SILAS THE GOOD

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 179, 1 August 1939, Page 15

SILAS THE GOOD

For the KIDNEY*, BLADDER AND RHEUMATISM

♦short STORY

8Y.... H. E. BATES

* <$, IX a life of ninety-five years my Uncle Silas found time to try most tilings, and there was a time when he became a gravedig^or. The churchyard at Sol brook tit u mis a long way outside the village mi a Jittl,'. mound of bare land above the river valley. And there, dressed in .1 blue shirt and mulatto brown corduroy* and a licit thai, resembled more than anything a length Of machine, shafting, my Uncle Sila« used to perhaps a grave a month. He Would work all day there at tho blue-brown clay without seeing :i sou!, with no one. for company except, crows, the pewit* crying over the valley or the robin picking the worms out" of the thrown-up earth. Nouat, misshapen, wickedly ii*rly, he looked something like a ffaryriylo that had dropped otr the roof of the little church, sonu'thinir lil<-' a

brown dwarf who had livel too long after hi* time and -ro on living and digging tlio graves of others for ever. • '

Ho wafi <li<.'yinjr a grave thero once on the soutli side of tin- churchyard mi a sweet, sultry day in May. tliw fira-<.s already lonj: and deep, with etronj.' gulden cinvsliips evcrywher" anions tlie mounds mid t lie pravcstuiicri. and •blue-bflls liaiigiu;* lik" (lark smoke under the creamy waterfalls of lmwiiijrii bloom. By noon ho was fairly well tlo\vti with the jrrave, and had fixed /:i-; boards ti> the sides. The spring had lioun v<. ry diy and cold, but now, :n the .-bolter of the grave, in tlie r»tron<j sun, it secim-d lik-.' inidnunniKjr. It was sii good that Silas silt in the bottom of tin; jjr-ive .unl Sitid hi* dinner, eating his bread mid mutton off the thumb, and washing :t down with the cold tea he alwiys carried in a i»eerbottle. After eating, he bojiuil to f.-cl drowsy, and finally went, tn *l»e|> there, at the bottom of the grave, with hi* wet. n»ly month drooping open and the lieerbottle in one hand and iv-Hing on his knee.

He liad been asleep for a (|iiaiter of an hour or twenty minute-: when he woke ii)> and saw someone etalidilli; :it the top of the. pavi , . looking down .it him. At first he thought it was ,i woman. Then be naw his mistake. it was a female.

He was too stiipified and surprised to say anything, and the feniali st.> id lookin jf down at him. very at soiiK'thin;.', |«>kinjr holes in the yrass with a large umbrella. She, was very pale, updrawn and skinny, with a face, as Silas described it, like a turnip lantern with the candle out. She sp»mo:l to have xize nine Itootri on and from under her thick black skirt SLlas caught a glim)*". , of an amazing kniekerbock.-r lejr, b.ijrjry, brown in colour, and the size of an airship.

Hβ had not time to tako another look before she was at him. Sli,- wavc<l her umbrella and cawed at him like a crow, attacking him for indolence and irreverence, blasphemy and ignorance.

She wajrjied her head and stamped one of her feet, ami every time sin- did ?i> tho amazinj; lirown bloonvr seemed to slip a little farther down her leir, until Silas felt it would nlip off altogether. Finally, denuinded. #«prH}rjry neck craning down at him, what did he mom by boozing down there, on h<;ly jrronnd, in a place that should be :<uered for the. dead 1

Now at the best of times it was difficult for my Uncle Silas, with ripe red li]iri, one eye bloodshot and bleary, and a nose like a crusty strawberry, not to look like a drunken sailor. Hut there wan only one thinjf that he drank when he was working, and that wa* cold tea. It was true that it was always cold tea with whisky in it, but the basis remained, more or less, cold ten.

Silae let the female lecture lii.u for almoet five minutes, and then he raised his panania hat and eaid, "Good afternoon, ma'am. Ain't the cowelipa out nice?"

"Xot content with desecrating , holy ground," she eaid, "you're intoxicated, too!"

"No, ma'am," he said, "T wish T wa.-t.

"Beer!" she said. "Couldn't you leave the beer alone in here, of all places?"

Silas held up the beer-bottle. •'.Ma'am,*' he said, "what'e in here wouldn't harm a fly. It wouldn't harm you."

'"It ir> responsible for the ruin of thousands of homes all over England!"'

she said. -Cold tea,"' Silas said. • ♦ •

(Jiving a little sort of snort rdie. stamped down litT foot ami the bltwimei'leg jerked down a little "Cold tea!" .

"Ye*, nia'iiin. fold ton." Silis unscrewed the bottle and held it up to her. "fin (in. iiih'hmi, try it. Try it if you don't believe im , .' , "Thank you. Not out of that bottle. , ' "All right. I got a cup," Silas said. He looked in hi* dinner basket aurt found :11l cMaiiiel cup. He filled it with ten and held it up to her. '(So on. ma'am, try it. Try it. It won't hurt

■•Weill" she said, and she reached down tor the cup. She took it ami touched her thin bony lips to it. "Well. it's certainly M>nie M>rt of tea.' , '".lust ordinary tea, ma'am," Silas said. "Made thw morning. You ain't drinking it. Take a good drink.' . She took a real drink then, washing it round her mouth. '•Refrej-hin , , ain't, it'.'" Silas slid. '•>ii-,'' she said, "it's very refre*h-

"Drink it up,"' he said. 'Have a drop inure. I l>et you've walked i tidy step?"'

"Yes," *he said. 'Tin afraid T have. All the way from Herford. Rather farther than 1 thought. I'm not so youncr as f used to be."

'•I'all!" Silas said. "Youiiff?" You look twenty."' He took his coat and spread it on the new earth abive the grave. "Sit down and rest yourself, ma'am. Sit down and look at the cowslip*."

Rather to his surprise, she sat down. She tiKik n not her drink of the tea and fini<l, "I think I'll unpin my hat." Slit , took otr her hat and held it in her lap. "Young"'" Silas said. ''Ma'am, you're just a chicken. Wait until you're as old as me and then you pun begin to talk. I can remember the Crimea!' , '■Indeed'.'■' t-he said. "You must have had a full and varied life." '■Yes, ma'am." She smiled thinly, for the first time. '"I am HdiTy I spoke as I did. It u|>sr>t mo to think of anyone drinking in this place." '"That's all right, ma'am," Silas said. 'That's all right. I aLn't touched a drop for years. I'sed to, ma'am. Bin a regular sinner. , ' • • • • Old Silas reached up to her with the bottle and said. "Have some nior-?. ma'am," and she held down the pup and filled it up again. "Thank you," she said. Slie looked quite pleasant now. softened by the. tea, and the smell of cowslips and the sun on her bare head. The bloonicr-lcg had disappeared and somehow she stopped looking like a female and became a woman. "But you've reformed now? ,, s.he said. '"Yes. ma'am," Silas said, with a plight (shake of his head, as though he wore a man in genuine sorrow, "Yes, ma'am. I've reformed. ,, '•It was a long fight?" "A long fight, ma'am? I should say it was. ma'am. A devil of a long fight.' . Ho raised hi* pana-ma hat a little. ''Beg pardon, ma'am. That's another thing I'm fighting against. The language."

"And the drink, , ' she said, "how far back does that go?"

'"Well, ma'am," Silae paid, settling back in the grave, where he had been sitting all that time, "I was born in the hungry forties. Bad times, ma'am, very bad timer;. We war; fed on barley pap, ma'am, if you ever heard talk of barley pap. And the water wa-s bad, too, ma'am. Very -Iwul. Outbreaks of smallpox and typhoid and all that. So we had beer, ma'am. Everybody had beer. The babies had beer. So you see, ma'am," Silas said, "I've ben fighting againut it for eighty yeare and more. All my puff. ,.

"And now you've conquered it?"

"Yes, ma'am," said my Uncle Silas, who had drunk more in eighty years than would keep a water-mill turning,

"I've conquered it." He held up the beer-bottle. "Nothing but cold tea. You'll have fiome more cold tea, ma'am, won't you '!'' "It's very kind of you," she said. So Silas poured out another cup of the cold tea and she sat on the jrraveside and r-ip|ied it in the sunshine, beconi-in-z all tha time more and more human.

"And no wonder," , as Silas would say to me afterward*, "eieeinjf it was still the winter ration we were drinking. You see, I had a summer ration with only a nip of whisky in it, and then I had a winter ration \vi' pretty nigh a mug , - ful in it. The weather had been cold up to that day and 1 hadn't bothered to knock the winter ration off."

They sat Hiere for about another half an hour, drinking the cold tea, and during that time there was nothing <?he did not hear about my Uncle Sila*' life; not only how he had reformed on the beer and was trying to reform on the language, but how lie had long since reformed on the ladies and the horses and the doubtful stories and the lying and everything else that a man can reform on.

Indeed, as he finally climbed up out of the grave to shake hands with her and say jiood afternoon, nhe must have jrot the impression that he was a kind of ascetic lay brother.

Except that her face was very flushed, she walked away with much the sanit; dignity as she had come. There was only 'one thing that spoiled it. The amazing bloomer leg had come down again, and Silas could not resist it. "Excuse me, ma'am." he failed after her, "but you're liable to lose your knickerbockers."

She turned and gave a dignified smile and. then a quick, saucy kind of hitch, to her skirt, and the bloomer-leg went up, as Silas himself said, as sharp as a blind in a shop-window.

That was the last he ever saw of her. But that, afternoon, on the 2.45 up-traia out of Solbrook, there was a woman with a large umbrella in one hand and a bunch of cowslips in the other. In the warm, crowded carriage there was a smell of something stronger than cold tea, and it was clear to everyone that one of her garments wae not in its proper place. She appeared to be a little excited, and to everybody's embarrassment she talked a great deal.

Her subject was someone she had met that afternoon.

"A good man," she told them. "A good man. ,.