Rewards and Fairies

‘And which had she really looked at?’ Dan asked.

‘Neither – except to wish them farther off. She was afraid all the while they’d spill dishes on her gown. She tells ’em this, poor chicks – and it completes their abasement. When they had grilled long enough, she says: “And so you would have fleshed your maiden swords for me – for me?" Faith, they would have been at it again if she’d egged ’em on! but their swords – oh, prettily they said it! – had been drawn for her once or twice already.

‘“And where?” says she. “On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?”

‘“On my own ship,” says the elder. “My cousin was vice-admiral of our venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling children.”

‘“No, no,” says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. “At least the Spaniards know us better.”

‘“Admiral Boy – Vice-Admiral Babe,” says Gloriana, “I cry your pardon. The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly than I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break your Queen’s peace?”

‘“On the sea called the Spanish Main, though ’tis no more Spanish than my doublet,” says the elder. Guess how that warmed Gloriana’s already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be called Spanish in her private hearing.

‘“And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid it? Disclose,” says she. “You stand in some danger of the gallows for pirates.”

‘“The axe, most gracious lady,” says the elder, “for we are gentle born.” He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction. "Hoity-toity,” says she, and, but that she remembered that she was a Queen, she’d have cuffed the pair of ’em. “It shall be gallows, hurdle, and dung-cart if I choose.”

‘“Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held her to blame for some small things we did on the seas,” the younger lisps.

‘“As for treasure,” says the elder, “we brought back but our bare lives. We were wrecked on the Gascons’ Graveyard, where our sole company for three months was the bleached bones of De Avila’s men.”

‘Gloriana’s mind jumped back to Philip’s last letter.

‘“De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d’dou know of him?” she says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back between the yews.

‘“Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics – eight hundred or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De Avila’s men, and very justly hung ’em all for murderers – five hundred or so. No Christians inhabit there now,” says the elder lad, “though ’tis a goodly land north of Florida.”

‘“How far is it from England?” asks prudent Gloriana.

‘“With a fair wind, six weeks. They say that Philip will plant it again soon.” This was the younger, and he looked at her out of the corner of his innocent eye.

‘Chris Hatton, fuming, meets and leads her into Brickwall Hall, where she dances – thus. A woman can think while she dances – can think. I’ll show you. Watch!’

She took off her cloak slowly, and stood forth in dove-coloured satin, worked over with pearls that trembled like running water in the running shadows of the trees. Still talking – more to herself than to the children – she swam into a majestical dance of the stateliest balancings, the haughtiest wheelings and turnings aside, the most dignified sinkings, the gravest risings, all joined together by the elaboratest interlacing steps and circles.

They leaned forward breathlessly to watch the splendid acting.

‘Would a Spaniard,’ she began, looking on the ground, ‘speak of his revenge till his revenge were ripe? No. Yet a man who loved a woman might threaten her in the hope that his threats would make her love him. Such things have been.’ She moved slowly across a bar of sunlight. ‘A destruction from the West may signify that Philip means to descend on Ireland. But then my Irish spies would have had some warning. The Irish keep no secrets. No – it is not Ireland. Now why – why – why’ – the red shoes clicked and paused – ‘does Philip name Pedro Melendez de Avila, a general in his Americas, unless’ – she turned more quickly – ‘unless he intends to work his destruction from the Americas? Did he say De Avila only to put her off her guard, or for this once has his black pen betrayed his black heart? We’ – she raised herself to her full height – ‘England must forestall Master Philip. But not openly,’ she sank again – ‘we cannot fight Spain openly – not yet – not yet.’ She stepped three paces as though she were pegging down some snare with her twinkling shoe-buckles. ‘The Queen’s mad gentlemen may fight Philip’s poor admirals where they find ’em, but England, Gloriana, Harry’s daughter, must keep the peace. Perhaps, after all, Philip loves her – as many men and boys do. That may help England. Oh, what shall help England?’

She raised her head – the masked head that seemed to have nothing to do with the busy feet – and stared straight at the children.

‘I think this is rather creepy,’ said Una with a shiver. ‘I wish she’d stop.’

The lady held out her jewelled hand as though she were taking some one else’s hand in the Grand Chain.

‘Can a ship go down into the Gascons’ Graveyard and wait there?’ she asked into the air, and passed on rustling.

‘She’s pretending to ask one of the cousins, isn’t she?’ said Dan, and Puck nodded.

Back she came in the silent, swaying, ghostly dance. They saw she was smiling beneath the mask, and they could hear her breathing hard.

‘I cannot lend you any my ships for the venture; Philip would hear of it,’ she whispered over her shoulder; ‘but as much guns and powder as you ask, if you do not ask too – ’ her voice shot up and she stamped her foot thrice. ‘Louder! Louder, the music in the gallery! Oh, me, but I have burst out of my shoe!’

She gathered her skirts in each hand, and began a curtsy. ‘You will go at your own charges,’ she whispered straight before her. ‘Oh, enviable and adorable age of youth!’ Her eyes shone through the mask-holes. ‘But I warn you you’ll repent it. Put not your trust in princes – or Queens. Philip’s ships’ll blow you out of water. You’ll not be frightened? Well, we’ll talk on it again, when I return from Rye, dear lads.’

The wonderful curtsy ended. She stood up. Nothing stirred on her except the rush of the shadows.

‘And so it was finished,’ she said to the children. ‘Why d’you not applaud?’

‘What was finished?’ said Una.

‘The dance,’ the lady replied offendedly. ‘And a pair of green shoes.’

‘I don’t understand a bit,’ said Una.

‘Eh? What did you make of it, young Burleigh?’

‘I’m not quite sure,’ Dan began, ‘but – ’

‘You never can be – with a woman. But – ’

‘But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons’ Graveyard, wherever that was.’

‘’Twas Virginia afterwards. Her plantation of Virginia.’

‘Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn’t she say she’d lend ’em guns?’

‘Right so. But not ships —then.’

‘And I thought you meant they must have told her they’d do it off their own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?’

‘Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye Royal – knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it.

‘“You would not birch them when I gave you the chance,” says she to Chris. “Now you must get me half an hour’s private speech with ’em in Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!"’

‘She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself,’ said Una.

The lady shook her head. ‘That was never her way. I’ve seen her walk to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight there is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What else – what else in England’s name could she have done?’ She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment. ‘Faith,’ she cried, ‘I’d forgotten the little green shoes! She left ’em at Brickwall – so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem parson – John Withers, was he? – a text for his sermon – "Over Edom have I cast out my shoe.” Neat, if he’d understood!’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Una. ‘What about the two cousins?’

‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. I told you I gave ’em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of ’em at first than to wait a while off that coast – the Gascons’ Graveyard – to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way – they had only one tall ship and a pinnace – only to watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none – none!’ She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.

‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ’em that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ’em again that there could be only one end to it – quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ’em, and slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young men beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me – ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’

Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it.

‘She showed ’em all. I told ’em that this was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England’s sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ’em so) to give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must lie – oh, I told ’em all – under my sovereign displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it.

‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that my face was made for the day.)

‘“Either way – any way – this venture is death, which I know you fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried.

‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the younger.

‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.”

‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We will go!” They knelt at my feet.

‘“Nay, dear lads – but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and I kissed them.

‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court."

‘“Hire whom you please,” says the elder; “we are ruled by you, body and soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed ’em, says between his white lips, “I think you have power to make a god of a man."

‘“Come to Court and be sure of it,” I says.

‘They shook their heads and I knew – I knew, that go they would. If I had not kissed them – perhaps I might have prevailed.’

‘Then why did you do it?’ said Una. ‘I don’t think you knew really what you wanted done.’

‘May it please your Majesty,’ the lady bowed her head low, ‘this Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a Queen. Remember her when you come to your kingdom.’

‘But did the cousins go to the Gascons’ Graveyard?’ said Dan, as Una frowned.

‘They went,’ said the lady.

‘Did they ever come back?’ Una began; but – ‘Did they stop King Philip’s fleet?’ Dan interrupted.

The lady turned to him eagerly.

‘D’you think they did right to go?’ she asked.

‘I don’t see what else they could have done,’ Dan replied, after thinking it over.

‘D’you think she did right to send ’em?’ The lady’s voice rose a little.

‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t see what else she could have done, either – do you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia?’

‘There’s the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make you alter your mind, young Burleigh?’

‘I expect they were drowned, then. Anyhow, Philip didn’t score, did he?’

‘Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won, would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads’ lives?’

‘Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.’

The lady coughed. ‘You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen, I’d make you Minister.’

‘We don’t play that game,’ said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through Willow Shaw.

‘Play!’ said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly. The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash till Una’s eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on his knees picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate.

‘There wasn’t anybody in the Shaw, after all,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you think you saw some one?’

‘I’m most awfully glad there isn’t,’ said Una. Then they went on with the potato-roast.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

Queen Bess was Harry’s daughter!The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old,Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold.Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass,Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass.The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lassAs comely or as kindly or as young as once she was!The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair,There came Queen Mary’s spirit and it stood behind her chair,Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass,But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass.The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lassAs lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!’The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore,There came Lord Leicester’s spirit and it scratched upon the door,Singing, ‘Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass,But I will walk beside you till you face the looking-glass.The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lassAs hard and unforgiving or as wicked as you was!’The Queen was in her chamber; her sins were on her head;She looked the spirits up and down and statelily she said:‘Backwards and forwards and sideways though I’ve been,Yet I am Harry’s daughter and I am England’s Queen!’And she faced the looking-glass (and whatever else there was),And she saw her day was over and she saw her beauty passIn the cruel looking-glass that can always hurt a lassMore hard than any ghost there is or any man there was!

The Wrong Thing

A TRUTHFUL SONG

IThe Bricklayer: —I tell this tale which is strictly true,Just by way of convincing youHow very little since things were madeThings have altered in the building trade.A year ago, come the middle o’ March,We was building flats near the Marble Arch,When a thin young man with coal-black hairCame up to watch us working there.Now there wasn’t a trick in brick or stoneThat this young man hadn’t seen or known;Nor there wasn’t a tool from trowel to maulBut this young man could use ’em all!Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold,Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold:‘Since you with us have made so free,Will you kindly say what your name might be?’The young man kindly answered them:‘It might be Lot or Methusalem,Or it might be Moses (a man I hate),Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great.‘Your glazing is new and your plumbing’s strange,But otherwise I perceive no change,And in less than a month if you do as I bidI’d learn you to build me a Pyramid.’IIThe Sailor: —I tell this tale which is stricter true,Just by way of convincing youHow very little since things was madeThings have altered in the shipwright’s trade.In Blackwall Basin yesterdayA China barque re-fitting lay,When a fat old man with snow-white hairCame up to watch us working there.Now there wasn’t a knot which the riggers knewBut the old man made it – and better too;Nor there wasn’t a sheet, or a lift, or a brace,But the old man knew its lead and place.Then up and spake the caulkyers bold,Which was packing the pump in the after-hold:‘Since you with us have made so free,Will you kindly tell what your name might be?’The old man kindly answered them:‘It might be Japhet, it might be Shem,Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark),Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark.‘Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange,But otherwise I perceive no change,And in less than a week, if she did not ground,I’d sail this hooker the wide world round!’Both: We tell these tales which are strictest true, etc.

The Wrong Thing

Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr. Springett’s yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose. Old Mr. Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and his yard, which opened off the village street, was always full of interesting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a ladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold planks, tins of paints, pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here by the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard below, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter’s bench near the loft window. Mr. Springett and Dan had always been particular friends, for Mr. Springett was so old he could remember when railways were being made in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed to drive dogs in carts.

One hot, still afternoon – the tar-paper on the roof smelt like ships – Dan, in his shirt sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner’s bow, and Mr. Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He said he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any man, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the village Hall at the entrance to the village, which he had finished a few weeks before.

‘An’ I don’t mind tellin’ you, Mus’ Dan,’ he said, ‘that the Hall will be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn’t make ten pounds – no, nor yet five – out o’ the whole contrac’, but my name’s lettered on the foundation stone —Ralph Springett, Builder– and the stone she’s bedded on four foot good concrete. If she shifts any time these five hundred years, I’ll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec’ so when he come down to oversee my work.’

‘What did he say?’ Dan was sandpapering the schooner’s port bow.

‘Nothing. The Hall ain’t more than one of his small jobs for him, but ’tain’t small to me, an’ my name is cut and lettered, frontin’ the village street, I do hope an’ pray, for time everlastin.’ You’ll want the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who’s there?’ Mr. Springett turned stiffly in his chair.

A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan looked, and saw Hal of the Draft’s touzled head beyond them.3

‘Be you the builder of the village Hall?’ he asked of Mr. Springett.

‘I be,’ was the answer. ‘But if you want a job – ’

Hal laughed. ‘No, faith!’ he said. ‘Only the Hall is as good and honest a piece of work as I’ve ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts, and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.’

‘Aa – um!’ Mr. Springett looked important. ‘I be a bit rusty, but I’ll try ye!’

He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr. Springett’s desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr. Springett about bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on with his work. He knew Mr. Springett was pleased, because he tugged his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal said something about workmen.

‘Why, that’s what I always say,’ Mr. Springett cried. ‘A man who can only do one thing, he’s but next-above-fool to the man that can’t do nothing. That’s where the Unions make their mistake.’

‘My thought to the very dot.’ Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg. ‘I’ve suffered in my time from these same Guilds – Unions d’you call ’em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades – why, what does it come to?’

‘Nothin’! You’ve just about hit it,’ said Mr. Springett, and rammed his hot tobacco with his thumb.

‘Take the art of wood-carving,’ Hal went on. He reached across the planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he wanted something. Mr. Springett without a word passed him one of Dan’s broad chisels. ‘Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and have a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a Heaven’s name take chisel and mall and let drive at it, say I! You’ll soon find all the mystery, forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!’ Whack, came the mallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr. Springett watched like an old raven.

‘All art is one, man – one!’ said Hal between whacks; ‘and to wait on another man to finish out – ’

‘To finish out your work ain’t no sense,’ Mr. Springett cut in. ‘That’s what I’m always saying to the boy here.’ He nodded towards Dan. ‘That’s what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster’s Mill in Eighteen hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job ’thout bringin’ a man from Lunnon. An’ besides, dividin’ work eats up profits, no bounds.’

Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr. Springett joined in till Dan laughed too.

‘You handle your tools, I can see,’ said Mr. Springett. ‘I reckon, if you’re any way like me, you’ve found yourself hindered by those – Guilds, did you call ’em? – Unions, we say.’

‘You may say so!’ Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheek-bone. ‘This is a remembrance from the master watching Foreman of Masons on Magdalen Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave. They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.’

‘I know them accidents. There’s no way to disprove ’em. An’ stones ain’t the only things that slip,’ Mr. Springett grunted. Hal went on:

‘I’ve seen a scaffold-plank keckle and shoot a too-clever workman thirty foot on to the cold chancel floor below. And a rope can break – ’

‘Yes, natural as nature; an’ lime’ll fly up in a man’s eyes without any breath o’ wind sometimes,’ said Mr. Springett. ‘But who’s to show ’twasn’t a accident?’

‘Who do these things?’ Dan asked, and straightened his back at the bench as he turned the schooner end-for-end in the vice to get at her counter.

‘Them which don’t wish other men to work no better nor quicker than they do,’ growled Mr. Springett. ‘Don’t pinch her so hard in the vice, Mus’ Dan. Put a piece o’ rag in the jaws, or you’ll bruise her. More than that’ – he turned towards Hal – ‘if a man has his private spite laid up against you, the Unions give him his excuse for working it off.’

‘Well I know it,’ said Hal.

‘They never let you go, them spiteful ones. I knowed a plasterer in Eighteen hundred Sixty-one – down to the Wells. He was a Frenchy – a bad enemy he was.’

‘I had mine too. He was an Italian, called Benedetto. I met him first at Oxford on Magdalen Tower when I was learning my trade – or trades, I should say. A bad enemy he was, as you say, but he came to be my singular good friend,’ said Hal as he put down the mallet and settled himself comfortably.