Back o' the Moon, and Other Stories/Back o' the Moon/Chapter 7

summer grew hot and rainless, and the Horwick mills stood for want of water. In Wadsworth you could no longer tell the day of the week by the knocking of the looms—the lazy throw of the shuttle that began the week from the frantic clatter of “felling” on the eve of the Thursday market—for the weavers worked only early in the mornings and late into the night, and dozed during the afternoons. Not a breath stirred the birches and mountain-ash of the Scout; and the blue-flowering teazel-thistles, that the fullers set in iron frames for the raising of a nap on their cloth, stretched up the steep hillside like a dusty, slaty, ethereal bloom.

Arthur Monjoy had taken a small house in Horwick, but every night he was over the moor, and, until he should cease his setting out at nightfall and returning at daybreak, Cicely remained in her father's house. Eastwood Ellah, who for a week after the wedding had slept none knew where, had returned. He sat in his old place by the chimney corner, watching Cicely as before; and sometimes, when he went upstairs, the jarring of his loom would sound through the greater part of the night. Once or twice only had he gone forth with Monjoy; he now seemed to dislike the moor, and, indeed, open spaces generally; and when he was not in the chimney corner he was usually in bed sleeping the clock round.

Cicely, at the time when the parson, with the list of the Hearth Tax in his hand, had made his famous round of visits, had been with Sally in Horwick, and she had scarcely his acquaintance. But she was now so frequently passing up the street, or across the square, that an acquaintance grew of itself, and he often stood in conversation with her. He usually asked after her husband; and one broiling afternoon he suggested to her that there was no cooler place than the church to which he was going. She accompanied him, and they sat down on the hindermost bench.

Again he asked after her husband. “I trust he is not one of those who think that a churchgoing on their wedding-day is once too often,” he said, frankly admiring her.

“He doesn't talk to me about it,” Cicely replied reservedly, and the parson kneaded his knuckles and gazed thoughtfully at one of the floor-boards.

“He seems to have extraordinary authority over a class of people not exactly his own,” he remarked by and by.

“Ay, they think a lot of him,” she answered evasively.

“Yes.... If he could be persuaded to come to church, a good many others would follow, I imagine. It is what I intended to ask you this afternoon. Do you think he could be persuaded?”

Cicely smiled a little. “It's all what sort of a persuader ye are,” she said.

“Or you yourself are?” he suggested. “Suppose you were to come; he might come with you.”

“He might; ye'd better put it to him.”

“I should like you to do that. Think: you, a young wife, can do much with a word; what he does, others will do; and in your hands more than in anybody's it rests to turn this barbarous parish to the fear of God. Or, let me put it another way....”

He talked earnestly, but Cicely shook her head from time to time. He asked her questions—he was exceedingly curious regarding her husband; she allowed him to remain so. She displayed no great fervour about attending church herself; but to that he half persuaded her. In half an hour she rose; again he noted her handsome colour and magnificent carriage, and he knew that if his end was to be gained, he was beginning in the right quarter. They left the church together.

Thereafter they had many conversations, and Cicely attended church intermittently; but she refused to attempt to influence her husband.

Ellah never used now the ear-trumpet that Monjoy had given him, and there were symptoms that his moroseness was bringing on another igg. It came, a flood of excited babbling that all the world was against him, and so forth, and Cicely put him into his chair and smoothed his brow with her hands. The touch seemed to bring him relief, and once, when she pressed his hot temples, he seemed to sleep, but opened his eyes and muttered when she ceased. He was persuaded that he was spied on, that the most unlikely folk had malign influence over him, and that half the village had gone off their heads; and one afternoon, as Cicely bathed his throbbing temple-arteries with water, he suddenly said, “I wouldn't lay a finger on ye, lass, not ever so.” He recovered, and began to show a passionate fondness for roast pork.

The heat continued, so that paint blistered on wood and the tar glistened and bubbled on the roofs of sheds; and, maybe, the heat was the cause of the softening of moral fibre that became apparent in Pim o' Cuddy, the verger and bellringer. More than once he was caught hugging to his breast the little brass kettle, under the lid of which he slipped the crown-pieces and down the spout the sixpences of usury; and then one night Arthur Monjoy took him over the moor. That marked a sad period. Thenceforward two men struggled within him. The clerk contemned worldly riches, but Pim o' Cuddy chuckled “Ho! ho!” to himself at odd moments, rubbed his palm against wood, and made no secret of the dilly-spoons and weaving-candlesticks he would have, all of heavy silver, at no distant date. “A silver wedding too, Pim—don't forget that,” they rallied him.

Many now took the pack-causeway by night. Probably the only man in the village who was ignorant of what was toward was the parson; but they laughed, and said that parsons were all alike in that. Eastwood Ellah's iggs were treated with a sort of respect; there was something in an igg like that; and one or two were by no means sure that he could not, if he had wished, have produced not silver, but gold.

Whether from her conversations with the parson or not, Cicely became thoughtful, and sat sometimes for half an hour at her roving-wheel, not working, but turning her wedding-ring round and round on her finger. Arthur had made the ring himself; whence the gold, she knew very well; and as she turned it, an uneasiness seemed to communicate itself to her from the gold hoop. One afternoon she spoke of this to him.

He had just risen, not having gone to bed till broad day, and she sat on the edge of his unmade bed, turning the ring again. Presently, without looking up, she said, “Arthur, dear—” He took her on his knee, and she made herself small against his breast.

“What is it, Cis?” he asked, his great hand wandering in her bright hair; and she drew the ring slowly back and forth to the end of her finger.

“I don't feel, somehow, right wed, Arthur,” she said timorously.

“What!” he exclaimed, trying to see her face. “But there's many a lass would like to be as well wed as this! What's the matter, Cis?”

“I don't know ... 'tis the ring.... Do you love me a deal, Arthur?”

“Kiss me.... Do I what?”

“And would you get me another ring if I was to want it very much?”

“Why, what ails this one?”

“I don't know.... Buy me another, Arthur. Buy me one of a right goldsmith, paid for wi' earned money. 'Tis silly, but I shall do many silly things afore we're old together.”

Again he raised her chin. “Tut! I've left you too much alone, dear; but in another week or two Open your mouth....”

She did so, adorably, and he put such a noisy kiss there as a mother gives to her babe. But she persisted.

“Will you, love? 'Tis very little!”

“You shall have all the rings you want by and by.”

“Ah, I don't want that, not that way.—Well, I'll pay you for it now, with a kiss: then I shall have it, shan't I?”

“Rogue!” he answered, enfolding her.

But within a couple of days she had another request to make of him, and that was that they might go to their own house in Horwick at the earliest moment. She gave as her reason for this that she might be helpful to Sally Northrop, and he frowned.

“Sally's managing well enough, and you can't go alone. Are you unhappy here?”

She answered looking away. “I'm happy where my husband is.”

“Has anything upset you?”

“No, no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she replied; “but oh, I could like to see you in our little house, engraving your seals and plates again!”

“That you shall see soon—the little house, at all events.”

“Not to-morrow, Arthur, nor this week, for I'm going to cut the teazels; but very soon we'll go, won't we?” she pleaded.

“So soon, Cis, that the time will seem like nothing. And now I must be off—they'll be waiting. Say good-bye to your husband....”

It seemed as if hot weather or hot pork, or both, had wrought deleteriously again on Eastwood Ellah. Whether these iggs of his were (as Monjoy had upbraided him) assumed or not made very little difference in the result; for you may reckon a man crazed who is crazy enough to desire to appear so. What Cicely had not told Arthur was of another of these attacks, in which, soothing his head with her hands, she had found herself suddenly laid hold of again; and she now went in fear of him, and barred the door of her chamber at night. Once, though she had not heard him ascend, she had seen, from the inside, the sneck of the door lift noiselessly of itself; and for hours, lying awake and clothed and trembling, she had listened to the furious racket of his loom in the adjoining chamber.

About that time there befell a sequel to the parson's wedding of which Pim o' Cuddy, none other, was the hero. The renewal of lease (so to speak) that his second wedding had given to his connubial bliss lapsed, and again his wife left him. But this leaving was different.

That is to say, the leaving itself was much the same, for Pim carried her basket as far as her mother's doorstep and there bade her a dejected farewell; but this occasion was remarkable for what followed after Pim had returned home, locked his door, and betaken him to his reft couch.

He had not closed his eyes before he heard a soft whistle outside. It was the whistle of a neighbour, who, through the keyhole, informed him of something that had taken place down the street.

“What!” cried Pim hoarsely, and the neighbour repeated his tidings. It seemed that there had been words between Mrs. Pim and her mother, and for temper, the choice of the pair of them was between vinegar and vinegar.

“Tell me again what shoo said,” whispered Pim, incredulously through the keyhole.

“Shoo said, shoo could pack off back. Shoo were fooil eniff to wed him th' first time, shoo said, but th' second, shoo'd ha' to stand tul it. 'Trot,' shoo said, and slammed th' window down. Shoo's sitting on her basket now.”

Pim returned to bed.

Never had sheets seemed so delicious nor pillows so downy-soft. Pim hugged and loved himself in his glee. Twice he heard soft steps approach beneath his window—his wife was struggling with the humiliation of return; and the bed shook with his silent merriment. “Shoo were fooil eniff th' first time, shoo can stand tul it now!” Pim o' Cuddy had to gag himself with a pillow. It is not often we have the chance to live a score of years over again with everything come to pass exactly as we would have had it.

There came a soft tapping at the door, not too loud, for fear of neighbours. Pim whinnied under the bedclothes with delight. The knocking grew louder, and a familiar voice called in suppressed tones. Pim stifled. Then, at an unguardedly loud knock, a neighbouring window opened. Further concealment was useless. Mrs. Pim o' Cuddy began to knock indeed, using a stone for the purpose. Neighbours began to join in the clamour. Cole the clogger would have given stock and goodwill to have been there.

Further feigning of sleep on Pim's part would have been preposterous. He cogitated desperately; the jest could not be relinquished yet; and then there came to him the choicest idea of all. He lighted a candle, descended to the door, and again called through the keyhole.

“Who is it?” he cried.

“I'll learn ye who it is, ye offald-looking church ratten!” came Mrs. Pim's reply; and then Pim lifted up his voice on high.

“What do I hear? A woman's voice?” he cried. “A woman's voice, and at my own door! Be off, ye baggage; be off wi' your nasty merchandise, d'ye hear? Be off, ye wicked light woman! Be off, and leave saints and godly men i' peace! Be off! ...”

—And, in whatever kind Pim o' Cuddy subsequently paid for his prank, it remained doubtful whether at the bottom of his erring and naughty heart he ever really rued it.

Word came that John Raikes was short of teazel-heads, and Cicely prepared to cut them. She armed her legs with a pair of leggings of raw hide, and covered her fair hair and neck against the sun with a kerchief. She hung a basket about her neck with a strap and put into it two old buckskin gloves and a pair of sheep-shears. She timed herself so as to be up the Scout about the time Arthur was due to return along the Causeway, and set off.

Save for herself, the whole village seemed to slumber. The blue-flowering tracts, of a blue so uncertain that of itself you could hardly have told whether it was near or distant, lay high up the sheep-tracks, and as she mounted grasshoppers filled the air with their dry rapid noise. The grass and yellow bents of the lower slopes were slippery as glass; and she rose slowly until she could look down on both slopes of the roof of the little church and see into the square beyond it. Three miles away in the slumbrous heat lay Horwick, its roof-windows making piercing little points of light, and the vista beyond that was a grey shimmer, somewhere in which lay Ford Town and parts she knew nothing of. She tucked her skirt into the tops of her leggings, drew on the gloves, and began to move slowly along the Scout, snipping the slaty-blue teazel-heads as she went.

And as she worked, she thought of her husband, and tried to realise how she had come to marry him. It was all a jumble to her yet. In that strange gust of marrying she had answered she hardly knew how, except that, perhaps, of “Yes” and “No,” the “Yes” had come first. Not that she did not love him, as the phrase was, if that was all; but was there no more in it than that? She thought again of his perilous trade. She did not reckon it as goodness or wickedness, as she knew the parson would have done, but on its two chances—impunity or a shameful end. She had never heard of the man who, sent forth against his own tyrannous brother, knew that according to how he fared his meed was to be that of a deliverer or of a fratricide; yet she dimly understood that Arthur stood in a strait scarce less narrow.—Yes, she must love him, or that little shiver, as if of a chill, would not have taken her.... She set her gloved fist to her waist to straighten herself, aching and drowsy with stooping over the teazels. As she did so, her wrist was taken from behind.

She had not heard his approach. “Arthur!” she said, and turned her head.

It was her cousin.

For a moment her smile vanished; then she smiled again, but with a quickening heart. He did not release her wrist. It was of little use to speak to him, and they stood regarding one another at arm's length. She felt her courage falter; he was trying to daunt her with his madness. The hair of his face glinted like bits of copper wire in the strong sun.

“Let me go, Eastwood,” she cried loudly.

Still his bulging eyes strove to quell her. “I've seen him kiss you!” he muttered hoarsely.

“Let me go, Eastwood!” she cried again.

“Ay, oft; and I've known when I haven't seen it. I can see through walls, I can ....” His muttering became unintelligible.

What was left of her courage seemed to rise in a flood, and she knew that when it ebbed again she would be helpless. She tried again to free her wrist, and then she quivered throughout her frame.

“This is three times,” she cried, regardless of whether he heard or not; “and now stand off! You say you can't look on your own blood. Stand off, then, for I'll cut a vein with the shears if you don't!”

He drew his hand quickly away at her menacing gesture, and she sprang back, the teazels plucking at her skirt. She breathed tumultuously, but her lips were closed, and as she retreated through the spiny teazels he began to advance again. Two or three ash-trees were behind her, but she did not dare to run for their shelter. Suddenly with all her force she began to call, “Arthur! Arthur!” Ellah plunged forward through the blue mist of bloom.

She stepped aside, and he fell. He rose scratched, and regarded his hands wildly, and she fled through the dragging teazels towards the ash-trees. She called again and again, “Arthur! Arthur!” There came an answer from the top of the Scout, but she continued to call his name. There was a sound of plunging and sliding, and Monjoy pushed through the mountain-ashes.

He took her in his arms and was gathering her to him when suddenly he stopped. He pushed her aside and strode quickly forward. Ellah was looking, stupid and fascinated, at his bleeding hands, holding them away from him, and Monjoy took him by one leg and shoulder. He threw him as he would have thrown a sack, and the deaf man pitched shoulder first into the teazels and his legs came up and over in a curve. It was near the edge of the patch, and at the next turn his body took the slippery grass. He disappeared over the rounded edge. It seemed minutes before he reappeared, and then he was so far below that he seemed no more than a stone bounding down the hillside. Again he disappeared, and Monjoy sought Cicely. He found her huddled under an ash.

“Rest awhile, love,” he muttered, “and then come with me. I'll get a bite and sup—I'll not sit down—and then I'll take you to Horwick. Let me do up your hair.... You haven't kissed your husband yet.... Yes, yes, hush! I'll get you to Horwick now. You should have told me....”

He talked gently, without intermission, not questioning her; then he took her basket and put his arm about her. They kept the upper edge of the teazels, and he supported her down a sheep-track. Her father's house was empty. He took a gulp of water and ate a crust of bread while she tremblingly made herself ready; and then, his arm again about her, they descended the street.