Furze the Cruel. Trevena John
name. The average Cornishman has a thoroughly good heart, and is, if he be of the true stock, invariably fair. The Cornish man or maid who is dark owes something to foreign blood. There are in Cornwall many men and women so strikingly dark as to attract attention at once; and if their ancestry could be traced back a couple of hundred years it might be found that a Spanish name occurred. While the stout men of Devon were chasing the Armada up channel and plucking the Admiral's feathers one by one, and the patriotic Manacles were doing Cornwall's share by giving the big galleons a hearty welcome, many a shipwrecked sailor found his way into the cottages of fishermen and wreckers, and with the aid of a pocketful of gold pieces made themselves at home. Some possibly were able to return to Spain; others probably seduced their protectors' young women; others were lawfully wedded; others settled down in their new land and took a Cornish name. It is a difficult piece of history to trace, and much must remain pure hypothesis; but it is fairly certain that had there been no Spanish Armada to invade England, and to send Queen Elizabeth to her writing-tablets to reel off a lot of badly-rhymed doggerel in imitation of Master Spenser, there would also have been no Farmer Pendoggat dwelling at Helmen Barton in the parish of Lydford and sub-parish of St. Mary Tavy, as a commoner of Dartmoor and a tenant in name of Elizabeth's descendant the Duke of Cornwall.
There was nothing of a sinister nature about the Barton. Even its name meant simply in its original Celtic the place of the high stone; hel being a corruption of huhel, and men one of the various later forms of maen; just as huhel twr, the high tor, has now become Hel Tor. Wherever people have been given a chance of dragging in the devil and his dwelling-place they have taken it; actuated, perhaps, by the same motive which impelled the old dame to make a profound reverence whenever the name of the ghostly enemy was mentioned, as she didn't know what would be her fate in a future state, so thought it wise to try and propitiate both sides. The Barton was a long low house of granite, damp and ugly. No architect could make a house built of granite look pleasant; no art could prevent the tough stone from sweating. It was tiled, which made it look colder still. Creepers would not crawl up its walls on account of the winds. One half of the Barton was crowded with windows, the other half appeared to be a blank wall. A good many farm-houses are built upon that plan, the stable and loft being a continuation of the dwelling-house, and to all outward appearance a part of it. There was not a tree near the place. The farm was in a fuzzy hollow; above was a fuzzy down. It ought to have been called Furzeland, a name which is borne by a tiny hamlet in mid-Devon, which nobody has ever heard of, where the furze does not grow. The high stone which had named the place – probably a menhir – had disappeared long ago. Some former tenant would have broken it up and built it into a wall. The commoners' creed is a simple one, and runs thus: "Sometimes I believe in God who made Dartmoor. I cling to my privileges of mining, turbary, and quarrying. I take whatever I can find on the moor, and give no man pay or thanks. I reverence my landlord, and straighten his boundary walls when he, isn't looking. The granite is mine, and the peat, and the rivers, and the fish in them, and so are the cattle upon the hills, if no other man can put forward a better claim. No foreign devil shall share my privileges. If any man offers to scratch my back he must pay vor't. Amen."
It was fitting that a man like Pendoggat should live among the furze, farm in the furze, fight with the furze. He resembled it in its fierceness, its spitefulness, its tenacity of life; but not in its beauty and fragrance. He brought forth no golden blossoms. There was no thorn-protected fragrance in him. He was always struggling with the furze, without realising that it must defeat him in the end. He burnt it, but up it came in the spring. He grubbed it up, but portions of the root escaped and sent forth new growth. He would reclaim a patch, but directly he turned his back upon it to attack a fresh piece the furze returned. To eradicate furze upon a moor was not one of the labours allotted to Hercules. He would have found it worse than cutting off the heads of the water-snake. Pendoggat had fought for twenty years, and the enemy was still undefeated; he would die, and the gorse would go on; for he was only a hardy annual, and the gorse is a perennial, as eternal as the rivers and the granite. It bristled upon every side of the Barton, the greater gorse as well as the lesser, and it was in flower all the year round, as though boasting of its indomitable strength and vitality. On the west side, where the moorland dipped and made an opening for the winds from Tavy Cleave, a long narrow brake remained untouched to make a shelter for the house. The gorse there was high and thick, and its ropy stems were as big round as a man's wrist. Pendoggat would have grievously assaulted any man who dared to fire that brake.
People who talked scandal in the twin villages, namely, the entire population, wondered whether Mrs. Pendoggat was really as respectable as she looked. They decided against her, as they were not the sort of people to give any one the benefit of a doubt. They were right, however, for Annie Pendoggat had no claim to the latter part of her name. She was really Annie Crocker, a degraded member of one of those three famous families – Cruwys and Copplestone being the other two – who reached their zenith before the Norman invasion. She had come to Pendoggat as housekeeper, and could not get away from him; neither could he dismiss her. She was a little woman, with a sharp face and a soft voice; much too soft, people said. She could insult any one in a manner which suggested that she loved them. She had been fond of her master in her snake-like way. She still admired his brute strength, and what she thought was his courage. He had never lifted up his hand against her; and when he threatened to, she would remark in her soft way that the long brake of gorse darkened the kitchen dreadfully, and she thought she would go and set a match to it. That always brought Pendoggat to his senses.
It was a quiet life at the Barton. Pendoggat had no society, except that of some minister whom he might bring back to dinner on Sundays. On that day he attended chapel twice. He also went on Wednesday, when he sometimes preached. His sermons were about a cruel God ruling the world by cruelty, and preparing a state of cruelty for every one who didn't attend chapel twice on Sundays and once during the week. He believed in what he said. He also believed he was himself secure from such a punishment; just as certain ignorant Catholics sincerely rely on the power of a priest to forgive their sins. Pendoggat thought that he was free to act as he pleased, so long as he didn't miss his attendances at chapel. If he cheated a man, and missed chapel, his soul would be in danger; but if he attended chapel the sin was automatically forgiven. It was a strange form of theology, but not an uncommon one. Many excellent people tend towards it. Pious old ladies will do all they can to induce young men to attend church. It does not appear to trouble them much if the young men read comic papers, wink at the girls, or slumber audibly, while they are there. The great point has been gained. The young men are in church; therefore they are religious. The young man who goes for a walk to the top of the highest tor to watch the sunset is a vile creature who will be damned some day.
The Barton had its parlour, and Pendoggat practised the entire ritual connected with that mysterious apartment. No Dartmoor farm-house would have the slightest pretensions to be regarded as a civilised home without the parlour. Its rites and ceremonies remain unwritten, and yet every farmer knows them, and practises them with the precision of a Catholic priest obeying his rubrics, or with the zeal of an Anglican parson defying his. It must be the best room in the house, and it must be kept locked and regarded as holy ground. The windows must not be opened lest fresh air should enter, and equally dangerous sunlight must be excluded by blinds and curtains and a high bank of moribund plants. The furniture is permitted to vary, with the exception of a few ornaments which must be found in every house as a mark of stability and respectability. There must be a piano which cannot be used for purposes of music, and a lamp which is not to be lighted. Whatever books the house contains must be arranged in a manner pleasing to the householder, and they must never be opened. There is a central table, and upon it recline albums containing photographs of the family at different stages of their careers, together with those of ancestors; and these photographs have little value if they are not yellow and faded to denote their antiquity. In the centre of the table must appear a strange device; a stuffed bird in a glass case, a piece of coral on a mat, or some recognised family heirloom. The pictures must be strongly coloured and should have a religious accent. As Germany has achieved surprising results in the matter of colour, the pictures are usually from that fatherland. Ruined temples on the Nile are a favourite subject; only the temples should resemble dilapidated barns, and the Nile bear a distinct likeness to a duck pond. Upon the mantel must stand a clock which has not gone within living memory, and some assorted crockery which if viewed continuously in a strong light will bring