_ BOOK I. THE SILENT PLACES
CHAPTER XII. THE PRICE OF A GODDESS
Stomach is and ever has been a mighty factor in the affairs of mankind: the proud and lowly, the fool and sage, all alike are slaves to its imperious dictates. Let it go empty, and it is a curse, breeding cowardice, gloomy suspicions, unreasonableness, angers and a thousand evils and dissensions; fill it and it is a comfort, promoting good-fellowship, kindliness and abounding virtue. Hence, instead of saying of a man--"He has a good heart"--should not the dictum be rather--"He is the happy possessor of an excellent stomach regularly and adequately filled?" For truly how many actions, evil and good, may be directly traced to the influence of this most important organ! Thus, to your true Philosopher, "the Stomach is the thing," and so long as his own be comfortable he may philosophise with stoical fortitude upon other people's woes (and occasionally his own) more or less agreeably; but starve him and our Philosopher will grieve for himself as miserably as I--or even you. The Tooth of Remorse may be sharp but the Fangs of Hunger bite deeper still, and who shall cherish beauty in his soul or who find patience to rhapsodise on a sunset when his stomach is empty as a drum? Thus, alas, Soul goes shackled by, and Intellect is the slave of, Stomach!
All of the which foregoing points to the fact that the steak and kidney pudding had been excellent, even as my benefactor had said; wherefore, drowsing in somnolent content, I sat amid leaves beside a prattling rill musing comfortably as a well-fed young philosopher may, when these reflections were banished in sudden alarm, for upon the drowsy afternoon stillness rose a stir of leaves, a snapping of twigs, the sounds of one who burst through all obstacles in desperate flight. Starting to an elbow I gazed wildly about and thus espied a girl who, breaking through the bushes that crowned the bank above, came bounding down the steep. At sight of me she checked her wild career and turned to stare back whence she had come, catching her breath in great, sobbing gasps very distressing to hear.
I remember the round, full column of her throat as she stood thus, her long, night-black hair a troubled torrent stirring in the gentle wind. Then she swung about to face me, one hand upon her quick-moving bosom, the other grasping a small, evil-looking knife.
"Young man," she panted, "young man--help me--!"
As she uttered the words, two men appeared on the bank above us, tall, dark-complexioned fellows who scowled down on me in manner I found exceedingly disturbing. "Oh, young man," cried the girl, flourishing her knife and frowning up at her pursuers, "young man, if you've any manhood in ye--stand up and help me!"
And now the two men began to descend into the little dell with a certain deliberation very discomforting to witness, and I arose, greatly at a loss and looking from one to other of them in growing apprehension.
"Young man," demanded the girl in scornful undertones, "why do ye tremble?"
At this moment (and to my inexpressible relief) from the leafy tangles adjacent rose a voice, shrill and imperious:
"Jochabed--Bennigo!"
The men halted and, following their gaze, I beheld a woman, ancient and bowed with years yet apparently wonderfully active none the less, a strange, wrinkled old creature extremely neat of person, with keen, bright eyes and a portentous chin. Having descended the bank, she stood leaning on the staff she carried, her quick glance darting from the men to the girl, and the girl to me, many times over.
"Oho--aha!" she ejaculated at last. "Scant o' breath be I, tur'ble scant, being s' very old--aha--but age be wise!"
And now she turned to address the woman, though in language quite beyond my comprehension, stabbing her staff at us all four in turn.
"No, gammer--no!" cried the girl passionately, but at the ancient woman's commanding gesture she fell mute, though she scowled in sullen defiance and I saw the knife glitter where she gripped it, half concealed by a fold of her petticoat. Here one of the men muttered some unintelligible word and pointed scornfully at me, whereupon the old woman rapped him smartly over the knuckles and fixed her uncomfortably shrewd gaze on my person, scanning me over very keenly, more especially my face and hands.
"Well, my pretty young gorgio," said she, "there be horses a-sweating along o' you, eyes a-looking and hearts a-grieving all along o' you--though you ain't much to look at--so--I guess you be better than ye look. Now here be a maid--a regular dimber-damber dell as looketh better than she be, for her's a gnashing, tearing shrew wi' no kindness in her. But she be handsome--as ye may see--and courted by many, whereby hath been overmuch ill-feeling, fighting and bloodshed among our young men--so wed this day she shall be for peace and quiet's sake! Him as can show most o' the pretty gold taketh her for good, and all according to our laws and ways."
Scarcely had she done speaking than the two young fellows hastened to count over to her such monies as they possessed, while the girl watched sullen and defiant.
"Aie--aie!" quoth the old woman suddenly. "Bennigo, you have but three to Jochabed's eight, so Jochabed taketh her--unless the nice, kind, young gorgio will give more--the fine young gorgio as my wisdom telleth me is other than he do seem--aha! What of it, young master--aie--aie?"
"Young man," whispered the girl, grasping my arm in strong, compelling fingers and staring at me with eyes big and desperate, "young man, if you would not see bloody work--turn out your pockets!"
Moved by her wild looks, I obeyed almost involuntarily, but hardly was my purse out of my pocket than she snatched and tossed it to the old woman.
"Count, grannam, count!" she cried imperiously, "and if't is not enough I've my little
churi for the first as dare touch me!"
The old woman opened my purse, told over its contents very deliberately, nodded and, thrusting it into her bosom, spoke with the fierce-eyed men in her strange dialect, tapped each with her staff and motioned them to be gone; hereupon, and to my unutterable wonder, they obeyed her and slunk off without a word.
"Fourteen guineas!" said she. "Fourteen guineas be more than eight--fourteen guineas, a florin, one groat and three pennies! Aha, 't is more than she be worth, I think, by reason of her shrewish tongue and unkindly ways, and if only a
hindity mengro and no true
Camlo yet she be's a
rinkinni fakement to look at, but then a bargain is a bargain--an' I wishes ye j'y o' her, my young rye!" Which said, she reached out her staff and touched first me and then the girl lightly on head and breast, muttering a farrago of strange words while her bright glance flashed from one to other of us; then she turned and, bowed upon her staff, climbed the ferny steep nimble and sure-footed despite her years and left us staring after her, the girl frowning and sullen as ever, I full of chagrined surprise and a growing uneasiness. _