THE MAGIAN CONFLICT
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 day-long 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
contrary. 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 hedge, 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 land from the
Western edge of the rain-cloud.