“Oh, didn’t ye!” retorted Jenny. “I heared my father say as you went an offered maister to do two days’ work to make up for one your husband had a-lost through bein’ drinky.”
“Well,” rejoined Sally, whose blood was now up, “that wasn’t boastin’.”
“’Twas a-settin’ yourself up above the rest of us and a-puttin’ notions into the men’s heads what be bad enough as ’tis,” cried Mrs Dewey.
“Why, they’ll all be expectin’ of us to do the same,” exclaimed Mrs Frost, “to be sure they will. The very next time Frost gets drunk he’ll up and ax me, as like as not, why I don’t do his work for en, same as Sally Crumpler.”
At this point, Mr Crumpler, whose shoulders might have been observed to heave during the last few moments, suddenly pushed back his chair and burst into a roar of laughter.
“Well done!” he cried. “Well done, Sally! I d’ ’low there b’ain’t a man in the place but what envies me.”
Thereupon the deputation turned upon him as one woman.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asked Mrs Dewey.
“You did ought to want to go and hide your head,” exclaimed Jenny.
“Sich a man as that didn’t ought to look honest folk i’ th’ face,” remarked Mrs Frost witheringly.
But Jarge laughed on, eyeing the three the while with so quizzical an air that they were positively discomfited. Finally he rose and made his way to the door—walking quite straight by the way—and politely requested the ladies to step out.
This they did, overturning a chair or two in their hasty passage.
Jarge closed the door, but, apparently struck by a sudden thought, opened it again and thrust his head through the aperture.
“I b’ain’t ashamed o’ myself, good souls,” shouted Mr Crumpler after the retreating figures, “but I tell ye what—I be jist about proud o’ my little ’ooman.”
Mrs Crumpler remained, however, somewhat discomposed by the recent event, and when she took her way fieldwards again, it was with a downcast countenance. Jarge would have accompanied her, but for the fact that, though he had regained control of his legs and could speak with comparative clearness, he continued to see double.
“An’ that mid be a bit awk’ard wi’ so many harses about,” he confided to Sally.
Moreover the wound in his head was sufficiently painful to make a further rest advisable. Sally set forth therefore alone, feeling tired and miserable enough. She was the most modest little creature in the world, and was filled with dismay at the notoriety she had so suddenly acquired. As the afternoon advanced she shrank more and more into her shell, for if the ill-will of the women had vexed and perturbed her, the boisterous admiration of the men annoyed her almost beyond endurance. The rough jests, the officious offers of aid, the loudly expressed praise were equally obnoxious to her. It was with unbounded relief that she saw the last waggon loaded, and prepared to depart from the field. She had shaken out her skirts, and was in the act of straightening her sunbonnet when she found herself suddenly seized from behind, and almost before she realised what was happening, was hauled by a dozen strong grimy hands on to the apex of the piled-up hay and there enthroned.
“Three cheers for the Queen o’ the Day!” shouted someone, and the cry was taken up by a score of lusty voices.
“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!”
“Let me down,” gasped Mrs Crumpler faintly; but an extra pair of horses had been harnessed to the waggon, and it was now rumbling forward at what seemed to her a dangerously rapid rate.
There sat the poor little woman on her sweet-smelling throne, the reluctant centre of all eyes, while the waggon went out of the field and down the village street surrounded by a shouting band of haymakers. Outraged matrons stood in the doorways raising indignant eyes to Heaven, delighted children ran after the convoy, adding their shrill voices to the chorus; last of all Jarge Crumpler himself, startled by the outcry, made his way to his own gate just as the triumphal procession drew up before it.
“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!” shouted Bill Frost; and “Hooray, hooray!” cried the bystanders.
Jarge himself, infected by the enthusiasm, shouted “Hooray” too, just as little Sally, very red in the face, came sliding down from the waggon.
As she heard him she stopped for a second, threw a reproachful glance at him, and then, bursting into smothered sobs, hurried into the house.
After a pause of bewilderment he hastened after her, while the haymakers, with a farewell cheer, continued their progress at a more leisurely pace, with a dozen children clinging to the tail-board of the waggon, and one or two of the more adventurous perched on the load itself.
Sally was crouching behind the door with her apron over her head, sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Missus!” said Jarge, becoming quite sober all at once, and seeing only the very distinct outline of one little sorrowful figure. “Missus!—little ’ooman!”
Sally jerked down her apron and gazed at him with eyes that were fierce through their tears.
“You did ought to be ashamed o’ yourself,” she cried brokenly.
Jarge looked down at her ruefully and drew a long breath.
“Well,” he said, “I d’ ’low I be!”
* * *
He repeated this statement on the following morning when he presented himself to Farmer Ellery, humbly petitioning that his fault might be overlooked, and promising to work an hour or two “extry” every day to make up for the time which had been lost.
“For I shouldn’t like my missus to come out a-workin’ any more,” he explained.
The farmer looked at him sharply, grunted, and finally agreed.
“I’ll give you another chance,” he said, “but I don’t know how long you’ll keep straight.”
“I be a-goin’ for to turn over a new leaf,” said Jarge firmly, and to everyone’s surprise he actually did.
ANN-CAR’LINE
Lambing time is a very important epoch to farming folk, and particularly to farming folk in Dorset. The popular idea which associates the advent of these innocents with primroses and daffodils, budding hedges, and all the other adjuncts of spring does not obtain in this pre-eminently sheep-rearing county. It is in November when days are at their shortest, when the earth is at its barest, when cold rain falls, and not infrequently sleet or “snow-stuff,” as it is locally called, that the misguided younglings of the flock look their first upon a sodden and gloomy world. Midway in October their quarters are got in readiness, preferably in a corner of some upland field; the shepherd’s wheeled hut takes up its position in the midst of a sheltered space in the lewth of the hedge, straw-padded hurdles mark the enclosure, and sundry pens are made ready for the new arrivals and their dams. By day the shepherd himself may be seen, crook in hand and dog at heel, taking stock of his premises; and often at dusk the uncertain light of his lantern may be noted from afar.
On one particularly gloomy November evening young Timothy Kiddle, Farmer Hounsell’s new shepherd, made a careful inspection of his charges, lantern in hand; and after completing the tour of the fold sat down in an angle of the hurdle fence to smoke a quiet pipe. His hut had not yet been conveyed to its destined site, and till now he had slept at home; but one of the ewes seemed somewhat uneasy in her mind, and all things considered Timothy decided that it would be better to spend the night amid his charges.
He intended, of course, to watch, but having been exceptionally busy all day, soon dozed, and presently indeed fell into a sound sleep. This was no doubt highly reprehensible under the circumstances, particularly when one remembers that a lighted pipe was between his teeth, and that the whole place was strewn with straw.
He awoke with a start and a terrific throb of conscience, and was relieved to find himself in the dark; his pipe had dropped harmlessly into his lap, and the very lantern had burnt itself out. He rolled on to his knees, feeling cramped after his long sitting, and was about to stand upright when his attention was suddenly arrested by a curious sight.
At the further end of the long field, outlined against the hedge, and thrown into strong relief by the light of a lantern which stood on the ground beside her, was a girl, digging. He could see her distinctly, and could even note that she wore a white apron, that her sleeves were tucked up, and that she had no hat or covering of any kind on her head. She laboured with a will, but presently flung aside her spade, and, kneeling down, drew something from her bosom which she thrust into the hole she had made. As she bent over it, Timothy watching breathlessly from his post behind the hurdles saw and recognised her face. It was Ann-Car’line Bartlett, who lived in one of the cottages down in the dip yonder. Timothy had seen her several times, for she came regularly twice a day to buy milk at Hounsell’s farm. She had even seemed to him a nice, modest, quiet-spoken maid, and he wondered much at the nature of the task she was now accomplishing. Soon she was on her feet again, shovelling back the earth with feverish energy; then, taking up her lantern, she stepped towards the hedge, and stood there for a moment or two; but her back was turned towards Timothy, and, crane his neck as he might, he could not see what she was doing. Presently she turned about again, caught up her spade, and, squeezing herself through a gap in the hedge, walked away down the lane.
Timothy rose cautiously to his feet and looked after the bobbing lantern till it vanished from his sight, and then, feeling in his pocket for a fresh bit of candle, put it into his lantern, lit it, and ran to inspect the mysterious spot. First he examined the hedge, and after a minute scrutiny discovered a small cross cut deep into the bark of a stout holly sapling, which was evidently intended to serve as a landmark; next, carefully inspecting the ground in the neighbourhood, he came to the place where the earth had been recently disturbed. The field was a turnip field, and it would have been difficult on the morrow to distinguish the precise locality without some such precaution as the girl had taken; as Timothy knelt down to pursue his investigations he mentally commended her wisdom.
Depositing his lantern on the ground he scratched away the loose earth with his vigorous hands, and presently came to a little bundle. This, on being withdrawn and held to the light, proved to be a cheap printed cotton handkerchief which was carefully knotted about something hard and round. Timothy breathlessly removed this outer covering, and discovered to his astonishment a gold watch. A gentleman’s gold watch, as he said to himself, for it was a fairly large size, and there was a monogram on the lid, and two or three seals and charms—fallals Timothy dubbed them—appended to the ring.
Timothy sat back on his heels, opening eyes and mouth in astonishment.
“Well, I’m dalled!” he ejaculated under his breath. “That there nice, vitty little maid. Who’d ever think she’d be that artful. And that wicked!” he added severely.
After turning about the watch, and examining it on every side, he wrapped it up again, and restored it to its hiding-place.
“She must ha’ stole it,” he said to himself, as he threw in the earth again. “Certain sure, she must ha’ stole it. A poor maid like her doesn’t ha’ gold watches to throw about. If it was given to her she wouldn’t go and bury it in a field half a mile away from her home. No, ’tisn’t very likely. She stole it. That’s what she’s done, and she’ve a-hid it away here to keep it safe till she can pop it, or maybe sell it. Nobody ’ud ha’ knowed if I hadn’t chanced to look over the hurdle. It do really seem quite providential,” continued Timothy, who loved to use a long word, now and then, even in communion with himself, “to think I should ha’ falled asleep, and my lantern should ha’ went out like that, else the maid ’ud never ha’ dug so nigh to where I was sittin’.”
He rose to his feet now, stamping down the earth over the filled-in hole, and then loosening the surface with the toe of his big boot; as he turned away he laughed to himself.
“The maid little thinks as I do know her secret. I’ll watch—ah, sure, I’ll watch. I’m not wishful for to get her into trouble, but I’ll watch. When she comes to dig her treasure up again, I’ll ha’ summat for to say to her.”
With this resolution he made his way back to his charges; but throughout his oft broken slumbers that night he was haunted by the remembrance of Ann-Car’line’s secret; when he was not in fancy holding the watch in his hand or replacing it in its wrapper, he was sternly questioning the girl and receiving numerous and widely differing explanations of the mystery.
When he went about his work at early dawn he frequently glanced in the direction of the hiding place, and saw in imagination the little round packet lying snug at the bottom of its hole. A chance passer-by on the rough track on the other side of the hedge made him start—would he be likely to detect that the earth had been recently disturbed in that particular spot which Timothy knew of? Even when Mr Hounsell came up as usual to inspect the little flock, Timothy was careful to place himself immediately in front of him, whenever the farmer chanced to glance in the direction in question; so that his own burly form might serve as a screen to Ann-Car’line’s indiscretion.
“What be you a-turnin’ and a-turnin’ round me like that for?” enquired his master presently, with some sternness. “There you do make I quite giddy. You be jist same as a weathercock.”
Timothy had no answer ready on the moment; he looked up at the sky, and then at the distant horizon, and finally remarked that he didn’t think the wind was shiftin’ that much.
“I don’t say it be,” responded the farmer emphatically, “but I do say as you mid be a weathercock the way you do go on a-twistin’ and a-turnin’—there ye be again! What be the matter, man?”
Timothy set his hat more firmly on his head, cleared his throat, spat in his hands, and caught up a pitchfork, remarking that there was a deal to be seen to, and that weathercock or no weathercock, he ought to be shakin’ out the straw.
“There’s one o’ the ewes here as I don’t so very well like the looks on,” he said persuasively, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a quarter which he felt to be perfectly safe.
Thereupon Mr Hounsell forgot to animadvert further on his underling’s oddities, and immediately became immersed in more practical matters.
By chance the shepherd was obliged to betake himself to the farm that day on some errand; and, as he was hurrying back to his charges, he encountered Ann-Car’line, leisurely driving a flock of ducks towards a wayside pond. She had slung her sun-bonnet on one arm, so that her pretty hair caught such pale sunshine as was available on that November afternoon; and in one hand she held a long elder switch with a few yellow leaves dandling at its extremity. She responded to Timothy’s greeting with perfect serenity, her placid blue eyes appearing more limpid even than usual as she returned his gaze. When he was a few paces away from her, picking his steps carefully among her waddling flock, he heard her trill out a song as suddenly and sweetly as a robin might have done.
“Well, that beats all!” commented the shepherd. “There she do look I in the face so innocent as a baby, and she do sing out like a—like a angel. I can’t make nothing of it—nay, I can’t indeed.”
His hut had now been put into position, and he occupied it that night, and might have slumbered peacefully enough, for his sheep were quiet; yet he could not rest for thinking of Ann-Car’line and her secret.
“She mid ha’ found that watch,” he said to himself, “or she midn’t ha’ knowed ’twas wrong to take it. There, to think of it a-layin’ out there so as anybody what liked mid just stretch out his hand and take it. What ’ud the poor maid do then? She’d ha’ no chance of giving it back, or anything.”
Impelled by these reflections, Timothy presently got up and made a second pilgrimage to Ann Car’line’s hiding-place. In a very few minutes he had withrawn the watch from its wrapper, dropped it into his own pocket, and replaced it by a round smooth stone. He chuckled to himself as he folded the handkerchief about this and laid it in the hole.
“’Twill be a rare treat to see the maid’s face,” he said.
For greater safety he continued to carry the watch about his person, carefully testing his pocket night and morning to make quite sure there was no suspicion of a hole.
The knowledge of this possession made him look quizzically at Ann-Car’line when next he came upon her; and strange to say he found himself obliged to pass her house on the following day. She was busily engaged in scrubbing the doorstep, and on hearing his footfall turned round; and perceiving that he smiled, though somewhat oddly, smiled back, gaily and innocently enough.
“Dear, to be sure!” exclaimed Timothy, pausing; “you do seem in very good spirits, my maid.”
“Why, so I be,” replied the girl. “I han’t got nothing to make me sad, have I?”
“I don’t suppose you have,” said Timothy. “You was a-singin’ yesterday so gay as a lark.”
“Oh, I’m often singin’,” replied she. “I’d sing all day if I was let; it do help to pass the time away.”
“You can’t sing and scrub, though, I shouldn’t think,” said Timothy, tentatively.
“Can’t I?” retorted Ann-Car’line, and immediately dipped her brush in the pail and simultaneously lifted that marvellous clear voice of hers. It was a marvellous voice—fresh and true and ringing; she could send it up, up, to the very limit of the gamut, as it seemed, yet never lose sweetness or roundness.
“Can’t I sing and scrub?” she repeated, pausing to take breath and to soap her brush afresh.
“I never heerd nothin’ like it!” replied Timothy, enthusiastically. “Says I to myself yesterday, ‘It mid be a angel singin’,’ I says.”
“Oh, and did you?” said Ann-Car’line, growing pink with pleasure as she vigorously polished the doorstep.
“Yes, I did indeed,” returned the shepherd earnestly. “I should think you was a angel—or very near,” he added hastily, for at that moment he chanced to thrust his hand into his pocket, and came in contact with something hard and round.
“Very near—or, perhaps—I mid say—”
“I mid ha’ been summat very like a angel,” replied Ann-Car’line, squatting back on her heels and looking at him seriously. “I mid ha’ been a fairy.”
Here she lowered her voice and looked round cautiously.
“What do you mean?” enquired Timothy, stooping over her and speaking in the same tone.
“Hush! It’s a secret. Don’t let mother hear ye!”
The shepherd straightened himself again. “Ah, you’ve got secrets,” he said dispassionately; “yes, young maids has secrets what they don’t like the wold folks to hear on. But secrets is dangerous, my girl.”
And thereupon Timothy fingered the watch once more.
“There, what be so long a-doin’ for?” called out a sharp female voice from within the cottage. “I could ha’ cleaned that doorstep forty times while thou’rt thinkin’ on it.”
Ann-Car’line gathered up pail and brush, and hastened indoors, leaving Timothy to meditate on her mysterious words as he made his way towards the fold.
He frowned as he walked along, and struck at the hedge savagely with his crook.
“Fairies is nonsense-folk!” he exclaimed aloud once and again; “I can’t think as thikky maid can be so artful as she do seem.”
On the following Sunday, by some accident, he found himself next her in church, and, perceiving that he had no hymn-book, Ann-Car’line was kind enough to permit him to share hers. She looked as fair and innocent as a flower, and sang with all her heart. Timothy was quite carried away. Artful indeed! There wasn’t her match in the whole county of Dorset for looks, and he’d go warrant she was as good as she seemed.
When they emerged from the church he asked her to walk with him, and before half an hour had passed had begun to court her in form. He actually forgot, for the time being, all about the watch and his suspicions connected with it, and it was not until Ann-Car’line had unexpectedly broken a somewhat long and contented silence by a fragment of some gay little song—not a hymn-tune—that he remembered the phrase which had so much puzzled him a few days before.
“What was that you was a-sayin’ about bein’ a fairy?” he enquired, abruptly.
Ann-Car’line’s little white teeth flashed out in a mischievous smile. “I was axed once if I’d like to be a fairy,” said she. “Don’t ye think I’d make a very good one?”
“There’s no such folks as fairies,” returned Timothy. “Nobody couldn’t ha’ axed ye such a thing.”
“They did though!” retorted Ann-Car’line. “Says they, ‘You be a pretty maid—you’d make a very good fairy. Would you like to be one?’”
“Now that’s a nonsense tale,” said the shepherd firmly. “I’ll not put up wi’ no such stories. If you and me be to walk out, and to—and to—carry on reg’lar same as we’ve a-made up our minds to do, you did ought to have more respect for I. So don’t ye be a-comin’ to I again wi’ such made-up tales.”
The girl laughed again in a queer, little secret way that annoyed him still more.
“There must be truth between us,” he said, almost harshly. “You must tell me the truth about everything.”
He broke off, looking at her oddly; he did not intend to let her know how much he had found out for himself. She must confess everything to him of her own accord, and then he would stand by her through thick and thin.
Ann-Car’line, however, did not seem in the least impressed; she went on singing to herself under her breath, glancing maliciously at Timothy from time to time.
“I can’t help it if you don’t believe me,” said she, “and there’s nothin’ more as I can tell ye.”
“Nothin’ at all?” enquired the shepherd sternly. He thought he saw her change colour, but she shook her head emphatically.
“That’ll do,” said Timothy fiercely. “We’ve made a mistake, my girl, and ’tis best to say so straight out. If ye can look I in the face and tell I they things, ye b’ain’t the maid for I. Ye can find somebody else to keep company wi’. I’d sooner live lonesome all my days nor have a wife as wasn’t to be trusted; so I’ll bid ye good-day. But there’s one thing,” he added, turning round suddenly, “ye may find yourself in trouble sooner than ye think for, and ye may be glad enough to own up then. I’ll not be your sweetheart no more, but if ever you’re in trouble and will own up I’ll stand by ye.”
She looked at him for a moment oddly, half-fearfully, but recovering herself, turned upon her heel, muttering something about a likely tale, coupled with certain ejaculations intended to prove her entire content with the actual condition of affairs, and her scorn of the recalcitrant lover.
Timothy went home in high dudgeon, and taking out the watch gave it a little indignant shake.
“I’ve a good mind to put thee back where I found thee,” said he. “Yes, it ’ud serve her right if I put thee back and took no more notice of either of ye.”
But after a moment’s fierce reflection he put the watch back in his pocket again, and decided to wait.
Days passed and became weeks; Timothy frequently met Ann-Car’line, greeting her with a surly word or two, to which she responded by a saucy nod; sometimes he would hear her singing in the lanes, and would pause to listen when he thought himself unnoticed; and on Sundays, though they no longer shared the same hymn-book, his eyes frequently wandered to her face, and he was forced to confess to himself that though he knew her to be an artful, untruthful little maid, she looked, as he had so often said, “like a angel.”
At last the long-expected actually came to pass. He woke up suddenly, very early, one morning, and saw a lantern glimmering at the further end of the field. He immediately rose, put on his coat, and opening the door of the hut a little wider peered out into the darkness. It was not yet five o’clock, and here in the open field all was still as at midnight. The weather had “taken up” lately; the keen crispness of frost was in the air, and the sky was full of stars. The bobbing light yonder seemed to blink like one at first, but presently became steady, and all at once he heard, or fancied he heard, a faint cry.
“She’s found the stone,” said Timothy, and grinned to himself.
Now the light began to waver again, and, as Timothy expected, approached the hut. As it drew near, Ann-Car’line’s voice was heard calling piteously, “Mr Kiddle! Timothy—Timothy!”
The shepherd winked to himself, and answered with a low and muffled roar, intended to indicate that he had just been aroused from profound slumber.
“Oh, Timothy Kiddle!” cried the voice, “please come out a minute, I don’t know what to do. Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Hold hard a minute!” cried Timothy. “I’m coming!”
He lighted his lantern and sallied forth. There stood Ann-Car’line, pressing close against the hurdle fence, the light which she held up falling upon her white scared face, and upon the handkerchief in her hand.
“What be doin’ here, my maid, at this hour?” enquired the shepherd sternly. “You did ought to be at home and a-bed. ’Tisn’t respectable to be wanderin’ about in the fields in the dark.”
“Oh, don’t be so cross,” pleaded the girl. “I wouldn’t come if I could help it. Oh dear! Oh dear! I’m in such trouble. You said I was to call you if I was in trouble.”
“I said you was to own up,” said Timothy, grimly. “You must start wi’ that.”
“I thought you’d be a bit kinder,” moaned Ann-Car’line, and two big tears rolled down her cheeks. “I—I—I had summat as I didn’t want the folks at home to see—I haven’t got nothin’ what locks—so I made a little hole at the bottom of the field yon—and I buried it. An’—an’—somebody’s been an’ stole it away, an’ put a stone in its place.”
“That’s a queer tale,” said Timothy. “Very near as queer a tale as the one you did tell I about bein’ axed to be a fairy.”
“Oh, but it’s true—it’s really true,” cried Ann-Car’line earnestly. “And the worst of it is the thing—what I hid—wasn’t mine.”
Timothy deliberately set down his lantern, and folded his arms on the top of the hurdle.
“You’ll have to come out wi’ the whole truth, my girl,” said he; “what was the thing ye hid?”
“’Twas a watch,” gasped the girl; “a gold watch.”
Timothy whistled under his breath. “And ’twasn’t yours, ye say?” he remarked after a pause. “Ye stole it then, did ye? Ye’ll be put in prison so sure as I be a-lookin’ at ye.”
“Stole it!” ejaculated Ann-Car’line with a little scream. “I did no such thing. ’Twas give me, but I didn’t want to take it an’ I said I’d give it back—and now I can’t,” she added with a burst of woe.
“Now look ye here, maidie,” cried Timothy, in a voice that had suddenly grown extremely wrathful, “this ’ere tale’s worse nor what I looked for. Who gave ye that watch? Come, make a clean breast on’t—else I’ll not lift a finger to help ye. It’ll have to come out first or last, and there’s less shame in telling me—what’s your friend—”
“I’m not ashamed,” interrupted Ann-Car’line, throwing back her head. “I have not done wrong. ’Twas a gentleman give me the watch, there!”
“Well, then you have done wrong!” said the shepherd, sternly. “What right had ye to take gold watches from gentlemen as ye dursen’t let your mother see. It bain’t a very nice story, that. Who is the gentleman?” he added fiercely. “What did he give ye the watch for?”
Standing up to the hurdle he seized the girl by the wrists, pinioning her fast.
“Lard, Timothy! Don’t pinch me so vicious—you be hurtin’ I. There, ’twas a actin’ gentleman what come wi’ a lot o’ others to the town in the summer. They was actin’ a play at the Corn Exchange, wi’ a lot o’ singin’ and dancin’ in it. This one was the head o’ the actin’ folks. I went there along o’ father, and he said he see’d me all the time the play was goin’ on—”
“Your father said that?” queried Timothy, sharply.
“No, the actin’ gentleman. He come upon me the next day, walkin’ along the lane and singin’—as I mid be the first day you did talk to I—and he did stop and speak.”
“What did he say?” growled Timothy, tightening his grip upon her wrists.
“Oh, he axed I a lot of questions, and he did say I wer’ a very pretty girl, and he did ax I would I like to be a fairy?”
“It was him said that,” interrupted the shepherd. “I never thought there was a word o’ truth in the tale.”
“There was, though. He meant a play-actin’ fairy, o’ course. He said all I’d have to do was to sing a bit, and dance a bit, and look nice, and I’d get a lot of money and see the world too.”
“So he said, and what did you say?” asked Timothy, as she paused.
“First I said I didn’t think mother could spare me, and then I said I didn’t think I’d like it, and then I said straight out I wouldn’t. But he wouldn’t take No,” said Ann-Car’line, opening her eyes very wide. “The more I hung back, the more he pressed—and at last he pulls out that watch an’ says he, ‘Now, my dear, think it over. We’ll be comin’ back again about Christmas-time,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you from now to then to make up your mind. And meanwhile there’s my watch for you to keep,’ says he—‘’twill show you I’m in earnest, anyhow. You can mark the flight of time with that,’ says he—he spoke so funny, ye know—‘and with every day that passes you must be the nearer to making up your mind to sayin’ Yes.’ Wasn’t it a queer notion?”
“A very queer notion, indeed,” said Timothy, grimly. “Well, and now ye’ve lost the watch—and what be ye goin’ to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure,” returned Ann-Car’line, sobbing afresh. “I shall never be able to look him in the face, when he comes for his answer.”
“So much the better,” said Timothy, rigidly. “He’ll not be in such a hurry to meddle wi’ young maids again, p’raps.”
“Oh, but he’ll be sure to think I sold it, or pawned it, or summat—he’ll maybe have the law on me.”
“Is that all what’s troublin’ ye?” said the shepherd, fixing her with a piercing gaze. “If anybody was to find that watch for ye, you wouldn’t want to go turnin’ into a fairy or any sich tomfoolery?”
“I shouldn’t—indeed I shouldn’t,” she cried earnestly. “Oh, Timothy, will ye help me to find it?”
“I don’t know but what I will,” said he—“if you’ll promise me—promise me faithful—faithful, mind, not to take no more notice at all of that play-actin’ gentleman. I’ll find that watch if ye’ll let me take it back to the man myself, and tell en so.”
“I will—I’ll promise,” sobbed she.
“It’s a bargain!” said Timothy, firmly. “Now then—let’s see what can be done. Was there nobody at all in the field when you did chance to bury that watch? Somebody must ha’ see’d ye do it, ye see, and then so soon as your back was turned, gone and dug it up again.”
“Oh, there was nobody there,” replied the girl, emphatically. “I watched and waited for ever so long before I made the hole—there wasn’t a sign of anybody. Your hut wasn’t up here then—I shouldn’t ha’ done it if it had a-been there, for I’d ha’ been afeard ye mid see me.”
“Yes,” agreed Timothy, “that’s true. I mid ha’ seen ye.”
“And nobody could tell where ’twas hid,” she pursued mournfully. “I scratched up the earth and made it look same as all the rest o’ the field. I shouldn’t ha’ found it myself if I hadn’t ha’ made a little sign to know it by.”
“Sich as a mark in the hedge?” suggested Timothy.
She stared at him.
“A little cross, as mid be, cut in a holly stem?” continued the shepherd.
“O-o-oh,” cried Ann-Car’line, “you horrid, unkind, teasin’ chap! I d’ ’low you was spyin’ on me all the time!”
For all answer Timothy dived to the depths of his pocket and produced by slow degrees, first the chain, and then the watch itself.
Ann-Car’line, uncertain whether to be more angry or relieved, burst into a series of disjointed exclamations, and finally ordered her lover to give her back that watch immediately.
“Nothin’ of the kind,” replied he, dropping it into his pocket again. “I’ll keep it for ye same as I’ve a-been doin’ all along. Says I to mysel’ when I see’d what you was arter—‘That there maid’ll be gettin’ into trouble,’ I says, ‘wi’out somebody interferes.’ And so I—”
“Oh, Timothy, did ye?” cried Ann-Car’line, melting all at once, “but ye needn’t ha’ gied me such a fright.”
“Ye shouldn’t ha’ had secrets from I, then,” returned he. “Well, we’ll ha’ no more secrets now, my girl, shall us? I’ll gi’e that watch back to the chap and send en about his business.”
“But he’ll think it so queer, won’t he?” said she, simpering.
“He’ll not think it a bit queer when I do tell en I be a-courtin’ of ye.”
“Oh, Timothy!” sighed Ann-Car’line.
And then Timothy Kiddle set his lantern on the ground, and, leaning over the hurdles, kissed her with great earnestness and satisfaction.
“Nothing like having a thing settled!” said he.
ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS
Old Mrs Spencer picked her way daintily along the path which led from the Frisbys’ little gate to their house-door. The path in question had been raked and was devoid of weeds, and if it had not been for a presumably recent addition of bones and broken crockery in one corner, and a large pool of dirty water, from which shallow streams were slowly making their way to the gate aforesaid, would no doubt have been tidy. The old lady hopped from side to side in the attempt to keep her neat little feet dry, and when she came to the pool itself, on which rings of suds were eddying, stopped short with a disgusted air, and raising her voice, called for Mrs Frisby.
The door slowly opened, and a slatternly-looking woman stood upon the threshold. A stout two-year-old child sat on one arm, while the other hand held a penny novelette. A wisp of hair hung loosely over her face, which was as dirty as that of the child; the bodice of her dress was held together by pins, and she altogether presented a most uninviting appearance. She started at sight of the visitor.
“I beg pardon, m’m,” she said. “I wish I’d known you was comin’. Thursday is a busy day with us.”
“So I see,” responded Mrs Spencer, suffering her eyes to wander over the woman’s figure, and thence towards the corner of the garden, where she could see some dingy-looking clothes hanging on the line. “Most people have finished their washing by Thursday, but you are evidently in the middle of yours.”
“Yes, m’m,” admitted Mrs Frisby, dolefully. “There, with all those childern, ye know, m’m, and Frisby coming in and making so much mess, ’tis hard to get on with the work.”
“It’s a curious thing,” remarked Mrs Spencer, “that you should prefer to empty your suds out of the front door—and do you find you get on quicker with your work if you read while you’re doing it?”
“Well ’m, I’m sure, m’m, I had but just sat down for a minute. Little Harry was a bit peevish, and I couldn’t let him cry—he chanced to prick his finger with a pin, ye see, m’m—”
“If there’d been a button there,” said Mrs Spencer, “or a hook and eye, that accident couldn’t have happened. And pray”—peering at the dreadful little book with her sharp eyes—“were you reading ‘Lady Selina’s Lover’ out loud to amuse the baby?”
During the confused pause which ensued, the little old lady made a leap across the muddy space, and, waving Mrs Frisby on one side, entered the house. Such a house! Dirty windows, a dirty floor, a grate which had not been cleaned for several days, and beneath which was such a pile of cinders and ashes that the fire would scarcely burn. Everything in the room was dusty, and in the very middle of the floor lay a pair of man’s muddy boots.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, m’m,” said Mrs Frisby. “’Tis a dreadful untidy place for you to come into. Dear to be sure, just look at Frisby’s boots! He’ve left them there ever since last night, and I can’t get him to so much as clean a window for me.”
“Can’t you really?” said Mrs Spencer. “No, I don’t think I’ll sit down, thank you. So Frisby won’t clean the windows or put his boots on one side? Well, you know, there are some wives, Mrs Frisby, who would think it a little hard to ask their husbands to clean windows when he had been working all day, and who would even put away his boots if he did chance to leave them on the floor. The husband, after all, is the breadwinner. Frisby works very hard—I’ll say that for him—and he’s earning good wages, and is always ready to earn a little more by doing odd jobs after hours. Then, when he’s finished those, he has his allotment to see to, and the garden here, which would, I see, be very tidy if you did not allow your children to strew things all over the place.”
“I’m sure I’m always telling the childern not to throw their rubbish about,” said Mrs Frisby, tearfully, “but what am I to do? I can’t be indoor and out too. Frisby might very well see to the childern in the garden, I think, when I’m busy in the house.”
“It’s all Frisby’s fault, in fact,” said Mrs Spencer, pursing up her lips. “I suppose,” she added, looking round the room, “he ought to dust, and clean the grate, and scrub the floors too.”
The old lady spoke so seriously that Mrs Frisby stared hard without replying.
“I must say,” continued the former, after a pause, “your husband has worked on my estate for nearly ten years—since he was quite a little boy, in fact—and I have always found him extremely industrious, good-tempered, and obliging. I can’t understand how it is that you seem to give him such a different character.”
“Well ’m,” said Mrs Frisby, shifting the child from her right arm to her left, “I don’t altogether complain, but I do think Frisby might be a bit more good-natured, knowin’ how poorly I feel, and so many childern to see to.”
“Somebody told me,” said Mrs Spencer, “that Frisby very often helps to dress the children.”
“Well ’m, and if he do they’re his childern so well as mine. I get faint now and then.”
“I don’t wonder,” said the other. “Do you by any chance ever open a window here?”
Mrs Frisby burst into tears. “I think ’tis very hard o’ Frisby to go complainin’ of me,” she sobbed. “A body can but do their best. With four childern and such poor health as I have, I think it’s wonderful I can get along at all. And as to cleanin’ up after Frisby (casting a sour look at the boots), I’m sure I can’t be expected to do that.”
“Good morning,” said Mrs Spencer, turning sharply round and walking out of the house.
As she drew near her own home she came upon Frisby himself, looking hot and tired, and walking with a lagging step. There had been no preparations of any kind for dinner at his cottage, and she wondered if the poor man would be obliged to get it himself, while his wife read her trashy paper, and dandled the big child, which could perfectly well have been taught to amuse itself happily while its mother was busy.
“I’ve just been to your house,” she remarked, as she came up to him.
Poor Frisby murmured something about wishing he had known, and fearing she had found things a bit upset.
“Now listen to me, James,” said the old lady. “I’ve known you too long to let you go downhill so fast without trying to help you. I’ve been turning over a plan in my mind, which may possibly make that wife of yours think a little more seriously of her duties.”
James got red, but listened in silence while Mrs Spencer began to talk in a low rapid voice. He looked more and more astonished as she proceeded, and finally burst out laughing.
“’Twould be a good notion,” he said, “a very good notion, but—”
“Try it for a week,” said Mrs Spencer. “That’s all I ask, try it for a week; I’ll undertake that you shan’t be the loser, and of course you must not say a word to your wife about having met me.”
* * *
“’Tis past six, Jim,” said Mrs Frisby on the following morning, as she stood by the bed, after having reluctantly clothed herself. “Didn’t ye hear church-clock go?”
“I heard it,” said Jim drowsily. “I’m not feelin’ so very well, this mornin’, my dear; I don’t think I can get up.”
Mrs Frisby, in real alarm, questioned him as to the nature of his malady. Did his head ache—was his back bad—was he feeling his heart any ways queer?
Her husband, after reflecting for a moment or two, replied that it was just “all-overishness,” and that he thought a rest would do him good.
“Dear!” exclaimed Mrs Frisby, “but I haven’t a drop of water in the house. Who’s to fill the bucket at the well?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to do it, Sally,” returned Jim. “’Tis very unfortunate—very, I’m sure, but I can’t think how else it is to be managed.”
“Well, I’m not going to do it, then,” cried Sally. “I never heerd of such a thing! You great lazy fellow, lying in bed with nothing the matter with ye.”
“I tell you,” repeated Jim, “I’m all-overish, same as you be so often. My heart don’t feel quite right neither. If ye was to bring me up a cup of tea, same as I do when you’re not feeling yourself, I fancy it might just keep it off.”
“If ye expect me to go cartin’ your breakfast upstairs you’re much mistaken,” said Sally. “I’m a poor eater myself at best of times, and I don’t care whether I have my breakfast or not. But I’ll not go drawin’ water for you.”
“A pipe o’ baccy is as good as a breakfast to me any day,” said Jim, reaching out his hand for his pipe. “I dare say I’d be well enough to mind the childern while you was busy, Sally,” he continued, mildly. “I can manage the childern very well. You can turn ’em all in here while you’m a-cleanin’ up. P’raps ’tis just as well I should be at home once in a way,” he added, pleasantly. “You always say you can never get on wi’ your work wi’ the little ones in your way. Now they’ll be out o’ your way.”
“Ye can fetch childern yourself if you want them,” retorted Mrs Frisby, marching indignantly downstairs.
Jim crept cautiously out of bed and went to the window, chuckling to himself as he presently saw her laboriously filling her bucket at the well. He dressed himself with great speed and dexterity for one in his delicate condition, and, going into the adjoining rooms, roused the children and washed and dressed the younger ones, directing the others to do the same for themselves.
When he brought them downstairs presently, the kettle was already boiling, and Mrs Frisby, with a flushed face was getting down the teapot; if truth be told, she was not at all averse to her breakfast.
“Just in time,” observed Jim. “It doesn’t take so very long, you see, my dear, to get the childern dressed if ye take a bit o’ trouble wi’ ’em. Now, shan’t we put a cloth on the table?”
Sally murmured indistinctly something about lazy people not deserving to be cocked up with cloths.
“Meaning me?” said Jim. “It’s me what pays for the cloths, though. See, Rosie, it’s yonder on the dresser. Take it down, there’s a good little maid, and spread it nice—that’s the way.”
“If ye can’t do your own work, I don’t see why ye need come interfering with mine,” remarked Sally.
“I’ve more time to see to things when I don’t go out to work myself,” explained her husband. “I’m going to train Rosie a bit. She’s getting a big girl, now, and could easy learn to be useful.”
“You’re not going to work!” gasped Sally.
“I don’t feel up to my work to-day, you see,” said Jim. “I’ll just sit quiet in a corner and rest me. Have you got a book handy? What have you done with that nice book you were reading yesterday?”
“’Tis very ill-done of you to make a mock of me,” cried his wife. “I’m sure you didn’t ought to grudge me the little bit of amusement I took after working so hard all day—washing and all.”
“I don’t grudge it to you, my dear,” responded Jim. “I’m going to imitate you, that’s all. I work hard, week by week, month by month, and year by year. I’m going to take a bit of amusement now, and I’m sure you won’t grudge it to me. Now then, Rosie, set the cups out, and the plates—the cups at the top, ye know, and the plates all round. Jack, fetch Daddy’s boots there, and I’ll tell ye what to do with them.”
The little boy obeyed, and Jim in spite of his feeble state, found himself able to take the child out to the shed at the back, and there instruct him in the art of boot-cleaning, of which he proved himself a capable scholar. By the time they returned breakfast was ready.
Mrs Frisby looked up with an attempt at a smile as they came in.
“I am glad to see you are better,” she said. “Maybe you’ll be able to go to work after all.”
But Jim shook his head with a despondent air.
“No use expectin’ too much,” he remarked, quoting one of his wife’s favourite speeches; then, as she stared, “I’ll jist see to the little uns an’ help ye a bit with the cleanin’ if I don’t find it knocks me up too much.”
Mrs Frisby finished her breakfast in silence, and Jim, after disposing of his meal, turned his attention to the children.
“Now then, let’s see how useful you can make yourselves. See, I’ll carry the things over to the sink, and Rosie can wash ’em up, and Jack here can dry them.”
“Ye’ll have ’em smashed to atoms,” said Sally sulkily.
“Not a bit of it; they’re a deal more in danger of getting smashed lying about, as they generally do, half the morning.”
He superintended the carrying out of both operations, and then desired the children to wash their hands and smooth their hair before going to school.
“Dear!” he exclaimed, as he clumsily tied a pinafore string. “All your things do seem in terr’ble need of mendin’. I tell ye what, Sally, while you do a bit o’ cleanin’ up I’ll see if I can’t make shift to sew on a button or two.”
“I thought you was too bad to work!” exclaimed Sally tartly.
“Anybody can do a bit o’ sewin’,” said Jim. “Now, my dear, as soon as ye’ve taken away tea-things, ye can begin on the grate.”
Having procured needle and cottons and a card of buttons, a trifle damaged on account of Baby Harry having been allowed to chew it on the day it had been bought, Jim set to work, while Mrs Frisby reluctantly knelt down before the hearth.
“Take out the big cinders, Sally,” he directed, “and put ’em on one side. It ’ud save ye a deal o’ trouble,” he continued mildly, “if ye’d do it first thing in the morning, for then the children ’ud give ye a helpin’ hand. Now I think,” said Jim, leisurely threading his needle, “that we’ll have a bit o’ black-lead, my dear. It’s wonderful what a difference it makes to the look of a place.”
Sally worked away in gloomy silence, and Jim sewed on buttons, and whistled under his breath. If truth be told he soon grew extremely tired of the operation, and longed to be digging potatoes or hoeing weeds. He continued, however, to direct his wife, and, though Mrs Frisby felt herself very much aggrieved, she did not dare to disobey his orders.
Presently the couple migrated to the bedrooms, for Jim found himself so indisposed he was obliged to lie down while Sally gave the three rooms a thoroughly good cleaning. Angry as she was it was wonderful how quickly she managed to get through her work on that particular morning, for with Jim’s eye upon her she could neither sit down to read, nor stand staring out of the window.
Jim, meanwhile, had taken charge of little Harry, and though he neither dandled him nor played with him, he contrived so well to teach him how to amuse himself that the child was quite happy. It was true he found time to say an encouraging word now and then to the little fellow, and made a safe plaything for him out of three or four empty cotton reels securely fastened to a piece of white tape. These Harry could rattle, or slide up and down, and they were safer to chew than linen buttons on a shiny green card.
After dinner Jim thought the air might do him good. He strolled out into the garden, therefore, itching to be at work, but resolutely keeping himself in check; and presently he invited Sally to clean herself and bring her sewing out there too.
By and by Mrs Frisby joined him, looking quite tidy, and gazing almost in alarm at her husband. She half expected him to request her to do a bit of gardening, but he only smiled as she approached, and told her she looked downright bonny with her face so nice and clean; more like the girl he used to court in by-gone days than he ever thought to see her again.
Putting his arm round her he made her sit down on the little bench beneath the apple-tree, and there the couple passed an hour or two in great content, till Sally remarked that it was time to go in and get tea ready.
“Do,” said Jim, “and mind ye sweep up the hearth, my dear. It do make it look more cheerful.”
The hearth actually was swept up when he entered, and all the children sitting round the table with smooth hair and clean faces and hands.
“If we was to get a door-mat it would keep the place nicer,” Sally observed. “I could train the childern to wipe their feet on’t.”
She announced this fact with the air of one who had made an important discovery, and Jim, delighted with the turn affairs were taking, agreed with alacrity.
“It puts more heart into a man if he finds things is made good use of; but when you go spendin’ an’ spendin’ all what you’ve worked hard for to get, knowin’ they’ll be let fall to pieces for want of a stitch, or else ruined with rust and dirt, you have no pride or pleasure in doin’ anythin’.”
Sally did not answer, but looked penitently at her husband.
After tea, when the children were in bed she came and stood by his chair.
“I hope ye’ll be able to go to work to-morrow,” said she.
“I hope so, I’m sure,” he replied. “’Tis a bad thing when ye come to think on’t, Sally, for the man to be laid by—him as has to earn the money to fill all the little mouths. Wet or dry, sick or well, off he has to go to his work. If a man didn’t do his work reg’lar he’d get turned off pretty quick. The women don’t remember that when they sit idle at home, without ever giving a thought to their husbands’ peace or comfort. Yet, if the husbands wasn’t there, what would become of them all? Did you find it hard work fillin’ that bucket this mornin’, Sally?”
“Terr’ble hard,” said Sally, with a quivering lip.
“Ah, I’m sorry for that. D’ye think ye’ll be able to chop sticks for to-morrow’s fire?”
“Ye oughtn’t to ask me to do such work,” said she, with a sob. “Ye know I’m not fit for it.”
“Winter an’ summer, year in, year out, I fill that bucket—and every evenin’, no matter how tired I may be, I chop them sticks. When I had the lumbago last year, I filled your bucket all the same, and when I sprained my wrist I managed to use the chopper with my left hand. Yet, if you’ve the least little ache or pain, you never do a hand’s turn, Sally. I ask you straight, is that fair?”
Sally gazed at him in silence, her lip still trembling, her eyes filled with tears.
“An’ if ye’d take a bit o’ pride in yourself an’ the childern,” he went on, “there’d be some pleasure in comin’ home. Yes, and I’d be glad, too, to save up an’ take ye for an outing now and again. But when I look at ye with the clothes dropping off ye, and a face that hasn’t as much as nodded at cold water, I feel—well, I feel that, if I wasn’t a proper temperance man, it’s to the public I’d go every night of my life.”
Sally looked down still without speaking.
“Just think of it,” he went on; “you have your share of work, no doubt; but I have mine too. If we each do our own, and pull together, we can get along right enough. Come, little ’ooman, see how nice you’ve made the place look—it didn’t take so very long, did it? An’ what a lot of mendin’ ye did this afternoon—not to mention the buttons I sewed on for ye,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye—“it wasn’t so very much trouble once ye set about it. Now, shall we make a fresh start? I’ll go to work to-morrow morning if you’ll get out your needles and thread, and throw them nasty silly story books in the fire. And let’s make the childern useful, my dear—a little bit o’ light work is as good as play to a child.”
Sally glanced up with an odd look, in spite of the tears that were still upon her face.
“I never heard ye make such a long speech in your life, Jim,” said she. “I wonder—I wonder if anybody’s been putting you up to all the games you’ve been playing this day. Mrs Spencer now—she called here yesterday—”
“She did,” said Jim, beginning to laugh a little. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Sally, the notion did come from her. Ye mustn’t be vexed, my dear; but I think ’twas a good notion. ‘If ever any folks should bear one another’s burdens,’ says the mistress, ‘it’s husband and wife.’ Come, Sally, I’ll do my best for you if you’ll do your best for me.”
Sally dried her eyes, and held out her hand to her husband: “I will,” she said.
She actually kept her resolution, and Jim had good reason to be grateful to his mistress for that happy thought of hers, though he sometimes said with a laugh, that she had taught him a lesson too, and that he would rather plant cabbages all day than sew on a dozen buttons.
HOW NED BLANCHARD EMIGRATED
Alice Blanchard was wheeling the perambulator slowly along the most rutty curve of the “Drove,” or steep lane which led from the high road to the downs, when she caught sight of her father’s sturdy figure behind the almost leafless hedge. Farmer Bolt was a short, thick-set man, with more brown in hair and beard than was usual in a man of his years, and with a corresponding amount of unlooked-for vigour and energy in his sturdy frame. He was at work now on a task that would have been despised by most men of his standing. He was clipping one of his own hedges in fact, wielding his bill-hook with a rapidity and dexterity which did not prevent his keeping a sharp look-out on the movements of the men who were carting swedes at the further end of the field.
Alice wedged the “pram” firmly against the bank, pulled on the baby’s hood, which had fallen back, arranged its golden fluff of hair so that a becoming tuft appeared beneath the frill, and then going to the other end of the small vehicle made little Abel sit straight and smoothed out the creases in his pinafore.
“Ye’ve got your face all of a mess wi’ blackberries,” she said, in a vexed tone. “I don’t know whatever granfer’ll think of ’ee. There, I reckoned to tidy thee up in grandma’s room afore he see’d thee.”
As Abel was strapped fast in his seat, and could by no possibility have procured the blackberries without his mother’s aid, the reproach seemed a trifle unreasonable; but as Abel had not yet reached a time of life when he could discourse on feminine inconsequence, he merely smiled broadly, and repeated the word “b’ackberries” in an expectant tone.
“Bless your little heart,” said Alice. “That’s granfer, look-see, t’other side o’ the hedge. Ye must call out ‘granfer,’ when we get a-nigh en.”
She shook out her own dress, a somewhat faded print, and set her hat straight, apparently anxious to present as brave an appearance in her father’s eyes as in former days she had to those of her admirers.
A few years ago Alice Bolt had been the handsomest girl in the parish, and even now, though her figure had lost much of its roundness, and her curly dark hair was arranged with less skill, was pretty enough to call for a second glance from all who passed her.
But her blue eyes had acquired a scared look of late, and the bloom had faded in her cheeks. What else was to be expected? The wolf was always at the door, and the fear of it was perpetually present in the heart of the wife and mother.
Farmer Bolt, in the intervals of chopping at his twigs and superintending the leisurely tossing of “roots” into the cart, found time to scan the windings of the Drove, and had indeed observed his daughter long before she had caught sight of him. It may be presumed that he took note of her hasty endeavours to make herself and her family presentable, yet he appeared to be absorbed in his own labours when she halted beneath the bank on which he was stationed.
“Be that you, father? Look, Abel, look-see, ’tis granfer!”
Mr Bolt parted the thin screen of shoots surmounting the hedge and peered over.
“’Tis you, be it?”
“It’s me. I be just goin’ down to the house to have a chat wi’ mother.”
“Ah,” said the farmer.
He lifted his bill-hook and examined it as though he had never set eyes on it before; then he ran his finger thoughtfully along the edge.
“That’s granfer, look-see,” repeated Alice in a tone of assumed cheerfulness. “Look at granfer’s hedgin’ hook, Abel! Call ‘Granfer,’ lovey!”
“Gran-fer!” cried Abel, obediently.
It was the first time his grandfather had heard the child pronounce an articulate word, and at sound of it he was unable to resist the impulse to lean forward a little more and gaze down at the perambulator and its occupants.
“Learnt to talk, has he?” he enquired, ungraciously enough, yet eyeing the little fellow with a sort of curiosity.
“Well, he can only say a few words,” explained the mother, almost stammering in her haste to bring out the information before the grandfather’s interest had waned. “‘Granfer’ was one o’ the first words he said. He says it very plain, don’t he?”
“Plain enough,” responded the farmer, gruffly, and he let the twigs which he had been holding slap back again into their ordinary position.
“He’ve come on a good bit since ye see’d him last,” hazarded the mother. “Folks about us thinks he’s come on wonderful. Don’t ye think he’s come on, father?”
Her father parted the screen of twigs again, and as the bearded face was thrust forth once more, Abel junior tilted himself back in his place and gleefully shouted “Cuckoo!”
For the life of him the grandfather could not help smiling. He did not speak, but gazed at the child for a moment or two, the lines of his countenance relaxing.
“Cuckoo!” cried Abel junior, anxiously watching the upper twigs of the hedge.
“He thinks you’m playin’ a game wi’ en,” explained the mother tremulously.
“Oh,” said Farmer Bolt, reflectively. “Do he? It’s more in my line to work nor to play though.” He loosed the twigs which immediately flew back into place, and Baby Abel, imagining that this was done solely for his benefit cried “Cuckoo!” again, and watched the top of the hedge with dancing eyes. When the farmer, with apparent inadvertence, looked forth again, he threw himself back once more with uproarious laughter, kicking out at the same time with sturdy little feet, clothed in very battered boots.
“He do seem a jolly little chap too,” said the elder Abel, with the air of one making a concession. “T’other’s a girl, bain’t it?”
“Ees, she’s a girl. I called en Margaret after mother, same as the bwoy be Abel after you. We do think little Abel terr’ble like you, father.”
The farmer surveyed his descendant dubiously; and the two pairs of blue eyes met; the child’s twinkled in expectation of the renewal of the game, and by-and-by the old man’s began to twinkle too. As he glanced at the baby, however, his face clouded over.
“The maid be a regular Blanchard, though,” he said, in a vexed tone. “Yellow hair an’ all. There, when she do laugh she be the very image of her grammer, what used to drive a little donkey-cart wi’ rags and bwones, an’ sich, an’ what died in the Union.”
“The child can’t help that, an’ neither can Ned,” said Alice, with a sudden flash in her eyes. “The poor body did die when he were quite a little chap. ’Twas none of his fault if she did die in the Union. So soon as he could work he kept hisself.”
“It mid be none of his fault that his mother was what she was, but I d’ ’low ’tis your fault that my grandson should be what he is, belonging to trampin’ folks, wi’ a father as was born i’ the Union, and as’ll die i’ the Union I shouldn’t wonder. Did ever anybody see a ’ooman so downtrod as what you be, an’ you as was such a handsome maid. Why can’t the chap keep ye in a bit more comfort now he’s got ye? That’s what I want to know.”
“We’ve had a deal o’ trouble, father,” faltered Alice. “What wi’ the childer comin’ so fast, an’ what wi’ Ned breakin’ his leg this spring, we’ve been put about terr’ble.”
“Well, there’s no use cryin’ about spilt milk,” said her father, roughly. “Ye took the crooked stick an’ now ye must put up wi’ en. You as mid ha’ married as well an’ better nor any maid i’ the place, ye must go an’ take up wi’ a beggarly feller as I hired out o’ charity to begin wi’.”
“Ned always worked hard for his wage,” interpolated Alice, hotly, “always! He was worth the money ye paid en.”
“Ees, but I didn’t know that at first. I took en straight fro’ the Union wi’out no more character nor what the master up yonder could give en. An’ when I did do that I didn’t look to bein’ robbed o’ my only child. There, there’s no use talkin’. I must get on wi’ my work. Get along and chat wi’ mother if ye want to.”
“Cuckoo!” cried little Abel as the twigs were once more released; but Granfer did not respond. After an admonitory shout to one of the carters who had spent what he considered an undue time in consideration of the horizon, he resumed his labours with the bill-hook.
Mrs Blanchard trundled her perambulator onwards with a sore heart and an anxious face. Her transient anger had left her, and she reproached herself for having lost her temper.
“’Twas a bad start,” she thought, ruefully, “a very bad start. I d’ ’low I’ve spoilt my chance.”
Mrs Bolt was peeling potatoes when her daughter came to the door, but she laid down her knife with an exclamation of delight when she caught sight of her.