Pendoggat stood beneath the penthouse of his peat linhay, looking at a newspaper. The issue was dated Friday, and it contained the news of the week; not the news of the world, which was of no local interest, but a condensed account of the great things begun, attempted, and accomplished in the rural districts of Devon. The name of the parish was printed in big letters, and under it appeared the wonder of the week: how little Willie Whidden, while tramping to school, had picked a ripe strawberry from the hedge; or how poor old Daniel Ashplant had been summoned for drunkenness—P.C. Copplestone stating that defendant had behaved like a madman—and fined half-a-crown, despite his solemn oath and covenant that he had never tasted liquor in his life. Unimportant items, such as the meeting of Imperial Parliament, and a great railway disaster, served as stop-gaps in cases where advertisements just failed to fill the column.
Pendoggat was looking for something. The testimony of a Wesleyan minister after twenty years of faithful service, accompanied by his photograph, caught his eye, and he thought he had found what he was searching for. He was astonished to learn that friend and pastor Pezzack was so popular; but when he read on he discovered it was only an advertisement for a nerve tonic. He turned over a page, and at last came upon the heading which he required. The title was that of a small sub-parish north of the moor, celebrated for a recent pronouncement of the curate-in-charge, who had congratulated the inhabitants upon their greatly increased sobriety, as during the late year only forty-seven persons, out of a total population of seventy-two, had been guilty of drunkenness. Printers had blundered and mixed things up rather. A hedge-builder had in the course of his duties come across a hole containing a rabbit, a hedgehog, and a rat; and in the same paragraph the Reverend Eli Pezzack had been safely married to Miss Jeconiah Sampson, with a good deal of bell-ringing, local excitement—the bride being well known in the neighbourhood for her untiring zeal in the matter of chapel teas—and an exhibition of such numerous and costly presents as a pair of brass candlesticks, an American clock, a set of neat doyleys, and an artistic pin-tray.
It was one of Pendoggat's peculiarities that he did not smile. His idea of expressing pleasure was to hurt something; just as a boy in moments of excitement may slash at anything with his stick. Pendoggat dropped the paper suddenly, ran at a goose which was waddling across his court, captured the big strong bird, and wrung its neck. He flung the writhing body on the stones and kicked it in his joy. The minister could not side against him now. He had burdened himself with a wife, and there would soon be the additional burden of a child. Pezzack was a free man no longer, and had become dependent upon Pendoggat for food and home and boots. He would have to obey his master and be his faithful dog, have to keep his mouth shut when he discovered that the nickel-mine was a fraud, for his home's sake and his wife's sake. Pendoggat could strip him naked at a stroke.
Annie Crocker crossed the court towards the well with a crock in her hand. Pendoggat noticed that her hair was growing grey, and that she was getting slovenly.
"Who killed that old goose?" she said, standing and staring at the big white body.
"I did," muttered Pendoggat.
"You'll have to pay," she said shrilly. "That be Mary Tavy's Old Sal, what she thinks the world of. Killed him, have ye? I wouldn't be you, Farmer Pendoggat, when Mary comes to hear on't. Mary's as good a man as you."
"Shut your noise," he growled. "Who's to tell her?"
"Who? What's my tongue for? The first time you lift your hand to me Mary knows."
Annie carried her crock to the well and lowered the bucket, muttering to herself, and keeping a watchful eye upon the man who kept her; while Pendoggat took the bird by the neck and dragged it towards the furze-brake. He was afraid when he learnt that it was Mary's Old Sal, for Mary was a creature whom he could not tackle. She seemed to him more a power of Nature than a strong hermaphrodite; something like the wind, or the torrential rain, or the storm-cloud. No commoner in his heart disbelieves in witchcraft; and even the girls, who twist a bridal veil across their faces when they are going to be married, know that the face-covering is not an adornment, but a fetish or protection against the "fascination" of the Evil Eye.