Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written
or formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably
acted upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized,
we must remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may
think proper to lead; to back out of an expedition because the end of
it frowns dubious, and the present fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a
comrade on the road, and return home without him: these are tricks
which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let him come to any
description of mortal grief in consequence. Better so than have his own
conscience denouncing him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are
not troubled by this conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their
fellows have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as
haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and
the result, if the probation be not very severe and searching, is the
same. The leader can rely on the faithfulness of his host: the comrade
is sworn to serve. Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal. The idea
of turning off and forsaking his friend never once crossed his mind,
though his condition was desperate, and his friend’s behaviour that of
a Bedlamite. He announced several times impatiently that they would be
too late for dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner seemed nothing to
him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old dog’s nose, as if
incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger was. Ripton took
half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung himself down beside
the taciturn boy, accepting his fate.
Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower
from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in the
lane behind the hedge where the boys reclined. One was a travelling
tinker, who lit a pipe and spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a
burly young countryman, pipeless and tentless. They saluted with a nod,
and began recounting for each other’s benefit the daylong-doings of the
weather, as it had affected their individual experience and followed
their prophecies. Both had anticipated and foretold a bit of rain
before night, and therefore both welcomed the wet with satisfaction. A
monotonous betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony
with the still hum of the air. From the weather theme they fell upon
the blessings of tobacco; how it was the poor man’s friend, his
company, his consolation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first
thought in the morning.
“Better than a wife!” chuckled the tinker. “No curtain-lecturin’ with a
pipe. Your pipe an’t a shrew.”
“That be it!” the other chimed in. “Your pipe doan’t mak’ ye out wi’
all the cash Saturday evenin’.”
“Take one,” said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment, handing a
grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough filled from the tinker’s pouch, and
continued his praises.
“Penny a day, and there y’are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, ha!”
“And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,”
added tinker.
“So ye can!” Speed-the-Plough took him up. “And ye doan’t want for to.
Leastways, t’other case. I means pipe.”
“And,” continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, “it don’t bring
repentance after it.”
“Not nohow, master, it doan’t! And”—Speed-the-Plough cocked his eye—“it
doan’t eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan’t.”
Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher, which
the tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up the subject
by saying the best thing that could be said, the two smoked for some
time in silence to the drip and patter of the shower.
Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar
hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her,
every now and then, as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation;
and he thought that a curious sight. Speed-the-Plough was stretched at
full length, with his boots in the rain, and his head amidst the
tinker’s pots, smoking, profoundly contemplative. The minutes seemed to
be taken up alternately by the grey puffs from their mouths.
It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, “Times is bad!”
His companion assented, “Sure-ly!”
“But it somehow comes round right,” resumed the tinker. “Why, look
here. Where’s the good o’ moping? I sees it all come round right and
tight. Now I travels about. I’ve got my beat. ’Casion calls me t’other
day to Newcastle!—Eh?”
“Coals!” ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously.
“Coals!” echoed the tinker. “You ask what I goes there for, mayhap?
Never you mind. One sees a mort o’ life in my trade. Not for coals it
isn’t. And I don’t carry ’em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes back.
London’s my mark. Says I, I’ll see a bit o’ the sea, and steps aboard a
collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul.”
“—A—who’s him?” the other wished to know.
“Read your Bible,” said the tinker. “We pitched and tossed—’tain’t that
game at sea ’tis on land, I can tell ye! I thinks, down we’re
a-going—say your prayers, Bob Tiles! That was a night, to be sure! But
God’s above the devil, and here I am, ye see.” Speed-the-Plough lurched
round on his elbow and regarded him indifferently. “D’ye call that
doctrin’? He bean’t al’ays, or I shoo’n’t be scrapin’ my heels wi’
nothin’ to do, and, what’s warse, nothin’ to eat. Why, look heer.
Luck’s luck, and bad luck’s the con-trary. Varmer Bollop, t’other day,
has’s rick burnt down. Next night his gran’ry’s burnt. What do he tak’
and go and do? He takes and goes and hangs unsel’, and turns us out of
his employ. God warn’t above the devil then, I thinks, or I can’t make
out the reckonin’.”
The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case.
“And a darn’d bad case. I’ll tak’ my oath on’t!” cried
Speed-the-Plough. “Well, look heer! Heer’s another darn’d bad case. I
threshed for Varmer Blaize Blaize o’ Beltharpe afore I goes to Varmer
Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He swears our chaps steals
pilkins. ’Twarn’t me steals ’em. What do he tak’ and go and do? He
takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to scuffle about
and starve, for all he keers. God warn’t above the devil then, I
thinks. Not nohow, as I can see!”
The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also.
“And you can’t mend it,” added Speed-the-Plough. “It’s bad, and there
it be. But I’ll tell ye what, master. Bad wants payin’ for.” He nodded
and winked mysteriously. “Bad has its wages as well’s honest work, I’m
thinkin’. Varmer Bollop I don’t owe no grudge to: Varmer Blaize I do.
And I shud like to stick a Lucifer in his rick some dry windy night.”
Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye villainously. “He wants hittin’ in
the wind,—jest where the pocket is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and he’ll
cry out ‘O Lor’!’ Varmer Blaize will. You won’t get the better o’
Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes out, if ye doan’t hit into him
jest there.”
The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth, and
said that would be taking the devil’s side of a bad case.
Speed-the-Plough observed energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was on
the other, he should be on that side.
There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with him. The hope of
Raynham had lent a careless half-compelled attention to the foregoing
dialogue, wherein a common labourer and a travelling tinker had
propounded and discussed one of the most ancient theories of
transmundane dominion and influence on mundane affairs. He now started
to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge, calling out for
one of them to direct them the nearest road to Bursley. The tinker was
kindling preparations for his tea, under the tawny umbrella. A loaf was
set forth, on which Ripton’s eyes, stuck in the edge, fastened
ravenously. Speed-the-Plough volunteered information that Bursley was a
good three mile from where they stood, and a good eight mile from
Lobourne.
“I’ll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow,” said
Richard to the tinker.
“It’s a bargain;” quoth the tinker, “eh, missus?”
His cat replied by humping her back at the dog.
The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded in
freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared the
loaf.
“Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake,” said the tinker to
his companion. “Come! we’ll to Bursley after ’em, and talk it out over
a pot o’ beer.” Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and in a short time
they were following the two lads on the road to Bursley, while a
horizontal blaze shot across the autumn and from the Western edge of
the rain-cloud.