Innocent Birds

by T. F. Powys

  The men appeared to be silent. They stood gravely, as though one of their number had raised a hard point in the discussion of the evening, that needed careful consideration, before any of the company had an answer to give.

  When Solly reached them, Mr. Pim greeted him with a perplexed look, and no one spoke for a moment.

  ‘’Tis about thrones and kingdoms Pim be making inquiries,’ Job Wimple said at last.

  Farmer Barfoot looked down at Betty in grave displeasure.

  ‘Pim do ask,’ the farmer looked up at Solly, ‘how much woon of they jewelled crowns do cost to buy; ’e do ask Betty, but she don’t say nothing.’

  All the company looked regretfully at the farmer’s lame foot.

  An idea came to Chick. ‘’Tis to be hoped,’ he murmured, ‘that Betty, who be always so knowing about they large pigs, do understand the price of a good fitting crown.’

  ‘Pim,’ said the farmer, evidently wishing to make a little more clear to Solly what was in the wind, ‘Pim do want a crown for thik boy Fred.’

  ‘That did come so wonderful,’ added Mr. Pim.

  ‘Poor Pim, ’e don’t a-know,’ continued Wimple, who now took up the tale, ‘how thik boy Fred were a-got into daily life. ’Tis wi’ ’e as ’twould be wi’ I a-grave-digging.’

  Mr. Wimple held his pipe in his hand as though it were a spade, and, looking at Chick, who sidled nearer to the gate-post and further from Job, proceeded as though to dig.

  ‘’Twould be no use,’ said Wimple, seeing by Chick’s hasty movement that his symbolic exposition was understood, ‘to dig wi’ thik.’

  ‘Poor John Pim,’ murmured Chick from behind the gate-post.

  Farmer Barfoot nodded at Betty as if she had spoken.

  ‘If so be Pim never done it,’ said the farmer, ‘then it must be same as Parson Tucker did a-tell of in ’s last Sunday’s sermon: ’twas God’s woon misbehaving, an’ Fred be ’Is an’ not Pim’s.’

  ‘An’ if Fred be got so grand,’ remarked Wimple, looking at his pipe with displeasure, as if he still fancied that it was a rather poor spade, ‘then ’tis Fred that should be crowned same as t’ other of God’s sons in Bible story.’

  As Mr. Solly had now and again spoken of those Americans as though they knew something, so he, being their medium, was regarded as wise as they.

  And when Mr. Chick came a little forward again, thinking that the pit-hole symbolism was over for the time being, he looked at Solly as if he, and indeed all of them, expected the owner of Gift Cottage to throw a new light upon the subject under discussion.

  ‘God Almighty certainly promised my aunt, Mrs. Crocker, to give a gift to Madder, and His promises are true and eternal,’ said Solly reverently.

  Pim looked at Mr. Solly a little distrustfully. ‘Will that gift be a proper woon for a good boy?’ asked Pim, to whom God’s conduct, as instanced in the behaviour attributed to Him in connection with Fred, didn’t appear entirely righteous.

  Mr. Chick now looked at Solly with awe; he felt that any one whose aunt moved in such high circles should be very much respected.

  The men were silent.

  The white mist still covered Madder hill, gathering there like the smoke from a great cannon.

  The mist slowly descended from the hill, moist and clammy, and covered the village. Farmer Barfoot looked at his foot with vexation. He had for the past five minutes been inquiring of Betty for a remedy for wire-worm that were eating his spring corn. And the only answer he had got out of Betty was that he must have the barley rolled.

  He told Chick to do this the next morning.

  Chapter xiv

  FRED’S QUEEN

  WHEN the summer sun shines Madder looks the kind of place that one would like to pat and to stroke.

  Madder hill lies spread out then like a great sleepy pig, and when patted it would no doubt give out a friendly grunt. The meadows too would grow amorous and smile prettily if we stroked them, and feel both soft and springy to the touch, as though inviting a closer embrace.

  Human life in Madder, as regards some folk, appears to stand still.

  Mr. Billy never moved beyond sixty, whereas his nieces, who served in the shop, remained always at twenty. These young ladies, May and Eva, were the constant terror of Mr. Tucker, who feared that one day he might find one or other of them with a male companion, engrossed in a game that Mr. Tucker felt he should always keep well away from for fear of interrupting it.

  Though time left Mr. Billy alone, it crept over Mr. Corbin like a snail upon a wall, and left its mark there. Mr. Corbin was grown old, and he knew it.

  When he went to church he would always pause a moment, and nod and hold up a finger beside Mr. Soper’s tombstone, as though to say that he was ready to listen if Soper was as ready to talk. But though he never heard one word from Mr. Soper, Corbin would walk on more briskly, as if Soper had confided to him again all the love matters between him and Minnie Cuddy, or else had whispered God’s own secrets about the kingdom of heaven.

  In church Corbin would always open his prayer book at the burial service, and read a little there, with his glasses on, and his head bent near to the book in order to show a true and contrite submission to the will of Heaven, and his willingness to go where Soper was gone—when his time came.

  The Madder sun grew warmer; each day beckoned out a new flower, a weed of the earth, to peep out—though sometimes a little tearfully—through the leaves of grass. But instead of growing more gay and merry in the summer time, the fields, and even the flowers—except the yellow ones—grow sad when the height of the season’s beauty is reached.

  This feeling of melancholy—and Solly even, though he felt it when he looked at his beans in flower, could never say why it was come to him—often grows up with beauty, blossoming when she blossoms, and gives out a deeper sadness than her loveliness can give joy. When we go into the courts of summer—courts of clear colour and fair flowers and sweet scents—a shadow will come by that is best greeted with our tears. This shadow is born with all beauty, and enters into us from the very loveliness that we are beholding, and makes us learn to welcome the rude grosser hours instead of the tantalising moments when beauty stays to sadden us.

  Madder had now reached this fair mood, and succeeded so well in hiding the sorrowful shadow that we, and perhaps Mr. Solly, have alone noticed.

  White clouds, like little lambs, remained still and quiet in the sky, and wondered, no doubt, what had happened to their noisy shepherd that so often drove them along.

  Even Mr. Pim felt that the Madder noon was more than usually gracious that day, though a little wanton, as warm beauty sometimes is.

  Mr. Pim was employed in mowing round a field of oats that had, by the advice of wise Betty, been planted early, and so by the height of summer were nearly ripe enough to reap.

  Mr. Pim mowed modestly, as though he knew very well he was a master at the work, but didn’t mean to tell Farmer Barfoot so.

  If Mr. Pim felt himself so very clever, so did the heat fairies, who danced in the form of flies about him and tickled his neck, until he was fain to rest a little, and to wipe his scythe and his own forehead.

  Even though Pim was wont to meet days as a wise man would who regarded anything outside his own affairs as mere nothingness, or else as mere impertinence, and generally greeting their manifestations of climatic changes by only a gesture of disapproval, or else a nod of approval; this particular summer’s day, however, seemed to Mr. Pim to be inquisitive as well as impertinent. This day’s inquisitiveness went so far as to notice that he wore his winter trousers, and to hint mischievously that had Annie been at home instead of Mrs. Chick, she would have given him his summer ones.

  Mr. Pim laid down his scythe and rested under an ash tree that grew in the hedgerow. This ash tree appeared to have grown up in the night, like the prophet’s gourd, on purpose to shelter Mr. Pim from the sun.

  To Mr. Pim all past time was not so much behind him as around him; and the further it often w
as away by years, the nearer it was to him by memory. He had trimmed this very hedge, and cut down this very ash tree, some years before, and here it was grown again in a space of time that was to Mr. Pim but a day—for Pim lived not by hours in life, but by wonders in life.

  This ash tree that had grown up so suddenly in order to shade him, brought Fred to his mind, who had grown up near as suddenly according to Mr. Pim’s view of things. He considered, looking down at his scythe—he was sure it agreed with him—that he had reached a proper resting moment in which to sum up all old accounts that went to prove or disprove what he had done to help in the making of Fred.

  A fly tickled his neck, and Mr. Pim thought of Minna, who had tickled him in the same manner as the fly, walking through those fields, and even more naughtily, for the poor fly only thought of his dinner, whereas Miss Minna …

  He should have taken that chance, thought Pim, of asking Minna, who was then in so willing a mood to explain a little more fully what her grandfather had taught her about the wonders of life. He had been rather shamefaced then, because Minna would keep on asking him about the ways of creatures, and how they managed, until at length, feeling his own ignorance too great to bear, little John had run away crying.

  He was a little braver the next time they went out. This time they climbed Madder hill to peep into the thorn-bush that all the neighbourhood knew to be haunted by the Devil.

  On the way up the hill Minna had told him all about it, and said that it was as easy as making a plum-pudding…. But here was he, John Pim, getting on in life, and after all Minna’s lessons, and Annie’s soft sighs of contentment, he knew now no more than that Fred, who was grown a big boy, called him ‘Daddy.’ Pim rubbed his knee with his hand; an ant had crawled up his leg and had bitten him. For some while now he had expected that Fred, who was the cause of all his doubts, would—whoever his male parent was —do something wonderful in life. As ‘The Silent Woman’ was open, Pim had begun again to sing his song there. Some one was mentioned in that song who would come home loaded with riches from Spain. But who?

  The less he had to do, and the more the other one, with the begetting of Fred, the more likely it was that Fred would become something kingly. If one miracle had happened—and to Mr. Pim, Fred was that miracle—other wonderful things must perforce come, and all to do, of course, with Fred.

  A lark was singing in the sky, and Mr. Pim, considering himself as good a songster, sang his song too. He sang to remind himself that he was Mr. Pim, and also to remind Fred, if in hearing, that he was the ship that should come in loaded.

  Every simple mind has monstrous hopes, and Mr. Pim’s hope now was that Fred would one day go to Spain and return again to Madder, loaded and as grand as a king.

  And so he sang:

  ‘Oh, you shall drink wine

  So sweetly in the season, then you shall be mine.

  You shall have no pain; I will you maintain.

  My ship she’s a-loaded, just come in from Spain.’

  One wonder always led to another in Mr. Pim’s mind. He now looked up at the ash tree, and wiped his forehead with his large red handkerchief. He was now sure that if Fred was the ship, Annie was the lady mentioned in the song.

  ‘Annie were buried,’ said Mr. Pim aloud, ‘very fine. But though she be buried, me Annie do live still in some great large house; for thik finery never were meant to bide under dirt. No woon need tell I, for I do know; for thik grand driver did take she far an’ on, when Wimple were gone home to Minna.’

  Pim looked up through the ash tree leaves to the blue sky where the lark had been singing. He looked carefully for the hat—and nodded.

  ‘’Tis just one of they notions being burned,’ he said; ‘’twasn’t nothing to Annie. Same chap that did drive carriage do make sun shine, for Parson Tucker bain’t no lie-maker in ’s pulpit.’

  Mr, Pim took out his watch, that was nearly as monstrous in its size as his hopes were for Fred, and read carefully the signs upon the watch’s face that informed him that it was time to go home. Leaving the ash tree’s shade, he moved through the fields with the slow gait that suited his nature and his labours. Fred Pim, too, had left the sheep safely folded at about the same moment that his supposed father had left his ash tree. Fred walked gaily, and whistled to the larks, who replied by singing. He threw his cap into the air three times, because he was so glad to love and to be alive. Fred had learned to be a very good shepherd, and was always hearing that Farmer Barfoot’s Betty thought a great deal of him, because he counted the sheep so carefully.

  ‘When ’e ’ave finished counting they sheep, ’e do start on they hurdle stakes, an’ ’twill be they daisy flowers next, Betty do say,’ the farmer had told Solly one evening beside the meadow gate.

  The dog Timmy, a long-haired creature with a bass bark but a kindly nature, loved Fred more than his rightful master, the farmer; for Betty had once kicked him, and he had never forgotten it. Timmy would follow Fred wherever he went, and if Fred met Polly Wimple, the dog would behave with a discretion worthy of Thomas Tucker about the gamesters, and curl round in a ball like a long-furred cushion and fall asleep.

  Polly might never have seen Fred at all this evening when he returned from the fold—for he walked by the side of a very high hedge, while she loitered in the lane—unless she noticed something that went up into the air, that she knew very well to be Fred’s cap.

  ‘Fred!’ she called, when he reached the gate. ‘Fred!’

  Timmy bounded over first, but as soon as he saw it was Polly who had called, he went to the hedge side, curled up, and was in a moment fast asleep. In order to get to the Chick cottage Mr. Pim came down the same lane. He had neither the nature of Mr. Thomas Tucker nor yet of the dog Timmy. Coming round a corner where a bush of bramble decorated with honeysuckle grew out into the lane, Mr. Pim came upon Fred, who had laid aside his crook, and had taken up Polly instead as if he had a sudden impulse to count her dimples. This pretty lesson, and an easy one, for there were only two dimples to count, appeared to have to be worked out by means of kisses.

  Mr. Pim could only open his mouth and stare. He wondered that Fred, being so high placed, should show such mortal manners, under the honeysuckle tree, even in counting.

  It was Polly who, turning a little that she might hold Fred the nearer to her, now beheld Mr. Pim watching with the astonishment natural to a man who always kept such a serious doubt, as his was, in his head.

  ‘Who be you?’ inquired Mr. Pim, addressing either of the two, who were so near together.

  Fred, who always left the more simple facts of life to Polly to explain, threw his cap in the direction that he should be going, and followed, leaving his father alone with Polly, for Timmy, of course, had gone after Fred.

  Mr. Pim stepped back, while Polly gave her clothes a shake a little frowningly, as though they hadn’t been behaving as they should. Then he came near to her and touched her. He felt her hair in order to discover if she was mortal or not.

  Being reassured by this touch that she was indeed no near relation of that high-hatted driver of Annie’s carriage, Mr. Pim looked at her more closely.

  ‘A maiden.’ Mr. Pim sighed out the word, and slowly nodded his head. ‘You bain’t Polly Wimple, be ’ee?’ asked Mr. Pim.

  Polly laughed.

  ‘My name isn’t really Polly,’ she said; ‘that’s only what I’m called. Up in church I were named “Mary.”’

  Mr. Pim took off his hat. He began to scratch his head in the same careful manner that he often hoed a field; he began on one side and finished at the other. The word ‘Mary’ had made him thoughtful. He always quickened his thoughts by scratching the outside of his head.

  He now recalled what he wished to remember. He looked at a bryony leaf in the hedge, as though the day he wanted to remember had hidden behind the leaf.

  The day had been hot and dusty, and midsummer too. He was leading Farmer Barfoot’s bull to market. The bull had stopped suddenly by the side of the road, had lowe
red its head, and sniffed intelligently at the cover of a picture paper that had been thrown there by a passing car. ‘What be reading?’ Pim had inquired, as though he thought the farmer’s bull was a well-educated English squire. The bull still sniffed at the paper. Pim looked down too; he wished to know what it was that interested the bull so much. He read the name of the lady under the picture that the bull was admiring—‘Queen Mary.’

  Mr. Pim looked at Polly Wimple. Polly sighed. She wanted Fred so badly. Mr. Pim knelt beside her. He raised her hand to his lips, as the gallant knight had done in the picture. ‘You be Queen Mary,’ he said.

  Chapter xv

  MR. BUGBY SEES A

  BLACK BIRD

  POLLY Wimple did more than admire Fred, she loved him ardently. She didn’t think as Mother Maud used to, only about the baby. She didn’t think about a baby at all. She wanted Fred in a way that simply meant to her having all of him, without any addition to that all.

  Polly knew that she had belonged to Fred from the very day of Annie Pim’s funeral, and whenever she saw Fred, or when he touched her as a child, she felt the same feelings that she got that day when she was kissed by the sun. She thought longingly about him as the sun had taught her to think. She didn’t want anything else in the world but only Fred. Tiny hands, nor yet a sweet-smelling baby’s neck, were no more thought of by Polly than chairs or tables.

  No other boy or man existed to Polly, in her Madder world, except Fred Pim. A kiss from any other would have broken the charm of her life. She kept herself entirely for Fred, and he was never for one moment out of her thoughts.

  They had already begun to talk of a tiny cottage near to the Madder green, that belonged to Farmer Barfoot, when something queer happened to Maud Chick that prevented Maud from working any more at the Madder rectory.