Cheap Jack Zita

As Zita flew along the ice, she laughed for joy of heart. Never had she travelled so fast. Her wonted pace had been that of the snail, for she had made progress in a heavily-laden van, drawn by a depressed and stolid horse. She was whirled past one of the main pumps for throwing the water of the loads into the river, and before she conceived it possible, she had passed a second. And these engines, as Mark told her, were two miles apart. Jewel's fashion of travelling was very different from that of Mark. Along the smoothest and most level road he had been accustomed to crawl, and then, after having made his pulses throb and his sweat break out, to stand still, with head down, to revive himself. Then nothing would induce him to proceed till he considered himself refreshed, when he would stumble on for a couple of miles, and again pause. But Mark flew along as though he would never know exhaustion, and there was no bringing him to a standstill.

After several vain attempts to arrest him, Zita succeeded. He stood beside her sleigh with a smile on his pleasant face, and with the steam blowing from his nostrils.

'You must not go too far,' said Zita. 'We have come a long way from Prickwillow.'

'What! are you tired? You have not been dancing on sketches?'

'I do not understand your meaning.'

'Sketches?—does that word puzzle you as did patines? They are what some folk call stilts. I can run on them like a crane. But sketches are cumbrous, and, when the fen is soft, tire one speedily.'

'Let us return now.'

'No indeed. You have nothing to call you back. That fellow Drownlands, old scoundrel,—I beg your pardon,—will not be angry with you and thrash you, I suppose?'

'He is not at home. He has gone abroad for the day.'

'Then come along. We will visit Newport.'

'Please do not take me much farther.'

'Why not? Are you not enjoying the run?'

'I love it.'

'Then away we go. You are not afraid of travelling, with me as your horse?'

She looked straight into his bright, honest face, and laughed. 'No—you are too good for any one to fear you.'

'How do you know that?'

'You carry honesty in your eyes, and "good boy" written across your brow.'

'It is time for me to run,' laughed Mark, 'or my head will be turned.'

He buckled himself to his task, pranced from side to side, swinging the little sleigh to right and left, in his light-hearted frolic, and then away he went, running the sleigh with Zita in it straight along the canal.

The flatness, the monotony of the Fens, the absence of unshackled nature, the treelessness of the region, the lack of everything that can arrest the changing lights and passing shadows, combine to make the district one to send a chill into the mind of the visitor. Flat as the sea, it is devoid of its diversity of tint and tumultuous or glassy beauty. Nevertheless, the fen exercises a charm over the mind and holds with a spell the heart of the native. He can live nowhere else. He will not emigrate. He feels bound to spend all his days in the fen. Only when the vital spark expires does his body leave the turf to repose in the clay of the islet graveyards. That the farmer and landowner should love the fen is not marvellous, because of the richness of the soil and the profits they make out of it; but why the labourer should cling to the spongy turf is not so explicable. He may be discontented, and be a grumbler, but he is discontented with his lot, and envies the taverner or the smuggler on the Fens, grumbles at the hardness of his work or the lowness of his pay; but he is not discontented because the fen is so flat, and he has no word against its hideousness, or, at least, its uniformity.

One reason why the labourer in the Fens does not think of leaving it may be that he uses tools there different from those employed elsewhere, and he would have to learn his trade anew, employ unfamiliar tools, and be subjected to ridicule when handling them awkwardly. It is strange, but true, that those men are more naturally prone to leave their homes who inhabit mountainous lands than such as dwell in level districts.

How far was Mark going? How Zita flashed past the windmills, some of which had their sails in motion! A little rising ground showed, with some trees clustered on it—that must be Littleport.

'Mark,' said Zita suddenly, 'I want to ask you a question.'

'Say on,' said he, and relaxed the speed at which he was spinning her along, and finally came to a standstill. How pretty she was, with her glowing cheeks, her cherry lips, the light of the winter sun in her soft hazel eyes and in her rich, burnished, chestnut hair! How pretty that hair was now, in some confusion, puffed out of its order, the coppery strands on her brow, one down her cheek! The wildness of her appearance thus untidied by the wind made her more than ever charming.

Mark looked with eyes that could not be satiated with looking.

But it was not merely her beauty that struck him. It was the exuberant happiness that seemed to be bursting forth at her eyes, running out of her little head in every shining hair, glowing in those bright-tinted cheeks, burning in those carnation-red lips.

'Well, my dear little Zita, what is it?'

'Mark, it is something I have thought about and have puzzled over. It seems strange to speak about it now—now when I am so joyous—and it is connected with things so sad to me and to you.'

'But what is it, little rogue?'

'Mark, that terrible night when your father and mine died'—. She paused.

'Well, Zita?'

'Then—before his death, I mean—before the death of my own dear daddy, and I can't say whether it was before or after yours was drowned—I heard such a strange, such an awful sound.'

'Where?'

'In the sky—above; like the barking of dogs. It was just as though a hunter was going by with his pack. Shall I tell you what I thought it? It was just as if the dogs had smelt the fox, and gave tongue. Was it not dreadful? I could see nothing; I could hear—that was all.'

'I think nothing of that,' said Mark. 'I know our fen-folk say it is the devils running after a human soul. They have snuffed it from the bottomless pit, then the Great Hunter of Souls opens the kennel door, and out they burst, yelping, snapping, panting, and come after it.'

'Oh, Mark!'

'But if the soul be very nimble, it runs before them, runs on the wind, swift as an arrow, and slips in at heaven's gate, and then the evil spirits yelp and bay and bark outside. But it is all fudge and nonsense. I believe that the sound comes from the wild geese.'

'I shall ever think of this. Oh, I hope I shall never hear that dreadful sound again. My dear father—no—he would certainly escape those hounds. They would never catch him. For him the Golden Gate would be opened, and the dogs be shut outside. He was so gentle, so kind, so true. Oh, I loved him so—so much!' And thereupon the brightness was gone out of the sunny little face, and it was bathed in tears.

'Put all this aside. Think no more of it.'

'They were in full pursuit when I heard them.'

'The geese? And you are a little goose if you think more of this.'

'Mark, may I never hear that sound again!'

'Or, if you do, Zita, may I be near you to laugh your fears away. No, not laugh—kiss them away, as I do now.'

'Mark! you are a naughty boy! I did not think it of you.'

The roses had come back, and the glow was returned, and in one cheek deeper than the other.

CHAPTER XIII

PIP BEAMISH

'DO go on and leave me alone,' said Zita.

Then again the young man sped forward with the sledge, at full speed on his skates. There was a glow of something more than health—something more than the reaction produced by the fresh wind—in his cheeks.

'Here's a joke!' exclaimed Mark, stopping for a moment. 'I see quite a throng round Beamish's mill.'

Again he went on. And Zita, looking in the direction he had indicated, saw that a considerable number of persons was collected, some on the banks, some on the ice, and as many as could be accommodated on the brick platform of a windmill.

Without halting, Mark said, 'The paddle can't go because of the frost, but Pip Beamish's tongue can wag, and when it wags it is for mischief. He is a restless, dissatisfied rascal. We'll go and hear what he has to say.'

Mark stayed the sledge when he reached the outer ring of the congregation that was gathered together about the mill.

The day was Sunday, so no work was being done. There were idlers everywhere, specially on the ice. In present days there is little church-going in the Fens, in former days there was none. Churches are few and far apart. In mediæval times the monks of Ely had chapels on every islet that rose a few feet above the meres, and they boated from one to another, gathering around them for divine service and moral instruction the aquatic population of the Fens. With the Reformation these chapels were let fall into ruin, and care for the souls of the fen-dwellers ceased. The canons of the cathedral were wealthy and idle, and it never so much as occurred to their sleepy, stagnant consciences that they had duties to perform towards the inhabitants of the district whence they drew their revenues.

When the meres were dried, and settlers occupied the drained land, then the parochial clergy were unable to cope with the altered condition of affairs. The roads were impassable, the distances enormous, their incomes had not increased with the alteration in the value of the lands included in their vast parishes. Consequently, the fen-folk came to think little of their religious duties. The church towers might serve as landmarks, but the church pastors were not spiritual guides. The only form of religion that commended itself to an amphibious population was Anabaptism, and that mainly because it consisted of a good souse in fen-water. A few of the sterner spirits settled into the sect, but the bulk of the natives grew up and lived without any religion at all; or, if they professed to be Christians, they took care to allow it in no way to interfere with their profits or their pleasures.

The assemblage about the mill consisted of labouring men and their wives; some were in their Sunday clothes, but others had not taken the trouble to 'clean' themselves. Such were the men who lounged about on holidays with springes and nets in their pockets, and a gun barrel up the left sleeve.

A stool was planted close to the mill, and on it stood a young man with high cheek-bones, long dark hair, and glittering eyes under heavy, bushy brows. He had unusually lengthy arms, and at the extremities of the arms unusually broad, flat hands. These he flourished about. He drew in his elbows to his sides, and emphasised an appeal by suddenly throwing out his arms and extending his fingers. Having his back to the mill, which was constructed of boards, what he said was audible to some distance. The boards served as reverberators.

'I say it is a sin,' shouted the orator. 'Here be the farmers turning earth into corn, and corn into gold guineas, and the men as helps them to do it ain't paid enough to keep body and soul together. What was wheat a quarter only a short while ago? It was one hundred and twenty shillings and sixpence. Now it is ninety-six shillings. And what are the wages? Seven to ten shillings. What is the difference between seven shillings and ninety-six? Eighty-nine, is it not? That is what goes into the farmers' pockets. Who do all the work? And who get all the gains? Look into every stackyard and see what wheat is there for the rats and mice to eat,—they are not begrudged it, let them eat,—but you and your children must starve. Why are not the stacks threshed out? Because the farmers are waiting till the wheat goes up to one hundred and twenty-six shillings again. You may perish of hunger—that is nothing to them. Your children may run naked—that is nothing to them. You may drink fen-water because you haven't twopence to pay for a half-pint of beer—that is nothing to them. You mayn't have a blanket to throw over your beds this freezing weather—they don't care. You may have the walls of your cots so full of cracks that the wind whistles through them—they don't care. Your hands have held the plough, your hands have sown the corn, your wives and children have hoed it three times, you have reaped it, you have stacked it—and there it stands for rats and mice to eat, till prices go up to one hundred and twenty-six shillings. Ninety-six is not good enough for them,—these bloodsuckers,—and you are content to let things remain so. What I maintain is, that you have a right to say to the farmers, "Thresh out now while we are hungry; the price is too high even now for us, and why should sad days for us be golden days for you?"'

His address was received with applause.

Mark turned to Zita and said in a low tone, 'He is right after a fashion. I'll set to work and thresh to-morrow. I'll let the labourers who are on my farm have this corn ten per cent. under market price. I cannot act fairer than that.'

'And how is it with the millers?' pursued the orator. 'Don't they take toll of every sack of corn you send to them to be ground? Are not their pigs and cows kept fat on what the miller's fist brings up out of your flour? As if it were not enough that you were cheated by the farmer, you must be cheated also by the miller. Pillaged in every way, pinched on every side, trodden on by every one—that is your fate.'

His words met with applause.

'We have gone on hoping, and we have been disappointed. What good comes to us from Parliament? None at all. What help do we get from the laws? The laws are made for the benefit of the farmer, and not for the poor man. What good to us are magistrates—justices of the peace? They are appointed to hold us down, to fine and imprison us. They are the farmer's friends, not the friends of the poor man. We are told that Old Boney is the foe of our country. Men are called from the plough, plucked away from their wives and children, to serve the king against this Bonaparte. What does patriotism mean? It means loving the country where we are ill-treated and starved, loving the king who never concerns himself about us, loving the laws that oppress us, loving the magistrates who imprison us, loving the farmers who are sucking the marrow out of our bones. I'm no patriot. As well ask a poor prisoner to love his jail, shed his blood in its defence. I'll tell you what it is, friends, Heaven helps them who help themselves. No good will come to us from waiting. Heaven is silent so long as we bear and do nothing, but Heaven will send its lightning and hailstones when we take the matter into our own hands. It was so in the day of battle in Gibeon; then the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon the oppressors of Israel, and made sun and moon to stand still till they were cut to pieces, smitten hip and thigh. The great stones would have remained in the clouds, sun and moon have taken their usual courses, had not Joshua and Israel armed themselves to fight—to right their own wrongs. So will it be again, so has it ever been, so will it be unto the end. We must raise our hands to fight our fight, raise our hands against our oppressors, or there will be no help for us from on high. If you remain hoping and doing nothing, then, as I said before—to be trampled into the mud—that is your fate.'

'And to be thrashed and to be kicked out of employ—that is what is laid up for you, you rascal!' shouted an imperious voice.

Zita and Mark looked round, and saw behind them Drownlands on his horse.

'I will see to you, Pip Beamish, as sure as that I am a Commissioner,' continued the master of Prickwillow. 'You were not set to tend a mill that you might stump it and foment ill-feeling. I shall report what you have said at the next meeting of the Commissioners, and shall have you cast adrift.' Then, turning to the audience, Drownlands brandished his whip and cried, 'As for the rest of you, disperse instantly, or I will ride up and down among you and lash you with my whip, and send you skipping home.'

The crowd broke up into knots, then further dissolved and dispersed.

'I'll have your names, and see that you are thrown out of employ. Get home at once, before the whip is at your breech.'

The haughty, commanding tone of the man, and the knowledge that he was one ready to execute his threats, seemed to make those who hesitated consider that the better part of valour was discretion, and they scattered in all directions.

Drownlands, upright in his stirrups, looked about him, marking those who seemed reluctant to obey his orders. Then his eye rested on Zita. His face changed immediately.

'You here?'

'Mark ran me up in his sleigh.'

'Mark? Mark? What Mark? How dare you come here without leave from me?'

'I am not your servant. I am not your prisoner. I go where I choose. I do what I will,' answered Zita, nettled at his tone.

'Hallo!' scoffed Drownlands. 'What! has the mad folly of Ephraim Beamish infected your little brain?'

'My brain is sound enough. It is you, Master Drownlands, who forget what your place is, and what is mine. You are not my master. I am not your servant. I pay my way. I am a lodger at Prickwillow, nothing more. If I please to go out for a run on the ice with Mark, I am not idle. I have done my work in your house, and may enjoy myself as I like.'

'Do not bandy words with me.'

'It is of no use arguing with him,' whispered the young yeoman. 'He is in one of his passions, when he acts and talks unreasonably. Take no notice of him.'

'What are you whispering about? Making mock of me?' roared Drownlands.

'Come, Cheap Jack,' said Mark, 'jump on to the sleigh again; and you, Master Drownlands,' he looked at the horseman with a laugh, 'let us race—you on the bank, I on the canal—and Zita the prize.'

CHAPTER XIV

ON ONE FOOTING

ZITA was back at Prickwillow long before the master.

She anticipated a scene with him and prepared for it. He was wont to domineer in his house and on the farm, and she had just seen how he domineered and enforced his will on an assemblage of men not under subjection to him.

She was sensible that he had gradually assumed towards herself an air of authority, but he had not hitherto addressed her in a dictatorial tone so distinct as to provoke resistance. She had, however, perceived that the time was approaching when some understanding must be reached as to her position and their mutual relations. She was not a domestic in the house, to be ordered about or to have her liberty curtailed. She had accepted his hospitality, not entered into his service.

Zita was alive to the fact that every one in the house and on the farm—Mrs. Tunkiss, the shaking maid-of-all-work, the herd, the labourers, the stable-boy—all stood in awe of him. The housekeeper was as a lamb under his reprimand; a word addressed to the girl with St. Vitus' dance drove her into convulsions; an order given to the men galvanised them into momentary agility and sent the boy skipping like a flea. Zita despised them for their subserviency. She was not afraid of Drownlands. She knew that concerning him which was sufficient to make him quake before her.

Zita had been accustomed to face men of every description. Her father had stood between her and coarse insult, but she had been obliged to confront men rude, boisterous, and disposed to take advantage of her weakness, and had acquired readiness in dealing with them, and nerve not to show timidity.

When she had seen the cringe and cower of those whom Drownlands had threatened, she tossed her chestnut gold head in a manner expressive of impatience.

Drownlands had noticed this, and Zita had seen in his darkening brow that he had observed, was surprised and offended at the contemptuous action. The moment was not far off when he would test his strength against hers.

'The sooner the better,' said Zita to herself; and, instead of avoiding him, she went across the yard to meet him as he rode up the drove. She took his horse by the bridle and said, 'I will lead him to the stable; the men are at chapel or the beerhouse, and the boy is with the cows.'

'You won't curry favour by doing this,' said Drownlands.

'Curry favour? I curry nothing. Currycomb your horse yourself!'

'I want a word with you, Cheap Jack.'

'And I with you, Fen-tiger—we must settle terms.'

'Terms? What terms?'

'The price of my lodging.'

'I do not understand you.'

'I have a capital copper warming-pan,' said Zita, 'with George and the Dragon on the lid. A stunner. I've reckoned up what meat I've ate, and all I've drunk, and the wear and tear of knives, linen, dishes, and so forth, and I think the copper warming-pan will cover it all.'

Drownlands had flung himself from his horse.

He stared at Zita; he did not in the least seize her meaning.

'If you don't care for a warming-pan,' she said, 'then there's half a dozen red plush weskits, with gilded buttons and dogs' heads on 'em—you can't wear all six, but take your choice and I'll make up with scrubbing-brushes, starch, and blue. I think the tiger-skin and a red weskit under it, and them bushy eyebrows tied in a knot as they be now, will make such a figure of you as will drive babies and girls into fits.'

'You are mocking me! You dare to do that?'

'I'm not mocking you, though I don't say I'm not inclined to whisk a red weskit before you, when you stamp and blare like a bull—for fun, you know. I love fun, but I am not mocking you. I am too much obliged to you for receiving me to do that.'

'I will turn you out—you and your van—into the winter frost.'

'When? To-morrow? I am ready to go.'

'You shall not go!' exclaimed Drownlands, coming round the head of the horse to her and seizing her wrist. 'You shall not go; I know why you want to leave me. I know whither you want to go.'

'Whither?'

'To Crumbland.'

'I have not been invited there; but if you turn me out, I shall find a shakedown somewhere. There is that girl Kenappuch at the mill. She'll have me for certain, and I'll pay her; not so high as a warming-pan, but in currants and figs and a roll of calico. The accommodation won't be so good as yours, nor the feeding so liberal.'

'You have got to know her also?'

'Yes.'

'And Mark Runham?'

'Yes; he has got to know me. That's the way to put it.'

'You are resolved to seek friends where I disapprove—among those who are my enemies?'

'I know nothing and care less about your quarrels. I've got acquainted with both, and they are the only persons in the Fens for whom I care'—

'Oh, you care only for them.'

'Outside Prickwillow. You cut me short before I had finished my sentence. That is bad manners. If we kept manners in stock, I'd sell you a penn'orth.'

'Ah,' said Drownlands, for a moment relaxing his iron grasp, 'you allow me some of your regard?'

'I always care for every one who is kind to me, and you have been kind to both me and my poor father.' At the mention of her father Zita's lips and voice quivered, and tears filled her eyes. 'You were good to him. I do not forget that, and I'll pay you for it in anything I have got that you fancy. What do you say to smoked mother-of-pearl buttons?'

'Will you be quiet?' roared Drownlands, with an oath.

'Or,' continued Zita, 'there are several pounds of strong fish-glue. It went soft and got mouldy in the van, but I got it dry in the kitchen and wiped the mould off. It is all right now; the strength isn't taken out of it. A shilling a pound is what it would cost you in Ely, but as I offer it to you, I'll knock off twopence. You shall have it for tenpence per pound—so you see I do care for you, twopence in the shilling.'

Drownlands' face darkened; he pressed the girl's wrist so that she uttered an exclamation of pain.

'You hurt me,' she said; 'that's something off your account.'

'You are making a jest of me!' gasped the man. 'And you dare to do so? You are not afraid?'

'What should I be afraid of?'

'I can hurt you—worse than by nipping your wrist.'

'And I can defend myself,' she answered. 'I afraid of you? No; it was you who trembled and screamed like a woman when I touched you on the river bank that night we first met. It is you who have reason to be afraid of me.'

The colour went out of his face.

'No, I am not afraid of you,' continued Zita. 'I remember how, when you sought to ride on, I stopped your way, and drove you where I wanted you to go—drove you with the flail.'