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young wife was gallivanting with her lover, all the same, if he had found out
what was being stored in the granary, Pugwalker would have been kicked out of
the house, and she could have whistled for him till she was black in the face.
My father was easy-going enough in some ways, but there were places in him as
hard as nails, and no woman, be she never so much of a fool (and, fair play to
my stepmother, she was no fool), can live with a man without finding out where
these places are."
"Oh, ho! So what Diggory Carp said about the contents of that sack was true,
was it?" And Master
Nathaniel inwardly thanked his stars that no harm had come to Ranulph during
his stay in such a dangerous place.
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"Oh, it was true, and no mistake; and, child though I was at the time, I cried
through half one night with rage when they told me what the hussy had said in
court about my father using the stuff as manure and her begging him not to!
Begging him not to, indeed! I could have told them a very different story. And
it was Pugwalker that was at the back of that business, and got the granary
key from her, so they could run their goods there. And shortly before my
father died he got wind of it I know that from something I
overheard. The room I shared with my little brother Robin opened into theirs,
and we always kept the door ajar, because Robin was a timid child, and fancied
he couldn't go to sleep unless he heard my father snoring. Well, about a week
before my father died I heard him talking to her in a voice I'd never known
him to use to her before. He said he'd warned her twice already that year, and
that this was the last time.
Up to that time he'd held his head high, he said, because his hands were clean
and all his doings straight and fair, and now he warned her for the last time
that unless this business was put a stop to once and for
all, he'd have Pugwalker tarred and feathered, and make the neighbourhood too
hot for him to stay in it.
And, I remember, I heard him hawking and spitting, as if he'd rid himself of
something foul. And he said that the Gibbertys had always been respected, and
that the farm, ever since they had owned it, had helped to make the people of
Dorimare straight-limbed and clean-blooded, for it had sent fresh meat and
milk to market, and good grain to the miller, and sweet grapes to the vintner,
and that he would rather sell the farm than that poison and filth should be
sent out of his granary, to turn honest lads into idiots gibbering at the
moon. And then she started coaxing him, but she spoke too low for me to catch
the words. But she must have been making him some promise, for he said
gruffly, `Well, see that it's done, then, for I'm a man of my word.'
"And in not much more than a week after that he was dead poor father. And I
count it a miracle that
I ever grew up and am sitting here now telling you all this. And a still
greater one that little Robin grew up to be a man, for he inherited the farm.
But it was her own little girl that died, and Robin grew up and married, and
though he died in his prime it was through a quinsy in his throat, and he
always got on with our stepmother, and wouldn't hear a word against her. And
she has brought up his little girl, for her mother died when she was born. But
I've never seen the lass, for there was never any love lost between me and my
stepmother, and I never went back to the old house after I married."
She paused, and in her eyes was that wistful, tranced look that always comes
when one has been gazing at things that happened to one long ago.
"I see, I see," said Master Nathaniel meditatively. "And Pugwalker? Did you
ever see him again till you recognized him in the streets of Lud the other
day?"
She shook her head. "No, he disappeared, as I told you, just before the trial.
Though I don't doubt that she knew his whereabouts and heard from him met
him even; for she was always going out by herself after nightfall. Well, well,
I've told you everything I know though perhaps I'd have better held my
tongue, for little good comes of digging up the past."
Master Nathaniel said nothing; he was evidently pondering her story.
"Well," he said finally, "everything you have told me has been very
interesting very interesting indeed. But whether it will lead to anything
definite is another matter. All the evidence is purely circumstantial.
However, I'm very grateful to you for having spoken to me as freely as you've
done. And if I find out anything further I'll let you know. I shall be leaving
Lud shortly, but I shall keep in touch with you. And, under the circumstances,
perhaps it would be prudent to agree on some word or token by which you would
recognize a messenger as really coming from me, for the fellow you knew as
Pugwalker has not grown less cunning with advancing years he's full of
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guile, and let him once get wind of what we're after, he'd be up to all sorts
of tricks to make our plans miscarry. What shall the token be?"
Then his eyes began to twinkle: "I've got it!" he cried. "Just to give you a
little lesson in swearing, which you say you dislike so much, we'll make it a
good round oath. You'll know a messenger comes from me if he greets you with
the words, By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!
"
And he rubbed his hands in delight, and shouted with laughter. Master
Nathaniel was a born tease.
"For shame, you saucy fellow!" dimpled Mistress Ivy. "You're as bad as my poor
Peppercorn. He used always . . ."
But even Master Nathaniel had had his fill of reminiscences. So he cut her
short with a hearty good-bye, and renewed thanks for all she had told him.
But he turned back from the door to hold up his finger and say with mock
solemnity, "Remember, it's to be
By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!
"
Chapter XIX
The Berries of Merciful Death
Late into that night Master Nathaniel paced the floor of his pipe-room, trying
to pierce through the
intervening medium of the dry words of the Law and the vivider though less
reliable one of Mistress Ivy's memory, and reach that old rustic tragedy, as
it had been before the vultures of Time had left nothing of it but dry bones.
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