tied to her
waist-string, and what she was minded to say she writ on it.'
'Now, I never knowed that! But they're valley-folk,' Jabez repeated.
''Twadn't particular noticeable, for she wasn't a talkin' woman any time
o' her days. Mary had all three's tongue.... Well, then, two years this
summer, come what I'm tellin' you. Mary's Lunnon father, which they'd
put clean out o' their minds, arrived down from Lunnon with the law on
his side, sayin' he'd take his daughter back to Lunnon, after all. I was
working for Mus' Dockett at Pounds Farm that summer, but I was obligin'
Jim that evenin' muckin' out his pig-pen. I seed a stranger come
traipsin' over the bridge agin' Wickenden's door-stones. 'Twadn't the
new County Council bridge with the handrail. They hadn't given it in for
a public right o' way then. 'Twas just a bit o' lathy old plank which
Jim had throwed acrost the brook for his own conveniences. The man
wasn't drunk--only a little concerned in liquor, like--an' his back was
a mask where he'd slipped in the muck comin' along. He went up the
bricks past Jim's mother, which was feedin' the ducks, an' set himself
down at the table inside--Jim was just changin' his socks--an' the man
let Jim know all his rights and aims regardin' Mary. Then there just
about _was_ a hurly-bulloo? Jim's fust mind was to pitch him forth, but
he'd done that once in his young days, and got six months up to Lewes
jail along o' the man fallin' on his head. So he swallowed his spittle
an' let him talk. The law about Mary _was_ on the man's side from fust
to last, for he showed us all the papers. Then Mary come
downstairs--she'd been studyin' for an examination--an' the man tells
her who he was, an' she says he had ought to have took proper care of
his own flesh and blood while he had it by him, an' not to think he
could ree-claim it when it suited. He says somethin' or other, but she
looks him up an' down, front an' backwent, an' she just tongues him
scadderin' out o' doors, and he went away stuffin' all the papers back
into his hat, talkin' most abusefully. Then she come back an' freed her
mind against Jim an' his mother for not havin' warned her of her
upbringin's, which it come out she hadn't ever been told. They didn't
say naun to her. They never did. _I'd_ ha' packed her off with any man
that would ha' took her--an' God's pity on him!'
'Umm!' said Jabez, and sucked his pipe.
'So then, that was the beginnin.' The man come back again next week or
so, an' he catched Jim alone, 'thout his mother this time, an' he fair
beazled him with his papers an' his talk--for the law _was_ on his
side--till Jim went down into his money-purse an' give him ten shillings
hush-money--he told me--to withdraw away for a bit an' leave Mary
with 'em.'
'But that's no way to get rid o' man or woman,' Jabez said.
'No more 'tis. I told Jim so. "What can I do?" Jim says. "The law's
_with_ the man. I walk about daytimes thinkin' o' it till I sweats my
underclothes wringin', an' I lie abed nights thinkin' o' it till I
sweats my sheets all of a sop. 'Tisn't as if I was a young man," he
says, "nor yet as if I was a pore man. Maybe he'll drink hisself to
death." I e'en a'most told him outright what foolishness he was enterin'
into, but he knowed it--he knowed it--because he said next time the man
come 'twould be fifteen shillin's. An' next time 'twas. Just fifteen
shillin's!'
'An' _was_ the man her father?' asked Jabez.
'He had the proofs an' the papers. Jim showed me what that Lunnon
Childern's Society had answered when Mary writ up to 'em an' taxed 'em
with it. I lay she hadn't been proper polite in her letters to 'em, for
they answered middlin' short. They said the matter was out o' their
hands, but--let's see if I remember--oh, yes,--they ree-gretted there
had been an oversight. I reckon they had sent Mary out in the candle-box
as a orphan instead o' havin' a father. Terrible awkward! Then, when
he'd drinked up the money, the man come again--in his usuals--an' he
kept hammerin' on and hammerin' on about his duty to his pore dear wife,
an' what he'd do for his dear daughter in Lunnon, till the tears runned
down his two dirty cheeks an' he come away with more money. Jim used to
slip it into his hand behind the door; but his mother she heard the
chink. She didn't hold with hush-money. She'd write out all her feelin's
on the slate, an' Jim 'ud be settin' up half the night answerin' back
an' showing that the man had the law with him.'
'Hadn't that man no trade nor business, then?'
'He told me he was a printer. I reckon, though, he lived on the rates
like the rest of 'em up there in Lunnon.'
'An' how did Mary take it?'
'She said she'd sooner go into service than go with the man. I reckon a
mistress 'ud be middlin' put to it for a maid 'fore she put Mary into
cap an' gown. She was studyin' to be a schoo-ool-teacher. A beauty
she'll make!... Well, that was how things went that fall. Mary's Lunnon
father kep' comin' an' comin' 'carden as he'd drinked out the money Jim
gave him; an' each time he'd put-up his price for not takin' Mary away.
Jim's mother, she didn't like partin' with no money, an' bein' obliged
to write her feelin's on the slate instead o' givin' 'em vent by mouth,
she was just about mad. Just about she _was_ mad!
'Come November, I lodged with Jim in the outside room over 'gainst his
hen-house. I paid _her_ my rent. I was workin' for Dockett at
Pounds--gettin' chestnut-bats out o' Perry Shaw. Just such weather as
this be--rain atop o' rain after a wet October. (An' I remember it ended
in dry frostes right away up to Christmas.) Dockett he'd sent up to
Perry Shaw for me--no, he comes puffin' up to me himself--because a big
corner-piece o' the bank had slipped into the brook where she makes that
elber at the bottom o' the Seventeen Acre, an' all the rubbishy alders
an' sallies which he ought to have cut out when he took the farm,
they'd slipped with the slip, an' the brook was comin' rooshin' down
atop of 'em, an' they'd just about back an' spill the waters over his
winter wheat. The water was lyin' in the flats already. "Gor a-mighty,
Jesse!" he bellers out at me, "get that rubbish away all manners you
can. Don't stop for no fagottin', but give the brook play or my wheat's
past salvation. I can't lend you no help," he says, "but work an'
I'll pay ye."'
'You had him there,' Jabez chuckled.
'Yes. I reckon I had ought to have drove my bargain, but the brook was
backin' up on good bread-corn. So 'cardenly, I laid into the mess of it,
workin' off the bank where the trees was drownin' themselves head-down
in the roosh--just such weather as this--an' the brook creepin' up on me
all the time. 'Long toward noon, Jim comes mowchin' along with his
toppin' axe over his shoulder.
'"Be you minded for an extra hand at your job?" he says.
'"Be you minded to turn to?" I ses, an'--no more talk to it--Jim laid in
alongside o' me. He's no hunger with a toppin' axe.'
'Maybe, but I've seed him at a job o' throwin' in the woods, an' he
didn't seem to make out no shape,' said Jabez. 'He haven't got the
shoulders, nor yet the judgment--_my_ opinion--when he's dealin' with
full-girt timber. He don't rightly make up his mind where he's goin' to
throw her.'
'We wasn't throwin' nothin'. We was cuttin' out they soft alders, an'
haulin' 'em up the bank 'fore they could back the waters on the wheat.
Jim didn't say much, 'less it was that he'd had a postcard from Mary's
Lunnon father, night before, sayin' he was comin' down that mornin'.
Jim, he'd sweated all night, an' he didn't reckon hisself equal to the
talkin' an' the swearin' an' the cryin', an' his mother blamin' him
afterwards on the slate. "It spiled my day to think of it," he ses, when
we was eatin' our pieces. "So I've fair cried dunghill an' run.
Mother'll have to tackle him by herself. I lay _she_ won't give him no
hush-money," he ses. "I lay he'll be surprised by the time he's done
with _her_," he ses. An' that was e'en a'most all the talk we had
concernin' it. But he's no hunger with the toppin' axe.
'The brook she'd crep' up an' up on us, an' she kep' creepin' upon us
till we was workin' knee-deep in the shallers, cuttin' an' pookin' an'
pullin' what we could get to o' the rubbish. There was a middlin' lot
comin' down-stream, too--cattle-bars, an' hop-poles and odds-ends bats,
all poltin' down together; but they rooshed round the elber good shape
by the time we'd backed out they drowned trees. Come four o'clock we
reckoned we'd done a proper day's work, an' she'd take no harm if we
left her. We couldn't puddle about there in the dark an' wet to no more
advantage. Jim he was pourin' the water out of his boots--no, I was
doin' that. Jim was kneelin' to unlace his'n. "Damn it all, Jesse," he
ses, standin' up; "the flood must be over my doorsteps at home, for here
comes my old white-top bee-skep!"'
'Yes. I allus heard he paints his bee-skeps,' Jabez put in. 'I dunno
paint don't tarrify bees more'n it keeps em' dry.'
'"I'll have a pook at it," he ses, an' he pooks at it as it comes round
the elber. The roosh nigh jerked the pooker out of his hand-grips, an'
he calls to me, an' I come runnin' barefoot. Then we pulled on the
pooker, an' it reared up on eend in the roosh, an' we guessed what
'twas. 'Cardenly we pulled it in into a shaller, an' it rolled a piece,
an' a great old stiff man's arm nigh hit me in the face. Then we was
sure. "'Tis a man," ses Jim. But the face was all a mask. "I reckon it's
Mary's Lunnon father," he ses presently. "Lend me a match and I'll make
sure." He never used baccy. We lit three matches one by another, well's
we could in the rain, an' he cleaned off some o' the slob with a tussick
o' grass. "Yes," he ses. "It's Mary's Lunnon father. He won't tarrify us
no more. D'you want him, Jesse?" he ses.
'"No," I ses. "If this was Eastbourne beach like, he'd be half-a-crown
apiece to us 'fore the coroner; but now we'd only lose a day havin' to
'tend the inquest. I lay he fell into the brook."
'"I lay he did," ses Jim. "I wonder if he saw mother." He turns him
over, an' opens his coat and puts his fingers in the waistcoat pocket
an' starts laughin'. "He's seen mother, right enough," he ses. "An' he's
got the best of her, too. _She_ won't be able to crow no more over _me_
'bout givin' him money. _I_ never give him more than a sovereign. She's
give him two!" an' he trousers 'em, laughin' all the time. "An' now
we'll pook him back again, for I've done with him," he ses.
'So we pooked him back into the middle of the brook, an' we saw he went
round the elber 'thout balkin', an' we walked quite a piece beside of
him to set him on his ways. When we couldn't see no more, we went home
by the high road, because we knowed the brook 'u'd be out acrost the
medders, an' we wasn't goin' to hunt for Jim's little rotten old bridge
in that dark--an' rainin' Heavens' hard, too. I was middlin' pleased to
see light an' vittles again when we got home. Jim he pressed me to come
insides for a drink. He don't drink in a generality, but he was rid of
all his troubles that evenin', d'ye see? "Mother," he ses so soon as the
door ope'd, "have you seen him?" She whips out her slate an' writes
down--"No." "Oh, no," ses Jim. "You don't get out of it that way,
mother. I lay you _have_ seen him, an' I lay he's bested you for all
your talk, same as he bested me. Make a clean breast of it, mother," he
ses. "He got round you too." She was goin' for the slate again, but he
stops her. "It's all right, mother," he ses. "I've seen him sense you
have, an' he won't trouble us no more." The old lady looks up quick as a
robin, an' she writes, "Did he say so?" "No," ses Jim, laughin'. "He
didn't say so. That's how I know. But he bested _you_, mother. You can't
have it in at _me_ for bein' soft-hearted. You're twice as
tender-hearted as what I be. Look!" he ses, an' he shows her the two
sovereigns. "Put 'em away where they belong," he ses. "He won't never
come for no more; an' now we'll have our drink," he ses, "for we've
earned it."
'Nature-ally they weren't goin' to let me see where they kep' their
monies. She went upstairs with it--for the whisky.'
'I never knowed Jim was a drinkin' man--in his own house, like,' said
Jabez.
'No more he isn't; but what he takes he likes good. He won't tech no
publican's hogwash acrost the bar. Four shillin's he paid for that
bottle o' whisky. I know, because when the old lady brought it down
there wasn't more'n jest a liddle few dreenin's an' dregs in it. Nothin'
to set before neighbours, I do assure you.'
'"Why, 'twas half full last week, mother," he ses. "You don't mean," he
ses, "you've given him all that as well? It's two shillin's worth," he
ses. (That's how I knowed he paid four.) "Well, well, mother, you be too
tender-'carted to live. But I don't grudge it to him," he ses. "I don't
grudge him nothin' he can keep." So, 'cardenly, we drinked up what
little sup was left.'
'An' what come to Mary's Lunnon father?' said Jabez after a full
minute's silence.
'I be too tired to go readin' papers of evenin's; but Dockett he told
me, that very week, I think, that they'd inquested on a man down at
Robertsbridge which had poked and poked up agin' so many bridges an'
banks, like, they couldn't make naun out of him.'
'An' what did Mary say to all these doin's?'
'The old lady bundled her off to the village 'fore her Lunnon father
come, to buy week-end stuff (an' she forgot the half o' it). When we
come in she was upstairs studyin' to be a school-teacher. None told her
naun about it. 'Twadn't girls' affairs.'
'Reckon _she_ knowed?' Jabez went on.
'She? She must have guessed it middlin' close when she saw her money
come back. But she never mentioned it in writing so far's I know. She
were more worritted that night on account of two-three her chickens
bein' drowned, for the flood had skewed their old hen-house round on her
postes. I cobbled her up next mornin' when the brook shrinked.'
'An' where did you find the bridge? Some fur down-stream, didn't ye?'
'Just where she allus was. She hadn't shifted but very little. The brook
had gulled out the bank a piece under one eend o' the plank, so's she
was liable to tilt ye sideways if you wasn't careful. But I pooked
three-four bricks under her, an' she was all plumb again.'
'Well, I dunno how it _looks_ like, but let be how 'twill,' said Jabez,
'he hadn't no business to come down from Lunnon tarrifyin' people, an'
threatenin' to take away children which they'd hobbed up for their
lawful own--even if 'twas Mary Wickenden.'
'He had the business right enough, an' he had the law with him--no
gettin' over that,' said Jesse. 'But he had the drink with him, too, an'
that was where he failed, like.'
'Well, well! Let be how 'twill, the brook was a good friend to Jim. I
see it now. I allus _did_ wonder what he was gettin' at when he said
that, when I talked to him about shiftin' the stack. "You dunno
everythin'," he ses. "The Brook's been a good friend to me," he ses,
"an' if she's minded to have a snatch at my hay, _I_ ain't settin' out
to withstand her."'
'I reckon she's about shifted it, too, by now,' Jesse chuckled. 'Hark!
That ain't any slip off the bank which she's got hold of.'
The Brook had changed her note again. It sounded as though she were
mumbling something soft.