Conjuring Stone till the occasion came for its use. There were also there
two or three short lengths of firbole, whereof to make props for the
plank; as not only was Worden about to renew the old stand, but also to
extend it, to sustain additional hives; until wanted, the plank was at
Prue’s disposal, and she thus disposed it. She placed it across one of
the logs and endeavoured to play at see-saw on it. This could only be
effected by reducing the length of plank on her side to a couple of feet,
and giving the other side a considerable extent. But this did not answer
satisfactorily; it gave very little sway to the end on which Prue sat.
She therefore tried another experiment. She rolled a big stone on to the
farther end of the board, but here again the success was not great, as
the stone tumbled off.
So engaged was Prue in endeavouring to obtain a ride by circumventing
the difficulties that stood in her way, that she did not observe George
Kennaway as he approached; and he startled her into dropping from the
board when he said close to her, “You are a silly child. It takes two to
play at see-saw.”
“Then you sit at the other end,” said Prue, picking herself up. She
was flushed, and looked prettier than ever under the white cotton field
bonnet.
“Certainly,” said the lad, “but b’aint it rather child’s play?”
“I never had brothers and sisters to play see-saw with me,” explained she.
“And are you so terrible fond of it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried proper yet.”
“Come—you shall have a ride.”
So the young man sat at one end astride, and the girl at the other as on
a chair, and up and down they went. When he was aloft she was down, and
when she soared he was on the ground. She laughed for joy of heart—then
suddenly jumped off, and down in an ignominious, precipitate, and
ungraceful manner fell George, sprawling on the ground.
“I had forgot,” said Prue.
“I should think you had—to give me such a fall.”
“I don’t mean that—I mean the water.”
“What water?”
“Mother wanted the pitchers filled.”
“Immediately?”
“N—n—o, but I just remembered it, so sprang off.”
“And sent me down.”
“I am sorry—did I hurt you?”
“You might have hurt me badly.”
“Let me go fetch the water and then we’ll see-saw again.”
“But understand there must be two together—always, for that.”
The cottage was supplied from a well that was some sixty to eighty feet
below its level. From the oak and the Conjuring Stone a path descended
to an old excavation, very deep, and so overhung with trees, and so
limited in extent, that the sun never fell into it. At the bottom was
deep bottle-green water—how deep none knew, and in it lived—so it was
said—one enormous trout, too wary and well fed to allow himself to be
caught. The slate sides of this abyss were hung with moss and fern and
tendrils of creeping plants. A little way from this tremendous chasm, but
only a few feet higher than the water’s edge was a well, that is to say a
spring with the sides built up and a slab of slate covering it, in which
was the coolest, most crystalline water. This spring never failed in the
hottest summer, and its overflow trickled into the tarn that occupied the
ancient, deserted quarry. It was a long way to go to get water for all
requirements, but the water when got was most refreshing and delicious.
At least twice a day Prue had to descend to the well with empty pitchers,
and toil up the ascent with them laden.
“And mind this, Prue,” said her mother repeatedly, “never you go no
farther than the well, for the slate rock beyond by the water is that
slippy you might fall in, and none ever hear you cry out.”
The whole way down was so thick with crane’s-bill that the air was strong
with its geranium savour.
“No,” said George. “For once, Prue, I will fetch the water, and you bide
here.”
Then the young man caught up the brown pitchers and descended the path.
In ten minutes he was back with them brimming over.
“Now,” said Prue, “we will have another swing, only I will sit nearer the
middle. I do not want to have a bad fall.”
“Why should you have a bad fall?”
“You might punish me for giving you one.”
“I am not like to do that.”
“I had rather not trust you.”
So they swayed up and down.
Then said Prue: “Why do you sit nearer the middle than I?”
“Because I am three times as heavy as you and must make the balance
right.”
“It is still rather too much.”
“Then draw nearer.”
“But you will draw nearer still?”
“I must. I cannot help it. Now then—try how it feels in the middle.” He
put out his arm and drew her to the midst above the fulcrum, and there
they sat, side by side, gently rocking. The least displacement of balance
set them swaying.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” asked George.
“Beautiful,” answered Prue.
“And I don’t see,” said George, “why we shouldn’t see-saw for always
like this. I mean you and me together. It takes two, it does.”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. I have fifteen shillings a week, we might see-saw on that. And
I’ve got strong arms, and a good cottage, and a large garden. We might
see-saw on that. And—I love you with all my heart.”
“But is there to be see-saw in that?”
“None—fast as a nail. Will you?”
“Well, if it must be, it must.”
That is how it came about.
The banns had been called and the marriage day had arrived. The parson
was to be at the church at ten o’clock.
“Mother,” said Prue the evening before. “There is my white confirmation
gown and the veil the young ladies at the Hall gave me—I will wear that.”
“And you must have flowers.”
“Yes—white.”
Now it so fell out that just before the time came for going to church
Mrs. Worden exclaimed—
“Lor’ a mussy! The water be forgot. There ain’t a drop in the house, and
there’ll be folk coming, and there must be tea for some, and, I reckon,
gin and water for others, and there is all the washing up after, and,
dear life, one can get along without bread, but never without water.
Whatever shall I do?”
“I’ll run to the well with the pitchers.”
“But, Prue, you’m in your white dress.”
“I shall not stain it. It will not take me ten minutes.”
“I’d go myself but for my leg as is so bad,” said Mrs. Worden.
Then Prue caught up the pitchers and tripped away, past the old gnarled
oak and the Conjuring Rock, down the path to the old quarry pit.
Never shall I forget what ensued.
There was a cluster of people about the church gate. These were friends
ready to pelt with rice. The parson was in waiting. The bridegroom and
his best man had arrived. Prue had been a favourite at the Hall, and the
squire’s daughters were there, all smiles, and they had brought with them
a present which was to be put into Prue’s hand as she went blushing like
a June hedge-rose down the church avenue. And the ringers were all there,
without their coats, in the tower, waiting and not oblivious of the fact
that after a merry peal they would be called to the cottage to refresh
themselves.
The party waited, then became impatient. Some ran along the road to see
whether the bride were coming in sight. But all they saw was a child
running. Presently the child came up breathless. “Please—Mrs. Worden
says you’re all to come—something has happened. She’s in that state, she
couldn’t say all.” Still no suspicion of real evil occurred. Some little
misfortune perhaps.
“It’s Prue. It’s something to Prue,” gasped the child. Then the tidings
ran like lightning through all assembled. The last to hear it was
George Kennaway, who was in the church; but when he did hear he ran and
outstripped them all.
He first reached the cottage. Mrs. Worden was then in a condition of
terror and distress that almost bereft her of her senses.
“Prue—” she said, “went to the well—after water—my poor legs—I couldn’t
get down—but she went for the water—two pitchers. I—have—I——”
George Kennaway waited to hear no more. He ran down the steep descent,
calling Prue. The answer came from the rocks, in a lower note, “Prue!
Prue!” A jackdaw rushed out from the ivy.
Then he came to the well. She was not there, but he saw also at a glance
why she was not there. During the preceding night a portion of the
overhanging slate rock had fallen, not much, but just sufficient to crush
in the top of the well, and render access to the water impossible without
assistance from a crowbar.
The girl had consequently not been able to draw water where accustomed,
and she had gone forward to the quarry pit. Here, as already said, the
rock was slaty, inclined at a steep angle, and it was moist and slippery.
She had stepped on to this, and had stooped, careful not to stain her
white gown, with both pitchers in her hands, to dip for the water in the
tarn, cold and crystal clear.
She had overbalanced, her feet had slipped on the smooth sloping slate,
and she had fallen in. And there—floating on the bottle-green water she
was seen—like a dead white swan.
I feel that it is beyond my power with pen to describe what followed, the
despair of the poor young man, the distraction of the mother, the sorrow
of the whole parish. And never was there such a funeral in the memory
of man as that of the bride, her white pall borne by six girls all in
white, and wearing white posies—and a whole parish—every one from the
richest to the poorest, from the red-faced, fox-hunting squire to the old
stone-breaker with a crippled leg—in floods of tears.
* * * * *
The other day I went over the ramp to look at the ruined cottage. Years
had passed since this took place, which I have described. After the death
of their only child, the Wordens had left the cottage and it had fallen
into ruin. None else would take it, owing to the difficulty about the
water, the distance it had to be drawn, and the tragedy connected with
the well.
As I stood musing, looking at the crumbling walls—no flowers, no bees
there now—I noticed a man of middle age come up the steep path from the
well.
The quarry had of late been again in activity, and the rubbish was being
shot to fill up the old workings, but as yet the very oldest pit, that
where the well was, had not been invaded.
I turned to speak to the man. He seemed a stranger. At least I did not
know him.
“A picturesque spot,” said I, “to an artist quite a study.”
“I am not an artist,” he replied. “This spot is dear to me, inexpressibly
dear through sad remembrances.”
I looked closer at him.
“Yes,” said he, “my name is George Kennaway. I—you know me now I see—well
after _that_ event I could not bear to be here; I went to Australia,
and have done well there. I have come back now, after all these
years—and——Well, sir, I have been to see the captain of the slate quarry,
and I said to him: I will pay you almost what you like to ask, if you
will spare the well and the old pit. Do not choke and bury them up—not
whilst I live—for God’s sake—I could not bear it. I saw—that white girl
floating there—no—let it remain as it was. Ask what you will.”
JACK HANNAFORD
JACK HANNAFORD
In one of the dips among the hills of the red land stands a cobb cottage,
thatched, and facing the sun. The red land consists of rich loam of the
colour of what artists call Indian red, overlying sandstone of the same
warm colour. It is a soil of the most remarkable fertility. You have but
to stick into it a slip of any shrub, and it starts growing at once and
does not desist till it is a tree; sow in it any seed you like, and it
springs up, and, like the corn in the Gospel, produces an hundredfold.
For roses there is simply nothing in the round world equal to it. The
grass that flourishes on it is the richest, most succulent, and the most
emerald to be found and enjoyed anywhere. Indeed, the cows that consume
the herbage on it have grown red as the soil itself, and if the sheep
were not shorn annually they would produce fleeces of flame. Even the
streams after rain run blood, so flush is this red land with the juices
of life.
When a man wishes to build a house, he takes the clay, throws in straw,
tramples it about for a while, and then builds it up into a wall; it
sets, and will out-endure a structure of stone, if only kept covered
on top. And a house thus constructed, for warmth, for cosiness, for
healthiness, and for home comfort is simply not to be surpassed.
And, once again, on this red soil the cheeks of the girls and their
kissable lips are a temptation to young men sheerly unavoidable.
The cottages on this red land and built of the red clay are low, with the
windows of the “chambers,” _i.e._ bedrooms, peering out of the thatch,
that is, with the latter just lifted like a pretty eyebrow arched over
them, looking coquettishly, with a soft languor in them at the passers-by
in the lane.
In the lane!—and what lanes these are, deep cut in the red rock,
overarched with sycamores, elms, oaks, the rich sides oozing with
ripeness, scrambled over by countless creepers, occupied on every ledge
by a thousand ferns, studded in March with constellations first of golden
celandine, then of pale primroses, crested with dense blue hyacinths
intertwinkled with crimson robin, and later towered over by a fringe of
gorgeous, purple-belled foxglove, with twenty, thirty, even to fifty
flowers on one rod.
In the midst of such beauty, such plenty, such softness, humanity cannot
be rough and harsh. It is not so. The simplest peasant has the courtesy
of a noble, and the lowliest girl the grace of a princess. In that warm,
soft, crumbling soil hearts are also warm, soft, and—well, we must admit
it—crumbling too.
Where Nature does so much for man, man is perhaps not greatly inclined
to do much for himself, and this applies especially to his intellectual
faculties. What compulsory education may do I cannot tell—it may change
all this; but till of late years—allow it frankly—there was astounding
ignorance in this favoured land. And with ignorance goes credulity.
Now I am going to tell of the inmates of one of these cobb cottages in
the paradisaical land of New Redsandstone, in which also paradisaical
ignorance was to be found.
This cottage, the face of which was white-washed and crept over with
monthly roses, was occupied by Richard Redlake and his wife Julia.
They were both young people. He between thirty and forty, she half-way
between twenty and thirty. Julia had been quite the prettiest girl in a
village where not a girl lived who was not pretty. She had dark hair, and
the softest, largest, most melting eyes, like rich agate, a complexion
transparent, pure, with the sweetest rose-flush in it; and her figure was
slender and willowy.
Julia could neither read nor write. Possibly because she could neither
read nor write she was a most neat and knowing housewife, who kept her
cottage in beautiful order, and whitened her hearth-stone and threshold
every day, and even twice a day, and burnished pans and candlesticks
and old mustard tins on the chimney shelf till they shone as gold and
silver. Most labourers’ wives possess the alchemical art of transforming
soft, succulent meat over a fire into leather or indiarubber, and are
peculiarly skilful in destroying the digestions of their husbands. But
Julia, perhaps because unable to read and write, turned out a bit of
steak, or the meat in a pasty, or a stew, soft and delicious.
I say that this was due to ignorance of the two principal R’s, because
nowadays working-men’s wives are too much taken up with penny dreadfuls
and writing letters on parochial gossip to be able to spare the time for
such menial work as keeping their houses neat, their own persons clean,
and cooking meals with all their attention devoted to the task.
With these good qualities there was a drawback—ignorance, abysmal
ignorance. Although Julia could not read, she believed in printed matter
as something indisputable. What stood, as she termed it, “on the paper”
was to be accepted as gospel.
For a couple of years after they were married, old Jack Hannaford, her
father, lived with the young couple. And see—here is another odd thing. I
am going to tell you about him after he was dead and buried.
Hannaford had been a queer old file, cantankerous, cute in his way,
scheming, but doing nothing with his plans, because he neither had the
means nor the vigour to carry them out. Julia had believed implicitly in
him, and “Alack a jimminy!” said she, “vayther were a wun’nerful clever
man; if he’d only not been crippled, and had had a penny wi’ which he
could speckerlate, he’d ha’ been a gem’man by now.”
Jack Hannaford had possessed a friend, a very knowing man named Eli
Rattenbury, who lived about two miles off by himself. Eli had never been
married. He did little jobs off and on for farmers, but was humorous, and
at a word would leave his task and sulk and starve, rather than work for
the man who had offended him. He was said to poach. He certainly gained
a living by blessing wounds, “striking” tumours, and he possessed a
“kenning stone,” with which he touched and healed inflamed and sore eyes.
He was held to be a bit of a rogue. He possessed unbounded influence over
the ignorant peasantry, even over the farmers, who dreaded offending him;
and it was shrewdly suspected that, although he had no regular vocation
and occupation, he had amassed a tidy sum of money. Food did not cost him
much, for he either, as was surmised, took a rabbit when he wanted one,
or if he coveted a duck or a piece of pork, had only to ask for it, and
no one dared deny him what he desired, lest ill luck should befall the
denier.
Eli Rattenbury had a wonderful faculty for finding out when a pig had
been killed anywhere in the district beyond earshot of its squeals, and
so surely as a porker had been slain and was being scalded, he appeared
on the scene, and did not leave without a portion of the pig.
Now it happened that the Redlakes had been fattening up one of these
animals, but instead of killing it, they sold it. They had a supply of
bacon that would last them through the winter, and so did not require
more for their personal consumption. Very soon after, when Richard was
out at work, Eli Rattenbury appeared at the door, and without knocking
came in.
“I don’t smell the pig in the sty,” said he.
“No; we’m rid us of him?”
“Killed? and not given me a spare-rib!”
“No, Eli; us sold ’n.”
“You don’t mean to say so! And what did he fetch?”
She told him, and added, “But, Eli, you shall have some nice salt bacon
hanging yonder. We’ve sold our calf as well.”
“You’re lucky folk to be able to keep a cow.”
“Well, we are; and we can always dispose of our butter.”
“And you have fowls as well.”
“Yes; and the regrader takes them also. I’ll put you up some eggs in a
basket.”
Old Eli considered.
“I thought you might have sent ’em, wi’out my havin’ to fetch ’em,” was
his ungracious comment.
“I am very sorry, Eli.”
“You ort to be, considerin’ your father and me was like brothers. By the
way, I ha’ had dreams—that is to say, visions—about _he_ lately.”
“No, never! I hope all is well with old vayther.”
“Middlin’,” responded Eli.
Julia stood still, and some of her colour went.
“I hope he’s not gone——”
“Oh, no fear o’ that. He’s all right, so far. But you know, Julia, your
poor vayther was never a church nor a chapel goin’ man.”
“’Cos o’ his legs,” explained Julia.
“Well, I don’t say nothin’ about the raysons, but you know so well as I
do, he were not one as went to church or chapel.”
“No,” said the daughter.
“Well, then, how was he to find his way to where he ’ort to ha’ gone to
when he left this world of woe? As a fact, he lost his way and got into
Americay by mistake.”
“Well, now, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Redlake.
“Yes, true; he told me so,” said Eli Rattenbury. “I don’t see as you can
expect any other. What’d be your situation, missus, if you was to get
sudden-like out o’ the train, and be told to find your way to Golconda—or
the Transvaal. You’d go wanderin’ about, and ten to one find yourself in
quite another place. ’Twas so wi’ your poor father. Hobblin’ on upon them
there sticks, he came into the United States o’ North Americay. Well, I
seed ’n there in a vision. I thought I were carried there.”
“You seed vayther?”
“For sure I did,” answered Rattenbury.
“Well, Eli, do tell me what he said, and how he did look.”
“‘Go and tell Julia,’ sez he, ‘that I seez my way clear to realisin’ a
tremenjous fortune. I’ve talked it over with my Betsy.’”
“What—is mother there?”
“Certain; her wasn’t neither church nor chapel goer, and her were just as
lost as he about the road, and so got to Americay.”
“Dear, now, to think it!”
“‘Well,’” said he, “tell my Julia that I’m goin’ to set up a bacon
factory; I’m goin’ to grow pigs, and mother’ll salt’n—her does it
beautiful.’”
“But where’s the money to come from?” asked the astonished woman.
“That’s it. ‘Julia,’ sez he, ‘will lend me the money to start the pigs
on.’”
“There’s the money from the calf and the pig we sold,” mused Julia, “but
Richard has put it away quite safe.”
“Where?”
“That I mayn’t tell,” she mused, and then said slowly, “I can’t do it
wi’out axin’ Richard.”
“Your vayther laid it on me that you was on no account to speak of it to
he. ‘Men,’ sez he, ‘have such tongues. Talk of women, they’re nothing to
men. When they gits together in a sunny hedge eatin’ of their lunch—bless
y’, they talk of everything you can think on.’”
“I don’t like to do it.”
“He said—he will return it in double.”
“How much does he want?”
“Say ten pounds, just to make a start.”
“And in a week——”
“You’ll have twenty, and Richard no wiser.”
“And how is that ten pounds to go to dear old vayther?”
Eli Rattenbury hesitated, bethought himself, then said, “Jack Hannaford
said as how you should have the money doubled. And he advised that you
should take the ten pounds, wrapped up in rag and put in an old sardine
tin, or an old jam pot, and if you takes my advice you will bury it under
the headstone near the middle, no one observin’ you, four inches below
the turf. And you was not to go and look at it for a week, but if you did
so and found it gone, then don’t wonder at it, Jack Hannaford has took it
and has laid it out in pigs. But you may look for it in a week, or better
still a month, and sure as eggs be eggs, you’ll find there twenty pounds
in gold.”
“Are you to go with me?”
“No. You do it yourself; folks might observe and wonder if they seed me
wi’ you at the grave, but if you go, that’s nothin,’ they’ll think you’ve
gone to weed it, or put flowers.”
“Well, I will do it,” said Julia.
“When?”
“To-day.”
“And mind, not a word to Richard.”
Then, precipitately, Eli Rattenbury departed, and about an hour later,
from a secret place in the thatching, Julia drew some money, counted
out ten sovereigns, wrapped them in rag, put them in a little pot, and
hurried to the churchyard and buried the store exactly at the place she
had been told by the old rogue to place it. Then she fled home.
Had she remained in hiding, and watched, she would have seen Rattenbury
creep out from behind the church porch, go to the grave of Jack
Hannaford, dig up the money and pocket it.
That same evening, on Richard Redlake’s return, he clapped his wife on
the back, and said “Julia! news. I’ve arranged to take another field; and
I’m going to buy another cow. I’ve seen her, half Jersey; ours runs dry
at times, and we can’t supply our customers reg’lar as they likes. If we
have two, why, then one will be yieldin’ whilst t’other’s dry. She’ll
cost twenty-five pound, and I’ve bought her. I shall pay to-morrow. We
have the money in the thatch.”
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! If Dick looked at the hoard he would
discover that it was diminished. So Julia made the best of a bad
business, and told him all.
“In a month when old vayther has turned it over, you’ll have it doubled,”
said she.
“You are a fool! That old rascal has befooled you,” said her husband. He
was very angry, but scolding would not bring back the money. He strode
to the churchyard and of course found the gold gone. The jam pot was
there—not its contents. What should Richard do? If he went to Rattenbury,
the rogue would brazen it out. He had not been to the churchyard, he
would protest. Let his pockets be turned out, his house searched, the
money was not with him. If any one had taken the gold it must have been
some one who had watched Julia surreptitiously, as she concealed it. No!
there was nothing to be got that way. However, instead of returning home,
Dick marched off to the cottage inhabited by Eli. The old fellow was
there, and seemed alarmed as young Redlake came up.
“How do?” said Richard.
“Very well, I thank y’,” answered Eli in a restrained voice, and looked
from side to side, as though for a place of escape.
“Julia has told me all,” said the young man, “and I always did think Jack
Hannaford was a wun’nerful schemin’ man. That there is a clever idea of
his. I’m sure he’ll succeed.”
Old Rattenbury breathed freely.
“Sure—cock sure,” said he.