“Good evenin’ to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey; this here be very disapp’intin’, bain’t it?”
Susan responded with a little “dip,” for Farmer Joyce was the principal inhabitant of Riverton.
“E-es, sir, it be a bit disapp’intin’, I d’ ’low, but I reckon we’ll be hearin’ to-morrow as the good noos be true, and ’tis but the War Office what have made a mistake.”
“I dunno, I’m sure,” returned the farmer, heaving a deep sigh. “Them there Boers be a queer lot. I did never hear tell o’ sich folks. They do seem to be here, there, and everywhere, all at once as mid be—poppin’ up jist same as rabbits in warren. Ah,” he cried, delighted with his own simile, and anxious if possible to improve it, “it be jist same as if our troops were a-fightin’ o’ rabbits—rabbits wi’ guns,” he added with a chuckle.
“Well, my son do say as they don’t like the cold steel,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey cautiously. “My son didn’t seem noways afeared on ’em. Says he, when he did last write, says he, ‘I should like a dig at the man what shot me’.”
“Ah, and did he?” said Mr. Joyce much impressed. “Well now, that was a good sayin’. A dig! Haw, haw?” here the farmer came to a standstill in the road to laugh more at his ease. “He’d like to give him a dig, would he?—haw, haw!—I d’ ’low he would. And ’tis but nat’ral, d’ye see, Mrs. Stuckhey,” he continued more seriously as he rolled forward again. “Nobody couldn’t blamethe chap for wishin’ to stick the man as put a bullet in en—they couldn’t, indeed. Ye can’t expect a soldier to turn the other cheek, can ye now? But them Boers be jist same as rabbits—’tis what I do say constant. But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw, haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us? Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey, and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard. We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos soon.”
But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic. To the country at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph, but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey, Riverton’s only soldier.
The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces. Who shall tell how the tidings were first broken to her, the faltering incredulous words she said, her bewildered grief?
A day or two after her home was made desolate Farmer Joyce, standing by his gate, happened to see her returning from the town, accompanied by Mrs. Blanchard, both of them burdened with a multiplicity of small parcels.
“Ah,” he said, greeting her with a groan ofsympathy, “ye’ll ha’ been gettin’ o’ your deep Mrs. Stuckhey.”
“E-es, sir, I did have a few little things to get afore Sunday. There weren’t no sich hurry as usual when there be a death in th’ family—no funeral, you know. Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as there bain’t no funeral! ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything. If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done his last, Mr. Joyce. If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from me in England.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey. They do say as the poor dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad. E-es, they do say so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for en no more nor you can now. I’ve a-been told as there be some graveyards, Mrs. Stuckhey—and not so far away neither—as be just same as rabbit warrens; you wouldn’t never think there was no co’pses in them at all.”
“Dear, now, to think of that!” ejaculated Susan, almost forgetting her grief in her scandalised amazement.
“E-es, indeed, they telled I that. Things mid be worse, ye see. Not but what I do sympathise for ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey. It be a terrible visitation—an’ you a lone woman, and him your only son—I d’ ’low it be a terrible visitation. There bain’t a single person in Riverton village as don’t feel for ’ee.”
“Ah-h-h, ’tis true, sir, ’tis true,” put in Mrs. Blanchard, shaking her head. “There do seem to ha’ comed quite a gloom over the place since the sad noos come. E-es, I may say so, quite a gloom. And us as was all rej’ycin’ such a few days ago about Ladysmith, you know, as weren’t relieved at all. Dear, yes, how well I do mind it. I did say then, didn’t I, Mrs. Stuckhey? as bell sounded just same as if ’twere a-tollin’. Them was my very words, and I did go all shivery down my back and feeled quite nervish. ’Twas a token, I do r’aly believe. There was bell a-tollin’ o’ Wednesday as ’twere Monday poor Joe was killed.”
“Ah, dear, ’tis that what comes most cruel hard of all,” groaned the poor mother. “There was I laughin’ and talkin’ wi’ the rest, and my poor Joe stiff an’ cold.”
“E-es, indeed, Mrs. Stuckhey,” returned the farmer, winking away a tear from his ownkindly eyes, “it do seem hard, I d’ ’low; the ways o’ Providence be oncomprehensible, as the Bible do say. I d’ ’low, this here do seem very providential.”
“I don’t think I’d ha’ minded so much if he’d a-been struck down after they’d won the victory, d’ye see,” went on Susan. “Nay, I could ha’ bore it better—I could have felt as his life weren’t took for nothin’; but to think as he were cut off when they’d only just started as he did tell I in his last letter. That they took en and shot en and ’tweren’t no use.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee say that, Mrs. Stuckhey, don’t ’ee go for to say that.” And Farmer Joyce brought down his fist emphatically on the low wall near which he was standing. “He gave his life for summat, you may depend. ’Twas in doin’ good work as he fell; and that there work ull go on, and ull end well, and your son ull ha’ helped to make it end well. Now, see here, this be the way to look at it. A wall’s a wall, bain’t it?” And he brought down his fist upon the coping again.
Both women, staring blankly at him, acceded to this incontrovertible statement.
“Well, and an army’s an army—ye’ll admit that.”
They admitted it.
“Well, and what be a wall made on? Stones or bricks. This here wall be made o’ stones. And what be an army made on? Men. Do ye take me? There wouldn’t be no wall if there weren’t no stones, and there wouldn’t be no army if there weren’t no men. And more”—raising his voice as he warmed to his subject—“there wouldn’t be no wall if some o’ them stones wasn’t laid underground for the foundations; and there wouldn’t be no army if there wasn’t no fightin’, an’ some o’ the men wasn’t killed. An’ ’tis my belief, Mrs. Stuckhey, as your Joe, what has got killed an’ been put underground, is one o’ the foundations o’ the British army. An’ when that there army marches into Ladysmith, as it be sure to do, your Joe ull ha’ done as much as any man to get it there.”
Poor Susan smiled and wiped her eyes, and held up her head with a sort of pitiful pride.
“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, for them words,” she said. “They be a’most the first bit o’ comfort I’ve a-had.”
“I’m sure Mr. J’yce do speak beautiful,” murmured Mrs. Blanchard admiringly. “There, I never heared the like, not without ’twas out of a noospaper. I’m sure it did ought to comfort ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey.”
“Nay, now, ’tis nothin’ to speak on,” returned Mr. Joyce modestly. “My mind do seem to turn to them parodies easy like. D’ye mind about the rabbits? ‘Rabbits wi’ guns,’ says I. Haw, haw! I can scarce tell how them notions do come to my mind.”
“It be wonderful, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “As I do tell Mrs. Stuckhey, it ought to comfort her, poor soul. Mrs. Stuckhey have just been a-layin’ out five-and-sixpence for something rather partic’lar—haven’t ’ee, my dear? I d’ ’low Mr. J’yce ’ud like to see what you’ve got in that there parcel.”
“He be welcome, I’m sure,” said Susan, wiping her eyes again and sniffing.
She drew from under her cloak a round object carefully enveloped in tissue paper.
“I’d like to show it to ’ee, sir, if I mid make so bold. There, I got me this wi’ a few shillin’ I’d been a-layin’ by for to make a kind o’ little feast for my son when he did come home. I wasn’t never expectin’ as he wouldn’t come home, ye know; there did seem to be so many of ’em a-fightin’.”
Poor mother! while her Joe had lived he had been for her the only soldier; now that he was dead her thoughts dwelt ceaselessly on the vast size of the army of whichhe had formed a part, and it seemed to her strange and hard that while thousands were spared heronehad been stricken down.
While she spoke she had removed the paper wrappers, and now held up to Mr. Joyce’s admiring, yet somewhat doubtful gaze, a large china wreath, such as may frequently be seen in village churchyards, composed of stiff white roses and conventional leaves.
“It be a beauty, Mrs. Stuckhey,” said the farmer hesitatingly. “There, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an ’andsomer one. But I’m wonderin’ how ye mean to manage about it, seein’ as, so to speak, there bain’t no grave—not handy, I mean. There be a grave, as I telled ’ee, and an honoured grave—the grave o’ the British soldier; but it wouldn’t be”—he coughed delicately—“convenient for ’ee to put wreaths on, I’m afeared; nay, I’m afeared it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Lard, no, sir, I wasn’t a-thinkin’ o’ usin’ it for the grave. Even if I was to send it to the War Office I couldn’t trust ’em to put it on for me. And it wouldn’t be no comfort anyhow wi’out I could see it there. Nay, I be a-going to hang this round my son’s likeness; ’twill be a kind of a memory of his grave as I can’t see it.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Joyce, deeply moved.
Poor Susan had begun to weep again, and Mrs. Blanchard was not slow to follow her example. They moved away together, and presently, entering Mrs. Stuckhey’s house, proceeded to hang the wreath over poor Joe’s picture. After much hammering of tacks and knotting of string the task was completed, and the dead soldier’s chubby boyish face greeted all beholders through its white garland.
“’Tis beautiful, I’m sure,” exclaimed Mrs. Blanchard, falling back a little and speaking in a tone of almost awestruck admiration. “The uniform, you know, and the goldy frame, and the white flowers—I never seed anything so handsome.”
“’Tis his due,” said Mrs. Stuckhey, and she was conscious of a return of the glow of pride with which she had, a little time before, listened to the farmer’s allegory, and with that pride came a faint vague sense of comfort: at least her hero was honoured.
The poor must be up and doing; not theirs is the luxury of nursing grief. Though Susan Stuckhey’s heart might be sore, and many hot tears might drop into the suds as she bent over her wash-tub, her clients’ clean clothesmust be sent home. She could not manage, however, to be quite so prompt as usual this particular week, and it chanced that on the Thursday—contrary to all precedent—she was hanging up some of the finer garments on her line to dry, when she was startled by what seemed to be the sound of an explosion.
“They be blastin’ up yonder,” she said to herself, and went on with her task. But the sound was repeated several times, and the neighbours began to come to their doors and to look towards the town, whence the sound proceeded.
“It do seem like firin’,” said Mrs. Blanchard with placid interest.
By-and-bye, a lad came tearing down the lane, waving his hat and shouting.
“’Tis relieved!” he cried. “Ladysmith be relieved! ’Tis true this time. It be wrote up in the town ‘Official noos’. They be firin’ a cannon near the Royal George, and the flags is up, and there’s to be a procession this evenin’, and every one’s goin’ mad for joy!”
Mrs. Stuckhey’s knees shook under her; she dropped the handkerchief which she had been pinning up, and covered her face with her hands.
“There, don’t ’ee take on,” said Mrs.Blanchard, commiseratingly. “Ye’d be like to feel it, I know; dear, yes, ’tis to be expected.”
“Well, now, I should think Mrs. Stuckhey ought to be glad,” said Mrs. Woolridge, surveying the washerwoman critically from her doorstep. “There be mothers’ sons in Ladysmith so well as anywhere else; ah, sure there be. Many a woman’s heart has been a-breakin’ thinkin’ of ’em starvin’ and famishin’ there. ’Twouldn’t bring your son back a bit more if they was to perish o’ hunger. You ought to be glad like the rest of us.”
“I am glad,” gasped poor Susan; and with that she turned, leaving her basket, and went into her house.
Her gaze, blurred though it was with tears, instantly sought Joe’s portrait, and the honest goggle eyes of the picture looked back, as it seemed to her, with infinite sadness.
“Ladysmith is relieved,” they seemed to say; “the victory is won—and I was not there.”
When presently the door creaked slowly open and Mrs. Blanchard entered, moving unwieldily on tip-toe, she found Susan seated by her steaming wash-tub with her apron thrown over her head.
“Don’t ’ee fret, my dear,” she said soothingly.“There isn’t one in the village as don’t sympathise for ’ee; and we do all feel as our own j’y bain’t full, so to speak. There, we do say to ourselves: If our own soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!”
Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her face with her trembling hands. Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and of toil!
“I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause. “’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was shut up over yonder. ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe didn’t have no hand in it.”
Susan jerked down her apron, and her eyes flashed beneath their red and swollen lids.
“Who says he didn’t have no hand in it?” she cried. “He did have a hand in it! Didn’t ’ee hear what Farmer Joyce did say? My son Joe were one o’ the foundations o’ the army.” She rose as she spoke and crossed the kitchen, her small figure dignified, even majestic.
She fumbled in the old-fashioned chest of drawers and drew forth a paper packet.Returning, she laid it upon the table, casting, as she did so, a glance at once severe and resolute upon the astonished Mrs. Blanchard; then, taking her sweeping-brush from behind the door, she proceeded with much deliberation to knock off its head.
“In the name o’ fortun’, Susan Stuckhey,” ejaculated her friend, “what be you a-goin’ to do?”
“You’ll see for yourself in a minute,” returned Susan; and, armed with the broom-handle and the little parcel, she went upstairs.
Mrs. Blanchard went out, backing away from the house, and fixing her eyes wonderingly, almost incredulously, on Susan’s upper window. Following the direction of her glance, Mrs. Woolridge and a few other women who had meanwhile gathered together gazed also expectantly upwards. Presently the latticed casement was thrown open and a sudden gleam of blue and scarlet fluttered over their heads.
“Bless me, woman, whatever are you at?” cried Mrs. Woolridge in shocked and horrified tones. “Ye don’t mean to say as you can have the heart—”
Susan’s resolute face looked forth a moment above her waving banner.
“I be a-doin’ what my son Joe did tell I todo. I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
And when, later in the day, the town band paraded gaily through the village with a large following of enthusiastic patriots dancing, shouting, singing, the little mother strove valiantly to fulfil the second part of poor Joe’s behest—to give the three cheers for which he had called. But though she ran to her gate when the crowd first came in sight, and waved her arm above her head, only a strangled sob broke from her when she strove to raise her voice. But at sight of the small figure in its mourning dress, the little cotton Union Jack waving gallantly from the upper window of the dead soldier’s home, a sudden hush fell upon the musicians and their followers, and they passed the house in silence with bared heads and reverent tread.
And perhaps this tribute of respect was paid less to the emblem of their country’s greatness, less even to the memory of the poor young hero who had laid down his life for its sake, than to the brave little woman who stood unflinchingly at her post, and who felt her heart beat high with sacred triumph though the tears were raining down her face.
“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
Itwas evening; most of the inhabitants of the old-world village were standing about their doorways, and a few of the more energetic were at work in their tiny patches of garden. It was noticeable that those among the men who had not betaken themselves to the allotments leaned in lordly fashion against their door-posts or lolled over the garden hedge, deeming, no doubt, that they had already borne their share of the burden of the day, and that such trifling supplementary labour as watering cabbages or tying up carnations might well be left to the women-folk.
Mrs. Fripp seemed to accept this state of things without protest. She was a stout woman, and the weather was warm. She had been busy all day at her wash-tub, and she groaned as she bent her bulky person over the flowers that would keep slipping away from her large, moist fingers just as she had deemed they were secure.
“Drat it!” she murmured under her breath, as a beautiful bloom slid from its stick for the fourth time.
“They be ticklish things,” observed Mr. Fripp from his station in the doorway, without taking the trouble to remove his pipe, and speaking in consequence somewhat indistinctly. “Ah, they be ticklish things. They d’ take a dale o’ patience.”
“That they do!” agreed his spouse heartily, standing upright, and straightening her broad back. She looked half absently up and down the sloping village street, which lay deep in shadow, save at the uppermost end, where the gables of the thatched houses were bathed in the evening glow, the light falling full upon the whitewashed chimney-stack of the little hostelry known as the “Pure Drop,” and creeping downwards along the irregular line of roofs until it terminated abruptly just where Mrs. Fripp’s wash-house jutted out into the street. Seen thus at this mystic hour there was much beauty about the little hamlet, which, indeed, at any time had a quaint charm of its own. The eaves of many of the roofs sloped downwards at certain points almost to the ground, overhanging here a mullioned window, and bulging out thereinto a minute and fantastically shaped gable. Creepers clung close to the whitewashed walls, hollyhocks stood in many a homely garden with the stateliness they might better have assumed in the pleasaunce of a queen; pigeons bowed and cooed on the sunlit apex of russet roof or golden stack; children played about the doorsteps or made pies of the dust in the road.
But Mrs. Fripp gazed on these things indifferently, her glance having fixed itself on a tall, angular woman’s figure which was at that moment travelling slowly towards her.
“’Tis never Mrs. Adlam steppin’ this way—come to look after Susan, I d’ ’low. Them two girls hey been gossipin’ in there this hour an’ more.”
“It’ll be about Tom Locke, I’ll warrant, that they’re a-talkin’,” agreed her lord, the black pipe wagging with every word, and being sucked at the conclusion of the sentence with evident relish. “Aye, aye; maids will get talkin’ about sweethearts an’ that. ’Tis naitral at their age, an’ this accident o’ pore Tom’s is oncommon onfart’nate. Good-day, Mrs. Adlam, ’tis powerful warm, ’tis, surely.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Mrs. Adlam hurriedly and abstractedly. “Good-day to ye, Mr. Fripp. Is Susan within?”
“Aye,” said Mr. Fripp, without moving his form from the door-post, “she’s sittin’ a bit wi’ our Lizzie. Our maid’s jest foldin’ a few clothes for her mother to iron to-morrow, an’ Susan’s sittin’ wi’ her.”
“Ah, neighbour, your Lizzie’s wonderful handy, they say,” responded Mrs. Adlam—without enthusiasm, however. “Now, my maid’s that delicate an’ nervous like, she’s no use at all at home, I may say. I’ve had to have doctor to her times an’ times, but ’tis no manner o’ use. She can’t do many things for herself, pore maid; an’ she can scarce abear to see me a-doin’ of ’em. ’Tis a nesh flower, neighbours. Why, she d’ run out o’ the room when I put our bit o’ beef of a Sunday to the fire, an’ she d’ very near faint if I go for to skin a rabbit.”
“Well, to think on’t!” said Mr. and Mrs. Fripp together, commiseratingly, but admiringly, too. Such a constitution as Susan’s was felt to be a credit to any village.
“Ah, ’tis a nesh flower,” repeated the mother with a kind of fretful triumph. “Laist time Doctor Richmond come I explained to him as well as I could how she be took, an’ I says to him: ‘Could you tell me, sir,’ says I, ‘what ’tis as ails my daughter?’ An’ he looksat me so earnest as he could, an’ he said ’twas—oh, a terrible long name—it always slips my mind, but it’s awful long. Wait a bit; I’ll have it in a minute. Ye mind that climbin’ tree as runs round the corner o’ the ‘Pure Drop’? It do have blue blossoms in the spring-time, hangin’ down summat o’ the natur o’ laburnum. You know, Mrs. Fripp—so fond of flowers as you be.”
“Aye, we had wan at my father’s place—he was gardener, ye know—I d’ call it to mind, now. Westonia, that’s what it be called. Nay, now; westeria—that’s it.”
“Ah, that’s it,” agreed Mrs. Adlam; adding, with impressive solemnity, “Well, that’s what’s the matter wi’ my Susan.”
“Very like,” assented Mrs. Fripp, who was an imaginative woman. “’Tis but a pore nesh thing, that creeper—never has no leaves till ’tis well-nigh done flowerin’.”
“Such fancies as she d’ take even in the way o’ courtin’,” resumed Mrs. Adlam. “Says she to me once: ‘Mother,’ says she, ‘don’t you count on me ever gettin’ wed, for I assure ye I abhor mankind.’”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mr. Fripp, much startled and infinitely scandalised. “’Twas an unnait’ral thing for a maid to say, sure. Neverheard o’ such a thing. I be sorry for ye, Mrs. Adlam, that I be.”
“She takes them notions out o’ the books that she d’ read when she be porely,” returned the mother, apologetically. “Ah, that’s where she gets ’em; but I do assure you, neighbours, them was her very words. I don’t notice her no more than if she was a child. I did think a few months ago, in spite of all, that she’d be gettin’ settled so comfortable as she could be. Tom Locke ’s a good, studdy young chap, earnin’ a good bit, now. He’ll be havin’ the farm, too, when his father dies. But the maid is so upset about that accident, I don’t know whatever to do wi’ her. I thought she’d get over the feelin’ about his losin’ that eye; but it laisses so strong as ever. He came to our place this evenin’, an’ she did jump up an’ run straight away here. He’ve a-been waitin’ an’ waitin’, pore young man, but at laist he gets up, an’ says he: ‘I’ll go, Mrs. Adlam. Will ’ee tell Susan that if she wants to see me again, she can meet me up the lane at the wold place on Sunday?’”
“Well,” said Mrs. Fripp, gazing thoughtfully up the street again, and then suffering her glance to revert to Mrs. Adlam’s lean, anxious face, “’tis terrible hard for ’ee, ’tisindeed. I’m sorry for pore Tom, yet ’tis an awk’ard thing for a girl to wed wi’ a man as has but one eye. An’ Susan being so bashful an’ tewly seems to make it worse. Does he look terrible bad, Mrs. Adlam?”
Mrs. Adlam considered. “One side looks much the same as ever,” she said. “Aye, one eye’s jest like it always was, but t’other side”—She paused. “Well, there’s no eye at all t’other side.”
“Doctor took it out, did he?” inquired Fripp, deeply interested. “Well, Mrs. Adlam, ’tisn’t so bad but it mid have been worse—we must comfort ourselves so well as we can. If keeper hadn’t been by, an’ hadn’t out wi’s knife, same as he did, an’ took shots out o’ Tom’s eye at once, he’d very like have lost t’other one. As I say, it mid ha’ been worse.”
“Tom said jest now as doctor thought keeper’d ha’ done better to ha’ left his eye alone,” sighed Mrs. Adlam. “But there’s no tellin’—doctors is jealous folk; they can’t abear a body to do a thing for theirselves. Why, laist winter when I had the inflammation, an’ made mysel’ a drop o’ gruel wi’ rum in it to strengthen me a bit, Doctor Richmond was that vexed! Well, I must be goin’. Will ’ee call my maid, Mr. Fripp?”
The good man complied. Screwing his person a little sideways round the door-post, and turning his head over his shoulder, he bellowed forth, first the name of his own daughter and then that of Mrs. Adlam’s, at intervals of about a quarter of a minute, until there was a hasty banging of doors in the back premises, a patter of feet across the kitchen, and the two girls appeared simultaneously on the threshold. Susan Adlam, tall, fair, and blue-eyed, with the complexion of a rose-leaf, and hands so white that they told their own tale of selfishness and incapacity; Lizzie Fripp, dark, with a brown merry face, and a squat sturdy form. With a little more height and a little less breadth she might have been pretty.
“Oh, ’tis you, Mother,” said Susan, with a bashful wriggle. “Is Tom gone? I’m sure I hope he is. Don’t ask me to go home if he’s there, for I couldn’t abear to see en.”
Mrs. Adlam cast up her eyes to heaven, and then looked round with a certain melancholy pride.
“No, no! Come along, my dear, he’s gone; an’ I was to say if ye wanted to spaik to en again you was to meet en at the wold place o’ Sunday.”
“Idon’t want to see en again,” said Susan tossing her head.
“For shame!” cried little Lizzie. “I wonder at ye, Susan. The pore chap’ll break his ’eart. An’ what’s an eye, after all? ’Tisn’t real needful to a man—not like as if it was an arm now, so as he couldn’t work for ’ee, or a leg, so as he’d have to have a wooden un, an’ gopeggety-pegup church. Nay, now, there’d be raison if ’twas an arm or a leg—but a body can see as well wi’ one eye as wi’ two.”
“Hark to the maid!” cried Mr. Fripp, with a great roar of laughter. “She d’ spaik like print. Well done, little un!”
“Well, I’m not fond of one-eyed folks if you be,” cried Susan sarcastically. “I’d not have a man without two eyes, not if I was to bide single all my life. I’d as lief be single as not—I’ve no fancy for wedlock.”
“Dear, dear,” said Fripp, “’tis terrible to hear how onraisonable the pore maid d’ talk! Take her home, do, Mrs. Adlam, an’ make her lay down.”
“Come along then, Susan,” cried Mrs. Adlam with an air of chastened dignity; “come along, else you’ll be havin’ the westeria again.”
“Nay, now, Mother, ’tisheasteriaye mean.Doctor said plain as the name of it was heasteria.”
“Lard, child, heast or west, ’tis all one. You come home wi’ me, do ’ee now, else you’ll be laid up.”
She drew one of the pretty white hands through her own bony arm and led her daughter gently away, supporting her with increasing solicitude, as the girl, conscious of attracting universal attention, began to limp and to stagger in the most interesting manner.
“Pore thing!” murmured Fripp commiseratingly. “She d’ seem to be falterin’. I d’ ’low ’tis a terrible visitation for Mrs. Adlam, ’tis surely. Well, Mother, let us give thanks where thanks be due. Lizzie, here, is a good set off to t’other one.”
“She’d better be,” retorted Mrs. Fripp, speaking loudly and decisively for Lizzie’s benefit. “I’d have no patience wi’ such goin’s on. I’d take a bit o’ broom-end to her instead o’ the doctor if I were Mrs. Adlam.”
“Well said!” chimed in a red-faced matron from the other side of the hedge. “It never does no good to spile childer. Says I to mine soon’s ever they grow up: ‘Now,’ I says, ‘I’ve gi’ed ye a good educassion, and now yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ I says.”
Though the education which the good lady in question had bestowed upon her progeny was known to be of a somewhat questionable order, and though the said progeny were by no means considered creditable to the community at large, the theory was so sound in itself that the Fripps agreed heartily; and the sentiment was endorsed by the village policeman, who for the last few minutes had been listening unobserved to the discussion.
“Ah,” he said, “that’s what I call straightfor’ard. ‘Yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ says you. If Susan Adlam had nothing to put into her mouth but what her ’ands got for her she’d starve, pore young craiture. But tis a very foolish business about Tom Locke. The young man’s a fine young man, doin’ well, an’ like to do better—an eye more nor less doesn’t alter his being a wonderful good match for the girl. But if she’s so set on his havin’ a pair, why doesn’t he get a mock un put in?”
“A mock eye!” exclaimed Mrs. Fripp in amazement. “My stars! I never heard tell o’ such a thing. You be jokin’ surely, policeman.”
“Nay, not I indeed. I knowed a man livin’ out Tipton way as lost his eye on account o’ a bit o’ blasted rock goin’ into it; an’ he wentto Bristol an’ come back wi’ a beautiful new un—ye’d scarce know it from his own, only it were a deal handsomer.”
“D— my eyes!” murmured Mr. Fripp, not with any intentional profanity, but because the expletive seemed peculiarly adapted to the circumstances.
“Ah, I knowed him well. Many a time he’s took out the glass eye to let me see it. ’Twas a wonderful invention, an’ it cost I believe a sight o’ money. He didn’t wear it every day, but he allus put it in o’ market-days an’ Sundays. Ah, ’twas a curious thing to see en o’ Sundays, lookin’ at parson so wide-awake wi’ the glass eye, while t’other maybe was as drowsy as yours or mine mid be.”
“Well I never!” murmured Mrs. Fripp. “Somebody ought to tell young Locke about it,” she added, as an afterthought.
“’Tisn’t exactly the kind o’ subject a body ’ud think o’ namin’ to the pore man,” said the policeman, who was a person of refined feelings. “To say ‘Good-day to ye, an’ why don’t ye get a glass eye?’ ’ud seem a bit strange. Well, neighbours, I must be movin’ on. ’Tis a pity for the pore chap; but we must feel grateful for him as Providence didn’t see fit to try en no worse.”
On the next Sunday afternoon, after Lizzie had cleared away the dinner things, and fed the chickens, and scrubbed the faces of her little brothers and sisters previous to their departure for Sunday School, she donned her white straw hat, with its big red rose nodding triumphantly from a commanding position just over the centre of her forehead, pinned a posy of carnations and jasmine and southern-wood in the bosom of her blue dress, drew a new pair of cotton gloves over her plump hands, and sallied forth up the street to call on Susan.
She found Mrs. Adlam with her Sunday gown pinned back over a striped petticoat, her sleeves rolled up as high as Sunday sleeves would go, and a further protection against possible accidents in the shape of a large-bibbed apron shrouding the remainder of her Sabbath glories, hard at work washing up.
“Good-day, Mrs. Adlam. I jest called round to see how Susan mid be.”
“Good-day, Lizzie. Susan’s very bad, thank ye. She’s layin’ on her bed upstairs. Step up if you like.”
Lizzie stepped up, and found her friend reclining outside her patchwork quilt, absorbed in the perusal of a “penny dreadful” of the most thrilling type. Lizzie approached thebed, clumping sturdily with her well-polished best boots.
“Bain’t ye agoin’ to see pore Tom?” she inquired, without wasting time on preliminaries.
Susan looked up, startled: she had just got to that point in the narrative when the heroine, drawing herself up to her full height, informed the villain that she would be sooner clasped by a serpent than permit herself to be degraded by his embrace.
“What? No, I’m not going to see Tom Locke. My nerves is much too upset. Ye did give me a jump comin’ in that way, Lizzie.”
“He’ll be waiting up there for you to spaik to en.”
“Well, ’tisn’t my fault if he do. I never axed en to. I’m real fainty an’ porely to-day, Lizzie; couldn’t so much as go to church. Sit down, an’ let’s talk a bit. I seed yer father lookin’ arter me t’other night; I was walkin’ so queer, wasn’t I? I expect he thought I was lookin’ real bad.”
“No, I’ll not sit down,” said Lizzie. She planted her umbrella on the floor, and stared at the other girl for a moment without speaking.
“If he was to get another eye would ye look at en then?” she remarked at length, abruptly. “A mock un, I mane. They can be had easy, Policeman Blanchard says. No good to see out of, ye know, but jest to look at.”
“Oh, Lizzie, what a tale! He was makin’ fun o’ you.”
“No, he wasn’t. ’Twas to father he said it. He said he knowed a man Tipton way as had un—rale ’andsome—’andsomer nor his own. He wore it Sundays an’ ’olidays, an’ took it out week days for fear o’ accidents.”
“Well,” said Susan, consideringly, “if Tom were to get un perhaps I could forget it were a mock un; but he’d have to wear it always, that he would, else I couldn’t make believe ’twere real.”
“Well, I’ll go an’ tell en that. If he gets a real nice one ye’ll think on’t, won’t ye, Susan?”
“I dunno; I’ll see,” said Susan provisionally.
Lizzie marched towards the door without another word.
“’Tis a funny notion, though, yer takin’ it up like that,” cried Susan, suddenly awaking to the fact. “Be ye really goin’ to en now?”
“Yes, I be,” replied Lizzie, without turning her head; and down the stairs clattered she, and out into the air.
Leaving the village behind she ascended a steep, stony path, which led across a curious and antiquated bridge, and presently found herself in a shady lane bordered on both sides by high banks, where the hedgerows had long escaped all control of man, and grew in a wild and most picturesque tangle. Here thorn and gorse and wild apple crowded upon each other; golden maple was thrown into relief by the sturdier green of the elder; there the clustering berries of a guelder-rose, already turning red, made a wondrous patch of colour, while the tiny, soft-shelled hazel nuts shone out from the deep green leaves like pearls; over all the traveller’s-joy had flung its wealth of delicate blossom and clinging tendril, now swinging proudly from the topmost bough of a tall sapling, now creeping low amidst the brambles and the bracken. A yellow-hammer called to a brother occasionally from some swaying twig; little speckled half-fledged robins hopped along the path in front of Lizzie, taking occasional short flights when she came inconveniently near, but returning to peer up at her with large, yellow-rimmed, curious eyes.
Lizzie noticed none of these things. Had she had a mind to gaze upon the beautiesof the prospect, she would have peered through the gaps in the green ramparts down to the plain, and away past the cultivated fields and the silver windings of the river to the distant roofs and chimney-stacks of the market town. One could obtain a beautiful view of the new brewery from here; the brickwork looked as red as red, and one could see the smoke rising from the great chimney. Ah, that was a view worth looking at; so all the villagers said, and Lizzie agreed with them.
But to-day she stared straight in front of her, with eyes as round and curious as those of the robins themselves; eyes which had, moreover, an alarmed expression entirely lacking to those of the bold, sociable little birds in question. Her heart was beginning to beat rather fast, and she was conscious of increasing trepidation as she drew near the trysting-place.
At a turn of the lane she could see a pair of long legs thrust out from a recess in the bank; then a hand idly brandishing a stick; at length a head moving amid the clustering leaves. When the rapidclump,clumpof her thick-soled boots reached his ears, the man rose quickly and came towards her. A tall, loose-limbed, young fellow, with a fringe of dark beard and whisker round his brown face; his hat waspulled rather forward over his brows, and his one remaining eye looked eagerly and anxiously towards the approaching figure.
One glance told him that the sturdy form was not that of his sweetheart, and he turned away, whistling to himself to hide his disappointment, and swishing absently at the wayside grasses. He expected the rapid steps to pass on; but, to his surprise, they slackened as they drew near, and then abruptly ceased.
“Good-day to ’ee, Mr. Locke.”
“Ah,” said Locke, “it’s Lizzie Fripp. Good-day, Lizzie, good-day.”
He turned unwillingly as he spoke. Though not by nature a sensitive man, he felt a little diffident as to the impression which his new disfigurement was likely to create when first beheld by a stranger.
“Ye be waitin’ for Susan?” said Lizzie, staring hard for a moment and then averting her eyes. “She’s—she’s not able to come to-day.”
“I thought as much,” said Tom gloomily. “I’ve been sittin’ here two hour an’ more. Did she send ye to me?” he added suddenly.
“No, I came myself. I wanted to tell ’ee somethin’, Mr. Locke,” blurted out Lizzie tremulously. “I d’ ’low that if you was toget a glass eye Susan ’ud love you jest the same as ever.”
A dark flush overspread the young farmer’s face, and a flash of anger appeared in his solitary orb.
“Did she tell ’ee to say this?” he asked, after a pause.
“Nay now, nay now, don’t ’ee take on so, Mr. Locke. They was all talkin’ about it in the village laist night; an’ Policeman Blanchard said he knowed a man as had one that could be took in an’ out quite handy, an’ it looked jest the same as t’other, only ’andsomer. An’ I axed Susan if ye was to get one would she walk with ’ee again, an’ she seemed to take to the notion; so I thought I’d jest run here an’ tell ’ee.”
“Did ye?” said Tom. “That was very well done, Lizzie.”
“Well, I thought ’twas but kind,” said Lizzie modestly. “Susan, ye see, has a terrible delicate constitootion, an’ takes things to ’eart. Why, she could scarce so much as walk home from our place laist night.”
“Couldn’t she?” returned Locke sardonically. “She run fast enough out o’ my way—I know that. Aye, she showed as clean a pair o’ heels as a maid need wish to. An’so she said she’d take to me again if I was to get a glass eye, did she?”
“She said she’d think on’t,” returned the girl cautiously.
Tom took off his hat and bent down till his face was nearly on a level with Lizzie’s.
“Look here, Lizzie Fripp,” he said authoritatively; “you be a trewth-tellin’ maid, an’ ye’ll gi’e me a straightfor’ard answer. Tell me plain! I was reckoned a fairish good-lookin’ chap till now, but this accident has spiled my looks for me. Tell me the trewth. Am I such an object that any maid would run away from me, or is it jest Susan that’s extra pertic’lar?”
Lizzie raised her honest brown eyes and gazed at him steadily.
“You’re not an object, Mr. Locke,” she said thoughtfully. “Dear no, not at all an object. I think a body ’ud soon get used to—to one side bein’ a little different from t’other. But some maids takes notions, ye see. My mother said she never could abide red hair. If father’d hev been a red-haired man she’d never ha’ married him. NowIthink ’tis much the same as any other colour.”
Tom slowly straightened himself. A smile was hovering about his mouth.
“You think I’d look better with a glass eye?” he inquired.
“Well,” returned Lizzie dispassionately, “I think it ’ud be very nice for Sundays, Mr. Locke. Sundays an’ market-days, or when ye was goin’ for a drive in the trap, or such like.”
“I see,” said Tom, meditatively stroking his beard. “P’r’aps I’ll talk to doctor about it.”
“Oh, do,” she urged eagerly. “I d’ ’low Susan ’ll be real pleased.”
“Ah!” said Tom. “Be ye goin’ home now, Lizzie?”
“Yes. I only came this way to see you.”
“Oh, an’ did ye? Well, ’twas very kindly done of you. Come, I’ll walk a piece of the way with you.”
He walked a piece of the way—indeed, he walked all the way; and Lizzie thought within herself, as they trudged along, that if any stranger met them who did not know them, he might have taken them for sweethearts; for they walked in almost unbroken silence, just as courting people did, and Tom kept very close to her, and when they came to a rough piece of road he supported her by the elbow, just as he might have done if she had been Susan.
That young lady happened to be leaning languidly against her door-post when the couple drew near. She had been looking up the road as though expecting somebody, and at sight of Tom uttered a faint shriek and rushed into the house, closing the door.
“Pore Susan!” cried Lizzie commiseratingly. “It has given her a turn to see you.”
Locke made no reply, but, after a moment, coming to the precipitous descent which led downwards from the bridge, he supported Lizzie very kindly, and was indeed good enough at one particularly stony bit to encircle her waist with his arm. They parted at the Adlams’ door, and Lizzie tripped joyfully upstairs.
“It’s all right,” she cried gaily. “He’s promised to see about gettin’ a new eye, Susan.”
Miss Adlam turned abruptly away from the window where she chanced to be standing, and cast a suspicious glance upon her friend.
“What was Tom Locke’s arm doin’ round your waist?” she inquired.
“Why, the path was so steep,” explained Lizzie, opening her eyes very wide. “What’s the matter, Susan? Bain’t ye so well this evenin’?”
For Susan was making an odd sort of gulping noise.
“Ye sly thing!” she burst out suddenly. “Lard! I wouldn’t be so treecherous—that I wouldn’t; running after en afore my very eyes. Get along with ’ee, do. I’ll have nothin’ more to say to ’ee.”
Lizzie stared for a moment, thunderstruck, her usually rosy face turning quite pale, and tears presently rushing to her eyes.
“Well, Susan,” she said, as soon as she had recovered her breath, “I didn’t think it of ’ee to turn on me so sudden. I never did nothin’ but what was for yer good. I thought it ’ud plaze ye. But there, you can manage en for yourself now. I don’t care if Tom Locke doesn’t get no new eye at all.”
She hurried from the room, leaving Susan convulsively choking and sobbing.
“Dear heart! dear heart! she’s took wi’ the westeria again,” groaned Mrs. Adlam, as she went creaking up the stairs.
But little Lizzie made no response. Her cheeks were red enough now, and she metaphorically shook the dust of the Adlam premises from her feet as she closed the garden gate behind her.
She kept religiously away from her formerfriend throughout the week, but when Sunday came round that young lady actually condescended to pay her a visit. Susan arrived attired in white, with a wreath of daisies round her hat, and a great bunch of monthly roses in her waistband; the coils of her fair hair shone like gold in the sunlight—she was a harmony of white and pink and yellow, very pleasant to behold, particularly as her face was flushed with unwonted excitement, and her eyes were bright and eager.
Lizzie received her in the orchard, where she was feeding the chickens. She was not yet dressed for the afternoon, it being her mother’s turn to go to church, and various household duties falling in consequence to her share to-day; but she had put on the clean print which was to serve her throughout the coming week, and a big white apron over that. Her curly brown hair was plaited very neatly, and her sleeves rolled up high on her firm plump arms. The sun glanced down through the heavily laden apple boughs upon her active little figure as she flitted from one hen-coop to another dispensing handfuls of yellow meal to the half-fledged chickens that ran in and out between the bars; her bright tin bucket glittered in the rays, and the little brown tendrils on her forehead danced up and down with the rapidity of her movements.