Part 43 (1/2)
”And your sister's?”
”She's called Tilda; but she--she isn't really--”
Farmer Tossell was not listening.
”You'll have to sleep with us to-night. Oh,” he went on, misinterpreting the boy's glance behind him (he was really seeking for Tilda, to explain), ”there's always room for one or two more at Inistow: that's what you might call our motto; and the Old Woman dotes on children. She ought to--havin' six of her own, besides nine of my first family.”
The wagon had reached a short break in the ascent--you might liken it to a staircase landing--where the road ran level for about fifty yards before taking breath, so to speak, for another stiff climb. Here a by-road led off to the right, and here they turned aside.
The road ran parallel, or roughly parallel, with the line of the cliffs, between low and wind-trimmed hedges, over which, from his perch beside Farmer Tossell, the boy looked down across a narrow slope of pasture to the sea. The fog had lifted. Away and a little above the horizon the sun was dropping like a ball of orange flame in a haze of gold; and nearer, to the right of the sunset, lay the Island as if asleep on the waves, with glints of fire on the pointed cliffs at its western end, and all the rest a lilac shadow resting on the luminous water.
He gazed, and still gazed. He heard no longer, though the farmer was speaking. There was indeed some excuse, for the young men and girls had started another hymn, and were singing with all their voices.
But he did not even listen.
The road rose and dipped. . . . They came to a white-painted gate, which one of the young men sprang down to open. The last glow of the sunset fell on its bars, and their outline repeated itself in dazzling streaks on the sky as the horses wheeled to the left through the gateway, and the boy turned for a last look. But Holmness had disappeared. A brown ridge of stubble hid it, edged and powdered with golden light.
Turning from the sea, the wagons followed a rutted cart-track that wound downhill in a slow arc between an orchard hedge and an open meadow dotted with cattle. High beyond the orchard rose a cl.u.s.ter of elms, around which many rooks were cawing, and between the elms a blue smoke drifted. There too the grey roof of the farmhouse crept little by little into sight; and so they came to a second gate and the rick-yard; and beyond the ricks was a whitewashed doorway, where a smiling elderly woman stood to welcome them. This was Mrs. Tossell, forewarned many minutes since by their singing.
She had come straight from preparing the feast, and her face was yet flushed with the heat of the kitchen fire. The arrival of the extra mouths to be fed did not put her out in the least. But she looked the children over with eyes at once benevolent and critical--their clothes and their faces--and said frankly that they wanted a wash, which was only too evident, the _Evan Evans_ being a peculiarly grimy boat, even for a collier.
”The sooner the better,” agreed Tilda with the utmost alacrity.
”Well, and I'm glad you take it like that,” said their hostess, nodding approval. She called ”Hepsy! Hepsy!” and an elderly serving-woman answered the summons. ”Run, Hepsy, and fill the wash-house boiler,” she commanded.
Within twenty minutes two long wash-trays stood ready and steaming--one for Tilda in the wash-kitchen itself, the other for Arthur Miles in a small outhouse adjoining; and while the children revelled in this strange new luxury, Mrs. Tossell bethought her of certain garments in a press upstairs--a frock and some underclothing long since outgrown by Sabina, a threadworn s.h.i.+rt and a suit that had formerly habited Obed, her youngest, all preserved and laid away on the principle (as she put it) that ”Store is no Sore.”
It was Chrissy, the pretty girl, who carried his clean garments to Arthur Miles; and he, being caught naked in the wash-tub, blushed furiously. But Chrissy was used to brothers, and took stock of him composedly.
”My!” she exclaimed, ”what pretty white skin you've got!” And with that her quick eyes noted the mark on his shoulder. ”Well, I never--but that's funny!”
”What's funny?” asked the boy.
”I'll tell you later, in the kitchen,” she promised, and went off to Tilda.
The kitchen was of n.o.ble size--far larger even than the refectory at Holy Innocents' Orphanage--and worthy of the feast Mrs. Tossell had arrayed there to celebrate the sheep-bringing. The table, laden with hot pies, with dishes of fried rasher and hog's-puddings, black-puddings, sausages, with cold ham and cold ribs of beef, with apple tarts, junkets, jellies, syllabubs, frumenties, with mighty tea-pots and flagons of cider, ran close alongside the window-seat where the children were given their places, and whence, turning their heads, they looked out upon a garden set with clipped box-trees, and bordered with Michaelmas daisies, and upon a tall dove-cote of many holes and ledges crowded with pigeons settling down to their night's rest. On the outside of the table ran an unbacked bench, and at top and bottom stood two ample elbowed chairs for the farmer and his wife; but Mrs. Tossell had surrendered hers to a black-coated man whom all addressed as ”Minister,” though in talk among themselves they spoke of him rather as The Rounder. Before the company sat he delivered a long grace with much unction. Tilda--a child of the world, and accustomed to take folks as she found them--eyed him with frank curiosity; but in Arthur Miles his black coat and white tie awoke a painful a.s.sociation of ideas, and for a while the child sat nervous and gloomy, without appet.i.te to eat . . .
Tilda for once was un.o.bservant of him. The Minister, with his long thin neck, straggling black beard, weak, eloquent mouth and black, s.h.i.+ning eyes--the eyes of a born visionary--failed, as well they might, to suggest a thought of Dr. Gla.s.son. She was hungry, too, and her small body glowing deliciously within her clean garments. Amid all this clatter of knives and forks, these laughing voices, these cheerful, innocent faces, who could help casting away care?
Now and again her eyes wandered around the great kitchen--up to the oaken roof, almost black with age, and the hams, sides of bacon, bundles of potherbs, bags of simples, dangling from its beams; across to the old jack that stretched athwart the wall to the left of the fireplace--a curious apparatus, in old times (as Chrissy explained to her) turned by a dog, but now disused and kept only as a relic; to the tall settle on the right with the bars beneath the seat, and behind the bars (so Chrissy averred) a couple of live geese imprisoned, and quietly sitting on their eggs amid all this uproar; to the great cave of the fireplace itself, hung with pothooks and toothed cramps, where a fire of logs burned on a hearthstone so wide that actually--yes, actually--deep in its recess, and behind the fire, were set two smoke-blackened seats, one in each farther angle under the open chimney.
Before the feast had been twenty minutes in progress the farmer looked up and along the table and called for lights. His eyes, he explained, were not so young as they had been. Roger--tallest of the young men-- jumped up and lit two oil-lamps that hung from the beams. The lamps had immense reflectors above them, made of tin; but they shone like silver, and Tilda took them for silver.
”That's cheerfuller!” shouted Farmer Tossell with a laugh of great contentment, and fell-to again.
But as the light wavered and anon grew steady, Chrissy leaned over Tilda, touched Arthur Miles on the shoulder, and pointed to the wall opposite. Tilda stared also, following the direction of her finger.
The lamp-light, playing on the broad chimney-piece with its bra.s.s candlesticks and china ornaments, reached for a yard or so up the wall, and then was cut off by the shadow of the reflectors. But in that illuminated s.p.a.ce, fronting the children, stood out a panel of plaster, moulded in high relief, overlaid with a wash of drab-coloured paint.
The moulding was of a coat-of-arms--a s.h.i.+eld surrounded by a foliated pattern, and crossed with the same four diamond device as was tattooed on Miles Arthur's shoulder--this with two antlered stags, collared, with hanging chains for supporters; above it a cap of maintenance and a stag's head coupe for crest; and beneath a scroll bearing some words which Tilda could not decipher. She glanced at Chrissy, alert at once and on the defensive. She had recognised the four diamonds, but all the rest was a mere mystery to her.
”He's got just that mark on his shoulder,” said Chrissy, meeting her gaze and nodding towards the s.h.i.+eld.