Allward

Front matter

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Book J-UB: fmpvriohf ~N° A X

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT y

Chapter I

He was conscious first of a gentle beating upon his face and hands as of a hundred soft weapons, of a continued assault, the thrust against his flesh of innumerable icj and minute swords. But his face was so chilled that it was more sensitive to the incessant onslaught than to the cold, and his hands were almost past feeling. What was it?

Rain, it was rain.

The smell of soaked and decaying leaves, a great pattering darkness ; wet, growing things, sodden and icy, rising about him on either side — what were they? Where could he be? He attempted to rise, and with his inability to make a single limb or muscle fulfil the bidding of his brain, abject fear and horror grew upon him.

He tried to cry out — he could utter no sound. He made a desperate effort to articulate, but he could not bring his stiff tongue or silent throat to obey his urgent appeal. The rain was beating upon his hair, it seemed as though he were gradually melting and drowning, until he was part of the dripping undergrowth which brushed his face with a menace of death. He wondered if his eyes were opened or closed. No, they were closed, for he felt the soft belabourment of the falling rain upon the lids. Horror shut him in. He thought that he had already died, and that his dead body was being washed into mutilation by the pouring water, and in the midst of that nightmare the wet fronds of an unseen plant moved over his face, and he knew that he was alive, though the terror of his vision was still with him. His soul cried out, his lips were frozen.

Then again he passed into a state of merciful dream, into temporal death.

An hour later, and it was dawn. The bracken, brown and draggled, the ragged winter grass, tangled and coarse, were bent and beaten, dripping ceaselessly in the soaking downpour. The oak trees, leafless and grey, lifted their naked boughs against the leaden morning. The fallen leaves at their roots glistened, sodden and flattened by the water. The dank, sweet smell of rain on the leaf-mould of many autumns went up like chill incense, through the bare twigs into the heavy sky. The ground was oozy and replete; still the rain fell monotonously, drumming out its rhythmic patter. Unceasingly it drummed and pattered; stupidly, continuously.

The big man who lay at the margin of the wood did not stir.

Chapter II

He awoke to a sensation of exquisite pain. It seemed as though his body were in torture, and he uttered a sharp exclamation. His eyes were open this time, and he saw, not suddenly, but gradually, like a person recovering from an anaesthetic, who becomes slowly aware of his surroundings.

“ You’d best lie still,” said a voice. It was the voice of a boy, or of a young girl, but low and a little husky. There was kindness, there was threat, in the brief command.

The man realised that the pain had indeed come from an involuntary attempt to move. He let his eyes wander about his surroundings. An arm’s

length from his head was the roof of a long, low tent. It was so constructed that one could sit, stoop, or lie in it, but not stand upright. It was a poor affair, but neatly put together. Patched and dingy cloths and pieces of sacking, secured ingeniously by thorns, were stretched over hazel stakes driven into the ground at one end and bent into a central pole, so that the roof was hoop-shaped. It was divided into two halves, in the centre being a small, unroofed portion, through which the smoke of a fire burning on a tin tray could escape. An iron rod with a hook at one end was so driven into the ground that a pot could swing from it over the blazing wood. In the further comer of the tent a young girl of about fifteen squatted upon a heap of old sacks, whittling a piece of wood with a knife. She hummed softly as she worked.

She had a quantity of black hair, parted in the middle 3 and plaited untidily on either side of her face. Her features were a little too heavy, and her old-young look was enhanced by a dirty grey shawl, which she wore crossed about her bosom. The man gazed at her in a manner that was half torpid. His lids were heavy, as though from a long sleep.

She lifted brown eyes from her whittling, and saw that his were open.

“ How’re you feelin’? ” she demanded, with a sudden smile. But she did not wait for his reply.

“ You’d best drink some tea,” she added in a business-like tone. She reached for a chipped, blue enamel jug, and put the spout to his lips, supporting his head with one hand. He drank, half-chokingly, obediently. Her hands smelt strongly of wood smoke, the tea had long been brewed and was lukewarm and bitter.

“ Where am IP” he asked in a moment. His voice sounded as if it did not belong to him. He had a difficulty in enunciating, in thinking what word to use, as if he were speaking a f oreign language.

“ That’s the first sensible word you’ve a-spoke for three days.”

Three days? What did she mean? Something was clouded in his brain.

“Who are you, little girl?” he got out in a moment.

“ You needn’t be afeard,” she said pleasantly. “ You’re as safe as a mole beneath the ground. Dad’s not said a word. Bless you, he wouldn’t even call a doctor, in case-like.”

He struggled with mental paralysis.

“ I — don’t understand — I can’t remember.”

“We picked you up early on Sunday morning. There you was like a log in the fern on the bank, down ag’in t’other side of the bridge just ag’in the woods. My dad’s terriers smelt you out, and then he calls out that there’s a dead man lying by the bridge. My aunt come to see, and calls ’im a great fool. ‘ He’s no more dead than you are,’ she says, and they carried you along into her van. We was movin’ on, and my aunt was all for sendin’ my dad to call the police. But, dad, he says, { No, leave the pore chap until he can say a word for hisself,’ he says. 4 The less to do with constables and such like the better,’ he says.”

The girl gave him a penetrating and half-curious look, then returning to her place, picked up some small pieces of chips and put them on the fire.

“ You say — you picked me up by the roadside? ” he enunciated painfully.

“ Yes — and you was wet. How did you come there? ”

“ 1 don’t know,” he replied slowly. At the mere attempt to recollect, a numb pain behind his brows made him knit his forehead nervously. “ I can’t remember,” he added, with a forced laugh.

“Was they after you?” she asked, with a carelessness which seemed to conceal information.

“ They ? I — I don’t know. I can’t remember.

I think something must have happened to me. It’s very strange — I can’t remember anything.”

“Not nutthink at all?” she said incredulously. “ You’re kiddin’.”

To his own surprise big tears suddenly began to well out of his eyes. They rolled down his cheeks easily, and chased each other down the rivulet they had made.

“ There, there ! don’t cry about it,” she said hastily. “No one’s goin’ to give you up. It’s bad to see a man a-ruvverin’. You’d best sleep again. My dad’ll be back soon.”

She fell to work again, humming to herself a little out of tune as she chipped and cut; half-rising at times to lift the lid from the pot suspended over the fire, and peep at its contents. His tears gradually ceased to flow, and a great and blessed drowsiness descended upon him.

He awoke two hours later and found himself being steadfastly regarded by four pairs of eyes. One belonged to the young girl he seemed to have dreamt of, another to a battered-looking man with a grey stubble growing over his chin and in patches over his face, and the two pairs left to be accounted for were the property of two small, wire-haired terriers, who lay as close to the fire in the tray as they could without singeing their noses.

“ You’d be all the better for a bit of solid in yer stummick,” said the man, who was eating himself.

u I feel hungry,” said the big, sick man weakly, as an appetising odour in the tent filled his nostrils.

The girl rose, keeping her back bent, or she would have collided with the roof, and transferred some of the contents of the pot on to a plate.

“ I’ll feed ’im,” she said.

“ He ain’t a baby,” growled the man.

“ He’s as weak as a baby yet,” she said, and brought the plate to the sick man on his bed of sacking.

“ Thanks,” said the sick man gratefully. Again with her proximity came the strong and acrid odour of wood smoke.

She propped him up against a bundle which she dragged under his shoulders, and fed him spoonful by spoonful.

“ There’s forty pound reward offered for you,” said the lined and grizzled man with dark eyes. 44 1 seen it up to-day.”

“For me?”

44 It looks like it,” said the other sagely. 44 Besides, if you wanted to keep it to yourself, you should keep holdt on your jib. You was a-talking of juries and magistrates and such-like all the time you was off your head.”

44 I can’t remember,” said the man. A teased look came into his eyes.

“ Don’t worrit him, dad,” said the girl. 44 You’ll make him cry again.”

44 Forty pound or no forty pound,” said the grizzled man. 44 You’se safe with us. You wouldn’t believe it with my repitation — me carryin’ the belt for fifteen years and my father afore me, and friends with all the gentry about yer; but I was once took up meself. It was jug or pay up a fine for nothing at all, as you might say. I was having my drop in the pub with that girl’s grandfather, and the village cop dropped in with his ugly fat mui — his fat face, that is; and I delled him yek on the nok just beca’se he looked so pleased with hisself. Just light-’earted with beer, I was. Bit o’ fun, that’s all. And they give me a month.”

44 1 remember jumping,” said the big man painfully, as though groping for hidden facts. 44 Nothing beyond that. Jumping from something that was going the deuce of a pace.”

44 Come now, you’se Allward, ain’t yer? ” suggested the grizzled man, point blank.

44 1 don’t know — in the least — who I am. It will come back to me presently. Allward? Allward? The name is not familiar to me — northward, southward, eastward, westward — all-ward ”

44 He’s talking silly again,” interpolated the girl.

44 No, I am not,” said the invalid. 44 My brain is clear enough now. But half of it is locked up — dark. I can remember jumping, and rain — and you cutting wood a little while in here — but before that everything is lost. It is a blank. I don’t remember who I am, for the moment, for the moment of course. What makes you think that I am — the name you said? ”

44 Allward, I said, Adam Allward. I’ll tell you fast enough ”

44 No, dad, don’t,” interrupted the girl. 44 1 won’t have it. Can’t you see his brain is dizzied? You’ll have him ill again just as he’s getting better. You tool yer jib, you’ll mor him asaurus, ye boro dinnelo ! ”

44 Call yer own dad names ! ” said the grizzled man.

44 I’ll call you worse before I’ve done with you. Kekker rokker a lav else I’ll del you. There’s time enough for that! ” Her young face darkened and her hands clenched.

Her father succumbed under this amazonian threat.

44 I’m off,” he announced sulkily.

44 Whar to ? ” she asked, after a pause.

44 To Farley Old. The old man there is as divvy as a moon-calf, that he is. There’s lots of the gentry kind of cracked, nowadays. Come an’ talk to me the other day he did, an’ asked me a lot o’ questions. Wanted to know if I knew any pomes, and whether I believed in fairies, and what I did when I saw the moon.”

44 What did you say to him ? ”

44 1 said if he wanted pomes he’d better go to your Uncle Garge up ag’in Southampton, and that as for heathenish behaviour I knew better nor that. Then he shook his head, and says, 4 This damned eddication,’ he says. Then he asks me about rat-catchin’. I says, 6 That’s my secret,’ I says, 4 and if I wuz to tell you, look, ’twouldn’t be a secret no more. My bits of drab, the sweet pizen I makes,’ I says, 4 is my own secret. This dog yer, he’s in the secret too,’ I says, 4 and he knows better nor than to tell. It’s the way I makes my livin’, an’ if I was to tell it, I should be makin’ you a present of my earnin’s.’ Then he give me panj kullas, and off he jailed.”

44 Uncle Garge don’t know any pomes,” she said incredulously.

44 Don’t he ? I tell you he do. He knows a lot of them old gillis. That’s all pomes is, gillis.”

44 Gillis is sung to music. Pome’s what they learns up in school.”

44 You knows a lot better than your dad, my girl. That’s what comes o’ schoolin’. I tells you they that can’t write is a lot wiser than they what can, in five times out of ten. Look at Mister Trevor as I was speaking of. A lot of good his book learnin’ done him. His wife runned off and his darter killed herself.”

44 They say he’s divvy,” said the girl curiously.

Her father made his way out, stooping through the aperture, and slouched off, his two eager, bright-eyed curs following him.

44 Who is that P ” asked their guest.

44 That’s my feyther. He’s called Rat-catcher Sam about yer. Whatcher makin’ faces for? ”

44 My arm hurts a bit,” said the sick man wryly.

44 I’ll rub it with a little grease,” she said. 44 There’s a power of healing in hedgehog fat. My aunt have rubbed granny with it scores of times for a stiff leg.”

She put down the dirty plate, and going into the comer, where clothes and other household goods seemed to be stored, fetched out a small pot. She rolled up his sleeve — he saw that it was a shabby one, and began to rub in some yellowish grease with firm young hands. The vigorous rubbing seemed to ease the pain in a miraculous manner, and through the contact he felt oddly soothed, as if virtue had passed from the young girl’s strong young body into his, through her kneading finger-tips into his hairy arms, in which the big muscles were flaccid.

“ Is this my coat? ” he asked, looking into her face.

“ No — yours was wringing wet, so we put you on some of dad’s old things — you’re about his size. The clothes you had on was clotheses like gen’lemen wears. There’s the big fur coat what you had over ’em, over your feet.” She lowered her voice. “ Don’t you fret about all them notes what was in yer pocket. Dad has ’em, and I’ll get ’em away from him if you wants it. Dad was for keepin’ it instead of the reward when he sees the notice up. But you shall have money when you wants it, never you fear.”

“ Money?” he repeated drowsily, “you shan’t lose by keeping me — I’ll make it right for you when my head’s clear.”

His lids were drooping, and he was soon asleep again and breathing heavily. She wasted neither words nor further rubbing on him, but gathering up the plates and unhooking the pot from over the fire, betook herself out of doors. The sun was shining though the wind was chilly, but her blood was young and her body hardy, and she did not feel the cold of the February day. A donkey was munching at the furze bushes close to the tent, a horse cropped near by, and upon a big holly bush which almost concealed the tent, some washed clouts were drying. Some spikes of furze were in blossom, and the yellow buds showed up bravely in the sun. Two carts stood tilted, shafts upward, at a little distance, and beneath them some of the household appurtenances belonging to the tent-dwellers. A second tent, her father’s, was at a little distance. Mary, having gypsy blood, was cleanly and methodical. She rinsed the plates with water from a bucket, emptied into a jar the diminished contents of the pot which she scoured, then filled a blackened kettle and went with it into the tent, the muscles of her arms, which were reddened with cold, taut with the weight. She then hung it on the hook, and putting this and that straight, she settled herself again to whittling clothes-pegs. The man in the comer slept like a dog. Once he sighed, and the girl, stopping a moment, shook back her plaits and stared at him contemplatively. He was a finely featured man of the type that is either groom or parson. Beneath his few days’ beard the line of his jowl swept cleanly back to his well-set ears, which were a little pointed. Hair grew in them. His eyebrows were thick and clearly defined, and though he was young, her gypsy eyes, accustomed through long heredity to read the nature of a man by his face, saw lines of trouble, lines of impatience, lines of care. She also saw the lines that spoke of long sight, of a capacity for laughter as well as sighs.

But there was little in her face to tell what she made of him. Her expression was almost animal-like in its inscrutability. Then her untidy plaits again fell over her shoulder, and she bent to her task anew.

Chapter III

The next day came and went by. The stranger woke at intervals to take food, but for the rest lay in semi-coma. The rain came beating down on the tent, which, protected as it was, and well constructed, was water-tight, warm and snug. The rain spat into the fire, and from time to time the wind drove puffs of smoke back into the tent. There was a continual tattoo of heavy drops on the roof. The sick man heard it as in a dream. It seemed infinitely pleasant to lie inert and weak in the warmth of the tent listening to the rain and the wind rushing among the tree-tops outside, hurtling, swishing, shouting through the bare branches, shaking them as a terrier shakes a rat, breasting the wood with the noise of a heavy sea breaking in a gale, bending all obstacles as a rough wooer bends a maiden pliable to freedom and roughness rather than to pleading. It seemed familiar to him to lie in a tent. Somewhere he had surely been in a tent before. But where and how? The question of his own identity worried him sub-consciously. Yet he shrank from the knowledge of it, for something told him that it was not pleasant, that his ignorance of his former self was a restful, healing ignorance.

The afternoon of the third day of his consciousness, though it was still raining and blowing, the tents were struck, and he, with the assistance of the rat-catcher, got into the larger of two carts which were standing under the trees. His head ached as after a drinkingbout, and with the weak laziness of a sick man he 12

IS watched the household goods accumulate about him. Then a smoky tarpaulin was placed over him as he lay on a heap of sacks. He scarcely found the energy to wonder what their destination might be. He did, however, ask why they were moving. Mary told him that the keepers did not allow them to camp more than two or three days in one place, and that they had been ordered to shift.

“ And now we’se goin’ on to where my aunt’s camped, up ag’in Verely Wood,” she said, slinging a sackful of litter on to the summit of the medley the cart contained. “ You’d best kip under cover unless you wants to get wet,” she added shortly, and he withdrew his head beneath the tarpaulin again.

They might be going to the devil for all he cared. He was possessed of an unreasoning sense of escape, of freedom, in spite of all his physical discomfort and weakness. It was odd that he could not remember from

what he was escaping or why he had and here his

brain began to swim and his head to throb.

“ Best come off that tack unless you want to go mad,” a warning voice seemed to say within him. And he began to wonder if he really had lost his senses.

There was a shouting, a commotion outside. He listened from the dark shelter of the tarpaulin. He heard the hoarse voice of the rat-catcher calling out directions to his daughter with good-humoured impatience. Some of what was said he did not understand. Some words, recurring again and again, were incomprehensible to him.

Mary lifted a comer of the tarpaulin.

“ You all right in there? ” she asked.

“Yes, thanks. There’s one thing I wanted to ask — — ”

44 What’s that? ”

44 Have you been talking English all the time ? ”

She flushed. 44 No, we hasn’t. We’se bin talkin’ our talk, what we unnerstands.”

He let his head fall, relieved.

44 I thought I’d forgotten the meaning of words,” he said.

44 We uses lots of words you wouldn’t unnerstand,” she said reluctantly. 44 Travellers’ talk, that is. You bide quiet, and don’t worry yerself with thinkin’.”

She dropped the tarpaulin unceremoniously, and he lost sight of her battered black hat and shining rain-wet face. There was a constant pattering on the tarpaulin, occasionally exchanged for heavy drops falling with the din of little drums as they went under trees. He heard the scrunching of the wheels, the bumping and cracking of loose boards, and now and again the wheels became muted and the cart lurched violently. He guessed then that they were off the high-road. But for the most part he lay in an elysium of drowsy well-being, in the darkness of the tarpaulin, a smell as of earth mingled in his nostrils with that of tar and wood smoke, for his head was partly supported by a sack of potatoes.

The winter darkness fell before they arrived. Once they stopped at a public-house, and after an interval Mary brought out a little hot whiskey-and-water to the invalid.

44 Here, you drink this,” she said. 44 Dad’s sent it out — Twill do ’ee good.” She lowered her voice, and in a half-laughing way added, 44 You needn’t fear about bein’ reckernised, no one’s going to know ye now you’ve a-got that there beard.”

He drank the burning stuff immediately, and saw in the growing dusk a modern rebuilt public-house lying in a hollow, with a sign swinging from a post. Men were grouped about the door of the bar, for it had stopped raining. A road bordered on either side with leafless beeches and oaks ascending abruptly to the left; another, skirting the hill, met it where the public-house stood ; and a few yards further on, where a cluster of new-built houses and the gleam of a light in a village shop or so shone, he perceived a sign-post standing at cross-roads.

“ You’re travelling late,” said a man, addressing the unshaven face that was peering over the edge of the cart.

Before a reply could be framed Mary had appeared from the group at the door, and answered for her protege.

“We was waiting to see if the rain would stop. Dad allowed it would. This yer’s my uncle. He’s bin very ill, and he ain’t quite right in the yed not

yet.”

“ My missus got a skirt waitin’ for you, Mary,” said the man good-humouredly.

“ Thank-you kindly. She haven’t a pair of shoes what’d keep the wet out, I s’pose? I could do wi’ a pair of nice strong ones. I reckon she don’t wear hers too shabby, do she? ”

“ She might. But I’ll lay you’ve a smaller foot than she have.”

“ If ’twuz bigger, look, I couldn’t get into ’em.”

“Don’t you say as I told you to ask, my girl, or my missus’d give me what-for. But there’s a pair of trousies of mine — ♦ — ”

“ Never you fear.”

“ There’s some of your people up at Verely now, if you’re up there. I seen the tents as I come through this marning.”

" If they was tents, they was none of our folk. Some dirty mumpers, I’ll lay. My aunt’s van’s there, but she don’t hold no doin’s wi’ low common folk.”

The carts now moved on again. The tarpaulin was not pulled back, and the refugee lay gazing up at the fast darkening sky through the boughs which all but met overhead, and swayed and shook as the wind soused and rushed over them. In spite of it some birds, rejoicing that the rain had ceased, were twittering and whistling in low, calling, throaty notes which spoke of coming spring. There was a sound of interrogation in their brief phrases. The air was boundlessly sweet and fresh to him after his immurement beneath the tarpaulin. The boisterous cleanness seemed to sweep through him as it swept through the woods, and bring healing with it. Lying in the shelter of the cart he took draughts of rain-fragrant air into his lungs.-

“ Mary ! ” he called, in a diffident voice.

She came forward. She was walking in front of the cart by the horse’s head, while her father with the donkey-cart went ahead, his terriers beside him.

“ Are we nearly there P ”

“A matter of two miles further. You want anything? ”

“ Feel better? ”

“ A heap better.”

“ That was that drop of tatti pani.” Her teeth gleamed in a wide merry smile. “ There’s another of our words. I don’t know why, but you kind of make me laugh.”

“ Why? ”

“ Forgettin’ your own name. Tell me now, straight and honest, don’t you know who you be? You know I ain’t one to tell on you.”

“ I don’t know,” he replied helplessly. “ That’s just all — I don’t know.”

She laughed, and her laughter was fresh and spontaneous.

“ Dordi, dordi ! ” she said. “ He don’t remember his own name. My dear Lord love us, it’s enough to make any one sav.” She dropped her new tone. “My dad don’t believe it. He thinks you’re hidin’ of it on purpose. Don’t the hearin’ of your own name bring it back to you ? ”

“ What name? ”

“ Adam.”

He was silent. Whether it was that it was really familiar, or whether it was only familiar from the rat-catcher’s mention of it the other day, he could not tell.

“ It may be,” he said doubtfully, after a pause.

“ May be what ? ”

“ Mine.”

“ Well, don’t look so skeered about it,” she said compassionately. “ I got the bit out of the paper all about it. Dad heard ’em talking about it up at the pub the day we found you, and the next day I got a bit of newspaper to wrap a bit of meat in, and there ’twuz, all about you. I saved it. You shall see it to-morrow.”

In his weakness he felt a ridiculous impulse to weep. “You’re very kind — — ” he said. “I’m no end of a nuisance.”

“ Kekerk, my dear. Not you. You’se welcome to my tent till you’re yourself ag’in and able to get away. The longer you lies low along wi’ we, the less likely they is to find you.”

“ But where do you sleep ? 55

“ I curls up in dad’s tan. When we moved you from aunt’s van she give us an old mattress, so there’s beddin’ enough for three, what with your big coat. That must ’ve cost some money.”

She sighed.

“ I’ll give you a good rubbin’ to-night. You won’t be so feeble on your perios to-morrow.”

“ My what? ”

“ If you bides along with we, you’se sartin to hear some of our talk. We talks kind of funny among ourselves. Perios legs.”

He smiled faintly.

“ Is it slang, or is it Romany ? I didn’t know any Romany-talking gypsies were left, outside books.”

“ Nor you wouldn’t know. ’Tisn’t a thing we goes telling to every one. Gypsies varmin, they says, and lumps us in with all the dirt on the road. If any one was to ask me, look, I should say, we’se just travellers, respectable travellers, known to all the gentry round abouts, I should say. But round ’bout yer, we’se known. My dad’s been rat-catchin’ for forty year or more. But times isn’t what they was. Folks don’t send for him like they used ter. Lots of the old gentry’s gone, and the new ones isn’t freehanded. Lots of ’em comes from Lunnun, and a fine lot they knows about the Forest. They lives in new-built houses, with servants what they’ve brought down with ’em, and they on’y sees the Forest when they rushes through in their motor-cars, spoilin’ the roads for the likes of we. If I was to go to one of they new houses they’d bang the door in my face. With the old gentry ’twuz different. It’d be 4 How are you, Mary ? ’ and when I’d a ask if they’d a bit of poggado hawben, I’d bring away my basket full. My aunt she used to go round reg’lar to the big houses, so did granny, but they don’t now. But granny she used to do a bit of dukkerin’ as well, and that brought her in a bit of luvvel. But now they lels you, as like as not, for tellin’ a fortune.”