REVERSED POSITIONS
A fit of depression came over Jack. Happily in youth such fits are not
of long duration.
The excitement of the funeral and sale was over, and a sense of
solitariness weighed on the lad. He had no relatives. There were
connections at Beer, but these were all more or less closely implicated
in the contraband trade upon which Beer flourished, though ostensibly
it occupied itself with fishing.
Jack considered it expedient that he should keep clear of them, and it
was for this reason especially that he had accepted Olver Dench's offer
to lodge and board him.
But he did not like the ferryman. There were in him a rancour and a low
cunning that revolted him, and Jack resolved not to take the man into
his confidence, nor ask his opinion on any matter of consequence.
He had no occupation and very little money. His idleness was
involuntary. He could nowhere find a situation that was suitable.
He was young, inexperienced, and with a very limited range of
acquaintance. Beer was a hamlet, Seaton and Axmouth small villages. Of
towns he knew nothing, with town dwellers he had no connections. His
education had disqualified him for any such place as was available near
at hand, and far afield he had no one to point the way to a situation.
Inexperienced as he was, he was lost. He was impatient to earn his
livelihood, but powerless to find a place in which he could earn it.
The sole offer he had made to him was one he could not accept. This was
from the chief officer of the Preventive Service. He could not take
this lest it should arouse alarm and resentment in the men of Beer, who
would suspect him of entering the Service to betray what he already
knew of their secrets.
His impatience to do something, and his inability to find anything to
do, became so distressing that he lost his cheerfulness, became moody
and silent. He had been to Lyme, where he had endeavoured to obtain
a place in a lawyer's office, but the vacancy was filled. He tried a
bank, no clerk was needed. He visited Colyton, he went to Axminster, to
Honiton, but found no vacancy anywhere. Business was stagnant, trade
depressed; clerks of some standing were receiving their discharge, no
young hands were being taken on.
Meantime his small supply of money was ebbing away, in another week
his purse would be wholly drained. If he could not find the employment
that was suited to him, he must look out for some to which he must suit
himself.
The condition of inaction became intolerable, and his discouragement
acute. Better anything than nothing, he said to himself, and he
resolved to take any work that he could get.
When he had formed this resolution, he went to the nearest farmhouse,
that of Mr. Moses Nethersole, and knocked at the door.
'Come in!'
He entered, and said to Mrs. Nethersole, who alone was there, 'I beg
your pardon, I would speak with the master.'
'Take a seat, Jack. You may speak out to me. Moses and I are one.'
He was a good-looking lad, and whatever were their ages, the women
looked on him with a favourable eye.
'Thank you kindly,' said Jack, 'but it is something particular between
him and me. I will go out and find him and speak without disturbing
him.'
'Oh, he is busy, as usual, doing nothing. He is in the shippon. When
you have seen him, come back and have a glass of cider.'
Jack left the house, and before long he found the farmer, who was
looking at a cow that had inflammation.
'You want me? About what?'
'Just this, Mr. Nethersole. I am weary to death of doing nothing. I
want work. Will you give me employment? I was not brought up
"To plough and sow, to reap and mow,
And be a farmer's boy――"
but I will do my best.'
'Can you thatch?'
'I have not learned.'
'Then you cannot do it. Thatching a rick is not an acquirement that
comes by the light of nature. What do you say about hedging? A good
hedger is worth a great deal. Dickon Spry――the hedges he built up,
though he did some when he was a boy like you――are as good now as
they were seventy years agone. Tate Wetherell was set to hedge after
Dickon's death, last fall, and they are down already that he set up.
You must know the sort of stones to use, and which end to drive in, how
to wedge them tight, and how to fill in behind. It is an art.'
'I will endeavour to learn.'
'Thank you kindly, try on some one else's hedges, if you please. How
about ditching?'
'Any one can dig.'
'I beg your pardon. Any one cannot so as to lay a drain. There are
drains and drains. I have known many a hundred pounds thrown away as
completely as if chucked into the Axe mud by setting men to drain as
did not know the trade. It is a sad misfortune, young man, that all
the time and money that were spent on your education in what is of no
profit to man or beast, were not employed in setting you to learn from
an old farm labourer what is useful. You cannot mow――you would cut your
leg off with the scythe. You cannot plough a straight furrow――you would
be upset at once. You cannot shear a sheep――you would cut off the flesh
and kill the poor beast. You could not milk a cow dry――but would spoil
its udder. No scholars for me, thank you. Look at this cow――it has
inflammation and will die. There goes twenty to twenty-five pound, all
through the ignorance of Richard Piper.'
Discouraged and sad at heart, Jack walked away, and forgot to call for
his glass of cider at the farm.
When Moses Nethersole came in, his wife said to him sharply, 'What did
Jack Rattenbury want with you?'
The farmer informed her.
'And you have not engaged him?'
'Of course not.'
'He was a born fool,' said the woman. 'Had he applied to me and not to
you, I'd have took him on, sure as I'm alive. He's a fine, upstanding,
good-looking lad. We could well do with such as he.'
Crestfallen, Jack made his way into Seaton. He knew that the farmer was
right. His hands were not horny for labour, and although he was willing
to learn, he might spoil a great deal in the process of learning.
He directed his course to the Red Lion, and went into the bar, where
Mrs. Warne was sitting alone, looking into the fire, and dreaming of
commercials.
At a sign from the hostess he seated himself near her.
'Shall I draw you a half-pint?' she asked.
'Thank you, yes,' said he, 'but I have not come here for bitter beer.
I have bitters enough without adding to them. The fact is, my few
shillings are nearly run out.'
'Into Dench's purse?'
Jack did not answer this. Turning his hat about nervously, he said, 'I
want you to find me some occupation, Mrs. Warne. You are a dear good
creature, as every one knows.'
The landlady looked at him with a friendly eye, and pursed up her lips.
She had been knitting a stocking――a large one――possibly for her own
leg, possibly as a Christmas present to a traveller high in her good
graces. She scratched her nose with the knitting-pin.
Presently her face brightened.
'There is a postboy short,' she said, 'at Cullompton. The young man
there, at the Castle Inn, Jack Spratt is his name, has had a fall, and
a curious sort of fall too. He was thrown forward from a hoss and fell
on his toes, and with the jerk his toes twisted up on end, like the
markers for a game of whist. They had to cut the boots off him, and
they can't get the toes down again. I never heard of the like before.
You are accustomed to 'osses, I suppose?'
'No, but I can learn.'
'And how about your riding?' Mrs. Warne poked at him in the cheek with
her knitting-pin, and narrowly escaped putting out his eye.
'I daresay I could do that.'
'Ah! but there is a style about a postilion. To see him from the
windows of a calash rise and fall is a picture. You will have to
wear a white beaver hat, and a tight yellow jacket, and lily white
don't-mention-'ems. You'll do that?'
Jack remained silent. He had to swallow his pride.
Then Mrs. Warne's face clouded. 'No,' said she, 'it will not do. They
will want at the Castle a boy about Jack Spratt's build to get into his
suit, and you are twice too stout; you'd explode the garments like the
old cannon as they fired when Queen Caroline was let off. But I have
another idea.' Again she thrust at him with her knitting-pin. 'You are
a scholar. At Cullompton there has been a split among the Methodists,
and they have set up a new connection. My sister, who is a groceress
in a large way, has taken twenty shares in the new chapel. So far
there have been no dividends. They have a tidy chapel, well warmed and
lighted, but have not secured a satisfactory preacher. They have tried
several, but they do not draw. One had a club foot. Another took snuff,
and that the stricter people said savoured of the world. A third was
husky in his voice and had no delivery. So they decided that none of
these preached the unmixed Gospel, and the shareholders are in a pretty
stew about their dividends. What do you say now to trying your powers
there? I will recommend you to my sister, she carries weight, and will
put you in――and draw you must and will.'
Then a tender light came into Mrs. Warne's eyes. 'Lord, Jack! for
certain you will draw. You are young, good-looking, and unmarried, and
if you are of an amorous disposition――――'
'I will never do,' sighed he, as the vision of the groceress in a large
way who carried weight rose before his mind's eye.
'No,' said Mrs. Warne; 'but if you can't be of the fondling
description, you can be denunciatory――but that requires beetle brows
and pebbly eyes. Well, you know best. I can tell you of something else.
You go across the way, up street to Thomas Gasset. He was in here the
other night having a pipe and glass, and he was saying how he missed
Winefred, and how he might have employed her to push his wares in the
season――and now she is a grand lady. There is no saying, he may take
you on as a traveller; and oh! to be a commercial!' Mrs. Warne held up
her hands in ecstasy. 'Commercials is 'eavenly!'
So the lad went forth, leaving his half-pint half drunk on the table,
to seek the shop of the lapidary.
The establishment was small and shabby, but shabbier was the little man
with spectacles on his nose and unshaven chin, no collar but a soiled
neckcloth, who sat at a table engaged on setting a cut pebble.
For some time he did not look up. He continued upon what he was doing;
but he had seen the boots and lower portion of the trousers of Jack
as he entered, and knew that they did not belong to a purchaser.
Consequently he did not hurry nor desist.
'Well?' he asked at length.
'Mr. Gasset,' said Jack, 'I have come to ask you if you require some
one to act as your agent with your cut stones, seals, and brooches, and
get them disposed of for you.'
'Jane Marley was here proposing the same thing for herself. But I was
to take both in. Two women would have eaten all the profits. You are a
growing lad, voracious in appetite. I could not afford it.'
'But I would go about.'
'Consider the expense and the uncertainty. I am too old to run risks.
The profits are very small. No; I must go on in the old way.'
He nodded to Jack to leave.
As Jack left the shop Mrs. Gasset entered. 'What has young Rattenbury
been here for?' she asked.
Gasset slowly informed her, still working at the pebble.
'And you refused him! You are an old idiot. He would have been the
making of us, he is so good-looking.'