In a North Country Village
 
 In a North Country Village 
 
 BY 
 
 M. E. FRANCIS 
 
 (MRS. FRANCIS BLUNDELL) 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'A DAUGHTKR OF THE SOIL," "STORY OF DAN," "FRIEZE 
 AND FUSTIAN," Grc. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK FELLOES 
 
 LONDON 
 
 OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 
 
 45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 I8 97
 
 PR 
 
 4149 
 
 TO 
 THE SQUIRE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Tage 
 Thornleigh ..... 1 
 
 Gaffer's Child . . . . 21 
 
 Celebrities . . . . .47 
 
 Nancy . . . . . 71 
 
 Politics . . . . . 103 
 
 The Gilly-F'ers . . . . 117 
 
 Aunt Jinny . ' . . . .145 
 
 On the Other Side of the Wall . . 171 
 
 Little Paupers . . . . .191 
 
 Here and There .... 209 
 
 "Our Joe" . . . , . .231 
 
 Mates 249
 
 THORNLEIGH
 
 WE hear so much nowadays 
 about the difficulties of agricul- 
 ture, the increasing number of 
 unlet farms, the exodus of the 
 labourer, the fall of prices, and 
 the growing spirit of radicalism, 
 
 that we have come to think the 
 I 
 
 typical British rustic, honest Farmer 
 John Bull, as much a product of a bygone 
 age as his once familiar red waistcoat and 
 top-boots. On the other hand, the population 
 of our large towns overflows their slums and 
 alleys, and rows of hideous, ill-built houses start up on 
 their outskirts and creep out further and further into 
 the country until the fair green face of the land is 
 seamed and disfigured by a very network of staring red 
 brick. When one unduly prolongs one's walks or drives 
 
 3
 
 THORN LEIGH 
 
 in these populous districts, one wonders sometimes if 
 the prognostications of certain mournful prophets will 
 be realised in our days, and if our English villages, with 
 their rugged, good-humoured inhabitants, their snug 
 homesteads, their antiquated customs, will be altogether 
 swept away. 
 
 "And yet within eight miles of one of our largest 
 Northern manufacturing towns, on the main road 
 between it and a fashionable watering-place, there is a 
 certain sleepy little hamlet that I know of, which has 
 remained unchanged to all intents and purposes for 
 several hundred years, and the inhabitants of which 
 have lived there from generation to generation in 
 undisturbed content. 
 
 There is but one rambling street, if street it can be 
 called, where the houses are of all shapes and sizes, and 
 stand at irregular distances from each other and from 
 the road. If you chanced to stroll through Thomleigh 
 on a summer's noontide you would think the whole 
 place was asleep not even a dog in sight, except, per- 
 haps, where here and there in a large farm-yard one 
 may be seen blinking in the sunshine outside his kennel 
 with his muzzle between his outstretched paws. Even 
 the hens cluck drowsily to their wandering broods, and 
 the cats sit sunning themselves on the snowy doorsteps, 
 watching with lazy upturned eyes the swallows that 
 circle and twitter over their heads, or the amorous 
 
 4
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 pigeons that walk up and down on the tiled roofs oppo- 
 site, bowing and cooing and " courtin'," as the good 
 folk here would call it, with equal affectation, and per- 
 severance. But the inhabitants of Thornleish are 
 
 O 
 
 neither absent nor asleep ; twelve o'clock is " dinner- 
 
 time " and they are all busy at their " mate."" There 
 is a fine odour of bacon in the air just now bacon is 
 the staff of life at Thornleigh for breakfast in the 
 morning, a slab or two cold, and sometimes raw, between 
 two thick slices of bread for " baggin" 1 " or lunch, and 
 again, as often as not, for dinner (when the last of the 
 Sunday beef has been disposed of) cooked before the 
 fire, in a deep dish, and served up smoking and savoury 
 with " taters " in the gravy. Here and there, when
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 
 you pass the more important dwelling of a " gradely 
 farmer," you may smell Irish stew, or " toad in the 
 hole,"" but bacon is the staple food of the cottagers, and 
 they certainly seem to thrive on it. Look at this child 
 
 who suddenly conies toddling, 
 spoon in hand, from the rear 
 of this whitewashed cottage, 
 and pauses irresolute at the 
 sight of a stranger. " There's 
 legs for you ! " as Mrs. Poyser 
 would say ; and see the bare 
 arms with their delicious 
 roundness and little soft 
 rings at the wrist, the 
 chubby face, sunburnt over 
 its clear red and white, all 
 save the forehead which, as 
 the yellow curls are tossed 
 aside, shows snowy or no ! that is too lifeless a 
 word to express it rather warmly, delicately white, 
 like the outer petals of a blush rose. Is not this a 
 good advertisement for Thornleigh air and Thornleigh 
 bacon ? Presently the school-bell clangs out, and in a 
 moment the hamlet is alive ; no kiss of a fairy prince 
 could dispel the very atmosphere of drowsiness so 
 thoroughly and instantaneously as does the quavering 
 jangling summons. Here be 
 
 6 
 
 - -si
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 " All the little boys and girls, 
 
 With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
 And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 
 Tripping and skipping " 
 
 Truly, a hearty, healthy, merry little crew, these 
 T-hornleigh children ! Of all ages, from the mite above 
 described, who is scarcely two, to the stalwart urchin in 
 the Sixth Standard, whose wrists have crept such a 
 long way out of his jacket-sleeves, and whose feet in 
 their hob-nailed shoes make such a terrible clatter over 
 the cobble-stones. That is the boy who put a live eel 
 into the schoolmistress's letter-box one morning, nearly 
 causing that short-sighted and long-suffering person to 
 have a fit when she put in her hand in search of her 
 correspondence. Tommy was at once detected and 
 desired to hold out his hand, which he did, observing 
 philosophically that he might's well be hit for somethin 1 
 as nothin'. 
 
 The little girls run past, dropping a hasty one-sided 
 " dip " as they recognise an acquaintance ; their little 
 round rosy faces are still shining from their recent 
 scrub in the back kitchen "the missus'" is that 
 partickler and the boys follow more slowly, for they 
 are whipping their tops as they go. Tops are in 
 fashion this summer, I perceive. There is a fashion in 
 village games which changes almost with the seasons ; 
 last year the favourite playthings were miniature carts,
 
 THORN LEIGH 
 
 constructed very ingeniously out of old boxes, the 
 wheels being made of disused cotton reels; and the 
 year before they were still simpler, consisting merely of 
 round pieces of tin the lids of biscuit-boxes chiefly 
 with a hole in the middle, through which a long piece 
 of string was passed. How gleefully the owners 
 trundled and twirled them, and what a hideous din 
 they made, and how unpleasant it was when one came 
 whirling round you, entangling itself in your petticoats 
 and rapping your shins ! 
 
 There the last of the boys has gone a little 
 brown-faced lad who rolls along with his hands in the 
 pockets of his short corduroys, kicking up the dust as 
 he walks, and shouting out contemptuous comments on 
 the achievements of the top-whippers. Human nature 
 is the same all over the world I am inwardly 
 convinced that this urchin is topless. 
 
 The children are no longer in sight, but I can hear 
 them still, the boys shouting and cracking their whips, 
 the girls playing in the road outside the school-house, 
 for the bell has not yet stopped, and the last precious 
 moments of liberty must be made the most of. 
 
 " Here we go round the mulberry bush, 
 
 The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, 
 Here we go round the mulberry bush, 
 This Jine frosty morning."
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 They shout the ditty in little breathless gusts; and 
 even at this distance I can hear the shuffle of their 
 dancing feet. 
 
 The bell is silent at last, and there is a general rush 
 and scamper ; then all is still. 
 
 Not for long, though. The hour of repose is over, 
 and work begins again. There is a pushing back of 
 chairs and benches, and a clatter of crockery within the 
 houses, a tramp of heavy footsteps, a slouching past of 
 burly forms without. Here comes Mr. Waring, one of 
 the most important personages of Thornleigh ; " a 
 gradely farmer " as one can see at the first glance. All 
 our farmers are fat, and the more prosperous they are, 
 the fatter they grow. 
 
 His broad, shining, rubicund face wreathes itself in 
 smiles as he approaches. 
 
 " Good arternoon, Mrs. Francis. Fine weather ah, 
 'tis. We could do with a drop o' rain, though, to 
 swell the potatoes." (Evidently Mr. Waring's hay is 
 " earned.") 
 
 " It did rain a little this morning, didn't it ? " 
 
 " Nobbut a spot or two, an' we'st ha 1 no moor while 
 the wind's in yon quarter." 
 
 " Well, good day, Mr. Waring. I'm glad to have 
 seen you. It's some time since we have met I began 
 to be afraid your gout was troubling you again." 
 
 "Nay, ma'am, I've kep' pretty clear o' that lately, 
 9
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 but it's been busy times with me. Fve been gettin' th' 
 hay in, ye see, an' buryiiT my father, an 1 that."" 
 
 He touches his huge mushroom-shaped chip hat, and 
 rolls on, leaving me a little taken aback at the piece of 
 information thus casually conveyed. Not indeed that I 
 was surprised at the manner of the announcement, for 
 the Thornleigh folks are not as a rule given to sentiment, 
 but I am rather astonished to hear that Mr. Waring so 
 recently possessed a papa, he himself having been a 
 grandfather for some time. 
 
 A few steps more bring one out in the open fields 
 that stretch away, brown, and green, or rather golden 
 in the sunshine, to their boundary of distant sandhill. 
 The broad expanse has a certain beauty of its own in 
 spite of its flatness and monotony. On the right is a 
 half-cut meadow, the rich, heavily scented swathes 
 lying in the foreground, while a little further off the 
 mowing machine a new one, brilliantly scarlet and 
 blue flashes out against the young green of the wood, 
 the straw hat and bright-coloured shirt of the driver 
 adding to the picturesque effect. The sudden ejacula- 
 tion " Haw ! "" behind the hedge on my left makes me 
 start. The " turmits "" are being earthed up, and a 
 stalwart labourer is in the act of turning his plough at 
 the end of a drill. His sunburnt face is uplifted for a 
 moment in greeting, the sleek sides of his elephantine 
 horse gleam through the green thorn-boughs ; there is 
 
 10
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 a further bellow " Gee-back ! " accompanied by an 
 oath or two, merely used in the way of persuasion, and 
 then up the furrow they go, patiently plodding. 
 
 The little village, as I look back at it, has suddenly 
 become alive with rustic figures: men returning to 
 work ; women going in and out of their houses, the 
 loose sleeves of their print jackets or "bedgowns 1 " 
 rolled up high on their arms, their short striped petti- 
 coats leaving their sturdy ankles exposed to view. 
 Chickens are being fed, pigs " done for " ; then there is 
 the washing-up and a thousand odd jobs to be seen to. 
 The blue smoke curls up merrily : Farmer Waring was 
 right, it will not rain to-day ; here and there linen 
 gleams out on hedges or clothes-lines, though most of 
 the thrifty Thornleigh housewives have got their wash 
 out of the way before this. These lines of white with 
 the women's bedgowns and aprons, and the yellow corn- 
 ricks, which seem positively to blaze in the sunlight, 
 are vivid points of colour in a picture which is other- 
 wise blended of sober hues. House walls, for the most 
 part of time-worn stone, quarried from the "delf" 
 yonder, roofs of thatch, or antique slabs of stone, 
 lichen-grown, and irregularly set ; here a cottage of 
 brick, the red of which, however, is softened and 
 mellowed by years, there one with walls washed over 
 with ochre. Yonder stands the ivy-grown church 
 placidly keeping watch over a goodly company of 
 
 11
 
 THORN LEIGH 
 
 gravestones. This village churchyard is to my thinking 
 the epitome of tranquillity and even beauty of a certain 
 sober kind. It seems to me that the church casts its 
 shadow lovingly across the graves, caressing each in 
 
 T-L 
 
 turn, for all who lie there have in life been gathered to 
 its embrace many and many a time. Flowers bloom 
 above the sleepers in abundance, old-fashioned and 
 simple as themselves ; for the village children make a 
 garden of this place, and many a wreath of wild-flowers 
 is woven by willing little fingers, many a fern and 
 flowering bulb is eagerly, and often inefficiently, planted, 
 
 12
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 to blossom, and wither, and be replaced. There is a 
 special watering-pot kept in the school-porch which 
 they call " the deading-can," because it is reserved for 
 watering the graves. The fresh voices of the little ones 
 mingle with the music of the birds in the neighbouring 
 woods, the sweep of scythes, the clatter of reaping and 
 mowing machines, the slow heavy tread of sleek farm- 
 horses all the thousand-and-one blithe sounds that 
 gladden the heart of the rustic. One would think these 
 "rude forefathers of the hamlet" must find it sweet to 
 rest here, under the pure air of heaven, with the sun to 
 shine on them, and the grasshoppers to chirp above 
 them, and the little children to prattle near. 
 
 When I first knew Thornleigh " the Canon " was 
 alive. He lies yonder now, under the green sod, on 
 the spot where he so often stood to greet his parishioners 
 as they entered or left the church. 
 
 No picture of the place would be complete without 
 at least an outline of that familiar figure. Familiar 
 indeed it was in Thornleigh ; there was not a man, 
 woman, or child in the place in whom he did not 
 interest himself, and whose every idiosyncrasy was not 
 known to him. The people considered it quite a 
 matter of course that he should concern himself as 
 much with their affairs as with his own. " Eh ! " they 
 would say among themselves, " Canon will be glad t'ear 
 as our Bill's dom' so nicely," or " Canon '11 be fair 
 
 13
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 broken-'earted when he gets to know Polly^s goin"s on.' 1 '' 
 And it is only fair to say that these homely joys and 
 sorrows were matters of the deepest moment to him. 
 Nothing could be done in Thornleigh without the 
 Canon's intervention. Sometimes he would be seen 
 teaching a young mother how to hold and dandle her 
 first baby, and sometimes assisting an inexperienced 
 nurse in making a sick-bed ; now looking in on old 
 Billy Prescott the keeper (who was recovering painfully 
 from his last spree), and recommending fearlessly "a 
 hair of the dog that bit him " to the nervous miserable 
 man a prescription, be it said, which called forth a 
 good deal of argument on the part of Billy's dame 
 and now sternly reprimanding a pair of youthful lovers 
 whom he caught billing and cooing under a hedge when 
 they should have been at Sunday-school. This " courtin 1 " 
 or " company-keeping " was a sore point with the 
 Canon, beginning, as it usually did, among lads and 
 lasses who had only just left school, and being 
 continued till they were quite old enough to know 
 better. The Canon left no stone unturned in his 
 efforts to combat the amative proclivities of his flock ; 
 when the boys and girls had outgrown that stage in 
 which he could settle the matter by boxing their ears 
 or complaining to their parents, or when there was no 
 apparent reason for prolonging the wooing of more 
 staid and well-to-do parties, or even when a match 
 
 14
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 between a certain couple was considered "likely" by 
 the neighbours, and advisable by himself, he was 
 uncompromising and insistent in advocating matrimony. 
 If "saucing," and remonstrating in private did not 
 produce the desired result, he would throw out a hint 
 or two on Sundays before the assembled congregation. 
 
 " It is quite time for that couple I met walking in 
 the woods last night to be married," or, " If certain 
 people who don't live a hundred miles away from here 
 intend to be united before Lent, their banns must be 
 called next Sunday." 
 
 And, strange to say, in all probability the couple in 
 question were "shouted"" on the appointed day. If 
 they still hung back, the Canon generally let them 
 know what he thought of them in the "few words'" 
 with which it was his custom to preface his ordinary 
 Sunday discourse when any members of his congregation 
 stood in special need of " pulling up." Those " few 
 words" were terrible things, especially as the speaker 
 used occasionally to detect people in the act of 
 complacently "fitting the cap " on the guilty parties; 
 whereupon he added another phrase or two to remind 
 these censorious ones of their little weaknesses, ending 
 not infrequently with a sweeping condemnation of 
 Thornleigh and its ways in general. (Woe betide any 
 one else, however, who ventured in his presence to say a 
 word against Thornleigh, or Thornleigh folk !) The 
 
 15
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 people liked him none the less for his occasional 
 severity. "Eh, hasn't Canon been bargin" 1 awful this 
 mornm" 1 ? " they would ask of each other with a roll of 
 the head, and a jerk of the thumb over the shoulder; 
 but on the whole they preferred being " barged at " to 
 being let alone, on the same principle, presumably, as 
 that which causes them and their kind to think nothing 
 of a doctor who does not order nauseous draughts and 
 bitter pills. 
 
 But if the Canon was zealous and unflinching in the 
 performance of his duty, he knew how to temper justice 
 with mercy. Many of the Thernleigh folk will wipe 
 their eyes as they tell you of that cold winter's night, 
 some years ago, when " poor owd Gillyf 'er Jack " was 
 sent by his crony the blacksmith to fetch home a 
 quantity of old iron bolts and chains which the latter 
 had bought at a recent sale. Poor Jack met a friend 
 on the way, and they had " an odd gill " (a -very odd 
 gill) together, after which the friend went his way and 
 Jack went his which in some unaccountable manner 
 led him into a ditch. There the Canon found him, 
 half suffocated and but partially sober, and after much 
 difficulty extricated him and set him on his legs. But 
 perceiving that Jack was only just capable of carrying 
 himself, and could in no way have proceeded if encum- 
 bered with his burden, the Canon took up the load him- 
 self. Off they set, the Canon staggering and gasping 
 
 16
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 for breath, and Jack staggering too, and occasionally 
 lurching against his companion so violently that the 
 chains jingled again ; and at other times making such a 
 swerve in the other direction that the Canon thought 
 he was going to take " a header " into the ditch once 
 more. In his anxiety he shifted his load to one shoulder, 
 and passing the other arm through Jack's so as to enable 
 him to maintain his equilibrium in some degree, they 
 proceeded onwards in a curious zig-zag fashion until 
 they came to the village. Here the Canon was for 
 taking leave of his protege, but Jack having now 
 reached the affectionate stage of intoxication, refused 
 to part with him until he had seen him safe home. He 
 poured forth, indeed, so many loving, if somewhat 
 indistinct, remonstrances in so loud a key that presently 
 the whole village assembled, anxious to see " what mak' 
 o' drunken chap Jack o' Gillyf'er's had gotten howd 
 of ? " And much surprised they were to find their own 
 pastor in Jack's tipsy embrace, blushing with discom- 
 fiture, and sorely exhausted by his evening's work. 
 
 Gillyf er Jack was not the only member of the con- 
 gregation who was anxious to act as escort on occasion 
 to the good priest. His cousin Joe Rutherford (Ned's 
 Joe) used to consider it his special privilege to " see 
 Canon home o' nights." If the latter were returning 
 by train from some distant expedition he would be sure 
 to find Joe waiting for him at the station, and the 
 
 17 B
 
 THORN LEIGH 
 
 servants at the Hall, or any of the neighbouring houses 
 where he occasionally dined, were quite accustomed to 
 Joe's vigorous thump at the back-door, and the sub^ 
 sequent announcement that he had " coom for Canon." 
 It was, however, the sick and infirm of his flock who 
 made the largest demands on the Canon's time ; he 
 would prescribe for them, and comfort them ; listen to 
 long accounts of their symptoms, inspect their "bad 
 legs," and compassionate their sore fingers with untiring 
 patience and kindness. Then, as to his spiritual minis- 
 trations, the persevering exhortations to some, the 
 quiet " word in season " to another, the mere comfort 
 of his presence in a death-chamber where he would 
 kneel for hours by the poor bed-side, clasping the inert 
 hands in his, while the fast-glazing eyes were turned 
 towards him until they could see no more one should 
 hear the Thornleigh folk tell of these things. A poor 
 girl lay dying of consumption once in the village a 
 farm servant and a stranger ; there was no one belong- 
 ing to her to attend her, or to mourn for her, and 
 her mistress, though she " did for her " with a certain 
 rough kindness, was too busy to be much comfort to 
 her. The Canon therefore considered it incumbent on 
 him to spend many hours of each day with her. Towards 
 the end of her illness, it was the poor creature's one joy 
 to hear him pray beside her. The Lord's Prayer pleased 
 her best, and to gratify her he repeated it dozens and 
 
 18
 
 T H O R N L E I G H 
 
 dozens of times. Sometimes when she lay absolutely 
 still with closed eyes, he would fancy that the mono- 
 tonous sound had sent her to sleep, and try to creep 
 away unperceived, but she would stretch out a feeble 
 
 hand and whisper a request for "one more 'Our 
 Father. 1 " And then the Canon would kneel and begin 
 again a very litany, until his voice was broken with 
 fatigue and his dry tongue clove to his palate. " Who 
 knows, I might want a prayer myself when I am dying," 
 he said, when some one remonstrated with him. She 
 passed away at last and was forgotten, and it was not 
 
 19
 
 THORNLEIGH 
 
 until the Canon's own last illness came that this circum- 
 stance was recalled to the mind of his people. For 
 when it became patent that their beloved friend and 
 master was to be taken from them, the children knelt 
 by scores about his door and in the adjoining church, 
 and their elders joined them by relays, and prayed from 
 morning till the late summer dusk. All day long the 
 sound of children's voices was wafted in through the 
 open window of the room where the Canon lay prepar- 
 ing for his great journey, and curiously enough, the 
 prayer chosen by the little ones, the music of which 
 accompanied him to the veiy threshold of Eternity, was. 
 the " Our Father." 
 
 20
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD
 
 GAFFER'S 
 
 CHILD 
 
 ABOUT half a mile from the village proper is a certain 
 neat white cottage standing in its own potato plot, and 
 surrounded by fields. This was inhabited for many 
 years by an old couple, their only daughter, and an 
 elderly labourer, a lodger, whose small but regular 
 weekly payments eked out their tiny income. The 
 father and mother, Middleton by name, shortened for 
 convenience sake into the less aristocratic but more 
 suggestive title of " Midden," 1 were both deprived of 
 the use of their limbs, and passed the greater part of 
 their lives in large elbow-chairs on either side of the 
 fireplace. After Betsy their daughter had washed and 
 dressed them of a morning, she and the lodger "shifted" 
 them from the bed with its blue checked curtains to 
 these ; and then the lodger straightened his back and 
 nodded at them, and " reckoned they'd do," and went 
 
 23
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 off' to his work. And Betsy, when she had finished 
 her scrubbing and cleaning up in the house, betook 
 herself to the garden ; and all day long the old pair 
 sat and stared at each other from opposite sides of 
 the hearth, for the most part in silence, though some- 
 times they compared ailments, and sometimes they had 
 & little quarrel. 
 
 One day Tom Middleton died ; and then there was 
 only one old body to wash and dress, and seat by the 
 fire. 
 
 When they carried her out of her room as usual, the 
 first morning after her husband^s funeral, Mrs. Midden 
 turned her head and looked about her. 
 
 " What 1 s gettin 1 Feyther's cheer ? " 
 
 " It's yonder, aside of the dresser,"" answered Betsy, 
 growing suddenly a little pink about the eyes. 
 
 " Then fetch it out, an" 1 set it wheer it allus was." 
 
 So the empty chair was placed in its former place, 
 and the old woman sat and looked at it, day after 
 day, till one morning she too was "shifted" for the 
 last time, and Betsy p\it both chairs against the wall. 
 
 Poor Betsy was alone in the world now, and cried a 
 great deal in consequence, and sat for hours with her 
 apron over her head; but presently she began to 
 recover herself, and to take comfort in the thought that 
 as it was to be it had happened before her " blacks " 
 were worn out. 
 
 24
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 " If it had but ha' been the Lord's will to ha 1 took 
 her at the same time as Feyther, we needn't have had 
 but the one buryin'," she remarked with a sob. 
 
 " Ah," said Ned Gill, the lodger, " but ye see things 
 never falls out the way we'st ha' them if we'd aught 
 to say to them. And the Almighty no doubt knows 
 best. It might ha' coined more expensive i' the long 
 run." 
 
 " Eh, that's true," assented Betsy, and then she gave 
 honest Ned his dinner in a handkerchief, and told him 
 he'd best be trotting. 
 
 Betsy at this time was about forty-two ; short, stout, 
 and hard-featured enough, though she had very kindly 
 blue eyes, and a bright good-humoured smile. She and 
 Neddy Gill were excellent friends, and neither of them 
 saw any reason why she should not continue to "do 
 for " him now as she had for the last ten years. She 
 was therefore considerably startled and annoyed when 
 one morning the Canon, alarmed for the proprieties, 
 suggested that under existing circumstances it would 
 be as well for her to look out for another lodger. 
 
 " What for ? " said Betsy, pausing with her foot on 
 the spade she had been earthing up her potatoes and 
 looking round with a puzzled face. 
 
 " Well, you see, Betsy, you're a single woman, and 
 living quite alone it's not (ahem !) quite nice to have 
 a man lodging here. You'd better try to find a woman 
 
 25
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 or a married couple to stay with you if you must let 
 lodgings. It would be much pleasanter for you too. 
 You would have company all day long, you know. 1 ' 1 
 
 " I dunnot want no more company nor what I have," 
 returned Betsv, stolidly. " I couldn't be moidered wi' 
 folks in the house i' th' daytime, an" I couldn't do 
 with women at all. I've my work to do inside an 1 
 out, an" 1 no time for aught else. An 1 arter Ned takes 
 his breakfast i' th' morning he's out o' th' road all day, 
 an' of an evenin' I've got used to see him sittin' in a 
 corner smokin's pipe." 
 
 Here Betsy spat in her hands and turned over another 
 shovelful of earth. 
 
 " Well, but, Betsy 
 
 " Ah, I've got used to Neddy, you see, an' I reckon 
 he's used to me," she interrupted, glancing up again. 
 " We's do very well, Canon, thank ye." 
 
 "Well, Betsv in that case don't you think you 
 and Ned had better be married ? " 
 
 Betsy plied her spade with great vigour, and made no 
 answer. 
 
 "You see," urged the Canon, "you really might just 
 .as well. It would make very little difference to either 
 of you, and would stop people from talking. Besides, 
 it would be nice for you to feel you were no longer alone 
 in the world, and to have some one to take care of you, 
 and work for you." 
 
 26
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 Betsy drove her spade slowly into the ground, and 
 rested her foot on it once more. 
 
 "Ah," she said calmly, "that's true enough. I 
 never thought o' that before. Well, Canon, I reckon 
 you'd best speak to Ned. I haven't got no objections." 
 
 The Canon withdrew, in some amusement, and Betsy 
 went on with her work. An hour or two later Ned's 
 well-known slow step was heard on the path, but 
 instead of proceeding straight to the house as he 
 usually did when he returned of an evening, he went 
 up to her and stood beside her. 
 
 ." Have ye seen Canon ? " inquired Betsy, without 
 looking up. 
 
 " Ah," returned Ned. 
 
 "Well? "said Betsy, 
 
 " Well I've nought agin it." 
 
 " Ah well neither have I. It'll not make such a 
 deal of difference, neither, as Canon says." 
 
 Ned stood for a moment or two contemplating the 
 sturdy figure of his future helpmate with a queer half- 
 puzzled smile on his weather-beaten face ; then he 
 observed that he had told Canon he might as well 
 shout them next Sunday. 
 
 " Ye did, did ye ? " returned Betsy. " Sounds like 
 business, that." 
 
 . She suddenly straightened herself, and handed Neddy 
 the spade with an engaging smile.. 
 
 27
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 " Sin' that's how it's to be," she observed, "ye might's 
 well finish the taters." 
 
 A happier couple than Betsy and Neddy " Gaffer," 
 as she called him it would be hard to find. There 
 was but one drawback to their bliss theirs was the fate 
 of the proverbial king and queen in the old fairy tales ; 
 they had no children. This was, perhaps, scarcely to be 
 surprised at, a fact which Betsy frequently endeavoured 
 to impress on her spouse. 
 
 " Wheer do ye suppose we's find childer at our time 
 o' life ? " she would ask him a little impatiently. " Ye 
 sh'd ha' wed before, if ye'd wanted that mak' o' work." 
 
 " Ah, that's true enough, lass," Gaffer would reply ; 
 " but eh I'd be proud if we was t' ave a little un of 
 our own. A pretty little thing wi' rosy cheeks as 'ud 
 come runnin' t' th' gate when I'd be comin' whoam of an 
 evenin'." 
 
 " Eh, ye're nobbut an owd foo'," Betsy would say, in 
 rather shaky tones though. " A pretty un, too ! It's 
 likely, I'm sure ? Why didn't ye think o' that before, 
 an' tak' up wi' some gradely young lass twenty or thirty 
 year ago ? Ye'd ha' had childer enough by this, I'll 
 uphowd ye." 
 
 " Ah, happen I would," Ned would assent ; " an' yet, 
 missus, I doubt if any young lass 'ud do for me an' that 
 same way as you. I've nought again you at all, missus. 
 Nay, nought any way. . I've bin I've bin as comfortable 
 
 28
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 as Fd iver ax to be so theer ! Retch me the 'baeco 
 we'st say no more about it." 
 
 Betsy felt that this was very handsome on Ned's part ; 
 and his tolerance made her regret more than ever her 
 inability to gratify him on the particular point in 
 question. She allowed her husband henceforth various 
 small latitudes against which she had hitherto set her 
 face ; such as the keeping of a dog, though that, as she 
 frequently observed, was a mak 1 o 1 cratur she never could 
 abide. She also permitted him to fill the house with 
 neighbours 1 children as often as he fancied, enduring 
 good-humouredly enough, the noise they made, and the 
 " strew " and general disorder in her tidy kitchen. In 
 time, indeed, she herself grew fond of their little visitors, 
 and sometimes when she saw her Gaffer with a flaxen- 
 haired mite on his knee, or prepared a "jam-butty' 1 for 
 some small petitioner whose chubby hands clung to her 
 skirts, and whose laughing eyes were raised roguishly to 
 hers, honest Betsy would heave a deep sigh of regretful 
 longing. 
 
 It is not very often that in such cases as this, a 
 demand creates a supply ; indeed, as a young Irish 
 friend remarked in my hearing once, " It is always the 
 best mothers who have no children ; " but, curiously 
 enough, the intense wish of the good couple was 
 gratified after many years in quite an unexpected 
 manner. 
 
 29
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 It happened that in a certain country town five or 
 six miles from Thornleigh a little stranger made its 
 appearance, finding no welcome ready for it, and indeed 
 being considered very much in the way. 
 
 The father had emigrated and was not to be heard of; 
 the mother a servant, and a simple foolish young thing, 
 was far from home and kindred. It would have fared 
 badly with her had she been cast adrift ; but her 
 mistress, who was much attached to her, consented to 
 keep her if the baby could be satisfactorily disposed of. 
 This charitable lady therefore consulted a friend of 
 hers, who consulted the Canon, who consulted Mrs. 
 Gill, who consulted Ned ; and the result was general 
 jubilation. 
 
 " If 11 be Gaffer's child," said Betsy. " I left it to 
 him to settle, and he's all for takin' it. But the only 
 fear is, Canon, if the mother goes and takes it from us 
 just as we're gettin' fond on it, it'll go near to break's 
 heart." 
 
 " I don't think you need fear that," said the Canon. 
 " The poor creature is only too thankful to get rid of it, 
 and her mistress promises to see that she pays for its 
 keep regularly." 
 
 "Eh, well, that'll be a very good job too. I dunnot 
 say as the money won't come in," responded thrifty 
 Betsy. And so the matter was settled. 
 
 The day before the baby took up its abode with its 
 HO
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 
 foster parents, Gaffer Ned walked up to Thornleigh 
 Hall, and after a little preliminary beating about the 
 bush, inquired, with a bashful grin, if there mightn't be 
 such a thing as an owd cradle of some mak"* or other to 
 be bestowed for the asking. Well, there wax a cradle 
 which the last occupant had outgrown and of which she 
 had taken possession for her dolls ; but with a little 
 persuasion she was induced to part with it; sheets, 
 blankets, and counterpane were hunted up, and it was 
 presented to Ned. To see his face when the be-frilled 
 and be-ribboned "bassinette"" was 
 brought down ! His eyes posi- 
 tively shone with rapture, and 
 his mouth pursed itself up 
 into a comical expression 
 of admiring satisfaction. 
 Then the reverence with 
 which he took hold of it, 
 the care with which he 
 earned it, almost as 
 though already a baby 
 face lay on the lace- 
 trimmed pillow! His vV>" 
 way lay 'through the 
 
 village, and as he marched along with his burden a good 
 many sly jokes were made at his expense. But brave 
 old Neddy held on his way stoutly and good-humouredly, 
 
 31 

 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 turning his jolly wrinkled face over his shoulder now 
 and then to respond to some neighbours sally, or to 
 utter a witticism of his own : he was so happy, he was 
 as ready to laugh as any of them. 
 
 Next day Betsy donned her best garments and went 
 to fetch the baby, which was delivered over to her by 
 its temporary nurse with much satisfaction. Gaffer went 
 to meet her as she returned, and insisted on taking 
 possession of the child, while his wife trudged joyfully 
 beside him, carrying its little wardrobe and its bottle. 
 When they got in-doors, Ned sat down carefully, and 
 with big, eager, trembling fingers unfolded the little 
 one's wraps, gazing for some moments in silence at the 
 placid face. 
 
 " Missus, come here," he whispered presently to Betsy, 
 who was " taking off her things " at the other side of 
 the room. 
 
 She drew near, smiling. The infant's tiny hands 
 clasped Gaffer's great horny forefinger. 
 
 "Eh, owd lass, th' Almighty's good!" said Ned, 
 " we'n got a little un o' we're own at last." 
 
 It was pleasant to see Betsy assume the airs and 
 importance of a materfamilias of long standing. To 
 see her dandle the infant, and pat it on the back, and 
 administer " cinder- tea " on occasion ; and to hear her 
 discuss with other matrons its ailments: the teeth which 
 according to her it began to "breed" at the age of 
 
 32
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 about six weeks, the " notice " which it already took, 
 and various other points of equally absorbing interest. 
 All this was pleasant enough, 
 but it was still more delight- 
 ful to see " Gaffer " with 
 the child. 
 
 He got up half an 
 hour earlier in the 
 morning that he might 
 have time to assist at 
 its toilet before going 
 to his work, and would 
 stand watching its ab- 
 lutions with intense 
 interest, his face 
 wrinkled up into the 
 funniest mixture of 
 pride and anxiety. .J|el 
 
 "Dunnot she come 
 on wonderful ? " Betsy 
 
 would say, sustaining the pink morsel in the basin with 
 one hand over which the helpless little head drooped 
 and bobbed in the effort to sustain itself. 
 
 " She do, bless her little 'eart ! " Neddy would 
 answer, with modest triumph. 
 
 One day the baby crowed and kicked in the water 
 for the first time, and the old couple fell a-laughing 
 
 33 c
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 until they were obliged to wipe the tears of ecstasy 
 from their eyes. And sometimes she cried, and then 
 Ned sternly reprimanded Betsy, and wanted to know 
 what she was about to let the poor child break its 'cart 
 like that without doing something for it. 
 
 He would hurry home in the evening, putting away 
 his tools with all speed, and polishing his hands on the 
 legs of his trousers. 
 
 " Now missus," he would call out. " Hand over." 
 And Betsy, nothing loth, " handed over " the child ; 
 to be cuddled and dandled and sung to " at least," as 
 she sometimes explained to her neighbours, " Gaffer 
 doesn't exactly sing, for he can't, but he makes a kind 
 of noise an" 1 he's pleased, an 1 she's pleased an' so all's 
 reet." 
 
 Meanwhile the child grew and throve amazingly ; the 
 weekly pension was paid regularly, but the mother 
 never once came to see her. 
 
 " Onnatural I call it," observed Betsy, and then with 
 a sigh half jealous, half relieved, "well happen it's all 
 for th' best." 
 
 Just as little Polly was nine months old, and had 
 begun to lisp "Da-da," and to spring and wriggle in 
 Betsy's arms when she heard Ned's step, news came to 
 the white cottage which plunged its inhabitants in 
 desolation. Polly's mother had got into bad ways, and 
 her mistress said she could no longer keep her, and she 
 
 34
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 was bent on going to London, and, worse than all, on 
 taking Baby Polly with her. 
 
 " I knowed how it 'ud be," sobbed Betsy. 
 
 " Didn't I tell 'ee ? " murmured Gaffer in a choked 
 voice ; and after a pause, turning to the woman a 
 friend of Polly's mother who had been sent to make 
 the announcement and to fetch the child, " Nay, but ye 
 might tell her, as we dunnot hold to the bit o' money 
 comin 1 regular, if it's that as she's got in her head we'd 
 be fain to keep the little un for nought. Tell her that, 
 and tell her as she needn't fear but it'll be well done to 
 an' an' " with a sob, " the missus an 1 me will be 
 fair heart-broken to part with it." 
 
 The friend was quite sure of that, and very sorry, 
 but it couldn't be helped. The mother wanted her 
 child, and she had promised to fetch it ; so if Mrs. Gill 
 wouldn't mind putting its bits of things together she'd 
 like to be going. 
 
 Mrs. Gill, after many expostulations and reproaches, 
 was obliged to comply, and at last the bundle was tied 
 up, and the baby received tearful farewell embraces 
 from her foster-parents. But events proved that they 
 had counted without this baby : she had submitted 
 placidly enough to be bonneted and cloaked and wept 
 over ; but when it came to be handed over to a strange 
 woman and carried down the road, leaving Dada and 
 Mammie standing by the gate, it was quite another 
 
 35
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 matter. Polly displayed an energy and determination 
 which no one had hitherto given her credit for. She 
 screamed, she kicked, she fought " like a little soldier," 
 as Betsy subsequently remarked with great pride, she 
 doubled herself up and turned black in the face, and 
 finally when everything else failed prepared to go into 
 convulsions. AVhen it came to this her new acquaintance 
 hurried back and almost flung her into Betsy "s arms. 
 
 " Take her, for God's sake," she cried. " Fll have no 
 more to do with her. She'd be dead before I carried 
 her half-way. If her mother wants her, let her come 
 and fetch her herself." 
 
 But the mother did not come ; whether her friend's 
 account of the Gills' 1 unwillingness to part with Polly, 
 and Polly's unwillingness to part with them, had 
 touched or frightened her, did not transpire ; but the 
 honest couple were after this left in undisturbed 
 possession of their treasure. The fact that from that 
 day forward they never received a penny for its keep 
 rather increased than diminished their satisfaction. 
 
 Two veal's passed very uneventfully, and Polly had 
 become one of the prettiest children in the neighbourhood 
 of Thornleigh. Many of the neighbours shook their 
 heads over the idolatrous worship of the honest couple 
 for their little prattling, sunny-headed nursling. 
 
 " I niver did hold wi" 1 sp'ilin' childer that gate," one 
 wise matron would observe to another. " Ned's fair 
 
 36
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 silly about yon, an" Betsy's nigh as bad. An 1 when ye 
 come to think, ye know, what it is, an 1 wheer it's coined 
 from." 
 
 " Yigh," the other would respond, " I 'ope they 
 mayn't be layin' up disappointment for theirsel's. I 
 doubt it'll not come to much good no more nor its 
 mother. There's allus a deal o' trouble wi' childer o' 
 that mak' as didn't ought to live at all." 
 
 No baby princess, however, could have been considered 
 of more importance, or in her own way more tenderly 
 nurtured than this poor little waif that " didn't ought 
 to ha' lived at all." And when she said her prayers at 
 Betsy's knee, or slept with smiling lips and chubby 
 folded hands, she really looked quite as good and 
 innocent as a child need be. It was wonderful, the 
 neighbours said. 
 
 One warm Sunday afternoon Ned was sitting in the 
 doorway smoking his pipe, Betsy being established a 
 little farther within the house, spelling out The Weekly 
 Mercury which was her staple Sunday literature. 
 Polly was taking a little nap in an impromptu bed 
 composed of the two arm-chairs once used by Betsy's 
 parents. A Sabbath stillness was reigning every where ; 
 all the church-goers and lovers and Sunday-school 
 children were " out o' the road " ; and the silence was 
 only broken by the trill of a lark circling downwards just 
 within the range of Ned's vision, and the hum of bees. 
 
 37
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 Ned followed the motions of the lark with tranquil 
 enjoyment, puffing luxuriously at his pipe the while ; 
 and when the bird's song suddenly ceased, as, after 
 completing its final circle, it darted to earth, his 
 eyes, descending also, encountered those of a 
 stranger standing by his gate. Dark eyes 
 they were, weary and anxious-looking, 
 yet with a latent fierceness in them 
 which somehow startled Ned. 
 But when the girl spoke, it 
 was in a gentle and timid 
 voice. 
 
 "Would ye kindly give 
 me a drink of water ? I 
 have walked a long way 
 and am tired."" 
 
 " Ah, come in, do, an 1 
 rest ye a bit," responded 
 Ned, removing the pipe 
 from his mouth. " We muu 
 find ye summat better than 
 water though. The missus '11 
 
 be gettin" 1 the tay in a two-three minutes. Come in, 
 an 1 sit ye down."" 
 
 The girl opened the gate and entered, dragging her 
 feet in their dusty, ill-made boots the high heels of 
 which had been worn quite crooked in a way which 
 
 86
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 betokened extreme fatigue. Her crimson skirt was 
 draggled and covered with dust, and her dark hair, 
 though dressed in the height of the fashion, was rough 
 and untidy. 
 
 Betsy eyed her with some disfavour, and reckoned 
 she'd best set her a chair nigh the door where Tud be 
 cooler ; but the strange girl stepped past her into the 
 little kitchen and peered about curiously. 
 
 "Ifs a snug little place,"" she said; "d'ye live here all 
 alone you two ? "" 
 
 Betsy was at first disposed to be offended at the 
 freedom of the question, but her heart softened as she 
 glanced at the visitor. She was nobbut a slip of a lass 
 after all who knew no better. Poor thing, she did look 
 pale too, and tired her eyes were quite wild. 
 
 " All alone," echoed Betsy drearily, " nobbut the 
 child." 
 
 " The child ? " 
 
 " Ah, theer she lays yonder. Nay, see, she's wakkened 
 up." 
 
 At this moment, in truth, a little ruffled flaxen head 
 reared itself over the back of one of the chairs, and a 
 drowsy voice called " Mammie."' 1 
 
 The visitor stood as if turned to stone, but no stone 
 was ever of such a hue as suddenly overspread those 
 cheeks of hers : if they had been white before they were 
 red enough now. 
 
 39
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 " Eh, my pretty lamb ! " cried Betsy, who at this 
 moment had no eyes for anything but the child, " come 
 then, come wakken up an 1 show thy bonny face." 
 
 Polly, who had been vigorously rubbing her eyes with 
 her chubby little fists, held out her arms now with a 
 sleepy smile, blinked a great deal, and made some rather 
 incoherent remark in tones still husky from her recent 
 slumber. 
 
 "Now, then, 11 said Betsy, brimming over with 
 motherly pride, " come an 1 say ' Good arternoon, 1 
 pretty theer's a good little lass." She carried her 
 over to the visitor who turned with what seemed a little 
 effort and looked at the child fixedly. 
 
 "She is a bonny little thing," she said, and paused. 
 " She has got blue eyes, I see," she continued, adding 
 with a sort of defiant glance at her hostess ; " I always 
 notice eyes first." 
 
 " Nay, but look ye here,"" cried Betsy, offended as the 
 other moved a little away, without admiring half Polly's 
 " points " ; " see her legs and these here little arms, as 
 mottled an 1 as firm. Feel of them." 
 
 The girl clasped them for a moment and then loosed 
 her hold, colouring again all over her face. 
 
 " I can't bear to look at her," she said. " I had a 
 sister with blue eyes once." 
 
 "Ah, an* she's dead, I reckon," said Betsy, com- 
 miseratingly. 
 
 40
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 " Yes, long since. There is no one belonging to me 
 now." 
 
 " Well, sit ye down, an 1 we" 1 !! have tay directly. Run 
 to Dada, Polly." 
 
 Polly toddled oft' on her little unsteady legs, shout- 
 ing as Ned caught her up in his arms to kiss and tickle 
 her. 
 
 " You look old folk to have such a young child ? " 
 said the visitor suddenly. 
 
 "Ah, more like her grandfeyther and grandma I 
 doubt," said Betsy with a jolly laugh. "But she isn't 
 our child, you see, raly, though yet in a way she is." 
 
 " How's that ? " 
 
 Betsy, nothing loth to tell a tale in which she took 
 never-failing delight, recounted Polly's history while 
 she bustled about preparing for tea ; dwelling especially 
 on the little un's amazing cleverness in declining to 
 return to her unnatural parent. 
 
 " When I tell ye that she was living for nine months 
 within a few miles o' the child, an 1 niver come next or 
 nigh her. A nice life of it the poor lamb 'ud have had 
 with her." 
 
 " Perhaps," said the girl absently, for she was watch- 
 ing the little leaping crowing figure in Gaffer's arms, 
 " perhaps the poor creature was ashamed." 
 
 " Pooh," cried Betsy, setting her arms akimbo, and 
 looking as if she could say something very sarcastic if 
 
 41
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 she chose, " ashamed, indeeed ! Here, Gaffer, come to 
 your tay." 
 
 Gaffer came in, carrying Polly, whom he seated on 
 his knee, and regaled with a drink out of his saucer, 
 the tea having been previously cooled with much blow- 
 ing. 
 
 " Well, whichever way it is, I'm reet thankful to 
 keep the little un," resumed Betsy, when she had 
 attended to the wants of her guest. "Gaffer an" 1 me 
 wouldn't know what to do wi' ourselves without her." 11 
 
 " The mother might turn up some day yet and want 
 her back though,"" said the stranger, stooping to pick up 
 her spoon which she had dropped. 
 
 "Nay," said Gaffer. I dunnot think she will. I 
 raly dunnot. We'n never had a word nor a line for two 
 year very near. An" if she did come back 
 
 " Ah, if she did ! " 
 
 " Well, then, the missus an" 1 me has it settled between 
 us to mak' out a terrible bill for the keep o' the child. 
 Ye see we'n niver had a penny sin" 1 she was nine month 
 old an 1 we'll mak 1 out such a bill for food, an 1 clothes, 
 an 1 our trouble, ye know, wi' minding her, as she'll niver 
 be able to pay. So then we'll say as we mun keep th' 
 child till she does." 
 
 Here Gaffer winked across the table at his missus, and 
 leant back in his chair chuckling at his own foresight 
 and sagacity. 
 
 42
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 " That's our plan, ye see, 11 he added, bending down 
 to poke a little bit of tea-cake into Polly's expectant 
 mouth. 
 
 "Is that your plan?" said the stranger, looking full 
 at him. " Well, it may be a good one for you, but I 
 think it's cruel hard on the mother. The child's hers 
 after all, and no matter how low she may have fallen, 
 she has the best right to it. The very beasts love their 
 young ones, ye know." 
 
 " Well, but see now," said Gaffer earnestly. " Look 
 at this child ; would ye ever wish to see a healthier or a 
 bonnier one ? An 1 'ark to her sayin' her little prayers 
 an' hymns an' that eh, the missus have brought her 
 up wonderful. We reckon to do th' best for her as 
 ever we can. She'll have her schoolin' an' be taught 
 her religion, and when she gets a big lass an' is happen 
 thinkin' o' gettin' wed we's find her a bit o' brass to 
 help her set up house. She s'all be good an' 'appy if 
 we can mak' her so, you may depend on that. An' if 
 her mother goes an' takes her off us, what'll she do wi' 
 her, think you ? I've nought agin her, poor soul, and I 
 wish she may come to no harm " (Gaffer said this in a 
 tone which implied that he thought it extremely likely 
 that she would), " but arter all she is but a foolish bit 
 of a thing as couldn't keep straight when she 'ad the 
 chance given her. What sort of trainin' would she give 
 the poor child ? It's well if she didn't make her just 
 
 43
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 such another as hersel\ Nay, nay, we're i 1 th 1 reet to 
 keep the poor innocent from her if we can." 
 
 The girl did not answer; her eyes were cast down, 
 and there was a curious look on her face. 
 
 "Now, Polly," said Ned, "let's hear ye say grace. 
 Eh, she does say it so nice. ""Ark to 'er now." 
 
 Polly's two little hands were somewhat forcibly 
 joined, and she lisped out an infantile version of a 
 "grace after meat," with many gasps and stops, and 
 not a few promptings, her blue eyes roving round the 
 table the while. Ned beamed with pride and triumph, 
 and was loth to allow the performance to end even with 
 the " Amen." 
 
 " Let's ha 1 th 1 neet prayers now. Yell niver believe " 
 (in a rapturous aside) " how wonderful she says ''em." 
 
 Polly, drawing a very long breath, started off at a 
 brisk canter through the " Our Father," adding eagerly 
 and impatiently " God b'ess dada and mammie God 
 b'ess me an" make me a good 'ittle lass dat's all." 
 
 Was that indeed all ? 
 
 " Does she never say a prayer for her mother ? " cried 
 the girl, speaking in a strange harsh voice and rising 
 from her chair. " I mean her own mother. D'ye never 
 make her pray for her ? " 
 
 " Well, ye see," returned Betsy, " we'n got to look on 
 her as our own, I may say. I reckon we didn't make 
 much count o' th' mother, poor creator', an' happen 
 
 44
 
 GAFFER'S CHILD 
 
 when all's said an 1 done, it's best not to be namin' her 
 to the innocent child." 
 
 " Oh, you are hard folks ! " exclaimed the stranger 
 passionately, " you are cruel folks ! Oh, my God, it's a 
 hard, cruel world ! Ye might, ye might have let the 
 child pray."" 
 
 She stopped, choked with sobs, and, suddenly snatch- 
 ing Polly from Ned's arms, kissed her fiercely and rushed 
 out of the house. 
 
 As soon as the good couple had in some measure 
 recovered from their astonishment, they rushed to the 
 door, but the shabby figure was already out of sight. 
 
 " Eh, what mak' of wench is yon ? " cried Betsy, 
 gazing at her husband in great perturbation. "Eh, 
 poor misfort'nate thing, I reckon she's in trouble. I 
 misdoubt me sore she's not much good, poor creatur'. 
 Happen she an' our Polly's mother is a pair." 
 
 "Nay, missus," groaned Gaffer. "I doubt they're 
 wan. We'n been a pair of fools, missus, that's what it 
 is. Yon poor lass is our Polly's mother hersel'." 
 
 " But she's left the child," stammered Betsy after a 
 pause, " for good." 
 
 Yes, she had left the child for good. 
 
 45
 
 CELEBRITIES
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 A VILLAGE community is much like any other com- 
 munity " when alPs said and done " (to use a phrase 
 common in Thornleigh). Births and weddings, ill- 
 nesses and deaths, partings and home-comings, take 
 place at rarer intervals, no doubt, than in more 
 populous places, and everybody knows everything 
 about everybody else (and sometimes a good deal 
 more than there is to know); but after all the broad 
 lines of life are the same in a village as elsewhere, 
 and human nature is human nature all the world 
 over. Thornleigh, quiet and easy-going as it is, is 
 not altogether behind the age either; indeed its tiny 
 stage has been the scene of many curious dramas, and it 
 has numbered among its inhabitants some that would 
 be notabilities anywhere. 
 
 Not so long ago there was a saint in Thornleigh a 
 genuine saint, called Peter Murphy. As his name 
 betokens, he was an Irishman, though he had lived in 
 the village long enough to be no longer looked on as an 
 
 49 D
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 interloper. A tall emaciated old man, with long grey 
 hair and very blue eyes, and a drop at the end of his 
 nose, at all times and in all weathers, which was called 
 by the irreverent "holy water."" He had " revelations,"" 
 
 and "spiritual consola- 
 tions," and wrestlings 
 with the Evil One, and 
 always earned a large 
 bone rosary, which he 
 would lovingly finger 
 during every spare mo- 
 ment he could snatch 
 from his work. Once 
 when Peter was ill the 
 v* rosary disappeared, a 
 
 fact which he announced 
 
 with mingled ire and triumph. Some one weakly sug- 
 gested that the old woman who " did for him " might 
 have hidden it somewhere in dusting and tidying, but 
 he dismissed the notion with scorn. 
 
 " Not at all," he said, " not at all. It's th' owld 
 boy. I know that very well "jerking his thumb over 
 his shoulder with an unpleasantly significant gesture 
 " but I'm up to his thricks. Ha ! I'll be even with 
 him /'ZZ settle him ! " 
 
 The methods which Peter made use of in the conflict 
 never transpired, but that he ultimately came off 
 
 50
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 victorious was demonstrated by the reappearance of 
 " the bades," which thenceforth he wore for greater 
 security round his neck. 
 
 His chief delight was to beguile the Canon into a 
 theological discussion, and it was fine to hear him laying 
 down the law, putting forward one abstruse thesis after 
 another, and generally crushing his adversary with a 
 reference to "Pope Celestinus," whose authority he 
 considered conclusive. 
 
 Once, and only once, did Peter's holy calm desert 
 him, and that was during certain elections which took 
 place when Home Rule first began to be the question 
 of the hour. All poor old Peter's national instincts 
 asserted themselves, and he became as wildly excited as 
 the most enthusiastic Parnellite of the present day. 
 He even fell foul of his " clargy " whose political views 
 did not coincide with his own, and meeting the priest 
 one day accused him sternly of " voting for Herod, 11 an 
 outburst of which he subsequently repented, acknow- 
 ledging in bitterness of spirit that the election was a 
 " snare."" 
 
 The village poetess is of the same nationality as 
 Peter, and shares his political views and his partiality 
 for fine words. She "disposes" her shawl about her 
 shoulders, she " prostrates " on her bed ; but it is when 
 the mood for versifying seizes her that she shows of 
 what she is really capable. 
 
 51
 
 , CELEBRITIES 
 
 Her genius chiefly displays itself in the composition 
 of dirges, one of which goes the round of the village 
 after any melancholy event ; and once she was inspired 
 to write a plea for the Disestablishment of the Church 
 of England. A terrible paper this, abounding in ex- 
 hortations to "gory tyrants," and in references to 
 " clanking chains." 
 
 It is a thing to remember when the authoress recites 
 one of these masterpieces, swaying her body to and fro 
 and making sweeping gestures, her eye meanwhile " in 
 fine frenxy rolling," and her voice growing louder and 
 more impassioned as she warms to her subject. I can 
 only recall two consecutive lines, however, of one effu- 
 sion, a lament on the death of her beloved priest, in 
 which regret for his loss was mingled with anxiety as 
 to his successor. 
 
 " Let not his lordship, the bishop, think with him I mean to 
 
 interfair, 
 
 But I hope he'll appoint an Irishman to his evacuated 
 chair." 
 
 Apropos of frenzy, we had a real madman in Thorn- 
 leigh once. We knew he had been " off it " for a good 
 bit, for his wife used occasionally to lock up his hat 
 and boots to prevent his going out, and was not infre- 
 quently seen pelting him with mud in the village street 
 "o" 1 nights," as a gentle means of persuading him to 
 
 52
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 come home to bed. But nobody heeded poor Joe's 
 vagaries, and Thornleigh was considerably startled 
 when one morning the news flew from house to house 
 that he was raving mad. There had been sports in the 
 squire's park on the preceding day, in 
 honour of the Queen's jubilee, at which 
 every man, woman, and child in the place 
 had assisted, even the village Radical, who 
 was wont to relate to an awestricken and 
 incredulous audience how once he 
 had walked all the way to Liver- 
 pool to see her Majesty, and how 
 after all when he had got there 
 he'd seen "nought but a woman in 
 black." Well, poor Joe had taken 
 part in a tug of war, and woke up 
 
 next morning under the impression that it was entirely 
 owing to his exertions that Thornleigh had gained the 
 day. He spent the whole forenoon walking round and 
 round in a small circle in front of " The Hall," pausing 
 occasionally to tug at the bell and claim his prize. 
 Five pounds was the reward to which he considered 
 himself entitled, and failing that he had apparently 
 made up his mind to gyrate on that particular spot 
 for an indefinite period. Persuasions were tried, then 
 threats ; various small offerings were put forth to tempt 
 him ; finally the squire himself came out to reason with 
 
 53
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 him, but Joe, still twirling round and round in the 
 broiling sun, remained obdurate ; five pounds were his 
 deserts, and five pounds he meant to have. But he 
 woukhrt mind, he observed with an insinuating leer, 
 when the aforesaid teetotum-performance next brought 
 him face to face with the squire, he wouldn't mind 
 treatin 1 the young ladies to the theayter with some of 
 it, he wouldn't mind that at all ; he would take them 
 himself, an" 1 the squire might come too if he liked. In 
 desperation the butler had recourse to strategy, and 
 walking up to Joe managed to break the magic circle, 
 slipping his arm through his and marching him off 
 homewards, pouring some apparently intensely confi- 
 dential communication into the lunatic's ears as he 
 went. Presently he returned jubilant, with the an- 
 nouncement that Joe was tucked up in bed quite 
 comfortable, and expecting the five-pound note to 
 arrive by post. He wouldn't get out again, he added, 
 'as the womankind had taken away his clothes and 
 locked him into the room. But Joe was not to be 
 stopped by such slight obstacles as these ; he broke 
 open the door as if it had been made of pasteboard, 
 and announced his intention of proceeding to the Hall 
 forthwith in his shirt. His garments being conse- 
 quently restored to him, he made quite a triumphant 
 progress through the village and enjoyed himself 
 amazingly ; knocking down his papa to begin with 
 
 54
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 making nothing of the latters seventeen stone -then 
 "chivying 1 ' 1 his aunt till she was obliged to take refuge 
 in the barn and to defend herself with a pitchfork, and 
 finally betaking himself to the Hall where he played 
 " peep-bo " with the stable-men, sent the gardeners 
 spinning when they endeavouretl to lay hands on him, 
 broke open a few doors, and laid about him right and 
 left with a stout staff', all in the most light-hearted and 
 affable manner possible. At last one of the keepers 
 had the happy inspiration of firing blank cartridges 
 over his head, whereupon Joe took to his heels and fled 
 like a hare, never stopping indeed till he reached his 
 own home, and crept under the table. He was 
 ultimately secured with stout cords, and his father sat 
 opposite to him, cracking a horsewhip now and then 
 by way of soothing him, until the police came to end 
 poor Joe's frolic by carrying him oft' to the county 
 asylum. 
 
 Some years ago a lad was attending Thornleigh 
 school who promised to render his native village cele- 
 brated in more ways than one. A black-eyed, rosy- 
 cheeked, rough-looking boy, with nevertheless a fine 
 artistic perception, and a perfect passion for drawing. 
 Had that boy been given facilities for cultivating it 
 there is no saying what he might not have done, but as 
 it was well, I must tell his story. 
 
 His name was Johnnie Birch Johnnie o" John's he 
 55
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 was usually called, to distinguish him from various kins- 
 folk of the same name and his father was a small 
 farmer with a large family, who looked forward eagerly 
 to the time when his eldest son should be of age to help 
 him in h'eld work and thus save " hire." Johnnie's 
 schooling was in itself a trial ; indeed, Mr. Birch had 
 gone so far as to interview the mistress 011 the subject. 
 
 " Can't 'ee run him through them standards a bit 
 faster ? I'd be willin' to pay double the fee if ye'd 
 get him through two at a time ? Come, now is that a 
 bargain ? " 
 
 But it wasn't. The schoolmistress assured him it 
 couldn't be done, and John Birch (John o' Joe's) retired 
 grumbling more against " book larnin' " than ever. If 
 the time which his son perforce employed jin such 
 matters was held by him to be wasted, one may readily 
 infer with what patience he viewed Johnnie's growing 
 devotion to the fine arts. 
 
 " If I catch ye at any more o' that gammon ! " the 
 elder John would say, driving home the lesson with a 
 box on the ears ; and Johnnie junior would jump up in 
 a great hurry and hide away his papers. He could 
 better endure to have his ears boxed than to see hi* 
 beloved drawings torn up or burnt. In spite of the 
 parental disapproval he continued to draw, or to attempt 
 to draw, everything which he saw. The Canon chancing 
 to see some of his performances was struck with their 
 
 56
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 cleverness, and being himself no mean artist offered to 
 give him some lessons. John o" 1 Joe's consent was with- 
 held for a long time, and at last only given on the 
 understanding that as soon as his son had left school all 
 that nonsense must cease. 
 
 Meanwhile Johnnie made the very best use of his 
 time and astonished his master by his progress. The 
 latter, not content with verbal instruction, lent him 
 books and drawings to study at home ; and bestowed 
 on him, moreover, a sheaf of old Art Papers to peruse 
 at his leisure. Some of these contained lives of various 
 great artists, and Johnnie's eyes grew round, and his 
 face flushed, as he read how many of them were poor 
 boys like himself, and began by scratching their draw- 
 ings on stones, or decorating garret walls with burnt 
 stick. The moral was obvious : Johnnie too drew on 
 stones with the point of his knife, and on whitewashed 
 walls with charcoal of his own manufacture why should 
 not he be a celebrated painter ? It was very hard after 
 this to be called upon to feed the pigs, or to clean out 
 the shippons. Day by day he set about these tasks 
 with more unwillingness, and day by day his father 
 grew more displeased. As his fourteenth birthday drew 
 near, Johnnie's uneasiness increased ; though he had by 
 no means passed all the standards (for his artistic 
 studies somewhat lessened his zeal for the acquirement 
 of ordinary knowledge), his father would then be free to 
 
 57
 
 keep him at home, his drawing lessons would cease, and 
 he must make up his mind to lead thenceforth the life 
 of an ordinary la- 
 bourer. The boy 
 fretted and fumed, 
 and at -last, his very 
 desperation giving 
 
 him courage, 
 betook himself 
 to Thornleigh Hall 
 to petition the Squire 
 
 himself to intercede for him. If the Squire would ask 
 his father to let him be an artist, Johnnie thought 
 
 58
 
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 he would not refuse. He took with him five or six 
 of his very finest works of art, amongst the rest a 
 study of a fir-tree, which looked as if it were cut out of 
 green paper, and a view of his father's house, which he 
 had done entirely by himself, and in which any little 
 defect in perspective was atoned for by a scrupulous 
 attention to detail. 
 
 Poor Johnnie handed these one by one to the Squire, 
 his heart beating very fast and his eyes glowing ; and 
 the Squire wrinkled up his eyes and twisted his mous- 
 tache, and said " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " in a way which would 
 have disconcerted any sensitive young artist very much. 
 But Johnnie's skin was of a comfortable thickness, and 
 to his mind the drawings were beautiful ; if the Squire 
 did not say much, it was probable that he thought all 
 . the more highly of them. 
 
 Indeed, he told Johnnie presently that he considered 
 his work quite wonderful, considering his circumstances 
 and opportunities, but at the same time warned him 
 that his plans were impracticable. A great deal of hard 
 study would be required and a good deal of expense 
 incurred before Johnnie could hope to complete his 
 artistic education ; and though no doubt a little friendly 
 aid might be forthcoming as regarded the necessary 
 outlay, still his father could not be expected to allow 
 him to adopt a profession in which success was doubtful, 
 and at best must be delayed for long years. Poor 
 
 59
 
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 Johnnie, however, pleaded so earnestly and wept so 
 bitterly that at last the Squire promised to see what he 
 could do ; and accordingly set out one Sunday afternoon 
 accompanied by the Canon to plead on Johnnie's behalf. 
 Mr. Birch, who was alone, the rest of the family having 
 " stepped across " to a neighbour's, was sitting by a 
 roasting fire in his shirt-sleeves and " stocking feet " 
 enjoying his pipe in the proper Sunday spirit. He 
 listened to everything they urged in absolute silence. 
 
 " Well, Birch, what do you say ? " asked the Squire, 
 after waiting patiently for a moment or two. 
 
 " What do I say, Squire ? I say no that's what I 
 say. The lad's my lad I reckon, and Fin going to have 
 summat out of him. Fve been workin' all my life an' 
 he may work a bit now. I'm not goin' to slave no more 
 for him to be scribblin' an' messin' wi' 's reds an' blues. 
 He mun ha' done wi' that sort o' work, an' so I tell 'ee, 
 Squire. Theer, that's what I say ! " 
 
 Not another word could be extracted from him, and 
 the visitors were constrained to retire ; the Squire 
 endeavouring to console poor Johnnie (who was anx- 
 iously awaiting the result outside) by the present of a 
 sovereign, telling him to buy some oil colours, and paint 
 sign-boards in his spare time. 
 
 When the boy entered the house he found his father 
 still thoughtfully smoking with his worsted-clad toes 
 extended to the blaze. "Now, lad," he said, "I've 
 
 60
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 summat to say to ye. Go and fetch me every one 
 o' those picters o' yours fetch 'em here, I tell 'ee, 
 an 1 clunnot stan' staring as though ye'd seen a bog- 
 gwt" 
 
 " Father, ye wunnot " pleaded poor Johnnie, 
 
 turning pale. 
 
 "Go, an* fetch 'em I tell 'ee," cried his father, 
 thumping the table heavily with his fist, " or Til fetch 
 ""em] myself, an" 1 if I 
 do it'll be the worse 
 for you. An' fetch 
 yourpencils an' paints 
 an' all the rest o' that 
 rubbish." 
 
 The boy obeyed 
 slowly and tearfully, 
 and Mr. Birch spread- 
 ing out all these 
 treasures on the ta- 
 ble, wheeled round 
 in his chair and took 
 his pipe out of his 
 mouth. " Now see 
 you here, my lad. I dunnot want to be anyways 
 hard on you, but I mun show ye who's gaffer i' this 
 house. Squire's been here, an' Canon's been here, an' 
 what I've told 'em I tell you. Ye mun ha' done wi' 
 
 61
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 all that foolery ye're gettin' a man now, and ye mun 
 give over that nonsense. I've worked 'ard all my life, 
 an" your mother have worked hard we's be old folk in 
 a few years an" 1 theer's all that rook o' little tin's to do 
 for, an 1 mostly wenches as isn't fit for much. Now who's 
 to do it ? Who's to work for feyther an' mother when 
 they'n got too old to work for theirsels ? Who but th' 
 oldest lad ? So now, Johnnie, make up your mind to't, 
 for I'll stick to't. You an' me'll start ploughin' to- 
 morrow, an' we'll be done wi' these things once an' 
 for all." 
 
 With a sudden quick gesture he swept together all 
 Johnnie's cherished works of art, his paint-box an old 
 one of the Canon's his little stock of pencils and 
 paper. Then holding the boy off with one powerful 
 hand, he thrust them into the very heart of the 
 glowing coals, where in a few seconds all were alike 
 destroyed. 
 
 Johnnie, in an agony of sobs, wrenched himself away 
 and ran out of the house, and Mr. Birch returned to 
 the enjoyment of his pipe and the contemplation of the 
 fire. Presently his wife came in and began to make 
 preparations for tea ; the small fry dropping in, one by 
 one, and surrounding the table. 
 
 " What's gone wi' our Johnnie ? " asked Mrs. Birch 
 as she seated herself behind the big brown tea-pot, on 
 which the little folk fixed expectant eyes. 
 
 62
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 " Eh ! he's somewheer about," answered her lord, 
 turning his chair round to the table. "He'il come in 
 before he's clemmed I daresay. 1 ' 
 
 When the meal was over, however, and it grew dusk, 
 the good woman began to be first angry, and then 
 anxious. 
 
 " Whaiiv er can have come to th' lad ? I've niver 
 known him to do such a thing as stay out till this 
 hour. If he's gone foot-ballin 1 in 's Sunday clothes 
 Til 
 
 " Nay, he's none th' lad to go foot-ballin', 1 ' interrupted 
 Mr. Birch. "Dunnot ye bother yoursel' about him. 
 He's taken the sulk at summat as I've said, an' wunnot 
 come in till bedtime most like. It's best not to take no 
 notice." 
 
 Mrs. Birch was uneasy in her mind, nevertheless, and 
 stole out after putting the children to bed; creeping 
 round the shippons and stack-yard, and calling softly all 
 the time but no Johnny appeared. It was now nine 
 o'clock, and she became so seriously alarmed that she 
 ran indoors, shook her husband out of his nap, and 
 implored him to take a lantern, and sally forth at once 
 in search of the lad, for she felt sure that something had 
 happened to him. But the father laughed at her fears 
 and refused to budge. If their Johnnie chose to be a 
 fool, let him be a fool. If he didn't want to come in to 
 his good supper and warm bed, let him lie outside with 
 
 63
 
 7 
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 an empty stomach then. It \id happen cool him a bit 
 an" do hiip good. 
 
 " But he's got his Sunday clothes on ! " sobbed Mi's. 
 Birch. This was the barb to the dart for her Johnnie 
 to sleep out of doors was bad enough, but to sleep out 
 in his best clothes ! 
 
 Her husband only growled some inarticulate rejoinder, 
 so Mrs. Birch reduced to the last extremity flung her 
 apron over her head and wept. 
 
 Johnnie did not come back that night, nor next day, 
 nor for many days after. His mother was quite heart- 
 broken, but his father was apparently more angry than 
 grieved. He and the neighbours searched far and near, 
 John o 1 Joe's promising the lad a good thrashing when 
 he caught him ; but Johnnie was by this time far beyond 
 the reach of the parental arm, and in spite of all efforts 
 could not be found. It was noticeable that about this 
 time John 0"* Joe's began to wear what his neighbours 
 called " a down look,"" and to stoop more than before, 
 and to leave off' whistling at his work : his temper too 
 was " shorter " than ever, and much sympathy was felt 
 for poor Mrs. Birch, for it was well known that she could 
 not indulge openly in her grief, her husband having 
 forbidden even the name of the fugitive to be mentioned 
 in his presence. 
 
 One cold evening in early winter, about five months 
 after his departure, all the family were assembled at tea, 
 
 64
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 when the latch was suddenly lifted, and Johnnie stood 
 hesitatingly on the threshold. Such a ghost of a 
 Johnnie ! pale and thin, and shorn of his thick dark 
 locks ; and his clothes, his Sunday clothes ! no scare- 
 crow of any respectability would be seen in such things. 
 Mi's. Birch flung her arms round his neck in a passion 
 of mingled joy and anguish, and his brothers and 
 sisters tumbled over each other in their eagerness to 
 welcome him. But his father sat still, and after one 
 steady glance at him, continued to munch his bread 
 and bacon, and to gulp down his tea. 
 
 " Eh ! feyther, hant ye niver a word for the poor 
 lad ? " asked Mrs. Birch tearfully, when the first greet- 
 ings were over, and she had leisure to observe this 
 attitude of her master's. John Birch finished chewing 
 the morsel in his mouth, swallowed it, and slowly 
 extended his forefinger. 
 
 " What's gone wi' 's hair ? " he inquired, addressing 
 his wife, and pointing to Johnnie. 
 
 " I've just come out o' hospital, feyther ; IVe had a 
 fever, an' they'n cutt'n it all off," answered the boy for 
 himself. 
 
 " Ah ! " said John senior, still addressing his wife. 
 " I'm glad to hear as 'twas but in hospital. If 't 'ad 
 ha' been in prison as they'd done it he might spare 
 hinisel' th' trouble o' sitting down." 
 
 "Come, master, th' lad's whoam at last, an' ye'll 
 65 E
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 not go for to be 'ard on him. He's had trouble enough 
 I'll reckon." 
 
 " Aye, that have I," put in Johnnie timidly. " Eh ! 
 feyther, if ye did but know th' 'ardships I've been 
 through ye'd forgive me ye would, feyther " begin- 
 ning to sob " cold, an' hunger, an' wet an' 'ard words 
 everywhere." 
 
 " Ah ! " interrupted John, " it's easy seen why he's 
 coined back but why did he go ? what took him out 
 of this ? That's what I want to know." 
 
 " Feyther, I were very wicked an' foolish, but I was 
 mad wi' you for burnin' all my paints an' everythin' I'd 
 done, an' Squire had giv' me a pound an" 1 so I went off 
 to London, thinkin' I'd get work there and become a 
 great painter." 
 
 " An' ye found ye were nobbut a gradely fool," said 
 his father, glancing at him for the first time, " an' ye 
 think as I'm goin' to be another, an' welcome ye back 
 as if ye was th' best son a man could have, i'stead of a 
 thankless lad wi' neither heart nor thought for th' 
 feyther an' mother as done everything for him. I'll do 
 no such thing. Ye went when ye liked, an' ye come 
 back when ye liked I'm not goin' to say I'm glad to 
 see ye. As ye're here ye can bide but ye mun work 
 for yer mate I tell ye that. I'm not goin' to keep ye 
 in idleness. Now, missus, sit ye down, an' give us some 
 more tay." 
 
 66
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 One of the younger children set a chair for Johnnie 
 and his mother put food before him, but the boy's 
 heart was too full to permit him tp eat, and after 
 endeavouring for a moment or two to choke down his 
 sobs, he buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly. 
 
 John o' Joe's pushed back his chair with a grating 
 noise on the flagged floor, and went out ; and the rest 
 of the family endeavoured to console Johnnie. Being 
 still weak and ill, exhausted by his long journey and 
 his recent emotion, it was long before he could control 
 himself sufficiently to relate his story. A pitiful story 
 enough of disappointed hopes and rudely dispelled 
 illusions poor Johnnie had speedily found his level 
 in the great wilderness of London ; and his aspirations 
 were extinguished for evermore. There had been a 
 futile struggle with pride and poverty ; hunger, hard- 
 ship, sickness and finally the longing for home. He 
 had tramped from London by slow stages, and now 
 oh ! if his father would only forgive him ! How could 
 he ever hold up his head again if he treated him as he 
 had done that night ? 
 
 " Thy feyther speaks Carder nor what he feels, I'll tell 
 'ee that, 11 said Mi's. Birch; "thou mun just tak' no 
 notice an 1 he'll come round. But thou'll ha' to work, 
 lad an' no more scribblin'." 
 
 No, Johnnie had done with scribbling for good ; but 
 as he staggered up to bed it would appear that the 
 
 67
 
 CELEBRITIES 
 
 amount of labour to be expected from him for some 
 time was likely to be small enough. 
 
 Nevertheless, morning saw him clad in his working 
 clothes which he had much outgrown, by-the-by and 
 busy in the farmyard. 
 
 His father gave an odd grunt when he found him at 
 work, but otherwise did not notice him ; and presently 
 the pair sallied forth 
 
 together, to plough 
 up a certain 
 field ready for 
 the spring 
 sowing. 
 
 m 
 
 Wf^p 1 ^ Mr. Birch might 
 
 have seen, had he 
 been a little more on the alert, how feeble were the 
 lad's steps as they plodded up and down, how pale 
 was his face, how, in spite of the raw cold, drops of 
 weakness stood on his brow ; but he took no heed of 
 him beyond an occasional harsh reminder not to go 
 asleep there, or to lift his legs a bit faster. At last 
 towards noonday, just as they were turning at the end 
 of a furrow, Johnnie suddenly let go the horse's head, 
 
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 CELEBRITIES 
 
 staggered sideways with a smothered groan, and fell 
 heavily to the ground. 
 
 Then a hoarse cry was heard, and John Birch sprang 
 forward and took the boy in his arms. 
 
 " Eh ! my lad, my lad ! " 
 
 A few minutes later Mrs. Birch was startled to see 
 her husband come staggering into the kitchen, carrying 
 Johnnie, whose long attenuated limbs hung apparently 
 lifeless over his arms, while his head drooped upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Eh ! master, yeVe killed him," cried the mother in 
 her anguish. 
 
 " I reckon I have, lass," answered John o' Joe's, and 
 then he burst into tears. 
 
 But Johnnie was not dead, not he ! He soon opened 
 his eyes, and finding himself in his father's arms, flung 
 out his own, and so the two hugged and kissed each 
 other as they had not done since Johnnie was a little 
 fellow in pinafores. Everything was made up after 
 this, and Johnnie soon got strong, and is now a strapping 
 youth, his father's right hand and not by any means a 
 genius.
 
 NANCY
 
 NANCY 
 
 " Now then, hurry up that's a good lad ! They'll be 
 fair clemmed i 1 th" 1 field if we dunnot make haste." 
 
 "It'smortareavy!" 
 grunted Billy, the 
 curly-pated, crimson- 
 cheeked farm-boy, as 
 he hoisted the great 
 beer-can on his shoul- 
 der, and staggered 
 down the garden path 
 in front of his mis- 
 tress. 
 
 "It'll be light 
 enough when yon folks 
 has done wrt," re- 
 turned Nancy, tilting 
 her sun-bonnet a little 
 more forward, and slinging a large basket covered with 
 a red cotton handkerchief on one sturdy arm. 
 
 73
 
 NANCY 
 
 In a few minutes they had left the farm precincts 
 behind, and were marching in single file along a sandy 
 lane bordered on either side by a ragged strip of grass, 
 which gave way in its turn to a deep and muddy ditch. 
 
 The brown waters of this were half-covered with some 
 white-starred floating weed, and thickly sown with 
 forget-me-nots and giant marsh marigolds. The air 
 was heavy with the scent of new-mown clover, mingled, 
 occasionally, as they passed some cottage or outlying 
 farmbuilding, with homelier but no less pleasant odours : 
 whiffs from the "shippons,"" where the sweet-breathed 
 kine were housed for the night ; steam from the huge 
 caldron of soaked meal which Granny Gibson was 
 preparing for her pigs ; a fine aroma of stable, as Ned 
 Muckworth slouched past with his sleek elephantine 
 team ; and from the open door of the last cabin in the 
 
 74
 
 NANCY 
 
 straggling village, a smell of friz/ling bacon, deemed by 
 Billy so delicious that his youthful heart leaped within 
 him. 
 
 " Eh ! " he said, with a long-drawn sniff', and tilting 
 the big can dangerously backwards, " they'll be bavin 1 
 bacon an 1 taties for supper at Rippons's. I wish I were 
 settin' down wi 1 'em, I know." 
 
 " If ye dunnot mind yell have no supper at all," 
 cried Nancy sharply, as she stretched out her hand to 
 steady the can. " Get along with ye, lazy-bones ! " 
 
 " I were but bavin 1 a sniff'," remonstrated Billy, 
 shambling on again, rather quicker than before ; for 
 experience had taught him that when his mistress spoke 
 in that particular tone it was better to keep out of 
 reach of her arm. 
 
 " I'll gi" 1 ye summat to sniff* at if that's all ! "* 
 responded Nancy, brandishing her fists with a threatening 
 gesture. 
 
 She was a strapping lass, this mistress of Brook 
 Farm, with not much beauty certainly, except that 
 which belongs to vigorous youth and perfect health. 
 Tall, big-framed, and buxom, with a fresh white skin 
 where sun and wind had not browned or hard work 
 reddened it, a pair of plump cheeks that might have 
 vied with the finest apples in her orchard for rosiness, 
 bright blue eyes, and abundant fair hair neatly smoothed 
 under her gathered bonnet. Her gait was free and 
 
 75
 
 N A N C V 
 
 rapid, her gestures decided, her voice clear and ringing, 
 her tongue of the sharpest. A quick-tempered, keen- 
 witted, rather terrible maiden was Nancy, this notable 
 " wench " who rented the finest farm in the place and 
 whom half the youth of the village had " coorted "" in 
 vain. Her father and mother, both of ancient and 
 respectable rustic stock, had married late in life, and 
 had died when Nancy, the sole fruit of their union, was 
 about twenty-two. Nancy had duly wept for them, 
 had worn her "blacks'" for the proper time, and had 
 now for three years ruled the farmhouse and the farm 
 itself to the full as cleverly and profitably as her 
 parents had done. Old Gilbertson, her father, had, it 
 was said, saved a tidy bit, Miss Nancy was believed to 
 be possessed of money untold, and the village gossips 
 thought it unhandsome of her to be so obdurate as 
 regarded wedlock, and "to work and slave herseF to 
 death when she might set down and play the pianney 
 same as any lady T th 1 land."" But Nancy's tastes did 
 not lie in that direction : she had been brought up 
 with old-fashioned notions of thrift and duty. She 
 perfectly revelled in hard work, and had a fine scorn for 
 folks who hired " slips o 1 girls to do their business for 
 ''em, as if they hadn't nowt better to do theii-seFs nor 
 stitchin 1 canvas, an" 1 wearin 1 hats of a week day walkin* 
 about T their shapes, the idle huzzies ! " 
 
 This last referred to the new-fangled style of dress, 
 76
 
 NANCY 
 
 complete with skirt and bodice, now as frequently seen 
 in the village as the " bed-gown "" which Nancy always 
 wore on week-days, as her mother had done before her. 
 It was a far prettier garment than the ill-made gowns 
 at present fashionable among the younger generation. 
 Full, and fresh, and crisp with starch, its lilac folds 
 gathered in at the waist by the string of the wide linen 
 apron, it at once set oft' the buxom form beneath, and 
 left every movement unimpeded ; the short striped 
 petticoat which met it, displayed Nancy's ankles clad in 
 stout stockings of her own knitting; and the \vell- 
 blacked hob-nailed shoes were designed evidently with 
 a view to comfort rather than elegance. Nancy had as 
 good a stock of laces and ribbons as any one in the 
 country, and a rustling silk dress or two hanging in her 
 cupboard ; but she knew better than to put them on on 
 any day but Sunday. 
 
 Presently a figure appeared walking at a brisk pace 
 down the lane towards them. A stalwart figure clad in 
 corduroys and velveteen ; the bright light of the evening 
 sun shining on hair and flowing beard till they gleamed 
 like gold. This was Martin Rainford, one of the 
 under-keepers, "the gradeliest mon i' th 1 place,"" as 
 the village folk said. A fine specimen of a country- 
 man it must be owned, not far off seven feet in his 
 shoes, and broad in proportion. As he drew nearer, 
 his blond face wreathed itself in rather sheepish 
 
 77
 
 NANCY 
 
 smiles, and presently he stood stock-still, his gun on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Evenins warm," said Nancy, hailing him in her 
 matter-of-fact fashion. "Wunnot ye have a drop o' 
 beer ? " 
 
 Was such' an offer likely to be refused ? Martin 
 made one stride towards Billy and the can, tossed oft' a 
 tumblerful of the amber-coloured liquid in the latter, 
 restored the glass to the boy, wiped his mouth on his 
 sleeve, and nodded to Nancy. 
 
 " Goin' whoam ? " inquired the latter. 
 
 Martin nodded again. 
 
 "You're a great stranger, now," observed the girl, 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 " They pheasants," returned Martin, speaking for the 
 first time, and apparently struggling with an over- 
 whelming shyness ; " they takes a dale o 1 looking 
 arter, they do. It's a fine evenin'. Goin' t' th' ''ay- 
 field?" 
 
 " Ah. We're workin' till dark. I'm takin' the lads 
 their drinkin'. Good eveninV 
 
 " Evenin'," echoed the taciturn Martin, striding past 
 with the one-sided nod which appeared to be character- 
 istic of him. Nancy almost unconsciously wheeled, and 
 looked after him. 
 
 " Eh, yen's a gradely chap ! " she said to herself with 
 a half-sigh. " Yon 'ud look well settin' aside of a body 
 
 78
 
 NANCY 
 
 T th' spring cart. An' a-top of an ""ay-rick my word ! 
 he'd be a fine sight ! " 
 
 A few minutes' 1 brisk walking brought Nancy and 
 Billy to their destination : a big field which was con- 
 sidered the best piece of meadow-land in Brook Farm. 
 
 The whole of Nancy's following exerted itself on her 
 behalf this evening, for a treacherous band of clouds 
 marred the gorgeous yellow of the horizon, and there 
 was a flutter and rustle among the leaves that be- 
 tokened coming rain. Two great carts were being 
 loaded at the further end of the field, and the golden 
 pile on another, opposite the wide-open gate, was being 
 bound with ropes preparatory to removal. The three 
 men in charge of this last-mentioned cart were accom- 
 modated first with their portion of the contents of the 
 basket and can, which they disposed of in prodigious 
 gulps, and with all possible despatch. 
 
 Nancy, meanwhile, critically surveyed the result of 
 their labours. 
 
 "D'ye call that firm an" proper?" she cried, all at 
 once, snatching a pitchfork from the man nearest to 
 her, and raking down the sides of the hay mountain. 
 Three or four tussocks of the sweet-smelling provender 
 fell about her, to the dismay of the hirelings. 
 
 "That's your notion o' loadin' a cart, is it?"" she 
 pursued severely, " leavin' more nor 'alf the stuff i' th' 
 road, enough to keep all the stray cows i' the parish. 
 
 79
 
 NANCY 
 
 For shame of ye, Tommy Treddles you, as calls your- 
 seP a man, an' axes for man's wage ! "" 
 
 "Eh, we hadna finished wi\ Missus,"" expostulated 
 Tommy, a raw and lanky youth, whose red face now 
 peered down from the top of the load. 
 
 " What for was ye throwin 1 rope over it, then, if ye 
 hadna finished ? "" cried Nancy, gathering up the fallen 
 hay with the pitchfork, and tossing it upwards with 
 vigorous thrusts, to the astonished Tommy. " Theer ! 
 happen ye canna heave so high as a wench, you, owd 
 Jack theer, as stands gapin 1 as though ye'd ne'er seen a 
 pikel afore? Now, Jimmy Norris, catch howd o > th 1 
 end o" 1 th" 1 rope, an 1 let that beer-can be. Theers others 
 as wants a wet as bad as you, I reckon. Gee back, 
 Diamond ! Hurry up, now, lads ; theer's another load i 
 th 1 corner, as mun bide till ye coom back." 
 
 Diamond strained for a moment with his sleek 
 gigantic limbs, and then the cart went bumping out of 
 the field, followed by Jimmy and Jack still chewing, 
 while Tommy finished his portion of solid meat-pie as 
 he lay outstretched aloft. 
 
 Nancy trudged briskly round, her sharp eyes detecting 
 in an instant anything that was amiss ; her sharp tongue 
 admonishing and encouraging. The empty cart was 
 trundling back after having deposited its burden at the 
 farm, when she at length turned to go home, Billy pre- 
 ceding her as before. 
 
 80
 
 NANCY 
 
 She walked at a round pace, for it was getting late ; 
 the men, in spite of the sustaining " snack " with which 
 she had accommodated them, would, she knew, be 
 hungry for their supper after their hard day^s work, and 
 that supper had yet to be prepared. 
 
 They proceeded in silence, Billy relieving the tedium 
 of the way by performing a fantasia with his knuckles 
 on the empty beer-can. Nancy absorbed in her own 
 thoughts ; so much absorbed, indeed, that it was not 
 till she was quite close to them that she observed a 
 couple walking slowly down the lane in front of her. 
 A man and a woman, the man with his arm passed 
 through the woman's. A big man ; a little woman. A 
 woman with a hat, and a much be-frilled and be-ribboned 
 cape; a man with a yellow beard, and a gun on his 
 shoulder. So much she could see in the dusk, and it was 
 quite enough. She passed by them without a word. 
 
 " Yon was Mester Rainford and Miss Pratt, wasn't 
 they?"" observed Billy presently, looking over his 
 shoulder with a grin. " Her as is ladies'-maid at th 1 
 Hall. They're keepin 1 company this good bit. 11 
 
 "Happen they are, 11 returned his mistress, indiffer- 
 ently. "Now, Billy, my lad, give over hammerin 1 at 
 that can, or 111 hammer yer head for ye, to a tune as 
 ye wunnot like so well. 11 
 
 Nancy's blighted affections, if blighted they were, 
 81 F
 
 NANCY 
 
 made no difference either to her appearance or habits : 
 her cheeks were as rosy, her eyes as sharp, her hand as 
 ready as ever, and she looked after her interest with 
 greater xest, if possible, than heretofore. 
 
 Hay-making was long over, and reaping, and potato 
 getting ; the winter stock of coal was sinking low, and 
 Nancy was beginning to make ready for the young 
 lambs, when there came a spell of stormy weather such 
 as had not been known in these parts for nearly a score 
 of years : strong winds that wrenched the trees upwards 
 by the roots, and laid the hedges flat ; and snow that 
 lay thick on the fields and was piled up in mighty 
 drifts in lanes and out-of-the-way corners. In the very 
 middle of this hard weather the foolish, short-sighted 
 little lambs began to make their appearance, and, as 
 was to be expected, after taking a disgusted survey of a 
 very unsatisfactory world, left it again as speedily as 
 might be. The ewes died too, many of them, and 
 Nancy's thrifty soul was wrung within her. 
 
 One bleak February morning, when the snow that 
 had fallen during the night lay in dense whiteness over 
 the firmer and less lovely mass beneath, Nancy sallied 
 forth, sustained by clogs and a thick stick, to seek the 
 assistance of a wise old shepherd much respected in the 
 neighbourhood. His cottage stood by itself at the 
 further end of the village, and to reach it Nancy took a 
 short cut across the Squire's park. She stumped along, 
 
 82
 
 NANCY 
 
 well muffled in her warm shawl ; every step leaving 
 a deep print in the snow; hungry little rabbits, or 
 handsome melancholy pheasants occasionally crossing 
 her path. 
 
 Presently she started, for all at once a sort of faint 
 cry fell on her ear. It was scarcely daylight yet, and, 
 with the exception of those already mentioned, there 
 did not appear to be a creature stirring. 
 
 She stood still and scanned the white waste of park, 
 with its clumps of trees scattered here and there, and 
 its boundary of gloomy firwood ; not a human form in 
 sight ; yet the cry which now broke the stillness again 
 was distinctly a human cry. 
 
 " In God's name, whatever^ that ? " ejaculated 
 Nancy. 
 
 She strained her eyes once more, and became sud- 
 denly conscious of something unusual in the scene 
 before them. 
 
 " Eh ! the great ash ! the half of it's gone ! There's 
 niver some one underneath ! " 
 
 The great ash, long so prominent a feature in the 
 landscape, was riven in two, one huge branch having 
 fallen in the night, and being partially covered with 
 snow as it lay on the ground. 
 
 Nancy dashed towards it, hearing, as she approached, 
 a low moaning which warned her that her surmise was 
 correct. Lo ! beneath the branch lay a figure half- 
 
 H.'i
 
 NANCY 
 
 buried in snow, its mighty limbs crushed beneath the 
 weight, its long fair beard entangled in the twigs. 
 
 "Martin!' 1 
 
 cried the girl, 
 dropping on 
 her knees be- 
 side him and 
 trying with all 
 her strength to 
 lift the heavy 
 
 bough. But she could not move it one inch, and her 
 sturdy efforts added to his torture. 
 
 " Dunnot touch me ! " he gasped, " dunnot ! Fin all 
 
 84
 
 NANCY 
 
 broke to pieces an' the snow's been fallin' on me th' 
 whole neet. I mun dee, I doubt." 
 
 " Nay, ye shanna ! " cried Nancy, bravely. " Not 
 while I'm alive to help you. Bide a bit an 1 dunnot 
 lose "cart. I'll fetch a couple o' chaps in a minute as'll 
 be able to carry ye." 
 
 She flew off to the village, and presently returned 
 with half a dozen stalwart labourers whom she had 
 captured on their way to the field. They soon re- 
 moved the branch, and endeavoured, with more good- 
 will than adroitness, to set Martin on his legs an 
 attention which the hapless giant acknowledged by 
 promptly fainting away. 
 
 " Eh, ye great fools ! " shouted Nancy. " His leg is 
 broke most like ye munnot drag at him that gate. 
 Get a shutter, one o' you, or an owd door, an lay him 
 on't, and shift him so." 
 
 After a little delay a door was procured ; Nancy, 
 meanwhile, covering the injured man with her shawl, 
 and supporting his head on her knee. 
 
 " Wheer mun we take him to ? " asked one of the 
 bearers as they prepared to start. "We'll niver be 
 able to carry him so far as the Lone End wheer he 
 lodges. He's mortal 'eavy, an' looks as though he wur 
 goin' to dee." 
 
 " Take him to my place, then," said Nancy. " It's 
 nearest, I reckon, an' I'll see as he's well done to." 
 
 85
 
 NANCY 
 
 The doctor shook his head over Martin : he was 
 nearly, as he said himself, "broken to pieces." One 
 arm and one leg were fractured so badly that ampu- 
 tation was necessary : several ribs were broken : there 
 seemed to be no end to the damage which the poor 
 fellow had sustained. Nancy and old Kitty, her fac- 
 totum, nursed him with devotion, if not precisely 
 tenderness, for many weeks. Miss Pratt visited him 
 once, but her susceptibilities were apparently so much 
 shocked by the sight of this wreck of a man that she 
 did not repeat the attention. 
 
 Rainford's parents were both dead, and he had no 
 near " kin " to fall back on, therefore Nancy's good 
 offices were the more valuable. 
 
 As time passed and it was known " for certain "" that 
 Martin would never be fit for work again, much 
 curiosity was aroused in the village as to what 
 Nancy's plans might be with regard to him. Did 
 she mean to keep him always at the farm " a poor 
 do-less creature as could scarce so much as dress 
 himseP ? " And was it not rather a queer thing, 
 said some of the more severe, for a wench same as 
 her to make such a to-do with a chap like yon ? 
 Heads began to shake and tongues to wag over 
 Nancy's proceedings, and one fine day her maternal 
 aunt drove up in her shandry to remonstrate with 
 her. 
 
 86
 
 NANCY 
 
 Poor Martin, white-faced and melancholy, with his 
 clothes clinging loosely round his shrunken form, his 
 empty right sleeve pinned to his hreast, while a rug 
 hid his solitary lower limb, was installed on a couch 
 by the kitchen fire ; therefore, after exchanging a few 
 commonplace remarks with him, Mi's. Wilcox conveyed 
 to her niece, by various telegraphic nods and winks, 
 her desire to speak to her privately. 
 
 They adjourned to the parlour, and the elder woman 
 proceeded to the point at once. 
 
 " He do look bad, for sure ! " she remarked. " How's 
 he goin' to get's livin' when he leaves this ? " 
 " I dunno," responded Nancy, composedly. 
 " If he was to go to Liverpool he might pick up a 
 few pence, sweeping a crossin', happen," suggested her 
 relative cheerfully. " Or maybe they'd take him in a 
 show wi' th' whole o' one side gone I may say, an' 
 him so big an' tall, they might do summat wi' him. 
 I've seen sights as was less curious. Eh, poor chap ! 
 They say as when folks has their limbs chopped off 
 they dunnot lose feelin' in 'em for iver such a time. 
 Did ye see Martin's arm when th' doctor cut it off or's 
 leg?" 
 
 " Nay," returned Nancy, quickly. " I'd summat 
 better to do, I reckon, nor be gapin' at such like." 
 
 " I'd 'ave liked to see 'em," pursued her relative, 
 tranquilly. " Lord o' me ! I mind when owd Jem 
 
 87
 
 NANCY 
 
 Seddon had's fingers whipped off wi' th' steam saw, he 
 picked 'em up wi's other hand an 1 wrapped 'em i' paper 
 so nice and tidy, an" 1 took 'em whoam. I met him i' th' 
 road an 1 I said : ' Eh, whatever's th' matter, Jem ; you 
 look all of a shake ?' An 1 for all he were feelin' so had 
 he had to laugh. 'What do ye think as IVe got 
 ""ere ? ' he says. ' I can't tell, I'm sure,' I says. ' A 
 handful o' fingers,' says he, an' he opens out the parcel 
 an' shows me, quite proud, th' poor chap ! Eh ! the 
 whole village had to see Jem's fingers An' ye niver so 
 much as axed to look at Martin's arm ! Well, there'll 
 be a to-do wi' him when he leaves this, I reckon, but it 
 cannot be helped. Ye'll have to get him out o' your 
 road here, soon, anyway." 
 
 " I can do with him ! " said Nancy, folding her arms 
 a trifle defiantly. 
 
 " Aye, but there's a dale o' talk about him an' you 
 already." returned Mrs. Wilcox with a sudden change 
 of tone. "People wonders at ye for keeping of him 
 here him as is no kin to you, no, nor your equals 
 nayther. If you'd ha' been keepin' company it 'ud ha' 
 been different, but him as was coortin' Miss Pratt 
 yonder at th' Hall ! Eh, if you'd ha' heerd all as folks 
 are sayin' an' it's none such nice hearin' for your 
 mother's sister nayther, I can tell you." Here Mrs. 
 Wilcox evinced a disposition to weep. 
 
 " I dunnot care a brass farden for what folks say ! " 
 88
 
 NANCY 
 
 cried her niece, snapping her finger and thumb. " Not 
 that ! I'm not goin 1 to turn th" poor lad out on th' 
 road for anybody. Tell Polly Birch she needn't think 
 shell see the straighter for making out as other people 
 has crooked eyes. I know what that long tongue o 1 
 hers is ; at the bottom of any mischeevious work as is 
 agate. But I can let mine wag a bit too, happen, and 
 then we'll see ! " 
 
 " Poor Polly Birch only spoke T kindness ! " expostu- 
 lated the matron. 
 
 " I can do wi' less kindness, then. Are you goin" 1 to 
 th" village now ? Will you have a cup o 1 tea first ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Wilcox was too much hurt and offended to 
 accept of any hospitality, and she drove off, baffled and 
 heated, leaving Nancy totally unconvinced. 
 
 It was a different matter, however, when the Canon 
 spoke to her on the subject. Nancy had a great 
 respect for the Canon, and when she spied him 
 walking up the little flag-paved garden path her face 
 beamed. He was smiling, too, at his own thoughts. 
 But now he composed his features. 
 
 " I want a quiet word with you, Nancy." 
 
 "Do ye, Canon? 11 
 
 " Yes. About Martin Rainford, you know. What 
 are you going to do with him ? " 
 
 "There's not much as can be done wi 1 him, as I 
 know," responded Nancy, her manner stiffening a little, 
 
 89
 
 NANCY 
 
 and the smiles vanishing. " Doctor says as when he 
 gets a bit stronger he inun have a wooden leg ; his ribs 
 is mendin' but his arm's took right oft' up by the 
 shoulder there" 1 * nowt as can be done for that. Hell 
 niver be fit for work again, I doubt." 
 
 " Well, but Nancy, he can't stay here, you know. 
 He's no relation of yours and you are too young to 
 look after him as you do. People will talk they are 
 talking already." 
 
 " I care nowt i' they are. 'Ard words break no 
 boans, Canon. What's the poor chap to do? He 
 mun have some one to do for him he can scarce 
 so much as feed himsel' an 1 he's no kin i' th' 
 place." 
 
 "Well, he must go to the workhouse, Fm afraid. 
 You can't keep him, Nancy. Come, be sensible ! No 
 young woman can take charge of a young man like 
 that, unless unless she is married to him." 
 
 " Eh, Canon ! " cried Nancy, indignantly. " Married ! 
 Why yon's but half a mon, poor fellow ! Who'd wed 
 wi' him ? " 
 
 The Canon looked sharply at her. 
 
 " Who indeed ? Was there not something between 
 him and one of the maids at the Hall ? " 
 
 "Miss Pratt" contemptuously. "I doubt she'll 
 think no more o' poor Martin now. She came here 
 nobbut once to see him, howdin' up her skirts an' 
 
 90
 
 NANCY 
 
 cockin' her nose i' th' air when she passed the midden 
 an' it made up wi' fine wholesome farmyard muck as it 
 'ud please any one to sniff at. And when she saw 
 Martin, she hollered out as she were goin' to faint. 
 ' Nay, 1 I says, ' I canna do wi' faintin's here ! ' An' our 
 Kitty smacked her 'ands till she come to pretty quick. 
 But she niver come since." 
 
 "We might get up a little subscription for him," 
 said the Canon meditatively. " I'm sure the Squire 
 would help perhaps he need not go to the workhouse 
 
 after all he might lodge somewhere " 
 
 " It mun be somewheer as he'll be well done to, 
 then," put in Nancy. " He wants look in' arter same as 
 a babby a'most. Who's goin' to be at th' trouble o' 
 that?" 
 
 " Well, well, we must see what can be done but 
 bear in mind what I tell you, Nancy. He must get out 
 of this. I'm not going to have any more scandal- 
 mongering about him." 
 
 The Canon nodded and went away, leaving Nancy in 
 an unusually reflective mood. 
 
 Miss Pratt had just finished dinner, and was sitting 
 in the housekeeper's room, toying with a strip of 
 crochet- work and flirting with the footman just to 
 keep her hand in when a message was brought to her 
 that Miss Gilbertson wanted to see her. 
 
 " Won't you step in ? " said Miss Pratt, tripping to 
 91
 
 NANCY 
 
 the back door, where Nancy stood, her large back in its 
 print bedgown turned towards the house. 
 
 " No, thank ye," said Nancy, whisking round : she 
 had been shaking her fist at the yard dog, which was 
 straining at its chain and barking itself hoarse, presum- 
 ably tantalised at the sight of her sturdy unprotected 
 ankles. " I want nobbut a word wi' ye."" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Pratt, contemptuously surveying the 
 stalwart figure, in its unfashionable gear, and giving a 
 little shake to her own smart silk dress which was 
 intended to provoke envy. Nancy snorted : she was 
 not going to dress up for the likes of her, and knew 
 that a single one of her fine pigs was worth more than 
 the whole of Miss Pratt's wardrobe; but the action 
 irritated her nevertheless. She looked defiantly at the 
 sneering abigail. 
 
 " It's just this. What are ye goin' to do about 
 Martin Rainford ? " 
 
 " About him," cried the other, starting and flushing ; 
 *' what about him ? " 
 
 " Ah that's wheer it is. What about him ? Ye 
 have not troubled yoursel' so much about him, have 
 ye ? He's doin' pretty fair, doctor says, an 1 '11 soon be 
 fit for's wooden leg. But he'll niver work no more. 
 What's to be done wi' him ? He's no kin to nobody 
 'ere, an' he mun have some one to do for him. You 
 an' him had best wed as soon as you can, an' then ye 
 
 92
 
 NANCY 
 
 can see to him proper. Yell not have saved much o' 
 your wage, I doubt " with a scornful glance that took 
 in Miss Pratt, from her frizzled head to her high-heeled 
 shoes " Yell not have a dale to start housekeepin' on ; 
 but ye can take in washing an 1 fat pigs, an 1 that 1 ' 
 Miss Pratt's face was a study " Yell not be the first 
 woman as has had her husband to keep." 
 
 There was a dead silence. Presently the maid asked, 
 with a toss of her head, if Martin had sent Nancy with 
 this message. 
 
 " Nay. I'm not goin' to run of errands for anybody. 
 I coom o' mysel'. Well, what d'ye say ? The lad's got 
 to be looked to, an' Canon says as he munna stay 
 longer wi' me. He's been well done to theer, though I 
 say it ; an', if he mun go, he mun ha' somebody to take 
 care of him. Well, Miss Pratt ? " 
 
 " Well, Miss Gilbertson, I'm very sorry, I'm sure, 
 that you can't keep Martin any longer, and I'm very 
 sorry for him, too, poor fellow. Very, very sorry but 
 what can I do ? I I could not think of taking such 
 a responsibility on myself. I'm not equal to it; and 
 liesides, I don't think Martin could expect any one to 
 marry him now. Really, the very ideer is shockin' ! 
 Besides, for some time I'd been doubting if I was suited 
 to him, if I could make him 'appy. Indeed I've other 
 views at present. I don't mind telling you, Miss 
 Gilbertson, that I'm engaged to a very superior young 
 
 95
 
 NANCY 
 
 man, an English gentleman of Irish extraction, called 
 Murphy. Him an 1 me 
 
 " An 1 what's to become o 1 Martin ? " put in Nancy, 
 who apparently took no interest in Miss Pratfs plans 
 except in so far as they regarded the ex-keeper. 
 
 "Really, I can^t be expected to know. He must 
 lodge somewhere, I suppose. 11 
 
 " Canon says as he 1 !! most like have to go to the 
 workhouse, 11 observed Nancy, stolidly. 
 
 " Well, perhaps, that would be the best thing for the 
 poor fellow in the long run as he can't work, 11 returned 
 Miss Pratt, in a tone of relief. " They take very good 
 care of people there, I believe, and we could go and 
 see him and bring him tobacco, you know. Poor 
 Martin loves his pipe 11 with a sigh of sentimental 
 reminiscence. 
 
 Nancy raised her blue eyes, which positively burned 
 with scornful anger, and, moreover, lifted her sturdy 
 arm with so fierce a gesture that the little maid 
 skipped hastily backwards. 
 
 " For shame of ye, 11 cried Nancy, snapping her fingers 
 close to the other's nose. " For shame of ye, ye dirty 
 little slut ! " 
 
 Thereupon Miss Pratt shut the door in her face, and 
 went into hysterics behind it, and the mistress of Brook 
 Farm trudged homewards. 
 
 She found that the dough for her weekly bread- 
 96
 
 NANCY 
 
 making had run over the great brown pans, and her 
 anxiety to repair this mishap at first swallowed up all 
 other thoughts. Presently, however, as she kneaded 
 the solid mass, punching it and rolling it in her usual 
 vigorous style, her eyes fell on Martin, installed as 
 usual on the couch, spelling over a week-old newspaper. 
 The couch had been rolled to the open window, 
 partly to leave more room for Nancy's bread-making 
 operations, and partly that the sweet April air might 
 refresh the invalid. An apple-tree in blossom was 
 waving its branches without in the breeze, a row of 
 hyacinths in glasses decorated the window-sill, the birds 
 were singing cheerily, and men were calling to each 
 .other in the adjacent field. A great farm-horse passed 
 the window, with clanking harness and slow, ponderous 
 tread, followed by Billy, cracking his whip and whistling. 
 'There was a pleasant stir arid bustle the bustle of 
 spring everywhere. Nancy sighed. 
 
 "If it mun be done, it mun be done," she said to 
 herself ; and then aloud : 
 
 " Did I tell ye as Canon's been here to-day ? " 
 
 "Nay," said Martin, turning his head. "I wonder 
 he didn't look in to ax how I were. He has not been 
 here this while back." 
 
 " He were talkin' of ye though," said Nancy. " Plenty. 
 He thinks you ought to clear out o' this soon, and 
 wants to know what ye're goin' to do with yoursel'." 
 
 97 G
 
 NANCY 
 
 " What I'm goin' to do ? " repeated Martin, his face 
 clouding over. " He may well ax. There's nowt as I 
 can do, only ate other folks 1 stuff, and lay heer same as 
 a log o' wood." 
 
 " Ye'll be able to get about more when you've got 
 your wooden leg. But ye mun have a woman to see 
 to ye, an 1 Canon says it had ought to be your wife ! " 
 
 " Wife ! Whativer's that ye say ? Who'd take up 
 wi' a broken-down chap like me ? " 
 
 ' I went to Miss Pratt at th' Hall,"" said Nancy, " and 
 axed her straight if she were goin 1 to be's good as her 
 word an" 1 get married to ye, an' work for ye, same as 
 you'd ha' done for her, if ye hadn't have had this 
 accident. An' she said as she couldn't think o' such a 
 thing an' was keepin' company wi' some other chap 
 now." 
 
 Here Nancy withdrew her arms from the dough, 
 folded them, and looked with her sharp, direct gaze at 
 Martin. She had said her say part of it at least 
 without wasting time in preliminaries ; and Martin, 
 though he looked gloomy enough, seemed by no means 
 surprised. 
 
 "Aye," he said after a pause. "I misdoubted me 
 that she were up to summat o' th' sort. Her an' me had 
 words the- very neet as tree fell o' me. I misdoubted 
 me then it were that, I think, as made me walk reet 
 under that rotten owd ash tree wi' th' wind blowin' 
 
 98
 
 NANCY 
 
 enough to deave one, an" 1 th' snow that thick as if 
 I'd ha' had my senses I'd have cut away whoam 
 i'stead o' loiterin' i' th' park. But I couldn't give 
 over thinkin' o' that wench an' her ways ; I was fair 
 moidered." 
 
 " Ah, she's not one to moider hersel' wi' thinkin' o' 
 you, then. ' Happen he'd best go to th' workhouse,' she 
 says." 
 
 " Did she say that ? " asked Martin quickly. 
 
 " Aye, she did." 
 
 " Well, happen it is the best thing I could do." 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and then he struck the 
 window-sill savagely with his solitary fist. 
 
 " I wish yon tree 'ad done a bit more damage while 
 'twas about it," he said. " I wish it 'ad cracked my 
 crown. The kindest service as any one could do me 
 now 'ud be to stick a cartridge i' that owd gun o' mine, 
 as I's never carry no more, an' put muzzle t' my ear an' 
 blow my brains out. I'm nowt but cumber, nowt else ; 
 an' I'm nobbut twenty-six ! Eh, Lord ! It's an awful 
 thing for the half of a body to dee afore th' t'other half. 
 It fair drives me mad to think on't. Happen I'll live 
 fifty year more. Everybody wishing me dead an' mysel' 
 most of all." 
 
 Nancy carefully wiped her floury hands in her apron, 
 stalked across the kitchen, and possessed herself of 
 Martin's sturdy palm. 
 
 99
 
 NANCY 
 
 " Speak for yoursel'," she said, with a queer sort of 
 laugh ; " I dunnot wish ye dead, Martin, an 1 I hope wi' 
 all my heart as ye will live fifty year. It needn't be in 
 th' workhouse when all's said an 1 done."" 
 
 " Aye, but wheer mun I go ? Canon says I mun be 
 flitting from here " 
 
 " Nay, he did not altogether say that. He says : 
 ' Nancy, ye can't do for yon chap same as you're doin' 
 now, for iver. Ye're too young. He should have a 
 wife to look arter him.' Well, an' then I went an' axed 
 Miss Pratt same as I told ye " 
 
 " Aye, an' ye found as she cared nowt for me, an' for 
 that matter I care nowt about her, now." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell ye plain, Martin, as I always thought 
 to do pretty well for mysel* when I did wed, I always 
 said as I'd have nobbut a gradely chap for my master : 
 one as could work a bit for himsel', an' gaffer the men, 
 an' that. Now you, as ye say, '11 niver be fit for much 
 f this world unless happen," said Nancy, with a 
 provident eye to the future, "ye could cut up a 
 two-three seed potatoes, an' feed the hens, an' such- 
 like." 
 
 " Aye," said Martin calmly, " I could do that, 
 belike an' I could gaffer the lads too. I can shout 
 a bit still an' my eyesight's as strong as iver't 
 were." 
 
 " Ah, but they'll niver think so much of a master as 
 100
 
 NANCY 
 
 has but one leg," pursued Nancy, gazing at him with an 
 appraising eye. " Eh, an' nobbut one arm, an' that the 
 left ! It'll look rale bad when ye're sittin' at th' head 
 o' th' table at harvest supper that ye should have but 
 the left arm to drink 'ealths wi' ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed poor Rainford, his face, which had 
 brightened up for a moment during the discussion, 
 darkening again. " It will that. I doubt it's no use, 
 Nancy, my lass. I'll niver make a fit mate for ye. But 
 I thank ye truly all the same, an' take it very kind o' ye 
 to ax me." 
 
 " Wait a bit, I've more to say yet. Martin Rainford, 
 the fust time I see ye, I says to mysel', ' Yon's th' man 
 for my money.'" 
 
 " Did ye ? " said Martin, with a sheepish smile. 
 
 " Aye, ye was a fine-set-up fellow i' those days. 
 Well, I'd ha' liked ye then well enough ; an' though 
 I may say as the best part o' ye is gone, I'm none 
 o' th' kind that's always choppin' an' changing' so if 
 ye're willin' I'll make a shift to do wi' ye as ye 
 are." 
 
 101
 
 POLITICS
 
 POLITICS 
 
 " COME in, ma'am," says Mrs. Wick, " come in and sit 
 ye down. It's a long time since you've come our way. 
 Ah, the elections kept ye busy ? Indeed they're enough 
 to moider anybody we hear too much of 'em here, I 
 can tell you. Specially since we've changed our politics. 
 Didn't ye know as we'd changed our politics here in the 
 village, ma'am ? Eh dear, yes ; and it has been a piece 
 of business ever since, what with one side an' t'other 
 when the elections comes round. 
 
 " Squire began it, you know. Him an' his family 
 has always been Liberals always used to be at least 
 and of course we was Liberals too. Well, last election 
 time not the last as ever was, but the time before or 
 was it the time before that again ? he went an' turned 
 round and said he was goin' to vote for the Conservative 
 party. Eh, well, to think of it ! we all said, and what- 
 ever could have come to the Squire ! It seemed funny, 
 ye know. Us women couldn't talk of nothing else, and 
 the men said the notion seemed to stick in their throats 
 
 105
 
 maybe that was why they was always walkin 1 off to 
 the public-house to wash it down ! One man Radical 
 Ted as we call him made a great to-do about it, 
 and said he wasn't goin' to turn his coat inside out, 
 not for nobody. But none of us ever minded poor old 
 Ted. 
 
 " Squire called a meetin* in the big barn up yonder, 
 and made a speech. It was a beautiful speech, ah ! 
 indeed it was, and he talked to us so nice about why 
 he'd changed his views, or rather, says he, it's the times 
 that has changed. The old Liberalism is a thing of the 
 past, and the Conservative policy of the present day is 
 the nearest thing to the Liberal policy that you and me 
 was brought up on, says the Squire. And he said he 
 was very much disappointed in the Grand Old Man. 
 'In fact," 1 says he, leanin' on his stick, an 1 looking round, 
 ' my opinion is that he is a grand old Humbug.' And 
 then he talked to us as friendly as possible, about this 
 kind of Government and that kind of Government 
 there wasn't many of us as understood it all and he 
 finished up by sayin' that the Liberals were Illiberal, 
 and the Conservatives Preservative. Eh, you should 
 have heard us cheerin' him ! My word ! you'd have 
 thought the roof was comin' off. Some of us fancied he 
 was goin* into Parliament himself, but he says he was 
 too old for that. He was informed, however, that the 
 gentleman who was going to stand for our division of 
 
 106
 
 POLITICS 
 
 the county was a very nice young gentleman indeed. 
 We'd have an opportunity of judging for ourselves soon, 
 he says, because he was coining to hold a meetin' here, 
 and he was sure we'd all attend, and now he'd shown us 
 why he had changed his opinions he hoped we'd all 
 follow suit. Well, we all cheered again, and poor old 
 Joseph Birch, the carpenter, sings out, ' For he's a 
 jolly good fellow, 1 as he always does whenever he 
 gets a chance, for he sets a deal of store by the 
 Squire. 
 
 " A few days after a gentleman comes round the 
 village, a very nice gentleman he was first we thought 
 it must be him as Squire was talkin' of, but he says no, 
 he was only a mutual friend an 1 he sits down an 1 talks 
 to us as natural as possible, an' praises Squire till the 
 tears conies into his eyes, an' he says we mustn't on no 
 account vote for the Liberals because if we do the 
 agricultural interests of the country will be ruined, and 
 Irishmen will be takin' the bread out o' the mouths of 
 Englishmen. 
 
 " We all said that 'ud be terrible, and we'd try and 
 attend the meetings, an' that, but it was a busy season, 
 and we didn't know if we could so very well spare the 
 time. ' What ! ' says the gentleman, quite astonished, 
 ' would you run the risk of ruining your country for the 
 sake of an hour's work more or less ? Get up a bit 
 earlier in the morning,' he says, turnin' pleasant again. 
 
 107
 
 POLITICS 
 
 Well, then he gets out a card with two names on it. 
 One printed very big and that was his and Squired 
 gentleman and the other very small. 
 
 " * Now, 1 he says, ' you can't make any mistake. See 
 this is the name you are to put your mark opposite 
 to/ 
 
 " ' Oh, 1 says we, turnin' it about. ' The big one 
 well remember.'* 
 
 " ' No, no, no," 1 says the gentleman, very flurried. 
 ' Never mind whether it's big or little it's the name 
 youVe got to remember.' 1 And he shouts it out a 
 dozen times, and spells it, and makes us spell it, till 
 we're sick of the sound of it. ' Now you can't forget,' 
 he says. 
 
 "The very next day another of 'em comes, and sits 
 down and talks. Tells us what fine people we are, and 
 how honest and independent we've always been, and 
 how if we'll only vote right we'll enjoy greater pros- 
 perity than ever. Then he pulls out a card with 
 one name printed very big and one name printed very 
 little. 
 
 " ' Oh, thank ye,' says we, ' the other gentleman left 
 us one o' those.' 
 
 " ' What other gentleman ? ' says he, and he stops for 
 a minute, and then he says, ' would you kindly let me 
 have a look at it ? ' 
 
 " Well, when it's fetched, he looks real put out. 
 108
 
 POLITICS 
 
 ' Why this is the wrong one, 1 he says, ' You'll be gettin' 
 muddled up if you keep this. See, this is the name of 
 the people's friend the friend of the farmer and the 
 labourer/ he says. ' The friend o' cheap bread and high 
 wages, and short hours,' he says, an' he shows us his 
 card, an' the big name was a strange name, an' the 
 t'other the name o' the Squire's gentleman was wrote 
 quite small and poor. 
 
 " ' This is the name you've got to remember,' says he, 
 p'intin' to the strange one. 
 
 " ' Nay,' says we. ' It was the t'other, Squire told 
 us.' 
 
 "'And are you going to be so poor-spirited as to 
 follow your Squire's lead just like a flock of geese?' says 
 he. ' Your Squire indeed ! So he's been tampering 
 with your liberties, has he ? Do you suppose he has 
 your interests at heart, or cares two pins for you, except 
 for what he can get out of you ? What can you expect 
 from a man who has a wall round his place to shut out 
 the people, when the land should by right belong to the 
 people, and will do so yet if they have the courage to be 
 true to themselves.' 
 
 " ' Eh well,' says one of us, ' we know the Squire, ye 
 see, an' we'd rayther vote for a friend of his, nor for a 
 gentleman as we've never heerd on. An' I doubt it's 
 
 o 
 
 no worse for Squire to have a wall to's place, nor for 
 me to have a hedg^ to my garden. An' ye can leave 
 
 109
 
 POLITICS 
 
 your card if ye like aside of t'other on the chimney- 
 piece. 1 
 
 " And so he did after a deal more talk and argument, 
 
 and there 
 stood the cards 
 side by side 
 till one of the 
 young ladies 
 from the Hall 
 chanced to see 
 them. 
 
 "'It's no 
 use keeping 
 two,' she said. 
 'You'll only be 
 making mis- 
 takes. Better 
 put this one 
 into the fire.' 
 
 "So into the 
 fire she pops 
 it, and round 
 she goes to 
 every house in 
 the place, and 
 
 does the same by every one o' the cards as the last 
 gentleman left. My word ! there was a piece of work 
 
 110
 
 POLITICS 
 
 when some of his lady friends heerd on it. Eh ! we was 
 always havin' visitors that time ! We got to be quite 
 moidered in the end ; not so much as Saturday would 
 go by but some one or other would walk in, in the 
 middle of our cleaning up the children half washed 
 and all with ' How do ye do ? ' and ' I hope we may 
 count on you.' ' No, 1 says we, 'don't count on us, we've 
 other things to be thinkin' on. 1 We were gettin' vexed 
 at the end, ye see and then they said they did like 
 our fine independent spirit. One of that lot took to 
 sending soup to old Granny Gibson (as if she hadn't 
 sons and grandsons to work for her and keep her com- 
 fortable), and Granny says nothin' not even Thank ye 
 so one day they axed her if she got it all right. 
 
 " ' Ah,' says Granny, ' I got it reet enough. Gave it 
 to the pigs, I did,' says Granny. So after that they 
 sent no more. 
 
 " One day there was a deal of stir in the village 
 some one had been talkin' about three acres and a cow 
 as they heerd was to be given to any one as voted 
 against Squire's gentleman. Well, ye may think the 
 cottagers had something to say about this none of 
 their gardens run to more nor half an acre at most, 
 and as for cows, it's only the gradely farmers as keeps 
 them. There was more talk about that nor anything 
 else; even old Joseph the carpenter, as never wants 
 anything new, and shakes his head at all these election 
 
 111
 
 POLITICS 
 
 doin's, even he said it would be very nice. But Squire 
 come into his workshop ' So you're to have three acres 
 and a cow, Joe ? ' says he, and he laughs fit to split. 
 ' And who is going to build your shippons, I wonder ? 
 I'm sure I shan't, 1 he says. 
 
 "And then Joseph 'unbethought himself,' as he 
 always says, and says he : ' What's the good o' goin' 
 agin the Squire ? I won't deny that three acres o' land 
 is nice, an' so's a cow very nice. But who is this here 
 chap as is goin' to give them to us, an' what do we 
 know about him ? And the Squire's been a good squire 
 to us, an' a good friend to us and theer ! What's the 
 good o' goin' agin him ? ' 
 
 "Well, Joseph was right, ye see, and there wasn't 
 one here in the village as would say he wasn't, for all 
 the talk we heard about Liberty, and every man being 
 as good as his better, and that. Us an' the Squire was 
 always friends. We all know him, and he knows us, 
 and his ways is ours. 
 
 " After a bit the young gentleman as we'd all heerd 
 so much on him as Squire was going to vote for, ye 
 know come to hold a meetin' here. But he gave short 
 notice, and the very day of the meetin' was Dumbleton 
 Fair day, the biggest fair in the country, as all farmers 
 attend regular. There was messengers flyin' all over 
 the place, tellin' every one to come, and as many as 
 could make time did come to the barn where the gentle- 
 
 112
 
 POLITICS 
 
 man was to speak. A good few women was there, and 
 almost all the big school children, but the men was most 
 of them busy, and I doubt if there was more nor half a 
 do/en of them there, all told. But the barn was done 
 up elegant with plants and flowers and decorations of 
 all sorts, and when the young gentleman came out to 
 speak, he look round and smiled to hisself. He began 
 bv sayin' how beautiful everything was done up, and 
 how kind it was o 1 the Squire to have all so nicely 
 prepared, and then he went on in a kind o' sneery way 
 to remark what a pity it was as the attendance didn't 
 correspond with the decorations. The men sat there 
 sinilin 1 as if it all was as pleasant as could be, but I 
 gave Mi's. Birch, as sat next me, a nudge. 
 
 " ' What d'ye think o 1 that ?' says I. 
 
 " ' Eh, 1 says she, ' I don't make much count o' yon 
 flipperty-gibbet. When's Squire goin' to speak ? ' 
 
 "Eh, but the toother talked our heads oft' afore he'd 
 done, an' when Squire clapped his hands, we clapped 
 ours, but we was glad when he stopped. Then the 
 gentleman as came round with the cards, spoke, and 
 another after that, and then at last Squire come to the 
 front. 
 
 " ' Hear, hear ! ' cries Joseph, afore he'd said a word 
 at all ; and the rest of us hammered the floor with our 
 umberellas, an' shuffled our feet and clapped our hands; 
 an' Squire nods at us, an' laughs. 
 
 113 H
 
 POLITICS 
 
 " His speech was the best ; we all was agreed on that 
 pint. Afterwards him and his young gentleman come 
 round the village he had a smile an' a joke for every 
 one, had the young gentleman very pleasant he was. 
 He says to Radical Teddy : ' You're bound to vote for 
 me, you know. Why, you cany my colours in those 
 blue eyes of yours. 1 
 
 " ' An' what colour do I wear here ? ' says Ted, tappin' 
 his nose. 'I'm a red republican,' says Ted (he gets 
 
 them o u t- 
 landish words 
 out o' the 
 newspapers, 
 ye know). 
 
 "Talkin' 
 of colours 
 the day of 
 the elections 
 them ladies 
 as I told ye 
 of as sent 
 Granny Gib- 
 s o n soup, 
 
 waited for the children as they was comin' out from school, 
 and pinned bows o' ribbon on 'em, boys and girls alike 
 beautiful they was. But when our own young ladies 
 the ladies from the Hall saw them, they were in a way. 
 
 114 

 
 POLITICS 
 
 '"The idea,' says they, 'of plastering our children 
 with their disgusting Radical ribbons.' And they 
 whipped them off before you could turn round, and 
 popped on blue ones. And the children looked fine as 
 they stood at the end o' the village, cheerin' the voters 
 when they passed. First there was the Squire driving 
 his dog-cart, as pleased as Punch, with a blue bow in 
 his button-hole, and blue ribbons on the horse; and 
 then come the farmers' shandries, and after them come 
 waggons as the farmers lent for the occasion with all 
 the cottagers, an' off they drove, cheerin' all the way, 
 an' every man in the place voted for Squire's gentleman. 
 Radical Ted come back so drunk that he couldn't tell 
 us much about it, and he always said he couldn't 
 remember which way he voted, but of course we all 
 knew without the tellin' that he'd never go for to vote 
 again the Squire. An' that's how we all changed our 
 politics here in this village, ma'am ; now you have the 
 whole story." 
 
 115
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 THERE is perhaps nothing of which the inhabitants of 
 Thornleigh are more proud than the stocks which adorn 
 their village green. Some time ago the elders among 
 them could even remember the 
 days when poachers and tramps 
 and drunkards used to be con- 
 fined in them, and pelted by 
 the youth of the neighbour- 
 hood with cabbages and rotten 
 eggs. But it is long since 
 the stocks as an institution 
 were used in Thornleigh, 
 and for years no one but old 
 Jack Rutherford " Gilly- 
 f 'er Jack,"" as he was called 
 ever sat on the queer old bench 
 
 which former generations had polished till it gleamed 
 again. He found it a convenient resting-place sometimes 
 while he munched his " baggin 1 ,"" for it was in the neigh- 
 
 119
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 bourhood of his work, and moreover a sunny and cheerful 
 spot. When Jack was not digging a grave for anybody, 
 or ringing the church bell, or cutting wall-flowers, he 
 earned his living by mending the roads. That is to 
 say, in summer he swept up the dust, and in winter 
 he scooped the water out of the puddles with his shovel ; 
 and sometimes he found an old shoe or two or a brim- 
 less hat, which came in handy for filling up the ruts ; or 
 if he chanced upon a very bad piece, he scratched up a 
 few stones out of a more level portion and laid them in 
 the deepest holes. The Thorn Jeigh people did not like 
 paying rates, and Jack never had anything to mend the 
 roads with ; therefore the Local Board thought he did 
 very well as it was, and so did Jack himself, and the 
 Squire (who was chairman) laughed when he found 
 himself nearly bounced out of his dog-cart, and said it 
 was good for the liver to be jolted a bit. 
 
 Jack's home was quite at the further end of the 
 village a one-storied red cottage, so old that the walls 
 formed all kinds of curious curves and angles, and every 
 variety of moss and lichen appeared to flourish on the 
 thatch. The small-paned windows were almost filled 
 up with scarlet geraniums, and the tiny garden without 
 was bright with sweet-williams and stocks and old- 
 fashioned moss and cabbage-roses. The sweet, cool, 
 delicious little monthly rose, too, bloomed gaily there 
 nearly all the year round. But the pride of Jack's heart 
 
 120
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 and the chief source of his income was the little field of 
 wall-flowers, or, as they are called in Thornleigh, "gilly- 
 fers," which lay at the back of his house. Wall-flowers 
 of every shade from brightest yellow to deepest choco- 
 late-brown rows and rows of them. Poor old Jack's 
 back ached as he waded among them when they were 
 in season, his clasp-knife crunching through their leafy 
 stalks, the basket on his arm growing fuller and heavier, 
 till at last it could hold no more, and Jack, straighten- 
 ing himself and sighing, would slouch over to Margery, 
 turning out the sweet-smelling heap on the table where 
 she sat " bunching "" them for market. They were 
 sweet ! The scent of them used to hang over the entire 
 village. Every one knew Jack's gilly-Fer field it was 
 quite a feature in the place. Neighbours passing to 
 and fro and farmers driving by would point out the 
 " gilly-fers " to each other, till at last the cottage itself, 
 and even the old couple to whom it belonged, came to 
 be known by that name. Margery, indeed, considered 
 as an individual and not as her husband's better-half, 
 could not have claimed any special title, but collectively 
 they were called "The Gilly-fers," and " Gilly-fer 
 Jack " was as well known in the neighbourhood of 
 Thornleigh as the stocks themselves. 
 
 Margery was the most motherly of wives, and was 
 accustomed to devote much of her time and thoughts 
 to the education x>f Jack ; and " certainly, 11 as she said 
 
 .121
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 emphatically many a time, " if he did not know his 
 duty it would not be for want of hearing about it." 
 As a rule Jack obeyed her in all things, even to taking 
 off his clogs before he crossed his own threshold and to 
 wearing one of his wife's aprons on Sundays to preserve 
 his best clothes. But unfortunately in one or two 
 points he fell short of her ideal. There was his pipe, 
 to begin with. In spite of everything Margery could 
 say he would persist in " wearin' his brass " on baccy, 
 and many a sly whiff did he enjoy seated on a corner of 
 the stocks after a furtive glance round to make sure 
 that his " missus " was not in sight. There were occa- 
 sions too few and far between, for as a rule Jack was 
 " as sober a man as a woman need be tied to " when 
 he was known to be a little " overtaken." At Christ- 
 mas-time perhaps a neighbour would treat him to a 
 glass, which immediately affected his head, or rather his 
 legs ; and on Club-day oh, Club-day was, as Margery 
 said, a snare ! Jack, of course, ribbon in coat and wand 
 in hand, marched round the country with the other 
 members of the Thornleigh and Little Upton Mutual 
 Benefit Club, the band playing merrily, and the big 
 banner, with the Squire's arms on one side and a picture 
 of the Good Samaritan on the other, streaming in the 
 breeze ; and of course everybody had beer ; and of 
 course poor Jack ! 
 
 Margery had " bethought herseP " and " unbethought 
 122
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 hersel 1 " often about this Club. It was undoubtedly a 
 good thing to belong to it. If Jack were sick she 
 could draw ten shillings a week from the Club funds 
 till he was able to resume work again, and when he 
 died the Club would hand over quite a nice little sum 
 towards his funeral. On the other hand, besides his 
 subscription, he was obliged to contribute, like all the 
 other members, towards the annual dinner at the 
 Thornleigh Arms; and, having paid for his share of 
 the good cheer, it was only fair that he should partake 
 of it. Margery's just and economical soul rebelled at 
 the idea of sacrificing his rights, and yet it was always 
 the same story. On this particular day every year 
 Jack forgot himself, and during the remaining three 
 hundred and sixty-four Margery reminded him of his 
 slip. At last she made up her mind to take a decisive 
 step, and, renouncing with a struggle the value of that 
 annual two-and-sixpence, resolved to keep her husband 
 at home in future when other folk went " pleasurm 1 ." 
 
 Accordingly, when Jack woke up one Club-day 
 morning, he found no shining suit of broadcloth laid 
 out by his bed, no wand, no be-ribboned hat only his 
 working clothes lying in a heap just as he had taken 
 them off. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he cried cheerfully, " what's gone wi 1 your 
 membry, missus ? To-day ""s Club-day. Wheer's my 
 Sunday clothes ? ~ 
 
 123
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 "I know what day it is well enough," returned 
 Margery from the adjoining kitchen. "But you're 
 going to none o' their clubs to-<lay, so ye'll not need 
 your good clothes. Get into the Mothers now, and 
 come to your breakfast. It's late enough." 
 
 'Tin not goin' to the Club?" repeated Jack in 
 amazement. " An' what am I not goin 1 to the Club 
 for ? me as has walked this thirty year." 
 
 "What should ye not go for?" cried Margery 
 shrilly, and then came a bang and clatter of crockery a* 
 she prepared for battle. " D'ye mean to tell me you've 
 forgot " 
 
 While she reminded him at length, and in vigorous 
 language, of his misdemeanours of last year and the 
 years preceding it> Jack hunted about for his clothes. 
 But the cupboard was locked and Margery had the key 
 in her pocket. What was to be done ? Was he to 
 give up without a murmur the one pleasure of his life 
 the outing to which, for as long as he could 
 remember, he had looked forward from year's end to 
 year's end ? Be considered a backslider by his fellow- 
 members and become the laughing-stock of the country- 
 side ? It was not to be borne. 
 
 Just as Margery was working up with great anima- 
 tion to "this time five year ago," the inner door was 
 partially opened, and Jack's wrinkled face, flaming with 
 anger, was thrust through the chink. 
 
 124
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " I mun ha 1 my clothes, woman ! Hand over yon 
 key an' let's ha 1 no more to do. I'll ha 1 them, or else 
 go i' th' t'other ones. I tell ye plain I'm goin', so it 
 bides wi' you whether I'm to go decent or no." 
 
 "John Rutherford, you're out o' your senses I 
 doubt ! " exclaimed Margery. " Pretty doin's indeed 
 for you to be bargin' at your wife, that gait ! Get on 
 wi' them clothes an' give over saucin' me. For shame 
 of ye ! Ye don't go to your Club to-day, an' ye 
 needn't look for it. Your Sunday suit shall bide i' th' 
 cupboard, an' as for goin' i' th' t'others, I reckon ye 
 know better nor make a sight o' yoursel' at this time 
 o' day, an' ha' th' children shoutin' after ye i* th' 
 lane " 
 
 Jack banged the door to again, and lost the remain- 
 der of his wife's speech. He sat down on the side of 
 the bed, trembling with rage, but, for once in his life, 
 determined. He was not going to be put off' with 
 Margery's nonsense, and would go to the Club, clothes 
 or no clothes, if it was only to shame her. After a 
 moment or two he rose and began to assume his 
 ordinary gear with a solemn face and a sore heart. 
 Things was come to a pretty pass indeed when he, 
 John Rutherford, the oldest member of the Club, was 
 forced to attend the meeting in such " togs " as these ! 
 He thought of how Margery herself had hitherto always 
 helped him to array himself with becoming splendour ; 
 
 125
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 how she had brushed his coat and fastened his cravat 
 and tied on his ribbons with wifely pride and care ; and 
 now she served him like this ! 
 
 He looked so subdued when he at length came into 
 the kitchen that the woman's heart smote her in the 
 midst of her elation at what she took to be her 
 victory. 
 
 " Sit thee down,"" she said gently, pushing forward a 
 chair. 
 
 "Nay, I'll not sit me down, Margery Rutherford,"" 
 said Gilly-Per Jack, "an' I want none o' yer coffee. 
 I'm goin' to the Club. Folks 'ull soon know the kind 
 o' wife I've got. Tm goin' to shame ye for once 
 that's what I'm goin' to do I'm goin' to shame 
 
 J e -" 
 
 He thrust his feet into the great clogs which lay in 
 
 the chimney-corner and shambled out of the house, 
 Margery listening vaguely to the clump-clump of his 
 step till it was lost in the distance. She was too much 
 astonished at first to realise the full meaning of her 
 husband's threat ; but after a time it dawned upon her 
 that before nightfall the history of their quarrel would 
 be known all over the place, and that probably most of 
 the neighbours would be weak minded enough to take 
 Jack's part. 
 
 When her morning's work was over, and she had 
 "cleaned her" and donned a fresh apron, she sallied 
 
 126
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 forth to retail her wrongs to a few of her special 
 cronies, and was wounded with the coolness with which 
 her explanations were received. Jack had evidently 
 the public sympathy on his side; indeed, Margery^ 
 conduct was looked on as a grave breach of village 
 etiquette. 
 
 Evening came, and with it most of the merry-makers, 
 cheerful, solemn, or quarrelsome, according to the 
 amount of beer each had consumed during the day. 
 But no shabby figure in corduroys and clogs found its 
 way to the Gilly-f ers ; and at last, anxious and angry, 
 Margery went out to look for her husband. 
 
 As she crosssed the green, behold ! there was Jack 
 outstretched beside the stocks, with his head resting on 
 the bench, sound asleep so fast asleep, indeed, that he 
 did not hear his wife shouting in his ear, nor seem dis- 
 turbed when she shook and pommelled him. 
 
 Finding all her efforts useless, she drew herself up, 
 and looked at him with wrathful scorn. If some folks 
 could only see him now they would own that she had 
 been right to try to keep him out of harm's way. If 
 she had her way every one in the village should come 
 and see for theirselves the kind of a husband she had 
 laying there dead drunk against the stocks, as in old 
 days a man would be clapped into fast enough for mis- 
 behaving same as him. It would serve him right to 
 pop him in now give him a good lesson, it would, and 
 
 127
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 let the neighbours know his goings on. Margery had a 
 
 good mind 
 
 She stopped suddenly, and began pushing and hauling 
 at Jack's prostrate form. She was a 'vigorous woman 
 for her time of life, and soon got him into the requisite 
 position. A momentary compunction struck her as she 
 moved away after she had finished her task, and she 
 looked back several times. 
 
 The old figure looked so forlorn propped up against 
 the bench, the white head hanging forward, the feet, 
 with their knitted socks of blue yarn and their huge 
 clogs insecurely balanced on the toes, protruding stiffly 
 from either hole. But she would not allow herself to 
 be softened. It was for his good, after all, and he 
 deserved a lesson. 
 
 It was quite dark when Jack came to himself, feeling 
 cold and stiff and ill at ease. A lantern was flashing in 
 his eyes, and quite a number of faces were bending over 
 him. 
 
 " What's to do ? " he murmured confusedly. " Wheer- 
 iver have I got to ? " 
 
 He felt the grass beneath his hands, and was aston- 
 ished to find he could not move his legs. 
 
 " IVe had a stroke, I doubt ! " he said to himself, his 
 consciousness returning with a sudden keen throb of 
 anguish and fear. " I mun ha" 1 had a stroke,"" he repeated 
 aloud. " Wheer's our Margery ? Wheeriver am I ?" 
 
 128
 
 THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " Nay, lad," said some one, " ye haven't had no stroke. 
 YeYe T th 1 stocks, that's wheer ye are, reet enough."" 
 " Ifs your missus as has served ye a bit of a trick," 
 
 chimed in another voice, and then there came a laugh. 
 " Eh, she^s a gradely one, is Margery o 1 Gilly-Fers ! 
 She clapped ye into the stocks, owd lad, when ye was 
 fuddled, and left ye your lone to get sober." 
 
 12.9 i
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " Well, 'twas a shame," remarked another speaker. 
 " If it hadn't ha 1 been for me I doubt she'd have left ye 
 here for th' neet. I only wish I'd ha' lit on ye before, 
 an' we sh'd ha' gotten ye out a bit sooner." 
 
 They had released him by this time and helped him 
 to rise. Poor old Gilly-fer Jack ! He felt as if he 
 were the victim of a nightmare, with the light flaring 
 in his eyes, the crowd of faces surrounding him, one or 
 two laughing, the others wearing a look of pity quite 
 as humiliating to the independent old fellow. And 
 what was it they were saying ? 
 
 " My missus put me i' th 1 stocks ! " he muttered 
 after a moment or two, staring blankly from one to the 
 other. " She put me i' th' stocks ! Our Margery, as 
 has been wed to me this five-an'- thirty year ! Did ye 
 say she put me i' th' stocks ? " 
 
 "Ah, Joe Whiteside's Tommy saw her didn't 
 ye, Tommy? He was frightened to tell us, he says. 
 Eh, but ye should ha' told us, Tommy. Why, 
 poor owd Jack theer might ha' been dead afore 
 mornin' ! " 
 
 Jack pulled himself together with a sort of shiver, 
 and pushing through his friends, set off walking 
 hurriedly in the opposite direction to the village. 
 
 " Howd on, owd chap ! Yon's not the way home ! " 
 cried one of the men, running after him. 
 
 " I'm not goin" home," said Jack. " I'll niver go 
 130
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 home no more. Ye can tell her so. Ill niver set eyes 
 on her again/'' 
 
 He would listen to no remonstrances, and, shak- 
 ing oft' the hands which sought to detain him, struck 
 out again, and presently disappeared into the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 He walked on doggedly for hours, though his limbs 
 shook and his head felt dizzy and queer, and was 
 thoroughly exhausted when at last in the cold grey 
 dawn he made out the undefined shape of a shed in a 
 field near the road. 
 
 " I mun lay me down a bit," he said to himself, " or 
 else 111 drop down. Eh, to think I should come to 
 this sleepin" 1 T th' fields same as a tramp ! " 
 
 He thought of the warm feather-bed at home, and 
 the pile of blankets, and the flannel-lined patchwork 
 quilt. Margery no doubt was tucked up quite comfort- 
 ably, while he was outside in the cold dew. Perhaps 
 she thought he was still in the stocks. Very like she 
 did, he mused, and a big sob rose up in his throat. 
 Oh, that she should have served him so Margery, his 
 missus ! 
 
 There was not much sleep for Jack, but he dozed a 
 little from time to time, and rose up at last, aching in 
 every limb. After pursuing his march for some hours 
 he found himself in a big manufacturing town, through 
 the streets of which he shuffled, jostled at every step by 
 
 131
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 the passers-by, and feeling puzzled and not a little 
 alarmed. 
 
 It was lucky for him that with all his timidity and 
 simplicity he retained a certain amount of shrewdness, 
 and did not manage his affairs so badly as might have 
 been expected, on the whole. He engaged a room in 
 a quiet back street, and after knocking about for a 
 day or two, till his little stock of money got low, 
 was fortunate enough to obtain employment not very 
 remunerative employment, but still sufficient to pay for 
 his food and lodging and to keep him supplied with 
 "shag." He was so quiet and good-natured, so 
 regular in his goings and comings, and so easily 
 pleased, that the good people of the house grew quite 
 fond of him. He had his own place in a corner by the 
 fire in the little parlour behind the shop, and here of 
 an evening he would smoke a pipe with the master of 
 the house while the "missus'" retired upstairs to put 
 the children to bed. It was long before Jack could get 
 out of the way of hastily pocketing his pipe and 
 assuming an air of elaborate unconsciousness when the 
 good woman reappeared. It seemed such a strange 
 thing that she did not " sauce "" him for smoking ; but 
 indeed so many things were strange to Jack nowadays, 
 that he lived in a state of bewilderment. That no one 
 should " barge "" at him for making a clatter with his 
 clogs, or for getting his clothes dirty, or for spilling his 
 
 132
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 tea; that his pipe should be tolerated, and that he 
 should be actually invited to partake of an occasional 
 mild brew of whisky and water, were perpetual marvels 
 to him. The presence of the children, too, of which 
 there were half a dozen or so generally tumbling about 
 on the floor, helped further to astonish and puzzle his 
 poor old brain ; yet, oddly enough, it was when they 
 had retired for the night, and Jack and his host sat 
 tranquilly smoking, that our friend felt least at ease. 
 He would stare at the stolid face opposite to him as if 
 wondering how it came to be there, and then take his 
 pipe from between his lips and glance round the room 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " Eh,"" he would say to himself, " it's quiet here ! 
 Eh, it's if s awful quiet ! " 
 
 Then he would think of the little kitchen at home, 
 and of Margery's active figure bustling about, and of 
 her sharp voice. It was more natural-like, all the 
 same, and a man didn't feel so strange and lonesome. 
 If only his missus hadn't served him such a trick ? No 
 man would stand that and Jack's meditations generally 
 ended in a glow of anger and resentment. 
 
 The months wore away ; Christmas had come and 
 gone, and spring had arrived, and one day it chanced 
 that Jack on returning from work met a girl in the 
 street selling wallflowers. The sight of the great 
 basket full of brown and yellow and amber blossoms, 
 
 133
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 the familiar scent, the touch of the velvety bunches as 
 she brushed past, were too much for him. He leaned 
 for a moment against a lamp-post, trembling. 
 
 " Fine wallflowers, a penny a bunch ! " shouted the 
 girl, paying little heed to this tall grey old labourer. 
 
 She was now out 
 of sight, and Jack, 
 heaving a deep 
 sigh, walked slowly 
 homewards. So 
 they were in sea- 
 son again ! He 
 wondered how the 
 missus was getting 
 on. She'd never 
 be able to cut 
 them, not she ! 
 And if she hired 
 a man to do it, 
 what would be- 
 come of her pro- 
 fit? SheMhave 
 to get some one 
 
 all the same, and Jack did not half like the idea of any 
 outsider hacking at his wallflowers they'd spoil the 
 plants among them, most like. He himself had always 
 been so careful never to break or injure them, to avoid 
 
 134:
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 bruising the roots, to economise the buds. All that 
 evening he thought of his field of gilly-flowers and of 
 the old life and of Margery. He felt a certain pity for 
 Margery she'd never make nothing out of them, that 
 she wouldn't ! Happen, by this time she was sorry 
 enough for having " druv " her husband away from her. 
 She'd never make no hand of they gilly-Fers; it 'ud 
 really be almost worth a man's while to step up Thorn- 
 leigh way and see how she was gettin 1 on. 
 
 That night he dreamt of his gilly-f ers, and next day 
 as he went to his work he still thought of them, and 
 fancied he smelt them, and sometimes even stretched 
 out his hand as though to take hold of them. And at 
 last the gilly-Fers drew him countrywards, and he 
 found himself walking rapidly in the direction of his 
 home. His face wore a very sheepish expression as he 
 approached Thornleigh ; the neighbours would laugh at 
 him, he reckoned, and Margery how would she receive 
 him ? He had not quite made up his mind as to what 
 he should say to Margery, but he knew that he was 
 very tired of being away from home. He approached 
 his house by a circuitous route, not wishing to meet 
 any of his former friends, and being most anxious to 
 avoid the neighbourhood of the stocks. He insensibly 
 quickened his pace when the familiar odour of the 
 wallflowers h'rst greeted his nostrils, and his heart was 
 thumping, and his eyes full of tears, as he passed 
 
 135
 
 THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 through the little gate and in at his door. A woman 
 was .standing in the kitchen superintending something 
 in a small saucepan on the fire not Margery, as the 
 first glance told him ; at the second, he recognised with 
 some alarm the portly figure, red face, and squinting 
 
 eyes of a very different 
 person Mrs. Nancy 
 Frith, who was char- 
 woman, washerwoman, 
 manager of the shop, on 
 ordinary occasions, but 
 whose real vocation lay 
 in what she termed " nus- 
 sin\" From the admin- 
 istration of "cinder- tea" 
 to a baby, to the adroit 
 "chucking" away of a 
 feather-pillow from under 
 the head of a dying man 
 to hasten his departure when his agony appeared 
 unduly prolonged, there was no branch of her craft in 
 which she was not an adept. Most of the infants of 
 the village had begun life, and all the moribunds had 
 become corpses, under her superintendence. Occasion- 
 ally, indeed, the former had been unhandsome enough 
 to upset her calculations and defraud her of her lawful 
 dues; but the latter rarely disappointed her. From 
 
 136
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 the moment when, fixing her swivel-eye upon their 
 blanching countenances, she had first informed them 
 they were " sadly warsening " to that in which when 
 the patients were tall and the stairs narrow she had 
 cheerfully recommended their removal to a room on the 
 ground floor, it being " a dale o' trouble to get a coffin 
 out o" winder,"" they had ever justified her confidence 
 and submitted to her decrees. 
 
 Jack's heart sank as he saw her; and pausing 
 abruptly, he thrust forward his shaggy head and 
 inquired tremulously if the missus were ill. 
 
 " God bless us ! " ejaculated Mrs. Frith. " It's never 
 you, Jack Rutherford ! Well, it's time ye come back 
 to look arter your poor wife, as has been deem' all th' 
 winter ! Ye're nobbut just in time, too, for she's 
 sinkin' fast. An' the way she've took on about you 
 it 'ud melt a stone, it would. Only a two-three 
 minutes ago she says to me when she was choosin' th' 
 sheet I've to wind her in, ' Eh, she says, ' to think as it 
 won't be me as 'ull have th' layin' out o' my poor owd 
 man ! I've allus said as wan o' them sheets theer 'ud 
 be for him, an' th' t'other for me ; ' she says, ' an' to 
 think as it's me as has to go first, an' niver knowin' 
 wheer he is, nor what's come to him ! An' happen,' 
 she says, ' it'll be th' Parish as 'ull lay him in's coffin, 
 wi' nobbut some cotton rag or other to lap him in. 
 Eh, she did take on." 
 
 137
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 Jack's jaw had dropped and his face had turned an 
 ashy -grey colour. 
 
 "She's she's deem'?" he asked, in an awe-stricken 
 whisper. 
 
 " An' what else could ye expect ? " responded Nancy, 
 fixing him with one eye, while the other gazed steadily 
 out of the window. " You goin' off an' leavin' her to 
 fend for hersel', an' she a lone woman, an' gettin' on in 
 years, an' frettin' eh, she did fret ! She never looked 
 up arter ye left, an' com in' on Christmas she took 
 to her bed, an' theer's she's been mostly iver since. 
 Ah, ye'd best go in to her, ye'll not have her so 
 long." 
 
 Jack staggered across the kitchen and opened the 
 inner door, closing it after him, and standing for a 
 moment, without speaking, just within the room where 
 his wife lay. 
 
 She was very still, and her face looked strangely 
 drawn and white as it rested on the pillow. She turned 
 her head as he entered, and gazed at him fixedly. 
 
 Jack gave a queer little one-sided nod, and cleared 
 his throat. 
 
 "Well, missus?" he said. 
 
 " Jack ! " she exclaimed, with a faint cry. " I thought 
 I was dreamin'. It's niver our Jack ! " 
 
 " Ay," said he, approaching hastily, " I'm I'm 
 And then he broke off, and sat down suddenly on the 
 
 138
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 bed, " Eh, missus ! " he murmured under his breath, 
 " eh, poor owd lass ! " 
 
 Two great tears leaped out on his wrinkled cheeks ; 
 but Margery stretched out a feeble hand, and laughed a 
 thin quavering laugh. 
 
 " So ye"re back ! " she said ; " I'm pleased to see ye 
 eh, I am pleased. An' yet I doubt we wunnot be so 
 long together. Doctor says I'm goin' a long road, 
 Jack." 
 
 Jack looked at her, and the big babyish tears rolled 
 slowly down his cheeks and fell with a splash on 
 Margery's hand. 
 
 " I'll be a deal comfortabler now ye're come," went 
 on the latter feebly. " Ye'll see to things, won't ye ? 
 An' theer'll be no need to have Nancy fidgetin' about, 
 an' waitin' for the breath to go out of my body. Ye 
 can get her to come to lay me out, ye know I were 
 talkin' to her about it, an' settlin' about coffin an' that. 
 Ye might's well get Billy Ruftbrd to make it me an' 
 his mother was awful thick while she lived, poor soul. 
 He'd do't as well as any one, I reckon." 
 
 " Ah, happen he would," agreed Jack dolefully, but 
 interested too. 
 
 " I've no such likin' for plain deal ; it's awful com- 
 mon," resumed Margery ; " but I should like pitch-pine. 
 Eh, I've an awful fancy for pitch-pine d'ye think 
 Billy 'd make it o' pitch-pine, Jack ? " 
 
 139
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " I'll see as he does,"" quavered Jack, wiping his eyes 
 with his coat-cuff'. 
 
 "Thank ye," said his wife, meekly. "Eh, Fin 
 glad ye're back, Jack I'm glad to see ye 1 , an 1 I'll be 
 sorry to leave ye ! Ye was allus a good man to me, 
 Jack." 
 
 " She awful bad ! " said the poor old fellow to him- 
 self, overwhelmed at this new tone. " Doctor's reet 
 she's goin'. She don't speak nor yet look like our 
 Margery. She mun be goin' fast." 
 
 But he said nothing aloud, only sat there staring 
 at her with woebegone eyes, and holding her thin hand 
 in his. 
 
 Presently Nancy Frith appeared, carrying the posset 
 which she had been concocting in the kitchen, and 
 immediately flew at Jack for sitting on the bed. 
 
 " Just look at the way ye've messed all th' sheets wi' 
 your dusty clothes ! An' feather-bed all pushed o' wan 
 side, an' your wife a'most smothered. Ye munna sit 
 theer." 
 
 " Nay, he can bide," interrupted Margery, fretfully, 
 " I can do wi' him ; he's no need to move." 
 
 Jack shook his head afresh over this unusual toler- 
 ance, and Nancy fairly gasped. A further surprise 
 awaited her, however, when Margery informed her 
 peremptorily that she had no further need of her 
 services, as her husband would " do for her " in future. 
 
 140
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " He" 1 !! let ye know when Fin gone," she added 
 tranquilly, " an 1 ye can look in, an 1 do all as is wanted 
 then." 
 
 Mrs. Frith did not at all approve of this arrangement, 
 but had no choice but to comply, and accordingly took 
 herself off in some dudgeon. Then Margery heaved a 
 sigh -of deep satisfaction. 
 
 "Ye can see to me, can't ye ?" she said. "Eh, but 
 it's a comfort t'ave your own folks about ye again." 
 
 "Fll see to ye," said Jack, and then silence fell 
 between the two. The old woman dozed a little, and 
 her husband sat on the bed and looked at her, ejaculat- 
 ing, " Eh, missus ! " occasionally, in a dolorous whisper. 
 
 It was quite dark when Margery spoke again, so 
 suddenly as to startle him. 
 
 " I doubt I shouldn't ha' put ye i' th' stocks," she 
 observed. 
 
 " I reckon ye did it for my good," returned Jack, 
 huskily. 
 
 " Ah," assented Margery, " I meant it for your good, 
 an' I niver meant to leave ye theer for th' neet. But 
 happen I didn't ought to ha' done it. I'm glad as I 
 can tell ye so. I've bethought mysel' many a time as 
 happen I were a bit 'ard on ye sometimes an' ye were 
 awful patient." 
 
 " Nay," growled Jack through the darkness. " Theer 
 was niver no call for patience. I didn't ax no better 
 
 141
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 missus nor what ye've allus been. I were reet enough. 
 Have I to fetch a candle now ? " 
 
 He stumbled out of the room and gave vent to his 
 feelings in the kitchen, sobbing and rubbing his eyes as 
 if he were seven years old instead of seventy. 
 
 For the next two or 'three days he scarcely stirred 
 from his wife's bedside, and his ministrations, clumsy 
 and awkward as they were, seemed to be acceptable 
 to the invalid. She quite revived as she directed and 
 admonished him, and now and then there crept a 
 shade of sharpness into her voice which filled Jack's 
 heart with rapture. The mere fact of having some one 
 to look after and keep in order seemed to give her a 
 stronger grasp of life, and as the days passed, and the 
 doctor saw that she was still holding out, he began to 
 think that there might yet be a chance for the old 
 woman. One day, when Jack was seating himself by 
 the bedside according to his custom, after having tidied 
 the room and given Margery her breakfast, she pulled 
 back the checked curtain at the head of the bed, and 
 looked at him sharply. 
 
 " Isn't gilly-fers ablow now ?" 
 
 " Ah," said Jack, " a deal o' them. 11 
 
 " Well, just you go out an' cut 'em, then. We can't 
 afford to let 'em go to waste. I wonder at ye, that I 
 do ! an' doctor to pay, an' so much money goin' out." 
 
 " I were loth to leave ye," pleaded Jack. 
 142
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 " Well, I can do without ye, well enough,"" responded 
 his wife, tartly. 
 
 Jack went to work without more ado, but, being un- 
 easy in his mind, returned so often to inquire how 
 Margery found hersel' 
 now, and if she was 
 pretty comfortable, that 
 after the tenth visit or 
 so she lost patience. 
 
 "Be off wi 1 ye," she 
 cried, "an 1 don't come 
 moiderin' me again. Fd 
 rayther have your room 
 nor your company, ye 
 owd dunderhead." 
 
 Jack closed the door 
 and went out again, 
 chuckling and rubbing 
 his hands. 
 
 " Owd dunderhead ! " 
 he repeated. " That 
 sounds more like our Margery ! Same as owd times, 
 that is. I reckon shell do now." 
 
 He whistled as he stooped over his gilly-f 'ers, and 
 often paused to laugh to himself and nod in the direc- 
 tion of the house, winking and looking very knowing. 
 
 " Owd dunderhead ! " he would mutter from time to 
 143
 
 "THE GILLY-F'ERS" 
 
 time, in high glee. " Ah ! I reckon she's turned th' 
 corner."" 
 
 His prophecy was realised, and in less than a week 
 the doctor was amazed, on looking in, to find his patient 
 sitting up in the bed "bunching gilly-P ers," and rating 
 her husband soundly. 
 
 144
 
 AUNT JINNY
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 ALL Thornleigh was much excited when Mrs. Martha 
 Billington came to live there. Her husband had been 
 a native of the place, and was reported to have left her 
 a nice little bit of money ; and when she took up her 
 abode at the Quarry Cottage, opposite " Rutherford's, 1 " 
 the whole neighbourhood dropped in to make her 
 acquaintance, and to condole with her, and to be 
 regaled with the harrowing account of her gaffer's last 
 end. 
 
 He had been a tailor by trade, and things had pros- 
 pered fairly with him, and would have prospered more, 
 had not the " sprees "" in which he occasionally indulged 
 caused him to neglect his business for weeks together. 
 One of these sprees had terminated fatally. He had 
 left his home and had not returned. Mrs. Billington 
 loved to describe her uneasiness, her inquiries, her 
 anxious search, and the anguish with which she had at 
 last identified a body washed up on the shore yonder as 
 that of her lost Richard. It was true he was that far 
 
 147
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 - . 
 
 gone that most people would have found it difficult to 
 recognise him Martha laid stress on this point but 
 she had at once identified his hair and his waistcoat ; 
 and the shoemaker last employed by him swore to 
 the patches on his boots ; and so she was enabled to 
 draw his insurance money and to give him a handsome 
 funeral. 
 
 The Rutherfords were, as has been said, her nearest 
 neighbours, and curiously enough Joe Rutherford was 
 
 a widower. He was a 
 big, shambling, thick- 
 headed, soft hearted 
 fellow, with "a rook 
 o 1 little childer," whom 
 he would have been 
 altogether at a loss 
 how to bring up had 
 it not been for his 
 Aunt Jinny. On the 
 death of his wife, three 
 years before, he had 
 asked Aunt Jinny to 
 keep house for him, 
 and she had given up 
 her work, said good-bye to the cousin with whom she 
 lodged, and carried her "bits o' things" triumphantly 
 down the lane to Joe's. The neighbours laughed a good 
 
 148
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 deal, and wondered what hand an old maid " same as 
 her \id make of all they little 'uns," and " how long it 
 "ud be before the baby followed its mother." 1 
 
 But Jinny had no misgivings : she sat down at once 
 beside the cradle, and smiled her toothless smile at 
 the sleeping infant, 
 and informed the 
 other children in 
 a whisper that if 
 they were careful 
 not to disturb 
 
 it she would 
 make a po- 
 tato-cake 
 for tea. 
 Thus was 
 
 Aunt Jinny "s reign inaugurated, and a happy and pros- 
 perous one it proved to be. Joe and the children were 
 better " done for " indeed, the house cleaner, and the 
 garden more orderly than in the time of the late Mrs. 
 Rutherford, upon whom Thornleigh had been wont to 
 look down as "a sickly poor cratur" at the best of 
 times. Jinny was never happier than in the little patch 
 of garden, and her roses and nasturtiums and sweet-peas 
 were the admiration of the countryside. A lilac bush 
 stood on one side of the little gate, and a red thorn-tree 
 on the other, which made a brave show in spring. It 
 
 149
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 was a pretty little place altogether, this tiny, flag-roofed, 
 red cottage, perched on the verv edge of the "delf," 
 where gorse bloomed gaily in the clefts, and tall reeds 
 and yellow irises grew in the water at the bottom. But 
 eh ! it was very small, Martha Billington said, and she 
 wondered how Jinny was not moidered to death with all 
 those children messing about in such a bit of a place ; 
 but she constantly made her way there all the same. 
 Being a lone woman, it was natural that she should call 
 upon Joe to help her whenever she wanted fi re wood 
 chopped, or a shelf knocked up, or a door-handle screwed 
 on ; and Ixnng a matron of long standing who had 
 " buried three of her own, 11 it was equally natural that 
 she should bestow a great deal of advice on old maid 
 Jinny, who couldn't, as she frequently observed, "be 
 expected to know much about the bringin 1 ups o" 
 childer. 11 Jinny didn't, as a rule, make " much count " 
 of what Mrs. Billington said, though she was a little 
 nettled when told that the baby was but a wummicky 
 thing, and that Teddy would certainly get " nesh in his 
 in'krds if she didn't give over stuffing him with traycle- 
 butties. 11 
 
 She was seriously annoyed, however, when Joe took 
 to quoting Mrs. Billington, and to stating with un- 
 necessary emphasis that isJie really was a stirring woman 
 now, and to " looking in " on the widow almost even 
 evening to see if she wanted any odd jobs. doin'. 
 
 150
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 No one was surprised when the banns were given out 
 between Joseph Rutherford and Martha Billington ; 
 and Jinny put the best face she could on the matter, 
 though she couldn't help takin' it rather 'ard o' Joe, and 
 wondering whatever he could be thinkin' of to marry a 
 woman ten year older than himself: she occasionally 
 said fifteen, but that was in moments of extreme 
 exasperation. 
 
 "An" what will ye do now, Jinny?"" asked one of 
 the neighbours commiseratingly on the eve of the 
 wedding. 
 
 " Do ? " said Jinny. " Why much same as IVe allus 
 done, I s'pose." 
 
 " An' how'll the new missus like that ? " inquired the 
 neighbour. "Ye'd happen better follow Mary to 
 Upton. I reckon things ""II not be so comfortable for 
 ye here."" 
 
 Mary was the cousin with whom Jinny had formerly 
 lived. She was a dressmaker by trade, and had recently 
 left the village and " set up " with a widowed sister at 
 Upton. 
 
 Aunt Jinny's face fell, and she began to rub her 
 shrivelled hands together. 
 
 " Mary couldn't do wi' me now," she returned. " My 
 sight's too bad for th' sewin', an' 'Liza an' me niver did 
 get on so well. An' it 'ud seem strange to leave Thorn- 
 leigh now. The childer 'ud happen fret, poor things* 
 
 151
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 They're used to me, ye see, an 1 1 couldn't find it i' my 
 heart to leave them. Eh, I'll be reet enough. Joe 'ud 
 niver get on without me now, an 1 Mrs. Joe'll happen 
 find me useful. I doubt for all she's so stirrin', she 
 isn't such a terrible one for work as Joe thinks, an 1 she 
 won't care to be troubled \vi' th' childer." 
 
 So Jinny, with the best grace she could muster, gave 
 up her place at the head of the table ; and the new 
 Mrs. Rutherford took possession of the teapot and 
 carved the Sunday beef, though she was kind enough to 
 allow her husband's aunt to cook it, and moreover to do 
 most of the scrubbing and cleaning, and to undertake 
 the family wash. As for the children, it was astonishing 
 with what confidence she abandoned them to the care 
 of the old maid; though she took advantage of her 
 authority as step-mother to forbid treacle-butties, and 
 potato-cakes had become things of the past. But she 
 certainly did her duty by them in the matter of cuffs 
 and scoldings, and the little Rutherfords spent, in con- 
 sequence, much of their time out of doors. Joe, too, 
 who appeared a little startled and uncomfortable at this 
 new state of things, went much oftener to the Upton 
 Arms than in former days, and Jinny grew silent and 
 depressed. There was not much love lost between her 
 and Mi's. Joe, and though she saved her niece-in-law 
 much trouble, the latter secretly longed to. get her " out 
 o' th' road." Jinny, however, evinced no signs of wishing 
 
 152
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 to depart, and Joe stoutly and indignantly resisted any 
 of his wife's hints as to the desirability of inviting her 
 to take up her abode elsewhere^ 
 
 So things went on uncomfortably, and when the 
 winter came Jinny was short-sighted enough to 
 complicate matters by a sharp attack of rheumatic 
 gout. 
 
 Certainly Mi's. Joe couldn't be expected to attend 
 to her Jinny herself saw that and as the children 
 were so young, and Joe at work all day, and as nobody 
 had money to be throwing away on hired attendants, 
 there was obviously nothing for it but for Aunt Jinny 
 to go to hospital in "town."" So poor Jinny a mere 
 bag of aching bones was put into a cab, and drove oft* 
 with Mrs. Joe beside her, and cried piteously under her 
 wraps all the way. Mrs. Joe left her at the hospital 
 and returned every week to see her, a sign of " feelin* "' 
 which touched Jinny and cheered her with the hope of 
 better times in future. She grew better at last, though 
 she was wretchedly weak, and it was doubtful if those 
 poor distorted hands of hers would ever be fit for work 
 again. Still, she was practically well, and one day 
 triumphantly informed her niece-in-law that she was to 
 be discharged in the following week. 
 
 " The childerll be glad to see me, won't they ? " she 
 chuckled. 
 
 And then Mrs. Joe told her that Joe and she had 
 153
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 thinking, and really it was very unfortunate, but 
 they didn't see how they were to manage about her now. 
 
 Jinny sat up and gasped. 
 
 "Joe thinks, ye know," pursued her niece, "as it 
 can't lx? expected as he can do wi' a sick body i' th' 
 'ouse. Times is bad, an" th' childer has but him to 
 look to. There's th' expense to be thought of, ye 
 know, an" 1 who's to do for you ?" 
 
 " Eh, I'd not want no doin' for," pleaded Jinny, big 
 drops suddenly standing on her brow. " I I could 
 soon manage little jobs about th' 'ouse, same as I used, 
 ye know an' my mate's not much, 1 ' she added wistfully. 
 " I allus was a poor eater." 
 
 But Martha was firm. Any one could see for 
 theirsePs as Jinny 'ud niver do a hand's turn again. 
 Besides, Joe had said plain as he couldn't keep her, an' 
 what was a body to do ? The man w r as gaffer in's own 
 house. 
 
 "Joe said he couldn't keep me?" repeated poor 
 Aunt Jinny. " Eh, well happen he's reet. But what 
 mun I do ? wheere mun I go ? " 
 
 " Eh, theer's lots o' places for poor folk, now, wheer 
 they're as comfortable as can be," returned Mrs. Joe. 
 "Things isn't as they used to be, ye know. Why, 
 yonder theer, at th' north side o' town, th' old folks has 
 parties, an' tea-drinkin's, an' a lovely yard to walk 
 
 in " 
 
 154
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 " D'ye mean at the Union ? " interrupted Jinny, 
 clasping her poor twisted hands appealingly. "Eh, 
 Martha, will Joe let me go theer? Martha, Martha, 
 inun I go theer ? Eh, Martha, let me dee at home ! 
 Til soon dee 111 niver ax for nowt ; but don^t say I 
 have to go yonder ! " 
 
 But of course she did have to go yonder : there was 
 nothing else for it. And as for returning to Thornleigh 
 for a week or two first, as poor Jinny desperately 
 suggested, who was goin 1 to be at th 1 expense o" shiftin' 
 her backwards and forwards? Martha wanted to know. 
 Jinny was too weak and too old and too ill to 
 withstand her, and a few days later found her at that 
 Gehenna of the respectable poor, the workhouse. 
 Everything was very neat and clean and orderly ; her 
 food was plentiful and good of its kind ; and Jinny was 
 still feeble enough to be sent at once to the infirmary, 
 where she found her bed fairly comfortable and her 
 neighbours on either side quiet and well-spoken. But 
 as she lay there staring blankly at the white-washed 
 wall opposite, or drew her head under the clothes to 
 weep at her ease, she said to herself that it was a 
 dreadful place, and wished with all the ardour of her 
 poor old heart that she could die. But she didn't die ; 
 she got better instead. And by-and-bye the little 
 dainties which had been considered necessary for her 
 were cut off, and soon she was allowed to get up and sit 
 
 155
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 beside her bed, instead of lying in it. After Christmas, 
 they said, she would be well enough to leave the 
 Infirmary and go into "the House."" Jinny listened 
 blankly after Christmas what did anything matter? 
 She was to spend her Christmas in the Union and that 
 was enough for her. 
 
 Some of the other paupers, old-stagers contented 
 with their lot, talked gleefully of the fine doings she 
 might expect at Christmas ; they always had a party, 
 they said, and the ladies came and played and sang for 
 them, and there was a Christmas Tree. And then 
 Jinny thought of how she used to put toys and sweeties 
 at the foot of the children's beds at home, and turned 
 ber face to the wall. Ladies visited the wards some- 
 times, chatting to the patients, and cheering them with 
 little presents of tea, and snuff, and lozenges ; and one 
 day a young girl came in and sang for them. 
 
 Aunt Jinny sat very still, listening ; her hands folded 
 in her lap, her dim eyes gazing at the glaring white 
 wall ay, and through it, and beyond the squalid 
 streets and the miles of stony road at Thornleigh, and 
 her youth and green fields and friendly faces. The 
 young voice paused, and then rang out afresh ; and all 
 at once Jinny became old and miserable again. It was 
 the Christmas Hymn which resounded through the 
 room now the Christmas Hymn, and here she was in 
 the^Workhouse ! Rising, she uttered a hoarse cry, and 
 
 156
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 stretching out her lean arms, fell sideways on her l)ed, 
 her whole form writhing convulsively. The singing 
 ceased abruptly, the nurse hurried down the ward, the 
 patients craned their necks to see what was the matter 
 with the woman was she in a fit ? But Jinny was 
 only sobbing. 
 
 Then the singer came to her, and took her hand, and 
 spoke kinds words to her ; and Jinny grew calmer, and 
 presently explained that the Christmas Hymn had 
 upset her terrible, and that she couldn't, couldn't, not 
 if it was ever so, make up her mind to th' thought o' 
 spendin' Christmas i' th' Union. 
 
 " If it weren't for th' thought o' Christmas I think 
 I could welly resign mysel'," said Jinny, looking up, 
 while big tears coursed down her wrinkled nose. "I 
 welly think I could. But, eh ! to be here at Christmas 
 I can't say th 1 will o' th 1 Lord be done ! " 
 
 "And if you could go away for Christmas, do you 
 really think you would mind being here less, afterwards ? " 
 asked the young lady. 
 
 " That I would ! " returned Jinny, with conviction. 
 " I could bear mysel' better. You know, miss I can't 
 tell you how 'tis, but it seems as if I couldn't niver 
 hold up my head again arter spending Christmas i' th' 
 workhouse." 
 
 The girl was young and perhaps not very wise ; but 
 her heart was soft, and her purse was full, and so when 
 
 157
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 no one was looking she slipped a half-sovereign into 
 Jinny's hand. 
 
 *' Now you can go away for Christmas, 1 ' 1 she said. 
 Who could describe Aunt Jinny's joy, and the 
 158
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 feelings with which on Christinas Eve she found herself 
 hobbling along the road to Thornleigh. It was only 
 two miles from Upton station, and Jinny had preferred 
 to walk, and to spend the few shillings which remained 
 to her after paying her railway fare and her cab 
 " across town, 1 " in presents for the children. 
 
 There were oranges and sugar-sticks in her bundle, 
 and a doll for Polly and a trumpet for Teddy ; she had 
 even managed to buy a necktie for Joe Rutherford 
 and a brightTColoured handkerchief for Martha. Thus 
 laden, she thought she could not fail to be welcome 
 she had winked to herself indeed, and rejoiced in her 
 own cunning, when she had chosen the handkerchief. 
 Martha would certainly be civil after such a present 
 as that and as for the others, bless their hearts ! she 
 knew they would be glad to see her. It was true that 
 she had wondered and fretted a good deal "yonder,' 1 '' 
 because Joe never came to see her, but now she told 
 herself that it wasn^t to be expected. He would l)e 
 glad to see her now this was more to the point. She 
 pictured the slow smile which would creep over his 
 face. He would surely cry out, " Why, it's niver Aunt 
 Jinny ! " and then the children would dance round her 
 and clap their hands. How surprised they would all 
 be ! Jinny chuckled to herself as she thought of it. 
 That was almost the best part of it. They would all 
 be at tea most likely when she got there, and she would 
 
 159
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 tap at the door and say, "A Merry Christmas to 
 you ! " and then what a pushing back of chairs, what a 
 fuss and scampering there would be ! Martha might 
 look a bit sour at first very like she would but 
 Jinny would make haste to present her handkerchief, 
 and would whisper in her ear " I've not corned for 
 long," and so she would begin to be pleasant. Perhaps 
 Joe might say as he didn't see why Jinny need go back 
 to the Union she wasn't not to say sickly now. But 
 there ! it was best not to think o' that. She would 
 stay over the New Year at any rate. 
 
 It was difficult to walk along the road very fast, for 
 the trodden snow was slippery and Jinny's limbs were 
 stift' and feeble ; and the oranges would keep slipping 
 out of her bundle, and rolling just out of arm's length. 
 It would soon be dark, and still she had a good way to 
 go ; but she thought of the bright lights in Thornleigh 
 yonder, and the warm fire, and the children's happy 
 faces, and trotted on, still smiling to herself. 
 
 She had just picked up an orange for the seventh 
 time, and re-knotted her bundle and straightened her 
 back, when a portly figure suddenly rounded the corner 
 of the road, and paused, starting back at sight of 
 her. 
 
 " Why, Martha ! " cried Jinny, colouring faintly, and 
 stretching out her hand. 
 
 " Aunt Jinny, it's niver you ! " ejaculated Mrs. 
 160
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 Rutherford. " Whativer brings ye here ? An' wheer 
 on earth are ye goin' ? " 
 
 " I were goin' home, 11 quavered Jinny, making great 
 haste to fumble in her pocket for Martha's handkerchief. 
 'Tin not corned for long just for Christmas, Martha, 
 I couldn't stop in the Union at Christinas-time, ye 
 know. A lady gave me ten shillings for my ticket an 1 
 that, an 1 I've some little presents here 
 
 She shook out the handkerchief and diffidently 
 proffered it to Martha. "I thought happen you 
 might find this come in for yerseP," she added 
 tremulously. 
 
 Martha took it and turned it over, and then tendered 
 it back to her, with an odd look 
 on her face. 
 
 "You'd best keep it," she 
 said gruffly. " It'll keep your 
 neck warm. I've just got me 
 one as is twice as big, an' I've 
 no need for two." 
 
 Jinny took it, desperately 
 wounded, and blinking hard to 
 keep back the tears. 
 
 Martha stood still in front 
 of her, her stout figure com- 
 pletely blocking up the path ; something in her very 
 attitude, as well as the expression of her stolid face, 
 
 161 L
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 making the poor old woman's heart turn sick within 
 her with a new, awful fear. 
 
 " Til not stop long, Martha," she whimpered. 
 
 "Ye'll not stop at all," returned Mrs. Rutherford. 
 " Ye mimna think o' goin' to our place. We couldn't 
 do with ye. Why, woman, what should ye come to 
 shame Joe an' th' childer for them as ye think so 
 much of? What 'ud all the neighbours say if they 
 knowed their aunt was i' th' Union ? " 
 
 "An'wheer do they think I've bin all this time?" 
 asked Jinny, her tears suddenly ceasing, though she 
 trembled like an aspen leaf. 
 
 " I' your grave ! " said Martha, setting her arms 
 akimbo and looking fiercely defiant. " I towd 'em ye 
 was dead theer ! An' I towd Joe ye was dead an' th' 
 childer. An' Joe's bin weerin' a black band on 's 'at 
 for ye all th' winter an' he'd be fit to kill me if 
 he knowed. So I'm not goin' to let ye come to 
 Thornleigh to make mischief between man an' wife. 
 Theer ! " 
 
 Jinny's brain reeled, and she sank down, a very heap 
 of misery, on the snowy roadside, feebly trying to push 
 her niece from her, as she bent over her. 
 
 " I'll not leave ye till I see ye on your way back to 
 town," said Martha. " 'Ark now, Jinny Rutherford, it 
 'ud be the worst day's work ye did i' your life if you 
 come between Joe an' me. An' what's more, he'd niver 
 
 162
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 ''old up his head again if it was said as ye come straight 
 to his house fro 1 th' Union. Theer, now ! It'll be no 
 kindness to him if ye do, I tell ye."" 
 
 " Very well, then,"" moaned poor Jinny. " Ye needn't 
 trouble yersel', Martha ; I'll not go nigh him." 
 
 She struggled to her feet with the aid of Mrs. 
 Rutherford, and held out her little bundle. 
 
 "These here bits o' things I'd like th' childer to 
 'ave 'em. The doll's for Polly, an' the trumpet's for 
 Teddy, an' theer's marbles for th' other lads, an' a few 
 sugar-sticks an' things. Ye might tell 'em as " with 
 a great gulp "as Feyther Christmas sent 'em. An* 
 theer's a necktie here as I got for Joe. Will ye give it 
 him?" 
 
 Martha promised, looking rather sheepish as she took 
 possession of poor Jinny's little gifts. There still re- 
 mained the handkerchief which Jinny, after contemplat- 
 ing it for a moment and observing with great dignity 
 that she wouldn't trouble Martha with that, flung over 
 the hedge. 
 
 Then she wrapped her shawl more closely about her, 
 and turned round. 
 
 " Good arternoon ! " she said, hobbling off slowly in 
 the direction whence she had come. 
 
 Martha watched her for a fcw minutes, and, finding 
 she did not pause or turn her head, heaved a deep sigh 
 of relief and betook herself homewards. 
 
 163
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 Jinny walked on, sobbing as she went, and occasionally 
 lurching against the hedge in her weakness and despair. 
 It was growing dark now, and her sight was blurred 
 with tears, so she made many false steps, and at last 
 stood stock still, feeling she had neither strength nor 
 .spirit to advance further. 
 
 Why need she hurry, after all ? What great speed 
 was required for a journey which was to end in the 
 workhouse. 
 
 Oh, the cruelty of it the injustice to force her to 
 go there, and then to be ashamed of her ! And Martha 
 had told every one she was dead Joe had been wearing 
 a black hat -band for her ! 
 
 Such poor vitality as Jinny possessed tingled within 
 her with indignation. 
 
 She felt outraged and humiliated. How was it that 
 if Joe had thought her dead, he had made no effort to 
 go to her funeral? Martha had probably "put him off'" 
 in some way, but all the same Jinny felt this slight to 
 her imaginary corpse acutely. Where did they suppose 
 she was buried, and how ? Was it possible folks thought 
 she had been buried by the Parish ? The blood swept 
 over her face at the idea. It was the crowning ignominy, 
 the bitterest drop in all her cup of gall. And yet this 
 was what she must surely come to. She would never 
 leave that living tomb to which she was about to 
 return until she was carried out for her pauper funeral. 
 
 164
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 Yonder stood Thornleigh Church dimly defined 
 against the murky sky ; yonder lay her father and 
 mother and all her people ; and she was to go back to 
 die in the Union, to be buried by the Parish ! 
 
 She started forward, clenching her hands. 
 
 " That I won't ! " she cried, and she began feebly to 
 drag herself towards Thornleigh a certain desperate 
 determination shaping itself in her mind the while. 
 She had promised not to go back there to live, but she 
 would go 
 back there 
 to die. 
 She would 
 creep un- 
 der cover 
 of t h c 
 darkness 
 
 to Rutherford's corner 
 
 of the churchyard, and 
 
 there she would lay her down. She had heard that 
 
 people who laid them down in the snow slept never to 
 
 wake again well, it was better than going back to 
 
 die in th 1 Union. And when the people found her in 
 
 the morning, lying with her own folks, they would see 
 
 that she had not been buried by the Parish ; and Joe, 
 
 she knew, would make sure that she was carried to her 
 
 long home decent. 
 
 165
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 It seemed a long journey, and it was certainly a 
 painful one, but Jinny reached her goal at last, and 
 sank down on her mother's grave. She had a right to 
 be there at least no one could turn her away. This 
 was her place with the dead. Oh, the snow was cold, 
 and Jinny was numb and weary ! But she summoned 
 up all her courage, and composed her weary limbs, and 
 folded her arms on her breast. She would say her 
 prayers now. 
 
 " Here I lay me down to sleep," she began, using the 
 little formula which she had repeated every night since 
 that far-away childhood of hers. But the words would 
 not come right, and she could not rouse herself suffi- 
 ciently to recall them. 
 
 " Here I lay me .... here I lay me down to sleep,"" 
 she repeated aloud, drowsily, and then she began to see 
 bright colours, and to feel very comfortable so comfort- 
 able that she was not a little indignant presently when 
 she became aware that somebody was shouting in her 
 ear and endeavouring to raise her. 
 
 After a long blank interval she found herself, to 
 her immense astonishment, seated before a blazing fire 
 in the Canon's kitchen ; the Canon's housekeeper was 
 chafing her feet, the Canon himself rubbing her hands ; 
 while opposite to her, with open mouth, and eyes 
 goggling almost out of his head, was her nephew, Joe 
 Rutherford, himself. 
 
 166
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 " Joe ! " she ejaculated faintly. 
 
 " It is her," said Joe, clapping his hands ecstatically. 
 " It"s herse! 1 it's Aunt Jinny. How she comes ""ere 
 beats me but here she is, an 1 that's enough ! How 
 are ye, Aunt Jinny ? Eh, I'm fain to see ye, but my 
 head's that fuzzy, I welly think I mun be dreamm'." 
 
 The honest fellow, who had been half laughing and 
 half whimpering during this speech, here made a clutch 
 at Jinny's hand, pumped it vigorously up and down, and 
 burst out crying. 
 
 But when Jinny presently told her story, feebly and 
 by slow degrees, his countenance changed ; and when 
 the Canon, seeing that his indignation excited and 
 further exhausted the old woman, sent him out of the 
 room, he went straight home and thumped Martha. 
 
 His feelings imperatively demanded an outlet of some 
 kind, and this appeared to him equally suitable and 
 satisfactory. Wife-beating was practically unknown at 
 Thomleigh, but on this occasion Joe certainly did correct 
 his spouse in the manner above-mentioned, and it must 
 be owned that she deserved it. 
 
 Jinny lay between life and death for several days, the 
 strain and shock and subsequent chill proving almost 
 too much for her. The Canon had duly lectured her 
 for having courted death as she had done, but there 
 were times when he thought to himself that death 
 would be the easiest solution of Jinny's difficulties. 
 
 167
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 She was happy enough now in the little " spare room "" 
 at the Presbytery ; but when she got well she could 
 not, of course, stay there ; and though Joe insisted 
 that she must return to his house, Martha would 
 probably make her life miserable if she did. There 
 seemed no way 'out of it it was almost to be hoped 
 that Jinny would die. 
 
 The puzzle was solved, however, in the most extra- 
 ordinary and unexpected fashion by the discovery of no 
 less a person than Mr. Richard Billington himself. 
 
 His last "spree" had, it seemed, proved too much 
 for a brain at no time one of the strongest, and he had 
 passed the ten months which had elapsed since his 
 disappearance in the county asylum, where, in Christmas 
 week, he was seen and recognised by an honest farmer 
 and his wife on visiting their lunatic son. 
 
 They described him as alive and well, and except 
 for a rooted conviction that he was the Emperor of 
 Germany, and an unfortunate disposition to bite every 
 one who refused to pay him homage as sane, they 
 said, as they were. The Canon set oft* at once to make 
 sure there was no mistake, being accompanied by 
 Martha, who was obliged to acknowledge the identity 
 of her husband. How his boots and his waistcoat came 
 to be worn by another man was a mystery which was 
 never cleared up. But there he was, an incontrovertible 
 fact ; so Martha had to pay back the insurance money, 
 
 168
 
 AUNT JINNY 
 
 and to say good-bye to Joe, and to Income Mi's. 
 Billington again. She left Thornleigh and returned to 
 the town, where she- supported herself by washing, and 
 was much honoured and respected to the end of her days, 
 as became a woman with a grievance. It was not merely 
 the fact of being a grass-widow with a husband in a 
 lunatic asylum which called forth the sympathy of her 
 acquaintances " but to think that she spent all that 
 money in bury in 1 a man as was no kin to her ? " eh, she 
 had seen trouble, poor soul ! 
 
 Joe bore up wonderful, Thornleigh said, and the 
 children were out of their wits with joy. As for Aunt 
 Jinny, she postponed her dying to an indefinite period, 
 and went back to keep house for them again. And 
 though she was stiff* and rheumatic still, it was won- 
 derful how much work she managed to get through. 
 Soon the episode of Joe's second marriage was remem- 
 bered only as a bad dream ; but Jinny never laid her 
 down " o" 1 neets "" without breathing a prayer " for all 
 poor folks as has no home o' their own.' 1 '' 
 
 ;> 
 
 169
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 OF THE WALL
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 THE park wall of Thornleigh Hall forms a background 
 to the village, and the wood on the other side is a very 
 paradise to the children. In the long spring evenings 
 a dozen or so may often be seen scaling this boundary 
 wall, and with a careful twist of their little persons 
 for there still remain some fragments of broken glass 
 on the coping and a flourish of arms and legs, disap- 
 pearing one by one. Then begin birds-nesting, and 
 fern-collecting, and flower-gathering, and a score of 
 other delights, all the sweeter because forbidden. If a 
 keeper comes in sight, or a gardener, or a member of 
 " the family, "" there is a sudden stampede, and in two 
 minutes lo and behold ! nothing is to be heard or seen 
 but a group of urchins innocently playing marbles in 
 the village street. 
 
 On principle I am of course opposed to anything 
 which savours of trespassing, but still I must own that 
 if I were a little village boy I should find it hard to 
 
 173
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 keep out of Thornleigh woods ; indeed, even as it is, 
 
 I fear I spend 
 many an hour in 
 their enticing 
 shade which should 
 be more profitably 
 employed. Birds- 
 nesting never did 
 possess any charms 
 for me, and I like 
 to see the ferns 
 and flowers 
 growing where 
 
 they list better 
 than gathering or 
 transplanting them ; but 
 certain emotions and enthu- 
 siasms wake within me as I stroll under these branches 
 
 174
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 which make me tolerate and even sympathise with little 
 freebooters in corduroys. I confess that my heart beats 
 as I prowl round " likely " bushes, and of a sudden, with 
 a shriek and a flapping of wings, a blackbird or a thrush 
 flies almost into my face. There is her nest, and there 
 the tempting eggs warm from her breast one can 
 understand the itching of schoolboy fingers to lay hold 
 of them. In the entrance of a disused rabbit-hole, low 
 down in a mossy bank I know of, a pair of robins built 
 once, and many a time did I kneel in a rather muddy 
 ditch to peer into their curious dwelling-place, the little 
 palpitating mother sitting on her eggs the while. 
 
 Ay, this is magic ground; there is witchery in 
 woodland sights and sounds and scents. Those rows of 
 daffodils that " take the winds of March with beauty " 
 how shall an urchin refrain from gathering an armful 
 of them is not " a boy's will the wind's will ? " But 
 to me the long undulating golden lines are lovelier 
 when unbroken. There is abundance of gold here 
 when the year is young here a patch of primroses, 
 there a very plain of celandine, golden moss on ground 
 and tree-trunk, a golden mist of opening leaf-buds, and 
 golden sunshine over all. Ah ! that little water-hen in 
 yonder pool, how she dives at sight of me ! Her wee 
 simpletons of chicks paddle distractedly over the spot 
 where she has disappeared, dipping their heads in 
 imitation of her, but leaving the rest of their minute 
 
 175-
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 egg-shaped bodies in full view. A group of wild 
 cherry-trees stand near this pool, and in the spring its 
 waters are white with fallen blossoms. Late spring or 
 early summer is the time to see Thornleigh woods in 
 their glory ; when their green livery is at its leafiest, 
 and the undergrowth of rhododendrons is ablaze with 
 blossom ; the white and pink and crimson of the 
 cultivated varieties contrasting with the more plentiful 
 lilac of the wild ones. Some of these have spread to be 
 very trees, with twisted branches, and a thickness of 
 trunk under their shining green which testify to their 
 age ; yet year after year the blossoms cover them, fresh 
 and young and sweet laughing children climbing 
 round the old stock. 
 
 Up this beaten path to the right one can get a 
 glimpse of the Hall. Not a very imposing building 
 perhaps, with its low frontal and irregular architecture 
 a wing here, a tower there, windows at uneven levels, 
 the very stones, where the ivy lets them be visible, of 
 every conceivable shape and size. But if these stones 
 could cry out, what a tale would they tell ! Many a 
 curious drama has been enacted within those old walls, 
 and many a strange vicissitude have they witnessed ! 
 Certain of the records treasured in the Squire's study 
 yonder tell us mournful and curious histories of the 
 struggles it cost those stout old ancestors of his to 
 cleave to their traditions. As Catholics and Jacobites, 
 
 176
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 one may imagine how many storms they weathered, 
 how often ruin must have stared them in the face, 
 banished as they were, and imprisoned, and fined. But 
 they held on their way still, clinging to their ancient 
 manor while their people clung to them. To this day 
 
 the bond between squire and tenant is almost unique in 
 its strength. The Thornleigh people are shrewd, and 
 rugged, and hard-headed enough, the last in the world 
 to be accused of truckling to the higher powers ; but 
 they love and support their squire because he belongs 
 to them, and they understand each other. Their 
 fathers did the same by his father, and the bond can 
 be traced backward for many generations. Perhaps no 
 stronger proof of the harmony of relations between 
 
 177 M
 
 OX THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 landlord and people can be cited than the fact that there 
 are few leases on the property, most of the tenants 
 holding their land by virtue of a verbal agreement. 
 
 Thornleigh possesses its own Local Board, and levies 
 its own rates, ay, and discusses them hotly the Squire 
 arguing from the chair, the members growling forth 
 their opinions as they sit round the board ; everything 
 is on a free and friendly footing at these meetings a 
 very good footing, which is more than is ever likely to 
 be afforded by their roads. 
 
 But now it is time to say a word or two about 
 the lord of the manor himself. "A fine old English 
 gentleman " indeed, but not of the hackneyed type ; 
 none of your drinking, brawling, swearing ruffians, who 
 are frequently cited to us as samples of "the old 
 school."" There is never a foul word to be found on his 
 lips, or an ungenerous thought in his heart. He will 
 uphold his dignity on principle, and is tenacious of 
 family traditions ; but he would not think it beneath 
 him to shake hands or exchange jests, on occasion, with 
 the poorest of his labourers, and he can do a day's work 
 still with the best of them. 
 
 Watching the tall burly figure, upright still in spite 
 of its seventy odd years, looking into the kindly open 
 face, hearing the cheery voice, one realises the magnetism 
 of his influence over a people, staunch and sturdy and 
 "jannock"" as himself. 
 
 178
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 See him now with coat and waistcoat open, and axe 
 on shoulder ; he has been thinning out the undergrowth 
 of elders in the woods. Indeed, as the people say, 
 " Squire's allus agate at summat." All country pursuits 
 are delightful to him. He is, of course, a sportsman 
 from the crown of his fine old white head to the soles 
 of his thick shooting-boots, and an adept in woodcraft 
 of every description, and is, besides, a clever gardener 
 and carpenter. He has indeed a carpenter's " shop " of 
 his own, where on wet days he spends hours, working 
 with as much zest and earnestness as though his living 
 depended on it. The real joiner's shop, yonder near 
 the farm-yard, is also a favourite resort of his, and 
 hardly a day passes that he does not visit the queer old 
 brace of carpenters at work there. These can hardly 
 be included among the "hangers-on"" of whom there 
 are so many at Thornleigh. When an old workman 
 begins, as he says, to "weer away," and is no longer 
 equal to much exertion, he becomes what is called " a 
 handy man," and is kept in heart and in pocket by the 
 daily allotment of nominal tasks. These are sometimes 
 a little difficult to find ; but the self-respect of the poor 
 old fellows who accomplish them is not wounded as would 
 be the case if they were offered money which they had not 
 earned. So they paint gates leisurely and without too 
 much attention to detail and salt bacon, and occa- 
 sionally trap rats. One old gentleman indeed became 
 
 179
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 such an adept in the destruction of this class of 
 vermin that no one ever called him anything but 
 " Billy Rat." I fancy that at last he himself would 
 have found it difficult to recall his "gradely name." 
 A queer, wizened-up, knowing-looking little fellow 
 was Billy, regarded by the village children with wonder 
 
 and awe, for his method of 
 exterminating rats was mys- 
 terious, not to say uncanny. 
 He did not trap them, or 
 hunt them with " tamers," or 
 poison them, at least not with 
 ordinary rat-poison. He j ust 
 " laid down " an innocent- 
 looking preparation of his 
 own, and the rats disappeared. 
 After Billy's dealings with 
 them never a rat was seen, or 
 heard, or, stranger still, smelt 
 about the place. But he 
 guarded his secret jealously, 
 and would reveal it to no one. It eventually died with 
 him, and the plague of rats has now returned to 
 Thornleigh. The old carpenters before alluded to, 
 however, are still equal to their full day's work, and 
 receive their full day's wage ; though the youngest of 
 the pair is seventy and the eldest the patriarch of the 
 
 180
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 village. The latter, Joseph Birch, is a tall lean old 
 man with marked features and a curiously pallid 
 complexion. He is almost blind, and to conceal this 
 fact, wears his hat tilted over his worst eye, with a 
 rakish air at variance with his rather serious face and 
 manner. His defective sight is a sore point with him, 
 and he is much put out if any one is ill-advised enough 
 to notice it; while he hastens to cover by laborious 
 explanations any chance awkwardness on his own part 
 which would seem to betray it. " I were just bethinkin 1 
 mysel 1 o" 1 summat, an 1 didn't chance to see ye," he 
 remarks, when he has perhaps violently cannoned 
 against you ; and then, staring in the direction from 
 which your voice proceeds, he will tell you that " you're 
 not lookin 1 so very well to-day," and ask " How's 
 that ? " Having by these precautions recovered the 
 ground lost by his false step, he shambles on again, 
 and, when he thinks you are out of sight, puts out his 
 hand cautiously and feels his way by the wall. 
 
 " One comfort is," he observed, once in a moment 
 of unusual confidence, "Squire's never found out as 
 there were aught amiss." The little fiction of the 
 perfect clearness of Joseph's vision is indeed kept up 
 by the master with quite as much perseverance as the 
 man. 
 
 " Do you see ? " the Squire says, pointing out some 
 defect, or describing some wished-for alteration in the 
 
 181
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 job on hand ; and Joseph puts his head on one side 
 and scratches his jaw meditatively, and remarks that 
 he has noticed that himself, or that indeed he has 
 unbethought himself about it, and doesn't seem to 
 fancy the looks of it as it stands. 
 
 He is a first-rate carpenter in spite of his affliction, 
 and his work, planned and measured as it is entirely by 
 touch, is neat and solid. 
 
 His brother craftsman, the youngster of seventy 
 already alluded to, is looked on by his chief, and most 
 of their fellow labourers, with a kind of half-pitying 
 contempt. His youth, to begin with, is against him, 
 and besides, he is a new-comer and- comparatively a 
 stranger, having only worked on the estate a matter of 
 thirty year or so. Why, many in the place can re- 
 member the day he came tramping from Cheshire with 
 a bundle under his arm, looking for work ! That alone, 
 it is owned by even the friendliest of his neighbours, 
 would make a body think different. It is true, he 
 comes of decent stock, it is said, and was even then a 
 clever artisan ; but " there's allus a kind of a feeling ye 
 know, when ye don't know a man's folks, an' wheer he's 
 corned from, an' that." So Robert is tolerated, and 
 patronised, and occasionally put in his place ; and bears 
 it all with exceeding good humour. He is a small, 
 slight, wiry man, bald and white and toothless, and to 
 the full as deaf as Joseph is blind. Joseph is very kind 
 
 182
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 and magnanimous about his subordinate's infirmity, 
 though sometimes he is obliged to comment on it ; and 
 he whistles to Robert when he wishes to attract his 
 attention, and makes elaborate and extraordinary ges- 
 tures to illustrate his meaning in a compassionate and 
 condescending manner. 
 
 " Yon poor lad can't hear, ye know," says Joseph ; 
 and Robert's little blue eyes look up twinkling, and 
 presently he asks respectfully, " Did ye see the little 
 brad-awl anywhere ? " 
 
 A few years ago, another great crony of the Squire's 
 was alive. Old Johnny 
 was perhaps more de- 
 voted to his master than 
 any one else on the estate, 
 but then, as he said, he 
 had good reason to set 
 store by Squire. He was 
 a handsome, stalwart, 
 white-haired old fellow, 
 who had begun life as a 
 cow-man, and who to the 
 end of his career was con- 
 sulted by all the neigh- 
 Ixjurhood on knotty 
 points connected with live stock. On fine afternoons he 
 might be seen enthroned on a big stone in the farm- 
 
 183
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 yard, munching his baggin 1 or smoking his pipe, and 
 giving audience to his clients a picturesque figure in 
 his old-fashioned garments : long-tailed coat, blue 
 knitted stockings, clogs and breeches. There was a 
 story about those breeches which Johnnie would tell 
 occasionally, after a due amount of persuasion. 
 
 " They breeches ! Ah, I set a dale o" 1 store by they 
 breeches an 1 well I may."" 
 
 " They seem a good stout pair," one of the listeners 
 would perhaps suggest, perfectly aware that this was 
 not the reason Johnnie valued them, but anxious to 
 humour the old fellow by leading up to the point 
 gradually. 
 
 " Ah, they are that. Joe Orrell, as made "em, has 
 allus good stuff* I Mill say it stuff as \ill welly weer 
 for iver, an 1 look well to the last. Ah, he's a pretty fair 
 tailor is Joe, though "t isn't so much his part o 1 the 
 business as I think th' most on. Theer's others as has 
 had a hand i" 1 th' tailorin 1 o 1 these here breeches, I can 
 tell ye. Ye wouldn't happen think as Squire had aught 
 to say to them, would ye now ? " 
 
 Here his little audience would smile and nudge each 
 other : the story was coming now. " Ah," Johnnie 
 would continue, singling out with his eye any member 
 of the group to whom the tale was genuinely new, " ye 
 wouldn't think it but theer ! This is how it were. I 
 were comm' whoam latish, one neet, a two-three year 
 
 184
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 ago now. I'd been up yonder at Granny Gibson's seem 1 
 a pig as she had as were sick. It were at th' last, poor 
 beast, an 1 1 towd her she'd best send for butcher to fetch 
 it away. An' Granny took it very well she's rale 
 religious, is Granny. ' Th' will o' th' A'mighty be done ! ' 
 says she, ' an' arter all th' Lord's good. It might ha' 
 been one o' th' lads ! ' Well, as I were saying, I were 
 comin' whoam latish, an' takin' a short cut through the 
 wood, when all of a svidden I heerd summat creepin' 
 arter me sticks breakin', ye know, an' every now an' 
 then a sound same as a footstep. I turned me round 
 an' looked, an' theer was nowt as I could see, so then 
 on I went, an' the creepin' an' crackin' went on too. 
 
 " ' Well,' thinks I, ' this is strange ! ' an' I didn't feel 
 not to say comfortable, for all the boggart tales as 
 iver I'd heerd come into my head, an' I'd half a mind 
 to turn back an' not go through th' owd buryin' ground 
 as lays theer, ye know, just at th' corner o' the wood. 
 Folks as pass by theer o' neets tell queer tales. But if 
 I'd gone back I'd ha' had to pass yon thing, whativer 
 it were, as were folio win' me, so that stopped me 
 again. 
 
 " Well, I gave another look round. It were gettin' 
 reet dark, but I thought I saw a shape o' some mak' 
 under th' trees. That was enough ! Off' I set, runnin' 
 as 'ard as iver my poor owd legs 'ud take me, an' if th' 
 thing didn't begin runnin' too ! I dursn't look round 
 
 185
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 again, but I could "ear it plain. Well, I knowed theer 
 weren't no use i' my thinkin' I could run faster nor it, 
 but I bethought mysel' all at once o' th' owd cross i' th' 
 middle o' th' burial-ground, an" 1 says I, ' If I can but 
 reach yon, no boggart as iver walked can come next or 
 nigh me." 1 Theer it were, an" 1 theer was I sweatin' to 
 get to it, an 1 yon were th' boggart comin' arter me fast. 
 I clomb up the mound (wi' th' boggart behind me) an"* 
 catched howd o' th' cross, an 1 if th' big stone top doesn't 
 give way ! Down I comes faster nor I got up, with it 
 a- top o' me, an" 1 my two legs broke ! " 
 
 Pause, during which Johnnie looked triumphantly 
 round, enjoying the sensation. " Well,"" he would re- 
 sume presently, " I were knocked a bit silly at first, as 
 ye may think, but when I come to, theer was a leet 
 flashin' i' my eyes, an" 1 Squire an" 1 Bob Prescott bendin' 
 over me. 
 
 " ' Eh, Johnnie, Johnnie, 1 says Bob, ' howiver could I 
 guess it were you ? Why didn't ye holler ? ' says he ; 
 * in all the fifty year as I've been keeper 'ere, I niver see 
 such a piece o' work as this ! ' 
 
 " ' Wheer's th' boggart ? ' groans I, as well as I could, 
 for th' pain o' my legs was awful. 
 
 " ' Did you take Bob for a boggart ? ' says Squire. 
 An' ' Eh man ! ' says Bob, ' I took ye for wan o' they 
 raskilly poachers ! ' an' he were fair cry in', poor owd lad, 
 thinkin' he'd done for me. 
 
 186
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 " ' Come, Bob, 1 says Squire, ' pull yourself together ; 
 get some one to help us to carry this poor fellow home, 1 
 he says. ' His legs are broken, and must be seen to at 
 once. 1 
 
 " ' Eh, Squire don't ye trouble yourself, 1 says I. ' Fm 
 done for ! I am that ! ' 
 
 "'Keep up your heart, old chap, 1 says Squire; an 1 
 he sits down aside o 1 me wi 1 's pipe in 's mouth, an 1 
 looks at me. ' Keep up your heart, old chap ; yeVe 
 pretty tough, you know, Johnnie. Well have you 
 about again in no time. 1 
 
 "Well, arter a bit, a lot o 1 lads comes fro 1 th 1 
 village, an 1 our missus wi 1 them, cryin 1 fit to break 
 her ""cart. 
 
 " ' Come, come, Molly, 1 says Squire, ' he^ not dead 
 yet. 1 ' "T won't be long first, though, 1 says th 1 lads as 
 were shiftin 1 me. Eh, I thought I sh\l ha died upo 1 th 1 
 road ; but when they geet me home an 1 laid me o 1 th 1 
 bed, Squire come an 1 stood aside o 1 me. ' Now, 1 says he, 
 ' there isn^ any doctor at hand, Johnnie, so Fin going 
 to do what I can for you myself. 1 
 
 " ' It's very good of you, Fm sure, Squire, 1 says I, 
 groanin 1 awful, ' but I doubt its scarce worth your while 
 I reckon I mun dee. 1 
 
 " ' Nonsense, 1 said Squire, ' a broken leg or two never 
 killed a man yet. 1 (Ah, that's what he said ' a broken 
 leg or two ! ") ' Now, let's see, 1 says he, ' these breeches 
 
 187
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 11 have to come off, and they're such a beautiful tight 
 fit you are such a dandy, Johnnie, you know we 
 cant pull them off." 1 
 
 " ' Eh, lord ! ' says I, all of a shake at th' notion, 
 ' don't go for to do that, Squire ! Cut 'em cut 
 'em t' pieces, if ye like I'll niver want 'em no 
 more ? ' 
 
 "'Johnnie, don't be wasteful,' says Squire, as cool 
 as a cucumber. ' A good, stout, serviceable pair of 
 breeches ! Of course you'll want them again, and you'll 
 be very sorry if they're spoilt.' 
 
 " Then he whips out his knife, an' looks across at th' 
 missus. ' Don't be frightened, Molly,' says he, ' I'll do 
 no damage.' 
 
 " An' if ye'll believe me, he slit down the seams, that 
 careful, ye know, stitch by stitch, an' me hollerin' all 
 the time, as 't weren't no use his takin' all that trouble, 
 an' 't were nobbut a wooden suit as I wanted now 
 meanin' the coffin, ye know. Squire niver tak's no 
 notice, an' goes on just same, an' when he'd done he 
 hands over th' breeches to our missus. 'There now,' 
 he says, ' ye can sew 'em up again, an' they'll be ready 
 for the gaffer when he gets about.' 
 
 " Well, he'd done it as clever, th' owd woman said, as 
 she could ha' done hersel'. Niver so much as a thread 
 o' th' stuff cut. Then he hunts up laths, an' handker- 
 chers, an' that, an' sets my legs for me. An' here they 
 
 188
 
 OF THE WALL 
 
 are, reet enough, breeches an 1 legs too as good as new, 
 I may say ! " 
 
 Here Johnnie used to stretch out his nether-limbs 
 and gaze at them affectionately, ejaculating half to 
 himself " Squire's handiwork ! " 
 
 There was universal regret when the quaint old figure 
 disappeared from our midst. Johnnie had been repair- 
 ing a certain fence, which he was anxious that the Squire 
 should find in good condition on his return to the Hall 
 after a short absence, and worked so eagerly that he 
 caught a chill. For two or three days he lingered, 
 dozing a good deal, and sometimes wandering, talk- 
 ing chiefly of his work, as these simple, toilful old 
 folk do. 
 
 " He fancies he's about yon fence still," whispered his 
 daughter, between her tears. And Johnnie went on 
 drowsily chopping wood, and hammering nails, gesticu- 
 lating with his big feeble hands, and muttering half- 
 articulate comments on his fancied labour. " Theer we 
 are reet . . . Yon's too short, I doubt ... A plague 
 vipon those nails . . . Theer, now we're gettin' it." 
 And then he fell to plucking at the sheet, and was 
 silent silent so long and so absolutely that his children, 
 grey-haired men and women some of them, and his 
 children's children, who had gathered round his bed, 
 looked at each other inquiringly. 
 
 " He's gone," said one at last. But not yet. His 
 189
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL 
 
 eyes opened once more and travelled round slowly, and 
 a smile crept over his face. 
 
 " I mun see an"* get a' fettled up afore Squire comes 
 home,"" he said, and then closed his eyes with a little 
 sigh and went Home himself. 
 
 190
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 ALL the chubby rosy little people who may be seen 
 flocking to Thornleigh school are not natives of the 
 place : there is a floating population of " boarders-out " 
 workhouse children billeted here and there in the 
 village by " the Union." They are principally girls, for 
 the thrifty Thornleigh matrons value the "hand's turn" 
 they can get out of them occasionally quite as much as 
 " the bit o 1 money " that they receive for their keep. 
 But now and then a farmer or a cow-keeper finds a 
 pauper lad " come in useful " for driving a milk-cart, or 
 cleaning shippons, or performing odd jobs that it seems 
 a pity to " pay out wage " for. It is only fair to say 
 that as a rule these children are exceedingly well fed and 
 well treated ; but nevertheless there is, and always will 
 be, a certain distinction made between little Isaac and 
 little Ishmael. Thus, while the child of the house is 
 free to play by the roadside after school, the workhouse 
 child must come in, and scrub a floor or clean the pots 
 and pans : here and there their meals, though the same 
 
 193 N
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 in quality as those of the rest of the family, are partaken 
 of at a separate table, and at Christmas-time, when 
 there is dancing and tea-drinking and merry-making all 
 over the place, the little boarders-out are left behind. 
 The Canon usually gave a consolation party for the 
 " pauperines " as he called them. There was joy and 
 triumph ! The proud sisters had perforce to stay at 
 home, and the little Cinderellas went to the party ; and 
 the Canon poured out their tea, and stuffed them with 
 cakes, and told them stories, and played the piano for 
 them to dance to ; altogether there was no end to the 
 rapture and the glory. 
 
 Jack Davis was a workhouse boy who had been 
 brought up at Thornleigh from the age of two, his 
 master, Farmer Moms, calculating that he would be big 
 enough to work by the time his companion pauper, a lad 
 of eight, was too old to be paid for by the Union. Some 
 people laughed at this foresight of Farmer Morris's, 
 and reckoned the brat would do more damage than his 
 keep was worth long before any work could be got out 
 of him. 
 
 But as time passed the village folk changed their tune, 
 for not only did his master find him useful, but nearly 
 every man, woman, and child in the place contrived to 
 get " a hand's turn " out of Jack. Now the little round- 
 faced, fair-haired lad would l)e seen driving in the cows 
 for Mr. Waring, now running to the shop for Granny 
 
 194
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 Gibson, or to the pump with Polly Birches kettle, or to 
 some distant field with Joe Rutherford's baggin'; and 
 
 now toiling along the dusty road which led to Upton, 
 bent almost double under the weight of an overflowing 
 
 195
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 clothes-basket, while its rightful owner sauntered 
 leisurely in the rear, gossiping with a friend. 
 
 The women rewarded him with a " There^s a good 
 lad ! " the men with an inarticulate grunt at the end of 
 his journey ; and little Jack would look up brightly, and 
 wipe his brow with his jacket sleeve and start off at a 
 brisk pace to see if he was wanted anywhere else. There 
 never was such a good-natured, good-humoured, "willing'" 
 urchin as Jack Davis everybody liked him and every- 
 body made a drudge of him. The " little beast of 
 burden," as the Canon called him, was so ubiquitous, 
 so obliging, so prompt, so blithe, that it was almost 
 impossible to avoid taking advantage of his anxiety to 
 make himself useful. 
 
 "Who is to fetch that parcel of books from the 
 station ? " the priest would ask, perhaps. 
 
 " Oh, Jack Davis said he would go after school,"" the 
 mistress would reply as a matter of course. 
 
 " Did you, Jack ? I thought ray housekeeper was 
 sending you in the opposite direction for some eggs ? " 
 
 Then Jack would stand up, extending his little red 
 paw as a sign that he wished to speak : his blue eyes 
 jumping out of his head with eagerness. 
 
 "Please, Canon, I can easy do both afore milkin" 1 time ! "" 
 
 " Milking time ! " echoed the Canon with his kindly 
 laugh. " I had forgotten Mr. Waringfs cows. Poor 
 little beast of burden ! " 
 
 196
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 He knew there was nothing which offended Jack 
 more deeply than to refuse his proffered services, or, 
 indeed, to neglect to ask for them when required. 
 Once Jack had cried for a week because the Canon had 
 omitted to tell him he was setting out on a journey at 
 five o'clock in the morning, and the child was too late 
 to carry his bag to the station. On the next occasion 
 Jack " made sure "" of him by sitting on the doorstep of 
 the Presbytery all night. 
 
 With this general amiability, Jack was so diligent at 
 his lessons, so punctual in coming to church, so pious, 
 so honest, so painstaking, that sometimes the Canon 
 would shake his head over his excessive goodness. 
 
 " It can't last," he would say. " I know it can't last. 
 He will either die or take to ' coortin 1 ! ' ' 
 
 But years went by, and the Union left off' paying 
 for Jack, and Mr. Morris began to pay him the very 
 smallest sum he could decently offer him, and Jack 
 went on working for him and everybody else, and grew 
 a little taller and a good deal broader ; and by-and-by 
 a sort of flaxen fluff' appeared on his upper lip. He 
 would very soon be a man ; and yet so far the 
 alternatives dreaded by the Canon seemed equally 
 remote. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon, however, the Canon happened 
 to be strolling along a lane in the neighbourhood of 
 the village, when he came suddenly face to face with 
 
 197
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 Jack and a young lady. A very smart young lady, 
 though up to the last two years she had been a 
 pauperine. She was now servant at one of the farms at 
 Upton, and in the receipt of sufficiently high wages to 
 enable her to wear a locket with a blue stone in it, and 
 a hat with a pink feather. I am not quite sure if she 
 was leaning on Jack's arm, or Jack on hers, but arm-in- 
 arm they were, and Apparently on most affectionate 
 terms. 
 
 The Canon stood stock-still in the middle of the 
 path and gave them one of his terrible looks. 
 
 " John Davis," said the Canon, " and Margaret Lunt, 
 what is the meaning of this ? " 
 
 John Davis stood motionless, his eyes goggling, and 
 his face turning from red to purple and from purple 
 to white. Margaret Lunt sobbed, and choked, and 
 coughed, and then putting her finger and thumb in 
 her mouth took out a large bull's-eye. 
 
 " Please Canon, he's my young man,'" she observed, 
 diffidently. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the Canon, and then he turned to 
 Jack, but found it difficult to preserve his gravity as he 
 descried the outline of what was evidently a companion 
 bull's-eye clearly defined in the youth's cheek. Steadying 
 his voice, he resumed with becoming severity : " John, 
 I am surprised at you ! How often have you heard me 
 speak about the folly and more than folly of such 
 
 198
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 behaviour as this ? Do you not know that I always set 
 mv face against this this senseless love-making which 
 can never come to anything ? " 
 
 " Please, Canon," returned Jack, speaking somewhat 
 inarticulately, partly on account of emotion and partly 
 on account of the bull's-eye " please Canon, we was 
 we was comin 1 to you." 
 
 " Coming to me ? What for ? " 
 
 Jack nudged Maggie, who, as a rule, was more glib 
 with her tongue than he ; but on this occasion she was 
 so much overwhelmed with bashfulness that she could 
 only hang her head, till the Canon observed that the 
 pink feather was fastened at the back of her hat with a 
 very large and crooked brass pin. 
 
 " Well ? " he asked, after a pause. 
 
 Maggie nudged Jack and murmured indignantly, 
 " Go on kian't ye ? " 
 
 " Canon," said Jack, " I take it rayther 'ard that ye 
 should sauce us for what's nobbut reet. Maggie an 1 
 me's made up our minds to get wed, an' we was just 
 comin" 1 to ax ye if ye'd put us up next Sunday the 
 banns, ye know 
 
 Here the would-be bridegroom came to a sudden 
 stop owing to the bull's-eye unexpectedly tumbling out 
 of his mouth : he looked down at it as it- rolled along 
 the path, and then put his foot on it, much as if it had 
 been a beetle. 
 
 199
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 " Banns ! " said the Canon, struggling with a violent 
 inclination to laugh, " and bull's-eyes ! How old are 
 you, Jack ? " 
 
 " Very near nineteen," responded Jack with somewhat 
 sulky dignity. " An" 1 as for they bull's-eyes, I dunnot 
 mak' so much count o' them. It's Maggie as was that 
 set on my tryin' one 
 
 " ' The woman gave me . . . and I did eat," 1 " muttered 
 the Canon, and he laughed outright. " The old story ! 
 So you are fond of bull's-eyes, Maggie ? There, don't 
 be afraid hold up your head. I don't at all find fault 
 with the bull's-eyes I only object to the banns. How 
 old are you, Maggie ?" 
 
 " I'm turned sixteen," whispered Maggie, faintly. 
 
 " Oh, children, children ! " said the Canon laughing 
 again, but presently composing himself, he sat down 
 on the bank that edged the road, and 'looked at 
 Jack, who somehow did not seem so crestfallen as he 
 expected. 
 
 " What are you going to marry on ? " he asked more 
 seriously. " How do you propose to live ? You both 
 only earn a few shillings a week besides your board, 
 and when Maggie gives up her place she will of course 
 lose that ; and even if Mr. Morris continues to employ 
 you which I doubt I am quite sure he will not give 
 you wages enough to keep a wife on. No no, it is 
 absurd for either of you to think of marriage for several 
 
 200
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 years to come. And meanwhile there must be no talk 
 of keeping company understand that." 
 
 " Canon," said Jack much wounded, but still dignified, 
 " it's j ust because I do understand that I were comin' 
 to ye. Td niver have gone for to say a word to 
 Maggie without I had it all settled. Her an" me's 
 goin' to live in town when we're wed. I've the promise 
 of a job down at th' docks an 1 good wage they give 
 too an' I've seen a room as '11 just suit us. An' we's 
 do very well. Why should we wait ? She's no one, 
 an' I've no one ? If ye won't do the job yoursel' we can 
 get married at Upton. But I niver thought," added 
 Jack, with tears starting to his eyes " I niver thought 
 as it 'ud be any one but our own Canon as 'ud 
 He paused, too much moved to continue. 
 
 The Canon was a little overcome himself, for he was 
 very fond of Jack, and besides being sorry to part with 
 him, he could not but see that this was a foolish busi- 
 ness and would probably end in misery. The mere 
 thought of these youthful simpletons exchanging their 
 healthy happy country home for a room in some slum 
 near the docks was in itself a source of anxiety. And 
 then marriage before the bridegroom was nineteen 
 beginning life " on the promise of a job ! " it was 
 deplorable ! Nevertheless, in spite of everything he 
 could urge, Jack stuck to his point. Maggie and he 
 would take their chance ; but get wed they would, and if 
 
 201
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 Canon wouldn't shout them next Sunday they would go 
 to Upton. 
 
 " You are a couple of geese,"" said the Canon, getting 
 off the bank at last ; " but if any one is to marry you, 
 it shall be myself. 11 
 
 " Shouted " they accordingly were on the appointed 
 day, to the intense amusement of Thornleigh, which was 
 unanimous in voting them "a pair of noddies." As 
 neither of them had any relations that they knew of, 
 nobody gave them anything except good advice. Of 
 that they received enough and to spare, though the sum 
 and substance of it all might have been condensed into 
 the one famous word addressed by Mr. Punch to people 
 in their situation. But they would and they did, 
 though presently Thornleigh, growing irate at their 
 pigheadedness, said some severe things and uttered 
 gloomy prophecies ; Farmer Waring going so far as to 
 tell Jack that he needn't come looking for help there 
 when he and his wife found themsel's beggars. 
 
 " 111 clem first ! " cried Jack with an angry flash in 
 his eyes : it was the only time he lost his temper. Up 
 to this he had received advice, remonstrances, and 
 reprimands with imperturbable good-humour, but this 
 remark " cut him a bit,"" as he subsequently observed. 
 
 All the same, on his wedding morning he drove 
 up Farmer Waring's cows for him as usual, and filled 
 Granny Gibson's kettle, and fed Mrs. Birch's pigs ; and 
 
 202
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 then he changed his coat and went to fetch Maggie 
 to church. Maggie had expended her last remaining 
 shillings on a lace collar and a pair of flesh-coloured 
 silk gloves, which had to be peeled oft* with great 
 difficulty when the ceremony was about to begin. Jack 
 wore his rather threadbare Sunday clothes; he could 
 not afford to make any difference in his attire, for, 
 though he had been saving for several months before 
 he spoke to Maggie, his little capital was sadly dimin- 
 ished by the time he had purchased "the ring," and 
 paid for the hire of a room, and the few " sticks " of 
 furniture that were absolutely indispensable. 
 
 Nevertheless, as they stood at the altar rails together 
 the Canon thought he had never seen so radiant a pair ; 
 and when they finally walked off arm-in-arm he smiled 
 and sighed together. 
 
 " Poor little beast of burden ! "" he said, " I wonder if 
 he realises the weight of the load he has taken on his 
 shoulders this time ! But, after all, they have youth, 
 
 and hope, and health, and love God bless my 
 
 little paupers ! " 
 
 He watched them as they descended the church steps 
 and walked down the path ; Maggie's head nodding, and 
 the skirt of her dress giving a little kick-up at the back 
 at every step. There was no giggling crowd waiting at 
 the lych-gate to deluge them with rice; nobody had 
 time or inclination to assist at this insignificant wedding; 
 
 203
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 no carnage was in attendance to convey them home 
 according to Thornleigh custom even if you only live 
 
 fifty yards away from 
 the church it is the 
 proper thing to drive 
 to and from your wed- 
 ding ; no substantial 
 meal was spread for 
 them, no jocular guests 
 gathered round, no 
 health-drinking antici- 
 pated. Jack had some 
 slices of bread and 
 meat in a handkerchief, 
 .." ^*"^|^ and Maggie had goose- 
 berries in a paper bag ; 
 
 and thus provided they set off to spend their holiday 
 in the fields. 
 
 Jack was to " start work " on the morrow, and this 
 was to be their last day in the country, so they were 
 determined to make the most of it. 
 
 It was beautiful summer weather : larks were singing 
 overhead and butterflies flashing through the air ; and 
 there were cuckoo flowers in the grass, and marsh mari- 
 golds and "water-creases'" and fat-stemmed blue forget- 
 me-nots in the ditches. Once a big bumble-bee came 
 booming and blundering past in such a hurry that he 
 
 204
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 nearly flew into Maggie's face ; and she was frightened 
 and clung to Jack with a little scream. 
 
 " What's to do, Mrs. Davis ?"" said Jack, which sally 
 they both considered so exquisitely funny that they 
 stood still and laughed till the cows and horses grazing 
 in distant fields raised astonished heads, and looked at 
 them. Then they walked on sedately, Maggie resting 
 her left hand on Jack's arm, and smiling complacently 
 down at it every now and then : she had not resumed 
 her gloves, partly because she was hot, and partly be- 
 cause she was economical, but chiefly because she could 
 not see her wedding-ring clearly through the silk. 
 
 After threading many fields, and pausing to rest 
 themselves on a gate, they reached a range of sand- 
 hills bordering the sea-shore, and came to a stand -still 
 beneath the steepest mound. 
 
 " I mind, 11 said Maggie, with a half-sigh of sentimental 
 reminiscence, " how I used to roll down this hill when I 
 was a child." 
 
 " Would ye like a roll now ? " said Jack ; " I'll shove 
 ye off from th 1 top."" 
 
 "Eh, lad, how can ye talk such nonsense,"" replied 
 Maggie bridling ; " for shame of ye ! " 
 
 Thereupon Jack, composing his features, explained 
 that he had only been joking ; and they climbed the hill 
 with much sliding and laughing and screaming from the 
 bride, whose arm was nearly dislocated by her husband 
 
 205
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 in his strenuous efforts to haul her along. Finally they 
 reached the top and sat down, panting and laughing 
 still ; and when they recovered their breath they ate 
 their dinner. Jack called Maggie " Missus " through- 
 out this meal, and Maggie assumed pretty little airs of 
 matronly importance. But presently they got tired of 
 being dignified and began to try who could throw the 
 gooseberry-skins farthest down the hill. By-and-by a 
 bi; steamer was visible on the distant horizon, and Jack 
 
 O * 
 
 explained all about it to Maggie ; then a white-sailed 
 schooner hove in sight, which he also pointed out 
 calling it a brig by-the-by. In the far, far distance a 
 forest of masts were defined against the clear sky 
 clear, save for the light cloud of smoke which hung 
 over them and the adjacent town. 
 
 " Yon^s the docks," cried Jack, nudging Maggie ; 
 " and nigh to them's home, lass ! " 
 
 " Home,"" echoed Maggie gazing at the masts, and the 
 smoke, and the distant roofs and chimneys with eager, 
 ignorant eyes. 
 
 There was a delicious little breeze lurking somewhere 
 near the top of that sand-hill, which went rustling 
 through the star-grass every now and then, bending it 
 into blue-green ripples, refreshing to look at ; but the 
 sun was hot enough to please Jack and Maggie, and 
 there was a little patch of wild thyme just beneath their 
 feet which sent up new fragrance every time they pressed 
 
 206
 
 LITTLE PAUPERS 
 
 it. The tide was in, and gulls were floating on the edge 
 of the water, sometimes rising high above their heads 
 with shrill screams and flappings of silver wings. 
 
 So the day wore away, and at last the great pageant 
 of sunset was enacted for these happy pauper children 
 as they sat poised in mid-air upon their glittering 
 throne of sand; and as they watched the golden sky 
 and the golden waters, they felt themselves rich enough. 
 And when the sun disappeared, and all the landscape 
 was bathed in a mellow after-glow, they went hand- 
 in-hand together down the hill and into the wide 
 world. 
 
 207
 
 HERE AND THERE
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 THERE has been a certain appearance of gloom over- 
 hanging the village during the last few days : the 
 wheelwright, handsome, genial Robert Whitgrave, died 
 on Sunday, and was carried to his " long home " yester- 
 day. Poor Robert no one ever thought he would go 
 off like that. It is true he was " getting into years 
 pretty well," and had grown-up children and half-a- 
 dozen or so of grandchildren ; but he was hale and 
 hearty still, and could do a day's work with the 
 youngest. On Sunday, just as he was smoking a quiet 
 pipe in the garden before " cleaning him " for church, 
 he fell down in an apoplectic fit and never spoke 
 again. 
 
 " It was a mercy," sobbed his wife through her tears, 
 " that he hadn't time to put on his best suit. 'T 
 'ud ha' bin ruined for sure, for he fell reet again th' 
 pigsty." 
 
 The Thornleigh folk are not sentimental, as has been 
 before stated, and see no incongruity in a widow's 
 
 211
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 consoling herself with such reflections as these, even in 
 the first keenness of her sorrow, but the sorrow is none 
 the less genuine for its undercurrent of thrift. Thrift, 
 indeed, so oddly associated with grief among these good 
 plain-speaking village mourners, that sometimes it leads 
 to results which almost take one's breath away. I 
 remember once paying a visit of condolence to a poor 
 woman who had lost her two sons under peculiarly sad 
 circumstances within a few months of each other. After 
 many lamentations on her part, and expressions of 
 sympathy on mine, I sought to change the conversation, 
 and by way of raising Mrs. Wick's spirits began to praise 
 her tidy parlour, which, indeed, with its raddled floor, 
 polished furniture, and wealth of antimacassars and 
 china, was the picture of what a cottage parlour 
 should be. 
 
 " That is new, isn't it, Mrs. Wick ? " I said, pointing 
 to a large mat on the hearth, very neatly made of strips 
 of cloth fastened on canvas. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, our Lizzie made it."" 
 
 " It is very nice indeed. Where did she get all those 
 bits of cloth ? I suppose she begged the tailor for some 
 odds and ends." 
 
 " Eh, dear no, ma'am," returned Mrs. Wick, raising 
 the corner of her apron to her eyes, " it's the lads 1 
 clothes, ma'am. Ye see we couldn't make up our minds 
 to part with them, an' it seemed a pity to let 'em 
 
 212
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 go to waste, so our Lizzie she took and made them 
 into that, and it looks very well now, doesn't it ? " 
 
 The wheelwright's yard is desolate enough to-day, 
 with no bustling figure moving about it, no cheerful 
 clinking and hammering sounding from the shed ; and 
 within, a doleful party are 
 gathered round the fire. 
 Grief is still too new 
 to permit poor Ro- 
 bert's womankind 
 to set about their 
 ordinary occupations, 
 as they sit shaking 
 their heads and look- 
 ing gloomily at each 
 other, while they re- 
 call various traits of 
 the departed. The 
 widow and her 
 daughters sit at the 
 
 table, the children of one of the latter perched awe- 
 stricken on a bench in a corner ; while " Granny ^ 
 Whitgrave, Robert's mother, a prodigiously old woman, 
 is in possesion of a chintz-covered arm-chair in the ingle- 
 nook. The younger members of the family receive the 
 visitor after the first words of welcome with mournful 
 and embarrassed silence, but Granny starts off, in a 
 
 213
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 quavering, piping voice, with garrulous lamentations 
 and touching reminiscences ; relating often and empha- 
 tically how poor Bob used to come in of an evenin' an 1 
 say, "'Granny' (he allus called me Granny), ' tak' a sup 
 o' gin, do. It'll do ye good, 1 he'd say. Ah ! he was 
 that thoughtful th' best son as a body could have. 
 4 Tak' a drop o' gin," 1 he'd say, he would." And so on, 
 and so on till the new-made widow breaks in with a well- 
 meant endeavour to cheer the old lady by inquiring, 
 " Who'd ever think as poor Robert 'ud be took before 
 her ? We was all expectin' her to go indeed we knew 
 very well that she couldn't last so long, and to think 
 that arter all he was took first." 
 
 Here a fresh diversion is caused by the youngest of 
 the children sliding off' the bench in the corner and 
 toddling up to its mother, laying a curly head in her 
 lap, and peering up shyly. 
 
 " Eh, ye'll niver guess what this lad's been playin' all 
 the morning," says the mother, stroking his curls 
 fondly. " What d'ye think ? Burying his grandpa ! " 
 
 The urchin laughs roguishly, and, mother, aunts, and 
 grandmother smile too even the great-grandmother 
 uttering a shrill cackle from her corner. 
 
 " Ah ! ye wouldn't believe it," pursues the mother, 
 sinking her voice, and winking towards me, " but theer 
 he dug a little hole so nice i' th' garden, and fetched a 
 little stone that was th' coffin, ye know * Now, pop 
 
 214
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 him in ! ' he says. 11 She laughs this time, and stoops, 
 beaming with modest pride, to kiss the child. They 
 are all laughing in the house of mourning when I leave 
 it, even the widow in spite of her heaving bosom and 
 swollen eyes. 
 
 A few doors lower down I make a visit of another 
 kind. A young couple live here, newcomers from the 
 south of England, whose first child arrived on the very 
 day of poor Robert Whitgrave's death. " Very unlucky," 
 the neighbours told the young mother. She has not 
 been much noticed up to this, being considered a 
 *' parvenu 11 and treated with the reserve which Thornleigh 
 metes out to such. But when the poor thing was 
 understood to be " near her time, 11 and to be feeling 
 lonesome and down-hearted in consequence, a few kind 
 creatures felt it was but their duty to go and cheer her 
 up a bit. So they dropped in, one by one, and told 
 her she looked real bad, and it would be a mercy if she 
 ever got over it. " Nobody ever lived in that house, 11 
 they added ; " the two last as had it died arter a few 
 months, an 1 quite young women too ah, just about 
 her age they were. Eh, dear ! it was a sad thing when 
 young women went an 1 leavin 1 children behind eh, it 
 was cruel ! Sometimes, though, the baby went along o 1 
 the mother particklerly if it were a first child ; an 1 
 happen in the long run that it was the best thing as it 
 could do poor little thing ! What could a man do, 
 
 215
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 ye know, as was left like that wi' a child to do for? 
 Well, it was to be "oped as Mrs. Summers 'ud get on 
 all right, but, poor soul, it was no wonder she felt 
 nervous an" 1 frightened. Did she hear that dog youlin' 
 last night ? A strange dog it were. Some people 
 said, ye know, as it wasn't for good when a strange dog 
 came youlin' through the village it was for a death, 
 ye know, so the sayin' went but there was no believin' 
 such tales as them. But Mrs. 
 Polly Birch (Will Birch's Polly) 
 she minded how once, when she 
 was a lass, a strange dog a kind 
 of a black and white greyhound 
 it were coom i' th' night to their 
 place, and run youlin' round the house 
 three times, an' then run off', an 1 her 
 mother had said, 'It's for a death, I doubt,' an' sure 
 enough not more nor a two-three weeks arter a 
 letter coom wi 1 a big black edge on it to say as 
 her sister were dead. Ah ! well, now Mrs. Summers 
 must keep her heart up, an' hope for the best. Did 
 she never hear no noises o' nights nor see anythin' 
 queer ? Well it was to be 'oped it was only mice, or 
 happen rats though rats was nasty things enough in a 
 house; sometimes if a body was ill or that, they got 
 that bold they'd run over the bed, they would aye, 
 an' bite a person's toes; but still, rats were but rats 
 
 216
 
 : RE AND THERE 
 
 arter all. But Margaret Lupton, the last as died i' th' 
 house, she used to walk a lot up an' down this very 
 room aye an" 1 stand for hours at yon gate when her 
 breathin' was bad she went oft* suddent at the end. 
 There were people in the village as said poor Margaret 
 was walkin' still an' of a moonlight night some o' th' 
 neighbours could often see somethin' as plain as plain 
 standin' by the gate, an 1 some thought it were a calf, 
 an" 1 some a pony, an" 1 some said it looked like a woman's 
 figure; but if ye went up to it, ye'd find there was 
 nowt to be seen. But people did get talkin' so foolish, 
 an' Mrs. Summers had no need to be af eared. She 
 must cheer up now, an' niver go for to cry ; why, that 
 was the very worst thing for her, an' th' little 'un as 
 was on the road every one knew that. An' they'd 
 look in again arter a bit to cheer her up ah ! they 
 would for it was to be expected as she'd feel anxious 
 an' low-spirited, poor soul." 
 
 These comforting assurances did not, however, exhila- 
 rate Mrs. Summers as much as might have been expected, 
 and in fact it was not till her trouble was over and she 
 could feast her eyes on her fine healthy little son that 
 she at all regained her spirits. 
 
 She is sitting up in bed to-day, and able to laugh at 
 her fears. 
 
 " I never got a bit of comfort out of my husband, 
 though," she says; "he did nothing but joke an' make 
 
 217
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 fun o' me. ' What 'ud spirits come back for ? ' he'd 
 say ; ' haven't they room enough in the other world ? 
 If they're well off, they won't want to come back ; an" 
 if they're not, they won't get a chance.' But he's very 
 good to me. Every spare minute that he can find he 
 comes runnin' home to see if I want anything." 
 
 It is lucky for poor Mrs. Summers that such is the 
 case, for the neighbours, finding that no catastrophe 
 has happened, and that they are not called on to 
 comfort a disconsolate widower, have, after one state 
 call to inspect the baby and assure the mother that it 
 was not half the size of the ordinary run of Thornleigh 
 infants, relapsed into their stately aloofness. But Mrs. 
 Summers has got her baby to pet and gaze at and wonder 
 over wee fingers to curl round hers, tiny feet to hold 
 in her hand, a small soft face in which to discover mar- 
 vellous likenesses and beauties. Let the neighbours stop 
 away if they like, her baby is " company " enough for her. 
 
 Next door to this house, where a little life has so 
 recently begun, another little life, the life of a child, is 
 rapidly ebbing away. Poor Gracie, not yet twelve, and 
 dying of consumption ! I remember her such a merry 
 rosy little maiden, always tiny, but so bright, so full of 
 life. It makes one sad to see her lying thus quietly in 
 her narrow bed, soon to be exchanged for one narrower 
 still; but she calls up a smile at sight of me, and 
 beckons with her small wasted hand. 
 
 218
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 " She wants you to go close to her, ma'am," says the 
 woman who looks after her (Gracie is a " pauperine ") ; 
 " she can't speak above 
 a whisper. She 
 wants to tell you 
 something." 
 
 I approach, 
 and bend over 
 the little crea- 
 ture, catching 
 the faint 
 words with 
 difficulty : 
 " Mrs. Francis 
 did ye hear 
 as Canon has 
 given me a 
 grave ? " 
 
 "Eh, she's so 
 pleased ! " puts in her 
 foster-mother, smiling too, 
 almost as radiantly as Gracie herself. " She was in 
 such a way, ye know, thinkin' she'd have to be buried 
 by the parish. These Union childer, ye know, when 
 anything happens them, they generally fetches them 
 away, and poor Gracie was frettin' so about it. But 
 Canon, when he heard of it, came and said : ' No, no, 
 
 219
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 Gracie, we won't let them take you away ; we'll find 
 room for ye here," 1 he says ; ' I'll make ye a present of a 
 grave/ " 
 
 " Yes,"" says little Gracie, nodding feebly, " that's 
 what he said, ' Fll make ye a present of a grave.' An' 
 will ye come an' look at me when I'm laid out, Mrs. 
 Francis ? " 
 
 I promise, and Gracie smiles again with entire satis- 
 faction. 
 
 "I'll pray for ye as soon as I get to heaven," she 
 whispers after a moment, closing her eyes. 
 
 " Ah, I think they'll be tired hearin' about Thornleigh 
 when Gracie gets up yonder," puts in the woman. " I 
 dunno who she isn't goin' to pray for. Canon, an' 
 Squire, an' the young ladies, an' Mrs. Francis 
 
 " An' childer'," interpolates Gracie. 
 
 " Aye, she says to me this mornin', ' I'll ask God to 
 bless Mrs. Francis's childer' one o' the first things,' for 
 she thinks such a dale o' them. Well, then there's I 
 don't know who there isn't 
 
 " Mother's leg," suggests Gracie, opening her eyes a 
 very little. 
 
 "Oh yes, my leg ye see, Mrs. Francis, it's always 
 been a bit stiff' like since I hurt it in the winter ; but 
 Gracie says she's goin' to settle about that when she sees 
 Almighty God." 
 
 She pauses to jerk away a tear or two, and continues: 
 220
 
 HERE AND THERK 
 
 " Ah, she's settled everything haven't ye, Grade ? 
 She's give away her doll, an" 1 her new boots, an 1 her 
 clothes, an 1 her Prayer-book. Our Nanny^s to have that, 
 ' Mind ye're careful of it now, 1 she says quite sharp when 
 she give it her. She set a dale o' store by her Prayer- 
 book, poor little soul 
 
 " It's yonder on the cupboard," interrupts the child. 
 " Show it to Mrs. Francis." 
 
 I duly inspect and admire this treasure, its former 
 proprietress being particularly anxious I should observe 
 that it has gilt edges and a clasp ; and then the little 
 dark head, which has been eagerly raised, falls back on 
 the pillow again with a sigh. 
 
 " I only hope as Nanny will use it well ! " 
 
 "Ah," says the foster-mother, following me to the 
 door, "yell never see her alive again, Mrs. Francis. 
 She's goin 1 fast * a question of hours," 1 doctor says this 
 mornin 1 . She was listening to him, an" 1 when he'd gone 
 she says, ' Well, mother, happen yell be havin 1 a good 
 rest to-night ' I have to be up an 1 down a good bit 
 with her o 1 nights, ye know ' an" 1 Til be bavin 1 a good 
 rest too, 1 says she, an 1 she laughs. Afraid ? Eh, dear 
 no, ma'am. She's longing to go. 'It '11 be a good job 
 when I'm gone, 1 says she this mornin 1 , ' for I'm a dale o 1 
 trouble, an 1 it 1 !! be lovely up theer. I reckon the 
 Almighty 11 take me to-day, an 1 you must have a good 
 sleep, 1 she says." 
 
 221
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 Here the kind-hearted woman, who is truly attached 
 to her little charge, suddenly bursts out sobbing, and 
 re-enters the house with her apron to her eyes. 
 
 I pursue my way more soberly after this, for the 
 
 recollection of 
 Grade's tran- 
 quil smile 
 brings a cer- 
 tain dimness 
 to one's eyes, 
 and a choking 
 sensation to 
 one's throat. 
 After gazing 
 at that quiet 
 little figure, 
 and stooping 
 to catch that 
 weak voice, it 
 almost jars on 
 one to see the 
 troops of bois- 
 terous young- 
 sters playing 
 in the mud, 
 and to listen to their whooping and laughter. This 
 sunburnt well-grown lassie is just about Grade's age : 
 
 222
 
 I can hardly bear to look at her, though she has 
 always been a favourite of mine. "Curly,'" she used 
 to be called, in allusion to her thick crop of yellow 
 locks, which curled so tight that when one pulled out 
 one at hazard it sprang back into place again the 
 instant it was loosed. These curls were rather a trial 
 to their o\vner, because, though prodigiously thick, they 
 were not long, and one day, when she was a very little 
 girl, she cut them all off and buried them in the garden, 
 having been told by a waggish friend that this was the 
 way to make them grow. 
 
 My next visit is one of business : the village shoe- 
 maker has sent in his account, and as I am passing I 
 may as well " settle " it. A very curious document is 
 this yearly bill of his he never will send it in oftener 
 than once a year the items being set down in a way 
 which would puzzle the uninitiated : 
 
 *.- d, 
 
 Soling and heeling son's boots . . 26 
 
 Heeling and toe-capping daughter's . 2 9 
 
 Daughter's repaired .... 16 
 
 New laced boots son . . . . 13 6 
 Your buttoned boots soled ... 39 
 
 And so on for a column or two. 
 
 In the next house there is also question of a bill, the 
 doctor having recently sent in his account for medical 
 
 223
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 attendance on the family during an exceptionally severe 
 winter. The children have all been ill, and the 
 mother " down " for weeks ; medicine is included, and 
 altogether the charge seems to an outsider reasonable 
 enough, but I have to listen to many lamentations. I 
 am told, indeed, that when the master opened it he 
 nearly fainted, and when his wife saw it she fainted 
 right off, and then her sister came in and fihe fainted, 
 and they took it over the way to Aunt Maggie, and she 
 fainted ; it was a terrible piece of business altogether. 
 Doctors have not always an easy time of it in Thorn - 
 leigh. To begin with, the patients' relations have an 
 irritating way of supplementing their prescriptions with 
 nostrums of their own ; an exceedingly delicate infant 
 will be dosed with cinder tea, or stuffed with bread and 
 milk, because "it seems, ye know, to be always cravin >r> 
 the poor child, in all probability, suffering from 
 violent indigestion. A man threatened with acute 
 inflammation will be given a stiff glass of spirits to 
 "warm his inwards," or to "cut the phlegm.' 1 ' 1 Then 
 the question of remuneration is nearly always a vexed 
 one, especially if, in spite of the doctor's utmost care 
 and skill, the patient chances to die in his hands. Thus, 
 when Polly Birch's child, having been taken out of its 
 bed and carried across the road to a neighbour's, with 
 the measles " thick on it," unfortunately succumbed, it 
 was thought very sharp practice on the part of Dr. 
 
 224
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 to charge anything for his six visits. An old woman I 
 knew once, who had been a martyr to asthma and 
 chronic " brown-titus " for the last twenty years of her 
 life, was at length induced by a friend to call in a doctor, 
 and was mightily 
 indignant because 
 he failed to cure 
 her. 
 
 She was sitting 
 propped up with 
 pillows when I last 
 saw her, feebly en- 
 deavouring to sew a 
 black band on the 
 hat which her hus- 
 band was to wear 
 at her funeral, and 
 occasionally glanc- 
 ing round to make 
 sure that her winding-sheet, which had been, in accord- 
 ance with her injunctions, put to "air" by the fire, was 
 not scorching. She had evidently given up all hope of 
 herself, but made use of such breath as remained to her 
 to inveigh against the doctor and his bill. 
 
 " Two pound ten, Mrs. Francis ! An 1 the time he's 
 been coming an" 1 the bottles an" 1 bottles of stuff as I've 
 drunk an 1 here I am, deem 1 ! " 
 
 225 p
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 Opposite the shoemaker's live a couple of washerwomen 
 mother and daughter the daughter white-haired 
 and wrinkled, the mother inconceivably old, bent 
 almost double, and totally deaf. 
 
 " Coom in," screams Kitty, who, from the constant 
 endeavour to make her parent 
 hear, has grown accustomed 
 to raise her voice on all occa- 
 sions to a startling pitch, 
 "coom in, ma'am, an 1 sit ye 
 down. Mother ! " giving the 
 old lady a playful push with 
 one powerful arm and prop- 
 ping her up with the other, as 
 she totters under the impetus. 
 " Here's Mrs. Francis coom to 
 Eh, sheVe been bad this last week, Mrs. Francis, 
 she have. I thought she were done for on Monday/' 1 
 
 Old Margery, catching the drift of the conversation 
 from the expression of her daughter's face, mumbles 
 forth a lengthy history of various distressing symptoms, 
 entering into minute and rather appalling details with 
 obvious pride and joy, while Kitty puts in a word now 
 and then to endorse these statements, and listens to the 
 most harrowing particulars with every appearance of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " She do, ma'am. Ah ! ye wouldn't believe what my 
 226 
 
 see ve.
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 another goes through. Eh dear ! ' Kitty," says she last 
 iieet, 'my inside's just same us a band o' music. 1 I told 
 Canon that, an 1 says he, 'Wind instruments, Kitty, I 
 s'pose.' Eh ! he is foonny, is Canon. Wait till ye see 
 .my mother's leg, Mrs. Francis, you wouldn't raly think 
 it could be so bad. YeVe been up to th' Hall, 'ave 
 ye?" as I hastily interposed to change she subject 
 " an' how's Squire ? Ah ! Squire's my favourite, an' 
 allus was, though Mr. Humphrey an' Mr. Edward is 
 nice gen'lmen, too. Eh, there is but a few o' them left 
 now nobbut three lads an' two wenches. Miss Monica, 
 as died last year in London, she were the youngest o" 
 th' fam'ly, an' she was gone sixty. But eh ! Squire 
 allus was my favourite. Ye'll have been seein' sick 'ere 
 in village, I doubt. Poor Robert Whitgrave ! he were 
 ^carried off sudden an's owd mother left. She's th' 
 owdest i' th' village, nobbut mother 'ere. I reckon 
 they'll be next, they two owd bodies mother'll go 
 first, I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 Here Margery, judging from her daughter's smiling 
 face that something pleasant is going forward, smiles 
 too and rubs her shrivelled hands together. 
 
 " Mrs. Summers is getting on nicely," I observe. 
 
 " Ah ! so I believe " (drily). " Ye'll 'ave seen Mrs. 
 Joe Morris. Eh ! ye haven't bin yet. Eh-h-h ! well 
 now, raly ! Ah ! ye're goin' on theer now. Well, 
 .good afternoon. Coom again soon." 
 
 227
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 Mrs. Joe Morris is a bride, and should have been 
 called on before. She does not come from this part of 
 the world, and as Joe did his courting rather hurriedly, 
 being anxious to get the business over before harvest- 
 time, Thornleigh has hardly even yet had leisure to 
 discuss her. 
 
 It was a very great wedding to be sure; all the 
 Thornleigh folk who were present were mightily im- 
 pressed. The bride, though she would never see forty- 
 five again, was attired in white satin, and her father, a 
 publican of some standing and anxious to prove himself 
 well versed in the customs of polite society, appeared 
 in full evening dress. " Eh, it was gradely,"" the village 
 people said. Half a column of the " Fashionable 
 Intelligence "" of the paper published weekly in the 
 little town where the bride's parents live was devoted 
 to this wedding; and it was really very fine reading, 
 quite equal to a paragraph in a Society journal. 
 
 " Ornaments, pearls The bride pronounced the 
 
 solemn vow in scarcely audible tones, the bridegroom in 
 firm and manly accents." Honest old Joe indeed s;i\\ 
 no reason why his " Oi wull " should not be heard and 
 understood by every one present, or, for that matter, 
 within a radius of half a mile or so. 
 
 I hear his firm and manly accents presently, as I pa.ss 
 his farmyard, resounding even above the hum and 
 clatter of the threshing machine ; and as I stand on the 
 
 228
 
 HERE AND THERE 
 
 neatly raddled doorstep I hear the bride's tones 
 (exceedingly audible now) objurgating somebody who 
 had omitted to " sneck the door." 
 
 My knock, however, produces instant silence ; there 
 is a good deal of running backwards and forwards, and 
 whispering ; and after a few minutes a servant appears, 
 who ushers me into the best parlour, and inquires in 
 the most approved style : 
 
 " What name shall I say ? " though, as I have seen 
 her scores of times when she was attending school, I 
 fancy my face must be as familiar to those round eyes 
 of hers as the steeple of Thornleigh Church. 
 
 But she has been carefully drilled, and must do 
 credit to her instructress. 
 
 After a quarter of an hour's conversation with the 
 latter, I take my leave : it has been rather fatiguing 
 work, as I have had to originate all the remarks, 
 receiving merely monosyllabic replies. We are most 
 genteel, both of us, but on the whole I prefer the 
 ordinary style of conversation at Thornleigh about 
 ailments, and babies, and pigs, and how I myself am 
 not as young as I used to be, and how they hope I'll 
 not take it amiss, but raly I am sadly warsening. A 
 body couldn't but notice it that kind o' stoop now 
 that I seem to be gettin'. But, eh well ! we're all 
 gettin' on, aren't we ? 
 
 229
 
 "OUR JOE"
 
 "OUR JOE 11 
 
 As old Harry Lupton wended his way homewards on 
 Christmas Eve he began to think seriously of writing to 
 his son in America, and desiring him to come back to 
 
 England forthwith. Every house in the village was 
 astir with preparations for family gatherings ; here and 
 there, indeed, were travellers already arriving sons and 
 daughters home from service, or snatching a holiday 
 
 233
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 from "business" in the neighbouring market town. 
 Some and these were not the least welcome brought 
 only little bundles in their hands ; but others carried 
 hampers filled with good things (at sight of which there 
 was a fine outcry among the small fry in the household) ; 
 and others, again, dragged little tired children slowly 
 along, or bore them in their arms. Then, when the 
 door was opened, and "grandma's" cheery wrinkled 
 face peered out into the night, what jubilee there was ! 
 How Billy was promised a treacle-butty immediately if 
 he would " give over " his fretful wail ; how much Nelly 
 (bless her heart !) was declared to have " come on ; "" 
 and what a marvellous likeness was discovered between 
 the new baby and its father. Harry Lupton, picking 
 his way over the cobble-stones slowly enough for his 
 lumbaguey catched him awful, and his legs was none so 
 strong as they were noted all this bustle, and there 
 came a mist before his eyes other than that of the 
 gathering dusk, and a chill about his heart which was 
 not caused by the fast-falling flakes of snow, or the 
 cutting evening wind. When he turned up the little 
 dark lane which led to his cottage the last in the 
 village, and a couple of hundred yards away from any 
 of the neighbouring homesteads he was obliged to 
 stand still for a moment and cough there was such a 
 disagreeable sensation in his throat and pass his hand 
 across his eyes. 
 
 234
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 " It's gettin' time for our Joe to be thinkin' o' comin' 
 home. Our Alice must write an"* tell him. Her an' 
 me's gettin' on we might be in we're graves next 
 Christmas, an" 1 then theer'd be no use in him comin' 
 at all. HI bid her write I will." 
 
 He nodded confidentially to the hedges, and toddled 
 on again, his tall bent figure and feeble gait pathetically 
 endorsing his words. 
 
 In a few minutes he had reached his abode, a queer 
 little two-storeyed cottage built of yellowish stone. 
 Light shone through the small-paned windows and a 
 cheerful glow irradiated the figure of the old woman 
 who stood on the threshold. 
 
 " Eh, ye're awful late, "Airy ! I couldn't think 
 whatever'd come to ye. Your back that bad, an 1 all. 1 " 
 
 " Come in, missis, come in, an 1 shut yon door ; 
 theer's wind enough to blow th" 1 teeth out o' yer 'ead 
 if ye had any, that's to say. Come, that's better ! 
 Coffee smells first-rate. Off wi' th' clogs ! Help us 
 into the cheer, missus ; e-e-eh, it do come same as a 
 knife in a body's back, that plaguey sciatic' when one 
 goes for to sit down. Theer ! all's well as ends well. 
 Now th' bacon, an' th' toast. Theer ! I'm feelin' a bit 
 better now." 
 
 He drew his elbow-chair nearer to the fire, and fell 
 to at his supper, a brighter expression coming over his 
 face, and his melancholy thoughts banished for the 
 
 235
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 time. Indeed it would have been hard to feel 
 melancholy in that cosy little kitchen while the 
 firelight danced so cheerily over the creamy walls and 
 well-rubbed furniture, and brought to view such a 
 wealth of brilliantly coloured crockery, and so many 
 glittering pots and pans. Mrs. Alice Lupton had 
 nothing to do but "keep the place clean," and was 
 scrubbing, and rubbing, and polishing from morning 
 till night. Her own figure was very pleasant to look 
 at, in its tidy north-country dress. She was a pretty 
 old woman, good-tempered and thrifty ; and any one, 
 seeing her as she sat smiling at her good man from the 
 opposite side of the fireplace, would have felt that he 
 was rather to be envied than pitied. After a few 
 minutes, however, he heaved a deep sigh, and laid down 
 his knife. 
 
 " What's to do wi 1 ye ? "" asked Alice anxiously. 
 
 " Fve been thinkin 1 a dale of our Joe to-neet, missus, 
 an" I was savin 1 to mysel 1 as it were gettin 1 time for him 
 to be comin 1 home. Ye might write him a line an 1 tell 
 him as his feyther says so. 11 
 
 " Well, master, 11 returned Mrs. Lupton, rubbing her 
 nose reflectively, " I don't altogether know if we didn't 
 ought to let th 1 lad bide till he comes of hissel 1 . Ye 
 see, every letter tells us as he's doin 1 pretty fair, an 1 
 that ; an 1 happen it 'ud be a pity to take him ofTs work 
 just because we want to look at him. 11 
 
 236
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 " Let's see, he's been a matter o' sixteen year out 
 yonder, han't he ? He's a man now ; aye, goin' on thirty- 
 four he is, an' ought to ha' laid by summat a steady- 
 hard-working lad same as he's been. He ought to ha' 
 saved a tidy bit, enough to keep's feyther an' mother i' 
 their owd age. We're gettin' on, missus : ye're that 
 'earty still ye make no count o' the time ; but I'm gettin' 
 past work, an' I say as it's time our Joe come an' worked 
 for us. Theer ! " 
 
 He hammered on the table with his fist, and nodded 
 at his wife in a way which betokened that he had said 
 the last word on the subject. 
 
 She was pondering a little anxiously as to the advis- 
 ability of carrying out his wish, when 
 there came a knock, or rather a series 
 of knocks, at the door. 
 
 " Whoever can it be at this time o' 
 th' neet ? " growled Harry. " Go an' 
 see, missus ; I'm too crippled to stir." 
 
 Mrs. Lupton left the kitchen and 
 opened the house-door, starting a little 
 at the sight of the man's figure which 
 confronted her. 
 
 " Can I will you kindly let me 
 come in and warm myself for a few minutes ? I am 
 drenched through, and so cold and numb." 
 
 " It's a tramping chap, I doubt," said Alice in a
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 whisper, as she returned to her husband, " but it 'ud be 
 a charity to let him come in for a bit. He looks for all 
 the world like a ghost." 
 
 "Let him in then though I'm none so fond o' 
 tramps. But Christmas Eve a body mustn't be too 
 'ard. Come in, mister, an' sit ye down. It's an awful 
 neet." 
 
 The stranger entered a tall man who might have 
 been good-looking but for the unhealthy pallor of his 
 face, the sharpened outlines of his features, the stoop in 
 his broad shoulders, and the stubbly beard on his chin. 
 His clothes, besides being ragged, were soaked with 
 melted snow and smeared with mud. Harry glanced at 
 him with much disfavour, and edged away his chair a 
 little ; but Alice fetched him a plate, and presently 
 desired him to comfort his inner man with bacon and 
 buttered toast, while she warmed up a cup of coffee. 
 
 " Ye'll have come a long way, I reckon ? " observed 
 Harry after a pause. 
 
 " Aye, I've walked from Liverpool." 
 
 An' afore that ? " 
 
 " I sailed from New York." 
 
 " New York, eh dear ! that's wheer our Joe lives," 
 cried Alice eagerly. " I do wonder if ye ever come 
 across our Joe our son that is, as has been there these 
 sixteen year. Joe Lupton from Thornleigh. Did ye 
 know him ? " 
 
 238
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 The stranger was silent for a moment, stirring vigor- 
 ously at his coffee, and seeming to reflect. 
 
 " Joe Lupton," he said slowly, at last. " New York's 
 such a big place I know a lot of English fellows. Let's 
 see, what was he like ? " 
 
 " Eh, a tall slip of a lad wi' rosy cheeks, same as two 
 ripe apples, and hair that curly ! D'ye mind, master, 
 how 't 'ud twine round th' comb of a Saturday, when 
 our Joe was a little 'un, an 1 I'd washed him i' th' dolly- 
 tub ? Eh, dear 'eart, he was a bonny child ! " 
 
 " Why, missus, a tall lad wi 1 rosy cheeks ! What 
 sort of a description's that ? " chuckled Harry. " They 
 women, they all'ays thinks as time stands still. Our 
 Joe'll be a man now, wi 1 a fine pair of shoulders I 
 reckon, an" a gradely beard to's face. But 111 telFee, 
 mister. He had a pair o' blue eyes, bright an 1 clear, as 
 could look a man straight i' th' face, he had ; and an 
 honest kind of a way wi' him as made ye feel he 
 was a lad ye could trust. Did ye know any one o' 
 that make yonder, o' th' name o' Joe, from Thorn- 
 leigh?" 
 
 There was a silence for a little time again, and then 
 the man shook his head. 
 
 "No," he said. "I don't know anybody o' th' kind. 
 But you see he might be there an' yet I mightn't come 
 across him." 
 
 " Ah," sighed Alice, deeply disappointed. " New 
 239
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 York's a big place, as ve say. Is't a place, d'ye think, 
 wheer folks get's on ? " 
 
 " Ah, that's it,"" put in Harry ; " is it a place wheer 
 folks makes much money ? " 
 
 The stranger broke into a short laugh. " Oh, aye ! 
 money enough ! " he said, and buried his face in his cup. 
 
 " Didn't I tell'ee ? " cried old Lupton, nodding 
 triumphantly at Alice. ".Our Joe'll have saved a tidy 
 bit. Eh, happen ye'll be ridin' to church i' yer own 
 trap afore ye dee, owd wench ! " 
 
 There was a sound as of a sudden explosion in the 
 stranger's coffee-cup, at which lack of politeness his host 
 was mightily indignant. 
 
 " It's very fine for ye to laugh," he remarked, " an' 
 yet theer's nought to laugh at as I can see. Our Joe's 
 been workin' 'ard for sixteen year, an' I say he ought to 
 ha' saved enough to keep us i' comfort his mother an' 
 me. He should come back, he should. Missus, ye mun 
 write and tell him that to-morrow." 
 
 " Ah ! " sighed the traveller, " I'm longin' sorely to 
 see my old father an' mother. I'm homesick, an' yet I 
 dursen't go home." 
 
 " Why ? " cried Alice in surprise, while Hairy paused, 
 pipe in hand, to look up inquiringly. 
 
 " Ye see I've been in a bit of a mess," answered the 
 man hesitatingly. " In fact, I've seen a sight o' trouble 
 since first I went out yonder, as a young chap. I got 
 
 240
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 into bad ways, an' fell in with a bad lot, and the long 
 and the short of it is, IVe just put in five years for 
 burglary." 
 
 "Eh, dear heart!" ejaculated Alice, much startled. 
 Harry half rose from his chair, and stretched out his 
 hand towards his big stick. 
 
 " Nay, missus, don't be frightened o' me," cried the 
 stranger eagerly. " I swear I'd rather die than touch a 
 hair o' your head. You've no need. to reach for your 
 stick, sir," he added, turning to his host. " Is it likely 
 I'd tell you my misfortunes if I wanted to harm you ? 
 I'm thinkin' of my own parents this blessed night, an' 
 wonderin' if I'll ever have the courage to own what I've 
 done, and to ax their forgiveness." 
 
 His voice shook, and he shaded his eyes with his 
 hand. 
 
 " Eh, dear heart ! " said Mrs. Lupton again. " Don't 
 they know, then ? Poor souls ! it'll go 'ard wi' 'em, I 
 doubt." 
 
 " It will," said the man with something like a sob. 
 " No, they know nothing ; I kep' it from them, for I 
 knew it 'ud go nigh to kill them. You see they come 
 of honest stock, an' have always held up their heads 
 pretty high. All the neighbours think well o' them, 
 an' respect them. So I've always wrote as I was doin" 
 well, an' the chaplain yonder was very good to me, 
 an' used to post my letters an' bring me the replies. 
 
 241 Q
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 They're but simple folk ; an 1 never guessed as there 
 were anything wrong. God knows Fin loth to be the 
 means o' bringin' shame to them now. An" 1 yet I'm the 
 only son they have ! " 
 
 Alice clapped her withered hands together, and rocked 
 herself to and fro in her chair. 
 
 " God preserve us ! what trouble some folks has ! 
 Eh, what awful trouble ! I doubt they'll break their 
 "earts, when they come to 'ear." 
 
 The stranger held his peace for a moment. Old 
 Harry removed his pipe, and stared at him with increas- 
 ing dislike and disapproval. 
 
 " I'm loth to bring shame to 'em," repeated the man 
 at last from behind his sheltering hand. "Maybe, 
 after all, it 'ud be best for me not to go near 'em. 
 
 242
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 Maybe I'd better go back where I came from an" 1 tell 
 ''em nothing." 
 
 " Ye're reet theer," said Harry, sternly. " To my 
 thinkin' ye'd best go away an' keep away, lad. What 
 for should ye go home to disgrace yer feyther an 1 
 mother i' their owd age them as is decent folks, ye 
 say ? T'ave th' neighbours eastin' ifp at 'em, as their 
 son was a thief, an 1 was i' jail five year? Why t\id 
 kill ""em straight off, I shouldn't wonder. Nay, nay, go 
 back wheer ye've corned from, 'an 1 try to lead an honest 
 Jife that's my advice." 
 
 '" Aye," returned the other, almost in a whisper, " 111 
 'go back an' try to lead an honest life." 
 
 " Ah, but I reckon your mother 'ud like to see ye," 
 cried Alice ; " I reckon she would if it was ever so. 
 But men folks is different. They're a deal harder, an' 
 yet they can't bear trouble same as us. 'T would go 
 nigh to kill yer feyther, th' shame an' the sorrow would. 
 Happen, ye'd best do as my master advises, arter all." 
 
 The man's other hand went up to his face now, and 
 his voice sounded husky and unsteady as he said : 
 '" Thank ye, I will I'll go." Then dropping his hands, 
 Jie rose. 
 
 Alice's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " Nay, but theer's no such hurry," she said, " an' th' 
 neet's bad for travellin'. Ye'd best stop here, an' go on 
 i' th' mornin'." 
 
 243
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 " Ah, theer's th' shippon," added her husband, rather 
 unwilling ; " an' a good bit o' straw. Ye might make 
 shift on't for bed. It's better nor th' snow anyways." 
 
 " Thank ye kindly," said the stranger. " It is so ; I'm 
 pleased to have the chance." 
 
 His eyes, which had hitherto shifted uneasily from 
 one object to another when they were not bent on the 
 ground, now swept round the room with a long steady 
 glance, resting for a moment or two on the stooping 
 figure of the old man in the corner. He made a 
 step towards him Avith hand half extended, but meet- 
 ing Harry's severe gaze, drew back, and nodded 
 instead. 
 
 Alice lit a candle and preceded him out of the room, 
 carefully closing the door after her. 
 
 " Hark," she whispered when they stood without. 
 " Ye needn't sleep i' th' shippon when all's said an' 
 done. Theer's a bit of a room here near th' stairs wheer 
 our Joe used to sleep. I've all'ays kep' it tidy, an' bed 
 ready aired ; it seems to comfort me, you know, an' I 
 think to mysel' sometimes, happen he'll come an' sur- 
 prise us some day, an' he must find all ready. Ye can 
 sleep theer the master needn't know." 
 
 It was a queer little cupboard of a room into which 
 Mrs. Lupton ushered him, containing just a truckle-bed, 
 a chair beside it, and a chest of drawers with a jug and 
 basin on the top. The man sat down on the chair, as 
 
 244
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 though seized with sudden faintness, but his hostess was 
 too busy with her preparations for his comfort to notice 
 him. 
 
 " Little did I think as Fd ever let a trampin' chap 
 same as you sleep in our Joe's ibed. But I'm sorry for 
 ye, an" 1 that's the truth. I doubt ye took it 'ard o' my 
 master to speak like he did. But theer ! men's ways are 
 'ard, an" 1 my master is all'ays so set on honesty." 
 
 She had put on sheets and blankets, smoothed and 
 patted them, and was now shaking a pillow into its 
 coarse clean cover. When she had finished and laid it 
 in its place she suddenly stooped and kissed it. 
 
 Turning and catching her guest's eyes, and observing 
 the strange expression of his face, she blushed to her 
 very cap borders. 
 
 " I doubt yell think me a queer sort of body," she 
 said. " But it's a way I've got whenever I come next 
 or nigh this bed. Ye see I all'ays think o' our Joe's 
 bonny face as I used to see it, mornin' an' evenin', laying 
 on this here pillow, an' as I can't kiss that, I kiss th' 
 .pillow i'stead." 
 
 The man uttered a sort of groan and flung himself 
 forward on the bed, clutching the pillow with both 
 hands, and burying his face in it. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " murmured Alice, " Ye're thinkin' o' 
 yer own mother I reckon." 
 
 At this juncture Harry's voice was heard angrily 
 245
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 calling, and the tap of his stick came across the floor of 
 the adjoining room. 
 
 Alice hastily extinguished the candle, and crept into 
 the passage, artfully banging the house door as though 
 she had just come in. 
 
 " Whatever ha" ye been doin" out T th 1 cold so long ? " 
 cried her lord, emerging from the kitchen in much dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 " I were but makm 1 yon poor chap a bit comfortable," 
 returned Alice. 
 
 ' ; Tm none too sure as ye did reet to let "im bide here 
 at all," said Harry. " I don't so much care for folks o v 
 that mak 1 about th" 1 place. Whish ! seems as if I could 
 smell t\i prison off him ! " 
 
 Slowly the heavy feet and the tapping stick passed 
 the stranger's door ; he had heard every word the old 
 man said, and now burrowed his head yet more deeply 
 into the pillow, and groaned afresh. 
 
 Mrs. Lupton, excited and compassionate, lay awake 
 long after her master's snores made the very rafters ring, 
 and at last, dropping to sleep towards morning, was 
 troubled by a strange and painful dream. 
 
 She thought she saw their Joe, a child again with 
 rosy face and curly head ; and he stood without in the 
 snow and wept, and his father drove him from the door. 
 The vision was so vivid, she saw the little lad so plainly,, 
 with the teal's on his chubby cheeks and his mouth drawn. 
 
 246
 
 "OUR JOE" 
 
 downwards in the pitiful droop against which so few 
 mothers can steel their hearts, that when she woke she 
 could hardly believe it was not real. 
 
 " Twas wi' moiderin 1 about yon poor fellow, I doubt," 
 she said to herself, and lay still, the memory of her 
 dream mingling with the thought of the tramp, until 
 she fell into a sort of waking nightmare, in which it 
 seemed to her that her son and the tramp were one. 
 Presently she started vip, fully conscious and struck with 
 a sudden fear a fear more terrible than that evoked by 
 any nightmare which made her heart stand still and her 
 hands turn cold. What if they were one ? What if this 
 " tramping chap," this jail-bird, were really their Joe ? 
 
 With awful clearness the stranger's story returned to 
 her mind : she went over it phrase by phrase, word by 
 word. There was nothing, nothing in his history which 
 might not admitting the fact that it were possible for 
 Joe to have gone astray have also befallen him. She 
 remembered the tremulous speech, the downcast looks, 
 the emotion of their visitor ; and the fear grew upon 
 her, and shook her very soul. She sprang out of bed, 
 while Harry snored on peacefully ; the dawn showed 
 grey through the uncurtained windows, and the wind 
 whistled without. She flung a shawl over her shoulders 
 and pattered downstairs, the boards icy-cold to her 
 bare feet, the chill air that circled through' the house, 
 seeming to penetrate even to her bones. 
 
 247
 
 OUR JOE" 
 
 The door was ajar, and through it was to be seen a 
 vision of a desolate white world, with never a living 
 
 creature stirring; only 
 a long irregular line of 
 hedge, and trees stand- 
 ing out, gaunt and 
 black, against a lower- 
 ing sky. 
 
 Alice caught her 
 breath, and leaned 
 against the door-post 
 for a moment. Then 
 supporting herself 
 against the wall, and 
 breaking into a stifled, 
 piteous whimpering, she crept into Joe^s little room. 
 Lo ! it was empty. The bed had not been slept in, but 
 the pillow was crushed and soiled, and there, in the 
 middle, where the mother's lips had touched it, it was 
 wet, as though with tears. 
 
 248
 
 MATES
 
 MATES 
 
 THE Squire of Thomleigh, though willing enough to 
 conform to modern ideas on certain subjects, retains 
 to this day many old-fashioned notions with regard to 
 sport. He will persist in looking at it as a matter of 
 pleasure, not profit ; therefore he never endeavours to 
 make Thornleigh shooting " pay." 
 
 He employs a certain number of keepers, and rears a 
 certain number of pheasants, and he and his friends 
 shoot them at their leisure, and as many as are wanted 
 for " the house " are kept and the rest given away. It 
 never occurs to him to sell so much as a feather of 
 them. 
 
 " A shoot " at Thornleigh is a pleasant business even 
 for the non-sporting members of the community. The 
 bustle and stir, the tramping of heavy boots, the 
 ecstatic barking of dogs, the hunting for somebody's 
 flask, and the filling of some one else's tobacco-pouch ; 
 the animated discussion as to where lunch is to be ; the 
 procession across the stable-yard to the gun-room, 
 
 251
 
 MATES 
 
 where the two chief keepers wait solemn and expectant ; 
 the gathering together of a little army of beaters; 
 there is a certain excitement about it all which infects 
 even the most tender-hearted of the ladies. 
 Now for the guns ! 
 
 "Billy, you old villain, you haven't touched mine 
 since I used it on Friday ! The barrels are like factory 
 chimneys." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mester Edward. I cleaned it 
 
 o" 1 Saturday. 
 Ye must ha 1 
 taken it out 
 wi'out tellin" 1 
 me since. 1 " 
 
 " So I did 
 when I went 
 after those 
 ducks at the 
 Mosses. It's 
 all right, old 
 chap." 
 
 " Now, is everybody ready ? We ought to have 
 started ages ago. It will be dark before we know 
 where we are. Is every one here ? " 
 " Squired not corned yet." 
 
 " Not here ? No, he isn't. What is he doing ? Do 
 go and see what he's about, somebody.'" 
 
 252
 
 MATES 
 
 Somebody goes, and presently returns with the 
 announcement that the Squire has not begun to put on 
 
 his boots yet. There is 
 a general groan. 
 
 " Then we shaVt get 
 off for hours" said one 
 resigned voice, and the 
 butt-end of a gun rings 
 on the pavement: 
 consternation is 
 painted on every 
 face everybody 
 knows what the 
 Squire's boots 
 are. 
 
 Presently a breathless messenger arrives from the 
 house " He's getting them on ! " and then comes a 
 
 253
 
 MATES 
 
 girl, jubilant "Papa's nearly ready!"" And finally 
 the Squire himself appears, sauntering leisurely along, 
 placidly asserting that there's " lots of time," and 
 pausing as he passes the stables to strike a match on 
 the wall, and to light his pipe in the most imperturbable 
 manner possible. 
 
 It is not that he is less keen a sportsman than the 
 very youngest of the party, but he is accustomed to 
 look on time as an elastic commodity, and sees no 
 reason why he should take the edge off his enjoyment 
 by hurrying. At last he is under weigh ; he has got 
 his gun and his cartridge-bag and his game-bag; he 
 has searched all his pockets to make sure that his 
 match-box and tobacco-pouch are safe ; he has sent one 
 of his daughters to the house for his pocket-handkerchief ; 
 he has discussed the prospects of sport with the head- 
 keeper, and patted the dogs and secured his own special 
 favourite a young black retriever by a stout thong 
 to the belt round his waist. Finally, just as the 
 general impatience has reached fever-height, he remarks 
 that he thinks it is about time to be moving, and off 
 they go ; the retriever straining at his collar, and 
 ready, at the first rabbit which crosses his path, to tow 
 his master half across a field. The Squire says this dog 
 is " half-broken "" he has one or two little pet theories 
 of the kind, such as that the most infantine of the 
 rabbits against which he wages unrelenting war on 
 
 254
 
 MATES 
 
 account of the damage they do to his holly-trees, is 
 "three-parts grown, 11 and that any animal in the 
 stables, from the old hack on which all his girls have 
 learnt to ride, to a three-year-old colt, is " well up to " 
 his weight. 
 
 The womankind return to the house. If the home 
 coverts are to be gone through, one or two of the 
 younger ones may presently follow the sportsmen (I 
 must own that my own enthusiasm never stood this 
 test) ; or if the party is going further afield, we shall 
 probably meet them at some farmhouse or keeper's hut 
 with luncheon ; " hot-pot " being one of the standing 
 dishes on these occasions. It is amusing, if one arrives 
 first at the rendezvous, to watch the faces of the 
 sportsmen as they come straggling in ; one can tell by 
 the first glance how the day has gone with them. The 
 complacency of some, the depression of others neo- 
 phytes these ; easy unconcern marks the practised hand 
 who " couldn^ miss if he tried ; " while the gloom of 
 "the fellow who let slip the only woodcock we saw, 11 
 would be noticeable even if the Squire did not 
 announce in a stage whisper that one might as well 
 take him out with a walking-stick. Luncheon, however, 
 revives drooping spirits, and further invigorates hopeful 
 ones ; anecdotes are told amid much laughter, and 
 there is some good-humoured chaffing, good-humoured ly 
 taken. 
 
 255
 
 MATES 
 
 Without, the keepers and beaters discuss various 
 matters over their solid viands. Strong ale warms old 
 Billy's heart and loosens his tongue. He relates 
 certain reminiscences ; recalling bygone encounters with 
 poachers, with half-contemptuous comments on the 
 " softness " of lads of the present day, which make one 
 or two of the underlings hang their heads ; and winds 
 up with his favourite story of the last time the Squire 
 of Upton came to shoot at Thornleigh. 
 
 " He were a queer 'un," says Billy, " t'owd Squire of 
 Upton. I niver see such a one. He wouldn't never 
 have no big shoots at Upton yonder, same as weVe 
 allus had here. He didn't seem to care to 'ave parties 
 o' gentry stoppin' i' th' house. ' Nay, nay," 1 says tli* 
 owd Squire, 'fish an* strangers stink arter three days. 1 
 Eh, he was a queer 'un ! Well, one day we was 
 patrick-shootin' 'ere, an 1 he coom out wi' us : he'd do 
 that sometimes when he'd a mind, though he didn't 
 care for other folks going ower yonder. It were mortal 
 hot, an' i' th' arternoon a storm coom, wi' thunder an' 
 leetnin' an' a downpour o' rain as drenched us afore we 
 could get shelter. We was all makin' here an' there, 
 an' nobody noticed wheer Squire of Upton had getten 
 to; but arter a bit, when storm was ower an' we 
 was all makin' whoam as wet as water-dogs, he nips 
 out on us from a field o' turmits t'other side o' th' 
 hedge. 
 
 256
 
 MATES 
 
 " ' Hallo ! ' says the Squire, stoppirT an' givin' 
 himseF a bit of a shake, for the water was runnin' off 
 him. 
 
 " ' Hallo agen,' says Squire of Upton. ' Ye seem a 
 bit wet,' says he. 
 
 " ' I should think I was wet,' says Squire. ' Aren't 
 you ? ' 
 
 " ' Nay, nought to speak on,' says t'owd gentleman 
 laughin' to himsel'. ' Ye should ha' done same as me,' 
 says he. 
 
 " ' What's that ? ' says the Squire. 
 
 "'Why,' says Squire of Upton. 'I took off my 
 clothes an' sat on 'em.' " 
 
 This story is received with applause and laughter, 
 and then Billy, the other old keeper, relates how he 
 caught that famous " snig " in one of the dykes yonder, 
 when he was a young 'un. 
 
 Never was such an eel as that ; it was caught about 
 fifty years ago, but has been growing ever since. 
 Each time Billy "unbethinks himsel'" about it, its 
 length increases, and there is every reason to believe 
 it will rival the sea-serpent before he has done 
 with it. 
 
 Presently another voice strikes in : " Ye'll have 
 heerd owd Betty yonder at the lone-end is gone ? " 
 
 " Eh, is she ? " respond the hearers in different tones 
 of regret. 
 
 257 R
 
 MATES 
 
 " She were a kind o' cousin o' my own,"" adds Billy, 
 " an 1 a decent 'ard-workin' ovvd body. Yell miss her 
 goin' your round, Bob. Ye mind how she was all us 
 sat aside o' th' road watchin' her cow, an' kniUm'." 
 
 " Ah, I do," replies old Bob, whose beat takes him 
 past the " lone-end " every day of his life. " Poor owd 
 Betty ! Jim'll be in a terrible way. She was near th' 
 end when I looked in yesterday, an' poor owd Jim was 
 pattin' her o' th' hand an"" tellin' her to keep her 'eart 
 up. Theer was th' two o' them lyin' one aside o' 
 t'other, an 1 th' owd woman deein' fast, an 1 Jim reachin' 
 ower to her an' pattin' her, an' axin' ' How are ye now, 
 owd lady ? D'ye find yoursel' any more comfortable ? ' 
 An' she deein' ! " 
 
 "Eh, th' poor owd chap's gettin' a bit silly," says 
 some one, presumably the small farmer in whose house 
 the party is assembled. " He's old, ye know, an's been 
 bedridden this many year. Eh, 'twas the wonderfullest 
 thing to 'ear him this mornin' arter the owd woman was 
 gone, an' they were talkin' o' shiftin' her for 'twas a 
 strange thing to 'ave her theer lyin' aside o' Jim an' she 
 dead. An' wheer should they lay her out? they was 
 sayin' there is but two rooms in yon little house, ye 
 know, an' Alice the daughter sleeps in th' only bed they 
 have besides th' owd folks'. 'Ye've no need to shift 
 her at all,' says Jim. ' I can do wi' her here,' he says. 
 ' I wunnot have her taken away,' says he ; an' then he 
 
 258
 
 MATES 
 
 reaches out his hand an 1 strokes her. ' Eh, missus," 1 he 
 says, ' I'm fain to keep ye as long as I can. They mun 
 let ye bide to th' last, 1 he says. Eh, I thought it was 
 the wonderfullest thing ! " 
 
 " Ah, poor Jim ! " says Bob, " I'm sorry for th' owd 
 chap. He'll be lost without his missus. But I reckon 
 he'll not be so longer arter her." 
 
 " Aye, he'll soon be aside of her again," responds 
 Billy, and then there is a scraping of feet and a general 
 move the mid-day meal is over. 
 
 In the evening the result of the day's sport is laid out 
 for general inspection, pheasants, hares, wild duck, a few 
 rabbits, perhaps a water-hen or two, and with good 
 luck, for they are scarce in these parts a couple of 
 woodcocks. 
 
 Well, the day is done, and on the whole every one 
 is well satisfied ; " the gentry " come in, pleasantly 
 tired, to refresh themselves with tea, or whatever 
 their "particular vanity" may be; the beaters and 
 underlings melt away ; and last of all Billy and 
 Bob turn their steps homewards, one walking a little 
 in front of the other, according to time-honoured 
 custom. 
 
 Never was there a pair more truly attached to one 
 another than this brace of "mates," though Billy is 
 tenacious of his prerogative as chief, and Bob takes his 
 orders with becoming humility. 
 
 259
 
 MATES 
 
 Bob would as soon think of arguing with the head- 
 keeper as of walking alongside of him. Argument 
 indeed or conversation of any kind does not seem to 
 occur to either of them, though they spend hours in 
 each other's company : except on the occasion of a big 
 *' do," when for the honour of the thing they are bound 
 to exert themselves, they are a taciturn couple Billy is 
 taciturn, even in his cups, as a rule, though once he 
 aroused the Squire at dawn of day by throwing pebbles 
 against his window and requesting him to come down 
 forthwith and help him to rout a very army of poachers 
 which he declared were overrunning the park. Billy 
 had a great deal to say about these poachers. " Town 
 poachers, they were," he assured the Squire, and of the 
 most malignant order: even when the depredators 
 turned out to be sheep, Billy's angry loquaciousness 
 could not be checked. But as a rule there never 
 were such silent and cheerless " sprees " as those 
 in which he periodically indulges. He sits sighing 
 and shaking his head at the fire, and remorsefully 
 " fuddling himself" day after day, a most melancholy 
 spectacle. 
 
 The objurgations of his wife are of no avail; the 
 remonstrances and persuasions of the Canon fall alike 
 unheeded. Squire is the only one who "can get any 
 good o 1 Billy" under these circumstances, and even he 
 has to wait till Billy is " ripe for it." 
 
 260
 
 MATES 
 
 I was much astonished once, being still new to 
 Thornleigh and Thornleigh ways, when a stalwart 
 youth in corduroys flew past me, hastily observing to 
 the Canon, with whom I was chatting outside the church 
 porch, that he was " goin for Squire for feyther." A 
 .short time after, the Squire appeared, pipe in mouth, 
 stick m hand, retriever at heel, and escorted by the 
 anxious messenger, on his way to lecture Billy. And in 
 a few days Billy resumed work, very solemn and severe 
 in manner, 1^ a little shaky about the legs. I soon 
 became used to this course of events. 
 
 During the periodical "bouts' of his chief, Bob takes 
 refuge in a stolid affectation of innocence. 
 
 " Billy's not so well," he remarks, if questioned, 
 though every child in the place knows the reason of 
 Billy's indisposition, and though Bob makes a point of 
 sitting with him in the evenings, watching his potations 
 with gloomy dissatisfaction, but never " offering to say 
 a word."" 
 
 Once Billy got "the titus," or " brown-titus " as 
 bronchitis is indifferently called in Thornleigh while 
 he was still weak after an outbreak, and for a time was 
 very seriously ill. Bob's distress was touching to 
 witness. He " moidered " Billy's wife, and occasionally 
 irritated the invalid himself by his repeated inquiries ; 
 and once when offered a glass of ale by way of consola- 
 tion he heaved a deep sigh, and observed that if his 
 
 261
 
 MATES 
 
 mate went, he didn't care if he never got "a wet"" again. 
 Spoken thus with tears in his blue eyes, and his weather- 
 beaten old face all puckered with grief and anxiety, this 
 remark of Bob's was genuinely pathetic. However, 
 he has luckily not yet been called upon to become a 
 teetotaller: Billy "mended" in course of time, and 
 Bob follows his lead as of yore. The old white 
 heads are both getting rather bent and the broad 
 velveteen-clad shoulders stoop a little; Billy is "go- 
 ing " at the knees, and Bob drags one foot slightly as 
 he walks. One feels a little pang as one watches 
 them. Joseph, too, told me the other day that he 
 was " wearm' away ; " and Robert, whose " winter 
 cough"" has been very bad of late made some jocular 
 remark on the subject of his coffin, which betrayed the 
 bent of his thoughts. 
 
 The curtain has risen on the last act of this bucolic 
 play, and the chorus of old men's voices grows fainter as 
 they make their exit one by one. Soon the drop scene 
 will fall, and the stage will be cleared for younger, more 
 energetic actors. 
 
 There is a certain likeness to their fathers in the new 
 generation : certain tricks of manner, certain tones of 
 voice: but there is much that is strange. Yet a few 
 years, and it may be that Thornleigh itself will be 
 altered and modernised beyond recognition, its old- 
 
 262
 
 MATES 
 
 fashioned customs forgotten, its traditions stamped out. 
 The old order changeth, and the fashion of this world 
 passeth away ; but when the time comes for Thornleigh 
 to be " improved " and civilised, may I not be there to 
 see ! 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co. 
 London & Edinburgh
 
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 M. E. FRANCIS. 
 
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