"He gives you the creeps, does he?"
"That he does!" she cried with a little shiver. "To see him gorging himself with green fruit! It isn't like a human being the way he does it - it's like an insect or a bird. And he's like a cat, too, in the way he always follows about the folk that don't like him. Oh, he's nasty! And he's spiteful, too, and mischievous. But perhaps that's not to be wondered at, if" and she broke off abruptly.
Master Nathaniel gave her a keen look. "If what?" he said.
"Oh, well - just silly talk of the country people," said Hazel evasively.
"That he's - er, for instance, one of what you call the Silent People?"
"How did you know?" And Hazel looked at him suspiciously.
"Oh, I guessed. You see, I've heard a lot of that sort of talk since I've been in the west. Well, the old fellow certainly seemed to have something he wanted to tell me, but I can't say he was very explicit. He kept saying, over and over again, `Dig, dig.'"
"Oh, that's his great word," cried Hazel. "The old women round about say that he's trying to tell one his name. You see, they think that well, that he's a dead man come back and that when he was on earth he was a labourer, by name Diggory Carp."
"Diggory Carp?" cried Master Nathaniel sharply.
Hazel looked at him in surprise. "Did you know him, sir?" she asked.
"No, no; not exactly. But I seem to have heard the name somewhere. Though I dare say in these parts it's a common enough one. Well, and what do they say about this Diggory Carp?"
Hazel looked a little uneasy. "They don't say much, sir - to me. I sometimes think there must have been some mystery about him. But I know that he was a merry, kind sort of man, well liked all round, and a rare fiddler. But he came to a sad end, though I never heard what happened exactly. And they say," and here she lowered her voice mysteriously, "that once a man joins the Silent People he becomes mischievous and spiteful, however good-natured he may have been when he was alive. And if he'd been unfairly treated, as they say he was, it would make him all the more spiteful, I should think. I often think he's got something he wants to tell us, and I sometimes wonder if it's got anything to do with the old stone herm in our orchard he's so fond of dancing round it."
"Really? And where is this old herm? I want to see all the sights of the country, you know; get my money's worth of travel!" And Master Nathaniel donned again the character of the cheerful cheesemonger, which, in the excitement of the last few minutes, he had, unwittingly, sloughed.
As they walked to the orchard, which was some distance from the washing trough, Hazel said, nervously:
"Perhaps you hadn't heard, sir, but I live here with my granny; at least, she isn't my real granny, though I call her so. And and well, she seems fond of old Portunus, and perhaps it would be as well not to mention to her that you had met him."
"Very well; I won't mention him to her at present." And he gave her rather a grim little smile.
Though the orchard had been stripped of its fruit, what with the red and yellow leaves, and the marvelous ruby-red of the lateral branches of the peach trees there was colour enough in the background of the old grey herm, and, in addition, there twisted around him the scarlet and gold of a vine.
"I often think he's the spirit of the farm," said Hazel shyly, looking to see if Master Nathaniel was admiring her old stone friend. To her amazement, however, as soon as his eyes fell on it he clapped his hand against his thigh, and burst out laughing.
"By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" he cried, "here's the answer to Portunus's riddle: `the tree yet not a tree, the man yet not a man,'" and he repeated to Hazel the one consecutive sentence that Portunus had managed to enunciate.
"`Who has no arms and yet can strike, who is dumb and yet can tell secrets,'" she repeated after him. "Can you strike and tell secrets, old friend?" she asked whimsically, stroking the grey lichened stone. And then she blushed and laughed as if to apologize for this exhibition of childishness.
With country hospitality Hazel presumed that their uninvited guest had come to spend several days at the farm, and accordingly she had his horse taken to the stables and ordered the best room to be prepared for his use.
The widow, too, gave him a hearty welcome, when he came down to the midday meal in the big kitchen.
When they had been a few minutes at table, Hazel said, "Oh, granny, this gentleman has just come from the farm near Moongrass, where little Master Chanticleer and young Hempen have gone. And he says they were both of them blooming, and sent us kind messages."
"Yes," said Master Nathaniel cheerfully, ever ready to start romancing, "my old friend the farmer is delighted with them. The talk in Lud was that little Chanticleer had been ill, but all I can say is, you must have done wonders for him - his face is as round and plump as a Moongrass cheese."
"Well, I'm glad you're pleased with the young gentleman's looks, sir," said the widow in a gratified voice. But in her eyes there was the gleam of a rather disquieting smile.
Dinner over, the widow and Hazel had to go and attend to their various occupations, and Master Nathaniel went and paced up and down in front of the old house, thinking. Over and over again his thoughts returned to the odd old
man, Portunus.
Was it possible that he had really once been Diggory Carp, and that he had returned to his old haunts to try and give a message?
It was characteristic of Master Nathaniel that the metaphysical possibilities of the situation occupied him before the practical ones. If Portunus were, indeed, Diggory Carp, then these stubble-fields and vineyards, these red and golden trees, would be robbed of their peace and stability. For he realized at last that the spiritual balm he had always found in silent things was simply the assurance that the passions and agonies of man were without meaning, roots, or duration - no more part of the permanent background of the world than the curls of blue smoke that from time to time were wafted through the valley from the autumn bonfires of weeds and rubbish, and that he could see winding like blue wraiths in and out of the foliage of the trees.
Yes, their message, though he had never till now heard it distinctly, had always been that Fairyland was nothing but delusion - there was life and death, and that was all. And yet, had their message always comforted him? There had been times when he had shuddered in the company of the silent things.
"Aye, aye," he murmured dreamily to himself, and then he sighed.
But he had yielded long enough to vain speculations -there were things to be done. Whether Portunus were the ghost of Diggory Carp or merely a doited old weaver, he evidently knew something that he wanted to communicate -and it was connected with the orchard herm. Of course, it might have nothing whatever to do with the murder of the late farmer Gibberty, but with the memory of the embroidered slipper fresh in his mind, Master Nathaniel felt it would be rank folly to neglect a possible clue.
He went over in his mind all the old man's words. "Dig, dig," that word had been the ever recurring burden.
Then he had a sudden flash of inspiration - why should not the word be taken in its primary meaning,? Why, instead of the first syllable of Diggory Carp, should it not be merely and order to dig with a spade or a shovel? In that case it was clear that the place to dig in was under the herm. And he decided that he would do so as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
Chapter XXIII
The Northern Fire-box and Dead Men's Tales