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Title: The Key of the Field
Date of first publication: 1930
Author: T. F. (Theodore Francis) Powys (1875-1953)
Date first posted: Nov. 27, 2019
Date last updated: Nov. 27, 2019
Faded Page eBook #20191150

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines
This file was produced from images generously made available by archive.org/details/keyoffield0000powy




[Transcriber's note: Due to copyright considerations, the Foreword by
Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) could not be included in this
eBook]




[Frontispiece: (farmer at field gate)]




  THE KEY OF THE FIELD

  By T. F. POWYS with a woodcut
  by R. A. GARNETT and a Foreword
  by SYLVIA TOWNSEND
  WARNER

  _Being No._ 1 _of the Furnival Books_



  WILLIAM JACKSON (BOOKS) LTD
  18 Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London
  1930




THE KEY OF THE FIELD


Uncle Tiddy stood in the road watching the leaves.  The leaves spun
around him in the wind, for the October frosts had turned them
yellow, and the November blasts had shaken them from the trees.

Uncle Tiddy watched the leaves anxiously.  He believed they were
speaking to him.  The yellow leaves were driven here and there; there
was no rest for them, for one gust followed another to whirl them
about.

Uncle Tiddy remained still and watched the leaves.  The wind grew
quiet and the driven leaves settled down into the shape of a key.
Uncle Tiddy rejoiced.  He believed that, one day, he would possess
again the key of the field....

The field belonged to Squire Jar of Madder Hall.  There was no better
field in the whole world than this field.

The field consisted of twelve acres of the richest pasture.  The
grass grew luxuriously, and in the middle of the field there was a
fine oak-tree that gave a welcome shelter to the cows during the hot
summer weather.

The field had once--so Neddy, one of the oldest residents in Madder,
used to say--been a portion of the Squire's garden, but the Squire--a
worthy man who did not wish to keep all the best of everything for
himself--built a low wall, and separated the new field from his old
garden, hoping that the field would give to one or other of his
tenants a lasting happiness.

But, for all the Squire's generosity--he dearly loves those who live
upon his lands--Mr. Jar was a man who did not like to be too closely
looked upon.  And, so in order to prevent any other than his chosen
tenants from walking too near his pleasure-garden where the choicest
fruits and flowers grew, and where his friends were entertained all
the year round, the Squire enclosed the field with high palings--the
same that are used by noblemen for their deer parks--and also had a
strong iron gate built, that was locked by a massive key.

The first tenant of the field, to whom the Squire's steward--a
learned man, though somewhat old--handed the key, was Uncle Tiddy.

Uncle Tiddy was a proper man for the field, for, besides being a good
husbandman, he was never a one to pry into other people's doings.
Also his wife was dead, which may have been a reason--other than
Uncle Tiddy's honesty--for choosing him as a tenant.  For Squire Jar,
as all people know, is a little afraid of women.

He had no objection, however, to Uncle Tiddy's niece, Lily, who was
hardly more than a child, being between sixteen and seventeen years
old--a girl who could dance and run as well as the best, and could
skip better, since she was six years old, than any other maid in the
village.

If Lily had a fault--and she was so well-grown and comely a girl that
anyone might expect her to wish to be a wanton, it was that her heart
was responsive to the slightest touch of love, though she seemed
kinder to her Uncle than to any other man.

Who then should have been more happy than Uncle Tiddy with kind Lily
to tend him, with the Squire's favour, and with the key of the field
in his possession?

But even with a field so well worth having, Uncle Tiddy failed to
prosper in his business, and old Grandmother Trott, his near
neighbour, told a sad story about him, in which she said that Uncle
Tiddy was little better than a sinner--indeed, she believed him to be
one.

Grandmother Trott lived with her son John--a widower--and her two
grandsons, that were as good as grown men, and ever since the new
field was made, the garden hedge removed, palings and a gate set up,
this family had envied Uncle Tiddy and desired, with all their
hearts, to take the key from him and so to have the field.

Even before Uncle Tiddy had the key, the Trotts had hated the Tiddys,
and only because the Tiddys had always been looked upon by others as
honest, harmless folk, who kept a few good cows, while the Trotts had
been but lean farmers, keeping only a sow or two and a few sickly
hens, though now, by thieving management--for they stole the corn
from Squire Jar's granary--they grew every day more prosperous, while
Uncle Tiddy became every day poorer.

Seeing how affairs were going with Uncle Tiddy, old Grandmother Trott
began to be merry, though sometimes she could be glum enough, and she
would tell people--even affirming that she had heard the Squire's
steward say the very words--that in the long run the good are sure to
prosper, but that every sinner will one day or other lose all that he
has.

"There be always ways and means to get the better of a man like Uncle
Tiddy," Grandmother Trott told her son John: "and we have only to
mind what we do say, and the field will be ours."

"'Tis a field," replied John Trott, "that be too good for Tiddy, for
how can his few cows feed off all the rich grass, and they be old
too.  'Tis a sin and wickedness that so good a field should be his.
I have often seen that when all the grounds elsewhere be burnt by a
hot sun as hard as a biscuit, Tiddy's field be still green and
flourishing, so that they few cows 'e do still have be always lying
down."

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Trott angrily, "they do lie down, while ours
be walking all day to get a bellyful, or else raging with tail on end
to rid them of stinging flies."

Neither was it only the goodness of the grass that pleased the Trotts
and made them wish for the field.  They wished also to be spoken of
as trusted people, as a family that was highly thought of by the
Squire and his steward, so that at any holiday gathering they might
hear folk tell one another: "'Tis they Trotts who have the best
field."

Grandmother Trott was an ill-favoured woman.  She moved
uncomfortably, hunching up her shoulders as if she were always
creeping in under low doorways.

One would have thought that, if the Squire's steward heard any tale
of hers repeated to him, he would have doubted her words, but alas!
now that he was grown old and his eyesight dim, he was known to
listen to all the tittle-tattle of the village, which no just steward
ought to do, though he would still speak to the people exactly as the
Squire had spoken to him.

One Sunday in May, when all things abroad were lovely and shining
under a generous sun, Grandmother Trott found her two grandsons at
play at tosspenny in the back parlour at the farm, and went in to
them with her head sunk as usual between her shoulders.

"Ah ha!" she said, with a smirking sneer, "ain't there no soft and
young maids in the lanes for 'ee to tousle and tread, that thee must
stay biding here like two worm-eating moles?  Lily Tiddy be just
tripped into wood to see what flowers she can spy.  Thee be pretty
men to toss a penny in a parlour!  When I were young, a lusty fellow
would throw a girl down time you do look at one, and take good heed
that Miss did never rise same as she fell."

George Trott swore loudly.  He put his winnings into his pocket and
went out.

George was a big handsome fellow, and he hadn't to whisper many words
to Lily under the shade of the big trees where she was picking the
bluebells, before she willingly permitted him to enjoy her.

As soon as George began to boast at home about what he had done,
Grandmother Trott decided what she should do.  In a week or two she
was noticed walking down the village, as if something pained her.
"Maybe 'tis me back," she said, and waited beside the well until
Uncle Tiddy went by on his way to the field.

"Look," she said to Mrs. Lugg, who washed the steward's silk hood
that he wore on state occasions, and so was in his confidence, "look,
there do go Uncle Tiddy!  Why, though 'tis summer weather, 'is
topcoat be buttoned to 'is chin.  That's a-telling folk that he has
sins to hide.  He don't look happy neither; 'e be got poor and 'tis
'is evil wickedness that won't let 'e thrive."

Mrs. Trott laughed.  She thrust out her head at Mrs. Lugg and laughed
again.

"'Twouldn't do," she whispered, putting her mouth near to Mrs. Lugg's
ear, "'twouldn't do for Steward to hear what pranks Uncle Tiddy be up
to.  Uncle Tiddy baint no honest liver.  No one don't never hear him
curse and swear at thik little cunning wench who do bide wi' 'e.  No,
no, 'tis all loving words and gifts from Uncle Tiddy to she.  'E
don't never strike maiden with milking-stool, as a decent man will
sometimes.--'Tis too loving they be for righteous living."

Lily was both kind and loving--as Grandmother Trott seemed to
guess--she was also very simple and innocent, and one evening when
George met her in the wood, he begged so hard to be shown one peep of
the Squire's pretty flowers over the wall, that Lily, wishing well to
one who had pleased her, unlocked the gate and let him into the
field...

It was now that Grandmother Trott began to talk indeed.  Whenever she
went to the well--and the act of pulling up the water suited her
stooping shoulders--there would be sure to be someone for her to talk
to, and this is how she began--

"Good folk baint honoured these days," she said.  "They others do
hide wickedness under a thin covering.  Some have what they should
never have had if Squire Jar knew all.  Uncle Tiddy be a loving one
to 'is kith and kin, and when a sort of work be begun at home 'tis
continued abroad.  Squire were deceived in his good man, but Steward,
though 'e be near blind, do pry more closely into what be a-doing."

Mrs. Trott had not been talking long about Uncle Tiddy before the
Squire's steward heard from Mrs. Lugg what was being said, and told
the Squire that Uncle Tiddy permitted the gate of the field to be
unlocked and that Lily brought men into the field to look at the
Squire's garden.

This the Squire, himself, was aware of, for once, when reading beside
the pond of water-lilies and watching some pretty children at play,
he knew that someone had watched him.

When Squire Jar heard the truth, he was very angry, and said that he
did not like to have his quiet, nor yet his rompings and gay jollity,
to be watched by rude strangers--for Squire Jar can be merry at
times, as well as grave--and thus it came about that the key of the
field was taken from Uncle Tiddy and given to John Trott.

That was a joyful day for John Trott when he received the key of the
field.

Mr. Jar's trusted steward, who always wore the white robes of his
office when anything important was to be done, delivered the key with
his own hands to John Trott, in the sight of all people.  He also
told him--as was proper he should--the Squire's commands, but he
hemmed and coughed a little when he said that Uncle Tiddy had
disobeyed them in certain matters, for the steward had already
forgotten what Uncle Tiddy had done.

As soon as he had finished with his talk, John Trott replied briskly:
"I will never"--he swore on oath--"look over the Squire's wall.  I
swear it.  I have no wish to watch the Squire, whether he be merry or
sad, nor yet to see how his young friends disport themselves.  What
others do is no business of mine; my only desire is that my family
should prosper, and that I should make a fair and honest profit at my
trade."

The reply pleased the steward, who shook John by the hand, and they
ate and drank together as the custom is upon such an occasion....

Nature works apace, and when Lily walked out one Sunday, she was
carrying a baby, and the people--as people will, all the world
over--nodded and gossiped.

"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Sly, the wife of Nicholas, "many's the time that
I've seen Uncle Tiddy taking in the clothes frozen stiff in winter
time for thik lazy maid.  And the mats too, that be only straw woons,
I've seen 'e shaking.  Who does not know that one kindness do lead to
another in people's homes?"

Uncle Tiddy was too proud a man to deny these evil tales, though he
knew that he was being talked about, but, since he had been deprived
of the field, he hardly cared what happened to him.

Troubles do not sleep like quiet, well-pastured cows, and
poverty--when once it gets hold--rarely lets go again.  Soon Uncle
Tiddy had nothing left--no cows, nor even any little pigs, nor cock
nor hen.  He had always spent more money than he should, and so when
the evil days overtook him, he had no savings put away, and Lily was
forced to work as a day-servant at the house of the steward.

But, though Uncle Tiddy was now so poor a man as to be obliged to
live upon the small wages that Lily brought to him, the Trotts still
hated and still wished to torment him.

"There is no trusting to Squire Jar," Grandmother Trott said crossly,
"and though the good steward makes all things seem easy to us, both
here and hereafter, yet that cursed Squire--a man who reaps where he
has never sown--may suddenly break into our house, like a thief, and
take away the key of the field and give it back again to Uncle Tiddy.
Only look how Tiddy troubles us and annoys our brave children.  He is
forever standing before the iron gate that leads into the field.  He
looks through the bars as though the field were still his own, and
waits only for the key in order to go in.  I have watched him more
than once, and he looks so lovingly into the field, as if he tried to
draw the field into his own body, and so to deprive us of it."

Grandmother Trott spoke the truth, for Uncle Tiddy would be always
looking through the gate into the field.  Any way that he took--for
he went out of a morning whether the rain fell or the sun
shone--would always bring him to the locked gate of the field.

"You do not know," he would say to Lily in the evening--for they were
alone again, Lily's baby having died of the smallpox: "You do not
know, Lily, how much I long to possess again the key of the field.
Will the iron gate be locked against me for ever?"

And Lily would then try, with all the kindness that was in her heart,
to console him for the loss.

"Do not sorrow overmuch," she said, one evening, "for though the
steward seems to command all here, he does not always know his
master's mind.  And besides, though the key of the field has been
given to the Trotts, yet 'tis said that the Squire always keeps a
master key at the Manor House, with which he can open, whenever he
chooses, any gate upon his land."

"But the Squire passed me on the hill today, and he turned his face
away from me," groaned Uncle Tiddy, "and unless I can take the key of
the field from the Trotts I shall never get in."

"Alas!" replied Lily, "I know well enough that the Squire leaves
everything now-a-days to his steward, an old man who only thinks of
the fine house he lives in, the rich clothes he wears, and the ring
upon his finger.  Besides that, he drinks too much wine.  Since I
have been a servant within his doors, I have learned to know his
ways, and he is a man very easy to deceive.  My fellow-servants are
always cheating him in one way or another and they never get found
out, for now he grows so blind that he hardly knows the night from
the day."

"Oh, but I long for the field," said Uncle Tiddy, sadly, "though I do
not want it now for any worldly profit that it gives, I only wish to
get again the peace and joy of that field, so green and safe it used
to be, so freed from loud noises--a place where only the sound of
gentle laughter and the happy voices of the Squire's guests are ever
heard."

"I don't suppose," said Lily, in a low tone, "that any of us poor
village people could ever get invited into the Squire's garden."

Uncle Tiddy shook his head.

"No, we cannot go there," he replied, "but we may get into the field
if we find the key.  It's a field to delight in, a rich pasture.  I
remember how I used to lie under the oak, while my quiet cows fed
near by.  I would lie so still that my very life and being seemed to
leave me, for the holy stillness of the field entered into me and I
lost myself in it.  The air was so very still and I lay so
contentedly that I hardly knew myself to be alive."

"But do not go, I beg you," said Lily, "always to the gate of the
field, for the Trotts are greedy people and are suspicious of what
you do.  They think that you envy their large red and white cows that
feed in the field, and who's to tell that they might not suddenly
swing open the gate and crush you?"

Uncle Tiddy hung his head and said no more.

Grandmother Trott had noticed him going to the gate, and she feared
that, if the Squire saw him there, he might be let through, and so
she wished to harm him again, hoping that he might die of sorrow.

"Surely," she said to her grandsons, "thee baint the ones to let a
silly maid stay happy when once she be fallen?  Where a hedge be
broke 'tis easy climbing, and a second mowing be the greatest
pleasure.  To her again, my fine boys!"

This time it was James who was sent to do the mischief, and very
willingly he went to it.  He lay among some tall bushes in wait for
Lily, who had to pass along a dark lane on her way home.  Seeing her
come hurrying by, he laid hold of her and, by means of a blow or two
with his fist, he forced her to yield herself to his pleasure.

Lily wept much, but she did not tell her uncle what had happened, and
in a few months' time a merry word went about the village that Uncle
Tiddy had been at work again, and people said that another child was
to be born in his house--which happened as was foretold, only Lily
died in childbed and the babe died, too.

Uncle Tiddy was brought before the Squire's steward upon an
incestuous charge, for James Trott swore to having seen the act
committed beside the field gate before the sun was risen.  "Many a
time," he said, "he had seen it done."  But the steward who was the
chief magistrate in those parts, being a little put out at the
necessity of going to the court, had forgotten to drink his bottle
that morning, and so could see and hear a little more clearly than
usual.  This being so, Master Steward had a word or two to say to
James Trott, and Uncle Tiddy was allowed to go home.

Lily was buried with her child in a grave near to where her first
baby was laid, and Uncle Tiddy lived alone, and his wants were
relieved by the parish, by order of the Squire's steward.

But even now, though anyone would have thought that they had got the
better of him and that he was put down, never to arise, the Trotts
would not let Uncle Tiddy alone.--A newborn calf of theirs happened
to die in the field--owing to neglect, for the Trotts took no thought
of their beasts when they needed help--and so when this calf died
they wished to blame someone for their fault.  They blamed Uncle
Tiddy, for Grandmother Trott had seen him look through the gate and
bewitch the cows.  "He wrote words in the dust," she said, "and then
cast the dirt through the gate at the cows.  Who can tell what will
happen in the future?" cried Grandmother Trott, "for, as long as
Uncle Tiddy do live 'e may one day reach hold of the key.  We be all
fools to trust to Squire Jar, for Squire baint never out--except now
and again he walks upon Madder Hill.  He never looks after his
affairs, he is always enjoying himself in his own garden, and there
baint no trusting a man who do sit brooding at home.  Uncle Tiddy be
the one to watch what we be about, and one day, when my son do take a
glass wi' Steward, 'e may let fall the key.  Folks do tell how
Steward do tipple it finely now, and that 'e don't know right from
wrong when 'e be drunk.  And, maybe, if Uncle Tiddy did steal the
key, Steward might think it were his own to hold.  We mustn't let
Uncle Tiddy have no rest till 'e be dead."

Grandmother Trott found Mrs. Lugg and Mrs. Sly beside the well, where
they were come to draw water.  Mrs. Sly had a swollen foot that she
was showing to Mrs. Lugg.

"I have something to say to 'ee," said Grandmother Trott, after
admiring Mrs. Sly's foot, and speaking in a whisper: "Uncle Tiddy,
now 'e baint got nothing to do have begun to talk against Squire Jar.
He do say that 'taint 'e alone who have been merry wi' a young maid.
'E do say Squire 'imself have a-done it.  Uncle Tiddy do curse and
swear how 'tis true what 'e do say.  Why, bless us all, 'e did stand
beside Farmer Told's barn--where the echo do shout and talk--and damn
'imself to hell if his words weren't true, naming even the village
where the maid did live.  He said--and swore to it--that Squire did
come at his girl in the night time and overshadowed her with his
black cloak that be like a raven's wings...."

The people now began to believe all that Grandmother Trott had to say
against Uncle Tiddy, though at first they had not believed her.
Uncle Tiddy had been kind to many of them, but even those whom he had
once befriended now turned against him, because they knew that he had
nothing left to give.  The people even forgot how they had once loved
Lily, who used to be so merry and playful, and would please even old
people by her goodness, for she would talk with old Nicholas Sly, who
had a wen as big as a walnut upon his forehead, and was so ugly and
foul a man that all the children ran away from him.

Uncle Tiddy was now unable to go out in the daytime, for he could not
bear to be treated rudely.  Sometimes the village brats would throw
dirt after him and spit upon him, so that he was forced to remain
indoors until darkness came.

But when the sun went down behind Madder Hill, and the kind darkness
of night brought solace to unhappy man, then Uncle Tiddy would go
abroad and search diligently for the key of the field.

Perhaps he might have given up all hope of finding it, and used an
old cart-rope to end his torment, had it not been that, in loitering
by the field gate upon a very still night when all the village was
asleep, he thought he heard a voice that he knew well singing some
pretty lullaby over the field and in the Squire's garden.  The voice
he was sure was Lily's and Uncle Tiddy fancied, as he listened, that
infant voices joined in her songs.  The sound of their strange
singing--though Uncle Tiddy only heard it that once--made him the
more eager to get into the field, for he believed that, if he lay
down to sleep there, the sound of those voices might come to him
again.

And so Uncle Tiddy used to cover himself with a large cloak, and when
each evening came, he would set out to search for the key.

The autumn leaves, when they whirled about him and then lay still and
silent, told him that the key existed for which he looked.  High up
in the heavens, upon clear nights, he saw the key--a key of shining
stars.  Once, when he stood upon the low cliffs and looked into the
sea--the waters being all still--he thought he saw, lying very deep
in the sea, the key of the field.

At first when Uncle Tiddy began his search, he used to look in the
village and usually he would go to the gate itself, hoping that one
of the Trotts might have dropped the key when they locked the gate.

After searching for a few nights Uncle Tiddy's troubles and sorrows
seemed lighter for him to bear.  He even supposed himself to be
happier than he had been in the old days, only excepting, of course,
those pleasant hours when he used to lay him down to rest in the
shelter of the locked field.  For, even when Lily had been alive to
love him, his troubles and anxieties had often been hard.  He had
always feared for Lily, knowing how loving she was, and that, for
this very reason, she was more likely to become a prey to the spoiler.

In other ways, too, besides the fears he had for Lily, he used to be
troubled.  He could never understand how the Squire--whom he always
believed to be a good man--could allow a steward, who had seldom his
ears open to anything but lies, to rule his fine estate.  Uncle Tiddy
always thought it a very strange thing that this Squire who owned so
many acres of land, should not have found a way--other than the crude
methods of his sottish steward who, more often than not, would use
the whipping post as a cure--to protect the simple, the loving, and
the kind from horrid outrage.

But now that Uncle Tiddy sought the key so assiduously, his feelings
were different.  He looked only to the field for comfort.

"Oh," he would cry out, starting up hurriedly when the darkness drew
near, "oh, that I might find the key!  Then would I unlock the gate
and, full of joy, enter the field.  I would lie down there, but not
as I used to lie, for I would never wish as I used to do to return
again to the village, for I have no hope now left, outside the
field...."

After a month or two Uncle Tiddy was not content to look only in the
village for the key.  He thought that he might find it further away.

Ever since John Trott had possessed the key, that cunning man had
prospered finely.  The Trotts had even done so well that they had
bought land.  They owned a large down of near a hundred acres of
goodish pasture, that lay behind Madder Hill.  And so, Uncle Tiddy
thought it not unlikely that while John was looking to his affairs
upon the hill, the key might fall out of his pocket and be lost, for
Grandmother Trott was too lazy a gossip ever to mend a broken coat.

Besides that chance, there was also the likelihood that one of the
sons of John Trott might have the key of the field in his keeping
when he walked out upon a Sunday with his young girl, and, indeed,
there was hardly a Madder girl that the two young men did not try to
lead into evil ways.  So Uncle Tiddy thought it not unlikely that, in
the excitement of their naughtiness, one or other of them might let
fall the key.

As Uncle Tiddy walked about by night, searching carefully upon the
hill, often kneeling upon his knees to be nearer to the ground, a
curious fancy would sometimes come to him that Lily, whom he had ever
loved as a good man loves a child, moved beside him and helped him to
look for the key....

As time went on the Trotts--as was proper they should--grew richer
and richer, for what the young men spent upon drink or women--they
even went into the steward's own house in search of their
dainties--they easily made up, or else their father did for them, by
cheating someone poorer than themselves in a cunning deal.

Uncle Tiddy was glad that they prospered, for, caring nothing now for
any possession in the whole world other than the key of the field, he
thought that the Trotts--in order to be rid of his importunity--might
yield him that, because having so much land they scarcely seemed to
give a thought to the field.

They even began to despise and to hate it, saying that it was too
small and too mean, a place of too narrow a compass to yield a man
any profit.  And besides, being too near the Squire's garden, they
could not drink or sing or lecher there as in other grounds.

One evening, about twilight, when the barn owls flutter along the
hedgerows, Uncle Tiddy went out, and meeting John Trott, he asked him
boldly for the key of the field.

John Trott only laughed loudly and went home laughing, leaving Uncle
Tiddy to continue his search for the key.  So great now was Uncle
Tiddy's hurry and excitement to find what he sought, that he hardly
allowed himself time to eat or to sleep.  In the day-time he would
lie upon his bed and plan in his mind which field to go to when the
evening came.  If ever he did happen to drop off into a little sleep,
a dream would come to him, in which he held the key in his hand, and
he would walk along always with a gay step to unlock the gate, though
more than once in the dream the key turned in the lock damnable hard.

He had sunk one evening, a little before the time of his going out,
into a restless slumber, when all at once he leapt up--the time being
near to midnight--out of a strange dream, and putting his cloak over
him, he went out into the night.

Uncle Tiddy did not take the path to the downs as he had so often
done of late, but turned along the village street and passed the Inn
without looking at the ground.  This was curious, for he used always
to look there when he went by, expecting that John Trott might easily
have dropped the key when he walked a little tipsily out of the Inn
gate.

But Uncle Tiddy did not hesitate now nor yet look at all; he walked
boldly, as if he knew what to do.

Presently he came to the churchyard gate.  He opened it and went in.

The time of year was winter.  Mournful clouds hung low, while behind
them, hidden as by a thick cloak, was the moon.  Uncle Tiddy knew the
way.  He found Lily's grave and knelt beside it.

And now Uncle Tiddy bethought him of one of the rights that belong to
those who are born upon Squire Jar's land.  For everyone so born is
entitled to call boldly upon the Squire for one gift, in the name of
a loving one, but that gift must be the last.  Uncle Tiddy would not
have ventured upon using this right--for he knew the Squire's
rules--had he not first asked the steward for the key.  But the
steward, as Grandmother Trott had foretold, had come to believe the
evil stories that were told about Uncle Tiddy, and so, when he asked
for the key, wishing only to walk in the field for a little, the
steward looked grimly at him and, with an ugly oath, told him he
would be locked out for ever.

"'Tis the Squire's own words," said the steward, "for without are
dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers--"

Uncle Tiddy was about to call upon the Squire for the key when his
faith failed him.  "Suppose," he thought, "that the Squire is a hard
man, suppose that were I to call there would be none to answer."

Uncle Tiddy wept bitterly.  He wished a thousand times that he had
never been born.  Despair held him fast and would have killed him,
only that Uncle Tiddy, scarce knowing what he did in his agony, cried
out to the Squire for the key, and then lay down as though he were
dead.

For a long while he lay there until he knew that Squire Jar had
entered the churchyard and was standing beside him.

"I never refuse to anyone a harmless wish," said the Squire.  "I was
walking to-night under the trees in my garden when I heard you call
to me for the key of the field."

Uncle Tiddy endeavoured to rise to greet the Squire, but despair had
so trod him down that he could not move.

Then the Squire held out his hand to him and raised him up.

"You have asked me for the key," said the Squire, kindly: "do you
wish to remain in the field when you have unlocked the gate?"

"Yes, for ever," replied Uncle Tiddy, "and I require only the
smallest space where a man can lie.  I wish to forget."

"Do you wish to forget Lily?" asked the Squire in a very low tone.

"Where she is, I will be," said Uncle Tiddy, "for we have loved much."

"Then it's true that you have sinned," said the Squire.

"If to love is to sin, then we have sinned," replied Uncle Tiddy.

The Squire was silent.

"Give me the key," cried Uncle Tiddy, "do not refuse me the key."

"I give you mine own," said the Squire, and he handed to Uncle Tiddy
a key of gold.  "I will go with you," said the Squire, "for John
Trott may oppose your entrance into the field."

The Squire and Uncle Tiddy left the churchyard.  On the way to the
field Mr. Jar talked of the crops and how well he remembered the good
hay that Uncle Tiddy had made in former days and how he had sold it
to the steward for his master's stables.

They reached the gate of the field and found no one there to prevent
their entering, and Uncle Tiddy--having the master key in his
hand--easily unlocked the gate and let himself into the field, where,
thinking that the Squire had left him, he lay down to sleep.  He lay
very still and thought that he slept soundly--so soundly that he
might have slept for a thousand years.  But whether or no he had
really slept, he was not sure.  He looked up and saw that the Squire
was still beside him and the winter's night was the same.

"Come," said Squire Jar, gently raising Uncle Tiddy from the grass:
"come, we will walk through the field--but do you not hear anything?"

"I hear someone singing," replied Uncle Tiddy. "The voice is Lily's;
she is singing to her babies in your garden."

Then Uncle Tiddy grew sad.  But he still walked with the Squire,
until he came to where he remembered the wall had been.

"Look," said the Squire, "for my garden is beautiful, even in winter.
The flowers shine like precious stones; the walks are green, and the
air is mild and sweet.  You have been my tenant for a season: you
will now be my guest for ever."

"We are in your garden," cried Uncle Tiddy, gladly.  "But where is
the Wall?"

"You unlocked the gate of the field with my key," replied the Squire.



  LONDON: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD.
  CHISWICK PRESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE




  _By the same Author_

  SOLILOQUIES OF A HERMIT.
  THE LEFT LEG.
  BLACK BRYONY.  With 5 woodcuts by R. A. GARNETT.
  MARK ONLY.
  MR. TASKER'S GODS.
  MOCKERY GAP.
  INNOCENT BIRDS.
  MR. WESTON'S GOOD WINE.
  THE RIVAL PASTORS.
  WHAT LACK I YET?
  THE STRONG GIRL AND THE BRIDE.
  THE HOUSE WITH THE ECHO.
  AN INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS.
  FABLES.


[The end of _The Key of the Field_ by T. F. (Theodore Francis) Powys]