Kitabı oku: «By Violence», sayfa 5

"I be broke to bits," he wailed.

"So be I," cried Mary; "So be the cart."

"Be the cart broke?" said Peter; and when Mary had replied it was only fit for firewood (it had not been fit for much else before the accident), he went on, "'Twill cost ye a lot o' money to buy me a new one."

"Buy ye a new one? The man be dafty!" screamed Mary.

"'Twas taking yew home what broke it," Peter explained.

"Call this taking me home?" Mary shouted.

"I done my best," said Peter; "'twas your weight what sent it over. There'll be the cart, and the harness and the doctor's bill; 'twill cost ye a heap o' money."

"Dear life, hear the man talk!" said Mary, appealing to the snow which was piled upon her ample form.

"Mayhap there'll be funeral expenses," said Peter lugubriously; "I be hurt dreadful."

"Yew won't want the cart then," his sister muttered; "and I'll have the pony."

"Where be the pony?" Peter demanded.

"Gone home likely; got more sense than we," said Mary. "Why doan't ye get up, Peter?"

"Get up wi' my two legs broke!" Peter replied in disgust.

"Dear life, man, get up!" Mary went on, with real alarm. "If us doan't get up soon us'll be stone dead carpses when us gets home."

"I'll try, Mary, I'll try," said Peter.

"Come up here, Peter; there be a sheltered spot over agin them rocks," said Mary.

"There be a sheltered spot down here," Peter answered; "'tis easier vor yew to roll down than vor me to climb up."

When the question had been argued, Mary went down; that is to say, she groped and grovelled through the snow, half-rolling, half-sliding, until she reached the shelter to which Peter had dragged himself. It was a small cleft, a chimney, mountaineers would have called it, in the centre of a rock-mass which made a small tor on the side of the cleave. Normally, this chimney acted as a drain for the rock-basin above, but it was then frozen up and dry. Peter was right at the back, huddled up as he could never have been had any bones been broken. When Mary appeared he dragged her in; she was almost too stout to pass inside, but as he placed her she made an excellent protection for him against the storm. Mary realised this, and suggested they should change places; but Peter pointed out that in his shattered condition any movement might prove fatal.

Presently Mary began to cry, realizing the gravity of their position. The snow was descending more thickly than ever, drifting up the side of the cleave and choking the entrance to their cleft. Fortunately the night was not very cold, and they were both warmly clad, while the snow which was threatening to bury them was itself a protection. Help could not possibly reach them while the night lasted; no one would know what had befallen them, and they were unable to walk. When Mary began to cry Peter abused her, until his thoughts also began to trouble him.

"Think they'll put what's on my notice-board on my tombstone?" he inquired.

"Now doan't ye talk about tombstoanes, doan't ye now," implored Mary tearfully.

"Business is business," said Peter. "I told 'em to give me a great big tombstone, and to put upon him, Peter Tavy, Clock-maker, Photographer, Dealer in Antiquities, Dartmoor Guide, Reeve of the Manor of Lydford, Purveyor of Manure, and et cetera."

"Doan't ye worry about it; they'll put it all down," said Mary.

"Us'll be buried together, same afternoon, half-past two likely," Peter went on.

"Doan't ye talk about funerals and tombstoanes," Mary implored. "Talk about spicy wine, and goosey fair, and them wooden horses that go round and round, and hurdy-gurdy music; talk about they, Peter."

"It ain't the time," said Peter bitterly.

A long dreary period of silence followed. Peter Tavy the village and Mary Tavy its sister were completely snowed up; and in the cleave of the river which divided the parishes Peter Tavy the man was snowed up with Mary Tavy his sister. They were miserably cold and drowsy. The snow was piled up in front of the chimney like a wall; there was hardly room for Mary to move, and Peter kept on groaning. At length he roused himself to remark: "Yew owes me a shillun."

"What would I owe ye a shillun vor?" said Mary sharply, wide-awake immediately at any suggestion of parting with money.

"Vor the drive," said Peter.

"I was to give ye a shillun vor taking me home, not vor breaking me bones and leaving me to perish in Tavy Cleave," said Mary. "Yew ain't earned the shillun, and I doan't see how yew'm going to."

"Yew owes me a shillun," repeated her brother doggedly. "I done my best to tak' ye home, and there was naught in your agreement wi' me about accidents. I never contracted to tak' ye home neither."

"Yew never promised to starve me wi' ice and snow on Tavy Cleave neither," replied Mary.

"I didn't promise nothing. I meant to tak' ye home, reasonable wear and tear excepted; this here is reasonable wear and tear. Yew promised to give me a shillun."

"When yew put me down," added Mary.

"Yew wur put down," said Peter.

"Not to my door."

"That warn't my fault," said Peter. "Twas your worriting what done it; if yew hadn't worrited I'd have put ye out to Mary Tavy. Yew worrited and upset the cart, and now we'm dying."

"I b'ain't dying," said Mary stoutly.

"I be," said Peter drearily. "I be all cold and nohow inside. I be a going to die; I'd like to die wi' that shillun in my pocket."

"Doan't ye go on about it, Peter. If yew'm dying yew'll soon be in a place where yew won't want shilluns."

"While I be here I want 'en," said Peter. "Yew'll be fearful sorry when yew see me lying a cold carpse wi'out a shillun in my pocket."

"Give over, can't ye," cried Mary. "You'll be giving me the creepies. If yew wur to turn carpsy I wouldn't bide wi' ye."

There was no reply. Silence fell again, and the only sound was the moaning of the wind and the roaring of the Tavy; the snow went on falling and drifting. Another hour passed, and then Mary shook off her drowsiness, and called timidly, "Peter." There was no answer; she could see nothing; her fear returned and she shuddered. "Peter," she called again; there was still no reply. Mary pressed her stout figure forward and reached out fearfully; she heard a groan. "Ah, doan't ye die," she implored; "wait till us gets out o' this. What's the matter, Peter?"

"Yew owes me a shillun," whispered a voice.

"I doan't owe it, Peter, I doan't," cried Mary. "If yew had drove me across the river I'd have paid ye, I would; but us be still in the parish of Peter Tavy – "

She was interrupted by another and a deeper groan. "Be yew that bad?" she asked earnestly.

"I be like an old clock past mending," Peter answered. "My mainspring be broke; I be about to depart this life, December the twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and eighty-one, aged fifty-eight, in hopes of being thoroughly cleaned and repaired and set a going in the world to come."

"Can't I do anything vor ye, Peter?" asked Mary gently.

"Yew can give me the shillun yew owes me," replied Peter.

"'Tis hard of ye to want a shillun if yew'm dying."

"Business is business," Peter moaned.

Fumbling in the little black bag she carried beneath her skirt, Mary produced a coin and held it out, saying sadly: "Here 'tis, Peter; I doan't want to give it to ye, but if 'twill make yew die happy, I must."

With singular agility Peter reached out his hand, and after groping a little in the darkness secured the precious coin. He felt it, he bit it, and he asked with suspicion: "How I be to know 'tis a shillun? He tastes like a halfpenny."

"I know 'tis a shillun; I ain't got no coppers," Mary answered.

Peter's groans ceased from that moment; he pocketed the coin and chuckled.

"I be a lot better," he said; "my legs b'ain't quite broke, I reckon, and I ain't so cold inside, neither."

Mary's reply was too eccentric to mention.

So soon as it was day a party of villagers set out from Peter Tavy well supplied with blankets and stimulants; Peter and Mary were not the only ones missing that fateful morning. The pony had returned to its stable the evening before, and had been seen by the local constable trailing its broken harness past the beer-house. An attempt had been made to find the couple then, but their tracks were completely hidden. Snow was still descending as the relief party waded through the drifts upon the edge of the cleave. The moor had disappeared during the night, and a strange region of white mountains had risen in its stead. The searchers worked their way on, with a hopeless feeling that they were only wasting their time, when they thought they heard a whistle. They stopped and argued the matter like the three jolly huntsmen; one said it was a man, another said it was a bird, and another it was the wind. They were all wrong; it was a woman. Out of the centre of a huge white mass down the cleave appeared a black scarf tied to the end of an umbrella.

Peter and Mary were rescued, not without difficulty, because the snow was four feet in depth on the side of the cleave, and were conveyed in due course to their respective villages. Being a hardy couple they were little the worse for their adventure, although Peter posed as an invalid to the end of his days, and sought parish relief in consequence; that was simply a matter of business.

So soon as the roads became passable and he was able to walk, Peter tramped across to Mary Tavy, to pay his sister a friendly, and a business, visit. "There be ten shilluns yew owes vor breaking my cart and harness," he explained. "When be yew a going to pay?"

"Never," replied Mary decidedly.

"Then I'll tak' ye into court," said Peter.

THE CHRISTENING OF THE FIFTEEN PRINCESSES
A MODERN FAIRY TALE

Once upon a time there was a village called Lew, and it was perched on the top of a hill 999 feet, 11 inches high. That is the way fairy-tales have to begin; they insist upon going back into the remote past; but unfortunately the village of Lew has come down to our own days, and so has the big hill on which it stands. If we start over again with, "Once upon a time there was a man of Lew who had fifteen daughters," we are confronted by exactly the same difficulty; for the man is still alive, and the fifteen daughters look as if they never would, nor could, belong to the period when little pixy maids were to be seen any night running round and round the furze-bushes. The only way out of the difficulty is to be courageous, to tell the truth, and say: At the top of a hill 999 feet, 11 inches high – some say it is 1,000 feet, but that is not true – stands the village of Lew, where dwells a man named Heathman, who has fifteen daughters and not a single son; and the daughters are all princesses, although it is not easy to say why; but as they are pretty, and this is a fairy-tale, they must be.

The little village lies within a kind of ring-fence of ash and sycamores, which shelter the cob houses from the furious gales which boom and bluster over the Dartmoor tors. The wind is always sighing and moaning. It is cool upon the hottest day in August, and probably that is why Lew imports weak-chested people in some quantity. A regular business is done with big, smoky Bristol. Lew says to Bristol in its own language, "Us ha' butiful air up over in Demshur, and us ha' a proper plenty o' cream and butter and suchlike, but us ain't got much golden money. If yew sends us sickly volk, they can buy our cream and butter, and us will send 'em back strong." Bristol sees the force of this argument, and packs up and sends off its weak-chested folk, who reason, quite sensibly, "What's the use of being ill when we can go to the top of Lew hill and get well?" There is a tariff, of course, for Lew does not believe in free imports. The weak-chested folk must buy cream and butter and suchlike in vast quantities, or they would be promptly deported under the local Aliens Act. As a matter of fact, they buy Lew produce without any grumbling; they do even more than they are wanted to, and are actually spoiling Lew – where tips are unknown and a man will do an extraordinary lot of work for two shillings – by raising the prices. They get absurdly grateful, these visitors, who enter Lew weak and thin, and are exported brown and fat and sleek, like porpoises.

It is the importation of so much foreign raw material that has built up the fortunes of the fairy family called Heathman. His Majesty, the father – hereinafter called King Heathman – was village cobbler before he came to the throne. After his accession he procured a horse and cart, and conveyed people to and from the distant station. He also annexed several acres of grass territory, by a process of peaceful penetration, and went in for cows and dairy produce. These two businesses developed so wonderfully that he dropped the cobbling, at which it must be owned he was always rather a poor hand. The weak-chested imports have to be brought up from the station ill, and taken back well; and while they are on the top of Lew hill they pass the time consuming cream, butter, milk, and eggs, which are provided by King Heathman, and delivered morning and evening by the golden-haired princesses. Their Majesties of the Palace – two cottages of red cob knocked into one – are busy people, and have no time for boasting; nor do they appear to think they have done anything out of the way in bringing up fifteen model princesses, not one of whom has ever given her parents an hour's anxiety. Sickness, some one will suggest; but that is a ridiculous idea, for the residents of Lew are never ill, and they live just as long as they like. Mrs. Heathman – hereinafter called Queen Heathman – looks the picture of health and strength, and only last Revel Week was footing it merrily after a long day's work, and dancing one or two anæmic young maids from foreign lands like Plymouth to a standstill. Old Grandfather Heathman, His Majesty's father, who is so much addicted to Lew that he won't die, had the impertinence to be dancing too. He must be nearly a hundred, though he neither knows nor cares about his age, and will merely state in the course of conversation that he intends to live out the present century, because he is so fond of the place. Old Grandfather Heathman is probably the only man now living in England who has witnessed a fatal duel, which was fought some time in the dark ages between the son of the then rector of Lew and a young doctor, a lady being of course the cause. The unfortunate young doctor, who very likely had never handled a sword before, was quickly killed by his opponent, who was an army officer. A stone still marks the spot, but it has become so overgrown with brambles that only Grandfather Heathman knows where to look for it.

The crown princess is just twenty-three. The girls are nicely dressed, well educated, and speak and behave like little angels. If Romney were alive, he would want to paint them all. They are so pretty, these fifteen princesses of Lew. Each has a slender figure, wild-rose complexion, shy eyes, and fair hair. But it must not be imagined they are dancing princesses. One plays the American organ (which was alluded to with less respect as the harmonium twenty years ago) in the church; another is pupil-teacher; another manages the Sunday-school. They milk the cows and attend to the dairy work. All of them love animals; each has her dog, or cat, or bird, generally with her in work or in play. When you meet a pretty, well-dressed girl in Lew, you will not – unless you are the latest importation – ask her name. You will say, "And what is your number?" She will blush delightfully, lower her shy eyes, put her hands behind her back, and tell you.

When the first child was born the neighbours offered their congratulations, and said, "Of course you will call her Annie." In this part of the country it is absolutely necessary to have a girl in the family of that name, and it is most unorthodox to call the first girl anything else. But King Heathman rebelled against custom. He did not care for the name Annie. He liked something daintier, something more unusual and fanciful. No doubt there is a vein of poetry somewhere in His Majesty's system. King Heathman stated plainly he would not hare his daughter named Annie. He would go to the rector and ask him to supply a name. The good people of Lew were horrified at such heresy. They pointed out what a great risk he was running. It was quite possible he would not have another daughter, and thus his family would be branded with the disgrace of having no Annie. But King Heathman hardened his heart yet more, and tramped off to the rectory.