a few extra shillings in the money-box, or even of a few extra pence,
minor matters, such as petty tyrannical ordinances of law and Church,
could take their seats in a back corner and "bide there." Brightly had
no privileges. He had to obey every one. He was only a worm which any
one was at perfect liberty to slice in half with a spade.
Brightly had a home. The river saw to that; not the Tavy, but the less
romantic Taw. Brightly belonged to the Torridge and Taw branch of the
family. On the Western side of Cawsand are many gorges in the great
cleave cut by the Taw between Belstone and Sticklepath. There narrow and
deep clefts have been made by the persistent water draining down to the
Taw from the bogs above. In the largest of these clefts Brightly was at
home. The sides were completely hidden by willow-scrub, immense ferns,
and clumps of whortleberries, as well as by overhanging masses of
granite. The water could be heard dripping below like a chime of fairy
bells. In winter the cleft appeared a white cascade of falling water,
but Brightly's cave was fairly dry and quite sheltered. He was never
there by day, and at night nobody could see the smoke of his fire. He
had built up the entrance with shaped stones taken from the
long-abandoned cots beside the old copper-mines below. The cleft was
full of copper, which stained the water a delightful shade of green.
Brightly had furnished his home with those things which others had
thrown away. He had long ago solved the difficulty of cooking with a
perforated frying-pan, and of turning to practical uses a kettle with a
bottom like a sieve.
Brightly reached the moor gate. On the other side was the long
straggling village of St. Mary Tavy. Beside the gate was a heap of
refuse. Brightly seated himself upon it, because he thought it was the
proper place for him.
"I be cruel hungry, Ju," explained Brightly.
"So be I," said the dog's tail.
"Fair worn to bits tu," went on Brightly.
"Same here," said the tail.
"Wait till us has the cart," said Brightly cheerily, placing the
rabbit-skins upon the dirt beside him. "Us won't be worn to bits then.
Us will du dree times the business, and have a cottage and potato-patch,
and us will have bread and cheese two times a day and barrel o' cider in
the linny. Us will have fat bacon on Sundays tu."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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