Jonas found that old Clutch was not lavishing endearments on the gray mare over the intervening partition of stalls, but was lying down on the straw. Nothing said or done would induce the horse to rise, and the hostler told Bideabout that he believed the beast was really lame. It had been overworked at its advanced age, and must be afforded rest.
"He's a Radical," said the Broom-Squire. "You move that gray into another stable and Clutch will forget about his lameness, I dare swear. He's twenty-five and has a liquorish eye, still—it's shameful."
Bideabout was constrained to walk from Godalming to the Punch-Bowl, and this did not serve to mend his humor. He reached home late at night, when the basin was full of darkness, and the only light that showed came from the chamber where Mehetabel sat with her baby.
When Jonas entered, he saw by the rushlight that she was not undressed, and heard by her voice that she was anxious.
"The baby is very unwell, Jonas," she said, and extending her hand, lit a tallow candle at the meagre flame of the rushlight.
As the wick flared, so did something flare up in the face of theBroom-Squire.
"Why do you look like that?" asked Mehetabel, for the look did not escape her.
"Main't I look as I choose?" he inquired surlily.
"It almost seemed as if you were glad to hear that my poor darling is ill," complained she.
"Ain't I glad to be home after bein' abroad all day a-wackin', and abusin' of old Clutch, and then had to walk from Gorlmyn (Godalming), and the aggravation of knowin' how as the hoss be shakin' his sides laughin' at me for doin of it. Wot's up with the kid?"
"I really cannot tell, Jonas; he's been restless and moaning all day. I have not been able to get him to sleep, and I am sure he has had one or two fits. He became white and stiff. I thought he'd a-died, and then my heartstrings were like breaking."
"Oh, drat your heartstrings, I don't care to hear of them. So, you thort he was dyin'. Perhaps he may. More wun'erful things happen than that. It's the way of half the babies as is born."
"It will kill me if mine is taken from me!" cried Mehetabel, and cast herself on her knees and embraced the cradle, regardless of the sprigs of spiked leaves she had stuck round it, and burst into an agony of tears.
"Now look here," said Jonas; "I've been tried enough wi' old Clutch to-day, and I don't want to be worreted at night wi' you. Let the baby sleep if it is sleepin', and get me my vittles. There's others to attend to in the world than squawlin' brats. It's spoilin' the child you are. That's what is the meanin' of its goings-on. Leave it alone, and take no notice, and it'll find out quick enough that squeals don't pay. I want my supper. Go after the vittles."
Mehetabel lay in her clothes that night. The child continued to be restless and fretted. Jonas was angry. If he was out all day he expected to rest well at night; and she carried the cradle in her arms into the spare room, where the peevishness of the child, and the rocking and her lullaby could not disturb her husband. As she bore the cradle, the sprigs of butcher's broom and withered chrysanthemums fell and strewed her path, leaving behind her a trail of dying flowers, and of piercing thorns, and berries like blood-drops. No word of sympathy had the Broom-Squire uttered; no token had he shown that he regarded her woes and was solicitous for the welfare of his child. Mehetabel asked for neither. She had learned to expect nothing from him, and she had ceased to demand of him what he was incapable of giving, or unwilling to show.
Next morning Mehetabel was prompt to prepare breakfast for her husband. The day was fine, but the light streaming in through the window served to show how jaded she was with long watching, with constant attention, and with harrowing care.
Always punctilious to be neat, she had smoothed her hair, tidied her dress, and washed the tears from her face, but she could not give brightness to the dulled eye or bloom to the worn cheek.
For a while the child was quiet, stupefied with weariness and long crying. By the early light Mehetabel had studied the little face, hungering after tokens of recovering powers, glad that the drawn features were relaxed temporarily.
"Where are you going to-day, Bideabout?" she asked, timidly, expecting a rebuff.
"Why do you ask?' was his churlish answer.
"Because—oh! if I might have a doctor for baby!"
"A doctor!" he retorted. "Are we princes and princesses, that we can afford that? There's no doctor nigher than Hazelmere, and I ain't goin' there. I suppose cos you wos given the name of a Duchess of Edom, you've got these expensive ideas in your head. Wot's the good of doctors to babies? Babies can't say what ails them."
"If—if—" began Mehetabel, kindly, "if I might have a doctor, and pay for it out of that fifteen pound that father let me have."
"That fifteen pound ain't no longer yours. And this be fine game,throwin' money away on doctors when we're on the brink of ruin.Don't you know as how the bank has failed, and all my money gone?The fifteen pound is gone with the rest."
"If you had but allowed me to keep it, it would not have been lost now," said Mehetabel.
"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively, "but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like—and get a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown, and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and water, as they gives us."
Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed lids blue.
There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than a walk.
Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her trouble had long ago been quenched.
When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family, dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her treasure and laid it on her knees—the child was now quiet, through exhaustion.
"I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has been overlooked—ill-wished."
Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror.
"That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall. "Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast an evil eye on it."
The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind.
"Who has done it?" she asked below her breath.
"That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one who doesn't love the babe, that's sure."
"A man or a woman?"
Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant.
"A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left han' side."
Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless infant, now on her lap.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the child—though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone, and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it."
"I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the weather is too cold, baby too ill."
Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she sobbed forth—
"A little fish swims in the well.So in my heart does baby dwell,The king has sceptre, crown and ball,You are my sceptre, crown and all."
She went home sobbing, and hugging her child, holding it away from the house of Sarah Rocliffe, lest that woman might be looking forth at her window, and deepen by her glance the spell that held and broke down her child.
Towards evening fall Jonas returned.
Directly he crossed the threshold, with palpitating eagernessMehetabel asked—
"Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes," he answered curtly.
"What did he say?"
"He'd got a pass'l o' learned names of maladies—I can't recollect them all. Tain't like as I should."
"But—did he give you any medicine?"
"Yes, I had to pay for it too."
"Oh, Jonas, do give it me, and tell me, are you quite sure you explained to him exactly what ailed baby?"
"I reckon I did."
"And the bottle, Jonas?"
"Don't be in such a won'erful hurry. I've other things to do than get that put yet. How is the child?"
"Rather better."
"Better!" he echoed, and Mehetabel, who looked intently in his face, saw no sign of satisfaction, rather of disappointment.
"Oh, Jonas!" she cried, "is it naught to you that baby is so ill?You surely don't want him to die?"
He turned fiercely on her, his face hard and gray, and his teeth shining—
"What makes you say that—you?"
"Oh, nothin', Jonas, only you don't seem to care a bit about baby, and rather to have a delight in his bein' so ill."
"He's better, you say?"
"Yes—I really do think it."
There was an unpleasant expression in his face that frightened her.Was it the eye of Jonas that had blighted the child? But no—KaronBoxall had said that it was ill-wished by a woman. Jonas left theroom, ascended the stairs, and strode about in the chamber overhead.
Swaying in her chair, holding the infant to her heart, the sole heart that loved it, but loved it with a love ineffable, she heard her husband open the window, and then hastily shut it again. Then there was a pause in his movement overhead, and he came shortly after down the stairs. He held a phial in his hand—and without looking at Mehetabel, thrust it towards her, with the curt injunction, "Take."
"Perhaps," said the young mother, "as my darling is better, I need not give him the medicine."
"That's just like your ways," exclaimed the Broom-Squire, savagely. "Fust I get no rest till I promise to go to the doctor, and then when I've put myself about to go, and bring the bottle as has cost me half-a-crown, you won't have it."
"Indeed—it is only——"
"Oh, yes—only—to annoy me. The child is ill. I told the doctor all, and he said, that this would set it to rights and give it sleep, and rest to all of us." He was in a bad temper. Mehetabel did not venture to say more. She took the phial and placed it on the table. It was not wrapped up in paper.
Then Jonas hastily went forth. He had old Clutch to attend to.
Mehetabel remained alone, and looked at the medicine bottle; then she laid the infant on her knees and studied the little face, so blanched with dark rings round the eyes. The tiny hands were drawn up on the breast and clasped; she unfolded and kissed them.
Then she looked again at the phial.
There was something strange about it. The contents did not appear to have been well mixed, the upper portion of the fluid was dark, the lower portion white. How came this about? Jonas had ridden old Clutch home, and the movements of the horse were not smooth. The bottle in the pocket of Bideabout must have undergone such shaking as would have made the fluid contents homogeneous and of one hue. She held the bottle between herself and the light. There was no doubt about it, either the liquid separated rapidly, or had never been mixed.
She withdrew the cork and applied the mouth of the phial to her nose.
The scent of the medicine was familiar. It was peculiar. When had she smelt that odor before. Then she started. She remembered the little bottle containing laudanum, with the death's head on it, in the closet upstairs.
Hastily, her heart beating with apprehension, she laid her babe in the cradle, and taking the light, mounted to the upper chamber. She possessed the key of the cabinet in the wall. She had retained it because afraid to give it up, and Jonas had manufactured for himself a fresh key.
Now she unlocked the closet, and at once discovered the laudanum bottle.
It was half empty.
Some of it had been used.
How had it been used? Of that she had little doubt. The dangerous, sleep-bringing laudanum had been put into the medicine for the child. It was to make room for that that Jonas had opened the window and poured forth some of the contents.
A drop still hung on the top of the phial.
She shut and relocked the cupboard, descended, with dismay, despair in her heart, and taking the bottle from the table, dashed it into the fire upon the hearth. Then she caught her babe to her, and through floods of tears, sobbed: "There is none love thee but I—but I—but only I! O, my babe, my babe! My sceptre, crown, and all!"
In the blinding rain of tears, in the tumult of passion that obscured her eyes, that confused her brain, Mehetabel saw, heard nothing. She had but one sense—that of feeling, that thrilled through one fibre only attached to the helpless, suffering morsel in her arms—the infant she held to her breast, and which she would have liked to bury in her heart away from all danger, concealed from the malevolent eye, and the murderous hand.
All the mother's nature in her was roused and flared into madness. She alone loved this little creature, she alone stood between it and destruction. She would fight for it, defend it to her last breath, with every weapon wherewith she was endowed by nature.
After the first paroxysm of passion was passed, and a lull of exhaustion ensued, she looked up, and saw Bideabout enter, and as he entered he cast a furtive glance at the table, then at the child.
In a moment she resolved on the course she should adopt.
"Have you given the babe the draught?" he asked, with averted face.
"Not all."
"Of course, not all."
"Will it make baby sleep?" asked Mehetabel.
"O, sleep—sleep! yes—we shall have rest for one night—for many,I trust. O, do not doubt. It will make it sleep!"
As soon as the Broom-Squire had gone out again to the "hog-pen," as a pigstye is called in Surrey, to give the pig its "randams and crammins," because Mehetabel was unable to do this because unable to leave the child, then she knelt by the hearth, put aside the turves, and, regardless of the fire, groped for the fragments of the broken phial, that nothing might betray to Bideabout her having rejected the medicine with which he had tampered.
She cut and burnt her fingers, but in the excitement of her feelings, was insensible to pain.
She had removed and secreted the glass before he returned. The babe was sleeping heavily, and snoring.
When Jonas came in and heard the sound from the cradle, a look of expectation came over his face.
"The child's burrin' like a puckeridge (night-jar)," he said. "Shouldn't wonder if the medicine ain't done him a lot o' good. It don't need a doctor to come and see to prescribe for a baby. All that little ones want is good sleep, and natur' does the rest."
Owing to the annoyance caused to Bideabout by the child's fretfulness during the night, Mehetabel occupied a separate chamber, the spare bedroom, along with her babe, and spent her broken nights under the great blue and white striped tent that covered the bed.
She had enjoyed but little sleep for several nights, and her days had been occupied by the necessary attention to the suffering child and the cares of the household. Because the babe was ill, that was no reason why his father's meals should be neglected, and because the mother was overwrought, he was not disposed to relieve her of the duties to the pigs and cows save on this one occasion.
That the poor little infant was really more at ease was obvious to the mother's watchful eye and anxious heart, but whether this were due to its malady, whatever that was, having taken a felicitous turn, or to mere exhaustion of powers, she was unable to decide, and her fears almost overbalanced her hopes.
She retired to sleep that night without much expectation of being able to obtain sleep. Her nerves were overstrung, and at times thought in her mind came to a standstill; it was as though a sudden hush came on all within her, so that neither did heart beat nor breath come. But for these pauses, her mind might have given way, a string have snapped, and her faculties have fallen into disorder.
It is said of Talleyrand that he needed no sleep, as his pulse ceased to beat after a certain number of strokes, for a brief space, and then resumed pulsation. During that pause, his physical and mental powers had time for recuperation. Be that as it may, it is certain that to some persons whose minds and feelings are put to extraordinary tension, greatly prolonged, there do come these halts in which all is blank, the brain ceases to think, and the heart to feel, and such gaps in the sequence of thought and emotion have a salutary effect.
Mehetabel did not undress. She had not put off her clothing for several nights. The night was cold, and she would probably have to be incessantly on the move, to meet the little sufferer's necessities, as they arose, and to watch it, whenever her fears prevailed over her hopes, and made her think that a protracted quiet was ominous.
The only light in the room emanated from a smouldering rush, sustained in a tall iron holder, the lower end of which was planted in a block of oak, and stood on the floor. Such holders, now become very scarce, were furnished with snuffers, so contrived that the rushlight had to be taken out of its socket and snuffed by them, instead of their being brought to the rush.
Of rushlights there were two kinds, one, the simplest, consisted of a dry rush dipped in a little grease. The light emitted from such a candle was feeble in the extreme. The second, a superior rushlight, had the rush pealed of its bark with the exception of one small strip which held the pith from breaking. This pith was dipped in boiling fat, and when the tallow had condensed it was dipped again, and the candle given as many coats as was desired. Such a rushlight was a far more useful candle, and if it did not emit as large a flame and give forth so much light as a dip which had a cotton wick it was sufficient to serve most purposes for which in a farmhouse artificial illumination was required.
The first and inferior sort of rushlight was that which Matabel allowed herself for the sick-room.
When she laid her head on the pillow and threw the patched-work quilt over her shoulders the cool of the pillow struck through her head and relieved the fire that had raged therein.
She could not sleep.
She thought over what had happened. She considered Bideabout's action as calmly as possible. Was it conceivable that he should seek the life of his own child? He had shown it no love, but it was a far cry from lack of parental affection to deliberate attempt at murder.
What gain would there be to him in the death of his child? She was too innocent and simple to think of Mrs. Verstage's bequest as supplying the motive. As far as she could find there was nothing to account for Jonas' desire to hasten the child's death save weariness at its cries which distressed him at night, and this was no adequate reason. There was another, but that she put from her in disgust. Bad as Bideabout might be she could not credit him with that.
What was that bottle which Jonas had been given by the doctor when his arm was bound up? Of laudanum she knew nothing, but remembered that it had been recommended as a means for giving him the rest he so required. It was a medicine intended to produce sleep. He had refused it because afraid lest he should administer to himself, or have administered to him, an overdose which would cause him to sleep too soundly, and slide away into the slumber of death.
It was possible that the surgeon at Godalming knew that Jonas possessed this phial, and had given him the medicine for the child along with instructions as to how many drops of the laudanum he was to add to the mixture, to make it serve its proper purpose.
If that were so, then the Broom-Squire had acted as directed by a competent person and for the good of his child, and she, his wife, had cruelly, wickedly, misjudged him. Gentle, generous, incapable of harboring an evil thought, Matabel at once and with avidity seized on this solution, and applied it to her heart to ease its pain and relieve the pressure that weighed on it.
Under the lightening of her anxiety caused by this Mehetabel fell asleep, for how long she was unable to guess. When she awoke it was not that she heard the cry of her child, but that she was aware of a tread on the floor that made the bed vibrate.
Instead of starting up, she unclosed her eyes, and saw in the room a figure that she at once knew was that of Jonas. He was barefooted, and but partially dressed. He had softly unhasped the door and stolen in on tip-toe. Mehetabel was surprised. It was not his wont to leave his bed at night, certainly not for any concern he felt relative to the child; yet now he was by the cradle, and was stooping over it with his head turned, so that his ear was applied in a manner that showed he was listening to the child's breathing. As his face was turned the feeble light of the smouldering rushlight was on it.
Mehetabel did not stir. It was a pleasing revelation to her that the father's heart had warmed to his child, and that he was sufficiently solicitous for the feeble life to be disturbed thereby at night.
Jonas remained listening for a minute, then he rose erect and retreated from the chamber on tiptoe and closed the door noiselessly behind him.
A smile of pleasure came on Mehetabel's lips, the first that had creamed them for many a week, and she slipped away again into sleep, to be aroused after a brief period by the restlessness and exclamations of the child that woke with hunger.
Then promptly she rose up, went to the cradle, and lifted the child out, coaxed it and sang to the infant as she seated herself on the bedside nursing it.
As she swayed herself, holding the child, the door that was ajar opened slightly, and by the feeble light of the rush she could discern something without, and the flame was reflected in human eyes.
"Is that you, Jonas?" she called.
There was no reply, but she could hear soft steps withdrawing in the direction of his room.
"He is ashamed of letting me see how anxious he is, how really fond of the poor pet he is in heart." As the child's hands relaxed, and it sobbed off to sleep, Mehetabel laid it again in the cradle. It was abundantly evident that the infant was getting better. In a couple of days, doubtless, it would be well.
Glad of this, relieved of the care that had gnawed at her heart, she now slipped between the sheets of the bed. The babe would probably sleep on till dawn, and she could herself enjoy much-needed rest.
Then she dreamt that she and her little one were in a fair garden full of flowers; the child had grown somewhat and could enjoy play. She thought that she was plucking violets and making a crown for her baby's head, and then a little staff covered with the same purple, fragrant flowers, to serve as sceptre, and that she approached her little one on her knees, and bent to it, and sang:—
"The king has sceptre, crown and ball,You are my sceptre, crown, and all!"
But then there fell a shadow on them, and this shadow cut off all light from her and from her child. She looked and saw Jonas. He said nothing, but stood where the sun shone and he could obscure it.
She lifted her babe and moved it away from the blighting shadow into warmth and brightness once more. Yet was this but for a moment, as again the shadow of Jonas fell over them. Once more she moved the child, but with like result. Then with a great effort she rose from her knees, carrying the child to go away with it, far, far from Jonas—and in her effort to do so woke.
She woke to see by the expiring rush-candle and the raw light of early dawn, that the Broom-Squire was in the room, and was stooping over the cradle. Still drunk with sleep, she did not stir, did not rally her senses at once.
Then she beheld how he lifted the pillow from under the infants head, went down on his knees, and thrust the pillow in upon the child's face, holding it down resolutely with a hand on each side.
With a shriek of horror, Mehetabel sprang out of bed and rushed at him, stayed his arms, and unable to thrust them back, caught the cradle and plucked it to her, and released the babe, that gasped—seized it in her arms, glued it to her bosom, and dashing past Jonas before he had risen to his feet, ran down the stairs, and left the house—never to enter it again.
A raw gray morning.
Mehetabel had run forth into it with nothing over her head, no shawl about her shoulders, with hair tangled, and eyes dazed, holding her child to her heart, with full resolve never again to set foot across the threshold of the farmhouse of Jonas Kink.
No doubt whatever remained now in her mind that the Broom-Squire had endeavored to compass the death of his child, first by means of poison, and then by suffocation.
Nothing would ever induce her again to risk the precious life of her child at his hands. She had no thought whither she should go, how she should live—her sole thought was to escape from Jonas, and by putting a distance between herself and him, place the infant beyond danger.
As she ran up the lane from the house she encountered Sally Rocliffe at the well head.
"Where be you goyne to, like that; and with the child, too?" asked the woman.
Mehetabel drew the little face of the babe to her, lest the eye of its aunt should light on it. She could not speak, palpitating with fear, as she was.
"What be you runnin' out for this time o' the mornin'?" asked Mrs.Rocliffe again.
"I cannot tell you," gasped the mother.
"But I will know."
"I shall never, never go back again," cried Mehetabel.
"Oh! he's kicked you out, has he? That's like Jonas."
"I'm runnin' away.
"And where be yo goyne to?"
"I don't know."
"But I do," said Mrs. Rocliffe with a chuckle.
Mehetabel gave no thought to her words. She thrust past her, and ran on.
Fear, love, gave strength to her limbs. She had no consideration for herself, that she was dishevelled and incompletely clad, that she had eaten nothing; she sped up the side of the Common, to escape from the Punch-Bowl, the place where she had weltered in misery. There was no hope for her and her child till she had escaped from that.
In the cold air, charged with moisture, the larks were singing. A ploughboy was driving his horses to the field that was to be turned up by the share.
As she passed him he stared at her with surprise. She reached the village. The blacksmith was up and about; he was preparing to put a tire on a cart-wheel. For this purpose he had just kindled a fire of turf "bats," that were heaped round the fire on the ground outside the forge. He looked up with astonishment as Mehetabel sped past, and cast to her the question, "Wot's up?" which, however, she did not stay to answer.
She made no tarry till she reached the Ship Inn. There she entered the porch, and would have gone through the door into the house, had she not been confronted by Polly, the maid, who at that moment was coming up the passage from the bar.
Polly made no attempt to give room for Mehetabel to pass; she saluted her with a stare and a look at her from head to feet, full of insolence.
"Wot do you want?" asked the girl.
"I wish to see and speak to father," answered Mehetabel.
"I always heard as your father lies in Thursley Churchyard," answered the servant.
"I mean I should like to speak with Mr. Verstage."
"Oh! the landlord?"
"Yes; the landlord. Where is he?"
"Don' know. Somewhere about, I reckon."
"It is cold, and my child is ill. I would go into the kitchen, by the fire."
"Why don't you then go home?"
"I have no home."
"Oh! it's come to that, is it?"
"Yes. Let me in."
"No, indeed. This ain't the place for you. If you think you're goyne to be mistress and order about here you're mistaken. You go along; I'm goyne to shut the door."
Mehetabel had not the spirit to resent this insolence.
She turned in the porch and left the inn, that had once been her home, and the only home in which she had found happiness.
She made her way to the fields that belonged to Simon Verstage, and after wandering through a ploughed glebe she found him.
"Ah, Matabel!" said he, "glad to see you. What brings you here so early in the day?"
"Dear father, I cannot tell you all, but I have left Bideabout.I can stay with him no longer, something has happened. Do notpress me to tell—at least not now. I can never return to thePunch-Bowl. Will you take me in?"
The old man mused.
"I'll consult Polly. I don't know what she'll say to it. I'm rather dependent on her now. You see, I know nothing of the house, I always put that into Susanna's charge, and now poor Sanna is gone, Polly has taken the management. Of course, she makes mistakes, but wun'erfully few. In fact, it is wun'erful how she fits into Sanna's place, and manages the house and all—just as if she had been brought up to it. I'll go and ask her. I couldn't say yes without, much as I might wish."
Mehetabel shook her head.
The old man was become feeble and dependent. He had no longer a will of his own:
"I will not trouble you, dear father, to ask Polly. I am quite sure what her answer will be. I must go further. Who is Guardian?"
"That's Timothy Puttenham, the wheelwright."
Then Mehetabel turned back in the direction of the village and came in front of the shop. Puttenham and his apprentice were engaged on the fire, and Mehetabel stood, with the babe folded in her arms, watching them at work. They might not be disturbed at the critical period when the tire was red hot and had to be fitted to the wheel.
A circle of flame and glowing ashes and red-hot iron was on the ground. At a little distance lay a flat iron disc, called the "platform"; with a pole in the centre through which ran a spindle. On this metal plate lay a new cast wheel, and the wright with a bar screwed a nut so as to hold the cart-wheel down firmly on the "platform."
"Now, boy, the pincers!"
Then he, grasping a long pair of forceps, his apprentice with another, laid hold of the glowing tire, and raising it from the fire carried it scintillating to the wheel, lifted it over the spindle, and dropped it about the woodwork. Then, at once, they seized huge hammers and began to belabor the tire, to drive it on to the wheel, which smoked and flamed.
"Water, boy, water!"
The apprentice threw water from a pitcher over the tire throughout its circumference, dulling its fire, and producing clouds of steam.
Mehetabel, well aware that at this juncture the wright must not be interfered with, drew close to the fire, and kneeling by it warmed herself and the sleeping child, whilst she watched the sturdy men whirling their hammers and beating the tire down into place around the wheel.
At length the wright desisted. He leaned on his great hammer; and then Mehetabel timidly addressed him.
"Please, Mr. Puttenham, are you not Guardian of the Poor?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Kink."
"May I be put in the Poors' House?"
"You!"
The wheelwright opened his eyes very wide.
"Yes, Mr. Puttenham, I have no home."
"Why, Matabel! What is the sense of this? Your home is in thePunch-Bowl."
"I have left it."
"Then you must return to it again."
"I cannot. Take me into the Poors' House."
"My good girl, this is rank nonsense. The Poor House is not for you, or such as you."
"I need its shelter more than most. I have no home."
"Are you gone off your head?"
"No, sir. My mind is sound, but to the Punch-Bowl I cannot, and will not, return. No, never!"
"Matabel," said the wheelwright, "I suppose you and Jonas have had a quarrel. Bless you! Such things happen in married life, over and over again, and you'll come together and love each other all the better for these tiffs. I know it by experience."
"I cannot go back! I will not go back!"
"It is not cannot or will not—it is a case of must. That is your home. But this I will do for you. Go in and ask my old woman to let you have some breakfast, and I'll send Jack"—he signed to his apprentice—"and bid him tell Bideabout where you are, and let him fetch you. We mustn't have a scandal."
"If Jonas comes, I shall run away."
"Whither?"
That Mehetabel could not say.
"Where can you go? Nowhere, save to your husband's house. For God's sake!" he suddenly exclaimed, knocking his hammer on the tire, "don't say you are going to Guildford—to Iver Verstage."
Mehetabel raised her heavy eyes, and looked the wheelwright frankly in the face. "I would rather throw myself and baby into one of the Hammer Ponds than do that."
"Right! You're a good gal. But there was no knowing. Folks talk.Come in! You shall have something—and rest a while."
The kind, well-intentioned man laid his large hand on her shoulder and almost forced her, but gently, towards the house. She would not enter the door till he had promised not to send for Jonas.
Selena Puttenham, the wright's wife, was a loquacious and inquisitive woman, and she allowed Mehetabel no rest. She gave her bread and milk with readiness, and probed her with questions which Mehetabel could not answer without relating the whole horrible truth, and this she was resolved not to do.
The wright was busy, and could not remain in his cottage. The wife, with the kindest intentions, was unable to restrain herself from putting her guest on the rack. The condition of Mehetabel was one to rouse curiosity. Why was she there, with her baby, in the early morning? Without having even covered her head; fasted and jaded? Had there been a quarrel. If so—about what? Had Bideabout beaten her? Had he thrust her out and locked the door? If so, in what had she offended him? Had she been guilty of some grievous misdemeanor?
At length, unable further to endure the torture to which she was subjected, Mehetabel sprang up, and insisted on leaving the cottage.
Without answering Mrs. Puttenham's question as to whither she was going, what were her intentions, the unhappy girl hastened out of the village clasping in her arms the child, which had begun to sob.
And now she made her way towards Witley, of which Thursley was a daughter parish. She would find the Vicar, who had always treated her with consideration, and even affection. The distance was considerable, in her weary condition, but she plodded on in hopes. He was a man of position and authority, and she could trust him to protect her and the child. To him she would tell all, in confidence that he would not betray her secret.
At length, so fagged that she could hardly walk, her arms cramped and aching, her nerves thrilling, because the child was crying, and would not be comforted, she reached the Vicarage, and rang at the back door bell. Some time elapsed before the door was opened; and then the babe was screaming so vociferously, and struggling in her arms with such energy, that she was not able to make herself heard when she asked for the Parson.
The woman who had answered the summons was a stranger, consequently did not know Mehetabel. She made signs to her to go away.
The cries of the child became more violent, and the mother's efforts were directed towards pacifying it. "Let me come in, I pray! I pray!" she asked with a brow, in spite of the cold, bathed in perspiration.
"I cannot! I must not!" answered the woman. She caught her by the arm, drew her aside, and said—"Do you not know? Look! the blinds are all down. He died in the night!"
"Dead!" cried Mehetabel, reeling back. "My God! whither shall I go?"
Mehetabel sank on the grass by the drive.
"I am worn out. I can go no further," she said, and bowed her head over the child.
"You cannot remain here. It is not seemly—a house of mourning," said the woman.
"He would not mind, were he alive," sobbed Mehetabel. "He would have cared for me and my babe; he was always kind."
"But he is not alive; that makes the difference," said the servant."You really must still the child or go away."
"I cannot go another step," answered Mehetabel, raising her head and sinking it again, after she had spoken.
"I don't know what to do. This is unreasonable; I'll go call the gardener. If you won't go when asked you must be removed by force."
The woman retired, and presently the gardener came up. He knewMehetabel—that is to say, knew who she was.
"Come," said he, "my cottage is just yonder. You must not remain here on the green, and in the cold. No wonder the child screams. There is a fire in my house, and you can have what you like for a while, till you are rested. Give me your hand."
Mehetabel allowed him to raise her, and she followed him mechanically from the drive into the cottage, that was warm and pleasant.
"There now, missus," said the man; "make yourself comfortable for an hour or two."
The rest, the warmth, were grateful to Mehetabel. She was almost too weary to thank the man with words, but she looked at him with gratitude, and he felt that her heart was over full for her to speak. He returned to his work, and left her to herself. There was no one else in the cottage, as he was a widower, and had no family.
After a considerable time, when Mehetabel had had time to recruit her strength, he reappeared. The short winter day was already closing in. The cold black vapors rose over the sky, obscuring the little light, as though grudging the earth its brief period of illumination.
"I thought I'd best come, you know," said the man, "just to tell you that I'm sorry, but I can't receive you here for the night. I'm a widower, and folk might talk. Why are you from home?"
"I ran away. I cannot return to the Punch-Bowl."
"Well, now. That's curious!" said the gardener. "Time out of mind I've had it in my head to run away when my old woman was rampageous. I've knowed a man who actually did run to Americay becos his wife laid on him so. But I never, in my experience, heard of a woman runnin' away from her husband, that is to say—alone. You ain't got no one with you, now?"
"Yes, my baby."
"I don't mean that. Well, it is coorious, a woman runnin' away with her baby. I'm terrible sorry, but I can't take you in above another half-hour. Where are you thinking of goyne to?"
"I know of no where and no one."
"Why not try Missus Chivers at Thursley. You was at her school, I suppose?"
"Yes, I was there."
"Try her, and all will come right in the end."
Mehetabel rose; her child was now asleep.
"Look here," said the gardener. "Here's a nice plaid shawl, as belonged to my missus, and a wun'erful old bonnet of hers—as the cat has had kittens in since she went to her rest—and left me to mine. You are heartily welcome. I can't let you turn out in the cold with nothing on your head nor over your shoulders."
Mehetabel gladly accepted the articles of clothing offered her. She had already eaten of what the man had placed on the table for her, when he left the house. She could not burden him longer with her presence, as he was obviously nervous about his character, lest it should suffer should he harbor her. Thanking him, she departed, and walked back to Thursley through the gathering gloom.
Betty Chivers kept a dame's school, in which she had instructed the children of Thursley in the alphabet, simple summing, and in the knowledge and fear of God. With the march of the times we have abolished dames schools, and cut away thereby a means of livelihood from many a worthy woman; but what is worse, have driven the little ones into board schools, that are godless, where they are taught to despise manual labor, and to grow up without moral principle. Our schools are like dockyards, whence expensively-equipped vessels are launched provided with everything except ballast, which will prevent their capsizing in the first squall. The Vicar of Witley had been one of those men, in advance of his time, who had initiated this system.
Whatever of knowledge of good, and of discipline of conscience Mehetabel possessed, was obtained from Mrs. Susanna Verstage, or from old Betty Chivers.
We are told that if we cast our bread on the waters, we shall find it after many days. But simple souls are too humble to recognize it.
So was it with Goodie Chivers.
That Mehetabel, through all her trials, acted as a woman of principle, clung to what she knew to be right, was due very largely to the old dame's instructions, but Betty was too lowly-minded for one instant to allow this, even to suspect it.
Our Board School masters and mistresses have quite as little suspicion that they have sowed the seed which sprung up in the youths who are dismissed from offices for defalcation, and the girls who leave menial service to walk the streets.
Mrs. Chivers was glad to see Mehetabel when she entered. She had heard talk about her—that she had run away from her husband, and was wandering through the country with her babe; and having a tender heart, and a care for all her old pupils, she had felt anxious concerning her.
Mehetabel pleaded to be taken in for the night, and to this Mrs. Chivers readily consented. She would share her bed with the mother and the child, as well as her crust of bread and cup of thin tea. Of milk, in her poverty, the old woman allowed herself but a few drops, and of butter with her bread none at all.
Yet what she had, that she cheerfully divided with Mehetabel.
On the morrow, after a restful sleep, the young wife started for a silk mill on one of those Hammer ponds that occupied a depression in the Common. These ponds were formed at the time when iron was worked in the district, and the ponds, as their name implies, were for the storage of water to beat out the iron by means of large hammers, set in motion by a wheel. When these ponds were constructed is not known. The trees growing on the embankments that hold back the water are of great size and advanced age.
One of these ponds, at the time of our tale, was utilized for a silk mill.
On reaching the silk mill, she timidly asked for the manufacturer. She knew him slightly, as he had been occasionally to the "Ship," where he had lodged a guest at one time when his house was full, and at another to call on a fisherman who was an acquaintance, and who was staying there. He was a blunt man, with a very round head and a very flat face. His name was Lilliwhite. He had exchanged words with Mehetabel when she was at the inn, and had always been kindly in his address.
When she was shown into his office, as ill-luck would have it at once the child became fretful and cried.
"I beg your pardon," said Mehetabel. "I am sorry to trouble you, but I wish you would be so good, sir, as to let me do some work for you in the mill."
"You, Mehetabel! Why, what do you mean?"
"Please, sir, I have left the Punch-Bowl. I cannot stay there any longer. Do not ask me the reasons. They are good ones, but I had rather not tell them. I must now earn my own livelihood, and—" She was unable to proceed owing to the wailing of the infant.
"Look here, my dear," said the silk weaver, "I cannot hear you on account of the noise, and as I have something to attend to, I will leave you here alone for a few minutes, whilst I look to my business. I will return shortly, when the young dragon has ceased rampaging. I dare say it is hungry."
Then the good-natured man departed, and Mehetabel used her best endeavors to reduce her child to quiet. It was not hungry, it was not cold. It was in pain. She could feed it, she could warm it, but she knew not how to give it that repose which it so much needed.
After some minutes had elapsed, Mr. Lilliwhite looked in again, but as the child was still far from pacified, he retired once more.
Twenty minutes to half-an-hour had passed before the feeble wails of the infant had decreased in force, and had died away wholly, and then the manufacturer returned, smiling, to his office.
"'Pon my soul," said he, "I believe this is the first time my shop has been turned into a nursery. Come now, before the Dragon of Wantley is awake and roaring, tell me what you want."
Mehetabel repeated her request.
"There is no one I would more willingly oblige," said he. "You have ever conducted yourself well, and have been industrious. But there are difficulties in the way. First and foremost, the Dragon of Wantley."
"I beg your pardon, sir."
"I mean the child. What will you do with it? If you come here, engaged by me, you must be at the mill at seven o'clock in the morning. There is an hour for dinner at noon, and the mill hands are released at five o'clock in the afternoon in winter and six in summer. What will the Dragon do all the time its mother is spinning silk? You cannot have the creature here—and away, who will care for it? Who feed it?"
"I had thought of leaving my baby at Mrs. Chivers'."
"That is nonsense," said the silk weaver. "The Dragon won't be spoon-fed. Its life depends on its getting its proper, natural nourishment. So that won't do. As for having it here—that's an impossibility. Much you would attend to the spindles when the Dragon was bellowing. Besides, it would distract the other girls. So you see, this won't do. And there are other reasons. I couldn't receive you without your husband's consent. But the Dragon remains as the insuperable difficulty. Fiddle-de-dee, Matabel! Don't think of it. For your own sake, for the Dragon's sake, I say it won't do."
Discouraged at her lack of success, Mehetabel now turned her steps towards Thursley. She was sick at heart. It seemed to her as if every door of escape from her wretched condition was shut against her.
She ascended the dip in the Common through which the stream ran that fed the Hammer ponds, and after leaving the sheet of water that supplied the silk mill, reached a brake of willow and bramble, through which the stream made its way from the upper pond.
The soil was resolved into mud, and oozed with springs; at the sides broke out veins of red chalybeate water, of the color of brick.
She started teal, that went away with a rush and frightened her child, which cried out, and fell into sobs.
Then before her rose a huge embankment; with a sluice at the top over which the pond decanted and the overflow was carried a little way through a culvert, beneath a mound on which once had stood the smelting furnace, and which now dribbled forth rust-stained springs.
The bank had to be surmounted, and in Mehetabel's condition it taxed her powers, and when she reached the top she sank out of breath on a fallen bole of a tree. Here she rested, with the child in her lap, and her head in her hand. Whither should she go? To whom betake herself? She had not a friend in the world save Iver, and it was not possible for her to appeal to him.
Now, in her desolation, she understood what it was to be without a relative. Every one else had some one tied by blood to whom to apply, who would counsel, assist, afford a refuge. A nameless girl, brought up by the parish, with—as far as she was aware—but one relative in the world, her mother's sister, whose name she knew not, and whose existence she could not be sure of—she was indeed alone as no other could be.
The lake lay before her steely and cold.
The chill wind hissed and sobbed among the bulrushes, and in the coarse marsh grass that fringed the water on all sides except that of the dam.
The stunted willows shed their broad-shaped leaves that sailed and drifted, formed fleets, and clustered together against the bank.
The tree bole on which she was seated was rotting away; a huge fleshy fungus had formed on it, and the decaying timber emitted a charnel-house smell.
Now the babe in Mehetabel's arms was quiet. It was asleep. She herself was weary, and quivering in all her limbs, hot and yet cold, with an aguish feeling. Her strength of purpose was failing her. She was verging on despair.
She could not remain with Betty Chivers without paying for her lodging and for her food. The woman did but just maintain herself out of the little school and the post-office. She was generous and kind, but she had not the means to support Mehetabel, nor could Mehetabel ask it of her.
What should she do? What the silk manufacturer had said was quite true. The babe stood in her way of getting employment, and the babe she must not leave. That little life depended on her, and her time, care, thought must be devoted to it.
Oh, if now she could but have had that fifteen pounds which Simon Verstage in his providence had given her on her wedding day! With that she would have been easy, independent.
When Jonas robbed her of the sum he cut away from her the chance of subsistence elsewhere save in his house—at all events at such a time as this.
She looked dreamily at the water, that like an eye exercised a fascination on her.
Would it not be well to cast herself into this pool, with her babe, and then both would be together at rest, and away from the cruel world that wanted them not, that rejected them, that had no love, no pity for them?
But she put the thought resolutely from her.
Presently she noticed the flat-bottomed boat usually kept on the pond for the convenience of fishers; it was being propelled over the stream in her direction. A minute later, a man seated in the boat ran it against the bank and stepped out, fastened the point to a willow stump, and came towards her.
"What—is this the Squiress?"
She looked up and recognized him.
The man who came to her and addressed her was Mr. Markham, the young barrister, who had been to the Punch-Bowl to obtain the assistance of Jonas in wild-duck shooting.
She recalled his offensively familiar manner, and was troubled to see him again. And yet she remembered his last remark on leaving, when he had offered his services to help her to free herself from her bondage to Jonas. The words might have been spoken in jest, yet now, she caught at them.
He stood looking at her, and he saw both how pale she was, with a hectic flame in her cheek, and a feverish glitter in her eye, and also how beautiful she thus was.
"Why," said he, "what brings you here?"
"I have been to the silk mill in quest of work."
"Work! Broom-Squiress, one such as you should not work. You missed your vocation altogether when you left the Ship. Jonas told me you had been there."
"I was happy then."
"But are you not so in the Punch-Bowl?"
"No. I am very miserable. But I will not return there again."
"What! fallen out with the Squire?"
"He has made it impossible for me to go back."
"Then whither are you bound?"
"I do not know."
He looked at her intently.
"Now, see here," said he. "Sit down on that log again from which you have risen and tell me all. I am a lawyer and can help you, I daresay."
"I have not much to tell," she answered, and sank on the tree bole.He seated himself beside her.
"There are things that have happened which have made me resolve to go anywhere, do anything, rather than return to Jonas. I promised what I could not keep when I said I would love, honor, and obey him."
Then she began to sob. It touched her that this young man should express sympathy, offer his help.
"Now listen to me," said Mr. Markham; "I am a barrister. I know the law, I have it at my ringers' ends, and I place myself, my knowledge and my abilities at your disposal. I shall feel proud, flattered to do so. Your beauty and your distress appeal to me irresistibly. Has the Squire been beating you?"
"Oh, no, not that."
"Then what has he done?"
"There are things worse to bear than a stick."
"What! Oh, the gay Lothario! He has been casting his eye about and has lost his leathery heart to some less well-favored wench than yourself."
Mehetabel moved further from him on the tree-bole.
He began picking at the great lichen that grew out of the decaying tree, and laughed.
"Have I hit it? Jealous, eh? Jealousy is at the bottom of it all. By Jove, the Broom-Squire isn't worth expending a jealous thought on. He's a poor sordid creature. Not worthy of you. So jealous, my little woman, eh?"
Mehetabel turned and looked steadily at him.
"You do not understand me," she said. "No Jonas has not sunk so low as that."
"He would have been a fool to have cast aside a jewel for the sake of quartz crystal," laughed Markham. "But, come. A lawyer is a confessor. Tell me everything. Make no reservations. Open your heart to me, and see if the law, or myself—between us we cannot assist you."
Mehetabel hesitated. The manner in which the man offered his services was offensive, and yet in her innocent mind she thought that perhaps the fault lay in herself in not understanding and receiving his address in the way in which it was intended. Besides, in what other manner could she obtain relief? Every other means was taken from her.
Slowly, reluctantly, she told him much that she had not told to any one else—only not that Jonas had endeavored to kill the child. That she would not relate.
When she had finished her tale, he said, "What you have told me is a very sad story, and makes my heart ache for you. You can rely on me, I will be your friend and protector. We have had a case on lately, of a woman who was equally unhappy in her married life; her name was Jane Summers. You may have seen it in the papers."
"I'll never see the papers. How did Jane Summers manage?"
"She had a crabbed, ill-conditioned husband, and she was a fine, handsome, lusty woman. He fell ill, and she did not afford him all that care and attention which was requisite in his condition. She went out amusing herself, and left him at home with no one to see to his necessities. The consequence was that he died, and she was tried for it, but the case against her broke down. It could not be proved that had she been devoted to him in his sickness he would have recovered. The law takes cognizance of commission of a crime, and not of neglect of duty."
Mehetabel opened her eyes. "If Jonas were ill I would attend him day and night," she said. "But he is not ill—never was, till the shot entered his arm, and then I was with him all day and all night."
"How did he receive your ministry?"
"He was very irritable. I suppose the pain made him so."
"You got no thanks for your trouble?"
"None at all. I thought he would have been kinder when he recovered."
"Then," said the young man, laughing; "the man is not to be cured.You must leave him."
"I have done so."
"And you are seeking a home and a protector?"
"I want to earn my living somewhere."
"A pretty young thing like you," said the stranger, "cannot fail to make her way. Come! I have offered you my aid," he put his arm round her and attempted to snatch a kiss.
"So!" exclaimed Mehetabel, starting to her feet. "This is the friend and protector you would be! I trusted you with my troubles, and you have taken advantage of my trust. Let me alone! Wherever I turn there hell hath opened her mouth! A moment ago I thought of ending all my troubles in this pond—that a thousand times before trusting you further."
With beating heart—beating with anger—proudly raising her weary head, she walked away.