Chapter XXII
Who is Portunus?
About half-way to Swan, Master Nathaniel, having tethered his horse to a tree, was reclining drowsily under the shade of another. It was midday, and the further west he rode the warmer it grew; it was rather as if he were riding backward through the months.
Suddenly he was aroused by a dry little laugh, and looking round, he saw crouching beside him, an odd-looking old man, with very bright eyes.
“By my Great-aunt’s rump, and who may you be?” enquired Master Nathaniel testily.
The old man shut his eyes, gulped several times, and replied:
“Who are you? Who is me?
Answer my riddle and come and see.”
and then he stamped impatiently, as if that had not been what he had wished to say.
“Some cracked old rustic, I suppose,” thought Master Nathaniel, and closed his eyes; in the hopes that when the old fellow saw he was not inclined for conversation he would go away.
But the unwelcome visitor continued to crouch beside him, now and then giving him little jogs in the elbow, which was very irritating when one happened to be hot and tired and longing for forty winks.
“What are you doing?” cried Master Nathaniel irritably.
“I milk blue ewes; I reap red flowers,
I weave the story of dead hours,”
answered the old man.
“Oh, do you? Well, I wish you’d go now, this moment, and milk your red ewes … I want to go to sleep,” and he pulled his hat further down over his eyes and pretended to snore.
But suddenly he sprang to his feet with a yap of pain. The old man had prodded him in his belly, and was standing looking at him out of his startlingly bright eyes, with his head slightly on one side.
“Don’t you try that on, old fellow!” cried Master Nathaniel angrily. “You’re a nuisance, that’s what you are. Why can’t you leave me alone?”
The old man pointed eagerly at the tree, making little inarticulate sounds; it was as if a squirrel or a bird had been charged with some message that they could not deliver.
Then he crept up to him, put his mouth to his ear, and whispered, “What is it that’s a tree, and yet not a tree, a man and yet not a man, who is dumb and yet can tell secrets, who has no arms and yet can strike?”
Then he stepped back a few paces as if he wished to observe the impression his words had produced, and stood rubbing his hands and cackling gleefully.
“I suppose I must humor him,” thought Master Nathaniel; so he said good-naturedly, “Well, and what’s the answer to your riddle, eh?”
But the old man seemed to have lost the power of articulate speech, and could only reiterate eagerly, “Dig … dig … dig.”
“‘Dig, dig, dig.’ … So that’s the answer, is it? Well, I’m afraid I can’t stay here the whole afternoon trying to guess your riddles. If you’ve got anything to tell me, can’t you say it any plainer?”
Suddenly he remembered the old superstition that when the Silent People returned to Dorimare they could only speak in riddles and snatches of rhyme. He looked at the old man searchingly. “Who are you?” he said.
But the answer was the same as before. “Dig … dig … dig.”
“Try again. Perhaps after a bit the words will come more easily,” said Master Nathaniel. “You are trying to tell me your name.”
The old man shut his eyes tight, took a long breath, and, evidently making a tremendous effort, brought out very slowly, “Seize — your — op-por-tun-us. Dig … dig. Por-tun-us is my name.”
“Well, you’ve got it out at last. So your name is Portunus, is it?”
But the old man stamped his foot impatiently. “Hand! hand!” he cried.
“Is it that you want to shake hands with me, old fellow?” asked Master Nathaniel.
But the old man shook his head peevishly. “Farm hand,” he managed to bring out. “Dig … dig.”
And then he lapsed into doggerel:
“Dig and delve, delve and dig,
Harness the mare to the farmer’s gig.”
Finally Master Nathaniel gave up trying to get any sense out of him and untethered his horse. But when he tried to mount, the old man seized the stirrup and looking up at him imploringly, repeated, “Dig … dig … dig.” And Master Nathaniel was obliged to shake him off with some roughness. And even after he had left him out of sight he could hear his voice in the distance, shouting, “Dig … dig.”
“I wonder what the old fellow was trying to tell me,” said Master Nathaniel to himself.
On the morning of the following day he arrived at the village of Swan-on-the-Dapple.
Here the drama of autumn had only just reached its gorgeous climax, and the yellow and scarlet trees were flaming out their silent stationary action against the changeless chorus of pines, dark green against the distant hills.
“By the Golden Apples of the West!” muttered Master Nathaniel, “I’d no idea those accursed hills were so near. I’m glad Ranulph’s safe away.”
Having inquired his way to the Gibbertys’ farm, he struck off the high road into the valley — and very lovely it was looking in its autumn coloring. The vintage was over, and the vines were now golden and red. Some of the narrow oblong leaves of the wild cherry had kept their bottle-green, while others, growing on the same twig, had turned to salmon-pink, and the mulberries alternated between canary-yellow and grass-green. The mountain ash had turned a fiery rose (more lovely, even, than had been its scarlet berries) and often an olive grew beside it, as if ready, lovingly, to quench its fire in its own tender grey. The birches twinkled and quivered, as if each branch were a golden divining rod trembling to secret water; and the path was strewn with olives, looking like black oblong dung. It was one of those mysterious autumn days that are intensely bright though the sun is hidden; and when one looked at these lambent trees one could almost fancy them the source of the light flooding the valley.
From time to time a tiny yellow butterfly would flit past, like a little yellow leaf shed by one of the birches; and now and then one of the bleeding, tortured looking liege-oaks would drop an acorn, with a little flop — just to remind you, as it were, that it was leading its own serene, vegetable life, oblivious to the agony ascribed to it by the fevered fancy of man.
Not a soul did Master Nathaniel pass after he had left the village, though from time to time he saw in the distance laborers following the plough through the vineyards, and their smocks provided the touch of blue that turns a picture into a story; there was blue smoke, too, to tell of human habitations; and an occasional cock strutting up and down in front of one of the red vines, like a salesman before his wares, flaunting, by way of advertisement, a crest of the same material as the vine leaves, but of a more brilliant hue; and in the distance were rushes, stuck up in sheaves to dry, and glimmering with the faint, whitish, pinky-grey of far-away fruit trees in blossom.
While, as if the eye had not enough to feed on in her own domain, the sounds, even, of the valley were pictorial — a tinkling of distant bells, conjuring up herds of goats; the ominous, melancholy roar which tells that somewhere a wagoner is goading on his oxen; and the distant bark of dogs that paints a picture of homesteads and sunny porches.
As Master Nathaniel jogged leisurely along, his thoughts turned to the farmer Gibberty, who many a time must have jogged along this path, in just such a way, and seen and heard the very same things that he was seeing and hearing now.
Yes, the farmer Gibberty had once been a real living man, like himself. And so had millions of others, whose names he had never heard. And one day he himself would be a prisoner, confined between the walls of other people’s memory. And then he would cease even to be that, and become nothing but a few words cut in stone. What would these words be, he wondered.
A sudden longing seized him to hold Ranulph again in his arms. How pleasant would have been the thought that he was waiting to receive him at the farm!
But he must be nearing his journey??
?s end, for in the distance he could discern the figure of a woman, leisurely scrubbing her washing on one of the sides of a stone trough.
“I wonder if that’s the widow,” thought Master Nathaniel. And a slight shiver went down his spine.
But as he came nearer the washerwoman proved to be quite a young girl.
He decided she must be the granddaughter, Hazel; and so she was.
He drew up his horse beside her and asked if this were the widow Gibberty’s farm.
“Yes, sir,” she answered shortly, with that half-frightened, half-defiant look that was so characteristic of her.
“Why, then, I’ve not been misdirected. But though they told me I’d find a thriving farm and a fine herd of cows, the fools forgot to mention that the farmer was a rose in petticoats,” and he winked jovially.
Now this was not Master Nathaniel’s ordinary manner with young ladies, which, as a matter of fact, was remarkably free from flirtatious facetiousness. But he had invented a role to play at the farm, and was already beginning to identify himself with it.
As it turned out, this opening compliment was a stroke of luck. For Hazel bitterly resented that she was not recognized as the lawful owner of the farm, and Master Nathaniel’s greeting of her as the farmer thawed her coldness into dimples.
“If you’ve come to see over the farm, I’m sure we’ll be very pleased to show you everything,” she said graciously.
“Thank’ee, thank’ee kindly. I’m a cheesemonger from Lud-in-the-Mist. And there’s no going to sleep quietly behind one’s counter these days in trade, if one’s to keep one’s head above the water. It’s competition, missy, competition that keeps old fellows like me awake. Why, I can remember when there weren’t more than six cheesemongers in the whole of Lud; and now there are as many in my street alone. So I thought I’d come myself and have a look round and see where I could get the best dairy produce. There’s nothing like seeing for oneself.”
And here he launched into an elaborate and gratuitous account of all the other farms he had visited on his tour of inspection. But the one that had pleased him best, he said, had been that of a very old friend of his — and he named the farmer near Moongrass with whom, presumably, Ranulph and Luke were now staying.
Here Hazel looked up eagerly, and, in rather an unsteady voice, asked if he’d seen two lads there — a big one, and a little one who was the son of the Seneschal.
“Do you mean little Master Ranulph Chanticleer and Luke Hempen? Why, of course I saw them! It was they who told me to come along here … and very grateful I am to them, for I have found something well worth looking at.”
A look of indescribable relief flitted over Hazel’s face.
“Oh … oh! I’m so glad you saw them,” she faltered.
“Aha! My friend Luke has evidently been making good use of his time — the young dog!” thought Master Nathaniel; and he proceeded to retail a great many imaginary sayings and doings of Luke at his new abode.
Hazel was soon quite at home with the jovial, facetious old cheesemonger. She always preferred elderly men to young ones, and was soon chatting away with the abandon sometimes observable when naturally confiding people, whom circumstances have made suspicious, find someone whom they think they can trust; and Master Nathaniel was, of course, drinking in every word and longing to be in her shoes.
“But, missy, it seems all work and no play!” he cried at last. “Do you get no frolics and junketings?”
“Sometimes we dance of an evening, when old Portunus is here,” she answered.
“Portunus?” he cried sharply, “Who’s he?”
But this question froze her back into reserve. “An old weaver with a fiddle,” she answered stiffly.
“A bit doited?”
Her only answer was to look at him suspiciously and say, “Do you know Portunus, sir?”
“Well, I believe I met him — about half-way between here and Lud. The old fellow seemed to have something on his mind, but couldn’t get it out — I’ve known many a parrot that talked better than he.”
“Oh, I’ve often thought that, too! That he’d something on his mind, I mean,” cried Hazel on another wave of confidence. “It’s as if he were trying hard to tell one something. And he often follows me as if he wanted me to do something for him. And I sometimes think I should try and help him and not be so harsh with him — but he just gives me the creeps, and I can’t help it.”
“He gives you the creeps, does he?”
“That he does!” she cried with a little shiver. “To see him gorging himself with green fruit! It isn’t like a human being the way he does it — it’s like an insect or a bird. And he’s like a cat, too, in the way he always follows about the folk that don’t like him. Oh, he’s nasty! And he’s spiteful, too, and mischievous. But perhaps that’s not to be wondered at, if …” and she broke off abruptly.
Master Nathaniel gave her a keen look. “If what?” he said.
“Oh, well — just silly talk of the country people,” said Hazel evasively.
“That he’s — er, for instance, one of what you call the Silent People?”
“How did you know?” And Hazel looked at him suspiciously.
“Oh, I guessed. You see, I’ve heard a lot of that sort of talk since I’ve been in the west. Well, the old fellow certainly seemed to have something he wanted to tell me, but I can’t say he was very explicit. He kept saying, over and over again, ‘Dig, dig.’”
“Oh, that’s his great word,” cried Hazel. “The old women round about say that he’s trying to tell one his name. You see, they think that … well, that he’s a dead man come back and that when he was on earth he was a laborer, by name Diggory Carp.”
“Diggory Carp?” cried Master Nathaniel sharply.
Hazel looked at him in surprise. “Did you know him, sir?” she asked.
“No, no; not exactly. But I seem to have heard the name somewhere. Though I dare say in these parts it’s a common enough one. Well, and what do they say about this Diggory Carp?”
Hazel looked a little uneasy. “They don’t say much, sir — to me. I sometimes think there must have been some mystery about him. But I know that he was a merry, kind sort of man, well liked all round, and a rare fiddler. But he came to a sad end, though I never heard what happened exactly. And they say,” and here she lowered her voice mysteriously, “that once a man joins the Silent People he becomes mischievous and spiteful, however good-natured he may have been when he was alive. And if he’d been unfairly treated, as they say he was, it would make him all the more spiteful, I should think. I often think he’s got something he wants to tell us, and I sometimes wonder if it’s got anything to do with the old stone herm in our orchard … he’s so fond of dancing round it.”
“Really? And where is this old herm? I want to see all the sights of the country, you know; get my money’s worth of travel!” And Master Nathaniel donned again the character of the cheerful cheesemonger, which, in the excitement of the last few minutes, he had, unwittingly, sloughed.
As they walked to the orchard, which was some distance from the washing trough, Hazel said, nervously:
“Perhaps you hadn’t heard, sir, but I live here with my granny; at least, she isn’t my real granny, though I call her so. And … and … well, she seems fond of old Portunus, and perhaps it would be as well not to mention to her that you had met him.”
“Very well; I won’t mention him to her … at present.” And he gave her rather a grim little smile.
Though the orchard had been stripped of its fruit, what with the red and yellow leaves, and the marvelous ruby-red of the lateral branches of the peach trees there was color enough in the background of the old grey herm, and, in addition, there twisted around him the scarlet and gold of a vine.
“I often think he’s the spirit of the farm,” said Hazel shyly, looking to see if Master Nathaniel was admiring her old stone friend. To her amazement, however, as soon as his eyes fell on it he clapped his hand against his thigh, an
d burst out laughing.
“By the Sun, Moon and Stars!” he cried, “here’s the answer to Portunus’s riddle: ‘the tree yet not a tree, the man yet not a man,’” and he repeated to Hazel the one consecutive sentence that Portunus had managed to enunciate.
“‘Who has no arms and yet can strike, who is dumb and yet can tell secrets,’” she repeated after him. “Can you strike and tell secrets, old friend?” she asked whimsically, stroking the grey lichened stone. And then she blushed and laughed as if to apologize for this exhibition of childishness.
With country hospitality Hazel presumed that their uninvited guest had come to spend several days at the farm, and accordingly she had his horse taken to the stables and ordered the best room to be prepared for his use.
The widow, too, gave him a hearty welcome, when he came down to the midday meal in the big kitchen.
When they had been a few minutes at table, Hazel said, “Oh, granny, this gentleman has just come from the farm near Moongrass, where little Master Chanticleer and young Hempen have gone. And he says they were both of them blooming, and sent us kind messages.”
“Yes,” said Master Nathaniel cheerfully, ever ready to start romancing, “my old friend the farmer is delighted with them. The talk in Lud was that little Chanticleer had been ill, but all I can say is, you must have done wonders for him — his face is as round and plump as a Moongrass cheese.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re pleased with the young gentleman’s looks, sir,” said the widow in a gratified voice. But in her eyes there was the gleam of a rather disquieting smile.
Dinner over, the widow and Hazel had to go and attend to their various occupations, and Master Nathaniel went and paced up and down in front of the old house, thinking.
Over and over again his thoughts returned to the odd old man, Portunus.
Was it possible that he had really once been Diggory Carp, and that he had returned to his old haunts to try and give a message?