“Dunna look upon the baigle. Her’ll put the evil eye on you. You’ll
dwine and dwine away.”
The folk inside looked each at other, and I wished I could die. For all
the bitter cold and my thin gown and us being far from the fire, I was
all in a swelter. For indeed I loved my kind and would lief they had
loved me, and I felt a friendliness for the drovers and for the gentry,
and the host and his missus. For they were part of my outing and part of
Lullingford and of the world, that ever seized my heart in its hands, as
a child will hold a small bird, which is both affrighted and comforted
to be so held. I would lief have ridden forth and seen new folk, new
roads, new hamlets, children playing on strange village greens, unknown
to me as if they were fairies, come there I knew not whence nor how,
singing their song and running away into the dusk; old folk wending
their way along paths in meadows of which I knew not so much as the name
of the owner, to churches deep in trees, with all the bells a-ringing,
pulled by men I never saw afore. Ah, I should dearly ha’ liked that.
Only the gist of it must ever be that the old folk looked kind as they
saw me go by, and the children smiled or threw me a blossom, and that
when I came to inn or tavern they’d say, “Draw in to the fire now, dear
’eart, for night thickens.” Ah, I’d dearly ha’ liked that!
This made it all the more of a shocking thing to me that the real world
was thus toward me, for living so apart I had not truly felt my grief
afore. But now I knew that I was fast bound in misery and iron, as the
Book saith. Ah, prisoned beyond a door to which the great nailed door of
the inn was but paper!
As I was bending over my plate so that my bonnet met hide the tears, a
lady came in. She was a handsome piece if ever there was one! She was
lissom as a wand, dressed in a long scarlet riding coat and a highwayman
hat to match, with a great swath of chestnut hair tied in a bow. She’d
got black eyes with no human soul in them, but sparkles instead, like a
cat’s eyes on a frosty night. Gauntlets on her little hands, spurs on
her boots, she came in laughing from a talk with the old men on the
bench.
“A besom, host!” she says. “We want a besom here.”
Everybody smiled and sniggered a bit. I knew well what she meant, for
once when Mother was talking to me she said that if folk began to speak
of besoms I’d best go, since it was their way of saying I was a witch.
But Gideon never noticed, for not being afflicted like me he never
thought of such things, and being used to me he didna have it in mind
that other folk met not be. And he was very deep in considering over
whether Jancis or the big house and the maids and men were best, so it
all went by him.
The lady ran to the Squire’s son and clapped him on shoulder, which made
him frown because of his dignity, and she says—
“So you’ve come Christmassing like a good lad! Who’s the woman with the
hare-shotten lip?”
He made a sign to warn her to talk soft, and nodded towards Gideon ever
so little.
“Why, if yonder isn’t young Sarn of Sarn!” she says, flushing a bit and
coming running across to where Gideon sat, very handsome in the blue
coat with the brass buttons and the black band for Father on the arm,
and his eyes darkling over the thought of Jancis. I nudged him, and he
stood up, and looked all the better for it, being such a fine figure.
She held out her hand, for the gentry were always friendly to the
farmers, in especial to voters about election time, and she sparkled at
him out of her black eyes and said—
“There’s to be an election soon, and Father’s got some work for you,
Sarn. So you’d best come and see us one day, and take bite and sup, if
your sweetheart can spare you.”
She looked very spitefully at me. Seemingly she thought Gideon was an
only child, and so she chose to take me for his acquaintance, or else
she chose to mock him, lashing him into her slavery by making him look a
fool.
Now Gideon was altogether with the Squire as to politics, because of the
corn tax, but he hadna made up his mind in good sadness whether he meant
giving all those things up and settling down contented with Jancis and a
crowd of little uns till death them parted. So he hummed and hawed a
bit, and not being used to hiver-hover from a common man, she lost her
temper.
“So! So! You’ve no time, Sarn. You’ve no time, I see,” she says. “You’ll
be dancing on Diafoll Mountain next Thomastide no doubt. Oh, fine you’ll
look, Sarn, with your missus here, and broomsticks all round and the
moon shining!”
She laughed like a tinkle of jangled bells, and Gideon came to the
knowledge of what she meant. He was ever slow, but sure. Eh, terrible
sure.
That was one of the times I spoke of when I saw Gideon angered. His face
had gone dark and his eyes had the look as if the mere was running
behind them, cold, and bitter cold. He looked down at her so that she
blenched, and he said very slow—
“Ma’am, this be my sister. If I’ve a mind to dance on the Diafoll
Mountain along of witches, I ool. And if I’ve a mind to dance upstairs
at the ’unt Ball along of the gentry, I ool. But I wunna ask _you_ for a
partner. And I doubt I wunna be able to vote for Squire neither, for can
a man govern the land as canna govern his own womankind, but lets his
girl go about like a ripstitch-rantipole? He should ha’ give you more
stick, ma’am.”
“Dorabella!” calls her brother, very much put about at her being in such
a brawl.
They went out, and Gideon sat down and went on with his victuals. Nor
did he eat a bit less hearty for it all, though I could scarce touch a
morsel. So soon as he went off to buy the oxen, I made haste to go from
the place. There were plenty of errands to do, what with malt and sugar
and tea to buy, and boots for us all, and Tivvy’s present, and a bit of
baccy for Gideon, for he never bought any himself, since, if he was near
with others, he was near with himself also. When I’d finished, and
bought a tuthree extras for Christmas, and packed all into the panniers,
Gideon was ready to go and see the house. He was pleased with the
cattle. Brindled longhorns they were, and very strong. With so few
people using oxen for farm work they were cheaper, a power, than they
used to be. So he was cheerful, since neither then nor at any other time
did he seem cast down by my sorrow. How could he know, indeed, that my
heart was bleeding because of Miss Dorabella and the old men on the
bench? He was angered because he thought it disgrace to himself that a
hare-shotten lip should be cast up against one of his family, and a
scent of witchcraft into the bargain. But for me he took no thought, any
more than if I was one of the new-bought oxen that somebody prodded in
passing by. He whistled under breath as we went along the by-road that
led to the house he’d set his mind on. I’d never been along that way,
for it lay outside the town on the other road from ours, and when we did
come in we hadna much time for gadding about. We soon left the coach
road and were in a lane with deep frozen ruts in it, and high hedges
white-over with rime.
The evening was closing in a bit, but Gideon said never mind, we’d
manage the beasts all right, for it ud be light as day when the moon
rose. He was very wrought-up about the house, I could see, so I agreed
to all he said, for I never liked to dampen down anybody’s pleasure.
Lord knows there’s little enow in the world, and Gideon was ever one
that took life hard. So when it turned out that he’d planned to treat me
to a dish of tea after, at the _Mug of Cider_, and have a chat about all
we meant to do, seeing we couldna when Mother was by, I said nought agen
it, though I thought I’d liefer have gone into Hell’s mouth than face
it. But Gideon wanted to talk while the holiday feeling was on him,
afore the dumbness of Sarn got the better of him agen. For it was a most
peculiar thing how you couldna speak your heart out at Sarn, and I never
knew whether it was the big trees brooding, or the heavy rheumaticky
feeling of being so close to the water, or the old ancient house full of
the remembrances of old ancient people, or that there was summat
foreboded. So Gideon kept his thoughts and turned them over and over in
his mind like a snowball, till at last the snowball was too much for six
strong men to shift, and nigh big enough to bury anybody.
We went through a gate into an avenue like a carriage drive. At the end
there was another gate, with balls on posts, very grand. Within was a
carriage sweep and flower knots, trimly kept.
We stood there, looking through the wrought-iron gates at the place that
Gideon said was to be ours. It was new, built since Queen Anne died, and
it was a despert big house, very solid, with four windows each side the
door, and over the door a porch of stone. Above the eight windows were
eight more, and over them dormer windows that Gideon said would be the
windows of the men-servants and the maid-servants. There were steps up
to the door, and a stone mounting-block with steps also, and a walled
garden at one side, and a round pigeon cote.
No light showed, and the place had a melancholy look, so still it was,
so dark, in its dark still trees.
“I’d lief there was a light,” I said.
“Dear to goodness, a light? It wunna be dark this hour, to call dark.
What do they want with a light? The housekeeper can spin by firelight, I
hope, and an old chap can sit in the chimney corner and set his mind on
a better world without wasting tallow, let alone wax!”
Gideon had taken over the management already, seemingly, and I was bound
to laugh.
“You seem pretty anxious the poor gentleman should set his mind on a
better world,” I says.
“Why, so I am, but not too soon. It ud never do for the old chap to go
out all of a lantun-puff afore we’ve got the money together. Say in
about ten year.”
“So he’s to order his coffin in ten years’ time, poor gentleman.”
“You be very sharp to-day, Prue,” says he. “But he’s bound to go some
day, no danger. We mun bide our time.”
“He’s Miss Dorabella’s great-uncle, inna he?”
“Ah.”
“Wunna they want it for young Mister Camperdine?”
“Laws, no! He’s after a bishop’s palace.”
“Nor yet his cousin?”
“Dear no! He’ll never bide long in a place, that lad wunna. A rolling
stone, he be, and a caution. No, it’ll be put up to auction when the old
man goes, and you and me must mind to get the money ready.”
“Why, look ye, a light!” I says.
“Where?”
“Why there, in that lower window on the garden side.”
I saw it as well as could be, a large pale light wandering from window
to window downstairs and then sliding up, in a long window that seemed
to go down the stairs, and beginning over again in the upper story. One
window would shine for a minute and then go black, and another shine. It
had a very strange, uncontented look, wandering like that. There’s
nothing so contented as a steadfast light, but a flickering light going
to and agen in a void is a sad thing to see. It went on like that a long
time, and the cold strengthened. There was no sound at all. We stood
there like beggars outside the gate, and the unquiet light wandered in
the dark. All of a sudden it went out.
“Oh, it’s gone out!” I says. “Oh, deary, deary me!”
“What of that?” says Gideon.
“I wanted it to steady and come to rest in a window, and shine out with
a heartening glow,” I said. “But now it’s gone out.”
It distressed me mightily that it should go out, so that I wrung my cold
hands together, though why it should hurt me thus I couldna say.
“It was but the housekeeper looking for her knitting-needles or old
Camperdine seeking his snuff-box. And now they’ve found it, they’ve
douted the light. Very sensible too.”
“No!” I said. “No! It was love, lad, wanting to steady and shine. But
the house was too much for it. The dark’s closed in now. The light’s
douted.”
And I began to cry, which was a foolish thing to do. But Gideon wasna so
angered as he met have been, for he was in a good temper about the oxen
and the house. “You’re sickening for summat,” he said, “for you be no
cry-baby, Prue. Come on to your tea, now, while I tell you all that’s in
my mind. I’ve a deal to say, for that little vixen of Camperdine’s has
changed my mind for me, so I must tell you the new plans as well as the
old.”
We turned away from the shut gate, as dumb as stones, and we left all
the twenty-four windows with no light in them, and the dark trees with
no breath of air in them, lying there in the vast of night.