In other circumstances the superior officers might have looked with disfavour upon the relation of tenant and landlord between the coastguardsmen and this honest jobber. But it was this house or none, and a regular inspection of rent receipts made debt on that score an impossibility. So John Martin and Reuben Thorn took up their quarters and brought their wives and Martin’s little son, young John; and perhaps, on the whole, the women quarrelled less than might have been expected. After a little more than two years, indeed, they quarrelled not at all, for Mrs Thorn died; died in giving Reuben Thorn the child who was called Dorrily. She was the second, but the first had died at a day old.
So Mrs Martin took the child and reared it, and little John and his cousin Dorrily grew up together and played together, much apart from the other children of Lady Sparrow’s School at Leigh; for the Leigh fishermen were a desperate hard lot, the coastguardsmen were their natural enemies, and their children carried the feud to school with them; though, indeed, not many of the fishermen’s children went to school at all at that time.
By the time that John the younger was twelve and Dorrily eight, there had been no change in the fortunes at the cottage. Martin and Thorn had rowed guard, walked patrol, and once or twice fought fiercely with smugglers, and they were much as ever save for a trifle of ageing and a scar or two. Then there came a wild winter night when the brothers-in-law went out together for guard and never came back. It was not till the morning that Martin’s wife knew they had gone off shore, for none of the men themselves knew his own night’s duty till he was told off. And six hours later still, the water being little less rough, a boat was found bottom up and stove, and that was all. There was talk of three men being sent to watch for smugglers approaching a suspected sunk “crop” of tubs, but neither guard nor “crop” was ever heard of again, though the tubs were dragged for exhaustively. So it grew plain that no “crop” was there, and that the boat had come to grief in the bad weather.
The blow was staggering enough, and, though she met her fortunes bravely, Mrs Martin never wholly lost traces of the wound. The isolation in which the household had lived made the double loss of brother and husband the bitterer; more, ways and means must be considered. Both John and Reuben had been thrifty, sober fellows, and there was a little prize-money saved to eke out the “compassionate allowance;” and soon the boy began life on a fishing-smack; but the struggle was hard enough.
Simon Cloyse behaved well on the whole. He was no very lenient landlord in general, but now he did not turn Mrs Martin out, for he had no other tenant to put in her place. He even allowed a small reduction of rent when he found she could never pay the full amount. And, by one means and another, the fight was won. John earned wages of a sort, and his mother did a little field work now and again, and so the years went.
Now that there were no coastguardsmen in the house the neighbours might well have grown more friendly. They did so, in fact. But Mrs Martin had acquired a habit of detachment, which was slow to leave her, and for some while after her trouble she had other habits unattractive to the neighbours. She had long fits of silence, and, at times, fits of talking to herself. She would disregard the presence of others, and even pass hours in company with the children, without in any way regarding their existence, though, indeed, her affection was beyond the common. And once she was found in the castle barn gazing at the rafter from which the traditional suicide had hanged himself, and she was taken home by force. She grew better as time went, however, and as her troubles fell away from her fits of brooding were rarer, and at last they ceased altogether. So that the passage of years, in some small measure, wore away the barriers between Mrs Martin and her neighbours. But then it came to pass that young John, grown big and tall, and a skilled seaman, was himself accepted for service in the coastguard, and so the barriers rose again.
Still they were scarce such stark barriers as before, for things had changed. Smuggling had altogether declined, as a regular trade, within the ten or twelve years since the two cousins were left orphans, though it still persisted in a small way, insomuch that the knowing men of Hadleigh, Leigh, and Canvey got whatever of brandy and hollands they might need for private use without obtruding the transaction on the notice of the customs officers. The Queen’s men were more efficient, though they were few enough even now, and though the gap of seven miles still lay between the stations; so that it was no longer a matter of ordinary experience for a late watcher to peep from his window and see a procession of packhorses, with muffled feet, passing through Hadleigh street on the way inland, each with its two double ankers, or a file of men similarly employed with half-ankers; and no longer could the neat housewife afford to polish her window panes with strong gin, as in old times. But though no more small fortunes were made in smuggling, any comfortable householder In the neighbourhood would have conceived himself tyrannously ill-used if he were altogether prevented from supplying himself with the good drink to which he had been accustomed, at a price inconsistent with entry at the customs office. And a little later, when the regular coastguard (and Jack Martin among them) had been drafted off to the war, and an odd lot of substitutes were attempting their duty, it were a clumsy smuggler indeed who could not go aboard a Dutch lugger and bring away anything he needed, in reason.
Thus it was that although, as was natural, no great cordiality existed between the coastguard and the villagers, these latter were not so ill-affected toward the revenue men as in the days when they were at war with a profitable trade. And when they went away to fight the Russians they became even popular characters; for every smuggler in Essex had ever been a patriotic Englishman, and Roboshobery Dove, old man o’-warsman, fisherman, and retired smuggler, the most positive patriot of them all.
Young Jack Martin and Dorrily Thorn were parted by all the sea that lay this side of the frigate Phyllis, with the Baltic fleet; but a broken half of the same sixpence hung about each of their necks, and when Roboshobery Dove winked invisibly in the dark lane it was because he knew that young Jack was grown more than cousin and old playmate to the watching girl.
IV. — A DAY OF FEASTING
IT was the way of Hadleigh Fair to begin betimes on Midsummer Day morning, so that it had pushed Hadleigh village almost out of sight before breakfast was generally in progress. It was not great among fairs, perhaps, but neither was Hadleigh great among villages. The Fat Lady came there, and the Living Skeleton, and, one fair in three, the Fire-eater of Madagascar, when free from engagements before All the Crowned Heads. There had been two Mermaids within living recollection, though the last, as a sight, was considered unworthy the penny admission; but the really great exhibitions that graced Rayleigh Fair a month earlier — Wombwell’s, Clarke’s, Johnson and Lee’s — these rarely or never took stand at Hadleigh. So that there was all the more money left to buy gingernuts, bull’s-eyes, ribbons, and — more important than all — Gooseberry Pies. And if the Fat Lady, and the Living Skeleton, and the rest of the prodigies were not enough, the sight-seer would find peep-shows everywhere — half a dozen of them at least. And as to every other sort of stand, booth, stall, shanty, or wigwam, they made Hadleigh village a town for the day, whereof the chief population was contributed by Leigh, Prittlewell, Eastwood, Rochford, Bemfleet, Canvey, Hockley, and a score more parishes. Little was spent in the serious matters of cattle, horses, and farm produce at Hadleigh Fair, and the dealings — beside those in Gooseberry Pie — were mainly in ballads, spicenuts, penny toys, gown pieces, garters, peppermint stick, china and watches sold by Dutch auction, and gingerbread bought outright or knocked down by the expert with a stick.
The visitors from a distance bought their gooseberry pies at the booths and stalls, except such as had friends living in Hadleigh, with home-made pies of their own. The home-made pies were in general esteemed superior, because of a greater substance in the crust and a more liberal disposition of fruit. Those at the stalls, though handsome, plump, high, delicate, round, and full to look at, had a disappointing way of collapsing
“aw to crumbles” at the first bite of a healthy jaw, revealing in the remains the hidden chamber of air that had given the pie its goodly seeming; a hidden chamber filled and widened, it was commonly reported, by a puff of the bellows under the paste before baking. Moreover, to put no more than four gooseberries in a penny pie was justly regarded as an act of rapine. The homemade pie, on the other hand, offered something for the teeth to get to work on. Made in the biggest pie-dish available, it was roofed over with a noble arch of crust, solid and enduring, more often than not made of bread-dough an inch thick; and its complete filling of gooseberries left no room for air. It was a piece of politeness to exchange wedges of this pie among friends, or even, for them that aspired to a gentility beyond that of their neighbours, to exchange little separate pies made for the purpose: with the accompanying message: “Please, mother say will you accept of a bit o’ gooseberry poie?”
The person thus addressed was commonly as well assured of the coming of the pie as of the coming of fair-day, and might even have witnessed its hazardous transport through crowds of merrymakers the length of the village. But it was good form, nevertheless, to affect ineffable surprise and delight at the present, and to make the return in kind (if, indeed, the present were not itself a return compliment) with expressions of depreciation of her own handicraft. “I am that ashamed arltogether...if your mother will axcuse...” and so forth.
And so the gooseberry pie circulated with the proper compliments, the gingerbread was knocked down, ballads were bought and rolled up, the girls and women “argle-bargled” for gown pieces and garters, and all things went very merrily together. At the Castle Inn and the Crown the thirst induced by spicenuts and peppermint and the general circumstances was quelled in many pots of “thruppenny;” but again those with friends in the village had the advantage; for in half-a-dozen of the better keeping-rooms at least the man of the house would shut the door with a wink, and elicit from some obscure retreat a bottle; a bottle charged with cognac or hollands of a strength and quality that were a sufficient certificate of origin to the man of experience.
Very early on fair-morning Roboshobery Dove was astir, and planting out young cabbages in his garden. He stood on a plank, and used his wooden leg as a dibble, driving a proper number of holes at suitable distances apart. This done, he loosened the buckles, knelt, and set and packed his plants in the holes thus prepared. Ever he kept an eye on the road for early arrivals, for that way came all passengers from Rayleigh, Pitsea, or Bemfleet, and he greatly desired a peep at yesterday’s Chelmsford Chronicle, if by chance a copy might have been brought in.
His breakfast he took in two instalments, before and after the planting out, and then left his cottage to the care of the old woman who “tighted up” for him. Spick and span, in a clean green smock, with his hat shining in the sunlight, Roboshobery Dove stumped down the road to the village, now busy and gay. A group of small children with daisy chains on sticks went straggling along in mock procession, singing each his or her own perversion of the old rhyme:
Oliver Cromwell lay buried and dead,. Heigho! buried and dead!. There grew a green apple-tree over his head,. Heigho! over his head!. The apples were ripe and all ready to drop,. Heigho! ready to drop!. Then came an old woman to gather the crop,. Heigho! gather the crop!. Oliver rose and gave her a crack,. Heigho! gave her a crack!. That knocked the old woman flat down on her back,. Heigho! down on her back!. The apples are dried and they lie on the shelf,. Heigho! lie on the shelf!. If you want e’er a one you must get it yourself. Heigho! get it yourself!
The perversions all had for their object the substitution of gooseberry pie for the dried apples, and therein they were made to succeed regardless of metre, to the demoralisation of the whole poetical structure. Roboshobery Dove had shouldered his stick, by way of keeping character with the procession as he caught it up, but ere he quite did so the children checked their march, and the train closed into a whispering group and strayed out into the road. Roboshobery looked up and saw Dorrily Thorn, pale and sad, coming along the path.
“Mornin’!” said Roboshobery, raising his hand in salute. “That aren’t a fair-day face, my gal!”
“I’m tired. Master Dove, an’ ailing a little,” Dorrily answered, and sought to pass on. But the old man lifted his wooden leg as a barrier, and, bringing it down, took a pace to the left, confronting her with a grin on his broad face.
“O, Johnny’s gone, what shall I do? John’s gone to Ilo!” he half said, half sung, and added: “Don’t yow fret. He’ll be home a’mos’ soon as yow could knit him a puss. With a medal, too!”
And with a chuckle and a flourish of his stick above his head, as an expression of naval and military glory, Roboshobery pursued his walk. The children stared from across the way till Dorrily had turned the corner at the cross roads, and then went on with their song.
Roboshobery Dove stumped along among the people and the stalls till he came near the Crown and opposite a little front garden where a red-faced and white-headed villager in shirt sleeves leaned on the gate and smoked his pipe.
“Morn’, Henery!”
“Morn’, Bosh!”
“Hev yow seen e’er a paper o’ noos?”
“No, I an’t. Den’t see ye las’ night.”
“True ’tis. I kim up late from the look-out. Three prizes yes’day art’noon; no sense o’ prizes, though — bits o’ coasters.”
“Um!” Mr Prentice stood erect, rubbed his hand through the white hair behind his head, and jerked his pipe toward his open front door. “Hev a nip,” he said, and went up the garden path with Roboshobery behind him.
It was a neat keeping-room, that lighted by the front window, with a tall clock and a wavy looking-glass that made the gazer’s face an undulating nightmare. Old Harry Prentice brought a black bottle from the blackest corner of a dark cupboard, and two glasses. At the lifting of the cork a scent stole about the room, the soft scent of old white brandy, such as never is on sea or land in these meaner days.
“Ah!” Roboshobery said, sniffing gratefully and holding his glass to the light; “this is it!”
He gave it the water it needed, nodded to his host, and rolled a gulp about his teeth. Then he look at the glass again, and said, “That’s a few years sen’ that drop kim over, I warr’nt.”
“Ah, ’tis,” answered the other. “It do come pretty good now, but not like this.”
“An’ not so much of it.”
“No, not so much of it.” Mr Prentice’s eyes wandered toward the tall clock by association of ideas. For the clock stood on a loose floor-board, and the loose floor-board covered a space big enough for as many tubs as would make provision for the thirst of the latter years of a man already old. “But, Lord,” he went on, “I doan’t see why, now. These here coastguard chaps as they got temp’ry, them aren’t worth nothen. Why, poor oad Stagg, the ridin’ officer, dead twenty year, he’d a’ done better’n them, arl the lot. An’ he were no sense o’ use. Why, if I was younger, an’ needin’ a stroke o’ trade, I’d hev a cargo run now, easy.”
“Ay, ’twould be no trouble, I’d wager. I wonder some o’ the sharp ‘uns don’t try. Oad Sim Cloyse, eh?”
“Him or anybody. ’Tis easier than any time this thutty year. Yow could land a cargo on Canvey a’most by daylight, an’ night — Lord, anywheres!”
“I lay it ‘ud ha’ bin done if Golden Adams was about now. He’d soon ha’ found a freighter with the brass.”
“Ah, he would. Mayhap he’s a-done it where he be now — over in Sheppey. Though that ‘ud be a mile harder job.”
Roboshobery Dove pulled out a knife and a hard plug, but paused ere he cut. “Missus out?” he asked.
“Yes. She’s full o’ the noos. Hear about Banham’s gal? She’ve bin bewitched, so the women do say.”
“Ay, I hear tell.” Dove spoke with a more hushed attention. “An’ Master Murr’ll, he were hevin’ a witch-bottle made with young Steve Lingood.”
“That’s so. Well, the witch-b
ottle’s made an’ bust an’ arl, an’ the gal’s better; an’ they found the witch — so them says as believes in ‘em.” It was the way among the more intelligent in Hadleigh to add some such saving clause to any reference to the subject of witches.
“Cuther! Found the witch, eh? Who is’t?”
“Young Jack Mart’n’s mother.”
Roboshobery’s jaw dropped, and he caught his quid with a quick snatch of the hand. “What!” he cried, “Mrs Mart’n! No!”
“Ay, ’tis so. An’ ’tis arl about, too. There aren’t a woman in Hadleigh ‘ud take a bit o’ pie from her to-day; no, nor nothen else. Nor go near her.”
“Mrs Mart’n!”
“Ay; an’ some do say her niece is bad as she.”
Roboshobery stared, open mouthed, for ten seconds. Then he brought his fist on the table with a shock that made the bottle jump. “’Tis a lie, damme!” he said. “’Tis a lie!”
“Very like. But they do say it.”
“Why, her boy Jack be a fightin’ the deadly Rooshans this very minute!” Roboshobery pursued, with a fixed stare, and a logic of his own.
“An’ they do say ’tis proved agin her.”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 112