Furze the Cruel

"You are. Sticky with sweetness."

"What a dear stupid thing!" sighed Boodles. "Let me kiss your lovely pink and white girl's face – there – and there – and there."

"Boodles, dear, I haven't got a girl's face," protested Aubrey.

"Oh, but you have, my boy. It's just like a girl's – only prettier. If I was you, and you was me – that sounds rather shocking grammar, but it don't matter – every one would say: 'Look at that ugly boy with that boodle-oodle, lovely, butiful girl.' There! I've squeezed every bit of breath out of him," cried Boodles.

There was a certain amount left, as she soon discovered; enough to smother her.

"If you hadn't got golden hair, and freckles, I should never have fallen in love with you," declared the boy. "If you were to lose your freckles, if you lost only one, the tiniest of them all, I shouldn't love you any more."

"And if you lose that dear girl's face I won't love you," promised Boodles. "If you had a horrid moustache to tickle me and make me sneeze, I wouldn't give you the smallest, teeniest, wee bit of a kiss. Well, you can't anyhow, because you've got to be an admiral. How nice it will be when you are grown up and have a lot of ships of your own."

"We shall be married long before then. Boodles, darling," cried the eager boy. "Directly I am twenty-one we will be married. Only five more years."

"Such a lot happens in a year," sighed Boodles. "You may meet five more girls far more sunshiny than me, with redder hair and more freckles, since you are so fond of them – "

"I shan't. You are the only girl who ever was or shall be."

That is how boys talk when they are sixteen, and when they are twenty-six, and sometimes when they are very old boys of sixty; and girls generally believe them.

"I wonder if it is right of you to love me," said Boodles doubtfully.

The answer was what might have been looked for, and ended with the usual question: "Why not?"

"Because I'm only a baby."

"You are fourteen, darling. You will be nineteen by the time we are married."

Although they were only at the beginning of the story they were already slapping over the pages, anxious to reach the "lived happily ever after" conclusion. Young people are always wanting to hurry on; middle-aged to marktime; old to look back. The freshness of life is contained in the first chapter. Youth is a time of unnatural strength, of insanity, a dancing-round-the-may-pole sort of time. Common-sense begins to come when one has grandchildren. Boodles and Aubrey wandered a thousand times in love's fairyland on the romantic banks of the rattling Tavy, and knew as much during their last walk as upon the first; knew they were in love cleanly and honestly; knew that the joy of life was no myth; but knowing nothing, either of them, concerning Giant Despair, who has his mantle trimmed with lovers' hearts, or the history of the fair maid of Astolat, or the existence of Castle Dolorous. Love is largely a pleasure of the imagination, thus a fairy-tale, and sound practical knowledge sweeps the romance of it all away.

The whole of that folly – if the only real ecstatic bliss of life which is called first love be folly – seemed gone for ever. Aubrey was packed off to do his part in upholding the honour of Boodlesland, as his country named itself in his thoughts; and the years that intervened discovered him probably kissing girls of all complexions, girls with every shade of hair conceivable, girls with freckles and without; and being kissed by them. Boys must have their natural food, and if the best quality be not obtainable they must take what offers. In the interval Boodles remained entirely unkissed, and received no letters. She wasn't surprised. His love had been too fierce. It had blazed up, burnt her, and gone out. Aubrey had forgotten her; forgotten those wonderful walks in Tavyland; forgotten her radiant head and golden freckles. It was all over, that romance of two babies. It was Boodles who did not forget; Boodles who had the wet pillow sometimes; Boodles who was constant like the gorse, which is in flower all the year round.

No one would call the ordinary Dartmoor postman an angel – his appearance is too much against him – but he does an angel's work. Perhaps there is nothing which quickens the heart of any lonely dweller on the moor so perceptibly as the heavy tread of that red-faced and beer-tainted companion of the goddess of dawn. He leaves curses as well as blessings. He pushes love-letters and bills into the box together. Sometimes he is an hour late, and the miserable watcher frets about the house. Sometimes the wind holds him back. He can be seen struggling against it, and the watcher longs to yoke him to wild horses. There are six precious post-times each week, and the lonely inhabitant of the wilds would not yield one of them to save his soul alive.

There was an angel's visit to Lewside Cottage, and a letter for Boodles fell from heaven. The child pounced upon it, rushed up to her room like a dog with a piece of meat, locked the door lest any one should enter with the idea of stealing her prize, gloated upon it, almost rolled upon it. She did not open it for some time. She turned it over, smelt it, pinched it, loved it. Tavistock was blurred across the stamp. There was no doubt about that letter. It was a tangible thing. It did not fade away like morning dew. She opened it at last, but did not dare to read it through. She took bites at it, tasting it here and there; and had every sentence by heart before she settled down to read it properly. So she was still dearest Boodles, and he was the same devoted Aubrey. The child jumped upon her bed, and bit the pillow in sheer animal joy.

He had just come home, and was writing to her at once. She wouldn't recognise him because he had become a tough brown sailor, and the girl's face was his no longer. He was coming to see her at once; and they would walk again by the Tavy and be just the same as ever; and swear the same vows; and kiss the same kisses; and be each other's sun and moon, and all the rest of the idyllic patter, which was as sweet and fresh as ever to poor Boodles. For he had been all the world over and discovered there was only one girl in it; and that was the girl with the radiant head, and the golden skin, and the gold-dust upon her nose. He was as true as he always had been, and as he always would be for ever and evermore.

Boodles saw nothing mad or presumptuous in that closing sentence. It was just what she would have said. There is no hereafter for young people in their teens; there is an ever and evermore for them. They are like a kitten playing with its own tail, without ever realising that it is its tail.

Boodles became at once very light and airy. She seemed to have escaped from the body somehow. She felt as if she had been transformed into a bit of sunshine. She floated down-stairs, lighted up the living-room, wrapped herself round Abel Cain, floated into the kitchen to finish preparations for breakfast, discovered the material nature of her hands by breaking a milk-jug, and then humanity asserted itself and she began to shriek.

"Boodle-oodle!" cried old Weevil; "you have been sleeping in the moonshine."

"I've broken the milk-jug," screamed Boodles.

Weevil came shuffling along the passage. Small things were greatly accounted of in Lewside Cottage. There were most of the ingredients of tragedy in a broken milk-jug.

"How did you do it?" he wailed.

"It was all because the butter is so round," laughed Boodles.

Weevil was frightened. He thought the child's mind had broken too; and that was even more serious than the milk-jug. He stood and stared, and made disjointed remarks about bright Dartmoor moons, and girls who would sleep with their blinds up, and insanity which was sure to follow such rashness. But Boodles only laughed the more.

"I'll tell you," she said. "The butter is very round, and I had it on a plate. I must have tilted the plate, and it was roll, butter, roll. First on the table, where it knocked the milk-jug off its legs. Then it rolled on the floor, and out of the door. It's still rolling. I expect it is nearly at Mary Tavy station by now, and it ought to reach Tavistock about ten o'clock at the rate it was going. It's sure to roll on to Plymouth, right through the Three Towns, and then across the Hoe, and about the time we go to bed there will be a little splash in the sea, and that will be the end of the butter, which rolled off the plate, and broke the milk-jug, and started from the top of Dartmoor at half-past eight by the clock in Lewside Cottage, which is ten minutes fast – and that's all I can think of now," gasped Boodles.

"My poor little girl," quavered Weevil. "The butter is on the plate in front of you."

"Well, it must have rolled back again. It wanted to see its dear old home once more."

Weevil began to pick up the fragments of the milk-jug. "There is something wrong with you, Boodle-oodle," he said tenderly. "I don't want you to have any secrets, my dear. You are too young. There was a letter for you just now?"

At that the whole story came out with a rush. Boodles could hold nothing back that morning. She told Weevil about the fairy-tale, from the "once upon a time" up to the contents of that letter; and she begged him to play the part of good genie, and with his enchantments cause blissfulness to happen.

Weevil was very troubled. He had feared that the radiant head would do mischief, but he had not expected trouble to come so soon. The thing was impossible, of course. Even radiant growths must have a name of some sort. Aubrey's parents could not permit weeds to grow in their garden. There were plenty of girls "true to name," like the well-bred roses of a florist's catalogue, wanting smart young husbands. There was practically no limit to the supply of these sturdy young plants. Boodles might be a Gloire de Devon, but she was most distinctly not in the catalogue. She was only a way-side growth; a beautiful fragrant weed certainly, like the sweet honeysuckle which trails about all the lanes, and is in itself a lovely thing, but is not wanted in the garden because it is too common; or like the gorse, which as a flowering shrub is the glory of the moor, but not of the garden, because it is a rank wild growth. Were it a rare shrub it would be grown upon the lawns of the wealthy; but because it is common it must stay outside.

"Boodles, darling, I am so sorry," the old man murmured.

"But you mustn't be," she laughed. "Sorry because I'm so happy! You must be a butiful old daddy-man, and say you are glad. I can't help being in love. It's like the measles. We have to catch it, and it is so much better to go through it when you're young. Now say something nice and let me go. I want to run to the top of Ger Tor, and scream, and run back again."

"Oh, dear heaven!" muttered Weevil, playing with the bits of milk-jug. "I can't tell the poor baby, I can't tell it."

"Don't be weepy, daddy-dear-heart," murmured Boodles, coming and loving him. "I know I'm only a baby, but then I'm growing fast. I'll soon be eighteen. Such a grown-up woman then, old man! I'll never leave him – that's the trouble, I know. I'll always boil him's eggs, and break him's milk-jugs. Only he must be pretty to Boodles when she's happy, and say he's glad she's got a lovely boy with the beautifullest girl's face that ever was."

Weevil unmeshed himself and shuffled away, pelting imaginary foes with bits of milk-jug, blinking his eyes like a cat in the sunshine. He could not destroy the child's happiness. As well expect the painter who has expended the best years of his life on a picture to cut and slash the canvas. Boodles was his own. He had made and fashioned her. He could not extinguish his own little sun. He must let her linger in fairyland, and allow destiny, or human nature, or something else equally brutal, to finish the story. Elementary forces of nature, like Pendoggat, might be cruel, but Weevil was not a force, neither was he cruel. He was only an eccentric old man, and he wanted it to be well with the child. She would have her eyes opened soon enough. She would discover that innocents thrust out on the moor to perish cannot by the great law of propriety take that place in life which beauty and goodness deserve. They must go back; like Undine, coming out with brave love to seek a soul, succeeding at first, but failing in the end, and going back at last to the state that was hers. Poor little bastard Boodles! How mad she was that morning! Weevil hardly noticed that his eggs were hard-boiled.

"Darling," he said tenderly, anxious to divert her mind – as if it could be diverted! – "go and see Peter, and tell him we must have that clock. You had better bring it back with you."

That clock was a favourite subject of conversation. If had amused Boodles for two years, and it amused her then. It was only a common little clock, or Peter would never have been entrusted with it. Peter, who knew nothing, was among other things a mechanician. He professed his ability to mend and clean clocks. Possibly Grandfather had taught him something. He had studied the old gentleman's internal arrangements all his life, and had, he considered, mastered the entire principle of a clock's construction and well-being. Therefore when Boodles met him one day, and informed him that a little clock in Lewside Cottage was choked with dust and refused to perform its duty, Peter promised he would attend at his earliest convenience, to lay his hand upon it, and restore it to activity. "When will you come?" asked Boodles.

"To-morrow," answered Peter.

The day came, but not Peter. He was hardly expected, because promises are meaningless phrases in the mouths of Dartmoor folk. In the matter of an eternal "to-morrow" they are like the Spanish peasantry. They always promise upon their honour, but, as they haven't got any, the oath might as well be omitted. When reminded of their solemn undertaking they have a ready explanation. Their conscience would not permit them to come. It is the same when they agree to charge an unsuspecting person so much for duties performed, and then send in a bill for twice the amount. Conscience would not allow them to charge less. The Dartmoor conscience is a beautiful thing. It urges a man to act precisely as he wants to.

A month or so passed – the exact period is of no account in such a place – and Boodles saw Peter approaching her. When within sight of her he put out his arm and began to cry aloud. She hurried towards him, afraid that something was wrong; the arm was still extended, and the cry continued. Peter was like an owl crying in the wilderness. Drawing near, he became at last intelligible. "I be coming," he cried. "I be coming to mend the clock."

"Now?" asked Boodles.

"To-morrow," said Peter.

This sort of thing happened constantly. Whenever they came within sight of each other, and Peter called often at the village to purchase pints of beer, the little man would hurry towards Boodles, with his outstretched arm and monotonous cry: "To-morrow." He was always on his way to Lewside Cottage, but something always hindered him from getting there. He did not despair, however. He felt confident that the day would arrive when he would attend in person and restore the clock. It was merely a matter of time. Thus a year went by and the pledge remained unfulfilled.

One Sunday evening Boodles went to church, and it so happened that Peter was there also. Peter had just then reasons of his own for wishing to ingratiate himself with the church authorities, and he considered that the appearance of his vile body in a devotional attitude somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pulpit would be of material assistance to his ambition. Peter entered with a huge lantern, the time being winter, and the evening dark – the night rather, for the Dartmoor day in winter is well over by five o'clock – flapped up the aisle with goose-like steps, tumbled into a seat breathing heavily, and making as much noise with his boots as a horse upon cobblestones, banged the lantern down, and gazed about the building with an air of proprietorship. The next thing was to blow out the candle in his lantern. He opened it, and made windy noises which were not attended with success. "Scat 'en," cried Peter boisterously. "When her's wanted to go out her never will, and when her bain't wanted to go out her always du."

At that moment Boodles entered. Peter was delighted to see her friendly face. The lantern clattered to the floor, and its master stretched out his arm, and exclaimed in a whisper which would have carried from one side of Tavy Cleave to the other: "I was a-coming yesterday, but I never got as far. Had the tweezers in my trousers, and here they be." He brought out the implement and brandished it in the faces of the congregation. "I'm a-coming to-morrow sure 'nuff." Then he went to work again at the lantern. Peter had not developed the spirit of reverence; and the service was unable to commence until he had finished blowing.

When the proceedings were over he followed Boodles out of church and along the road, all the time asserting that the tweezers and his trousers had been inseparable for the last six months, that he had started for Lewside Cottage every day, and something had always cropped up to prevent him from reaching his destination, but that the next day would bring him, wet or fine, upon his word of honour it would. He had been remiss in the past, he owned, but if he failed to attend on Monday morning at half-past eleven punctual, with the tweezers in his trousers, he hoped the young lady and the old gentleman would never trust him again.