 section 10 of rewards and fairies this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org rewards and fairies by Rudyard Kipling section 10 a doctor of medicine an astrologers song to the heavens above us oh look and behold the planets that love us all harnessed in gold what chariots what horses against us shall bide while the stars in their courses do fight on our side all fought all desires that are under the sun are one with their fires as we also are one all matter all spirit all fashion all frame receive and inherit their strength from the same oh man that denies all power save thine own their power in the highest is mightily shown not less in the lowest that power is made clear oh man if thou knowest what treasure is here earth quakes in her throws and we wonder for why but the blind planet knows when her ruler is nigh and attuned since creation to perfect accord she thrills in her station and yearns to her lord the waters have risen the springs are unbound their floods break their prison and raven around no rampart with stanzum their fury will last till the sign that commands them sink slow or swings past through abysses unproven and gulfs beyond thought our portion is woven a burden is brought yet they that prepare it whose nature we share make us who must bear it well able to bear though terrors or take us will not be afraid no power can unmake us save that which has made nor yet beyond reason nor hope shall we fall all things have their season and mercy crowns all then doubt not ye fearful the eternal is king up heart and be cheerful and lustily sing what chariots what horses against us shall bide while the stars in their courses to fight on our side a doctor of medicine they were playing hide and seek with bicycle lamps after tea dan had hung his lamp on the apple tree at the end of the hellebore bed in the walled garden and was crouched by the goose prey bushes ready to dash off when owner should spy him he saw her lamp come into the garden and disappear as she hid it under her cloak while he listened for her footsteps somebody they both thought it was Phillips the gardener coughed in the corner of the air beds all right una shouted across the asparagus we aren't hurting your old beds vipsy she flashed her lantern toward the spot and in its circle of light they saw a guy forks looking man in a black cloak and a steeple crowned hat walking down the path beside puck they ran to meet him and the man said something to them about rooms in their head after a time they understood he was warning them not to catch colds you've a bit of a cold yourself haven't you said una for he ended all his sentences with a consequential cough puck laughed child the man answered if it has pleased heaven to afflict me with an infirmity nay nay puck struck in the maid spoke out of cornice i know that half your cough is but a catch to trick the vulgar and that's a pity there's honesty enough in you nick without rasping and hawking good people the man shrugged his lean shoulders the vulgar crowd love not truth unadorned wherefore we philosophers must need dress her to catch their eye or their ear what do you think of that said puck solemnly to dan i don't know he answered it sounds like lessons ah well there have been worse men and nick colpepper to take lessons from now where can we sit it's not indoors in the haymo next to old middenborough dan suggested he doesn't mind eh mr colpepper was stooping over the pale hellbore blooms by the light of una's lamp does master middenborough need my poor services then save him no said puck he is but a horse next door to an arse as you'll see presently come their shadows jumped and slid on the fruit tree walls they filed out of the garden by the snoring pig pound and the crooning hen house to the shed where middenborough the old lawnmower pony lives his friendly eyes showed green in the light as they set their lamps down on the chicken's drinking trough outside and pushed past to the haymo mr colpepper stopped at the door my way you lie said dan this a's full of hedge brishings in in said puck you've lain in foul of places in this nick ah let us keep touch with the stars he kicked open the top of the half door and pointed to the clear sky there be the planet you conjure with what does your wisdom make of that wandering and variable star behind those apple bows the children smiled a bicycle that they knew well was being walked down the steep lane where mr colpepper leaned forward quickly that some countryman's lantern wrong nick said puck tis a singular bright star in vargo declining towards the house of aquarius the water carrier who had lately been afflicted by jim and i aren't i right una mr colpepper snorted contemptuously no it's the village nurse going down to the mill about some fresh twins that came there last week nurse una called as the light stopped on the flat when can i come see the modest twins and how are they next sunday perhaps doing beautifully the nurse called back and with a ping ping ping of her bell brushed round the corner her uncle's a veterinary surgeon near banbury una explained and if you ring her bell at night it rings right beside her bed not downstairs at all then she umps up she always keeps a pair of dry boots and the fender you know and goes anywhere she's wanted we help a bicycle through gaps sometimes most of her babies do beautifully she told us so herself i doubt not then that she reads in my books said mr colpepper quietly twins at the mill he muttered half aloud and again he saith the turned ye children of men are you a doctor or a rector una asked and park with a shout turned head over heels in the hay but mr colpepper was quite serious he told them that he was a physician astrologer a doctor who knew all about the stars as well as all about herbs for medicine he said that the sun the moon and five planets called jupiter mars mercury saturn and venus governed everybody and everything in the world they all lived in houses he mapped out some of them against the dark with a busy forefinger and they moved from house to house like pieces at drafts and they went loving and hating each other all over the skies if you knew their likes and dislikes he said you could make them cure your patient and hurt your enemy and find out the secret causes of things he talked of these five planets as though they belong to him or as though he were playing long games against them the children burrowed in the hay up to their chins and looked out over the half door at the solemn star-powdered sky till they seemed to be falling upside down into it while mr colpepper talked about trines and oppositions and conjunctions and sympathies and antipathies in a tone that just matched things a rat ran between midden borough's feet and the old pony stamped mid hates rats said dan and passed him over a lock of hay i wonder why divine astrology tells us said mr colpepper the horse being a marshal beast that bareth man to battle belongs naturally to the red planet mars the lord of war i would show you him but he's too near his setting rats and mice doing their business by night come under the dimension of our lady the moon now between mars and luna the one red to the white the one heart to other cold and so forth stands as i have told you a natural antipathy or as you say hatred which antipathy their creatures do inherit whence good people you may both see and hear your cattle stamp in their stalls for the self-same causes as decree the passages of the stars across the unalterable face of heaven puck lay along chewing a leaf they felt him shake with laughter and mr colpepper sat up stiffly i myself said he have saved men's lives and not a few neither by observing at the proper time there is a time mark you for all things under the sun by observing i say so small a beast as a rat in conjunction with so greater matter as this dread arch above us he swept his hand across the sky yet there are those he went on sourly who have years without knowledge right said puck no fool like an old fool mr colpepper wrapped his cloak around him and sat still while the children stared at the great bear on the hilltop give him time puck whispered behind his hand he turns like a timber tug all over peace um mr colpepper said suddenly i'll prove it to you when i was physician to say's horse and fought the king or rather the man charles stewart in oxfordshire i had my learning at cambridge the plague was very hot all around us i saw it at close hands he who says i am ignorant of the plague for example is all together beside the bridge we grant it said pock solemnly but why talk of the plague this rare night to prove my argument this oxfordshire plague good people being generated among rivers and ditches was of a wearish watery nature therefore it was curable by drenching the patient in cold water and laying him in wet clothes more at least so i cured some of them mark this it bears on what shall come after mark also nick said puck that we are not your college of physicians but only a lad in a last and a poor lubricant therefore be plain old hyssop on the wall to be plain and in order with you i was shot in the chest while gathering of betney from a brookside near tem and was took by the king's men before their colonel one blag or brag who my warned honestly that i had spent the week passed among our plagues chicken he flung me off into a cow shed much like this here to die as i supposed but one of their priests crept in by night and dressed my wound he was a sussex man like myself oh was that said pock suddenly zach touch him no jack margott said mr culpeper jack margott of new college a little merry man that stammered so why a plague was stuttering jack at oxford then said pock he had come out of sussex in hope of being made a bishop when the king should have conquered the rebels as he styled us parliament men his college had lent the king some monies too which they never got again no more than simple jack got his bishopric when we met he had had a bitter belly full of king's promises and wished to return to his wife and babes this came about beyond expectation for so soon as i could stand of my wound the man blag made excuse that i had been among the plague and jack had been tending me to thrust us both out from their camp the king had done with jack now that jack's college had lent the money and blag's physician could not abide me because i would not sit silent and see him butcher the sick he was a college of physicians man so blag i say thrust us both out with many vile words for a pair of pestilent preting pragmatical rascals ha called you pragmatical nick pock started up our time oliver came to purge the land out at you and on his jack fair next we were in some sort constrained to each other's company i was for going to my house in spittle fields he would go to his parish in sussex but the plague was broke out and spreading through wiltshire berkshire and hampshire and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even then be among his folk at home that i bore him company he had comforted me in my distress i could not have done less and i remembered that i had a cousin at great wigsel nearby jack's parish lost we footed it from oxford casick and buff coat together resolute to leave wars on the left side henceforth and either through our mean appearances or the plague making men less cruel we were not hindered to be sure they put us in the stocks one half day for rogues and vagabonds at a village under saint linard's forest whereas i have heard nightingales never sing but the constable very honestly gave me back my astrological almanac which i carry with me mr culpepper tapped his thin chest i dressed a whitlow on his thumb so we went forward not to trouble you with impertinences we fetched over against jack margots parish in a storm of rain about the day's end here our roads divided for i would have gone on to my cousin at great wigsel but while jack was pointing me out his steeple we saw a man lying drunk as he conceived thwart the road he said it would be one hebden a parishioner until then a man of good life and he accused himself bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd that had left his flock to follow princes but i saw it was the plague and not the beginnings of it neither they had set out the plague stone and the man's head lay on it what's the plague stone dan whispered when the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbors shut the roads against them people set a hollowed stone pot or pan where such as would purchase vitals from outside may lay money and the paper of their wants and a pot those that would sell come later what will a man not do for gain snatch the money forth and leave in exchange such goods as their conscience reckons fair value i saw a silver grote in the water and the man's list of what he would buy was rainpulped in his wet hand my wife oh my wife and babe says jack of a sudden and makes uphill i with him a woman peers out from behind a barn crying out that the village is stricken with the plague and that for our live sake we must avoid it sweetheart says jack must i avoid thee and she leaps at him and says the babes are safe as she was his wife when he had thanked god even to tears he tells me this was not the welcome he had intended and presses me to flee the place while i was clean nay the lord do so to me and more also if i desert thee now i said these affairs are under god's leave in some fashion my strength oh sir she says are you a physician we have none then good people said i i must even justify myself to you by my works look look here stammer's jack i took you all this time for a crazy round head preacher he laughs and she and then i all three together in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust a clap of laughter which nonetheless eased us we called it in medicine the hysterical passion so i went home with them why did you not go on to your cousin at great wigsle nick pock suggested is barely seven miles up road but the plague was here mr culpepper answered and pointed up the hill what else could i have done what were the parson's children called seruna elizabeth allison steven and charles a babe i scarce saw them at first for i separated to live with their father in a cart lodge the mother we put forced into the house with her babes she had done enough and now good people give me leave to be particular in this case the plague was worst on the north side of the street for lack as i showed them of sunshine which proceeding from the prime mobile or source of life i speak astrologically is cleansing and purifying in the highest degree the plague was hot too by the corn chandlers where they sell forage to the carters extreme heart in both mills along the river and scattering lee in other places except mark you at the smithy mark here that all forges and smith shops belong to mars even as corn and meat and wine shops acknowledge venus for their mistress there was no plague in the smithy at monday's lane monday's lane you mean our village i thought so when you talked about the two mills cried dan where did we put the plague stone i'd like to have seen it and look at it now said puck and pointed to the chicken's drinking trough where they had set their bicycle lamps it was a rough oblong stone pan rather like a small kitchen sink which phillips who'd never waste anything had found in a ditch and had used for his precious hens that said dan and una and stared and stared and stared mr culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on i am at these pains to be particular good people because i would have you follow so far as you may the operations of my mind that plague which i told you i had handled outside wallingford in oxfordshire was of a watery nature conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred in and curable as i have said by drenching in water this plague of ours here for all that it flourished among water courses every soul at both mills died of it could not be so handled which brought me to a stand and your sick people in the meantime puck demanded we persuaded them on the north side of the street to lie out in hitram's field where the plague had taken one or at most two in a house folk would not shift for fear of thieves in their absence they cast away their lives to die among their goods human nature said puck i've seen it time and again how did your sick do in the fields they died not near so thick as those that kept within doors and even then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague but i confess good people i could not in any sort master the sickness or come at a glimmer of its nature or governance to be brief i was flat bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease and so did what i should have done before dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions that had grown up within me chose a good hour by my almanac clapped my vinegar cloth to my face and entered some empty houses resigned to wait upon the stars for guidance at night were you not horribly frightened said puck i dared to hope that the god who hath made man so nobly curious to search out his mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker in due time there's a time as i have said for everything under the sun i spied a whitish rat very puffed and scabby which sat beneath the dormer of an attic through which shined our lady the moon whilst i looked on him and her she was moving towards old cold saturn her ancient ally the rat creep languishingly into her light and there before my eyes died presently his mate or companion came out laid him down beside there and in like fashion died too later an hour or less to midnight a third rat did in the same always choosing the moonlight to die in this threw me into an amaze since as we know the moonlight is favorable not hurtful to the creatures of the moon and saturn being friends with her as you would say was hourly strengthening her evil influence yet these three rats had been stricken dead in very moonlight i leaned out of the window to see which of heaven's host might be on our side and there beheld i good trusty mars very red and heated bustling about his setting i straddled the roof to see better jack margett came up street going to comfort our sick in hidram's field a tile slipped under my foot says he heavily enough watchman what of the night hot up jack says i me thinks there's one fighting for us that like a fool i forgot all this summer my meaning was naturally the planet mars pray to him then says he i forgot him too this summer he meant god whom he always bitterly accused himself of having forgotten up in oxfordshire among the king's men i called down that he had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick but he said he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from him he was at his strengths and more from melancholy than any just cause i have seen this before among priests and over cheerful men i drenched him then and there with a half cup of waters which i do not say cure the plague but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits what were they said dan white brandy rectified camphor carter moms ginger two sorts of pepper and aniseed said puck waters you call them jack coughed on it valiantly and went downhill with me i was for the lower mill in the valley to note the aspect of the heavens my mind had already shadowed forth a reason if not the remedy for our troubles but i would not impart it to the vulgar till i was satisfied that practice may be perfect judgment ought to be sound and to make judgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge i left jack and his lantern among the sick in field he still maintained the prayers of the so-called church which were rightly forbidden by cramwell you should have told your cousin at wigsul said puck and jack would have been fine for it and you'd have had half the money how did you come so to fail in your duty nick mr culpepper laughed his only laugh that evening and the children jumped at the loud knee of it we were not fearful of men's judgment in those days he answered now mark me closely good people for what follows will be to you though not to me remarkable when i reached the empty mill old satin low down in the house of the fishes threatened the sun's rising place our lady the moon was moving towards the help of him understand i speak astrologically i looked abroad upon the high heavens and i prayed the maker of them for guidance now mars sparklingly withdrew himself below the sky on the instant of his departure which i noted a bright star or vapor leaped forth above his head as though he had heaved up his sword and broke all about in fire the cocks crowed midnight throughout the valley and i sat me down by the mill wheel chewing spearmint though that's an herb of venus and calling myself all the ass's heads in the world towards plain enough now what was playing seduna the true cause and cure of the plague mars good fellow had fought for us to the utter most faint though he had been in the heavens and this had made me overlook him in my computations he more than any of the other planets had kept the heavens which is to say had been visible some part of each night well nigh throughout the year therefore his fierce and cleansing influence warring against the moon had stretched out to kill those three rats under my nose and under the nose of their natural mistress the moon i had known mars lean half across the heaven to deal our lady the moon some shrewd blow from under his shield but i had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual i don't understand a bit do you mean mars killed the rats because he hated the moon said una that is as plain as the pike staff with which blag's men pushed me forth mr culpeper answered and i'll prove it why had the plague not broken out at the blacksmith's shop in monday's lane because as i've shown you forges and smithies belong naturally to mars and for his honor's sake mars would keep them clean from the creatures of the moon but was it like thank you that he'd come down and rat catch in general for lazy ungrateful mankind that were working a willing horse to death so then you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above him when he sat was simply this destroy and burn the creatures of the moon for they are the root of your trouble and thus having shown you a taste of my power good people adieu did mars really say all that una whispered yes and twice so much as that to anyone who had ears to hear briefly he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures of the moon the moon our lady of ill aspect whilst the offender my own poor wits showed me that i nick culpeper had the people in my charge god's good providence aiding me and no time to lose neither i posted up the hill and broke into hitheram's field amongst them all at prayers yorika good people i cried and cast down a dead mill rat which i'd found here's your true enemy revealed at last by the stars nay but i'm praying said jack his face was as white as washed silver there's a time for everything under the sun says i if you would stay the plague take and kill your rats oh mad stark mad says he in rings his hands a fellow lay in the ditch beside him who bellows that he'd as soon die mad hunting rat as we preach to death on a cold fallow they laughed round him at this but jack margott falls on his knees and very presumptuously petitions that he may be appointed to die to save the rest of his people this was enough to thrust him back into their melancholy you are an unfaithful shepherd jack i says take a bat which we call a stick in sussex and kill a rat if you die before sunrise twill save your people i i take a bat and kill a rat he says 10 times over like a child which moved him to ungovernable motions of that hysterical passion before mentioned so that they laughed all and at least warmed their chill bloods at that very hour one o'clock or a little after when the fires of life burn lowest truly there is a time for everything and the physician must work with it or miss his cure to be brief with you i persuaded him sick or sound to have at the whole generation of rats throughout the village and there's a reason for all things too though the wise physician need not blabber mall imprimis or firstly the mere sport of it which lasted 10 days drew him most markedly out of their melancholy i defy sorrowful job himself to lament or scratch while he's routing rats from a rick second or secondly the vehement act and operation of this chase or war opened their skins to generous transpiration more vulgarly sweated them handsomely and this further drew off their black bile the mother of all sickness thirdly when we came to burn the bodies of the rats i sprinkled sulfur on the faggots whereby the onlookers were as handsomely suffumigated this i could not have compassed if i had made it a mere physician's business they'd have thought it some conjuration yet more we cleansed limed and burned out a hundred foul poke holes sinks slews and corners of unvisited filth in and about the houses in the village and by good fortune mark here that mars was in opposition to venus burned the cornhandler's shop to the ground mars loves not venus will nokes the sadler dropped his lantern on a truss of straw while he was rat hunting there had you given will any of that gentle cordial of yours nick by any chance said buck a glass or two glasses not more but as i would say in fine when we had killed the rats i took ash slag and charcoal from the smithy and burnt earth from the brickyard i reason that a brickyard belongs to mars and rammed it with iron crowbars into the rat runs and berries and beneath all the house floors the creatures of the moon hate all that mars hath used for his own clean ends for example rats bite not iron and now did poor stuttering jack endure it said park he sweated out his melancholy through his skin and catched a loose cough which i cured with electuaries according to art it is noteworthy were i speaking among my equals that the venom of the plague translated or turned itself into and evaporated or went away as a very heavy hoarseness and thickness of the head throat and chest observe from my books which planets govern these portions of man's body and your darkness good people shall be illuminated nonetheless the plague qua plague ceased and took off for we only lost three more and two of them had it already on them from the morning of the day that mars enlightened me by the lower mill he coughed almost trumpeted triumphantly it is it is proved he jerked out i say i have proved my contention which is that by divine astrology and humble search into the veritable causes of things at the proper time the sons of wisdom may combat even the plague hmm puck replied for my own part i hold that a simple soul main simple for sooth said mr carl pepper a very simple soul a high courage tempered with sound and stubborn conceit is stronger than all the stars in their courses so i confess truly that you save the village nick i stubborn i stiff-naked i ascribe all my poor success under god's good problem to define astrology not to me the glory you talk is that dear weeping ass jack margott preached before i went back to my work in red lion house spittle fields oh stammering jack preached it he they say he loses his stammer in the pulpit and is wits with it he delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the plague was stayed he took for his text the wise man that delivered the city i could have given him a better such as there is a time for but what made you go to church to hear him puck interrupted well at a soul was your lawfully appointed preacher and a dull dog he was mr culpeper wriggled uneasily the vulgar said he the old crones and the children allison and the others they dragged me to the house of riman by the hand i was in two minds to inform on jack for maintaining the memories of the falsely called church which i'll prove to you i found it merely on ancient fables stick to your herbs and planets said puck laughing you should have told the magistrates nick and had jack find again why did you neglect your plain duty because because i was kneeling and praying and weeping with the rest of them at the altar rails in medicine this is called the hysterical passion it may be it may be that says maybe said puck they heard him turn the hay why your hay is half hedge brishings he said you don't expect a horse to thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves do you ping ping ping with the bicycle bell round the corner nurse was coming back from the mill is it all right una called all quite right nurse called back there to be christian next Sunday what what they both leaned forward across the half door it could not have been properly fastened for it opened and tilted them out with hay and leaves sticking all over them come on we must get those two twins names said una and they charged up hill shouting over the hedge till nurse slowed up and told them when they returned old middenborough had got out of his stall and they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight our fathers of old excellent herbs had our fathers of old excellent herbs to ease their pain alexander's and marigold i bright oris and l campaign basil rocket valerian roue almost singing themselves they run vervane ditany call me to you cow slip melillo rose of the sun anything green that grew out of the mold was an excellent herb to our fathers of old wonderful tales had our fathers of old wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars the sun was lord of the marigold basil and rocket belong to mars pat as a sum in division it goes every plant had a star bespoke who but venus should govern the rose who but jupiter owned the oak simply and gravely the facts are told in the wonderful books of our fathers of old wonderful little when all is said wonderful little our fathers knew half their remedies cured you dead most of their teaching was quite untrue look at the stars when a patient is ill dirt has nothing to do with disease bleed and blister as much as you will blister and bleed him as oft as you please wins enormous and manifold errors were made by our fathers of old yet when the sickness was sore in the land and neither planet nor herb assuaged they took their lives in their lancet hand and oh what a wonderful war they waged yes when the crosses were chalked on the door yes when the terrible dead cart rolled excellent courage our fathers bore excellent heart had our fathers of old not too learned but nobly bold into the fight went our fathers of old if it be certain as galen says and sage hypocrites holds as much that those afflicted by doubts and dismayes are mightily helped by a dead man's touch then be good to us stars above then be good to us herbs below we are afflicted by what we can prove we are distracted by what we know so ah so down from your heaven or up from your mold send us the hearts of our fathers of old end of chapter 10 of rewards and fairies by roger kippling read by ted lorm and fort mill south carolina section 11 of rewards and fairies this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recorded by russ lemker of edina minnesota rewards and fairies by roger kippling section 11 the thousandth man one man in a thousand solemn says we'll stick more close than a brother and it's worthwhile seeking him half your days if you find him before the other 999 depend on what the world sees in you but the thousandth man will stand your friend with the whole round world again you it is neither promise nor prayer nor show will settle the find in for you 999 of them go by your looks or your acts or your glory but if he finds you and you find him the rest of the world don't matter for the thousandth man will sink or swim with you in any water you can use his purse with no more talk than he uses yours for his spendings and laugh and meet in your daily walk as though there had been no lendings 999 of them call for silver and gold in their dealings but the thousandth man is worth them all because you can show him your feelings his wrongs your wrong and his rights your right in season or out of season stand up and back it in all men's sight with that for your only reason 999 can't bide the shame or mocking or laughter but the thousandth man he will stand by your side to the gallows foot and after simple simon katawao came down the steep lane with his five horse timber tug he stopped by the woodlump at the back gate to take off the brakes his real name was braven but the first time the children met him years and years ago he told them he was carting wood and it sounded exactly so exactly like katawao that they never called him anything else hi una shouted from the top of the woodlump where they had been watching the lane what are you doing why weren't we told they've just sent for me katawao answered there's a midland big log stacked in the dirt at rabbit shore and he flicked his whip back along the line so they've sent for us all dan and una threw themselves off the woodlump almost under black sailor's nose katawao never let them ride the big beam that makes the body of the timber tug but they hung on behind while their teeth thuttered the wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods and you see all the horse's backs rising one above the other like moving stairs katawao strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman's petticoat belted at the waist with a leather strap and when he turned and grinned his red lip showed under his sackcloth colored beard his cap was sackcloth too with a flap behind to keep twigs and bark out of his neck he navigated the tug among pools of heather water that splashed in their faces and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs and when they hit an old toad stools stump they never knew whether it would give way in showers of rotten wood or jar them back again at the top of rabbit shore half a dozen men and a team of horses stood round a 40 foot oak log in a muddy hollow the ground about was poached and stouched with sliding hoof marks and a wave of dirt was driven up in front of the butt what did you want to bury her for this way said katawao he took his broad axe and went up to the log tapping it she's sticked fast said bunny lukener who managed the other team katawao unfastened the five wise horses from the tug they cocked their ears forward looked and shook themselves i believe sailor knows dan whispered to una he do said a man behind them he was dressed in flower sacks like the others and he leaned on his broad axe but the children who knew all the wood gangs knew he was a stranger in his size and oily hairiness he might have been bunny lukener's brother except that his brown eyes were as soft as a spaniel's and his rounded black beard beginning close up under them reminded una of the walrus in the walrus and the carpenter don't he just about know he said shyly and shifted from one foot to the other yes what katawao can't get out of the woods must have roots growing to her dan had heard old hobdon say this a few days before at that minute puck pranced up picking his way through the pools of black water in the ling look out cried una jumping forward he'll see you puck me and mus robin are pretty midland well acquainted the man answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses this is simon chainies puck began and cleared his throat shipbuilder of ryport burges of the said town and the only oh look look ye that's a knowing one said the man katawao had fastened his team to the thin end of the log and was moving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it heading downhill then he grunted the horses took the strain beginning with sailor next the log like a tug of war team and dropped almost to their knees the log shifted a nails breadth in the clinging dirt with the noise of a giant's kiss you're getting her simon chainies slapped his knee hang on hang on lads she'll master your ah sailor's left hind hoof had slipped on a heather tuft one of the men whipped off his sack apron and spread it down they saw sailor feel for it and recover still the log hung and the team grunted in despair hi shouted katawao and brought his dreadful whip twice across sailor's loins with the crack of a shotgun the horse almost screamed as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him the thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel the butt ground round like a buffalo in his wallow quick as an axe cut lukener snapped on his five horses and sliding trampling jingling and snorting they had the whole thing out of the heather that's the very first time i've known you to lay into sailor to hurt him said lukener it is said katawao and passed his hand over the two wheels but ida had laid my own brother open in that pinch now we'll twitch her down the hill apiece she lies just about right and get her home by the low road my team will do it bunny you bring the tug along mind out he spoke to the horses who tightened the chains the great log half rolled over and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill followed by the wood gang and the timber tug in half a minute there was nothing to see but the deserted hollow of the torn up dirt the birch undergrowth still shaking and the water draining back into the hoof prince you heard him simon chainies asked he cherished his horse but he delayed him open in that pinch not for his own advantage said puck quickly was only to shift the log i reckon every man born of woman has his log to shift in the world if so be your hinting at any of frankie's doings he never hit beyond reason or without reason said simon i never said a word against frankie puck retorted with a wink at the children and if i did do it lie in your mouth to contest my say so seeing how you why don't it lie in my mouth seeing i was the first which knowed frankie for all he was the burly sack clad man puffed down at cool little puck yes and the first which set out to poison him frankie on the high seas simon's angry face changed to a sheepish grin he waggled his immense hands but puck stood off and laughed mercilessly but let me tell you miss robin he pleaded i've heard the tale tell the children here look dan look una puck's straight brown finger leveled like an arrow there's the only man that ever tried to poison sir francis drake oh miss robin didn't fair you've the vantage of us all in your upbringings by hundreds of years stands to nature you know all the tales against everyone he turned his soft eyes so helplessly on una that she cried stop ragging him puck you know he didn't really i do but why are you so sure little maid because because he doesn't look like it said una stoutly i thank you said simon to una i i was always trustable like with children if you let me alone you double hand for the mischief he pretended to heave up his axe on puck and then his shyness overtook him afresh where did you know sir francis drake said dan not liking to be called a child at rye port to be sure said simon and seeing dan's bewilderment repeated it yes but look here said dan drake he was a devon man the song says so and ruled the devon sees said una that's what i was thinking if you don't mind simon chainie seemed to mind very much indeed for he swelled in silence while puck laughed hut he burst out at last i've heard that talk too if you listen to them west country folk you'll listen to a pack of lies i believe frankie was born somewhere out west among the shires but his father had to run for it when frankie was a baby because the neighbors was wishful to kill him do you see he run to chatham old parson drake said and frankie was brought up in an old hulks of a ship moored in the medway river same as it might have been the rother brought up at sea you might say before he could walk on land nigh chatham in kent and ain't kent backdoor to sussex and don't that make frankie sussex of course it do devon man bah these west country boats they're always fishing in other folks's water i beg your pardon said dan i'm sorry no call to be sorry you've been misled i met frankie at rye port when my uncle that was the shipbuilder there pushed me off his wharf edge onto frankie's ship frankie had put in from chatham with his rudder spluttered and a man's arm moons that would be broken at the tiller take this boy aboard and drown him says my uncle and i'll mend your rudder piece for love what did your uncle want you drowned for seruna that was only his fashion of say so same as miss rubin i had a foolishness in my head that ships could be build it out of iron yes iron ships i'd made me a little toy one of iron plates beat out thin and she floated a wonder but my uncle being a burgess of rye and a shipbuilder he apprenticed me to frankie in the fetching trade to cure this foolishness what was the fetching trade dan interrupted fetching poor flemmishers and dutchmen out of the low countries into england the king of spain do you see he was burning them in those parts to make for him pappishers so frankie he fetched them away to our parts and a risky trade it was his master wouldn't ever touch it while he lived but he left his ship to frankie when he died and frankie turned to into this fetching trade outrageous cruel hard work on bessem black knights bolting back and forth off they dutch roads with shoals on all sides and having to hark out for the fresh fresh fresh like of a spanish galley wops's oars creeping up on you frankie had had the tiller and moon he'd peer forth at the bows our lantern under his skirt still the boat we was looking for it blurred up out of the dark and we'd lay hold and hollaboard whoever twas man woman or babe and round we'd go again the wind blueling like a kite in our riggins and they'd drop into the hold and praise god for happy deliverance till they was all sick i hadn't i a year at it and we must have fetched off all a hundred poor folk i reckon outrageous bold to frankie grode to be outrageous cunning he was once we was as near as nothing nipped by a tall ship off tergo sands in a snowstorm she had the wind of us and spoon straight before it shooting all bow guns frankie fled inshore smack for the beach till he was atop the first breakers then he hove his anchor out which nigh tore our bows off but it twitched us round end for end into the wind you see and we clawed off them sands like a drunk man rubbing along a tavern bench when we could see the spanish was laid flat along the breakers with the snows whitening on his white belly he thought we could go where frankie went what happened to the crew said uno we didn't stop simon answered there was very little new babies in our hold and the mother well she wanted to get to some dry bed middle and quick we run into dover and said nothing was sir francis drake very much pleased heart alive made he'd no head to his name in those days he was just an outrageous valiant crop haired tut mouth boy roaring up and down the narrow seas with his beard not yet quilted out he'd made a laughing stock of everything all day and he'd hold our lives in the bite of his arm all the bessem black knight among the dutch sands and we'd have jumped over side to behoove him any one time all of us then why did you try to poison him uno asked wickedly and simon hung his head like a shy child oh that was when he set me to make a puddin for because our cook was hurted i'd done my uttermost but she all fetched a drift like in the bag and more i biled the bits of her the less she favored any fashion a puddin moon he chawed and chammed his piece and frankie chawed and chammed his and and no words to it he took me by the year and walked me out over the bow end and him and moon hoved the puddin at me on the bow sprit gub by gub something cruel hard simon rubbed his hairy cheek next time you bring me anything says frankie you bring me cannon shot and i'll know what i'm getting but as for poison and he stopped the children laughed so of course you didn't said uno oh simon we do like you i was always likeable with children his smile crinkled up through the hair around his eyes simple simon they used to call me through our yard gates did sir francis mock you dan asked ah no he was gentleborn laugh he did he was always laughing but not so is to her to feather and i loved him i loved him before england newan or queen best she broke his heart but he hadn't really done anything when you knew him had he una insisted armadas and those things i mean simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by katowau's great log you tell me that good ships timber never done nothing against the winds and weathers since her up springing and i'll confess you that young frankie never done nothing neither nothing he had ventured and suffered and made shift on they dutch sands as much as in any one month as he ever had occasion for to do in half a year on the high seas afterwards and what was his tools a coaster boat a little box a waltry plankton and some few fathom feeble rope held together and made able by him soul he drawed our spirits up in our bodies same as a chimney towel draws a fire it was him and it come out all times and shapes i wonder did he ever imagine what he was going to be tell himself stories about it said dan with a flush i expect so we mostly do even when we're grown but being frankie he took his good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be had i rightly ought to tell him this piece simon turned to puck who nodded my mother she was just a fair woman but my aunt her sister she had gifts by inheritance laid up on her simon began oh that'll never do cried puck for the children stared blankly do you remember what robin promised to the widow wit gift so long as her blood and get lasted yes there was always to be one of them that could see farther through a millstone than most dan answered promptly well simon's aunt's mother said puck slowly married the widow's blind son on the marsh and simon's aunt was the one chosen to see the farthest through the millstones do you understand that was what i was getting at said simon but you're so desperate quick my aunt she knew what was coming to people my uncle being a burgess of rye he counted all such things odious and my aunt she couldn't be got to practice her gifts hardly at all because it hurted her head for a week afterwards but when frankie heard she had him he was all for nothing till she foretold on him till she looked in his hand to tell his fortune do you see one time he was at rye she come aboard with my other shirt and some apples and he fair beasled the life out of her about it oh you'll be twice wed and die childless she says and pushes his hand away that's the woman's part he says what'll come to me to me and he thrusts it back under her nose gold gold past belief accounting she says let go of me lad sink the gold he says what'll i do mother he coaxed her like no woman could well withstand i've seen him with him even when they were seasick if you will have it she says at last you shall have it you'll do a many things and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world's end will be the least of them for you'll open a road from the east into the west and back again and you'll bury your heart with your best friend by that roadside and the road you open none shall shut so long as you let lie quiet in your grave and if i'm not he says why then she says sim's iron ships will be sailing on dry land now have done with this foolishness where's sim's shirt he couldn't fetch no more out of her and when we come up from the cabin he stood amazed like by the tiller playing with an apple my sorrow says my aunt do you see that the great world lying in his hand little and round like an apple white is one you'd give him i says to be sure she says it is just an apple and she went ashore with her hand to her head it always hurted her to show her gifts him and me puzzled over that talk plenty it's ticked in his mind quite extravagant the very next time we slipped out for some fetching trade we met mustennings boat over by calais sands and he warned us that the spanishers had shut down all their dutch ports against the english and their galawapses were out picking up our boats like flies off hogsbacks mustenning he runs for sure him but frankie held on a peace knowing that mustenning was jealous of our good trade over by dun kirk a great gore bellied spanisher with the cross on his sails came rampant at us we left him we left him all they bear seized a conquest in looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon says frankie humoran her at the tiller i'll have to open that other one you and your aunt foretold of the spanishers crowding down on us midland quick i says no odds says frankie he'll have the inshore tied against him did your aunt say i was to be quiet in my grave forever till my iron ships sail dry land i says that's foolishness he says who cares where frankie drake makes a hole in the water now or 20 years from now the spanisher kept mucking on more and more canvas i told him so he's feeling the tide was all he says if he was among tergo sands with this wind we'd be picking his bones proper i'd give my heart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale and me to windward there'd be gold in my hands then did your aunt say she saw the world setting in my hand sim yes but was an apple says i and he laughed like he always did at me do you ever feel minded to jump over side and be done with everything he asks after a while no what water comes aboard is too wet as it is i says the spanish is going about i told you says he never looking back he'll give us the pope's blessings as he swings come down off that rail there's no knowing where stray shots may hit so i came down off the rail and leaned against it and the spanisher he ruffled round in the wind and his port lids opened all red inside now what'll happen to my road if they don't let me lie quiet in my grave he says does your aunt mean there's two roads to be found and kept open or what does she mean i don't like that talk about the other road do you believe in your iron ships sim he knowed i did so i only nodded and he nodded back again anybody but me it call you a fool sim he says lie down here comes the pope's blessing the spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about they all fell short except one that smack smooth hit the rail behind my back and i felt most wonderful cold be you hit where you signify he says come over to me oh lord must drake i says my legs won't move and that was the last i spoke for months why what happened cried dan and unna together the rail had jarred me here like simon reached behind him clumsily from my shoulders down i didn't act no shape frankie carried me piggyback to my aunt's house and i lay bed ridden tongue tied while she rubbed me day and night month in and month out she had faith in rubbing with the hands perhaps she put some of her gifts into it too last of all something loosed itself in my poor back and low i was whole restored again but kitten feeble where's frankie i says thinking i'd been longish while a bed downwind amongst the dons months ago says my aunt when can i go after him i says your duties to your town in trade now says she your uncle he died last nickel mass and he left you and me the yard so no more iron ships mind you what i says and you the only one that be left in him maybe i do still she says but i'm a woman before i'm a wit gift and wooden ships is what england needs us to build i lay on you to do so that's why i've never touched iron since that day not to build a toy ship of i've never even drawn a draft of one for my pleasure of evenings simon smiled down on them all wit gift blood is terrible resolute on the she side said puck didn't you ever see sir francis drake again dan asked with one thing and another and my being made a burges of rye i never clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years oh i had the news of his mighty doings the world over they was the very same bold cunning shifts and passes he had worked with before times off the dutch sands but naturally folk took more note of them when queen best made him a night he sent my aunt a dried orange stuffed with spices to smell to she cried outrageous on it she blamed herself for her foretellings having set him on this wonderful road but i reckon he'd have gone that way all withstanding curious how close she foretelled it the world in his hand like an apple and he burying his best friend must dodie never mind from us dodie puck interrupted tell us where you first met sir francis drake next oh ha that was the year i was made a burges of rye the same year which king philip sent his chips to take england without frankie's leave the armada said dan contentedly i was hoping that would come i knowed frankie would never let him smell london smoke but plenty good men in rye was too three-minded about the upshot it was the noise of the gunfire terrified us the wind favored it our way from off behind the isle of white it made a mutter like which groaned and groaned and by the end of a week women was shrunken in the streets then they come slittering past fairlight in a great smoky pat vanbrished with red gunfire and our ships flying forth and ducking in again the smoke pack slidered over to the french shore so i knowed frankie was edging the spanishers toward the dutch sands where he was master i says to my aunt the smoke's thin and out i lay frankie's just about scraping his hold for the last few rounds a shot it is time for me to go never in them clothes she says do on the doublet i bought you to be made burges in and don't shame this day so i mucked it on and my chain and my stiffed dutch breeches and all i become in two she says from her chamber and fourth she came pavisandon like a peacock stuff rough stomacher and all she she was a notable woman but how did you go you haven't told us said una in my own ship but half share was my aunts in the entony of rye to be sure and not empty-handed i'd been loading her for three days with the pick of our yard we was ballasted on ken and shot of all three sizes and iron rods and straps for his carpenters and a nice parcel of clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech ropes for his cannon and gubs of good oakum and bolts of canvas and all the sound rope in the yard what else could i have done i knowed what he'd need most after a week such work i'm a shipbuilder little maid we'd a fair slant of wind off dungeness and we crept on till it fell light airs and puffed out the spanishers was all in a huddle over by calay and our ships was stodd about mending themselves like dogs licking bites now and then a spanisher would fire from a low port and the ball would troll across the flat swells but both sides was finished fighting for that tide the first ship we foreslawed on her breastworks was crushed in and men were shorn them up she said nothing the next was a black penace his pumps clacken and midland quick and he said nothing but the third mending shot holes he spoke out plenty i asked him where must drake might be and a shiny suited man and the poop looked down on us and saw what we carried lay alongside you he says we'll take that all tis for miss drake i says keeping away lest his size should leave the wind out of my sails hi ho hither we're lord hi admiral of england come alongside or we'll hang you he says it was none of my affairs who he was if he wasn't frankie and while he talked so hot i slipped behind a green painted ship with her topside splintered we was all in the middest of them then hi hoy the green ship says come alongside honest man and i'll buy your load i'm thinner that fought the seven portugals clean out of shatter bullets frankie knows me i but i don't i says and i slacked nothing he was a masterpiece see and i was for going on he hails a bridgeport hoy behind us and shouts george oh george wing that duck he's fat and true as we were all here that squatty bridgeport boat rounds to across our bows intended to stop us by means of shooting my aunt looks over our rail george she says you finish with your enemies before you begin on your friends him that was laying the little swivel gun at us sweeps off his hat and calls her queen best and asks if she was selling liquor to poor dry sailors my aunt answered him quite a piece she was a notable woman then he come up his long pennant trailing over side his waist cloths and netting tore all to pieces where the spanishers had grappled and his sides black smeared with their gun blasts like candle smoke in a bottle we looked on to a lower port and hung oh must drake must drake i calls up he stood on the great anchor cat head his shirt opened to the middle and his face shining like the sun why sim he says just like that after 20 years sim he says what brings you pudding i says not knowing whether to laugh or cry you told me to bring cannon shot next time and i have brought him he saw we had he ripped out a fathom and a half of brimstone spanish and he swung down on our rail and he kissed me before all his fine young captains his men was swarming out of the lower parts ready to unload us when we saw how i'd considered all the likely wants he kissed me again here's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother he says mistress he says to my aunt all you foretold on me was true i've opened that road from east to the west and i've buried my heart beside it i know she says that's why i become but you never foretold this he points to both their great fleets this don't seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a man she says do it certain sure a man forgets to remember when he's proper mucked up with work sim he says to me we must shift every living spanish around duncirk corner on our dutch sands before morning the wind will come out of the north after this calm same as it used and then they'll be our meat amen says i i've brought you what i could suture up of odds and ends be you hit anywhere to signify oh our focal attend to all that when we've time he says he turns to my aunt while his men flew the stuff out of our hold i think i saw old moon amongst him but he was too busy to more than nod like yet the spanishers was going to prayers with all their bells and candles before we'd cleaned out the antennae 22 ton a useful stuff i'd fetched him now sim says my aunt no more devouring of must rake's time he's sending us home to bridgeport hoy i want to speak to them young spring olds again but here's our ship already and swept i says swept and garnished says frankie i'm going to fill her with devils and the likeness of pitch and sulfur we must shift the dawn's round duncirk comer and if shot can't do it we'll send down fire ships i've given him my share of the antennae says my aunt what do you reckon to do about yours she offered it said frankie laughing she wouldn't have if i'd overheard her i says because i'd have offered my share first then i told him how the antennae sales were best trimmed to drive before the wind and seeing he was full of occupations we went across to that bridgeport hoy and left him but frankie was gentleborn do you see and that sort they never overlook any folks dues when the hoy passed under his stern he stood bare headed on the poop same as if my aunt had been his queen and his musicanners played mary ambry on their silver trumpets quite a long while heart alive little maid i never mean to make you look so sorrowful bunny lukner in his sackcloth petticoats burst through the birch scrub wiping his forehead we've got a stick to writes now she's been a whole hat full of trouble you come and ride her home must dan and must una they found the proud wood gang at the foot of the slope with the log double-chained on the tug katawao what are you going to do with it said dan as they straddled the thin part she's going down to rye to make a keel for the low-staffed fishing boat i've heard hold tight katawao cracked his whip and the great log dipped and tilted and leaned and dipped again exactly like a stately ship upon the high seas frankie's trade old horn to all atlantic said a hail to me oh now where did frankie learn his trade where he ran me down with a three reef mainsail all round the horn atlantic answered not from me you'd better ask the cold north sea for he ran me down under all plain canvas all round the horn the north sea answered he's my man for he came to me when he began frankie drake in an open coaster all round the sands i caught him young and i used him soar so you never shall startle frankie more without capsizing earth and her waters all around the sands i did not favor him at all i made him pull and i made him haul and stand his trick with the common sailors all around the sands i froze him stiff and i fogged him blind and kicked him home with his road defined by what he could see of a three-day snowstorm all around the sands i learned in his trade a winter nights twixed mardic fort and dunkirk lights on a five not tied with the forts are firing all around the sands before his beard began to shoot i showed him the length of the spaniard's foot and i reckoned he clapped the boot on it later all around the sands if there's a risk which you can make that's worse than he was used to take nigh every week in the way of his business all around the sands if there's a trick that you can try which he hasn't met in time gone by not once or twice but ten times over all around the sands if you can teach him art that's new a hail to me oh i'll give you bruge and newport too and the ten tall churches that stand between them storm along my gallant captains all round the horn end of section 11 recorded by russ lemker of edinum minnesota