Yet he is fleet of foot in his way, though never seen to run; he pads along on naked feet like an animal, never straightening the leg, but always keeping the knee a little bent. With a basket of watercress slung at his back by a piece of tar-cord, he travels rapidly in this way; his feet go “pad, pad” on the thick white dust, and he easily overtakes a good walker and keeps up the pace for miles without exertion. The watercress is a great staple, because it lasts for so many months. Seeing the nimble way in which he gathers it, thrusting aside the brook-lime, breaking off the coarser sprays, snipping away pieces of root, sorting and washing, and thinking of the amount of work to be got through before a shilling is earned, one would imagine that the slow, idling life of the labourer, with his regular wages, would be far more enticing.
Near the stream the ground is perhaps peaty: little black pools appear between tufts of grass, some of them streaked with a reddish or yellowish slime that glistens on the surface of the dark water; and as you step there is a hissing sound as the spongy earth yields, and a tiny spout is forced forth several yards distant. Some of the drier part of the soil the moucher takes to sell for use in gardens and flower-pots as peat.
The years roll on, and he grows old. But no feebleness of body or mind can induce him to enter the workhouse; he cannot quit his old haunts. Let it rain or sleet, or let the furious gale drive broken boughs across the road, he still sleeps in some shed or under a straw-rick. In sheer pity he is committed every now and then to prison for vagabondage—not for punishment, but in order to save him from himself. It is in vain: the moment he is out he returns to his habits. All he wants is a little beer—he is not a drunkard—and a little tobacco, and the hedges. Some chilly evening, as the shadows thicken, he shambles out of the town, and seeks the limekiln in the ploughed field, where, the substratum being limestone, the farmer burns it. Near the top of the kiln the ground is warm; there he reclines and sleeps.
The night goes on. Out from the broken blocks of stone now and again there rises a lambent flame, to shine like a meteor for a moment and then disappear. The rain falls. The moucher moves uneasily in his sleep; instinctively he rolls or crawls towards the warmth, and presently lies extended on the top of the kiln. The wings of the water-fowl hurtle in the air as they go over; by-and-by the heron utters his loud call.
Very early in the morning the quarryman comes to tend his fire, and starts to see on the now redhot and glowing stones, sunk below the rim, the presentment of a skeleton formed of the purest white ashes—a ghastly spectacle in the grey of the dawn, as the mist rises and the peewit plaintively whistles over the marshy meadow.
CHAPTER VIII
CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCH
The tower of the church at Essant Hill was so low that it scarcely seemed to rise above the maples in the hedges. It could not be seen until the last stile in the footpath across the meadows was passed. Church and tower then came into view together on the opposite side of a large open field. A few aged hawthorn trees dotted the sward, and beyond the church the outskirts of a wood were visible, but no dwellings could be seen. Upon a second and more careful glance, however, the chimney of a cottage appeared above a hedge, so covered with ivy as hardly to be separated from the green of the boughs.
There were houses of course somewhere in Essant, but they were so scattered that a stranger might doubt the existence of the village. A few farmsteads long distances apart, and some cottages standing in green lanes and at the corners of the fields, were nearly all; there was nothing resembling a “street”—not so much as a row. The church was in effect the village, and the church was simply the mausoleum of the Dessant family, the owners of the place. Essant Hill as a name had been rather a problem to the archæologists, there being no hill: the ground was quite level. The explanation at last admitted was that Essant Hill was a corruption of D’Essantville.
It seemed probable that the population had greatly diminished; because, although the church was of great antiquity, there was space still for interments in the yard. A yew tree of immense size stood in one corner, and was by tradition associated with the fortunes of the family. Though the old trunk was much decayed, yet there were still green and flourishing shoots; so that the superstitious elders said the luck of the house was returning.
Within, the walls of the church were covered with marble slabs, and the space was reduced by the tombs of the Dessants, one with a recumbent figure; there were two brasses level with the pavement, and in the chancel hung the faded hatchments of the dead. For the pedigree went back to the Battle of Hastings, and there was scarce room for more heraldry. From week’s end to week’s end the silent nave and aisles remained empty; the chirp of the sparrows was the only sound to be heard there. There being no house attached to the living, the holder could not reside; so the old church slumbered in the midst of the meadows, the hedges, and woods, day after day, year after year.