Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

Now therefore to one of these corners came, from out the thicket of underwood, a stout man with a crafty slouch, and a wary and suspicious glance. He had thrown a sack over his long white smock, whether to save it from brambles, or to cover its glare in the shady wood; for his general aspect was that of a man who likes to see all things, but not to be seen. And now as he stooped to examine the ruts at a point where they clearly defined themselves, either from habit, or for special reason, he kept as far back by the briary ditch as he could without loss of near insight.

This man, being a member of the great Cripps race—whether worthy, or not, of that staunch lineal excellence—had an hereditary perception of the right way to examine a rut. It would have been easy enough, perhaps, in a lane of little traffic, to judge whether anything lately had passed, with the weather and ground as usual. But to-day—the day after what has been told of—both weather and ground had just taken a turn, as abrupt as if both were feminine. The smile of soft spring was changed into a frown, and the glad young buoyancy of the earth into a stiff sort of feeling, not frozen or crisp, but as happens to a man when a shiver of ague vibrates through a genial perspiration. To put it more clearly, the wind had chopped round to the east, and was blowing keenly—a masterful, strongly pronounced, and busily energetic east wind, as superior to hypocrisy as it was to all claims of mercy. At the sound and the feel of its vehement sweep, surprise and alarm ran through the wood; and the nestling-places of the sun ruffled up like a hen that calls her chicks to her. The foremost of the buds of the tall trees shook; not as they shake to a west wind, but with a sense of standing naked; the twigs that carried them flattened upwards, having lost all pleasure; the branches, instead of bowing kindly (as they do to any other wind), also went upward, with a stiff cold back, and a hatred at being treated so. Many and many a little leaf, still snug in its own overcoat, shrunk back, and preferred to defer all the joys of the sky, if this were a sample of them. And many and many a big leaf (thrust, without any voice of its own, on the world) had no chance of sighing yet, but whistled on the wind, and felt it piping through its fluted heart; and knowing what a liver-coloured selvage must come round its green, bewailed the hour that coaxed it forth from the notched, and tattered, and cast-off frizzle, dancing by this time the wind knows where.

Because the east wind does what no other wind of the welkin ever does. It does not come from the good sky downward, bringing higher breath to us; nor even on the level of the ancient things, spreading average movement. This alone of all winds strikes from the face of the good earth upward, sweeping the blush from the skin of the land, and wrinkling all who live thereon. That is the time when the very best man finds little to rejoice in; unless it be a fire of seasoned logs, or his own contrariety; the fur of all animals (being their temper) moves away and crawls on them; and even bland dogs and sweet horses feel each several hair at issue with their well-brushed conscience.

All of that may be true; and yet there may be so many exceptions. At any rate, Master Leviticus Cripps looked none the worse for the whole of it. His cheeks were of richly varied fibre, like a new-shelled kidney-bean; his mouth (of a very considerable size) looked comfortable and not hungry; and all around him there was an influence tending to intimate that he had dined.

For that he did not care as he should. He was not a man who allowed his dinner to modify his character. The best streaky bacon and three new-laid eggs had nurtured and manured his outer man, but failed to improve him inwardly. Even the expression of his face was very slightly mollified by a first-rate meal; though some of the corners looked lubricated.

"Hath a been by again, or hath a not?" whispered Tickuss to himself, as he stared at a tangled web of ruts, and blessed the east wind for confounding of them, so that a wheel could not swear to its own. The east wind answered with a scolding dash, that cast his sack over his head, and shook out his white smock, scattering over the view, like a jack-towel on the washing-line. Acknowledging this salutation with a curse, Leviticus gathered his sack more tightly, and bending one long leg before him, stealthily peered awry at the wheel-tracks. This was the way to discover whatever had happened last among them, instead of looking across or along them, where the nicer shades would fail.

At first he could make but little of it. The east wind, whirling last year's leaves from the couches where the west had piled them, and parching the flakes of the mud (as if exposed upon a scraper), had made it a hard thing to settle the date of the transit even of a timber dray. One of these had passed not long ago, with a great trunk swinging and swagging on the road, and slurring the scollops of the horse-track.

Therefore Tickuss, for some time, looked less wise than usual, and scratched his head. The brain replied, as it generally does, to this soft local stimulant, so briskly in fact that the master soon was able to clap both his hands into their natural home—the pockets of his breeches—and thus to survey the scene, and grin.

"Did 'ee think to do me, then, old brother Zak? Now did 'ee, did 'ee, did 'ee? Ah, I were aborn afore you, Zak; or if I were not, it were mother's mistake. Go along wi 'ee, Zak, go along wi' 'ee! Go home to thy cat, and thy little kitten, Etty."

He knew, by the track, that his brother had passed a good while ago, or he would not have dared to speak in this rebellious vein. And what he said next was even more disloyal.