When Hazel got in, her father had finished his breakfast and was busy
at work.
'Brought the wreath-frames?' he asked, without looking up.
'Ah.'
'He's jead at last. At the turn of the night. They came after the
coffin but now. I'll be able to get them there new section crates I
wanted. He's doing more for me, wanting a coffin, and him stiff and
cold, than what he did in the heat of life.'
'Many folks be like that,' said Hazel out of her new wisdom. Neither of
them reflected that Abel had always been like that towards Hazel, that
she was becoming more like it to him every year.
Abel made no remark at all about Hazel's adventures, and she preserved
a discreet silence.
'That little vixen's took a chicken,' said Abel, after a time; 'that's
the second.'
'She only does it when I'm away, being clemmed,' said Hazel pleadingly.
'Well, if she does it again,' Abel announced, 'it's the water and a
stone round her neck. So now you know.'
'You durstn't.'
'We'll see if I durst.'
Hazel fled in tears to the unrepentant and dignified Foxy. Some of us
find it hard enough to be dignified when we have done right; but Foxy
could be dignified when she had done wrong, and the more wrong, the
more dignity.
She was very bland, and there was a look of deep content--digestive
content, a state bordering on the mystic's trance--in her affectionate
topaz eyes.
It had been a tender and nourishing chicken; the hours she had spent in
gnawing through her rope had been well repaid.
'Oh! you darlin' wicked little thing!' wailed Hazel. 'You munna do it,
Foxy, or he'll drown you dead. What for did you do it, Foxy, my dear?'
Foxy's eyes became more eloquent and more liquid.
'You gallus little blessed!' said Hazel again. 'Eh! I wish you and me
could live all alone by our lonesome where there was no men and women.'
Foxy shut her eyes and yawned, evidently feeling doubtful if such a
halcyon place existed in the world.
Hazel sat on her heels and thought. It was flight or Foxy. She knew
that if she did not take Foxy away, her renewed naughtiness was as
certain as sunset.
'You was made bad,' she said sadly but sympathetically. 'Leastways, you
wasn't made like watch-dogs and house-cats and cows. You was made a
fox, and you be a fox, and its queer-like to me, Foxy, as folk canna
see that. They expect you to be what you wanna made to be. You'm made
to be a fox; and when you'm busy being a fox they say you'm a sinner!'
Having wrestled with philosophy until Foxy yawned again, Hazel went in
to try her proposition on Abel. But Abel met it as the world in general
usually meets a new truth.
'She took the chick,' he said. 'Now, would a tarrier do that--a
well-trained tarrier? I says 'e would _not_'
'But it inna fair to make the same law for foxes and terriers.'
'I make what laws suit me,' said Abel. 'And what goes agen me--gets
drownded.'
'But it inna all for you!' cried Hazel.
'Eh?'
'The world wunna made in seven days only for Abel Woodus,' said Hazel
daringly.
'You've come back very peart from Silverton,' said Abel reflectively--
'very peart, you 'ave. How many young fellers told you your 'air was
abron this time? That fool Albert said so last time, and you were
neither to hold nor to bind. Abron! Carrots!'
But it was not, as he thought, this climax that silenced Hazel. It was
the lucky hit about the young fellows and the reminiscence called up by
the word 'abron.' He continued his advantage, mollified by victory.
'Tell you what it is, 'Azel; it's time you was married. You're too
uppish.'
'I shall ne'er get married.'
'Words! words! You'll take the first as comes--if there's ever such a
fool.'
Hazel wished she could tell him that one had asked her, and that no
labouring man. But discretion triumphed.
'Maybe,' she said tossing her head, 'I _will_ marry, to get away
from the Callow.'
'Well, well, things couldna be dirtier; maybe they'll be cleaner when
you'm gone. Look's the floor!'
Hazel fell into a rage. He was always saying things about the floor.
She hated the floor.
'I swear I'll wed the first as comes!' she cried--'the very first!'
'And last,' put in Abel. 'What'll you swear by?'
'By God's Little Mountain.'
'Well,' said Abel contentedly, 'now you've sworn _that_ oath,
you're bound to keep it, and so now I know that if ever an 'usband
_does_ come forrard you canna play the fool.'
Hazel was too wrathful for consideration.
'You look right tidy in that gownd,' Abel said. 'I 'spose you'll be
wearing it to the meeting up at the Mountain?'
'What meeting?'
'Didna I tell you I'd promised you for it--to sing? They'm after me to
take the music and play.'
Hazel forgot everything in delight.
'Be we going for certain sure?' she asked.
'Ah! Next Monday three weeks.'
'We mun practise.'
'They say that minister's a great one for the music. One of them sort
as is that musical he canna play. There'll be a tea.'
'Eh!' said Hazel, 'it'll be grand to be in a gentleman's house agen!'
'When've you bin in a gentleman's house?'
Hazel was taken aback.
'Yesterday!' she flashed. 'If Albert inna a gent I dunno who is, for
he's got a watch-chain brass-mockin'-gold all across his wescoat.'
Abel roared. Then he fell to in earnest on the coffin, whistling like a
blackbird. Hazel sat down and watched him, resting her cheek on her
hand. The cold snowlight struck on her face wanly.
'Dunna you ever think, making coffins for poor souls to rest in as inna
tired, as there's a tree growing somewhere for yours?' she asked.
'Laws! What's took you? Measles? What for should I think of me coffin?
That's about the only thing as I'll ne'er be bound to pay for.' He
laughed. 'What ails you?'
'Nought. Only last night it came o'er me as I'll die as well as
others.'
'Well, have you only just found that out? Laws! what a queen of fools
you be!'
Hazel looked at the narrow box, and thought of the active, angular old
man for whom it was now considered an ample house.
'It seems like the world's a big spring-trap, and us in it,' she said
slowly. Then she sprang up feverishly. 'Let's practise till we're as
hoarse as a young rook!' she cried.
So amid the hammering their voices sprang up, like two keen flames.
Then Abel threw away the hammer and began to harp madly, till the
little shanty throbbed with the sound of the wires and the lament of
the voices that rose and fell with artless cunning. The cottage was
like a tree full of thrushes.
After their twelve o'clock dinner, Abel cut holly for the wreaths, and
Hazel began to make them. For the first time home seemed dull. She
thought wistfully of the green silk dress and the supper in the old,
stately room. She thought of Vessons, and of Reddin's eyes as he pulled
her back from the door. She thought of Undern as a refuge for Foxy.
'Maybe sometime I'll go and see 'em,' she thought.
She went to the door and looked out. Frost tingled in the air; icicles
had formed round the water-butt; the strange humming stillness of
intense cold was about her. It froze her desire for adventure.
'I'll stay as I be,' she thought. 'I wunna be his'n.'
To her, Reddin was a terror and a fascination. She returned to the
prickly wreath, sewing on the variegated holly-leaves one by one, with
clusters of berries at intervals.
'What good'll it do 'im?' she asked; 'he canna see it.'
'Who wants him to see it?' Abel was amused. 'When his father died he
'ad his enjoyment--proud as proud was Samson, for there were seven
wreaths, no less.'
Hazel's thoughts returned to the coming festivity. Her hair and her
peacock-blue dress would be admired. To be admired was a wonderful new
sensation. She fetched a cloth and rubbed at the brown mark. It would
not come out. As long as she wore the dress it would be there, like the
stigma of pain that all creatures bear as long as they wear the garment
of the flesh.
At last she burst into tears.
'I want another dress with no blood on it!' she wailed. And so wailing
she voiced the deep lament, old as the moan of forests and falling
water, that goes up through the centuries to the aloof and silent sky,
and remains, as ever, unassuaged.
* * * * *
Hazel hated a burying, for then she had to go with Abel to help in
carrying the coffin to the house of mourning. They set out on the
second day after her return. The steep road down to the plain--called
the Monkey's Ladder--was a river, for a thaw had set in. But Hazel did
not mind that, though her boots let in the water, as she minded the
atmosphere of gloom at old Samson's blind house. She would never, as
Abel always did, 'view the corpse,' and this was always taken as an
insult. So she waited in the road, half snow and half water, and
thought with regret of Undern and its great fire of logs, and the green
rich dress, and Reddin with his force and virility, loud voice, and
strong teeth. He was so very much alive in a world where old men would
keep dying.
Abel came out at last, very gay, for he had been given, over and above
the usual payment, glove-money and a glass of beer.
'Us'll get a drop at the public,' he said.
So they turned in there. Hazel thought the red-curtained, firelit room,
with its crudely coloured jugs and mugs, a most wonderful place. She
sat in a corner of the settle and watched her boots steam, growing very
sleepy. But suddenly there was a great clatter outside, the sound of a
horse, pulled up sharply, slipping on the cobbles, and a shout for the
landlord.
'Oh, my mortal life!' said Hazel, 'it met be the Black Huntsman
himself.'
'No, I won't come in,' said the rider, 'a glass out here.'
Hazel knew who it was.
'Can you tell me,' he went on, 'if there's any young lady about here
with auburn hair? Father plays the fiddle.'
'He's got it wrong,' thought Hazel.
'Young lady!' repeated the landlord. 'Hawburn? No, there's no lady of
that colour hereabouts. And what ladies there be are weathered and
case-hardened.'
'The one I'm looking for's young--young as a kitten, and as
troublesome.'
Hazel clapped her hands to her mouth.
'There's no fiddler chap hereabouts, then?'
Abel rose and went to the door.
'If it's music you want, I know better music than fiddles, and
that's harps,' he said. 'Saw! saw! The only time as ever I liked
a fiddle was when the fellow snabbed at the strings with his ten
fingers--despert-like.'
'Oh, damn you!' said Reddin. 'I didn't come to hear about harps.'
'If it's funerals or a forester's supper, a concert or a wedding,' Abel
went on, quite undaunted, 'I'm your man.'
Reddin laughed.
'It might be the last,' he said.
'Wedding or bedding, either or both, I suppose,' said the publican, who
was counted a wit.
Reddin gave a great roar of laughter.
'Both!' he said.
'Neither!' whispered Hazel, who had been poised indecisively, as if
half prepared to go to the door. She sat further into the shadow. In
another moment he was gone.
'Whoever she be,' said the publican, nodding his large head wisely,
'have her he will, for certain sure!'
All through the night, murmurous with little rivulets of snow-water,
the gurgling of full troughing, and the patter of rain on the iron roof
of the house and the miniature roofs of the beehives, Hazel, waking
from uneasy slumber, heard those words and muttered them.
In her frightened dreams she reached out to something that she felt
must be beyond the pleasant sound of falling water, so small and
transitory; beyond the drip and patter of human destinies--something
vast, solitary, and silent. How should she find that which none has
ever named or known? Men only stammer of it in such words as Eternity,
Fate, God. All the outcries of all creatures, living and dying, sink in
its depth as in an unsounded ocean. Whether this listening silence,
incurious, yet hearing all, is benignant or malevolent, who can say?
The wistful dreams of men haunt this theme for ever; the creeds of men
are so many keys that do not fit the lock. We ponder it in our hearts,
and some find peace, and some find terror. The silence presses upon us
ever more heavily until Death comes with his cajoling voice and
promises us the key. Then we run after him into the stillness, and are
heard no more.
Hazel and her father practised hard through the dark, wet evenings. She
was to sing 'Harps in Heaven,' a song her mother had taught her. He was
to accompany the choir, or glee-party, that met together at different
places, coming from the villages and hillsides of a wide stretch of
country.
'Well,' said Abel on the morning of their final rehearsal, 'it's a
miserable bit of a silly song, but you mun make the best of it. Give it
voice, girl! Dunna go to sing it like a mouse in milk!'
His musical taste was offended by Hazel's way of being more dramatic
than musical. She would sink her voice in the sad parts almost to a
whisper, and then rise to a kind of keen.
'You'm like nought but Owen's old sheep-dog,' he said, 'wowing the
moon!'
But Hazel's idea of music continued to be that of a bird. She was a
wild thing, and she sang according to instinct, and not by rule, though
her good ear kept her notes true.
They set out early, for they had a good walk in front of them, and the
April sun was hot. Hazel, under the pale green larch-trees, in her
bright dress, with her crown of tawny hair, seemed to be an incarnation
of the secret woods.
Abel strode ahead in his black cut-away coat, snuff-coloured trousers,
and high-crowned felt hat with its ornamental band. This receded to the
back of his head as he grew hotter. The harp was slung from his
shoulder, the gilding looking tawdry in the open day. Twice during the
walk, once in a round clearing fringed with birches, and once in a
pine-glade, he stopped, put the harp down and played, sitting on a
felled tree. Hazel, quite intoxicated with excitement, danced between
the slender boles till her hair fell down and the long plait swung
against her shoulder.
'If folks came by, maybe they'd think I was a fairy!' she cried.
'Dunna kick about so!' said Abel, emerging from his abstraction. 'It
inna decent, now you're an 'ooman growd.'
'I'm not an 'ooman growd!' cried Hazel shrilly. 'I dunna want to be,
and I won't never be.'
The pine-tops bent in the wind like attentive heads, as gods, sitting
stately above, might nod thoughtfully over a human destiny. Someone, it
almost seemed, had heard and registered Hazel's cry, 'I'll never be an
'ooman,' assenting, sardonic.
They came to the quarry at the mountain; the deserted mounds and chasms
looked more desolate than ever in the spring world. Here and there the
leaves of a young tree lipped the grey-white steeps, as if wistfully
trying to love them, as a child tries to caress a forbidding parent.
They climbed round the larger heaps and skirted a precipitous place.
'I canna bear this place,' said Hazel; 'it's so drodsome.'
'Awhile since, afore you were born, a cow fell down that there place,
hundreds of feet.'
'Did they save her?'
'Laws, no! She was all of a jelly.'
Hazel broke out with sudden passionate crying. 'Oh, dunna, dunna!' she
sobbed. So she did always at any mention of helpless suffering,
flinging herself down in wild rebellion and abandonment so that
epilepsy had been suspected. But it was not epilepsy. It was pity. She,
in her inexpressive, childish way, shared with the love-martyr of
Galilee the heartrending capacity for imaginative sympathy. In common
with Him and others of her kind, she was not only acquainted with
grief, but reviled and rejected. In her schooldays boys brought maimed
frogs and threw them in her lap, to watch, from a safe distance, her
almost crazy grief and rage.
'Whatever's come o'er ye?' said her father now. 'You're too nesh,
that's what you be, nesh-spirited.'
He could not understand; for the art in him was not that warm,
suffering thing, creation, but hard, brightly polished talent.
Hazel stood at the edge of the steep grey cliff, her hands folded, a
curious fatalism in her eyes.
'There'll be summat bad'll come to me hereabouts,' she said--'summat
bad and awful.'
The dark shadows lying so still on the dirty white mounds had a
stealthy, crouching look, and the large soft leaves of a plane-tree
flapped helplessly against the shale with the air of important people
who whisper 'Alas!'
Abel was on ahead. Suddenly he turned round, excited as a boy.
'They've started!' he cried. 'Hark at the music! They allus begin with
the organ.'
Hazel followed him, eager for joy, running obedient and hopeful at the
heels of life as a young lamb runs with its mother. She forgot her dark
intuitions; she only remembered that she wanted to enjoy herself, and
that if she was a good girl, surely, surely God would let her.