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LING
E SHILLING
DY DARWIN'S
DOVECOT
A Country Tale by
JULIANA HORATIA EWING
Author of
JACKANAPES
L
LONDON:
Al
ILLUSTRATED
BY
Mo
&c.
RANDOLPH
CALDECOTT
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. AND J. B. YOUNG AND co.
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1

*
AM H
con Arenguf
Suku
сехс
1837
ARTES
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TWE
VERITAS
ZAKAULUK BERSA
TTEBOR
LQUÆRIS PENINSULAM AMⱭNAM
CIRCUMSPICE
AGSH
SCIENTIA
OF THE
HRHARBISOEHLBILLIE
20 Ya Kulai 1919 kkuseksallamháztokETİMİNETİ
11242 MOBIL||||
HIIUG
beri kim shoutõesti i biti lakot (G
.
I
DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT.

ART
Frontispiece.
FL
لول
JP
"What do they call him?"
"T'young chap?"
"Aye."
"They call him-DARWIN."
25015
71
P. 7.

DADDY DARWIN'S
DOVECOT
A Country Tale by
JULIANA HORATIA EWING
Author of
JACKANAPES
MENZ
་
LONDON
&c.
ILLUSTRATED
BY
RANDOLPH
CALDE COTT
X
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN
KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO
1

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LONDON:
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ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS,
RACQUET Court, fleet street.
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SUMMER'S afternoon. Early
in the summer, and late in the
afternoon; with odours and
colours deepening, and shadows
lengthening, towards evening.
Two gaffers gossiping,
seated side by side upon a
Yorkshire wall. A wall of
sandstone of many colours,
glowing redder and yellower
as the sun goes down; well
cushioned with moss and
lichen, and deep set in rank
grass on this side, where the
path runs, and in blue hyacinths on that side, where the
wood is, and where-on the gray and still naked branches
of young oaks-sit divers crows, not less solemn than the
gaffers, and also gossiping.
:5
1
PREAMBLE.
One gaffer in work-day clothes, not unpicturesque of
form and hue. Grey, home-knit stockings, and coat and
knee-breeches of corduroy, which takes tints from Time
and Weather as harmoniously as wooden palings do; so
that field labourers (like some insects) seem to absorb or
mimic the colours of the vegetation round them and of
their native soil. That is, on work-days. Sunday-best is
a different matter, and in this the other gaffer was clothed.
He was dressed like the crows above him, fit excepted: the
reason for which was, that he was only a visitor, a re-
B
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6
DARBY AND JOAN.
visitor to the home of his youth, and wore his Sunday (and
funeral) suit to mark the holiday.
Continuing the path, a stone pack-horse track, leading
past a hedge snow-white with may, and down into a little
wood, from the depths of which one could hear a brook
babbling. Then up across the sunny field beyond, and yet
up over another field to where the brow of the hill is
crowned by old farm-buildings standing against the sky.
Down this stone path a young man going whistling
home to tea. Then staying to bend a swarthy face to the
white may to smell it, and then plucking a huge branch on
which the blossom lies like a heavy fall of snow, and throw-
ing that aside for a better, and tearing off another and yet
another, with the prodigal recklessness of a pauper; and
so, whistling, on into the wood with his arms full.
Down the sunny field, as he goes up it, a woman com-
ing to meet him—with her arms full. Filled by a child
with a may-white frock, and hair shining with the warm
colours of the sandstone. A young woman, having a fair
forehead visible a long way off, and buxom cheeks, and
steadfast eyes. When they meet he kisses her, and she
pulls his dark hair and smooths her own, and cuffs him ir
country fashion. Then they change burdens, and she takes
the may into her apron (stooping to pick up fallen bits), and
the child sits on the man's shoulder, and cuffs and lugs its
father as the mother did, and is chidden by her and kissed
by him. And all the babbling of their chiding and crow-
ing and laughter comes across the babbling of the brook to
the ears of the old gaffers gossiping on the wall.
Gaffer I. spits out an over-munched stalk of meadow
soft-grass, and speaks:
"D'ye see yon chap?"
Gaffer II. takes up his hat and wipes it round with a
spotted handkerchief (for your Sunday hat is a heating
thing for work-day wear) and puts it on, and makes reply:
1
7
"Aye. But he beats me. And-see thee!-he's t'
first that's beat me yet. Why, lad! I've met young chaps
to-day I could ha' sworn to for mates of mine forty year
back-if I hadn't ha' been i't' churchyard spelling over
their fathers' tumstuns !"
'Aye.
There's a many old standards gone home o'
((
lately."
(4
"What do they call him?”
'T'young chap?”
<<
'Aye."
"They call him-Darwin.
16
Dar-win?
I should know a Darwin.
They're old
standards, is Darwins. What's he to Daddy Darwin of t
Dovecot yonder?"
T
16
He owns t' Dovecot. Did ye see t' lass?"
Aye. Shoo's his missus, I reckon?"
Aye."
What did they call her?"
"Phoebe Shaw they called her. And if she'd been my
lass-but that's nother here nor there, and he's got t'
Dovecot."
14
? GAFFERS GOSSIPING.
(C
(<
Shaw?" They're old standards, is Shaws. Phoebe?
They called her mother Phoebe. Phoebe Johnson. She
were a dainty lass! My father were very fond of Phoebe
Johnson. He said she allus put him i' mind of our orchard
on drying days; pink and white apple-blossom and clean
clothes. And yon's her daughter? Where d'ye say t'young
chap come from? He don't look like hereabouts.”
'He don't come from hereabouts. And yet he do come
from hereabouts, as one may say. Look ye here. He come
from t' wukhus. That's the short and the long of it."
"The workhouse?"
“Aye.”
•
Stupefaction. The crows chattering wildly overhead
"And he owns Darwin's Dovecot ?"
•
8
THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.
(
He owns Darwin's Dovecot."
“And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about?"
"Why, I'll tell thee. It was i' this fashion."
*
*
*
*
*
*
Not without reason does the wary writer put gossip in
the mouths of gaffers rather than of gammers. Male
gossips love scandal as dearly as female gossips do, and
they bring to it the stronger relish and energies of their
sex. But these were country gaffers, whose speech-like
shadows-grows lengthy in the leisurely hours of eventide.
The gentle reader shall have the tale in plain narration,
NOTE.-It will be plain to the reader that the birds here described are
Rooks (corvus frugilegus). I have allowed myself to speak of them by their
generic or family name of Crow, this being a common country practice. The
genus corvus, or Crow, includes the Raven, the Carrion Crow, the Hooded
Crow, the Jackdaw, and the Rook,
•
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9
GRAIKION
NE Saturday night (some eighteen years
earlier than the date of this gaffer-gossip-
ing) the parson's daughter sat in her
own room before the open drawer of
a bandy-legged black oak
table, balancing her bags.
The bags were money-bags,
and the matter shall be
made clear at once.
In this parish, as in
others, progress and the
multiplication of weapons
with which civilization and
the powers of goodness push
their conquests over brutal-
ity and the powers of evil,
had added to the original duties of the parish priest, a
multifarious and all but impracticable variety of offices;
which, in ordinary and laïc conditions, would have been
performed by several more or less salaried clerks, bankers,
accountants, secretaries, librarians, club-committees, teach-
ers, lecturers, discount for ready-money dealers in clothing,
boots, blankets, and coal, domestic-servant agencies, caterers
for the public amusement, and preservers of the public
peace.
JAWAT
三份
​bedrohung »
SCENE I.
The country parson (no less than statesmen and princes,
than men of science and of letters) is responsible for a
great deal of his work that is really done by the help-mate
A
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BAG-KEEPING v. BOOK-KEEPING.
woman. This explains why five out of the young lady's
money-bags bore the following inscriptions in marking-ink :
Savings' bank," " Clothing club," "Library," "Magazines
and hymn-books," "Three-halfpenny club"-and only three
bore reference to private funds, as-" House-money "-
"Allowance"-" Charity.”
It was the bag bearing this last and greatest name
which the parson's daughter now seized and emptied into
her lap. A ten-shilling piece, some small silver, and two-
pence halfpenny jingled together, and roused a silver-
haired, tawny-pawed terrier, who left the hearthrug and
came to smell what was the matter. His mistress's right
hand-absently caressing-quieted his feelings; and with
the left she held the ten-shilling piece between finger and
thumb, and gazed thoughtfully at the other bags as they
squatted in a helpless row, with twine-tied mouths hanging
on all sides. It was only after anxious consultation with
an account-book that the half-sovereign was exchanged for
silver; thanks to the clothing-club bag, which looked
leaner for the accommodation. In the three-halfpenny
bag (which bulged with pence) some silver was further
solved into copper, and the charity bag was handsomely
distended before the whole lot was consigned once more to
the table-drawer.
Any one accustomed to book-keeping must smile at
this bag-keeping of accounts; but the parson's daughter
could never "bring her mind" to keeping the funds apart
on paper, and mixing the actual cash. Indeed, she could
never have brought her conscience to it. Unless she had
taken the tenth for "charity" from her dress and pocket.
money in coin, and put it then and there into the charity
bag, this self-imposed rule of the duty of almsgiving would
not have been performed to her soul's peace.
The problem which had been exercising her mind that
Saturday night was how to spend what was left of her
1
*
SATURDAY NIGHT.
I
benevolent fund in a treat for the children of the neigh-
bouring workhouse. The fund was low, and this had de-
cided the matter. The following Wednesday would be her
twenty-first birthday. If the children came to tea with
her, the foundation of the entertainment would, in the
natural course of things, be laid in the Vicarage kitchen.
The charity bag would provide the extras of the feast.
Nuts, toys, and the like.
When the parson's daughter locked the drawer of the
bandy-legged table, she did so with the vigour of one who
has made up her mind, and set about the rest of her Satur-
day night's duties without further delay.
She put out her Sunday clothes, and her Bible and
Prayer-book, and class-book and pencil, on the oak chest
at the foot of the bed. She brushed and combed the
silver-haired terrier, who looked abjectly depressed whilst
this was doing, and preposterously proud when it was done.
She washed her own hair, and studied her Sunday-school
lesson for the morrow whilst it was drying. She spread
a coloured quilt at the foot of her white one, for the terrier
to sleep on-a slur which he always deeply resented.
Then she went to bed, and slept as one ought to sleep
on Saturday night, who is bound to be at the Sunday
School by 9.15 on the following morning, with a clear
mind on the Rudiments of the Faith, the history of the
Prophet Elisha, and the destinations of each of the parish
magazines.
t
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12
He had been set to
weed, but the weeding
was very irregularly
performed, for his eyes
and heart were in the
clouds, as he could see
them over the big
For
boundary wall.
there-now dark against
the white, now white.
against the gray-some
Air Tumbler pigeons
were turning summer-
saults on their homeward way, at such short and regular
intervals that they seemed to be tying knots in their lines
of flight.
It was too much! The small gardener shamelessly
abandoned his duties, and, curving his dirty paws on each
1
SCENE IL
ATHERLESS — mother-
less-homeless!
A little workhouse-boy,
with a swarthy face and
tidily - cropped black
hair, as short and thick
as the fur of a mole,
was grubbing, not quite
so cleverly as a mole,
in the workhouse gar-
den.

R
J
GOD'S POOR AND THE DEVIL'S POOR :
13
side of his mouth, threw his whole soul into shouting words
of encouragement to the distant birds.
"That's a good un! On with thee! Over ye go!.
Oo-ooray!"
It was this last prolonged cheer which drowned the
sound of footsteps on the path behind him, so that if he
had been a tumbler pigeon himself he could not have
jumped more nimbly when a man's hand fell upon his
shoulder. Up went his arms to shield his ears from a
well-merited cuffing; but Fate was kinder to him than he
deserved. It was only an old man (prematurely aged with
drink and consequent poverty), whose faded eyes seemed
to rekindle as he also gazed after the pigeons, and spoke
as one who knows.
"Yon's Daddy Darwin's Tumblers."
This old pauper had only lately come into "the House"
(the house that never was a home!), and the boy clung
eagerly to his flannel sleeve, and plied him thick and fast
with questions about the world without the workhouse-
walls, and about the happy owner of those yet happier
creatures who were free not only on the earth but in the
skies.
The poor old pauper was quite as willing to talk as the
boy was to listen. It restored some of that self-respect
which we lose under the consequences of our follies to be
able to say that Daddy Darwin and he had been mates
together, and had had pigeon-fancying in common “many
a long year afore" he came into the House.
And so these two made friendship over such matters as
will bring man and boy together to the end of time. And
the old pauper waxed eloquent on the feats of Homing
Birds and Tumblers, and on the points of Almonds and
Barbs, Fantails and Pouters; sprinkling his narrative also
with high-sounding and heterogeneous titles, such as
Dragons and Archangels, Blue Owls and Black Priests,
畜
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4
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14 ONE FROM PROVIDENCE, T' OTHER FROM VICE.
Jacobines, English Horsemen and Trumpeters. And
through much boasting of the high stakes he had had
on this and that pigeon-match then, and not a few bitter
complaints of the harsh hospitality of the House he "had
come to❞ now, it never seemed to occur to him to connect
the two, or to warn the lad who hung upon his lips that one
cannot eat his cake with the rash appetites of youth, and
yet hope to have it for the support and nourishment of his
old age.
The longest story the old man told was of a “bit of a
trip" he had made to Liverpool, to see some Antwerp
Carriers flown from thence to Ghent, and he fixed the date
of this by remembering that his twin sons were born in his
absence, and that though their birthday was the very day
of the race, his "missus turned stoopid," as women (he
warned the boy) are apt to do, and refused to have them
christened by uncommon names connected with the fancy.
All the same, he bet the lads would have been nicknamed
the Antwerp Carriers, and known as such to the day of
their death, if this had not come so soon and so suddenly,
of croup; when (as it oddly chanced) he was off on another
"bit of a holiday" to fly some pigeons of his own in
Lincolnshire.
This tale had not come to an end when a voice of
authority called for "Jack March," who rubbed his mole-
like head and went ruefully off, muttering that he should
"catch it now."
"Sure enough! sure enough!" chuckled the unamiable
old pauper,
But again Fate was kinder to the lad than his friend.
His negligent weeding passed unnoticed, because he was
wanted in a hurry to join the other children in the school-
room. The parson's daughter had come, the children were
about to sing to her, and Jack's voice could not be dis-
pensed with.
·

¿
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"Sacred Song.”—P. 16.
1
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16
CASTLES IN THE AIR.
$
He "cleaned himself" with alacrity, and taking his
place in the circle of boys standing with their hands be-
hind their backs, he lifted up a voice worthy of a cathedral
choir, whilst varying the monotony of sacred song by
secretly snatching at the tail of the terrier as it went snuff-
ing round the legs of the group. And in this feat he
proved as much superior to the rest of the boys (who also
tried it) as he excelled them in the art of singing.
Later on he learnt that the young lady had come to
invite them all to have tea with her on her birthday.
Later still he found the old pauper once more, and ques-
tioned him closely about the village and the Vicarage, and
as to which of the parishioners kept pigeons, and where.
And when he went to his straw bed that night, and his
black head throbbed with visions and high hopes, these
were not entirely of the honour of drinking tea with a
pretty young lady, and how one should behave himself in
such abashing circumstances. He did not even dream
principally of the possibility of getting hold of that silver-
haired, tawny-pawed dog by the tail under freer conditions
than those of this afternoon, though that was a refreshing
thought.
What kept him long awake was thinking of this. From
the top of an old walnut-tree at the top of a field at the
back of the Vicarage, you could see a hill, and on the top
of the hill some farm buildings. And it was here (so the
old pauper had told him) that those pretty pigeons lived,
who, though free to play about among the clouds, yet con-
descended to make an earthly home-in Daddy Darwin's
Dovecot.
to

17
SCENE III.
T
WO and two, girls and boys
the young lady's guests
marched down to the Vic-
arage. The schoolmistress
was anxious that
each should carry
his and her tin mug,
so as to give as little
trouble as possible;
but this was resolu-
tely declined, much
to the children's sa-
tisfaction, who had
their walk with free

老人​に
​hands, and their tea out of teacups and saucers like any-
body else.
It was a fine day, and all went well. The children
enjoyed themselves, and behaved admirably into the bar-
gain, There was only one suspicion of misconduct, and
the matter was so far from clear that the parson's daughter
hushed it up, and, so to speak, dismissed the case.
The children were playing at some game in which
Jack March was supposed to excel, but when they came
to look for him he could nowhere be found. At last he
was discovered, high up among the branches of an old
walnut-tree at the top of the field, and though his hands
were unstained and his pockets empty, the gardener, who
с
7
18
THERE'S KINSHIP IN TROUBLE.
had been the first to spy him, now loudly denounced him
as an ungrateful young thief. Jack, with swollen eyes and
cheeks besmirched with angry tears, was vehemently de-
claring that he had only climbed the tree to "have a look
at Master Darwin's pigeons," and had not picked so much
as a leaf, let alone a walnut; and the gardener, "shaking
the truth out of him" by the collar of his fustian jacket,
was preaching loudly on the sin of adding falsehood to
theft, when the parson's daughter came up, and, in the end,
acquitted poor Jack, and gave him leave to amuse himself
as he pleased.
It did not please Jack to play with his comrades just
then. He felt sulky and aggrieved. He would have
liked to play with the terrier who had stood by him in his
troubles, and barked at the gardener; but that little friend
now trotted after his mistress, who had gone to choir-
practice.
Jack wandered about among the shubberies. By-and-
by he heard sounds of music, and led by these he came to
a gate in a wall, dividing the Vicarage garden from the
churchyard. Jack loved music, and the organ and the
voices drew him on till he reached the church porch; but
there he was startled by a voice that was not only not
the voice of song, but was the utterance of a moan so
doleful that it seemed the outpouring of all his own lonely,
and outcast, and injured feelings in one comprehensive
howl.
It was the voice of the silver-haired terrier. He was
sitting in the porch, his nose up, his ears down, his eyes
shut, his mouth open, bewailing in bitterness of spirit the
second and greater crook of his lot.
To what purpose were all the caresses and care and
indulgence of his mistress, the daily walks, the weekly
washings and combings, the constant companionship, when
she betrayed her abiding sense of his inferiority, first, by
+
Et
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A CHOIR PRACTICE.
19
not letting him sleep on the white quilt, and secondly, by
never allowing him to go to church?
Jack shared the terrier's mood. What were tea and
plum-cake to him, when his pauper-breeding was so
stamped upon him that the gardener was free to say-"A
nice tale too! What's thou to do wi' doves, and thou a
work'us lad?"-and to take for granted that he would
thieve and lie if he got the chance?
His disabilities were not the dog's, however. The
parish church was his as well as another's, and he crept
inside and leaned against one of the stone pillars, as if it
were a big, calm friend.
Far away, under the transept, a group of boys and men
held their music near to their faces in the waning light,
Among them towered the burly choirmaster, bâton in
hand. The parson's daughter was at the organ. Well
accustomed to produce his voice to good purpose, the
choirmaster's words were clearly to be heard throughout
the building, and it was on the subject of articulation and
emphasis, and the like, that he was speaking; now and
then throwing in an extra aspirate in the energy of that
enthusiasm without which teaching is not worth the
name.
"That'll not do. We must have it altogether different.
You two lads are singing like bumble-bees in a pitcher-
horder there, boys!-it's no laughing matter-put down
those papers and keep your eyes on me-inflate the chest
-"(his own seemed to fill the field of vision) "and try
and give forth those noble words as if you'd an idea what
they meant."
No satire was intended or taken here, but the two
boys, who were practising their duet in an anthem, laid
down the music, and turned their eyes on their teacher.
"I'll run through the recitative," he added, "and take
your time from the stick. And mind that ОH."
C 2
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20
MUSIC HATH CHARMS.
The parson's daughter struck a chord, and then the
burly choir-master spoke with the voice of melody:
"My heart is disquieted within me. My heart-my
heart is disquieted within me. And the fear of death is
fallen-is fallen upon me."
The terrier moaned without, and Jack thought no boy's
voice could be worth listening to after that of the choir-
master. But he was wrong. A few more notes from the
organ, and then, as night-stillness in a wood is broken by
the nightingale, so upon the silence of the church a boy-
alto's voice broke forth in obedience to the choirmaster's
uplifted hand:
"Then, I said-I said-"
Jack gasped, but even as he strained his eyes to see
what such a singer could look like, with higher, clearer
notes the soprano rose above him-"Then I sa-a-id,"
and the duet began:
"OH that I had wings-O that I had wings like a
dove!"
Soprano.-" Then would I flee away." Alto." Then
would I flee away." Together." And be at rest-flee
away and be at rest."
The clear young voices soared and chased each other
among the arches, as if on the very pinions for which they
prayed. Then-swept from their seats by an upward
sweep of the choirmaster's arms-the chorus rose, as birds
rise, and carried on the strain.
It was not a very fine composition, but this final chorus.
had the singular charm of fugue. And as the voices
mourned like doves, "Oh that I had wings!" and pursued
each other with the plaintive passage, "Then would I flee
away-then would I flee away-," Jack's ears knew no
weariness of the repetition. It was strangely like watching
the rising and falling of Daddy Darwin's pigeons, as they
tossed themselves by turns upon their homeward flight.
1
}
1
REQUIEM ETERNAM DONA EIS!
After the fashion of the piece and period, the chorus
was repeated, and the singers rose to supreme effort. The
choirmaster's hands flashed hither and thither, controlling,
inspiring, directing. He sang among the tenors.
Jack's voice nearly choked him with longing to sing
too. Could words of man go more deeply home to a
young heart caged within workhouse walls?
"Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I flee
away" the choirmaster's white hands were fluttering
downwards in the dusk, and the chorus sank with them-
“flee away and be at rest!"
7
21
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22
"}
SCENE IV.

ACK MARCH had a busy
little brain, and his nature was
not of the limp type that sits
down with a grief. That most
memorable tea-party had fired
his soul with two distinct am-
bitions. First, to be a choir-
boy; and, secondly, to dwell
in Daddy Darwin's Dovecot.
He turned the matter over in
his mind, and patched together
the following facts:
The Board of Guardians meant to apprentice him, Jack,
to some master, at the earliest opportunity. Daddy Darwin
(so the old pauper told him) was a strange old man, who
had come down in the world, and now lived quite alone,
with not a soul to help him in the house or outside it. He
was "not to say mazelin yet, but getting helpless, and
uncommon mean."
A nephew came one fine day and fetched away the old
pauper, to his great delight. It was by their hands that
Jack despatched a letter, which the nephew stamped and
posted for him, and which was duly delivered on the
following morning to Mr. Darwin of the Dovecot.
The old man had no correspondents, and he looked
*******
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PARISH
~ PARISH &},
66
די
C
3:
Daddy Darwin faces the Board.”—P. 24.
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DO WELL AND DOUBT NOT.
long at the letter before he opened it. It did credit to the
teaching of the workhouse schoolmistress:
"HONOURED Sir,
"They call me Jack March. I'm a workhouse lad, but, Sir, I'm
a good one, and the Board means to 'prentice me next time. Sir, if you face
the Board and take me out you shall never regret it. Though I says it as
shouldn't I'm a handy lad. I'll clean a floor with any one, and am willing to
work early and late, and at your time of life you're not what you was, and
them birds must take a deal of seeing to. I can see them from the garden
when I'm set to weed, and I never saw nought like them. Oh, Sir, I do beg
and pray you let me mind your pigeons. You'll be none the worse of a lad
about the place, and I shall be happy all the days of my life. Sir, I'm not
unthankful, but, please GOD, I should like to have a home, and to be with
them house doves.
"From your humble servant-hoping to be—
"JACK MARCH.
Mr. Darwin, Sir. I love them Tumblers as if they was my own.'
""
Daddy Darwin thought hard and thought long over
that letter. He changed his mind fifty times a day. But
Friday was the Board day, and when Friday came he
"faced the Board." And the little workhouse lad went
home to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot.
*
14
25
=
SCENE V..

心
​い
​HE bargain was oddly
made, but it worked
well. Whatever Jack's
parentage may have been
(and he was named after
the stormy month in which
he had been born), the
blood that ran in his veins could not have been beggars'
blood. There was no hopeless, shiftless, invincible idleness
about him. He found work for himself when it was not
given him to do, and he attached himself passionately and
proudly to all the belongings of his new home,
"Yon lad of yours seems handy enough, Daddy;-for
a vagrant, as one may say."
Daddy Darwin was smoking over his garden wall, and
Mrs. Shaw, from the neighbouring farm, had paused in her
walk for a chat. She was a notable housewife, and there
was just a touch of envy in her sense of the improved
appearance of the doorsteps and other visible points of the
Dovecot. Daddy Darwin took his pipe out of his mouth
to make way for the force of his reply:
"Vagrant! Nay, missus, yon's no vagrant. He's
fettling up all along. Jack's the sort that if he finds a
key he'll look for the lock; if ye give him a knife-blade
-
26
HAE YE GEAR, HAE VE NANE:
he'll fashion a heft. Why, a vagrant's a chap that, if he'd
all your maester owns to-morrow, he'd be on the tramp
again afore t' year were out, and three years wouldn't
repair t' mischief he'd leave behind him. A vagrant's a
chap that if ye lend him a thing he loses it; if ye give him
a thing he abuses it"
"That's true enough, and there's plenty servant-girls
the same," put in Mrs. Shaw.
Maybe there be, ma'am-maybe there be; vagrants'
children, I reckon. But yon little chap I got from t' House
comes of folk that's had stuff o' their own, and cared for it
-choose who they were."
"Well, Daddy," said his neighbour, not without malice,
"I'll wish you a good evening. You've got a good bargain
out of the parish, it seems."
But Daddy Darwin only chuckled, and stirred up the
ashes in the bowl of his pipe.
"The same to you, ma'am—the same to you. Aye!
he's a good bargain—a very good bargain is Jack March."
It might be supposed from the foregoing dialogue that
Daddy Darwin was a model householder, and the little
workhouse boy the neatest creature breathing. But the
gentle reader who may imagine this is much mistaken.
Daddy Darwin's Dovecot was freehold, and when he
inherited it from his father there was still attached to it
a good bit of the land that had passed from father to son
through more generations than the church registers were
old enough to record. But the few remaining acres were so
heavily mortgaged that they had to be sold. So that a bit
of house property elsewhere, and the old homestead itself,
were all that was left. And Daddy Darwin had never been
the sort of man to retrieve his luck at home, or to seek it
abroad.
"C
That he had inherited a somewhat higher and more re-
fined nature than his neighbours had rather hindered than
1
•
TINE HEART, AND A'S GANE.
27
helped him to prosper. And he had been unlucky in love.
When what energies he had were in their prime, his father's
death left him with such poor prospects that the old farmer
to whose daughter he was betrothed broke off the match
and married her elsewhere. His Alice was not long another
man's wife. She died within a year from her wedding-day,
and her husband married again within a year from her
death. Her old lover was no better able to mend his
broken heart than his broken fortunes. He only banished
women from the Dovecot, and shut himself up from the
coarse consolation of his neighbours.
In this loneliness, eating a kindly heart out in bitterness
of spirit, with all that he ought to have had-
To plough and sow
And reap and mow-
gone from him, and in the hands of strangers; the pigeons,
for which the Dovecot had always been famous, became
the business and the pleasure of his life. But of late years
his stock had dwindled, and he rarely went to pigeon-
matches or competed in shows and races. A more miser-
able fancy rivalled his interest in pigeon fancying. His new
hobby was hoarding; and money that, a few years back, he
would have freely spent to improve his breed of Tumblers
or back his Homing Birds he now added with stealthy
pleasure to the store behind the secret panel of a fine old
oak bedstead that had belonged to the Darwyn who owned
Dovecot when the sixteenth century was at its latter end.
In this bedstead Daddy slept lightly of late, as old men
will, and he had horrid dreams, which old men need not
have. The queer faces carved on the panels (one of which
hid the money hole) used to frighten him when he was a
child. They did not frighten him now by their grotesque
ugliness, but when he looked at them, and knew which was
which, he dreaded the dying out of twilight into dark, and
**
• J
28 A RAGGED COLT MAY MAKE A GOOD HORSE.
dreamed of aged men living alone, who had been murdered
for their savings. These growing fears had had no small
share in deciding him to try Jack March; and to see the
lad growing stronger, nimbler, and more devoted to his
master's interests day by day, was a nightly comfort to the
poor old hoarder in the bed-head.
As to his keen sense of Jack's industry and carefulness,
it was part of the incompleteness of Daddy Darwin's
nature, and the ill-luck of his career, that he had a sen-
sitive perception of order and beauty, and a shrewd obser-
vation of ways of living and qualities of character, and yet
had allowed his early troubles to blight him so completely
that he never put forth an effort to rise above the ruin, of
which he was at least as conscious as his neighbours.
That Jack was not the neatest creature breathing, one
look at him, as he stood with pigeons on his head and
arms and shoulders, would have been enough to prove. As
the first and readiest repudiation of his workhouse antece-
dents he had let his hair grow till it hung in the wildest
elf-locks, and though the terms of his service with Daddy
Darwin would not, in any case, have provided him with
handsome clothes, such as he had were certainly not the
better for any attention he bestowed upon them. As re-
garded the Dovecot, however, Daddy Darwin had not done
more than justice to his bargain. A strong and grateful
attachment to his master, and a passionate love for the
pigeons he tended, kept Jack constantly busy in the service
of both; the old pigeon-fancier taught him the benefits
of scrupulous cleaniness in the pigeon-cote, and Jack
"stoned" the kitchen-floor and the doorsteps on his own
responsibility.
The time did come when he tidied up himself.
".
1
D
***
CA
29
SCENE VI.
ADDY DARWIN had made the first breach
in his soli-
tary life of
his own free
17.
I
ない
​soon heard
that he had
got a lad
from the
workhouse,
the very boy
who sang so
well and had
climbed the
walnut-tree
to look at Daddy Darwin's pigeons. The most obvious
parish questions at once presented themselves to the young
lady's mind.
"Had the boy been christened? Did he go
to Church and Sunday-school? Did he say his prayers
and know his Catechism? Had he a Sunday suit? Would
he do for the choir ?”
will, but it
was fated to
widen. The
parson's
daughter
49
Then, supposing (a not uncommon case) that the boy
had been christened, said he said his prayers, knew his
Catechism, and was ready for school, church, and choir,
but had not got a Sunday suit-a fresh series of riddles.
I
5

30
?

}
SOFT WORDS
Č
propounded themselves to her busy brain. "Would her
father yield up his every-day coat and take his Sunday
one into week-day wear? Could the charity bag do better
than pay the tailor's widow for adapting this old coat to
the new chorister's back, taking it in at the seams, turning
it wrong-side out, and getting new sleeves out of the old
tails? Could she herself spare the boots which the village
cobbler had just resoled for her-somewhat clumsily-and
would the "allowance" bag bear this strain? Might she
hope to coax an old pair of trowsers out of her cousin, who
was spending his Long Vacation at the Vicarage, and who
never reckoned very closely with his allowance, and kept
no charity bag at all? Lastly would "that old curmudgeon
at the Dovecot" let his little farm-boy go to church and
school and choir?
"I must go and persuade him," said the young lady.
What she said, and what (at the time) Daddy Darwin
said, Jack never knew. He was at high sport with the
terrier round the big sweetbrier bush, when he saw his old
master splitting the seams of his weather-beaten coat in
the haste with which he plucked crimson clove carnations
as if they had been dandelions, and presented them, not
ungracefully, to the parson's daughter.
Jack knew why she had come, and strained his ears to
catch his own name. But Daddy Darwin was promising
pipings of the cloves.
"They are such dear old-fashioned things," said she,
burying her nose in the bunch.
"We're old-fashioned altogether, here, Miss," said Daddy
Darwin, looking wistfully at the tumble-down house behind
them.
"You're very pretty here," said she, looking also, and
thinking what a sketch it would make, if she could keep on
friendly terms with this old recluse, and get leave to sit in
the garden. Then her conscience smiting her for selfish-
S
:
ARE HARD ARGUMENTS,
31
ness, she turned her big eyes on him and put out her small
hand.
"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Darwin, very
much obliged to you indeed. And I hope that Jack will
do credit to your kindness. And thank you so much for
the cloves," she added, hastily changing a subject which
had cost some argument, and which she did not wish to
have reopened.
Daddy Darwin had thoughts of reopening it. He was
slowly getting his ideas together to say that the lad should
see how he got along with the school before trying the
choir, when he found the young lady's hand in his, and had
to take care not to hurt it, whilst she rained thanks on him
for the flowers.
"You're freely welcome, Miss," was what he did say
after all.
In the evening, however, he was very moody, but Jack
was dying of curiosity, and at last could contain himself no
longer.
"What did Miss Jenny want, Daddy?" he asked.
The old man looked very grim.
"First to mak a fool of me, and i' t' second place to mak
a fool of thee," was his reply. And he added with pettish
emphasis, "They're all alike, gentle and simple. Lad, lad!
If ye'd have any peace of your life never let a woman's
foot across your threshold. Steek t' door of your house-
if ye own one-and t' door o' your heart-if ye own one-
and then ye'll never rue. Look at this coat!"
And the old man went grumpily to bed, and dreamed
that Miss Jenny had put her little foot over his threshold,
and that he had shown her the secret panel, and let her take
away his savings.
And Jack went to bed, and dreamed that he went to
school, and showed himself to Phoebe Shaw in his Sunday
suit.
;
T
C
•
!
32
OF ALL TAME BEASTS, I HATE A slut.
This dainty little damsel had long been making havoc
in Jack's heart. The attraction must have been one of
contrast, for whereas Jack was black and grubby, and had
only week-day clothes-which were ragged at that-Phoebe
was fair, and exquisitely clean, and quite terribly tidy. Her
mother was the neatest woman in the parish. It was she
who was wont to say to her trembling handmaid, "I hope
I can black a grate without blacking myself." But little
Phoebe promised so far to out-do her mother, that it seemed
doubtful if she could "black herself" if she tried. Only the
bloom of childhood could have resisted the polishing effects
of yellow soap, as Phoebe's brow and cheeks did resișt it.
Her shining hair was compressed into a plait that would
have done credit to a rope-maker. Her pinafores were
speckless, and as to her white Whitsun frock-Jack could
think of nothing the least like Phoebe in that, except a
snowy fantail strutting about the dovecot roof; and, to say
the truth, the likeness was most remarkable.
It has been shown that Jack March had a mind to be
master of his fate, and he did succeed in making friends
with little Phoebe Shaw. This was before Miss Jenny's
visit, but the incident shall be recorded here.
"
Early on Sunday mornings it was'Jack's custom to hide
his work-day garb in an angle of the ivy-covered wall of
the Dovecot garden, only letting his head appear over the
top, from whence he watched to see Phoebe pass on her
way to Sunday school, and to bewilder himself with the
sight of her starched frock, and her airs with her Bible and
Prayer-book, and class card, and clean pocket-handkerchief.
Now, amongst the rest of her Sunday paraphernalia,
Phoebe always carried a posy, made up with herbs and
some strong-smelling flowers. Countrywomen take mint
and southernwood to a long hot service, as fine ladies take
smelling-bottles (for it is a pleasant delusion with some
writers that the weaker sex is a strong sex in the working
?
PHOEBE'S POSY.
33
classes). And though Phoebe did not suffer from "fainty
feels" like her mother, she and her little playmates took
posies to Sunday school, and refreshed their nerves in the
steam of question and answer, and hair oil and corduroy,
with all the airs of their elders.
One day she lost her posy on her way to school, and
her loss was Jack's opportunity. He had been waiting
half-an-hour among the ivy, when he saw her just below
him, fuzzling round and round like a kitten chasing its tail.
He sprang to the top of the wall.
"Have ye lost something?" he gasped.
"My posy," said poor Phoebe, lifting her sweet eyes,
which were full of tears.
A second spring brought Jack into the dust at her feet,
where he searched most faithfully, and was wandering
along the path by which she had come, when she called
him back.
"Never mind," said she. "They'll most likely be dusty
by now."
Jack was not used to think the worse of anything for a
coating of dust; but he paused, trying to solve the per-
petual problem of his situation, and find out what the little
maid really wanted.
tr
"'Twas only Old Man and marygolds," said she.
"They're common enough."
A light illumined Jack's understanding.
"We've Old Man i' plenty. Wait, and I'll get thee a
fresh posy." And he began to reclimb the wall.
But Phoebe drew nearer. She stroked down her frock,
and spoke mincingly but confidentially. "My mother
says Daddy Darwin has red bergamot i' his garden.
We've none i̇' ours. My mother always says there's
nothing like red bergamot to take to church. She says
it's a deal more refreshing than Old Man, and not so com-
mon. My mother says she's always meaning to ask Daddy
D
?


7
XXA
M
Ulti
41
THE FA
ܒ..
XC
str
Mi
V
lill
گیر
162
r
अधिक
"There's red bergamot; smell it!"
سائی
1-mi
Than
P. 35-
ษร
RED AS A ROSE IS SHE
35
Darwin to let us have a root to set; but she doesn't oftens
see him, and when she does she doesn't think on. But she
always says there's nothing like red bergamot, and my
Aunt Nancy, she says the same."
"Red is it?" cried Jack. "You wait there, love." And
before Phoebe could say him nay, he was over the wall and
back again with his arms full.
"Is it any o' this lot?" he inquired, dropping a small
haycock of flowers at her feet.
"Don't ye know one from t'other?" asked Phoebe, with
round eyes of reproach. And spreading her clean kerchief
on the grass she laid her Bible and Prayer-book and class
card on it, and set vigorously and nattily to work, picking
one flower and another from the fragrant confusion, nipping
the stalks to even lengths, rejecting withered leaves, and
instructing Jack as she proceeded.
"I suppose ye know a rose? That's a double velvet.*
They dry sweeter than lavender for linen. These dark red
things is pheasants' eyes; but, dear, dear, what a lad! ye've
dragged it up by the roots! And eh! what will Master
Darwin say when he misses these pink hollyhocks? And
only in bud, too! There's red bergamot;† smell it!”
It had barely touched Jack's willing nose when it was
hastily withdrawn. Phoebe had caught sight of Polly and
Susan Smith coming to school, and crying that she should
be late and must run, the little maid picked up her para-
phernalia (not forgetting the red bergamot), and fled down
the lane. And Jack, with equal haste, snatched up the
tell-tale heap of flowers and threw them into a disused pig-
sty, where it was unlikely that Daddy Darwin would go to
look for his poor pink hollyhocks.
* Double Velvet, an old summer rose, not common now. It is described
by Parkinson.
+ Red Bergamot, or Twinflower: Monarda Didyma.
目
​$
六
​:
.X
i
36
SCENE VII.

книги
PRIL was a busy
month in the
Dovecot. Young
birds were chip-
ping the egg,
parent birds
were feeding
their young or
relieving each other on the nest, and Jack and his master
were constantly occupied and excited.
One night Daddy Darwin went to bed; but, though he
was tired, he did not sleep long. He had sold a couple of
handsome but quarrelsome pigeons to advantage, and had
added their price to the hoard in the bedhead. This had
renewed his old fears, for the store was becoming very
valuable; and he wondered if it had really escaped Jack's
quick observation, or whether the boy knew about it, and,
perhaps, talked about it. As he lay and worried himself he
fancied he heard sounds without-the sound of footsteps
and of voices. Then his heart beat till he could hear nothing
else; then he could undoubtedly hear nothing at all; then
he certainly heard something which probably was rats.
And so he lay in a cold sweat, and pulled the rug over
his face, and made up his mind to give the money to the
parson, for the poor, if he was spared till daylight.
He ruas spared till daylight, and had recovered himself,
t
2
THE DAY HAS EYES: THE NIGHT HAS EARS.
37
and settled to leave the money where it was, when Jack
rushed in from the pigeon-house with a face of dire dismay.
He made one or two futile efforts to speak, and then un-
consciously used the words Shakespeare has put into the
mouth of Macduff, "All my pretty 'uns!" and so burst into
(4)
tears.
And when the old man made his way to the pigeon-
house, followed by poor Jack, he found that the eggs were
cold and the callow young shivering in deserted nests, and
that every bird was gone. And then he remembered the
robbers, and was maddened by the thought that whilst he
lay expecting thieves to break in and steal his money he
had let them get safely off with his whole stock of pigeons.
Daddy Darwin had never taken up arms against his
troubles, and this one crushed him. The fame and beauty
of his house-doves were all that was left of prosperity
about the place, and now there was nothing left-nothing!
Below this dreary thought lay a far more bitter one, which he
dared not confide to Jack. He had heard the robbers; he
might have frightened them away; he might at least have
given the lad a chance to save his pets, and not a care had
crossed his mind except for the safety of his own old bones,
and of those miserable savings in the bedhead, which he
was enduring so much to scrape together (oh satire!) for a
distant connexion whom he had never seen. He crept back
to the kitchen, and dropped in a heap upon the settle, and
muttered to himself. Then his thoughts wandered. Sup-
posing the pigeons were gone for good, would he ever make
up his mind to take that money out of the money-hole, and
buy a fresh stock? He knew he never would, and shrank
into a meaner heap upon the settle as he said so to himself.
He did not like to look his faithful lad in the face.
Jack looked him in the face, and, finding no help there,
acted pretty promptly behind his back. He roused the
parish constable, and fetched that functionary to the Dove-
}
i
253
38
JACK TAKES TIME BY THE FORELOCK.
cot before he had had bite or sup to break his fast. He
spread a meal for him and Daddy, and borrowed the
Shaws' light cart whilst they were eating it. The Shaws
were good farmer-folk, they sympathised most fully; and
Jack was glad of a few words of pity from Phoebe. She
said she had watched the pretty pets "many a score of
times," which comforted more than one of Jack's heart.
strings. Phoebe's mother paid respect to his sense and
promptitude. He had acted exactly as she would have
done.
"Daddy was right enough about yon lad,” she admitted.
"He's not one to let the grass grow under his feet,"
And she gave him a good breakfast whilst the horse
was being "put to." It pleased her that Jack jumped up
and left half a delicious cold tea-cake behind him when the
cart-wheels grated outside. Mrs. Shaw sent Phoebe to put
the cake in his pocket, and "the Measter" helped Jack
in and took the reins. He said he would "see Daddy
Darwin through it,” and added the weight of his opinion to
that of the constable, that the pigeons had been taken to
"a beastly low place" (as he put it) that had lately been
set up for pigeon-shooting in the outskirts of the neigh-
bouring town.
They paused no longer at the Dovecot than was needed
to hustle Daddy Darwin on to the seat beside Master Shaw,
and for Jack to fill his pockets with peas, and take his place
beside the constable. He had certain ideas of his own on
the matter, which were not confused by the jog-trot of the
light cart, which did give a final jumble to poor Daddy
Darwin's faculties.
No wonder they were jumbled! The terrors of the
night past, the shock of the morning, the completeness of
the loss, the piteous sight in the pigeon house, remorseful
shame, and then-after all these years, during which he had
not gone half a mile from his own hearthstone—to be set
7
WHITHER GOEST GRIEF? WHERE I AM WONT. 39
up for all the world to see, on the front seat of a market-
cart, back to back with the parish constable, and jogged
off as if miles were nothing, and crowded streets were
nothing, and the Beaulieu Gardens were nothing; Master
Shaw talking away as easily as if they were sitting in two
arm-chairs, and making no more of "stepping into" a
lawyer's office, and "going on" to the Town Hall, than if
he were talking of stepping up to his own bedchamber or
going out into the garden!
That day passed like a dream, and Daddy Darwin
remembered what happened in it as one remembers visions
of the night.
He had a vision (a very unpleasing vision) of the pro-
prietor of the Beaulieu Gardens, a big greasy man, with
sinister eyes very close together, and a hook nose, and a
heavy watchchain, and a bullying voice. He browbeat the
constable very soon, and even bullied Master Shaw into
silence. No help was to be had from him in his loud in-
dignation at being supposed to traffic with thieves. When
he turned the tables by talking of slander, loss of time, and
compensation, Daddy Darwin smelt money, and tremblingly
whispered to Master Shaw to apologise and get out of it.
They're gone for good," he almost sobbed; "Gone for
good, like all t' rest! And I'll not be long after 'em."
But even as he spoke he heard a sound which made him
lift
up his head. It was Jack's call at feeding-time to the
pigeons at the Dovecot. And quick following on this most
musical and most familiar sound there came another. The
old man put both his lean hands behind his ears to be sure
that he heard it aright-the sound of wings-the wings of
a dove!
46
•
The other men heard it and ran in, Whilst they were
wrangling, Jack had slipped past them, and had made his
way into a wired enclosure in front of the pigeon-house.
And there they found him, with all the captive pigeons
"
是
​AN EASY FOOL IS A KNAVE'S TOOL.
coming to his call; flying, fluttering, strutting, nestling from
head to foot of him, he scattering peas like hail,
He was the first to speak, and not a choke in his voice,
His iron temperament was at white heat, and, as he after-
wards said, he “cared no more for yon dirty chap wi' the
big nose, nor if he were a ratten* in a hayloft!"
"These is ours," he said, shortly. "I'll count 'em over,
and see if they're right. There was only one young 'un
that could fly. A white 'un." ("It's here," interpolated
Master Shaw.) "I'll pack 'em i' yon," and Jack turned his
thumb to a heap of hampers in a corner.
"T' carrier can
leave t' baskets at t' toll-bar next Saturday, and ye may
send your lad for 'em, if ye keep one."
The proprietor of the Beaulieu Gardens was not a man
easily abashed, but most of the pigeons were packed before
he had fairly resumed his previous powers of speech. Then,
as Master Shaw said, he talked "on the other side of his
mouth," Most willing was he to help to bring to justice the
scoundrels who had deceived him and robbed Mr. Darwin,
but he feared they would be difficult to trace. His own
feeling was that of wishing for pleasantness among neigh-
bours. The pigeons had been found at the Gardens. That
was enough. He would be glad to settle the business out
of court.
40
Daddy Darwin heard the chink of the dirty man's
money, and would have compounded the matter then and
there. But not so the parish constable, who saw himself
famous; and not so Jack, who turned eyes of smouldering
fire on Master Shaw.
"Maester Shaw! you'll not let them chaps get off?
Daddy's mazelin wi' trouble, sir, but I reckon you'll see
to it,"
"If it costs t' worth of the pigeons ten times over, I'll
see to it, my lad," was Master Shaw's reply. And the
* Anglicè Rat
4I
PUNISHMENT IS LAME, BUT IT COMES.
parish constable rose even to a vein of satire as he avenged
himself of the man who had slighted his office. "Settle it
out of court? Aye! I dare say. And send t' same chaps
to fetch 'em away again t' night after. Nay—bear a hand
with this hamper, Maester Shaw, if you please—if it's all
t' same to you, Mr. Proprietor, I think we shall have to
trouble you to step up to t' Town Hall by-and-by, and see
if we can't get shut of them mistaking friends o' yours for
three month any way."
If that day was a trying one to Daddy Darwin, the
The thieves were
night that followed it was far worse.
known to the police, and the case was down to come on at
the Town Hall the following morning; but meanwhile the
constable thought fit to keep the pigeons under his own
charge in the village lock-up. Jack refused to be parted
from his birds, and remained with them, leaving Daddy
Darwin alone in the Dovecot. He dared not go to bed,
and it was not a pleasant night that he spent, dozing with
weariness, and starting up with fright, in an arm-chair
facing the money-hole.
Some things that he had been nervous about he got
quite used to, however. He bore himself with sufficient
dignity in the publicity of the Town Hall, where a great
sensation was created by the pigeons being let loose with-
out, and coming to Jack's call. Some of them fed from the
boy's lips, and he was the hero of the hour, to Daddy
Darwin's delight.
Then the lawyer and the lawyer's office proved genial
ana comfortable to him. He liked civil ways and smooth
speech, and understood them far better than Master Shaw's
brevity and uncouthness. The lawyer chatted kindly and
intelligently; he gave Daddy Darwin wine and biscuit, and
talked of the long standing of the Darwin family and its
vicissitudes; he even took down some fat yellow books,
and showed the old man how many curious laws had been
1
[
•
*
1
;
7
!
i
D
J
42 AN OLD MAN'S STAFF RAPS ON DEATH'S DOOR.
made from time to time for the special protection of
pigeons in dovecots. Very ancient statutes making the
killing of a house-dove felony. Then 1 James I. c. 29,
awarded three months' imprisonment "without bail or
mainprise" to any person who should "shoot at, kill, or
destroy with any gun, crossbow, stonebow, or longbow, any
house-dove or pigeon;" but allowed an alternative fine of
twenty shillings to be paid to the churchwardens of the
parish for the benefit of the poor. Daddy Darwin hoped
there was no such alternative in this case, and it proved
that by 2 Geo. III. c. 29, the twenty-shilling fine was trans-
ferred to the owner of birds; at which point another client
called, and the polite lawyer left Daddy to study the laws
by himself.
It was when Jack was helping Master Shaw to put the
horse into the cart, after the trial was over, that the farmer
said to him, "I don't want to put you about, my lad, but
I'm afraid you won't keep your master long. T'old gentle-
man's breaking up, mark my words! Constable and me
was going into the George for a glass, and Master Darwin
left us and went back to the office. I says, 'What are ye
going back to t' lawyer for?' and he says, 'I don't mind
telling you, Master Shaw, but it's to make my will.' And
off he goes. Now, there's only two more things between
that and death, Jack March! And one's the parson, and
t' other's the doctor."
43
SCENE VIII

Tail
ITTLE Phoebe Shaw
coming out of the day-
school, and picking her
way home to tea, was
startled by folk running
past her, and by a sound of cheering from the far end of
the village, which gradually increased in volume, and was
caught up by the bystanders as they ran. When Phoebe
heard that it was "Constable, and Master Shaw, and Daddy
Darwin and his lad, coming home, and the pigeons along
wi' 'em," she felt inclined to run too; but a fit of shyness
came over her, and she demurely decided to wait by the
school-gate till they came her way. They did not come,
They stopped. What were they doing? Another by-
stander explained, “They're shaking hands wi' Daddy, and
Í reckon they're making him put up t' birds here, to see
'em go home to t' Dovecot."
Phoebe ran as if for her life. She loved beast and bird
as well as Jack himself, and the fame of Daddy Darwin's
doves was great. To see them put up by him to fly home
after such an adventure was a sight not lightly to be for-
gone.
The crowd had moved to a hillock in a neighbour-
05
}
2
>
↓
C
:
Wit
尺
​"Constable, and Master Shaw, and Daddy Darwin, and his lad, coming
home, and the pigeons along wi' 'em.”—P. 43.
i

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1
HOME. SWEET HOME!
45
ing field before she touched its outskirts. By that time it
pretty well numbered the population of the village, from
the oldest inhabitant to the youngest that could run.
Phoebe had her mother's courage and resource. Chirping
out feebly but clearly, "I'm Maester Shaw's little lass, will
ye let me through ?" she was passed from hand to hand,
till her little fingers found themselves in Jack's tight clasp,
and he fairly lifted her to her father's side.
She was just in time. Some of the birds had hung
about Jack, nervous, or expecting peas; but the hesitation
was past. Free in the sweet sunshine-beating down the
evening air with silver wings and their feathers like gold-
ignorant of cold eggs and callow young dead in deserted
nests-sped on their way by such a roar as rarely shook
the village in its body corporate-they flew straight home:
to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot.
**
t
·
:
i
!
...
ERD
UD
I
W!
SCENE IX.
46

Ju
"
socie
1-----་
一
​The
ADDY DAR-
WIN lived a
good many
years after
making his
will, and the

Dovecot pros-
pered in his
hands.
It would
be more
just to
say that
it pros-
pered in
the hands
of Jack
March.
By hook and by crook he increased the live stock about
the place. Folk were kind to one who had set so excel-
lent an example to other farm lads, though he lacked the
primal virtue of belonging to the neighbourhood. He
bartered pigeons for fowls, and some one gave him a sit-
ting of eggs to "see what he would make of 'em." Master
Shaw gave him a little pig, with kind words and good
I
!
¡
47
counsel; and Jack cleaned out the disused pigstyes, which
were never disused again. He scrubbed his pigs with soap
and water as if they had been Christians, and the admirable
animals, regardless of the pork they were coming to, did
him infinite credit, and brought him profit into the bargain,
which he spent on ducks' eggs, and other additions to his
farmyard family.
LOVE IS THE PRICE OF LOVE.
The Shaws were very kind to him; and if Mrs. Shaw's
secrets must be told, it was because Phoebe was so un-
changeably and increasingly kind to him, that she sent the
pretty maid (who had a knack of knowing her own mind
about things) to service.
Jack March was a handsome, stalwart youth now, of
irreproachable conduct, and with qualities which Mrs. Shaw
particularly prized; but he was but a farm-lad, and no
match for her daughter,
Jack only saw his sweetheart once during several years.
She had not been well, and was at home for the benefit of
"native air." He walked over the hill with her as they
returned from church, and lived on the remembrance of
that walk for two or three years more. Phoebe had given
him her Prayer-book to carry, and he had found a dead
flower in it, and had been jealous. She had asked if he
knew what it was, and he had replied fiercely that he did
not, and was not sure that he cared to know.
"Ye never did know much about flowers," said Phoebe,
demurely, "It's red bergamot."
"I love-red bergamot," he whispered penitently. "And
thou owes me a bit, I gave thee some once." And Phoebe
had let him put the withered bits into his own hymn-book,
which was more than he deserved.
Jack was still in the choir, and taught in the Sunday
school where he used to learn. The parson's daughter had
had her way; Daddy Darwin grumbled at first, but in the
end he got a bottle-green Sunday-coat out of the oak-
P
¿
I
48
THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.
press that matched the bedstead, and put the house-key
into his pocket, and went to church too. Now, for years
past he had not failed to take his place, week by week, in
the pew that was traditionally appropriated to the use of
the Darwins of Dovecot. In such an hour the sordid cares
of the secret panel weighed less heavily on his soul, and
ill
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the things that are not seen came nearer-the house not
made with hands, the treasures that rust and moth corrupt
not, and which thieves do not break through to steal.
Daddy Darwin died of old age. As his health failed,
Jack nursed him with the tenderness of a woman; and kind
*** 9.
1

1
?
".
IN THE NAME OF GOD: AMEN.
49
inquiries, and dainties which Jack could not have cooked,
came in from many quarters where it pleased the old man
to find that he was held in respect and remembrance.
One afternoon, coming in from the farmyard, Jack
found him sitting by the kitchen-table as he had left him,
but with a dread look of change upon his face. At first
he feared there had been "a stroke," but Daddy Darwin's
mind was clear and his voice firmer than usual.
"My lad," he said, "fetch me yon tea-pot out of the
corner cupboard. T' one wi' a pole-house* painted on it,
and some letters. Take care how ye shift it. It were t'
merry feast-pot† at my christening, and yon's t' letters of
my father's and mother's names. Take off t' lid. There's
two bits of paper in the inside."
Jack did as he was bid, and laid the papers (one small
and yellow with age, the other bigger, and blue, and neatly
written upon) at his master's right hand.
Read yon," said the old man, pushing the small one
towards him. Jack took it up wondering. It was the
letter he had written from the workhouse fifteen years
before. That was all he could see. The past surged up
too thickly before his eyes, and tossing it impetuously from
him, he dropped on a chair by the table, and snatching
Daddy Darwin's hands he held them to his face with tears.
"GOD bless thee!" he sobbed. "You've been a good
maester to me!"
66
Daddy," wheezed the old man. "Daddy, not maester."
And drawing his right hand away, he laid it solemnly on
the young man's head. "GOD bless thee, and reward thee.
What have I done i' my feckless life to deserve a son? But
if ever a lad earned a father and a home, thou hast earned
'em, Jack March.”
* A pole-house is a small dovecot on the top of a pole.
"Merry feast-pot" is a name given to old pieces of ware, made in local
potteries for local festivais.
T-
7
THIS IS THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
He moved his hand again and laid it trembling on the
paper.
50
"Every word i' this letter ye've made good. Every
word, even to t' bit at the end. 'I love them Tumblers
as if they were my own,' says you. Lift thee head, lad,
and look at me. They are thy own!... Yon blue paper's
my last will and testament, made many a year back by
Mr. Brown, of Green Street, Solicitor, and a very nice gen-
tleman too; and witnessed by his clerks, two decent young
chaps, and civil enough, but with too much watchchain for
their situation. Jack March, my son, I have left thee
maester of Dovecot and all that I have. And there's a bit
of money in t' bedhead that 'll help thee to make a fair
start, and to bury me decently atop of my father and
mother. Ye may let Bill Sexton toll an hour-bell for
me, for I'm a old standard, if I never were good for
much. Maybe I might ha' done better if things had
happed in a different fashion; but the Lord knows all.
I'd like a hymn at the grave, Jack, if the Vicar has no
objections, and do thou sing if thee can. Don't fret, my
son, thou'st no cause. 'Twas that sweet voice o' thine took
me back again to public worship, and it's not t' least of all
I owe thee, Jack March. A poor reason, lad, for taking up
with a neglected duty-a poor reason-but the Lord is a
GOD of mercy, or there'd be small chance for moŝt on us.
If Miss Jenny and her husband come to t' Vicarage this
summer, say I left her my duty and an old man's blessing;
and if she wants any roots out of t' garden, give 'em her,
and give her yon old chest that stands in the back chamber.
It belonged to an uncle of my mother's-a Derbyshire man.
They say her husband's a rich gentleman, and treats her
very well. I reckon she may have what she's a mind, new
and polished, but she's always for old lumber. They're a
whimsical lot, gentle and simple. And talking of women,
Jack, I've a word to say, if I can fetch my breath to say it.
罪
​LOVE'S NOT TIME'S FOOL,
51
Lad! as sure as you're maester of Dovecot, you'll give it a
missus. Now take heed to me. If ye fetch any woman
home here but Phoebe Shaw, I'll walk, and scare ye away
from t' old place. I'm willing for Phœbe, and I charge ye
to tell the lass so hereafter. And tell her it's not because
she's fair-too many on 'em are that; and not because
she's thrifty and houseproud-her mother's that, and she's
no favourite of mine; but because I've watched her when-
ever t'ould cat 's let her be at home, and it's my belief
that she loves ye, knowing nought of this" (he laid his
hand upon the will) "and that she'll stick to ye, choose
what her folk may say. Aye, aye, she's not one of t' sort
that quits a falling house-like rattens."
Language fails to convey the bitterness which the old
man put into these last two words. It exhausted him,
and his mind wandered. When he had to some extent
recovered himself he spoke again, but very feebly.
"Tak' my duty to the Vicar, lad, Daddy Darwin's duty,
and say he's at t' last feather of the shuttle, and would be
thankful for the Sacrament."
*
*
*
*
*
The Parson had come and gone. Daddy Darwin did
not care to lie down, he breathed with difficulty; so Jack
made him easy in a big arm-chair, and raked up the fire
with cinders, and took a chair on the other side of the
hearth to watch with him. The old man slept comfortably,
and at last, much wearied, the young man dozed also...
He awoke because Daddy Darwin moved, but for a
moment he thought he must be dreaming. So erect the
old man stood, and with such delight in his wide-open
eyes. They were looking over Jack's head.
All that the lad had never seen upon his face seemed to
have come back to it-youth, hope, resolution, tenderness.
His lips were trembling with the smile of acutest joy.
*
THE EVENING BRINGS ALL HOME,
Suddenly he stretched out his arms, and crying,
"Alice!" started forward and fell-dead-on the breast of
his adopted son.
52

RAW! Craw! Craw! The
crows flapped slowly home,
and the Gaffers moved off
too. The sun was down,
and "damps" are bad for
"rheumatics."
"It's a strange tale," said
Gaffer II., "but if all's true
ye tell me, there's not too
many like him.”
64
That's right enough,'
Gaffer I. admitted. "He's
been t' same all through, and
ye should ha' seen the bury-
ing he gave t'ould chap. He
was rare and good to him by
all accounts, and never gain-
said him ought, except i' not
lifting his voice as he should ha' done at t' grave. Jack
sings a bass solo as well as any man i' t' place; but he
stood yonder, for all t' world like one of them crows, black
o' visage, and black wi' funeral clothes, and choked with
crying like a child i' stead of a man.”
Nite
छ
.
"(
Mum
"
+
**
Well, well, t'ould chap were all he had, I reckon,"
said Gaffer II.
That's right enough; and for going backwards, as ye
may say, and setting a wild graff on an old standard, yon
will's done well for DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT."
1922
"}
MAR 7

I
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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JACKANAPES:
BY
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
(SIXTIETH THOUSAND.)
WITH SEVENTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.
Small 4to, Ornamental Paper Boards, ls.
WE ARE NOT
"Here, stitched up in a paper cover, and almost overlooked,
we found the book of the season
We will willingly incur
the charge of exaggeration by saying that there is nothing equal to it
outside Thackeray."-Academy.
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likely to write, or anybody could wish to read, full of genuine humour,
and of true, deep, pathetic feeling."-Illustrated London News.
"Mrs. Ewing has never surpassed, even if she has ever reached,
the movement, liveliness, pathos, and general charm of this vivid little
sketch, which is admirably illustrated by Mr. Caldecott."-Spectator
Humour and pathos are so cunningly blended in this brief
sketch that the only complaint to be made is that the authoress has
cut her story too short.”—Graphic.
"The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has done
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It is hardly necessary to say that the result of such collaboration is
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enumerate all the cuts, to give an idea of this delightful little book.'-
Saturday Review.