Chapter XI: Book FOUR (7)

I often wondered as the autumn went on, and the cold nights, what they thought of my letter. We knew they had it all right, for one market day Gideon came back with the lambs, that Grimble had put in pen for him at the _Mug o’ Cider_, and they were good ones, with no fut-rot. But it was drawing on to Christmas when the letter came from Jancis, and I mind it was a wild night, with a lashing of rain on the window, when I read it to Gideon. But it was warm within. It made a good Christmas for me, in spite of work, and Mother very ailing, so as we had to send for the doctor’s man all the way from Silverton, for Gideon wouldna hear of the doctor, saying the expense was more than enough as it was. He kept on grumbling and saying she was a burden, and Mother would ask me: “Does Sarn think I be a burden?” So it was very awkward for me. But that letter was as heartening as a platter of good hot soup, and lest Gideon should take it to his own keeping, I made a copy of it, and this is it.

THE HIGH FARM, OUTRACK.
_December 1._

MY DEAREST ACQUAINTANCE—

I am thinking of Sarn as I write this, and of the best of
lovers. Mister Woodseaves ud be very glad of the sewing and the
pickle and the damson cheese Sarn was so kind as to mention.
Perhaps might speak to your sister one day about it. Mister
Woodseaves says that is the best cough cure ever, and tried it
one foggy night after getting back from here to Lullingford, but
thinks it ud take a woman to mix it proper. Sorry about the
harvest and the calf, but no need to worry about Huglet’s dog,
not being afraid of any dog, nor of Huglet neither. But that was
a near shave at the Baiting, by gum, and a plucky woman to rush
in the like of that and save a poor fellow. For Mister
Woodseaves hears tell it was a woman did it, a tall slim woman
with beautiful dark eyes, so they do say. It inna for me to say
anything, as you know, Sarn. But others will talk. Weaver says
if ever he had an acquaintance he’d lief she was that sort. And
so good night, and a merry Christmas from

JANCIS BEGUILDY.

I love you already, and if these things be done in the dry tree, what shall be done in the green?

C H A P T E R F O U R: _Jancis Runs Away_

IT was a Christmas Eve again a year and eight months after Kester stopped the bull-baiting. There’d been no letters from Jancis a long while, but Gideon never worried about such things. He said it was only the weather, for the roads were so waidy round about Grimble’s that nobody could come at them in bad weather. They came to market seldom in winter, but laid in a store of such things as they needed, and Mister Grimble would send half a score waggons of grain to be ground at the mill, and then they’d settle down, the farm and the two labourers’ cottages, with the horses in stable and the cattle in the near pasture and the sheep in the mangold fields close by, all snug for the winter. They were used to keep a lot of simples and cures at such farms, because no apothecary or doctor could get to them, the roads being past all telling bad, not if it was ever so.

“Woodseaves canna go there, and Jancis canna send to Lullingford, but come a bit of fair weather, we shall hear,” said Gideon.

I used to think of Jancis, mewed up with Missis Grimble, a woman I couldna abide, nor could Jancis. I thought of the high mountains and the sleat storms like a wall of ice between her and us, and the snow, thick and soft, whispering, whispering.

“It goes round the house, and round the house, and leaves a white glove in the window.”

That’s what they say of the snow at Sarn.

There were two sons, of course, to liven things up, but one of them was going to wed with the labourer’s girl, and the other was very religious and didna hold with any kind of May-games, nor pleasuring, nor even much laughing and talking. So she’d only Missis Grimble, that was a driver and a scold, and Mister Grimble, that was very awkward in bad weather, because of the rheumatics. I used to think of her a deal. For if you thought of anybody at Sarn, you thought of them a deal, it being so quiet, especially in the winter, and time standing still, so it seemed.

And whenever I thought of Jancis I called to mind a thing I saw once in June, when we had strange untoërt weather and a deal of tempest and sleat, which one day for about an hour turned to snow. And I saw the wild roses, so tender and nesh, and used to nothing colder than dew, with their pale pink petals all full of snow, and seeming to be frozen through and through, gold hearts and all. I thought of her always like that, for I was fond of her, and she seemed a child to me, though she was older. Even in spite of her making me remember that she was pretty and I was ugly, I was fond of her, and the more so when she was in trouble, for I never love folks quite so well when it’s bright weather with them. So I wished I could have sent her summat for Christmas, if it was only a hemmed kerchief of plain linen. I’d asked Gideon to inquire after her at Kester’s when he went to market, but Kester was away, and the house shut up. That was uncomfortable news, for I liked to think of him by his own fireside, in the little house I knew by sight. It seemed he was nigher then. But it was his custom to go off for a month at a time in the winter to stay at one village or another and do all the weaving there, to save going to-and-again.

It was very quiet in our kitchen. Mother was in bed, being always bed-ridden now in hard weather, and Gideon was in the woods, getting the Christmas brand. For whatever else we were stinted of, we always had that, since it took only labour to get it, and Gideon never grudged that, poor lad. I went to the door to listen if he’d finished chopping, and I could hear the axe barking, and the echo of it coming from across the mere. The trees were mounded up with snow, and the mere frozen till near the middle. The woods, as white as sugar, stood round the water so still, as if they were spelled, like folk in some old tale of witchcraft, so deep they were in trusses and bales of snow, and not a breath stirring. You couldna call summer to mind. You couldna think of the mere with lilies on it, and ripples. I held my breath, it was so quiet, till a redshank called from the far end of the mere by the church, very sorrowful, with a sound like “Mute! Mute!” Then some widgeon went over against the darkening sky, and I heard Mother give a little cough, so I knew she’d be wanting her tea. The sound of the axe had stopped, so Gideon ud be coming soon, and I set about getting the meal.

I was baking, a thing I dearly liked. Most of the work I did was men’s work, and baking seemed so light and pleasant after it I liked to see the dough rising afore the big red fire, and to get the oven ready with burning wood, raking out the ash after, and setting the loaves in rows. It was pleasant to be in the warm, glowing kitchen, full of the good smell of bread, and to look out at the grey-white fields and woods, cold and lonesome, and then to draw the curtain, and kindle the rushlight, setting the table and putting the tater pie to get hot on the gledes, and knowing that in a little while all those I cared for would be comfortable for the night. The fowl had been shut up since the first dusk, the cows and sheep were folded, Bendigo littered-up, Pussy by hearth, Mother with a bit of fire in her room and the warming-pan in the bed, and now Gideon was on the way back to his supper. The oven being still hot, I put in a batch of mince-pies, for Gideon liked a bit of good fare as well as anybody, though he’d growl times, and talk about ruination, and where’d our house be and the silver plate and all. But though I did as he said all the year round, with a bit of bread and cheese and a tater for a meal, at Christmas time I went by my own road, and we had our merrymaking almost like other folks. And since, after all that came to pass, I’ve been more glad of that bit of disobedience to Gideon than of anything in our lives then. For I can say, “Anyway, they had _that_, whatever else they didna have.”

I was singing to myself a bit, and talking to Pussy, who was almost too comfortable to purr, only if I spoke she’d partly get up, and arch herself very polite, and open her mouth to mew, and then be too bone-idle to make any sound. But she looked at me as much as to say, “I know you made this nice gledy fire to warm me, missus, and I know you’ve got summat in larder for I, and thank you kindly.”

All of a sudden there came a soft tap at the door. So tiny and timid it was, it might almost have been a poor red-breast tapping with its beak. There was one would come in hard weather, and if I was too long feeding it, it would tap on the window. I went to the door, and it being dark by now, and nobody coming our way in a month of Sundays, I may say I thought of frittening and fairies and Lob-lie-by-the-fire, and all sorts of queer things that were used to happen in time past.

I opened it.

There against the white, dreary stretch of the frozen mere, all woebegone and white in the light of the fire, was Jancis.

No sooner did I pull her in than she fell down dang-swang in a heap on the floor. The poor girl! Never did I see such a pickle. Her clothes were all torn, boots broken, hands and face scratched as if she’d been through brier hedges, which it turned out after that she had, and everything wringing wet as if she’d been dragged out of the mere. She’d fainted dead away, and I’d enough to do to get her round. When she came to, she told me she’d had no food for nearly two days, and she’d walked all the way from Grimble’s in this weather.

To think of it! The long and the short of it was that she’d run away, and she’d no money and no decent boots, and she had to slip away when she could, which chanced to be when she hadna got her shawl.

She cried and cried.

“Oh, I couldna bear it, Prue! Oh, dear Prue, dunna scold! It was more than anybody could bear. And when it came nigh Christmas and there was no news, and all of ’em ten times worse, being mewed up with the hard weather, oh, I _couldna_ bear it. And the girl at the cottage told me that the last two dairymaids ran away as well. She said why didna I run away, too? Partly she said it because she was sorry for me, and partly because Alf Grimble, that’s her young man, was paying me attentions. So she told me the best time to go, and kept ’em all out of the way, and gave me some bread and meat and a bottle of milk, and promised to tell them some tale to keep them from following me.”

She stopped a bit for breath, and there came from outside the sound of Gideon’s cart-wheels creaking along in the snow.

“What be you going to say to Gideon?” I asked her.

“Oh, dunna let him be angered with me, Prue! Dunna! I canna bear any more. When I tell you all I’ve been through, you’ll see I canna.”

Gideon came to the door, dragging the great log, that was the Christmas brand, on a chain.

“Dunna turn me out, Prue! Whatever he do say, and however angered he be at me losing the place he settled on, keep me for this night!”

So I said did she think any creature could make me turn her out at any time, let alone in such weather? And I tucked her up on settle, and said she must rest now, and afterwards she should have a sup of tea, and then to bed, and all her troubles were over. Then she smiled and whispered—

“I love ye, Prue! You bin like the Saviour to me this night,” and so fell asleep.

Times, seeing what came to pass, I’m main glad of that smile and that whisper.

Eh, but Gideon was in a rage!

“Why, she’ll lose all the money,” he says, the first minute, “and she’ll not only lose the money for the year and four months to come, but she’ll lose the wages for the year and eight months she’s been there. If they break their time, they get no money. You know that as well as I do.”

I asked how he could think of the money when she’d come to our door the like of that, all draggled and half dead.

“You always were a fool, Prue,” he says, “and I suppose you always will be.”

But my patience was out, and I talked to Gideon straight.

“I’d thank you to keep your tongue in leash this evening, Gideon! Here’s Christmas, and Jancis come to you out of death’s arms, very nearly. For it wanted but a little. If she’d lost her way again, so late, she’d have been done. And seeing I’ve taken her in and she’s to have my bed, and I’ve cossetted her for ye, she being your dear acquaintance, you’d ought to be humble and grateful to me and to them above for the savation of the poor child.”

“Dear to goodness! What a spitfire all in a minute!” says he. He laughed a bit, being startled, for I wasna used to breaking out like that. Then he went tramping into the kitchen.

“Well!” he says, very loud, for he wunna used to sick folks, and he always seemed to think they were deaf. When Mother was sick, he’d shout at her summat odd, though Mother had kept her hearing very well.

“Good evening, Sarn!” says Jancis, very small and weak.

“So you’ve raught back.”

“Ah!”

“Broke your time and all.”

She began to cry.

“Now then, dunna do that!” he says, quite taken-to. “Prue’ll give me some more tongue if you cry. I amna to say a word, not to-night. There’ll be summat to be said to-morrow, but I’m to leave you be to-night. Well, how bin ’ee?”

He stood in the middle of the kitchen and shouted it at her, so I couldna help but laugh.

“Nicely, thank you kindly, Sarn,” she says.

“You dunna do much credit to your pasture at Grimble’s. I’ll say that. See young Camperdine ever?”

“No.”

“Got an acquaintance over yonder?”

“No, Sarn. You be my acquaintance for ever and ever.”

“Not Alf Grimble?”

“No. But he was sweet on me, a bit, and pestered me. That was why I ran away.”

I never thought Jancis was so clever. But every woman’s clever when she’s in love, I do believe. She was ever so white against the black settle.

“I ran away because you be the only acquaintance I do want, Sarn.”

“So that was it! I’ll break Alf’s head for un come cattle-market.”

“No. Dunna, dunna!”

“So you ran away all those miles and miles because you didna like Alf, and because I was your dear acquaintance?”

“Ah.”

“Give us a kiss, wench!”

I ran away into the dairy at that, and Pussy with me, for she was always a bit skeered when Gideon was in. I skimmed and skimmed, and if I cried a bit, who was the worse? For I wished I was on settle with a young man shouting at _me_ from the middle of the kitchen, and then saying, “Give us a kiss, wench!” And if you should ask what manner of young man would I choose, I’d say as he’d wear a coat the colour of a May meadow, and look at you with eyes full of power and knowledge till your soul turned right over.

“I canna have what I want, Pussy,” I says. “But you can, for your wants be easy got.”

And I gave her a great saucer of cream. I did! What would Gideon have said if he’d known? But he’d got his cream in the kitchen.

“I’m giving you this, Pussy,” I says, “because I canna get my own cream. It eases me to see somebody satisfied.”

She looked at me, frittened, thinking she must be going to get slapped in a minute, since it was too good to be true. Then she lapped it up.

With that, I heard Mother calling.

“You’ve had that, anyway, Pussy,” I says. “And now, Mother, would ye like some cream with your tea?”

“Why, yes, my dear. I do dearly like a drop of cream with my tea. But what’ll Sarn say?”

“He’s busy lapping cream hisself, Mother.”

“Eh?”

Mother thought I was comic-struck.

“Well, in a manner of speaking. Jancis be come.”

“Jancis?”

“Ah. Runaway.”

“Dear to goodness!”

“Walked all the way, she did.”

“But why didna she go whome?”

I’d never thought of that. It seemed so natural she should come to us, like a clemmed red-breast.

“She was afraid of Beguildy, I make no doubt, Mother.”

“Ah. You’ll have to go and tell Missis Beguildy.”

“Boxing Day, I’ll go. Let Jancis have her Christmas.”

“Be they, as you met say, lovering at all?”

“Ah. He was took by surprise, and he gave her a kiss afore he knew it.”

We laughed a bit.

“And now for your tea, Mother. There’s getting to be a real Christmassy feeling. Cream all round! And after supper I’ll trim the house up with holly.”

“Mind you get some cream yourself, my dear.”

As I went down the stair into the kitchen, where the two were sitting very old-fashioned on the settle, I wondered what would be cream for me. All in a minute, as I was scalding the tea, I knew.

“Jancis,” I said. “You’d ought to write to Mister Woodseaves and say you’ve run away, or maybe he’ll be making shift to go over extra early to write a letter for you.”

“A’ right, Prue, seeing it’s you and not me as writes, I dunna mind. But he wunna go over there again.”

“Not go? For why?”

“I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow-day. I be so tired now.”

“All right,” I said, though I did long to hear about him.

“I’ll tell about running away to-night,” she said, but I told her supper first.

“Draw up now and take bite and sup. Then you can tell us all about it, and then I’ll write.”

I knew it would do her good to tell it. For when you’ve come through a bad time, to tell of it takes the thorn out. So she told us how she’d timed it to get to Lullingford on market day and ask Gideon to bring her back, but took the wrong road in the hills, all looking the same in the snow, and wandered far out of the way, and was benighted, and slept in one of the huts that they make of furze for lambing-time; and how she heard a breathing under the door, and thought it was the roaring bull of Bagbury, but she cried out upon the Trinity three times, as loud as she could, and it went away. Then she struggled on to Lullingford, going across fields, not being able to find the road. She was chased by a horse, which was worse than the roaring bull of Bagbury, and that was when she crept through the hedge. When she got to Lullingford, Gideon was gone, for he always started back as soon as he could. She went to Kester’s, but he being away she could get no help there. She was afraid to ask anybody else, for fear they’d send her back to Grimble’s, so she started off again. But afore she’d gone far, she was so fainty that she had to creep into a barn and wait till morning. Then when she got to the woods, she thought of a short cut, and lost her way again. And indeed it was no wonder, for in the woods about Sarn it inna all that easy to find your way in summer even.

“Dear to goodness!” says Gideon, “you want a chap to look after you, seemingly. Such a tale of foolishness I never heard.”

“And what Feyther’ll say passes me,” she went on. “He’ll be neither to hold nor to bind. He’s very set in his ways now, and if you go agen his plans he’s very crousty. If Mother knew, maybe she’d think of a way out.”

“I’ll go and see your mother, come Boxing Day,” I said.

“It’ll be a funny thing if we canna invent summat to get the better of an old moithered man, hoping you dunna mind me saying it.”

“Mind! You can say the worst you can think of about my dad, and I doubt I shanna think it’s too much. And truly he _be_ moithered, book-learning or no.”

“Set your heart at rest now. We’ll think of summat to give you time to turn round. Maybe you could get another place. Or maybe Gideon——”

“If you mean, maybe Gideon’ll want to get wed, I say, in my own good time and not afore. I’ve told Jancis if it’s a good harvest and we do well I’ll be willing to get wed at Harvest Home. And she’s willing as well.”

“I’m right glad. Loving’s never too early. And if you be fond of a girl, you mun want her to be in your house, by fireside and table, indoors and out.”

I was thinking of a little house not twenty miles away, as different as could be from ours, and one in it as was a very obstinate bachelor, and didna want any woman there, let alone poor Prue Sarn. I thought it was about time I wrote the letter.

“What shall I say in your letter, Jancis?”

She said I was to say what I liked. So I fetched ink and paper and my quill, and wrote it.

_Christmas Eve._
SARN.

DEAR MISTER WOODSEAVES—

I write to acquaint you as I’ve left Missis Grimble, being very
near with the food and a driver, and maister’s rheumatics very
awkward in sharp weather, and sons awkward also one way or
another. I’ve broke the journey at Sarn. I may say Gideon and me
think to be married come Harvest Home. I may say I be very glad,
for when you do love anybody you want to be with them and canna
rest, nights, wondering where they be, and if all’s well, and if
they change their stockings when damp, and if they be lonesome
ever.

I be more choice of him I love than of all else in the world
beside.

He be so kind and so brave, and when he be there I can but say,
“The maister be come.”

I love him past telling, and shall to the end, and so good
night, Mister Woodseaves, and a merry Christmas, from

JANCIS BEGUILDY.

“You write a pretty tidy letter, Jancis,” I says. “Would ye like me to read it?”

“Laws, no! What for should ye? You know what’s to be said.”

“Ah. I know right well what’s to be said. Only I munna say it,” I thought. “That’s the trouble.”

I fastened the letter up and put it on the chimney-piece ready for Gideon to take next market day.

There was a strangeness about the place all that Christmas. It was the best Christmas ever we had, and there was more singing and laughing than there’d bin for many a year. And yet it was in a manner of speaking sad. It seemed to me as if the singing came from a great way off, under the water. And when Jancis sat by the window, with the light falling on her pale gold hair and pale face through the greenish bottle-glass, it made her look as if the water flowed over her.

“_Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green!_
_The fairest young lady that ever was seen._
_I’ll wash you in milk, and clothe you in silk,_
_And write down your name with a gold pen and ink._”

Ah! I can hear Jancis singing that song now, with her sweet shrilly voice, a great way off, ah, me! a great way off.

Mother let me get her up, Christmas morning, and came into the kitchen, sitting snug in the chimney corner watching the lovers with a pleased, understanding, merry look, such as I’ve often seen on the faces of old women that have lived their lives and known summat of love. It’s as if they said, as they looked at the young lovers—

“Pleased, be ye, my lad? You’ll be better pleased yet! . . . All of a twitter, be ye, my girl? Well, I can tell ye, you’ll be in more of a twitter later on, a power.”

I could see very well that when we three sang “As Joseph was a-walking,” and “Good Christian men, rejoice!” Mother was hearing other voices too, little voices like the Callard children’s, lifted up all together, shrilly and sweet. She was seeing other faces, well scrubbed and rosy, lifted up to her as she sat in the dusk of the settle, ready to smile when the solemn carols were done, and shout “Granma!”

She kept on patting Jancis on shoulder, and saying, “Pretty thing! Pretty!” and once I heard her cautioning Jancis against hares.

“When your time comes, my dear, dunna you go in the ’oods much, nor yet in the meadows. Keep near whome and you wunna come across one. ’Twould be a sad mischance, so it would.”

“Oh, Missis Sarn!” says Jancis, laughing and colouring up above a bit, “you do run on so fast! We inna so much as courting yet.”

“And so do time run on, my dear. You munna let the moss grow on the path of love. Dunna give too many nay-words. He’s a good lad when you dunna vex him.”

“But it’s Sarn more than me as wants to wait,” said Jancis.

“Foolish, foolish lad! What matter for the silver plate? What matter for so many maids and men? I’m sure I’d be content without, so as I needna tend swine again, and can have my feet to the fire and a cup of tay.”

“Sarn wants to take me to the ’unt Ball,” said Jancis. “And I be to go in afore Miss Dorabella.”

“That’s a mischievous thought. For what dun it matter who’s first so long as all be in? And what is it to go to one ball more than another?”

“But I’d like it right well, to go in afore Miss Dorabella!”

“And so thee shall!” called out Gideon from the door, where he was knocking the snow and mud off his boots. “And so thee shall, my girl, and dressed as shameless as a lady!”

He came across the kitchen with the bit of mistletoe he’d clomb the big apple tree to get, and gave her a loud, smacking kiss under it.

Mother clapped hands, as pleased as a child when kitty wakes up and plays. But even when she clapped for joy, her hands still looked like the little praying paws of a trapped mole.

“Not later than Harvest, Sarn?” she pleaded. “You wunna put it off later than that? I’ll last till then, sure. But after—the winter comes, and who knows? I’d lief see you wed afore winter.”

“Oh, we shanna put off, Mother. No danger! What need? For I shall be a rich mon when I’ve sold the corn, and it’ll cost nought to get it, for we can have a love-carriage, and I can pay back with task-work in the winter. And in another tuthree years we can shift, for the old mon at Lullingford wunna last long, and the money’ll be ready when the place comes on the market.”

So they were all merry, and when I said, “The tea’s scalded!” Gideon gave me a very affectionate pat on the shoulder and said I was a good wench.

“A right good wench if ever there was one. Now draw up! Draw up to table all! I want me tea cruel.”

But I couldna be as merry as they were. I felt outside it all. Only I took a bit of comfort, now and again, between cutting bread and frizzling rashers and pouring tea, in looking up at my letter on the mantel, with the address on it in very tall script—

Mister Woodseaves,
The Weaver’s House,
Lullingford.

Then Jancis told us about Kester, and of the things that had come about through Grimble’s spite, which couldna be told in letters. For it seemed that Grimble and Huglet had misliked Kester ever since he stopped the baiting, and the mislike had soon grown into black hatred. They tried to set all the other farmers agen him, saying this and that. They found fault with his weaving, which was the best in all the country round. And they said he was slow, and dear. Not content with that, they must enquire into his religion and his ways of thinking in the matter of the corn laws and the Parliament men. They hob-nobbed with Squire over that, and set him agen Kester too, worse than he was, for they said nought about the baiting, but kept to the corn. Every way they could, they worked against Kester, and very worried they must ha’ been that he didna drink or go after women, or do anything that they could have told of to the Parish Constable. But they did their best to make his life a burden, for it irked them so sore to think of no bull-baiting for ten years. So one day when he was weaving at Grimble’s and it came to evening, Mister Grimble looked at the cloth Kester had done in the day, and couldna find fault with it, neither with the quality nor the quantity. For he’d worked right well, and Jancis said it was as smooth as silk, and never a lump nor a knot in it. He said nought to Kester, and after supper Jancis fetched the paper and they began to write the letter to Gideon. And it seemed Mister Grimble couldn’t abide to see that, for he couldna read nor write, and he thought Kester was above hisself. So when he couldna keep any longer, but mun speak or burst, he says—

“If young Sarn do like damaged goods, he’ll get what he wants, and I doubt he’ll have you to thank, Weaver. Very comfortable and pleasant you be together, I must say, you and Sarn’s girl. It’s baby linen you’d best be weaving, young Woodseaves.”

And with that, Kester snatched up his hat and all his things in a fury, but saying nought. And when he got to the door, he turns round and says—

“You may get Huglet’s brother-law to weave for ye from now on, Grimble. You’ll go without weaving for all me. You bin a foul-mouthed toad and a disgrace to your parish, which is situate in hell.”

He flung out, and he never came near the place again.

I was forced to go up to the attic to think about it a bit. I did love Kester so sore for his rage. I thought I’d like to see un in a rage, though not with me, for if he was in a proper rage with me, I’d die.

On Boxing Day I went across to the Stone House, and a windy walk it was, for the snow was drifted deep along the wood path. But it was fair overhead, and a mistletoe thrush was singing, and the cuckoo’s beads were very bright on all the may-trees. Beguildy was out, for a wonder. Missis Beguildy and me had a good talk.

“Well, well, poor lamb,” she said, “to think she couldna come to her own Mother because the mester be such a pig-headed fool! Drat the man! Now what’s to do? For go back to Grimble’s she never shall. But ours’ll be roaring-mad to think of all that money gone. Keep her a bit longer till the worst’s worn off, my dear!”

“Oh, she can bide, and welcome, as long as she’s a mind.”

“May them above reward ye!” she says. For she was a very religious person, in the manner of the church. And though I’ve no wish to speak ill of her, yet I partly think she was religious, in a measure at least, to spite Beguildy. But maybe this is a wicked thought of mine.

“Gideon was telling us that Callard’s girl ran away afore winter,” I said. “She’s by lonesome there all day with the five little uns and the baby. Maybe if we went at it the right way, and made a favour of it, they’d pay the same rate as Grimbles. They’ll get nobody else till the spring, for they’re all hired now till May, and besides, Callard’s Dingle inna a place the girls like. You go and see Missis Callard, and I’ll make shift to have a lesson to keep your maister busy.”

“But you’ve left learning this long while, my dear, for you know as much as Beguildy does.”

“Ah, well, there’s summat new I want to learn, but I dunno if it’s in the books.”

“What met that be?”

“It’s an old ancient charm, Missis Beguildy, and it’s called content.”

“Oh, that! It’s in no book of hisn.”

“Nor in any book,” I said. But I thought, there’s one knows it. Please God he met learn me. But that he never will.

“Eh, but it be no manner use for me to go, Prue,” she says. “They’d set the dogs on me, very like. Callard’s very religious, you mind. And he canna abide ours. And all _he_ thinks, his missus thinks; all _he_ says, _she_ says, pat like the Sarn echo. Come to that, it’ll go hard but they’ll take Jancis in at all, whatever, being who her dada is. But maybe if _you_ went, and told them on the quiet that Jancis is promised to Sarn, they met think of it, for your brother’s beginning to be well spoken of as a man that’s bound to be rich.”

So I said I’d go. I couldna abide going, being looked at a bit sideways myself, and spoken ill of time and again. But when I saw Gideon and Jancis so pleasant and merry together in the even, playing beggar-me-neighbor by firelight, I knew I was bound to go.

“Why, Gideon,” I says, “you’re busy at it, I see. Though you canna play conquer with cob-nuts and snail-housen now, being too old, you’re beggaring somebody still.”

“Conquer!” says Mother from her corner. “Ah, what a game that is! He was always very set on it, you mind. He liked to play ooth them big pink-and-white conquers, the Roman snail, they callen it, dunna they, Prue? It was those you went after the night poor Sarn was took in his boots. Poor soul!”

She cried a bit, and went to look very small, which she always did when she was vexed.

“There, there, Mother, dunna fret, he’s in peace now.”

“Ah, poor soul! And Sarn’s took the sin. My son Sarn. Chumbled it up proper, a did. And I can see as there’ll be lads to play conquer in our kitchen yet, with the big pink-and-white uns, of an evening.”

She looked across at the settle. Gideon had just beggared Jancis, and was in very good fettle.

“Ah, boys _and_ girls,” says Mother. “For I see well as he’ll beggar her of more than cards.”

She began to laugh at the thought of the grandchildren, and at her joke, and she laughed so much that she gave herself a hoost, and I had to put her to bed.

Next day I set off for Callard’s Dingle. It was a way nobody would choose to go with snow deep on the ground, for it lay over bleak, high pastures, with northerly slopes, bitter cold and drifted up. But seeing I was on a good errand, I began to sing out on the bare pastures with none to hear.

“Open the gates as wide as the sky . . .”

And there by the farm, in a little fenced field, what should I see grazing under a dark pine wood but the white bull that Kester saved from the baiting? I stopped and looked at it a bit. There it was, not dead nor maimed, its nice white coat in good case, and looking as contented as if it was just come to heaven, and all because of Kester.

He’d kept his promise and paid the money, and then given the bull back to Callard for his children.

“If you ever come to think bull-baiting’s bad, I’d lief you told ’em so,” he said, “but not agen your conscience.”

Now Callard was a very honest man, and he felt bound to make some return, whether or no, so he took the matter up in good sadness. Jancis said afterwards that it was very amusing to see him gather all the children together round the hearth, sitting on their little stools, of an evening, the baby also being there on its mother’s knee. And Callard ud say very loud—

“Bull-baiting’s bad!”

And his missus in that melancholy voice of hers would repeat—

“Bad!” like the Sarn echo.

Then all the children would sing out, like a nest of birds—

“Bull-baiting’s bad!”

And times the baby would give a guggle, and times he’d stay quiet, considering, like. There was only one disagreeing voice, and that was old Granfer Callard’s, which was very high and trembling. He’d call out—

“No! No! It inna bad. It be a right good merry old sport!”

But nobody listened to him, for he was getting very simple. He came to the door when I knocked, and called out to his daughter-law—

“It be that there long thing young ’oman, Maria. The witch woman.”

“Well, bring her in, feyther-law.”

“Come thy ways,” he says. “Her’ll be down when the baby gives over hollering. I do wish I’d got such lungs as hisn. I be very middling. Very middling I be. Can you do cures?”

I said no to that.

“Oh! I thought Beguildy’d learnt ye. A very sinful man is that. Soaked in sin like a sheep in raddle. It wunna be any manner use for ’im to yammer at the doors o’ Paradise and say, ‘Wesh me and I shall be whiter than snow.’ For I tell ye not the Judge of all could clane ’im, even if He could spare the time to it. Ah! A wicked old man is the Wizard. I do believe he lives by sucking folks’ life away in the mid of night. Ah! sucks their blood, he does. They seyn he goes to the churchyard and digs folk up to steal their bwones and grind ’em for his spells. They seyn he fetches little children whome in his bag, and makes a meal of ’em. Oh, he be the wickedest man since Punty Pilate, no danger!”

By this, the elder children were roaring with fright, and Missis Callard called out from the top of the stair—

“Feyther-law, what be saying now? Hold thy noise!”

Mister Callard came in then, and said I’d best take pot-luck, seeing it was tea-time. So when we’d had our tea, I told them about Jancis.

“So ’er run away!” says Mister Callard. “In this weather. Well, by gum!”

“Gum!” says his missus.

“Broke her time!” says Callard.

“Time!” says his missus, sorrowful.

“Nobody ever broke their time when _I_ was a lad,” said the old man. “They darstna. They’d have been put in the stocks.”

“And you be sure it inna anything to do with Weaver?”

“Weaver!” says Missis Callard, grievous.

“Weaver! Weaver!” shouted the children, and it seemed to me as if they praised his name.

“I be as sure of that as I’m sure that I breathe,” I said.

“And she’s promised to your brother?”

“Ah. They’ll be wed come Harvest Home.”

“Then,” says Mister Callard, “the missus shall give the girl a trial.”

“Trial!” echoes Missis Callard in a hopeless sort of way, as if she thought that was what Jancis would be.

They agreed to take Jancis for six months, and to give her three pound, which was a deal for them to offer. So I went back in high feather. Next day Gideon said we could have Bendigo, so I drove Jancis to Callard’s, stopping at Beguildy’s on the way, to break the news to the old man.

Oh, dear me, but he was in a passion! And the worst of it was, that he blamed it all on to Gideon, who had nought to do with it at all.

“I’ll be even with that brother of yours for this,” he says. “Ah! A very aggravating man. His dad was the same. I couldna plan out anything or set my hand to any work but he’d come and knock it down, tiddly-bump. And young Sarn’s the same. Look at the way he’s let and hindered me over the young squire!”

But Missis Beguildy was pleased.

“And you shall come whome at the end of hay harvest, Jancis,” she said, “to make your wedding clo’es. And the wedding shall be at Michaelmas. The Glory roses’ll be in their second blooming then, and you shall have ’em for your nosegay.”

“I tell ye,” says Beguildy, “as Sarn shanna take her. You can tell un so from me, Prue Sarn. Thwarted I wunna be. I’ve cursed the man by fire and watter, and cursed he’ll surely be. Tell un neither with the ring nor without it shall he take my wench.”

“Well, good day to you, Mister Beguildy,” I said. For I thought it was time to drive on.

“Prue,” said Jancis as we drove through the water meadows between Plash and Callard’s Dingle, “what for did ye knife Grimble’s dog and take on the way you did about Weaver?”

She looked up at me with those big blue eyes of hers, and I beat Bendigo cruel so as to be busy about summat. The poor old nag gave a half look round, and my conscience pricked me, but what was I to do?

“Folk be saying it was a very out-of-the-ornary thing for a girl to do for a stranger. Ah! even as far as Grimble’s they knew it was you, though neither Grimble nor the missus told ’em, for they didna like to speak of it, being beaten over it. But everybody knows in all the country round by this.”

She kept on looking and looking at me, and the red-scarlet was burning like fire in my cheeks. I kept on thrashing Bendigo, and we went over the tumps and marshy bits at such a wallop as never was.

Jancis gave a little laugh, very knowing and aggravating.

“Poor owd Bendigo’s done nought,” she says.

“I want to get there,” I answers, foolish-like.

“Oh, I’ll be bound you’ll get there,” she says. Then she was quiet for a bit, though she watched me all the while.

“I wonder,” she said after a time, “what Weaver ud think if he knew?”

“He couldna know,” I said. “He was in a swound.”

“He met hear tell! And I wonder what he’d think if it came to his ears that Prue Sarn had foughten for un like a tiger?”

“He’d think nought. Everybody do know I’m sorry for the afflicted.”

“Well, but he inna what you’d call one of the afflicted, Mister Woodseaves inna. He’s the best wrestler in these parts, and a right proper man.”

“He was afflicted when Grimble’s Toby got ’im by the throat, wunna he?”

“Ah. But why must it be Prue Sarn that did save him? And why must she take his yead to her bosom so kind and all? Not but what he’s got very nice brown hair, and silky. I was used to notice it when he was writing the letters for me. And that Felena thinks so too. She does fairly tarment him, market days.”

“What a brazen piece! What does she do?”

I was glad to turn Jancis on to summat else.

“O she goes to the house, and leaves a great basket of mushrooms, or a frail of wimberries, or maybe a bit of mutton, if shepherd’s killed a sheep. And if she meets him in the road, she’ll look at un with them green eyes and smile as sweet as an October nut. And one night when shepherd was drunk and they were late starting whome, what must she do but go in the dusk and sing a wild song outside his window.”

“What did she sing?”

“O she sang—

‘_A vargin went a-souling in the dark of the moon._
_A soul-cake! A soul-cake!_
_O give it me kindly and give it me soon._
_A soul-cake! A soul-cake!_
_The young man he looks from his window so bright._
_Here’s a vargin come wailing in the dark of the night!_
_Now what’ll you give me for a soul-cake, my maid?_
_My body, my body for a soul-cake! she said._’

And I call that a right down improper song, dunna you, Prue?”

“What did _he_ think of it?”

“I wouldna demean myself to ask him. But she’s a very wild woman, is Felena. She’ll ’tice him and tempt him to a fall if somebody dunna keep her off. But I want to know what I be to say to Weaver if he asks me why you were so busy a-saving of him.”

“Say nought.”

“Nought’s no answer.”

“It’s all he’ll get.”

“The way you stood over the fellow like one of the angels at Eden gate, with that great knife!”

“It’s none of your business if I did.”

“Ah. It be.”

“For why?”

“Because I love ye, Prue.”

“Thanks be to goodness, we’re at Callard’s,” I said, as we came into the fold, and the house door burst open and out came the five children, Granfeyther Callard, Missis Callard and the baby, like bees from a skep.

The last thing Jancis said afore I drove away was—

“I shall be bound to send for Weaver soon.”

“Whatever for?”

“To write me a letter to Sarn.”

“Why, you be only a tuthree miles from Gideon now. Whatever do you want to write a letter for?”

“It’s none of your business if I do,” says she, very mim, and laughing to herself, “which is what you did say to me, Prue Sarn!”

C H A P T E R F I V E: _Dragon-flies_

FROM the time when Jancis went to Callard’s Dingle, through the spring and summer, there is nothing written in my book saving of my own special concerns, such as the progress I made in reading hard books and the thoughts that came to me in the attic. These, as they had no bearing on the lives of others at that time, are not of any interest, and I will not weary you with them. Gideon went to Callard’s Dingle every Sunday, and worked like three men in between. I ploughed furrow for furrow along of him, and dug spade for spade. Our farm was rich with corn. Never afore or since did I see any fields in our part of the country in such good case, for it was a year of sweet, growing weather, with enough rain to swell the grain and not enough to make it ackerspire. Sunday after Sunday I saw Gideon, on the way to Callard’s, stop and lean over the gate at the top of the sloping meadow, where you could look over the whole place, like a miser with his gold. And now and agen I went with him, and was glad to see such a glowing content in anybody’s face, but a deal more glad since it was Gideon’s, that was seldom what you met call a happy face. When he’d gone striding along, whistling pretty near out loud, I’d sit a while afore going back to Mother. I’d think to myself that when he was wed to Jancis, the corn sold and Fortune knocking at the door, then at long last he’d whistle out loud. I got a great longing to hear that, for it seemed to me an unhealthy sort of thing for folks to whistle or sing or speak to their mommets all the while.

“Come harvest!” I’d think. And I’d begin to dream of being as beautiful as a fairy.

It was a great delight to me, apart from the thought of all this, to look at the standing corn and see it like a great mere under the wind. Times it was still, without a ripple; times it went in little waves, and you could almost think the big bosses of wild onion flowers under the far hedges were lilies heaving gently on the tide; and times there was a great storm down in those hollows, like the storm in Galilee Mere, that the King of Love did still. So I watched the grain week by week, from the time when it was all one green till it began to take colour, turning raddled or abron or pale, each in his kind. And it shone, nights, as if there was a light behind it, with a kind of soft shining like glow-worms or a marish light. I never knew, nor do I know now, why corn shines thus in the nights of July and August, keeping a moonlight of its own even when there is no moon. But it is a marvellous thing to see, when the great hush of full summer and deep night is upon the land, till even the aspen tree, that will ever be gossiping, durstna speak, but holds breath as if she waited for the coming of the Lord. I make no doubt that if any read this book it will seem strange to them that a farm woman should look at the things about her in this wise, and indeed it is not many do. But when you dwell in a house you mislike, you will look out of window a deal more than those that are content with their dwelling. So I, finding my own person and my own life not to my mind, took my pleasure where I could. There were things I waited for as a wench waits for her sweetheart at the edge of the forest. This rippling and shining of the corn was one, and another which came about the time of the beginning of the troubling of the water, was the marvellous sight of the dragon-flies coming out of their bodies. We had a power of dragon-flies at Sarn, of many kinds and colours, little and big. But every one was bound in due season to climb up out of its watery grave and come out of its body with great labour and pain, and a torment like the torment of childbirth, and a rending like the rending of the tomb. And there was no year, since the first time I saw it, that I missed to see this showing forth of God’s power.