2.
Oxford was strangely quiet.
A deep silence brooded over the empty sunlit quadrangles. The curfew rang out as usual but no figures come scurrying to get in before the College gates shut. There were no brawls in the streets, no merry shouts from the meadows, while from the window of Bocardo the leather bag dangled flabbily on the end of its string, swinging to and fro in the wind that blew from the south, bringing hot summer scents of harvest fields and hedgerows to mingle with the smells of the town.
There were those who liked this quiet; Giles, for instance, who could work on hour after hour without a single distraction; and the exhausted senior members of the University; and the townspeople who could feel for once in a way that their own town belonged to them; but it bored Diccon to distraction.
When late summer came outrage was added to boredom because Saint Giles’ Fair, one of the greatest events of the year to the children, was encamped without the North Gate, and they were not allowed to go because it was rumored that there were cases of smallpox among the Fair people. It was particularly hard on Diccon because Dean Godwin had given him a silver coin with which to purchase a hobby horse. He roared and stormed and kicked the furniture, but his father remained adamant. . . . He would not have his family laid low with the smallpox, and if Diccon kicked the furniture again, he would thrash him. . . . So Diccon, unable to get what he wanted by behaving like a demon, suddenly turned cherub, smirked and crooned and bided his time.
Everything comes to those who wait, especially to those who have no scruples about taking any evil opportunities that may occur. On one very warm day when Dorothy, mazed by heat and a large dinner, dozed off in her chair and neglected to keep her eye on him, Diccon seized his woolly lamb Baa and his silver coin, and crept noiseless as a mouse out of the kitchen and across the hall, lifted the latch of the front door and scurried down the steps into the quadrangle.
He ran like the wind across it but when he got to the Fair Gate he dropped on hands and knees and advanced with caution; for he knew that Satan would know he was being naughty and might protest with loud barkings and bayings that would bring the whole College running out to catch him.
Heatherthwayte, as was to be expected on such a hot day, was asleep on his bench with his hands clasped over his stomach, his mouth ajar and happy snorts escaping from his nostrils.
But Satan, as Diccon had feared, was awake. He was sitting up in the center of the Fair Gate, facing the quadrangle, with his front legs very stiff and straight. One of his ears was hanging negligently but the other was cocked and pointing straight up to heaven like the finger of an accusing angel, and his eyes were bright and observant.
Diccon, looking like a little animal himself in his suit of russet brown, crept to within a couple of feet of Satan and then sat back on his heels and looked at him; and Satan looked at Diccon.
Satan waved his tail in a friendly way and opened his mouth to laugh, letting a foot of dribbling pink tongue hang out at the side of his mouth, as was his habit when amused. . . . But there was a warning gleam in his eye. . . . Stay where you are, he seemed to be saying to Diccon, and all will be well, but budge an inch and you’ll catch it.
Diccon crept an inch to the right and Satan growled softly in his throat; he crept an inch to the left and Satan gave a muffled bark that caused Heatherthwayte to open one eye; but he did not see the small brown figure crouched on the cobbles and shut it again almost immediately.
Then Diccon tried guile. He crept quite close to Satan, stretched out a finger and scratched Satan’s chest. Satan liked that, for he had been somewhat bitten of late and the scratching was soothing to his irritation. He closed his eyes and raised his head to signify that Diccon might scratch him under his chin as well.
Diccon scratched Satan for ten minutes; on his chest, his stomach, his chin and in the soft places behind his ears; and all the time he was quietly edging round Satan until he was sitting behind him and scratching his back.
Satan was now in a state of enjoyment that bordered on the ecstatic, and in the semi-conscious condition that accompanies ecstasy. It was not until the blissful scratching had ceased, and he looked round over his shoulder to inquire the reason, that he discovered that the wretched child had fled. Barking wildly he leaped to his feel and rushed out into Fish Street, to see a little brown creature scuttling like a rabbit up the hill and across Carfax. Satan halted uncertainly, one forepaw raised, but his first duty was to the College whose guardian he was and he padded back to the Fair Gate and then rudely awakened Heatherthwayte.
“Not so much as a cat stirring,” growled Heatherthwayte, “and you must make a row fit to wake the dead, you black-faced piece of garbage, you.”
Satan was apologetic. He stuck his tail between his legs and grinned sheepishly, showing the whites of his eyes. He had been beguiled by the delights of the flesh and he was ashamed of himself. When Heatherthwayte dozed off again he was unable to follow suit. He sat up miserably on his haunches staring at the Cathedral tower.
3.
Diccon had never been out in the town by himself before and a wild happiness possessed him. He was barefooted and bareheaded but neither the sun scorching down on his dark curls nor the burning heat of the cobbles under his feet incommoded him in the least. He adored the sun, just as he adored wild winds and sheeting rain; his hot blood and tempestuous temper bespoke him their child. He was across Carfax, up Cornmarket and under North Gate in no time, running so fast that few people had time to notice him before he was gone.
In the open country outside North Gate, in a grassy space between Saint John’s College and Saint Giles’ church and under the patronage of those two saints, Saint Giles’ Fair was encamped, and Diccon’s heart beat high. He had been taken to the Fair a year ago and the memory of it had remained with him like the memory of some thrilling dream. Everything that he loved best had been at that Fair, color and noise and excitement, and at it had been purchased Baa, his beloved lamb, with his legs of tin and his fine woolly coat, the person that he cared for only second to Tinker in all the world.
Diccon plunged into the Fair as a fish into the sea. The roar and scent and color of it engulfed him like waves going over his head, but he was not in the least frightened. In five minutes he was completely lost, with no idea where home was, or how he was to get back there if he wanted to, but that did not worry him at all. He was always a person who lived for the moment only, and the more exciting the moment the better he was pleased.
And there was no denying that Saint Giles’ Fair was exciting. It was like a miniature town, with hundreds of booths set out under the blazing sun and narrow grassy alleys winding between them like the lanes of a city. The booths had bright awnings over the top of them, colored orange and red and green, as protection from sun and rain, and under the awnings were spread unimaginable glories. There were flowers and fruit, pouncet boxes, hawk’s bells, dog whistles, colored kerchiefs, trinkets, garters, shoes, aprons, and every possible luxury that could tempt the eyes of the grownups. There were things for the children too: popguns and hobby horses and drums and kites, and wonderful things to eat such as gilt gingerbread and peppermint drops at twenty a penny.
A seething mass of people surged up and down the lanes between the booths, country people and townspeople with a good sprinkling of thieves and vagabonds and gypsies, arguing and shouting and bargaining with the Fair people who stood behind the booths. They were all dressed in their gayest and gaudiest as though they like the earth itself felt that the blazing golden sun and the deep blue sky of late summer were a challenge.
“Who can shine as I do?” cried the sun, and the earth laughed as she reared up sunflowers and golden rod on tall, strong spears that seemed trying to reach the arrogant heavens.
“Who dare match my color?” asked the painted sky as morning, midday, evening and midnight wheeled by in a glory of saffron and azure, rose-pink and poppy red
, amethyst and ebony pricked and washed with silver.
“I do,” cried the earth, and there were peonies and michaelmas daisies in the gardens, golden fruits upon the walls and dandelions like stars in the lush green grass.
And human beings were as arrogant as the earth, it seemed, for color was awash in the lanes of the Fair, flowing up and down like water that reflects the colors of the sky above it. Sky-blue farthingales flowed over sunflower kirtles and scarlet shawls were folded over gowns of emerald green. The heads of young girls were bound with colored kerchiefs, and nodded like poppy heads, and the nimble legs of the young men were cross-gartered in scarlet and purple.
Diccon with his dirty bare feet and his warm curls seemed so a part of the landscape that few people noticed him. He darted in and out of the crowd like a dragonfly, quick and eager and unafraid. When anyone hindered him he hit out at the impediment with Baa’s sharp tin legs and way was instantly made for him with curses and fists raised for a blow; but he was always gone before the blow could fall and hard words slid off him like water off a duck’s back. His green eyes were the brighter for the color they feasted on and the mingled smell of flowers, fruit and sweating humanity was a smell that seemed good to him. Now and then, when he felt the need for refreshment, he helped himself to a bite of gingerbread or a peppermint drop and had vanished before anyone could catch him. He had no qualms of conscience about these thefts. On this, the first day of real freedom in his life, he was the master of the world; its color was a carpet beneath his feet and its golden sunshine a canopy over his head, and between the one and the other were piled riches that were his for the taking. For the first time, with freedom swinging open a door before his eyes, he was aware of life stretching out illimitably in front of him like a shining road and of himself as a young knight riding out towards it. He felt suddenly powerful and splendid and hit out with Baa as though the sharp tin legs were his lance and his sword and his pointed dagger. . . . The earth was his and the glory of it.
Now and again the lanes of the Fair converged, like those of a real city, upon an open square, and here there would be a sideshow or an entertainment. Diccon stared with all his eyes at a fire-eater who appeared to be chewing up glowing coals as though they were so much gingerbread, at a performing dog who could walk round on his hind legs balancing a tankard on his nose, at a cat with two heads and a calf with a tail sticking out in the middle of its forehead.
But it was in the fortune-teller’s tent that the adventure of the day awaited him.
It was pitched in a little square at the very center of the Fair, at its heart, just as what happened to Diccon in it seemed to him ever afterwards to lie at the heart of his life. It was a small place, made of some tattered crimson material stretched over pieces of wood roughly nailed together. Its back was set against the back of some booths and in front of it was a clear open space.
In this space stood a man, a splendid vagabond of a man with savage green eyes and a torn green doublet open at the neck to show his great hairy chest. Diccon was fascinated by this man and squatting down at the edge of the crowd he gazed and gazed. He was not used to men like this. His father, Dean Godwin and the other men who had come and gone about him since his babyhood had been soft voiced, slender and clean. There had been something withdrawn about them. When he had looked up at them from his position on the floor he had seen fold upon fold of black gown, surmounted by a sort of cartwheel of white ruff; and when from above the ruff a cultured voice had asked him how he did it had seemed to come from the sky itself. Even when they had picked him up he had been so anxious to get down again that he had not really taken them in. . . . And anyhow, though he had tolerated and at times liked them, he had felt that they did not really belong to his world.
But this man did. He was like an animal, and Diccon liked animals. He was not worn and slender like Canon Leigh but bulkily huge, stocky and strong. He had a big head, with shaggy red-tinged dark hair and a dark beard, and great broad shoulders. Through his torn doublet and hose his arms and legs showed like huge strong pillars, burned almost black by the sun. In a voice like a bull’s he was inviting the crowd to come to the tent and have their fortunes told. Sara the gypsy was inside and Sara never failed to tell the truth. His patter was splendid. Words poured from him in a stream, spiced with oaths, and the fascination of them drew the people one by one towards the tent. They went in rather fearfully but they came out laughing, their faces rosy with the reflected glow from the glorious futures the gypsy had foretold.
Diccon felt that he must see this splendid man close to. He pushed and burrowed his way to the man’s feet and then sat down cross-legged and gazed again. . . . This was a god among men. . . . His voice flowed over Diccon’s head like thunder and his gesticulating hands were so strong that they could have picked him up and broken him in small pieces. He was a freckled man, too, freckled like Diccon, and Diccon’s bump of conceit led him to think that freckled men were the finest there are. His eyes never left his idol; they were fixed on his face, drinking in every detail of his rugged splendor, and presently their scrutiny was like a magnet that drew attention to him; the man paused in his patter and looked down at the child sitting cross-legged on the ground at his feet, gazing at him.
“Here, you!” he shouted. “What do you want? You get out of here!”
He made a movement as though he would have struck Diccon, but there was no flinching in the indomitable little figure and the unblinking stare never wavered. The man dropped his raised fist and bent low, hands on knees, to stare at the child. As their eyes met Diccon’s poppy-red mouth curved into a smile and his green eyes shone as though lights had been lit behind them. To the onlookers it seemed that a curious change came over the man. “Eh?” he said doubtfully. “Eh?” All the stuffing seemed knocked out of him and the dirty, horny finger he stretched out to the boy wavered about uncertainly before it found the place it wanted; the warm, three cornered little hollow under the chin of Diccon Leigh. Diccon made no attempt to bite the finger that lifted his chin, instead he continued to smile like a little cherub and all his dimples peeped. The man was bending so close to him that the smell of sweat and dirt and strong drink almost stifled him, but he did not care. Other people would have said that this was not a nice man; a dirty, evil vagabond, they would have said; but if this man was a dirty vagabond then dirty vagabonds were the sort of men whom Diccon liked.
“You saucy little cockerel, you,” said the man. “What do you want? Eh?”
The tone of his voice had changed. The threat had gone out of it and if it were possible for the voice of a bull to hold a caressing quality that quality would have been present.
Diccon could not say what he wanted. He wanted to be with this man for always; he wanted to follow him to the world’s end, to clean his shoes and fetch his beer and run his errands. But he could not say so, he could only continue to smile and dimple.
The crowd grew a little restive. The dark man’s patter, his oaths and gesticulations, were amusing and part of the show. They had not come here to stand about and watch him make a fool of himself over a child. “Here!” they adjured him. “Get on with it!” and one of them bent down and tried to lift Diccon out of the way. . . . To be bitten for his pains.
“Now then, son,” adjured the dark man. “None of that! What do you want? Eh?”
“I want,” said Diccon in a loud voice, “to have my fortune told.”
He did not really want anything of the sort but to have his fortune told would, he thought, keep him well within the vicinity of the dark man.
The crowd jeered. “Let him show his bit of silver,” they advised the dark man. “Where’s his bit of silver to cross the palm of the gypsy?”
The eyes of the dark man were like those of a sad dog, for he was sure that Diccon would have no silver, but with a crow of delight Diccon thrust a fat hand into his little wallet and held up the coin that Dean Godwin had given him.
> With a triumphant gesture the dark man gathered him up in the crook of his arm, lifted the tent flap and pitched him in.
4.
At first Diccon thought he had been flung into the middle of a lighted lantern, or into the heart of a rose, because it was all red; then he realized that it was the sun, shining through the red drapery of the tent, that made it so warm and rosy.
Standing with his back to the opening, with one little arm laid across his forehead as though to help him see better, Diccon looked at Sara. There was nothing at all in the tent to distract the attention; nothing at all but Sara sitting on a low stool. Her voluminous, ragged skirts swept the grass round her like the skirts of a queen; they were russet color, that same color that flows over the hills when the bracken is dying. Round her shoulders was a shawl of a brilliant, almost savage, emerald green, and there were gold rings in her ears glinting through the thick dark hair. The rosy light of the tent poured over her, softening the lines of her face, hiding the dirt on her shawl and the rents in her skirt, and behind its veil she was beauty incarnate.
“What a very little gentleman,” she mocked softly. “What a very little gentleman to want his fortune told! Have you a silver coin, little gentleman?”
Diccon did not answer but slowly crossed the grass until he stood in front of her, looking up into her face, his fat hands laid on her knees. Her eyes were dark pools into which he could look down and down, and her mouth, so close to him, was full and red as though it were made for kisses. She was opulent and rich and soft. Diccon felt that wherever he might press his finger it would go in, as though she were a cushion stuffed with goose feathers. He put up his finger and pressed her cheek, to see, and he was quite right. He caressed her cheek and crowed with delight.