Here follows the true story of Sir Muscovy Drake, the Lady Blanche, and Miss Malardina Crippletoes.
Phœbe’s flock consisted at first mostly of Brown Mallards, but a friend gave her a sitting of eggs warranted to produce a most beautiful variety of white ducks. They were hatched in due time, but proved hard to raise, till at length there was only one survivor, of such uncommon grace and beauty that we called her the Lady Blanche. Presently a neighbour sold Phœbe his favourite Muscovy drake, and these two splendid creatures by “natural selection” disdained to notice the rest of the flock, but forming a close friendship, wandered in the pleasant paths of duckdom together, swimming and eating quite apart from the others.
In the brown flock there was one unfortunate, misshapen from the egg, quite lame, and with no smoothness of plumage; but on that very account, apparently, or because she was too weak to resist them, the others treated her cruelly, biting her and pushing her away from the food.
One day it happened that the two ducks—Sir Muscovy and Lady Blanche—had come up from the water before the others, and having taken their repast were sitting together under the shade of a flowering currant-bush, when they chanced to see poor Miss Crippletoes very badly used and crowded away from the dish. Sir Muscovy rose to his feet; a few rapid words seemed to pass between him and his mate, and then he fell upon the other drake and the heartless minions who had persecuted the helpless one, drove them far away out of sight, and, returning, went to the corner where the victim was cowering, her face to the wall. He seemed to whisper to her, or in some way to convey to her a sense of protection; for after a few moments she tremblingly went with him to the dish, and hurriedly ate her dinner while he stood by, repulsing the advances of the few brown ducks who remained near and seemed inclined to attack her.
When she had eaten enough Lady Blanche joined them, and they went down the hill together to their favourite swimming-place. After that Miss Crippletoes always followed a little behind her protectors, and thus shielded and fed she grew stronger and well-feathered, though she was always smaller than she should have been and had a lowly manner, keeping a few steps in the rear of her superiors and sitting at some distance from their noon resting-place.
Phœbe noticed after a while that Lady Blanche was seldom to be seen, and Sir Muscovy and Miss Crippletoes often came to their meals without her. The would-be mother refused to inhabit the house Phœbe had given her, and for a long time the place she had chosen for her sitting could not be found. At length the Square Baby discovered her in a most ideal spot. A large boulder had dropped years ago into the brook that fills our duck-pond; dropped and split in halves with the two smooth walls leaning away from each other. A grassy bank towered behind, and on either side of the opening, tall bushes made a miniature forest where the romantic mother could brood her treasures while her two guardians enjoyed the water close by her retreat.
All this happened before my coming to Thornycroft Farm, but it was I who named the hero and heroines of the romance when Phœbe had told me all the particulars. Yesterday morning I was sitting by my open window. It was warm, sunny, and still, but in the country sounds travel far, and I could hear fowl conversation in various parts of the poultry-yard as well as in all the outlying bits of territory occupied by our feathered friends. Hens have only three words and a scream in their language, but ducks, having more thoughts to express, converse quite fluently, so fluently, in fact, that it reminds me of dinner at the Hydropathic Hotel. I fancy I have learned to distinguish seven separate sounds, each varied by degrees of intensity, and with upward or downward inflections like the Chinese tongue.
In the distance, then, I heard the faint voice of a duck calling as if breathless and excited. While I wondered what was happening, I saw Miss Crippletoes struggling up the steep bank above the duck-pond. It was the quickest way from the water to the house, but difficult for the little lame webbed feet. When she reached the level grass sward she sank down a moment, exhausted; but when she could speak again she cried out, a sharp staccato call, and ran forward.
Instantly she was answered from a distant knoll, where for some reason Sir Muscovy loved to retire for meditation. The cries grew lower and softer as the birds approached each other, and they met at the corner just under my window. Instantly they put their two bills together and the loud cries changed to confiding murmurs. Evidently some hurried questions and answers passed between them, and then Sir Muscovy waddled rapidly by the quickest path, Miss Crippletoes following him at a slower pace, and both passed out of sight, using their wings to help their feet down the steep declivity. The next morning, when I wakened early, my first thought was to look out, and there on the sunny greensward where they were accustomed to be fed, Sir Muscovy, Lady Blanche, and their humble maid, Malardina Crippletoes, were scattering their own breakfast before the bills of twelve beautiful golden balls of ducklings. The little creatures could never have climbed the bank, but must have started from their nest at dawn, coming round by the brook to the level at the foot of the garden, and so by slow degrees up to the house.
Judging from what I heard and knew of their habits, I am sure the excitement of the previous morning was occasioned by the hatching of the eggs, and that Lady Blanche had hastily sent her friend to call Sir Muscovy, the family remaining together until they could bring the babies with them and display their beauty to Phœbe and me.
July 14th.
We are not wholly without the pleasures of the town in Barbury Green. Once or twice in a summer, late on a Saturday afternoon, a procession of red and yellow vans drives into a field near the centre of the village. By the time the vans are unpacked all the children in the community are surrounding the gate of entrance. There is rifle-shooting, there is fortune-telling, there are games of pitch and toss, and swings, and French bagatelle; and, to crown all, a wonderful orchestrion that goes by steam. The water is boiled for the public’s tea, and at the same time thrilling strains of melody are flung into the air. There is at present only one tune in the orchestrion’s repertory, but it is a very good tune; though after hearing it three hundred and seven times in a single afternoon, it pursues one, sleeping and waking, for the next week. Phœbe and I took the Square Baby and went in to this diversified entertainment. There was a small crowd of children at the entrance, but as none of them seemed to be provided with pennies, and I felt in a fairy godmother mood, I offered them the freedom of the place at my expense.
I never purchased more radiant good-will for less money, but the combined effect of the well-boiled tea and the boiling orchestrion produced many village nightmares, so the mothers told me at chapel next morning.
* * * * *
I have many friends in Barbury Green, and often have a pleasant chat with the draper, and the watchmaker, and the chemist.
The freedom of the place at my expense
The last house on the principal street is rather an ugly one, with especially nice window curtains. As I was taking my daily walk to the post-office (an entirely unfruitful expedition thus far, as nobody has taken the pains to write to me) I saw a nursemaid coming out of the gate, wheeling a baby in a perambulator. She was going placidly away from the Green when, far in the distance, she espied a man walking rapidly toward us, a heavy Gladstone bag in one hand. She gazed fixedly for a moment, her eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing with pleasure,—whoever it was, it was an unexpected arrival;—then she retraced her steps and, running up the garden-path, opened the front door and held an excited colloquy with somebody; a slender somebody in a nice print gown and neatly-dressed hair, who came to the gate and peeped beyond the hedge several times, drawing back between peeps with smiles and heightened colour. She did not run down the road, even when she had satisfied herself of the identity of the traveller; perhaps that would not have been good form in an English village, for there were houses on the opposite side of the way. She waited until he opened the gate, the nursemaid took the bag and looked discreetly into the hedge, then the mistress slipped her hand through the traveller’s arm and walked up the path as if she had nothing else in the world to wish for. The nurse had a part in the joy, for she lifted the baby out of the perambulator and showed proudly how much he had grown.
It was a dear little scene, and I, a passer-by, had shared in it and felt better for it. I think their content was no less because part of it had enriched my life, for happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blesses those who are most intimately associated in it, and it blesses all those who see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or breathe the same atmosphere. A laughing, crowing baby in a house, one cheerful woman singing about her work, a boy whistling at the plough, a romance just suspected, with its miracle of two hearts melting into one—the wind’s always in the west when you have any of these wonder-workers in your neighbourhood.
I have talks too, sometimes, with the old parson, who lives in a quaint house with “Parva Domus Magna Quies” cut into the stone over the doorway. He is not a preaching parson, but a retired one, almost the nicest kind, I often think.
He has been married thirty years, he tells me; thirty years, spent in the one little house with the bricks painted red and grey alternately, and the scarlet holly-hocks growing under the windows. I am sure they have been sweet, true, kind years, and that his heart must be a quiet, peaceful place just like his house and garden.
“I was only eleven years old when I fell in love with my wife,” he told me as we sat on the seat under the lime-tree; he puffing cosily at his pipe, I plaiting grasses for a hatband.
Puffing cosily at his pipe
“It was just before Sunday-school. Her mother had dressed her all in white muslin like a fairy, but she had stepped on the edge of a puddle, and some of the muddy water had bespattered her frock. A circle of children had surrounded her, and some of the motherly little girls were on their knees rubbing at the spots anxiously, while one of them wiped away the tears that were running down her pretty cheeks. I looked! It was fatal! I did not look again, but I was smitten to the very heart! I did not speak to her for six years, but when I did, it was all right with both of us, thank God! and I’ve been in love with her ever since, when she behaves herself!”
That is the way they speak of love in Barbury Green, and oh! how much sweeter and more wholesome it is than the language of the town! Who would not be a Goose Girl, “to win the secret of the weed’s plain heart”? It seems to me that in society we are always gazing at magic-lantern shows, but here we rest our tired eyes with looking at the stars.
A Hen Conference
July 16th.
Phœbe and I have been to a Hen Conference at Buffington. It was for the purpose of raising the standard of the British Hen, and our local Countess, who is much interested in poultry, was in the chair.
It was a very learned body, but Phœbe had coached me so well that at the noon recess I could talk confidently with the members, discussing the various advantages of True and Crossed Minorcas, Feverels, Andalusians, Cochin Chinas, Shanghais, and the White Leghorn. (Phœbe, when she pronounces this word, leaves out the “h” and bears down heavily on the last syllable, so that it rhymes with begone!)
As I was sitting under the trees waiting for Phœbe to finish some shopping in the village, a travelling poultry-dealer came along and offered to sell me a silver Wyandotte pullet and cockerel. This was a new breed to me and I asked the price, which proved to be more than I should pay for a hat in Bond Street. I hesitated, thinking meantime what a delightful parting gift they would be for Phœbe; I mean if we ever should part, which seems more and more unlikely, as I shall never leave Thornycroft until somebody comes properly to fetch me; indeed, unless the “fetching” is done somewhat speedily I may decline to go under any circumstances. My indecision as to the purchase was finally banished when the poultryman asserted that the fowls had clear open centres all over, black lacing entirely round the white centres, were free from white edging, and each had a cherry-red eye. This catalogue of charms inflamed my imagination, though it gave me no mental picture of a silver Wyandotte fowl, and I paid the money while the dealer crammed the chicks, squawking into my five-o’clock tea-basket.
Arguing questions of diet
The afternoon session of the conference was most exciting, for we reached the subject of imported eggs, an industry that is assuming terrifying proportions. The London hotel egg comes from Denmark, it seems,—I should think by sailing vessel, not steamer, but I may be wrong. After we had settled that the British Hen should be protected and encouraged, and agreed solemnly to abstain from Danish eggs in any form, and made a resolution stating that our loyalty to Queen Alexandra would remain undiminished, we argued the subject of hen diet. There was a great difference of opinion here and the discussion was heated; the honorary treasurer standing for pulped mangold and flint grit, the chair insisting on barley meal and randans, while one eloquent young woman declared, to loud cries of “’Ear, ’ear!” that rice pudding and bone chips produce more eggs to the square hen than any other sort of food. Impassioned orators arose here and there in the audience demanding recognition for beef scraps, charcoal, round corn or buckwheat. Foods were regarded from various standpoints: as general invigorators, growth assisters, and egg producers. A very handsome young farmer carried off final honours, and proved to the satisfaction of all the feminine poultry-raisers that green young hog bones fresh cut in the Banner Bone Breaker (of which he was the agent) possessed a nutritive value not to be expressed in human language.
The afternoon session was most exciting
Phœbe was distinctly nervous when I rose to say a few words on poultry breeding, announcing as my topic “Mothers, Stepmothers, Foster-Mothers, and Incubators.” Protected by the consciousness that no one in the assemblage could possibly know me, I made a distinct success in my maiden speech; indeed, I somewhat overshot the mark, for the Countess in the chair sent me a note asking me to dine with her that evening. I suppressed the note and took Phœbe away before the proceedings were finished, vanishing from the scene of my triumphs like a veiled prophet.
Just as we were passing out the door we paused to hear the report of a special committee whose chairman read the following resolutions:—
Whereas,—It has pleased the Almighty to remove from our midst our greatest Rose Comb Buff Orpington fancier and esteemed friend, Albert Edward Sheridain; therefore be it
Resolved,—That the next edition of our catalogue contain an illustrated memorial page in his honour and
Resolved,—That the Rose Comb Buff Orpington Club extend to the bereaved family their heartfelt sympathy.
Not asked to the Conference
The handsome young farmer followed us out to our trap, invited us to attend the next meeting of the R. C. B. O. Club, of which he was the secretary, and asked if I were intending to “show.” I introduced Phœbe as the senior partner, and she concealed the fact that we possessed but one Buff Orpington, and he was a sad “invaleed” not suitable for exhibition. The farmer’s expression as he looked at me was almost lover-like, and when he pressed a bit of paper into my hand I was sure it must be an offer of marriage. It was in fact only a circular describing the Banner Bone Breaker. It closed with an appeal to Buff Orpington breeders to raise and ever raise the standard, bidding them remember, in the midst of a low-minded and sordid civilisation, that the rose comb should be small and neat, firmly set on, with good working, a nice spike at the back lying well down to head, and never, under any circumstances, never sticking up. This adjuration somewhat alarmed us as Phœbe and I had been giving our Buff Orpington cockerel the most drastic remedies for his languid and prostrate comb.
Coming home
Coming home we alighted from the trap to gather hogweed for the rabbits. I sat by the wayside lazily and let Phœbe gather the appetising weed, which grows along the thorniest hedges in close proximity to nettles and thistles.
Workmen were trudging along with their luncheon-baskets of woven bulrushes slung over their shoulders. Fields of ripening grain lay on either hand, the sun shining on their every shade of green and yellow, bronze and orange, while the breeze stirred the bearded barley into a rippling golden sea.
Phœbe asked me if the people I had left behind at the Hydropathic were my relatives.
“Some of them are of remote consanguinity,” I responded evasively, and the next question was hushed upon her awe-stricken tongue, as I intended.
“They are obeying my wish to be let alone, there’s no doubt of that,” I was thinking. “For my part, I like a little more spirit, and a little less ‘letter’!”
Workmen were trudging home
As the word “letter” flitted through my thoughts, I pulled one from my pocket and glanced through it carelessly. It arrived, somewhat tardily, only last night, or I should not have had it with me. I wore the same dress to the post-office yesterday that I wore to the Hen Conference to-day, and so it chanced to be still in the pocket. If it had been anything I valued, of course I should have lost or destroyed it by mistake; it is only silly, worthless little things like this that keep turning up and turning up after one has forgotten their existence.
“You are a mystery!” [it ran.] “I can apprehend, but not comprehend you. I know you in part. I understand various bits of your nature; but my knowledge is always fragmentary and disconnected, and when I attempt to make a whole of the mosaics I merely get a kaleidoscopic effect. Do you know those geographical dissected puzzles that they give to children? You remind me of one of them.“I have spent many charming (and dangerous) hours trying to ‘put you together’; but I find, when I examine my picture closely, that after all I’ve made a purple mountain grow out of a green tree; that my river is running up a steep hillside; and that the pretty milkmaid, who should be wandering in the forest, is standing on her head with her pail in the air“Do you understand yourself clearly? Or is it just possible that when you dive to the depths of your own consciousness, you sometimes find the pretty milkmaid standing on her head? I wonder!” . . .
“You are a mystery!” [it ran.] “I can apprehend, but not comprehend you. I know you in part. I understand various bits of your nature; but my knowledge is always fragmentary and disconnected, and when I attempt to make a whole of the mosaics I merely get a kaleidoscopic effect. Do you know those geographical dissected puzzles that they give to children? You remind me of one of them.
“I have spent many charming (and dangerous) hours trying to ‘put you together’; but I find, when I examine my picture closely, that after all I’ve made a purple mountain grow out of a green tree; that my river is running up a steep hillside; and that the pretty milkmaid, who should be wandering in the forest, is standing on her head with her pail in the air
“Do you understand yourself clearly? Or is it just possible that when you dive to the depths of your own consciousness, you sometimes find the pretty milkmaid standing on her head? I wonder!” . . .
Ah, well, it is no wonder that he wonders! So do I, for that matter!
Along the highway
July 17th.
Thornycroft Farm seems to be the musical centre of the universe.
When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream, trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, coos, croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls on the air a delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so joyous, that I go to the window and look out at the morning world, half awakened, like myself.
There is I know not what charm in a window that does not push up, but opens its lattices out into the greenness. And mine is like a little jewelled door, for the sun is shining from behind the chimneys and lighting the tiny diamond panes with amber flashes.
A faint delicate haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, and soaring toward the blue is the lark, flinging out that matchless matin song, so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody fades away, I hear the plaintive ballad-fragments of the robin on a curtsying branch near my window; and there is always the liquid pipe of the thrush, who must quaff a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, I should think, so fresh and eternally young is his note.
There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it, straining my eyes to the treetops, yet never finding a bird that I can identify as the singer. Can it be the—
“Ousel-cock so black of hue,With orange-tawny bill”?
“Ousel-cock so black of hue,With orange-tawny bill”?
He is called the poet-laureate of the primrose time, but I don’t know whether he sings in midsummer, and I have not seen him hereabouts. I must write and ask my dear Man of the North. The Man of the North, I sometimes think, had a Fairy Grandmother who was a robin; and perhaps she made a nest of fresh moss and put him in the green wood when he was a wee bairnie, so that he waxed wise in bird-lore without knowing it. At all events, describe to him the cock of a head, the glance of an eye, the tip-up of a tail, or the sheen of a feather, and he will name you the bird. Near-sighted he is, too, the Man of the North, but that is only for people.
The Square Baby and I have a new game.
I bought a doll’s table and china tea-set in Buffington. We put it under an apple-tree in the side garden, where the scarlet lightning grows so tall and the Madonna lilies stand so white against the flaming background. We built a little fence around it, and every afternoon at tea-time we sprinkle seeds and crumbs in the dishes, water in the tiny cups, drop a cherry in each of the fruit-plates, and have athé chantantfor the birdies. We sometimes invite an “invaleed” duckling, or one of the baby rabbits, or the peacock, in which case the cards read:—
Thornycroft Farm.The pleasure of your company is requestedat aThé ChantantUnder the Apple Tree.Music at five.
Thornycroft Farm.The pleasure of your company is requestedat aThé ChantantUnder the Apple Tree.Music at five.
It is a charming game, as I say, but I’d far rather play it with the Man of the North; he is so much younger than the Square Baby, and so much more responsive, too.
The scent of the hay
Thornycroft Farm is a sweet place, too, of odours as well as sounds. The scent of the hay is for ever in the nostrils, the hedges are thick with wild honeysuckle, so deliciously fragrant, the last of the June roses are lingering to do their share, and blackberry blossoms and ripening fruit as well.
I have never known a place in which it is so easy to be good. I have not said a word, nor scarcely harboured a thought, that was not lovely and virtuous since I entered these gates, and yet there are those who think me fantastic, difficult, hard to please, unreasonable!
The last of June
I believe the saints must have lived in the country mostly (I am certain they never tried Hydropathic hotels), and why anybody with a black heart and natural love of wickedness should not simply buy a poultry farm and become an angel, I cannot understand.
A place in which it is so easy to be good
Living with animals is really a very improving and wholesome kind of life, to the person who will allow himself to be influenced by their sensible and high-minded ideals. When you come to think about it, man is really the only animal that ever makes a fool of himself; the others are highly civilised, and never make mistakes. I am going to mention this when I write to somebody, sometime; I mean if I ever do. To be sure, our human life is much more complicated than theirs, and I believe when the other animals notice our errors of judgment they make allowances. The bee is as busy as a bee, and the beaver works like a beaver, but there their responsibility ends. The bee doesn’t have to go about seeing that other bees are not crowded into unsanitary tenements or victimised by the sweating system. When the beaver’s day of toil is over he doesn’t have to discuss the sphere, the rights, or the voting privileges of beaveresses; all he has to do is to work like a beaver, and that is comparatively simple.
Not particularly attracted by the poultry
I have been studyingThe Young Poultry Keeper’s Friendof late. If there is anything I dislike and deplore, it is the possession of knowledge which I cannot put to practical use. Having discovered an interesting disease called Scaly Leg in the July number, I took the magazine out into the poultry-yard and identified the malady on three hens and a cock. Phœbe joined me in the diagnosis and we treated the victims with a carbolic lotion and scrubbed them with vaseline.
Leaned languidly against the netting
As Phœbe and I grow wise in medical lore the case of Cannibal Ann assumes a different aspect. As the bibulous man quaffs more and more flagons of beer and wine when his daily food is ham, salt fish, and cabbage, so does the hen avenge her wrongs of diet and woes of environment. Cannibal Ann, herself, has, so far as we know, been raised in a Christian manner and enjoyed all the advantages of modern methods; but her maternal parent may have lived in some heathen poultry-yard which was asphalted or bricked or flagged, so that she was debarred from scratching in Mother Earth and was forced to eat her own shells in self-defence.
* * * * *
The Square Baby is not particularly attracted by the poultry as a whole, save when it is boiled with bacon or roasted with bread-sauce; but he is much interested in the “invaleeds.” Whenever Phœbe and I start for the hospital with the tobacco-pills, the tin of paraffin, and the bottle of oil, he is very much in evidence. Perhaps he has a natural leaning toward the medical profession; at any rate, when pain and anguish wring the brow, he is in close attendance upon the ministering angels.
Staggered and reeled
Now it is necessary for the physician to have practice as well as theory, so the Square Baby, being left to himself this afternoon, proceeded to perfect himself in some of the healing arts used by country practitioners.
Caught her son red-handed
When discovered, he was seated in front of the wire-covered “run” attached to a coop occupied by the youngest goslings. A couple of bottles and a box stood by his side, and I should think he had administered a cup of sweet oil, a pint of paraffin, and a quarter of a pound of tobacco during his clinic. He had used the remedies impartially, sometimes giving the paraffin internally and rubbing the patient’s head with tobacco or oil, sometimes the reverse.
Several goslings leaned languidly against the netting, or supported themselves by the edge of the water-dish, while others staggered and reeled about with eyes half closed.
He was treated summarily and smartly
It was Mrs. Heaven who caught her son red-handed, so to speak. She was dressed in her best, and just driving off to Woodmucket to spend a day or two with her married daughter, and soothe her nerves with the uproar incident to a town of six hundred inhabitants. She delayed her journey a half-hour—long enough, in fact, to change her black silk waist for a loose sacque which would give her arms full and comfortable play. The joy and astonishment that greeted the Square Baby on his advent, five years ago, was forgotten for the first time in his brief life, and he was treated precisely as any ordinary wrongdoer would have been treated under the same circumstances, summarily and smartly; the “wepping,” as Phœbe would say, being Mrs. Heaven’s hand.
All but one of the goslings lived, like thousands of others who recover in spite of the doctors, but the Square Baby’s interest in the healing art is now perceptibly lessened.
July 18th.
The day was Friday; Phœbe’s day to go to Buffington with eggs and chickens and rabbits; her day to solicit orders for ducklings and goslings. The village cart was ready in the stable; Mr. and Mrs. Heaven were in Woodmucket; I was eating my breakfast (which I remember was an egg and a rasher) when Phœbe came in, a figure of woe.
The Square Baby was ill, very ill, and would not permit her to leave him and go to market. Would I look at him? For he must have dowsed ’imself as well as the goslings yesterday; anyways he was strong of paraffin and tobacco, though he ’ad ’ad a good barth.
I prescribed for Albert Edward, who was as uncomfortable and feverish as any little sinner in the county of Sussex, and I then promptly proposed going to Buffington in Phœbe’s place.
She did not think it at all proper, and said that, notwithstanding my cotton gown and sailor hat, I looked quite, quite the lydy, and it would never do.
“I cannot get any new orders,” said I, “but I can certainly leave the rabbits and eggs at the customary places. I know Argent’s Dining Parlours, and Songhurst’s Tea Rooms, and the Six Bells Inn, as well as you do.”
The Six Bells found the last poultry somewhat tough
So, donning a pair of Phœbe’s large white cotton gloves with open-work wrists (than which I always fancy there is no one article that so disguises the perfect lydy), I set out upon my travels, upborne by a lively sense of amusement that was at least equal to my feeling that I was doing Phœbe Heaven a good turn.
Prices in dressed poultry were fluctuating, but I had a copy ofThe Trade Review, issued that very day, and was able to get some idea of values and the state of the market as I jogged along. The general movement, I learned, was moderate and of a “selective” character. Choice large capons and ducks were in steady demand, but I blushed for my profession when I read that roasting chickens were running coarse, staggy, and of irregular value. Old hens were held firmly at sixpence, and it is my experience that they always have to be, at whatever price. Geese were plenty, dull, and weak. Old cocks,—why don’t they say roosters?—declined to threepence ha’penny on Thursday in sympathy with fowls,—and who shall say that chivalry is dead? Turkeys were a trifle steadier, and there was a speculative movement in limed eggs. All this was illuminating, and I only wished I were quite certain whether the sympathetic old roosters were threepence ha’penny apiece, or a pound.
The gadabout hen
Everything happened as it should, on this first business journey of my life, which is equivalent to saying that nothing happened at all. Songhurst’s Tea Rooms took five dozen eggs and told me to bring six dozen the next week. Argent’s Dining Parlours purchased three pairs of chickens and four rabbits. The Six Bells found the last poultry somewhat tough and tasteless; whereupon I said that our orders were more than we could possibly fill, still I hoped we could go on “selling them,” as we never liked to part with old customers, no matter how many new ones there were. Privately, I understood the complaint only too well, for I knew the fowls in question very intimately. Two of them were the runaway rooster and the gadabout hen that never wanted to go to bed with the others. The third was Cannibal Ann. I should have expected them to be tough, but I cannot believe they were lacking in flavour.
The only troublesome feature of the trip was that Mrs. Sowerbutt’s lodgers had suddenly left for London and she was unable to take the four rabbits as she had hoped; but as an offset to that piece of ill-fortune the Coke and Coal Yard and the Bicycle Repairing Rooms came out into the street, and, stepping up to the trap, requested regular weekly deliveries of eggs and chickens, and hoped that I would be able to bring them myself. And so, in a happy frame of mind, I turned out of the Buffington main street, and was jogging along homeward, when a very startling thing happened; namely, a whole verse of the Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington:—
“And as she went along the high road,The weather being hot and dry,She sat her down upon a green bank,And her true love came riding by.”
“And as she went along the high road,The weather being hot and dry,She sat her down upon a green bank,And her true love came riding by.”
That true lovers are given to riding by, in ballads, I know very well, but I hardly supposed they did so in real life, especially when every precaution had been taken to avert such a catastrophe. I had told the Barbury Green postmistress, on the morning of my arrival, not to give the Thornycroft address to anybody whatsoever, but finding, as the days passed, that no one was bold enough or sensible enough to ask for it, I haughtily withdrew my prohibition. About this time I began sending envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to a certain person at the Oxenbridge Hydro. These envelopes contained no word of writing, but held, on one day, only a bit of down from a hen’s breast, on another, a goose-quill, on another, a glossy tail-feather, on another, a grain of corn, and so on. These trifles were regarded by me not as degrading or unmaidenly hints and suggestions, but simply as tests of intelligence. Could a man receive tokens of this sort and fail to put two and two together? I feel that I might possibly support life with a domineering and autocratic husband,—and there is every prospect that I shall be called upon to do so,—but not with a stupid one. Suppose one were linked for ever to a man capable of asking,—“Didyousend those feathers? . . . How was I to guess? . . . How was a fellow to know they came from you? . . . What on earth could I suppose they meant? . . . What clue did they offer me as to your whereabouts? . . . Am I a Sherlock Holmes?”—No, better eternal celibacy than marriage with such a being!
She was unable to take the four rabbits
These were the thoughts that had been coursing through my goose-girl mind while I had been selling dressed poultry, but in some way they had not prepared me for the appearance of the aforesaid true love.
To see the very person whom one has left civilisation to avoid is always more or less surprising, and to make the meeting less likely, Buffington is even farther from Oxenbridge than Barbury Green. The creature was well mounted (ominous, when he came to override my caprice!) and he looked bigger, and, yes, handsomer, though that doesn’t signify, and still more determined than when I saw him last; although goodness knows that timidity and feebleness of purpose were not in striking evidence on that memorable occasion. I had drawn up under the shade of a tree ostensibly to eat some cherries, thinking that if I turned my face away I might pass unrecognised. It was a stupid plan, for if I had whipped up the mare and driven on, he of course, would have had to follow, and he has too much dignity and self-respect to shriek recriminations into a woman’s ear from a distance.
The creature was well mounted
He approached with deliberation, reined in his horse, and lifted his hat ceremoniously. He has an extremely shapely head, but I did not show that the sight of it melted in the least the ice of my resolve; whereupon we talked, not very freely at first,—men are so stiff when they consider themselves injured. However, silence is even more embarrassing than conversation, so at length I begin:—
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“It is a lovely day.”
True Love.—“Yes, but the drought is getting rather oppressive, don’t you think?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“The crops certainly need rain, and the feed is becoming scarce.”
True Love.—“Are you a farmer’s wife?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Oh no! that is a promotion to look forward to; I am now only a Goose Girl.”
True Love.—“Indeed! If I wished to be severe I might remark: that I am sure you have found at last your true vocation!”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“It was certainly through no desire to pleaseyouthat I chose it.”
True Love.—“I am quite sure of that! Are you staying in this part?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Oh no! I live many miles distant, over an extremely rough road. And you?”
True Love.—“I am still at the Hydropathic; or at least my luggage is there.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“It must be very pleasant to attract you so long.”
True Love.—“Not so pleasant as it was.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“No? A new proprietor, I suppose.”
True Love.—“No; same proprietor; but the house is empty.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(yawning purposely).—“That is strange; the hotels are usually so full at this season. Why did so many leave?”
True Love.—“As a matter of fact, only one left. ‘Full’ and ‘empty’ are purely relative terms. I call a hotel full when it has you in it, empty when it hasn’t.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(dying to laugh, but concealing her feelings).—“I trust my bulk does not make the same impression on the general public! Well, I won’t detain you longer; good afternoon; I must go home to my evening work.”
True Love.—“I will accompany you.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“If you are a gentleman you will remain where you are.”
True Love.—“In the road? Perhaps; but if I am a man I shall follow you; they always do, I notice. What are those foolish bundles in the back of that silly cart?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Feed for the pony, please, sir; fish for dinner; randans and barley meal for the poultry; and four unsold rabbits. Wouldn’t you like them? Only one and sixpence apiece. Shot at three o’clock this morning.”
True Love.—“Thanks; I don’t like mine shot so early.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Oh, well! doubtless I shall be able to dispose of them on my way home, though times is ’ard!”
True Love.—“Do you mean that you will “peddle” them along the road?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“You understand me better than usual,—in fact to perfection.”
He dismounts and strides to the back of the cart, lifts the covers, seizes the rabbits, flings some silver contemptuously into the basket, and looks about him for a place to bury his bargain. A small boy approaching in the far distance will probably bag the game.
Bailiff’s Daughter(modestly).—“Thanks for your trade, sir, rather ungraciously bestowed, and we ’opes for a continuance of your past fyvors.”
True Love(leaning on the wheel of the trap).—“Let us stop this nonsense. What did you hope to gain by running away?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Distance and absence.”
True Love.—“You knew you couldn’t prevent my offering myself to you sometime or other.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Perhaps not; but I could at least defer it, couldn’t I?”
True Love.—“Why postpone the inevitable?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Doubtless I shrank from giving you the pain of a refusal.”
True Love.—“Perhaps; but do you know what I suspect?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“I’m not a suspicious person, thank goodness!”
True Love.—“That, on the contrary, you are wilfully withholding from me the joy of acceptance.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“If I intended to accept you, why did I run away?”
True Love.—“To make yourself more desirable and precious, I suppose.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(with the most confident coquetry).—“Did I succeed?”
True Love.—“No; you failed utterly.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(secretly piqued).—“Then I am glad I tried it.”
True Love.—“You couldn’t succeed because you were superlatively desirable and precious already; but you should never have experimented. Don’t you know that Love is a high explosive?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Is it? Then it ought always to be labelled ‘dangerous,’ oughtn’t it? But who thought of suggesting matches? I’m sure I didn’t!”
True Love.—“No such luck; I wish you would.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“According to your theory, if you apply a match to Love it is likely to ‘go off.’”
True Love.—“I wish you would try it on mine and await the result. Come now, you’ll have to marry somebody, sometime.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“I confess I don’t see the necessity.”
True Love(morosely).—“You’re the sort of woman men won’t leave in undisturbed spinsterhood; they’ll keep on badgering you.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Oh, I don’t mind the badgering of a number of men; it’s rather nice. It’s the one badger I find obnoxious.”
True Love(impatiently).—“That’s just the perversity of things. I could put a stop to the protestations of the many; I should like nothing better—but the pertinacity of the one! Ah, well! I can’t drop that without putting an end to my existence.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(politely).—“I shouldn’t think of suggesting anything so extreme.”
True Love(quoting).—“‘Mrs. Hauksbee proceeded to take the conceit out of Pluffles as you remove the ribs of an umbrella before re-covering.’ However, you couldn’t ask me anything seriously that I wouldn’t do, dear Mistress Perversity.”
Bailiff’s Daughter(yielding a point).—“I’ll put that boldly to the proof. Say you don’t love me!”
True Love(seizing his advantage).—“I don’t! It’s imbecile and besotted devotion! Tell me, when may I come to take you away?”
Bailiff’s Daughter(sighing).—“It’s like asking me to leave Heaven.”
Phœbe and Gladwish
True Love.—“I know it; she told me where to find you,—Thornycroft is the seventh poultry-farm I’ve visited,—but you could never leave Heaven, you can’t be happy without poultry, why that is a wish easily gratified. I’ll get you a farm to-morrow; no, it’s Saturday, and the real estate offices close at noon, but on Monday, without fail. Your ducks and geese, always carrying it along with you. All you would have to do is to admit me; Heaven is full of twos. If you shall swim on a crystal lake—Phœbe told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond; she was sitting beside it when I called, her hand in that of a straw-coloured person named Gladwish, and the ground in her vicinity completely strewn with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea with an ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its garden; their perches shall be of satin-wood and their water dishes of mother-of-pearl. You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herd—simply to be near you—for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture? It’s a little like Claude Melnotte’s, I confess. The fact is I am not quite sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the tabbies at the Hydro is like quaffing inebriating vodka after Miffin’s Food! May I come to-morrow?”
Bailiffs Daughter(hedging).—“I shall be rather busy; the Crossed Minorca hen comes off to-morrow.”
True Love.—“Oh, never mind! I’ll take her off to-night when I escort you to the farm; then she’ll get a day’s advantage.”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“And rob fourteen prospective chicks of a mother; nay, lose the chicks themselves? Never!”
True Love.—“So long as you are a Goose Girl, does it make any difference whose you are? Is it any more agreeable to be Mrs. Heaven’s Goose Girl than mine?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“Ah! but in one case the term of service is limited; in the other, permanent.”
True Love.—“But in the one case you are the slave of the employer, in the other the employer of the slave. Why did you run away?”
Bailiff’s Daughter.—“A man’s mind is too dull an instrument to measure a woman’s reason; even my own fails sometimes to deal with all its delicate shades; but I think I must have run away chiefly to taste the pleasure of being pursued and brought back. If it is necessary to your happiness that you should explore all the Bluebeard chambers of my being, I will confess further that it has taken you nearly three weeks to accomplish what I supposed you would do in three days!”
True Love(after a well-spent interval).—“To-morrow, then; shall we say before breakfast? All, do! Why not? Well, then, immediately after breakfast, and I breakfast at seven nowadays, and sometimes earlier. Do take off those ugly cotton gloves, dear; they are five sizes too large for you, and so rough and baggy to the touch!”