Januan- 17, 191S 
LAND & WATER 
13 
tilings. Tliry'Il graft and prune ye like a rose-busli. I know'd 
a chap as had half his face blown away, and one ercgone to 
kingdom come — a terrible siglit he wur. The birds could ha' 
flown in an 'out of his face like an old ruin. And they builded 
'un a new face wi' a glass eve so as his own mother would'nt 
a know'd 'un. They could cut up Jacob Fox here like butcher's 
meat and put 'un together again, if they had a mind. And 
make quite a pretty man of 'un too." 
" How much do 'ee think they'd charge a body for doing 
t, Mr. Tuck ? " said Jacob, who had been sadly iU-fa\-oured 
jy Nature. 
" Jacob Fox," said the old man, reproachfully, " doan't 
bri\ct about that headpiece o' yourn so. It's a gift of <iod, 
ind ye nnna make the best of it. \^'e do all know ye be a 
»vonderful ugly man, the ugliest man in the parish, hain't 
he, neighbours ? " ^ 
" Aye, that he be," they all echoed, stuJ.ying his homely 
features with critical attention. " You be a wonderful plain- 
featured man, Jacob Fox"." 
" Well, oi do mind a man as once took quite a fancy to me 
features once upon a time," said Jacob, desperately. " Tt 
wur a fair-da\-, and I was a-gwine round the booths. A wonder- 
ful fair it wiir. There was zwings and roundabouts and peep- 
shows. And a gentleman selling di'monds at a penny apiece. 
.\nd giants and dwarfs and a living skcllington. And. . . ." 
" Cut the cackle and come to the hosscs, Jacob Fox. Ye 
do take a terrible time to spit it out." 
" I be coming to 'em. . . .Oi was a-looking under the flap of 
a tent when a man wi' a lot of shiny buttons on Jiis westcoat 
catches oi by the back of me neck. ' Ye young varmint,' 
he says, ' I'll have the law of ye for trespass, seeing as ye 
iin't paid for admission.' I wur all 4i a tremble, and I 
went down on my knees, fny teeth was a-chattcring, thinking 
jid be hung in '\nzes jail for a malefactor. .Xnd a looks at oi 
and zays all of a zudden, ' I'll let ye off if ye'll bide here for 
a day wi' me, and do as I tells 'ee. But if ye doan't, yer 
life's forfeit to the Crown.' So I bided, being in his mercy, 
and 'a took oi into a painted van and puts a horsc-cpUar on 
me neck and paints me face and dresses oi up in a horse's 
hide and makes oi go down on all fours like Nebuchadnezzar. 
" Balaam's ass, ye mane," said William Tuck, mahciously. " 
" And then he puts me in a sort of horse-box in a booth and 
all the folk crowded in to sec ' The Horse-F'accd Min, (!aught 
Wild in Patygonia.' Some of 'cm comed up and offered me 
bunches of hay. but I could'n stomach it. .\nd the man wi' 
the shiny buttons says, ' Stand back, gentlemen, he's very 
^■icious. He's off his feed, gentlemen, being only just got 
over a bad attack of glanders' Lordy. neighbours, the 
way (hat man did talk made mc fftl as if I must hev been 
burn a colt in my mother's womb." 
" Drat ye, Jacob, and I paid zixpenceto sec yc — and never 
kiiowed it were a cheat till now." 
lie told oi not to say a word about it, and I was afcard. 
.\nd at the end of the day he gi\- oi a new half-crown, and says 
aw'd make my fortune if old trapse the country with 'un. 
.Aw said ' I've taken a fancy to ye,' and he a.xed if me mother 
,liad ever been chased bv a horse avore I was born." 
" I can't call it to mind, Jacob Fox, " said the old man. 
" But I do know as she wur in a sore travail wi' ye." 
" Yc'nc a wonderful soothing way wi' horses, Jacob, there's 
no denying it, " said Daniel Newth. " I never zeed such a 
chap for coaxing 'em into a halter." 
" Well, neighbours," said Jacob, tremulously, " it do seem 
to oi as dumb animals be more human than men. Meaning 
no offence, friends and neighbours all." 
" How do 'ee figure that out, Jacob Fox? " said the old man, 
magisterially. " It be a heathen thing to say." 
" Because yc never see animals a -slaughtering and making 
war on their own kind. Except rooks." 
" That be a deep saying, sonnies," said Daniel Newth, 
reflccti\ely. " A deep saying it be. The lad do think deep 
thoughts at times." 
" Howsomever, killing do seem to be a law of nature," 
said the old man. " The hounds kill the vox. the vox kills 
the vowjs, and the vowls kills the worms William Tuck, 
have ye ever slain a German Hun wi' your own hands ; 
smiting 'un under the fifth rib, so to speak?" 
" Aye, that I hev. I've a spit 'one with my bayonet, right 
in his innards. .\w did give a kind of grunt." 
■ It do s<?eni a fearful death. But I'd sooner be bay- 
nilted than lunig. I mind when I was a little 'un I went to 
Hang Fair, at Zaulsbury, to sec a woman hanged as had 
jKjisoned her lawful husband. .And my vcyther held oi uj) 
over the heads of the crowd to see her zwinging. I mind 
well as 'er had clean white stockings on, and 'er kicked oft 
one shoe wi' t'other. It did give mc quite a turn. Still, it 
were a sinful thing to kill a husband. Being an offence against 
Holy NJalrimony. " 
" Trijc, most true, Jarge," said Levi (iodbcherc darkly.' 
" Marrying be like dying — yc can't escape it, and yc never 
knows what 'uU come after it." - , 
" Aye, But ye can only die once," said the old man, 
significantly. ...-.._,.■ 
" True. I takes yer maning, Jarge. Ye'vc ha' buried dree 
wives, as we do all know. Ye oughter have dree gold stripes 
for it, like the chaps that ha\-e been wounded. There was a 
fellow in Winterbourne Parish, .Abraham Love was his name, 
what buried four wi\-es. Buried four wi\'es, aw did. A\v 
had a beautiful headstone stuck up in churchyard for his 
^•irst, and when t'others died, he had their names all carved 
like a nobleman, one under t'other. When he'd buried the. 
fourtli, aw died hisself and there warn't mucli room for a 
subscription left. So they just put ' Also -Abraham Love, 
husband of the above. At Kcst.' .\ \ery proper subscrip- 
tion 'twas." 
!' A very proper one. I never could understand how 
King Solomon could a put up wi' all those hundcrds of wives, 
all at once. I figure he must hev' had a girt dorm-it-ory for 
'em, same as they hev' for old folks in the workhouse." 
" I do like to' hear about King Solomon,'' said Jacob 
Fox, emboldened by the success of his last observation. 
" .Aw wur majn fond of animals. " 
" What be the latl got into that head of his'n now ? What 
do 'ee mane, boy." 
" Well, neighbours, it says as he kept dree hundcrd concu- 
bines. I expect as aw liked stroking 'cm. Though aw must 
hev' had very horny hands. I saw two on 'cm in thuck 
travelling menagerie as come to Marlbro' last j'car. They 
had prickly quills all over like hedgehogs." 
" 'te stun-poll, ye do mane porcupines. They bain't 
concubines. Concubines be wenches.. 
A loud salh- of laughter greeted Jacob Fox's excursiou 
into Biblical history, and blushing to the roots of his yellow 
thatch-likc hair he retreated into the shadows of the barn. 
" Matrimony be destiny, depend on't," said the thatcher 
as the laughter subsided. " There was Liz Humming as 
hung her shift inside-out on a gooscberiy-bush at Mid- 
summer-eve and sat up to see the form aucl features of her 
fated husband, as maids 'do at such times. .And about eleven 
by the clock, she hears footsteps in the garden. She peeps 
through the buttery window and zees zumone in the dark 
a-tearing her shift from off the gooseberry-bush. She tip-toed 
out all of a-tremble, and lo, and behold, it was one of the sh6rt- 
horn cows out of the pasture." 
" There bain't much sense in that," said the old man. 
"Bain't there, though, Jarge !" retorted the thatcher. 
" Inside of twelve months she married the cowman." 
" Well, it mid have been the finger of fate," the old man 
con(ieded. "I do belave in \vitches and soothsayers. Yc 
finds 'em in the Bible. 'Tis allowetl to lam things to come 
from searching the Scriptures. There's this attacki^lg o£ 
Jerusalem. It be vexy like the Second Coming. I heeni 
from parish clerk as can read the newspapers as soon as look 
at 'em — a clever man that, sonnies — as this godly man of 
war. Lord Allanby, is to be greeted wi'- loud hosannas as he 
enters the Holy City riding on an ass. .A man from (iod, 
.sure he be. .And there is some as do say that we Englishmen 
be the Lost Tribes, and Chosen People, so to speak. 
" Sure, 'tis strange things be happening," said the thatcher. 
" There's lads as hev' never been outside this parish all their 
lives as be now in the land of the Pharaohs, a-making love to 
princesses, and in ancnmt Babylon a- worshipping strange 
gods, and in Africa a-riding on camels and laming all manner 
o' .new sins." 
" Well, I do hold as it be the end of the world, iieighboms." 
said the old man. " There be wars and rumours of wars, 
nation rising against nation. There be fire and brimstone. 
Ihere be engines o' torment in the heavens above and in the 
deeps beneath. My son Dan'l here wur a-rcading Luke 
the Twenty-virst to nte t'other night, and it be all there as 
plain as the palm of your hand. Famine and pestilence and 
fearful sights. And Jerusalem encompassed with armies," 
" True, most true," said Levi Godbeherc, darkly. "I 
mind them holy words. It do say 'tis to be as in the days of 
Noe— folks eating and drinking, marrying and giving ii.i 
marriage. And so they be. There's more banns called in 
this parish this last year than I can iver call to mind. 'Tis 
the separation allowances, maybe. But 'tis a sign and portent, 
all the same." 
" 'Tis a thing to turn a man's thoughts heavenwards," 
said the old man conclusively. " .A deep and fearful time it 
be. But ye can see by the sun 'tis past noon, neighbour>." 
.And he arose and wiped his month with the back of his hand. 
The thatcher took up his shuttle, the sower slung his 
Mcd-lip against his chest, William Tuck took down his bill- 
liook from the nail on the wall. The ploughman hooked in 
his team again, liach went his apjioinled way. .And nothin.^ 
was to be heard in the barn save the clank of the s«ede- 
culter and the patter ot the orange-colouicd slices as they fell 
into the bushel-mca&urc belo\\'. 
