The Retreat_Machinations of Henry

by Forrest Reid

  Pascoe wasn’t like that, he knew. As a matter of fact Tom was the only boy with whom Pascoe ever associated. Of course, Tom didn’t associate a lot with other boys either; but he would have liked to, he couldn’t feel indifferent in the way Pascoe seemed to feel. He didn’t really dislike Brown, for example. At the present moment he couldn’t think of a single person he disliked. True, the present moment was hardly to be relied on, for he was in a peculiar mood—a rather sloppy mood, he fancied—one at any rate in which he felt capable of finding passionate romance in limpets and beauty in a woodlouse. . . .

  And the waves curled over and ran up the sand; and a little puff of wind came from the sea and moved in Pascoe’s hair. . . .

  A long time elapsed.

  “Wake up!” cried Tom at last, for it looked as if Pascoe and Chrysanthemum would lie there for ever.

  Pascoe opened his eyes, but very drowsily.

  “It’s getting late,” Tom told him. “You’ve slept for hours.”

  The sun had indeed dropped visibly, but at the same time it was moving round the side of the cliff, which was lit up now where before it had been in shadow, while the whole sea lay in a rippling glory. Chrysanthemum was the first to move; sleep had refreshed him and he began to dig. Pascoe jumped up with a shout and ran down to the breaking waves. Pascoe was knee-deep in the Atlantic.

  And it began all over again. Pascoe’s voice was raised in a tuneless chant; Chrysanthemum’s voice was raised: Tom, though he squatted in the shallows as before, joined in the chorus; the cliff’s edge was lined with interested sheep. They plunged in and out till they were cold; they ran along the sand till they were hot; they threw stones for Chrysanthemum; they dressed and ate everything that remained in the basket.

  “We ought to be going home soon,” Tom supposed regretfully, for he didn’t want to go home, and suddenly realized that he was feeling very tired. He might have been wiser, perhaps, to have had a sleep like the others.

  “We’ll go now,” Pascoe said, “and then we can collect more flowers.” He gathered up the botany book, the specimen-box, and the drying-press as he spoke. “If we could only make him carry something,” he added, with a glance at the unencumbered Chrysanthemum. “I don’t suppose he’s ever done a stroke of work in his life.”

  “I don’t suppose he has,” Tom agreed, “though he may work for a shepherd, and this may be just his day off.”

  The walk back he found very heavy going, for the tide had come in a long way and they had to plough through soft sand. Pascoe and Chrysanthemum seemed to find no difficulty.

  When they reached the stream he explained about its tonic quality, which he had forgotten to do before, and Pascoe said there might be something in it, though Tom’s deduction, made from the colour of the water, was unscientific. At any rate all three drank from it—Tom and Chrysanthemum close together, Pascoe higher up.

  “You can get a most frightful thing from dogs,” Pascoe mentioned when they stood up again “a thing that grows on your liver till it kills you. It’s quite common among the shepherds in Scotland, because they allow their dogs to eat off the same plates as they use themselves. I’m sorry I didn’t remember about it sooner, though it’s very unlikely you’ll get it. He was below you, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Tom rather faintly. “Then that’s all right; you’re safe. I wouldn’t have told you, only it’s just as well that you should know in case you ever get a dog of your own.”

  They had begun the ascent through the now familiar scene, though in the evening light all the colours were deeper. The fields of still unripe oats were vividly green, but the hay was already cut and stacked. Pascoe—who always seemed to be a few yards ahead—did not find many new flowers, and Tom found none. On the other hand, he lingered to watch half a dozen black bullocks standing dreaming in the shade, knee-deep in long grass, their tails alone moving, switching away the flies. He knew it was partly an excuse to rest, and Pascoe, he was afraid, must have guessed this, for he stopped at once, and asked him if he were tired. Tom didn’t answer, because he wasn’t sure whether Pascoe was tired or not. Then this struck him as stupid, so he said he was, and sat down on the bank with his arms round Chrysanthemum.

  Pascoe sat down also. “I am too,” he declared, but he couldn’t be so very, for he immediately began to work with his flowers. Pascoe was very nice in ways like that, Tom pondered dreamily; lots of boys would have boasted that they weren’t tired even if they were. But Pascoe wasn’t like that, and he was the only boy who never called him Skinny. . . .

  * * *

  He could have sat there for a long time just thinking such thoughts; he could even have gone .to sleep, and would have liked to do so; but in a few minutes they resumed their journey. The last faint sound of the waves had been left behind, but there was a constant ripple of hidden water near. At length they emerged out of the lane and the smoother road across the hill began—bare, and without hedge or bank or wall. Before them was an unbroken outline, as of an immense curving bronze-green barrow—smooth, naked, and dark against the evening sky. On either side the turf bogs stretched, rich and sombre, covered with heather and sprinkled with bog-cotton. Greener beds of moss and flowering rushes showed where the land was soft and treacherous, while the light caught an occasional gleam of stagnant water. At wide intervals, and branching off at right angles from this ascending road, cart tracks diverged across the heather. These tracks were firm yet soft under foot, being composed really of powdered turf, and they were grey in colour, except where a darker patch showed that a stack had recently been removed.

  Suddenly Pascoe gave a little squeal and stood still.

  “Good!” murmured Tom, immediately subsiding.

  “Look!” cried Pascoe, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to his feet. “There they are! I’d forgotten all about them.”

  Tom looked obediently, but saw only couple of turf-cutters, with their carts, far away across the bog.

  “I’m sure it’s them,” said Pascoe eagerly. “I don’t see Kerrigan, but I’m sure those horses are Blossom and Welcome.”

  “Blossom and Welcome?” Tom repeated, unenlightened.

  “Yes—Aunt Rhoda’s horses. . . . Kerrigan was to come over with the two carts this afternoon for turf.”

  “Oh,” murmured Tom, beginning to understand.

  “We’ll not have to walk home after all.”

  “Good!” said Tom again.

  They had got so used to the company of Chrysanthemum that it was only at this point that they realized he oughtn’t to be there, and that they must have passed his home long ago. Immediately a new problem was raised, altering everything.

  “He picked us up away down near the sea,” Pascoe said, “and that must be where he lives. What are we going to do about it?”

  Tom didn’t know. But he knew that, stuffed with grub and after hours of friendship, Chrysanthemum wouldn’t want to leave them.

  “You’d better tell him to go home,” Pascoe said. “It’s really you he’s following, and he won’t take any notice of me.”

  Tom said nothing, but he gazed back down the hill. He was pretty certain that he couldn’t do that climb over again. “Go home,” he said to Chrysanthemum, but he didn’t say it in the right way. It sounded weak, more like a suggestion that he might have made to Pascoe himself, and as such Chrysanthemum considered it, with his head on one side and an amiable expression on his face. He wagged his tail.

  “Oh, well,” said Pascoe good-naturedly, “I suppose we’d better keep him and bring him back to-morrow.”

  So, with Chrysanthemum still of the party, they set out across the bog, striking a diagonal line to the nearest track.

  The horses and carts and the figures of the two turf-cutters were clearly silhouetted against the sky, but it was not till they were quite close that they perceived a third man, for he was reclining on the ground on the farther side of one of the carts, leaning his back against the wheel and smoking.

  “They haven’t
done a thing, of course,” Pascoe murmured in an undertone, “except take out the horses and stand there yarning. They’re always like that: Kerrigan would sit there talking till to-morrow morning.”

  Certainly nobody was working at the moment—or looked like beginning to work. Blossom and Welcome were browsing on such scattered tufts of grass as they could find among the heather; Kerrigan was talking through a haze of tobacco smoke; and the two turf-cutters, leaning indolently against the stack, were also talking, while at the same time they watched the approaching trio. The whole scene had an atmosphere of leisureliness that fell in marvellously with Tom’s own mood and inclinations: he felt quite ready to sit down and join in the conversation, or at any rate listen to it.

  “Shall we go or stay?” Pascoe continued to whisper. “Kerrigan doesn’t really want them to hurry. They haven’t even taken off their coats, and we may have to wait for hours.”

  “I’d rather stay,” Tom whispered back. “Does it matter?”

  But Kerrigan at this point must have discovered what they were discussing, for he took his pipe from his mouth and called out: “Now sit you down, Master Clement, and take your ease. A rest will do you good, and the mistress will know rightly where you are.”

  “We didn’t promise to be back at any particular time,” Tom put in persuasively. I’ll stay if you will.”

  Meanwhile the turf-cutters were being greeted as old friends by Chrysanthemum. And where might you have picked up Mrs. Reilly’s Mike now?” one of them asked. “Sure it’s two desperate dog-stealers you have there, Kerrigan, an’ you’d do well to keep a watch for the police when you’d all be riding home together in the light of the moon.”

  This was a joke, and a good many others followed, during which Tom noticed with relief that Pascoe had become absorbed in the botany book. He himself began to stroke the soft cheeks of Blossom and Welcome: Blossom dappled-grey, and Welcome chestnut-brown; both wearing stockings. He had always felt a particular liking for carthorses with stockings: the stockings seemed somehow to add to their powerfulness. Blossom and Welcome were solid as mountains, and Tom thought far more attractive than slender highly-strung thoroughbreds. They moved slowly and ponderously, and looked as mild as old-fashioned nurses. He could even imagine them answering advertisements, and putting in “fond of children” at the end. But he was really very tired, and seeing that the turf-cutters, so far from being spurred to activity by the arrival of Pascoe and himself, had now actually sat down, he followed their example, and stretching himself on his back in the smoky clouded purple of the heather, listened to the slow lazy talk. Pascoe had produced a pocket-lens and with his penknife was performing some kind of botanical dissection; Chrysanthemum was searching for rabbits; Blossom and Welcome continued to nose about for provender; while Kerrigan and the turf-cutters smoked and pursued a desultory conversation interlarded with humorous yarns. Everyone was doing exactly what he wanted to, Tom reflected, and not interfering with anybody else; and this seemed to him to be exactly the way life ought to be conducted. . . .

  Kerrigan and the turf-cutters had drifted into reminiscences of supernatural visitations and warnings, suggested by Tom’s account of the fright Chrysanthemum had given them when he had first begun to dig. They were chiefly tales of hearsay—one leading to another but they all had a local background, being the experiences of friends or relations, and the cumulative effect was persuasive. Pascoe probably was the only sceptic present. . . .

  * * *

  It was Chrysanthemum’s tongue licking his face that made Tom open his eyes. And astonishingly he found that everybody was ready to go home. The turf-cutters were putting on their coats, the carts were loaded, Pascoe was on Welcome’s back, and Kerrigan, knocking out the ashes from a last pipe, asked Tom whether he would like to ride on one of the loads or on horseback.

  Horseback, he decided, feeling now quite rested and energetic; so he was set up on Blossom, and slowly the journey home began.

  Probably he would have been a good deal more comfortable sprawling on top of the load, but nothing would have induced him to make this change. Pascoe had begun to sing—his usual kind of tuneless song—and the two turf-cutters walked with Kerrigan beside the carts till they reached the road. There they said good-night, and with Chrysanthemum, turned back towards Glenagivney.

  Kerrigan didn’t know what time it was. Neither did Pascoe, and neither did Tom, for to-day he hadn’t Mother’s watch with him. But it wasn’t moonlight, though a wraith of a moon was in the sky. Far below them was the grey shadowy sea, and across it—a sign that it must be fairly late—the revolving lights had begun to flash their signals.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TOM AND PASCOE, after a religious discussion, had decided to read the whole Bible through, chapter by chapter, from Genesis to Revelation, but it was Pascoe to whom it had occurred that this spiritual effort might be turned to material advantage. And strange to say, mentioned in a carefully thought-out letter to the wine merchant, it had actually produced a postal order for five bob, though Aunt Rhoda, perhaps because she seldom went to church, would only go the length of half a crown, and even that in the unsatisfactory form of a promissory note payable on the accomplishment of the task. Fired to emulation, Tom had tried what he could do, but either he lacked Pascoe’s adroitness or else possessed the wrong kind of parents, for Daddy had simply looked at him and sighed, while Mother, with a wretched sixpence, had given him a lecture on the ignobility of seeking pecuniary reward for good actions. It appeared that there were even specific warnings in the Bible against this very plan of Pascoe’s—texts about serving two masters, about God and Mammon. Pascoe, Mother seemed inclined to think, was serving only one master, and that one Mammon; whereupon Tom instantly, though it was their first encounter, had a clear vision of this Mammon—called up out of Limbo by the mere sound of his name—a sort of debased demi-god, with a large stupid face, a fat smooth dark-grey body, and a dirty tail. He didn’t like the looks of Mammon at all.

  But as yet the reading had not progressed very far; the first three chapters of Genesis, subtracted from the grand total of chapters in both Old and New Testaments, leaving so large a number that it became a question as to whether Aunt Rhoda oughtn’t to pay interest on her half-crown. In the meantime there had been much to argue about. Tom remembered talking of these very chapters with Mother, in the garden at home, on the evening preceding his sleep-walking adventure, but Mother hadn’t got nearly so much out of them as Pascoe. Pascoe—by means of logic and pure mathematics—had actually deduced, not the area indeed, but the exact shape of Eden. He went over the proof with Tom. It was quite clear, wasn’t it, where the Tree of Life stood? You were told that bang off: it stood in the middle of the Garden. But the Bible, you were also told, was absolutely true, and the only absolute truth is mathematical truth.

  “I don’t know whether it is or not,” Tom said, feeling all the same that Pascoe was about to produce something remarkable.

  “Well, you ought to know,” Pascoe replied. “Everybody else knows; all mathematicians at any rate.”

  “Miss Jimpson?” Tom suggested.

  “Miss Jimpson!” Pascoe echoed pityingly. “Miss Jimpson isn’t a mathematician. She knows just about enough to teach a few kids.” But he added: “You needn’t mind my saying that, because maths, of course, isn’t your subject. You’re good at other things, and nobody can be good at everything.”

  “All right,” said Tom, leaving Pascoe to proceed with the argument.

  “I suppose you admit that the only mathematical figure which has a centre is a circle?” was the next question.

  Tom thought of a square and a triangle, but did not mention either.

  “You do admit that?” Pascoe went on. “Well then, since we’re dealing with absolute truth, which is mathematical truth, and since we’re told that the Tree of Life was planted in the centre of the Garden, it follows that the Garden must have been circular in shape.”

  “There were two trees,” Tom ob
jected after he had recovered a little. “There was the Tree of Knowledge as well as the Tree of Life, and I don’t see how they both can have stood in the same spot.”

  “No,” said Pascoe, “they didn’t; and you aren’t told that they were both in the centre; you’re only told that the Tree of Life was.”

  Tom had no further arguments, and indeed ever since then he had pictured Eden as Pascoe described it. “It’s a huge circle,” he said to himself now, after he had blown out his candle. And having decided this, he thought for a minute or two of Chrysanthemum, and then of the ride home. But very soon his mind slid back to Eden, which had always interested him, and had been made by Pascoe more interesting still.

  Why, for instance, when forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, had nothing been said to Adam about the Tree of Life? Pascoe had a theory explaining this also, though he admitted himself that it was not based on such pure reasoning as the other, and therefore could be regarded only as a probability. His theory was that there was no need to warn Adam against tasting the Tree of Life, because the Tree of Life was invisible to him until after he had eaten the apple of knowledge. Then, of course, his eyes had been opened, just as Siegfried’s ears were opened when he tasted the dragon’s blood. And this really was frightfully clever, for it exactly bore out what the Bible told you—that as soon as Adam had eaten the apple, or whatever it was, God had begun to be frightened that he might find the other tree and eat one of its apples too. “They were both magic trees,” Pascoe expounded, “therefore one of them might easily have been invisible. Only their magics were different. The Tree of Knowledge showed you things and taught you things; the Tree of Life had the same power as the pillar of fire in She. . . . Not,” he added, “that I believe at all in either of them.”