Читать книгу Little Hearts - Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall - Страница 6

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The light, as Malachi shut the door in the wall behind him, hung between day and night. In the west was an old moon, delicate as youth; in the east that fragile forerunner of the dawn which has no duplicate in all the processional of the hours. The stale grasses were bowed with rime as if with the pressure of feet, the trees were shadows shrouded in stillness. From the tangle above the ditch two late blackberry blossoms, ragged and washed with frost, took all the light to themselves, fluttered in it as with silvered wings. It was an April light astray, a light that made everything young, and of a youth cold and mysterious, before growth and bloom. It touched Malachi’s sere body, and as he moved into the shadows, he seemed to move like youth.

He paused under the wall, where the hoofprints were sharp in the moist soil, each one rimmed with a glimmer of rime. It was easy to pick out the mark of the shoes—one loose—the long-drawn scrape of the stumble where the moss was rucked up like fur, the deep-cut recover, the lengthened stride of fright. He took up the line and followed.

A feather of mist lay over every rut and puddle. The wet huge trunks of the beeches shone like mist. The silence of these bare trees was deeper than any silence of summer. Now and then, where it was darker, Malachi stooped and felt the hoof-marks with his shaking red fingers; once he almost laid his hand on a hare crouched in the bracken, her coat pearled with wet, her eyes a golden fire of fear. He let her be. Once a white feather floated past his face; he looked up and saw an owl drifting like a cloud among the twigs. He smiled at it. These two silent things of savagery and fear were all his company. And presently he began to sing. The hare shrank away, the owl clung to a tree, shook itself huge, and vanished; nothing else heard the thin old voice, rambling on three notes like a lame donkey:

“Some has breeches and some has beer,

And a pipe for to fill their jaw, O.

But look about and you’ll find us yere,

A-sleeping in the straw, O...

“And here you was a-going slower, my pretty, and getting tired of your own way, like they all does. And a-wondering where he might be as rode you...

“Some has apples and some has cakes,

And ale for to sup if able,

But we’ll lie hid till the mavish wakes,

A-sleeping in the stable...

“And here the stirrup caught in a bush, my lady, and give you a fresh start, though I’ll lay you be not gone far with that loose shoe. The man as set it had better ‘a’ been a wood-louse and curl hisself up come winter...

“A-sleeping in the sta-ble——”

He came out in a sudden clear space like a common, rough and grown with furze. He did not cross it. He went painfully round the edge till he picked up the tracks again. The last star had blown out like a faint candle-flame when he found them.

“Some has fardens——”

(“Drat the briers, there’s a bit gone out o’ my sleeved weskit.”)

“Some has fardens and some has pence

And a shillin’ to pay the law, O.

And some they hasn’t a grain o’ sense,

A-kissin’ in the straw, O...

“And there ‘tis. You won’t ‘a’ gone far, my pretty.”

Malachi stooped with a groan and picked up a horseshoe. He brushed it free from moss and mire on the sleeve of the aforesaid waistcoat—brushed it until it shone like silver.

“You won’t ‘a’ gone far, my pretty. Them ponies, they’re low company for the likes of you. Always up to their tricks they are, and fallen off to graze... Yet I wonder you didn’t bide with ‘em, just for company...

“Some they takes their ‘ysters cooked,

And some they takes ‘em raw, O,

And I can’t work for the way you looked,

A-smilin’ in the straw, O....”

The quavering song went on. A robin flashed from a holm oak with one startled whistle, and flew to the top of a taller tree—flew from darkness into light, for quietly the day had come. The tide of dawn, having trembled against the barrier, broke it, and flooded the world. The robin began his song; the brown leaves around him glowed as red as he, and shook as if towards flight. But only one voice came down from that still place. He ceased. And from far off in the forest answered the wistful whinny of a horse.

Malachi shook as he stood. He turned sharp to the left, following a dim track. It led him at last to a smaller clearing, where was a little upturned cart, a shelter thatched with bracken, and another old man, twisted and hairy as an ancient faun, who was somewhat mysteriously engaged in sorting a pile of yellowed winter cabbage. Him Malachi approached familiarly, heralded by a reedy music.

“Some they’re churched and some they’re hung,

And some says grace at table,

And some they’re nothing but fools and young,

A-kissing in the stable...

“And good day to you, Henry Hobb. Is your rheums better?”

Henry Hobb balanced a particularly solid and ill-favoured cabbage on the top of his little pile. Then he said, “Is you come early into the forest to ask me that, Malachi Bright, or is it a young rabbit you’re after for Master Sampson’s dinner? I’ve no rabbits for’n. Didn’t pay me fair for the last.”

Malachi winced at the word “Sampson.” He always did, and Henry Hobb had been watching for it. He took up another cabbage, repeating over and over again viciously, “And he didn’t pay me fair for it, didn’t pay me fair for it...”

“I want none of thy mangy rabbits. I can feed the young master more fit. He lives well, if he does like the savour of good ale better than French wines.”

“I’ll lay he does,” said Henry, with an evil wink.

Malachi, with a blink of his little eyes, changed the subject.

“You’ve been gave a fine new horse, I hear.”

“Hey?”

“I hear tell you’ve a fine new horse.”

“Me? Where’d I get a horse?”

“Gave you, I heard tell. Black, only blind in one eye, and good for two years’ work——”

Henry swung round. “Good for two years? Two years? Rising four, I tell you, and a mouth like a silk purse. She’ll be worth——” He bit off his words suddenly and stared at Malachi like a fish. Malachi came a step nearer. The shaking took him again, and for a moment he loathed his own flesh, his years, his body that like a treacherous mount betrayed the mastering soul. He steadied his voice with an effort, but it came thin and shrill.

“I be come for that horse, Henry Hobb.”

“You be mad, Malachi Bright. Nought here but my old pony. There he be and there he bides.”

“I be come for that horse, Henry. ‘Tis for the young master...”

A wicked mirth took and possessed the ancient faun. “He, he, he! Master Sampson a-riding on a horse. Master Sampson a-going to London to see the King. Set’n’ astride a yardstick——”

Malachi fetched out the horseshoe and threw it at him. It went wide. Instantly the faun began to throw cabbages.

Malachi stood for a few seconds in a storm of cabbage. They bounded off him. They trundled over the grass like cannon-balls at a siege. He sheltered himself with his arms, watched his opportunity, ran in, and took Henry in the wind with his silken white head. They fell together.

There was murder in Malachi’s heart at the moment, as Henry’s earth-smelling hands battered at his face. He felt the blind rage that wraps the world in a heat, and was glad in it. Henry’s face, a cabbage leaf stuck on the forehead, wavered before him in a mist. He strove to reach it, to crush it into the grass, to stamp it out of its likeness. His soul was winged with swift destruction. But one would have seen no more than two old men, rolling and clawing feebly in a litter of bracken.

Weariness took them together. They rolled apart and lay trembling and futile, with open mouths. Malachi found his breath first.

“You fool!” he gasped. “You old fool! ... ‘Tis a hanging matter.”

He jerked his thumb northwards with an intent meaning. Henry stared, the earthy tuft on his chin quivering.

“Don’t you meddle, don’t you meddle, Henry Hobb, with this. ‘Tis like to be too high for you, like a beam to hang you on. Leave it to your betters, like me and the young master... Where be that mare?”

The ancient faun began to weep. He rocked himself to and fro, and the tears washed his face; they could not wash it clean. He wiped his eyes with the back of one hairy hand, and pointed feebly with the other.

Malachi went round the shed, and stopped. His fingers worked. His lips moved.

“My pretty!”

The mare was tethered at the back of the shed. She stood with one leg drawn up, and the damp gleamed on her lean sides. A heap of stale greens and grass lay beside her. She raised a contemptuous nose from it and stared at Malachi with great eyes soft as jewels in her bony young head. He stepped towards her and she jerked back to the end of her halter, ears pricked. This was not he for whom she had looked and listened the night through.

“My pretty.”

His voice shook, but not with age. He held his hand to her. She came forward two steps, limping, and her eyes asked of him. Her velvet nostrils sank toward his hand, sniffing; at last, with a faint whinny, rested there. But her eyes still questioned, and he answered her.

“We’ll go, my pretty, we’ll go to ‘m.”

He found the saddle and holsters in the shed, and burdened his own back with them—not hers. He untied her gently and led her round; even on that soft ground she went crippling. Henry was still lying and staring dolefully among the littered cabbage. Malachi paused, and the mare’s head came over his shoulder as he spoke.

“You’re a low beast, Henry Hobb, a low beast, more kin to a vole than a man. All night long, and never a hand have you laid to that off-fore, and the nails drove in... And if ever you open your mouth about the mare or me or the young master”—he jerked the holsters forward and showed the butt of a pistol—“I’ll shoot you sitting, Henry Hobb, and I’ll stretch your hide on an oak, like a kestrel, and the owls’ll take your messy beard for to build their little nesteses.”

The faun’s chin-tuft waggled horribly.

Malachi’s rage was spent; he took no more interest in Henry Hobb. How should he, with that desired life limping behind him? His hands hovered on her thin flanks; he drank in the kindly smell of horse, and it went to his starved heart like wine. The sun had filled the glade before him, drawn the mists, set them adrift like webs of gold. He moved in brightness, singing, and felt the weight of the saddle no more than if he had been young. Once there was a thin screaming behind them, and something hurtled at their heels. It was the last cabbage... Malachi looked back, saw Henry Hobb, a strange and twisted figure, dancing among his scattered crops. He placidly picked up the cabbage and added it to his load. It was certain to come in useful.

“Some they likes—their vittles—cooked,

And some they likes them raw, O.

And I can’t work—for the way—you looked,

A-smiling in the straw, O...

“Come, my pretty...”

He led her back to the lonely stables, as he had somehow known he would do. Her welcome was ready prepared for her—cool water; hay cut, the god of dreams knew why, from the little paddock, sweet with the late year’s melilot; a bed of deep bracken, soft to a hurt hoof. He coaxed her, handled her, waited on her. Mr. Sampson, rushing in an hour later with the news that the stranger was waking and murmuring thickly of breakfast, found them so: Malachi sitting on the edge of the crumbling manger, one arm about her neck, she eating fitfully from his other hand. The old man raised a face his master did not know, and pointed vaguely through the door.

There was a coming and going about the leaning dovecot, a heavenly business of wings; the solitary white pigeon, magnificently misled by the soft weather, had found him a grey mate in the forest and brought her home.