“I said he was sprightly. Not like others, as you could send along the brook from Nab End to Toddscliff and back and leave ’em be. This one was at looking for himself.”
“Where?”
“All over.”
“You’re holding summat, Father. What is it?”
“He’s for taking in every inch of land; walling right up Tors.”
“He can’t do that.”
“He says he can.”
“What’s the use? He can’t wall them places. Them hills. They’ll not wear it.”
Richard Turner was silent.
“Father? You never showed him Thursbitch?”
“There was no need, youth. He found it. And how could we stop him? He’s for taking it in, cutting it up, setting drains. He says he’ll make it a farm and build a house there.”
“He can’t do that, Father.”
“I’m of opinion for to think as how nowt can stop that one. He’s set on it. What tickled his fancy were us high stones. He’s for raunging ’em out, mostly. And what’s left, he says, will do champion for setting field lines and gates and that.”
“He can’t, Father. Never. He can’t. If he does, it’ll be a land of great absence.”
“We tried to tell him. But he wouldn’t be. We all did. But there’s things as we can’t tell, isn’t there?”
“And where’s this house he’s going to build?”
“At the ford. Agen old Thrumble.”
“Damn it and sink it, Father! No!”
“But what’s to be done, Jack?”
“He can go for a short walk on a long night. That’s what.”
“It’d not help. He took drawings back with him.”
Jack squatted on his heel.
“Damn it and sink it. I should’ve been here. I should’ve been here. I never should have went.”
“You couldn’t have done nowt, youth,” said Richard Turner.
“Could I not? Could I not just! Father, you take your kyne down.”
Jack climbed back to the Tors, and up. He stood at the ford.
“A water is as I must pass.
A broader water never was.
Yet of all waters I did see,
To pass over with less jeopardy.”
He crossed to Bully Thrumble, and went from Bully Thrumble to Pearly Meg’s and down the steps. He raised his hat for the darkness, and took the wooden tube from his satchel and chewed and swallowed three stems; and dipped his hat in the well and drank four crownsful. Then he went back to the stone, and sat, and waited.
He spoke to Thoon.
“O white Bull. O worthy Bull. O noble Bull. O bonny Bull, as lives on hill tops. O striding Bull, as lives on hill tops. O Bull, as in whose highmost step drops honey. Lord over all as close the eye. Say now what must be done, sin you can do owt. Yet don’t you sneap them as can’t know. It’s on me, not them. Anyroad, that’s it.”
He waited. The stone of Bully Thrumble grew cold and dry to his hand, but alive. He stood against it. There was a rustling in the grass and in the reeds. Each one sound was small, but there were so many that he heard them as a great wind with no breath. He looked, and all the earth heaved with snakes coming from Pearly Meg’s. They came to him, and he did not shift, but turned his eyes towards Thoon.
The snakes coiled over his shoes and climbed his legs. They wove about above and below and up to his neck and along his arms and around the stone, binding the two. They worked inside his clothes, and their dryness was smooth on his skin. They held his neck but did not squeeze, and were plaited in his hair. A head entered his mouth and throat, but it did not choke him, into his lungs, through his veins, down to his belly. Each nostril was filled, but still he breathed. They were his ears, and whispered to him their last secret. “The Bull is father to the Snake: the Snake is to the Bull.” The deathless life became his life, so that he knew nothing of him but all that was within and without was one, and the rock and well were one, and the sky and the waters were one, and death and life were one, and he was of them all; and there was no ending of them.
He saw. And, with his understanding, the snakes drew back and left him. Yet something still held. He looked down. The stone, his body. his face were in a net of ivy.
He pulled himself from it. The suckers were on the stone, on his clothes and under them. He ripped from his face and hair and beard, taking no note of the pain. He stripped and tore and spat the ivy.
Then he went down from Thursbitch.
He found Richard Turner in the brewis.
“Father, I’ve set all to rights.”
“Have you now? And how did you manage that?”
“I’ve promised.”
“You’ve promised what?”
“I’ve promised to do what’s needed.”
“And who’ve you promised?” He went up to Jack and looked into his face. “Oh ay. That sort of a promise. I see. Well, you think on. Don’t you be setting yourself up above what you can’t thole, and then. Promise is nowt afore doing. And doing can come by a road you’re not looking for. You’re nobbut a man, when all’s said. And what’s up yonder drives a pretty bargain. And who are you to say what’s needed? It could call for a pocket deeper nor what you’ve got.”
“Pockets?” Nan Sarah came from the houseplace. “You’ve not fetched more, have you?” She was still wearing hers. “Jack! Wherever have you been? You look as if you were pulled through a hedge backwards. Come here with you.”
She brushed the green leaves from him. Richard Turner went into the houseplace.
“Give over, woman,” said Jack, and lifted her hands away. “Now what’s all this?”
Her wrists were ringed with small, flat, dry, black blisters.
“It’s nowt,” she said.
He touched one, and it flaked off.
“I told you. It’s nowt.”
“MA MARY, WILL you come and look?”
Mary went into Jack and Nan Sarah’s room, wearing her nightgown. Nan Sarah was in bed, and there was the one rush lit.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. But summat’s up. She went to bed with a sick headache, and now one minute she says she’s cold, and next she’s too hot, and now she’s sleeping.”
“She’s been that road for a day or two,” said Mary. “Sitting by the fire and counting pothooks. I doubt it’s no more than her condition and a touch o’ fever. I’ve not seen her eat much.”
“But she drinks like I don’t know what.”
“There you are, then. Same as they say. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Let her sleep and she’ll be right as rain by morning.”
“But what are these here?” said Jack. He pulled Nan Sarah’s hair to one side and held the light close. “She’s got plums on her neck.” At the side of the neck there were small red and black swellings.
“I’ll fetch Father.”
She left the room. Nan Sarah half woke.
“Jack. I’m going to be sick again.”
He held the bowl for her, and she vomited.
Mary came back with Richard Turner. They both had candlesticks. Nan Sarah put a hand over her eyes.
“Light’s hurting.”
Mary moved the hair back, and Richard Turner looked closely. “Nay!” He caught Mary by the arm and hurried her from the room and down the stairs.
“Father!”
“It’s Great Mortality!”
Jack went to the top of the stair.
“Father!”
“Great Mortality! Them’s plums as ride on flesh wi’ savage jaws!”
Richard Turner and Mary were in the houseplace, with the door shut. Jack was alone on the stair in darkness.
“What are you meaning?”
“Great Mortality! Out! Out!”
“Father?”
“Out! Both on you!”
“Father! Have you lost your wits?”
“Out!”
“Jack? What’s up?”
“Hush, love.”
“Jack. I’m badly.”
“Out!”
Jack went to Nan Sarah. She was sitting on the bed. “It’s me father. I don’t know what’s taken him.”
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