Furze the Cruel Part 46

The chapel emptied slowly, and the people stood about the road talking of the great scandal. Some thought the minister innocent, but the majority inclined towards his guilt. All agreed that it would be advisable, for the sake of the chapel's reputation, to ask him to accept another pulpit, which was a polite euphemism for telling him to go to the dogs. They did not like Pendoggat, but they believed he had spoken the truth when they remembered how strongly he had opposed the minister when the scheme of the nickel mine was first suggested. The grocer and jam-maker drove away in a rage and a small cart, to put up for the night in Tavistock; and Pendoggat walked away by himself towards the swaling-fires. His time had come. He had only to put a few things together, and then depart through the frosty night to find a new home.

But before going he thought it best to make himself absolutely safe by burning the brake of furze, and burying in some secret spot upon the moor what had been hidden there.

Before morning Pezzack had fled from his uncle's anger. Always a weak man, he could not face the strong; and so he set the seal of guilt upon himself by flight. He was going to work his way out to Canada, and when he succeeded there, if he did, he would send for his wife. They could think of no better plan. His wife went back to her parents, to become their drudge as before, with the burden of a child to nurse added to her lot. It was a dreary ending to their romance; there was no "happy ever after" for them; but then they were both poor things, and the light of imagination had never shone across their paths.

CHAPTER XXV

ABOUT SWALING-FIRES

Peter sat by his hearthstone and repeated with the monotony of a tolling bell--

"There be a lot o' volks in the world, and some be vulish, and some be artful, but me, Peter, be artful."

This was numbered one-hundred-and-seventy, and it was the latest gem from his book of aphorisms; artful meaning in that connection clever, the author having a tendency to use irregular forms of speech. Peter read the thought aloud until most people would have found him tedious; he recited it to every one; he had carried it to Master, and made the old man commit it to memory. Master finally inscribed it, number and all, in his presentation copy of Shakespeare, thinking the sentiment well worthy of being incorporated with the work of the poet, and declared that Peter's literary fame was a.s.sured. He added the information that his old pupil was beyond question a philosopher, and Peter agreed, then asked Master for his dictionary. It was an old book, however, and the word was not given, at least not in its proper place, under the letter F; so Peter failed at that time to discover his precise position in the intellectual world.

The diary was certainly advancing, as Peter was already in his second pennyworth of paper, and his bottle of ink was on the ebb. Thoughts had been coming so freely of late that interesting details of the daily life were crowded out. He omitted such confidential details as Mary was dunging the potato-patch, or he had just mended his trousers; he filled his pages instead with ingenious reflections which he supposed, and not without some justification, had possibly not occurred to the minds of thinkers in the past. He neglected biography for philosophy, and the fluency with which such aphorisms as "'Tis better to be happy than good"

came from his pen, merely confirmed his earlier impression that the manufacture of literary works was child's play. He would not have allowed that he had been a.s.sisted by collaboration, even if the meaning of the word had been explained to him; although most of the sentiments which adorned, or rather which blotted, his pages were distorted versions of remarks which had fallen from the lips of Boodles. His work was entirely original in one respect; the style of spelling was unique.

Boodles did not know that she had developed into an inspiration, and the poor child was certainly far too miserable to care. She came to Ger Cottage every evening in the dimsies, stopped the night with Mary, and went home in the morning. She followed Mary like a dog, knowing that the strong creature would protect her. Her mind would have gone entirely had she stayed at Lewside during those endless winter evenings and the long nights. She owed her life, or at least her reason, to Mary. There was a good heart under that strong creature's rough hide, a heart as soft and tender as Boodles who clung to her. At first the child had refused to leave Lewside Cottage, but when she screamed, "The shadows are getting awful, Mary; they seem to bite me," the stalwart savage picked her up like a baby, finding her much too light, and stalked over the moor deaf to protest. She made up a little bed for Boodles in the corner of her hut, and every night there was the strange sight of Mary bringing the little girl a gla.s.s of hot milk to drink before going to sleep, and singing quaint old ballads to her when she couldn't. Mary had got into the way of asking Boodles for a kiss every night; she said it did her good, and no doubt she spoke the truth. It seemed to give her something she had missed.

"But I am ugly now, Mary," said Boodles, in response to her nurse's oft-repeated "purty dear."

"That yew bain't," came the decided answer. "You'm butiful. I never saw ye look nothing like so butiful as yew be now."

"I feel hideous anyhow," said the child. "I don't believe I can look pretty when I feel ugly."

Peter overheard that, put his head on one side in philosophic contemplation, and presently took his pen and wrote: "Bootiful maids what feels ugly still be bootiful. It be contrairy like, but it be true;" and the number of that thought was one-hundred-and-seventy-one.

Mary was not far wrong, for Boodles was quite as attractive as ever. She was more womanly, and had put pathos on her face with the little lines and shadows which impelled love for very pity. Her eyes seemed to have become larger, and her pale frightened face, under the radiant hair which had not changed, was fascinating with its restless changes. There was one thing left to her, and she called it everything. Each week the cold weather went away for a few hours, and warm June came round with a burst of flowers and suns.h.i.+ne, and her heart woke up and sang to her; for Aubrey had not forgotten. He wrote to her, though she kept her promise and did not write to him. Every week the question came: "Why don't you write?" and sometimes she thought the letters were getting colder, and then the stage suns.h.i.+ne was turned off and real thunder rolled. He had written to his parents, but they had told him nothing.

They didn't even refer to her in their letters. It seemed to him as if she was dead, and he was getting miserable. But she would not break her promise and write; and if consent had been given she could not tell him the truth, send him out of her life for ever, and end those wonderful mornings when the postman came.

Aubrey loved her still, that gave her everything, and while his love lasted she was still on the green oasis, and could shut her eyes to the desert, scarred with the bodies of those who had tried to cross it and had fallen in the attempt, the bare desert of life without any sweet water of love, which she would have to try and cross without a guide when he came back and she had told him plainly what she was. She thought it would kill her, for love cannot be removed without altering the entire universe; for with love the sun goes, and the flowers go, and all the pleasant nooks; and there is nothing left but the rocks, the moaning of the sea, the fierce and ugly things, and faces that scowl but never smile. The only perfect happiness is the birth of love; the only absolute misery is the death of it; and it is such a tender growth that one careless word may chill it into death.

The three were sitting together in the lamplight, and Peter was giving oral evidence of his inspiration, when there came a knock upon the door, a thing almost without precedent after dark. Boodles s.h.i.+vered because she hated sudden knocks which suggested unpleasant visitors and horrors, while Mary turned from her work and went to the door. Annie was standing there, or staggering rather, a black shawl round her head, her face ghastly.

"Please to come in," said Mary.

Annie lurched in, and gazed about her wildly. She was sober enough to know what she had come for. She stared at them, then upon the hearthstone where the ceremonial of witchcraft was still being observed; while Peter babbled of great thoughts like a running brook. The door was open, and some of the smoke of the swaling-fires entered, and they could hear the crackling of distant flames.

"I reckon yew can tak' 'en off," said Annie hoa.r.s.ely, pointing to the hearthstone. "He've done his work. All Dartmoor be in flames, and the Barton be in flame tu, I reckon. I flung the lamp into the kitchen and set a match to 'en. Coming wi' me, Mary Tavy? Best come wi' me and see the end on't."

"What would I want to come wi' yew for, woman?" said Mary.

"Where be the old goose yew was so fond of?"

"My Old Sal. He be gone. Mebbe he got stugged, and some old fox come along and took 'en," said Mary.

"Stugged was he? I saw 'en stugged," Annie shouted. "Came across Barton court, he did, and the man took 'en, and twisted the neck of 'en, and flung 'en in the vuzz. 'He be Mary's Old Sal,' I ses, but he only swore."

Mary spat upon her hands.

"He picked up a stick, and hit me on the ear, me, a free woman. I ses to 'en avore, 'If yew lifts your arm at me, Mary knows.'"

"I be coming," said Mary.

"Me tu," said Peter.

There was much for Mary to avenge. Pendoggat had beaten her brother, had terrified Boodles, to say nothing of his attempt to rob her, and now Mary knew he had killed the old goose. She had never ceased to mourn for Old Sal; and Pendoggat had destroyed the leader of her flock out of sheer malice and cruelty. The spirit of the lawless Gubbings entered into Mary as she picked up her staff and made for the door, while Peter shambled after her, a philosopher no longer, but a savage like herself.

But Boodles was crying: "Don't leave me, Mary. The shadows will get big and thick and take hold of me."

"Aw, don't ye be soft, maid," cried Annie.

"Bide here, my dear. Us will lock ye in, and no one shan't touch ye,"

said Mary.

"He may come this way. I can't stay here, with the light of these fires upon the window. I shall scream all the time."

"Come along wi' us," said Mary. "Come between Peter and me, my dear.

Lord love ye, I'd break the head of any one what touched ye."

Peter left the hut-circles last, securing both doors, and dropping the keys in his baggy pocket. Then they set forth, the smoke over them, the fires on each side, and the white frost like snow upon the ground.

Pendoggat gave a sigh of relief as he descended into the hollow of the Barton and saw n.o.body, and heard nothing except the crackling of the flames and the furze screaming as the fire rushed through it; for the furze screams when it is burnt like a creature in torment. There was a smell of fire about the house and the heavy stink of paraffin; and in the kitchen he saw the broken lamp, but the fire had gone out; it could not feed upon damp stones. Pendoggat smiled when he saw the kitchen. So Annie was drunk again, which was what he had hoped for, as she was less dangerous in that condition; she could only scream and tumble about, hurting n.o.body but herself. She would not be able to follow him, and if she picked up his gun she would be more likely to kill herself than him.

Probably she was lying in the linhay, or on her bed, hardly conscious, groaning herself to sleep. Everything was in his favour; the whole night was before him, and he had only to finish his work there, then escape through the warm scented smoke. He was feeling sorry for the minister, but the ordeal which Eli had just undergone might prove a blessing, strengthen his character, make a man of him. Annie was not in the house.

Perhaps she had gone down to the Tavy to drown herself. Pendoggat shook his head as that idea occurred to him. There could be no hope in the future state for a suicide. Still it was better she should drown herself than obstruct him; and after all she was getting on in years, she would soon be homeless, and would naturally shrink from the workhouse.

Pendoggat was not going to judge her harshly, as that would not be right, and she had looked after him well at one time. If she had not been so foolish as to grow elderly, and have grey hairs, he might have remained constant to her.

He had destroyed everything in his secret drawer already, so he had only to collect a few things, burn the furze and tidy up there. He fastened up his things into a bundle before remembering that Annie had a bag which was not likely to be of much use to her, so he went and fetched it and packed his things in that. He brought the bag into the court, went to the linhay for a spade, carried it to the edge of the furze, then discovered he had no matches. He went back towards the house, but as he crossed the court a figure came out of the smoke and laughed at him, the figure of a white-faced woman who seemed pleased to see him; and behind her towered another figure, tall and gaunt, the sort of figure which might have made those weird footprints in the snow; and as the smoke drifted upward there were two others in the background, a little girl wrapped up in a big coat, and gnome-like Peter with big beard and turned-up nose like an old man of the moor.

Annie said nothing, but only laughed, as a woman will when she feels satisfied. She staggered to one side, and Mary came forward. There was no laughter on her wooden face, and no drunken stupor over her body. She dropped the big stick and it clattered upon the stones of the court. The swaling-fires were all round, and they gave light enough, a weird kind of light which tinted the smoke and made the walls of the Barton red.

"Aw, man," cried Mary. "You killed my Old Sal, and I be come to pay ye vor't."

Pendoggat went white when he heard that. He could not stand before the wiry creature who seemed to represent no s.e.x, but the cruel principle of natural strength. The trap had snapped upon him and he felt its iron teeth. He had caught others and enjoyed watching their struggles, and now he was caught himself and others were enjoying his struggles. A few yards cut him off from the moor, but there was no way out except by the gate of the court, and Mary was before him. He wondered if Brightly had felt like that when he was running for his liberty with the hand of every man against him.

"I never knew the old bird was yours," he muttered; and added: "I'll pay you for him;" but Annie watched him, saw his face, and laughed louder.

Mary made an ungainly movement, a sort of lurch as if to collect her strength, then she caught him by the neck. He struggled free and she had him round the body, twisting him like a willow-stick; a big hand came upon his throat and he felt as if water was rus.h.i.+ng over his head. He could hear Annie's mad laughter and her jeering voice: "You'm a strong man, they ses. Why don't ye get away? She'm only a woman. Why don't ye throw her off, man?" He began to fight at that, struggling and hitting wildly, but Mary had a certain science as well as strength. She knew an animal's weak points. She struck at them with a fist like a lump of granite, and when he retaliated by hitting her on the face her savage blood seemed to rise before her eyes, and she drove him about the court until his face was b.l.o.o.d.y. Boodles turned away then, and went to the side of the house between the wall and the brake of furze, half-sick, trying not to give way. She had never felt so horribly alone. Mary, her friend and protector, was a wild beast of the moor, the savage principle of the cruel Nature which was crus.h.i.+ng her. The red light of the fire fell upon her radiant head, which resembled it, as if she had been intended to punish Pendoggat, and not Mary, because her head was like fire just as his nature was like furze. All the time she could hear Annie's furious laughter and her mocking voice: "Why don't ye stand up to she, man? Tak' your stick and hit she on the head till she'm mazed.

Hit she on the ear, man, same as you hit me. Yew twisted the old goosie's neck easy enough. Why don't ye du the like to she?"

"Aw, man, I reckon I've paid ye," gasped Mary.

"Two or dree more vor I," shouted little Peter, jumping about the court in riotous joy.