The Project Gutenberg eBook ofFurze the CruelThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Furze the CruelAuthor: John TrevenaRelease date: December 2, 2010 [eBook #34543]Most recently updated: March 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURZE THE CRUEL ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Furze the CruelAuthor: John TrevenaRelease date: December 2, 2010 [eBook #34543]Most recently updated: March 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe
Title: Furze the Cruel
Author: John Trevena
Author: John Trevena
Release date: December 2, 2010 [eBook #34543]Most recently updated: March 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURZE THE CRUEL ***
Almost everywhere on Dartmoor are Furze, Heather, and Granite. The Furze seems to suggest Cruelty, the Heather Endurance, and the Granite Strength. The Furze is destroyed by fire, but grows again; the Heather is torn by winds, but blossoms again; the Granite is worn away imperceptibly by the rain. This work is the first of a proposed trilogy, which the author hopes to continue and complete with "Heather" and "Granite."
Almost everywhere on Dartmoor are Furze, Heather, and Granite. The Furze seems to suggest Cruelty, the Heather Endurance, and the Granite Strength. The Furze is destroyed by fire, but grows again; the Heather is torn by winds, but blossoms again; the Granite is worn away imperceptibly by the rain. This work is the first of a proposed trilogy, which the author hopes to continue and complete with "Heather" and "Granite."
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORYI.ABOUT THE TAVY FAMILYII.ABOUT BRIGHTLYIII.ABOUT PASTOR AND MASTERIV.ABOUT BEETLESV.ABOUT THOMASINEVI.ABOUT VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSICVII.ABOUT FAIRYLANDVIII.ABOUT ATMOSPHEREIX.ABOUT A KNAVE AND A FOOLX.ABOUT THE VIGIL OF ST. GOOSEXI.ABOUT THE FEAST OF ST. GOOSEXII.ABOUT THE OCTAVE OF ST. GOOSEXIII.ABOUT VARIOUS EMOTIONSXIV.ABOUT A STRUGGLE AT THE GATE OF FAIRYLANDXV.ABOUT JUSTICEXVI.ABOUT WITCHCRAFTXVII.ABOUT PASTIMESXVIII.ABOUT AUTUMN IN FAIRYLANDXIX.ABOUT THE GOOD RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIPXX.ABOUT THE PASSOVER OF THE BRUTEXXI.ABOUT WINTER IN REAL LIFEXXII.ABOUT THE PINCHXXIII.ABOUT A HOUSE ON THE HIDDEN LANESXXIV.ABOUT BANKRUPTSXXV.ABOUT SWALING-FIRESXXVI.ABOUT "DUPPENCE"XXVII.ABOUT REGENERATION AND RENUNCIATION
The river of Tavy is a great mountain-carver. From its mud-holes of Cranmere to the walls of Tavistock it is a hewer of rocks. Thenceforth it becomes a gardener, raising flowers and herbs; it becomes idyllic. It goes into Arcadia. And at last it floats ships of war.
There is a story in Hebrew literature of a king called Solomon, a man reputed wise, although a fool with women, who desired to build a temple to his God. There was a tradition which forbade the use of hammer or chisel in the erection of a place of worship, because, according to the Mischna, "Iron is used to shorten life, the altar to prolong it." The stones were not to be hewn. The temple was to be built noiselessly. The narrative suggests that Solomon had the stones cut and shaped at some distance from the building site, which was a decidedly Jesuitical way of solving the problem. Myth suggests that the king sought the aid of Asmodeus, chief of the devils, who told him where he could discover a worm which would split the toughest rock. The introduction of the devil to assist in the building of the temple was no doubt of Persian origin, since Persian thought influenced Hebrew literature just as Grecian thought was later to influence that of Rome. The idea of noiseless building, of an altar created by supernatural powers, of burrowing for minerals and metals without tools, is common to the literature of every country. It is one of the stock tales of folk-lore found everywhere. In one place it is a worm which shatters the mountains; in another a black stone; and in another a herb, such as the innocent forget-me-not, and the various saxifrages of the cottage garden. All the stories agree upon three points: the name of the rock-shatterer signifies irresistible force; it is invariably a small and insignificant object; and it is brought to mankind by a bird. That bird is the cloud; and the worm, pebble, or herb, which shatters mountains is the raindrop.
This is the story of the river Tavy, its tors and cleave, just as the pixy grandmother told it to the little round-eyed ones on a stormy night, when the black-winged raven-cloud was bringing the rain over Great Kneeset, and the whist hounds were yip-yip-yipping upon the "deads"—
"It all happened a long time ago, my impets, a very long time ago, and perhaps I shan't be telling you the story quite right. They say the dates are cut upon the Scorhill Rocks. I couldn't make them out the last time I was there, but then my eyes are getting feeble. You know the Scorhill Rocks, my dears? They are just by the Wallabrook, and near our big dancing stone which the silly mortals call a tolmen. You remember how we danced there on All Hallows E'en. What a beautiful night it was, sure 'nuff! And then you went and pinched the farm maids in their beds, and made them dream of their lovers, mischievous young toads! Well, I don't blame ye, my dears. I liked a bit of a gambol when I was a winikin bit of a pisky maid myself.
"This old Dartymore was a gurt big solid mountain of granite in those days, my pretties. You can't imagine what it was like then, and I can't either. There was no grass on it, and there were no nice vuzzy-bushes to dance round, and no golden blossoms to play with, and no fern to see-saw on, and no pink heather to go to sleep in—and worse and worse, my dears, there wasn't a single pixy in those days either."
"Oh, what a funny old Dartymore!" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"It wasn't an old Dartymore, my pets. It was a brand-new one. There were no bullocks or ponies. There were no bogs and no will-o'-the-wisps. There were no stone remains for stupid mortals to go dafty over, for as you and I know well enough most of 'em are no more stone remains than any other rocks, but are just as the wind and rain made them. There was not a single mortal in those days either, and none of the triumphs of their civilisation, such as workhouses, prisons, and lunatic asylums. There was just the sun and the gurt grey mountain, and right upon the top of the mountain was a little bit of jelly shivering and shaking in the wind."
"But how did it get there?" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"Oh, my loves, you mustn't ask such silly questions. I don't know. Nobody can know. It was there, and we can't say any more. Perhaps there was a little bit of this jelly on the top of every mountain in the world. I can't tell you anything about that. But this little bit on the top of Dartymore was alive. It was alive, and it could feel the wind and the sun, and it would have kicked if it had got any legs to kick with. You will find it all written on the Scorhill Rocks. I couldn't find it, but it must be there, because they say it is. Well, this little bit of jelly shivered away for a long time, and then one day it began to rain. That was a wonderful thing in those days, though we don't think anything of it now. The little bit of jelly didn't like the rain. If it had been a pixy it would have crawled under a toadstool. If it had been a mortal it would have put up its umbrella. But toadstools and umbrellas hadn't been invented. So the poor thing shivered and got wet, because it was a very heavy shower. They say it lasted for several thousand years. While it rained the little bit of jelly was thinking. At last it said to the rain, 'Where doyewcome from?' But the rain only replied that it hadn't the least idea.
"'What are ye doing?' went on the bit of jelly; and the rain answered, 'Making the world ready for you to live in.' The piece of jelly thought about that for a million years, and then it said to the wind—the rain had stopped, and it was the First Fine Day—'Someone must have made me and put me here. I want to speak to that Someone. Can't you tell me what to do?'
"'Ask again in a million years,' said the wind.
"'I think I'll go for a walk,' said the piece of jelly. You see, my dears, it was getting tired of sitting still, and besides, it had discovered little bits of things called legs. They had grown while it had been thinking. So it got up, and stretched itself, and perhaps it yawned, and then it went for a long walk. I don't know how long it lasted, for they thought nothing of a few thousand years then; but at last it got back to the top of Dartymore, and found everything changed. The big mountain had been shattered and hewn into cleaves and tors. There were rivers and bogs; grass and fern; vuzzy-bushes and golden blooms. In every part, my dears, the mountain had been carved into tors and cut into gorges; but there were still no pixies, and no mortals. Then the piece of jelly went and looked at itself in the water, and was very much astonished at what it saw. It was a piece of jelly no longer, but a little hairy thing, with long legs and a tail, and a couple of eyes and a big mouth."
"Was it the same piece of jelly? What a long time it lived!" cried the little round-eyed ones. They didn't believe a word of the story, and they were going to say so presently.
"Well, my pretties, it was, and it wasn't. You see, little bits of it kept breaking off all those years, and they had become hairy creatures with long legs and a tail. Part of the original piece of jelly was in them all, for that was what is called the origin of life, which is a thing you don't understand anything about, and you mustn't worry your heads about it until you grow up. The little hairy creature stood beside the Tavy, and scratched its ear with its foot just like a dog. A million years later it used its hand because it couldn't get its foot high enough, and the wise men said that was a sign of civilisation. It was raining and blowing, and presently a drop of rain trickled down the nose of the little hairy creature and made it sneeze.
"'Go away,' said the little hairy creature. 'I wun't have ye tickling my nose.' You see, my dears, it knew the Devonshire dialect, which is a proof that it is the oldest dialect in the world.
"'Let me bide. I be fair mazed,' said the Devonshire raindrop. 'I've been drap-drappiting on this old Dartymore for years and years.'
"'You bain't no use. You'm only a drop o' rainwater,' said the little hairy thing.
"'That's all. Only a drop o' rain-water,' came the answer. 'This gurt big mountain has been worn away by drops o' rain-water. These tors were made by drops o' rainwater. These masses of granite have been split by drops o' rain-water. The river is nought but drops o' rain-water."
"'You'm a liar,' said the little hairy thing. You see, my dears, it couldn't believe the raindrop."
The little round-eyed ones didn't believe it either. They were afraid to say so because Grandmother might have smacked them. Besides, they knew they would not have to go to bed in the pink heather until she had finished her story. So they listened quietly, and pinched one another, while Grandmother went on—
"It was a long time afterwards. There were bullocks and ponies and plenty of pixies, and the little hairy thing had become what is called a primitive man. Tavy Cleave was very much the same as it is now, and Ger Tor was big and rugged, and Cranmere was full of river-heads. The primitive man had a primitive wife, and there were little creatures with them who were primitive children. They lived among the rocks and didn't worry about clothes. But there was one man who was not quite so primitive as the others, and therefore he was unpopular. He used to wander by himself and think. You will find it all upon the Scorhill Rocks, my dears. One evening he was beside the Tavy, which was known in those days as the Little Water, and a memory stirred in him, and he thought to himself: I was here once, and I asked a question of the wind; and the wind said: 'Ask again in a million years.' Someone must have made me and put me here. I want to speak to that Someone. Then the Little Water shouted; and it seemed to say: 'I have worn away the mountain of granite. I have shattered the rocks. Look at me, primitive man! I have given you a dwelling-place. I was made by the raindrops. The cloud brought the raindrops. And the wind brought you, primitive man. That Someone sent you and the wind together. You want to speak to that Someone. You must seek that Someone in a certain place. Look around you, primitive man!'
"So he looked, my dears, and saw what the Little Water had done during those millions of years. On the top of every little mountain it had carved out a tor. They were rough heaps of rock, shapeless, and yet suggesting a shape. They were not buildings, and yet they suggested a building. The primitive man went up on the highest tor, and spoke to that Someone. But, my pretties, I'm afraid you can't understand all this."
The little round-eyed ones were yawning dreadfully. Grandmother was getting wearisome in her old age. They thought they would rather be in bed.
"The primitive man made himself a hut-circle. You see, my dears, the Little Water had taught him. He had become what is called imitative. When he made his hut-circle he just copied the tors. Later on he copied them on a larger scale and built castles. And then the time came when another man stood beside the Tavy and asked: 'I have had dreams of treasure in the earth. How can I get at that treasure?'
"Then the Little Water shouted back: 'Look at me. I have worn away the rocks. I have uncovered the metals. Work in the ground as I have done.'
"So the man imitated the river again and worked in the ground, until he found tin and copper; and the river went on roaring just as it does now. You see, my children, there would have been no river if there had been no raindrops; and without the river no tors and cleaves, no vuzzy-bushes and golden blossoms, no ferns or pink heather, no buildings, no mortals, and no pixies. Dartymore would have remained a cold grey mountain of granite, and the piece of jelly would never have become a primitive man if it hadn't rained."
"But what is the rain doing now?" cried the little round-eyed ones.
"Just the same, my pretties. Making the river flow on and on. And the river is making the cleave deeper, and Ger Tor higher, just as it has always been doing. Only it works so slowly that we don't notice any change. Now you must run away to bed, for it is quite late, and you are gaping like young chickens. Come and kiss your old granny, my dearies, and trot away and have your dew-baths. And when you are tucked up in the pink heather don't be afraid of the black cloud and the raindrops, for they won't harm little pisky boys and maids if they're good. They are too busy wearing away the granite, and cutting the cleaves deeper, and making the mountains higher and our dear old Tavyland stronger and fresher. There, that's all for to-night, my impets. I'll tell ye another story to-morrow."
"Funny old thing, G'an'mother," whispered the little round-eyed ones, while they washed their pink toes in the dew. "She'm old and dafty."
That's the story of river Tavy and its cleave; not all of it by any means, but the pixy grandmother did not know any more. Nobody knows all of it, except that Someone who sent the wind, which swept up the cloud, which brought the rain, which wetted the piece of jelly, which shivered on the top of the big grey mountain of Dartmoor.
The pixy grandmother was right about the primitive man who wanted so much to know things. She was right when she said that the river taught him. He looked about him and he imitated. The river had made him models and he copied them. The tor to which he ascended to speak to that Someone was the first temple and the first altar—made without noise, a temple of unhewn stone, an altar of whole stones over which no man had lifted up any iron. It was the earliest form of religion; a better and purer form than any existing now. It was the beginning of folk-lore. It was the first and best of mysteries: the savage, the hill-top, and the wind; the cloud and the sun; the rain-built temple; the rain-shaped altar. It was the unpolluted dwelling-place which Hebrew literature tried to realise and failed; which philosophers and theocrats have tried to realise and failed; which men are always trying to realise and must always fail, because it is the beginning of things, the awakening of the soul, the birth of the mind, the first cry of the new-born. It is the first of all stories, therefore it cannot die; but the condition can never come again. The story of the rain-shattered rocks must live for ever; but only in the dimly-lighted realm of folk-lore.
Thus, in a sense, Peter and Mary, and the other folk to be described in these pages, are the children of the river, the grandchildren of the cloud and the rain. Ages have passed since the cloud first settled upon Dartmoor and the rain descended. Pandora's box has been opened since then, and all the heavenly gifts, which were to prove the ruin of mortals, escaped from it long ago, except hope left struggling in the hinge. What have the ignorant, passionate, selfish creatures in common with the freshness and purity of the wind and rain? Not much perhaps. It is a change from the summit of Ger Tor, with its wind and rain-hewn altar, to Exeter Cathedral, with its wind instrument and iron-cut sculpture—a change for the worse. It is a change from the primitive man, with his cry to the river, to Mary and Peter, and those who defile their neighbours' daughters, and drink to excess. A change for the worse? Who shall tell? Men cast back to primitive manners. The world was young when the properties of the fruit of the vine were discovered; and we all know the name of the oldest profession upon earth.
The river of Tavy flows on and on, dashing its rain sea-ward. Go upon the spectral mount of Ger Tor. Let it be night and early spring. Let there be full moonlight also. Hear the water roaring: "I have worn away the mountain of granite. I have shattered the rocks. Look at me, civilised man. I have made you a dwelling-place, but you will not have it. You swarm in your cities like bees in a rotten tree. Come back to the wind and the rain. They will cool your passions. They will heal your diseases. Come back to Nature, civilised man."
"Coop, coop!" called Mary Tavy. "Cooey, cooey! Aw now, du'ye come, my dear. He be proper contrairy when he'm minded to," she cried to Farmer Chegwidden as she shook a gorse-bush, which was her shepherd's staff, towards a big goose waddling ahead of her in the path of its own selection, and spluttering and hissing like a damp firework.
"Did ever see such a goosie?" said Mary. "When I wants 'en to go one way he goes t'other. There he goes, down under, to Helmen Barton. If he lays his egg there they'll keep 'en, and say one of their fowls dropped 'en. He wun't come home till sundown. Contrairiest bird on Dartmoor be Old Sal."
"I don't hold wi' old geese," said Farmer Chegwidden. "They'm more trouble than they'm worth. When they gets old they'm artful."
"So be volks," said Mary. "Goosies be cruel human. Old Sal knows as much as we. He'm twenty-two years old. He lays an egg every month. He'm the best mother on Dartmoor, and Peter says he shan't die till he've a mind to." By her continued use of the masculine gender any one might have thought Mary was not quite convinced herself as to her goose's sex; but it was not so really. There is nothing feminine on Dartmoor except tom-cats.
Mary lived with brother Peter close to the edge of Tavy Cleave, a little way beyond Wapsworthy. There was a rough road from the village of St. Peter Tavy, passing round the foot of Lynch Tor, and ending in a bog half-a-mile further on. Ger Cottage—so named because the most prominent feature of the landscape was Ger, or Gurt, Tor—which was the home of the Tavys, the man and the woman, not the river, nor the cleave, nor the stannary town, nor the two villages of that ilk, appeared amid boulders and furze between the rough road and the gorge cut by the river. The cottage, or to be strictly accurate, the cottages, for Peter and Mary had separate apartments, which was quite right and proper, was, or were, in a situation which a house-agent would have been justified in describing as entirely detached. There was no other dwelling-place within a considerable distance. The windows looked out upon romantic scenery, which has been described in somewhat inflated language, six-syllabled adjectives, and mixed metaphors, as something absolute and unassailable; and has been compared to the Himalayas and Andes by excitable young people under commission to write a certain number of words for cheap guide-book purposes. However, the ravine of the Tavy is perhaps the finest thing of its kind on Dartmoor; and "gentle readers" who go abroad every winter have some reason to feel ashamed of themselves if they have not seen it.
When the New Zealander comes to explore England, he will, perhaps,—if he is interested in such things—write letters to such newspapers as may have survived concerning the source of the Tavy. He will probably claim to have discovered some new source which the ignorant and vanished race of Anglo-Saxons never happened on. Most people will say that the Tavy rises at the south side of Cut Hill. Others, who do not wish to commit themselves, will make the safe statement that its source is upon Cranmere. As a matter of fact the Tavy would be a very wise river if it knew its own head. By the time it has assumed any individuality of its own and received its first titled tributary, which is the Rattle Brook, it has come through so many changes, and escaped from such a complicated maze of crevasses, that it would have to be provided with an Ariadne's clue to retrace its windings to its source. In the face of general opinion it seems likely that the Tavy begins its existence rather more than two miles north of its accredited source, at a spot close to Cranmere Pool, and almost within a stone's cast of the Dart. It would be impossible, however, to indicate any one particular fissure, with its sides of mud and dribble of slimy water, and declare that and none other was the river of Tavy in extreme and gurgling infancy.
There is no doubt about the Tavy by the time it has swallowed the Rattle Brook and a few streams of lesser importance, and has entered the cleave which it has carved through the granite by its own endless erosion. It is an exceedingly self-assertive river; passing down with a satisfied chuckle in the hot months, when the slabs of granite are like the floors of so many bakers' ovens; and in the winter roaring at Ger Tor, as though it would say, "I have cut through a thousand feet of granite since I began to trickle. I will cut through a thousand more before the sun gets cold." It is a noble little river, this shallow mountain stream, the proudest of all Dartmoor rivers. More romance has gathered around the Tavy than about all the other rivers in England put together, leaving out the Tamar. The sluggish Thames has no romance to compare with that of the Tavy. The Thames represents materialism with its pleasure-boats and glitter of wealth. It suggests big waistcoats and massive watch-chains. The Tavy stands for the spiritual side. Were the god of wine to stir the waters of each, the Thames would flow with beer; good beer possibly, but nothing better; while the Tavy would flow with champagne. The Tavy is the Rhine of England. It was beside the Tavy that fern-seed could be gathered, or the ointment obtained, which opened the eyes of mortals to the wonders of fairyland. It was on the banks of the Tavy that the pixies rewarded girls who behaved themselves—and pinched and nipped those who didn't. Beside the Tavy has grown the herb forget-me-not, which not only restored sight to the blind, but life also to the dead; and the marigold which, when touched early on certain mornings by the bare foot of the pure-minded, gave an understanding of the language of birds. Many legends current upon the big Rhine occur also beside the shallow Tavy. There are mining romances; tales of success, struggles, and failures, from the time of the Phoenicians; tales of battles for precious tin; tales of misery and torture and human agony. That is the dark side of the Tavy—the Tavy when it roars, and its waters are black and white, and there are glaciers down Ger Tor. The tiny Lyd runs near the Rattle Brook, the bloody little Lyd in which the torturers of the stannary prison cleansed their horrible hands. The Rattle Brook knew all about it, and took the story and some of the blood down to Father Tavy; and the Tavy roared on with the evidence, and dashed it upon the walls of Tavistock Abbey, where the monks were chanting psalms so noisily they couldn't possibly hear anything else. That was the way of the monks. Stannary Laws and Tavistock Abbey have gone, and nobody could wish for them back; but the Tavy goes on in the same old way. It is no longer polluted with the blood of tin-streamers, but merely with the unromantic and discarded boots of tramps. The copper-mines are a heap of "deads"; and Wheal Betsey lies in ruin; but the Tavy still brings trout to Tavistock, although there are no more monks to bother about Fridays; and it carries away battered saucepans and crockery for which the inhabitants have no further use. This attention on the part of the townsfolk is not respectful, when it is remembered that the Tavy brought their town into being, named it, and has supplied it always with pure water. It is like throwing refuse at one's godfather.
The Tavy is unhappily named, so is its brother the Taw—both being sons of Mother Cranmere—if it is true their names are derived the one from the Gaelictav, the other from the Welshtaw. The root word istam, which appears appropriately enough in Thames, and means placid and spreading. The Tavy and the Taw are anything but that. They are never placid, not even in the dog-days. They brawl more noisily than all the other rivers in Devon. Perhaps they were so named on thelucus a non lucendoprinciple; because it is so obvious they are not placid. The river Tavy has a good deal of property. Wherever it winds it has bestowed its name. The family of Tavy is a very ancient one. It was rich and important once, possessing a number of rights, many valuable mines, much romance, to say nothing of towns abbeys, and castles; but, like most old families, it has decayed, and its property is not worth much now. It possesses Tavy Cleave; the villages of St. Peter and St. Mary (they were twins, exceedingly healthy in their youth, but growing feeble now); Mount Tavy, which is of no importance; Tavystoc, the fortified place upon the Tavy, which has been turned into Tavistock and has become famous, not for its Abbey, nor for its great men, but solely and simply for its Goose Fair; and Mary and Peter Tavy, who were not made of cob, or granite, or water, or tin, or any of those other things which made the fortune of the Tavy family, but were two simple animals of the human race, children of the river out of that portion of Dartmoor which it owns, two ignorant beings who took life seriously enough and were like the heather and gorse which surrounded them. Evolution has accomplished such marvels that Peter and Mary may possibly have been lineally descended from antediluvian heather and gorse; or perhaps Nature had intended them for heather and gorse, and while making them had come across a couple of shop-soiled souls which were not of much use, and had stirred them into the mixture which, after a certain treatment only to be explained by a good deal of medical dog-Latin, resulted in Mary and Peter being brought forth as divine images upon the edge of Tavy Cleave.
Peter and Mary were savages, although they would have used strange language had any one called them so. They did not display their genealogical tree upon their cottage wall. Had they done so it would have shown, had it been accurate, that they were descended from the Gubbingses, who, as every man knows, were as disreputable a set of savages as have ever lived. This pedigree would have shown that a certain young Gubbings had once run away with a certain Miss Gubbings to whom he was attached, and with whom he was probably related more or less intimately. Fearing capture, as they had conveyed from the gorge of the Lyd as much of the portable property of their connections as they could conveniently handle, the young couple assumed the name of Tavy from the river beside which they settled. They had a number of little Tavies, who, it was said, founded the villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy, which good Christians subsequently canonised; and who, by intermarriage without much respect for the tie of consanguinity, or for such a form of religious superstition as a marriage service—if, indeed, they had ever heard of such a thing—became in time a rival band of Scythians almost as formidable to law-abiding commoners as their relations in Gubbings Land. Peter and Mary were direct descendants of these pleasant people. They didn't know it, however. It was just as well they were in ignorance, because knowledge of the truth might have turned their heads. The chief of the Gubbings was a king in his own land; therefore Peter and Mary would certainly have boasted that they were of royal blood; and Peter would assuredly have told his neighbours that if every man had his rights he would be occupying the throne of England. He would have gone on acquiring knowledge concerning those things which appertain unto ancient families, and no doubt would have conferred upon himself, although not upon Mary, a coat-of-arms such as a sheep in one quarter, a bullock in another, a bag of gold in the third, and in the fourth a peaceful commoner's head duly decollated, with the motto: "My wealth is in other men's goods." Peter would have become an intolerable nuisance had he known of his royal ancestry.
Mary was quite a foot taller than her brother. Peter was like a gnome. He was not much more than four feet in height, with a beard like a furze-bush, a nose like a clothes-peg, and a pair of eyes which had probably been intended for a boar, but had got into Peter by mistake. His teeth were much broken and were very irregular; here a tooth like a tor, there a gap like a cleave. In that respect he resembled his neighbours. Dartmoor folk have singularly bad teeth, and none of them submit to dentistry. They appear to think that defective teeth are necessary and incurable evils. When they are ill they send for the doctor at once; but when they have toothache they grin and bear it. Perhaps they know that dentists are mercenary folk, who expect to be paid for their labours; whereas the doctor who has any claim to respectability works solely for the love of his profession, and is not to be insulted by any proposal of payment. A doctor is a sort of wandering boon-companion, according to the Dartmoor mind. There is nothing he enjoys so much as being called from his bed on a bitter winter's night, to drive some miles across the moor that he may have a pleasant chat with some commoner who feels dull. He will be invited to sit by a smouldering peat-fire, and the proposal, "Have a drop o' cider? you'm welcome," will fall gratefully upon his ears. He will be encouraged to talk about certain ailments, and to suggest remedies for the same. Then he will be pressed to finish the crock of cider, and be permitted to depart. After such hospitality he would be a base-minded man if he made any suggestion of a fee. Peter had often consulted a doctor, but he could not remember ever parting with cash in return for advice. The doctor could not remember it either.
Peter generally wore a big leather apron, which began somewhere about the region of his neck and finished at his boots. He had taken it, in a fit of absent-mindedness, out of the blacksmith of Bridestowe's smithy some years ago. He was a bit of a traveller in those days. Peter often boasted of his wanderings. That expedition to Bridestowe was one of them. It would have been six miles across the moor from Tavy Cleave, and yet Peter had made light of it. He had done much greater things. He had put to silence one of those objectionable, well-washed, soft-handed, expensively-dressed creatures who call themselves gentlemen. One of these had described to Peter his wanderings about the world, mentioning such fabulous countries as India, China, Mexico, and Peru. Peter listened in an attitude which expressed nothing if not contempt. He allowed the traveller to go oh some time before crushing him. "I've travelled tu," he said at last. Then, with the manner of one dropping a brick upon a butterfly, he added, "I've been to Plymouth." Peter often mentioned that the traveller had nothing more to say.
Peter had been absent-minded when he procured the blacksmith's apron, somewhat after the manner of his early ancestors who had inhabited Lyd Gorge or Gubbings Land. He was liable to such fits. They were generally brought on by beer. One evening Mary had sent him to a farm—or rather he had permitted her to send him—with a can and a string-bag in order that he might receive payment of a debt in the form of ducks' eggs and buttermilk. On the way Peter became absent-minded. The attack was fully developed by the time he reached the farm. He forced the eggs into the can and poured the buttermilk into the string-bag.
Mary also must have been made during a fit of Nature's temporary insanity. She had been started as a man; almost finished as one; then something had gone wrong—Nature had poured the buttermilk into the string-bag, so to speak, and Mary became a female to a certain extent. She had a man's face and a man's feet. Larger feet had never scrambled down Tavy Cleave since mastodons had gone out of fashion. The impression of Mary's bare foot in the snow would have shocked a scientist. She was stronger than most men. To see Mary forking fern, carrying furze-reek, or cutting peat was a revelation in female strength. She wore stout bloomers under a short ragged skirt; not much else, except a brown jersey. The skirt was discarded sometimes in moments of emergency. She was flat-chested, and had never worn stays. She was as innocent concerning ordinary female underwear as Peter; more so, perhaps, for Peter was not blind to frills. Mary would probably have worn her brother's trousers sometimes, had it not been for that muddle-headed act of Nature, which had turned her out a woman at the last moment. Besides, Peter was a foot shorter than his sister, and his legs were merely a couple of pegs.
Somewhere in his head Peter despised Mary. He did not tell her so, or she might have beaten him with a furze-bush. He was far superior to her. Peter could read, write, and reckon with a dangerous facility. He was also an orator, and had been known to speak for five minutes at a stretch in the bar-room. He had repeated himself certainly, but every orator does that. Peter was a savage who knew just enough to look civilised. Mary was a savage who knew nothing and was therefore humorous. It was education which gave Peter the upper hand, Mary could not assert her superiority over one who read the newspapers, spoke in a bar-room, and described characters on a piece of paper which would convey a meaning to some one far away.
Ger Cottage, or the twin huts occupied by the Tavys, had been once hut-circles, belonging to the aboriginal inhabitants of Dartmoor. They were side by side, semi-detached as it were, and the one was Peter's freehold, while the other belonged to Mary. They had the same legal rights to their property as rabbits enjoy in their burrows. Legal rights are not referred to on Dartmoor, unless a foreigner intervenes with a view to squatting. "What I have I hold" is every man's motto. The hut-circles had been restored out of all recognition. They had been enlarged, the walls had been built up, chimneys made, and roofs covered with furze and held in place by lumps of granite had been erected. Peter and Mary were quite independent. Peter was the best housewife, just as Mary was the best farmer. Peter also called himself a handy man, which was merely another way of saying that he was no good at anything. He would undertake all kinds of jobs, ask for a little on account, then postpone the work for a few years. He never completed anything. Mary was the money-maker, and he was really her business-manager. Mary was so ignorant that she never wondered how Peter got his money. It was perfectly simple. Peter would sell a twelve-pound goose at eightpence a pound. When he collected the money it naturally amounted to eight shillings. When he paid it over to Mary it had dwindled to five shillings. "Twelve times eight be sixty," Peter would explain. "Sixty pence be five shilluns." Mary knew no better. Then Peter always asked for a shilling as his commission, and Mary had to give it him. Peter had studied ordinary business methods with some success; or perhaps it came to him naturally. He had some ponies also. There is plenty of money in pony-breeding as Peter practised it. He would go out upon the moor, find a young pony which had not been branded, drive it home without any ostentation, and shut it-up in his linhay. After a time he would set his own brand upon it and let it run loose. When the annual pony-drift came round he would claim it, subsequently selling it at Lydford market for five pounds. Sometimes he would remove a brand, and obliterate all traces of it by searing his own upon the same spot; but he never went to this extreme unless he was hard pressed for money, because Peter had certain religious convictions, and he always felt when he removed a brand that he was performing a dishonest action.
The only other member of the Tavy family was Grandfather. He was the reprobate. Peter and Mary had morals of their own, not many, but sufficient for their needs; but Grandfather had none. He was utterly bad; a wheezing, worn-out, asthmatic old sinner, who had never been known to tell the truth. Grandfather was always in Peter's hut. Mary had often begged for him to keep her company at nights, but Peter steadfastly refused to let the old rascal leave his quarters. So Grandfather lived with Peter, and spent his time standing with his back to the wall, wheezing and chuckling and making all sorts of unpleasant noises, as if there was some obstruction on his chest which he was trying always to remove.
Grandfather's hands were very loose and shaky, and his face was dreadfully dirty. Peter washed it sometimes, while the old fellow wheezed and groaned. Sometimes Peter opened his chest and examined Grandfather's organs, which he declared were in a perfectly healthy condition. There appeared to be no excuse for Grandfather's mendacious habits. He had got into the way of lying years back, and could not shake it off. Grandfather was well over a hundred years old, and he was not the slightest use except as a companion. Some people would have been afraid of him, because of his unpleasant noises, but Peter and Mary loved him like dutiful grandchildren. They recognised in Grandfather the true Gubbings spirit. He was a weak, sinful creature like themselves.
Grandfather had commenced life as a clock, but he had soon given up that kind of work, or something had occurred to turn him from a useful career; just as Peter had been meant for some sort of quadruped, and Mary had been a man up to the last possible moment. Some evil spirit must have entered into Grandfather; a malicious impet from the Tavy river perhaps; or possibly the wild wind of Dartmoor had passed down the cleave one day, to enter Grandfather's chest and intoxicate him for ever. The fact remained that Grandfather was hopelessly bad; he was a regular misanthrope; his ticks were so many curses, his strikings were oaths. He did his best to mislead the two grandchildren, although it didn't matter much, because time is of no account on Dartmoor. "He'm a proper old brute, Gran'vaither," Peter would say sometimes, but never in the old clock's hearing.
Mary's mission in life was to breed geese. She had been sent into the world for the express purpose of supplying folk with savoury meat stuffed with sage and onions at Christmas time. She succeeded admirably. She was the best goosewoman on Dartmoor, and her birds were always in demand. One year Peter had obtained a shilling a pound for three unusually fine young birds; but Mary didn't know that. She fattened her geese, and incidentally Peter also.
"They'm contrairy birds," observed Farmer Chegwidden, while he smoked and rested himself upon a boulder, watching Mary's efforts to collect her flock. "Never goes the way us want 'em to. Like volks," he added, with philosophic calm. He might have been assisting Mary, only he didn't believe in violent exercise which would not be suitably rewarded.
"Volks calls 'en vulish, but they bain't. They'm just vull o' human vices," said Mary, flopping to and fro and waving her furze-bush.
"They'm vulish to look at," explained Farmer Chegwidden.
"'Tis their artful way. Peter looks vulish tu, and he knows plenty. More'n any of they goosies, I reckon. Coop, coop! Drat the toad! I'll scat 'en."
The leader of the feathered choir was off again. Chegwidden could have headed it off, only he had finished his day's work. He managed to summon up the energy to remark, "They gets over the ground surprising, wi' their wings spread."
"He'm a proper little brute. I wun't waste no more time over 'en," said Mary, as she wiped her forehead with a bunch of fern. "He'll come home when he've a mind to, and lay his egg in the linny likely, where Peter'll tread on 'en in the morning. Peter be cruel clumsy wi' his boots. Will ye please to step inside, Varmer Chegwidden?"
"I mun get home. Got the bullocks to feed."
"Fine bullocks tu. I seed 'em down cleave last night. Cooey, cooey! Come along home, my purty angels. Wish ye good-night, Varmer Chegwidden."
"Why du'ye call 'em angels?" asked the farmer, making strange sounds of laughter behind his hand.
"Aw now, I'll tell ye. There was a lady down along, a dafty lady what painted, and her come to Peter, and her ses, 'I wants they goosies to paint.' Well, us wouldn't have it. Us thought her wanted to paint 'em, one of 'em red, 'nother green likely, 'nother yellow maybe, and it might be bad for their bellies. But us found her wanted to put 'em on a picture. Her had got a mazed notion about the cleave and resurrection, wi' angels flapping over, and her wanted my goosies for angels. Peter ses he didn't know goosies were like angels. Knows a lot, Peter du."
"Angels be like gals," declared Chegwidden. "Like them gals to Tavistock what pulls the beer, wi' pert faces and vuzzy hair. That's what angels be like. I've seed the pictures in a Bible."
"Aw now. Us couldn't make she out," went on Mary. "The lady said 'twas just the wings her wanted. Her said angels ha' got goosies' wings, and us couldn't say 'em hasn't, 'cause us ain't seed any. Her knew all about it. So Peter druve the goosies down cleave, and her painted 'em for angels sure 'nuff. Us never knew angels has goosies' wings, but the lady knew. Her was sure on't."
Mary stalked towards the hut-circles at the head of her row of geese, grave, waddling, self-important, and blissfully unconscious of anything in the nature of sage and onions. There was a touch of humour about the procession. It was not altogether unlike the spectacle to be witnessed in certain country boroughs of the mayor and corporation walking into church.
"Goosies be cruel human," said Mary.
Up the road from Brentor to St. Mary Tavy came Brightly, his basket dragging on his arm. He was very tired, but there was nothing unusual in that. He was tired to the point of exhaustion every day. He was very hungry, but he was used to that too. He was thinking of bread and cheese and cider; new bread and soft cheese, and cider with a rough edge to it. He licked his lips, and tried to believe he was tasting them. Then he began to cough. It was a long, heaving cough, something like that of a Dartmoor pony. He had to put his basket down and lean over it, and tap at his thin chest with a long raw hand.
Nobody wanted Brightly, because he was not of the least importance. He hadn't got a home, or a vote, or any of those things which make the world desire the presence of people. He was only a nuisance, who worried desirable folk that he might exist, though the people whom he worried did not ask him to live. Brightly was a purveyor of rabbit-skins. He dealt in rubbish, possibly because he was rubbish himself. He tramped about Dartmoor, between Okehampton and Tavistock, collecting rabbit-skins. When he was given them for nothing he was grateful, but his stock of gratitude was not drawn upon to any large extent. It is not the way of Dartmoor folk to part with even rubbish for nothing. To obtain his rabbit-skins Brightly had to dip his raw hand beneath the scrap of oilcloth which covered his basket, and produce a horrible little red and yellow vase which any decent-minded person would have destroyed at sight. Brightly bore most things fairly well, but when, on one occasion while climbing over the rocks, he had dropped the basket and all the red and yellow vases were smashed to atoms, he had cried. He had been tired and hungry as usual, and knew he had lost the capital without which a man cannot do business. The dropping of that basket meant bankruptcy to Brightly.
The dealer in rabbit-skins was not alone in the world. He had a dog, which was rubbish like its master. The animal was of no recognised breed, although in a dim light it called itself a fox-terrier. She could not have been an intelligent dog, or she would not have remained constant to Brightly. Her name was Ju, which was an abbreviation of Jerusalem. One Sunday evening Brightly had slipped inside a church, and somewhat to his surprise had been allowed to remain, although a sidesman was told off to keep an eye upon him and see that he did not break open the empty poor-box. A hymn was sung about Jerusalem the golden, a piece of pagan doggerel concerning the future state, where happy souls were indulging in bacchanalian revels, and over-eating themselves in a sort of glorified dairy filled with milk and honey. The hymn enraptured Brightly, who was, of course, tired and famished; and when he had left the warm church, although without any of the promised milk and honey, he kept on murmuring the lines and trying to recall the music. He could think of nothing but Jerusalem for some days. He went into the public library at Tavistock and looked it up in a map of the world, discovered it was in a country called Palestine, and wondered how many rabbit-skins it would cost to take him there. Brightly reckoned in rabbit-skins, not in shillings and pence, which were matters he was not very familiar with. He noticed that whenever he mentioned the name of Jerusalem the dog wagged her tail, as though she too was interested in the dairy produce; so, as the animal lacked a title, Jerusalem was awarded her. Brightly thought of the milk and honey whenever he called his poor half-starved cur.
Presently he thought he had coughed long enough, so he picked up his basket and went on climbing the road, his body bent as usual towards the right. At a distance he looked like the half of a circle. He could not stand straight. The weight of his basket and habit had crooked him like an oak branch. He tramped on towards the barren village of St. Mary Tavy. There was a certain amount of wild scenery to be admired. Away to the right was Brentor and the church upon its crags. To the left were piled the "deads" of the abandoned copper-mines. The name of Wheal Friendship might have had a cheerful sound for Brightly had he known what friendship meant. He didn't look at the scenery, because he was half blind. He could see his way about, but that was all. He lived in the twilight. He wore a big pair of unsightly spectacles with tortoise-shell rims. His big eyes were always staring widely behind the glasses, seeing all they could, which was the little bit of road in front and no more.
Brightly was known about that particular part of the moor which he frequented as the Seal. Every one laughed whenever the Seal was mentioned. Brightly's wardrobe consisted chiefly of an old and very tightly-fitting suit of black, distinctly clerical in cut. They had been obtained from a Wesleyan shepherd in exchange for a pair of red and yellow vases to embellish the mantel of the nonconforming parlour. Rain is not unknown upon Dartmoor, and in the neighbourhood of St. Mary Tavy it descends with pitiless violence. Brightly would be quickly saturated, having no means of protecting himself; and then the tight clerical garments, sodden and sleek and shining, would certainly bear some resemblance to the coat of a seal which had just left the sea; a resemblance which was not lessened by his wizened little face and weary shuffling gait.
Brightly did not think much while he tramped the moor. He had no right to think. It was not in the way of business. Still, he had his dream, not more than one, because he was not troubled with an active imagination. He tried to fancy himself going about, not on his tired rheumatic legs, but in a little ramshackle cart, with fern at the bottom for Ju to lie on, and a bit of board at the side bearing in white letters the inscription: "A. Brightly. Purveyor of rabbit-skins"; and a lamp to be lighted after dark, and a plank for himself to sit on, and a box behind containing the red and yellow vases. All this splendour to be drawn by a little shaggy pony. What a great man he would be in those days! Starting forth in the morning would be a pleasure and not a pain. Frequently Brightly babbled of his hypothetical cart. He felt sure it must come some day, and so he had begun to prepare for it. He had secured the plank upon which he was to sit and guide the pony, and every autumn he cut some fern to put at the bottom of the cart should it arrive suddenly. The plank he had picked up, and the fern had been cut upon the moor. He had clearly no right to them. The plank had probably slipped out of a granite cart, and the fern belonged to the commoners. There was plenty of it for every one, but, as the commoners would have argued, that was not the point. They had a right to cut the fern, and people like Brightly have no right to anything, except a cheap funeral. Brightly had no business to wander about the moor, which was never made for him, or to kick his boots to pieces against good Duchy of Cornwall granite. All the commoners cheated the Duchy of Cornwall, while they loyally cheered the name of the Duke. They took his granite and skilfully evaded payment of the royalty, and prayed each Sunday in their chapels for grace to continue in honesty; but the fact of their being commoners, some of them having the privilege of the newtake, and others not having the privilege but taking it all the same, made all the difference. They had to assert themselves. When it came to a question of a few extra shillings in the money-box, or even of a few extra pence, minor matters, such as petty tyrannical ordinances of law and Church, could take their seats in a back corner and "bide there." Brightly had no privileges. He had to obey every one. He was only a worm which any one was at perfect liberty to slice in half with a spade.
Brightly had a home. The river saw to that; not the Tavy, but the less romantic Taw. Brightly belonged to the Torridge and Taw branch of the family. On the Western side of Cawsand are many gorges in the great cleave cut by the Taw between Belstone and Sticklepath. There narrow and deep clefts have been made by the persistent water draining down to the Taw from the bogs above. In the largest of these clefts Brightly was at home. The sides were completely hidden by willow-scrub, immense ferns, and clumps of whortleberries, as well as by overhanging masses of granite. The water could be heard dripping below like a chime of fairy bells. In winter the cleft appeared a white cascade of falling water, but Brightly's cave was fairly dry and quite sheltered. He was never there by day, and at night nobody could see the smoke of his fire. He had built up the entrance with shaped stones taken from the long-abandoned cots beside the old copper-mines below. The cleft was full of copper, which stained the water a delightful shade of green. Brightly had furnished his home with those things which others had thrown away. He had long ago solved the difficulty of cooking with a perforated frying-pan, and of turning to practical uses a kettle with a bottom like a sieve.
Brightly reached the moor gate. On the other side was the long straggling village of St. Mary Tavy. Beside the gate was a heap of refuse. Brightly seated himself upon it, because he thought it was the proper place for him.
"I be cruel hungry, Ju," explained Brightly.
"So be I," said the dog's tail.
"Fair worn to bits tu," went on Brightly.
"Same here," said the tail.
"Wait till us has the cart," said Brightly cheerily, placing the rabbit-skins upon the dirt beside him. "Us won't be worn to bits then. Us will du dree times the business, and have a cottage and potato-patch, and us will have bread and cheese two times a day and barrel o' cider in the linny. Us will have fat bacon on Sundays tu."
Brightly did not know that ambition is an evil thing. It was ridiculous for him to aspire to a cottage and potato-patch, and bread and cheese three times a day. Kindly souls had created stately mansions for such as he. There was one at Tavistock and another in Okehampton; beautiful buildings equipped with all modern conveniences where he could live in comfort, and not worry his head about rabbit-skins, or about Ju, or about such follies as liberty and independence, or about such unnecessary aids to existence as the moorland wind, his river Taw, the golden blossoms of the gorse, the moonlight upon the rocks, and the sweet scent of heather. Brightly was an unreasonable creature to work and starve when a large stone mansion was waiting for him.
"Us ha' come a cruel long way, Ju," said the little man, descending from his dream. "Only two rabbit-skins. Business be cruel bad. Us mun get on. This be an awkward village to work. It be all scattery about like."
Brightly rose with some alacrity. The moor gate rattled. The hand of the village constable was upon it, and the eyes of that official, who was to Brightly, at least, a far more considerable person than the Lord Chief Justice, were regarding the vagabond with a suspicion which was perfectly natural considering their respective positions.
"Good-evening, sir," said Brightly with deep humility. The policeman was not called upon to answer such things as Brightly. He condescended, however, to observe in the severe tones which his uniform demanded: "Best be moving on, hadn't ye?"
Brightly agreed that it was advisable. He was well aware he had no right to be sitting upon the heap of refuse. He had probably damaged it In some way. The policeman had his bicycle with him, as he was on his way to Lydford. Brightly stood in a reverential attitude, held the gate open, and touched his cap as the great man rolled by. The constable accepted the service, without thanks, and looked back until the little wanderer was out of sight. Such creatures could be turned to profitable uses after all. They could be made to supply industrious village constables with opportunities for promotion. They could be arrested and charged with house-breaking, rick-burning, or swaling out of season; if such charges could not be supported, they could be summoned for keeping a dog without a licence. The policeman made a note of Brightly, as business was not very flourishing just then. There was the usual amount of illegality being practised by the commoners; but the village constable had nothing to do with that. Commoners are influential folk. A man could not meddle with them and retain his popularity. The policeman had to be polite to his social superiors, and salute the elders of Ebenezer with a bowed head, and wink violently when it was incumbent upon him so to do.
Dartmoor has no reason to be proud of St. Mary Tavy, as it is quite the dreariest-looking village upon the moor. Even the river seems to be rather ashamed of it, and turns away as if from a poor relation. St. Peter, over the way, is much more cheerful. They were well-to-do once, these two. They were not only saints, but wealthy, in the good days when the wheals were working and the green stain of copper was upon everything. Now they have come down in the world. The old gentleman lets lodgings, and the old lady takes in washing. They have put away their halos, dropped their saintly prefix, and it is exceedingly improbable that they will ever want them again. They always found it hard work to live up to their reputations; not that they tried very much; but now they are both easy and comfortable as plain everyday folk, neither better nor worse than their neighbours Brentor and Lydford. Peter is a fine, rugged old gentleman; but Mary is decidedly plain with age. There is nothing tender or pleasant about her. She is shamelessly naked; without trees or bushes, and the wheal-scarred moor around is as bald as an apple. The wind comes across her head with the blast of ten thousand bagpipes; and when it rains upon St. Mary—it rains!
Brightly knew all about that rain. He had often played the Seal upon that wild road, and had felt the water trickling down his back and making reservoirs of his boots; while people would stand at their windows and laugh at him. Nobody had ever asked him to come in and take shelter. Such an idea would never have occurred to them. Ponies and bullocks were out upon the moor in all weathers, and every winter some died from exposure. Brightly was nothing like so valuable as a pony or bullock, and if he were to die of exposure nobody would be out of pocket.
Brightly went from cottage to cottage, but there were no rabbit-skins that day. There seemed to be a rabbit famine just then. Lamps were lighted in windows here and there. When the doors were opened Brightly felt the warmth of the room, smelt the glowing peat and the fragrant teapot, and sometimes saw preparations for a meal. What a wonderful thing it must be, he thought, to have a room of one's own; a hearth, and a mantelpiece holding china dogs, cows with purple spots, and photographs of relations in the Army; a table covered with rare and precious things, such as waxen fruit beneath a dome of glass, woollen mats, and shells from foreign lands; a clock in full working order; a dresser stocked with red and green crockery; and upon the walls priceless oleographs framed in blue ribbon, designed and printed in Austria, and depicting their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, simpering approvingly at a scarlet Abraham in the act of despatching a yellow Isaac with a bright-blue scimitar. Brightly sighed as each door was closed upon him, and each smoky little paradise disappeared. He was having a run of bad luck. Ju knew all about it. She put what was left of her tail between her legs and shivered. No doubt she wished she had been born into the world a genuine dog, and not a mongrel; just as Brightly sometimes wished he had been born a real human being, and not a poor thing which dealt in rabbit-skins.
He reached the top of the village. The road heaved above him, and then came the bare upland. He could do no more that evening. There was no food, or fire, or shelter for him. He knew of a barn in which he could sleep at Brentor, but it was too late to go back there. Darkness was coming on. Brightly did not require to feel in his pocket to discover the state of his finances. He knew he had just twopence.
There was a gate beside him, and on the other side a row of very small whitewashed cottages one room high, which had been built for miners in the days when Mary Tavy had been a saint and prosperous; they were then occupied by assorted families. Brightly stumbled through and knocked at the door of the first. It was opened by a young woman nursing a baby; another was hanging to her skirts; a third sprawled under the table; there was a baby in a cradle, another wrapped upon a chair. It appeared to be a congress of babies. The place was crawling with them. It was a regular baby-warren. They had been turned out wholesale. Even Brightly felt he had come to the wrong place, as he asked the extraordinarily fertile female if she would give him a cup of tea and piece of bread for one penny.
The answer was in the negative. The woman was inclined to be hysterical, which was not surprising considering her surroundings. She was alone in the house, if she could be called alone when it was hardly possible to step across the floor for babies which were lying about like bees under a lime-tree. Brightly was known as a vagabond. He looked quite the sort of man who would murder her and all the children. She told him to go away, and when he did not move, because he had not heard, she began to scream.
"I'll send for policeman if ye don't go. You'm a bad man. Us knows ye. Coming here to scare me, just as I be going to have a baby tu. 'Twill be cross-eyed, poor dear, wi' yew overlooking me. Get along wi' yew, or I'll call neighbours."
Brightly begged her pardon in his soft voice and went. He knew it was no use trying the other cottages. The woman with the army of children would only follow from door to door, and describe how he had insulted her. He made his way to the top of the village and sat upon the hedge. Ju crouched beside him and licked his boots. It was a fine evening, only they were too hungry to appreciate it properly.
"Us mun get food, or us wun't tramp far in the morning," said Brightly. "This wind du seem to mak' a stomach feel cruel empty."
"Makes a dog's stomach empty too, father," said the eloquent tail of Ju.
"Us will go to the shop, and get what us can for a penny. Mun keep one penny for to-morrow," said Brightly.
He turned his dim eyes towards the road. A horse was trotting up the long hill, and presently he saw it; a big ugly grey with a shaggy coat. Brightly knew who it was approaching him, and had there been time he would have hidden, because he was afraid of the man who rode. "It be Varmer Pendoggat," he whispered. "Don't ye growl, Ju."
Possibly the rider would have passed without a word, but the grey horse saw the creatures upon the hedge and shied, crushing the rider's leg against one of the posts opposite. This was unfortunate for Brightly, as it was clearly his fault. Quaint objects with big spectacles and rabbit-skins have no business to sit upon a hedge in the twilight. He had frightened the horse, just as he had frightened the woman with a family. The horse had hurt his master, and Pendoggat was not the sort of man to suffer patiently.
There is a certain language which must not be described. It may be heard to perfection in the cheap enclosures at race-meetings, in certain places licensed to sell beer, at rabbit-shoots, and in other places where men of narrow foreheads come together and seem to revert to a type of being which puzzles the scientist, because there is nothing else in the entire animal world quite like it. Pendoggat made use of that language. He had a low forehead, a scowling face, small eyes, which looked anywhere except at the object addressed, bushy black moustache, and high cheek-bones. He never laughed, but when he was angry he grinned, and spittle ran down his chin. He was a strong man; it was said he could pick up a sack of flour with one hand. He could have taken Brightly and broken him up like a rotten stick. Most people were respectful to Pendoggat. The village constable would have retired on a pension rather than offend him.
"I be sorry, sir. I be cruel sorry," muttered poor shivering Brightly. "I did bide still, sir, and I told the dog to bide still tu. I hopes you hain't hurt, sir. Don't ye be hard on I, sir. Us have had a bad day, and us be hungry, sir."
Pendoggat replied with more of the same language. He tried to destroy Ju with his thick ground-ash, but the wise cur escaped. Then he sidled the horse towards the hedge, and crushed Brightly against its stones. He saw nothing pathetic in the poor thin creature's quivering face and half-blind eyes; but he obtained some enjoyment out of the piping cry for mercy. Brightly thought he was going to be killed, and though he didn't mind that much, he did not want to be tortured.
"Don't ye, sir. Don't ye hurt I," he cried. "I didn't mean it, sir. I was biding quiet. You'm hurting I cruel, sir. I'll give ye two vases, sir, purty vases, if yew lets I go."
Pendoggat struck his horse, and the animal started back. Brightly reached his raw hand up the hedge and lifted his basket tenderly. It was like losing flesh and blood to part with his vases, but freedom from persecution was worth any ransom. He removed the oil-cloth. What was left of the light softened the hideous ware and made the crude colouring endurable.
"Tak' two, sir," said Brightly piteously. "Them's the best, sir."
"Give me up the basket," Pendoggat muttered.
The shivering little man lifted it. Pendoggat snatched at the handle, pulled out a vase, and flung it against the stone hedge. There was a sharp sound, and then the road became spotted with red and yellow fragments.
This was something which Brightly could hardly understand. It was too raw and crude. He stood in the road, with his hands swaying like two pendulums against his thin legs, and wondered why the world had been made and what was the object of it all. There was another crash, and a second shower of red and yellow fragments. Pendoggat had selected his pair of vases, and he was also enjoying himself. He looked up and down, saw there was no one in sight; Dartmoor is a wild and lawless place, and nobody could dictate to him. He was a commoner; master of the rivers and the granite. Brightly said nothing. He lifted a red hand for his basket, which contained what was left of his capital, but Pendoggat only struck the clumsy fingers with his ground-ash. It was darker, but a wild gleam was showing over what had been Gubbings Land. The moon was coming up that way.
"I'll learn ye to scare my horse," growled Pendoggat. "I saw you shake your hand at him. I heard you setting on the dog. If I was to give you what you deserve, I'd—" He lifted his arm, and there was another crash, and more flesh and blood were wasted.
"Don't ye, sir," cried Brightly bitterly. "It be ruin, sir. I tored they once avore, and 'twas nigh a month 'vore I could start again. I works hard, sir, and I du try, but I've got this asthma, sir, and rheumatism, and I can't properly see, master. I've been in hospital to Plymouth, sir, but they ses I would never properly see. 'Tis hard to start again, master, and I ain't got friends. Don't ye tear any more, master. I'll never get right again."
Pendoggat went on smashing the vases. There were not many of them, not nearly enough to satisfy him. The last was shattered, and he flung the basket at Brightly, hitting him on the head, but fortunately not breaking his spectacles. Brightly wanted to be alone; to crawl into the bracken with Ju, and think about many things; only Pendoggat would not let him go.
"Hand up those rabbit-skins," he shouted. He was growing excited. Smashing the vases had put passion into him.
"I've tramped ten miles for they, master. Sourton to Lydford, and Lydford to Brentor, and Brentor to Mary Tavy. Times be very bad, sir. Ten miles for two rabbit-skins, master."
"Hand them up, or I'll break your head."
Brightly had to obey. Pendoggat flung the skins across the saddle and grinned. He passed his sleeve across his lips, then put out his arm, seized Brightly by the scarf round his neck, and dragged him near. "If I was to give ye one or two across the head, 'twould learn ye not to scare horses," he said.
Brightly shivered a little more, and lifted his wizened face.
"Got any money? Tell me the truth, or I'll pull the rags off ye."
"Duppence, master. 'Tis all I has now you'm torn the cloam and got my rabbit-skins. If it warn't for the duppence I don't know what me and Ju would du."
"Hand it over," said Pendoggat.
"I can't, master. I can't," whispered Brightly, gulping like a dying fish.
"Hand it over, or I'll strangle ye." Then in a fit of passion he dragged Brightly right across the saddle and tore his pocket open. The two copper coins fell into his hand. He dropped Brightly upon the red and yellow fragments, which cut his raw hands, then hit his horse, and rode on triumphing. He had punished the miserable little dealer in rubbish; and he fancied Brightly would not venture to frighten his horse again.
Pendoggat rode up to the high moor and felt the wind. He was about to strike his horse into a canter, when a spectre started out of the gloom, a wizened face reached his knee, an agonised voice cried: "Give I back my duppence, master. Give I back my duppence."
Pendoggat shivered. He did not enjoy the sound of that voice, or the sight of that face. He thought of death when he saw that face. Brightly was only one of the mean things of the earth, and mean things make a fuss about trifles. That face and that voice all over the loss of twopence! Probably the wretched thing was mad. Honest men are often frightened when they see lunatics.
"Us be cruel hungry, master. Us have eaten nought all day. Us have lost our cloam and our rabbit-skins. Give I back my duppence, master. I'll work for ye to-morrow."
Pendoggat hit his horse, and the animal cantered away, and the spectre troubled him no longer. He wiped his chin again and felt satisfied. He had made a poor creature suffer. There was a certain amount of crude pleasure in that thought. But why had that face and voice suggested death, the death of a man who has used his power to deprive a poor wretch of his vineyard? Pendoggat flung the rabbit-skins into the gaping pit of a mine-shaft and cantered on. He was a free man; he was a commoner; the rivers and the rocks were his.