Chapter 6

‘“It’s cut one inch long for your every year,” Jerry said. “That’s sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I’ve said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints.”

“I haven’t any complaints, Jerry,” I said. “It’s only to please Cissie.”

‘“I know that as well as you do, dearie,” he said. And--and that was all that came of my going to give him a flogging. I wonder whether he made poor Troubadour shy when I lashed at him? Jerry has his ways of getting even with people.’

‘I wonder,’ said Una. ‘Well, did you try the charm? Did it work?’

‘What nonsense! I told Rene about it, of course, because he’s a doctor. He’s going to be a most famous doctor. That’s why our doctor hates him. Rene said, “Oho! Your Master Gamm, he is worth knowing,” and he put up his eyebrows--like this. He made joke of it all. He can see my window from the carpenter’s shed, where he works, and if ever the maple stick fell down, he pretended to be in a fearful taking till I propped the window up again. He used to ask me whether I had said my Apostles properly, and how I took my deep breaths. Oh yes, and the next day, though he had been there ever so many times before, he put on his new hat and paid Jerry Gamm a visit of state--as a fellow-physician. Jerry never guessed Rene was making fun of him, and so he told Rene about the sick people in the village, and how he cured them with herbs after Doctor Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers’ French, of course, and I had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn’t so shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn’t much to do, except to fiddle about in the carpenter’s shop. He’s like all the French prisoners--always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at his cottage, and so--and so--Rene took to being with Jerry much more than I approved of. The Hall is so big and empty when Dad’s away, and I will not sit with old Amoore--she talks so horridly about every one--specially about Rene.

‘I was rude to Rene, I’m afraid; but I was properly served out for it. One always is. You see, Dad went down to Hastings to pay his respects to the General who commanded the brigade there, and to bring him to the Hall afterwards. Dad told me he was a very brave soldier from India--he was Colonel of Dad’s Regiment, the Thirty-third Foot, after Dad left the Army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the other way about; and Dad said I was to get out all the silver for him, and I knew that meant a big dinner. So I sent down to the sea for early mackerel, and had such a morning in the kitchen and the store-rooms. Old Amoore nearly cried.

‘However, my dear, I made all my preparations in ample time, but the fish didn’t arrive--it never does--and I wanted Rene to ride to Pevensey and bring it himself. He had gone over to Jerry, of course, as he always used, unless I requested his presence beforehand. I can’t send for Rene every time I want him. He should be there. Now, don’t you ever do what I did, child, because it’s in the highest degree unladylike; but--but one of our Woods runs up to Jerry’s garden, and if you climb--it’s ungenteel, but I can climb like a kitten--there’s an old hollow oak just above the pigsty where you can hear and see everything below. Truthfully, I only went to tell Rene about the mackerel, but I saw him and Jerry sitting on the seat playing with wooden toy trumpets. So I slipped into the hollow, and choked down my cough, and listened. Rene had never shown me any of these trumpets.’

‘Trumpets? Aren’t you too old for trumpets?’ said Una.

‘They weren’t real trumpets, because Jerry opened his short-collar, and Rene put one end of his trumpet against Jerry’s chest, and put his ear to the other. Then Jerry put his trumpet against Rene’s chest, and listened while Rene breathed and coughed. I was afraid I would cough too.

‘“This hollywood one is the best,” said Jerry. “‘Tis won’erful like hearin’ a man’s soul whisperin’ in his innards; but unless I’ve a buzzin’ in my ears, Mosheur Lanark, you make much about the same kind o’ noises as old Gaffer Macklin--but not quite so loud as young Copper. It sounds like breakers on a reef--a long way off. Comprenny?”

‘“Perfectly,” said Rene. “I drive on the breakers. But before I strike, I shall save hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps, by my little trumpets. Now tell me what sounds the old Gaffer Macklin have made in his chest, and what the young Copper also.”

‘Jerry talked for nearly a quarter of an hour about sick people in the village, while Rene asked questions. Then he sighed, and said, “You explain very well, Monsieur Gamm, but if only I had your opportunities to listen for myself! Do you think these poor people would let me listen to them through my trumpet--for a little money? No?”--Rene’s as poor as a church mouse.

‘“They’d kill you, Mosheur. It’s all I can do to coax ‘em to abide it, and I’m Jerry Gamm,” said Jerry. He’s very proud of his attainments.

‘“Then these poor people are alarmed--No?” said Rene.

‘“They’ve had it in at me for some time back because o’ my tryin’ your trumpets on their sick; and I reckon by the talk at the alehouse they won’t stand much more. Tom Dunch an’ some of his kidney was drinkin’ themselves riot-ripe when I passed along after noon. Charms an’ mutterin’s an’ bits o’ red wool an’ black hens is in the way o’ nature to these fools, Mosheur; but anything likely to do ‘em real service is devil’s work by their estimation. If I was you, I’d go home before they come.” Jerry spoke quite quietly, and Rene shrugged his shoulders.

‘“I am prisoner on parole, Monsieur Gamm,” he said. “I have no home.”

‘Now that was unkind of Rene. He’s often told me that he looked on England as his home. I suppose it’s French politeness.

‘“Then we’ll talk o’ something that matters,” said Jerry. “Not to name no names, Mosheur Lanark, what might be your own opinion o’ some one who ain’t old Gaffer Macklin nor young Copper? Is that person better or worse?”

‘“Better--for time that is,” said Rene. He meant for the time being, but I never could teach him some phrases.

‘“I thought so too,” said Jerry. “But how about time to come?”

‘Rene shook his head, and then he blew his nose. You don’t know how odd a man looks blowing his nose when you are sitting directly above him.

‘“I’ve thought that too,” said Jerry. He rumbled so deep I could scarcely catch. “It don’t make much odds to me, because I’m old. But you’re young, Mosheur--you’re young,” and he put his hand on Rene’s knee, and Rene covered it with his hand. I didn’t know they were such friends.

‘“Thank you, mon ami,” said Rene. “I am much oblige. Let us return to our trumpet-making. But I forget”--he stood up--“it appears that you receive this afternoon!”

‘You can’t see into Gamm’s Lane from the oak, but the gate opened, and fat little Doctor Break stumped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen of our people following him, very drunk.

‘You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully.

‘“A word with you, Laennec,” said Doctor Break. “Jerry has been practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they’ve asked me to be arbiter.”

‘“Whatever that means, I reckon it’s safer than asking you to be doctor,” said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed.

‘“That ain’t right feeling of you, Tom,” Jerry said, “seeing how clever Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter.” Tom’s wife had died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor Break danced with rage.

‘“This is all beside the mark,” he said. “These good people are willing to testify that you’ve been impudently prying into God’s secrets by means of some papistical contrivance which this person”--he pointed to poor Rene--“has furnished you with. Why, here are the things themselves!” Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand.

‘Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet--they called it the devil’s ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on people’s skins, and dried up their lights, and made ‘em spit blood, and threw ‘em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a noise. I took advantage of it to cough.

‘Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one to Rene.

‘“Wait! Wait!” said Rene. “I will explain to the doctor if he permits.” He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, “Don’t touch it, Doctor! Don’t lay a hand to the thing.”

‘“Come, come!” said Rene. “You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?”

‘Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry’s pistol, and Rene followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked of la Gloire, and l’Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched jerry’s pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud.

‘“Now listen! Now listen!” said Rene. “This will be moneys in your pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich.”

‘Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn an honest living in their own country creeping into decent houses and taking advantage of gentlemen’s confidence to enrich themselves by base intrigues.

‘Rene dropped his absurd trumpet and made one of his best bows. I knew he was angry from the way he rolled his “r’s.”

‘“Ver-r-ry good,” said he. “For that I shall have much pleasure to kill you now and here. Monsieur Gamm,”--another bow to Jerry--“you will please lend him your pistol, or he shall have mine. I give you my word I know not which is best; and if he will choose a second from his friends over there”--another bow to our drunken yokels at the gate--“we will commence.”

‘“That’s fair enough,” said Jerry. “Tom Dunch, you owe it to the Doctor to be his second. Place your man.” ‘“No,” said Tom. “No mixin’ in gentry’s quarrels for me.” And he shook his head and went out, and the others followed him.

‘“Hold on,” said Jerry. “You’ve forgot what you set out to do up at the alehouse just now. You was goin’ to search me for witch-marks; you was goin’ to duck me in the pond; you was goin’ to drag all my bits o’ sticks out o’ my little cottage here. What’s the matter with you? Wouldn’t you like to be with your old woman tonight, Tom?”

‘But they didn’t even look back, much less come. They ran to the village alehouse like hares.

‘“No matter for these canaille,” said Rene, buttoning up his coat so as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad says--and he’s been out five times. “You shall be his second, Monsieur Gamm. Give him the pistol.”

‘Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever.

‘“As for that,” he said, “if you were not the ignorant which you are, you would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not for any living man.”

‘I don’t know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat, and choked him black.

‘Well, my dear, as if this wasn’t deliciously exciting enough, just exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of the hedge say, “What’s this? What’s this, Bucksteed?” and there was my father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening with all my ears.

‘I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty roof--another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall--and then I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of bark. Imagine the situation!’

‘Oh, I can!’ Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool.

‘Dad said, “Phil--a--del--phia!” and Sir Arthur Wesley said, “Good Ged” and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. But Rene was splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist Doctor Break’s neckcloth as fast as he’d twisted it, and asked him if he felt better.

‘“What’s happened? What’s happened?” said Dad.

‘“A fit!” said Rene. “I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear Doctor?” Doctor Break was very good too. He said, “I am vastly obliged, Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now.” And as he went out of the gate he told Dad it was a syncope--I think. Then Sir Arthur said, “Quite right, Bucksteed. Not another word! They are both gentlemen.” And he took off his cocked hat to Doctor Break and Rene.

‘But poor Dad wouldn’t let well alone. He kept saying, “Philadelphia, what does all this mean?”

‘“Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve only just come down. As far as I could see, it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure.” That was quite true--if you’d seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. “Not much change there, Bucksteed,” he said. “She’s a lady--a thorough lady.”

‘“Heaven knows she doesn’t look like one,” said poor Dad. “Go home, Philadelphia.”

‘So I went home, my dear--don’t laugh so!---right under Sir Arthur’s nose--a most enormous nose--feeling as though I were twelve years old, going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Una. ‘I’m getting on for thirteen. I’ve never been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been funny!’

‘Funny! If you’d heard Sir Arthur jerking out, “Good Ged, Bucksteed!” every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, ‘“‘Pon my honour, Arthur, I can’t account for it!” Oh, how my cheeks tingled when I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder. I had poor mother’s lace tucker and her coronet comb.’

‘Oh, you lucky!’ Una murmured. ‘And gloves?’

‘French kid, my dear’--Philadelphia patted her shoulder--‘and morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where my little bird’s-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, “I always send her to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall.”’

‘Oh, how chee--clever of you. What did he say?’ Una cried. ‘He said, “Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it,” and he toasted me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party--I suppose because a lady was present.’

‘Of course you were the lady. I wish I’d seen you,’ said Una.

‘I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and said, “I heard every word of it up in the tree.” You never saw two men so frightened in your life, and when I said, “What was ‘the subject of your remarks,’ Rene?” neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them unmercifully. They’d seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.’

‘But what was the subject of their remarks?’ said Una.

‘Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn’t my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London--I don’t always live in trees--for weeks; and I gave it them for a surprise.’

‘What was it?’ said Una. ‘Sing it.’

‘“I have given my heart to a flower.” Not very difficult fingering, but r-r-ravishing sentiment.’

Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat.

‘I’ve a deep voice for my age and size,’ she explained. ‘Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,’ and she began, her face all dark against the last of the soft pink sunset:

‘I have given my heart to a flower, Though I know it is fading away, Though I know it will live but an hour And leave me to mourn its decay!

‘Isn’t that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse--I wish I had my harp, dear--goes as low as my register will reach.’She drew in her chin, and took a deep breath:

‘Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave, I charge you be good to my dear! She is all--she is all that I have, And the time of our parting is near!’

‘Beautiful!’ said Una. ‘And did they like it?’ ‘Like it? They were overwhelmed--accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn’t seen it, I shouldn’t have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn’t endure it! He’s all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, “Assez, Mademoiselle! C’est plus fort que moi! Assez!” And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, “Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!” While Dad sat with the tears simply running down his cheeks.’

‘And what did Doctor Break do?’

‘He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.’

‘Oh, I wish I’d seen! I wish I’d been you,’ said Una, clasping her hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering cock-chafer flew smack against Una’s cheek.

When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her strain and pour off. ‘It didn’t matter,’ said Una; ‘I just waited. Is that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Vincey, listening. ‘It sounds more like a horse being galloped middlin’ quick through the woods; but there’s no road there. I reckon it’s one of Gleason’s colts loose. Shall I see you up to the house, Miss Una?’

‘Gracious, no! thank you. What’s going to hurt me?’ said Una, and she put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps that old Hobden kept open for her.

Brookland Road

I was very well pleased with what I knowed, I reckoned myself no fool-- Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road That turned me back to school.

Low down--low down! Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, And she can never be mine! ‘Twas right in the middest of a hot June night, With thunder duntin’ round, And I seed her face by the fairy light That beats from off the ground.

She only smiled and she never spoke, She smiled and went away; But when she’d gone my heart was broke, And my wits was clean astray.

Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be-- Let be, O Brookland bells! You’ll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea, Before I wed one else!

Old Goodman’s farm is rank sea sand, And was this thousand year; But it shall turn to rich plough land Before I change my dear!

Oh! Fairfield Church is water-bound From Autumn to the Spring; But it shall turn to high hill ground Before my bells do ring!

Oh! leave me walk on the Brookland Road, In the thunder and warm rain-- Oh! leave me look where my love goed And p’raps I’ll see her again! Low down--low down! Where the liddle green lanterns shine-- Oh! maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, And she can never be mine!

*Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?)

THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK

The Run of the Downs

The Weald is good, the Downs are best-- I’ll give you the run of ‘em, East to West. Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, They were once and they are still. Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry Go back as far as sums’ll carry. Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring, They have looked on many a thing; And what those two have missed between ‘em I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ‘em. Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down Knew Old England before the Crown. Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood Knew Old England before the Flood. And when you end on the Hampshire side-- Butser’s old as Time and Tide. The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn, You be glad you are Sussex born!

The Knife and the Naked Chalk

The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had known their Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney’s sheep-dog’s father, lay at the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did.

One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the distances were very distant.

‘It’s Just like the sea,’ said Una, when Old Jim halted in the shade of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. ‘You see where you’re going, and--you go there, and there’s nothing between.’

Dan slipped off his shoes. ‘When we get home I shall sit in the woods all day,’ he said.

‘Whuff!’ said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across a long rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone.

‘Not yet,’ said Dan. ‘Where’s Mr Dudeney? Where’s Master?’ Old Jim looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked again.

‘Don’t you give it him,’ Una cried. ‘I’m not going to be left howling in a desert.’

‘Show, boy! Show!’ said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as the palm of your hand.

Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob of Mr Dudeney’s hat against the sky a long way off.

‘Right! All right!’ said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his bone carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the shadow of the old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children went on. Two kestrels hung bivvering and squealing above them. A gull flapped lazily along the white edge of the cliffs. The curves of the Downs shook a little in the heat, and so did Mr Dudeney’s distant head.