“I den’t hear yow comin’—not a sound,” Dove went on; “been watchin’
so close for prizes goin’ to Chatham. But I han’t seen one now for near a
week.”
“No?” answered young Sim, with an uneasy effort at airiness—a thing
beyond his nature at any time—“Well—I—I mus’ be gettin’
on.”
And he went lumbering down toward the copse and the gate in the way he had
led the horses the night before; the plain consternation and perplexity on
his face making an odd contrast with the laboured burlesque of careless
frolic in his swinging arms and legs, whereby he strove to impart to his back
view an aspect of buoyant thoughtlessness and jaunty ease.
Roboshobery Dove gazed from his perch on this exhibition with a mind
innocent of suspicion, as ever; but the hard-faced man who crouched and
peered from the copse below, with remains of broken food lying near him, and
pistols in his pockets, saw it from the front, and was grimly amused.
IT was natural that Dorrily Thorn should do what was
possible to withdraw her aunt from the notice of the neighbours, in the
circumstances wherein she stood—and, indeed, in a smaller measure, to
withdraw herself Jarge Crick’s fantasies had not only grown by his own
embellishments and expansions, but by the repetition and imagination employed
in carrying them through the district; and soon there was not a household in
all Rochford Hundred that had not the news of the horrid bedevilment of
Castle Hill on the night when Abel Pennyfather’s cow went astray, and scarce
half a dozen that had the same tale, except in so far as all agreed that Mrs
Martin made a leading figure in it. More, Em Banham was “took comical” again,
and was growing worse. The shock of the explosion and the excitement of fair
day had expended their influence, and now, in the dull round of daily muddle
that was all her life, she was relapsing into the state of “all-overs” that
Cunning Murrell’s art had proved to have been the demoniac work of Mrs
Martin. The consequent demeanour of the villagers was unpleasant. There was
something peculiarly insufferable in the laboured civility of the most of
them, something more hopeless and repellent altogether than the mere
persecution of daring hobbledehoys who cried “Witch!” and flung clods. When a
woman changed her course, so as to pass to the right, offered her “Good
morning” with a visible anxiety to get it out before the other could speak (a
needful precaution with all witches), and went off out of sight as quickly as
might be, there was that in the civility that made it worse than insult. It
could not be resented, and it was sign of a cutting off from human
accord.
So that the two women kept to themselves more than ever, and did none of
the occasional field work wherewith they had aided their small resources in
other years. Instead they busied themselves more in their own little garden,
whose produce went a good way toward keeping them in food. Dorrily found that
this work was good for her aunt, who was quiet and seemingly happy so long as
she was undisturbed; though the clouding of her mind persisted, and made the
girl’s loneliness harder to support than ever.
The night succeeding that on which Dorrily had been awakened by the sound
of shots, was another of little rest for Mrs Martin, albeit there was no
disturbance from without; and when she showed some signs of fatigue in the
garden the next morning, Dorrily was quick to persuade her to rest, and soon
had the satisfaction to see her dozing in her armchair in the keeping-room.
So she left her there, partly closed the door, and returned to her work.
She had piled aside the early bean-stalks which she had rooted up, keeping
one or two of the largest for earwig-capture, and now she set to loosening
the ground they had occupied. She dug and turned steadily, and it was plain
to see that the symmetry of her figure owed its debt to bodily exercise; for
on that condition alone is it permitted a woman to use a spade with
grace.
She was watching her work, and was conscious of no witness till a shadow
fell along the ground before her, and young Sim Cloyse’s voice said:
“Yow den’t ote to be diggin’ a garden with hands like they. Not when yow
might be in a silk gownd, takin’ your ease.”
He leaned on the fence with his elbows, smiling as amiably as an
unsuitable countenance would permit. Dorrily said nothing, though she
reflected that Jack Martin would have made no compliments, but would have
taken the spade to do the work himself; as, for that matter, would Steve
Lingood or Roboshobery Dove, wooden leg notwithstanding.
“Not but what it doan’t suit yow,” young Sim went on gallantly. “Most
things do.”
“Thank ‘ee, Master Cloyse,” Dorrily answered calmly, without looking at
him; and went on digging.
Young Sim shifted his feet and rubbed his palm over an ear. He was
considering what to say next.
“‘Tis a fine day agin,” he remarked at last.
Dorrily assented.
“An’ ‘tis lookin’ like a good harvest.”
Dorrily thought so, too.
Young Sim shifted his feet again, and rubbed the other ear.
“Yow doan’t fare over glad to see me,” he complained.
That was the truth; so Dorrily said nothing.
“But ‘tis a monsus treat for me when I see you.” He said it with an
earnest leer that brought a flush to Dorrily’s cheek, and set her digging
faster.
Having got out this sentiment, young Sim took breath again. It is not easy
for one person to keep going a conversation of this sort. The pause endured
for a few seconds, and then he tried another tack.
“I be pardners with my father now,” he said, complacently.
Dorrily was glad to hear it.
“An’ we’re takin’ arl Paigles’s crops this year for money owin’,” he went
on, with pride.
This commercial victory only stirred Dorrily so far as to say: “I’m very
sorry for Master Paigles.” A perversity shocking to young Sim’s ideas.
He stared blankly for some little while, more at a loss than ever. At last
he said plaintively: “Yow be deadly hard on a chap.”
Dorrily began to feel a little impatient. “Hard on what chap.” she asked,
disingenuously.
“Ho! yow dunno! Not you!” young Sim replied, with a grin. “But yow han’t
no need,” he went on. “I count I be as good as one or two round these parts;
so now!”
Dorrily did not dispute the proposition.
“An’ could spend fower pound a week if need was.”
This was another remark that seemed to need no answer.
“Ay, an’ putt by, too, arl the while.”
Dorrily left her spade in the ground and stood to tie the strings of her
sun-bonnet closer. Above the stretch of green meadow that rose before her,
with its near line of black fence, there was a patch of turnip ground, and
beyond and above that again a jumble of sheds and a house in the middle of
them. A female figure in a print gown stood by the nearest shed, shading eyes
and looking down toward the black cottage.
“Prittywell fair be Saturday week,” said young Sim Cloyse.
The remark might seem inconsequent, but there was no disputing it. So
Dorrily said “Yes,” and turned to her work again.
“Yow fare dull here, I count,” young Sim pursued, getting it out with a
rush. “Come ‘ee along o’ me a-fairin’ to Prittywell fair o’ Saturday
week.”
The sun-bonnet hid Dorrily’s face as she stooped, so that he saw nothing
of frown and bitten lip; but went on to offer the greatest inducement he
could invent.
“I’ll take two pound and spend it arl.” he said.
Dorrily left the spade again and stood erect.
There was a white spot on the clear brown skin at the turn of each
nostril, and young Sim Cloyse took his elbows from the fence when he saw her
face.
“I thank ‘ee, Master Cloyse,” she said; “but I don’t go fairin’ these
times at all. But if you’ll turn about an’ look up to Banham’s, ‘haps you’ll
be reminded of Hadleigh fair, which was none so long ago.”
Sim started and turned his head, and truly enough there was Mag Banham in
her print gown, far up the slope by the sheds, looking down at him.
“Dang’t!” exclaimed young Sim under his breath; and backed away sheepishly
toward the lane.
OLD SIM CLOYSE considered his son’s reports, and made
himself certain that the coastguard had had no hand in the interruption of
his enterprise. His reason also inclined him to the conviction that he owed
his scored arm to Golden Adams. Young Sim was very suspicious of Roboshobery
Dove; but perhaps his judgment was affected by the scare he had suffered. In
any case old Sim’s course was resolved on: to buy off Cunning Murrell.
Plainly he had not as yet given the revenue men information, but he might
do it whenever he began to doubt that the service of Adams’s interests would
pay as well. And it was certain that there could be no getting at the tubs
while that desperado sat over them every night with loaded pistols. So that
on every score it was necessary to win over Murrell: in order to avoid the
interference of the coastguard, and in order to circumvent Golden Adams. For
Cloyse was resolved above all things that now Adams should get not one penny
from the venture, even if he, Sim Cloyse himself, had to hand over the whole
thing, tubs, Adams, and all, to the Queen’s men; more, that he should be
punished, in one way or another, with every circumstance of spite. For one of
the few luxuries that old Sim Cloyse was ever willing to pay for, and to pay
for well, was to grind the face of an enemy: to grind it off his head, to
grind it till the very head was ground off his shoulders.
But he saw no reason yet for doing it expensively this time. First, at any
rate, he would see what could be done to secure the “stuff”; for it was plain
that with Cunning Murrell it must be merely a matter of price. So he drew on
his coat, with the careful aid of young Sim—for the sleeve was sore
tight over the bandage—took his thick stick and his glazed hat, and
started up Church Hill to gain Hadleigh by road. For the present he was shy
of the way over the marshes.
He timed himself to be there as darkness fell. One of his reasons was that
he was not anxious to exhibit himself publicly as a visitor at Murrell’s
door; for he was so much a man of note in the neighbourhood that the report
of such a visit would give rise to much discussion and inconvenient
conjecture. But in any case at nightfall was the likeliest time to see the
cunning man; for in daylight he was often hard to come at, and once night was
fully set in he was like to be off on his travels and lurkings, with umbrella
and frail.
The light was at its sweetest and mellowest: the light that comes with
clean air and sweet smells at the end of a shining day, soothing the eyes and
painting the world with its loveliest colours. Not with red sunset, for that
was yet to come: but dazzling no more, and setting all things above the long
shadows in a mild harmony, where the rawest noonday hue is suave. The grey
old church tower stood high against the blue, and dead John Loten’s ivy
stirred in the light breeze. Leigh roofs clustered red below, and beyond them
was the soft salt water lying out to sea for many a calm mile.
But old Sim Cloyse tramped ahead on business intent, and bothered his
crafty old brain with no fancies. He went round behind the tall, dull rectory
wall and over the waste piece beyond, undisturbed by the noisy debate of the
rooks in the rectory ground. He climbed readily over the gate into the first
bean field, for he was no very old man yet, though they called him old Sim.
And so he went along by the side of one field and across the next, till he
came out at the gate in the road, just short of Lapwater Hall, and set his
face toward the now reddening sun. He never turned his head as he passed the
hall itself, to look for the highwayman’s ghost that offered wayfarers a
drink of beer; for he had no superstitions outside the system of book-keeping
by double entry. In fine, he kept his wide face and his little eyes steadily
toward the sun, till a sound of gallop and rumble on the road behind him was
come so near that he must needs sidle toward the ditch, and look about him to
save his bones.
It was the shrimp-cart from Leigh, the fastest thing on wheels from here
to London, whither it was bound. Built like a roomy farm waggon, but lighter
everywhere, piled high with hampers, and spinning along at the heels of four
stout bays, its passing was the event of the evening along forty miles of
road. There was one change of horses, at Shenfield; and though it was called
the shrimp-cart, shrimps made a small part of its load, which was of fish of
every sort that the Leigh fleet brought in, and of cockles and oysters. The
shrimp-cart was also the Leigh coach, in its way. For, in the rare event of
any man of Leigh or Hadleigh daring to go a-journeying so far as London, or,
as was scarcely less rare, to some place distant on the way, he sought
passage in the shrimp-cart, where a seat among the hampers was always easy to
find.
Sim Cloyse stood up by the ditch, and the shrimp-cart went by with a
rattle and a whisk of dust, the driver raising his whip in salutation as he
passed. In a moment it was ahead, visible merely as a receding pile of
hampers, bedded on a little cloud of dust. But it carried a passenger, who
sat up there among the hinder baskets, reading in a little book. Cloyse
shaded his eyes with a hand, and though it was not easy to see, because of
the sun beyond the cart, he thought he could recognise the passenger, and
that it was Cunning Murrell.
And, indeed, he was right. This set him doubting afresh. Why had Murrell
been to Leigh, and where was he going now? His own business so filled old Sim
Cloyse’s eyes and head that he did not stay to reflect that the wise man’s
concerns lay everywhere among the people of those parts, and that any other
of them might well have taken him to Leigh, or even on to London, for that
matter; but was uneasy at the conjecture that Murrell must have been to the
coastguard officers. For a moment Cloyse hesitated in the road; but plainly
nothing was to be got by hanging back now, so he went ahead again.