Molly gave a cry, and flung her apron over her head, and Jean came forward, full of genuine distress and sympathy. But at sight of him the old man’s face became suddenly suffused with a rush of returning colour; he babbled with inarticulate rage, and shook his fist threateningly.
“Soombry ’ll pay for this,” he cried, as soon as he could speak. “I’ll not have no murderers in my house. I’ll have blood for blood. Does not the Book say ‘an eye for an eye’? I’ll have life for life, I tell yo’. I’ll revenge my son!”
“Oh, father, father,” wept Molly, throwing herself at his feet, “dunnot say that! Dunnot look at John so wicked! He’s innocent, poor lad. The Book says more nor they things; it says, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ and, ‘Do as yo’ would be done by.’ We’n killed hundreds and thousands of Frenchmen, I reckon, but if poor Teddy were alive in the hands of his enemies yo’d think it a cruel thing if he were made to answer for it.”
With a volley of oaths the farmer was stooping forward to thrust her away, when there sounded of a sudden a tramping of feet without, and a heavy knock at the door.
“They’ve come for me!” said Jean, turning very pale. “Molly, my loved one, they will take me away; we shall—never meet again. Let us thank God for these happy days.”
She had risen and flown to him, and his arms were about her, when the knocking came again, loud and continuous.
“Open there, in the King’s name!” cried an imperious voice.
“Curse yo’, Molly, go to the door!” growled her father.
“Go, sweetheart,” said Jean, releasing her.
“Oh, father,” gasped Molly, as she crept with lagging steps across the room, “father, remember—yo’ gave your word!”
The door swung back, and in an instant the room, as it seemed to Molly, was full of soldiers. Their leader, after a brief glance round, which took in, apparently without any deep interest, the old man leaning forward in his chair, the trembling girl, and the fair-haired young labourer standing in the background, addressed himself to the master of the house.
“You are Farmer Rainford, I presume? I am in search of an escaped French prisoner of war, who, it is supposed, is in hiding in this neighbourhood. A suspicious-looking French craft has been hovering about Formby Cove since yesterday. May I ask if you’ve seen any stranger about your premises during the last few days?”
Old Joe lifted his heavy eyes, and gazed at the speaker stolidly, but without saying a word.
“Please to excuse my father, sir,” faltered Molly, coming quickly forward, “We’n just had bad news—terrible bad news, and he’s upset. We’n just heard as my only brother was killed by the French. See, there’s his name in the paper—Corporal Edward Rainford of the King’s Own.”
She snatched the paper from her father’s hand as she spoke, and pointed out the marked place with a trembling finger. Joe made an inarticulate sound, and then clapped his hand before his mouth.
“That’s a pity,” said the officer, with momentary compassion. “Well, Mr Rainford, we won’t trouble you. You can tell us what we want to know, my girl. You haven’t noticed any stranger about the place lately? Your labourers are all known to you? No ragged-looking fellow has come to the door to beg for alms?”
Molly had been shaking her head vigorously.
“No, sir! oh no, sir!” she now cried eagerly. “There’s nobody about but our own folks as has worked for us ever sin’ I can remember; and there’s nobody in this house but my father and mysel’, and old Winny the servant, and my sweetheart there.”
“Oh!” said the officer, laughing, “that’s your sweetheart, is it? He seems a likely lad. Why isn’t he out fighting for his country?”
“Oh, please sir, I couldn’t spare him!” cried Molly, laughing with white lips. “It ’ud fair break my heart if anything was to happen to him.”
Her feigned laughter was strangled by her sobs. Her father uttered a groan, and let his head drop forward into his hands.
“Dom they raskil Frenchies!” he cried: “they’n been and killed my only son!”
“Come, men,” said the officer, “we’ll take ourselves off. This is not a likely place for a French prisoner to take refuge in. You’d soon give him up, wouldn’t you, Mr Rainford?”
Joe Rain ford raised his head and looked at him steadily.
“Yo’n heerd what my lass telled yo’,” he said, doggedly; “there isn’t nobry here, nobbut me, and her,—and her sweetheart!”
THROUGH THE COTTAGE WINDOW
The gable end of the cottage faced the shore, and I first became conscious of the window by the sudden appearance of a faint light behind its narrow panes. It was a stormy evening, the wind sweeping down between the dunes in sudden gusts that caught up the sand from their steep sides—which were indeed but sparsely covered with stargrass—and sent it driving seawards in blinding eddies. I had wandered overlong about the damp stretch of shore that bordered the remains of the submarine forest, interested first by the curious contrasts of colour to be noticed there—the silvery sweep of sand sloping downwards to the dusky purplish brown of the remnants aforesaid, in the irregular surface of which little pools and rivulets of water reflected the sky; the blue-green of the star-grass interspersed with patches of dwarf willows and bilberry plants, the foliage of which at this season had taken on a variety of tints. Later on, when the tide had come roaring and leaping in, I had been attracted by the magnificence of its fury, and had watched wave after wave roll towards me, gathering and swelling as though with suppressed rage, and finally breaking with a boom that went echoing through the hills, while the spray dashed ever higher and higher. Fascinated as I had been by the sight, I did not notice that the early autumnal sunset was over, until a sudden roller, more adventurous than its fellows, came rushing to my very feet, and, turning hurriedly to escape from it, I observed that the world behind me was wrapped in gloom, save for the lingering glare at the horizon. Almost at the moment that I became aware of the approach of night, I became also conscious that the gusts of wind before alluded to no longer carried stinging clouds of sand with them, but were laden with a cold mist of rain almost as painful to meet, a mist which, indeed, as I hastily threaded my way through the yielding sand, soon turned to a downpour.
Clearly, unless I wished to be drenched as well as benighted on this lonely waste, I must at once seek shelter; and, while I was disconsolately wondering whither I should bend my steps, a sudden ray of light drew my attention to the little habitation I had before noticed. Drawing my cloak closely round me I made my way thither with all the speed I could muster, and knocked loudly at the closed door; but my summons passed unheeded, being most probably unheard in the increasing fury of the gale; and, after repeated raps on the panels and rattlings of the latch, I went round to the window, in the hope that my efforts to attract attention might meet with some success from this point. No curtain hung behind the panes, and pressing my face close to them I peered into the room within. It was a small kitchen, kept with a neatness and cleanliness which one learns to expect among north-country folk. A small fire burnt upon the hearth, and a candle flickered in a tin sconce over the homely mantle-shelf. By the light of these I descried the figure of a woman sitting by the hearth; her hands were folded on her lap, and her eyes were fixed upon the fire. She might have been any age between fifty and sixty; the slight and erect form, and handsome face, rendered remarkable by strongly-marked black brows, would incline one to name the lesser figure, had not the deep lines about eyes and mouth, and the snow-white, if still abundant hair, inclined one to think her an older woman.
But I was in no mood to examine or criticise just then; with my face still close to the casement I tapped sharply on the topmost pane. The woman started, and turned her face towards me, grasping the elbows of her chair with both hands, but not otherwise attempting to move. I tapped again, more impatiently. Still remaining seated she stretched out both arms towards the window, a smile breaking over her face. Such a strange smile! Tender, even yearning, and yet one might almost say, fearful.
Losing patience, I tapped again, and nodded. With arms still stretched out she slowly left her chair and dropped upon her knees.
Then taking advantage of a momentary lull in the storm I shook the crazy casement and shouted:
“Let me in; I shall be wet to the skin!”
At length she rose hurriedly to her feet; then, shading her eyes with her hand, made her way towards me.
“Eh, dear!” she cried, as she drew near; “it’s not him—’tis a wumman!”
“Oh, do let me in,” I pleaded. “See how it rains! I only ask for shelter until the storm is over.”
She signed to me to go round to the door, and in another moment my feet were on the sanded floor within.
“Dear o’ me,” she cried, “yo’re wet, ma’am; yo’re terrible wet. I wish I’d ha’ heerd yo’ before, but wind and rain were makkin’ sich a din I didn’t notice nothin’.”
“And when you did notice, you took me for a ghost, I think,” I said, laughing, but feeling still a little aggrieved.
No trace of the strange expression which I had noticed on her face when I had first summoned her lingered there as she admitted me, but at these careless words of mine I saw it come again.
“Coom nigh the fire,” she said, after a pause, during which she had gazed at me as one half awake.
“Did you take me for a ghost?” I persisted, as I drew near the hearth.
“I took yo’ fur—summat,” she answered doggedly. Then, after a moment’s silence, she began to press me hospitably to dry my “shoon,” and informed me that she would “mak’ tay in a two-three minutes.”
“Yo’re out late,” she added presently, gazing at me as I basked in the comfortable warmth. “Dun yo’ coom fro’ far?”
“I have walked along the shore from Saltleigh,” I said. “I am staying at the inn there. It is not very far. When the storm is over I shall make my way back by road.”
“Ah,” she commented, bending down to fill the little brown teapot from the now bubbling kettle.
As she did so I caught sight of the glitter of a wedding-ring upon the gnarled brown hand.
“Do you live here all alone?”
“Ah,” affirmatively.
“You’ve been married, I see.”
She nodded.
“Your husband is dead, I suppose?” Again the curious look, but no answer. I repeated my question.
“I reckon he is dead, ma’am,” she replied in a low voice. “Yigh, I met say I know he’s dead. It’s thirty-five year sin’ he went—he mun be dead.”
“Did he not die here, then?”
“Nay, ma’am, he wur a sailor. He deed at say on jest sich a night as this. He deed, and he thought on me.”
The smile which I had seen once before, which held so much of love, and yet had in it a suggestion of fear, hovered about her lips again for a moment, and was gone.
“Tay’s drawed nice now,” she said in a different tone. “Will yo’ please to pull up, ma’am?” motioning me to draw my chair nearer the table. “I’ve soom leet cake here as I’ll toast in a minute, but I have na’ a bit o’ butter, I’m sorry to tell yo’; yo’ mun mak’ shift wi’out.”
As I murmured my thanks for the generosity with which she had set before me the best her house contained, and emphatically assured her that I infinitely preferred light cake without butter, my hostess reseated herself in her elbow-chair, and gazed at me, while I ate and drank, with evident satisfaction. But she did not speak, and each furtive glance that I sent in her direction increased my curiosity.
It was such a handsome face, with its great dark eyes, its still beautiful colouring, its expression of reserved strength, of patience, of—what was it? Expectation or longing? A little of both, perhaps, but all placid and contained.
“You must be very lonely,” I said, pushing away my cup at length, and leaning back in my chair. She looked up quickly, sighed, and suffered her hands to drop together in her lap.
“I am that,” she said, half to herself.
“How long were you married before you lost your husband?”
“Nobbut a year,” she returned; “scarce a year.”
“So short a time! How very sad. It must have seemed hard to you that he should go to sea and leave you—but of course he had to do it.”
“Yigh, ma’am, he had to do it—but I took it very ill.”
Her voice had sunk, so that the words were scarcely audible; it seemed to me that there were tears in the dark eyes. Impulsively leaving my chair I knelt down by her side, taking the worn hands in mine.
“It is all forgiven now,” I said. “The few hasty words are forgotten, but the memory of the love remains.”
“Ah,” she said, still speaking half to herself, “all’s forgiven now—all wur forgiven long sin’—before he deed. He thought of me before he deed, and loved me jest same as ever. He looked at me so lovin’—God rest him! He was never one to bear a grudge.”
“But I thought you said he died at sea.”
“Yigh, he deed at say, fur sure,” she added, looking at me as though in surprise; “but I knowed he loved me and forgave me.”
“Some of his comrades told you all about it, I suppose?”
“Nay, nay, nobry towd me—nobbut hissel’. His mates was all drownded, too; naught was niver heerd on ’em at arter ship sailed that last time. Noan of ’em ever coom back—nobbut him, and he coomed to nobry but me.”
“Do you mean that his spirit came back?” I asked, half-incredulously, half awe-stricken.
“Ma’am, I can’t reetly tell you how he coom back, but it was him. He coomed to tell me he wur dead, and to let me know as he’d forgive me.”
“Was nothing ever heard of his ship?” I enquired.
“Naught was niver heerd of ship, nor captain, nor crew,” she said. “Noan of ’em coom back, nobbut my Will.”
The wind raging round the house drove the rain fiercely against the little window, and I glanced towards it fearfully; then, laughing inwardly at my own folly, I turned to the woman again.
“Don’t you think it may have been fancy?” I said. “You are so lonely here, you see, and you had been fretting perhaps because of your little quarrel, and because you had, I suppose, no news of him. And then you imagined you saw his face—at the window—was it? he used perhaps to come to the window—”
“Ah,” she interrupted, “he all’ays coom theer—all’ays fro’ the time when he wur a little lad. He’d coom theer, and press his face to the window, and tap three times same as yo’ did to-neet—he all’ays tapped three times. And I used to look up from my little stool i’ the corner and nod at him, and at arter a bit get up and stale out when feyther and moother wurna lookin’—fur they’d all’ays barge if they cotched me playin’ wi’ Will Davis. The Davises were cocklin’ folk—very rough—a bad lot ’twas said, and my feyther didn’t reckon to let me go wi’ ’em. But my Will, he was never same as t’others—a gradely little lad he wur, good at’s books and never up to no mischeef. ‘I’ll noan be a cocklemon same as my feyther,’ he’d say; ‘when I goo to say I’ll goo a bit fur’er off. I’ll sail fur, wheer theer’s no lond an’ no houses, an’ no naught, nobbut wayter, wayter, wayter—same as it says in my book.’ Folks thought it a wonderful thing to see a little chap same as him goin’ so reg’lar to school. But t’other lads ’ud laugh at him for goin’ barefoot; poor Will, he hadn’t niver a shoe to his foot.”
She broke off to laugh softly to herself; her eyes were again fixed, on the fire, and her mind had evidently conjured up a vivid picture of the lad as he had been in bygone days.
“Eh, I mind when he’d coom patterin’ ower th’ weet sand to this place he’d leave tracks o’s little bare feet all round the house; and my feyther ’ud barge and sauce me terrible if he coom out and saw them.
“‘Yon little raskil Will’s been here again,’ he’d say; ‘my word, I’ll thrash him if I cotch him here.’
“And moother, hoo’d tak’ me by the ear, and drag me across the kitchen and sit me down on my stool i’ th’ corner wi’ my patchwork. ‘If thou dar’s so mich as say a word to yon agin’, hoo’d say, ‘I’ll fetch birch-rod to thee.’
“But ’tweren’t o’ no use. Soon as ever I’d hear the three taps, and see the roguish e’en o’ Will laughin’ in at me through the window, I’d mak’ my way to him soom gate. Yigh, I wur terrible headstrong. Poor mother—hoo’d a done better to ha’ takken rod to me—but hoo never did more nor talk—hoo thought the warld o’ me, and so did my feyther.”
“Were your parents alive when you married?” I inquired, breaking in upon the somewhat lengthy silence which ensued.
“Nay, ma’am, they deed both on ’em, when I wur eighteen year of age. My aunt coomed to live wi’ me then for a bit, but we didn’t get on so well. Will had been sailorin’ for nigh upon five year then, and I only seed him now and agin. Eh, I mind well the time he coom at arter feyther and moother deed. I had my blacks on, fur it were market day, and me and my aunt had been down to th’ village. We had afallin’ out as we coom we’re ways awhoam again, and my aunt hoo’d gone straight to her chamber, and hoo said hoo didn’t want no tay, and hoo’d pack up and go next morn and leave me alone, for I wur but an ill-mannered, ill-tempered wench. Well, I coom in and sot me down here in cheer, and I got a-gate o’ cryin’, for I wur feelin’ quite undone to think o’ my aunt goin’ that gate, and I wur thinkin’ how lonely I was, and what a miserable thing it war for a lass to be left same as me wi’out feyther nor moother, when all of a sudden I heerd Will knockin’ at the pane. Didn’t I jump up, and didn’t I run out, and didn’t he cotch me in’s arms and kiss me same as nobry’d ever kissed me afore! ‘Why, my lass,’ says he, ‘wast thou cryin’? I never see those bonny e’en o’ thine wi’ tears in ’em afore. Why, what wast thou cryin’ for, Molly?’
“I looked up in his face—eh, it was a bonny face, and so kind and anxious like, that I fair burst out again. ‘Coom, lass,’ says he, ‘we’s ha’ no more tears, but thou mun tell me all about it.’ ‘Eh, well,’ says I, ‘I’m cryin’ because I am a cross, bad-tempered lass and nobry can’t a-bear to live i’ th’ house wi’ me.’ ‘Coom, is that all?’ says he, and he laughed till he fair shook; ‘I know soombry as could manage very well to live i’ th’ same house as thee. Coom, give over—I thought ’t were summat war when I see thee i’ thy blacks and all.’
“‘Nay, but it is war,’ says I, ‘feyther and moother are dead o’ the fever, and I am left wi’ nobry but my aunt Jane, and her and me cannot agree, and we had words coomin’ awhoam fro’ market, and hoo says hoo wunnot live wi’ me no more.’
“‘Eh, dear, eh, dear, there’s a tale,’ says he; ‘coom, will Aunt Jane eat me, dost thou think, if I ax to coom in?’
“Hoo cannot eat thee if hoo wants to,’ says I, howdin’ up my head. ‘This house belongs to me now, and I am missus.’ We were steppin’ inside then, and Will put his two hands o’ my shoulders and turned my face to the leet.
“‘Thou’rt missus, art thou?’ says Will, ‘but thou’ll’t tak a master soom day, my wench.’
“‘Master,’ says I, half laughin’ and half cryin’; ‘I dunno. I don’t fancy callin’ nobry my master.’
“He looked down at me so earnest for a bit, and then he smiled. ‘Dunnot tell me that tale,’ says he. ‘Who was it I see cryin’ when I looked in; cryin’, because hoo was so lonely?’
“‘I don’t want a master, as how ’tis,’ said I.
“‘Well then,’ says he, ‘give it another name. Say husband, Molly.’
“‘And what husband?’ says I, knowin’ very well what he was at, but lettin’ on I didn’t understand. ‘Not a farmer,’ says I, ‘for I’m not good enough to be a farmer’s missus; and not a cottager’s,’ says I, ‘for I’m too good to be a poor man’s slave; and not a soldier fur sure, for soldiers goes to the wars and gets killed; and not a sailor—’
“‘And why not a sailor, Molly,’ says he. ‘Sailors has half a dozen wives they sayn,’ I answered him back as impudent as you please, ‘and what good would it do me t’ wed wi’ a mon who was always at say?’
“‘Sailors gets paid off ship now and again; then they likes to think there’s a little whoam and a little wife waitin’ for ’em. ’Tis a miserable thing,’ says he, ‘to know as theer’s nobry lookin’ out for yo’, nobry as cares whether you are dead or wick, no place wheer yo’re made welcome.’
“‘Poor Will,’ says I, wi’ my face turned away, and my e’en cast down.
“‘Nay,’ says he, ‘it’s not poor Will, for Will knowed theer wur soombry thinkin’ on him, and soombry lookin’ out for him.’
“‘Will tak’s too much conceit in hissel’,’ says I, makkin’ shift to spake ’ard like. But he geet his arm round me again and pulled round my face to leet, an’ then it wur all ower wi’ me—he see plain enough as he’d spokken truth.”
She relapsed into silence again, her face wearing a soft and tender smile that made it look almost young.
“So when he came to court you he looked at you first through the window?” said I.
Her face changed.
“Yigh, ma’am; and it wur theer he took his last look at me afore he went away and left me. We’d been married then a good few month and I niver thought he’d be for leaving me again till I noticed as he wur gettin’ a bit onsattled-like. And wan neet he sot up in bed and shriked out, ‘Say’s callin’ me, Molly! say’s callin’ me.’ I towd him ’twere nonsense and he mun ha’ been dreamin’, and he said no moor, but next day he went wanderin’ up and down, up and down, yon by the shore. An’ he didn’t seem like hissel’. And a two’three days at arter a letter coom for him, and when he read it he went first red and then white as a sheet. ‘What does it say?’ I axed. ‘It’s fro’ my owd captain,’ says he. ‘He wants me to jine th’ ship agin. Molly, Molly,’ says he; ‘I towd thee say was callin’ me.’ ‘Nay, Will, dunnot be a fool,’ says I. ‘Thou mun write and tell captain as thou’s wed and has gettin’ wark upo’ dry lond, and as he mun look out for soombry else.’ But Will he coom aroun’ table to me and looked into my e’en, an’ his own face were half-sorrowful, and half-j’yful. ‘Nay, my lass,’ says he, ‘but I mun go. Sailors same as me connot live long wi’out they feel the wayter under them. I’s not be long away fro’ thee, my bonny wench—captain says it ’ull be nobbut a short v’yage, an’ I’ll be fain to get awhoam again—but I feel as I mun go.’ I pulled his two hands down and I pushed him fro’ me. ‘Thou’rt be fain to get back,’ says I—‘nay, but thou’rt fain to go. I tell thee if thou goes I’ll ne’er ha’ no more to say to thee. If thou can do wi’out me I can do wi’out thee.’ And then I geet agate o’ cryin’. ‘Eh,’ I said, ‘I didna think thou’d sarve me that gate. Thou’rt a false ’ard-’arted deceivin’ felly—that’s what thou art, Will Davis! What brought thee here wi’ thy soft words, an’ thy lovin’ ways—lees all on ’em—to tak’ all as I had, and mysel’ along wi’ it—to tee me, hand and foot, and then to go away and leave me?’ I throwed apron over my head and sobbed like a child, but my cheeks were as hot as two coals wi’ anger. First Will tried to pull away th’ apron, but I held fast and stopped my ears as soon as ever he began o’ speakin’, and arter a bit he gave o’er, and went away whistlin’. I wouldna speak a word all that day, nor yet the next, though I see him gettin’ together his things and makkin’ ready.
“Late i’ th’ arternoon he coom and stood by my cheer.
“‘My wench,’ says he, ‘sin’ thou wunnot speak to me nor look at me, I may as well be off at wonst. Captain towd me jine him soon as ever I could.’ My heart wur like lead, but I kept my face turned away from him. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘sin’ thou wants to go, thou can go for aught I care.’ He stood a bit longer, and then he stooped his face down to mine. ‘Coom, Molly,’ he says, ‘gie us a kiss, and let’s part good freends. Thou’rt a bit vexed still, but when thou cooms to think it ower thou’lt see I wur nobbut reet. A man mun stick to the lot he’s chose.’
“‘And what about the wife he’s chose?’ cries I. And I pushed away his face and pushed back cheer. ‘Nay, I’ll noan gi’e thee a kiss. Go thy ways and leave me.’ He waited a bit longer, but I didn’t turn my head; and then he took up his bundle and went out. I heard his step on th’ sand, very slow and lingerin’, and then I heard his tap on th’ window. ‘Coom, my wench,’ he called out; ‘gi’e us a look then. Gi’e us a look sin’ thou’lt gie me naught else.’
“But I hitched my cheer round and turned my back on him. Eh, my lad! Eh, my poor lad, I might ha’ seen thy bonny face then and I wouldna look. Eh, I wonder the Lord didna strike me down dead that day for my wicked pride and anger.”
She brought down one clenched hand upon the open palm of the other with such sudden fiery energy that for a moment the veil of years was lifted, and I saw before me the passionate, resentful girl-wife who has sent her husband from her with such a sore and angry heart.
By-and-by I saw tears upon her withered cheeks, and gently patting the nearest hand I said consolingly, “Do not fret; it is all over long ago, and you know you told me you felt he had forgiven you.”
“Ah, that’s true,” she sighed, lifting the corner of her apron to her eyes with her disengaged hand. “I knowed that long ago. I’ll tell yo’ about it. It seems to coomfort me like to talk about him. ’Twas jest sich a neet as this—I wur sittin’ nigh to fire thinkin’ on him—he’d been gone a good few months then, and I began o’ wonderin’ how soon I met reckon to see him back, and to plan what a welcome I’d gi’e him. Eh, I wur ashamed o’ mysel’ and my ill-tempers by that time, and I thought soon as ever I see him comin’ I’d run and throw my arms round’s neck and ax his parden. And then I’d bring him in, I thought, and set him i’ th’ cheer here, and tell him that the wife and the whoam would always be ready and waitin’ for him. But all on a sudden I bethought mysel’ that it wur a very stormy neet, and I geet all of a shake thinkin’ of him out yon on the dark wayter, and every time the big waves ’ud lep up an’ roar upo’ the shore, I’d beat my breast and pray to the Lord to ha’ mercy on the folks at say, and not to let my dear lad dee wi’out I see him agin and knowed he forgive me. It got to be a dark neet, but I couldna go to bed, but sot here cryin’ and prayin’ by the fire till the cowd grey morn coom. And then there coom a quiet minute, as if storm was howdin’ back for summat, and I heard plain the three taps o’ th’ window as Will always made, and I looked up and there he wur, lookin’ at me and smilin’ so lovin’. I jumped up fro’ my cheer—this here cheer as was stood in this here corner jest as it is now, and I ran towards window, and I see him plain—as plain as I see you jest now. His face were a bit pale, and the wayter wur drippin’ fro’s hair, and fro’s cloo’es—he was as weet as weet. But he stood there smilin’, and lookin’ at me lovin’.
“‘Bide a bit,’ says I, ‘I’ll oppen door in a minute.’ And I ran to door, and oppened it, and wind and rain coom rushin’ in. Down yon on the shore I could hear waves rushin’ and roarin’—I could scarce mak’ my voice heerd wi’ th’ din. ‘Coom in, Will,’ says I, ‘coom in. Dunnot stond theer i’ th’ wind and the rain. Coom in to thy wife.’ But nobry answered, and then I run round the corner, wrastlin’ wi’ the wind as was near liftin’ me off my feet, and when I come to the window there weren’t nobry theer. Eh, you may think how I skriked out. I run round the house agin and looked in at door, but theer warn’t nobry inside, and then I coom out agin, and sarched and sarched, an’ called an’ called, but I heerd naught but wind and rain, and the waves thunderin’ o’ th’ beach.
“An’ then I knew he wur dead.”
Her voice, which had been lifted excitedly as she told her tale, dropped at its close, and the hand, which had twitched convulsively in mine, lay passive once more. It was an eerie tale, but convincing withal, and my eyes again stole towards the window nervously.
“Did you think he had come again when I knocked to-night, then?” I inquired, after a pause.
She nodded.
“Have you ever seen him or his spirit since the night you told me of?”
“Nay, ma’am, but I’m all’ays waitin’ for him.”
“You think he will come?”
“I know he’ll come,” she said. “Eh, I wish to the Lord he would coom. I am longing for’t.”
“Yet when I looked in I thought you seemed—almost frightened.”
“I am afeared,” she returned in a low voice, “but I’m not afeard o’ him—I’m afeared o’ what he’ll bring when he cooms. And yet, God knows, I’ll be fain to—”
“What do you mean?”
“Nay, never mind. Maybe ’tis foolish talk. . . . The rain has gived ower now, ma’am, and yo’d happen do well to mak’ a start.”
There was no disputing the advisability of this course, and I took my leave, promising to come and see the old woman again on my next visit to the neighbourhood.
Two years passed, however, before I again found myself in that part of the world, and even then I had been staying at Saltleigh for a week or two before I could make time to betake myself to the cottage on the lonely dunes. I walked along the shore as I had done on that former occasion, and, as I drew near, my eyes instinctively sought the little window which had played so important a part in the old woman’s story, and I stared in surprise at its altered aspect. The ledge behind the casement hitherto left blank—no doubt because Molly would tolerate no intervening objects between her and the panes on which her eyes loved to linger—was now closely packed with flower pots; gay scarlet geraniums pressing forward to the light. I quickened my steps, but before I could reach the house a yet more astonishing sight appeared amid the clusters of bloom; neither more or less than the laughing face of a little child, which peered curiously out at me, and was by-and-by supplemented by two fat, dimpled hands, which hammered gleefully upon the glass.
Full of forebodings I knocked at the cottage door, which was presently opened by a tall young woman with a baby in her arms.
“I came to see Molly Davis,” I said hesitatingly. “Is she—is she—”
“Eh, ma’am, hoo’s dead,” returned the young woman, answering my wistful look rather than the unfinished sentence. “Hoo deed nigh upon a year ago—last autumn it wur. Poor soul, hoo was glad to go, I doubt, for hoo was but ’onely here.”
“Do you know—what she died of? Was she long ill?”
“Hoo seemed to be failin’ like, but hoo wasn’t not to say sick. Eh, it gived every one a turn when they coom and found her.”
“Do you mean to say they found her dead?”
“Yigh, ma’am, little Teddy down yon fro’ Frith’s farm coom up wi’ the milk—hoo couldn’t fotch it for hersel’ for two-three weeks afore hoo died—he hommered at door and couldna get no answer, and then he run round to window, and theer he found her, poor body, leein’ close under it on her face. He ran down to farm and they coom and brok’ oppen door and fotched doctor, but doctor said hoo’d been dead for mony hours. . . . Dunnot tak’ on ma’am”—for I was weeping—“coom in and set yo’ down. I doubt it giv’ yo’ a turn to hear o’ poor Molly goin’ that way. But we’ll all ha’ to go when we’re turn cooms,” she added philosophically.
Wiping my eyes I went into the little kitchen which I remembered so well; its aspect was changed and modernised. A gay square of oil-cloth covered the tiled floor, the walls were decked with gaudily coloured pictures; Molly’s great elbow-chair was gone, and in its place stood a horsehair covered sofa.
“Ah, we’s all ha’ to go when we’re turn cooms,” repeated my new hostess with the gloomy relish, with which your rustic enunciates such statements; “and Molly, hoo were fain to goo. Onybody could see that as coom to see her laid out—so peaceful hoo looked, wi’ a smile upon her face.”
“She was found under the window you say?”
“Ah! Her knittin’ wur throwed on the floor nigh to her cheer, and hoo’d knocked down a stool on the way to the window—doctor said hoo’d wanted to oppen it and let in fresh air, very likely—for her arms were stretched out towards it. But hoo didn’t ha’ time, poor soul, hoo was took afore hoo could get theer. Eh, dear, yes. That was the very way they found her, lyin’ on her face wi’ her arms stretched out, and smilin’—smilin’ quite joyful like.”
So there had been no fear at the last—no fear either of Will himself or of the grim comrade who had accompanied him. Molly’s presentiment had been realised; the much loved spirit of her husband had come to seek and sustain her in the last solemn moment. Stormy youth and lonely middle-age had alike been forgotten; for Molly the end had been peace.
And as I took my way homewards to the sound of the gentle lapping waves, I thought of her, not as she had described herself to me, handsome, wilful, impetuous; not as I had seen her, expectant, regretful—not even starting forward at the sound of the well-known signal, or lying prone with outstretched arms upon the floor. No, I pictured to myself the placid face smiling on the pillow, the folded hands at rest, every line of the quiet figure bearing the imprint of a peace that would never more be broken.
APRIL FOOLS
The late spring dusk had at length fallen; the horses had been led home from the plough, which remained in characteristic Dorset fashion at the angle of the last furrow, the merciful twilight hiding the rich coating of rust with which a lengthy course of such treatment had endued it; the elder labourers had donned their coats, and lit their pipes, and gone sauntering homewards along the dewy grass border of the lane. Farmer Bellamy had laid aside his pinner—the last cow having long been milked and sent pasturewards in the rear of her fellows—and likewise smoked ruminatively in the chimney corner; his wife faced him, a large basket at her feet containing sundry arrears of mending, a sock upon her outspread left hand, a needle threaded with coarse yarn in the other. It was getting too dark to darn now, and she wondered impatiently why Alice and Lizzie did not come in to light the lamp and do their share of needlework.
But Mrs Bellamy’s daughters formed part of a little group of men and girls who had gathered round the low stone wall at the extremity of the yard; the central point of interest being a certain flat-topped gatepost which marked off the entrance to a disused pig-sty. Lizzie Bellamy was bending over this, her face in close proximity to the paper on which she was writing, her eyes strained in the endeavour to make the most of such light as yet remained. A boy, standing near her, held, at a convenient angle, a penny ink-bottle which he obligingly tilted each time that she required to dip her pen; occasionally in Lizzie’s increasing excitement, the pen missed its mark, whereupon he seized it in his stumpy fingers and guided it to its rightful destination.
Little spasmodic bursts of laughter escaped the writer every now and then, and a kind of smothered chorus of giggles was kept up by the bystanders; while from time to time one of the more adventurous squinted over her shoulder, being admonished in return by a vigorous dig from the girl’s elbow.
At last she threw back her head and dropped her pen with a laughing exclamation—
“I d’ ’low that’ll do.”
“Read it, read it!” cried the others.
“Somebody’ll have to light a match, then,” retorted she.
Jem Frisby produced one, struck it on the wall, and stepped forward.
The light fell on the girl’s face—a good-looking one enough, of the dark-eyed, red-cheeked Dorset type—and illuminated now one, now another, of her companions. All these faces were young, all bore the same expression of expectant, mischievous glee.
“‘My Dear Giles,’” read Lizzie, “‘I take up my pen to write these few lines to let you know a wish what’s long been in my mind—”
“I d’ ’low it ’ud be better if ye did put ‘What’s been in my mind since the death o’ Missus Neale,’” suggested a tall lad, with a smothered roar of laughter.
“No, ’twouldn’t do at all,” said Lizzie. “It ’ud put him in mind o’ the poor body, and he’d be that down-hearted he wouldn’t have no fancy for cwortin’ Hannah. Keep quiet, else I can’t read. There, the match be out now; ’tis your fault.”
“Let the maid alone till she’ve a-read us what she’ve a-wrote,” growled somebody from the darkness, which seemed intense now that the little flickering light had vanished. Jem struck another match, and Lizzie continued, reading quickly—
“‘You must find it terr’ble hard to manage without no missus; an’ I’m beginning to feel lonesome now I be gettin’ into years—’”
“I d’ ’low that’ll sp’ile her chances!” exclaimed someone in the background. Lizzie twisted her head round angrily:
“Nothin’ o’ the kind; Giles ’ud never look at nobody without it were a staid ’ooman. Second match is near out now. I won’t be bothered readin’ the letter to ye at all if ye keep on a-interruptin’ of I. Well—
“‘I’ve been a-thinkin’ we might do worse nor make a match. I could do for you, and you’d be company for I. Besides’—here Lizzie’s voice quavered with laughter—‘I’ve took a mortal fancy to you, Giles, an’ think you the handsomest man ever I see. My heart have been yours two year an’ more. If you think well on the notion you might meet me to-morrow in the Little Wood at breakfast time.—Yours truly,
“Hannah Pethin.
“‘P.S.—As I’m feelin’ a bit timid along o’ writin’ this here letter, I’d be obliged if ye’d kindly not mention it when we meets face to face.’”
The match had burnt itself out a moment or two previously, but Lizzie remembered her composition sufficiently well to recite it without such aid, and was rewarded for the effort by shouts of approving laughter.
“The very thing!” exclaimed one.
“The last touch is the best!” cried another; while all united in declaring the letter to be “jist about clever.”
“I’ll pop it under his door late to-night!” cried Jem. “So soon as I’m sure he be asleep. Now, let’s write his to her.”
“You’d better do that,” said Lizzie. “The two writin’s mustn’t be the same, an’ she’d know my hand along o’ my makin’ out the milk bills.”
“Hold the match, then, somebody,” cried Jem. “Here, ’Ector, catch hold; an’ mind ye keep it studdy. Give me the pen, Liz.”
He took up his position at the flat stone, and was so long in squaring his elbows, arranging the pen in his clumsy fingers, and thrusting his tongue into his cheek—a necessary preliminary to rustic letter writing—that Hector announced that the match was burning him, before he had begun work in earnest.
“Hold hard a minute!” cried another man. “Best be thinkin’ out what you want to say afore we lights another. It comes terr’ble expensive on matches, an’ it’s enough to put anybody off to have to start to light one in the middle of a line.”
“True, true!” agreed the others.
Lizzie, flushed with her recent triumph, again took the lead—
“‘Dear Hannah—’”
“Best put ‘Miss Pethin’” suggested Rose Gillingham, one of the dairymaids.
“He do never call her anything but Hannah,” retorted Lizzie; “an’ they’ve been workin’ together now for nigh upon ten year.”
“That’s the very reason she’ll think he’s more in earnest-like; she’ll be terr’ble pleased if he treats her so respectful.”
There was something in that, the others agreed, and even Lizzie gave way, and it was decided that the amorous document should begin after the somewhat distant fashion suggested by Rose.
“Well now,” resumed Lizzie—“‘I write these few lines to say as I’ve been a-turnin’ over somethin’ in my mind, as I hope you’ll be glad to hear. Bein’ a widow-man, I feels mysel’ by times at a terr’ble loss, an’ I be wishful to take a second—’”
“Bain’t that comin’ to the p’int a bit too quick?” interrupted Rose.
“Lord, no!” interpolated Jem very quickly. “Mercy me, it’ll take I all my time to get that much in. We have but the one sheet of paper, look see; an’ there’ll be a deal o’ writin’ in what ye’ve thought on a’ready.”
“‘There’s nobody,’” went on Lizzie, disregarding both disputants, “‘my dear Miss Pethin, what I could like better to fill the empty post nor yourself—’”
“I never knowed a post could be empty,” said some facetious bystander, who was, however, nudged and hushed into silence.
“‘I do think you the vittiest maid in the whole o’ Dorset,’” pursued the intrepid author, being unable, however, to proceed with her composition for some moments, owing to the storm of ironical applause; for, indeed, the destined recipient of this tender document was not only “a staid ’ooman,” but had never, at any period of her life, possessed any claim to good looks.
“‘If ye think well on my offer, will ye meet I at the Little Wood at breakfast-time to-morrow? But, as I’m a shy man by natur’, I’d thank ye not to say nothin’ about me havin’ wrote to ye.
“‘Your true and faithful,
“‘Giles Neale.’”
When the hubbub of applause had subsided, a match was duly lighted, and Jem set to work. His task concluded, after much labour and consequent burning of matches, the document was read aloud, directed, and handed over to Lizzie, who undertook to slip it under Hannah’s door before retiring to rest herself.
“If she do say anythin’ to I about it, I’ll tell her I did hear a man’s foot goin’ through the cheese-room very late,” she added, giggling.
“Well, then, us’ll all post ourselves behind the hedge at back o’ the Little Wood,” cried Rose, jubilantly; “an’ then us’ll all run out an’ call ‘April Fools!’ so soon as they’ve a-made it up.”
“’Ees,” agreed Lizzie, “but don’t you sp’ile sport by runnin’ out too soon. Best wait till brewery whooter goes, an’ then all run out together—that’s the ticket.”
The resolution was carried unanimously, and the party separated for the night. The female section made its way towards the farmhouse, for the two milkmaids employed by Farmer Bellamy in addition to his own stalwart daughters, lodged on the premises; while the men and boys betook themselves to the little cluster of houses, a kind of off-shoot from the village proper, in which they had their homes.
Hannah Pethin was usually the first of that busy household to awake, and it was her duty to call her less alert companions. When, on the morning of this momentous first of April, she jumped out of bed, she stood for a moment or two rubbing her eyes and staring. There, in the centre of the very small patch of boarded floor which intervened between her bed and the door, lay a large white envelope, which bore her name in bold characters—
“Miss Hannah Pethin.”
“’Tis for me,” she said to herself, after gazing at this object for a minute or two. It generally took Hannah some little time to grasp an idea, but this one presented itself in a concrete form. “Dear, to be sure, I wonder what anyone can be writin’ to me for?”
She had pulled on her stout knitted stockings, and assumed the greater part of her underwear, before it occurred to her to open the letter and ascertain its contents. Even then she grasped the paper with a diffident finger and thumb, and turned it over and over before she could make up her mind to embark on its perusal.
“Dear!” she exclaimed, looking at the end in true feminine fashion, “’Tis from Giles!”
Her eyes opened wider and wider as she read the line which preceded the signature. “Your true and faithful.” She turned over the page, the colour deepening in a countenance already ruddy as the brick floor of the milk-house which she so frequently scrubbed.
“Well!” she ejaculated at last, drawing a long breath, “’Tis a offer—that’s what it be! Who’d ha’ thought o’ me gettin’ a offer!”
She mused for a little time, her face wreathed in smiles, and spelt over the letter again with increasing satisfaction.
“‘Meet I at the Little Wood at breakfast-time to-morrow’—that’s to-day.” Hannah’s wits were brightening under the influence of this unexpected stroke of good fortune. “‘I’d thank ye not to say nothin’ about me havin’ wrote.’. . . Well, an’ that’s well thought on. I d’ ’low I be jist so shy as he, an’ it ’ud ha’ been terr’ble arkward to ha’ talked about sich a letter as this here. . . . ‘I be wishful to take a second’—well, the man couldn’t speak plainer. . . . ‘The vittiest maid!’ Fancy him sayin’ that!”
At this period of her meditations Hannah was constrained to cross the room on tip-toe to the window, near which a small square looking-glass was suspended from a nail. She surveyed her own image with some curiosity but no little satisfaction, as with Giles’s eyes; regretted that her hair was growing grey about the temples, but consoled herself with the fact that it was still abundant and curly, and finally smiled broadly to herself.
“I d’ ’low if I do for him it’s all right!”
Suddenly she recollected with a start that if she was to be at the tryst at the hour named, she would have to get through her intervening labours with more than usual celerity.
A few minutes later a whirlwind-like form burst into the room where Lizzie and Alice Bellamy still lay, wrapped in slumber.
“Get up, ’tis past the time, an’ there’s a deal to be done.”
Lizzie sat up, at first very cross, but recovering good humour as recollection came with increasing consciousness.
“Here, Hannah, wait a bit, what be in sich a stew for?” She poked Alice, who still lay under the blankets, with her elbow. “Have anythin’ strange happened? You do look so queer—an’ I do declare you’ve a-made yourself quite smart.”
“Nonsense, nonsense!” responded Hannah quickly, “What could ha’ happened at this time o’ marnin’? I be in a hurry to get forward wi’ my work, that’s all!”
“Oh, is that all? We slept a bit late, Alice an’ me, along o’ bein’ disturbed by hearin’ a man’s steps i’ the cheese-room late last night; did you chance to hear ’em?”
She poked the sleepy Alice again, and even through her half-closed lids that damsel perceived the conscious expression which overspread poor Hannah’s face. Before they had time, however, to ply her with further queries the latter had fled from the room, and after a vigorous thump or two on the door of the room shared by her fellow milkmaids, and a more respectful summons to the farmer and his wife, went hammering downstairs in her hobnailed boots to begin her work.
“She bain’t a-goin’ to be late at the meetin’ place ye mid be sure!” cried Lizzie, and Alice roused herself sufficiently to chuckle.
The feverish zeal with which Hannah subsequently applied herself to her various duties astonished her mistress, who was wont to consider her unduly slow of a morning. This zeal, however, seemed to be shared by the other occupants of the farmhouse—no one who was in the secret wanted to be late; everyone was determined to arrive at the Little Wood in time to witness the meeting of the unconscious couple. At breakfast-time, therefore, the yard was practically deserted, and the plotters were safely ensconsed behind the thick quickset hedge which bounded the little copse, and commanded a good view of the gap through which the lovers must enter.
“I knowed she’d be first!” cried Lizzie, with a giggle, as Hannah’s square figure came in sight.
“She’ve a-got a red ribbon under her collar,” whispered Alice, “Look how she’ve a-done herself up! She’ve curled her hair I d’ ’low.”
“No, no, her hair curls na’trel. Giles ’ull think hisself in luck,” cried Jem, with a wink. “There, I’ve half a mind to try and cut en out if he don’t turn up soon. She be a vitty maid, jist about!”
“‘The vittiest maid in the whole o’ Darset!’” quoted his neighbour.
Meanwhile Hannah slowly approached, a maidenly shyness checking her too eager feet. It would be more seemly for Giles to be there before her, she had thought, and she had not started till five minutes past eight by the cuckoo clock. He was probably already in the wood, looking at her. She reddened at the thought and tripped in the long grass, recovering herself with an awkward lurch. But there was a bright colour in her cheeks, and a pleasantly expectant light in her eyes, perceiving which, the onlookers nudged each other.
Passing through the gap Hannah gave one quick glance round, and finding that Giles was not there, stood for a moment with a look of blank disappointment, then, as the church clock struck eight she smiled to herself.
“I d’ ’low farm clock be fast,” she remarked aloud, and forthwith, deeming herself to be alone, devoted herself to the improvement of her appearance. She shook out her skirts, took off and retied the bow of red ribbon; passed the loosened locks about her brow round her toil-worn finger, and finally, shading her eyes with her hand, gazed somewhat anxiously in the direction of the village.
“Here he be!” whispered Jem all at once. He had crawled a little way on his stomach in order to obtain a better view.
Hannah, perceiving Giles at the same moment, modestly withdrew from the gap, and sitting down at the foot of a twisted thorn-tree began nervously to pluck and chew the scarcely unfolded leaves of wood sorrel which grew beneath it. The heavy tread drew nearer, and presently Giles’ figure appeared in the gap.
Hannah looked up bashfully, a tentative smile hovering about her lips. Giles smiled too, very broadly, and stood contemplating her so long that the interested waiters craned their heads in the endeavour to ascertain the cause of the silence.
“He be jist a-lookin’ at her,” muttered Alice.
“An’ she be a lookin’ up at he this way,” responded Lizzie, with a leer which was a malicious exaggeration of poor Hannah’s uncertain smile.
“So you be a-settin’ on the ground?” hazarded Giles at last.
He squeezed himself through the gap and came a step nearer. He was a thick-set man, with a broad, good-humoured, stupid face, which was now all creased and puckered with an odd expression that partook as much of anxiety as pleasure.
“Bain’t ye afeared o’ catchin’ cold?” he pursued, illuminated by a sudden idea.
“I’ll get up if you like,” stammered Hannah.
“Nay now,” said Giles, “I don’t know as I would.”
He grinned till his eyes positively disappeared as he lowered himself to the ground beside her.
“How’s that?” he enquired.
Hannah was at a loss to answer, and, after a moment’s pause, he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a large hunch of bread and cheese
“Best make the most of our time,” he remarked. “We’m ploughin’ to-day. Hain’t you brought your breakfast?” he asked, pausing in the midst of mastication.
“I didn’t think about breakfast,” faltered Hannah.
“Didn’t ye now?” said Giles.
He looked reflectively at his portion, and then, apparently deciding that there was only enough for one, continued to dispose of it, albeit with an uneasy and apologetic air. The silence that ensued was so long that the onlookers began to exchange glances somewhat blankly. It would be dull if Giles merely ate his breakfast while Hannah sat by—that was an everyday occurrence. Presently, however, Hannah took the initiative.
“Mr Neale,” she said, “did you want to speak to me?”
Giles, with a large lump of bread in his cheek, turned upon her a glance that was half alarmed and half humorous.
“Well, I be come,” he said. “B’ain’t that enough? Deeds an’ not words is my motto.”
“Well, an’ I be come,” said Hannah, with some spirit. “I be come because I did think ye mid ha’ summat to say to I.”
Giles looked at her knowingly, and remarked with a meaning jerk of his head—
“I d’ ’low us do understand each other.”
Hannah, pleased but still uncertain, laughed feebly, and began to pleat the hem of her immaculate white apron.
“I didn’t never expect nobody to be carryin’ on about my bein’ a vitty maid,” she said presently, in a low voice—not so low, however, but that she was overheard by the delighted spies.
“No,” agreed Giles heartily. “Ye wouldn’t be like to expect that—no, sure.”
Hannah was taken aback for the moment, but remembering Giles’ shyness, thought his unwillingness to pursue the complimentary vein which had so much astonished her in his letter, was due to that, and forebore to be offended.
“’Tis true ye must feel yerself by times at a terr’ble loss,” she continued after a pause.
Giles reflected—
“Well, I haven’t got on so bad so far,” he observed. “Nay, I haven’t got on so bad. But I don’t say—” here he gulped down a huge morsel and his natural timidity at the same time. “But I don’t say as I shouldn’t get on better wi’ a ’ooman to do for me. I don’t say as I shouldn’t. I can’t say no fairer than that.”
He paused, and then, with a leer that was distinctly amorous, edged himself a little nearer to her. “Seein’ as some folks as needn’t be mentioned have a-took a fancy to I—”
“Lard, Mr Neale,” interrupted Hannah coyly. “Whatever did put sich a notion into your head?”
Again Giles fixed his twinkling eyes upon her with a glance that was unutterably knowing, and returned—
“Ye wouldn’t be here if ye hadn’t, would ye now?”
Hannah gave an assenting giggle, and Giles, after a moment’s hesitation, put his arm round her waist, repeating exultantly:
“Would ye now? Not that I ever set up to be a handsome man, ye know,” he added more seriously.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” exclaimed Hannah, in so heart-whole a fashion that Giles did not ask himself if the compliment were somewhat left-handed.
“Well, if your ’eart’s mine, that’s enough,” went on Giles, after an interval devoted to conscientious endeavours to recall the exact wording of the portentous letter. “I’m willin’—there, ye have it plain. I’m willin’.”
“Well,” said Hannah, “I’m sure I’m very thankful to ye, Giles. I be proud to think as I be your ch’ice, an’ I’ll do my very best for to make ye comfortable an’ happy.”
Giles, pleasantly conscious that this courtship, unlooked for though it might have been, was progressing on lines that were eminently orthodox and satisfactory, eyed her approvingly for some moments, and then, with a burst of enthusiasm, tightened his grip of her solid waist, and exclaimed—
“I d’ ’low I be ’appy an’ comfortable now.”
During the subsequent pause Jem Frisby thrust his sunburnt face between the catkin-tipped willow saplings which protruded from his corner of the hedge, and almost choked with laughter as he announced—
“They be a-kissin’ of each other!”
The middle-aged lovers sat on for some time in extreme enjoyment of the situation. The spring sunshine fell across their knees and their sturdy clasped hands; the birds sang over their heads, the twisted boughs of the old thorn waved in the light breeze, the leaf-buds, already green though not yet unfolded, flashing like jewels in the light. The bank beneath the hedge was gay with celandines, and the air was sweet with the scent of primroses, with which the place was carpeted, though few of the flowers were yet in full bloom.
Giles and Hannah were scarcely conscious of their surroundings, yet in some indefinite way these added to their blissful state. Just as Giles, with that twinkle in his eyes which heralded, as Hannah had perceived, some particularly ardent speech, had nudged her meaningly and enquired “What about bein’ called home,” the church clock struck nine, and at the same time the blare of the brewery “whooter” fell upon their ears. Simultaneously with these sounds, others, even more discordant than the hooter startled the pair, who scrambled to their feet in time to see a row of gesticulating figures surmounted by grinning faces, spring up from behind the hedge, which they had believed to shelter them.
“April fools, haw, haw!” . . . “I d’ ’low ye be a proper pair on ’em!”
“April fool, Hannah! Giles, ye be an April fool!”
“We took in the pair o’ ye nicely!”
This was the chorus which greeted their bewildered ears, interspersed with shouts of laughter, while fingers were pointed and heads were shaken waggishly. Giles was the first to recover his self-possession.
“What be the meanin’ o’ this?” he enquired angrily. “It’s too bad if a man can’t step out to have a quiet word wi’ a ’ooman!”
“More particular when the ’ooman’s took sich a mortal fancy to ’en!” interpolated Lizzie, holding her sides.
“Yes,” cried Alice, quick to take up her cue. “Why, Hannah’s heart have a-been yours two year an’ more. I’m sure I don’t wonder at it,” she added, “Sich a ’andsome man as you be.”
“Who’s been a-tellin’ ye about that?” growled Giles, turning very red.
“Ask Hannah!” ejaculated Lizzie, in a voice that was scarcely articulate for laughter. “Ask the vittiest maid in the whole o’ Darset.”
“Giles,” exclaimed Hannah tremulously, “somebody must ha’ read your letter to me.”
The jeers and laughter redoubled, and Jem exclaimed triumphantly—
“Somebody read it, an’ somebody wrote it!”
“Wasn’t it Giles?” faltered Hannah, turning pale beneath her tan, and beginning to tremble violently. Some instinct of womanly compassion suddenly sobered Alice. Pushing through the hedge she made her way to Hannah’s side.
“’Twas but a joke, my dear,” she explained somewhat shamefacedly. “There, ’tis the first of April, ye see, an’ we jist thought we’d play ye a bit of trick. ’Twas made up jist for fun. We wrote Giles a letter in your name asking him to meet ye here an’ sayin’—sayin’—”
“What did ye say?” interrupted Hannah, the colour rushing back to her shamed, distressed face. “Oh, Mr Neale, you thought it was me. I’d never ha’ wrote no letter, I’d never ha’ been so bold. I—I wouldn’t ha’ come here wi’out I thought ’twas you as axed me. I had a letter this marnin’ signed in your name. I thought ’twas from you—I thought—” Breaking off suddenly she raised her apron to her eyes.
Giles made a step towards her, pushed Alice roughly on one side, and jerked the apron down.
“Give over cryin’,” he exclaimed gruffly. “Let’s get at the rights o’ this. I must have a look at that there letter—give it to me.”
“Oh, I’d never have the face,” Hannah was beginning when he silenced her with the reiterated command in a raised voice—
“Give it to me, I say! I’ll ha’ the rights o’ this—dalled if I don’t!”
Very reluctantly Hannah drew the fateful missive from her bosom, a suppressed titter once more breaking the silence which had reigned since the jest had threatened to take a serious turn. Giles unfolded the letter, read it slowly, and then, with an impassive face, handed it back to its original recipient.
“You can keep it,” he remarked. “It’s my letter right enough.”
“Well, that is a good ’un!” exclaimed the irrepressible Jem.
Giles glowered round at him.
“It’s my letter,” he repeated doggedly. “It’s my name what’s signed at the end, an’ every word what’s in it be mine.”
“Giles!” exclaimed Hannah, almost inarticulately. Giles turned majestically towards her.
“It’s right, I tell ’ee,” he said firmly. “I’m not a great hand at letter-writin’, an’ as like as not if I’d ha’ tried for to put down what be in my mind I shouldn’t ha’ done it so clever. I’m much obliged to you, neighbours,” he added, raising his voice, and looking triumphantly round at the astonished faces. Then, with a sudden shout of laughter he exclaimed—
“Who’s April fools now?”
“Well, there, I’ll say you have the best o’ it, Giles,” said somebody good-humouredly. “I be right down glad the matter be going to end this way.”
“Thank ye,” said Giles.
“We be to wish ye j’y, be we?” said Lizzie, with a scarcely perceptible toss of her head.
“I d’ ’low ye be,” he affirmed gravely.
“Well, I be pure glad, Hannah, my dear, I’m sure,” said Alice, smiling doubtfully at Hannah as she backed through the hedge.
Hannah made no response; she, too, was looking doubtful, almost piteous, as she gazed at Giles’ unmoved countenance.
The company filed away, feeling somewhat flat; the joke had unaccountably missed fire. Jem, who was the last to pass through the gap, made a final attempt to put Giles out of countenance.
“’Tis easy seen you be a man o’ taste, Giles,” he called out. “She be the vittiest maid in the whole o’ Darset, bain’t she?”
“She be,” assented Giles with fervour, “jist about.”
He strode towards the hedge, and stood watching the somewhat depressed-looking little procession which filed across the field. When it had disappeared behind the big hayrick at the corner, he turned to Hannah. She had again thrown her apron over her head, and was weeping behind it. He went towards her and pulled it down—very gently this time.
“We have the best of it, I think,” he observed.
“Oh, Giles,” sobbed she. “You must think—oh, I don’t know what you must think!”
“I do think what’s wrote in my letter,” said Giles.
“Nay now, you couldn’t,” said Hannah, but there was an unconscious appeal in her voice. “You couldn’t ever think I was a vitty maid.”
“Well, don’t you think I be a ’andsome man, my dear?” cried Giles, advancing, his broad face beaming with good-humoured smiles towards her.
“I do, indeed I do,” cried Hannah with eager enthusiasm. “There, I do think ye be the handsomest and nicest man ever I did see. Handsome is as handsome does. An’ I d’ ’low you’ve acted handsome.”