O'NEILL Devonshire Idyls, w DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. FOURTH EDITION. DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. BY H. C. O'NEILL t ; PART-AUTHOR OF " OUR NURSES AND THE WORK THEY HAVK TO DO, " NEW LIFE, ITS GENESIS AND CULTURE," ETC. " In order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is necessary fully to under- stand the art and joy of humble life — this at present, of all arts and sciences, being the one most needing study." — Modern Painters, vol. v. ILonli0n : GIBBINGS & COMPANY, Ltd., i8, Bury Street, W.C. f 3€J' MARY'S MUG. IT'S just, an old bit of dome — not china, fine and thin ; and it's phiin blue and white. Maybe it's not your ordinary blue and white. Maybe it's a pattern you never saw before. Maybe it came from the old Leeds pottery, that's shut up now more than a hundred years ago, and so folks admire it because 'tis rare of its sort. But that's not why it stands on my chimney-piece ; and that's not why I love it. 'Tis nothing but a quart mug. And I dare say that the first good woman who bought it — or bartered a score of new-laid eggs for it at Barnstaple Fair, in the year seventeen hundred and something, — handed it to her good man that night at supper full of sweet Devonshire cider, and I doubt he ever looked at the colour or the pattern of it, but just emptied it at a draught, and said, " Fetch us another drop, missus, will 'ee ? I'm proper thirsty, I be." It wasn't full of cider when I first saw it, and it isn't because it holds a measured quart that I care for it. 2 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. It's fall of quite another draught for me, and it holds what is more precious than the sweetest wine that ever came from the vintage of Tokaj. For it is full of memories. And when one grows old, the sweetest thing in the world is to remember the bright years that are past. Time long ago, when the sun always shone warm 'n summer, and we donned our cotton frocks true to the reason of May as the coming of the cuckoo, there was a little cottage standing on the sloping side of A goyle, down wliich ran a tiny lake. If you were not born in Devonshire, as I was, you will have to be told what a g'lifle is ; but you will feel quite certain you know what a lake is, and will only think that I have made a mistake in saying the lake ran. " Lakes don't run," you know ; " they are pieces of water surrounded by land, and they are quite level and still, except when the wind blows over them." Very true — in geography books for children that is what lakes are. But not in Devonshire. There the lakes are not smooth flat waters, but running streams, leaping over the moss-grown stones ; sprinkling the sweet ferns swaying on the banks ; rippling round the spotted trouts ; tossing defiant sparkles to the dishwasher, — and, oh deai', you don't know what a dishwasher is any more than a goyle ! How can I write in plain English, if I'm to tell you what Mary's mug holds ? For Mary's mug is just full of Devonshire pictures, and Devonshire pictures can't be described in those common words which we all understand — being what are taught in the Board schools ; and I can't stop to explain every- thing, or I shall never get on with my story. A goyle is — just a goyle; and you must take my word JiIAliY':S MUG. 3 for it, or else go down to Devonshire and see for yourself. And a dishwasher is just a little bird with a white breast and a short tail, and it makes the pi-ettiest bob curtseys as it stands looking out for its breakfast on the edge of that fairy -waterfall in Liddicombe Lake ; and now you'll know it next time you see it. The cottage stood on the side of the goyle as aforesaid, and old Mary lived in it. Years and years before I saw it, and that "was long, long ago, Mary's man built it to bring home his " missus " to. She ■was a proper Devonshire maid, straight and slim, with bright black eyes, and very outspoken, as most west-country maids be. And when her young man had " walked " with her all a long summer through — walked to and fro over the common to the sound of the church bells on a Sunday afternoon, he with a bit of lad's love in his button-hole, and she with her " Common Prayer " folded in a clean cotton handker- chief with a pink border to it, and a spray of flower- ing thyme put in to mark the Psalms — she thought it was about time to do something more than walk to church together. And so, when Jan said to her, " What be thinking of, Molly, then ? " she spoke up, and answered, "Where be us gwine to live to, Jan Y There ain't no cot that I know by hereabouts, and thee mustn't set thyself down fur away from thy work." " ]\Iother's a lone widow woman, Mary, and her 'ill be glad enough I should bring thee home, where there's chambers to spare and lack o' company." " Nay, lad, nay. I don't hold with two livyers lander one roof. Give me a place to ourselves, Jan, and let 1 be missus in it." And so, with the help of Molly's " feyther," Jan built that little house. And its walls were srood 4 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. honest " cob " — none of your rubbishy bricks and mortar, through which winds blow and rains leak, but warm, thick cob walls, and a fine thatch of straw atop. Mary used often to tell me it was "a little old scram place ; " but that was long after, when the thatch was green with houseleek and yellow stone- crop. When she first came there as bride, with a " good man " of her own, and hung up her grand- mother's mug on the dresser hook, she was proud enough of the cot whicli her Jan had built for the most part with his own hands ; and in it for more than sixty years Mary " lay down missus and got up master," as we say thereabouts. John was a brave steady chap, and he lived out his appointed span of life in the cob cottage with the thatched roof. And he never knew but what he was master in it. He was slow and steady ; but she was flippant on her feet, and sharp to her tongue, and ordei^ed all that came into the house, and moat that went out of it. The first thing that came was a little maid. And Mary said, " Us 'ill call her Tamasina, after my granny as give me the blue mug there." But Jan said, " My mother's christened Lizbuth, though 'em do call her Betsy for short. I reckon Lizbuth's a fine name, Mary, and mother 'ud be pleased ? " The missus held her tongue till the Sunday came, when she and her gossips took the child to church. And as she hitched up the big tea-kettle to the chimney crook before they started, and raked up the turf-ashes, she'said to her man — " I tell 'ee what, Jan, us 'ill have a drop o' elder- berry wine to-night, and a hot toast in it. Wilt thee broach the little cask before us go away, Jan r MAIiY'JS MUG. Fi AnJ I'll dust out grandmother's mug, and us 'ill drink the little maid's health out of it. Us couldn't do no less, could ns, Jan, seeing — her's named to grandmother ? " And Jan scratched his head, and thought of the nice hot toast and the deep draught of spicy wine, and made answer, after a bit — " No, us couldn't, I s'pose," and quite forgot how he had once thought Lizbuth was a fine name. And when the parson said, " Name this child," and Mary's first cousin on her mother's side answered, " Tamasina, please, sir," and dropped a neat little curtsey as she spoke up, and the parson said in his loud sonorous voice, "Tamasina, I baptize thee," — then Jan looked round to the little maid's mother, who sat in a pew behind, and saw her winking away a bright tear as she thought on the grand- mother who had been so good to her, and taught her to spin and sew, and " learnt her behaviour;" and as he looked at his wife and listened to the parson, he forgot all about Lizbuth for the second time, and thought Tamasina the finest name that ever was. Is it not true that ''a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his Avife " ? And Jan and his missus and the gossips sat round the hearth that evening, in the big settle ; and the women-folk sipped their wine out of tumblers genteelly, and stirred the sugar up with the little old, thin, silver spoons that Tamasina the elder had left behind when she said good-bye to this world. But Jan drank deep draughts out of grandmother's blue mug, not forgetting to say first — " I wish 'ee all well ; and here's to the health of the little maid who's named to grandmother. Thank God for all His mercies ! " 6 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. For Jan was a goad lad and steady, and he also had '' larnt beliavioar." But I think he enjoyed himself all the more because his missus had her way. And when the gossips were gone away, through the starlit night, across the moor to their own homes, Mary said — " Car' the cradle up to chamber, Jan, and I'll rake up the turves, and latch the door, and hang up grandmother's mug for fear he should get hurted." And though she had three chores to do, and he had only one, he hadn't got up over the chamber stairs before she was after him. For Mary was flippant on her feet in those days. When I knew her first, she wasn't as young as she used to be. Jan was dead, and the little maid was " growed up," and had a man and a home of her own miles away. And the five children who came after her were all out in the world — some one place, some another; but Mary still lived on in the old cob house in the goyle which her man had built ; and grandmother's mug still hung on the dresser hook ; and Mary sat in the settle by the turf fire, and knitted long grey stockings for the farmers' wives, who had their own hands too full of children, and chicken, and dairv work to have much time to spare for sitting down quiet and knitting. But Mary had plenty of time. Her man was gone, and the children were gone, and her own little bits of work — chores, as she called them — didn't take her long, and were all done up early in the day. When Mary was tired of knitting, she got up off the settle, and rolled up her stocking, and stuck the pins in the ball, and put it away in that big MAIiY'S MUG. 7 basket which always stood just under the table by the door. And then she went out into the garden, and saw the gooseberries were coming tine and big ; and she reckoned she could pick enough to make it worth her while to trudge into Ashcombe and sell them. It was Saturday, too, that day, I think, and next day was White Sunday, when most folks who had a " man " and childi^en wanted to make a pie. And though most folks in those parts had a garden, — and, of course, a garden has goosebeiry bushes in it — still everybody's garden did not lie to the south like hers did. She had never failed of gooseberry pie at Whitsuntide as long as her man had lived, for her berries were always ready a week or ten days before any one else's. That w'as one reason why John built his house in a goyle, and a goyle that ran east and west, and was "loo" from the cold north winds, and lay out his garden sloping to the southern sun. But poor John was gone, and so was gooseberry pie in that cottage. For when the parish allows you one shilling and sixpence per week, 'tis all you can do to buy a loaf of bread, and a bit of tea, and now and then a quarter of butter. One and sixpence won't buy everything. But Mary never wanted anything — "not she, thank God ! " as she would say many a time. Folks who have gooseberries in their garden splats can sell them when they can't afford to make pies, especially if they are beforehand with their neighboui-s. And when gooseberries are no longer green, curi'ants, you may be sure, are waxing red and black iu the summer sun. This particular Saturday it was gooseberries Mary went into her garden to pick, and as she picked she 8 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. measured them into grandmother's blue mug, — one, two, three quarts good measure, and then Mary stayed her hand. " Never pick a bush clean out," she used to say ; " a body never knows what they 'ill want to-morrow." And then the basket was covered with a fresh rhubarb leaf; and the Sunday cap, so neatly plaited, was donned. The little old black silk bonnet was put on over the full white borders that framed the withered cheeks ; the clean blue-checked apron tied on ; the black " turnover " pinned across vitty ; the turves raked together, so that she might find fire on her return ; and then, hiding her door-key in the thatchen eves, the old lady started on her three-mile walk. She was still flippant on her feet, though " her 'ill never see eighty again for all her's so spry," as Mrs. Crocombe said to me that day, when we watched the dapper little figure coming down over " the Lawns," knit- ting as she walked. " But what us 'ill do for our arrants when the Lord pleases to take her, I don't know, not I. Run out, my dear, and stop her, do — though, there ! her's sure to come in." And I, nothing loth, did her bidding, while the farmer's wife hastily broke some bread into a basin, and with a huge iron ladle dipped a few savoury broth out of the big pot hanging to the chimney crook, and set it on the end of the long oaken table. " Sit thee down, Mary ; sit thee down. You'm off early to-day. I wasn't looking for thee so soon, and I've two or three arrants for 'ee this morning. Have 'ee room in that there basket for my eggs, or must I pack 'em separate ? Eggs is getting plenty now. I s'pose I must let 'em go a shilling a score." For the old woman would take anybody's eggs up MAIiY'S MUG. 9 to Ashcombe, and change them at the village shop into tea or sugar, or anything else that was wanted for the week's consumption. But to-day there was more than tea or sugar required, and, while Mary was eating her broth, Mrs. Crocombe reckoned out her pence and two or three sixpenny bits that must be paid over and above the eggs for reels of cotton, and ounces of cloves, and a quarter of blue, and a pot of best blacking, so that Farmer Crocombe's boots might not disgrace his missus as he walked up the church path next day, conscious of his posi- tion as parson's churchwarden. Mary's basket was big, as I have said, and there "was plenty of room in it for the eggs ; and against she had finished her broth, all the items were packed away in her head, and she rose to go, with " Thank the Lord, and you, too, kindly, missus ; " the stocking was unrolled and the needles began to click ; and — " Thee shall have a cake to car' home with thee, Mary ; my baking will be out by then," called Mrs. Crocombe after her, as she picked her way over the stepping-stones by the back door. The basket was pretty full against she got to Ashcombe, but it was fuller still when she came back. The stocking had to be put by in her large pocket ; for though you " can knitty a bit " when one ann only is loaded with a basket, you can't knitty at all if you are carrying a big bundle in your other hand as well. In that bundle was the loaf which the parish sixpence had been changed into, besides the little screw of tea and sugar, and the bit of cheese, and a happorth of salt, and two candles, which had all been got out of the remain- ing shilling. That was Mary's week'.s shopping for herself, and 10 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. in the basket were all the "arrants " she had been intrusted with bj the farmers' wives, whose houses she passed on the road. And when they took out their little parcels, there was always something put back instead. An odd duck's e^g, which wasn't worth selling — a bit of cold bacon, left over from the men's dinner, — or, as good Mrs. Crocombe pro- mised, a figgy cake hot from the oven. Not much, perhaps, in return for a long walk and a heavy basket ! But what did .she want more ? She never went to bed hungry, and she never lay cold — the parson's wife saw to that; and blankets don't wear out very fast when there's only one little old woman to sleep under them, and they get a careful wash once a year in the long summer days, and keep for the rest of the year the scent of the sweet yellow furze bushes they were dried upon in the hot sunshine. She never Avanted for anything while she was alive. " What can a body want more than a full belly, and a warm back, and a good thatchen roof over their heads ? " she was wont to say. But one day she told me a secret. I was sitting in the old window-place, plucking wheatears to be roasted for supper, when she came by. I wonder, do you know how many wheatears it takes to make a dish for a farmhouse supper H Anyhow, Mary was quite right when she said, " Dear sakes, Miss Annie, that's an everlasting chore you'm at ; do 'ee let me help 'ee a bit." And while we sat together in the afternoon sunshine, a big semmet between us to put the feathers in, and the light, glinting on the pi'etty little birds as they lay in a heap on the sill, sliowed up their dark- pencilled eyebrows, and accentuated the pathos of MAIiY'S MUG. 11 their closed eyes and ruffled wings, she begnn to talk out of the fulness of a heart that was generally held still and shut up. " I'm getting an old woman now, my dear. I sem I shan't be able to go arrants much longer ; and the Lord, He'll preserv^e me from being a bed- Iyer, that He will. I alius was a spry maid and flippant to my feet, and when I can't go no longer I'll lie down and die. I've got all ready for the burying, and, I pray the Lord, Jem won't let the parish lay me in my grave alongside of my old man. But there — Jem lives t'other side of Barnstaple, and he mightn't come to hear of it in time ; and he's a lot of children, he has ! But I've got all ready to lay me out — 'twould only be the coffin and that to pay for. There's a new shimmy Miss Ellen gave me last Christmas, and there's a short bedgown as belonged to your poor Aunt Bessie, what I had for a keepsake ; and I've plaited up a clean cap, for fear I .should be took sudden and not able to do it at the last — and there's only one thing wanting. And I'd wish to be a handsome lych, I would ; so as not to scare them as come to look at me." "And what's that one thing, then, Mary ? " I said ; for if she liked to talk about her burying, why should I hinder it ? " What is it you're wanting ? " " It's the stockings, my dear. I haven't had a pair of white cotton stockings since I was a maid, and I can't abide the notion of lying in my coffin in thiccy coarse black ones. If I only knew where to put my hand on a pair of nice, white, boughten ones, I'd die happy." " Mary," I said solemnly, as I put down the last trussed wheatear in the dish — and the tears stood in my eyes as I thought of my dear old woman buried 12 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. by the parish, and with coarse black stockings en those active little feet and neat ankles, — " Mary, I promise you I'll o;et you a pair of white stockings for the burying, if you die before me." And Mary, as Ave drank a cup of tea together after T had cleared away the feathers, said — " Don't 'ee forget then, my dear ; for I'd wish to be a handsome lych, and the Lord 'ill reward 'ee. It's a heavy weight off my mind, it is ; for my old man was always so much thought on." But the old woman's time was not come yet. The autumn passed away, and the winter, and another summer came, and its garden stores ripened. One day Mary came down to the farm again, and with her came grandmother's blue mug in her basket ; and the mug was full of big black currants with the bloom fresh on them, and two or three of the sweet-smelling leaves lay at tlie top. " What have you got to sell to-day, Mary ? And you're never going up to Ashcorabe town in all this heat! — a Friday, too; why, all the folks are away to market ! " " No, my dear, no ; I'm past going to Ashcombe any more. My poor old feet has pretty well run their last, I reckon. And I've brought 'ee some- thing in a present, if you 'ill please to accept of it." And out of her basket came the mug, full of currants. And, as she put it in my hand, the old woman dropped the little curtsey which she had learned from her grandmother was " behaviour " when you " pi^offer some'at to a lady." Mary was old and I was young, but " manners is manners " all through life. And as I was going to turn out the berries in a bowl, she held ray young fingers in her old withered hand : " Keep en, my dear ; keep mug 31AliY'S MUG. 13 and all, for old Mary's sake. There's no one else sets such a vallj on grandmother's mug as you do, and I've allays ordained you should have en when I was gone ; so you'd best take en now, for you mightn't get en then. There's no knowing what the parish might do, and Jem so far away." * # * * * How many years ago was that ? I hardly know. I remember how we sat and told, and drank tea together in the little old parlour, — ^Nfary and me alone, for the " maister " and " missus " were gone to market. And I put one of the black-currant leaves in the teapot to give it a flavour — which it did. And we talked of many things — of Jem, her darling son ; of Humphrey ; and Ann, " who had married such a daft body, and lived over to Welch- land ! " of Tamasina's christening, and the best way to make elderberry wine ; of ^Mary's good " place " that she married from, and where she got the magnificent wage of a "whole pound a quarter;" of her wedding-gown, which lasted her for Sunday best till Tamasina was " growed up a proper big maid," and Humphrey could run alone, and the cradle was empty — and kept empty, too, till it was turned over to Ann, who married the daft body, and lived to Welchland. The wedding-gown was a white calico spotted with pink. I remember it well ; for when it would not wear any longer as a grown, the tail of it was cut up into three-cornered neckerchiefs, and many a time I've noticed the spot so like the shape of the wheatear's eye with its darker line of brow. Mary's low-cut neck of her black stuff gown showed a goodish bit of the ker- chief underneath. And so we sat and told in the gathering twilight 14 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. — told of the past with all its little homely details and simple joys. But we never once mentioned the burying tiiat must come by-and-by, or the parisli coffin, or the white stockings. One doesn't need to rake up the bottom of one's heart every day. Soon after this I went away for a bit, and when I came back it was winter weather, and, I re- member, I caught cold driving twenty miles through lanes blocked with snow, and over the bleak com- mon. And one morning, when my cough, which had kept me upstairs for a week or more, was getting better, and I was thinking that I might perhaps get out for a turn in the sunshine, a messenger came to my bedside, and said — " Please, miss, do 'ee know as old Mary, her's terrible bad. And the doctor, he've sent her some physic, he has, but her says her can't die easy without you come to her. I'd have come and fetched you before, but her wouldn't let me, 'cause her knowed you was badly." It wasn't long before I was climbing the old stone stairs which led up to the chamber and to Mary's bedside. There she lay breathing heavy and short, but her eyes met mine fondly, and both her withered hands were held out to me. "God bless 'ee, my dear, I knowed you'd come! No, you can't do nothing for me. You can't ^ive me a new inside, and this one's wored right out. I've worked hard in my time, I have. And the childern's all put out in tlie world; and now I'm going to my old man, and he'll be main glad to see me. The things is all ready in the big chest. And I'm all Avashed and clean ; folks won't have much trouble to lay me vitty in my coffin. . . . Is Jem come ? " MAliY'S MUG. 15 But the afternoon wore away before Jem came. The doctor came and went. The parson looked in, and said a prayer by the dying-bed. The neigh- bours had kindly words and oifers of help for the night-watchers. But ]\[ary spoke to none. She lay there, propped up on the clean pillows, her head on my shoulder, her hand in mine. When Jem came at last, she opened her eyes once more. "I'm quite ready," she said, so softly we could scarce hear the words. "I'm ready, and the things are in the big chest." Bj'-and-by 1 laid her down gently on the bed, and closed the black eyes, once so bright, which saw nothing now — not even Jem, her " eldest lad," as he knelt, a man of well-nigh sixty, by her side, and cried his heart out. And old Mary had her one wish gratified in her death, which had been left unfulfilled till then. She made a handsome lych. The white cotton stockings did not fail her ; and the familiar old face, with all its lines smoothed out by the tender hand of Death, lay softly smiling, out of the net borders she herself had plaited, at all the old friends who came to show their last respect to one who had lived out a long life among them — a long life and a hai'd one, but never a discontented or an abject one. With no luxuries and but few comforts, slie lived out an honest life, and died as became a woman who respected herself. No complaints, no groans ; everything ready, and her old man waiting for her ; her children put out in the world, her good-byes said, her keep-sakes given, she, like the patriai^chs of old, " drew up her feet in bed and fell on sleep " ! She did not have a parish coffin or a parish burial. 16 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. The snow melted away and left tlie roads clear, and thei'e were snowdrops and aconites enough to sprinkle on the gi'ave. And when I look into the old blue mug, and see all the memories it is full of, I find, at the bottom of all, the bright sunshine, and the scent of the moorland, and the ringing voices of the childi'en's hymns which attended her to her grave by John's side. And Mrs. Crocombe said to me as we turned to go home that afternoon, " Her was a dear old critter, that her was, and us 'ill find her wanting ! " A STORY OF SOMETHING. WHEN I was a little maid at home, early in the " forties," something happened. What it was I did not know then, and I am hai-dly likely to be able to find out now, since so many years have passed away. Science has made great strides in those fifty years, but I doubt if its steps have yet covered the debatable land that lies between the seen and the unseen, the material and the spiritual. As for me, I am not scientific. Born in a corner of England still haunted by pixies, and with Irish blood running in my veins, is it likely ? Nay, would it be possible ? We are fond of describing ourselves nowadays as the "creatures of circumstance," and a great deal is also talked about "heredity" and "environ- ment.'^ In my case, both these forces mixed my blood and coloured my senses with a tinge of what you might perhaps call superstitio7i. You are quite at liberty to call it so, though I am not at all sure that is the right name for it. Anyhow, that the world in which I lived was full of presences incorporeal, and thei^efore impalpable and mostly invisible, was a creed certainly not taught me by my mother, who was an English- woman, and yet I believed in it as firmly as that I had two eyes in my head — which also I never had 18 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. seen and never could see. I rather think this was the belief of my forefathers, Avho lived on friendly and familiar terms with St. Patrick and other saints in the green island of Erin. And though they were sadly wanting in that regard for their descendants which induces sensible English folks to lay up for their children the sort of goods which rust and moth can corrupt, they stored up and passed on a kind of spii'itual protoplasm — a wealth which thieves cannot steal, even were they desirous to do so, — and of this, I, my father's youngest child, inherited a Benjamin's portion. Moreover, I was born in Devonshire. And when I was old enough to sit up to table and eat an e^g " like a lady," my nurse taught me to make a hole in the bottom of the shell when I had finished, so that the fairies mightn't use it as a boat to sail away in. The custom was a good one, and I keep to it still. It was when I was a year or two older that " something " happened. " Go up to Church town, Ellen, and take the little maid with you," said my mother. " I want you to call at the post-office and see if there's a letter for your master." For in those days we had no penny post ; and people who, like ourselves, lived a mile or more away from Churchtown, — where postman aliohted from his old horse, after a ride of twenty miles, with two leathern bags slung across the saddle, — had to fetch their lettei'S when they expected any. And on this particular day, I remember, we carried ninepence-halfpenny to pay for it, and we brought the money back intact be- cause the letter was franked. But it was a long while before we got home A STORY OF SOMETHING. 19 again, and my mother was beginning to be very anxious about me, and the tea was waiting. It wasn't such a very long walk, and we could have done it quite well in an hour and a half if only Ellen would have taken the road through the wood, and gone up " Farmer Ward's Hill," as we generally did. But no, as we turned out of our own gate, she took the road to the left. " That's the wrong way, Ellen," said I. "Nofy," said she; "it's the right way for we. I dursn't go over Farmer Ward's Hill when it's getting dark like — and on a Friday, too ! No, not for ever so." "But why, Ellen ? " persisted I. " We've often gone that way before." " Yes, my dear, yes ; us have a-bin, but it ain't safe now. There's Avice Lord — her that lives to Farmer Dallin's — she were coming home last Friday, just in the dimpses, and her's not been the same maid since." And Ellen shook her head and groaned. Never been the same maid since ! What an awful thought ! Suppose we should find ourselves in like case, and when we got home mother should not know us because we were other folks, and not our own selves ! I had no more wish to go thi'ough the wood and over Farmer Ward's Hill that even- ing. But the other road was a long way round, and we must walk fast ; and I, afraid of I knew not what, clung tight to my nurse's hand, and asked no more questions. Still, we were well overtaken by the dimpses before we got home. And the last thought in ray mind as I settled myself down to sleep that night was, " What could have happened to Avice Lord 20 DEVONSHIltE IDYLS. that she was never the same maid again aftei* she was caught in the dimpses on Farmer Ward s Hill ? " The next morning I was helping Ellen to make the beds — for my mother thought it was good for our lungs to shake and lift the blankets and pillows, and we sisters always took turns in helping the servants, — and the sun was shining brightly out- side, and the birds singing. Encouraged by this, I ventured to ask once more, " Do tell me, nursey dear, what happened to Avice Lord, then, on Friday last in the dimpses ? Do tell me, please ! " But Ellen was loth ; missis had often bid her not fill my little head with " nonsense." And then, too, she was frightened herself, and did not know rightly what to make of it. So I did not get much more out of her than : " Her angered the old woman, I s'pose, and so her drawed a ring round the maid with her broomstick, all in the mux of the road, and dared her to get out of it." Here and there, — in the cottages round about, now and then, when I carried little presents to the mothers of new babies, or a bit of our own dinner to a bed-Iyer, — I used to hear odds and ends of talk about Avice Lord, and how "her'd never been the same maid," and how not a thing would stay in its place, or a cat bide in any house that she entered. But every one knew that the lady down to Cross- combe Cottage was veiy particular, if she was kind ; and they thought on the puddings, and the cans of broth, and the nice little frocks and skirts ; and if I asked pointed questions about Avice, I only got evasive replies. And as the girl left that part, and took service somewhere up country, the story gradually died out of my mind. A STORY OF SOMKrillNG. 21 But some years after, when I was " grown up," I was detained at a friend's house, where I had been spending the day, till it was too late to walk home five miles alone, and Tom AVheedon was sent against me with a horse. I remember how glad I was to see him and the old white mare. The moonlight shone on them as they crossed the high rocks, and struck into the shadowed bridle-path up which I was climbing. There was nothing to be afraid of, fori was never afraid of being alone ; but, somehow, company was pleasant among those wild rocks and dark cliffs, where Sir Roberts' hounds were often heard giving tongue and rousing the echoes — though both he and his dogs were dead and buried a good hundred and fifty years since. But they could not rest in their graves, as the old tales ran, because of the sins he died unrepentant of. There was no mystery about these sins ; they were talked of openly. Perhaps you will laugh when I name them ; but no one laughed, in our parts, when we said, one to another, that " old Sir Roberts could not lie easy, and no wonder^ — for he fed his dogs on white bread, and cut his nails on a Sunday." J do not laugh even now. I think we should all be better Christians if we minded what we were taught when we were little — that the children's bread is not for brute beasts ; and that, if we give to these, we defraud those for whom it was ordained. Moreover, with regard to his other crime, we are all aware that no good ever comes from putting off till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. There are different opinions as to the best day for cutting one's nails, and every one has a right to his own opinion ; but never have I heard any one so heterodox as to advance the view 22 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. that Sunday was the right day. Sir Roberts must have chosen it in wilful insult to the Christian feel- ing of his neighbours, or in besotted ignorance of the difference between right and wrong. No one doubted the justice of his punishment. The rest due to weary bodies after a lifetime of right- doing, or at least right-striving, could not be for such as he. Still, the thought of him, as he wandered restlessly round, was far from cheerful, and Thomas and the old mare were welcome. And as one eerie thought led to another, I recalled the maid who lost her identity, and suddenly questioned — " You never lived hereabouts, when that queer story was told of the girl up to Farmer Dallin's, did you, Tom ? " "Well, yes, miss, I did," he allowed, though a bit slowly and unwillingly, I thought. " My mother, her used to work for the old Farmer Dallin afore I was born ; and though I was most times to Combe, I hired myself out to the young farmer for a year, just for old acquaintance like." " And did you ever hear the rights of that story, Tom ? It was a very queer story, wasn't it ? " " Well, yes, miss, it were a queer sort of a con- sarn ; but I couldn't say as I knowed the rights of it, though I knowed all as a body could know about, seeing I were there at the time, and Avice, her were my own sister, for my mother took another man after poor f eyther was drowned off Beacon Rock in the herring- time." " Avice your sister, Tom ! and you there when it happened ! Oh, do tell me all about it." Tom hummed and hesitated a bit. Evidently it was a subject he didn't care to talk about ; but, after all, he began — A STORY OF SOMETHING. 23 "I wa'an't tell 'ee no lies then, miss, and I can't say how it come about at all ; but I can't go far wrong, I reckon, if I tell 'ee what I saw with my own eyes, I s'pose, and heai"d with my own ears. There's a many curious things in this world, there be ; and this one's the curiousest I ever came across. But if 'ee want to hear it, this is how it was." And Tom cleared his throat, and, having made up his mind to tell, set straight off to recount events per- fectly well known to him and much pondered on, and therefore without the least break in his narrative. " My sister Avice, her was a peart maid, her was — nothing couldn't ever get over she. Her'd scrub down the house when her was no bigger than my little George be now — he that tends the crows to maister's ; you know un, Miss Annie, — the one with the carroty poll. And her couldn't 'a bin more nor fifteen year old when the missus begged of mother to let her come girl at the farm, and she'd lam to cook vitty, and dairy work and all that like. And Avice, her were terrible spry. Her dapped round like anything. There wasn't no maid in the neigh- bourhood anywhere that had her gumption. It wasn't more than a twelvemonth after she came to old Missus Dallin's afore she made the butter and the cheese and all that, what the missus had never trusted to a girl before. I've heard her say often, ' Avice, thank the Lord, thee wasn't born stupid ; ' that's what the old missus said, her did. And the maid was that peart, her'd up and answer, "'Tisn'ta fool as 'ud suit at the Barton, is it, missus ? ' And the eyes of her 'ud twinkle, and her 'ud fly round double quick. Her was that spry all the chaps was after her. But her wouldn't look at none of them. Her was my own sister, was Avice, and I know 24 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. what I'm a-saying of. And Fridays hei-'d go into Combe with the butter and the eg-gs and that like, so stiddy, just as if her were an old woman, her would. The missus would tell 'ee the same word for word if her was living ; but her died, poor soul, most directly after Avice left the farm; her couldn't stand no racketing, and her never cheered up like again after Parson Joe came that night But there, I ain't got to Parson Joe yet. No fy — I were a-telling of Avice, and how spry her was afore her met with that there old woman on Farmer Ward's Hill as drawed a ring round her." And Tom shook his head very soberly. "But what did she draw a ring round her for, Tom ? Do tell me." " Well, there 'tis, Miss Annie ; how can I tell 'ee what I doan't know ? I wouldn't tell 'ee no lies — not if I knowed it. I wasn't there to see. Only Avice, her come home all of a tremble and quite skeered like. And her said the old woman had drawed a i-ing round her, and dared her to get out of it. And Avice said it was because her wouldn't buy a broom of she. And so her drawed the ring in the road mux with thiccy broomstick. But the old woman were Tammy Kale, Dicky Kale's grand- mother ; and folks do say her can ovei^look a body, and 'tain't safe to anger she. Avice were a spiritty maid then, and her wouldn't be said by Dicky Kale's grandmother, 'tweren't likely. And her wouldn't have nothing to do with Dicky, no ways. He didn't come of a good lot, and I don't blame her. But Avice, her wouldn't stand no nonsense, and so her just shut her eyes and turned herself round three times, and then took and made a leap right out so far as her could, and when her opened her eyes A STORY OF SOMETHING. 25 Granny Kale -were a-goo, and her besom and all. But 'twas got quite dark all of a minute, and 'twere only in the dimpses when the maid shut her eyes. Her couldn't see nothing and so her rinned, and her rinned, and her wasn't long on the road that night. Missus, her was terrible frightened to see how the maid looked. But that wasn't the worst of it. Avice that was such a handy maid and never tored up nothing, when her went to take up the broth for supper down went the bowl to gi'ound ; and when her picked up the sherds and went to dresser to reach down another, her knocked the pint mug right off his nail — but he wasn't dome, and so he didn't tear up. So it was all that evening, and the next day, and the next ; an(^ right on through the week the maid wasn't herself, and whichever way her turned, and whatever way her looked, something took the clomen ware, and it all rattled and shook, and so often as not something or other would jump right off the shelf, or the table, or wherever it might be. And the maid looked badly, her wasn't her old spiritty self at all — her that were the spryest maid in the country round. But us were all fond of the maid, and us didn't take no notice. But I reckoned that when White Sunday came I'd clean myself up a bit, and go over to MoUand, and see the old Winifred — her that's called the wise woman — there's many folks goes to her, and her's got a powerful lot of charms. Her spoke feyther's warts away. I've heard poor mother tell of it many's the time. But Holland's pretty nigh on seventeen mile away, and I couldn't get for to go till the days were a bit longer and yeaning-time were over. And one day the old maister and missus was gone into Ashcombe with the cart and horse; and I was out and about on the 26 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. land, looking after the ewes and that ; and Avice were in the house. And then I see it was getting on for six o'clock, for the bullocks was lifting their heads, and the cows was moving on over the ' Little Park ' towards the geiit. So I follows 'em to the yard "where the sliippon was, and ties up the bullocks, and goes on up over the yard to call the maid to come milking. And as I go along up over the stoiins, what should I see but the milking bucket dapping down over the court ; so I picked en up, and says, ' Well met,' says I, ' I were just a-coming to fetch ee ; ' and I took en down to the yard, and stood en beside of Blackberry, 'cause her were the first cow I alius milked. And then I went for the stool, and to fetch the maid. And as I went up over the stoans this time, there was the semmet coming along, and close behind he were maistei"'s old lanthorn, dapping along like as if they were dancing. Well, I didn't know what to make of it, but I picks 'em up and carries 'em up the step into the big kitchen, and I hung 'em up on the nails where they belonged to. " The maid were there, hitching up the chimney crock, and her turned round to see what I were a- doin' of, and when her faced the semmet he gave one great jump and there he was, in the middle of the floor, dapping about like mad. And the lan- thorn, he wouldn't bide neither ; he was off again. And the bellows banged agin' the wall. And the big dish kettle what Avice had just hitched up tipped over into the turves. And the maid, her stood there quite skeered like, and her didn't say nothing. ' Avice,' says I, ' Avice, maid, what's up, then 't ' For I heai'd a great racketing up in the chamber overhead, where the maister's old mother lay — her A STORY OF SOMETHING. '^7 that was a bed-Iyer, for her were more than ninety years old. And I said, ' What's up wi' old granny, then ? and what be 'em after, tumbling the things about like that ? * But her made answer quite serious, ' There's nobody up there, Tom, and thee'd better ways go on to milking.' And her looked that strange there was no telling. But I couldn't go on milking and not know what was up, and maister and missus away to Ashcombe. " So I went to the chamber stairs, and just as I were a-taking off my mucky shoes, not to make no dirt on the planches, what should I hear but some- body coming down over the steps quite careful like, JQSt as the little uns do! And there was old granny's armchair, that alius stood by her bedside, with the patched cushions in it, dapping down over the steps one leg at a time ; and he come on quite stiddy like, and, when he got down into the kitchen, he give a great jump like, and got to where the semraet and the old lanthorn was already. And he set to, and they set to — and wherever the maid looked there was a jump ; and the big bellows was amongst 'em, and the dome rattled, and all the things in the kitchen danced just as if it were shearing-time in the big barn. But 'twas grand- mother's chair that finished me. When I see en a-dapping down over the chamber stairs, foot and foot like a Christian, I was that terrified I runned to the stables, and I jumped on to the back of the old mare, and I rode for life's sake out against maister and missus, for I knowed they'd be on their way home by then. And, sure enough, I met 'em in the Danes. And maister, he saith, says he, Tom, you drive missus home, and I'll take the old amer and go after Parson Joe. Us can't stand this 28 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. no longer. Maybe he'll come and say some words.' " And Tom stopped to draw breath, for he had gonw on talking very rapid. The moon was hid under the clouds ; and T think we both felt the night was rather dismal, and there was no knowing what might be about. " And did Parson Joe come then ? " " Well, miss, yes — he corned ; but not then. He said he must study a bit first ; and he'd got what they calls a ' black book,' and he read up some ' words ' in it. But, there, I won't tell 'ee what I don't know, miss. There were a many lies told up ; and Avice, her never were the same maid again. And the old granny, she never spoke like no more ; her that was a bed-Iyer so long. And missus, her died soon after Avice went away foreign. The parson, he brought his book with un when he came ; 1 seed that with my own eyes, for he carried it his- self, and I held his horse the whiles he went up over the stairs into the chamber. And the church- warden, he corned likewise ; and the waywarden he brought two stoans out of the road on Farmer Ward's Hill. There was a deal said and done. And they telled I that parson got a bit of the rope they hanged Tony Parkins the sheep-stealer with, when parson's grandfather was living to Danstej-. But I never seed that, and I won't tell 'ee nothing but what I seed ; though the rope might 'a come in handy to bind up the old witch's tongue with, if so be as her did have a hand in all that terrifying business. But what I knows, I knows for truth, and that's what I tell 'ee. Miss Annie. And my sister Avice, her wasn't never the same maid again. And the old missus her died soon after Avice went A STOIiY OF SOMETHING. 29 away; and though I didn't see no more but the outside of Parson Joe's big book, I know there must 'a bin something in en, for I heard a cruel loud screech while I were standing there by the upping-stock holding his horse. And Avice, her went as white as a sheet." " But how about the dome and things, Tom ? Did they stop jumping about after that ? " " Oh yes, miss. Parson Joe, he said them, and they couldn't do nothing afterwards. But it was grandmother's chair finished me. When I saw en dapping down over the stairs just like a Christian, I was up and off like a hare. I won't tell 'ee no lies, but that I seed with my own eye?, ; and a body could not stand that, could he, miss ? And Avice, her never were the same maid again," ***** We got safe home that night, down Farmer Ward's Hill and all ; and I don't know now why the story of Avice made so strong an impression on my mind. Tliei'e was nothing so very dreadful in it. Mrs. Dallin died, it is true, in little more than a year afterwards, but she always had been an ailing body, and I've heard it was dropsy carried her off at last. The old granny, too — well, when one remembers what her age was, ninety and over, and that she had been a bed-Iyer several years, we cannot say that she was taken away before her time ! And though Avice was " never the same maid again," and " went away foreign," — which means up the country to service, somewhere in the Midlands — she got a good place, and a good husband, and I believe she is living still. There comes a turning-point in many a gii-l's life, no DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. when she is never the same again. We walk about in the midst of many mysteries, and yet, when we are young, all the world seems to lie open to us and the sunshine. Then comes something, we don't quite know what. Something that, like the old Tammy, draws a circle round us — an environment that we can only free ourselves from with a great eifort. I don't know that I should be terrified now, in my riper years, even if I were to meet old Tammy, besom in hand. I've seen too many old women to be afraid of them ; and a besom is not only harm- less, but very useful, to my thinking. But I know well — and, like Tom, I'll speak the truth about it — that if I were to meet grandmother's chair, or my own, for that matter, coming down over the chamber stairs, step and step, like a Christian and all by itself too, it would "finish me," and that like Thomas, I should " run for my life " ! GEBI8T0PHEB COMER. WHAT to do with our bojs and girls is a prob- lem which English fathers and mothers ap- pear to have a good deal of difficulty in solving now- adays. Well-educated men and women clasp their hands in despair, and, with a thousand or two per annum at their backs, talk gravely of the expenses of a growing family. I sometimes wonder how they would have managed to make both ends meet, had they stood in my fi'iend Christopher's shoes, who, earning but fourteen shillings a week, had to feed, clothe, and educate twelve sons and daughters on it! A wage of fourteen shillings a week in Devonshire implies that you have your health, and work hard too. A labouring man, such as Christopher Comer, has no floating cash at the bank to draw on when he has a doctor's bill to pay and no week's wage coming in ; though, if he is thrifty, he has saved a few pence every week to meet the payment into a sick club. I pride myself on being a good manager, but I know I should find it hai'd to save those few pence. For my part, I think Christopher one of the cleverest men I know ; and last time I saw him, as I shook his hard, honest hand, I told him I was proud of his acquaintance. 31 32 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. "Christopher," said I, "yoa've brought up your family to be a credit to you, and useful to society ; and though your wife is gone fii^st, and you are left alone in your old age, with only Dan to be a comfort to you, still I'm sure you must be glad at heart to know how well they've turned out ; and I feel it an honour to know such a man ! " I had to speak loud, for my friend is hard of hearing ; but though he is turned of seventy, nothing else fails him. A slow smile lighted up the honest face which has turned such a brave front to the difficulties of life, as he took in the nature of my compliments. " Iss fy, they'm middling good children, all on 'em, though some on 'em has done better than others ; and me and their mother, us have tried to do our duty by 'em, and teached 'em what us could. Us couldn't give 'em no money, and not much school- ing, but us did the best us could, and nobody can do no more. Kitty, her worked hard for 'em all ; her was a good mother, that her was." Christopher Comer is a very old friend of mine. Nowadays folks address him as Mr. Comer, I observe. When I was a girl, and he was a young chap, just wed, and come to live at " Little Comfort," every one knew him by the name of " Chris," and his wife was plain " Kitty." I remember well the first time I saw her. He was a native of the parish, but " her didn't belong hereabouts," the farmer's wife said, who, when she brought in our weekly batter, excused herself for being a day late because she was " so terrible put about to get through the dairy work at all, Kitty Comer being that bad her couldn't come up to do no chores." " No, ma'am ; I reckon you don't know her," she continued, in answer to my mother's inquiries ; " hei CHRISTOFHER COMER. B3 isn't one of these pai-ts. Chris, our farm man, I reckon you know he. His mother was poor ohl Betty Comer, who died to Crock Meads, where the landslip was seven years agone. And Chris, when his mother was took and the cottage failed in like, he went off to ]\Iol!and, and worked for Farmer Tapp. And thei'e 'twas he took np with Kitty, who was girl there. Catherine's her proper christened name, I s'pose, but her never goes by no other than Kitty. Some folks talk of Kit and Christy by way of meaning the grey mare's the better hoi*se, but I don't know anything against her, I don't, thongh her doesn't belong hereabouts ; and us just calls her Kitty, the master and me, us do ; and her's a terrible handy young woman to have about the place, for her can do most anything." But poor Kitty Comei* was " took bad " more than a week ago, and " couldn't do nothing; " and Mrs. Turpit was sadly " put about," and we ran out of butter in consequence, and had to make the best of bread and dripping. For in those days there was no running out to shop for a pound of butter when you wanted it. Butcher's meat and butter came on regular days, once a week, and you ordered what you wanted for next Friday or Saturday, as the case might be. Kitty might not belong hereabouts, but she was a person who soon made her presence felt ; and though she was a new comer, we found her wanting directly she was laid by, and it behoved us, not only out of neighbourly^ kindness, but also with regard to good housekeeping, to bestir ourselves, and see what could be done to bring her to the front again. " Took bad " might mean anything, and my mother was never one to send remedies D B-1 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS without knowing Avhat was the matter. So the very next morning I was despatched to hear al( about it, and report to my elders. I did not gd empty handed, you may be sure ; for whatever it was that had taken Kitty, a quarter of tea and « little packet of groats would be sure to come in useful. And, moreover, Kitty Avas a stranger, and something must be done by way of introduction. So my mother packed the little basket while I tied on my sun-bonnet; and pleased enough was I to have an errand that would take me out over the hills that lovely morning. Children that live in towns miss a great deal of tlie pleasure of life, as well as the training which comes from taking part in life's responsibilities. And it cannot well be helped. Other things there are which balance the disadvantages ; but a dis- advantage it nevertheless remains, that childi-en cannot be sent out for a walk alone, and that they cannot be allowed to make friends while they are still little ones with the people on whose labours they depend in great measure for tlie comforts of their own more luxurious homes. I was but " in my thirteen," but though it was quite three miles away to Little Comfort, where Chris and Kitty lived, my mother had no fears in letting me walk there alone ; and knew, moreover, that when I got there, I should know almost as well as herself wdiat to say and do. I was always welcome in the cottages of the country folk — for, as Granny Richards used to say to my mother, "Miss Annie, her's always so homely like, but her isn't one with ' no hem to her garment ' for all that." But that's neither here nor there. Perhaps some day I may tell you how 1 came to eai'n praise I was always so proud of. ClIRISTOFIIEli COMER. B5 This moi-ning I must take you with me in my walk over the hills to see what was the matter with poor Kitty, who was " took bad." She lived to Little Comfort, as said before. What that name means precisely, folks are not agreed about. Some maintain that the prefix is an adjec- tive of limitation, and points out you must not ex- pect much when you get there. I, for my part, side with those who lay the emphasis on the noun, and only use the w^ord " little " as a term of affection, just as the Germans do their diminutive chen. Perhaps the meaning shifted with its inhabitants. When old Granfer Lord lived there, I faucy the " Comfort " must have had a tinge of irony in the application. When I was there in the last year of Kitty's life, and drank a cup of tea with her, and ate bread of her own baking, and cream from her own cow, and smelled the white jasmine that peeped in at the window, and the roses in the great beaupot which stood on the sill, I thought no name could have been hit on to suit it better. But whoever lived there, it w^as always " Little." Just a kitchen back and front, with a " lean-to " one side and a shippon on the other. And above, a couple of chambers, and a sort of loft over the shippon. Little as it was, Christopher would never have got it for a shiliing' a week if it hadn't been in such a tumble-down state when Granfer Lord died, and his slatternly daughter moved into the next parish. Farmer Pararaore, on whose land it stood, hadn't any spare money to lay out on it, for that was the year after the great failure of the potato crop, and when the corn harvest was not; much better than a failure. To be sure, bullocks were looking up then, but just for a year or two 36 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. cash was very scarce. And wlien Christopher hired himself to the Barton Farm, at twelve shillings a week, the farmer said, "1 hear thee art going- to settle and take a missus ; and, if thee will, thee can have Little Comfort very cheap. I can't do nothing in the way of repairs, but thee shall have it for next to nothing. Think it over, lad." So Chris thought it over, and said " Yes " to the bargain. But he did more than say ''Yes." All that year, when he had a day off, or an idle hour, he was to be found down in the '' Bottom" where the cottage lay — patching up the roof, plastering the walls, white-washing the chambers, cleaning out the shippon, or digging in the garden, so that he might have all things in order by the time he bi'ought home his missus. That was already more than a year ago on the day I started in my white sun-bonnet, basket in hand, to see what was the matter with that same missus, otherwise Kitty Comer, who had been " took bad." My mother came to the gate to see me off, and, when she had watched rae over the bridge, and lost sight of me as I turned to the left, up the steep hill known as Cosdown Cleave, she went in again to her sewing. But I, light of foot and light of heart, climbed up the path that led over the Cleave to Cosdown itself. More than once I turned to look back. At my feet lay the blue sea, glancing and gleaming in the sunlight; and running up the opposite hill, and crowned by the church, was the village we lived in. White houses, thatched roofs, green trees, the brawling stream, spanned by the two-aiched bridge near our garden gate — I see them all over again in memory, almost as clearly. CHRISTOPHER COMER. 37 and certainly with a keener sense of the svoudrous beauty of that view, than I was conscious of then. Fifty years may dull some senses, but it sharpens the edge of others. On the down the air was sweet with mingled odours of winter and spring. The damp peat drying in the hot sun mixed its pungent scent with the mellow sweetness exhaled from thickets of yellow gorse in full bloom. There were wheel-tracks through the heather and peaty ground, and there were clearings in the furze-brake, and I had no difficulty in finding my way to Little Com- fort, though it was difficult to believe wheels could really have gone di)wn the steep, almost perpen- dicular, side of Cosdown to the Bottom, where the cottage lay — just one little human home, nestled in between a tiny stream and a tree or two ; a gai-den plot, fenced in by a i-ough stone wall ; a potato held, and, all round, the swelling heathery downs, rising and rising, till all was lost in the blue haze of distance. The farm whei-e Christopher worked was not more than half a mile off, but it lay in another dip, and could not be seen from where I stood, on the edge of the steep, able to throw a stone, if I had so wished, into the low chimney a couple of hundi-ed feet beneath me. " Thank 'ee, miss, kindly, for calling, and my duty to the lady. A cup of tea's a real comfort when a body s forced to bide all day in the chimbley corner. My man, he doth all he can for me ; and he's a real handy chap and dreadful good to the baby: but I'm proper tired of kettle-bx-oth, day in and day out ; and the bacon and cabbage is what 1 cant make no use of. Missus, her's very good to me too, and Chris fetches home a drop of new milk for the little maid and a pint of scald 38 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. for me. And tlie missus, her'd have come herself to see me, but her's terrible put about, having no girl now, and the maidens bound to go to school and all. But, please the Lord, I'll soon be about again." " How long have you been ill, Mrs. Comer ? and vrhat does the doctor say to you ? " " Bless 'ee, my dear, don't call me Mi-s. Comer. I'm just plain Kitty, I be ; that's what all the folks call me, though my christened name is Catherine, after my feyther's aunt up to London. And as for the doctor, miss, us can't afford to send for he ; and I reckon he wouldn't come nuther, all this way. 'Tis just the boneshave I've got, and cruel bad it was the first day I was took. It strikes you in your bones, miss, it doth ; and then a body can't heave nothing, and I was just forced to creepy about two-double till Chris he come home and help me up over the chamber stairs. And there I lay to bed best part of a fortnight, I did ; and little Janey, her were that cross I got most mazed with her, 'cause I couldn't wash her, nor do nothing proper. Chris, he did all he could. He'd light the fire and get his own victuals, and make a drop of kettle- broth for me. But he couldn't bakey the bread, and we was bound to get a loaf from the shop — and that's poor stuff, is boughten bread ; it ain't got no nature in it, Chris he saith. But he fetched home a drop of barm last night, and my bread's hefting fine, it is ; and the heai^thstone 'ill soon be hot, and I'll bake the loaf under the dish-kettle : he won't burn to-day, no tino ! for I've nothing to do but sit here and watch en." That was my first visit to Kitty Comer. But she and I soon became friends, and her tall figure, CHRISTOPHER COMER. SU decided features, and rapid movements flash across my vision often, as I think of bygone days. Kitty was very independent in character; but if you have a hungry and fast-growing family of boys and maidens, and the earnings of the father don't amount to more than twelve shillings a w^eek in winter, and fourteen or fifteen in hay-time and corn harvest, there is not much to spare after you have fed them all, and the mother must bestir herself if they ai'e to have decent clothes on their backs. Kitty did bestir herself to good purpose, and yet she was glad of neighbourly help. Our worn gar- ments made Sunday frocks and coats for the little ones, for her needle was seldom put away un- threaded ; and ready-made baby clothes were always a welcome gift to a busy mother. Bat these were only now and then presents — just tokens of neigh- bourly kindness, and accepted as such — never begged for. " Thank God, I've the use of my senses," Kitty would say; and " "When the Lord sends mouths, He sends meat," she'd often tell me. Political econo- mists will perhaps sneer at this sentiment, and point to the starving children in our London slums. But then the question may fairly be asked, "Did the Lord send them ? " Kitty had no doubt whatever that her children were sent her by the Lord, and I think I agree with her. Anyhow the meat was not wanting. " But however do you manage ? " I asked one day ; and she, nothing ashamed of her thrifty housekeeping, let me in to some of her ways. " You see, miss, my man he's never idle, he isn't. He's up with the daylight, and often before it, and he keepeth the garden splat always tilled ; andwe've 40 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. a rare lot of taties this year, and green stuff, and that moi"e than us can eat. And so us make shift to keep a pig now. Chris he had a fine slip of a pig from master, and he let un go very reasonable to we. There were nine shillings I'd earnt up to Barton by charing, and that just paid for un. And what with the small taties, and the cabbages and garden stuff, what we'd plenty of as I boiled down for un, he didn't cost us a farthing till I put un in to fat a month before Christmas, and then 'twas four shillings for barley meal. And he was fat. He made eight score and over, he did, when us "weighed un. And us lived on chitterlings and such- like for pretty nigh a month. The best part of the loin 1 sold fresh in to Combe, and made near on six shillings for it,— most enough to buy a new slip with. But I wanted that money bad enough to go against the boys' boots. Shoe-leather's the hardest thing to come by, and us can't go barefoot. Then I made up some hog's puddings, too, and they bought 'em to parsonage, and that was another two or three shillings to go for shoemaker George. And the rest of un I put in pickle, and it 'ill last us well on to Michaelmas, I reckon. Us never looks to have fresh meat, but a bit of pork is tasty like for dinner with the cabbage and that. Sometimes, if I'm lucky in selling a few flowers in to market, or mushrooms, or worts, or the few blackberries the childer picks in the Fall, I buy in a bit of suet and make 'em dump- lings for dinner when the pig-meat's done, and so us gets along to Christmas again. And what I gets by a day's washing in and out with the farmers' wives, I puts it all by for clothes for Chris. He must go decent, he must ; and after I've bought the bushel of wheat out of his wages, and got it ground to mill, CHRISTOPHER COMER. 41 and paid for a drop of barm for the lief ting, and just a candle and that to shop, there's not much left. I got a stock of bees too, miss, last year; and Chris he ordered np a fine bee-butt for 'em ; and I reckon to make nine or ten shillings of the honey this year, let alone a drop of metheglin for oiu'selves — it's handy at christenings and such-like. One wishes to pass a compliment round when the gossips come home from church. And as for fii"ing, the childer brings in a goodish bit of sticks and furze stumps ; and mftister, he lets Chris have a load or two of turf when the hoi\ses ain't so busy and can fetch it in. For Chris, he's not one to make a fuss about work- ing after hours when rain's coming and the hay out, and the master he maketh it up to un one way or another. And vearns and fuz for yetting the oven us can always have for the cutting. Yes, miss, it's a tight fit some whiles ; but us never lets the little ones go hungry to bed, and the like o' we don't look to live like gentry. " Jackey, he's in his eleven, and a very handy boy. I look to get him a place next Fall, and then we shan't be so many mouths at home ; and many's the penny he earns now by holding a horse, or running arrants after school's out." Up eai'ly and down late — tilling his garden in the dewy morn, setting his potatoes in the slow twilight — cleaning himself Sundays and taking the bigger children with him " to prayer " in the summer afternoons, lived and laboured Christopher Comer many a long year. No one ever heard a word against him. " A very quite chap," the neighbours said, " and honest as daylight." Kitty was said to bo too ready with her tongue, but none the less she was always in request. She was strong and rapid; 42 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. no one j^ot through a day's wash like she did, and her clothes always hung sweet and Avhite on the line. And perhaps her sharp tongue and quick decision of character gave the tone to the house- hold. Chris would have " heard of it " fast enough if he'd ever been seen coming out of the public. "No fy! " I heard her say ; "my man know'th better than that. A drop of home-brewed, such as he getteth up to Barton in harvest-time, is not a bad thing ; but that mucky trade up to ' Fox and Goose,' it shan't go down his throat while I'm alive to hinder it — and money out of pocket too, no tino ! What's given to mun is another thing ; but to take the bread out of the children's mouths, no fy ! " And so they grew up. Sometimes, in a hard, cold winter, just before pig-killing time, the little ones' cheeks would look rather pale, and Kitty would have a gaunter frame ihan usual. Sometimes when there was a new baby in the cradle, its mother would say, " Thank you kindly, sir, and may the Lord reward you," as the parson slipped half a crown into her hand. But the children were always welcomed as they came — " they bring their own love with them " ; and Chris found his chief pleasure in life standing at his cottage door on a Sunday moi'ning with the last baby in his arms, and two or three others a little older clinging round, " telling to daddy." The children were kept to school — not one of them but learned to read and write and figure a bit. For though Kitty was no scholar, as she often said, " she hoped she knew her duty," and the school pence were duly hoarded in the black teapot which was seldom used in those days for its rightful purpose. In later and more prospei'ous times, when Isaac was gone to sea, and Jane was off CHRISTOPHER COMER. 43 to 'Merica and doing well thrive, and Bill carter to Farmer Farthing, and Lizbutli gone to service Avith the parson's aunt, away "up country," and little Kit was learning carpentering, and three fine lads were in the Queen's navy, and sending home a pound or two to help father and mother and the four young ones at home, then the teapot was often in request for afternoon tea. Ah me ! many is the pleasant cup I have drunk out of it, touched up with the cream from Kitty's own cow. For a cow she had, that was the pride and delight of her life in her latter days. Her latter days — for Kitty Comer is gone now. But it was Christopher's history I set out to tell, and I've drifted into Kitty's life, and her sayings and doings. Good faithful wife and mother— but, after all, what would she have been without her man P " Kitty, thee mustn't be so quick with thy tongue," I've heard him say. "It takes all sorts to make a world." Patient beyond ordinary, " Good times and bad times and all times pass over," might have been his motto, if he had wanted one to live by. Wet and shine, cold and heat, seed-time and har- vest, Chris knew he had not the ordering of them, but it was his to make the best use of whatever was sent. " What dreadful wet weather ! " said I one day, as he passed me with an old sack tied round his shoulders. " Bless 'ee, miss, 'twill make the taters grow like anything ! " was his answer. And when the little Lizzie was cross, one hot summer day, and wanted to stay in the cool house instead of fetching " mother's arrants " home from Churchtown, he bid her " never quarrley with God's sunshine, my maid ; thee can't make it, and thee might mar it." 44 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. The worst I ever heard fi-ora his lips, when all the land was crying' out for rain, and the lakes di-ied up with long drought, was a hesitating remark as he looked at the sky, '• 'Tis a pity fine weather should ever do harm ! " Up early, and down late. Hard work and no great pay. So life went on. The boys and girls grew up, as I said, and chose their own paths. Father and mother would both have been better pleased, I think, if the lads had stuck to the land as they did. But the sea has often an overpower- ing attraction for lads brought up within sight and smell of it, and five of the young Comers became sailors. The first who went was Bob, and him they did gainsay ; the end of that was that he made a runaway start — worked his way to the nearest port; and, after long weeks of waiting and anxiety, they got a few lines : " Dear fatlier and mothei*, this comes hoping to find, you well as thank God it leaves me at preasent, dear father and mother Im tuk as boy on the Naufylus sailing from C^irdiff so no moi"e at presunt from yer loving son Robbert." Poor Kitty ! she shed many tears over that scrawl, and many more followed from the same source before she saw her lad again. She dreamed of him by night, and watched the wild waves tossing from Cosdown Beacon many a day, before he came back. Little Dick, who died of scarlet fever when he was three, and lay in the churchyard, cost her no such anguish. " I know where he be," she would say ; "the Lord took him to heaven, and I know he's well off there, nutlier hungry nor cold; but Bob, there's no telling what he's after, — and who's to mend his stockings ? " But they never gainsaid the others when they CHRISTOPHER COMER. 45 talked of the sea as Bob had done. And the other four went into the Qneen's service with their father's blessing and a good bundle of well-knit stockings. The world seemed bigger both to father and mother, when letters came from the four quarters of it, telling of what their bojs were seeing and doing. They weren't much of scholars, but between them and little Sara, who bided to school longer than the rest because he was " dillicate," they could spell out the letters when they came, and then they would be folded away in the big Bible, and on wet Sundays, when Kitty never went to church, she had them all out to look at and tell over again. And when either of the sailors came home, what a joy ! Well-grown fellows they were when they went away; but discipline, and good clothes, and self- respect made them hold their heads much higher when they came back, jingling loose cash in their trouser-pockets, and telling of all the wonders they'd seen in foreign ports, as sailors do. Even Bob the runagate came home a fine man to look at — nothing of the collier about him, though his first trip was made in a coal-ship; and he was well thought of in the merchant service. I sometimes wondei'ed what the world felt like to Christopher as he got on in years. When the lads and maidens were little ones, he could not have much time for thinking. The Crimean war loomed in the horizon, but Chris only "heard tell we was fighting the Rooshians." The Indian Mutiny, the American war, filled English hearts with horror and keenest sympathy. Chris and Kitty were but pondering how to get Isaac and Bobby new shoes ; while the squire's wife, who had a sister married in India, forgot Kitty's boys as she prayed for her far-away dear 46 DEVONSIUUE IDYLS. ones ; and the parson, in liis anxiety about American investments, failed in his Cliristmas gift of coal. That -was souicthini^ near and tangible. America and India were but words while her boys were yet safe at home. But when they got their wings and flew, what did America and India look like then, to the father and mother who never saw a map, and had never been twenty miles fi-om home ? A bounded life has narrow interests and few joys. Bat perhaps the joys are keener for being few, and the interests deeper for their very narrowness. Certainly uo one could take a deeper interest in the crops and the cattle, and all the wild things that nested about them, than the folks at Little Comfort. Then the flowei-s they grew ! Stocks, double- daisies, gilly-flowers (or, they call them in Devon- shire, "bloody warriors"), I'oses, sweet-williams, and jasmine all clustered round the porch, and were scented through the casement window. " I were always fond o' flowers from the time I were but a little mite of a chap," says Chris ; " and Kitty, her's dreadful took up with them too : and there's ne'er been a time when us hadn't a few in the garden splat, though when the children was little us hadn't much like in the windows — a handful of children makes both hands full of work. But there, a body can mostly come what he sets his mind to, and us set ours on a garden." Set liis mind to. Yes, I think that was the secret of Christopher's life. He knew what he wanted, and set his mind to it. Many folks don't know what they want, and they change their minds first one way and then another, and so they "come nothing." That Devonshire idiom " to come " any- thing, is, I suppose, cousin to the German " be- CHEISmniER COMER. 47 kommen." Certainly it is not the common English word which implies movement of the body. It distinctly implies mental acquisition. " I can't come thiccy," says the little maid at school, sighing over a difficult sum. Perhaps it implies power over other things to make them move towards us. Any- how, it's a solid truth that we can mostly " come," get, or become whatever we set our minds to. Chi-istopher set his mind to other things outside liis garden as well. He set it towards bringing up his children to be a credit to him. They should " lam behaviour," he declared, from their babyhood, and learn it they did accordingly. " Behaviour " covers a good part of life, and means a good deal. " Behave theeself, Dick," says mother, when Dick wants more than his share of pudding at supper. " 'Tain't behaviour," admonishes father, when Lizzie goes to sleep in church. And " Her knoweth how to behave, her doth," was held to be quite a sufficient character when Kitty took her eldest maid up to a lady who was looking out for a girl to train as housemaid. What the lady wanted her servant to do could easily be taught her, but behaviour must be learnt at home. And all the children, both boys and maids, did learn it ; and, accordingly, when they were put out into the world, they soon fitted into whatever place was vacant for them. I never heard of any one of them that they were square pegs in round holes. How to behave towards work, was to do it as well as you could. How to be- have towards those that paid you wages, was to mind what they told you, and say, " Thank you," when you got your money. How to behave with regard to money, was to keep it against you wanted it. How to behave towards youvself, was to be 48 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. clean and tidy, and "keep your clothes mended up." How to behave to your neighbour, was to "lave un boide." How to behave to the world in general, was never to be beholden to it for anything you could do for yourself. Self-respect carries a man thi'ough many diffi- culties, and it carried Chris well on to seventy years of age. Year by year he had more comforts about him. Year by year he held his head higher. Year by year one or other of his children came back to see father in the old place, and tell of their doings to ears that were getting hard of hearing. Then, too, they would talk of "poor mother," and go to lay posies on her grave, and tell of all " her ways," none of which would Chris allow to be altered by any of them. Polly, the youngest maid, who came home from service to keep father's house, complained sometimes that he would not let her bake the bread on Thursday, because mother used to do it on Wednesday. "Her always had her reasons, had Tiy missus; and though I don't rightly call 'em to mind, I know they was good ones, and us can't do better than stick to them." And Wednesday it had to be. Time goes on, and Chris still lives, but he is up in years now, as he owns himself; and when chance bi-ings me near Little Comfort, and I drop in to see him, the conversation is mostly on one side, because he can't hear at all what I have to say. Not that it much matters. Conversation proceeds on regular lines in those out-of-the-way corners of the world. He can guess well enough what I have to say about the weather and the time of year, and answers accordingly. Then there are the proper compliments to be made about our health ; and a CHRISTOPHER COMER. 49 mau who " knows behaviour " so well can always fit in his information about Polly's husband (for Polly is married now, but not gone far from the old home) and the baby into its proper place with- out hearing my sympathetic answers. Last time I went it was a Saturday afternoon, and I expected to find Polly there, "ordering np the place" for Sunday, and darning father's stock- ings. Instead of which, Christopher himself, with iiis silver-rimmed glasses on, was sitting on the window bench, stitching at his shirt buttons him- self. " Iss fy, miss, there ain't much I can't turn my hands to when needs must; and Polly, poor maid, her's got a nymping-gang, and her can't do naught. So I fetched off work a bit early, and washed down the kitchen ; and Danny, he'll clean down the dresser and that, when he cometli — for mother her never liked to see things out of the way on Sundays. It had to be all clean and polished then, kettle and all, and so it shall now. Her'd often speak up to me and the boys if us came in Avith mucky boots, or didn't lay out our Sunday clothes vitty afore ns went to bed. Us never forgets it now ; and I reckon her's pleased if her can see us, and I sem her can wherever the Lord's seen fit to take her to. Danny, he's a bit fearsome at times ; he says he knows there's a spii-it or some'at following nn up over the chamber stairs in the dimpses. But I tell he that if 'twere her spirit, her wouldn't do un no harm. Her was alius good to us while her was here ; and why should her be different now ? And her was always right down glad to see 'ee, miss, and so be I." The ground-plan of life for human beings is laid E 50 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. down on certain well-known simple lines, which apply all the world over, and, for those who can follow them out, living has its joy and its reward. Labour and rest, night and day, food and sleep, marriage and rearing of children, are the warp and weft of earth's existence, whether for queen or people. Some make a fair pattern of their web ; some tangle the thread and throw the shuttle angrily. Some weave slowly a good solid ground, and finish off with a golden fringe. But what we weave we must wear, and it is all we have. Chris and his wife wove steadily and truly the I)attern their forbcai-s had taught them. And when I hear in church the Evening Psalms for the 27th of the month, and we come to that verse be- ginning, "Thou shalt eat of the fruit of thy hands," and ending with "Oh well is thee, and happy shalfc thou be," I think of Christopher Comer, and how he lived and laboured, loved and lost. THtJ SCHOOL AND ITS SGUOLAUS. THERE are schools and schools — that we all know : schools where a little learning is knocked into dull heads with many raps from schoolmaster's cane ; schools where many rules of grammar are taught and few rules of conduct; schools where the children are turned out pro- ficient in fractions, and well able to define the boundaries of Russia, and to tell all about the aborigines of Australia ; schools which show np well in the inspector's reports, and get good " gi'ants ; " Board schools, where the mistress slaves at her book-work and at grinding her pupil teachers, but gets her dinner anyhow ; voluntary schools, so called, where the parson's wife bribes the mothej'S by frequent treats and universal prizes to send their little ones to be taught ; and com- pulsory schools, where the master dare not turn out i rebellious or impudent urchin, much less chastise him. Such, and many more of varying shades of character, exist up and down through the length and breadth of the land. But the school I am {;oing to tell you about was not one of these. How many years ago it held sway does not matter; it 62 DEVONSHIRE IDYLS. was "once on ii time," and its whereabouts Avas in Devonshire. If 3-ou had