Unclay

by T. F. Powys

  Lord Bullman smiled proudly and passed on.

  Presently an under-gardener appeared in the path, whom Mr. Mitton had sent on to discover the suspected persons.

  “They are standing beside the large bed of begonias,” he whispered to Mr. Mitton. “And she—I mean the girl—is eyeing the blooms most thievingly. You have only to creep round the next corner in order to catch them together.”

  They were now joined by Mr. Titball, who, having concluded his soliloquy and hearing that my lord was abroad, had come to pay his dutiful respects to him. Mr. Titball approached his old master most humbly. To behold him was enough; he did not expect to be recognized.

  But Lord Bullman was not a man to neglect a friend. He shook the honest landlord warmly by the hand, and, desiring him to join the others and keep behind him, he began again to advance cautiously, as though he were stalking a lion, holding his walking-stick like a gun. His position now in his own garden he knew to be dangerous. He had intended to shut himself up in his house all day until the gates were closed and all the mob gone.

  There might, he feared, be a murderer amongst the crowd. As he was a large landowner, it was quite possible that he had offended some one. Some person who did not like lords might be prowling there with a knife or loaded pistol in his pocket. And, even if there were no murderer, he had fully persuaded himself that the grounds held only thieves. Perhaps, he considered, the whole plan of letting wild people into a nobleman’s gardens was but a trick, cunningly arranged by the supreme contriver of all criminal doings—the Devil himself—who, in some form or other, had gained the King’s private ear. Though each one had paid a shilling—except the children, who were admitted for sixpence—all could easily carry something off worth far more than the price of entry.

  On his way towards the begonia bed, Lord Bullman had distinctly seen an old man stoop down and pick up something in the path. Perhaps it was a pebble, but in the old happy days of just laws a young woman had been committed to Bridewell for stealing a small twig from a hedge. A lordly pebble was of more value than a twig. In any country village that pebble could be shown with as much pride as if it had come from the temple of Venus at Pompeii. And suppose every one there took away stones, there would soon be no more gravel left!

  Fears of this nature made my lord clench his teeth and hurry around the hedge, in his eagerness to catch a thief.

  Never had any one been better surprised. Winnie was in the very act of plucking a scarlet begonia to add to her nosegay when Lord Bullman with a loud “Halloo!” came round the corner.

  Winnie was in the midst of coloured flowers, looking herself like only another of them and holding a large bunch in her hands. There she was, her hat off and her yellow hair catching the sun, her eyes shining with delight as she culled the spoil. Near to the bed, basking in the sun, and making merry music with two or three knucklebones, was her friend, John.

  Lord Bullman advanced upon Winnie, who, giving a little scream of fright, quitted the bed—though not the flowers—and hid herself behind John.

  Death laughed.

  Lord Bullman strode haughtily up to him.

  “Perhaps you do not know who I am?” he shouted fiercely.

  “Neither do you, I think, know me,” replied John.

  “You once measured me for a frock-coat,” cried Lord Bullman, whose anger every moment grew hotter, “and I have never seen a coat that fitted me worse.”

  “I will measure you for another garment one day, my lord,” answered Death.

  “I should not have been so swindled in Bond Street,” Lord Bullman remarked angrily, “and now you steal my flowers. Hell and damnation seize all such thieving tailors!

  “Take away the flowers,” commanded Lord Bullman of the gardeners.

  But no one stirred, for John Death stood between Winnie and the men, and his looks alarmed them.

  “I would rather that all this bed of flowers should droop and die,” said Lord Bullman, “than that they should be stolen and carried off by such an artful hussy.”

  “You really wish so?” asked Death in a low tone.

  “The flowers are mine,” said Lord Bullman, looking proudly at the splendid patch of colour.

  “And you wish them dead?” murmured John Death.

  “Rather than have them stolen by vagabonds,” replied Lord Bullman.

  Death stooped down and gathered in his hands a little dust.

  “’Twas but a small miracle,” he said, turning to Mr. Hayhoe, “and one that hardly befitted so high and kingly a power, to mix a little spittle with dust in order to give sight to the blind, for who is there that does not know that dust, when directed aright by divine power, can both save and destroy?”

  John Death cast the dust over the flowers.

  A change came over them. Their beauty waned; as a young girl’s who is ravished and spoiled before she be ripe for love, so the lovely flowers drooped sadly, as though parched by excessive heat, or frozen by a January frost. A silent destruction. There was no turmoil of fire or war that, with roar and clamour, blasts and destroys. The flowers could be watched dying. Each plant sickened visibly, showing that the sweet juice and colour of life had suddenly been withdrawn.

  In one minute every flower was dead. Winnie Huddy looked at them fearfully and held her own nosegay, as though to protect it against a like fate, next to her breast.

  “Do not kill mine too,” she begged, looking up at Death; “I only picked them to give to Mr. Solly.”

  Mr. Mitton and Mr. Titball conversed together. Mr. Mitton mentioned ground-lightning, that he believed could be very destructive. Mr. Titball thought that the flowers must be bewitched by one of the visitors, but such a thing, he said, could never have happened had he been at the Hall.

  Lord Bullman paid little heed to what had happened. He was looking earnestly at Death’s clothes. As to the begonias, Lord Bullman was aware that such low earth-born matters might easily fade away. They were altogether a different thing from landed gentry. Perhaps the gardeners, who had, of course, to keep their eyes upon so many thieves, had forgotten to water them. Or, what was even more likely, the poor flowers, being alarmed by the gaze of so many eyes—and all vulgar—had died from fright!

  While Lord Bullman looked closely at Death, he was aware that Winnie Huddy was trying to slip away with her stolen spoils, that grew more lovely the longer she held them. Lord Bullman called her back to him, thinking to make her turn king’s evidence.

  “I will let you keep the flowers, my dear,” he said, in the tone he used when he presided over the children’s court in the local town, “if only you will tell me where this man, whom you call Johnnie”—Lord Bullman smiled—“got his clothes. Did he steal them, or were they given to him by a friend?”

  “They were given to Johnnie,” answered Winnie, readily enough, “by Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

  “And who is she?” inquired Lord Bullman, a little nervously.

  “Mr. Darcy’s aunt,” replied Winnie.

  Lord Bullman looked none the wiser.

  “And from where, young woman,” he asked sternly, “does John get the golden coins?”

  Winnie puckered her brow and remained thoughtful for a moment.

  “Oh, yes, I remember now!” she cried, happily. “He gets them from a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn.”

  Lord Bullman hurried away, followed by his gardeners and by Mr. Titball.

  XLVIII

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  Winnie Sees the Policeman

  The Reverend Francis Hayhoe remained beside the garden of dead flowers. He looked very sad; neither did Death appear merry; only Winnie, who, now that she was sure that no one would take away her flowers—that she meant to arrange in vases in Mr. Solly’s sitting-room the next day—was the happy one.

  Mr. Hayhoe went
to the dead flowers and bowed his head. Winnie thought that he wept.

  “Why did you destroy them?” Mr. Hayhoe asked of Death, in a low tone. “Why have you made their fair faces blacker than darkness?”

  Death pointed to the flowers that Winnie held.

  “Those still live,” he said. “But ask the Earth, and she shall tell thee, that it is she which ought to mourn for the fall of so many that grow upon her. For out of her came all at the first, and out of her shall all others come, and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and a multitude of them is utterly rooted out. Who then should make more mourning than she, that hath lost so great a multitude? Not thou, who art sorry for these few.”

  Mr. Hayhoe knelt beside the parched bed and prayed aloud:

  “Are not the evils which are come to us sufficient? If thou forsake us, how much better had it been for us if we also had been burned like these flowers? For we are not better than they that died here.”

  “You pray wisely,” said Death, looking at the work he had done. “And surely, did I need an excuse for my conduct, your words provide one. What folly is greater than pride, and what mortal dare be proud when the judgment pronounced upon all living things is that they must become dust and ashes?”

  “But why,” asked Mr. Hayhoe, “should man, alone of all the creatures—vegetable or animal—be the mock of the firmament? Why should man, in all the universe, be the only living thing that is conscious of his irrevocable doom?”

  “When God’s finger first stirred the pudding,” answered Death, with a smile, “He let a tear fall in by mistake, and the tear became man’s consciousness. Then, to preserve man from everlasting sorrow, He put Death in the pot.”

  Mr. Hayhoe bowed reverently.

  Winnie, who had not heeded a word of what was being said—for she knew that men will always talk some kind of nonsense—happened to look behind her and gave a little scream.

  “The Shelton policeman be coming,” she cried, “whose name be Jimmy, and he be staring up at the top of the box-hedge.”

  “Come,” said Mr. Hayhoe. “I think we had better leave this garden by another way.” He began to run.

  Death and Winnie followed. Mr. Hayhoe, who appeared to know the way, led them down a secluded path that grew more and more wild and less garden-like as they went on. Presently they came to a broken wall which they easily climbed, and were safe in the open fields.

  “I thought I should remember the way,” said Mr. Hayhoe, panting a little, “for I used, as a boy, to stay at Madder with my godmother, Mr. Solly’s aunt, and sometimes I would climb over this wall, creep into the gardens, and take a few plums.”

  Death laughed loudly.

  “Ha!” he cried, “then Winnie and I are not the only ones who take what is not our own. And I wonder much that Lord Bullman did not notice your nose as well as mine, for I think that they are much the same length.”

  “I was wrong, of course,” replied Mr. Hayhoe, blushing, “but my godmother cured me of stealing by making me eat nothing but plum jam for the rest of my stay.”

  They were now come to a pleasant field-path that led to Dodder, and that crossed, by the help of two stiles, the very lane in which Mr. Hayhoe had first met John Death.

  Only a good man, into whose soul evil hath not entered, is able to look at the dreadful pit, that goes down deeper than the beginning of life, into which he must one day descend, and yet still view the golden colour of a child’s hair and the green beauty of the fields with untroubled joy.

  Mr. Hayhoe watched Winnie with gladness. She ran here and there, picking moon-daisies. One moment she was in one place, and then in another; her legs danced her everywhere.

  Mr. Hayhoe, thinking that Death still walked beside him, turned to speak to him, but found that he was not there.

  Mr. Hayhoe shuddered.

  Winnie ran to him and gave him her flowers to hold, for, besides the begonias, she had gathered nearly an armful of daisies.

  “I am going to Madder tomorrow,” she said, proudly, “to wash Mr. Solly’s shirts.”

  Mr. Hayhoe commended her industry.

  “Oh, that bain’t nothing,” she cried, “for Mr. Solly do say that ’e didn’t let love into his cottage to be idle, but ’e do always light the copper fire and draw the water before I be come.”

  Mr. Hayhoe nodded even more approvingly.

  “And I am soon going to make a nut pie,” boasted Winnie, “and learn to paper a room—all blue and yellow—and cook an omelette—but nine years is a long time to wait for a wedding-cake!”

  “I wish you joy when that day comes, Winnie,” said Mr. Hayhoe. “Have you loved him for long?”

  “It has been coming on so gradually,” replied Winnie, “that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Madder.”

  Mr. Hayhoe smiled.

  “I am sure you will be happy,” he said hopefully.

  “I am sure I shall,” answered Winnie, “for Mr. Solly promises to take me to church every Sunday, and his pew be only one step below where real ladies do sit.”

  Mr. Hayhoe was meditating.

  “Is it wrong to steal?” he asked of Winnie.

  “Oh yes,” replied Winnie, hurriedly, taking the flowers into her own hands again, “it’s certainly very wicked.”

  “Yes, I think it is,” said Mr. Hayhoe, sadly, “and yet, ever since I took those plums, I have longed to steal the peace of God.”

  “Oh, that’s always given away,” answered Winnie.

  “No,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “one has to steal that; one has to take His peace away by force. Whoever wants that peace must rob God of it, for it belongs to Him.”

  “I would much rather rob Lord Bullman,” replied Winnie.

  Mr. Hayhoe looked at her and smiled again.

  They were now come into Dodder and were close to Joseph Bridle’s field. Coming near, they were surprised to see that Mr. Balliboy’s car had stopped exactly beside Joe’s field gate, and that all the occupants had dismounted and were gazing excitedly into the meadow. Mr. Balliboy alone stood aside, for he was telling Miss Sarah Bridle that he would always honour and love her, if she became his—to which she could only reply that she was but a poor creature and no true woman.

  Mr. Balliboy kissed her hand, and she promised to be his animal.

  “Something very strange has happened,” observed Joe Bridle to Mr. Hayhoe. “In the morning the field was bare, but now the grass is as long and as green as though it grew in the Dodder churchyard.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” cried Winnie Huddy, “it’s only John’s silly scythe that makes the grass grow so quickly. He is always telling me about that scythe of his. He says that the faster he cuts with it, the greener and better the grass grows up behind him.”

  “The Lord created man of the earth,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “and turned him into it again.… For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal.”

  “I would rather hear you read about Mr. Bingley than talk so,” said Winnie.

  Mr. Hayhoe sighed deeply.

  “Pride and Prejudice is finished,” he said.

  XLIX

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  The Greed of a Collector

  Instead of going home at once to Madder, after stepping out of Mr. Balliboy’s car, Mr. Solly returned with the Bridles to tea, and even after that meal was over he was disinclined to leave Dodder. Something dreadful he knew was about to happen, though what that something was he knew not.

  Mr. Solly, as is the way with a peaceful and harmless man, was very prone to notice omens. On his way to Dodder that morning he had seen three swans pass over, with necks outstretched, as though they intended a long journey. Mr. Solly, who admired swans more at a distance than near by, watched their flight, and soon, to
his surprise, though he heard the bird utter no song, one—the most beautiful of them—fell at his feet, dead.…

  Was it a mere chance that a yellow leaf, driven before the wind, lifted up and was blown here and there along the lanes, until at last a wilder gust, or a swirl of eddies, carried the leaf into my room and placed it upon the paper beside my pen?

  Has the leaf a known purpose? Does it come to ease me of my care, or has it come to say that it loves me? What is it that takes a man, as well as a leaf, out of his path, and bids him follow a road that he has not intended to travel?

  A day passes and the evening comes, and we think to return, as Mr. Solly thought, to our garden of nuts—but, instead, we go elsewhere. To where an everlasting battle is fought between Love and Death. Can no shadow come between these two, or a fountain of water, or lonely silence?

  Will God never be still?…

  “I would like to step up to the Dodder churchyard before returning to Madder,” Solly said to Joseph, when tea was over, “for an odd fancy has come to me that Love is not only content to eat my nuts, but wishes also to catch a butterfly in Dodder.”

  Joe Bridle said that he would go too, but, before starting off, he loitered for a few moments in the cottage garden. Of late Joe had not troubled to attend to it. Bindweed, nettle and thistle had grown in abundance.

  Joseph Bridle looked away from the garden and towards the downs. It was there that he had laboured, though with but small success. Had he kept his hopes there, desiring but the little increase of his fields—the sure content of toil—instead of settling all his thoughts in the curious body of a girl, what happiness might he not have yet had?

  Mr. Solly sadly answered his thought.

  “Even the thickest grove of nut-bushes,” he observed, “cannot keep away Love. All things must go the way of nature. The oldest gods, that moved first in the still waters, must ever rule. Until the seas again become the void, until the hills are emptied into the bowl of eternal darkness, the pains of love must continue. But to us, Madder Hill is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. When the scene of our short vision ends, hardly a stone shall be moved, hardly a root gone. All the turmoil and trouble that love makes for a man, during the few years of his vanity, is of less consequence in the universe than the moving of one small worm from one burrow to another. Trouble Heaven as we will, make all the outcry we may, complain of our care to the wind and to the stars of the sky, nothing—no tittle—shall be left out of the law of our ways. We run our race blindfold, and when all is done, we have but moved one place, one step lower in degree, down Madder Hill.”