Unclay

by T. F. Powys

To receive word that an evil attempt is being made to hamper God’s mercy, though it may make a good man sad for a moment, does not depress him for long.

  Mr. Hayhoe attended to his duties during that day in a happy manner. He had only to do what God told him—and he knew what that was—and all would be well. Who would not wish—as soon as Mrs. Bennet was mentioned—to hear more of her? In every good book a light shines, that compels the reader to be joyful.

  When Mr. Hayhoe thought of changing Daisy from a troubled, into a merry girl, he was glad. In sin there is much dolour, in fair virtue there is happiness. To consider what he might do for Daisy pleased Mr. Hayhoe, but when he thought of his own affairs at Dodder, he became sad again.

  Whenever he had gone to labour in any new cure, he had always had the misfortune to fall out with the great. No one who had great riches—either invested money or landed property—had ever liked him. He was always at a loss to know why. It was not that he ever expected to be liked for what he was himself. He thought of himself only as a poor clergyman—a conservative, as all churchlovers are. Perhaps it was that which did not please the gentry. They may not have liked so timid a man agreeing with them that old ways of peaceful meditation are better than modern noise and clamour. Perhaps they thought that a poor clergyman should be a watchdog in a kennel—a follower of Mr. Wilkes, a barking Whig.

  Sometimes Mr. Hayhoe thought that it might be his sermons that offended. When he preached about a Bible virgin, the Squire always frowned, and if he said much about Jesus, Farmer Mere spat in his pew.

  Mr. Hayhoe always tried to behave correctly; he endeavoured to dress as well as he could afford. He spoke respectfully to the well-to-do, and tried always to speak to them so that they might understand what he said. He would talk about bullocks to a farmer, and sometimes he would mention dung or land-tax. To a landlord he would talk about the poor laws, the beauty of gorse blooms, and the different ways of making a field gate.

  And what harm could there be in such subjects of conversation, and yet no man in possession of a decent income had ever liked Mr. Hayhoe!…

  Tea-time came. In her little parlour, Mrs. Moggs’s kettle was singing, a sound that she liked far better than a thrush’s song. The work of that day was over, and Mr. Hayhoe set out to visit Daisy. When last he had visited her, he had only read the Bible, and never looked at her. That was before he knew what Daisy did, and when he had finished reading she was gone upstairs, and he went away too.

  The best of men—be he a great saint, or the chief of sinners—must have, if he be a man, a little trepidation in his heart when he ventures to pay a visit to a harlot. Even a prime minister who goes to see—for the good and welfare of the nation—a poor wanton, goes to her with a certain trembling of the heart and a feeling of compassion, that he never carries with him into the Houses of Parliament.

  Mr. Hayhoe hoped to do Daisy good. He could trust himself, of course. But so innocent was he that, though he had met a number of ladies in one way or another—and more than one who held high positions in Society—yet he had never, as far as he knew, met a whore. And now he could not but wonder how such a sad creature would look.

  Would her frock be dusty, and her hair tumbled? Would she stare at him like a piccaninny? What would she say?

  Though he was not aware of it, the time that Mr. Hayhoe had chosen for his visit was most unfortunate. Had he taken the trouble to inquire in the village, he would have been told that the hour chosen by him to see Daisy coincided with the time that Mr. Mere used to go to her.

  All unknowing as to this, Mr. Hayhoe stepped gladly along the street, with a book in his pocket. In front of Daisy’s door, in the middle of the lane, he found Mr. Mere. Mr. Hayhoe hesitated, walked on a little, hesitated again, and stood still.

  Farmer Mere approached Daisy’s door, and kicked at it with his iron-shod boot. He spat in the lane and swore terribly. Then he turned to Mr. Hayhoe.

  “Ha! ha!” he shouted, “here he comes, the old dog-fox, that vixen do wait for. But door be locked as well for thee as for me, and ’tis best thee go and find another doe to clip and cuddle. Here be a fine treatment of the people’s warden, that another man, behind locked door, should be milking me bought heifer. And bain’t I come to have a taste of she too?”

  The farmer’s words set Mr. Hayhoe a-wondering. What was Mr. Mere? He looked at him earnestly. He appeared to be human, but appearances—Mr. Hayhoe knew—are sometimes deceptive.

  “Perhaps,” thought Mr. Hayhoe, “he may not be a man at all, but only a shape like one.” Mr. Hayhoe had once taken brown boot-polish to be lemon cheese. Was Mr. Mere no man at all, but an odd kind of hyena? There was already a camel in the village, and so there might be a hyena too! Perhaps, in this country, they would walk about in the daytime and wear boots. Strange things are often seen. Mr. Mere was born of a woman, but so are many other monsters.

  “But until he bites my head off,” thought Mr. Hayhoe, “I must still consider him as a man.”

  Mr. Mere cursed obscenely and spat.

  “I had hoped,” said Mr. Hayhoe, addressing the farmer, in quiet tones, though forgetting for the moment to mention a bullock, “that you, Mr. Mere, had intended to marry Daisy Huddy. I promise you that she can count very well all small monies, she can be polite and kind too, and though she sits in church where I cannot see her, I went once to her home. I never looked at her, but I believe she is not uncomely. I am not sure, I think that once I saw her going towards Mrs. Moggs’s shop to post a letter. She was a long way off, but she seemed to walk like a Christian woman who deserves a husband. And you, Mr. Mere, should not think yourself—though you possess so much land and so many pigs—a superior being to poor Daisy, who is, I fear, a creature of sorrow.”

  “Let me get at she,” shouted Mere. “I’ll soon know what creature she be.”

  “She is a poor injured maid,” sighed Mr. Hayhoe.

  Mr. Mere laughed loudly.

  “I believe I know what she be as well as thee do,” he replied. “But who be in there wi’ she, tell me that, Mr. Hayhoe?”

  “Her father, or it may be little Winnie,” answered Mr. Hayhoe, “though I believe at this time in the evening Mr. Huddy usually goes to the Inn, but I will knock at the door and inquire if I may enter.”

  Mr. Hayhoe went by the farmer and knocked softly at Daisy’s door. The door was opened to him at once, but as soon as he was inside the cottage, it was closed and locked again.

  Every pious and God-loving man is secretly afraid of a girl, and would, if it were possible, avoid being left alone in a young woman’s company. For what man can tell—and certainly no clergyman—what will happen, when one is forced to be alone with a maid? The youthful lady may be quiet enough at first, and intent on filling a pincushion with bran. She will talk graciously of the places she has seen, of the fine people she knows, and of how many times in her life she has been a bridesmaid. She may even sit decently for a while, as well as talk modestly. But presently she will spill some of the bran and then her demeanour will change. She will throw down the pincushion and then— A kind and wise man will pick it up.

  It is sometimes awkward to be God’s servant, but, as such, Mr. Hayhoe had sought to do his duty. When he found himself in the low cottage room, he knew that this time he must look at Daisy. He could not avoid her now. He carried no Bible today, but another book in his pocket. Yes, there she was, standing before him in the dim light; she even curtseyed.

  Mr. Hayhoe was extremely surprised. He certainly expected to see something quite different—a sort of soiled harsh thing, a wild-eyed strumpet. Or a Madam Bubble, scented and odious. But what he saw was a young girl, pretty and demure, with yielding frightened eyes, and with hair only a little darker than her sister Winnie’s, that was almost straw-coloured. Mr. Hayhoe looked at her for a moment, and then quickly looked away.

  He thrust his hand into his pocket and found Pride and Prejudice.
When he read to Daisy he knew that he would have to keep his eyes fixed upon the book, as he had with the Bible. “Will Jane protect me,” asked Mr. Hayhoe of his heart, “if God is absent? I must sit near the window when I read.”

  Mr. Hayhoe gazed nervously about the room, and saw John Death. Never had he been better pleased at the sight of another man. Death was pleased, too, and shook Mr. Hayhoe’s hand warmly.

  “I am still looking for my lost property,” said John amiably, “and I am still upon a holiday. You know what women are?”

  “I only know Priscilla,” replied Mr. Hayhoe.

  Death smiled.

  “A woman does not always know what she is herself,” he said. “Miss Bridle is very much mistaken when she thinks herself a camel, and our pretty Daisy is quite in the wrong when she calls herself a wicked sinner.”

  “She should never think that,” said Mr. Hayhoe, looking at Daisy.

  “Since I have lived in Dodder,” observed Death, “I have become an antiquarian.”

  Daisy blushed; all long words had but one meaning for her.

  She shook her head slyly at Death.

  “Oh, just you fancy,” said Daisy to Mr. Hayhoe, “John isn’t in the least afraid of Mr. Mere—and look what he has given me!”

  She showed Mr. Hayhoe a golden bangle, of very old and curious workmanship. Mr. Hayhoe looked at Death mournfully.

  “Of course she would not take it for nothing,” said John, gaily.

  “Oh, but that was nothing,” laughed Daisy. “And I never knew I could get so much given to me—I mean so pretty a thing—for doing so little, and I pleased John so well, that he said my body was like a dove’s breast.”

  Mr. Hayhoe looked out of the window.

  “It was only kind to show Daisy,” observed Death, “that there are happier usages in love’s doings than that damned farmer Mere has ever shown to her.”

  “How do you know that Farmer Mere is damned?” inquired Mr. Hayhoe.

  “I met some one walking on Madder Hill who told me so,” replied Death.

  “Perhaps you mean Tinker Jar,” said Mr. Hayhoe.

  Death nodded.

  “I have come to make Daisy happy, too,” cried Mr. Hayhoe. Death bowed. He went to the stairway door, that he opened widely. Mr. Hayhoe turned very red.

  “Oh!” he cried, “you mistake my meaning, John. I only meant that I would make Daisy happy by reading a book to her.”

  “Ah!” said Death. “If that is so, then I will certainly stay and listen, for I believe that you have Keats’ Odes in your pocket. He’s a fine poet and knows whom to praise when he listens in a darkening evening to the song of a nightingale. And now, after Daisy and I have been so happy in one another’s company, to hear a good poem read will give us both pleasure.”

  Mr. Hayhoe shook his head doubtfully. He was uncertain what to say. He ought, he supposed, to reprove John for having had to do with the girl. He was extremely surprised at the behaviour of his friend; he had never expected him to act so naughtily. But as Mr. Hayhoe was a rural clergyman and knew country habits, he thought that Death might only have been questioning Daisy—as timid lovers do sometimes—about nature’s mysteries. Perhaps they would marry. If the idea of a wedding was in John’s mind, an ill-timed rebuke would be very much out of place, and Daisy was certainly not hated by John as Tamar had been by Ammon—and so a marriage might come of it.

  That was Mr. Hayhoe’s hope. He had always been so happy with Priscilla, and even the death of their little son had brought them nearer to one another. If Mr. Mere would not take Daisy, why should not John have her?

  A baby to be baptized rejoiced the heart of Mr. Hayhoe. He knew that there could not be too many Christians in the world. He enjoyed saying “Bo!” to an infant in the vestry after a service, and when the tiny thing was a girl, she always winked at him. Then he would let her hold his little finger.

  “Perhaps,” thought Mr. Hayhoe, “Daisy may be the means of keeping Death in Dodder.”

  John had pleased Mr. Hayhoe so well that he did not wish to part with him. If Death stayed in Dodder, and was always near, Mr. Hayhoe believed that his own life would be very happy. Mr. Hayhoe had never been in the least nervous with John. Often when he had talked with him he discovered that John thought much as he did upon most subjects. He did not believe that so kind a man as John could hurt the heart of any girl, unless he bound it up with marriage lines. John could sharpen a scythe, and no doubt he could mow a field. And who, indeed, was most to blame for Death’s being guided to Daisy’s bedroom by the scarlet thread? Why, he himself. Who had read the Bible to her? Mr. Hayhoe. His conscience smote him very sore. It was he who had been unkind to Daisy, and John only kind.

  “But it is certainly queer,” considered Mr. Hayhoe, “how I can never, even in circumstances that look a little unholy, think anything but good of John. I do not believe that he could act very ill. Though his conduct has shocked me, yet I cannot help thinking as well of him as I have always thought.”

  Mr. Hayhoe sat beside Death upon the sofa. He forgot that he had come to the cottage to read to Daisy. He might have been alone with Death, for he thought only of him. They talked happily together. And moments went by.

  XXVI

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  A Dead Rat

  “Is it not strange,” observed Mr. Hayhoe, “that our dissolution, which is approved and predestined by God—Who must know what is good for us—is so rarely agreed to by mortal man?”

  “It is most curious,” observed Death.

  “Though it is hard,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “to find a modern poet who is not in love with destruction.”

  “Their verses certainly should be,” answered Death dryly, “for I only know one of them who writes prettily, and that’s a woman.”

  Mr. Hayhoe was about to reply, when a horse galloped down the lane, followed by another, and both stopped at the cottage door. Voices were heard outside, a command was given by one man to another to take care of his beast. Then there came a great knocking at the door. Daisy Huddy peeped timidly out of the window to see who was there. She turned fearfully to Mr. Hayhoe.

  “It’s Lord Bullman,” she cried out, “and he’s pulling at the scarlet thread.”

  “He only thinks it’s the bell-rope,” said Death.

  “Ah, what ever can I do?” sobbed Daisy. “He looks so angry.”

  “Why,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “I should open the door to him, or else he will break it down, for evidently he does not wish to be noticed standing in the street.”

  “Every one is looking at him,” observed John, who stood near to the window,

  “He won’t want to go upstairs, will he?” sighed Daisy, “if I let him in?” Then, drying her eyes, she said: “Is a lord like the others?”

  “Exactly,” replied John, “only a little more serious in a bedroom.”

  Daisy, who was reassured, opened the door. Lord Bullman strode in; he had the appearance of a very fine gamecock, if one may imagine such a fowl dressed in suitable clothes for riding, and ready to cry “Halloo!” instead of to crow, and ready enough, too, to swagger and lord it upon a fair dunghill—and so we have the man.

  Lord Bullman looked at Daisy, and she regarded him in return a little wonderingly. Her visitor appeared to be almost as surprised at her simple and childlike appearance as Mr. Hayhoe had been, for she looked too young a thing to be as hardened in sin as Mr. Pix had affirmed.

  But Lord Bullman was only shamed for a very little while by Daisy’s looks; he was no hedge-priest, as Mr. Hayhoe was, to be abashed by a mere girl, who seemed so innocent. He had seen that kind of thing before; he was a magistrate, whose duties made him stern.

  He coughed, and began to chide her. He accused her of naughtiness, of all idle wickedness. He said that, as the lord of the manor and lay rector, it was his bounden duty to
clear the village of such drabs as she, who pollute the body politic.

  “And why don’t you have,” he shouted, “a bell that rings?”

  “The men in the story knew what it meant,” sobbed Daisy.

  He told her to pack, and go. But having once said that, he began to observe her more kindly.

  “Do tell me,” he inquired in a milder tone, “the meaning of the scarlet thread that you hang out of the window? I pulled it, but nothing happened.”

  “Don’t you read the Bible?” asked Daisy in astonishment, having gained a little confidence now that Lord Bullman seemed kinder.

  Lord Bullman looked down.

  “Only when I can’t find a fox,” he said. “Then I read a verse or two and hope to have better luck next day—but what is the thread tied to, my dear?”

  “To my bed,” replied Daisy.

  Lord Bullman stepped towards the stairway door.

  The evening was dull, and the cottage parlour was duller still. Lord Bullman had not so far seen either John Death or Mr. Hayhoe, who sat silent upon the sofa in a dark corner. But no sooner did Lord Bullman go to the stairway door than Death laughed. Mr. Hayhoe rose hurriedly.

  “My lord,” he said, “I assure you that this young woman is upon the highroad to repentance. She has already begun to make amends for her sins by her willingness to darn my socks. And when I suggested reading to her aloud, her only stipulation was that the book I read should be a novel, and contain more than one wedding. And surely that desire alone shows a fine wish to lead a new life.”

  Lord Bullman stared from Death to Mr. Hayhoe.

  “I am sorry to see you here, sir,” he said, addressing the clergyman, “you, to whom I thought of giving the living of Dodder, I find in the house of a prostitute.”

  “I only came to read to her,” answered Mr. Hayhoe simply.

  “Out of a common book, I fear,” said my lord, with a wink.