In those days Hadleigh fair occurred once a year, on Midsummer Day. Rochford Market was held once a week, on Thursday. On Rochford Market night the neighboring roads carried many convivial home-goers by horse, dog-cart wagon, and foot; on Hadleigh fair night there was far greater conviviality and many more convivials. But when Hadleigh fair fell on the same day as Rochford Market (as needs it must in some years) then the resulting jollity was as the square of Hadleigh hilarity plus the cube of Rochford revelry, involved to the nth power, and a great deal more involved than that, too, if you can believe it.
It was on one of these days of joyous coincidence that Abel Pennyfather gave Joe Barstow and Elijah Weeley a lift to Rochford Market in his cart, and so made occasion for this appeal to Murrell’s talisman.
Hadleigh fair grew active at seven in the morning; so that there had been seven hours of it ere Abel Pennyfather’s cart set out at two in the afternoon. Seven hours of Hadleigh fair and its overwhelming gooseberry pie! For it was the gooseberry pie, crown and symbol of Hadleigh fair, that made the anniversary formidable to the human constitution. It was the property of this potent confection to cause many with whom it disagreed to fall asleep in ditches, and others to penetrate into the wrong houses on all-fours. An extraordinary unsteadiness of the legs, widely prevalent on fair day, had been distinctly traced to gooseberry pie by many expert victims, and a certain waviness of outline in Hadleigh scenery could be attributed to nothing else.
So that after several hours of Hadleigh fair, and a long monotony of gooseberry pie, it struck Joe Barstow and Elijah Weeley that a visit to Rochford Market would make a welcome change. Abel Pennyfather’s cart offered the opportunity, and that opportunity, embodied and made visible in the tailboard, Joe Barstow seized with both hands; after which, with no difficulty beyond the temporary delay caused by Elijah Weeley’s mistaken attempt to haul himself aboard by Joe’s leg, the journey began.
Of the events of that journey, the “faites and gestes” of Joe and Elijah at Rochford Market, who shall tell? Pass rather to the return of Abel Pennyfather, light laden and heedless, driving his white mare as of old drove the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, pounding the road to Hadleigh in the cool of the evening, and destined to make near such a stir at the Castle Inn as did his fore-runner at Jezreel. for at that same Castle Inn he descended from his perch, dropped the tailboard, and proceeded in due order to tug at the two sleeping figures within. With the natural protest of grunts and gasps the sleepers presently emerged, and were presented erect to society — in the persons of Reuben Turner and young Sim Cloyse.
“What’s this?” cried Abel Pennyfather, staring aghast. “’Tis witchcraft, an’ nothin’ else! They was Joe Barstow an’ ‘Lijah Weeley when they got in; an’ that I’ll swear ‘pon oath!”
Friends gathered to inspect the phenomenon, and agreed that Reuben Turner and Sim Cloyse were certainly Reuben and Sim now, whoever they may have been earlier in the day. And, although Abel protested with increasing vehemence that they were indisputably Joe and Elijah when he put them in the cart at Rochford, Reuben and Sim declared, with equal confidence, that they had never been anybody but themselves all day. Wherein the neighbors were disposed to agree with them, arguing that a man who had been some one else would probably be the first to know it and the last to be mistaken about it. But the greater the majority against him the more positive Abel Pennyfather grew; and the discussion waxed prodigiously for a time, till there arrived Jobson of Wickford, very angry, and many miles out of his way home, driving his own horse in the shafts of Abel Pennyfather’s cart, with Joe Barstow and Elijah Weeley in it; neither of them, strictly speaking, awake, after the fatigues of the day.
“Couldn’t you see they’d putt the ‘osses to the wrong carts?” shouted Jobson to the amazed Pennyfather. “I’ve a-been chasing yow arl the way from Rochford!”
“Glory be!” gasped Abel, “an’ so they hey! Now that comes o’ standin’ they two carts side by side on sich a troublesome confusin’ day. I putt them chaps in behind in my cart and I walked round they two carts twice, careful and absent-minded as I be, afore I stopped agin my oad white mare. ‘Come up, oad gal,’ says I, an’ I took the reins off her an’ got up an’ druv home without another thought.”
“No,” retorted Jobson of Wickford, still very angry. “I count a thought ain’t a treat you often hey. Can’t you help with the harness now I hey found ‘ee?”
But the most of the intelligence present was in a state of suspension, not to say paralysis, in face of the novelty of the adventure; soaring, at any rate, in regions far from any matter of Jobson’s harness. The one or two most distinguished for presence of mind were turning their faculties toward the rousing and hauling forth of Joe Barstow and Elijah Weeley, when another object was perceived in the cart.
“Why,” said one, “here be a gallon jar. Is is yourn, Master Jobson?”
“No,” snapped Jobson, wrenching at a buckle, “‘taren’t. More mistakes, I count — I’ve a-been cartin’ a wuthless load as don’t belong to me.”
“Is’t yours, Abel?” pursued the inquirer.
“No, that it ben’t,” replied Abel Pennyfather, not yet capable of sagacious reflection. It was an answer which he never ceased to regret for the rest of his life; for as Joe and Elijah rose, cramped and blinking, Dan Fisk, having removed the cork and temporarily substituted his nose, cried aloud: “Why, ’tis rum, surely!”
At the words Joe Barstow and Elijah Weeley were suddenly wide awake, ready, prudent, and unanimous. A hand of each fell simultaneously on the jar as Dan restored the cork, and the vessel was drawn to a loving embrace between them. It was a touching action, and signified to the dullest intelligence that the gallon jar was homeless no longer.
“Thank ‘ee, Joe,” said Elijah, “I’ll take that jar now.”
“Never mind,” replied Joe; “I count I can carry it myself.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” protested Elijah, politely. “My house is only jist round the corner.”
“I ain’t goin’ there,” retorted Joe, not so politely.
“No need, me bein’ goin’ to take it myself.”
“Take what yourself?”
“My rum.”
“Your rum? Oh well, you can take it where you like, any as you’ve got. This here’s mine.”
“Yours? Why, Joe Barstow, you ben’t awake yet; you’re dreaming.”
“I count I’m awake enough to know my own property. You let go.”
“‘Taren’t likely I’d make a mistake about my own freehold jar o’ rum, is it, neighbors?” protested Elijah, maintaining his grip. “Joe, you’re dreaming, I tell ‘ee.”
“If I’m a-dreamin’,” retorted Joe, doggedly, “then I’m a-dreamin’ this ‘ere’s my jar, an’ the dream’s comin’ true. An’ if a man haven’t a right to the furnitude of his own dreams, who hey, eh? That’s law and logic too, I count.”
“If you come to speak of the law,” interposed Abel Pennyfather, hoping to repair his early error, “the jar bein’ found in my cart, an’ me that absent-minded, I’m none so sure—”
“No, you ain’t,” interrupted Joe, promptly; “but I am. Elijah an’ me both know better than that. His mistake’s sayin’ it’s his, an’ not knowin’ where he bought it!”
“Bought it?” repeated Elijah, plainly a little startled. “Who says I dunno where I bought it? I bought it — I bought it—” — he glanced widly about him for a moment— “bought it at the Red Cow.”
“You may have bought a gallon o’ rum at the Red Cow. I ain’t denyin’ it — you look as though you had, I count; but you den’t bring it home in this here jar. I got this — got this here — got it from a friend — off the price of a pig he owed me for.”
And now Dan Fisk interposed, as sportsman and humorist, watchful to allow no fun to evaporate unprofitably, and eager to tend, stimulate, and inflame it and to improve its flavor. So, with his beaming red face and his coruscating squint, he faced each disputant in t
urn, representing the scandal of a public row, and the advantages of a private investigation by friends of both parties in the Castle Inn parlor.
Whereupon Joe and Elijah, with the jar of rum between them and dividing them, physically and morally, Abel Pennyfather and Jobson of Wickford, Dan Fisk, and several more, turned into the Castle parlor, where Dan Fisk opened proceedings by snatching the jar and standing it in the middle of the table.
“There be the article in dispute,” he proclaimed, “and here be we all a-gathered round it to see fair. Joe Barstow an’ ‘Lijah Weeley be the disputatious claimants, an’ to one o’ they two ’tis alleged that jar belongs.”
“Hem!” coughed Pennyfather, tentatively. “’Twould seem so, at fust sight, as you might say; though bein’ found in my cart, an’ me—”
“Joe Barstow and ‘Lijah Weeley be the candidates,” proceeded Dan, ignoring Abel, “both on ‘em havin’ bought this here jar o’ rum, as they distinctly tell us ‘emselves, or as distinctly as sarcumstances allow. ‘Lijah Weeley, he bought it off a red cow, and Joe Barstow, he took it off a friendly pig.”
“Took it off a friend,” grunted Joe, doggedly suspicious.
“The pig were a friend o’ Joe’s,” pursued Dan, “an’ as to the red cow, no doubt—”
“I said at the Red Cow,” interrupted Elijah, sulkily— “Red Cow Inn.”
“O-ho!” exclaimed Dan, turning on him suddenly, “that be’t, eh? Red Cow Inn? An’ where be the Red Cow Inn at Rochford, eh?”
“Eh? Rochford?”
“Ah, I don’t call to mind any Red Cow at Rochford. What Red Cow?”
Elijah Weeley stared blankly. “Maybe I’m thinkin’ o’ somewhere else,” he said, rubbing his ear with his palm. “There’s a Red Cow at Burnham, surely.”
“Ah, but you haven’t been near Burnham, to-day, you know. I’m beginning to doubt your remembrance o’ that rum.”
“‘Taren’t his, I tell ‘ee,” growled Joe Barstow. “I took it off a friend for a pig.”
“Tell us the friend’s name!” cried Dan, pouncing on Joe with a raised forefinger. “Out with his name — quick!”
Joe stared as blankly as Elijah. “Him?” he said slowly. “Oh — that there chap — you know; the one as — well, maybe not him, exactly, so to say, but a relation of his. That’s the chap.”
“O’course that’s the chap — I’ve been a-thinkin’ o’ that chap, myself,” Dan pursued, with a wider grin. “But what’s his name? These here genelmen o’ the jury are that unfriendly suspicious, they won’t swallow the pig story wi’out the chap’s name. What is it?”
Joe Barstow stared and sweated in an agony of mental travail. “Bill!” he burst out at length.
“His name’s Bill,” repeated Dan, solemnly, turning to the company with an airy gesture and a bow of the gravest importance. “Joe’s friend be the celebrated person o’ the name o’ Bill. A party with sich a name as that wouldn’t bother to hey another, I suppose, Joe, would he?”
“I dunno,” said Joe, sulkily. “That jar’s mine, howsomdever; I do remember that.”
“’Tis a comfort to know it, for a good memory’s a great blessin’. Havin’ that partikler blessin’ by you, no doubt you remember the pig’s birthday? Because ’tis the recollection o’ this here honorable jury that your last latter o’ pigs were all sold to Sam Prentice here in Hadleigh.”
“That jar o’ rum’s mine, I tell ‘ee,” repeated Joe, fiercely dogged.
“An’ you aren’t no more sartin about the pig than ‘Lijah Weeley about the cow?”
“I’m sartin’ ’tis my rum,” growled Joe. And Elijah Weeley, gathering courage, broke in again.
“Touchin’ the Red Cow,” he said, “that be a pardonable mistake anybody might make, fair day an’ all, after a nap. An’ now ’tis brought to my mind there was a pig in the business, but ‘twere a pig I bought at Rochford market this very day. An’ howsomdever it came about bein’ hard to explain at sich short notice, ‘taren’t no mistake when I say, in round numbers, that rum’s mine.”
“S’posin’ that’s so,” queried Dan, “how would you treat all your friends here in regard to that rum?”
Elijah Weeley glanced at the crowd about him with some uneasiness. “Oh!” he said airily, “I’d give a friend a glass, o’ course.”
“I’d give all my friends two glasses,” ex, claimed Joe, bidding like a politician, but with the wildest miscalculation of the jar’s capacity.
“Well, well,” said Elijah. “When I said a glass I was a-puttin’ of it figuratively, as you might say. I’d do the han’some thing, surely.”
“Then this here trouble’s settled,” proclaimed Dan Fisk. “Takin’ it as the jar belongs to either one o’ you, and you’re both ekally horspitable — well, here’s all your mutual friends, an’ we’ve on’y got to order in the glasses and the water, an’ the dispute passes away harmonious along o’ the rum.”
The rivals received this amiable proposal with uneasy indignation, and joined forces against it instantly.
“Certainly not!” said Elijah.
“Not me!” said Joe.
“Why not?” demanded Dan.
“’Twouldn’t be proper,” said Elijah.
“Course not,” agreed Joe.
“If I stood drinks out o’ my jar,” explained Elijah, “Joe Barstow ‘ud go an’ say it was his treat.”
“An’ if I treated my friends out o’ my jar,” pursued Joe, “‘Lijah Weeley ‘ud go arl over Essex a-bragging as he’d stood drinks round — a thing he never did in his life.”
With that the proceedings fell into riotous confusion and a conflict of a hundred suggestions, from which in a little while Dan Fisk once more emerged triumphant.
“There’s nothin’ for it, neighbors,” he announced, “but Cunning Murrell. Cunning Murrell an’ his copper charm’ll settle this. Nobody here can tell whether Joe or ‘Lijah is tellin’ truth, least of all Joe and ‘Lijah ‘emselves, after such a busy fair-day. We’ll take ‘em now to look at Master Murrell’s copper charm, an’ see which be the truth-teller.”
The suggestion was received with general favor, except, oddly enough, by the claimants themselves, who began, with uneasy alarm and much labor, to invent the beginnings of objections and excuses. But they and their objections were swept away together by the enthusiasm of the majority, who — feeling by now some proprietary interest in the rum — were quite willing to add the further interest of a performance of Murrell’s necromancy, at no expense to themselves. Wherefore, the whole company, with Dan Fisk and the jar at their head, emerged into the street, now dark, and turned into the lane where stood Cunning Murrell’s cottage.
The way was short — eighty yards, perhaps — though long enough to produce a change in the demeanor of the company, which, starting hilarious, tailed out and quieted, and at last halted before Murrell’s door in respectful silence. For that was the manner of all toward the witch-finder, and indeed a large part of the grin had vanished even from Dan Fisk’s face as he clicked the latch.
Murrell himself opened the door, and stood, small and gray and severe, on the threshold, demanding the meaning of the visit. The little room behind him, lighted by a solitary candle and hung thick with bunches of dried herbs, was a fitting background — the most mysterious chamber in the little world of South Essex.
Dan Fisk posed the jar on his knee and explained the dispute, though now with something short of his native facetiousness.
Cunning Murrell heard him through, and then said sharply: “So now you come to ask o’ my curis arts which o’ they men be sayin’ truth? With a copper charm you hear of?”
“Aye, Master Murrell, sir; as ’tis said, sir.”
The old man gazed for a moment hard and sharp in Dan Fisk’s face. Then he said: “Come you two in,” and turned into the room.
There was a scuffling of feet, and Murrell turned again. “Not all o’ that rabble,” he said.
“’Tis Joe Barstow an’ Elijah Weeley I want,
an’ Dan Fisk. Give me that jar.”
Joe and Elijah lumbered sheepishly in, each propelled by a hand of Dan. Cunning Murrell took something from a drawer in a dark corner, and, without looking at it, extended it behind him as he shut the drawer.
“Take you the charm first, Elijah Weeley,” he said. “Take it in your hand an’ carry it to the light.”
Elijah took a small disc of copper, convex on its brighter side, and held it near the candle on the mantelpiece. Murrell stood apart, gazing on the floor, with his hand across his forehead.
“Look you on the metal very close, Elijah Weeley,” he said. “D’ye see anything?”
“Oh, aye, yes, Master Murrell, sir,” answered Elijah, his face within an inch of the object, and his eyes protruding half the distance. “Aye, Master Murrell. Stands to reason I can see it— ’tis natural I should.”
“And why natural?”
“Why, Master Murrell? Why, ‘cos ’tis my rum, you see.”
“Oh, that be your reason, eh? Well, an’ what is ‘t you see?”
“What is ‘t, Master Murrell, sir?”
“Aye, what is it?”
“Oh, it’s a — a — what you might call a sort o’ peculiar kind o’ thing, so to say. Very peculiar.”
“Ah, I make no doubt o’ that,” the old man replied, with ungenial tone. “Describe that peculiar thing, Elijah Weeley,” he added, still gazing on the floor.
“That, sir — that, Master Murrell, is easier said than done as you might say, not meanin’ no harm, sir. But stands to reason I can see it, Master Murrell, consekens ‘o that bein’ my rum. That’s argyment, now, ain’t it?”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 250