THAT was a night of grief and fear which nothing in life has ever made
me forget. Sexton and Sammy, after a vain search, went home. I was alone
under the coverlet of fog, in that place full of ghostly footsteps. I
said a prayer for dying men. Then I sat hour by hour beside the fire, in
that dim slothfulness of the spirit which a great sorrow or a great
amazement will bring. It was the strangest Wake Eve I’d ever known, and
the most grievous night of all my life. I thought how Gideon forbade me
to go down into the water as folk did of old time, and be cured of my
ill. And now, see! he was gone down into the mere himself, to be cured
of his own curse. Then I thought of golden Jancis, and the little babe,
and Missis Beguildy, and Father and poor Mother, all dead too. It seemed
Death had been very busy at it, swiving among us. Ah! It was a bitter
watching, for I ever liked those I cared for to be in good case. A year
back, there was Jancis chosen for the sport called Heaving the Chair,
for which the prettiest girl was always called out. There she was in her
blue gown, I minded it well, with a crown of summer flowers on her head
and a posy in her hand, lifted high in the chair by two strapping young
fellows, while the rest came by, one by one, to see who she’d choose.
All the young chaps were in it, but only one girl, so you may guess
there was a deal of heart-searching over who’d be chosen.
They gave her a posy, and one fellow held a basin of water, and when
she’d chosen her chap, she dipped the posy in the water and smote his
face with it, which made everybody laugh.
And Jancis had chosen Gideon, of course, and he’d waited till the very
last, because it pleased him to see all the others turned away and to
know he wouldna be. And she smacked his face well with the posy, and
gave her sweet, tinkling laugh, and then he lifted her down, which was
part of the game, and gave her a kiss, which wunna. And I thought now,
how untoërt a thing it was that she should have soused his face with
water, as if in token that she should baptize him in the mere, ’ticing
him to his death, and that it was the coming round of the fair day that
had been the last straw. So I sighed, thinking—‘we be all His mommets,
and He orders the play.’
I called to mind also how Gideon won the guinea for whistling best and
clearest. He could whistle very well, and also he could keep his face
straight in spite of all the fooling of the merry-andrew, who tried to
make them laugh. For if Gideon was at the making of money he took it in
such good sadness that nothing in the world could even make him smile.
Beguildy whistled well also, but his best chance of a prize was always
the yawning match, in which Granfeyther Callard ran him very close.
Beguildy would come to the fair, though it angered Sexton, who persisted
in saying it was a festival of the Church, and not for wizards, and who
made himself very busy about everything, as if he was chief man.
Thinking of all this, I was sick at heart, for what is there more
grievous than calling to mind old, merry randies? Then you say, “Ah,
this one or that one was here then.” And you remember how you were so
strong in your joy, you could even be merry over jests that played upon
great and solemn things. You call to mind how such an one said, “A goose
walks over my grave!” and laughed. And you remember that the one who
said it has been under the sod a long while. So the thought of last
year’s fair set me crying, though the drowning of Gideon didna. Indeed,
it was out of the ornary strange, his dying, and not like the common
lot, for he neither died in his bed nor by violence, but went into the
mist of his own will and wish, and then was not. And that we never found
him seemed to me only a rightful ending to a life which so cut itself
adrift from all pleasant, feckless human ways and doings. He belonged to
none, seemingly, for he gave the go-by to his nearest kin. What he had
most truck with was the earth and the water from which he was building
himself a life to his mind. Rock, and troubled water, heavy earth, trees
groaning yet unyielding in the storm, all these he was kin to, though he
didna love them. He took hold of them, browbeat them, made them his’n.
And in the doing of it he fell, as it were, among thieves, for they took
hold of him and made him their slave. It seemed to me he couldna die
like other men, and be sodded, and lie in six feet of soil, and have a
name-stone. No. He must have large room and be free of all, roaming at
will in the troubled currents of the mere, in the mid of his own farm
and his own woodland. How can you cry for such a thing as this? Can you
cry about a thunder-bolt or a cloud-burst? No. It was only when I
remembered those few times when he gave in that I could cry for him, as
when I called to mind how he put his arm across his face at the fire,
and sobbed.
All that night I thought of him, and the dark was full of cold fear, and
a horror gathered about the place, it seemed so lone, as if it didna
belong to the world at all. I knew I couldna spend another night there,
and I began wondering what to do with the live stock, since nobody else
would set foot here after such doings. No, not if it was ever so! Sexton
refused out and out, and if he wouldna, nobody would. Not a soul would
buy the place, and though I could leave the fields we’d laboured on to
go back into wood and heath, yet the live stock must be seen to as long
as it was there. Yet I was determined to bide there no longer, but to
flee away as they did from the cities of the plain, not for any fault in
the place, but for what Gideon had made of it. I’d shift to-morrow. But
what to do with the beasts I couldna think, for if I asked anyone even
so much as to water them, they’d say, “No, no, missus, there’s summat to
be seen there.”
At last came the blessed dawn, and the mist lay like a vasty shining
cloud on the place, but as the sun swam up, full of power and warmship,
not to be gainsayed, the mist came loose all in a piece, and lifted
slow, till there was a space betwixt its under side and the mere, where
the coots swam, like bees running about between two boards. Then
one-half of the tree-trunks came free, so that the forest seemed to be
mounded up with snow. It lifted and lifted, and at last went into the
sky, and failed amid the clouds of dawn. Then the clouds faded, and
there were only the proper heavens, blue as bird’s eye. As soon as the
mist lifted, I saw that the mere had broken in the night, and the water
was thick and troubled, simmering all over, so that the lilies were
stirred as they lay anchored. When the blessed sunshine came, a way out
came also into my mind. It was fair day. There’d be a sight of people
here. Why not take the creatures to the fair, and make a pen, and get
somebody to sell them? They could go cheap. Ah. That was it! So when I’d
fed the stock, and milked, I fetched all into the fold, to be ready, and
tidied the house, drawing the curtains, and set out to Sexton’s to ask
if I could put up a pen and bring the beasts, and get the crockman to
sell them by auction, as he sold his wares. Sexton didna care about it
much, but seeing he knew he’d got no authority, and the fair being held
in our wood, he could do no else than agree. Tivvy looked very
spitefully at me, for she wanted sore to be missus at Sarn, not to speak
of her being sweet on Gideon, and she seemed to blame me that all had
gone wrong. But I’d no time to waste, for already the first waggons were
coming to the fair ground. It was still the custom then to deck out a
waggon for each village with flowers and boughs, to bring the people. Or
sometimes the young ones would walk, the men and women in separate
companies, singing as they came. But they went back two by two, men and
maids. They were setting out the booths when I went by, spiced ale and
the gingerbread-babies Moll liked, mint cakes and pebble brooches and
combs to stand high in the hair. A woman had lit a fire and was getting
ready the huge bowl of hasty pudding for the trial, which could eat it
hot quickest. The waggons rolled along the wood ways with the same sound
as at our harvest home. The folk chattered like a lot of jays, until
they came to the fair ground and heard the news about Gideon. I could
hear when each waggon heard tell, for a hush fell on all. Then I suppose
they thought, well, they were a-nigh the church, that was on holy
ground, and the accursed place was at the other end of the mere, so they
took heart and began to chatter again. I saw Mister Huglet and Mister
Grimble, thick as thieves, and they scowled at me as I went by.
All along the wood-path there was a great stirring of dragon-flies, and
the lustre-coloured damsels looked grand, sailing over the crimson
bosses of dragon’s blood, that is the wild geranium. I thought, ‘The
wind lifts in the branches, the lilies be in blow, the dragon-flies be
coming out of their shrouds, but Kester Woodseaves has forgot me.’ For
by this he was to have raught back. And why should he remember a woman
with a curse upon her, a hare-shotten woman, in danger of being accused
of witchcraft? No, he wouldna call me to mind again. He’d take up with
that young woman he spoke of that didna spare her blushes.
When I got home, I gathered together all the sheep and pigs, the cows
and oxen, and drove them, riding upon Bendigo, to the fair. By good
fortune they were all fain of me and went where I told them. Then I went
back and put the fowl and ducks, the geese and turkeys in boxes and
hampers, and wheeled them on the barrow. I’d left them shut up, to catch
them the sooner. The people stared when they saw me riding through the
wood with my flocks and herds afore me, for the creatures made a great
stir, baaing and grunting and mooing, misliking the woods. And as we
went, there we all were in the troubled water, dimly shadowed, and I
thought how we had been reflected there when we buried Father. Then, all
the fields and barns, fold and shippen, being void of life, I put Pussy
in a basket and locked the door. And I thought, now the ghosts could
have the place, yes, all of them, even as far back as Tim, that had the
lightning in his blood. My vow that I took to Gideon was cancelled now.
I’d no more to do here. What should I stay for, with nobody to ask a
hand’s turn of me? I was for the road. What road I didna know, but I
thought it would be lonely. I’d packed a few things to leave with
Miller, for him to take to Lullingford, else, I had what I stood in, and
the old Bible, and my book. So I set forth from the farm, where Sarns
had been time out of mind. It was hard to leave the fields I’d laboured
so long upon, but it would have been harder to stay. I shivered to think
how the church spire would point across the water at the haunted house
this night, lying over that deepest, darkest place where Gideon was.
They were selling the things by the time I got back to the fair, with a
pewter tankard to put the money in. So, not wishing to have part or lot
in the merrymaking, I sat down on the churchyard wall to wait till all
was done and I might go. The bidding was pretty brisk, for the beasts
didna carry any curse, folk supposed, though they did come from an ill
place. Sexton bought Bendigo, and Moll’s father bought the oxen for his
maister. Callard had some of the cows, the other things were bought up
in good time, and I gave Pussy to Felena, because I thought she had a
good heart, though not much respectability—or maybe it was because of
that.