a little further on, she came, without so much as a cow in the road or a sheep in a field for company, to a dark narrow place, where the way hung over the verge of a stony hollow, an ancient pit which had once been worked as part of the quarries of Headington. This had long been of bad repute as a haunted and ill-omened place; and even the Carrier himself, strong and resolute as he was, felt no shame in whispering when he passed by in the moonlight. And the name of the place was the "Gipsy's Grave." Therefore, as Esther Cripps approached it, she was half inclined to wait and hide herself in a bush or gap until a cart or waggon should come down the hill behind her, or an honest dairyman whistling softly to reassure his shadow, or even a woman no braver than herself.
But neither any cart came near, nor any other kind of company, only the violence of the wind, and the keen increase of the frost-bite. So that the girl made up her mind to put the best foot foremost, and run through her terrors at such a pace that none of them could lay hold of her.
Through yards of darkness she skimmed the ground, in haste only to be rid of it, without looking forward, or over her shoulders, or anywhere, when she could help it. And now she was ready to laugh at herself and her stupid fears, as she caught through the trees a glimpse of the lights of Oxford, down in the low land, scarcely more than a mile and a half away from her. In the joy of relief she was ready to jump and pant without fear of the echoes, when suddenly something caught her ears.
This was not a thing at first to be at all afraid of, but only just enough to rouse a little curiosity. It seemed to be nothing more nor less than the steady stroke of a pickaxe. The sound came from the further corner of the deserted quarry, where a crest of soft and shingly rock overhung a briary thicket. Any person working there would be quite out of sight from the road, by reason of the bend of the hollow.
The blow of the tool came dull and heavy on the dark and frosty wind; and Esther almost made up her mind to run on, and take no heed of it. And so she would have done, no doubt, if she had not been a Cripps girl. But in this family firm and settled opinions had been handed down concerning the rights of property – the rights that overcome all wrongs, and outlive death. The brother Leviticus of Stow Wood had sown a piece of waste at the corner of the clevice with winter carrots for his herd of swine. The land being none of his thus far, his right so to treat it was not established, and therefore likely to be attacked by any rapacious encroacher. Esther felt all such things keenly, and resolved to find out what was going on.
To this intent she gathered in the skirt of her frock and the fulling of her cloak, and fending the twigs from her eyes and bonnet, quietly slipped through a gap in the hedge. For she knew that a steep track, trodden by children in the blackberry season, led from this gap to the deep and tangled bottom of the quarry. With care and fear she went softly down, and followed the curve of the hollow.
The heavy sound of the pickaxe ceased, as she came near and nearer, and the muttering of rough voices made her shrink into a nook and listen.
"Tell 'ee, I did see zummat moving," said a man, whom she could dimly make out on the beetling ridge above her, by the light of the clearing eastern sky; "a zummat moving down yonner, I tell 'ee."
"No patience, I han't no patience with 'ee," answered a taller man coming forward, and speaking with a guttural twang, as if the roof of his mouth were imperfect. "Skeary Jem is your name and nature. Give me the pick if thee beest aveared. Is this job to be finished to-night, or not?"
The answer was only a growl or an oath, and the swing of the tool began again, while Esther's fright grew hot, and thumped in her heart, and made her throat swell. It was all she could do to keep quiet breath, and prevent herself from screaming; for something told her that she was watching a darker crime than theft of roots or robbery of a sheepfold.
In a short or a long time – she knew not which – as she still lay hid and dared not show her face above the gorse-tuft, a sound of sliding and falling shale heavily shook her refuge. She drew herself closer, and prayed to the Lord, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and cowered, expecting to be killed at least. And then she peeped forth, to know what it was about. She never had harmed any mortal body; why should she be frightened so?
In the catch of the breath which comes when sudden courage makes gulp at uncertainty, she lifted herself by a stiff old root, to know the very worst of it. Better almost to be killed and be done with, than bear the heart-pang of this terrible fear. And there she saw a thing that struck her so aback with amazement, that every timid sense was mute.
Whether the sky began to shed a hovering light, or the girl's own eyes spread and bred a power of vision from their nervous dilation – at any rate, she saw in the darkness what she had not seen till now. It was the body of a young woman (such a body as herself might be), lying, only with white things round it, in the black corner, with gravel and earth and pieces of rock rolling down on it. There was nothing to frighten a sensible person now that the worst was known perhaps. Everybody must be buried at some time. Why should she be frightened so?
However, Esther Cripps fell faint, and lay in that state long enough for tons of burying rock to fall, and secret buryers to depart.
CHAPTER III.
OAKLEAF POTATOES
"Of all slow people in this slow place, I am quite certain that there is none so slow as Cripps, the Carrier."
This "hot spache," as the patient Zacchary would perhaps have called it, passed the lips of no less a person than old Squire Oglander. He, on the 20th day of December (the day after that we began with), was hurrying up and down the long straight walk of his kitchen garden, and running every now and then to a post of vantage, from which he could look over the top of his beloved holly hedge, and make out some of the zigzags of the narrow lane from Beckley. A bitter black frost had now set in, and the Squire knew that if he wanted anything more fetched out of his ground, or anything new put into it, it might be weeks before he got another chance of doing it. So he made a good bustle, and stamped, and ran, and did all he could to arouse his men, who knew him too well to concern themselves about any of his menaces.
"I tell you we are all caught napping, Thomas. I tell you we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. The frost is an inch in the ground already. Artichokes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, even horse-radish for our Christmas beef – and upon my soul, a row of potatoes never even dug yet! Unless I am after you at every corner – well, I am blessed if I don't see our keeping onions!"
"Now, measter, 'ee no call to be so grum! None of they things'll be a haporth the worse. The frost'll ony swaten 'em."
"You zany, I know all your talk. Hold your tongue. Not a glass of beer will I send out, if this is all I get for it. Sweeten them, indeed! And when we want them, are we to dig them with mattocks, pray? Or do you thick-heads expect it to thaw to order, when the pot is bubbling? Stir your lazy legs, or I'll throw every one of you on the work-house the moment the first snow falls."
The three men grinned at one another, and proceeded leisurely. They knew much better than the Squire himself what his gentle nature was, and that he always expiated a scolding with a jug of beer.
"Man and boy," said the eldest of them, speaking below his breath, as if this tyranny had extinguished him; "in this here gearden have I worked, man and boy, for threescore year, and always gi'en satisfaction. Workuss! What would his father a' said, to hear tell in this gearden of workuss? Workuss! Well, let un coom, if a will! Can't be harder work, God knoweth."
"Tummuss, Tummuss, you may say that," said another lazy rascal, shaking his head, with his heel on his spade, and then wiping his forehead laboriously. "'Tis the sweat of our brow, Tummuss, none of 'em thinks on – but there, they was born to be driving of us!"
Squire Oglander made as if he heard them not; and then he hurried to the hedge again, and stood on the wall of the leaf-mould
