The White Peacock (7 page)

"There—now I'm ready. Do you notice those little chrysanthemums trying
to smell sadly; when the old moon is laughing and winking through those
boughs. What business have they with their sadness!" She took a handful
of petals and flung them into the air: "There—if they sigh they ask for
sorrow—I like things to wink and look wild."

As I have said, Strelley Mill lies at the north end of the long
Nethermere valley. On the northern slopes lay its pasture and arable
lands. The shaggy common, now closed and part of the estate, covered the
western slope, and the cultivated land was bounded on the east by the
sharp dip of the brook course, a thread of woodland broadening into a
spinney and ending at the upper pond; beyond this, on the east, rose the
sharp, wild, grassy hillside, scattered with old trees, ruinous with the
gaunt, ragged bones of old hedge–rows, grown into thorn trees. Along the
rim of the hills, beginning in the northwest, were dark woodlands, which
swept round east and south till they raced down in riot to the very edge
of southern Nethermere, surrounding our house. From the eastern hill
crest, looking straight across, you could see the spire of Selsby
Church, and a few roofs, and the head–stocks of the pit.

So on three sides the farm was skirted by woods, the dens of rabbits,
and the common held another warren.

Now the squire of the estate, head of an ancient, once even famous, but
now decayed house, loved his rabbits. Unlike the family fortunes, the
family tree flourished amazingly; Sherwood could show nothing
comparable. Its ramifications were stupendous; it was more like a banyan
than a British oak. How was the good squire to nourish himself and his
lady, his name, his tradition, and his thirteen lusty branches on his
meagre estates? An evil fortune discovered to him that he could sell
each of his rabbits, those bits of furry vermin, for a shilling or
thereabouts in Nottingham; since which time the noble family subsisted
by rabbits.

Farms were gnawed away; corn and sweet grass departed from the face of
the hills; cattle grew lean, unable to eat the defiled herbage. Then the
farm became the home of a keeper, and the country was silent, with no
sound of cattle, no clink of horses, no barking of lusty dogs.

But the squire loved his rabbits. He defended them against the snares of
the despairing farmer, protected them with gun and notices to quit. How
he glowed with thankfulness as he saw the dishevelled hillside heave
when the gnawing hosts moved on!

"Are they not quails and manna?" said he to his sporting guest, early
one Monday morning, as the high meadow broke into life at the sound of
his gun. "Quails and manna—in this wilderness?"

"They are, by Jove!" assented the sporting guest as he took another gun,
while the saturnine keeper smiled grimly.

Meanwhile, Strelley Mill began to suffer under this gangrene. It was the
outpost in the wilderness. It was an understood thing that none of the
squire's tenants had a gun.

"Well," said the squire to Mr. Saxton, "you have the land for next to
nothing—next to nothing—at a rent really absurd. Surely the little
that the rabbits eat——"

"It's not a little—come and look for yourself," replied the farmer. The
squire made a gesture of impatience.

"What
do
you want?" he inquired.

"Will you wire me off?" was the repeated request.

"Wire is—what does Halkett say—so much per yard—and it would come
to—what did Halkett tell me now?—but a large sum. No, I can't do it."

"Well, I can't live like this."

"Have another glass of whisky? Yes, yes, I want another glass myself,
and I can't drink alone—so if I am to enjoy my glass.—That's it! Now
surely you exaggerate a little. It's not so bad."

"I can't go on like it, I'm sure."

"Well, we'll see about compensation—we'll see. I'll have a talk with
Halkett, and I'll come down and have a look at you. We all find a pinch
somewhere—it's nothing but humanity's heritage."

I was born in September, and love it best of all the months. There is no
heat, no hurry, no thirst and weariness in corn harvest as there is in
the hay. If the season is late, as is usual with us, then mid–September
sees the corn still standing in stook. The mornings come slowly. The
earth is like a woman married and fading; she does not leap up with a
laugh for the first fresh kiss of dawn, but slowly, quietly,
unexpectantly lies watching the waking of each new day. The blue mist,
like memory in the eyes of a neglected wife, never goes from the wooded
hill, and only at noon creeps from the near hedges. There is no bird to
put a song in the throat of morning; only the crow's voice speaks during
the day. Perhaps there is the regular breathing hush of the scythe—even
the fretful jar of the mowing machine. But next day, in the morning, all
is still again. The lying corn is wet, and when you have bound it, and
lift the heavy sheaf to make the stook, the tresses of oats wreathe
round each other and droop mournfully.

As I worked with my friend through the still mornings we talked
endlessly. I would give him the gist of what I knew of chemistry, and
botany, and psychology. Day after day I told him what the professors had
told me; of life, of sex and its origins; of Schopenhauer and William
James. We had been friends for years, and he was accustomed to my talk.
But this autumn fruited the first crop of intimacy between us. I talked
a great deal of poetry to him, and of rudimentary metaphysics. He was
very good stuff. He had hardly a single dogma, save that of pleasing
himself. Religion was nothing to him. So he heard all I had to say with
an open mind, and understood the drift of things very rapidly, and
quickly made these ideas part of himself.

We tramped down to dinner with only the clinging warmth of the sunshine
for a coat. In this still, enfolding weather a quiet companionship is
very grateful. Autumn creeps through everything. The little damsons in
the pudding taste of September, and are fragrant with memory. The voices
of those at table are softer and more reminiscent than at haytime.

Afternoon is all warm and golden. Oat sheaves are lighter; they whisper
to each other as they freely embrace. The long, stout stubble tinkles as
the foot brushes over it; the scent of the straw is sweet. When the
poor, bleached sheaves are lifted out of the hedge, a spray of nodding
wild raspberries is disclosed, with belated berries ready to drop; among
the damp grass lush blackberries may be discovered. Then one notices
that the last bell hangs from the ragged spire of fox–glove. The talk is
of people, an odd book; of one's hopes—and the future; of Canada, where
work is strenuous, but not life; where the plains are wide, and one is
not lapped in a soft valley, like an apple that falls in a secluded
orchard. The mist steals over the face of the warm afternoon. The
tying–up is all finished, and it only remains to rear up the fallen
bundles into shocks. The sun sinks into a golden glow in the west. The
gold turns to red, the red darkens, like a fire burning low, the sun
disappears behind the bank of milky mist, purple like the pale bloom on
blue plums, and we put on our coats and go home.

In the evening, when the milking was finished, and all the things fed,
then we went out to look at the snares. We wandered on across the stream
and up the wild hillside. Our feet rattled through black patches of
devil's–bit scabius; we skirted a swim of thistle–down, which glistened
when the moon touched it. We stumbled on through wet, coarse grass, over
soft mole–hills and black rabbit–holes. The hills and woods cast
shadows; the pools of mist in the valleys gathered the moonbeams in
cold, shivery light.

We came to an old farm that stood on the level brow of the hill. The
woods swept away from it, leaving a great clearing of what was once
cultivated land. The handsome chimneys of the house, silhouetted against
a light sky, drew my admiration. I noticed that there was no light or
glow in any window, though the house had only the width of one room, and
though the night was only at eight o'clock. We looked at the long,
impressive front. Several of the windows had been bricked in, giving a
pitiful impression of blindness; the places where the plaster had fallen
off the walls showed blacker in the shadow. We pushed open the gate, and
as we walked down the path, weeds and dead plants brushed our ankles. We
looked in at a window. The room was lighted also by a window from the
other side, through which the moonlight streamed on to the flagged
floor, dirty, littered with paper, and wisps of straw. The hearth lay in
the light, with all its distress of grey ashes, and piled cinders of
burnt paper, and a child's headless doll, charred and pitiful. On the
border–line of shadow lay a round fur cap—a game–keeper's cap. I blamed
the moonlight for entering the desolate room; the darkness alone was
decent and reticent. I hated the little roses on the illuminated piece
of wallpaper, I hated that fireside.

With farmer's instinct George turned to the outhouse. The cow–yard
startled me. It was a forest of the tallest nettles I have ever
seen—nettles far taller than my six feet. The air was soddened with the
dank scent of nettles. As I followed George along the obscure brick
path, I felt my flesh creep. But the buildings, when we entered them,
were in splendid condition; they had been restored within a small number
of years; they were well–timbered, neat, and cosy. Here and there we saw
feathers, bits of animal wreckage, even the remnants of a cat, which we
hastily examined by the light of a match. As we entered the stable there
was an ugly noise, and three great rats half rushed at us and threatened
us with their vicious teeth. I shuddered, and hurried back, stumbling
over a bucket, rotten with rust, and so filled with weeds that I thought
it part of the jungle. There was a silence made horrible by the faint
noises that rats and flying bats give out. The place was bare of any
vestige of corn or straw or hay, only choked with a growth of abnormal
weeds. When I found myself free in the orchard I could not stop
shivering. There were no apples to be seen overhead between us and the
clear sky. Either the birds had caused them to fall, when the rabbits
had devoured them, or someone had gathered the crop.

"This," said George bitterly, "is what the mill will come to."

"After your time," I said.

"My time—my time. I shall never have a time. And I shouldn't be
surprised if father's time isn't short—with rabbits and one thing and
another. As it is, we depend on the milk–round, and on the carting which
I do for the council. You can't call it farming. We're a miserable
mixture of farmer, milkman, greengrocer, and carting contractor. It's a
shabby business."

"You have to live," I retorted.

"Yes—but it's rotten. And father won't move—and he won't change his
methods."

"Well—what about you?"

"Me! What should I change for?—I'm comfortable at home. As for my
future, it can look after itself, so long as nobody depends on me."

"Laissez faire," said I, smiling.

"This is no laissez faire," he replied, glancing round, "this is pulling
the nipple out of your lips, and letting the milk run away sour. Look
there!"

Through the thin veil of moonlit mist that slid over the hillside we
could see an army of rabbits bunched up, or hopping a few paces forward,
feeding.

We set off at a swinging pace down the hill, scattering the hosts. As we
approached the fence that bounded the Mill fields, he exclaimed,
"Hullo!"—and hurried forward. I followed him, and observed the dark
figure of a man rise from the hedge. It was a game–keeper. He pretended
to be examining his gun. As we came up he greeted us with a calm
"Good–evenin'!"

George replied by investigating the little gap in the hedge.

"I'll trouble you for that snare," he said.

"Will yer?" answered Annable, a broad, burly, black–faced fellow. "An'
I
should like ter know what you're doin' on th' wrong side th' 'edge?"

"You can see what we're doing—hand over my snare—
and
the rabbit,"
said George angrily.

"What rabbit?" said Annable, turning sarcastically to me.

"You know well enough—an' you can hand it over—or——" George replied.

"Or what? Spit it out! The sound won't kill me"—the man grinned with
contempt.

"Hand over here!" said George, stepping up to the man in a rage.

"Now don't!" said the keeper, standing stock still, and looking
unmovedly at the proximity of George:

"You'd better get off home—both you an' 'im. You'll get neither snare
nor rabbit—see!"

"We
will
see!" said George, and he made a sudden move to get hold of
the man's coat. Instantly he went staggering back with a heavy blow
under the left ear.

"Damn brute!" I ejaculated, bruising my knuckles against the fellow's
jaw. Then I too found myself sitting dazedly on the grass, watching the
great skirts of his velveteens flinging round him as if he had been a
demon, as he strode away. I got up, pressing my chest where I had been
struck. George was lying in the hedge–bottom. I turned him over, and
rubbed his temples, and shook the drenched grass on his face. He opened
his eyes and looked at me, dazed. Then he drew his breath quickly, and
put his hand to his head.

"He—he nearly stunned me," he said.

"The devil!" I answered.

"I wasn't ready."

"No."

"Did he knock me down?"

"Ay—me too."

He was silent for some time, sitting limply. Then he pressed his hand
against the back of his head, saying, "My head does sing!" He tried to
get up, but failed. "Good God!—being knocked into this state by a
damned keeper!"

"Come on," I said, "let's see if we can't get indoors."

"No!" he said quickly, "we needn't tell them—don't let them know."

I sat thinking of the pain in my own chest, and wishing I could remember
hearing Annable's jaw smash, and wishing that my knuckles were more
bruised than they were—though that was bad enough. I got up, and helped
George to rise. He swayed, almost pulling me over. But in a while he
could walk unevenly.