In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

Such is the legend. In reality, no doubt, the dyke is a very ancient aboriginal fortification.

Now mark a wonderful provision of nature. All the rain that falls along the range of chalk hills sinks in, soaks down, and might sink away to—goodness knows where, but that, beneath the chalk lies a bed of very dense clay, through which the water cannot descend, and between the chalk and the clay is strewn a narrow film of gravel, called the greensand, there hardly thicker than your hand. When the water has percolated through the chalk hills and is stopped by the clay, out it runs, on the inland scarp, through the greensand, in a thousand crystal-cool and beautiful springs, thoroughly purified by this perfect natural filter.

On the inland flank of the South Downs, in a little coomb or valley scooped out of the chalk, gushed nine of these springs and fed a tarn or lake, not natural, but formed by an embankment thrown up to form a reservoir for a mill. Above this lake set in the lap of the Downs were clumps of Scotch pines, and a wood of beech, in spring full of the purple and the white scented wood orchis; on the Downs about grew the quaintly beautiful bee-orchis, rare elsewhere save on chalk.

In a solitary cottage under the hill, in a shady spot where the sun rarely came, lived a widow and her daughter. The widow was very infirm, crippled with rheumatism, and was allowed eighteenpence a week and a loaf by the parish. She was too weak and helpless to earn anything for herself, and she could not have subsisted, she and her child, on eighteenpence and one loaf, had it not been for certain means of acquiring money that the neighbourhood afforded. The South Down chalk hills abound in hedgehogs. They are to be found in burrows in great numbers, and at evening, when the dew is falling, the side of the down may be seen alive with these little creatures scampering about seeking their prey. The widow’s girl, Jane, a young girl uncouth in form, with low brow and dull unintelligent eyes, was clever in finding hedgehogs, and these she carried about coiled up in a basket, and sold them to people who were troubled with slugs and snails in their gardens, or with cockroaches and black-beetles in their kitchens. She got a shilling for each hedgehog, and could, had the demand required it, have found a hedgehog per diem, which would have brought her in 365 shillings in the year, or £18, 5s. 0d.—a handsome income. But, unfortunately, the public were not athirst for hedgehogs; and the market was soon glutted. Consequently Jane had to seek other means of earning money. She found dormice in the woods, and as there were two large schools for boys, Hurstpierpoint and Lancing, within a walk, and in schools for boys the passion for the acquisition of dormice is insatiable, “Crazy Jane,” as the dull-witted girl was called, found that she could sell at 4d. each as many dormice as she could find. But then the dormice were only to be caught when hybernating. In summer they were too wide-awake to allow themselves to be captured.

Another source of revenue was offered by the orchis plants on the Downs. Crazy Jane dug up the roots, collected bunches of the flowers, and trudged with them to Worthing or Brighton, where she was able to dispose of her flowers and of her tubers. Thus, the widow and her daughter had not merely eighteenpence and a loaf to live on, but they lived also on dormice, hedgehogs, and orchis bulbs. She had long distances to go to dispose of her goods had Crazy Jane, but what mattered that to her? She was sturdily built, strong as a horse, and disregarded all kinds of bad weather. Jane had had no schooling. She had been forced to attend the National School, but had been unable to acquire her letters; she could not write a pot-hook on the slate, or do any calculations apart from hedgehogs, dormice, and bulbs. In all particulars relative to her business she was keen, keen in exacting every penny, able to reckon up her gains; but apart from hedgehogs, dormice, and bulbs she could not count and sum. So she had been dismissed her school as mentally incapable of acquiring knowledge. This permission to her to withdraw was a great relief to Jane, for she had been the butt of ridicule to the scholars. Every dunce could crow over Jane as more stupid than himself. The witty or would-be wags poked fun at her, the malicious tortured and irritated her. Jane was usually good-natured, but when angered flew into paroxysms of mad fury that occasioned merriment to the ill-conditioned, and often provoked the interference of the master. Jane would have come off worse than she did at school had it not been for Jim Thacker, the miller’s son at Ninewells, who constituted himself her protector, and thrashed the insolent boys who tormented Crazy Jane, and screened her from their gibes.

This protection he afforded her awoke on the poor dull-witted girl’s part the liveliest devotion, a devotion that was irksome to the boy, for she followed him like a dog, shrank behind him at the least threat of annoyance, clung to him when in trouble, and was uneasy when he was out of her sight. This attracted notice in the school, and provoked merriment. She was called Jim Thacker’s dog. And like a dog she seemed—faithful, regardful, a little too demonstrative of affection, but exacting nothing for this fidelity but an occasional nod and word. It was a relief to Jim when Crazy Jane was excused school as mentally deficient; and it was a relief to her, because thenceforth she could wander unrestrained over the Downs, hunting hedgehogs and dormice, and picking flowers.

One day—it was in spring—Jim Thacker was walking near the mill pond, when he heard screams of terror and pain, apparently, and saw Crazy Jane pursued and attacked by the male swan of a pair that lived in the pond. In her search for orchis bulbs she had approached too near where the female swan was sitting on her eggs, and the male in wild fury had flown to the protection of its mate, and considering Jane as an enemy threatening his mate and eggs, had rushed at her with flapping wings and outstretched beak. An excited swan is not a foe to laugh at, the strength of its wings is so great that a blow of them has been known to break the leg of a horse; moreover, with its great beak it can nip and hurt. The flap of the great wings, the discordant notes that issued from the long neck, the menacing bill, had paralysed Jane, and in trying to flee she had stumbled over a root and fallen.

Jim snatched up a pronged stick and ran to her aid, calling to the swan. He reached her as the bird was driving at her with his bill, and thrusting the fork adroitly under the neck, held the angry bird back.

“Now Jane,” said he, “get up and run away whilst I keep the swan at bay.”

But she was so bewildered with her fright that it was some time before she could understand what to do, and when, finally, she did scramble away, she had not the strength and breath to go far, but sank among the old leaves at a little distance from the pool, sobbing, trembling, with her black hair scattered about her shoulders and face.