Brother Dusty-Feet (4 page)

Just for a moment there was a surprised silence. The Players looked at each other, and then at Hugh, and then at each other again.

‘He’s rather small,’ said Scarlet-Stockings, doubtfully.

‘He’ll grow,’ said the Fifth Man, ‘and we need another boy. Nicky’s getting too big to play girls’ parts much longer.’

‘Take what fortune sends,
I
always say,’ said the man with the peacock’s feather.

But the man with the rose behind his ear pulled at his little pointed beard and said, ‘Not so fast, lads.’ Then he looked Hugh up and down in a considering way, and demanded, ‘What might your name be, Brother Dusty-Feet?’

‘Hugh Copplestone, please, master.’

‘Well, then, Hugh Copplestone, it is not the custom of those who travel the roads to inquire into the past history of any they may chance to meet with on their – er – peregrinations. Indeed, to do so is regarded among all true Dusty-Feet as – er – a gross breach of etiquette. But if you will pardon my saying so, you are a rather small vagabond, and you don’t look as if you had been one long. Would you by any chance be running away from your kind home and grieving parents?’

Hugh took a deep breath and explained about Aunt Alison meaning to have Argos knocked on the head, and how they had run away together and were travelling to Oxford to seek their fortunes. When he had finished, there was another silence, and Hugh was sickeningly afraid that they were going to turn him away; so afraid that his mouth went quite dry, and he could only stand and gaze at them, with his face growing whiter and whiter under the brown.

‘Well,’ said the leader at last, ‘do we take him, lads?’

‘Yes,’ said everybody, and ‘might as well,’ they added.

‘Of course we take him,’ said the Fifth Man.

So the leader bowed low to Hugh, doffing his bonnet with a flourish that was simply superb, and laying his other hand upon his breast. ‘Then, Hugh Copplestone, I have the honour to inform you that your fortune is as good as made! You have fallen into the hands of those who are the masters of their art, the – er – shining lights of their glorious profession; and ere long, with due care and attention, you shall be a master of it likewise! Why, before you can turn round, you will find yourself playing St Cecilia before Gloriana herself, as she sits on her golden throne in Greenwich Palace!’

The boy they called Nicky said admiringly, ‘What a liar you are, Toby.’

And quite suddenly, what with hunger and bewilderment and relief – but mostly with hunger – Hugh found that the world was spinning round him in the most uncomfortable way. He swayed a little on his feet, and smiled a sickly sort of smile, and the Fifth Man, who had been looking at him closely, put out a hand quickly to steady him, and said, ‘You haven’t had anything to eat lately, have you, Brother Dusty-Feet?’

Hugh shook his head carefully, and found that the world was not going round as fast as it had been, which was a relief. ‘Argos too. I’ve got a three-farthing bit,’ he mumbled.

‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said the leader, cheerfully. ‘Jonathan, take the gentlemen in and regale them on fatted calves, while we get loaded up and bring Saffronilla round.’

So the Fifth Man marched Hugh, who was still a little unsteady on his legs, into the dark inn parlour, where a round young woman like a ripe pippin gave him a large plate of pink ham and brown bread, while Argos had a bowl of the most delicious-looking scraps all to himself on the floor, and the periwinkle shared the window-sill with a pot of marigolds that belonged there.

The Fifth Man sat quietly watching, while Hugh ate until he began to be gloriously full and the world was quite steady again; then he asked, ‘Why were you going to Oxford, Brother Dusty-Feet?’

And Hugh told him about the New Learning, and Magdalen Tower, and all the things his father had told
him
, which he hadn’t spoken about to anyone since his father died.

And the Fifth Man listened to him, with his head a little bent as though he was very interested indeed. Then he said, ‘We’re not going to Oxford, you know.’ Hugh shook his head and went on eating; and the Fifth Man said, ‘And you mustn’t believe what Toby says; we’re not a Queen’s Company. We’re ordinary Strolling Players, acting our plays in inn-yards up and down the country; and when times are good we eat as much as we want, and when times are bad we go hungry and sleep in the ditch. Do you still want to come with us?’

Hugh looked up, and found the Fifth Man smiling at him so that all his thin face quirked upwards at the outer corners, in a winged sort of way; and all at once Hugh felt that he would follow the Fifth Man over the edge of the world. ‘Yes!’ said Hugh.

So when Hugh had finished the ham they went out together into the sunlight. And there before the
door was a very small tilt-cart with the ends of several planks sticking out behind, and a dappled mare half asleep in the shafts. It was a nice tilt-cart, rather rickety, but bravely scarlet, picked out with yellow; and the green canvas tilt was patched with blue so bright and joyous that it looked as if it was a patch cut from the clear sky; and the mare’s dappled coat shone with grooming, her mane was plaited with golden straws, and her horse-brasses that were shaped like roses and stars and crescent moons sparkled in the sunshine. The rest of the company were gathered round, pushing odds and ends into the back of the cart or talking to the mare.

‘Ah!’ said the man with the rose behind his ear. ‘The gentlemen have fed, and the road calls us. But stay! Before we set out, you’d best know who we all are, beginning with myself, Tobias Pennifeather, devotedly your servant, the leader of this band of brethren – romantic villainy is my line. Gentleman with the die-away expression and scarlet stockings, Jasper Nye, who plays the lead in all our pieces. This with the peacock’s feather in his bonnet is Benjamin Bunsell; comic relief, the trusty henchman who falls over his own feet. This in the laced hat, Nicholas Bodkyn, our Heroine. Make a curtsey, Nicky,’ and Nicholas Bodkyn spread his imaginary skirts and dropped a billowing curtsey. ‘That’s right,’ said Master Pennifeather, approvingly. ‘Lastly, at your elbow, Jonathan Whiteleafe, who plays the devil in scarlet tights, and is the best tumbler in the South Country, beside.’

Then everybody was crowding round Hugh, patting him on the back and telling him that he would soon get to know which of them was which, and
belting Argos in the ribs in a friendly way; and in the middle of it all he felt a hand on his shoulder, and the Fifth Man, who was Jonathan Whiteleafe, said in his ear, ‘I’d put the periwinkle in the back of the cart, if I were you. ’Twill be quite safe there.’ So they went round to the back of the tilt-cart and found a nice secure place for the periwinkle between a pile of planks, which Jonathan said were part of the stage, and a battered hamper with purple and spangles showing through the gaps in the wickerwork, which he said was a costume basket. Immediately after that Master Pennifeather gave the order to start.

‘For we must be in South Molton before noon if we’re to put on a performance this afternoon,’ said Master Pennifeather. ‘And if we don’t put on a performance this afternoon, we can’t sup tonight. So gid-up, Saffronilla, old girl.’

Nobody seemed to be at all worried about supper being so uncertain, because they were used to it. Saffronilla, who had been dozing gently where she stood, woke up and shook her head and lumbered forward; the yellow-and-scarlet wheels of the tilt-cart began to turn, squeaking blithely, and they were off. The Players trudged alongside, Master Pennifeather with a hand on Saffronilla’s neck, whistling softly but very cheerfully to himself; and Jonathan and Hugh and Argos all dropped a little to the rear, beyond the soft white dust-cloud (somebody always had to walk behind the cart to pick up the things that fell out). The three of them were very well contented with each other’s company.

‘If you get tired, you can ride on the shafts, you
know,’ said Jonathan, looking down at Hugh after a while as they trudged along.

But Hugh had forgotten about being tired or footsore; he was too happy to bother about things like that. He was part of this lovely, joyous, disreputable company. Before him the tilt-cart lurched and rumbled, wobbled and squeaked along the deep-rutted road, the dust curling up in spirals round Saffronilla’s hooves as she clip-clopped along, and the brasses on her collar and breast-band chiming and jingling like all the bells of Elfland. The hedges were clouded with lady’s-lace and flushed with campion, and the cuckoos called from the woodlands far and wide; and it really seemed to Hugh that summer had come to the world overnight.

They travelled rather slowly, because the lanes were not really meant for carts, and sometimes they were so narrow that the wheels were in the ditch on both sides, and the branches of hazel and beech and elder along the crest of the hedges brushed the top of the tilt with a noise like breaking seas. But they got through even the narrowest places with a little care and pushing, and it was not yet noon when the Company came in sight of South Molton, and halted to sort themselves out so as to make a proper entrance. They unpacked from the tilt-cart a drum and a strange and curly musical instrument called a sackbut; and then they went on again, Master Pennifeather with the drum and Benjamin Bunsell with the sackbut marching ahead of Saffronilla, Nicky Bodkyn and Jasper Nye marching on one side of her, and Jonathan and Hugh and Argos on the other. It was a lop-sided arrangement, but that could not be helped.

‘We shall have to train yon noble hound to walk in front,’ said Master Pennifeather. ‘With Morris-bells on his collar, the effect should be superb. Completely superb!’

Hugh was not at all sure that Argos would take to walking in front with Morris-bells on his collar, but of course he did not say so.

So they marched into South Molton to the joyous music of drum and sackbut playing ‘Crimson Velvet’, with their heads up and their legs straight, not at all in the comfortable way they had been trudging along the country lanes, and not at all as though their shoes were stuffed with rags because the soles were worn through. Saffronilla pricked up her ears too, and lifted her sleepy head and minced along like a fine lady; and even the tilt-cart pulled itself together and stopped dropping things out behind. It was a triumphal procession, and as it wound along the narrow street, heads poked out of windows under pointed eaves, and people came running to house doors and down alleyways to see it pass and throng round it and follow on behind. The shout went up that the Players were coming, and everybody seemed pleased to see them.

But through it all, the Players swaggered on with their noses in the air, taking no notice of the merry crowds, for they had found long ago that it did not pay to be too friendly at first, because if you were, people decided that you were only human like themselves, and did not come to see you act; and then you had no supper and probably had to sleep in a ditch as well. Across the Market Square they went, and in through the dark courtyard arch of the inn.

After that everything was rush and scurry for a while. First they got leave from Mine Host to perform in his inn-yard, and then Jonathan and Master Pennifeather went off to get a licence from the Mayor. (Strolling Players had to get a licence from the Mayor in every town where they wanted to perform their plays, or from the Justice of the Peace if there wasn’t a Mayor. It was a great nuisance,
because sometimes the Mayor or Justice was away or ill or just plain bad-tempered and disobliging.)

Meanwhile the rest of the Company set to work to stable Saffronilla, and borrow empty barrels to support the stage, and unpack the costumes and properties. They were hard at it when Jonathan and Master Pennifeather came back with the licence and went off again with the drum and sackbut to cry it through the town that, at four o’clock that afternoon, they were going to enact the True and Noble History of St George. And Hugh was hard at it, too. Wide-eyed with interest and excitement, he staggered back and forth, helping to carry the heavy stage-planks for Nicky and Benjamin to set in place across the borrowed barrels, and watching the costume hampers unpacked and the glory of colour and sparkle that came out of them, and fetching and carrying for everybody. At first Argos helped him, but after a time everybody got so tired of finding Argos just behind them when they stepped back, and so exasperated when they fell over him or found him standing just where they wanted to put something down, that Hugh took him into the stable where they were to sleep (a stable is cheaper lodging than an inn-chamber) and sat him down beside the periwinkle and told him to guard it. When he got back into the courtyard again, Jonathan and Master Pennifeather had returned from telling the town about the afternoon’s performance.

At last everything was ready, and the whole Company sat down on the edge of the horse-trough or the shafts of the tilt-cart and ate bread-and-cheese in a hurry; and Hugh had a chance to look about him and notice things for the first time. The inn
courtyard was a nice place, with carved oaken galleries that ran all round its whitewashed walls, and its steep gabled roof had been newly thatched, and was golden as a honeycomb above its many little bright windows. Usually, Hugh thought, it must be rather a sleepy courtyard, but today it seemed wide awake and eager for the play to begin – almost as eager as Hugh himself, and that was very eager indeed, because he had never seen a play before, and had no idea what it would be like, except that it would be lovely. The stage had been set up at one end of the yard, sticking out into it, because in those days people sat round three sides of a play instead of only in front of it, as they do now; and its position had been carefully arranged so that the door of the little room where the Players were to change their clothes was just behind it. Hugh knew that was what the little room was for, because Nicky had told him, and besides, he had helped to carry in the costumes – a King’s robe of French rose-scarlet velvet with most of the nap rubbed off, a Bishop’s mitre, a yellow satin farthingale rich with tarnished spangles, and a wonderful green paste-board dragon’s head, and a great many other things of the same sort. There was nothing on the stage as yet, but somehow that made it all the more exciting, because you felt that at any moment the emptiness might become a trackless forest or a King’s palace or the deck of a ship under full sail.