Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг
Puck of Pook's Hill
‘Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the same dog’s tricks as he’d played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, they said, to be remelted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and vow he could pass no cannon for the King’s service that were not perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! I know, for we sat on this bench sharing our sorrows inter-common.
‘When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the Cygnet hoy, sends me word that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font he’d hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to Rye Port.’
‘Ah! The pirate!’ said Dan.
‘Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would work there no more. So I took ’em off the foundations, which we were strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says Master John Collins: “Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I’d take the sinnification o’ the sign, and leave old Barnabas’s Church alone!” And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid of the Devil than of me – as I saw later.
‘When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son.
‘“Cheer up, lad,” he says. “God’s where He was. Only you and I chance to be pure pute asses! We’ve been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, I’ll wager my share of new Continents, being now hid away in St. Barnabas church tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!”
‘“They’d sure never dare to do it,” I said; “and for another thing, selling cannon to the King’s enemies is black treason – hanging and fine.”
‘“It is sure large profit. Men’ll dare any gallows for that. I have been a trader myself,” says he. “We must be upsides with ’em for the honour of Bristol.”
‘Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the lime-wash bucket. We gave out to ride o’ Tuesday to London and made a show of making farewells of our friends – especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we turned; rode by night to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at the foot of the glebe, and stole a-tiptoe up hill to Barnabas’s church again. A thick mist, and a moon coming through.
‘I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes Sebastian full length in the dark.
‘“Pest!” he says. “Step high and feel low, Hal. I’ve stumbled over guns before.”
‘I groped, and one by one – the tower was pitchy dark – I counted the lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease-straw. No conceal at all!
‘“There’s two demi-cannon my end,” says Sebastian, slapping metal. “They’ll be for Andrew Barton’s lower deck. Honest – honest John Collins! So this is his warehouse, his arsenal, his armoury! Now, see you why your pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex? You’ve hindered John’s lawful trade for months,” and he laughed where he lay.
‘A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and tail.
‘“Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?” He draws it on and capers in the slits of window-moonlight – won’erful devilish-like. Then he sits on the stair, rapping with his tail on a board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front; and a howlet lit in, and screeched at the horns of him.
‘“If you’d keep out the Devil, shut the door,” he whispered. “And that’s another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening.”
‘“I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?” I said.
‘“All the congregation, to judge by their feet,” he says, and peers into the blackness. “Still! Still, Hal! Hear ’em grunt! That’s more o’ my serpentines, I’ll be bound. One – two – three – four they bear in! Faith, Andrew equips himself like an admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!”
‘As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins’s voice come up all hollow: “Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That’s the full tally for Sir Andrew Barton.”
‘“Courtesy costs naught,” whispers Sebastian. “Shall I drop my dagger on his head?”
‘“They go over to Rye o’ Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the wool packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before,” says John.
‘“Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!” says Sebastian. “I lay we are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in the venture.”
‘There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge Market. We counted them by voice.
‘Master John Collins pipes: “The guns for the French carrack must lie here next month. Will, when does your young fool (me, so please you!) come back from Lunnon?”
‘“No odds,” I heard Ticehurst Will answer. “Lay ’em just where you’ve a mind, Mus’ Collins. We’re all too afraid o’ the Devil to mell with the tower now.” And the long knave laughed.
‘“Ah! ’tis easy enow for you to raise the Devil, Will,” says another – Ralph Hobden from the Forge.
‘“Aaa-men!” roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the stairs – won’erful devilish-like – howling no bounds. He had scarce time to lay out for the nearest than they ran. Saints, how they ran! We heard them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too.
‘“What’s next?” says Sebastian, looping up his cow-tail as he leaped the briars. “I’ve broke honest John’s face.”
‘“Ride to Sir John Pelham’s,” I said. “He is the only one that ever stood by me.”
‘We rode to Brightling, and past Sir John’s lodges, where the keepers would have shot at us for deer-stealers, and we had Sir John down into his Justice’s chair, and when we had told him our tale and showed him the cow-hide which Sebastian wore still girt about him, he laughed till the tears ran.
‘“Wel-a-well!” he says. “I’ll see justice done before daylight. What’s your complaint? Master Collins is my old friend.”
‘“He’s none of mine,” I cried. “When I think how he and his likes have baulked and dozened and cozened me at every turn over the church” – and I choked at the thought.
‘“Ah, but ye see now they needed it for another use,” says he, smoothly.
‘“So they did my serpentines,” Sebastian cries. “I should be half across the Western Ocean by this if my guns had been ready. But they’re sold to a Scotch pirate by your old friend.”
‘“Where’s your proof?” says Sir John, stroking his beard.
‘“I broke my shins over them not an hour since, and I heard John give order where they were to be taken,” says Sebastian.
‘“Words! Words only,” says Sir John. “Master Collins is somewhat of a liar at best.”
‘He carried it so gravely, that for the moment, I thought he was dipped in this secret traffick too, and that there was not an honest ironmaster in Sussex.
‘“Name o’ Reason!” says Sebastian, and raps with his cow-tail on the table, “Whose guns are they, then?”
‘“Yours, manifestly,” says Sir John. “You come with the King’s Order for ’em, and Master Collins casts them in his foundry. If he chooses to bring them up from Nether Forge and lay ’em out in the church tower, why they are e’en so much the nearer to the main road and you are saved a day’s hauling. What a coil to make of a mere act of neighbourly kindness, lad!”
‘“I fear I have requited him very scurvily,” says Sebastian, looking at his knuckles. “But what of the demi-cannon? I could do with ’em well, but they are not in the King’s Order.”
‘“Kindness – loving-kindness,” says Sir John. “Questionless, in his zeal for the King and his love for you, John adds those two cannon as a gift. ’Tis plain as this coming daylight, ye stockfish!”
‘“So it is,” says Sebastian. “Oh, Sir John, Sir John, why did you never use the sea? You are lost ashore.” And he looked on him with great love.
‘“I do my best in my station.” Sir John strokes his beard again and rolls forth his deep drumming Justice’s voice thus: – “But – suffer me! – you two lads, on some midnight frolic into which I probe not, roystering around the taverns, surprise Master Collins at his” – he thinks a moment – “at his good deeds done by stealth. Ye surprise him, I say, cruelly.”
‘“Truth, Sir John. If you had seen him run!” says Sebastian.
‘“On this you ride breakneck to me with a tale of pirates, and wool-wains, and cow-hides, which, though it hath moved my mirth as a man, offendeth my reason as a magistrate. So I will e’en accompany you back to the tower with, perhaps, some few of my own people, and three to four wagons, and I’ll be your warrant that Master John Collins will freely give you your guns and your demi-cannon, Master Sebastian.” He breaks into his proper voice – “I warned the old tod and his neighbours long ago that they’d come to trouble with their side-sellings and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex hanged for a little gun-running. Are ye content, lads?”
‘“I’d commit any treason for two demi-cannon,” said Sebastian, and rubs his hands.
‘“Ye have just compounded with rank treason-felony for the same bribe,” says Sir John. “Wherefore to horse, and get the guns.”’
‘But Master Collins meant the guns for Sir Andrew Barton all along, didn’t he?’ said Dan.
‘Questionless, that he did,’ said Hal. ‘But he lost them. We poured into the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to triumph over the jest, blowing: Our King went forth to Normandie. When we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, ’twas for all the world like Friar Roger’s picture of the French siege in the Queen’s Missal-book.’
‘And what did we – I mean, what did our village do?’ said Dan.
‘Oh! Bore it nobly – nobly,’ cried Hal. ‘Though they had tricked me, I was proud of us. They came out of their housen, looked at that little army as though it had been a post, and went their shut-mouthed way. Never a sign! Never a word! They’d ha’ perished sooner than let Brightling overcrow us. Even that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of the Bell for his morning ale, he all but ran under Sir John’s horse.
‘“Ware, Sirrah Devil!” cries Sir John, reining back.
‘“Oh!” says Will. “Market day, is it? And all the bullocks from Brightling here?”
‘I spared him his belting for that – the brazen knave!
‘But John Collins was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw tied up where Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the first demi-cannon through the lych-gate.
‘“I reckon you’ll find her middlin’ heavy,” he says. “If you’ve a mind to pay, I’ll loan ye my timber-tug. She won’t lie easy on ary wool-wain.”
‘That was the one time I ever saw Sebastian taken flat aback. He opened and shut his mouth, fishy-like.
‘“No offence,” says Master John. “You’ve got her reasonable good cheap. I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I help move her.” Ah, he was a masterpiece! They say that morning’s work cost our John two hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the guns all carted off to Lewes.’
‘Neither then nor later?’ said Puck.
‘Once. ’Twas after he gave St. Barnabas the new chime of bells. (Oh, there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the Fanners would not do for the church then! “Ask and have” was their song.) We had rung ’em in, and he was in the tower with Black Nick Fowle, that gave us our rood-screen. The old man pinches the bell-rope one hand and scratches his neck with t’other. “Sooner she was pulling yon clapper than my neck,” he says. That was all! That was Sussex – seely Sussex for everlastin’!’
‘And what happened after?’ said Una.
‘I went back into England,’ said Hal, slowly. ‘I’d had my lesson against pride. But they tell me I left St. Barnabas’s a jewel – just about a jewel! Wel-a-well! ’Twas done for and among my own people, and – Father Roger was right – I never knew such trouble or such triumph since. That’s the nature o’ things. A dear – dear land.’ He dropped his chin on his chest.
‘There’s your Father at the Forge. What’s he talking to old Hobden about?’ said Puck, opening his hand with three leaves in it.
Dan looked towards the cottage.
‘Oh, I know. It’s that old oak lying across the brook. Pater always wants it grubbed.’
In the still valley they could hear old Hobden’s deep tones.
‘Have it as you’ve a mind to,’ he was saying. ‘But the vivers of her roots they hold the bank together. If you grub her out, the bank she’ll all come tearin’ down, an’ next floods the brook’ll swarve up. But have it as you’ve a mind. The mistuss she sets a heap by the ferns on her trunk.’
‘Oh! I’ll think it over,’ said the Pater.
Una laughed a little bubbling chuckle.
‘What Devil’s in that belfry?’ said Hal, with a lazy laugh. ‘That should be Hobden by his voice.’
‘Why, the oak is the regular bridge for all the rabbits between the Three Acre and our meadow. The best place for wires on the farm, Hobden says. He’s got two there now,’ Una answered. ‘He won’t ever let it be grubbed!’
‘Ah, Sussex! Silly Sussex for everlastin’,’ murmured Hal; and the next moment their Father’s voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the spell as St. Barnabas’s clock struck five.
SMUGGLERS’ SONG
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark;
Brandy for the Parson,
’Baccy for the Clerk
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandywined;
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor take ’em for your play;
Put the brishwood back again, – and they’ll be gone next day!
If you see the stableyard setting open wide;
If you see a tied horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining’s wet and warm – don’t you ask no more!
If you meet King George’s men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you ’pretty maid,’ and chuck you ’neath the chin,
Don’t you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one’s been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house – whistles after dark —
You’ve no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty’s here, and Pincher’s here, and see how dumb they lie —
They don’t fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you’ve been told, likely there’s a chance,
You’ll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood —
A present from the Gentlemen, along o’ being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the Park —
Brandy for the Parson,
’Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
‘DYMCHURCH FLIT’
THE BEE BOY’S SONG
Bees! Bees! Hark to the Bees!
‘Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened to us you must tell!
Or else we will give you no honey to sell.’
A maiden in her glory,
Upon her wedding-day,
Must tell her Bees the story,
Or else they’ll fly away.
Fly away – die away —
Dwindle down and leave you!
But if you don’t deceive your Bees,
Your Bees will not deceive you! —
Marriage, birth or buryin’,
News across the seas,
All you’re sad or merry in,
You must tell the Bees.
Tell ’em coming in an’ out,
Where the Fanners fan,
’Cause the Bees are justabout
As curious as a man!
Don’t you wait where trees are,
When the lightnings play;
Nor don’t you hate where Bees are,
Or else they’ll pine away.
Pine away – dwine away —
Anything to leave you!
But if you never grieve your Bees,
Your Bees’ll never grieve you.
‘DYMCHURCH FLIT’
Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing. Dan and Una, who had been picking after their lessons, marched off to roast potatoes at the oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, his lurcher-dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops.
They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal, packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day’s end, and he lit the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because they knew them so well.
The Bee Boy, Hobden’s son, who is not quite right in his head, though he can do anything with bees, slipped in like a shadow. They only guessed it when Bess’s stump-tail wagged against them.
A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle: —
‘Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead,
She heard the hops were doing well, and then popped up her head.’
‘There can’t be two people made to holler like that!’ cried old Hobden, wheeling round.
‘For, says she, “The boys I’ve picked with when I was young and fair,
They’re bound to be at hoppin’, and I’m – ”’
A man showed at the doorway.
‘Well, well! They do say hoppin’ll draw the very deadest; and now I belieft ’em. You, Tom? Tom Shoesmith!’ Hobden lowered his lanthorn.
‘You’re a hem of a time makin’ your mind to it, Ralph!’ The stranger strode in – three full inches taller than Hobden, a grey-whiskered, brown-faced giant with clear blue eyes. They shook hands, and the children could hear the hard palms rasp together.
‘You ain’t lost none o’ your grip,’ said Hobden. ‘Was it thirty or forty year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?’
‘Only thirty, an’ no odds ’tween us regardin’ heads, neither. You had it back at me with a hop-pole. How did we get home that night? Swimmin’?’
‘Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs’s pocket – by a little luck an’ a deal o’ conjurin’.’ Old Hobden laughed in his deep chest.
‘I see you’ve not forgot your way about the woods. D’ye do any o’ this still?’ The stranger pretended to look along a gun.
Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand as though he were pegging down a rabbit-wire.
‘No. That’s all that’s left me now. Age she must as Age she can. An’ what’s your news since all these years?’
‘Oh, I’ve bin to Plymouth, I’ve bin to Dover —
I’ve bin ramblin’, boys, the wide world over,’
the man answered cheerily. ‘I reckon I know as much of Old England as most.’ He turned towards the children and winked boldly.
‘I lay they told you a sight o’ lies, then. I’ve been into England fur as Wiltsheer once. I was cheated proper over a pair of hedging-gloves,’ said Hobden.
‘There’s fancy-talkin’ everywhere. You’ve cleaved to your own parts pretty middlin’ close, Ralph.’
‘Can’t shift an old tree ’thout it dyin’,’ Hobden chuckled. ‘An’ I be no more anxious to die than you look to be to help me with my hops to-night.’
The great man leaned against the brickwork of the roundel, and swung his arms abroad. ‘Hire me!’ was all he said, and they stumped upstairs laughing.
The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth where the yellow hops lie drying above the fires, and all the oast-house filled with the sweet, sleepy smell as they were turned.
‘Who is it?’ Una whispered to the Bee Boy.
‘Dunno, no more’n you – if you dunno,’ said he, and smiled.
The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled together, and the heavy footsteps went back and forth. Presently a hop-pocket dropped through the press-hole overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they shovelled it full. ‘Clank!’ went the press, and rammed the loose stuff into tight cake.
‘Gently!’ they heard Hobden cry. ‘You’ll bust her crop if you lay on so. You be as careless as Gleason’s bull, Tom. Come an’ sit by the fires. She’ll do now.’
They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter to see if the potatoes were done Tom Shoesmith said to the children, ‘Put a plenty salt on ’em. That’ll show you the sort o’ man I be.’ Again he winked, and again the Bee Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan.
‘I know what sort o’ man you be,’ old Hobden grunted, groping for the potatoes round the fire.
‘Do ye?’ Tom went on behind his back. ‘Some of us can’t abide Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running Water; an’, talkin’ o’ runnin’ water’ – he turned to Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel – ‘d’you mind the great floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller’s man was drowned in the street?’
‘Middlin’ well.’ Old Hobden let himself down on the coals by the fire door. ‘I was courtin’ my woman on the Marsh that year. Carter to Mus’ Plum I was – gettin’ ten shillin’s week. Mine was a Marsh woman.’
‘Won’erful odd-gates place – Romney Marsh,’ said Tom Shoesmith. ‘I’ve heard say the world’s divided like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky, Australy, an’ Romney Marsh.’
‘The Marsh folk think so,’ said Hobden. ‘I had a hem o’ trouble to get my woman to leave it.’
‘Where did she come out of? I’ve forgot, Ralph.’
‘Dymchurch under the Wall,’ Hobden answered, a potato in his hand.
‘Then she’d be a Pett – or a Whitgift, would she?’
‘Whitgift.’ Hobden broke open the potato and ate it with the curious neatness of men who make most of their meals in the blowy open. ‘She growed to be quite reasonable-like after livin’ in the Weald awhile, but our first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no bounds. And she was a won’erful hand with bees.’ He cut away a little piece of potato and threw it out to the door.
‘Ah! I’ve heard say the Whitgifts could see further through a millstone than most,’ said Shoesmith. ‘Did she, now?’
‘She was honest-innocent, of any nigromancin’,’ said Hobden. ‘Only she’d read signs and sinnifications out o’ birds flyin’, stars fallin’, bees hivin’, and such. An’ she’d lie awake – listenin’ for calls, she said.’
‘That don’t prove naught,’ said Tom. ‘All Marsh folk has been smugglers since time everlastin’. ’Twould be in her blood to listen out o’ nights.’
‘Nature-ally,’ old Hobden replied, smiling. ‘I mind when there was smugglin’ a sight nearer us than the Marsh be. But that wasn’t my woman’s trouble. ’Twas a passel o’ no-sense talk,’ he dropped his voice, ‘about Pharisees.’
‘Yes. I’ve heard Marsh men beleft in ’em.’ Tom looked straight at the wide-eyed children beside Bess.
‘Pharisees,’ cried Una. ‘Fairies? Oh, I see!’
‘People o’ the Hills,’ said the Bee Boy, throwing half of his potato towards the door.
‘There you be!’ said Hobden, pointing at him. ‘My boy, he has her eyes and her out-gate senses. That’s what she called ’em!’
‘And what did you think of it all?’
‘Um – um,’ Hobden rumbled. ‘A man that uses fields an’ shaws after dark as much as I’ve done, he don’t go out of his road excep’ for keepers.’
‘But settin’ that aside?’ said Tom, coaxingly. ‘I saw ye throw the Good Piece out-at doors just now. Do ye believe or —do ye?’
‘There was a great black eye to that tater,’ said Hobden, indignantly.
‘My liddle eye didn’t see un, then. It looked as if you meant it for – for Any One that might need it. But settin’ that aside. D’ye believe or —do ye?’
‘I ain’t sayin’ nothin’, because I’ve heard naught, an’ I’ve seen naught. But if you was to say there was more things after dark in the shaws than men, or fur, or feather, or fin, I dunno as I’d go farabout to call you a liar. Now turn again, Tom. What’s your say?’
‘I’m like you. I say nothin’. But I’ll tell you a tale, an’ you can fit it as how you please.’
‘Passel o’ no-sense stuff,’ growled Hobden, but he filled his pipe.
‘The Marsh men they call it Dymchurch Flit,’ Tom went on slowly. ‘Hap you’ve heard it?’
‘My woman she’ve told it me scores o’ times. Dunno as I didn’t end by belieft in’ it – sometimes.’
Hobden crossed over as he spoke, and sucked with his pipe at the yellow lanthorn-flame. Tom rested one great elbow on one great knee, where he sat among the coal.
‘Have you ever bin in the Marsh?’ he said to Dan.
‘Only as far as Rye, once,’ Dan answered.
‘Ah, that’s but the edge. Back behind of her there’s steeples settin’ beside churches, an’ wise women settin’ beside their doors, an’ the sea settin’ above the land, an’ ducks herdin’ wild in the diks’ (he meant ditches). ‘The Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an’ sluices, an’ tide-gates an’ water-lets. You can hear em’ bubblin’ an’ grummelin’ when the tide works in em’, an’ then you hear the sea rangin’ left and right-handed all up along the Wall. You’ve seen how flat she is – the Marsh? You’d think nothin’ easier than to walk eend-on acrost her? Ah, but the diks an’ the water-lets, they twists the roads about as ravelly as witch-yarn on the spindles. So ye get all turned round in broad daylight.’
‘That’s because they’ve dreened the waters into the diks,’ said Hobden. ‘When I courted my woman the rushes was green – Eh me! the rushes was green – an’ the Bailiff o’ the Marshes, he rode up and down as free as the fog.’
‘Who was he?’ said Dan.
‘Why, the Marsh fever an’ ague. He’ve clapped me on the shoulder once or twice till I shook proper. But now the dreenin’ off of the waters have done away with the fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff o’ the Marshes broke his neck in a dik. A won’erful place for bees an’ ducks ’tis too.’
‘An’ old!’ Tom went on. ‘Flesh an’ Blood have been there since Time Everlastin’ Beyond. Well, now, speakin’ among themselves, the Marshmen say that from Time Everlastin’ Beyond the Pharisees favoured the Marsh above the rest of Old England. I lay the Marshmen ought to know. They’ve been out after dark, father an’ son, smugglin’ some one thing or t’other, since ever wool grew to sheep’s backs. They say there was always a middlin’ few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh. Impident as rabbits, they was. They’d dance on the nakid roads in the nakid daytime; they’d flash their liddle green lights along the diks, comin’ an’ goin’, like honest smugglers. Yes, an’ times they’d lock the church doors against parson an’ clerk of Sundays!’
‘That ’ud be smugglers layin’ in the lace or the brandy till they could run it out o’ the Marsh. I’ve told my woman so,’ said Hobden.
‘I’ll lay she didn’t beleft it, then – not if she was a Whitgift. A won’erful choice place for Pharisees, the Marsh, by all accounts, till Queen Bess’s father he come in with his Reformatories.’
‘Would that be a Act o’ Parliament like?’ Hobden asked.
‘Sure-ly! ’Can’t do nothing in Old England without Act, Warrant, an’ Summons. He got his Act allowed him, an’, they say, Queen Bess’s father he used the parish churches something shameful. Justabout tore the gizzards out of I dunnamany. Some folk in England they held with ’en; but some they saw it different, an’ it eended in ’em takin’ sides an’ burnin’ each other no bounds, accordin’ which side was top, time bein’. That tarrified the Pharisees: for Goodwill among Flesh an’ Blood is meat an’ drink to ’em, an’ ill-will is poison.’
‘Same as bees,’ said the Bee Boy. ‘Bees won’t stay by a house where there’s hating.’
‘True,’ said Tom. ‘This Reformations tarrified the Pharisees same as the reaper goin’ round a last stand o’ wheat tarrifies rabbits. They packed into the Marsh from all parts, and they says, “Fair or foul, we must flit out o’ this, for Merry England’s done with, an’ we’re reckoned among the Images.”’
‘Did they all see it that way?’ said Hobden.
‘All but one that was called Robin – if you’ve heard of him. What are you laughing at?’ Tom turned to Dan. ‘The Pharisees’s trouble didn’t tech Robin, because he’d cleaved middlin’ close to people like. No more he never meant to go out of Old England – not he; so he was sent messagin’ for help among Flesh an’ Blood. But Flesh an’ Blood must always think of their own concerns, an’ Robin couldn’t get through at ’em, ye see. They thought it was tide-echoes off the Marsh.’
‘What did you – what did the fai – Pharisees want?’ Una asked.
‘A boat to be sure. Their liddle wings could no more cross Channel than so many tired butterflies. A boat an’ a crew they desired to sail ’em over to France, where yet awhile folks hadn’t tore down the Images. They couldn’t abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin’ to Bulverhithe for more pore men an’ women to be burnded, nor the King’s proud messenger ridin’ through the land givin’ orders to tear down the Images. They couldn’t abide it no shape. Nor yet they couldn’t get their boat an’ crew to flit by without Leave an’ Good-will from Flesh an’ Blood; an’ Flesh an’ Blood came an’ went about its own business the while the Marsh was swarvin’ up, an’ swarvin’ up with Pharisees from all England over, striving all means to get through at Flesh an’ Blood to tell ’en their sore need… I don’t know as you’ve ever heard say Pharisees are like chickens?’
‘My woman used to say that too,’ said Hobden, folding his brown arms.
‘They be. You run too many chickens together, an’ the ground sickens like, an’ you get a squat, an’ your chickens die. ’Same way, you crowd Pharisees all in one place —they don’t die, but Flesh an’ Blood walkin’ among ’em is apt to sick up an’ pine off. They don’t mean it, an’ Flesh an’ Blood don’t know it, but that’s the truth – as I’ve heard. The Pharisees through bein’ all stenched up an’ frighted, an’ tryin’ to come through with their supplications, they nature-ally changed the thin airs and humours in Flesh an’ Blood. It lay on the Marsh like thunder. Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire in the windows after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin’ and no man scarin’; their sheep flockin’ and no man drivin’; their horses latherin’ an’ no man leadin’; they saw the liddle low green lights more than ever in the dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin’ more than ever round the houses; an’ night an’ day, day an’ night, ’twas all as though they were bein’ creeped up on, and hinted at by some One or Other that couldn’t rightly shape their trouble. Oh, I lay they sweated! Man an’ maid, woman an’ child, their Nature done ’em no service all the weeks while the Marsh was swarvin’ up with Pharisees. But they was Flesh an’ Blood, an’ Marsh men before all. They reckoned the signs sinnified trouble for the Marsh. Or that the sea ’ud rear up against Dymchurch Wall an’ they’d be drownded like Old Winchelsea; or that the Plague was comin’. So they looked for the meanin’ in the sea or in the clouds – far an’ high up. They never thought to look near an’ knee-high, where they could see naught.
