For a whole month Mr. Solly kept himself shut up in his nut-garden. No one knew why. The Madder people believed that he was bewitched. He might have been so. He was exactly the kind of man that a witch would pick out to cast a spell upon. He was one of those who see the gravest danger where most only see a merry pastime. He believed that everything that a man does is of terrible importance. Though all things usually were so quiet in Madder, Mr. Solly believed that raging devils were about.
The simplest sights only did not make him shudder; he could admire the lambstails upon his nut-bushes, and the ferns under his bank, but wondered even that he could enjoy these without fear.
Though Mr. Solly remained at home, Winnie Huddy went out each evening. She would climb Madder Hill and visit Mr. Solly. Once there, she employed herself industriously, sweeping and cleaning for Mr. Solly and doing his errands. She would remain for a while and then returned home, in a very gay mood, over Madder Hill. No one noticed Winnie’s doings except Mrs. Moggs, and she called her into the shop one day and asked her where she went each evening.
“You go to see your friends, I suppose?” said Mrs. Moggs, with a wink.
“I visit my new home,” replied Winnie, “that I have to keep tidy at Madder.”
“I did not know, Winnie, that you had a relation there,” inquired Mrs. Moggs.
“I have Mr. Solly,” replied Winnie, “whom I am going to marry, because of his nuts.”
“Why,” cried Mrs. Moggs, “I thought he planted those bushes on purpose to keep young women away. He would have been much wiser had he filled his garden with thorny brambles.”
“I am fond of blackberries, as well as of nuts,” answered Winnie, “and so I would have gone just the same.”
“And when will the wedding take place?” inquired Mrs. Moggs.
“Punctually at twelve o’clock upon my eighteenth birthday,” answered Winnie.…
It is curious to contemplate how labour, when it becomes a use and habit, dominates a man.
John Death had hoped—when he found it convenient to his affairs to take a little holiday—that his time would be so well filled with frolic and naughtiness—that however long it might suit him to remain in Dodder, he would all the time be happy there. But alas! he was sadly deceived.
It was not in his power to remain idle. Almost as soon as he settled into his cottage, he discovered that he could not leave his scythe alone and must needs be for ever whetting it, and longed, as he made music with stone upon steel, to be again at his proper employment. And although no one would have thought so—seeing him at play with the children—he was, when alone, fretful and depressed.
Even the summer sun that rose so early in the morning troubled his fancy, for the sun shone so busily and was so importunate that even at night time, his mighty glow could be seen—and John preferred darkness to light.
And besides, he was growing tired of looking for the parchment that he had lost. For though he liked the earth well enough, it was not always pleasant to have to keep his eyes upon the ground. He had looked everywhere, and, as the paper was nowhere to be found, he was more sure than ever that some one had stolen it.
He first thought of one person and then of another who might have taken it, and at length he decided that his paper might have been discovered and kept by Priscilla Hayhoe.
Her behaviour was certainly a little curious. Did she guess who he was? She had permitted John to take her into the hidden lane, and to talk to her in the happy manner that he used with women. Indeed, when he led her through the nettles to the mossy bank, he had wished to be as playful with her as he had been with Miss Bridle and with Daisy Huddy, only, after laying her down upon the soft bank, he happened—though he knew not why—to look up at Madder Hill.
Upon the summit of the hill there stood a man who beckoned to him, as though he bid him let the woman alone. This man, John thought, was Tinker Jar.
Curiously enough, John, who certainly appeared to be no respecter of persons—and cared no more for Lord Bullman or Squire Mere than for labourer Dillar, obeyed this man and withdrew so silently that he seemed to vanish.
But even his deserting her so hastily in the lane did not make any difference to Priscilla’s view of him. She would often meet him in the village, and would ask him the strangest questions about his past life, and about the master that he served. She inquired of him once whether his master had ever come to Dodder, and, if so, what clothes was he dressed in.
“His only garment is a thunder-cloud,” John replied—“but he sometimes mends kettles.…”
So far, since he had resided at Dodder, John Death had only once entered the churchyard, but he had often seen Priscilla praying there—kneeling near to the grave of her little son—when he went by. Once she had noticed him in the lane and, rising from her knees, she had beckoned him to come to her, even begging him with a look to rest beside her upon the grass.
Death had always admired Priscilla; she was a kind lady and a comely. She could behave coyly, too, it seemed, though John was not sure whether it was something that she wished to find out in respect to himself that made her behave so. But he desired her the more for that, and certainly, when the sun shone upon her, she looked extremely lovely. A sad flower perhaps, but one that could be culled joyously.
She had not, of course, the power over him that Susie Dawe possessed, but being so gentle and pleasing a woman, he considered that she was only made and created for him to enjoy. Whenever he thought of Priscilla Hayhoe or her husband, John smiled.
In order to meet Priscilla more often—for she spent a great deal of her time in the churchyard—John Death decided upon a plan. Why should he not become the sexton? Mr. Huddy had given up digging the graves since his wife died, being afraid, so he said, that he might hear her talking, did he break any ground there.
John Death decided to apply for the post. Evidently he was not the sort of gentleman that a too long holiday agreed with. To have nothing to do but to be merry did not appear to accord with a nature that was—as long as any living thing existed in the universe—created to be extremely busy.
And here we must note, I think, a curious trait in John’s character. He had no ambition. He had no wish to order and command, other than in his ordinary everyday doings. He desired neither riches nor glory, and he considered that if he became a gravedigger, he would have ample opportunity to repeat to himself—as he rested near to the yew-tree, with his spade upon his knees—that wistful Elegy, written by Mr. Gray in a country churchyard.
With a little work, a grave or two to dig now and again—and perhaps an occasional field of grass to mow, so that his scythe might not lose its sharpness nor his hand its cunning—John believed that he might yet be contented in Dodder. He hoped, by these means, to keep up the old agility and sprightliness of which he had always been so proud. For, during all his life, he had never felt so tired and weary of himself as he had at Dodder.
He considered, too, that the Dodder churchyard would be an excellent place—a fine battleground, where a fight would disturb no one—for him to come to grips with a certain old enemy. He had often—being fond of prose as well as poetry—been reminded, as he walked in Dodder, of the Valley of Humiliation, in which Apollyon and Christian fought their fight. And why should not he—a champion too—meet Love and destroy him in the charnel garden?
He had mocked at love in Love’s own parvis. He had pleased Daisy Huddy so well that she would have nothing to do with any other man, but only liked to sew and to knit and to listen to Mr. Hayhoe reading stories. He had played bob-cherry with Winnie in the church porch before matins commenced. He had even—for so wanton is a certain oddity, a sworn adversary to all decency and decorum—been free with Miss Bridle. He hoped for Priscilla, and there was one other one—Susie Dawe—that he meant to compass too.
Whenever he thought of Susie a curious feeling came to him that he did not understand. He was utterly ignorant—as so many hard workers are—about the behaviour of his own heart. He did not even know what had made him look so long at the name written in pebbles in Mr. Bridle’s field.
To enjoy a girl or two had been easy to him—that was a pastime to which he felt himself naturally drawn. It appeared to have a religious meaning that the grand powers of the Church had never failed to recognize. Martin Luther married a nun.
But what was there, Death wondered, what new feeling moving in his heart, that made him think so curiously of Susie Dawe?