The tall fellow thought a bit.

“Yes,” he said, “I think that’ll be the best. I don’t see how we can get rid of the girl in any better way than that. If she was shot or stabbed, nobody could set up the theory of suicide; but if she’s found drowned, of course there’ll be nothing to prove that she didn’t go in of her own accord.”

When Harry got to that, I said, “Oh, Harry, it makes one’s blood run cold to think of the villains coolly plotting to murder a young girl like that!”

“Yes,” he said, “it made me feel creepy, and the inspector said, ‘I think I’ll collar them now. We’ve heard enough. If we let it go on they may make up their minds to have this poor girl murdered somewhere else, and then we may be too late.’

“He was just about to spring out and collar them, when the short fellow said to the long fellow, ‘One minute, my boy. I’ve got a magnificent idea. There’ll be an inquest. Can’t we make the comic man foreman of the jury? I can see a splendid scene—the comic man rubbing it into the villain and getting roars of laughter.’”

“What!” I exclaimed. “A comic man on a jury!”

“Don’t you see, little woman,” said Harry, “what it all meant? The inspector did in a minute. These gentlemen aren’t murderers. They’ve come down here to write a play, and they’re going to make the Silent Pool their big sensation scene.”

* * * * *

I didn’t take it all in for a minute; but when I did I laughed till I cried. Everything was explained at once. But how on earth were we to know that those two eccentric gentlemen were play-writers, and that they had come down to our inn so as to study the Silent Pool as a sensation scene for a drama.

I wasn’t a bit afraid of them after that, and I let them turn their own gas out at all hours of the night, for they generally sat and wrote till the small hours, and a nice noise they made sometimes, shouting at each other—“trying the dialogue,” they called it. They stayed with us nearly a fortnight, and we got to like them very much. Harry called them Mr. Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt; but, of course, not to their faces. They used to come into our parlour and tell us funny stories, and we were quite sorry when they went. They told us what they were doing at last, when they found we could be trusted, and they had a gentleman down from London, who was going to paint the scene.

When the play was brought out, Harry and I had two beautiful seats sent us to go and see it, and we enjoyed it tremendously. The Silent Pool was as real as though it had come from our wood; and there was the murder and everything. And fancy our thinking that two play-writers were two murderers! How they would have laughed if they had known! I noticed two or three little things in the play that they had picked up in our place; and one room in one of the acts was our bar-parlour exactly.

When I saw it, I said, “Oh, Harry, I do believe they’ve put us in it!”—and it was quite a relief when the landlady came on and wasn’t me at all, but a comic old lady who made everybody scream every time she opened her mouth.

Mr. Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt promised us that when they were writing another play they would come and stay with us again, and I hope they will. Whenever I hear their play spoken about I always say, “Ah, that play was written in our house.” But I never say that we thought they were murderers, and had them watched by the police.

One thing I was very thankful for, and that is that Mr. Wilkins didn’t get hold of them to tell them about the murder in the Silent Pool. If he had, he’d have gone about and told everybody that he’d collaborated in the drama.

As it is, if anybody could claim the credit of having had a hand in it, it was not Mr. Wilkins, but me.

* * * * *

Good gracious me! Isn’t supper ready? Hasn’t cook got a fit? Doesn’t Harry want the key of the cash-box? Has nothing gone wrong downstairs or upstairs? Wonders will never cease! I’ve actually been able to finish my “Memoir” of Mr. Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt, and their visit to the ‘Stretford Arms,’ without anybody knocking at the door, and saying, “Please, ma’am, you’re wanted.” Thank goodness!

CHAPTER XVII.

THE OWEN WALESES.

One or two letters passed before the thing was settled, and then one day we had a telegram ordering fires to be lighted in both sitting-rooms and dinner to be ready at 6.30 for six people, in the largest sitting-room.

They arrived about half-past five—Mr. and Mrs. Owen Wales and two young gentlemen and two young ladies and a maidservant.

Mr. Owen Wales was a very short and very stout gentleman of about fifty-five, with the reddest hair and whiskers I ever saw in my life. Mrs. Owen Wales was about fifty, I should say, but she was six feet, if she was an inch, and a fine women in every way; in fact, I may say a magnificent woman. The two sons, Mr. Robert and Mr. David, were fine, tall young men, taking after the mother. One was twenty-two and the other nineteen, and the daughters, Miss Rhoda and Miss Maggie, were both tall, too, and neither of them, I should say, would see twenty again. Pryce, the lady’s-maid, was the queerest lady’s-maid I ever saw in my life. She said she was forty to one of our girls, who asked the question delicately; but she was sixty if she was a day. She was one of those hard-faced, straight-up-and-down, hawk-eyed, eagle-nosed old women that never laugh and never smile, and seem to have been turned out of a mould hard set, and never to have melted.

I soon saw what I had to deal with in Mrs. Pryce (she was a Miss, but was always called Mrs. by her own request,) directly she got out of the fly, that came on first with the luggage.

She began to order me about, if you please, before she had been inside the door a second, and to give me directions what was to be done, as if I had never had a respectable person stay at my hotel before.

I listened to what she had to say quietly, and I said, “Very good; I will call the chambermaid, and she will attend to you.”

She looked at me in a supercilious sort of way, and said, “Humph!” out loud, and growled something to herself, which I know as well as possible, though I didn’t hear it, was that she supposed I was above my business.

Now, that is a thing nobody can say of me with truth; but I never could submit to be sat upon; and nothing puts my back up quicker than for anybody to try it on, especially people who are always giving themselves airs and showing off.

After she’d gone upstairs with the chambermaid and the man who carried the luggage up, to see it put in the proper rooms, I said to my husband, “Harry, there’ll be trouble with that person before we’ve done with her—you mark my words.” Harry said, “Well, my dear, don’t you begin making it,” which made me turn on him rather spitefully. One would have thought, to hear him say that, that I was inclined to quarrel with people and to make words, which I never was, and I hope I never shall be; though, of course, a great deal depends upon the health you are in and the condition of your nerves. You have a baby who is teething, and keeps you awake night after night for a fortnight, and I think Job himself would have lost his patience and turned snappy. And that was what had happened to me with my second—a dear little girl, with the loveliest dark eyes you ever saw in your life, and more like me than Harry, with the prettiest ways a baby ever had, till the teething began, and then the poor mite, I am bound to say, she didn’t show her mother’s amiability of temper. (Ahem! Harry.)

Well, of all the impudent things I ever saw! I left my papers on my desk while I ran downstairs to go to the stores cupboard with cook, and that impudent husband of mine has been reading my manuscript, and has put in that nasty remark. I shan’t scratch it out—it shall stand there as a lasting disgrace to him. It will show young women what they have to expect when they get married, and how little men appreciate a woman who lets them have their own way, and doesn’t make herself a tyrant.

And talking about tyrants, if ever there was one in this world it was that Mr. Owen Wales. That little bit of a fellow, who, as Harry said, was only a pair of red whiskers on two stumps, made his big wife and his big family tremble before him. But I shall come to that presently.

It was as much as I could do to keep from saying, “Oh!” and giggling right out when they all got out of the fly, and the little man walked in like a small turkey-cock surrounded by his giant family. They really looked giants and giantesses by the side of him; but not one of them spoke a word or offered a remark, leaving everything to “Pa.”

Harry said afterwards it reminded him of a little bantam cock when Mr. Owen Wales first strutted in; but there wasn’t much of the bantam when he began to crow—I mean when he began to speak. It was more like a bassoon. He had the deepest and gruffest voice I ever heard. Really, you would wonder how such sounds could come out of a little man’s throat.

He spoke in his gruff voice in a short, jumpy way, as if he was ordering a regiment of soldiers about. “Rooms ready?” “Yes, sir; quite ready.” “Fires alight?” “Yes, sir; they have been alight all day.” He grunted, and then he turned to his family, who all stood meek and mute behind him, and said, “Go on!” Well, he didn’t say it—he growled it, and they all turned and went upstairs after the waitress, like school-children, leaving Mr. Owen Wales to settle with the flyman. Our flyman is a very civil flyman, but Mr. Owen Wales bullied him about some trifle till, the poor man told me afterwards, he felt inclined to jump off the box and give the “little beggar” a good shaking. And that’s how I often felt with him afterwards—that I should like to take him up, put him under my arm, and drop him quietly out of the window, to teach him a lesson.

But his family stood in absolute terror of him, especially his wife, who was the dullest, meekest, quietest creature for her size that you ever saw. She could have taken that little man and given him a good shaking at any moment if she had chosen to put out her strength; and instead of that she obeyed him like a dog and trembled if he spoke cross to her or swore.

And he did swear. Not very bad swearing, but still swearing all the same. It was only one word he used, beginning with D; but he would say it as if he was thinking it out loud. This was the sort of thing. “Where did I put my glasses? D——!” “Hasn’t anybody seen them? D——!” “Oh, there they are on the sofa. D——!” “What time is it—half-past ten? D——!” “Which way is the wind this morning—east? D——!” And so on. It was such a habit with him that I think he didn’t know what he did it for. One Sunday I heard him, coming out of church, before the people were out of the doors, say quite out loud, “I have left my Church Service in the pew. D——!” And, turning round to go back, he pushed up against the clergyman’s wife, and apologized, “Beg pardon, ma’am, I’m sure. D——!”

He used to say that word between every sentence he spoke aloud, just like some people grunt between every sentence when they talk; and being such a pompous little man, and so conspicuous with his red hair and whiskers and his stoutness, it made it seem odder than ever, and attracted everybody’s attention.

I believe he was a very clever little man, which perhaps accounted for his queer ways. I was told that he was a very wonderful man at figures; and I think he was under Government, in some great office—at least, I’ve heard so; and this perhaps accounted for his muttering, and thinking, and swearing so much to himself. He really forgot that anybody was in the room, his head being on something else. Sometimes at dinner, when the joint was in front of him, he would help himself and begin to eat, forgetting his wife and family altogether, until one of them would venture to say “Pa.” And then he would look up suddenly, and say quite sharply, “Eh? What? Oh, d——!” and then serve them.

When he was in our hotel he always had one of the sitting-rooms to himself, and he would sit there for hours with a lot of papers, which he had in a big dispatch-box he carried about with him. I suppose he was ciphering, but I couldn’t tell, because he always locked the door, and nobody was allowed to go near when he was there. The only person he was really civil to, and was really afraid of, was Mrs. Pryce, the lady’s-maid. I’m sure that old woman knew something; for he never tried any of his bullying on with her. Sometimes, when dinner was ready, and he was locked in his room, there wasn’t one of them—not his wife, and not his children—who dared go and knock and tell him. They used to send for Pryce to go; and she would march up to the door as bold as brass and knock, and say, quite short, “Dinner, sir.”

If Pryce did that he would come out in a minute; but once, when Pryce was out, his eldest daughter went and gave a feeble little tap after dinner had been ready three-quarters of an hour, and he came out foaming at the mouth, and dancing about in a rage, and roaring and bellowing, like a wild animal that had been stirred up in its cage with a long pole.

The least thing would put him out. I remember when they first came I had to tell him one day that his wife had gone for a walk with the young ladies.

“Mrs. Wales has gone out, sir,” I said.

“That’s not her name,” he said. “D——! Don’t you think you ought to call people who stay with you by their proper name? D——! My name is Owen Wales, D——! not Wales. My wife’s Mrs. Owen Wales; my daughters are Miss Owen Waleses. Don’t chop half our name off, please. D——!”

And with that he went growling and muttering up the stairs, as though he’d been having a fight with another animal over a bone.

I’ve told you that when he was about, the rest of the family were like lambs. Even the sons, grown-up young men as they were, didn’t dare to open their mouths hardly before him; but when he went up to London and left them in the hotel by themselves, oh dear me! you wouldn’t have believed what a wonderful change took place.

Their mamma was just the same quiet, meek, long-suffering creature; but the young ladies and gentlemen were like wild animals, when the keeper’s gone away and has taken the horsewhip with him. All the pa that was in them came out, and they quarrelled and went on at each other awfully; and their poor ma was no more use than a baby to manage them. She used to lie in bed generally when Mr. Owen Wales was away till eleven o’clock in the morning, and the family used to come down at all hours, one after the other, and quarrel over their breakfast.

When Mr. Owen Wales was with us everybody used to be at breakfast at nine sharp, all looking as if butter wouldn’t melt; and woe betide any of them that was a minute late at a meal except himself.

But, oh, the meals when he wasn’t there! It was dreadful. It was the same with dinner as with breakfast. They’d come in one after the other, and quarrel all the time. And one day at dinner Miss Rhoda slapped Mr. Robert’s face, and Mr. Robert threw a glass of water over her, and they all jumped up, and I thought they’d have a free fight. I was so terrified that I dropped the vegetable-dish I was handing round out of my hand on the table, and, as it was cauliflower and melted-butter, and it all fell over into Mrs. Owen Wales’s lap and ruined her dress, I didn’t know which way to look or what to do. I thought perhaps they’d all turn on to me, and begin to tear my hair or something; but they went on calling each other beasts and cats and crocodiles, and other pet names without taking any notice, and their ma just wiped up the melted-butter out of her lap with her napkin, and said gently, “It doesn’t matter, Mrs. Beckett; it’ll come out.” And then she looked up at the young people and said, “Children, children, do, pray, be quiet.”

But the brothers went on at each other furiously; one brother taking one sister’s side and one the other; and the young ladies began scratching their brothers’ faces. And I don’t know how it would have ended, only Pryce walked into the room as calm as a judge, and they all sat down as if by magic.

I found out afterwards they were afraid she would tell their father; they knew their mother wouldn’t. Pryce was the master when the master was away—there was no mistake about that; and I’ve heard her go into Mrs. Owen Wales’s room, and order her to get up—not exactly order her, but you know what I mean—tell her it was late in a way that was as good as an order to get up.

The constant scenes when their pa was away quite wore me out, and I said to Harry that my nerves wouldn’t stand it. They always used to quarrel at the top of their voices, and the young ladies used to scream and rush out bathed in tears, and bang the doors and run upstairs into their bed-room; and I said we might as well keep a lunatic asylum at once—better, for we should have keepers and strait-jackets then, and padded rooms.

Harry said they were a queer family, certainly. But he supposed it was their being kept under so awfully by their pa made them burst out when he wasn’t there—and perhaps that was it; but whatever it was, it was very unpleasant in an hotel, which had always had quiet, steady-going people.

And it was not only quarrelling, but they were all over the place. The young gentlemen would come into the bar, and into the bar-parlour, and go on anyhow; and one day I found Mr. David sitting on the table in the kitchen, and making the servants roar with laughter at a figure which he had got, which was an old man on a donkey, that worked with strings; and Harry came in one day and told me that he had seen Mr. Robert walking with our nursemaid, while she was out with baby in the perambulator.

I said to Harry that the sooner their pa came back again the better it would be for us, for the place was being turned into a bear garden, and their ma was a poor, helpless creature to be left with such a lot.

But the worst that happened was one afternoon. Mr. Robert and Mr. David came down and said to Harry, “Mr. Beckett, we want you to do us a favour.” “What is it?” said Harry. “We’re going up to London, and we can’t get back till the last train, which gets into ——” (a station four miles from us) “at one in the morning. Will you let some one sit up for us, and not say anything about it to Pryce or pa?”

Harry, in his good-natured way, said, “All right,” and off my lords went. I was very cross when I heard about it; but Harry said they were grown-up young men, and perhaps they wanted to go to the theatre.

I wouldn’t let Harry sit up alone, so I sat up too. And, if you please, it was past two in the morning when a cab stopped at the door. And, when Harry let them in, if these two young gentlemen were not in a nice condition! Their hats were stuck on the backs of their heads, and they could hardly stand upright—they were so much the worse for what they had had.

They grinned a most idiotic grin when they saw me, and tried to say something polite; but they couldn’t get a distinct sentence out.

While I was lighting their candles they sat on the stairs and talked a lot of gibberish, and looked like idiots. It was really quite painful.

I said to Harry, “Get them up to bed, for goodness’ sake, and carry their candles, or they’ll set the place on fire.”

Harry tried to get them up, and by propping one against the wall and holding him up with one hand, while with the other he helped the other to get on his legs, he managed it at last. Then they both took hold of his arms, and they tried to go upstairs three abreast, but before they got half-way they both tumbled down, and pulled Harry on top of them, and the candlestick fell out of his hand and came clattering downstairs.

Harry laughed, but I was awfully wild. It wasn’t the sort of thing for a respectable house like ours; and I was so afraid some of the other customers would hear the noise and be disturbed by it.

I had to help Harry to get them up again, and I said, “Do please try and go to bed quietly, there’s good young gentlemen. You’re disturbing the whole house!”

They said, “All right, Mrs. Beckett. You’re goo’short, you are.” And they did try to steady themselves, and we managed to get them all right to the first landing, I going up in front with the candles. I wasn’t going behind, for fear they should all fall down on top of me.

But when we got to the top of the landing I thought I heard a slight noise. I looked up, and there, with a candle in her hand leaning over the banister, was that Mrs. Pryce.

She was fully dressed, and had evidently had an idea what was going to happen, and the cat—that ever I should call her so!—had sat up and listened for the young gentlemen to come in and go to bed.

When they looked up, too, and saw her it seemed to sober them for a minute. “It’s all right, Pryce,” said Mr. Robert. “We’ve been to the misshurry meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Beckett, and losh lash train.”

If a glance could have withered them that old woman’s would have done it. “Very good,” she said; “your father shall be informed of this.” Then, looking at me, she said, “As to you, ma’am, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—encouraging young men in vice and drunkenness.”

“Oh!” I said, almost with a shriek; “oh, you wicked creature! How dare you say such a thing?”

Harry had heard what she said, too. He left go of the two young men, and they both went down bang on the landing; and he jumped up the stairs, two at a time, till he reached Mrs. Pryce, and then, his eyes glaring (he looked splendid like that), he almost shouted, “Apologize to my wife for your insolence, this minute!”

“I shall not,” she said, never flinching an inch. “It’s disgraceful, and you ought to lose your licence.”

“Do you suppose they got drunk with us?” yelled Harry.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said that female; “but they are drunk, and you and your wife are up with them at two o’clock in the morning. I shall inform my master at once. This is not a fit house for respectable people.”

“Isn’t it?” shouted Harry; “it’s a d—— sight too respectable for you and your lot! You and your master can go to the——”

“Harry,” I said, running up, and catching hold of him; “Harry, be calm; think of the other customers.”

It was too late. People hearing the row had got up, and I could see white figures peeping through the half-open doors, and one old lady rushed out in her nightgown shrieking, “What is it? The house is on fire—I know it is. Fire! fire! fire!—--”

“Hush, hush!” I cried, “don’t, don’t!”—and, in my horror, I put my hands over her mouth to stop her. “It’s nothing; it’s only two gentlemen drunk.” The old lady caught sight of the two young Mr. Owen Waleses sitting on the landing, and remembering how she was dressed, and that she hadn’t got her wig on, bolted into her room and banged the door to after her, and I went to the other doors and told the people it was nothing, that they weren’t to be frightened; it was only two of our gentlemen had been overcome by something which had disagreed with them.

Oh, it was dreadful! I didn’t know where the scandal would end, or what would be the consequences of it. How we got those two young fellows to bed—how I quieted Harry down, and left that wretched woman Pryce triumphant on the staircase, with a wicked, fiendish glare in her eye—I only remember in a confused sort of way; but I know, when it was all over and I got to bed, I had to have a good cry to prevent myself having hysterics. And Harry, as soon as he’d got me round a bit, worked himself up into a temper again, and, instead of going to sleep, kept on turning from side to side in his indignation, and saying, if it hadn’t been for me, he’d “have wrung that old cat’s neck for her.”

* * * * *

The next morning the two young gentlemen came into our private room after breakfast, and apologized, like gentlemen. They said they were very sorry for what had occurred, and they hoped we shouldn’t think too badly of them. I said I should think no more of it, though, of course, it had made a terrible scandal in the house, and would probably injure our business; but I should not forget the impertinence of the woman Pryce, who was only a servant, and had no business to dare to interfere or to speak to me in such a way.

They said that I was quite right; but they daren’t say anything to Pryce, as their only chance of getting her not to tell their father was by being very humble to her and smoothing her down.

I don’t know how they tried to smooth her down; but they didn’t do it, for their pa came down the next day, and that Pryce told him everything, and a nice row there was. The way that little man went on at those two great six-foot fellows was awful. They shook like aspen-leaves before him—I expected to see him set to and thrash them every minute, though he would have had to stand on a chair to box their ears. Of course, they deserved all they got; the cruel part was that he bullied his wife as well, and told her it was all her fault, and she was ruining her children, and she wasn’t fit to be a mother, and I don’t know what. Really one would have thought she was a little girl herself. I wondered if he was going to stand her in the corner, or send her to bed. The poor woman trembled and sobbed before the little bantam, till I quite lost patience with her. Why, if she had given him a push, she could have sent him over into the fender, for he stood on the hearthrug, and foamed and swore till he was nearly black in the face.

The door was wide open—the sitting-room door—and we heard all he said, and he rang the bell, and sent for me and Harry, and demanded to know “the rights of it.”

It was very awkward; but I got out of it. I said, “If you’ve anything to say, sir, you can say it to my husband;” and with that I vanished out of the room. He didn’t frighten Harry, though he tried to; but the end of it was, he said he shouldn’t stay in the house any longer, and Harry said he was glad to hear it, as it saved him the pain of having to present him with the bill, and ask him to take his custom and his family somewhere else.

When Harry said that, he told me, the little man swelled out to such a size Harry thought he was going to burst; but he only swore, and ordered Harry to leave the room instantly, which, to avoid a disturbance, he did.

And, thank goodness, the next day they all departed; but not without a good many d——s from Mr. Owen Wales over the bill. The young gentlemen looked very sheepish, as well they might, and the whole family were tamed again, and hadn’t a word to say among them. Their tamer was there, and they quailed before him. Pryce was the first to go; she went in a fly by herself with the luggage. Harry was at the door as she drove away, and he raised his hat, with mock politeness, to my lady.

She gave him a look, and turned her head, and sniffed, and said, “Good afternoon, sir; it’s the first time I’ve stayed at a pothouse, and I hope it will be the last!”

A pothouse! Oh, when I think of it even now it makes the blood rush to the roots of my hair. I do believe if I had been at the door when that creature said that I should have——

* * * * *

Miss Measom not in yet? Why, it’s past eleven!—what does she mean by such conduct? She’ll have to go. I will not have a barmaid who cannot come in at a decent and proper time. When she does come in I shall give her a piece of my mind. She’s much too flighty for her place; I thought so when you engaged her. You go to bed, Harry; I’ll sit up for her.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MR. WILKINS.

You remember that Mr. Wilkins had a daughter in service in London, and it was through her that he found out that I was the Mary Jane who had written her “Memoirs” when she was in service. He was very proud of his daughter, and he had every reason to be so, for she was a very good girl, and had only lived in good families. He had also a daughter who had married, and had gone out with her husband to Australia. She used to write to her father now and then, and when he had a letter he was very proud of it, and he would bring it round to our house, and read bits of it that were about the life there out loud to the company, and he used to say, “My girl writes a good letter, doesn’t she, Mrs. Beckett? She could write a good book if she liked, and it would be very interesting.”

Poor Mr. Wilkins, I’m quite sure he had an idea that his daughter could write a book on Australia because she had been there a year or two and could write a very fair letter. Some people think that you’ve only to write what you have seen, and it will be as interesting to the public as it is to you and your friends. I believe much cleverer people than Mr. Wilkins think that, because I’ve seen books advertised in the newspapers, such as “A Month in America, by a Lady,” or “Six Weeks in Russia, by a Gentleman,” and all that sort of thing, and one of the gentlemen who stayed at our hotel left a book behind him from Mudie’s, and I read it before sending it after him, and it was nothing but a lot of letters, which a lady, who had gone abroad for her health, had written home to her children. Very interesting to her children and her friends, I dare say; but I thought a lot of it quite silly, and I thought to myself that she must be pretty conceited to fancy everybody wanted to read her letters that she wrote home. But I must not say any more on the subject, because people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and perhaps somebody will say that I’m a nice one to talk, seeing that I am always writing down everything that happens to me, and having the impudence to try and get it published.

What brought it up was Mr. Wilkins being so absurd about his daughter in Australia.

In most of these letters there was a glowing account of how well she was getting on, and how her husband had been very lucky out there, and was making money and getting property. It seems he had bought some land, or something, “up country,” which meant a very long way off, and it had turned out so well that he had bought some more, and, according to the young woman, they were on the high road to fortune.

Then, her letters began to ask her father to come out to them and settle down with them. She was sure he would like it, and he could be a great help to them as well, as her husband wanted somebody he could trust very much.

At first Mr. Wilkins shook his head, and said he was too old, that he couldn’t go across the seas, and he thought he should feel more comfortable if he died in his native place and was buried in the old parish churchyard.

But by-and-by something happened which made him hesitate. His daughter up in London was engaged to a young man, and they were to be married in a short time. He was a young man in a very fair position, being head barman in a public-house in the City, and a good deal of the management was left to him, the proprietor having a taste for sport and going away racing a good deal, and the wife not knowing much about the trade, and not being a good business woman.

Mr. Wilkins’s daughter in London was very fond of her young man, who was very sober and steady, and getting on well and putting money by.

All went very well until the landlord of the public-house went one day to the races at Epsom—the City and Suburban day, I think it was—and he drove down with some friends in a trap. What happened afterwards came out at the inquest. They may have had too much to drink; but, at any rate, driving back home in the evening they ran into a lamp-post, and the landlord was thrown out on his head, and when he was picked up it was found that he was seriously injured, and he never regained consciousness, but died the next day.

After that Miss Wilkins didn’t see so much of her lover. He said that, the governor being dead, he had to be always looking after the business, and that prevented him getting out so often as he used to do. The poor girl didn’t suspect anything at first; but, at last, she would have been blind not to see that something was wrong. After a bit the young man tried to get up a quarrel with her; but she, being a sweet temper, wouldn’t quarrel, and then he told her that he had changed his mind, that he didn’t think they were suited to each other, and asked her to break it off.

It upset her terribly, and made her quite ill. It wasn’t only a blow to her pride; but she really loved the fellow. She found out what it all meant when, six months after the landlord met with that fatal accident, her young man married the widow and stepped into an old-established City public-house doing a big trade.

That was the worst blow of all to poor Miss Wilkins. It showed her how unworthy her young man had been of her, having thrown her over to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, and all for money.

She fretted so much that she became quite ill, and wasn’t able to stop in a situation, and so she came home to her father. But that didn’t do her any good, for she moped terribly, and was always brooding, and couldn’t be roused, or persuaded to go out.

I felt very sorry for the poor girl, and I asked her to tea several times; but she only came once, and then she was so miserable that it was more like a funeral feast than a friendly tea-party.

She began to get paler and thinner every day, and Mr. Wilkins grew quite alarmed about her, and the doctor said the only thing for her was to go right away and be among fresh faces and fresh scenes, and then, perhaps, in time she would make an effort and forget her trouble.

I don’t believe myself that a woman ever forgets a trouble of that sort. They may seem to before the world; but it is only put away for a time. It comes back again. But there is no doubt that it comes back less in a new place than in an old one, where there is nothing to take your attention off it.

It was just after the doctor had told Wilkins this that another letter came from Australia, from the daughter there, almost begging her father to come out to them. The doctor said, when he heard of it, “Why not go, Wilkins, and take your daughter with you?” And at last the poor old gentleman made up his mind that he would. Miss Wilkins was eager to go too. She said she should be glad to get away from everything that reminded her of the past. I think Wilkins would still have hesitated, but for the fact that just at the time our clergyman was changed, the Rev. Tommy going away to a seaside place, and a new clergyman coming—quite a young fellow, who looked almost like a boy, and had a lot of new notions that poor Wilkins said were dreadful. He and Wilkins didn’t get on at all from the very first, the old fellow rather resenting what he called the young clergyman’s “new-fangled ways.” And the young clergyman got wild with Wilkins, who, he said, was “an old fossil,” and “behind the age,” and they had words. And then Wilkins in a pet said he should resign, and the young clergyman said he was very glad of it, and he thought it was about time, as Mr. Wilkins had been spoiled, by his predecessor allowing him to have his own way, and was too old now to learn different.

The end of it was that one evening Mr. Wilkins came into our bar-parlour very excited, and said he had given that whipper-snapper a bit of his mind, and resigned his place, and he was going to accept his married daughter’s offer, and go to Australia.

At first, when he said it, his old friends who were present said, “Go on!” But he soon let them know that he was serious. And the next day he went up to London to make arrangements about a passage for himself and his daughter.

It made quite a sensation in the village, as soon as it was known that our old parish clerk was going to Australia. A committee met at our house, and it was determined, in recognition of his long connection with the parish, and the esteem in which he was held by everybody, to give him what Graves, the farrier, called “a good send-off.” There was a lot of talk about how it was to be done, and at last it was determined to get up “a Wilkins Testimonial and Banquet.” It was settled that the banquet was to be at our house, and Harry entered into it heart and soul, because he liked Wilkins very much. There was a lot of dispute as to what the testimonial was to be, and at last it was decided that something that an inscription could be put on was best—something that he could keep and show to everybody and leave behind him as a family heirloom.

Harry suggested a piece of plate, and that was agreed to after some absurd remarks by Graves, who wanted to know what a piece of plate was like; and when it was agreed to be a silver tankard, with an inscription on it, Graves said he thought a plate was something to eat off, and he couldn’t see how anything that you drank out of could be a plate.

I dare say he thought it was very funny, but nobody laughed at the joke except himself; but, as he laughed loud enough for twenty people, perhaps he was satisfied.

As soon as the preliminaries were settled, Harry and Mr. Jarvis, the miller, the one that was nearly run over on the night of the burglary at the Hall, were appointed to collect the subscriptions, and a day was fixed for the banquet, which was to be the night before Mr. Wilkins left the village to go to London, where he was going to stop for a day and a night before he sailed from the docks for Melbourne.

The Rev. Tommy was written to, and he headed the subscription with a pound, and the doctor gave a pound, and several of the gentry people gave the same, and the rest was made up in ten shillings and five shillings from the little tradespeople, and smaller sums from the working folks. It was a success from the first, for Mr. Wilkins was very much respected, and everybody was sorry he was going to leave. The new clergyman—the “whipper-snapper”—wasn’t asked; but when he heard what was going on, he came into our place one day and gave Harry a pound, and Harry said he wasn’t such a bad sort after all.

We got so much money that it was more than enough to buy the tankard, and Harry suggested that we should put the rest into a purse and present it to Mr. Wilkins, as it would be very useful for the journey. Mr. Wilkins had been a saving man, and he had a nice little sum in the bank; but, of course, money is always welcome, especially when there are two fares to Australia to pay.

The banquet was left to us, and, after we had thought it well over and consulted the committee, it was agreed that it was to be five shillings a head, and that everybody was to pay for what they drank extra. This was better, because, of course, the company would be rather mixed, several of the better people, such as the doctor and some of the young gentlemen from the private houses, having promised to come, to show their respect for Mr. Wilkins, and they would drink wine, while the ordinary people would drink beer.

Harry said to me, “We’ll show them what the ‘Stretford Arms’ can do, my dear.” And we arranged a banquet that I am sure would be no disgrace to a West End London hotel. Knowing our company, we arranged accordingly; having dishes to suit the gentlefolks, and hot joints and things to suit the others. The banquet was to be in the coffee-room, and that would hold a lot of people, by making one long set of tables run all round it. The doctor promised to take the chair, and Mr. Wilkins, of course, was to be on his right hand, and Harry was to take the vice-chair. There were to be no ladies, which I opposed at first; but it was thought better, as it might have led to quarrelling.

Of course Wilkins knew what was going on, and he was very proud, though it touched him deeply. And when he shook hands with us, the night that the deputation waited on him and invited him to the banquet, the poor old fellow’s voice was quite husky, and his hand trembled.

It was very funny the way he tried to pretend he wasn’t listening, when any of the arrangements were discussed in the bar-parlour. And sometimes we used to be talking about what the inscription was to be, and that sort of thing, and in would walk Wilkins himself; and then we all left off and whispered, and first one would be called out of the room, and then the other, to settle a point, Mr. Wilkins all the time smoking his long clay pipe and looking up at the ceiling, as though he hadn’t the slightest idea that he was in any way concerned in what was going on.

One day, just before the banquet, Harry came to me and said, “Missus, you know all about these things—how do you invite the Press?”

“What Press?” I said, wondering what he was driving at.

“The newspapers,” he said. “I’ve had a hint that Mr. Wilkins would like the Press to be present. He’s going to make a speech.”

I thought for a minute, and then said that I supposed it would be better to write to the editor of our county paper and send him a ticket.

“Yes,” said Harry, “but I fancy Wilkins would like the Times and the Morning Advertiser to be present.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that. Of course it was absurd; as if the editor of the Times and the Morning Advertiser would take the trouble to come down to our place to hear Mr. Wilkins speak!

I told Harry that it was ridiculous, as it was only a local affair, and I wasn’t even sure if it was big enough for our county paper to come to.

Harry seemed a little disappointed. He said that it would have been such a good thing for us, if it could have been got into the London papers; because in all the accounts of banquets that he had read it always said at the end something about the hotel or the restaurant, and the way in which the banquet was served.

“Well,” I said, “I’m sure the London papers would laugh at us if we invited them; but there’ll be no harm in asking the local paper.”

The committee met and talked it over, and a nice invitation was sent to our editor, and we got a letter back in a couple of days, saying that he feared he could not send a reporter, as the affair was not of sufficient general interest; but if we sent a short account of the proceedings it should be inserted.

Somehow or other, Mr. Wilkins got to hear of it, and, though he was disappointed about the Times and the Morning Advertiser, he paid me a very pretty little compliment. He came to me, and said, “Mrs. Beckett, ma’am, I have heard that our county journal is anxious for a report of the farewell banquet which is to be given in my honour. I am sure that there will be no one so fitted in every way to draw up that report as yourself. You are an authoress, and well known in literature, and can do the subject justice.”

I blushed at that, and went quite hot. “I’m not used to writing in newspapers, Mr. Wilkins,” I said, “which is quite different to writing books.” But the old gentleman was so anxious that I should write the report that I promised I would. After that I read all the reports of banquets I could find in the newspapers, so as to get used to the style, and the only thing that bothered me was how I should be able to write out all the speeches, and I told Mr. Wilkins so. He relieved me on this point by saying he should have his speech written out beforehand, and he would have a copy made specially for me.

For two or three days before the banquet we were very busy getting everything ready, and I was very anxious, as it was the first public dinner on a big scale that we had done. But, thank goodness, nothing went wrong, except that the woman we had in to help our cook turned out a very violent temper, and in a rage pulled our cook’s cap off and threw it on the fire, and she, trying to snatch it off again, upset a big saucepan of custard that was boiling, and it all ran over into her boots, and made her dance about, and shriek and yell that she was scalded to death—(she really was hurt, poor woman)—and that made the kitchen-maid, who was subject to epilepsy, fall down and have a fit. And as we sacked the assistant cook for her behaviour, and cook and the kitchen-maid were too ill to do anything all the next day, we had to send out right and left to get help. And we got a woman who was an excellent cook and very handy; but had a baby that she couldn’t leave, and so brought it with her. It was the peevishest baby that I ever came across, and shrieked itself into convulsions from morning till night, until at last the people staying in the hotel sent down and said, if that child didn’t leave off they should have to go. Except for these little things everything went on as well as could be expected, seeing what a strain it was on the resources of the establishment. That last line is a line out of my report, which I wrote for our county paper. It isn’t in the report which they had printed, but I wrote it, having seen it in a report of a banquet I had read, and I think “strain on the resources of the establishment” a very good expression under the circumstances.

But all’s well that ends well, and when the eventful evening arrived everything was right, and the coffee-room looked beautiful with the flags which we had put up, and evergreens, and coloured paper, and a big device over Mr. Wilkins’s head, on which was written—