IF it had not been that Parson said I must be careful to write all,
and leave out none, since to know all made folks kind, but to know a
part made ’em worse than if they knew nothing, if it hadna been for
that, I’d never have tried to write of those three months at Sarn
betwixt the time of the death of Jancis and the time of the troubling of
the waters. For there are some things so hard to write of that even a
great scholar might boggle at it, and I, though I can do the tall and
the short script, am not anything of a scholar, and words be hard to
find for some things. I think, times, that in our mortal language there
are no words for the things that are of most account. So, when those
things come upon us we are struck silent, and can but feel and feel,
till our hearts are like a bursting dam. Maybe, in the life yonder, that
already I begin to glimpse on the edge of this world, we shall find the
proper words. But not yet So, if I fail in what I’ve set out to do, you
must pardon what I canna help, and fill up the glats in my speech with
the brushwood of your own imagining.
The strangest part of that time was the silence of it. Gideon had always
been a silent man, but now he was as bad as the miller. He’d come and
he’d go, but not a word would pass his lips. And sometimes he’d stop all
of a sudden, as he went about his work, as if he’d been struck of a heap
by summat. His thoughts, I guessed it to be. Then he’d straighten his
shoulders, and mighty shoulders they were, and go about his work again.
I thought it would pass in time, and as nothing was settled between him
and Tivvy yet, I made up my mind not to leave the poor lad all alone,
but to bide still for a while. Tivvy was in a fix, for she was
determined to have Gideon, and yet she was so mortal afraid of the
frittening, for the frittening is said to be very bad in a place where
mother and babe die together, that she durstna set foot our side of the
mere at all. So there we were, in a thick, cruddled silence, that grew
ever more and more solid like freezing water or souring milk. Save for
the birds, that minded their own affairs and took no thought of us,
there were no voices uplifted at Sarn. Evenings, when they hushed, it
fell so still that I could hear Gideon’s boat, moored just by the
beginning of the caus’y, knocking and knocking with small, reminding
taps. And, times, in the kitchen of a night, when Gideon was out,
working late at the hoeing of the young corn or at the haying, I’d hold
up a bit of tasty victuals to Pussy just to make her mew. And I’d say,
“There, now thee’s mewed! Good Pussy!”
When he was in, Gideon was as dumb as the drowned, save that once, on a
night of bright moonlight when we were having our supper late after
haying, he leaned forrard of a sudden and said—
“Did ye see that?”
“What?” I says.
“Why, somebody went by the door, in a white gown.”
But it wasna till July, in a spell of very thundery weather, hot and
still and gloomy, that his strangeness came upon him in good earnest. I
was sitting in the doorway, to get what air there was, for it drew off
the mere, evenings. I was carding wool, and the white of it, heaped up
on my black, made me look like a magpie, I thought. The lilac leaves
were limp with the heat, and the mere like hot lead to look at, with the
tall thick trees around it, carven out of iron. All round the marges of
the mere were the lilies, lying on the heavy water, their small white
buds shining. Not a bird spoke, for all were in their coverts, since the
heat was so great. Even the water-birds stayed among the reeds, and the
boat had given over knocking on the steps, as if the day was fixed now
for the passenger to come, and there was no more to do till then.
Suddenly Gideon came round the corner all in a sweat of haste, with the
brummock in one hand and his hedging gloves still on, for he was busy at
the hedges between hay and corn harvest. He stopped when he saw me, and
put hand to head, and then broke out in a passion—
“What for do ye sit there the like of that, making game you’re Mother?”
“I never made game to be Mother,” I said. “Whatever ails you?”
“Mother was used to sit there and card wool. I thought you were Mother.”
“Well, I couldna help that,” I said. “But what did you come round the
corner in such a courant for?”
“I was pleaching the big thorn hedge, and she came upon the top of it,
all in white.”
“Who came upon the top of it?” I asks, impatient
“Jancis,” he says, as quiet as could be, not as if he was saying
anything strange, but just as he might speak of seeing Tivvy or Polly
Miller. He said no more, but went back to his work, though he gave up
the hedge. He’d never argue at all about what he saw, but just say he
saw it, and that was all. The next time was when he was hoeing in the
big wheat field. He came into the house, very hasty, with the hoe and
all, and said he’d seen Jancis ploughing with her two white oxen, in the
barley field, and the child sitting up on the nighest ox.
“Now look you, Gideon,” I said, “you mun leave thinking of Jancis, or
you’ll be possessed. And a man possessed is pretty far on to madness.
You just think of getting on and scraping and saving as you used to, and
dunna think of Jancis or Mother till you’re more settled in your mind.”
“I dunna think of Jancis. She just comes.”
“Well, set your mind on other things and she wunna.”
“What things?”
“Why, getting rich, and getting the house.”
“What for?”
“For the same reason you began of it. Because you want it.”
“I dunna want it now.”
“But why? You wanted it so much, you poisoned Mother. You wanted it so
much, you gave the nay-word to Jancis. Let alone all the things you did
afore, you must have been pretty well clemmed for it to do as you did.”
“Well, I dunna want it now.”
“What for not?”
“Summat went out of it when I did see ’em in the water.”
“Well, think of Tivvy, then. She’d like to go to the Hunt Ball, I know.”
“I wunna take up with Tivvy. I’d liefer swing.”
“Miss Dorabella, then. She’s sweet on you. Take up with her, and she’ll
spend her money to save you from Tivvy.”
“Dorabella’s abron. I like a fair woman. Little. With blue eyes. A woman
like may and milk.”
“Well, think of me then. Be a bit of company for me now and again.”
“But you be going.”
“Not till you’re more settled in mind, lad. I’ll stop on a bit, if
you’ll keep a cheerful heart, and not call old grief to mind.”
But it was no use. In less than a week he came in all of a hurry and
said—
“She’s at it again.”
“What, ploughing?”
“Ah. And the barley field’s as bald as a coot.”
“It’s bad seed,” I says, “that’s what it is, Gideon. It’s because you
had to buy instead of putting in our own.”
But my heart was heavy, and I couldna see what the end of this would be.
I even wished Tivvy would come.