Furze the Cruel Part 5

"I will think over it, Mr. Pendoggat. I will think and pray."

"Make up your mind now, or I get another partner."

Pendoggat lifted the gla.s.s of the lantern and blew out the light.

"Have we the right to work a mine upon the moor?"

"Leave all that to me. You get the money. Tell 'em we will guarantee ten per cent. Likely it will be more. It's as safe a thing as was ever known, and it is the chance of your lifetime. Here's my hand."

Eli took the hand, and had the gorse-p.r.i.c.kles forced well into his.

"I'll do my best, Mr. Pendoggat. I know you are an honest and a generous man," he said.

CHAPTER IV

ABOUT BEETLES

There was a whitewashed cottage called Lewside beside the moorland road, and at a window which commanded a view of that road sat a girl with what appeared to be a glory round her face--it was nothing but soft red hair--a girl of seventeen, called Boodles, or anything else sufficiently idiotic; and this girl was learning doggerel and singing--

"'The West wind always brings wet weather, The East wind wet and cold together; The South wind surely brings us rain, The North wind blows it back again.'

"And that means it's always raining, which is a lie. And as I'm saying it I'm a liar," laughed Boodles.

It was raining then. Only a Dartmoor shower; the sort of downright rain which makes holes in granite and plays Wagner-like music upon roofs of corrugated iron.

"There's a bunny. Let me see. That's two buns, one man and a boy, a cart and two horses, three wild ponies, and two jolly little sheep with horns and black faces--all been along the road this afternoon," said Boodles.

"Now the next verse--

'If the sun in red should set.

The next day surely will be wet; If the sun should set in grey.

The next will be a rainy day.'

"That's all. We can't go on lying for ever. I wish," said Boodles, "I wish I hadn't got so many freckles on my nose, and I wish my hair wasn't red, and thirdly and lastly, I wish--I wish my teeth weren't going to ache next week. I know they will, because I've been eating jam pudding, and they always ache after jam pudding; three days after, always three days--the beasts! Now what shall I sing about? Why can't people invent something for small girls to do upon a rainy day? I wish a battle was being fought on the moor. It would be fun. I could sit here and watch all day; and I would cut off bits of my hair and throw them to the victorious generals. What a sell for me if they wouldn't pick them up! I expect they would, though, for father says I'm a boodle girl, and that means beautiful, though it's not true, and I wish it was. Another lie and another wish! And when I'm dressed nicely I am boodle-oodle, and that means more beautiful. And when the sun is shining on my hair I am boodle-oodliest, and that means very beautiful. I suppose it's rather nonsense, but it's the way we live here. We may be silly so long as we are good. The next song shall be patriotic. We will bang a drum and wave a flag; and sing with a good courage--

'It was the way of good Queen Bess, Who ruled as well as mortal can, When she was stugged, and the country in a mess, She would send for a Devon man.'

"Well now, that's the truth. Miss Boodles. The princ.i.p.al county in England is Devonshire, and the princ.i.p.al town is Tavistock, and the princ.i.p.al river is the Tavy, and the princ.i.p.al rain is upon Dartmoor, and the princ.i.p.al girl has red hair and freckles on her nose, and she's only seventeen. And the dearest old man in Devon is just coming along the pa.s.sage, and now he's at the door, and here he is. Father," she laughed, "why do people ask idiotic questions, like I'm doing now?"

"Because they are the easiest," said Abel Cain Weevil, in his gentle manner and bleat-like voice.

"I was sitting here one day, and Mary Tavy came along," went on Boodles.

"She said: 'Aw, my dear, be ye sot by the window?' And I said: 'No, Mary, I'm standing on my head.' She looked so frightened. The poor thing thought I was mad."

"Boodles, you're a wicked maid," said Weevil fondly. "You make fun of everything. Some day you will get your ears pulled."

The two were not related, except by affection, although they pa.s.sed as father and daughter. Boodles had come from the pixies. She had been left one night in the porch of Lewside Cottage, wrapped up in a wisp of fern, without clothing of any kind, and round her neck was a label inscribed: "Take me in, or I shall be drowned to-morrow." Weevil had taken her in, and when the baby smiled at him his eccentric old soul laughed back. He entered into partnership at once with the baby-girl, and she had been a blessing to him. He knew that she had been left in his porch as a last resource; if he had not taken her in she would have been drowned the next day. It was all very pretty to imagine that Boodles had come from the pixies. The truth was n.o.body wanted her; the unmarried mother could not keep the child, Weevil was believed to be a tender-hearted old fool, so the baby was wrapped in fern and left in his porch; and the tenant of Lewside Cottage lived up to his reputation. Boodles knew her history.

She sat at the cottage window every day, watching every one who pa.s.sed; and sometimes she would murmur: "I wonder if my mother went by to-day."

She had once or twice inserted an unpleasant adjective, but then she had no cause to love her unknown parents. Much of her love was given to Abel Cain Weevil; and all of it went out to some one else.

The old man was one of those mysteries who crop up in desolate places.

n.o.body knew where he came from, what he had been, or what he was doing in the region watered by the Tavy. He was poor and harmless. He kept out of every one's way. "Quite mad," said St. Peter. "An honest madman,"

answered St. Mary. "He had at least the decency to recognise that child, for of course she is his daughter." St. Peter had his doubts. He did not like to think too highly of old Weevil. That was against his principles.

He suggested that Weevil intended to make some base use of the girl, and St. Mary agreed. They could generally agree upon such matters.

Weevil was quite right to keep out of the world. He was handicapped in every way. There was his name to begin with. He had no objection to Abel, but he saw no necessity in the redundant Cain. It had been given him, however, and he could not escape from it. Every one called him Abel Cain Weevil. The children shouted it after him. As for the name Weevil, it was objectionable, but no worse than many another. It was not improper like some surnames.

"An insect, my dear," he explained to Boodles. "A dirty little beetle which lives upon grain."

"I'm a weevil too," said she. "So I'm a dirty little beetle."

The old man wouldn't allow that. Boodles belonged to the angels, and he told her so with foolish expressions; but she shook her glorious red head at him and declared that beetles and angels had nothing in common.

She admitted, however, that she belonged to a delightful order of beetles, and that on the whole she preferred chocolates to grain. The silly old man reminded her that she belonged to the boodle-oodle order of beetles, and so far she was the only specimen of that choice family which had been discovered.

A man is eccentric in this world if he does anything which his neighbours cannot understand. He may go out in the garden and cut a cabbage-leaf. That is a sane action. But if he spreads jam on the cabbage-leaf, and eats the same publicly, he is called a madman. Nothing is easier than to be thought eccentric. You have only to behave unlike other people. Stand in the middle of a crowded street and gaze vacantly into the air. Every one will call you eccentric at once, just because you are gazing in the air and they are not. Weevil was mad because he was unlike his neighbours. The adoption of Boodles was not a sane action; even if she were his daughter it was equally insane to acknowledge her with such shameless publicity. A sane person would have allowed Boodles to share the fate of many illegitimate children.

They were happy these two, papa Weevil and his Boodles. They had no servant. The girl kept house and cooked. The old man washed up and scrubbed. Boodles knew how to make, not only a shilling, but even the necessary penny go all the way. She was a treasure, good enough for any man; there were no dark spots upon her heart. If she had been made away with one of the best little souls created would have gone back into limbo.

No storm disturbed Lewside Cottage, except Dartmoor gales, and as for religion they were sun-worshippers; like most people who come out in fine raiment and glory in the sun, and when it is wet hide indoors, talk of the sun, think of the sun, long for the sun, until he appears and they can hurry out to worship. The savage calls the sun his G.o.d in so many words; and the human nature which is in the savage is in the primitive folk of open and desolate places also; it is present in the most civilised of beings, but only those who live on a high moor through the winter know what a day of sunshine means. The sun has places dedicated to him upon Dartmoor. There is Bel Tor and there is Belstone.

A tradition of the Phoenician occupation still exists, handed down from the remote time when the sun was directly worshipped. The commoners still believe that good luck will attend the man who shall see the rising sun reflected on the rock-basin of Bellivor. An altar to the sun stood once upon that lonely tor. Weevil worshipped the sun quietly.

Boodles offered incense with enthusiasm. She deserved her name when the sun shone upon her radiant head and made a glory round it. When the greater gorse was in flower, and Boodles walked through it hatless, wearing her green frock, she might have been the spirit of the p.r.i.c.kly shrub; and like it her head was in bloom all the year round.

"Have we got anything for supper, Boodle-oodle?" asked the silly old male beetle.

"Ees, lots," said the small golden one.

It was not unpleasant to hear Boodles say "ees." She split the word up and made a kind of anthem out of it. The first sound was very soft, a mere whisper, and spoken with closed lips. The rest she sang, getting higher as the final syllable was reached--there were more syllables in the word than letters--then descending at the drawn-out sibilant, and finishing in a whisper with closed lips.

"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "No eggs!"

They looked at each other with serious faces. In that simple household small things were tragedies. There were no eggs. It was a matter for serious reflection.

"b.u.t.ter?" queried the old man nervously. "Milk? Cheese? Bread?"

"Heaps, piles, gallons. The kitchen is full of cheese, and you can't move for bread, and the milk is running over and dripping upon everything like a milky day," said penitent Boodles. "I have been saying to myself: 'Eggs, eggs! Yolks, sh.e.l.ls, whites--eggs!' I made puns that I shouldn't forget. I egged myself on. I walked delicately, and said: 'I'm treading on eggs.' I kept on scolding myself, and saying: 'Teach your grandmother to suck eggs.' I reminded myself I mustn't put all my eggs in one basket. Then I went and sat in the window, forgot all about them, and now I'm a bad egg."

"Boodles, what shall we do?" said the chief beetle.

"I think you ought to torture me in some way," suggested the forgetful one. "Drag me through the furze. Beat me with nettles. Torture would do me a lot of good, I expect, only not too much, because I'm only a baby."

That was her usual defence. Whatever happened she was only a baby. She was never likely to grow up.

"Don't jest. It is too serious. If I don't have two eggs for my supper I shall have no sleep. I shall be ill to-morrow."

"I'll give you two poached kisses," promised Boodles.