CHAPTER IX

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety.... Now at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are.... No, Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.—samuel johnson.

THE children were so glad to be free from the arduous service of Granny Petulengro, that all through the early hours of the morning they were hardly aware of the anxiety that filled the hunchback’s heart. He feared lest the gipsies should appear before the carrier. Mousie could not restrain her eagerness to run hither and thither, but he wouldnot let the children out upon the road. Once inside the carrier’s hooded van he thought they would be safe, and though they were, properly speaking, no concern of his, his friendship was such for Jasper that he wished with all his heart to serve him. And a very good heart it was that beat within his shrunken body; a heart that would serve well to remind one, of the jewel hidden in the uncouthness of the toad.

At last there sounded a distant rumbling of wheels, and soon the hunchback was out upon the threshold. The children were bundled into the waggon in the sacks Jasper had brought with him, but they were not tied up as before. The sacks were to be secured round them only if any of the gipsy gang appeared. And so they started off once again upon their travels. But home was getting nearer and nearer.

After a wonderfully slow drive with old Thorn the carrier, who glowered out upon all wayfarers from the shadow of the hood, they reached the town of Ely; and here they were taken to Master Larkynge, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf. Thorn had been well paid by Jasper for his share in it, and asked no questions as to who the children were, yet both children were glad to see the lastof him; he had none of the hunchback’s gentleness, or the kindness of Jasper Ford.

There are some folk made of very common clay, very rough pottery turned on the potter’s wheel. People who go through life, morally shouldering their brothers out of the path, as it suits them. Old Thorn was one of these. Every movement of his body was one of determined aggression. When he stepped ponderously forward, his shoulders seemed to say,

“I’m coming along this way, and nobody’s not agoing to do nothin’ to stop me.” And when he looked round upon his audience after he had said anything, the lines about his mouth said, “And now anybody wots got anythin’ to say to the contrary had better keep it to hisself, that’s all.”

The horses of his carrier’s van seemed to know him. They would start, lifting their heads suddenly, to get beyond his reach. And as he dealt largely in extraordinarily bronchial expletives, he had not proved a very pleasant guide.

The Wheatsheaf was a different matter. Here all was cheerfulness and order. A great fire leaped and roared upon the hearth, piled bright with burning wood. A high-backed settle was turned towards the warmth, and the rosy light playedupon the red-brick floor, and the whitewash. Do you know certain rooms that express as you enter, “Come in, come in, and sit down and be comfortable.” And every chair says “Welcome” to you as you arrive? Well, the kitchen of the Wheatsheaf was just such a room. And every one, from the raven who stole the bones, to the cat who frightened him away to eat them herself, knew it. Prue, the daughter of Master Larkynge, wore a white cap with a full frill to it, and an apron with astonishingly small pockets. And there was pewter to drink from, and there was a humorous Ostler, and a painted sign that creaked as it swung, showing the most prosperous sheaf of corn ever garnered. Certainly everything about it spelt hospitality.

In these snug and enviable surroundings, were Robin and Mousie put to bed, in a wide four-poster with dimity curtains, and rough white sheets, that smelt of hay and lavender.

And because they were excited, and not very tired, Prudence sang them to sleep. She was very pretty, and rather sentimental, so she chose a very sad song. But if you want children to go to sleep, you had best not choose a song with a story in it, because they keep awake to know whathappens. But Prue didn’t know this, and being very fond of the tune, sang it to the very end. And the words of her song were these:—

“Cold blows the wind to-night, sweetheart;Cold are the drops of rain.The very first love that ever I hadIn greenwood he was slain.I’ll do as much for my true loveAs ever a maiden may,I’ll sit and watch beside his graveA twelvemonth and a day.The twelvemonth and a day being upThe ghost began to speak:‘Why sit you here by my gravesideFrom dusk till morning break?’‘Oh think upon the garden, love,Where you and I did walk.The fairest flower that blossomed thereIs wilted on its stalk.’‘Why sit you there by my gravesideAnd will not let me sleep?Your salten tears they trickle downMy winding sheet to steep.’‘Oh think upon the spoken trothThat once to me you gave.A kiss from off your clay-cold lipsIs all that I shall crave.’Then through the mould he heaved his head,And from the herbage greenThere fell a frosted bramble-leaf,It came their lips between.‘Then well for you that bramble-leafBetween our lips was flung.The living to the living hold,Dead to the dead belong.’”

“Cold blows the wind to-night, sweetheart;Cold are the drops of rain.The very first love that ever I hadIn greenwood he was slain.

“Cold blows the wind to-night, sweetheart;

Cold are the drops of rain.

The very first love that ever I had

In greenwood he was slain.

I’ll do as much for my true loveAs ever a maiden may,I’ll sit and watch beside his graveA twelvemonth and a day.

I’ll do as much for my true love

As ever a maiden may,

I’ll sit and watch beside his grave

A twelvemonth and a day.

The twelvemonth and a day being upThe ghost began to speak:‘Why sit you here by my gravesideFrom dusk till morning break?’

The twelvemonth and a day being up

The ghost began to speak:

‘Why sit you here by my graveside

From dusk till morning break?’

‘Oh think upon the garden, love,Where you and I did walk.The fairest flower that blossomed thereIs wilted on its stalk.’

‘Oh think upon the garden, love,

Where you and I did walk.

The fairest flower that blossomed there

Is wilted on its stalk.’

‘Why sit you there by my gravesideAnd will not let me sleep?Your salten tears they trickle downMy winding sheet to steep.’

‘Why sit you there by my graveside

And will not let me sleep?

Your salten tears they trickle down

My winding sheet to steep.’

‘Oh think upon the spoken trothThat once to me you gave.A kiss from off your clay-cold lipsIs all that I shall crave.’

‘Oh think upon the spoken troth

That once to me you gave.

A kiss from off your clay-cold lips

Is all that I shall crave.’

Then through the mould he heaved his head,And from the herbage greenThere fell a frosted bramble-leaf,It came their lips between.

Then through the mould he heaved his head,

And from the herbage green

There fell a frosted bramble-leaf,

It came their lips between.

‘Then well for you that bramble-leafBetween our lips was flung.The living to the living hold,Dead to the dead belong.’”

‘Then well for you that bramble-leaf

Between our lips was flung.

The living to the living hold,

Dead to the dead belong.’”

This is certainly a sad song, but you should know the tune, to really feel its melancholy. It had far from a soporific effect on Mousie and Rob.

“Did he like being there?”

“Why did he stay?”

“What was his head like?”

“Who flung the leaf?”

But then Mistress Larkynge looked into the room with a flat candle in her hand, and a frilled cap like Migg’s. And she said, “Mercy on us, tell me one thing,isit thieves?”

And she roundly rated Prudence for keeping the children awake, and disappeared again in a verybad temper—her white bed-jacket was like the one Mrs. Squeers wears—and her mouth full of anything but thimbles.

Then at last the children, frightened lest Mrs. Larkynge should return, lay down and really went to sleep. And when they awoke, it was on the day on which their parents came to the Wheatsheaf, to fetch them.

That was a joyful day. They had had enough of escaping. And when at last they found themselves once more at Blenheim, it is wonderful how pleasant it was. Even Mrs. Goodenough’s nose seemed the right shape, and their parent’s love and protection things to be grateful for. They were both of them in many ways the better for their adventure; it had brought out sound qualities in each.

Years after, when Robin was a grown man and Mousie a pretty lady, they went to Mousehold Mill to revisit it. And the white donkey was still alive, only being so much older, he carried his head even more despondently than before. The door was opened by Jasper, the same kind Jasper, only a little greyer, but all the nicer for that. And beyond by the fire stood Freedom, her hair as black as ever it was in the earlier days.

With the money the children’s father had given Jasper for his kindness, he had been able to set up for himself, and eventually he had married Freedom. Years afterwards, when the old proprietor of the mill had died, Jasper had bought it, and gone to dwell there; for although he came of gipsy stock, he had lost the love of wandering. And Freedom was a happy wife, as she deserved to be, and had many wonderfully brown babies.

Jasper would often stand at the open door in summer time, with his hands in his pockets and an eye on the cloud drift, and now and again as he worked, he would sing the song Rob heard him sing that night in the moonshine.

“For the miller’s a man, who must work while he can,With the rye and the barley growing,While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turnTo the fresh wind, blowing.”

“For the miller’s a man, who must work while he can,

With the rye and the barley growing,

While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn

To the fresh wind, blowing.”

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