AT THE GREEN DRAGON XI
By Beatrice Harraden
HIERONYMUS GOES.
They were captured, those little wretches, the hill-ponies, having been chased down from all directions, and gathered together in the enclosure set apart for their imprisonment. There they were, cribbed, cabined, and confined, some of them distressed, and all of them highly indignant at the rough treatment which they had received. This gathering together of the wild ponies occurred two or three times in the year, when the owners assembled to identify their particular herd, and to reimpress their mark on the ponies which belonged to them. It was no easy matter to drive them down from the hills; though indeed they came down willingly enough at night to seek what they might devour. Then one might hear their little feet pattering quickly over the ground, helter-skelter! The villagers were well accustomed to the sound. “It’s only the hill-ponies, the rascals!” they would say. But when they were wanted, they would not come. They led the beaters a rare dance over hill and dale; but it always ended in the same way. Then, after four or five years of life on the hills, their owners sold them, and that was the end of all their fun, and all their shagginess too.
Hieronymus stood near the enclosure watching the proceedings with the greatest interest. The men were trying to divide the ponies into groups, according to the mark on their backs. But this was no easy matter either; the little creatures kicked and threw themselves about in every direction but the right one, and they were so strong that their struggles were generally successful. The sympathies of Hieronymus went with the rebels, and he was much distressed when he saw three men hanging on to the tail of one of the ponies, and trying to keep him back from another group.
“I say, you there!” he cried, waving his stick. “I can’t stand that.”
Mrs. Benbow, who was standing near him, laughed, and called him to order.
“Now don’t you be meddling with what you don’t understand,” she said. “You may know a good deal about books, but it’s not much you’ll know about hill-ponies.”
“That’s quite true,” said Hieronymus humbly.
“Come along with me now,” commanded Mrs. Benbow, “and help me buy a red pig!”
Nothing but a red pig would have made Hieronymus desert the hill-ponies. A red pig was of course irresistible to any one in his senses; and the historian followed contentedly after the landlady of the Green Dragon. She made her way among the crowds of people who had come to this great horse-fair, which was the most important one of the whole year. Hieronymus was much interested in every one and everything he saw; he looked at the horses, and sheep, and cows, and exchanged conversation with any one who would talk to him.
“There’s a deal of money will change hands to-day,” said a jolly old farmer to him. “But prices be dreadful low this year. Why, the pigs be going for a mere nothing.”
“I’m going to buy a pig,” Hieronymus said proudly, “a red one.”
“Ah,” said the farmer, looking at him with a sort of indulgent disdain, “it’s a breed as I care nothing about.”
Then he turned to one of his colleagues, evidently considering Hieronymus rather a feeble kind of individual, with whom it was not profitable to talk.
The historian was depressed for the moment, but soon recovered his spirits when he saw the fascinating red pigs. And his pride and conceit knew no bounds when Mrs. Benbow actually chose and bought the very animal which he had recommended to her notice. He saw David Ellis, and went to tell him about the pig. The exciseman laughed, and then looked sad again.
“My little Joan is very unhappy,” he said, half in a whisper. “The old white horse is to be sold. Do you see her there yonder? How I wish I could buy the old mare and give her to Joan!”
“That would be a very unwise thing for you to do,” said Hieronymus.
“Yes,” said David. “And do you know, I’ve been thinking of what you said about her going out into the world. And I found this advertisement. Shall I give it to her?”
Hieronymus looked at it.
“You’re a dear fellow, David,” he said warmly. “Yes, give it to her. And I too have been thinking of what you said to me. I’ve told her a little of my story, and she knows now how my heart is altogether taken up with my past. So, if I’ve done any harm to her and you, I have tried to set it right. And to-morrow I am going home. You will see me off at the station?”
“I’ll be there,” said the exciseman.
But there was no sign in his manner that he wished to be rid of Hieronymus. The historian, who all unconsciously won people’s hearts, all unconsciously kept them too. Even Auntie Lloyd, to whom he had been presented, owned that he “had a way” about him. (But then he had asked after her sciatica!) He spoke a few words to Joan, who stood lingering near the old white mare. She had been a little shy of him since he had talked so openly to her; and he had noticed this, and used all his geniality to set her at her ease again.
“This is my last afternoon,” he said to her, “and I have crowned the achievements of my visit here by choosing a red pig. Now I’m going back to the big barbarous world to boast of my new acquirements–brewing beer, eating pastry, drinking beef-tea, cutting up the beans, making onion pickles, and other odd jobs assigned to me by Queen Elizabeth of the Green Dragon. Here she comes to fetch me, for we are going to drive the red pig home in the cart. Then I’m to have some tea with rum in it, and some of those horrible Shropshire crumpets. Then if I’m alive after the crumpets and the rum, there will be a few more odd jobs for me to do, and then to-morrow I go. As for yourself, little secretary, you are going to put courage into your heart, and fight your battles well. Tell me?”
“Yes,” she said; and she looked up brightly, though there were tears in her eyes.
“Do you know those words, ‘Hitch your wagon to a star?’” he said. “Emerson was right. The wagon spins along merrily then. And now good-bye, little secretary. You must come and see me off at the station to-morrow. I want all my friends around me.”
So on the morrow they gathered round him, Mr. Benbow, Mrs. Benbow, two of the Malt-House Farm boys, the old woman who kept the grocer’s shop, and who had been doing a good trade in sweetmeats since Hieronymus came, the exciseman, and Joan Hammond, and old John of the wooden leg. They were all there, sorrowful to part with him, glad to have known him.
“If you would only stay,” said Mrs. Benbow; “there are so many odd jobs for you to do!”
“No, I must go,” said the historian. “There is an end to everything, excepting to your beef-tea. But I’ve been very happy.”
His luggage had increased since he came to Little Stretton. He had arrived with a small portmanteau; he went away with the same portmanteau, an oak chair which Mr. Benbow had given him, and a small hamper containing Gamboge.
“Take care how you carry that hamper,” he said to the porter. “There is a dog inside undergoing a cat incarnation!”
To Joan he said: “Little secretary, answer the advertisement and go out into the world.”
And she promised.
And to David he said: “When you’ve finished that book-list write to me for another one.”
And he promised.
Then the train moved off, and the dear kind face was out of sight.
* * * * *
Mrs. Benbow went home to do the scouring and cleaning.
David rode off to Ludlow and bought a book.
Joan sat in her room at the Malt-House Farm, and cried her heart out. Then she looked at the advertisement and answered it. “It was kind of David,” she said.
* * * * *
So Joan went out into the world.
* * * * *
The weeks, the months, seem long without her. He buys his books, and with every new book he buys new comfort. He recalls the historian’s words: “Some day, when she is tired, she will be glad to lean on some one whom she can trust.”
So David waits.
THE END.