Furze the Cruel Part 29

"Little devils," murmured Boodles, beginning to bite her handkerchief.

"I think we are all devils here," said old Weevil.

"This field is full of them. It is the field-day of the Brute, the wors.h.i.+p of the Brute, the deification of the Brute."

The shoot proceeded, and the men began to get warmed up. Not a single pigeon escaped, because those that got away from the field with the loss of only a few feathers were bound to fall victims to the men who had posted themselves all round with the idea of profiting by the compet.i.tors' bad shots. The only man who was perfectly composed was Pendoggat. He shot at the pigeons, and killed them, as if he had been performing a religious duty. Chegwidden, on the other hand, shouted all the time and fired like a madman. The little boys were kept hard at work torturing the maimed birds to death, with much joyous and innocent laughter.

"How be ye, Master? Purty fine shooting, I reckon," cried an old crony, hobbling up with a holiday air.

"Butiful," said Master. "Us be too old vor't, I reckon."

"Us bain't too old to enjoy it," said the old crony,

"Sure 'nuff, man. Us bain't too old to enjoy it. 'Tis a brave sight to see 'em shoot."

Then there was a pause. The string had been pulled, the basket had tumbled aside, but the pigeon would not stir. Possibly it had been maimed in the crate, or by the rough hand which had dragged it out.

Everybody shouted wildly, waving arms and hats, but the bird did nothing except peck at the gra.s.s to get a little food into its hungry body. The landlord ran up and kicked it. The pigeon merely fell over, then hopped a little way feebly, but still refusing to fly, so the landlord kicked it again, shouting: "He be contrairy. There be no doing nought wi' 'en."

"Tread on 'en, landlord," shouted a voice.

"What be I to du?" asked the man whose turn it was to kill.

"Shoot 'en on the ground. Shoot 'en, man! Don't let 'en get away. Kill 'en, man!" screamed the landlord.

The compet.i.tor grinned contentedly, and at a distance of half-a-dozen paces blandly riddled the creature with pellets. This was the funniest thing which had happened yet, and the crowd could not stop laughing for a long time.

"Now the rabbits! Fetch out two or dree," shouted the landlord. "Kill 'en quick, lads!" The worthy soul was anxious to have the ma.s.sacre over, and start the real business of the day at the bar.

With the rabbits fun began in earnest. All that had gone before was tame in comparison, for pigeons die quickly, but rabbits continue to run after being shot, and still provide excellent amus.e.m.e.nt, if the vital parts are untouched. It was not shooting at all; not a particle of skill was required, as the basket was close to the compet.i.tor, and he shot immediately the animal began to run, and sometimes before; but it was killing, it was a sort of bloodshed, and nothing more was asked for.

Hardly a rabbit was killed cleanly, as the moormen are, as a rule, awkward with the gun. As the creatures invariably ran straight away from the crowd, they were usually shot in the hinder parts, and then would drag themselves on, until they were seized, either by the man who had fired, or by the small boys, and carried back to be flung upon the heap of bodies, some of them dead, and some not. Even feeble old Master entered into the fun of the thing, and begged permission to break a rabbit's neck with his own hands, so that he might still call himself a sportsman.

"Come away, daddy. I'm getting queer," said Boodles.

Weevil woke from a sort of trance, and shook his head oddly, but said nothing. Power of speech was not his just then. He had hitherto kept himself scrupulously apart from such innocent village pleasures, afraid to trust himself at them, but what he saw quite confirmed what he had believed. It was not sport in any sense of the word. It was mere animal pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t for blood. It was love of cruelty, not any ambition to take a prize, which animated the compet.i.tors. It would have meant small enjoyment for them had the pigeons been made of clay and the rabbits of clockwork. Because the creatures they shot at could feel, could shed blood, and were feeling pain, were shedding blood, the men were happy; not only happy, but drunk with the pa.s.sion, and half mad with the l.u.s.t, of their b.l.o.o.d.y game.

Weevil looked about, fighting down his weakness, which was not then altogether eccentric. He saw the transformed faces of the crowd. Not only the compet.i.tors but the spectators had the faces that a London mob of old might have presented, watching the hanging, drawing, and quartering of criminals, and finding the spectacle very much to their taste. They had become so excited as to be inarticulate. They could not make their shoutings intelligible to one another. They were gesticulating like so many Italian drunkards. Their boots were marked with blood, and it was also upon their hands, and smeared upon their faces. Blood was upon the ground too, with other matter more offensive.

The ghastly pile of pigeons and rabbits, which were supposed to be done for, was not without motion. Sometimes it heaved; but there was no sound. Two little boys were enjoying a rare game of tug-of-war with a living rabbit. Another youngster was playfully poking out the eyes of a fluttering pigeon. They would make good sportsmen when they grew up. A tiny little fellow, nothing more than a baby, was begging a bigger boy to instruct him in the art of killing rabbits. A little girl was practising the deed upon her own account. The constable who had arrested Brightly looked on and said it was "brave sport." There were other things which Weevil saw, but he did not mention them afterwards, because he tried to forget them; but the sight made him feel faint, not being a sportsman, but a rather ignorant, somewhat foolish, and decidedly eccentric old man.

"I think I must go. Boodles," he said feebly.

He turned away, and his eyes fell upon the village. There was a church, and there was Ebenezer, and a meeting-house also. Surely so many religious houses were hardly necessary in one small village. Church and chapels dominated the place; and in those buildings a vast amount of theory was preached concerning ancient literature, and a place of morbid imagination called h.e.l.l, and a place of healthier imagination called Heaven; and upon that field on the side of the moor the regular wors.h.i.+ppers at those buildings were enjoying themselves. There was a failure somewhere, only Weevil had not the sense to find out where. High above were the tors, and it was there, no doubt, that the early inhabitants stood to wors.h.i.+p Baal; and there possibly a vast amount of theory was preached concerning the whole duty of man, and a twofold future state; and then the men went down to fight and plunder. It seemed to have been a theoretical religion then. It is a theoretical religion now. Theories have swamped the world, submerging the practical side like the lost Atlantis. It is not religion which compels men to cease from doing murder. It is the fear of vengeance.

Boodles and Weevil left the field, pale and miserable. When they were outside the old man went away and was violently sick. They abandoned the field in time, for the men were getting beyond control. When the rabbits were slaughtered they sought for small birds and shot at them until their cartridges were exhausted. Even Pendoggat had lost his self-restraint, although he did not show it like the rest. The smell of blood was in his nostrils, and he wanted to go on killing. He longed to shoot at the men around him. The victims were all dead at last. The happy children had seen to that, and went off home to get their hands and faces washed, tired out with the day's fun. That clever painter of human nature, Hogarth, missed something during his lifetime. He could not have seen a rabbit-shoot in a Dartmoor village. Had he done so, there might have been a fifth plate added to his Four Stages of Cruelty.

"I must drink something," said Weevil, when he reached home. "You were right, little maid. I ought not to have gone."

"Haunted water, daddy?" suggested Boodles, with a wan little smile.

"Yes, darling. I think I have earned it. But not badly haunted."

"Just a gentle rapping, not groans and chain-rattling," she said, trying to be merry, having no reason to feel unhappy, as she went for the brandy bottle. That was how the water was to be haunted. Weevil was practically a teetotaler, in a different sense from Farmer Chegwidden, but he sometimes took a suspicion of brandy when he was run down, as then.

"Boodle-oodle," he said in a feeble way, after refres.h.i.+ng himself, "you have seen the Brute rampant. What do you think of it?"

"I don't think, daddy-man. It's no use when you can't do anything. I just label it a queer puzzle, and put it away along with all the other queer puzzles. And you would be much happier if you would do the same."

"I cannot," he groaned. "I suppose those men were enjoying themselves, but what right have they to an enjoyment which makes other people suffer? I say they have no right. Animals have to be killed for food; but what would be done to a butcher who slaughtered his beasts in the middle of the street? Those men were not killing for any purpose apart from the love of killing, and they were doing it publicly. They were mad. They had the faces one sees in a bad dream. And now they have gone to stuff themselves with food, and then they will swill liquor until they are mad again."

"Don't," said Boodles. "It's not fair on me. You will be giving me umpy-umpy feelings, and I'm going to see Aubrey to-morrow, and it may be the last time for ages, and I shall feel quite bad enough without having your worries to carry as well. Let's light up, and draw the curtains, and make believe that every one is as nice as we are, and that there are no troubles or worries in the whole wide world."

Old Weevil only moaned and shuffled about the room in a miserable fas.h.i.+on. "I can't get rid of the Brute, darling. He sits upon my shoulders and strangles me. Why should these people be outside the law because they are commoners? One hundred years ago you might have seen horrible deeds of cruelty in every London street. There are none to be seen now, because townsfolk have become civilised, and law-makers have recognised that what may please the few is distressing to the many. But in these wild lonely places people may be fiends, and the law does not touch them. It exists for the populous centres, not for the solitudes."

"I'm going to get supper. Mind you are good when I come back," said the little housewife quickly.

"That is not all," raved the poor old man, still shuffling to and fro, heedless that he was alone. "The cry of the animals goes up to Heaven.

There are the ponies and bullocks turned out upon the moor all winter, in weather which would kill the hardiest man, if he was exposed to it, in a few hours. They get no food. There is not a bit of gra.s.s for them.

Many of them are done to death by cruel weather and starvation. In spring their carcases are found lying upon the moor."

CHAPTER XVIII

ABOUT AUTUMN IN FAIRYLAND

The devil had pa.s.sed through Tavy woods late that year, and in his path blackberries were blasted, the bracken was scorched, and all the foliage smouldered. He had trampled upon, and burnt, everything; the next time he pa.s.sed through he would breathe on them and they would rot away. At last he would come with his big bellows; clear the wood out, and scatter a lot of dusty frost about the place to make it look tidy. Directly he was out of the way a busy little body in green would bustle into the woods with a big basket of buds on her arm, and she would stick these buds about upon the honeysuckles and the primroses, and then run away in a snowstorm laughing. n.o.body would notice her; she is too small and shadowy, and yet observant folk would know she had been because the plants which had received the buds would smarten up at once. Every one loves the little green fairy, although she is often quite a plain creature, and usually is afflicted with a dreadful cold. She beats the devil and restores all that he has trampled and blown upon. She may often be seen in April, sweeping up the remains of the h.o.a.r-frost and attending to her buds, sneezing all the time. People call her Spring in those days. Her cold is quite incurable, but fortunately it does not kill her.

Even in fairyland it is not always pretty. Were it so the pleasant place would lose its charm, for it is the dull time which makes the gay time glorious. There is no winter for the little people, just as there is no winter for the flowers; and flowers and fairies are one and the same thing. They go to sleep until the sun comes to wake them up, and tell them it is time to dance and blossom as they did last year. There is a winter, only they know nothing of it. That is why the little people are so much happier than the big ones. When sorrow comes they simply go to sleep. Bigger people are not allowed to do that.

"You are going away, Aubrey," said Boodles. "You are going away."

She was always saying it, and thinking it when she was not saying it, and dreaming about it when she was not thinking of it. She was playing with a toy upon her finger, a hoop of gold, a little ring which he had given her, whose posy was the usual motto: "Love me and leave me not,"

and its symbol the pale-blue forget-me-not. Lovers are fond of adding poetry to poetry and piling sentiment upon sentiment.

It was not exactly an engagement-ring, but a present, and a promise of the full-flowered ring; just as the crown-buds upon the primroses were a promise of the spring. Boodles was eighteen at last. How slowly the years pa.s.sed at that age! And the ring with the blue forget-me-nots was a birthday gift, although it was given and received as something more, and put upon a finger which meant much, and worn and fondled as if it meant everything. The girl's radiant hair was up relentlessly, and her frocks trailed for evermore. She was a baby no longer.

It was not a happy walk because it was to be their last for a long time, and they could not ramble there without treading upon and bruising some poor little memory; just as the devil had trodden on the blackberries, although the memories were not spoilt; they were the kisses of those first days of first love, and they were immortal memories, birth-marks upon their souls. They had grown up; their bodies were formed, although their minds were not matured; but whatever happened those memories were planted in Tavy woods perennially, and nothing could kill them. Tears would only water them and make them grow more strongly. Their sweet wild fragrance would cling eternally, because the odour was that of deep first love; the one gift, the only gift, which pa.s.ses direct from the hands of the G.o.ds and has no dirt upon it.

Somehow Aubrey had never appeared as a perfectly distinct personality to Boodles. Her love was in a mist. He seemed to have come into her life in a G.o.d-like sort of way, to have dropped upon her as a child like rain from the clouds, saying: "You thought of me, and I have come." While she went on thinking of him he would remain, but directly she ceased to think he would vanish again. They had simply come together as children and walked about; and now they were grown up children still walking about; and they felt they would like to grow up a little more, then stop growing, but still go on walking about. First love is a marvellous dose of fern-seed. They were content to look at one another, and while two young people remain in that state the G.o.ds can give them nothing. But Boodles was going on with her song: "You are going away, Aubrey. You are going away." There was a gate at the end of the wood, and it was something more than the gate of the wood. It opened only one way.

Aubrey loved the little girl. He was steadier than most young men and less fickle than most. Even when he was away from Boodles he did not forget her, and when they were together she absorbed him. She was so fresh. He had never met any girl with a t.i.the of her wonderful spring-like freshness, which suggested the sweet earth covered with flowers and steaming after a shower of warm rain. Boodles seemed to him to be composed of this warm earth, suns.h.i.+ne and rain, with the beauty and sweetness of the flowers added. She had taken him when young, and planted him in her warm little heart, and tended him so carefully that he could not help growing there; and he could not be torn up, for that would have lacerated the heart; the roots were down so deep; and he might not bear transplanting. First love thinks such things, and it is good for the lovers. Life gives them nothing else to equal it.

Still Aubrey had his troubles. It was the last walk for some time. He was disobeying his parents, and deceiving them. He had promised not to walk with Boodles again. No boy could have been blessed with kinder parents; but Mr. Bellamie, after his strange visit to old Weevil, and subsequent discussion with his wife, conceived that it was his duty to pull the reins. Aubrey had been allowed a free head long enough, and the old gentleman was afraid he might get the bit between his teeth and run.

Boodles was a most delightful child in every way, but she knew nothing about art, and what was far more serious she knew nothing of her parents. Mr. Bellamie spoke plainly to his son; reminded him of the duty he owed his family; told him he had been to see Weevil and that the interview had not been satisfactory; mentioned that the old man either knew nothing of the girl's origin, or had certain reasons for withholding his knowledge; explained that to interfere with his son's happiness was his last wish, and that to interfere with the happiness of others was equally distasteful; and concluded by impressing upon Aubrey, what was true enough, namely, that it was not kind to encourage a young girl to fall in love with him when he could not possibly marry her. The boy had been then sufficiently impressed to give the promise which he was now breaking. He felt he could not help himself; he must see Boodles again, and at least tell her that he would never dream of giving her up, but that his parents were inclined to be nasty about it. Besides, it was the little girl's birthday; or rather what Weevil was pleased to style her birthday, as he could not possibly know the exact day of her birth.

Aubrey eased his conscience by reminding himself that he had forgotten to urge the point with his father, and if he had done so the old gentleman would certainly have consented to one more meeting. So he bought the pretty ring for Boodles, met her, and the mischief was done again.

When the first stage of their walk was over, and they were getting reasonable, and Boodles had ceased singing her plaintive: "You are going away," Aubrey began to suggest that his father was not in alliance with them; and poor Boodles sighed and wanted to know what evil she had done.