Wandering Heath Part 13

"It was a little bookmarker, worked in silk, with one pink rose, the initials M. P. (for Mercy Penno, no doubt), and under these the favourite lines that small West-country children in England embroider on their samplers:"

'Rose leaves smell When roses thrive: Here's my work When I'm alive.

Rose leaves smell When shrunk and shred: Here's my work When I'm dead.'

I turned to the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians: showed the captain where to begin; and laid the bookmarker opposite the place.

"We walked a few paces together as far as the green knoll that I have described as overhanging Eucalyptus, and there I halted to wait for the funeral, while Captain Bill went on to the Necropolis to make sure that the grave was ready and all arrangements complete.

The procession was not due to start for another quarter of an hour, so I found a comfortable boulder and sat down to smoke a pipe.

Right under me stretched the deserted main street, and in the hush of the morning--it was just the middle of the Indian summer, and the air all sunny and soft--I could hear the billiard b.a.l.l.s click-click-clicking as usual, and the players' voices breaking in at intervals, and the banjoes tinkling away down the street from saloon to saloon. These and the distant chatter of the river were all the sounds; and the river's chatter seemed hardly so persistent and monotonous as the voices of the saloons and the unceasing question--"

'Was it weary there In the wilderness?

Was it weary-y-y, 'way down in Goshen?'

"Suddenly, far down the street, there was a stir, and from the door of No. 67 half a dozen men came staggering out into the suns.h.i.+ne under a black coffin, which they carried shoulder high; and behind came two figures only--those of Miss Montmorency and the architect-- arm in arm. The bearers wheeled round, got into step after one or two attempts, and the procession advanced.

"And I observed, as it advanced, that a hush came slowly with it, closing on the click of the b.a.l.l.s and the strumming of the banjoes, as from saloon after saloon the players stepped out and fell in at the tail of the procession. Gradually these noises were penned into the three or four saloons immediately beneath me; and then these, too, were silenced, and the mourners began to climb the hill.

"I did not attend the funeral after all. I rose and stood hat in hand as it climbed past--the coffin, the one woman, and the many men.

It was grotesque enough. Flo had on the same outrageous costume she had worn at our first meeting; but a look at the black drapery of the coffin sanctified _that_. One mourner, in pure absence of mind, had brought along his billiard-cue as a walking-stick; and every now and then would step out of the ranks and distribute whacks among the five or six dogs that frisked alongside the procession. But I read on every face the consciousness that Eucalyptus was doing its duty.

"So they climbed past and up to the Necropolis, and filed in between its two pillars. I could see among the pines a group or two standing, with bent heads, and Captain Bill towering beside the grave; at times I heard his voice lifted, but could not catch the words. Down in the town for a while all was silent as death.

Then in a saloon below some boy--left behind, no doubt, to look after the house--took up a banjo and began to pick out slowly and with one finger the tune of ''Way down upon the Suwanee River,' and as it went I fitted the words to it:"

'All the world is sad and dreary Everywhere I roam, Oh, brudders, how my heart grows weary . . .'

"The tune ceased. The only sound now came from a robin, hunting about the turf and now and then breaking out into an impatient twitter.

"The silence was broken at length by the footsteps of the mourners returning. They went down the hill almost as decorously as they had gone up. Flo stepped aside and came towards me.

"'Let me stay beside you for a bit. I can't go back there--yet.'

"This was all she said; and we stood there side by side for minutes.

Soon the tinkle of a banjo came up to us, and a pair of billiard b.a.l.l.s clicked; then a second banjo joined in; and gradually, as the stream of citizens trickled back and spread, so like a stream the sound of clicking billiard b.a.l.l.s and tinkling banjoes trickled back and spread along the main street of Eucalyptus City."

'Was it weary there, In de wilderness? . . .'

"Flo looked at me and put out a hand; but drew it back before I could take it. And so, without another word, she went down the hill."

WIDDERs.h.i.+NS.

A DROLL.

Once upon a time there was a small farmer living in Wendron parish, not far from the church-town. 'Thaniel Teague was his name.

This Teague happened to walk into Helston on a Furry-day, when the Mayor and townspeople dance through the streets to the Furry-tune.

In the evening there was a grand ball given at the Angel Hotel, and the landlord very kindly allowed Teague--who had stopped too late as it was--to look in through the door and watch the gentry dance the Lancers.

Teague thought he had never seen anything so heavenly. What with one hindrance and another 'twas past midnight before he reached home, and then nothing would do for him but he must have his wife and six children out upon the floor in their night-clothes, practising the Grand Chain while he sang--

Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise!

The seventh child, the babby, they set down in the middle of the floor, like a nine-pin. And the worst of it was, the poor mite twisted his eyes so, trying to follow his mammy round and round, that he grew up with a cast from that hour.

'Tis of this child--Joby he was called--that I am going to tell you.

Barring the cast, he grew up a very straight lad, and in due time began to think upon marrying. His father's house faced south, and as it came easier to him to look north-west than any other direction, he chose a wife from Gwinear parish. His elder brothers had gone off to sea for their living, and his sister had married a mine-captain: so when the old people died, Joby took over the farm and worked it, and did very well.

Joby's wife was very fond of him, though of course she didn't like that cast in his looks: and in many ways 'twas inconvenient too.

If the poor man ever put hand on plough to draw a straight furrow, round to the north 'twould work as sure as a compa.s.s-needle.

She consulted the doctors about it, and they did no good. Then she thought about consulting a conjurer; but being a timorous woman as well as not over-wise, she put it off for a while.

Now, there was a little fellow living over to Penryn in those times, Tommy Warne by name, that gave out he knew how to conjure.

Folks believed in him more than he did himself: for, to tell truth, he was a lazy shammick, who liked most ways of getting a living better than hard work. Still, he was generally made pretty welcome at the farm-houses round, for he could turn a hand to anything and always kept the maids laughing in the kitchen. One morning he dropped in on Farmer Joby and asked for a job to earn his dinner; and Joby gave him some straw to spin for thatching. By dinner-time Tom had spun two bundles of such very large size that the farmer rubbed his chin when he looked at them.

"Why," says he, "I always thought you a liar--I did indeed. But now I believe you can conjure, sure enough."

As for Mrs. Joby, she was so much pleased that, though she felt certain the devil must have had a hand in it, she gave Tom an extra helping of pudding for dinner.

Some time after this, Farmer Joby missed a pair of pack-saddles.

Search and ask as he might, he couldn't find out who had stolen them, or what had become of them.

"Tommy Warne's a clever fellow," he said at last. "I must see if he can tell me anything." So he walked over to Penryn on purpose.

Tommy was in his doorway smoking when Farmer Joby came down the street. "So you'm after they pack-saddles," said he.

"Why, how ever did you know?"

"That's my business. Will it do if you find 'em after harvest?"

"To be sure 'twill. I only want to know where they be."

"Very well, then; after harvest they'll be found."

Home the farmer went. Sure enough, after harvest, he went to unwind Tommy's two big bundles of straw-rope for thatching the mow, and in the middle of each was one of his missing pack-saddles.

"Well, now," said Joby's wife, "that fellow must have a real gift of conjurin'! I wonder, my dear, you don't go and consult him about that there cross-eye of yours."

"I will, then," said Joby; and he walked over to Penryn again the very next market-day.

"'Cure your eyes,' is it?" said Tommy Warne. "Why, to be sure I can.

Why didn't you ax me afore? I thought you _liked_ squintin'."

"I don't, then; I hate it."

"Very well; you shall see straight this very night if you do what I tell you. Go home and tell your wife to make your bed on the roof of the four-poster; and she must make it widders.h.i.+ns, turnin' bed-tie and all against the sun, and puttin' the pillow where the feet come as a rule. That's all."

"Fancy my never thinkin' of anything so simple as that!" said Joby.