The Weald is good, the Downs are best—I’ll give you the run of ’em, East to West.Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,They were once and they are still.Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount HarryGo back as far as sums’ll carry.Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,They have looked on many a thing;And what those two have missed between ’emI reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ’em.Highden, Bignor and Duncton DownKnew Old England before the Crown.Linch Down, Treyford and SunwoodKnew Old England before the Flood.And when you end on the Hampshire side—Butser’s old as Time and Tide.The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,You be glad you are Sussex born!
The Weald is good, the Downs are best—I’ll give you the run of ’em, East to West.Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,They were once and they are still.Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount HarryGo back as far as sums’ll carry.Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,They have looked on many a thing;And what those two have missed between ’emI reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ’em.Highden, Bignor and Duncton DownKnew Old England before the Crown.Linch Down, Treyford and SunwoodKnew Old England before the Flood.And when you end on the Hampshire side—Butser’s old as Time and Tide.The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,You be glad you are Sussex born!
The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr. Dudeney, who had known their father when their father was little. He did not talk like their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr. Dudeney’s sheep-dog’s father, lay at the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr. Dudeney happened to be far in the Downs, Mrs. Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did.
One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the door-step and took them in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the distances were very distant.
‘It’s just like the sea,’ said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. ‘You see where you’re going, and—you go there, and there’s nothing between.’
Dan slipped off his shoes. ‘When we get home I shall sit in the woods all day,’ he said.
‘Whuff!’ said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beef bone.
‘Not yet,’ said Dan. ‘Where’s Mr. Dudeney? Where’s master?’
Old Jim looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked again.
‘Don’t you give it him,’ Una cried. ‘I’m not going to be left howling in a desert.’
‘Show, boy! Show!’ said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of your hand.
Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr. Dudeney’s hat against the sky a long way off.
‘Right! All right!’ said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels hung bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the white edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the heat, and so did Mr. Dudeney’s distant head.
They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves staring into a horse-shoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep, whose steep sides were laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock grazed onthe flat at the bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr. Dudeney sat comfortably knitting on the edge of the slope, his crook between his knees. They told him what Old Jim had done.
‘Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The closeter you be to the turf the more you see things. You look warm-like,’ said Mr. Dudeney.
‘We be,’ said Una, flopping down. ‘Andtired.’
‘Set beside o’ me here. The shadow’ll begin to stretch out in a little while, and a heat-shake o’ wind will come up with it that’ll overlay your eyes like so much wool.’
‘We don’t want to sleep,’ said Una indignantly; but she settled herself as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade.
‘O’ course not. You come to talk with me same as your father used.Hedidn’t need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.’
‘Well, he belonged here,’ said Dan, and laid himself down at length on the turf.
‘He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among them messy trees in the Weald, when he might ha’ stayed here and looked all about him. There’s no profit to trees. They draw the lightning, and sheep shelter under ’em, andso, like as not, you’ll lose a half score ewes struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father knew that.’
‘Trees aren’t messy.’ Una rose on her elbow. ‘And what about firewood? I don’t like coal.’
‘Eh? You lie a piece more up-hill and you’lllie more natural,’ said Mr. Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. ‘Now press your face down and smell to the turf. That’s Southdown thyme which makes our Southdown mutton beyond compare, and, my mother told me, ’twill cure anything except broken necks, or hearts. I forget which.’
They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the soft thymy cushions.
‘You don’t get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress, maybe?’ said Mr. Dudeney.
‘But we’ve water—brooks full of it—where you paddle in hot weather,’ Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell close to her eye.
‘Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep—let alone foot-rot afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.’
‘How’s a dew-pond made?’ said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr. Dudeney explained.
The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed easiest to go down-hill, and the children felt one soft puff after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr. Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting.
They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept half-way down the steep side of Norton’s Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least noise and movement reached them like whispers up a water-pipe.
‘That is clever,’ said Puck, leaning over. ‘How truly you shape it!’
‘Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!’ The man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between Dan and Una—a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the maker’s hand.
The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a snail-shell.
‘Flint work is fool’s work,’ he said at last. ‘One does it because one always did it, but when it comes to dealing with The Beast—no good!’ He shook his shaggy head.
‘The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,’ said Puck.
‘He’ll be back at lambing-time.Iknow him.’ He chipped very carefully, and the flints squeaked.
‘Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go home safe.’
‘Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I’ll believe it,’ the man replied.
‘Surely!’ Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round his mouth and shouted: “Wolf! Wolf!”
Norton’s Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides—‘Wuff! Wuff!’ like Young Jim’s bark.
‘You see? You hear?’ said Puck. ‘Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone. Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.’
‘Wonderful!’ The man wiped his forehead as though he were hot. ‘Who drove him away? You?’
‘Many men through many years, each working in his own country. Were you one of them?’ Puck answered.
The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a word pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with scars. His arms too were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with horrible white dimples.
‘I see,’ said Puck. ‘It is The Beast’s mark. What did you use against him?’
‘Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.’
‘So? Then how’—Puck twitched aside the man’s dark-brown cloak—‘how did a Flint-worker come bythat? Show, man, show!’ He held out his little hand.
The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword, from his belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to Puck, who took it with his head on one side, as you should when you look at the works of a watch, squinted down the dark blade, and very delicately rubbed his forefinger from the point to the hilt.
‘Good!’ said he, in a surprised tone.
‘It should be. The Children of the Night made it,’ the man answered.
‘So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?’
‘This!’ The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like a Weald starling.
‘By the Great Rings of the Chalk!’ he cried. ‘Wasthatyour price? Turn sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.’
He slipped his hand beneath the man’s chin and swung him till he faced the children up the slope. They saw that his right eye was gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. Quickly Puck turned him round again, and the two sat down.
‘It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,’ said the man, in an ashamed voice. ‘What else could I have done?Youknow, Old One.’
Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. ‘Take the knife. I listen.’
The man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and while it still quivered said: ‘This is witness between us that I speak the thing that has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I speak. Touch!’
Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children wriggled a little nearer.
‘I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the Buyer of the Knife—the Keeper of the People,’ the man began, in a sort of singing shout. ‘These are my names in this country of the Naked Chalk, between the Trees and the Sea.’
‘Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,’ said Puck.
‘One cannot feed some things on names and songs’; the man hit himself on the chest. ‘It isbetter—always better—to count one’s children safe round the fire, their Mother among them.’
‘Ahai!’ said Puck. ‘I think this will be a very old tale.’
‘I warm myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is nooneto light me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I bought the Magic Knife for my people. It was not right that The Beast should master man. What else could I have done?’
‘I hear. I know. I listen,’ said Puck.
‘When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard, The Beast gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth. He came in behind the flocks at watering-time, and watched them round the Dew-ponds; he leaped into the folds between our knees at the shearing; he walked out alongside the grazing flocks, and chose his meat on the hoof while our boys threw flints at him; he crept by night into the huts, and licked the babe from between the mother’s hands; he called his companions and pulled down men in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No—not always did he do so!Thiswas his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us forget him. A year—two years perhaps—we neither smelt, nor heard, nor saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our men did not always look behind them; when children strayed from the fenced places; when our women walked alone to draw water—back, back, back came the Curse of the Chalk, Grey Shepherd, Feet-in-the Night—The Beast, The Beast, The Beast!
‘He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt spears. He learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I think he knew when there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not show till you bring it down on his snout. Then—Pouf!—the false flint falls all to flinders, and you are left with the hammer-handle in your fist, and his teeth in your flank! I have felt them. At evening, too, in the dew, or when it has misted and rained, your spear-head lashings slack off, though you have kept them beneath your cloak all day. You are alone—but so close to the home ponds that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth, and a piece of driftwood. You bend over and pull—so! That is the minute for which he has followed you since the stars went out. “Aarh!” he says. "Wurr-aarh!” he says.’ (Norton’s Pit gave back the growl like a pack of real wolves.) ‘Then he is on your right shoulder feeling for the vein in your neck, and—perhaps your sheep run on without you. To fight The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by The Beast when he fights you—that is like his teeth in the heart! Old One, why is it that men desire so greatly, and can do so little?’
‘I do not know. Did you desire so much?’ said Puck.
‘I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should master man. But my people were afraid. Even my Mother, the Priestess, was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden—she was a Priestess—waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. Perhaps it was a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to learn how to do us new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. The women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our flocks grazed far out. I took mine yonder’—he pointed inland to the hazy line of the Weald—‘where the new grass was best. They grazed north. I followed till we were close to the Trees’—he lowered his voice—‘closetherewhere the Children of the Night live,’ He pointed north again.
‘Ah, now I remember a thing,’ said Puck. ‘Tell me, why did your people fear the Trees so extremely?’
‘Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning. We can see them burning for days all along the Chalk’s edge. Besides, all the Chalk knows that the Children of the Night, though they worship our Gods, are magicians. When a man goes into their country, they change his spirit; they put words into his mouth; they make him like talking water. But a voice in my heart told me to go toward the north. While I watched my sheep there I saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the Trees. By this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear the Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer; he carried a knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched out his knife. The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away howling, which they would never have done from a Flint-worker. The man went inamong the Trees. I looked for the dead Beast. He had been killed in a new way—by a single deep, clean cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. Wonderful! So I saw that the man’s knife was magic, and I thought how to get it,—thought strongly how to get it.
‘When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess asked me, “What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your face?” I said, “It is a sorrow to me"; and she answered, “All new things are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow.” I sat down in her place by the fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke in my heart. One voice said, “Ask the Children of the Night for the Magic Knife. It is not fit that The Beast should master man.” I listened to that voice.
‘One voice said, “If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here.” The other voice said, “Ask for the Knife.” I listened to that voice.
‘I said to my Mother in the morning, “I go away to find a thing for the people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape.” She answered, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your Mother."’
‘True,’ said Puck. ‘The Old Ones themselves cannot change men’s mothers even if they would.’
‘Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.’ The man laughed. ‘I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with the knife. I lay outtwo days on the short grass before I ventured among the Trees. I felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the terrible talking Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of the soft ground underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid, above all, of the Change. It came!’
They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt.
‘A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to sing songs and to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the same time I saw myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young man, who was myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.’
‘I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man if he sleeps among them,’ said Puck. ‘Had you slept in any mists?’
‘Yes—butIknow it was the Children of the Night. After three days I saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires. The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in my mouth, and all I could say was, “Do not make that noise. It hurts my head.” By this I knew that I was bewitched,and I clung to the Trees, and prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit—not the strange, shouting thing—was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear me—women and men—each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their Ears and their Mouth.
‘I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming, and those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They were pleased. Their Priestess said, “For whose sake have you come?” I answered, “The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast.”
‘She said, “We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked.”
‘When they came back from the Question place(their Gods are our Gods), their Priestess said, “The God needs a proof that your words are true." I said, “What is the proof?” She said, “The God says that if you have come for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be put out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it. This proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry.”
‘I said, “This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?”
‘She said, “Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for your people.”
‘I said, “It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed.”
‘She said, “Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife hot.”
‘I said, “Be quick, then!” With her knife heated in the flame she put out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.’
‘True! Most true,’ said Puck. ‘No common man’s work, that. And, afterwards?’
‘Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!’
At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. ‘It’s true,’ he whispered to Una. ‘You can’t judge distances a bit with only one eye.’
Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at him.
‘I know it is so,’ said he. ‘Even now I am not always sure of my blow. I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast’s mouth. They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the beatings. I can sing many charms.’ Then he began to laugh like a boy.
‘I was thinking of my journey home,’ he said, ‘and of the surprised Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him—I smelt his lairs as soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife—I hid it under my cloak—the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. “Wow!” he would say, “here is my Flint-worker!” He would come leaping, tail in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap—and, oh, his eye in mid-leap when he saw—when he saw the knife held ready for him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the knife! But The Beast is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts hadsmelt the blood on my knife, and were running from me like hares.Theyknew! Then I walked as a man should—the Master of The Beast!
‘So came I back to my Mother’s house. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She said, “This is the work of a God.” I kissed her and laughed. I went to my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. She said, “It is the work of a God.” I laughed, but she pushed me away, and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told them all my tale. They said, “It is the work of a God.” I said, “We talk too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and to-morrow I will take you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife.”
‘I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The men talked among themselves.
‘I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, “How is it with your people?” I said, “Theirhearts are changed. I cannot see their hearts as I used to.” She said, “That is because you have only one eye. Come to me and I will be both your eyes.” But I said, “I must show my people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how to use my knife.” I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance like the flint. She said, “What you have done, you have done for the sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people.” I asked of her, “Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?” She answered, “Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry.” So she hid herself.
‘I went back with my people, each one carrying his knife, and making it sing in the air—tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It mutters—ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw.Heknew! Everywhere he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my Mother’s brother—the Chief on the Man’s Side—he took off his Chief’s necklace of yellow sea-stones.’
‘How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,’ said Puck.
‘And would have put them on my neck. I said, “No, I am content. What does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children running about safely?” My Mother’s brother said to them, “I told you he would nevertake such things." Then they began to sing a song in the Old Tongue—The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother’s brother said, “This isyoursong, oh, Buyer of the Knife. Letussing it, Tyr.”
‘Even then I did not understand, till I saw that—that no man stepped on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.’
‘By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint, was that so?’ Puck rapped out.
‘By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. I was afraid. I said to myself, “My Mother and my Maiden will know I am not Tyr.” ButstillI was afraid with the fear of a man who falls into a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb out.
‘When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed their knives and told their tale. The sheepguards also had seen The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in packs—howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at last—at last!Heknew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother’s brother made himself my Mouth, as though I hadbeen one of the Old Dead in the Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer mornings.’
‘I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer mornings!’ said Puck.
‘Then I went away angrily to my Mother’s house. She would have knelt before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, “Only a God would have spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment of the Gods.” I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but ofme, a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, "Call the maiden.” She came also without fear—this very one that had waited for me, that had talked with me by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might light the fire in my companion’s house—and that I should bless their children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, say, “Let it be as you desire,” and they went away hand in hand. My heart grew little andcold, a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. I said to my Mother, “Can a God die?” I heard her say, “What is it? What is it, my son?” and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was not.’
‘Oh, poor—poor God!’ said Puck. ‘And your wise Mother?’
‘Sheknew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back I heard her whisper on my ear, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your Mother.” That was good—better even than the water she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang.
‘I said at last, “What is to be done to the people who say that I am Tyr?”
‘She said, “He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. You cannot drive them off.”
‘I said, “This is a heavier sheep than I can lift.” She said, “In time it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any maiden anywhere. Be wise—be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God."’
‘Oh, poor God!’ said Puck. ‘But those are not altogether bad things.’
‘I know they are not; but I would sell them all—all—all for one small child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own house-fire.’
He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood up.
‘And yet, what else could I have done?’ he said. ‘The sheep are the people.’
‘It is a very old tale,’ Puck answered. ‘I have heard the like of it not only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees—under Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.’
The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton’s Pit. The children heard the sheep bells and Young Jim’s busy bark above them, and they scrambled up the slope to the level.
‘We let you have your sleep out,’ said Mr. Dudeney, as the flock scattered before them. ‘It’s making for tea-time now.’
‘Look what I’ve found,’ said Dan, and held up a little blue flint arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day.
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Dudeney, ‘the closeter you be to the turf the more you’re apt to see things. I’ve found ’em often. Some says the fairies made ’em, but I says they was made by folks like ourselves—only a goodish time back. They’re lucky to keep. Now, you couldn’t ever have slept—not to any profit—among your father’s trees same as you’ve laid out on Naked Chalk—could you?’
‘One doesn’t want to sleep in the woods,’ said Una.
‘Then what’s the good of ’em?’ said Mr. Dudeney. ‘Might as well set in the barn all day. Fetch ’em ‘long, Jim boy!’
The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The sheep knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master, and they all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their ankles, and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of giants.
Once we feared The Beast—when he followed us we ran,Ran very fast though we knewIt was not right that The Beast should master Man;But what could we Flint-workers do?The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears—Grinned at the hammers that we made;But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife—And this is the Buyer of the Blade!Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass!To left and right—stand clear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,For he knew it was not right(And itisnot right) that The Beast should master Man;So he went to the Children of the Night.He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake.When he begged for the Knife they said:‘The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!’And that was the price he paid.Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead—run ahead!Shout it so the Women’s Side can hear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk,As far as we can see them and beyond.We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keepTally at the shearing-pond.We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please,We can sleep after meals in the sun;For Shepherd of the Twilight is dismayed at the Blade,Feet-in-the-Night have run!Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!),Devil-in-the-Dusk has run!Then:Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass!To left and right—stand clear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!
Once we feared The Beast—when he followed us we ran,Ran very fast though we knewIt was not right that The Beast should master Man;But what could we Flint-workers do?The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears—Grinned at the hammers that we made;But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife—And this is the Buyer of the Blade!
Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass!To left and right—stand clear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!
Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,For he knew it was not right(And itisnot right) that The Beast should master Man;So he went to the Children of the Night.He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake.When he begged for the Knife they said:‘The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!’And that was the price he paid.
Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead—run ahead!Shout it so the Women’s Side can hear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!
Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk,As far as we can see them and beyond.We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keepTally at the shearing-pond.We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please,We can sleep after meals in the sun;For Shepherd of the Twilight is dismayed at the Blade,Feet-in-the-Night have run!Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!),Devil-in-the-Dusk has run!
Then:Room for his shadow on the grass—let it pass!To left and right—stand clear!This is the Buyer of the Blade—be afraid!This is the great god Tyr!
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You mustn’t take my stories for a guide.There’s little left indeed of the city you will read ofAnd all the folk I write about have died.Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,Or remember what his cunning and his skill did.And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf,Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-three ’twas there for all to see,But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You mustn’t go by everything I’ve said.Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,But the Limited will take you there instead.Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen,North Second Street—no matter when you call;And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the laneWhere Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-four ’twas a famous dancing-floor—But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or the ‘Buck,’Though the Father of his Country liked them well.It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed—soYou must treat as out of date the story I relate,Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther,(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive.But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning.If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning,And wish to prove the truth of what I say,I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behindUnaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the catbird sings his tune;Still autumn sets the maple-forest blazing.Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk;Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing.They are there, there, there with Earth immortal(Citizens, I give you friendly warning).The things that truly last when men and times have passedThey are all in Pennsylvania this morning!
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You mustn’t take my stories for a guide.There’s little left indeed of the city you will read ofAnd all the folk I write about have died.Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,Or remember what his cunning and his skill did.And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf,Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.
It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-three ’twas there for all to see,But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You mustn’t go by everything I’ve said.Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,But the Limited will take you there instead.Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen,North Second Street—no matter when you call;And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the laneWhere Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.
It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-four ’twas a famous dancing-floor—But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or the ‘Buck,’Though the Father of his Country liked them well.It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed—soYou must treat as out of date the story I relate,Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.
He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther,(Never say I didn’t give you warning).In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive.But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning,And wish to prove the truth of what I say,I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behindUnaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the catbird sings his tune;Still autumn sets the maple-forest blazing.Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk;Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing.
They are there, there, there with Earth immortal(Citizens, I give you friendly warning).The things that truly last when men and times have passedThey are all in Pennsylvania this morning!
It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along the sands up the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey Brighton, whose smoke trailed out across the Channel.
They walked to The Gap where the cliff is only a few feet high. A windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship’s figure-head of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall.
‘This time to-morrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,’ said Una. ‘I hate the sea!’
‘I believe it’s all right in the middle,’ said Dan. ‘The edges are the sorrowful parts.’
Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff,where neat piles of white chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night.
‘Where’s Cordery going?’ said Una.
‘Half-way to Newhaven,’ said Dan. ‘Then he’ll meet the Newhaven coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with, smuggling would start up at once.’
A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing:
‘The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye—On Telscombe Tye at night it was—She saw the smugglers riding by,A very pretty sight it was!’
Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck.
‘Three Dunkirk boats was standin’ in!’
the man went on.
‘Hssh!’ said Puck. ‘You’ll shock these nice young people.’
‘Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!’ He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears—spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. ‘No comprenny?’ he said. ‘I’ll give it you in Low German.’ And he went off in another language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did not suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, and broad-brimmed hat. His hairwas tied in a short pig-tail which danced wickedly when he turned his head.
‘Ha’ done!’ said Puck, laughing. ‘Be one thing or t’other, Pharaoh—French or English or German—no great odds which.’
‘Oh, but it is, though,’ said Una quickly. ‘We haven’t begun German yet, and—and we’re going back to our French next week.’
‘Aren’t you English?’ said Dan. ‘We heard you singing just now.’
‘Aha! That was the Sussex side o’ me. Dad he married a French girl out o’ Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin’ day. She was an Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven’t you ever come across the saying:
‘Aurettes and Lees,Like as two peas.What they can’t smuggle,They’ll run over seas?’
‘Then, are you a smuggler?’ Una cried; and, ‘Have you smuggled much?’ said Dan.
Mr. Lee nodded solemnly.
‘Mind you,’ said he, ‘I don’t uphold smuggling for the generality o’ mankind—mostly they can’t make a do of it—but I was brought up to the trade, d’ye see, in a lawful line o’ descent on’—he waved across the Channel—‘on both sides the water. ‘Twas all in the families, same as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London town, by the safest road.’
‘Then where did you live?’ said Una.
‘You mustn’t ever live too close to your business inourtrade. We kept our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all honest cottager folk—at Warminghurst under Washington—Bramber way—on the old Penn estate.’
‘Ah!’ said Puck, squatted by the windlass. ‘I remember a piece about the Lees at Warminghurst, I do:
‘There was never a Lee to WarminghurstThat wasn’t a gipsy last and first.
I reckon that’s truth, Pharaoh.’
Pharaoh laughed. ‘Admettin’ that’s true,’ he said, ‘my gipsy blood must be wore pretty thin, for I’ve made and kept a worldly fortune.’
‘By smuggling?’ Dan asked.
‘No, in the tobacco trade.’
‘You don’t mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a tobacconist!’ Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh.
‘I’m sorry; but there’s all sorts of tobacconists,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘How far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her foresail?’ He pointed to the fishing-boats.
‘A scant mile,’ said Puck after a quick look.
‘Just about. It’s seven fathom under her—clean sand. That was where Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished ’em up and rowed ’em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland. One thickish night in January of ‘93, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came over from Shoreham in the smack, and we foundUncle Aurette and the L’Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year’s presents from mother’s folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she’d sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for the French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their King Louis’ head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English man-o’-war. The news wasn’t a week old.
‘“That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the peace,” says Dad. “Why can’t King George’s men and King Louis’ men do on their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?”
‘“Me too, I wish that,” says Uncle Aurette. “But they’ll be pressing better men than themselves to fight for ’em. The press-gangs are out already on our side: you look out for yours.”
‘“I’ll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I’ve run this cargo; but I do wish"—Dad says, going over the lugger’s side with our New Year presents under his arm and young L’Estrange holding the lantern—"I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to run one cargo a month all this winter. It ’ud show ’em what honest work means.”
‘“Well, I’ve warned ye,” says Uncle Aurette. “I’ll be slipping off now before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to sister and take care o’ the kegs. It’s thicking to southward.”
‘I remember him waving to us and youngStephen L’Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we’d fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me to row ’em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack playing on my fiddle to guide ’em back.
‘Presently I heard guns. Two of ’em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette’s three-pounders. He didn’t go naked about the seas after dark. Then come more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was open-handed with his compliments, but hewouldlay his guns himself. I stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o’ French up in the fog—and a high bow come down on top o’ the smack. I hadn’t time to call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the gunwale pushing against the ship’s side as if I hoped to bear her off. Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front of my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped through that port into the French ship—me and my fiddle.’
‘Gracious!’ said Una. ‘What an adventure!’
‘Didn’t anybody see you come in?’ said Dan.
‘There wasn’t any one there. I’d made use of an orlop-deck port—that’s the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men was talking all round me, telling eachother their names and sorrows just like Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty soon I made out they’d all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs, and left to sort ’emselves. The ship she was theEmbuscade, a thirty-six gun Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two days out of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican French Ambassador of the name of Genêt. They had been up all night clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o’ day with each other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted past ’em. She never knew she’d run down our smack. Seeing so many aboard was total strangers to each other, I thought one more mightn’t be noticed; so I put Aunt Cecile’s red cap on the back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like the rest, and, as we French say, I circulated till I found the galley.
‘“What! Here’s one of ’em that isn’t sick!” says a cook. “Take his breakfast to Citizen Bompard.”
‘I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn’t call this Bompard "Citizen.” Oh no! “Mon Capitaine” was my little word, same as Uncle Aurette used to answer in King Louis’ Navy. Bompard, he liked it; he took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and thus I got good victuals and light work all the way across to America. He talked a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this Ambassador Genêt got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the lawafter dinner, a rook’s parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I learned to know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, through waiting at table and hearing talk about ’em. One of our forecas’le six-pounders was called Danton and t’other Marat. I used to play the fiddle between ’em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genêt talked o’ what France had done, and how the United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genêt said he’d justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any healths that was proposed—specially Citizen Danton’s who’d cut off King Louis’ head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked—that’s where my French blood saved me.
‘It didn’t save me from getting a dose of ship’s fever though, the week before we put Monsieur Genêt ashore at Charleston; and what was left of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors from living ’tween decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was, kept me down there to help him with his plasters—I was too weak to wait on Bompard. I don’t remember much of any account for the next few weeks, till I smelled lilacs, and I looked out of the port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge and there was a town o’ fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the green leaves in God’s world waiting for me outside.
‘“What’s this?” I said to the sick-bay man—old Pierre Tiphaigne he was. "Philadelphia,” saysPierre. “You’ve missed it all. We’re sailing next week.”
‘I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst the laylocks.
‘“If that’s your trouble,” says old Pierre, “you go straight ashore. None’ll hinder you. They’re all gone mad on these coasts—French and American together. ’Tisn’tmynotion o’ war.” Pierre was an old King Louis man.
‘My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it was like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain Bompard and his officers—yes, and some of the men—speechified to all and sundry about war with England. They shouted, “Down with England!"—"Down with Washington!"—"Hurrah for France and the Republic!”Icouldn’t make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen said to me, “Is that a genuine cap o’ Liberty you’re wearing?” ‘Twas Aunt Cecile’s red one, and pretty near wore out. “Oh yes!” I says, "straight from France.” “I’ll give you a shilling for it,” he says, and with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream—meadows, trees, flowers, birds, houses, and peoplealldifferent! I sat me down in a meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets, looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses,and a girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said “Merci" without thinking, she said she loved the French. They was all the fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than ever I’d seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with England. A crowd o’ folk was cheering after our French ambassador—that same Monsieur Genêt which we’d left at Charleston. He was a-horseback behaving as if the place belonged to him—and commanding all and sundry to fight the British. But I’d heard that before. I got into a long straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing horses. I’m fond o’ horses. Nobody hindered ’em, and a man told me it was called Race Street o’ purpose for that. Then I followed some black niggers, which I’d never seen close before; but I left them to run after a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race Street by Second Street, where there was a fiddle playing. I’m fond o’ fiddling. The Indian stopped at a baker’s shop—Conrad Gerhard’s it was—and bought some sugary cakes. Hearing what the price was I was going to have some too, but the Indian asked me in English if I was hungry. “Oh yes!” I says. I must have looked a sore scrattel. He opens a door on to a staircase and leads the way up. We walked into a dirty little room full of flutes and fiddles and a fat man fiddling by the window, in a smell of cheese and medicines fit toknock you down. Iwasknocked down too, for the fat man jumped up and hit me a smack in the face. I fell against an old spinet covered with pill-boxes and the pills rolled about the floor. The Indian never moved an eyelid.
‘“Pick up the pills! Pick up the pills!” the fat man screeches.
‘I started picking ’em up—hundreds of ’em—meaning to run out under the Indian’s arm, but I came on giddy all over and I sat down. The fat man went back to his fiddling.
‘“Toby!” says the Indian after quite a while. “I brought the boy to be fed, not hit.”
‘“What?” says Toby, “I thought it was Gert Schwankfelder.” He put down his fiddle and took a good look at me. “Himmel!” he says. “I have hit the wrong boy. It is not the new boy. Why are you not the new boy? Why are you not Gert Schwankfelder?”
‘“I don’t know,” I said. “The gentleman in the pink blanket brought me.”
‘Says the Indian, “He is hungry, Toby. Christians always feed the hungry. So I bring him.”
‘“You should have said that first,” said Toby. He pushed plates at me and the Indian put bread and pork on them, and a glass of Madeira wine. I told him I was off the French ship, which I had joined on account of my mother being French. That was true enough when you think of it, and besides I saw that the French was all the fashion in Philadelphia. Toby and the Indian whispered and I went on picking up the pills.
‘“You like pills—eh?” says Toby.
‘“No,” I says. “I’ve seen our ship’s doctor roll too many of ’em.”
‘“Ho!” he says, and he shoves two bottles at me. “What’s those?”
‘“Calomel,” I says. “And t’other’s senna.”
‘“Right,” he says. “One week have I tried to teach Gert Schwankfelder the difference between them, yet he cannot tell. You like to fiddle?” he says. He’d just seen my kit on the floor.
‘“Oh yes!” says I.
‘“Oho!” he says. “What note is this?” drawing his bow acrost.
‘He meant it for A, so I told him it was.
‘“My brother,” he says to the Indian. “I think this is the hand of Providence! I warned that Gert if he went to play upon the wharves any more he would hear from me. Now look at this boy and say what you think.”
‘The Indian looked me over whole minutes—there was a musical clock on the wall and dolls came out and hopped while the hour struck. He looked me over all the while they did it.
‘“Good,” he says at last. “This boy is good.”
‘“Good, then,” says Toby. “Now I shall play my fiddle and you shall sing your hymn, brother. Boy, go down to the bakery and tell them you are young Gert Schwankfelder that was. The horses are in Davy Jones’s locker. If you ask any questions you shall hear from me.”
‘I left ’em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He wasn’t at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelderthat was. He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back yard without a word, and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin, and she put me to bed, and Oh! how I slept—how I slept in that little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn’t know Toby went to theEmbuscadethat night and bought me off Dr. Karaguen for twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn’t long to live; so he put me down as “discharged sick."’
‘I like Toby,’ said Una.
‘Who was he?’ said Puck.
‘Apothecary Tobias Hirte,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘One Hundred and Eighteen, Second Street—the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his brown mare used to go to Lebanon.’
‘Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones’s locker?’ Dan asked.
‘That was his joke. He kept her under David Jones’s hat shop in the "Buck” tavern yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited him. I looked after the horses when I wasn’t rolling pills on top of the old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. I liked it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o’ clean clothes, a plenty music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me sit in their gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in MoravianAlley; and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared caps and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another, and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby’s fiddle, and he played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He was the only one they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They used to wash each other’s feet up in the attic to keep ’emselves humble: which Lord knows they didn’t need.’
‘How very queer,’ said Una.
Pharaoh’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve met many and seen much,’ he said; ‘but I haven’t yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I ever forget my first Sunday—the service was in English that week—with the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder’s garden where the big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and thinking of ’tween decks on theEmbuscadeonly six days ago. Being a boy, it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for ever. But I didn’t know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck midnight that Sunday—I was lying under the spinet—I heard Toby’s fiddle. He’d just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. "Gert,” says he, “get the horses. Liberty and Independence for ever! The flowers appear upon the earth and the time of the singing of birds is come. We are going to my country seat in Lebanon."
‘I rubbed my eyes, and fetched ’em out of the “Buck” stable. Red Jacket was there saddling his, and when I’d packed the saddle-bags we three rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling. It’s a kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the German towns, Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat cattle, fat women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed there. Toby sold medicines out of his saddle-bags, and gave the French war-news to folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell was as well known as the stage coaches. He took orders for that famous Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket’s Indians, and he slept in friend’s farmhouses, but hewouldshut all the windows; so Red Jacket and me slept outside. There’s nothing to hurt except snakes—and they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes.’
‘I’d have liked that!’ said Dan.
‘I’d no fault to find with those days. In the cool o’ the morning the cat-bird sings. He’s something to listen to. And there’s a smell of wild grape-vine growing in damp hollows which you drop into, after long rides in the heat, which is beyond compare for sweetness. So’s the puffs out of the pine woods of afternoons. Come sundown, the frogs strike up, and later on the fireflies dance in the corn. Oh me, the fireflies in the corn! We were a week or ten days on the road, tacking from one place to another—such as Lancaster, Bethlehem-Ephrata—"thou Bethlehem-Ephrata"—noodds—I loved the going about; and so we jogged into dozy little Lebanon by the Blue Mountains, where Toby had a cottage and a garden of all fruits. He come north every year for this wonderful Seneca Oil the Seneca Indians made for him. They’d never sell to any one else, and he doctored ’em with von Swieten pills, which they valued more than their own oil. He could do what he chose with them, and, of course, he tried to make them Moravians. The Senecas are a seemly, quiet people, and they’d had trouble enough from white men—Americans and English—during the wars, to keep ’em in that walk. They lived on a Reservation by themselves away off by their lake. Toby took me up there, and they treated me as if I was their own blood brother. Red Jacket said the mark of my bare feet in the dust was just like an Indian’s and my style of walking was similar. I know I took to their ways all over.’
‘Maybe the gipsy drop in your blood helped you?’ said Puck.
‘Sometimes I think it did,’ Pharaoh went on. ‘Anyhow Red Jacket and Cornplanter, the other Seneca chief, they let me be adopted into the tribe. It’s only a compliment, of course, but Toby was angry when I showed up with my face painted. They gave me a side-name which means "Two Tongues,” because, d’ye see, I talked French and English.
‘They had their own opinions (I’ve heard ’em) about the French and the English,andthe Americans. They’d suffered from all of ’emduring the wars, and they only wished to be left alone. But they thought a heap of the President of the United States. Cornplanter had had dealings with him in some French wars out West when General Washington was only a lad. His being President afterwards made no odds to ’em. They always called him Big Hand, for he was a large-fisted man, and he was all of their notion of a white chief. Cornplanter ’ud sweep his blanket round him, and after I’d filled his pipe he’d begin—"In the old days, long ago, when braves were many and blankets were few, Big Hand said——” If Red Jacket agreed to the say-so he’d trickle a little smoke out of the corners of his mouth. If he didn’t, he’d blow through his nostrils. Then Cornplanter ’ud stop and Red Jacket ’ud take on. Red Jacket was the better talker of the two. I’ve laid and listened to ’em for hours. Oh! they knew General Washington well. Cornplanter used to meet him at Epply’s—the great dancing place in the city before District Marshal William Nichols bought it. They told me he was always glad to see ’em, and he’d hear ’em out to the end if they had anything on their minds. They had a good deal in those days. I came at it by degrees, after I was adopted into the tribe. The talk up in Lebanon and everywhere else that summer was about the French war with England and whether the United States ’ud join in with France or make a peace treaty with England. Toby wanted peace so as he could go about the Reservation buying his oils. But most of the white men wished for war, andthey was angry because the President wouldn’t give the sign for it. The newspaper said men was burning Guy Fawke images of General Washington and yelling after him in the streets of Philadelphia. You’d have been astonished what those two fine old chiefs knew of the ins and outs of such matters. The little I’ve learned of politics I picked up from Cornplanter and Red Jacket on the Reservation. Toby used to read theAuroranewspaper. He was what they call a “Democrat,” though our Church is against the Brethren concerning themselves with politics.’