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_ I have told you something about Friar's Oak, and about the life that
we led there. Now that my memory goes back to the old place it
would gladly linger, for every thread which I draw from the skein of
the past brings out half a dozen others that were entangled with it.
I was in two minds when I began whether I had enough in me to make a
book of, and now I know that I could write one about Friar's Oak
alone, and the folk whom I knew in my childhood. They were hard and
uncouth, some of them, I doubt not; and yet, seen through the golden
haze of time, they all seem sweet and lovable. There was our good
vicar, Mr. Jefferson, who loved the whole world save only Mr. Slack,
the Baptist minister of Clayton; and there was kindly Mr. Slack, who
was all men's brother save only of Mr. Jefferson, the vicar of
Friar's Oak. Then there was Monsieur Rudin, the French Royalist
refugee who lived over on the Pangdean road, and who, when the news
of a victory came in, was convulsed with joy because we had beaten
Buonaparte, and shaken with rage because we had beaten the French,
so that after the Nile he wept for a whole day out of delight and
then for another one out of fury, alternately clapping his hands and
stamping his feet. Well I remember his thin, upright figure and the
way in which he jauntily twirled his little cane; for cold and
hunger could not cast him down, though we knew that he had his share
of both. Yet he was so proud and had such a grand manner of
talking, that no one dared to offer him a cloak or a meal. I can
see his face now, with a flush over each craggy cheek-bone when the
butcher made him the present of some ribs of beef. He could not but
take it, and yet whilst he was stalking off he threw a proud glance
over his shoulder at the butcher, and he said, "Monsieur, I have a
dog!" Yet it was Monsieur Rudin and not his dog who looked plumper
for a week to come.
Then I remember Mr. Paterson, the farmer, who was what you would now
call a Radical, though at that time some called him a Priestley-ite,
and some a Fox-ite, and nearly everybody a traitor. It certainly
seemed to me at the time to be very wicked that a man should look
glum when he heard of a British victory; and when they burned his
straw image at the gate of his farm, Boy Jim and I were among those
who lent a hand. But we were bound to confess that he was game,
though he might be a traitor, for down he came, striding into the
midst of us with his brown coat and his buckled shoes, and the fire
beating upon his grim, schoolmaster face. My word, how he rated us,
and how glad we were at last to sneak quietly away.
"You livers of a lie!" said he. "You and those like you have been
preaching peace for nigh two thousand years, and cutting throats the
whole time. If the money that is lost in taking French lives were
spent in saving English ones, you would have more right to burn
candles in your windows. Who are you that dare to come here to
insult a law-abiding man?"
"We are the people of England!" cried young Master Ovington, the son
of the Tory Squire.
"You! you horse-racing, cock-fighting ne'er-do-weel! Do you presume
to talk for the people of England? They are a deep, strong, silent
stream, and you are the scum, the bubbles, the poor, silly froth
that floats upon the surface."
We thought him very wicked then, but, looking back, I am not sure
that we were not very wicked ourselves.
And then there were the smugglers! The Downs swarmed with them, for
since there might be no lawful trade betwixt France and England, it
had all to run in that channel. I have been up on St. John's Common
upon a dark night, and, lying among the bracken, I have seen as many
as seventy mules and a man at the head of each go flitting past me
as silently as trout in a stream. Not one of them but bore its two
ankers of the right French cognac, or its bale of silk of Lyons and
lace of Valenciennes. I knew Dan Scales, the head of them, and I
knew Tom Hislop, the riding officer, and I remember the night they
met.
"Do you fight, Dan?" asked Tom.
"Yes, Tom; thou must fight for it."
On which Tom drew his pistol, and blew Dan's brains out.
"It was a sad thing to do," he said afterwards, "but I knew Dan was
too good a man for me, for we tried it out before."
It was Tom who paid a poet from Brighton to write the lines for the
tombstone, which we all thought were very true and good, beginning -
"Alas! Swift flew the fatal lead
Which pierced through the young man's head.
He instantly fell, resigned his breath,
And closed his languid eyes in death."
There was more of it, and I dare say it is all still to be read in
Patcham Churchyard.
One day, about the time of our Cliffe Royal adventure, I was seated
in the cottage looking round at the curios which my father had
fastened on to the walls, and wishing, like the lazy lad that I was,
that Mr. Lilly had died before ever he wrote his Latin grammar, when
my mother, who was sitting knitting in the window, gave a little cry
of surprise.
"Good gracious!" she cried. "What a vulgar-looking woman!"
It was so rare to hear my mother say a hard word against anybody
(unless it were General Buonaparte) that I was across the room and
at the window in a jump. A pony-chaise was coming slowly down the
village street, and in it was the queerest-looking person that I had
ever seen. She was very stout, with a face that was of so dark a
red that it shaded away into purple over the nose and cheeks. She
wore a great hat with a white curling ostrich feather, and from
under its brim her two bold, black eyes stared out with a look of
anger and defiance as if to tell the folk that she thought less of
them than they could do of her. She had some sort of scarlet
pelisse with white swans-down about her neck, and she held the reins
slack in her hands, while the pony wandered from side to side of the
road as the fancy took him. Each time the chaise swayed, her head
with the great hat swayed also, so that sometimes we saw the crown
of it and sometimes the brim.
"What a dreadful sight!" cried my mother.
"What is amiss with her, mother?"
"Heaven forgive me if I misjudge her, Rodney, but I think that the
unfortunate woman has been drinking."
"Why," I cried, "she has pulled the chaise up at the smithy. I'll
find out all the news for you;" and, catching up my cap, away I
scampered.
Champion Harrison had been shoeing a horse at the forge door, and
when I got into the street I could see him with the creature's hoof
still under his arm, and the rasp in his hand, kneeling down amid
the white parings. The woman was beckoning him from the chaise, and
he staring up at her with the queerest expression upon his face.
Presently he threw down his rasp and went across to her, standing by
the wheel and shaking his head as he talked to her. For my part, I
slipped into the smithy, where Boy Jim was finishing the shoe, and I
watched the neatness of his work and the deft way in which he turned
up the caulkens. When he had done with it he carried it out, and
there was the strange woman still talking with his uncle.
"Is that he?" I heard her ask.
Champion Harrison nodded.
She looked at Jim, and I never saw such eyes in a human head, so
large, and black, and wonderful. Boy as I was, I knew that, in
spite of that bloated face, this woman had once been very beautiful.
She put out a hand, with all the fingers going as if she were
playing on the harpsichord, and she touched Jim on the shoulder.
"I hope--I hope you're well," she stammered.
"Very well, ma'am," said Jim, staring from her to his uncle.
"And happy too?"
"Yes, ma'am, I thank you."
"Nothing that you crave for?"
"Why, no, ma'am, I have all that I lack."
"That will do, Jim," said his uncle, in a stern voice. "Blow up the
forge again, for that shoe wants reheating."
But it seemed as if the woman had something else that she would say,
for she was angry that he should be sent away. Her eyes gleamed,
and her head tossed, while the smith with his two big hands
outspread seemed to be soothing her as best he could. For a long
time they whispered until at last she appeared to be satisfied.
"To-morrow, then?" she cried loud out.
"To-morrow," he answered.
"You keep your word and I'll keep mine," said she, and dropped the
lash on the pony's back. The smith stood with the rasp in his hand,
looking after her until she was just a little red spot on the white
road. Then he turned, and I never saw his face so grave.
"Jim," said he, "that's Miss Hinton, who has come to live at The
Maples, out Anstey Cross way. She's taken a kind of a fancy to you,
Jim, and maybe she can help you on a bit. I promised her that you
would go over and see her to-morrow."
"I don't want her help, uncle, and I don't want to see her."
"But I've promised, Jim, and you wouldn't make me out a liar. She
does but want to talk with you, for it is a lonely life she leads."
"What would she want to talk with such as me about?"
"Why, I cannot say that, but she seemed very set upon it, and women
have their fancies. There's young Master Stone here who wouldn't
refuse to go and see a good lady, I'll warrant, if he thought he
might better his fortune by doing so."
"Well, uncle, I'll go if Roddy Stone will go with me," said Jim.
"Of course he'll go. Won't you, Master Rodney?"
So it ended in my saying "yes," and back I went with all my news to
my mother, who dearly loved a little bit of gossip. She shook her
head when she heard where I was going, but she did not say nay, and
so it was settled.
It was a good four miles of a walk, but when we reached it you would
not wish to see a more cosy little house: all honeysuckle and
creepers, with a wooden porch and lattice windows. A common-looking
woman opened the door for us.
"Miss Hinton cannot see you," said she.
"But she asked us to come," said Jim.
"I can't help that," cried the woman, in a rude voice. "I tell you
that she can't see you."
We stood irresolute for a minute.
"Maybe you would just tell her I am here," said Jim, at last.
"Tell her! How am I to tell her when she couldn't so much as hear a
pistol in her ears? Try and tell her yourself, if you have a mind
to."
She threw open a door as she spoke, and there, in a reclining chair
at the further end of the room, we caught a glimpse of a figure all
lumped together, huge and shapeless, with tails of black hair
hanging down.
The sound of dreadful, swine-like breathing fell upon our ears. It
was but a glance, and then we were off hot-foot for home. As for
me, I was so young that I was not sure whether this was funny or
terrible; but when I looked at Jim to see how he took it, he was
looking quite white and ill.
"You'll not tell any one, Roddy," said he.
"Not unless it's my mother."
"I won't even tell my uncle. I'll say she was ill, the poor lady!
it's enough that we should have seen her in her shame, without its
being the gossip of the village. It makes me feel sick and heavy at
heart."
"She was so yesterday, Jim."
"Was she? I never marked it. But I know that she has kind eyes and
a kind heart, for I saw the one in the other when she looked at me.
Maybe it's the want of a friend that has driven her to this."
It blighted his spirits for days, and when it had all gone from my
mind it was brought back to me by his manner. But it was not to be
our last memory of the lady with the scarlet pelisse, for before the
week was out Jim came round to ask me if I would again go up with
him.
"My uncle has had a letter," said he. "She would speak with me, and
I would be easier if you came with me, Rod."
For me it was only a pleasure outing, but I could see, as we drew
near the house, that Jim was troubling in his mind lest we should
find that things were amiss.
His fears were soon set at rest, however, for we had scarce clicked
the garden gate before the woman was out of the door of the cottage
and running down the path to meet us. She was so strange a figure,
with some sort of purple wrapper on, and her big, flushed face
smiling out of it, that I might, if I had been alone, have taken to
my heels at the sight of her. Even Jim stopped for a moment as if
he were not very sure of himself, but her hearty ways soon set us at
our ease.
"It is indeed good of you to come and see an old, lonely woman,"
said she, "and I owe you an apology that I should give you a
fruitless journey on Tuesday, but in a sense you were yourselves the
cause of it, since the thought of your coming had excited me, and
any excitement throws me into a nervous fever. My poor nerves! You
can see for yourselves how they serve me."
She held out her twitching hands as she spoke. Then she passed one
of them through Jim's arm, and walked with him up the path.
"You must let me know you, and know you well," said she. "Your
uncle and aunt are quite old acquaintances of mine, and though you
cannot remember me, I have held you in my arms when you were an
infant. Tell me, little man," she added, turning to me, "what do
you call your friend?"
"Boy Jim, ma'am," said I.
"Then if you will not think me forward, I will call you Boy Jim
also. We elderly people have our privileges, you know. And now you
shall come in with me, and we will take a dish of tea together."
She led the way into a cosy room--the same which we had caught a
glimpse of when last we came--and there, in the middle, was a table
with white napery, and shining glass, and gleaming china, and red-
cheeked apples piled upon a centre-dish, and a great plateful of
smoking muffins which the cross-faced maid had just carried in. You
can think that we did justice to all the good things, and Miss
Hinton would ever keep pressing us to pass our cup and to fill our
plate. Twice during our meal she rose from her chair and withdrew
into a cupboard at the end of the room, and each time I saw Jim's
face cloud, for we heard a gentle clink of glass against glass.
"Come now, little man," said she to me, when the table had been
cleared. "Why are you looking round so much?"
"Because there are so many pretty things upon the walls."
"And which do you think the prettiest of them?"
"Why, that!" said I, pointing to a picture which hung opposite to
me. It was of a tall and slender girl, with the rosiest cheeks and
the tenderest eyes--so daintily dressed, too, that I had never seen
anything more perfect. She had a posy of flowers in her hand and
another one was lying upon the planks of wood upon which she was
standing.
"Oh, that's the prettiest, is it?" said she, laughing. "Well, now,
walk up to it, and let us hear what is writ beneath it."
I did as she asked, and read out: "Miss Polly Hinton, as 'Peggy,'
in The Country Wife, played for her benefit at the Haymarket
Theatre, September 14th, 1782."
"It's a play-actress," said I.
"Oh, you rude little boy, to say it in such a tone," said she; "as
if a play-actress wasn't as good as any one else. Why, 'twas but
the other day that the Duke of Clarence, who may come to call
himself King of England, married Mrs. Jordan, who is herself only a
play-actress. And whom think you that this one is?"
She stood under the picture with her arms folded across her great
body, and her big black eyes looking from one to the other of us.
"Why, where are your eyes?" she cried at last. "_I_ was Miss Polly
Hinton of the Haymarket Theatre. And perhaps you never heard the
name before?"
We were compelled to confess that we never had. And the very name
of play-actress had filled us both with a kind of vague horror, like
the country-bred folk that we were. To us they were a class apart,
to be hinted at rather than named, with the wrath of the Almighty
hanging over them like a thundercloud. Indeed, His judgments seemed
to be in visible operation before us when we looked upon what this
woman was, and what she had been.
"Well," said she, laughing like one who is hurt, "you have no cause
to say anything, for I read on your face what you have been taught
to think of me. So this is the upbringing that you have had, Jim--
to think evil of that which you do not understand! I wish you had
been in the theatre that very night with Prince Florizel and four
Dukes in the boxes, and all the wits and macaronis of London rising
at me in the pit. If Lord Avon had not given me a cast in his
carriage, I had never got my flowers back to my lodgings in York
Street, Westminster. And now two little country lads are sitting in
judgment upon me!"
Jim's pride brought a flush on to his cheeks, for he did not like to
be called a country lad, or to have it supposed that he was so far
behind the grand folk in London.
"I have never been inside a play-house," said he; "I know nothing of
them."
"Nor I either."
"Well," said she, "I am not in voice, and it is ill to play in a
little room with but two to listen, but you must conceive me to be
the Queen of the Peruvians, who is exhorting her countrymen to rise
up against the Spaniards, who are oppressing them."
And straightway that coarse, swollen woman became a queen--the
grandest, haughtiest queen that you could dream of--and she turned
upon us with such words of fire, such lightning eyes and sweeping of
her white hand, that she held us spellbound in our chairs. Her
voice was soft and sweet, and persuasive at the first, but louder it
rang and louder as it spoke of wrongs and freedom and the joys of
death in a good cause, until it thrilled into my every nerve, and I
asked nothing more than to run out of the cottage and to die then
and there in the cause of my country. And then in an instant she
changed. She was a poor woman now, who had lost her only child, and
who was bewailing it. Her voice was full of tears, and what she
said was so simple, so true, that we both seemed to see the dead
babe stretched there on the carpet before us, and we could have
joined in with words of pity and of grief. And then, before our
cheeks were dry, she was back into her old self again.
"How like you that, then?" she cried. "That was my way in the days
when Sally Siddons would turn green at the name of Polly Hinton.
It's a fine play, is Pizarro."
"And who wrote it, ma'am?"
"Who wrote it? I never heard. What matter who did the writing of
it! But there are some great lines for one who knows how they
should be spoken."
"And you play no longer, ma'am?"
"No, Jim, I left the boards when--when I was weary of them. But my
heart goes back to them sometimes. It seems to me there is no smell
like that of the hot oil in the footlights and of the oranges in the
pit. But you are sad, Jim."
"It was but the thought of that poor woman and her child."
"Tut, never think about her! I will soon wipe her from your mind.
This is 'Miss Priscilla Tomboy,' from The Romp. You must conceive
that the mother is speaking, and that the forward young minx is
answering.
And she began a scene between the two of them, so exact in voice and
manner that it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before
us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and
her flouncing, bouncing daughter. Her great figure danced about
with a wonderful lightness, and she tossed her head and pouted her
lips as she answered back to the old, bent figure that addressed
her. Jim and I had forgotten our tears, and were holding our ribs
before she came to the end of it.
"That is better," said she, smiling at our laughter. "I would not
have you go back to Friar's Oak with long faces, or maybe they would
not let you come to me again."
She vanished into her cupboard, and came out with a bottle and
glass, which she placed upon the table.
"You are too young for strong waters," she said, "but this talking
gives one a dryness, and--"
Then it was that Boy Jim did a wonderful thing. He rose from his
chair, and he laid his hand upon the bottle.
"Don't!" said he.
She looked him in the face, and I can still see those black eyes of
hers softening before the gaze.
"Am I to have none?"
"Please, don't."
With a quick movement she wrested the bottle out of his hand and
raised it up so that for a moment it entered my head that she was
about to drink it off. Then she flung it through the open lattice,
and we heard the crash of it on the path outside.
"There, Jim!" said she; "does that satisfy you? It's long since any
one cared whether I drank or no."
"You are too good and kind for that," said he.
"Good!" she cried. "Well, I love that you should think me so. And
it would make you happier if I kept from the brandy, Jim? Well,
then, I'll make you a promise, if you'll make me one in return."
"What's that, miss?"
"No drop shall pass my lips, Jim, if you will swear, wet or shine,
blow or snow, to come up here twice in every week, that I may see
you and speak with you, for, indeed, there are times when I am very
lonesome."
So the promise was made, and very faithfully did Jim keep it, for
many a time when I have wanted him to go fishing or rabbit-snaring,
he has remembered that it was his day for Miss Hinton, and has
tramped off to Anstey Cross. At first I think that she found her
share of the bargain hard to keep, and I have seen Jim come back
with a black face on him, as if things were going amiss. But after
a time the fight was won--as all fights are won if one does but
fight long enough--and in the year before my father came back Miss
Hinton had become another woman. And it was not her ways only, but
herself as well, for from being the person that I have described,
she became in one twelve-month as fine a looking lady as there was
in the whole country-side. Jim was prouder of it by far than of
anything he had had a hand in in his life, but it was only to me
that he ever spoke about it, for he had that tenderness towards her
that one has for those whom one has helped. And she helped him
also, for by her talk of the world and of what she had seen, she
took his mind away from the Sussex country-side and prepared it for
a broader life beyond. So matters stood between them at the time
when peace was made and my father came home from the sea. _
Read next: CHAPTER IV - THE PEACE OF AMIENS
Read previous: CHAPTER II - THE WALKER OF CLIFFE ROYAL
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