Eli went to school prepared for a bad time. Ortho had not run away for
nothing; he was no bulldog for unprofitable endurance—lessons had been
irksome, no doubt—but he should have been in his element among a horde
of boys. He liked having plenty of his own kind about him and naturally
dominated them. He had won over the surly Gwithian farm boys with ease;
the turbulent Monks Cove fisher lads looked to him as chief, and even
those wild hawks, the young Hernes, followed him unquestioning into all
sorts of mischief. Yet Ortho had fled school as from torment.
If the brilliant and popular brother had come to grief how much more
trouble was in store for him, the dullard? Eli set his jaw. Come what
might, he would see it through; he would stick at school, willy-nilly,
until he got what he wanted out of it, namely the three R’s. It had been
suddenly borne in on Eli that education had its uses.
Chance had taken him to the neighboring farm of Roswarva, which bounded
Polmenna moors on the west. There was a new farmer in possession, a
widower by the name of Penaluna, come from the north of the Duchy with a
thirteen-year daughter, an inarticulate child, leggy as a foal.
Eli, scrambling about the Luddra Head, had discovered an otter’s holt,
and then and there lit a smoke fire to test if the tenant were at home
or not. The otter was at home and came out with a rush. Eli attempted to
tail it, but his foot slipped on the dry thrift and he sprawled on top
of the beast, which bit him in three places. He managed to drop a stone
on it as it slid away over the rocks, but he could hardly walk. Penaluna
met him limping across a field dragging his victim by the tail, and took
him to Roswarva to have his wounds tied up.
Eli had not been to Roswarva since the days of its previous owners, a
beach-combing, shiftless crew, and he barely recognized the place. The
kitchen was creamy with whitewash; the cupboards freshly painted; the
table scrubbed spotless; the ranked pans gleamed like copper moons; all
along the mantelshelf were china dogs with gilt collars and ladies and
gentlemen on prancing horses, hawks perched a-wrist. In the corner was
an oak grandfather clock with a bright brass face engraved with the
signs of the zodiac and the cautionary words:
“I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race;
Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace;
Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.”
Sunlight poured into the white kitchen through the south window, setting
everything a-shine and a-twinkle—a contrast to unkempt Bosula, redolent
of cooking and stale food, buzzing with flies, incessantly invaded by
pigs and poultry. Outside Roswarva all was in the same good shape; the
erst-littered yard cleared up, the tumbledown sheds rebuilt and
thatched. Eli limped home over trim hedges, fields cultivated up to the
last inch and plentifully manured and came upon his own land—crumbling
banks broken down by cattle and grown to three times their proper
breadth with thorn and brambles; fields thick with weeds; windfalls
lying where they had dropped; bracken encroaching from every point.
He had never before remarked anything amiss with Bosula, but, coming
straight from Roswarva, the contrast struck him in the face. He thought
about it for two days, and then marched over to Roswarva. He found
Simeon Penaluna on the cliff-side rooting out slabs of granite with a
crowbar and piling them into a wall. A vain pursuit, Eli thought,
clearing a cliff only fit for donkeys and goats.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked.
“Potatoes,” said Simeon.
“Why here, when you got proper fields?”
“Open to sun all day, and sea’ll keep ’em warm at night. No frost. I’ll
get taties here two weeks earlier than up-along.”
“How do you know?”
“Read it. Growers in Jersey has been doin’ it these years.”
Eli digested this information and leaned against the wall, watching
Penaluna at work.
Eli liked the man’s air of patient power, also his economy of speech. He
decided he was to be trusted. “You’re a good farmer, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Penaluna truthfully.
“What’s wrong with our place, Bosula?” Eli inquired.
“Under-manned,” said Penaluna. “Your father had two men besides himself
and he worked like a bullock and was clever, I’ve heard tell. Now you’ve
got but two, and not a head between ’em. Place is going back. Come three
years the trash’ll strangle ’e in your beds.”
Eli took the warning calmly. “We’ll stop that,” he announced.
Penaluna subjected him to a hard scrutiny, spat on his palms, worked the
crow-bar into a crevice and tried his weight on it.
“Hum! Maybe—but you’d best start soon.”
Eli nodded and considered again. “Are you clever?”
Penaluna swung his bar from left to right; the rock stirred in its bed.
“No—but I can read.”
Eli’s eyes opened. That was the second time reading had been mentioned.
What had that school-mastering business to do with real work like
farming?
“Went to free-school at Truro,” Simeon explained. “There’s clever ones
that writes off books and I reads ’em. There’s smart notions in
books—sometimes. I got six books on farming—six brains.”
“Um-m,” muttered Eli, the idea slowly taking hold.
In return for advice given, he helped the farmer pile walls until sunset
and not another word was interchanged. When he got home it was to learn
that Ortho was in Devon with Pyramus and that he was to go to school in
his stead.
Eli’s feelings were mixed. If Ortho had had a bad time he would
undoubtedly have worse, but on the other hand he would learn to read and
could pick other people’s brains—like Penaluna. He rode to Helston with
his mother, grimly silent all the way, steeling himself to bear the rods
for Bosula’s sake. But Ortho, by the dramatic manner of his exit, had
achieved popularity when it was no longer of any use to him. Eli stepped
in at the right moment to receive the goodly heritage.
Was he not own brother to the hero who had tricked Rufus into slicing
himself across the leg and followed up this triumph by pummeling seven
bells out of the detested usher and flooring him in his own classroom?
The story had lost nothing in the mouths of the spectators. A
half-minute scramble between a sodden hulk of a man and a terrified boy
had swollen into a Homeric contest as full of incident as the Seven
Years’ War, lasting half an hour and ending in Rufus lying on the floor,
spitting blood and imploring mercy. Eli entered the school surrounded by
a warm nimbus of reflected glory and took Ortho’s place at the bottom of
the lowest form.
That he was the criminal’s brother did not endear him to Rufus, who gave
him the benefit of his acid tongue from early morn to dewy eve, but
beyond abuse the usher did not go. Eli was not tall, but he was
exceptionally sturdy and Rufus had not forgotten a certain affair. He
was chary of these Penhales—little better than savages—reared among
smugglers and moor-men—utterly undisciplined . . . no saying what they
might do . . . murder one, even. He kept his stick for the disciplined
smaller fry and pickled his tongue for Eli. Eli did not mind the sarcasm
in the least. His mental hide was far too thick to feel the prick—and
anyhow it was only talk.
One half-holiday bird’s-nesting in Penrose woods, he came upon the
redoubtable Burnadick similarly engaged and they compared eggs. In the
midst of the discussion a bailiff appeared on the scene and they had to
run for it. The bailiff produced dogs and the pair were forced to make a
wide detour via Praze and Lanner Vean. Returning by Helston Mill, they
met with a party of town louts who, having no love for the “Grammar
scholards,” threw stones. A brush ensued, Eli acquitting himself with
credit. The upshot of all this was that they reached school seven
minutes late for roll call and were rewarded with a thrashing. Drawn
together by common pain and adventure, the two were henceforth
inseparable, forming a combination which no boy or party of boys dared
gainsay. With Rufus’ sting drawn and the great Burnadick his ally Eli
found school life tolerable. He did not enjoy it; the food was
insufficient, the restraint burdensome, but it was by no means as bad as
he had expected. By constant repetition he was getting a parrot-like
fluency with his tables and he seldom made a bad mistake in
spelling—providing the word was not of more than one syllable.
* * * * *
At the Owls’ House in the meanwhile economy was still the rage. Teresa’s
first step was to send the cattle off to market. In vain did Bohenna
expostulate, pointing out that the stock had not yet come to condition
and further there was no market. It was useless. Teresa would not listen
to reason; into Penzance they went and were sold for a song. After them
she pitched pigs, poultry, goats and the dun pony. Her second step was
to discharge the second hind, Davy. Once more Bohenna protested. He
could hardly keep the place going as it was, he said. The moor was
creeping in to right and left, the barn thatch tumbling, the banks were
down, the gates falling to pieces. He could not be expected to be in
more than two places at once. Teresa replied with more sound than sense
and a shouting match ensued, ending in Teresa screaming that she was
mistress and that if Bohenna didn’t shut his mouth and obey orders she’d
pack him after Davy.
But if Teresa bore hard on others she sacrificed herself as well. Not a
single new dress did she order that year, and even went to the length of
selling two brooches, her second best cloak and her third best pair of
earrings. Parish feasts, races, bull-baitings and cock-fights she
resolutely eschewed; an occasional stroll down the Cove and a pot of ale
at the Kiddlywink was all the relaxation she allowed herself. By these
self-denying ordinances she was able to foot Eli’s school bills and pay
interest on her debts, but her temper frayed to rags. She railed at
Martha morning, noon and night, threw plates at Wany and became so
unbearable that Bohenna carried all his meals afield with him.
Eli came home for a few days’ holiday at midsummer, but spent most of
his waking hours at Roswarva.
On his last evening he went ferreting with Bohenna. The banks were
riddled with rabbit sets, but so overgrown were they it was almost
impossible to work the fitchets. Their tiny bells tinkled here and
there, thither and hither in the dense undergrowth, invisible and
elusive as the clappers of derisive sprites. They gamboled about,
rejoicing in their freedom, treating the quest of fur as a secondary
matter. Bohenna pursued them through the thorns, shattering the holy
hush of evening with blasphemies.
“This ought to be cut back, rooted out,” Eli observed.
The old hind took it as a personal criticism and turned on him, a
bramble scratch reddening his cheek, voice shaking with long-suppressed
resentment. “Rooted out, saith a’! Cut back! Who’s goin’ do et then? Me
s’pose.”
He held out his knotted fists, a resigned ferret swinging in each.
“Look you—how many hands have I got? Two edden a? Two only. But your ma
do think each o’ my fingers is a hand, I b’lieve. Youp! Comin’ through!”
A rabbit shot out of a burrow on the far side of the hedge, the great
flintlock bellowed and it turned somersaults as neatly as a circus
clown.
“There’ll be three of us here when I’ve done schooling next midsummer
and Ortho comes home,” said Eli calmly, ramming down a fresh charge.
“We’ll clear the trash and put the whole place in crop.”
Bohenna glanced up, surprised. “Oh, will us? An’ where’s cattle goin’?”
“Sell ’em off—all but what can feed themselves on the bottoms. Crops’ll
fetch more to the acre than stock.”
“My dear soul! Harken to young Solomon! . . . Who’s been tellin’ you all
this?”
“Couple of strong farmers I’ve talked with on half holidays near
Helston—and Penaluna.”
Bohenna bristled. Wisdom in foreign worthies he might admit, but a
neighbor . . . !
“What’s Simeon Penaluna been sayin’? Best keep his long nose on his own
place; I’ll give it a brear wrench if I catch it sniffing over here!
What’d he say?”
“Said he wondered you didn’t break your heart.”
“Humph!” Bohenna was mollified, pleased that some one appreciated his
efforts; this Penaluna, at least, sniffed with discernment. He listened
quietly while Eli recounted their neighbor’s suggestions.
They talked farming all the way home, and it was a revelation to him how
much the boy had picked up. He had no idea Eli was at all interested in
it, had imagined, from his being sent to school, that he was destined
for a clerk or something bookish. He had looked forward to fighting a
losing battle, for John’s sake and Bosula’s sake, single-handed, to the
end. Saw himself, a silver ancient, dropping dead at the plow tail and
the triumphant bracken pouring over him like a sea. But now the prospect
had changed. Here was a true Penhale coming back to tend the land of his
sires. With young blood at his back they would yet save the place. He
knew Eli, once he set his face forward, would never look back; his brain
was too small to hold more than one idea. He gloated over the boy’s
promising shoulders, thick neck and sturdy legs. He would root out the
big bowlders as his father had done, swing an ax or scythe from
cock-crow to owl-light without flag, toss a sick calf across his
shoulders and stride for miles, be at once the master and lover of his
land, the right husbandman. But of Ortho, the black gypsy son, Bohenna
was not so sure. Nevertheless hope dawned afresh and he went home to his
crib among the rocks singing, “I seen a ram at Hereford Fair” for the
first time in six months.
* * * * *
Eli was back again a few days before Christmas, and on Christmas Eve
Ortho appeared. There was nothing of the chastened prodigal about him;
he rode into the yard on a showy chestnut gelding (borrowed from
Pyramus), ragged as a scarecrow, but shouting and singing. He slapped
Bohenna on the back, hugged Eli affectionately, pinned his mother
against the door post and kissed her on both cheeks and her nose,
chucked old Martha under the chin and even tossed a genial word at the
half-wit Wany.
With the exception of Eli, no one was particularly elated to see him
back—they remembered him only as an unfailing fount of mischief—but
from Ortho’s manner one would have concluded he was restoring the light
of their lives. He did not give them time to close their front. They
hardly knew he had arrived before he had embraced them all. The warmth
of his greeting melted their restraint. Bohenna’s hairy face split
athwart in a yellow-toothed grin, Martha broke into bird-like twitters,
Wany blushed, and Teresa said weakly, “So you’re back.”
She had not forgiven him for his school escapade and had intended to
make his return the occasion of a demonstration as to who ruled the
roost at Bosula. But now she thought she’d postpone it. He had foiled
her for the moment, kissed her . . . she couldn’t very well pitch into
him immediately after that . . . not immediately. Besides, deep in her
heart she felt a cold drop of doubt. A new Ortho had come back, very
different from the callow, pliant child who had ridden babbling to
Helston beside her ten months previously. Ortho had grown up. He was
copper-colored with exposure, sported a downy haze on his upper lip and
was full two inches taller. But the change was not so much physical as
spiritual. His good looks were, if anything, emphasized, but he had
hardened. Innocence was gone from his eyes; there was the faintest edge
to his mirth. She had not wanted to be kissed, had struggled against it,
but he had taken her by surprise, handled her with dispatch and
assurance that could only come of practice—Master Ortho had not been
idle on his travels. An idea occurred to her that she had been
forestalled; it was Ortho who had made the demonstration. Their eyes
met, crossed like bayonets and dropped. It was all over in the fraction
of a second, but they had felt each other’s steel.
Teresa was not alarmed by the sudden development of her first-born. She
was only forty-one, weighed fourteen stone, radiated rude health and
feared no living thing. Since John’s death she had not seen a man she
would have stood a word from; a great measure of her affection for her
husband sprang from the knowledge that he could have beaten her. She
apprised Ortho’s slim figure and mentally promised him a bellyful of
trouble did he demand it, but for the moment she concluded to let
bygones be—just for the moment.
Ortho flipped some crumbs playfully over Wany, assured Martha she had
not aged a day, told Bohenna they’d have a great time after woodcock,
threw his arm around Eli’s neck and led him out into the yard.
“See here what I’ve got for you, my old heart,” said he, fishing in his
pocket. “Bought it in Portsmouth.”
He placed a little brass box in Eli’s hand. It had a picture of a
seventy-four under full sail chased on the lid and the comfortable
words, “Let jealous foes no hearts dismay, Vernon our hope is, God our
stay.” Inside was coiled a flint steel and fuse. Eli was profoundly
touched. Ortho’s toes were showing through one boot, his collar bones
had chafed holes in his shirt and his coat was in ribbons. The late
frost must have nipped him severely, yet he had not spent his few poor
pence in getting himself patched up, but bought a present for him. As a
matter of fact the little box had cost Ortho no small self-denial.
Eli stammered his thanks—which Ortho laughed aside—and the brothers
went uphill towards Polmenna Down, arms about shoulders, talking,
talking. Eli furnished news of Helston. Burnadick was sorry about that
row he had had with Ortho—the other fellows pushed him on. He was a
splendid fellow really, knew all about hare-hunting and long-dogs. Eli
only wished he could have seen Ortho ironing Rufus out! It must have
been a glorious set-to! Everybody was still talking about it. Rufus had
never been the same since—quaking and shaking. Dirty big
jellyfish!—always swilling in pot-houses and stalking
serving-maids—the whole town had laughed over his discomfiture.
Ortho was surprised to learn of his posthumous popularity at Helston.
Eli’s version of the affair hardly coincided with his recollection in a
single particular. All he remembered was being horribly frightened and
hitting out blindly with results that astonished him even more than his
victim. Still, since legend had chosen to elevate him to the pinnacle of
a St. George, suppressor of dragons, he saw no reason to disprove it.
They passed on to other subjects. How had Ortho got on with the
Romanies? Oh, famously! Wonderful time—had enjoyed every moment of it.
Eli would never believe the things he had seen. Mountains twice . . .
three . . . four times as high as Chapel Carn Brea or Sancreed Beacon;
rivers with ships sailing on them as at sea; great houses as big as
Penzance in themselves; lords and ladies driving in six-horse carriages;
regiments of soldiers drilling behind negro drummers, and fairs with
millions of people collected and all the world’s marvels on view;
Italian midgets no higher than your knee, Irish giants taller than
chimneys, two-headed calves and six-legged lambs, contortionists who
knotted their legs round their necks, conjurers who magicked glass balls
out of country boys’ ears; dancing bears, trained wolves and an Araby
camel that required but one drink a month. Prizefights he had seen also;
tinker women battling for a purse in a ring like men, and fellows that
carried live rats in their shirt bosoms and killed them with their teeth
at a penny a time. And cities! . . . Such cities! Huge enough to cover
St. Gwithian parish, with streets so packed and people so elegant you
thought every day must be market day.
London? No-o, he had not been quite to London. But travelers told him
that some of the places he had seen—Exeter, Salisbury, Plymouth,
Winchester—were every bit as good—in some ways better. London, in the
opinion of many, was overrated. Oh, by the way, in Salisbury he had seen
the cream of the lot—two men hanged for sheep-stealing; they kicked and
jerked in the most comical fashion. A wonderful time!
The recital had a conflicting effect on Eli. To him Ortho’s story was as
breath-taking as that of some swart mariner returned from fabulous spice
islands and steamy Indian seas—but at the same time he was perturbed.
Was it likely that his brother, having seen the great world and all its
wonders, would be content to settle down to the humdrum life at Bosula
and dour struggle with the wilderness? Most improbable. Ortho would go
adventuring again and he and Bohenna would have to face the problem
alone. Bohenna was not getting any younger. His rosy hopes clouded over.
He must try to get Ortho to see the danger. After all Bosula would come
to Ortho some day; it was his affair. He began forthwith, pointed out
the weedy state of the fields, the littered windfalls, the invasion of
the moor. To his surprise Ortho was immediately interested—and
indignant.
“What had that lazy lubber Bohenna been up to? . . . And Davy? By Gad,
it was a shame! He’d let ’em know. . . .”
Eli explained that Davy had been turned off and Bohenna was doing his
best. “In father’s time there were three of ’em here and it was all they
could manage, working like bullocks,” said he, quoting Penaluna.
“Then why haven’t we three men now?”
“Mother says we’ve got no money to hire ’em.”
Ortho’s jaw dropped. “No money! _We?_ . . . Good God! Where’s it all
gone to?”
Eli didn’t know, but he did know that if some one didn’t get busy soon
they’d have no farm left. “It’s been going back ever since father died,”
he added.
Ortho strode up and down, black-browed, biting his lip. Then he suddenly
laughed. “Hell’s bells,” he cried. “What are we fretting about? There
are three of us still, ain’t there? . . . You, me ’n Ned. I warrant
we’re a match for a passel of old brambles, heh? I warrant we are.”
Eli was amazed and delighted. Did Ortho really mean what he said?
“Then—then you’re not going gypsying again?” he asked.
Ortho spat. “My Lord, no—done with that. It’s a dog’s life, kicked from
common to heath, living on hedge-hogs, sleeping under bushes, never
dry—mind you, I enjoyed it all—but I’ve had all I want. No, boy”—once
more he hugged his brother to him—“I’m going to stop home long o’
thee—us’ll make our old place the best in the Hundred—in the
Duchy—and be big rosy yeomen full of good beef and cider. . . . Eh,
look at that!”
The sun had dipped. Cirrus dappled the afterglow with drifts of
smoldering, crimson feathers. It was as though monster golden eagles
were battling in the upper air, dropping showers of lustrous,
blood-stained plumes. Away to the north the switch-backed tors rolled
against the sky, wine-dark against pale primrose. Mist brimmed the
valleys; dusk, empurpled, shrouded the hills. The primrose faded, a star
outrider blinked boldly in the east, then the green eve suddenly
quivered with the glint of a million million spear-heads—night’s silver
cohorts advancing. So still was it that the brothers on the hilltop
could plainly hear the babble and cluck of the hidden stream below them;
the thump of young rabbits romping in near-by fields and the bark of a
dog at Boskennel being answered by another dog at Trevider. From Bosula
yard came the creak and bang of a door, the clank of a pail—Bohenna’s
voice singing:
“I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,
The biggest gert ram I did ever behold.”
Ortho laughed and took up the familiar song, sent his pleasant, tuneful
voice ringing out over the darkling valley:
“His fleece were that heavy it stretched to the ground,
His hoofs and his horns they was shodden wi’ gold.”
Below them sounded a gruff crow of mirth from Bohenna and the second
verse:
“His horns they was curlèd like to the thorn tree,
His fleece was as white as the blossom o’ thorn;
He stamped like a stallion an’ roared like a bull,
An’ the gert yeller eyes of en sparkled wi’ scorn.”
Among the bare trees a light winked, a friendly, beckoning wink—the
kitchen window.
Ortho drew a deep breath and waved his hand. “Think I’d change
this—this lew li’l’ place I was born in for a gypsy tilt, do ’ee? No,
no, my dear! Not for all the King’s money and all the King’s gems! I’ve
seen ’s much of the cold world as I do want—and more.” He linked his
arm with Eli’s. “Come on; let’s be getting down-along.”
* * * * *
That night the brothers slept together in the same big bed as of old.
Eli tumbled to sleep at once, but Ortho lay awake. Towards ten o’clock
he heard what he had been listening for, the “Te-whoo-whee-wha-ha” of
the brown owls calling to each other. He grunted contentedly, turned
over and went to sleep.