by E. F. Benson
By now the sun was high and hot, and, as Dennis continued his harrowing, the spell of the spring, of the everlasting fertility of the earth, bubbled and seethed about him, while he and his horses and his harrow were helping it to fulfil itself, for the harrow was penetrating the womb of the shining soil, making it ready for the seed. Even as he who treads the vintage in autumn is enveloped in the vapour of the sun-ripe grapes, so now, when all the potency of renewed life surged round the boy, there grew an intoxication in his blood which made the fertile strength of his young manhood stir in him. That clean and lusty tide was on the flow all round him, the gorse was a-flower, and the brave little oxeyes were nesting, young colts were scampering round the field beyond, a wind-hover was poised high above his head, and the sea was a-glitter between the blossoming branches of the blackthorn. He could not have given any sort of definition to his thoughts, far less have put them into words, but as he went sweating and striding up and down the field with the robin scouting behind the harrow, he became just an opened sluice, through which the stream of life poured foaming. His legs and arms, his dripping chest and back and smooth strong neck were tugging at him with their appropriate virile desires: they wanted to run and to fight, to cling close, to wrestle and to love. Meantime, his conscious self was directing their immediate offices. His eye was alert on the straightness of his course, and his arm to haul on the harrow when it went awry, and his hand was on the rein, and his lungs drew in the warm air and his pursed lips whistled the tune that had weaned him and Nell from their Bibles yesterday afternoon, and made a brightness in the kitchen which later in the evening his grandfather had blackened again with his prayers and his cursings and his whisky. Some night soon he must go out for one of those solitary runnings in the dark, the need for which came over him irresistibly now and again in the springtime: he had not told even his Willie of them, though there was little else of his that was not Willie’s. Childish nonsense it was, but it was of the stuff of his heart, and it would never do for Willie to laugh at it, or indeed to want to share in it.
It was like entering some airless vault to go back out of the spring noon-day into the kitchen. Nell was in charge of the cooking to-day, and the cabbage she was boiling made a mucky smell, though the stew of meat promised agreeably. His mother, with her hair still in curl-papers and her print dress hitched up, had not yet finished cleaning the room, and the beams of the sun blazing in from the window to the south were thick and dusty with the work of her broom. Mollie Pentreath was in her usual place alongside the oven, her hands occupied with her knitting, but her eyes busy with all that went on round her: she sat with her head bent forward and looked upwards from under her black eyebrows this way and that. She had smiled and nodded to him this morning as he went out to his work, and that rare good-humour must have lasted with her, for instead of silently observing him, she again had a smile and a word for him.
“We’re all a bit late this morning,” she said. “Ready for your dinner, dear?”
“That I am, Grannie. Powerful hungry.”
“And where have you been working?” said she.
“Putting the harrow over the plough beyond the garden. Heavy going it was, and there’s a good bit more to do.”
Mrs. Pentreath’s needles clicked together for a minute before she answered.
“Ah, where the circle is,” she said. “You don’t meddle with that?”
Instantly Dennis connected the magnolia flower and the elder-stick with his grandmother.
“Lord, no, Grannie!” he said. “That’s never ploughed, as you know.”
Mrs. Pentreath gave him a sharp glance, and Dennis moved away to get a breath of fresh air by the open door, on the threshold of which was his mother shaking out into the yard the rug on which John Pentreath’s pipe-ash had fallen last night. He had but exchanged a glance with Nell, who, flushed and heated, was doing the cooking to-day and busy with the dishing-up of the stew. He must remember, when dinner was over, to see to the fixing up of the string between her room and his, and then she would be tied to him all night, with one end of it noosed round her wrist, and the other round his... .
“And just shette that door, Dennis,” added Mrs. Pentreath, “’tis a plaguy draught it makes.”
Dennis pulled the door to and stood with his mother outside.
“Something’s happened to please your grandmother this morning,” she said. “Quite affable she’s been, you may say, and offered to lay the table for dinner herself.”
“And what may it ‘a been that’s pleasured her?” asked Dennis.
“Just some notion that’s come to her what tickles her fancy,” said she, beating the rug with her broom handle. U She don’t let on about that, though I daresay we’ll know when she gets it complete. She’s been knitting and smiling to herself, Nell says, since she came downstairs, with a bit of a laugh sometimes all to herself about what’s in her head.”
There was something about his mother, too, thought Dennis, that betokened a happy mind, and in spite of the screws of curling-papers over her forehead, and her slovenly attire, she looked gay and handsome beyond her wont.
“And you look fine and content yourself, Mother,” he said. “Something gone right in your inside, too? You’re all of a bloom this morning.”
Nancy always found any tribute to her looks acceptable, and reached up to pat Dennis’s cheek.
“Well, where’s the good of ‘aving the ‘ump?” she said, reverting to the Cockney talk which twenty years of the soft Cornish speech had not purged from her. “Sit up and be cheerful, I say, and encourage a good time to come along for you. I declare if I didn’t make a bit of brightness for myself, there’s little I should pick up from others. There, I must go and have a clean before dinner, for I was late this morning. Took an extra snooze, I did, after last night. Lor’, your grandfather was properly boozed. I call it a disgrace.”
To hear Nancy criticising the manners and customs of the Pentreaths, however justly, made Dennis range himself with them.
“So that’s the way of it, is it?” he said. “But I reckon he’s a right to do as he wills in his own house. Who be you to say him nay?”
“Well indeed!” said Nancy, still in high good-humour. “Aren’t you getting a bit big for your boots, Dennis, and I’m sure they’re big enough, talking to your mother like that? But there it is: we all take our pleasures our own way, and I’m sure your grandfather holds his drink something wonderful. And I’m looking forward, ever so, to a nice hour’s reading after me and Nell’s cleared up after dinner. It’s a beautiful story, as I got from the lending library in Penzance: all about a pore girl, such a lady, too, married to an earl. What a time he gave her to be sure; earls must be a wicked lot. Crowned heads, I say, but cold hearts.”
Dennis followed his mother back into the kitchen, not quite believing that it was an interest in the poor young lady’s tribulations that accounted for her gusto, and Nancy went upstairs to tidy herself up. Dinner was ready now, and just as the big clock in the corner of the kitchen pointed to the hour, his grandfather came in from the yard, and they sat down to the solid, silent business of dinner. Nothing that he had drunk the night before made much difference to his appetite next day, and his piled plate of boiled cabbage and stewed meat had half vanished before Nancy carne down ever so elegant with her curled fringe and a clean print dress. He spat out on to his plate a mouthful that was not to his liking, and then came a slog of cheese with a relish of radishes, and he went to his armchair with his pipe and his glass of whisky.
“How’s the lambing, Dennis?” he asked.
“Not been down there. I’ve been harrowing all morning,” said Dennis, with his mouth full.
“Off with you, then,” said his grandfather. “You’ve stuffed yourself enough.”
Dennis glanced at the clock: he wasn’t going to be put upon like this. “Not for a while yet, Grandfather,” he said. “I’ll take my dinner-hour like anyone else, and ’tis long short of that.”
Mrs.
Pentreath had removed her upper row of teeth while she ate, and had laid them by her plate, for they got muddled up with her food and were a hindrance. But she had finished now and replaced them, and she smiled and nodded to Dennis.
“Are you going to do as I tell you, you lout?” roared John.
“Not till I’ve had my hour off,” said Dennis, “and more’n the half of it’s to come yet. Then I’ll go after the lambs, if you bid me, but there’s a good stretch yet of the harrowing to be put over. P’r’aps you’ll be seeing to that.”
The injudicious Nancy again put in her word, siding with her father-in-law, for he had apologised for his rudeness at prayers last night, and asked for a kiss, and then gone quietly to bed: that was how a gentleman should behave.
“Lor’, Dennis,” she said. “What a way to speak to Mr. Pentreath!”
Instantly the whole lot of them turned on her. What the hell had she got to do with it?
“Just hold your mouth, Mother,” said Dennis.
“Yes, ’tis a good thing to mind your own business, Nancy,” said Mrs. Pentreath, speaking for the first time since dinner began.
“God! and thank you kindly for your good word,” said John Pentreath. “Here’s a proud day for me!”
“Well, I’m sure,” said Nancy, putting her little finger separate from the others in a very polite manner, as she buttered her bread. No radish for her: radishes got into your breath almost as bad as an onion. Silence: and Dennis caught Nell’s eye in a momentary glance. It met his with a tribute of encouragement and admiration. Time and again of late he had showed his grandfather that he wasn’t to be put upon, and Nell approved; so, like some stiff young turkey-cock, he was “strutting” before the girl, and she was pleased with his taut feathers. Indeed, it was a disappointment when his grandfather did not turn on him again, and provoke a further display. He just growled to himself, filled his glass again, and stuffed the burning tobacco closer in his pipe without more speech. Presently, without looking at Dennis, he stalked off into the garden.
Mrs. Pentreath nodded to the boy.
“You were in the right of it there,” she said, “and ’tis proper you should stick up for yourself. But you bear in mind, too, that he’ll be adding it all up against you.”
“Well, I thought you spoke very rude to your grandfather,” said Nancy, “whatever others may say.”
“And who’ll be caring one damn for what you think?” said Mrs. Pentreath shrilly. “A popinjay like you to be judging between Pentreaths!”
Dennis would not have been loth to go back to his harrowing at once, rather than sit for another half-hour in the kitchen, but he was determined not to do that till his full hour of leisure, and maybe a bit more, was over. He helped the two younger women to clear away, and sat and whistled in the window seat overlooking the garden, so that his grandfather might know he had not yet gone back to work, while Mrs. Pentreath drew her chair closer yet to the oven, and Nell went off to finish with the Monday morning’s washing, and Nancy to her bedroom to fetch her book for an hour’s reading about earls, till it was time to go down to St. Columb’s, and tell Mr. Giles that she would serve him for a model. Pleased he would be to hear that, and Nancy wondered what sort of a pose he would give her. Something to show off the best of her, she hoped.
The clock whirred in its works and was silent again, for the striking gear had long been out of order, and soon Dennis went out into the garden where his grandfather was snoozing in the sun.
“Shall I be going after the lambs,” he asked, “or get finished with the harrowing?”
John Penrreath yawned and stretched himself. A rare afternoon it was for February, the sun warmed up his marrow, and he would sit and browse here a bit longer.
“Get finished with that,” he said, “to be ready for the sowing, and then we’ll go down to the pastures.”
“Right. ‘Twill be a couple of hours more.”
Dennis went back to his work in high good-humour. He had stood up to his grandfather as a man should, and had had his way: what was more, he had done it in front of Nell. But where was the use of the sodden old fellow in the world on a clean spring day? He’d be better employed in making the grass grow on his grave.
The house was empty and quiet when he returned, and after stabling his horses he went to look for his grandfather. But he was nowhere about, and it was likely he had gone down to the pasture where the lambing ewes were. As he set out to join him, he caught sight of Nell hanging up the wash on the poles by the kitchen garden, and went across for a word with her.
“And where’s all?” he asked. “Are you alone about the house, Nell?”
“Mr. Pentreath’s gone down to the sheep pasture,” she said. “He bade me tell you follow him.”
“And Granny?” he said.
Nell nodded in the direction of the path down to St. Columb’s. She could not answer for the moment, for she had taken a clothes-peg in her mouth, while she stretched out an arm of Dennis’s blue jersey, to pin it to the line; the movement caused her dress to lie taut over her bosom. Then with her peg she clipped the sleeve in place.
“Aunt Mollie set off but five minutes ago down the path, with a posy of wallflowers,” she said, ct and your mother’s been gone to St. Columb’s this last hour. She had a read in her book after dinner, and fair burst out crying. ’Tis a queer thing to read a book for the pleasure o’ blubbing over it.”
Dennis wanted to see her again with arms stretched out, and head thrown back.
“That’ll be grandfather’s Sunday shirt,” he said. “Hold the wrist-bands to the line, and I’ll clip the pegs for you.”
“You for a laundry maid!” said Nell. “You’d better be gwain after your grandfather.”
“I’d sooner have a chat with you. Nell, I bored a hole through the wall betwixt our rooms, and we’ll rig the string through it come night. You play fair, mind; you’ve got to tie it round something of you.”
She laughed.
“Well, of all the babbies!” she said with a swift quiver of a glance.
“And you’ve got to be another. God! how the spring took hold on me to-day! I shall go for a running some night soon.”
“What’s that?” she asked. “Something atween you and your Willie?”
“No, Willie knows naught of it.”
“Tell me,” she said.
Dennis hesitated: none knew of his runnings, but maybe Nell would understand.”Don’t you go mocking of me then, “he said. “’Tis a fit that takes once and again in the springtime, and I must go out and tramp and run along in the dark night.”
Her glance brightened on him.
“Oh, Dennis, should I mock you, indeed!” she said. “Don’t I know what would be just the feel of it. A hot spring night and dark, and you alone with it. Cloudy, would it be, with spits of rain showers to make the earth smell good. Shouldn’t I love it!”
“Come then,” said he. “I’ll pull on the string some night when it’s hot and dark, and we’ll go together. Do’ee.”
She laughed again.
“you’re just a creature from the woods,” she said, “and how could I keep up with your going, me in skirt and all and a girl?”
“But we’d go steady and slow, Nell,” he said. “Some night, to be sure, you’ll come with me.”
“That I will not. What sort of a name should I get for myself if I ran by night with Dennis Pentreath? Besides, I should want no one with me, not you nor another, if the spring drove me out of doors of a night. There should be a wind and gusts of rain, and the earth drinking deep of it, and not a soul abroad but me.”
“Eh, you understand it, Nell,” said he. “That’s one sort of night, but there’s another sort when it’s moonshine and stillness. ’Tis then you want someone with you who’ll understand.”
They stood close to each other now, with the magic of youth flashing forth and back between their eager eyes, and desire grew. Then Nell’s gaze faltered before the battery of his, and she turned to her clothes-ba
sket.
“I must get through with these,” she said, “or the dew’ll be falling before they’re dry, and your grandfather’s gone to the lambing this half-hour. Go you after him, and don’t rile him too sore, for he’s a crafty one.”
Dennis sniffed the air.
“Lord, there was a stink in the kitchen at dinner to-day,” he said. “Whisky and grandfather’s foul pipe. I’d sooner take my grub in the trees like a squirrel.”
“And have three or four nuts for your dinner in place of the good stew I made you,” said she.
“Oh, I’ve got naught against the stew,” said Dennis. “And you’d put a sprig of burgmott in it, which made it tasty. ’Twas that which made Grandfather spit in his plate, for he can’t abide it.”
“It’s hard to please all,” said Nell.
Off went Dennis, and when he came to the gate between field and garden he put his hand on the top and vaulted over it. That was a bit of showing-off before Nell, and to make it the more effective he never glanced back to see if she was looking after him; it was just his habit to vault over a five-barred gate to save the trouble of opening it. In front of him now on the left was the field which he had harrowed to-day, and approaching it he crouched down behind the bush of blackthorn, and peered through the branches, for there in the circle was standing a woman, whom now he saw to be his grandmother. She was by the tall stone where he had found that strange nosegay this morning, and her hands were busy with something. Whatever it was, it did not long detain her, and in a minute she walked off down the path to St. Columb’s, and disappeared below the brow of the hill.
Curiosity was too strong for the boy, and he ran across the plough to see what she had been after. There was another bunch of flowers now on the stone, freshly gathered, tied to an elder-twig. “Well, there’s a strange bit of work,” thought Dennis. “Whatever’ll she be after now? ...” Then he trotted off to the field on the other side of the path, where the ewes were lambing.