Mr. Tasker's Gods

by T. F. Powys

  After this was all done they returned to Mrs. Fancy’s, where they had supper of bottled ale and ham. By this time Alice’s head ached and she grew more and more nervous. She remarked that ‘she did not want to go to bed, she would stay downstairs all night; he could go if he liked.’ Her young man addressed her after the manner of his class, and, gripping her by the arm, forced her upstairs.

  At Shelton vicarage the matter made very little noise. Young servants do run away sometimes. And Mrs. Turnbull had noticed something in her husband, and had decided—wise woman—to choose next time a less attractive handmaiden. Edith went on doing the work—the work still remained, like Mr. Turnbull’s appetite, whatever else ran away. The policeman of the village called to inquire if any of the spoons were missing.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE DROVER’S DOG

  IN the bar of a little public-house just outside the village of Kingston, the village that lay between Shelton and the town, a company were assembled watching a dog. The most prominent amongst them was the owner of the dog. He was a drover from the market, a kind of Caliban, whose joy in life was to beat dumb creatures until they did speak. This drover was a man very friendly to one thing in the world—beer. His face was bestial. On his head was a torn, foul hat. He held a large stick, and a great toe protruded from a hole in his boot.

  This man, like the rest of the company, watched the dog. The beast, a tawny creature, was holding fast in his jaws one of the legs of the table. His great red eyes were filled with biting murder. His attitude denoted fury, almost madness.

  ‘Damn ’e, ’e won’t let go—damn ’e!’ shouted the dog’s master.

  ‘What made ’e lay ’old on it?’ inquired a shepherd, whose own curly-haired dog was asleep under the bench.

  The drover took up his ash stick and carefully turned it round so that the heavy knob leaned the right way, and then he spat in his hand and with a quick blow brought the stick down upon the dog’s head. At the same time he yelled, ‘Bloody damn thee!’ and gave it another. The dog winced but held on. It thought it had the leg bone of a man in its teeth.

  The group of men became more interested. Meanwhile another guest arrived. This was no less a person than Mr. Tasker, who was on his way home from market. He had found something wrong with his harness, and he hoped to be able to get a piece of cord at the inn to mend it with.

  Mr. Tasker’s mind had been much troubled of late with the thought of his father, who had, ever since his last holiday in prison, been hanging around the town. Mr. Tasker had seen him, once, twice, three times! Mr. Tasker feared that one day he might come to Shelton and refuse to go away. He might lie about in sheds and come and demand every day to be fed at Mr. Tasker’s expense.

  The dairyman’s long lean face was lined with trouble; the harness was broken, and he might have to pay for a rope wherewith to mend it. ‘He might,’ he thought regretfully, ‘have to buy a glass of beer.’ ‘Would a penny packet of Woodbine cigarettes be enough?’ Mr. Tasker looked at the group of serious men round the table, who watched the dog. The savage way that it still held the leg of the table impressed every one. It was the kind of fury that they liked to find in themselves at times. Mr. Tasker looked at the dog and thought. Then in his market voice he spoke to the drover.

  ‘Do ’e fetch up cows? Would dog keep away a tramp? I wants a dog like thik.’

  The drover was willing to deal.

  ‘Sell ’e to you, master, ten shillings down and a pint. ’E be the dog for you. See ’ow ’e ’olds thik bloody table! See—I let ’e ’ave it!’ And he gave another exhibition of his skill with the thick end of his ash stick.

  There was some difficulty about the removal of the dog from the leg of the table, but a piece of meat, stale and putrid, having been found, the dog was persuaded to fasten his teeth into it and was then thrown into Mr. Tasker’s cart. Mr. Tasker paid the drover his money, refused to share the pint, borrowed a rope and mended his harness, and drove away. As he drove along, he heard under the seat the low growls and fierce crunchings as the beast devoured the stinking flesh for which Mr. Tasker had been obliged to pay twopence. The sound under the seat pleased Mr. Tasker. The drover had explained to him that the dog had once had hold of a tramp’s throat, and the drover had sworn that he would kill a man.

  It was a lovely late summer afternoon, and Mr. Tasker drove home slowly. Near a tiny cottage he passed two little girls with hoops, running up and down, dressed in clean print frocks, and a pretty boy, in socks and overall, merrily trundled behind them a wooden cart. Mr. Tasker drove slowly along the white road. Over the hedges were the pleasant fields. The golden corn, now partly cut, was set in shocks ready for the wagon. It seemed fat and full of grain. Here and there were the meadows, very green, shining and lit with bright fire by the still burning afternoon sun. Cows and sheep were feeding.

  To Mr. Tasker’s mind all this had one meaning—‘value.’ The fields, the barns, the sheep, the hazel copses, the set-up corn, the cows—what were they worth? The pretty children, the colour, the rooks, the odorous feeling of late summer—what did he know or care about all this? He had his work to do—he believed in pigs.

  A gentleman passed on a horse; Mr. Tasker touched his hat. A tramp shuffled along. As he did not get enough into the hedge, Mr. Tasker brushed his coat with his wheel. Mr. Tasker was thinking of his children. ‘The big girls,’ he could make them work. But all ate his cheese.

  ‘Too much live stock indoors,’ he said aloud, ‘too much live stock indoors!’ It was a favourite saying with the farmers.

  A growl from the dog made him think of his father, and he growled too. And then he considered if it would be possible to make his wife get up at 4 A.M. instead of 4.30. He had once—unlucky man—had to pay a doctor on account of her, when she had strained herself with the great churn just before one of her confinements.

  With the dog under the seat, Mr. Tasker drove into his yard. He let down the back of his cart and kicked out the dog, chain and all. Daisy Tasker, aged five years, was watching her father’s return, and was standing near. In a moment the enraged beast sprang upon her and mauled her face. Mr. Tasker pulled his prize away and conveyed it to a tub, where, at his leisure, he tied it up. Meanwhile his little girl, covered with blood, half mad with terror, lay screaming. She was at last carried in, and fainted. Mr. Tasker went out to milk the cows.

  After milking, Mr. Tasker, much against his will, sent for the doctor.

  ‘You know what people will say, if she dies,’ he told his wife.

  The bites were serious. The child had to lie for a month in bed, and then went to school with fearful scars and was made fun of by the boys.

  Mr. Tasker went about his work as usual. He liked the dog, and the dog was beginning to like him. It happened, one evening, that Mrs. Tasker found her husband rummaging in the bottom of a large cupboard that stood in their big kitchen. His long lean arms were pulling out things from the bottom, where old clothes were kept. He was looking for something he could not find. Mrs. Tasker watched and waited.

  ‘Where be thik wold ’at of father’s? Thik ’wold ’at ’e wore at mother’s burying?’

  The master moved out of her way and Mrs. Tasker stooped down and found it, a soft black felt, dusty and worn.

  ‘What do ’e want it for?’ she said.

  ‘Mind thee own work,’ he grunted, and went out into the yard.

  He went straight up to the chained dog, and he began to tease it with the hat. He swung his long lean figure about, bent himself double, grinned horribly, hissed and kicked and growled like another dog, and at last, when the beast was almost mad with anger, Mr. Tasker threw him his father’s hat. Then he went in to his tea.

  CHAPTER XIII

  TWO LETTERS

  HENRY TURNBULL had been too busy these harvest days—he had been helping the small farmer—to visit his friend. In the evenings he had been too tired to do anything except to sit before the little cross upon the Christmas card. Upon this first day of mists there
was nothing for him to do, and he walked between the heavy moisture-laden hedges and heard the moaning of the coming storms.

  Henry was that day thirty-one, and he had begun to feel old. So far he had not allowed a girl to intercept and to steal the feelings that would, if unhindered, love all mankind. He had never thought of taking the hand of a cottage girl. He could not bring himself to make love to that sort. Something or other would have to break in him before he could dare to. Though he wanted a second kiss, he could never ask for one.

  The young ladies, the clergyman’s daughters of the neighbourhood, called him ‘an old dear’ when he pumped up their bicycles, or held their ponies at his father’s door. Unless he was required for work of this kind, they left him to his own thoughts, and to his prayers—and prayers are dangerously wicked thoughts for a young man.

  Henry reached the vicarage gate and was surprised to find it open. The gate had been dragged back, and was fallen against the hedge, and the marks of a motor car were plainly seen in the long grass of the drive. Henry was so used to finding everything quiet and snug under those great trees that he was quite taken aback by these new signs. He walked nervously up the drive and saw a large motor in front of the door. He knew the car belonged to the town doctor.

  Henry knocked with his stick; the bell had long ago been broken. He waited a little until he heard the uneven shuffle of Mrs. Lefevre, who opened the door. With a dirty handkerchief held to her red eyes, she led the way upstairs to Neville’s bedroom. The door was wide open, and, as he went upstairs, Henry heard the cheery voice of the town doctor asking Neville if he had ever played golf. Neville was lying on his bed. The cheerful doctor sat by his side, Henry was welcomed by them both.

  Neville had not replied to the question about golf, and now he spoke quite at his ease.

  ‘How long do you think I shall live? You must have seen hundreds like me, you must know.’

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘I should say about a month under your old woman’s care. With a good nurse, perhaps six weeks. Abroad, possibly a year. Yours is not a simple case, not a case that gives a chance of treatment: it is one of the deadly kind. The evil, you know, has been in your family for generations. The worst kind of vermin’—the doctor smiled—‘have attacked you.’

  ‘You must get a nurse. Your old hag drinks, I am sure of it. And besides, think how much trouble I shall be saved if you are under good care. I must be getting along. You had better continue to lie as still as you can. Do be persuaded about the nurse. Good day—Turnbull; your father—pretty well, I hope?’

  And the cheerful doctor departed.

  Henry took the chair by the bed. Neville was smiling, a really amused smile.

  ‘Before we talk, Henry,’ he said, ‘I want you to write a letter for me to my sister. You did not know I had a sister. Well, I have. She is in India. I am the older. She is a missionary. A voluble preacher caught her and shipped her off before she could say no, and now she has been in India for ten years. I think this is the moment for her to come home. I can just manage two months or thereabouts. I have seen, I think, nearly as many of these ‘cases’ as Dr. Hawkins. Will you write for me? Her name is Molly. On that table you will find ink and pen.’

  Henry took the paper, and after the priest had rested a little, Henry wrote as directed:

  Dearest Molly,—Do not be frightened by the handwriting, it is only Henry Turnbull. What has happened is, that I have got father’s old complaint. When I answered your letter last week I could not say anything, because I was not sure. Come home if you can. But there is no hurry. I am quite anxious to live at present. It would be very jolly to have you home, and there ought to be enough money for you to live very cheaply in England.

  Mrs. Lefevre still enjoys brandy. There is something the matter with my front gate, and grass grows everywhere. I have never seen before such wonderful grass.

  I cannot help thinking it is quite time you gave up your work.

  I am sending to you all the money I can lay my hands upon.—Your ever loving Henry.

  ‘She will have plenty of time to come, and she has not got on well there. She is not happy. She ought to come home. Just read her last letter to me. She has begun to worship an idol—lift up that red book, the letter is underneath.’

  Henry found the letter.

  From the top of the nearest elm, a dead leaf out of a branch of gold, the first leaf to fall, fluttered down. It drifted in through the window and fell upon the bed. Neville took it up and held, this first yellow leaf, in his hand. He knew that in two months’ time the leaves would still be falling. His friend was reading the letter.

  Dearest Henry,—I have just had a dreadful quarrel with my superior about—idols!

  I have only myself to blame, for I foolishly told him a story of a visit I made to a native hut.

  It was a mud hut, smeared with cow-dung, in one of these central-plain villages. The women in the hut, two wives, shared an idol, not an ugly earthy demon, as so many of them are, but a wonderful carved human head, calm and beautiful. Its look made me feel the eternal suffering, the eternity of the depths of joy, of the world. The body and legs of the idol were a rude lump of clay.

  The women were kneeling before it. They expected me to blame them. I could not blame them.

  And I knelt down beside the two women and covered my face. I saw the native villages all over the plains, and dark human beings, all suffering and bearing their sufferings. And I saw the cruel priest, our missionary, who would bind the body of the poor native to a munition factory.

  I wish, Henry, you could stand up here on some little hill, and just tell the people to worship anything they like.

  I left the women—they thought I was quite mad—and went back to the station. Our missionary was playing Bridge. I told him I had been worshipping an idol.

  ‘I don’t like your jokes,’ he said.

  I saw him feel the knee of the girl next to him,—a favourite. And then he dealt the cards.

  Surely the natives are wise to worship the cow.—Your loving sister Molly.

  Henry posted Neville’s letter, and then walked slowly to his own home. The mist had changed to rain. The warmth of summer had not gone, but the shroud was upon the body, and the limbs would soon be cold.

  CHAPTER XIV

  UNDER THE HUMAN MIND

  THE next day being Sunday, Henry went down again to his friend’s. He found him lying just as he had left him the day before. This time he was talking to a young clergyman. This gentleman was the Rev. Edward Lester, the curate from the town. He was lent to Mr. Neville to entertain the people of the village in the church. The little hamlet by the river on this sort of occasion was quite forgotten.

  The Rev. Edward Lester was a modern. He was a curate in a parish of the country town of Maidenbridge. He had given it out as his idea more than once that he believed in the people, and he also used to remark sometimes that he believed in himself. As Henry took the chair by the open window next to the bookcase, Neville had been speaking, and the young clergyman was replying.

  ‘Our religion is up to date,’ he said. ‘Worship, and playing the game, that’s what our Church teaches. It’s a splendid body, and we are all gentlemen. What we try to do is to make the rich give and the poor pray. Look here, Neville, our club boys like games better than they like girls!’

  The curate made a queer noise, a sort of clucking in his throat.

  Neville answered slowly, looking out of the window. His voice was tired, and he spoke in quite a new way for him.

  ‘The English Church is humanly organized,’ he said. ‘It has become a very successful business. It took a great work out of loving hands and built in the Master’s name a jam factory. They boil the stones of the fruit and call it “Christ’s Church.”—Without Jesus our Church is really splendid. I can easily conceive of a bishop suddenly waking up and crying out, “What fools we have been, all listening to a dark man, a fellow little better than a nigger, a fellow nearly as black as Dr. Johnson’s
servant!”’

  Mr. Lester rose from his chair, stretched, lit a cigarette, and said:

  ‘Jolly long grass you ’ve got, Neville, out under the trees.’

  Henry Turnbull had been asked by his father to bring the curate home to supper, and he now intimated that it was time for them to be going. Once outside the priest’s broken gate, the curate, like a schoolboy, began to chatter.

  ‘A queer sort of old boy, Neville—not the right kind for our Church. Don’t tell anybody—but do you know what he did once? Ravished a girl in the street! He’s a regular Hun. I heard it from Canon Allfreem, his vicar. That’s what Neville’s come down here for. The people stoned him; you can always trust the people to do the right thing.—Do you know what I do, Turnbull? After our evensong I carry a flag. A good chap, A1, a sidesman, helps me to hold it. We go to the town green and sing a hymn, and I preach a little sermon. We have quite a good time. The girls bring their young men to hear us, and one or two old topers from the pubs have been known to come. I do these services without the vicar. He didn’t like the idea at first—called it ranting—I brought him to it. He’s a good chap—keeps old port, you know—gives me a glass sometimes after a tiring celebration.’

  He took Henry’s arm.

  ‘You should see our men’s club; we are all socialists there—real red ones. We must bring down the very rich, Turnbull, we must make them give. I told our mayor so, and Miss Rudge, at dinner. Our mayor’s a rare old sport. Can give away a thousand; he can write the largest cheque in the country, and not miss it. Look here, Turnbull, Kitty Rudge will have every penny when he dies—this is between ourselves—a jolly nice girl too!’