AS I came nearer I saw that, as the custom was, not only all the women
of Lullingford were there, but all the children as well. I thought it
shame to bring these poor things, that would soon enough know the evil
of the world, to see the dogs torn to ribbons and the hapless beast
killed. I said so after to Gideon, but he thought nothing of it.
“Why, you’d make ’em as soft as ’ool,” he said. “They mun be brave and
well-plucked.”
I said I couldna see that it was soft not to like to see a cruel deed,
and that it seemed to me to be braver not to like seeing another’s pain.
“Well, well, we canna make the world, for it’s made already,” says
Gideon.
There it all was, then, the crowd, the shouting and betting, the yapping
and snarling of the dogs, people elbowing and pushing, men crying hot
taters and chestnuts, apples, spiced ale, and gingerbread, children in
their white pinnies watching the bull, very skeered, for it was
grumbling to itself. Poor thing, it was thinking of its own big
blackberry pasture at the back of Callard’s Dingle, I make no doubt. It
hated neither men nor dogs, and had no grudge against any if only it
could be back there, roving the meadows in the dew. There they all were,
and there was Kester. I lost sight of him in the crowd, and hastened my
steps, with a wonder in my heart the while what he could be doing in
such a place. For I thought him to be a different kind of man from all
these. Yet such faith I had in him that I was sure, if he was here, that
he was here for good. And something drove me on, so that I must seek him
in the crowd, and keep nigh him, as if I was his angel for that day. A
poor angel, but God minds not much, I think, what like His angels be, so
that they do His work proper. The shepherd’s collie that runs home to
warn the missus that her man has fallen down the rock, is his angel sure
enough, though he may be a mongrel of the very worst, with ears as flat
as a spaniel.
Blindly and without reason, like the shepherd’s dog, I kept close to
Kester Woodseaves, yet not so close that he might see me. So it was that
I heard all he said to the men who stood round about the ring with their
dogs, a bit apart from the crowd. And though they were men of my own
countryside, and some of them known to me, yet I must say that there
were among them a tuthree very evil faces. The dogs were fierce and
ugly, many of ’em with great jowls, snarling and slavering and showing
the red of their eyes. Yet if I had been bound to choose between men and
dogs, I’d have chosen the dogs. Mostly they were terriers, but there
were a good few bulldogs, and of these Grimble’s new one was far the
worst, with a grin that sent me cold. There were one or two with a lot
of mastiff in them, and there were a mort of mongrels.
The men all turned towards Kester when he came up, and Farmer Huglet,
the chief of them, called out—
“Where’s your dawg?”
Mister Huglet was a great raw-looking man who seemed as if he’d come
together accidental and was made up of two or three other people’s
bodies. He was a giant, very nearly, and clumsy, with tremendous long
arms, and so big round the middle that tailors who brought their own
stuff always charged extra for his clothes. He’d got a mouth like a
frog, and a round red snub nose, and such little eyes that they were
lost in the mountains of flesh that made up his face. Whenever he
couldna understand anything, he laughed, and his laugh was enough to
frighten you. It came pretty often too. Grimble was hand-in-glove with
him, and while Huglet stuck his red snub nose in the air, Grimble kept
his long pale one down, so between them they didna miss much. They’d
each got two dogs.
“Why, it’s weaver,” says Grimble. “Dunna you know weaver, Huglet?”
“Why, no, we hanna crossed paths afore. My brother-law weaves for me,
you mind. Well, weaver, where’s your dawg?”
“I’ve got none.”
“No dawg? Stand aside, then.”
But he stood where he was. It so happed that he was about at the mid of
the half-moon of grey stone that made the bull-ring, and the men with
the dogs fell away a bit on either hand, so he was alone. Standing there
so slim and straight in his green coat, with the airs blowing his hair a
bit, so that a lock of it fell o’er his brow, his hat being under arm,
he seemed to have nought to do with any there, but to be a part of the
fair meadow, that matched his coat. He wore no beard nor whiskers, so
you could see the shape and colour and the lines of all his face, which
seemed to me to be a face you could never tire of looking on. Times I
wonder if heaven will be thus, a long gazing on a face you canna tire
of, but must ever have one more glimpse. He had a kind of arrowy look,
so that though Huglet towered over him, he seemed to tower over Huglet.
He looked round about and said—
“Chaps, I’ve come to ask ye to stop this.”
There was a long, bepuzzled silence. Then Huglet laughed and slapped his
thigh, and roared again. Grimble looked at his boots and gave a snigger.
“Well, that’s a good un!” shouted Huglet “Stop the bull-baiting, oot,
young fellow?”
“Ah. I’d lief stop it.”
“And what for would you stop it, dear ’eart?” asked Grimble in a soft,
sing-song voice.
“Stop it?” roars Huglet, “he _canna_ stop it.”
“I’d lief it was stopped over all England.”
“You’d lief a deal, young man. Why, I tell ye there’s bin bull-baiting
in England ever since it _was_ England! Take away the good old sport and
it wouldna _be_ England!”
All this he said in the same loud roaring voice.
“I asked ye, what for would ye stop it?” repeated Grimble, soft and
obstinate.
“Because it’s a cruel, miserable business.”
“It inna cruel. The dawgs like it. They enjoy it. And the bull likes it
right well.”
Mister Grimble looked down at the trampled grass for all the world as if
he was reading the words there.
“What’s it matter if they enjoy it or not? _I_ enjoy it!” says Huglet.
“That’s enough, inna it?”
The other men drew round. For though it was the ordinary thing to hear
Mister Huglet shouting fit to burst, it was out of the common to hear
him shouting so long at one person. When Huglet shouted like he was
doing now, folk said that the person he was shouting at always gave in
and went away quiet.
“What be trouble?” asked Mister Callard, the owner of the bull. Mister
Huglet turned round and spluttered out—
“This here borsted fellow wants to stop the baiting. The baiting, mind,
as we all come a many weary mile to see.”
“Rising up a great while afore day,” puts in Mister Grimble.
“Dear now! And missus and me at such trouble to bring the beast along
bright and early. Whatever ails the mon?”
He looked at Kester as the apothecary will look at a man a long while
sick.
“Ah,” says the landlord of the _Mug o’ Cider_, “I’ve heard tell of folks
as wanted to stop the long kneeling. I’ve even heard of a tuthree as
wanted to stop wars and rumours of wars, but bull-baiting? Never in
life! Whoever, save a few fratchety parsons, did ever want to stop a
baiting?”
“He must be going a bit simple, poor fellow,” says Grimble. “Feel well,
weaver?”
The miller came up and had a look, shook his head, and went away, which
was a great deal for the miller to do.
“But what _for_ do ye want to stop it, like?” says Mister Callard, very
puzzled.
“I’ve told ’em why. Never mind all that. Look ye, Mister Callard, ool ye
sell the bull to me?”
“Sell un?”
“Ah, I wunna argle and bargle over the price.”
“But it wouldna be worth my while. I’ll get more, a power, by letting un
fight. Win, and I’ll be a rich mon. Lose, and I get best butcher’s price
from the ring owners, seesta?”
“What ud you make if he won?”
“Twenty pound.”
“I’ll give you twenty pound, and you can take the beast away.”
“God bless me!” says Mister Callard. “Oh, God bless me, I’m sure.”
He stared at Kester as if he was spirit-struck.
“Bargain?” says Kester.
Missis Callard, who never spoke but after Callard spoke, and then said
the same thing, and never did ought but what she was told to do, came up
all in a flusker, leading the bull.
“Take the gentleman’s offer, Father! Take it, my dear!” she said, all
out of breath. “Take the twenty pound and us’ll lead the darling whome.”
Callard was so astounded at her daring to speak that he could only keep
on saying—
“God bless me!”
“God bless ye, is it?” says Huglet, beginning to roar again. “I’ll give
ye God bless ye if you do any such thing, Callard. Dang me! Spoil all
our sport for twenty pound! I’ll larn ye! And you too, young man!”
“Oh, but he mun be worse than sawft or simple, he mun be stark raving
mad to offer twenty pound for the little beast and then give back what
he’s bought,” says Grimble. “Oh, I could cry! Yet the poor chap was all
right Monday was a fortnit, weaving for us as nice as nice. But he’s
gone wrong in the yead since, surely to goodness! Oh, dear me!”
He wiped his face and seemed quite taken-to.
Kester pulled out his wallet and offered Callard the money. It was
pretty well all his uncle left him, I doubt.
By this, Missis Callard had called all the children to her, for they had
five children as well as the baby, and she whispered ’em, and all of a
sudden they cried out together, “Take it, Feyther! Take it, honoured
Feyther! We beseech thee to hear us!”
At the surprise of that, Mister Callard seemed to be quite moithered,
and he reached out his hand to Kester for the money. But Mister Huglet
struck it down.
“I wunna be robbed of my sport!” he said. “Dunna you dare take it,
Callard. We want our sport, I tell ye!”