The sun was setting, and the long shadows were slanting into the tired faces of the crowd, before the dowser considered he had satisfactorily accomplished his self-imposed task. He had made his circuit of the village, and come back again to the common. He had found and marked three springs: two were, he said, at a considerable depth, some hundred or more feet below the surface; and one, the most conveniently-placed for those who were to benefit by it, was on the edge of the common, perhaps three or four hundred yards from the church. When he and his following returned after their long and successful quest, they found motor car standing at the Wild Swan, puffing and snorting in the impatient way that motors do. The driver, who was most unmistakably out of patience, called out to him to hurry, or "they would not get to Ipswich that night;" and after a brief adieu to Mr. Barlow, and a comprehensive word to the assemblage, he climbed into the car and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Willowton metaphorically rubbed its eyes. It was like a dream. This morning they were to die for want of water; this evening it appeared there was "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink."
When the last sound of the departing motor's horn had died away Geo Lummis joined his cronies on the bridge.
"Well," said Corkam, in his rancorous voice, "of all the tomfoolery I ever seed in my life, I never seed anything to ekal this! Do yew mean ter tell me as that old bloke with a piece a' stick can find out where the water is, a hundred feet under the earth? Well, if yew think I'm goin' ter believethat, why you're greater fules nor I took yer for."
"He, he, he!" laughed the cripple admiringly. "He knaw a thing or tew, due Mr. Corkham."
"Well," said Corkam, swelling with importance, "if I di'n't I ought ter, for I've been twice ter 'Meriky, and that's moor nor the rest of yer hev."
This argument was unanswerable, for nobody else certainly had crossed the Atlantic, or had, for the matter of that, ever experienced the slightest desire to do so; but still, to have been a traveller gives one importance in one's native village, and Corkam never let the American experience be forgotten. There was a tradition that an impudent boy, with an inquiring mind, had once asked him how long he had been there; and therewerepeople in the upper walks of life in Willowton who had expressed an opinion that he had gone over as a stoker in one of the "Cunarders," but had never done more than set his foot on the soil of the other hemisphere. But the fate of the indiscreet boy, whose ears had tingled for some time after his awkward question, had successfully deterred others from indulging in any undue thirst for information on that point, and Corkam was popularly supposed to be a mine of knowledge. It was, therefore, distinctly disappointing to find that the afternoon's excitement was to go for nothing, and that they were, so to speak, "no forrader" than they were before.
There was soon quite a little crowd round the "traveller," who was airing his opinions freely, and consequently enjoying himself exceedingly.
"And if he hev found water," he was saying—"s'posin', as we'll say, s'posin' thereiswater where he say—why, he didn't find that for nothin'. Bah!Iknaw better'n that. He knaw wot he's about, does that gen'lm; he'll be round here in a month or two, I'll lay a soverin', arstin' for yer wotes for the next election! I knaw 'em; they're all alike—doctors, parsons, jowsers—they don't do anythin' for nothin'. Mark my words, he'll git suffin' out on yer before long. I knaw 'em, an' I ought'er, I'm shore, for ha'int I've bin te 'Meriky?"
How long this harangue might have continued one cannot tell, but an interruption was cased by the arrival on the scene of the doctor in his high dog-cart. He pulled up on the bridge and addressed the crowd.
"This seems to be a good opportunity of speaking to you, my men, on the subject which will be discussed in the schoolroom to-morrow at dinner-time. Three springs of water are said to have been discovered, and it has been decided to sink wells, if possible, in all three places; and also to clear out those wells which already exist, with a hope that when the raindoescome, and the springs begin to work again, the water may be purer and more fit to drink. The wells must be dug at once, the funds must be raised somehow or other; we can't stop to consider how at this moment, for it is a matter, as you all know, of life and death. What we propose to ask of you is to come forward with offers of help. The farmers have kindly consented to spare those of their men who know anything about well-sinking. I am about to send telegrams to several well-known men to come to our assistance, and I now ask you to think the matter over this evening, and those men who are willing to offer their services will, I hope, come in person to the meeting at one o'clock to-morrow, when a selection will be made by a committee, which will be formed this evening. I should like to add that the question of wages will be also settled, and that the vicar and I will be responsible for their prompt payment. All we ask of you is your hearty co-operation in what is for the good of the whole parish."
"Hear, hear!" shouted a few voices in the crowd, who, for the most part, received the intimation with sullen silence and imperturbability of countenance. Corkam's words had done their work, and Willowton had veered round again and become incredulous. The doctor drove off, first to call at a fever-smitten house at the extreme end of the village, and then to beat up a committee of influential men for the meeting next day.
"Responsible fur the wages, indeed!" sneered Corkam. "I'd like ter know where they're agoin' ter git th'money from! They'll borrer it, I s'pose, and make a good thing out of it. Never fear, yer don't blindme;Iknow 'em!"
"Well," said a man who had hitherto preserved a stony silence, "th' wells have got to be dug somehow, and I don't see what call anybody hev ter bother about where th' money come from so that's good money, and that they come by it honest. I know sumthin' about well-diggin', and I shall go if they'll hev me."
"And so'll I, Martin, if yue due," said Tom Chapman, who stood beside him. "I don't know nothin' about it; but I know that's dangerous work, and is well paid, and I can work under yur and due my best."
"That you can, booy," said the other man, clapping him on the back, "an' a better mate I don't never want te see."
After a little more desultory talk the crowd separated, and they all went home to their evening meal, and to talk the matter over with their wives.
When Tom Chapman opened his door a sight met him that was not a grateful one to a tired man, and would have put most men into a rage, but Tom didn't seem to mind much. He picked his way cheerfully along over all manner of things, picking up a crowing infant as he went that was rolled up in a shawl under the table. "The only safe place in the room!" his wife said. A cry of joy greeted daddy's entrance, and half a dozen grubby little arms encircled his corduroy legs. His wife, with her hair all over her face, looked up from the couch where she was sitting, with the half-dressed youngster jumping about on her knees.
"What a mess!" was all Tom said.
"So it is Tom dear," said his wife cheerily; "but that'll be all clear in no time.—Off with you, childer." And in a trice all the elder ones were scampering upstairs, laughing with glee, and carrying the greater part of their garments, of which they had already divested themselves, with them. "Go you, Polly," she said to a girl of perhaps eleven years old, "and tuck 'em all up—there's a dear."
Polly vanished after the rest. Her mother floundered about collecting oddments for a few minutes, talking volubly all the time, and giving her husband an amusing and graphic description of the dowser's appearance in Gravel-pit Lane. Tom dangled the baby as he listened, and swallowed his impatience as best he could, for there were no signs of supper. Annie was incorrigible, he knew, and he often felt he ought to make a stand against so much untidiness and unpunctuality; but Annie always disarmed him. Worn and weary, tired or ill, she always had a smile for him, and then she had one great and very rare virtue—shenever madeexcuses. She never either denied her faults or tried to explain them away. Tom, like the vicar, sometimes wished she did, for it would have givenhiman excuse for scolding her; but she never did, and so he learned to put up with it all. And she had also another rare and excellent gift—she could control the children. She never "smacked" or scolded them, and she never nagged at them; but when she told them to do anything, somehow or other, sooner or later—sometimes, certainly, a little "later"—they always obeyed, and that without coercion.
In a few minutes there was quiet overhead, for the children were saying their prayers, and Tom sat down to the table, and ate heartily of some very good boiled bacon and a mess of cold beans, washed down with a couple of glasses of fromerty, a drink he had enjoyed a few years before in the hayfield and having asked and learned how it was made, had passed his knowledge on to Annie, who was always quick at anything in the way of cooking, and eager to add to her store of knowledge in that line, to her husband's lasting joy and her own comfort.
"Annie," he said, when he had finished and she had rocked the baby to sleep, "I've took on as a well hand—leastways I've said I will work with Martin, and I shall go and offer myself to-morrow at the meetin'."
Annie's face fell.
"O Tom, I wish you wouldn't. That's such terrible dangerous work, and what ever shall I do if yew get hurt?"
"No more dangerous than many other things. That's good pay, and some one must do it. There'll be a rare job to find the men for three wells, to be dug at once the doctor say."
"Three wells at once! well, that is a job! Which'll yew be at, I wonder? P'raps they'll set yew on the one atop a th' lane. That 'ud be nice and handy, and yew could run in for yer dinner. And what'll they giv yew a day due yew think, Tom?
"I'm sure I don't know. Not less than three bob, I'm thinking, and p'raps more when we git down deep."
"Three shillin's a day; why, that's eighteen shillin's a week, and us only gettin' twelve! Why, we'll sune grow rich like that, Tom!"
Chapman laughed. There is not much wealth even on eighteen shillings for a family of ten! But the more the merrier, he said, when his friends commiserated him for having so many mouths to fee.
"Have you seen th' booy Tommy since th' mornin'?" asked Annie.
"No," he said; "I've bin after that dowser since I giv up work. He's all right up there. I allus said that was th' right place for 'm, though you was so set on keepin' him here."
"'Twasn't so much that as he wouldn't go, poor booy. He did beg me that hard not to send him away, I hadn't the heart to; and he'd 'a bin here now if Mr. Rutland hadn't come and carried him away in his own arms. And I'm thankful enough now that I let him go, for they let me go up and see him this tea-time, and he was a-lyin' there so comfortable, with plenty a' coolin' drink by his side, and Mrs. Davies lookin' after him a lot better than I could," said Annie with a sigh; but somehow she was learning to recognize her own shortcomings, and realizing how unsuitable a place her cottage was for illness.
"And he say to me, 'Mother,' he say, 'I do very well here; don't you take on about me'—for I couldn't help feelin' a bit bad a-leavin' of him there, in spite of all I see of the comfort round him. O Tom, the booards was that clean and the room that sweet!"
"Yis, I know," said Tom sympathetically; "and let's hope, now he's away, poor boy, the others will escape the fever. Anyways, the first thing to do is to git pure water, and I've set my mind on that, Annie gal; so don't yew try to put me off th' job."
"No—o, I won't," said Annie, as cheerfully as she could; but she didn't really like it, all the same, though the eighteen shillings a week dazzled her eyes.
The next morning Chapman and his mate and some half-dozen other men presented themselves at the meeting, and were taken on at the wells. Four of them were sent to the one by the railway station nearest the village, three were employed to empty one of the infected wells, and our two friends, Chapman and Martin, were sent with a couple of men, who had come out from Ipswich, to start the one over the spring the dowser had marked on the edge of the common, between the churchyard and Gravel-pit Lane, just as Annie had hoped.
The well-sinking committee, composed of the vicar, the doctor, the squire's agent Mr. Jones, Mr. Barlow, and three of the principal tradesmen in Willowton, lost no time in setting to work that afternoon. Boxer, the largest carpenter in the place, got an order for two cylinders or zones, to be made of the strongest oak planks, and well clamped, in the fashion of a barrel. These cylinders, which were, of course, circular, were about three feet in height, and measured about seven feet in diameter. They were made with an overhanging edge to hold and retain in their places the bricks that were to weight them as they sank into the soil; and a supply of sharp new spades and picks was sent to each well-side by the village ironmonger. Apparently every one was going to reap some benefit from this new scheme, and the prospect of good water, even to the most sceptical, could not fail to be popular.
Before the evening was out collecting boxes "For the New Wells" had been put in conspicuous places on the counters of each of the shops, and a large one was fastened on to the church door. There was one placed in a prominent position at the post-office, and old Jimmy tramped off to the station with the doctor's compliments to the stationmaster, and "would he put one in the waiting-room?" Of course the stationmaster was agreeable to this, and Jimmy had the satisfaction of seeing the box he brought hung on a nail near the ticket-collector's window, and of hearing the chink of the station-master's own contribution, and the promise from each of the two porters of all the money they would get in tips for the next three days.
"Not that that'll count for much," one of them remarked, with a wink at the old man that caused him to chuckle audibly, "'cos you know, master, we be'an't allowed to take no money."
Willowton was not a crowded junction, but only a little ordinary station on the line; yet somehow or other, between them those porters put nearly two shillings into the box.
For the next few days, whenever the vicar or the doctor showed himself in the village, he was sure to be stopped and asked for a collecting-card, and before the end of the week there were thirty-six cards at work in Willowton. Some wag suggested that there should be one on the bridge, and that Corkam or Farley should hang it round his neck with a suitable inscription, because they were certain to be always on the spot! But Corkam scowled so at the proposition that what might have really been a most excellent plan was never carried out: for the bridge, as I said before, was the central point of the little town, and few people but passed over it some time in the day; consequently quite good sum might have been collected if anybody had taken charge of a box. Corkam apparently did all the good works he ever meant to accomplish in America, and Farley dared not undertake to collect without his approval.
It was a week after the finding of the water, and Mildred Greenacre was in the little orchard at the back of the cottage. There was a sickly smell in the air of dying May flowers; the parched blossoms fell fast on her head as she stooped over the nearly dried-up stream to fill her water-can. A half-starved looking billy-goat rubbed its horned head coaxingly against her and bleated piteously. It was trying its best to tell her that there was no nourishment in the burned-up grass, which was all it had to live on. Milly was paying very little attention to the poor animal's complaint, for she was kneeling on the bank, holding on to a thorn bush with one hand, while she vainly strove to reach the sunken water with the other. She made a pretty picture in the broad sunlight, and it was not lost upon the "laziest chap in th' place," as he sat idly balancing himself on a gate opening into the field on the other side of the water.
For some time, unseen himself, he watched the girl's fruitless endeavours, and then he suddenly lifted up his voice and shouted, so that she started and almost dropped her can.
"Hold hard, and I'll help yer!"
Milly rose from her stooping position, and looked round to see where the voice came from. Geo came slowly towards her. He came slowly, because it never occurred to him to hurry! If ever he had experienced an impulse to hasten his steps, it was at this moment.
"I'll fill yer can," he said laconically, and without raising his eyes to the pretty, flushed face across the stream.
"But you can't," said Milly; "you're the wrong side, you see."
"I on't be there long, then," replied Geo, measuring the distance with his eye. "Yew git out a' the way, and I'll soon be alongside a' yew."
"You're never going to jump?" began Milly, with round eyes of surprise. As she moved aside, but before the sentence was finished, Geo had sprung across.
It was not much of a jump—nine feet or so—but Geo had not attempted anything so athletic for many a long day, and it was not surprising that he landed somewhat ungracefully on all fours, and was rather breathless when he picked himself up, only to sit down again very promptly and wipe his brow with a blue-and-white handkerchief.
Milly stood looking at him with surprise.
"Have you hurt yourself?" she ventured, after a minute.
"No, no, thank ye, only a bit shook; the ground is hard."
"That it is," said Milly—"like iron. If only the rain would come, what a good job that would be!"
"That would indeed! But we've got water to drink at last—leastways we shall have when the wells are dug."
"How are they getting on with them?" asked Milly, forgetful of her morning's work for the moment.
"Well, the one on the common is gettin' on fairly well. They've got down about fifty feet; but that's 'mazin' hard work, as you can see."
Nurse cast a satisfied glance round.
Nurse cast a satisfied glance round.
"And the other, the one by the railway? I haven't been round there these three days, and my grandfather, he won't have nothin' to say to it." Milly smiled as she said this, and an answering smile showed itself on Geo's broad face.
"No, so I heard say. He's an old-fashioned old gentleman, he is. He don't go with th' times no-how, do 'ee?"
"That he don't," said Milly. "You should hear him goin' on about it!"
"Well," said Geo, rising slowly from his recumbent position and taking the can from the girl's hand, "that's a rum job altogether. Them at the bridge can't make nothin' of it, and no more—-"
"Why do you go with them at the bridge at all?" broke in Milly impatiently. "Who cares what they say or what they don't say, I should like to know?" very haughtily. "Give me my can, please; I can get it myself!"
Geo stared at her, at a loss to account for the sudden change in he look and manner. A minute ago she was evidently inclined to be friendly, but now she was equally evidently inclined to be extremely annoyed with him. Geo gave vent to his feelings in a low, long whistle. Milly blushed crimson.
"I beg your pardon," she said; "I oughtn't to have said it. That's no business of mine whether you loaf all day on the bridge not. But I have my work to do, and I mustn't loiter here no more, or I shall have grandfather after me."
Geo stood quietly by while she made this rather long speech, and was surprised to feel that he did not quite like it. He was inclined to think he liked it better when she flashed out her contempt for his idleness. But being a man of few words, and not much felicity of expression, he merely muttered something unintelligible, and leaning over the bank filled her can.
"I'll car' it for you if you're agreeable," he said shamefacedly, and the two moved together towards the cottage.
"Thank you kindly," Milly said gently when they reached the door; but she did not ask him to step in, and he turned away awkwardly enough, wishing he had the courage to tell the girl he had not spoken to three time in his life since they were at school together that he was tired of his companions on the bridge, and would gladly change his habits if only she would be friends with him.
With a gruff "You're welcome, I'm sure," he slouched off towards the village.
As he turned out of the lane by the bridge, Corkam caught sight of him, and called after him,—-
"Geo, come here, buoy! What are you arter, slinking away like that? Why, that nigh on time for a pint!"
But Geo, for once in his life, turned the other way, and sauntered up the road to the new well by the railway. The men had given up work for a spell, and were sitting in the shadiest spot they could find eating their "'levenses." Geo lay down under the fence with them.
"If I'd ha' known what a job this 'oud ha' bin," said one man, "blow me if I'd ha' took it on."
"Hard work, is it?" said Geo pleasantly.
"Ay, hard work indeed—harder work nor you iver did a' your born days, I'll lay a sovr'in'."
For the first time since Geo didn't know when, he felt a twinge of shame at these rough words, and his eyes fell on his own hands, fine, strong, well-shaped, capable hands, tanned with sun and wind, but not hardened with toil like the other men's. A big, good-natured looking man, who had just swallowed a good draught of home-made "small beer," spoke suddenly, as if he had divined the other's thoughts.
"They look as if they cold do a day's work as well as mine," he said, holding out a pair of rough, strong limbs, with sinews like those of Longfellow's village blacksmith, and muscles standing out, hard and healthy, as a working man's should be. "Let me feel your muscles, buoy." He gripped Geo's arm as he spoke. "Pulp!" he ejaculated, not ill-naturedly, however—"pulp! How come they like that? Have you had th' fever, buoy!"
"Mighty little fever about him," said the man who had spoken first. "That's want a' work wot's the matter a' him!Henever had a wet jacket a' his life! He's too much a' th' gentleman, is Mr. George Lummis, and so was his father before 'im—like father, like son. He was a precious sight too grand to keep his own wife when he was alive, and niver did na more nor trap a rabbit when there worn't nothin' to eat in th' house."
"You lie!" said George, with sudden anger leaping up in his face, and standing with blazing eyes staring at the sneering workman. "Say what you like about me, but you leave my father alone, or I'll know what for."
"Hullo, hullo!" said the good-natured man, who was a stranger, and had no idea of raising such a storm when he remarked on Geo's very apparent strength of frame. "Hullo! stow that; that a sight too hot for quarrelling. We'll ha' to go to work again in twenty minutes, and tha would be a good lot more pleasant to have a whiff a' bacca than commin' to fisticuffs a' this heat. Sit down, young man, and don't be a fule."
But Geo was much to irate to follow this obviously good advice. Without appearing to notice the stranger's words, he strolled off with as unconcerned an air as he could to the bridge. His possible good resolutions had all faded away, swallowed up in the blow his vanity had received, and a few minutes later he had joined his friends Farley and Corkam in their far less harmless "'levenses" at the inn. Here he regaled them with an account of his passage of arms with the stranger, and received their sympathy and strongly-expressed advice to do as he pleased, "and be hanged to them!" There might be a late "haysel," and he might get taken on for the time, and put a few pounds in his pocket to tide him over till harvest. So when Milly passed over the bridge at about one o'clock with her grandfather's dinner, which she was taking to him where he was at work to save him the hot walk home and back, she saw Geo with a flushed face and bravado air leaning against the bridge, with his familiar pals on either side. Milly saw, but she took no notice, and passed with her head in the air and an angry spot on either cheek. The girl was furious with herself for having taken an interest, even a momentary one, in such a worthless, good-for-nothing as Geo, and still more annoyed to think that she had let him see it.
"That's a tidy maid," said the cripple, with the air of a critic, as she passed, and both men were surprised at Geo's answer.
"What's that to you?" said Geo, in a sullen tone; and he crossed over, and became apparently completely engrossed in watching for a trout under a stone.
The last days of May were over, and June was here, but since the visit of the dowser there had fallen no drop of rain. The fever was in no-ways abated. There had been several more deaths and several new cases; another young Chapman was down with it; the isolation hospital was full, and a fierce battle was going on among the guardians as to the expediency of admitting sick people into the Union Infirmary.
In the meantime, by a subscription raised by the well-to-do in the parish, the services of a trained nurse had been secured, and old Jimmy had been asked to give her a lodging. Everybody knew how clean and neat Milly kept everything, and it was unanimously agreed at the meeting, which had been hastily summoned, that the nurse would be as comfortable there as anywhere else in the village.
Old Jimmy at first demurred, on account his granddaughter; but Milly herself soon argued him out of his objections.
"The fever is in the air, grandfather," she said. "I take all ordinary precautions against it. I boil and filter every drop of water we drink, and I never let anything dirty lie about anywhere, and am as particular as can be about every morsel of food we eat, and I don't see as I can do no more. If I'm to catch it I shall, but not from the nurse, I know, unless she takes it herself; for this typhoid is not like scarlet fever or smallpox—you can't carry it about in your clothes, but only take it immediate one from another. I'm not afraid of the nurse if you're not."
So Jimmy gave in, and one hot evening the nurse arrived. Mrs. Crowe, the vicar's housekeeper, met her at the station, and brought her to her new quarters. The white dust lay thick on the road, and the hedges all along were choked with it. A porter from the station followed with her box on a barrow. A most formidable box it was. It quite frightened Milly when she saw it. She thought she must be having a very grand lady to stay with her. But the nurse soon explained that it was simply filled with linen.
"I've brought enough to last me a month or two," she said, "and my aprons weigh so heavy; but if we can't get it up your stairs, why, we can just unpack it in the parlour and carry the things up in our arms. You need not worry about that."
Milly had set out a cosy tea in the little front room that opened into the garden—some nice home-made bread (for Milly always did her own baking), some butter and blackberry jam, and a boiled egg and some toast—in case the traveller was hungry after her hot journey. The tea was in a brown earthenware pot—which, as everybody is not fortunate enough to know, makes the very best tea in the world—and the cloth was spotless, and the knives and spoons well polished. Nurse cast a satisfied glance round before she followed Milly to the little bedroom upstairs. She had had plenty of experience, and she knew the signs of good housekeeping almost at a glance. There was no carpet in the room, but the flooring was exquisitely clean; some white curtains of a material that Milly's grandmother, who had made them and hung up forty years ago, had called "dimity;" the little wooden bedstead stood a little out from the wall, and the sheets and pillow-cases were as white as careful washing could make them. A rush-bottomed chair and a little table, with the necessary washing apparatus, completed the furniture. A jug of hot water stood in the basin, and a pair of clean towels and a fresh piece of brown Windsor soap looked inviting.
Nurse sat down and removed her bonnet, opened her little black hand-bag, and took out a sponge and a brush and comb; and Milly, with a pleasant "hope she found all to her liking," slipped away to make the tea. She had asked Mrs. Crowe to stay and have a cup with them, for she was, not unnaturally, a little shy of her new lodger. It was her first experience of having any one but her grandfather to look after, and she felt a little anxious.
As soon as tea was over Milly put a note into the nurse's hands. It had been left there, she said, by the doctor, who would be much obliged, did not nurse feel too tired, if she would come to him in the cool of the evening, and he would explain her duties to her.
The conversation naturally turned on the prevailing topic of the typhoid epidemic. Nurse, who had been a couple of years in a London hospital, had had a good deal of experience of this fever, and she told her listeners many interesting things which were useful for them to know just then. She was a pleasant-faced, kind-looking woman of about forty years of age, with a slightly dictatorial manner, which was perhaps the result of her training; for she had worked for several years as parish nurse in poor districts, and often, as she told them, met with terrible ignorance, and that obstinacy which so often accompanies it. Peoplewouldnot believe in infection, she said; they would not take the most ordinary, the most simple precautions; and what was worse, when they had learned by the bitter experience of the loss of, perhaps, their nearest and their dearest, they still persisted in the utter disregard of cleanliness and health.
"And that, no doubt, is the secret of this outbreak at Willowton. I have not been told so, but I take that for granted," said the nurse.
"Well, nurse, I should hardly like to go so far as that," said the vicar's housekeeper, standing up as far as her conscience allowed for her native place; "but there is a great deal of that too. But our chief trouble is the water. Nearly all the wells in the place are condemned by the sanitary inspectors, and we really don't know where to get water fit to drink."
"Dear me, that is bad!" said nurse. "What are your landlords about? Why isn't something done?"
"Oh, dear me, it's no fault of the landlords," said Mrs. Crowe, rather warmly. "It is one gentleman owns the whole place, but he has been out at the war the last two years, and his agent has been doing his best, but up to within the last fortnight there had been no possibility of finding any water. And most of the springs have gone dry."
"You say 'up to the last fortnight,' Mrs. Crowe. Do I understand that you have had some water found since then?"
"Well, yes; at least so we hope and trust there will be when the wells are dug."
And then she proceeded to give nurse a full and highly-coloured description of the "miracle," as some of the people persisted in calling it.
"Oh yes, I have heard of dowsers," said nurse. "It's a wonderful thing, and a good many people don't believe in it. But seeing is believing, and from what you say I hope we shall soon see a proof of the power. But we are lingering too long over our tea and chat. I must go up to the doctor's house, for he evidently wants to see me this evening, and I won't waste any more time. Perhaps one of you will show me the way!"
"I will," said Mrs. Crowe. "Indeed, it is time I was home too; the vicar will be in and wanting his supper."
So the two women went off together, and Milly was left to clear up the tea-things and get a meal ready, for her grandfather would not be in, he told her, till eight o'clock.
The account the doctor gave Nurse Blunt of the deplorable state of the sickness in Willowton would have made a weaker woman quail, but Nurse Blunt was strong in body and mind.
"I mayn't sit up night, sir, as you know," she said, "but I'll do my best all day; and I'll begin at six o'clock to-morrow morning if you'll give me list of the most urgent cases."
The doctor took out his pocket-book.
"Four cases in Gravel-pit Lane," he read, "two in the main street, three in the back alley. None of these are particularly dangerous ones, but they all require great care, as you know, and the difficulty is to prevent their relations feeding them with forbidden things."
"I know that well, sir," said the nurse sorrowfully; "I've had a great many sad experiences of that. Many a poor thing has died through being given solid food at a time when nothing but milk should have been allowed."
"Yes," assented the doctor, "of course, it is as you say; and it has been the cause of death to several of our people. I cannot make them see the necessity for following my orders implicitly; they think it does not matter, or I won't find out. Well, perhaps I don't, but nature does, and we soon see the result."
"Where shall I go first?" asked nurse.
"Well, there is a new case declared only this afternoon—a Mrs. Lummis, a nice woman, a widow. She has no one really to look after her but a lazy ne'er-do-weel of a son. Perhaps you had better go there first. She will not keep you long. Everything will be neat; and though very poor, I fancy she knows what ought to be. If wanted, I'll give you an order for milk. Major Bailey has telegraphed from South Africa that his dairy (and he keeps a lot of cows) is at our disposal. You'd better tell her son he must go for it every morning." He wrote out an order as he spoke. "The others have all got them," he continued.
And after receiving a few more important directions, the nurse took her leave and strolled back through the village to her lodgings.
Milly and her grandfather were still up when she got back, though they usually "turned in" earlier. Milly, of course, waited to hear whether her lodger wanted anything before she retired for the night.
"Nothing, thank you," she said in answer to her inquiries; "but if you'll let me have breakfast at eight o'clock I should be glad. And perhaps you can tell me which of these places comes first. I like to take my patients as they come; it saves time and trouble, and they get to know when to expect me."
She handed Milly the doctor's paper, and Milly explained. Nurse took out a pencil and made some notes on the margin.
"Oh! and then there's Mrs. Lummis," she said.
"I am to go there first. Where does she live?"
"Mrs. Lummis!" echoed Milly with surprise. "Is she ill?"
"So the doctor says. And it appears she has no one to look after her but a good-for-nothing son. Poor woman! I'm sorry for her, for I shan't be able to give her much of my time with a list like this!"
Milly would have liked to say something in defence of George Lummis, for she had, or fancied she had, seen something of another side of his character when he had jumped across the stream and stood beside her so meekly while she spoke to him about his wasting his time on the bridge. She had fancied there was something rather fine about him, he had looked so strong and honest and capable for the moment; but then a little later how different had been his appearance! The remembrance of that kept her quiet; she had nothing to say.
Old Jimmy woke up just in time to hear nurse's remark. "Yes," he said, "a good-fur-northin', idlin' young fule." And if Milly had not stopped him with a timely reminder that it was nearly half-past nine, he would have plunged into the history of all poor Geo's antecedents for several generations. As it was, nurse was not particularly interested, and backed up Milly's suggestion that it was high time all good people went to bed.
In the meantime, in the little house on the hill that lazy, idle good-for-nothing was making ready for the night.
He pulled down the little blind over the open window, and set a jug of milk and water with a glass by his mother's bedside, and smoothed the sheet over her hot and tossing limbs.
"You just sing out, mother, if you want anything," he said, speaking in a comfortable, low-toned voice that did not jar on her aching nerves. "Or if you can't sleep. I'll come and set by you. I'd like to do that now if you'd let me."
"No, no, Geo my boy, that I won't; I'm quite comfortable as far as that goes. If it wasn't for the heat, maybe I'd get some sleep myself. You go to bed now, and when you wake come in and see after me. I'll call you sure enough if I want you."
So Geo came away, and throwing himself on his bed was soon sound asleep.
In the house next door a girl was ill. Mrs. Lummis had been helping to nurse her. If only she could be left, her mother would come and see after her, she well knew; for the poor are always at their best in times of illness, and the way they help each other is a pattern to those above them. But the girl was very bad indeed, not likely to recover, and Mrs. Lummis could not look for help from the nearly worn-out mother. It was a comfort that Geo seemed to be so handy. She was lucky, she thought, to have such a son; but she felt anxious, knowing that her illness was likely to be a long one. She knew not of the likelihood of the nurse coming to her. Like everybody else in the village, she knew of her advent, but nobody had told her she had really come. If she had she would have passed a less miserable night, perhaps; for, of course, nothing was farther away from her than sleep.
After all she had heard, nurse was rather surprised, when she knocked at the door about seven o'clock next morning, to find it opened to her by a pleasant, bright-faced young man, who looked as if he had just dipped his head into a tub of cold water, so fresh was his colour.
"Youhaven't been up all night, I'll be bound," she inwardly ejaculated; "but you look different from what I expected."
"I am the new nurse," she said in answer to the astonishment that shot out of his blue eyes, "and the doctor has sent me to see after your mother. What sort of night has she had?"
"Pretty bad," said Geo. "I was just gettin' th' kettle to boil, and thought I'd make her some tea."
"Milk is better for her," said the nurse.
"That's too early for milk yet," said Geo; "you can't get milk at the shop before eight o'clock."
"Oh, well, I've got a ticket for you," and the nurse produced it out of her little black bag.
"Why, that's for the Hall!" said Geo with surprise.
"Yes, that's all right; the doctor sent it. You'd better take a can and go and fetch it at once. I'll see after your mother if you'll just take me to her."
"But I think I'd better first let her know," said Geo, thinking this newcomer was taking rather too much on herself.
Nurse read his thoughts and flushed a little. She was so full of the importance of her mission, so anxious to do her work thoroughly, that she sometimes forgot the little courtesies due to everybody, sick or well.
"Certainly," she said, rather curtly. "I'll wait till you come down."
George disappeared up the steep little staircase that led out of the sitting-room to the bedroom overhead. He was gone a few minutes, and when he came back he said his mother would be glad to see nurse if the doctor had sent her, and he showed her up. The sick woman, who looked thin and flushed with fever, looked half frightened at the nurse for a moment, and then began to cry.
"Leave her to me," said nurse to Geo, who did not understand. "She'll be all right in a minute or two."
So Geo went off in his usual leisurely way for the milk, and the nurse talked soothingly to the sick woman, took her temperature, which was very high, and gave her some fever medicine.
"Are you going to do for her?" asked the nurse bluntly when Geo returned.
"I s'pose so," answered Geo in the same way.
"Well, I'll call in some time again this afternoon. You need not stop with her all day, but you must come in and out; and give her nothing but milk, but plenty of it. But can you be spared from your work? Oh," as Geo hesitated, "I forgot."
Geo saw she had already heard about him. It was unnecessary to explain.
"I'll due wot yue say," he said simply, opening the door and letting her out; and then he went back to his mother, who spoke gratefully of the nurse and seemed glad of her help.
One would have thought that so excellent a work as the digging of the wells would be allowed to go on quietly, but unfortunately the fact that the scheme happened to have been originated by the vicar and the doctor was enough to make some people condemn it; and we all know, when once the thin end of the wedge of discontent and distrust has forced its way into anything, how difficult—nay, how often impossible—it is to dislodge it. And so it was that the men at the railway well, when they had dug to the depth of nearly fifty feet and had found no water, began to get impatient and disheartened. Most of the wells in Willowton were not more than thirty or forty feet deep, and were fed, of course, chiefly by surface drainage; hence their deadly poison. These new wells were on the higher ground above the village, and naturally water was to be found there only at a deeper level; but these men either would not or could not take this in. Two of them had had very little experience whatever in the work, and like all novices, they looked for immediate results; and when these were not forthcoming, they grumbled at the dowser, their employers, and everything else. Their evil counsellors advised a strike for higher wages than the unprecedented amount they were already receiving, and so it happened that one hot morning, when the vicar went up to see how they were progressing, he found the well deserted, and no signs of the men anywhere. He walked up to it and looked in. It was partially covered with planks in the usual way, apparently just as they had left it the night before. He was puzzled. The men had apparently struck. But why? he asked himself. And nothing he could recall threw any light upon the matter.
"That is the worst," he thought "of employing irregular workmen." But it had been impossible at such short notice to procure all professional well-sinkers, and he had thought himself very fortunate to have secured two, one for each well; while all the men, except Chapman, had seen the work going on at various farms in the neighbourhood, if they had not actually assisted. They were perfectly well aware of the nature of the work; they had volunteered for it, and gone at it cheerfully enough. The strike was altogether inexplicable.
The vicar paid his visit to the Union, and an hour later came on to the bridge, where he saw all four men seated on the parapet, smoking, and talking loudly and ostentatiously, as if they wished to engage the attention of the passers-by. They were a rough-looking gang, however, and nobody seemed inclined to stop. Curiously enough, neither Corkam nor Farley was present.
"Good-morning, my men," he said pleasantly when he got within speaking distance. "How is it you are not at work?"
A sort of sullen silence had come over them at his approach. No one attempted to break it, but each looked covertly at the other for guidance—all except the stranger, who turned his back and became apparently deeply interested in the ducks on the water.
"You're all here, aren't you? No accident, I hope?" said the vicar.
"No accident as I know on," answered the foreman at last.
He was a man who had been in the choir, but had left for some stupid reason or fancied slight, known only to himself. Mr. Rutland had been extremely kind to him always, and had helped him more than once with money when an accident during harvest had kept him out of work.
"Well," said the vicar, turning very red with an evident effort to keep his temper, "since none of you have anything to say, I will wish you good-morning."
"Well, but we have something to say," said another man roughly.
This man had had three children down with the fever, and the doctor had given them every attention, even sitting up half the night on occasion when two of them had been in a very critical state. He had behaved very differently then from what he was doing now. He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and tried to look as callous as he could.
The vicar looked at him for the eighth part of a second with disgust.
"Well, then, Cadger, stand up and say it properly," he said authoritatively.
The man slipped off the parapet, and stood looking very uncomfortable, for all his swagger, under the vicar's scrutiny.
"Now, then," said the vicar sharply, "what is it? what is your complaint?"
"We've struck," said two or three voices at once.
The vicar never once glanced at the graceless creatures still dangling their legs, though less aggressively; he addressed himself to Cadger.
"Oh, have you?" he said as calmly as he could. "What have you struck for?"
"More wages," said Cadger, glancing at his comrades for directions.
"Which you won't have," said the vicar quietly. He was quite calm now and very white. "You agreed for what was considered by yourselves, and by everybody else, a very generous wage. You have no right to ask more. I, for one, will certainly not advocate it. There is reason in all things, and money is not so plentiful in Willowton as you seem to think. I am disappointed in you, Cadger, particularly; I had thought better things of you. I fancied you, at least, were anxious to take your share in lessening the terrible trouble that has been put upon us; but I see now you only thought of your own interest. With my consent, I tell you honestly, you will not get a penny more."
"He! he!" laughed one or two of the men; but the vicar never looked round.
"But," he added, "I am only one. You can bring your complaint in proper form before the committee, and, of course, if the majority agree, what I say will not stand; so you have your remedy."
He walked away as he finished speaking, and Cadger sat down again. He did not say anything, for somehow or other, though he felt very valiant at first, he began now to feel rather small. There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and then the stranger, whose name was Hayes, knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the root of a tree and spoke.
"He don't look such a bad sort," he said reflectively.
"I don't mind him so much," said Cadger patronizingly, "when he mind 'is own business."
"Oh, indeed!" said the stranger with a twinkle. "Well, now, whatever is 'is business?"
"Well, I s'pose that's te preach in th' church, and give the money tue th' poor, and wisit th' sick."
"Yis. Well, go on; northin' more'n that?"
"Well yis," went on the man, never seeing that Hayes was "pulling his leg:" "he've got ter due th' christenin', and th' marryin', and th' buryin'."
"Well, that last ought ter give 'im plenty o' work in this hole," said Hayes rather brutally. "Well, go on. Anythin' more?"
"Well, he've got ter see after the schule, an' the clothin' club, an' the parish room, an' sech like things."
"And don't he take no trouble about the choir? Don't he have no Bible classes, nor confirmation classes, nor nothin'?"
"Oh yis, hev them," Cadger allowed.
"Well, then, there's them concerts, and trips to the seaside, and school treats you was tellin' me about the other day. Don't he have nothin' to do with them?"
"Oh yis; he manages them, in coorse."
"Oh, 'ndeed! Well, now, how about the cricket clubs and the football clubs?"
"Oh, he's treasurer for them tue."
"Well, then—I don't hold much with parsons myself, but I should like to know wat'snothis business!"
"That's not 'is business to come interferin' wi' us," said the man who had laughed derisively. It was he who had insulted the memory of Geo's father.
"Oh, ain't it? Well—- Don't be angry," as the man fired up; "I only ask for information. Who had the startin' o' these here wells?"
Nobody seemed anxious to answer this question, and Hayes did it himself.
"Why, the parson hisself, didn't he? And aren't he and the doctor answerable for the money? If any one has a right to say anything, I should think the parson has. But you're on the strike, and right or wrong you're in for it; but I don't mind tellin' of yer I ain't—I'm only one to four, and that's no good holdin' out. But I ain't one a' yer sneakin' sort; I ain't afeared ter speak out, no more'n th' parson, and I tell yer honest I hain't struck. I can't goo on by myself; but I've been a well-sinker all my days, and I know I niver had sech good pay offered to me before, and I'm content. If they don't give in, why, the well, I s'pose will have to be closed. But that don't matter to me; I can get plenty a' jobs at Ipswitch, an' I can go back where I come from, quite agreeable."
He put his pipe back into his mouth when he had finished his harangue, and puffed away for some moments in silence; and then the storm broke. The other men were furious at his words. They called him by every opprobrious name they could think of.
"All right," he said at last, leisurely pulling off his jacket; "let's fight it out."
He stood up boldly in the middle of the road, with his head thrown back and his fists clenched; but nobody seemed inclined to accept his invitation.
A butcher's cart that was passing pulled up to see the fun, and in a minute or less there was quite a crowd of small boys standing round the angry group. Encouraged by the "gallery," Hayes, who had hitherto been perfectly good-humoured, was beginning to be really angry, and in another minute would probably have let fly at one or other of his late mates; but the policeman, who happened to be at hand, stepped up in the nick of time and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Hayes was sobered in a minute.
"All right, master, I don't want to fight. There ain't one a' them but wot I could pound into mincemeat if I liked, but I'll let 'em off since you've come."
He pulled down his shirt sleeves as he spoke, and Cadger and his mates took the opportunity of slipping off, and in five minutes the bridge was clear. Indeed, the whole scene had not lasted quarter of an hour; and when Farley and Corkam emerged from the back parlour of the Swan, their mortification and disgust at having missed it knew no bounds. But there had been one silent spectator who concerns our story—it was Geo Lummis. He had heard it all, every word, as he hung over the bridge watching the stream. It was no business of his, so he did not interfere; and knowing that he would be questioned and cross-questioned a hundred times over by both of them if they knew he had been there, he turned off abruptly and went home.