Chapter VIII: How They Went Swaling

“Auntie,” said Beatrice, moodily, “I’ve got the blooming hump. I am going for a walk on the blasted moor.”

“My dear, you should not,” Miss Pentreath quavered gently. “You must not use such language.”

“Is it naughty?” her niece enquired. “Shall she suck her finger and look penitent? Well, she ain’t a going to. She’s afflicted with the blues, on account of the vagaries of this Dartmoor climate. She has a melancholy, splenetic, and acrimonious humour. She’s got the megrims. She’s dumpish, mumpish, and sulkish, on account of the rain. There, auntie! see the possibilities of the Anglo-American language, and choose the expression you like best.”

“I can’t think where you pick it up,” Miss Pentreath protested.

“The educational value of the present-day novel is great,” said Beatrice.

“You read the most improper books.”

“You read them too, my dear, or you wouldn’t know,” the girl replied.

“But I’ve not been married, never engaged even,” complained Miss Pentreath. “I am entitled to a little mild excitement.”

Beatrice shrieked with laughter. “What a wicked little old woman it was,” she cried. “Never mind, Auntie. We are all wicked, so why be humbugs?”

“I am not wicked,” objected Miss Pentreath. “I have had no chance. I go to church on Sundays, and I read a sermon every evening. If only they would write interesting sermons I would read more of them.”

“You paint--you’re a rouge dragon,” cried lively Beatrice.

“Art is beautiful, age is not,” sighed Miss Pentreath.

“False teeth, false hair, false complexion, and--naughtiest of all--false bosom,” Beatrice indicted.

“Do leave me alone,” sighed Miss Pentreath. “You’ll be like it yourself some day.”

“Anyhow I’ll have grandchildren to tease me, not nieces. It’s stopped raining, and I’m going out--to the blasted moor aforesaid. Now I’ll tuck you up, give you lollies to suck, and you can read a sermon while you make nice cobwebby point lace to deck my garments withal.”

Miss Pentreath was a harmlessly wanton little lady. She dressed in the style of a young girl, with flowers and ribbons, saucy frocks, laced petticoats, baby hats, and other allurements which it was her weakness to exhibit when crossing a muddy road. Her face was decidedly not her own: her soft tresses and fringe were equally exotic. Her efforts to secure a husband would have been of some humour had they not been pathetic. A few years before she had made her last stake, and been within sight of the goal. An elderly and short-sighted clergyman became entangled. On an evil day he escorted Miss Pentreath to a circus and travelling menagerie. There was a cageful of monkeys, and the coquettish lady stood before it, and poked playfully at the progenitors of her species with a beribboned parasol. Suddenly an ape seized the ferrule, and drew her close to the cage. Instantly a dozen paws shot forth, hat and hair vanished, while a general disrobing process went on below. The short-sighted clergyman became very properly aghast at the appearance of the lay-figure, which continued to undergo the throes of transformation--a sort of rough rehearsal of what he might expect the night after “The voice that breathed o’er Eden,” had been sung for his benefit. Modesty and dismay impelled him to retire. Miss Pentreath’s hat and hair were rent to shreds; while her gloves and handkerchief were with some difficulty recovered from the cheek-pouch of a baboon.

The bachelor-lady, as she was fond of styling herself--having a not unreasonable hatred for the ugly word spinster--was the slave of her niece. Beatrice was quite independent. She was of age, and possessed means of her own. She was the only surviving child of a defunct Cornish vicar who had been Miss Pentreath’s favourite brother. The little painted lady was terribly afraid lest her niece should run away, and leave her to old-maidish loneliness which her soul abhorred. So she pandered to the girl’s tastes, refrained from crossing her wishes, and behaved generally just as that wayward young person desired. She did not want Beatrice to marry, having a very shrewd idea that no future nephew-by-marriage would permit such a very draggled and washed-out butterfly as herself to flit about his house.

Evading Mrs. Cobbledick, who would have detained her with fine rambling phrases concerning butter and tombstones and the gradual wasting-away of Willum, Beatrice emerged into the village street, hatless and charming. She had made up her mind which direction to take while she was putting her shoes on. She had said something about “a little crooked house” while she laced them. And she had laughed to herself, “Good-morrow, Jack! poor Jack!” while she tied them.

The early promise of the day had not been fulfilled. Rain had followed sunshine, and Beatrice knew that Blissland would be “clamp and dammy,” as she expressed it. Twilight was threatening, as she left the rush-thatched cottage where successive generations of Cobbledicks had sinned, and faced the moor where a fresh breeze was drying the heather and bracken. There was hardly a sign of the recent summer rain upon the rough track; and the peaty moorland was dry already. It was one of those evenings when the atmosphere seems to tickle young folk, making them long to laugh and jump and scream.

“I’ll do it,” said Beatrice. “It’s shocking, but I’m not going to be lonesome.”

She jumped over a gorse-bush, and pricked her ankles, which made her squeal. A couple of moormen, whom she had not perceived, stopped and stared in the hope she would jump again. She did not, but proceeded quite demurely, until she reached the little cottage with the tin roof at the end of the gorge. There was nobody in sight. She did not see Peter lying on his favourite rock, replete with young rabbit; but Peter saw her, and drew his own conclusions.

Beatrice knocked at the door. She heard a sound within, as of a pile of books falling heavily. She pushed the door open, and called saucily, “Please, I’m the boy from the grocer. I’ve brought the sugar.”

The next instant Burrough stood before her, lacking coat and collar, his face flushed, his manner nervous, as shy as a child. Willum at that moment was mightily avenged. It was a different Burrough from the superior creature who had persecuted the scholar. He could hardly believe his eyes. Beatrice alone upon his humble threshold!

“Is this ‘the Rising Sun,’ ‘the Setting Moon,’ ‘the Twinkling Star,’ or anything beery of that sort?” Beatrice rattled away at once. “Because I’ve brought a little thirst with me; quite a young one, but it’s growing fast.”

“Will you come in?” Burrough invited nervously.

“Not to-day, thank you. It wouldn’t do to be found upon unlicensed premises. Will you give me a glass of milk?”

“Do come in,” he went on, in a somewhat dazed fashion.

“I wun’t,” she said. “If you refuse me a drink I must go on to the next house.”

At that he hurried away, and brought her a glass of milk. She accepted delicately, then suggested that he might go and “dress himself” while she drank. When he returned he discovered that Beatrice had employed her leisure by inscribing upon his door with a chalky stone the two doggerel lines--

“John Burrough lives here, He sells brandy and beer.”

The twilight had come. He thought her face looked more distracting than ever.

“What was’t ye’ doing man?” she inquired playfully, in the dialect of the moor.

“I was working,” he answered her gravely. “Trying to, rather.”

“Come on out! Let’s go swaling,” said Beatrice.

“It’s too late in the year.”

“We shall get off under the First Offenders’ Act,” Beatrice reminded him. “Go and get two boxes of matches.”

Burrough obeyed. It was delightful to be ordered about his own premises by the maid of the tiny feet. When he appeared with the matches, Beatrice pointed to a deep cleft on the side of the moor across the river, and remarked, “That’s a good place. We’ll start there.”

“There are vipers in that gorge,” warned Burrough.

“We’ll burn ’em out,” cried vicious Beatrice.

They hurried down, through the gathering gloom and the mist which was rolling up the cleave. A herd of ponies stampeded before them, and Beatrice shouted to make them run faster. She jumped from rock to rock, bounded over tufts of heather, furrowed her way through bracken, jumped the gorse-patches. It was as good as a dance. Her blood was fired by that mad scamper through the evening air and the shadows. She was intoxicated with the freedom of the wild moor. She bounded into a bog, and screamed, “I’m a-stugged!” She was out again, with brown shoes blacked, and stockings stained. Burrough was panting after her, short of breath already. The girl went so fast. They reached the edge of the foaming river, and searched for a crossing.

“Come on,” cried the maid of the mist. “Here be a gurt stoane! One-tew-dree.” She jumped, reached the stone with a light toe, and turned laughing. “Here’s anudder.” She jumped again, shrieking with mirth when she heard a splash behind. Burrough had missed the stone, and was in over his knees. Beatrice went across like a water-wagtail, and Burrough came floundering after.

“More bogs,” cried an excited voice. “Gugh! ain’t it messy? Lucky I’ve got old clo’ on--if anyone does pick up a garter in the mud they may think just what they like,” she murmured to herself. “I know I’ve lost it, and the mud is pulling my stocking down, and on the whole it’s as well that the shades of night are falling fast.”

“Are you all right?” sang out her companion.

“Bog-trotting nicely thanks. Where’s the gorge?”

“More to the left. I can hear the water rushing down it.”

“My feet are like coal-barges. They’m mucky twoads. Oh Tregony! Here’s a pincushion. I’ve walked right into it. Matches--quick before the mist swallows us. I’m in the middle of the gorse.”

“Let me,” cried Burrough, groping up over the slippery stones. “You will prick your hands.”

“They _are_ pricked,” gasped Beatrice, excitedly. “Like fretful porcupines. Come on! Stick it in here.”

She was on her knees, making a hole in the bleached tangle of grass, below the furze where the rain had not penetrated. Burrough lighted several matches with shaking, awkward fingers. The wind blew them out. Beatrice swore softly in Cornish. At last the flame touched the grass. It spluttered, a gentle hissing began, the dry gorse-prickles caught. A moment later a furious crackling commenced, and then a wide yellow sheet of flame darted up, waving like a revolutionary flag.

“Now it will go like blue blazes,” cried Beatrice. “Hear it whine! There it goes again.”

The burning gorse gave forth a sharp, plaintive sound, something between a whistle and a moan, which lasted for some seconds before dying away in a shrill staccato gasp.

“I can’t help it. I must scream too,” cried Beatrice. “Oh, there’s nothing so good as swaling. Let’s light both sides of the gorge. There it rips! Heather, gorse, and grass, in an everlasting bonfire. Isn’t the smell delicious?”

They lighted the gorse in a dozen different places. They worked like stokers. The gorge became a glowing furnace. The flames roared below; the wind howled above. The foaming river beneath was blood-red. Showers of sparks rained in, and went out hissing.

“Lucky there’s been rain to-day,” gasped Burrough, as he stumbled by with a burning brand.

“Lucky? It’s a pity,” protested Beatrice. “We’d have burnt the moor to Cranmere.”

An equally excited neighing went up on either side of the gorge; and out of the smoke came the shaggy heads and flowing manes of a score of ponies, drawn thither by the fragrance of burning gorse. Normally wild and frightened when near human beings, their shyness became forgotten when there was a prospect of a warm and comforting supper upon charred green gorse. Soon they came up in numbers, almost stepping into the flames in their eagerness to secure the blackened shoots.

“Keep it up,” Beatrice shouted, when her companion showed signs of flagging.

“I expect we are destroying nests of young birds,” he answered.

“Poor dears!” she panted. “Never mind. They won’t suffer much. It will be soon over. One whiff of flame, and they’ll be grilled. And the parents will be so pleased. They won’t have to bring them worms and things.”

The reason Burrough had stayed his destroying hand was that he might watch Beatrice. She had never appeared so fascinating. Her hair was tumbling upon her shoulders, partly singed, entirely crumpled. Her heated face was smudged distractingly. Her hands were blackened, scratched, and bleeding. She was like a lovely witch in that fierce light. Beneath her short skirt, and over her muddy shoe, he could perceive from time to time a loose roll of brown silk. All around her roared the flames of the swaling-fires. The ponies poked their hungry muzzles in between.

“The gorse is full of blossom here,” a voice observed, with a tinge of regret, “bunches of golden bloom, shrivelling, going brown, and black. We’ve done enough,” Beatrice exclaimed. “My matches are finished, and I’m tired.”

She stood for a moment, watching the waving line of fire, her hands upon her hips, then sank upon a moss-covered boulder, and mopped her face with a small handkerchief. Gradually she slipped from the rock, which afforded a poor resting place, and dived feet first into the thick heather. She stretched herself out luxuriously, as upon a fragrant yielding bed, lowered her head languorously with little squirms of pleasure, and half closed her eyes against the fierce light of the fires. As he approached Burrough could perceive her tightly-fitting grey jersey rising and falling with her quick breath.

“I’m tired, heavenly tired,” she murmured. “This is reaction. Oh!” she cried, with sudden nervousness. “Don’t let the ponies trample on me.”

“There are no ponies here,” her companion said. He too was panting, and his body was at fever heat, and the thrilling reaction was over him too. He seated himself on the edge of her springy bed, and dared to lean slightly over so that he could look down upon her face. In the meantime the wind carried the swaling fires onward and away. The weird light still flickered around the heather bed.

“It’s getting late,” Beatrice said sleepily. “Auntie will be waiting supper for me. It’s like a dream. I can feel the wind rocking the heather. How warm and red the fire is! This is the seventh heaven. There!” She gave a big gasp. “Now my breath has come back.”

“You are sweet, Beatrice; you are sweet,” thought Burrough; and he compressed his lips to keep the words from issuing.

“Was that the fire, or the wind? Or did you speak?” asked she.

“You look lovely lying there,” he said, after a pause, in a hard voice.

“I can’t help it,” she replied, with a little smile. “And I’m too tired to care.”

“Oh, very lovely,” he said, more calmly and precisely.

“Trewidden, Trewinnard, Trewint!” murmured Beatrice.

Burrough was by nature a shy man, and a modest. He turned his head away. Had he not done so, he would have fallen beside her and kissed her on the neck.

“What a funny idea!” half whispered Beatrice, as though confiding to herself. “A girl with a little crooked nose, also a little crooked mouth, likewise two little crooked eyes, not forgetting various black smudges, singes, and burns, distributed about the small features hereinbefore mentioned, and described as aforesaid,--lovely! My stars!”

“Your face is not burnt,” muttered Burrough, in a sudden passion of love.

“My hand be--burnt horrid.”

Instantly he seized the hand, which was resting on a tuft of heather and swaying with the breeze. But Beatrice began to whimper like a fretful child.

“You hurt. Doan’t ye be cruel! Doan’t ye, now!”

He released the hand from pressure at once, and let it lie resting upon his, just as it had rested a moment before upon the heather.

“It’s a pincushion,” she explained, “cram-jam wi’ prickles from the gorse. You squeezed the prickles in. You can’t see them. They’re too wee.”

“But they hurt you?” he said, in a voice unmistakably tender.

“Cruel! There’s one in the top of my little finger, and it’s a beast of a prickle.”

“Let me take it out.”

“I won’t be hurt,” she declared.

“There’s only one way of getting out these gorse prickles.”

“Well?” said Beatrice resignedly.

He lifted her hand, found the tiny speck on the top of the little finger by the light of the fires, and proceeded to extract it with his teeth. Beatrice laughed a little, protested, murmured, then sighed, and finally composed herself with half-closed eyes and quivering mouth. The prickle was taken out, but there were others, and one particularly in the soft pink palm which it was very difficult to get at. The little hand was hot and grimy. It was scented with smoke and the wild fragrance of the moor. It trembled like an imprisoned bird. Some of the scratches had bled.

The fires began to die down. They had reached bogs higher up, and the night settled gradually upon the bed of heather where Beatrice reposed, sighing, and sometimes giving little moans and wriggles, when the process of extraction hurt her nerves. She did not speak until the fires within had burnt out, as those above were doing, and she began to feel that the wind was chilly and her bed damp. Then she shivered and sat up.

“My feet are so cold,” she said. “I had forgotten they were wet.”

Looking down, she suddenly became ashamed. “I didn’t know it was like that,” she murmured. “I’m a wild, careless little devil, and I lost a garter in that bog. Why shouldn’t I say so? I’m a sensible Cornish girl. I’m not a prude.” Then she looked up at Burrough winningly, but there was not much fun left in her. “Aren’t you drefful tired and stiff? I am.”

“I will take you back to the village,” Burrough replied. “I know this bit of moor, and I can steer you clear of bogs. I am so sorry about--what you have lost, and if I can help you----”

“You see, this skirt is so short. And people say such beastly things.”

Burrough was wearing knickerbockers and stout woollen stockings. He bent as he spoke, and a moment later held out a strap taken from his own leg, saying, “If this is of any use to you----”

Beatrice glanced up delightedly, with the old mischief on her face.

“Thank you very much, Sir John Burrough, K.G. Now will you please go away, mutter a Paternoster, and then come back to take me home?”