THE SWING OF THE PICKAXE.
The baker's boy felt that his luck was askew upon this day of his
existence, for Carrier Cripps was vexed so much at this sudden demand
for his sister that he never even thought of asking the boy to have a
glass of home-brewed ale.
"Zak, what made you send the boy away?" Esther asked, when she came
downstairs, with her bonnet and short cloak on. "Of course, I am very
foolish; but he would have been some little company."
"There, now, I never thought of it! I am doiled, a do believe,
sometimes. Tramp with you to the Bar mysell, I wull. Sarve me right
for a-doin' of it."
"Indeed, then, you won't," she answered firmly. "There's a hard day's
work for you, Zak, to-morrow, with all the Christmas parcels, and your
touch of rheumatics so bad last week."
"Why, bless the cheeld, I be as hearty as ever!"
"Of course you are, Zak; of course you are, and think nought of a sack
of potatoes. But if you declare to come with me one step, backward is
the only step I take."
"Well, well," said the Carrier, glad on the whole to escape a long
walk and keep conscience clear; "when you say a thing, Etty, what good
is it? Round these here parts none would harm 'ee. And none of they
furriners be about just now."
"Good-night, Zak, good-night, dear," cried Esther, to shorten
departure, for Cripps was a man of a slow turn of mind, and might go
on for an hour or two; "I shall sleep there to-night, of course, and
meet you at the Golden Cross to-morrow. When had I best be there?"
"Well, you know better than I do. It might be one o'clock, or it might
be two, or it might be half-past three a'most. All you have to do is
this--to leave word at the bar with Sally Brown."
"I shall do nothing of the sort," she answered; "I don't like bars,
and I don't like Miss Brown. I shall look in the yard for the cart,
brother."
"You'll do pretty much as you like. That much a may be cock-sure of."
But before he could finish his exposition of his sister's character,
she was out of sight; and he dropped his grumble, and doubted his mind
about letting her go. Nor that any one at all of the neighbourhood
would hurt her; but that there had been much talk about a camp of
dark-skinned people in Cowley Marsh, not long ago. Therefore he laid
his palm flat from his eyebrows, to follow the distance further; and
seeing no more than the hedges of the lane (now growing in the cold
wind naked) and the track of the lane (from wet mud slaking into
light-coloured crustiness), without any figures, or sound, or shadow,
or sense of life moving anywhere--he made for the best side of his
cottage-door, and brightened up the firelight.
The weather had been for some few weeks in a good constitutional
English state; that is to say, it had no settled tendency towards
anything. Or at any rate, so it seemed to people who took little heed
of it. There had been a little rain, and then a little snow, and a
touch of frost, and then a sample of fog, and so on: trying all
varieties, to suit the British public. True Britons, however, had
grumbled duly at each successive overture; so that the winter was now
resolving henceforth only to please itself. And this determined will
was in the wind, the air, and the earth itself, just when night began
to fall on this dark day of December.
As Esther turned the corner from the Beckley lane into the road, the
broad coach road to Oxford, she met a wind that knew its mind coming
over the crest of Shotover, a stern east wind that whistled sadly over
the brown and barren fields, and bitterly piped in the roadway. To the
chill of this blast the sere oak-leaves shivered in the dusk and
rattled; the grey ash saplings bent their naked length to get away
from it; and the surly stubs of the hedge went to and fro to one
another. The slimy dips of the path began to rib themselves, like the
fronds of fern, and to shrink into wrinkles and sinewy knobs; while
the broader puddles, though skirred by the breeze, found the network
of ice veiling over them. This, as it crusted, began to be capable of
a consistent quivering, with a frail infinitude of spikelets, crossing
and yet carrying into one another. And the cold work (marred every now
and then by the hurry of the wind that urged it) in the main was going
on so fast, that the face of the water ceased to glisten, and instead
of ruffling lifted, and instead of waving wavered. So that, as the
surface trembled, any level eye might see little splinters (held as
are the ribs and harl of feathers) spreading, and rising like stems of
lace, and then with a smooth, crisp jostle sinking, as the wind flew
over them, into the quavering consistence of a coverlet of ice.
Esther Cripps took little heed of these things, or of any other in the
matter of weather, except to say to herself now and then how bitter
cold the wind was, and that she feared it would turn to snow, and how
she longed to be sitting with a cup of "Aunt Exie's" caudle in the
snug room next to the bakehouse, or how glad she would be to get only
as far as the first house of St. Clement's, to see the lamps and the
lights in the shops, and be quit of this dreary loneliness. For now it
must be three market days since fearful rumours began to stir in
several neighbouring villages, which made even strong men discontent
with solitude towards nightfall; and as for the women--just now poor
Esther would rather not think of what they declared. It was all very
well to pretend to doubt it while hanging the clothes out, or turning
the mangle; but as for laughing out here in the dark, and a mile away
from the nearest house--Good Lord! How that white owl frightened her!
Being a sensible and brave girl, she forced her mind as well as she
could into another channel, and lifted the cover of the basket in
which she had some nice things for "Aunt Exie," and then she set off
for a bold little run, until she was out of breath, and trembling at
the sound of her own light feet. For though all the Crippses were
known to be of a firm and resolute fibre, who could expect a young
maid like this to tramp on like a Roman sentinel?
And a lucky thing for her it was that she tried nothing of the sort,
but glided along with her heart in her mouth, and her short skirt
tucked up round her. Lucky also for her that the ground (which she so
little heeded, and so wanted to get over) was in that early stage of
freezing, or of drying to forestall frost, in which it deadens sound
as much as the later stage enlivens it, otherwise it is doubtful
whether she would have seen the Christmas-dressing of the shops in
Oxford.
For, a little further on, she came, without so much as a cow in the
road or a sheep in a field for company, to a dark narrow place, where
the way hung over the verge of a stony hollow, an ancient pit which
had once been worked as part of the quarries of Headington. This had
long been of bad repute as a haunted and ill-omened place; and even
the Carrier himself, strong and resolute as he was, felt no shame in
whispering when he passed by in the moonlight. And the name of the
place was the "Gipsy's Grave." Therefore, as Esther Cripps approached
it, she was half inclined to wait and hide herself in a bush or gap
until a cart or waggon should come down the hill behind her, or an
honest dairyman whistling softly to reassure his shadow, or even a
woman no braver than herself.
But neither any cart came near, nor any other kind of company, only
the violence of the wind, and the keen increase of the frost-bite. So
that the girl made up her mind to put the best foot foremost, and run
through her terrors at such a pace that none of them could lay hold of
her.
Through yards of darkness she skimmed the ground, in haste only to be
rid of it, without looking forward, or over her shoulders, or
anywhere, when she could help it. And now she was ready to laugh at
herself and her stupid fears, as she caught through the trees a
glimpse of the lights of Oxford, down in the low land, scarcely more
than a mile and a half away from her. In the joy of relief she was
ready to jump and pant without fear of the echoes, when suddenly
something caught her ears.
This was not a thing at first to be at all afraid of, but only just
enough to rouse a little curiosity. It seemed to be nothing more nor
less than the steady stroke of a pickaxe. The sound came from the
further corner of the deserted quarry, where a crest of soft and
shingly rock overhung a briary thicket. Any person working there would
be quite out of sight from the road, by reason of the bend of the
hollow.
The blow of the tool came dull and heavy on the dark and frosty wind;
and Esther almost made up her mind to run on, and take no heed of it.
And so she would have done, no doubt, if she had not been a Cripps
girl. But in this family firm and settled opinions had been handed
down concerning the rights of property--the rights that overcome all
wrongs, and outlive death. The brother Leviticus of Stow Wood had sown
a piece of waste at the corner of the clevice with winter carrots for
his herd of swine. The land being none of his thus far, his right so
to treat it was not established, and therefore likely to be attacked
by any rapacious encroacher. Esther felt all such things keenly, and
resolved to find out what was going on.
To this intent she gathered in the skirt of her frock and the fulling
of her cloak, and fending the twigs from her eyes and bonnet, quietly
slipped through a gap in the hedge. For she knew that a steep track,
trodden by children in the blackberry season, led from this gap to the
deep and tangled bottom of the quarry. With care and fear she went
softly down, and followed the curve of the hollow.
The heavy sound of the pickaxe ceased, as she came near and nearer,
and the muttering of rough voices made her shrink into a nook and
listen.
"Tell 'ee, I did see zummat moving," said a man, whom she could dimly
make out on the beetling ridge above her, by the light of the clearing
eastern sky; "a zummat moving down yonner, I tell 'ee."
"No patience, I han't no patience with 'ee," answered a taller man
coming forward, and speaking with a guttural twang, as if the roof of
his mouth were imperfect. "Skeary Jem is your name and nature. Give me
the pick if thee beest aveared. Is this job to be finished to-night,
or not?"
The answer was only a growl or an oath, and the swing of the tool
began again, while Esther's fright grew hot, and thumped in her heart,
and made her throat swell. It was all she could do to keep quiet
breath, and prevent herself from screaming; for something told her
that she was watching a darker crime than theft of roots or robbery of
a sheepfold.
In a short or a long time--she knew not which--as she still lay hid
and dared not show her face above the gorse-tuft, a sound of sliding
and falling shale heavily shook her refuge. She drew herself closer,
and prayed to the Lord, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and
cowered, expecting to be killed at least. And then she peeped forth,
to know what it was about. She never had harmed any mortal body; why
should she be frightened so?
In the catch of the breath which comes when sudden courage makes gulp
at uncertainty, she lifted herself by a stiff old root, to know the
very worst of it. Better almost to be killed and be done with, than
bear the heart-pang of this terrible fear. And there she saw a thing
that struck her so aback with amazement, that every timid sense was
mute.
Whether the sky began to shed a hovering light, or the girl's own eyes
spread and bred a power of vision from their nervous dilation--at any
rate, she saw in the darkness what she had not seen till now. It was
the body of a young woman (such a body as herself might be), lying,
only with white things round it, in the black corner, with gravel and
earth and pieces of rock rolling down on it. There was nothing to
frighten a sensible person now that the worst was known perhaps.
Everybody must be buried at some time. Why should she be frightened
so?
However, Esther Cripps fell faint, and lay in that state long enough
for tons of burying rock to fall, and secret buryers to depart.