Stepping Westward

“I do wish father ’ud take to en!” ejaculated Alice, dropping into the elbow-chair.  “We met en jist now hedgin’ in the Drove.  He did seem to notice him a bit at first, but then he turned nasty about Ned as he do always do, an’ began glenin’ an’ carryin’ on about the Union.”

“There, love, don’t ye mind en; ye do want a lot o’ patience wi’ father.  ’Tis what I do always say.  Who’s to know it if not me?  But he’ll come round in time—he’ll come round.”

“’Tis easy to say ‘in time,’” groaned poor Alice, “but we do find it so hard to get on now, mother.  We’ve a-had sich bad luck, ye see.  Ned had to spend the bit o’ money he’d saved on the furniture we wanted, an’ stockin’ the garden—’tisn’t as if we’d anybody to help us.”

“I won’t take nothin’ o’ father’s wi’out his consent,” she said once, bitterly.  “An’ you do know so well as me, he’d rather let us all starve nor help Ned.”

“’Tis very hard, I’m sure,” said Mrs Bolt, now in a commiserating tone.  “I did hope your husband ’ud better hisself, an’ earn better wage nor what father gived en.  But he’s worse off now it seems.”

“He’s terr’ble bad off,” agreed Alice gloomily.  “Jobs be so scarce round our way.  An’ when Ned was out o’ work last spring along o’ his accident, we got into debt.  There’s the interest to pay along wi’ everything else.  We couldn’t afford to be too particular.  Ned had to take the first place he could get—’tis but ten shillin’ a week he’s earnin’ now, along o’ havin’ a house free, ye know.  But ten shillin’ a week’s soon gone.”

“’Tis, sure,” agreed her mother dolefully.

Alice looked up at the handsome, ruddy face now puckered with sympathetic distress, and hesitated.

It is sometimes harder to ask a favour from our nearest and dearest than from a stranger.  “I wonder if you could guess what’s brought me this morning, mother?” she asked.

“Ned chanced to meet Jim Pike at Wimborne the other day.  He had to go and haul coal, you know, fro’ the station.  And Jim did tell en he were thinkin’ o’ leavin’ father arter Christmas an’ goin’ out abroad.”

“Ees,” said Mrs Bolt.  “Jim be a-goin’ to emmygrate, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do.  He’ve a had a letter from his brother what be livin’ out yonder in America, and do want en to j’ine en out there.  Jim be fair set on the notion.”

“He did tell Ned as father had rose his wage to fourteen shillin’ a week.  ’Tis good wage that, an’ there’s the house too.  ’Tis a deal more nor what Ned be earnin’.”

“Oh,” said her mother, sinking her voice and casting a scared glance at her.  “You was thinkin’ maybe father ’ud give your ’usband Jim’s place when he’ve a-left?”

“Well,” rejoined Alice, instantly on the defensive, “it do seem hard as father should be willin’ to pay away all that to a stranger when his own flesh an’ blood is pretty nigh starvin’.  There! mother, I do assure ’ee there’s times when I wonder where I’m to get the next bit to put in little Abel’s mouth.  Many a time I go hungry myself, an’ that’s not so very good for me nor for baby.”

“Dear heart alive!” groaned Mrs Bolt, dropping into the opposite chair and resting a hand on either knee.  “God knows I’m broken-hearted to think o’ your bein’ in sich trouble—broken-hearted I be!”

“It would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, sucking in her breath, and exhaling it again with a deep sigh.  “It would jist about.  I’d love to have the childern trottin’ in an’ out, an’ you an’ me could help each other, Alice.”

“We could,” agreed Alice, eyeing her mother with pathetic anxiety.

“But father be sich a terr’ble one for stickin’ to a notion,” went on Mrs Bolt gloomily.  “He’ve reg’lar took again’ your ’usband, reg’lar took again’ him he have.”

“Well, ’tis a hard world,” said Alice, rising hurriedly.  “I’d best go home-along.  There’s not mich use my bidin’ here—but I did have hopes.  ’Tisn’t as if I was axin’ for a favour—I only want Ned to get the chance father be willin’ to give any other man.  But we’ll never have a chance here—I see that.  I wish to the Lard we could scrape up enough money to take us out abroad too.  I’d be willin’ enough to emmygrate, and so would Ned—nobody wants us here!”

Mrs Bolt gazed at her daughter meditatively, laying a restraining hand upon her arm to prevent her departure.

“Jim Pike’s brother Robert, what emmygrated first, went travellin’ by hissel’,” she observed.  “He didn’t take his wife an’ childern wi’ en—he couldn’t afford the expense, d’ye see, but as soon as he were doin’ well he sent for ’em to come an’ j’ine him.”

“Well?” said Alice doubtfully, as she paused.

“Mother!” exclaimed Alice indignantly.  She would have started from her chair again had not Mrs Bolt pinned her to her seat with one large heavy hand.

“Now don’t ye fly out like that, don’t ye,” went on the good woman, impressively.  “I am but thinkin’ what’s for the best.  You’m our own flesh an’ blood, as ye say yourself, an’ so’s the childer; father’d be fond enough o’ the childer if he was to have ’em nigh en.  ’Tis but Ned as he’ve a-took again’.”

“Well, but I bain’t a-goin’ to desert Ned,” cried Alice, hotly.  “My own ’usband what I’ve a-chose and what have a-been sich a good ’usband an’ sich a good father.  I’m sure he’d work his fingers to the bwone for me an’ the childern!”

“Bide a bit, bide a bit,” returned Mrs Bolt.  “I’ve been a-piecin’ of it out in my mind.  If you an’ the little ones was once here, ye’d soon get round father—I d’ ’low he’d never want to part from ye again.  There, ye be the only child what was spared to us.  I can’t but think so soon as there was talk o’ your j’inin’ Ned in Ameriky he’d tell ye to send for him to come back again, sooner nor let ye go.”

“’Tis true,” she said.  “There mid be a chance o’ that.  Father used to be awful fond o’ me when I was a little maid, an’ I couldn’t but see he noticed the childern to-day.  He said Abel was a jolly little chap.  Abel was tryin’ to play cuckoo wi’ his granfer.  He’s sich a friendly little feller, I can’t but think as father’d soon take to en.”

“I d’ ’low he would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, eagerly.

“As for poor baby,” went on her daughter, in an aggrieved tone, “I can’t see no sich great likeness to the Blanchards.  Father will have it she takes after Ned’s mother—I can’t see that.”

“Nor I,” agreed the living grandmother, gravely, considering the sleeping baby.

“But still,” went on Alice, suddenly reverting to the main point from which she had been momentarily diverted by the various side issues which seemed to present themselves, “I couldn’t let Ned go travellin’ all by hisself.  I couldn’t ever part wi’ en.  Summat mid happen as I mid never know.  An’ he midn’t get on out there—an’ he midn’t be able to find the money to come home wi’ if father was to let him come—Oh, mother!”

This latter exclamation was uttered in a totally different tone.  She caught her breath with a gasp, her countenance suddenly illuminated.

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder but what it mid answer,” she said slowly.  “I know father’d be overj’yed to have you an’ the childern here.  But whatever ’ud your husband say?”

“Oh, I’ll manage Ned if you’ll manage father.  ’Tis worth tryin’.  Dear to be sure, how happy we mid be all livin’ together!”

“Father ’ull be fit to kill us all if he do find out.”

“He won’t find out.  He can’t be vexed wi’ you anyhow.  Ye need only say that I’ve a-told ye so, an’ axed ye to speak to en for I.”

“Well, that’s true.  There, my dear, I’d be simply out o’ my wits wi’ joy.  I’ve missed ye—there, I can’t tell ye how much I’ve missed ye.”

They clung together, half laughing, half weeping, and the remainder of Alice’s visit was spent in the congenial task of building castles in the air.

Farmer Bolt was rather taciturn at dinner-time, and his wife deemed it more prudent to postpone operations till a more favourable moment.  In the evening, however, when milking was done, and tea over, and Mr Bolt drew up his chair to the fire and filled his pipe, he himself gave her the opportunity for which she had been hoping.

“Ye had Alice wi’ ye to-day?”

“Ees, she told me she’d passed ye in the Drove—how did ye think she was lookin’?”

The farmer smoked for a moment or two with a gloomy expression.

“She have,” agreed his wife with a sigh.  “I d’ ’low ’tis a hard struggle for she.  There, she were a-tellin’ me she be often put to it to find a bit to put in little Abel’s mouth—them was her very words.  ‘An’ I do often go hungry myself,’ says she, ‘an’ it bain’t so very good for me or baby.’”

Farmer Bolt removed his pipe and glowered fiercely at his wife, as though she were responsible for this pitiable state of affairs.

“An’ what could she expect,” he demanded, “when she took up wi’ that dalled chap?  She threw herself away on en—wouldn’t hear a word again’ him, an’ he can’t so much as keep her.  What’s the chap good for if he can’t earn enough to keep his wife an’ childer.”

“He’s a good worker, ye know,” said Mrs Bolt tentatively; “ye did never have no fault to find wi’ en when he were wi’ us.”

“I find fault wi’ en now, though,” shouted her lord.  “Why don’t he do summat?  Why don’t he turn his hand to summat?  He’s all my daughter have got to look to now.  I says to her when she took en, ‘Alice,’ I says, ‘ye must choose between Ned Blanchard an’ me.’  An’ she chose Ned Blanchard.  Well, let him do summat, then.”

“He be just a-thinkin’ o’ doin’ summat, my dear,” returned Mrs Bolt mildly.  “Alice were tellin’ I to-day he were goin’ to emmygrate.”

“Nay now, my dear, it bain’t so bad as that,” said Mrs Bolt, in the same meek and ingratiating tone.  “He be a-goin’ to look for work, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do; an’ so soon as he’ve a-found it an’ have a-got a comfortable home ready, then he’ll send for our Alice an’ the childern to j’ine en.  That’s the notion.”

“Oh,” said her husband, staring at her hard.  “That’s the notion, be it?”

He sucked at his pipe for a moment or two, still fixing his unwinking gaze upon her; finally, he enquired in a stern and disapproving tone what she supposed would become of their daughter and her children in the meantime.

“Well, that’s just it,” said Mrs Bolt gently.  “’Tis that what brought our Alice here to-day.”

The farmer grunted without speaking.

“The journey to Ameriky ’ull take every single shillin’ Ned Blanchard can scrape together,” she continued.

“He be a-goin’ to send Alice an’ the childern to the workhouse I d’ ’low,” remarked Mr Bolt, hitching his chair a little nearer to the hearth and holding up one foot to the blaze.  “He be a-goin’ to scuttle off wi’ hisself to Ameriky an’ leave his wife an’ family on the rates.”

“Nay now, nay now,” protested Mrs Bolt in a soothing tone.  “You’d never be the one to allow that, Bolt, you know you wouldn’t.”

“Me!” said Bolt, turning round with an expression of great surprise.  “What have I got to do wi’ it?”

There was a silence; Mr Bolt stirred up the contents of his pipe with the end of a match and lit it again.

“Little Abel be wonderful like his mother in his ways,” went on Mrs Bolt; “the very moral o’ what she used to be at his age.  There’s her little chair in the corner, look-see.  He found it out to-day an’ fetched it over aside o’ your chair, an’ sat hisself down in it—there, I declare for a minute I thought our Alice was a child again.”

Mr Bolt squinted round at the chair, but did not commit himself by speech.  He was not an imaginative man, nevertheless the vision rose before him of the curly-headed child who used to sit in that chair, and whom he had loved as the apple of his eye.  His wife put his thoughts into words.

“Ye mind our Alice, how pleased she used to be when ye called her over of an evening?  Dear to be sure, what a bonny little maid she was, and what a pride we used to take in her.  And now to think that poor creetur’ what come here to-day is her.  There, I could ha’ cried to see her in that wold patched dress—’ees, an’ I did cry when she did tell I how she do often go hungry.”

The following week Alice and her children took up their abode at her old home.  Alice was pale and nervous at first, but soon regained her self-possession.  The farmer was almost boisterous in his welcome.

After tea Mrs Bolt, with a wink at her daughter, installed the little boy in the chair before referred to, at his grandfather’s side, an arrangement in which the latter acquiesced silently, yet with evident pleasure.  Abel watched him with round inquisitive eyes while he filled and lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair, crossed his legs luxuriously.  Presently, possessing himself of a bit of stick which lay beside the hearth, the child wedged it in a corner of his own small mouth, and trotting back to his chair, settled himself in it, in as close an imitation of his grandfather’s attitude as the differences of age and size, and a slight difficulty in distinguishing his right leg from his left, would admit of.  Abel the elder stared for a moment, and then, realising the state of affairs, nudged his wife with a delighted chuckle.

“Look at that,” he exclaimed.  “He be a sharp little chap if ever there was one.  Ye shall have a better pipe nor that to smoke, sonny.”

Whether it was because the little fellow was won over by this practical proof of consideration and regard, or whether the affinity which the women-folk were so fond of talking about, really existed, it is certain that before the Blanchard family were a week in the house, the two Abels were practically inseparable.  Whether toddling along a furrow in his grandfather’s wake, or riding one of the farm horses, or perched on top of a pile of mangolds, the child was his grandfather’s constant companion.

Alice almost insensibly fell back into the ways of her girlhood, and, as the days passed, her youth itself seemed to return to her.  She grew plump and rosy, sang as she went about her work, played with her little ones as though she were a child herself.  Had it not been for the presence of the children, indeed, Mrs Bolt often declared she could have fancied old times were back again, and their maid had never left them.  The good food, the freedom from petty anxieties, had no doubt much to do with this happy change, but it was chiefly brought about by the new hope in her heart which grew and brightened day by day.

“What mid ye be doin’ here?” he enquired, at the top of his voice, and so suddenly that poor Alice dropped her basket.

“Dear, to be sure, father, how you frightened me!” she exclaimed, stammering.

“Who gave ye leave to make a dryin’-ground o’ my archard?” resumed the farmer, striding up to her.  “These here apple-trees wasn’t made to hang clothes on.  Whose clothes be these?”

All the pretty bloom fled from Alice’s face; for a moment she stood gaping, unable to find an answer; then all at once she laughed—or tried to laugh.

“Why, what a to-do,” she cried.  “Whose clothes be they?  Well, they be man’s clothes, as ye can see—an’ you be the only man about this here place, bain’t ye?”

An ominous pause ensued, during which Farmer Bolt, turning to the clothes-line, closely examined the garments thereon.

“I’d be sorry to wear that shirt,” he remarked; “and when did ye ever see me in trousers like them?  They’m your ’usband’s—that’s what they be; an’ what be tellin’ lies about ’em for?”

Alice, who had always been known as a “spiritty maid,” fired up at this.

“What be doin’ washin’ his clothes?  I thought he’d emmygrated?” pursued the father suspiciously.

“They are his clothes, then,” said Alice, with flashing eyes.  “There, they are his clothes; I’ll not deny it.  I’ve a-washed ’em in the water what the Lard gave us all free, an’ I be a-dryin’ of ’em in the air what belongs so much to him as to you, father.  An’ this here bit o’ rope’s what was tied round my own box, so I d’ ’low he bain’t beholden to ye.”

Mr Bolt, slightly abashed, moved a few steps away, and then paused again.

“Be ye a-goin’ to send his washin’ out to Ameriky to en every week?” he enquired.

His daughter made no answer, and Mr Bolt was obliged to go indoors to seek for further information.

“When did Ned Blanchard emmygrate,” he enquired abruptly entering the kitchen.

Mrs Bolt was stooping over the fire, and it was perhaps on this account that her face became so red.

“Thursday was a fortnight, warn’t it?” she enquired.  “Yes, Thursday was a fartnight he shifted.”

“Ah,” said Farmer Bolt.  “Them ships which goes back’ards and for’ards to Ameriky must travel martal fast.  Our Alice be a-hangin’ up his clothes to dry in the archard now.”

“That’s it, be it?” said Mr Bolt with a keen glance.

“That’s it,” rejoined Mrs Bolt, making a great rattle with the poker between the bars of the grate.  Mr Bolt eyed her for a moment or two in silence, and then went slowly out again, jamming his hat firmly on his head.  Several times that day his wife and daughter encountered his fixed gaze, but he asked no further questions.

On the following day, chancing to look backwards at his snug house in the hollow, from the uplands where he was at work, he observed a white streamer dangling from his own gate.

“They’ve tied a towel to the gate,” he murmured to himself.  “What can they be wantin’ carrier to call for?”

For by this simple expedient the carrier, journeying on the high road above, became aware of the fact that the dwellers in the lane needed his services.  Farmer Bolt went on wondering all the way up that furrow and all the way down again, and presently caught sight of the carrier’s van turning down the lane.  He continued to speculate while the green-hooded vehicle turned into his own yard, emerged again, and finally came crawling up the stony incline to the high road.  Then Farmer Bolt, unable any longer to restrain his curiosity, brought his horses to a standstill, and leaving them to their own devices, hastened across the field to the corner which the van must pass.

“’Twas your daughter wrote the address,” returned the carrier.  “I d’ ’low it’ll be right enough.”

He produced the parcel, nevertheless, and the farmer hastily examined it.  The address was certainly set forth in a clear, legible hand:—

Mr Edward Blanchard,
         c/o The Black Inn,
                  Sturminster.

To be left till called for.

He spelt it out slowly, thrusting out his underlip the while, with a puzzled look.

“To be left till called for,” he repeated.  “It do seem a queer thing that.  How be the man a-goin’ to call for it when he’ve emmygrated to Ameriky.”

“Oh, and ’ave ’ee?” enquired the carrier, much interested.

“Ees, a fartnight ago.”

“Well, ’tis funny too; but I d’ ’low I must obey arders.  Hand over that parcel, farmer.  I did ought to be gettin’ on; we’m a bit late as it is.”

Mr Bolt handed him the parcel, and the carrier whipped up his horse; but the van had hardly rattled on a few yards before its driver was again hailed.

“Hi! bide a bit!”

“Well?” said the carrier, turning.

“Ye mid just ask the folks at the Black who they expects to call for that there parcel,” he said.  “I be a bit puzzled in my mind about it.”

“I will,” agreed the other; “but let me go now, good man, else I’ll never get to Sturminster to ask about no parcels at all.”

Mr Bolt was in a stern and silent mood during the whole of that day, and after tea, instead of settling down to his pipe with little Abel in his chair beside him, strolled out Branston way to meet the carrier.  He had not long to wait before he heard the familiar creaking and rattling of the rickety van, and presently the solitary light of its swinging lantern came bobbing along between the hedges.  The farmer repeated the procedure of the morning:—

“Hi, bide a bit!”

“Hullo, be it you, Mr Bolt?  Ah, I axed that there question.”

“Did ye?” said the farmer, planting himself in front of the horse on the wet roadway.

“Ees.  I d’ ’low there’s some mistake about Ed’ard Blanchard emmygrating.  He be to call for that parcel hisself.”

“Be he?” enquired Mr Bolt with starting eyes.

“He be.  There was never no talk of his emmygrating, the folks at the Black d’ say.  He be a-workin’ under the same measter, an’ a-drivin’ o’ the same cart.  He have shifted from the house he had to a lodging i’ the town, but that’s all the emmygration he did do.”

“I see,” said the farmer, “Thank ’ee.”

“Ees, that’s right,” agreed Bolt.  “I d’ ’low it be a funny thing.”  He turned away, and the van jingled past him and soon disappeared into the darkness.  Mr Bolt went slowly homewards, revolving this astonishing discovery in his mind.  He’d been tricked—that was what had happened.  They were all in it, Ned and Alice, and even his wife.  They thought they could fool him just as if he were a child.  He knew what they were at.  They thought that once Alice and her children were established at the farm he could never find it in his heart to turn them out again; but he would soon show them whether he could or not.  No doubt Master Ned intended to come marching in by and by, expecting to be received with open arms.  They thought him, Farmer Bolt, a regular sammy, did they?  He’d let them know what sort of a sammy he was!  Perhaps he could make fools of them just as easily as they had made a fool of him.  He stood stock-still in the road all at once—an idea had flashed across him, a scheme of vengeance quite as subtle as the offence, and moreover appropriate.  They—those deceivers—should find themselves caught in their own trap!

“What’s that child doing here at this time o’ the evening?” he enquired, roughly.

“He did beg so hard to sit up till granfer come back,” explained Mrs Bolt, “we had to let en bide.  There, nothin’ ’ud satisfy him.  I give him his sugar-stick, but that wouldn’t do.  He said he must stop up an’ smoke his pipe wi’ granfer.  He’s been a-savin’ it till ye come—there’s but just the leastest little corner bit off, look-see.”

But granfer did not look.  He sat heavily down in his chair and glared at Alice, who was knitting a woollen comforter.

“What be doin’?” he enquired, savagely.

She glanced up with a smile.  “You mustn’t look,” she said.  “It’s a Christmas present.”

“Ye be a-goin’ to send it out to Ned in Ameriky, I suppose,” he suggested sarcastically.

“It’s not for Ned,” returned Alice quickly, and Mrs Bolt added in a reproachful tone:—

“The poor maid be a-makin’ it for you, father.”

There was a pause, during which the farmer recalled his injury and resolved not to be mollified.

“Christmas,” he said slowly.  “Christmas.  I d’ ’low Ned ’ull feel hisself a bit lonely spendin’ Christmas in Ameriky.  Ye’d best write an’ tell en to come back an’ spend it wi’ us.”

“That’ll surprise ’em all a bit, I d’ ’low,” said Mr Bolt vengefully to himself.

He did not look at Alice as he spoke, half fearful of prematurely betraying his anger; but after a moment, finding she did not reply, he wheeled in his chair with an enquiring glance.

Alice had dropped her work on her lap and was leaning forward, gazing at him with eyes that were full of tears.

“Well?” he asked impatiently.  Before he realised what she was about she had risen from her chair and thrown her arms round his neck.

“Oh, father,” she cried.  “Oh, father, I can’t bear it!  You’re so good—so good to me, an’ I’ve been that wicked and deceitful!”

As she uttered the last word, the farmer, who at first had struggled to free himself, became suddenly passive in her embrace.

“I have, I have,” she went on, sobbing.  “There, mother, I be a-goin’ to tell en everything.  I couldn’t go on actin’ lies when he be so kind.  Oh, father, I’ve deceived ye shameful.  Ned isn’t in Ameriky at all—he never emmygrated.  ’Twas jist a made-up story.”

Shaking with sobs she clung closer to her father, who still sat immovable and looking straight before him.

“Oh,” said Mr Bolt, “that was it, was it?”

“Ye know ’twould be only nat’ral, my dear,” put in Mrs Bolt meekly.  “Ye wouldn’t be out o’ pocket by it, an’ ye’d be pervidin’ for your own flesh an’ blood.”

Mr Bolt’s countenance changed; his wife’s suggestion was eminently practical, and he could not help being struck by it.  Nevertheless the share she had taken in the recent plot was still too fresh in his memory to admit of his parleying with her.

“There, wold ’ooman,” he cried, screwing himself round in his chair, “ye needn’t be a-puttin’ your oar in.  Ye’d better keep quiet.  I wonder ye dare look me in the face,” he added sternly.

“’Twasn’t mother’s fault—’twas me thought of it,” cried Alice quickly.  “’Twas me planfned it—”

“An’ ’twas very well planned too,” commented her father.  “I only wonder ye should ha’ thought I’d ever change my mind.  Ye do know I be a man o’ my word, don’t ye?”

Mr Bolt looked at first severe and then dubious; this was evidently an aspect of the case which had not before presented itself.  The rigidity of his form relaxed in some degree, and for the first time since Alice’s confession he cast on her a glance which, though reproachful, was not unfriendly.

“’Tis true, that,” he said in a meditative tone, “’ees, ’tis true.  Ye be a truth-tellin’ maid as a rule, my dear.  I wonder how you came to make up such a lyin’ tale about the emmygration.”

As Alice hid her face he continued more kindly.

“There, we’ll say no more about that since ye owned up at the last.  I mid own up about summat too, as maybe ye wouldn’t like.”

Alice raised her head quickly, and Mrs Bolt dropped the poker, and turned round.  Little Abel, disturbed by the clatter, moved uneasily in his sleep.  The farmer looked from the women’s scared faces to that of the child, and all at once smoothed the waving hair from his daughter’s forehead and kissed her.

“I don’t know as I will, though,” he said.  “Nay, some things is best forgot.  I d’ ’low I’ll forget this.”

“An’ ye’ll forgive as well as forget?” said Alice.  Mr Bolt disengaged himself gently, rose, and took a hurried turn about the room.

“Bide a bit,” he said, “it’ll work out all right.  When I said that about your husband, Alice, I didn’t know he were going to be my carter.  That’s a different story, bain’t it?  I shouldn’t wonder but what my carter mid have to come in and out of the house for arders.”

As Alice went quickly towards him, her eyes shining and her bosom heaving, he burst into a roar of laughter; and then, becoming suddenly serious, caught her in his arms.

“There, write to your husband, love,” he said.  “Write to en so soon as ye like.  Tell him”—he paused, and then began to laugh again, but unsteadily, “tell him he can emmygrate back again, an’ while he be waitin’ for Jim to give up the carter’s place, we’ll make shift to spend a merry Christmas together.”

Farmer Barnes stirred his tea vigorously and continuously for some minutes, raised the cup to his lips, with the spoon still in it, paused, tasted again, glancing severely over the edge at his daughter Maimie, and then remarked, in somewhat stern tones:—

“You haven’t put no brandy in!”

“Nay, feyther; I clean forgot to tell ye as there was scarce a drop left in bottle yesterday.  I put the little drain that was left in tea-pot, but I’m afeared there weren’t enough to make mich difference.”

“The tay bain’t drawed at all, lass—it makes all that difference.  Ye should ha’ towd me when I was goin’ to town yesterday as bottle were nigh empty.”

“Ah, that I should; but I forgot.”

And Maimie wrinkled up her forehead until her eyebrows nearly touched her fair fluffy fringe.  Her father set down his cup with a kind of groan, and looked at her with eyes that seemed puzzled, well nigh tearful, in spite of their severity.

“Yigh, you’re a good hand at forgettin’, Maimie—ye met tak’ a prize for’t.  There weren’t a bit o’ sauce wi’ the cowd pork to-day, and the taters was as hard as hard.”

“What’s wrong wi’ thy bishop, Maggie?  One side is all tucked up.”

“It’s tore,” announced Maggie, with a certain triumph in a statement which must call down condemnation on her elder.  “Our Maimie said as she’d mend it—she’ve been sayin’ she’ll mend it all the week.”

“Thou’rt a nasty little tell-tale, Maggie,” cried Maimie with some heat.  “Ye never think for to remind me wi’out it’s jest at my busiest time—when I’m gettin’ dinner ready or summat.”

“There, there, never mind,” interposed Barnes gloomily.  “’Tis allus the same story.  Young heads I suppose is what we mun look for on young shoulders.”  And he went on with his tea, swallowing it in great gulps, and as it were under protest, and remarking every now and then below his breath that it wasn’t half drawed.

At the conclusion of the meal the younger children slid down from their seats, and began to play noisily in a corner, while Maimie “sided” the things.  Her father pushed back his chair, with a squeaking sound, over the tiled floor, lit his pipe, and, extending his stocking-clad feet to the blaze, smoked meditatively and despondently.

Maimie glanced at him every now and then as she went backwards and forwards between kitchen and buttery, and at last, pausing opposite to him, encountered his steadfast and sombre gaze.

Maimie, impressed by his tone, gazed at him with scared blue eyes, not caring to speak.

“Ah, I’ve been thinkin’ o’ summat,” he repeated, “summat rather partik’ler.  First off I’ve been thinkin’ a dale about your mother, Maimie.  I miss her dreadful.”

“I’m sure ye do, feyther,” said the girl with a sob.  “’Tis what we all do.  Nobry can’t miss poor mother more nor me.”

“’Tis a twelvemonth or more since she was took,” continued Barnes, in the same sepulchral tone.  “Ah, a twelvemonth ’twas last Sunday week—and the house don’t seem like itself at all.  I don’t say but what you do your best, my lass, but things seem to be warsening every day.  I don’t know whatever mother ’ud say if she were here to see it—I don’t I’m sure.  I’m fair moidered wi’ nobbut thinkin’ on it.  It seems same as if I wasn’t doin’ my dooty by her, poor soul.  She was allus that house-proud for one thing, and sich a manager.  Summat ’ull ha’ to be done, Maimie.”

Maimie began to whimper, and to wipe her eyes with her apron, and to protest in muffled tones from behind its folds that she did try, and she couldn’t tell how ’twas as things always seemed to slip her memory.  The children was tiresome for one thing, and tore their clothes much more than when mother was alive, and they didn’t mind her a bit, and she had meant to make some apple-sauce, and, and—

“What are ye thinkin’ on, feyther?” cried the girl quickly.

Mr Barnes restored his pipe to his mouth, sucked at it, and then, blowing out a cloud of smoke, looked at his daughter with moist eyes from amid the blue mist.

“’Twill go hard wi’ me,” he said slowly; “it will indeed, but the question isn’t what I’d choose, but what she’d choose.”

“Who?” cried Maimie, quite at sea.

“Why, the poor missus, your mother.  It’ll go agen me, as I say, but I’ve made up my mind for to do it.”

“For pity’s sake, feyther, speak plain.  To do what?”

“Nay, but, feyther, mother ’ud never ha’ liked that,” protested Maimie.  “’Tis the very last thing she’d wish, to have a stranger put in her place, and a stepmother cocked up over her childer.”

“Cocked up,” repeated the farmer sternly, “the one as I have in my mind isn’t like to be easy cocked up.  A sensible, steady, hard-workin’ woman—a widder too, so ye may think she’ll have a feelin’ heart for me.  And one as have childer of her own, a plenty of ’em, and ’ull know how to dale wi’ all on you.”

“Who is it, feyther?” gasped the girl.

“Why, Mrs Wharton o’ the Pit.”

“Mrs Wharton!” ejaculated Maimie.  She checked the tears which were ready to fall, and sat looking at her father in amazement, the colour sweeping over her pretty face.  “Why, she’ve got six childer of her own, and pretty nigh all of ’em lads.”

Her father nodded sideways with a contented air.

“They’ll come in handy about the place I dare-say,” he remarked.

“And she only buried Mr Wharton six month ago!”

“Ah!  I reckon she’ll feel the want of him—very nigh as bad as I feel the want o’ your mother.”

“But she’d never think o’ gettin’ wed again—she’s fifty-five and more.”

Barnes removed his pipe, pointing with the stem at Maimie to enforce the comparison:—

“Nay, but, feyther—”

“Nay, but, I’ll not ha’ no buts,” shouted her father, good-humouredly but firmly.  “Do what I tell thee, my lass.  My mind’s made up, so thou met as well put the best face thou can on’t.”

When feyther hammered on the table after that imperative fashion, and threw so much determination into his one-sided nod, Maimie knew from experience that it was useless to argue, and, with a heavy heart, promised to obey.

Sunday came and proved to be all that Sunday ought to be: sunshiny and bright.

Maimie had stayed at home, busy over hospitable preparations, and now, with a flushed face and a heavy heart, stood awaiting her visitors.  She revived a little presently, when Mrs Wharton praised her cooking, and remarked that she could not have made the pudden better herself; but her countenance soon clouded over again.  During the meal feyther paid marked attention to the lady of his choice, filling up her glass until she was obliged to protect it by keeping one broad hand outspread on the top, piling her plate with beef, and leering in an amorous fashion whenever he caught her eye; and, at its conclusion, he requested Mrs Wharton to withdraw with him to the parlour, and jocularly told the young folk they might clear away and cut what capers they liked.

“I’ll go out for a smoke, I think,” said Luke; but he spoke somewhat hesitatingly, and looked questioningly at Maimie.  “Without,” he added gallantly, “I can be of any service to you, Miss Barnes.”

“Do just what you please,” she returned shortly.  “I don’t suppose you feel more like making merry nor I do mysel’.  The childer can play if they’ve a mind to; but it ’ull take me all my time to clear away—and I’ve no great fancy for making merry as how ’tis.”

“Ye think your mother ’ull have him then?” said Maimie, with a sinking heart.

“I can’t make out one way nor t’other.  She’s got no call to be thinkin’ o’ wedlock, mother hasn’t.  Feyther have left her every stick on the place.  ’Tis a nice place, as ye know, Maimie, and she’s reet well off.  I couldn’t help but ha’ words wi’ her last night, and she answered me back awful sharp.  ‘’Tis time there was a change, Mester Luke,’ says she.  ‘Thou’rt gettin’ above thyself, lad,’ she says.”

“An’ what do the younger ones say to it?” said Maimie, pausing in the act of setting a pile of plates on the tray which he held.

“Eh, they don’t say much.  Mother can do what she likes wi’ they.  They look a bit glum, but that’s all.”

“’Tisn’t much use lookin’ glum, I reckon,” sighed the girl.  “Feyther’s that set on the notion he won’t hear naught agen it.”

“I dessay,” said Luke; “’tis a very good match for him?”

“Not a bit better nor ’tis for your mother,” cried Maimie, tossing her head.

“Why, our place is twice as big as this,” returned the youth; “and mother have money put by—a dale of brass she have.  I don’t fancy your feyther could match it.”

“I don’t want him to match your mother’s brass, nor yet your mother,” said Maimie.  “I wish she and the lot o’ you had kep’ away—that I do.”

“Well, if that’s all ye can find to say to me, I’d best take myself off,” cried Luke angrily, and he suddenly let go of his end of the tray.

There was a slide, a clatter, a crash; the piled up crockery, too heavy for Maimie’s arms alone, had slipped to the end of the tilted tray and fallen on the tiled buttery floor.

Maimie glanced at the heap of destruction for one moment, and then burst into tears.

“I didn’t go for to do it,” shouted Luke, overwhelmed with horror and remorse.  “I thought ye’d firm howd on tray, Maimie.”

“Eh dear, eh dear,” sobbed Maimie, the tears pouring through her outspread fingers, her bosom heaving convulsively.  “Whatever mun I do?  Feyther’ll be mad.  And I’ll be that shamed before your mother and all.”

Luke struck at his forehead vengefully.

“I’m a regular fool,” he cried.  “I’m a downright wastral and good-for-naught, that’s what I am.  I can’t forgive myself for being so rough.  Dunnot take agen me, Maimie, dunnot!  I’m right down sorry—awful sorry, I am.”

“I—don’t—belive—you are,” sobbed Maimie.

“Well, maybe you are,” she said, relenting a little, but still weeping piteously.  “’Tis a judgment on me I’m sure; I didn’t ought to ha’ spoke that way about your mother to your face.”

“Nay, if it comes to that,” groaned Luke, penitently, “I didn’t ought to ha’ cast up about the brass to ye.”

By this time he was mopping delicately at Maimie’s eyes with a beautiful silk handkerchief, duly perfumed with a bottle of sixpenny scent; and Maimie was so touched by this attention that she presently smiled wanly through her tears, and the two concluded a compact of friendship as they cleared away the broken china.

Meanwhile Jim Barnes and Mrs Wharton sat face to face on either side of the parlour fire, gazing at each other for some time in unbroken silence.  Presently the farmer spoke, pointing at the widow with his thumb, and inaugurating proceedings by heaving a deep sigh.

“I reckon ye miss the gaffer, Mrs Wharton?”

“I do indeed, Mr Barnes,” returned the widow, with an answering sigh, which made her stiff black silk creak alarmingly.

“Ah—ye can’t miss him more nor what I do my poor missus.  She was a wonderful woman, Mrs Wharton.”

“She was—ah, she was.  Providence seems to ha’ dealt a bit ’ard wi’ the two of us, Mr Barnes, but we munnot re-pine.”

“My lass, Maimie, d’ye see—she’s a very good lass, but a bit giddy—she dunnot seem never to remember naught.”

“She’s but young,” said the widow tolerantly.  “Our Luke—the eldest lad, he do seem to gi’ me a lot o’ trouble.  Wants to know better nor me, and is ever and always trying to be gaffer.  ‘Women don’t know naught about farmin’,’ says he to me as bold as ye please.”

“Did he?” ejaculated Jim, with a deeply scandalised air.

“Not but what,” continued the widow, half-laughingly, after a moment’s reflection; “not but what the lad have got a wonderful notion o’ farm work himself.  Wonderful, he have—eh, he shapes wonderful well for a lad of his years.  Mr Gradwell, now, o’ Little Upton, he was passin’ the remark to me only t’other day.  Says he, ‘I never did see sech a long head as your Luke have got for sech a young chap,’ he says.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Farmer Barnes appreciatively, “he’s a fine lad, I’ll say that for him.  He used to follow your poor master same as his shadow.  I reckon ’twas your Joe what put him in the way of things so well.  I reckon,” he continued sympathetically, “he’d ha’ been proud on him if he’d ha’ lived, poor owd lad.”

“I reckon he would,” agreed Mrs Wharton, puckering up her face and producing her handkerchief; from the turn the conversation was now taking she would have soon to cry again.

Mrs Wharton twitched down her handkerchief and spoke in a voice that was exceedingly clear and decided.

“Well, Mester Barnes, he is an’ he isn’t, if ye know what I mean.  There can’t be two masters in one house, and that’s what I say—time and again I say it to our Luke.  I’m fair tired sayin’ the same thing over and over again.”

The farmer nodded with a kind of groan.

“Jest so, Mrs Wharton, jest so.  I can feel for ye there.  ’Tis the very same way wi’ me an’ our Maimie.  I do tell her a thing twenty times may-hap, an’ she’ll forget jest same, not but what she’s a good lass—I’d reckon you’d find her a good lass, Mrs Wharton, if you was to coom here.”

“Eh, Mr Barnes,” said the widow bashfully, “whatever put that in your head?  Coom here, d’ye say?”

“This ’ere house,” said Jim firmly, “wants a missus summat awful, an’ I want a missus to see to things an’ keep the young folks in order, and there’s nobry in the parish I’d like better nor yourself, Mrs Wharton.  You an’ me can feel for each other—ah, that we can—I don’t see nothin’ in the world to prevent us from lendin’ each other a helpin’ hand.”

Mrs Wharton paused to reflect, pleating the edge of her black-edged handkerchief.

“The more the merrier,” returned Jim placidly.  “There’s plenty o’ little odd jobs they can be doin’ on, at arter school be over.  I often wish I’d ha’ had more lads mysel’.”

“Well, but,” continued Mrs Wharton, to whom the various aspects of the situation were slowly unfolding themselves, “there’s your big lass to be thought on—your Maimie.  I doubt she’ll not make it so very pleasant for me.  I could manage the little ones right enough—I was allus fond o’ childer.  But your Maimie—I doubt we shouldn’t get on so very well together.”

“Oh, ye’d get on,” said Barnes, “ye’d get on at arter a bit, I dare say.”

He did not speak very confidently, however, and presently continued in a still more dubious tone: “’Tis your Luke as is a bit of a stumblin’ block.  I hadn’t reckoned he were that masterful.  I doubt it’ll not be easy to get him to content hissel’ wi’ workin’ here under me, at arter he’s been cock o’ the walk at your place.”

“Workin’ here under you,” repeated Mrs Wharton blankly.  “He’d never do that—never.  I don’t know however it’s to be managed, Mester Barnes, I’m sure.  I didn’t reckon to leave our place, ye see.  I reckoned—well the thought jest happened to strike me, as if I was to take a second husband he’d be content to coom an’ live at the Pit.”

“That wouldn’t suit me,” he said, “nay, that it wouldn’t.  Our family have been settled here for a hundred year an’ more; I bain’t a-goin’ to shift.”

Again Mrs Wharton considered.  She was not disposed to relinquish her rights without a struggle, but, on the other hand, Jim Barnes was the most eligible suitor who was likely to come her way.  The widowed state of both seemed to make the alliance peculiarly desirable; none of the neighbours could cast up at her for replacing poor Joe so soon when her second husband stood as much in need of consolation as herself.  Then he was well-to-do, and a most excellent father.  She had thought, moreover, that his support would have enabled her to get the better of the recalcitrant Luke.  But there were limits which could not be outstepped.  To expect a youth of twenty-two to accept a subordinate position on strange premises was too much.

“The Pit Farm is a very fine farm,” she remarked tentatively, after a pause.  “The Whartons have lived there a good few year too.  ’Tis but nat’ral as our Luke should look to steppin’ into his feyther’s shoes some day when I’m laid under ground.  ’Tis what he’ve a right to expect.”

“Well, let the lad step into ’em now, then,” exclaimed Jim Barnes jovially.  “Let him step away.  I don’t want to be gaffer at the Pit Farm; all as I want, my dear, is for you to come an’ be missus here.”

“There’s a deal to be thought on, isn’t there?” she remarked.  “Our Luke—if I was to let our Luke set up for hissel’ at our place, there’d be no doin’ anythin’ wi’ him.  An’ the lad’s ower young too to be livin’ alone there—”

“Why need he live alone?” interrupted Jim.  “Pick out a wife for him—that’s what ye’d best do—pick out a wife for him an’ let the yoong folks set up there, and you coom here along o’ me.”

Mrs Wharton smiled dubiously.  “It met be a good thing in one way,” she conceded, “but still—well, ye see, I didn’t reckon to give up the Pit Farm to our Luke for a good few year yet.  There’s all the little uns to bring up and eddicate.  I couldn’t expect to be lookin’ to you for everything.”

“That’s true,” said Jim, becoming suddenly very solemn.  He, too, had heard about the good bit of brass that was laid by, and, as every sensible person knew, when brass was laid by, it was laid by, until the time came for the fortunate possessor to leave it by will to somebody else.  Still he had not reckoned on the possible contingency of having to feed and clothe at his expense the five younger Whartons.

After deep meditation, he struck the table with his fist.

“I think well on’t,” said Mrs Wharton, pursing up her lips, and nodding with a satisfied air.  “I think ’tis a capital notion, Mester Barnes.  I must just turn ower in my mind a bit, the lasses I’d like our Luke to choose from.  There’s Sally Lupton now; she’s a nice little body, an’ folks say owd Lupton left a good bit to her mother.”

“Ah,” said the farmer, “she met do very well.”

“An’ there’s Rose Blanchard,” continued Mrs Wharton, ruminating, “she’s a nice lass; wonderful house-proud Rose is.”

“Ah!” agreed Barnes, nodding.

Mrs Wharton was struck by something peculiar in his tone, and looked at him sharply; a deeper shade of colour was slowly overspreading his face, and he was smiling in an oddly bashful way.

“Can ye call to mind no other lass?” he said, after a pause, and, edging his chair round the table, he nudged the widow meaningly.

A light suddenly dawned on Mrs Wharton; she began to laugh with a rather conscious look.

“Well, theer’s one lass as ’ud suit very well.  In more ways nor one she’d suit, I reckon; but I’m sure I don’t know whatever you’d say to it, Mester Barnes.”

“Give her a name,” said Jim, grinning more broadly.

“Meanin’ my missus,” shouted Jim, the smiles forsaking his face immediately.

“Oh, I named no names, Mester Barnes, though I did hear that poor Martha had a nice bit put away in the bank.”

“Maybe she had, an’ maybe she hadn’t,” said Jim.  “As how ’tis, whatever was left was left to me, an’ it’s me as’ll have the settlin’ on’t.”

“Of course, of course—I’m only sayin’—blood’s thicker nor water, when all’s said an’ done, isn’t it?”

“’Tis indeed, an’ I’m sure that’s a sayin’ as you’ll bear in mind, my dear, when you’re setting your Luke up.  He’s his feyther’s son, ye know, an’ what did his feyther lay by so mich brass for, if not for the lad as is to stand in his shoes?”

There was a twinkle in honest Jim’s eyes as he made this home-thrust, and when Mrs Wharton replied, it was with a sort of giggle.

“Ah, to be sure, he’s to stand in’s feyther’s shoes, poor lad, but I doubt he’ll find ’em a tight fit if I take your advice, Mester Barnes, an’ make him pay me a big lump o’ rent.”

The farmer laughed outright.

“I doubt we shall,” said Mrs Wharton.

“Well, the first thing agreed on is that you an’ me is to be shouted soon,” pursued Jim, smiling, “and next thing is to tackle the yoong folks.”

“Reet,” said Mrs Wharton.  “If you’ll have a quiet talk wi’ your lass at arter we’re gone, I’ll say a word to our Luke while we’re goin’ home.”

“Nay,” cried the farmer, rising, “I’m never one for half-measures.  Let’s have the pair of ’em in now, and put it to ’em straight.”

Before Mrs Wharton had time to protest, he had thrown open the door, and was shouting lustily for Luke and Maimie.

After a moment or two the young couple appeared, Maimie, rather pale and inclined to be tearful, Luke, flushed and determined.

“Coom in, my lad,” shouted Barnes, clapping him cheerily on the back.  “Coom your ways in Maimie, too: we’n summat to tell ye.”

“An’ we’n summat to say, too,” said Luke, firmly.  “Mother, I know very well what you’re goin’ to say, an’ I’ll ha’ my say out first.  You an’ Mester Barnes here are goin’ to make a match on’t.  Well, Maimie an’ me has been talkin’ a bit, an’ though we’re not wishful any way to hurt your feelin’s, we’ve made up our minds, both on us, as we’ll not stop here to have strangers set over us.”

Farmer Barnes whistled, and Mrs Wharton, whose wits, as has been said, moved slowly, looked a trifle alarmed.