Part 47 (2/2)

CHAPTER XXVI

ABOUT 'DUPPENCE'

Down the hill from St. Mary Tavy to Brentor came Brightly, most irrepressible of unwanted things, his basket on his arm, feeding on air and suns.h.i.+ne. It was early spring, there were pleasant odours and a fine blue sky, all good and gratuitous. Brightly had been discharged from prison as a man of no reputation, to be avoided by some and trampled on by others. His one idea was to get back to business; rabbit-skins ought to have acc.u.mulated, he thought, during' the months of his confinement; there would be a rich harvest awaiting him, which might mean the pony and cart at last, with prosperity and a potato-patch to cheer his closing days. He went for his basket, and it was not until it was slung upon his arm and he had bent himself into the old half-hoop shape to carry it over the moor, that he comprehended its emptiness. Formerly his stomach was empty and the basket was full; now both were empty; and the crus.h.i.+ng difficulty of starting afresh without capital was with him again.

Brightly determined to subsist for a little on charity, but he soon made the discovery that Samaritanism was no longer included among the Christian virtues. People refused to do business with him on a benevolent basis. They slammed the doors in his face, and called him unpleasant names. They reminded him he had been in prison, as if he had forgotten it; and some of them added an opinion that he had got off far too cheaply. Others said if he came there again they would set the dog on him. Brightly soon became very hungry, and almost longed for the comforts of prison. It had been no easy matter to make a sort of living during those days when he thought himself honest. Now that he knew he was a criminal it appeared impossible.

Brightly was in danger of becoming an atheist. He stopped his hymn-singing; verses descriptive of the wonderful dairy were no longer found in his mouth, nor did he use the jingling refrain which concludes: ”Jesu, Master, us belongs to yew.” What was the use of belonging to some one who did nothing for him? Wise men have puzzled over that question, so it was not surprising if it bewildered poor foolish Brightly. He had been told in the prison that if he prayed for anything it would be granted; and his informer had added it was obviously his duty to pray for honesty. Brightly did nothing of the kind; he prayed for the pony and cart, throwing himself heart and soul into the business, as he had plenty of time. Instead of being a purveyor of rabbit-skins he became a praying machine. He considered that if there was any truth in the theory that prayers are answered, he ought to find the pony and cart awaiting him at the door of the prison. He did see one as he came out, but it could not have been intended for him, as the name upon the board was not A. Brightly, and near it was a man looking like a sweep who would probably have resisted Brightly's claims with every prospect of success.

His teacher would have said the prayer was not answered because it was not a proper one, but that would not have helped Brightly in the least.

The little man went down the hill sniffing at the sweet wind, but conscious that it was not invigorating as it used to be. The truth of the matter was he was getting tired of life. He had become feeble, his cough was worse, and his eyes troubled him so much that he had to stop often, take off his spectacles, and rub them. But he couldn't rub the darkness away. The eyes were getting bigger than ever because he strained them so, trying to find the road. Sometimes he found himself sinking in a bog; his eyes had never played him such a trick before he became a criminal. As he walked he would look back and whistle or say: ”Us will pitch presently.” He was always forgetting that Ju had ceased to exist; and when he sat down to rest he would talk to her or stroke the heather beside him.

He entered the village of Brentor, but trade remained ”cruel dull,” so he gave it up and tramped along the road towards the church on the tor.

As he went an idea came to him. He must give up the old stretch and try a new one. He might take the eastern side of the moor, Moreton to Ashburton, with the villages between, taking in Widdecombe where the devil dwelt. His old road had been dominated in a sense by St. Michael's Church upon its mount, but the connection had proved of no service to him, and the devil might be a better patron. He could get across to the other side in two days, and perhaps he would find there some one who would give him half-a-crown and set him up in business again.

Brightly was not entirely without capital, for Boodles had given him twopence with his basket, saying she was sorry it was so little, but she too was poor. That was another blow to Brightly; the angel had her limitations, and seemed to have lost her power of working wonders for the time. She too looked ill and miserable, and when celestial beings suffered what chance was there for him? Brightly was not going to invest that twopence in the rabbit-skin business, nor did he regard it as the nucleus round which the fund for his pony and cart would gather. He wrapped it up in many changes of paper, vowing not to touch it until he should require food. The time had almost come, he thought, when he should want food, not to stimulate his body, but to cease its action entirely. The twopence was set aside for his funeral as it were, or rather for the rat-poison which would make the funeral necessary. It amused Brightly to think that people would have to spend money upon him when he was dead, though they refused to give him anything while he was living.

He left Brentor behind and went along the winding road; and the sun came out so pleasantly he wondered if the G.o.ds or human beings would be offended if he whistled. He decided to remain silent, as the constable might be in hiding behind one of the furze-bushes, and he would be sent back to prison for making obscene noises. He knew every yard of the country, though he could see so little of it. Higher up was a big slab of granite, flat and smooth like an altar-tomb, upon which he had often sat and watched the tower of St. Michael's juggling with the big ball of the setting sun. He went up there, and it was not until his boot touched the flat stone that he discovered it was already occupied. A woman was sitting on it. Brightly apologised most humbly for his intrusion, for walking along the road, and for c.u.mbering the face of the earth. He was always meeting people, and he felt he had no right to do so.

”You'm welcome,” said the woman.

Then Brightly opened his nearly useless eyes wider and found that she was Thomasine, the young woman who had been so good to him and Ju, and had fed them when they were starving, and helped them on the way to Tavistock. He had always a.s.sociated Thomasine with a well-stocked kitchen and food in abundance. She had become mixed up in his mind with Jerusalem, and he had thought of her as presiding over the milk and honey, and ladling them out in large quant.i.ties at the back door to hungry men and dogs. And there she was sitting on the big stone looking miserable, with her clothes bedraggled and boots muddy. Brightly began to think hard and to reason with himself. He was not the only miserable creature after all; there were other human things belonging to the neuter gender besides himself. Even the angel was miserable and had confessed to poverty; and not a sc.r.a.p of food surrounded the former Lady Bountiful of Town Rising. Brightly was in Thomasine's debt, and he was prepared to pay what he owed as well as he could. He was willing to share his twopence with Thomasine; she should have an equal portion of the rat-poison if she was hungry for it; and they could wash the meal down with sweet water from the moor. As for Thomasine, the little dried-up fragment which had once represented a mind responded to Brightly's presence and she recognised a friend.

”I be in trouble,” she said.

Brightly was glad to hear it, though he did not say so. It was good to find a partner who would enter into an alliance with him against the fat constable, the Bench of Magistrates, and all the wigs and ermine of oppression. Here was another Ju, a human being this time, and perhaps she too had been sentenced to be destroyed because she was savage, and was trying to hide from the constable and the crowd. Brightly was prepared to show her all sorts of secret places where she would be safe.

”Be yew a criminal tu?” he asked.

Thomasine was not sure, but thought she must be.

”I be one. I be the worst criminal on Dartmoor,” said Brightly, trying to draw himself up and look conceited. He had never done any good in his business, but as a criminal he was ent.i.tled to regard himself as a complete success.

”I ain't got no friends. My volks wun't ha' me to home, and I've lost my character,” said Thomasine.

”I never had no friends, nor volks, nor yet character,” said Brightly.

”You'm the man what went to prison for robbing Varmer Chegwidden,” she said, using her memory with some success.

”Dree months wi' hard labour,” said Brightly proudly.

”Yew never done it. I know who done it. 'Twas Varmer Pendoggat,” she said.

”I thought mebbe I might ha' done it and never knowed,” explained Brightly. ”Why didn't 'em tak' he then?”

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