The White Peacock Part 17

"It's not a little-come and look for yourself," replied the farmer. The squire made a gesture of impatience.

"What _do_ you want?" he inquired.

"Will you wire me off?" was the repeated request.

"Wire is-what does Halkett say-so much per yard-and it would come to-what did Halkett tell me now?-but a large sum. No, I can't do it."

"Well, I can't live like this."

"Have another gla.s.s of whisky? Yes, yes, I want another gla.s.s myself, and I can't drink alone-so if I am to enjoy my gla.s.s.-That's it! Now surely you exaggerate a little. It's not so bad."

"I can't go on like it, I'm sure."

"Well, we'll see about compensation-we'll see. I'll have a talk with Halkett, and I'll come down and have a look at you. We all find a pinch somewhere-it's nothing but humanity's heritage."

I was born in September, and love it best of all the months. There is no heat, no hurry, no thirst and weariness in corn harvest as there is in the hay. If the season is late, as is usual with us, then mid-September sees the corn still standing in stook. The mornings come slowly. The earth is like a woman married and fading; she does not leap up with a laugh for the first fresh kiss of dawn, but slowly, quietly, unexpectantly lies watching the waking of each new day. The blue mist, like memory in the eyes of a neglected wife, never goes from the wooded hill, and only at noon creeps from the near hedges. There is no bird to put a song in the throat of morning; only the crow's voice speaks during the day. Perhaps there is the regular breathing hush of the scythe-even the fretful jar of the mowing machine. But next day, in the morning, all is still again. The lying corn is wet, and when you have bound it, and lift the heavy sheaf to make the stook, the tresses of oats wreathe round each other and droop mournfully.

As I worked with my friend through the still mornings we talked endlessly. I would give him the gist of what I knew of chemistry, and botany, and psychology. Day after day I told him what the professors had told me; of life, of s.e.x and its origins; of Schopenhauer and William James. We had been friends for years, and he was accustomed to my talk.

But this autumn fruited the first crop of intimacy between us. I talked a great deal of poetry to him, and of rudimentary metaphysics. He was very good stuff. He had hardly a single dogma, save that of pleasing himself. Religion was nothing to him. So he heard all I had to say with an open mind, and understood the drift of things very rapidly, and quickly made these ideas part of himself.

We tramped down to dinner with only the clinging warmth of the sunshine for a coat. In this still, enfolding weather a quiet companionship is very grateful. Autumn creeps through everything. The little damsons in the pudding taste of September, and are fragrant with memory. The voices of those at table are softer and more reminiscent than at haytime.

Afternoon is all warm and golden. Oat sheaves are lighter; they whisper to each other as they freely embrace. The long, stout stubble tinkles as the foot brushes over it; the scent of the straw is sweet. When the poor, bleached sheaves are lifted out of the hedge, a spray of nodding wild raspberries is disclosed, with belated berries ready to drop; among the damp gra.s.s lush blackberries may be discovered. Then one notices that the last bell hangs from the ragged spire of fox-glove. The talk is of people, an odd book; of one's hopes-and the future; of Canada, where work is strenuous, but not life; where the plains are wide, and one is not lapped in a soft valley, like an apple that falls in a secluded orchard. The mist steals over the face of the warm afternoon. The tying-up is all finished, and it only remains to rear up the fallen bundles into shocks. The sun sinks into a golden glow in the west. The gold turns to red, the red darkens, like a fire burning low, the sun disappears behind the bank of milky mist, purple like the pale bloom on blue plums, and we put on our coats and go home.

In the evening, when the milking was finished, and all the things fed, then we went out to look at the snares. We wandered on across the stream and up the wild hillside. Our feet rattled through black patches of devil's-bit scabius; we skirted a swim of thistle-down, which glistened when the moon touched it. We stumbled on through wet, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, over soft mole-hills and black rabbit-holes. The hills and woods cast shadows; the pools of mist in the valleys gathered the moonbeams in cold, shivery light.

We came to an old farm that stood on the level brow of the hill. The woods swept away from it, leaving a great clearing of what was once cultivated land. The handsome chimneys of the house, silhouetted against a light sky, drew my admiration. I noticed that there was no light or glow in any window, though the house had only the width of one room, and though the night was only at eight o'clock. We looked at the long, impressive front. Several of the windows had been bricked in, giving a pitiful impression of blindness; the places where the plaster had fallen off the walls showed blacker in the shadow. We pushed open the gate, and as we walked down the path, weeds and dead plants brushed our ankles. We looked in at a window. The room was lighted also by a window from the other side, through which the moonlight streamed on to the flagged floor, dirty, littered with paper, and wisps of straw. The hearth lay in the light, with all its distress of grey ashes, and piled cinders of burnt paper, and a child's headless doll, charred and pitiful. On the border-line of shadow lay a round fur cap-a game-keeper's cap. I blamed the moonlight for entering the desolate room; the darkness alone was decent and reticent. I hated the little roses on the illuminated piece of wallpaper, I hated that fireside.

With farmer's instinct George turned to the outhouse. The cow-yard startled me. It was a forest of the tallest nettles I have ever seen-nettles far taller than my six feet. The air was soddened with the dank scent of nettles. As I followed George along the obscure brick path, I felt my flesh creep. But the buildings, when we entered them, were in splendid condition; they had been restored within a small number of years; they were well-timbered, neat, and cosy. Here and there we saw feathers, bits of animal wreckage, even the remnants of a cat, which we hastily examined by the light of a match. As we entered the stable there was an ugly noise, and three great rats half rushed at us and threatened us with their vicious teeth. I shuddered, and hurried back, stumbling over a bucket, rotten with rust, and so filled with weeds that I thought it part of the jungle. There was a silence made horrible by the faint noises that rats and flying bats give out. The place was bare of any vestige of corn or straw or hay, only choked with a growth of abnormal weeds. When I found myself free in the orchard I could not stop shivering. There were no apples to be seen overhead between us and the clear sky. Either the birds had caused them to fall, when the rabbits had devoured them, or someone had gathered the crop.

"This," said George bitterly, "is what the mill will come to."

"After your time," I said.

"My time-my time. I shall never have a time. And I shouldn't be surprised if father's time isn't short-with rabbits and one thing and another. As it is, we depend on the milk-round, and on the carting which I do for the council. You can't call it farming. We're a miserable mixture of farmer, milkman, greengrocer, and carting contractor. It's a shabby business."

"You have to live," I retorted.

"Yes-but it's rotten. And father won't move-and he won't change his methods."

"Well-what about you?"

"Me! What should I change for?-I'm comfortable at home. As for my future, it can look after itself, so long as n.o.body depends on me."

"Laissez faire," said I, smiling.

"This is no laissez faire," he replied, glancing round, "this is pulling the nipple out of your lips, and letting the milk run away sour. Look there!"

Through the thin veil of moonlit mist that slid over the hillside we could see an army of rabbits bunched up, or hopping a few paces forward, feeding.

We set off at a swinging pace down the hill, scattering the hosts. As we approached the fence that bounded the Mill fields, he exclaimed, "Hullo!"-and hurried forward. I followed him, and observed the dark figure of a man rise from the hedge. It was a game-keeper. He pretended to be examining his gun. As we came up he greeted us with a calm "Good-evenin'!"

George replied by investigating the little gap in the hedge.

"I'll trouble you for that snare," he said.

"Will yer?" answered Annable, a broad, burly, black-faced fellow. "An'

_I_ should like ter know what you're doin' on th' wrong side th' 'edge?"

"You can see what we're doing-hand over my snare-_and_ the rabbit,"

said George angrily.

"What rabbit?" said Annable, turning sarcastically to me.

"You know well enough-an' you can hand it over-or--" George replied.

"Or what? Spit it out! The sound won't kill me"-the man grinned with contempt.

"Hand over here!" said George, stepping up to the man in a rage.

"Now don't!" said the keeper, standing stock still, and looking unmovedly at the proximity of George:

"You'd better get off home-both you an' 'im. You'll get neither snare nor rabbit-see!"

"We _will_ see!" said George, and he made a sudden move to get hold of the man's coat. Instantly he went staggering back with a heavy blow under the left ear.

"d.a.m.n brute!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, bruising my knuckles against the fellow's jaw. Then I too found myself sitting dazedly on the gra.s.s, watching the great skirts of his velveteens flinging round him as if he had been a demon, as he strode away. I got up, pressing my chest where I had been struck. George was lying in the hedge-bottom. I turned him over, and rubbed his temples, and shook the drenched gra.s.s on his face. He opened his eyes and looked at me, dazed. Then he drew his breath quickly, and put his hand to his head.

"He-he nearly stunned me," he said.

"The devil!" I answered.

"I wasn't ready."

"No."

"Did he knock me down?"

"Ay-me too."