Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “Larned him his cutlass drill myself,” said Roboshobery, at last finding a thick utterance. “Larned him it when he were so high. An’ I fit the French myself the same age; but I den’t feel it like this.”

  Lingood turned into the forge. For a few moments he said nothing, and Dove watched him anxiously as he stooped and moved one article and another this way and that, with his face from the light. Then, without turning, he asked in a strained voice: “Do they know?”

  “His mother?”

  “Ay.”

  “No. I brote the paper straight from Canvey, from a Lunnon man at the fight there. What shall’s do?”

  Lingood was silent. What could they do? Plainly Dorrily and her aunt must learn sooner or later, and the odds were that on Friday or Saturday there would be a newspaper brought in from Chelmsford, and then the news would fly over the village and perhaps fall on the bereaved women in some harsh and sudden way. Such a chance as that must be forestalled, somehow. But now his faculties were disordered, and he could not consider clearly.

  “Shall’s go an’ ask Harry Prentice?” suggested Dove.

  That seemed to be a reasonable notion. Prentice was a staid old fellow, respected in the village, and not so closely acquainted with young Jack Martin as to lose his head at the news. So Lingood reached his coat and his cap. But then Dove remembered Mrs Prentice, and it was resolved to send the boy to ask Prentice to come and speak to the smith. Presently Prentice came, mightily astonished at the summons; for Hadleigh was not one of those places of business where interviews were often requested. People said what they wanted to say when and where they chanced to meet. Prentice came in his shirtsleeves, with no hat.

  “Why,” he said, “what’s up? Hullo, Bosh — yow here? What is’t arl?”

  Dove gave him the newspaper as he had given it to Lingood.

  Prentice took it to the light, read the paragraph, and looked serious. “That be young Jack Mart’n,” he said, “sarten to say.”

  “Ay,” Dove replied, “that it be. An’ we want to know what about tellin’ the boy’s mother.”

  “O! Tellin’ his mother!” said Prentice, doubtfully, thrusting his fingers up into his curly white hair. “Tellin’ his mother! Umph!”

  He looked from one to the other and then at the newspaper again. Then he put the newspaper into the other hand, and seized his hair on the opposite side. “Tellin’ his mother!” he repeated, doubtfully. He paused for a few seconds, and at last said: “Well, I dunno!”

  “We fare a bit dunted like,” Roboshobery Dove explained. “An’ I thote ‘haps that yow, bein’ a knowledgeable man, an’ one o’ good gumption, might take it in hand to break it to ‘em.”

  Prentice’s mouth opened, and his face lengthened. “Me?” he exclaimed. “Me? Lord, no, not me! I can’t do’t! ‘Twants a woman.”

  The others thought so too, though the fact had not struck them before. Plainly a woman would be best; but what woman? They could think of no woman who was friendly with Mrs Martin: scarce of one that was not bitterly unfriendly certainly of none that was not afraid of her.

  “’Tis hard to know what to do,” said Roboshobery Dove. “Summat we mus’ do, that’s plain. Somebody else may bring in the noos. Prentice, oad frien’, ’twould be a Christian mussy if your missus ‘ud go an’ tell ‘em.”

  Prentice shuffled uneasily. In his own mind he had secret doubts of his wife’s Christian mercy toward witches — indeed, he judged her far too good a Christian to countenance any such weakness. Nevertheless he could not refuse to ask her.

  So he went to do so.

  But he was soon back. “She won’t go,” he said, with a glum shake of the head. “Says ’tis a judgment ‘pen ‘em for witchcraft, an’ she wonders any honest man should counsel her to cross a witch’s threshold so’s to putt her in her power, soul an’ body, let alone the mortal danger o’ bein’ bearer o’ ill tidin’s to sich. ‘Twere all I could do to stop her coming an’ tellin’ of ye so, herself.”

  Dove and Lingood stood in gloomy doubt.

  “‘Haps Mrs Mart’n knows it a’ready,” Prentice suggested, brightly, as offering a cheerful way out of the difficulty. And presently added, inconsistently, “An’ lor, them newspapers’ll say anythink!”

  Neither Dove nor Lingood could extract much comfort from either reflection. The smith gazed at his smouldering fire for a few moments, thinking. Then he put his cap on his head, and said: “Come, Master Dove, we’ll talk o’ this walkin’.”

  He led the way into the street, and Roboshobery Dove followed. Prentice rubbed his white curls again, looked blankly after the two for a few seconds, and then went slowly back home. Lingood was still pale, but no longer in doubt.

  “We mus’ do it,” he said, “an’ do it at once. Prentice’s wife knows it, an’ that’s within ten minutes o’ sayin’ that arl the village knows it.”

  “Ah, that is,” Dove assented dolefully. He turned his head, and then added, “Why, damme, there she goes a’ready, with a hankercher on her head! No time lost with her!”

  “Then so much better haste mus’ we make,” Steve Lingood replied. “There’s no knowin’ how’t may come to them if it comes from others. Like as not Mrs Banham may get hoad o’t, an’ go an’ barl it at the door. She be bitter enough for anything.”

  “For that?” asked Dove as he mended his pace. “Bitter enough for that? Cuther! what a woman!”

  “Ay, bitter enough for worse now young Em’s so bad again, an’ one thing an’ another.”

  Hadleigh was a leisurely place for wayfarers, and women stared over fences to see Roboshobery Dove and Steve Lingood making good pace along the street, plainly with business in prospect.

  Lingood said no more, and Dove was plunged in perplexity. What should they say when they got there? If only there had been news of a battle to tell of first: if only Jack Martin had fallen in the hour of a great victory, it would not have seemed so hard a job. But as it was — shot dead from behind a hedge in a miserable little scrimmage that would be forgotten to-morrow — Roboshobery saw no way to the work.

  They turned into the lane, and as they went Dove began to lag, though the younger man kept on steadily. Then said Dove, looking paler than ever: “Steve, my boy, I can’t. I ben’t game. I’m afeard.”

  “Come,” the smith answered, impatiently, “we mus’ do’t, well or ill. ‘Twill come better from friends than from foes, an’ know it they must from some one, an’ soon. I’ll say’t myself if need be. But come an’ back me, at least.”

  Roboshobery Dove would never desert a friend who appealed for support, and he went on down the hill. But he had never before experienced such a fit of fear — simple terror at the few minutes before him.

  They reached the black cottage at last, and Lingood went up the steps in the bank. Dove following with an unsteadiness that was scarce at all due to the wooden leg.

  Visitors were rare at the cottage of late, and Dorrily, hearing the footsteps, came to the door. She had just composed her aunt to rest in a chair, and was anxious to keep her undisturbed. The sight of the two men, the faces of both, the haggard helplessness on Roboshobery Dove’s, struck her heart still. She closed the door behind her and, filled with a shapeless fear, looked from one to the other. Then she caught sight of the folded newspaper still in the old sailor’s hand, and something cold closed tight on her heart, and held it.

  “’Tis— ’tis — O— ’tisn’t Jack — is’t?” she gasped. “Tell me — Master Dove — is’t news?”

  Dove only stared, pale and helpless. Lingood struggled with something gripping at his throat, and said: “There — there’s — been some fightin’.”

  The girl could say nothing, but her eyes were wide and her cheeks pale.

  “There’s — been fightin’,” Lingood struggled on, “an’ ’tis thote — he may be one o’ the wounded.”

  His face betrayed the kindly lie, and Dorrily looked mazedly at Dove. His face there was no mistaking. A little murmur came from the gir
l’s throat, where something struggled, like a sob. She moved her lips, but there was no sound, and horror grew over her face. She moved her lips again, and Lingood, knowing what she would ask, nodded sorrowfully, and bowed his head.

  For a moment she seemed like to fall. None but himself ever knew how well-nigh irresistible was Lingood’s impulse to catch her in his arms, though none could less readily have explained the honourable restraint that he put on himself. He clenched his hands and dropped them by his side, and it was Roboshobery Dove that took her and passed his great knotted hand gently over her hair and her cheek. “Poor gal! poor gal!” said Roboshobery Dove. And tears ran unrestrained over the old man’s face.

  But Dorrily’s weakness did not endure; she had duties, and there was no leisure for swooning. She must go to Jack’s mother. She stood, and put Dove’s hand quietly back from her face, turned, and walked to the door. She faltered and stopped at the threshold with the thought of the poor broken mind within, and with the first glimmering of a sense of the task that lay before her. Then she lifted the latch and went in.

  Dove and Lingood looked at each other, pale and blank. What should they do now? What else could be done? To stay were useless, or even indecent; to run away from the women in grief seemed even worse. They would be sick — fainting — dying perhaps.

  “We ote to a-brote a drop o’ brandy,” said Roboshobery Dove.

  He looked across the meadow beyond the fence, and saw something that gave him inspiration. It was a young woman in a print gown and a white sun-bonnet, carrying a baby. He had seen her of late working in the hayfields, and he had no doubt that she had come from the meadow beyond to take her mid-day rest and food alone, and to suckle her child. He had seen her do it before; and he judged — indeed, he had heard — the reason that made her remove herself and her child from the notice of her fellow-workers. He saw no present difficulty in that reason, but rather an opportunity; for this girl, in some degree cast out herself, might in fellow-feeling be ready to give aid and comfort to afflicted women whom the rest shunned. Dove went out at the gate and spoke to her.

  “My gal,” he said, “will yow come an’ do a kindness to two women in deadly trouble?”

  Dorcas Brooker looked up at him, nodded toward the cottage, and said: “There?”

  “Ay, there. Their man be lost — killed in the wars; an’ they be dolourin’ at the news just brote. ‘Twants a woman to tend ‘em. God bless ‘ee, my gal, if yow go, an’ I’ll see yow doan’t lose wages. Come to me for ‘em — Roboshobery Dove, by the four-wont way.”

  She looked at her child, and then at the cottage. “Lost their man, d’ye say? ’Tis young Mart’n, as I’ve heard. An’ I know what be said of ‘em.”

  “Hev yow never heard ill things said of others than they?”

  “Ay, that I hev, Master Dove,” the girl answered sadly. “I ben’t afeared, an’ if they want my help they shall hev it; though I doubt.”

  Dove gave her the newspaper. “The news be in there,” he said, “word for word. Hide it about ye, an’ let see if yow think well. An’ if anythin’ be needed send or come to me or Master Lingood here.”

  Dorcas Brooker went through the gate, listened for a moment at the door, and knocked. There was no answer. Irresolute, she looked back at Dove. He nodded vehemently and motioned her to enter; and she lifted the latch and went in, as Dorrily had done.

  “’Tis arl to be done,” said Dove; and the two men turned their steps toward the village. Neither spoke much on the way, but Lingood was immersed in doubts and perplexities that the other guessed nothing of.

  XIX. — THE DEVIL AND HIS MASTER

  INSIGNIFICANT to the rest of the world, in Hadleigh this was the greatest piece of news yet come from the war. Men stayed their work to consider it, and women talked of it over fences. The feeling in the matter was diverse. Some were sorry — all professed to be — for Jack Martin, who was dead and past pity; nobody ventured openly to express sympathy with his mother but Roboshobery Dove and Steve Lingood — perhaps because in their cases there was no woman to reproach either of them for it. For it was a fact that the women were, in general, as bitter as ever, or bitterer. It may have been partly that a secret and sneaking misgiving as to their treatment of Mrs Martin and Dorrily Thorn in the past stimulated them now to keep each other in countenance by a sharper display of severity. Be that as it might, the women wasted no commiseration on the witches at the black cottage. Mrs Banham, in fact, did not conceal an exultation that made Roboshobery Dove shudder. Here was a judgment, she said, on the witch that had afflicted her children: her own child was taken at a stroke. If more proof had been needed of Mrs Martin’s guilt, here it was. Would such a blow have fallen so pat to time on an innocent woman? And the pious women of Hadleigh could not believe that it would.

  Roboshobery Dove viewed this general hostility with dismay. He had not ventured to intrude on the bereaved women, but he knew that Dorcas Brooker had been with them, and that she had returned to help in household duties while Dorrily tended her aunt. So much being provided for, he set himself to consider what else might be done.

  He was unpractised in excogitation, so that it cost him some hours of thought to arrive at the conclusion that any attempt to influence the feeling of the village toward Mrs Martin must be made through Cunning Murrell. He was all unaware that Steve Lingood had already come to the same opinion, and had failed miserably in an attempt to apply it, or he might have been deterred from the course he now resolved on; which was to put aside his wonted awe of the cunning man and make intercession.

  Cunning Murrell came over the stile and into the lane in the early dark of that evening, with an extra large and heavy frail over his back — just such a frail as the Banhams had seen him carrying the night before. Now, the reason of his irritation on that occasion, and the reason of his stealth on this, was that the frail enveloped nothing but a tub of white brandy. It was a laborious and a gradual task for so puny a man, this bringing up the hill of forty such tubs, one at a time, with several journeys a night; though, of course, a strong carrier in the old days was wont to carry two at once. He had brought up more than thirty already, and stowed them neatly in his cottage; and his load had never been observed except that once. Forty were all he designed to bring. For with all his subtlety Cunning Murrell was resolved to deal strict justice to everybody — except perhaps the Queen, whom he had never thought of as a party to the transaction. There were a hundred tubs, and Golden Adams had agreed with Cloyse for half profits, after expenses had been paid. Now Cloyse wished to take the lot, and had attempted to bribe Murrell to help him. The preliminary fee he had accepted; why not, since it was offered unconditionally? The promised fee he feared Cloyse would never pay, when he discovered what had been done. For, since Cloyse was reluctant to divide the money, Murrell was dividing the goods. Twenty tubs, he had decided, should be allowed Cloyse to pay expense; half of the remaining eighty was forty, and these he had set about bringing away for Golden Adams’s share — and his own. As the task proceeded and the tale of tubs disposed about the cottage grew larger, Murrell was conscious of a certain uneasiness, of an unfamiliar sort; for, with all his secret arts, he saw no way of escaping gaol if by any accident the hoard should be discovered. That would mean ruin — the one form of ruin that could terrify him. Money was useful, but he wanted no more of it than sufficed for present needs. His fame and dignity were everything. He was known and deferred to throughout his world — that is to say in all the farms and cottages of Essex and in many of those of Kent; and his curious distinction and power had endured a lifetime. Through all he had maintained the form of despising mere gain, and had put himself wholly above sordid matters of trade and bargain. And now, to be hustled off to Chelmsford gaol for dealing in smuggled brandy would be a disgrace beyond conception, and the end of all his authority. The apprehension oppressed him hourly, and he began to doubt his wisdom in meddling so far in the affair, and to suspect himself of yielding to an unworthy temptation. He was so
iling his hands with a doubtful business, he feared, and he even began at last to experience a faint misgiving that perhaps something was due to the Queen in the matter after all. No doubt all these embarrassments would vanish once the danger was over and the tubs converted into money; but now the tubs were in his house, and the danger was present; and even Cunning Murrell could not always discriminate between the prickings of conscience and a sense of personal risk. In fine, for once Cunning Murrell was uneasy and a trifle timid.

  He came over the stile, and was come some few yards up the lane when he was conscious, first, of the slow thump of Roboshobery Dove’s wooden leg, and then of the man himself, scarce twenty yards away, and almost at Murrell’s own door. Murrell hesitated, but the old sailor had seen him, and came toward him with much respect and pulling of the forelock.

  “Good evenin’, Master Murr’ll, sir — good evenin’,” said Roboshobery deferentially; for he was resolved that if politeness would conciliate the wise man he should have it. Wherefore also he swung round on his peg and made a snatch at the load on Murrell’s back. “’Tis summat heavy yow hev there, Master Murr’ll, sir,” he said. “Let me take a lift of it.”

  Murrell turned and swung it away with such suddenness as almost to lose his balance. “No, no,” he said hastily, “’tis right as it be, Master Dove.”

  But Roboshobery Dove was bent on civility.

  “Do ‘ee, Master Murr’ll,” he said, “do ‘ee let me take a lift o’t — yow be tired.” And he followed the bulging frail with outstretched arms, while Murrell, mightily alarmed, turned and turned, so that they gyrated one about the other.

  “Let be, I tell ‘ee!” cried Murrell, now angry as well as frightened; for Dove had touched the burden once, and might have felt the tub. “I’m nigh home now, an’ I want no help.”