A LEAL MAN AND A FOOL
Clouds obscured the sun and a gusty wind set the road-side grasses
nodding and rustled the leaves of oak and ash. Phil passed between
green fields into a neat village, where men and women turned to
look after him as he went, and on into open country, where he came
at last to a great estate and a porter's lodge and sat him down and
rested. There was a hoarse clamour from a distant rookery, and the
wind whispered in two pine trees that grew beside the lodge where a
gentleman of curious tastes had planted them. A few drops of rain,
beating on the road and rattling on the leaves of a great oak,
increased the loneliness that beset him. Where he should lie the night
he had no notion, or whence his supper was to come; but the shower blew
past and he pressed on till he came to a little hamlet on the border of
a heath, where there was a smithy, with a silent man standing by the
door.
As he passed the smithy the lad stumbled.
The man looked hard at him as if suspecting some trickery; but when
Phil was about to press on without a word the man asked in a low voice,
who the de'il gaed yonder on sic like e'en and at sic like hoddin' gait.
At this Phil sat down on a stone, for his weakness had grown on him
sorely, and replied that whither he was going he neither knew nor
cared. Whereupon the man, whom he knew by his tongue to be a Scot,
cried out, "Hech! The lad's falling!" And catching the youth by the
arm, he lifted him off the stone and led him into the smithy.
Phil found himself in a chair with straight back and sides, but with
seat and backing woven of broad, loose straps, which seemed as easy as
the best goose-feathers. "It is nought," he said. "A spell of faintness
caught me. I'll be going; I must find an inn; I'll be going now."
"Be still. Ye'll na be off sae soon."
The man thrust a splinter of wood into the coals, and lighting
therewith a candle in a lanthorn, he began rummaging in a cupboard
behind the forge, whence he drew out a quarter loaf, a plate of cheese,
a jug, and a deep dish in which there was the half of a meat pie.
Placing before his guest a table of rough boards blackened with smoke,
a great spoon, and a pint pot, he poured from the jug a brimming potful
of cider, boiled with good spices and fermented with yeast.
"A wee healsome drappy," said he, "an' then the guid vittle. Dinna be
laithfu'."
Raising the pot to his lips the lad drank deep and became aware he was
famished for food, although he had not until then thought of hunger. As
he ate, the quarter loaf, the cheese, and the half of a meat pie fell
victims to his trenchering, and though his host plied the jug to fill
his cup, when at last he leaned back he had left no morsel of food nor
drop of drink.
Now, for the first time, he looked about him and gave heed to the
smoking lanthorn, the dull glow of the dying sea-coals in the forge,
the stern face of the smith who sat opposite him, and the dark recesses
of the smithy. Outside was a driving rain and the screech of a gusty
wind.
It was strange, he thought, that after all his doubts, he was well fed
and dry and warm. The rain rattled against the walls of the smithy
and the wind howled. Only to hear the storm was enough to make a man
shiver, but warmed by the fire in the forge the lad smiled and nodded.
In a moment he was asleep.
"Cam' ye far?" his host asked in a rough voice.
The lad woke with a start. "From London," he said and again he nodded.
The man ran his fingers through his red beard. "God forgie us!" he
whispered. "The laddie ha grapit a' the way frae Lon'on."
He got up from his chair and led Phil to a kind of bed in the darkest
corner, behind the forge, and covered him and left him there. Going to
the door he looked out into the rain and stood so for a long time.
Two boys, scurrying past in the rain, saw him standing there against
the dim light of the lanthorn, and hooted in derision. The wind swept
away their voices so that the words were lost, but one stooped and,
picking up a stone, flung it at the smithy. It struck the lintel above
the man's head and the boys with a squeal of glee vanished into the
rain and darkness. The blood rushed to the man's face and his hand
slipped under the great leathern apron that he wore.
By morning the storm was gone. The air was clean and cool, and though
puddles of water stood by the way, the road had so far dried as to give
good footing. All this Philip Marsham saw through the smithy door, upon
waking, as he raised himself on his elbow.
He had slept that night with his head behind the cupboard and with his
feet under the great bellows of the forge, so narrow was the space in
which the smith had built the cot; and where his host had himself
slept there was no sign.
The smith now stood in the door. "Na, na," he was saying, "'tis pitch
an' pay--siller or nought. For the ance ye hae very foully deceived me.
Ye shall hence-forth hae my wark for siller; or, an ye like--"
A volley of rough laughter came booming into the smithy, and then a
clatter of hoofs as the man without rode away; but the face of the
smith was hot as flame when he turned to the forge, and, as he thrust
his fingers through his red beard, an angry light was in his eyes.
Reaching for the handle of the bellows, he blew the fire so fiercely
that the rockstaff and the whole frame swayed and creaked. He then took
up a bar of metal and, breaking it on the anvil with a great blow of
the up-hand sledge, studied the grey surface and smiled. He thrust the
bar into the white coals and with the slicer he clapped the coals about
it.
Now drawing out the bar a little way to see how it was taking its heat,
and now thrusting it quickly back again, he brought it to the colour
of white flame, and, snatching it out with his pliers and laying it on
the face of the anvil, he shaped it with blow after blow of the hand
hammer, thrust it again into the coals and blew up the fire, again laid
it on the anvil, and, smiting it until the sparks flew in showers,
worked it, with a deftness marvellous in the eyes of the lad, who sat
agape at the fury of his strokes, into the shape of a dagger or dirk.
At last, heating it in the coals to the redness of blood and throwing
it on the floor to cool, he paced the smithy, muttering to himself.
After a time he took it up again and with the files in their order--the
rough, the bastard, the fine and the smooth--worked it down, now
trying the surface with fingertips, now plying his file as if the Devil
were at his elbow and his soul's salvation depended upon haste, until
the shape and surface pleased him.
He then thrust it again into the coals and blew up the fire softly,
watching the metal with great care till it came to blood-red heat, when
he quenched it in a butt of water and, laying it on the bench, rubbed
it with a whetstone until the black scurf was gone and the metal was
bright. Again he laid it in the coals and slowly heated it, watching
with even greater care while the steel turned to the colour of light
gold and to the colour of dark gold; then with a deft turn of the
pliers he snatched it out and thrust it deep into the water.
As he had worked, his angry haste had subsided and now, drawing out the
metal, he studied it closely and smiled. Then he looked up and meeting
the eyes of Philip Marsham, who had sat for an hour watching him, he
gave a great start and cried, "God forgie us! I hae clean forgot the
lad!"
Laying aside his work he pushed before the chair the smoke-stained
table he had used the night before, placed on it a bowl and a spoon,
and, setting a small kettle on the forge, blew up the fire until the
kettle steamed. He then poured porridge from the kettle into the bowl,
and bringing from the cupboard a second quarter-loaf, nodded at the lad
and, as an afterthought, remarked, "There's a barrel o' water ahint the
smiddy, an ye'd wash."
Rising, Phil went out and found the barrel, into which he thrust head
and hands to his great refreshment; and returning, he sat down to the
bread and porridge.
While Phil ate, the smith worked at a bit of bone which he shaped to
his desire as a handle for the dirk.
With light taps of the riveting-hammer he drove it into place and bound
it fast with ferules chosen from a box under the cot. He then sat
looking a long time at Phil, nodded, smiled, ran his fingers through
his beard, smiled again and, with a fine tool, fell to working on the
ferules. There had been a friendly look in the lad's eyes, and of
friendly looks the smith had got few in England. People bought his work
because he was a master craftsman, but the country folk of England
had little love for the Scots who came south in King James's time and
after, and a man had need to look sharp lest he fall victim to theft
or worse than theft. He stopped and again looked at his guest, ran his
fingers through his beard and demanded suddenly, "Thy name, laddie?"
"Philip Marsham."
"Ye'll spell it out for me?"
This Phil did.
After working a while longer he said as if in afterthought, "Ye'll bide
wi' me a while?"
"No, I must be on my way."
The man sighed heavily but said only, "I hae ta'en a likin' to ye."
Rising, the lad thrust his hand into his bosom and stood as if to take
his leave.
"Na, na! Dinna haste! I'll ask ye to gie me help wi' a bit that's yet
to be done."
The smith turned his work over and over. He had made a dirk with a
handle of bone bound with silver, and, as he turned it, he examined it
with utmost care. "'Twill do," he said at last, "and noo for the wark
that takes twa pair o' hands."
He pointed to a great grindstone.
'He that will a guid edge win,
Maun forge thick an' grind thin.'
Sitting down at the grindstone, the lad began to turn it while the
smith, now dashing water over it, now putting both hands to the work,
ground the dirk. An hour passed, and a second, with no sound save the
whir of steel on stone and now and again the muttered words:--
'He that will a guid edge win,
Maun forge thick an' grind thin.'
Leaning back at last, he said "'Tis done! An' such wark is better
suited to a man o' speerit than priggin' farriery."
He tried the edge with his thumb and smiled. From a chip he sliced a
thin circular shaving that went with and across and against the grain.
Laying a bit of iron on a board, he cut it clean in two with the dirk
and the edge showed neither nick nor mark.
Phil rose now, and drew from inside his shirt his small pouch of
silver. "I'll pay the score," he said.
The Scot stared at him as if he would not believe his ears, then got up
as if to thrust the dirk between the lad's ribs.
"Those are very foul words," he said thickly. "Nae penny nor plack
will I take, and were ye a man bearded, I'd leave ye a pudding for the
hoodie-craw."
The lad reddened and stammered, "I--I--why, I give you thanks and ask
your pardon."
The smith drew himself up and was about to speak harshly, but he saw
the lad's eyes filling and knew no harm was intended. He caught his
breath and bit his beard. "'Tis forgi'en an' forgot," he cried. "I hae
ta'en a likin' to ye an' here's my hand on't. I hae made ye the dirk
for a gift an' sin ye maun be on your way, ye shall hae my ane sheath,
for I've no the time to mak' ye the mate to it e'er ye'll be leavin'
me."
With that he drew out his dirk, sheath and all, and placing the new
blade in the old leather, handed it to the lad, saying, "'Tis wrought
o' Damascus steel and there's not twa smiths in England could gi'e ye
the like."
So with few words but with warm friendliness they parted, and Philip
Marsham went away over the heath, wondering how a Scottish smith came
to be dwelling so many long leagues south of the border. In those days
there were many Scots to be found in England, who had sought long since
to better their fortunes by following at the heels of their royal
countryman; but he had chanced to meet with few of them.
Not until he had gone miles did he draw the dirk and read, cut in fine
old script on the silver ferule, the legend, _Wrought by Colin Samson
for Philip Marsham_. There are those who would say it was a miracle out
of Bible times, but neither Philip Marsham nor I ever saw a Scot yet
who would not share his supper with a poorer man than himself.
At the end of the day he bought food at a cottage where the wife did
not scruple to charge him three times the worth of the meal, and
that night he lay under a hedge; the day thereafter he chanced upon
a shepherd with whom he passed the night on the hills, and the third
day he came to an inn where the reckoning took all but a few pence of
his silver. So as he set out upon his way in the morning, he knew not
whence his supper was to come or what roof should cover his head.
It was a fine day, with white clouds blowing across a blue sky and all
the colors as bright as in a painted picture, and there was much for a
sailor to marvel at. The grass in the meadows waved in the great wind
like running water. The river in the valley was so small and clear and
still that, to a man bred at sea, it appeared to be no water at all but
a toy laid between hills, with toy villages for children on its banks.
Climbing with light quick steps a knoll from which there was a broader
prospect, Phil came unawares upon a great thick adder, which lay
sunning its tawny flanks and black-marked back but which slipped away
into a thicket at the jar of footsteps. The reptile gave him a lively
start, but it was soon gone, and from the knoll he saw the valley
spread before him for miles.
It was a day to be alive and, though Philip Marsham was adrift in a
strange world, with neither chart nor compass to show the way, his
strength had at last come back to him and he had the blithe spirit that
seasons a journey well. His purse was light but he was no lad to be
stayed for lack of wind, and seeing now a man far ahead of him on the
road, and perceiving an opportunity to get sailing directions for the
future, he leaped down from the knoll and set off after the fellow as
hard as he could post.
The man had gone another mile before Phil overhauled him and by then
Phil was puffing so loudly that the fellow, who carried a huge book
under his arm and bore himself very loftily, turned to see what manner
of creature was at his heels. Although he had the air of a great man,
his coat was now revealed as worn and spotted and his wristbands were
dirty. He frowned, bent his head, and pursued his journey in silence.
"Good morrow to you!" Phil cried and fell into step beside him.
The man answered not a word but frowned and hugged his book and walked
the faster.
At that Phil bustled up and laid hand on his dirk. "Good morrow, I say.
Hast no tongue between thy teeth?"
The fellow hugged his book the tighter and frowned the darker and
fiercely shook his head. "Never," he cried, "was a man assaulted with
such diversity of thoughts! Yet here must come a lobcock lapwing and
cry 'Good morrow!' I will have you know I am one to bite sooner than to
bark."
Already he was striding at a furious gait, yet now, giving a hitch to
his mighty book, he made shift to lengthen his stride and go yet faster.
Unhindered by any such load, Phil pressed at his heels.
"'A lobcock'? 'A lapwing'?" he cried. "Thou puddling quacksalver--"
Stopping short and giving him a look of dark resentment, the fellow
sadly shook his head. "That was a secret and most venomous blow."
"I gave you good morrow and you returned me nought but ill words."
"The shoe must be made for the foot. I have no desire to go posting
about the country with a roystering coxcomb but--well--as I say, I have
no liking for thy company, which consorts ill with the pressure of many
thoughts; but since you know what you know (and the Devil take him who
learned you it!), like it or not, I must even keep thy company with
such grace as may be. Yea, though thou clappest hand to thy weapon
with such facility that I believe thee sunk to thy neck in the Devil's
quagmire, bogged in thy sin, and thy hands red with blood."
With that, he set out again but at an ordinary pace, and Phil,
wonderfully perplexed by his words, fell into his step.
Again the fellow shook his head very sadly. "A secret and most venomous
blow! Th' art a Devon man?"
"Nay, I never saw Devon."
The fellow shot him a strange glance and shifted the book from one arm
to the other.
"And have never seen Devon? Never laid foot in Bideford, I'll venture."
There was a cunning look in his eyes and again he shifted the book.
"'Tis even so."
"A most venomous blow! This wonderfully poseth me." After a time he
said in a very low voice, "There is only one other way. Either you have
told me a most wicked lie or Jamie Barwick told you."
The fellow, watching like a cat at a rat-hole, saw Phil start at the
sound of Jamie Barwick's name.
"I knew it!" he cried. "He'd tell, he'd tell! He's told before--'twas
he took the tale to Devon. He's a tall fellow but I'll hox him yet. It
was no fault of mine--though I suppose you'll not believe that."
Upon the mind of Philip Marsham there descended a baffling array of
memories. The name of the big countryman with the gun carried him back
to that afternoon in Moll Stevens's alehouse, whence with good cause
he had fled for his life. And now this stray wight, with a great folio
volume under his arm, out of a conglomeration of meaningless words had
suddenly thrown at the lad's head the name of Jamie Barwick.
"We must have this out between us," the fellow said at last, breathing
hard. "I'll not bear the shadow longer. Come, let us sit while we
talk, for thereby we may rest from our travels. You see, 'twas thus
and so. Jamie Barwick and I came out of Devon and took service with
Sir John--Jamie in the stables, for he has a way with horses, and I as
under-steward till my wits should be appreciated, which I made sure,
I'd have you know, would be soon, for there are few scholars that can
match my curious knowledge of the moon's phases and when to plant corn
or of the influence of the planets on all manner of husbandry; and
further, I have kept the covenant of the living God, which should make
all the devils in hell to tremble; and if England keeps it she shall
be saved from burning. So when I made shift to get the ear of Sir
John, who hath a sharp nose in all affairs of his estate, said I,--and
it took a stout heart, I would have you know, for he is a man of hot
temper,--said I, if he would engage a hundred pounds at my direction I
would return him in a year's time a gain of a fourth again as much as
all he would engage.
"'Aha!'" quoth he, "'this is speech after mine own heart. A hundred
pounds, sayest thou? 'Tis thine to draw upon, and the man who can turn
his talents thus shall be steward of all mine estates. But mind,'--and
here he put his finger to his nose, for he hath keen scent for a
jest,--'thou shalt go elsewhere to try the meat on the dog, for I'll be
no laughingstock; and if thou fail'st then shalt thou go packing, bag
and baggage, with the dogs at thy heels. Is 't a bargain?'
"Now there was that in his way of speech which liked me little, for I
am used to dealing with quieter men and always I have given my wits to
booklearning and to Holy Writ rather than to bickering. But I could
not then say him nay, for he held his staff thus and so and laughed in
his throat in a way that I have a misliking of. So I said him yea, and
took in my own name fifty acres of marsh land, and paid down more than
thirty pound sterling, and expended all of eight pound sterling for the
ploughing and twice that for the burning, and sowed it with rape-seed
at ninepence the acre, and paid twelve pound for the second ploughing
and eleven pound for the fencing--all this did I draw from Sir John,
who, to pay the Devil his due, gave it me with a free hand; and if
God had been pleased to send the ordinary blessing upon mine acres I
should have got from it at harvest three hundred or four hundred or
even five hundred quarters of good rape-seed. And what with reaping and
threshing and all, at four and twenty shillings the quarter I should
have repaid him his hundred pounds, threefold or fourfold. All this by
the blessing of God should I have done but for some little bugs that
came upon mine acres in armies, and the fowls of the air that came in
clouds and ate up my rape-seed and my tender young rape, so that I lost
all that I laid out. And Sir John would not see that in another year I
ought, God favouring me, to get him back his silver I had lost, even as
the book says. He is a man of his word and, crying that the jest was
worth the money, he sent me out the gate with the dogs at my heels and
with Jamie Barwick laughing till his fat belly shook, to see me go; for
I was always in terror of the dogs, which are great tall beasts that
delight to bark and snap at me. And the last word to greet my ears, ere
I thought they would have torn me limb from limb, was Sir John bawling
at me, 'Thou puddling quacksalver!' which Jamie Barwick hath told in
Bideford, making thereby such mirth that I can no longer abide there
but must needs flit about the country. And lo! even thou, who by speech
and coat are not of this country at all, dost challenge me by the very
words he used."
Phil lay meditating on the queer fate that had placed those words in
his mouth. "Who," he said at last, "is this Sir John?"
"'Who is Sir John?'" The fellow turned and looked at him. "You have
come from farther than I thought, not to know Sir John Bristol."
"Sir John Bristol? I cannot say I have heard that name."
"Hast never heard of Sir John Bristol? In faith, thou art indeed a
stranger hereabouts. He is a harsh man withal, and doubtless my ill
harvest was the judgment of God upon me for hiring myself to serve
a cruel, blasphemous knight who upholdeth episcopacy and the Common
Prayer book."
"And whom," asked the lad, "do you serve now?"
"Ah! I, who would make a skillful, faithful, careful steward, am
teaching a school of small children, and erecting horoscopes for
country bumpkins, so low has that harsh knight's ill-considered jest
cast me. ''Twas worth the money,' quoth he; but it had paid him in
golden guineas had he had the wit and patience to wait another year."
The fellow closed his eyes, tossed back his long hair, and pressed his
hands on his forehead. "Never, never," he cried, "was a man assaulted
with such diversity of thoughts!"
Philip Marsham contemplated him as if from a distance and thought that
never was there a long-haired scarecrow better suited for the butt of a
thousand jests.
There were people passing on the road, an old man in a cart, a woman,
and two men carrying a jug between them, but Phil was scarcely aware
of them, or even of the lank man beside him, so absorbing were his
thoughts, until the man rose, clasping his book in both hands and
running his tongue over his lips.
His mouth worked nervously. "I must be off, I must be off. There they
are again, and the last time I thought I should perish ere I got free
of them. O well-beloved, O well-beloved! they have spied me already. If
I go by the road, they'll have me; I must go by wood and field."
Turning abruptly, he plunged through a copse and over a hill, whence,
his very gait showing his fear, he speedily disappeared.
And the two men, having set their jug down beside the road, were
laughing till they reeled against each other, to see him go.