‘When I was a younger man,’ said Coachy, ‘my dad had a mare we called Brown Bess, which was named after the Queen of England herself. But she’s dead, I’ve heard, and there be a king now, bainta? Charles or James or William, or is it George, neighbours? That’s as may be. I’ve seen a lot come and goo, and it never made no manner of difference to the harses. Now this Bess, I’m speaken of the mare, markee, we had her sarved by Farmer Brisket’s Standish the First, and a fine upstanden stallion he was, and never known to fail. Nor a didn’t this time nuther, for a laamentable pretty foal he got on Bess, and I was there seeing him come into the warld. Tis in the end of a soft night he do come, and he come wropt round in a blanket of stars. Or a cloud haply. Tis all one: he were wet and steamen, and that’s the sense of ut. And now you’re here, I said, what might you make of ut, my coney? Pretty middlin, says he, blinken with his oily eyes. Oily and brown they was with a fleck of parple in ’em. Pretty middlin, says he, but wait till I’ve the use of my legs. And that were fair enough, so I come back to un at daybreak: And how now, my dear? Not so homelike, he says, but ut had to be, and once I get used to this dazzle o’ sunshine and bright grass I daun’t doubt but I’ll settle down snug. As for you, he says, bringen his hither eye close to mine, so that twas like staren into Glatting Mere on a dark quiet night, you look a likely lad, says he, and if you treat me right I’ll treat you right, and that’s a bargain. But if you or your dad are thinken to call me Standish the Second, or any such rubbidge as that, he says, you can just put it outa mind, and lively. For I’m Lubin, that’s my name, and Lubin I’ll be, says Lubin. And with that he frisked around and nuzzled up to his dam. I’ll allow, neighbours, that I took a fancy to that young foal from the first I set eyes on him; for I’d never knowed a piece of harse-flesh look so spry and talk so plain.’
‘I dunno what your way of thinken may be, Mus Mykelborne,’ said Broome, ‘nor yours, Mus Bailey, nor yours, Tahm Shellett. But to my mind a thief’s a thief and desarves no better.’
‘Ay, tis a lesson for us all,’ returned Mykelborne piously. ‘A youngish fellow, I’ll ’low. Thirty summers, no more. Cut off in his pinky prime, as Postle Paul do say. And them that saw ’un die’ll have the fear of God in their hearts for evermore.’
‘Thirty summers is a lot to lose,’ said Mr Bailey, and quoting from his own unpublished works he declaimed with some pomp:
Broome led the applause. ‘Well done, sir!’ said he. ‘Ay, larks is good eating, there’s no doubt. But the law’s the law, and them that saw what I seen today will think twice, I’ll ’low, afore they fall into scaddle ways like him. Come, landlord, I’ll pay scot, and you’ll oblige me, neighbours, by taken a round of liquor with Nat Broome. You too, old friend,’ he added, leaning towards Coachy Timms, to whose eyes he appeared to be invisible, and to whose ears inaudible. ‘You too, Coachman Timms, so we be all dutch cousins together.’ Lacking a response from Coachy, he shrugged his shoulders, winking at the company, and thrust his hand deep into an inner pocket. His fingers searched for a moment; the grin faded slowly from his face. He tried another pocket; scowled; gaped; and stood staring at the sanded floor with mouth open, unable to believe what his questing fingers told him.
All but Coachy were staring at him, and all who stared seemed to share his concern with guileless heart except one. The one exception was the dark slim tall fellow they called Gipsy Noke, a man neither old nor very young but of uncertain age, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, but English enough, and of Sussex, though his speech had an alien tang in it. He was a squatter who had come, heaven knew whence, and planted himself on a bit of waste land just within the parish border, armed with a shy geniality, money in his pocket with which to satisfy the parish officer in case of need, sense enough to lie low and provoke few questions, and energy enough to begin at daybreak building himself a shack and have smoke curling from its chimney before sundown, so surviving the traditional test in these parts of a newcomer’s title to toleration and peaceful settlement. Till now he had watched and listened and taken his drink in silence.
‘Lost summat, Nat Broome?’ asked Gipsy Noke.
There was a brightness in the man’s eyes and a smile in his tone that meant mischief, but Broome was already too far gone in fury to notice anything amiss.
‘My purse of money,’ he stammered. ‘I had ut safe in this pocket here, and now tis garn.’ His mouth filled with oaths, and they trickled out in a muddy stream. ‘Five silver shillens there was, as I’m a martal man.’