THE STORY OF FARMYARD MAGGIE
One Saturday afternoon when the miller had let his man go out, he was standing at the mill door above the steps, with the white dust whirling behind him like a mist. He saw Peter and his sister near the witch’s cottage, and he waved his hand and shouted to them to come. He was smoking, but knocked the ashes out of his pipe, for he was certain that little Peter would ask for a story. He liked telling him stories better than reading out of his grandmother’s book, because he could look at Janet all the time, instead of keeping his eyes upon the words. He began to rack his brains for something new.
“A story! a story!” cried little Peter, as soon as he had got within earshot.
“But I have none left in my head,” said the miller, teasing him.
“Then there is the book,” said Peter. “I’ll go for it.”
It was a long time since he had stopped being afraid of the tall man in the white hat.
“No! no! no!” cried the miller. “Come here and sit on the sacks, and I’ll think of something. We’ll go up and shut the sluice in a few minutes, and by that time no doubt something new will come into my mind.”
Janet came in and sat down, and the dust settled on her yellow hair till she looked like a snow-powdered fairy on the top of a Christmas cake. The miller thought it beautiful. As for little Peter, the creaking machinery was enough to keep him happy, and when they went to shut the sluice-gate, he danced and jumped the whole way there.
“So here we’ll stay,” said the miller, when the water was turned off and they were sitting on a fallen tree at the edge of the mill-dam. “I have just remembered the story of Farmyard Maggie.”
Long before you were born, and before I was born either (began the miller), there lived at the farm over yonder a little girl. She was an orphan, like you, but she had not even a grandmother to share her roof with her. In summer she slept by the hedge, and in winter she would slip into the stable and lie by the farm horses. And when it was autumn, and the stacks stood in rows in the rickyard waiting to be threshed, she would crawl in under them through the little hole that is left for the air to pass through and to keep them from heating. There she slept as snug as if she were in a house. She was called “Farmyard Maggie,” because it was her business to look after the fowls in the yard.
Poor little body! she had not a very happy life of it. They were rough folk at the farm, for the farmer was miserly and his wife was cruel, and often she did not get enough to eat. But the farm men were kind and would sometimes give her a crust of bread or a bit of cheese from their own dinners; and once, when it was cold, a ploughman brought her a pair of shoes that belonged to his own little girl, for he did not like to see her poor little toes on the frosty ground. The horses were kind always, and were careful not to kick her or tramp on her when she took refuge in their stalls; but, unfortunately, they were proud, and when they had on their fine harness with the brass crescents that swung between their ears, they would not notice her. They were high creatures.
Maggie took care of the poultry well. She knew all the cocks and hens and little chickens, and even the waddling, gobbling, ducks, whom she fetched home each evening from the pond at the foot of the hill, thought well of her—that is, when they had time to think of anything but their own stomachs, which was not often, certainly. But she had two great friends who loved her dearly. One was a little game-fowl who was as straight on his legs as a sergeant on parade, and the other was a large Cochin-China cock who looked as if he wore ill-fitting yellow trousers that were always on the verge of coming off. The gamecock despised the Cochin-Chinaman a little, for he thought him vulgar, but he was a great deal too well-bred to show it. Besides which, their affection for Maggie made the two birds quite friendly.
One autumn afternoon, when the mist hung over the stubble and the brambles were red and gold, Maggie sat crying just over there by the roadside. She was most dreadfully unhappy, for a duck was lost and the farmer’s wife had told her that she must go away and never come back any more. She had turned her out of the yard without so much as a sixpence or a piece of bread to keep her from starving.
Presently the Cochin-China cock passed by, and when he saw she was in trouble, he came running towards her as hard as he could, with great awkward strides and his neck stuck out in front of him.
“Oh, what is the matter?” he cried. And Maggie put her arms round him and told him everything.
When he knew what had happened he was in as great a taking as herself, and he walked up and down, flapping his wings distractedly and making the most heartrending noises in his throat.
“I must go for Alfonso,” he said at last.
Alfonso was the gamecock.
I can tell you there was a to-do when the birds got at the bottom of the affair! They stood, one on either side of their poor friend, begging her not to cry; and Alfonso was anxious to fight everybody, from the bantam up to the great bubbly-jock who scraped his wings along the ground and turned blue about the neck if you whistled to him. All the fowls knew that something terrible had happened.
“But what is the use of your fighting, dear Alfonso?” said Maggie. “It would do me no good, and the poultry are all innocent. They have done me no harm.”
“I am not so sure about those sly fat huzzies of ducks. What business have they to look after themselves so badly? I have a good mind to go down and have a few words with the drake.”
“No, no—pray don’t,” said Maggie. “The best thing I can do is to go away and be done with it.”
The Cochin-Chinaman was weeping hoarsely: he had no dignity.
“I never thought to leave my family,” he cried, “but this is the last they’ll see of me. I shall go with you.”
Alfonso was rather shocked, for he had very proper ideas.
“And leave your wife?” he exclaimed.
“She is in love with the Dorking cock, so she can stay with him. I have known it for some time. There he is, standing on one leg by the wood-pile.”
“I will come too,” said the game-fowl, who was a bachelor, “but do you go on. I will just go and break every bone in the drake’s body, and I can catch you up before you are out of sight.”
“Oh, no! no! Promise you won’t do that!” implored Maggie.
It took some time to persuade him to be quiet, but at last it was done.
“It is better to get the business over at once,” said the Cochin-China cock. “If Alfonso is ready, we will start.”
“And pray, who says I am not ready for anything?” inquired the other. “Anyone who wants to eat his words has only to come to me!”
“But nobody says it,” replied Maggie soothingly. “I am sure no one ever had two such dear, brave friends as I have.”
And with that the three set forth on their travels.
They went up the road that runs north, round the other side of the dam, for they were anxious to get as far as possible without being seen, in case anyone should come after them to try and make the cocks go back. Sometimes they ran, they were in such a hurry. At last they came to where the old gipsy track crosses the way, and turned into it; feeling much safer for the shelter of the whins and bushes in that green place.
All round them there were tangles of bramble, red and copper and orange, and fiery spotted leaves. Where it was damp the dew still lay under the burning bracken and the yellow ragwort stood up like plumes and feathers of gold. Here they went slower, pushing through the broom, whose black pods rattled as they passed. In front of them a little string of smoke was rising, and when they reached it, they found that it came from the chimneys of a caravan which was drawn up in a clearing.
Maggie and her two friends crouched down and looked at it through the bracken. They saw a large blue van and a battered-looking green one, which stood with their shafts resting on the ground. A couple of horses grazed, unharnessed, a few yards away. In a circle of stones burned a fire, over which hung a black caldron, and a woman, with a string of red beads round her neck, was nursing a baby on the top step of the blue van.
“Oh, what a lovely baby!” whispered Maggie, as she gazed at them.
“So it is,” replied the Cochin-China cock amiably. Alfonso turned up his beak, for he had no domestic tastes.
“I must go a little nearer,” said Maggie. “Oh, look! the woman can see us. I really will ask her to show it to me.”
“Ma’am,” she said, making a curtsey, “may I look at your little child?”
“MAGGIE TOOK IT AND BEGAN TO ROCK IT ABOUT.”
The woman exchanged glances of rather contemptuous amusement with a man who had come out of the van and stood behind her. Then she held the baby out to Maggie, and Maggie took it and began to rock it about as if she had minded babies, and not poultry, all her life.
“Well, I never!” said the man. He wore small gold rings in his ears.
At this moment there arose a most furious noise from some fowls that were wandering about among the van wheels, where a fight was beginning. Alfonso had already managed to pick a quarrel with someone of his own sex, and the hens were screeching as the two birds crouched opposite to each other, making leaps into the air and striking out until the feathers flew.
“Alfonso! Alfonso! stop this moment!” screamed Maggie. “Oh! what a way to behave!”
But she could not get at him because of the baby she held.
“He has dreadful manners,” moaned the Cochin-China cock. But he would not have said that if Alfonso had been able to hear him.
“Well,” said the man, vaulting down the steps, “that’s the finest little game-bird I ever saw.”
And without more ado he separated the fighters and pushed Alfonso under a basket that stood upside down near the van. There was a hole in it, and through this Alfonso stuck his head and crowed at the top of his voice.
“What are you doing to him?” cried Maggie. “He is my friend, and we are travelling together.”
“He’s mine now,” replied the man, “for I’m going to keep him.”
“But I can’t part from him—you have got no right to take him away.” And the tears rushed to Maggie’s eyes at the thought.
“Best come along too,” said the woman, who spoke little.
“Oh yes—and perhaps I could mind the baby,” exclaimed Maggie.
“You’d have to,” said the woman. “We don’t keep people for nothing.”
“But there’s him too,” said Maggie, pointing to the Cochin-Chinaman. “I can’t leave him either. He always goes with Alfonso and me.”
The man laughed. “You’re the queerest lot I ever saw,” said he. “But I suppose we must have you all.”
And so it was settled.
Maggie was very much relieved to find that the party was to move away early next morning, and she took care to keep as much out of sight as possible. But the rest of the evening passed without their hearing or seeing anything of the people at the farm, and she hoped that no one had discovered their absence. As soon as it was light next day the horses were harnessed, and the three truants set out with their new friends.
There was another member of the party who came back to the camp just as they were starting, and who drove the green van. His name was Dan, and he was the brother of the man with the gold earrings, a clean-shaved brown young fellow, with dark smooth hair which came forward in a flat lock over either ear. He wore a cap made of rabbit-skin, and he looked after the two horses. Though he took little notice of Maggie she was not afraid of him, for he had a self-contained, serious face, and was so good to the beasts that she knew he must be kind.
Besides this work he did nothing in the camp. His brother was a tinman, but Dan left the pots and pans alone; and it was only when the party was at village fairs that his talents came into play. The horse which drew the smaller van and did the lighter work was a bright chestnut with a fine coat, which Dan groomed ceaselessly. Both animals followed him like dogs, and he could do whatever he pleased with the chestnut, which could jump almost anything. When he rode him, barebacked, at the big fairs, the crowd would look on open-mouthed, shouting as he cleared the hurdles and dropping their pence into the rabbit-skin cap when it was carried round. Once an ill-natured fellow had stuck a thorn into the horse’s flank as he was led by, and Dan had blacked both his eyes before leaving the fair. When the vans were settled in one place, he would often be absent for days together, and nobody knew where he went.
Maggie soon found out that they were making for some woods a few days’ journey off. She was very happy, for she had seen so little of the world outside the farmyard that every new place amused her. The woman was friendly to her in her silent way when she found how careful she was of the baby. Maggie soon learnt to dress and tend it; and she swept out the vans, lit the fires, and in the evening sat on the top step, talking to Alfonso and the Cochin-China cock. They were quite contented too, though they did not live so well as they had done at the farm.
They travelled on, by villages and hill-sides, by moors and by roads. The trees flamed with autumn, and the rose-hips were turning red. At last they drew up in a grassy track which ran through an immense wood, where the sighing of the air in the fir-branches rose and fell in little gusts, and grey-blue wood-pigeons went flapping away down the vistas of stems. Maggie had never imagined such a place, and when the camp was set out and she lay down, tired, to sleep, she promised herself that, if she had a free moment on the morrow, she would go and see more of it.
It was the next afternoon that her chance came, and off she set, looking back now and then, to make sure of finding her way home. How tall the bracken was! The bramble, that in woods keeps its living green almost into the winter, trailed over the path, and there were regiments of table-shaped toadstools, crimson and scarlet and brown. The rabbits fled at her step, diving underground into unseen burrows, and the male-fern stood like upright bunches of plumes. She was so much delighted by all this that she went on, and on, until the sound of a voice singing to a stringed instrument made her stand still to listen.
Not far off was another camp, much like the one she had left. There were several tents, and people were moving about; but the music came from close by, on the other side of an overturned fir whose roots stood up like wild arms. She stole up and peeped round the great circle of earth which the tree had torn out with it in its fall, and in which ferns and rough grass had sown themselves. She was surprised!
On his face in the moss lay Dan, his elbows on the ground, his chin in his hands. His rabbit-skin cap was pulled over his eyes, and the gold rings which, like his brother, he wore in his ears gleamed against his dark neck.
A girl sat near him, playing on a little stringed instrument, such as Maggie had never seen before. Her voice reminded her of the wood-pigeons, and the twang of the strings as she struck them was both sharp and soft at once. The blue of her eyes and the pale pink colour of her cheeks made Dan look almost like an Indian by contrast with her. She had ceased singing, but Maggie kept as still as possible in hopes of hearing some more.
“It’s a good thing I left Alfonso at home,” she thought; “he would have never stayed quiet. I won’t breathe, and perhaps she’ll begin again.”
Dan was silent too, though he never took his eyes off his companion’s lips. Soon she touched the strings again and played a few notes that sounded like a whisper.
“This is called ‘The Wind in the Broom,’ ” she said:
“ ‘Wind, wind, in the forest tall,
Do you stir the broom where my lass is waiting?
Pale lass, in the witch’s thrall—
For the witch is by, and she may not call.
(O the long, long days that my lass is waiting!)
Gold broom, with your flowers in bloom,
Wave,’ says the lad: ‘it is time for mating.’
“ ‘Lad, lad, in the witch’s wood,
There is no more hope when the spell is spoken;
Lost lad, is the sight so good
Of the empty place where your love has stood?
(O the long, long days that her heart has broken!)
Dead broom, be your bare pod’s doom
Black,’ says the witch, ‘for a sign and token.’
“ ‘Bold broom, by the witch’s door,
Will you hide my lad as his step steals nigher?
Sleep, witch, on the forest floor;
You are drugged by the broom-flowers’ scented core.
(O the smouldering fumes of its golden fire!)
Burn, broom, in the forest’s gloom,
Glow,’ says the lass, ‘like the heart’s desire.’
“ ‘Wind, wind, round the witch’s lair
There’s a lad and lass that no spell can sever;
Sing, wind, in the broom-flowers there,
For you sing good-bye to an old despair.
(O the long, long days, that are done for ever!)
Gold broom, with the silken plume,
Laugh,’ says the wind, ‘because love dies never.’ ”
Maggie was so much absorbed in the song that she came forward a little from behind the root. Though Dan had not turned his head she saw that his watchful eyes were on her, and she prepared to move away. The girl turned round; her face was so sweet that Maggie spoke up.
“I was only listening to the song,” she said.
“Come and sit beside me,” said the singer. “My name is Rhoda. Who are you?”
“That’s the girl from our camp,” said Dan.
Long after he had gone back to feed the horses Maggie sat talking to her new friend. She told her all about Alfonso and the Cochin-Chinaman, and how they had all run away from the farm. Though Rhoda was grown up and could not understand fowls when they spoke, she listened with great interest, and Maggie promised to bring the two cocks to visit her. When she got home Dan was putting a rug on the chestnut horse, for the nights were growing colder. He seemed to look at her with a new interest.
“Do you like Rhoda’s songs?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh yes.”
“She makes them for me,” said Dan.
“I am going to take Alfonso and the other cock to see her,” continued Maggie. “Perhaps I shall go to-morrow.”
“Then I had better come with you. There are wild-cats in the wood,” observed Dan shortly. And he went into the green van and said no more.
After that Maggie managed to slip away nearly every day to see her friend in the other camp. Sometimes she took the birds with her, and sometimes she left them at home. Dan and his brother had gone off to a fair in the neighbourhood, which was to last several days.
One afternoon as she sat with Rhoda under the trees, a man came towards them from the tents. He had a long pointed nose, and was very grandly dressed for a gipsy, for he wore a bright-coloured scarf and waistcoat and his fingers were covered with silver rings. Maggie thought him very nice, for he joined them and seemed to admire Alfonso very much. The little cock strutted about, ruffling himself out as the man watched him. He loved notice. The gipsy threw him a handful of corn from his pocket, and when he went off again to the tents, he kept looking back with a smile. Rhoda took up her guitar once more for she had laid it down at his approach, though she was in the middle of a song.
“I never sing to him,” she said.
It was a pleasant time they spent in the fir-woods, and Maggie began to think there could be nothing better than life in the caravan. She loved the open air and the blue mists, the silver spider webs and the winking eyes of the little fires that were lit among the trees at night. She loved the whispering branches and the red toadstools and the sceptres of tall ragwort, that were beginning to fade as the days went by. She did not want to leave the place, and, besides that, she did not want to leave Rhoda.
But early one morning, as she was gathering wood a little way from the van, she glanced up to find Rhoda standing before her. Her guitar was under her arm and a little bundle in her hand.
“I have come to say good-bye,” said she. “Yes, I am going, and you must not tell anybody. I can’t stay any more in our camp. I shall take my guitar and go and make my living by singing at fairs, as I have done before. So I’ve come to say good-bye to you first.”
Maggie was too much surprised to answer.
“It is because of the man you saw,” continued Rhoda, “the man I will not sing for. He is the richest gipsy in the country, and I hate him; but he loves me. My mother says I must marry him. He has given her presents of money and necklaces and fine clothes, and she has promised me to him. They don’t know I have gone, but by to-night I shall be miles away, and I will never come back. He is the most hateful man in the world.”
“And now I shall never see you any more!” cried Maggie.
“Oh, but I hope you will,” replied Rhoda. “I like you, and you like me, and when you are at a fair some day, you’ll hear my guitar, and come and speak to me and be glad to see me. You will, won’t you?”
And she turned away towards the edge of the wood, and Maggie went a little distance with her.
“May I tell Dan?” she asked, as they parted.
“Oh, Dan knows,” said Rhoda.
Then she went away through the tree-stems into the open country, and Maggie stood at the outskirts of the wood watching her until she disappeared among the shorn fields, looking back and waving her hand.
She was sad for a long time after that. Dan said nothing of what he knew, and when she tried to speak to him, he got out of her way. She did not even tell Alfonso or the Cochin-Chinaman what had happened; though, to be sure, it would have been safe enough, for, even if they had spoken of it, no one but herself could have understood them. Once she saw the rich gipsy with the evil face and silver rings prowling about the vans, which made her so frightened that she got into one of them and locked herself in. No one else had seen Rhoda when she came to say good-bye, and there was nothing to do but to keep her own counsel and hope that in time she might meet her friend again.
The Cochin-China cock was as happy as possible. He did not care for high company, and the few fowls that ran about the van wheels and travelled together in a basket on the roof when the family was moving were good enough for him. He forgot that he had ever had a wife and family, though he had wept so loudly when he left them to follow Maggie; and now he had chosen for a partner a young speckled hen, who was bewitched by his yellow trousers and deep voice.
Alfonso, on the contrary, had grown prouder than ever; and when he discovered that the man with the gold earrings meant to make a deal of money by backing him to fight other cocks in public, he was extremely happy. He longed for spring to come, for then the vans were to make a tour through many villages and towns, and he would have the chance of meeting all sorts of champions in single combat. He had found this out through the Cochin-Chinaman, who was a gossip, and whose new wife told him everything that went on. But Maggie knew nothing about it, for Alfonso would not tell her, and promised to thrash his friend if he did so. Alfonso knew that if anything were to happen to himself it would break her heart. Sometimes his conscience blamed him for deceiving her, but he did not listen to it; it seemed to him that he heard the crowing of whole crowds of upstart birds, and his spurs itched.
It had grown quite cold when the time came for them to leave the woods. Dan and Maggie were to go off in the green van at sunrise, and the woman with her husband and baby were to follow after midday. Dan knew the place for their next camp, and he and his companion were to get everything ready, and have fires lit and water carried by the time the family arrived with its belongings and the cocks and hens.
It was a pleasant journey; the roads were good and the sun shone. They sat with their feet on the shafts, and Dan talked more than he had ever talked before. He told Maggie of his youth and the tents among which he was born; of his half-Spanish mother, who had died in the cold of a snowy winter; and of his father, who had beaten him with a strap till he had learnt to ride better than any of the other boys. She heard how he and his brother got enough money to buy the van and the horses, and how he had met Rhoda at a great gipsy gathering; how she had sung ‘The Wind in the Broom’ for him by a camp-fire when all their companions had gone to sleep; how they had sat till the morning came and the stars went out like so many street-lamps in the daylight. Then he said very little more, and sat with his cap pulled over his eyes, whistling the tune of ‘The Wind in the Broom’ till the journey was done.
They had come to an old quarry cut into the hollow of a hill-side. Dan unharnessed the horse, and they began their work. It was getting dark when they heard approaching wheels and saw their friends coming up the winding road. Maggie could hear the Cochin-Chinaman’s hoarse voice proclaiming his arrival and distinguish in the dusk the smaller basket tied on the top step of the van, in which Alfonso, according to custom, travelled alone. The Cochin-Chinaman’s wife, who was greedy, was already making a disturbance and demanding to know how soon they might expect their evening meal.
It was late by the time Maggie was able to prepare it. She turned it out in a heap and let the birds loose. They rushed at it, pushing and struggling to get the best bits, the speckled hen screaming to her husband to protect her from the other hens, and to see that she was not robbed of her share. Then Maggie took Alfonso’s little plate, and, putting a few nice spoonfuls in it, went up the van steps.
But she opened the basket and looked in, to find that Alfonso was gone.
* * * * *
Then indeed there was consternation in the camp. Maggie’s tears fell fast and heavy down her cheeks as she sat looking into the empty basket. The whole family came out at her call and stood bewailing itself in different ways. The man with the gold earrings swore, the wife fixed her dark gaze on her weeping servant, and Dan hung about trying to comfort Maggie. But she cared for none of them, and only when the Cochin-Chinaman hurried from his food to her side did she dry her eyes.
“He’s gone! he’s gone!” she wailed, “and we shall never see him again. O Alfonso! Alfonso! how I loved you!”
“The basket was fastened down when you saw it first, and that shows that someone has taken him. If he had fallen out it would have been open,” said Dan.
“I took fine care not to let anyone see him,” observed his brother; “he was too good a bird to run risks with.”
At this Maggie started up.
“It is the man with the silver rings!” she exclaimed—“the rich gipsy in the wood! Oh, it is all my fault! If it had not been for me he would never have seen Alfonso.”
And that was the most cruel idea of all.
That night, when everyone was asleep, she got up and packed her bundle. She was afraid to say good-bye to her friends for fear she should be prevented from going to seek her lost comrade, and she had made up her mind to leave everything and travel this difficult world till she should meet him again. She was certain the wicked-looking gipsy in the wood had stolen him before the blue van left its last camping-ground, and she resolved to go back to the place where they had all been so happy, to see whether, by some contrivance, she might steal him from the tents. Perhaps he was miserable himself, poor Alfonso! She was broken-hearted as she crept out of the van. She could make out the heavy figure of the Cochin-Chinaman roosting with his wife upon a shaft. He got down and came running to her, striding and sprawling with his great awkward legs.
“Don’t say a word—I am going to find Alfonso,” began Maggie. “If anyone hears me I may be stopped, and then I shall die of despair. Hush! hush! Don’t open your beak to screech like that, or they’ll all come out.”
“You care more for Alfonso than for me,” wailed the cock, as loudly as he dared. “You think nothing of bidding good-bye to me!”
She could not answer, for she knew it was true. She loved Alfonso best.
“But we shall both come back together, Alfonso and I,” she replied. “I can leave you because I know you are quite happy.”
“I’m glad you think so,” replied he. “Never you marry if you want peace. What that speckled baggage has made me endure is beyond all telling!”
“And I thought you were so comfortably married!” exclaimed Maggie.
“Oh, what I have gone through!” he went on—“what I have endured! She is so greedy that I never get a bite. She is so violent that I have had to call in help or not keep a feather on my body. And she has told all the others that I left the farm we came from because I was afraid of the bantam cock. She has no heart and no manners—only claws and a tongue!”
“Then come with me,” said Maggie. “We shall be very poor, and perhaps starve, but we shan’t be lonely.”
“Family life is dreadful,” said the Cochin-Chinaman. “I’ll come.”
It took many hours to get back to the woods, and they were both tired and hungry by the time they saw the long line of dark trees stretching away before them. Maggie had brought some food with her, which she shared with her friend; but they did not dare to eat much, as they had to make it last as long as possible. They tried not to think of their bad prospects as they trudged along. They did not enter the woods till dusk, for they knew that if the rich gipsy saw Maggie, he would guess what had brought her back, and hide Alfonso more carefully than ever. They found the spot where their camp had been, and rested there a little before going into the heart of the wood. Maggie knew every step of the way, every clump of yellowing ferns, every trail of bramble, and the Cochin-Chinaman, who was not observant, was glad to follow her blindly. When once they caught sight of the tents, he was to run on and prowl about in the undergrowth, calling to Alfonso in his own language. As nobody but the gamecock would understand what he said, he was to shout, telling him Maggie was there, and the two birds were to settle a way of escape. These were fine schemes, and would, no doubt, have succeeded beautifully; but alas! and alas! when they came to the root beside which Rhoda had sung her songs to Dan, they saw that the place was empty and the tents gone. The only traces remaining of the camp were the little black circles of ashes on the ground, which showed where the fires had been.
It was chilly comfort to think that, if Alfonso had been stolen only a day ago, the gipsy could not have gone far. He had horses and carts, and there was not much chance of overtaking him for the two poor footsore friends, even if they knew which way he went. It was too dark now to see the traces of his wheels on the soft moss, and they could go no farther that night. Nevertheless, Maggie would not give up her quest, and the Cochin-Chinaman, great yellow booby of a fellow as he was, vowed that he would never leave her. He blubbered as he said it, but he meant it, all the same.
When morning broke their hearts were very sad. Where were they to go? Winter was coming on, and they had no money and hardly any food, and unless they begged as they went, there was nothing they could do for a living. But they made up their minds either to die or to rescue their friend, and started at daybreak to follow the track of footprints and wheel-marks which took them to the dusty highroad. The cock picked up all sorts of odds and ends by the way, and a friendly blacksmith who was eating bread and cheese at the door of his smithy gave Maggie a share of it. They slept in an empty barn that night, and the next day found them on the outskirts of a little country town.
They were eager to get to it, hoping to hear news of the gipsy, or to find his tents pitched in the neighbourhood. The cock had cut his foot on a piece of broken glass by the roadside, and was so lame that he could scarcely walk. He sat on Maggie’s shoulder, but he was so heavy that he prevented her from getting on fast. Sometimes she put him down, and he limped a little way, but she always had to take him up again. When they reached the first houses, the people ran out to look at the amusing sight, and when they heard how the strange pair of comrades were talking together, they held up their hands. “Was ever anything like that seen before?” they cried.
Soon there was quite a crowd. The whole street turned out to listen, though, of course, no one could understand a word. Maggie took the opportunity of explaining that they were very poor, and asked for some food. A woman offered them a hunk of bread and a plate of broken meat, which they took gratefully.
“It’s worth while paying for such a show!” she exclaimed. And everybody agreed with her, though only a few were willing to put their hands in their pockets.
All at once a great clatter was heard, and a running footman came racing along the road, shouting as he went and pushing people out of the way with his staff.
“Room! room!” he cried. “Make way for the Lord Bishop’s carriage!”
A splendid open coach came in sight, drawn by four white horses with purple plumes on their heads and driven by a gold-laced coachman. A fine fat Bishop sat in it, dressed in purple. Gold tassels hung from his hat, and opposite to him sat a servant armed with a silk pocket-handkerchief with which to flick the dust of the road from the episcopal person. Everybody bowed to the earth.
“What is all this crowd for?” demanded the Bishop, stopping his coach.
When he heard that a girl was to be heard talking to a Cochin-China cock in his native tongue, he was immensely surprised, and ordered Maggie and her companion to come before him. The woman who had given them meat and bread pushed her forward.
“Your Reverend Holiness will die o’ laughing to hear them,” she exclaimed.
“Speak, girl,” said the Bishop. “Address the bird, and tell him to reply.”
When he had heard the conversation that followed, he could hardly believe his senses. The servant with the silk handkerchief grinned from ear to ear, the coachman on his box turned round to listen, and the footmen who stood on a board behind the carriage gaped.
“You are evidently a highly intelligent little girl,” said the Bishop, “and it is a scandal that you should be tramping the roads. I have a large aviary at my palace and you shall come to look after it. I really never thought to find a person who could speak to birds. Some of mine are very tiresome, and you will be able to make them hear reason. I will see that you are properly clothed and educated.”
But Maggie refused, and explained that she was going to seek Alfonso.
“Tut, tut, tut!” said the Bishop. “If the cock is as valuable as you say, he will be well cared for. You will have a good education at my palace, and be clean and tidy.”
“But I don’t want to be clean and tidy, and I shouldn’t like to live in a palace,” cried Maggie.
All the servants tittered.
“Nonsense!” said the Bishop. “Everyone wants to be clean and tidy, and everyone would like to live in a palace.”
“But I can’t!” exclaimed Maggie—“indeed I can’t!”
“There is no such word as ‘can’t’ in the English language,” said the Bishop.
“Come! come!” said Maggie to the Cochin-Chinaman, “we must get away as quick as we can!”
The Bishop could not understand what she said, but he saw she was preparing to run.
“I fear you are one of the many people who do not know what is good for them,” said he. “Get into the carriage immediately. The footmen will help you in, and you may sit opposite to me.”
And before you could count ten they had sprung from their places, opened the door, and lifted her in. With a hoarse agonized screech the Cochin-Chinaman leaped up and flew heavily into the coach. He came through the air like a cannon-ball.
“Really, this is too much!” exclaimed the Bishop. “I cannot be made ridiculous by having this creature sitting in front of me as we go through the streets.”
“He is the only friend I have got left,” sobbed poor Maggie, bursting into tears as the footmen tried to seize the cock’s legs.
The Bishop was far from being an unkind man; indeed, he had a great reputation for charity, both public and private.
“Tut, tut!” he said; “let him come. But he can’t sit there opposite to me. Put him under the seat.”
And so Maggie, thankful to keep him at any price, stuffed him underneath, and pressed her feet against him, to comfort him. The footmen were inexpressibly shocked. Then they all drove off to the palace.
The palace was a truly imposing place, with cupolas and courts, porches and statues; and, being outside the town, it was approached by an avenue a mile long. A wide stream flowed round one side of it, and the great entrance gates were covered with crests and glorious devices. Behind it was an aviary full of bright-coloured birds, who screamed and fought and made such a terrible din that, when the carriage drew up, the Cochin-Chinaman was taken from under the seat trembling. Maggie was shown a hut which she was to inhabit, built in a little remote yard, and an old chicken-coop was brought and filled with straw to make a bed for the cock. The Bishop ordered that food should be given them, and told Maggie she was to begin her duties on the morrow.
She did not like her place at all. The birds in the aviary were nearly all foreign, so she did not know their language; and those she could understand were rude and turbulent, and made the most heartless jokes about the poor Cochin-Chinaman’s yellow trousers. But there was no use in grumbling. The Bishop was determined that she should stay and look after the aviary; he disapproved of vagrants and gipsies, and had settled that she was to be brought up respectably. She could not get away, because she was never allowed to leave the place alone; so she consoled herself by thinking that, as winter was at hand, she would be likely to starve were she still tramping the road; and then she would certainly never see Alfonso again.
And so time went by and she lived at the palace, feeding and tending the foreign birds, and cheered by the company of her faithful comrade, who grew fat on the crumbs from the Bishop’s kitchen and took care not to display his yellow trousers within sight of the aviary.
Soon it grew bitterly cold. The snow fell, and Christmas came and went; and then, at last, the young New Year grew strong, and birds began to sing and trees to bud. The little yard in which the hut stood was surrounded by an ivy-covered wall with a small iron gate in it, and through the latter she could see the ground slope down to the still, wide stream that passed the palace like a crawling silver snake.
The bars of the gate were firm in their places, for she had tried them all and they would not move; they were so closely set that she could not squeeze herself out between them. She would press her face against them, looking out enviously at every passing insect that was free. In the wood over the water squirrels jumped about, or sat up like little begging dogs, with their tails over their heads. The Cochin-Chinaman could fly out of the yard, but what was the use of that when he could not take her with him? She would sit by the gate while he stood on the top of the wall describing to her all the things he could see.
One spring afternoon, as they passed their time thus, a sound of music came floating from some distance. It was very faint, but as it drew nearer Maggie sprang up, crying to the cock to fly out and see what it could mean.
For the tune was the tune of “The Wind in the Broom.”
Nearer and nearer it came. She could faintly hear the words. “Gold broom, with your flowers in bloom,” sang the voice.
The cock leaped down, and, running and flying, he rushed along the green banks of the stream as hard as he could. The town was behind him at the far side of the palace, so he was molested by no one; and there, sure enough, coming to meet him at the water-side, was Rhoda with her guitar slung on her shoulder. Oh, how he longed to speak! but, as she could not understand his talk, there was no use in saying anything. But he took her by the skirts and began dragging her along.
“You are Maggie’s Cochin-Chinaman!” she cried.
He hurried on before her, and she followed as fast as she could run.
How delighted the two friends were at meeting again! Rhoda stood outside the gate, and Maggie held her hand through the bars, and they told each other all that had happened since they parted.
“I will get you away from here, see if I don’t!” said Rhoda. “Then we will start off together to find Alfonso, for I can make enough to keep us all by singing. I am quite rich already.” She pulled a little bag out of her bosom.
“Feel how heavy it is,” she said.
At last Rhoda went away. She said that she would not return till she had thought of a good plan for Maggie’s escape, and she commanded the cock to roost every night on the yard wall; for she would come back under cover of night, and wake him by throwing up a stone at him when her plan was ready.
Rhoda was very clever—the making of songs and music was not the only thing she understood. When she found that the iron gate was fastened by a bolt, and that the bolt was held in its place by a padlock, she went off to the town and bought a file, and next night she returned and began to saw away. She did it from the outside, so that no one who might chance to come into the yard could see any mark on the bolt. When morning came it was cut through all but a little piece. Up the stream, a short way above the palace, was a house whose walls stood almost in the water, and near it a little boat was moored to a stake in the bank. This boat she determined should carry them all out of the Bishop’s reach.
On the second night, therefore, when it was dark, and she guessed the palace people were in bed, she came stealing along to the gate. There was the cock at his post, fast asleep. When she had filed through the last bit of the bolt, she woke him with a stone, and signed to him to go and fetch Maggie. Then she ran to the boat, cut its rope with her knife, and, jumping into it, rowed quickly down to where her friends were waiting.
How smoothly and how fast the water carried them along, as they ran into the current and the tall mass of the palace dropped behind them! Rhoda had the oars, and the cock sat in the bottom of the boat beside the guitar. Maggie was so much delighted to be free that she did not speak a word. The fields and the alder-trees slipped by, and when the spring day broke, she saw the tufts on the willows and the yellow stars of the celandines shining among the roots. She felt quite sure now that everything would go right.
The whole day they rowed on, and when they thought themselves far enough from the Bishop to be safe, they jumped on shore and let the boat drift out of sight. Then they started off to seek their fortunes once more.
It was a hard life they led as they roamed the country, but they were contented with it. They got enough money to keep themselves from want by Rhoda’s singing, and the cock contrived to pick up many scraps by the way. They went to every village they saw, and every town; at every fair or market they were to be seen, Rhoda with her guitar and Maggie searching up and down for news of the rich gipsy and his tents. As the months went by she began to despair, but she never faltered or forgot Alfonso.
One day they were approaching a little hamlet, and, as they were within sight of its roofs, groups of people passed them. Men wore their best coats and women their best gowns; little children ran along with holiday faces, and horses and cattle went by in droves. The horses had their tails plaited up with coloured ribbons, and some had roses stuck in their brow-bands, for it was the day of a great fair and all sorts of shows and amusements were going on.
The road was full of people. Just in front of Rhoda and Maggie some men were plodding along, laughing and joking, and one of them turned round, calling to another, who lagged behind the party.
“Come on! come on!” he shouted. “You’ll have to step out if you want to see the cock-fight.”
Maggie followed at their heels like a dog. They thought she meant to beg and told her roughly to go away. But she took no notice, and ran after them, listening breathlessly to their talk, for they were speaking of the wonderful game-bird belonging to a gipsy who had beaten every cock in the countryside. To-day he was to fight the greatest champion of all, a bird which had been brought fifty miles to meet him. One of the men pulled out a large silver watch the size of an apple. It came up from his pocket like a bucket out of a well.
“We’re too late!” he exclaimed.
And they all began to run.
Maggie and Rhoda ran too. And the Cochin-Chinaman straddled and flapped after them, raising a trail of dust and volleys of abuse from everyone he passed.
By the time they reached the village a great crowd were dispersing in all directions. It was chiefly made up of men, and, as our friends pushed through the throng, scraps of conversation came to their ears.
“He’ll never fight again,” said one.
“That’ll take down the pride of that gipsy fellow, with his money-bags and his rings,” said another.
Maggie ran faster and faster till she came to an open space that had been cleared in the middle of the village green. A man was walking off with a cock in his arms, while a string of people followed, clapping him on the back and shouting. They were all leaving the spot where the long-nosed gipsy stood staring at something that lay at his foot. It looked like a bundle of rags as he rolled it over with his boot. “He’s no more use to me,” said he, turning away with a shrug of his shoulders, “so he can die if he likes.”
Maggie threw herself down and took poor Alfonso in her arms. Blood was oozing from between his beautiful feathers, and his eyes were closed. Nobody noticed her as she carried him away, followed by Rhoda and the Cochin-Chinaman. Her tears were falling thick on him, blinding her, so that she could hardly see where she was going, and she almost ran into a dark young man who was coming towards them. It was Dan—Dan, with his gold earrings and rabbit-skin cap. Rhoda poured out the story of their search to him, and he took them to a pond, where he poured water down Alfonso’s throat and felt his breast to see if his heart was still beating.
“Run and meet my brother,” he said to Rhoda; “our vans are just coming into the village. Tell him from me to go and settle with that long-nosed thief. I’ll come and help him when I see whether Alfonso’s dead or not.”
So Rhoda ran.
And now we are coming to the end of the story. Alfonso was not dead, and he did not die; he was nursed back to life by Dan and Maggie; but he never fought again, for his back was dreadfully injured, and he was lame for the rest of his days. The three friends returned to their old life in the vans, for Maggie had been much missed, and was received back with joy. Neither was Rhoda left behind, because she soon became Dan’s wife and went to live with him in the green van.
The Cochin-Chinaman married again, but this time with better luck; for he chose a good dame of suitable age, who knew the world far too well to wish to quarrel with anyone in it.
And Alfonso, in spite of his crippled body, was not unhappy. He limped round the van wheels or sat in his basket on the step, looking out on the green woods and blue distances of their various places of sojourn. His fighting days were done, but he was well content; for those who have taken their share in life are those who can best bear to see it go by and accept their rest.