Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.“Uncle Joshua.”“Let each be what he is, so will he be good enough for man himself, and God.”—Lavater.Whilst all this was going on at the farm, Mrs White had been busy as usual in the cottage on the hill—her mind full of Lilac, and her hands full of the Rectory washing. It was an important business, for it was all she and her child had to depend on beside a small pension allowed her by Jem’s late employers; but quite apart from this she took a pride in her work for its own sake. She felt responsible not only for the unyielding stiffness of the Rector’s round collars, but also for the appearance of the choristers’ surplices; and any failure in colour or approach to limpness was a real pain to her, and made it difficult to fix her attention on the service. This happened very seldom, however; and when it did, was owing to an unfortunate drying day or other accident, and never to want of exertion on her own part.There was nothing to complain of in the weather this morning—a bright sun and a nice bit of wind, and not too much of it. Mrs White wrung out the surplices in a very cheerful spirit, and her grave face had a smile on it now and then, for she was thinking of Lilac. Lilac sweetened all her life now, much in the same way that the bunch of flowers from which she took her name had sweetened the small room with its fragrance twelve years ago. As she grew up her mother’s love grew too, stronger year by year; for when she looked at her she remembered all the happiness that her life had known—when she spoke her name, it brought back a thousand pleasant memories and kept them fresh in her mind. And she looked forward too, for Lilac’s sake, and saw in years to come her proudest hope fulfilled—her child grown to be a self-respecting useful woman, who could work for herself and need be beholden to no one. She had no higher ambition for her; but this she had set her heart on, she should not become lazy, vain, helpless, like her cousins the Greenways. That was the pitfall from which she would strain every muscle to hold Lilac back. There were moments when she trembled for the bad influence of example at Orchards Farm. She knew Lilac’s yielding affectionate nature and her great admiration for her cousins, and kept a watchful eye for the first unsatisfactory signs. But there were none. No one could accuse Lilac of untidy ways, or want of thoroughness in dusting, sweeping, and all branches of household work, and even Mrs White could find no fault. “After all,” she said to herself, “it’s natural in young things to like to be together, and there’s nothing worse nor foolishness in Agnetta and Bella.” So she allowed the visits to go on, and contented herself by many a word in season and many a pointed practical lesson. The Greenways were seldom mentioned, but they were, nevertheless, very often in the minds of both mother and daughter.This morning she was thinking of a much more pleasant subject. “How was the artist gentleman getting along with Lilac’s picture? He must be well at it now,” she thought, looking up at the loud-voiced American clock, “an’ her looking as peart and pretty as a daisy. White-faced indeed! I’d rather she were white-faced than have great red cheeks like a peony bloom. What will he do with the picture afterwards?” Joshua Snell, through reading the papers so much, knew most things, and he had said that it would p’r’aps be hung up with a lot of others in a place in London called an exhibition, where you could pay money and go to see ’em. “If he’s right,” concluded Mrs White, wringing out the last surplice, “I do really think as how I must give Lilac a jaunt up to London, an’ we’ll go and see it. The last holiday as ever I had was fifteen years back, an’ that was when Jem and me, we went—Why, I do believe,” she said aloud, “here she is back a’ready!”There was a sound of running feet, which she had heard too often to mistake, then the click of the latch, and then Lilac herself rushed through the front room.“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “he won’t paint me!”Mrs White turned sharply round. Lilac was standing just inside the entrance to the back kitchen, with her bonnet on, and her hands clasped over her face. To keep her bonnet on a moment after she was in the house struck her mother at once as something strange and unusual, and she stared at her for an instant in silence, with her bands held up dripping and pink from the water.“Whatever ails you, child?” she said at length. “What made him change his mind?”“He said as how I was the wrong one,” murmured Lilac under her closed hands.“Thewrongone!” repeated her mother. “Why, how could he go to say such a thing? You told him you was Lilac White, I s’pose. There’s ne’er another in the village.”“He didn’t seem as if he knew me,” said Lilac. “He looked at me very sharp, and said as how it was no good to paint me now.”“Why ever not? You’re just the same as you was.”“I ain’t,” said Lilac desperately, taking away her hands from her face and letting them fan at her side. “I ain’t the same. I’ve cut my hair!”It was over now. She stood before her mother a disgraced and miserable Lilac. The black fringe of hair across her forehead, the bonnet pushed back, the small white face quivering nervously.But though she knew it would displease her mother, she had very little idea that she had done the thing of all others most hateful to her. A fringe was to Mrs White a sort of distinguishing mark of the Greenways family, and of others like it. Not only was it ugly and unsuitable in itself, but it was an outward sign of all manner of unworthy qualities within. Girls who wore fringes were in her eyes stamped with three certain faults: untidiness, vanity, and love of dressing beyond their station. Beginning with these, who could tell to what other evils a fringe might lead? And now, her own child, her Lilac whom she had been so proud of, and thought so different from others, stood before her with this abomination on her brow. Bitterest of all, it was the influence of the Greenways that had triumphed, and not her own. All her care and toil had ended in this. It had all been in vain. If Lilac “took pattern” by her cousins in one way she would in another—“a straw can tell which way the wind blows.” She would grow up like Bella and Agnetta.Swiftly all this rushed into Mrs White’s mind, as she stood looking with surprise and horror at Lilac’s altered face. Finding her voice as she arrived at the last conclusion, she asked coldly:“What made yer do it?”Lilac locked her hands tightly together and made no answer. She would not say anything about Agnetta, who had meant kindly in what she had done.“I know,” continued her mother, “without you sayin’ a word. It was one of them Greenways. But I did think as how you’d enough sense and sperrit of yer own to stand out agin’ their foolishness—let alone anything else. It’s plain to me now that you don’t care for yer mother or what she says. You’ll fly right in her face to please any of them at Orchards Farm.”Still Lilac did not speak, and her silence made Mrs White more and more angry.“An’ what do you think you’ve got by it?” she continued scornfully. “Do those silly things think it makes ’em look like ladies to cut their hair so and dress themselves up fine? Then you can tell ’em this from me: Vulgar they are, and vulgar they’ll be all their lives long, and nothing they can do to their outsides will change ’em. But they might a left you alone, Lilac, for you’re but a child; only I did think as you’d a had more sense.”Lilac was crying now. This scolding on the top of much excitement and disappointment was more than she could bear, but still she felt she must defend the Greenways from blame.“It was my fault,” she sobbed. “I thought as how it would look nicer.”“The many and many times,” pursued Mrs White, drying her hands vigorously on a rough towel, “as I’ve tried to make you understand what’s respectable and right and fitting! And it’s all been no good. Well, I’ve done. Go to your Greenways and let them teach you, and much profit may you get. I’ve done with you—you don’t look like my child no longer.”She turned her back and began to bustle about with the linen, not looking towards Lilac again. In reality her eyes were full of tears and she would have given worlds to cry heartily with the child, for to use those hard words to her was like bruising her own flesh. But she was too mortified and angry to show it, and Lilac, after casting some wistful glances at the active figure, turned and went slowly out of the room with drooping head.Pulling her bonnet forward so that her forehead and the dreadful fringe were quite hidden, she wandered down the hill, hardly knowing or caring where she went. All the world was against her. No one would ever look pleasantly at her again, if even her mother frowned and turned away. One by one she recalled what they had all said. First, Peter: “I liked it best as it wur afore.” Then the artist—he had been quite angry. “You stupid little girl,” he had said, “you’ve made yourself quite commonplace. You’re no use whatever. Run away.” And now Mother—that was worst of all: “You don’t look like my child.” Lilac’s tears fell fast when she remembered that. How very hard they all were upon her! She strayed listlessly onwards, and presently came to a sudden standstill, for she found that she was getting near the bottom of the hill, where the artist was no doubt still sitting. That would never do. At her right hand there branched off a wide grass-grown lane, one of the ancient roads of the Romans which could still be traced along the valley. It was seldom used now, for it led nowhere in particular; but here and there at long distances there were some small cottages in it, and in one of these lived the cobbler, Joshua Snell.Now, Uncle Joshua, as she called him, though he was no relation to her, was a great friend of Lilac’s, and the thought of him darted into her forlorn little mind like a ray of comfort. He would perhaps look kindly at her in spite of her fringe. There was no one else to do it except Agnetta, and to reach her the artist must be passed, which was impossible. Lilac could not remember that Joshua had ever been cross to her, even in the days when she had played with his bits of leather and mislaid his tools—those old days when she was a tiny child, and Mother had left her with him “to mind” when she went out to work. And besides being kind he was wise, and would surely find some way to help her in her present distress. Perhaps even he would speak to Mother, who thought a deal of what he said, and that would make her less angry. A little cheered by these reflections Lilac turned down the lane, quickened her pace, and made straight for the cobbler’s cottage.It was a very small abode, with such a deep thatch and such tiny windows that it looked all roof. At right angles there jutted out from it an extra room, or rather shed, and in this it was possible, by peering closely through a dingy pane of glass, to make out the dim figure of Joshua bending over his work. This dark little hole, in which there was just space enough for Joshua, his boots and tools and leather, had no door from without, but could only be approached through the kitchen. As he sat at work he could see the fire and the clock without getting up, which was very convenient, and he was proud of his work-shed, though in the winter it was both chilly and dark. Joshua lived quite alone. He had come to Danecross twenty years ago from the north, bringing with him a wife, a collection of old books, and a clarionet. The wife, whose black bonnet still hung behind the kitchen door, had now been dead ten years, and he had only the books and the clarionet to bear him company. But these companions kept him from being dull and lonely, and gave him besides a position of some importance in the village. For by dint of reading his books many times over, and pondering on them as he sat and cobbled, he had gained a store of wisdom, or what passed for such, and a great many long words with which he was fond of impressing the neighbours. He was also considered a fine reader, and quite a musical genius; for although he now only played the clarionet in private, there had been a time, he told them, when he had performed in a gallery as one of the church choir.It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon, and he sat earnestly intent on making a good job of a pair of boots which had been brought to him to sole. He was also anxious to make the most of the bright spring sunshine, a stray beam of which had found its way in at his little window and helped him greatly by its cheerful presence. All at once a shadow flitted across it, and glancing up he saw a well-known figure run hurriedly in at the cottage door. “It’s White Lilac,” he said to himself with a smile but without ceasing his work, for Lilac was a frequent visitor, and he could not afford to waste his time in welcoming his guests. He did not even look round, therefore, but listened for her greeting white his hammer kept up a steady tack, tack, tack. It did not come. Joshua stopped his work, raised his head, and listened more intently. The kitchen was as perfectly silent as though it were empty. “I cert’nly did see her,” said he, almost doubting his eyesight; “maybe she’s playing off a game.” He got up and looked cautiously round the entrance, quite expecting Lilac to jump out from some hiding-place with a laugh; but a very different sight met his eyes. Lilac had thrown herself into a large chair which stood on the hearth, her head was bent, her face buried in her hands, and she was crying bitterly.“My word!” exclaimed Joshua, suddenly arrested on the threshold.He rubbed his hands in great perplexity on his leather apron. It was quite a new thing to see Lilac in tears, and they fell so fast that she could neither control herself nor tell him the cause of her distress. In vain he tried to coax and comfort her: she would not even raise her head nor look at him. Joshua looked round the room as if for counsel and advice in this difficulty, and fixed his eyes thoughtfully on the tall clock for some moments; then he winked at it, and said softly, as though speaking in confidence: “Best let her have her cry out; then she’ll tell me.”“See here,” he continued, turning to Lilac and using his ordinary voice. “You’ve come to get Uncle’s tea ready for him, I know, and make him some toast; that’s what you’ve come for. An’ I’ve got a job as I must finish afore tea-time, ’cause the owner’s coming for ’em. So I’ll go and set to and do it, and you’ll get the tea ready like a handy maid as you are, and then we’ll have it together, snug and cosy.”When he had settled himself to his work again, and the sound of his hammer mingled with the ticking of the tall clock as though they were running a race, Lilac raised her head and rubbed her wet eyes. There was something very soothing and peaceful in Uncle Joshua’s cottage, and his kind voice seemed to carry comfort with it. She had a strong hope that he would help her in some way, though she could not tell how, for he had never failed to find a remedy for all the little troubles she had brought to him from her earliest years. Her faith in him, therefore, was entire, and even if he had proposed to make her hair long again at once, she would have believed it possible, because he knew so much.Gradually, as she remembered this, she ceased crying altogether, and began to move about the room to prepare the tea, a business to which she was well used, for she had always considered it an honour to get Uncle Joshua’s tea and make toast for him. The kettle already hung on its chain over the fire, and gave out a gentle simmering sound; by the time the toast was ready the water would boil. Lilac got the bread from the corner cupboard and cut some stout slices. Uncle liked his toast thick. Then she knelt on the hearth, and shielding her face with one hand chose out the fiercest red hollows of the fire. It was an anxious process, needing the greatest attention; for Lilac prided herself on her toast, and it was a matter of deep importance that it should be a fine even brown all over—neither burnt, nor smoked, nor the least blackened. While she was making it she was happy again, and quite unconscious of the fringe, for the first time since she had felt Agnetta’s cold scissors on her brow.It was soon quite ready on a plate on the hearth, so that it might keep hot. Uncle Joshua was ready also, for he came in just then from his shed, carrying his completed job in his hand: a pair of huge hobnailed boots, which he placed gently on the ground as though they were brittle and must be handled with care.“Them’s Peter Greenways’ boots,” he said, looking at them with some triumph, “and a good piece of work they be!”It was a great relief to Lilac that neither then nor during the meal did Uncle Joshua look at her with surprise, or appear to notice that there was anything different about her. Everything went on just as usual, just as it had so often done before. She sat on one side of the table and poured out the tea, and Uncle Joshua in his high-backed elbow chair on the other, with his red-and-white handkerchief over his knees, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a well-buttered slice of toast in his hand. He never talked much during his meals; partly because he was used to having them alone, and partly because he liked to enjoy one thing at a time thoroughly. He was fond of talking and he was fond of eating, and he would not spoil both by trying to do them together. So to-night, as usual, he drank endless cups of tea in almost perfect silence, and at last Lilac began to wish he would stop, for although she feared she yet longed for his opinion. She felt more able to face it now that she had eaten something, for without knowing it she had been hungry as well as miserable, and had quite forgotten that she had had no dinner. She watched Uncle Joshua nervously. Would he ask for more tea. No. He wiped his mouth with the red handkerchief, looked straight at Lilac, and suddenly spoke:“And how’s the picture going forrard then?”After this question it was easy to tell the whole story, from its beginning to its unlucky end. During its progress the cobbler listened with the deepest attention, gave now a nod, and now a shake of the head or a muttered “Humph!” and when it was finished he fingered his cheek thoughtfully, and said:“And so he wouldn’t paint you—eh? and Mother was angry?”“She’s dreadful angry,” sighed Lilac.“Did you think it ’ud please her, now?” asked Uncle Joshua.“N–no,” answered Lilac hesitatingly; “but I never thought as how she’d make so much fuss. And after all no one don’t like it. Do you think as how it looksverybad, Uncle?”The cobbler put his spectacles carefully straight and studied Lilac’s face with earnest attention. “What I consider is this here,” he said as he finished his examination and leant back in his chair. “It makes you look like lots of other little gells, that’s what it does. Not so much like White Lilac as you used to. I liked it best as it wur afore.”“Peter, he said that too,” said Lilac. “No one likes it except Agnetta.”“Ah! And what made Agnetta and all of ’em cut their hair that way?” asked Uncle Joshua.“Because Gusta Greenways told Bella as how all the ladies in London did it,” answered Lilac simply.“That’s where it is,” said Uncle Joshua. “My little maid, there’s things as is fitting and there’s things as isn’t fitting. Perhaps it’s fitting for London ladies to wear their hair so. Very well, then let them do it. But why should you and Agnetta and the rest copy ’em? You’re not ladies. You’re country girls with honest work to do, and proud you ought to be of it. As proud every bit as the grandest lady as ever was, who never put her hand to a useful thing in her life. I’m not saying you’re better than her. She’s got her own place, an’ her own lessons to learn, an’ she’s got to do the best she can with her life. But you’re different, because your life’s different, an’ you’ll never look like her whatever you put on your outside. If a thing isn’t fit for what it’s intended, it’ll never look well. Now, here’s Peter’s boots—I call ’em handsome.”He lifted one of them as he spoke and put it on the table, where it seemed to take up a great deal of room. Lilac looked at it with a puzzled air; she saw nothing handsome in it. It was enormously thick and deeply wrinkled across the toes, which were turned upwards as though with many and many a weary tramp.“I call ’em handsome,” pursued Joshua. “Because for why? Because they’re fit for ploughin’ in the stiffest soil. Because they’ll keep out wet and never give in the seams. They’re fit for what they’re meant to do. But now you just fancy,” he went on, raising one finger, “as how I’d made ’em of shiny leather, and put paper soles to ’em, and pointed tips to the toes. How’d they look in a ploughed field or a muddy lane? Or s’pose Peter he went and capered about in these ’ere on a velvet carpet an’ tried to dance. How’d he look?”The idea of the loutish Peter capering anywhere, least of all on a velvet carpet, made Lilac smile in spite of Uncle Joshua’s great gravity.“Why, he’d look silly,” he continued; “as silly as a country girl, who’s got to scrub an’ wash an’ make the butter, dressed out in silks an’ fandangoes. She ought to be too proud of being what she is, to try and look like what she isn’t. Give me down that big brown book yonder an’ I’ll read you something fine about that.”Lilac reached the book from the shelf with the greatest reverence; it was the only one amongst Joshua’s collection that she often begged to look at, because it was full of curious pictures. It was Lavater’s Physiognomy; having found the passage he wanted, Joshua read it very slowly aloud:“In the mansion of God there are to his glory vessels of wood, of silver, and of gold. All are serviceable, all profitable, all capable of divine uses, all the instruments of God: but the wood continues wood, the silver silver, the gold gold. Though the golden should remain unused, still they are gold. The wooden may be made more serviceable than the golden, but they continue wood. Let each be what he is, so will he be sufficiently good, for man himself, and God. The violin cannot have the sound of the flute, nor the trumpet of the drum.”He had just finished the last line, and still held one knotty brown finger raised to mark the important words, when there was a low knock at the door, and immediately afterwards it opened a little way and a head appeared, covered by a rusty-black wideawake. It was the second time that day that Lilac had seen it, for it was Peter Greenways’ head. In a moment all the events of the unlucky morning came back to her, and his gruffly unfavourable opinion. Why had he come? This awkward Peter was always turning up when he was not wanted, and thrusting that large uncouth head in at unexpected places. She turned her back towards the door in much vexation, and Peter himself remained stationary, with his eyes fixed where he had first directed them—on his own boot, which still stood on the table by Joshua’s elbow. His first intention had evidently been to come in, but suddenly seized with shyness he was now unable to move.“Why, Peter, lad,” said the cobbler, “come in then; the boots is ready for you.”Thus invited Peter slowly opened the door a very little wider and squeezed himself into the room. He was indeed a very awkward-looking youth, and though he was broad-shouldered and strongly made, he was so badly put together that he did not seem to join properly anywhere, and moved with effort as though he were walking in a heavy clay soil. Everything about Peter, and even the colour of his clothes, made you think of a ploughed field, and he generally kept his eyes fastened on the ground as though following the course of a furrow. This was a pity, for his eyes were the only good features in his broad red face, and had the kindly faithful expression seen in those of some dogs.As he stood there, ill at ease, with his enormous hands opening and shutting nervously, Lilac thought of Agnetta’s speech: “Peter’s so common.” If to be common was to look like Peter, it was a thing to be avoided, and she was dismayed to hear Uncle Joshua say:“Well, now, if you’re not just in time to go home with Lilac here, seein’ as how we’ve done our tea, and her mother’ll be looking for her.”“Oh, Uncle, I’d rather not,” said Lilac hastily. Then she added, “I want you to play me a tune before I go.”Joshua was always open to a compliment about his playing.“Ah!” he said, “you want a tune, do you? Well, and p’r’aps Peter he’d like to hear it too.”As he spoke he gave the boots to Peter, who was now engaged in dragging up a leather purse from some great depth beneath his gaberdine. This effort, and the necessity of replying, flushed his face to a deeper red than ever, but he managed to say huskily as he counted some coin into Joshua’s hand:“No, thank you, Mr Snell. Can’t stop tonight.”Nevertheless it was some moments before he could go away: he stood clasping his boots and staring at Joshua.“The money’s all right, my lad,” said the latter.“Well,” said Peter, “I must be goin’.” But he did not move.“Well, good night, Peter,” said Joshua, encouragingly.“Good night, Mr Snell.”“Good night, Peter,” said Lilac at length, nodding to him, and this seemed to rouse him, for with sudden energy he hurled himself towards the door and disappeared.“Yon’s an honest lad and a fine worker,” remarked the cobbler, “but he do seem a bit tongue-tied now and then.”And now, after the tune was played, there was no longer any excuse to put off going home. For the first time in her life Lilac dreaded it, for instead of a smile of welcome she had only a frown of displeasure to expect from her mother. It was such a new thing that she shrank from it with fear, and found it almost as difficult to say goodbye as Peter had done. If only Uncle Joshua would go with her! Her face looked so wistful that he guessed her unspoken desire.“Now I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, carefully thrusting the clarionet into its green baize bag, “as how you’d like me to go up yonder with you. And it do so happen as how I’ve got a job to take back to Dan’l Wishing, so I shall pass yours without goin’ out of my way.”Accordingly, the door of the cottage being locked, the pair set out together a few moments later, Lilac walking very soberly by the cobbler’s side, with one hand in his. Joshua’s hand was rough with work, so that it felt like holding the bough of a gnarled elm tree, but it was so full of kindness that there was great comfort and support in it.How would Mother receive them? Lilac hardly dared to look up when they got near the gate and saw her standing there, and hardly dared to believe her own ears when she heard her speak. For what she said was:“Run in, child, and get yer tea. I’ve put it by.”She stayed a long time at the gate talking to Uncle Joshua, and Lilac, watching them through the window, felt little doubt that they were talking of her. When her mother came in, and was quite kind and gentle, and behaved just as usual, she felt still more sure that it was Uncle Joshua’s wonderful wisdom that had done it all. But if she could have heard the conversation she would have been surprised, for they dwelt entirely on the cobbler’s rheumatics and the chances of rain, and said no word of either Lilac or her fringe. Mrs White had had time to repent of her harsh words, and when the hours went by, and Lilac did not come back, she had pictured her receiving comfort and encouragement from the Greenways—the very people she wished her to avoid. Now she had driven her to them. “I could bite my tongue out for talking so foolish,” she said to herself as she ran out to the gate, over and over again. When at last she saw the two well-known figures approaching, she could only just restrain herself from rushing out to meet Lilac and covering her with kisses. The relief was almost too great to bear.In her own home, therefore, Lilac heard nothing further on the unlucky subject. But this was not by any means the case in the village, where nothing was too small to be important. The fact of the Widow White’s Lilac wearing a fringe was quite enough to talk of, and more than enough to stare at, for it was something new. Unfortunately everyone knew Lilac, and Lilac knew everyone, so there was no escape. Her acquaintances would draw up in front of her and gaze steadily for an instant, after which the same remarks always came:“My! you have altered yerself. I shouldn’t never have known you, I do declare! And so you didn’t have yer picter done after all?”Lilac wished she could hide somewhere until her hair had grown long again. And worst of all, when Mrs Leigh next saw her in school, she looked quite startled and said:“I’m so sorry you’ve cut your hair, Lilac; it looked much nicer before.”It was the same thing over and over again, no one approved the change but Agnetta, and Lilac’s faith in her cousin was by this time a little bit shaken. She should not be so ready, she thought, the next time to believe that Agnetta must know best. One drop of comfort in all this was that the artist gentleman no longer sat painting at the bottom of the hill. He had packed up all his canvases and brushes and gone off to the station, so that Lilac saw him no more. She was very glad of this, for she felt that it would have been almost impossible to pass him every day and to see his keen disapproving glance fixed upon her. Slowly the picture that was to have been painted was forgotten, and Lilac White’s fringe became a thing of custom. There were more important matters near at hand; May Day was approaching, an event of interest and excitement to both young and old.

“Let each be what he is, so will he be good enough for man himself, and God.”—Lavater.

“Let each be what he is, so will he be good enough for man himself, and God.”—Lavater.

Whilst all this was going on at the farm, Mrs White had been busy as usual in the cottage on the hill—her mind full of Lilac, and her hands full of the Rectory washing. It was an important business, for it was all she and her child had to depend on beside a small pension allowed her by Jem’s late employers; but quite apart from this she took a pride in her work for its own sake. She felt responsible not only for the unyielding stiffness of the Rector’s round collars, but also for the appearance of the choristers’ surplices; and any failure in colour or approach to limpness was a real pain to her, and made it difficult to fix her attention on the service. This happened very seldom, however; and when it did, was owing to an unfortunate drying day or other accident, and never to want of exertion on her own part.

There was nothing to complain of in the weather this morning—a bright sun and a nice bit of wind, and not too much of it. Mrs White wrung out the surplices in a very cheerful spirit, and her grave face had a smile on it now and then, for she was thinking of Lilac. Lilac sweetened all her life now, much in the same way that the bunch of flowers from which she took her name had sweetened the small room with its fragrance twelve years ago. As she grew up her mother’s love grew too, stronger year by year; for when she looked at her she remembered all the happiness that her life had known—when she spoke her name, it brought back a thousand pleasant memories and kept them fresh in her mind. And she looked forward too, for Lilac’s sake, and saw in years to come her proudest hope fulfilled—her child grown to be a self-respecting useful woman, who could work for herself and need be beholden to no one. She had no higher ambition for her; but this she had set her heart on, she should not become lazy, vain, helpless, like her cousins the Greenways. That was the pitfall from which she would strain every muscle to hold Lilac back. There were moments when she trembled for the bad influence of example at Orchards Farm. She knew Lilac’s yielding affectionate nature and her great admiration for her cousins, and kept a watchful eye for the first unsatisfactory signs. But there were none. No one could accuse Lilac of untidy ways, or want of thoroughness in dusting, sweeping, and all branches of household work, and even Mrs White could find no fault. “After all,” she said to herself, “it’s natural in young things to like to be together, and there’s nothing worse nor foolishness in Agnetta and Bella.” So she allowed the visits to go on, and contented herself by many a word in season and many a pointed practical lesson. The Greenways were seldom mentioned, but they were, nevertheless, very often in the minds of both mother and daughter.

This morning she was thinking of a much more pleasant subject. “How was the artist gentleman getting along with Lilac’s picture? He must be well at it now,” she thought, looking up at the loud-voiced American clock, “an’ her looking as peart and pretty as a daisy. White-faced indeed! I’d rather she were white-faced than have great red cheeks like a peony bloom. What will he do with the picture afterwards?” Joshua Snell, through reading the papers so much, knew most things, and he had said that it would p’r’aps be hung up with a lot of others in a place in London called an exhibition, where you could pay money and go to see ’em. “If he’s right,” concluded Mrs White, wringing out the last surplice, “I do really think as how I must give Lilac a jaunt up to London, an’ we’ll go and see it. The last holiday as ever I had was fifteen years back, an’ that was when Jem and me, we went—Why, I do believe,” she said aloud, “here she is back a’ready!”

There was a sound of running feet, which she had heard too often to mistake, then the click of the latch, and then Lilac herself rushed through the front room.

“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “he won’t paint me!”

Mrs White turned sharply round. Lilac was standing just inside the entrance to the back kitchen, with her bonnet on, and her hands clasped over her face. To keep her bonnet on a moment after she was in the house struck her mother at once as something strange and unusual, and she stared at her for an instant in silence, with her bands held up dripping and pink from the water.

“Whatever ails you, child?” she said at length. “What made him change his mind?”

“He said as how I was the wrong one,” murmured Lilac under her closed hands.

“Thewrongone!” repeated her mother. “Why, how could he go to say such a thing? You told him you was Lilac White, I s’pose. There’s ne’er another in the village.”

“He didn’t seem as if he knew me,” said Lilac. “He looked at me very sharp, and said as how it was no good to paint me now.”

“Why ever not? You’re just the same as you was.”

“I ain’t,” said Lilac desperately, taking away her hands from her face and letting them fan at her side. “I ain’t the same. I’ve cut my hair!”

It was over now. She stood before her mother a disgraced and miserable Lilac. The black fringe of hair across her forehead, the bonnet pushed back, the small white face quivering nervously.

But though she knew it would displease her mother, she had very little idea that she had done the thing of all others most hateful to her. A fringe was to Mrs White a sort of distinguishing mark of the Greenways family, and of others like it. Not only was it ugly and unsuitable in itself, but it was an outward sign of all manner of unworthy qualities within. Girls who wore fringes were in her eyes stamped with three certain faults: untidiness, vanity, and love of dressing beyond their station. Beginning with these, who could tell to what other evils a fringe might lead? And now, her own child, her Lilac whom she had been so proud of, and thought so different from others, stood before her with this abomination on her brow. Bitterest of all, it was the influence of the Greenways that had triumphed, and not her own. All her care and toil had ended in this. It had all been in vain. If Lilac “took pattern” by her cousins in one way she would in another—“a straw can tell which way the wind blows.” She would grow up like Bella and Agnetta.

Swiftly all this rushed into Mrs White’s mind, as she stood looking with surprise and horror at Lilac’s altered face. Finding her voice as she arrived at the last conclusion, she asked coldly:

“What made yer do it?”

Lilac locked her hands tightly together and made no answer. She would not say anything about Agnetta, who had meant kindly in what she had done.

“I know,” continued her mother, “without you sayin’ a word. It was one of them Greenways. But I did think as how you’d enough sense and sperrit of yer own to stand out agin’ their foolishness—let alone anything else. It’s plain to me now that you don’t care for yer mother or what she says. You’ll fly right in her face to please any of them at Orchards Farm.”

Still Lilac did not speak, and her silence made Mrs White more and more angry.

“An’ what do you think you’ve got by it?” she continued scornfully. “Do those silly things think it makes ’em look like ladies to cut their hair so and dress themselves up fine? Then you can tell ’em this from me: Vulgar they are, and vulgar they’ll be all their lives long, and nothing they can do to their outsides will change ’em. But they might a left you alone, Lilac, for you’re but a child; only I did think as you’d a had more sense.”

Lilac was crying now. This scolding on the top of much excitement and disappointment was more than she could bear, but still she felt she must defend the Greenways from blame.

“It was my fault,” she sobbed. “I thought as how it would look nicer.”

“The many and many times,” pursued Mrs White, drying her hands vigorously on a rough towel, “as I’ve tried to make you understand what’s respectable and right and fitting! And it’s all been no good. Well, I’ve done. Go to your Greenways and let them teach you, and much profit may you get. I’ve done with you—you don’t look like my child no longer.”

She turned her back and began to bustle about with the linen, not looking towards Lilac again. In reality her eyes were full of tears and she would have given worlds to cry heartily with the child, for to use those hard words to her was like bruising her own flesh. But she was too mortified and angry to show it, and Lilac, after casting some wistful glances at the active figure, turned and went slowly out of the room with drooping head.

Pulling her bonnet forward so that her forehead and the dreadful fringe were quite hidden, she wandered down the hill, hardly knowing or caring where she went. All the world was against her. No one would ever look pleasantly at her again, if even her mother frowned and turned away. One by one she recalled what they had all said. First, Peter: “I liked it best as it wur afore.” Then the artist—he had been quite angry. “You stupid little girl,” he had said, “you’ve made yourself quite commonplace. You’re no use whatever. Run away.” And now Mother—that was worst of all: “You don’t look like my child.” Lilac’s tears fell fast when she remembered that. How very hard they all were upon her! She strayed listlessly onwards, and presently came to a sudden standstill, for she found that she was getting near the bottom of the hill, where the artist was no doubt still sitting. That would never do. At her right hand there branched off a wide grass-grown lane, one of the ancient roads of the Romans which could still be traced along the valley. It was seldom used now, for it led nowhere in particular; but here and there at long distances there were some small cottages in it, and in one of these lived the cobbler, Joshua Snell.

Now, Uncle Joshua, as she called him, though he was no relation to her, was a great friend of Lilac’s, and the thought of him darted into her forlorn little mind like a ray of comfort. He would perhaps look kindly at her in spite of her fringe. There was no one else to do it except Agnetta, and to reach her the artist must be passed, which was impossible. Lilac could not remember that Joshua had ever been cross to her, even in the days when she had played with his bits of leather and mislaid his tools—those old days when she was a tiny child, and Mother had left her with him “to mind” when she went out to work. And besides being kind he was wise, and would surely find some way to help her in her present distress. Perhaps even he would speak to Mother, who thought a deal of what he said, and that would make her less angry. A little cheered by these reflections Lilac turned down the lane, quickened her pace, and made straight for the cobbler’s cottage.

It was a very small abode, with such a deep thatch and such tiny windows that it looked all roof. At right angles there jutted out from it an extra room, or rather shed, and in this it was possible, by peering closely through a dingy pane of glass, to make out the dim figure of Joshua bending over his work. This dark little hole, in which there was just space enough for Joshua, his boots and tools and leather, had no door from without, but could only be approached through the kitchen. As he sat at work he could see the fire and the clock without getting up, which was very convenient, and he was proud of his work-shed, though in the winter it was both chilly and dark. Joshua lived quite alone. He had come to Danecross twenty years ago from the north, bringing with him a wife, a collection of old books, and a clarionet. The wife, whose black bonnet still hung behind the kitchen door, had now been dead ten years, and he had only the books and the clarionet to bear him company. But these companions kept him from being dull and lonely, and gave him besides a position of some importance in the village. For by dint of reading his books many times over, and pondering on them as he sat and cobbled, he had gained a store of wisdom, or what passed for such, and a great many long words with which he was fond of impressing the neighbours. He was also considered a fine reader, and quite a musical genius; for although he now only played the clarionet in private, there had been a time, he told them, when he had performed in a gallery as one of the church choir.

It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon, and he sat earnestly intent on making a good job of a pair of boots which had been brought to him to sole. He was also anxious to make the most of the bright spring sunshine, a stray beam of which had found its way in at his little window and helped him greatly by its cheerful presence. All at once a shadow flitted across it, and glancing up he saw a well-known figure run hurriedly in at the cottage door. “It’s White Lilac,” he said to himself with a smile but without ceasing his work, for Lilac was a frequent visitor, and he could not afford to waste his time in welcoming his guests. He did not even look round, therefore, but listened for her greeting white his hammer kept up a steady tack, tack, tack. It did not come. Joshua stopped his work, raised his head, and listened more intently. The kitchen was as perfectly silent as though it were empty. “I cert’nly did see her,” said he, almost doubting his eyesight; “maybe she’s playing off a game.” He got up and looked cautiously round the entrance, quite expecting Lilac to jump out from some hiding-place with a laugh; but a very different sight met his eyes. Lilac had thrown herself into a large chair which stood on the hearth, her head was bent, her face buried in her hands, and she was crying bitterly.

“My word!” exclaimed Joshua, suddenly arrested on the threshold.

He rubbed his hands in great perplexity on his leather apron. It was quite a new thing to see Lilac in tears, and they fell so fast that she could neither control herself nor tell him the cause of her distress. In vain he tried to coax and comfort her: she would not even raise her head nor look at him. Joshua looked round the room as if for counsel and advice in this difficulty, and fixed his eyes thoughtfully on the tall clock for some moments; then he winked at it, and said softly, as though speaking in confidence: “Best let her have her cry out; then she’ll tell me.”

“See here,” he continued, turning to Lilac and using his ordinary voice. “You’ve come to get Uncle’s tea ready for him, I know, and make him some toast; that’s what you’ve come for. An’ I’ve got a job as I must finish afore tea-time, ’cause the owner’s coming for ’em. So I’ll go and set to and do it, and you’ll get the tea ready like a handy maid as you are, and then we’ll have it together, snug and cosy.”

When he had settled himself to his work again, and the sound of his hammer mingled with the ticking of the tall clock as though they were running a race, Lilac raised her head and rubbed her wet eyes. There was something very soothing and peaceful in Uncle Joshua’s cottage, and his kind voice seemed to carry comfort with it. She had a strong hope that he would help her in some way, though she could not tell how, for he had never failed to find a remedy for all the little troubles she had brought to him from her earliest years. Her faith in him, therefore, was entire, and even if he had proposed to make her hair long again at once, she would have believed it possible, because he knew so much.

Gradually, as she remembered this, she ceased crying altogether, and began to move about the room to prepare the tea, a business to which she was well used, for she had always considered it an honour to get Uncle Joshua’s tea and make toast for him. The kettle already hung on its chain over the fire, and gave out a gentle simmering sound; by the time the toast was ready the water would boil. Lilac got the bread from the corner cupboard and cut some stout slices. Uncle liked his toast thick. Then she knelt on the hearth, and shielding her face with one hand chose out the fiercest red hollows of the fire. It was an anxious process, needing the greatest attention; for Lilac prided herself on her toast, and it was a matter of deep importance that it should be a fine even brown all over—neither burnt, nor smoked, nor the least blackened. While she was making it she was happy again, and quite unconscious of the fringe, for the first time since she had felt Agnetta’s cold scissors on her brow.

It was soon quite ready on a plate on the hearth, so that it might keep hot. Uncle Joshua was ready also, for he came in just then from his shed, carrying his completed job in his hand: a pair of huge hobnailed boots, which he placed gently on the ground as though they were brittle and must be handled with care.

“Them’s Peter Greenways’ boots,” he said, looking at them with some triumph, “and a good piece of work they be!”

It was a great relief to Lilac that neither then nor during the meal did Uncle Joshua look at her with surprise, or appear to notice that there was anything different about her. Everything went on just as usual, just as it had so often done before. She sat on one side of the table and poured out the tea, and Uncle Joshua in his high-backed elbow chair on the other, with his red-and-white handkerchief over his knees, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a well-buttered slice of toast in his hand. He never talked much during his meals; partly because he was used to having them alone, and partly because he liked to enjoy one thing at a time thoroughly. He was fond of talking and he was fond of eating, and he would not spoil both by trying to do them together. So to-night, as usual, he drank endless cups of tea in almost perfect silence, and at last Lilac began to wish he would stop, for although she feared she yet longed for his opinion. She felt more able to face it now that she had eaten something, for without knowing it she had been hungry as well as miserable, and had quite forgotten that she had had no dinner. She watched Uncle Joshua nervously. Would he ask for more tea. No. He wiped his mouth with the red handkerchief, looked straight at Lilac, and suddenly spoke:

“And how’s the picture going forrard then?”

After this question it was easy to tell the whole story, from its beginning to its unlucky end. During its progress the cobbler listened with the deepest attention, gave now a nod, and now a shake of the head or a muttered “Humph!” and when it was finished he fingered his cheek thoughtfully, and said:

“And so he wouldn’t paint you—eh? and Mother was angry?”

“She’s dreadful angry,” sighed Lilac.

“Did you think it ’ud please her, now?” asked Uncle Joshua.

“N–no,” answered Lilac hesitatingly; “but I never thought as how she’d make so much fuss. And after all no one don’t like it. Do you think as how it looksverybad, Uncle?”

The cobbler put his spectacles carefully straight and studied Lilac’s face with earnest attention. “What I consider is this here,” he said as he finished his examination and leant back in his chair. “It makes you look like lots of other little gells, that’s what it does. Not so much like White Lilac as you used to. I liked it best as it wur afore.”

“Peter, he said that too,” said Lilac. “No one likes it except Agnetta.”

“Ah! And what made Agnetta and all of ’em cut their hair that way?” asked Uncle Joshua.

“Because Gusta Greenways told Bella as how all the ladies in London did it,” answered Lilac simply.

“That’s where it is,” said Uncle Joshua. “My little maid, there’s things as is fitting and there’s things as isn’t fitting. Perhaps it’s fitting for London ladies to wear their hair so. Very well, then let them do it. But why should you and Agnetta and the rest copy ’em? You’re not ladies. You’re country girls with honest work to do, and proud you ought to be of it. As proud every bit as the grandest lady as ever was, who never put her hand to a useful thing in her life. I’m not saying you’re better than her. She’s got her own place, an’ her own lessons to learn, an’ she’s got to do the best she can with her life. But you’re different, because your life’s different, an’ you’ll never look like her whatever you put on your outside. If a thing isn’t fit for what it’s intended, it’ll never look well. Now, here’s Peter’s boots—I call ’em handsome.”

He lifted one of them as he spoke and put it on the table, where it seemed to take up a great deal of room. Lilac looked at it with a puzzled air; she saw nothing handsome in it. It was enormously thick and deeply wrinkled across the toes, which were turned upwards as though with many and many a weary tramp.

“I call ’em handsome,” pursued Joshua. “Because for why? Because they’re fit for ploughin’ in the stiffest soil. Because they’ll keep out wet and never give in the seams. They’re fit for what they’re meant to do. But now you just fancy,” he went on, raising one finger, “as how I’d made ’em of shiny leather, and put paper soles to ’em, and pointed tips to the toes. How’d they look in a ploughed field or a muddy lane? Or s’pose Peter he went and capered about in these ’ere on a velvet carpet an’ tried to dance. How’d he look?”

The idea of the loutish Peter capering anywhere, least of all on a velvet carpet, made Lilac smile in spite of Uncle Joshua’s great gravity.

“Why, he’d look silly,” he continued; “as silly as a country girl, who’s got to scrub an’ wash an’ make the butter, dressed out in silks an’ fandangoes. She ought to be too proud of being what she is, to try and look like what she isn’t. Give me down that big brown book yonder an’ I’ll read you something fine about that.”

Lilac reached the book from the shelf with the greatest reverence; it was the only one amongst Joshua’s collection that she often begged to look at, because it was full of curious pictures. It was Lavater’s Physiognomy; having found the passage he wanted, Joshua read it very slowly aloud:

“In the mansion of God there are to his glory vessels of wood, of silver, and of gold. All are serviceable, all profitable, all capable of divine uses, all the instruments of God: but the wood continues wood, the silver silver, the gold gold. Though the golden should remain unused, still they are gold. The wooden may be made more serviceable than the golden, but they continue wood. Let each be what he is, so will he be sufficiently good, for man himself, and God. The violin cannot have the sound of the flute, nor the trumpet of the drum.”

He had just finished the last line, and still held one knotty brown finger raised to mark the important words, when there was a low knock at the door, and immediately afterwards it opened a little way and a head appeared, covered by a rusty-black wideawake. It was the second time that day that Lilac had seen it, for it was Peter Greenways’ head. In a moment all the events of the unlucky morning came back to her, and his gruffly unfavourable opinion. Why had he come? This awkward Peter was always turning up when he was not wanted, and thrusting that large uncouth head in at unexpected places. She turned her back towards the door in much vexation, and Peter himself remained stationary, with his eyes fixed where he had first directed them—on his own boot, which still stood on the table by Joshua’s elbow. His first intention had evidently been to come in, but suddenly seized with shyness he was now unable to move.

“Why, Peter, lad,” said the cobbler, “come in then; the boots is ready for you.”

Thus invited Peter slowly opened the door a very little wider and squeezed himself into the room. He was indeed a very awkward-looking youth, and though he was broad-shouldered and strongly made, he was so badly put together that he did not seem to join properly anywhere, and moved with effort as though he were walking in a heavy clay soil. Everything about Peter, and even the colour of his clothes, made you think of a ploughed field, and he generally kept his eyes fastened on the ground as though following the course of a furrow. This was a pity, for his eyes were the only good features in his broad red face, and had the kindly faithful expression seen in those of some dogs.

As he stood there, ill at ease, with his enormous hands opening and shutting nervously, Lilac thought of Agnetta’s speech: “Peter’s so common.” If to be common was to look like Peter, it was a thing to be avoided, and she was dismayed to hear Uncle Joshua say:

“Well, now, if you’re not just in time to go home with Lilac here, seein’ as how we’ve done our tea, and her mother’ll be looking for her.”

“Oh, Uncle, I’d rather not,” said Lilac hastily. Then she added, “I want you to play me a tune before I go.”

Joshua was always open to a compliment about his playing.

“Ah!” he said, “you want a tune, do you? Well, and p’r’aps Peter he’d like to hear it too.”

As he spoke he gave the boots to Peter, who was now engaged in dragging up a leather purse from some great depth beneath his gaberdine. This effort, and the necessity of replying, flushed his face to a deeper red than ever, but he managed to say huskily as he counted some coin into Joshua’s hand:

“No, thank you, Mr Snell. Can’t stop tonight.”

Nevertheless it was some moments before he could go away: he stood clasping his boots and staring at Joshua.

“The money’s all right, my lad,” said the latter.

“Well,” said Peter, “I must be goin’.” But he did not move.

“Well, good night, Peter,” said Joshua, encouragingly.

“Good night, Mr Snell.”

“Good night, Peter,” said Lilac at length, nodding to him, and this seemed to rouse him, for with sudden energy he hurled himself towards the door and disappeared.

“Yon’s an honest lad and a fine worker,” remarked the cobbler, “but he do seem a bit tongue-tied now and then.”

And now, after the tune was played, there was no longer any excuse to put off going home. For the first time in her life Lilac dreaded it, for instead of a smile of welcome she had only a frown of displeasure to expect from her mother. It was such a new thing that she shrank from it with fear, and found it almost as difficult to say goodbye as Peter had done. If only Uncle Joshua would go with her! Her face looked so wistful that he guessed her unspoken desire.

“Now I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, carefully thrusting the clarionet into its green baize bag, “as how you’d like me to go up yonder with you. And it do so happen as how I’ve got a job to take back to Dan’l Wishing, so I shall pass yours without goin’ out of my way.”

Accordingly, the door of the cottage being locked, the pair set out together a few moments later, Lilac walking very soberly by the cobbler’s side, with one hand in his. Joshua’s hand was rough with work, so that it felt like holding the bough of a gnarled elm tree, but it was so full of kindness that there was great comfort and support in it.

How would Mother receive them? Lilac hardly dared to look up when they got near the gate and saw her standing there, and hardly dared to believe her own ears when she heard her speak. For what she said was:

“Run in, child, and get yer tea. I’ve put it by.”

She stayed a long time at the gate talking to Uncle Joshua, and Lilac, watching them through the window, felt little doubt that they were talking of her. When her mother came in, and was quite kind and gentle, and behaved just as usual, she felt still more sure that it was Uncle Joshua’s wonderful wisdom that had done it all. But if she could have heard the conversation she would have been surprised, for they dwelt entirely on the cobbler’s rheumatics and the chances of rain, and said no word of either Lilac or her fringe. Mrs White had had time to repent of her harsh words, and when the hours went by, and Lilac did not come back, she had pictured her receiving comfort and encouragement from the Greenways—the very people she wished her to avoid. Now she had driven her to them. “I could bite my tongue out for talking so foolish,” she said to herself as she ran out to the gate, over and over again. When at last she saw the two well-known figures approaching, she could only just restrain herself from rushing out to meet Lilac and covering her with kisses. The relief was almost too great to bear.

In her own home, therefore, Lilac heard nothing further on the unlucky subject. But this was not by any means the case in the village, where nothing was too small to be important. The fact of the Widow White’s Lilac wearing a fringe was quite enough to talk of, and more than enough to stare at, for it was something new. Unfortunately everyone knew Lilac, and Lilac knew everyone, so there was no escape. Her acquaintances would draw up in front of her and gaze steadily for an instant, after which the same remarks always came:

“My! you have altered yerself. I shouldn’t never have known you, I do declare! And so you didn’t have yer picter done after all?”

Lilac wished she could hide somewhere until her hair had grown long again. And worst of all, when Mrs Leigh next saw her in school, she looked quite startled and said:

“I’m so sorry you’ve cut your hair, Lilac; it looked much nicer before.”

It was the same thing over and over again, no one approved the change but Agnetta, and Lilac’s faith in her cousin was by this time a little bit shaken. She should not be so ready, she thought, the next time to believe that Agnetta must know best. One drop of comfort in all this was that the artist gentleman no longer sat painting at the bottom of the hill. He had packed up all his canvases and brushes and gone off to the station, so that Lilac saw him no more. She was very glad of this, for she felt that it would have been almost impossible to pass him every day and to see his keen disapproving glance fixed upon her. Slowly the picture that was to have been painted was forgotten, and Lilac White’s fringe became a thing of custom. There were more important matters near at hand; May Day was approaching, an event of interest and excitement to both young and old.

Chapter Four.Who will be Queen?“When daisies pied and violets blueAnd lady-smocks all silver-whiteAnd cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight.”—Shakespeare.On the top of the ridge of hills which rose behind Mrs White’s cottage there was a great beech wood, which could be reached in two ways. One was by following a rough stony road which got gradually steeper and was terribly hard for both man and beast, and the other was to take a chalky track which led straight across the rounded shoulder of the downs.This last was considerably shorter, and by active people was always preferred to the road, although in summer it was glaring and unshaded. But the scramble was soon over, and in the deep quiet shelter of the woods it was cool on the hottest day, for the trees held their leaves so thickly over your head that it was better than any roof. The sun could not get through to scorch or dazzle, but it lit up the flickering sprays on the low boughs, so that looking through them you saw a silvery shimmering dance always going on. In the valley there had not perhaps been a breath of air, but up here a little ruffling breeze had its home, and was ready to fan you gently and hospitably directly you arrived.Under your feet a red-and-brown carpet of last year’s leaves was spread, stirred now and then with sudden mysterious rustlings as the small wild creatures darted away at the sound of your step. These and the birds shared the woods in almost complete solitude, disturbed now and again by the woodcutters, or boys from the village. But there was one day in the year when this quiet kingdom was strangely invaded, when its inhabitants fled to their most retired corners and peeped out with terrified eyes upon a very altered scene—and this was the first of May. Then everything was changed for a little while. Instead of the notes of the birds there were human voices calling to each other, laughing, singing, shouting, and the music of a band; instead of great silent spaces, there were many brightly-coloured figures which ran and danced. In the midst, where a clearing had been made and the oldest trees stood solemnly round, there appeared the slim form of a maypole decked with gay ribbons; near it a throne covered with hawthorn boughs, on which, dressed in white with garland and sceptre, was seated the Queen of the May. There with great ceremony she was crowned by her court, and afterwards led the dance round the maypole. Songs and feasting followed until the sun went down, and then the gay company marched away to the sounds of “God save the Queen.” Quietness reigned in the woods again, and once more the wild creatures which lived there could roam and fly at their pleasure until next May Day.Now this holiday, which was fast approaching again, was not only looked forward to with interest and excitement by the children, but was an event of importance to everyone in the village. The very oldest made shift somehow to get up to the woods and join in the rejoicing, and the most careworn and sorrowful managed to struggle out of their gloom for that one day, and to leave behind the dulness of their daily toil. Many, coming from distant parts of the parish, met for the only time throughout the year in the woods on May Day, and found the keenest pleasure in comparing the growth of their children, and talking of their neighbours’ affairs. It was a source of pride and satisfaction, too, to fathers as well as mothers, to point out some child in the procession so bedecked with flowers that the real Johnnie was hardly visible, and say with a grin of delight:“Why, it’s our Johnnie, I do declare! Shouldn’t never a known him.” As the time came round again, therefore, it was more or less in everyone’s mind in some way. For one thing: Would it be fine? That affected everyone’s comfort, for a cold wet May Day could be nothing but a miserable failure. Mr Dimbleby at the shop had his own anxieties, for it was his business to provide tea, bread and butter, and cake for the whole assembly, and to get it all up to the top of the hill—no small matter. To do this it was necessary to keep his mind steadily fixed on May Day for a whole week beforehand, and not to allow it to relax for an instant. The drum-and-fife band, who felt themselves the pride and ornament of the occasion, had to practise new tunes and polish up “God save the Queen” to a great pitch of perfection, and the children thought themselves busier than anyone. Not only had they to wonder who would be Queen, but they must meet in the Vicarage garden and learn how to dance round the maypole, singing at the same time. Not only must they present themselves at all sorts of odd hours to have some wonderful costume “tried on” by Miss Ellen and Miss Alice, but above all they had to gather the flowers for the wreaths and garlands. Sometimes, if the season were cold and backward, it was difficult to get enough; but this year, as Lilac had noticed with delight, it had been so bright and mild that the meadows were thick with blossoms and there was no fear of any scarcity. She was always amongst the children chosen “to gather”; and there was more in this office than might at first appear, for there were good gatherers and bad gatherers. It might be done carelessly and in a half-hearted manner, or with full attention and earnest effort, and these results were evident when each child brought her own collection to the school room on May morning. The contents of the baskets were very different, for some showed plainly that as little trouble as possible had been taken. These flowers were picked anyhow, with short stalks or long stalks, in bud or too fully blown, faded or fresh, just as they happened to grow and could be most easily got. Others, again, you could see at the first glance, had been gathered with care and thought, the finest specimens chosen just at the right stage of blossoming, and tied in neat bunches with the stalks all of one length. You might be sure that the flowers in these baskets were quite as good at the bottom as those on the top. Now, Lilac White was a gatherer on whom you might depend, and the ladies at the Rectory who made the wreaths, and dressed the Queen, and arranged the festivities, considered her their best support in the matter of flowers. For, by reason of having had her eye upon them for weeks beforehand, she knew every spring where the finest grew, whether they were early or late, and whether they would be ready for the great occasion. When they had to be gathered she spared no trouble, but would get up at any hour so that they might be picked before the sun scorched them, walk any distance or climb the steepest hills to get the very finest possible. She was always appealed to when any question arose about the flowers. “We must ask Lilac White whether the king-cups are out,” Miss Ellen would say; and Lilac was always able to tell. She filled, therefore, a very pleasant and important post at these times, and took great pride in it; but her Cousin Agnetta looked at this part of the affair differently. To her there was neither pleasure nor profit in “mucking” about in the damp fields, as she said, getting her feet wet, and spoiling her frock in stooping about after the flowers. She wished Mrs Leigh would let them wear artificials, which were quite as pretty to look at, and did not fade or get messy, and were no bother at all. You could wear ’em time after time. Agnetta felt quite sure she should be Queen this year, and although she did not like the trouble beforehand she looked forward to the event itself very much indeed. There were many agreeable things about it: the white dress, the crown, the crowd of people looking on, and the fact of being first amongst her companions. It was a little vexing that Lilac was quicker to learn the steps of the dance Miss Ellen was teaching them, and could sing the May-Day song better than she could. Agnetta always sang out of tune, and tumbled over her own feet in the dance; but she consoled herself by remembering how well she should look as Queen dressed all in white, with her red cheeks and frizzy black hair. Meanwhile the Queen was not yet chosen, but would be voted for in the school a week beforehand.Who would be chosen? It was a question which occupied a good many minds just then, and amongst them one which was not supposed to trouble itself about such matters, or to have anything to do with merry-making. This was Peter Greenways’ mind. He was so dull and silent, and worked so very hard all the year, that it was an ever fresh surprise to see him appear with the rest on May Day, and came natural to say, “What, you here, Peter!” although he had never missed a single occasion. He expressed no pleasure, and showed no outward sign of enjoyment; but he always went, to the great vexation of his sisters, who were heartily ashamed of him. His face was red, his figure was loutish—it was impossible to smarten him up or make him look like other folks; he continued, in spite of all their efforts, to be just plain Peter—“dreadful vulgar” in his appearance. And the worst of it was, that you could not overlook him in the crowd. This might have been the case if he had been allowed to wear his ordinary working-clothes, but Peter in his “best” was an object which seemed to stand out from all others, and to be present wherever the eye turned.On the day which was to decide the important question, Peter had been ploughing in a part of his father’s land called the High Field. All the rest lay level on the plain round about the farm, but this one field was on the shoulder of the downs, so that from it you looked far over the distant valley, with its little clusters of villages dotted here and there. Immediately below was the grey church of Danecross, the rectory, the school-house, and a group of cottages all nestling sociably together; farther on, Orchards Farm peeped out from amongst the trees, which were still white with blossom, and above all this came the cold serious outline of the chalk hills, broken here and there by the beech woods. Peter never felt so happy as when he was looking at this from the High Field, with his dinner in his pocket and the prospect of a long day’s work before him. It was so far away from all that disturbed and worried; no one to scold, no one to call him clumsy, no one to look angrily at him, no sounds of dispute. Only the voice of the wind, which blew so freshly up here and seemed to cheer him on, and the song of the larks high above his head, and for companions his good beasts with no reproof in their patient eyes, but only obedience and kindness. Peter was master in the High Field. No one could do a better day’s work or drive a straighter furrow, and he was proud of it, and proud of his team—three iron-greys, with white manes and tails, called “Pleasant”, “Old Pleasant”, and “Young Pleasant.” Yet though he did his ploughing well, it by no means occupied all his mind. As he trudged backwards and forwards with bent head, and hands grasping the handles, with now and then a shout to his horses, and now and then a pause for rest, his thoughts were free as the wind, flying about to an sorts of subjects. For this silent Peter had always something to wonder about. He never asked questions now as he had done at school: he had been laughed at so much then, that he knew well enough by this time that he only wondered so much because he was more stupid than other folks; it must be so, for the most common things which he saw every day, and which wise people took as a matter of course, were enough to puzzle him and fill his mind with wonder. The stars, the flowers, the sunset, the sound of the wind, the very pebbles turned up by the ploughshare, gave him strange feelings which he did not understand and which he carefully hid. They would have been explained, he knew, if he had expressed them, by the sentence, “Peter’s not all there”; and he was sometimes quite inclined to think that this was really the case. To-day his thoughts had been fixed on the approaching holiday, and on all the delights of the past one. It was to him a most beautiful and even solemn occasion, and he could recall the very smallest detail of it from year to year: even the uncertain squeaks and flourishes of the drum and fife band were something to be remembered with pleasure. As his eye rested on the school-house, a small red dot in the distance, he wondered if they had settled on the Queen yet, and whether Agnetta would be chosen. “She’ll be rarely vexed if she ain’t,” he thought seriously. So the day went by, and after five o’clock had sounded from the church tower Peter and his beasts left off work and went leisurely down the hill towards home; two of the Pleasants in front with their harness clanking and flapping loosely about them, and their master following, seated sideways on the back of the third. Peter had done a long day’s work and was hungry, but he did not go into the house till he had seen his horses attended to by Ben Pinhorn, who was in the yard when they arrived. Even after this he was further delayed, for as he was crossing the lane which separated the farm buildings from the house an ugly cat ran to meet him, rubbed against his legs, and mewed.“Jump, then, Tib,” said Peter encouragingly; and Tib jumped, arriving with outspread claws on the front of his waistcoat and thence to his shoulder. Thus accompanied he went to the kitchen window and tapped softly, which signal brought Molly the servant girl with a saucer of skim milk.“There’s your supper, Tib,” said Peter as he set it on the ground, and stood looking heavily down at the cat till she had lapped up the last drop. And in this there was reason; for Sober the sheepdog, lying near, had his eye on the saucer, and only waited for Tib to be undefended to advance and finish the milk himself.Being now quite ready for his own refreshment Peter made his way through the back kitchen into the general living-room of the family, which also, much to Bella’s disgust, had the appearance of a kitchen. It was large and comfortable, with three windows in it, looking across the garden to the orchard, but, alas! it had a great fireplace and oven, where cooking often went on, and an odious high settle sticking out from one corner of the chimney. This was enough to deprive it of all gentility, without mentioning the long deal table at which in former times the farmer had been used to dine with his servants. They were banished now to the back kitchen, but this was the only reform Bella and Gusta had been able to make. Nothing would induce their father to sit in the parlour, where there was a complete set of velvet-covered chairs, a sofa, a piano, a photograph-book, and a great number of anti-macassars and mats. All these elegances were not enough to make him give up his warm corner in the settle, where he could stretch out his legs at his ease and smoke his pipe. Mrs Greenways herself, though she was proud of her parlour, secretly preferred the kitchen, as being more handy and comfortable, so that except on great occasions the parlour was left in chilly loneliness. When Peter entered there were only his mother and Bella in the room. The latter stood at the table with a puzzled frown on her brow, and a large pair of scissors in her hand; before her were spread paper patterns, fashion-books, and some pieces of black velveteen, which she was eyeing doubtfully, and, placing in different ways so that it might be cut to the best advantage. Bella was considered a fine young woman. She had a large frame like all the Greenways, and nature had given her a waist in proportion to it. She had, however, fought against nature and conquered, for her figure now resembled an hour-glass—very wide at the top, and suddenly very small in the middle. Like Agnetta she had a great deal of colour, frizzy black hair, and a good-natured expression, but her face was just now clouded by some evident vexation.“Lor’, Bella,” said her mother, turning round from the hearth, “put away them fal-lals—do. Here’s Peter wanting his tea, and your father’ll be along from market directly.” Bella did not answer, partly because her mouth was full of pins, and Mrs Greenways continued: “You might hurry and get the tea laid just for once. I’m clean tired out.”“Where’s Molly?” muttered Bella indistinctly.“Molly indeed!” exclaimed her mother impatiently. “It’s Molly here and Molly there. One ’ud think she had a hundred legs and arms for all you think she can do. Molly’s scrubbing out the dairy, which she ought to a done this morning.”“It won’t run to it after all!” exclaimed Bella, dashing her scissors down on the table; “not by a good quarter of a yard.”“An’ you’ve been and wasted pretty nigh all the afternoon over it,” said Mrs Greenways. “I do wish Gusta wouldn’t send you them patterns, that I do.”“I’ve cut up the skirt of my velveteen trying to fashion it,” said Bella, looking mournfully at the plate in Myra’s Journal, “so now I’m ever so much worse off than I was afore. Lor’, Peter!” she added, as her eye fell on her brother, “do go and take off that horrid gaberdine and them boots. You look for all the world like Ben Pinhorn, there ain’t a pin to choose between you.”“You oughtn’t to speak so sharp,” said her mother, as Peter slouched out of the room. “I know what it is to feel spent like that after a day’s work. You just come in and fling down where you are and as you are, boots or no boots.”As she spoke the rattle of wheels was heard outside, and then the click of a gate.“There now!” she exclaimed, starting up; “thereisyer father. Back already, and a fine taking he’ll be in to see all this muss about and no tea ready. He’s short enough always when he’s bin to market, without anything extry to vex him.” She swept Bella’s scraps, patterns, and books unceremoniously into a heap, and directly afterwards the tramp of heavy feet sounded in the passage, and the farmer entered. His first glance as he threw himself on the settle was at the table, where Bella was hurriedly clearing away her confused mass of working materials.“Be off with all that rubbish and let’s have tea,” he said crossly. “Why can’t it be ready when I come in?”“You’re a bit earlier than usual, Richard,” said his wife; “but you’ll have it in no time now. The kettle’s on the boil.”She made anxious signs to Bella to quicken her movements, for she saw that the farmer was in a bad humour. Things had not gone well at market.“And what did you see at Lenham?” she asked, as she began to put the cups and saucers on the table.“Nawthing,” answered Mr Greenways, staring at the fire.“What did you hear then?” persisted his wife.“Nawthing,” was the answer again.Mother and daughter exchanged meaning looks. The farmer jerked his head impatiently round.“What I want to see is summat to eat, and what I want to hear is no more questions till I’ve got it. So there!”He thrust out his legs, pushed his hands deep down in his pockets, and with his chin sunk on his breast sat there a picture of moody discontent.After a good deal of clatter and bustle, and calls for Molly, the tea was ready at last—a substantial meal, but somewhat untidily served—and Peter, having changed the offensive gaberdine for a shiny black cloth coat, having joined them, the party sat down. It was a very silent one, for no one dared to address another remark to the farmer until he had satisfied his appetite, which took some time. At last, however, as he handed his cup to his wife to be refilled, he asked:“Who made the butter this week?”“Why, Molly, as always makes it,” answered Mrs Greenways. “Wasn’t it good. I thought it looked beautiful.”“Well, all I know is,” said the farmer moodily, “that Benson told me to-day that if this lot was like the last he wouldn’t take no more.”“Lor’, Richard, you don’t really mean it!” said Mrs Greenways, setting down the teapot with a thump. “Whatever shall we do if Benson won’t take the butter?”“You can’t expect him to take it if it ain’t good,” answered the farmer. “I don’t blame him; he’s got to sell it again.”“It’s that there good-for-nothing Molly,” said Mrs Greenways. “I’m always after her about the dairy, yet if my head’s turned a minute she’ll forget to scald her pans, and that gives the butter a sour taste.”“All I know is, it’s a hard thing, that with good pasture and good cows, and three women indoors, the butter can’t be made so as it’s fit to sell,” said Mr Greenways, hitting the table with his fist.“What’s the use of Bella and Agnetta, I should like to know?”Bella tossed her head and smiled. “Lor’, Pa, how you talk!” she said mincingly.“They’ve never been taught nothing of such things,” said Mrs Greenways; “and besides, Agnetta’s got her schooling yet awhile.”“Fancy me,” said Bella with a giggle, “making the butter with my sleeves tucked up like Molly. I hope I’m above that sort of thing. I didn’t go to Lenham finishing school tolearnthat.”“I can’t find out what it was you did learn there,” growled her father, “except to look down on everything useful. I’ll not have Agnetta sent there, I know. Not if I had the money, I wouldn’t. It’s bad enough to have bad seasons and poor crops to do with out-of-doors, without having a set of dressed-up lazy hussies in the house, who mar more than they make. Where to turn for money I don’t know, and there’s going on for three years’ rent owing to Mr Leigh.”He got up as he spoke and left the room, followed by Peter. Bella continued her tea placidly. Father was always cross on market days, and it did not impress her in the least to be called lazy; she was far more interested in the fate of her velveteen dress than in the quality of the butter. But this was not the case with Mrs Greenways. To hear that Benson had threatened not to take the butter was a real as well as a new trouble, and alarmed her greatly. The rent owing and the failing crops were such a very old story that she had ceased to heed it much, but what would happen if the butter was not sold? The dairy was one of their largest sources of profit, and, as the farmer had said, the pasture was good and the cows were good. There was no fault out-of-doors. Whose fault was it? Molly’s without doubt. “But then,” reflected Mrs Greenways, “she have got a sight to do, and you can’t hurry butter; you must have care and time.” She sighed as she glanced at Bella’s strong capable form. Perhaps it would have been better after all, as Mrs White had so often said, to bring up her girls to understand household matters, instead of being stylishly idle. “I did it for their good,” thought poor Mrs Greenways; “and anyhow, it’s too late to alter ’em now. They’d no more take to it than ducks to flying.” She was startled out of these reflections by the sudden entrance of Agnetta, who burst into the room with a hot excited face, and flung her bag of books into a corner.“Well,” said Bella, looking calmly at her, “I s’pose you’re to be Queen, ain’t you?”“No!” exclaimed Agnetta angrily, “I ain’t Queen; and it’s a shame, so it is.”“Why, whoever is it, then?” asked Bella, open-mouthed.“They’ve been and chosen Lilac White; sneaking little thing!” said Agnetta.“Well, now, surely, I am surprised,” said her mother. “I made sure they’d choose you, Agnetta; being the oldest, and the best lookin’, and all. I do call it hard.”“It’s too bad,” continued Agnetta, thus encouraged; “after I’ve been such a friend to her, and helped her cut her hair. It’s ungrateful. She might have told me.”“Why, I don’t suppose she knew it, did she?” said Bella.“She went all on pretending she wanted me Queen,” said Agnetta, “as innocent as you please. And she must a known there were a lot meant to vote for her. I call it mean.”“Never you mind, Agnetta,” said her mother soothingly; “come and get yer tea, and here’s a pot of strawberry jam as you’re fond of. She’ll never make half such a good Queen as you, and I dessay you’ll look every bit as fine now, when you’re dressed.”“I don’t want no strawberry jam,” said Agnetta sullenly, kicking at the leg of the table.“Mercy me!” said poor Mrs Greenways with a sigh, “everything do seem to go crossways today.”

“When daisies pied and violets blueAnd lady-smocks all silver-whiteAnd cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight.”—Shakespeare.

“When daisies pied and violets blueAnd lady-smocks all silver-whiteAnd cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight.”—Shakespeare.

On the top of the ridge of hills which rose behind Mrs White’s cottage there was a great beech wood, which could be reached in two ways. One was by following a rough stony road which got gradually steeper and was terribly hard for both man and beast, and the other was to take a chalky track which led straight across the rounded shoulder of the downs.

This last was considerably shorter, and by active people was always preferred to the road, although in summer it was glaring and unshaded. But the scramble was soon over, and in the deep quiet shelter of the woods it was cool on the hottest day, for the trees held their leaves so thickly over your head that it was better than any roof. The sun could not get through to scorch or dazzle, but it lit up the flickering sprays on the low boughs, so that looking through them you saw a silvery shimmering dance always going on. In the valley there had not perhaps been a breath of air, but up here a little ruffling breeze had its home, and was ready to fan you gently and hospitably directly you arrived.

Under your feet a red-and-brown carpet of last year’s leaves was spread, stirred now and then with sudden mysterious rustlings as the small wild creatures darted away at the sound of your step. These and the birds shared the woods in almost complete solitude, disturbed now and again by the woodcutters, or boys from the village. But there was one day in the year when this quiet kingdom was strangely invaded, when its inhabitants fled to their most retired corners and peeped out with terrified eyes upon a very altered scene—and this was the first of May. Then everything was changed for a little while. Instead of the notes of the birds there were human voices calling to each other, laughing, singing, shouting, and the music of a band; instead of great silent spaces, there were many brightly-coloured figures which ran and danced. In the midst, where a clearing had been made and the oldest trees stood solemnly round, there appeared the slim form of a maypole decked with gay ribbons; near it a throne covered with hawthorn boughs, on which, dressed in white with garland and sceptre, was seated the Queen of the May. There with great ceremony she was crowned by her court, and afterwards led the dance round the maypole. Songs and feasting followed until the sun went down, and then the gay company marched away to the sounds of “God save the Queen.” Quietness reigned in the woods again, and once more the wild creatures which lived there could roam and fly at their pleasure until next May Day.

Now this holiday, which was fast approaching again, was not only looked forward to with interest and excitement by the children, but was an event of importance to everyone in the village. The very oldest made shift somehow to get up to the woods and join in the rejoicing, and the most careworn and sorrowful managed to struggle out of their gloom for that one day, and to leave behind the dulness of their daily toil. Many, coming from distant parts of the parish, met for the only time throughout the year in the woods on May Day, and found the keenest pleasure in comparing the growth of their children, and talking of their neighbours’ affairs. It was a source of pride and satisfaction, too, to fathers as well as mothers, to point out some child in the procession so bedecked with flowers that the real Johnnie was hardly visible, and say with a grin of delight:

“Why, it’s our Johnnie, I do declare! Shouldn’t never a known him.” As the time came round again, therefore, it was more or less in everyone’s mind in some way. For one thing: Would it be fine? That affected everyone’s comfort, for a cold wet May Day could be nothing but a miserable failure. Mr Dimbleby at the shop had his own anxieties, for it was his business to provide tea, bread and butter, and cake for the whole assembly, and to get it all up to the top of the hill—no small matter. To do this it was necessary to keep his mind steadily fixed on May Day for a whole week beforehand, and not to allow it to relax for an instant. The drum-and-fife band, who felt themselves the pride and ornament of the occasion, had to practise new tunes and polish up “God save the Queen” to a great pitch of perfection, and the children thought themselves busier than anyone. Not only had they to wonder who would be Queen, but they must meet in the Vicarage garden and learn how to dance round the maypole, singing at the same time. Not only must they present themselves at all sorts of odd hours to have some wonderful costume “tried on” by Miss Ellen and Miss Alice, but above all they had to gather the flowers for the wreaths and garlands. Sometimes, if the season were cold and backward, it was difficult to get enough; but this year, as Lilac had noticed with delight, it had been so bright and mild that the meadows were thick with blossoms and there was no fear of any scarcity. She was always amongst the children chosen “to gather”; and there was more in this office than might at first appear, for there were good gatherers and bad gatherers. It might be done carelessly and in a half-hearted manner, or with full attention and earnest effort, and these results were evident when each child brought her own collection to the school room on May morning. The contents of the baskets were very different, for some showed plainly that as little trouble as possible had been taken. These flowers were picked anyhow, with short stalks or long stalks, in bud or too fully blown, faded or fresh, just as they happened to grow and could be most easily got. Others, again, you could see at the first glance, had been gathered with care and thought, the finest specimens chosen just at the right stage of blossoming, and tied in neat bunches with the stalks all of one length. You might be sure that the flowers in these baskets were quite as good at the bottom as those on the top. Now, Lilac White was a gatherer on whom you might depend, and the ladies at the Rectory who made the wreaths, and dressed the Queen, and arranged the festivities, considered her their best support in the matter of flowers. For, by reason of having had her eye upon them for weeks beforehand, she knew every spring where the finest grew, whether they were early or late, and whether they would be ready for the great occasion. When they had to be gathered she spared no trouble, but would get up at any hour so that they might be picked before the sun scorched them, walk any distance or climb the steepest hills to get the very finest possible. She was always appealed to when any question arose about the flowers. “We must ask Lilac White whether the king-cups are out,” Miss Ellen would say; and Lilac was always able to tell. She filled, therefore, a very pleasant and important post at these times, and took great pride in it; but her Cousin Agnetta looked at this part of the affair differently. To her there was neither pleasure nor profit in “mucking” about in the damp fields, as she said, getting her feet wet, and spoiling her frock in stooping about after the flowers. She wished Mrs Leigh would let them wear artificials, which were quite as pretty to look at, and did not fade or get messy, and were no bother at all. You could wear ’em time after time. Agnetta felt quite sure she should be Queen this year, and although she did not like the trouble beforehand she looked forward to the event itself very much indeed. There were many agreeable things about it: the white dress, the crown, the crowd of people looking on, and the fact of being first amongst her companions. It was a little vexing that Lilac was quicker to learn the steps of the dance Miss Ellen was teaching them, and could sing the May-Day song better than she could. Agnetta always sang out of tune, and tumbled over her own feet in the dance; but she consoled herself by remembering how well she should look as Queen dressed all in white, with her red cheeks and frizzy black hair. Meanwhile the Queen was not yet chosen, but would be voted for in the school a week beforehand.

Who would be chosen? It was a question which occupied a good many minds just then, and amongst them one which was not supposed to trouble itself about such matters, or to have anything to do with merry-making. This was Peter Greenways’ mind. He was so dull and silent, and worked so very hard all the year, that it was an ever fresh surprise to see him appear with the rest on May Day, and came natural to say, “What, you here, Peter!” although he had never missed a single occasion. He expressed no pleasure, and showed no outward sign of enjoyment; but he always went, to the great vexation of his sisters, who were heartily ashamed of him. His face was red, his figure was loutish—it was impossible to smarten him up or make him look like other folks; he continued, in spite of all their efforts, to be just plain Peter—“dreadful vulgar” in his appearance. And the worst of it was, that you could not overlook him in the crowd. This might have been the case if he had been allowed to wear his ordinary working-clothes, but Peter in his “best” was an object which seemed to stand out from all others, and to be present wherever the eye turned.

On the day which was to decide the important question, Peter had been ploughing in a part of his father’s land called the High Field. All the rest lay level on the plain round about the farm, but this one field was on the shoulder of the downs, so that from it you looked far over the distant valley, with its little clusters of villages dotted here and there. Immediately below was the grey church of Danecross, the rectory, the school-house, and a group of cottages all nestling sociably together; farther on, Orchards Farm peeped out from amongst the trees, which were still white with blossom, and above all this came the cold serious outline of the chalk hills, broken here and there by the beech woods. Peter never felt so happy as when he was looking at this from the High Field, with his dinner in his pocket and the prospect of a long day’s work before him. It was so far away from all that disturbed and worried; no one to scold, no one to call him clumsy, no one to look angrily at him, no sounds of dispute. Only the voice of the wind, which blew so freshly up here and seemed to cheer him on, and the song of the larks high above his head, and for companions his good beasts with no reproof in their patient eyes, but only obedience and kindness. Peter was master in the High Field. No one could do a better day’s work or drive a straighter furrow, and he was proud of it, and proud of his team—three iron-greys, with white manes and tails, called “Pleasant”, “Old Pleasant”, and “Young Pleasant.” Yet though he did his ploughing well, it by no means occupied all his mind. As he trudged backwards and forwards with bent head, and hands grasping the handles, with now and then a shout to his horses, and now and then a pause for rest, his thoughts were free as the wind, flying about to an sorts of subjects. For this silent Peter had always something to wonder about. He never asked questions now as he had done at school: he had been laughed at so much then, that he knew well enough by this time that he only wondered so much because he was more stupid than other folks; it must be so, for the most common things which he saw every day, and which wise people took as a matter of course, were enough to puzzle him and fill his mind with wonder. The stars, the flowers, the sunset, the sound of the wind, the very pebbles turned up by the ploughshare, gave him strange feelings which he did not understand and which he carefully hid. They would have been explained, he knew, if he had expressed them, by the sentence, “Peter’s not all there”; and he was sometimes quite inclined to think that this was really the case. To-day his thoughts had been fixed on the approaching holiday, and on all the delights of the past one. It was to him a most beautiful and even solemn occasion, and he could recall the very smallest detail of it from year to year: even the uncertain squeaks and flourishes of the drum and fife band were something to be remembered with pleasure. As his eye rested on the school-house, a small red dot in the distance, he wondered if they had settled on the Queen yet, and whether Agnetta would be chosen. “She’ll be rarely vexed if she ain’t,” he thought seriously. So the day went by, and after five o’clock had sounded from the church tower Peter and his beasts left off work and went leisurely down the hill towards home; two of the Pleasants in front with their harness clanking and flapping loosely about them, and their master following, seated sideways on the back of the third. Peter had done a long day’s work and was hungry, but he did not go into the house till he had seen his horses attended to by Ben Pinhorn, who was in the yard when they arrived. Even after this he was further delayed, for as he was crossing the lane which separated the farm buildings from the house an ugly cat ran to meet him, rubbed against his legs, and mewed.

“Jump, then, Tib,” said Peter encouragingly; and Tib jumped, arriving with outspread claws on the front of his waistcoat and thence to his shoulder. Thus accompanied he went to the kitchen window and tapped softly, which signal brought Molly the servant girl with a saucer of skim milk.

“There’s your supper, Tib,” said Peter as he set it on the ground, and stood looking heavily down at the cat till she had lapped up the last drop. And in this there was reason; for Sober the sheepdog, lying near, had his eye on the saucer, and only waited for Tib to be undefended to advance and finish the milk himself.

Being now quite ready for his own refreshment Peter made his way through the back kitchen into the general living-room of the family, which also, much to Bella’s disgust, had the appearance of a kitchen. It was large and comfortable, with three windows in it, looking across the garden to the orchard, but, alas! it had a great fireplace and oven, where cooking often went on, and an odious high settle sticking out from one corner of the chimney. This was enough to deprive it of all gentility, without mentioning the long deal table at which in former times the farmer had been used to dine with his servants. They were banished now to the back kitchen, but this was the only reform Bella and Gusta had been able to make. Nothing would induce their father to sit in the parlour, where there was a complete set of velvet-covered chairs, a sofa, a piano, a photograph-book, and a great number of anti-macassars and mats. All these elegances were not enough to make him give up his warm corner in the settle, where he could stretch out his legs at his ease and smoke his pipe. Mrs Greenways herself, though she was proud of her parlour, secretly preferred the kitchen, as being more handy and comfortable, so that except on great occasions the parlour was left in chilly loneliness. When Peter entered there were only his mother and Bella in the room. The latter stood at the table with a puzzled frown on her brow, and a large pair of scissors in her hand; before her were spread paper patterns, fashion-books, and some pieces of black velveteen, which she was eyeing doubtfully, and, placing in different ways so that it might be cut to the best advantage. Bella was considered a fine young woman. She had a large frame like all the Greenways, and nature had given her a waist in proportion to it. She had, however, fought against nature and conquered, for her figure now resembled an hour-glass—very wide at the top, and suddenly very small in the middle. Like Agnetta she had a great deal of colour, frizzy black hair, and a good-natured expression, but her face was just now clouded by some evident vexation.

“Lor’, Bella,” said her mother, turning round from the hearth, “put away them fal-lals—do. Here’s Peter wanting his tea, and your father’ll be along from market directly.” Bella did not answer, partly because her mouth was full of pins, and Mrs Greenways continued: “You might hurry and get the tea laid just for once. I’m clean tired out.”

“Where’s Molly?” muttered Bella indistinctly.

“Molly indeed!” exclaimed her mother impatiently. “It’s Molly here and Molly there. One ’ud think she had a hundred legs and arms for all you think she can do. Molly’s scrubbing out the dairy, which she ought to a done this morning.”

“It won’t run to it after all!” exclaimed Bella, dashing her scissors down on the table; “not by a good quarter of a yard.”

“An’ you’ve been and wasted pretty nigh all the afternoon over it,” said Mrs Greenways. “I do wish Gusta wouldn’t send you them patterns, that I do.”

“I’ve cut up the skirt of my velveteen trying to fashion it,” said Bella, looking mournfully at the plate in Myra’s Journal, “so now I’m ever so much worse off than I was afore. Lor’, Peter!” she added, as her eye fell on her brother, “do go and take off that horrid gaberdine and them boots. You look for all the world like Ben Pinhorn, there ain’t a pin to choose between you.”

“You oughtn’t to speak so sharp,” said her mother, as Peter slouched out of the room. “I know what it is to feel spent like that after a day’s work. You just come in and fling down where you are and as you are, boots or no boots.”

As she spoke the rattle of wheels was heard outside, and then the click of a gate.

“There now!” she exclaimed, starting up; “thereisyer father. Back already, and a fine taking he’ll be in to see all this muss about and no tea ready. He’s short enough always when he’s bin to market, without anything extry to vex him.” She swept Bella’s scraps, patterns, and books unceremoniously into a heap, and directly afterwards the tramp of heavy feet sounded in the passage, and the farmer entered. His first glance as he threw himself on the settle was at the table, where Bella was hurriedly clearing away her confused mass of working materials.

“Be off with all that rubbish and let’s have tea,” he said crossly. “Why can’t it be ready when I come in?”

“You’re a bit earlier than usual, Richard,” said his wife; “but you’ll have it in no time now. The kettle’s on the boil.”

She made anxious signs to Bella to quicken her movements, for she saw that the farmer was in a bad humour. Things had not gone well at market.

“And what did you see at Lenham?” she asked, as she began to put the cups and saucers on the table.

“Nawthing,” answered Mr Greenways, staring at the fire.

“What did you hear then?” persisted his wife.

“Nawthing,” was the answer again.

Mother and daughter exchanged meaning looks. The farmer jerked his head impatiently round.

“What I want to see is summat to eat, and what I want to hear is no more questions till I’ve got it. So there!”

He thrust out his legs, pushed his hands deep down in his pockets, and with his chin sunk on his breast sat there a picture of moody discontent.

After a good deal of clatter and bustle, and calls for Molly, the tea was ready at last—a substantial meal, but somewhat untidily served—and Peter, having changed the offensive gaberdine for a shiny black cloth coat, having joined them, the party sat down. It was a very silent one, for no one dared to address another remark to the farmer until he had satisfied his appetite, which took some time. At last, however, as he handed his cup to his wife to be refilled, he asked:

“Who made the butter this week?”

“Why, Molly, as always makes it,” answered Mrs Greenways. “Wasn’t it good. I thought it looked beautiful.”

“Well, all I know is,” said the farmer moodily, “that Benson told me to-day that if this lot was like the last he wouldn’t take no more.”

“Lor’, Richard, you don’t really mean it!” said Mrs Greenways, setting down the teapot with a thump. “Whatever shall we do if Benson won’t take the butter?”

“You can’t expect him to take it if it ain’t good,” answered the farmer. “I don’t blame him; he’s got to sell it again.”

“It’s that there good-for-nothing Molly,” said Mrs Greenways. “I’m always after her about the dairy, yet if my head’s turned a minute she’ll forget to scald her pans, and that gives the butter a sour taste.”

“All I know is, it’s a hard thing, that with good pasture and good cows, and three women indoors, the butter can’t be made so as it’s fit to sell,” said Mr Greenways, hitting the table with his fist.

“What’s the use of Bella and Agnetta, I should like to know?”

Bella tossed her head and smiled. “Lor’, Pa, how you talk!” she said mincingly.

“They’ve never been taught nothing of such things,” said Mrs Greenways; “and besides, Agnetta’s got her schooling yet awhile.”

“Fancy me,” said Bella with a giggle, “making the butter with my sleeves tucked up like Molly. I hope I’m above that sort of thing. I didn’t go to Lenham finishing school tolearnthat.”

“I can’t find out what it was you did learn there,” growled her father, “except to look down on everything useful. I’ll not have Agnetta sent there, I know. Not if I had the money, I wouldn’t. It’s bad enough to have bad seasons and poor crops to do with out-of-doors, without having a set of dressed-up lazy hussies in the house, who mar more than they make. Where to turn for money I don’t know, and there’s going on for three years’ rent owing to Mr Leigh.”

He got up as he spoke and left the room, followed by Peter. Bella continued her tea placidly. Father was always cross on market days, and it did not impress her in the least to be called lazy; she was far more interested in the fate of her velveteen dress than in the quality of the butter. But this was not the case with Mrs Greenways. To hear that Benson had threatened not to take the butter was a real as well as a new trouble, and alarmed her greatly. The rent owing and the failing crops were such a very old story that she had ceased to heed it much, but what would happen if the butter was not sold? The dairy was one of their largest sources of profit, and, as the farmer had said, the pasture was good and the cows were good. There was no fault out-of-doors. Whose fault was it? Molly’s without doubt. “But then,” reflected Mrs Greenways, “she have got a sight to do, and you can’t hurry butter; you must have care and time.” She sighed as she glanced at Bella’s strong capable form. Perhaps it would have been better after all, as Mrs White had so often said, to bring up her girls to understand household matters, instead of being stylishly idle. “I did it for their good,” thought poor Mrs Greenways; “and anyhow, it’s too late to alter ’em now. They’d no more take to it than ducks to flying.” She was startled out of these reflections by the sudden entrance of Agnetta, who burst into the room with a hot excited face, and flung her bag of books into a corner.

“Well,” said Bella, looking calmly at her, “I s’pose you’re to be Queen, ain’t you?”

“No!” exclaimed Agnetta angrily, “I ain’t Queen; and it’s a shame, so it is.”

“Why, whoever is it, then?” asked Bella, open-mouthed.

“They’ve been and chosen Lilac White; sneaking little thing!” said Agnetta.

“Well, now, surely, I am surprised,” said her mother. “I made sure they’d choose you, Agnetta; being the oldest, and the best lookin’, and all. I do call it hard.”

“It’s too bad,” continued Agnetta, thus encouraged; “after I’ve been such a friend to her, and helped her cut her hair. It’s ungrateful. She might have told me.”

“Why, I don’t suppose she knew it, did she?” said Bella.

“She went all on pretending she wanted me Queen,” said Agnetta, “as innocent as you please. And she must a known there were a lot meant to vote for her. I call it mean.”

“Never you mind, Agnetta,” said her mother soothingly; “come and get yer tea, and here’s a pot of strawberry jam as you’re fond of. She’ll never make half such a good Queen as you, and I dessay you’ll look every bit as fine now, when you’re dressed.”

“I don’t want no strawberry jam,” said Agnetta sullenly, kicking at the leg of the table.

“Mercy me!” said poor Mrs Greenways with a sigh, “everything do seem to go crossways today.”

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