Chapter VII: Book FOUR (3)

I grew as lanky as a clothes prop, and Mother began to show signs of wringing her hands about that too. For being little herself, and Missis Beguildy and Jancis and most of the women about being little, it seemed meet to Mother that a woman should be small. So when I grew and grew, and was very slender also (for indeed, with such a deal of work and little time to eat, anybody would be slender) she said I was like a poplar in an unthinned woodland or an o’er-tall bulrush in the mere, and I got used to being ashamed of my tallness as well as the other trouble, until—but I munna be too forrard with the tale.

Gideon wore his smock and looked right well in it. He was two-and-twenty now, a man grown, very personable, broad in the shoulder, with a firm, well-knit figure. As his body set, his mind set with it, harder than ten-days’ ice. He’d no eye for the girls at market, though there was a many looked at him. And once at market when he was wearing Father’s blue coat with the brass buttons, Squire Camperdine’s daughter (not the squire in the bottle, but his great-grandson) came riding past his booth, and smiled at him. But Gideon would only laugh when I questioned him, and stroke his chin, and look at me warily. There was no doubt he was a very comely man, and it used to seem to me unfair that it was me, and not Gideon, that was born after the hare looked at Mother. For Gideon could have grown what they call a _moustachio_ and looked very well, and none need have known he’d got a hare-shotten lip. But with me it was past hiding.

As to the farm, it was doing pretty well. We’d got a big flock of sheep, so that the shearing took us above a week. We’d got a herd of pigs that kept Mother busy all the time the acorns lasted, tending them in the oakwood. The grass-meadow by the orchard was under wheat, but we had no good of it the first year, for the wheat sprouted and ackerspired in the ear, it being a very wet season.

There was enough saved to buy two oxen for ploughing and other heavy work about the place. Being a bit out of fashion, they were not very dear. Gideon said that when he went to buy them I could go too and give a hand driving them back. And I could look in the shop windows while he haggled over the beasts, and then we could look at the house he’d set his mind on buying when it should come into the market. But Mother must know nought about the house, or she’d tell folk. “And if they thought I had such a thing in mind, they’d bant all my prices and double all their own, and where should we be then?” said Gideon.

You may guess I was glad to be going pleasuring, for I’d scarcely been away from Sarn since Father died, and Lullingford always seemed a wonderful place to me.

I was in the cornfield, leasing, when Gideon said it, he being just back from market, coming across the field in the last light of evening; and the shadows of him and Bendigo stretched away over the grass from the far gate to the orchard as I watched them come.

“But how’ll I go?” I asked. “I canna ride pillion, for there be the panniers.”

“If you’ll do a bit extra leasing, I’ll hire the mill pony when I take the next corn to be ground. Going to Plash for a lesson to-morrow?”

“Ah.”

“Then fetch back the beasts, oot, and I’ll go with corn Saturday.”

“But I’ve leased till there’s scarce an ear left in any part of this field or the other,” I said.

“Ask Beguildy to let you lease his. I saw them lugging their corn.”

“But Jancis and Missis Beguildy—”

“Now you know very well Jancis is too bone-idle to pick up as much as an ear. Though I like her right well, and as for looks—”

He stopped, and stood with his hand on Bendigo’s neck, gazing away to where Plash shone like bright honey in the long light, dreaming.

It was but seldom Gideon sat still, and very seldom he gave his mind to any thought but the thought of making money. But the name of Jancis would often quieten him, and when he fell into one of his silences he would make me think of a tranced man that was once brought to Beguildy to be awakened. And he made me think of a brooding summer tree on a windless day, minding its own thoughts above the water. He was like the lych-gate yew that dreams the year long, and keeps its dream as secret as it keeps its red fruit under the boughs. Gideon had been used to fall into a dream like this ever since he saw Jancis under the rosy light. Times, he’d mutter “No, no!” and shift his shoulders as though from a weight, and bestir himself, and be more of a driver than ever. For Gideon was a driver if ever there was one, and what he drove was his own flesh and blood. It seemed a pity to me that a young man should be so set in his ways, and have no pleasant times, for I was mighty fond of Gideon. I knew well where he went of a Sunday, when he took off his smock and put on the bottle-blue coat. He was a deal more regular at Plash than ever he was at church. The rosy light started it, but it would have likely been the same, anyway. Missis Beguildy told me how he’d come and knock, and Jancis would run to the door in her best gown and a ribbon or a flower in her hair, and go red and white by turns. And I saw for myself too, when she came to our place, how she would pant under her kerchief, and I wondered how this might be. For Gideon was just Gideon to me, but to her he was fire and tempest and the very spring, and his voice was as the voice of the mighty God.

He’d come in, Missis Beguildy said, with no word, and he’d sit down, and Beguildy would scowl, having no mind for Jancis to marry. He’d scowl from the inner-most chimney corner, for he felt the cold very bad, living in such a damp place and being a very stay-at-home man. And Gideon would scowl back.

Jancis blushed and trembled over her spinning, taking sideways looks at Gideon as a wren will. And Missis Beguildy set her face like a flint, and laid plans to get her goodman out of the kitchen. She dearly loved to see a bit of lovering going on, being short of summat to think of and talk of. She wanted to be a granny too. So she’d go to any length, but she’d get Beguildy out of the room. Once, when Gideon was glowering more than common, being very desirous to kiss Jancis because she’d put on some new ribbon or what-not to set her off, and when Missis Beguildy had called her man, and come back and argufied, and gone out and called again, but still he’d only sit there like a goblin in the dark of the fire, she even went so far as to set a light to the thatch on the barn. Ah! She did! She was a very strong-minded woman. And she kept the poor man, who couldn’t abide any work with his hands, running to-and-agen with buckets all evening. When he’d nearly douted one place, she set light to another while he was dipping water from the lake.

“I kept the flint and tinder right hot, my dear,” she said to me. And she laughed! I never saw a woman laugh more lungeously over anything than she did over that. She said she took a peep at the window, just to encourage her, and she could see through the clear bits in among the bottle-glass that they were sitting side by side on the settle.

“Very right and proper!” she says, and runs back to her work.

Another time she loosed the sow, and it made straight for our oakwood, she having taken it there afore. Beguildy liked his rasher, and the sow meant many a bacon-pig, so for fear she should come to harm, he took stick and went after her, cursing considerable. After a bit he began to be suspicious, because any ill that came, came on a Sunday, and he liked his day of rest, though he _was_ a heathen man. So he said to Gideon, “There’s no luck with you. When you come, harm brews. Keep off.”

So he had to give over going. Then he wiled Jancis into the woods, and I’d see them going up the dim ways, rainy or frosty was no matter, she with her face like a white rose, shining, and he looking down at her, loving, and angered to be loving. When they were in the woods, Missis Beguildy was so interested in the wizard’s bottles with the ghosts in them (so he said) that he’d have hard work to answer her questions. And she’d give him such a tea that it lasted nearly to supper. But he found out. He began to wonder why Jancis had taken such an affection for Tivvy, it being Tivvy she said she went to see. And as he couldn’t speak to Sexton, being at daggers drawn, he followed her one evening unbeknown. And when she got home, he leathered her so that her eyes were red for weeks, and she came running to Gideon all bedraggled with tears. He was in a rage with Beguildy, and he told Jancis he’d lief wed with her, only not till he’d won through, and was rich. For how could he get along, he said, with a helpless one like Jancis clinging to him, and a tribe of children, very likely? But he was moody and troubled in mind, for he could see Jancis but seldom, Beguildy being so watchful. I thought maybe the plan to show me the house he wanted was to comfort himself and strengthen his will, because he was afraid of giving in. He wanted to give in, mind you, for he was sore set on Jancis, only he was fixed, and when he was fixed he couldna let himself give in, not if it was ever so.

It turned out that we couldna borrow the mill pony for a good few weeks, because she’d gone lame. So the harvest was long over, winter upon us, and Christmas drawing nigh, when they sent a message to say we could have the loan of it for the Christmas market, for they’d just bought one of the old horses from the Lullingford and Silverton coach, and they would drive that to market themselves. I may say I was very pleased to think of the outing, and watched the weather very anxiously, for it boded snow.

I was up at four on market day, setting the place to rights for Mother and getting the things together for market. Eggs and dressed fowl we had in plenty, and greens and apples and a bit of butter. Polishing the apples in the attic, peace came upon me, as it ever did up there, since the time I told of. While the rushlight flickered in the cold air, and the mice scuttled, I stood at the open window that was like an oblong of black paper. No sound came in. Nought stirred outside. Even the mere was frozen round the edges, so that the ducks must go skating every morning afore they could come at the water. The world was all so piercing still that it was almost like a voice crying out. It was used to seem to me that when the world was so quiet, it was like being along of somebody as knew you very well, ah! like being with your dear acquaintance.

Down in the dark barn the cock crew, thin and sweet, and I thought it sounded like no earthly bird; but maybe that was because I was in the attic, where things were always new. You may think it strange that a woman like me should think such things, being one that worked with my hands always, at poor harsh tasks, whereas you’d expect such thoughts to come to fine ladies sitting at their tapestry work. But I was so lonesome, and had such a deal of time for thinking, and what with that and the booklearning I was getting, all sorts of thoughts grew up in my mind, like flowering rushes and forget-me-nots coming into blow in a poor marshy place, that else had nought. And I can never see that it did much harm, for the thoughts seldom came but in the attic, and they did never make me dreamy over my work.

So now, hearing the clear sound of our game-cock crying out upon the dawn, that was yet more than two hours away, I ran downstairs all of a lantun-puff to get the breakfast. When Gideon came in, it was all ready, and a great fire roaring, for we need never stint of wood at Sarn, which was much to be thankful for at a time when many poor families in England must herd together six or seven in one cottage to boil their kettles all on one fire. I was always thankful for our plenteous wood, that cost nought, and need not take up too much of Gideon’s time neither, for if I burnt more than he cut I could make shift to chop it myself.

We were as snug as could be, sitting in the merry firelight with a red glow shining on the quarries and the ware and the spinning-wheels in the corner. I was pleased to think Mother wasna to be lonesome, for I’d asked Tivvy to come and keep her company, since I never could enjoy anything if one I loved was lonesome or sad. Shaking the cloth out of the door after it got light, I could see her red cloak coming along under the dark woods; for as Tivvy never did anything nor thought anything, she had all her time to herself, as you met say, and so she had no cause to be late.

Gideon had roughed Bendigo and the mill pony overnight, so all being ready and the sun just risen, we set off.

All the lake was full of red lights, as if our farm was on fire, reflected in the water. The black pines stood with their arms out, dripping with hoar-frost, all white-over, so that the tips of their drooping branches were like your fingers when you take them from the suds. The rooks were very contented, cawing soft and pleasant, as if they knew their breakfast was ready so soon as our ploughland thawed a bit, and in the stackyard there was a great murmuration of starlings.

“Bring me a fairing!” screams Tivvy from across the water.

Gideon looked sullen, and I knew the only fairing he’d a mind to bring was one for Jancis. So I called out—“I will. What shall it be?”

“A bit of cherry-coloured sarsnet to tie up my hair,” she calls. For though she was a foolish piece in most things, she knew very well she’d got pretty curls, bright brown and thick. She’d toss them ever so when Gideon was there, and take every chance to miscall Beguildy, though she durstna say anything against Jancis, for fear Gideon might blaze out. But she was clever enough in this, as oftentimes a stupid girl is when she’s in love, and she could always make it seem a very poor, ill-liking sort of thing to be sweet on a wizard’s wench, and a grand thing to be in love with the sexton’s daughter, whose dad could mouth texts as fast as the wizard could mouth charms.

It was a grand morning, very crispy underfoot, with moor-fowl about, especially widgeon. We were riding to the hills. Across the far woods and the rough moors beyond, and the bits of ploughland here and there, and the frosty stubble where partridges ran from the noise of the trotting, we could see the hills, as blue as pansies. Promising hills, they seemed to me. There was a clatter in the spinney, and a flock of wood-pigeons got up and took their flight, with wings flashing blue in the sun, for the same hills. It was as if some wonderful thing was there, as it might be a healing well, or some other miracle, or a holy person such as there were of old time.

I said as much to Gideon, but he was looking away over shoulder to Plash and the long spire of blue smoke going up from the Stone House. He began to whistle below his breath, for he’d never whistle outright, even at the merriest, but always very quiet and to his mommets. So I said no more, and in a while our old road ended, and we came into the main road where it was bad going, for whatever the weather was, the road the Romans made was good going, and even better than the turnpike. In a little we passed the milk folk going soberly along, and then a tuthree more, and soon we were riding up the hill into the town, with the plovers crying about us in their winter voices.

So we rode to Lullingford to look upon a dream. For the house we were about seeing was woven into the dream of Gideon’s life. The house, that is, along with what it meant, the maids and the men, the balls and the dinners with the gentry at the _Mug of Cider_ at election time.

When we were going through the ford as you come into the lower part of the place, Gideon said—

“I wish Jancis was riding pillion with me.”

“Why, so she shall,” I said, “the very next time we come. Why shouldna she come every time?”

“There be Beguildy.”

“Oh, Beguildy! I’ll wile un with his own spells and charm un with his own charms,” I said, and I laughed as we went up the narrow street, so that heads came out of windows here and there to see what it might be.

“Husht now, girl!” says Gideon. “Laugh quiet. Not like a wild curlew.”

“But a curlew’s very good company, and a pleasanter voice I seldom heard, and I’m pleased with the compliment, lad.”

And indeed I was pleased with the world and all. For there was summat about Lullingford, as if a different air blew there, and as if there was a brighter sun and a safer daylight. I knew not why it was. It was a quiet place, though not near so quiet as now. Folk go off to the cities these days, but when I was young they gathered together from many miles around into the little market towns. Still, it was quiet, and very peaceful, though not with the stillness of Sarn, that was almost deathly, times. There was one broad street of black and white houses, jutting out above, and gabled, and made into rounded shop windows below. They stood back in little gardens. At the top of the street was the church, long and low, with a tremendous high steeple, well carved and pleasant to see. Under the shadow of the church was the big, comfortable inn, with its red sign painted with a tall blue mug of cider. It had red curtains in the windows, and a glow of firelight in the winter, and it seemed to say, in being so nigh the church, that its landlord’s conscience was clear and his ale honest, and that none would get more than was good for him there. But of the last I a little doubt.

Of a Sunday the shops had each a bit of white canvas stuff hung afore the window like an apron, which made it seem very pious and respectable. There were few shops, and only one of each kind, so you could never run from one to another, cheapening goods.

There was the Green Canister, where they kept groceries and spools and pots and pans, and there was the maltster’s and the butcher’s and the baker’s, for Lullingford was well up with the times, since it wasna all towns could boast a baker in days when nearly everybody baked at home. Then there was the leather shop, for boots and harness, and the tailor’s, which was only open in winter, for in summer he travelled round the country doing piecework. There was the smithy too, where the little boys crowded after Dame-School every winter dusk, begging to warm their hands and roast chestnuts and taters. It was a pleasant thing to see the sparks go up, roaring, and to feel the hearty glow about you, warming you to the heart’s core, with nothing to pay or to do, like love. Near by the smithy was the row of little cottages where was the weaver’s. Like the tailor, he went abroad over the countryside in summer, and sometimes to a village in winter, if it was open weather. But in hard weather he stayed in his snug slip of a house and heard the wind roaring over from the mountains north to the mountains south. I never could tell why this cottage drew me, even from a child. It had a narrow garden and a walk of red brick, an oaken paling, and bushes of lavender on either side the walk. Three well-whitened steps led up to the door, and there was a window of many little panes, not bottle-glass. Above was another window. At the back, a patch of garden ran down to the meadows, and there was a second window in the living-room that looked over this garden and the meadows, to the mountains. This I knew, because I went there once with a message in the old weaver’s time. Upon the front of the house was a vine, very old and twisted. This was a rare thing in a place of such hard winters, but the town was sheltered by the mountains, and the weaver’s house faced south, so the vine throve, and though in cold seasons the grapes didna always ripen, in some years they ripened very well. What with the vine and the lavender and the pleasant shadows on the strip of green lawn, and the lilac tree that stood beside the door, and what with the great weaving frame in the living-room, which was comfortable with firelight shining on brasses and copper vessels, and very well kept, what with it all, I could never pass it without a look of longing. I was used to envy the fat thrushes hopping on the lawn. It drew me as heaven draws the poor sinner, weary of his miry wanderings.

So to-day, as we rode by, I said—

“Gideon, what is it makes that house different to the other housen?”

“It inna different.”

“Oh, but it’s as different as if it was builded of stone fetched from another world!” I cried out. “It’s as different as if the timbers were falled in the forests of the Better Land.”

“Dear to goodness, girl, you bin raving,” says he. “Husht, or the beadle’ll put you in pound.”

So I hushed, and we came to the _Mug of Cider_, and after turning our beasts in among the rest, we set out our goods in the market.

C H A P T E R T W O: _The Mug of Cider_

THE market was in the open, in a paven square by the church. Each had his own booth, and the cheeses stood in mounds between. There were a sight of old women in decent shawls and cotton bonnets selling the same as we had, butter and eggs and poultry. There was a stall for gingerbread and one for mince-pies. There was a sunbonnet stall and a toy stall, and one for gewgaws such as strings of coral and china cats, shoe buckles and amulets and beaded reticules. It was a merry scene, with the bright holly and mistletoe, the cheeses yellow in the sun, and the gingerbread as brown and sticky as chestnut buds.

The butcher stood at his door, which gave on to the market-place, shouting his meat, and holding up a long, shining knife, enough to make you think the French were coming. There was a woman selling hot potatoes and pig’s fry, and a crockman who put up his wares to auction, and every time the clock chimed he broke summat, keeping some “_seconds_” in readiness, which served to amuse the people. Then the mummers came along and gave us a treat, and in one corner the beast-leech was pulling teeth out for a penny each, and had a crowd watching. What with them all shouting, and the mummers mouthing their parts, and the crash of broken china, and beasts lowing and bleating from the fair ground close by, and the chimes ringing out very sweet at the half-hours, you may think there was a cheerful noise.

When we’d got rid of our goods, we went into the _Mug of Cider_ for a snack. Ten or a dozen old men sat without, though the air was so nipping that they must have bin starved. Each one was holding a great pewter tankard, and they were roaring out at the top of their voices—

“_The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not fear._”

Each one went his own way and made his own tune, and I thought how angered Mister Beguildy would be if he could hear ’em making such an untuneful sound, for he was very particular over his row of flints, and when he struck them he was troubled if they didna strike the note true.

But when we were come by these old ancients, every one held his mug where it was, and stopped in his singing, and so sat with his mouth open and his eyes fast on me. They were like those new-fangled mommet-shows with the little dolls that stop all together when the showman unhands them. There they sat, with the inn behind them and the frosty sunshine on their old, red, veiny faces, and a kind of frittened look. As we passed the bench, every head of them came round slow, and the score or so of eyes stared slantwise over the rims of their cups, as young owls will stare and turn their heads, watching you over their feathers.

As we went through the dark doorway, with its door studded with nails like a prison, and came into the inn parlour, where sat the more genteel, I saw their looks fasten on me too, but more shyly. The farmers and their ladies and two or three folk that had come by the early coach and were baiting here, and the Squire’s son, who was a parson in Silverton and was on the way home for Christmas and was taking some refreshment because his nag had cast a shoe, all of them looked up, quiet and careful but very curious, at me. All on a sudden I knew that all these folk, the grand ones within and the old fellows without, were staring at my hare-shotten lip. They were thinking, according to their station and their learning—

“Here’s a queer outlandish creature!”

“This is a woman out of a show, sure to goodness!”

“Here be a wench turns into a hare by night.”

“Her’s a witch, an ugly, hare-shotten witch.”

Maybe in the tuthree times I’d come to Lullingford in the past they’d stared so, but then I was but a child and didna see.

I could hear the old men without croaking like a lot of rooks, and one said—

“Dunna drink while she’s by. It’ll p’ison yer innards.”

Another said—

“Dunna look upon the baigle. Her’ll put the evil eye on you. You’ll dwine and dwine away.”

The folk inside looked each at other, and I wished I could die. For all the bitter cold and my thin gown and us being far from the fire, I was all in a swelter. For indeed I loved my kind and would lief they had loved me, and I felt a friendliness for the drovers and for the gentry, and the host and his missus. For they were part of my outing and part of Lullingford and of the world, that ever seized my heart in its hands, as a child will hold a small bird, which is both affrighted and comforted to be so held. I would lief have ridden forth and seen new folk, new roads, new hamlets, children playing on strange village greens, unknown to me as if they were fairies, come there I knew not whence nor how, singing their song and running away into the dusk; old folk wending their way along paths in meadows of which I knew not so much as the name of the owner, to churches deep in trees, with all the bells a-ringing, pulled by men I never saw afore. Ah, I should dearly ha’ liked that. Only the gist of it must ever be that the old folk looked kind as they saw me go by, and the children smiled or threw me a blossom, and that when I came to inn or tavern they’d say, “Draw in to the fire now, dear ’eart, for night thickens.” Ah, I’d dearly ha’ liked that!

This made it all the more of a shocking thing to me that the real world was thus toward me, for living so apart I had not truly felt my grief afore. But now I knew that I was fast bound in misery and iron, as the Book saith. Ah, prisoned beyond a door to which the great nailed door of the inn was but paper!

As I was bending over my plate so that my bonnet met hide the tears, a lady came in. She was a handsome piece if ever there was one! She was lissom as a wand, dressed in a long scarlet riding coat and a highwayman hat to match, with a great swath of chestnut hair tied in a bow. She’d got black eyes with no human soul in them, but sparkles instead, like a cat’s eyes on a frosty night. Gauntlets on her little hands, spurs on her boots, she came in laughing from a talk with the old men on the bench.

“A besom, host!” she says. “We want a besom here.”

Everybody smiled and sniggered a bit. I knew well what she meant, for once when Mother was talking to me she said that if folk began to speak of besoms I’d best go, since it was their way of saying I was a witch.

But Gideon never noticed, for not being afflicted like me he never thought of such things, and being used to me he didna have it in mind that other folk met not be. And he was very deep in considering over whether Jancis or the big house and the maids and men were best, so it all went by him.

The lady ran to the Squire’s son and clapped him on shoulder, which made him frown because of his dignity, and she says—

“So you’ve come Christmassing like a good lad! Who’s the woman with the hare-shotten lip?”

He made a sign to warn her to talk soft, and nodded towards Gideon ever so little.

“Why, if yonder isn’t young Sarn of Sarn!” she says, flushing a bit and coming running across to where Gideon sat, very handsome in the blue coat with the brass buttons and the black band for Father on the arm, and his eyes darkling over the thought of Jancis. I nudged him, and he stood up, and looked all the better for it, being such a fine figure.

She held out her hand, for the gentry were always friendly to the farmers, in especial to voters about election time, and she sparkled at him out of her black eyes and said—

“There’s to be an election soon, and Father’s got some work for you, Sarn. So you’d best come and see us one day, and take bite and sup, if your sweetheart can spare you.”

She looked very spitefully at me. Seemingly she thought Gideon was an only child, and so she chose to take me for his acquaintance, or else she chose to mock him, lashing him into her slavery by making him look a fool.

Now Gideon was altogether with the Squire as to politics, because of the corn tax, but he hadna made up his mind in good sadness whether he meant giving all those things up and settling down contented with Jancis and a crowd of little uns till death them parted. So he hummed and hawed a bit, and not being used to hiver-hover from a common man, she lost her temper.

“So! So! You’ve no time, Sarn. You’ve no time, I see,” she says. “You’ll be dancing on Diafoll Mountain next Thomastide no doubt. Oh, fine you’ll look, Sarn, with your missus here, and broomsticks all round and the moon shining!”

She laughed like a tinkle of jangled bells, and Gideon came to the knowledge of what she meant. He was ever slow, but sure. Eh, terrible sure.

That was one of the times I spoke of when I saw Gideon angered. His face had gone dark and his eyes had the look as if the mere was running behind them, cold, and bitter cold. He looked down at her so that she blenched, and he said very slow—

“Ma’am, this be my sister. If I’ve a mind to dance on the Diafoll Mountain along of witches, I ool. And if I’ve a mind to dance upstairs at the ’unt Ball along of the gentry, I ool. But I wunna ask _you_ for a partner. And I doubt I wunna be able to vote for Squire neither, for can a man govern the land as canna govern his own womankind, but lets his girl go about like a ripstitch-rantipole? He should ha’ give you more stick, ma’am.”

“Dorabella!” calls her brother, very much put about at her being in such a brawl.

They went out, and Gideon sat down and went on with his victuals. Nor did he eat a bit less hearty for it all, though I could scarce touch a morsel. So soon as he went off to buy the oxen, I made haste to go from the place. There were plenty of errands to do, what with malt and sugar and tea to buy, and boots for us all, and Tivvy’s present, and a bit of baccy for Gideon, for he never bought any himself, since, if he was near with others, he was near with himself also. When I’d finished, and bought a tuthree extras for Christmas, and packed all into the panniers, Gideon was ready to go and see the house. He was pleased with the cattle. Brindled longhorns they were, and very strong. With so few people using oxen for farm work they were cheaper, a power, than they used to be. So he was cheerful, since neither then nor at any other time did he seem cast down by my sorrow. How could he know, indeed, that my heart was bleeding because of Miss Dorabella and the old men on the bench? He was angered because he thought it disgrace to himself that a hare-shotten lip should be cast up against one of his family, and a scent of witchcraft into the bargain. But for me he took no thought, any more than if I was one of the new-bought oxen that somebody prodded in passing by. He whistled under breath as we went along the by-road that led to the house he’d set his mind on. I’d never been along that way, for it lay outside the town on the other road from ours, and when we did come in we hadna much time for gadding about. We soon left the coach road and were in a lane with deep frozen ruts in it, and high hedges white-over with rime.

The evening was closing in a bit, but Gideon said never mind, we’d manage the beasts all right, for it ud be light as day when the moon rose. He was very wrought-up about the house, I could see, so I agreed to all he said, for I never liked to dampen down anybody’s pleasure. Lord knows there’s little enow in the world, and Gideon was ever one that took life hard. So when it turned out that he’d planned to treat me to a dish of tea after, at the _Mug of Cider_, and have a chat about all we meant to do, seeing we couldna when Mother was by, I said nought agen it, though I thought I’d liefer have gone into Hell’s mouth than face it. But Gideon wanted to talk while the holiday feeling was on him, afore the dumbness of Sarn got the better of him agen. For it was a most peculiar thing how you couldna speak your heart out at Sarn, and I never knew whether it was the big trees brooding, or the heavy rheumaticky feeling of being so close to the water, or the old ancient house full of the remembrances of old ancient people, or that there was summat foreboded. So Gideon kept his thoughts and turned them over and over in his mind like a snowball, till at last the snowball was too much for six strong men to shift, and nigh big enough to bury anybody.

We went through a gate into an avenue like a carriage drive. At the end there was another gate, with balls on posts, very grand. Within was a carriage sweep and flower knots, trimly kept.

We stood there, looking through the wrought-iron gates at the place that Gideon said was to be ours. It was new, built since Queen Anne died, and it was a despert big house, very solid, with four windows each side the door, and over the door a porch of stone. Above the eight windows were eight more, and over them dormer windows that Gideon said would be the windows of the men-servants and the maid-servants. There were steps up to the door, and a stone mounting-block with steps also, and a walled garden at one side, and a round pigeon cote.

No light showed, and the place had a melancholy look, so still it was, so dark, in its dark still trees.

“I’d lief there was a light,” I said.

“Dear to goodness, a light? It wunna be dark this hour, to call dark. What do they want with a light? The housekeeper can spin by firelight, I hope, and an old chap can sit in the chimney corner and set his mind on a better world without wasting tallow, let alone wax!”

Gideon had taken over the management already, seemingly, and I was bound to laugh.

“You seem pretty anxious the poor gentleman should set his mind on a better world,” I says.

“Why, so I am, but not too soon. It ud never do for the old chap to go out all of a lantun-puff afore we’ve got the money together. Say in about ten year.”

“So he’s to order his coffin in ten years’ time, poor gentleman.”

“You be very sharp to-day, Prue,” says he. “But he’s bound to go some day, no danger. We mun bide our time.”

“He’s Miss Dorabella’s great-uncle, inna he?”

“Ah.”

“Wunna they want it for young Mister Camperdine?”

“Laws, no! He’s after a bishop’s palace.”

“Nor yet his cousin?”

“Dear no! He’ll never bide long in a place, that lad wunna. A rolling stone, he be, and a caution. No, it’ll be put up to auction when the old man goes, and you and me must mind to get the money ready.”

“Why, look ye, a light!” I says.

“Where?”

“Why there, in that lower window on the garden side.”

I saw it as well as could be, a large pale light wandering from window to window downstairs and then sliding up, in a long window that seemed to go down the stairs, and beginning over again in the upper story. One window would shine for a minute and then go black, and another shine. It had a very strange, uncontented look, wandering like that. There’s nothing so contented as a steadfast light, but a flickering light going to and agen in a void is a sad thing to see. It went on like that a long time, and the cold strengthened. There was no sound at all. We stood there like beggars outside the gate, and the unquiet light wandered in the dark. All of a sudden it went out.

“Oh, it’s gone out!” I says. “Oh, deary, deary me!”

“What of that?” says Gideon.

“I wanted it to steady and come to rest in a window, and shine out with a heartening glow,” I said. “But now it’s gone out.”

It distressed me mightily that it should go out, so that I wrung my cold hands together, though why it should hurt me thus I couldna say.

“It was but the housekeeper looking for her knitting-needles or old Camperdine seeking his snuff-box. And now they’ve found it, they’ve douted the light. Very sensible too.”

“No!” I said. “No! It was love, lad, wanting to steady and shine. But the house was too much for it. The dark’s closed in now. The light’s douted.”

And I began to cry, which was a foolish thing to do. But Gideon wasna so angered as he met have been, for he was in a good temper about the oxen and the house. “You’re sickening for summat,” he said, “for you be no cry-baby, Prue. Come on to your tea, now, while I tell you all that’s in my mind. I’ve a deal to say, for that little vixen of Camperdine’s has changed my mind for me, so I must tell you the new plans as well as the old.”

We turned away from the shut gate, as dumb as stones, and we left all the twenty-four windows with no light in them, and the dark trees with no breath of air in them, lying there in the vast of night.

C H A P T E R T H R E E: “_Or Die in ’tempting It_”

IT wasna near so bad as I’d feared at the inn, for the old men were gone with their droves, and the Camperdines were by this at their dinner. It is often so, if you are in heavy dread of summat and yet brave it, and behold! it is nought. The landlord and his missus, thinking little of us, sent the maid-servant to wait on us—a frightened, simple creature, like Miller’s Polly, and nothing to be feared of. We had the parlour to ourselves, for folk go home early from Lullingford market in the winter, seeing what the roads are, even to this day. I was glad of the red fire and the steaming tea, after the sadness of that house with its dead light.

Gideon began to talk after a while, very slow, and as if the words cost gold.

“Now, Prue, I’ve gotten a deal to say, and if we dunna want to be benighted, I’d best start. You know as me and Jancis have taken up together in good sadness?”

“Ah.”

“I didna think to care about any wench like I do about that girl, Prue. Catches at a chap’s vitals, she do. I never meant to go furder than a bit of fun. I didna reckon to marry, nor yet I didna mean lawless love. I meant fair by Jancis, and so long as we had our Sunday evenings it was all right. When there’s no gainsaying there’s no burning in the blood. Gainsay, and the blood’s on fire. Afore old Beguildy found us out we were contented enow and as innicent as two pinks on a stem.”

“And still be that last,” I says.

“Ah.”

He looked strangely on me for a while, and said—

“You’ve got the second sight, seemingly, our Prue.”

“No. Only a bit of sense.”

“Well, now as the old man’s given me the go-by, I do hunger and thirst after Jancis pretty near as much as I do after the place yonder, and the money and all as goes with it.”

“Not more?”

“Laws, no!”

“Then you dunna love Jancis in good sadness, Gideon. You do but lust after the girl in carnality.”

“Dear to goodness! It met be Parson preaching. That’s what the book-learning does to a woman.”

He laughed a bit, awkward like, and began stuffing baccy into his pipe. But I knew that if I’d got any wisdom it was never book-learning as gave it to me, but just the quietness of the attic.

“Well, big words or not, it’s no matter,” he said. “I want the wench. I want her so bad that I’d very near set my heart to give up all and bring her to Sarn and order one of them rush cradles off Missis Beguildy. So then, to conquer the longing, I planned to bring you to see the place, and talk about it, and maybe begin to buy some bits of things agen we furnish.”

“To harden your heart the more.”

“Ah. And I planned to get some education off you after a while, and gather power to me at election times, and be so well thought of that I could even put my heart on a squire’s girl.”

“Miss Dorabella!”

“No less. What be she, after all, but a woman? She hanna got more to give than any other woman, and what would any man, even the Lord of the Manor, do more for a girl than get her with child?”

“Husht! They’ll hear in the kitchen and be angered at such wild talk.”

“True talk.”

“Maybe true. But nobody’d like it the better for that.”

“Ever since she threw me that first saucy look I’ve had it in mind. She angered me and pleased me both. So I thought if so be I could bring myself to give up Jancis—for either I mun give up Jancis or I mun give up all thought of the other—then Jancis met have taken up with Sexton’s Sammy.”

“It would nigh kill the girl, Gideon, and Sammy’s no woman’s man, and he’s pretty well crazed with learning texts, into the bargain.”

“Oh, he’d take her if I’d let un. She stirs him to anger with her flighty ways and being a wizard’s wench and all. I see a look in Sammy’s face time and agen. Wed with her and tame her, that’s what Sammy ud do.”

“But that would be a cruel thing, Gideon.”

“Well, I’d a mind for it when we set out for market. I thought to throw Jancis at the fellow’s yeard like I throw a crust to Towser, for it mun be one thing or other. And she’d have been contented enough when the children came. Though, Lord help ’em, they’d ha’ had Sammy’s scowl and bin born with their mouths full of texes. But she’d have seen nought wrong with ’em. Anyway, that’s what I’d settled in my own mind.”

“Dear to goodness, what a God Almighty!” I says, mocking a bit, though I knew he could ha’ done it if he’d a mind. He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for kindness. For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory? How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over? What bridal lacked his song, and what mourner his tears, that he found time to climb so high?

“But now,” said Gideon, “my mind’s set, and I shanna change agen. I wunna give up either Jancis or the place at Lullingford here; I’ll have both. And I’ll lead Jancis out in a gown as would stand of itself, with her bosom bare as a lady’s, at the ’unt Ball, in front of Miss Dorabella. Not only that neither. But when you and Jancis be at the grand place, and the gentry calling in their carriages——”

“And Mother! You’ve missed out Mother.”

“And me a man of standing, more looked up to than Squire, and not yet old, nor near it, then——”

He was quiet a long while, thinking.

“Well, Gideon,” I says, “what then?”

“Why then, if Dorabella Camperdine comes across my path with them black eyes and that red smile, let her look to herself. I’ll take her. Out of wedlock, I ool, for what she said to you and me to-day. And when the poor wizard’s wench is my lawful missus, I’ll make Squire’s girl a w’ore.”

With that word he banged down his fist on the table so that the tankard of ale rolled on the floor.

“If you be so set in your ways,” I says, “there’ll be more than a flagon of ale spilled, my dear.”

“You talk like an old ancient woman, Prue. I be as I was made. None can go widdershins to that.”

I can hear Gideon say that now, gruff and short and with a kind of broken-hearted sound. It was as if he’d give all to be as he could never be; as if his soul in that hour, away from Sarn and all its ancient power, wrestled mightily to be free of itself. Maybe you’ve seen a dragon-fly coming out of its case? It does so wrostle, it does so wrench, you’d think its life ud go from it. I’ve seen ’em turn somersets like a mountebank in their agony. For get free they mun, and it cosses ’em a pain like the birth pain, very pitiful to see. But in our Gideon it was worse to watch. There he sat, by the comfortable fire, with the spilled beer gleaming on the quarries like dark blood, and he said no word for above an hour. I know it was that, for when he went into his trance I heard the missus of the inn call to the maid-servant to turn the spit and hasten on the meat, for supper must be served in an hour. Then all was still, and I sat with folded hands, seeing Gideon’s dark face there opposite when the fire blazed up. I sat as mum as a winter blackbird. It seemed to me that the mighty hand was upon him, striving with him to make him go widdershins to what he was, to what Father had made him, and Grandad, and all of them, back to Timothy, that had the lightning in his blood. I could see in mind Lullingford New House, and the light wandering, as if it wanted to steady and shine. I wished it might be well with Gideon, and that he met take Jancis, not for vengeance but for love, and because she was the candle of his eye, and his dear acquaintance, and not for lust. And I wished he might take thought for Mother, and even for me, that I be not like his dog or his bought slave.

After a long lapse of time I heard a voice outside say, “Is all finished?” And another voice answered, “Ah, all’s done.” It had a solemn sound, though I knew it was only the dinner they meant.

Gideon stirred and muttered to himself.

“Or die in ’tempting it,” he said.

So I knew we were all set out on a dark road, Gideon and Mother and me, and now Jancis.

We went out and saddled the nags, and set forth for home through a world as stiff as a rock, driving the oxen afore us. The dumbness had come back upon Gideon. The outing was over. The road puddles were gone beyond crackling-stiff, and were iron. And the hedges were even as the wrought-iron gates of Lullingford New House. It was the middle of the night when we came past Sarn Mere, and saw the ice a deal further out, and the lily leaves frozen under.

“Well, it’s bin a very costly day,” says Gideon, “and I’m in behopes you’ve enjoyed yourself.”

I knew it hurt the lad sore to spend. It was a crust in pocket and a sup of water mostly on market days. So I put the old men and Miss Dorabella out of mind, and only said—

“Ah, it was grand, and thank you kindly, lad.”

“And you’ll agree to all?”

“Ah, didna I vow it?”

“But that was afore Jancis.”

“I agree to Jancis. But it ud be all one if I didna.”

“Not if you wouldna work.”

“Oh, I’ll work. I never was afeard of work.”

All of a sudden a sweet scattered whistling came falling from the dim moony sky.

“Hark!” he says. “The Seven Whistlers!”