Moth-Mullein/Chapter II

huge chalk quarries, worked by separate companies, had been opened many years before in the hill near Moth-Mullein’s cottage, and these quarries had eaten their way towards each other till only a neck of chalk divided them. A line had been drawn from the cottage in the direction of Stone church-tower, that stood high on the hill to the west, and a concession had been made to one company on the north and to another on the south of this line. The companies had been wide apart at one time, but as years advanced they approximated, and now only a curtain of rock divided them, and neither might break through into the rights of the other. The ridge was called the ‘Back o’ the Knife,’ and extended about two hundred feet where it was narrowest, and there it was in places only about a foot wide at top. The soft rock was continually sliding away after thaws, and threatened in time to break the continuity of the Knife Back, and convert it into a saw. But that time had not yet come, and when the forester or his daughter wished to go to Dartford or Stone, the way taken was over the Knife Back, which saved a long round by the lane down to the high road, and thence by the road. In fact, it formed the hypothenuse of a triangle. The companies were trying to arrive at a compromise whereby they might get through this curtain, but each demanded too much of the other, and each thought by withdrawing it could make the other accede to its terms. So the Knife Back, though menaced, remained.

Over the Knife Back came Dicky Duck one day. Jessie saw him coming, and she said—

‘You’re not afraid of going along that way, it seems, but it is not a safe one.’

‘I’m not afraid. My light heart carries me over.’

‘I should have thought a heavy one would have steadied your feet best. What do you want here?’

‘I have come to see your father.’

‘Oh! not me?’

‘Of course you, Moth, but your father also.’

‘And what do you want with him?’

‘I want him to speak a word for me to the Squire that I may be taken on as a woodsman. I know as much about trees as anyone. I’ve smeared their bark with treacle, and caught scores of moths off them. I ought to know trees.’

‘And what will you do when you are taken on in the woods, supposing my father does put in a word for you?’

‘I’ll marry you next day, Moth,’ said Dicky boldly.

‘Will you? It takes two to do that. If that is to be the consequence, I will not ask my father to speak for you. You! Why you would have to stand on a chair to kiss me.’

‘I can do that without the help of a chair,’ said Dicky, and with a spring he was by her, had given a jump and caught her round the neck. In a moment he was sent spinning from her. She had given him a hearty box on his ears.

‘Look what you have done, you ape!’ she said.

She had been knitting a stocking; he had entangled his legs in the wool, pulled the stocking out of her hands, and unravelled a great part of her work.

‘You come here full of impertinence,’ said she angrily, ‘and unravel what it has taken me an hour to knit. Go away at once over the Knife Back, and if you break your neck I’ll not shed a tear.’

Little Dick Duck looked sadly at her, and in spite of her annoyance she laughed—not good-naturedly, but in a manner to wound him.

He went back over the ridge.

‘There!’ said she, ‘he came hopping over with a light heart; I have sent him lagging back with a heavy one.’

It is a curious feature in the character, of woman that she finds a positive pleasure in making man miserable. As the weakest emperors and the feeblest governors are the most tyrannical and cruel, so is it with woman; because she is weak she likes to convince herself of possessing strength; she does this by treading on worms and making them writhe. She says to herself, ‘By nature it is true that I am feeble, but see how strong my beauty or my craft has made me! I can take that man and snap his heart as if it were a dry twig; I can bend and twist that other man about my finger as a piece of grass.’ It is not that woman delights in cruelty—far from it. She is full of sympathy and tenderness; but then, when she has power, she likes to exert it, and she can only convince herself that she is a queen when she hears the screams of her victims.

Jessie Mullins looked after Richard Duck as he walked the Knife Back, with a proud curl on her lip. She knew that he was unhappy, disappointed, and wounded, and she asked herself, ‘Could anyone else have clouded that gay countenance and brought a twitch of pain into the corners of that laughing mouth? That fellow’s spirits are so high that there is no one—no one but me—who can sink him under water. I have put lead into that heart of cork, and he will keep down for a bit.’

As Dicky Duck disappeared, from the Greenhythe road by the lane came the Oxford scholar with a case for specimens.

At once Jessie rose with a smile, and put aside the unravelled stocking. She folded it up and put it in a drawer, and met the visitor with a smile.

‘How do you do, Moth?’ He held out both his hands.

‘Come after moths?’ she asked.

‘Moth in the singular,’ he answered. ‘Who is he that says our British lepidoptera are deficient in beauty? Why here I have a Queen—the Endromis versicolora, the Kentish Glory—by the hand, by both, and am lost in admiration of her loveliness. Are you going to help me to catch moths in the wood this evening?’

‘The Kentish Glory, sir, only flies by day.’

‘Then where is that little rascal, Dick? I must have assistance.’

‘I have just sent him over the Knife Back.’

‘I will run after him.’

‘Not for the world! You might fall and break your neck, and then I——’ she hesitated, looked down and coloured.

‘Then you would—what?’

‘Of course, Mr Parkinson, I should be miserable.’

‘Thank you for your sympathy.’ He put his hands one on each side of her face, with a sudden action drew it towards him, and kissed her.

‘Halloo,! halloo! what is the meaning of this?’ shouted old Mullins, coming up.

‘Moth really provoked me to take a liberty,’ laughed the young man. ‘She was so troubled lest I should hurt myself if I went over the Knife Back, that in gratitude I could not restrain my emotion.’

‘I’ll trouble you to keep your emotions of gratitude within proper bounds,’ said the woodman.

‘Master Mullins,’ said the young man, ‘I want some one to come with me this evening after moths. Dick is away; will you carry the lantern?’

‘Can’t,’ answered the father, ‘and what is more, you had better keep out of the wood to-night. The poachers—desperate fellows—are coming in a gang. They’ve had the impudence to send word to the head keepers to look out for them; there is a large gang of them going to drive the wood. Can’t say this night for certain, but some night in the week. They were in Swanscombe Wood yesterday, and no one durst stop them. There must have been ten or a dozen. We’ve been asked to help the keepers; we’ll stop them if they come this way, and not give way as did them in Swanscombe. But they’re desperate men, and there may be shots fired. So I say—keep out of the wood.’

‘Not at all,’ answered the Oxford man. ‘I’ll go with you, and amuse myself looking out for moths whilst you are looking out for poachers.’

‘And I’ll sit up,’ said Moth-Mullein; ‘I’ve got a beef-steak pie, and I’ll have potatoes ready, and hot water for use when you both come back, that you may enjoy a good supper.’

‘Supper!’ said her father, ‘it will be breakfast rather; we shall not be in till long over midnight.’