Two on a Tower Read online

  II

  Swithin St. Cleeve lingered on at his post, until the more sanguine birdsof the plantation, already recovering from their midwinter anxieties,piped a short evening hymn to the vanishing sun.

  The landscape was gently concave; with the exception of tower and hillthere were no points on which late rays might linger; and hence the dish-shaped ninety acres of tilled land assumed a uniform hue of shade quitesuddenly. The one or two stars that appeared were quickly clouded over,and it was soon obvious that there would be no sweeping the heavens thatnight. After tying a piece of tarpaulin, which had once seen service onhis maternal grandfather's farm, over all the apparatus around him, hewent down the stairs in the dark, and locked the door.

  With the key in his pocket he descended through the underwood on the sideof the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossedthe field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left notraces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a fewminutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly onthe other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatchedhouse, whose enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks,could be seen even in the twilight. Over the white walls, built of chalkin the lump, outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if drawn incharcoal.

  Inside the house his maternal grandmother was sitting by a wood fire.Before it stood a pipkin, in which something was evidently kept warm. Aneight-legged oak table in the middle of the room was laid for a meal.This woman of eighty, in a large mob cap, under which she wore a littlecap to keep the other clean, retained faculties but little blunted. Shewas gazing into the flames, with her hands upon her knees, quietly re-enacting in her brain certain of the long chain of episodes, pathetic,tragical, and humorous, which had constituted the parish history for thelast sixty years. On Swithin's entry she looked up at him in a sidewaydirection.

  'You should not have waited for me, granny,' he said.

  ''Tis of no account, my child. I've had a nap while sitting here. Yes,I've had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again, as usual.The place was as natural as when I left it,--e'en just threescore yearsago! All the folks and my old aunt were there, as when I was achild,--yet I suppose if I were really to set out and go there, hardly asoul would be left alive to say to me, dog how art! But tell Hannah tostir her stumps and serve supper--though I'd fain do it myself, the poorold soul is getting so unhandy!'

  Hannah revealed herself to be much nimbler and several years younger thangranny, though of this the latter seemed to be oblivious. When the mealwas nearly over Mrs. Martin produced the contents of the mysteriousvessel by the fire, saying that she had caused it to be brought in fromthe back kitchen, because Hannah was hardly to be trusted with suchthings, she was becoming so childish.

  'What is it, then?' said Swithin. 'Oh, one of your special puddings.' Atsight of it, however, he added reproachfully, 'Now, granny!'

  Instead of being round, it was in shape an irregular boulder that hadbeen exposed to the weather for centuries--a little scrap pared off here,and a little piece broken away there; the general aim being,nevertheless, to avoid destroying the symmetry of the pudding whiletaking as much as possible of its substance.

  'The fact is,' added Swithin, 'the pudding is half gone!'

  'I've only sliced off the merest paring once or twice, to taste if it waswell done!' pleaded granny Martin, with wounded feelings. 'I said toHannah when she took it up, "Put it here to keep it warm, as there's abetter fire than in the back kitchen."'

  'Well, I am not going to eat any of it!' said Swithin decisively, as herose from the table, pushed away his chair, and went up-stairs; the'other station of life that was in his blood,' and which had been broughtout by the grammar school, probably stimulating him.

  'Ah, the world is an ungrateful place! 'Twas a pity I didn't take mypoor name off this earthly calendar and creep under ground sixty longyears ago, instead of leaving my own county to come here!' mourned oldMrs. Martin. 'But I told his mother how 'twould be--marrying so manynotches above her. The child was sure to chaw high, like his father!'

  When Swithin had been up-stairs a minute or two however, he altered hismind, and coming down again ate all the pudding, with the aspect of aperson undertaking a deed of great magnanimity. The relish with which hedid so restored the unison that knew no more serious interruptions thansuch as this.

  'Mr. Torkingham has been here this afternoon,' said his grandmother; 'andhe wants me to let him meet some of the choir here to-night for practice.They who live at this end of the parish won't go to his house to try overthe tunes, because 'tis so far, they say, and so 'tis, poor men. So he'sgoing to see what coming to them will do. He asks if you would like tojoin.'

  'I would if I had not so much to do.'

  'But it is cloudy to-night.'

  'Yes; but I have calculations without end, granny. Now, don't you tellhim I'm in the house, will you? and then he'll not ask for me.'

  'But if he should, must I then tell a lie, Lord forgive me?'

  'No, you can say I'm up-stairs; he must think what he likes. Not a wordabout the astronomy to any of them, whatever you do. I should be calleda visionary, and all sorts.'

  'So thou beest, child. Why can't ye do something that's of use?'

  At the sound of footsteps Swithin beat a hasty retreat up-stairs, wherehe struck a light, and revealed a table covered with books and papers,while round the walls hung star-maps, and other diagrams illustrative ofcelestial phenomena. In a corner stood a huge pasteboard tube, which aclose inspection would have shown to be intended for a telescope. Swithinhung a thick cloth over the window, in addition to the curtains, and satdown to his papers. On the ceiling was a black stain of smoke, and underthis he placed his lamp, evidencing that the midnight oil was consumed onthat precise spot very often.

  Meanwhile there had entered to the room below a personage who, to judgefrom her voice and the quick pit-pat of her feet, was a maiden young andblithe. Mrs. Martin welcomed her by the title of Miss Tabitha Lark, andinquired what wind had brought her that way; to which the visitor repliedthat she had come for the singing.

  'Sit ye down, then,' said granny. 'And do you still go to the House toread to my lady?'

  'Yes, I go and read, Mrs. Martin; but as to getting my lady to hearken,that's more than a team of six horses could force her to do.'

  The girl had a remarkably smart and fluent utterance, which was probablya cause, or a consequence, of her vocation.

  ''Tis the same story, then?' said grandmother Martin.

  'Yes. Eaten out with listlessness. She's neither sick nor sorry, buthow dull and dreary she is, only herself can tell. When I get there inthe morning, there she is sitting up in bed, for my lady don't care toget up; and then she makes me bring this book and that book, till the bedis heaped up with immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, asshe leans upon her elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; thenshe looks towards the tall glass; then she looks out at the weather,mooning her great black eyes, and fixing them on the sky as if they stuckthere, while my tongue goes flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty wordsa minute; then she looks at the clock; then she asks me what I've beenreading.'

  'Ah, poor soul!' said granny. 'No doubt she says in the morning, "WouldGod it were evening," and in the evening, "Would God it were morning,"like the disobedient woman in Deuteronomy.'

  Swithin, in the room overhead, had suspended his calculations, for theduologue interested him. There now crunched heavier steps outside thedoor, and his grandmother could be heard greeting sundry localrepresentatives of the bass and tenor voice, who lent a cheerful and well-known personality to the names Sammy Blore, Nat Chapman, Hezekiah Biles,and Haymoss Fry (the latter being one with whom the reader has already adistant acquaintance); besides these came small producers of treble, whohad not yet developed into such distinctive units of society as torequire particularizing.

  'Is the good man come?'
asked Nat Chapman. 'No,--I see we be here aforehim. And how is it with aged women to-night, Mrs. Martin?'

  'Tedious traipsing enough with this one, Nat. Sit ye down. Well, littleFreddy, you don't wish in the morning that 'twere evening, and at eveningthat 'twere morning again, do you, Freddy, trust ye for it?'

  'Now, who might wish such a thing as that, Mrs Martin?--nobody in thisparish?' asked Sammy Blore curiously.

  'My lady is always wishing it,' spoke up Miss Tabitha Lark.

  'Oh, she! Nobody can be answerable for the wishes of that onnaturaltribe of mankind. Not but that the woman's heart-strings is tried inmany aggravating ways.'

  'Ah, poor woman!' said granny. 'The state she finds herself in--neithermaid, wife, nor widow, as you may say--is not the primest form of lifefor keeping in good spirits. How long is it since she has heard from SirBlount, Tabitha?'

  'Two years and more,' said the young woman. 'He went into one side ofAfrica, as it might be, three St. Martin's days back. I can mind it,because 'twas my birthday. And he meant to come out the other side. Buthe didn't. He has never come out at all.'

  'For all the world like losing a rat in a barley-mow,' said Hezekiah.'He's lost, though you know where he is.'

  His comrades nodded.

  'Ay, my lady is a walking weariness. I seed her yawn just at the verymoment when the fox was halloaed away by Lornton Copse, and the houndsrunned en all but past her carriage wheels. If I were she I'd see alittle life; though there's no fair, club-walking, nor feast to speak of,till Easter week,--that's true.'

  'She dares not. She's under solemn oath to do no such thing.'

  'Be cust if I would keep any such oath! But here's the pa'son, if myears don't deceive me.'

  There was a noise of horse's hoofs without, a stumbling against the door-scraper, a tethering to the window-shutter, a creaking of the door on itshinges, and a voice which Swithin recognized as Mr. Torkingham's. Hegreeted each of the previous arrivals by name, and stated that he wasglad to see them all so punctually assembled.

  'Ay, sir,' said Haymoss Fry. ''Tis only my jints that have kept me fromassembling myself long ago. I'd assemble upon the top of WellandSteeple, if 'tweren't for my jints. I assure ye, Pa'son Tarkenham, thatin the clitch o' my knees, where the rain used to come through when I wascutting clots for the new lawn, in old my lady's time, 'tis as if ratswez gnawing, every now and then. When a feller's young he's too small inthe brain to see how soon a constitution can be squandered, worse luck!'

  'True,' said Biles, to fill the time while the parson was engaged infinding the Psalms. 'A man's a fool till he's forty. Often have Ithought, when hay-pitching, and the small of my back seeming no stouterthan a harnet's, "The devil send that I had but the making of labouringmen for a twelvemonth!" I'd gie every man jack two good backbones, evenif the alteration was as wrong as forgery.'

  'Four,--four backbones,' said Haymoss, decisively.

  'Yes, four,' threw in Sammy Blore, with additional weight of experience.'For you want one in front for breast-ploughing and such like, one at theright side for ground-dressing, and one at the left side for turningmixens.'

  'Well; then next I'd move every man's wyndpipe a good span away from hisglutchpipe, so that at harvest time he could fetch breath in 's drinking,without being choked and strangled as he is now. Thinks I, when I feelthe victuals going--'

  'Now, we'll begin,' interrupted Mr. Torkingham, his mind returning tothis world again on concluding his search for a hymn.

  Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they weresettling into their seats,--a disturbance which Swithin took advantage ofby going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paperover knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, thathis lamp-light might not shine down. The absence of a ceiling beneathrendered his position virtually that of one suspended in the sameapartment.

  The parson announced the tune, and his voice burst forth with 'Onward,Christian soldiers!' in notes of rigid cheerfulness.

  In this start, however, he was joined only by the girls and boys, the menfurnishing but an accompaniment of ahas and hems. Mr. Torkinghamstopped, and Sammy Blore spoke,--

  'Beg your pardon, sir,--if you'll deal mild with us a moment. What withthe wind and walking, my throat's as rough as a grater; and not knowingyou were going to hit up that minute, I hadn't hawked, and I don't thinkHezzy and Nat had, either,--had ye, souls?'

  'I hadn't got thorough ready, that's true,' said Hezekiah.

  'Quite right of you, then, to speak,' said Mr. Torkingham. 'Don't mindexplaining; we are here for practice. Now clear your throats, then, andat it again.'

  There was a noise as of atmospheric hoes and scrapers, and the basscontingent at last got under way with a time of its own:

  'Honwerd, Christen sojers!'

  'Ah, that's where we are so defective--the pronunciation,' interruptedthe parson. 'Now repeat after me: "On-ward, Christ-ian, sol-diers."'

  The choir repeated like an exaggerative echo: 'On-wed, Chris-ting, sol-jaws!'

  'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man whogot his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was notvery perceptible to other people. 'But it should not be given with quiteso extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes.And, Nathaniel Chapman, there's a jauntiness in your manner of singingwhich is not quite becoming. Why don't you sing more earnestly?'

  'My conscience won't let me, sir. They say every man for himself: but,thank God, I'm not so mean as to lessen old fokes' chances by beingearnest at my time o' life, and they so much nearer the need o't.'

  'It's bad reasoning, Nat, I fear. Now, perhaps we had better sol-fa thetune. Eyes on your books, please. Sol-sol! fa-fa! mi--'

  'I can't sing like that, not I!' said Sammy Blore, with condemnatoryastonishment. 'I can sing genuine music, like F and G; but not anythingso much out of the order of nater as that.'

  'Perhaps you've brought the wrong book, sir?' chimed in Haymoss, kindly.'I've knowed music early in life and late,--in short, ever since LukeSneap broke his new fiddle-bow in the wedding psalm, when Pa'son Wiltonbrought home his bride (you can mind the time, Sammy?--when we sung "Hiswife, like a fair fertile vine, her lovely fruit shall bring," when theyoung woman turned as red as a rose, not knowing 'twas coming). I'veknowed music ever since then, I say, sir, and never heard the like o'that. Every martel note had his name of A, B, C, at that time.'

  'Yes, yes, men; but this is a more recent system!'

  'Still, you can't alter a old-established note that's A or B by nater,'rejoined Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham wasgetting off his head. 'Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let's have aslap at Christen sojers again, and show the Pa'son the true way!'

  Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being aboutseventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent upthe pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatterthan the parson's. While an argument as to the true pitch was inprogress, there came a knocking without.

  'Somebody's at the door!' said a little treble girl.

  'Thought I heard a knock before!' said the relieved choir.

  The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, 'Is Mr.Torkingham here?'

  'Yes, Mills. What do you want?'

  It was the parson's man.

  'Oh, if you please,' said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himselfround the door, 'Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir,and could you call on her after dinner, if you ben't engaged with poorfokes? She's just had a letter,--so they say,--and it's about that, Ibelieve.'

  Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at onceif he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising,and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singersassisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over theedge of the Bottom.