Starvecrow Farm

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER VIII

  STARVECROW FARM

  The company at Mrs. Gilson's, impressed by the appearance of agentleman of Captain Clyne's position, scarce gave a second thought tothe doctor's retreat. But to Tyson, striding homewards through the mudand darkness, the insult he had suffered and the feeble part he hadplayed filled the world. For him the inn-parlour still cackled at hisexpense. He saw himself the butt of the evening, the butt of manyevenings. He was a vain, ill-conditioned man, who among choice spiritswould have boasted of his philandering. But not the less he hated tobe brought to book before those whom he deemed his inferiors. He couldnot deny that the landlady had trounced him, and black bile whelmedall his better feelings as he climbed the steep track behind the inn."D----d shrew!" he growled, "D----d shrew!" and breathing hard, asmuch in rage as with exertion, he stood an instant to look back andshake his fist before he plunged into the darkness of the wooded dellthrough which the path ascended.

  Two or three faint lights marked the position of the inn a couple offields below him. Beyond it the pale surface of the lake reflected adim radiance, bestowed on it through some rift in the clouds invisiblefrom where he stood. A far-away dog barked, a curlew screamed on thehill above him, the steady fall of a pair of oars in the rowlocks rosefrom the lake. The immensity of the night closed all in; and on thethoughtful might have laid a burden of melancholy.

  But Tyson thought of his wrongs, not of the night, and with a curse heturned and plunged into the wood, following a path impossible for astranger. As it was he stumbled over roots, the saplings whipped himsmartly, a low bough struck off his hat, and when he came to thestream which whirled through the bottom of the dingle he had much adoto find the plank bridge. But at length he emerged from the wood,gained the road, and mounted the steep shoulder that divided the LowWood hamlet from the vale of Troutbeck.

  Where his road topped the ridge the gaunt outline of a tall, narrowbuilding rose in the gloom. It resembled a sentry-box commandingeither valley. It was set back some twenty paces from the road withhalf a dozen ragged fir trees intervening; and on its lower side--butthe night hid them--some mean farm-buildings clung to the steep. Withthe wind soughing among the firs and rustling through the scantygrass, the place on that bleak shoulder seemed lonely even at night.But in the day its ugliness and barrenness were a proverb. They calledit "Starvecrow Farm."

  Nevertheless, Tyson paused at the gate, and with an irresolute oathlooked over it.

  "Cursed shrew!" he said, for the third time. "What business is it ofhers if I choose to amuse myself?"

  And with his heart hardened, he flung the gate wide, and entered. Hehad not gone two paces before he leapt back, startled by the fiercesnarl of a dog, that, unseen, flung itself to the end of its chain.Disappointed in its spring, it began to bay.

  The doctor's fright was only momentary.

  "What, Turk!" he cried. "What are you doing here? What the blazes areyou doing here? Down, you brute, down!"

  The dog knew his voice, ceased to bark, and began to whimper. Tysonentered, and assured that the watchdog knew him, kicked it brutallyfrom his path. Then he groped his way between the trees, stumbled downthree broken steps at the corner of the house, and passing round thebuilding reached the door which was on the further side from the road.He tried it, but it was fastened. He knocked on it.

  A slip-shod foot dragged across a stone floor. A high cracked voiceasked, "Who's there?"

  "I! Tyson!" the doctor answered impatiently. "Who should it be at thishour?"

  "Is't you, doctor?"

  "Yes, yes!"

  "Who's wi' ye?"

  "No one, you old fool! Who should there be?"

  A key creaked in the lock, and the great bar was withdrawn; butslowly, as it seemed to the apothecary, and reluctantly. He enteredand the door was barred behind him.

  "Where's Bess?" he asked.

  The bent creeping figure that had admitted him replied that she was"somewheres about, somewheres about." After which, strangely clad in akind of bedgown and nightcap, it trailed back to the settle beside theturf and wood fire, which furnished both light and warmth. The fire,indeed, was the one generous thing the room contained. All else wassordid and pinched and mean. The once-whitened walls were stained, therafters were smoked in a dozen places, the long dresser--for the roomwas large, though low--was cracked and ill-furnished, a bricksupported one leg of the table. Even in the deep hearth-place, wherewas such comfort as the place could boast, a couple of logs served forstools and a frowsy blanket gave a squalid look to the settle.

  Tyson stood on the hearth with his back to the fire, and eyed the roomwith a scowl of disgust. The old man, bent double over a stick whichhe was notching, breathed loudly and laboriously.

  "What folly is this about the dog?" Tyson asked contemptuously.

  The old man looked up, cunning in his eyes.

  "Ask her," he said.

  "Eh?"

  The miser bending over his task seemed to be taken with a fit ofsilent laughter.

  "It's the still sow sups the brose," he said. "And I'm still! I'mstill."

  "What are you doing?" Tyson growled.

  "Nothing much! Nothing much! You've not," looking up with greed in hiseyes, "an old letter-back to spare?"

  Tyson seldom came to the house unfurnished with one. He had long knownthat Hinkson belonged to the class of misers who, if they can get athing for nothing, are as well pleased with a scrap of paper, a lengthof string, or a mouldy crust, as with a crown-piece. The poor landabout the house, which with difficulty supported three or four cows,on the produce of which the Hinksons lived, might have been madeprofitable at the cost of some labour and a little money. But labourand money were withheld. And Tyson often doubted if the miser's storewere as large as rumour had it, or even if there were a store at all.

  "Not that," he would add, "large or small, some one won't cut histhroat for it one day!"

  He produced the old letter, and after showing it, held it behind him.

  "What of the dog now?" he said.

  "Na, na, I'll not speak for that!"

  "Then you won't have it!"

  But the old fellow only cackled superior.

  "What's--what's--a pound-note a week? Is't four pound a month?"

  "Ay!" the doctor answered. "It is. That's money, my lad!"

  "Ay!"

  The old man hugged himself, and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy.

  "That's money! And four pound a month," he consulted the stick he wasnotching, "is forty-eight pound a year?"

  "And four to it," Tyson answered. "Who's paying you that?"

  "Na, na!"

  "And what's it to do with the dog?"

  Hinkson looked knavish but frightened.

  "Hist!" he said. "Here's Bess. I'd use to wallop her, but now----"

  "She wallops you," the visitor muttered. "That's the ticket, Iexpect."

  The girl entered by the mean staircase door and nodded to him coolly.

  "I supposed it was you," she said slightingly.

  And for the hundredth or two-hundredth time he felt with rage that hewas in the presence of a stronger nature than his own. He could treatthe old man, whose greed had survived his other passions, and almosthis faculties, pretty much as he pleased. But though he had saunteredthrough the gate a score of times with the intention of treating Bessas he had treated more than one village girl who pleased him, he hadnever re-crossed the threshold without a sense not only of defeat, butof inferiority. He came to strut, he remained to kneel.

  He fought against that feeling now, calling his temper to his aid.

  "What folly is this about the dog?" he asked.

  "Father thinks," she replied demurely, "that if thieves come it can beheard better at the gate."

  "Heard? I should think it could be heard in Bowness!"

  "Just so."

  "But your father----"

  "Father!" sharply, "go to bed!" And then to the visitor, "Give h
im aha'penny," she muttered. "He won't go without!"

  "But I don't care----"

  "I don't care either--which of you goes!" she retorted. "But one ofyou goes."

  Sullenly he produced a copper and put it in the old man's quiveringhand--not for the first time by several. Hinkson gripped it, andclosing his hand upon it as if he feared it would be taken from him,he hobbled away, and disappeared behind the dingy hangings of thebox-bed.

  "And now what's the mystery?" Tyson asked, seating himself on one ofthe stools.

  "There is none," she answered, standing before him where the firelightfell on her dark face and gipsy beauty. "Call it a whim if you like.Perhaps I don't want my lads to come in till I've raddled my cheeks!Or perhaps"--flippantly--"Oh, any 'perhaps' you like!"

  "I know no lad you have but me," he said.

  "I don't know one," she answered, seating herself on the settle, andbending forward with her elbows on her knees and her face between herhands. It was a common pose with her. "When I've a lad I want a man!"she continued--"a man!"

  "Don't you call me a man?" he answered, his eyes taking their fill ofher face.

  "Of a sort." she rejoined disdainfully. "Of a sort. Good enough forhere. But I shan't live all my life here! D'you ever think what aGod-forsaken corner this is, Tyson? Why, man, we are like mice in adark cupboard, and know as much of the world!"

  "What's the world to us?" he asked. Her words and her ways were oftena little beyond him.

  "That's it!" she answered, in a tone of contemptuous raillery. "What'sthe world to us? We are here and not there. We must curtsey to parsonand bob to curate, and mind our manners with the overseers! We must beproud if Madam inquires after our conduct, but we must not fancy thatwe are the same flesh and blood as she is! Ah, when I meet her," withsudden passion, "and she looks at me to see if I am clean, I--do youknow what I think of? Do you know what I dream of? Do you know what Ihope"--she snapped her strong white teeth together--"ay, hope to see?"

  "What?"

  "What they saw twenty years ago in France--her white neck under theknife! That was what happened to her and her like there, I am told,and I wish it could happen here! And I'd knit, as girls knitted there,and counted the heads that fell into the baskets! When that time comesMadam won't look to see if I am clean!"

  He looked at her uncomfortably. He did not understand her.

  "How the devil do you come to know these things?" he exclaimed. It wasnot the first time she had opened to him in this strain--not the firstby several. And the sharp edge was gone from his astonishment. But shewas not the less a riddle to him and a perplexity--a Sphinx, at oncealluring and terrifying. "Who told you of them? What makes you thinkof them?" he repeated.

  "Do you never think of them?" she retorted, leaning forward and fixingher eyes on his. "Do you never wonder why all the good things are fora few, and for the rest--a crust? Why the rector dines at the squire'stable and you dine in the steward's room? Why the parson gives you afinger and thinks he stoops, and his ladies treat you as if you weredirt--only the apothecary? Why you are in one class and they inanother till the end of time?"

  "D----n them!" he muttered, his face a dull red. She knew how to touchhim on the raw.

  "Do you never think of those things?" she asked.

  "Well," he said, taking her up sullenly, "if I do?"

  She rocked herself back on the settle and looked across at him out ofhalf-closed eyes.

  "Then--if you do think," she answered slowly, "it is to be seen if youare a man."

  "A man?"

  "Ay, a man! A man! For if you think of these things, if you stand faceto face with them, and do nothing, you are no man! And no lad for me!"lightly. "You are well matched as it is then. Just a match and no morefor your white-faced, helpless dumpling of a wife!"

  "It is all very well," he muttered, "to talk!"

  "Ay, but presently we shall do as well as talk! Out in the world theyare doing now! They are beginning to do. But here--what do you know inthis cupboard? No more than the mice."

  "Fine talk!" he retorted, stung by her contempt. "But you talk withoutknowing. There have been parsons and squires from the beginning, andthere will be parsons and squires to the end. You may talk until youare black in the face, Bess, but you won't alter that!"

  "Ay, talk!" she retorted drily. "You may talk. But if you do--as theydid in France twenty years gone. Where are their squires and parsonsnow? The end came quick enough there, when it came."

  "I don't know much about that," he growled.

  "Ay, but I do."

  "But how the devil do you?" he answered, in some irritation, but morewonder. "How do you?" And he looked round the bare, sordid kitchen.The fire, shooting warm tongues up the black cavernous chimney, madethe one spot of comfort that was visible.

  "Never you mind!" she answered, with a mysterious and tantalisingsmile. "I do. And by-and-by, if we've the spirit of a mouse, thingswill happen here! Down yonder--I see it all--there are thousands andtens of thousands starving. And stacks burning. And mobs marching, andmen drilling, and more things happening than you dream of! And allthat means that by-and-by I shall be knitting while Madam and Miss andthat proud-faced, slim-necked chit at the inn, who faced us all downto-day----"

  "Why," he struck in, in fresh surprise, "what has she done to younow?"

  "That's my business, never you mind! Only, by-and-by, they will allsmile on the wrong side of their face!"

  He stared morosely into the fire. And she watched him, her long lashesveiling a sly and impish amusement. If he dreamed that she loved him,if he fancied her a victim of his bow and spear, he strangely, moststrangely, misread her. And a sudden turn, a single quick glanceshould have informed him. For as the flames by turns lit her face andleft it to darkness, they wrought it to many expressions; but never tokindness.

  "There's many I'd like to see brought down a piece," he muttered atlast. "Many, many. And I'm as fond of my share of good things as most.But it's all talk, there's nought to be done! Nor ever will be! Therehave been parsons and squires from the beginning."

  "Would you do it," she asked softly, "if there were anything to bedone?"

  "Try me."

  "I doubt it. And that's why you are no lad for me."

  He rose to his feet in a temper at that. He turned his back on thefire.

  "What's the use of getting on this every time!" he cried. And he tookup his hat. "I'm weary of it. I'm off. I don't know that I shall comeback again. What's the use?" with a side-long glance at her dark,handsome face and curving figure which the firelight threw intoprominence.

  "If there were anything to do," she asked, as if he had never spoken,never answered the question, "would you do it?" And she smiled at him,her head thrown back, her red lips parted, her eyes tempting.

  "You know I would if----" He paused.

  "There were some one to be won by it?"

  He nodded, his eyes kindling.

  "Well----"

  No more. For as she spoke the word, and he bent forward, somethingheavy fell on the floor overhead; and she sat up straight. Her eyes,grown suddenly hard and small--perhaps with fright--held Tyson's eyes.

  "What's that?" he cried, frowning suspiciously. "There's nobodyupstairs?"

  "Father's in bed," she said. She held up a finger for silence.

  "And there's nobody else in the house?"

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  "Who should there be?" she said. "It's the cat, I suppose."

  "You'd better let me see," he rejoined. And he took a step towards thestaircase door.

  "No need," she answered listlessly, after listening anew. "I'm notafraid. The cat is not here; it must have been the cat. I'll go upwhen you are gone, and see."

  "It's not safe," he grumbled, still inclined to go. "You two alonehere, and the old man said to be as rich as a lord!"

  "Ay, said to be," she answered, smiling "As you said you were goingten minutes ago, and you are not gone yet. But----" she rose with ayawn, partly real and partly force
d, "you must go now, my lad."

  "But why?" he answered. "When we were just beginning to understand oneanother."

  "Why?" she answered pertly. "Because father wants to sleep. Becauseyour wife will scratch my eyes out if you don't. Because I am notgoing to say another word to-night--whatever I may say to-morrow. Andbecause--it's my will, my lad. That's all."

  He muttered his discontent, swinging his hat in his hand, and makingeyes at her. But she kept him at arm's length, and after a moment'sargument she drove him to the door.

  "All the same," he said, when he stood outside, "you had better let melook upstairs."

  But she laughed.

  "I dare say you'd like it!" she said; and she shut the door in hisface and he heard the great bar that secured it shot into its socketin the thickness of the wall. In a temper not much better than that inwhich he had left the inn, he groped his way round the house, and upthe three steps at the corner of the building. He swore at the dogthat it might know who came, and so he passed into the road. Once helooked back at the house, but all was dark. The windows looked theother way.