A ’Tivity Trick
William Dewy runs into a menacing bull, but his soothing music doesn’t seem to be soothing enough.
William Dewy runs into a menacing bull, but his soothing music doesn’t seem to be soothing enough.
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Tess is milking a cow for dairy farmer Mr Crick (he remembered her mother, herself a dairymaid) and finding it rather restful. As she milks, the dairy lads and maids begin a song. ‘You should get your harp, sir’ ventures one lad, a little out of breath; ‘not but what a fiddle is best.’ And Mr Crick shares a story that shows just how right he is.
“Oh yes; there’s nothing like a fiddle,” said the dairy-man. “Though I do think that bulls are more moved by a tune than cows — at least, that’s my experience. Once there was a old man over at Mellstock — William Dewy by name — one of the family that used to do a good deal of business as tranters* over there, Jonathan, do ye mind?* — I knowed the man by sight as well as I know my own brother, in a manner of speaking. Well, this man was a-coming home along from a wedding where he had been playing his fiddle, one fine moonlight night, and for shortness’ sake he took a cut across Forty-acres, a field lying that way, where a bull was out to grass. The bull seed* William and took after him, horns aground, begad;* and though William runned* his best, and hadn’t much drink in him (considering ’twas a wedding, and the folks well off), he found he’d never reach the fence and get over in time to save himself. Well, as a last thought, he pulled out his fiddle as he runned, and struck up a jig, turning to the bull as he played, and backing towards the corner. The bull softened down, and stood still, looking hard at William Dewy, who fiddled on and on; till a sort of a smile stole over the bull’s face. But no sooner did William stop his playing and turn to get over hedge, than the bull would stop his smiling, and lower his horns and step forrard.*
* A tranter was a man who transported things for a living, typically with a horse and cart.
* ‘Do you mind’ in this context means ‘Do you recall?’.
* A non-standard past tense of ‘see’, more correctly ‘saw’.
* An oath, properly ‘by God’.
* Another non-standard past tense, this time of ‘run’; it should be ‘ran’.
* A non-standard form of ‘forward’.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Dewy start playing his fiddle in the middle of a field during the small hours of the morning?
To try to calm an enraged bull.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Dewy crossed a field. A bull chased him. The bull was quicker.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IAs. IICatch. IIIOutrun.