The Hurly Burly and Other Stories

by A. E. Coppard

  “What shall we wind up with?” Dan would ask at the close of the lesson, and as often as not Martin would say: “You must sing ‘Timmie.’”

  This was “Timmie,” and it had a tune something like the chorus to “Father O’Flynn.”

  O Timmie my brother,

  Best son of our mother,

  Our labour it prospers, the mowing is done;

  A holiday take you,

  The loss it won’t break you,

  A day’s never lost if a holiday’s won.

  We’ll go with clean faces

  To see the horse races,

  And if the luck chances we’ll gather some gear;

  But never a jockey

  Will win it, my cocky,

  Who catches one glance from a girl I know there.

  There’s lords and there’s ladies

  Wi’ pretty sunshadies,

  And farmers and jossers and fat men and small,

  But the pride of these trips is

  The scallywag gipsies

  Wi’ not a whole rag to the backs of ’em all.

  There’s cokernut shying,

  And devil defying,

  And a racket and babel to hear and to see,

  Wi’ boxing and shooting,

  And fine high faluting

  From chaps wi’ a table and thimble and pea.

  My Nancy will be there,

  The best thing to see there,

  She’ll win all the praises wi’ ne’er a rebuke;

  And she has a sister—

  I wonder you’ve missed her—

  As sweet as the daisies and fit for a duke.

  Come along, brother Timmie,

  Don’t linger, but gimme

  My hat and my purse and your company there;

  For sporting and courting,

  The cream of resorting,

  And nothing much worse, Timmie—Come to the fair.

  On the third anniversary of Martin’s homecoming Dan rose up very early in the dark morn, and leaving his son sleeping he crept out of the house followed by his dog. They went away from Thasper, though the darkness was profound and the grass filled with dew, out upon the hills towards Chapel Cheary. The night was starless, but Dan knew every trick and turn of the paths, and after an hour’s walk he met a man waiting by a signpost. They conversed for a few minutes and then went off together, the dog at their heels, until they came to a field gate. Upon this they fastened a net and then sent the dog into the darkness upon his errand, while they waited for the hare which the dog would drive into the net. They waited so long that it was clear the dog had not drawn its quarry. Dan whistled softly, but the dog did not return. Dan opened the gate and went down the fields himself, scouring the hedges for a long time, but he could not find the dog. The murk of the night had begun to lift, but the valley was filled with mist. He went back to the gate: the net had been taken down, his friend had departed—perhaps he had been disturbed? The dog had now been missing for an hour. Dan still hung about, but neither friend nor dog came back. It grew grey and more grey, though little could be distinguished, the raw mist obscuring everything that the dawn uncovered. He shivered with gloom and dampness, his boots were now as pliable as gloves, his eyebrows had grey drops upon them, so had his moustache and the backs of his hands. His dark coat looked as if it was made of grey wool; it was tightly buttoned around his throat and he stood with his chin crumpled, unconsciously holding his breath until it burst forth in a gasp. But he could not abandon his dog, and he roamed once more down into the misty valley towards woods that he knew well, whistling softly and with great caution a repetition of two notes.

  And he found his dog. It was lying on a heap of dead sodden leaves. It just whimpered. It could not rise, it could not move, it seemed paralysed. Dawn was now really upon them. Dan wanted to get the dog away, quickly, it was a dangerous quarter, but when he lifted it to his feet the dog collapsed like a scarecrow. In a flash Dan knew he was poisoned, he had probably picked up some piece of dainty flesh that a farmer had baited for the foxes. He seized a knob of chalk that lay thereby, grated some of it into his hands, and forced it down the dog’s throat. Then he tied the lead to its neck. He was going to drag the dog to its feet and force it to walk. But the dog was past all energy, it was limp and mute. Dan dragged him by the neck for some yards as a man draws behind him a heavy sack. It must have weighed three stone, but Dan lifted him on to his own shoulders and staggered back up the hill. He carried it thus for half a mile, but then he was still four miles from home, and it was daylight, at any moment he might meet somebody he would not care to meet. He entered a ride opening into some coverts, and, bending down, slipped the dog over his head to rest upon the ground. He was exhausted and felt giddy, his brains were swirling round—trying to slop out of his skull—and—yes—the dog was dead, his old dog dead. When he looked up, he saw a keeper with a gun standing a few yards off.

  “Good morning,” said Dan. All his weariness was suddenly gone from him.

  “I’ll have your name and address,” replied the keeper, a giant of a man, with a sort of contemptuous affability.

  “What for?”

  “You’ll hear about what for,” the giant grinned. “I’ll be sure to let ye know, in doo coorse.” He laid his gun upon the ground and began searching in his pockets, while Dan stood up with rage in his heart and confusion in his mind. So the Old Imp was at him again!

  “Humph!” said the keeper. “I’ve alost my notebook somewheres. Have you got a bit of paper on ye?”

  The culprit searched his pockets and produced a folded fragment.

  “Thanks.” The giant did not cease to grin. “What is it?”

  “What?” queried Dan.

  “Your name and address.”

  “Ah, but what do you want it for. What do you think I’m doing?” protested Dan.

  “I’ve a net in my pocket which I took from a gate about an hour ago. I saw summat was afoot, and me and a friend o’ mine have been looking for ’ee. Now let’s have your name and no nonsense.”

  “My name,” said Dan, “my name? Well, it is . . . Piper.”

  “Piper is it, ah! Was you baptized ever?”

  “Peter,” said Dan savagely.

  “Peter Piper! Well, you’ve picked a tidy peppercarn this time.”

  Again he was searching his pockets. There was a frown on his face. “You’d better lend me a bit o’ pencil too.”

  Dan produced a stump of lead pencil and the gamekeeper, smoothing the paper on his lifted knee, wrote down the name of Peter Piper.

  “And where might you come from?” He peered up at the miserable man, who replied: “From Leasington”—naming a village several miles to the west of his real home.

  “Leasington!” commented the other. “You must know John Eustace, then?” John Eustace was a sporting farmer famed for his stock and his riches.

  “Know him!” exclaimed Dan. “He’s my uncle!”

  “O ah!” The other carefully folded the paper and put it into his breast pocket. “Well, you can trot along home now, my lad.”

  Dan knelt down and unbuckled the collar from his dead dog’s neck. He was fond of his dog, it looked piteous now. And kneeling there it suddenly came upon Dan that he had been a coward again, he had told nothing but lies, foolish lies, and he had let a great hulking flunkey walk roughshod over him. In one astonishing moment the reproving face of his little son seemed to loom up beside the dog, the blood flamed in his brain.

  “I’ll take charge of that,” said the keeper, snatching the collar from his hand.

  “Blast you!” Dan sprang to his feet, and suddenly screaming like a madman: “I’m Dan Pavey of Thasper,” he leapt at the keeper with a fury that shook even that calm stalwart.

  “You would, would ye?” he yapped, darting for his gun. Dan also seized it, and in their struggle the gun was fired off harmlessly between them. Dan let go.

  “My God!” roared the keeper, “you’d murder me, would ye? Wi’ my own gun, would ye?
” He struck Dan a swinging blow with the butt of it, yelling: “Would ye? Would ye? Would ye?” And he did not cease striking until Dan tumbled senseless and bloody across the body of the dog.

  Soon another keeper came hurrying through the trees.

  “Tried to murder me—wi’ me own gun, he did,” declared the big man, “wi’ me own gun!”

  They revived the stricken Pavey after a while and then conveyed him to a policeman, who conveyed him to a gaol.

  The magistrates took a grave view of the case and sent it for trial at the assizes. They were soon held, he had not long to wait, and before the end of November he was condemned. The assize court was a place of intolerable gloom, intolerable formality, intolerable pain, but the public seemed to enjoy it. The keeper swore Dan had tried to shoot him, and the prisoner contested this. He did not deny that he was the aggressor. The jury found him guilty. What had he to say? He had nothing to say, but he was deeply moved by the spectacle of the Rev. Scroope standing up and testifying to his sobriety, his honesty, his general good repute, and pleading for a lenient sentence because he was a man of considerable force of character, misguided no doubt, a little unfortunate, and prone to recklessness.

  Said the judge, examining the papers of the indictment: “I see there is a previous conviction—for betting offences.”

  “That was three years ago, my lord. There has been nothing of the kind since, my lord, of that I am sure, quite sure.”

  Scroope showed none of his old time confident aspect, he was perspiring and trembling. The clerk of the assize leaned up and held a whispered colloquy with the judge, who then addressed the rector.

  “Apparently he is still a betting agent. He gave a false name and address, which was taken down by the keeper on a piece of paper furnished by the prisoner. Here it is, on one side the name of Peter Pope (Piper, sir!) Piper: and on the other side this is written;

  3 o/c race. Pretty Dear, 5/-to win. F. Klopstock.

  Are there any Klopstocks in your parish?”

  “Klopstock!” murmured the parson, “it is the name of my cook.”

  What had the prisoner to say about that? The prisoner had nothing to say, and he was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

  So Dan was taken away. He was a tough man, an amenable man, and the mere rigours of the prison did not unduly afflict him. His behaviour was good, and he looked forward to gaining the maximum remission of his sentence. Meg, his mother, went to see him once, alone, but she did not repeat the visit. The prison chaplain paid him special attention. He, too, was a Scroope, a huge fellow, not long from Oxford, and Pavey learned that he was related to the Thasper rector. The new year came, February came, March came, and Dan was afforded some privileges. His singing in chapel was much admired, and occasionally he was allowed to sing to the prisoners. April came, May came, and then his son Martin was drowned in a boating accident, on a lake, in a park. The Thasper children had been taken there for a holiday. On hearing it, Pavey sank limply to the floor of his cell. The warders sat him up, but they could make nothing of him, he was dazed, and he could not speak. He was taken to the hospital wing. “This man has had a stroke, he is gone dumb,” said the doctor. On the following day he appeared to be well enough, but still he could not speak. He went about the ward doing hospital duty, dumb as a ladder; he could not even mourn, but a jig kept flickering through his voiceless mind:

  In a park there was a lake,

  On the lake there was a boat,

  In the boat there was a boy.

  Hour after hour the stupid jingle flowed through his consciousness. Perhaps it kept him from going mad, but it did not bring him back his speech, he was dumb, dumb. And he remembered a man who had been stricken deaf, and then blind—Scroope knew him too, it was some man who had mocked God.

  In a park there was a lake,

  On the lake there was a boat,

  In the boat there was a boy.

  On the day of the funeral Pavey imagined that he had been let out of prison; he dreamed that someone had been kind and set him free for an hour or two to bury his dead boy. He seemed to arrive at Thasper when the ceremony was already begun, the coffin was already in the church. Pavey knelt down beside his mother. The rector intoned the office, the child was taken to its grave. Dumb dreaming Pavey turned his eyes from it. The day was too bright for death, it was a stainless day. The wind seemed to flow in soft streams, rolling the lilac blooms. A small white feather, blown from a pigeon on the church gable, whirled about like a butterfly. “We give thee hearty thanks,” the priest was saying, “for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.” At the end of it all Pavey kissed his mother, and saw himself turn back to his prison. He went by the field paths away to the railway junction. The country had begun to look a little parched, for rain was wanted—vividly he could see all this—but things were growing, corn was thriving greenly, the beanfields smelled sweet. A frill of yellow kilk and wild white carrot spray lined every hedge. Cattle dreamed in the grass, the colt stretched itself unregarded in front of its mother. Larks, wrens, yellow-hammers. There were the great beech trees and the great hills, calm and confident, overlooking Cobbs and Peter, Thasper and Trinkel, Buzzlebury and Nuncton. He sees the summer is coming on, he is going back to prison. “Courage is vain,” he thinks, “we are like the grass underfoot, a blade that excels is quickly shorn. In this sort of a world the poor have no call to be proud, they had only need be penitent.”

  In the park there was a lake,

  On the lake. . . . . . boat,

  In the boat. . . . .

  Luxury

  EIGHT O’CLOCK OF A FINE SPRING MORNING IN THE HAMLET of Kezzal Predy Peter, great horses with chains clinking down the road, and Alexander Finkle rising from his bed singing: “O lah soh doh, soh lah me doh,” timing his notes to the ching of his neighbour’s anvil. He boils a cupful of water on an oil stove, his shaving brush stands (where it always stands) upon the window-ledge (“Soh lah soh do-o-o-oh, soh doh soh la-a-a-ah!”) but as he addresses himself to his toilet the clamour of the anvil ceases and then Finkle too becomes silent, for the unresting cares of his life begin again to afflict him.

  “This cottage is no good,” he mumbles, “and I’m no good. Literature is no good when you live too much on porridge. Your writing’s no good, sir, you can’t get any glow out of oatmeal. Why did you ever come here? It’s a hopeless job and you know it!” Stropping his razor petulantly as if the soul of that frustrating oatmeal lay there between the leather and the blade, he continues: “But it isn’t the cottage, it isn’t me, it isn’t the writing—it’s the privation. I must give it up and get a job as a railway porter.”

  And indeed he was very impoverished, the living he derived from his writings was meagre; the cottage had many imperfections, both its rooms were gloomy, and to obviate the inconvenience arising from its defective roof he always slept downstairs.

  Two years ago he had been working for a wall-paper manufacturer in Bethnal Green. He was not poor then, not so very poor, he had the clothes he stood up in (they were good clothes) and fifty pounds in the bank besides. But although he had served the wall-paper man for fifteen years that fifty pounds had not been derived from clerking, he had earned it by means of his hobby, a little knack of writing things for provincial newspapers. On his thirty-first birthday Finkle argued—for he had a habit of conducting long and not unsatisfactory discussions between himself and a self that apparently wasn’t him—that what he could do reasonably well in his scanty leisure could be multiplied exceedingly if he had time and opportunity, lived in the country, somewhere where he could go into a garden to smell the roses or whatever was blooming and draw deep draughts of happiness, think his profound thoughts and realize the goodness of God, and then sit and read right through some long and difficult book about Napoleon or Mahomet. Bursting with literary ambition Finkle had hesitated no longer: he could live on nothing in the country—for a time. He had the fifty po
unds, he had saved it, it had taken him seven years, but he had made it and saved it. He handed in his notice. That was very astonishing to his master, who esteemed him, but more astonishing to Finkle was the parting gift of ten pounds which the master had given him. The workmen, too, had collected more money for him, and bought for him a clock, a monster, it weighed twelve pounds and had a brass figure of Lohengrin on the top, while the serene old messenger man who cleaned the windows and bought surreptitious beer for the clerks gave him a prescription for the instantaneous relief of a painful stomach ailment. “It might come in handy,” he had said. That was two years ago, and now just think! He had bought himself an inkpot of crystalline glass—a large one, it held nearly half a pint—and two pens, one for red ink and one for black, besides a quill for signing his name with. Here he was at “Pretty Peter” and the devil himself was in it! Nothing had ever been right, the hamlet itself was poor. Like all places near the chalk hills its roads were of flint, the church was of flint, the farms and cots of flint with brick corners. There was an old milestone outside his cot, he was pleased with that, it gave the miles to London and the miles to Winchester, it was nice to have a milestone there like that—your very own.