Jinny the Carrier

Automatically his sepulchral bass exuded, and his arms reclasped the box:

Then together their antithetical voices rolled out joyously as the box moved forward:

Inwardly she was thinking that a “funeral coach” was just what it was. Did its bells not ring the knell of all the peaceful past? Yes, it was the hearse of her past, of her youth. And somehow—somehow—she must readjust herself to the strange raw cruelty of the present.

V

She resettled him before his Bible. But when she returned from the stable, he had wandered again to the chest of drawers, and was now holding up the pot.

“And ye told me Oi was dreamin’!” he said angrily. “Why did ye lie to me?”

“What do you mean, Gran’fer?” she said, flushing.

“How did that pot come here?”

“I brought it, of course.”

“No, you dedn’t. Annie’s good-for-nawthen son brought it.”

“But I brought it in,” she persisted. “It was lying on the path.”

“Ah! Oi mind me now—he threw it at me.”

“The wretch!” said Jinny, believing him. “Poor Gran’fer!” she cried with self-reproach, patting his hairy hand. “But it’s bedtime. Come along!”

“Why did ye lie to me?” he repeated, unappeased.

“There’s no funeral coach,” she persisted. But even as she spoke, the faint tooting of a horn was heard from afar. Nip, idly gulping at flies, pricked up his ears; the ancient uttered a cry:

“The coach! The coach!”

Jinny’s hand clutched his more tightly. They could now hear the distant rattling and jingling—the Flynt Flyer was incredibly coming their way, along that grass-grown road. What was it doing by that lonely Common, she wondered tremulously. What customers were there to steal here? Did the pirate hanker even after Uncle Lilliwhyte?

“You’ll lose your beauty sleep, Gran’fer!” She drew him towards the corkscrew staircase. But he broke from her convulsively and hobbled out into the path, and stood with hand at ear towards the advancing clatter. To be seen staring at its meteoric passing would be too dreadful.

“Go in, Nip,” she cried with unwonted harshness. “Are you coming, Gran’fer?” she said, following the dog, “or shall I bolt you out? Must bolt up against thieves, you know.” And she began singing cheerily:

“Nay, ’tis the black hosses that bears the bells away, curse ’em. What should coaches be doing in these parts?”

“Same as me, I suppose,” she said with desperate lightness. “It’s only that young man who fancies himself a-driving and a-blowing.”

“A young man come to steal my business!”

“Well, one can’t lock that up! Come in, Gran’fer.”

“Oi’ll lock him up! What’s the thief’s name?”

“He’s not a thief. It’s the young man from Frog Farm.”

“That whippersnapper! Come with a coach to drive over you and me——!”

“That’s just what he’d try to do if we stand here! Come inside—the jackanips’ll only think we’re envying his bonkka turn-out.”

The argument and the touch of idiom succeeded, though she could feel his form shaking with passion as she drew him in. “Why did ye keep it from me?” he asked pitifully.

“Because I knew you’d get in a state.” As she shot the bolts, the better to shut Will out, she realized that her beating heart was somehow left outside, and that it was drawing her after it through doors howsoever barred and windows howsoever fastened, if only to watch the pageant of his passing.

“A funeral coach,” the ancient was mumbling, “you and Jinny may well call it so, ole sluggaby.”

“Yes, indeed, we may, Gran’fer,” she said, smiling. “For it’s his own funeral he’s conducting. He’ll soon come a cropper.”

“Blast him!” growled the Gaffer.

“Hush!” Jinny was shocked. “It’s all as fair as fair.”

“For over a hundred year we’ve fetched and carried ’twixt Bradmarsh and Chipstone, and now this scallywag with his new-fangled black hosses——” A fit of coughing broke off the speech, and he suddenly looked so much like the last stage of man in the Spelling-Book that Jinny had to put him back into his chair.

“Didn’t I say you’d get into a state? But you know there’s more carrying than I—than we can manage. Haven’t you sent lots of our customers away?”

“Curse ’em!” said the Gaffer comprehensively. “Warmin! And Oi told ’em sow to their head!”

“He’s only got our leavings, you see.” And she burst out in gay parody:

But the bells were now jingling nearer and nearer—jingling in victorious arrogance. The old man started up again in his chair. “How dare Caleb Flynt’s lad set hisself up agen me?”

“Don’t, Gran’fer.” She pressed him down. “Competition, folks call it. He’s got to earn his living just like us.”

“Nobody shan’t come competitioning here.” He broke from her again. “Daniel shall be an adder what biteth the hoss heels.” He began unbolting the door.

“You’ll never be able to bite his horse heels,” she urged. “They fly by like the wind.”

She had a sick fear the old man would hurl himself at the bridles, be dragged to death. But to her astonishment, ere he had lifted the latch, she heard the horses slowing down. The eight sounding hoofs, the clanging swingle-trees and harness, the great road-grinding equipage, were actually coming to a halt at her porch.

“Whoa, Snowdrop! Easy there, Cherry-blossom!” She knew the humour of these names of theirs, as she knew from a hundred channels of gossip everything about their owner, even to the identity of the blonde young female from Foxearth Farm who was so persistently a passenger.

So he had been forced to humiliate himself, to make the first approach—it was she who had, after all, been the conqueror, who had held out the longer! And in a swift flood of emotion she felt more than ever the injustice of her grandfather’s standpoint. Will had not “come competitioning.” It had all been unpremeditated. The horses had been left on his hands by that harum-scarum Showman. And anyhow, was he not serving the countryside better than she with her ramshackle little cart? But whatever the rights and the wrongs, a scene between the two men must be prevented.

“He’s come to eat humble pie, Gran’fer,” she whispered. “But we don’t see people after office hours—and it’s your bedtime.”

“Oi’ll show him who’s who,” said the Gaffer, disregarding her.

“But you can’t do that like this!” she urged with the cunning of desperation. “Put on your Sunday smock.”

“Ay, ay! Oi’ll larn him to come crakin’ and vauntin’.” His face lit up with baleful satisfaction, as he thought of the rare stitching in the gathers and patterns of that frock of fine linen.

As Jinny, relieved, was sheep-dogging him up to his room, they heard the butt-end of a whip beating at the house-door.

“Daniel Quarles takes his time, young man,” the Gaffer observed to the cobwebbed corkscrew staircase. And to Jinny, when she shut his door on him, he called back: “Do ye don’t forgit to put out the beer. And two glasses.”

VI

That imperious butt-end gave no time to change back to her own ostentatious costume. But she did not pause even to tear off her flecked apron. After all, in face of his surrender, she could forgo arrogance of appearance. Besides, he would scarcely have time to notice anything, so swiftly must she be rid of him—however she might savour his surrender—before her grandfather could re-descend upon him. True, the call for beer showed a relaxed tension, but who could predict the effect of quaffing it upon two hot-tempered males? Ignoring the injunction, she hurried to the house-door.

“Good evening, Miss Boldero.”

She was a shade disconcerted by the formality. But a great waft of the old friendship seemed to emanate from his frank eyes and the red hair his hat-lifting uncovered. She felt herself drawn to that flame like a poor little moth: she wanted to fall upon his magnanimous morning-jacket, to sob away her sin of pride.

“Good evening, Mr. Flynt,” she murmured.

He was astonished at the sight of her, and taken aback. Mentally he had shaken her off, had ridden over her by force of will, finding occupation and exhilaration in his new and prosperous adventure; finding consolation, too, in the creamy beauty of the girl who shuttled with such suspicious frequency in the Flynt Flyer. Blanche suggested not only cream but butter, so pliant and pattable did she seem, so ready to take the impress of Will’s personality. That was very restful after the intense irritativeness of the rival carrier.

For irritativeness still remained to him Jinny’s essence—even in their alienation. Her horn-blowing still jarred, her pink muslin dress was a new provocation. He was vexed at her jog-trot apathy when their vehicles passed, an apathy that took the sting out of his speed. He was piqued that she did not complain to any one of his competition, that she took no steps of reprisal, made no objection even to Nip’s visits to him. But the central irritation in all these fleeting glimpses and encounters had been her prettiness.

Now, seeing her close for the first time since their quarrel at the cattle-market, and without her being whisked away, he had a shock. Why, she was not pretty at all: she was shabby and wan! Where was the sparkle that had haunted the depths of him? The real Jinny was, it suddenly became patent, a worn creature with shadows under her eyes and little lines on her forehead. How could he ever have imagined her attractive? Why, Blanche was like a sultana beside her.

But if the thrill he had expected to feel was replaced by this dull disappointment, another emotion did not fail to supervene. It was pity—pity not unmixed with compunction. Had it been so manly as he had thought, to come interfering with her business, violating the immemorial local tradition which assigned the carrying to a Quarles?

“Won’t you come in?” she was forced to say, seeing him silent and petrified in the porch.

“Thank you—I’ve only brought this from Miss Gentry,” he answered in awkward negation. He had come to jeer, but now he held the pot of Hair Restorer apologetically.

Jinny went from white to red. It was the supreme humiliation. Not only had he not come to make it up: he had come at the culminating moment of his triumph—sent as a carrier to her! And sent not merely with a parcel, but with the proof of her blundering!

“How kind of her!” she said, taking it, but neither her hand nor her voice was steady. “Did she send any message with it?”

“Not particularly.” He had meant to rub in Miss Gentry’s denunciations of female stupidity, to demand the other pot, but his heart failed.

“Well, thank her for her present,” said poor Jinny, struggling hard for composure. “And tell her I’ll be giving her something in return on my next round.”

He suppressed a smile; shamed from it by the pathos of her courage.

“I guess she means it for your grandfather,” he said chivalrously.

“Perhaps she does,” Jinny murmured. She turned away to close the door on herself. The beautiful black horses pawed the ground impatiently. Will shuffled and squirmed less gracefully—there seemed nothing to do but to go. Had he not refused to step inside? But he had taken her at the end of his long round, he had deposited all his passengers and packages, and he felt loth to leave her thus. A resolution was forming within him—generating so rapidly in the warmth of compunction and renewed comradeship, that possibly the germs of it had already taken root in his subconsciousness when Nip’s label brought him her sneer at his lack of a guard.

“It’s very hot,” he fenced, lingering. “Can I have a glass of water?”

She started, remembering the Gaffer’s admonition.

“Oh, won’t you have a glass of beer?”

“No, thanks, just Adam’s ale.”

Almost liquefied herself by feeling this son of Adam needed her,—even thus slightly—she moved swiftly to and fro, returning with the glass. But not so swiftly that she had not smuggled Oliver’s Depilatory and the wedding-cake into the kitchen in case he should yet come in. He took the glass, managing to touch her cold trembling fingers.

“Much obliged,” he said, after a deep draught, and this time it was her fingers that were drawn, though less consciously, to touch his round the returned glass. Then, swallowing something harder than water, “I’ve been thinking about it all, Jinny, and I’m sorry——” he blurted.

“Ha!” Her heart leapt up again.

“Sorry for you,” he explained.

“For me?” Her face hardened.

“I—I—mean,” he corrected, stammeringly, “sorry to hurt your business.”

“You haven’t hurt my business! There’s room for both! It’s a fair competition.”

“It’s very forgiving of you to say so. But I said I’d start a coach-service and I had to make my word good, hadn’t I? A man can’t say a thing and leave it empty air.”

“No.” In her new humility she was prepared to admire such solid manhood.

“But that’s no reason why we should be bad friends, is it?”

She had thought that it was; now, that attitude of hers seemed childishly foolish. Self-abasement kept her dumb.

“No reason,” he repeated, mistaking her silence for obstinacy, “why we shouldn’t shake hands.”

“Only this glass,” she flashed more happily. But it shook in her hand.

“Ah!” He sighed with satisfaction. The way to his proposition lay open. He could broach it at once.

“Much better to pull together, eh?”

“Much,” she echoed. How sweet to see the mists of folly and bitterness rolling away, to feel the weight lifting from her heart. Impulsively she held out her left hand, and as he clasped it, the warmth that came to him from its cold firmness somewhat shook his sense of Blanche’s surpassing charm. Charm, in fact, seemed—to his bewilderment—to be independent of beauty. Or was it that what radiated from Jinny’s little hand was a sense of capable comradeship, missing from that large limp palm which received but did not give? Well, but comradeship was what he wanted, what he was now going to propose. And if charm was thrown in, so much the better for the partnership.

“Aha, Son of Belial! So ye’ve come to bog and vaunt your horn here!”

It was her forgotten grandfather. Startled from her daydream, she dropped the glass and it shivered to fragments. In the dusk Daniel Quarles, wizened though he was, loomed prophetic over them in snowy beard and smock, his forehead gloomed with thunder and his ancient beaver.

VII

Will drew out his white handkerchief, and tying it on his whip waved it humorously.

The old man was disconcerted in his Biblical vein. “This be a rummy ’un, Jinny. Is he off his head?”

“No, Gran’fer—that’s a flag of truce. A signal he’s got something friendly to say.”

The Gaffer turned on her. “Then why don’t ye arx him inside like a Christian, ’stead o’ breakin’ my glasses?”

“Thank you, Mr. Quarles,” said Will swiftly. He lowered the flag, and almost rushed across the threshold. Jinny retreated before him, and the trio passed silently through the ticking ante-chamber.

“Why don’t ye loight the lamp?” the Gaffer grumbled. Jinny gratefully flew to hide her perturbation in the kitchen. True, she would only be throwing more light upon it. But the breathing-space was welcome.

“Hadn’t you better have a look at my coach before it gets darker?” Will was reminded to say.

“Curse your coach!” He had reawakened the prophet.

“Easy, there!” said Will, untying his handkerchief. “It’s to be a family coach now, you see.”

“Family coach!” repeated Daniel, puzzled.

Jinny, fumbling at the lamp with butter-fingers, was glad it had not yet illumined her blushes. For, mingled with the rapturous tumult at her heart was a shrinking sense of impending publicity, of ethereal emotions too swiftly and masterfully translated into gross commitments. How had her mere passive acquiescence in a better relationship warranted Will’s larger assumptions?

“Well, that’s what it’ll be if you accept my proposition, won’t it?” she heard Will say.

“Set ye down, set ye down!” said Daniel. “What’s your proposition? Jinny, why’re you lazying with that lamp?”

“In a moment, Gran’fer.”

She brought it in, its fat globe shedding a rosy glow over the dingy wall-paper, the squat chairs, and the china shepherdesses. But for herself she had no need of it. Everything seemed to her transfigured, steeped in a heavenly light.

“Where’s that beer?” the ancient roared, its absence illumined.

She was glad to escape into the kitchen with her jug. Will moved towards the front door.

“You come and see the coach, Mr. Quarles,” he persisted, “before it’s too dark.”

“Dang your coach!” But the imprecation was mild and the ancient shuffled to the door and surveyed the imposing equipage complete from box to boot, with its glossy sable steeds. Will, swelling with renewed pride, and mentally comparing it with the canvas-rotted, lumbering little carrier’s cart and the aged animal on its last legs, awaited with complacency the rapturous exclamations of the old connoisseur.

But they did not come. “Ay, quite soizable, not such a bad coach, rayther top-heavy. Where’s the leaders?”

“You don’t want more than two horses on these roads. Ain’t there plenty o’ pair-horse coaches? Besides it don’t set up for a coach exactly. I’m a carrier mainly!”

The old man winced at the word.

“You’ve called her the Flynt Flyer,” he said, peering at the painted legend.

“And fly she does!” said Will, recovering his complacency. “There’s life and spirit for you!” he added, as the horses pawed and tossed their heads.

“More like an adder biting their heels!” said Daniel balefully. “But Oi thought Oi heerd they was black!”

Will was outraged. “The Devil himself couldn’t be blacker!”

Daniel shook his head. “Mud-colour Oi should call the offside hoss.”

“Well, there’s black mud, ain’t there?”

“Nearside hoss seems wheezy,” Daniel said sympathetically, as it snorted with impatience.

“Wheezy? Cherry-blossom? Why, he could run ten miles more without turning a hair.”

“Why, he’s sweatin’ like one o’clock!”

“So am I.” Will wiped his forehead furiously. “But that’s only the weather.”

“Hosses don’t want to sweat when there’s nowt to carry.”

For a moment Will was knocked breathless. Recovering, he smiled complacently. “Why, it’s all delivered. And it was a deliverance. A terrible load. Phew!”

“Nothing to ours! Lord, what a mort o’ custom! Look at that whopping box we’ve just carried in.” He pointed to the ante-room. “And all they other boxes!” he added with an inspiration, staring at the lumber of his deceased and scattered family.

“Oh, I know,” Will conceded graciously, “that there are folks that stick to Jinny—I mean to you—for old sake’s sake.”

“Ay, and you’re hankerin’ arter our hundred years’ connexion!”

“Eh?” said Will, dazed. He stole a reassuring glance at his magnificent turn-out.

“Oi could see what ye were droivin’ at with your friendly proposition. Want us to take you into pardnership.”

Will slapped his knee. “Well, I’m danged.”

Daniel chuckled fatuously. “Ho, ho! Guessed it, did Oi? Ye can’t keep much from Daniel Quarles.” And in high good humour he laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and moved him back into the house.

They found Jinny, who had just deposited the beer-jug on the table, flitting up the stairs.

“Where ye gooin’, Jinny?” the Gaffer called after her.

“You’ve got things to talk over,” she called back.

“It ain’t secrets,” he crowed.

“Don’t run away,” Will added. “You’re the person most concerned.”

But his blushing rival had disappeared. It was all too unnerving, especially when the cracked mirror, aided by the fat lamp, showed her what a shabby unkempt figure was setting out the beer-glasses on the tiger-painted tray. As she could not change into her grand gown under the invader’s eye, she was furtively carrying it up to her grandfather’s bedroom.

VIII

“Set ye down,” repeated the Gaffer. “Have a glass o’ beer.”

“No, thank you, I’ve had water.”

“And the glass too,” the old man chuckled. “That ain’t much of a chate. Have a shiver o’ cake.”

Will did not like to refuse the slice till the Gaffer, after looking round with growing grumpiness, brought in the great wedding-cake from the kitchen, naked of its carton.

“Muddlin’ things away,” he was murmuring, as he posed it pompously on the table, whence its high-built glory of frosted sugar shed a festal air over the room.

“No, thank you!” cried Will hastily, divining a mistake—on the Gaffer’s part, if not on Jinny’s. He guessed Farmer Gale was concerned with it, for the whole countryside was agog with the meanness of a wedding that did not include a labourers’ supper, nay, even a holiday for them. The old man glared, bread-knife in hand.

“It would give me stomach-ache,” Will apologized.

The confession arrested the ancient. “Never had gullion in my life,” he bragged, laying down the bread-knife. “But you young folks——!”

“It’s like this,” said Will, taking advantage of this better mood. “There’s not enough business to keep both of us going. Suppose I buy you out.”

“Buy me out!” The prophet of wrath resurged. His arm shot out for the bread-knife, pointing it door ward. “Git out o’ my house. For a hundred year——”

Will got angry. “If I do get out, it will be a hundred years before I come back. However,” he said, forcing a smile, “let’s put it another way. Jinny shall come and help my business.”

“Jinny’ll never give up Methusalem.”

“Well, Methusalem’ll give up Jinny before very long—he can’t last for ever. And she can keep him for Sundays—yes, that’ll be a good idea. She can drive to chapel with him, not being a business animal.” “And then she’d be clear of successors to Farmer Gale,” a side-thought added.

“But Oi thought ’twas me you had a proposition for,” said the Gaffer testily.

Will hastily readjusted his tactics. “Of course, of course. It’s really lumping our businesses, instead of competing, don’t you see?”

“Well, dedn’t Oi say ’twas a pardnership you was arter?”

“Quite right. Only we’ll give poor old Methusalem a retiring pension.”

“He, he!” croaked the Gaffer. He added honestly, “But Oi don’t droive much meself nowadays. ’Tis onny the connexion ye’d be getting and the adwice and counsel.”

“Just what I want,” said Will enthusiastically. “And I’m willing to share and share alike.”

“Snacks?”

“Snacks!”

“It’s not a bad notion,” admitted the ancient.

“It’s a ripping notion.”

“Arter all, as you say, there’s no reason we should come into colloosion.” He dropped the knife back on the table, and looked out of the still open window.

“Ay, it’s a grand coach!” he gurgled.

“The talk of the countryside—only needs a turnpike road to beat the train!” said Will, expanding afresh. “Snowdrop and Cherry-blossom I call these horses for fun—because they’re so black, you see.”

“Ay, black as the devil! And hark at ’em pawin’—there’s fire and sperrit for you. That’s as foine a coach as ever Oi took up from. It’ll not look amiss with Quarles painted ’stead o’ Flynt.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Will quickly. “Flynt must remain. The Flynt Flyer—you can’t alter that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“You can’t say the Quarles Flyer—the Quarles Creeper runs better off the tongue. The Flynt Flyer—that goes together.”

“But it’s you and me’s got to goo together,” retorted the obstinate old man. “Anyways it must be the Quarles and Flynt Flyer.”

“That’s too long. Besides the Flynt Flyer’s become a trade-mark—known everywhere.”

“And what about Daniel Quarles, Carrier? That’s a better known trade-mark. We’ll paint that.”

Will shook his head. “I can’t do that, but I’ll paint Flynt and Quarles, Carriers, underneath the name of the coach. And that’s the limit.”

“Daniel Quarles was always a peaceable man. . . . Quarles and Flynt!” breathed the Gaffer beatifically.

“No, Flynt and Quarles,” Will corrected. “Flynt must go first.”

“Why must?”

“Don’t F come before Q? Folks would think we didn’t know our A B C.”

“It would be more scholardy,” Daniel admitted.

Will proffered a conclusive hand. “Then it’s a bargain!” But Daniel let the hand hover.

“Oi don’t droive much meself nowadays,” he repeated with anxious honesty.

“We don’t expect it of the head of the firm,” said Will grandly; “there’s substitutes and subordinates.” But his hand drooped with a sense of bathos.

“Ay,” said the old man, swelling, “subordinators and granddarters.” He fished for the hand.

“Oughtn’t we to let ’em know?” Will insinuated.

“Oi allus liked young Flynt, your father,” answered the Gaffer, squeezing his fingers heartily. “And there warn’t much amiss with your mother. A forthright family, aldoe Peculiar. Jinny droives a-Sundays to chapel with the buoy-oys!”

At which sudden failure—or rather resurgence—of memory, Will felt more urgently than ever the need of getting Jinny’s consent rather than the nonagenarian’s.

“You’re mighty lucky,” he said craftily, “to have a granddaughter so spry. I reckon we’d better have her down and tell her.”

“Ay, that Oi be,” replied the Gaffer. “ ’Tis heartenin’ to hear her singin’ up and down the house.”

Indeed a little silvery trill was reaching them now. To Will it recalled more than one moment of mockery, but he felt nothing provocative in this song except its parade of happiness. It seemed to fling back his compassion, to be ominous of a refusal of his proposition. Perhaps, on second thoughts, it might be better to leave the old man to present her with a finished fact.

“Well, I must be getting home,” he said. “Glad that’s settled.”

Daniel clutched the knife again. “And we’ll cut the cake upon it.”

“No, no.” Mistake or no mistake, it seemed sacrilegious to slice into this quasi-ecclesiastical magnificence.

“But it’s a bargain. Jinny shall cut it. Jinny!” he called up.

“Just coming, Gran’fer.”

“That’s too grand for a bargain,” Will remonstrated. “Would almost do for a wedding,” he added with sly malice.

“Well, ain’t this for a pardnership?” the old man cackled. He moved to the door and stood looking out on the horses. “Steady, my beauties,” he said proprietorially. He shuffled to them and rubbed a voluptuous hand along the satiny sheen of their skins. “Flynt and Quarles,” he murmured.

Will had taken the opportunity to escape from the house. He now prepared to light his lamps. Bats were swooping and darting, weaving their weird patterns, but the air was still uncooled.

“Ye’re not a-gooin’ afore the cake’s cut!” the Gaffer protested.

“I’d best not see Jinny—she might only fly at me.”

“Rubbidge. When we’ve made it up!”

“But I’m late, and I shouldn’t wonder if there’s a thunderstorm.”

“Won’t take half a jiffy!” He dashed into the house and seized the knife. Will was only in time to arrest his uplifted arm, and Jinny, descending on the tableau, had a tragi-comic sense of rushing betwixt a murderer and her lover.

“What are you doing, Gran’fer?” she gasped.

He surrendered the bread-knife blinkingly to her, and Will released his arm, struck breathless by the change in Jinny. Not only were apron and shabby gown replaced by the Gentry masterpiece, not only was her hair combed and braided in a style he had never seen, but the face which reduced all these fripperies to insignificance seemed years younger and fresher. The little lines were gone from the forehead, the hard defiance from the eyes, and the wanness from the cheeks: the whole face was mantled with a soft light. How shrewd he had been to suggest this partnership, he thought with a pleasant glow, forgetting its origin in pity. For assuredly this softly radiant person made no call on that emotion. The old man was equally astonished. “Why, Jinny, ye’re as smart as a carrot!” he cried naïvely. “Bless ye.” He kissed her fondly. “Willie wants to goo into pardnership—Quarles and Flynt.”

The young people looked at each other, both as carrots in hue.

“Well, Willie, where’s your tongue? Tell her how we’ve settled it.”

“He can tell me on Sunday,” said Jinny, not utterly unresentful of their masculine methods.

“On Sunday?” the Gaffer gasped.

“After chapel,” Jinny explained.

“Oi won’t have no such talk a-Sundays. It’s got to be now. Goo ahead, buoy-oy!”

“Oh, Gran’fer,” Jinny pleaded. “Can’t you go and light Will’s lamps?”

“Ye want to upset it all behind my back,” he said with a cunning air.

“No, I don’t.”

“Ye can’t diddle Daniel Quarles. It’s a fust-rate proposition, and don’t ye dare say ‘Noa.’ ”

“But, Gran’fer!” Jinny hung her head. “You might understand.”

“Oi understand better nor you. Look at that coach now—a grand coach—Quarles and Flynt.”

“Never mind the coach—light the lamps,” Jinny cried paradoxically.

Daniel moved out reluctantly. “It’s a hansum proposition, Jinny,” he said. “Where’s your tinder-box, Willie?”

“Here’s matches,” said Will. He looked uneasy. Her grandfather seemed to be irritating the girl—it boded ill for his proposition.

“Don’t be afeared, Willie. She won’t fly at ye now. Easy, my beauties. Steady, Snowdrop!”

IX

“You don’t mind my clearing up,” said Jinny, pouncing upon Farmer Gale’s imperilled cake.

“Not if you don’t fly at me,” Will quoted with a nervous facetiousness.

Jinny smiled with equal nervousness: “Oh, I won’t fly at you—nor jump at you, neither.”

Will flinched. Had he not felt committed to her grandfather, he would have shrunk from the rebuff now menacing his proposition. Indeed, he was not quite clear as to how he could really amalgamate the two concerns. The notion of a girl guard, which had first flashed upon him as an inspiration, was now felt to be beset by obstacles. True, the operations of blowing such a long horn, taking so many fares, booking so many parcels, and locking and unlocking the boots, were a serious discount from the pleasures of driving, and a person familiar with the minutiæ of carrying, and a ready-reckoner incarnate, (and so agreeably incarnate) might well seem providential. But would the unfitness of so unconventional an occupation be glossed over by the existing acceptance of her in that line of business, and would his overlordship be a protection or an added scandal? Still, he was in for it now, unless she refused the post—which he hoped she would not! For after all, at the worst, with all these new circuits of his, he might still leave to her her little pottering round, counting it as a branch of the new Flynt and Quarles business. He would still have won the monopoly of the local carrying, and without the weight on his conscience of starving her out.

“I know you’ve got a deal of pride and all that,” he began diffidently, “but you’ll bear in mind your grandfather’s tickled with the notion.”

“It’s hardly Gran’fer’s business,” Jinny murmured, blushing.

“Oh, I quite understand that. Of course it’s your business really. Didn’t I ask you not to run away? I didn’t mean to reckon it settled unless you said ‘Yes.’ ”

“I should hope not,” said Jinny with a spirit that banished the blush. She carried the cake back to the top of the chest of drawers.

“Of course it’s silly our going on separate, don’t you think so?”

“I haven’t thought.” She took up the beer-jug to remove it.

“Well, I have—I’ve thought a good deal—that’s why I figured that with you as my partner—No, not for me, thank you.”

For Jinny was mechanically filling a glass. Flushing afresh, she poured the beer back. “But who’s to look after Gran’fer?” she said, her eyes averted. “How can I leave him?”

“I’ve thought of that—naturally when you’re so much with me, you can’t be much with him. But, you see, there’ll be plenty of dollars to share out—money, I mean—and we’d be able to get in a woman to take care of him.”

To get in a woman! So he was prepared to let poor old Gran’fer live with them! O exquisite, incredible magnanimity! It solved all difficulties in a flash. “And what about Methusalem?” she asked, expectant of a similarly sublime solution.

“Poor old Methusalem!” he laughed. “Won’t he like going to grass? Well, if he’s so very keen, suppose he trots around once a week on his own little affairs—hair-restorers and the like.”

Even the little dart failed to pierce. She was overwhelmed by this culminating magnanimity. This was indeed surrender. So she was not ignorant of horses, so her work had not been improper. She smiled responsively, but her voice shook. “You mean I can carry on?”

“Under the Flynt flag, of course.”

“You wouldn’t really mind?”

“All’s grist that comes to the mill. Besides, it would leave me free to branch out to Totfield Major, and perhaps even Colchester. Tuesdays, say, if you like.”

But she did not like. Her conception of a wife’s dignity boggled at the notion of driving around as before. Unmaidenly it was not—he had handsomely admitted it—but unwifely it assuredly was. A wife’s place, she felt instinctively, was the home. She shook her head. “I don’t think I ought to drive Methusalem any more.”

He gasped. “Well, you wouldn’t expect to handle a pair of horses, would you?”

If he meant she could not, Jinny was not so sure. But why argue so irrelevant a point? “No, of course not,” she murmured obediently. “I mean Methusalem will like going out to grass.”

He breathed freely again. The path to his project was clear at last. “But as a sort of guard now——” he ventured, With an indulgent air.

Jinny beamed at so facetious a picture. She saw herself in red, with big buttons and shorn hair. “So I’m to blow your horn for you after all!”

“Sure—once you’ve paid up the gloves!”

She laughed merrily. Even Miss Gentry’s bill was a dissipated nightmare now.

“But where shall I get the money?” she joked, for the pleasure of his reply.

“Oh, you’ll take all the money,” he instructed her seriously.

“I’ll have to allow you some, though,” she pointed out gaily.

“Half,” he explained. “We divide the takings equally—that’s my proposition. Snacks!”

“Oh, that’s much too much,” she protested as seriously.

The apparent admission pleased him, but increased his sense of magnanimity. “Share and share alike,” he repeated magnificently.

“But you don’t want to spend half the takings,” Jinny persisted. “How could I manage on a half?”

“Why, you’ll have much more than you ever had!”

Jinny was mystified. “But there’ll be the house to keep up and—and——” She paused with shy flaming cheeks.

Will was getting a bit puzzled too. “And your grandfather? But I’ve already offered to pay for him and his minder too—out of the joint takings, I mean. Surely half and half is the most you can expect.”

But it showed once more how little our Jinny had really been changed from early-Victorian womanhood by her exceptional experiences, that so unconventional a system of joint housekeeping made no appeal to her. “A quarter is the most you can expect,” she retorted.

“What!” Will was even more revolted by her ingratitude than by her impudence. “When you only bring in your wretched little cart, and I sank all my capital in the coach!”

“Your capital?” Jinny repeated blankly.

“You know what I had to pay for the horses!”

It was an unfortunate memory to stir up, and it helped a flood of raw light to burst upon her.

“You’re not really proposing I should be your guard?” she asked in a changed voice.

“Yes, I am,” he reassured her.

“For money?” she breathed incredulously.

“Of course. You don’t suppose I ask it for love! Business is——!”

Jinny turned on him like a tigress—anger was the only thing that could drown this dreadful sense of shame. “How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you ask me to work for you for money?”

Will winced before her passion. “You promised not to fly at me,” he reminded her glumly.

“I didn’t think you’d suggest that.”

“And what’s wrong in suggesting a partnership?”

“A partnership!” she sneered. “Do you suppose I’m going to pull you out of the mud?”

Will’s blood was up in its turn. “You pull me?”

“What else? You find yourself stuck and you come to me to save your funeral coach.”

“Funeral coach?”

“That’s what Gran’fer calls it. And you will find yourself carrying corpses if you go on cooping up your passengers in this weather. Your silly concern hasn’t got a tilt to take off, but at least you might put the luggage inside and the live-stock on top. Oh, don’t be frightened, I won’t charge for my advice. But you being young and raw——”

“Here! Stow that!” Will banged the floor with his whip. “Then you refuse my offer!”

“Offer? I call it a petition.”

“Me petitioning——!” His breath failed.

“It wasn’t me that came with a flag of truce.”

He snorted. “You’ll come one day with a cry for mercy.”

“Me! You’ll never see me at Frog Farm. I’d rather go to the poorhouse—to see you, I mean.”

Will set his teeth. “Very well then—my conscience is clear. I did think I might have been hard on you. But now——!”

“Now,” she echoed mockingly.

“I shall crush you.”

She laughed tauntingly “Pride goes before a fall.”

“I shall crush you without pity.”

“You young rapscallion!” It was the Gaffer hobbling back. Having lit the coach-lamps, he had lingered in voluptuous contemplation of what they illumined. But the noise of high words had reached him, and now with the astonishing muscularity that still lingered in his shrunken frame, the ancient seized the whip and wrenched it from Will’s grasp. Jinny flew between them, fearing he would strike as he stood there in prophetic fury, palpitating in his every limb. Her earlier intervention, though against a knife, had been comic: here was tragedy, she felt.

“You crush my Jinny! Why, Oi’ll snap ye in two like this whip.” And he hurled the pieces of the stock at Will’s feet.

Nip leapt for the butt-end and brought it back in his mouth with high-wagging tall, demanding another throw. He broke the tension of foolish mortality.

“Don’t excite yourself, Gran’fer,” said Jinny, leading him to his chair. “I’ll cut him out before he’s a month older.”

Will guffawed. “I offered her a fair chance, Mr. Quarles,” he said, taking the butt from Nip’s mouth. “You yourself said it was a handsome offer.”

“We don’t want your offers, ye pirate thief, nor your chances neither. Ye’ve only got our crumbles. Oi’ve sent a mort o’ customers to hell, and you can goo with ’em.”

“As you please.” Will picked up the whip-end quietly. But the old volcano was still rumbling.

“You crush my Jinny—you with your flags and rags. Why, all Bradmarsh ’ould give ye rough music. Ye’d be tin-kettled.”

“Very well! Only don’t say I didn’t give you a fair and friendly chance. Don’t blame me if you come to want bread.”

“Bread!” The old man sprang towards the chest of drawers and this time the cake was stabbed to the heart. “Have a shiver?” he cried magnificently, holding up a regal hunk on the knife-point.

Even Will was taken aback by this deed of derring-do. “Better save it up,” he said sullenly.

“Save it?” repeated Daniel hysterically. Nip was already on his hind legs begging for it—with a superb gesture the prodigal grandfather threw it at the tireless mouth. “Never you darken my doorstep again!” he cried to Will.

Will cracked his bit of whip with a scornful laugh. “Before you see me in this house again, you’ll have to carry me in!”

“Carry him in? D’ye hear that, Nip?” The ancient chuckled contemptuously. “That’s a good ’un.”

“Carry me in,” repeated Will fiercely. And holding up his hand, “So help me God!” he cried.

“Spare your swearings, buoy-oy,” said Daniel grimly, throwing the plaintive Nip another pile of sugary splendour. “Ye ’ont never cross this threshold agen save on your hands and knees.” And sending his knife quivering into the floor, he brought down his hand on his Bible. “On your hands and knees,” he repeated solemnly.

Will turned and strode out stiffly. He looked almost tall. A moment later they heard the clatter and jingle of the great equipage moving forwards and the jubilant winding of the long horn.