CHAPTER X
One evening, in late February, there was mullet pie for supper which was so much to Teresa’s taste that she ate more than even her heroic digestive organs could cope with, rent the stilly night with lamentations and did not get up for breakfast. Towards nine o’clock, she felt better, at eleven was herself again and, remembering it was Paul Feast, dressed in her finery and rode off to see the sport.
She arrived to witness what appeared to be a fratricidal war between the seafaring stalwarts of the parish and the farm hands. A mob of boys and men surged about a field, battling claw and hoof for the possession of a cow-hide ball which occasionally lobbed into view, but more often lay buried under a pile of writhing bodies.
Teresa was very fond of these rough sports and journeyed far and wide to see them, but what held her interest most that afternoon was a party of gentry who had ridden from Penzance to watch the barbarians at play. Two ladies and three gentlemen there were, the elder woman riding pillion, the younger side-saddle. They were very exquisite and superior, watched the uncouth mob through quizzing glasses and made witty remarks after the manner of visitors at a menagerie commenting on near-human antics of the monkeys. The younger woman chattered incessantly; a thinly pretty creature, wearing a gold-braided cocked hat and long brown coat cut in the masculine mode.
“Eliza, Eliza, I beseech you look at that woman’s stomacher! . . . And that wench’s farthingale! Elizabethan, I declare; one would imagine oneself at a Vauxhall masquerade. Mr. Borlase, I felicitate you on your entertainment.” She waved her whip towards the mob. “Bear pits are tedious by comparison. I must pen my experiences forThe Spectator—‘Elegantia inter Barbaros, or a Lady’s Adventures Among the Wild Cornish.’ Tell me, pray, when it is all over do they devour the dead? We must go before that takes place; I shall positively expire of fright—though my cousin Venables, who has voyaged the South Seas, tells me cannibals are, as a rule, an amiable and loving people, vastly preferable to Tories. Captain Angus, I have dropped my kerchief . . . you neglect me, sir! My God, Eliza, there’s a handsome boy! . . . Behind you. . . . The gypsy boy on the sorrel pony. What a pretty young rogue!”
The whole party turned their heads to look at the Romany Apollo. Teresa followed their example and beheld it was Ortho. Under the delusion that his mother was abed and, judging by the noise she made, at death’s door, he had ventured afield in company with four young Hernes. He wore no cap, his sleeve was ripped from shoulder to cuff and he was much splashed all down his back and legs. He did not see his mother; he was absorbed in the game. Teresa shut her teeth, and drew a long, deep breath through them.
The battle suddenly turned against the fishermen; the farm hands, uttering triumphant howls, began to force them rapidly backwards towards the Church Town. Ortho and his ragged companions wheeled their mounts and ambled downhill to see the finish. Teresa did not follow them. She found her horse, mounted and rode straight home.
“The gypsy boy on the sorrel pony—thegypsyboy!”
People were taking her Ortho, Ortho Penhale of Bosula and Tregors, for a vagabond Rom, were they?
She was furious, but admitted they had cause—dressed like a scarecrow and mixed up with a crowd of young horse thieves! Teresa swore so savagely that her horse started. Anyhow she would stop it at once, at once—she’d settle all this gypsy business—gypsy! Time after time she had vowed to send Ortho to school, but she was always hard up when it came to the point, and year after year slipped by. He must be somewhere about sixteen now—fifteen, sixteen or seventeen—she wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter to a year or so, she could look it up in the parish registers if need be. He should go to Helston like his father and learn to be a gentleman—and, incidentally, learn to keep accounts. It would be invaluable to have some one who could handle figures; then the damned tradesmen wouldn’t swindle her and she’d have money again.
“The gypsy boy!” . . . The words stung her afresh. Had she risen out of the muck of vagrancy to have her son slip back into it? Never! She’d settle all that. Not for a moment did she doubt her ability to cope with Ortho. What must John in heaven be thinking of her stewardship? She wept with mingled anger and contrition. To-morrow she’d open a clean page. Ortho should go to school at once.Gypsy!She’d show them!
She was heavily in debt, but the money should be found somehow. All the way home she was planning ways and means.
Ortho returned late that night and went to bed unconscious that he had been found out. Next morning he was informed that he was to go with his mother to Penzance. This was good tidings. He liked going to town with Teresa. She bought all kinds of eatables and one saw life, ladies and gentlemen; a soldier or two sometimes; blue-water seamen drunk as lords and big wind-bound ships at anchor. He saddled the dun pony and jogged alongside her big roan, prattling cheerfully all the way.
She watched him, her interest aroused. He certainly was good looking, with his slim uprightness, eager expression, and quick, graceful movements. He had luminous dark eyes, a short nose, round chin and crisp black curls—like her own. He was like her in many ways, many ways. Good company too. He told her several amusing stories and laughed heartily at hers. A debonair, attractive boy, very different from his brother. She felt suddenly drawn towards him. He would make a good companion when he came back from school. His looks would stir up trouble in sundry dove-cotes later on, she thought, and promised herself much amusement, having no sympathy for doves.
It was not until they arrived in Penzance that she broke the news that he was going to school. Ortho was a trifle staggered at first, but, to her surprise, took it very calmly, making no objections. In the first place it was something new, and the prospect of mixing with a herd of other boys struck him as rather jolly; secondly, he was fancying himself enormously in the fine clothes with which Teresa was loading him; he had never had anything before but the roughest of home-spuns stitched together by Martha and speedily reduced to shreds. He put the best suit on there and then, and strutted Market Jew Street like a young peacock ogling its first hen.
They left Penzance in the early afternoon (spare kit stuffed in the saddle-bags). In the ordinary way Teresa would have gone straight to the “Angel” at Helston and ordered the best, but now, in keeping with her new vow of economy, she sought a free night’s lodging at Tregors—also she wanted to raise some of the rent in advance.
Ortho was entered at his father’s old school next day.
Teresa rode home pleasantly conscious of duty done, and Ortho plunged into the new world, convinced that he had only to smile and conquer. In which he erred. He was no longer a Penhale in his own parish, prospective squire of the Keigwin Valley, but an unsophisticated young animal thrust into a den of sophisticated young animals and therefore a heaven-sent butt for their superior humor. Rising seventeen, and set to learn his A, B, C in the lowest form among the babies! This gave the wits an admirable opening. That he could ride, sail a boat and shoot anything flying or running weighed as nothing against his ignorance of Latin declensions.
He sought to win some admiration, or even tolerance for himself by telling of his adventures with Pyramus and Jacky’s George, but it had the opposite effect. His tormentors (sons of prosperous land owners and tradesmen) declared that any one who associated with gypsies and fishermen must be of low caste himself and taunted him unmercifully. They would put their hands to their mouths and halloo after the manner of fish-hawkers. “Mackerel! Fresh mack-erel! . . . Say, Penhale, what’s the price of pilchards to-day?”
Or “Hello, Penhale, there’s one of your Pharaoh mates at the gate—with a monkey. Better go and have a clunk over old times.”
Baiting Penhale became a fashionable pastime. Following the example of their elders, the small boys took up the ragging. This was more than Ortho could stand. He knocked some heads together, whereby earning the reputation of a bully.
A bulky, freckled lad named Burnadick, propelled by friends and professing himself champion of the oppressed, challenged Ortho to fight.
Ortho had not the slightest desire to fight the reluctant champion, but the noncombatants (as is the way with noncombatants) gave him no option. They formed a ring round the pair and pulled the coats off them.
For a moment or two it looked as if Ortho would win. An opening punch took him under the nose and stung him to such a pitch of fury that he tumbled on top of the freckled one, whirling like a windmill, fairly smothering him. But the freckled one was an old warrior; he dodged and side-stepped and propped straight lefts to the head whenever he got a chance, well knowing that Ortho could not last the crazy pace.
Ortho could not, or any mortal man. In a couple of minutes he was puffing and grunting, swinging wildly, giving openings everywhere. The heart was clean out of him; he had not wanted to fight in the first place and the popular voice was against him. Everybody cheered Burnadick; not a single whoop for him. He ended tamely, dropped his fists and gave Burnadick best. The mob jeered and hooted and crowded round the victor, who shook them off and walked away, licking his raw knuckles. He had an idea of following Penhale and shaking hands with him . . . hardly knew what the fight had been about . . . wished the other fellows weren’t always arranging quarrels for him; they never gave his knuckles time to heal. He’d have a chat with Penhale one of these days . . . to-morrow perhaps. . .
His amiable intentions never bore fruit, for on the morrow his mother was taken ill, and he was summoned home and nobody else had any kindly feelings for Ortho. He wrestled with incomprehensible primers among tittering infants during school hours; out of school he slunk about, alone always, cold-shouldered everywhere. His sociable soul grew sick within him, he rebelled at the sparse feeding, hated the irritable, sarcastic ushers, the bewildering tasks, the boys, the confinement, everything. At night, in bed, he wept hot tears of misery.
A spell of premature spring weather touched the land. Incautious buds popped out in the Helston back gardens; the hedgerow gorse was gilt-edged; the warm scent of pushing greenery blew in from the hillsides. Armadas of shining cloud cruised down the blue. Ortho, laboriously spelling C, A, T, cat, R, A, T, rat, in a drowsy classroom, was troubled with dreams. He saw the Baragwanath family painting theGame Cockon the Cove slip, getting her summer suit out of store; saw the rainbows glimmering over the Twelve Apostles, the green and silver glitter of the Channel beyond; smelt sea-weed; heard the lisp of the tide. He dreamt of Pyramus Herne wandering northwards with Lussha, and the other boys behind bringing up the horses, wandering over hill and dale, new country out-reeling before him every day. He bowed over the desk and buried his face in the crook of his arm.
A fly explored the spreading ear of “Rusty Rufus,” the junior usher. He woke out of his drowse, one little pig eye at a time, and glanced stealthily round his class. Two young gentlemen were playing noughts and crosses, two more were flipping pellets at each other; a fifth was making chalk marks on the back of a sixth, who in turn was absorbed in cutting initials in the desk; a seventh appeared to be asleep. Rufus, having slumbered himself, passed over the first six and fell upon his imitator.
“Penhale, come here,” he rumbled and reached for his stick.
Ortho obeyed. The usher usually indulged in much labored sarcasm at the boy’s expense, but he was too lazy that afternoon.
“Hand,” he growled.
Ortho held out his hand. “Rufus” swung back the stick and measured the distance with a puckered eye. Ortho hated him; he was a loathly sight, lying back in his chair, shapeless legs straddled out before him, fat jowl bristling with the rusty stubble from which he got his name, protuberant waistcoat stained with beer and snuff—a hateful beast! An icy glitter of cruelty—a flicker as of lightning reflected on a stagnant pool—suddenly lit the indolent eyes of the junior usher and down came the cane whistling. But Ortho’s hand was not there to receive it. How it came about he never knew. He was frightened by the revealing blaze in Rufus’ eyes, but he did not mean to shirk the stick; his hand withdrew itself of its own accord, without orders from his brain—a muscular twitch. However it happened the results were fruitful. Rufus cut himself along the inside of his right leg with all his might. He dropped the stick, bounded out of his chair and hopped about the class, cursing horribly, yelping with pain. Ortho stood transfixed, horrified at what he had done. A small boy, his eyes round with admiration, hissed at him from behind his hand:
“Run, you fool—he’ll kill you!”
Ortho came to his senses and bolted for the door.
But Rufus was too quick for him. He bounded across the room, choking, spluttering, apoplectic, dirty fat hands clawing the air. He clawed Ortho by the hair and collar and dragged him to him. Ortho hit out blindly, panicked. He was too frightened to think; he thought Rufus was going to kill him and fought for his life with the desperation of a cornered rat. He shut his eyes and teeth, rammed Rufus in the only part of him he could reach, namely the stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—it was like hitting a jelly. At the fourth blow he felt the usher’s grip on him loosen. At the fifth he was free, the sixth sent the man to the floor, the seventh was wasted.
Rufus lay on the boards, clutching his stomach, making the most dreadful retching noises. The small boys leapt up on their desks cheering and exhorting Ortho to run. He ran. Out of the door, across the court, out of the gates, up the street and out into the country. Ran on and on without looking where he was going, on and on.
It was fully an hour later before it occurred to him that he was running north, but he did not change direction.
Teresa was informed of Ortho’s sensational departure two days later. The school authorities sent to Bosula, expecting to find the boy had returned home and were surprised that he had not. Where had he got to? Teresa had an idea that he was hiding somewhere in the district, and combed it thoroughly, but Ortho was not forthcoming. The gypsy camp was long deserted, and Jacky’s George had gone to visit his Scillonian sister by the somewhat circuitous route of Guernsey.
It occurred to her that he might be lying up in the valley, surreptitiously fed by Eli, and put Bohenna on to beat it out, but the old hind drew blank. She then determined that he was with the tinners around St. Just (a sanctuary for many a wanted Cornishman), and since there was no hope of extricating him from their underground labyrinths the only thing to do was to wait. He’d come home in time, she said, and promised the boy a warm reception when he did.
Then came a letter from Pyramus Herne—dictated to a public letter writer. Pyramus was at Ashburton buying Dartmoor ponies and Ortho was with him. Pyramus was profuse with regrets and disclaimed all responsibility. Ortho had caught up with him at Launceston, foot-sore, ragged, starving, terrified—but adamant. He, Pyramus, had chided him, begged him to return, even offered to lend him a horse to carry him back to Helston or Bosula, but Ortho absolutely refused to do either—declaring that rather than return he would kill himself. What was to be done? He could not turn a friendless and innocent boy adrift to starve or be maltreated by the beggars, snatch-purses and loose women who swarmed into the roads at that season of the year. What was he to do? He respectfully awaited Teresa’s instructions, assuring her that in the meanwhile Ortho should have the best his poor establishment afforded and remained her ladyship’s obedient and worshipful servant, etc.
Teresa took the letter to the St. Gwithian parish clerk to be read and bit her lip when she learnt the contents. The clerk asked her if she wanted a reply written, but she shook her head and went home. Ortho could not be brought back from Devon handcuffed and kept chained in his room. There was nothing to be done.
So her son had reverted to type. She did not think it would last long. The Hernes were prosperous for gypsies. Ortho would not go short of actual food and head cover, but there would be days of trudging against the wind and rain, soaked and trickling from head to heel, beds in wet grass; nights of thunder with horses breaking loose and tumbling over the tents; shuddering dawns chilling the very marrow; parched noons choked with dust; riots at fairs, cudgels going and stones flying; filth, blows, bestiality, hard work and hard weather, hand to mouth all the way. Ortho was no glutton for punishment; he would return to the warm Owls’ House ere long, curl up gratefully before the fire, cured of his wanderlust. All was for the best doubtless, Teresa considered, but she packed Eli off to school in his place; the zest for duty was still strong in her—and, furthermore, she must have somebody who could keep accounts.
CHAPTER XI
Eli went to school prepared for a bad time. Ortho had not run away for nothing; he was no bulldog for unprofitable endurance—lessons had been irksome, no doubt—but he should have been in his element among a horde of boys. He liked having plenty of his own kind about him and naturally dominated them. He had won over the surly Gwithian farm boys with ease; the turbulent Monks Cove fisher lads looked to him as chief, and even those wild hawks, the young Hernes, followed him unquestioning into all sorts of mischief. Yet Ortho had fled school as from torment.
If the brilliant and popular brother had come to grief how much more trouble was in store for him, the dullard? Eli set his jaw. Come what might, he would see it through; he would stick at school, willy-nilly, until he got what he wanted out of it, namely the three R’s. It had been suddenly borne in on Eli that education had its uses.
Chance had taken him to the neighboring farm of Roswarva, which bounded Polmenna moors on the west. There was a new farmer in possession, a widower by the name of Penaluna, come from the north of the Duchy with a thirteen-year daughter, an inarticulate child, leggy as a foal.
Eli, scrambling about the Luddra Head, had discovered an otter’s holt, and then and there lit a smoke fire to test if the tenant were at home or not. The otter was at home and came out with a rush. Eli attempted to tail it, but his foot slipped on the dry thrift and he sprawled on top of the beast, which bit him in three places. He managed to drop a stone on it as it slid away over the rocks, but he could hardly walk. Penaluna met him limping across a field dragging his victim by the tail, and took him to Roswarva to have his wounds tied up.
Eli had not been to Roswarva since the days of its previous owners, a beach-combing, shiftless crew, and he barely recognized the place. The kitchen was creamy with whitewash; the cupboards freshly painted; the table scrubbed spotless; the ranked pans gleamed like copper moons; all along the mantelshelf were china dogs with gilt collars and ladies and gentlemen on prancing horses, hawks perched a-wrist. In the corner was an oak grandfather clock with a bright brass face engraved with the signs of the zodiac and the cautionary words:
“I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race;Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace;Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.”
“I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race;Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace;Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.”
“I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race;Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace;Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.”
“I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race;
Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace;
Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.”
Sunlight poured into the white kitchen through the south window, setting everything a-shine and a-twinkle—a contrast to unkempt Bosula, redolent of cooking and stale food, buzzing with flies, incessantly invaded by pigs and poultry. Outside Roswarva all was in the same good shape; the erst-littered yard cleared up, the tumbledown sheds rebuilt and thatched. Eli limped home over trim hedges, fields cultivated up to the last inch and plentifully manured and came upon his own land—crumbling banks broken down by cattle and grown to three times their proper breadth with thorn and brambles; fields thick with weeds; windfalls lying where they had dropped; bracken encroaching from every point.
He had never before remarked anything amiss with Bosula, but, coming straight from Roswarva, the contrast struck him in the face. He thought about it for two days, and then marched over to Roswarva. He found Simeon Penaluna on the cliff-side rooting out slabs of granite with a crowbar and piling them into a wall. A vain pursuit, Eli thought, clearing a cliff only fit for donkeys and goats.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked.
“Potatoes,” said Simeon.
“Why here, when you got proper fields?”
“Open to sun all day, and sea’ll keep ’em warm at night. No frost. I’ll get taties here two weeks earlier than up-along.”
“How do you know?”
“Read it. Growers in Jersey has been doin’ it these years.”
Eli digested this information and leaned against the wall, watching Penaluna at work.
Eli liked the man’s air of patient power, also his economy of speech. He decided he was to be trusted. “You’re a good farmer, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Penaluna truthfully.
“What’s wrong with our place, Bosula?” Eli inquired.
“Under-manned,” said Penaluna. “Your father had two men besides himself and he worked like a bullock and was clever, I’ve heard tell. Now you’ve got but two, and not a head between ’em. Place is going back. Come three years the trash’ll strangle ’e in your beds.”
Eli took the warning calmly. “We’ll stop that,” he announced.
Penaluna subjected him to a hard scrutiny, spat on his palms, worked the crow-bar into a crevice and tried his weight on it.
“Hum! Maybe—but you’d best start soon.”
Eli nodded and considered again. “Are you clever?”
Penaluna swung his bar from left to right; the rock stirred in its bed.
“No—but I can read.”
Eli’s eyes opened. That was the second time reading had been mentioned. What had that school-mastering business to do with real work like farming?
“Went to free-school at Truro,” Simeon explained. “There’s clever ones that writes off books and I reads ’em. There’s smart notions in books—sometimes. I got six books on farming—six brains.”
“Um-m,” muttered Eli, the idea slowly taking hold.
In return for advice given, he helped the farmer pile walls until sunset and not another word was interchanged. When he got home it was to learn that Ortho was in Devon with Pyramus and that he was to go to school in his stead.
Eli’s feelings were mixed. If Ortho had had a bad time he would undoubtedly have worse, but on the other hand he would learn to read and could pick other people’s brains—like Penaluna. He rode to Helston with his mother, grimly silent all the way, steeling himself to bear the rods for Bosula’s sake. But Ortho, by the dramatic manner of his exit, had achieved popularity when it was no longer of any use to him. Eli stepped in at the right moment to receive the goodly heritage.
Was he not own brother to the hero who had tricked Rufus into slicing himself across the leg and followed up this triumph by pummeling seven bells out of the detested usher and flooring him in his own classroom? The story had lost nothing in the mouths of the spectators. A half-minute scramble between a sodden hulk of a man and a terrified boy had swollen into a Homeric contest as full of incident as the Seven Years’ War, lasting half an hour and ending in Rufus lying on the floor, spitting blood and imploring mercy. Eli entered the school surrounded by a warm nimbus of reflected glory and took Ortho’s place at the bottom of the lowest form.
That he was the criminal’s brother did not endear him to Rufus, who gave him the benefit of his acid tongue from early morn to dewy eve, but beyond abuse the usher did not go. Eli was not tall, but he was exceptionally sturdy and Rufus had not forgotten a certain affair. He was chary of these Penhales—little better than savages—reared among smugglers and moor-men—utterly undisciplined . . . no saying what they might do . . . murder one, even. He kept his stick for the disciplined smaller fry and pickled his tongue for Eli. Eli did not mind the sarcasm in the least. His mental hide was far too thick to feel the prick—and anyhow it was only talk.
One half-holiday bird’s-nesting in Penrose woods, he came upon the redoubtable Burnadick similarly engaged and they compared eggs. In the midst of the discussion a bailiff appeared on the scene and they had to run for it. The bailiff produced dogs and the pair were forced to make a wide detour via Praze and Lanner Vean. Returning by Helston Mill, they met with a party of town louts who, having no love for the “Grammar scholards,” threw stones. A brush ensued, Eli acquitting himself with credit. The upshot of all this was that they reached school seven minutes late for roll call and were rewarded with a thrashing. Drawn together by common pain and adventure, the two were henceforth inseparable, forming a combination which no boy or party of boys dared gainsay. With Rufus’ sting drawn and the great Burnadick his ally Eli found school life tolerable. He did not enjoy it; the food was insufficient, the restraint burdensome, but it was by no means as bad as he had expected. By constant repetition he was getting a parrot-like fluency with his tables and he seldom made a bad mistake in spelling—providing the word was not of more than one syllable.
At the Owls’ House in the meanwhile economy was still the rage. Teresa’s first step was to send the cattle off to market. In vain did Bohenna expostulate, pointing out that the stock had not yet come to condition and further there was no market. It was useless. Teresa would not listen to reason; into Penzance they went and were sold for a song. After them she pitched pigs, poultry, goats and the dun pony. Her second step was to discharge the second hind, Davy. Once more Bohenna protested. He could hardly keep the place going as it was, he said. The moor was creeping in to right and left, the barn thatch tumbling, the banks were down, the gates falling to pieces. He could not be expected to be in more than two places at once. Teresa replied with more sound than sense and a shouting match ensued, ending in Teresa screaming that she was mistress and that if Bohenna didn’t shut his mouth and obey orders she’d pack him after Davy.
But if Teresa bore hard on others she sacrificed herself as well. Not a single new dress did she order that year, and even went to the length of selling two brooches, her second best cloak and her third best pair of earrings. Parish feasts, races, bull-baitings and cock-fights she resolutely eschewed; an occasional stroll down the Cove and a pot of ale at the Kiddlywink was all the relaxation she allowed herself. By these self-denying ordinances she was able to foot Eli’s school bills and pay interest on her debts, but her temper frayed to rags. She railed at Martha morning, noon and night, threw plates at Wany and became so unbearable that Bohenna carried all his meals afield with him.
Eli came home for a few days’ holiday at midsummer, but spent most of his waking hours at Roswarva.
On his last evening he went ferreting with Bohenna. The banks were riddled with rabbit sets, but so overgrown were they it was almost impossible to work the fitchets. Their tiny bells tinkled here and there, thither and hither in the dense undergrowth, invisible and elusive as the clappers of derisive sprites. They gamboled about, rejoicing in their freedom, treating the quest of fur as a secondary matter. Bohenna pursued them through the thorns, shattering the holy hush of evening with blasphemies.
“This ought to be cut back, rooted out,” Eli observed.
The old hind took it as a personal criticism and turned on him, a bramble scratch reddening his cheek, voice shaking with long-suppressed resentment. “Rooted out, saith a’! Cut back! Who’s goin’ do et then? Me s’pose.”
He held out his knotted fists, a resigned ferret swinging in each.
“Look you—how many hands have I got? Two edden a? Two only. But your ma do think each o’ my fingers is a hand, I b’lieve. Youp! Comin’ through!”
A rabbit shot out of a burrow on the far side of the hedge, the great flintlock bellowed and it turned somersaults as neatly as a circus clown.
“There’ll be three of us here when I’ve done schooling next midsummer and Ortho comes home,” said Eli calmly, ramming down a fresh charge. “We’ll clear the trash and put the whole place in crop.”
Bohenna glanced up, surprised. “Oh, will us? An’ where’s cattle goin’?”
“Sell ’em off—all but what can feed themselves on the bottoms. Crops’ll fetch more to the acre than stock.”
“My dear soul! Harken to young Solomon! . . . Who’s been tellin’ you all this?”
“Couple of strong farmers I’ve talked with on half holidays near Helston—and Penaluna.”
Bohenna bristled. Wisdom in foreign worthies he might admit, but a neighbor . . . !
“What’s Simeon Penaluna been sayin’? Best keep his long nose on his own place; I’ll give it a brear wrench if I catch it sniffing over here! What’d he say?”
“Said he wondered you didn’t break your heart.”
“Humph!” Bohenna was mollified, pleased that some one appreciated his efforts; this Penaluna, at least, sniffed with discernment. He listened quietly while Eli recounted their neighbor’s suggestions.
They talked farming all the way home, and it was a revelation to him how much the boy had picked up. He had no idea Eli was at all interested in it, had imagined, from his being sent to school, that he was destined for a clerk or something bookish. He had looked forward to fighting a losing battle, for John’s sake and Bosula’s sake, single-handed, to the end. Saw himself, a silver ancient, dropping dead at the plow tail and the triumphant bracken pouring over him like a sea. But now the prospect had changed. Here was a true Penhale coming back to tend the land of his sires. With young blood at his back they would yet save the place. He knew Eli, once he set his face forward, would never look back; his brain was too small to hold more than one idea. He gloated over the boy’s promising shoulders, thick neck and sturdy legs. He would root out the big bowlders as his father had done, swing an ax or scythe from cock-crow to owl-light without flag, toss a sick calf across his shoulders and stride for miles, be at once the master and lover of his land, the right husbandman. But of Ortho, the black gypsy son, Bohenna was not so sure. Nevertheless hope dawned afresh and he went home to his crib among the rocks singing, “I seen a ram at Hereford Fair” for the first time in six months.
Eli was back again a few days before Christmas, and on Christmas Eve Ortho appeared. There was nothing of the chastened prodigal about him; he rode into the yard on a showy chestnut gelding (borrowed from Pyramus), ragged as a scarecrow, but shouting and singing. He slapped Bohenna on the back, hugged Eli affectionately, pinned his mother against the door post and kissed her on both cheeks and her nose, chucked old Martha under the chin and even tossed a genial word at the half-wit Wany.
With the exception of Eli, no one was particularly elated to see him back—they remembered him only as an unfailing fount of mischief—but from Ortho’s manner one would have concluded he was restoring the light of their lives. He did not give them time to close their front. They hardly knew he had arrived before he had embraced them all. The warmth of his greeting melted their restraint. Bohenna’s hairy face split athwart in a yellow-toothed grin, Martha broke into bird-like twitters, Wany blushed, and Teresa said weakly, “So you’re back.”
She had not forgiven him for his school escapade and had intended to make his return the occasion of a demonstration as to who ruled the roost at Bosula. But now she thought she’d postpone it. He had foiled her for the moment, kissed her . . . she couldn’t very well pitch into him immediately after that . . . not immediately. Besides, deep in her heart she felt a cold drop of doubt. A new Ortho had come back, very different from the callow, pliant child who had ridden babbling to Helston beside her ten months previously. Ortho had grown up. He was copper-colored with exposure, sported a downy haze on his upper lip and was full two inches taller. But the change was not so much physical as spiritual. His good looks were, if anything, emphasized, but he had hardened. Innocence was gone from his eyes; there was the faintest edge to his mirth. She had not wanted to be kissed, had struggled against it, but he had taken her by surprise, handled her with dispatch and assurance that could only come of practice—Master Ortho had not been idle on his travels. An idea occurred to her that she had been forestalled; it was Ortho who had made the demonstration. Their eyes met, crossed like bayonets and dropped. It was all over in the fraction of a second, but they had felt each other’s steel.
Teresa was not alarmed by the sudden development of her first-born. She was only forty-one, weighed fourteen stone, radiated rude health and feared no living thing. Since John’s death she had not seen a man she would have stood a word from; a great measure of her affection for her husband sprang from the knowledge that he could have beaten her. She apprised Ortho’s slim figure and mentally promised him a bellyful of trouble did he demand it, but for the moment she concluded to let bygones be—just for the moment.
Ortho flipped some crumbs playfully over Wany, assured Martha she had not aged a day, told Bohenna they’d have a great time after woodcock, threw his arm around Eli’s neck and led him out into the yard.
“See here what I’ve got for you, my old heart,” said he, fishing in his pocket. “Bought it in Portsmouth.”
He placed a little brass box in Eli’s hand. It had a picture of a seventy-four under full sail chased on the lid and the comfortable words, “Let jealous foes no hearts dismay, Vernon our hope is, God our stay.” Inside was coiled a flint steel and fuse. Eli was profoundly touched. Ortho’s toes were showing through one boot, his collar bones had chafed holes in his shirt and his coat was in ribbons. The late frost must have nipped him severely, yet he had not spent his few poor pence in getting himself patched up, but bought a present for him. As a matter of fact the little box had cost Ortho no small self-denial.
Eli stammered his thanks—which Ortho laughed aside—and the brothers went uphill towards Polmenna Down, arms about shoulders, talking, talking. Eli furnished news of Helston. Burnadick was sorry about that row he had had with Ortho—the other fellows pushed him on. He was a splendid fellow really, knew all about hare-hunting and long-dogs. Eli only wished he could have seen Ortho ironing Rufus out! It must have been a glorious set-to! Everybody was still talking about it. Rufus had never been the same since—quaking and shaking. Dirty big jellyfish!—always swilling in pot-houses and stalking serving-maids—the whole town had laughed over his discomfiture.
Ortho was surprised to learn of his posthumous popularity at Helston. Eli’s version of the affair hardly coincided with his recollection in a single particular. All he remembered was being horribly frightened and hitting out blindly with results that astonished him even more than his victim. Still, since legend had chosen to elevate him to the pinnacle of a St. George, suppressor of dragons, he saw no reason to disprove it.
They passed on to other subjects. How had Ortho got on with the Romanies? Oh, famously! Wonderful time—had enjoyed every moment of it. Eli would never believe the things he had seen. Mountains twice . . . three . . . four times as high as Chapel Carn Brea or Sancreed Beacon; rivers with ships sailing on them as at sea; great houses as big as Penzance in themselves; lords and ladies driving in six-horse carriages; regiments of soldiers drilling behind negro drummers, and fairs with millions of people collected and all the world’s marvels on view; Italian midgets no higher than your knee, Irish giants taller than chimneys, two-headed calves and six-legged lambs, contortionists who knotted their legs round their necks, conjurers who magicked glass balls out of country boys’ ears; dancing bears, trained wolves and an Araby camel that required but one drink a month. Prizefights he had seen also; tinker women battling for a purse in a ring like men, and fellows that carried live rats in their shirt bosoms and killed them with their teeth at a penny a time. And cities! . . . Such cities! Huge enough to cover St. Gwithian parish, with streets so packed and people so elegant you thought every day must be market day.
London? No-o, he had not been quite to London. But travelers told him that some of the places he had seen—Exeter, Salisbury, Plymouth, Winchester—were every bit as good—in some ways better. London, in the opinion of many, was overrated. Oh, by the way, in Salisbury he had seen the cream of the lot—two men hanged for sheep-stealing; they kicked and jerked in the most comical fashion. A wonderful time!
The recital had a conflicting effect on Eli. To him Ortho’s story was as breath-taking as that of some swart mariner returned from fabulous spice islands and steamy Indian seas—but at the same time he was perturbed. Was it likely that his brother, having seen the great world and all its wonders, would be content to settle down to the humdrum life at Bosula and dour struggle with the wilderness? Most improbable. Ortho would go adventuring again and he and Bohenna would have to face the problem alone. Bohenna was not getting any younger. His rosy hopes clouded over. He must try to get Ortho to see the danger. After all Bosula would come to Ortho some day; it was his affair. He began forthwith, pointed out the weedy state of the fields, the littered windfalls, the invasion of the moor. To his surprise Ortho was immediately interested—and indignant.
“What had that lazy lubber Bohenna been up to? . . . And Davy? By Gad, it was a shame! He’d let ’em know. . . .”
Eli explained that Davy had been turned off and Bohenna was doing his best. “In father’s time there were three of ’em here and it was all they could manage, working like bullocks,” said he, quoting Penaluna.
“Then why haven’t we three men now?”
“Mother says we’ve got no money to hire ’em.”
Ortho’s jaw dropped. “No money!We?. . . Good God! Where’s it all gone to?”
Eli didn’t know, but he did know that if some one didn’t get busy soon they’d have no farm left. “It’s been going back ever since father died,” he added.
Ortho strode up and down, black-browed, biting his lip. Then he suddenly laughed. “Hell’s bells,” he cried. “What are we fretting about? There are three of us still, ain’t there? . . . You, me ’n Ned. I warrant we’re a match for a passel of old brambles, heh? I warrant we are.”
Eli was amazed and delighted. Did Ortho really mean what he said?
“Then—then you’re not going gypsying again?” he asked.
Ortho spat. “My Lord, no—done with that. It’s a dog’s life, kicked from common to heath, living on hedge-hogs, sleeping under bushes, never dry—mind you, I enjoyed it all—but I’ve had all I want. No, boy”—once more he hugged his brother to him—“I’m going to stop home long o’ thee—us’ll make our old place the best in the Hundred—in the Duchy—and be big rosy yeomen full of good beef and cider. . . . Eh, look at that!”
The sun had dipped. Cirrus dappled the afterglow with drifts of smoldering, crimson feathers. It was as though monster golden eagles were battling in the upper air, dropping showers of lustrous, blood-stained plumes. Away to the north the switch-backed tors rolled against the sky, wine-dark against pale primrose. Mist brimmed the valleys; dusk, empurpled, shrouded the hills. The primrose faded, a star outrider blinked boldly in the east, then the green eve suddenly quivered with the glint of a million million spear-heads—night’s silver cohorts advancing. So still was it that the brothers on the hilltop could plainly hear the babble and cluck of the hidden stream below them; the thump of young rabbits romping in near-by fields and the bark of a dog at Boskennel being answered by another dog at Trevider. From Bosula yard came the creak and bang of a door, the clank of a pail—Bohenna’s voice singing:
“I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,The biggest gert ram I did ever behold.”
“I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,The biggest gert ram I did ever behold.”
“I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,The biggest gert ram I did ever behold.”
“I seen a ram at Hereford Fair,
The biggest gert ram I did ever behold.”
Ortho laughed and took up the familiar song, sent his pleasant, tuneful voice ringing out over the darkling valley:
“His fleece were that heavy it stretched to the ground,His hoofs and his horns they was shodden wi’ gold.”
“His fleece were that heavy it stretched to the ground,His hoofs and his horns they was shodden wi’ gold.”
“His fleece were that heavy it stretched to the ground,His hoofs and his horns they was shodden wi’ gold.”
“His fleece were that heavy it stretched to the ground,
His hoofs and his horns they was shodden wi’ gold.”
Below them sounded a gruff crow of mirth from Bohenna and the second verse:
“His horns they was curlèd like to the thorn tree,His fleece was as white as the blossom o’ thorn;He stamped like a stallion an’ roared like a bull,An’ the gert yeller eyes of en sparkled wi’ scorn.”
“His horns they was curlèd like to the thorn tree,His fleece was as white as the blossom o’ thorn;He stamped like a stallion an’ roared like a bull,An’ the gert yeller eyes of en sparkled wi’ scorn.”
“His horns they was curlèd like to the thorn tree,His fleece was as white as the blossom o’ thorn;He stamped like a stallion an’ roared like a bull,An’ the gert yeller eyes of en sparkled wi’ scorn.”
“His horns they was curlèd like to the thorn tree,
His fleece was as white as the blossom o’ thorn;
He stamped like a stallion an’ roared like a bull,
An’ the gert yeller eyes of en sparkled wi’ scorn.”
Among the bare trees a light winked, a friendly, beckoning wink—the kitchen window.
Ortho drew a deep breath and waved his hand. “Think I’d change this—this lew li’l’ place I was born in for a gypsy tilt, do ’ee? No, no, my dear! Not for all the King’s money and all the King’s gems! I’ve seen ’s much of the cold world as I do want—and more.” He linked his arm with Eli’s. “Come on; let’s be getting down-along.”
That night the brothers slept together in the same big bed as of old. Eli tumbled to sleep at once, but Ortho lay awake. Towards ten o’clock he heard what he had been listening for, the “Te-whoo-whee-wha-ha” of the brown owls calling to each other. He grunted contentedly, turned over and went to sleep.