RED WINGS
Days passed; Zita had settled into Prickwillow. She was given her own
room, and into that she removed the contents of the van. The walls
were lined with the stock in trade, and the crimson and gold curtains
festooned the window.
A chamber in a farmhouse seemed to Zita bare and comfortless after
the well-covered interior of the shop on wheels. She could not rest
till she had hidden the naked walls, and brought her room into some
resemblance to the interior of the rolling house she had inhabited for
so many years. But she had further reasons for accumulating the stores
in her own apartment. The van was in an outhouse, and was exposed to
damp, with its attendant evils, moth, rust, and mildew, that would make
havoc of her property if exposed to them.
Zita made herself useful in the house. She considered that she could
not accept the offer made her of shelter and sustenance without
acknowledgment of a practical nature, and as she was endowed with
energy and intelligence, she speedily adapted herself to the work of a
farmhouse. She found that there was need for her hand. The housekeeper
was without system, and disposed to abandon to the morrow whatever
did not exact immediate attention. The maid with St. Vitus' dance was
a worker, but required direction. Zita had been compelled to be tidy
through the exigencies of van life. In the travelling shop a vast
number of very various goods had to be packed into a small compass,
and the claims of trade had obliged her to keep every article in
the brightest condition, that it might look its best, and sell—if
possible—for more than its intrinsic value. Accordingly, not only did
Zita see that everything was in its place, but also that everything was
furbished to its brightest. She was nimble with her fingers in plying
the needle, and took in hand the household linen, hemmed the sheets,
attached buttons, darned holes, and put into condition all that was
previously neglected, and through neglect had become ragged, and was
falling to premature decomposition.
The girl noticed that Drownlands watched her at her work, but she
also saw that he averted his eyes the moment she gave token that she
perceived his observation; she was aware, not only that she interested
him, but that he, in a manner and in a measure, feared her.
She had a difficult course to steer with Leehanna Tunkiss, the
housekeeper, who had received the tidings that Zita was to become
an inmate of the house for some length of time, with doubt, if not
disapproval. The woman, moreover, resented the improvements made by the
girl as so many insults offered to herself. To hem what had been left
ragged was to proclaim to Drownlands and to the quaking help-maid, that
Leehanna had neglected her duty; to sew on a button that had been off
the master's coat for a week, was to exhibit a consideration for his
interests superior to her own.
At the outset, before the funeral, the woman had been gracious,
believing that Zita was but a temporary lodger. When she found that
she was likely to become a permanent resident, her manner towards her
completely altered.
One afternoon, when Zita had nothing particular to engage her, she
wandered along the drove, and then rambled from it across the fields.
A frost had set in on the day of her father's funeral, and had ever
since held the earth in fetters. It was one of those severe frosts that
so often arrive in November, and sweep away the last traces of summer,
clear the trees of the lingering leaves, and then sere the grass that
is still green.
It was one of those early frosts which frequently prove as severe as
any that come with the New Year. The clods and the ruts of the drove
were rigid as iron. It would have been difficult to move the van when
the way was a slough, it was impossible now that it was congealed. The
lumps and the depressions were such as no springs could stand, and no
goods endure. Pots would be shivered to atoms, and pans be battered out
of shape. Whatever Zita may have desired, perhaps hoped, she recognised
the impossibility of leaving her present quarters under existing
circumstances. A thaw must relax the soil, harrows and rollers must
be brought over the road, before a wheeled conveyance could pass over
it. Finding it difficult, painful even, to walk in the drove, where
there was not a level surface on which the foot could be planted, Zita
deserted it for a field, and then struck across country towards a mill,
the sails of which, of ochre-red, were revolving rapidly. The fields
are divided, one from another, by lanes of water. The fen-men all
leap, and pass from field to field by bounds—sometimes making use of
leaping-poles. With these latter they can clear not the ditches only,
but the broad drains or loads.
Zita was curious to see a mill. From one point she counted
thirty-six, stretching away in lines to the horizon. She had hitherto
known windmills only for grinding corn. Here the number was too
considerable, and their dimensions too inconsiderable, for such a
purpose.
Lightly leaping the dykes, she made her way towards the red-winged
mill. As she approached, she saw that the mill was larger than the
rest, that it had a tuft of willows growing beside it, and that, on
an elevated brick platform, whereon it was planted, stood as well a
small house, constructed, like the mill, of boards, and tarred. This
habitation was a single storey high, and consisted, apparently, of one
room.
On the approach of Zita, a black dog, standing on the platform
with head projected, began to bark threateningly. Zita drew near
notwithstanding, as the brute did not run at her, but contented itself
with protecting the platform, access to which it was prepared to
dispute.
Then Zita exclaimed, 'What, Wolf! Don't you know me? Haven't you been
cheap-jacking with us for a couple of months, since father took you off
the knife-swallowing man? We'd have kept you, old boy, but didn't want
to have to pay tax for you, so sold you, Wolf.'
The dog had not at first recognised Zita in her black frock; now, at
the sound of her voice, it bounded to her and fawned on her.
A girl now came out from the habitation, called, 'What is it, Wolf?'
and stood at the head of the steps that led to her habitation, awaiting
Zita.
'Who are you?' asked the girl on the platform She was a sturdy,
handsome young woman, with fair hair, that blew about her forehead in
the strong east wind. Over the back of her head was a blue kerchief
tied under her chin, restraining the bulk of her hair, but leaving the
front strands to be tossed and played with by the breeze. She was, in
fact, that Kainie whose acquaintance we have already made.
'I believe that I know who you are,' she said.
She had folded her arms, and was contemplating her visitor from the
vantage-ground of the brick pedestal that sustained mill and cot. 'You
are the Cheap Jack girl, I suppose?'
'Yes. I am Cheap Jack Zita. And who are you?'
'I—I was christened Kerenhappuch, but some folks call me Kainie and
Kenappuch. I answer to all three names. It's no odds to me which is
used. What do you want here?'
'I have come to look at the mill. What is its purpose? You do not grind
corn?'
'Grind corn? You're a zany. No; we drive the water up out of the dykes
into the drains. Come and see. Why, heart alive! where have you been?
What a fool you must be not to know what a mill is for! Step up. Wolf
won't bite now he has recognised you. If you'd been some one else,
and tried to step up here, and me not given the word to lie still,
he'd have made ribbons of you.' She waved her arms towards the low
wooden habitation. 'I lives there, I does, and so did my mother afore
me. Some one must mind the mill, and a woman comes cheaper than a
man. Besides, it ain't enough work for a man, and when a man hasn't
got enough work, why, he takes to smoking and drinking. We women is
different; we does knitting and washing. We's superior animals in that
way, we is. Here I am a stick-at-home. I go nowhere. I have to mind
the mill. You are a rambler and a roll-about—never in one place. It's
curious our coming to know one another. What is your name, did you say?'
'Zita—Cheap Jack Zita.'
'Zita? That's short enough. No wonder with such a name you're blowed
about light as a feather. It'd take a thundering gale to send
Kerenhappuch flying along over the face of the land. Her name is enough
to weight her. Now, what do you want to see? Where does your ignorance
begin?'
'It begins in plain blank. I know nothing about mills.'
'My mill is Red Wings. If you look along the line to Mildenhall and
count ten, then you'll see Black Wings. Count eight more, and you have
White Wings.'
The girl threw open a door and entered the fabric of the mill, stepping
over a board set edgewise. She was followed by Zita.
Nothing could be conceived more simple, nothing more practical, than
the mechanism of the mill. The sails set a mighty axletree in motion,
that ran the height of the fabric, and this beam in its revolution
turned a wheel at the bottom, that made a paddle revolve outside the
mill. This paddle was encased in a box of boards, and at first Zita
could not understand the purpose of the mechanism, not seeing the
paddle.
'Would you like to climb?' asked Kainie. 'Look! I go up like a
squirrel. You had best not attempt it. If your skirts were to catch
in the cogs, there'd be minced Cheap Jack for Wolf's supper. I'm not
afraid. My skirts seem to know not to go near the wheels, but yours
haven't the same intelligence in them. A woman's clothes gets to know
her ways. Mine, I daresay, 'd be terrible puzzled in that van of yours.'
'Don't you talk to me about petticoats,' said Zita. 'Petticoats to a
woman is what whiskers is to a cat. They have feeling in them. A cat
never knocked over nothing with his whiskers, nor does a woman with her
skirts if she ain't a weaker fool than a cat.'
Then up the interior of the mill ran Kainie, with wondrous agility,
playing in the framework, whilst the huge axletree turned, and the oak
fangs threatened to catch or drag her into the machinery.
'Do come down,' said Zita. 'I do not like to see you there.'
But it was in vain that she called; her voice was drowned in the rush
of the sails, the grinding of the cogs, and the creak of the wooden
building.
Presently Kainie descended, as rapidly as she had run up the ribs of
the mill.
'Mother did not let me do it when she was alive,' said the mill girl.
'But I did it all the same. Now, what next? Come and see this.'
She led Zita outside, and took her to the paddle-box, flung open a
door in it, and exposed the wheel that was throwing the water from the
'dyke' up an incline into the 'load' at a considerably higher level.
'It licks up the water just like Wolf, only it don't swallow it.
There's the difference. And Wolf takes a little, and stops when he's
had enough; but this goes on, and its tongue is never dry.'
'Does the mill work night and day?'
'That depends. When there's no wind, then it works neither night nor
day, but goes to sleep. But when there has been a lot of rain, and the
fen is all of a soak—why, then, old Red Wings can't go fast enough or
long enough to please the Commissioners. Look here; the water has gone
down eighteen inches in the dyke since this morning. Red Wings has done
it. He's not a bad sort of a chap. He don't take much looking after.
There's a lot of difference in mills; some are crabbed and fidgety, and
some are sly and lazy. Some work on honest and straight without much
looking after, others are never doing their work unless you stand over
them and give them jaw. It's just the same with Christians.'
'And what is that long pole for?' asked Zita.
'That, Miss Ignorance, is the clog. I can stop the wings from going
round if I handle that, or I can set the sails flying when I lift the
clog. Come here. I'll teach you how to manage it.' She instructed Zita
in the use of the clog. 'There!' said she; 'now you can start the mill
as well as I can, or you can stop it just the same. You've learned
something from me today. I hope you won't forget it.'
'No; I never forget what I am taught.'
'Not that it will be of any use to you,' said Kainie. 'You're never
like to want to set a mill going.'
'Perhaps not; but I know how to do that, and it is something. There is
no telling whether I may want it or not.'
'It's as easy as giving a whack to the hoss who draws the van,' said
Kainie.
'Now,' said Kainie, after a pause, 'this here hoss of mine has reins
too. Do you see those two long poles, one on either side, reaching to
his head? Them's the reins; with them I turn his head about so that he
may face the wind. That's the only way in which my hoss can go. Now
come and see where I live.'
She led the way to her habitation, which was beyond the sweep of the
wings.
'It's small, but cosy,' said Kerenhappuch. 'No one can interfere with
me, for Wolf keeps guard. But, bless you, who'd trouble me? I've no
money. And yet one does feel queer after such things as have happened.'
'What things?'
'Ah! and it is a wonder to me how you or any one can abide in the same
house with him.'
'With whom?'
'Why, with Ki Drownlands. Though he be my uncle, I say it.' The girl's
face darkened. 'He never spoke to my mother, his own sister; never
helped her with his gold, and he rich and we poor. The Commissioners
gave us our place, not Uncle Drownlands.'
'Who are the Commissioners?'
'You are a silly not to know. Every man who owns a couple of score
acres in the Fens is a Commissioner. And the Commissioners manage the
draining, and levy the rates. They have their gangers, their bankers,
their millers—I'm one of their millers. No,' said Kainie vehemently.
'No thanks to Ki Drownlands for that.' She grasped Zita by the
shoulders, put her mouth to her ear, and said in a half whisper, 'It
was Uncle Ki who killed Jake Runham.'
Zita drew back and stared at her.
'I am sure of it,' said Kainie; 'and there be others as think so too,
but durstn't say it. But there is nothing hid that shall not come to
light. Some day it will be said openly, and known to all, that Ki
Drownlands did it.'