Chapter XII: Book FOUR (8)

I went down by the mere to gather honeysuckle wrathes to bind besoms. And being sad in calling to mind what Miss Dorabella had said, for besoms ever made me think on it, and seeing that the troubling of the water was even now beginning, with a slow gentle simmering all over the mere, I thought I would go to a place I knew where there were always a mort of dragon-flies, and take comfort from seeing them coming out of their bodies. Dragon-fly, I say, because I doubt some wouldna know what our name for them meant. We called the dragon-fly the ether’s mon or ether’s nild at Sarn, for it was supposed that where the adder, or ether, lay hid in the grass, there above hovered the ether’s mon as a warning. One kind, all blue, we called the kingfisher; and another one, with a very thin body, the darning-needle. Mother was used to tell Gideon that if he took dog’s leave or did other mischief the devil would take needle to him and use the dragon-flies to sew up his ears, so he couldna hear the comfortable word of God and would come to damnation. But I could never believe that the devil could have power over such a fair thing as a dragon-fly.

That was the best time of year for our lake, when in the still, hot noons the water looked so kind, being of a calm, pale blue, that you would never think it could drown anybody. All round stood the tall trees, thick-leaved with rich summer green, unstirring, caught in a spell, sending down their coloured shadows into the mere, so that the tree-tops almost met in the middle. From either hand the notes of the small birds that had not yet given up singing went ringing out across the water, and so quiet it was that though they were only such thin songs as those of willow wrens and robins, you could hear them all across the mere. Even on such a burning day as this, when I pulled the honeysuckle wrathes, there was a sweet, cool air from the water, very heady and full of life. For though Sarn was an ill place to live, and in the wintry months a very mournful place, at this one time of the year it left dreaming of sorrow and was as other fair stretches of wood and water. All around the lake stood the tall bulrushes with their stout heads of brown plush, just like a long coat Miss Dorabella had. Within the ring of rushes was another ring of lilies, and at this time of the year they were the most beautiful thing at Sarn, and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The big bright leaves lay calm upon the water, and calmer yet upon the leaves lay the lilies, white and yellow. When they were buds, they were like white and gold birds sleeping, head under wing, or like summat carven out of glistering stone, or, as I said afore, they were like gouts of pale wax. But when they were come into full blow they wunna like anything but themselves, and they were so lovely you couldna choose but cry to see them. The yellow ones had more of a spread of petals, having five or six apiece, but the white ones opened their four wider and each petal was bigger. These petals are of a glistering white within, like the raiment of those men who stood with Christ upon the mountain top, and without they are stained with tender green, as if they had taken colour from the green shadows in the water. Some of the dragon-flies look like this also, for their lacy wings without other colour are sometimes touched with shifting green.

So the mere was three times ringed about, as if it had been three times put in a spell. First there was the ring of oaks and larches, willows, ollern-trees and beeches, solemn and strong, to keep the world out. Then there was the ring of rushes, sighing thinly, brittle and sparse, but enough, with their long trembling shadows, to keep the spells in.

Then there was the ring of lilies, as I said, lying there as if Jesus, walking upon the water, had laid them down with His cool hands, afore He turned to the multitude saying, “Behold the lilies!” And as if they were not enough to shake your soul, there beneath every lily, white and green or pale gold, was her bright shadow, as it had been her angel. And through the long, untroubled day the lilies and their angels looked one upon the other and were content.

There were plenty of dragon-flies about, both big and little. There were the big blue ones that are so strong they will fly over top of the tallest tree if you fritten them, and there were the tiny thin ones that seem almost too small to be called dragon-flies at all. There were rich blue kingfisher-flies and those we called damsels, coloured and polished in the manner of lustre ware. There were a good few with clear wings of no colour or of faint green, and a tuthree with a powdery look like you see on the leaves of ’rickluses. Some were tawny, like a fitchet cat, some were rusty or coloured like the copper fruit-kettle. Jewels, they made you think of, precious gems such as be listed in the Bible. And the sound of their wings was loud in the air, sharp and whirring, when they had come to themselves after their agony. Whiles, in some mossy bit of clear ground between the trees, they’d sit about like so many cats round the hearth, very contented in themselves, so you could almost think they were washing their faces and purring.

On a tall rush close by the bank I found one just beginning to come out of its body, and I leaned near, pretty well holding my breath, to see the miracle. Already the skin over its bright, flaming eyes was as thin as glass, so that you could see them shining like coloured lamps. In a little, the old skin split, and it got its head out. Then began the wrostling, and the travail to get free, first its legs, then its shoulders and soft wrinkled wings. It was like a creature possessed, seeming to fall into a fit, times, and, times, to be struck stiff as a corpse. Just afore the end, it stayed a long while still, as if it was wondering whether it durst get quite free in a world all new. Then it gave a great heave and a kind of bursting wrench and it was out. It clomb a little way further up the bulrush, very sleepy and tired, like a child after a long day at the fair, and fell into a doze, while its wings began to grow. “Well,” I says, with a bit of a laugh and summat near a bit of a sob, “well, you’ve done it! It’s cost you summat, but you’ve won free. I’m in behopes you’ll have a pleasant time. I suppose this be your Paradise, binna it?”

But of course it couldna make any sign, save to go on growing its wings as fast as might be. So there I stood, with my armful of wrathes, and there it clung, limp on the brown rush, in the golden light that had come upon Sarn like a merciful healer. I was wasting my time, which was deadly sin at our place, and I turned to go. But just as I turned, there was a bit of a rustle, and there stood Kester Woodseaves.

I made to run away, and indeed I’d have jumped into the mere sooner than he should see me. But he put his hand on my shoulder, and for all it was gentle, it was a wrostler’s hand, and not to be said no to.

“What? Oot run away? Why, Prue Sarn?” he said.

I hung my head and wished I was the dragon-fly. I said nought.

I gave a despert pull, but it was no manner use. He only laughed.

“I do think,” he said, in the voice that made its own summer, “that it be a very funny way to treat a chap as comes to thank ye kindly for saving of his life, Prue Sarn, to take off the like of that’n, and try to jump in the lake!”

His hand sent such a throbbing through me that I could scarce stand.

“What were you looking at when I came?” he asked me.

“The damsel fly, coming out of its shroud.”

“Once out,” he says, “they’re out for good. It costs a deal to get free. But once free, they never fold their wings.”

“No,” I said, “and some of ’em go so high, I think, times, they might flitter right into heaven.”

“We’d all like to do that, I’ll be bound, if we could choose our heaven. I’m not very choice of golden streets myself. And I’d like my heaven afore I die.”

“And what ud it be?” I asked him. I was so interested, I declare I’d clean forgot my curse.

“I’m not quite sure yet,” he says, “but come a year, maybe, I’ll know.”

“There’s a long while,” I says, mocking at him, “to be hiver hovering, choosing your bit of paradise.”

“Could you think of yours sooner, Prue Sarn?” says he.

I looked at his green coat, which made him a very personable man, and I fixed on a place on the left side, just betwixt the sleeve of it and the breast of it, where I’d lief lay my head, and I said—

“Ah. I’ve thought of mine.”

“Oh! Well, what is it?”

“I said as I’d thought of it, Mister Woodseaves. But my thoughts be my own.”

He laughed. Then he says—

“You can write a dommed good letter, Prue.”

“They were Gideon’s letters.”

“I take it very kind in Sarn to tell me to change my stockings when they be wet. It inna often you find a man as thinks of such things, and Sarn least of all, I’d have said.”

He let me have the full light of his eyes, and I hung my head and found nothing to answer.

“And the sewing work, and the damson cheese and the pickle at half market price, well, I tell you, it fairly bowled me over, for I’d heard Sarn was a hard man, very near in a bargain, asking nothing and giving nothing. And then for him to offer me those victuals! I must have misjudged the chap cruel.”

But by this I’d remembered that the stockings were in the letter I wrote for Jancis after she ran away. So I said, it was Jancis mentioned stockings.

“Oh, yes, so it was!” he says. “I liked that letter. A very nice girl, that. For whoever wrote the letter, she made it up, of course!”

He looked at me again, and I found nought to say.

“‘I be more choice of him I love than of all else in the world beside!’ That’s a woman worth summat to a fellow,” he went on. “And, ‘I love him past telling, and shall to the end.’ And in especial that about, ‘spend my life any time very willing, and die for you by bite of dog or any way, my dear.’ I liked that. But when I come to think of it, ’twas Sarn said that to Jancis Beguildy. What a lover the man must be. You must be main fond of him, Prue Sarn.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, all in a flush, “I be.”

“Indeed yes, and only what you should be. Good feeling he has too, about the choice of texts, and Jancis the same. For that text, ‘The Maister be come,’ was in the letter Jancis wrote to me, as well as in the one Sarn wrote to Jancis.”

“Only natural,” I said.

“I’m coming to Sarn’s love-carriage, and I’ll be bound to thank him for his kind thoughts about the sewing and the damson cheese and the pickle,” he said.

“Oh, dunna!” I cried out, knowing how angry Gideon would be.

“There’s a grudging girl,” he says, “not wanting her brother to be thanked.”

He had a look of satisfaction on his face, as if he’d found out what he wanted to know.

“Well, it’s no use ifting and anding any more,” he says. “You wrote the letters, and you made ’em up. And all I can say is, the chap you were thinking of when you said the things you did say is a lucky chap, whoever he is.”

“I hanna got an acquaintance.”

“Dear me! That’s pity, to my mind. But anyway, you’ve got a friend. You write in your book, when you go back, that Kester Woodseaves is your friend till Time stops.”

I thanked him very kindly for that, and then he said, should we go and look for some more dragon-flies coming out of their shrouds? So we did, and had a tidy bit of talk, one way or another, about this and that. We watched the dragon-flies take off from the tops of the rushes, and we saw the water simmering in its troubling, and the lilies looking at their angels.

But it was a long time before I remembered to say, how did he know about my book that I wrote in? For it seemed I couldna remember anything very well when he was by.

“Well,” he says, “maybe a bird told me. Or an old ancient woman like a little bird.”

“But how did you get to know all the other things you do seem to know about me?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s a tuthree people know you, Prue. And there’s few know you and dunna love you. And I expect I’ve been leasing in their hearts a bit. And I think there’s not much that I dunna know about you, Prue.”

There was rest in that saying. And oh, the summer in his voice, then and always! I forgot the time and all. Yes, indeed to goodness, I forgot milking time! But when I saw the light of evening long upon the mere, and heard the evening breezes lifting up the leaves in the forest, I turned to go. Then he said—

“There’s a thing I’m bound to ask you.”

He stood looking straight into my eyes, for we were almost of a height, though he was a little the taller.

“What for did you do all you did for me that day at the baiting?” he said. “What for did you stand above me with the knife, and run to Lullingford and all, to save me?”

There was a deep silence, with only the lifting of the summer boughs, the lapping of the quiet water. How was I to answer? Yet he would have an answer, I could see.

Then I thought, seeing the lilies looking at their angels, how I’d called myself Kester’s angel at the baiting.

“Why, it was only that I was your angel for that day,” I said at long last. “A poor daggly angel too.”

“If you’re ever wanting an angel’s situation, you can send to me for a written character,” he said, and though his words were merry, his eyes were as grave as grave could be. And then, as we said good night and I turned home, he called out after me—“Not so daggly, neither!”

And I could hear him laughing in the wood.

Book Four

C H A P T E R O N E: _Harvest Home_

NEVER in all my days did I see a corn harvest like that one. We started swiving, that is reaping, at the beginning of August-month, and we left the stocks standing in the fields till it should be time for the love-carriage, for the weather was so fine that they took no harm. It was the custom, if a farmer hadna much strength about him, that he should fix on a day for the neighbours to come and give a hand in the lugging of the grain. But up to that time, the weather being so good, we worked alone. It was up in the morning early, and no mistake! Such mornings as they were, too, with a strong heady sweetness in the air from the ripened corn, and the sun coming up stately as a swan into the vasty sky that had no cloud. Mother was very peärt and lively, what with the hot weather, which was good for the rheumatics, and the thought of the easing-off of the work which was to come when the harvest was gotten in. She’d be up and about at five, getting us our breakfast, and then off we’d go, with only just enough of clo’es on to be decent, and with our wooden harvest bottles full of small beer. We always had a brewing for the rep, that is, the reaping. This year we brewed a deal more, for there’d be all the neighbours to find in victuals and drink at the love-carriage. Looking back, it always seems to me that there was a kind of dwelling charm on all that time. Gideon was more contented than I’ve ever seen him, for there were two things that contented him, namely, to work till he dropped, and to finish what he set out to do. To see all his farm set with these rich stooks, sound and ripe, with never a sign of the weevil nor of mildew nor the smut, was very life to him. He was all of a fever to get it safe in stack, but we were bound to wait till the day fixed. Jancis was to come on that day, to help in the leasing. And it seemed to me as she ought to go atop of the last load with blossoms about her, like the image they were used to set up there, for she seemed a part of the harvest, with all that pink and gold.

As for me, I went all dazed and dumb with wonder. To think it was true. “The Maister be come!” To think as he’d looked at me and hadna hated me! To think as all that time we spent in the midst of the painted dragon-flies by the mere was true, as true as daily bread! When I called to mind the things he’d said, and still more the things he’d looked, I was like to swound. Dear to goodness, how I did sing, those early dawns, when the dews lay heavy after a ketch of frost, and the corn rustled and stirred in the wind of morning!

When we went out, the leaves of the late-blooming white clover would be folded tight, and the shepherd’s hour-glass shut. I’d watch them, in the minutes I took for rest, opening soft and slow like timid hearts. Then Mother would come with our nooning, creeping over the fields in her black like a little sad-coloured bird, and sometimes singing _Barley Bridge_ in her old, small voice, that yet was sweet. Then, after the noon-spell, through the long, blazing evening, (for with us all the time after noon is calling evening) I’d watch the shepherd’s hour-glass shutting up again, and the white clover leaves, folding as the dews came. We took turns to go whome and milk, then we’d have our tea in the field, and at it again. All the while I thought of Kester, as would soon be working at the coloured weaving in the great city. But when my heart said he was working for me as well as hisself, I hushed it, saying that it was but his flaming look that made me think it, for he hadna said it, and so it was only that the wish fathered the thought. But I did dream of the fifty pounds I was to have, a great fortune, it seemed. And I did plan how I’d get to be cured as quick as might be, so when Kester came back after his time away I’d stand afore him with as proper a face as even Felena, though I hoped not so forrard.

At last the day of the love-carriage came, and a tremendous blue day it was, with a sky like a dark bowl, Worcester china colour. We’d got fifty people coming, no less, counting the women-folk. I was up afore dawn getting all ready, setting the china, both ours and what we’d borrowed, on the trestles in the orchard, helping Gideon to put the casks of beer in the yard, ready for the men to fill their harvest bottles, and fetching water from the well for the tea. The orchard was a sight to see when the trestles were set out (for I could put all ready with no fear of rain on such a day) with the mugs and platters of many colours, and the brown quartern loaves, and the big pats of butter stamped with a swan, and the slabs of honeycomb, dough cakes, gingerbread, cheese, jam and jelly, let alone the ham at one end of each trestle and the round of beef at the other. Even Gideon didna begrutch the food on this day. For it was one of the laws you couldna break, that at a love-carriage everybody must have his bellyful.

It was very early when the waggons began to roll into the fold, with a solemn gladsome sound, and each with its own pair of horses or oxen. Each farmer brought his own men and his own waggon, and sometimes he brought two. The teams were decked out with ribbons and flowers, and some had a motto as well, such as, “Luck to our Day,” or “God bless the Corn.” It was a fine thing to see the big horses, with great manes on their fetlocks, groomed till they shone like satin, stepping along as proud as Lucifer, knowing very well how long the waggoner had been, a-plaiting their ribbons. The oxen were good to see also, for their horns were all bedecked, and about their necks were thick chains of Sweet William and Travellers’ Joy and corn. Miller came among the first, with his gig and the old coach horse, the best he had, poor man. And very good work they did, too, for it’s surprising what a deal you can get onto a gig if you put a set of wings on top.

It was time for me to go and give the folks welcome, so I got Miller’s Tim to mind the trestles, and left him with a big meat patty, sitting at the top of one of the tables, with half the patty in one cheek, ready to drive away birds and cats and dogs, and even goblins out of fairyland, after the patty. The ox-driver from Plash had dizened his beasts up proper, with bulrushes nodding on their horns, and there were Sukey and Moll each riding one. Their mother wasna coming till late, and they were wild as mountain finches. Then came Felena, riding the shepherd’s rough pony, with the panniers to put her leasings in. When I saw those green eyes of hers shining like jewels in her brown face, all flushed with summer, and the long, slim shoulders of her, and that red mouth, I almost hoped Kester would forget to come after all. Missis Beguildy and Jancis came, but Beguildy wouldna. The cousin from Lullingford that got the toothache so bad came, and his missus. Then there were Callards, all packed in a great harvest wain, and a net over the five children, so that they looked for all the world like little calves on the way to market. Granfeyther Callard sat by his son, dressed out in his best snuff-coloured coat, and his beaver hat, for all it was so hot. There was a posy in his hat, which he waved like a lad as they came creaking in at the fold gate, shouting—

“Harroost! Harroost! Never was such God A’mighty’s weather!”

He always said harroost, it being the old way of saying harvest. Then came Sexton, tall and black, a bit sour, but the best man of his age with a pikel anywhere round. Missis Sexton had a vast apron of blue gingham, with pockets, for leasing, and it made her look bigger than ever. It did seem a blasphemy to speak of her leasing, as if Solomon in all his glory had put on an apron and gathered up the ears.

Tivvy was dressed out very grand, as often was the way of girls at such “_dos_” as this, for a “_do_” was a thing that came but seldom, and where else but church, where all but bonnets was swallowed by the pew, could you show your gown with the flounces, or your gown that was cut low?

Tivvy had a straw bonnet with quilled muslin under, a sprigged gown cut low with a rose at the breast, white stockings and new black sandal-shoes. Jancis was pretty past telling in her blue poplin and a sunbonnet, and Sukey and Moll had tight frocks of white cotton with red roses sprinkled on them.

The Callard children ran about like a clutch of chickens when you empty ’em out of the basket, but Miller’s Tim was as mim as a mute, feeling so grand to be trusted with all the feast to mind. Missis Miller and Polly, I may say, came first of all, and there was Miller’s man as well, and Sexton’s Sammy, a queer, long lad like an eel, with twice as many teeth as he wanted, and a power of texts in his head that ud fly out at you on every excuse, and hit you like a startle-de-buz will on a summer evening. It seemed as if all the texts his dad had ever read had lodged in his big head, and so he’d always got one pat.

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest to send down labourers into His harvest,” he says. But the publican from the _Mug o’ Cider_, whose missus was looking after the bar so he could come, Gideon being like to be a good customer in the future, catched him up very quick.

“Dunna begin the prayers till I’ve had a quart, lad,” he says, “for they might be answered, you being Sexton’s lad, and I’m welly parched.”

The men gathered together by the beer barrels, and as more came, they went and got their beer. Towler came, and shepherd, Felena’s maister, a tall, brown man, all bones, striding with his long kibba, which is a stick of six foot or so, to walk with, held about the middle.

“Well, shepherd!” pipes up Granfeyther Callard, “han you seed the sun dance yet, Easter morning, on thy mountain?”

Shepherd took no notice, for being with the dumb sheep so much, he was pretty near as silent as the miller, though not quite, for nobody could be. But the father of Moll and Sukey said—

“Nay, but ’tis his missus sees the moon dance, midsummer as we know well.”

“When she dances with the devil!” screeched Sukey.

“And not the devil only,” says Missis Sexton.

Felena didna seem to care. She was standing by me, and she whispered that she’d liefer dance, whoever it was with, and be jimp and souple, than be as stiff as a tombstone like Missis Sexton.

“She brought him up into the high place of Baal, Numbers twenty-two,” said Sammy. And after that there didna seem anything more to say about it.

Gideon came up to settle each man’s work, and he looked right well in his nice clean smock, well broidered, with the sleeves rolled up to show his great arms, and a pikel over shoulder.

“Now, Gaffer!” pipes up old Callard. “What bin ’e going to give I to do?”

“You shall go atop of the waggon I sarve,” says Sexton, “if ye promise to take as quick as I chuck.”

There was a laugh, for nobody ever liked the job of settling the sheaves Sexton heaved, he being the quickest heaver anywhere round, and never tiring.

“Oh,” says Mug o’ Cider, “we’ll put you on the leader of the foremost waggon for a lucky image, wunna we, lads? You can holler _Haw-woop!_ and _Jiggin!_ and be a sight more use than any of us.”

The old man took this as a great compliment, and nought would do but his son must help him up there and then.

“Well, lads,” says Gideon, “we’d best be shifting if we’re to bring the harvest whome this day.”

“Harroost! Harroost!” calls out old Callard. “_Haw-whop!_”

Obedient to the word, the lead-horse went forrard, and all the waggons and carts moved slow past the house. Mother stood on the door-sill, nodding and smiling, and saying—

“Thank you for us, I’m sure! My son Sarn’ll be obleeged to ye.”

So we went out under the blue sky to lug home the corn, the big waggons with solid wheels rolling over the stubble, Granfeyther Callard shouting “_Jiggin!_” when he meant “_Haw-woop!_” being quite tipsy with enjoyment, and causing a great confusion, the horses not knowing what to do. The rest of us followed on, strung out over the fields in bright colours, children and dogs running hither and thither, while in the rickyard the men told off to make the stacks put the logs in place ready for the stacks to be built on, got all prepared against the first waggon came back loaded high with grain, and then stood leaning on their pikels, talking over the work of the coming day, each man as busy about the planning of it all as if the harvest was his’n, and each man as glad of the grain as if he was to have the selling of it. For that was the manner of the love-carriages in time past.

In the noon-spell I went up to the high pasture, to see if there was any sign of Kester. He was coming across the far meadows, by a field path, and I stayed so long watching him, who was all the world to me, that they’d started work again afore I went back. It was a pretty thing to see, in such a place, on such a day. The farm being all under corn now, it looked like a boss of gold in the dark woods and meadows around. And all the bright colours of the women’s gowns, the creamy smocks and a tuthree coloured shirts of the men, the shining horses and deep-coloured oxen, the yellow stooks with blue shadows under, the towering yellow loads on the wains, made up such a picture as you wunna often see in a lifetime, anyway in these days.

It was merry to hear, also. The voices rang so sweet in the thin, still air. I could hear old Callard’s “_Haw-woop!_” and “_Jiggin!_” and the other men’s shouts, and Jancis laughing out high and sweet at summat Gideon did say, and the children crying out, “Mother, I’ve gotten two pinnies full now!” “Mam, I’ve found six ears together!” From the rickyard came the far calls of the rickmakers, and, times, a pigeon cooed in the deep woods, where the mere lay like glass, and, times, a jay would scold, or a woodpecker laugh out. Never a cloud was in the sky, nor any hint of trouble in the little airs that stirred in the leavy hedges. And there, two fields off, one field off, and now in the same field, was the man I could never think about but in those words, “The Maister be come.”

From a long way off he saw me, and waved his hat, so that the well-shapen head I did love was bare, with the dark hair just so upon it, that you must long to stroke it.

I came down from the high pasture and stood beside Gideon’s waggon, knowing that Kester would come to get his orders from the maister of the day.

There was some chaff, Kester being so late.

“Weaver’s forgot the day and come to-morrow instead!”

“Dunna be so forrard, Weaver, come on Plough Monday!”

“He bin late, but he bin full of power and might and young blood,” said old Callard, for nobody of that family would ever hear a word against Kester.

“The last shall be fust, and the fust last, Matthew twenty,” says Sammy.

“Luck to the day, Gaffer!” Kester called to Gideon.

“And thank you kind for coming,” answers Gideon.

“What be I to do?”

“Ever done any harvesting?”

“Ah.”

“Can ye pitch?”

“Ah.”

“Well then, you take my place a bit while I go the rounds, oot? Sexton’s tother side from you, and he’s a terrible quick pitcher. But you canna be too quick for young Callard and Towler.”

“But mind not to push pikel too fur when the load be low,” called old Callard, “for I mind once a fellow did that, and he stuck it right into the chap atop. Ah! like a piece of toast on toasting-fork he was, poor fellow, and hollered so that the team bolted, ooth the pikel still in.”

But Kester did very well and made toast of none. His eyes would laugh at me now and again, and once, when the empty waggon tarried, he came where I was leasing, and said—

“You still go frommet me a bit, I see, Prue Sarn. It mun be toerts, not frommet.”

I put the ears this way and that way, but no words came.

Then he said, slow, with a laugh at the back of his voice, but with a cosseting sound as well—

“There, there, my dear! None shall touch you now!”

All the strong life of the man was gathered in his eyes, and blazing full on me. So he’d heard! Folk do sometimes when they seem nigh dead. He’d heard and remembered the words I’d said when his head was on my bosom and my heart was all rent with love. What could I say? Nought. Where could I hide my burning face, that his eyes did so dwell on? Nowhere at all.

“Hi, Weaver!” they called. “Waggon be come and we be hindered for ye!”

“I never knew a mother’s love, nor yet a sister’s, nor yet a sweetheart’s.” He said it ever so softly, but despert earnest, so that the words burnt in. “But if I had, I should have forgot ’em all three when you said those words to me, Prue Sarn!”

With that, he turned sharp and went back to the waggon.

What a day that was! Gold? I should think it _was_ gold! I leased and leased, and it was just as if every armful was some precious, heavenly treasure. Nearly all the fields were clean and bare when we had our tea under the hedge shade, for it grew no cooler as the shadows lengthened, being one of those mid-September days when all the gathered warmship of the summer seems to be spent and squandered in love of the golden grain.

The sun was low in heaven and the harvest-beer low in cask when Mother banged the tray for me to come and help with the urns for supper. They were loading the last waggon, and I told Tim, who’d been a good, faithful watcher, that he could go to the field and ride home atop along with the other children, in the triumph. Then we brought out the urns, and the cask of home-brewed, very strong and good, and set about cutting up the meat and bread.

We heard ’em shouting from the fields, and in a while there it came, the biggest waggon, with Jancis’s white oxen and the oxen from Plash lugging it, Granfeyther Callard driving, all the children on top, and Jancis with them, waving green boughs and bunches of poppies, and Gideon, looking taller than customary in his smock, walking glad and solemn beside the load.

Deary me, how the tears do spring! Tears like Mother and I shed then, for the joy of it all, and other tears, for what came to pass after. For if in the mid of that great golden day you’d sent a sough of wind, and a mutter, and black clouds running up the sky, and darkness and thunder and forkit lightning, it couldna have been worse nor less expected than the storm that broke on us so soon.

The waggon came on, and all the people followed, singing and shouting, till they came to the gate of the rickyard.

There stood Parson, with Mother and me close by, to bless the corn.

“People!” he said, “let us give thanks for daily bread!”

And all the people said—

“We give thanks unto the Lord.”

“God bless the corn and the master of Sarn,” says Parson, “and may his good deeds return unto him as doves to their mountains.”

“Amen!” said the people.

“Missis Sarn bids me say that the feast is spread in the orchard, and all are welcome,” said Parson.

Gideon stepped forrard.

“The harvest’s whome, friends, and thank ye kindly,” he said. “Let every man who’s lent a hand claim task-work of me from this on, till I’ve paid my debt.”

We sate at the trestles in the long light of sunset. At least, the company did, but we at the urns were kept busy enough and hadna much time to sit down.

“Well, Weaver,” says Mug o’ Cider, “I hear tell as they’re making it pretty warm for ye, for stopping the bull-baiting. But I bear no grutch, I’m sure.”

“Nor yet me. I like a man that likes a dawg,” says Towler.

“Nor yet me,” says Mister Callard from the next table.

“But there’s some not to hold nor to bind,” said Mug o’ Cider. “I hear ’em in the bar, nights. Oh, I say nought! Landlord’s a dumb dog with pricket ears. Ah! That’s landlord. But they mean ye no good, Weaver. It’ll go hard but they’ll take thy work away if they can. And if they can do a spite to you and yours, they ool. They’ve worked on Squire, too.”

“I know, thank ye kindly all the same,” said Kester. “It was Squire I was hindered for to-day. He wanted to buy my cottage. Nothing would do but he must buy it. He knows very well that if he did he’d soon turn me out of the place, for all the rest belong to him or friends of his’n. Offered me a deal of money, did Squire.”

“Shall you consider it over?”

“Dear to goodness, no! I shall bide.”

There was something very pleasant to me in the way he said that. It was as if he builded a tower of refuge afore my eyes. He met go for a little while, a year even, but for his life-long he’d bide. And it was only fifteen mile away, and less as the crow flies.

“And _you’d_ best look out, too, Prue Sarn,” says Mug o’ Cider. “Grimble took it very ill, you knifing his dawg. Not but what you did it well, I must say. I’m sure any farmer as kills his own meat ud be glad of ye, or you met go for a doctor’s mon and do right well.”

“Mine said she couldna believe it when Prue Sarn drave the knife in,” went on the landlord. “Thought she’d seen a ghostly vision, her did. Said a feather would have knocked her down, her did. Which shows it must have bin pretty bad for it inna easy to knock the missus down, she’s like a bouncing ball.”

“I do wish I’d been there,” said Sukey. “I’d have knifed the dog for ye in a minute, Mister Woodseaves. What did I give ye at the Beguildy’s love-spinning, Mister Woodseaves?”

“Play kiss in the ring with us after, Mister Woodseaves!” says Moll. “You kiss right well, I know!”

Felena leant forrard across the narrow table.

“Oot play?” she said. “Oot play, Weaver?”

Just then there was a call from the next table.

“Husht, husht! Sexton’s going to say a few words.”

When Sexton spoke, the four walls of the church seemed to grow up round you, and you could smell the damp, musty smell of it, and hear the flies plaining in the windows. For whether he was reading, “He took unto him a wife and begat Aminadab,” or “The golden bowl be broken,” or speaking at a harvest supper, it was all the same.

“Friends,” says Sexton, “we’ve had a good day. I’m sartin there’s not a man among us as hanna sweated proper, even Granfeyther Callard has, I’ll be bound.”

“Oh, ah! I sweated right well!” calls out the old man, very pleased.

“And now we be enjoying good victuals and drink, and after that a game or two—”

“The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play, Exodus thirty-two.”

This was Sammy.

Sexton looked very angrily at his missus, as much as to say—

“Stop Sammy!” and she said—

“Husht, Sammy! Feyther’s speaking. Dunna you forget as you can only call to mind other folks’ words, but Feyther makes it all up new as he goes on.”

She settled down again to watching Sexton, for all the world like a cat watching a whirring wheel.

“I say we’ve had a good day, and Sarn’s had a good harvest, and I ask ye for why? Because he’s industrious, people, and his sister’s industrious, and his mother’s industrious. You couldna find in ten parishes a more industrious family. Not like some I could mention, as never do a hand’s turn, coddling about with old ancient wicked books. Ah! There’s some I could mention, as I dunna see the face of here to-day, that a bit of work would be the saving of. Well, neighbours, we all know as God helps those that help theirselves, and when we look at all them grand ricks of grain, I’m sure we see it’s true. And we wish you well, Sarn. And I’m in behopes the young woman’ll be industrious too. For I hear tell the next randy we come to at Sarn is to be a wedding. And may it bring more prosperation and not less, though of course we may think our thoughts, knowing where she’s from and what’s bred in the bone’ll come out in the flesh—”

But fortunately there was a stir when he got to that, and a call from the other tables—

“There’s two riders at the gate.”

And there was the young squire, and Miss Dorabella with him. They rode across the orchard, and the young man called out, “Give you good evening, folks, and luck to the corn!”

For he was ever hail-fellow-well-met with all men, I’ll say that for un, and it made him well liked.

Miss Dorabella seemed quite to forget she’d quarrelled with Gideon. She drew up by his table and smiled, sparkling her black eyes.

“Well, Sarn,” she said, “you’ve worked your will with the farm, I see. You’ve got a desperate good crop. Are you going to offer us a drink of harvest beer, to drink your health?”

I could see she admired him for a strong man, which he was. I never met but one stronger. And I could see that the Squire had told her to make it up with Gideon, and very likely sent young Mister Camperdine to see she did it for it was common property that she’d sarved him wi’ sauce at the _Mug o’ Cider_, and the Squire couldna afford to lose a man that was like to do well. Gideon looked at her straight and sullen, but she kept on smiling for all that, a bit conquering and a bit pleading. Then they gave her up the best pewter measure full of ale, and she says—

“Health and prosperation, Sarn!”

Then she tossed it off, for she could drink ale with any man, and in those days it wunna so long since ale was a lady’s only breakfast drink. Then she gave back the measure and leaned down, holding out her hand, stripping off the grand gauntlet, and she says—

“Your hand, Sarn!”

Well, he was done then, for he couldna refuse a lady’s hand. So he took it in his great fist, and young Mister Camperdine nodded, as if to say she’d done enough now, and she put on her glove again. All the while I saw Jancis looking at her in a way that meant she was frit of her, and also that she couldna abide her. But looking at Miss Dorabella, with that sort of stony handsomeness she’d got, and then at Jancis, so soft and pinky-sweet, it didna seem to me that Jancis had much to be afraid of. They gave young Mister Camperdine some ale then, and when he’d wished well and drunk it, he said—

“I thought maybe Beguildy was here, but I don’t glimpse him.”

Missis Beguildy stood up and curtsied.

“No, sir, he inna here, though a should be. And you’d best not look for ’im at home, sir, for I doubt you wouldna find ’im. But if you come to-day’s a week——”

I thought that was right clever of Missis Beguildy. She wanted to give Gideon and Jancis time, and to keep the young gentleman away as long as she durst, while she thought how to manage Beguildy.

“Right!” calls out the young fellow as they rode off.

“To-day week, and mind Venus is there!”

Jancis began to giggle at that. She always did at any mention of the silly affair. And it seemed so funny to her that he should be enquiring so anxious after the very woman his cousin had sarved wi’ sauce, and she at table all the while. But I crouched down on the bench, to seem short, and not to let him see my shape, so that Jancis went off into a fit of laughter again, and said I looked for all the world like a broody hen. We had some sport together over the young squire. Then up came Missis Beguildy, very put-about, wondering what to do with Beguildy till the wedding day was safely come. All of a sudden she thought of summat, and laughed and slapped herself till I thought she’d be took ill.

“Dear now, I’ve thought of it!” she says. “I’ll ask my cousin from Lullingford, as is here by the mercy of God, to send a message to my maister this very night, to say as hers is took ill (I mun think what he’s to have. Summat cruel bad!) and as there’s no cure but the old famous cure, to eat seven loaves baked at one baking by the seventh child of a seventh child, and she’s to offer good money (you can pay after you be wed, Jancis, for you’ll be having butter-money or summat) and off he’ll go, dang-swang, to look for a seventh of a seventh, and it’ll go hard but we’ll be in peace till Michaelmas.”

“Oh, mother,” says Jancis, giving her a kiss, “you’d ought to have been a great general to ride along with Lord Wellington and lay traps for Frenchmen!”

It was all fixed up before the games and dancing began, and I felt sorry for Beguildy till I remembered what a wicked old man he was, wanting to sell his child unwilling.

By this it was near dark, and the moon rising, big and raddled. They got together a dozen fellows, mostly middle-aged or old, to whistle for the dancing. They danced in the rickyard, among the stacks of golden corn, sweeping up the straw with besoms first. Old Callard had been chosen for a whistler, and very proud he was, for being the oldest he chose the tunes and set the measure, and so he could feel that all the merry life in a manner depended on him, which is pleasing to old folks.

“_Barley Bridge!_” he says.

The pretty tune sounded out clear on the quiet air.

I was standing under one of the stacks, watching. It was a gay thing to see. Gideon was dancing, holding Jancis close and strong. Missis Sexton was sailing about, and Felena too, jimp as a fairy. Even Mother made shift to dance a few steps.

The twelve were whistling like a nest of throstles, sitting in one of the empty waggons—

“_Open the gates as wide as the sky. . . ._”

when Kester found me.

“So that’s where you be,” he said. “Not dancing?”

“No.”

“For why?”

“I amna like other girls.”

He considered that. Then he said—

“Well, I mun be going. I’m off to prentice myself for ten months to learn the coloured weaving in London Town. Then I can do piecework at home, and care nothing for Grimble and his gang. Coloured weaving brings in a tidy bit, and I’ll send it by coach every few months.”

“When’ll you be raught back!” I said, as if I was drowning.

“I’ll be back for next August fair, and I’ll come and talk with you a bit then, Prue Sarn.”

“Maybe you’ll forget.”

“I dunna think so.”

“Well, God bless ye,” I says.

“And you.”

He turned to go. Then he turned back.

“But it’s foolish in you not to dance,” he says. “A wench with a figure like an apple-blow fairy!”

He gi’d a little laugh and went.

So he knew about Venus! Oh, I was shamed and dumbfounded! I was angry with Jancis too, for she must have told him, though she never would confess it, but giggled and said he must have noticed my nice shape through my clo’es, so that I was more shamed and vexed than ever.

Mother was tired and wanted me to help her to bed. After, I looked from her window on to the rickyard, that had been void, but for one big haystack, all peopled now with dark shapes. As I stood there, Gideon and Jancis suddenly came round the corner of the house, and as they went by, slow and seeing nought but each other, I plainly heard Gideon say, “Nay, Jancis, I’ll make sure of what’s mine. To-morrow night when your father’s gone, come down and let me in.”

I didna hear her answer, for they were past the window then, and besides, I drew back, for I canna abide an eavesdropper. So that was in his mind! He couldna trust his dear love even for a sennight. I thought, well, maybe it was no harm, for they would be wed so soon. And indeed, whether it was agen the church or no, I was bound to be glad that Gideon should show any human feeling. Times, he seemed like a frozen man. When all were gone, and the chattels fetched in out of the dew, it was getting on towards dawn. So I went up to the attic and wrote in my book. But first I took a sheet of paper and put down in very neat writing—

“A figure like an apple-blow fairy.”

“’Twas me he meant,” I said over and over, “poor Prue Sarn!”

And a glow began in my heart, warm and pleasant as a gledy fire. For what is there in this earth, or in heaven, if it comes to that, like the knowledge that you’ve found favour in the eyes of him that is your dear acquaintance, and the Maister? I left off wondering what he thought of my hare-shotten lip, for indeed it seemed he thought of it not at all. I called to mind a thing he’d said while we watched the dragon-flies, about sin. He said if you thought of it rightly it just wunna there. It was gone like the shrouds of the dragon-flies when they’d wrostled free. What did you want to go hunting about after the shroud for, when you could look at the bright fly? Maybe that was how he thought of me. My poor hideous lip was, as it were, my sin, though a kind of innicent wickedness. It was my sin, and all the rest of me was my righteousness, and my glory, and the way I made him glad. I cried a long while for very joy, and such a rushing happiness went through me as seemed to make all the blood in my veins new, and I felt as if it was so pure and strong it might even cure me of my ill. There was some truth in it, too, for my lip did never look quite so bad from that day.

Morning came fresh and sweet, and the rooks went streaming out across the windy sky, to our stubble, with sleepy, contented caws falling scattered here and there. On the way to milk I stopped by the rickyard to give thanks for the corn. Why then in that hour did I think of those words, “The precious bane”? Why did I think of that which men will garner with their harvest, and treasure, though it is as fire-grass in a haystack? Why did a cold boding horror stir in my heart, where all was gay and warm, as a catch of frost will strike in your garden plot of an autumn evening, when the dahlias are at their proudest—wine-colour and clear gold, every quill in place, blooming high above the wall, with bees about them—so that in the morning all is winter-sad?

C H A P T E R T W O: _Beguildy Seeks a Seventh Child_