Secret Bread Part 3

"The evening's coming, and I'm going to cry the Neck! I'm going to cry the Neck!"

CHAPTER IV

PAGAN PASTORAL

The last of the corn had been reaped in Cloom fields and all was ready for the ceremony of "Crying the Neck." The labourers, their womenfolk and children, had gathered together, and Annie, with a select party of friends, took her place in the forefront of the crowd. A very old labourer who bore the splendid name of Melchisedec Baragwaneth, went from sheaf to sheaf, picking out a handful of the most heavily-bearded ears, which, though they are apt to grind the worst, still make the bravest show. He was stiff with his great age and the cruel rheumatism that is the doom of the field-worker; and against the bra.s.s and leather of his boots the stubble whispered loudly. Overhead the rooks and gulls gave short, harsh cries as they circled around hoping for stray grains; but the thousand little lives which had thriven in the corn--the field mice and frogs and toads--had been stilled by the sickles; some few had escaped to the shelter of the hedges, but most were sacrifices to the harvest.

Melchisedec Baragwaneth intertwined with his wheat ears some splendid stalks of ragwort and chamomile, like a cl.u.s.ter of yellow and white stars, and twisted tendrils of bindweed, with frail, trumpet-shaped blossoms already drooping, around the completed bunch. His thick old fingers fumbled over the niceties of the task, but he pushed the women's officious hands aside, and by the aid of his toothless but bone-hard gums pulled the knot to successfully, and the bunch became the "Neck."

Then he set off, followed by the rest of the folk, to the highest field under gra.s.s, cresting the slope behind Cloom, the field that had been ploughed earth when the old Squire's dying eyes looked on it from his bedroom window.

The last of the day still held the world, and from the western rim the sunset beat up on to one vast level stretch of cloud that nearly covered the sky, drenching it with rose-coloured light which refracted to the earth, steeping everything in one warm glow. The stubble stood up like thin straight flames from a soil that showed wine-coloured, and the green of leaf and pasture was turned by the warmth of the light to that tender but brilliantly vivid emerald to which it wakes in the gleam of a lantern at night. All colour was intensified, though all was suffused with the triumphant rose, which steeped sky and air and earth till they seemed infused with some impalpable wine; and the procession moved through an atmosphere full of refractions and bright edges afloat in the tender glow.

Melchisedec Baragwaneth took his stand in the middle of the field beside the tall monolith, and his followers made a huge circle about him.

Jacka's John-w.i.l.l.y staggered round with a firkin of cider, and each man set his hands about its body and took a long drink. Then Melchisedec Baragwaneth bent slowly down, holding the Neck towards the ground, and all the labourers bowed low over their billhooks. Still more slowly the old man straightened himself, raising his arms till he held the bunch of corn high above his head, like some sylvan priest elevating the Host.

The billhooks, which a moment before had lain like s.h.i.+ning crescents on the gra.s.s, went flas.h.i.+ng up into blackness against the glow of the sky, and from each man came a great shout:

_"A nack! A nack! A nack! We hav'en! We hav'en! We hav'en!"_

Three times the rite was performed, and the rose-light, that so soon dies, had faded away, though no one could have told the actual moment of its pa.s.sing. A vibrant dusk, that to eyes still glamour-ridden seemed full of millions of little, p.r.i.c.king points of light, permeated the world, and in their harmonious-coloured clothes the people mingled with the soft grey-green of the pasture, only their faces and hands gleamed out a few tones paler.

With the fall of the billhooks fell solemnity, and men, women and children ran wildly hither and thither, shouting, singing, and breaking out into rough dances.

A new and blissful excitement tingled through Ishmael. When the labourers had shouted he had dropped Phoebe's hand and shouted with them, flinging up his arms. The glamorous light, the sense of something primitive and vital that the ceremony expressed, and the stir at the pulses caused by the sight of many people moved to do the same thing at the same moment, went to his head. He ran about singing and leaping like the rest, but keeping a little away from them, and quite suddenly there came to him for the first time that consciousness of pleasure which marks man's enjoyment off from the animal's. Hitherto, in his moments of happiness, he had not paused to consider the matter, but merely been happy as a puppy is when it plays in the sun. Now, suddenly, he stopped still, and stood looking at the distant blackthorn hedge that made a dark network against the last gleam in the west.

"I am happy? I am _being happy_!" he said to himself, and he turned this consciousness over in his mind as he would have turned a sweet in his mouth. Ever afterwards the memory of that moment's realisation was connected for him with a twisted line of hedge and a background of pale greenish sky. He stared at the distorted hedgerow that stood out so clearly, and to him this moment was so vividly the present that he did not see how it could ever leave off.... "This is now ..." he thought; "how can it stop being now?" And the shouting and the still air and the definite look of that hedge all seemed, with himself as he was and felt at that moment, to be at the outermost edge of time, suspended there for ever by that extreme vividness....

And then Phoebe ran up to him and dragged him off to where Sam Lenine stood examining some of the ears he had picked on his way past the sheaves. The miller took the toll of one twelfth of the farmer's grist, so Sam studied the ears with care. Owing to the drought the corn was very short in the straw, but that was not Sam's part of the business, and he nodded his head approvingly over the quality of the ear.

Suddenly Archelaus sprang forward, s.n.a.t.c.hed the Neck from Melchisedec Baragwaneth, and made for the house, everyone crowding after him to see the fun. At the front door stood the dairymaid, Jenifer Keast, holding a pail of water in her strong arms, ready to souse him unless he succeeded in entering by another way before she could reach him with the water, when he could claim a kiss. Archelaus made a dash for the parlour window, but the bucket swept round at him threateningly and he drew back a moment, as though to consider a plan of campaign. He was determined to have his kiss, for through the soft dusk that veiled any coa.r.s.eness of skin or form, and only showed the darkness of eyes and mouth on the warm pallor of her face, she looked so eminently kissable. Before she could guess his intention he ran round the angle of the house wall, down to the dairy window, and, plunging through it, came up the pa.s.sage at her back. Seizing her by the waist, he swung her round and took his kiss fairly from her mouth, and, though she struggled so that the water drenched him, he felt her lips laughing as they formed a kiss.

CHAPTER V

HEAD OF THE HOUSE

For years Ishmael was unable to remember that evening without a tingling sense of shame. The unwonted excitement, combined with the prominence which the Parson successfully achieved for him, went to his head and caused him to "show off." The thought of how he had chattered and boasted, talking very loudly and clumping with his feet when he walked, so as to sound and feel like a grown-up man, would turn him hot for years, when, in the watches of the night, it flashed back on him. Long after everyone else had forgotten, even if they had ever noticed it, his lack of self-control on that evening was a memory of shame to him. He clattered across to his place at the head of the table, and was mortified that a couple of big old calf-bound books had to be placed on his chair to make him sit high enough. Phoebe and the Parson were at either side, and the foot of the table was taken by Annie, Archelaus, defiant and monosyllabic, on her left, and Lawyer Tonkin, glossy with black broadcloth, on her right. The lawyer had a haunting air as of cousins.h.i.+p to things ecclesiastical, and, indeed, he was lay-preacher at a Penzance chapel. Tom, who had taken care to set himself on his other hand, kept a careful eye for his plate and gla.s.s, being particularly liberal with the cider. The lawyer spoke little; when he did his voice was rich and unctuous--the sort of voice that Ishmael always described to himself as "porky." He was as attentive to Mrs. Ruan's wants as Tom to his, and she, never a great talker save in her outbursts, still kept up a spasmodic flow of low-toned remarks to him, whom of all men she held in highest veneration.

His spiritual powers she rated far higher than those of the Parson, who never fulminated from the pulpit till she felt the fear of h.e.l.l melting her bones within her. This the lawyer did, and managed at the same time to make her feel herself a good woman, one of the saved, and the piquancy of the double sensation was the hidden drug of Annie's life.

She dallied with thoughts of eternal suffering as a Flagellant with imagings of torture, and when her mind was reeling at the very edge of the pit she would pull herself back with a loud outcry on the Almighty, followed by a collapse as sensuous in its utter laxity.

Annie would have been shocked if anyone had tried to force on her the idea, that, in the unacknowledged warfare which enwrapped Ishmael, Tonkin was on her side as against the child; but even she was dimly aware that he and Boase, joint guardians as they were, stood in opposite camps. But it was towards her, the respectable widow-woman, the owner, but for Ishmael, of the biggest estate in all Penwith, that Tonkin's current of consideration flowed, whereas hers, after her religion, was perpetually set about Archelaus. He, the beautiful young man with the round red neck and the white arms and the strong six feet of height, whom she had made and given to the world, to him she would have given the world and all the heavens had it been in her power. And, as things were, she could not even give him Cloom Manor and its fruitful acres. Of this impotency Archelaus was even more aware than usual as he sat beside her and glowered down the table at his little brother.

Ishmael was still showing off, though less noisily, for he was feeling very tired and sleepy; the unaccustomed cider and the heavy meal of roast mutton, in a house where there was rarely any meat except occasional rashers, were proving too potent for him. The room was intensely hot, the prevailing notion of comfort being to shut every window at night, and a large fire, before which the side of mutton had been gravely twirling for hours, was only now beginning to subside. The candles guttered and grew soft in the warmth, beads of moisture stood out on the faces of the company, and the smell of incompletely-washed bodies reminded the Parson of hot afternoons with his Sunday school.

Phoebe found Ishmael dull since his volubility had begun to desert him, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka's John-w.i.l.l.y into conversation--a difficult matter, since, though he had been placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's benefit, he felt the watchful eye of his mother, who was waiting at table, too frequently upon him for his comfort.

Katie Jacka, her colour more set than it had been when she witnessed that marriage eight years ago, was as emotional as ever, her facile feelings only restrained at all by her husband's rigid taciturnity, even as her high bosom was kept up by the stiffest of "temberan busks"--a piece of wood which, like all self-respecting Cornishwomen, she wore thrust inside the front of her stays. Philip Jacka, who was now headman at the farm, presided at the labourer's supper in the big barn, whither everyone would presently repair, including Ishmael, if he were not too sleepy. The Parson divided his attention between him and Mr. Lenine, who was expanding to greater and greater geniality, always with that something veiled behind his eyes. He encouraged Ishmael, trying to draw him out when the Parson, seeing the child was, in nursery parlance, "a bit above himself," would have kept him quiet.

"Well, young maister"--at the phrase in the miller's booming voice ears seemed visibly to p.r.i.c.k down the length of the table--"well, and how do 'ee like helpen' to Cry the Neck?"

"Fine, that I do," came Ishmael's shrill tones; "an' I'm gwain to have en cried every year, and I'll give ever so much bigger suppers, with beef and pasties and beer as well as cider, and saffern cakes and--"; here his tongue failed at the list in his excitement.

Annie had gone a dull crimson, and she drew the whistling breath that with her was the precursor of storm. Help for her outraged feelings and a snub for the young master came from a quarter which surprised them both.

"It is not you who give the supper, Ishmael," spoke the Parson quietly; "it is your mother. And unless you show you know how to behave she will never let you sit up again."

Annie expelled the breath unaccompanied by any flow of words. Archelaus sn.i.g.g.e.red, and Ishmael sat in that terrible embarra.s.sment that only children know, when the whole world turns black and shame is so intense that it seems impossible to keep on with life at all. His face was one burning flush, his eyes stung with tears he was too proud to let fall.

All his wonderful day had fallen about his ears, and it seemed to him that such a mortification, added to his own shamed sense of having disappointed Da Boase, would burden him so that he could never be happy again. And only a couple of hours earlier he had realised for the first time how splendid somehow life and everything in it was, himself included ... and now all was over. He sat staring at the congealed remains of a pasty on his plate. He did not see how it was possible to go on living.

Suddenly a soft, very small hand slid into his lap under cover of the table's corner, and Phoebe's fingers curled round his as she whispered: "Don't 'ee mind, Ishmael. Don't cry. Tell 'ee what, I'll dance weth 'ee, so I will."

"I'm not cryen'." Ishmael's accent was always most marked when he was struggling with emotion. "I'm not cryen' toall. But I don't mind if I do dance a bit weth 'ee if you want me to."

A grinding of chair legs over the flags proclaimed the end of the feast, and the Parson, who, rather to Ishmael's resentment, was smiling as though nothing had been the matter, caught hold of him with one hand and of Phoebe with the other and led the way to the barn.

Out-of-doors the air struck exquisitely cool and fresh to heated faces; the courtyard was lapped in shadow, but once through and in the farmyard the moon was visible, still near the horizon and swimming up inflated, globulous, like a vast aureate bubble. Save for that one glow everything looked as chill as underseas; the whitewashed walls of the out-buildings glimmered faintly, the heaped corn had paled to a greyish silver, the shadows were blue as quiet pools. The whole world seemed to have been washed clean by the moonlight.

The sense of calm only lasted as far as the door of the barn--not as far to the ear, for the sounds of merry-making came gustily out before the opening of the door showed an oblong of glowing orange that sent a shaft into the night, to fade into the darkness that it deepened. It was not quite as hot in the barn as it had been in the kitchen, for the building was much loftier and boasted no fire. Lanterns swung from the beams, throwing upwards bars of shadow that criss-crossed with the rafters and trembled slightly as the flames flickered, so that the whole roof seemed spun over by some gigantic spider's web, while the shadow-patterns thrown by the lanterns on to the floor below looked like great spiders dropped from the meshes. In this impalpable tangle sat the men and women--tenants of cottages, labourers, farm servants and their children, all who had been helping with the harvest. Jenifer Keast was there, flushed now instead of with that mysterious pallor of the dusk, and to her Archelaus made his way with a sort of bashful openness, followed by glances and sly smiles. People felt disposed to condone whatever was in the way of nature, for the meal of hoggans--pasties with chunks of bacon in them, superior to the fuggans of everyday life, which only harboured raisins--of pilchards steeped in vinegar and spices, all washed down by strong cider, had combined to give that feeling of physical well-being which causes the soul also to relax.

Archelaus, suddenly irked by proximity to the girl or fired by the thought of an excuse to clasp her more fully, sprang up and called for helpers to clear the floor. The long trestle tables were pushed to one side and everything that lay upon the dusty boards swept away, even to the form of old Melchisedec Baragwaneth, the high-priest of an earlier hour, who was found with his head under a bench and his stiff old legs sprawled helplessly.

The Parson did not mean Ishmael to stay for more than a dance or two, if that, so he determined to get the thing on which he had set his mind done at once. Picking the boy up, he stood him on the table, just where a lantern, hitched to the wall, threw its beam of light, for the Parson was nothing if not a stage manager by instinct. An awkward silence fell upon the a.s.sembly; men sc.r.a.ped their feet uneasily through its hush.

For a moment the Parson let his eyes wander over the cl.u.s.tered faces, full of strong colour in the warm light, with bright, vacant looks and half-open mouths. He knew everyone there, had christened and married many of them, he knew their individual count of kindness and coa.r.s.eness and self-seeking; knew how hard-working they were, how thriftless, how generous and strangely tolerant, yet how harsh at times in condemnation.

It was to their charity of outlook he wished to appeal now, or rather wished Ishmael to make an unconscious appeal.

"There's no need for me to make any speech to you, my friends," he began. "You all know me, and I know you. We've trusted each other and worked together for a good many years now, and please G.o.d we shall for many more. You are all to me as my children. But there's one amongst us--" (and here his hand on Ishmael's shoulder seemed to bring the shrinking little boy into greater prominence) "who is even more of a trust to me than any of you. He is a trust to you too--to me because I am his guardian, pledged to see that he grows up into a man who will make a good and just Squire to his tenants, to you because you are those tenants. I think I can promise you that as your Squire grows up it will mean better and better times for all of you, that things won't be so hard. There was a time when the Squires of Cloom were noted for their generosity and just dealing, when, so they say, every man on the estate had his side of pork--ay, and half a sheep too--in his kitchen, and a good coat to his back the year round, and wages to put in his stocking.

Those times will come again when the glories of Cloom are restored, when it is once more a good gentleman's estate...."

The Parson had spoken quietly but very deliberately. He knew how public feeling had sided with Annie and the dispossessed Archelaus. The people had grown so used to a.s.sociating on a familiar level with the powers at the Manor that they had ceased to think of the advantages of a different mode of intercourse. The idea that they would themselves benefit by the restoration of Cloom and its owner to the old position of gentry had never occurred to them. It was true that it would mean the elevation of this intruding child, who was merely the son of their Annie, whom they all knew, but at the same time it meant certain obligations towards them. It meant more money, help in times of stress, security. That was a thing worth considering. The old Squire had h.o.a.rded his income and let his fortune swell; if the all-powerful Parson were going to bring this child up in the way he suggested it meant that money would be spent, and on them....

The Parson gave his idea time enough to arrive, though not long enough to be turned over. He pushed Ishmael gently forward again.

"Say what I told you," he bade him, "and no more."

At that moment something came to Ishmael which had failed him in that evening's ordeal--a poise, a confidence of touch which was his by inheritance, though so long unsummoned. He straightened himself and thrust his hands into the pockets of his little breeches.

"Thank you very much for having come to-night," he said, in a voice free from any tw.a.n.g of dialect--the voice he fell into naturally after a day alone with the Parson: "I'm very glad you could come. I hope I'll often see you and that we'll all be very happy together...." He paused, could think of nothing more to say, so retreated back in sudden shyness against the Parson's arm.

There was another moment of hush. Archelaus was sitting, his face suffused, staring in front of him; a murmuring of "the pretty lil' dear" ... ran amongst the women. It was Lenine who brought the moment to its fit rounding.

"Three cheers for Missus and the lil' Squire," he called, and on that able blend of sentiments all voices met with a roar. As the last sound died away Phoebe could be heard clamouring: