The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 29 October 1908, Page 3

The Storyteller

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

' Seem' as how the times be main bad for farming Mr. Longcrof t. ' ' Aye?' said John Longcroft, grimly, with his hands clasped on the crook of his" stick. ' Main bad and difficult they be, and what with labor so 1 scarce of late and all ' ' Aye?' said the old man again, gazing straight at the barrows on the door above. ' Well, I looked at it this way : My client being a liberal gentleman, uncommon liberal he be, and main set on this here notion, 'cc might bo disposed to come half ways to meet him like, and be all the better for it, eh?' -~ ' What do he want, then? I ant heard tell o' that yet,' the old man said, with a look in his eye that seemed to say he could make a pretty fair guess. 1 Well, he be lookin' out for a nice bit of property, 'cc do see, some sweet pretty spot, he says, fine dry soil and all, and— well, there, Mr. Longcroft, I thought as how you might be willing to sell him Whitelands. ' The house agent mopped his face nervously and watched his friend out of the corner of his eye. The old man slowly turned and faced him. ' I know thee nigh forty year, Dan'l Pigg, and I never looked for thee to come to I and talk to I like that. Hark here— l were born at Whitelands, and my father, and his father, and many more before they, as thou dost know well enough ; and I could just as soon sell Whitelands as sell they dead men in their graves up on the down. He pointed his stick at the crest of the great chalk hill above them, where the nine barrows stood dark against the fading October sky. A long stream of rooks was passing high above, and their far-off cawing came clearly through the stiltness. 'Well, well, Mr. Longcroft,' said Daniel Pigg at last; 'I didn't think 'ee'd do it; no, I didn't think 'ee'd do it, that's sure. But we have our duties to one and to tot'her like, so I sort o' dropped along here to make certain o' what I should say.' ' Now, 'ec do know right enough, and that's the end on ' it,' said John Longcroft. ' Well, here be Mary and the missus come out to ask 'cc in to supper, Dan'l. Will 'cc stop and have a bit? There'll be a nice moon up in an hours' time for 'cc going across the down.' But Daniel Pigg preferred for once to get clear of Whitelands without further delay. He shambled into his tax cart with a dim sensation of escaping from the neighborhood of a volcano in lively promise of eruption, a volcano, too, for which he himself seemed in some odd way to be peisonally responsible. He could hardly have expected, perhaps, he thought, that John Longcroft would take his proposal altogether kindly. Still, as his old mare jolted down in the twilight between the gilmmering slopes of the white chalky fallows/ he felt that circumstances had treated him rather unfairly. Half the country knew well enough that John Longcroft, of Whitelands, like most of the hill farmers, was in a main poor way of late. And when in his own line of business he had the opportunity of putting him in the way of selling his freehold at a price much above its present market value, it seemed a little queer that he should finish the interview feeling less like the most substantial property agent in Barndon than a -tramp caught firing bricks. As a rule, Daniel enjoyed nothing better than a gossip at ■meal" times on his visits to Whitelands farm, and his early disappearance -and general 'air of pertmbation did not fail to put Mary Longcroft on the scent of trouble, when coupled with the air of taciturn displeasure which her father kept up for the rest of the evening. And of law all trouble had come to bo bound up so closely for Mary in the evei -present fear of family ruin that it was not very hard for her to guess the~ errand on which Daniel Pigg had come. Her mother was a woman worn out before her time, arid, though Mary was barely- twenty, for several years past the management of the household had fallen naturally into her strong and capable hands. She was. a true daughter of the southern downs, with the blue Saxon eyes and yellow hair that were handed down from generation to generation among the-Longcrofts, of Whitelands, and .a girl, too, of as cheerful a disposition when things were going passably well as any you could find in all the country. But the unspoken fear of being forced to sell their land, which of late had hung over

herself and her father alike, meant even mose perhaps to Mary than to tHe old man, though evary clod on Whitelands farrt was as near to him as his oWn flesh and blood. For the threatened disaster meant to Mary a parting not only from Whitelands, but from her sweethtart as well.

The two were standing next morning among the sunlit autumn beeches, where a great stretch of woodland ended sheer like a wall on -the lip of the down above the narrow valley, which held the farm and overlooked the far levels of the vale toward Barndon all wrapped in a faint October haze. Three years ago Tom Haygarth had come as keeper to the cottage thai lay far in the wood among its pheasant coops and kennels, and long before now he had earned a right to share in all the anxieties that were thickening around the daughter of Whitelands farm. Often at these meetings all the trouble was forgotten, but on this beautiful autumn morning the black retriever, who was Tom's reguiar companion, veiy soon became aware that things were going wrong again with his master and mistress, and that the occasion called for the profoundest melancholy of demeanor.

' Well, lass,' said Tom Haygarth, ' since Mr. Longcroft would have nowt to say to 'un, what's there to worry about? 'Twould be a sight different if he'd closed wi' 'un, seems to me.'

1 Ah ! but Tom, father do feel it so dreadful that anyone should think of it at all, that's wKere it is. He hasn't never said nothing of it right from the beginning, but I do know just how it takes him. And I be so afeared as it'll be only a little while more afore we can't help ourselves at all, and be forced to go. And then I mayn't never see thee again.'

' Ah, won't thee, lass,' said Tom. ' I've shifted my billet more than once for a sight less reason than that, and I count I can do it again. Don't thou fear for that.'

' I didn't, Tom, not really,' said Mary, smiling a moment through her tears, so that the old retriever wagged his tail in encouraging appreciation. ' But I be so miserable for father, for 1 know 'twould nigh kill lie. I think sometimes he be half heart broke always because of Philip, you know.'

' Aye, aye,' nodded Tom, gravely. ' I know.' For the story of how John Longcroft years ago had driven from home his only son, a boy of sixteen, and had never set eyes on him again, had passed into the mo^t popular legendary tragedy of the countryside.

' That were all because he were so set on Whitelands, too, you see, Tom. He thought there were no such place anywhere, just like he do now, and when Philip took to fretting and asked to be let go and see more of the world it angered him. And Philip were hasty like he, so father told him to go and see it, and never set foot on Whitelands no more, since he thought so little of it. Mother do often talk about it and fall to crying ; but father feels it most, I be sure, though you might think he'd forgotten clean all about it ever since I were born, and longer.'

The old retriever turned sad eyes of mystification from one downcast face to the other. Mary stroked his glossy head, and brushed the falling beech leaves from his thick black coat. A pheasant called suddenly beside them in the cover, and a grey flight of wood pigeons came swerving over the long line of the down, where the sunshine bathed the slopes of the nine great tumuli in its mellow light.

1 Well, lass,' said Tom Haygarth, at last, ' I reckon 'twill all come* right, if we put a stiff face on it. But if so be as we be forced to shift, then why shouldn't us all go up to the north, where Ido come from? 'Tis a main different country from all this here, and I reckon Mr. Longcroft mightn't feel so much of the change where folks hadn't known him all along. However, we needn't think of that for a long time yet, my lass. Keep thy heart up, and I'll swear there's good luck on the road for us.' So Mary went back to Whitelands, and played her part bravely in house and poultry yard, while John Longcroft bent his back week by week on the plough lands with a dogged energy that put his laborers to shame. But the lean years still continued. When the autumn rains should 'have fallen to replenish the deep chalk springs the golden weather still held unbroken, turning day by day the crests of the great elms ranged beside the farm to deeper tones of orange and amber fire. Then, soon after New Year's, came weeks of fierce sleet laden northeasters, so that the lambing season, which means so much to the downlands farmers, was one of the most disastrous for years past. The losses in the lambing fold, that not all the care of the old, man and his shepherd could prevent, just about destroyed John Longcroft 's last chance of weathering the storm. He held on through the spring and summer, and saw the bare hillsides

where the young corn was shooting bleach away from the emerald of the sprouting blades and the roai of rain-washed chalky loam, to a' parched calcareous whiteness that threatened drought to come. And when harvest came at last, and old John Longcroft worked himself like ten men in place of the laborers whom he could scarcely have paid even if hecould have found them, he turned dizzy one^day in the waggon, and was carried in to Mary and her frightened mother with a broken arm.

So it came to pass that, although the old man never gave word or sign, he showed no anger or surprise when one September day soon after he was feebly on his legs again the straggling reddish whiskers of Daniel Pigg appeared once more at Whitelands gate on a hint conveyed him from poor Mary during a visit of Tom Haygarth's to Barndon. Although Daniel had been privately primed by Mary with encouraging assurances before he made his public entry up the farm roadway, he approached the old man and his subject with considerable misgiving. His anxiety, unfortunately, found outward expression in such vigorous flappings of his red handkerchief and nervous scrapings and shruggings of the shoulders as gave him an appearance bordering on the demented, and the interview began by his old friend Mr. Longcroft sharply inquiring of Daniel if he thought his house were built as an asylum for the afflicted. This was hardly an encouraging start, and it was, after all, the old man who came to the point first.

1 Daniel,' he said, ' is there e'er a one as be asking after Whitclands these times, I wonder? I mind you, speakin' of some one as came to you about it a twelvemonth ago.'

' Oh, ah,' said Daniel, with elaborate indifference. ' I've had inquiries. But o' course, I told 'em how you said as you'd never think o' sellin' it.'

The silence of the autumn sunshine closed round them, while Daniel Pigg affected an absorbing interest in the desultory progress of a black sow up the rickyard.

' Daniel,' said John Longcroft, in a level voice. ' I've changed my mind. I be goin' to part with Whitelands. So, thinkin' as you might care for '.he job of arrangin' the sale like, I reckoned I'd speak about it to you.'

Despite his efforts, Daniel Pigg looked quickly around at him, but the old man's face repelled his glance and forbade the slightest expression of surprise.

' Aye, Mr. Longcroft,' he said, in a tone he tried to bring to ordinary office pitch ; ' I've had inquiries from a likely client — in fact, two likely clients.' The phrase gave him confidence, and he chocked himself with a jerk in the act of pulling out the fatal handkerchief. ' First and foremost, there be the gentleman as 1 told -cc — that's to say, as applied to me a twelvemonth ago. And there was another just last week. Now, you'd naturally like to receive information as to the natur' of their offers, in which circumstances '

' Now, stop there, Daniel,' said John Longcroft. 'If one or t'other of these here clients o' your'n were to get the place, what do they want it for? D'you know aught o' that?'

' Aye, aye,' said Daniel, communicatively ; ' the first gentleman as inquired be anxious to find a nice bit o' property to turn into a country residence for himself and family — something pretty fairish, I tell 'cc, with a god bit o' park to it and all. And, Lor' there, where could us find a sweeter spot for a seal like than Whitelands, as I always said were the sweetest spot in forty miles of country. Pull down the farm here, build a noo mansion up there, just under the barrows '

He saw the old man's eye strike fire, and realised that this enthusiasm for the development of the property had better have been suppressed.

1 Aye, aye,' he went on, ' that's all as might be. But as for- the other 'un as applied, he didn't say much, but he didn't seem to think of no improve-alterations like, not to speak of.'

Once more the handkerchief twitched half way out of the pocket, and was rammed home again. The old man gazed steadily at the far side of the valley, where the black junipers dotted the Kill. The chances of the future were burning into his heart.

'I'd sooner sell to the second 'un,' he said, at last. 'We can't foresee what 'll. happen to the place in years to come, but so .long as I do live I'll never do aught toward bringin' in one as- means to destroy it. But I count I ain't good for much longer, and that's why it don't make much odds, for I ain't not no son to hold it after me: Longcrofts be done for, Daniel. They be done- for at last.'

So before Daniel Pigg went away it was arranged that he should enter into communication with the second of the two applicants who aimed at founding a dynasty of usurers at Whitelands farm. "The property agent secretly felt a twinge of dis-

appointment that the glorious transformation of the freehold on the lines he had briefly sketched in a. moment of indiscretion did not seem likely to come off, but the professional satisfaction of having Whitelands pass through his hands at all was thoroughly agreeable to him. Mr. Longcroft took the thought of parting with it uncommon well, he thought, on the whole. But there, 'twere only for his own good to self it for as much aa he could and be done with it, as he might have owned to a twelvemonth ago. But to John Longcroft, the succeeding days — days of mellow September sunshine and gossamer haunted stillness — were the bitterest of his life. Weak as he - was already, he was visibly wasting away, and when Mary heard from Barndon that the prospective purchaser was still anxious to buy if the place proved suitable, she wrote to Daniel Pigg to urge hiiri to hurry things on to the climax as soon as possible. Daniel sent word in due course that his client was now in Barndon, and would come to inspect- the property himself within the next few days ,and then the time of waiting dragged on once more. Every day Tom Haygarth came to meet her at the farm or in the fringes of the woodland, and it was his presence and encouragement that seemed to give her sticngth to go on. Every day the old man wandered by himself over every nook and corner of the farm on which his days and the days of his race were numbered, or sat on some knoll of the down gazing vacantly before him into the far off scenes of the past. One golden windless afternoon he was sitting by the sid« of a hollow cart track that came over the down a little way below the farm, and caught the full view of the black .barns with their yellow lichened roofs, the farmhouse with the row of great elms beside it, and the sweep of the hill above rested against the sky line with the graves of the men of old. Mary and Tom were talking together not far off, for one of Mary's^ sdf-imposcd duties in these days was to shadow her father unseen wherever he went, for fear his feebleness should bring him into harm or difficulty; but seeing him safely settled there in the sunshine, they had wandered a little on. Then, as the old farmer sat there, a middle-aged man with a little boy topped the crestT of the down and came slowly down the cart track toward him, stopping at last by his side. The old man turned his gaze and looked at them.

' Be you goin' to Whitelands, sir?' he said, while the little boy stared at him curiously. The other looked him steadily in the face. ' Aye, I've come up to speak with Mr." Longcroft,' he said. ' Come up from Barndon — from Mr. Pigg,' he went on, and looked at him again. ' Father, do you know me?' The" old man fell to trembling as he sat and looked confusedly from one of the pair him to the other. ' I—lI — I knew the little 'un,' he faltered, holding out his arms to the child with* the yellow hair. ' Thirty years ago, thirty years ago and more. Oh, Phil, Phil, is it thou at last, my son?' But it was the grown man who caught" his outstretched hand and answered him. So that night there slept in Whitelands a Longcroft to "the second and third generation, and, somewhat to the natural annoyance of Mr. Daniel Pigg, his client was able to dispense with all ordinary forms jof purchase on entering into permanent residence upon the farm beneath the barrows. — Ladies' Field.