CHAPTER VIII
Gipsy blood runs thin in England to-day, but a trickle shall be found to survive among the people of the booth and caravan; and glimpses of a veritable Romany spirit may yet be enjoyed at lesser fairs and revels throughout the country. By their levity and insolence; by their quick heels and dark faces; by the artist in them; by their love of beauty and of music; by their skill to charm money from the pockets of the slow-thinking folk; and by their nimble wits you shall know them.
A few mongrels of the race annually find Princetown, and upon days of revel may there be seen at shooting-galleries, 'high-fliers,' and 'roundabouts.'
Here they are chaffing the spectators and cajoling pennies from young and old; here, astounding the people by their lack of self-consciousness; here, singing or dancing; here, chafering; here, driving hard bargains for the local ponies; here, changing their doubtful coins for good ones, or raising strife between market-merry folk and prospering from the quarrels of honest men, after the manner of their kind.
Two streams of holiday-makers drifted through each other and through the little fair. They passed up and down the solitary street, loitered and chattered, greeted friends, listened to the din of the music, to the altercations of the customers and salesmen, to the ceaseless laughter of children and whinny of the ponies.
On either side of that open space spread in the village midst, an array of carts had been drawn up, and against these barricades were tethered various animals which the vehicles had brought. They stood or reposed on litter of fern and straw cast down for them.
Here were pigs, flesh-coloured and black, and great raddled rams in a panting row. Amid the brutes tramped farmers and their men.
The air was full of the smell of live mutton and swine; and among them—drifting, stopping in thoughtful knots, arguing, and laughing heavily, the slow-eyed yokels came and went. The rams bleated and dribbled and showed in a dozen ways their hatred of this publicity; the pigs cared not, but exhibited a stoic patience.
Upon the greensward beside the road stood separate clusters of guarded ponies. Old and young they were, gainly and ungainly, white, black, and brown, with their long manes and tails often bleached to a rusty pallor by the wind and sun.
In agitated groups the little creatures stood. Company cried to company with equine language, and the air was full of their squealings, uttered in long-drawn protests or sudden angry explosions.
Occasionally a new drove from afar would arrive and trot to its place in double and treble ranks—a passing billow of black and bright russet or dull brown, with foam of tossing manes, flash of frightened eyes, and soft thud and thunder of many unshod hoofs.
The people now came close, now scattered before a pair of uplifted heels where a pony, out of fear, showed temper. The exhibits were very unequal. Here a prosperous man marshalled a dozen colts; here his humbler neighbour could bring but three or four to market. Sometimes the group consisted of no more than a mare and foal at foot.
Round about were children, who from far off had ridden some solitary pony to the fair, and hoped that they might get the appointed price and carry money home to their parents or kinsfolk.
Hanging close on every side to the main business and thrusting in where space offered for a stall, rows of small booths sprang up; while beyond them on waste land stood the merry-go-rounds, spinning to bray of steam-driven organs, the boxing-tent, the beast show and the arena, where cocoanuts were lifted on posts against a cloth.
Here worked the wanderers and played their parts with shout and song; but at the heart of the fair more serious merchants stood above their varied wares, and with unequal skill and subtlety won purchasers. These men displayed divergent methods, all based on practical experience of human nature.
A self-assertive and defiant spirit sold braces and leather thongs and buckles. His art was to pretend the utmost indifference to his audience; he seemed not to care whether they purchased his goods or no, yet let it be clearly understood that none but a fool would miss the opportunities he offered.
A cheap-jack over against the leather-seller relied upon humour and sleight of hand. He sold watches that he asserted to be gold; but he was also prepared to furnish clocks of baser metal for more modest purses. He dwelt upon the quality of the goods, and defied his audience to find within the width and breadth of the United Kingdom such machinery at such a price. He explained also very fully that he proposed to return among them next year, with a special purpose to make good any defective timepieces that might by evil chance lurk unsuspected amid his stock. He reminded them he had been among them during the previous year also, as a guarantee of his good faith.
Beyond him a big, brown half-caste sold herb pills and relied upon a pulpit manner for his success. He came with a message of physical salvation from the God of the Christians.
He mingled dietetics and dogma; he prayed openly; he showed emotion; he spoke of Nature and the Power above Nature; he called his Maker to witness that nothing but the herbs of the field had gone to make his medicine.
He had good store of long words with which to comfort rustic ears. He spoke of 'a palliative,' 'a febrifuge,' and 'a panacea.' He wanted but three-pence for each box, and asserted that the blessing of the Lord accompanied his physic.
"Why am I here?" he asked. "Who sent me? I tell you, men and women, that God sent me. We must not carry our light under a bushel. We must not hide a secret that will turn a million unhappy men and women into a million happy men and women. God gave me this secret, and though I would much sooner be sitting at home in my luxurious surroundings, which have come to me as the result of selling this blessed corrective of all ills of the digestion and alimentary canals, yet—no—this world is no place for idleness and laziness. So I am here with my pills, and I shall do my Master's work so long as I have hands to make the medicine and a voice to proclaim it. And in Christ's own blessed words I can say that where two or three just persons are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them, my friends—there am I in the midst of them!"
Amid the welter of earth-colour, dun and grey there flashed yellow or scarlet, where certain Italian women moved in the crowd. They sold trinkets, or offered to tell fortunes with the aid of little green parakeets in cages.
The blare and grunt of coarse melody persisted; and the people at the booths babbled ceaselessly where they sold their sweetmeats, cakes, and fruit. Some were anchored under little awnings; some moved their goods about on wheels with flags fluttering to attract attention.
Old and young perambulated the maze. Every manner of man was gathered here. Aged and middle-aged, youthful and young, grey and white, black and brown, bearded and shorn, all came and went together. Some passed suspicious and moody; some stood garrulous, genial, sanguine, according to their fortunes or fancied fortunes in the matter of sale and barter.
And later in the day, by the various roads that stretch north, south, and west from Princetown, droves of ponies began to wend, some with cheerful new masters; many with gloomy owners, who had nothing to show but their trouble for their pains.
This spacious scene was hemmed in by a rim of sad-coloured waste and ragged hills, while overhead the grey-ribbed sky hung low and shredded mist.
Humphrey Baskerville had sold his ponies in an hour, and was preparing to make a swift departure when accident threw him into the heart of a disturbance and opened the way to significant incidents.
The old man met Jack Head and was speaking with him, but suddenly Jack caught the other by his shoulders and pulled him aside just in time to escape being knocked over. A dozen over-driven bullocks hurtled past them with sweating flanks and dripping mouths. Behind came two drovers, and a brace of barking dogs hung upon the flanks of the weary and frightened cattle.
Suddenly, as the people parted, a big brute, dazed and maddened by the yelping dogs now at his throat, now at his heels, turned and dashed into the open gate of a cottage by the way.
The door of the dwelling stood open and before man or sheepdog had time to turn him, the reeking bullock had rushed into the house. There was a crash within, the agonised yell of a child and the scream of a woman.
Then rose terrified bellowings from the bullock, where it stood jammed in a passageway with two frantic dogs at its rear.
A crowd collected, and Mr. Baskerville amazed himself by rushing forward and shouting a direction. "Get round, somebody, and ope the back door!"
A woman appeared at the cottage window with a screaming and bloody child in her arms.
"There's no way out; there's no way out," she cried. "There's no door to the garden!"
"Get round; get round! Climb over the back wall," repeated Baskerville. Then he turned to the woman. "Ope the window and come here, you silly fool!" he said.
She obeyed, and Humphrey found the injured child was not much hurt, save for a wound on its arm. Men soon opened the rear door of the cottage and drove the bullock out of the house; then they turned him round in the garden and drove him back again through the house into the street.
The hysterical woman regarded Mr. Baskerville as her saviour and refused to leave his side. The first drover offered her a shilling for the damage and the second stopped to wrangle with Jack Head, who blamed him forcibly.
"'Twas the dogs' fault—anybody could see that," he declared. "We're not to blame."
"The dogs can't pay, you silly fool," answered Head. "If you let loose a dog that don't know his business, you've got to look out for the trouble he makes. 'Tis the devil's own luck for you as that yowling child wasn't killed. And now you want to get out of it for nought! There's a pound's worth of cloam smashed in there."
The woman, who was alone, sent messengers for her husband, but they failed to find him; then she declared that Mr. Baskerville should assess the amount of her claim and the people upheld her. Thus most reluctantly he was thrust into a sort of prominence.
"You was the only one with sense to tell 'em what to do; and so you'd better finish your good job and fix the price of the breakages," said Jack.
The man with the bullocks, when satisfied that Humphrey would be impartial and indifferent to either party, agreed to this proposal, and Mr. Baskerville, quite bewildered by such a sudden notoriety, entered the cottage, calculated the damage done, and soon returned.
"You've got to pay ten shillings," he said. "Your bullock upset a tray and smashed a terrible lot of glass and china. He also broke down four rails of the balusters and broke a lamp that hung over his head. The doctor will charge a shilling for seeing to the child's arm also. So that's the lowest figure in fairness. Less it can't be."
The drover cursed and swore at this. He was a poor man and would be ruined. His master would not pay, and if the incident reached headquarters his work must certainly be taken from him. None offered to help and Humphrey was firm.
"Either pay and thank God you're out of it so easily," he said, "or tell us where you come from."
The drovers talked together, and then they strove to bate the charges brought against them. Their victim, now grown calmer, agreed to take seven shillings, but Mr. Baskerville would not hear of this. He insisted upon observance of his ruling, and the man with the bullocks at length brought out a leather purse and counted from it seven shillings. To these his companion added three.
Then the leader flung the money on the ground, and to accompaniment of laughter and hisses hastened after his stock. The cattle were not for Princetown, and soon both men and their cavalcade plodded onward again into the peace and silence of a mist-clad moor.
They cursed themselves weary, kicked the offending dog and, with a brute instinct to revenge their mishap, smote and bruised the head of the bullock responsible for this misfortune when it stopped to drink at a pool beside the road.
Humphrey Baskerville won a full measure of applause on this occasion. He took himself off as swiftly as possible afterwards; but words were spoken of approval and appreciation, and he could not help hearing them. His heart grew hot within him. A man shouted after him, "Good for the old Hawk!"
Before he had driven off, Nathan Baskerville met him at 'The Duchy Hotel' and strove to make him drink.
"A drop you must have along with me," he said. "Why, there's a dozen fellows in the street told me how you handled those drovers. You ought to have the Commission of the Peace, that's what you ought to have. You're cut out for it."
"A lot of lunatics," answered the elder. "No presence of mind in fifty of 'em. Nought was done by me. The job might have cost a life, but it didn't, so enough's said. I won't drink. I must get back home."
"Did the ponies go off well?"
"Very. If you see Susan Hacker, tell her I've gone. The old fool's on one of they roundabouts, I expect. And if she breaks it down, she needn't come back to me for the damages."
"A joke! A joke from you! This is a day of wonders, to be sure!" cried Nathan. "Now crown all and come along o' me, and we'll find the rest of the family and the Linterns, and all have a merry-go-round together!"
But his brother was gone, and Nathan turned and rejoined a party of ram-buyers in the street.
Elsewhere Mrs. Lintern and Mrs. Baskerville walked together. Their hearts were not in the fair, but they spoke of the pending marriage and hoped that a happy union was in store for Ned and Cora.
The young couple themselves tasted such humble delights as the fair could offer, but Cora's pleasure was represented by the side glances of other girls, and she regarded the gathering as a mere theatre for her own display. Ned left her now and again and then returned. Each time he came back he lifted his hat to her and exhibited some new sign of possession.
Cora affected great airs and a supercilious play of eyebrow that impressed the other young women. She condescended to walk round the fair and regarded this perambulation as a triumph, until the man who sold watches marked her among his listeners, observed her vanity, and raised a laugh at her expense. Then she lost her temper and declared her wish to depart. She was actually going when there came up Milly and her husband, Rupert Baskerville.
Ned whispered to his sister-in-law to save the situation if possible, and Milly with some tact and some good fortune managed to do so.
Cora smoothed her ruffled feathers and joined the rest of the family at the inn. There all partook of the special ordinary furnished on this great occasion to the countryside.
In another quarter Thomas Gollop, Joe Voysey and their friends took pleasure after their fashion. Every man won some sort of satisfaction from the fair and held his day as well spent.
Perhaps few could have explained what drew them thither or kept them for many hours wandering up and down, now drinking, now watching the events of the fair, now eating, now drinking again. But so the day passed with most among them, and not until evening darkened did the mist thicken into rain and seriously damp the proceedings.
Humphrey Baskerville, well pleased with his sales and even better pleased with the trivial incident of the bullock, went his way homeward and was glad to be gone. His state of mind was such that he gave alms to two mournful men limping slowly on crutches into Princetown. Each of these wounded creatures had lost a leg, and one lacked an arm also. They dragged along a little barrel-organ that played hymns, and their faces were thin, anxious, hunger-bitten.
These men stopped Mr. Baskerville, but not to beg. They desired to know the distance yet left to traverse before they reached the fair.
"We set out afore light from Dousland, but we didn't know what a terrible road 'twas," said one. "You see, with but a pair o' legs between us, we can't travel very fast."
Humphrey considered, and his heart being uplifted above its customary level of caution, he acted with most unusual impulse and served these maimed musicians in a manner that astounded them. His only terror was that somebody might mark the deed; but this did not happen, and he accomplished his charity unseen.
"It's up this hill," he said; "but the hill's a steep one, and the fair will be half over afore you get there at this gait."
The men shrugged their shoulders and prepared to stump on.
"Get in," said Mr. Baskerville. "Get in, the pair of you, and I'll run you to the top."
He alighted and helped them to lift their organ up behind, while they thanked him to the best of their power. They talked and he listened as he drove them; and outside the village, on level ground, he dropped them again and gave them half-a-crown. Much heartened and too astonished to display great gratitude, they crawled upon their way while Humphrey turned again.
The taste of the giving was good to the old man, and its flavour astonished him. He overtook the drovers and their cattle presently, and it struck him that this company it was who had made the day so remarkable for him.
He half determined with himself to stop and speak with them and even restore the money he had exacted; for well he knew the gravity of their loss.
But, unfortunately for themselves, the twain little guessed what was in his mind; they still smarted from their disaster, and when they saw the cause of it they swore at him, shook their fists and threatened to do him evil if opportunity offered.
Whereupon Mr. Baskerville hardened his heart, kept his money in his pocket and drove forward.