An old yellow van--the _Comet_--came jolting along the edge of the
downs and shaking its occupants together like peas in a bladder. The
bride and bridegroom did not mind this much; but the Registrar of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages, who had bound them in wedlock at the
Bible Christian Chapel two hours before, was discomforted by a pair
of tight boots, that nipped cruelly whenever he stuck out his feet to
keep his equilibrium.
Nevertheless, his mood was genial, for the young people had taken his
suggestion and acquired a copy of their certificate. This meant five
extra shillings in his pocket. Therefore, when the van drew up at
the cross-roads for him to alight, he wished them long life and a
multitude of children with quite a fatherly air.
"You can't guess where I'm bound for. It's to pay my old mother a
visit. Ah, family life's the pretty life--that ever _I_ should say
it!"
They saw no reason why he should be cynical, more than other men. And
the bride, in whose eyes this elderly gentleman with the tight boots
appeared a rosy winged Cupid, waved her handkerchief until the vehicle
had sidled round the hill, resembling in its progress a very infirm
crab in a hurry.
As a fact, the Registrar wore a silk hat, a suit of black
West-of-England broadcloth, a watch-chain made out of his dead wife's
hair, and two large seals that clashed together when he moved.
His face was wide and round, with a sanguine complexion, grey
side-whiskers, and a cicatrix across the chin. He had shaved in a
hurry that morning, for the wedding was early, and took place on the
extreme verge of his district. His is a beautiful office--recording
day by day the solemnest and most mysterious events in nature. Yet,
standing at the cross-roads, between down and woodland, under an April
sky full of sun and south-west wind, he threw the ugliest shadow in
the landscape.
The road towards the coast dipped--too steeply for tight boots--down a
wooded coombe, and he followed it, treading delicately. The hollow of
the V ahead, where the hills overlapped against the pale blue, was
powdered with a faint brown bloom, soon to be green--an infinity
of bursting buds. The larches stretched their arms upwards, as men
waking. The yellow was out on the gorse, with a heady scent like a
pineapple's, and between the bushes spread the grey film of coming
blue-bells. High up, the pines sighed along the ridge, turning paler;
and far down, where the brook ran, a mad duet was going on between
thrush and chaffinch--"_Cheer up, cheer up, Queen!" "Clip clip, clip,
and kiss me--Sweet_!"--one against the other.
Now, the behaviour of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages
changed as he descended the valley. At first he went from side to
side, because the loose stones were sharp and lay unevenly; soon he
zig-zagged for another purpose--to peer into the bank for violets, to
find a gap between the trees where, by bending down with a hand
on each knee and his head tilted back, he could see the primroses
stretching in broad sheets to the very edge of the pine-woods. By
frequent tilting his collar broke from its stud and his silk hat
settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and
loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip--his boots were too
tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"--he
muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the right, just here."
But he could not find it here--perhaps his memory misgave him--and
presently turned with decision, climbed the low fence on his left,
between him and the hollow of the coombe, and dropped into the
plantation on the other side. Here the ground was white in patches
with anemones; and as his feet crushed them, descending, the babel of
the birds grew louder and louder.
He issued on a small clearing by the edge of the brook, where the
grass was a delicate green, each blade pushing up straight as a
spear-point from the crumbled earth. Here were more anemones, between
patches of last year's bracken, and on the further slope a mass of
daffodils. He pulled out a pocket-knife that had sharpened some
hundreds of quill pens, and looking to his right, found what he wanted
at once.
It was a sycamore, on which the buds were swelling. He cut a small
twig, as big round as his middle finger, and sitting himself down on a
barked log, close by, began to measure and cut it to a span's length,
avoiding all knots. Then, taking the knife by the blade between finger
and thumb, he tapped the bark gently with the tortoise-shell handle.
And as he tapped, his face went back to boyhood again, in spite of the
side-whiskers, and his mouth was pursed up to a silent tune.
For ten minutes the tapping continued; the birds ceased their
contention, and broke out restlessly at intervals. A rabbit across
the brook paused and listened at the funnel-shaped mouth of his hole,
which caught the sound and redoubled it.
"Confound these boots!" said the Registrar, and pulling them off,
tossed them among the primroses. They were "elastic-sides."
The tapping ceased. A breath of the land-ward breeze came up, combing
out the tangle that winter had made in the grass, caught the brook on
the edge of a tiny fall, and puffed it back six inches in a spray of
small diamonds. It quickened the whole copse. The oak-saplings rubbed
their old leaves one on another, as folks rub their hands, feeling
life and warmth; the chestnut-buds groped like an infant's fingers;
and the chorus broke out again, the thrush leading--"_Tiurru, tiurru,
chippewee; tio-tee, tio-tee; queen, queen, que-een_!"
In a moment or two he broke off suddenly, and a honey-bee shot out
of an anemone-bell like a shell from a mortar. For a new sound
disconcerted them--a sound sharp and piercing. The Registrar had
finished his whistle and was blowing like mad, moving his fingers
up and down. Having proved his instrument, he dived a hand into his
tail-pocket and drew out a roll, tied around with ribbon. It was the
folded leather-bound volume in which he kept his blank certificates.
And spreading it on his knees, he took his whistle again and blew,
reading his music from the blank pages, and piping a strain he had
never dreamed of. For he whistled of Births and Marriages.
O, happy Registrar! O, happy, happy Registrar! You will never get into
those elastic-sides again. Your feet swell as they tap the swelling
earth, and at each tap the flowers push, the sap climbs, the speck of
life moves in the hedge-sparrow's egg; while, far away on the downs,
with each tap, the yellow van takes bride and groom a foot nearer
felicity. It is hard work in worsted socks, for you smite with the
vehemence of Pan, and Pan had a hoof of horn.
* * * * *
The Registrar's mother lived in the fishing-village, two miles down
the coombe. Her cottage leant back against the cliff so closely, that
the boys, as they followed the path above, could toss tabs of turf
down her chimney: and this was her chief annoyance.
Now, it was close on the dinner-hour, and she stood in her kitchen
beside a pot of stew that simmered over the wreck-wood fire.
Suddenly a great lump of earth and grass came bouncing down the
chimney, striking from side to side, and soused into the pot,
scattering the hot stew over the hearth-stone and splashing her from
head to foot.
Quick as thought, she caught up a besom and rushed out around the
corner of the cottage.
"You stinking young adders!" she began.
A big man stood on the slope above her.
"Mother, cuff my head, that's a dear. I couldn' help doin' it."
It was the elderly Registrar. His hat, collar, tie, and waistcoat were
awry; his boots were slung on the walking-stick over his shoulder;
stuck in his mouth and lit was a twist of root-fibre, such as country
boys use for lack of cigars, and he himself had used, forty years
before.
The old woman turned to an ash-colour, leant on her besom, and gasped.
"William Henry!"
"I'm not drunk, mother: been a Band of Hope these dozen years." He
stepped down the slope to her and bent his head low. "Box my ears,
mother, quick! You used to have a wonderful gift o' cuffin'."
"William Henry, I'm bound to do it or die."
"Then be quick about it."
Half-laughing, half-sobbing, she caught him a feeble cuff, and next
instant held him close to her old breast. The Registrar disengaged
himself after a minute, brushed his eyes, straightened his hat, picked
up the besom, and offered her his arm. They passed into the cottage
together.