Furze the Cruel Part 33

Boodles jumped up, pattered to the window, and flung aside the curtains.

The room was flooded at once with moonlight, and she could feel the wind coming through the c.h.i.n.ks. Weevil looked up patiently, and she saw his weary old eyes and wrinkled face, ghastly in that light. It struck her he was looking very worn and ill.

"You are dreadful tired," she said very tenderly.

"Yes, Boodles, the noise of the wind makes me feel very tired."

"I am not Boodles now. That was my baby-name. I am t.i.ta. And the others--Katherine, Mary--what are the rest?"

"I don't know, dear. I will try and think to-morrow."

"I won't tease you, but there is so much I want to know. Poor great big old grand-daddy-man, you look quite dead."

He shuffled towards her, put his arms round her, and began to make noises as if he was in pain. "I am tired and weak. That is all, darling, and the rabbit in the trap made me sick. I am weak and old and very tired, and I know I have done no good in my life. Shut it out, my maid--shut it out."

It was the prospect which he wanted shut out. They could see the bare stretch of moor, upon it the moon s.h.i.+ning, and over it the wind rus.h.i.+ng.

There is nothing more dreary than a windy moonlit night upon the moor, filled with its own emptiness of sound, suggestive of wild motion and yet motionless, covered with light that is not light.

"It is like a lonely life," said Weevil bitterly.

Boodles dropped the curtains and tried to laugh. She did not like the look on the old man's face.

"The lonely life has gone," she said. "Now we will have some light."

Weevil shuffled after her, muttering to himself: "You have done it, Abel-Cain. You must keep it up. You must hold the Brute off her somehow, or she may have to go out, into the windy moonlight, into the lonely life."

CHAPTER XIX

ABOUT THE GOOD RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWs.h.i.+P

One of the creeping-things to be crushed at the forthcoming a.s.sizes was Brightly. Ju had been already stamped out of existence, and it was meet and right that the little man should follow her example, and be placed behind some stone walls where it would be impossible for him to drag l.u.s.ty farmers from their horses and half-murder them for the sake of their clothes. Brightly had not long to wait in prison. Exeter put on the full panoply of the law during the first week of November; scarlet and gold were flourished; trumpeters and a special preacher brayed; bells clanged, the small grocer and the candle-maker were summoned to serve on the jury, to fail not at their peril, lawyers buzzed everywhere, and a lot of money was spent just because Brightly and a few poor yokels had misconducted themselves. It was a curious sort of net, this a.s.size net; it was constructed and cast in such a manner that it permitted a lot of coa.r.s.e fish and golden carp to escape through its meshes, while all the little tadpoles and mud-grubbers were caught and held.

One of the coa.r.s.e fish to swim into the judicial circuit was Pendoggat.

He came to Exeter, partly that he might spend a portion of the capital of the Nickel Mining Company, and partly that he might visit the Guildhall to see sinners punished. Pendoggat had a keen sense of justice and a certain amount of dull humour. The a.s.sizes represented to him a foreshadowing of the fiery pleasures of h.e.l.l--they were a pleasure to his mind because he was secure from them--and it amused him to think that another man was going to suffer for his wrongdoing. The idea that he was a sinner had never occurred to him. He had stripped Chegwidden, and flung him into the furze, because the wind had swept upon him, urging him to persecute the unconscious man, and he had obeyed. He had not robbed Chegwidden, nor had he stolen his clothes; and that was the princ.i.p.al charge against Brightly. If he had stood up in court, and confessed that he had dragged the farmer from his horse and stolen his clothes, he would have been telling a lie, which would have been painful to him. Brightly was not charged with finding Chegwidden unconscious, stripping the clothes from him, and throwing them down a wheal. Had that been the charge against him Pendoggat would probably have recognised that the purveyor of rabbit-skins was a good Christian, who had learnt the great principles of the gospel, and was willing to sacrifice himself for another. The mind of Pendoggat when it turned towards theology became incomprehensible.

The weather was changing into winter and there was a smell of snow upon the moor. Pendoggat had played his game, and so far as he could see had won it. The success was not brilliant, because the people of Bromley had proved to be a stingy set, and the amount of money subscribed for the mining venture did not reach three hundred pounds. The chairman of the company, Pezzack's retired grocer-uncle, who had after repeated failures at last discovered how to spell the word committee, was continually writing to know when the first consignment of ore was to be placed on the market, and, what was of far greater importance, when the first dividend might be expected. Pendoggat as frequently replied, through the agency of Pezzack, that operations could not be commenced until spring, as the climate of Dartmoor was not the same as that of Bromley; but the grocer could not understand, and went on writing. He appeared to think that nickel was like the inferior American and disreputable margarine--which in his business had been labelled respectively prime Cheddar and best b.u.t.ter--and would not keep. The little grocer deserved to lose his money, though he was eminently respectable. His position proved it, as only men of a.s.sured respectability can make enough money to retire and purchase a little suburban villa, with such modern improvements as walls one brick thick, roofs of thin plaster, and defective drainage. His front doorstep was whitened daily. His parlour window was heavily curtained, and in it were geraniums and ferns further to attest respectability; and behind the curtains and floral display was a chamber crowded with stately furniture. All was very beautiful in front, and very dirty behind. The display in front was for the benefit of the road. The negligence and dirt behind were only visible from the railway. It was best b.u.t.ter according to the parlour window, and disreputable margarine judging by the testimony of the back-yard.

Queer objects of the country had come from all parts of Devon to a.s.sert their intelligence as witnesses in the various trials. Peter was a witness in the Brightly case, Peter who had comforted his system with many a pint of beer, paid for with Chegwidden's money, and was then enjoying himself at the expense of the country, although he had taken the opportunity to get his railway fare from Mary. Peter was not only travelling again, but he was princ.i.p.al witness, as he had discovered Chegwidden lying unconscious and fully dressed upon the road; and Peter did not underestimate his importance.

Brightly had not been fortunate of late, but luck was to turn his way a little at the trial. No doubt sentences upon small prisoners depend very much upon the state of his lords.h.i.+p's liver. A bottle of corked wine, or a burnt soup, may quite possibly mean another couple of months to the man in the dock. Mercy is supposed to have its lodging somewhere in the bowels, and if they are out of order, or offended by inferior cookery, mercy may conceivably be out of order too. The judge upon this occasion was in a robust state of health. His wine had not been corked, nor had his soup been burnt, and he was quite in the mood to temper the panoply of the law with a playful kind of mercy which presented counsel with several somewhat obsolete jokes and one new pun. When Brightly appeared another pun was instantly forthcoming upon his name. His lords.h.i.+p had at once a kindly feeling for the prisoner who had contributed towards the maintenance of his own reputation as a humorist; and he was soon saying that it was absurd to suppose that such a poor creature could be guilty of robbery with violence against the person of a strong man like Farmer Chegwidden.

A very able young barrister defended Brightly at the request of the judge, a youngster recently called, who had every inducement to do his best. That was Brightly's second bit of luck. The health of the judge was perfect, and he had been allotted a strong advocate, although he could not understand why the gentleman took such an interest in him and tried so hard to get him off. The fat constable and the other witnesses were given a melancholy time by the young barrister, who treated them all very much as Pendoggat had treated Chegwidden. He stripped the lies off them and left them s.h.i.+vering in the strangeness of the truth. Peter was a difficult witness at first, but after a few minutes counsel could probably have made him swear that when he had discovered Chegwidden the farmer was undressing himself with a view to taking a bath.

"In what condition was he when you found him lying upon the road?" asked counsel.

"Mazed," replied Peter. "Same as I be," he muttered.

"Was he drunk?"

"No," said Peter stoutly.

"Do you know a drunken man when you see one?"

Peter thought he did, but was not certain. They were common objects, and as long as a man could proceed from one place to another, and shout occasionally, he was, according to Peter, a fairly sober person.

"Do you suppose he had fallen from his horse and stunned himself?"

"Likely," said Peter. "He'm a cruel hard rider."

"You have often seen him galloping over the moor, in what some people might call a reckless way?"

"Seen 'en often," said Peter.

"Thursday evenings usually?" went on counsel, in a pleasant conversational manner.

Peter agreed that it was so.

"You know, of course, that it is the farmer's habit on these evenings to frequent some public-house; one night at Lydford, another at Brentor, and so on? There's nothing remarkable about that, but still you are well aware of it?"

Peter was.

"And you know what he goes there for? Everybody knows that. You know why you go to a public-house. You go to get beer, don't you?"

"I du," said Peter with some enthusiasm.

"Sometimes there is a gla.s.s too much, and you are not quite sure of the way home. That's only human nature. We all have our little failings.

When you have that gla.s.s too much you might ride 'cruel hard,' as you express it, over the moor, without caring whether you had a spill or not. Probably you would have a tumble. Chegwidden comes off pretty often, I believe?"

"More often that he used to du," mumbled Peter, not in the least knowing where he was being led.

"Well, that's natural enough. He's getting older and less confident.

Perhaps he drinks a bit harder too. A man can hardly find it easy to gallop over the rough moor when he is very drunk. Don't you feel surprised that Chegwidden has never hurt himself badly?"

Peter was not fl.u.s.tered then. Counsel was half-sitting on the edge of the table, talking so nicely that Peter began to regard him as an old friend, and thought he would like to drink a few gla.s.ses with this pleasant gentleman who, he fancied, had a distinctly convivial eye.

"'Tis just witchery," he said in a confidential manner, feeling he was in some bar-room, and the judge might be the landlord about to draw the beer. "He'm got a little charm to his watch-chain, and that makes 'en fall easy like."

"I suppose he hadn't got it on that night?"

"Forgot 'en, likely," said Peter with some regret, knowing that had Chegwidden been wearing the charm and chain he would have gained possession of them.

Counsel smiled at Peter, and the witness grinned back, with a feeling that he was adding to his acquaintances. The next question followed quite naturally--

"I suppose Chegwidden was pretty far gone that night. Now I want you to use your memory, and tell me if you have ever seen him more drunk than he was that night?"

"When us gets drunk us comes to a stop like," said Peter thoughtfully.

"Us gets no drunker," he explained to his new friend.