“I want you to help me to place The Dog-Faced Man. That’s the name of an inn we once lunched at – I should say about eight years ago. I doubt if I ever knew the name of the village it served, but I think it lay west of Old Basing… I’ll tell you why I want this. I remember The Dog-Faced Man – I can see it now. It was once a posting-house. Which means that the road it stands by was once a coaching road. You see what I’m getting at…”
The smoking flax burst into flame.
Half an hour later, perhaps, we found that the village of Coven boasted a ‘Dog-Faced Man.’ And Coven lay west of Old Basing by seven miles. And Bloodstock lay south-west of Coven by forty-four.
The old coach-road had fallen from its estate – at least, the twelve miles which survived were little more than a lane, while the other thirty-nine had long ago been lost in a main highway. Coven, in a word, had been bypassed, and the bypass was shorter than the coach-road by just three miles.
All this we discovered later: for in searching for Coven, we found what we wanted to see.
My cousin, driving his Rolls, had properly taken the lead, and I was a mile behind him, expecting to join him again at The Dog-Faced Man. But we met before that.
At a quarter to twelve on a lovely August morning I stole round a fairy bend, to see his car at rest by the side of the way and himself and Jill and Daphne standing upon the turf which edged the road as a ribbon for half a mile.
“Oh, I can’t believe it,” said Berry, and Perdita smothered a cry.
To be honest, the hopes we had harboured had been but faint. It is an age of progress, and when cars began to come in, the gentle face of England began to change. Straighten a curve of a road, and half a hundred milestones will be bearing a false report. And because that is not to be thought of, the liars are taken away. Reason forbade us to think that with all the manifold chances of modern life the milestone that Studd had quoted should not have been put in the wrong. But it was so. Leaning a little, dressed in tight, grey-green lichen – that venerable livery peculiar to ‘the constant service of the antique world,’ the old fellow offered his news to such as passed by. Blurred by a hundred winters, the legend could still be read:
BLOODSTOCK
43
OLD BASING
8
As we alighted, I saw Jonah pacing the turf…
Before we could exchange our excitement—
“That’s right,” said Berry. “Go on. Give the whole blasted thing away before we’ve begun. If anyone’s watching—”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Daphne. “Milestones are meant to be read.”
“They’re not meant to be slobbered over,” said her husband. “They’re not meant to be leered at and – Look out. Here’s somebody coming. What did I say?”
The cyclist that had been approaching passed slowly by, whilst we all did our best to dissemble and Berry loudly declared that “the map must be wrong.” The effect was marred by a wail of laughter from Jill: it remained for the Knave to destroy it – by overtaking the stranger at thirty-five miles an hour, gaping upon him like any bull of Basan and protesting against his intrusion with a volley of malevolent barks. The hurricane of invective with which we discouraged his zeal must have convinced the cyclist that we wished to disown such behaviour with all our might, but the incident sobered us all, for it showed that the Knave had perceived that we were about some business the nature of which we had no desire to disclose.
In an uneasy silence Jonah leaned over a gate that gave to a field to peer down the back of the hedgerow before which the milestone stood, while the Knave, wide-eyed with abashment, lay down on the turf with his muzzle between his paws.
“Quite so,” said Berry, grimly. “And now, having done enough damage, we’d better be gone. Lunch at The Dog-Faced Man was what we arranged. But I won’t go near the place unless it is understood that a certain subject is barred. If the faintest idea gets round of what’s at the back of our minds – well, we may as well leave the country. I’ll lay that Jonah agrees.”
My cousin nodded.
“Can’t be too careful,” he said, producing a pipe. “But it’s going to take some lifting, this box of bricks.”
“What d’you mean?” said Daphne.
Jonah shrugged his shoulders.
“As you’ve just seen, this road is a thoroughfare. You can’t keep people at bay or order them off. And, once you’ve begun, you can’t disguise your labour… You can stop, of course – if somebody rounds that bend. But unless they’re feeble-minded, they’ll wait until you go on. And if you don’t go on, they will. They’ve just as much right as you have to, er, practise landscape-gardening by the side of the King’s highway.”
There was an uneasy silence.
Then Daphne spoke for us all.
“I can wait for my lunch,” she said. “Let’s go straight home. At least, we can talk as we go.”
“All right,” said Berry. “Only, as we’re here, we may as well locate the vicarage. It’s almost certainly at Coven, but we’d better make sure.”
“The vicarage?” said his wife. “Why on earth do we want to know where the vicarage is?”
“In case we’re successful,” said Berry. “The vicar’s the proper person to administer what we find.”
“But it’s ours,” shrieked Daphne. “The man meant Bertram to have it, and Bertram’s right has now descended to us.”
“For shame,” said Berry. He raised his eyes to heaven and wagged his head. “Think of the widows and orphans to whom it never belonged. Think of the—”
“Rot,” said Daphne. “The man—”
“–was a common robber,” said Berry. “And I think it more than likely that when he’d sunk his, er, surplus, he went to The Dog-Faced Man and had a large blood and tears.”
“I was talking of—”
“Some infamous relics,” said Berry, “if I remember aright. Which a man meant Bertram to have and have now descended to us. If we add to the grisly collection, am I to be allowed to display the ones which we have?”
My sister swallowed.
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it. If—”
“Then,” said Berry, “we’ll take the vicar’s advice. If he says—”
“Oh, I suppose if you want to turn the library into a Chamber of Horrors…”
“That’s a good girl,” said Berry, and entered the nearest car. “On the way back we’ll stop at The Case is Altered and drink the testator’s health.”
“Then you’ll drink it alone,” said his wife. “If there’s anything going, we may just as well have it as anyone else. But I don’t pretend I’m grateful. It wasn’t the brute’s to give.”
“Quite right,” said Berry, “quite right. Besides, the question of gratitude may not arise. I mean, it mayn’t be what we think. All sorts of things are b-buried. Sometimes they go so far as to bury the dead.”
I helped my sister into the other car.
Three days and a half had gone by when I brought the Rolls to rest in front of The Dog-Faced Man.
Outside the inn, in the shade of some whispering limes, was standing a well-worn car to which was attached a trailer, no longer smart. The two carried camping equipment of every kind – I knew: I had helped to load them five hours before.
My cousin strolled out of the inn – according to plan.
“At last,” he said. He turned to call to his sister. “Jill, they’re here. Come along.” He returned to us. “Your advance-guard has done very well. We’ve found an excellent field a mile away. I fixed things up with the owner an hour ago.”
Jill and the Knave came flying out of the inn.
“Daphne darling, it’s priceless. Wait till you see. He was awfully sticky at first – the owner, I mean. But Jonah talked farming with him and after a quarter of an hour he showed us a map of his land and said we could go where we liked.”
“How – how marvellous of him,” said Daphne, and meant what she said.
Ten minutes later I s
lowed down behind the trailer just short of the five-barred gate which gave to a field we knew. Here everyone alighted except my cousin and me. The gate was opened by Berry, and Jonah drove into the field: and then, my way being clear, I proceeded to place the Rolls. The turf by the side of the road made an excellent berth. I brought the great car to rest with her nose in line with a milestone some seventeen paces ahead. All this, according to plan. It was now but five o’clock and the daylight was broad, and the turf was conveniently smooth: but had it been dark and had there been a pit a yard square two paces in front of the Rolls, her headlights, when dipped, would have illumined the hole, and, what is as much to the point, if the car were advanced three paces, the petty excavation would have been lost to view. In a word, the stage was set.
That our preparations were laboured, I do not pretend to deny: but they had not been made without reason, for one cast-iron condition was ruling the enterprise. Neither whilst it was being done nor after it had been done must we be so much as suspected of what we proposed to do. We could not afford exposure. For one thing only, what we were going to do was against the law.
These things being so, it goes, I think, without saying that we could not make our attempt except under cover of night. Now, though we might hide our labour, we could not conceal our presence in such a neighbourhood. Hence the camping equipment. Once the two tents were up, no one would give two thoughts to the simple-minded strangers who had “managed to get old Belcher to let them camp in his field.” So far, so good: but the work which we were to do had got to be done by the side of the King’s highway. And the King’s highway is open to all and sundry, by night as by day. The work would take time. Fifteen paces, Studd said. But what was the length of his paces? And had he walked perfectly straight by the edge of the road? Add to this that we could not work without light. And a light can be seen in the country a long way off…
The camp would account for our presence: the Rolls, with her headlamps dipped, would afford us a furtive light: and if the alarm was given, we had but to drive her forward to cover the hole we had dug.
As I entered the good-looking meadow—
“But we must have water,” cried Daphne. “I’m dying to wash my hands.”
“I know,” said Berry. “So’m I. But I’m going to tread it under and wipe them upon the grass.”
“Don’t be a fool,” said his wife. “I’m not going to go without water until we get home. Besides, we’ve got to wash up.”
“There’s a stream,” said Jonah, pointing, “the other side of that ridge.” He produced two canvas buckets. “Would you rather fetch the water or put up a tent?”
“That isn’t grammar,” said Berry. “No man born of woman can put up a tent. I’ll subscribe to its erection, if that’s what you mean. But I’m not going to drag my nails out, clawing sailcloth about against its will. Besides, we must spare ourselves. We didn’t come here to make our abode in this field.”
“We’ve got to pretend that we did. So the tents have got to go up and the water has got to be fetched.”
With his eyes on the buckets—
“About this water,” said Berry, thoughtfully.
“Why don’t we make a chain? A chain of people, I mean – like they do at a fire?”
“From here to the stream?” said I.
“That’s right,” said Berry. “I know we’re only six: but if we spread out—”
“Which end of the chain,” said Daphne, “are you proposing to be?”
My brother-in-law swallowed.
“Well, we ought to draw lots,” he said. “That’s the fairest way. But I don’t mind. If I can walk so far, I’ll – I’ll take the other end.”
“All right,” said Jonah. “You go on with the buckets. As you’ll have the farthest to go, we’ll give you ten minutes’ start.”
“But we all start together,” cried Berry. “That’s the whole point of the thing. Then Number One falls out – at the head of this field: Number Two at the top of the ridge: and so on. It’s the only way to fetch water.”
“But what’s the sense of us all going?” said Jill.
“Well, it saves time for one thing,” said Berry. “We get the water much quicker. Number Six fills the buckets and gives them to Number Five. Number Five runs with them to Number Four. Number Four runs to Number Three. And so on.”
“But we don’t get the water quicker, because when it arrives we’re not here.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” said Berry. “If you can’t see – Besides, Number Six will be here. I mean, Number One.”
“No, he won’t,” said Jill. “Nobody’ll be here. You said—”
“But he must be here,” screamed Berry. “How can the water arrive except by his hand? Number Six arrives with the water.”
“Well, I call that silly,” said Jill. “If Number Six—”
“I mean Number One,” snapped Berry. “How the devil could Six be here? He’s down at the stream.”
“Well, you said it,” said Jill, indignantly. “You said—”
“What if I did?” raved Berry. “Ignorant obstruction like this is enough to make anybody say anything. I understand you want water. God knows why, but you do. Very well. I teach you the way to get it. I lay before you the way in which water is got. In which water has been got for millions of years. It’s the first labour-saving device the world ever saw. More. I—”
“But you said it saved time,” said Jill.
“So it does.”
“Well, I can’t see it,” said Jill. “There’s six of us going to get it instead of one, and we shan’t have it any quicker because we shan’t be here when it comes.”
“But we shall be here,” raved Berry. “Almost at once. And there’ll be the water waiting. We’ll have rushed the whole thing through in one-sixth of the time. Less than that, really: for Numbers Five and Six can wash in the stream.”
“Well, what about Number Four? He won’t be able to wash for ages.”
“Yes he will. Four can take some soap with him and wash on the way. And so can Three. And so can Two and One, for the matter of that.”
“Then what’s the good of getting it?” said Jill.
“There isn’t any,” yelled Berry. “There never was. Not the faintest odour of welfare. It’s a waste of time and labour and an insult to common sense.”
“It is – your way,” said Jill. “Fancy running about with a lot of dirty water. And I don’t believe they’ve always done it like that. Why don’t you go and get it, as Daphne said? Your way, you’d have been Number Six, so what’s the difference?”
There is a naïveté which is more deadly than any wit.
So soon as he could speak—
“Show me a tent,” said Berry, violently. “Show me some pegs and a maul.” Savagely he flung off his coat. “Especially a maul – and I’ll show you how to pretend. I’m going to pretend to set up a monument. You know. A thing like Stonehenge.”
“Well, don’t overdo it,” said his wife. “It’s got to come down tomorrow.”
Berry laughed hysterically.
“Wait till I’m through,” he said, “and you’ll think that we’re here for years.”
With a snarl, he fell upon some canvas, and, after two efforts to lift it, began to drag it incontinently towards the hedge…
Perdita picked up a bucket and looked at me.
“Shall we make a chain?” she said shyly.
Two minutes later I handed her over the fence at the head of the field…
It was as we surmounted the ridge that Perdita caught her breath and stood suddenly still.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “If we go any nearer, I’m sure it’ll fade away.”
The scene before us might well have been painted or sung. It was like a piece of Old English – a page from The Book of Proverbs, so simple and yet as matchless as one of Shakespeare’s songs.
A meadow went sloping down to the stream we sought. On the farther side of this, the risin
g ground was laid with a quilt of leafage, perhaps some sixty feet thick. Oak and ash and chestnut – all manner of magnificent trees, massed in inimitable disorder, made such a hanging garden as Babylon never knew, and the tops of those that stood highest were fretting with delicate green the blue of a flawless sky. Sunk like a jewel in the greenwood, set like a jewel on the silver sash of water, was an old, half-timbered mill.
Rose-red from footings to chimneys, the ancient seemed to welcome the smile of the evening sun. This laid bare a detail which filled the eye, and, even from where we stood, we could mark the good brick-nogging that was framed by the grey, old oak, the gentle sag of the roof, which is but the stoop of a man that is full of years, and the lead of the lattices keeping the aged panes. And something else we could see. Neighbouring the wall of the mill, the water-wheel hung upon its spindle over the race – a very comfortable monster, like Bottom’s sucking dove. For me, it painted the lily, not only calling back Time as one having authority, but relating the business of Nature to the work of men’s hands. And the wheel was running…the fine old fellow was at work. His felloes were dark and glistening, all the beauty of lively water flowed or dripped or leaped from his flashing fans, and the sunshine played upon the flourish, making a magic beyond the reach of art.
Perdita clasped two hands that would have added a verse to Solomon’s Song.
“Oh, please may I have it? It is the very loveliest toy that I’ve ever seen.”
Wishing very much it was mine—
“No toy,” said I, “but a fable – the stuff the old England was made of…the England that Goldsmith knew.”
Perdita nodded thoughtfully. Then she set a hand on my shoulder, keeping her eyes on the mill.
“England,” she said, “is really a picture book. It’s old now, and some of its pages are missing and many of those that are left are torn and spoiled. But there are such a lot that are just as they always were. And this is the little vignette that goes on the title page.” She lifted a glowing face. “Am I lucky or not to have seen it?”
And Berry Came Too Page 16