CHRISTMAS went by us and nought stirred the quiet, unless you count
killing the pig. Nobody came Christmassing, for there was nowhere for
them to come from, and nothing for them to come for. Mother was very
middling with a cough, and took to her bed, so I didna go for a lesson
till the New Year. But on New Year’s Day I went, and, as I ever liked to
pay first, I took the oxen straight away to the field I was ploughing
for Beguildy. He couldna abide ploughing, so for every lesson I did so
many furrows. I could plough nearly as well as most men, though not so
well as Gideon. He drove the straightest furrow I ever saw. It was
impossible to him to do anything ill. What he did, whether it was to be
seen or not, whether it was done once in a way or every day, must be
done as if his life was on it. He’d have no makeshifts. He’d thatch the
ricks, even though they were to be cut into straight away, as well as if
he was working for the thatchers’ medal. Working by his lonesome in the
fields, hedging or binding sheaves, with only the tall clouds for
watchers, and the woods, floating on the summer mist, he’d still labour
like a man showing his mettle at a hiring fair. Times, I thought it was
pitiful, the way he’d give himself no rest. And times I could almost see
the crowd of folk, the farmers watching, the judge sitting in his waggon
or trotting to and agen on his cob. I could almost hear the muttering of
the folks, the jeering when Gideon bungled, the roar of cheering when he
did well, and the judge saying in his loud voice, “I give the prize to
Gideon Sarn, best man in the hedging, the binding, and the ploughing.”
Then I’d come to myself and see only the tall clouds, that hadna
stirred, the tall hedges with meadowsweet below, the woods and the hills
and the sweet blue air with larks hanging in it as if them above had let
them down on threads, and shaking so with their joyful song that they
threatened to break their threads. Not a bit did they care who won the
prize, nor which of them sang best or loudest, so long as all sang, so
long as none lacked nest or cropful, drink of dew and space to sing in.
These things I thought while I was ploughing the five-acre field at
Plash with the white oxen, that looked yellow in the deathly white of
the hoar-frost which lay over the earth like a shroud, though not too
hard for ploughing.
As the share went onwards, the reddish, turned earth shone richly, and
the rooks followed, for they were sore clemmed, poor things, walking
stately in the furrows.
In a while Jancis came running across from the house with her mother,
all agog to tell me of the handfasting of her and Gideon and of how
angered Beguildy was. Jancis did truly look as lovely as a fairy, with
her rosy face and yellow curls. Missis Beguildy came panting after,
apron flying, and loaded with news, like one of the French frigates folk
tell of.
“But we wunna starve here like crows,” she said.
“Come you in and have a sup of tea. Sarn brought me a pound canister, no
less!”
I knew he must be very deep in love to bring more than a quarter, but I
said nought, only finished my furrow and unspanned the cattle.
“We can have a nice chat, for Dad’s busy in his room, curing Miller’s
Polly,” says Jancis.
“What’s to do with Polly?”
“It’s what _inna_ to do with the child,” says Missis Beguildy.
“First she got the chin-cough and now she’s got the ringworm. She’s
always got summat. He’s put her in a chair with a string of roasted
onions round her neck, and I’m sure I cried quarts getting ’em ready.
Dunna you ever be wife to a wizard, Prue. It’s like what it says in the
good book, and I wish I could go to church Christian and hear it, it be
like it says, ‘I die daily.’ Ah, it’s like that, being wife to a wizard.
If it inna onions it’s summat else. I’m sure I near broke my neck
fetching bletch from the church bells for this very child, to cure the
chick-pox, the maister being a deal too bone-idle to fetch it himself.”
“Never you mind, Mother, when I’m married I’ll look after you,” says
Jancis.
I couldna but sigh to think what a many plans they were all making, and
each plan cutting the throats of the others. I put the oxen in the
shippen and came in. There was a good fire and a pleasant scent of tea,
and I was bound to feel a bit glad that Polly was such a measly child,
though it _was_ unkind, for I knew Beguildy ud be a long while curing
her. Mother always said the mill children were measly because the
water-fairy in the pool under the mill-race put her eye on their mother
afore they were born, but Gideon said it was because they were fed on
the flour the rats got into, and Missis Beguildy said it was because
they sent ’em to Beguildy to be cured.
“A dose of brimstone and treacle, that be what she wants, and some good
food. But the mill’s no place for good bread, no more than the farm’s a
place for good butter, seeing it means cash, and the home folk get the
leavings.”
Just then Beguildy popped his head in, and looking dreamily at his
missus said—
“I want some May butter.”
“May butter! You met as well ask for gold. How dun you think I’ve got
any May butter, nor June nor July butter neither, when we sell every
morsel of butter we make almost afore it be out of the churn, and never
taste nought but lard?”
“I’m bound to have May butter or the charm wunna work,” says Beguildy in
his husky voice.
“What be it for?”
“To fry the mid bark of the elder and cure the chin-cough.”
“Well, for all the butter, May or December, as she’ll get in our place,
she may die of the chin-cough!” shouts Missis Beguildy. And with that, a
loud roaring came from the inner chamber, because poor Polly thought she
was at death’s door.
“Go and read in your old books, and find summat easier,” says Missis
Beguildy. “I’ve summat better to think of than charms.”
“You be above yerself, woman. You think to see our Jancis wedded and
bedded and rounding to a grandchild all in a lantun-puff. But I tell ye
not every troth ends in church, not every ring holds wedlock, not every
bridegroom takes his vargin, and I dunna like the match! Owd Sarn still
begrutches me that crown, though he be where crowns buy nought. And I
tell you young Sarn was born under the threepenny planet and’ll never
keep money. Sleeps on his face, too. And them as does that drowns. My
gel’s not for Sarn. You may ride rough-shod over my wish and will. You
may send out bidding letters for a love-spinning, which is all to the
good. But still I’ll bide for a higher bidder. Why, she be as white as a
lady and as sound as a well-grown tater! No squire nor lord even but ud
take it kind to be asked to lie beside her.”
“But not to wed with her.”
“What of it? He’d pay, wouldna he?”
By this, Jancis was roaring-crying as well as Polly. Beguildy popped
into his room again, and we set to work to comfort her. We drew close in
to the fire with our tea and planned for me to write the bidding letters
for the love-spinning.
“And a caking into the bargain,” says Missis Beguildy. “You make money
by a caking. And weaver shall come and stop a tuthree days and make up
all we’ve spun.”
Jancis clapped her hands.
“Oh! I dearly love a Do!” she said.
“Ah, so do I.”
“But a caking be the best of all. Oh, I love Gideon dearly for asking me
to wed!”
All the while as we talked we could hear poor Polly coughing and
whooping sore, and Beguildy shouting—“Quiet now, hush yer noise, I say!
Curse ye! Ye’re cured!”
Then Missis Beguildy asked me to write down the biddings for them to
see. So I did, and they were mighty pleased, for all they couldna read
what I’d written any more than two butterflies in the hedge can read the
mile stone.
“Put down,” says Missis Beguildy, “as Jancis, only daughter of Mister
Felix Beguildy and Hepzibah his wife, is promised and trothed to Mister
Gideon Sarn, farmer, living on his own land at Sarn. And put down as
they’ll be wed as soon as may be, and that Jancis invites ’em to a
love-spinning.”
“And put down,” says Beguildy, popping his head in again, “that you’re a
parcel of fools, and that this marriage shall not be till Sarn Mere
goeth into the earth whence it came. For I’ve seen in a glass darkly a
young squire that rides this way with his pockets full of gold.”
When Polly was gone, coughing as bad as ever, and I went into the other
room for my lesson, I gave Jancis a little pat on shoulder, for I was
sorry for the child. She looked more than ever like a petal of the may
on a day of cold rain.
“Well, well now,” says Beguildy, “I make no doubt you’ve ploughed a tidy
bit?”
“Ah.”
“Well, what’ll I learn ye?”
“Learn me to write ‘_Marriages be made in heaven_,’ Mister, and ‘_Whom
God hath joined together let not man put asunder_.’”
He chuckled a bit.
“Clever wench! Clever wench! But you’ll not get the better of me. Rather
shall you write, ‘_Intermeddle not with high matters_.’ Dunna a wizard,
as knows the fortunes of a parish, know what be best for his own?”
“Leave be, Mister! There’s enough agen the poor child, what with Fate
and such a pig-headed man as Gideon. If you meddle, maybe you’ll do harm
as you canna mend.”
“Namore, namore! I’ve said me say. Dunna weary me.”
He beat lightly on his little music, which was a sign that his patience
was over. As the notes tinkled out, I knew it was useless to argle any
more. For as there was no power or sweetness in his flinty music, such
as there is from harp and fiddle, so there was none in his soul. It gave
a small and flinty music because it was a small and flinty thing. He’d
got no pity because he’d got no strength. For it inna weaklings and
women that pity best, but the strong, mastering men. They may put it
from them as my brother Sarn did. But even so it will come upon them
some day, and the longer they deny it the stronger it will be when it
comes. Ah! It met even be such an agony as will make a man hate his
life.