Furze the Cruel Part 37

"Here I be," said the voice.

"I knows yew be there," said Peter, somewhat sharply. The old gentleman was not so intellectual as he could have wished. "I wants to know how yew be telling to I?"

"Same as yew," said Grandfather.

"Yew ain't got no tongue."

"I've got a pendulum," said the clock, with a malevolent sort of t.i.tter.

"Yew'm sick?" asked Peter.

"I be that. 'Tis your doing," came the answer.

"I've looked after ye fine, Gran'vaither," said Peter crossly.

"'Tis that there thing on the hearthstone makes me sick," said the voice.

"That be a mommet," said Peter.

"I know 'tis. A mommet of Farmer Pendoggat."

"What du'ye know 'bout Varmer Pendoggat?" asked Peter suspiciously.

"Heard you talk about 'en," Grandfather answered. "Don't ye play wi'

witchery, Peter. Smash the mommet up, and throw 'en away." The voice was talking quickly and becoming hoa.r.s.er. "Undo what you've done if you can, and whatever you du don't ye put 'en in the fire again. If ye du I'll be telling to ye all night and will scare ye proper. I wun't give ye any sleep, Peter."

"You'm an old vule, Gran'vaither," said Peter.

"I'll get the pixies to fetch ye a crock o' gold if you leaves off witching Pendoggat. I'll mak' 'em fetch ye sovereigns, brave golden sovereigns, Peter."

"Where will 'em put the gold?" cried Peter with the utmost greediness.

"Bottom o' the well. Let the bucket down to-night, and when you pulls 'en up in the morning the gold will be in the bucket. If it ain't there to-night, look the night after. But it wun't be no good looking, Peter, if you ain't done what I told ye, and you mun put the broken bits o'

mommet by the well, so as the pixies can see 'em."

"I'll du it," chuckled Peter.

"Swear you'll do it?"

"Sure 'nuff I'll du it. You'm a brave old Gran'vaither if yew can fetch a crock o' gold into the well."

"Good-bye, Peter. I wun't be telling to you again just yet."

"Good-bye, Gran'vaither. You'm welcome. I hopes you'll soon be better."

The voice did not come again, and Peter was left in the strange light and eerie silence to recover, which he did slowly, with a feeling that he had undergone a queer dream. It was not long before he was telling himself he had imagined it all. Superst.i.tious little savage as he was, he could hardly believe that Grandfather had been chatting with him as one man might have talked to another. As he went on thinking suspicious features presented themselves to his mind. Grandfather's language had not always been correct. He had not talked like a true Gubbings, but more as a man of better education trying to bring himself down to his listener's mode of speech. Then what interest could he feel in Pendoggat that he should plead for the destruction of the mommet?

Peter addressed a number of questions to Grandfather upon these subjects, but the old clock had not another word to say. That was another suspicious feature; why should the clock be unable to talk then when it had chatted so freely a few minutes before? Peter rubbed his eyes, declared he was mazed, lighted his lamp, and scribbled the wonderful story in his diary until Mary came back.

"Peter," she called at once. "Aw, man, come and look! Us be going to judgment."

Peter rose, overflowing with mysticism, but he too gasped when he got outside and saw the moor and sky. Indigo-tinted clouds were rolling slowly down Tavy Cleave, there was apparently no sky, and through rents in the clouds they could see blocks of granite and patches of black moor hanging as it were in s.p.a.ce. In the direction of Ger Tor was a column of dark mist rising from the river. On each side of this column the outlook was clear for a little way before the clouds again blotted out everything. Those clouds in front were beneath their feet, and they could hear the roaring of the invisible river still further down.

Overhead there was nothing except a dense blue mist from which the curious light, like the glow of pixy lanterns, seemed to be reflected.

"I ha' never seen the like," said frightened Mary. "None o' the volks ha' ever seen the like on't. Some of 'em be praying down under, and wanting chapel opened. Old Betty Middleweek be scared so proper that her's paying money what her owes. They ses it be judgment coming. There be volks to the village a sotting wi' fingers in their ear-holes so as they wun't hear trumpets. What shall us du if it be judgment, Peter?"

"Us mun bide quiet, and go along wi' the rest. If 'tis judgment us wun't have no burying expenses," said Peter.

"I'd ha' gone in and asked Master if 'twas judgment, if I hadn't been so mazed like. He'd ha' knowed. A brave cruel larned man be Master. What happens to we if they blows on the trumpets?"

"Us goes up to heaven in a whirlpool and has an awful doom," said Peter hazily.

"Us mun go up wi' vull bellies," said practical Mary, marching off to blow at the fire.

Peter followed, walking delicately, hoping that witchcraft would come to an end so soon as he had procured the crock of gold. Inside the hut, surrounded with comforting lamplight, he told his sister all about Grandfather's loquacity. Mary was so astounded that she dropped a piece of peat into the pot and placed a turnip on the fire. "Aw, Peter! Telled to ye same as Master might?" she gasped.

"Ah, told I to break the mommet and he'd give I gold."

Mary sat down, as she could think better that way. She had always regarded Grandfather as a sentient member of the family, but in her wildest moments had never supposed he would arouse himself to preach morality in their own tongue. Things were coming to a pretty pa.s.s when clocks began to talk. She would have her geese lecturing her next. She did not want any more men about the place, as one Peter was quite enough. If Grandfather had learnt to talk he would probably proceed to walk; and then he would be like any other man, and go to the village with her brother, and return in the same condition, and be pestering her continually for money. The renaissance of Grandfather was regarded by Mary as a particularly bad sign; and for that reason she decided that it was impossible and Peter had been dreaming.

"You'm a liar," he answered in the vulgar tongue. "'Tis down in my buke."

This was sufficient evidence, and Mary could only wag her head at it.

She had a reverence for things that were written in books.

"Be yew going to break the mommet?" she asked; and Peter replied that it was his intention to make yet another clay doll, break it into fragments, and commit the original doll, which was the only one capable of working evil, to the fire as before. Thus he would earn the crock of gold, and obtain vengeance upon Pendoggat also. Pixies were simple folk, who could easily be hoodwinked by astute human beings; and he ventured to propose that the mommet should be baked upon Mary's hearthstone in future, so that Grandfather would see nothing of the operation which had made him sick.

Mary remained an agnostic. She could understand Grandfather when he played impish pranks upon them, but when it came to bold brazen speech she could not believe. Peter had been asleep and imagined it all. They argued the matter until they nearly quarrelled, and then Mary said she was going to look about her brother's residence to try and find out whether any one had been playing a joke upon him. They went outside, and were relieved to discover that a change had taken place in the weather.

Evidently judgment was not imminent, Betty Middleweek could cease paying her debts, and the chapel could be closed again. The blue light had faded, the clouds were higher, and had turned to ghostly grey.

"Aw, Peter, 'tis nought but snow," said Mary cheerfully.

"Snow never made Gran'vaither talk avore," Peter reminded her.

Mary looked about her brother's little hut without seeing anything unusual. Then she strode around the walls thereof, and her sharp eyes soon perceived a branch of dry furze lying about a yard away from the side of the cot. She asked Peter if he had dropped it there, and he replied that it might have been there for days. "Wind would ha' took it away," said Mary. "There was wind in the night, but ain't been none since. That's been broke off from the linny."

At the end of the hut was a small shed, its sides made of old packing-cases, its roof and door composed of gorse twisted into hurdles.

The back wall of the cot, a contrivance of stones plastered together with clay, was also the end wall of the linhay. Mary went into the linhay, which was used by Peter as a place for storing peat. She soon made a discovery, and called for the lantern. When it was brought she pulled out a loose stone about the centre of the wall, and holding the lantern close to the hole saw at once a black board which looked like panelling, but was the back of the clock-case. Grandfather stood against that wall; and in the middle of the plank was a hole which had been bored recently.

"Go'ye into the hut and ask Gran'vaither how he be," called Mary.

Peter toddled off, got before the old clock, and inquired with solicitude: "How be 'ye, Gran'vaither?"

"Fine, and how be yew?" came the answer.

"Ah," muttered Peter. "That be the way my old Gran'vaither ought to tell."

After that they soon stumbled upon the truth. It had been whispered about the place that Peter was dabbling in witchcraft for Pendoggat's detriment; and Annie Crocker had heard the whisper. To inform her master was an act of ordinary enjoyment. He had sworn at her, professed contempt for Peter and all his dolls, stated his intention of destroying them, or at least of obtaining the legal benefit conferred by certain ancient Acts of Parliament dealing with witches; but in his heart he was horribly afraid. He spent hours watching the huts, and when he saw the inhabitants move away he would go near, hoping to steal the clay doll and destroy it; but Peter's door was always locked. At last he hit upon the plan of frightening the superst.i.tious little man by addressing him through the medium of the clock. He thought he had succeeded. Perhaps he would have done so had Mary's keen eyes not detected the sc.r.a.p of gorse which his departure had snapped from one of the hurdles which made the door of the linhay. Pendoggat might be a strong man physically, able to bully the weak, or bring a horse to its knees, but his mind was made of rotten stuff, and it is the strong mind rather than the stalwart body which saves a man when "Ephraim's Pinch" comes. Pendoggat's knees became wobbly whenever he thought of Peter and his clay doll.