The White Peacock

We had lived between the woods and the water all our lives, Lettie and I, and she had sought the bright notes in everything. She seemed to hear the water laughing, and the leaves tittering and giggling like young girls; the aspen fluttered like the draperies of a flirt, and the sound of the wood-pigeons was almost foolish in its sentimentality.

  Lately, however, she had noticed again the cruel, pitiful crying of a hedgehog caught in a gin, and she had noticed the traps for the fierce little murderers, traps walled in with a small fence of fir, and baited with the guts of a killed rabbit.

  On an afternoon a short time after our visit to Cossethay, Lettie sat in the window seat. The sun clung to her hair, and kissed her with passionate splashes of colour brought from the vermilion, dying creeper outside. The sun loved Lettie, and was loath to leave her. She looked out over Nethermere to Highclose, vague in the September mist. Had it not been for the scarlet light on her face, I should have thought her look was sad and serious. She nestled up to the window, and leaned her head against the wooden shaft. Gradually she drooped into sleep. Then she became wonderfully childish again--it was the girl of seventeen sleeping there, with her full pouting lips slightly apart, and the breath coming lightly. I felt the old feeling of responsibility; I must protect her, and take care of her.

  There was a crunch of the gravel. It was Leslie coming. He lifted his hat to her, thinking she was looking. He had that fine, lithe physique, suggestive of much animal vigour; his person was exceedingly attractive; one watched him move about, and felt pleasure. His face was less pleasing than his person. He was not handsome; his eyebrows were too light, his nose was large and ugly, and his forehead, though high and fair, was without dignity. But he had a frank, good-natured expression, and a fine, wholesome laugh.

  He wondered why she did not move. As he came nearer he saw. Then he winked at me and came in. He tiptoed across the room to look at her. The sweet carelessness of her attitude, the appealing, half-pitiful girlishness of her face touched his responsive heart, and he leaned forward and kissed her cheek where already was a crimson stain of sunshine.

  She roused half out of her sleep with a little, petulant "Oh!" as an awkward child. He sat down behind her, and gently drew her head against him, looking down at her with a tender, soothing smile. I thought she was going to fall asleep thus. But her eyelids quivered, and her eyes beneath them flickered into consciousness.

  "Leslie!--oh!--Let me go!" she exclaimed, pushing him away. He loosed her, and rose, looking at her reproachfully. She shook her dress, and went quickly to the mirror to arrange her hair.

  "You are mean!" she exclaimed, looking very flushed, vexed, and dishevelled.

  He laughed indulgently, saying, "You shouldn't go to sleep then and look so pretty. Who could help?"

  "It is not nice!" she said, frowning with irritation.

  "We are not 'nice'--are we? I thought we were proud of our unconventionality. Why shouldn't I kiss you?"

  "Because it is a question of me, not of you alone."

  "Dear me, you are in a way!"

  "Mother is coming."

  "Is she? You had better tell her."

  Mother was very fond of Leslie.

  "Well, sir," she said, "why are you frowning?"

  He broke into a laugh.

  "Lettie is scolding me for kissing her when she was playing 'Sleeping Beauty'."

  "The conceit of the boy, to play Prince!" said my mother. "Oh, but it appears I was sadly out of character," he said ruefully.

  Lettie laughed and forgave him.

  "Well," he said, looking at her and smiling, "I came to ask you to go out."

  "It is a lovely afternoon," said Mother.

  She glanced at him, and said:

  "I feel dreadfully lazy."

  "Never mind!" he replied, "you'll wake up. Go and put your hat on."

  He sounded impatient. She looked at him.

  He seemed to be smiling peculiarly.

  She lowered her eyes and went out of the room.

  "She'll come all right," he said to himself, and to me. "She likes to play you on a string."

  She must have heard him. When she came in again, drawing on her gloves, she said quietly:

  "You come as well, Pat."

  He swung round and stared at her in angry amazement.

  "I had rather stay and finish this sketch," I said, feeling uncomfortable.

  "No, but do come, there's a dear." She took the brush from my hand, and drew me from my chair. The blood flushed into his cheeks. He went quietly into the hall and brought my cap.

  "All right!" he said angrily. "Women like to fancy themselves Napoleons."

  "They do, dear Iron Duke, they do," she mocked.

  "Yet, there's a Waterloo in all their histories," he said, since she had supplied him with the idea.

  "Say Peterloo, my general, say Peterloo."

  "Ay, Peterloo," he replied, with a splendid curl of the lip--"Easy conquests!"

  "'He came, he saw, he conquered,'" Lettie recited.

  "Are you coming?" he said, getting more angry.

  "When you bid me," she replied, taking my arm.

  We went through the wood, and through the dishevelled border-land to the high road, through the border-land that should have been park-like, but which was shaggy with loose grass and yellow mole-hills, ragged with gorse and bramble and briar, with wandering old thorn trees, and a queer clump of Scotch firs.

  On the highway the leaves were falling, and they chattered under our steps. The water was mild and blue, and the corn stood drowsily in "stook".

  We climbed the hill behind Highclose, and walked on along the upland, looking across towards the hills of arid Derbyshire, and seeing them not, because it was autumn. We came in sight of the head-stocks of the pit at Selsby, and of the ugly village standing blank and naked on the brow of the hill.

  Lettie was in very high spirits. She laughed and joked continually. She picked bunches of hips and stuck them in her dress. Having got a thorn in her finger from a spray of blackberries, she went to Leslie to have it squeezed out. We were all quite gay as we turned off the high road and went along the bridle path, with the woods on our right, the high Strelley hills shutting in our small valley in front, and the fields and the common to the left. About half-way down the lane we heard the slurr of the scythe-stone on the scythe. Lettie went to the hedge to see. It was George mowing the oats on the steep hillside where the machine could not go. His father was tying up the corn into sheaves.

  Straightening his back, Mr Saxton saw us, and called to us to come and help. We pushed through a gap in the hedge and went up to him.

  "Now then," said the father to me, "take that coat off," and to Lettie, "Have you brought us a drink? No;--come, that sounds bad! Going a walk I guess. You see what it is to get fat," and he pulled a wry face as he bent over to tie the corn. He was a man beautifully ruddy and burly, in the prime of life.

  "Show me, I'll do some," said Lettie.

  "Nay," he answered gently, "it would scratch your wrists and break your stays. Hark at my hands"--he rubbed them together--"like sandpaper!"

  George had his back to us, and had not noticed us. He continued to mow. Leslie watched him.

  "That's a fine movement!" he exclaimed.

  "Yes," replied the father, rising very red in the face from the tying, "and our George enjoys a bit o' mowing. It puts you in fine condition when you get over the first stiffness."

  We moved across to the standing corn. The sun being mild, George had thrown off his hat, and his black hair was moist and twisted into confused half-curls. Firmly planted, he swung with a beautiful rhythm from the waist. On the hip of his belted breeches hung the scythe-stone; his shirt, faded almost white, was torn just above the belt, and showed the muscles of his back playing like lights upon the white sand of a brook. There was something exceedingly attractive in the rhythmic body.

  I spoke to him, and he turned round. He looked straight at Lettie with a flashing, betraying smile. He was remarkably ha
ndsome. He tried to say some words of greeting, then he bent down and gathered an armful of corn, and deliberately bound it up.

  Like him, Lettie had found nothing to say. Leslie, however, remarked:

  "I should think mowing is a nice exercise."

  "It is," he replied, and continued, as Leslie picked up the scythe, "but it will make you sweat, and your hands will be sore."

  Leslie tossed his head a little, threw off his coat, and said briefly:

  "How do you do it?" Without waiting for a reply he proceeded. George said nothing, but turned to Lettie.

  "You are picturesque," she said, a trifle awkwardly, "quite fit for an Idyll."

  "And you?" he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders, laughed, and turned to pick up a scarlet pimpernel.

  "How do you bind the corn?" she asked.

  He took some long straws, cleaned them, and showed her the way to hold them. Instead of attending, she looked at his hands, big, hard, inflamed by the snaith of the scythe.

  "I don't think I could do it," she said.

  "No," he replied quietly, and watched Leslie mowing. The latter who was wonderfully ready at everything, was doing fairly well, but he had not the invincible sweep of the other, nor did he make his same crisp crunching music.

  "I bet he'll sweat," said George.

  "Don't you?" she replied.

  "A bit--but I'm not dressed up."

  "Do you know," she said suddenly, "your arms tempt me to touch them. They are such a fine brown colour, and they look so hard."

  He held out one arm to her. She hesitated, then she swiftly put her finger-tips on the smooth brown muscle, and drew them along. Quickly she hid her hand into the folds of her skirt, blushing.

  He laughed a low, quiet laugh, at once pleasant and startling to hear.

  "I wish I could work here," she said, looking away at the standing corn, and the dim blue woods. He followed her look, and laughed quietly, with indulgent resignation.

  "I do!" she said emphatically.

  "You feel so fine," he said, pushing his hand through his open shirt-front, and gently rubbing the muscles of his side. "It's a pleasure to work or to stand still. It's a pleasure to yourself--your own physique."

  She looked at him, full at his physical beauty, as if he were some great firm bud of life.

  Leslie came up, wiping his brow.

  "Jove," said he, "I do perspire."

  George picked up his coat and helped him into it, saying: "You may take a chill."

  "It's a jolly nice form of exercise," said he.

  George, who had been feeling one finger-tip, now took out his pen-knife and proceeded to dig a thorn from his hand. "What a hide you must have," said Leslie.

  Lettie said nothing, but she recoiled slightly.

  The father, glad of an excuse to straighten his back and to chat, came to us.

  "You'd soon had enough," he said, laughing to Leslie.

  George startled us with a sudden, "Holloa." We turned, and saw a rabbit, which had burst from the corn, go coursing through the hedge, dodging and bounding the sheaves. The standing corn was a patch along the hill-side some fifty paces in length, and ten or so in width.

  "I didn't think there'd have been any in," said the father, picking up a short rake, and going to the low wall of the corn. We all followed.

  "Watch!" said the father, "if you see the heads of the corn shake!"

  We prowled round the patch of corn.

  "Hold! Look out!" shouted the father excitedly, and immediately after a rabbit broke from the cover.

  "Ay--Ay--Ay," was the shout, "turn him--turn him!" We set off full pelt. The bewildered little brute, scared by Leslie's wild running and crying, turned from its course, and dodged across the hill, threading its terrified course through the maze of lying sheaves, spurting on in a painful zigzag, now bounding over an untied bundle of corn, now swerving from the sound of a shout. The little wretch was hard pressed; George rushed upon it. It darted into some fallen corn, but he had seen it, and had fallen on it. In an instant he was up again, and the little creature was dangling from his hand.

  We returned, panting, sweating, our eyes flashing, to the edge of the standing corn. I heard Lettie calling, and turning round saw Emily and the two children entering the field as they passed from school.

  "There's another!" shouted Leslie.

  I saw the oat-tops quiver. "Here! Here!" I yelled. The animal leaped out, and made for the hedge. George and Leslie, who were on that side, dashed off, turned him, and he coursed back our way. I headed him off to the father who swept in pursuit for a short distance, but who was too heavy for the work. The little beast made towards the gate, but this time Mollie, with her hat in her hand and her hair flying, whirled upon him, and she and the little fragile lad sent him back again. The rabbit was getting tired. It dodged the sheaves badly, running towards the top hedge. I went after it. If I could have let myself fall on it I could have caught it, but this was impossible to me, and I merely prevented its dashing through the hole into safety. It raced along the hedge bottom. George tore after it. As he was upon it, it darted into the hedge. He fell flat, and shot his hand into the gap. But it had escaped. He lay there, panting in great sobs, and looking at me with eyes in which excitement and exhaustion struggled like flickering light and darkness. When he could speak, he said, "Why didn't you fall on top of it?"

  "I couldn't," said I.

  We returned again. The two children were peering into the thick corn also. We thought there was nothing more. George began to mow. As I walked round I caught sight of a rabbit skulking near the bottom corner of the patch. Its ears lay pressed against its back; I could see the palpitation of the heart under the brown fur, and I could see the shining dark eyes looking at me. I felt no pity for it, but still I could not actually hurt it. I beckoned to the father. He ran up, and aimed a blow with the rake. There was a sharp little cry which sent a hot pain through me as if I had been cut. But the rabbit ran out, and instantly I forgot the cry, and gave pursuit, fairly feeling my fingers stiffen to choke it. It was all lame. Leslie was upon it in a moment, and he almost pulled its head off in his excitement to kill it.

  I looked up. The girls were at the gate, just turning away. "There are no more," said the father.

  At that instant Mollie shouted.

  "There's one down this hole."

  The hole was too small for George to get his hand in, so we dug it out with the rake-handle. The stick went savagely down the hole, and there came a squeak.

  "Mice!" said George, and as he said it the mother slid out. Somebody knocked her on the back, and the hole was opened out. Little mice seemed to swarm everywhere. It was like killing insects. We counted nine little ones lying dead.

  "Poor brute," said George, looking at the mother. "What a job she must have had rearing that lot!" He picked her up, handled her curiously and with pity. Then he said, "Well, I may as well finish this tonight!"

  His father took another scythe from off the hedge, and together they soon laid the proud, quivering heads low. Leslie and I tied up as they mowed, and soon all was finished.

  The beautiful day was flushing to die. Over in the west the mist was gathering bluer. The intense stillness was broken by the rhythmic hum of the engines at the distant coal-mine, as they drew up the last bantles of men. As we walked across the fields the tubes of stubble tinkled like dulcimers. The scent of the corn began to rise gently. The last cry of the pheasants came from the wood, and the little clouds of birds were gone.

  I carried a scythe, and we walked, pleasantly weary, down the hill towards the farm. The children had gone home with the rabbits.

  When we reached the mill, we found the girls just rising from the table. Emily began to carry away the used pots, and to set clean ones for us. She merely glanced at us and said her formal greeting. Lettie picked up a book that lay in the ingle seat, and went to the window. George dropped into a chair. He had flung off his coat, and had pushed back his hair. He rested his gre
at brown arms on the table and was silent for a moment.

  "Running like that," he said to me, passing his hand over his eyes, "makes you more tired than a whole day's work. I don't think I shall do it again."

  "The sport's exciting while it lasts," said Leslie.

  "It does you more harm than the rabbits do us good," said Mrs Saxton.

  "Oh, I don't know, Mother," drawled her son, "it's a couple of shillings."

  "And a couple of days off your life."

  "What be that!" he replied, taking a piece of bread and butter, and biting a large piece from it.

  "Pour us a drop of tea," he said to Emily.

  "I don't know that I shall wait on such brutes," she replied, relenting, and flourishing the teapot.

  "Oh," said he, taking another piece of bread and butter, "I'm not all alone in my savageness this time."

  "Men are all brutes," said Lettie hotly, without looking up from her book.

  "You can tame us," said Leslie, in mighty good humour. She did not reply. George, began, in that deliberate voice that so annoyed Emily:

  "It does make you mad, though, to touch the fur, and not be able to grab him"--he laughed quietly.

  Emily moved off in disgust. Lettie opened her mouth sharply to speak, but remained silent.

  "I don't know," said Leslie. "When it comes to killing it goes against the stomach."

  "If you can run," said George, "you should be able to run to death. When your blood's up, you don't hang half-way."

  "I think a man is horrible," said Lettie, "who can tear the head off a little mite of a thing like a rabbit, after running it in torture over a field."

  "When he is nothing but a barbarian to begin with--" said Emily.

  "If you began to run yourself--you'd be the same," said George.

  "Why, women are cruel enough," said Leslie, with a glance at Lettie. "Yes," he continued, "they're cruel enough in their way"--another look, and a comical little smile.

  "Well," said George, "what's the good finicking! If you feel like doing a thing--you'd better do it."

  "Unless you haven't courage," said Emily, bitingly.

  He Hooked up at her with dark eyes, suddenly full of anger.

  "But," said Lettie--she could not hold herself from asking, "Don't you think it's brutal, now--now that you do think--isn't it degrading and mean to run the poor little things down?"