Furze the Cruel Part 28

He'm as soft wi' fat as a bog be o' moss, and so cruel heavy I can't hardly lift 'en. Yew don't know a goosie when yew sees one, my dear.

Never killed one in your life, I reckon. Aw now, never killed a goosie, and ses Old Sal be thin! He was as good a mother as yew, my dear, and when it comes to laying eggs--"

The artist's wife thought it was time to "go under," or at all events to disappear, as Mary was getting excited.

At that point Betty Middleweek appeared and whispered to Mary; and at the same time a little boy in quaint costume, with a head two sizes too large, shuffled up the garden path, and stood staring at the defunct goose with large vacant eyes. "He bain't your Old Sal after all," said Betty. "He belongs to Mary Shakerley, and her little Charlie ha' come for him. He saw the dog go after 'en, and he ran away mazed like to tell his mother, but her had gone to Tavistock market, and ha' just come home."

"He've only got one eye," piped little Charlie in evidence.

Mary examined the dead body. It was that of a one-eyed goose.

"Aw now," she said in a disappointed fas.h.i.+on, "I reckon he bain't my Old Sal after all."

"I am willing to pay some one. Who is it to be?" asked the artist, who wanted to get back to his food.

"Please to pay little Charlie, sir," said Betty Middleweek. "Charlie, come up to the gentleman."

"Well, my lad, how much do you want for your goose? Eightpence a pound, is it?"

"Dear life!" cried Mary. "He hain't worth eightpence a pound. Look at 'en! He'm a proper old goosie, wi'out a bit o' meat on his bones, and the feathers fair dropping out o' his skin wi' age. He'd ha' scared the dog off if he'd been a young bird, or got away from 'en. My Old Sal would ha' tored any dog to pieces. Don't ye pay eightpence a pound. He hain't worth it. He never laid no eggs, I reckon, and he warn't no good for a mother. He'd ha' died purty soon if that dog o' yours hadn't killed 'en."

"You seem to have altered your opinions rather suddenly," said the artist.

"Well, I bain't a one-eyed old gander," said Mary. "I knows what goosies ought to be to fetch eightpence a pound, and I can see he ain't got enough meat on him to feed a heckimal. Aw, my dear life, if I can't tell a goosie when I sees him who can?" And off went Mary, striking her big stick noisily on the ground, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, and muttering an epitaph upon the still missing Old Sal, who, she supposed, had been carried off by some evil beast and devoured in the secret places of the moor.

It was dark by this time, and the Ebenezer love-feast was over, so far as the eating and drinking and prayer-meeting were concerned. The G.o.d of good cheer had been wors.h.i.+pped, and now the G.o.ddess of common wayside love was receiving incense. Autumn invariably discovers those hardy perennials of the hedges and ditches--lovers--leaning against gates as if they were tied there. The fields and the moor are too wet to sprawl on, so at the end of October the gate season sets in, and continues until spring dries the gra.s.s. The gates are nothing like so damp as the hedges, and are much softer than boundary walls, although the latter are not without their patrons. Lovers are orthodox folk, who never depart from their true religion, or seek to subtract any clause from their creed. The young girl knows that her mother was courted against a gate, and that her grandmother was courted against a gate, so she is quite ready to be courted against a gate. It must be difficult to feel the necessary ardour, when several degrees of frost are nipping their noses, and a regular Dartmoor wind whirls up and down the lanes; but these gate-leaners manage it somehow.

Peter was having a pleasant day. He had followed up his success at Master's expense with a little bout at Mary's, and it was with a feeling of unalloyed satisfaction with himself that he started for home, returning thanks after his own manner to the G.o.d who presides over beer-houses. The benign influence of malted liquors was over him, stimulating his progress, rendering him heedless of the dark, and impervious to the cold. It was an unpleasant night, not frosty, but choked with clouds, and filled with raw mist. Peter had pa.s.sed several gates, most of them occupied by couples finis.h.i.+ng the day in a devout fas.h.i.+on, but he had said nothing, not even the customary "good-night,"

because it was not lawful to speak to people when thus privily engaged.

Couples are supposed to be invisible while courting, and with the full knowledge of this point of etiquette they usually conduct themselves as if they were. Peter got up upon the moor, where the wind twisted his beard about as if it had been a furze-bush, and made his way beside one of the boundary walls which denoted some commoner's field. It was the usual Dartmoor wall, composed of blocks of granite placed one above the other in an irregular pattern without mud or method, each stone kept in place by the weight of those above it; a wall which a boy could have pulled down quickly one stone at a time, but if unmolested would stand and defy the storms for ever. It was a long wall, and there were three gates in it, but no lovers against them; at least not against the first two. But as Peter approached the last, which was well out on the moor where n.o.body but himself would be likely to pa.s.s that night, he heard voices, or rather one voice, speaking loudly, either in anger or in pa.s.sion, and he recognised that it was Pendoggat who was speaking.

Peter crept up stealthily, keeping close beside the wall, which was just about the height of his nose. When near the gate he went on his hands and knees. The voice had ceased, but he heard kisses, and various other sounds which suggested that if Pendoggat was upon the other side of the wall there was probably a woman with him. Peter crawled closer, lifted himself, placed the grimy tips of his fingers upon the top stones, which were loose and rocking, and peeped over. There was a certain amount of light upon the high moor, enough of a weird ghostly sort of phosph.o.r.escence for him to see the guilty couple, Pendoggat and Thomasine. They were quite near, upon the peat, beside one of the granite gate-posts, and directly underneath Peter's nose. The little man grinned to see such sport. The moral side of the affair did not present itself before his barbaric mind. It was the spectacular part which appealed to him. He decided to remain there, and play the part of Peeping Tom.

Had Pendoggat been sensible, which was not possible, as sense and pa.s.sion do not run together, he must have known that the discovery of his liaison with Thomasine could only be a matter of time. The greatest genius that ever lived would find it beyond him to conduct an illicit love-affair in a Dartmoor parish without being found out in the long run. He had employed every ordinary caution. It was not in the least likely that any one would be crossing beside that wall after dark; but the least likely things are those which happen, not only in Dartmoor parishes, but elsewhere.

Peter had not stood there long when very ordinary things occurred, all of them unfortunate for him. To begin with, he developed a violent attack of hiccups which could not be restrained. Then the stone to which he was holding kept on rocking and giving forth grating noises. The wind was also blowing pretty strongly; and what with the wind externally and the hiccups within Peter was soon in a bad way. He made up his mind to beat a retreat, but his decision came rather too late. He felt a hiccup approaching more violent than its predecessors; he compressed his lips and held his breath, hoping to strangle it; but Nature was not to be cheated; his lips were forced asunder, the hiccup came, its sound went out into the moor, and at the same moment Peter slipped, grabbed at the stone, and sent it bowling upon the peat on the other side of the wall.

He gave a squeal like a frightened rabbit, and with another parting hiccup turned and ran.

He did not get far before Pendoggat caught him. Peter was a stumpy little creature with no idea of running; and he was captured at the end of the wall, and received a blow upon the head which nearly stunned him.

Pendoggat stood over him, half mad with fury, striking at him again and again; while Peter made quaint noises, half pa.s.sion and half pain.

Suddenly the clouds parted westward, and Pendoggat could see Ger Tor outlined against a liverish patch of night sky. By the same light he saw Peter; and his madness departed, and he became a coward, when he caught a glimpse of the little man's malignant eyes. Peter was his enemy for ever, and he knew it.

Neither of them had spoken a word. Pendoggat had growled and spluttered; Peter had choked and mumbled; the river far beneath roared because it was full of rain. These were all incoherent noises. Pendoggat began to slink away, as if he had received the beating, s.h.i.+vering and looking back, but seeing nothing except a dull little heap beside the wall, which seemed to have many hands, all of them scrabbling in the dirt.

Peter panted hard, as if he had been hunted across the moor by the whist hounds, and had come there to take shelter; but all the time he went on sc.r.a.ping up the clay, gathering it into a ball, spitting on it, moulding it, and muttering madly from time to time: "You'm him! You'm him!"

During those first few moments, after leaving that horrible little man beneath the wall scrabbling with his hands, Pendoggat swore solemnly that he would make Thomasine his wife, swore it to himself, to the G.o.d that he believed in, and to her, if only nothing happened.

Presently Peter went on towards his home; and in his arms was a fantastic little thing of clay, a thing forked and armed like a human being, a sort of doll. When he got back he cleared the hearthstone, blew the peat into a red smoulder with his mouth, then took the doll, spoke to it solemnly, placed it upon the hottest part of the hearth, and piled the red embers round it. When Mary came in to call him to supper she found Peter sitting in a kind of trance before the hearthstone, and following his gaze she saw the quaint clay doll sitting upright in the centre of the fire, with the red peat gathered into a fiery little h.e.l.l around it on every side.

"Aw, Peter!" she gasped in a tremulous whisper, falling on her knees at his side. "Who be the mommet, Peter? Who be the mommet?"

"Varmer Pendoggat," said Peter.

CHAPTER XVII

ABOUT PASTIMES

One cannot help wondering how the early inhabitants of Dartmoor spent their time. Possibly the men found plenty of work for their hands, while the ladies talked of their babies, though they could hardly talk of their clothes. Chapel teas and beer-houses were unknown, and the people may have led a wandering existence, following their cattle and goats from place to place, and merely erecting rough shelters at every pasture ground. It is said that they appeared before the Roman agents, who came to the Ca.s.siterides, which no doubt included the Dartmoor region, to procure the precious white metal, clad in black cloaks, with tunics reaching to their feet, and girdles round their waist. A more unsuitable costume for the moor could not have been devised, but it is probable that they were then in holiday attire. They were simple, taciturn, heavily-bearded men. Of their women nothing is known, because the historians of those days did not trouble themselves about inferior details, and ladies had not then commenced to brawl in the streets for their rights. The numerous hut-circles about the moor were no doubt built by these men, utilised more as temporary sheltering-places than permanent homes, and were possibly regarded as common property. The stone avenues may have been boundaries, and the circles are more likely to be the remains of pounds than the ruins of temples. The lamp of architecture had not then been lighted in Britain, and sun-wors.h.i.+p is by its very nature antagonistic to temples. So much is conjecture, and cannot be anything else. Light is reached when we regard the great mounds beside the rivers, and the huge stone slabs which span them; and we know that prehistoric man was a miner, and that he objected to getting his feet wet. These rivers are mere streams to-day, which any one can wade across, and they could not have been larger when the bridges were erected. We know also by the presence of these slabs of granite, and various other stone remains, that the system of the corvee must have been practised upon Dartmoor; a good custom which disappeared centuries ago as an obligation on free people, but is still retained as an obligation on prisoners in such penal establishments as Princetown.

The existence of rates for the maintenance of roads is a survival of the corvee in a form of demand upon those who can afford to pay, and not a few who cannot, for the upkeep of roads which many of them do not use; the idea of the rate being that the householder pays a sum which shall exempt him from the labours of the corvee, although without being given the option of offering his labour in lieu of cash.

We may safely conjecture that prehistoric men attended to their duties of obligation as well as to their pastoral affairs; and made a little profit at odd times in the form of tin which they bartered for salt, vases, and domestic utensils, with the Roman agents, very much as Brightly, who was their descendant, bartered his vases for rabbit-skins.

But what about their pastimes?

History and tradition are alike silent on that point. They could not have been making love to their wives all their spare time. There must have been something to take the place of the beer-house, the chapel tea, the sing-songs, the rough-and-ready carnival. If tradition does not exactly speak it gives an echo. We listen to that echo, we put against it our knowledge of human nature, which does not change, and to that we add our experience of the desires, customs, and pastimes of the men who have pa.s.sed into their places and live upon what was their ground; and then we get near the truth, possibly at the very heart of it. Their pastime was the shedding of blood. They fought together for the mere pleasure of inflicting wounds upon each other. They tortured inoffensive creatures because they were strong, the animals were weak, and the sight of suffering gave them a kind of pleasure. Since that barbaric age more than a thousand years of Christianity have done their civilising and humane work; have taught until there can be surely nothing left to teach; have practised until the virtues would have been pretty well worn out had they been practised less theoretically. And to-day one finds--

There were notices posted all over the place, upon walls and doors and gate-posts, little bills announcing a great pigeon- and rabbit-shoot, with money prizes for the three most successful compet.i.tors; the sport to conclude with a big feed at the inn at so much a head, drinks being extra. These shoots are among the most ordinary features of village life upon Dartmoor, and they are usually organised by the landlord of licensed premises, because at the conclusion of the sporting event the men gather together for the feed in a state of feverish excitement and soon drink themselves mad. That sort of thing means a handsome profit for the landlord. The men's pa.s.sions are gratified, the victualler's pockets are filled, so every one is satisfied, and shoots do not lose in popularity year by year.

The event was held in a field upon the side of the moor, and all sportsmen of the district were gathered together, with a few women, and as many children as could possibly get there. It was a great time for the small boys; better than a Sunday-school tea or chapel anniversary; no self-control was required of them at the shoot, they could let themselves go, and release every one of the seven little devils in them.

Farmer Chegwidden was there, completely restored to health, though he had an ugly black scar on the side of his head. He was half drunk before proceedings commenced, because he said he could shoot better when in that condition, Pendoggat was there, silent and gloomy, but handling his gun as if he loved it. The old Master was there, tottering about with two sticks, beaming upon every one, and wis.h.i.+ng the young men good-luck; and the landlord of the inn, who presided over the safe conveyance of the victims from his barn to the place of ma.s.sacre, jumped here and there in a wild state of excitement, explaining the programme and issuing instructions to compet.i.tors. The constable was there, dropping fatness; and near him Pezzack, with grave and reverend aspect and new clothes, stood and made the thing respectable with his blessing.

Two others were there who looked singularly out of place, and stood apart from the noisy crowd, both of them nervous and uncomfortable. They were Boodles and old Weevil. Close to them were crates stuffed full of pigeons, uttering from time to time little mournful notes, and bulging sacks filled with healthy rabbits.

"It is so silly," said Boodles, rather petulantly. "You will only be ill. We had much better go away."

"I must see it, darling--as much as I can bear. I am going to prepare a pet.i.tion about these things, and I want to be fair. I must see for myself. It may not be so brutal as I believe it is."

"Yes, it is, and worse. I know I shall be ill," said Boodles.

"Go home, little girl. There is no reason why you should stay."

"I'm not going to leave you," declared Boodles bravely. "Only do let's go further away from those poor things in the sacks. They keep on heaving so."

"I must see it all," said the old man stubbornly. "Look the other way."

"I can't. It fascinates me," she said.

"Willum!" yelled the landlord. "Come along, my lad. Pigeons first. Dra'

first blood, Willum."

A young man stepped out, smiling in a watery fas.h.i.+on, handling his gun nervously. The landlord plunged his hand into a crate, caught a pigeon by the neck, and dragged it out. The trap was merely a basket with a string fastened to it, and it was placed scarcely a dozen yards from the shooter.

"Kill 'en, Willum!" shouted the landlord as he pulled the string.

Willum fired and missed. The bird flew straight at him, and with the second shot he broke its wing. The pigeon fell on the gra.s.s, fluttering helplessly, and Willum walked up to it with a solemn grin, gave it a kick, then flung it aside to die at its leisure. The small boys pounced upon it, and a.s.sisted its departure from the world.