boy standing with his mouth a little open and his eyes fixed on the men who were playing the fiddle for the dancing.
He’d gone over to him and said. ‘I don’t know you, boy. What’s your name?’
The boy had jumped, as most boys did when suddenly accosted by Sir Charles, but his face remained tranquil and his large dark eyes had met the Squire’s frankly.
‘No, sir. I’m staying with my uncle at the forge; but he said it would be all right for me to come. My name is Jacky Fenn.’
‘You’re welcome; all welcome today. You enjoying the music?’
‘Oh yes, sir, thank you.’
‘Be a fiddler yourself, one day, eh?’ Not that there was much likelihood—not long for this world if Sir Charles were any judge; he’d seen that look on a child before.
‘I’d love it more than anything in the world, sir. But you have to have a fiddle, don’t you?’
There was something immensely engaging in his frank look and lack of shyness and shuffling.
‘I suppose you do. And fiddles cost money, don’t they? Any idea how much?’
‘I think about two guineas, sir.’
‘Two guineas! Bless my soul I That’s a lot of money, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, sir. A very great deal of money.’ He let out his breath like a sigh and his eyes went back to the fiddlers.
‘Had all you want to eat? That’s right. Enjoy yourself, Jacky Fenn.’
Next time he went into Baildon Sir Charles sought, and after some initial difficulty found, a man who had two fiddles for sale. One, a very cheap new shoddy bit of work, was thirty shillings; the other, old and beautiful with some mother-of-pearl about it and inlay on its belly, was ten guineas. Sir Charles bought the old one and, having by now found out from Strong Un where his nephew lived, rode over to present it. He had also learned that the boy’s mother was dead, had died young of the lung rot, and that Jacky had kept house for his father,
not being strong enough to work outside.
So he would be much alone in that remote place, Sir Charles thought, and the fiddle would be nice company
for him.
‘There you are,’ he said to the astonished, speechless child. ‘You learn to play and one day I’ll come and hear you. I’m very fond of a good tune—a good old tune, mark you. I’ve spoken to Jim Lantern about you, and he’s coming over one evening soon to show you the way of it.’ He had ridden away before Jacky could say a word. During the intervening three years he had called at the cottage five or six times. The boy had quickly mastered the instrument and could now fairly make it sing, as Sir Charles said; but it was more and more evident that the boy’s time for playing the fiddle or doing anything else was very short. And that was sad. Still, in Heaven he would have a harp and a good straight back, to boot; and there was no use being sickly and sentimental about such things. Jacky himself opened the door and gave the old man a look of dog-like adoration before he reached inside for the fiddle and the muffler which always made Sir Charles think of Joseph’s coat of many colours in the Bible—the muffler had been knitted out of hundreds of odds and ends of wool and was like a rather dingy rainbow. ‘Well, how are you, my boy? And how’s the fiddling?’ ‘I’ve got three new songs for you today, sir. Three new old songs, I mean, sir.’
‘That’s the style. Fire away.’
Half leaning against the jamb of the door, the child genius—he was nothing less—played ‘Once in the Month of May’, ‘Edgar’s Sad Wooing’ and ‘Jack on the Green”. The rein lay slack on the grey horse’s neck and Sir Charles’s plump red hands lay slack on the rein. The last rays of the sun withdrew from the tree-tops and the swift October dusk began to flood through the woods. The wind was rising, carrying the bitter-sweet wail of the fiddle music into the distant thickets. The old Squire’s broad face, highly coloured and solid from seven decades of good feeding and drinking and excellent health, and the boy’s, pinched and pale from thirteen years of suffering and poverty, wore, for a little while, the same look of peaceful pleasure. Then the last note shrilled out triumphantly, lingered and died. Jacky lowered his brow and stood panting a little from exertion, and Sir Charles roused himself.
‘As bonny a music as I ever listened to,’ he said heartily. ‘And it’s a comfort to know that when old Lantern goes to his long home you’ll know all the good old tunes to play at the horkeys and weddings. When that day comes we’ll rig you up a little donkey cart. Well, you go in now, it’s turning cold. Going to be a wild night.’
With some difficulty, for his breeches were a tight fit across his thick thigh, he pushed his plump hand into his pocket, fingered for and found a half-guinea.
‘I shall be along again,’ he said as he withdrew his hand. ‘Here y’are!’ He pushed the neat shining coin into the boy’s little claw. ‘Nay, nay. I’m only paying for my pleasure. Good day, Jacky.’
Fumbling at another pocket, he pulled out his watch, snapped open its case and stared at its face. It was later than he had thought, and he was a good way from home. Best cut through by the Lady’s Ride and on to the Lower Road. He’d intended to look in at Wood Farm, where the on-the-face-of-it friendly visit would tend to remind Captain Rout that Michaelmas was rent day and three weeks past; but he could do that just as well tomorrow.
‘Come up, Bobby.’ he said. ‘Best foot forrard now!’
The grey horse, knowing that each step now led towards home, set off briskly; nevertheless it was full dark when they emerged from the wood and turned into Lower Road. And there it happened, whatever it was.
Dark tales were told by winter fires concerning the Lower Road near Lady’s Ride. Away back in the time of the Civil War it had been the scene of the last desperate gallop of Lady Alice Rowhedge, who had been convicted of witchcraft. There were very few people in six parishes who did not at least half believe that on certain nights, when the wind was high, she and the great black stallion,
which had obeyed her like a dog, rode this way again.
It was, of course, a windy night; and possibly a branch had fallen, startling the sober grey horse and making it throw its rider.
At Wood Farm the Routs heard the clatter of its hoofs and Captain Rout popped back into the corner cupboard the bottle of brandy he had just taken out and opened, very skilfully, with his one hand, holding the bottle between his knees, and Mrs Rout put on her most piteous hard-done-by, all-at-sea expression. But the horse did not slacken pace, and after a moment they looked at one another and breathed again.
‘In the deuce of a hinq-y tonight.’ said Captain Rout, and went to the cupboard again. A man so handicapped, whose career had been cut short, whose future was decidedly unpromising, needed all the consolation he could give himself.
At Bridge Farm, Shipton the Dissenter, just back from the meeting at Nettleton, which had also drawn Amos Greenway away from his duties, was belatedly feeding his pigs. He was nearly two hours late and the pigs believed that death by starvation was imminent; they were squealing so loudly that he could hear nothing else. Mrs Shipton was deafened by the din too as she prepared in the kitchen a hot meal—the Saturday ritual to make up for not cooking on the Sabbath Day.
The grey horse clattered over the wooden bridge just as Fuller, lantern in hand, was collecting from the common pasture the four bullocks which he meant to stall-feed through the winter. It was late, for he had finished his rack and heaved the turnips into it, and he could have left the beasts out until morning. But the urge to see the job truly completed, to see his bullocks in the straw with their noses in the manger, had been irresistible. As Bobby’s hoofs rang hollowly at the bridge Fuller said into a bullock’s unresponsive ear, ‘There he go, pig-headed old sod! Riding like the Devil: Pity he don’t break his bloody neck!’
The grey horse halted by the gate. Bessie Jarvey, who had just sat down for the first time that day, said, ‘You
go, Jim?” without any great confidence. However, Jim grunted and rose; not willingly, but with alacrity. Sir Charles did not like to be kept waiting, and Jarvey remembered the time when Bessie had been abed with her fifth and he himself had been in the privy and half a minute’s delay had been unavoidable, Sir Charles had said, ‘You getting old and slow, Jim? Or is all this night work sapping your strength?’