There has come a spell of chilly, overcast weather, and the long dark
evenings have settled upon us at a stroke. At twilight to-day, as I came
into this silent-floored, comfortable room, and lit the candles on my
work-table, it seemed strange that I should do so, and yet the ordinary
life and traffic of the village be still going on outside. Hitherto, so
it appeared, the village quiet had fallen always before the need for
candlelight. I had looked out before drawing the curtains close, and
heard not a step stirring, seen the windows dark in the lower storeys of
the cottages, and here and there a pale light glimmering behind the drawn
blinds of upper rooms, for your true Sussex villager hates to sleep in
the dark. But to-night some new order of things seemed to have been
suddenly ordained. Footsteps hurried or leisurely, voices old and young,
the rumble of wheels, even the distant chime of Tom Clemmer’s hammer—all
the sounds that go to make up the common rumour of work-a-day life in a
village, were abroad in the air; though already the hills were lost in
the gloaming: the white chrysanthemums by the garden-gate were nothing
but a dim blotch on the murky autumn night.
I lit the candles—home-made candles of yellow beeswax—and set them on
their little mats of plaited green leather. I got out a new quire of
foolscap, sobering in its empty whiteness, its word-hungry look. I
arranged the ruler, the old cut-glass inkpot, the painted leaden frog
that serves for paperweight, the elephant that carries a penwiper as
houdah, ash-tray and tobacco-jar and sheaf of favourite pipes, all in
their proper stations. I drew the old oak elbow-chair sideways to the
table—sideways because that was non-committal: too squarely business-like
an approach in the outset, as I know of old time and cost, often scatters
the fairies into the next county, and you may chew to shreds a whole
quiverful of goose-quills before they again come crowding and whispering
curiously about your ears.
But having made all these exact preparations, I chanced to turn to the
open window for a final look down the street, and knew at once that I was
lost. It was the steady far-off song from Tom Clemmer’s anvil that
overcame me more than anything, and the red glow amidst the elder-boughs
that overhung the forge. But all else conspired in one basilisk-like
lure to get me forth. The busy wending to and fro, and the cheery
commerce of tongues in the darkness, footsteps and voices that I knew as
well as I knew my own; twinkling lights in cottages, the illumined
windows of the little sweetstuff shop, the cobbler’s den, the inn, the
village store; the church lit up for evensong, and the bell quietly
tolling, as it seemed, somewhere far up in the black void of the sky;
again, the smell of the night, that moist, earthy fragrance of decaying
leaves, and tang of frost, and pungent scent of simmering fire-logs from
stacks new-broached on these first chilly evenings in November—it all
ranged itself together before me as something, ever present and constant
in my life, that I too often disregarded, took for granted—the jumble of
thatch and red-tiled roof and grey flint wall, sheep and lowing kine and
cackling poultry, bevy of kindly human hearts, sharp tongues and willing
hands, all wedged up together in one green crevice of the hills, and
calling themselves collectively by the old South-Saxon name of
Windlecombe.
I went first of all a few strides out over the green and looked backward,
rightly to estimate, if I could, my own part in the little communal
symphony. The bluff bulk of the house, with its coven roof and many
gables, stood dark against the greyer darkness of the hills, and behind
it rose sable elm plumes fast thinning under the recent autumn chills.
From its windows shone lights of varying significance. There were my own
red-shaded candles with a corner of a crammed bookcase dimly visible
above them; there were naked kitchen lights with ware of polished pewter
and copper glinting behind, and a pleasant clatter of crockery; there was
a window where the light burnt red and low and wavering as from a spent
hearth, and a quiet ripple of music from a piano keeping it congenial
company; there was the window high up in the great gable, whose
flickering light cast a bunch of head-shadows on the ceiling, suggestive
of nursery bedtime, and fairy-tales round the fire. It was all very
reassuring and enheartening. Yes: the old White House had its integral
part to play in this good English game of Neighbourhood, and played it
passing well.
Round Tom Clemmer’s forge a group of village lads was gathered, all
looking on at the work with an interest that amounted well-nigh to
fascination. As I came up, and stood unobserved in the shadow of the
elder-tree, there was before me a picture in which two colours only were
represented glowing crimson and deep velvety black. Young Tom stood,
pincers in hand, watching the iron in the fire. Behind him his
apprentice laboured at the bellows. With every wheezy puff, the furnace
roared out an imprecation, and spat hot cinders upon the floor.
It was a large piece of metal that Tom had in work, something out of the
ordinary run of his business, it seemed, and he turned it and shifted it
with an anxious eye. No one spoke a word, for somehow we all knew that a
crisis was coming, and we were expected to hold our tongues until it was
victoriously past. At length the moment came. Tom thrust the pincers
into the blaze and drew the white-hot iron out upon the anvil.
Immediately the apprentice left the bellows, seized a great hammer, and
swinging it over his head, began to let fall on the metal an unceasing
rain of mighty blows. As Tom twisted and manoeuvred the glowing mass
about with all the strength of his wiry arms, it lengthened, squared
itself in the middle, flattened out at each end, bent into complicated
curves, then turned upon itself and was united miraculously head to tail.
Still gripping the writhing thing with one hand, Tom took a punch in the
other, and pointed it to various parts of the work; and wherever he
pointed, the hammer drove a bolt-hole clean and true through the rose-red
iron. Finally Tom lifted the finished piece above his head, and came
striding to the door with it. The crowd of onlookers scattered right and
left. Out into the darkness he plunged, and straight to the pool by the
roadside. We saw the thing poised for a moment like a mammoth fire-fly
over the water; and then, with a roar and an angry splutter, it vanished
into the pond.
It was scarcely six o’clock, and already the night was pitch-black, with
a creeping, chilly air from the north. It was not loitering weather.
People were moving briskly on their several ways. Cottage doors were
shut, and windows diamonded with moisture. Roving about with no settled
purpose but to humour the neighbourly fancy, and to identify myself with
the evening life of the place, I presently came full tilt at a corner
upon Farmer Coles.
‘The very man!’ said he, barring the way jovially with his stout oak
stick. ‘Didn’t ye promise me that when I killed that four-year-old
wether, ye’d come and take a bite along o’ us? Well, ’tis a saddle
to-night, and I was on the road to fetch ye. Round about, man, and
straight for the faarm!’
Now, when a South-Down flock-master—whose pedigree sheep are famous
throughout the county—bids you to his table, with the announcement that
the principal dish is to be mutton, there is only one thing to do, that
is, if you are human, and of sane mind. I turned and went along with him
without demur.
‘Jane’s sister and her man be with us,’ said Farmer Coles, as we left the
village behind and mounted the steep lane that led to the farmhouse.
‘And Weaverly ’ull be there; and the gells be home, so we wunt lack for
company. I don’t know as ye ever met Jane’s sister’s man?—Parrett by
name. No? Wunnerful well-eddicated man, though, he be.’
We found the Rev. Mr. Weaverly, a shining gem of purest water, set in the
ring of hearty country faces that surrounded the drawing-room fire. The
broad-shouldered, broad-faced man, with a mat of sandy beard and a very
bald head, who occupied the great armchair in the corner, I judged to be
Mr. Parrett. Mrs. Coles and her sister, both comfortable of mien and
rigidly ceremonious of visage, sat side by side in flowing black silk
gowns, knitting as for a wager. The younger members of the household,
who filled the interspaces of the circle, fidgeted in a constraint of
merry silence, exchanging covert glances of boredom, and all obviously
pricking ears for the first sound of the dinner-gong. This clanged out
behind us almost at the moment of our entry into the room, providentially
cutting short the first amenities of greeting; and before my fingers had
done aching from Mr. Parrett’s grip, I found myself sitting at the loaded
board with Mrs. Parrett’s voluminous drapery overflowing me on the one
side, and, on the other, her husband’s great brown barricade of an elbow
securely fencing me in.
‘Mutton,’ observed Mr. Weaverly presently, by way of filling up a pause
in the conversation due to our all watching with secret anxiety Farmer
Coles’s attack on the joint, ‘mutton, and on a Monday! You remember the
little game of alliteration we played at the school treat, Mrs. Coles?
Really, we could make an admirable sequence here! Mutton, and Monday,
and Miss Matilda sitting by my side, and—and—if it were only March
instead of—’
‘And we’ll soon all be munchin’ of it, sir!’ cried Farmer Coles. ‘Ha,
ha, ha! That’s the best Hem o’ all! Gravy, George?’
At the inclusion of her name in the sequence, the eldest Miss Coles had
blushed, then let her glance demurely droop upon her
chrysanthemum-wreathed bosom. It was a moment of exceeding pride and
satisfaction to her, for here was Mr. Weaverly beside her—an
incontestable, a beautiful fact—while Miss Sweet for once was half a mile
away. Now she looked up coyly.
‘I think,’ she hesitated, ‘I could suggest a— Oh! I know a lovely one!’
Mr. Weaverly laid down knife and fork, to rub his hands delightedly.
‘Do tell us!’ he murmured. ‘I am positively longing to—’
The eldest Miss Coles turned him glamorous eyes.
‘Marmaduke!’ she said.
And I think I was the only one present to realise the whole ingenuity of
the manœuvre. For she had contrived here, in the open family circle,
before a dozen people, yet with entire meetness and propriety, to address
Mr. Weaverly by his Christian name.
As the meal progressed, and tongues became generally loosened, Mr.
Parrett—whose silence, except as regarded his hearty application to his
food, had so far remained unbroken—now essayed to contribute his share of
the talk. His first effort was a startling one.
‘D-d-d’ he began, smiling over his shoulder at me, ‘d-do you l-l-l—’ He
stopped, and gazed helplessly towards his wife.
‘Like, dear?’ suggested Mrs. Parrett, softly.
‘N-no! I was agoing t-t-to ask ye if ye l-l-l—’
‘Lend, then?’
‘Hur, hur! Emma, I don’t want to b-b-borrow nauthin’ o’ the gentleman!
It was just to ask if he l-l-lived—there y’ are!—in W-w-w— Whatsay,
Jane?’
‘’Tis apple-pie, George. Or maybe ye’d sooner try the—’
‘Pie, Jane! Pie, my d-dear! Pie, if _you_ please, mum! An’ a double
dose o’ sh-sh-shuggar. They allers says—don’t they, sir?—as if a man has
a sweet-t-t-t—’
‘Sweetheart, dear?’
‘Oo, ay!’ laughed Mr. Parrett, suddenly inspired. He looked across the
table roguishly at Mr. Weaverly and Matilda, and all glances followed
his. ‘Ah, well: n-n-never mind! We was all young once, and—’
Mrs. Coles deftly drew the fire of attention away from the absorbed,
unconscious pair.
‘William, dear; Emma has nothing in her glass. And there you sit,
staring at the cheese as if—as if it were only for show, and as wooden as
you are! And do pray pass the old ale to Mr.—’
‘Oh, deplorably, deplorably so!’ sighed Mr. Weaverly to the rapt Matilda.
‘Over and over again I have remonstrated with her, but all in vain, I
fear. Each time I have said, “Mrs. Gates, if you will feed little
children on new hot bread, and red herrings, and”—only think of
it!—“beer, you will find not only their physical but their moral nature
entirely—”’
It is strange how, in a room full of heterogeneous talk, the attention of
a quiet listener flits uncontrollably from one quarter to another. Much
as I was interested in Mrs. Gates’s domestic policy, I lost it here, to
find myself in the rick-yard, taking part, against my will, in some
complicated sporting affray.
‘And there were three of them, father, in the trough; and I crept up and
got the gun-barrel through a hole in the side of the sty, and just as the
old buck-rat—’
And then it was Mr. Parrett again.
‘Emma ’ull tell ye b-b-better ’n me, Jane. It came hoot-tooting round
the corner, and afore I could s-s-s—’
‘Stop, George?’
‘N-n-nonsense!—afore I could s-s-s—’
‘Seize hold o’ the—?’
‘Emma, do bide quiet!—afore I could s-s-say Jack Robinson, the ould mare,
she b-b-backed upon her harnches, and she—’
And from Miss Matilda:
‘Oh! I should so love to, Mr. Weaverly! Is there a very beautiful view?
And could we walk there and back in an afternoon, do you think?’
And from Farmer Coles, folding up his napkin: ‘Well, if no one wunt have
no more—’
The rest was lost in the rustle of Mrs. Coles’s skirts, as she uprose.
‘And now, William dear, I think we ladies will leave you to your smoke.
And when you are quite ready, we will have a rubber and a little music.’
In the drawing-room presently, the farmer and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs.
Parrett, sat down to a solemn, silent game of whist. A ‘Happy Family’
party made a vortex of merriment in a far corner. At the piano stood Mr.
Weaverly, translating into soft melodious trifles such songs as ‘The
Wolf’ and ‘Hearts of Oak.’ As for me, I was happy in the great chair
with the family portrait album, full of early Victorian photographs,
which I sincerely believe to be amongst the most fascinating and
informing productions of all that fertile reign. But after an hour of
this inspiring occupation, I was suddenly roused to the contemplation of
a still greater wonder. One of the card-players had spoken, and that
sharply.
‘Emma! Emma, my dear!’
I strolled over, and watched the play. Something had happened to disturb
Mr. Parrett, for though his face was turned from me, I could see that his
bald head had taken on a purple hue. And gradually, as the game
progressed, the mystery became clear.
‘Emma, my d-d-_dear_! Emma!’
It was Mr. Parrett’s voice again, and this time with a sharper ring of
warning and remonstrance. Two or three times in the next half-hour he
spoke thus, and each time now I was able to detect the cause. Mrs.
Parrett was cheating. Continually her neck craned for a sidelong view of
her opponents’ cards. She revoked unblushingly. Once I could have sworn
I saw a card-corner sticking out of a fold in her silken lap. The aces
she seemed to be trying to mark with her thumb-nail. And all the time,
though Mr. Parrett got momentarily redder and more wrathful, Farmer Coles
and his wife sat serenely smiling, evidently well used to dear Emma and
her little harmless, eccentric ways.