The Collected Works of J. S. Fletcher: 17 Novels & 28 Short Stories (Illustrated Edition). J. S. Fletcher
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"Hey a drop more rum," said Pippany, pushing the bottle across the table. "Aye, we allus had a high character for honesty, all our fam'ly had. Howsomiver, yon woman accused me o' steylin' Mestur Perris's money, and afore I could dew or say owt, t' two on 'em set on to me and 'saulted me shameful, and he varry near squeezed t' life out o' me while shoo felt i' my pockets—I niver were so tret i' my life!"
"And did she find t' brass on yer, then?" inquired Tibby Graddige, greatly excited. "Ye don't say 'at she did!"
"Aye shoo fun' t' brass on me, reight enough," answered Pippany. "There's no denyin' that theer. But, ye see, it wor i' this way—I fun' that theer brass as I were crossin' t' fields to mi wark this mornin', and I put it i' my 'bacca-box for safety, and I wor goin' to ax Mestur Perris's advice about it; but before I'd t' chance o' doin' so, I tell yer they set on to me and knocked me about shameful and crewel, and they accused me o' steylin' it. And so, of course, I left 'em, an' I don't know 'at I shan't tak t' law on 'em. Theer's law for poor folk as well as for onnybody else, and I've a good mind to hey 'em up t' 'Sizes, and see what t' judge says to 'em."
"Aye, but poor folk is sore trodden down!" sighed Tibby Graddige. "They'd sweer theirsens black and blue at ye'd takken t' money. Ye should ha' made safe on it afore they could ha' laid hands on yer."
This was exactly what Pippany was thinking himself; it was poor consolation to reflect that all he had got out of his haul was a couple of bottles of rum, and he wished by that time that he had hidden the gold away in some safe place. But under the influence of his great indignation, and the rum-andwater at his elbow, the future just then looked rosy.
"Neer mind," he said, shaking his head threateningly. "I'm noän done wi' yon lot—I'll mak' Mistress Perris suffer for treatin' me as shoo did this mornin'. There's nobody can dew as they like wi' me. I'm noän dependent on Mestur Perris for a job o' work—theer's other folk i' t' parish 'at'll employ me besides him. And I'm noän wi'out a hit o' brass, neyther."
"What, ye gotten summat put by like?" asked Tibby Graddige, instantly curious. "Of course, bein' a single bachelor, ye will hey'."
Pippany wagged his head with mysterious intent.
"Now, then, niver ye mind," he answered. "I'm noän such a fooil as some folks think—I know a thing or two, I can tell yer. I'm happen as weel off as what Mestur Perris is, and I'm noän goin' to be insulted by neyther him nor her."
Thus thrown out of his regular employment, Pippany gathered together a living during the next two or three weeks by following the threshing-machine from farm to farm. It was quite true that he had some money hidden away in a corner of his cottage, but he had a liking for rum, and the store began to diminish. Pippany, however, was a man of infinite resource, and he knew many ways of eking out a living. He grew his own vegetables in his own garden; he fed, killed, cured and sold a pig every year, but reserved one flitch and one ham for his own consumption; he knew how to abstract a fat chicken from the neighbouring farmsteads now and then; he knew how to get fresh eggs without the trouble of paying for them. And upon occasion he knew how to snare a rabbit, and in the proper season his pot was not innocent of the presence of a hare. Appetising odours sometimes hung about Pippany's cottage, and if the gamekeeper had smelt them he might have been suspicious as to their cause; but the cottage was out of the way, and when Pippany cooked it was behind a jealously-locked door.
His weekly revenue being somewhat shorn by his peremptory dismissal from Cherry-trees, Pippany's predatory instincts were aroused, and he began to poach a little in a quiet and cautious fashion. There was no great danger in following this illegal method of obtaining food. The lord of the manor was an absentee, who never came near the village save at long intervals; the tenant of the house was an old gentleman who was too much of a recluse to care for sport; and although a gamekeeper was kept, he was more for ornament than for use. The gamekeeper certainly went to his bed at a proper and seasonable hour, and did no night patrolling of the woods and coverts which were under his care: Pippany, therefore, had little difficulty about getting a couple of rabbits when he wanted them. Now and then he gave a couple to Tibby Graddige: Tibby took them and asked no questions; it seemed to her a reasonable thing that a single gentleman who is obliged to buy bread and groceries and rum should eke out his living by appropriating ground game or anything else which costs him nothing.
Eastward of the village, and in the dip of the valley which lay beneath the uplands, whereof Taffendale's farm and lime-quarry formed the centre point, was a thick stretch of old woodland which covered a considerable expanse of country. This was Pippany Webster's favourite hunting-ground; he knew every yard of it, every turn of the tracks in it; he could have gone through it blindfold, or on the darkest night. In its very midst was a valley within a valley—a quiet, lonely dingle known to the village folk as Badger's Hollow. Tradition had it that a man had been hanged there in chains, and it was true that from an ancient oak in its midst there still depended some rusty scraps and links of iron which clanked and clinked in the wind when it penetrated through the wood. Therefore, of course, Badger's Hollow was haunted; no Martinsthorpe man or woman would ever have dreamed of venturing near it after nightfall. But Pippany Webster had no fear of ghosts, and he knew Badger's Hollow to be a rare place for rabbits, and when the rest of the village folk were asleep he might have been found making his way through the wood to a favourite spot in this retired place, whereat he had set a snare on the previous night. There had been times when Pippany had returned from these midnight maraudings with a cock-pheasant in his company.
On the third week after his dismissal from Perris's employ Pippany found no work to do beyond one day's threshing. The three shillings which he received for that was not enough to provide him with rum for the week's consumption, and he had to dip into his secret store. The fact that this was diminishing induced Pippany seriously to consider a proposition which had recently been made to him. During that spring a certain itinerant vendor of fish had started coming round Martinsthorpe and the neighbouring villages; getting into conversation with Pippany in the kitchen of the Dancing Bear, what time no one else was about, he had asked him if he ever had a few rabbits to dispose of. Pippany had returned an evasive answer at the time, but he and the fish-seller had foregathered again, and at last Pippany had a definite offer. After all, there seemed to be small danger about the matter. The country was so lonely, so houseless, about Martinsthorpe, that it would be an easy thing for the man to meet Pippany at an appointed place in some solitary by-way to receive a consignment of dead rabbits, and to pay cash for them on the spot. Pippany decided to commence business on these lines.
And so it came about that one evening, after such darkness had fallen as an early summer night brings, Pippany was in the woods on his way to Badger's Hollow, where he hoped to find a dozen rabbits in his snares. He had traversed those woods hundreds of times o' nights, and had never encountered human being in them. But on this night, as he went noiselessly along, he suddenly became aware of two human beings who were coming his way, and, with the rapidity of a weasel, he slipped beneath the neighbouring undergrowth and became as quiet as the motionless twigs and leaves which shrouded him. The figures which his sharp eyes had made out came nearer, passed in front of him, passed by him, went on their way into the deeper shades of the wood and disappeared. And Pippany crawled out of his shelter, muttering to himself, and as delighted as he was surprised.
"Taffendale and Perris's wife!" he said. "An' he wor makkin' love to her; he had his arm round her waist. An' her a respectable wed woman! Weel, theer is some wickedness i' this here world. Gow, I wonder what Mistress Graddige 'ud say to that theer?"
But before he returned home in the grey light of morning Pippany had resolved not to communicate his news to Mistress Graddige or to anybody else. He would keep the secret to himself: he was already beginning to see vaguely that it might be profitable. But there was no need to trade on it yet; he had carried out a good transaction with the vendor of fish, and rabbits ran by thousands in the woods.
"But shoo's a bad 'un, is yon Mistress Perris!" reflected Pippany. "An' her that theer religious an' all! I'll go to t' chappil o' Sunda' and hear her sing i' t' choyer."
He carried this design out on Sunday, and heard Rhoda sing a solo at each of the services. She sang better than ever, and the old women wiped tears off their cheeks, and Pippany listened with his mouth wide