Furze the Cruel. Trevena John
the old fellow. Having assaulted him she opened his case. Evidently Grandfather had been drinking. His interior smelt strongly of cider. There were splashes of it everywhere; rank cider distilled from the lees; in one spot moisture was pronounced, suggesting that Grandfather had recently been indulging. Apparently he liked his liquor strong. Grandfather was a picker-up of unconsidered trifles also. He was full of pins; all kinds of pins, bent and straight. Item, Grandfather had a little money of his own; several battered coppers, some green coins which had no doubt been dug up outside, or discovered upon the "deads" beside one of the neighbouring wheals, and there was a real fourpenny-bit with a hole through it. Fastened to the back of the case behind the pendulum was a scrap of sheepskin as hard as wood, and upon it some hand had painfully drawn what appeared to be an elementary exercise in geometry. Boodles frowned and wondered what it all meant.
"Here be the eggs, my dear. Twenty for a shillun to yew, and ten to a foreigner," said Mary, standing in the door, making an apron out of her ragged skirt, and blissfully unconscious that she was exposing the sack-like bloomers which were her only underwear.
"Twenty-one, Mary. There's always one thrown in for luck and me," pleaded Boodles.
"Aw ees. One for yew, my dear," Mary assented.
That was the way Boodles got full value for her money.
"My dear life! What have yew been a-doing of?" cried Mary with alarm, when she noticed Grandfather's open case. "Aw, my dear, yew didn't ought to meddle wi' he. Grandfather gets cruel tedious if he be meddled with."
"I was only looking at his insides," said Boodles. "He's a regular old rag-bag. What are all these things for – pins, coins, coppers? And he's splashed all over with cider. No wonder he won't keep time."
"Shet 'en up, my dear. Shet 'en up," said superstitious Mary. "Aw, my dear, don't ye ever meddle wi' religion. If Peter was to see ye he'd be took wi' shivers. Let Gran'vaither bide, du'ye. Ain't ye got a pin to give 'en? My dear life, I'll fetch ye one. Gran'vaither got tedious wi' volks wance, Peter ses, and killed mun; ees, my dear, killed mun dead as door nails; ees, fie 'a did, killed mun stark."
Boodles only laughed, like the wicked maid that she was. She couldn't be bothered with the niceties of religion.
Peter and Mary were only savages. According to their creed pixies dwelt in Grandfather's bosom; and it was necessary to retain the good-will of the little people, and render the sting of their possible malevolence harmless, by presenting votive offerings and inscribing spells. The rank cider had been provided for midnight orgies, and, lest the pixies should become troublesome when under the influence of liquor, the charm upon the sheepskin had been introduced, like a stringent police-notice, compelling them to keep the peace.
"It's all nonsense, you know," said Boodles, as she took the eggs, with the sun flaming across her hair. "The pixies are all dead. I went to the funeral of the last one."
Mary shook her head. She did not jest on serious matters. The friendship of the pixies was as much to her as the lack of eggs had been to Weevil.
"Anyhow," went on wicked Boodles, "I should put rat-poison in there if they worried me."
"Us have been bit and scratched by 'em in bed," Mary declared. "Peter and me have been bit cruel. Us could see the marks of their teeth."
"Did you ever catch one?" asked Boodles tragically.
"Catch mun! Aw, my dear life! Us can't catch mun."
"You could, if you were quick – before they hopped," laughed Boodles.
CHAPTER V
ABOUT THOMASINE
Thomasine sat in the kitchen of Town Rising, sewing. It was a dreary place, and she was alone and surrounded with stone. The kitchen walls were stone; so was the floor. The window looked out upon the court, and that was paved with stone. Beyond was the barn wall, made of blocks of cold granite. Above peeped the top of a tor, and that was granite too. Damp stone everywhere. It was the Stone Age back again. And Thomasine, buried among it all, was making herself a frivolous petticoat for Tavistock Goose Fair.
Among undistinguished young persons Thomasine was pre-eminent. She was only Farmer Chegwidden's "help"; that is to say, general servant. Undistinguished young persons will do anything that is menial under the title of "help," which as a servant they would shrink from. To the lower classes there is much in a name. Thomasine knew nothing. She was just a work-a-day girl, eating her meals, sleeping; knowing there was something called a character which for some inexplicable reason it was necessary to keep; dreaming of a home of her own some day, but not having the sense to realise that it would mean a probably drunken husband on a few shillings a week, and a new gift from the gods to feed each year; comprehending the delights of fairs, general holidays, and evenings out; perceiving that it was pleasant to have her waist squeezed and her mouth kissed; understanding also the charm in being courted in a ditch with the temperature below freezing-point. That was nearly all Thomasine knew. Plenty of animals know more. Her conversation consisted chiefly in "ees" and "no."
It is not pleasant to see a pretty face, glorious complexion, well-made body, without mind, intellect, or soul worth mentioning; but it is a common sight. It is not pleasant to speak to that face, and watch its vacancy increase. A dog would understand at once; but that human face remains dull. A good many strange thoughts suggest themselves on fair-days and holidays in and about the Stannary Towns. There are plenty of pretty faces, glorious complexions, and well-made bodies surrounded with clothing which the old Puritans would have denounced as immoral; but not a mind, not an intellect above potato-peeling, in the lot. They come into the towns like so many birds of passage; at nightfall they go out, shrieking, many of them, for lack of intelligent speech, and return to potato-peeling. The warmth of the next holiday brings them out again, in the same clothes, knowing just as much as they did before – how to shriek – then the pots and potatoes claim them again. All those girls have undeveloped minds. They don't know it, not having been told, so their minds remain unformed all their lives. The flower-like faces fade quickly, because there is nothing to keep the bloom on. The mind does not get beyond the budding stage. It is never attended to, so it rots off without ever opening. Sometimes one of these girls discovers she has something besides her body and her complexion; or somebody superior to herself impresses the fact upon her; and she uses her knowledge, cultivates her mind, and with luck rises out of the rut. She discovers that her horizon is not limited by pots and potato-peel. Beyond it all, for her, there is something called intelligence. Such girls are few. Most of them have their eyes opened, not their minds, and then they discover they are naked, and want to go away and hide themselves.
Thomasine's soul was about the size and weight of a grain of mustard seed. She was a good maid, and her parents had no cause to be sorry she had been born. She had come into the world by way of lawful wedlock, which was something to be proud of in her part of the country, and was living a decent life in respectable employment. She sat in the stone kitchen, and built up her flimsy petticoat, with as much expression on her face as one might reasonably expect to find upon the face of a cow. She could not think. She knew that she was warm and comfortable; but knowledge is not thought. She knew all about her last evening's courting; but she could not have constructed any little romance which differed from that courting. In a manner she had something to think about; namely, what had actually happened. She could not think about what had not happened, or what under different circumstances might have happened. That would have meant using her mind; and she didn't know she had one. Yet Thomasine came of a fairly clever family. Her grandfather had used his mind largely, and had succeeded in building up, not a large, but a very comfortable, business. He had emigrated, however; and it is well known that there is nothing like a change of scene for teaching a man to know himself. He had gone to Birmingham and started an idol-factory. It was a quaint sort of business, but a profitable one. He made idols for the Burmese market. He had stocked a large number of Buddhist temples, and the business was an increasing one. Orders for idols reached him from many remote places, and his goods always gave satisfaction. The placid features of many a squatting Gautama in dim Eastern temples had been moulded from the vacant faces of Devonshire farm-maids. He was a most religious man, attending chapel twice each Sunday, besides teaching in the Sunday-school. He didn't believe in allowing religion to interfere with business, which was no doubt quite discreet of him. He always