A RUNAWAY COUPLE.
Summerdawn; a thousand delicate tints in the sky above and dewy world beneath; birds stretching drowsy little wings and piping to each other; dumb things waking up one by one and sending forth their several calls. But as yet nothing seemed astir in the old house; the windows, open for the most part, were still curtained; no thin spiral of smoke wound its way upwards from the kitchen chimney. Ruddy shafts of light made cheer, indeed, on the mullioned panes and the moss-grown coping, picked out the stone-crops and saxifrages on the roof, ran along the stone gutter, bathed the old chimney stacks with a glow that would seem to mock at the empty hearths within.
Presently a great clucking and crowing was heard from the poultry-yard at the rear of the house, and a moment or two after a little old lady came trotting along the mossy path behind the yew hedge and picked her way daintily between the apple-trees in the orchard. As she proceeded she looked to right and to left as though in fear, yet her face was wreathed in the broadest of smiles, and every now and then she uttered an ecstatic chuckle. Now out at the wicket-gate and down the lane to the right. Lo! standing outlined against the purple expanse of moor a hundred paces or so from the gate an equipage was drawn up; twomen were stationed by the horses’ heads, one of whom hurried forward to meet her, while the other stiffly climbed up on the box. The first, a tall burly old man, wearing a white top-hat, an old-fashioned embroidered waistcoat, and a spick-and-span suit of broadcloth, beckoned eagerly as he hastened towards her, while the figure on the box waved his whip, and jerked his elbow with every sign of impatience.
“So there ye be at last, my dear!” cried the old gentleman. “Blest if I didn’t think they’d catched ye. Come along, hurry up! Let’s be off; it’s close upon four o’clock.”
The lady, who was plump and somewhat short of breath, merely chuckled again by way of rejoinder, and suffered herself to be hoisted into the waiting chaise. It was an extremely old-fashioned chaise with a hood and a rumble; the coachman was equally antiquated in appearance, and wore a moth-eaten livery of obsolete cut and a beaver hat.
“Now off with ye, Jem,” cried the old gentleman in a stage whisper. “Let ’em go, my lad. Don’t spare the cattle! We must be miles away from here before the folks yonder have time to miss us. But whatever did keep ye so long, Susan?” he inquired, turning to the lady.
“My dear,” said she, with a delighted giggle, “I’ve been to feed the chickens.”
Thereupon her companion fell into a paroxysm of suppressed merriment, growing purple in the face, and slapping his thigh in ecstacy. The old coachman turned round upon the box and bent down his ear to catch the joke.
“Missus has been to feed chicken, Jem,” laughed hismaster. “Ho! ho! ho!—she wouldn’t leave out that part, ye may be sure.”
Jem grinned. “No, I d’ ’low she wouldn’t. Missus be a grand hand at feedin’ chicken; she’ve a-had practise, haven’t she, Measter? I’ll go warrant she have.”
“And I’ve been doing something else too, John,” continued she, when the explosion had in some measure subsided. “See here!”
She opened the lid of the little covered basket which she carried, and displayed three nosegays of white flowers.
“I thought we might wear these,” she remarked. “I very nearly brought favours for the horses, too, but I was afraid it would excite remark.”
“And you were right,” said he; “but I think we’ve managed pretty well to put ’em off the scent. Jem did drive a good bit along the Dorchester road, and back very quiet over the heath. ’Twas very artful of ’ee, my dear, to be talkin’ so innercent-like about Weymouth yesterday—they’ll think we’ve a-gone there, for sure.”
The old lady drew herself up with a little conscious air.
“It takes a woman’s wit to think of them things,” she said: “But I do feel sorry for them all, too. I left just a bit of a line for Mary to say she wasn’t to be frightened and we was just gone for the day, and they mustn’t think of looking for us. But I can’t help thinking it does seem a shame. There, all the poor things will be comin’ from this place and that place and bringing the children, and making ready their little speeches, and getting out their little presents——”
The old man began to chuckle again.
She looked at him reproachfully, and he laughed louder and rubbed his hands.
“’Tis very unfeeling of you to laugh like that, John. I’m sure it is. Haven’t you got no feeling for your own flesh and blood?”
“If you come to that,” said John, “whose notion was it? Says I, ‘I do wish,’ I says, ‘we could give ’em all the slip and spend the happy day quiet by our two selves.’ And says you, ‘Why shouldn’t we, then?’ says you. ‘Look here,’ you says, ‘why shouldn’t we do it over again, John?’ ‘What?’ says I. ‘What we done fifty years ago,’ says you. ‘Well,’ I says, and I say now, ‘it takes a woman’s cleverness to think o’ such things.’ So here we be a-runnin’ away again, love; bain’t we?”
She extended her little mittened hand to him with a gracious smile that had in it a droll assumption of coyness.
“There’s the ring, though,” said he; “that there ring ought to come off, Susan, else it ’ull not seem real-like.”
His gnarled old fingers were already fumbling with the ring, but she jerked away her hand quickly.
“No, indeed!” she cried. “Have it off! I wouldn’t have it off for a thousand pounds. It’s never been off my finger all these years, John, and I’m certainly not going to have it off to-day.”
She pinned the nosegay in his coat, assumed a similar decoration herself, and handed one to Jem. Then they drove onwards with renewed speed. Jem, following his master’s advice, was not sparing the cattle; the old chaise rocked from side to side, the horses flew along the road. They had now left the heath behind and found themselveson the highway; the country was looking its best this fine sunny morning; the hedges were still white with bloom; the leafage of the woods through which they passed was yet untarnished by heat or dust; a spicy fragrance was wafted towards them from the fir plantations; in the villages the folks were beginning to stir; chimneys were smoking; women moving to and fro, here and there a man sauntering fieldwards.
They looked after the rattling chaise with astonishment.
“I hope nobody will set up a hue and cry,” ejaculated the old lady nervously. “There’s nobody coming after us, is there, Jem?”
“Don’t ye be afeared, mum,” returned Jem valiantly. “You sit still, Mrs. Bussell; nobody’s thinkin’ o’ sich a thing, an’ if they was, we’d soon leave ’em behind. I brought ye safe to Branston this day fifty year ago, an’ I’ll do the same to-day, dalled if I don’t.”
“So ye did, Jem, so ye did,” exclaimed his master. “Dear heart alive, do ye mind, Sukey, that time we heard such a clatterin’ behind us, and you thought all was lost, and Jem turned right into Yellowham Wood. How he done it I can never think. But we crope out of sight and the folks rattled past. And ’twasn’t nobody thinkin’ of us at all. ’Twas young Squire Frampton drivin’ for a wager.”
“Yes, my father was looking for us along the Dorchester road,” said she, laughing again.
“He! he!” chimed in Jem, “I mind that well. ’Twas my cousin Joe what took yon empty shay. He couldn’t for the life of en make out why he were to ride so fast wi’ nobody inside. ‘Never you mind, Joe,’ says I, ‘rideaway for your gold piece,’ I says. I weren’t a-goin’ to tell he what was a-goin’ on. He weren’t to be trusted same as me. He understood about the gold piece right enough, and, dally! he did understand Squire Sherren’s horsewhip, too, when he comed up wi’ en and couldn’t make Joe tell en where he was gone. I d’ ’low ye was half-way to Lunnon by that time.”
“Poor Joe!” said Mrs. Bussell compassionately.
“Pooh!” exclaimed bluff old John, “a gold piece would mend many broken bones. Well, my dear, I’m gettin’ sharp-set, what do ye say to a bit of breakfast? Pull up at the first sheltered place you come to, Jem.”
“But let it be somewhere where you can keep a look-out,” put in the old lady anxiously. “Don’t let’s be caught.”
By-and-by they arrived at a suitable place, and Jem duly pulled up, and John brought out a well-packed hamper from the rumble, and Mrs. Bussell made tea from a spirit-lamp, and dispensed goodly portions of buttered roll, and ham, and hard-boiled eggs, and John and Jem took turns to act sentry, and little Mrs. Bussell raised an alarm about every five minutes and entered more and more into the spirit of the enterprise. Her husband, setting his white hat rakishly on the back of his head, and looking extremely jocose, endeavoured to throw himself into the part which he had played a half-century before, but did not altogether succeed in representing the trembling young lover, even though he called the old lady by her maiden name, and delivered himself of sundry amorous speeches with a fervour that was occasionally mixed with hilarity.
“Faith, my dear,” he cried when she took him to task, “you must let me talk as I please. I was your lover then, and I am your lover now, for all we’ve been man and wife this fifty years. What signifies it whether your hair is gold or silver, or whether you are fat or slim? Handsome is as handsome does, I say, and you’ve a-been the best wife a man could have.”
“La! John,” said she, and winked away a tear. John put out his rugged old hand and gripped hers.
“The best wife a man could have,” he repeated earnestly. “Fifty years!—I wish we mid have fifty years more together.”
“I wish we was back at the beginning,” said she. “I’d like to go through it all over again, John. I’d take it all and be thankful—the rough and the smooth, and the joy and the sorrow. Except maybe—poor little Ben, you know—I don’t think I’d like to live through those years again. How we hoped, didn’t we? And he was took at the last.”
“Well, ye have the other seven, Susan, my dear, alive and well, and their children. Why, you mid say that one loss has been made up to ye by more than a score of other blessings.”
Mrs. Bussell shook her head, but smiled, and presently wondered aloud if John’s Annie would bring the baby.
“I’d like to have seen it, too,” she added. “I hope Mary will have the sense to keep them. I told her a good many of them would stop the night.”
“Somebody’s coming!” announced Jem at this juncture.
And then what a bustle and clatter ensued, what hasty packing of the hamper, what tremulous climbing into thechaise on the part of the “missus”; with what an air of firmness and resolution did the master straighten his hat and square his shoulders as though preparing to defy all pursuers. And after all it was only the mail cart bowling merrily along; and the driver gave the runaway couple a cheery good-day as he passed. Then, though they laughed long and loud over the false alarm, they realised that the time was getting on, and that it behoved them to hasten to their destination.
The little town of Branston was not yet very wide-awake when they did arrive at the Royal George, and Jem pulled up with a flourish, and threw the reins to a gaping stable-boy with as great an air as would have befitted a coachman in the palmy days when the Flying Stage used to change horses at Branston. The little old lady alighted demurely, her husband supporting her while she planted first one neat little foot, clad in a buckled shoe and clocked white stocking, on the step, and then its fellow, and lifting her off bodily, with much the same tender gallantry as that with which he had doubtless performed a similar office fifty years ago. At his request, Mrs. Bussell was conducted to the best private room; she seemed to have quite identified herself with those bygone days, and clung to his arm fearfully as they mounted the stairs; while in her husband past and present were pleasantly mingled. Thus, when, having deposited his fair charge in the George’s largest sitting-room, he strolled down to the lower premises to give certain orders regarding the horses, he made no ado about taking the landlord into his confidence.
“This ’ere is a runaway trip,” he remarked, with a jocular wink. “’Tis our golden weddin’ day, and the missus and me had a notion o’ spendin’ it quiet, just by our two selves. They’re makin’ a great to-do at our place—children and grandchildren comin’ from all sides, but we just thought we’d give them the slip, and keep the day here same as we done fifty year ago.”
“Ah,” put in the landlord, much interested, “I heard somethin’ about that. You and your lady run off, didn’t ye?”
“We did,” returned John. “Her father, ye see, old Sherren—they did use to call en Squire—she was the only child, and he reckoned on her makin’ a grand match, takin’ up wi’ one o’ the reg’lar gentry, ye know; but he wasn’t a bit better nor the rest of any of us yeoman farmers. Well, I wasn’t much of a match in those days—my father had a long family and not much to divide between us; but I liked the maid, and the maid she did like me, so we took the law into our own hands. My missus, she did use to go a-feedin’ of her chicken very early in the mornin’, so the folks got accustomed to hearin’ her get up and go out before daylight almost—and one mornin’ she did go out and she didn’t never go back.”
“I remember,” cried the other, “you tricked them wi’ an empty post-chaise, didn’t ye?”
“To be sure,” returned the old farmer chuckling. “’Twas Joe Boyt did that. He did ride for all he were worth, the wrong way. And me and the maid ran a couple of mile on our own legs, till we come to the high road where Jem was awaitin’ for us wi’ the very same oldshay as we did drive over in to-day. I did swear I’d buy it if ever I had the chance, and I’d take Jem into my service. And I did both.”
“The old Squire came round before long,” remarked the landlord; “yes, I heard the tale often enough. There’s an old chap here as used to be ostler in the old days, and he minds well how you and the lady came here to hide, so to speak, till the coach came up.”
“That’s it!” cried old John delightedly, slapping his thigh to give emphasis to his words. “The coach took us to Bath and we had the job done there—licence, you know. And the missus and I, d’ye see, had the notion o’ stoppin’ here to-day in memory of that time, and makin’ believe we was doin’ it over again. Between you and me,” said John, poking the landlord in the waistcoat and winking knowingly, “I d’ ’low my old woman does truly believe she is back in the old times again. Women do seem to have a wonderful power of imagination. There, she was a-feedin’ her chicken this mornin’, if ye please, just as she done the mornin’ we made off.”
“Well, well,” commented the landlord. “You ought to let old ’Neas Bright have a look at ye both. He’s up in the almhouse now, poor old chap, through not bein’ able to work any more, but he’d hobble down if he was to know ye were here.”
“Send for en, then, send for en,” cried John eagerly; “but look ye, landlord—keep the secret. Don’t ye let the folks know who we are or what we’ve come for, else maybe the children ’ull catch as yet.”
The landlord laughed and promised, and thereuponJohn went back to his lady, whom he found peeping cautiously out at the Market Place from behind the window curtain.
“Did you think about ordering dinner?” inquired she.
“No, my dear, I left that to you.”
“Oh, John,” she cried bashfully, “I feel nervous-like. I don’t want to ring the bell and have folks starin’ at me. Go down again and order it—at twelve sharp.”
“What shall we have?” he inquired.
“There now—to ask such a thing. Why, the same as we had this day fifty year ago, of course.”
“And what was that?” asked he.
“Why, John, I never thought you would forget anything about that day. We had a beefsteak-pudding and a boiled fowl with parsley-and-butter sauce, and potatoes in their jackets, and greens.”
“So we had,” said John.
“And you had cheese and a crusty loaf, and I had a bit o’ rice puddin’. And you had a tankard o’ best October ale, and I had a glass of sherry wine. Don’t you remember, John, you would make me take the wine though I wasn’t used to it and was afraid it might go to my head?”
“Yes, to be sure,” returned he. “Well, I’ll go and order all that.”
“And then come back to me—come straight back to me, John. Don’t stay gossiping downstairs. I feel quite nervous.”
“Do you think this was the room we had?” inquired John, pausing half-way to the door. “It don’t look the same somehow.”
“They’ve spoilt it with this new-fangled furniture,” returned she; “but it is the same. I remember this little window at the end looking towards the Market Place. Oh, John—see here.”
“What is that, my dear?”
“Why, look here at the corner of the pane. Here are our very name letters, S for Susan, and J for John, and the true-lovers’-knot on the top. I remember your scratching ’em quite well.”
“Why, so I did,” cried he. “I’d a glass-cutter in my big knife. Well, to be sure! There they are—and here we are!”
“Here we are,” echoed she. “Thanks be to God for all His mercies.”
And thereupon she clasped both her little wrinkled hands round his arm and gave it a tender squeeze, and he stooped down and kissed her round, wholesome, pink old cheek.
Well, after John had ordered the dinner, and after old ’Neas Bright had come limping down from the almshouse and had related divers anecdotes, and drunk the couple’s health, and gone away rejoicing with a half-crown piece in his pocket, John and Susan sat down behind the screen which cut off one corner of the room from the rest, and gave themselves up to repose and reminiscence.
Perhaps it was because they were so happy and so much absorbed in each other, and also perhaps because they had both of them grown a trifle hard of hearing of late years, that they did not notice a sudden bustle and excitement in the street below.
Had they looked out they would have seen a string of vehicles of different kinds drawn up just outside—spring-carts, gigs, a waggonette, and last but not least, a waggon drawn by a team of splendid farm-horses and filled to overflowing with country people. All the occupants of these conveyances were dressed in holiday attire, all wore enormous white nosegays, while the horses’ blinkers and the drivers’ whips were alike decorated with snowy streamers. The door opened suddenly, and some one ran round the screen.
“Why, there they are!” cried a child’s jubilant voice. “There’s grandpa and grandma a-sittin’ hand-in-hand.”
And then from the staircase, and from the hall, and from the street arose a sudden deafening cheer.
“I d’ ’low they’ve caught us!” cried John, with a whimsical glance at his spouse; but she was already engaged in fondling the child and scarcely heard him.
A moment afterwards the room was crowded with the descendants of the old folks—three generations of them: middle-aged prosperous-looking sons and daughters; rosy grandchildren and even one great-grandchild, for young John’s Anniehadbrought her baby, which proved to be the finest child of its age that had ever been seen, and to have “come on wonderful” since Mrs. Bussell last beheld it. And there was such a kissing and hugging and scolding and laughing as had surely never before been heard in that staid, respectable old room, and grandma was very arch and coy on being reproached for her unkind notion, and grandpa chuckled boisterously, and rubbed his hands, and Mary, the only unmarried daughter, related how hersuspicions had at first been aroused on discovering that the chickens had been fed so early—all the family knowing the history of that bygone ruse by heart; and how, though shedidat first fancy they might have gone to Weymouth, she had made inquiries in the neighbourhood, and had ascertained that a chaise with three people wearing white nosegays had been seen driving Branston-way very soon after daylight. And then John, the eldest son, took up the tale, and related how they had settled to wait till all the family had arrived, and how he had declared that the labourers and their wives should not be baulked of their share of merry-making, and how the whole party was come to keep the golden wedding at Branston.
“The folks are waiting for you outside now,” he concluded; “you’d best show yourselves to them, else they’ll never forgive you.”
So over to the window marched the bridal couple, and there they stood arm-in-arm, the illusion being a little damaged by the presence of the baby which grandma would not relinquish, and by the background of laughing folk, all of whom bore so strong a family likeness to their progenitors that their relationship could not be doubted.
A rousing cheer went up once more, and John waved his hat in reply, and Susan laughed and nodded, and was suddenly taken by surprise by a dimness in the eyes and a choking sensation in the throat.
“I don’t know however I could have had the heart to run away from them,” she murmured.
And then when the speeches had been made, and the presents delivered, and the wedding-feast, supplementedby many substantial additions, set forth upon the table, and when she sat down with John the elder on her right and John the younger on her left, and Annie’s baby sound asleep in her lap, and looked round at the kindly happy faces, she surreptitiously squeezed her husband’s hand:—
“You and me was very happy this time fifty year,” she said, “but after all—I don’t know—I d’ ’low this is best.”