Читать книгу Furze the Cruel - Trevena John - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Up the road from Brentor to St. Mary Tavy came Brightly, his basket dragging on his arm. He was very tired, but there was nothing unusual in that. He was tired to the point of exhaustion every day. He was very hungry, but he was used to that too. He was thinking of bread and cheese and cider; new bread and soft cheese, and cider with a rough edge to it. He licked his lips, and tried to believe he was tasting them. Then he began to cough. It was a long, heaving cough, something like that of a Dartmoor pony. He had to put his basket down and lean over it, and tap at his thin chest with a long raw hand.

Nobody wanted Brightly, because he was not of the least importance. He hadn't got a home, or a vote, or any of those things which make the world desire the presence of people. He was only a nuisance, who worried desirable folk that he might exist, though the people whom he worried did not ask him to live. Brightly was a purveyor of rabbit-skins. He dealt in rubbish, possibly because he was rubbish himself. He tramped about Dartmoor, between Okehampton and Tavistock, collecting rabbit-skins. When he was given them for nothing he was grateful, but his stock of gratitude was not drawn upon to any large extent. It is not the way of Dartmoor folk to part with even rubbish for nothing. To obtain his rabbit-skins Brightly had to dip his raw hand beneath the scrap of oilcloth which covered his basket, and produce a horrible little red and yellow vase which any decent-minded person would have destroyed at sight. Brightly bore most things fairly well, but when, on one occasion while climbing over the rocks, he had dropped the basket and all the red and yellow vases were smashed to atoms, he had cried. He had been tired and hungry as usual, and knew he had lost the capital without which a man cannot do business. The dropping of that basket meant bankruptcy to Brightly.

The dealer in rabbit-skins was not alone in the world. He had a dog, which was rubbish like its master. The animal was of no recognised breed, although in a dim light it called itself a fox-terrier. She could not have been an intelligent dog, or she would not have remained constant to Brightly. Her name was Ju, which was an abbreviation of Jerusalem. One Sunday evening Brightly had slipped inside a church, and somewhat to his surprise had been allowed to remain, although a sidesman was told off to keep an eye upon him and see that he did not break open the empty poor-box. A hymn was sung about Jerusalem the golden, a piece of pagan doggerel concerning the future state, where happy souls were indulging in bacchanalian revels, and over-eating themselves in a sort of glorified dairy filled with milk and honey. The hymn enraptured Brightly, who was, of course, tired and famished; and when he had left the warm church, although without any of the promised milk and honey, he kept on murmuring the lines and trying to recall the music. He could think of nothing but Jerusalem for some days. He went into the public library at Tavistock and looked it up in a map of the world, discovered it was in a country called Palestine, and wondered how many rabbit-skins it would cost to take him there. Brightly reckoned in rabbit-skins, not in shillings and pence, which were matters he was not very familiar with. He noticed that whenever he mentioned the name of Jerusalem the dog wagged her tail, as though she too was interested in the dairy produce; so, as the animal lacked a title, Jerusalem was awarded her. Brightly thought of the milk and honey whenever he called his poor half-starved cur.

Presently he thought he had coughed long enough, so he picked up his basket and went on climbing the road, his body bent as usual towards the right. At a distance he looked like the half of a circle. He could not stand straight. The weight of his basket and habit had crooked him like an oak branch. He tramped on towards the barren village of St. Mary Tavy. There was a certain amount of wild scenery to be admired. Away to the right was Brentor and the church upon its crags. To the left were piled the "deads" of the abandoned copper-mines. The name of Wheal Friendship might have had a cheerful sound for Brightly had he known what friendship meant. He didn't look at the scenery, because he was half blind. He could see his way about, but that was all. He lived in the twilight. He wore a big pair of unsightly spectacles with tortoise-shell rims. His big eyes were always staring widely behind the glasses, seeing all they could, which was the little bit of road in front and no more.

Brightly was known about that particular part of the moor which he frequented as the Seal. Every one laughed whenever the Seal was mentioned. Brightly's wardrobe consisted chiefly of an old and very tightly-fitting suit of black, distinctly clerical in cut. They had been obtained from a Wesleyan shepherd in exchange for a pair of red and yellow vases to embellish the mantel of the nonconforming parlour. Rain is not unknown upon Dartmoor, and in the neighbourhood of St. Mary Tavy it descends with pitiless violence. Brightly would be quickly saturated, having no means of protecting himself; and then the tight clerical garments, sodden and sleek and shining, would certainly bear some resemblance to the coat of a seal which had just left the sea; a resemblance which was not lessened by his wizened little face and weary shuffling gait.

Brightly did not think much while he tramped the moor. He had no right to think. It was not in the way of business. Still, he had his dream, not more than one, because he was not troubled with an active imagination. He tried to fancy himself going about, not on his tired rheumatic legs, but in a little ramshackle cart, with fern at the bottom for Ju to lie on, and a bit of board at the side bearing in white letters the inscription: "A. Brightly. Purveyor of rabbit-skins"; and a lamp to be lighted after dark, and a plank for himself to sit on, and a box behind containing the red and yellow vases. All this splendour to be drawn by a little shaggy pony. What a great man he would be in those days! Starting forth in the morning would be a pleasure and not a pain. Frequently Brightly babbled of his hypothetical cart. He felt sure it must come some day, and so he had begun to prepare for it. He had secured the plank upon which he was to sit and guide the pony, and every autumn he cut some fern to put at the bottom of the cart should it arrive suddenly. The plank he had picked up, and the fern had been cut upon the moor. He had clearly no right to them. The plank had probably slipped out of a granite cart, and the fern belonged to the commoners. There was plenty of it for every one, but, as the commoners would have argued, that was not the point. They had a right to cut the fern, and people like Brightly have no right to anything, except a cheap funeral. Brightly had no business to wander about the moor, which was never made for him, or to kick his boots to pieces against good Duchy of Cornwall granite. All the commoners cheated the Duchy of Cornwall, while they loyally cheered the name of the Duke. They took his granite and skilfully evaded payment of the royalty, and prayed each Sunday in their chapels for grace to continue in honesty; but the fact of their being commoners, some of them having the privilege of the newtake, and others not having the privilege but taking it all the same, made all the difference. They had to assert themselves. When it came to a question of a few extra shillings in the money-box, or even of a few extra pence, minor matters, such as petty tyrannical ordinances of law and Church, could take their seats in a back corner and "bide there." Brightly had no privileges. He had to obey every one. He was only a worm which any one was at perfect liberty to slice in half with a spade.

Brightly had a home. The river saw to that; not the Tavy, but the less romantic Taw. Brightly belonged to the Torridge and Taw branch of the family. On the Western side of Cawsand are many gorges in the great cleave cut by the Taw between Belstone and Sticklepath. There narrow and deep clefts have been made by the persistent water draining down to the Taw from the bogs above. In the largest of these clefts Brightly was at home. The sides were completely hidden by willow-scrub, immense ferns, and clumps of whortleberries, as well as by overhanging masses of granite. The water could be heard dripping below like a chime of fairy bells. In winter the cleft appeared a white cascade of falling water, but Brightly's cave was fairly dry and quite sheltered. He was never there by day, and at night nobody could see the smoke of his fire. He had built up the entrance with shaped stones taken from the long-abandoned cots beside the old copper-mines below. The cleft was full of copper, which stained the water a delightful shade of green. Brightly had furnished his home with those things which others had thrown away. He had long ago solved the difficulty of cooking with a perforated frying-pan, and of turning to practical uses a kettle with a bottom like a sieve.

Brightly reached the moor gate. On the other side was the long straggling village of St. Mary Tavy. Beside the gate was a heap of refuse. Brightly seated himself upon it, because he thought it was the proper place for him.

"I be cruel hungry, Ju," explained Brightly.

"So be I," said the dog's tail.

"Fair worn to bits tu," went on Brightly.

"Same here," said the tail.

"Wait till us has the cart," said Brightly cheerily, placing the rabbit-skins upon the dirt beside him. "Us won't be worn to bits then. Us will du dree times the business, and have a cottage and potato-patch, and us will have bread and cheese two times a day and barrel o' cider in the linny. Us will have fat bacon on Sundays tu."

Brightly did not know that ambition is an evil thing. It was ridiculous for him to aspire to a cottage and potato-patch, and bread and cheese three times a day. Kindly souls had created stately mansions for such as he. There was one at Tavistock and another in Okehampton; beautiful buildings equipped with all modern conveniences where he could live in comfort, and not worry his head about rabbit-skins, or about Ju, or about such follies as liberty and independence, or about such unnecessary aids to existence as the moorland wind, his river Taw, the golden blossoms of the gorse, the moonlight upon the rocks, and the sweet scent of heather. Brightly was an unreasonable creature to work and starve when a large stone mansion was waiting for him.

"Us ha' come a cruel long way, Ju," said the little man, descending from his dream. "Only two rabbit-skins. Business be cruel bad. Us mun get on. This be an awkward village to work. It be all scattery about like."

Brightly rose with some alacrity. The moor gate rattled. The hand of the village constable was upon it, and the eyes of that official, who was to Brightly, at least, a far more considerable person than the Lord Chief Justice, were regarding the vagabond with a suspicion which was perfectly natural considering their respective positions.

"Good-evening, sir," said Brightly with deep humility. The policeman was not called upon to answer such things as Brightly. He condescended, however, to observe in the severe tones which his uniform demanded: "Best be moving on, hadn't ye?"

Brightly agreed that it was advisable. He was well aware he had no right to be sitting upon the heap of refuse. He had probably damaged it In some way. The policeman had his bicycle with him, as he was on his way to Lydford. Brightly stood in a reverential attitude, held the gate open, and touched his cap as the great man rolled by. The constable accepted the service, without thanks, and looked back until the little wanderer was out of sight. Such creatures could be turned to profitable uses after all. They could be made to supply industrious village constables with opportunities for promotion. They could be arrested and charged with house-breaking, rick-burning, or swaling out of season; if such charges could not be supported, they could be summoned for keeping a dog without a licence. The policeman made a note of Brightly, as business was not very flourishing just then. There was the usual amount of illegality being practised by the commoners; but the village constable had nothing to do with that. Commoners are influential folk. A man could not meddle with them and retain his popularity. The policeman had to be polite to his social superiors, and salute the elders of Ebenezer with a bowed head, and wink violently when it was incumbent upon him so to do.

Dartmoor has no reason to be proud of St. Mary Tavy, as it is quite the dreariest-looking village upon the moor. Even the river seems to be rather ashamed of it, and turns away as if from a poor relation. St. Peter, over the way, is much more cheerful. They were well-to-do once, these two. They were not only saints, but wealthy, in the good days when the wheals were working and the green stain of copper was upon everything. Now they have come down in the world. The old gentleman lets lodgings, and the old lady takes in washing. They have put away their halos, dropped their saintly prefix, and it is exceedingly improbable that they will ever want them again. They always found it hard work to live up to their reputations; not that they tried very much; but now they are both easy and comfortable as plain everyday folk, neither better nor worse than their neighbours Brentor and Lydford. Peter is a fine, rugged old gentleman; but Mary is decidedly plain with age. There is nothing tender or pleasant about her. She is shamelessly naked; without trees or bushes, and the wheal-scarred moor around is as bald as an apple. The wind comes across her head with the blast of ten thousand bagpipes; and when it rains upon St. Mary—it rains!

Brightly knew all about that rain. He had often played the Seal upon that wild road, and had felt the water trickling down his back and making reservoirs of his boots; while people would stand at their windows and laugh at him. Nobody had ever asked him to come in and take shelter. Such an idea would never have occurred to them. Ponies and bullocks were out upon the moor in all weathers, and every winter some died from exposure. Brightly was nothing like so valuable as a pony or bullock, and if he were to die of exposure nobody would be out of pocket.

Brightly went from cottage to cottage, but there were no rabbit-skins that day. There seemed to be a rabbit famine just then. Lamps were lighted in windows here and there. When the doors were opened Brightly felt the warmth of the room, smelt the glowing peat and the fragrant teapot, and sometimes saw preparations for a meal. What a wonderful thing it must be, he thought, to have a room of one's own; a hearth, and a mantelpiece holding china dogs, cows with purple spots, and photographs of relations in the Army; a table covered with rare and precious things, such as waxen fruit beneath a dome of glass, woollen mats, and shells from foreign lands; a clock in full working order; a dresser stocked with red and green crockery; and upon the walls priceless oleographs framed in blue ribbon, designed and printed in Austria, and depicting their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, simpering approvingly at a scarlet Abraham in the act of despatching a yellow Isaac with a bright-blue scimitar. Brightly sighed as each door was closed upon him, and each smoky little paradise disappeared. He was having a run of bad luck. Ju knew all about it. She put what was left of her tail between her legs and shivered. No doubt she wished she had been born into the world a genuine dog, and not a mongrel; just as Brightly sometimes wished he had been born a real human being, and not a poor thing which dealt in rabbit-skins.

He reached the top of the village. The road heaved above him, and then came the bare upland. He could do no more that evening. There was no food, or fire, or shelter for him. He knew of a barn in which he could sleep at Brentor, but it was too late to go back there. Darkness was coming on. Brightly did not require to feel in his pocket to discover the state of his finances. He knew he had just twopence.

There was a gate beside him, and on the other side a row of very small whitewashed cottages one room high, which had been built for miners in the days when Mary Tavy had been a saint and prosperous; they were then occupied by assorted families. Brightly stumbled through and knocked at the door of the first. It was opened by a young woman nursing a baby; another was hanging to her skirts; a third sprawled under the table; there was a baby in a cradle, another wrapped upon a chair. It appeared to be a congress of babies. The place was crawling with them. It was a regular baby-warren. They had been turned out wholesale. Even Brightly felt he had come to the wrong place, as he asked the extraordinarily fertile female if she would give him a cup of tea and piece of bread for one penny.

The answer was in the negative. The woman was inclined to be hysterical, which was not surprising considering her surroundings. She was alone in the house, if she could be called alone when it was hardly possible to step across the floor for babies which were lying about like bees under a lime-tree. Brightly was known as a vagabond. He looked quite the sort of man who would murder her and all the children. She told him to go away, and when he did not move, because he had not heard, she began to scream.

"I'll send for policeman if ye don't go. You'm a bad man. Us knows ye. Coming here to scare me, just as I be going to have a baby tu. 'Twill be cross-eyed, poor dear, wi' yew overlooking me. Get along wi' yew, or I'll call neighbours."

Brightly begged her pardon in his soft voice and went. He knew it was no use trying the other cottages. The woman with the army of children would only follow from door to door, and describe how he had insulted her. He made his way to the top of the village and sat upon the hedge. Ju crouched beside him and licked his boots. It was a fine evening, only they were too hungry to appreciate it properly.

"Us mun get food, or us wun't tramp far in the morning," said Brightly. "This wind du seem to mak' a stomach feel cruel empty."

"Makes a dog's stomach empty too, father," said the eloquent tail of Ju.

"Us will go to the shop, and get what us can for a penny. Mun keep one penny for to-morrow," said Brightly.

He turned his dim eyes towards the road. A horse was trotting up the long hill, and presently he saw it; a big ugly grey with a shaggy coat. Brightly knew who it was approaching him, and had there been time he would have hidden, because he was afraid of the man who rode. "It be Varmer Pendoggat," he whispered. "Don't ye growl, Ju."

Possibly the rider would have passed without a word, but the grey horse saw the creatures upon the hedge and shied, crushing the rider's leg against one of the posts opposite. This was unfortunate for Brightly, as it was clearly his fault. Quaint objects with big spectacles and rabbit-skins have no business to sit upon a hedge in the twilight. He had frightened the horse, just as he had frightened the woman with a family. The horse had hurt his master, and Pendoggat was not the sort of man to suffer patiently.

There is a certain language which must not be described. It may be heard to perfection in the cheap enclosures at race-meetings, in certain places licensed to sell beer, at rabbit-shoots, and in other places where men of narrow foreheads come together and seem to revert to a type of being which puzzles the scientist, because there is nothing else in the entire animal world quite like it. Pendoggat made use of that language. He had a low forehead, a scowling face, small eyes, which looked anywhere except at the object addressed, bushy black moustache, and high cheek-bones. He never laughed, but when he was angry he grinned, and spittle ran down his chin. He was a strong man; it was said he could pick up a sack of flour with one hand. He could have taken Brightly and broken him up like a rotten stick. Most people were respectful to Pendoggat. The village constable would have retired on a pension rather than offend him.

"I be sorry, sir. I be cruel sorry," muttered poor shivering Brightly. "I did bide still, sir, and I told the dog to bide still tu. I hopes you hain't hurt, sir. Don't ye be hard on I, sir. Us have had a bad day, and us be hungry, sir."

Pendoggat replied with more of the same language. He tried to destroy Ju with his thick ground-ash, but the wise cur escaped. Then he sidled the horse towards the hedge, and crushed Brightly against its stones. He saw nothing pathetic in the poor thin creature's quivering face and half-blind eyes; but he obtained some enjoyment out of the piping cry for mercy. Brightly thought he was going to be killed, and though he didn't mind that much, he did not want to be tortured.

"Don't ye, sir. Don't ye hurt I," he cried. "I didn't mean it, sir. I was biding quiet. You'm hurting I cruel, sir. I'll give ye two vases, sir, purty vases, if yew lets I go."

Pendoggat struck his horse, and the animal started back. Brightly reached his raw hand up the hedge and lifted his basket tenderly. It was like losing flesh and blood to part with his vases, but freedom from persecution was worth any ransom. He removed the oil-cloth. What was left of the light softened the hideous ware and made the crude colouring endurable.

"Tak' two, sir," said Brightly piteously. "Them's the best, sir."

"Give me up the basket," Pendoggat muttered.

The shivering little man lifted it. Pendoggat snatched at the handle, pulled out a vase, and flung it against the stone hedge. There was a sharp sound, and then the road became spotted with red and yellow fragments.

This was something which Brightly could hardly understand. It was too raw and crude. He stood in the road, with his hands swaying like two pendulums against his thin legs, and wondered why the world had been made and what was the object of it all. There was another crash, and a second shower of red and yellow fragments. Pendoggat had selected his pair of vases, and he was also enjoying himself. He looked up and down, saw there was no one in sight; Dartmoor is a wild and lawless place, and nobody could dictate to him. He was a commoner; master of the rivers and the granite. Brightly said nothing. He lifted a red hand for his basket, which contained what was left of his capital, but Pendoggat only struck the clumsy fingers with his ground-ash. It was darker, but a wild gleam was showing over what had been Gubbings Land. The moon was coming up that way.

"I'll learn ye to scare my horse," growled Pendoggat. "I saw you shake your hand at him. I heard you setting on the dog. If I was to give you what you deserve, I'd—" He lifted his arm, and there was another crash, and more flesh and blood were wasted.

"Don't ye, sir," cried Brightly bitterly. "It be ruin, sir. I tored they once avore, and 'twas nigh a month 'vore I could start again. I works hard, sir, and I du try, but I've got this asthma, sir, and rheumatism, and I can't properly see, master. I've been in hospital to Plymouth, sir, but they ses I would never properly see. 'Tis hard to start again, master, and I ain't got friends. Don't ye tear any more, master. I'll never get right again."

Pendoggat went on smashing the vases. There were not many of them, not nearly enough to satisfy him. The last was shattered, and he flung the basket at Brightly, hitting him on the head, but fortunately not breaking his spectacles. Brightly wanted to be alone; to crawl into the bracken with Ju, and think about many things; only Pendoggat would not let him go.

"Hand up those rabbit-skins," he shouted. He was growing excited. Smashing the vases had put passion into him.

"I've tramped ten miles for they, master. Sourton to Lydford, and Lydford to Brentor, and Brentor to Mary Tavy. Times be very bad, sir. Ten miles for two rabbit-skins, master."

"Hand them up, or I'll break your head."

Brightly had to obey. Pendoggat flung the skins across the saddle and grinned. He passed his sleeve across his lips, then put out his arm, seized Brightly by the scarf round his neck, and dragged him near. "If I was to give ye one or two across the head, 'twould learn ye not to scare horses," he said.

Brightly shivered a little more, and lifted his wizened face.

"Got any money? Tell me the truth, or I'll pull the rags off ye."

"Duppence, master. 'Tis all I has now you'm torn the cloam and got my rabbit-skins. If it warn't for the duppence I don't know what me and Ju would du."

"Hand it over," said Pendoggat.

"I can't, master. I can't," whispered Brightly, gulping like a dying fish.

"Hand it over, or I'll strangle ye." Then in a fit of passion he dragged Brightly right across the saddle and tore his pocket open. The two copper coins fell into his hand. He dropped Brightly upon the red and yellow fragments, which cut his raw hands, then hit his horse, and rode on triumphing. He had punished the miserable little dealer in rubbish; and he fancied Brightly would not venture to frighten his horse again.

Pendoggat rode up to the high moor and felt the wind. He was about to strike his horse into a canter, when a spectre started out of the gloom, a wizened face reached his knee, an agonised voice cried: "Give I back my duppence, master. Give I back my duppence."