Now the pair walked over the snow; and silent and stealthy as the vanished fox, a grey figure followed after them. Dim as some moon-spirit against the brightness, this shape stole forward under the rough hedge that formed a bank and threw a shadow between meadow and stream. In repose the grey man, for a man it was, looked far less substantial than the stationary outlines of fences and trees; and when he moved it had needed a keen eye to see him at all. He mingled with the moonlight and snow, and became a part of a strange inversion of ordinary conditions; for in this white, hushed world the shadows alone seemed solid and material in their black nakedness, in their keen sharpness of line and limit, while things concrete and ponderable shone out a silvery medley of snow-capped, misty traceries, vague of outline, uncertain of shape, magically changed as to their relations by the unfamiliar carpet now spread between them.
The grey figure kept Phoebe in sight, but followed a path of his own choosing. When she entered the woods he drew a little nearer, and thus followed, passing from shadow to shadow, scarce fifty yards behind.
Meanwhile the main procession approached the scene of its labours. Martin Grimbal, attracted by the prospect of reading this page from an old Devonian superstition, was of the company. He walked with Billy Blee and Gaffer Lezzard; and these high priests, well pleased at their junior’s attitude towards the ceremony, opened their hearts to him upon it.
“ ’T is an ancient rite, auld as cider—maybe auld as Scripture, to, for anything I’ve heard to the contrary,” said Mr. Lezzard.
“Ay, so ’t is,” declared Billy Blee, “an’ a custom to little observed nowadays. But us might have better blooth in springtime an’ braaver apples come autumn if the trees was christened more regular. You doan’t see no gert stock of sizable apples best o’ years now—li’l scrubbly auld things most times.”
“An’ the cider from ’em—poor roapy muck, awnly fit to make ’e thirst for better drink,” criticised Gaffer Lezzard.
“ ’Tis this way: theer’s gert virtue in cider put to apple-tree roots on this particular night, accordin’ to the planets and such hidden things. Why so, I can’t tell ’e, any more ’n anybody could tell ’e why the moon sails higher up the sky in winter than her do in summer; but so ’t is. An’ facts be facts. Why, theer’s the auld ‘Sam’s Crab’ tree in this very orchard we’m walkin’ to. I knawed that tree three year ago to give a hogshead an’ a half as near as damn it. That wan tree, mind, with no more than a few baskets of ‘Redstreaks’ added.”
“An’ a shy bearer most times, tu,” added Mr. Lezzard.
“Just so; then come next year, by some mischance, me being indoors, if they didn’t forget to christen un! An’, burnish it all! theer wasn’t fruit enough on the tree to fill your pockets!”
“Whether ’t is the firing into the branches, or the cider to the roots does gude, be a matter of doubt,” continued Mr. Lezzard; but the other authority would not admit this.
“They ’m like the halves of a flail, depend on it: wan no use wi’out t’other. Then theer’s the singing of the auld song: who’s gwaine to say that’s the least part of it?”
“ ’T is the three pious acts thrawn together in wan gude deed,” summed up Mr. Lezzard; “an’ if they’d awnly let apples get ripe ’fore they break ’em, an’ go back to the straw for straining, ’stead of these tom-fule, new-fangled hair-cloths, us might get tidy cider still.”
By this time the gate of the orchard was reached; Gaffer Lezzard, Billy, and the other patriarch, Mr. Chapple—a very fat old man—loaded their weapons, and the perspiring cider-carriers set down their loads.
“Now, you bwoys, give awver runnin’ ’bout like rabbits,” cried out Mr. Chapple. “You ’m here to sing while us pours cider an’ shoots in the trees; an’ not a drop you’ll have if you doan’t give tongue proper, so I tell ’e.”
At this rebuke the boys assembled, and there followed a hasty gabbling, to freshen the words in young and uncertain memories. Then a small vessel was dipped under floating toast, that covered the cider in the great pitchers, and the ceremony of christening the orchard began. Only the largest and most famous apple-bearers were thus saluted, for neither cider nor gunpowder sufficient to honour more than a fraction of the whole multitude existed in all Chagford. The orchard, viewed from the east, stretched in long lines, like the legions of some arboreal army; the moon set sparks and streaks of light on every snowy fork and bough; and at the northwestern foot of each tree a network of spidery shadow-patterns, sharp and black, extended upon the snow.
Mr. Blee himself made the first libation, led the first chorus, and fired the first shot. Steaming cider poured from his mug, vanished, sucked in at the tree-foot, and left a black patch upon the snow at the hole of the trunk; then he stuck a fragment of sodden toast on a twig; after which the christening song rang out upon the night—ragged at first, but settling into resolute swing and improved time as its music proceeded. The lusty treble of the youngsters soon drowned the notes of their grandfathers; for the boys took their measure at a pace beyond the power of Gaffer Lezzard and his generation, and sang with heart and voice to keep themselves warm. The song has variants, but this was their version—
“Here ’s to thee, auld apple-tree,
Be sure you bud, be sure you blaw,
And bring forth apples good enough—
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Pockets full and all—
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”
Then Billy fired his blunderbuss, and a flame leapt from its bell mouth into the branches of the apple-tree, while surrounding high lands echoed its report with a reverberating bellow that rose and fell, and was flung from hill to hill, until it gradually faded upon the ear. The boys cheered again, everybody drank a drop of the cider, and from under a cloud of blue smoke, that hung flat as a pancake above them in the still air, all moved onward. Presently the party separated into three groups, each having a gunner to lead it, half a dozen boys to sing, and a dwindling jar of cider for the purposes of the ceremony. The divided choirs clashed their music, heard from a distance; the guns fired at intervals, each sending forth its own particular detonation and winning back a distinctive echo; then the companies separated widely and decreased to mere twinkling, torchlit points in the distance. Accumulated smoke from the scattered discharges hung in a sluggish haze between earth and moon, and a sharp smell of burnt powder tainted the sweetness of the frosty night.
Upon this scene arrived John Grirnbal and his sweetheart. They stood for a while at the open orchard gate, gazed at the remote illumination, and heard the distant song. Then they returned to discussion of their own affairs; while at hand, unseen, the grey watcher moved impatiently and anxiously. The thing he desired did not come about, and he blew on his cold hands and swore under his breath. Only an orchard hedge now separated them, and he might have listened to Phoebe’s soft speech had he crept ten yards nearer, while John Grimbal’s voice he could not help hearing from time to time. The big man was just asking a question not easy to answer, when an unexpected interruption saved Phoebe from the difficulty of any reply.
“Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you