XXIII




Winnie Huddy Runs a Race

What we expect does not always happen. Sometimes a holiday, instead of pleasing a man, makes him restless.

The pleasure-seeker hopes to be happy, amusing himself, but finds that he cannot sleep at night. This, or something else, will happen to him to make him discontented. In a little while he will wish himself back at his work. If he be a writer, he will stare gloomily into a bookshop, and curse all authorship. If he is an engineer, he will peep into the dingy gates of a foundry and envy the doorkeeper—a large black spider. If he is a Member of Parliament, he will read Gladstone’s speeches.

John Death was a mower, and so—feeling a little out of sorts—he had spent the evening whetting his scythe. When he had finished doing that he did not wish to go to bed. The thought of Susie Dawe kept him from sleeping. Though the hour was late, he went to her cottage and overheard what was going on there. That others, as well as himself, should wish for Susie amused John, and so he laughed.

When Mere left James Dawe’s cottage, Death saw him go, but even then John did not return home, for he thought he would like to walk over Madder Hill.

A man upon a holiday is a pryer. When he goes to any part of the country that is new to him, he will pry about and see all he can. He will even peep sometimes where he has no business to look. John had now given his parchment up for lost, and he had already begun to look for other matters of interest. Love was one of them, but he wondered why he thought so much of Susie.

In the way of his trade, he had seen a large number of young women, though—being taken up with other doings than lovemaking—he had not regarded them. Now, having nothing to do, he felt differently. Idleness breeds love. John had to make the best of it, and the best to be made was Susie. Ever since he had seen her name written in Bridle’s field he had loved her. At first—for a mere jest, perhaps—he had set the image of her in his heart, but now he longed wholly to possess her.

He laughed at himself for being so serious, and Love laughed at him too.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “if I went for a night-walk, I should not feel so foolish.” He might forget Susie if he looked at the stars.

John Death slowly climbed Madder Hill, from the summit of which he looked down upon Madder village. The village was utterly quiet and deserted, and upon the low meadows near there lay a white mist.

Death descended the hill and entered Madder. He went to the green and stood upon a stone that was there. And there he felt himself to be a lonely thing. Who had cared for him? Who had ever loved him? Many had called him, many had made a sudden use of his terrible power, but who had loved him?

Could he ever be really loved? He stood there alone. All Madder was silent. No one likes to be sad, and John Death least of all. The weight of his loneliness troubled him; he must rid himself of the burden. He must amuse himself somehow. He must walk off and seek some entertainment.

A summer’s night is never really dark, and John was able to look about him quite easily. Near to the village church there was a little cottage surrounded by a thick grove of nut-bushes. This grove attracted John’s attention. What did it hide?

With many another prying gentleman, Death was extremely inquisitive. If he came upon any mystery, he wished to probe it to see what it contained. He liked to see to the bottom. From the look of the grove he concluded that the nut-trees had been planted to keep some one out. Death smiled to himself, and looked around him for some place in which to hide.

Near to the cottage there was a low wall, made of the rough, local stone, and easy to climb. Death, who does not always wish to be seen, hid behind the wall, peeped through a crevice, and examined the grove of nut-bushes. Such a protection, he assured himself, must have been grown there for some important purpose. Evidently the grove was planted to keep the owner safe. Safe from whom? Death was vain. Like many another important person, he considered that he was the one that everybody ought to think about. And when he saw how thick the nut-bushes were, he believed that they had been planted on purpose to keep him away. He believed that he, alone, was the one who should be feared by all mortal men, and why not, then, by Mr. Solly?

But Death soon saw that he was wrong. The night wind brought the sound of the Shelton church clock. The clock struck twelve.

Some one came by from Dodder, a slight figure, a nymph of the night—a child.

Earlier in the evening the sound that John had made when he whetted his scythe awakened Winnie Huddy. The sound made Winnie restless; she tried to go to sleep, but she could not. She took up the rag doll who always slept with her, and pinched its nose.

“I be going out,” she said, “and thee must mind house time I be gone. I be going to see how wold Solly’s nuts do grow.”

Winnie slipped on her clothes and her shoes, and ran out. As she went downstairs she heard Daisy sigh and old Huddy snore. Besides seeing how the nuts were forming, Winnie had something else in her mind that she meant to do.

She had been told by Susie Dawe that Mr. Solly had grown the nut-bushes to keep out Love. Winnie did not know who Love was, but she thought it would be amusing to pretend to be Love, to creep into the grove and frighten Mr. Solly. Besides she regarded her doll as a baby, who ought to have a father. And a fine father, she knew, Mr. Solly would be, with all his nuts to give away. There was nothing Winnie liked to do better than to frighten a man.

On Madder Hill she had a little fright herself, that she did not expect. As she went by a lonely thorn-bush, she thought that some one stood in its shadow—for the summer moon, though low down, threw a shadow. Winnie thought that a man stood there—Mr. Jar, the tinker.

The sight of him made Winnie run the faster; she skipped down the hill like a rabbit, and soon came to Solly’s house. She waited a little, resting on one foot and then upon the other, wondering what to do. She was astonished at the size and thickness of Mr. Solly’s nut-bushes. They were as well grown as her father’s beard. Behind all those trees Mr. Solly was probably fast asleep. She wondered what Mr. Solly had eaten for his supper. If he was going to be the father of her doll, she supposed that he must also become her own husband. Perhaps he had supped on bread and milk. Such a diet, Winnie believed, was proper for husbands. She would have one basin and Mr. Solly another.

Winnie stood on one leg and took off a shoe. She took out a little stone from the shoe. She shivered and looked at the wall, then she turned to Mr. Solly’s grove and prowled around the place, seeking for an entrance. She crept silently like a young panther. Coming to the gate, she tried to open it; the gate was fast locked. She shook it sturdily, but it would not open. She could neither get through the gate nor yet climb over it.

She walked round the grove again, peeping everywhere, and stepping cautiously upon the grass, that was soaked in dew. Going round the third time, she saw a little hole between two nut-trees, through which she thought she might creep. Her wish was to crawl in there, find a way through a window into Mr. Solly’s house, run up to his bedroom, and shout “Camel” into his ear. That was what Winnie wished to do to Mr. Solly, because she had always known his politeness to Miss Bridle.

Winnie looked again at the small hole in the nut hedge. She had heard it said that where your head can go your body can follow; she thought she could easily creep through the hole.

She was about to make the attempt when Death leaped over the wall, dislodging a stone, that fell with a clatter. No sooner was he safe over than he rushed upon Winnie.

He was very angry because his pride was hurt. He had thought that the wall of nuts had been grown to keep him out, and, behold, it was only Love that Mr. Solly feared. Death had never been so slighted. He knew himself to be the one who ought to be feared, but now he saw that it was some one else who was dreaded. John felt the insult most keenly. Unfortunately it was not possible for him to revenge himself at once upon Mr. Solly. There was only one way for Death to do that—to Unclay this man—but no order had come.

To be merely slighted was not the worst of it. Death had a private fear of his own. He always felt ashamed when any one spoke kindly of him, or said they liked him. If Solly feared Love so much, he might feel that Death was his friend. And when any man felt like that, Death was ashamed.

To calm his anger, John wanted Winnie. He would be the cat and she the mouse. He would pounce upon her and amuse himself for a little. He would soon cure her of her wanton fancies. But the fall of the stone had alarmed Winnie, and when Death grabbed at her, she jumped aside. Then she ran away. Winnie was a light child and could run like a fawn. John Death was hampered by his shoes; they had always pinched him a little.

A dead man’s shoes do not always fit. The feet that hung from the tree in Merly Wood, from whence the Sunday shoes had been taken, were smaller than John’s. And, run as fast as he could, he did not overtake Winnie as soon as he expected. She was even able to get a little ahead of him, and began to climb Madder Hill, her strong little legs shining in the moonlight.

Had Winnie shown any fear at all, or relaxed her pace for a moment, John would have caught her. But Winnie only thought of the whole matter as a fine game. She had recognized John when he leaped over the wall, and thought that he had come to Madder to court Nancy Trim, and was only running after her for fun because the other young lady had gone to bed.

But Death meant business; just then he was in no mood to be played with. Had Winnie knelt to him and begged him to let her alone, he might have done so, but to run off so fast provoked his wrath. He would catch her for his sport, and ill-use her on the cold Madder Hill. After that he would cut her throat with a sharp flint.

There is always a mischief ready for an idle hand. The loss of his proper employment had made John restless and ill at ease. He had never been tormented by any one as he had been by Miss Winnie. She never tired of making game of him. When he walked down the Dodder lane, she mimicked his manners. And when he looked for his lost parchment, she told him it was hid under Mrs. Moggs’s skirts, and ran away laughing.

As they went over Madder Hill, Death gained upon Winnie; the steep climb took her breath away. She panted and could hardly run, and even forgot to go a little out of her way to avoid Tinker Jar. Jar was still there, standing in the shadow of the bush. And, as Winnie passed by, she thought that Jar touched her.

She ran now as well as ever; she even leaped and skipped, and in a few moments reached her home.

Upon the summit of Madder Hill, near to the thorn-bush, Death’s steps were stayed.