‘My purse of money,’ he stammered. ‘I had ut safe in this pocket here, and now tis garn.’ His mouth filled with oaths, and they trickled out in a muddy stream. ‘Five silver shillens there was, as I’m a martal man.’
‘Ah,’ said Gipsy Noke, with a sly look at the rest of the company, ‘I’ll ’low there be a tidy lot of rogues will goo see a fellow creatur hanged.’ The folk of Marden Fee were for ever ‘allowing’ this or that; but their ‘I’ll ’low’ heralded no mere concession or admission, but something between a strong opinion and a confident conjecture. Gipsy, with his talent for popularity, had been quick to see the wisdom of acquiring the local turns of speech. ‘How it do strike me, Nat, is this way,’ he continued, answering Broome’s angry stare. ‘You was watchen un kick and choke, and tellen yourself what a fine lesson twas for them others as seen ut. This’ll larn un, says you, to steal harses. Ha, ha, he daun’t like that sart of caper, I’ll ’low, you says. And these good folks’ll think twice afore they fall into scaddle ways same as him, says you.’ Gipsy Noke spat on the floor and gazed at his work pensively. ‘Seems to me some furrin file musta thought twice about picken your poke, farmer. And liked the jape so well that he took and played ut.’
‘Five silver shillens,’ cried Broome. ‘Five silver shillens, neighbours! If I had un here,’ he went on, larding his speech with bitches and bastards, ‘if I had un here that took that purse of mine, I’d spile his face for un . . .’ Having briefly outlined his plan of vengeance, he began to remember, or think he remembered, that someone had jostled him at the very moment when they took the cart away and left the horse-thief hanging. ‘A liddle dirty foxy fellow there was at side of me, and when I turned round there worn’t a shim of him to see, and I thought no more on ut. A little foxy son of a . . .’
‘Lubin were a good lad,’ said Coachy Timms, in a voice that rang shrill and resonant as a bugle and gathered volume with every word. He paused. There was silence. ‘Lubin,’ he repeated mildly, ‘were a good lad and a lad of sperrit. He was fond of his paddock, and fond of his dam, and took his nurridgement hearty. To see them together, him and Brown Bess, twas a sight to see. Five hands you may say, and her tall as a house and broad in the belly as a schooner. He’d trot by her side round the madda as nice and neat as you could wish, keepen his head turned t’ards her, but with a big shy brown eyeball well cocked and open to t’other side and not missen much as went on. Yes, a lad of sperrit, and us had many a talk together after that first talk.’
Coachy paused to lift the pot to his lips, and the landlord took this chance of remarking that Jim Dander was on the road again, as he had heard, and there, said he, was a man for you that better deserved hanging than any mere horse-thief, for twas a pity if honest folk must travel armed at all points like a soldier, on pain of being held up and robbed and left in a ditch by the roadside. ‘A very notable scoundrel indeed,’ concluded the landlord, shaking his grave head. ‘Tis not ten days since he murdered the turnpike-keeper down Ludworth way, and passed himself off as the corpse, as you might put it, when the gentry came driving by.’
‘Ay,’ said Mykelborne.
‘Ay,’ echoed Shellett.
‘True enough,’ said Gipsy Noke.
‘I’d like to see him tumblen me into a ditch,’ cried Broome, with a braggart air.
‘So would I, Nat,’ said Gipsy Noke.
‘So would ee what?’ demanded Broome.
‘Like to see Jim Dander tumblen you into a ditch,’ said Gipsy Noke. ‘Twould be a rare sight.’
‘Come, neighbours, no belvering in my parlour.’ said Mr Bailey, laying a swift hand on Broome’s arm. ‘There’s the street outside, Nat Broome, for those that can’t take a handful of chaff without spitting dirt.’
The silence that followed was a silence big with dramatic possibilities. It was broken by the voice of Coachy Timms blandly resuming his tale. ‘He’d a mind of his own, that liddle colt, and a was a dentical feeder. But I soon had him in trim shape, and no ill feelen atwixt us.’
‘What, going, Nat!’ said Mr Bailey pleasantly. ‘Good night to you, I’m sure.’
The door shut with a slam.
‘And that’s why I say,’ said Coachy Timms, ‘that there be parsons and parsons, just as there be harses and harses. And the same hand made ’em all didn’t a? And he’s his good days and his bad days same as any other journeyman. A quick worker too, as I telled Parson Croup. Seven days is no great time for to make a warld in. I hope, says Parson, you’re of the true faith, Coachy. Squire’s a good squire, says he, but dauntee be led into papistry, friend. There’s a tidy shatter of sin already in the Fee, says Parson. Ah, says I, but us can’t all be saints like yourself, Parson. Goddle Mighty took time and trouble over you. But us ornary folk, us be made out of the shavens left over. What kind of talk be this? cries Parson in a pet. Is this the way to speak of the Deity? And why not, Reverence? Ancient of Days they do call him, but he be not a day older than the first day, nor never will be, to my thinken. He be a lad still, and he made ut all in play, sun moon and stars a-plenty, like a five-year-old blowen soap-bubbles on washen-day. Look at ’em all a-shimper, says he. Look at ’em floaten in the sky, mother! And he clapped he’s hands and saw that ut was good, same as the Book do say.’
‘That’s queer doctrine indeed,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘That’s a doctrine I’ve never encountered in my reading. What said Parson to it?’
‘As to that, I dunnaw,’ answered Coachy. ‘For I din understand a word. But why,’ he added, complainingly, ‘why daun’t young Gipsy putt us in heart wi’ a song or two?’
Everyone welcomed the suggestion; and Noke, stepping forward, fixed his gaze on the floor, and coughed once or twice, and stroked his throat nervously.
‘Well, what shall ut be, neighbours?’
‘All in a Misty Morning,’ suggested Mr Bailey. ‘That’s a tuneful piece.’
‘Nay,’ said Tom Shellett,’ give us Two Bumpkins Loved a Lass. That be tarrible lacherous,’ he added, with solemn joy.
‘The one I do know best,’ said Noke, bashfully, ‘be Tibb of Tottingham.’ But haply you’ve had he too often, neighbours?’
They all applauded his choice, and the singer, as if communing with himself, tried over his tune in a kind of whisper. Then after a few tentative false starts, he found the right pitch and began, in a full baritone: