Rewards and Fairies

‘“Down-wind amongst the Dons – months ago,” says my Aunt.

‘“When can I go after ’en?” I says.

‘“Your duty’s to your town and trade now,” says she. “Your Uncle he died last Michaelmas and he’ve left you and me the yard. So no more iron ships, mind ye.”

‘“What?” I says. “And you the only one that beleft in ’em!”

‘“Maybe I do still,” she says, “but I’m a woman before I’m a Whitgift, and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay it on ye to do so.”

‘That’s why I’ve never teched iron since that day – not to build a toy ship of. I’ve never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of evenings.’ Simon smiled down on them all.

‘Whitgift blood is terrible resolute – on the she-side,’ said Puck.

‘Didn’t you ever see Sir Francis Drake again?’ Dan asked.

‘With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning shifts and passes he’d worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands, but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, having set him on his won’erful road; but I reckon he’d ha’ gone that way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in his hand like an apple, an’ he burying his best friend, Mus’ Doughty – ’

‘Never mind for Mus’ Doughty,’ Puck interrupted. ‘Tell us where you met Sir Francis next.’

‘Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye – the same year which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie’s leave.’

‘The Armada!’ said Dan contentedly. ‘I was hoping that would come.’

‘I knowed Frankie would never let ’em smell London smoke, but plenty good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. ‘Twas the noise of the gun-fire terrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin’ in the streets. Then they come sliddering past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished with red gun-fire, and our ships flying forth and ducking in again. The smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was edging the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I says to my Aunt, “The smoke’s thinning out. I lay Frankie’s just about scrapin’ his hold for a few last rounds shot. ‘Tis time for me to go.“

‘“Never in them clothes,” she says. “Do on the doublet I bought you to be made burgess in, and don’t you shame this day.”

‘So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all.

‘“I be comin’, too,” she says from her chamber, and forth she come pavisanding like a peacock – stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a notable woman.’

‘But how did you go? You haven’t told us,’ said Una.

‘In my own ship – but half-share was my Aunt’s. In the Antony of Rye to be sure; and not empty-handed. I’d been loadin’ her for three days with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and gubs of good oakum, and bolts o’ canvas, and all the sound rope in the yard. What else could I ha’ done? I knowed what he’d need most after a week’s such work. I’m a shipbuilder, little maid.

‘We’d a fair slant o’ wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending ’emselves like dogs lickin’ bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and the ball ’ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished fightin’ for that tide.

‘The first ship we foreslowed on, her breast-works was crushed in, an’ men was shorin’ ’em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace, his pumps clackin’ middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third, mending shot holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus’ Drake might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and saw what we carried.

‘“Lay alongside, you!” he says. “We’ll take that all.”

‘“’Tis for Mus’ Drake,” I says, keeping away lest his size should lee the wind out of my sails.

‘“Hi! Ho! Hither! We’re Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or we’ll hang ye,” he says.

‘’Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn’t Frankie, and while he talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides splintered. We was all in the middest of ’em then.

‘“Hi! Hoi!” the green ship says. “Come alongside, honest man, and I’ll buy your load. I’m Fenner that fought the seven Portugals – clean out of shot or bullets. Frankie knows me.”

‘“Ay, but I don’t,” I says, and I slacked nothing.

‘He was a masterpiece. Seein’ I was for goin’ on, he hails a Bridport hoy beyond us and shouts, “George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He’s fat!” An’ true as we’re all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to acrost our bows, intending to stop us by means o’ shooting.

‘My Aunt looks over our rail. “George,” she says, “you finish with your enemies afore you begin on your friends.”

‘Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an’ calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.

‘Then he come up – his long pennant trailing overside – his waistcloths and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.

‘“Oh, Mus’ Drake! Mus’ Drake,” I calls up.

‘He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and his face shining like the sun.

‘“Why, Sim!” he says. Just like that – after twenty year! “Sim,” he says, "what brings you?”

‘“Pudden,” I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an’ I’ve brought ’em.”

‘He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o’ brimstone Spanish, and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to unload us. When he saw how I’d considered all his likely wants, he kissed me again.

‘“Here’s a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!” he says. "Mistress,” he says to my Aunt, “all you foretold on me was true. I’ve opened that road from the East to the West, and I’ve buried my heart beside it.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I be come.”

‘“But ye never foretold this"; he points to both they great fleets.

‘“This don’t seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a man,” she says. “Do it?”

‘“Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he’s proper mucked up with work. Sim,” he says to me, “we must shift every living Spanisher round Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind’ll come out of the North after this calm – same as it used – and then they’re our meat.”

‘“Amen,” says I. “I’ve brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?”

‘“Oh, our folk’ll attend to all that when we’ve time,” he says. He turns to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I think I saw old Moon amongst ’em, but we was too busy to more than nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and candles before we’d cleaned out the Antony. Twenty-two ton o’ useful stuff I’d fetched him.

‘“Now, Sim,” says my aunt, “no more devouring of Mus’ Drake’s time. He’s sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to speak to them young springalds again.”

‘“But here’s our ship all ready and swept,” I says.

‘“Swep’ an’ garnished,” says Frankie. “I’m going to fill her with devils in the likeness o’ pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round Dunkirk corner, and if shot can’t do it, we’ll send down fireships.”

‘“I’ve given him my share of the Antony,” says my Aunt. “What do you reckon to do about yours?”

‘“She offered it,” said Frankie, laughing.

‘“She wouldn’t have if I’d overheerd her,” I says; “because I’d have offered my share first.” Then I told him how the Antony’s sails was best trimmed to drive before the wind, and seeing he was full of occupations we went acrost to that Bridport hoy, and left him.

‘But Frankie was gentle-born, d’ye see, and that sort they never overlook any folks’ dues.

‘When the hoy passed under his stern, he stood bare-headed on the poop same as if my Aunt had been his Queen, and his musicianers played “Mary Ambree” on their silver trumpets quite a long while. Heart alive, little maid! I never meaned to make you look sorrowful – ’

Bunny Lewknor in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub wiping his forehead.

‘We’ve got the stick to rights now! She’ve been a whole hatful o’ trouble. You come an’ ride her home, Mus’ Dan and Miss Una!’

They found the proud wood-gang at the foot of the slope, with the log double-chained on the tug.

‘Cattiwow, what are you going to do with it?’ said Dan, as they straddled the thin part.

‘She’s going down to Rye to make a keel for a Lowestoft fishin’ boat, I’ve heard. Hold tight!’

Cattiwow cracked his whip, and the great log dipped and tilted, and leaned and dipped again, exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas.

FRANKIE’S TRADE

Old Horn to All Atlantic said:(A-hay O! To me O!)‘Now where did Frankie learn his trade?For he ran me down with a three-reef mains’le.’(All round the Horn!)Atlantic answered: – ‘Not from me!You’d better ask the cold North Sea,For he ran me down under all plain canvas.’(All round the Horn!)The North Sea answered: – ‘He’s my man,For he came to me when he began —Frankie Drake in an open coaster.’(All round the Sands!)‘I caught him young and I used him sore,So you never shall startle Frankie more,Without capsizing Earth and her waters.(All round the Sands!)‘I did not favour him at all,I made him pull and I made him haul —And stand his trick with the common sailors.(All round the Sands!)‘I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind,And kicked him home with his road to findBy what he could see of a three-day snow-storm.(All round the Sands!)‘I learned him his trade o’ winter nights,’Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lightsOn a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing.(All round the Sands!)‘Before his beard began to shoot,I showed him the length of the Spaniard’s foot —And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later.(All round the Sands!)‘If there’s a risk which you can makeThat’s worse than he was used to takeNigh every week in the way of his business;(All round the Sands!)‘If there’s a trick that you can tryWhich he hasn’t met in time gone by,Not once or twice, but ten times over;(All round the Sands!)‘If you can teach him aught that’s new,(A-hay O! To me O!)I’ll give you Bruges and Niewport too,And the ten tall churches that stand between ’em.’Storm along my gallant Captains!(All round the Horn!)

The Tree of Justice

THE BALLAD OF MINEPIT SHAW

About the time that taverns shutAnd men can buy no beer,Two lads went up by the keepers’ hutTo steal Lord Pelham’s deer.Night and the liquor was in their heads —They laughed and talked no bounds,Till they waked the keepers on their beds,And the keepers loosed the hounds.They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind,Ready to carry away,When they heard a whimper down the windAnd they heard a bloodhound bay.They took and ran across the fern,Their crossbows in their hand,Till they met a man with a green lanternThat called and bade ’em stand.‘What are ye doing, O Flesh and Blood,And what’s your foolish will,That you must break into Minepit WoodAnd wake the Folk of the Hill?’‘Oh, we’ve broke into Lord Pelham’s park,And killed Lord Pelham’s deer,And if ever you heard a little dog barkYou’ll know why we come here!‘We ask you let us go our way,As fast as we can flee,For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay,You’ll know how pressed we be.’‘Oh, lay your crossbows on the bankAnd drop the knife from your hand,And though the hounds are at your flankI’ll save you where you stand!’They laid their crossbows on the bankThey threw their knives in the wood,And the ground before them opened and sankAnd saved ’em where they stood.‘Oh, what’s the roaring in our earsThat strikes us well-nigh dumb?’‘Oh, that is just how things appearsAccording as they come.’‘What are the stars before our eyesThat strike us well-nigh blind?’‘Oh, that is just how things ariseAccording as you find.’‘And why’s our bed so hard to the bonesExcepting where it’s cold?’‘Oh, that’s because it is precious stonesExcepting where ’tis gold.’‘Think it over as you stand,For I tell you without fail,If you haven’t got into FairylandYou’re not in Lewes Gaol.’All night long they thought of it,And, come the dawn, they sawThey’d tumbled into a great old pit,At the bottom of Minepit Shaw.And the keepers’ hound had followed ’em closeAnd broke her neck in the fall;So they picked up their knives and their crossbowsAnd buried the dog. That’s all.But whether the man was a poacher tooOr a Pharisee so bold —I reckon there’s more things told than are true,And more things true than are told.

The Tree of Justice

It was a warm, dark winter day with the Sou’-West wind singing through Dallington Forest, and the woods below the Beacon. The children set out after dinner to find old Hobden, who had a three months’ job in the Rough at the back of Pound’s Wood. He had promised to get them a dormouse in its nest. The bright leaf still clung to the beech coppice; the long chestnut leaves lay orange on the ground, and the rides were speckled with scarlet-lipped sprouting acorns. They worked their way by their own short cuts to the edge of Pound’s Wood, and heard a horse’s feet just as they came to the beech where Ridley the keeper hangs up the vermin. The poor little fluffy bodies dangled from the branches – some perfectly good, but most of them dried to twisted strips.

‘Three more owls,’ said Dan, counting. ‘Two stoats, four jays, and a kestrel. That’s ten since last week. Ridley’s a beast.’

‘In my time this sort of tree bore heavier fruit.’ Sir Richard Dalyngridge7 reined up his grey horse, Swallow, in the ride behind them. ‘What play do you make?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, sir. We’re looking for old Hobden,’ Dan replied. ‘He promised to get us a sleeper.’

‘Sleeper? A dormeuse do you say?’

‘Yes, a dormouse, sir.’

‘I understand. I passed a woodman on the low grounds. Come!’

He wheeled up the ride again, and pointed through an opening to the patch of beech-stubs, chestnut, hazel, and birch that old Hobden would turn into firewood, hop-poles, pea-boughs, and house-faggots before spring. The old man was as busy as a beaver.

Something laughed beneath a thorn, and Puck stole out, his finger on his lip.

‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘Along between the spindle trees. Ridley has been there this half-hour.’

The children followed his point, and saw Ridley the keeper in an old dry ditch, watching Hobden as a cat watches a mouse.

‘Huhh!’ cried Una. ‘Hobden always ’tends to his wires before breakfast. He puts his rabbits into the faggots he’s allowed to take home. He’ll tell us about ’em to-morrow.’

‘We had the same breed in my day,’ Sir Richard replied, and moved off quietly, Puck at his bridle, the children on either side between the close-trimmed beech stuff.

‘What did you do to them?’ said Dan, as they repassed Ridley’s terrible tree.

‘That!’ Sir Richard jerked his head toward the dangling owls.

‘Not he,’ said Puck. ‘There was never enough brute Norman in you to hang a man for taking a buck.’

‘I – I cannot abide to hear their widows screech. But why am I on horseback while you are afoot?’ He dismounted lightly, tapped Swallow on the chest, so that the wise thing backed instead of turning in the narrow ride, and put himself at the head of the little procession. He walked as though all the woods belonged to him. ‘I have often told my friends,’ he went on, ‘that Red William the King was not the only Norman found dead in a forest while he hunted.’

‘D’you mean William Rufus?’ said Dan.

‘Yes,’ said Puck, kicking a clump of red toadstools off a dead log.

‘For example, there was a knight new from Normandy,’ Sir Richard went on, ‘to whom Henry our King granted a manor in Kent near by. He chose to hang his forester’s son the day before a deer-hunt that he gave to pleasure the King.’

‘Now when would that be?’ said Puck, and scratched an ear thoughtfully.

‘The summer of the year King Henry broke his brother Robert of Normandy at Tenchebrai fight. Our ships were even then at Pevensey loading for the war.’

‘What happened to the knight?’ Dan asked.

‘They found him pinned to an ash, three arrows through his leather coat. I should have worn mail that day.’

‘And did you see him all bloody?’ Dan continued.

‘Nay, I was with De Aquila at Pevensey, counting horse-shoes, and arrow sheaves, and ale-barrels into the holds of the ships. The army only waited for our King to lead them against Robert in Normandy, but he sent word to De Aquila that he would hunt with him here before he set out for France.’

‘Why did the King want to hunt so particularly?’ Una demanded.

‘If he had gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De Aquila’s duty to see that he took no harm while he did it. But it was a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and scoured all the Honour of the Eagle – all De Aquila’s lands – to make a fit, and, above all, a safe sport for our King. Look!’

The ride twisted, and came out on the top of Pound’s Hill Wood. Sir Richard pointed to the swells of beautiful, dappled Dallington, that showed like a woodcock’s breast up the valley. ‘Ye know the forest?’ said he.

‘You ought to see the bluebells there in Spring!’ said Una.

‘I have seen,’ said Sir Richard, gazing, and stretched out his hand. ‘Hugh’s work and mine was first to move the deer gently from all parts into Dallington yonder, and there to hold them till the King came. Next, we must choose some three hundred beaters to drive the deer to the stands within bowshot of the King. Here was our trouble! In the mellay of a deer-drive a Saxon peasant and a Norman King may come over close to each other. The conquered do not love their conquerors all at once. So we needed sure men, for whom their village or kindred would answer in life, cattle, and land if any harm come to the King. Ye see?’

‘If one of the beaters shot the King,’ said Puck, ‘Sir Richard wanted to be able to punish that man’s village. Then the village would take care to send a good man.’

‘So! So it was. But, lest our work should be too easy, the King had done such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of the Kentish knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that our folk were half-mad with fear before we began. It is easier to dig out a badger gone to earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen. And atop of their misery the old rumour waked that Harold the Saxon was alive and would bring them deliverance from us Normans. This has happened every autumn since Senlac fight.’

‘But King Harold was killed at Hastings,’ said Una.

‘So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our Saxons always believed he would come again. That rumour did not make our work any more easy.’

Sir Richard strode on down the far slope of the wood, where the trees thin out. It was fascinating to watch how he managed his long spurs among the lumps of blackened ling.

‘But we did it!’ he said. ‘After all, a woman is as good as a man to beat the woods, and the mere word that deer are afoot makes cripples and crones young again. De Aquila laughed when Hugh told him over the list of beaters. Half were women; and many of the rest were clerks – Saxon and Norman priests.

‘Hugh and I had not time to laugh for eight days, till De Aquila, as Lord of Pevensey, met our King and led him to the first shooting stand – by the Mill on the edge of the forest. Hugh and I – it was no work for hot heads or heavy hands – lay with our beaters on the skirts of Dallington to watch both them and the deer. When De Aquila’s great horn blew we went forward, a line half a league long. Oh, to see the fat clerks, their gowns tucked up, puffing and roaring, and the sober millers dusting the undergrowth with their staves; and, like as not, between them a Saxon wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling like a kite as she ran, and leaping high through the fern, all for joy of the sport.’

‘Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!’ Puck bellowed without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked, and nostrils cracking.

‘Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!’ Sir Richard answered in a high clear shout.

The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out of a red osier bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped together on the same note.

A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods.

‘That’s old Hobden,’ said Una.

‘Small blame to him. It is in his blood,’ said Puck. ‘Did your beaters cry so, Sir Richard?’

‘My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the stands flew fair over them.

‘I cried, “’Ware shot! ’Ware shot!” and a knot of young knights new from Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: “’Ware Senlac arrows! ’Ware Senlac arrows!” A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our beaters answered in Saxon: “’Ware New Forest arrows! ‘Ware Red William’s arrow!” so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers I count the same as war), they ceased shooting. So that was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We – they had sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl’s jibe over hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old man, in the dress of a pilgrim.

‘The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans rest our chin on our left palm.

‘“Who answers for him?” said I. “If he fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?”

‘“Who will pay my fine?” the pilgrim said. “I have asked that of all the Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! They have not answered!” When he lifted his thin face I saw he was one-eyed, and frail as a rushlight.

‘“Nay but, Father,” I said, “to whom hast thou commended thyself?” He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: “Whose man art thou?”

‘“I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King’s Jester,” said he after a while. “I am, as I suppose, Rahere’s man.”

‘He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh coming up, read it.

‘It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere’s man, and that Rahere was the King’s Jester. There was Latin writ at the back.

‘“What a plague conjuration’s here?” said Hugh, turning it over. “Pum-quum-sum oc-occ. Magic?”

‘“Black Magic,” said the Clerk of Netherfield (he had been a monk at Battle). “They say Rahere is more of a priest than a fool and more of a wizard than either. Here’s Rahere’s name writ, and there’s Rahere’s red cockscomb sign drawn below for such as cannot read.” He looked slyly at me.