Lying Prophets Part 5

The girl was gratified.

"I judge you'm a furriner, else you'd knawn 'bout the wickedness o'

blackthorn."

"I am. Thank you very much. But for you I should have gone home wearing it.

That puts me in your debt, Joan."

"'Tain't nothin', awnly there's a many coorious Carnish things like that.

An' coorious customs what some doan't hold with an' some does."

She sat down near the cliff edge with her back to him, and he smiled to himself to find how quickly his mild manners and reserve had put the girl at her ease. She looked perfect that afternoon and he yearned to begin painting her; but his scheme of action demanded time for its perfect fulfillment and ultimate success. He let the little timorous chatterbox talk. Her voice was soft and musical as the cooing of a wood-dove, and the sweet full notes chimed in striking contrast to her uncouth speech. But Joan's diction gave pleasure to the listener. It had freedom and wildness, and was almost wholly innocent of any petrifying educational influences.

Joan, for her part, felt at ease. The man was so polite and so humble. He thanked her for her information so gratefully. Moreover, he evidently cared so little about her or her looks. She felt perfectly safe, for it was easy to see that he thought more of the gorse than anything.

"My faither's agin such things an' sayin's," she babbled on, "but I dunnaw.

They seems truth to me, an' to many as is wiser than what I be. My mother b'lieved in 'em, an' Joe did, till faither turned en away from 'em. But when us plighted troth, I made en jine hands wi' me under a livin' spring o' water, though he said 'twas heathenish. Awnly, somehow, I knawed 'twas a proper thing to do."

"I should like to hear more about these old customs some day," he said, as though Joan and he were to meet often in the future, "and I should be obliged to you for telling me about them, because I always delight in such matters."

She was quicker of mind than he thought, and rose, taking his last remark as a hint that he wished to be alone.

"Don't go, Joan, unless you must. I'm a very lonely man, and it is a great pleasure to me to hear you talk. Look here."

She approached him, and he showed her a pencil sketch now perched on the easel--a drawing considerably larger than that upon which he had been working when she arrived.

"This is a rough idea of my picture. It is going to be much larger though, and I have sent all the way to London for a canvas on which to paint it."

'"Twill be a gert big picksher then?"

"So big that I think I must try and get something into it besides the gorse. I want something or other in the middle, just for a change. What could I paint there?"

"I dunnaw."

"No more do I. I wonder how that little white pony tethered yonder would do?"

Joan laughed.

"You'd never get the likes o' him to bide still for 'e."

"No, I'm afraid not; and I doubt if I'm clever enough to paint him either.

You see, I'm only a beginner--not like these clever artists who can draw anything. Well, I must think: to-morrow is Sunday. I shall begin my big picture on Monday if the weather keeps kind. I shall paint here, in the open air. And I will bring your ship, too, if you care to take the trouble to come for it."

"Yes, an' thank 'e, sir."

"Not at all. I owe you thanks. Just think if I had gone home with that horrid blackthorn."

He turned to his work as though she were no longer present and the girl prepared to depart.

"I'll bid you good-arternoon now, sir," she said timidly.

He looked up with surprise.

"Haven't you gone, Joan? I thought you had started. Good-by until Monday.

Remember, if it is cold or rainy I shall not be here."

The girl trotted off; and when she had gone Barren drew her from memory in the center of his sketch. The golden glories of the gorse were destined to be no more than a frame for something fairer.

CHAPTER FIVE

COLD COMFORT

John Barron made other preparations for his picture besides those detailed to Joan Tregenza. He designed a large canvas and proposed to paint it in the open air according to his custom. His health had improved, and the sustained splendor of the spring weather flattered hopes that, his model once won, the work he proposed would grow into an accomplished fact. There was no cottage where he might house his picture and materials within half a mile of Gorse Point, but a granite cow-byre rose considerably nearer, at a corner of an upland field. Wind-worn and lichen-stained it stood, situated not more than two hundred yards from the spot on which Barron's picture was to be painted. A pathway to outlying farms cut the fields hard by the byre, and about it lay implements of husbandry--a chain harrow and a rusty plow.

Black, tar-pitched double doors gave entrance to the shed, and light entered from a solitary window now roughly nailed up from the outside with boards. A padlock fastened the door, but, by wrenching down the covering of the window, Barron got sight of the interior. A smell of vermin and decay rose from the inner darkness; then, as his eyes focused the gloom, he noted a dry, s.p.a.cious chamber likely enough to answer his purpose. Brown litter of last year's fern filled one corner, and in it was marked a lair as of some medium-sized beast; elsewhere a few sacks with spades and picks and a small pile of potatoes appeared: the roots were all sprouting feebly from white eyes, as though they knew spring held the world, though neither sunshine warmed them nor soft earth aided their struggle for life. Here the man might well keep his canvas and other matters. a.s.suming that temporary possession of the shed was possible, his property would certainly be safe enough there; for artists are respected in and about Newlyn, and their needs considered when possible. A farm, known as Middle Hemyll, showed gray chimneys above the fields, half a mile distant, and, after finding the shed, Barron proceeded thither to learn its ownership. The master of Middle Hemyll speedily enlightened him, and the visitor learned that not only did he speak to the possessor of the cow-byre, but that Farmer Ford was a keen supporter of art, and would be happy to rent his outhouse for a moderate consideration.

"The land ban't under pasture now, an' the plaace ed'n much used just this minute, so you'm welcome if you mind to. My auld goat did live theer wance, but er's dead this long time. Maybe you seed the carca.s.s of en, outside?

I'll have the byre cleared come to-morrer; an' if so be you wants winders in the roof, same as other paintin' gents, you'll have to put 'em theer wi'

your awn money."

Barron explained that he only needed the shed as a storehouse for his picture and tools.

"Just so, just so. Then you'll find a bwoy wi' the key theer to-morrer, an'

all vitty; an' you can pay in advancement or arter, as you please to. Us'll say half-a-crown a week, if that'll soot 'e."

The listener produced half-a-sovereign, much to Farmer Ford's gratification, and asked that a lad or man might be found to return with him there and then to the shed.

"I am anxious to see the place and have it in order before I go back to Newlyn," he explained. "I will pay you extra for the necessary labor, and it should not take above an hour."

"No more 'twill, an' I'll come 'long with 'e myself this minute," answered the other.

Getting a key to the padlock, and a big birch broom, he returned with Barron, and soon had the doors of the disused byre thrown open to the air.

"I shut en up when the auld goat went dead. Theer a used to lie in the corner, but now he'm outside, an' I doubt the piskeys, what they talks 'bout, be mighty savage wi' me for not buryin' the beast, 'cause all fairies is 'dicted to goats, they do say, an' mighty fond o' the milk of 'em."

Farmer Ford soon cleared the place of potatoes, sacks, and tools. Then, taking his broom, he made a clean sweep of dust and dirt.

"Theer's a many more rats here than I knawed seemin'ly," he said, as he examined a sink in the stones of the floor, used for draining the stalls; "they come up here for sartain, an' runs out 'long the heydge to the mangel-wurzel mound, I lay."

Without, evidences of the vermin were clear enough. Long hardened tracks, patted down by many paws, ran this way and that; and the main rat thoroughfare extended, as the farmer foretold, to a great mound where, stowed snugly in straw under earth, lay packed the remains of a mangel-wurzel crop. At one end the store had been opened and drawn upon for winter use; but a goodly pile of the great tawny globes still remained, small lemon-colored leaves sprouting from them. Farmer Ford, however, viewed the treasure without satisfaction.

"Us killed a power o' sheep wi' they blarsted roots last winter," he said.

"You'd never think now as the frost could touch 'em, but it did though, awin' to the wicked long winter. It got to 'em, sure 'nough, an' theer was frost in 'em when us gived 'em to the sheep, an' it rotted theer innards, poor twoads, an' they died, more'n a score."

Barron listened thoughtfully to these details, then pointed to an ugly sight beyond the wurzel mound.

"I should like that removed," he said.