CHAPTER IV
THOUGH spring blew warm and soft from the west and Garth village saw its trim, quiet gardens blossom out to welcome the young summer, there was unrest about, as if an east wind blew.
Neighbours passed the time of day together, and farmers from the hills came down and stayed to ask if this God’s weather-time would last.
“Likely not,” was the answer always.
“Ay, likely not,” the farmers would agree, though their wholesome, wind-blown faces suggested a more friendly outlook even on the weather.
“Ye’re looking glum-like, misters,” said Billy, stepping up one morning to a group of them who stood chatting in Garth. It was a week after Reuben Gaunt had walked across the fields with Peggy Mathewson.
They were not aware of any special gloom, but began to think it must be true if Billy said so.
“And I’ll tell ye why,” went on the Fool imperturbably. “Te-he! I’ll tell ye why, ye wise farm-folk. Simple and fain to play am I; but I think a lot, just whiles and whiles, and Billy can answer riddles when more sensible-like folk seem bothered.”
These farmer-folk, who could guide a plough, turned all to Billy the Fool, who could not guide his own reason. They waited for him to tell the cause of their ailment—an ailment of his own discovering, not of theirs—as ifhe had been the village doctor or the village parson, or something more practical than either; and Billy, finding himself the hero of this springtime gathering in Garth village, laughed vacantly.
“Tell ye the answer to yond riddle in a brace of shakes, farmers all. Easy as tumbling off a wall; but ye wise folk look downwards when ye see a stone fence, and wonder how ye’ll light. Shameful poor thing to wonder how you’re going to fall off a wall. Never did think o’ the matter myself. Just climbs up, and drops soft-like down, does Billy, and finds himself on t’ other side somehow.”
“Ay, ye’re plump enough to fall soft, Billy,” laughed a red-cheeked farmer.
It was curious to see his brethren check the unruly speaker with nods and murmurs; they were men, for the most part, who had seen the frosts of April come to nip the April buds, and therefore they were superstitious. It boded ill to laugh at Billy the Fool when he wore the look he did just now, for to them all naturals were “wise.”
“Tell us, Billy,” said a grey old man coaxingly, as if he held a baby in his arms.
“Well, now, I will, seeing ye put it that way.” The natural’s placid smile roved from one to another of the group. “Could tell ye in a twinkling, farmer-folk, if I were minded to.”
“Tuts, thou’rt minded to,” said the grey old man, coaxing still. “Ye can tell us how the weather sits, and where the first nest goes a-building—surely ye can tell us what’s the matter with Garth village?”
“Ay, I could tell ye,” said Billy the Fool, his slow smile spreading like quiet sunshine on them all. “’Tis Reuben Gaunt ails Garth. Don’t need the likes o’ he, misters; he’s, as ye might say, a cuckoo in the wrong nest.”
The men looked at one another. Billy the interpreterhad put into words for them a vague unrest that had been with them during these past weeks. It was not that they bore Gaunt of Marshlands ill will; they were too forthright and too clean of habit to harbour malice. It was rather that they all felt as if the grey village was itself no longer; they had remembered Gaunt’s record before he left them, and the peace that followed his long wanderings abroad. And now, at a word from Billy, they understood these matters.
“Hadn’t ye thought of it afore?” asked Billy, his lazy eyes as full of laughter as a moorland pool when April breezes sport across it. “Knew it myself the first day I clapped een on Reuben Gaunt Te-he! Ye’re fearful wise and terrible hard in the head-piece, misters, but ’tis soft Billy has to guide ye time and time.”
“We’ll give you credit for it too,” muttered the grey old man.
“Never had money myself—not to speak of,” he said, with a tranquil chuckle. “Spoils folk’s lives and bothers ’em, does money, so I’ve heard tell. Cannot lie under a hedgerow on June nights and hear the birds a-twittering them to sleep. Must be prisoned in a great big bed, must folks wi’ money, and have a great big roof sitting down on them. Not for Billy the Fool, thank ye, that sort o’ smothered life! But there’s summat else, misters. Ye who’ve got money, like, might do a service to Garth village.”
“Ay, and how, if a body might ask?” said a kindly farmer.
“Well now, ye might take your shovels and a big sack, each of ye, and ye might spade your money into ’t sack.”
A friendly smile passed from one to another of the farmers. Billy the Dreamer had stepped in front of Billy the Wise Fool, and they waited for a jest. There was afine, free suggestion of untold wealth about the lad’s talk of a shovel and a sack that appealed to their humour. For they had tended, all of them, the niggard fields.
“Then ye’d bring your sacks o’ gold,” went on the natural—his face was so solemn and so sly that none could guess whether or not he knew that he was jesting—“and ye’d pour your gold out right along the roadway here, and Reuben Gaunt would never see that the daffy-down-dillies were fuller of sunshine than the gold that strewed Garth Street.”
“To be sure he wouldn’t,” said the grey old man. His tone suggested the quietness of a man who sees a moorland trout spreading dark fins in a pool, and moves warily to tickle him out on to the bank.
“Ye see,” went on Billy, with his inscrutable, large air, “ye see, ye might put it to him this way. ‘Reuben Gaunt,’ ye’d say—or ‘Mister Reuben Gaunt,’ seeing he owns land—‘silly boy Gaunt,’ ye’d say, ‘just look ye at all this shovelled gold that lines Garth Street.’ And he’d answer, ‘What o’ that?’ And ye’d answer back, ‘Silly boy Gaunt,’ ye’d say, ‘there’s a line of gold from here to Elm Tree Inn. ’Tis yours for asking,’ ye’d say, ‘granted ye do one thing. Oh, ay, ’tis yours for sure, granted ye do one thing.’”
“And what’s that one thing, Billy?” rapped out the grey-haired farmer.
“Why, that he’d quit Garth and take the gold along with him. Never would miss gold and Reuben Gaunt myself. What say ye, misters? Billy the Fool’s a child, but somehow, as a chap might say, his head is screwed on right foremost way. Give him your gold, say I, and shift him out o’ Garth.”
A great laugh went up. These farmers, not greedy of money by nature, but fond of it, as most north-born peopleare, saw the slow humour of that trail of gold which ended at the Elm Tree Inn.
“And what when Reuben Gaunt had quitted, Billy?” asked one.
Billy the Fool took out a black and antique pipe before replying. There were half-a-dozen pouches waiting for him on the instant, and he filled from the first offered—Priscilla’s father’s, as it chanced—and borrowed a match. Billy was always borrowing from his neighbours, and thrived on it.
“Well, look ye here, neighbour-folk,” he said, puffing long trails of smoke into the sunlit quiet of Garth. “I reckon there’d be ease of heart, and spring a-coming in, when Reuben Gaunt had left us. Don’t know myself, misters, but that’s what Billy the Fool has to say to ye wise folk.”
They left him by and by, one or two of them patting him affectionately on the shoulder, and went down the street in twos and threes. It chanced to be market-day in Shepston, as any dweller on the fells could have told, seeing so many farmers in Garth Street at this hour of a busy springtime morning.
“Slow and wise is Billy,” said one to the other as they walked between the limestone wall on one hand, the budding hedgerow on the other.
“Ay, knows a lot. Only lacks the trick o’ letting out all he knows, or we’d be wiser, Daniel, us folk in Garth.”
Billy meanwhile leaned placidly against the grindstone which stood at the road-edge just this side of Widow Lister’s cottage. The grindstone had been out of work these many years, and the lichens gave it a mellow dignity such as sits on old men after their labour is done, and well done, and the resting-time has come. Perhaps, if you had asked the lovers of Garth village to name their friendliestlandmark, they would have said at once, “Why, th’ old grindstone. Have leaned against it many a time, and talked right good sense the while on summer’s evenings.”
Billy was not talking now. One could not have said whether he were thinking even, so imperturbably he watched the smoke from his pipe curl up into the blue and tranquil air. Yet, just as he had been the interpreter of Garth’s unrest not long ago, he was the interpreter of spring just now. Like some primeval dweller in the green forests of a younger world, Billy the Fool looked out at nature, and watched the seasons pass him, and knew that weather and fresh air were relatives of his. They pitied him in Garth, as having no kin; but Billy, had he found words at any time in which to speak of it, could have told them, with that sudden, easy laugh of his, that he had a mother and sister-folk and brothers.
“Might as well be wending down-street way,” he said at last, shaking himself as he stood upright and knocking out the ashes from his pipe. “Terrible lad to smoke is Billy, and I feel the need of another pipeful, as a chap might say. Will go and sit on the seat, under the old elm tree, and happen a body’s body might come along and offer me a fill.”
The big tree in the roadway, fronting the inn to which it gave its name, was browning fast, in token of green leaves to come. The wide circle of the street here, where three roads met, was shimmering in the sunshine as if new-washed and wholesome.
“Terrible fond of a seat is this plump lad,” murmured Billy, sinking carefully into the oaken bench that circled the great elm.
He sat there, empty pipe in mouth, and he watched young April glow upon the inn-front and the further hillsbehind. Great faith had Billy, and therefore great tranquillity; and, though he hungered for another pipe, he sat beneath the elm tree, as if tobacco fell, as dew falls, from the skies of eventide.
As he waited, noting lazily for the twentieth time that the wagtails had returned to Garth and were dusting themselves in the roadway, Reuben Gaunt came down the street. The natural saw him—scented him rather, so it seemed—a hundred yards away; and he shifted the empty pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, and gripped it with his teeth.
“Hallo, Billy, give you good day!” said Gaunt, as he came nearer. It was Reuben’s way at all times to conciliate a fool, if he were strong and liable to play Fool’s-Day jests with a man by dropping him into a nettle-bed. “Give you good day, Billy. An empty pipe, eh? Well, I’ve a full pouch at your service.”
Billy yearned for another fill and another borrowed match wherewith to light it; and they thought him weak of will in Garth, but now he looked over and beyond the tempter.
“Thank ye, no. I’ve smoked enough for a daft boy’s head-piece to withstand that same,” he said, with the courtesy which seldom failed him. “I be looking at the springtime gathering over Garth, Mr. Gaunt, and I do seem, as a witless chap might say, to have scant thought for baccy.”
“But a right good brew of ale?” suggested Gaunt, nodding at the grey and newly pointed front of the Elm Tree Inn. Like a child, Reuben was always most eager to have his way when he was thwarted. “A right good brew of ale, Billy? You like it, so they say, and have a head to stand it, too.”
A second and an equal temptation came to Billy theFool. He was silent for awhile, and turned the matter round about in that queer mind of his.
“Thank ye, no, Mr. Gaunt,” he said at last, with desperate sobriety. “I’m busy as can be with thinking o’ Miss Good Intent. She wouldn’t like to see either of us drinking ale at this hour of a spring morning.”
“Give you good day again, Billy,” said Gaunt, his little sense of humour leaving him.
“Ay, glad to give ye good day,” answered Billy, and watched Gaunt follow the line of the grey street.
Billy sat on beneath the elm tree and hoped for better things than Reuben Gaunt could ever bring him. Yet he looked wistfully from time to time, first at the inn-front, then at his pipe.
“They’re heartsome matters, now, are a half-pint of beer and a pipe o’ baccy. Ye’d own to yourself, Billy—now, wouldn’t ye?—that they were heartsome matters,” he murmured.
Reuben Gaunt, meanwhile, had turned up the lane that led to Good Intent. He knew that John Hirst would be at Shepston market, and was sure therefore of his welcome at the farm. He did not get as far as the house, however, for Priscilla was standing in the home-croft as he came through the stile. From sheer frolic she had donned a sun-bonnet, pretending that this April sunshine was overwarm to bear uncovered. The bonnet was pink, and her simple gown was lavender-blue, and she looked, to Gaunt’s eyes, the trimmest and the bonniest maid that he had seen in all his travels.
She was feeding a noisy multitude of hens and turkeys, and it was pleasant to see how carefully the bigger birds refrained from stealing from the fowls—nay, left the tit-bits to them often, and showed altogether the behaviour of a big, good-tempered dog towards a small and fussy one.
It was the turkey-cock that first warned Priscilla of Gaunt’s approach. The “prideful devil,” as Billy the Fool had called him, was proving his right to the title in good earnest. His tail was spread, his wattle grew and grew until the head of him was crimson as a wild-rose berry when autumn’s sunshine lights the hedgerows. He made towards Gaunt, moreover, with little steps that in their fretfulness and self-importance suggested comedy.
Priscilla turned to learn the reason of this outbreak, and her eyes met Reuben’s. A delicate flush and a look of pleasure in the girl’s candid face was Gaunt’s welcome—a greeting which John Hirst would have understood had he been there.
“Good day,” she said sedately, and turned to feed her birds again.
Gaunt laughed bitterly.
“Do you see the turkey-cock’s welcome, Cilla? All the male folk of Garth seem out of humour with me somehow.”
It was another sign of the new days which Reuben had ushered into Garth—one of those signs which are no bigger than a cloud the size of a man’s hand—that Priscilla of the Good Intent did not resent the shortened name which few but her father had been privileged to use till now.
“You are out of heart with life,” she said, scattering the last of the food abroad and turning to meet his glance again.
“Nay, life’s out of heart with me, Cilla. They seem to think I’m lying, these Garth folk, when I tell them I’d be glad to be here again among the old home-fields, if only they would let me.”
The man was sincere. It was a dangerous gift of his, this habit of speaking what was truth for the moment,though it had no quality of strength and purpose behind it.
It was a dangerous gift of his, too, that women were compelled, when near him, to feel an odd, protective instinct. Peggy Mathewson had felt the motherhood of life rise up and cloud her judgment as she walked with Reuben a week ago through the sunlit fields; and now Priscilla of the Good Intent felt pity’s strength awake.
“’Tis a bad habit,” she said, moving a little closer to him, “this being out of heart with life, Reuben”—forgetting that she had vowed to call him Mr. Gaunt perpetually. “There’s enough and to spare of gladness, and we must just search for it when times fare ill. Shame on you, to go whimpering like a child when spring is flooding all the countryside!”
She was not thinking for the moment of those fairy seas and lands which Gaunt had painted for her. In this quiet field, with the turkeys and the fowls about her, she was answering the prime instinct of all human life—to better a sad man’s outlook on the world by spoken word, and, if need were, by that touch of hand on hand which she had disdained.
“Cilla,” said Gaunt, his face a man’s at last, because for his little moment he had gripped hold of love. “Cilla, you’re the sunlight and the joy of life to me. Have you never thought of wedlock?”
The girl withdrew and put a hand to her skirt of lavender-blue as if by instinct, and looked at the distant hills.
“I seldom think of it,” she answered crisply. “The spring and the needs of the feathered flock are enough for me.”
“Are they, Cilla? What of the beyond lands—or was I dreaming when you said you’d like to see them?”
Priscilla only smiled with the dainty aloofness which angered Reuben and enticed him.
“’Tis April,” she said, “and I’m entitled to my whimsies, like the weather. Besides, I met Billy the Fool in the lane yestreen, and he was showing other pictures to me. Nay, do not frown, Reuben,” she broke off, not guessing that Billy’s name was unwelcome to the other on more counts than one. “He knows the hedgerows and the fields so well, and he showed me things as old as the hills—things new and wonderful each spring—things that come to you again each year, Reuben, with a surprise that seems each year to grow fresher and more eager.”
“And what did he show you, Cilla?” asked the other jealously, turning to cry “Gobble-di-gobble-di-gobble” to the turkey-cock, and provoking a hot answer.
“The first wild-strawberry bloom, the first throstle’s nest, the first April look of Sharprise Hill when the sun slants on it through the clouds that mean no harm. Your foreign lands grow misty, Reuben, somehow, and I love Garth village once again. Billy had ever that trick—to make you wise in spite of yourself.”
Reuben paced up and down in a restless way he had; then he stopped and looked at Priscilla of the Good Intent, and in his eyes there was the mischief of a partial truth.
“Those beyond-places will haunt you, Cilla, all the same, and I could take you to them.”
The girl was silent for awhile, and then she drew her lavender-blue skirt more closely round her.
“Ay, so you could; but, Reuben, I prefer to stay at Garth with father. I’ve enough to do in a day, and am happy in it. Hark, ye! The throstle yonder is singing his throat dry. Did ye ever hear sweeter music, Reuben?”
On the bench that fronted Elm Tree Inn sat Billy the Fool meanwhile. He had waited, with his inimitable faith and patience, for a fill of tobacco and a half-pint of ale to drop from the skies; and his faith had been fulfilled, for down the road from his forge came David the Smith.
“Looking sulky-like,” said David, laying his bag of tools beside his crony and sitting near to him.
“Nay, not I. I never look sulky, David. ’Tis not good for this right wholesome world to look sulky,” said Billy. “I was thinking, David, and thinking makes a daft-witted chap have fearsome aches and pains in his inward parts, as a daft-witted chap might say.”
David gave out his big, rolling laugh as he clapped Billy on the back.
“Guess what’s a-going wrong with thee, laddikins. Empty pipe, I see.”
“Ay. And I’m empty o’ matches too,” said Billy, his face like Sharprise Hill with the April look on it.
“Empty in the low-ward parts, moreover,” he added, after he had filled his rakish pipe and lit it. “I’m terrible in need of a sup o’ summat, David. Reuben Gaunt came by this way awhile since and offered me what ye might call body-warmth, and I couldn’t seem to stomach it—nay, I couldn’t, David, not how he’d tried to pour it down my windpipe.”
“Gaunt been down to the village to-day?” snapped David. “Pretends to be a farmer, yet doesn’t go on farmward shanks to Shepston market come Thursday every week.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” said the other slowly, as he pulled eagerly at his pipe. “Mister Reuben Gaunt is not by way of farming, as I look on and see ye busy folk a-farming, like. Does it for play, like Billy.”
David rarely lost his temper, and still more rarely did he seek expression for his feelings in strong language; but now he was silent for a moment, thinking of his love for Priscilla, fearing Gaunt’s love of her; and a sudden cry escaped him.
“Damn Reuben Gaunt, and the first day he set eyes on Garth again!” he said.
“Shouldn’t swear, David,” put in the other slyly. “Parson do say, whenever he stoops to talk to the likes o’ me, that folk who swear go to a fearful dry and overwarm spot. He’s wiser than ye or me, is parson, David, and we should listen to him, we.”
“Then he should tell us,” responded David grimly, “why deep-set troubles come to a man, Billy, without his earning them, and why a man must swear at times, or else do something worse.”
“Ay, ’tis a terrible makeshift sort of a world—terrible makeshift, David; but yet, in a manner of speaking and as a body might say, ye understand, it suits Billy right well. There’s always fields and hedgerows, eh?”
It was not till late, as Billy and he moved up the street toward his forge, that a strange fancy came to David Blake. He remembered, as a lad, the stir and gossip there had been in Garth nigh twenty years ago. A company of strolling players had come to Garth, had played there to wondering rustics in the barn at the end of the village, and had gone their way—all save one, who stayed behind and found her way, late on a mirk and windy night, as far as Marshlands. She was found dead at the gate of the homestead on the morrow, and a four-year-old child was crying at her side. None ever knew the rights of the tale; but old Gaunt of Marshlands was known as the wildest roysterer in the dale, and, though some disbelieved the story that the woman had come to him for help and that he haddeliberately turned her back, to die in the rain and cold, yet all believed that Gaunt was father to the child.
The child was Billy the Fool, adopted and well cared for by all Garth—a village bairn, the plaything and the property of all kindly folk. And Reuben Gaunt was the acknowledged son and heir to Marshlands.
“’Tis odd,” muttered David often and often, as he worked at the anvil and glanced at Billy. For he remembered the consistent hatred shown by the natural toward Reuben Gaunt.