“There _is_ a Sin Eater.”
“Who then? I see none,” said Sexton.
“I ool be the Sin Eater.”
He took up the little pewter measure full of darkness, and he looked at
Mother.
“Oot turn over the farm and all to me if I be the Sin Eater, Mother?” he
said.
“No, no! Sin Eaters be accurst!”
“What harm, to drink a sup of your own wine and chumble a crust of your
own bread? But if you dunna care, let be. He can go with the sin on
him.”
“No, no! Leave un go free, Gideon! Let un rest, poor soul! You be in
life and young, but he’m cold and helpless, in the power of Satan. He
went with all his sins upon him, in his boots, poor soul! If there’s
none else to help, let his own lad take pity.”
“And you’ll give me the farm, Mother?”
“Yes, yes, my dear! What be the farm to me? You can take all, and
welcome.”
Then Gideon drank the wine all of a gulp, and swallowed the crust. There
was no sound in all the place but the sound of his teeth biting it up.
Then he put his hand on the coffin, standing up tall in the high black
hat, with a gleaming pale face, and he said—
“_I give easement and rest now to thee, dear man. Come not down the
lanes nor in our meadows. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul._ Amen.”
There was a sigh from everybody then, like the wind in dry bents. Even
the oxen by the gate, it seemed to me, sighed as they chewed the cud.
But when Gideon said, “Come not down the lanes nor in our meadows,” I
thought he said it like somebody warning off a trespasser.
Now it was time to throw the rosemary into the grave. Then they lowered
the coffin in, and all threw their burning torches down upon it, and
douted them.
It was over at long last, and we went home by the shortest way, only
Gideon going by the road with the waggon. We were a tidy few, for all
that had been at the church came back for the funeral feast. There was
the smith, and the ox-driver from Plash Farm, and the shepherd from the
Mountain, and the miller’s man and a good few women, as well as those I
spoke of afore.
Mother had asked Tivvy to mind the fire and see to the kettles for
making spiced ale and posset, for the air struck chill along the water
at that time of night.
When we raught home there was Missis Beguildy as well, and Jancis. They
had a nice gledy fire, and the horn of ale set upon it all ready. She
was a kind soul, Missis Beguildy, but sorely misliked through being the
wife of a wizard, a preached-against man. She was never invited to
weddings nor baptisms. But at a burying, when the harm’s on the house
already, what ill can anybody do? Missis Beguildy dearly loved an
outing. She’d have liked to live in Lullingford and keep a shop, and go
to church twice of a Sunday, and sing in the choir. She’d no faith at
all in her goodman’s spells, though she never said so, except to me and
a tuthree she knew well. Once, a long while after this, when there’d
been trouble at the Stone House, which you’ll hear of in good time, when
she’d quarreled with Beguildy, I went in by chance and found her with
Lady Camperdine’s bottle (in which he said he’d got the old lady’s
ghost), shaking it as if it was an ill-mixed sauce, so that I thought
the cork would come out, and shouting, “I’ll learn ye! I’ll learn ye!
Lady Camperdine indeed! Plash water! That’s what’s in this here bottle.
Plash water and nought else.”
It was seldom anybody saw Missis Beguildy. She was always out with the
fowl or the ducks, or digging the garden, or fishing. She was a good
fisherwoman. If it hadna been for her, they’d have clemmed, for Beguildy
never reckoned to do anything but wizardry. She’d baked us a batch of
funeral cakes in case we hadna enough, and she was so kind and comely,
being fair, like Jancis, and plump, and the posset she made was so good,
that everybody forgot she was the wizard’s wife, even Parson.
“I’m to take back the cattle, my dear,” she said to Mother; “hay
harvest, we use ’em a deal.”
“Bin you started?”
“Ah. Bin you?”
“I start to-morrow,” said Gideon.
Everybody looked at him, tall in the doorway, with a kind of power in
him. And it seemed to me that everybody drew away a bit, as if from
summat untoert.
Parson got up to go.
“It’s to-morrow now, young Sarn,” he said. “See you do well in it, and
in all the to-morrows.”
“To-morrow! O to-morrow!” said Jancis. “It be a word of promise.”
She yawned, and all in a minute her mouth was a rose, and I knew I
couldna abide her.
“One song!” Sexton spoke very solemn. “One holy song afore we part.”
So we stood up about the table, where the twelve candles were guttering
low, and we sang—
_With a turf all at your head, dear man,_
_And another at your feet,_
_Your good deeds and your bad ones all_
_Before the Lord shall meet._
There being a sight more men than women, the song sounded deep, like
bees in a lime-tree. Jancis and Tivvy sang very clear and high, and cold
too, as if they didna mind at all that the poor corpse lay out yonder
with only turfs for company.
Then there was a trampling and a traversing, and they all went out,
Mother standing by the door the while, doling out the funeral cakes.
These were made of good sponge, with plenty of eggs, coffin-shaped and
lapped up in black-edged paper.
By this the birds were singing very loud and clear, with a ringing,
echoing noise. Our chimneys lay in the mere, which meant that it was
sunrise. There was a cuckoo in the oakwood, and the first corncrake
spoke up from the hay grass very masterful.