Furze the Cruel Part 19

"There be a shop where they sells 'em, bits o' rope and all. I seed 'em in the window," said the girl.

"Us will buy two or dree in the morning," declared Mary. "Can us hang 'em up, du'ye reckon, Peter?"

Her brother replied that the task would be altogether beyond her; but it was not likely to present any serious difficulties to him. He promised to hang up one light-giving bottle in his own hut-circle, and another in Mary's. She would pay for the fittings, and he would in return charge her a reasonable sum for his services.

The proprietor of the lodging-house made a poor bargain when he took in Peter and Mary. They spent most of the remainder of the night turning the wonderful light on and off, "like cider," as Mary said.

CHAPTER XII

ABOUT THE OCTAVE OF ST. GOOSE

Things had gone wrong with Peter and Mary ever since the festival.

Excitement, Plymouth liquors, and ignorance were largely to blame for the general "contrairiness" of things; but the root of the trouble lay in the fact of their refusal to be decent savages; of Peter's claims to be a handy man, and of Mary's desire to be civilised.

Old Sal had last been seen wandering towards Helmen Barton; that was the princ.i.p.al grievance. Others were the complete failure of Peter as an electrical engineer; the discovery that nearly a pound's worth of precious shillings had been dissipated at the fair in idle pleasures alone; and the loss of a number of little packages containing such things as tea, sugar, and rice, which Mary had bought in Tavistock and placed, as she thought, in a position of safety. The pills and flower-seeds had proved also a source of trouble. A bottle of almighty pills had been thrust upon Peter for his liver's sake, and Mary had later on acquired packets of sweet-peas and mignonette in order that her garden might be made glorious.

The loss of the groceries caused the first lamentation. Mary had a clear recollection of buying them, or at least she remembered paying for them, but beyond that memory did nothing for her. She had no impression of walking about the streets with her arms full of packages; they were not in her pocket, nor had they ever been in Peter's; she could not have left them in the shop; she was ready to swear she had not dropped them.

The only possible conclusion was that the pixies had stolen them. Peter the hypocrite grunted at that. Although he offered sacrifice continually to the pixies that dwelt in Grandfather's bosom, he declared there were no such things. School-master had told him they were all dead. Education had in some obscure way shot, trapped, or poisoned the lot.

"You'm a gurt vule," was Mary's retort. "Dartmoor be vull o' piskies, allus was, and allus will be. When I was a little maid and went to schule wi' Master, though he never larnt I more than ten fingers and ten toes be twenty, though I allus remembered it, for Master had a brave way of larning young volks--What was I telling, Peter? Aw ees, I mind now.

'Twas when I went to schule wi' Ann Middleweek, her picked up a pisky oven and broke 'en all to bits, 'cause her said the piskies were proper little brutes, and her was beat cruel that night wi' brimmles and vuzzy-bushes 'cause her'd broke the oven, and her was green and blue next day. 'Twas the piskies stole my tea and sugar, sure 'nuff. If I'd ha' spat on 'em, and marked 'em proper wi' a cross betwixt two hearts, they'd ha' been here now."

Mary worried so much over her lost groceries that she felt quite ill. As Peter also became apprehensive of the state of his health every time that he looked at the bottle of pills, they decided to take a few. Then Peter went out into the garden to sow the flower-seeds, while Mary tramped over the moor to search for her missing goose.

Peter imagined that he had mastered the science of horticulture. At least he would not have accepted advice upon the subject from any one.

Vegetables he had grown all his life, and in exactly the same way as they had been grown in his boyhood, and he was quite as successful as his neighbours. He was a ridiculous little man, and in several ways as much of a savage as his ancestors, but he had inherited something from them besides their unpleasant ways. His pretensions to being skilled with his hands and clever with his brain were grotesque enough; but he possessed a faculty which is owned by few, because it is not required by civilised beings, a faculty which to strangers appeared incredible. When a bullock or a pony was pointed out to him, as it stood outlined against the sky on the top of some distant tor, or even as it walked against the dull background of the moor, he would put his hand to his eyes, and almost at once, and always correctly, give the owner's name. He earned several shillings at certain seasons of the year, and could have earned more had he not been lazy, by going out to search for missing animals.

Peter was always in demand by the commoners about the time of the drift.

Flowers were useless things according to Peter, and concerning their culture he knew nothing. However, Mary insisted upon the seeds being planted, to give her garden a civilised appearance, so Peter set about the task. The packet of sweet-peas had broken in his pocket during the fair, and upon returning he had placed them in a small bottle. The mignonette was his first care. The instructions outside stated that the seed was to be sown "in February, under gla.s.s." Peter shook his head at that. February was a long way off, but he went on to argue that if the seed would grow during the winter it was certainly safe to sow it during the far warmer month of October. It was the "under gla.s.s" that puzzled him. This was evidently something new in gardening, and Peter objected to new-fangled methods. It occurred to him that the expression might have been intended for "under gra.s.s," but that seemed equally absurd.

School-master would know, but Peter was not going to expose his ignorance by asking questions. Besides, it would mean a long walk, and Master's cottage possessed the distinct disadvantage of being a considerable distance from the inn. Peter had no idea what sort of a plant mignonette might be, but he supposed it was a foreign growth which managed to flourish upon certain nutritive qualities possessed by gla.s.s.

There were plenty of bottles in the linhay. Peter broke up a couple with the crowbar, collected the fragments--the instructions omitted to state how much gla.s.s--scattered the seeds in an unimportant corner of the garden, strewed the pieces of gla.s.s over them, and trod the whole down firmly. Then he dug a trench and buried the sweet-peas.

Soon afterwards he began to feel ill; and when Mary returned without news of Old Sal she said she was "cruel sick-like tu." They conferred together, agreed that the trouble was caused by "the oil in their livers," and concluded they had better go on with the pills. Presently they were suffering torments; the night was a sleepless time of groans and invocations; and in the morning they were worse. Peter was the most grievously afflicted, at least he said he was; and described the state of his feelings with the expressive phrase: "My belly be filled wi'

little hot things jumping up and down."

"So be mine. Whatever be the matter wi' us?" groaned Mary.

"They pills. Us ha' took tu many."

"Mebbe us didn't tak' enough. Us ha' only took half the bottle, and he said dree bottles for a cure."

"Us wun't tak' no more. I'll smash that old bottle on they seeds. 'Twill dung 'em proper," said Peter, shuffling painfully across the floor and reaching for the bottle.

A moment later he began to howl. He had discovered something, and terror made him own to it.

"Us be dead corpses! Us be pizened! Us ha' swallowed they peas!" he shouted.

"Aw, my dear life! Where be the pills, then?" cried Mary.

"I've tilled 'em," said Peter. "They be in the garden, and them peas be growing in our bellies."

"Aw, Peter, us will die! I be a-going to see Master," groaned Mary.

Peter said he should come too. He was afraid to be left alone, with Grandfather ticking sardonically at him, and sweet-peas germinating in his bowels. If it had been only Mary who was suffering he would have prescribed for her; but as he was himself in pain he argued that it would be advisable to seek outside a.s.sistance. Master was a "brave larned man," and he would know what ought to be done to save their lives. They made themselves presentable, and laboured bitterly across the moor to St. Mary Tavy village.

Master was never out. He lived in a little whitewashed cottage near the road, gazing out of his front window all day, with a heap of books on a little table beside him, and pedantic spectacles upon his nose. He was nearly eighty, and belonged to the old school of dames and masters now practically extinct, an entirely ignorant cla.s.s, who taught the children nothing because they were perfectly illiterate themselves. Master was held in reverence by the villagers. That pile of books, and the wonderful silver spectacles which he was always polishing with knowing glances, were to them symbols of unbounded knowledge. They brought their letters to the old man that he might read them aloud and explain obscure pa.s.sages. Not a pig was killed without Master's knowledge, and not a child was christened until the Nestor of the neighbourhood had been consulted.

"Please to come in, varmer. Please to sot down, Mary," said Master, as he received the groaning pilgrims into his tiny owlery, "varmer" being the correct and lawful t.i.tle of every commoner. "Have a drop o' cider, will ye? You'm welcome. I knows you be main cruel fond of a drop o'

cider, varmer."

Peter was past cider just then. He groaned and Mary moaned, and they both doubled up in their chairs; while Master arranged his beautiful spectacles, and looked at them in a learned fashion, and at last hit upon the brilliant idea that they were afflicted with spasms of the abdomen.

"You've been yetting too many worts?" he suggested with kindly sympathy.

"Us be tilling peas in our bellies," explained Mary. .

Master had not much sense of humour. He thought at first the remark was made seriously, and he began to upbraid them for venturing on such daring experiments. But Mary went on: "Us bought pills to Goosie Vair, 'cause us ha' got too much oil in our livers, and us bought stinking-peas tu. Us ha' swallowed the peas, and tilled the pills. Us be gripped proper, so us ha' come right to wance to yew."

Master replied that they had done wisely. He played with his books, wiped his spectacles, and dusted the snuff from his nose with a handkerchief as big as a bath-towel. Then he folded his gnarled hands peacefully across his bra.s.s watch-chain, and talked to them like a good physician.

"I'll tell ye why you'm gripped," he said. "'Tis because you swallowed them peas instead o' the pills. Du'ye understand what I be telling?"

Peter and Mary answered that so far they were quite able to follow him, and Mary added: "A cruel kind larned man be Master. Sees a thing to wance, he du."

"Us ha' got innards, and they'm called vowels," Master went on. "Some calls 'em intestates, but that be just another name for the same thing.

Us ha' got five large vowels, and two small ones. The large ones be called _a, e, i, o, u_, and the small ones be called _w_ and _y_. I can't tell ye why, but 'tis so. Some of them peas yew ha' swallowed have got into _a_, and some ha' got into _o_, and mebbe some ha' got into _w_ and _y_. Du'ye understand what I mean?"

The invalids replied untruthfully that they did, while Peter stated that Master had done him good already.

"They be growing there, and 'tis the growing that gripes ye. Du'ye understand that?" continued Master.

Peter ventured to ask how much growth might be looked for.

"They grows six foot and more, if they bain't stopped," said Master ominously.

"How be us to stop 'em?" wailed Mary.

"I'll tell ye," said Master. "Yew mun get home and bide quiet, and not drink. Then mebbe the peas will wilt off and die wi'out taking root."

"Shall us dig up the pills and tak' some?" Suggested Peter.

"Best let 'em bide. They be doing the ground good," said Master. "It bain't nothing serious, varmer," he went on. "Yew and Mary will be well again to-morrow. Don't ye drink and 'twill be all right. The peas will die of what us calls instantaneous combustion. If yew was to swallow anything to pizen 'em 'twould pizen yew tu. Aw now, you might rub a little ammonia on your bellies just to mak' 'em feel uneasy-like. I'll get ye a drop in a bottle. Nothing's no trouble, varmer."

"It taketh a scholard to understand it," said Mary. "When he putched a-telling I couldn't sense 'en, but I knows now it bain't serious. A brave larned man be Master. There bain't many like 'en."