by H. E. Bates
‘Where’s me cap, ma’am?’ he said. ‘I got to git back to fill in this ’ere grave.’
She turned and fixed him with the intensely black haunting eyes.
‘It’s here in my bed,’ she said. ‘Come and find it with me.’
‘I bin up to some capers in me time,’ my Uncle Silas said, ‘but I drawed the line at that one. Clink or no clink, I started for the door. Sharpish too.’
He had hardly reached the door before he heard her shrieking. A second later he turned and saw that she had leapt from the bed.
‘There she wur,’ he said. ‘Starve naked, with a double-barrel gun in her hands.’
‘I’ll shoot you if you don’t stay with me,’ she said. She put the gun up to her scraggy naked shoulder and aimed it straight at his face. ‘I’ll shoot—I will—I’ll shoot.’
‘I knowed I wur damn near cooked then,’ he said to me. ‘Lucky I’d got another ’at wi’ me. Old deer-stalker I use to wear a-winter times. “All right,” I said, “you put the gun down and I’ll stay a-long o’ you for a minute or two.” So she put the gun down and half a jiff later I throwed the deer-stalker at the candle.’
She fired both barrels at him in the darkness. He dived for the door and the last he heard of her, as he half-fell downstairs, was her voice in a croaking, toad-like wail:
‘Dig mine!’ she was crying. ‘Dig mine! It’s time to dig mine!’
He paused and I thought, once again, that his gills showed the faintest sign of pallor.
‘Not long arter that they took her away, poor gal,’ he said. ‘She’d bin away afore, but I never knowed.’
‘Dead now?’
‘Dead now,’ he said.
He shook his head, looking far away from me.
‘Did you ever get your cap back?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, ‘but she left me a little summat in her will.’
He paused a little longer this time and then, very slowly, put his hand in his waistcoat pocket.
‘Come in envelope with a big wax seal on it,’ he said. ‘I allus carry it with me.’
In his hand lay a pretty bright blue feather.
‘Terrible mockin’ sort o’ bird, I allus think,’ he said, ‘the jay.’
The Foxes
My Uncle Silas, not unnaturally, and as might have been expected, had little use for the church.
‘Can’t a-bear popery and ’umbug!’ he would say. ‘Can’t a-bear folks a-maunderin’ an’ a-moolin’ about in church, singing psalms in night-shirts!’
And it followed naturally on this, also, that he had little use for parsons.
‘Fool of the family,’ he would say, ‘like old Rev. Frog-Face we had here in ’93.’
Here he would give an imitation of the Rev. Frog-Face, tall, nasal, drooling, hollow-chested and vacuously dithering, riding a strange sort of bicycle and peering through gold Oxonian pince-nez at the simple, robust world of my Uncle Silas and his fellow countrymen.
‘“Marning, marning!” Voice like some old yoe a-lambin’. “Marning, Silarse. And how does the world use you and yours this marning, Silarse?”’
My Uncle Silas thought that, on the whole, his long life, bathed though it had been in much beer and cloaked under a good many adventurous petticoats, had been a pretty good one. ‘And arter all it’s mine,’ he would say. ‘I done what I liked with it and took the good with the bad. Anythink wrong wi’ that?’
I would assure him that I thought there was, all things considered, nothing wrong with that at all.
‘Well, Frog-Face did,’ he said. ‘He wur allus at me to git me to live it different. Wanted to git me to reform.’
The idea of this formidable prospect made me start to laugh, but my Uncle Silas stopped me instantly.
‘Ah! you can laugh,’ he said, ‘but when a man’s ’appy what sense is it a-trying to git ’im to start all over again and be miserable? ’Ithout they’re miserable, some folks, they don’t think they’re good.’
I heartily agreed with this and he went on:
‘Allus a-poppin’ ’is ’ead over the garden fence and wantin’ a word wi’ me. Voice like some old yoe a-lambin’. “Silarse! I should like a word in your ear, Silarse, if you don’t mind.”’
My Uncle Silas would then go on to describe what one of these words in his ear was like and how he himself replied.
‘Silarse, not to put too fine a point on it, I hear that you were roaring drunk again outside The Swan with Two Nicks on Friday.’
‘No, sir.’
‘And that you were not only drunk but that you and Sam Twizzle and Plum Walker went out of the public house, took the bridle off Milkman Randall’s pony and sold it back to him in the bar.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Silarse, Silarse, be careful what you say. My many informants have another story.’
‘Well, they might do. But it ain’t mine.’
‘Then do you deny you were drunk outside The Swan with Two Nicks on Friday?’
‘I do. It ’appened to be Sat’day.’
‘And I suppose you also deny that you and your friends robbed Milkman Randall of his pony’s bridle and sold it back to him in the bar?’
‘I do. It wadn’t the bridle at all. It wur the whole ’nation harness.’
‘Silarse, Silarse!’
‘Well, if he wadn’t fly enough to look arter ’isself while he wur tryin’ to creep round the barmaid’s apron that’s ’is look-out, ain’t it, not mine?’
This might have been enough, as my Uncle Silas pointed out, to put off any ordinary mortal; but parsons, as he remarked, are often persistent, thick-skinned and nosey to a point of driving an ordinary mortal off his head.
‘Course we give old Milkman ’is ’arness back next day. Just a bit o’ sport, that’s all. Sort of thing we used to do when we was all in beer. Got to do summat to mek life worth while. Like that day we sent the landlord o’ The Crown an’ Anchor a tallygram——. Well, that don’t matter. Jist a bit o’ sport.’
My Uncle Silas then went on to tell me how, at last, he grew very tired of these essays of interference in the normal, worth-while sport of life and how he resented, above all, the notion that there was no good, no purpose and no future in his kind of living.
‘No good will come if it, Silarse, I warn you, no good will come of it.’
‘Well, I don’t doubt you’re right. But all I can say, parson, is this. If what’s a-comin’ is ’arf as good as what’s bin then it won’t be a-miss. If ’arf the gals——’
‘Wine and women! Wine and women! They’ve been the downfall of many a better man than you, Silarse, many a better man than you.’
‘Then good luck to ’em, that’s all I can say.’
But terrier dogs and parsons, as my Uncle Silas remarked, have this much in common: once they get their teeth in there’s no shaking them off.
‘Well, I got my chance at last,’ Silas said. ‘One day old Frog-Face come a-botherin’ and a-pesterin’ on me to shoot an old fox what wur a-tekkin’ ’is cockerels.’
He paused and I waited for him to go on; but suddenly he went off down one of his smaller tributaries of recollection.
‘Oh! I forgot to say there wur two on ’em. Curate too. Lived in that there big rectory under them big cedar trees. Gloomy old place. You could drive a carriage and four down the stairs. I jistly forgit the curate’s name, but he wur a lean ’un too. They were a damn good skinny pair. Both on ’em half-cock.’
‘Silarse, I should appreciate it as a very great favour if you’d have a go at this wretched animal. It has eluded both of us and everybody else assigned to it.’
‘Shootin’ foxes? I ain’t very gone on that.’
‘The animal is a poultry maniac. He had six last night, four last Sunday while I was in church.’
‘I ain’t very gone on it.’
‘Another week and we’ll have nothing left, Silarse. I beg you as a very great favour.’
‘I ain’t very gone on it. Besides, Sammy Twizzle�
�s got my gun.’
‘There will be a quart of beer for you and for Sam too, I can assure you that——’
‘It’ll very like be all-night job. A quart don’t goo far. I generally reckon a barrel for a thing like a fox.’
‘Very well, Silarse, very well. If they are your terms.’
This, as my Uncle Silas pointed out, was something hard to refuse; but before finally agreeing on things he felt that he had, as he said, to point out to the Rev. Frog-Face a serious possibility.
‘The last fox I see shot was over at Joey Tyler’s,’ he said. ‘An’ he come back an’ ’aunted ’im. Makin’ a terrible noise of a night-time. Cruel. Like a lost soul.’
‘I doubt very much,’ the Rev. Frog-Face said, smiling, ‘if foxes have souls.’
‘Don’t you believe it, parson,’ my Uncle Silas said. ‘They’re nasty-souled animals, foxes. Especially vixens.’
There are, as no doubt you know, many kinds of foxes.
‘And it wur jist as I thought,’ Silas said, ‘it wur a two-legged ’un. We hadn’t bin a-sittin’ there on the barrel above hour when up come Tunchy Mackness. Carrying a big sack. Well, o’ course, we knowed Tunchy well. Knowed ’im years a-new.’
My Uncle Silas then went on to describe a brief interlude in which he, Sammy Twizzle and Tunchy Mackness sat for half an hour under one of the big cedar trees, working out the night’s arrangements.
‘Well, we wanted to give Tunchy a fair chance,’ my Uncle Silas said, ‘so we said to him, “Tunchy, it’s like this ’ere. You tek another half dozen cockerels and nip a couple for us and then give us another barrel and we won’t say a word. But ’ithout you give us the barrel——”’
There was, I thought, a slight flaw in this otherwise profitable arrangement and I said:
‘Eight cockerels while the two of you were on guard?’
‘Well,’ my Uncle Silas said, ‘we wur a-goin’ to pretend they was two foxes an’ one on ’em took the cockerels while we was a-chasin’ the t’other. Anyway, that don’t matter. Tunchy agreed and about midnight we bunked ’im off ’ome with the cockerels.’
During all this I had detected an unusual change in my Uncle Silas’s behaviour and I was about to remind him of it when he said:
‘Don’t keep chippin’ in all the time. I’m a-tryin’ to recollect summat.’
I said I was sorry; I had only wanted to put right what I felt was an important omission. But he ignored this completely and said:
‘Any road about one o’clock I made a noise like Bedlam and Sammy let the gun off twice in the paddock at the back. About five minutes later old Frog-Face and the curate come a-scorchin’ downstairs and out into the garden in night-caps and night-shirts, a-bawlin’:
‘“Silarse! Silarse! Did you get the villain, Silarse?” Voice like some old yoe a-lambin’ as usual. “Did you get him, Silarse?”’
At this point my Uncle Silas proceeded to address himself to the Rev. Frog-Face in the sternest possible way, wagging an admonishing finger, as if in fact he were present among us.
‘“Parson,” I says to ’im, “they wur two on ’em. That’s why you’ve bin a-losin’ so many. Dog an’ a vixen. Sammy shot the dog out in the field, but the vixen got away! And parson,” I says, “I don’t envy you. I don’t envy you!”’
‘Why, Silarse, why?’
‘They never forgit, vixens. That’s why. They never forgit, especially when they lose a mate, and I’ll be burned if that there vixen won’t come back and ’aunt you.’
Here my Uncle Silas grinned and cocked his eye at me.
‘And what d’ye think old Frog-Face said, eh? “Silarse,” he said, “I haven’t the slightest doubt you’ll burn when the time comes, but that the vixen will come back in supernatural form I cannot believe.” What d’ye think o’ that, eh?’
My Uncle Silas did not pause for an answer and went on:
‘“All right, parson,” I says to ’im, “you can supernatural till the cows come ’ome, but I wouldn’t be in your shoes for two barrels o’ beer. Nor yit three. And as fer dealin’ wi’ that there vixen when she comes back I wouldn’t be here for four!”’
Here he paused most impressively, turning to me with an expression of great seriousness, as if perhaps he had even begun to believe in all this himself.
‘You know what we done?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘We went ’ome,’ he said, with great solemnity, ‘an’ started thinkin’.’
With patience I waited to hear the outcome of this remarkable pursuit and after some moments he said:
‘Upshot on it wur as Sammy got to know a publican over at Thurleigh what had a tame fox in the backyard. Brought it up from a cub. Could do anything. Et out o’ your ’and. Drink ’arf a pint wi’ you if you’d a mind to pay for it. Come like a dog when you whistled.’
At this point I was strongly tempted to ask if it could also sing The Bluebells of Scotland, but I refrained and he said:
‘We ’ad a bit of a job paintin’ on it white, but it didn’t look a-miss when we’d finished it.’
‘I believe you will burn,’ I said under my breath, but he didn’t hear me and went on:
‘An’ it wadn’t long afore we got ’im up to old Frog-Face’s. They was a big lawn in front of the ’ouse, with these ’ere big cedar trees both sides. So Sammy sat one side o’ the lawn and me the t’other. I’d got the fox. Then I started a-howlin’ and a-wailin’ like a good ’un. It were jist nice an’ dark at the time.’
Here, for the second time, he paused to draw a picture of the Rev. Frog-Face and his curate scorching into the garden in night-caps and night-shirts.
‘That wur the signal,’ he said. ‘Sammy give a low whistle and I let the fox goo. God A’mighty, we’d got it trained so well I thought it were gooin’ to run up their damn night-shirts—it went that close, boy.’
He whacked his hand down on his corduroyed knee several times, his cheeks wagging with laughter.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we done that fer about six nights. Not reg’lar, o’ course. But jist often enough t’aggravate ’em to death.’
‘Upshot?’ I said.
‘Upshot wur,’ he said solemnly, ‘as I ’ad a visit from Frog-Face. He were in a terrible bad state. Nerves like frog-spawn. All of a-totter an’ a-quiver. Curate couldn’t come, poor feller. He were bad a-bed and wuss up.’
He licked his lips with great satisfaction and again I was reminded of what seemed to be a change in his habits, but he gave me no time to discuss it and said:
‘Begged on me to shoot it. Went down on his knees an’ begged on me. Begged on me—they wur damn near tears in his eyes. “Silarse,” he said, “Silarse—I beseech you. Rid us of this gharstly visitation.” Well, I couldn’t very well say no, could I?——’
‘Four barrels?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said blandly. ‘No. We didn’t want to be too ’ard on ’im. We didn’t want to be too ’ard. We didn’t want to be greedy. We settled fer three barrels—arter all, it took three nights to git rid o’ the damn ghost—and twothri pipes o’ bacca. And that wur cheap at the price.’
He paused again and gave a slight diabolical start of one eye, remembering something.
‘Oh! yis, and we got ’arf a sovereign for the brush.’
‘For the what?’
‘Jist shows you what born fools parsons are,’ he said. ‘On’y ’arf-sharp, that curate. Wuss’n Frog-Face. ’Adn’t got twopennorth o’ split peas in ’is ’ead.’
‘I think I smell burning,’ I said, under my breath, but his ears were quick and he said:
‘Wad are you a-mutterin’ about? What was you a-goin’ to say to me jist now?’
Then I remembered the omission, the change in his habits, and what I thought was his odd behaviour throughout the telling of the tale.
‘You haven’t had a drop of wine all evening,’ I said.
He looked up at me with gloom.
‘I know, boy,’ he said. ‘We’ve tasted the last
on it. The parsnip won’t be ready fer a fortnit.’
‘“Give us the little foxes,”’ I said,—‘What time does The Swan with Two Nicks close?’
He whipped out his watch from his waistcoat with the alacrity of a man about to start a race between two horses.
‘You’ll jist be in time, boy,’ he said. ‘You’ll jist be in time!’
‘Shall I bring a barrel?’
He leapt up, sprightly as a young hound.
‘I’ll come wi’ you, boy,’ he said. ‘You’ll never lift it. There’s a knack wi’ barrels. You got to know the knack. They ain’t many know the knack——’
I took his arm.
‘Except,’ I said, ‘the two-legged foxes.’
The Double Thumb
I have so often described my Uncle Silas as a wicked old reprobate of a liar with a bloodshot eye and a strawberry nose who ate too much and drank too much and worked too little that I sometimes wonder if there is not some other feature about him that would, perhaps, bring him more freshly to mind.
Pondering on this, I can think of nothing more striking than his double thumb.
This thumb was his left one and it had something of the appearance of the leg bone of a chicken flattened out at the end. It was very horny, very rough and just about double the size of an ordinary thumb. The nail was double too, with just a suggestion of a heart-shaped appearance about it, and very thick and crusty, like an oyster shell.
When I was a little boy my Uncle Silas used to let me hold this thumb in my hand and I used to marvel at it, with its oyster-shell roughness and its wonderful size, greatly.
‘Was it like that,’ I asked him once, ‘when you were born?’
‘When I wur what?’ he said, rather as if a common circumstance like birth had never happened to him or had happened so long ago that, at the age of ninety, he scorned to remember it. ‘Born with it? That there thumb wur a accident. A terrible bad accident. I were nearly killed.’
‘Killed?’ I asked him. ‘How?’ and I was quite horrified.