“Book?” he says. “Why, no, I see no book. But I see a plenty of good
land running to waste, as might be under corn.”
So we see in the script of God what we’ve a mind to see, and nought
else.
We came beneath a wild pear tree in early blow, and it put me in mind of
Jancis.
“Now I wonder,” I said, “where Jancis’ll sleep this night?”
“At Grimbles’.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can tell because I say it is to be. Missis Grimble is for ever
changing dairymaids, and I hear tell she’s after one this year.”
“It’s a long ways off, Gideon.”
“None the worse for that, she’ll be out of young Camperdine’s way.”
“She’ll be terrible lonesome.”
“You can write me a letter to her now and again.”
“And welcome. But how’ll she answer?”
“I thought of that.”
Gideon spoke triumphing-like.
“It’s such a great big place that they have the weaver every month or
two. Weaver can write for Jancis.”
“What?” I says, with my breath very short, knowing I was going to say
that name, “what, Mister Woodseaves?”
“No other.”
Why, dear to goodness, here was a queer trick of fortune for me! I was
to write love-letters for him I loved to read, and he was to write
letters back for me to read, once in every few weeks. I let the pony go
her own pace, and we fell behind, for Mill pony was like Mill folk, and
took everything sad and quiet, as if she’d been discouraged above a bit.
There’d be letters coming in the summer days, written in his own script,
with his own wording and turns of speech. His hand would ha’ moved slow
along every page, over and over, while he looked down at the lettering
with those long-shapen blue eyes that pierced to the heart’s core. Of
course they’d be letters to somebody else from somebody else, and it ud
be all the wrong way round, for his would be in the name of Jancis, to
Gideon, and mine would be in the name of Gideon, to Jancis. It would all
be moithered and twisted and topsy-turvy like the water-lily shadows in
the mere, when I’d lief it met be clear and real. Still, I could speak
my heart out. I could say the things I’d thought never to say. I could
lay my soul as naked afore him as I myself had been, for no eyes but
hisn would read my letters. Not that my soul was anything to show, but
yet I greatly desired to show it. This is a very strange thing, and ever
to be found in lovers. I couldna help but laugh to think what a figure
of fun Gideon would look dizened out in my soul, and how dumbfounded
Jancis would be, hearing things read out of Gideon’s letters that no
power of angel nor devil would ever make Gideon say, and how she’d
pucker up her face and wonder if weaver was making game of her, and then
think, “Oh, well, folks inna themselves when they’re writing.” I was
laughing over it all when I heard Gideon shouting—
“Hi! Hi! Where bin ’e going? Pony’ll put fut in the ditch in a minute
and break her leg and all the eggs in your basket into the bargain. What
ails you, dreaming?”
It was but just in time. Pony and I got out of the ditch as best we
might and went on, a bit crestfallen and very mim and careful. Then it
came over me on a sudden that I should see the mind of Kester Woodseaves
in those letters as open as the sky. I should know him as if I lived
along of him. For it inna by the deal that’s said, but by what’s in the
things said, that you can know a person. Just as it inna the extra
length or breadth of a gown that keeps you warm, but the quality of the
stuff. In all he wrote, I’d find him. For you canna write a word, even,
but you show yourself—in the word you choose, and the shape of the
letters, and whether you write tall or short, plain or flourished. It’s
a game of _I spy_ and there’s nowhere to hide. I thought how Mister
Woodseaves would go tramping home, pleased to ha’ done a kindness, and
very pleased to be unlocking his own door, lighting his own fire, and
keeping himself to himself. And all the while he’d have showed himself
to me, let me into the house of his mind, bid me to sit down by the fire
of his great kindness.
“_He brought me to his noble house._
_His banner it was love._”
“Prue!” shouted Gideon. “Dang the girl! Oh, dang the girl! Pony’s got
her foot in the reins and her teeth in the grass, and here I’ve been
obleeged to come back half a mile. Market day and all! Whatever ails
you? Be you sickening for summat? Dear to goodness! Anybody ud think you
were in love!”
After that, pony and I were very careful. We kept our thoughts on the
road and the market, and as you always come, at long last, where your
thoughts are, so we came to Lullingford and found the Hiring Fair just
beginning.
The long row of young folks, and some not so young, who were there to be
hired, began near our stall. Each one carried the sign of his trade or
hers. A cook had a big wooden spoon, and if the young fellows were too
gallus she’d smack them over the head with the flat of it. Men that went
with the teams had whips, hedgers a brummock, gardeners a spade. Cowmen
carried a bright tin milk pail, thatchers a bundle of straw. A
blacksmith wore a horseshoe in his hat, and there were a tuthree of
them, for a few big farms would club together and hire a blacksmith by
the year. Shepherds had a crook and bailiffs a lanthorn, to show how
late they’d be out and about after robbers. Though, as Gideon said,
having a lanthorn is no more promise that a man’ll so much as put his
nose out of the bedclothes after dark than it’s promise when a chap
agrees to the text, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house,” of a
Sunday that he wunna spend all the week trying to compass it. Which was
just what Gideon did himself.
There were tailors and weavers, wool carders and cobblers too, for the
farmers clubbed together for them also. The carders had a hank of
coloured wool, and the tailors made great game running up and down the
line of young women and threatening to cut their petticoats short.
Jancis laughed with the rest, but I could see she’d been crying. She
looked a real picture in her print gown and bonnet, with the dairymaid’s
milking stool. They were a tidy set of young women, the housemaids with
broom on shoulder, the laundrymaids with dollies. It was no wonder that
many a young farmer, who wanted neither cook nor dairymaid, should
linger a bit, and that it should come into his mind that he wanted a
wife.
“There’s Grimble,” said Gideon “I made sure he’d come, because of the
bull-baiting. He’s just got a new dog, I hear tell, as fierce as fire.”
There was most always a bull-baiting after the May Fair, and it was a
thing I couldna abide. I looked where Gideon pointed and saw Mister
Grimble, a man with a long nose that looked as if he poked it into
everybody’s business and stirred up trouble.
“Be that his missus?” I said.
Gideon looked at the woman, like a gingerbread doll, flat and baked
pale, with curranty eyes, and said it was.
“Very near, and a driver,” I said.
“Well, Jancis’ll take a deal of driving. The pretty ones be always the
idle ones. And she’s used to being clemmed at home. She’ll see she dunna
clem too much.”
He seemed quite unconsarned.
“She’d be better, a power, at a small place with nice folk that ud treat
her kind,” I said. “What for do you want her to go to Grimble’s?”
“More money. They give a better wage than smaller folk. We mun think of
that first.”
“The bane!” I whispered. “The precious bane!”
For indeed this talk of money was beginning to wear on me like a song
sung over and over, and a song misliked to start with. Gideon had spoken
to Farmer Grimble about Jancis, so, as she never dared to go against his
word, she beckoned to Beguildy and said—
“Mister Grimble’s missus’ll hire me, Feyther, if you please.”
“Oh, ’er will, will ’er? And what’ll you give me for the wench, for dree
year?”
“Eighteen pound.”
“Make it twenty and you shall take her.”
“Nay, nay, it’s too much.”
“She can work if she’s a mind. She’s strong. I give you leave if you
make it twenty, to drive if she wunna be led.”
“If you lay finger on my girl it’ll be the worse for ye,” said Gideon.
“And _she’s_ to have the money, not you, Beguildy.”
“Hearken, hearken! Did ever you hear the like! A fellow that was born
under the threepenny planet and sleeps on face and’ll come to be
drowned!”
Gideon fell into a sudden rage and gave him a great clout with the flat
of his hand, and Beguildy screamed out—
“I’ll pay ye! I’ll pay ye for this! Curse ye! The very spit of your dad
you be. You owe me a crown,” he says, going by me on a blast of air.
“And you canna leave me and mine alone. Curse ye! In sowing and
harvesting. In meadows and housen. By fire and by water. A waxen man!
I’ll make a waxen man this night, and call it Sarn. Slow, slow, it’ll
consume away—Sarn, the sin-eater!”
Gideon looked at him, making no sign. The people drew back a bit,
fearing they knew not what. Just then, elbowing through the crowd, came
the young squire, Mister Camperdine’s nephew.
“I heard,” he says to Beguildy, “that Venus was come to the Hiring Fair.
My aunt wants a still-room maid, and I came to see if Venus—”
“If you mean Jancis Beguildy, sir,” says Gideon, speaking quick, “she’s
prenticed already.”
“What, so soon?”
“Ah, to a farmer a great way off.”
He looked hard at Mister Camperdine, and Mister Camperdine looked hard
back.
“It’s a great disappointment,” says Mister Camperdine, “for my good
aunt.”
“Your lady-aunt, sir,” says Gideon very dry-like, “will soon find
another maid. Never faithful to one long, if I may make so bold, your
lady-aunt inna, sir!”
The young squire frowned, but looking around and seeing nobody but
Jancis, short and plump, he supposed the one he was after had gone
already, and so thought further argling but waste of time. He sighed and
said to himself—
“So Venus vanishes!” and went away. And very glad I was to see the last
of him.
Beguildy and Jancis went to the inn with the Grimbles to sign the
prentice paper binding Jancis for three years. She was to drive back
with them that night. She was free till then, and Gideon said seeing she
was going to work for Lullingford New House, she ought to have a look at
it. So off they went, while I minded the stall.
I’d all but done, for the place being fuller than ordinary, the things
went off pretty quick. The lines of young people had shrunken till there
were only a few left that were wanted by none. These were such as were
known to be over-fond of the bottle or to have a base-born child, or to
be incurables of some crippling disease, or not to know rightly what was
their own and what was other people’s. I used to wonder how they felt,
poor folk, going jogging along in the evening, back where they came
from. I was glad I worked at whome, and had no need to go and be hired,
for certain sure nobody ud have taken me. It was a bitter thought, that.
The market-place was emptying fast, for the people were getting some
refreshment afore the bull-baiting. But I’d still got some daffodillies
to sell, and Gideon didna like anything to go back. So I sat still, in
the quiet afternoon, looking down the empty street where the shadows of
the lilacs and seynty trees lay very dark and pleasant. I noticed that
Missis Grimble was there too.
She was packing up, and as she put each pat of butter into the basket
she gave it a look as much as to say that she’d give it a bit of her
mind after, for not being sold.
In a while she came across to me.
“You be sister to my new dairymaid’s young man, binna you?”
“Ah.”
“I’m in behopes they’re serious?”
“Oh, ah!”
“That’s right. I like my wenches to be walking out afore they come, and
with a chap at a distance. I’ve got sons, and it’s a deal safer. And so
long as the chap’s at a distance and canna be got at, it dunna hinder
the work. Well, I’ll be going now. They loose the first dog on the bull
in an hour, and I must get a cup of tea first. I never can enjoy
anything proper, nor take notice, if I’m clemmed. Whether it’s a wedding
or a confinement, a baiting or the Lord’s Supper, I canna truly enjoy it
as it should be enjoyed unless I’ve got a pint or two of good strong tea
inside me. Well, good day. It’s a great affliction for ye.”
She went back to her stall to gather her baskets.
There now! Never could I be left in peace. Never could I be let to get
away from my misfortune. Here I sat, as peaceful as could be, till she
must come up and say that. “A great affliction.” But afore she said it
I’d forgotten it, so I hadna got it. I was out of the cage till she put
me in again. I was vexed, and the tears stood in my eyes.
Suddenly, along the quiet road, through the shadows, and through the
mist on my own eyelashes, I saw somebody coming. A man, it was. And if
there be any meaning in the word as I hanna thought on, let them that
read put it in. Let them put the strength and the power, the kindness
and the patience, the sternness and the stately righteousness of all
good men into that word, and let him wear it. For it was himself, Kester
Woodseaves, the maister.
He came along without haste, as if he had some great business to attend.
I saw that he was in his best—the black beaver hat, green coat,
flowered weskit, and the Wellington boots.
“Weaver, weaver!” called Missis Grimble. “When’ll you work for me next?”
He looked up, and came our way.
What did I do, I, that knew his smile was my summer? Why, I got up so
hasty that I upset the daffodillies. I left all our baskets and
butter-cloths, and the jam-pots for flowers, and I ran from the place as
if summat was after me. But, being that the market was at the end of the
road, and only open in front, there was nowhere for me to go but into
the market-keeper’s office, which was a dark room at the back of the
market, and had a small window with no glass, looking on the stalls. So
I couldna help but hear all they said.
“Why, lookye!” Missis Grimble screamed out like a cackling hen, “her’s
fled away as if you were the murrain or the Lord or the bailiffs. What
ails the wench? Mostly I see ’em run _to_ and not _from_ when a young
chap comes along.”
“Who _be_ she?” asked Kester.
He had ever a very out-of-the-ornary voice. It was like as if, when he
spoke, the sound of the speaking made the world new for itself, not
caring about the old world. It was like a wide, blossomy thorn-tree on a
sweltering day in early June. You could sit down under it and rest you.
And it was like the still hearth-fire on a winter night, when wild
Edric’s out in the forest, and the curtains be close, candles snuffed,
all fast, and the master of the house raught whome.
“Who _be_ she?” he says. And even though it be only a passing thought
and three words, I’m a flower that knows the sun.
“Why, her be Sarn’s sister from away yonder at the mere. Prue Sarn. The
woman with the hare-shotten lip. A very queer creature. But it makes ’em
queer, you mind, to be born the like of that. Some say she’s a bit of a
witch.”
He said nought, but he went across and picked up my flowers, setting
them in the jam-pots man’s fashion, a bit clumsy and all thumbs, enough
to make you cry with love. I could see from the dark at the back of the
office.
“A very neat, tidy figure she’s got,” he said. And in a minute I knew
that he knew I’d heard, and so would ease the wound. Oh, most kind
maister, the very marrow of Him that loved the world so dear!
“Be you going to the baiting, Mister Woodseaves?” asked Missis Grimble.
“Why, yes and no to that.”
“Eh?”
“You’ll see in good time, Missis Grimble.”
With that he went on his way. And what did I do? I did a thing I never
thought to do for any man, so forrard it was. I came out of the dark
room, straight into the sunlight, and step by step along the road I
followed him, as if I’d no bashfulness at all, such as every girl should
have. I kept a long way back, for fear he might turn about and see me,
but I never let him out of my sight. It seemed as if I couldna. I was
drawn on and on. If I lost sight of his green coat round a turn of the
road, I was all distraught till I’d got sight of it again.
The bull-ring was well beyond the town, in a green meadow where a brook
ran. And though if you’d gone a-walking in that green meadow any other
day in the year, to gather lilies or forget-me-nots, or to walk beside
the water, folk would have thought it a soft thing to do, it was all
right and proper to-day, because they were going to kill a creature
there.
The people in the road never noticed me, in my plain black, with my face
hid in my bonnet. From a good way off I could see the ring, and the
bright colours of the gowns and coats all jumbled together, and a deal
of sad-colour from the coats of the working men who could seldom afford
a best coat save the funeral coat of the family. I could see the bull, a
little white one, tied to a staple in the wall of the bull-ring, which
was a semicircle built of rough grey stones. The bright yellow sunshine
held them all, as if they were bees in the mid of the honeycombs, and
the blue air, the brown water, the green meadow were all so fair, I
could not believe blood must be shed on such a day. I wonder to myself,
times, if it was fair, clear weather on Golgotha when Mary looked up at
the cross, and whether there was some small bird singing, and the bees
busy in the clover. Ah! I think it was glass-clear weather, and bright.
For no bitter lacked in that cup, and surely one of the bitterest things
is to see the cruelty of man on some fair morning with blessing in it.