The Village

PASTORALS
OF
DORSET

BY
M. E. FRANCIS
(Mrs. FRANCIS BLUNDELL)

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

CLAUD C. DU PRÉ COOPER

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1915

[All rights reserved]

p. iiiNOTE.

Some of these stories have already appeared in The Cornhill Magazine, Longman’s Magazine, Temple Bar, Punch, The Times Weekly and The Illustrated London News; and are reprinted by kind permission of the Editors of these periodicals.

p. vCONTENTS.

p. viLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

p. 1SHEPHERD ROBBINS.

Farmer Joyce walked meditatively up the steep, deeply-rutted lane which led to the field wherein his sheep were penned.  He was a tall, bluff, burly old man, carrying himself erect in spite of his seventy years, and capable still of performing a hard day’s work with the best of his juniors.

On one of his broad shoulders rested a pitchfork supporting a goodly truss of hay; in the other hand he carried a shepherd’s crook.  A quaint, picturesque, pastoral figure was this, clad in the antiquated smock frock, now so seldom to be seen, but which Farmer Joyce wore summer and winter alike; his nether limbs were encased in corduroys and stout leather leggings, and his great nailed boots left impressions, gigantic and far apart, on the muddy soil.  The cutting wind frolicked with his iron-grey beard and hair, and intensified the ruddy hue of his broad honest face.  The years which had passed over that kindly face p. 2had left wonderfully few traces, except for the dust with which they had powdered the once coal-black hair and beard.  There were no furrows in the brow, no pinched lines about the mouth; the eyes looked forth from under their whitened lashes with the large contemplative gaze of the man accustomed to pass his life between earth and sky, to sweep wide horizons, to take note, with one comprehensive glance, of the changes of the weather, of the coming of the seasons as indicated by sun and clouds, by bloom or decay advancing over vast tracts of country.

Farmer Joyce had a mind above petty cares; the small home worries and anxieties he left, as he frequently announced, his missus to see to; for himself he kept his soul untroubled, taking good and evil fortune alike philosophically.  Yet to-day his face wore a puzzled, not to say perturbed, expression, and, as he neared the top of the hill, he imperceptibly slackened his long, swinging strides.

At the turn of the road, through the black irregular line of wintry hedgerow, came glimpses of yellow, standing out vividly against the sombre background of dull green and grey; these were the hurdles carefully padded with straw which penned in the lambing ewes.  p. 3From the spot where Farmer Joyce stood, pausing a moment hesitatingly before continuing the ascent, a small tarred shepherd’s hut reared itself between him and the sky, and presently the figure of a man appeared slowly moving round it.

“There he be,” murmured the farmer to himself, and went on more rapidly.

The figure advanced to meet him, and was standing by the small wicket gate leading to the field by the time the other reached it.

An old man, much older, apparently, than his master, the outlines of his bent shoulders sharply defined under the soiled linen jacket; his ragged hair and whiskers white, his very face grey and rugged, ploughed into deep furrows by time and hardship; the eyes looking straight before them with a dull non-expectant gaze; the horny old hand, which rested on the gate, gnarled and knotted, and extraordinarily thin.

“Good-day to you, shepherd.  How’s the rheumatics?”

“Good-day, farmer; good-day.  Rheumatics is bad, thank ye.”

“Ah,” said Joyce, “I fear ye’re falterin’, shepherd, I do, truly.”

Shepherd Robbins made no response; he p. 4stood aside to let his master pass into the enclosure.  Then the two paced together from pen to pen, the farmer’s usually dreamy eye alert enough now, and quick to take note of anything amiss.  Once or twice he found fault, and once or twice he gave directions; Robbins receiving commands and admonitions alike in stolid silence.  With stiff and feeble movements he helped the farmer to set before the ewes the provender which he had brought, and stood watching them with him while they precipitated themselves upon it.

“What a din they do make—a body can scarce hear his own voice,” cried Joyce, turning away at last.

“’Tis their natur’ like, master,” replied the shepherd, hobbling after him.  “There’s little need of a-hearin’ one’s own voice with ewes and lambs about.  It do take a man all his time to see to ’em.”

“Ah,” agreed the farmer, stopping short suddenly and looking at him, “it do, shepherd; it do.  ’Tis more nor many a man can do.  ’Tis more nor you can do at your time of life, shepherd, I d’ ’low.”

“I do do it,” returned Robbins stolidly.

“Ah,” pursued the farmer, following out his own train of thought, as though he had not p. 5heard him, “we be near lambin’ time now, and ’tis puzzlin’ to know how ye’re agoin’ to manage it.  It do puzzle me, I know.  Ye’re falterin’, man, I tell ’ee.”

Robbins gazed vacantly at his master, rubbing his gnarled hands together slowly.

“My missus was a-sayin’ it to me only last night,” pursued the other.  “She do think—”

But here some gleam of intelligence seemed to filter into Robbins’ mind.

“Missus do think I’m past work,” he said.  “That’s what she do do.  Missus never could abear me.”

“Now then, come,” cried the farmer, with a kind of mild roar of exasperation.  “The missus is a good missus to ’ee, Robbins.  She be but anxious for to help ’ee.”

“She’s onreasonable,” grumbled the shepherd; “onreasonable, that’s what she be.  She do look for too much, and expect too much.  When Daisy calved she was vexed at its bein’ a bull calf.  ‘Well, missus,’ I says, ‘I can’t help it if it be a bull.  Things falls out so,’ I says, ‘as we can’t always have our own way.  There must be he’s as well as she’s in this world.’  An’ she did rate me for the sayin’, an’ she do keep a grudge agin me ever since.”

“Nay, now,” said Farmer Joyce, sinking p. 6his voice, but still speaking with the air of mild expostulation which had characterised his former remarks.  “She don’t bear ’ee no grudge, man, not she.  She be all for doin’ ’ee a good turn, I tell ’ee.  Says she to me last night, ‘We must gi’ shepherd help,’ she says, ‘else he’ll ne’er get through wi’ the lambin’ this year.  He desarves consideration,’ she says.  ‘He’s worked for ’ee faithful all his life.  We mus’n’t let un drop in ’arness,’ says she.  Them be her very words, shepherd.”

Robbins continued to rub his hands, but without any appearance of gratification.  Mr. Joyce coughed, stuck his pitchfork in the ground, but almost immediately took it out again.  He seemed to find some difficulty in proceeding.

“Them was her very words,” he resumed, however, presently.  “‘He mus’n’t be allowed to drop in ’arness.  We shall be four shillin’ a week out o’ pocket, but Shepherd Robbins do desarve it,’ she says.”

The farmer paused again.  It takes some little time for a new idea to penetrate into the inner consciousness of a Dorset rustic, but after a few moments Robbins seemed to grasp this one, and a gleam came into his faded eyes.

p. 7“Four shillin’ a week,” he repeated.  “What kind o’ chap be you a-goin’ to get for that money, master?  Why, the lads ’nd scarce frighten the crows for that.”

The farmer coughed again and gently prodded the ground with his pitchfork, watching the operation with apparently intent interest for a moment or two.  Then he slowly raised his eyes.

“He’ll be a-gettin’ eight shillin’ a week, shepherd.  Ye see, ’tis this way.  We be a-payin’ you twelve shillin’ now, we be.”

Robbins nodded.  He had ceased to rub his hands, but stood with the palms still tightly pressed together.

“Well, ye see, we didn’t a-grudge it ye.  Ye was wuth it to us, shepherd—while ye was strong an’ hearty ye was wuth it to us,” he repeated handsomely.  “But now, ye bain’t fit for much, and that’s the trewth; ’tis no fault o’ yourn, but ye bain’t.  We lost a terrible lot o’ lambs last year.  Ye be too stiff in your joints to get about quick, an’ ye can’t get through your work.  It comes hard on we, ye see, to be payin’ out good money an’ not gettin’ the money value—an’ it comes hard on you too, now ye be a-gettin’ into years, shepherd, to be strivin’ an’ contrivin’ like, an’ p. 8bibberin’ in the frostiss an’ snow stuff, an standin’ out o’ nights when the rheumatics is bad.  ’Tis cruel hard for ye, shepherd.”

“Ay, sure,” agreed Robbins more readily than usual.  He did not in the least see the drift of the farmer’s argument, but felt that the last proposition was indubitably true.

“So ye see ’tis this way: I lose four shillin’ a week by hirin’ a chap to help ’ee, and you lose four shillin’ a week.  I’ll pay him eight shillin’, an’ I’ll pay you eight shillin’, an’ ye’ll divide the work between ye.  That’s it, do ye see?” said Farmer Joyce confidentially.  “Divide the work an’ divide the wage.”

Robbins stared at him, vacantly at first, then with a growing sense of indignation as he began dimly to understand the nature of the proposal.

“I don’t agree, master,” he said, after a moment’s pause.  “Nay, that I don’t.  I never axed no help, an’ I’m not a-goin’ to divide no wage.  Twelve shillin’ a week is what I did agree for, an’ I’ve a-had it for twenty year an’ more.  I can’t do with no less now nor I did then.”

“Well, but,” argued the farmer, “’tis this way, ye see, I can’t afford to be at a loss.  I’ve a-stood it as long as I could, shepherd, but I p. 9can’t noways let things go wrong this season same as last; I can’t truly.  Ye mustn’t be onreasonable.  Why, look ’ee—d’ye know any man o’ your years in these parts as gets twelve shillin’ a week?  It’s the natur’ o’ things as when they can’t do the full day’s work they can’t have the full day’s pay.  Look at Adam Blanchard and Eddard Boyt yon.  When they began to falter they made up their minds to it and went back to eight shillin’ a week same as their grandsons do get.”

“Ay,” agreed Robbins bitterly, “little chaps leavin’ school gets eight shillin’ a week—it’s bwoy’s wage, bwoy’s wage.”

“An’ very good wage too,” retorted the farmer, now as much nettled as was possible for one of his placid nature.  “You ought to take it an’ be thankful, Abel Robbins.  Many a man ’ud be proud an’ glad to earn as much an’ have it paid reg’lar.  Many a able-bodied man wi’ a family,” he added impressively.  “’Tis enough an’ more than enough for you, a lone man wi’ no one dependin’ on ye, so to speak.”

“Ay, I am a lone man, I am that,” agreed the shepherd warmly.  “An’ why am I a lone man?  When I worked for ye first, p. 10after your father died, says you, ‘We must have a single man,’ says you.  ‘I must have ye on the spot,’ says you, ‘with all them dumb things about the place to see to.’  So I give up walkin’ wi’ the maid I was coortin’ an’ give up the notion o’ gettin’ wed.  An’ when you got married yourself your missus sent me to lodge in the village.”

“Well, an’ why didn’t ye get tied up then?” returned Joyce, with no less heat.  “Why, that’s nigh forty year ago.  You have had time, sure, to pick a wife between this an’ then?”

Abel stared at him reflectively.  “I’d got used to bein’ without one,” he said, dropping his voice.  “I was goin’ on thirty, then.  Ay, it was too late.  I’d given up the thought o’ womankind, an’ ’twouldn’t have seemed nait’ral like.  But I could wish now that I did ha’ married an’ had childern to keep me.”

“Ye mid ha’ been without ’em,” replied Joyce, once more placid and thoughtful.  “Ay, shepherd, ’tis very like you would.  There’s nothin’ in my opinion more disappointin’ an’ onsartin than wedlock.  There was my mother, a poor ailing thing, an’ Lard, what a family she did have to be sure!  The babbies used to be like rabbits—’pon me word they p. 11was.  But they died most of ’em, an’ only a matter o’ half a-dozen o’ us grew up.  Well now, look at my missus—she be a fine, strong, healthy woman, bain’t she?  Never had chick nor child, as the sayin’ goes.  An’ my first wife, ye mind her, Abel?  She was a straight woman an’ a stout un, an’ the only child she had was a poor nesh little thing, that withered away, ye may say, as soon as it was born.  Ye mightn’t ha’ had no children, shepherd, an’ if so be ye had wed ye’d have had the wife to keep.”

“That’s true,” assented Abel.

“An’ there’s another thing,” pursued the farmer, following up his advantage, “if you’d ha’ married when ye was a young un, your sons would be gettin’ into years pretty well by now themselves.  They’d have wives an’ families o’ their own.  Lard bless you! that they would, an’ where ’ud you be among ’em all?”

This flight of imagination was too much for Robbins, who did not attempt to follow it.  He came back instead to the point at issue.

“Eight shillin’ a week,” he repeated.  “’Tis what your father give me when I first worked for en.  Ay, I worked for en for that an’ kept myself.  You mind the time, master; you were p. 12a young un too yourself—there is but a two year atween us, but you’ve wore well, fanner; a deal better nor I.  ’Tis the good food, I daresay—ay, ay, it makes a lot of difference.  Good keep makes fat sheep, as the sayin’ goes.  A man laisses twice as long if his victuals is nourishin’.”

“Come, come, I do ’low you’re tough though,” laughed his master good-naturedly.  “Ye’ll see me down, maybe.  You come of a long-lived race, shepherd.”

“Ay, eight shillin’ a week yer father give me,” repeated Robbins, reverting to his original statement, and once more rubbing his hands and blinking his dim eyes as though in the effort to gaze back on that distant past.  “I mind ’twas thought wonderful high pay i’ them days; folks was gettin’ six shillin’ an’ five, but yer father said I was wuth it to en; an’ when he died an’ I went to live yonder with you ye give me eight shillin’ a week an’ my keep—ay, that was summat, I was hearty enough then.  Ye give me that for ten year, an’ then ye got married an’ I must shift to the village, an’ then ye give me ten shillin’ a week.  And when I were fifty year of age I up an’ I says to you, ‘Master,’ says I, ‘I’ve a-sarved ye twenty-five year now an’ ye must p. 13raise me,’ says I, d’ye mind?  So ye rose me two shillin’, didn’t ye?  Well, an’ I’ve had twelve shillin’ a week ever since,” he summed up, and his eyes, which had been travelling slowly back over the years, reverted altogether to the present and fixed themselves reproachfully on his master’s face.  “An’ now I be to have bwoy’s pay again, be I?” he queried with an almost childish quiver and droop of the under lip.

“Well, Abel, ’tis onfortunate—terrible onfortunate, ’tis truely.  I’m fair puzzled, I am,” returned the farmer, much moved himself.  “Look at it whichever way you will it don’t seem fair, but there’s a deal o’ difference between the look o’ things an’ the real natur’ of em’, shepherd.  Look at figures now, an’ prices.  Lard, when ye count by pence ye seem to have such a lot you’re fair puzzled wi’ addin’ ’em up—a body ’ud need to have twenty fingers instead of a cluster o’ five.  But put ’em into shillin’s an’ where are ye?  An’ put ’em into pounds, ah—” here the farmer drew in his breath with a sucking sound that implied volumes.  “An’ yet it be all the same money, Abel.”

The shepherd, looking at him still reproachfully, shook his head.

p. 14“I know nothin’ about figures, master; all I know is ’tis cruel hard that when I’ve a-worked all my days for ’ee, Farmer Joyce, you turn on me i’ my ancient years.  It be hard, an’ I can’t say no different.”

For the third time that day Mr. Joyce’s usually equable temper was disturbed.  He now spoke angrily, partly to end the dispute, for the sight of Abel Robbins’ haggard, reproachful face was almost more than he could bear, partly because he was vexed at the pertinacity with which the old fellow adhered to his own point of view, partly because his kind heart smote him for the course of action he was about to pursue, though his judgment held it to be just.

“Well, ’tis this way, Robbins,” he cried roughly, “take it or leave it, an’ please yourself.  I’ve made ye a fair offer, an’ more than a fair offer.  I can get another man to do all the work for ten shillin’ a week—men be plenty an’ work be scarce—’tis clear loss of six shillin’ a week out o’ my own pocket, an’ if I’m willin’ to put up with it you should be content; I’ll stick to my bargain.”

“Well, I bain’t content, master,” cried Robbins, a dull fire coming into his eyes.  “I’d sooner leave—I’d sooner give notice—ay, that I would.”

I be mazed; I be fair mazed

p. 15Farmer Joyce raised hands and eyes to Heaven.

“I never heard such talk from a reasonable man.  If you do leave me, how be you a-goin’ to live?  Who’s a-going to take you on as a new hand if you leave me?  It’ll be the House, man.  There, don’t talk so foolish like.  Think it over an’ give me your answer on Saturday.  I’ll not hear a word on’t till then.  It’s never my way to be hasty.  Take time, shepherd; take time.  When you’ve a-thought it over you’ll find it’s not such a bad bargain.”

He turned away and strode down the hill, crook and pitchfork on shoulder.  Robbins made no effort to detain him, but stood watching the receding figure in a dazed way till it disappeared at the angle of the lane.  Then he walked back slowly to the enclosure where the sheep were still feeding and stood for a moment or two looking at them according to his custom, but without noticing them.

“I be mazed,” he said to himself; “I be fair mazed.”

Gradually he woke to the consciousness that his limbs were trembling under him, and his head dizzy, and leaving the sheep pen he p. 16entered the hut and sat down on the solitary chair which it contained.  In one corner, curled up on an old coat that Robbins sometimes put on when the nights were exceptionally cold, lay his dog, which, on his master’s entrance, opened its eyes without raising its head and wagged its tail in welcome.  The keen yellow eyes remained fixed on Robbins’ face, and after a time the tail ceased wagging, and the dog stiffly rose, shook itself, and pattered across the floor to the shepherd’s feet.  Finding still no return, it laid its head upon Abel’s knee, looking up into his face with such a world of dumb questioning anguish that it at length elicited a response.  Robbins stretched out his hand, which still shook oddly, and patted the tawny head,

“Ay, Bob, I see thee,” he said; “there, down, down!” as the dog, springing up, began to lick his face.  “We can’t help it, boy; we’re to be chucked out, thee and I.  You be getting old, too, an’ ’tis a sin to be old i’ these times.  Nobody wants us, Bob.  If some folks had their will you an’ me ’ud be knocked on the head, Bob; an’ I do ’low it ’ud be the best way.  I could a’most wish as somebody ’ud come up without my knowing it p. 17an’ jest—settle me.  Livin’s poor work when folk be wishin’ to be rid on ye.”

Bob slid on to the floor again and laid his old white muzzle on the worn corduroy knee; and Abel continued to stroke his head, but without speaking, until at last the sympathetic eyes closed, and the dog dozed, still pressing close to him.  Then Abel suffered his hand to drop and sat as before, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

Saturday came, one of those mild, south country days when winter seems to give place to spring; the sky was blue, thrushes were singing; the air was soft and fragrant, almost as with the spicy smell of mounting sap and growing herbage.  Farmer Joyce toiled up the hill again with his smock frock thrown open, and his hat on the back of his head.  His face, too, was full of a mild radiance as he paused within the gate of the enclosure.

“Well shepherd?” he said interrogatively.

Robbins had been turning over the litter within the pens, and continued his occupation for a moment or two, the sun gleaming on his white hair and the golden straw.  Then he drove the pitchfork slowly into the ground and turned round, holding himself erect; his old dog came shambling forward and stood by his side.

p. 18“Well, farmer,” said Abel grimly, “I be goin’.”

His master stood gazing at him, shading his eyes with his hand.  “When be ye goin’, shepherd?” he asked still mildly.

“This day week,” returned the shepherd briefly.

“How be goin’ to live, Abel?”

Robbins made no reply.  Farmer Joyce thumped the gate with his massive brown fist.

“Ye’ll starve, Abel, that’s what ye’ll do.”

“Well, then,” cried Abel, thumping the gate too with his lean old hand, “I will starve, farmer.  I don’t care so much if I do starve; livin’s weary work—the sooner I be done with it the better.”

“Shepherd, shepherd,” expostulated Farmer Joyce in real distress and perplexity, “this be fool’s talk—this be nothin’ but stubbornness.  I’ll not take such an answer.”

“Ye may take it,” retorted Robbins, thumping the gate again, “for ye’ll not get no other.”

“Well, I be sorry, Abel; I be very sorry—I—I be terrible sorry.  You’ve sarved me faithful, Abel.”

“Ay, master, I do ’low I’ve sarved ’ee too faithful,” returned Robbins.  He betook p. 19himself to his pitchfork again, and all his master’s remonstrances failed to extract another word.

Sorely perturbed in mind Joyce withdrew at last, and made his way homewards.  Throwing down his hat on the kitchen table he informed his wife of the result of the interview.

“I could a’most wish as we hadn’t ha’ said nothin’ about it to the old chap.  He won’t last long—an’ I might ha’ made shift to help him a bit.”

“That be real nonsense,” returned his better half.  “’Twould be a pretty notion for the master to be a-workin’ for the man.  Let him go if he’s set on’t—he’ll repent it.”

She set a dish on the table with somewhat unnecessary energy, and her husband held his peace for a moment or two.  By-and-bye, however, he put into words that which was in the minds of both.

“We’ll be like to repent it, too.  Abel be wonderful handy about the place.  ’Tis but his j’ints as is straggled.  He be no Sammy, shepherd bain’t; his head’s wise enough yet if his body be tewly.”

“I do ’low ye didn’t take him the right way,” said Mrs. Joyce, looking at her husband with severe disapproval.  “Men-folk be all alike, they’ve no notion o’ things.  I’ll lay a p. 20shillin’ ye took en rough like—told en he weren’t good for nothin’, an’ vexed en so that he were fair dathered.  Leave en to me, I’ll talk to en a bit, an’ see what I can make of en.”

Then she banged another plate upon the table and added somewhat inconsequently, “I’ve no patience with en—nor you neither”.

Later in the day she was standing, knitting in hand, watching a brood of very young chickens which had made their appearance at an astonishingly early date.  Despite this fact they were hardy, healthy little things, and Mrs. Joyce smiled as she watched them running in and out from under their mother, picking up the meal she threw them with great alertness and enjoyment.

Mrs. Joyce was a tall, large woman with sandy hair, from which the sun now brought out pretty lights.  She had the temper which usually accompanies such hair, easily roused and as easily appeased.  The mere sight of these yellow, fluffy chickens, the consciousness of the sunshine, and the fragrance, and suggestiveness, had filled her with a kind of hazy content.  The wall-flowers yonder under the kitchen windows were already ablow, she observed.  The pigs, too, were coming on p. 21nicely; the calf, which was bleating not unmusically in one of the outhouses, had had the good sense to be a heifer.  Altogether Mrs. Joyce felt that the world was not a bad place and that life was worth living.

She was in this frame of mind when, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw the figure of Shepherd Robbins shambling slowly down the steep “pinch” of road that led to the farm gate.  Perhaps it was the sudden contrast between that gaunt form, that haggard, melancholy face, and the surrounding brightness and prosperity that moved her, perhaps because, being a good-hearted woman in the main, she shared her husband’s regret at the course events were taking; in any case at sight of him her anger melted away, and a flood of genuine pity swept over her heart.

She went to meet Robbins at the gate and laid her hand kindly on his arm.

“Why, shepherd,” she said, and her pleasant voice assumed an inflection that was almost tender, “’tis never true what my husband tells me?  You bain’t a-thinkin’ of leaving we?  We couldn’t get on without ’ee.”

Sometimes an unexpected kind word from a person whom we have distrusted, and perhaps disliked, carries more weight than a similar p. 22one from a friend.  Poor Robbins had been dogged and surly enough with the master whom he loved, but when the missus, with whom he had hitherto lived, as it were, on the defensive, spoke so gently and looked so kind, he gazed back at her astonished, softened, confounded.

And when she said again: “Why, shepherd, you bain’t goin’ to desert we?” he suddenly burst into tears.

“No ma’am,” he said brokenly.  “I—I—what be I to do?”  The tears were running down his face.  “I d’ ’low I’d be loth to leave master.”

“Well, you mustn’t think on it,” returned Mrs. Joyce decidedly.  “We couldn’t do without you.  See—’tis all a bit o’ temper, bain’t it?  You never truly meant to give notice?”

“I did, missus; I did,” sobbed the old man.  “It bain’t temper neither, it—it be the notion, I think.”

“Yes, that’s all it be, sure,” said Mrs. Joyce, not in the least knowing what he meant, but speaking in soothing tones and patting his arm kindly; “’tis but a notion, Abel.  Eight shillin’ bain’t so bad, you know—come.  You’ll never want so long as you ’arn eight shillin’ a week—eight shillin’ a week ’ll keep you, wunt it?”

p. 23“Ay, it’ll keep me, missus—it bain’t that.  But I do ’low it’ll be main hard to go up on pay-day wi’ ’em all, an’ take laiss nor any of ’em—me that has always took the most.  They’ll all be castin’ eyes at me an’ talkin’ small o’ me.  They’ll be sayin’, ‘Shepherd be takin’ bwoy’s wage.  He bain’t worth his salt now, shepherd bain’t.’  It’s the notion o’ that, missus, as I can’t stand—nohow.”

“Oh, that’s what it be,” returned his mistress thoughtfully.

The excitement which rendered Robbins so unusually garrulous had flushed his cheeks and given light to his eyes.  The woman’s heart was touched as she looked at him.

“Ay, ma’am, an’ another thing—the lad as I be to have help me, he’ll be a cheeky un very like—the ruck o’ lads be.  He’ll think himself as good as me—better mayhap.  He’ll be gettin’ same money as me, ye know.  What’ll he think o’ me at my time o’ life?  Adam Blanchard and Eddard Boyt they be gettin’ same as their grandsons I d’ ’low, but there! the boys be their grandsons, an’ if they don’t treat ’em respectful-like they can give ’em the stick.”

Mrs. Joyce was silent for a moment, her brows were knit and her lips compressed; she p. 24seemed to be turning over a problem in her mind.  Suddenly her face lit up.

“Abel,” she said, “I’m o’ your mind arter all.  I think instead o’ your master cuttin’ off your wages he ought to raise you.  You ought to have some reward for your long years of faithful service.  In my opinion your master ought to raise you to sixteen shillin’.”

Shepherd Robbins looked as though he scarcely heard aright.

“Why, missus!” he exclaimed, and paused overcome.

“Yes; if master raises you, nobody couldn’t vex you, an’ yet nobody couldn’t find aught amiss.  The master ’ud tell ’em all ’twas but nat’ral after ye bein’ wi’ us so long an’ so punished wi’ rheumatics.  It’s time he should do something more for ’ee.  An’ so, he’d say, he’s goin’ to raise you an’ you be goin’ to keep a lad.”

Robbins still stared, astonishment and delight vying with each other in his face.  “That ’ud be a different story!” he ejaculated.

“An’, you see, you could pick your own bwoy easy then—he’d be your bwoy; you could choose en for yourself, an’ send en away if he didn’t behave hisself.  Would that do ye?” she asked with modest triumph.

p. 25“Do me!—ah, that it would!  I did never expect so much.  But master won’t hear on it, sure!”

“He will, though—I’ll see to that.  ’Tis but your due, shepherd.  I d’ ’low you deserve some reward; we bain’t onreasonable!”

She turned quickly, and went into the house, leaving Robbins radiant but still half incredulous.

He was forced to believe in his own good fortune, however, when at pay time Farmer Joyce announced the intended promotion of Shepherd Robbins, who, in view of his long service and failing health, was now to receive an increase of wages amounting to four shillings a week.

The shepherd bore himself with becoming modesty under the congratulations of his comrades.  One or two of them were disposed to be envious, but for the most part they received the intelligence in an ungrudging spirit.

“They do say that you be goin’ to keep a bwoy, shepherd,” remarked the ploughman a little later, gazing at him with respectful admiration.

“Very like I be,” returned Abel loftily.  He was not proud, but thoroughly aware of his own importance.

p. 26One of the other men, the father of a family, humbly mentioned that he had a fine well-grown lad at home that would, maybe, suit Mr. Robbins as well as another, and Abel graciously promised to think of it.

He went home thoroughly convinced that a piece of most unexpected good luck had befallen him, an opinion which was shared by all his neighbours.  As for Mr. and Mrs. Joyce they kept their own counsel.

p. 27PRIVATE GRIGGS.

The November landscape was sombre and melancholy enough; brown, newly-ploughed fields alternating for the most part with the tawny stubble of land that still lay fallow.  A few withered leaves clung to the branches of trees and hedges; the sky was grey, the air heavy and yet cold.  It was a fit day to hear news of trouble, Mrs. Frizzell thought, as her eyes roamed over the prospect, not vaguely as another woman’s might have done, but with a definite object in view.

She proceeded at a round pace up the lane, and along the high road, leaving it, after half a mile or so, to strike across the fields.

She was a small, energetic-looking woman, with hazel eyes and prematurely grey hair.  Her usually cheerful face was deadly pale to-day, and its characteristically alert expression had given place to one of devouring anxiety.

p. 28Presently against the sky-line above a distant hedge appeared the head and shoulders of a man, and a little way in front of him the ears and crests of two horses.  Mrs. Frizzell quickened her pace, making for a familiar gap in the hedge aforesaid, through which she presently squeezed herself.

The man, who had not seen her, continued his slow progress across the field.  Without calling out to him she broke into a run, her feet sinking deep at every step in the newly turned-up soil; after a few minutes she reached him, panting, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

He looked round with a start, and brought his horses to a standstill.

“Martha! what brings ye out at this time o’ day?”

“Nothing good,” said Martha.  She threw a hasty glance round.  “Be there any one about?”

She spoke in a peculiarly loud and distinct key, and he answered in the low, mumbling tone habitual to deaf people.

“Nay, who should be about?  There bain’t nobody here but myself.”

“I think I’ll go with ’ee to the top o’ the hill and make sure—I don’t want nobody to hear p. 29what I’ve a-got to tell ’ee.  Go on—go on to the top o’ the drill.”

“I be to go forrard?” questioned her husband, staring at her stupidly.

“’Ees, take them harses up to the top o’ the drill, and then I’ll talk to ’ee.”

Frizzell admonished his horses to proceed, and went plodding on up the rising ground along which he had traced his furrow, glancing round every now and then at the set face of his wife as she plodded in his rear.

He was a big, blond, good-natured man, whose natural dulness of wit was intensified by his infirmity.

When they reached the brow of the hill Martha slipped in front of him, and standing on tip-toe, cast a searching glance round.  A flock of sheep was penned in a corner of the adjacent turnip-field, a few rooks were waddling up the furrows nearer at hand; over their heads a heron was slowly sailing with wide, sweeping wings on his way to the river, but not a human creature was in sight.

“Well,” said John Frizzell as she turned towards him, “whatever be the matter, Missus?  I wish you’d out wi’ it.”

“I have had a letter from my cousin Julia, p. 30Father, and she have telled me some bad noos about our Susan.”

John’s jaw dropped, and the colour forsook his face, leaving it pale beneath its tan.

“Why—be the maid took ill?” he inquired with a gasp.

“She bain’t well—and she bain’t like to be well.  She’ve a-been ill-used, Father.  There, the silly girl wouldn’t hearken to what I did al’ays tell her, an’ now she be sufferin’ for’t.  She’ve been an’ took up wi’ a soldier, an’ so far as I can make out he made a purtence o’ marryin’ her; got some raskil to dress up as a minister, an’ put on the ring and all.  The poor maid was sure she was married honest, but she kep’ it secret, for he dared her to tell any one wi’out he gave her leave.  Well, an’ now he’ve a-gone off to the war, and left a letter for her sayin’ as how ’twere all humbug, an’ they wasn’t married at all, an’ hopin’ she’d forgive en.”

“My God!” said the poor father, and he brought his hand down on the plough-handle with a force that made the mild horses start, “My God!  I wish I had en here—I’d smash en!”

“An’ that’s not all,” went on Mrs. Frizzell, in a choked voice; “there’s a little ’un upon p. 31the road—our daughter ’ull be disgraced afore the whole parish.”

“Disgraced!” cried John, his honest face as red as it had before been pale, “who says disgraced!  ’Tain’t no fault o’ the poor child’s!  She’ve a-been deceived and used cruel hard.  Nobody ’ull not have a word to say against her.”

“Won’t they, though!” retorted his wife, who, though as sore at heart as he, thought it necessary to assume an aggressive tone.  “Who do you suppose ’ull ever believe as the girl ’ud be so simple as to be took in and think herself married when she warn’t married?  They don’t believe it in Darchester, I can tell ’ee.  There, they’ve a-gone and sent her away from her situation; and Julia—why I can see as my own cousin Julia don’t half believe her story—she’ve wrote to say she ’opes I’ll come and take her away at once, as she don’t like her for to be comin’ to the house.”

“Well, write an’ tell her as you will take her away,” returned Frizzell in a kind of muffled roar.  “I bain’t ashamed o’ my child, whatever other folks may be.  Write an’ tell her as Father an’ Mother ’ull be fain to have her home, and won’t let nobody worrit her when she d’ get there.  I’ll soon shut their p. 32mouths if they try to make out as she bain’t a-tellin’ the trewth!”

“Now, Father, you listen to I.”  And here Martha laid both her hands upon his great round shoulders and fairly shook him in her eagerness.  “I bain’t a-goin’ for to let her tell the trewth—not all the trewth.  I’m willin’ she should say she got married to a soldier unbeknown to us, but I don’t mean to let the rest come out.  I’m goin’ for to give out as he were killed in the war.  That way he’ll be done wi’, so to speak—nobody ’ull be axin’ questions about en, or wonderin’ why Susan have come home.”

John Frizzell fairly gasped.

“Bless my heart!” he ejaculated, staring at his eager little wife.  “Why, what a tale!  I don’t much fancy tellin’ sich a pack o’ lies; nay, now”—and he rolled his head obstinately—“I bain’t a-goin’ to tell ’em.  I’ll speak the trewth, and knock down them as says contrairy—I’ll be danged if I won’t!”

“Don’t ’ee be sich a fool, Father.  You’ll do jist as I tell ’ee.  I’ve al’ays held up my head, and Susan, she’ve al’ays been a bit high, an’ have a-kep’ herself to herself, and there be folks as ’ud be only too glad to go a-crowin’ over we, an’ a-backbitin’ of we.  I bain’t a-goin’ for p. 33to give ’em no cause.  You keep your mouth shut—that’s all as you’ve got to do.  Keep your mouth shut, and if folks d’ come a-worrettin’ of ’ee wi’ questions, don’t ’ee let on for to understand.  You be hard enough o’ hearin’ at all times, and you can jist make out to be a bit harder.  You’ll have to do as I do bid ’ee, for I’ve telled Mrs. Cross jist now the story about Susan’s husband bein’ killed in the war, and his name an’ all—”

“Why, do ’ee know his name?” interrupted Frizzell, staring at her in a puzzled sort of way.  “What be his name?  The young raskil!  If he bain’t killed out abroad, I’ll half murder en when he do come back.”

Martha’s face assumed a set expression.

“He don’t deserve for to come back,” she said, in a tone too low for her husband to hear.  “There, it bain’t Christian to wish ill to nobody, but the A’mighty be just, and I can’t think as He’d let a blessin’ rest on that there wicked fellow.  I don’t know his name no more nor you,” she shouted, turning to John, who was still muttering vengeance.  “Julia didn’t tell I; but when Mrs. Cross axed straight out what his name mid be, I had to say summat.  I weren’t a-goin’ for to tell her as I didn’t know, so I jist thought of a name p. 34as I seed in the paper o’ Sunday among the list o’ killed—Private Griggs—so I telled her ’twas that.”

John stared at her solemnly and with unwilling admiration.

“Ye be wonderful quick at makin’ out things, and I do suppose it bain’t no use for I to go against ye; but I don’t believe no good ’ull come o’ it.  Mrs. Cross be a terrible one to talk—she’ll ha’ spread the tale over village by now.”

“She will,” agreed Martha.  “’Tis jist for that I did tell her.  I must be gettin’ back now,” she continued, in an altered tone.  “Don’t ’ee be took back when ’ee see blinds down, Father.”

“Blinds down!  What’s that for?”

“Why, because Private Griggs be killed,” returned Mrs. Frizzell grimly.  “They’ll ha’ to be kep’ down till I’ve a-fetched the widow home.”

“The widow!” exclaimed John.  And he fairly burst out crying.  “My poor little Susie!  My poor maidie!”

He turned his back to his wife and stood for a moment with his shoulders convulsively heaving; then, rubbing his eyes with one horny hand, he shouted huskily to the horses, p. 35ordered his wife gruffly to stand out of the way, and started off down the hill again.

Mrs. Frizzell struck off at right angles across the field, and made for home with all possible speed.  Her heart was full, nigh to bursting, and the lump in her throat caused her almost intolerable physical distress, but she resolutely forced the tears back.  This was no time for crying—there was too much to be done—too much to be thought of.

*   *   *   *   *

It was about noon on the following day when Mrs. Frizzell arrived at Susan’s lodging.

The poor girl ran to meet her with an inarticulate cry, and the mother, without looking at her, began to talk rapidly in her characteristically matter-of-fact fashion.

“I be come to take ’ee home, my dear—Father an’ me think ’tis best—you’d better be gettin’ your things together.  There, I did start so early as I could, but I had to go into one or two shops, and it did take I sich a time to find out this place!  Ye’d best make haste and do your packing; there’s the getting back to be thought on.  You can put up all as you’ve a-got ’cept your black dress—ye can slip that on.  I’ve got everythin’ else as ye be like to want here.”

p. 36“My black dress!” said Susie.  “’Tis too good for travellin’, mother; this here blue be quite tidy.”

“Do what I tell ’ee,” said Mrs. Frizzell, sternly, looking up from the parcel which she was unfastening, and fixing her eyes for the first time on the girl’s pale, agitated face.

“Mother, why have you got your blacks on?” cried Susan in sudden alarm.  “And, oh! what’s that in your hand?”

“’Tis a bonnet, my dear, and you be to put it on.  Now, Susan, I haven’t said one cross word to ’ee, and I bain’t a-goin’ to say a cross word to ’ee; and Father and me have a-made up our minds to stand by ’ee, and we’ll not let nobody go a-worrettin’ of ’ee, or a-castin’ up at ’ee about what’s past.  If ye did deceive we, ye’ve a-been punished enough for’t.”

“Oh, dear! an’ that’s true,” wailed Susan; and she threw herself into her mother’s arms, her big, babyish, blue eyes drowned in tears; her poor head, with its crown of golden hair, hidden on the bosom where it had so often lain in innocent infancy.  “I was a wicked girl to deceive ’ee and dear Father, as was always so good to me.  But he—Jim—said I wasn’t to tell no one, or he’d be gettin’ into trouble, as we wasn’t on the strength!”

p. 37“And what mid that mean, my dear?”

“I don’t know, Mother.  Some soldiers’ talk.  Some of ’em has leave to get married, an’ some hasn’t.”

“Ah-h-h-h, ye mid ha’ knowed he was up to some tricks—ye couldn’t be married right that way.  Why, where was your lines, my dear?”

“He said he was a-keepin’ them for me, an’ he took me to a kind o’ tin buildin’, an’ said it was the soldiers’ chapel, and he knowed I always went to chapel, so he wouldn’t ax me to be married in church; and there was another man there, as he said was the minister.  And he put the ring on my finger—Jim did—he did indeed”—and here Susan raised her head to look earnestly in her mother’s face—“and he did say the words, and all.”

“There, there, no need to talk more on’t.  Ye’ve been voolish, my maid, and he’ve a-been wicked; and you be left to pay for it all.  But you’ve got Father and Mother to look to, and if you’ll do as I do bid ’ee, nobody need know o’ the trick as has been played on ’ee.  There, slip on your dress, my dear, and pop this bonnet on, and–”

“Mother, ’tis a widow’s bonnet,” gasped Susan.  “Oh, don’t—don’t make me wear a p. 38widow’s bonnet!  Oh, I can’t bear the sight of en; it do seem so unlucky, so dreadful!”

“Now be still, Susan; I don’t want no idle talk about ’ee, an’ no insultin’ remarks passed, and I’ve a-made out a story and you be to keep to’t.  You be the Widow Griggs—that be your name; and your husband, what was a soldier, have a-been killed in this here war.”

“Oh, not killed; not killed!” cried the girl wildly.  “Oh, Mother, don’t ’ee talk like that, for I can’t a-bear it.  There, ’twould seem so wicked to be sayin’ sich things—the Lard mid make it come true.  I can’t but feel as Jim be my husband; whatever he’ve a-done, and so bad as he mid be, I can’t ever feel anything else.  He did mean to marry I some day when he’d got leave, and he’d ha’ done it if it hadn’t ha’ been for the war.  If you call me a widow, I shall feel all the time as if Jim were really killed.”

Mrs. Frizzell folded her arms and gazed at her resolutely and severely.

“Susan, don’t let me hear ’ee talk like that—the man’s dead to you if he bain’t killed, an’ his name mustn’t ever be on your lips.  I’m doin’ the best I can for ’ee, an’ I can’t think the Lard ’ud be angry with me for makin’ out a story what does no harm to nobody.  As for p. 39that fellow, he be in the hands o’ the Lard—the Lard ’ull see to en.  I leave en to the A’mighty.”

Mrs. Frizzell spoke with a certain almost terrible significance which made poor Susie’s blood run cold.

The stronger will gained the day, and a short time afterwards the Widow Griggs, clad in her “deep,” and sobbing in a heartrending fashion that had no pretence at all about it under her long veil, was led out of the house by her resolute little mother.

Mrs. Frizzell was by nature truthful, but in this emergency it must be owned that her veracity was exposed to tests from which it did not always escape unscathed.

When one of her neighbours asked her if she did not mean to apply for relief on her daughter’s behalf from some of the funds instituted for soldiers’ widows, she could reply boldly enough that such an appeal would be useless, as Private Griggs had married without leave, and Susan’s claim would therefore not be recognised.  But when the sympathetic, but exasperatingly pertinacious Mrs. Cross—the gossip who had been chosen in the first instance to spread the news of Susan’s bereavement—plied her with questions anent her p. 40departed son-in-law, the poor woman occasionally found herself so completely cornered as to be obliged to invent appropriate answers.

Thus, before very long, it became known in the village that the late Private Griggs had been a tall, dark man, very well-looking; that he came from somewhere up the country; that his mother was breaking her heart about his loss, but his father did seem to bear up very well.  They didn’t write often to Susan—no, for the poor dear were that undone she couldn’t a-bear so much as to hear his name mentioned; in fact, Mrs. Frizzell herself did scarcely ever mention it to her.  (“And that’s true!” remarked the originator of this history, with infinite satisfaction.)  No more didn’t Frizzell—indeed, poor Frizzell were that upset about it that the less said to en the better.

Sometimes Mrs. Frizzell was a little startled when these figments were recalled to her—many of them, indeed, were so much embellished by transmission from mouth to mouth that she scarcely recognised her own original creation; but she deemed it best to let the story pass.

“Let ’em please theirselves,” she murmured.  “I didn’t say so much as that, but ’tis better to let ’em think so if it do satisfy ’em.  There,” p. 41she would add, when tormented by some particularly keen twinge of conscience, “’tis to be ’oped as the Lard will forgi’e me.  I can’t believe as it ’ull be held agen me, seein’ as it’s for the sake of my own child.”

When poor Susan’s baby boy arrived great astonishment was elicited by the fact that the soft down which covered its little head was of a distinctly ruddy colour.

“Dear, to be sure,” remarked Mrs. Cross, “he can’t take after his father, poor, dear little hinfant.  You said he was a black-haired man, didn’t you, Mrs. Frizzell?  And Susan’s hair be just so yellow as the corn.  I can’t call to mind as there be any red-haired folks in your family, or Frizzell’s either.”

“Very like the poor innocent do take after some o’ Mr. Griggs’ relations,” remarked another woman.  “His mother, now—’tis strange how often I’ve a-known the first child be the very image o’ the father’s mother.”

Mrs. Frizzell’s hawk eyes immediately fixed themselves upon the mental picture of Private Grigg’s maternal parent, and she presently remarked, in a somewhat muffled tone, that she fancied she had heard summat about old Mrs. Griggs bein’ a red-haired woman.

“And that makes another of ’em!” she p. 42groaned to herself, “I d’ ’low I’ll soon forget what ’tis to speak the truth.”

Returning, after the departure of the visitors, to replace the little flannel-wrapped bundle by its mother’s side, she observed tentatively—

“His hair do seem to be red, Susie.”

“’Ees,” returned poor Susie faintly, “his hair be red—like Jim’s.”

“Ye mid ha’ told me that, I think!” exclaimed Mrs. Frizzell, with irrepressible irritation.  “I’ve been a-tellin’ everybody as your husband were a dark-haired man.  I had to make out a story now about your mother-in-law having red hair.  P’r’aps she has?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure.  She’s dead long ago, and so is his father.  Oh, Mother, how can you make up sich tales?”

“Well, I had to say summat when they axed me.  If I were to say as I didn’t know, they’d be sure to guess as things wasn’t all right.”

“But if—if Jim ever do come back?” faltered the girl.

“He’ll not come back—put that out o’ your head,” said Mrs. Frizzell shortly.

The tears rolled down Susie’s face, and her eyes followed her mother’s energetic figure as it moved about the room.  Once or twice she p. 43opened her lips as though to speak, but her courage failed her.  Then, suddenly, the words burst from her—

“Mother, don’t ’ee pray agen him!  I can feel as you’re wishin’ and wantin’ him not to come back.  P’r’aps ye be a-prayin’ as—as summat may happen.  Oh, don’t, don’t!  ’Tis wicked.”

Mrs. Frizzell turned quite pale.  She came and stood at the foot of Susie’s bed, gazing at her so oddly that the girl, who was by this time shaking with hysterical sobs, became more and more unnerved and frightened.

“There, don’t take on so,” said her mother at last, and her voice sounded husky and strange.  “I mid be better nor what I am, the Lard knows, though, p’r’aps, it bain’t my own darter’s place to tell I so; but I’ve not gone so far as to pray for evil to fall on anybody, if that be what ye mean.  I be a Christian woman, however wicked I mid be.”

“But you wish it,” sobbed Susan.  “You know you wish it, Mother—you do wish as Jim were dead.”

“You lay down,” said Mrs. Frizzell, coming round to the side of the bed, and forcing her patient back upon her pillows.  “Lay down, and keep still, and don’t go upsettin’ yourself p. 44and this poor innocent child.  Leave the Lard to judge of I, as I do leave Him to judge of he.”

Susan was slowly recovering strength when one day a letter arrived containing news so consoling and yet so tragic that her heart very nearly broke.

Jim—her Jim—her husband, for as such, in spite of her mother’s protests, she continued to regard him, had written to her on the eve of battle—a manly letter, full of remorseful tenderness.  Solemn thoughts had come to him out there on the lonely veldt, face to face with death.  The remembrance of the innocent creature who had trusted him, and whom he had loved and wronged, haunted him perpetually.  The conduct which had once seemed to him excusable now appeared to him in its true light.  Moreover, his actual rough life, the hardships, the horrors of war, threw into stronger relief the happy hours which he had passed by her side; his brief glimpses of home—home of which pretty, guileless Susie had been the presiding goddess.

So, when the great fight was imminent, he had bethought him of writing to her, telling her a little of what was in his mind, announcing that he loved her still, and if God spared him to return he would do the right thing by her and make her his wife in earnest.

There, on the narrow stairs, stood the girl herself

p. 45But alas! and alas! the letter was enclosed in one written by another hand, and the poor soldier’s own unfinished missive bore a postscript of a sinister kind—a deep red-brown stain.

The writer of the enclosure—an ambulance-nurse, no doubt—related how poor Jim had been so anxious for the letter to be sent that she had despatched it as it was.  At his request the envelope bore Mrs. Frizzell’s name, and for her the enclosure was intended.  Would she, the writer asked, break to her daughter that Gunner Barton’s wounds were of so serious a nature that it was impossible he could recover?  He had been struck and fearfully shattered by some fragments of a shell—in fact, by the time his letter reached its destination he must be dead.

Martha was standing supporting herself by the table, and vainly trying to muster up courage to face Susan, when a cry from behind her made her start and look furtively round.  There, on the narrow stairs, stood the girl herself, her figure unnaturally tall in its clinging white nightdress, her eyes dilated, her pale lips apart.

p. 46Not a word could the mother say.  She stood clutching the papers which fluttered in her hand.

But Susie had already seen that terrible smear, and again a cry rang through the house.

“Oh, Mother! oh, Mother! you’ve done it!  You’ve got your wish—he’s dead!”

And Mrs. Frizzell, darting forward, was just in time to catch her as she fell.

But a little later, after being carried back to bed with the aid of Mrs. Cross—whom Martha prudently banished on the first sign which Susie gave of “coming to”—the poor girl wept as much with gladness as with grief.

“He did love me, Mother; you see how he did love me, and he did mean to make amends.  Thank God for that!  Oh, thank God for that!  If he hadn’t ha’ wrote you’d never ha’ believed me; but I knew—I knew!  But now I shall never see his face no more.”

And then, pressing the letter to her heart, she turned and hid her face upon the pillows, refusing to be comforted.

Mrs. Frizzell went downstairs and sank into the elbow-chair.

“Lard forgive me!” she said to herself over and over again.  “Good Lard, forgive me!  I p. 47can scarce think I wished en dead, but I did wish for en not to come back, and I did tell so many lies that they’ve a-come true to punish I.  There, my child be a-breakin’ her heart, and ’tis me as has done it.”

By-and-bye Mrs. Cross peered in again, anxious and curious.

“What did make Susan take that bad turn, I wonder?”

“Why,” returned Mrs. Frizzell, looking up with red eyes, but with an odd sense of returning self-respect—this time, at least, she was telling no untruth—“it be enough to upset her.  She’ve a-had a letter from her husband, wrote afore he died: so lovin’.  And it be all stained wi’ blood.”

“Dear heart alive!” groaned the other sympathetically.  “Poor Mr. Griggs!  They took it off en after he were dead, I suppose?”

Mrs. Frizzell’s face fell.  It was hard, after all, to persevere in the path of rectitude.

“’Ees,” she said faintly.  “Leastways, the nurse as sent it on said he were almost gone when she took it off en.”

“Ah-h-h!” groaned the neighbour again.  “Well, we do know he be dead, Mrs. Frizzell, don’t we? seein’ as his name were in the paper, and all.”

p. 48“Oh, ’ees,” agreed Mrs. Frizzell, still more falteringly.

“And his blood was on the letter,” resumed Mrs. Cross, with a certain gruesome relish, though her eyes were full of tears.  “Dear, now, I should like to see it.  It ’ud be really summat to see, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah, but my poor Susan, she won’t let nobody look at it,” returned the mother in quick alarm.  “She’ve a-got it under her pillow, and she’ve a-got fast hold on’t.”

“Poor young thing!  Well, I can understand her feelings—p’r’aps some other day—”

“Nay, don’t think it, Mrs. Cross—don’t look for’t!  Says she to I, ‘Mother, you won’t never let no stranger set eyes on this here.  ’Twas meant for nobody but me,’ says she, and I do mean to keep it for myself.’ . . .  And there’s another,” lamented the poor woman almost in despair.

“Oh, very well, mum; I’m sure I don’t want to put myself forrard where I bain’t wanted,” retorted Mrs. Cross in a tone of offended dignity.  “But I thought I mid make so bold as to ax, seein’ as I’ve a-knowed your Susan since she were no bigger than her own blessed orphan child.”

“Nay, now, no offence.  I don’t suppose, p. 49Mrs. Cross, as Susan ’ull so much as let Father see it.  There now, talkin’ of the baby, would you like to look at en?  I’ll fetch en in a minute; he be comin’ on finely.”

“Well, I haven’t seen en for two or three days—I couldn’t take much notice on en jist now when Susan seemed so bad,” returned Mrs. Cross, lingering in the hope of picking up a further crumb or two of information.  “Ye don’t seem to take much notice on en yourself, my dear—I do scarcely ever see you nursin’ en.”

“I’ve a-been so taken up with Susan, d’ye see,” said Mrs. Frizzell, with a sudden pang of remorse.

She went upstairs for the child, and after he had been duly admired, and the visitor had withdrawn, she still sat looking down at the little placid face.

“Poor fellow!” she said to herself.  “Poor fellow!  Ah! I fancy he’d have been proud if he’d ha’ lived to come back an’ own ye, Baby.  Dear, dear! they mid all ha’ been so happy—and all forgive an’ forgot.  Ah! he were sorry enough, poor chap, and he did repent—the Lard ’ull ha’ mercy on him for that. . . .  ’Ees, I can fancy he’d ha’ been proud if he could ha’ seen ye, Baby; but there, all of en as ’ull ever p. 50come back is them few lovin’ words and that dreadful spot o’ blood.”

And then Mrs. Frizzell fell to weeping again for pure pity, and kissed the little soft face of the dead soldier’s child and the tiny rings of ruddy gold which no father’s hand would ever stroke.

When John came in she conveyed the tidings to him in half-inarticulate shouts, between bursts of sobbing.  The big dull man stood gazing at her for a moment in perturbed amazement, and then went, slowly and heavily, upstairs.

Susan still lay with her face hidden, and her slight frame heaving with convulsive sobs.

Her father paused in the doorway, and then came lumbering forward towards the bed, stooping when he reached it and patting the girl’s shoulder with his great horny, toil-worn hand.

“Don’t ’ee take on, Susie, my dear,” he murmured, blubbering too, poor fellow.  “There, don’t ’ee cry, Maidie.”

“Nay, Father,” moaned Susan, “don’t ’ee call me that—don’t ’ee never call me that no more!  I be a widow—I be a real widow now.”

“Ah, ’tis true,” murmured poor Frizzell p. 51indistinctly.  “Ye be a widow, my poor maid—ye be a widow now, sure!”

*   *   *   *   *

But it was not so sure after all.  As Mrs. Frizzell sometimes said, the most wonderfullest things did certainly happen in her family.  Lo! no sooner was Private Griggs decently, and, as she imagined, finally interred than Gunner Barton took upon himself to return to life; and the complications which ensued were so bewildering that even Mrs. Frizzell was unable to cope with them.  For, on the receipt of the letter which announced that Jim, though so seriously injured that he would be more or less of a cripple all his life, was indubitably recovering, and would in fact be shortly shipped home, Susan, hitherto so meek and broken, became utterly unmanageable.

She was about to set forth on some household errand when she met the postman, who informed her that he had a letter for her mother from abroad.

“Give it to me,” cried Susan quickly.

“’Tis for Mrs. Frizzell,” said the rural messenger in surprise; but the girl, with a flaming face, had already torn open the envelope.

In another moment she rent the air with strange cries and shrieks of joy.

p. 52All the inhabitants of the place came hastening forth to inquire the reason of the outcry, and there beheld the relict of Private Griggs, with her yellow hair streaming over her shoulders, and her face alight with a very passion of rapture, trampling on her widow’s bonnet, and brokenly telling her baby that Daddy was coming home.

Mrs. Frizzell rose to the emergency.  Putting her arm round her daughter, she propelled her gently towards the house, without deigning to notice by word or look the importunate crowd.

Presently she went out, closing the door after her, and repossessed herself of the obnoxious bonnet, which a thoughtful neighbour had rescued from the dust and set upon a gatepost.

Before she could re-enter the house one or two anxious friends, who had been eagerly on the look-out for her from divers points of ambush, emerged from their respective doors.

“Summat very strange must have happened, Mrs. Frizzell, I’m sure, to make Susan behave as she did just now,” one said.

“Ah, I never did see nothing like it,” chimed in another.

“I’ve seen a man as was a bit drinky-like throw off his hat and tread on it, but never p. 53a respectable young ’ooman, same as Mrs. Griggs.”

“The poor thing didn’t know what she was a-doin’,” returned Mrs. Frizzell.  “There, it be all so mixed up I do scarce know how to tell ye.  We’ll know the right o’ things in a few days.  It do seem now as if we’d ha’ made some mistake in thinkin’ Susie was a widow.”

“Lard, now, you don’t say so?  Weren’t Private Griggs killed, then, after all?  Why, we did see’s name in papers.”

“Them papers do make mistakes, though,” cried Mrs. Cross.  “I did see oncet or twicet as they did say: ‘So-and-so, stated to be missin’, is now found to be dead,’ and t’other way round.  This here be t’other way round, I suppose?”

“’Ees,” groaned Mrs. Frizzell, passing her band wearily over her brow.  It was very much the other way round; the whole world, as it seemed to her, had turned completely topsy-turvy.

“Dear, I don’t wonder as poor Susan be half out of her mind.  You don’t look so very well pleased yourself, my dear.”

“I scarce do know what I feel.  I scarce can think it be true.  If it bain’t true, what’s to become o’ Susan?  As you do say, Mrs. p. 54Cross, she’s very near out o’ her mind now.  And if it be true—there, them as wrote did say as he were so terrible bad he were bound to be crippled for life.”

“Crippled!” ejaculated both women together; and they looked at the mother aghast.

“Then,” cried Mrs. Cross, “Susan ’ull have en to keep!”

She exchanged a look of blank dismay with her companion; it was plain that in the eyes of both the calamity originally believed in—that of the honourable demise of Private Griggs—was regarded as a much less serious misfortune.

“And when do ye think ye’ll be likely to know for certain, my dear?” insinuated Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side.

“Well, they be a-sending somebody home, they do tell me, but whether it be Susan’s husband or not I can’t say.  I suppose we’ll know as soon as he gets to England.”

“Ah-h-h, dear, it do seem a strange story, to be sure.  And very likely when you do see en ye’ll find as it bain’t Private Griggs at all.”

“Very likely indeed,” agreed Mrs. Frizzell, with extraordinary warmth of manner, but with a sinking heart.

*   *   *   *   *

p. 55How she contrived to keep Susan from divulging the whole story to her interested neighbours was a mystery known only to the indomitable little mother herself; for the girl, in her excited state, was for doing away at once with pretence and owning the truth to all comers.  It was lucky for both that the suspense was not of long duration.  A few weeks after receiving the astonishing tidings of Jim Barton’s resurrection came the news that he had arrived in England, and that he had been actually sent to the temporary hospital at the Artillery Barracks in Dorchester.

And so it came to pass that one day two women appeared in the doorway of the ward in which Gunner Barton lay, and paused for a moment as though in uncertainty.  Then, with a stifled cry, the younger of the two rushed forward, past the long line of beds, where, propped on pillows, were to be seen many faces pale and drawn with pain.  By the side of one—the palest of all, so pale indeed that had it not been for the red-brown eyes and auburn hair it might have been called utterly colourless—she paused and fell upon her knees.  She forgot that many curious eyes were bent upon her; she forgot that she was an injured woman; and that Jim, who had p. 56wronged her, was so maimed and shattered as to be in truth a very wreck of a man; she forgot everything but that he was there, and that he loved her.  And so, poor little soft foolish thing, she put her arm about his neck and laid her face upon the pillow beside his, and kissed him, and murmured incoherent words of tenderness and joy.

And Jim—poor Jim, his broken frame was so weak, and his heart so torn by gladness mingled with a piercing sorrow, that he hid his face upon her shoulder and wept like a little child.

By-and-bye Susie, throwing back her shawl, disclosed the sleeping face of the babe with a kind of shrinking pride; and Jim, with his great gaunt frame still shaking with sobs, raised himself on his one serviceable elbow and looked at him long and earnestly, though his eyes were still dim.

“I’d like,” he said, “I’d like to make all square for him and you, Susan; but ’tis puzzlin’ to know what’s right.  I’m just fit for nothin’, my girl; I’ll never be fit to do a hand’s turn for myself.”

“And that’s true,” put in Mrs. Frizzell, who had been standing at the foot of the bed, wiping her eyes and sniffing violently.  p. 57“’Ees, poor fellow, I can see from here where they’ve a-took off your leg.  I can see quite plain that it bain’t aside of the other under the clothes.”

Susie did not hear her; her face was burning as she bent it close to Jim’s.

“I’ll not mind nothin’, Jim,” she said.  “I’d be only too proud and glad to work for ’ee.”

“There’d be my pension of course,” said he.  “But you’re so young, Susie; you might do better p’r’aps—if ’tweren’t for the little chap here.”

He thrust out his long, feeble hand and touched the child’s soft face, his own working with emotion the while.  Wife, and child, and home—all there within the grasp of those weak hands.  Could he give them up?  And yet to be a burden all his days to the trusting creature, of whose ignorance he had already taken shameful advantage.

“Susie,” he whispered, “you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Nay,” she returned earnestly, “I do know it very well—I do ax but one thing, Jim.”

“And what’s that?”

“God’s blessin’,” said Susie; and stretching out her hand she pressed to his lips the finger which was encircled by the wedding-ring.

*   *   *   *   *

p. 58Mrs. Frizzell returned in the evening alone, it having been arranged that Susan was to remain in Dorchester until Jim was sufficiently recovered for the marriage to take place.  She looked very worn and pale and tired as she turned in at her garden-gate, and was anything but gratified to find the alert Mrs. Cross on the watch for her.

“Well, my dear, so you’ve come back wi’out her!  ’Twas the right man, then, after all?”

“’Ees,” returned Mrs. Frizzell faintly, “’twas the right man.  And him and Susie be to set up house so soon as he gets a bit better.”

“Ah-h-h.  Be he so bad, then, my dear?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Frizzell, putting down her basket and setting her arms akimbo, “he be that bad that he haven’t a-got but one leg, and not much use in that; and one of his arms be damaged.  But Susan—dear! a body ’ud think there was nothin’ ever so j’yful in the world as the notion o’ keepin’ en.”

“Bless me! it do seem queer!  She’ll find it ’ard work, won’t she, Mrs. Frizzell?  I suppose he’ll want just so many victuals as if he were a sound man, and not be doin’ nothin’ to earn ’em.”

“Well, he’ve a-got a pension.  There, don’t ’ee talk to me, Mrs. Cross, my dear.  To tell p. 59’ee the truth, I do scarce know what I be doin’.  It bain’t what I did look for, d’ye see.  The man himself—my daughter’s ’usband—he bain’t the man I did take en for.”

“Ye don’t tell me so!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross, with a dropping jaw.  “In what way be he different, Martha?”

“Why,” returned Mrs. Frizzell slowly, “I d’ ’low I did tell ’ee as my daughter’s ’usband were a dark man.  Well, that’s one thing as I did make a mistake about—his hair be red, Mrs. Cross.”

“Red!” repeated the other, with a gasp.

“’Ees, red,” reiterated Mrs. Frizzell, assuming a stolid expression.  “That be the colour on it, Mrs. Cross.”

“Well, I am surprised.  To be sure, the blessed baby’s hair’s red, too—it be easy accounted for now, bain’t it? seein’ as Private Griggs’s hair be red.  I wonder how you did come to make sich a mistake, Mrs. Frizzell.”

“I wonder!” said the poor woman.  “My mind were fair muddled up, I do think, and I did get a lot o’ queer notions in my head.  There’s another thing now; his name bain’t Griggs.”

“Lard! you do give I quite a turn.  p. 60However did you come to think it were?  And what mid his name be, Mrs. Frizzell?”

Mrs. Frizzell opened her mouth, shut it again, and swallowed down what seemed to be a very unpleasant morsel; finally she said, fixing her impenetrable eyes upon her neighbour’s face—

“His name be Barton—Gunner James Barton.  ’Ees, that be the name.”

“Barton!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross, in utter bewilderment; then, after a momentary pause, she continued—“It bain’t so very like Griggs, be it?”

For once Mrs. Frizzell’s lively imagination was at fault; she had no explanation to offer.  “Nay,” she said feebly, “it bain’t.”

p. 61UP AT THE ’LOTMENTS.

Old Joseph Frisby stood at his garden gate one fine bright evening in early spring.  A dirty, disreputable-looking old vagabond was he, a frequenter of the “Pure Drop,” “The True Lovers’ Knot,” “The Three Choughs,” and every such place of entertainment within reach of his tottering old legs.  This evening he was perforce sober, for he had not possessed a penny that he could call his own for several months, and the landlords of the above-named hostelries had unanimously declined to give him credit.  As he stooped over the rickety gate, his lean bent old figure clad in a tattered linen coat that had once been white, and nether garments of inconceivably ancient and patched corduroy, he looked forlorn and miserable enough; there was even a certain pathos in his unwashed, unshaven face, and his small bleared eyes peered anxiously out of the network of furrows which surrounded them.  Every now and then he placed his hand over his ear and p. 62turned his head as though listening, and by-and-by the long expected sound for which he had been waiting made itself heard.

The back door of the neighbouring cottage closed with a bang, and a man came quickly round the house and down the tiny flagged path through the little garden, which was already bright with primroses and double daisies, and opened a gate similar to that on which Joseph was leaning.  He was a wiry elderly man, with a fresh-coloured face framed in iron-grey whiskers.  His garments were very much like those worn by Frisby, except that they possessed the merit of being clean.  He carried a basketful of potatoes, and a spade and fork rested on his shoulder.

“Good evenin’, neighbour,” said Joseph, straightening himself, and looking eagerly at him.  “Ye be goin’ up to the ’lotments, I d’ ’low?”

“Aye,” said the other, glancing round, but without slackening his pace.  “I’m off to the ’lotments—pretty late, too; I must hurry.”

“Nay now, bide a bit; I want to speak to ye a minute, Jim.  Lard! I’ve waited here nigh upon an hour.”

“Oh, an’ did ye?” said the man called Jim, coming unwillingly back.

p. 63“Aye.  Ye see ’tis this way.  Neighbour Cross, I haven’t touched a drap this three months, very near.”

“Han’t ye?  Well, I’m glad on’t.  I’m teetottle myself, an’ ’tis the only way to get along, I do believe.  I’m truly glad to hear ye han’t had no drunks lately, Joe.  Now that ye say so I do call to mind noticin’ that ye’ve been a-walkin’ uncommon straight—aye, ’tis quite a while since you was found in a ditch, ’tis sure, and ye haven’t been run in not this year, I don’t think.”

“Aye,” agreed Joseph, with modest pride.  “Ye’re quite right, Jim; I haven’t been run in this year.”

He paused, rubbing his hands slowly together, and eyeing the well-filled basket of “sets”.

“We’re gettin’ help from the parish now,” he resumed, “else we couldn’t make out at all.  My pore wife, ye see, she’s reg’lar crippled, an’ not able to do nothin’, an’ I’m not fit for much—I’m falterin’, neighbour, an’ farmers hereabouts has a bad opinion o’ me for some raison or another—I can scarcely ever get a day’s work.”

“’Tis very onfart’nate for ’ee, Joe; ’tis that.  But yer luck will change very like.  p. 64We must ’ope it will.  Well, I must be gettin’ along.”

“Ye be goin’ to plant yer taters,” persisted Joseph; and stretching out his lean old hand he took hold of the basket.  “Them be real fine taters, neighbour; chock-full of eyes.  Lard! if I had but a few of these I’d soon plant my bit of garden.”

“Haven’t ye got none this year?” inquired Jim, visibly stiffening.

“Not a single one, an’ no cabbage neither.  I’m terribly badly off this year—I don’t know however me an’ the poor body inside ’ll get on.  Not a bit o’ green stuff, an’ not a set to put in the ground.  Three-an’-six a week is every penny we have to look to, an’ ye may think it don’t go very far.  Bread an’ tea, bread an’ tea, an’ not so much as a drop o’ milk to’t.  My missus, she’s that cute along o’ me likin’ a drap now and then, she wouldn’t let the Union folk give it us in money—we jest hev an order for half a pound o’ tea once a week, an’ we takes out the rest in bread.  Ah dear! a body has to be clever to live on it, I can tell ’ee.”

He paused, leered insinuatingly in his neighbour’s face, and finally murmured, still fingering the basket: “If ye was to let me have a few p. 65of these now, neighbour, I could pay ye back i’ th’ autumn.”

Jim dexterously twisted his property away from the trembling hand.

“So that’s what ye’re at!” he cried.  “Nay, nay, Joe; I’ve had enough o’ your payin’ back.  I know what that manes.  You an’ yer missus ’ud make yer dinner off ’em, if ye didn’t chop the lot for a drink straight off.”

“No, no,” pleaded Joe, almost tearfully; “’tis too bad to say such things, and take a pore man’s character away.  I’ll gi’e ye me Bible oath—dang me, an’ everythin’ reg’lar by the Book—that I’d put ’em straight in the ground, Jim Cross.”

“Well, I can’t spare the taters, anyhow,” grumbled Jim.  “I’m a pore man an’ have to purvide for mysel’ an’ my family.  I’m sorry I can’t obleege ye, but so ’tis.”

He walked off, leaving poor old Joe staring blankly after him.

By and by a light quick tread was heard approaching from the opposite direction, and a dapper-looking young fellow rounded the corner of the lane, whistling to himself as he advanced.  He, too, carried a fork, and a half-filled sack was flung over his shoulder.

p. 66“Goin’ up to the ’lotments?” inquired Joseph falteringly.

“Yes, I’ve jest knocked off work, an’ am goin’ up there for an hour or two before dark.  Fine evenin’, Mr. Frisby.”

“Aye, sure,” said Joseph.  “Ye’ve got a grand sackful there, Jan.”

“’Tis a big piece to fill up, Mr. Frisby.  We han’t got above half enough o’ our own.  We’ll have to buy some.”

“I haven’t got one to put in my bit o’ ground,” said Joseph impressively.  “What do ye think of that, Jan Domeny?  Not one; no, nor not so much as a stalk o’ cabbage.”

“Well now,” said Jan, “’tis very sad, that, Mr. Frisby.  A sorrowful tale, indeed.  May-hap Parson ’ud help ye.”

“Nay,” returned Joseph lugubriously; “we be chapel folk, an’ Parson he says he han’t got no faith in me.”

“Well, ’tis terrible onfart’nate for ’ee, I’m sure,” returned Mr. Domeny unconcernedly.  “But bad times can’t laist for ever.  There’s comfort in that, Mr. Frisby.  The Lard trumpets the wind to the sore lamb, as Scriptur’ says.”

Having delivered himself of this edifying aphorism, young Jan Domeny hoisted his sack p. 67a little higher up on his shoulder, and strode on.

“They be all alike,” muttered Joe to himself; “they be a stony-hearted lot.  Not one among ’em ’ud gi’e a man a helpin’ hand.  Dang ’em all!” cried Joe, and he thumped upon the gate.

He turned and shuffled slowly towards the house, pushing open the door.  A little old woman was sitting, propped up by pillows, in an armchair near the hearth.  She was almost crippled by rheumatism, yet managed in some inexplicable way to preserve a tolerable appearance of neatness and cleanliness, both in her own person and in such of her surroundings as came within reach of her poor distorted fingers.  The hearth was tidy, for instance, and the kitchen utensils and crockery on the little dresser behind her chair were bright and clean.  It must be supposed that her husband, who would have been much the better for a share of her attention, kept himself systematically out of reach.

“Well?” she inquired, eagerly looking up as he entered.

“Well, ’tain’t a bit o’ use.  They’ll none o’ them do a thing for me.”

Mrs. Frisby sighed.  “Come, sit down p. 68anyhow,” she said.  “Supper’s ready, an’ the tea’s drawed beautiful.”

Joe shambled over and sat down.  His wife, leaning painfully forward in her chair, moved the little brown teapot from the hob to the table, and then, stooping again with yet more difficulty, took up a plateful of dry toast and proffered it to the old man.

“There!” she said.  “I made ye that for a bit of a change.  The fire was burnin’ up so clear an’ nice, I jest thought I’d do it.  ’Twill be a nice change for ’ee, Joseph—’twill sure.”

She spoke in a high quavering voice, peering anxiously the while at her spouse.

He took a piece of toast and turned it over; then broke off a bit and flung it on the table.

“’Tis as hard as flint, woman,” he said indignantly.  “Where d’ye think I can find teeth to bite en?”

“Nay now, ’tis not so ’ard as that comes to,” urged she.  “I can bite en, an’ I han’t got a single tooth left.  Sop it in yer tea, do ’ee now, an’ it’ll slip down nice.”

“Slip down, indeed!  It ’ud want a bit o’ butter, or a bit o’ graise for that.  But here us be—two old ancient folks as has lived in this parish man an’ wife for fifty-two year, an’ they’ll not so much as gi’e us a tater.”

“They’ll not so much as gi’e us a tater”

p. 69“Yes a tater ’ud be nice, sure,” quavered the old woman.  “It ’ud be very nice.”

“Or a bit o’ green stuff ’ud be nice,” went on Frisby emphatically.  “I could eat this bread if they’d gi’e I a bit o’ green to put to’t.  But no, ’tis ‘Go away, I’ve nothin’ for ’ee’ all round.  There’s every man an’ bwoy in the place workin’ up at the ’lotments, gettin’ the taters into the ground as fast as ever they can stick ’em.  If they was to gi’e us half a dozen each they’d never miss it, an’ I could get my bit ’o ground planted up.  But no, they be all took up wi’ theirselves—never a thought for we.”

Mrs. Frisby rubbed her shrivelled hands together, and sighed.

“Ah, ’tis hard,” she said; “’tis hard, sure.”

And then silence fell between the old couple, and each consumed their meagre fare without any great appearance of appetite.

Presently Joseph set down his cup, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

“Where be goin’?” asked his wife querulously.  “I never seed such a fidget of a man.”

“I’m goin’ up to the ’lotments,” he responded curtly.

“Laive me a pail o’ water first, do, so as I can be washin’ up.  I reckoned ye’d ha’ helped p. 70me a bit to-night—rheumatics is terrible bad.”

Joseph took up the pail without a word and went out; presently an excruciating creaking and squeaking was heard as he turned the rusty handle of the windlass.

After some time he hobbled back, the water splashing from the overflowing bucket at every step.

“Dear! what a mess the man d’ make!” groaned Mrs. Frisby.  “Carry it studdy, for the Lard’s sake.  Now sit down, do ’ee, an’ gi’e me a hand.”

“Nay, I’m off,” responded her lord in surly tones; and in another moment the garden gate creaked on its hinges, and his departing steps fell heavily on the lane outside.

This somewhat circuitous path led first past a horse-pond, then skirted the beautifully kept churchyard, with the ancient, ivy-grown edifice in the centre.  Then it darted off at an abrupt angle, apparently to avoid encroaching on the farm premises in the rear of the church, where the picturesque building which had once been a tithe-barn was now devoted to humbler purposes.  The lane ceased at its junction with the high road, but crossing the latter, and following the footpath for a little p. 71way, Joseph came to another lane which, after a few hundred yards, became a steep ascent.

The blackthorn was still in flower here and there in the hedges, which accounted, as the country folk would have said, for the peculiarly keen and chilly quality of the evening blast; but the twisted twigs of the more genial hawthorn were powdered, as it were, with a delicate dust of green.  Trailing tendrils of honeysuckle were already in full leaf, and young saplings of elder stretched out slender bare limbs tufted at the ends with crimson.  Downy catkins, moreover, on many a willow bough gave further promise of the rapid approach of the “Sweet o’ the Year;” and there were violets in the banks, and here and there a patch of primroses; and a glory of dandelions everywhere.

But poor old Joe Frisby, as he toiled painfully up the stony incline, had no eye for any of these trivialities; his mind was set upon more weighty matters—he was bent, indeed, upon nothing less important than an appeal to the community at large.  Singly the neighbours had rejected and despised his petition; taken collectively they might, for very shame’s sake, be moved to grant it.  No man, as Joseph dimly felt, likes his individual p. 72generosity to be overmuch counted upon; but a whole community—each member making quite sure that his neighbour does as much as he—may sometimes be persuaded to accede to a claim which all alike acknowledge.

Now voices fell upon his ear, accompanied by the sound of spades at work.  An opening in the hedge revealed a gate towards which Joseph made his way.  On the other side lay the allotments; narrow strips of ground, most of which were already broken up into brown ridges, while a few were still encumbered with the lingering stalks of last year’s cabbages, or an untidy growth of weeds.  On this propitious evening the place seemed alive with men and women; some delving, some hoeing, some cutting up the “sets”—not a patch of ground but had its occupant.  Every one was busy and every one seemed merry.  Jan Domeny, with coat flung off and shirt-sleeves rolled high, was lustily chanting a three-year-old music-hall ditty, which had just found its way to Dorset.  Further away the bent back of Jim Cross formed a moving arch against the sky-line; a grandchild had joined him, and was trotting along beside him carrying the basket of potatoes.

Joseph stood leaning over the gate for a p. 73little while, his eyes travelling slowly from one group to another; after long hesitation he passed in and walked deliberately up the grassy track which divided two batches of the allotments.  Many of the workers looked up a moment with a word or nod of recognition, and Joseph nodded back, paused as if to speak, hesitated, and then went on.  At last he reached the centre of the ground, and there came to a halt.  He took off his battered hat, flourished it to attract attention, and began, pitching his quavering voice as high as he could:—

“Neighbours all, I’ve summat to say to ’ee.”

“Hello!” cried the man nearest to him, straightening himself and staring.  “Here’s old Joe Frisby turned Methody praicher.”

“Nay, he’ve a-jined the Salvation Army, sure,” cried another, who was himself a regular subscriber to the “War Cry”.

“I know what he’s after,” muttered Jan, working away very diligently.  “Don’t you take no heed, none of you.”

“I’ve been countin’ of ye up,” pursued Joseph, leaning on his stick and looking nervously round.  “Here be twenty chaps workin’ in the ’lotments; aye, twenty chaps, not reckonin’ women and childern, an’ ye be p. 74all puttin’ in taters.  An’ here am I wi’ my garden at home waitin’ to be planted, an’ not a bit o’ seed to put in it.”

“I telled ’ee, didn’t I?” muttered Jan to his nearest neighbour.  “I knowed ’twas that he was at.”

“I’ve lived among ye man and bwoy for seventy-five year.  Aye, an’ my wife an’ me has been wed among ye fifty-two year.  There she d’ sit at home crippled, poor soul.  We’ve nought in the world but what parish gives us.  Half a pound o’ tea a week, an’ some bread.  Bread an’ tea, neighbours, bread an’ tea; ’tisn’t very satisfyin’ to the innards.  Me an’ my wife was never great folks for mate, but we d’ like a tater to our dinner, or a bit o’ green stuff.  An’ so I’ve a-bin thinkin’—”

He looked round again, hesitatingly and pitifully.

“’Tis a mortal sight o’ taters as is here among ye between one an’ another—aye, a mortal lot.  I d’ ’low”—again the pause and the appealing glance—“if every man ’ud spare me a few like I’d get two or three ranks made up without any of ye bein’ at much loss.”

The bystanders looked at each other, then each man glanced involuntarily at his own store.  None of them were over well endowed p. 75with this world’s goods, and the calculations of each had been made to a nicety.  Old Jim Cross continued to work without turning his head, and Jan Domeny smiled somewhat sarcastically.

“Why, ye see ’tis this way, Joseph,” said a large mild man, with an habitually puzzled expression of countenance; “we be pore folks, all on us; we’ve a many little mouths to feed, an’ not much to put in ’em.  An’ what wi’ prices goin’ up an’ rent day a-comin’ round so often like, a man’s hand d’ seem to be always in his pocket, an’ it’s give, give, an’ pay, pay, ever an’ always, d’ye see?  Now my taters,” he cast a calculating eye upon the half-filled sack at his feet, “they’ll not go so far to make up three ranks for ourselves, an’ three ranks is the least we can do wi’.  Aye, wi’ a houseful of growin’ childern taters d’ last—well, I mid say they lasses next to no time.”

His hearers drew a long breath of relief.  If Ed’ard Boyt, who was well known to be a poor man with a long family, had been imprudently generous, what might not be expected of other folks who might be supposed better able to afford him assistance?

“Aye, ’tis very true what Ed’ard says.  Charity d’ begin at home.  It ’ud seem a bit p. 76’ard to go a-buyin’ for oneself along of helpin’ a neighbour,” said somebody.

“Aye, I d’ ’low ’tis true,” agreed another.

“True enough, sure!” chimed in a third.

“We be sarry for ’ee,” summed up a fourth; “aye, we be very sarry for ’ee, Joseph, but ’tis the onfart’nate natur’ o’ things as pore folks d’ have to do the best they can.”

Then, amid a general chorus of regretful approval, spades were plied, and backs were bent as before.

Joe shambled back to the gate again, and stood for some time leaning over it and staring at the toilers.  His face was very red, and his loose irregular under-lip trembled.  A few furtive glances were cast in his direction, but no one spoke, and after a time he turned and went down the lane again, his bent form, clad in its shabby white coat, travelling slowly past gap after gap in the hedge until it drifted out of the range of vision of the workers.  As he walked, however, his heart was hot within him with rage and disappointment and a bitter sense of injustice.

“They’ll lave me to starve,” he said to himself; “an’ I’ve a-lived among ’em for seventy-five year.”

His sense of injury deepened each time that p. 77he recalled this fact, and he shook his head vengefully.

As he tottered on his resentment gradually suggested to him a startling plan of action.  He thought of it all the way down the lane and across the road, and along by the tithe-barn and the church, and by the time he came to the horse-pond his mind was made up.

“A man must live,” he said.  “If other folks won’t help en he must help hisself.”

There was a fine moon that night, and had any one been abroad an hour or so after midnight, he would have marked a white shape creeping slowly up the lane which led to the allotments, and presently entering in at the gate already described, and moving from one newly planted patch of ground to another.

“Only three from Ed’ard because he’ve a-spoke me fair,” murmured Joseph to himself; “an’ I’ll not take ’em altogether, neither.  I wouldn’t lave the pore chap wi’ a great gap in the rank.”

Joseph dropped something carefully into the sack which he carried over his arm, and then he drew together the disturbed clods and patted them down.  Then waddling along with his legs across the drill he cautiously removed another “set,” and then another.

p. 78“That’ll do for Ed’ard,” he muttered.  “’Tis for feedin’ the pore, so the Lard’ll make it up to en.  Now, Jan, I’ll take a good few from ’ee, because ye be a danged ’ard-’arted chap.  An’ I don’t care where I d’ take ’em, nor if it do make gaps—nay, that I don’t.  Ye’ve a-sowed, an’ ye’ve a-watered, so to speak, Jan, but I d’ ’low that it’ll sarve ’ee right if the Lard don’t give ’ee no increase.”

He unearthed the “sets,” taking every precaution, however, to make the ground look undisturbed.  He went the rounds, in fact, till his sack was nearly full, and then beat a retreat, carrying home his booty unobserved.

It chanced that Jim Cross, waking with the dawn, fancied he heard the sound of a spade in the next garden.  On his way to work, a little later on, he observed that a goodly portion of Joseph’s patch of ground was indeed freshly dug up.  Joseph was standing by the gate as usual, and nodded affably as his neighbour passed.

“I see ye’ve a-bin diggin’,” remarked Jim, pausing with a surprised expression.  “Looks as if ye was a-gettin’ the ground ready for taters.”

“Well, an’ maybe I am a-gettin’ the ground ready for taters,” returned Joseph warmly.  p. 79“I puts my trust where trust be due.  My fellow-creatur’s have a-turned their backs on me, so I looks to the Lard.  Aye,” repeated Joseph, turning up his eyes piously, “I looks to the Lard for ’elp, Jim Cross.  The Lard’ll purvide.”

Jim was much impressed.

“I’ve put me trust in Providence,” pursued Joseph, peering at him cautiously out of the corner of his eye; “and to show as I’ve a-put my trust in Providence, I’m a-gettin’ ready my bit o’ ground.  When the Lard sends me them taters, neighbour, he’ll find I ready.”

Jim looked hard at him, and Joseph folded his arms and looked back steadily and mildly.

“I don’t bear ’ee no grudge, Jim,” he went on.  “I don’t bear nobody no grudge, but I do put my trust in the Lard.”

Jim went on his way, scratching his head from time to time, and casting back sundry furtive glances at his neighbour, who suddenly appeared to him in a new and impressive light.

When he disappeared Joseph went back to his digging, his countenance still wearing an expression of aggrieved virtue.  After much pondering on his own conduct, and the circumstances which had led up to it, he had p. 80come to look upon himself rather in the light of a martyr, and to consider his recent action not only justifiable, but in a certain sense inspired.  He was, therefore, scarcely surprised when, late that evening, Jim Cross came up to him with a deprecating air.

“Me an’ a few of ’em yonder have been a-talkin’ about you, Joseph,” he remarked.

“Have ye?” responded Joseph, with an air of lordly unconcern.

“Aye.  We was sayin’ it did seem a bit ’ard to disapp’int ’ee like, when you was so trustful an’ patient, so we agreed as we’d try an’ spare ’ee a few ‘sets’ between us.  As I did say, the Lard’ll make it up to we; an’ I d’ think He will, neighbour.”

“He will, sure,” agreed Joseph solemnly, as he held out his grimy hand for the basket which Jim respectfully tendered him.

Next came Ed’ard Boyt with a small, a very small bagful, but a heart overflowing with good-will.  Joseph thanked him for his contribution almost with the air of one bestowing a benediction.

“’Tis very well done of ’ee, Ed’ard; an’ ye’ll not be no loser.  Nay, you’ll see how things ’ll turn out wi’ ye.”

One after another they came, ending with p. 81Jan Domeny, whom Frisby received a little distantly, but on the whole forgivingly.

“’Tis but a pore lot as ye’ve brought me, Jan.  I d’ ’low as Ed’ard Boyt have done better nor you.  Aye, he’ve done very well for he, such a pore man as he be, an’ such a long fam’ly as he have.”

“Why, we’ve a-had to buy, Mr. Frisby,” returned Jan apologetically.  “But there, I’ll see if we can spare a few more, an’ fetch ’em round to-morrow.”

“To-morrow ’ll do very well,” agreed Joseph generously; and so they parted.

Then Frisby fell to work with a joyful heart, setting out first of all the potatoes which he had purloined, and which he had originally designed to plant surreptitiously by night, intending, when the first shoots made their appearance, to assure his neighbours that they had sprung miraculously from the ground.  This was better: moreover the second edition of “sets” was much larger than the first, and he now found himself in a position to stock his entire garden.

“The Lard ’elps them as ’elps theirselves,” he said to himself once more, as he waded solemnly up and down the drills.

From that day forward Joseph Frisby was p. 82respected by all the village folk.  He had “got religion,” to begin with—more religion than anybody had credited him with, and he had evidently been singled out by Heaven for special favours.  His crop prospered wonderfully; people were quite amazed to see the marvellous return made by their contributions, and were the more astonished because other small producers had not found it such a very good year for taters.  There were many gaps among the ranks at the allotments, and it was noticeable that Jan Domeny, in particular, had suffered severely.

No one was more loud in commiserating this misfortune than Joseph Frisby.

“The ways of Providence be wonderful, as the Scriptur’s say, Jan Domeny,” he remarked one day.  “Aye, ’tis what I often d’ say to myself: a man may plant and a man may water, but ’tis the Lard as gives the increase.”

“Well,” returned Jan, a little grudgingly, “I d’ ’low that He’ve a-gi’ed it to you, Mr. Frisby.”

“He have, Jan; He have!” agreed Joseph heartily.

p. 83“THE ONLY SOLDIER.”

A little group of houses nestling in the hollow near the church, about half a mile from the village proper; all with tiled roofs more or less the worse for wear, and in consequence highly picturesque, tiny patches of flower-garden in front, and larger strips, devoted to vegetables, in the rear.  Some of these cottages stood back to back, others retired a little from their fellows, and one shot out at a bold angle from its neighbour with a certain independent air which was increased by the rakish poise of its somewhat dilapidated chimney.

As the hands of the ancient grandfather’s clock in this last-named dwelling-house approached the hour of noon, a short, spare, elderly woman threw open the door and took up her position on the carefully whitened step.  She looked expectantly up the road in the direction of the village, and of the town beyond.

Presently another couple of doors were p. 84thrown back, and two additional figures—the figures of Mrs. Stuckhey’s nearest neighbours—also emerged into the open and cast glances of anticipation in the same direction.

The coincidence seemed to strike one of the party, a fat woman with a good-humoured face and untidy wisps of greyish hair escaping from the control of the solitary and crooked brass hairpin which was supposed to keep them in their place.

“We be all on the look-out, we mid say,” she remarked.  “I be awaitin’ for the childern.  ’Tis time they were home from school.  I have to send David on a message before he goes back after dinner.”

“My son d’ seen to be a bit late too,” chimed in the lady whose doorstep was parallel to that of the last speaker; a somewhat vixenish-looking person this, with a pinched and pointed nose, and a sour mouth that seldom smiled.  “He be kept awful busy up at the line,” she continued fretfully.  “He do seem to work twice so hard as he did since that there old war began.  I d’ wish it was ended, that I do.”

“There’s more than you wishes that, Mrs. Woolridge,” said the owner of the independent house, folding her arms and holding up her head with a certain assumption of dignity.  p. 85“Them that has friends out there—them that has sons out there, they be the folks as wish the war was well over; and they do do it, Mrs. Woolridge—I d’ ’low they do.”

“An’ so they may,” retorted Mrs. Woolridge acidly.  “I’m sure I can’t think what ever makes folks go to be soldiers!  I wouldn’t have my son a soldier—no, not if he was to go down on his bended knees I wouldn’t agree.”

“Well, I don’t go so far as that,” returned Mrs. Stuckhey.  “It d’ seem a bit hard, I d’ ’low, to part wi’ ’em; but ’tis a fine thing for to serve Queen and country, and I d’ feel so to speak proud o’ my Joe.  E-es, I mid say I am proud of him!  It’s summat, after all, to think as he’s the only soldier in the place—the only soldier in Riverton.”

“An’ a good job too,” retorted Mrs. Woolridge; “I’m glad there bain’t no more on ’em.  If there wasn’t no soldiers there wouldn’t be no wars; and to my mind wars is wicked things—reg’lar flying in the face o’ Providence.”

“Nay, now,” put in good-natured Mrs. Blanchard, “I’m sure everybody, high and low, the gentry and sich as we together, all d’ seem to think the world o’ the soldiers.  And it be quite natural as you should feel a bit p. 86proud, Mrs. Stuckhey, my dear, seeing as your son is the only soldier as comes fro’ this here village.  Why, we was a-prayin’ for the soldiers to-week, Mrs. Woolridge, so I can’t think as war can be anyways wicked.”

“E-es, indeed,” agreed Susan Stuckhey, addressing herself pointedly to the last speaker, for she had been somewhat hurt by Mrs. Woolridge’s remarks.  “I d’ ’low I could very near ha’ cried o’ Sunday, when the service was gi’ed out for the soldiers, seein’ as all the prayers in this place was a-goin’ up for my Joe.  I went round to the rectory afterwards, and I did thank the Reverend.  ‘’Tis very kind o’ ye, I’m sure, sir,’ says I, ‘to take so much trouble for my son.’  ‘What trouble, Susan?’ says he, looking a bit dazy like.  ‘Why, the service, sir,’ says I.  ‘All the long prayers, and the collect, and all—for our soldiers, you know.  My Joe be the only soldier from Riverton.’  So now when he do meet me he do al’ays ax, ‘Any noos, Susan, from our only soldier?’  That reminds me, postman be late to-day, bain’t he?  The mail do come in from abroad to-day, d’ye see, and I’m on the look-out for a letter.”

Mrs. Blanchard and Mrs. Stuckhey craned their heads once more, peering anxiously up p. 87the road; but Mrs. Woolridge remained ostentatiously immovable.

“I thought that was what fetched you out,” she remarked ungraciously.  “I suppose you’ll ’low as postmen be o’ some use.  It d’ seem to me as they d’ serve their country just so well as soldiers; and there’s others as serves their country too.  I reckon as my son Robert d’ serve his country better nor any soldier.  What ’ud the country do wi’out trains?”

Mrs. Stuckhey smiled pityingly, and replied in a tone of dignified amusement, “They be useful too, no doubt, in their way; but ye’ll hear different to your notion, Mrs. Woolridge.  ‘Soldiers of the Queen,’ you know: they stand high, d’ye see—more partic’lar jest now.  ‘Your country’s love to you!’—nobody wouldn’t go for to say that to a postman, would they now? nor yet to a man what was workin’ on the line.”

“And that’s true,” agreed Mrs. Blanchard.

Mrs. Woolridge tossed her head.

“Well, I think there’s a deal too much fuss made about them soldiers,” she said—“not meanin’ your son in partic’lar, Mrs. Stuckhey, but the lot of ’em; and I can’t think as the Lard’s blessin’ can rest on this here war.  p. 88It d’ stand to reason as it can’t—sendin’ up the price o’ everythin’, and makin’ it so hard for the poor to live.  Why, the very price o’ coal be doubled very near.  Don’t tell me as the A’mighty can approve o’ that.”

A faint colour overspread the sallow cheek of the soldier’s mother, and there is no knowing how severe might have been her retort had not the long-expected form of the one-armed postman chanced to round the corner at this juncture, escorted by some five or six juvenile Blanchards.

As he drew near he was observed to fumble in his bag, and presently halted before the group of matrons, his face wreathed with smiles.

“I’ve got summat for ’ee to-day, Mrs. Stuckhey.  Noos fro’ the front; a letter fro’ the soldier.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Susan, and her small black eyes twinkled as she thrust forward an eager hand.

The postman detached one letter from the packet which he drew forth from his bag, and, after it had passed from his possession, proceeded to tighten the string which was tied round the remainder, his teeth coming very deftly to the assistance of his fingers.

p. 89“He be with Buller, bain’t he?” he inquired, casting a sidelong glance at the mother as she hastily unfastened the envelope.

“E-es, he’s wi’ Mr. Buller,” corrected Mrs. Stuckhey.

“Mr. Buller!  Be that what ye d’ call him?” and the postman’s keen eyes twinkled.

“Well, it do seem more respectful like for I.  Joe, he do say the General; but it seems more natural for me to say Mr. Buller.”

“I thought it was Lord Buller,” observed Mrs. Blanchard doubtfully.

“Well, never mind; Buller’s enough for I,” said the postman.  “Does your son chance to say if they’re pretty near Ladysmith now?”

His much-frayed string seemed somewhat knotted, and opportunities of hearing news direct from the front were sufficiently rare to justify a little extra care in disentangling it.

Mrs. Stuckhey drew forth and unfolded the missive, and her audience duly composed themselves.  Even Mrs. Woolridge was conscious of a certain unwilling interest which she endeavoured to disguise by an attitude of indifference—head thrown back, nose screwed up, hands planted negligently on hips.

p. 90“My dear Mother,” read Mrs. Stuckhey, “It is with the greatest of pleasure that I write these few lines hoping you are well as it leaves me at present.”

This was merely the formula by which Soldier Joe, who was a person of some education, considered it necessary to inaugurate his letters; and the information which it ostensibly conveyed was not intended to be taken literally, as was proved by the fact that on one occasion this conventional statement had been immediately followed by the announcement that he was wounded and in hospital.

“I have got Back to the front Again and we are going to make another start for Ladysmith before long.”

“Why, I thought they was close to Ladysmith by now,” interrupted the postman.  “The papers said yesterday they was but eight mile away.”

“Ah, you can’t trust them papers,” said Mrs. Blanchard in a tone of conviction.  “They do exaggerate, them papers; they just prints a lot o’ lies in ’em to make ’em sell.”

“Very like your son have made a mistake,” observed Mrs. Woolridge loftily.  “Joe, he’s but young.”

“Well, it stands to reason as them that’s on the spot must know better what’s goin’ on nor p. 91them that’s miles an’ miles away,” retorted Mrs. Stuckhey with some heat.  “This here noos comes direct.”

It did not seem to occur to any one that the tidings in question were three weeks old.

She fell to the reading of her letter again, spelling out the words slowly, and running the sentences one into another; indeed it might have been a little difficult to do otherwise, for Joe used capital letters impartially, and absolutely disdained stops.

“You may bet there won’t be no turning Back this time I hope you are saving the Papers for me and I hope when Ladysmith is Relieved you will hang out a Flag and give us Three cheers we deserve it I can Tell you dear Mother when the bullets are whistling round you it is not exactly Pleasant but they don’t like the cold Steel and I hope we shall get near enough to give them that I should like a Dig at the man what shot me give my best Love to Maria and Jane I Fancy you was all thinking of me on Christmas day I hope you had Roast beef and enjoyed yourselves we had only a Dirty old stew in hospital it will be a Good day when I come home you must have a Ox ready and as many spuds as would grow in the garden for two or three years dear Mother I think there is no more this time give my love to all friends and don’t Forget the Flag.

“From your loving son,

“Joseph Stuckhey.”

p. 92“Ah!” commented the mother, wiping her eyes, “I d’ ’low we did think o’ him on Christmas Day.  Maria—that’s my maid what’s in service at Bourne—she were here for her holiday; and Jane, my married daughter, you know, she come over wi’ her husband and childern.  We’d ha’ been a merry party if Joe’d been here; but we did talk of him a’most wi’ every mouthful.”

The postman finished tying the last knot, and slung his bag round under his empty sleeve.

“I must be getting on,” he said.  He would repeat items from Joe Stuckhey’s letter in the various villages through which he passed in making his round.

“Well, to be sure, ’tis nice to hear direct,” observed Mrs. Blanchard, slowly backing into her house, and almost tumbling over two of three of her offspring as she did so.

Mrs. Woolridge sniffed, scratched her elbows with an absent air, cast another frowning glance up the road, and finding her son was not in sight betook herself indoors.

The soldier’s mother went in too, sat down to her dinner—a cold one, for, being a washerwoman by profession, Monday was a busy day with her, and she would not waste time p. 93even in boiling herself a “spud” or two.  She spread out Joe’s letter on the table and meditated over it while she ate.

“I’ll get a flag,” she said to herself.  “E-es, I must get a little flag.  And when my Joe do come back he shall have as good a bit of roast beef as I can buy, bless him!”

As she went about her work that day her gaze wandered, even more frequently than usual, to Joe’s portrait, which hung in a prominent position over the mantelpiece.  This work of art had been presented by the young soldier to his mother soon after he had enlisted.  He had not spared expense, and the result, though somewhat wooden in attitude and uneasy in expression, was eminently satisfactory to her.

While she wrung out her clothes or hung them on the line she crooned to herself the refrain of the popular ditty, “Tommy Atkins,” altering the name of the hero to suit her own taste:—

“Oh-h, Joey, Joey Stuckhey,
You’re a good one, heart and hand,
You’re a credit to your country,
And to all your native land.
May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true—

p. 94“And that it will, I’ll be bound; there never were a more lovin’ lad.  How he did hug I, to be sure, afore he left last time.”

It will be observed that Susan’s reading of the line was not quite the same as that intended by the author of the song.  She wiped her eyes, sighed, and resumed with renewed energy:—

“May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true.
God bless you, Joey Stuckhey,
Here’s your country’s lo-o-o-o-ve to you!”

She threw so much expression into the last line that the word love expanded into a polysyllable.

A few days later news flew round the parish that Ladysmith had actually been relieved; the authority vouched for being no less than that of her Majesty the Queen.  The baker brought the news to Riverton.  His eyes appeared ready to jump from his head with excitement as he made the announcement.

“You’ll be hearin’ bells a-ringin’ to-night,” he said.  “Ah, they be runnin’ up flags all over the place a’ready.  And they do say as they be a-goin’ to ’luminate.”

“Flags!” ejaculated Mrs. Stuckhey.  “I must get a flag at once.  I’ll start so soon as p. 95I’ve a-had my tea.  I wish I’d a-got it afore; but my son—him that’s the only soldier here, you know, baker—he did say when he last wrote as they was but startin’ to relieve Ladysmith.”

“I can scarce believe as the noos be true,” observed pessimistic Mrs. Woolridge.  “I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to get that flag if I was you.”

“Well, I should think the Queen ought to know,” retorted her neighbour with spirit.  “I’m a-goin’ to get it, anyhow.”

“I’ll go along with ’ee, my dear,” cried Mrs. Blanchard, who was always ready for an outing.  “I can’t afford no flags myself, but I’m sure I wish ’ee well, an’ am pleased at your son’s success.  I’ve only got to give the childern their tea, and clean me a bit, and put on bonnet and shawl, and I’ll be ready.”

The baker’s cart jolted away and the two women hastened indoors.  It took Mrs. Blanchard some time to complete her preparations, and it was past six o’clock by the time they reached the little town.

The market-place presented an unusually gay appearance: bunting floated from the church tower, the Corn Exchange, and all the principal buildings; rows of light were already p. 96appearing in many of the windows; groups of people stood about, laughing, talking, singing; many of them cheered as newcomers arrived upon the scene and were told the news.

Mrs. Stuckhey and her friend, having purchased the flag, attached themselves to one of the groups in question, and heard how the tidings had first come “down the line,” and how, subsequently, a telegram had arrived at the Royal George.  Mrs. Stuckhey was in the act of expatiating on the information conveyed in her son’s letter when, with a mighty clang, the bells rang out.

“They’re at it,” cried a man, detaching himself from the knot of people the better to flourish his hat.  “Three cheers for Buller and White.  Hip—hip—hip—”

“Hurray!” roared the crowd.

Cling, cling, clang! chimed the bells.

Then all at once, no one knew how, the merry-making ceased, the cheerful jangling came to an end, the ringers loosing the ropes so suddenly that the bells continued to swing for some little time longer, sending forth occasional slow faint notes of most funereal sound.  As anxious glances sought the church tower the flag was seen to have disappeared; moreover, it was observed that the kindred p. 97trophy which had proudly surmounted the Corn Exchange was being hauled down.  What had happened—what was wrong?

The disappointing news soon flew from mouth to mouth: it was all a mistake.  Ladysmith was not relieved after all.  Someone had just telegraphed from London to say that there was no foundation for the report.  The War Office had, in fact, declared it to be false.

“’Tis my belief as that there War Office don’t know so very much,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey, indignant in her disappointment.  “When my son Joe was wounded they did send me a very nice letter, to be sure—Lord Lansdowne I believe it was from, and a beautiful hand his lordship do write—but he didn’t tell I nothin’ about it—not whether ’twas in his arm, or leg, or nowhere in partic’lar.  So there, I just sent him a telegraft to ax how my son were, and he never took no notice.  Don’t ’ee tell I as he knows what’s going forrard better nor the Queen.”

“Well, but they do say now as the Queen didn’t say nothin’,” said somebody ruefully.

The lights were being blown out, the flags removed; people were returning homewards.  Mrs. Stuckhey, still unconvinced and irate, p. 98was constrained to follow their example, clutching her little sixpenny flag in its paper wrapper.

“Lard! how awful molloncolly that there bell do sound,” groaned Mrs. Blanchard dolefully.  “Dear, to be sure, a body mid think as it were tollin’ for a funeral.”

“There, my dear, don’t ’ee talk so foolish,” responded Susan with some acerbity.  “’Tis but the ringers as has left the ropes a-swingin’.  I should be ashamed, Mary Blanchard, to go a-givin’ way like that, and you with all them childern, as ought to know better.”

“I be that nervish, d’ye see.  Lard, I do feel shaky all over.  I have a kind o’ porsentiment as summat have a-happened—that I have, and I can’t say no different, Mrs. Stuckhey, not if it be to please you.”

At this moment the pair were overtaken by a stout, elderly man, who, recognising them as he passed, turned to greet the person whom the news might be supposed to concern most nearly.

“Good evenin’ to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey; this here be very disapp’intin’, bain’t it?”

Susan responded with a little “dip,” for Farmer Joyce was the principal inhabitant of Riverton.

p. 99“E-es, sir, it be a bit disapp’intin’, I d’ ’low, but I reckon we’ll be hearin’ to-morrow as the good noos be true, and ’tis but the War Office what have made a mistake.”

“I dunno, I’m sure,” returned the farmer, heaving a deep sigh.  “Them there Boers be a queer lot.  I did never hear tell o’ sich folks.  They do seem to be here, there, and everywhere, all at once as mid be—poppin’ up jist same as rabbits in warren.  Ah,” he cried, delighted with his own simile, and anxious if possible to improve it, “it be jist same as if our troops were a-fightin’ o’ rabbits—rabbits wi’ guns,” he added with a chuckle.

“Well, my son do say as they don’t like the cold steel,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey cautiously.  “My son didn’t seem noways afeared on ’em.  Says he, when he did last write, says he, ‘I should like a dig at the man what shot me’.”

“Ah, and did he?” said Mr. Joyce much impressed.  “Well now, that was a good sayin’.  A dig!  Haw, haw?” here the farmer came to a standstill in the road to laugh more at his ease.  “He’d like to give him a dig, would he?—haw, haw!—I d’ ’low he would.  And ’tis but nat’ral, d’ye see, Mrs. Stuckhey,” he continued more seriously as he rolled forward again.  “Nobody couldn’t blame p. 100the chap for wishin’ to stick the man as put a bullet in en—they couldn’t, indeed.  Ye can’t expect a soldier to turn the other cheek, can ye now?  But them Boers be jist same as rabbits—’tis what I do say constant.  But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw, haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us?  Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey, and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard.  We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos soon.”

But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic.  To the country at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph, but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey, Riverton’s only soldier.

The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces.  Who shall tell how the tidings were first broken to her, the faltering incredulous words she said, her bewildered grief?

A day or two after her home was made desolate Farmer Joyce, standing by his gate, happened to see her returning from the town, accompanied by Mrs. Blanchard, both of them burdened with a multiplicity of small parcels.

“Ah,” he said, greeting her with a groan of p. 101sympathy, “ye’ll ha’ been gettin’ o’ your deep Mrs. Stuckhey.”

“E-es, sir, I did have a few little things to get afore Sunday.  There weren’t no sich hurry as usual when there be a death in th’ family—no funeral, you know.  Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as there bain’t no funeral!  ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything.  If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done his last, Mr. Joyce.  If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from me in England.”

“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey.  They do say as the poor dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad.  E-es, they do say so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for en no more nor you can now.  I’ve a-been told as there be some graveyards, Mrs. Stuckhey—and not so far away neither—as be just same as rabbit warrens; you wouldn’t never think there was no co’pses in them at all.”

“Dear, now, to think of that!” ejaculated Susan, almost forgetting her grief in her scandalised amazement.

p. 102“E-es, indeed, they telled I that.  Things mid be worse, ye see.  Not but what I do sympathise for ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey.  It be a terrible visitation—an’ you a lone woman, and him your only son—I d’ ’low it be a terrible visitation.  There bain’t a single person in Riverton village as don’t feel for ’ee.”

“Ah-h-h, ’tis true, sir, ’tis true,” put in Mrs. Blanchard, shaking her head.  “There do seem to ha’ comed quite a gloom over the place since the sad noos come.  E-es, I may say so, quite a gloom.  And us as was all rej’ycin’ such a few days ago about Ladysmith, you know, as weren’t relieved at all.  Dear, yes, how well I do mind it.  I did say then, didn’t I, Mrs. Stuckhey? as bell sounded just same as if ’twere a-tollin’.  Them was my very words, and I did go all shivery down my back and feeled quite nervish.  ’Twas a token, I do r’aly believe.  There was bell a-tollin’ o’ Wednesday as ’twere Monday poor Joe was killed.”

“Ah, dear, ’tis that what comes most cruel hard of all,” groaned the poor mother.  “There was I laughin’ and talkin’ wi’ the rest, and my poor Joe stiff an’ cold.”

“E-es, indeed, Mrs. Stuckhey,” returned the farmer, winking away a tear from his own p. 103kindly eyes, “it do seem hard, I d’ ’low; the ways o’ Providence be oncomprehensible, as the Bible do say.  I d’ ’low, this here do seem very providential.”

“I don’t think I’d ha’ minded so much if he’d a-been struck down after they’d won the victory, d’ye see,” went on Susan.  “Nay, I could ha’ bore it better—I could have felt as his life weren’t took for nothin’; but to think as he were cut off when they’d only just started as he did tell I in his last letter.  That they took en and shot en and ’tweren’t no use.”

“Nay, now, don’t ’ee say that, Mrs. Stuckhey, don’t ’ee go for to say that.”  And Farmer Joyce brought down his fist emphatically on the low wall near which he was standing.  “He gave his life for summat, you may depend.  ’Twas in doin’ good work as he fell; and that there work ull go on, and ull end well, and your son ull ha’ helped to make it end well.  Now, see here, this be the way to look at it.  A wall’s a wall, bain’t it?”  And he brought down his fist upon the coping again.

Both women, staring blankly at him, acceded to this incontrovertible statement.

“Well, and an army’s an army—ye’ll admit that.”

They admitted it.

p. 104“Well, and what be a wall made on?  Stones or bricks.  This here wall be made o’ stones.  And what be an army made on?  Men.  Do ye take me?  There wouldn’t be no wall if there weren’t no stones, and there wouldn’t be no army if there weren’t no men.  And more”—raising his voice as he warmed to his subject—“there wouldn’t be no wall if some o’ them stones wasn’t laid underground for the foundations; and there wouldn’t be no army if there wasn’t no fightin’, an’ some o’ the men wasn’t killed.  An’ ’tis my belief, Mrs. Stuckhey, as your Joe, what has got killed an’ been put underground, is one o’ the foundations o’ the British army.  An’ when that there army marches into Ladysmith, as it be sure to do, your Joe ull ha’ done as much as any man to get it there.”

Poor Susan smiled and wiped her eyes, and held up her head with a sort of pitiful pride.

“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, for them words,” she said.  “They be a’most the first bit o’ comfort I’ve a-had.”

“I’m sure Mr. J’yce do speak beautiful,” murmured Mrs. Blanchard admiringly.  “There, I never heared the like, not without ’twas out of a noospaper.  I’m sure it did ought to comfort ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey.”

p. 105“Nay, now, ’tis nothin’ to speak on,” returned Mr. Joyce modestly.  “My mind do seem to turn to them parodies easy like.  D’ye mind about the rabbits?  ‘Rabbits wi’ guns,’ says I.  Haw, haw!  I can scarce tell how them notions do come to my mind.”

“It be wonderful, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard.  “As I do tell Mrs. Stuckhey, it ought to comfort her, poor soul.  Mrs. Stuckhey have just been a-layin’ out five-and-sixpence for something rather partic’lar—haven’t ’ee, my dear?  I d’ ’low Mr. J’yce ’ud like to see what you’ve got in that there parcel.”

“He be welcome, I’m sure,” said Susan, wiping her eyes again and sniffing.

She drew from under her cloak a round object carefully enveloped in tissue paper.

“I’d like to show it to ’ee, sir, if I mid make so bold.  There, I got me this wi’ a few shillin’ I’d been a-layin’ by for to make a kind o’ little feast for my son when he did come home.  I wasn’t never expectin’ as he wouldn’t come home, ye know; there did seem to be so many of ’em a-fightin’.”

Poor mother! while her Joe had lived he had been for her the only soldier; now that he was dead her thoughts dwelt ceaselessly on the vast size of the army of which p. 106he had formed a part, and it seemed to her strange and hard that while thousands were spared her one had been stricken down.

While she spoke she had removed the paper wrappers, and now held up to Mr. Joyce’s admiring, yet somewhat doubtful gaze, a large china wreath, such as may frequently be seen in village churchyards, composed of stiff white roses and conventional leaves.

“It be a beauty, Mrs. Stuckhey,” said the farmer hesitatingly.  “There, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an ’andsomer one.  But I’m wonderin’ how ye mean to manage about it, seein’ as, so to speak, there bain’t no grave—not handy, I mean.  There be a grave, as I telled ’ee, and an honoured grave—the grave o’ the British soldier; but it wouldn’t be”—he coughed delicately—“convenient for ’ee to put wreaths on, I’m afeared; nay, I’m afeared it wouldn’t be easy.”

“Lard, no, sir, I wasn’t a-thinkin’ o’ usin’ it for the grave.  Even if I was to send it to the War Office I couldn’t trust ’em to put it on for me.  And it wouldn’t be no comfort anyhow wi’out I could see it there.  Nay, I be a-going to hang this round my son’s likeness; ’twill be a kind of a memory of his grave as I can’t see it.”

p. 107“Well, well,” said Mr. Joyce, deeply moved.

Poor Susan had begun to weep again, and Mrs. Blanchard was not slow to follow her example.  They moved away together, and presently, entering Mrs. Stuckhey’s house, proceeded to hang the wreath over poor Joe’s picture.  After much hammering of tacks and knotting of string the task was completed, and the dead soldier’s chubby boyish face greeted all beholders through its white garland.

“’Tis beautiful, I’m sure,” exclaimed Mrs. Blanchard, falling back a little and speaking in a tone of almost awestruck admiration.  “The uniform, you know, and the goldy frame, and the white flowers—I never seed anything so handsome.”

“’Tis his due,” said Mrs. Stuckhey, and she was conscious of a return of the glow of pride with which she had, a little time before, listened to the farmer’s allegory, and with that pride came a faint vague sense of comfort: at least her hero was honoured.

The poor must be up and doing; not theirs is the luxury of nursing grief.  Though Susan Stuckhey’s heart might be sore, and many hot tears might drop into the suds as she bent over her wash-tub, her clients’ clean clothes p. 108must be sent home.  She could not manage, however, to be quite so prompt as usual this particular week, and it chanced that on the Thursday—contrary to all precedent—she was hanging up some of the finer garments on her line to dry, when she was startled by what seemed to be the sound of an explosion.

“They be blastin’ up yonder,” she said to herself, and went on with her task.  But the sound was repeated several times, and the neighbours began to come to their doors and to look towards the town, whence the sound proceeded.

“It do seem like firin’,” said Mrs. Blanchard with placid interest.

By-and-bye, a lad came tearing down the lane, waving his hat and shouting.

“’Tis relieved!” he cried.  “Ladysmith be relieved!  ’Tis true this time.  It be wrote up in the town ‘Official noos’.  They be firin’ a cannon near the Royal George, and the flags is up, and there’s to be a procession this evenin’, and every one’s goin’ mad for joy!”

Mrs. Stuckhey’s knees shook under her; she dropped the handkerchief which she had been pinning up, and covered her face with her hands.

“There, don’t ’ee take on,” said Mrs. p. 109Blanchard, commiseratingly.  “Ye’d be like to feel it, I know; dear, yes, ’tis to be expected.”

“Well, now, I should think Mrs. Stuckhey ought to be glad,” said Mrs. Woolridge, surveying the washerwoman critically from her doorstep.  “There be mothers’ sons in Ladysmith so well as anywhere else; ah, sure there be.  Many a woman’s heart has been a-breakin’ thinkin’ of ’em starvin’ and famishin’ there.  ’Twouldn’t bring your son back a bit more if they was to perish o’ hunger.  You ought to be glad like the rest of us.”

“I am glad,” gasped poor Susan; and with that she turned, leaving her basket, and went into her house.

Her gaze, blurred though it was with tears, instantly sought Joe’s portrait, and the honest goggle eyes of the picture looked back, as it seemed to her, with infinite sadness.

“Ladysmith is relieved,” they seemed to say; “the victory is won—and I was not there.”

When presently the door creaked slowly open and Mrs. Blanchard entered, moving unwieldily on tip-toe, she found Susan seated by her steaming wash-tub with her apron thrown over her head.

“Don’t ’ee fret, my dear,” she said soothingly.  p. 110“There isn’t one in the village as don’t sympathise for ’ee; and we do all feel as our own j’y bain’t full, so to speak.  There, we do say to ourselves: If our own soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!”

Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her face with her trembling hands.  Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and of toil!

“I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause.  “’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was shut up over yonder.  ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe didn’t have no hand in it.”

Susan jerked down her apron, and her eyes flashed beneath their red and swollen lids.

“Who says he didn’t have no hand in it?” she cried.  “He did have a hand in it!  Didn’t ’ee hear what Farmer Joyce did say?  My son Joe were one o’ the foundations o’ the army.”  She rose as she spoke and crossed the kitchen, her small figure dignified, even majestic.

She fumbled in the old-fashioned chest of drawers and drew forth a paper packet.  p. 111Returning, she laid it upon the table, casting, as she did so, a glance at once severe and resolute upon the astonished Mrs. Blanchard; then, taking her sweeping-brush from behind the door, she proceeded with much deliberation to knock off its head.

“In the name o’ fortun’, Susan Stuckhey,” ejaculated her friend, “what be you a-goin’ to do?”

“You’ll see for yourself in a minute,” returned Susan; and, armed with the broom-handle and the little parcel, she went upstairs.

Mrs. Blanchard went out, backing away from the house, and fixing her eyes wonderingly, almost incredulously, on Susan’s upper window.  Following the direction of her glance, Mrs. Woolridge and a few other women who had meanwhile gathered together gazed also expectantly upwards.  Presently the latticed casement was thrown open and a sudden gleam of blue and scarlet fluttered over their heads.

“Bless me, woman, whatever are you at?” cried Mrs. Woolridge in shocked and horrified tones.  “Ye don’t mean to say as you can have the heart—”

Susan’s resolute face looked forth a moment above her waving banner.

“I be a-doin’ what my son Joe did tell I to p. 112do.  I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”

And when, later in the day, the town band paraded gaily through the village with a large following of enthusiastic patriots dancing, shouting, singing, the little mother strove valiantly to fulfil the second part of poor Joe’s behest—to give the three cheers for which he had called.  But though she ran to her gate when the crowd first came in sight, and waved her arm above her head, only a strangled sob broke from her when she strove to raise her voice. But at sight of the small figure in its mourning dress, the little cotton Union Jack waving gallantly from the upper window of the dead soldier’s home, a sudden hush fell upon the musicians and their followers, and they passed the house in silence with bared heads and reverent tread.

And perhaps this tribute of respect was paid less to the emblem of their country’s greatness, less even to the memory of the poor young hero who had laid down his life for its sake, than to the brave little woman who stood unflinchingly at her post, and who felt her heart beat high with sacred triumph though the tears were raining down her face.

“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”

p. 113A RUSTIC ARGUS.

It was evening; most of the inhabitants of the old-world village were standing about their doorways, and a few of the more energetic were at work in their tiny patches of garden.  It was noticeable that those among the men who had not betaken themselves to the allotments leaned in lordly fashion against their door-posts or lolled over the garden hedge, deeming, no doubt, that they had already borne their share of the burden of the day, and that such trifling supplementary labour as watering cabbages or tying up carnations might well be left to the women-folk.

Mrs. Fripp seemed to accept this state of things without protest.  She was a stout woman, and the weather was warm.  She had been busy all day at her wash-tub, and she groaned as she bent her bulky person over the flowers that would keep slipping away from her large, moist fingers just as she had deemed they were secure.

p. 114“Drat it!” she murmured under her breath, as a beautiful bloom slid from its stick for the fourth time.

“They be ticklish things,” observed Mr. Fripp from his station in the doorway, without taking the trouble to remove his pipe, and speaking in consequence somewhat indistinctly.  “Ah, they be ticklish things.  They d’ take a dale o’ patience.”

“That they do!” agreed his spouse heartily, standing upright, and straightening her broad back.  She looked half absently up and down the sloping village street, which lay deep in shadow, save at the uppermost end, where the gables of the thatched houses were bathed in the evening glow, the light falling full upon the whitewashed chimney-stack of the little hostelry known as the “Pure Drop,” and creeping downwards along the irregular line of roofs until it terminated abruptly just where Mrs. Fripp’s wash-house jutted out into the street.  Seen thus at this mystic hour there was much beauty about the little hamlet, which, indeed, at any time had a quaint charm of its own.  The eaves of many of the roofs sloped downwards at certain points almost to the ground, overhanging here a mullioned window, and bulging out there p. 115into a minute and fantastically shaped gable.  Creepers clung close to the whitewashed walls, hollyhocks stood in many a homely garden with the stateliness they might better have assumed in the pleasaunce of a queen; pigeons bowed and cooed on the sunlit apex of russet roof or golden stack; children played about the doorsteps or made pies of the dust in the road.

But Mrs. Fripp gazed on these things indifferently, her glance having fixed itself on a tall, angular woman’s figure which was at that moment travelling slowly towards her.

“’Tis never Mrs. Adlam steppin’ this way—come to look after Susan, I d’ ’low.  Them two girls hey been gossipin’ in there this hour an’ more.”

“It’ll be about Tom Locke, I’ll warrant, that they’re a-talkin’,” agreed her lord, the black pipe wagging with every word, and being sucked at the conclusion of the sentence with evident relish.  “Aye, aye; maids will get talkin’ about sweethearts an’ that.  ’Tis naitral at their age, an’ this accident o’ pore Tom’s is oncommon onfart’nate.  Good-day, Mrs. Adlam, ’tis powerful warm, ’tis, surely.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Mrs. Adlam hurriedly and abstractedly.  “Good-day to ye, Mr. Fripp.  Is Susan within?”

p. 116“Aye,” said Mr. Fripp, without moving his form from the door-post, “she’s sittin’ a bit wi’ our Lizzie.  Our maid’s jest foldin’ a few clothes for her mother to iron to-morrow, an’ Susan’s sittin’ wi’ her.”

“Ah, neighbour, your Lizzie’s wonderful handy, they say,” responded Mrs. Adlam—without enthusiasm, however.  “Now, my maid’s that delicate an’ nervous like, she’s no use at all at home, I may say.  I’ve had to have doctor to her times an’ times, but ’tis no manner o’ use.  She can’t do many things for herself, pore maid; an’ she can scarce abear to see me a-doin’ of ’em.  ’Tis a nesh flower, neighbours.  Why, she d’ run out o’ the room when I put our bit o’ beef of a Sunday to the fire, an’ she d’ very near faint if I go for to skin a rabbit.”

“Well, to think on’t!” said Mr. and Mrs. Fripp together, commiseratingly, but admiringly, too.  Such a constitution as Susan’s was felt to be a credit to any village.

“Ah, ’tis a nesh flower,” repeated the mother with a kind of fretful triumph.  “Laist time Doctor Richmond come I explained to him as well as I could how she be took, an’ I says to him: ‘Could you tell me, sir,’ says I, ‘what ’tis as ails my daughter?’  An’ he looks p. 117at me so earnest as he could, an’ he said ’twas—oh, a terrible long name—it always slips my mind, but it’s awful long.  Wait a bit; I’ll have it in a minute.  Ye mind that climbin’ tree as runs round the corner o’ the ‘Pure Drop’?  It do have blue blossoms in the spring-time, hangin’ down summat o’ the natur o’ laburnum.  You know, Mrs. Fripp—so fond of flowers as you be.”

“Aye, we had wan at my father’s place—he was gardener, ye know—I d’ call it to mind, now.  Westonia, that’s what it be called.  Nay, now; westeria—that’s it.”

“Ah, that’s it,” agreed Mrs. Adlam; adding, with impressive solemnity, “Well, that’s what’s the matter wi’ my Susan.”

“Very like,” assented Mrs. Fripp, who was an imaginative woman.  “’Tis but a pore nesh thing, that creeper—never has no leaves till ’tis well-nigh done flowerin’.”

“Such fancies as she d’ take even in the way o’ courtin’,” resumed Mrs. Adlam.  “Says she to me once: ‘Mother,’ says she, ‘don’t you count on me ever gettin’ wed, for I assure ye I abhor mankind.’”

“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mr. Fripp, much startled and infinitely scandalised.  “’Twas an unnait’ral thing for a maid to say, sure.  Never p. 118heard o’ such a thing.  I be sorry for ye, Mrs. Adlam, that I be.”

“She takes them notions out o’ the books that she d’ read when she be porely,” returned the mother, apologetically.  “Ah, that’s where she gets ’em; but I do assure you, neighbours, them was her very words.  I don’t notice her no more than if she was a child.  I did think a few months ago, in spite of all, that she’d be gettin’ settled so comfortable as she could be.  Tom Locke ’s a good, studdy young chap, earnin’ a good bit, now.  He’ll be havin’ the farm, too, when his father dies.  But the maid is so upset about that accident, I don’t know whatever to do wi’ her.  I thought she’d get over the feelin’ about his losin’ that eye; but it laisses so strong as ever.  He came to our place this evenin’, an’ she did jump up an’ run straight away here.  He’ve a-been waitin’ an’ waitin’, pore young man, but at laist he gets up, an’ says he: ‘I’ll go, Mrs. Adlam.  Will ’ee tell Susan that if she wants to see me again, she can meet me up the lane at the wold place on Sunday?’”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fripp, gazing thoughtfully up the street again, and then suffering her glance to revert to Mrs. Adlam’s lean, anxious face, “’tis terrible hard for ’ee, ’tis p. 119indeed.  I’m sorry for pore Tom, yet ’tis an awk’ard thing for a girl to wed wi’ a man as has but one eye.  An’ Susan being so bashful an’ tewly seems to make it worse.  Does he look terrible bad, Mrs. Adlam?”

Mrs. Adlam considered.  “One side looks much the same as ever,” she said.  “Aye, one eye’s jest like it always was, but t’other side”—She paused.  “Well, there’s no eye at all t’other side.”

“Doctor took it out, did he?” inquired Fripp, deeply interested.  “Well, Mrs. Adlam, ’tisn’t so bad but it mid have been worse—we must comfort ourselves so well as we can.  If keeper hadn’t been by, an’ hadn’t out wi’s knife, same as he did, an’ took shots out o’ Tom’s eye at once, he’d very like have lost t’other one.  As I say, it mid ha’ been worse.”

“Tom said jest now as doctor thought keeper’d ha’ done better to ha’ left his eye alone,” sighed Mrs. Adlam.  “But there’s no tellin’—doctors is jealous folk; they can’t abear a body to do a thing for theirselves.  Why, laist winter when I had the inflammation, an’ made mysel’ a drop o’ gruel wi’ rum in it to strengthen me a bit, Doctor Richmond was that vexed!  Well, I must be goin’.  Will ’ee call my maid, Mr. Fripp?”

p. 120The good man complied.  Screwing his person a little sideways round the door-post, and turning his head over his shoulder, he bellowed forth, first the name of his own daughter and then that of Mrs. Adlam’s, at intervals of about a quarter of a minute, until there was a hasty banging of doors in the back premises, a patter of feet across the kitchen, and the two girls appeared simultaneously on the threshold.  Susan Adlam, tall, fair, and blue-eyed, with the complexion of a rose-leaf, and hands so white that they told their own tale of selfishness and incapacity; Lizzie Fripp, dark, with a brown merry face, and a squat sturdy form.  With a little more height and a little less breadth she might have been pretty.

“Oh, ’tis you, Mother,” said Susan, with a bashful wriggle.  “Is Tom gone?  I’m sure I hope he is.  Don’t ask me to go home if he’s there, for I couldn’t abear to see en.”

Mrs. Adlam cast up her eyes to heaven, and then looked round with a certain melancholy pride.

“No, no!  Come along, my dear, he’s gone; an’ I was to say if ye wanted to spaik to en again you was to meet en at the wold place o’ Sunday.”

p. 121“I don’t want to see en again,” said Susan tossing her head.

“For shame!” cried little Lizzie.  “I wonder at ye, Susan.  The pore chap’ll break his ’eart.  An’ what’s an eye, after all?  ’Tisn’t real needful to a man—not like as if it was an arm now, so as he couldn’t work for ’ee, or a leg, so as he’d have to have a wooden un, an’ go peggety-peg up church.  Nay, now, there’d be raison if ’twas an arm or a leg—but a body can see as well wi’ one eye as wi’ two.”

“Hark to the maid!” cried Mr. Fripp, with a great roar of laughter.  “She d’ spaik like print.  Well done, little un!”

“Well, I’m not fond of one-eyed folks if you be,” cried Susan sarcastically.  “I’d not have a man without two eyes, not if I was to bide single all my life.  I’d as lief be single as not—I’ve no fancy for wedlock.”

“Dear, dear,” said Fripp, “’tis terrible to hear how onraisonable the pore maid d’ talk!  Take her home, do, Mrs. Adlam, an’ make her lay down.”

“Come along then, Susan,” cried Mrs. Adlam with an air of chastened dignity; “come along, else you’ll be havin’ the westeria again.”

“Nay, now, Mother, ’tis heasteria ye mean.  p. 122Doctor said plain as the name of it was heasteria.”

“Lard, child, heast or west, ’tis all one.  You come home wi’ me, do ’ee now, else you’ll be laid up.”

She drew one of the pretty white hands through her own bony arm and led her daughter gently away, supporting her with increasing solicitude, as the girl, conscious of attracting universal attention, began to limp and to stagger in the most interesting manner.

“Pore thing!” murmured Fripp commiseratingly.  “She d’ seem to be falterin’.  I d’ ’low ’tis a terrible visitation for Mrs. Adlam, ’tis surely.  Well, Mother, let us give thanks where thanks be due.  Lizzie, here, is a good set off to t’other one.”

“She’d better be,” retorted Mrs. Fripp, speaking loudly and decisively for Lizzie’s benefit.  “I’d have no patience wi’ such goin’s on.  I’d take a bit o’ broom-end to her instead o’ the doctor if I were Mrs. Adlam.”

“Well said!” chimed in a red-faced matron from the other side of the hedge.  “It never does no good to spile childer.  Says I to mine soon’s ever they grow up: ‘Now,’ I says, ‘I’ve gi’ed ye a good educassion, and now yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ I says.”

p. 123Though the education which the good lady in question had bestowed upon her progeny was known to be of a somewhat questionable order, and though the said progeny were by no means considered creditable to the community at large, the theory was so sound in itself that the Fripps agreed heartily; and the sentiment was endorsed by the village policeman, who for the last few minutes had been listening unobserved to the discussion.

“Ah,” he said, “that’s what I call straightfor’ard.  ‘Yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ says you.  If Susan Adlam had nothing to put into her mouth but what her ’ands got for her she’d starve, pore young craiture.  But tis a very foolish business about Tom Locke.  The young man’s a fine young man, doin’ well, an’ like to do better—an eye more nor less doesn’t alter his being a wonderful good match for the girl.  But if she’s so set on his havin’ a pair, why doesn’t he get a mock un put in?”

“A mock eye!” exclaimed Mrs. Fripp in amazement.  “My stars!  I never heard tell o’ such a thing.  You be jokin’ surely, policeman.”

“Nay, not I indeed.  I knowed a man livin’ out Tipton way as lost his eye on account o’ a bit o’ blasted rock goin’ into it; an’ he went p. 124to Bristol an’ come back wi’ a beautiful new un—ye’d scarce know it from his own, only it were a deal handsomer.”

“D— my eyes!” murmured Mr. Fripp, not with any intentional profanity, but because the expletive seemed peculiarly adapted to the circumstances.

“Ah, I knowed him well.  Many a time he’s took out the glass eye to let me see it.  ’Twas a wonderful invention, an’ it cost I believe a sight o’ money.  He didn’t wear it every day, but he allus put it in o’ market-days an’ Sundays.  Ah, ’twas a curious thing to see en o’ Sundays, lookin’ at parson so wide-awake wi’ the glass eye, while t’other maybe was as drowsy as yours or mine mid be.”

“Well I never!” murmured Mrs. Fripp.  “Somebody ought to tell young Locke about it,” she added, as an afterthought.

“’Tisn’t exactly the kind o’ subject a body ’ud think o’ namin’ to the pore man,” said the policeman, who was a person of refined feelings.  “To say ‘Good-day to ye, an’ why don’t ye get a glass eye?’ ’ud seem a bit strange.  Well, neighbours, I must be movin’ on.  ’Tis a pity for the pore chap; but we must feel grateful for him as Providence didn’t see fit to try en no worse.”

p. 125On the next Sunday afternoon, after Lizzie had cleared away the dinner things, and fed the chickens, and scrubbed the faces of her little brothers and sisters previous to their departure for Sunday School, she donned her white straw hat, with its big red rose nodding triumphantly from a commanding position just over the centre of her forehead, pinned a posy of carnations and jasmine and southern-wood in the bosom of her blue dress, drew a new pair of cotton gloves over her plump hands, and sallied forth up the street to call on Susan.

She found Mrs. Adlam with her Sunday gown pinned back over a striped petticoat, her sleeves rolled up as high as Sunday sleeves would go, and a further protection against possible accidents in the shape of a large-bibbed apron shrouding the remainder of her Sabbath glories, hard at work washing up.

“Good-day, Mrs. Adlam.  I jest called round to see how Susan mid be.”

“Good-day, Lizzie.  Susan’s very bad, thank ye.  She’s layin’ on her bed upstairs.  Step up if you like.”

Lizzie stepped up, and found her friend reclining outside her patchwork quilt, absorbed in the perusal of a “penny dreadful” of the most thrilling type.  Lizzie approached the p. 126bed, clumping sturdily with her well-polished best boots.

“Bain’t ye agoin’ to see pore Tom?” she inquired, without wasting time on preliminaries.

Susan looked up, startled: she had just got to that point in the narrative when the heroine, drawing herself up to her full height, informed the villain that she would be sooner clasped by a serpent than permit herself to be degraded by his embrace.

“What?  No, I’m not going to see Tom Locke.  My nerves is much too upset.  Ye did give me a jump comin’ in that way, Lizzie.”

“He’ll be waiting up there for you to spaik to en.”

“Well, ’tisn’t my fault if he do.  I never axed en to.  I’m real fainty an’ porely to-day, Lizzie; couldn’t so much as go to church.  Sit down, an’ let’s talk a bit.  I seed yer father lookin’ arter me t’other night; I was walkin’ so queer, wasn’t I?  I expect he thought I was lookin’ real bad.”

“No, I’ll not sit down,” said Lizzie.  She planted her umbrella on the floor, and stared at the other girl for a moment without speaking.

p. 127“If he was to get another eye would ye look at en then?” she remarked at length, abruptly.  “A mock un, I mane.  They can be had easy, Policeman Blanchard says.  No good to see out of, ye know, but jest to look at.”

“Oh, Lizzie, what a tale!  He was makin’ fun o’ you.”

“No, he wasn’t.  ’Twas to father he said it.  He said he knowed a man Tipton way as had un—rale ’andsome—’andsomer nor his own.  He wore it Sundays an’ ’olidays, an’ took it out week days for fear o’ accidents.”

“Well,” said Susan, consideringly, “if Tom were to get un perhaps I could forget it were a mock un; but he’d have to wear it always, that he would, else I couldn’t make believe ’twere real.”

“Well, I’ll go an’ tell en that.  If he gets a real nice one ye’ll think on’t, won’t ye, Susan?”

“I dunno; I’ll see,” said Susan provisionally.

Lizzie marched towards the door without another word.

“’Tis a funny notion, though, yer takin’ it up like that,” cried Susan, suddenly awaking to the fact.  “Be ye really goin’ to en now?”

“Yes, I be,” replied Lizzie, without turning her head; and down the stairs clattered she, and out into the air.

p. 128Leaving the village behind she ascended a steep, stony path, which led across a curious and antiquated bridge, and presently found herself in a shady lane bordered on both sides by high banks, where the hedgerows had long escaped all control of man, and grew in a wild and most picturesque tangle.  Here thorn and gorse and wild apple crowded upon each other; golden maple was thrown into relief by the sturdier green of the elder; there the clustering berries of a guelder-rose, already turning red, made a wondrous patch of colour, while the tiny, soft-shelled hazel nuts shone out from the deep green leaves like pearls; over all the traveller’s-joy had flung its wealth of delicate blossom and clinging tendril, now swinging proudly from the topmost bough of a tall sapling, now creeping low amidst the brambles and the bracken.  A yellow-hammer called to a brother occasionally from some swaying twig; little speckled half-fledged robins hopped along the path in front of Lizzie, taking occasional short flights when she came inconveniently near, but returning to peer up at her with large, yellow-rimmed, curious eyes.

Lizzie noticed none of these things.  Had she had a mind to gaze upon the beauties p. 129of the prospect, she would have peered through the gaps in the green ramparts down to the plain, and away past the cultivated fields and the silver windings of the river to the distant roofs and chimney-stacks of the market town.  One could obtain a beautiful view of the new brewery from here; the brickwork looked as red as red, and one could see the smoke rising from the great chimney.  Ah, that was a view worth looking at; so all the villagers said, and Lizzie agreed with them.

But to-day she stared straight in front of her, with eyes as round and curious as those of the robins themselves; eyes which had, moreover, an alarmed expression entirely lacking to those of the bold, sociable little birds in question.  Her heart was beginning to beat rather fast, and she was conscious of increasing trepidation as she drew near the trysting-place.

At a turn of the lane she could see a pair of long legs thrust out from a recess in the bank; then a hand idly brandishing a stick; at length a head moving amid the clustering leaves.  When the rapid clump, clump of her thick-soled boots reached his ears, the man rose quickly and came towards her.  A tall, loose-limbed, young fellow, with a fringe of dark beard and whisker round his brown face; his hat was p. 130pulled rather forward over his brows, and his one remaining eye looked eagerly and anxiously towards the approaching figure.

One glance told him that the sturdy form was not that of his sweetheart, and he turned away, whistling to himself to hide his disappointment, and swishing absently at the wayside grasses.  He expected the rapid steps to pass on; but, to his surprise, they slackened as they drew near, and then abruptly ceased.

“Good-day to ’ee, Mr. Locke.”

“Ah,” said Locke, “it’s Lizzie Fripp.  Good-day, Lizzie, good-day.”

He turned unwillingly as he spoke.  Though not by nature a sensitive man, he felt a little diffident as to the impression which his new disfigurement was likely to create when first beheld by a stranger.

“Ye be waitin’ for Susan?” said Lizzie, staring hard for a moment and then averting her eyes.  “She’s—she’s not able to come to-day.”

“I thought as much,” said Tom gloomily.  “I’ve been sittin’ here two hour an’ more.  Did she send ye to me?” he added suddenly.

“No, I came myself.  I wanted to tell ’ee somethin’, Mr. Locke,” blurted out Lizzie tremulously.  “I d’ ’low that if you was to p. 131get a glass eye Susan ’ud love you jest the same as ever.”

A dark flush overspread the young farmer’s face, and a flash of anger appeared in his solitary orb.

“Did she tell ’ee to say this?” he asked, after a pause.

“Nay now, nay now, don’t ’ee take on so, Mr. Locke.  They was all talkin’ about it in the village laist night; an’ Policeman Blanchard said he knowed a man as had one that could be took in an’ out quite handy, an’ it looked jest the same as t’other, only ’andsomer.  An’ I axed Susan if ye was to get one would she walk with ’ee again, an’ she seemed to take to the notion; so I thought I’d jest run here an’ tell ’ee.”

“Did ye?” said Tom.  “That was very well done, Lizzie.”

“Well, I thought ’twas but kind,” said Lizzie modestly.  “Susan, ye see, has a terrible delicate constitootion, an’ takes things to ’eart.  Why, she could scarce so much as walk home from our place laist night.”

“Couldn’t she?” returned Locke sardonically.  “She run fast enough out o’ my way—I know that.  Aye, she showed as clean a pair o’ heels as a maid need wish to.  An’ p. 132so she said she’d take to me again if I was to get a glass eye, did she?”

“She said she’d think on’t,” returned the girl cautiously.

Tom took off his hat and bent down till his face was nearly on a level with Lizzie’s.

“Look here, Lizzie Fripp,” he said authoritatively; “you be a trewth-tellin’ maid, an’ ye’ll gi’e me a straightfor’ard answer.  Tell me plain!  I was reckoned a fairish good-lookin’ chap till now, but this accident has spiled my looks for me.  Tell me the trewth.  Am I such an object that any maid would run away from me, or is it jest Susan that’s extra pertic’lar?”

Lizzie raised her honest brown eyes and gazed at him steadily.

“You’re not an object, Mr. Locke,” she said thoughtfully.  “Dear no, not at all an object.  I think a body ’ud soon get used to—to one side bein’ a little different from t’other.  But some maids takes notions, ye see.  My mother said she never could abide red hair.  If father’d hev been a red-haired man she’d never ha’ married him.  Now I think ’tis much the same as any other colour.”

Tom slowly straightened himself.  A smile was hovering about his mouth.

p. 133“You think I’d look better with a glass eye?” he inquired.

“Well,” returned Lizzie dispassionately, “I think it ’ud be very nice for Sundays, Mr. Locke.  Sundays an’ market-days, or when ye was goin’ for a drive in the trap, or such like.”

“I see,” said Tom, meditatively stroking his beard.  “P’r’aps I’ll talk to doctor about it.”

“Oh, do,” she urged eagerly.  “I d’ ’low Susan ’ll be real pleased.”

“Ah!” said Tom.  “Be ye goin’ home now, Lizzie?”

“Yes.  I only came this way to see you.”

“Oh, an’ did ye?  Well, ’twas very kindly done of you.  Come, I’ll walk a piece of the way with you.”

He walked a piece of the way—indeed, he walked all the way; and Lizzie thought within herself, as they trudged along, that if any stranger met them who did not know them, he might have taken them for sweethearts; for they walked in almost unbroken silence, just as courting people did, and Tom kept very close to her, and when they came to a rough piece of road he supported her by the elbow, just as he might have done if she had been Susan.

p. 134That young lady happened to be leaning languidly against her door-post when the couple drew near.  She had been looking up the road as though expecting somebody, and at sight of Tom uttered a faint shriek and rushed into the house, closing the door.

“Pore Susan!” cried Lizzie commiseratingly.  “It has given her a turn to see you.”

Locke made no reply, but, after a moment, coming to the precipitous descent which led downwards from the bridge, he supported Lizzie very kindly, and was indeed good enough at one particularly stony bit to encircle her waist with his arm.  They parted at the Adlams’ door, and Lizzie tripped joyfully upstairs.

“It’s all right,” she cried gaily.  “He’s promised to see about gettin’ a new eye, Susan.”

Miss Adlam turned abruptly away from the window where she chanced to be standing, and cast a suspicious glance upon her friend.

“What was Tom Locke’s arm doin’ round your waist?” she inquired.

“Why, the path was so steep,” explained Lizzie, opening her eyes very wide.  “What’s the matter, Susan?  Bain’t ye so well this evenin’?”

p. 135For Susan was making an odd sort of gulping noise.

“Ye sly thing!” she burst out suddenly.  “Lard! I wouldn’t be so treecherous—that I wouldn’t; running after en afore my very eyes.  Get along with ’ee, do.  I’ll have nothin’ more to say to ’ee.”

Lizzie stared for a moment, thunderstruck, her usually rosy face turning quite pale, and tears presently rushing to her eyes.

“Well, Susan,” she said, as soon as she had recovered her breath, “I didn’t think it of ’ee to turn on me so sudden.  I never did nothin’ but what was for yer good.  I thought it ’ud plaze ye.  But there, you can manage en for yourself now.  I don’t care if Tom Locke doesn’t get no new eye at all.”

She hurried from the room, leaving Susan convulsively choking and sobbing.

“Dear heart! dear heart! she’s took wi’ the westeria again,” groaned Mrs. Adlam, as she went creaking up the stairs.

But little Lizzie made no response.  Her cheeks were red enough now, and she metaphorically shook the dust of the Adlam premises from her feet as she closed the garden gate behind her.

She kept religiously away from her former p. 136friend throughout the week, but when Sunday came round that young lady actually condescended to pay her a visit.  Susan arrived attired in white, with a wreath of daisies round her hat, and a great bunch of monthly roses in her waistband; the coils of her fair hair shone like gold in the sunlight—she was a harmony of white and pink and yellow, very pleasant to behold, particularly as her face was flushed with unwonted excitement, and her eyes were bright and eager.

Lizzie received her in the orchard, where she was feeding the chickens.  She was not yet dressed for the afternoon, it being her mother’s turn to go to church, and various household duties falling in consequence to her share to-day; but she had put on the clean print which was to serve her throughout the coming week, and a big white apron over that.  Her curly brown hair was plaited very neatly, and her sleeves rolled up high on her firm plump arms.  The sun glanced down through the heavily laden apple boughs upon her active little figure as she flitted from one hen-coop to another dispensing handfuls of yellow meal to the half-fledged chickens that ran in and out between the bars; her bright tin bucket glittered in the rays, and the little brown tendrils on her forehead danced up and down with the rapidity of her movements.

“Oh, Lizzie, I’ve such a piece of news for you!”

p. 137“Oh, it’s you,” she remarked, not quite so cordially as usual.

“Yes, it’s me,” cried Susan eagerly.  “Oh, Lizzie, I’ve such a piece of news for you!  Tom Locke has been away all the week, and they d’ say he’s jest come back wi’ two eyes—a new imitation one that looks jest the same as t’other.”

“Has he truly?” responded Lizzie, her lingering resentment forgotten, and a broad smile beaming on her face.  “Why, I am glad, I am, sure.  Ye’ll be willin’ to take up wi’ en now, Susan?”

“I’ll see,” responded the other, with a little toss of the head.  “I can’t answer for myself altogether, but I’ll try to conquer my feelin’s.  I’m jest thinkin’ o’ takin’ a stroll over the bridge yonder an’ up the lane towards Locke’s.  An’ if I do happen to meet en we’ll see how things turns out, Lizzie.”

But it chanced that the meeting with Tom Locke was to take place under different circumstances than those which his sweetheart had anticipated.  At that very moment the portly form of Mrs. Fripp emerged from the p. 138back door of the cottage, followed by the tall figure of a man—a man whose bearded brown face was enlivened by a pair of beautiful brown eyes.  He advanced straight to Lizzie, beaming with pleasure and manly pride.

“Good day to ’ee, Lizzie,” he cried.  “I’ve jest come to ax if ye’ll go for a walk wi’ me.”

“Oh, Mr. Locke, ye mane Susan, surely?” stammered the little rosy-faced damsel.

“Ah, you didn’t see that I was here,” said Susan, coming forward with a coquettish sidle and a fatuous smile.

“Nay, Susan, I seed ye very well.  I was sorry to hear ye was so porely—I hope ye’re feelin’ a trifle better now.  Well, Lizzie my dear, ye’ll gi’e me an answer, won’t ye?  I’ll be truly pleased to take ’ee for a walk.”

The two girls looked at one another; the fiery light of animosity beginning to shine in Susan’s eyes; wonder, confusion, and a kind of doubtful pleasure perceptible in Lizzie’s.

“Ye see ’tis this way,” proceeded Locke, in an affably explanatory tone, “I took yer advice, Lizzie, an’ got fixed wi’ a new eye at Bristol.  An’ ye wouldn’t believe the difference it has made to my sight.  Lard! I wonder I could ha’ been so blind before!  But I see p. 139clear now at last, an’ I see, my maid, that you’re the wife for me.”

*   *   *   *   *

The seizure which overtook Susan Adlam on realising that Tom Locke’s mind was irrevocably made up would have thrilled the whole village, had not the interest once evoked by her uncommon delicacy of constitution been now entirely absorbed in admiring contemplation of Tom Locke’s artificial eye.  The fact of Susan Adlam’s being subject to attacks of that remarkable malady with the high-sounding name did, no doubt, confer a certain distinction upon the neighbourhood; but what was that compared with the lustre of having in their midst a man with a removable eye?  An eye that could be pocketed when not in immediate use, and assumed at a moment’s notice when it was desired to create a favourable impression.

The new Mrs. Locke, being a thrifty soul, did not encourage too frequent a use of this wonderful adornment; and, indeed, it was universally felt that the spectacle would somewhat lose in value if it were made too cheap.  But little Lizzie, though she was the humblest of her sex, felt a modest glow of pride when she sat beside her p. 140husband in the spring-cart; and on Sundays her devotion was somewhat disturbed by the pleasant consciousness that, at sermon time, the glances of the congregation wandered frequently from the countenance of the preacher towards the preternaturally alert orb of her Thomas.

p. 141THE ROSY PLATE.

“Where thy treasure is, there also is thy heart.”

When old Maria Stickly had come slowly hobbling down the narrow stairs each morning, and had passed through the rickety door which admitted her into the kitchen, her first glance was directed towards the plate which occupied a prominent and central position on the topmost shelf of the dresser.

Hands which had long since mouldered into dust had driven into this shelf the two nails, rusty with age, which kept it from slipping.  Maria herself had, many, many years before, constructed the little cloth pad which supported its upper rim; and her first act after lighting the fire and sweeping the tiled floor was to possess herself of this treasure, and carefully and lovingly polish every inch of its already shining surface with a soft cloth kept for the purpose.

This plate, the Rosy Plate, as Maria called p. 142it, though, in truth, the large crimson flower which sprawled over its centre in the midst of foliage of a kind totally unknown to botanists might just as well have been likened to a peony or a hollyhock, had played a very important part in its owner’s career—in fact, it might have been called the arbiter of her destiny.  Maria used to tell the story sometimes when her nearest neighbour, good-natured, overworked Mrs. Andrews, who lived on the top of the hill a mile away, dropped in to rest on her return home after a marketing expedition, the results of which took up so much room in the perambulator that “the twin,” a fine healthy pair of four-year-old boys, the youngest of her family, had to take it by turns to walk.

Very hot and tired used poor Mrs. Andrews to be by the time she reached this halting-place, very fractious were the children, the pedestrian hanging on to his mother’s skirts and wailing intermittingly, while the proud occupant of the “pram” kicked viciously at the parcels as they encroached on the space usually allotted to his own fat little legs, and uttered piercing shrieks when his exhausted mother reproved him with certain admonitory but wholly innocuous taps.  No wonder that p. 143at such times as these Mrs. Stickly’s little cottage appeared a very haven of rest, and the sight of her kind old ruddy face peering out between the geraniums in the little window was as welcome as the face of an angel.

“Walk in, Mrs. Andrews, dear, do ’ee now, an’ sit ye down.  Tommy!—that bain’t never Tommy a-cryin’, I’m sure.  And here’s little Walter a-sittin’ so good in his pram, bless his little ’eart—he wouldn’t cry.  Come in, come in, and see what Mrs. Stickly have a-got ye.  A little bird did tell I as there was a slice o’ bread an’ sugar in the cupboard for two good boys.  I wonder who they can be!  Come in, Mrs. Andrews, an’ rest ye a bit; I’ve got the tea drawed all ready, down here in the chimbley corner—he’ll be nice and strong, for he’ve a-been made nigh half a hour.”

“’Tis wonderful kind o’ you, Mrs. Stickly,” Mrs. Andrews would probably return, jamming the pram into a convenient angle behind the door-post, and heaving a weary sigh as she entered the cosy little kitchen.  “’Tis what I should never ha’ thought on, I’m sure.  I should never ha’ looked for sich a thing.  But a cup o’ tea is a blessin’ when a body have been so far as I’ve been.  Two lumps, if you please—thank you—that’ll do nice.  Sit ye p. 144down, Tommy, and Walter, stand here quiet aside o’ me.  If you be good little boys, Mrs. Stickly ’ull maybe show you the rosy plate afore we do go home.”

Then Tommy and Walter would munch their bread-and-sugar in blissful silence, and make themselves amazingly sticky, and stare with all their might at the crimson-bedecked trophy which gleamed down at them from its eminence on the dresser.  And when Mrs. Andrews had drunk her tea, and told her kind hostess all her troubles—how her master was only working four days a week, or how Teddie had got sore eyes, or how Susanna had an impression on her chest, or, perhaps, how she herself had been that bad last week with a sore throat that if anybody had comed to her wi’ a cup o’ tea in one hand and a poker in the other, she would have been forced to choose the poker; and when Mrs. Stickly had duly groaned and shaken her head in sympathy, the desire of the “twin” was acceded to, and the rosy plate was carefully taken down and submitted to the admiring inspection of the two pairs of round sloe-black eyes.

Mrs. Andrews well knew that this little ceremony caused quite as much pleasure to p. 145Mrs. Stickly as to the children, and it was, perhaps, on this account chiefly that she asked for it, and that, moreover, busy as she was, with a thousand odd jobs waiting for her at home, she lingered a little longer in order to hearken to the oft-told tale of the rosy plate, and of all that it represented to its owner.  Leaning back in Mrs. Stickly’s best chair with the patchwork cushion, and the knitted antimacassar astride on its shiny wooden back, she would fold her arms, heave a sigh of sentimental reminiscence, and remark tentatively:

“Dear, yes, Mrs. Stickly, they poor innocents don’t have no notion of all as that there pretty plate have a-brought about.  Nay, that they haven’t.  But ye could tell a tale about that plate, couldn’t ’ee, Mrs. Stickly?”

“Ah, that I could,” the old woman would say, swallowing the bait eagerly.  “My poor husband, you know—Stickly—he did give it I when first he was a-coortin’ me.”

“So I think I’ve heard you say,” Mrs. Andrews would return, with placid interest.  “Ye’d jist a-had a miff afore he give it ye.”

“E—es, we did have a bit of a miff that time; and we shouldn’t never ha’ made it up, I don’t think, if Stickly hadn’t give me the rosy plate.”

“He did buy it for ’ee at Shroton, didn’t p. 146he?” Mrs. Andrews would say, needing perhaps to recall her hostess to the present by some such reminder, for frequently, when talking of these far-away times, Mrs. Stickly’s faded blue eyes would assume a dreamy look, and it would become evident that her thoughts had strayed away from her interlocutrix to the bygone days, when she was a handsome young lass, and Stickly and his peers had come “a-coortin’.”

“Ah, he did buy it for I there—there was more nor him did want to buy it for I.  Dear heart alive, I can mind it so well as if it were yesterday.  I were reckoned a good-lookin’ maid in those days—I did use to have a very good colour, and my hair was curly and yollow—as yollow as the corn, Stickly did say sometimes—and there was a good many arter me one way and another.  There was Tom Boyt—a farmer’s son he were—and there was ’Neas Stuckhey—”

“Strange,” Mrs. Andrews occasionally murmured at this moment, for the coincidence never failed to strike her, “Stuckhey and Stickly—the two names do sound very much alike.  ’Tis odd how things do come about—ye chose Stickly, and it mid jist as well ha’ been Stuckhey.”

p. 147To this profound remark Mrs. Stickly would probably assent, and would then continue:—

“E—es, a lot o’ us young folks did set off for Shroton Fair that day.  There was me, and Annie Boyt, Tom’s sister, and Rose Paddock; and there was Tom, and ’Neas, and my John—that’s Stickly, though I didn’t call him my John then—and a young man from Shillingstone, whose name I can’t mind at the present time, but he was a-coortin’ of Annie.  And as we did all want to go together, Tom and Annie did persuade their father to let ’em take one o’ his waggons; so we did have two harses wi’ bells to their harness, and what wi’ the bells, and what wi’ the maids singin’, and the lads shoutin’, and the waggon rattlin’, and the harses’ feet a-hammerin’ the road, I can tell ’ee we did make some noise as we was a-goin’ along.  The folks turned to look at us as we droved through the villages, and the childern did run after us, and did cry out ‘Bring us a fairin’, folks!  Bring us a fairin’ from Shroton!’  And Tom did say—Tom was al’ays free wi’ his money—he did call out, ‘Well, be good childern; we’ll mayhap bring you back a few ginger-nuts.’

“Well, we was the best o’ friends, an’ so merry as ever we could be.  I had a bonnet p. 148lined wi’ pink and a pink ribbon to tie it wi’, and a pink sash—folks did wear sashes then—and a frock—ah, I can call to mind that frock!  It were the purtiest I ever did have in my life; there was little bunches o’ roses all over it a-tied together wi’ knots o’ blue ribbon—not real blue ribbon, ye know—’twas just the pattern on the stuff, but they was wonderful purty.  My mother did say to I when I was a-gettin’ it out, ‘Ye’ll scarce be warm enough in that, Maria’; and I did say, ‘Oh, e—es, mother, I’ll be warm enough—there be so many on us a-goin’ we’ll keep each other warm.’  And mother didn’t say nothin’, but she just went to her box, and she did take out her best shawl as she’d been married in, and she did say, ‘There, my maid, ’ee can take that too; for thou art a careful maid and won’t let it come to harm.’

“Well, as I say, we was a merry crew!  Dear heart alive, that was we!  There be times, Mrs. Andrews, when I be sittin’ here so lonesome by the fire, an’ I do say to myself, ‘Was that really me—that vitty young maid! (for I were reckoned a handsome maid in those days, Mrs. Andrews) as rode in the big waggon that sunshiny day?’  Thinks I to myself, ‘It can never have been me—I p. 149must ha’ dreamed it’; and then I do look up and see the rosy plate shinin’ in the firelight, and I do say to myself, ‘Well, it were I, arter all’; and it’s somethin’ to think as a body was once so young an’ so merry.”

“True, true,” her neighbour would agree.  “But you was a-tellin’ me about the childern a-runnin’ arter the waggon—I suppose it did not take you so very long to get to Shroton?”

“Nay, we did get there early in the forenoon, and then John did want me to go and see the harses jump, and the others was all for goin’ straight off on the roundabouts.  ‘I’ll treat ye, Maria,’ says Tom.  ‘And thank you kindly, Tom,’ says I.  And then I did turn round and see poor John a-lookin’ very downhearted, so I did smile at en over my shoulder, and did say, soft like, ‘Do ’ee come, too, John.’

“‘Nay,’ says John, very quiet.  ‘I think not, Maria.  Two be company, and three be none, ye know.’  ‘Oh, well,’ says I, just to tease en, ‘if you like to see your old harses jumpin’ better nor to ride along of I, so ye may for all I care.  Which be the way, Tom?’

“‘Why, don’t ’ee hear the music over there?’ says Tom; but ’twas hard to hear anythin’ the way the folks was a-talkin’ and a-laughin’; and what wi’ the shootin’, and the knockin’ p. 150down cocoa-nuts, and the roundabouts all a-playin’ different tunes at the same time, and the showmen shoutin’, and the drums a-beatin’, the noise was enough to dather a body.

“‘Take my arm,’ says Tom; and Annie did pair off with her young man, and Rose did catch hold o’ ’Neas as bold as brass, though he looked a bit glum, I can tell ’ee, for ’twere me as he wanted, d’ye see?  And poor John were left all alone.  I were feelin’ vexed, I suppose, but now, when I do look back on that day, it do seem to I as if I must ha’ been mad.  My mother ’ud ha’ scolded if she’d a-known how I did behave that day.  First I did go in the roundabout wi’ Tom, and then I did have another ride wi’ ’Neas, and there was Rose a-lookin’ on very cross, for Tom wouldn’t treat her; and the crosser she did look the more I did toss my head and laugh and talk wi’ ’Neas, and then ’twas Tom’s turn to pull a long face.

“And then I did go wi’ Tom in the swings, and then we did all have a game at Aunt Sally, and I did win; and ’Neas gi’ed me a bagful o’ ginger-nuts, and Tom a box for pins, and Annie’s young man come sidlin’ up too, and says he, ‘I must gi’e ye something too, p. 151Maria, for I do think,’ says he, ‘as you be queen of the fair’.  And he did buy me a lot o’ sticky sweet stuff as I took one bite on and then dropped when he weren’t a-lookin’.  But ye should ha’ seed Annie’s face.  ‘I think I’ll go and look for John,’ says she, and her two eyes did shine much like cat’s eyes in the dark; but she didn’t go arter John, all the same.

“Well, we did come at last to one o’ the booths where they were a-sellin’ china stuff: mugs, and vases, and teapots, and cups, and plates, and as we stopped to look at ’em the old woman as was a-sellin’ did hold up the rosy plate, and says she to I, ‘Do ’ee buy en, my maid.  The flowers be jist the same colour as they purty cheeks o’ yourn.  You be a real rose, for sure,’ she did say, ‘and you did ought to have the rosy plate.’

“I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled out my handkercher, for I’d a-tied up my dibs in the corner.  My mother did gi’e me eightpence to buy fairin’s wi’, but I hadn’t naught but a ha’penny left.

“‘That’s all I have,’ says I, holdin’ it up and laughin’; ‘will ye sell it me for that?’

“‘Nay now,’ says the old woman; ‘this here plate do cost a shillin’.’

p. 152“Well, everybody knows, of course, as these here folks do always ax twice so much as they’re willin’ to take; so Tom laughed, and says he:

“‘Come, I’ll gi’e ye sixpence for ’t.’

“‘Nay,’ says ’Neas, steppin’ up, ‘I’m the man as must give the rose o’ Shroton Fair the rosy plate.’

“So Rose Paddock did begin to smile and to smirk, and to think it were she as he meant; but I knowed very well it were me.

“‘The rose o’ the fair,’ says ’Neas, ‘must have a rosy plate for to match the roses on her cheeks and the roses on her frock.’  And poor Rose did look sour, for her frock was brown all over, wi’ jist a bunch o’ blue ribbons at the neck.

“‘I’ll gi’e ye eightpence for the rosy plate,’ says ’Neas.

“Nay, let me have it for tenpence!’ hollers Tom.

“‘ A shillin’!’ says Annie’s young man all of a sudden; it did really seem, Mrs. Andrews, as if he couldn’t hold back.

“‘Eighteenpence!’ says ’Neas.

“‘Two shillin’!’ cries Tom.”

“Tch, tch, tch,” commented Mrs. Andrews, clicking her tongue in amazed condemnation p. 153of such wanton extravagance, though she knew quite as well as Mrs. Stickly what was coming next.

“If you’ll believe me,” said Maria triumphantly, “they did run up the price o’ that there plate to five shillin’ before they’d done!  Five shillin’!  That were Tom’s bid; and ’Neas, he did laugh and shake his head and say, ‘’Tis half my week’s wages—I can’t go no further, Maria; ye must take the will for the deed.’

“Annie’s young man had dropped off some time before, so now the plate were knocked down to Tom; and he did put his hand in his pocket like a lord and pull out his money.  But when he did come to count it there weren’t above four-and-sixpence all together.

“‘Lend me sixpence, somebody,’ says he.

“Thank ’ee for nothin’,’ says ’Neas; ‘if it be goin’ for four-and-sixpence I’ll have it myself.’

“‘An’ I’m sure I sha’n’t lend you sixpence, Tom,’ says Annie’s young man.  ‘It be simple waste to gi’e so much for that there plate.’

“‘Well, ’tis a deal o’ money, surely,’ says Tom.  Folks were a-gatherin’ round, d’ye see, and starin’, and laughin’, and nudgin’ of each other, and Tom began to feel he were lookin’ a fool.

p. 154“‘There’ll be naught left for a bit o’ nuncheon,’ says he, half to himself.

“‘Oh, pray don’t waste your money on I,’ says I, and the tears did spring to my eyes.

“‘That’s true, too,’ said ’Neas to Tom, ‘we ha’n’t had a bite yet, nor so much as a glass o’ beer.’

“It looked as if I were not a-goin’ to have my plate at all, though they’d all been fightin’ who was a-goin’ to give it to I.  I’m sure my cheeks was redder than any roses could be, as I stood listenin’ to ’em; and all at once I raised my eyes, and there was John lookin’ across at me.  And then I did feel myself go pale, and my head did begin to go round and round, I were that ashamed o’ myself and of all as had been goin’ on.  But the next thing I did hear was John’s voice:—

“‘Five shillin’, did ye say?  There it is; I’ll take it.’  And in another minute he’d a-put the plate in my hand.

“‘There it be, my maid,’ says he; ‘I don’t think it too much to give since you fancy it.’

“‘Well done!’ cries the folks; ‘here be the right man at last, ’tis the proper spirit for a lover.’  And then they began to clap en on the back, and to laugh, and wish him well, and ax him when the weddin’ was to be, p. 155and I don’t know what besides.  I did scarce know which way to look, I were that ashamed, and yet that pleased; and John he did pull my hand through his arm, and he did lead I out of the row of booths, and away from the crowd, till we come to a quiet corner of the big field, and there we did sit down, and he did say, smilin’ like:—

“‘Next year ye’ll come to see the harses wi’ me, Maria?’

“‘E—es,’ said I, hanging down my head; ‘I’ll go wherever ye ax me, John.’

“‘Then will ye come to church wi’ me, my maid?’ says he; ‘will ye be my wife, Maria?’

“Ah, that were how we did make it up between us; and he did al’ays say as it were the rosy plate as done it.  We were wed before the year were out, and the first thing Stickly did do was to make a place for that there plate upon the dresser.  And as years went by and the childern come, he used to lift ’em up to see it.  Each did have leave to eat out of it on its birthday—we did use to put a little bit o’ cake upon the rosy plate, and set it by the birthday child; and ye should ha’ seen how j’yful it would look.”

“Ah, sure,” commented Mrs. Andrews.  “’Twould be nice to have a bit o’ cake on p. 156sich a beautiful plate, wouldn’t it, Walter?  That ’ud be a nice birthday treat for any little boy.”

“I do often mind me o’ them days,” Mrs. Stickly resumed.  “Dear, yes!  I do often think I hear the little voices and the little feet, and see father—that’s Stickly—a-liftin’ up the youngest un to look at the plate.  ’Tis very near like a book to me, that plate.  I mid ha’ wrote in it all the joys and sorrows o’ my life—what I’ve a-had and what I’ve a-lost—I do mind ’em all when I look at it.  Mary, the only maid I had, did cut her weddin’ cake on this here plate—she was a vitty bride—but she died wi’ her first baby; an’ John did ’list for a soldier, and were killed out abroad, and James and ’Lias died o’ the fever when they was quite little.  E—es, I did lose ’em all; me and Stickly was a-left alone by the fire in the end, and now there be nobody but I.  They be all a-gone before I to the New House.  I’ll jine ’em there some day, Mrs. Andrews.”

And then Mrs. Andrews would agree and condole, and begin to think it was time for her to move; and Tommy and Walter would have their mufflers tied round their necks, and the party would start off homewards, while p. 157Mrs. Stickly, with a sigh and a smile, would restore the rosy plate to its place.

The little house at the hill-foot occupied, as has been said, a somewhat solitary position, being a mile from any other habitation; but it never seemed to occur to any one that in the case of illness or accident its owner would find herself in a somewhat sorry plight.

When in the middle of a bright, frosty, wintry night, therefore, Mrs. Andrews was awakened by a loud knocking at her door and piteous cries for help, and when, on throwing open her casement and leaning out, she recognised the small figure standing on her threshold as Mrs. Stickly, her astonishment was mingled with some measure of indignation.

“Goodness gracious, Mrs. Stickly, whatever brings you here at this time o’ night?—I be frightened out o’ my wits!  Has anything happened?”

“What in the world be amiss?” inquired the deep tones of Mr. Andrews from under the bed-clothes.

“Oh, come down, come down, good folks, for pity’s sake!” wailed the nocturnal visitor; “my house be a-fire—’tis a mercy I weren’t burnt in my bed!”

p. 158“Your house a-fire!” gasped Mrs. Andrews in genuine concern; and thereupon ensued the hasty thud of Mr. Andrews’ bare feet upon the floor.  “I’ll let you in in a minute!  Dear heart alive! what a misfortune, to be sure!”

In another moment her hospitable but scantily clad figure appeared in the doorway, and a kind, warm hand drew the shivering, sobbing little figure to the kitchen within.

“Ye be as cold as any stone,” she said; “don’t ’ee cry so, Mrs. Stickly dear, Andrews ’ull be down in a minute, and I’ll call Mr. Butt, next door, and a few more chaps—they’ll soon put it out!  Don’t ’ee fret so.”

“Oh, Mrs. Andrews,” gasped the poor old woman, “it be all blazin’ and roarin’—the roof be all a-fire!  I think it must ha’ been a spark lit on it.  It were that cold, d’ye see, I’d made me up a good fire to warm me before I went to bed—I had some nice logs, and I think a spark from ’em must have lit upon the roof.  I woke up chokin’, and couldn’t see wi’ the smoke, but I dressed and ran downstairs so fast as I could, and there were more smoke in the kitchen.  I could scarce find my way to the dresser, but I crope about until I got there, and ketched hold of the rosy plate, and then out I ran.”

p. 159By this time Mr. Andrews had joined them, and soon a little relief party was organised, and set off with all speed to the scene of the disaster; but long before they reached the spot the would-be rescuers agreed that the task was hopeless.  The old thatch was now one sheet of flame; every window of the little dwelling was defined in fire; the crackling of the crazy woodwork and the roar of the blaze could be heard almost half a mile away.  The men halted and looked at each other blankly.

“It’s ten to one if there’s a drap o’ water handy at this time o’ night,” said Abel Butt, putting into words the thought which was, indeed, present in the minds of all.

“Mrs. Stickly did say as her well was froze,” observed Andrews gloomily; “but we’d best go on all the same and see what can be done.”

They went forward again, but more slowly, and in silence.  Before they reached the house, however, the roof fell in with a crash and a roar, wrecking the little home it once had sheltered.

For some weeks Maria was prostrated by the shock.  Mrs. Andrews did all she could for her, but as time went on the question of ways and means became a serious one.  p. 160Andrews was not in full work that winter, and there were many little mouths to feed, and, moreover, the anticipated arrival of a successor to the “twin” would shortly incapacitate Mrs. Andrews from attending to her helpless charge.  All poor old Maria’s household gods had perished in the flames; she had already for some years been in the receipt of outdoor relief from the parish, on which, together with the produce of her garden, and the eggs laid by her hens, she had hitherto contrived to live.  But now, what was to be done?  The cottage was burnt to the ground, and the landlord, though kind and tolerant with regard to certain arrears of rent, was not inclined to rebuild it; moreover, it would be dangerous for Maria in her enfeebled state to resume her former solitary life.

Much anxious consultation on the part of friends and well-wishers resulted in the halting one day outside Mrs. Andrews’ door of a cab, from which descended a neat, bright-eyed little woman in the uniform of a hospital nurse.  It was, indeed, no other than the district nurse from the town of Branston, who, at the request of the authorities, had undertaken to escort Maria to the Union.

Mrs. Andrews met her on the doorstep.

p. 161“I’ve got her ready,” she said, in an agitated whisper.  “She’s dressed all but her bonnet and shawl, and they’re quite handy, but I haven’t had the heart to tell her yet.  It do seem hard for a poor old body.  I d’ ’low it’s cruel hard.”

“You want me to tell her, in fact,” said the nurse.  “Well, it all comes in the day’s work, I suppose, and we can’t keep the cab waiting.”

She went into the kitchen, and sat down by the small shrunken figure in the elbow-chair.  Unpleasant tasks had frequently fallen to Nurse Margaret’s lot during the course of her professional career: she had had to announce impending bereavement to many an anxious family; she had not infrequently given a truthful answer to those patients who, already in the death-throes, had asked if their end were near; but never yet had she been called upon to perform a duty so painful as that of making this honest, decent, gentle, little old woman realise that she was to end her days in the workhouse.

She did realise it, though.  Nurse Margaret saw the wrinkled face blanch, and the mouth quiver, and the eyes grow wide with horror and alarm; and then, just as she was preparing for an outburst of tears and protests, she saw, p. 162to her surprise, the poor old creature brace herself, and presently the answer came, given with a certain quiet dignity:—

“Well, Miss, I’ll come.  I don’t wish to be a burden to nobody.  ’Twon’t be for long, very like.”

Mrs. Andrews came out of her entrenchment behind the door, and tied on Maria’s bonnet and shawl, with many tears and inarticulate apologies.

“Don’t ’ee take on, my dear,” said Maria, with the same gentle dignity.  “It bain’t none o’ your fault.  I’m very thankful to ye for what you’ve done.”

“When I’m over my trouble I’ll come to see you,” gasped the good hostess, whose face was glazed with ineffectual grief.  “They’ll—they’ll take good care of ye there, I’m told; and maybe better times will come, and we can get ’ee out again.”

Maria smiled; she knew very well that she would never come out again.

“I could wish,” she said presently, “I had some little things to give the childern, Mrs. Andrews, but I’ve nought in the wide world but the clothes on my back, and the rosy plate—and that I can never part with so long as I live.  Give it to me,” she said, after a p. 163pause, pointing to where her treasure lay safely ensconced in a drawer of the chest in the corner.

Mrs. Andrews produced it, but, as she crossed the kitchen towards her friend, Nurse Margaret looked at her meaningly, and slowly shook her head.

“I’m afraid they won’t let her keep it,” she said, under her breath.

“’Twill fair break her heart if they don’t,” whispered the other.  “Do ’ee try an’ persuade ’em, Miss.”

The nurse shook her head again, but promised to try; and then Maria was slowly hoisted from her chair, and supported across the kitchen and into the cab.  She returned Mrs. Andrews’ farewell embrace, and sat looking before her vacantly as the cab drove away.

Nurse Margaret’s surmise proved only too correct; those who passed through the stony portals of the Union found themselves as completely denuded of this world’s gear as though those gates had been in very truth the Gates of Death.  Maria possessed a comfortable warm shawl, with which she was accustomed to envelop her chilly old frame when in bed; but she was informed that she could not be allowed to keep it.

p. 164When this shawl and her warm clothes were taken away from her, and she was clad in the regulation garments, she was told that probably in a week or so a kind lady who visited the Union would knit her a shawl.

“But mine be quite good,” said Maria, feebly.  “I d’ ’low I’d rather have my own.  ’Twouldn’t be the same.  My own shawl, d’ye see—” she broke off suddenly, her lip trembling.

“Hers is quite clean,” said Nurse Margaret: “could she not be allowed to have it?”  Possibly she realised something of what was passing in Maria’s mind: a lingering sense of personal dignity—the last vestige of proud independence; the natural clinging, almost childish in its tenacity, to what was her “very own”.  Perhaps there were associations connected with that shawl that made it doubly precious; it might have been an heirloom, it might have been a gift—even if purchased only by the wearer herself out of long and carefully hoarded savings, how much would such a fact add to its value.

“Quite impossible,” returned the matron with decision.  “We cannot make an exception.  They would all want to wear their own dirty, fusty things and there would be no end p. 165to it.  But everything will he taken good care of, and given back to her when she leaves.”

“She is seventy-five now,” said Nurse Margaret.  “She has not a friend in the world, nor, I believe, a penny.  I am afraid it is not very likely that better times will come for her.”

Maria had listened to this colloquy in a dazed, stupid way, and made no attempt to speak again until her precious plate was taken away from her, when she broke into clamorous protestations.

“Don’t, don’t ax me to part wi’ the rosy plate!  It be all as I’ve a-left in the world.  It’ll not take no room—I can jist keep it under my piller, and nobody ’ull know it be there.  Do ’ee now, ma’am, do ’ee let me keep it!”

But again she was confronted with those terrible rules; and she was led away, weeping bitterly, to her new quarters.

She found herself in the company of some twenty old women in a large whitewashed room.  Some were knitting, some were sewing, one dandling a hapless six-months-old baby, whose mother was at work in some other part of the establishment.

Maria sat down on the edge of the bed that was allotted to her, and looked vacantly round; p. 166one or two of the women spoke to her, but she scarcely heeded them.

A big bell clanged out presently, and she was told that it was for tea, and feebly followed in the wake of her companions, as they went trooping down a flagged passage and into a large room with a long table running down its centre—a bare deal table with benches on either side, each place being marked by a tin mug and a hunch of bread, on the top of which was laid a lump of butter or cheese.

Maria’s right-hand neighbour instantly began to spread her butter with her thumb.  The younger woman on her left took alternate mouthfuls from the cheese and the bread.

“Bain’t there no knives nor plates?” inquired Maria, suddenly awaking to the fact of their absence.

“Can’t you see for yourself there bain’t?” was the response.  “You’d best begin—they don’t give us so very long.”

“But why bain’t there no plates?” persisted Maria.

“What does it matter about plates?” grumbled the other.  “I’d be willin’ enough to do wi’out plates—’tis the food as I mind.  You’ve got butter—all the old folks have that, p. 167but they chuck us younger ones a bit o’ cheese as hard as a paving stone.”

Maria looked at her lump of bread with its triangular portion of butter set forth on the bare board, and wept.  This was what she had come to, she, Maria Stickly, who had always throughout her long, honest, struggling life held up her head with the best!  She bowed it now on her poor sunken chest, and sobbed aloud.

A long skinny hand presently hovered over her discarded portion, and her elder neighbour said, with a titter and a cunning look:—

“If ’ee don’t want it, ye’ll p’r’aps have no objection to my taking of it.”

And on its owner making no sign the transfer speedily took place.

“Nay now, that bain’t fair!” whispered the woman on the other side, angrily; “I claim half.  Her and me was a-speaking together first.”

They began to quarrel over the food, while Maria sobbed on between them; the sight of their inflamed faces and the sound of their angry, coarse words seemed to her to aggravate the indignity.

“The food be thrown down to us like dogs,” she said to herself, “an’ they be a-fightin’ over it like dogs!”

p. 168Presently the altercation attracted the attention of some one in authority, and the matter was inquired into, the fact being elicited that the new-comer had disdained her appointed portion.

“I haven’t never been used to take my meals wi’out no plate!” she protested with a burst of woe, for her outraged self-respect gave her courage.  “There must be plates here—folks couldn’t eat their dinner wi’out no plates, and if ’tis along o’ the washin’ up, there be a-many women here as could do it; I’d do it myself!”

But she was told not to give herself such airs.  When people came to the Union they mustn’t be so particular—she must be content to do as others did.  Plates indeed! there were no plates there, not even coffin plates!

This joke was duly appreciated, but it fell on poor old Maria’s bewildered ears with an ominous sound, as it were a knell of final doom. “Not even coffin plates!” she murmured to herself; and her tears ceased falling, and she sat gazing vaguely at the wrinkled hands clasped in her lap.  “Not even coffin plates!”  Her actual misery had hitherto prevented her from dwelling on that last inevitable end, but now it seemed to stare her in the face.  p. 169A pauper’s grave—that was what awaited her, as surely as death itself.

She passed the next few days in a sort of dream of anguish, hardly taking note of her surroundings; conforming, however, to the rules of the establishment, and eating, or trying to eat, the food allotted to her without further complaint or comment.  One morning, however, on endeavouring to rise, she fell sideways against her bed and fainted away.

When she recovered consciousness she found herself in a different part of the house, in the infirmary, indeed, and a nurse was supporting her, and the doctor stood by her bed.  As her dim eyes fixed themselves upon his face she recognised him: it was her own doctor; he had attended her—being a young man then—when James was born, and he had done his best for Stickly in his last illness.

“Why, Mrs. Stickly,” he said cheerily, “I didn’t expect to meet an old friend.”

“No, sir,” said Maria faintly, and the dim eyes grew still more dim.

“Well, well, they will take good care of you here—you will not want for anything.”

Maria’s lip trembled, but she said nothing; she followed the doctor appealingly with her eyes as he moved about the room.

p. 170“Poor old soul,” he said to the nurse, after meeting this piteous gaze, “she is eating out her heart here, but it won’t be for long—do all you can for her, nurse; she is breaking up fast.”

The old woman did not catch the words, but she saw the compassionate glance, and observed the infirmarian’s eyes directed towards her with a certain amount of interest—merely professional interest if she had but known it—and all at once a project took shape in her mind.  If she asked for the rosy plate now, perhaps they would not refuse her.

When the nurse inquired later on if she wished for anything, she took courage to proffer her petition, very feebly and incoherently.  There was a plate, a plate which belonged to her, the rosy plate as she called it; the lady kept it: the lady what lived in the room downstairs.  Would the nurse ask if she might have it—this in a strained and tremulous whisper—she would keep it under her bed-clothes and no one should see, but if she might just have it.

The nurse demurred, but good-naturedly, patting her pillows the while.  The matron, perhaps, would not be very well pleased if it p. 171were asked for; it was a little difficult to ask her to break the rules; and, after all, the plate couldn’t do Maria much good if it was to be kept under the bed-clothes.

“Oh, yes, it would,” pleaded Maria.

“Well, then, go to sleep, and we’ll see about it in the morning.”

But when the morning came the nurse was busy; and in the afternoon the matron was out.  Thus, on one pretext or another, the realisation of the poor old woman’s desire was perpetually postponed; and meanwhile she herself grew hourly weaker.  The feeble voice continued to falter her request whenever the nurse came near her bed, and when she moved away Maria’s pathetic gaze followed her, until the heavy lids dropped over the weary eyes, and she forgot for a little while her unfulfilled longing.

Once, on opening her eyes after one of these brief spells of slumber, she saw the doctor’s kind, familiar face looking down at her.  His voice had penetrated faintly to her inner consciousness before she had felt equal to the task of raising her lids.

“Sinking fast!”—these were the words that had fallen upon her ears.

With the opening of Maria’s eyes there p. 172had leaped into them the appeal which during her waking moments was never absent from them.  The doctor bent over her kindly.

“She wants something, poor old soul,” he said.  “What is it, Mrs. Stickly?  What can we do for you?”

Maria’s cold, feeble hands came suddenly out from under the bed-clothes, and closed round one of his: she rallied all her strength, and raised herself a little; a light flickered for a moment in her eyes.

“I want my plate,” she gasped: “they’ve took away—my rosy plate—and they won’t give it back to me!”

“Well, to be sure, she’s at that old plate again,” said the nurse; and she began, half vexed and half laughing, to relate the story to the doctor.

Maria had fallen back on her pillows, but she still clung desperately to the doctor’s hand, and her gaze never left his face.

“I want my plate,” she repeated, when the nurse paused.  “Do ’ee—ax ’em to give it to me.”

The doctor withdrew his hand, but very gently.

“In the name of heaven,” he cried, “give p. 173the poor old creature her plate!  She hasn’t many hours to live.”

And so Maria’s last desperate appeal succeeded, and the doctor smiled as he saw how eagerly she hugged it to her withered bosom.  He did not know that it represented for her Home, and all it had held of sweetness; that clasping it she possessed once more Youth, and Love, and Hope.

Once more he bent over her:

“All right now, Maria, eh?”

Maria smiled, and a new thought seemed to strike her.  “Doctor,” she said feebly, but confidently too, “will ’ee ax ’em to put it in my coffin?”

As dawn drew nigh the night nurse paused near Maria’s bed, then, coming closer, bent over it, then, turning up the light, bent lower still.  Straightening herself after a moment’s pause, she drew up the sheet softly over the old woman’s face.

But the thin arms beneath were folded close and the face wore a smile of bliss and peace, such as it might have worn more than half a century before, when, as a young mother, she had clasped her first-born to her breast.

*   *   *   *   *

p. 174“So she’s gone,” said the doctor.  “Well, what did you do about the plate?”

The nurse laughed, and twisted her apron.

“It seems a silly thing,” she said, “but there! it was the last thing she asked me, and I someway felt I had to do it.  I put it in her coffin.”

p. 175BECKY AND BITHEY.

No pleasanter place than Mrs. Meatyard’s dairy was to be found at any hour of the summer’s day; but it was a busy place too.  At early dawn the clatter of bright cans and the lowing of cows in the adjacent yard announced milking time, and men came staggering in with great foaming pails of milk and poured it, sweet and warm, into the shallow tins prepared for it.  A little later mistress and maid alike were busy skimming the thick folds of last night’s cream.  On churning days the regular splash, splash in the outer milk-house was the forerunner of the pleasant labour of butter-making.  On cheese days the huge vat had to be filled with gallons and gallons of milk, and then the rennet carefully measured out, and then Mrs. Meatyard and Rebecca took it in turns to “work” the curds; and what with this working, and putting the curds into presses, and running off the whey, and cleaning up afterwards, a body, as Rebecca p. 176frequently said, would be better off with four pair of hands nor with one.

Nevertheless there was something cheerful and delightful even to the workers about the bustle and stir—the sight of the rich milk, the faintly sour smell of the curds, the pure, sweet air that circled round hot faces through the wide open door, the little shifting lights and shades that played about shining tins and whitewashed walls as the branches of the trees that surrounded the house were set dancing in the wind.  Yes, Thorncombe Dairy was a pleasant place, and never more so than on this particular June afternoon, when the roses outside the milk-house door were in full bloom, and the sweet odours of the old-fashioned flowers in the borders beneath the windows came floating in to mingle with the homelier scents within.

Mrs. Meatyard had duly “cleaned herself” and changed her dress, and now, with the cuffs of her stuff gown turned up, was delicately enswathing roll after roll of golden butter in small squares of gauze, and packing them, when thus protected, in baskets ready for to-morrow’s market.  Old Rebecca was busy at the other end with scrubbing-brush and pail, “swilling down” the shelves.  Her spare p. 177form was encased in a somewhat faded cotton garment, the sleeves of which were rolled up high; the sparse wisps of her grey hair were ruffled and untidy, but her ruddy, wrinkled old face was cheery and good-tempered, and she crooned a song to herself as she scrubbed the boards.

In the outer milk-house one of the labourers was also at work cleaning up, hissing as he used the broom as though he were rubbing down a horse, and every now and then making a great clatter with the piled-up cans.

Through the open door the imposing form of the “master” could be seen leaning over the gate which opened into the farmyard, contemplating the operations of two of the farm hands who were engaged in cleaning an outhouse.  On the cobble-stones near his feet pigeons were strutting up and down, bowing and cooing; a little group of calves lay sunning themselves in a corner of the yard, flapping their ears and waving their tails as the flies teased them.  Cocks and hens were crowing and clucking, pigs were grunting, sheep and lambs in the pasture behind the house were bleating, bees in the lime-blossom were humming, and throughout p. 178all the din of outdoor life Rebecca’s quavering, voice could be plainly heard:—

For Do’set dear
Then gi’e woone cheer;
D’ye hear?  Woone cheer.

But louder even than her ditty sounded all at once a shrill, tuneful whistle, and the head of a young man came presently in sight, moving rapidly along the irregular line of hedge that divided the farm premises from the lane; and presently the owner of the head rounded the corner and entered the yard.

“’Tis you, Charl’?” observed Farmer Meatyard, without removing his pipe from his mouth.  “You be come in nice time to fetch cows up.”

“Jist what I was a-thinkin’,” said Charl’.  “I was kept a bit longer in town nor I looked for, but I did hear sich a funny bit o’ noos.”

“Did ’ee now?” inquired his father, much interested.

“’Ees, I do ’low I did.  That there new show as they be all a-talkin’ about—the Agricultural Show they calls it—ye wouldn’t never think what they be goin’ to give a prize for.”

“Why, I did hear, all sarts,” returned the father a trifle impatiently.  “Harses and p. 179cattle and pigs, and cheese and butter—all they kind o’ things.  There bain’t nothin’ so very wonderful i’ that.  ’Tis much same as other shows—voolish work, I reckon it.  Ye mid have the best harse, or the best milkin’ cow in the countryside, and yet they wouldn’t give en a prize.  Nay, they’d sooner gi’e it to some strange beast from Bourne or Templecombe or some sich place.”

“Well, but ye haven’t heard my tale yet,” cried the son.  “Jist you try to guess the last thing as I’ve heared they be a-goin’ to give a prize for.  ’Tis somethin’ livin’—I’ll tell ’ee that much, and it isn’t neither a harse nor a cow, nor a pig, nor anything as ye’d think likely.”

“A bull?” suggested Farmer Meatyard, who was not an imaginative man.

“Nay now; when I said a cow I meant male or faymale.  It bain’t nothin’ o’ that kind, nor yet cocks and hens.  Ye’ll never guess—’tis the queerest thing!  Call Mother, and let her see if she can have a shot at it.”

“Come here, Missus!” shouted the farmer excitedly.  “Come here and give your opinion.  Here’s Charl’ come back from town, and he do say they be a-goin’ to give a prize at this ’ere noo Show as is a-comin’ off next p. 180month for summat altogether out o’ the common.  ’Tis alive, he says, but ’tis neither bird nor beast as I can hear of.”

“Wait a bit,” said Mrs. Meatyard, folding her hands at her waist, and looking out of the rose-framed milk-house door with placid interest.  “Now—I have it!  Bees!”

“No.  Bless you, Mother, there bain’t nothin’ wonderful nor yet funny about bees.”

“Dear heart alive, what a tease the lad be!  Is it a handsome thing, Charl’, or an oncommon thing?”

“’Tis neither one nor t’other,” replied Charl’, exploding with laughter.  “There, I’d best tell you, for you’d never guess.  ’Tis a wold ’ooman.”

“Ah, get away, do!” growled his father, much disgusted.  “Don’t ’ee go for to tell I sich cock-and-bull stories.  A wold ’ooman—who’d go for to give a prize for sich as that?”

“’Tis true, though,” retorted Charl’, “’twas in every one’s mouth.  A prize, they do say, will be given for the woldest faymale farm servant.”

“Well, to be sure,” ejaculated his mother, “I’ve heard o’ prizes bein’ give for the finest baby, and somebody did tell I once about a prize bein’ give for the beautifullest young p. 181girl, but I never did hear o’ givin’ prizes for wold folks.”

“’Tisn’t raysonable, I don’t think,” commented her lord.  “Nay, it do seem a foolish kind o’ notion.  Why, if they do go encouragin’ o’ the wold hags that way, they’ll live for ever!”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” cried Mrs. Meatyard, disregarding him, “if our Rebecca didn’t have so good a chance as any one.  She’s a good age, Rebecca is.  Ah, I shouldn’t wonder a bit if Rebecca was to get it.  I think she is the woldest woman in these parts, without it’s Mr. Sharp’s Bithey.”

“Becky!” screamed Charl’ ecstatically.  “Becky!  Come here a minute.  I’ve brought some good news for ’ee.”

Becky came to the door, wiping her soapy arms with her coarse apron, and smiling pleasantly if toothlessly at the young man, who was a favourite with her.

“Becky,” cried he, “how would ’ee like for to win a prize at the new Show what’s to be given in the Royal George’s grounds next month?  There, Mother thinks you have got so good a chance as any one.”

“I did hear as they was a-goin’ to give a prize for butter,” said Rebecca; “but all as comes out of this ’ere house be Missus’s p. 182makin’.  I wasn’t never no great hand at it.  Nay, I can milk and skim and churn right enough; but I haven’t Missus’s hand on butter.”

“It bain’t the butter prize as I mean,” cried Charl’.  “They be a-goin’ to give a prize for the woldest ’ooman-servant.  I heared it wi’ my own ears, and the prize is to be a butter-dish, and you’ve just so good a right to it, Becky, as any other.  Better!  For I don’t believe there’s sich another old witch in the country.”

“Ye’re an impident chap, Charl’,” cried Rebecca, somewhat offended.  “I don’t want to listen to sich a pack of rubbish!  There, I’ve a-got summat else to do.  Ye mid keep a civil tongue in yer head, I think.  Witch, says he!  Tell him to go and drive cows up, Master, else we shan’t get through with our work this day.”

“I’ll go and drive cows up right enough,” said the youth; “but ye needn’t be so highty-tighty, Beck!  ’Tis truth as I be a-tellin’ ’ee.  Every one be a-talkin’ of it in town.”

“Dear, to be sure!” ejaculated Rebecca, partially convinced, but looking to her mistress for confirmation of the strange statement.

p. 183“It do seem queer,” returned Mrs. Meatyard; “but it’s true, Becky; and as I was a-sayin’, I think you ought to try for it.  You be turned seventy, bain’t you?”

“I reckon I must be,” said the old woman, ruminating.  “My hair have been white this twenty year and more, d’ye see; and I haven’t a tooth in my head.  I must be a tremenjious age, sure!”

“’Tis a bit hard to tell wi’ such as you, Beck,” remarked Farmer Meatyard, contemplating her thoughtfully.  “You do seem to be sich a dried-up wold stick—ah, and have been so ever since I knowed ye.  Ye’ve never looked a bit different since ye come to this ’ere village.  How long ago was that, can you mind?”

“Well, now, ’tis a bit hard to reckon, Master—one year do seem so like another, and the days do follow each other so fast.  I lived down at Childe-Okeford till I were thirty year of age, and then when mother died I went to service, and I were ten year or thereabouts at a farm Shillingstone way, and eight year at a public, and fifteen year at another farm a mile out of Sturminster—I think ’twas fifteen year, but it mid ha’ been eighteen—and then I’ve been here the rest of the time.”

p. 184“An’ that must be twelve year or more,” put in her mistress, “for I can call to mind as Charl’ there was only just breeched when you did come.”

“Why, woman, you must be comin’ on for eighty,” cried the farmer, half-admiringly, half-disapprovingly.  “Bless me, ye haven’t no business to be alive at all!”

“He, he,” chuckled Becky.  “Here I be, ye see, sir; and if there’s to be a prize for wold folks, I shouldn’t wonder if I did get it.”

“I can’t call to mind anybody else in these parts as can beat ye if your tale be true,” returned he, “unless it’s Mr. Sharp’s Bithey.  She be a wonderful age, now—I shouldn’t wonder if she’s turned her four score.”

“Lard, no, sir!” cried Rebecca, with a sudden cessation of her laughter, while a flush began to mount in her shrivelled cheeks.  “Bithey!  Why, she’s no age at all to speak on.  She’ve ha’ got very near all her teeth, and her hair—what there is of it, they do say is as black as can be under that wold woolly net as she do wear.  She don’t come up to my age, Master!”

“She runs you very near though, Beck,” cried mischievous Charl’, beginning to caper with glee.  “She’s oncommon hard o’ hearin’, p. 185and she do get the rheumatiz so bad in her j’ints.  Ther’ be times, Mr. Sharp do say, as she can scarce walk.”

“Pooh,” cried Rebecca, with fine scorn, “what signifies that?  A child mid get rheumatiz, and I’ve ha’ knowed folks so young as Missus be hard o’ hearin’.  That don’t prove nothin’.  There, I must give over talkin’ here, and get back to my work.”

She retired, muttering to herself and shaking her head, while Charl’, still chuckling, went off to fetch the cows.

He came back in a state of explosive excitement, and immediately called his parents out of hearing of Rebecca, who had stalked loftily past him, armed with stool and pail.

“You’ll never guess what I’ve been doin’,” he began.  “Jist as I was crossin’ the lane down yonder, who should I see but wold Bithey toddlin’ along in front of me; so I hollers after her, and tells her all about the prize, and did advise her to go in for it, and the wold body is that set up about it ’tis as good as a play.  She makes sure she is goin’ to win it, and thinks nothin’ at all o’ poor Beck’s chance.  Lard, ’twill be rare sport to set the two wold folks one again t’other.”

The father laughed jovially, but the mother p. 186inquired in an aggrieved tone why he had interfered and lessened poor Rebecca’s chance.

“There, she’ve a-been that excited all the evenin’ thinkin’ about it—she’ll be awful disappointed if she don’t get the prize.  Besides, I can’t but think ’twould ha’ been a kind o’ honour for we if she was to win it.”

“Maybe she will, all the same,” said Charl’.  “I don’t believe Bithey’s half so old myself.”

And he went away to do his share of the milking.

The news soon spread all over the village that both Rebecca and Bithey intended to compete for the strange new-fangled prize that was to be given at the forthcoming show.  Opinions were pretty evenly divided as to the respective merits of the two aspirants, but much amusement was caused by the seriousness and pertinacity with which each old lady advanced her claims.

On the Sunday following Charl’ mischievously brought the rivals into contact by calling back Rebecca just as she had haughtily walked past Bithey on leaving church.

“Come here, Beck, for one minute.  Here’s Bithey won’t believe you are any older nor her.”

p. 187Rebecca turned, eyeing Tabitha up and down somewhat disdainfully.

“Ye may believe it or not, as ye please,” she said, “but you was a little maid goin’ to school when I was out in service.”

“What does she say?” inquired Tabitha, turning to one of the bystanders—for quite a little crowd had gathered around the two.

“She says you are no age at all worth countin’,” bawled Charl’.  “She ’lows you be quite a little maid still.”

“Little maid, indeed!” retorted Bithey.  “I know I must be seventy if I’m a day, and I’m a’most sure I’m a good bit more nor that.  Why, I be getting that weak in the limbs I can scarce get about.”

“Anybody mid get weak in the limbs!” cried Rebecca wrathfully.  “’Tisn’t no sign of age, that isn’t.  When I did come to live at Thorncombe Farm, twelve or fifteen years ago, I was a staid body, as anybody mid see; but you—you was quite fresh and well-lookin’.  I can mind it well.  You did come up to our place for a bit o’ lard soon arter I did get there, and you was as straight and as active and as smooth and chuffy in the face—”

“Dear, dear! however can ye go for to tell sich tales, Rebecca?” groaned Bithey, much p. 188scandalised.  “I can mind that day so well as you, and I can mind as you did offer to carry the lard for me as far as the gate, for, says you, ‘You do look mortal tired for sure,’ says you; ‘and ’tis a long way to carry it and you not bein’ so young as you was’.”

“Oh, faith, Becky, the case is goin’ again’ you!” shouted Charl’.  “If ye said that, it shows plain as you was treatin’ Bithey respectful like, you bein’ the youngest.”

“God forgive you, Bithey!” ejaculated the dairywoman.  “Have you no conscience at all?  I say sich a thing!  I offer to carry lard for you!  ’Twas never my way to go in for payin’ compliments to folks, and I’d always plenty to do wi’out makin’ out more work for myself.”

“Come, come,” cried a fat, good-natured man who had drawn near, “don’t be fallin’ out on a Sunday!  There must be some way of knowin’ your ages.  Let’s see how far back you can remember, and maybe that’ll tell us summat.  Can ye mind when Rectory chimbley was blowed down?  I were a little chap myself then, but I can remember it.”

“Nay, that was afore my day,” said Becky, much crestfallen.  “I’ve only been here a matter of twelve or fifteen year.”

p. 189“I can mind it,” cried Bithey eagerly.  “I can mind it so well as if it were yesterday.  I had my sampler in my hand, and when my mother did call out I run the needle very nigh an inch into my finger.”

“Then you was a little gurl, for sure!” exclaimed Rebecca triumphantly.  “Ye must ha’ been quite a young maid, else ye wouldn’t ha’ been workin’ on a sampler.  What year was that, Mr. Joyce?”

“Let’s see,” said Mr. Joyce meditatively.  “’Twas in the year ’48, I think—’ees, I’m very near sure ’twas ’48.”

“An’ say you was ten year old then, Bithey,” went on the other claimant, with increasing animation, “say you was ten or twelve—you couldn’t ha’ been much more, else you’d ha’ had more sense nor to be working samplers—well, ’tis but a little over fifty year ago—that ’ud leave ye not much more nor sixty.  Ye haven’t wore so very well, I d’ ’low; but there, ’tis plain sixty’s your age.”

“I feel sure I’m a deal more nor sixty,” protested Bithey, almost in tears.  “Now I think on’t, ’twasn’t when Rectory chimbley was blowed down as I did run needle into my finger; ’twas when Mr. Sharp’s roof took p. 190fire.  Can you mind when Mr. Sharp’s thatch took fire, Mr. Joyce?”

“Nay, nay, ’twas long afore my time.”

“An’ you must be comin’ on about sixty, Mr. Joyce?”

“Ah, I fancy that’s about my age.”

Tabitha cast a look of triumph towards Rebecca, who feigned unconsciousness.

“I can mind the time o’ the Crimee War,” she announced deliberately.

There was a chorus of derisive comment.

“The Crimean War!  Why, that’s scarce any time ago,” said Mr. Joyce.  “’Twas in the fifties, I think; ’ees, I can remember the time very well myself.  That don’t go for to prove nothin’, Rebecca.”

“Well, there’s one comfort,” returned she, undaunted, “us’ll be judged by folks as don’t know us one from t’other, and they’ll be like to judge us fair.  There be things for and against both on us.  Bithey’s hard o’ hearin’ and wonderful stiff in her j’ints, and all that’ll be in her favour; but if they do go for to judge us wold women same way as they do judge harses, I reckon I’ve a-got the best chance.”

“How’s that?” cried Charl’.

“Why, if they go for to examine our teeth, to be sure; they’d see as I hadn’t got none.”

p. 191And further demonstrating the fact by a wide smile, Rebecca walked away, followed by a burst of mirthful applause.

On the eventful morning of the Show all the inhabitants of Thorncombe Farm assembled to see Rebecca start.  Charl’ was to drive her to the town, for, as he explained, it would never do for her to let on she was hearty enough to walk such a distance.

“If I was you, Beck,” he added, “I’d make out to have a bit of a limp.  ’Twould go far to make ye evener like wi’ Bithey.”

“Nay,” returned Rebecca stoutly, “I was never one for makin’ out what wasn’t true.”

“Smooth down your hair a bit under your bonnet,” advised Mrs. Meatyard anxiously.  “It mid be any colour tucked away like that.”

As this injunction could be obeyed without detriment to her principles, the old woman pushed back her bonnet and pulled into greater prominence her scanty snowy side-locks.  Then she climbed into the cart, with a palpitating heart, and sat clutching at her umbrella while they jogged out of the yard, and down the green lane, and out on the dusty high road.

Mr. and Mrs. Meatyard did not make their appearance at the Show till the afternoon, when most of the judging was over, and only p. 192that important part of the programme which related to various feats of horsemanship remained to be carried out.

“Let’s hunt up Becky afore we go to look at the jumpin’,” said the farmer to his wife, as they passed through the turnstile and threaded their way amid the various stalls and pens containing exhibits from all parts of the neighbourhood.  Here a beautiful little red Devon cow thrust a moist protesting nose through the railings; there a sturdy black-faced ram made abortive butts with his curled horns at the passers-by; yonder a pen of cackling geese flapped distracted wings and extended yards of snowy neck with prodigious outcry; and now there was a stampede among the ever-increasing crowd, as a great cart-colt was led past floundering and kicking.

The Meatyards stared about them, and wondered and commented, and had almost forgotten Becky in their interest and excitement, when they suddenly came upon her, walking arm-in-arm with no other person than her rival Bithey.

“Why bless me, Rebecca, so here ye be!” cried the farmer.  “And Bithey, too.  What!  Han’t ye been judged yet?  An’ who’s the winner?”

p. 193“What does he say?” asked Tabitha plaintively of the other competitor, and the Meatyards noticed with surprise that her tone was meek, and indeed confiding.

“Master do want to know if we’ve a’ been judged yet, my dear,” returned Becky soothingly.  “I reckon he’ll be surprised when he do hear how we’ve a-been used.”

“’Ees indeed,” sighed Bithey, and she wiped her eyes with a corner of her shawl.

“There, don’t take ’ee on, my dear,” said Rebecca, patting her hand affectionately.  “The poor soul,” she explained, turning to the farmer and his wife, who were gazing at the pair open-mouthed, “the poor soul do seem to be quite undone.  I d’ ’low ’twas a shame to go and disapp’int her so.  ’Twill ha’ gied her quite a turn—at her age an’ all.”

“’Tis no worse for me nor ’tis for you, my dear,” put in Bithey with a groan of sympathy.  “You had farther to come nor me, an’ you must be half shook to pieces a-ridin’ in that wold cart.”

“In the name o’ fortun’,” cried the exasperated Mr. Meatyard, “which on you did get the prize?  There you do go chatterin’ an’ jabberin’ and neither of you will tell us which be the winner.”

p. 194“You’d never think—” began Bithey.

“’Tis the most unfairest thing you ever did hear on!” exclaimed Becky.  “There was the two of us—the woldest women for miles round, I’ll go bail.  I’m sure ye did only need to look at Bithey here to see it.”

“And I’m sure,” wailed Tabitha, “the very sight o’ your grey hair did ought to ha’ shamed them, Becky.”

Here the impatient farmer made a sudden lunge at them, almost after the fashion of the curly-horned prize ram, and the two old women simultaneously announced in an agitated whimper:—

“There, they didn’t give the prize to neither of us!”

“Dear heart alive! you don’t say so?” said Mrs. Meatyard, after a pause of blank amazement, while her husband uttered a shrill whistle.  “Didn’t ’ee get no prize at all then?”

“Wasn’t ’ee so much as ‘’Ighly Commended,’ Beck?” cried her master, recovering from his stupor, and uttering a roar of laughter.

“No, sir,” returned Rebecca mournfully, “I didn’t get nothin’ at all—nor Bithey neither.  They never took a bit of notice after they’d axed how long we’d been in our present p. 195sitooations.  They went and give the butter-dish to quite a young ’ooman.  I don’t think she can ha’ been more nor fifty-five.  ’Ees, sir, if ye’ll believe me, a big strapping woman as stout as me and Bithey put together, and so firm on her legs as anything.”

“Whew!” whistled the farmer again, “you don’t say so!  Well, I never did—there must ha’ been some reason as you didn’t know on.”

“Maybe she was blind,” suggested Mrs. Meatyard.  “That ’ud be a p’int in her favour.”

“No more blind nor yourself, ma’am,” returned Becky almost triumphantly.  “She’d a-been thirty year in the one place—that was all as I could hear as she could say for herself, and they went and give her the butter-dish wi’out no more talk than that.  So, when I did see how upset poor Bithey was—an’ she so troubled with the rheumatiz, poor wold body—I jist says to her, says I, ‘You take my arm, my dear,’ says I; ‘you jist come along of I.’  And she were glad enough to do it.”

“I d’ ’low I was,” agreed her whilom rival.  “I reckon I thought it oncommon kind.  ’Ees,’ says I, ‘Becky love,’ says I, ‘I take it oncommon kind o’ you to help me same p. 196as you’re a-doin’ of, for ye bain’t so young yourself,’ says I.”

Mr. Meatyard slapped his thigh and shouted with laughter.

“You’ve changed your note, I see—both on you,” he exclaimed as soon as he could speak.  “Well, and where are you bound for now?”

“Why, d’ye see, sir,” said Becky, “her an’ me is both tired o’ this—we are—jist about!  And so she says to me, says she, ‘Let’s go over to one o’ them little booths over there and set down for a bit, and rest us.’  Didn’t ye, Bithey?”

“I did,” said Bithey, “and I says, ‘Becky,’ says I, ‘arter all this standin’, an’ all this talkin’, and all the dust and sawdust flyin’ about, I’m awful dry,’ I says; ‘what would you say,’ says I, ‘to a bottle of Pop?’”

The farmer laughed again, but his wife strongly advised the old couple to have recourse to that restorative, and they therefore toddled away together to drown the memory of their differences and, if possible, of their disappointment in a sparkling and innocuous glass.

p. 197THE LOVER’S WRAITH.

“Well, I don’t believe in no such nonsense.  Folks do get a-talkin’ and a-carryin’ tales fro’ one to the other, but I never met anybody yet as see a ghost, and I don’t believe nobody ever did!”

“You are wrong for once then,” cried Martha; and she pulled away her arm, the elbow of which had till then been linked in Sam Bundy’s—for the two were “walking” in orthodox fashion—and turned round to face him, an angry flush mounting in her cheeks.

Martha Dale was a very pretty girl, and never more so than in her working dress, which, being of pink cotton, intensified the glow on her cheeks and threw into yet stronger relief the darkness of eyes and hair.  A little fitful evening breeze was now playing with the dusky tendrils about her brow, setting one tiny curl dancing, indeed, after a fashion which Sam would have found tantalising at any other time; but now he was too much in earnest.

p. 198“It do seem sich a pity for a sensible maid same as you to be took in by sich rubbish.”

“Thank ’ee,” rejoined Martha.  “I s’pose my own grandma is a liar then, for ’twas she as told me the tale, and she did say as she saw it wi’ her own eyes.”

“What, a ghost?”

“No, it couldn’t ha’ been a ghost for ’twas the sperret of a man as was alive.  ’Twas the custom, she says, for all the young folks to wait outside church-porch at midnight on Midsummer Eve, and if they was to get married during the year they’d see the sperrets of them they was to get married with go into the church and come out again.  And they’d see the sperret, or the shape, or whatever ye mid call it, of them as was to die during the year too—only that kind didn’t never come out o’ the church again; they did jist walk in wi’ grave sorrowful faces, and did seem to bide there.  But my grandma she telled me often how plain she saw granfer a-comin’ out of church—there, he did pass so close to her she could very nigh ha’ touched him, only she was afeared.  And sure enough he axed her two months arter to the very day.”

Sam walked along in silence, chewing a blade of grass which he had plucked from p. 199beneath the hedge; his broad chip hat was set somewhat at the back of his head, and his open sunburnt face, thus fully exposed to view, wore an expression of incredulity and dissatisfaction.

“Ye don’t believe me, I see,” said Martha quickly.

“Oh, I don’t say that.  I b’lieve ye think you are speakin’ the truth—’tis as true as you heared it—’tisn’t as if you was tryin’ to make me believe as you’d seen the thing yourself.”

“Well, then,” said Martha, with a flash in her black eyes, “I’ll be tellin’ you that, come next Midsummer Eve.  I’ll go myself, and stand in church-porch, and maybe I’ll see Bob Ellery a-comin’ out.”

“Bob Ellery!” ejaculated Sam, stopping short again, and throwing away his blade of grass.  “Is it him ye’re thinkin’ of lookin’ for?”

“Why not?” said Martha, slightly raising her voice; “as well him as another.”

“Well,” said Sam, striking the nailed heel of his heavy boot into the ground, “he’s just the one to be up to sich foolishness—the biggest sammy between this and Dorchester.”

“I wouldn’t be makin’ free wi’ your own name,” retorted the girl sarcastically.  “I p. 200know one sammy as ain’t so far off.  But ye needn’t be turnin’ up your nose at Bob Ellery, Mr. Sam Bundy—him and me’s very thick, and I don’t like to hear my friends abused.”

“Now look ye here, Martha,” said Sam, controlling his rising anger.  “This here be real foolish talk between you and I, as has been a-walkin’ ever since Christmas.  If you was to look for anybody a-comin’ out o’ church, it should be me!”

“Oh, but you are much too grand to think o’ lettin’ your sperret do any sich thing.  Bob bain’t so stuck up—he don’t set up for being no wiser than the rest of us.  But as for you—if we was to spill the salt between us I don’t suppose you’d ever think o’ throwin’ a pinch over your shoulder.”

“I don’t suppose I should,” he replied, bluntly.

“You was brought up wi’ such notions!” she continued.  “Your mother didn’t ever set ye on a donkey’s back wi’ your face to the tail, did she?”

“I can’t call to mind as she did,” returned he, staring.

“Then, ’tain’t her fault, nor yours neither, if ye didn’t die o’ the whooping cough,” cried Martha triumphantly.  “’Twas the first thing p. 201as ever my mother did do wi’ the lot of us, except my little brother Walter, and he was the only one as ever took that complaint, and never looked up after—just withered away, one mid say, and died.”

“Because he didn’t sit with his face to the ass’s tail,” said Sam, relaxing into a broad grin.

“Ye did ought to be ashamed o’ yourself, Sam, to go a-sneerin’ like that—there be a cross on the donkey’s back.”

Sam thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his corduroys, and paced beside her without speaking for a moment or two; then he turned to her with a good-humoured laugh:—

“Believe what you like, my maid, only don’t ask me to say I do do it!”

“I’m not axin’ you nothin’ at all, I’m sure,” returned Martha indifferently, though again the tell-tale colour swept over cheek and brow.  She stooped presently, and plucked an ox-eye daisy from beneath the hedge.

“This year; next year; some time; never!  This year—next year—some time—never—This year—next year—some time—never!  This year!—I wonder if ’tis to be wi’ Bob Ellery.  Come, I’ll try his fortune.”

She possessed herself of another daisy, and p. 202was about to resume her performance when Sam, laying his hand on hers, firmly imprisoned both the busy fingers and the blossom.

“Martha,” he said, “there be some things a man can stand, and there be some things he can’t.  Now I can’t stand hearing you carry on this ’ere kind o’ nonsense about Bob Ellery.  It’s got to be one way or t’other—him or me.  If it’s me jist gi’e me your word as ye’ll drop this ’ere talk o’ tryin’ your fortun’ wi’ him.  If it’s him in earnest—I’ll bid you good evenin’.”

Martha was proud as well as pretty, and resented the peremptory tone; she jerked away her hands, and tossed her head.

“P’r’aps I won’t wait for you to say it, Mr. Bundy—p’r’aps I can say ‘Good evenin’’ jist so plain as ye can yourself.  Good evenin’, Mr. Samuel Bundy.  I wish ye a pleasant walk home, and hope ye may soon find a sweetheart clever enough to suit ye.  Ye’d best ax schoolmissus—she bain’t much more nor fifty-four, and I reckon she’s not one to go a-waitin’ in church-porch to look for sperrets—I’ll tell ye later on who I see on Midsummer Eve; but—I—think—I—know.”

She had been dropping little ironical curtsies to him throughout this speech, and now walked p. 203away, plucking the leaves from her crushed daisy, and singing “I—think—I—know” until she had turned the corner of the lane.

Sam stood looking after her until she was out of sight, and then, drawing a deep breath, began to move slowly homewards.

“So that is the end!” he said to himself.  “And I thought she was terrible fond of me.  These maids—there bain’t no knowin’ where to have ’em!”

*   *   *   *   *

On the following Sunday the once tender lovers walked apart, and Sam invented no more pretexts for passing Martha’s home of a weekday evening as he had been wont to do, just for a glimpse of her in the doorway or at the window, or, as had not infrequently happened, standing accidentally by the gate.  On these occasions he had been used to invite her to walk with him “just so far as the top of the lane;” it was, indeed, during the course of one of these little strolls that the quarrel had taken place.  But now, though oddly enough just about that time of evening Martha was to be seen pretty often looking out of the window, or leaning against the doorpost, or even gazing absently up and down the lane from the garden gate, Sam Bundy passed that way no more.

p. 204When Sunday came again Bob Ellery chanced to overtake Martha as she was returning home from church, a fact which Sam Bundy, who had passed the girl a moment before with an immovable face, carefully noted; and when Bob, with an agreeable smile, inquired if Martha was likely to be walking out that afternoon, he was answered with such flattering civility that he took courage to propose to be her companion.

But Martha’s family noticed that she came in from the expedition in a very bad humour.  Bob was a thick-headed young man, and he had not much to say for himself; and he had brought his pipe with him and puffed the smoke in Martha’s face and laughed at her for minding it; and, moreover, he had wanted to kiss her on parting, which she had thought very presumptuous on so short an acquaintance—Sam had walked with her for at least three Sundays before he had made any such attempt—altogether she was ruffled.

“I reckon ye did like Sam best,” remarked her sister, as Martha tossed her hat on to the bed.

The other started and answered angrily: “I may have liked him to begin wi’, but I fair hate him now.”

p. 205“Well, Bob Ellery bain’t so bad,” returned the sister soothingly.  “His nose do seem to turn up a good bit, and he’ve got an awful big head, but I’ve seen many as was worse looking.”

“There’s other chaps besides Sam and Bob,” retorted Martha.

“Who?” enquired the other eagerly, thinking her sister had made a new conquest.

“Oh, I don’t know—there’s lots of ’em about.  Do ye mind Granny’s silly old tale about goin’ to the church-porch on Midsummer Eve?”

“Of course I do.  Are ye thinkin’ o’ tryin’ it?”

Martha nodded.

“I’d like to find out summat for certain,” she said.

“Lard, I should be frightened to death to try it.  Ugh!  Fancy standin’ there among the graves all alone in the dark a-waitin’ for a sperret!  Maybe ye mightn’t like him when he did come.”

“That’s just what I be a-thinkin’,” said Martha, with a sigh.  “But I’d like to find out—it ’ud be a kind o’ satisfaction to know for sure, and not to keep on wonderin’ if it’s to be this one or that one.”

p. 206“Well, I wouldn’t do it if I was you,” said the sister.

But Martha was obdurate.

Shortly after the clock struck eleven on the fateful night she crept softly out of the house, and sped noiselessly through the village, and up the lane until she came to the church.

It was a warm, still night, with a large, sultry moon swimming overhead, and outlining with silver the grey walls of the sacred building and the many tombstones which studded the green enclosure round it.

Martha stood still, catching her breath, then tremulously unlatched the gate and went up the flagged path.  She paused midway, raising her hand to her head:—

“Did Grandma say ‘In church-porch’ or ‘Nigh to church-porch’?  I can’t mind which.  The porch do seem to be awful dark—and ’twould be oncommon close inside.  There do seem to be scarce room for the sperrets to get past if you was to stand there, without they went through you.”

She shivered: the porch did certainly look uninviting, swathed as it was in awful shadow, and festooned with ivy, tendrils of which stirred every now and then, uncannily as it seemed, for there was no breeze, and the p. 207motion was probably caused by some of the many birds that had made homes for themselves in its green fastnesses.

“I reckon it will do just as well if I stop here under tree,” said Martha decisively.  “I can see everything what goes in or out, and ’twouldn’t be so far to run if—” she glanced apprehensively at the porch again, measured the distance between it and the gate, and finally, moving swiftly towards the latter, propped it carefully open with a large stone.

“The road do run all downhill too,” she said to herself, feeling somewhat reassured as she glanced down the lane; she possessed a light pair of heels—even if a spirit were to pursue her she fancied she could distance it.

Under the big cypress tree she now took up her stand, drawing her dark skirts closely about her, and only peering out occasionally behind the trunk.  The moments passed very slowly, as it seemed to her; now and then the squeak of a bat broke the stillness, at other times a rustle in the long grass betokened the passage of some nocturnal wanderer—a stoat possibly, or a rat.  On these occasions Martha would hitch up her skirts a little and look fearfully round—she was almost as much afraid of rats as of ghosts.  Once she thought p. 208she heard a kind of stealthy movement in the grass just behind her, and almost uttered a shriek of terror as the possibility occurred to her that it might be a snake.  After looking over her shoulder in the endeavour to ascertain the cause of this mysterious sound she turned round again suddenly.

Lo! advancing with swift and noiseless tread up the flagged path was a figure, the outlines of which were strangely familiar to her.  As it approached nearer to her place of ambush the moonlight distinctly revealed a countenance which seemed to be that of Samuel Bundy.  Seemed to be I say, for it wore an expression strangely unlike that which Martha had been accustomed to see on the blunt and honest face of her former lover: an expression of stern gravity; the eyes were fixed, the mouth resolutely set, the face, moreover, was deadly pale in the moonlight, and what alarmed Martha more than anything else was the fact that the figure moved onward without making a sound.  Into the church-porch it passed, and was there engulfed by the darkness.

Martha’s heart was thumping like a sledgehammer; it was Sam sure enough—or rather Sam’s wraith, for surely no living thing could look or move in that ghostly fashion.

“So it’s to be him after all!”

p. 209“So it’s to be him after all!” gasped Martha, with an odd little choked spasm of laughter.  “Dear, to be sure!  I wonder if he d’ know as his sperret have a-come here to-night.  He must be dreamin’ o’ me—I reckon he’ll have to believe now when I d’ tell him. . . .  Well, I’d liefer ’twas him nor Bob, anyhow.  He’ll own he be wrong arter this, an’ then all ’ull be pleasant again between us.”

She leaned her head against the spice-scented cypress bark, and smiled to herself, though she still trembled, partly with awe, partly with pleasurable anticipation.  When the church clock chimed midnight, then might she confidently expect the wraith of her future husband to come gliding forth from the church into which it had so silently passed, and might gaze with certainty on the likeness of the man decreed to be the partner of her lot.  It was a solemn thought, but a joyful one; any contact with the supernatural must be awe-inspiring, but Martha was a bold girl, and eminently practical, and she passed the moments which must intervene before the reappearance of the vision in choosing the colour of her wedding gown.

Clang! boomed out the clock in the church tower presently, and as the reverberating p. 210strokes fell upon the air, Martha, philosophical though she was, was conscious of a recurrence of the choking sensation of a little while before.  The last vibrating echo died away, and she craned forward her head, fearful and yet eager.  All was silent as the graves in the midst of which she stood; she strained her eyes towards the porch, but no white impalpable shape came forth from its blackness.

All at once Martha’s heart ceased its violent beating, and appeared to stand still: a new and awful thought had come to her.  Had not her grandmother told her the dread fate which awaited the originals of those whose semblance passed into the church without again reappearing?  Her own words to Sam recurred to her: “Them as is to die within the year do seem to go into the church and don’t never come out again.”  Could it be possible that the apparition which had filled her with so much satisfaction a few moments before was the portent of poor Sam’s early death?

Unnerved by this terrible idea she rent the stillness with a series of muffled shrieks and sobs:—

“Oh, Sam, Sam!  Oh, dear Sam!  Oh, Sam, come out, come out!  Whatever shall I do?  Sam, come out!”

p. 211Her tears were flowing so fast that she was obliged to have recourse to her apron, and, enveloped in its folds and overcome by increasing grief, failed to hear the series of heavy thuds which denoted the rapid approach of the figure which had suddenly emerged from the church-porch.

Could any spirit be endowed with such a pair of sturdy arms as those which were now thrown about her, or be capable of bestowing such resounding and fervent salutes as those which were presently rained on brow and cheeks?  Martha uttered one blood-curdling yell, and then stood still.

“Why, my pretty,” cried Sam’s voice, which sounded very real and comfortable, “what be all this shindy?  Have anybody been a-frightenin’ of ye?  Have that rascal Bob been up to any games?”

Still clutching her in a tight embrace, he looked fiercely round.

“Bob!” ejaculated Martha.  “Bob!  Why what should he—”  She broke off suddenly, adding with a wail of recurrent anguish: “Oh, Sam—oh, Sam, ye don’t know what I’ve a-seen this night!  There, my heart be fair broke.  I can never tell ’ee, but if ye knowed!”

p. 212“Nonsense, my maid,” cried Sam with a reassuring squeeze.  “Ye haven’t seen nothing at all.  I’ve been a-sittin’ in church-porch all the time an’ nothin’ have come nigh the place.”

“What!” gasped Martha, “’twas yourself—your own self as comed here—I—did think ’twas your sperret.  Why whatever made ye walk so queer?”

With a chuckle Sam uplifted a large broad foot protected only by a stocking.

“I thought, ye see,” he explained, “as that there silly Bob ’ud very like be up to some tricks—makin’ believe to appear to ye, or some such thing—so, thinks I to myself, I’ll just bide handy in porch and if he do try it on I’ll pounce out on him.”

“Oh,” said Martha, “why I don’t suppose he knows naught about nothing of the kind.”

“Ye didn’t tell him your grandma’s tale, then?” said Sam, with a note of incredulous delight in his voice.

“N—no,” said Martha—“I didn’t reckon ’twould interes’ him, d’ye see.  ’Twas different wi’ you.”

And then Sam laughed long and loud.

“Martha,” he said at last, “I take back all as I said agen this here old custom—I can p. 213see as there be sense in it.  Ah, a deal o’ sense in it.  My sperret, d’ye see, was very anxious to come to ’ee, Martha—that anxious that it did take the rest o’ me along wi’ it.  I shouldn’t wonder if the rest of the tale was to come true too—about gettin’ married soon arter, ye know.”

“P’r’aps I’ll have summat to say about that,” tittered Martha coyly.

“Ye can’t say nothin’ but the one thing,” returned Sam triumphantly.  “’Twouldn’t be lucky!”

p. 214JOHNNY AT SHROTON FAIR.

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Johnny’s so long at the Fair!

Johnny’s father was busily chopping wood in the little shed at the back of the cottage, and Johnny himself sat on an upturned block with one chubby leg crossed over the other—a feat of some difficulty when one’s legs are short and one’s seat unsteady—superintending the parental labours, and revolving a certain project in his mind.  John the elder was a red-bearded giant of a man, with strongly marked features and great, sinewy, hairy arms, which were now fully revealed under his rolled up shirt-sleeves.  Johnny the younger, like his namesake of poetic fame, had a golden head “like a yellow mop in blow,” a cherub-face, big solemn blue eyes—very serious and thoughtful just now—and every other good point which may reasonably be looked for in a healthy little peasant four-year-old.

“You do seem to be choppin’ a lot this evenin’, Dada”

p. 215He had not long been promoted to the dignity of knickerbockers, and was the proud possessor of pockets which still retained all the charm of novelty.  Into one of these pockets he now dived from time to time, extracting from its depths (which were not very profound) a small round wooden box, the lid of which he proceeded to unscrew; a painful squeaking accompanying the process.  This, on being removed, displayed a bright, threepenny-bit; and Johnny, taking it out, contemplated it for a moment in the broad palm of his grimy little hand, turned it over, polished it on the knee of his little breeches, replaced it in its receptacle, screwed on the lid again with laborious grinding, and finally restored the whole to his pocket.

Observing, after these operations had been gone through some half-dozen times, that his father allowed them to pass unnoticed, Johnny heaved a deep sigh and made a remark on his own account.

“You do seem to be choppin’ a lot this evenin’, Dada.”

“’Ees, Johnny, I be”—and here John Reed senior laid down his hatchet, straightened himself, and wiped his brow.  “I have to chop so much as your mother will want p. 216to-morrow and next day too, d’ ye see?  I’m goin’ to Shroton to-morrow wi’ Maggie and Rosie.  If you be a good little chap I’ll bring ’ee a cake, maybe.”

Johnny uncrossed his legs and sat rigid on the block, his eyes apparently ready to jump out of his head.  The father nodded good-naturedly, and took up his axe again.  The son threw out his hand after the manner employed by scholars desirous of attracting the teacher’s attention.

“Bide a bit!”—with a quaint assumption of authority—“I’ve got summat to show ’ee here.”

The chubby hand sought the pocket once more, the box was produced, and its contents displayed.  “I’ve got fruppence,” announced Johnny triumphantly.

“Have ’ee, now?” returned Reed kindly but dispassionately.  “Well done!  Where did ’ee get that?”

“Gran’ma gived it me.  Dada!”—here Johnny got off the block—“Dada, do ’ee take me to the fair to-morrow, and let me ’pend it.”

“Why, I never!” cried the father, half puzzled and half admiring.  “You be too little, Johnny—you’d be tired out afore the day was half done.”

p. 217“Nay, nay” and the little head was shaken until the golden mop was in full display.  “Nay, I’d not be tired.  I can walk so far as Rosie, an’ I do want to go in the roundabouts.”

“Want to go in the roundabouts, do ’ee?  That’s a tale.”  Here John Reed laughed, scratched his head, and contemplated his small sturdy son.  “I d’ ’low you’d enjoy the roundabouts, and the shows and that—jist about.  But we shan’t be home till late.  And whatever ’ud Mother say?  Ye’d best stop an’ take care of Mother, I reckon, Sonny.”

“Nay,” said Johnny junior.  “I be goin’ with ’ee; Mammy have got Puss!”

And thereupon the red-haired giant laughed long and loud, and the imp beside him knew the victory was his.

The sun was sinking when they came indoors, both looking extremely important, albeit somewhat sheepish, as became a pair of conspirators.

Mrs. Reed stood by the window mending the coat which her master was to wear on the morrow; Maggie, a tall, shapely girl of seventeen, was ironing a starched white petticoat; while Rosie, the younger daughter, busily stitched a lace frill on the neck of p. 218her Sunday dress.  An air of joyful bustle and excitement pervaded the place, for, although Mrs. Reed herself had ceased to join in the annual outing, she was good-natured enough to share the others’ pleasure at the prospect.

“There, Missus, I’ve cut ye enough wood to do ye for a week,” announced John, “an’ me and the little chap ’ull feed chicken jist now.”

“It’s time for Johnny to go to bed,” remarked the mother, gazing at him fondly, however.  “He’s best out of the way to-night—there do always seem to be sich a lot to be done afore Shroton.”

“Well,” agreed John falteringly, “p’r’aps he would be best abed, more particular as he has a mind to come wi’ us to-morrow.”

There was a chorus of surprise and disapproval, in the midst of which Johnny stood silent, gazing from one to the other with a solemn, resolute little face.  It was not until “Dada” himself had begun to show signs of wavering that the little fellow suddenly sat down on the ground and began to cry.

Now Johnny occupied a somewhat unique position in the family, which may thus be accounted for: Rosie and Maggie had come p. 219tumbling into the world hard on each other’s heels; and then five little graves, side by side under the churchyard yew, marked the advent and departure of five little boys, not one of whom had lived more than a few years; and then, after a long interval, when the cradle had been put away and the baby-clothes laid by on the top shelf of the cupboard, Johnny had made his appearance; and Johnny had from the first evinced a determination to live, and from the moment he could walk had become the recognised ruler of the entire household.

Therefore, when Johnny lifted up his voice in protest, general consternation ensued.  Dada, taking him in his arms, upbraided the women-folk, and remarked indignantly that the child was not so big yet but what he could carry him if he was tired: and Maggie with a blush reminded her mother that Jim Fry was going to give them a lift to Shroton and back, and therefore there would be no need for Johnny to walk except just at the Fair itself; and Rosie observed that he didn’t seem to be one for catching cold, and, moreover, opined that he would look beautiful in his new suit, and that it did seem a pity that he couldn’t wear it where it could be seen.  This last suggestion turned the scale, and p. 220Johnny dried his eyes and was carried off to bed in triumph.

On the next morning the entire household was enlisted in the service of the youngest-born.  The father, coming upon Rosie as she was blacking his sturdy little Sunday boots, desired her to hand them over—he’d show her how to make ’em shine.  And shine they certainly did when he had done with them, for, though he could with difficulty squeeze two of his great fingers into them, he polished them with as much energy as would have sufficed for full-sized Wellingtons.

Meanwhile Maggie was sedulously brushing the smart new sailor-suit, and the little pilot-coat with its two rows of brass buttons, while Mrs. Reed was carefully winding round her fingers the yellow curls which looked so much better when allowed to cluster freely about brow and neck, but which were now persuaded to assume the corkscrew shape dear to the village mother’s heart.  She devoted particular time and care to the arrangement of a top-knot, which much resembled a small sausage-roll, and was poised immediately above Johnny’s right eye.  At last the only son of the house stood arrayed in all his glory, while the admiring family gathered round.

p. 221“He do look a pictur’—I’ll say that for him,” remarked the father proudly.  “There’ll not be his like at the Fair.”

“See and keep your coat buttoned, Johnny,” observed Mrs. Reed anxiously; “and don’t ’ee go for to take off your muffler, not if you be ever so warm.”

Johnny rolled his eyes towards his mother over the white woollen folds—which, indeed, very nearly came up to them—and then looked down to where the fringed ends showed beneath the bottom of his coat.  The comforter was certainly uncomfortably warm, and the day was mild and sunny; but Johnny was in the mood to promise anything; therefore he gravely nodded.

Presently the sound of wheels was heard, and Jim Fry’s “trap” halted outside the little garden-gate.  Jim himself looked very smart in his best clothes; his hat being set on at a knowing angle over his well-sleeked locks; a nosegay about the size of a saucer in his button-hole.  There were flowers, too, at the horse’s ears, and the harness was polished to a nicety.

“Now, then, how had we best divide?” inquired Jim.  “Suppose you sit next me, Maggie, and Rosie t’ other side of you?  And p. 222if you’ll get up behind wi’ the little chap, Mr. Reed, you’ll just about balance us.”

John Reed stared a little, winked solemnly at his wife, and finally agreed; and the girls came tripping down the path, Maggie blushing as she clambered into the cart, while Rosie, with many giggles, ascended on the other side.  Then little John waved his hand from his place beside his father, big John shouted “Right!” in a stentorian voice, Jim Fry cracked the whip, and they were off.

Oh, what a merry drive was that!  The old horse hammering along briskly, up the hills as well as down, and covering the ground at a prodigious rate, constantly overtaking other parties of pleasure-seekers who were proceeding more soberly, some on waggons, some on foot, some in little donkey carts.  Now the pretty village of Stourpaine was left behind; a few old folks came to their doors to look after the dashing equipage, and some children ran for a little way beside the horse; now they turned off by Steepleton, and for a while enjoyed the shade of the plantation farther on; and at last they drew near the scene of the Fair itself, being forced to proceed more slowly, for the road was well-nigh blocked with vehicles.

p. 223A mingled and extraordinary din greeted their ears as they approached.  The shrieking music of the merry-go-rounds mingling with the shouting and laughter of many voices, the banging of the shooting-galleries, the hoarse cries intermingled with trumpet-blasts from proprietors of the different shows.

Johnny was at first disposed to be alarmed, and clutched his father’s hand somewhat tightly, but when the latter cheerily remarked that it was “rare sport” the little fellow strove to put away his fears, and to think it rare sport too.

Presently he was securely mounted on John Reed’s great shoulders, and watched the jumping of the horses, which were sent from all parts of the country for sale.  It was exciting to see the dealers flap their crackling calico flags, and with strange, uncouth cries urge on the animal actually under inspection to show off his paces, and to leap an adjoining hedge—the latter feat being one not often accomplished; the rider indeed, much to the delight of the lookers-on, more frequently taking the fence than the horse.  It was, however, a very amusing sight, and Johnny shouted and laughed and drummed on his father’s chest with his shining little boots, and p. 224stared about him at the seething mass of heads, and at the horses thundering past, and at those other horses tied up in pickets or rows, some of them plentifully bedecked with ribbons, while the manes and tails of others were curiously ornamented with straw.  Over yonder were the booths and the tents and the waggons, and the red-and-yellow roundabouts and the swings and the shooting-galleries, and the crowds and crowds of merry folk.  Johnny’s spirits rose more and more as the moments passed, and he presently found himself obliged not only to drum upon his father’s chest, but to jig up and down upon his shoulder, supporting himself by the crown of John Reed’s best Sunday hat.

“Hold hard!” cried his parent good-naturedly, when a more than usually ecstatic movement had well-nigh bonneted him.  “Sit still, my lad.  Where be climbin’ to, eh?”

“I’m lookin’ at the roundabouts,” chanted Johnny; “all the folks ridin’, and the harses goin’ up an’ down.  There’s Maggie and Jim—and Rosie a-ridin’ behind!  O-o-oh, Dada, do ’ee take I to ’em!”

“Well, a promise is a promise.  I did say I’d take ’ee, didn’t I?  Come along, then jump down!  That’s the boy!  Now we’ll go.  p. 225Which shall it be?  That great, big, red un?”—as the child pointed with his small forefinger.  “We’ll make straight for he, then.  Now, will ’ee ride in front o’ Dada, or will ’ee have a horse all to yourself?”

Johnny’s eyes were growing rounder and rounder, and his little hot hand clutched his father’s finger with almost feverish eagerness, as he answered stoutly that he’d like to ride all by his own self.

“Well done!” cried Reed admiringly.  “You wouldn’t think the spirit of en,” he remarked to the red-faced proprietress of the merry-go-round as he paid the fare.  “Ye’d think a little chap same as this ’ud be afeared to go alone.  But no, not he.  ‘I’d like to ride all by my own self,’ says he, as cool as a cucumber—an’ him but just turned four years old.”

It was pleasant to see the pair circling to the sound of the diabolical music: the father perspiring with terror on the child’s account, with one great hand hovering over him, ready to support him at the smallest sign of wavering, his own huge form ridiculously out of proportion to his wooden steed, his long legs trailing; the son, very red in the face, clutching the wooden neck of his horse with strong, resolute p. 226little hands, his eyes bright with rapture, his smile growing broader and broader until at length he was forced to chuckle aloud for glee.

Well, they had two rides on the roundabout, and then they went on the switchback, and then they went in a swing, and then Reed bought a large flabby cake and a couple of very green apples, and while Johnny was munching these dainties they suddenly knocked up against an acquaintance whom his father had not seen for years.  There was much greeting and hand-shaking and questioning—the two deep voices booming over the child’s head, which was now beginning to swim a little, partly as a result of much agitation, and partly, perhaps, because those very green apples began to make him feel rather uncomfortable.

He hung more and more heavily on his father’s hand, and at last, his short legs giving way beneath him, he fairly dropped on the ground.

“Gettin’ tired, eh?” said Reed, glancing down at him.  “Come, we’ll look for Maggie and Rosie, and get ’em to take ’ee somewhere where ye can sit down and rest for a bit.”

Lifting him up, he threaded his way through the crowd, followed by his new acquaintance.  p. 227Soon they came upon the two girls, who, provided with an admirer apiece, were gleefully “shying” at cocoanuts.

They readily agreed to take charge of Johnny, and their father, turning to Jim Fry, informed him that he intended to return home on foot, as he had met an old friend, and when they had finished with the Fair they would probably go to the village for a glass or two.

“Right, sir, right,” returned Jim amiably.  “I’ll take care of the two young ladies, without Tom Davis there likes to get up at the back along of Rosie to keep the balance even.”

And here Jim grinned and winked knowingly.

“I d’ ’low he won’t have no objections,” returned Reed good-humouredly.  “But ye must see and take ’em home afore dark, Jim, same as ye did promise the missus.  And take good care o’ Johnny, maids, whatever ye do.”

Johnny had by this time stared his fill at the cocoanuts, and now came backing up against his father, turning suddenly as the latter was about to move away.

“I want to stop with Dada!” he cried.  “Let me go with you, Dada?”

“Ah, he be ter’ble fond o’ Dada, that he be,” remarked John to his friend.  “Never p. 228was such a chap for wantin’ to be al’ays at my heels.  There, but ye must stop with sister now, Johnny—and Dada ’ull come back for ’ee by-and-bye.”

“You’ll not keep the child out late, Father, will ye?” inquired Maggie anxiously.  “Ye’ll let him come home wi’ us.”

But he had already turned away.

Johnny was at first disposed to lament, but was somewhat consoled on being invited to try his luck with the cocoanuts; the sticks thrown by his small arm, however, fell wide of the mark, and presently his lip began to droop again and his eyes to roam wistfully,

“Why, you haven’t spent your money yet,” cried Rosie, catching him up.  “Come, we’ll go to the stalls and find summat to buy.”

After Johnny was perambulated up and down the stuffy arcade between the rows of shouting, excited vendors of toys, sweet-stuff, and crockery, after he had paused irresolutely in front of several booths, and screwed and unscrewed his precious little squeaking box any number of times, he found himself unable to part with his threepenny-bit, and finally agreed, with a sigh of satisfaction, to follow Rosie’s advice and keep it for another day.

They went to a shooting-gallery next, and p. 229the noise made Johnny’s head ache; and then to a peep-show, which he didn’t understand; and then to watch an acrobatic performance, which failed to interest him.

The day was wearing on now, and he was becoming very tired.  He dragged at his sister’s skirts as he walked beside her, and his head was ever turned backwards over his shoulder in the hope of descrying “Dada”.  Big folk going past tumbled over him or pushed him to one side with curt admonitory remarks.  “Now, then, my man!”  “Out of the way, youngster!”  “Look where you are going, can’t you, child?”  Even Maggie and Rosie, who were themselves probably a little weary, began to lose patience with him, and when, under his despairing clutch, the gathers of the elder sister’s dress gave way, she shook him, not roughly, but irritably, and said sharply:—

“Bless me, Johnny, hold up a bit, can’t ’ee?  Jist see what ye’ve a-done to my new dress.”

Thereupon all Johnny’s stoicism gave way, and he began to cry piteously.  “I want Dada, I want Dada!”

“Why, he’s over there—see!” cried Jim Fry, who had found Johnny by no means a welcome addition to the party.  “Look, p. 230Johnny, there’s Dada standin’ jist by that tent.  He’ll be comin’ to fetch ’ee in a minute.”

Sure enough the stalwart form of the elder John was plainly discernible some fifty yards or so away.

“Let me go to him!” wailed the child.  “I want to go to Dada—I will go to Dada!”

And thrusting aside Maggie’s hand, he broke from the little group and ran at full speed towards the spot where his father was standing.

“Best let him go,” advised Jim, catching hold of Maggie as she was about to start in pursuit.  “He’ll be twice so happy wi’ he, and you know your father did say he was a-comin’ back to fetch en.”

“That’s true,” assented she.

As they stood watching the little figure making its way among the groups of people, Tom Davis came up in great excitement, with Rosie on his arm.

“There’s a man over there as is eatin’ fire!” he called out.  “I never see sich a thing in my life!  He be a-swallerin’ yards of it.  ’Tis a kind of a ribbon, and he do set a light to one end, and do put it in his mouth, and goes on a-swallerin’ and a-swallerin’!  Ye never did see sich a thing!  His cheeks—there, ye can very nigh look through them!  Come p. 231quick, else it will be over.  He’ve a-been doin’ all sorts o’ things—playin wi’ knives and a-pullin’ rolls and rolls o’ coloured ribbons out of his mouth.  Dear heart alive, how he can keep all they things inside of him I can’t think!  But come along quick—this way!”

Maggie turned her head for a last look at Johnny, who was by this time but a few yards away from the tent near which John Reed was standing; and then, deciding in her own mind that he was now quite safe, hastened away with the others.

But Johnny was not quite safe: though so close to his father that two or three of the latter’s strides would have covered the space between them, he was not destined to reach his side that day.

Lo! just as he was preparing to uplift his shrill little voice and call ecstatically on his parent, there was a sudden stampede among the crowd, and Johnny found himself lifted off his feet.  One of the colts exposed for sale had broken loose, and, excited by the strange medley of sights and sounds around him, was galloping madly hither and thither, snorting and lashing out with his heels.  A big, bearded farmer had caught up the little chap in his arms and ran with him out of harm’s way.  p. 232In a few moments he halted breathless, and set the child upon his feet.

“They’ve caught en, I see,” he said; “no fear now.  There, give over hollerin’, my boy; nobody wants to hurt ’ee.  If I hadn’t a-catched ’ee up ye’d ha’ been run over.”

Johnny gave one scared look at the kind red face, shook off the hand upon his shoulder, and then made off as fast as his tired little legs would carry him in the direction of the tent where he had last seen his father standing.  But alas! no father was to be seen, and the poor little fellow, wailing aloud, began a fruitless search for him amid the throng.

He did not find him; perhaps because the elder John had already left the Fair, perhaps because the younger, though he imagined himself to be covering a large area, was in reality wandering round and round about the same place.  Nobody noticed his continuous cry—there were many tired children at Shroton Fair that day—and now that the dusk was beginning to fall the heads of families were too busy gathering together their own belongings to take heed of a fretful stranger.  So Johnny stumbled wearily along, and at last, being thoroughly worn out, climbed into a wicker chair which formed part of a large assortment p. 233of basket wares, and resolved to wait until “Dada” came by.

Here he crouched with his legs tucked beneath him, his cap far back on his dishevelled yellow locks, big tears hanging on his eyelashes, and one little forefinger between his lips—the picture of childish woe.

Every now and then he would fancy he descried the burly figure of his father advancing towards him, and would crane his head with an eager cry; but when the figure drew near it would always prove to be that of a stranger, and then Johnny would sob, and sink back again—a mere little heap of misery.

After long waiting and fruitless watching, Johnny’s little head began to droop, and his heavy lids closed gradually over his blue eyes; he sank backwards in the low chair, and presently forgot all his troubles in sleep.

It was quite dark when he was suddenly startled into consciousness by the pressure of a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and the sound of a rough voice in his ear.

“Hullo—what’s this?  What be you a-doin’ in my chair?”

Silverlocks herself could not have been more bewildered by the advent of the Three Bears than was Johnny as he sat up, blinking p. 234at what seemed to him a gigantic form dimly outlined in the dusk: he was positively voiceless with terror.

“Who gave ’ee leave to go to sleep in my chair, ye rascal?” continued the new-comer, and in another moment the little fellow’s seat was lifted up, and his own small person was sent sprawling on the ground.

Uttering a choked wail, the child scrambled to his feet and gazed about him; all was strange, dark, and terrifying; undefined shapes loomed through the dusk; the lights flashing out here and there intensified the prevailing gloom; a babel of voices intermingled with shouts and laughter sounded in the distance.  Two or three unknown figures now drew near to him, and one stretched out its hand.

“Now, then, little man, who may you be?” said a thick voice which he had never heard before.

Johnny started back, gasped, and then, terror lending him wings, darted swiftly from the group and fled away into the darkness.

*   *   *   *   *

When the time came for the young folks to return home, they were much surprised to find that Reed did not appear to restore Johnny to p. 235their care.  After long waiting and searching in the crowd, they decided that the little fellow must have prevailed upon his sire to allow him to remain with him.

“Be hoped he’ll not keep out the child too long,” said Maggie as she mounted the cart.  “Mother ’ull be awful upset at our goin’ back wi’out him.”

“She will—jist about!” agreed Rosie gloomily, from the back seat.  “I’m sure I don’t know however he’ll manage to get en home, without he carries en all the way, and he’s a pretty good weight, Johnny is.”

“Somebody ’ull give ’em a lift, you mid be sure,” said optimistic Tom, from his place next Rosie.  “’Tis wonderful how things do fall out.  There now, d’ye see, I never looked for gettin’ a ride in sich pleasant company.”

And he leered at Rosie in so meaning a manner that she tossed her head and forgot all about her little brother.

Mrs. Reed’s indignation and anxiety knew no bounds, and she was far from satisfied with the girls’ explanation.  Indeed, she rated them both soundly, refused to hear any details of their doings, and dismissed them in dudgeon to their little attic room, where, infected by p. 236her alarm, they lay quaking as the hours passed without bringing their father.

Midnight had been proclaimed by the asthmatic cuckoo-clock, and one had struck before the sound of heavy footsteps on the path without awoke Maggie from the uneasy doze into which she had at length fallen.

“’Tis Father,” she cried, sitting up in her bed.  “Lard! how he do fumble wi’ the latch.  He do seem to be a bit drinky, and he can’t have been druv, after all.  He must ha’ carried Johnny all the way.  ’Tis a mercy if he haven’t dropped him.”

They could hear their mother unbolting the house door, her voice raised in querulous reproach.

“’Tis a shame for ’ee, John, to keep out the child to this time o’ night.”  Then a sudden cry.  “For mercy’s sake, what ha’ ye done wi’ him?  Where be he?”

“Where be what?” returned the father good-humouredly, if a little thickly.  “Johnny?  Why he be at home and abed hours ago.  I left en wi’ the maids.  They be come home, sure?”

Maggie’s heart seemed to stand still; in a moment she had thrown a shawl over her nightgown, and was pattering down the narrow p. 237stairs, Rosie following and sobbing aloud.  They burst into the kitchen.  John Reed’s tall figure was standing in the open doorway, and though his wife, voiceless with terror, was clutching him by the arm, actually shaking him in her anxiety, he was smiling stupidly down at her, quite unconscious of the effect produced by his announcement.

“’Ees,” he repeated, “I left en wi’ the maids, and they must ha’ started long afore I.  I’ll tell ye all about it—I did meet Charl’ Pollen—”

“Father!” shrieked Maggie, “ye don’t mean to say ye haven’t got Johnny!  He wasn’t with us!  He ran off to you late in the afternoon.  I saw en close aside o’ you.  Lard save us, what’s to be done!  The child’s lost!”

“Lost!” repeated Reed, sobered in a minute.  “Lost!”

He rushed towards the girls, his face working, his eyes bloodshot.  “If you’ve been and lost that child I’ll be the death o’ you.”

His voice was harsh, absolutely unlike itself; he could scarcely articulate in his frenzy of rage and terror.

“I told ’ee,” he cried, “I told ’ee to look after en—my last words was, ‘Take care o’ p. 238Johnny, whatever ye do’.  Don’t dare tell me ye’ve been and lost en!”

“Oh, Father, Father!” wailed Maggie, who had retreated to the farthest end of the room, and now stood gazing at him with eyes that seemed ready to start from her pallid face.  “Oh, Father, you did say you was a-comin’ back for en, and he was a-cryin’ for you, and when he catched sight o’ you he wouldn’t be kept back all us could say.  And we stood and watched en till he was close aside of ’ee.  How could we but think he was safe!”

“Ye shouldn’t ha’ let go of en for a minute,” thundered the father.  “I never set eyes on en, I tell ’ee.  My God! the child’s lost, sure enough!”

He sank down on the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands, while the women stood huddled together with ghastly faces, weeping and lamenting.  Suddenly he sprang up again, turning on them savagely:—

“How could ye be sich fools as to think I’d keep him out till this hour?  D’ye fancy I’d no thought for en?  D’ye really think I—I could go for to do anything as mid hurt en?  Lard, to think on it!  Keep them maids o’ yourn out of my sight, Missus, or upon my word I’ll be the death of ’em.”

p. 239Mrs. Reed’s very soul was pierced by the cruelty of the words “Them maids o’ yours,” which not only implied her responsibility for the catastrophe, but seemed to portend a kind of dissolution of partnership; but, nevertheless, she alone of all the family retained a remnant of self-possession.

“Let’s see,” she said tremulously, “what time was it when you see him last, maids?”

“Six o’clock, I think,” gasped Maggie.

“Six o’clock,” repeated Reed, dropping his voice suddenly to a despairing note.  “Six o’clock and it’s nigh upon two now!  That’s eight hours since he was seen or heard of.”

“Maybe he’s there yet,” cried the mother, still striving to be hopeful.  “Don’t let’s lose another moment, Father—let’s go and look for en straight off.  Maybe he’s crope into one o’ the tents and fell asleep, or maybe somebody’s found en and is a-taken care of en.  I don’t believe,” added the poor woman wistfully, “I don’t believe as any one could find it in their hearts for to hurt a little chap like him—so pretty as he did look too!  Oh, dear!”

Her face changed, and she caught her breath with a sudden gasp.  Her lip began to tremble, and she pressed her finger to it to still it.

“He be too pretty,” she said falteringly; p. 240“that’s the worst on it!  There be so many gipsy folk about, and play-actors, and all sorts.”

“Oh, Mother,” cried Maggie and Rosie together, “ye don’t think as anybody ’ud want to steal en?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she returned almost inarticulately; “there, maybe they wouldn’t, but they do tell sich tales, and Johnny did look sich a pictur’, ye know; we was a-sayin’ it ourselves.”

John Reed uttered such a heart-rending groan upon this that the girls, forgetful of their terror, ran towards him.

“Keep off, I say!” he cried savagely, springing from his chair.  “Keep off!—keep out of my sight—I don’t know what I mid do to you.”

“There, my dears,” interposed their mother, in a tremulous aside, “best not anger him.  He’s not himself, d’ye see.  Run upstairs and get your things on, and see if ye can rouse up any of the neighbours to come and help look for the child.”

“I’ll not wait for nobody’s help!” growled her husband, catching at the words.  “I be goin’ to look for my child myself.  I’m not a-goin’ to take none o’ you wi’ me—ye don’t p. 241deserve it.  Ye didn’t, none o’ ye, vally that child as ye did ought to ha’ vallyed him, and now he be lost, and ye don’t none o’ ye deserve to find en.”

The women-folk gazed at each other aghast, but before they could remonstrate he was gone.

*   *   *   *   *

Day was dawning in all the cool glamour of fine September; a milky sky, that would presently become brilliant blue, a dew-drenched landscape; trees and pasture alike silver-besprent.  Robins were already singing in the boughs, and the sparrows had long been awake and busy, when a party of workmen, each with spade and pick on shoulder, sauntered across the fields to the scene of their daily labours.  As they walked they could hear the stir and bustle at Shroton—no great distance away.  The Fair had ended on the preceding night, and the travelling folk were busily collecting their gear, and preparing for the road.  Many shows and gipsy vans had, indeed, departed long before it was light, and from time to time the clatter of a traction-engine, the shriek of a steam-whistle, a column of noisome smoke poisoning the air above the green-gold line of hedge which bordered the highway, indicated p. 242the retirement of some unusually important merry-go-round or switchback.

The men had all paid a visit to the fair on one or other of the two days previous, and were discussing with some eagerness and occasional bursts of laughter the various frolics in which each had taken part, when they arrived at their goal.

Their task, unusual enough in itself, did not seem strange to them.  They were removing soil and rubbish from the recently discovered remains of a Roman villa.

Roman remains were common enough in that neighbourhood; antiquarians had even gloated over traces of still earlier times.  Thigh-bones, which were recognised to be of Danish origin, skulls of ancient Britons, had been found and treasured; there were undeniable traces, not far from this particular spot, of a hamlet once occupied by some almost prehistoric race.  No wonder, therefore, that the excavation of a mere Roman villa was an event comparatively unimportant!

Yet when the foremost workman reached the spot and looked down at the scene of his previous labours, he uttered a long, shrill whistle, and, turning to his comrades, exclaimed:—

p. 243“Well, I’m blowed!”

“What’s up?” cried another, pressing forward in his turn.

The rest hastened after him, and soon all were bending forward looking into the pit, the depth of which varied from five to six feet.  What was it that had called forth their astonishment?  The ancient walls, which each day’s toil exposed more fully, had now become familiar to them; they had often noticed the lines of colour traced by some alien hand so many centuries before, yet still bright and distinct where the sunshine caught them: they were not prone to marvel at these things at any time, and certainly not now when the modern wonders at the Fair were still fresh in their memory.

“Why, how ever did he get there?” cried the first speaker, pointing downwards with his thumb as the long-dead proprietor of those ancient walls might once have pointed at some doomed gladiator.

There, amid the relics of a bygone civilisation, lay the chubby form of a little nineteenth-century child—an extremely modern little Briton in a sailor-suit, with a mop of yellow curls tumbling over his sleeping face.

Yes, there lay Johnny!  While his distracted p. 244father was scouring the roads; while his mother and sisters, frantic with grief, had passed the night in wandering from house to house beating up search-parties, Johnny was sleeping the sweet, sound sleep of the tired child, on a heap of soft earth at the bottom of the Roman villa.

On hearing the strange voices he sat up, and looked about him, rosy and dewy after his slumbers.  The night had been mild, and he had rolled himself up so tightly that he had contrived to keep warm.  He blinked in bewilderment at the bright sunshine and at the strange bearded faces.  Then, with returning consciousness, the thought which had been last present to his mind before sleep had overtaken him leaped back to it.

“I want Dada,” said Johnny.

“Why, how in the name o’ fortun’ did you get here?” cried one of the men, swinging himself over the side, and taking the child up in his arms.  “Have you been here all night?”

“Looks like it,” cried another.  “What’s your name, little man?”

“Johnny,” said the child.

“How did ye come here, eh?”

“I thought the man was arter me, and I p. 245couldn’t find Dada,” said Johnny.  “I looked and looked, an’ it was dark, and I was running, and I falled down here and I couldn’t get out again.”

“Well, what a tale!  The little chap’s lost hisself, d’ye see, mates?  There’s somebody in trouble about this ’ere, you mid be sure!  Somebody’s lost en at the Fair.”

“Ah, he don’t look as if he belonged to any o’ the gipsy folk, or the shows, or sich as them,” said somebody.  “Seems as if he did belong to decent folks.  They be lookin’ for en at Shroton most like—we’d best take en back there.  He don’t belong to nobody about here, that’s plain.  Where d’ye live, Johnny?”

“Next door to Mrs. Short,” returned the child promptly.

“That’s tellin’ nothin’.  What’s the name o’ the place?”

Johnny, who was chary of speech at all times, and was besides slightly alarmed at being interrogated by so many strangers, returned no answer to this query, and announced instead loudly, and with a hint of not far distant tears in his voice, that he wanted “Dada”.

“There, best take en to the Fair at once,” said the man who held him in his arms.  p. 246“There’s sure to be some of his folks about.  Come along, Johnny—we’ll go and look for Dada.”

He hoisted up the child to one of his comrades, clambered himself to the higher level, and, taking him again in his arms, set off for the scene of the Fair, the others looking after him curiously for a moment or two, and then leisurely setting about their work.

Johnny did not say much during the transit; he sat very upright, staring about him with all his eyes in his anxiety to catch the first glimpse of his father.

As they entered the field where the Fair had taken place, and where were still many groups of busy people, a sudden outcry sounded from the neighbourhood of one of the large gipsy-vans which stood horsed and ready for further progress.  A great red-bearded man, with a white face and wild, bloodshot eyes, was struggling in the midst of the little crowd which had closed about him, while the proprietor of the van, a swarthy, thick-set fellow, was evidently denouncing him.

“That’s Dada!” cried Johnny eagerly.  “There he is!  What are they doing to en?  Why are they holdin’ en?  Dada!” he cried in a shrill scream.  “Dada!”

p. 247Amid all his frenzy, aye, even amid the din about him, John Reed distinguished the little voice, and suddenly became as a lamb.

“’Tis him,” he cried brokenly.  “’Tis Johnny!  That’s him yonder,” and slipping from the loosened grasp of the hands which had been laid upon him, he staggered forward, paused, wavered, and then dropping to the ground burst into tears.

Johnny, having been set on his legs, ran gleefully to his father, and flung his arms about his neck; and John fondled him with one big trembling hand, and sobbed on, his broad shoulders heaving, the tears trickling through the brown fingers with which he sought to hide his face.

People who had been most ready to condemn him now gathered round, full of sympathy; even the policemen, fathers of families themselves, looked down with benign compassion.  Only the van-proprietor stood aloof, indignantly surveying the tattered collar of his own rusty jacket, which seemed, indeed, to have recently sustained severe handling.

“He was near the death o’ me, I know that,” he remarked.  “He’d no need to come assaultin’ and a-batterin’ of me, if he had a-lost his child.”

p. 248“He didn’t know what he was a-doin’,” returned a sympathetic bystander.  “He’ve a-bin all night runnin’ after vans and sich, thinkin’ they’d a-carried off the little chap.  Somebody went and told en there was a little kid wi’ yaller curls among your folks, and he made sure ’twas his, d’ye see?”

“Well, an’ if we do have a kid wi’ yaller curls, what’s that to he?” grumbled the other.  “Us have got brats enough of our own wi’out wantin’ strangers.  I’ll have compensation for this.  I bain’t a-goin’ to be assaulted and a-battered for nothin’.”

The nearest policeman, a portly personage, and jealous of his prerogative, now turning in a dignified manner, informed the malcontent that he didn’t know nothin’ o’ what he was talkin’ of—compensation didn’t apply to no such case as this, and finally ordered him sternly to move on.

Meanwhile Reed had somewhat recovered, and was looking about him with red, swollen eyes, and explaining huskily to the crowd as he hugged Johnny in his arms:—

“I thought I’d lost en, d’ye see?—that’s it.  I thought I’d lost en.”

Rising presently, he prepared to leave the field, Johnny’s whilom protector walking beside p. 249him, relating over and over again how he had come upon the child, how surprised he had been, how he had said to his mates that there was sure to be somebody in trouble about this, and how he had thought it best to come to the Fair at once.  Reed, listening in a dazed kind of way, folded his arms tighter about Johnny, and stumbled along almost like a man in a dream.

“Shall I carry him?” said the other suddenly.  “Ye do seem that upset I reckon ye’d get along easier.”

And then John woke up.

“Nay,” he said, “nay, sir.  I thank ’ee kindly—I thank ’ee from my heart for findin’ en and all—but I can’t let go of en.  I must have the feel of en, ye see.”

As they turned out of the gate a sudden rattle of wheels was heard and a trap came in sight, the horse proceeding at a kind of hobbling canter, and one of the occupants of the little vehicle actually standing upright and supporting herself by the shoulder of the driver.

“’Tis Mammy, I do believe,” said Reed.  “See, Johnny—and there’s Maggie and Rosie at back.  Call out to ’em, Sonny!  Holler loud.  I don’t know what’s come to me, I can’t seem to get my voice out.”

p. 250Johnny duly raised his shrill pipe, and in another moment, with a joyful whoop, Jim Fry had thrown the reins on the horse’s back, and the whole party had tumbled into the road.

Mrs. Reed and Rosie were beside Dada and his precious burden almost immediately, but Maggie hung back, looking at her father with piteous, appealing eyes.

“Come here, Maidy,” he said huskily, “come—all’s forgive and forgot—there be summat to forgive and forget on all sides.  I were a bit rough to ’ee last night, but there, d’ye see, I were very nigh out o’ my mind.”

Maggie made a clutch at the nearest available portion of Johnny’s person, which happened to be a sturdy little mottled leg—for he was positively swamped by the caresses of his family—stooped, kissed it, and burst into tears.

Rosie followed suit, the mother had been long ago weeping, and now John Reed himself began to gulp and make contortions of the face as though in preparation for a fresh outburst of emotion.

Poor little Johnny looked from one to the other, utterly bewildered.  The sight of his whole family simultaneously in tears was too much for him, and, lifting up his voice, he p. 251gave vent to his feelings in a volume of sound which left no doubt as to the unimpaired condition of his lungs even after a night under the stars.

Jim Fry had been circling round the group scratching his head, rubbing his nose, and screwing up his mouth in token of dissatisfaction.  At this juncture he thought it was time to interfere.

“Well, I never,” he remarked irritably, “I never did see sich folk.  Here we’ve all been a-trapesing over the county lookin’ for the child, and thinkin’ him dead or stole, or hurted some way; and now we’ve a-found en safe and sound, wi’out so much as a scratch on en, and ye must all begin a-cryin’ and a-sobbin’ enough to frighten en out of his wits.  ’Tisn’t what ye’d like, be it, Johnny?”

“No,” said Johnny, with such a heave of his little chest that it very nearly lifted him out of his father’s arms.  Again he looked from one to the other with tearful, bewildered eyes, and again the sense of his injuries was too much for him.  “I’d like—summat—to eat!” he announced in a bellow of wrath and woe.

And thereupon the whole simple family fell a-laughing; and once again Johnny was hugged p. 252all round, and though eyes were still wet, and every now and then there would be a little catch in the voice of one or other speaker, the general equanimity was restored, and the party fell to discussing the little boy’s practical suggestion.

It was a very happy family that presently sat down to breakfast in a neighbouring cottage, Johnny being handed with respectful tenderness from one to the other, and being disposed before the meal was out to look upon himself quite in the light of a hero.  And Maggie sat between her father and Jim Fry, and was perhaps the happiest of all.

p. 253THE ROUT OF THE CONQUEROR.

The log fire burnt cheerily on the wide hearth, hissing and crackling every now and then, and sending showers of sparks dancing up the chimney; casting flickering shadows on the low ceiling, and sportively throwing little dots and rims of light from one to the other of Betty Sibley’s cherished treasures of crockery ware.  But Betty herself looked very serious as she sat leaning forward in her arm-chair, her bony elbows resting on her knees, her pointed chin supported by her hands, her beady black eyes roving from one to the other of her two visitors.

They sat on the opposite side of the hearth.  One a portly, middle-aged woman with a white apron much in evidence, and a little shawl crossed over her shoulders.  The strings of her very flat straw bonnet were untied and thrown back, an infallible token of perturbation of mind in the class to which she belonged, her large fat hands tightly clasped together on the top of her apron, her woebegone face p. 254with its lack-lustre eyes and loosely-dropping lower lip, the very picture of helpless despondency.  Close beside her, on the extreme edge of his chair, sat a young man sufficiently like her to be recognisable as her son, but with considerably more intelligence in his face—intelligence dashed at this moment by a marked expression of sullenness.

“Well, Aunt Betty, if you can’t help us, I’m sure I can’t think whatever we be to do.  You was always so clever—they do say down yonder in village there bain’t nothing as Betty Sibley haven’t got some way o’ gettin’ round.  She can very nigh make the dead alive again.”

“Nay now, I never went so far as that,” said old Betty, throwing herself back in her chair.  “But I’ve brought back them as has gone to the New House just for a minute like to ax a question.  Sometimes the end comes so suddent there bain’t no time for things to get settled as they should be settled, and as them as is gone ud’ wish to have them settled—well, then, there’s ways o’ makin’ them come back.”

“Lor!” ejaculated Kate Hardy under her breath, looking in awe at her distinguished relative.

“’Ees, my dear, you mid be sure o’ that.  p. 255D’ye mind when poor Jane Arnold was took off wi’ an impression on her chest—not so much time as to say where she’d like to be buried?  Well, ye know, her daughter Mary was terrible upset.  She know’d her mother had a lovely set o’ silver spoons put away safe somewhere, what was to be hers as she did tell her many a time when she was livin’, but not so much as one o’ them could she find; and Tom, the brother—a very rough fellow was Tom—gived her a week to put all to rights in the house and to pack up and go.  Him and his missus didn’t get on at all with Mary.  So poor Mary did come to I, the tears a-streaming down her face.  ‘Mrs. Sibley,’ says she, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you’ll help me.  I’ve lost my dear mother,’ she says, a-sobbin’ and a-cryin’ fit to break her heart, ‘and now it do really seem as if I was to lose the spoons too.”

“Eh—h—h, dear, dear,” groaned Mrs. Hardy sympathetically.

“’E—es, my dear, it ’ud ha’ melted a heart o’ stone I do assure ye.  So, I gived her summat and I did tell her what to say—”

Here the young man who had been sitting moodily twirling his thumbs, only changing his position once or twice to kick the burning p. 256logs with the heel of his hob-nailed boot when the flames sunk low, looked up suddenly with an expression of interest.

“What did ’ee give her?” he asked.

“Never you mind, Jim.  It bain’t for nothin’ o’ that kind as you and your mother be come here this evenin’: ’tis the livin’ as you wants to deal wi’.”

“Maybe if I had my will it ’ud be the dead,” said Jim, kicking savagely at the log.

“Sh—sh—sh,” said his mother reprovingly.  “Don’t ’ee take no notice of him, Aunt Betty; ’tis the best hearted bwoy in the world, but there, he be druv’ very nigh distracted at the present time!”

“Well, Kate, my dear, as I was a-sayin’,” pursued the sibyl, pointedly addressing herself to the elder of her visitors, “I did give the poor creatur’ summat, and that very night about twelve o’clock she did set the charm to work.”

Jim kicked at the log again, a little nervously, and Kate drew forward her chair with a grating sound on the tiled floor.

“Jist as the clock did strike one,” went on Betty, in a sepulchral tone, “the flame o’ the candle did jump up and then drop down again, and Mary did hear her mother’s step on the floor.”

p. 257Murmurs of admiration mingled with trepidation from Mrs. Hardy, and a sudden rigidity on Jim’s part.

“There she was, jist as she mid ha’ been in life, in her Sunday dress an’ little brooch an’ all, Mary said, an’ a nice clean apron, an’ wi’ a beautiful fresh colour in her cheeks.  She looked at Mary so reproachful like, the very same, Mary did say, as if she was axin’ her, ‘Why have ye brought me back?’  Poor Mary did go all white and twittery, an’ she did say: ‘Oh, Mother dear, I’d never ha’ brought you back from your rest, but just to ax ’ee the one thing: where did ’ee put the spoons?’  Well, the figure did stand lookin’ at her so solemn, and then all at once did rise its hand like this.”

Here Betty pointed upwards, and a dramatic pause ensued.

“Ah,” groaned Mrs. Hardy, “meanin’ to say as now she’d gone up’ards to glory she couldn’t be expected to be took up wi’ spoons an’ sich like.”

“’Twas the very thing as Mary did think herself, Kate my dear,” responded Betty solemnly.  “She come to I next mornin’, an’ she did say them very words, but I knowed better; I knowed that there charm what I gived her was one as never failed.  ‘Not at p. 258all, Mary,’ says I.  ‘Your mother’s sperrit warn’t a-tellin’ ’ee nought o’ the kind.  It p’inted up’ards, ye say?  Well then, take my advice an’ go straight home and search the thatch.’”

“Well, to be sure!” ejaculated her listeners; even the taciturn Jim was constrained to express some interest.

“Did she find ’em?” he asked quickly.

“I should think she did find ’em, Jim.  She did find every one as safe as anything, tied up in an old stocking, jist in the very spot what her mother had p’inted out.”

This climax seemed to impress Jim even more than his mother; he leaned forward, his great red hands twitching as they rested one on each knee.

“I d’ ’low, Aunt Betty, if ye could do that, you could do anythin’.  Can’t ye gi’ me summat as ’ll get the better o’ this here chap?”

“Well, Jim, I could give ’ee a love charm, but as you do tell I there’s no gettin’ near your young lady, I don’t see how you be to indooce her to wear it.”

“That’s true!” put in Jim’s mother dolefully.  “There, I will say it do seem cruel hard.  They were as good friends I do assure ’ee as a young man and a young lady need be.  p. 259They’ve a-bin walkin’—how long have you an’ Chrissy bin a-walkin’, Jim?”

“Fifteen month,” growled Jim gloomily.

“Ah, fifteen month, Aunt Betty.  An’ Chrissy have a nice bit of money laid by, mind ye.  Her father was as pleasant as could be about it, an’ quite friendly, an’ the mother too.  She did say to I not above a month ago, I d’ ’low,’ says she, ‘we may be expectin’ to hear banns give out soon,’ she says.  Well, an now this young good-for-nothin’ chap must come and whip her up from under my Jim’s very nose.  What she can see in him I can’t think, without it be his korky jacket.  Trooper Willcocks, as he calls himself—I’d troop him if I had my way.  Why didn’t he stay out at the war then, if he be so set up about it?”

“Ah, he’s a soldier, is he?” commented Aunt Betty.  “A soldier.  Ah, my dear, Jim’s young lady bain’t the first to run after a red coat.”

“But he han’t got no more a red coat nor you have—nothin’ but what they do call korky—as ugly a colour as ever I see.  An’ he bain’t a-goin’ to stop in the army neither.  He bain’t a proper soldier at all—jist a common chap as they picked up somewhere and clapped on a horse and sent out.”

p. 260“He’s in the yeomanry,” explained Jim.  “He don’t even come from these parts; he’s home on sick leave, an’ is here visitin’ his uncle, along of his own ’ome bein’ in town and not so healthy.  But he’s no more sick than I am.  I’d like to make him a bit sicker, I know.  Couldn’t ’ee give me a charm for that, Aunt Betty?”

Betty rubbed her shrivelled hands together, and fixed her beady eyes meditatively on her great-nephew.

“There mid be things as can be done what mid be things a body midn’t like doin’,” she said oracularly.  “You know the wax image—but there, I wouldn’t go for to advise such a thing.  The power as is give us is give us for good, that’s what I do say.  There’s a cure for everything in natur’, if one but knowed how to find it.  Now with herbs—I’ve often found out wonderful things with herbs—folks as is troubled wi’ warts and corns could cure them in a minute if they knowed the right thing.  The worst wart as ever was can be cured by a bit o’ milkwort.  Pull it up, root an’ all, d’ye see, and give ’em a bit every day, pounded wi’ a drop o’ new milk, an’ when the time comes round that the plant, if it was growin’ outside, ’ud be dyin’ down, the p. 261wart ’ull just wither away—that’s my notion, d’ye see?”

“But the image,” persevered Jim.  “Did you ever try that?  It seems a silly kind o’ thing too,” he added tentatively.  “How could a dumb image do anything good or ill?”

“Hush—sh—sh, my dear, ye don’t know nothin’ about them things,” put in Mrs. Hardy with apologetic haste.  “But they was known an’ tried by others afore ye was born.  Ye make an image in the likeness of the person as you know is trying to do you harm, and ye put it down to roast at a slow fire.  Dear yes, I’ve often heard of it.”

“Well, then ye don’t seem to have heard the rights on it,” interposed Aunt Betty, indignant at this encroachment on her peculiar province.  “There’s a deal more to be done than just set it down to roast same’s a chicken.”

“Then what must ye do?” inquired Kate in awe-struck tones.  “Ah,” seized by a sudden thought, “I can mind it now.  Ye must stick the image full of pins first.”

“That’s it?” said old Betty, nodding reluctantly.  “But there’s more than that too.  There’s summat as must be said.”

“I never heerd tell o’ nothin bein’ said, an’ p. 262I can mind my cousin Lizzie castin’ a spell over her step-mother wi’ an image like that, an’ she were took wi’ the rheumatiz the next week an’ never looked up arter.”

“’Twarn’t on account of the spell then if she didn’t say nothin’,” retorted Betty contemptuously.  “No spell would ever work wi’out the words.  Why, did ye never hear tell o’ saying the Lard’s Prayer back’ards, beginnin’ with Amen?”

“Lard no! that I didn’t!  An’ it bain’t what I’d like to be doin’, Aunt Betty.”

“Neither should I, my dear—’tis just what I be a-tellin’ ’ee.  But charm won’t work wi’out ye do.”

A pause ensued, after which Kate, rising disconsolately and crooking her arm into her heavy market-basket, remarked that it was time to be goin’.  Jim rose too, and stood dismally facing his great-aunt.

“If ye like to come back in a few days I’ll get that love charm ready,” she remarked compassionately.  “Bain’t there no maid as knows her as ye could get to sew it somewhere about her clothes?”

“No,” retorted Jim sullenly.  “I’ll not try no love charms.  I’ll try my hand at gettin’ rid o’ him first.”

p. 263Mother and son trudged away together in gloomy silence.  The early dusk had closed in upon the autumnal landscape.  In the little town they had left behind, lights were beginning to gleam forth, but before them there was only the dim glimmer of the wet road to guide them on their way.  Now and then a van passed them, jogging downwards to the town, or a heavily-laden waggon with the carter slouching alongside, and growling out Good-night as he went by.

All at once Jim nudged his mother, and pointed with a trembling finger.

“It’s him,” he whispered hoarsely.  Against the uncertain grey background of the road a broad-shouldered young figure came swinging into sight, the outline of the broad-brimmed cavalier hat which marked the yeoman being plainly perceptible.  As he drew near to the couple he paused, peering through the dusk.

“Hullo, Jim Hardy!” he cried gaily, “any message for Chrissy?  I’m glad to see you walking with a lady—I’ll tell her you’ve picked up another sweetheart.”

“Get out with ’ee, do!” cried Mrs. Hardy, further relieving her lacerated feelings by making a swoop at him with the market-basket.

p. 264Jim, however, pushed past her, and making a sudden dart at his supplanter, endeavoured to knock the picturesque hat from his head.  But the yeoman was too quick for him: stepping swiftly to one side he allowed his assailant’s blow to expend itself on the empty air, and then closing with him, tripped him up and laid him neatly on his back in the miry road.

“Good trick that, ain’t it?” he inquired pleasantly over his shoulder as he pursued his way.  “Picked it up from the Lancashires.”

Jim lay half stunned for a moment and then struggled up, foaming at the mouth.  He would have rushed in pursuit of his adversary, but that before he was fairly on his feet his mother fell upon him, market-basket and all, and held him firmly embraced until the tantalising sound of Trooper Willcocks’ cheery whistle died away in the distance.

“Well, I tell you what it is,” grumbled the hapless lover, when he had at last extricated himself.  “We’ll have a try at that there image to-night, or my name bain’t Jim Hardy.”

That evening accordingly, when the rheumatic old father had been hustled off to bed, and the younger members of the family disposed of p. 265for the night, Jim confronted his mother, holding a large slab of bees’ wax in his hand.

“Where be the pins?” he asked in a fierce whisper.

“Lard, it do make I go all flittery-twittery—folks do tell such tales!  If ’twarn’t for sayin’ the words, I wouldn’t so much mind.  But there—the notion do make I go quite cold down the back.”

Meanwhile Jim, kneeling in front of the fire, had melted the wax sufficiently to make it malleable, and now began to knead and mould it.

“Here be his legs,” he muttered to himself, “and now we must make thiccy hat stick out.”

With a kind of groan his mother went over to a chest of drawers in a corner of the room, and after fumbling for some time returned with a paper of pins.

“It be very nigh ready,” whispered Jim working away.  “Ugh! I’d like to smash the cheeky face of ’en.”  And with that he gave a fierce poke at the small knob which did duty for the gallant yeoman’s countenance.

The figure being completed Mrs. Hardy bent downwards handing Jim the pins one by one; her son viciously proceeding to insert as many as the effigy would hold, and beginning by p. 266driving a particularly large and crooked one into the middle of its chest.  The blazing logs threw large grotesque shadows of the stooping forms of the mother and son upon walls and ceiling, and when presently Jim held out the bristling little image at arm’s length, its fantastic reproduction, naturally much magnified, did indeed appear to bear some weird resemblance to the person whom it was meant to represent.

“Now then, Mother, say the words,” ordered Jim, as he set down the figure on the hearth.

“Lard, I dursn’t!” whimpered Mrs. Hardy.  “Say ’em yourself; I don’t wish the poor young man no ’arm.”

Her son, after casting on her a withering glance, indicative of supreme scorn at this despicable attempt to shirk responsibility, began slowly and resolutely to repeat his impious incantation.  By the time he had finished, the miniature yeoman had considerably diminished in size, the broad-brimmed hat had toppled to one side, and several of the pins had dropped out.  Jim straightened himself; his face was quite pale and his brow was wet.

“Get along to bed, Mother,” he remarked, “I reckon he’ll do now.  I d’ ’low Trooper Willcocks ’ull not feel so very comfortable in the morning.”

p. 267But lo and behold! though on the following day nothing was left of the effigy but a sticky indistinguishable mass of wax and pins, the very first person whom Jim encountered on his way to work was Trooper Willcocks, apparently in the best of health and spirits.  Jim was downcast, but not yet doubtful.  He would give him a week, he thought; but at the end of the week Trooper Willcocks looked better than ever, and what was worse, was more frequently in Chrissy’s company.

The despairing lover next resolved to try a more orthodox method of removing his obnoxious rival, and called upon the Rector, to whom he unfolded his case with some difficulty, and who listened in evident amusement, but not very great surprise.

“To tell you the truth, Hardy,” he remarked, throwing himself back in his chair, “you are not the only sufferer.  I think about six men have already come to me on the very same errand.”

“Six chaps come to ye about Chrissy Baverstock?” stammered Jim, purple in the face with anguish.

“Not about Chrissy Baverstock—if I remember aright each had a complaint to make about a different young woman, but it was p. 268always the same man.  He must be a redoubtable fellow, this yeoman of yours.”

“He bain’t none o’ mine,” retorted Jim, “an’ I can’t think whatever the maids do see in him.  I didn’t know there was more nor one,” he added reflectively, while a ray of hope seemed to illuminate his visage.

“I am very sorry for you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.  You see Willcocks is no parishioner of mine.  And though I have spoken to some of the girls in question, my words seem to have no effect.  Their heads are turned, I think, by his tales of battles and dangers and hairbreadth escapes.  They make a hero of him.  But console yourself.  After all there is safety in numbers.”

“’Ees,” agreed Jim meditatively.  “If there’s six of us, we ought to be able to do summat.”

It was late when he left the rectory, and he bent his steps immediately to a small hostelry in the town, which he occasionally patronised, but which the condition of his spirits had not permitted him to frequent of late, dreading as he did the facetious remarks of his cronies.

On pushing open the swing door, he found himself at once in the midst of a party of heated disputants, and the first phrase which greeted his ears revealed that the subject of p. 269the argument was the very one which occupied his own thoughts.

“I d’ ’low I’d knock that there blasted, broad-brimmed hat off his head so soon as I’d look at en—and his head too if it comes to that.”

“Ah!” growled another, “I be pure sorry they Boers haven’t a-done it for en.  I can’t believe they be such good shots as they do say, or they’d ha’ had it off afore now, wi’ their guns and their cannons.  It be always a poppin’ up where it bain’t wanted.”

“Haw—haw,” chimed in a third voice, “I d’ ’low Trooper Willcocks’ head were a deal too nigh Rosie Adlam’s last night to suit ’ee, Tom.  Ah, ’twas a very tender sight, goin’ along by the top of the hedge—d’you mind, Billy?”

“An’ poor Chrissy Baverstock standin’ all alone at the corner of the lane, fit to bu’st wi’ jealousy—why that’s Jim Hardy, bain’t it?  We was just a-talkin’ o’ your girl, Jim; ’tis a pity you weren’t about last night—ye mid ha’ had a chance, for Trooper Willcocks was givin’ Rosie a turn.”

Jim breathed a benediction, equally applicable to all the parties in question, and elbowed his way to the front.

“He’s took up wi’ Rosie now, has he?” he p. 270inquired, “’twon’t last—nay, ’twon’t last, sure.  She never were fit to hold a candle to Chrissy.”

Rosie’s discarded young man was still sufficiently susceptible where she was concerned to be disposed to take up the cudgels in her defence, and was opening his mouth to make some angry rejoinder, when he was prevented by the first speaker, who, removing a long clay pipe from his mouth, and waving it solemnly in the air, commanded silence.

“Boys,” he said, “this here bain’t no time for quarrelling.  As we was a-sayin’ afore Jim Hardy come in, summat must be done.  It bain’t only Chrissy and Rosie—it’s every maid in the whole countryside.  So soon as ever that there chap comes in sight, in his old yaller coat and breeches, and them there bandaged legs, and cockin’ his hat so knowin’ over his eye, the maids goes fair silly.  I’ve seen it myself,” he added feelingly.

“Poor Sam!” cried out a voice from the rear.  “What? ye don’t mean to say as your Mary—”

“Never you mind my Mary,” interrupted Sam loftily, “the question’s this.  This here man’s a public noosance, and as such must be removed; now, how be we to remove en?”

p. 271“Parson can’t make en shift,” murmured Tom dolefully.

“I d’ ’low a witch ’ud not have no power over he,” said Jim, thinking ruefully of his unsuccessful attempt with the bees’ wax.

“An’ it don’t seem to answer to go fightin’ of he, neither,” remarked Tom, who had a very noticeable black eye.

“I was a-wonderin’,” pursued Sam, “if we couldn’t someways ha’ the law on him.  He mid be run in for trespassin’ maybe, or for makin’ away wi’ other folks’ property—meanin’ the maids’ ’earts, do ’ee see? ha! ha!”

“Lard, what a notion!” cried Jim.  “Why the maids theirselves would take his part, sayin’ they gived ’em to en willin’.  That’s no use.  What I say is, Here be six on us, let’s go at en all together an’ duck en.  That ’ud maybe cool en a bit.”

A young man who had for some time been standing on the outskirts of the group silently listening, now came forward, throwing out his hand to command attention.  He was a sharp-featured youth with cunning little eyes and a sly smile.

“Beg pardon for interrupting,” he began, “but if you think of callin’ in the aid of the law, I shall be ’appy to advise ye.”

p. 272“Why, ’tis the lawyer chap,” said Tom.  “He ought to know summat; he’s been apeggin’ away at a desk long enough.”

Mr. Samuel Cross, who had indeed been clerk to the Branston lawyer for two or three years, and who was occasionally not averse to giving a little legal advice on his own account, unknown to his principal, was hailed on the present occasion with respectful satisfaction.  Seating himself on a corner of the deal table round which the group had gathered, and swinging his little legs backwards and forwards, he surveyed the party with twinkling eyes.

“First an’ foremost,” he began, “your notion, Jim Hardy, must be dismissed at once.  Duck a man who wears the Queen’s uniform?  Why the whole country would be up in arms?  Sam’s idea is better, but I don’t quite see how we could make it ‘trespass,’ nor yet ‘appropriation of property’.  The young ladies, as Jim truly said, the young ladies would be against us there.  We might do something in the way of ‘undue influence,’ perhaps,” meditatively, “but the best of all would be a ‘Breach of Prom.’.”

“What’s that?” cried several voices, while Tom, scratching his head, remarked, “I don’t quite take ’ee.”

p. 273“Why, look ’ere, this chap’s been making up to six gals at the same time—or perhaps they’ve bin a-makin’ up to him—anyhow, whichever way ye put it, every gal in the place is running after him.  Well, he can’t possibly marry them all, don’t ye see?  The thing ’ud be to induce one of these here disapp’inted gals to threaten to take an action against him for Breach of Promise of Marriage.  Nothing in the world frightens a man so much as the notion of an action for ‘Breach’.”

The other Sam slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.  “Well done,” he cried.  “Rabbit me, it do take a lawyer to think of they things.”

The rest, however, looked dubious.  Each one thought of his own sweetheart, and mentally resolved that she should never be permitted to sacrifice herself for the public weal.

“’Ees,” said Tom hesitatingly, voicing the general sentiment after a pause.  “It do sound right enough, but the question is—which maid is it to be?”

“Oh, that’s easily answered,” returned Cross, waving his pipe airily.  “Which is the staidest an’ ugliest?”

There was a simultaneous outcry; the maidens of Branston and the neighbourhood p. 274were apparently each and all in the flower of youth and beauty.  Sharp words were exchanged, however.  Tom, while defending Rosie from the imputed cast in her eye, took occasion to animadvert on Mary’s carroty locks, and the last-named damsel’s admirer nearly came to blows with Jim on the subject of Chrissy’s age, he asserting that she was a staid girl, while her lover stoutly declared that she was not yet five-and-twenty.

Just as the hubbub was at its height, an elderly man, who had been smoking in silent amusement in the corner of the room, remarked that if they were on the look-out for an ill-favoured sort o’ body, a bit on in years, they couldn’t do better than see what could be made of Anne Clarke of the “Roebuck”.

“I seed Trooper Willcocks wi’ his arm round her waist t’other day,” he added.  “Him an’ a couple more young sparks come in for a glass—and Willcocks had had a drop too much already.  He’d got into the way o’ love-making, d’ye see, and she was the only maid handy, so he made up to her, bein’ too far gone to see the difference.  If he didn’t begin palaverin’, an’ tellin’ her cock-an’-bull stories about his adventures out there at the war, and how he longed for faymale love an’ sympathy.  His p. 275arm was round her waist, I tell ’ee, before his first pint was drunk!”

Samuel Cross jumped off the table, his little eyes dancing in his head.  “The very thing,” he cried rapturously.  “Boys, we’ll make a grand job of this.  It will work up to a lovely case.  But Mum’s the word, remember—the game will be spoilt if a hint of it gets out.  Cheer up, lovers all, you’ll get your sweethearts back, I promise you.  If Trooper Willcocks doesn’t show a clean pair of heels before long, I’m a Dutchman.”

The Roebuck Inn was a somewhat dreary-looking little hostelry, about a mile away from the town of Branston.  It was situated in a kind of fold in the downs, a hollow between two vast undulating tracts of green.  A handful of thatched cottages flanked it, and the river ran so near that the premises of the Roebuck were regularly flooded once or twice a year when “the springs rose”.

The landlord of the little tumble-down place took these visitations very philosophically: indeed it was noticeable that his spirits were uplifted in proportion to the rising of the springs, knowing, as he had reason to do, that this watery rising habitually produced elevation of another kind among his customers.  For p. 276when one’s fields are flooded and one’s spirits damped, one is all the better able to appreciate an exhilarating glass, particularly when that glass is partaken of under peculiar and mirth-producing circumstances.

When Billy Clarke’s lower premises were under water, the topers were forced to migrate upstairs to the biggest bedroom, and there with a roaring fire in the tiny grate, packed themselves side by side upon the ancient four-post bed, and amid uproarious laughter devised every conceivable pretext for sending cross-grained Anne creaking down the slippery stairs, and clicking and sliding about on her pattens on the wet tiles below.  The strife between her cupidity and her ill-temper was an endless source of amusement to her clients; Anne Clarke would walk a mile for twopence, it was said, but she took it out in “language”.

The dusk was gathering when Samuel Cross called upon this damsel, and, though “the water had been out” a few days before, it had now partially subsided.  The “barton,” to be sure, was still more like a lake than a farm-yard, and Billy’s two cows, standing knee-deep in a dark slimy mess which once had been a manure heap of more than respectable dimensions, looked very forlorn and wretched.  Anne, still p. 277clinking about on her pattens, wore a particularly forbidding expression on her frosty face as she paused on her way from the clothes-line, a basket of linen poised on her hip, to return the visitor’s salutation.

“’Tother way to the tap-room,” she added ungraciously.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Clarke.  I come on a very different matter—a very delicate matter, and one which nearly concerns you.”

Anne fixed her most tractable eye upon him and considered; after a few minutes a light appeared to break in on her, and her face became almost pleasant.

“I d’ ’low ye be the lawyer feller, bain’t ye?  Have ’ee come to say Father or me’s come in to a legacy?”

“Not exactly that, Miss Clarke, though I shouldn’t say there wasn’t money in it.  You will find, Miss, that it will be to your advantage to place entire confidence in me.”

Anne hitched the basket a little higher up on her hip, assisting the operation by a jerk of her bony knee, and stared harder than ever; even the unmanageable eye assuming an expression of lively interest which was positively uncanny.

“What be to do?” she asked breathlessly.

p. 278Samuel came closer, laid one hand on the cold, damp, red arm which encircled the basket, and whispered mysteriously.

“It concerns your affections, Miss Clarke.  Your woman’s ’eart, what have been cruelly trifled with.”

“Get out!” returned Miss Clarke succinctly and fiercely.  “Don’t ’ee think ye can come a-gammonin’ o’ me.  I’m up to ye an’ your tricks.  Be off this minute, or I’ll—”

“Now, now, my good lady, be patient,” cried Samuel, starting back, well out of reach of the basket, which the irate damsel had lifted suspiciously high.  “I have come here in your interest, I assure you.  I have come to make a suggestion which is entirely to your advantage, and which will not only avenge your outraged feelin’s, but put money in your pocket.  But you must listen to me—you must allow me to explain; moreover you must trust in me.”

Anne hitched up her basket again and jerked her thumb in the direction of the house.

“Will ’ee come in?” she inquired; and without waiting for a reply led the way through the yard, over a kind of wooden dam which had been placed across the doorway, and finally into the damp and deserted tap-room, where p. 279an evil-smelling paraffin lamp was already burning.  Having set down her burden and closed the door, she turned and faced the lawyer’s clerk.

“Now then, what is it?”

“Miss Clarke,” began Samuel respectfully and mysteriously, “a rumour has reached me of the villainous way in which Trooper Willcocks has trifled with your feelin’s.  Now wait a bit, now wait a bit—” uplifting one hand as Anne was about to make some wrathful rejoinder.  “You’d be quite in the right to object to my intrudin’ on so delicate a matter if there weren’t a business side to it, but ye see there is a business side and that’s what I’ve come about.  There’s woman’s rights as well as woman’s feelin’s.  Ah, if it wasn’t for that, Miss Clarke, maybe some of us gay young men would find your sex even more unresistible than we do already.  But the notion of a Breach of Prom., Miss, is enough to steady the liveliest of us.”  He leered at her out of his cunning little eyes, and continued emphatically: “Maybe you didn’t know, Miss Clarke, as when a good-for-nothing young chap same as Trooper Willcocks comes philandering arter a lady that lady can have the law on him if he goes too far.  Now there’s a strange p. 280report in the town what says Trooper Willcocks’ arm were round your waist t’other night, Miss Clarke.”

Anne squinted down sideways at the singularly unattractive portion of her person just alluded to, as though wondering how Trooper Willcocks’ arm had ever got there; and indeed such a proceeding indicated an almost sublime degree of courage on the part of the gallant yeoman.

“’Twas a very tender act,” pursued Cross, “but a tender act don’t count for nothin’ by itself without the words are compromisin’.  Now, can you call to mind anythin’ as Trooper Willcocks said, Miss Clarke?”

“An’ supposin’ I did I’d maybe have no fancy for repeatin’ of ’em,” retorted the lady with a faint increase of colour in her sallow cheeks.  “He’d had a drop too much, Trooper Willcocks had, and he did give I a lot of impidence.  I didn’t take no notice of ’em—he did make I laugh at the time I d’ ’low, but—”

Cross pricked up his ears.  Anne’s admission denoted that the impression produced by the warrior had been even greater than he had supposed, for she was not as a rule given to seeing the humorous side of things.

“’Tis this way, d’ye see,” he said, p. 281insinuatingly.  “If we can prove as Trooper Willcocks went beyond a certain p’int in his lovin’ speeches we can take a action again him.”

“An’ what ’ud be the good o’ that?”

“Wait a bit, Miss, wait a bit!” said Samuel, sawing the air again with his lean forefinger.  “We can take a action again him, as I say, what will force him either to lead you to the altar or to pay you a substantial sum of money as damages.”

A slow smile broke over Anne’s ill-favoured face.

“D’ye mean him an’ me ’ud have to get married?” she inquired.

“Either that or, supposin’ the villain wasn’t willin’—an’ he is a villain, Miss Clarke, a low deceivin’ rascal—he’d have to put his hand in his pocket and fork out, Miss.  Either way, d’ye see, you’d be the gainer.  But all depends upon your memory.  Now, in confidence, Miss Clarke, in strict confidence to a honourable man, tell me, what did Trooper Willcocks say to you?”

“He called I a beauty two or three times,” returned Anne, after cogitating for a moment.

“Ah,” said Cross, “a—a nat’ral remark of course, but not compromising.  He said more than that, I’m sure, Miss Clarke.”

p. 282“He said,” she went on, knitting her brows in the effort to recall the trooper’s blandishments, “he said he wondered I’d remained single till now.  The bwoys didn’t know what they was about, he said.”

“That’s more like it!” cried Samuel, snapping his fingers joyfully.  “Let’s follow up that tack, Miss Clarke, if you please.  Did he chance to say now as he had better taste?  That ’ud be a very likely remark for him to make, ye know.  Don’t you recollect somethin’ of that sort, now?”

“Nay,” said Anne, shaking her head, “I can’t call to mind as he did.  He said as if my eyes was a pair there wouldn’t be their match in the country.”

“Depend upon it you’ve made a mistake there, Miss,” said Cross, leaning forward and speaking with increased earnestness.  “I dessay, bein’ a bit flurried at the time, you didn’t take reg’lar notice; but that ’ud be a silly thing for any one to say.  You might be sure his remark really was somethin’ like this: ‘You an’ I should be a pair, Miss; I’ve come to make a match in the country.’  You see he has come down to the country, and what more likely than that he’s come on purpose to find a wife?”

p. 283Anne, fixing her interlocutor with one of the eyes alluded to in the gallant speech she had quoted, and rubbing her hands together, began to think it was very likely.

“He—he kissed you, I s’pose, Miss Clarke?” went on the inquisitor presently.  “He! he! he!  ’Tis most unfair to ax such questions, but—”

“He went for to do it once, but I did smack his face for ’en an’ he didn’t try no more,” put in Anne a trifle regretfully.  “’Twould ha’ been better, I s’pose, if he had?”

“Well, it would have been more compromising, but the great thing to go on is what he said.  Try and remember that, Miss.  He told you about the war an’ how lonesome he was out there, didn’t he?  ‘No lovin’ faymales there,’ he said; so they tell me.”

“’E-es,” agreed Anne.  “He did say, ‘Little did I think out there on the veldt as I should so soon have my arm about a little charmer like you’.”

“Did he?” said Cross eagerly.

“’E-es.  ‘Lucky wound,’ says he, ‘to give I this chance!’  An’ he did say as if he were sent out again I should have to go too, for he couldn’t never stand the thought of sayin’ good-bye to I.”

p. 284“That ’ull do!” shouted Samuel, leaping from his chair and positively crowing with glee.  “Now we’ve got him.  He said you must go too—meanin’, of course, as his bride.  That’s enough.  Shake hands, Miss Clarke!  We have got him fairly cornered now.  Marriage or money—one or t’other.  If I was you I’d go in for the money, Miss Clarke.”

Anne turned to him with a simper that sent a cold shiver down his back.  “I’m not so sure o’ that,” she said.

“Good Lord,” muttered Cross to himself, “I wish she’d smile like that at Willcocks.  The job ’ud be done then.  It ’ud be enough to rout an army.  Well, you leave the matter in my hands,” he continued aloud.  “I’ll pull it through, you’ll see.  You’ll hear from me before long, Miss Clarke.”

With that he took his leave, and was presently swallowed up in the darkness without.  As he walked he cogitated:—

“I’ve half a mind to let it come to a action after all; there really seems to be the makin’s of it, and it ’ud give me a lift with the guv’nor.  Lord, the old gal’s a caution.  Trooper Willcocks ’ll shake in his shoes.”

He grinned to himself at the recollection of Anne’s face, and mimicked her last speech p. 285aloud: “‘I’m not so sure o’ that’.  He! he! . . .  It ’ud be the best joke ever known in Branston if it did come off, and the guv’nor ’d make the most of it.  He’s uncommon tightfisted, the guv’nor is, though”—here his face clouded over—“none of the profits ’ud come my way I don’t think; best see what can be made out o’ the other chaps, p’r’aps.  Come, we’ll work it some way.  Blest if I’m going to have my long walk an’ my long talk for nothin’.”

A very anxious little group gathered round Mr. Cross when he entered the bar of the Three Choughs.

“Well?” cried Jim Hardy breathlessly.

“Well,” echoed Cross, wagging his head, “I think we’ve got our gentleman in a tight place, jest about!  There he’ve been triflin’ with that tender young creetur yonder at the Roebuck that shameful that she’s determined to bring him to book.  Called her his little charmer, he did—”

Here there was a roar of laughter.

“And invited her to go back to South Africa with him,” resumed Samuel.  “Yes, she’s got a good case, no doubt o’ that.  But the question is, how far any o’ you ’ull be the better for it?”

“How’s that?” cried Jim, while the other p. 286love-sick swains nudged each other, and murmured indignantly.

“Why, I think she’s fair bent on taking out that action,” responded their legal adviser, “and that o’ course will keep him in the neighbourhood.  Poor chap, it ’ull take your young ladies all their time to console him, I should think.”

The listeners stared at him in blank dismay; he wagged his head again, very knowingly, and crossed one leg over the other.  “Yes,” he repeated reflectively, “Anne Clarke has got about as good a case as ever I heard on, and I advised her to follow it up.”

“You advised her,” shouted Tom indignantly.  “Come, that’s a pretty thing.  I thought you was on our side, Sam’el Cross.”

“A lawyer,” returned Samuel sententiously, “a lawyer is on the side what pays best; an’ this here job ought to be good for a rise for me.  ’Twill be but fair that I should share some of the governor’s pickings, and he’ll make a good thing out of it, you might be sure.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said one of the lovers dolefully.  “He be uncommon near, your boss be, and it do seem ’ard o’ you, Sam’el, to go a-desertin’ of we, arter leadin’ us on, so to speak.  You could stop Anne Clarke from takin’ out p. 287this here summons or whatever it be, so soon as look at her, couldn’t ’ee now?”

“I dessay I could,” said Cross calmly.

“And if you was to go and threaten Willcocks with the notion of it, he’d be off like a shot, that’s easy seen.”

“So ’tis,” agreed the clerk.  “I reckon he’d skip if I was to tell him all that his little charmer said to-day.  He!  He!”

“Well then,” said Jim, and paused—“that’s how it is,” he added lamely.  “The job ’ud be easy done.”

“Jus’ so,” responded Cross.  “The easiest thing in the world.  But I’m not for undertaking no jobs as are not worth my while.  Now I might get rid o’ Trooper Willcocks for a five-pun’ note, not less.”

A pause of consternation ensued; then Jim Hardy thumped the table with his fist.  “I think it ’ud be easier and cheaper to break the feller’s boanes straight off,” he shouted.

Sam extended a forefinger in his direction, “You look out, Jim!  You should know better nor say such things in the hearin’ o’ them whose dooty it is to uphold the law.  If any harm comes to Trooper Willcocks, I shall be bound in conscience to give my evidence.  Now, gentlemen, what be all looking so glum p. 288for?  Five pound ain’t such a terror!  It needn’t be paid in a note if it comes to that, nor all at the one time.  Half within the week, say, an’ t’other half at the end o’ the month.  I wouldn’t be hard with you, an’ Trooper Willcocks would certainly be a good riddance.”

They gathered round him again and after much argument, some laughter, and a good deal of swearing, came to terms with Samuel, who carried away with him that night a curious document, signed by half a dozen names, and drawn up entirely to his own satisfaction.

Trooper Willcocks was swaggering about just outside the church door on the following Sunday, when he was accosted by Samuel Cross.

“I was looking for you,” began the latter, drawing him aside.  “I have a word or two to say to you, Mr. Willcocks.”

“Won’t another day do?” returned the yeoman.  “The service will be over in a few minutes, and I’m waitin’ for a young lady.”

“Indeed,” said Sam, “might I make so bold as to inquire if the lady’s name is Miss Anne Clarke?”

“Anne Clarke,” repeated the trooper vacantly; the name awakened no response in his memory.

p. 289“Why, don’t you know,” cried Sam, “your little charmer of the Roebuck Inn—a regular beauty, Mr. Willcocks.  Your beauty, you know.  Why I understood you was a-going to take her to South Africa wi’ you.”

“What the devil are you at?” cried Willcocks irritably.  “What do you mean by talking all that rubbish to me?”

“No you don’t,” cried Sam, “I’m not to be put off like that, Trooper Willcocks.  I’m here on behalf of that very lady—if the matter can be settled private, so much the better; if not, she’s determined to take it into court.”

A sudden pallor overspread the yeoman’s visage, perceptible even beneath its tan; he was a soft young fellow in spite of all his daring, and the very name of the law-courts terrified him.

“The fact is,” said Cross jovially, “you haven’t no very clear rec’lection of it, I dessay—you’re such a one with the ladies aren’t you?  But sometimes a chap goes too far—an’ when it comes to making a reg’lar proposal of marriage—you’ll find you’ll have to stick to it, or else be let in for more than you bargained for.”

“But really,” said the other, almost piteously, “I’ve no notion at all o’ what you’re drivin’ at.  p. 290Who is Anne Clarke, an’ where did I meet her?”

Sam drew nearer and button-holed him confidentially.

“You know the Roebuck Inn, over the downs yonder?  You went there last Toosday with one or two friends—an’ you carried on fearful with the old man’s daughter—a beauty, I tell ye.  You was a bit on at the time, but you must remember.”

“I remember goin’ there,” admitted Willcocks, “but I can’t call to mind no young gal.”

“That’s a pity,” returned Sam.  “She knows all about you, I can tell you, and she have it settled in her own mind to consult our guv’nor to-morrow, without you come to some amicable arrangement first.  ‘Money or Matrimony,’ says she.”

“Matrimony?” ejaculated Willcocks, his jaw dropping.

“Ye-es, matrimony,” repeated Sam, darting a sidelong glance at his victim, and meditatively scratching his jaw.  “I rather think the lady’s fancy is set that way.  You should ha’ seen her smile when we talked on it.”

“What in the name of fortun’ am I to do?” inquired the yeoman, with a helpless glance; p. 291a mouse might as profitably have appealed to the cat in whose claws it found itself.

“The folks are comin’ out o’ church now,” cried Cross eagerly.  “Just you step in under this here archway, Trooper, an’ look out cautious, but keep out o’ sight yourself.  I shouldn’t wonder if Miss Clarke was here—I’ll p’int her out to you.”

The distracted yeoman obeyed, and presently a stream of people issued from the porch on the opposite side of the road, breaking up for the most part into little knots of twos and threes, though a few figures made their way homewards unescorted.  While anxiously on the look out for the mysterious damsel of the Roebuck, Trooper Willcocks witnessed one or two little episodes which filled him with rage and mortification.  Pretty Chrissy Baverstock, for instance, after loitering on the steps for quite five minutes, craning a slender neck and tossing her fair curls, was accosted by a bluff-looking labouring fellow, Jim Hardy in fact, who, after a few minutes’ parley, drew her arm through his, and walked away with her.  Rosy-cheeked Mary Miles went through the same preliminary period of waiting and head-tossing, but departed alone, her handkerchief to her eyes.  The over-soft heart of Trooper p. 292Willcocks was wrung within him at the sight.

But now Samuel Cross recalled his wandering attention by an admonitory dig: “That’s her,” he murmured.

Willcocks peered cautiously out and presently drew his head inwards with a jerk, his face as white as ashes.

“That one,” he gasped.  “That old, skinny, squinting—good Lord, surely I never said anything in the way o’ sweetheartin’ to her.”

“You only axed her to marry you—before witnesses,” returned the implacable Samuel.  “There’s no way out of it, man.  She’ll have the law on you without you lead her to the altar.”

“I was awful far gone on Toosday night I remember,” groaned the luckless yeoman, wiping a clammy brow.  “But a man shouldn’t be held accountable for what he says when he’s that way.”

“Lor’ bless you,” returned Cross cheerfully, “the law don’t take no account of such excuses.  You weren’t incapable, you see; you was able to walk about, an’ put your arm round her waist an’ that.”

“Ugh! I must ha’ been far gone.”

“I don’t know about that.  Says you, ‘My beauty,’ says you, ‘my little charmer, you an’ p. 293me must be a pair,’ says you; ‘I’ve come to the country to look for my match,’ says you.’”

“I couldn’t have said that,” interrupted Willcocks.  “’Tisn’t true to begin with.  I am going out to the front in a few weeks.”

“Ah,” commented Sam, “you told her that, an’ you asked her to go back with you.”

“But hang it, man, the thing’s impossible—ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous!  I should just think it was.  You’ll be the laughin’-stock of the countryside!  What will Chrissy Baverstock say—an’ Mary an’ Rosie, an’ the rest of them, and all their fellows when it comes out in court?  And it certainly will, without you marry her.”

“Good Lord,” cried poor Willcocks, now quite unnerved, “is there no way out of it?  Look here, I know you’re a good chap—I—I’d make it worth your while.  I’ve got a few pounds.  Couldn’t you just—just hush it up?”

Sam pursed up his mouth into whistling form.

“It might be done—but it’s a bit dangerous,” he said dubiously.  “If my governor was to get on the scent—but there, I’ll try and keep him off it, and if you’ll hand over them few pounds, I dessay I could stop old Anne Clarke’s mouth.”

p. 294“And what—what must I do?” queried the trooper, his teeth chattering in his head.

“Cut,” said Sam briefly.  “Cut off home, an’ never let yourself be seen in this part of the country again—else as sure as I’m alive, Anne Clarke will have you!”

*   *   *   *   *

There was jubilee and surprise in Branston on the following day when it became known, through the medium of Mr. Samuel Cross, that Trooper Willcocks had flown; and many were the surmises among the uninitiated as to the cause of his sudden departure.  Some opined that he had been ordered again to the front, others that he was engaged to a young lady at Capetown.  Anne Clarke became a trifle more sour as to face, and short as to temper than before, but whatever means the lawyer’s clerk employed for stopping her mouth, it is certain that Trooper Willcocks’ few pounds never found their way to her pocket.

p. 295HOW GRANFER VOLUNTEERED.

Farmer Sampson rolled slowly homewards after church one wintry Sunday, full of a comfortable sense of righteousness, and looking forward to a reposeful hour before the midday meal.  He exchanged greetings with his neighbours, discussed with them the probability of “snow-stuff” coming, or the likelihood of “its taking up” that night.  Being an affable man his opinion invariably coincided with that of the last person who spoke to him.

Arrived at his own substantial dwelling and pausing a moment on passing through the kitchen to inhale the fragrance of the roasting joint, he proceeded first to the best parlour—an awe-inspiring room, never used save for a christening or a funeral; a shrine for stuffed birds, wax fruits and flowers, unopened books, and the family’s best wearing apparel.  Mrs. Sampson’s Sunday bonnet reposed in the bandbox beneath the sofa; the accompanying gown p. 296was stowed away on one of the shelves of the bureau; other garments belonging respectively to children and grandchildren were hidden beneath silver paper in various receptacles; and the master of the house, now divesting himself of his broad-cloth coat, hung it carefully on the back of a chair, and restored his hat to the peg allotted to it behind the door.  Then, making his way to the family living-room, he assumed his white pinner—a clean one, which had been laid ready for him on the table—took up the newspaper, sat down in the wide arm-chair by the hearth which his substantial figure filled to a nicety, drew his spectacles from his pocket and began to read.

As he slowly spelt out line after line, his forefinger moving along the column in pace with his eyes, the air of contentment with which he had at first settled to his task gave way, first to an expression of puzzled astonishment, then to one of irresolution, and finally to absolute consternation.  After, however, reading and re-reading the paragraph which had attracted his attention in the weekly sheet, scratching his head, rubbing his nose, drumming with his fingers on the table, and in fact availing himself to the full of every recognised aid to thought, his brow cleared, and bringing p. 297one mighty clenched hand down on the open palm of the other, he exclaimed aloud:—

“I’ll do it!  I’m blest if I don’t do it—my dooty do stare me in the face.”

Thereupon, wheeling round slowly in his chair so as to face the door—a matter of some little difficulty—he proceeded to call, or rather to bellow at the top of his voice.

“Missus!  Grandma!  Come here, will ’ee?  Polly, Annie—be there any one about?  Here little uns—go an’ fetch Grandma, one on you.  Mis—sus!”

Presently there was a rush of feet, and Mrs. Sampson entered, followed by her married daughter, Polly, with three or four children clinging to her skirts, while Maidy Annie, the father’s favourite, hastened in from the rear.

“Bless me, Granfer! whatever be the matter?” enquired his wife anxiously.

Good old Sampson had been known as “Father” in the family circle for many a year, until Polly and her husband had taken up their abode at the farm, when the title of “Granfer,” naturally used by the children, had come to be universally adopted.

“There be matter enough for one while,” he now responded gloomily, and yet with a certain air of dignified triumph.

p. 298“Dear heart alive, they Boers bain’t a-comin’ to fight us over here, be they?” cried Annie, who was an imaginative young person.

“There’s no knowin’ what they’ll be a-thinkin’ on if we don’t look out,” responded her father importantly.  “It bain’t so much the Boers,” he continued, with a superior air, “’tis the French as we must be on our guard against—an’ the Germans—and the Roosians!” he cried emphatically, his eyes growing wider and wider as he named each nationality.  “They do say that they do all hate us worse nor p’ison, an’ is only lookin’ for an opportunity for attackin’ us.”

“Dear, dear, you don’t say so!” groaned Mrs. Sampson.  “’Tis worse nor in Boney’s time.  Lard! I can mind my father tellin’ me as when he was a boy they was expectin’ for sure as Boney ’ud land, and the country very near went mad wi’ fright.  An’ now ye say there be more nor the French agen us?”

“What ever is to be done,” put in Polly.  “I can’t think as there can be many soldiers a-left i’ the country wi’ them great ships full goin’ out week after week.  Who’s to defend us if any o’ them folks from abroad do come?”

Granfer looked slowly round from one anxious face to the other, rolled his head from p. 299side to side, heaved a deep sigh, and finally remarked in a sepulchral tone:—

“There’s summat goin’ to be done, ye mid be sure.”  He paused, nodded, smoothed out the paper on his knee, and finally handed it with a tragic air to Annie.  “See, here, my maid,” he said, indicating a certain paragraph with his broad thumb, “read this here to your mother an’ all on us.  Then ye’ll see what’s a-goin’ to be done.”

He threw himself back in his chair, while Annie, somewhat mystified and a good deal alarmed, read the following:—

“Her Majesty the Queen has been graciously pleased to invite her old soldiers to return to service again for one year, in defence of the country during the absence of her armies in South Africa.

“The text of the proclamation posted at the War Office will be found in another column.  Such an appeal will be warmly responded to by many a loyal British heart; our veterans will rejoice at the opportunity thus afforded them of proving their devotion to Queen and Country.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Sampson in a relieved tone, “think o’ that now!  I’m sure there be a good few old soldiers about, an’ it ’ull be very nice for ’em to get a chance o’ doin’ summat.”

p. 300“Very nice!” shouted her lord, with unaccountable fierceness.  “Very nice, do you say?  That be your notion, be it?  Well, I did look for a bit more feelin’ from you.  A man may be willin’ to do his dooty, an’ yet he mid find it oncommon hard work!”

“Why, Granter, what be talkin’ about?  I’m sure I never—”

“Do you suppose, Missus, as us old folks won’t find it a bit agen us to go shootin’, an’ drillin’, an’ manoverin’ an’ sich like, at our time o’ life?  Wi’ the best heart in the world I reckon we be like to find it a bit stiff.”

“Bless me, Sampson, don’t tell I as you’ve a-got a notion o’ j’inin’ the army at your time o’ life.  Lard save us!” she continued with gathering irritation, “I do believe you’ve a-took leave o’ your senses!”

“My dear woman,” returned the farmer, “I d’ ’low it will have gived ye a bit of a turn, but there, ’tis wrote plain for all to read.  ‘Her Majesty the Queen have invited her old soldiers to serve’—if Her Majesty have a-made up her mind as ’tis old soldiers she wants, it bain’t for the likes of us to go agen it.  I’ve al’ays heard tell as the Queen were an oncommon sensible woman, an’ she’ve a-found out, most like, as these here youngsters bain’t p. 301to be trusted—ye can’t expect old heads on young shoulders—I never did hold wi’ them there notions o’ shart service, an’ havin’ nothin’ but lads in the army, an’ Her Majesty, d’ye see, Her Majesty do very like agree wi’ I.”

“Well, but Granfer,” said Polly doubtfully, “d’ye think the Queen did mean soldiers as had—as had left off practising so long as you?”

“An’ besides,” put in Annie quickly, “’tisn’t same as if you was ever a regular soldier in barracks an’ that.  Ye did only go out wi’ the Yeomanry, didn’t ye?”

“Well,” returned her father, indignantly, “an’ will ’ee go for to tell I as a man as was twenty year a trooper in the Darset Yeomanry bain’t a soldier?  Why, what else be he then?  Ye be a voolish maid, my dear, very voolish!”

“Well, but,” gasped poor Mrs. Sampson, recovering her breath at last, “’tis thirty year an’ more, I’m sure, since ye did go out wi’ ’em!  Ah! I’m sure ’tis thirty year—’twas when poor Harry was a baby as ye did give up, ’an long afore Polly was born.”

“Now I tell ’ee what, Missus, this here kind o’ talk isn’t the talk for them as loves Queen an’ Country.  What do the papers say?  Read p. 302for yourself an’ see.  If every old soldier in the country was to go makin’ excuses, an’ thinkin’ this, that, an’ t’other, who’s to defend England?  Now, I’m a old man, an’ a bit stiff in the j’ints, an’ a bit heavy on my legs, but I can get on a harse, and pull a trigger yet.  An’ I’m not the man to go and disapp’int the Queen!  There, my mind be made up, an’ ye may tark till midnight wi’out changin’ it.”

“Well, to be sure,” said poor Grandma, dropping into a chair, “I must say as I didn’t think as I should live to see this day.  When a body comes to your time o’ life I didn’t look for ye to be tarkin’ o’ goin’ off to the war, jist at our busiest time o’ year, too, when we may be lookin’ out for new calves any day, an’ the lambin’ season not half over!”

“’Tis a bit a’k’ard that, I must agree,” returned Sampson, his face falling as he spoke.  “Ah, I could ha’ wished as Her Majesty hadn’t a-called upon us in the midst o’ lambin’ time.  We must do the best we can, that’s all.  Tom must see to things.  I d’ ’low other folks find it jist so hard to leave their business.  But when ye come to tarkin’ o’ my years, Missus, you do make a mistake.  ’Tis my years as makes my services valuable.  Now, Annie, read what’s wrote here about the men comin’ up.”

p. 303Annie dolorously found the place, and read how already the response throughout the country had been unanimous, and how men were turning up by hundreds at various military depots to offer their services.

“Ah,” commented Granfer, reflectively; “‘the nearest military deepotts’—let me see, ours ’ud be Blanchester, I suppose.  Well, Missus, make up your mind to it, I’ll be off to-morrow.  When a thing must be done, it must be done.”

Mrs. Sampson threw her apron over her head, and began to weep; Polly sniffed ominously, the children wailed, and Annie, flinging her arms round her father’s neck besought him to think better of it.

“There, to be sure! what a fuss ye do make,” cried he, struggling in her embrace.  “What be all in such a stew about, eh?  I bain’t a-goin’ off to fight the Boers, I tell ’ee—I be a-goin’ for to bide here and defend the country if the French or the Roosians comes this way.  As like as not I shall be able to come backwards and for’ards pretty often to see how ye be all a-gettin’ on.  There, I tell ’ee, ye should take more thought for I, an’ not go a-upsettin’ of I this way.  ’Tis ’ard enough as ’tis!”

And here the large face, which was looking p. 304disconsolately over Annie’s shoulder, assumed a purple hue, and big tears gathered in Granfer’s usually merry eyes.

“There,” he added weakly, as freeing one hand from his daughter’s somewhat strangulating caresses, he produced a large red and yellow handkerchief, and proceeded to mop his eyes, “you did ought to help I instead of hinderin’ of I!  You do all owe a dooty to Queen and Country yourselves.”

After this appeal to the better feelings of the family all opposition was withdrawn, and presently they fell to discussing arrangements for the carrying out his Spartan intent.

“My uniform is laid by safe enough, I know,” said Granfer; “but ’tis a question whether ’twill fit me or no—I’ve got a bit stoutish since I left off wearing of en.”

“Lard, man! the jacket ’ll not come within a yard o’ meetin’—ye be twice so big round as ye did use to be; an’ as for the trousers!  There, there’s no use thinkin’ o’ them!  They’d no more fit ’ee nor they would little Jackie there.”

“Them trousers as ye’ve a-got on ’ud do very well, though,” said Polly.  “They’re dark, d’ye see.”

“I’ll have to ride,” said her father p. 305thoughtfully.  “’Ees, bein’ in the Yeomanry, d’ye see, I’m bound to ride.  ’Twouldn’t look no-ways respectful like if I didn’t offer myself harse an’ all.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what harse ye’ll take, wi’out it’s Chrissy,” returned Mrs. Sampson.  “Ye’ll never get a saddle to stay on Vi’let or Duke—besides they’re wanted for ploughin’.  An’ Bob ’ud never carry ye.”

“Well, Chrissy ’ud do, right enough.  He was a fine mare in his day—I never see a better—there isn’t a colt as I’ve a-had from en as haven’t turned out well.  ’Ees, Tom mid drive en up from the lower mead to-morrow morn, an’ we’ll rub en down a bit and make en smart.”

“But ye’ll never go for to ride all the way, Granfer?” pleaded the anxious wife.  “Ye’ll be joggled to pieces, an’ I’m sure your best trousers won’t be fit to be seen.  There’s reason in all things.  Ye’d best go in Joyce’s cart, an’ tie Chrissy at back till ye get near the town.”

“Ah, I mid do that,” he agreed, with unexpected docility.  “I reckon I’d find it a stiffish job to ride so far without I had a bit more practice.”

The discussion was here interrupted by the entrance of Tom, Polly’s husband; but was p. 306resumed with even greater energy after the state of affairs had been explained to him.  As he was short-sighted enough to express doubt and disapproval, the entire family fell upon him with one accord, and reduced him to a state of sulky submission, his mother-in-law ending the controversy by announcing that if he had a bit of proper feelin’ he’d offer to go in Granfer’s place.

Long before dawn on the morrow the household was astir: Tom plodding over the rimy fields in the wake of Chrissy; Grandma hunting up the uniform; Polly turning over her belongings in search of a red felt petticoat which, she declared, matched it so well in colour and texture that portions of it might be used to widen the tunic; and Annie arming herself with scissors, needles, and thread in order to carry out the necessary alterations.  Round the kitchen fire they all presently gathered, eagerly assisting Granfer to “try on,” every one talking at once, and everyone sneezing, for Grandma was too good a manager not to have provided against the destructive moth by embalming the uniform in quantities of camphor and pepper.

After almost superhuman efforts Granfer was inducted into the tunic, his back having p. 307somewhat the appearance of a large red pincushion, while between the lower end of the tunic and the top of the Sunday trousers a good deal of grey flannel shirt was plainly visible.  As for meeting in front, that as Mrs. Sampson had foretold, the garment could by no means be induced to do, until Annie had deftly contrived to insert large strips of Polly’s red petticoat at the sides and in the sleeves.

“I expect I shall have to get a new ’un,’ remarked Granfer,” endeavouring to obtain a back view of himself, and squinting violently in the attempt.  “This here coat do seem too shart behind.  I reckon I’d best take off thiccy shirt.  It didn’t ought to stick out like that.”

“Take off your shirt!” screamed his wife.  “That ’ud be a pretty thing to do.  Ye’d be gettin’ laid up wi’ lumbaguey first thing, an’ much good ye’d be at your soldiering then.  Here, I’ll pull it down a bit, and when your sword do go on it won’t show much.”

“Keep your arms by your side, Granfer, so much as you can,” advised Annie, “an’ then the patches won’t be seen.”

“Lard, the red do suit ’ee wonderful I’m sure,” groaned Polly admiringly.  “I think the Queen herself ’ud be pleased if she could see ye.”

p. 308Granfer smiled, and then sat down to breakfast.

A towel had been hung out in the hedge, which was the recognised signal to Joyce, the carrier, that he was expected to draw up for a consignment of some kind, and presently one of the children, running in, announced that the van was at the gate.  Tom led round Chrissy, a matronly animal, mild in the eye, long in the tooth, and with a figure whose symmetry was a thing of the past.  Tom had, as he explained, managed to get a good bit of grease out of her coat, though he had not had time to trim her fetlocks, which were indeed marvellously shaggy, while her rusty tail almost swept the ground.

Granfer appeared in the doorway with his weeping family clinging to him, his sword in his hand, his cap set at a jaunty angle on the top of his bald head, but the rest of his military glory hidden beneath a comfortable frieze coat.

After explaining his project to Mr. Joyce, the carrier, who was speechless with admiration and astonishment, the saddle was laid inside the van, and Granfer, tearing himself from his womenkind, climbed up beside the driver.  And so they set off, with poor Chrissy meekly following at the rear of the vehicle; p. 309and the distracted family standing by the gate until the clipper-clopper of her heavy hoofs sounded faint in the distance.

*   *   *   *   *

What was the joyful surprise of the Sampson household when, late on that same day, Mr. Joyce’s van was observed to slacken as it approached their house, and, moreover, the jaded form of the faithful Chrissy was seen to be jogging in the rear; when, indeed, the well-known bellow of Granfer himself hailed them from a distance of a hundred yards or so, and presently his burly form alighted from the vehicle.

“Well,” he remarked, with an odd expression, in which perplexity appeared to struggle with relief, “I be come back, ye see.”

“Dear heart alive, Granfer.  I be main glad!” ejaculated Mrs. Sampson, breathlessly.  “Lard, I can’t tell ’ee how glad I be!  There, I’ve been a-frettin’ of myself to death very near all day; but however did they come to let ’ee off?”

“Well,” said Granfer, after nodding farewell to Mr. Joyce, and waiting till the van had proceeded on its way, “I were a bit surprised myself, but it seems I’ve missed the job by three months.”

p. 310“Why, how’s that?” cried Polly and Annie together, while Grandma, with groans of gratitude, remarked she didn’t care how many months it was—she was only too thankful he had missed it.

“If I’d ha’ been turned seventy,” went on the farmer, his face vacillating oddly between triumph and disappointment, “I’d have been took on.  But come in an’ I’ll tell ye all about it.”

Having been installed in his elbow-chair, having unbuttoned his tunic, and pushed his cap to the back of his head, Granfer began his recital.

“When we did get near Blanchester, I did say to carrier, ‘Joyce,’ says I, ‘you did best let me down here’; so he did pull up, and I did get out saddle, and put it on Chrissy, an’ rub so much of the dust off as I could wi’ a handful o’ straw—but the poor beast was awful hot, what wi’ her long coat, an’ what wi’ joggin’ so far.  However, up I gets, and did ride alongside o’ Mr. Joyce till we got to the town, and then I turned off towards barracks.  Well, I reckon I must ha’ been the first o’ the old soldiers o’ Darset as axed to take service again, for every one in the place was turnin’ to look at me, same as if I’d been a show.  Ye see I’d took off my coat, and laid it across saddle in front of I, and they couldn’t help but see what ’twas I were arter.  When I did get to barracks they did all come gatherin’ round me, laughin’ an’ callin’ out, an’ makin’ sich a din as you never did hear.”

“Every one in the place was turnin’ to look at me, same as if i’d been a show”

p. 311“Lard, now, Granfer, what were that for?” inquired Mrs. Sampson indignantly.

“I couldn’t tell ’ee, I’m sure,” he replied, with lofty disdain.  “Ignorance, I suppose.  As I was sayin’, I don’t think many old soldiers can have offered theirselves yet.  Well, I didn’t take no notice, but jist axed for the commandin’ officer, and by-and-by he come out, an’ he looks first at I, an’ then at Chrissy, an’ then, if ye’ll believe me, he began to laugh.

“‘Why, my good man,’ says he, ‘what may you want?’

“‘Sir,’ says I, ‘I did see on the paper yesterday, as the Queen was axin’ of her old soldiers to come an’ j’ine again, so I be a-come to offer my services.’

“The impident lads around, they fair roared, but the officer stopped laughin’, an’, says he, ‘Well done,’ says he; ‘will you dismount an’ come wi’ me for a minute or two, an’ we can talk the matter over?  Your mare will stand, I think,’ says he, very serious.

p. 312“‘’Ees,’ says I, ‘he’ll stand right enough, if he bain’t meddled wi’.’

“So he told off one o’ the men to see to en, an’ I did slip off Chrissy, an’ did walk alongside o’ the officer in-door to a room.

“‘To begin wi’,’ says he, smilin’ very kind, ‘what be your name, an’ what be your employment?’

“‘James Sampson be my name, sir,’ says I.  ‘I be a farmer, an’ lives over yonder at Riverton, fourteen mile away.  ’Tis a bit ill-convenient for I to leave home just now—’tis a busy time o’ year wi’ us farmers, d’ye see, what wi’ its bein’ lambin’ time, an’ what wi’ ploughin’ an’ sowin’ an’ that; but seein’ as the Queen herself did ax us to j’ine again, I wouldn’t like for to disapp’int Her Majesty.’

“Quite right, quite right,’ says he very grave and kind.  ‘An’ how long is it, Mr. Sampson, since you were a soldier?  Judgin’ by your uniform,’ says he, lookin’ at it rather hard, ‘it must ha’ been some time ago.’

“‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis a matter o’ thirty year since I did leave the Darset Yeomanry.  I went out wi’ en for fifteen year—ah, I didn’t miss a single trainin’—but when my father died, an’ I did settle down upon the farm, p. 313my missus were a bit agen it, so I did give up.’”

“Oh, Sampson, whatever made you bring my name into it?” said Mrs. Sampson bashfully.  “I’m sure I don’t know whatever the gentleman can ha’ thought.”

“It didn’t seem to put en out a bit.

“‘Thirty years ago,’ says he, ‘an’ fifteen years before that.  How old are you now?’

“I told en I’d be seventy year of age in May.

“‘Ah,’ says he, an’ then he looks at me solemn-like for a minute, an’ then he says: ‘Well, Mr. Sampson, I admire your sperret, an’ I’ve no doubt,’ says he, ‘the Queen ’ud be extremely gratified if she knew of the offer you have made.  But there are one or two objections—’

“‘Why, sir,’ says I, ‘what’s agen it?’

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘your figure is agen it to begin with.’

“‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘I know very well I haven’t exactly the kind o’ figure to go climbin’ up kopgees an’ that—I’m not a volunteerin’ for foreign service,’ says I, ‘but I understood as the Queen was axin’ her old soldiers to undertake the de-fence o’ the country, an’ I reckon I could do that so well as another.  I p. 314can shoot a bit,’ says I.  ‘Ye’ll not find many crows about my fields,’ I says, ‘they be too much afeared o’ me and my gun.’

“‘Well said,’ cries he, slapping me on the shoulder.  ‘But then there’s your age to think about, Mr. Sampson.  Sixty-nine, I think you said.’

“‘Sixty-nine year and nine months, sir,’ says I.

“‘Ah,’ he says, ‘that’s the difficulty.’

“‘How so, sir?’ says I.  ‘Her Majesty did say as ’twas her old soldiers as was wanted, an’ I be a-comin’ up to my threescore and ten, sir.’

“‘Ah,’ he says again, and looks at me very solemn ‘I’m afraid that won’t do.  Now I’ll tell you what you’ll do, Mr. Sampson.  Just you go quietly home again, and wait till you’re called upon.  I’m much obliged,’ says he, ‘for your handsome offer; you’re a plucky fellow,’ he says, and he shakes me by the hand, ‘an’ if we find we can’t get on without you, you may be sure we will send for you.’

“So he comes wi’ me to the door, an’ the ill-mannered folk as was standin’ there did begin a-laughin’ again so soon as they ketched sight o’ me, but the officer threw up his hand and stopped ’em.

p. 315“‘Men,’ says he, ‘I’m goin’ to call upon you to give three cheers for this fine old Briton!’—them was the very words he said, I do assure you—’this fine old Briton,’ says he.”

“Did he now?  Well, that was right down handsome,” cried Annie and Polly together, while Grandma, overcome with emotion, fairly wept.

“’Ees, I d’ ’low I thought it kind of him.

“‘Three cheers for this fine old Briton,’ says he.  ‘He’s made of the right stuff.  He has come here at great personal inconvenience to offer his services to Queen and Country, and I say we may be proud to think there are such men among us.  Come, lads, a hearty cheer.  Hip, hip, hip—’

“Well, I’d managed to get up on Chrissy by this time, an’ they all run round me, cheerin’ an’ wavin’ their caps, and I saluted ’em back, pleasant-like, and Chrissy and me walked off so proud as Punch.  So, though they didn’t take us on, ye see we’ve had what we mid call a good day.”

“’Ees, indeed, Granfer,” returned his missus, delighted, but tearful still.  “I’m sure we may all feel proud.  And I am but too thankful as they didn’t take ye on.  Dear heart p. 316alive! ’twas a narrow escape—ye’ll be seventy in next to no time.”

“True, true,” agreed Granfer.  “’Twas a thing I didn’t ever think on, but ’tis plain to be seen the reason why they didn’t take I.  They did ax for old soldiers and I weren’t old enough.”

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN