The White Peacock Part 20

"You are like Burne-Jones' damsels. Troublesome shadows are always crowding across your eyes, and you cherish them. You think the flesh of the apple is nothing, nothing. You only care for the eternal pips. Why don't you s.n.a.t.c.h your apple and eat it, and throw the core away?"

She looked at me sadly, not understanding, but believing that I in my wisdom spoke truth, as she always believed when I lost her in a maze of words. She stooped down, and the chaplet fell from her hair, and only one bunch of berries remained. The ground around us was strewn with the four-lipped burrs of beechnuts, and the quaint little nut-pyramids were scattered among the ruddy fallen leaves. Emily gathered a few nuts.

"I love beechnuts," she said, "but they make me long for my childhood again till I could almost cry out. To go out for beechnuts before breakfast; to thread them for necklaces before supper;-to be the envy of the others at school next day! There was as much pleasure in a beech necklace then as there is in the whole autumn now-and no sadness. There are no more unmixed joys after you have grown up." She kept her face to the ground as she spoke, and she continued to gather the fruits.

"Do you find any with nuts in?" I asked.

"Not many-here-here are two, three. You have them. No-I don't care about them."

I stripped one of its h.o.r.n.y brown coat and gave it to her. She opened her mouth slightly to take it, looking up into my eyes. Some people, instead of bringing with them clouds of glory, trail clouds of sorrow; they are born with "the gift of sorrow"; "sorrows" they proclaim "alone are real. The veiled grey angels of sorrow work out slowly the beautiful shapes. Sorrow is beauty, and the supreme blessedness." You read it in their eyes, and in the tones of their voices. Emily had the gift of sorrow. It fascinated me, but it drove me to rebellion.

We followed the soft, smooth-bitten turf road under the old beeches. The hillside fell away, dishevelled with thistles and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s. Soon we were in sight of the Kennels, the red old Kennels which had been the scene of so much animation in the time of Lord Byron. They were empty now, overgrown with weeds. The barred windows of the cottages were grey with dust; there was no need now to protect the windows from cattle, dog or man. One of the three houses was inhabited. Clear water trickled through a wooden runnel into a great stone trough outside near the door.

"Come here," said I to Emily. "Let me fasten the back of your dress."

"Is it undone?" she asked, looking quickly over her shoulder, and blushing.

As I was engaged in my task, a girl came out of the cottage with a black kettle and a tea-cup. She was so surprised to see me thus occupied that she forgot her own duty, and stood open-mouthed.

"S'r Ann! S'r Ann," called a voice from inside. "Are ter goin' ter come in an' shut that door?"

Sarah Ann hastily poured a few cupfuls of water into the kettle, then she put down both utensils and stood holding her bare arms to warm them.

Her chief garment consisted of a skirt with grey bodice and red flannel skirt, very much torn. Her black hair hung in wild tails on to her shoulders.

"We must go in here," said I, approaching the girl. She, however, hastily seized the kettle and ran indoors with an "Oh, mother!"

A woman came to the door. One breast was bare, and hung over her blouse, which, like a dressing-jacket, fell loose over her skirt. Her fading, red-brown hair was all frowsy from the bed. In the folds of her skirt clung a swarthy urchin with a shockingly short shirt. He stared at us with big black eyes, the only portion of his face undecorated with egg and jam. The woman's blue eyes questioned us languidly. I told her our errand.

"Come in-come in," she said, "but dunna look at th' 'ouse. Th' childers not been long up. Go in, Billy, wi' nowt on!"

We entered, taking the forgotten kettle lid. The kitchen was large, but scantily furnished save, indeed, for children. The eldest, a girl of twelve or so, was standing toasting a piece of bacon with one hand, and holding back her nightdress in the other. As the toast hand got scorched, she transferred the bacon to the other, gave the hot fingers a lick to cool them, and then held back her nightdress again. Her auburn hair hung in heavy coils down her gown. A boy sat on the steel fender, catching the dropping fat on a piece of bread. "One, two, three, four, five, six drops," and he quickly bit off the tasty corner, and resumed the task with the other hand. When we entered he tried to draw his shirt over his knees, which caused the fat to fall wasted. A fat baby, evidently laid down from the breast, lay kicking on the squab, purple in the face, while another lad was pushing bread and b.u.t.ter into its mouth.

The mother swept to the sofa, poked out the bread and b.u.t.ter, pushed her finger into the baby's throat, lifted the child up, punched its back, and was highly relieved when it began to yell. Then she administered a few sound spanks to the naked b.u.t.tocks of the crammer. He began to howl, but stopped suddenly on seeing us laughing. On the sack-cloth which served as hearth rug sat a beautiful child washing the face of a wooden doll with tea, and wiping it on her nightgown. At the table, an infant in a high chair sat sucking a piece of bacon, till the grease ran down his swarthy arms, oozing through his fingers. An old lad stood in the big arm-chair, whose back was hung with a calf-skin, and was industriously pouring the dregs of the teacups into a basin of milk. The mother whisked away the milk, and made a rush for the urchin, the baby hanging over her arm the while.

"I could half kill thee," she said, but he had slid under the table,-and sat serenely unconcerned.

"Could you"-I asked when the mother had put her bonny baby again to her breast-"could you lend me a knitting needle?"

"Our S'r Ann, wheer's thy knittin' needles?" asked the woman, wincing at the same time, and putting her hand to the mouth of the sucking child.

Catching my eye, she said:

"You wouldn't credit how he bites. 'E's n.o.bbut two teeth, but they like six needles." She drew her brows together and pursed her lips, saying to the child, "Naughty lad, naughty lad! Tha' shanna hae it, no, not if ter bites thy mother like that."

The family interest was now divided between us and the private concerns in process when we entered;-save, however, that the bacon sucker had sucked on stolidly, immovable, all the time.

"Our Sam, wheer's my knittin', tha's 'ad it?" cried S'r Ann after a little search.

"'A 'e na," replied Sam from under the table.

"Yes, tha' 'as," said the mother, giving a blind prod under the table with her foot.

"'A 'e na then!" persisted Sam.

The mother suggested various possible places of discovery, and at last the knitting was found at the back of the table drawer, among forks and old wooden skewers.

"I 'an ter tell yer wheer ivrythink is," said the mother in mild reproach. S'r Ann, however, gave no heed to her parent. Her heart was torn for her knitting, the fruit of her labours; it was a red woollen cuff for the winter; a corkscrew was bored through the web, and the ball of red wool was bristling with skewers.

"It's a' thee, our Sam," she wailed. "I know it's a' thee an' thy A. B.

C."

Samuel, under the table, croaked out in a voice of fierce monotony:

"P. is for Porkypine, whose bristles so strong Kill the bold lion by p.r.i.c.king 'is tongue."

The mother began to shake with quiet laughter.

"His father learnt him that-made it all up," she whispered proudly to us-and to him.

"Tell us what 'B' is Sam."

"Shonna," grunted Sam.

"Go on, there's a duckie; an' I'll ma' 'e a treacle puddin'."

"Today?" asked S'r Ann eagerly.

"Go on, Sam, my duck," persisted the mother.

"Tha' 'as na got no treacle," said Sam conclusively.

The needle was in the fire; the children stood about watching.

"Will you do it yourself?" I asked Emily.

"I!" she exclaimed, with wide eyes of astonishment, and she shook her head emphatically.

"Then I must." I took out the needle, holding it in my handkerchief. I took her hand and examined the wound. But when she saw the hot glow of the needle, she s.n.a.t.c.hed away her hand, and looked into my eyes, laughing in a half-hysterical fear and shame. I was very serious, very insistent. She yielded me her hand again, biting her lips in imagination of the pain, and looking at me. While my eyes were looking into hers she had courage; when I was forced to pay attention to my cauterising, she glanced down, and with a sharp "Ah!" ending in a little laugh, she put her hands behind her, and looked again up at me with wide brown eyes, all quivering with apprehension, and a little shame, and a laughter that held much pleading.

One of the children began to cry.

"It is no good," said I, throwing the fast cooling needle on to the hearth.

I gave the girls all the pennies I had-then I offered Sam, who had crept out of the shelter of the table, a sixpence.

"Shonna a'e that," he said, turning from the small coin.

"Well-I have no more pennies, so nothing will be your share."

I gave the other boy a rickety knife I had in my pocket. Sam looked fiercely at me. Eager for revenge, he picked up the "porkypine quill" by the hot end. He dropped it with a shout of rage, and, seizing a cup off the table, flung it at the fortunate Jack. It smashed against the fire-place. The mother grabbed at Sam, but he was gone. A girl, a little girl, wailed, "Oh, that's my rosey mug-my rosey mug." We fled from the scene of confusion. Emily had hardly noticed it. Her thoughts were of herself, and of me.