Moth-Mullein/Chapter VIII

—no, never, was a man more taken aback, more utterly amazed, than was Dicky Duck when he found himself an honoured guest at the ‘Blue Boar,’ where a supper was spread, and the Squire himself was present to hand over to him, in behalf of some of those who valued his excellent character and esteemed his courage, a Testimonial of Respect and Regard.

What for?

For his daring conduct on the night of the murder of old Jim Mullins.

Dicky looked from side to side, opened his mouth, but never a word came from it. He turned white with astonishment and emotion. He given a testimonial for that? Why that was an act thrown daily in his teeth at home, a subject of daily humiliation. Heartily ashamed of himself had Dicky Duck become, because he had jumped on the poacher’s back, kicked him in the wind, and behaved altogether ridiculously. Whenever he had heard an allusion to that affair, in the tavern, or among his acquaintances, he had winced. He supposed that others viewed his conduct in the same light as did Moth, his wife. If it had not been for her—that he was tied to her, and bound to look after her, to support her, and make her happy—he would have run away to America where he might be out of hearing any more of the capture of Long Jaques in Darenth Wood.

Dicky looked at the Squire, then at Mr Parkinson, who sat at the Squire’s right hand, then at Finch, the head-keeper, who sat on the Squire’s left; then at a fly that sat on the ceiling immediately over the Squire’s head; and then with an expression of distress at the host of the inn, who stood behind the Squire, and was making a trumpet of his hands, and sounding a hoarse stage-whisper through it, of ‘Say something.’

Dicky knew he must say something, but every object spun round with him, and the Adam’s apple in his throat went up and down like the knob of a piston in a steamer and choked him. But at length he became sufficiently composed to gasp ‘Thank-y, gentlemen’—he touched his forelock—‘I can’t underconstumble it noways, a little chap like me—no higher than her thumb, as was ordained to be put in a pint-pot and forced to drum; as made himself a laughing stock and mockery, and made a fool of himself—but I fancy, gentlemen, you’re now poking fun at me?’

‘No, no, no! Go on, Dicky; bravo!’

‘It can’t be for me’—again he touched his forelock—‘more of a monkey than a man—who can’t do anything but he must do it absurdly; who——’

There welled up in his memory the many harsh, cutting, cruel things that his wife had said, and which he had accepted from her lips as his due.

‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘I’m that amazed, I ax you of your great kindness to let me run home and take this here clock with the beautiful silver plate and inscription, and show it to my missus. And——’ he saw the host thrusting a paper into his hand; he looked at it. The host was not perfect in his orthography, but Dicky understood what was written:

‘Gentlemen,’ he looked at the paper, ‘I’m that upset I shall be unwell unless I run home, and show ’em to Moth-Mullein—show her the beautiful clock and the silver plate, and last, not least, “For a Carridge and Pear, Sottled.”’

His voice was quivering, his eyes filling.

‘Yes, let him go,’ said the Squire. ‘He is right. He must go to his wife. He will break down if we detain him, and that may hurt his pride.’

‘Then, Dicky,’ called Mr Parkinson, ‘not by the Knife Back.’

‘Lord, sir! It saves over a mile, and I could cross it the darkest night at a run.’

He went forth—went with the clock hugged to his breast, and holding the receipt in his right hand. He had but one idea then—his mind could hold but one. He must tell his triumph to her who had despised him. His heart made a great leap—towards her. Now, now at last, she would come to see he was not the despicable little monkey she supposed, and now, now at last, as she would respect him, would come to love him.

Jessie had lain long tossing and weeping on her bed. She had beaten her head with her clenched fists, and then struck her head against the wall and the posts of the bed. She would have liked to kill those insolent, mocking men! How dare they make game of her as she had made game of Dick? She lay for a while staring up at the ceiling out of hot eyes, biting her fingers, and then again threw her self over on her face in a fresh paroxysm of tears.

Why was Dick away now? Now—when she was insulted, wounded, in pain? Dick! he was amusing him self at the ‘Blue Boar,’ laughing, telling his silly stories, cracking his inane jokes, making everyone laugh at him and pity her for having for her husband such a jackanapes. But, no! She gave a gulp. No, Richard was there respected. The Squire had gone there on purpose to meet and honour him with a testimonial. No, Dick was not the laughing-stock she had supposed. Her eyes had been blind to his merits, to his courage, his gentleness, his patience, his tenacity of purpose. But she could not forgive him for being absent now, when she was so unhappy—now, on the anniversary of her father’s death.

As these thoughts dark and wild chased through her head, as clouds across a stormy night sky, still crying she dozed off into troubled slumber.

How long she slept she did not know, whether for seconds or for hours. She awoke with a start. There came to her suddenly, in the midst of her sleep, a thought that seemed to strike her sensibly, not as a stunning, but as a rousing blow; and the thought was—the Knife Back has been broken through, and Dick does not know it. He may return that way. Dick! Was it a cry she heard? With a shiver, and her hair standing electrified, and audibly rustling about her head, she stood on her feet. Had she heard a cry, or had she dreamt it? With trembling hands she struck a match and lighted a lantern, ran out before her house, and listened. She trembled so that her teeth chattered in her jaws. Had she heard a cry, or had she dreamt it? Should she run to the ‘Blue Boar’ and caution Dick? or should she stand on the broken edge of the Knife Back and call? She would do the latter first.

She stole to the brink of the old quarry and along the ridge as far as it went. Then came a gap; the rain and frost had undermined this portion of the path, and it had given way the preceding night.

‘Dick!’ she called, ‘Dick! Dick, dear!’

Then from far below she heard a faint ‘Ting! ting! ting! ting!’ a clock that struck—what hour she could not tell, she did not count; but immediately after a Dartford clock struck far away, and nearer, but still distant, the Greenhythe clock tolled ten.

What was that she had heard? No echo; it came before the town clocks had struck.

There was, a little way off, a steep path—almost a slide—down the cliff of chalk. She went to the place, and descended cautiously. Her heart was sick with fear.

She reached the bottom, and there she stole along with her lantern near the ground before her, fearing greatly what she might see irradiated by the yellow light.

Her heart stood still, and every drop of blood was arrested in her arteries. Within the circle of light was a foot in boot with brass eyelet holes for the laces. She knew the boot; it belonged to Diok. She uttered a cry and raised the lantern, and it threw its halo over the little man, lying huddled among the chalk lumps, hugging something.

She stooped, she touched, she called, she kissed him. He took no notice. His eyes were closed, but his lips slightly moved, and one hand that clutched a piece of paper was lifted, and the paper thrust in her face, much as once she had thrust the unravelled stocking in his. But she did not look at the paper.

What should she do? She was a woman of nerve and strength in emergency. Should she leave him there, and run for assistance? She could not; no, she would not do that. He was a little man, and she a strong, tall girl. She bent to him, put her arms under his body, and lifted and carried him away.

She carried him through the old quarry. She paused at intervals and panted. Then she went on again. She came out into the road. She must go some way round to reach her cottage, must pass Ben Polson’s strawberry field, and Joseph Ruddle’s shop, and Sim Underwood’s farmhouse. Should she halt at any of these and ask for help? She set her teeth; she toiled on. She had left the lantern in the quarry; she could not carry that as well as her husband. No, she would seek no help. No! along that road she had driven in the carriage and pair which had so troubled Dick because he could not pay for it—the carriage and pair for which the hat had been sent round. No, no, no! She would carry him all the way. He could not be better than in her arms; she would traverse, bearing him, every step of that road over which she had driven scorning him in her heart.

The night was dark. No one was in the road, no one in the lane when she reached that. She halted at the kiln, and as she was exhausted, carried her burden within, and sat on the ground with him lying across her knees.

She had matches with her. She struck one, and it flared up. His eyes were open now. She saw that he was look ing at her, and again he thrust the paper that he clutched towards her, and a smile broke on his face.

‘Dick! O dear, dear Dick! Speak to me! Forgive me! O Dick, speak, speak!’

Then he said, ‘Moth!—A carridge and pear, etceterer—sottled,’ closed his eyes, and the lucifer went out.

He had held tightly to him all this while the presentation clock; it was a clock that would go in any position, and it had gone in spite of the fall. As Jessie carried the little man, she had felt or heard the tick, tick, tick against her own heart, and had thought at first it was the counter-beat of his. Now, in the darkness, as the lucifier expired, the clock stopped, stopped as the light went out, stopped as he said ‘Sottled.’

In the stillness, in the vault of the kiln-mouth, she listened for his breath, but could not hear it. She stooped to his heart, laid her ear against it, and heard nothing. That piece of mechanism was stopped also. She unloosed, in the dark, his red neckerchief, the kerchief with which he had dried her tears in that same kiln-mouth, when in his kindly considerate way he had called her sobs ‘hickups.’ She sobbed now, and none tried to stay her sobs. She wept now, and no hand was extended to wipe away her tears.