Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  This was another remark that seemed to need no answer.

  “Ay, an’ putt by, too, arl the while.”

  Dorrily left her spade in the ground and stood to tie the strings of her sun-bonnet closer. Above the stretch of green meadow that rose before her, with its near line of black fence, there was a patch of turnip ground, and beyond and above that again a jumble of sheds and a house in the middle of them. A female figure in a print gown stood by the nearest shed, shading eyes and looking down toward the black cottage.

  “Prittywell fair be Saturday week,” said young Sim Cloyse.

  The remark might seem inconsequent, but there was no disputing it. So Dorrily said “Yes,” and turned to her work again.

  “Yow fare dull here, I count,” young Sim pursued, getting it out with a rush. “Come ‘ee along o’ me a-fairin’ to Prittywell fair o’ Saturday week.”

  The sun-bonnet hid Dorrily’s face as she stooped, so that he saw nothing of frown and bitten lip; but went on to offer the greatest inducement he could invent.

  “I’ll take two pound and spend it arl.” he said.

  Dorrily left the spade again and stood erect.

  There was a white spot on the clear brown skin at the turn of each nostril, and young Sim Cloyse took his elbows from the fence when he saw her face.

  “I thank ‘ee, Master Cloyse,” she said; “but I don’t go fairin’ these times at all. But if you’ll turn about an’ look up to Banham’s, ‘haps you’ll be reminded of Hadleigh fair, which was none so long ago.”

  Sim started and turned his head, and truly enough there was Mag Banham in her print gown, far up the slope by the sheds, looking down at him.

  “Dang’t!” exclaimed young Sim under his breath; and backed away sheepishly toward the lane.

  XV. — A PRIVATE DANCE

  OLD SIM CLOYSE considered his son’s reports, and made himself certain that the coastguard had had no hand in the interruption of his enterprise. His reason also inclined him to the conviction that he owed his scored arm to Golden Adams. Young Sim was very suspicious of Roboshobery Dove; but perhaps his judgment was affected by the scare he had suffered. In any case old Sim’s course was resolved on: to buy off Cunning Murrell.

  Plainly he had not as yet given the revenue men information, but he might do it whenever he began to doubt that the service of Adams’s interests would pay as well. And it was certain that there could be no getting at the tubs while that desperado sat over them every night with loaded pistols. So that on every score it was necessary to win over Murrell: in order to avoid the interference of the coastguard, and in order to circumvent Golden Adams. For Cloyse was resolved above all things that now Adams should get not one penny from the venture, even if he, Sim Cloyse himself, had to hand over the whole thing, tubs, Adams, and all, to the Queen’s men; more, that he should be punished, in one way or another, with every circumstance of spite. For one of the few luxuries that old Sim Cloyse was ever willing to pay for, and to pay for well, was to grind the face of an enemy: to grind it off his head, to grind it till the very head was ground off his shoulders.

  But he saw no reason yet for doing it expensively this time. First, at any rate, he would see what could be done to secure the “stuff”; for it was plain that with Cunning Murrell it must be merely a matter of price. So he drew on his coat, with the careful aid of young Sim — for the sleeve was sore tight over the bandage — took his thick stick and his glazed hat, and started up Church Hill to gain Hadleigh by road. For the present he was shy of the way over the marshes.

  He timed himself to be there as darkness fell. One of his reasons was that he was not anxious to exhibit himself publicly as a visitor at Murrell’s door; for he was so much a man of note in the neighbourhood that the report of such a visit would give rise to much discussion and inconvenient conjecture. But in any case at nightfall was the likeliest time to see the cunning man; for in daylight he was often hard to come at, and once night was fully set in he was like to be off on his travels and lurkings, with umbrella and frail.

  The light was at its sweetest and mellowest: the light that comes with clean air and sweet smells at the end of a shining day, soothing the eyes and painting the world with its loveliest colours. Not with red sunset, for that was yet to come: but dazzling no more, and setting all things above the long shadows in a mild harmony, where the rawest noonday hue is suave. The grey old church tower stood high against the blue, and dead John Loten’s ivy stirred in the light breeze. Leigh roofs clustered red below, and beyond them was the soft salt water lying out to sea for many a calm mile.

  But old Sim Cloyse tramped ahead on business intent, and bothered his crafty old brain with no fancies. He went round behind the tall, dull rectory wall and over the waste piece beyond, undisturbed by the noisy debate of the rooks in the rectory ground. He climbed readily over the gate into the first bean field, for he was no very old man yet, though they called him old Sim. And so he went along by the side of one field and across the next, till he came out at the gate in the road, just short of Lapwater Hall, and set his face toward the now reddening sun. He never turned his head as he passed the hall itself, to look for the highwayman’s ghost that offered wayfarers a drink of beer; for he had no superstitions outside the system of book-keeping by double entry. In fine, he kept his wide face and his little eyes steadily toward the sun, till a sound of gallop and rumble on the road behind him was come so near that he must needs sidle toward the ditch, and look about him to save his bones.

  It was the shrimp-cart from Leigh, the fastest thing on wheels from here to London, whither it was bound. Built like a roomy farm waggon, but lighter everywhere, piled high with hampers, and spinning along at the heels of four stout bays, its passing was the event of the evening along forty miles of road. There was one change of horses, at Shenfield; and though it was called the shrimp-cart, shrimps made a small part of its load, which was of fish of every sort that the Leigh fleet brought in, and of cockles and oysters. The shrimp-cart was also the Leigh coach, in its way. For, in the rare event of any man of Leigh or Hadleigh daring to go a-journeying so far as London, or, as was scarcely less rare, to some place distant on the way, he sought passage in the shrimp-cart, where a seat among the hampers was always easy to find.

  Sim Cloyse stood up by the ditch, and the shrimp-cart went by with a rattle and a whisk of dust, the driver raising his whip in salutation as he passed. In a moment it was ahead, visible merely as a receding pile of hampers, bedded on a little cloud of dust. But it carried a passenger, who sat up there among the hinder baskets, reading in a little book. Cloyse shaded his eyes with a hand, and though it was not easy to see, because of the sun beyond the cart, he thought he could recognise the passenger, and that it was Cunning Murrell.

  And, indeed, he was right. This set him doubting afresh. Why had Murrell been to Leigh, and where was he going now? His own business so filled old Sim Cloyse’s eyes and head that he did not stay to reflect that the wise man’s concerns lay everywhere among the people of those parts, and that any other of them might well have taken him to Leigh, or even on to London, for that matter; but was uneasy at the conjecture that Murrell must have been to the coastguard officers. For a moment Cloyse hesitated in the road; but plainly nothing was to be got by hanging back now, so he went ahead again.

  It was dusk when he came up with the black trees and the little point of spire that marked Hadleigh, and the shrimp-cart had passed through the village more than a quarter of an hour since. He turned the corner into the lane, and rapped with his stick at Murrell’s door. He could see that a rushlight was burning in the keeping-room; but whether that meant that Murrell was within, and so had not gone on farther in the shrimp-cart, he could not guess, the ways of the house being strange to him.

  Ann Pett opened the door, first a little way; and then, without speaking, she flung it wide, for she had had her orders. Murrell was sitting at his table, the candle burning at his elbow, and his head bowed over his little book.

&nb
sp; “Come yow in, Master Cloyse,” he said, without raising his head. “Come yow in, an’ soon I will answer your doubt.”

  Cloyse entered, and the door was shut behind him. He had never been in this room before, well as he knew the cunning man by repute, and now he sat and stared; not because the room, nor even his odd reception, impressed him particularly, but because there was nothing else to do; for Murrell not only kept his eyes on his book, but raised his hand to enjoin silence. It was a strange little book, Cloyse noticed; rather like a fat prayer-book sewed in a pocket-book cover; though instead of print it seemed to be filled with small writing and cranky figures.

  There was a long pause. Ann Pett had vanished as soon as she had seen Cloyse seated, and now he sat and stared, and wondered honestly how Murrell had known it was he, since he had never once looked up at him. Presently Murrell said, still with his eyes on the book: “As to your doubt, Master Cloyse, the answer is: ‘They do not.’”

  Old Sim Cloyse stared harder than ever. He had come prepared to be uncommonly civil, and was loth to judge the other drunk.

  “As to your question, I have the answer, but wait till you put it.”

  Murrell shut the book, put it in the drawer among the papers, and took off the iron-rimmed spectacles. Then he sat back in his chair, and faced his visitor.

  Cloyse stooped, and put his hat on the floor, under his chair, which was the polite thing to do with one’s hat in those parts. His good manners were grown somewhat rusty from disuse, as he knew, and he was anxious to forget nothing. Then as he rose he made to wipe his forehead with his hand, an action which becomes a habit with them that wear hard glazed hats; but he had forgotten his sore arm, and half way he let it drop, with a twitch of the mouth. Nothing ever escaped Cunning Murrell’s eyes that it was possible for a man to see.

  “Good evenin’. Master Murr’ll — sir,” old Sim began, with a quick addition of the last word, which he was near missing. “Yow were kind enough for to inform me when fust I were at the door — for to inform me ‘they do not.’ If ’tis no liberty, I would wish for to say I den’t quite unnerstand.”

  “Yow come to me. Master Cloyse, with doubts in your mind, as many oathers do. Yow were troubled with this doubt, arl the way here an before: ‘Do the coastguard know of arl my business consarns for, say, a fortnit, or any of them?’ Troubled in your mind with these hainish an’ grievous doubts, yow come to me for relief, as many oathers do; an’ I answer the doubts in your mind plain on the instant. ‘They do not’ were my answer.”

  Whether or not old Sim Cloyse was impressed exactly in the way that Murrell desired — and Murrell loved his artistry for its own sake — he took the explanation gratefully.

  “I thank ‘ee, Master Murr’ll, sir,” he said; “an’ yow hev made my mind much easier. An’ most wonnerful scientific, too, knowin’ the thoughts o’ my head afore I had time to speak ‘em. An’ most kind, sarten to say, arter I had treated yow that rude when yow so kindly give me a wisit. For that behaviour, Master Murr’ll, I ask pardon. I were took that of a heap, I den’t know what to say.”

  Cunning Murrell lay back in the chair that was a deal too big for him, watching Cloyse’s face keenly as he brought forth laboriously his unaccustomed apologetics. But he said nothing, and Cloyse went on.

  “I den’t know what to say. Master Murr’ll, sir, as well yow may guess, the business bein’ what it were. For when a man hev business o’ that sort, Master Murr’ll, it be nat’ral he doan’t crake ‘bout it; ben’t it?”

  He looked appealingly at the little old man, but his only answer was a calm “Go on.”

  “A man doan’t crake ‘bout sich business, an’ he doan’t ‘spect anybody else to know. Consekins when a genelman — even a genelman o’ great larnin’ as he respects, like yourself — kims an’ plumps out with it arl to ‘s face, ’tis nat’ral he be dunted and marthered arltogither. An’ ‘haps he sez what he doan’t mean, bein’ took so, an’ wantin’ time to get his thotes togither.”

  Old Sim Cloyse was suffering for his politeness, for he felt sore need of his hat to turn about in his hands while he approached the real business.

  “But when you’d a-gone,” he went on, “I thote, an’ I thote, an’ I see I’d a-bin wrong to mistrust yow. Master Murr’ll, sir — no, I doan’t say to mistrust you, ‘cause I den’t do that, so celebrated a genelman as yow be; but I mean I see I’d a-bin wrong, to make, to — to — to fare, to seem, to mistrust you, Master Murr’ll.” Old Sim was sure nobody could get it down any finer than that. “An’ so, thinks I, I’ll ask pardon o’ Master Murr’ll, and prove I doan’t hev any mistrust by a-tellin’ him arl the business to the bottom, open an’ ‘boveboard.”

  Cunning Murrell was all alert, but his vanity was indulged, nevertheless, by these respectful amends, and he so far relaxed as to nod complacently.

  Old Sim Cloyse was commonly a man of few words, and he felt that his resources in that respect were nearing exhaustion. So he went to business.

  “Yow kim to me. Master Murr’ll, sir,” he said, “on the part of a — a Consulter: name yow den’t mention. I, likewise, now kim to you, as yow knowed so wonnerful scientific before I spoke, as a Consulter. I dunno if it be an offence to a genelman o’ your larned celebrity to ask if that ‘ere first Consulter behaved so proper as to offer what might be called compensation, or a fee, in adwance? Beggin’ humble pardon if it be.”

  “No,” Murrell answered frankly, “he den’t pay a farden.”

  “Ah,” Cloyse replied with the tone of a man who plays a trump, for now he began to be confident; “then ’tis my dooty fust to prove that there be a difference in Consulters, Master Murr’ll, sir, an’ that the more respeckful an’ proper-minded sort o’ Consulters do value your larned knowledge an’ scientific powers as they ote to should. There, Master Murr’ll, sir, be a fi’ pound note, as a small compensation in adwance, afore I say anoather word.”

  Murrell bent his head graciously in acceptance; but he was mindful of his dignity, and let the note lie on the table.

  “Well, Master Murr’ll, sir,” Cloyse went on, after a pause, rubbing his forehead, but this time being careful to employ his left hand; “so much done, I count we stand that one Consulter as kims to you ‘bout his bit o’ business, an’ pays nothen, is done with. The oather Consulter kims about his bit o’ business, an’ pays in adwance, an’ ready to pay agen, as is proper an’ fair. To say nothen o’ the rediklus little as is give by the officers for information, an’ the harm as sich would do in the neighbourhood to any respected public genelman...Well, sir, fust, where be Golden Adams?”

  “No, Master Cloyse; since yow’ve come to make me offers so han’some an’ lib’ral, fust I ask of your health. How’s your arm?”

  “My arm, Master Murr’ll, sir?”

  “Ay — your right arm, up there. Yow han’t no outside bandages nor nothen to show, ’tis true; but yow den’t think I could fail to know ‘bout it did yow?”

  Cloyse passed his left hand gently over the place, and stared. “Why,” he said, “I den’t think he knowed he hit me at arl, let alone where.”

  “Right. He den’t know. An’ he dunno yet.”

  Cloyse transferred the rubbing to the back of his head. Then he asked slyly: “Who?”

  “I might answer, ‘him that fired the pistols.’ But you hev paid a han’some fee, an’ must hev arl I can give for it. I mean Golden Adams.”

  “Ah,” said Cloyse, “I guessed as much.” Plainly he had played the right game, and Murrell was bought wholly. “An’ where be he now?”

  “The sarten and exact sput at this moment o’ time,” Murrell answered deliberately, “I might discover by exercise of the curis an’ lawful arts I hev, though it would take a little time; an’ by then he might ha’ moved a yard or two. But I take it yow doan’t wish to employ my secret arts, but to know what I know now, in the common human way, o’ where Golden Adams be?”

  “Ay,” Cloyse replied, and nodded energetically.

  “At
this moment,” Murrell answered, with a quick twist of his head toward the wooden clock, “as near as I can judge it, Golden Adams be about hafe a mile off. That bein’ to say on Castle Hill, watchin’, with two large pistols an’ a cudgel.”

  “An’ do he go every night?”

  “Ay, every night; an’ keeps pretty nigh, too, every day.”

  “An’ what do he say he’ll do?”

  “Says he’ll stand over the property till he drops dead, or has his dues.”

  Old Sim Cloyse shut his jaws with a snap, and the veins thickened on his forehead. “Master Murr’ll, he shan’t hev a farden! A murderin’ gallows villain! He shan’t hev a farden, Master Murr’ll; we’ll give him his dues!”

  “I’m willin’ to do my part thereunto,” Murrell responded; but his gaze on old Sim Cloyse was none the less keen. “What might you think o’ doin’?”

  “Master Murr’ll, we can afford to wait, an’ he can’t. Hev he got any money?”

  “None at arl; not to say money. A few shilluns, mayhap.”

  “Then he can’t get the property away. Now, Master Murr’ll, sir, I hev gladly paid yow five pound for adwice an’ information, an’ I will be open with yow as yow with me. I must get that property away; but stands to reason I can’t while that deadly rapscallion stands agin it with hoss-pistols and cudgels, desprit rip as he be. One man like that can keep off fifty, to say nothen o’ the noise o’ shootin’ bein’ heard. Now, Master Murr’ll, I’m ready to pay agen, an’ pay more, to get Golden Adams off Castle Hill. Yow can easy find a way o’ persuading’ him off, an’ then let me know when arl’s clear. Will yow do that?”

  Murrell put his head aside sagaciously. “’Tis no doubt,” he said, “I can find ways o’ gettin’ him off Castle Hill, an’ leavin’ your lawful property for yow to take.” He paused and smiled shrewdly. “Master Cloyse!” he went on, “come, I’ll be open about myself as well as about Golden Adams. I were in Leigh but an hour or two back.”