Rewards and Fairies

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Mr. Springett, ‘but I was thinkin’ of some stables I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was stables in blue brick – very particular work. Dunno as they weren’t the best job which ever I’d done. But the gentleman’s lady – she’d come from Lunnon, new married – she was all for buildin’ what she called a haw-haw – what you an’ me ’ud call a dik – right acrost his park. A middlin’ big job which I’d have had the contract of, for she spoke to me in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o’ springs just where she wanted to dig her ditch, an’ she’d flood the park if she went on.’

‘Were there any springs at all?’ said Hal.

‘Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain’t there? But what I said about the springs put her out o’ conceit o’ diggin’ haw-haws, an’ she took an’ built a white tile dairy instead. But when I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it ’thout even lookin’ at it, and I hadn’t forgotten nothin’, I do assure you. More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the library, an’ “Ralph,” he says – he allers called me by name – "Ralph,” he says, “you’ve saved me a heap of expense an’ trouble this autumn.” I didn’t say nothin’, o’ course. I knowed he didn’t want any haw-haws digged acrost his park no more’n I did, but I never said nothing. No more he didn’t say nothing about my blue-brick stables, which was really the best an’ honestest piece o’ work I’d done in quite a while. He give me ten pounds for savin’ him a hem of a deal o’ trouble at home. I reckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.’

Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn’t quite understand what they thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without speaking.

When he looked up, Mr. Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his green and yellow pocket-handkerchief.

‘Bless me, Mus’ Dan, I’ve been asleep,’ he said. ‘An’ I’ve dreamed a dream which has made me laugh – laugh as I ain’t laughed in a long day. I can’t remember what ’twas all about, but they do say that when old men take to laughin’ in their sleep, they’re middlin’ ripe for the next world. Have you been workin’ honest, Mus’ Dan?’

‘Ra-ather,’ said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. ‘And look how I’ve cut myself with the small gouge.’

‘Ye-es. You want a lump o’ cobwebs to that,’ said Mr. Springett. ‘Oh, I see you’ve put it on already. That’s right, Mus’ Dan.’

KING HENRY VII. AND THE SHIPWRIGHTS

Harry our King in England, from London town is gone,
And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton.
For there lay The Mary of the Tower, his ship of war so strong,
And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong.

He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go,
(But only my Lord of Arundel,) and meanly did he show,
In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark;
With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk.

He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide,
And saw the Mary haled into dock, the winter to abide,
With all her tackle and habiliments which are the King his own;
But then ran on his false shipwrights and stripped her to the bone.

They heaved the main-mast overboard, that was of a trusty tree,
And they wrote down it was spent and lost by force of weather at sea.
But they sawen it into planks and strakes as far as it might go,
To maken beds for their own wives and little children also.

There was a knave called Slingawai, he crope beneath the deck,
Crying: ‘Good felawes, come and see! The ship is nigh a wreck!
For the storm that took our tall main-mast, it blew so fierce and fell,
Alack! it hath taken the kettles and pans, and this brass pott as well!’

With that he set the pott on his head and hied him up the hatch,
While all the shipwrights ran below to find what they might snatch;
All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good,
He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud.

‘I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave,
After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief.
Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There’s no clean hands in the trade —
Steal in measure,’ quo’ Brygandyne. ‘There’s measure in all things made!’

‘Gramercy, yeoman!’ said our King. ‘Thy council liketh me.’
And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three.
Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down,
And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town.

They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands,
And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King’s commands.
But ‘Since ye have made your beds,’ said the King, ‘ye needs must lie thereon.
For the sake of your wives and little ones – felawes, get you gone!’

When they had beaten Slingawai, out of his own lips,
Our King appointed Brygandyne to be Clerk of all his ships.
‘Nay, never lift up thy hands to me – there’s no clean hands in the trade.
But steal in measure,’ said Harry our King. ‘There’s measure in all things made!’

God speed the ‘Mary of the Tower,’ the ‘Sovereign’ and ‘Grace Dieu,’
The ‘Sweepstakes’ and the ‘Mary Fortune,’ and the ‘Henry of Bristol’ too!
All tall ships that sail on the sea, or in our harbours stand,
That they may keep measure with Harry our King and peace in Engeland!

Marklake Witches

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,