Chapter 11

LIBATION TO POMONA

A WINTER moon threw black shadows from stock and stone, tree and cot in the valley of the Teign. Heavy snow had fallen, and moor-men, coming down from the highlands, declared it to lie three feet deep in the drifts. Now fine, sharp weather had succeeded the storm, and hard frost held both hill and vale.

On Old Christmas Eve a party numbering some five-and-twenty persons assembled in the farmyard of Monks Barton, and Billy Blee, as master of the pending ceremonies, made them welcome. Some among them were aged, others youthful; indeed the company consisted mostly of old men and boys, a circumstance very easily understood when the nature of their enterprise is considered. The ancients were about to celebrate a venerable rite and sacrifice to a superstition, active in their boyhood, moribund at the date with which we are concerned, and to-day probably dead altogether. The sweet poet[2] of Dean Prior mentions this quaint, old-time custom of "christening" or "wassailing" the fruit-trees among Christmas-Eve ceremonies; and doubtless when he dwelt in Devon the use was gloriously maintained; but an adult generation in the years of this narrative had certainly refused it much support. It was left to their grandfathers and their sons; and thus senility and youth preponderated in the present company. For the boys, this midnight fun with lantern and fowling-piece was good Christmas sport, and they came readily enough; to the old men their ceremonial possessed solid value, and from the musty storehouse of his memory every venerable soul amongst them could cite instances of the sovereign virtue hid in such a procedure.

[2] _The sweet poet._

"Wassaile the trees, that they may beare You many a Plum, and many a Peare; For more or lesse fruites they will bring, As you doe give them Wassailing."

_Hesperides._

"A brave rally o' neighbours, sure 'nough," cried Mr. Blee as he appeared amongst them. "Be Gaffer Lezzard come?"

"Here, Billy."

"Hast thy fire-arm, Lezzard?"

"Ess, 't is here. My gran'son's carrying of it; but I holds the powder-flask an' caps, so no ruin be threatened to none."

Mr. Lezzard wore a black smock-frock, across the breast of which extended delicate and skilful needlework. His head was hidden under an old chimney-pot hat with a pea-cock's feather in it, and, against the cold, he had tied a tremendous woollen muffler round his neck and about his ears. The ends of it hung down over his coat, and the general effect of smock, comforter, gaitered shanks, boots tied up in straw, long nose, and shining spectacles, was that of some huge and ungainly bird, hopped from out a fairy-tale or a nightmare.

"Be Maister Chappie here likewise?" inquired Billy.

"I'm waitin'; an' I've got a fowling-piece, tu."

"That's gude then. I be gwaine to carry the auld blunderbuss what's been in Miller Lyddon's family since the years of his ancestors, and belonged to a coach-guard in the King's days. 'T is well suited to apple-christenin'. The cider's here, in three o' the biggest earth pitchers us'a' got, an' the lads is ready to bring it along. The Maister Grimbals, as will be related to the family presently, be comin' to see the custom, an' Miller wants every man to step back-along arterwards an' have a drop o' the best, 'cordin' to his usual gracious gudeness. Now, Lezzard, me an' you'll lead the way."

Mr. Blee then shouldered his ancient weapon, the other veteran marched beside him, and the rest of the company followed in the direction of Chagford Bridge. They proceeded across the fields; and along the procession bobbed a lantern or two, while a few boys carried flaring torches. The light from these killed the moonbeams within a narrow radius, shot black tongues of smoke into the clear air, and set the meadows glimmering redly where contending radiance of moon and fire powdered the virgin snow with diamond and ruby. Snake-like the party wound along beside the river. Dogs barked; voices rang clear on the crystal night; now and again, with laughter and shout, the lads raced hither and thither from their stolid elders, and here and there jackets carried the mark of a snowball. Behind the procession a trampled grey line stretched out under the moonlight. Then all passed like some dim, magic pageant of a dream; the distant dark blot of naked woodlands swallowed them up, and the voices grew faint and ceased. Only the endless song of the river sounded, with a new note struck into it by the world of snow.

For a few moments the valley was left empty, so empty that a fox, who had been prowling unsuccessfully about Monks Barton since dusk, took the opportunity to leave his hiding-place above the ducks' pool, cross the meadows, and get him home to his earth two miles distant. He slunk with pattering foot across the snow, marking his way by little regular paw-pits and one straight line where his brush roughened the surface. Steam puffed in jets from his muzzle, and his empty belly made him angry with the world. At the edge of the woods he lifted his head, and the moonlight touched his green eyes. Then he recorded a protest against Providence in one eerie bark, and so vanished, before the weird sound had died.

Phoebe Lyddon and her lover, having given the others some vantage of ground, followed them to their destination--Mr. Lyddon's famous orchard in Teign valley. The girl's dreary task of late had been to tell herself that she would surely love John Grimbal presently--love him as such a good man deserved to be loved. Only under the silence and in the loneliness of long nights, only in the small hours of day, when sleep would not come and pulses were weak, did Phoebe confess that contact with him hurt her, that his kisses made her giddy to sickness, that all his gifts put together were less to her than one treasure she was too weak to destroy--the last letter Will had written. Once or twice, not to her future husband, but to the miller, Phoebe had ventured faintly to question still the promise of this great step; but Mr. Lyddon quickly overruled all doubts, and assisted John Grimbal in his efforts to hasten the ceremony. Upon this day, Old Christmas Eve, the wedding-day lay not a month distant and, afterwards the husband designed to take his wife abroad for a trip to South Africa. Thus he would combine business and pleasure, and return in the spring to witness the completion of his house. Chagford highly approved the match, congratulated Phoebe on her fortune, and felt secretly gratified that a personage grown so important as John Grimbal should have chosen his life's partner from among the maidens of his native village.

Now the pair walked over the snow; and silent and stealthy as the vanished fox, a grey figure followed after them. Dim as some moon-spirit against the brightness, this shape stole forward under the rough hedge that formed a bank and threw a shadow between meadow and stream. In repose the grey man, for a man it was, looked far less substantial than the stationary outlines of fences and trees; and when he moved it had needed a keen eye to see him at all. He mingled with the moonlight and snow, and became a part of a strange inversion of ordinary conditions; for in this white, hushed world the shadows alone seemed solid and material in their black nakedness, in their keen sharpness of line and limit, while things concrete and ponderable shone out a silvery medley of snow-capped, misty traceries, vague of outline, uncertain of shape, magically changed as to their relations by the unfamiliar carpet now spread between them.

The grey figure kept Phoebe in sight, but followed a path of his own choosing. When she entered the woods he drew a little nearer, and thus followed, passing from shadow to shadow, scarce fifty yards behind.

Meanwhile the main procession approached the scene of its labours. Martin Grimbal, attracted by the prospect of reading this page from an old Devonian superstition, was of the company. He walked with Billy Blee and Gaffer Lezzard; and these high priests, well pleased at their junior's attitude towards the ceremony, opened their hearts to him upon it.

"'T is an ancient rite, auld as cider--maybe auld as Scripture, to, for anything I've heard to the contrary," said Mr. Lezzard.

"Ay, so 't is," declared Billy Blee, "an' a custom to little observed nowadays. But us might have better blooth in springtime an' braaver apples come autumn if the trees was christened more regular. You doan't see no gert stock of sizable apples best o' years now--li'l scrubbly auld things most times."

"An' the cider from 'em--poor roapy muck, awnly fit to make 'e thirst for better drink," criticised Gaffer Lezzard.

"'Tis this way: theer's gert virtue in cider put to apple-tree roots on this particular night, accordin' to the planets and such hidden things. Why so, I can't tell 'e, any more 'n anybody could tell 'e why the moon sails higher up the sky in winter than her do in summer; but so 't is. An' facts be facts. Why, theer's the auld 'Sam's Crab' tree in this very orchard we'm walkin' to. I knawed that tree three year ago to give a hogshead an' a half as near as damn it. That wan tree, mind, with no more than a few baskets of 'Redstreaks' added."

"An' a shy bearer most times, tu," added Mr. Lezzard.

"Just so; then come next year, by some mischance, me being indoors, if they didn't forget to christen un! An', burnish it all! theer wasn't fruit enough on the tree to fill your pockets!"

"Whether 't is the firing into the branches, or the cider to the roots does gude, be a matter of doubt," continued Mr. Lezzard; but the other authority would not admit this.

"They 'm like the halves of a flail, depend on it: wan no use wi'out t'other. Then theer's the singing of the auld song: who's gwaine to say that's the least part of it?"

"'T is the three pious acts thrawn together in wan gude deed," summed up Mr. Lezzard; "an' if they'd awnly let apples get ripe 'fore they break 'em, an' go back to the straw for straining, 'stead of these tom-fule, new-fangled hair-cloths, us might get tidy cider still."

By this time the gate of the orchard was reached; Gaffer Lezzard, Billy, and the other patriarch, Mr. Chapple,--a very fat old man,--loaded their weapons, and the perspiring cider-carriers set down their loads.

"Now, you bwoys, give awver runnin' 'bout like rabbits," cried out Mr. Chapple. "You 'm here to sing while us pours cider an' shoots in the trees; an' not a drop you'll have if you doan't give tongue proper, so I tell 'e."

At this rebuke the boys assembled, and there followed a hasty gabbling, to freshen the words in young and uncertain memories. Then a small vessel was dipped under floating toast, that covered the cider in the great pitchers, and the ceremony of christening the orchard began. Only the largest and most famous apple-bearers were thus saluted, for neither cider nor gunpowder sufficient to honour more than a fraction of the whole multitude existed in all Chagford. The orchard, viewed from the east, stretched in long lines, like the legions of some arboreal army; the moon set sparks and streaks of light on every snowy fork and bough; and at the northwestern foot of each tree a network of spidery shadow-patterns, sharp and black, extended upon the snow.

Mr. Blee himself made the first libation, led the first chorus, and fired the first shot. Steaming cider poured from his mug, vanished, sucked in at the tree-foot, and left a black patch upon the snow at the hole of the trunk; then he stuck a fragment of sodden toast on a twig; after which the christening song rang out upon the night--ragged at first, but settling into resolute swing and improved time as its music proceeded. The lusty treble of the youngsters soon drowned the notes of their grandfathers; for the boys took their measure at a pace beyond the power of Gaffer Lezzard and his generation, and sang with heart and voice to keep themselves warm. The song has variants, but this was their version--

"Here 's to thee, auld apple-tree, Be sure you bud, be sure you blaw, And bring forth apples good enough-- Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full, Pockets full and all-- Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full, Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Then Billy fired his blunderbuss, and a flame leapt from its bell mouth into the branches of the apple-tree, while surrounding high lands echoed its report with a reverberating bellow that rose and fell, and was flung from hill to hill, until it gradually faded upon the ear. The boys cheered again, everybody drank a drop of the cider, and from under a cloud of blue smoke, that hung flat as a pancake above them in the still air, all moved onward. Presently the party separated into three groups, each having a gunner to lead it, half a dozen boys to sing, and a dwindling jar of cider for the purposes of the ceremony. The divided choirs clashed their music, heard from a distance; the guns fired at intervals, each sending forth its own particular detonation and winning back a distinctive echo; then the companies separated widely and decreased to mere twinkling, torchlit points in the distance. Accumulated smoke from the scattered discharges hung in a sluggish haze between earth and moon, and a sharp smell of burnt powder tainted the sweetness of the frosty night.

Upon this scene arrived John Grirnbal and his sweetheart. They stood for a while at the open orchard gate, gazed at the remote illumination, and heard the distant song. Then they returned to discussion of their own affairs; while at hand, unseen, the grey watcher moved impatiently and anxiously. The thing he desired did not come about, and he blew on his cold hands and swore under his breath. Only an orchard hedge now separated them, and he might have listened to Phoebe's soft speech had he crept ten yards nearer, while John Grimbal's voice he could not help hearing from time to time. The big man was just asking a question not easy to answer, when an unexpected interruption saved Phoebe from the difficulty of any reply.

"Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you glum, my dear. Is it so? Haven't you forgot him yet?"

As he spoke an explosion, differing much in sound from those which continued to startle the night, rang suddenly out of the distance. It arose from a spot on the confines of the orchard, and was sharp in tone--sharp almost as the human cries which followed it. Then the distant lights hastened towards the theatre of the catastrophe. "What has happened?" cried Phoebe, thankful enough to snatch conversation away from herself and her affairs.

"Easy to guess. That broken report means a burst gun. One of those old fools has got excited, put too much powder into his blunderbuss and blown his head off, likely as not. No loss either!"

"Please, please go and see! Oh, if 'tis Billy Blee come to grief, faither will be lost. Do 'e run, Mr. Grimbal--Jan, I mean. If any grave matter's failed out, send them bwoys off red-hot for doctor."

"Stop here, then. If any ugly thing has happened, there need be no occasion for you to see it."

He departed hastily to where a distant galaxy of fiery eyes twinkled and tangled and moved this way and that, like the dying sparks on a piece of burnt paper.

Then the patient grey shadow, rewarded by chance at last, found his opportunity, slipped into the hedge just above Grimbal's sweetheart, and spoke to her.

"Phoebe, Phoebe Lyddon!"

The voice, dropping out of empty air as it seemed, made Phoebe jump, and almost fall; but there was an arm gripped round her, and a pair of hot lips on hers before she had time to open her mouth or cry a word.

"Will!"

"Ess, so I be, alive an' kicking. No time for anything but business now. I've followed 'e for this chance. Awnly heard four day ago 'bout the fix you'd been drove to. An' Clem's made it clear 't was all my damn silly silence to blame. I had a gert thought in me and wasn't gwaine to write till--but that's awver an' done, an' a purty kettle of feesh, tu. We must faace this coil first."

"Thank God, you can forgive me. I'd never have had courage to ax 'e."

"You was drove into it. I knaw there's awnly wan man in the world for 'e. Ban't nothin' to forgive. I never ought to have left 'e--a far-seein' man, same as me. Blast him! I'd like to tear thicky damned fur off you, for I lay it comed from him."

"They were killing me, Will; and never a word from you."

"I knaw, I knaw. What's wan girl against a parish full, an' a blustering chap made o' diamonds?"

"The things doan't warm me; they make me shiver. But now--you can forgive me--that's all I care for. What shall I do? How can I escape it? Oh, Will, say I can!"

"In coourse you can. Awnly wan way, though; an' that's why I'm here. Us must be married right on end. Then he's got no more power over 'e than a drowned worm, nor Miller, nor any."

"To think you can forgive me enough to marry me after all my wickedness! I never dreamed theer was such a big heart in the world as yourn."

"Why, we promised, didn't us? We'm built for each other. I knawed I'd only got to come. An' I have, at cost, tu, I promise 'e. Now we'll be upsides wi' this tramp from furrin paarts, if awnly you do ezacally what I be gwaine to tell you. I'd meant to write it, but I can speak it better as the chance has come."

Phoebe's heart glowed at this tremendous change in the position. She forgot everything before sight and sound of Will. The nature of her promises weakened to gossamer. Her first love was the only love for her, and his voice fortified her spirit and braced her nerves. A chance for happiness yet remained and she, who had endured enough, was strong in determination to win it yet at any cost if a woman could.

"If you awnly knawed the half I've suffered before they forced me, you'd forgive," she said. His frank pardon she could hardly realise. It seemed altogether beyond the desert of her weakness.

"Let that bide. It's the future now. Clem's told me everything. Awnly you and him an' Chris knaw I'm here. Chris will serve 'e. Us must play a hidden game, an' fight this Grimbal chap as he fought me--behind back. Listen; to-day fortnight you an' me 'm gwaine to be married afore the registrar to Newton Abbot. He 'm my awn Uncle Ford, as luck has it, an' quite o' my way o' thinkin' when I told him how 't was, an' that Jan Grimbal was gwaine to marry you against your will. He advised me, and I'm biding in Newton for next two weeks, so as the thing comes out right by law. But you've got to keep it still as death."

"If I could awnly fly this instant moment with 'e!"

"You caan't. 'T would spoil all. You must stop home, an' hear your banns put up with Grimbal, an' all the rest of it. Wish I could! Meat an' drink 't would be, by God! But he'll get his pay all right. An' afore the day comes, you nip off to Newton, an' I'll meet 'e, an' us'll be married in a wink, an' you'll be back home again to Monks Barton 'fore you knaw it."

"Is that the awnly way? Oh, Will, how terrible!"

"God knaws I've done worse 'n that. But no man's gwaine to steal the maid of my choosin' from me while I've got brains and body to prevent it."

"Let me look at you, lovey--just the same, just the same! 'Tis glorious to hear your voice again. But this thin coat, so butivul in shaape, tu! You 'm a gentleman by the look of it; but 't is summer wear, not winter."

"Ess, 'tis cold enough; an' I've got to get back to Newton to-night. An' never breathe that man's name no more. I'll shaw 'e wat 's a man an' what ban't. Steal my true love, would 'e?--God forgive un, I shaan't--not till we 'm man an' wife, anyway. Then I might. Give 'e up! Be I a chap as chaanges? Never--never yet."

Phoebe wept at these words and pressed Will to her heart.

"'Tis strength, an' fire, an' racing blood in me to hear 'e, dear, braave heart. I was that weak without 'e. Now the world 's a new plaace, an' I doan't doubt fust thought was right, for all they said. I'll meet 'e as you bid me, an' nothin' shall ever keep me from 'e now--nothing!"

"'T is well said, Phoebe; an' doan't let that anointed scamp kiss 'e more 'n he must. Be braave an' cunnin', an' keep Miller from smelling a rat. I'd like to smash that man myself now wheer he stands,--Grimbal I mean,--but us must be wise for the present. Wipe your shiny eyes an' keep a happy faace to 'em, an' never let wan of the lot dream what's hid in 'e. Cock your li'l nose high, an' be peart an' gay. An' let un buy you what he will,--'t is no odds; we can send his rubbish back again arter, when he knaws you'm another man's wife. Gude-bye, Phoebe dearie; I've done what 'peared to me a gert deed for love of 'e; but the sight of 'e brings it down into no mighty matter."

"You've saved my life, Will--saved all my days; an' while I've got a heart beating 't will be yourn, an' I'll work for 'e, an' slave for 'e, an' think for 'e, an' love 'e so long as I live--an' pray for 'e, tu, Will, my awn!"

He parted from her as she spoke, and she, by an inspiration, hurried towards the approaching crowd that the trampled marks of the snow where she had been standing might not be noted under the gleam of torches and lanterns.

John Grimbal's prophecy was happily not fulfilled in its gloomy completeness: nobody had blown his head off; but Billy Blee's prodigality of ammunition proved at last too much for the blunderbuss of the bygone coach-guard, and in its sudden annihilation a fragment had cut the gunner across the face, and a second inflicted a pretty deep flesh-wound on his arm. Neither injury was very serious, and the general escape, as John Grimbal pointed out, might be considered marvellous, for not a soul save Billy himself had been so much as scratched.

With Martin Grimbal on one side and Mr. Chapple upon the other, the wounded veteran walked slowly and solemnly along. The dramatic moments of the hour were dear to him, and while tolerably confident at the bottom of his mind that no vital hurt had been done, he openly declared himself stricken to death, and revelled in a display of Christian fortitude and resignation that deceived everybody but John Grimbal. Billy gasped and gurgled, bid them see to the bandages, and reviewed his past life with ingenuous satisfaction.

"Ah, sawls all! dead as a hammer in an hour. 'T is awver. I feel the life swelling out of me."

"Don't say that, Billy," cried Martin, in real concern. "The blood's stopped flowing entirely now."

"For why? Theer's no more to come. My heart be pumping wind, lifeless wind; my lung-play's gone, tu, an' my sight's come awver that coorious. Be Gaffer Lezzard nigh?"

"Here, alongside 'e, Bill."

"Gimme your hand then, an' let auld scores be wiped off in this shattering calamity. Us have differed wheer us could these twoscore years; but theer mustn't be no more ill-will wi' me tremblin' on the lip o' the graave."

"None at all; if 't wasn't for Widow Coomstock," said Gaffer Lezzard. "You 'm tu pushing theer, an' I say it even now, for truth's truth, though it be the last thing a man's ear holds."

"Break it to her gentle," said Billy, ignoring the other's criticism; "she'm on in years, and have cast a kindly eye awver me since the early sixties. My propositions never was more than agreeable conversation to her, but it might have come. Tell her theer's a world beyond marriage customs, an' us'll meet theer."

Old Lezzard showed a good deal of anger at this speech, but being in a minority fell back and held his peace.

"Would 'e like to see passon, dear sawl?" asked Mr. Chapple, who walked on Billy's left with his gun reversed, as though at a funeral.

"Me an' him be out, along o' rheumatics keeping me from the House of God this month," said the sufferer, "but at a solemn death-bed hour like this here, I'd soon see un as not. Ban't no gert odds, for I forgive all mankind, and doan't feel no more malice than a bird in a tree."

"You're a silly old ass," burst out Grimbal roughly. "There's nothing worth naming the matter with you, and you know it better than we do. The Devil looks after his own, seemingly. Any other man would have been killed ten times over."

Billy whined and even wept at this harsh reproof. "Ban't a very fair way to speak to an auld gunpowder-blawn piece, like what I be now," he said; "gormed if 't is."

"Very onhandsome of 'e, Mr. Grimbal," declared the stout Chappie; "an' you so young an' in the prime of life, tu!"

Here Phoebe met them, and Mr. Blee, observing the signs of tears upon her face, supposed that anxiety for him had wet her cheeks, and comforted his master's child.

"Doan't 'e give way, missy. 'T is all wan, an' I ban't 'feared of the tomb, as I've tawld 'em. Us must rot, every bone of us, in our season, an' 't is awnly the thought of it, not the fear of it, turns the stomach. But what's a wamblyness of the innards, so long as a body's sawl be ripe for God?"

"A walkin' sermon!" said Mr. Chappie.

Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so. He pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he needed to fortify his sinking spirit. The party ate and drank, raised a cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards. Only Mr. Chappie and Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some special sloe gin. Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy's lofty sentiments at the approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.

"'T is awnly my fearless disposition," declared the wounded man with great humility; "no partic'lar credit to me. I doan't care wan iotum for the thought of churchyard mould--not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude rich soil tu well; an' a man as grudges the rames[3] of hisself to the airth that's kept un threescore years an' ten's a carmudgeonly cuss, surely."

[3] _Rames_ = skeleton; remains.

"An' so say I; theer's true wisdom in it," declared Mr. Chapple, while the miller nodded.

"Theer be," concluded Gaffer Lezzard. "I allus sez, in my clenching way, that I doan't care a farden damn what happens to my bones, if my everlasting future be well thought on by passon. So long as I catch the eye of un an' see um beam 'pon me to church now an' again, I'm content with things as they are."

"As a saved sawl you 'm in so braave a way as the best; but, to say it without rudeness, as food for the land a man of your build be nought, Gaffer," argued Mr. Chapple, who viewed the veteran's withered anatomy from his own happy vantage ground of fifteen stone.

But Gaffer Lezzard would by no means allow this.

"Ban't quantity awnly tells, my son. 'T is the aluminium in a man's bones that fats land--roots or grass or corn. Anybody of larnin', 'll tell 'e that. Strip the belly off 'e, an', bone for bone, a lean man like me shaws as fair as you. No offence offered or taken, but a gross habit's mere clay and does more harm than gude underground."

Mr. Chapple in his turn resented this contemptuous dismissal of tissue as matter of no agricultural significance. The old men went wrangling home; Miller Lyddon and Billy retired to their beds; the moon departed behind the distant moors; and all the darkened valley slept in snow and starlight.