VIII
Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he claspedthe money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify hiscourage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowinga child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distanceto the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, hisfather's cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming partof the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaininghouse was that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite awayfrom the small cottages, and was the loneliest of lonely houses onthese thinly populated slopes.
He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about asailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle ofthis the child stopped: from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone alight, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelledvoice of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. Thethorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were lesssatisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habitafter dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawlinggiants, and hideous cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening,but the nature of all of them was different from this. Discretionrather than terror prompted the boy to turn back instead of passingthe light, with a view of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servantaccompany him home.
When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fireto be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons, the secondbeing a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain fromthe nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt sosplendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turnedin a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silentlyas he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisableto interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared tobear the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausingwhen again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pitphenomenon as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced theslope, and followed the path he had followed before.
The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped forever. He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm himtill, coming within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slightnoise in front, which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary,for the noise resolved itself into the steady bites of two animalsgrazing.
"Two he'th-croppers down here," he said aloud. "I have never known'em come down so far afore."
The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the childthought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from hisinfancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised tofind that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore aclog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had beenbroken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being inthe side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost cornerthe square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. Alight came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon thevertical face of gravel at the further side of the pit into which thevehicle faced.
The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dreadof those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillatesrather than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and hisfamily from being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel-pit ata respectful distance, ascended the slope, and came forward uponthe brow, in order to look into the open door of the van and see theoriginal of the shadow.
The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sata figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin'sfriend. He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him.Moreover, as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of whichwere red also.
At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadowswas audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by thesound the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hungbeside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle helifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whitesof his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with thered surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of ajuvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lairhe had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdonat times, and a reddleman was one of them.
"How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!" he murmured.
The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear ofbeing seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. Theheather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hidingthe actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; theheather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sandto the very foot of the man.
The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of theprostrate boy.
"Who be ye?" he said.
"Johnny Nunsuch, master!"
"What were you doing up there?"
"I don't know."
"Watching me, I suppose?"
"Yes, master."
"What did you watch me for?"
"Because I was coming home from Miss Vye's bonfire."
"Beest hurt?"
"No."
"Why, yes, you be: your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and letme tie it up."
"Please let me look for my sixpence."
"How did you come by that?"
"Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire."
The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,almost holding his breath.
The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewingmaterials, tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tingedred, and proceeded to bind up the wound.
"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?" said theboy.
"To be sure, poor chap. 'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit onthat bundle."
The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, "I think I'll gohome now, master."
"You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?"
The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with muchmisgiving and finally said, "Yes."
"Well, what?"
"The reddleman!" he faltered.
"Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You littlechildren think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."
"Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master?'Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes."
"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all thesebags at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--onlyfull of red stuff."
"Was you born a reddleman?"
"No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give upthe trade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months: notat first, because 'tis grow'd into my skin and won't wash out. Now,you'll never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?"
"No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t'otherday--perhaps that was you?"
"I was here t'other day."
"Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?"
"Oh yes: I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfireup there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so badthat she should give you sixpence to keep it up?"
"I don't know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the firejust the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way."
"And how long did that last?"
"Until a hopfrog ju
mped into the pond."
The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. "A hopfrog?" he inquired."Hopfrogs don't jump into ponds this time of year."
"They do, for I heard one."
"Certain-sure?"
"Yes. She told me afore that I should hear'n; and so I did. They sayshe's clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed 'en to come."
"And what then?"
"Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but Ididn't like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came onhere again."
"A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?"
"Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because heliked his old sweetheart best; and things like that."
"What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?"
"He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see heragain under Rainbarrow o' nights."
"Ha!" cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of hisvan so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. "That's the secreto't!"
The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
"My man, don't you be afraid," said the dealer in red, suddenlybecoming gentle. "I forgot you were here. That's only a curious wayreddlemen have of going mad for a moment; but they don't hurt anybody.And what did the lady say then?"
"I can't mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?"
"Ay, to be sure you may. I'll go a bit of ways with you."
He conducted the boy out of the gravel-pit and into the path leadingto his mother's cottage. When the little figure had vanished in thedarkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, andproceeded to darn again.