Boy Woodburn Part 12

The protests were invariably met by Mrs. Woodburn imperturbably as always.

"It's how my father was bred," she replied in that plain manner of hers, so plain indeed that conventional people sometimes complained of it as rude. "That's good enough for me."

Mrs. Haggard carried her complaint to her husband, the vicar.

"There was once a man called Wordsworth, I believe," was all the answer of that enigmatic creature.

"You're much of a pair, you and Mrs. Woodburn," snapped his wife as she left the room.

"My dear, you flatter me," replied the quiet vicar.

On the face of it, indeed, Mrs. Haggard had some ground for her anxiety about the girl.

Boy from the beginning was bred in the stables, lived in them, loved them.

At four she began to ride astride and had never known a side-saddle or worn a habit all her life. She took to the pigskin as a duck to water; and at seven, Monkey Brand, then in his riding prime, gave her up.

"She knows more'n me," he said, half in sorrow, half in pride, as his erstwhile pupil popped her pony over a Suss.e.x heave-gate.

"Got wings, she have."

"Look-a-there!"

But the girl did not desert her first master. She would sit on a table in the saddle-room, swinging her legs, and shaking her fair locks as she listened bright-eyed while Monkey, busy on leather with soap and sponge, told again the familiar story of Cannibal's National.

It was on her ninth birthday that, at the conclusion of the oft-told tale, she put a solemn question:

"Monkey Brand!"

"Yes, Minie."

"Do-you-think-I-could-win-with-the National?"

"No sayin' but you might, Min."

The child's eyes became steel. She set her lips, and nodded her flaxen head with fierce determination.

She never recurred to the matter, or mentioned it to others. But from that time forth to ride the National winner became her secret ambition, dwelt upon by day, dreamed over by night, her constant companion in the saddle, nursed secretly in the heart of her heart, and growing always as she grew.

Certainly she was a Centaur if ever child was.

To the girl indeed her pony was like a dog. She groomed him, fed him, took him to be shod, and scampered over the wide-strewn Downs on him, sometimes bare-backed, sometimes on a numnah, hopping on and off him light as a bird and active as a kitten.

Mrs. Woodburn let the child go largely her own way.

"Plenty of liberty to enjoy themselves----" that was the principle she had found successful in the stockyard and the gardens, and she tried it on Boy without a tremor.

Old Joe Longstaffe on his death-bed confirmed the faith of his daughter in this matter of the education or non-education of the child.

"Don't meddle," he had said, "G.o.d'll grow in her--if you'll let him."

Patience Woodburn never forgot her father's words and never had cause to regret that she had followed them.

The girl, wayward though she might be at times, never gave her mother a moment's real anxiety. She was straight as a dart, strong as a young hawk, fearless as a lion, and free as the wind. Her simplicity, her purity and strength made people afraid of her. In a crowd they always made way for her: for she was resolute with the almost ruthless resolution of one whose purpose is sure and conscience clean.

"You feel," Mr. Haggard once said, "that--she's clear." He waved vaguely.

"Pity she's a little heathen," said Mrs. Haggard acridly.

"She doesn't know her catechism," answered the mild vicar in his exasperatingly mild way. "Is she any the worse?"

"Churchman!" snorted his outraged spouse.

Mrs. Haggard's indictment was unfounded. The girl was fierce and swift, but she was not a heathen. Mrs. Woodburn had seen to that. Sometimes she used to take the child to the Children's Services in the little old church on the edge of the Paddock Close. The girl enjoyed the services, and she loved Mr. Haggard; but when, during her grand-dad's lifetime, her mother gave the child her choice between the church and the little G.o.d-First chapel on the way to Lewes, she always chose the latter.

It may be that her choice was decided by the fact that she drove to the chapel and walked to the church; it may be that, dearly as she loved the vicar, she loved her grand-dad more; or it may be that the simplicity of the chapel, the austerity of the service, and the character of the congregation, all of a kind, close to earth, humble of heart, and russet in hue, attending there for no other reason than because they loved it, appealed to something profound and ineradicable in the spirit of this child bred amongst the austere and simple hills to which she knew herself so close.

Old Mat was fond of saying that the girl's mother could do what she liked with her, and n.o.body else could do anything at all.

"I don't try," he would add, "She puts the terror on to me, that gal do."

And the old man was right.

Different as they were, there was a deep and mysterious sympathy between mother and daughter. And on that sympathy the mother's power was based.

Only once was her authority, based as it was upon the spirit, subject to breaking strain.

When the girl was fourteen, Mrs. Woodburn decided to send her to the High School at Lewes. Old Mat shook his head; Mrs. Haggard was delighted; the girl herself went about with pursed lips and frozen air.

The vicar, meeting her in the village, stopped her.

"What d'you think about it, Boy?" he asked in his grave, kind way.

"I shall go," blurted the girl. "But I shall win all the same."

"Win what?" asked the vicar.

"_That_," said Boy, and flashed on her way.

When the day of parting came, word was sent round to the stables that n.o.body was to be in them at twelve o'clock. At that hour a slight cold figure crossed the yard swiftly, and entered the stables. The key was turned in the door. There was no sound from within, except the movement of the horses, to whom the girl was bidding good-bye.

Half an hour later the door was opened, and she came out, cold and frosty as she had entered.

Monkey Brand, standing in the door of the saddle-room, keeping guard over the stable-lads lest they should peep and pry, saw her come.

"She look very grim," he afterward reported to Old Mat.

"Keeps a stiff lip for a little 'un," whispered a lad peeping from behind the jockey's shoulder.