Whatever doubt Widow Mathewson might have of Gaunt’s constancy, he
himself felt none. On the morning after Linsall Fair he summoned his
housekeeper, told her that Marshlands was to have a mistress at last,
and gave orders that the disused parlour, full of faded hangings and
rusty furniture unrenewed since his mother came here as a bride, should
be turned out in readiness for the purchases he meant to make this week
in Shepston. The best bedroom, disused, too, was to be treated in like
fashion. Now that his mind had found an anchorage, Reuben was eager,
businesslike, impatient of delays.
His housekeeper said little; but she smiled often when his back was
turned, and shook her head with the foreboding that was her only luxury.
“He’s like a lad going off to buy a gun, or a rod, or some such make
o’ toy,” was her thought “Oh, ay, he’s keen-set on t’ notion, but it
winnun’t last no more than a week. Niver met a man to tire as soon as
the master.”
Gaunt did not tire, however. He was to and fro between Ghyll Farm and
Marshlands every other day, and in between was journeying to Shepston,
with Peggy beside him in the smart, high-wheeled gig which was known by
sight to all the dales-folk.
Widow Mathewson said little these days, save to grumble that Peggy
left her three parts of the work to do; but at last she was losing her
distrust of Gaunt. His gaiety appealed to her, for she had known little
of it in her time; his forgetfulness of all past differences between
them was generous, though she only half admitted it; above all, her
headstrong lass showed likely to settle down at last with a decent roof
above her and the right to show that pride which was ingrained in her.
“Maybe he’s as well as another man,” she would mutter, as she nursed
her pipe by the hearth and waited for Peggy to return, “though that’s
saying little enough. Come to think on’t there’s so few worth choosing
that a lass is a’most bound to make a lile fool of herseln when it
comes to marriage.”
They were to be married at the end of two months. That was the utmost
Mrs. Mathewson would grant when Reuben pressed for an earlier day.
“If your fancy lasts for two months, it’ll maybe last longer,” she said
drily, in answer to Gaunt’s pleading. “My lass shall be thrown at no
man’s head, Reuben, least of all at yours.”
To Peggy the waiting-time seemed short. Her child’s dreams up among
the winding peat-ways of the moor, her woman’s yielding to the glamour
of this first and last romance which Gaunt embodied, were of the same
fibre.
One day--it was a week after Linsall Fair--he did not take her with him
to Shepston. He had a fancy to buy a chestnut mare he knew of, and keep
it as a wedding-gift for her, letting her find it unexpectedly in the
stable when he brought her home to Marshlands. She could ride bareback
already; he would teach her afterwards to sit a side-saddle.
Between Garth and Shepston he came face to face with Cilla round a
bend of the dusty road, and pulled his horse up.
“You have heard the news?” he asked, feeling oddly ill at ease.
“I hear so little. It is not father’s way nor mine.” Cilla’s glance
rested quietly on him, and she stood a little straighter than her wont,
with an air of withdrawal. “If ’tis the fever you mean, of course we’ve
heard of it. They talk of nothing else these days in Garth.”
“It was not the fever I meant. Do you remember that you asked me months
ago to do something? We were standing at the porch-door at Good Intent.”
Cilla flushed, and moved a pace or two away. “Yes, I remember. It was
you, Mr. Gaunt who seemed to have forgotten.”
“We’re to be married in October,” he said bluntly.
For a moment she hesitated, then held out her hand. “I wish you
well--indeed, I wish you both well. Though we hear so little gossip,
they told me Peggy was queen o’ the fair at Linsall. She deserved to
be, I think.”
With a smile and a bend of the head in token of farewell, she had left
him. He turned in the saddle to watch her go down the road, with her
light, easy step, then plucked his horse into a trot. He was out of
temper with the day, though he had begun it light-heartedly enough.
His old infirmity had returned to him at sight of Priscilla; with the
best will in the world to be loyal, he was bewildered by the grace and
fragrance which Cilla had brought along this dusty road. His vanity was
hurt, moreover; there had been no sign of regret or sorrow in Cilla’s
voice; her friendliness and her unconcern were harder to bear than any
of Widow Mathewson’s downright attacks had been.
Priscilla moved more slowly once she was out of sight. She was
lingering in fancy through that day of spring when she and Gaunt had
gone to Keta’s Well. And she laughed at herself because the tears in
her eyes were very near falling. Why should she grieve because he had
done what she asked of him? Since Keta’s Well and all the folly of the
spring there had been the merciless heat, the ruined hay-crop, the
fever that had not entered Garth as yet, though the shadow of it lay
constantly about the village.
“Ah, now, there’s enough that is real to be thought of,” was Cilla’s
way of meeting the fresh heartache. “Father would tell me, I’m sure,
that ’tis no time at all to be playing with dreams and fancies.”
Billy the Fool stood at the forge door as she passed--Billy, with the
air of great business and importance which had come to him since David
left him in sole charge of the forge.
“Morning, Miss Good Intent!” he said, saluting gravely. “Terrible days
for pleasuring, now that David’s left me master-smith.” He nodded
toward the inside of the smithy, and a tranquil grin broke across his
face. “Dan Foster’s lad is blowing bellows in yonder. Te-he! I just
told him to get the fire all a-glowing an’ a-crackling, an’ the lile
chap’s doing on’t! ’Tis wonderful how some folk do sweat while others
go playing.”
“Then what will you play at to-day?” asked Cilla, her smile made up of
rue and rosemary.
“Well, there’s two score iron palings waiting to be hammered into
shape, like, and Fool Billy reckons he’ll make a start at yond same,
he will. Niver knew before what ’twas to have all this wonderful lot
of play to get through with. David will laugh when he comes back. He
always did say I was a queerish terrible chap when I settled to my
play.”
Priscilla was apt to search deeper into life since the troubled days
arrived. She looked now at Billy, and remembered the scene last April
at time of rescuing the lambs; she recalled the struggle at the edge
of the pool, and Widow Mathewson’s tale of what had happened long ago
at Marshlands; she sought in Billy’s face, as older folk had done,
for some answer to the riddle of his character. She found no answer.
Unhurried, skilled at his work so long as a comrade named it play, his
blue, trusting eyes looked into hers, and, if they held a secret, kept
it well.
He looked again to see if Dan Foster’s lad were plying the bellows
within doors; then, by force of habit, he drew out a blackened pipe,
and as quietly replaced it.
“There now!” he chuckled. “What wi’ all this play about, I forgot my
manners. Fancied ye had a fill o’ baccy on ye, and maybe a match to go
wi’ that same baccy. Te-he, but Billy’s a fool!”
“Not so big i’ that way as he looks,” came a voice that went roaming
down Garth street like pleasant thunder. “What, ye’re keeping Billy
from his playtime? Shame on ye, Cilla.”
“Nay, she’s not keeping me,” said Billy, taking Hirst’s open pouch.
“Dan Foster’s lad is doing all the work these days, ye understand, and
’twould make your sides split to see him working at th’ old bellows.”
“We’re not all as lucky as you,” said the yeoman, as he handed a match
to Billy. “Most of us have no play--and, by that token, I’m bringing a
horse to be shod to-morrow.”
Billy lit his pipe, and drew quiet puffs before he answered. “Well
now, Mr. Hirst, I’m right set on shoeing a horse to-morrow. After
I’ve done wi’ yond iron palings, and after I’ve slept for a night in
green-field’s bed, as a body might say, I’ll be ready for ye. ’Tis
rare fun shoeing a lile horse, wi’ a daft lad doing all the bellows’
work for ye.”
Hirst passed on with a cheery laugh, and linked his arm in Cilla’s as
they went up to Good Intent.
“Billy is like good pasture-land,” he said, with a backward glance at
the forge. “Soft on the crust, and firm underneath. Oh, ay, David did
well to leave Fool Billy in his place.”
But Cilla did not answer. Her thoughts were half with David, who had
left Garth when she needed him, and half with Reuben Gaunt, who hoped
to keep a promise made to her.
Reuben himself drove to Shepston; and he tried to get rid of the wish
that Cilla had not crossed his path to-day--Cilla, with her witchcraft
of dainty thoughts and comely living--Cilla, whose gift in life was to
make folk see glamour in unexpected corners.
Shepston was busy when he reached the town. He stabled his horse at the
Norton Cross tavern, and walked down the High Street in search of the
mare he meant to get for Peggy. Half down the street he heard himself
hailed by name, and turned. He saw Mother Lambert’s weather-beaten
face, standing behind her stall as she had stood on the green at
Linsall Fair.
“Morning,” said Gaunt, with the heedless nod of old acquaintance.
He was passing on, but she checked him. “I saw ye last at Linsall, Mr.
Gaunt. D’ye mind the pedlar there?”
“Why, yes.” He was impatient and anxious to move forward. “I bought a
fairing from him, and his face, I fancied, was more fiery with drink
than usual.”
Mother Lambert looked gravely at him across the trumpery wares that
covered her stall.
“Best speak no ill o’ the dead, sir. The pedlar’s dead--dead o’ the
fever three days ago. It was fever that mottled his face, an’ he said
to me as he stood on the green after ye’d bought your fairing for Peggy
o’ Mathewson’s--he owned, he did, that he couldn’t feel just hisseln,
like, though he meant to plod on and be merry.”
Gaunt’s face was white. He had no thought of Cilla now, but remembered
only the lass who had watched him win a race, the lass who had been
tender to his failings and buoyant in her love for him.
“Are you speaking truth?” he asked.
“Well, yes. I mostly do, save when I’ve wares to sell; and business,
Mr. Gaunt, is another basket of eggs, as the saying goes.”
“I’ve laughed at the fever-dread till now,” he said, after a troubled
silence. “For myself, I take chances of that sort of thing as they
come; but ’tis different when there’s a doubt that Peggy may have
caught it. Surely you’ve to come closer to it, and stay longer with it,
than we did that day at Linsall?”
“What, for harm to come on’t? Nay! I’ve seen plenty o’ fever i’ my
time, an’ I tell ye that kerchief ye bought for Peggy o’ Mathewson’s
was enough in itself to gi’e it to her. Poor Peggy! They allus
said--those ’at were jealous--that her liking for bright colours would
bring her to grief one day.”
Mother Lambert nodded sagely after Gaunt had left her. She had lived
a hard, roving life, had long since learned to look at her neighbours
with eyes unclouded by overmuch feeling; and she told herself now, with
a quiet, impersonal wonder, that there was a real change in the man.
“Did ye see Reuben Gaunt go down street just now?” she asked a crony,
who came from a neighbouring stall for gossip.
“Ay. Straight-set-up, as usual, and a bonnie lile figure to catch a
lass’s fancy. There’s never much change in Gaunt.”
“Well, now, there is a change, and that’s th’ odd part on’t. He’s
learned to think for another first, ’stead of himself, and that means
a deal. Eh, but men are bothersome cattle! Ye think ye know ’em,
right to th’ back o’ their minds, an’ all of a sudden they turn just
contrary-like.”
Gaunt bought the mare for Peggy, and gave orders that it should be
sent that day to Marshlands; but he had little heart either in the
bargaining or the purchase. As he walked up the High Street toward the
inn again, a hearse was moving slowly to the churchyard which fronted
and looked down upon the road. They told him that only one day of the
last fifteen had passed without a burial, and some days there had been
three or four. It was brought home to him at last that the Black Fever
was no boggart invented by mothers to frighten wayward bairns; he saw
the scourge now as it really was, as a pestilence unlike all others,
save the plague which many hundred years ago, folk said, had destroyed
whole villages, and had made thriving townships into wasted hamlets.
Indeed, the fever, in a less degree, had that power to weaken men by
terror which the plague had had long since. It was market-day, and
a busy day, along the High Street; but uneasiness and gloom showed
plainly on all but the most reckless faces, and farmer-men, ashamed of
a weakness they could not control, would glance at farmer-men, seeking
for the telltale patches of mulberry-red which spelled infection.
Gaunt opened his lungs to the breeze when he was clear of Shepston. He
knew that there was danger to himself, but had dismissed the thought;
his cowardice was all for Peggy. He was glad to be out among clean
fields again, with the open road in front of him, and none to talk of
the fever.
He walked straight up to Ghyll Farm after reaching home, and Peggy
was standing at the gate of the croft, looking down the moor. She
half looked for him, and for that reason had fastened the crimson
handkerchief round her throat; she had tied and untied it before her
cracked mirror, with the honest coquetry which a woman finds when she
knows that one man only has a claim on it.
Reuben saw the scarf, as soon almost as he caught sight of the waiting
figure. The sunlight, stark and dry as the fields it had scorched,
caught the warm colour of the kerchief.
“You look tired, Reuben,” said Peggy o’ Mathewson’s, after a quiet
glance at his face.
“Well, yes,” he answered carelessly. “It was a hot drive into Shepston,
and the fools would talk of nothing but their fever. I begin to think
they’re proud of it, Peggy.”
“They’ve got used to it, you see,” said the girl, with something of her
mother’s tart knowledge of the world. “’Tis queer, Reuben, how soon
ye get used to a thing, even if ’tis bad, and seem to miss it when it
goes.”
He scarcely heard her. His eyes were fixed on the crimson scarf, and
she smiled happily as she followed his glance.
“Yes, I’m wearing your gift, lad. Mother chided me just now--said ’twas
no sort o’ fancy-stuff to wear, when there were cattle needed milking
by and by. I said you’d given it me at Linsall Fair and the lile, soft
beasts would milk no worse because I wore it.”
Gaunt, though he did not know it, had caught something of the panic
that troubled all the folk of Shepston. “At the back of his mind,” as
he put it to himself, he was sure that Peggy would catch no harm from
the scarf at this late day; the harm was done already, or not done; yet
he could not rest so long as she was wearing it.
“Peggy,” he said, “I want that kerchief you’re wearing.”
Peggy o’ Mathewson’s laughed, though her eyes were full of disquiet.
“Best buy another, Reuben, if you’re fooling me again. I’ll not let
this one go to some lile fool who’s turned her blue eyes on ye and made
geese seem swans.”
So then he told her--the sun lay low down to Windover Crag by this
time--that Pedlar Joe had the fever on him when he sold the kerchief;
and again she laughed.
“Is that all, Reuben? I thought ’twas worse.” She looked down the moor,
and into his face again; and her voice was soft with trouble. “Reuben,
’tis ill when ye doubt the man ye care for. I never cared, save for
you; but you--”
Gaunt forgot the scarf, forgot the sickness and the hearse and the
great distrust that had peopled the High Street at Shepston.
“Well?” he asked. “What is amiss, then, if we’re both of the same mind?
Peggy, I’ve been fearing for you all the way home from market; I ought
to take shame that a parcel of Shepston folk can scare me.”
Down below in Garth, Billy had done with his day’s play at the forge,
and had wandered out into what he named his green-field’s bed. He made
up the pastures and out into the open moor; and here, in a little
hollow deep with heather, he lay down, turned twice or thrice till he
had made a lair for himself, and breathed a sigh of sheer content.
“’Tis a right queer matter to be born daft-witted,” he said to himself.
“There’s folk sleeping in Garth yonder at this minute ’twixt four
hot walls, and no breath o’ air to help them. Only Fool Billy knows,
’twould seem, what a terrible soft bed a body’s body can find right up
at the top o’ the world.”
He lay there on his back, and watched the stars, the waning moon whose
colour was ivory tinged with saffron, the quiet blue of the sky. The
wise folk spoke of the moor as a lonely place, where none could sleep
without fear of the ghosts that were known to haunt it. To Billy it was
home. If grouse were lying near him in the heather, they were friends;
if the old dog-fox from Sharprise Wood chose this track for purposes
connected with his larder, Billy was well acquainted with him; as for
ghosts, there was only one that troubled him, and this had no dwelling
among the marshes and the ling.