CHAPTER XVI.
LITTLE BILLY.
When he has refreshed his memory with the map of England, let any manpoint out upon it, if he can deliberately, any two parishes he knowswell, which he can also certify to be exactly like each other, in thecharacter of their inhabitants. Do they ever take alike a startlingpiece of news, about their most important people? Do they weigh in thesame balance the discourses of the parson, the merits of those inauthority, or the endeavours of the rich to help them? If a strangerrides along the street, he is pretty sure to be stared at; but not withquite the same expression, as in the last village he came through. Eachplace has its own style, and tone, vein of sentiment, and lines ofattitude, deepened perhaps by the lore and store of many generations.
For instance, Perlycombe, Perlycross, and Perliton, are but as threepearls on one string, all in a line, and contiguous. The string is thestream; which arising at the eastern extremity of Perlycombe parish,passes through the village, then westward through Perlycross, andwestward still through the much larger village of Perliton. AtPerlycombe it is a noisy little brook, at Perlycross a genialtrout-stream--anon of glassy wanderings, anon of flickered hurry--;while Perliton, by the time it gets there, entitles it "the RiverPerle," and keeps two boats upon it, which are not always more agroundthan landsmen should desire.
Now any one would fancy, that these three adjoining parishes would, inall their ways and manners, be as like each other as three peasvertebrated in one pod. But the fancy would prove that he was only fitfor fiction, not for the clearer heights of history such as this. Forthese three parishes are quite as distinct, one from another, as allthree taken together admit that they are, and deserve to be, from therest of England.
All three are simple, all old-fashioned, highly respectable, andwonderfully quiet--except when lashed up by some outrage--slightlycontemptuous of one another, and decidedly so of the world outside thevalley. From it they differ widely, and from one another visibly, intheir facial expression, and figure, and walk; perceptibly also, in toneof feeling, habits of thought (when they think at all), voices, petwords, and proclivities of slouch. So that in these liberal times offree disintegration, each of them has nature's right to be a separatenation. And in proof of this, they beat their bounds, and often breakeach other's heads, upon Saint Clement's day.
"What an extraordinary sound I hear!" said Christie to her brother, asthey turned to quit the hill. "Just listen a moment. I can't make itout. It sounds like a frightful lot of people in the distance."
"Well, I declare, I had forgotten all about it! How very stupid I amgetting now!" cried Jemmy. "Why this is St. Clement's day, and nomistake!"
"Who is he? I never heard of him. And, what right has he got to makesuch a dreadful noise? He couldn't do it all by himself, Jemmy, even ifhe was on a gridiron."
"But he has got half of Perlycross to help him. Come here, Chris. Hereis a nice dry hollow, away from the damp and the mist; and the noisebelow follows the curve of it."
Fox led his sister into a little scarp of flint, with brows of greyheather, and russet fern, quivering to the swell of funneled uproar."Don't be afraid," he said, "it is only our own parish. There ought tobe three of them; but this is only ours."
"Well, if your parish can make all that noise, what would all three ofthem do together? Why ten packs of hounds couldn't equal it!"
"You have hit the very point; you have a knack of doing that;" answeredJemmy, as he landed her upon a grey ledge. "We don't let the other twoin, any more. The business had always been triennial. But the fightinggrew more and more serious, till the stock of sticking-plaster could notstand it. Then a man of peaceful genius suggested that each parishshould keep its own St. Clement's day, at intervals of three years asbefore; but in succession, instead of all three at once; so that no twocould meet upon the frontier in force. A sad falling off in the spiritof the thing, and threatening to be better for the lawyers, than for us.Perlycombe had their time last year; and now Perlycross has to redressit. Our eastern boundary is down in that hollow; and Perlycombe stoleforty feet from us last year. We are naturally making a little stirabout it."
"If that is a little stir, what would be a big one? But I want to seethem; and the fogginess of the trees in that direction stops me. Ishould say there must be at least five hundred people there. I can'tstop up here, like a dummy."
"Very well. If you love a row so much. But there are no five hundredthere, because it is more than thirty miles round this parish, and thebeaters start in two companies from Perle-Weir, one lot to the north andthe other to the south, and they go round till they meet each other;somewhere at the back of Beaconhill. One churchwarden with each party,and the overseers divided, and the constables, and so on. The parsonshould be in the thickest of the fray; but I strictly forbade Mr.Penniloe, and told him to send Jakes as his deputy. Still I should notbe surprised, if he turns up. He is hot upon the rights of his parish.Come round this way; there is no fear of missing them, any more than apack of hounds in full cry."
Christie was quite up for it. She loved a bit of skirmish, and thoughtit might fetch her brother's spirits up again. So they turned the steepdeclivity, and after many scratches, crept along a tangled path, leadingdown to a wooded gully.
Here they found themselves, rather short of breath, but in a position tocommand fair view of the crowd, full of action in the dingle and thebramble-land. How it could matter to any sane humanity, whether theparish-bound ran even half a league, on this side or on that of such adesert wild, only those who dwell on human nature can explain.
However so it was; and even Mr. Penniloe had flouted the doctors, andwas here, clad in full academicals according to the ancient rule,flourishing his black-varnished stick, and full of unfeigned wrath atsome gross crime.
"Thou shalt not move thy neighbour's land-mark"--he was shouting,instead of swallowing pills; and as many of his flock as heard his text,smote right and left in accordance with it.
"What on earth is it all about?" asked Christie, peeping through a hollybush, and flushing with excitement.
"All about that stone down in the hollow, where the water spurts so.Don't be afraid. They can't see us." The girl looked again, andwondered.
Some fifty yards before them was a sparkling little watercourse,elbowing its way in hurried zig-zag down the steep; but where it landedin the fern-bed with a toss of tresses, some ungodly power of men hadheaved across its silver foot a hugeous boulder of the hill, rugged,bulky, beetle-browed--the "shameless stone" of Homer. And with sucheffect, that the rushing water, like a scared horse, leaped aside, andswerving far at the wrongful impulse, cut a felonious cantel out of thesacred parish of Perlycross!
Even this was not enough. To add insult to injury, some heartless waghad chiselled, on the lichened slab of boulder, a human profile in broadgrin, out of whose wicked mouth came a scroll, inscribed in deepletters--"P. combe Parish."
The Perlycrucians stood before this incredible sight, dumb-foundered.Thus far they had footed it in a light and merry mood, laughing,chaffing, blowing horns, and rattling bladders, thumping trees and gatesand cowsheds, bumping schoolboys against big posts, and daubing everycorner of contention, from kettles of tar or sheep-wash, with a big P.+.
But now as this outrage burst upon them, through a tall sheaf of yellowflags, their indignation knew no bounds, parochial or human. As soon asthey could believe their eyes, they lifted their hands, and closed theirlips; while the boys, who were present in great force--for Jakes couldnot help the holiday--put their fingers in their mouths, and winked atone another. Five or six otter-hounds, from the kennels of a sportingyeoman, had joined the procession with much goodwill; but now theyrecognised the check, and sat upon their haunches, and set up a yellwith one accord, in the dismay of human silence.
Not an oath was uttered, nor a ribald laugh; but presently all eyes wereturned upon the pale Mr. Penniloe, who stood at the side of Mr. Farrant,the junior Churchwarden, who had brought him in his four-wheeled chaise,as far as wheels mi
ght venture. Few were more pained by this crime thanthe parson; he nodded under his College cap, and said--
"My friends, abate this nuisance."
But this was easier said than done, as they very soon discovered. Somecalled for crowbars, and some for gunpowder, and some for a team ofhorses; but nothing of the sort was near at hand. Then Sergeant Jakes,as an old campaigner, came to the rescue, and borrowing a hatchet (ofwhich there were plenty among them), cut down a sapling oak, hard andtough and gnarled from want of nourishment; therewith at the obnoxiousrock they rushed, butting, ramming, tugging, levering, with the big polebelow, and a lot of smaller staves above, and men of every size andshape trampling, and kicking out, and exhorting one another. But theboulder had been fanged into its socket so exactly, probably more byluck than skill, that there it stuck, like a gigantic molar, andPerlycross laboured in vain at it.
"What muffs! As if they could do it, like that! Penniloe ought to knowbetter; why the pressure is all the wrong way. But of course he is anOxford man. Chris, you stay here, till I come back. Cambridge v. Oxford,any day, when it comes to a question of engineering."
Speaking too lightly, he leaped in like manner into the yellow-rib'dbreast of the steep; while Christie communed with herself, like this.
"Oh, what a pity he left St. John's! He must have been senior-wrangler,if he had stayed on, instead of those horrible hospitals. And peoplewould have thought so much more of him. But perhaps he would not havelooked so bright; and he does more good in this line. Though nobodyseems to thank him much. It would be ever so much better for him, and hewould be valued more, if he did ever so much less good. But I like thelook of Mr. Penniloe."
The man who should have been senior-wrangler--as every man ever yet sentto Cambridge should have been, if justice had been done him--went in astyle of the purest mathematics along the conic sections of the verynoble Hagdon. The people in the gully shouted to him, for a single slipwould have brought him down upon their hats; but he kept his breath forthe benefit of his legs, and his nerves were as sound as an oyster's,before its pearly tears begin. Christie watched him without fear; shehad known the construction of his legs, from the days of balusters androcking-horses.
"Give me up a good pole--not too heavy--you see how I have got to throwmy weight; but a bit of good stuff with an elbow to it."
Thus spake Jemmy, and the others did their best. He stuck his heel andfootside into a soft place he had found, and let the ledge of harderstuff overlap his boot-vamps, then he took the springy spar of ash whichsome one had handed up to him, for he stood about twelve feet abovethem, and getting good purchase against a scrag of flint, brought theconvexity of his pole to bear on the topmost jag of boulder.
"Slew away as high as you can reach," he cried; "but don't touch itanywhere near the bottom." As they all put their weights to it, the rockbegan to sway, and with a heavy groan lurched sideways.
"Stand clear!" cried Jemmy, as the whole bunk swang, with the pillar ofwater helping it, and then settled grandly back into the other niche,with the volume of the fall leaping generously into the parish ofPerlycombe.
"Hurrah!" shouted everybody young enough to shout; while the elder menleant upon their staves, and thanked the Lord. Not less than forty feetwas recovered, and another forty added from the substance of big rogues."'Tis the finest thing done ever since I were a boy," said the oldestman present, as he wiped his dripping face. "Measter Vox, come down, andshake hands round. Us will never believe any harm of thee no more."
This reasoning was rather of the heart than head; but it held good allround, as it generally does. And now as the sound of the water went awayinto its proper course, with the joy of the just pursuing it, Miss Fox,who had watched all proceedings from the ridge, could hear how thecurrent of public opinion was diverted and rushing in her brother'sfavour. So she pinned up a torn skirt, and smoothed out another, andputting back her bright hair, tripped down the wooded slope, and stoodwith a charming blush before them. The labourers touched their hats, andthe farmers lifted theirs, and every one tried to look his best; forPerlycross being a poetical parish is always very wide awake to beauty.
"My sister!" explained Dr. Fox with just pride. "My sister, Mr.Penniloe! My sister, Mr. Farrant! Sergeant Jakes, my sister! MissChristie Fox will be glad to know you all."
"And I am sure that everybody will be glad to know Miss Fox," said theParson, coming forward with his soft sweet smile. "At any time she wouldbe welcome; but now she is come at the time of all times. Behold whatyour brother has done, Miss Fox! That stream is the parish boundary."
"He maketh the river to run in dry places;" cried Channing the clerk,who had been pulling at his keg, "and lo, he hath taken away thereproach of his people, Israel!"
"Mr. Channing! Fie, Mr. Channing!" began the representative of the upperdesk, and then suddenly checked himself, lest he should put the old manto shame, before the children of the parish.
"By the by," said Mr. Farrant, coming in to fill the pause; "Dr. Fox isthe likeliest person to tell us what this curious implement is. It lookslike a surgical instrument of some sort. We found it, Doctor, in thissame watercourse, about a furlong further down, where the Blackmarshlane goes through it. We were putting our parish-mark on the old treethat overhangs a deep hole, when this young gent who is uncommon spry--Iwish you luck of him, I'm sure, Mr. Penniloe--there he spies it, and inhe goes, like an otter, and out with it, before he could get wet,almost."
"Not likely I was going to leave it there," young Peckover interrupted;"I thought it was a clot of eels, or a pair of gloves, or something.Though of course a glove would float, when you come to think of it.Perhaps the young lady knows--she looks so clever."
"Hopper, no cheek!" Dr. Fox spoke sharply, for the youth was staring athis sister. "Mr. Farrant, I can't tell you what it is; for I never saw asurgical instrument like it. I should say it was more like ablacksmith's, or perhaps a turner's tool; though not at all a commonone, in either business. Is Crang here, or one of his apprentices?"
"No, sir. Joe is at home to-day--got a heavy job," answered someone inthe crowd; "and the two prentices be gone with t'other lot of us."
"I'll tell you what I'll do;" volunteered the Hopper, who was fuming atthe slowness of parochial demarcation, for he would have been at theback of Beacon Hill by this time; "I'll go straight with it to Susscot,and be back again before these old codgers have done a brace of meadows.It is frightful cold work to stand about like this. I found it, and I'llfind out what it is too."
The tool was handed to him, and he set off, like a chamois, in astraight line westward; while two or three farmers, who had sufferedalready from his steeplechase tracks, would have sent a brief word afterhim, but for the parson's presence. Fox, who was amused with thisspecimen of his county, ran part way up the hill to watch his course,and then beckoned to his sister, to return to the Old Barn by thefootpath along the foot of Hagdon.
They had scarcely finished dinner, which they had to take in haste, byreason of the shortness of the days, and their intended visit toWalderscourt, when Joe Crang the blacksmith appeared in the yard,pulling his hat off, and putting it on again, and wiping his face with atongs-swab.
Fox saw that the man was in a state of much excitement, and made himcome in, while Miss Christie went upstairs, to prepare for their driveto Walderscourt.
"What's the matter, Crang? Take a chair there. You needn't be nervous,"said the Doctor kindly; "I have no grudge against you for saying whatyou believe. It has done me a world of harm, no doubt; but it's no faultof yours. It's only my bad luck, that some fellow very like me, and alsoa Jemmy, should have been in that black job that night. But I wish youhad just shown a little more pluck, as I told you the other day. If youhad just gone round the horse and looked; or even sung out--'Is thatyou, Doctor?' why you might have saved me from--from knowing so muchabout my friends."
"Oh sir, 'twaz an awesome night! But what I be come for to say, sir, isjust this. I absolve 'e, sir; I absolve 'e, Measter Vox. If that be theright
word,--and a' cometh from the Baible, I absolve 'e, Measter Vox."
"Absolve me from what, Crang? I have done nothing. You mean, I suppose,that you acquit me?"
"Well now, you would never believe--but that's the very word ofdiscoorse that have been sticking in my throat all the way from theford. You never done it, sir,--not you. You never done it, sir! You mayput me on my oath."
"But you have been very much upon your oath, ever since it happened,that I was the man, and no other man, that did the whole of it, JosephCrang. And the ale you have had on the strength of it!"
"The ale, sir, is neither here nor there"--the blacksmith looked hurt bythis imputation--"it cometh to-day, and it goeth to-morrow, the same asthe flowers of the field. But the truth is the thing as abideth, MeasterJemmy. Not but what the ale might come, upon the other view of it.Likewise, likewise--if the Lord in heaven ordereth it, the same as thequails from the sky, sir."
"The miracle would be if it failed to come, wherever you are, Joseph.But what has converted you from glasses against me, to glasses in myfavour?"
"Nothing more than this, sir. Seemeth to a loose mind neither here northere. But to them that knoweth it, beyond when human mind began,perhaps afore the flood waz, there's nought that speaks like LittleBilly."
"Why this," exclaimed Fox, as he unrolled the last new leathern apron ofthe firm of Crang and wife, "this is the thing they found to-day inbeating the bounds of the parish. Nobody could make out what it was.What can it have to do with me, or the sad affair at Perlycross?"
"Little Billy, sir," replied the blacksmith, dandling the tool withhonest love, as he promptly recovered it from Fox, "have been in ourfamily from father to son, since time runneth not to the contrary. Halfher can do is unbeknown to me, not having the brains as used to be. Ah,we was clever people then, afore the times of the New Covenant. Itrunneth in our race that there was a Joe Crang did the crafty work forthe Tabernacle as was set up in the wilderness. And it might a' been himas made Little Billy."
"Very hard indeed to prove. Harder still to disprove. But giving you thebenefit of the doubt, Master Crang, how have you used this magic toolyourself?"
"That's where the very pint of the whole thing lies; that's what showsthem up so ungrateful, sir. Not a soul in the parish to remember whatLittle Billy hath been to them! Mind, I don't say as I understand thistool, though I does a'most anything with her. But for them not to know!For them to send to ax the name of 'un, when there bain't one in ten of'em as hathn't roared over 'un, when her was screwed to a big backtooth."
"The ungrateful villains! It is really too bad. So after all, it provesto be what Mr. Farrant thought it was--a genuine surgical instrument.But go on, Crang; will you never tell me how this amounts to any proof,either of my guilt or innocence?"
"Why according of this here, sir, and no way out of it. Little Billywere took off my shelf, where her always bideth from father to son, bythe big man as come along of the lame horse and the cart, that night.When I was a kneeling down, I zeed 'un put his hand to it, though Idussn't say a word for the life of me. And he slipped 'un into hispocket, same as he would a penny dolly."
"Come now, that does seem more important," said the Doctor cogitating."But what could the fellow have wanted it for?"
"Can't tell 'e, sir," replied the blacksmith. "For some of hisunchristian work, maybe. Or he might have thought it would came inhandy, if aught should go amiss with the poor nag again. Many's the shoeI've punched off with Little Billy."
"A Billy of all trades it seems to be. But how does the recovery of thistool show that you made a mistake about me, Crang?"
"By reason of the place where her was cast away. You can't get from OldBarn to Blackmarsh lane with wheels, sir, any way, can you? You know howthat is, Doctor Jemmy."
"Certainly I do. But that proves nothing to my mind at all conclusive."
"To my mind it do prove everything conclusive. And here be the sign andseal of it. As long as I spoke again' you, Dr. Vox, I was forced to gowithout my Little Billy. Not a day's work hath prospered all that time,and two bad shillings from chaps as rode away. But now I be took to theright side again, here comes my Little Billy, and an order for threeharries!"
"But it was the Little Billy that has made you change sides. It camebefore, and not in consequence of that."
"And glad I be to see 'un, sir, and glad to find you clear of it. Tell'e what I'll do, Doctor Jemmy. You draw a table up as big as TenCommandments, and three horse shoes on the top for luck, in the name ofthe Lord, and King William the Fourth, and we'll have it on Church-doorby next Sunday, with my mark on it, and both 'prentices. You put it up,sir, like Nebuchadnezzar; beginning--'I, Joseph Crang, do herebyconfess, confirm, and convince all honest folk of this here parish----'"
"No, no; nothing of that, Joe. I am quite satisfied. Let people comeround, or not; just as they like. I am having a holiday, and I find itvery pleasant."
"Meaning to say, as it have spoiled your trade? Never would I forgive aman as did the like to me. But I see you be going for a trip somewhere,sir, with a pretty lady. Only you mind one thing. Joe Crang will shoeyour horses, as long as you bide in Perlycrass, for the wholesale priceof the iron, Doctor Jemmy; time, and labour, and nails thrown in, freegratis and for nothing."