Read Brother Dusty-Feet Online
Authors: Rosemary Sutcliff
Brother Dusty-Feet
3. The True and Noble History of St George
10. St George Again, and a Green Doublet
DUSTY-FEET
Rosemary Sutcliff
FOR UNCLE HAROLD
with my love
Three Adventurers Set Out
The moment before it happened, Argos had been following obediently at Hugh Copplestone’s heels; but then he saw the new ducklings. Golden, cheeping ducklings, scurrying all about the yard, while their comfortable brown hen-mother took a dust-bath in the corner by the big shippon. Argos was very nearly a deerhound, only his brindled black-and-amber coat was long and silky like a collie’s. He had wallflower-brown eyes and a warm heart, and he loved all small scurrying things. So the moment he saw the ducklings he ambled over to blow at them affectionately; but the ducklings did not understand that it was affection, and they were very frightened. Hugh, who was on his way to water the calves, was carrying two pails on a yoke much too big for him, and did not notice what was happening until the ducklings scattered in all directions, cheeping and diving under anything that looked as if it might give them shelter from the Dreadful Monster, and the hen arose from her dust-bath with a wild squawk and flew clucking at the top of her voice to defend her adopted family.
‘Argos!’ cried Hugh frantically, setting down the pails with a clatter. ‘Argos! Come
here
! Oh, hen,
do
stop making that noise!’
But it was too late. A window under the farmhouse eaves was flung open, and a scolding voice shrilled down at him. ‘Take that brute into the cart-shed and tie him up.
I
saw him trying to kill the
ducklings, and a poultry-killer in this farm is a thing I will
not
have!’
‘Oh, he wasn’t. Really he wasn’t, Aunt Alison!’ protested Hugh, gazing up at her beseechingly. ‘He likes ducklings; it was only that they didn’t understand.’
‘Likes ducklings! I don’t doubt he likes ducklings!’ snapped Aunt Alison. ‘You take that brute into the cart-shed, and I’ll come and attend to him later. Yiss!’ And her head disappeared and the window banged shut.
Hugh knew what she meant by ‘attending’ to Argos, and so did Argos, and his ears and tail drooped miserably as he turned to follow his master.
The cart-shed was dim and quiet, full of shadows through which the May-time sunshine slanted down like a golden sword from a hole high up in the wall. There was no cart there now, because Uncle Jacob had taken it to help a friend who was moving farms – just the empty dimness and the golden sword of sunshine. Hugh tied Argos up to a ring in the wall with a piece of wagon rope; then he sat down on his heels and put his arms round the dog’s soft neck, and held him tight; tight, as though he was desperately afraid they might be parted.
‘Oh, Argos,’ he whispered, ‘you must learn not to do things like that. Now she’s going to beat you again.’
Argos turned his head as well as he could and kissed his master’s chin with a warm, loving tongue. He knew he was going to be beaten again, but he had been beaten so often that he was quite used to it, and Aunt Alison’s shrill voice hurt him much more than the whiplash; and he tried to explain this
to Hugh. But Hugh would not be comforted, and only hugged him the closer, while one tear trickled down his nose.
Hugh’s mother had died when he was so little that he could not remember her at all, though his father had often and often told him about her, and how kind she was, and how she loved flowers, especially periwinkle. Hugh’s father had been Vicar of a small, bleak Cornish village, and they had been very poor; but they had been very comfortable, and happy too, with a plot of periwinkle in the garden and an old woman called Hepzibah who came in by the day to look after them. But when Hugh was eight years old his father had died too, and he had had to come and live with Uncle Jacob, who was his mother’s brother (though it was hard to believe that, because he was so different), and Aunt Alison, who was Uncle Jacob’s wife. And Argos, who was a puppy then, had come with him. Uncle Jacob would have been fairly kind to them if he dared, but Aunt Alison grudged them the space they slept in and the food they ate – though Hugh worked hard enough to earn it – and she was very unkind to them. And as Uncle Jacob always did what she wanted, because she made him so uncomfortable if he did not, he was unkind to them too. Hugh would not have minded so much for himself, but very soon after he came to live in the big farmhouse, Aunt Alison had discovered that she could hurt him more by beating Argos than she could by beating
him
; so she had beaten Argos very often ever since, even more often than she beat Hugh, that is. She was not a nice woman.
‘I must go now,’ whispered Hugh. ‘I must go and finish watering the calves, or she’ll be even more
angry. Oh, if only it was just you and me alone to ourselves in all the world!’ And he rubbed his face against Argos’s neck, and got up. At the opening of the cart-shed he looked back, and saw the great dog sitting up and looking after him. ‘Good night, old Argos,’ he said, and Argos thumped his plumy tail on the ground and whined softly in his throat. It hurt Hugh dreadfully to leave him there, but he turned away at last and set off to water the calves before going in to his supper.
Aunt Alison was alone in the big farm kitchen when he went timidly in, for it was May Fair over at Torrington, and Jenny the farm maid and all the farm hands except old Ammiel the shepherd were out enjoying themselves. Aunt Alison had had to let them go and enjoy themselves because of what the village would say if she did not, otherwise she would not have dreamed of it. She was taking pies out of the bake-oven (she always baked when Jenny was out, because it made her feel ill-used, which was what she liked), and her face was very red, partly because of the oven and partly because she was in a bad temper.
‘I suppose you’ve forgotten to water the calves,’ she said accusingly.
Hugh said, ‘No, Aunt Alison. I’ve just done it.’
‘Have you tied up that brute of yours?’
Hugh nodded miserably; and Aunt Alison ladled some broth from an iron crock into a bowl and pushed it across the table to him, with a hunch of bread.
‘There’s your supper,’ she snapped, ‘and ’tis little enough you do to earn it.’
‘I do work hard, please, Aunt,’ said Hugh.
But Aunt Alison put her hands on her hips and screwed up her face and said, ‘Work? Aye, you work, because I see that you do. You wouldn’t do a hand’s turn else, I’ll be bound – and me working my fingers to the bone while everyone goes gallivanting off enjoying themselves.’
Her voice grew shriller and more aggrieved every moment. ‘Yiss, and I’ll tell you another thing, my beauty – ’tis a fine affair that your uncle and I should have to feed and clothe and shelter the likes of you, because that zany father of yours was so busy reading books he couldn’t even provide for his own flesh and blood.’
Hugh pushed away his broth-bowl and stood up to her with his hands clenched and his face nearly as red as hers. ‘Don’t you
dare
say things like that about my father,’ he said, almost choking in his fury. ‘You’re a beastly woman, and I hate you!’
There was an awful silence.
Hugh had never spoken even a little bit rudely to Aunt Alison before, and he couldn’t quite believe that he had done it now. And just for a moment Aunt Alison didn’t seem to believe it either; then her eyes began to glitter like glass in her red face, and she said in a triumphant and spiteful rush, ‘You wicked, ungrateful varmint! I’ve fed and housed you
and
that dog of yours for close on three years, and
this
is what I get for all my goodness. Not that it isn’t what I expected, for well I know the wicked ways of the world, and thank Heaven I can do my duty and look for no gratitude! Yiss, but ’tisn’t my duty to feed and shelter that dog, and I’ll not do it another day.’
Hugh gave a frightened gasp, and his sudden
bright rage went out as though somebody had thrown cold water over it.
Aunt Alison heard the gasp, and her face had a pleased sort of look. ‘He’s no good for the sheep, and he eats more than either of the other dogs,’ she said. ‘I’ll have him knocked on the head tomorrow. Yiss!’
‘No!’ cried Hugh. ‘Oh no, Aunt Alison. He’ll learn to be a sheep-dog, really he will. I’ll teach him.
Please—
’
‘If ’twasn’t that all the men are out except Ammiel, and him a soft-hearted zany, I’d have it done tonight,’ said Aunt Alison. Then she stamped her foot and pointed to the stairs. ‘Oh, get along to bed; I’m sick of the sight of you.’
For a long moment Hugh stood quite still, staring at her red, triumphant face, and feeling very sick. Then he turned away without a word, and stumbled off upstairs, up and up to his garret high under the eaves. And there he flung himself down on the bed, not crying – it was too bad for that – just lying quite still with his head in his arms, while something deep down inside him whispered over and over again, ‘Good-bye, old Argos, good-bye.’
He lay there for a long time, so long that it grew dusk all round him, and the dusk deepened to dark, and a bright star hung low out of the sky beyond his little window. And then, quite suddenly, he knew what he must do; and it was so simple that he could not imagine why he had not thought of it before. He must take Argos away tonight! They would run away together, and make their fortunes; they would find some place where Aunt Alison could not reach them and they would be happy.
Hugh got up off the bed, and thought about making preparations; but really there were none to make. He had a spare pair of shoes and a good shirt for Sundays, but he did not like to take them, lest Aunt Alison should call it stealing; and that only left the pot of periwinkle on the windowsill. It was a little bit of the periwinkle patch at home, which he had brought with him when he came to live here, and so it was his, and he could take it with him, and nobody could call it stealing; but it did not need to be packed or got ready in any way. So he simply sat down on the rush stool under the window, and waited.
Aunt Alison had not yet come to bed in the room below, and the others were not home from the Fair; so Hugh knew that it would not be safe to start out for a long while yet, and while he waited he began to make plans. It was a very quiet night, with hardly a breath of wind stirring; only the owls cried softly in the dark woods along the valley, and somewhere a dog-fox barked in the distance, and somehow the quietness helped him with his planning.
Should he go back to Cornwall, to the little bleak village that had been home before his father died? No, the people there were all so poor that none of them would be able to give him work. Well, then, should he wait in Bideford till daylight came, and wander down along the Quay where the great ships lay, and try to get taken on as cabin-boy aboard one of them, and see the Glories of Cathay or sail the golden waters of the Spanish Main? They would probably take him, because he was nearly eleven and tall for his age; but they certainly would not take Argos, so that was no good either. Then he had
a great and glorious idea that was just as simple as the first one had been. They would go to Oxford!
Hugh’s father had often told him about Oxford, where he had been servitor to someone called Anthony Heritage, at Oriel College. Being a servitor meant living with a friend who was richer than yourself, and sharing his schooling and his food, and in return for that, cleaning his boots and his room and carrying his books for him. That was the way in which most people who had not much money went to Oxford – or to Cambridge, for that matter. Well, so Hugh’s father had gone to Oxford, and he had meant that Hugh should go too. ‘I don’t quite know how we’ll manage it,’ he had said, looking slightly bothered, ‘because we don’t know anyone who wants a servitor; but we’re sure to find a way somehow, when you are thirteen or so.’ (People went to the Universities much younger in the days of Queen Elizabeth than they do now.) And he told Hugh about Anthony Heritage, who hated learning and was generally in trouble with the authorities; and about the Bocardo Prison, where evil-minded students who got into debt and pawned their friends’ Sunday jerkins were locked up, and had to be fed from outside, because Bocardo did not provide meals. About the Crosse Inn, where strolling players acted their plays from time to time; and about the wonderful lectures of Master Thomas Bodley, and about the glories of the New Learning.