Moth-Mullein/Chapter III

the head-keeper’s house were assembled all the underkeepers and those men who had been engaged to assist in watching the wood. A round of beef and ale had been provided for them. The party had regaled itself on the provisions, and waited to start for the wood.

‘It’s no use going too early,’ said the head-gamekeeper; ‘they won’t come, if they come at all, for another hour.’

‘I say, Finch, do you think Long Jaques will be there?’

‘Sure.’

‘Who is Long Jaques?’ asked Mr Parkinson.

‘Long Jaques! Why, Long Jaques,’ answered one of the keepers; ‘everyone knows Long Jaques; there ain’t a more desperate blackguard in the county of Kent. I never will believe but it was he killed Tom Prentice.’

‘Sure of it!’ said the head-keeper, Finch.

‘The fellow is so daring and crafty there is not a cover he has not been in and got a pheasant out of, and yet has never been caught.’

‘I axed him t’other day,’ said a man, ‘whether he was working on the new line. “New line,” said he, “at ninepence an hour! Thank you! when I can get ten rabbits a day, and sell them at ninepence, and have the sport thrown in.”’

‘If he’d stick to rabbits I wouldn’t mind,’ said the head-keeper, Fred Finch.

‘What brings you here?’ asked Mr Parkinson of Richard Duck.

‘No offence, but I might ax the same of you, sir,’ answered the little man. ‘Lord, sir! I can run sharper than them that is bigger, and I see in the dark like a ferret.’

‘What are you doing there, Mr Finch?’ now asked the Oxford University man. He saw that the head-keeper was melting lead in an iron pan over the fire.

‘Going to run a bullet or two,’ answered the keeper; ‘not, please God, that I shall use ’em, but with Long Jaques and two or three of them other ruffians about, I like to have a bullet to fall back on. I’ll tell you a story of Long Jaques. I can’t swear it is true, but I believe it is. The story is told of him, but it never could be brought home. You know his wife died, leaving him a little child of a year, or perhaps a month under. Sometimes when he went out after his snares, he took the baby with him. He went out one Sunday when his housekeeper was not at home, and he had to mind the child; he went into the nearest wood, of course, to see after a pheasant. He had just got sight of one sitting in a tree, gone to roost, for it was evening——’

‘But why did he not leave the child at home ? ’

‘Because the child would not go to sleep, so he took it out on his arm, and his gun in pieces in his pocket, on the chance of getting a shot. Sunday evening, he thought, no one would be about. He could not leave the babe alone in the cottage, and he could not keep at home when there was a chance of a pheasant. Now you understand?’

‘Yes—go on.’

‘Well. He saw a big cock roosting in a tree. So he put down the babe on the grass at his feet, screwed his gun softly together, loaded it—not too heavy, and pop—down came the cock pheasant. He picked the bird up, and was just clapping it into his pocket, when he heard voices. Two keepers were coming that way. They had heard the report. Long Jaques went into the bushes, picked up the child, and whispered, “Poll, not a sound. Hush, and be still.” Then he stood back where the leaves were thickest and listened. He heard the tread of the men hard by, and heard what they said. One was sure that the crack of the gun had come from thereabouts. The other thought he smelt the powder. Then they saw where the grass was trampled, and one picked up some feathers of the bird. Long Jaques was mortal afraid the babe would squeal out, and let the keepers discover him. In his mind he darned his housekeeper for going to chapel that evening and leaving him with the child. He put his face down and whispered, and then drew his coat round the little creature. Then he heard her make a little noise and begin to struggle to get the arms out; but he drew his coat the tighter, and ever tighter, as the keepers kept prowling near. Curiously enough they did not see him, but it was some while before Jaques could loosen his coat, and let the child out from under cover—not till their voices had died away in the distance. Then he saw the babe had gone to sleep—but it was to a sleep past waking—he’d suffocated her! So he took home a shot cock pheasant and a stifled hen babe—that came o’ poaching on a Sunday.’

‘It was ’crowned, I suppose?’ asked one man.

‘To be sure, it was ’crowned and sat on, but the true story never came out at the inquest. That got wind after wards. Long Jaques told it of himself, when he was drunk, and many a curse did he send after those two who had disturbed him that Sunday, and led to his smothering his child.’

‘And who were these two?’

‘Mullins, there, and me. Now you know why I think it well to-night to have a bullet by me. Jaques is not particular and like to deal tenderly by either of us, if he recognises us.’

‘I say, keeper,’ interposed Mr Parkinson, ‘as you are not using all that molten lead, let us have some of it.’

‘What for?’

‘It is All-Hallow E’en,’ answered the young man. ‘In Scotland, whence I come, we make a great deal of to-night, and run lead into water, and find out what our fortunes will be for the ensuing year by the shapes the lead takes in water.*

‘That’s all gammon,’ said Finch.

‘Of course it is gammon, but as we have an hour to spend here before the moon rises, we can have some fun out of it. Let Dicky Duck try his fortune first.’

The proposal created interest. A bowl of water was procured and set in the middle of the table, and an iron ladle or spoon heated, and dipped in the molten lead. The men, laughing, talking, chaffing each other, crowded round the table.

‘Who shall try first? Dicky Duck?’

‘No,’ said Mullins, ‘give it me.’

He took the ladle, and poured the lead into the water. It fell fizzing, and sent up a puff of steam.

Then there ensued shouts of laughter, and guesses and queries. The lead was too hot to be extracted immediately.

‘What is it? A tree? A house? A wife? A bag of money? A son-in-law? Eh, Mullins?’

James Mullins put his hand in and drew forth the lead. It had formed a compact, oblong mass.

‘It looks to me uncommon like a coffin,’ said he. ‘Thank heaven, I lay no store by such things, or I’d not go out to-night and face Long Jaques.’

‘Now it is your turn, Dick.’

The lead was again melted, and little Dick got on a chair, stood above the table, and let the fluid metal pour down from a height into the bowl. Again a burst of queries, guesses, and jokes.

The lead was extracted from the water; he had poured it in two masses, and two separate formations were in the water.

‘What is this?’ he asked, holding up the largest mass, which was shapeless.

‘It looks to me like a dragon,’ laughed the head-keeper, Finch.

‘And the other?’ That was passed from hand to hand, and one conjecture after another was made concerning it.

‘It is—a pair of hearts, a pair o’ linked hearts,’ shouted one of the keepers.

‘To be sure it is, but look,’ said Parkinson—‘both broken!’