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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 45685
   :PG.Title: Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps
   :PG.Released: 2014-05-29
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \J. \S. Fletcher
   :DC.Title: Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps
              Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1911
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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MR. POSKITT'S NIGHTCAPS
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      MR. POSKITT'S
      NIGHTCAPS

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      *STORIES OF A YORKSHIRE FARMER*

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      RE-TOLD BY
      J. S. FLETCHER

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      TORONTO
      THE COPP CLARK CO. LTD.
      1911

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.. _`INTRODUCTION`:

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   INTRODUCTION

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Everyone who has had the pleasure of Mr. Poskitt's
acquaintance knows that that estimable
Yorkshireman is not only the cheeriest of hosts,
but the best of companions.  Those of us who
have known the Poskitt High Tea (a much more
enjoyable meal than a late dinner) know what
follows the consumption of Mrs. Poskitt's
tender chickens and her home-fed hams.  The
parlour fire is stirred into a blaze; the hearth is
swept clean; the curtains are drawn; the
decanters, the cigars, and the quaint old leaden
tobacco-box appear beneath the shaded lamp,
and Mr. Poskitt bids his guests to cheer up,
to help themselves, and to feel heartily
welcome.  And when those guests have their
glasses at their elbows, their cigars and pipes
between their lips, and their legs stretched in
comfort, Mr. Poskitt has his story to tell.  Few
men know the countryside and its people, with
their joys, their sorrows, their humours better
than he; few people there can surely be who
would not enjoy hearing him tell of the big and
little dramas of life which he has watched, with
a shrewd and sympathetic eye, during his
seventy years of work and play, of cloud and
sunshine.  In some of these Nightcap stories
(so termed by their hearers because Mr. Poskitt
insists on telling them as preparatory to his own
early retirement, which is never later than ten
o'clock) he is sometimes humorous and sometimes
tragic.  I trust the re-telling of them may
give some pleasure to folk who must imagine
for themselves the cheery glow of Mr. Poskitt's
hearth.

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\J. \S. FLETCHER.

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*London, May* 1910.

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   CONTENTS

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CHAP.

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`INTRODUCTION`_

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I  `THE GUARDIAN OF HIGH ELMS FARM`_
II  `A STRANGER IN ARCADY`_
III  `THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY`_
IV  `LITTLE MISS PARTRIDGE`_
V  `THE MARRIAGE OF MR. JARVIS`_
VI  `BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS`_
VII  `WILLIAM HENRY AND THE DAIRYMAID`_
VIII  `THE SPOILS TO THE VICTOR`_
IX  `AN ARCADIAN COURTSHIP`_
X  `THE WAY OF THE COMET`_
XI  `BROTHERS IN AFFLICTION`_
XII  `A MAN OR A MOUSE`_
XIII  `A DEAL IN ODD VOLUMES`_
XIV  `THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE`_





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.. _`THE GUARDIAN OF HIGH ELMS FARM`:

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   MR. POSKITT'S NIGHTCAPS

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   CHAPTER I

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   THE GUARDIAN OF HIGH ELMS FARM

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In the cold dreariness of that February
morning the whole glace looked chilly and
repellent in the extreme.  There, on a little
knoll, which by comparison assumed almost
hill-like proportions amongst the low level of
the meadows and corn-lands at its feet, stood
the farmstead—a rambling mass of rough grey
walls and red roofs; house, barns, stables,
granary, and byres occurring here and there
without evident plan or arrangement.  Two or
three great elm-trees, now leafless, and black
with winter moisture, rose high above the
chimneys and gables like sentinels inclined to
sleep at their posts; above their topmost
branches half-a-score of rooks flapped lazy
wings against the dull grey of the sky; their
occasional disconsolate notes added to the
melancholy of the scene.  And yet to an
experienced eye, versed in the craft of the land,
there was everything to promise well in the
outward aspect of High Elms Farm.  The
house, if very old, was in good repair, and so
were the buildings; the land was of excellent
quality.  But it only needed one glance to see
that the house had not been tenanted for some
time; its windows gave an instant impression
that neither lamp-light nor fire-light had
gleamed through them of late, and to enter the
great stone-paved kitchen was to experience the
feeling of stepping into a vault.  That feeling
of dead emptiness was in all the outbuildings,
too—the stables, the granary, the byres were
lifeless, void; ghostliness of a strange sort
seemed to abide in their silence.  And beneath
the curling mists which lay over the good acres
of corn-land, weeds were flourishing instead of
growing crops.

On that February morning two young men,
so much alike that no one could mistake them
for anything else than what they
were—twin-brothers—stood at the stone porch of the house,
staring at each other with mutually questioning
eyes.  They were tall, finely built, sturdy
fellows of apparently twenty-six years of age,
fair of hair, blue of eye, ruddy of cheek, with
square, resolute jaws and an air of determination
which promised well for their success in
life.  Closely alike in their looks, they carried
their similarity to their dress.  Each wore a
shooting-coat of somewhat loud pattern; each
sported a fancy waistcoat with gilt buttons; each
wore natty riding-breeches of whipcord, which
terminated in Newmarket gaiters of light fawn
colour.  Each wore his billycock hat inclined
a little to the left side; each had a bit of
partridge's feather stuck in his hatband.  And at
this moment each was nibbling at a straw.

"This is a queer place, Simpson," said one
of these young men after a silence which had
lasted for several minutes.  "A real queer place!"

"It is, Isaac!" assented the other.  "It is,
my lad.  The queerest place ever I set eyes on.
You couldn't say a truer word."

Isaac Greaves nibbled more busily at his
straw.  He lifted the rakish-looking billycock
and scratched his head.

"What's the matter with it?" he said.
"What's up with it, like?  It's a good house;
they're good buildings, if they are
old-fashioned; it's good land."

"Aye—sadly neglected," said his brother.
"Fine crops of thistles."

"That could be put right," said Isaac.
"Matter of work and patience that—the main
thing is, it's good land.  And—why can't they
let it?"

Simpson Greaves shook his head.  He, too,
nibbled more zealously at his straw.

"There's something against it, evidently," he
said.  "Those two last tenants they had
wouldn't stop—cleared out quick, both of 'em.
For why, I don't know."

Isaac threw away his straw and drew a cigar
from his waistcoat pocket.  He lighted it and
took two or three deliberate puffs before he
spoke.

"Well," he said at last, "there's no doubt
about it, Simpson—if it's to be had at the rent
we've heard of it's such a bargain as no man in
his senses should miss.  I'm in for it, if you are.
It's better land, it's a better house, they're better
buildings than what we've got at present, and
we're paying more than twice as much.  And, of
course, our time's up come Lady Day.  Look
here—we've got the lawyer's directions; let's
ride on to Sicaster and see him and hear what
he's got to say."

"Come on, then," assented Simpson.  "It's
only another five miles or so."

There were two stout cobs attached by their
bridles to the garden gate, and on them the
brothers soon rode into the nearest market-town.
With no more delay than was necessitated
by stabling the cobs and drinking a glass
of ale at the Golden Lion, they presented
themselves at the office of the solicitor who acted as
agent for the estate on which High Elms Farm
was situate, and in due course were conducted
to his presence.

"I'll leave the talking to you, Isaac,"
whispered Simpson, who was more reserved than
his twin-brother.  "Find out all you can."

Isaac was nothing loath—he knew his powers.
He plunged straight into the matter as soon as
he and Simpson confronted an elderly man,
who eyed them with interest.

"Morning, sir," said Isaac.  "Our name is
Greaves, Isaac and Simpson Greaves, brothers.
We're just giving up a farm over Woodbarrow
way yonder, and we're on the look-out for
another.  We heard at Cornchester market that
you've a farm to let very cheap—High Elms
Farm—so we thought we'd like to have a look
at it and see you about it."

The solicitor looked steadily at both brothers,
one after the other.  Then he cleared his throat
with a non-committal sort of cough.

"Yes," he said, "yes.  Have you been over
the place, Mr. Greaves?"

"We've been over every bit of it this
morning," replied Isaac.

"Well?" said the solicitor.

"It's good land—badly neglected," said Isaac.

"Very badly neglected," added Simpson.

"That, of course, is why you're asking such
a low rent for it," suggested Isaac, with a
shrewd glance at the man of law.

The man of law consulted his delicately
polished finger-nails.  He suddenly looked at
Isaac with a frank smile.

"The fact of the case is that I can't let it,"
he said.  "It's been tenantless four years now.
Two men have had it—one stopped a month,
the other a fortnight.  Each said he'd rather
pay a couple of years' rent to get out than stop
there any longer.  So—there you are!"

The twin-brothers looked at each other.
Each shook his head.

"That's a queer 'un, Isaac!" said Simpson.

"It is a queer 'un, Simpson!" responded
Isaac with added emphasis.  He turned to the
solicitor again.  "And pray what's the reason,
sir?" he inquired.

The solicitor smiled—not too cheerfully—and
spread out his hands.

"They say the place is—haunted," he answered.

"Haunted?" repeated Isaac.  "What—ghosts,
eh?  Well, I don't think a few ghosts
more or less would make much difference to us,
Simpson, my lad—what?"

"Not that I know of," answered Simpson, stolidly.

The solicitor looked from one to the other
and smiled.

"Well, I've told you what happened," he
said.  "Those other two men were neither of
them any more likely to be impressed by ghosts
than you seem to be, but I can tell you that I've
seen both of them labouring under such intense
fear that they were on the very verge of
breaking down.  That's all."

Two pairs of blue eyes fixed themselves on
the man of law's face and grew wider and wider;
two mouths gradually opened.

"I'll just tell you about it," said the solicitor,
who was plainly not averse to playing the part
of narrator, "and then, when you've heard
everything, you can decide for yourselves
whether you care to go further into the matter
or not.  Now, until just over four years ago
High Elms Farm was tenanted by an old man
named Josiah Maidment, who'd been there for
quite thirty years.  He was a queer, eccentric
old chap, who had never married, and who lived
almost by himself.  He never had a housekeeper,
nor a female servant in the house—whatever
he needed doing was done for him
by the woman at the neighbouring cottage."

"That's where we got the keys of the house,"
said Isaac.

"Just so.  Well," continued the solicitor, "a
little more than four years ago old Maidment
suddenly disappeared.  He went out of the
house one morning, dressed in his second-best
suit, as if he was going to market—and he was
never seen again.  Never seen—never heard
of!  Nor could we find any relation of his.  He
had money in the bank, and he had securities
there which proved him a well-to-do man.  We
advertised and did everything we could, but
all to no purpose.  We kept things going for
a while; then the stock was sold, and very soon
we let the farm to a new tenant.  That's just
three years since.  And that was when all the
trouble began."

"With the ghosts?" said Simpson.

"Well, with something," said the solicitor,
smiling.  "The new tenant had no sooner got
his stock in than he became aware that there was
something wrong.  The very first night he was
there his sheep-dog, an animal which he'd had
for years, disappeared.  They thought it had
gone back to the old home, but it hadn't—it
had just disappeared.  Then the horses in the
stables began to make such noises at night that
it was impossible to sleep.  If you went to them
you found them shivering with fright.  Just the
same with the cows.  As for the sheep, they
were always found in the morning huddled
together in a corner of whatever field they were
in.  In short, the whole place was
panic-stricken.  But by what?  Nobody ever saw
anything.  The farmer and his men watched for
nights, without effect.  Yet as soon as ever their
backs were turned the thing began.  And at the
end of a month the men went—and were
thankful to go."

The twin-brothers were now thoroughly
fascinated.  Their eyes invited more.

"The second man came, after an interval,"
continued the solicitor.  "Just the same things
happened to him.  His sheep-dog disappeared—his
horses, cattle, and sheep were frightened
out of their lives.  And then came worse.  This
man was a young married man who had a wife
and one child.  The child was a bright, lively
boy of about five.  One afternoon its mother
was busy, and had let it go into the orchard to
play under the apple-trees.  As it was a long
time in coming in she went to seek it.  She
found it—yes, but how do you think she found
it?  Mad!  Utterly mad! that poor child had
lost its reason—through fright.  And so that
tenant went.  There, gentlemen, is the story
of High Elms Farm.  It's queer, but it's true."

Isaac Greaves drew a long breath, stared hard
at his brother, and shook his head.

"Well, of all the things I ever did hear tell
of!" he said.  "How might you account for it,
now, sir?"

The solicitor spread out his hands.

"Account for it!" he exclaimed.  "My good
sir, ask me to account for all or any of the
mysteries which baffle human knowledge!
Nobody can account for it.  All I know is what
happened to these men.  I tell you they were
frightened—frightened in the worst way."

"I expect everybody hereabouts knows this
story?" asked Isaac.

"You may be sure they do, or the farm would
have been taken long since at this reduced
rental," answered the solicitor.  "There's
nobody hereabouts would take it—not they!"

Isaac looked at Simpson.  They regarded
each other for a full moment in silence; then
Isaac turned to the solicitor.

"You're asking ten shillings an acre?" he said.

"I should be glad to get a tenant at that,"
answered the man of law wearily.

"Make it eight, and we'll take it," said Isaac.
"And we'll start on to clearing things up at
once.  Ghosts, sir, don't bother me and Simpson
much—we'll take our chance.  But——" and
there Isaac branched off into technical details
about the conditions of tenancy, which showed
the solicitor that he had a shrewd man to deal with.

On Lady Day the twin-brothers brought their
live stock to High Elms Farm, and by nightfall
everything was in place.  The house had
already received their furniture, and had been
made spick and span by their housekeeper and
a strapping maid.  There was nothing cold and
cheerless about it now.

"We might have been settled down for a
year or two, Isaac," said Simpson as the two
brothers sat smoking in the parlour that night.
"Everything's in order."

"Aye, and the next thing's to finish getting
the land in order," said Isaac.  "We're not
going to shift out of here as quickly as those
other chaps did, Simpson, my lad—ghosts or no
ghosts."

"I wonder if we shall hear or see anything?"
said Simpson, meditatively.

Isaac glanced at a couple of up-to-date
fowling-pieces which hung over the mantel-piece.

He wagged his head in a self-assured and
threatening manner.

"If I see any ghosts," he said, "I'll let daylight
through 'em.  It'll be a fine ghost that can
stand a charge of Number 4."

"Aye," said Simpson, "but then, according
to what some folk say——"

He paused, rubbing his chin, and his brother
stared at him with the suspicion of a doubt in
his mind.

"Well?" said Isaac, impatiently.  "Well?"

"According to some folk," said Simpson,
"there's ghosts as you can't see.  You can only
feel 'em."

Isaac mixed himself a drink and lighted a
cigar.  He plunged his hands deep in the
pockets of his riding-breeches, and facing his
brother, stared hard at him.

"I believe you're afraid, Sim!" he said.

Simpson stared just as hard back.

"Well, then, I'm not!" he retorted.  "I'm
afraid of naught—that I can see and get at.
All the same we both agreed that this was a
queer place."

"Queer or no queer, here we are, my lad, at
a ridiculous rental, and here we stop," said
Isaac.  "It'll take something that I've never
heard of to shift us."

An hour later, it then being nine o'clock—the
brothers took a lanthorn and, after their
usual custom, went round the farm-buildings to
see that everything was safe for the night.
They were well-to-do young men, these two,
and they had brought a quantity of valuable
live stock with them.  The stables, the folds,
the byres, the cow-houses were all full; the
pig-cotes were strained to their utmost capacity, for
both Simpson and Isaac believed in pigs as a
means of making money.  Not for many a
year had the old farmstead contained so much life.

They went from stable to stall, from fold to
byre, from cote to granary—all was in order for
the night.  The horses turned sleepy heads and
looked round at the yellow light of the swinging
lanthorn; the cows gazed at their owners with
silky eyes; the young bullocks and heifers in
the knee-deep straw of the folds stared lazily at
the two inspectors.  Over this bovine life, over
the high roofs and quaint gables the deep blue
of the night hung, pierced with the shafts of a
thousand stars.

"All's right," said Isaac, as they finished up
at the pigs.  "By the bye, where did Trippett
fasten up that new dog?"

"Back-yard, I told him," answered Simpson,
laconically.

"Let's have a look at him," said Isaac.

He led the way round to a cobble-paved
yard at the rear of the house, where in a corner
near the back-kitchen door stood a brick kennel.
Out of this, at the sound of their footsteps,
came a diminutive collie, who, seeing them, got
down on his belly and did obeisance after his
fashion.  Isaac considered him attentively.

"I never did see such dogs as Trippett
contrives to get hold of, Simpson," he said, half
peevishly.  "Why can't he get something
decent to look at?"

"He says this is a rare good one with sheep,
anyway," said Simpson.

"He says that about all of 'em," said Isaac.
"I'll try him myself to-morrow.  Come on—I
see they've given him something to eat."

The dog, still grovelling, whined and
trembled.  He came the length of his chain
towards the two brothers, wriggling ridiculously,
wagging his tail, gazing slavishly out of his
brown eyes.

"Doesn't look much of a plucked one,"
commented Isaac.  "I expect he's another of
Trippett's failures.  Come on, Sim."

They went off round the house, and the new
dog, whom the shepherd had that day
purchased from a very particular friend for a
sovereign, shivered and whimpered as the light
disappeared.  Then he retreated into his kennel
and curled up ... listening as a frightened
child listens in a lonely room.

The two brothers went round the house by
the outer paddock.  All about them lay the
land, silent as the sea is when no wind stirs.
There was not a sound to be heard, not a light
to be seen save in their own windows.  They
stood for a moment under the great black-blue,
star-pierced dome.

"It's a quietish spot this, Sim, at night,"
said Isaac, in a whisper which was quite
involuntary.  "I'd no idea——"

Crash went the lanthorn out of Simpson's
hand—that hand, shaking, convulsive, gripped
his brother's arm as if with fingers of steel.

"My God, Isaac, what's that! that—there!"
he gasped.

Isaac felt himself shiver as he looked.
Right in the darkness before him he saw what
seemed to be two balls of vivid green fire—no,
red fire, yellow fire, all sorts of fire, burning,
coruscating, and ... fixed on him.  And for
a second he, like Simpson, stood spell-bound;
then with a wild cry of "A gun, a gun!" he
turned and dashed for the parlour, followed by
his brother.  But when they dashed back with
their guns a moment later the eyes had gone.
And from somewhere in the adjacent wood
there suddenly rose into the profound stillness
of the night a strange cry, such as neither of
them had ever heard before.  It was a long,
wailing cry as of something in infinite despair.

The brothers, breathing hard, went back into
the house and shut the door.  Inside the
parlour, looking at each other, each saw the other's
brow to be dripping with sweat; each, after one
look, turned away from the other's eyes.  And
each, as by mutual instinct, poured out a glass
of spirit and drank it off at a gulp.

"Isaac," said Simpson, "there is something!"

Isaac put his gun aside, shook himself, and
tried to laugh.

"Pooh!" he said.  "We're a couple of
fools, Simpson.  Happen it's because it's our
first night here and we're feeling strange, and
haven't forgotten what the lawyer told us.  It
was a fox."

"A fox hasn't eyes that size," said Simpson.
"And, what about that cry?  You never heard
aught like that, Isaac, never!  No more did I."

"An owl in the woods," said Isaac.

"You can't deceive me about owls,"
answered Simpson.  "No, nor dogs, nor foxes,
nor anything else that makes a noise at night
in the country.  Isaac, there is something!"

"Oh, confound it!" said Isaac.  "You'll
make me think you're as bad as the lawyer.
Come on, let's go to bed."

And to bed they went, and nothing happening,
slept.  But very early next morning Isaac
was awakened by loud knocking at his door.
Then sounded the housekeeper's voice, agitated
and frightened.

"Mr. Isaac, sir, Mr. Isaac, will you get up at
once, sir!"

"What's the matter?" growled Isaac.  "Is
the place on fire?"

"That new dog, sir, that Trippett bought
yesterday—oh, I do wish you'd come down
quick, sir—we're that afraid!"

Isaac suddenly bounced out of bed, bundled
on some clothes, and rushed out of his room.
On the landing he met Simpson, similarly
attired to himself, and very pale.

"I heard her," he said.  "Come on!"

They ran down-stairs and through the kitchen
to the little yard behind.  There stood a group
of frightened people—the shepherd, Trippett,
a ploughboy or two, the housekeeper, the maid.
In their midst, at their feet, lay the unfortunate
little collie, dead.  And they saw at one glance
that his throat had been torn clean out.

Once inside the house again the brothers
looked at each other for a long minute without
speaking.  They were both very pale and their
eyes were queer and their hands shook.
Simpson spoke first: his voice was unsteady.

"There is something, Isaac," he said, in a
low voice.  "There is—something!"

Isaac set his teeth and clenched his hands.

"I'll see it through, Simpson," he said.  "I'll
see it through."

"Aye, but what is it?" said Simpson.

"Wait," said Isaac.

Then began the same course of events which
had signalized the short stay of their
predecessors.  The horses were frightened in
their stables; the cattle were found huddled
together and panting in the folds; the sheep
were driven off the land into the surrounding
roads and woods.  And the two brothers
watched and watched—and saw nothing, not
even the fiery eyes.  Until that period of their
existence neither Isaac nor Simpson Greaves
had known what it was to come in touch with
anything outside the purely material elements
of life.  Coming of a good sound stock which
had been on the land and made money out of
the land for generations, they had never done
anything but manage their affairs, keep shrewd
eyes on the markets, and sleep as comfortably
as they ate largely.  They were well-balanced;
they were not cursed with over-much
imagination; such things as nerves were unknown to
them.  But with their arrival at High Elms
Farm matters began to alter.  The perpetual
fright amongst the horses and cattle at night,
the cause of which they could not determine;
the anxiety of never knowing what might occur
at any moment; these things, conspiring with
the inevitable loss of sleep, affected health and
appetite.  Simpson gave way first; he was a
shade more susceptible to matters of this sort
than his brother, and possibly not so strong
physically.  And Isaac noticed it and grew
more incensed against this secret thing, and
all the more so because he felt himself so
impotent in respect to combating it.

One night matters came to a climax.  In
the very hush of midnight pandemonium broke
out in the stables.  The horses were heard
screaming with fear; when the two brothers got
to them they found that every beast had
broken loose and that they were fighting and
struggling for life to force a way out—anywhere.
They burst through the door which
Isaac opened, knocking him down in their wild
rush, leapt the low wall of the fold, and fled
screaming into the darkness of the fields.
Some were found wandering about the land in
the morning; some were brought back from
distant villages.  But one and all refused,
even to desperate resistance, to enter the
stables again.

A few mornings after that Simpson came
down to breakfast attired for travelling.

"Look here, Isaac," he said, "ask no
questions, but trust me.  I'm going away—about
this business.  I'll be back to-morrow night.
Things can't go on like this."

Then he made a pretence of eating and
went off, and Isaac heard nothing of him until
the next afternoon, when he returned in company
with a stranger, a tall, grizzled, soldier-like
man, who brought with him a bloodhound in
a leash.  Over the evening meal the three men
discussed matters—the stranger seemed
mysteriously confident that he could solve the
problem which had hitherto been beyond
solution.

There was almost a full moon that night—at
nine o'clock it was lighting all the land.
The stranger took his bloodhound out into the
paddock in front of the house and fastened it
to a stake which Isaac had previously driven
securely into the ground.  At a word from
him the great beast barked three times—the
deep-chested notes went ringing and echoing
into the silent woods.  And from somewhere
in the woods came in answer the long,
despairing wail which the brothers had heard more
than once and could never trace.

"That's it!" they exclaimed simultaneously.

"Then whatever it is, it's coming," said the
bloodhound's master.  "Get ready for it."

He spoke a word to the hound, which
immediately settled down trustfully at the foot
of the stake.  He and the brothers, each armed
with a shot-gun, took up a position behind a
row of shrubs on the edge of the garden, and
waited.

Some minutes passed; then the bloodhound
stirred and whined.

"Coming," said the visitor.

The bloodhound began to growl ominously—in
the moonlight they saw him bristle.

"Close by," said his master.

In the coppice in front of them they heard
the faintest rustling sound as of a body being
trailed over dried leaves.  Then——

"The eyes!" whispered Simpson.  "Look—there!"

Out of the blackness of the coppice the two
gleaming eyes which the brothers had seen
before shone like malignant stars.  They were
stationary for a moment; then, as the
bloodhound's growls grew fiercer and louder they
moved forward, growing larger.  And
presently into the light of the moon emerged a
great, grey, gaunt shape, pushing itself
forward on its belly, until at last it lay fully
exposed, its head between its paws, its baleful
eyes fixed on the hound.

"Steady!" whispered the visitor.  "It'll get
up—it's wondering which side to go at him
from.  Wait till I give the word."

The grey thing's tail began to lash from side
to side; its body began to quiver.  Little by
little it lifted itself from the ground and began
to creep circle-wise towards the bloodhound,
now tearing madly at his chain.  The fierce
eyes were turned slantwise; there was an ugly
gleam of bared white fangs; the tread was that
of a panther.  Suddenly its back arched, its
limbs seemed to gather themselves together.

"Now!"

The three guns rang out simultaneously, and
the grey shape, already springing, jerked
convulsively and fell in a heap close to the
tethered hound.  There it lay—still.
Simpson Greaves fetched a lanthorn which he had
kept in readiness within the house, and the
three men went up to the dead animal and
examined it.  Till that moment they had felt
uncertain as to what it really was that they had
destroyed—they now found themselves looking
at a great dog of uncertain breed, massive
in size, more wolf than dog in appearance, with
a wicked jaw and cruel fangs which snarled
even in death.  And one of them at least
began to have some dim comprehension of the
mystery.

The noise of the shooting had roused the
other inmates of the house; they came running
into the paddock to hear what had happened.
There, too, came hurrying the woman from the
neighbouring cottage who had cooked and
tidied for Josiah Maidment in the old days.
And gazing at the dead beast in the light of the
lanthorn she lifted up her hands with a sharp
exclamation.

"Lord ha' mussy, if that there isn't
Mr. Maidment's gre't dog!" she said.  "It went
away wi' him that very mornin' he disappeared."

"Why didn't you tell us Maidment had a
dog?" growled Isaac.  "I never heard of it."

"Why, mister, I'm sure I never thought of
it," said the woman.  "But he had, and that's
it, as sure as I'm a Christian.  It were the
savagest beast ever you see—wouldn't let
anybody go near the old gentleman.  Where can
it ha' been all this time?"

"That," said the bloodhound's master, "is
just what we are going to find out."

He released the hound from its chain, and
putting it in a leash, bade the brothers follow
him.  Then he set the hound on the dead
animal's track—hound and men broke into the
deep woods.  There was no break in their
course, no turning aside, no loss of scent.  The
baying of the usurper had been instantly
answered by the former guardian of High Elms
Farm.  Through thick undergrowth, by scarcely
passable paths, beneath thickets and bushes,
the three men, led by the straining hound,
pushed on until they came to a deep valley in
the woods, where a limestone crag jutted out
from beneath overhanging trees.  Here,
behind a bramble-brake, which concealed it from
any one in the valley, the hound stopped at a
hole just large enough to admit a fully-grown
man.  By the light of the lanthorn which
Simpson had brought with him they saw the
footprints of a dog on the loose soil.

"There's a cave in there," said the
bloodhound's master.  "Give me the light—I'm going in."

"So shall I, then," said Isaac, stoutly.

"And I," said Simpson.

The tunnel leading into the cave was not
more than a few feet in length; they were
quickly able to stand upright and to throw the
light around them.  And with a mutual fear
they gripped each other's arms, for there
huddled on the floor lay the body of an old,
grey-headed man, who had evidently been
stricken with death as he was counting over the
secret hoard of which he had made this lonely
place the receptacle.

"We will give that poor brute a fitting
burial," said the bloodhound's master, as they
went back to the farmstead.  "He was a
primitive savage in his ways, but a rare
upholder of what he felt to be his rights.  Bury
him under the big elm-tree."





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.. _`A STRANGER IN ARCADY`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   A STRANGER IN ARCADY

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Where the animal which subsequently
became so famous in the village to whose sober
quietude it brought an unexpected breath of
romance first came from no one ever knew.
Its coming was as mysterious as the falling
of rain or growing of corn in the night; it
must, indeed, have arrived in the night, for
it was certainly a part and parcel of Little
St. Peter's when Little St. Peter's awoke
one morning.  Those early birds who were
out and about before the gossamers on the
hedgerows had felt the first kiss of the
autumn sun were aware of the presence of a
remarkably lean pig, who was exploring the
one street of the village with inquisitive nose,
questioning eyes, and flapping ears.  It went
from one side of the street to another, and it
was obviously on the look-out for whatever
might come in its way in the shape of food.
There was an oak near the entrance to the
churchyard; the stranger paused beneath it as
long as there was an acorn to be found amongst
the fallen leaves.  Farther along, there was a
crab-apple-tree in the parson's hedge, the fruit
of which was too bitter for even the most
hardened boy of the village; it stopped there
to devour the fallen sournesses which lay in
the shining grass.  But always it was going
on, searching and inquiring, and its eyes grew
hungrier as its swinging gait increased in speed.
And coming at last to a gap in the fence of
Widow Grooby's garden, it made its way
through and set to work on the lone woman's
potatoes.

It was an hour later that the marauder was
driven out of this harbour of refuge, bearing
upon its lean body the marks of the switch with
which Widow Grooby had chased it forth, but
within its ribs the comfortable consciousness
of a hearty meal.  When it had uttered its
final protest against the switch, it went along
the street again, furtive and friendless, but this
time with the more leisurely pace of the thing
that has breakfasted.  Widow Grooby gazed
after it with an irate countenance.

"I could like to know whose gre't hungry
beast that there is!" she remarked to a
neighbour who had been attracted to her cottage
door by the pig's lamentations as he quitted
the scene of his misdeeds.  "It's been all over
my garden and etten half-a-row o' my best
potatoes, drat it.  And it couldn't have done
that, Julia Green, if your Johnny hadn't made
that gap in my fence when I ran him out t'other
night for being at my winter apples, no it
couldn't!  I think your William might ha'
mended that gap before now—that's what I think."

"Our William's summat else to do than
mend gaps," said Mrs. Green sullenly.
"And the gap were there before our Johnny
came through it.  And it's none our pig
anyway, for ours is in its sty at this here present
moment, a-eating its breakfast, so there!"

The styless and proper-breakfastless pig,
unconscious of this discussion and of its
possibilities of development into a good,
old-fashioned, neighbourly quarrel, went farther
along the village street, still prospecting.  There
were people about now, men and women, and
the door of the Fox-and-Fiddle had been
thrown open, and one or two habitués stood
within the sanded hall, taking their accustomed
morning glass.  The pig passed by, and as he
passed turned an inquisitive nose towards the
scent of stale ale and tobacco.  He went
forward, and as he went, one man put his head out
of the door after him.

"Whose pig's that there?" he said, scratching
his ear.  "I don't rek'lect seein' that pig
before, nowhere."

Another man, standing at the bar, strode to
the door and looked forth at the stranger.  He
was a curious-looking individual, very porcine
of appearance, very red and greasy of face and
hand, and as bald as man could be.  He wore
a blue linen apron over his clothes, and from
his side a formidable steel dangled from a
leather belt.  He was, in short, the butcher
and pig-killer of the village, and had a
professional interest in pigs of all classes.  And
he surveyed the wandering pig with a keen eye,
shook his head, and went back to his ale.  He
knew every pig in Little St. Peter's—this was
a stray-away from somewhere else.

"That's none of ours," he said, with a sniff
of disdain.  "Jack Longbottom's pig's the
only one in Peter's that's in a badly way, and
it's a stone heavier nor what that pig is."

"It'll be a poorish pig, then!" remarked the
other man.  "But Jack were never much of a
hand at pig-feeding."

The ownerless pig continued his explorations.
He went up a by-lane or two, looked
in at the gates of a farmstead here and a
farmstead there, but always returned to the street
unsatisfied.  He managed to get a light lunch
off a bowl of potato peelings which a woman
threw into the road as he passed, but he was
still hungry, and had visions of a trough,
liberally furnished with pig-meal.  And at noon,
being famished, and remembering the gap in
Widow Grooby's garden fence, he went
recklessly back to it, and finding that William
Green had not yet repaired it, pushed his way
through and once more entered on work of a
destructive nature.

This time Widow Grooby on discovering
him made no personal effort to dislodge the
intruder.  She was doing a day's starching and
ironing, being by profession a laundrywoman,
and she and her assistant, a young woman from
a few doors away, were as throng, said
Mrs. Grooby, as Throp's wife, and were not to be
interrupted by anything or anybody.

"Blest if that there dratted pig isn't in
my garden agen!" exclaimed Widow Grooby.
"That's the second time this morning, and now
it's at them carrots.  Howsumever, it's not a
woman's place to take up stray cattle—Martha
Jane, slip round to James Burton's, the pinder's,
and tell him there's a strange pig on my
premises, and I'll thank him to come and take it
out at once and put it in the pinfold, which is
its lawful place.  Them as it belongs to can
come and pay for it—and then I'll talk to 'em
about paying me for the damage it's done."

The pinder, interrupted at his dinner, came
slowly and unwillingly to perform his duty.
It was no easy thing to drive a stray pig into
the village pound; stray horses, donkeys, and
cattle were not so difficult to manage, but a pig
was a different thing.

"Whose pig is it?" he inquired surlily, as
he followed Martha Jane and munched his last
mouthfuls.  "If it be that rampagious
rorp-scorp o' Green's, why don't they fetch it out
theirselves?"

"Then it isn't," answered Martha Jane.
"It's an animal as comes from nowhere, and
you've to put it in the pinfold this minute,
Mrs. Grooby says."

"Aw, indeed!" remarked the pinder.  "An'
I wonder how she'd like breaking off her dinner
to put pigs in pound.  Howsumever——"

There were boys and girls coming from
school just then, and Mr. Burton enlisted their
services in driving the stray pig out of the
widow's garden and conducting it to the place
of incarceration.  Pig-like, as soon as it began
to be chivied it showed a powerful inclination
to go anywhere but where it was wanted to go.
In a few moments the quiet street was riotous
with noise and commotion.

The pinfold lay in the shadow of the old
lych-gate which gave admittance to the
churchyard, the spreading yew-trees, and the ancient
church itself.  Like all the rest of the things
about it, it was grey and time-worn, and
redolent of a long-dead past.  A square enclosure
of grey, lichen-covered walls, against one of
which stood the village stocks, against another
the mounting-steps from which many a fine old
squire and sprightly damsel had taken saddle
to ride homeward after church, its interior, now
rarely used, was a mass of docks and nettles;
its door was green and mouldy, and would
scarce have withstood a couple of sturdy kicks
from a stout ass.  When that door was opened,
however, for the reception of captives, most of
them backed away.

The pig proved himself as unwilling to enter
the pound as any of his many predecessors.
He looked in, saw the uninviting gloom, the
nettles, the docks, the absence of anything
amongst which he could root, and he turned and
made valiant efforts to escape his captors.  He
doubled this way and that; he struggled out of
corners; he tried to wriggle through the
lych-gate.  The pinder, remembering his interrupted
dinner, shouted; the boys yelled; the girls
screamed.  But the stray pig, dodging hither
and thither, still eluded their attempts to
impound him, though he now screamed a little
and was getting short of breath.  Suddenly he
collapsed against the churchyard wall, as if
wearied out.

It was at this moment that Miss Lavinia
Dorney, who occupied the pretty house and
garden close to the church, came down to the
foot of her lawn, attracted by the unwonted
commotion, and beheld the exhausted pig and
his tormentors.  Miss Lavinia was a spinster lady
of fine presence, very noble and dignified in
manner, who was noted for her shawls and her
caps, both of which she wore with distinction.
She looked very imposing as she stood there,
half-concealed by the shining holly-hedge
whose neatly clipped edges fitted in so well with
the elegance of their surroundings, and Burton
touched his cap, the boys pulled their
forelocks, and the girls curtsied.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, lifting
a pair of elegantly-mounted pince-nez to
the bridge of her aristocratic nose.  "Dear me,
what a noise!  Oh, that's you, James Burton,
isn't it?  And what is all this commotion about?"

"We want to get that there pig into the
pinfold, mum," answered the pinder, wiping his
forehead.  "But it's the contrariest beast
ever I see!  It's eaten up nearly all Mistress
Grooby's kitchen garden."

Miss Lavinia looked more closely and saw
the fugitive.

"Dear me!" she said.  "It must be hungry,
Burton.  Whose animal is it?"

"Dunno, mum," answered the pinder, in a
tone that suggested an utter lack of interest in
the subject.  "But it's none a Little Peter's
pig—it's too thin, there's naught but skin and
bone on it.  It's my opinion, mum, it would
eat anything, that pig would, if it had the
chance."

"And who is going to feed it in the pound?"
asked Miss Lavinia.

Burton shook his head.  He was much more
concerned about feeding himself than about
feeding the pig.

"Dunno, mum," he replied.  "It's none of
my business.  And nobody might never come
for that there pig, and it's naught but skin and
bone as it is."

"The poor animal needs food and rest,"
said Miss Lavinia with decision.  She turned
and called across her lawn.  "Mitchell—come
here," she commanded.

A man who was obviously a gardener approached,
looking his curiosity.  Miss Lavinia
indicated the group in the road below the
holly-hedge.

"Mitchell," she said, "isn't there a piggery
in the stable-yard?"

Mitchell, coachman, gardener, general
factotum in Miss Lavinia's small establishment,
gathered an idea of what his mistress meant
and almost gasped.  A pig in his scrupulously
kept preserves!

"Well, ma'am," he said, rubbing his chin,
"there is certainly a sty, ma'am.  But it's
never been used since we came here, ma'am."

"Then we will use it now, Mitchell," said
Miss Lavinia.  "There is a poor animal which
needs rest and refreshment.  Burton and the
bigger boys will help you to drive it in, and
Burton may have a pint of ale, and the boys
some apples.  See that the pig has straw, or
hay, or whatever is proper, Mitchell, and feed
it well.  Now, all you smaller children, run
home to your dinners."

No one ever dreamed of questioning any
order which Miss Lavinia Dorney issued, and
the stray pig was ere long safely housed in a
sty which had certainly never been used
before.

"Nice new job for you, Mitchell!" said
Burton, over a jug of ale in the kitchen.  "And
if you want a word of advice, keep the beast
fastened in—he's a good 'un for gardens."

"You don't know what direction he came
from?" asked Mitchell, anxiously.

"Not I!" answered the pinder.  "What for?"

"Nothing," said Mitchell.  "At least, if you
did, I'd send my son on the road, making
inquiries about him.  He must belong to
somebody, and I don't want no pigs in my
stableyard.  And you know what the missis is?—if
she takes a fancy to anything, well——"

Mitchell ended with an expressive grimace,
and Burton nodded his head sympathetically.
Then he remembered his dinner and hurried
off, and the gardener, who had not kept pigs
for many years, begged another jug of ale
from the cook in order to help him to remember
what the staple sustenance of those animals
really was.  As he consumed it his ideas on
the subject became more and more generous,
and when Miss Lavinia Dorney went into the
stable-yard after luncheon to see how her latest
protégé was getting on she found the
new-comer living and housed in a style which he
himself may have dreamed of, but certainly
never expected two hours previously.

"I'm glad to see you have made the poor
thing so comfortable, Mitchell," said Miss
Lavinia.  "Of course, you understand what
pigs require?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am!" replied Mitchell.  "What
a fine pig like that wants is plenty of good
wheat straw to lie in, and the best
pig-meal—that's crushed peas and beans and maize
and such-like, ma'am—and boiled potatoes,
and they're none the worse for a nice hot
mash now and again.  They're very nice
eaters, is pigs, ma'am, as well as uncommon
hearty."

"Don't you think this is a very thin pig,
Mitchell?" asked the mistress.

"Yes, ma'am, he's uncommon thin," replied
Mitchell.  "I should say, ma'am, that that
there pig had known what it was to feel
hungry."

"Poor thing!" said Miss Lavinia.  "Well,
see that he has all he can eat, Mitchell.  Of
course, I must advertise for his owner—you're
sure he doesn't belong to any one in the
village?"

"I'm certain he doesn't, ma'am!" replied
Mitchell.  "There isn't another pig in Little
St. Peter's as thin as what he is.  Nor in Great
St. Peter's, neither, ma'am," he added as by
an afterthought.

"Well, as his former owner, or owners,
seems to have neglected him," said Miss
Lavinia with severe firmness, "I shall feed
him well before advertising that he is
found.  So see to it, Mitchell.  And by the
bye, Mitchell, don't you think he is very dirty?"

Mitchell eyed the pig over.  His glance was
expressive.

"I think he must have been sleeping out,
ma'am," he replied.  "When an animal's
homeless it gets neglected shocking."

"Couldn't you wash him, Mitchell?"
suggested Miss Lavinia.  "I'm sure it would do
him good."

Mitchell stroked his chin.

"Well, ma'am," he said, "I never heard of
a pig being washed unless it was for show or
after it had been killed, ma'am, but I dare say
I could, ma'am.  As soon as I've an hour to
spare, ma'am," he continued, "I'll get my son
to help me, and we'll have some hot water and
turn the biggest hosepipe on him in the little
yard—I'll get it off him, ma'am!"

Miss Lavinia cordially approved this
proposition and went away, and Mitchell remarked
to himself that no man ever knew what a day
might not bring forth, and went to smoke in
the loneliest part of the garden.  Later in the
afternoon he and his son performed the pig's
ablutions, and the junior Mitchell, remarking
that it was no use doing things by halves, got
a stout scrubbing-brush from the scullery and
so successfully polished the animal that he
looked as if he had just been killed and
scalded.  Miss Lavinia, going to see him next
morning on her usual round of the stables and
poultry-yard, was delighted with his changed
appearance, and praised her gardener unreservedly.

Mitchell, however, was not so much enamoured
of his new occupation as he professed
to be in his mistress's presence.  For one thing,
he was just then very busy in the garden; for
another, the pig began to make more and more
calls upon his time.  It speedily developed,
or, rather, made manifest, a most extraordinary
appetite, and by some almost malevolent
prescience discovered that it had only to call
loudly for anything that it wanted to have its
desires immediately satisfied.  No one who
had chanced to see its entry into Little
St. Peter's would have recognized it at the end of
a fortnight.  Its ribs were no longer visible; it
was beginning to get a certain breadth across
its back; its twinkling eyes were disappearing
in its cheeks.  The weekly bill for its board
and lodging amounted to a considerable figure
in shillings, but Miss Lavinia neither
questioned nor grumbled at it.  She was delighted
with the pig's progress, and she believed it had
come to recognize her.  There was distinct
regret in her voice when one morning she
remarked—

"Now that the animal is so much better after
its wanderings, Mitchell, I think we must
advertise for its owner.  He will no doubt be
glad to have his property restored to him.  I
will write out the advertisement to-day, and
send it to the newspaper."

Mitchell stroked his chin.  He had different
ideas—of his own.

"I don't think there's need to do that,
ma'am," he said.  "I've been making an
inquiry about that pig, and I rather fancy I know
who it is as he belongs lawful to.  If you'll
leave it to me, ma'am, I think I can find out for
certain, without advertising of him."

"Very good, Mitchell," agreed Miss
Lavinia.  Then she added, half-wistfully, "I
hope his owner will be glad to have him back."

"I don't think there's much doubt about
that, ma'am," said Mitchell, glancing at the
pig, who at that moment was stuffing himself
out with his third breakfast.  "I should think
anybody 'ud be glad to see a pig like that
come home looking as well as what he does."

"And so beautifully clean, Mitchell, thanks
to you," said Miss Lavinia.

Mitchell replied modestly that he had done
his best, and when his mistress had gone into
the house he slapped the pig's back just to
show that he had better thoughts of it than
formerly.

"Blest if I don't make something out of you
yet, my fine fellow!" he said.

That evening, after he had had his supper,
Mitchell put on his second-best suit and went
to call on a small farmer who lived up a lonely
lane about three miles off.  He spent a very
pleasant hour or two with the farmer and came
away full of that peaceful happiness which
always waits on those who do good actions and
engineer well-laid schemes to success.

"It'll benefit him and it'll benefit me," he
mused, as he went homeward, smoking a two-penny
cigar which the small farmer had pressed
upon him in the fulness of his gratitude.  "And
if that isn't as things ought to be, well, then
I'm a Dutchman!"

Next day, as Miss Lavinia sat in her
morning-room, going through the weekly accounts,
the parlour-maid announced the arrival of a
person who said he had come about the pig.
Miss Lavinia looked dubiously at the spotlessness
of the linen carpet-cover, and asked the
parlour-maid if the person's boots seemed
clean.  As it happened to be a bright frosty
morning the parlour-maid considered the
person suitable for admittance and brought him
in—a shifty-eyed man with a shock of red hair
who ducked and scraped at Miss Lavinia as
if he experienced a strange joy in meeting her.

"So you have come about the pig which I
found!" said Miss Lavinia pleasantly.  "You
must have been very sorry to lose it."

The caller elevated his eyes to the ceiling,
examined it carefully, and then contemplated
the inside of his old hat.

"I were sorry, mum," he said.  "It were a
vallyble animal, that there, mum—it's a
well-bred 'un."

"But it was so thin and—and dirty, when it
came to me," said Miss Lavinia with emphasis.
"Painfully thin, and so very, very dirty.  My
gardener was obliged to wash it with hot water."

The man scratched his head, and then shook it.

"Ah, I dessay, mum!" he said.  "Of
course, when a pig strays away from its proper
home it's like a man as goes on the tramp—it
don't give no right attention to itself.  Now,
when I had it, ah!—well, it were a picture, and
no mistake."

"You shall see it now," said Miss Lavinia,
who felt the caller's last words to contain
something of a challenge.  "You will see we have
not neglected it while it has been here."

She led the way out to the stable-yard or to
the sty, where the pampered pig was revelling
in the best wheat straw and enjoying a leisurely
breakfast—even Miss Lavinia had noticed that
now that it was certain of its meals, and as
many of them as it desired, it ate them with
a lordly unconcern.  It looked up—the man
with the red hair looked down.  And he
suddenly started with surprise and breathed out a
sharp whistle.

"Yes, mum!" he said with conviction.
"That's my pig—I know it as well as I know
my own wife."

"Then, of course, you must have it," said
Miss Lavinia.  There was a touch of regret in
her voice—the pig had already become a
feature of the stable-yard, and she believed
that he knew his benefactress.  "I suppose,"
she continued, "that you have many pigs?"

"A goodish few on 'em, mum," replied the man.

"Would you—I thought, perhaps, that as
you have others, and this one seems to have
settled down here, you might be inclined to—in
fact, to sell him to me?" said Miss Lavinia
hurriedly.

The red-haired person once more scratched
his head.

"Well, of course, mum, pigs is for selling
purposes," he said.  "But that there pig, he's
an uncommon fine breed.  What would you
be for giving for him, mum, just as he stands?"

At this moment the pig, full of food and
entirely happy, gave several grunts of
satisfaction and begun to rub its snout against the
door of the sty.  Miss Lavinia made up her mind.

"Would you consider ten pounds a suitable
sum?" she asked timidly.

The red-haired man turned his head away
as if to consider this proposal in private.
When he faced round again his face was very
solemn.

"Well, of course, mum," he said, "of course,
as I said, he's a vallyble animal is that there,
but as you've fed him since he were found and
have a liking to him—well, we'll say ten
pounds, mum, and there it is!"

"Then if you will come into the house I will
give you the money," said Miss Lavinia.
"And you may rest assured we shall treat the
pig well."

"I'm sure of that, mum," said the seller.
"And very pretty eating you'll find him when
his time comes."

Then he got his money, and drank a jug of
ale, and went away, rejoicing greatly, and on
his way home he met Mitchell, who had been
to the market-town in the light cart, and who
pulled up by the road-side at sight of him.

The red-haired man winked knowingly at the
gardener.

"Well?" said Mitchell.

"All right," answered the other.  He winked
again.

Mitchell began to look uneasy.

"Where's the pig?" he asked.

"Where I found it," answered the red-haired
man.  "In the sty."

"Why didn't you bring it away?" asked
Mitchell.  "You said you would."

The red-haired man again winked and
smiled widely.

"I've sold it," he said.  "Sold it to your
missis.  For ten pounds."

He slapped his pocket and Mitchell heard
the sovereigns jingle.  He almost fell out of
his seat.

"Sold it!—to our missis!—for ten pounds!"
he exclaimed.  "You—why, it weren't yours
to sell!"

"Weren't it?" said the red-haired man.
"Well, there you're wrong, Mestur Mitchell,
'cause it were.  I knew it as soon as I set eyes
on it, 'cause it had a mark in its left ear that I
gave it myself.  And as your missis had taken
a fancy to it and bid me ten pound for it, why,
of course, I took her at her word.  Howsumever,"
he concluded, putting his hand in his
pocket, "as you put me on to the matter, I'll
none be unneighbourly, and I'll do the
handsome by you."

Therewith he laid half-a-crown on the
splashboard of the light cart, winked again,
and with a cheery farewell strode away, leaving
the disgusted gardener staring at the scant
reward of his schemings.





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.. _`THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   THE MAN WHO WAS NOBODY

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   I

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That was one of the finest of all the fine
mornings of that wonderful spring, and Miriam
Weere, when she saw the sunlight falling across
the orchard in front of her cottage, and heard
the swirl of the brown river mingling with the
murmur of the bees in their hives under the
apple-trees, determined to do her day's work
out of doors.  The day's work was the washing
of the week's soiled linen, and no great task
for a strapping young woman of five-and-twenty,
whose arms were as muscular as her
gipsy-coloured face was handsome.  Miriam
accordingly made no haste in beginning
it—besides, there was the eighteen-months-old
baby to wash and dress and feed.  He woke out
of a morning sleep as she finished her
breakfast, and began to make loud demands upon
her.  She busied herself with him for the next
hour, laughing to herself gleefully over his
resemblance to his father, big blue-eyed,
blonde-haired Michael; and then, carrying him
out to the daisy-spangled grass of the orchard,
she set him down beneath an apple-tree, and
left him grasping at the white and gold and
green about him while she set out her wash-tubs
a few yards away.

Miriam Weere had never a care in the world.
Her glossy hair, dark as the plumage on a
rook's breast, her clear hazel eyes, her glowing
cheeks, the round, full curves of her fine figure,
combined with the quickness and activity of her
movements to prove her in possession of rude
and splendid health.  There was only another
human being in Ashdale who could compete
with her in the appearance of health or in good
looks—her husband, Michael, a giant of well
over six feet, who, like herself, had never known
what it was to have a day's illness.  The life of
these two in their cottage by the little Ash was
one perpetual round of good humour, good
appetite, and sound sleep.  Nor was there any
reason why they should take thought for the
morrow—that is, unduly.  Higher up the valley,
set on a green plateau by the bank of the river,
stood Ashdale Mill, between the upper and
nether stones of which most of the grain grown
in the neighbourhood passed.  And Ashdale
Mill was the property of Tobias Weere,
Michael's father, who was well known to be a
rich man, and some day Michael would have——

That was the only question which occasionally
made Miriam knit her brows.  What would
Michael have when old Tobias died?  The
mill, the mill-house, the garden and orchard
around it, two or three acres of land beside, and
the fishing rights of the river from Ashdale
Bridge to Brinford Meadows belonged
absolutely to Tobias, who had bought the freehold
of this desirable property when he purchased the
good-will of the business twenty years before.
He had only two sons to succeed to whatever
he left—Michael and Stephen.  Michael was
now general superintendent, manager, traveller,
a hard indefatigable worker, who was as ready
to give a hand with the grain and the flour as to
write the letters and keep the books.  Stephen,
on the other hand, was a loafer.  He was fonder
of the village inn than of the mill, and of going
off to race meetings or cricket matches than of
attending to business.  He was also somewhat
given to conviviality, which often degenerated
into intemperance, and he had lately married
the publican's daughter, a showy, flaunting
wench whom Miriam thoroughly detested.
Considering the difference that existed between
the two brothers, it seemed to Miriam that it
would be grossly unfair to share things equally
between them, and more than once she had said
so to Michael.  But Michael always shook his head.

"Share and share alike," he said.  "I ask no
fairer, my lass."

"Then," she answered, "if it's like that, you
must try to buy Stephen out, for he'll never do
any good."

"Ah, that's more like it!" said Michael.

Miriam was thinking of these things as she
plunged her strong arms into the frothing
soapsuds and listened to her baby cooing under the
apple-trees.  She had heard from a neighbour
only the night before of some escapade in which
Stephen had been mixed up, and her informant
had added significantly that it was easy to see
where Stephen's share of old Toby's money
would go when he got the handling of it.
Miriam resolved that when Michael, who was
away on business in another part of the country,
came home she would once more speak to him
about coming to an understanding with his
brother.  She was not the sort of woman to see
a flourishing business endangered, and she
never forgot that she was the mother of
Michael's first-born.  Some day, perhaps, she
might see him master of the mill.

Save for the murmur of the river flowing at
the edge of the garden beneath overhanging
alders and willows, and the perpetual humming
of the insects in tree and bush, the morning was
very still and languorous, and sounds of a louder
sort travelled far.  And Miriam was suddenly
aware of the clap-clap-clap of human, stoutly-shod
feet flying down the narrow lane which ran
by the side of the orchard.  Something in the
sound betokened trouble—she was already
drying her hands and arms on her rough apron
when the wicket-gate was flung open and a girl,
red-faced, panting, burst in beneath the pink
and white of the fruit-trees.

"What is it, Eliza Kate?" demanded Miriam.

The girl pressed her hand to her side.

"It's—th'—owd—maister!" she panted.
"Margaret Burton thinks he's bad—a stroke.
An' will you please to go quick."

"Look to the child," said Miriam, without a
glance at him herself.  "And bring him back
with you."

Then she set off at a swift pace up the steep,
stony lane which led to Ashdale Mill.  The
atmosphere about it suggested nothing of
death—the old place was gay with summer life, and
the mill-wheel was throwing liquid diamonds
into the sunlight with every revolution.  Miriam
saw none of these things; she hurried into the
mill-house and onward into the living-room.
For perhaps the first time in her life she was
conscious of impending disaster—why or what
she could not have told.

Old Tobias lay back in his easy-chair,
looking very white and worn—his housekeeper, old
Margaret Burton, stood at his side holding a
cup.  She sighed with relief as Miriam entered.

"Eh, I'm glad ye've comed, Mistress
Michael!" she said.  "I'm afeard th' maister
has had a stroke—he turned queer all of a
sudden."

"Have you sent for the doctor?" asked
Miriam, going up to the old man and taking his
hand.

"Aye, one o' th' mill lads has gone post haste
on th' owd pony," answered the housekeeper.
"But I'm afeard——"

Tobias opened his eyes, and, seeing Miriam,
looked recognition.  His grey lips moved.

"'Tisn' a stroke!" he whispered faintly.
"It's th' end.  Miriam, I want to say—summat
to thee, my lass."

Miriam understood that he had something
which he wished to say to her alone, and she
motioned the housekeeper out of the living-room.

"There's a drop o' brandy in the cupboard
there," said Tobias, when the door was closed
upon himself and his daughter-in-law.  "Gi' me
a sup, lass—it'll keep me up till th' doctor
comes—there's a matter I must do then.  Miriam!"

"Yes, father?"

"Miriam, thou's a clever woman and a strong
'un," the old man went on, when he had sipped
the brandy.  "I must tell thee summat that
nobody knows, and thou must tell it to Michael
when I'm gone—I daren't tell him."

Miriam's heart leapt once and seemed to
stand still; a sudden swelling seized her throat.

"Tell Michael?" she said.  "Yes, father."

"Miriam ... hearken.  Michael—he weren't—he
weren't born in wedlock!"

Michael's wife was a woman of quick perception.
The full meaning of the old man's words
fell on her with the force of a thunderstorm
that breaks upon a peaceful countryside without
warning.  She said nothing, and the old man
motioned her to give him more brandy.

"Weren't born in wedlock," he repeated,
"and so is of course illegitimate and can't heir
nowt o' mine.  It was this way," he went on,
gathering strength from the stimulant.  "His
mother and me weren't wed till after he were
born—we were wed just before we came here.
We came from a long way off—nobody knows
about it in these parts.  And, of course,
Michael's real name is Michael Oldfield—his
mother's name—and, by law, Stephen takes all."

"Stephen takes all!" she repeated in a dull voice.

Old Tobias Weere's eyes gleamed out of the
ashen-grey of his face, and his lips curled with
the old cunning which Miriam knew well.

"But I ha' put matters right," he said, with a
horrible attempt at a smile, "I ha' put matters
right!  Didn't want to do it till th' end, 'cause
folk will talk, and I can't abide talking.  I ha'
made a will leaving one-half o' my property
to my son, Stephen Weere; t'other half to
Michael Oldfield, otherwise known as Michael
Weere, o' Millrace Cottage, Ashdale, i' th'
county——"

The old man's face suddenly paled, and
Miriam put more brandy to his lips.  After a
moment he pointed to a bunch of keys lying on
the table beside him, and then to an ancient
bureau which stood in a dark corner of the
living-room.  "It's i' th' top—drawer—th' will,"
he whispered.  "Get it out, my lass, and lay
the writing things o' th' table—doctor and
James Bream'll witness it, an' then all will be
in order.  'Cause, you see, somed'y might
chance-along as knew the secret, an' would
let out that Michael were born before we were
wed, an' then——"

Sick and cold with the surprise and horror of
this news, Miriam took the keys and went over
to the old bureau.  There, in the top drawer,
lay a sheet of parchment—she knew little of law
matters, but she saw that this had been written
by a practised hand.  She set it out on the table
with pen and ink and blotting-paper—in silence.

"A lawyer chap in London town, as axed no
questions, drew that there," murmured Tobias.
"Wants naught but signing and witnessing and
the date putting in.  Why doesn't doctor come,
and Jim Bream on the owd pony?  Go to th'
house door, lass, and see if ye can see 'em coming."

Miriam went out into the stone-paved porch,
and, shading her aching eyes, looked across the
garden.  Eliza Kate had arrived with the baby,
and sat nursing it beneath the lilac-trees.  It
caught sight of its mother, and stretched its
arms and lifted its voice to her.  Miriam gave
no heed to it—her heart was heavy as the grey
stones she stood on.

She waited some minutes—then two mounted
figures came in sight far down the lane, and she
turned back to the living-room.  And on the
threshold she stopped, and her hand went up to
her bosom before she moved across to the old
man's chair.  But the first glance had told her
what the second confirmed.  Tobias was dead.

Miriam hesitated one moment.  Then she
strode across the living-room, and, snatching up
the unsigned will, folded it into a smaller
compass, and thrust it within the folds of her
gown.



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   II

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It was a matter of wonder to everybody, and
to no one more so than her husband, that Miriam
appeared to be so much affected by her
father-in-law's death.  It was not that she made any
demonstrations of grief, but that an unusual
gloom seemed to settle over her.  Never gay in
the girlish sense, she had always been
light-hearted and full of smiles and laughter; during
the first days which followed the demise of old
Tobias she went about her duties with a knitted
brow, as if some sudden care had settled upon
her.  Michael saw it, and wondered; he had
respected his father and entertained a filial
affection for him, but his death did not trouble
him to the extent of spoiling his appetite or
disturbing his sleep.  He soon saw that Miriam
ate little: he soon guessed that she was sleeping
badly.  And on the fourth day after his hurried
return home—the eve of the funeral—he laid
his great hand on her shoulder as she was stooping
over the child's cradle and turned her round
to face him.

"What's the matter, my lass?" he said
kindly.  "Is there aught amiss?  You are as
quiet as the grave, and you don't eat, nor get
sleep.  The old father's death can't make that
difference.  He was old—very old—and he's a
deal better off."

"There is such a lot to think of just now,"
she replied evasively.

Michael, man-like, mistook her meaning.

"Oh, aye, to be sure there is, lass," he agreed.
"To-morrow'll be a busyish day, of course, for
I expect there'll be half the countryside here
at the burying, and, of course, they all expect
refreshment.  However, there'll be no stint of
that, and, after all, they'll only want a glass of
wine and a funeral biscuit.  And as for the
funeral dinner, why—there'll only be you and
me, and Stephen and his wife, and your father
and mother, and Stephen's wife's father and
mother, and the lawyer."

"The lawyer!" exclaimed Miriam.  "What lawyer?"

"What lawyer?  Why, Mr. Brooke, o'
Sicaster, to be sure," answered Michael.  "Who
else?"

"What's he coming for?" asked Miriam.

"Coming for?  Come, my lass, your wits
are going a-woolgathering," said Michael.
"What do lawyers come to funerals for?  To
read father's will, of course!"

"Is there a will?" she asked.

"Made five years ago, Mr. Brooke said this
afternoon," he replied.

"Do you know what's in it?" she asked.

Michael laughed—laughed loudly.

"Nay, come, love!" he said.  "Know what's
in it!  Why, nobody knows what's in a will until
the lawyer unseals and reads it after the funeral
dinner."

"I didn't know," she said listlessly.

"But, of course, that's neither here nor
there," said Michael; "and I must away to
make a few last arrangements.  If there'll be
too much work for you to-morrow, Miriam,
you must get another woman in from the village."

"There'll not be too much work, Michael,"
she answered.

In her heart she wished there was more
work—work that would keep her from thinking of
the secret which the dead man had left with
her.  It had eaten deep into her soul and had
become a perpetual torment, for she was a
woman of great religious feeling and strict ideas
of duty, and she did not know where her duty
lay in this case.  She knew Michael for a proud
man, upon whom the news of his illegitimacy
would fall as lightning falls on an oak come to
the pride of its maturity; she knew, too, how
he would curse his father for the wrong done
to his mother, of whom he had been passionately
fond.  Again, if she told the truth, Michael
would be bereft of everything.  For Stephen
was not fond of his brother, and Stephen's wife
hated Miriam.  If Stephen and his wife heard
the truth, and proved it, Michael would
be—nobody.  For, after all, Tobias had not had
time to make amends.

And now there was the news of this will held
by Lawyer Brooke!  What could there be in
it, and how was it that Tobias had not spoken
of it?  Could it be that he had forgotten it?
She knew that for some years he had been more
or less eccentric, subject to moods and to gusts
of passion, though there had never been any
time when his behaviour would have warranted
any one in suspecting his mind to be affected
or even clouded.  Well—she could do nothing
but leave the matter until to-morrow when the
dead man's will was read.

As wife of the elder son, Miriam was hostess
next day, and everybody who saw her marvelled
at two things—one, the extraordinary pallor on
her usually brightly tinted cheeks; the other,
the quiet way in which she went about her duties.
She was here, there, and everywhere, seeing to
the comfort of the funeral guests; but she spoke
little, and keenly observant eyes would have
said that she moved as if in a dream.  At the
funeral dinner she ate little; it was an effort to
get that little down.  As the time drew near for
the reading of the will, she could scarcely
conceal her agitation, and when they were at last all
assembled in the best parlour to hear Tobias's
testament declared, she was glad that she sat at
a table beneath which she could conceal her
trembling fingers.

She wondered why Mr. Brooke was so long
in cleaning his spectacles, so long in sipping his
glass of port, so slow in breaking the seal of the
big envelope which he took from his pocket,
why he hum'd and ha'd so before he began
reading.  But at last he began....

It was a briefly worded will, and very plain in
its meaning.  Having cause, it set forth, to be
highly displeased with the conduct of his
younger son, Stephen, and to believe that he
would only waste a fortune if it were left to him,
Tobias left everything of which he died
possessed to his elder son, Michael, on condition
that Michael secured to Stephen from the time
of his (Tobias's) demise, a sum of three pounds
a week, to which a further sum of one pound a
week might be added if Stephen's conduct was
such as to satisfy Michael.  If Stephen died
before his father, Michael was to make a similar
allowance to his widow.

The various emotions which had agitated
Miriam were almost forgotten by her in the
tumult which followed.  Stephen's wife and her
father and mother broke out into loud denunciation
of the will; Stephen himself, after staring
at the solicitor for a moment, as if he could not
credit the evidence of his own eyes or ears
smote the table heavily and jumped to his feet.

"It's a damned lie!" he shouted.  And he
made as if he would snatch the will and tear it
to pieces.  Mr. Brooke calmly replaced it in
his pocket, and as calmly sipped his port.

"On the contrary, my friend," he said.  "And—it
is your father's will."

"Father!" sneered Stephen's wife's mother.
"A nice father to——"

Michael rose with a gesture that brought
silence.

"None of that!" he said. "Who's master
here?  I am!  Say a word against my dead
father, any of you, and by God! out you go,
neck and crop, man or woman.  Now, then,
you'll listen to me.  I'm bound to say, with
every respect for him, that I don't agree with
this will of my father's.  My wife here'll bear
me out when I say that my idea as regards
Stephen and myself coming into his property
was—share and share alike.  It seems father
had other notions.  However, everything is now
mine—I'm master.  Now, a man can do what
he chooses with his own.  So listen, Stephen.
Give up that drinking, and gambling, and
such-like, and come to work again and be a man, and
you shall have one-half of all that there is.
But, mind you, I've the whip hand, and you'll
have to prove yourself.  Prove yourself, and
we'll soon set matters straight.  I want no more
than my half, and now that all's mine—well,
law or no law, I'll share with you ... but you'll
have to show that you can keep my conditions."

Everybody's eyes were fixed on Stephen
Weere.  He sat for a moment staring at the
table—then, with a curse, he flung out of the
room.  The smell of the old flesh-pots was still
in his nostrils; the odour of the wine-pots in his
remembrance—a fact which probably sent him
to the little room in which the refreshments of
a liquid sort had been set out.  He helped
himself to a stiff glass of brandy and water, and
had gulped half of it down when he felt certain
fingers lay themselves appealingly on his left
elbow.  He turned with a curse, to encounter
the witch-like countenance and burning eyes of
the old housekeeper, Margaret Burton.

"What do you want, you old hag?" he said,
with another curse.  "Get out!"

But the old woman stood—her bony fingers
still on his arm.

"Hester Stivven!" she said.  "Mester
Stivven!  Has he—has he left me owt?"

Stephen burst into a harsh laugh and re-filled
his glass.

"Left you owt?" he exclaimed jeeringly.
"Left you owt?  He's left nobody nowt but
Michael—curse him!  He's left him—all there is!"

Margaret Burton drew back for a second and
stared at him.  He drew himself away from her
eyes.  Suddenly she laid her hand on him again.

"Mester Stivven," she said, coaxingly,
"come wi' me—I ha' summat to tell you.  Come!"

Ten minutes later Stephen walked into the
best parlour, followed by Margaret Burton.
Michael was engaged in an earnest conversation
with the rest, and especially with Stephen's
wife, as to Stephen's future.  Stephen lifted a
commanding hand.

"Stop that!" he said.  "We've had enough
of you—we'll see who's master here.  My turn,"
he went on, as Michael would have spoken.
"Come forward, Margaret.  This woman, Mr. Brooke,
has been my father's housekeeper since
my mother died, and was servant for years
before that—weren't you, Margaret?"

"Twelve years before that, sir."

"Twelve years before that—and in my
mother's confidence," Stephen continued.

"Now, then, Margaret, take Mr. Brooke into
that corner.  Tell him what you've told me
about what my mother told you the week she
died, and give him those papers she left with
you to prove what she said.  And then—then
we'll see, we'll see!"

The rest of the people watched the whispered
colloquy between the solicitor and the old
woman with mingled feelings.  It was a large,
rambling room, with great embrasures to the
windows, and nobody could hear a word that
was said.  But Miriam knew that she was not
the only possessor of the secret, and she
unconsciously slid her hand into Michael's.

Lawyer Brooke, some folded papers in his
hand, came back with knitted brow and troubled
eyes.  He was going to speak, but Stephen
stopped him.

"I'm master here," he said.  "Margaret,
come this way."  He pointed to Michael.
"What's that man's real name?" he asked, with
an evil sneer.  "Is it—well, now, what is it?
'Cause, of course, his isn't what mine is.  Mine
is my father's—mine's Weere."

"No, sir—it's Oldfield.  His mother's
name—'cause, of course, he were born out of
wedlock.  Your father and mother wedded later on."

In the silence that followed Miriam heard the
beating of Michael's heart.  He rose slowly,
staring about him from one to the other.

"It's not—true?" he said questioningly.
"It's——"

Miriam rose at his side and laid both hands
on his arm.

"It's true, Michael," she said.  "It's true.
Your father told me ten minutes before he died."

Michael looked down at her, and suddenly
put his arm round her and kissed her.

"Come away, Miriam," he said, as if the
others were shadows.  "Come away.  Let's go
home—the child'll be wanting us."





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.. _`LITTLE MISS PARTRIDGE`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   LITTLE MISS PARTRIDGE

.. vspace:: 2

Next to the church and the King George—with
possibly the exception of the blacksmith's
shop, where most of the idlers gathered
to gossip of an afternoon, especially in
winter—Miss Partridge's general store was the chief
institution in Orchardcroft.  To begin with, it
was the only house of a mercantile character in
the place, and it would have fared ill with any
one rash enough to have set up an opposition
business to it; to end with, its proprietor was so
good-natured that she made no objection to the
good wives of the village if they lingered over
their purchases to chat with each other or with
her.  Life in Orchardcroft was leisurely, and
an hour could easily be spent in fetching a stone
of flour or a quarter of a pound of tea from
Miss Partridge's emporium.  And, as Miss
Partridge often remarked, the women were
better employed in exchanging views at her
counter than the men were in arguing at the
tap of the King George.

It was a queer little place, this general store—a
compendium of grocery, drapery, confectionery,
and half-a-dozen other trades.  There
were all sorts of things in the window, from
rolls of cheap dress goods to home-made toffee;
inside the shop itself, which was neither more
nor less than the front room of a thatched
cottage, there was a display of articles which
was somewhat confusing to eyes not accustomed
to such sights.  It was said of a celebrated
London tradesman that he could supply
anything from a white elephant to a pin—Miss
Partridge could hardly boast so much, but it
was certain that she kept everything which
the four hundred-odd souls of Orchardcroft
required for their bodies—butcher's meat
excepted.  What was more, she knew where
everything was, and could lay her hands on it
at a moment's notice; what was still more, she
was as polite in selling a little boy a new
ready-made suit as in serving a ploughman with his
Saturday ounce of shag or nail-rod tobacco.
For that reason everybody liked her and
brought their joys and sorrows to her.

On a bright spring afternoon, when the
blackbirds and thrushes were piping gaily in her
holly-hedged garden, Miss Partridge sat behind
her counter knitting.  She was then a woman of
close upon sixty—a rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed
woman, small in stature, grey of hair, out of
whose face something of a benediction seemed
always to shine upon everybody.  She wore a
plain black dress—nobody in Orchardcroft
could remember Miss Partridge in anything but
black for more than thirty years—over which
was draped a real silk white shawl, fastened at
the neck with a massive brooch of Whitby jet,
and on her head was a smart cap in which were
displayed several varieties of artificial flowers.
Shawl and cap denoted that Miss Partridge was
dressed for the day; in the morning less showy
insignia were displayed.

"We're very quiet this afternoon, Martha
Mary," observed Miss Partridge to her general
factotum, who, having finished the housework,
was now dusting the upper shelves.  "There's
been nobody in since old Isaac came for his
tobacco."

"No, m'm," said Martha Mary, "but there's
Jane Pockett coming up the garden just now."

"Then we shall hear something or other,"
said Miss Partridge, who knew Mrs. Pockett's
characteristics; "Jane has always some news."

Mrs. Pockett, a tall, flabby lady, who acted
a great part in the village drama of life, seeing
that she saw all its new-comers into the world
and all its out-goers leave its stage for ever,
came heavily into the shop and dropped still
more heavily into a chair by the counter.  And
without ceremony she turned a boiled-gooseberry
eye on the little shopkeeper.

"Hev' yer heerd the noos?" she said.

"What news, Jane?" asked Miss Partridge.

Mrs. Pockett selected a mint humbug from a
bottle on the counter and began to suck it.

"Well, of course, yer remember Robert
Dicki'son, t' miller, at Stapleby yonder?" she
said.  "Him as died last year, leavin' a widder
and two childer, a boy an' a girl?"

Miss Partridge's head bent over her knitting.

"Yes," she said.

"Well," continued Mrs. Pockett, "it were
thowt 'at he died middlin' weel off, but now it
turns out 'at he didn't.  In fact, he's left nowt,
and t' mill were mortgaged, as they term it, and
now they're barn to sell 'em up, lock, stock, and
barril.  It's a pity, 'cos t' lad's a nice young
feller, and they say 'at if nobbut they could pay
t' money he could work up a good trade.  It's a
thousand pounds 'at they want to settle matters.
See yer, I hev' a bill o' t' sale i' my pocket—t'
billposter gev' me it this mornin'.  Ye'll notice
'at there's a nicish bit o' furniture to dispose on.
But what will t' widder and t' two childer do,
turned out i' that way?"

"It's very sad," said Miss Partridge; "very sad."

She laid the bill aside and began to talk of
something else.  But when Jane Pockett had
purchased three yards of flannel and departed,
she read the bill through and noted that the sale
was to take place on the next day but one.  And
taking off her spectacles she laid them and the
knitting down on the counter, and bidding
Martha Mary mind the shop, she went up to
her own room and, closing the door, began to
walk up and down, thinking.

Forty years slipped away from Miss Partridge,
and she was once more a girl of nineteen
and engaged to Robert Dickinson.  She remembered
it all vividly—their walks, their talks,
their embraces.  She opened an old desk and
took from it a faded photograph of a handsome
lad, some equally faded ribbons, a tarnished
locket—all that was left of the long-dead dream
of youth.  She put them back, and thought of
how they had parted in anger because of a
lover's quarrel.  He had accused her of flirting,
and she had been too proud to defend herself,
and he had flung away and gone to a far-off
colony, and she had remained behind—to be
true to his memory all her life.  And twenty
years later he had come back, bringing a young
wife with him, and had taken Stapleby Mill—but
he and she had never met, never spoken.
And now he was dead, and his widow and
children were to be outcasts, beggars.

Customers who came to the little shop that
evening remarked to each other on its mistress's
unusually quiet mood, and hoped Miss
Partridge was not going to be ill.  But Miss
Partridge was quite well when she came down
to breakfast next morning, dressed in her best
and wearing her bonnet, and she looked very
determined about something.

"You'll have to mind the shop this morning,
Martha Mary, for I'm going to Cornchester,"
she said.  "Get Eliza Grimes to come and do
the housework."

Once in Cornchester Miss Partridge entered
the local bank—an institution which she
regarded with great awe—and had a whispered
consultation with the cashier, which resulted in
that gentleman handing over to her ten
banknotes of a hundred pounds each—the savings
of a lifetime.

"Going to invest it, Miss Partridge?" said
the cashier, smiling.

"Y-yes," answered Miss Partridge.  "Y-yes,
sir—to invest it."

She put the thousand pounds in her
old-fashioned reticule and went off to a legal
gentleman whom she had once or twice had occasion
to consult.  To him she made a communication
which caused him to stare.

"My dear madam," he exclaimed.  "This is
giving away all you possess."

"No," interrupted Miss Partridge.  "I have
the shop."

"Well, at any rate, take the place as security,"
began the solicitor; "and——"

"No," said Miss Partridge, firmly.  "No, sir!
No one is to know; no one is ever to
know—except you—where the money came from.  It's
my money, and I've a right to do what I please
with it."

"Oh, very well," said the solicitor.  "Very
well.  I'll settle the matter at once.  And you
may be sure the poor things will be very grateful
to their unknown benefactor."

Miss Partridge walked home by way of
Stapleby churchyard.  She turned into its
quietude and sought out Robert Dickinson's
grave.  There were daisies growing on the green
turf that covered it, and she gathered a little
bunch of them and carried them home to put
away with the ribbons and the locket.  And that
done she took off her best things and dropped
once more into the old way of life.





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.. _`THE MARRIAGE OF MR. JARVIS`:

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   CHAPTER V


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   THE MARRIAGE OF MR. JARVIS

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When the lift-boy came down to the ground-floor
again and threw open the door of the
cage in which he spent so many mechanical
hours every day, he became aware that the
entrance hall was just then given up to a
solitary female who was anxiously scanning the
various names which appeared on the boards
set up on either side.  He gathered a general
impression of rusticity, but, sharp as he was,
would have found himself hard put to it to
define it—the lady's bonnet was not
appreciably different from the bonnets worn by
respectable, middle-class, town ladies; the lady's
umbrella was not carried at an awkward angle.
Nevertheless he was quite certain that if the
lady was going aloft to anywhere between there
and the sixth floor she was about to step into
an elevator for the first time.

He stood waiting, knowing very well that
the stranger would presently address him.  It
was gloomy in the entrance hall, and he saw
that she could not see the names on the
top-half of the board at which she was gazing.
She turned, glanced hastily at the opposite
board, then looked half-doubtfully at him.

"Young man," she said, "can you tell me if
Mr. Watkin Vavasower's office is anywhere
about here?"

"Mr. Vavasore, mum?—third floor, mum—just
gone up, has Mr. Vavasore," replied the
lift-boy.

He stood aside from the door of his cage
with an implied invitation to enter.  But the
lady, whom in the clearer light of the inner
hall he now perceived to be middle-aged and
of stern countenance, looked doubtfully at the
stairs.

"I suppose I shall see the name on the door
if I go up-stairs, young man?" she said.  "It's
that dark in these London places——"

"Step inside, mum," said the lift-boy.

The lady started and looked inside the cage
as she might have looked inside one of her
own hen-coops if she had suspected the
presence of a fox therein.  She turned a suspicious
eye on the boy.

"Is it safe?" she said.

Then, instinctively obeying the authoritative
wave of the official hand, she stepped inside
and heard the gate bang.  She gave a little
gasp as the world fell from under her feet;
another when the elevator suddenly stopped
and she found herself ejected on a higher plane.

"Well, I'm sure——" she began.

"Second door on the left, mum," said the
boy, and sank from view.

The lady paused for a second or two,
glanced down the shaft as if she expected to
hear a shriek of agony from the bottom, and
then slowly moved in the direction which the
boy had indicated.  A few steps along the
corridor and she stood before a door on which was
inscribed in heavy brass letters, highly polished,
the name "Mr. Watkin Vavasour."

She hesitated a moment before knocking;
when she did so, her knock was timid and
gentle.  But it was heard within, for a girl's
voice, sharp and business-like, bade her enter.
She turned the handle and walked into a
comfortably furnished room wherein sat a very
smart young lady who was busily engaged with
a typewriter and who looked up from her work
with questioning eyes.

"Is Mr. Watkin Vavasower in?" inquired
the caller.

The smart young lady rose from her desk
with an air of condescending patience.

"What name, madam?" she asked.

The caller hesitated.

"Well, if it's agreeable," she said, "I'd
rather not give my name to anybody but the
gentleman himself, though of course if——"

"Take a chair, please," said the smart young
lady.  She vanished through an inner door
marked "Private," leaving the visitor to examine
an imitation Turkey carpet, a roll-top American
desk, two office chairs, and a reproduction of
the late Lord Leighton's *Married*, which hung
over the fire-place.  She was speculating as to
the nationality of the two persons concerned in
this picture when the smart young lady returned
with an invitation to enter Mr. Vavasour's
presence.  Mr. Vavasour, a somewhat more than
middle-aged, stoutish gentleman, whose name
would more fittingly have been Isaacs, Cohen,
or Abraham, and who evidently set much store
by fine linen and purple and the wearing of
gold and diamonds, rose from behind an
elegant rosewood writing-table and waved his
visitor to the easiest of chairs with much grace.
His highly polished bald head bowed itself
benevolently towards her.

"And what can I have the pleasure of doing
for you, my dear madam?" Mr. Vavasour
inquired blandly.

The visitor, who had examined Mr. Vavasour
with a sharp glance as she made a formal
bow to him, gave a little prefatory cough, and
gazed at Mr. Vavasour's cheery fire.

"Of course," she said, "I am addressing
Mr. Watkin Vavasower, the matrimonial agent?
The Mr. Vavasower as advertises in the newspapers?"

"Just so, madam, just so," replied Mr. Vavasour
in soothing tones.  "I am that individual.
And whom have I the pleasure of receiving?"

"Well, Mr. Vavasower, my name is
Mrs. Rebecca Pringle," said the visitor.  "Of
course, you'll not know the name, but you're
familiar with the name of the place I come
from—the Old Farm, Windleby?"

Mr. Vavasour swept a jewelled hand over
his high forehead.

"The Old Farm, Windleby?" he said.
"The name seems familiar.  Ah, yes, of
course—the address of a respected client,
Mr.—yes, Mr. Stephen Jarvis.  Dear me—yes,
of course.  A very worthy gentleman!"

"Well, Mr. Vavasower," said Mrs. Pringle,
smoothing her gown, which the agent's sharp
eyes noticed to be of good substantial silk,
"there's many a worthy gentleman as can make
a fool of himself!  I've nothing to say against
Stephen, especially as I've kept house for him
for fifteen years, which is to say ever since
Pringle died.  But I'm not blind to his faults,
Mr. Vavasower, and of course I can't see him
rush to his destruction, as it were, without
putting out a finger to stop his headlong flight."

Mr. Vavasour made a lugubrious face, shook
his head, and looked further inquiries.

"'It's come to my knowledge, Mr. Vavasower,"
continued Mrs. Pringle, "that Stephen
Jarvis, as is my first cousin, has been having
correspondence with you on the matter of
finding a wife.  A pretty thing for a man of his
years to do—five-and-fifty he is, and no
less—when he's kept off the ladies all this time!
And I must tell you, Mr. Vavasower, that his
family does not approve of it, and that's why
I have come to see you."

Mr. Vavasour spread out fat hands.

"My dear madam!" he said, deprecatingly.
"My dear Mrs. Pringle!  It is a strict rule of
mine never to discuss a client's affairs, or
to——"

Mrs. Pringle favoured him with a knowing
look.

"Of course, it would be made worth
Mr. Vavasower's while," she said, tapping a small
reticule which she carried.  "The family
doesn't expect Mr. Vavasower to assist it for
nothing."

Mr. Vavasour hesitated.  He called up the
Jarvis case in his mind, and remembered that
Mr. Stephen Jarvis did not want a moneyed
wife, and that, therefore, there would be no
commission in that particular connection.

"Who are the members of the family,
ma'am?" he inquired.

Mrs. Pringle looked him squarely in the face.

"The members of the family, Mr. Vavasower,"
she replied, "is me and my only son,
John William, as has always been led to look
upon himself as Stephen Jarvis's heir.  And,
of course, if so be as Stephen Jarvis was to
marry a young woman, well, there'd no doubt
be children, and then——"

"To be sure, ma'am, to be sure!" said
Mr. Vavasour comprehendingly.  "Of course, you
and your son have means that would
justify——"

"My son, John William, Mr. Vavasower, is
in a very nice way of business in the grocery
line," answered Mrs. Pringle.  "But of course
I don't intend to see him ousted out of his
proper place because Stephen Jarvis takes it into
his head to marry at his time of life!  Stephen
must be put off it, and there's an end of the
matter."

"But, my dear madam!" exclaimed Mr. Vavasour.
"How can I prevent it?  My client
has asked me for introductions; he is
somewhat particular, or I could have suited him
some weeks ago.  He desires a young and
pretty wife, and——"

"Old fool!" exclaimed Mrs. Pringle.
"Well, he's not to have one, Mr. Vavasower—as
I say, it's not agreeable to me and John
William that he should.  And as to how you
can prevent it, well, Mr. Vavasower, I've a
plan in which you must join—me and John
William will make it worth your while to do
so—that will put Stephen Jarvis out of conceit
with matrimony.  The fact of the case is,
Mr. Vavasower, Stephen is a very close-fisted man.
He's the sort that looks twice at a sixpence
before he spends it—and then, like as not, he
puts it back in his pocket."

Mr. Vavasour inclined his head.  He was
interested.

"Now, Mr. Vavasower," continued Mrs. Pringle,
"Stephen is as innocent of the ways
of young women as what a pagan negro is.
He's never had aught to do with them; he
doesn't know how expensive they are.  If he
knew how the young woman of now-a-days
flings money about, he'd faint with terror at the
prospect of wedding one.  Now, you must
know a deal of clever young women, Mr. Vavasower,
your profession being what it is—actresses
and such-like, no doubt, as could play
a part for a slight consideration.  If you could
get such a one as would come down to the Old
Farm as my guest for a fortnight or so, and
would obey orders as to showing Stephen Jarvis
what modern young women really is—well, we
should hear no more of this ridiculous
marrying idea.  Of course, I could pass the young
woman off as a distant relation of my poor
husband's, just come from America or
somewhere foreign.  I would like her to show
expensive tastes and to let Stephen see what a
deal it would cost to keep a young wife.  And
of course she'd have to be a bit what they call
fascinating—-but you'll understand my
meaning, Mr. Vavasower.  And I can assure you
that although Stephen Jarvis is such a well-to-do
man, he's that near and mean that you'll do
better to deal with me and John William than
with him."

Mr. Vavasour, who had been thinking hard,
rubbed his hands.

"And the terms, my clear madam?" he said.
"Let us consider the terms on which we shall
conduct this little matter.  Now——"

Then Mrs. Pringle and Mr. Vavasour talked
very confidentially, and eventually certain crisp
bank-notes passed from the lady to the agent,
and a document was signed by the former, and
at last they parted with a very good
understanding of each other.

"For you'll understand, Mr. Vavasower," said
Mrs. Pringle, as she shook hands at the door
of the private room, "that I'm not going to be
particular about spending a hundred or so when
it's a question of making sure of a good many
thousands and a nice bit of property.  And
Stephen Jarvis is a hearty eater, and disposed
to apoplexy, and he might be took sudden."

Then Mrs. Pringle went away and returned
to the Old Farm, and for the next fortnight
kept a particularly observant eye on Mr. Jarvis
and on the correspondence which reached him
from and through Mr. Vavasour.  She noticed
that he became grumpy and dissatisfied almost
to moroseness—-the fact was that the agent, in
order to keep his contract with Mrs. Pringle,
was sending the would-be Benedick a choice of
unlikely candidates, and Mr. Jarvis was getting
sick of looking at photographs of ladies none of
whom came up to his expectations.  As for
Mrs. Pringle, she conducted her correspondence
with Mr. Vavasour through John William,
whose grocery establishment was in a neighbouring
market-town, and it was not until the
end of the second week after her return home
that she received a communication from him
which warranted her in taking the field.

"Well, upon my honour!" she exclaimed,
as she sat at breakfast with Mr. Jarvis one
morning and laid down a letter which she had
been reading.  "Wonders never will cease,
and there's an end of it.  Who do you think
I've heard from, Stephen?"

"Nay, I don't know," growled Mr. Jarvis,
who had just received the photograph of a very
homely-looking young woman from Mr. Vavasour,
and was much incensed by what he considered
the agent's stupidity.  "Who?"

"Why, from my niece—leastways a sort of
niece, seeing as she was poor George's sister
Martha Margaret's daughter—Poppy
Atteridge, as has just returned to England from
foreign parts," answered Mrs. Pringle.  "Her
father was an engineer and took her over to
Canada when he went to settle there after his
wife died.  He's dead now, it seems, and so
the poor girl's come home.  Dear me!—I did
once see her when she was little.  She writes
quite affectionate and says she feels lonely.
Ah, if I'd a house of my own, I'd ask her to
come and see me!"

"Ask her to come and see you here, then!"
said the farmer.  "I'm sure there's room
enough, unless she wants to sleep in six
bed-chambers all at once."

"Well, I'm sure it's very kind of you," said
Mrs. Pringle, "and if you really don't mind, I
will ask her.  I don't think you'll find her in
the way very much—they were always a quiet,
well-behaved sort, the Atteridges."

Mr. Jarvis remarked that a few lasses, more
or less, in the house were not likely to trouble
him, and having finished his breakfast, lighted
a cigar, and locked up the homely-looking
lady's photograph in his desk with a hearty
anathematization of Mr. Vavasour for sending
it, went out to look at his sheep and cattle and
forgot the breakfast-table conversation.
Indeed, he thought no more of it until two days
later, when, on his going home from market to
the Saturday evening high tea, Mrs. Pringle
met him in the hall with the news that her niece
had arrived, and was in the parlour.

"Oh, indeed!" said Mr. Jarvis, who was in
a very benevolent mood, consequent upon his
having got an uncommonly good price for his
wheat and spent a convivial hour with the
purchaser.  "Poor thing—I doubt she'll have had
a rare cold journey."

Then he walked into the parlour to offer the
poor young thing a welcome to his roof and
hearth, and found himself encountered by a
smiling and handsome young lady who had
very sparkling eyes and a vivacious manner,
and whom he immediately set down as the
likeliest lass he had seen for many a long
day.  He thought of the gallery of dowdies
whom Mr. Vavasour had recently sent him by
counterfeit presentment, and his spirits rose
rapidly.

"Well, deary me to-day!" he said, as he
began to carve the home-fed ham in delicate
slices.  "Deary me to-day!  I'd no idea that
we were to be honoured with so much youth
and beauty, as the saying is.  I was looking
forward to seeing a little gel, Mrs. Pringle.
Your aunt there didn't prepare me for such a
pleasant surprise, Miss—nay, I've forgotten
what the name is!"

"Atteridge," said Mrs. Pringle's supposed
niece.  "But call me Poppy, Mr. Jarvis—I
shall feel more at home."

"Poppy!" chuckled Mr. Jarvis.  "Ecod,
and a rare pretty poppy an' all!  Deary me—deary me!"

"The Atteridges was always a good-looking
family," said Mrs. Pringle.

"I should think they must ha' been," said
Mr. Jarvis, handing his guest some cold fowl
and ham with an admiring look.  "I should
think they must ha' been, ma'am, judging by
the sample present.  So for what we're about
to receive——"

Mr. Jarvis, Mrs. Pringle, and Miss Atteridge
spent a very pleasant evening.  The guest, in
addition to great vivacity, talked well and
interestingly, and it began to dawn upon the
housekeeper that she really must have been in
Canada, as she knew so much about life there.
In addition to Miss Atteridge's conversational
powers it turned out that she played the piano,
and in response to Mr. Jarvis's request for a
tune or two, she sat down to an ancient
instrument which had not been opened within the
recollection of Mrs. Pringle, and extracted
what music she could from it.  Mr. Jarvis was
highly delighted, and said so.

"But if you're so fond of music, Mr. Jarvis,
you should buy a new piano," said Miss
Atteridge airily.  "I've no doubt this has been a
good one, but I'm afraid it's quite done for now."

"Happen I might if I'd anybody to play on
it," said Mr. Jarvis, with a sly look.

"Oh, you could find lots of people to play
on it," said Miss Atteridge.

When the guest had retired Mr. Jarvis mixed
his toddy, and in accordance with custom,
handed a glass to Mrs. Pringle.

"She's a rare fine lass, that niece o' yours,
missis," he said.  "You're welcome to ask her
to stop as long as she likes.  It'll do her good."

Next morning Mr. Jarvis, saying that he had
business in the market-town, ordered out his
smart dog-cart and the bay mare, and asked
Miss Atteridge to go a-driving with him.  They
made a good-looking pair as they drove off, for
the farmer, in spite of his five-and-fifty years,
was a handsome and well-set-up man, with
never a grey hair in his head, and he had a
spice of vanity in him which made him very
particular about his personal appearance.

Mr. Jarvis and Miss Atteridge were away all
the morning—when they returned to dinner at
half-past one both seemed to be in very good
spirits.  They and Mrs. Pringle were sitting in
the parlour after dinner when the housekeeper
perceived a cart approaching the house, and
remarked upon the fact that it contained a
queer-looking packing-case and was attended by two
men who wore green baize aprons.

"Aye," said Mr. Jarvis, carelessly, "it'll be
the new piano that I bought this morning for
the young lady here to perform upon.  You'd
better go out, missis, and tell 'em to set it down
at the porch door.  If they want help there's
John and Thomas in the yard—call for 'em.
And we'll have the old instrument taken out
and the new one put in its place."

Mrs. Pringle went forth to obey these orders,
feeling somewhat puzzled.  The young lady
from Mr. Vavasour's was certainly playing
her part well, and had begun early.  But why
this extraordinary complaisance on Mr. Jarvis's
part—Mr. Jarvis, who could, when he liked,
say some very nasty things about the household
accounts?  She began to feel a little doubtful
about—she was not sure what.

That night the parlour was the scene of what
Mr. Jarvis called a regular slap-up concert.
For it turned out that Miss Atteridge could
not only play but sing, and sing well; and
Mr. Jarvis was so carried away with revived musical
enthusiasm, that after telling the ladies how he
used to sing tenor in the church choir at one
time, he volunteered to sing such pleasing
ditties as "The Farmer's Boy," "The
Yeoman's Wedding," and "John Peel," and
growing bolder joined with Miss Atteridge in duets
such as "Huntingtower," and "Oh, that we two
were maying."  He went to bed somewhat
later than usual, declaring to himself that he
had not spent such a pleasant evening since the
last dinner at the Farmers' Club, and next
morning he made up a parcel of all the
photographs and documents which Mr. Vavasour had
sent him, and returned them to that gentleman
with a short intimation that he had no wish for
further dealings with him, and that if he owed
him anything he would be glad to know what
it was.

On the following Sunday Mr. John William
Pringle, a pale-eyed young gentleman who
wore a frock-coat and a silk hat, and had a
habit of pulling up his trousers at the knees
whenever he sat down, came, according to
custom, to visit his mother, and was introduced to
his newly-found relative.  John William, after
a little observation, became somewhat sad and
reflective, and in the afternoon, when Mr. Jarvis
and Miss Attendee had walked out into the
land to see if there was the exact number of
sheep that there ought to be in a certain distant
field, turned upon his parent with a stern and
reproachful look.

"And a nice mess you've made of it with
your contrivings and plannings!" he said
witheringly.  "You've done the very thing
we wanted to avoid.  Can't you see the old
fool's head over heels in love with that girl?  Yah!"

"Nothing of the sort, John William!"
retorted Mrs. Pringle.  "Of course, the gal's
leading him on, as is her part to do, and well
paid for it she is.  You wait till Stephen Jarvis
reckernizes what he's been spending on
her—there's the piano, and a new hat, and a
riding-habit so as she can go a-riding with him, and a
gipsy ring as she took a fancy to that day he
took her to Stowminster, all in a week and
less—and you'll see what the effect will be.  You're
wrong, John William!"

"I'm dee'd if I am!" said John William,
angrily.  "It's you that's wrong, and so you'll
find.  Something's got to be done.  And the
only thing I can think of," he continued,
stroking a badly sprouted growth on his upper lip,
"is that I should cut the old ass out myself.
Of course, I could throw the girl over afterwards."

With this end in view Mr. Pringle made
himself extraordinarily fascinating at tea-time
and during the evening, but with such poor
effect that at supper he was gloomier than ever.
He went home with a parting remark to his
mother that if she didn't get the girl out of the
house pretty quick he and she might as well go
hang themselves.

As Mrs. Pringle had considerable belief in
John William's acumen she was conscience-stricken
as to her part in this affair, and took
occasion to speak to Miss Atteridge when they
retired for the night.  But Miss Atteridge not
only received Mrs. Pringle's remarks with
chilling hauteur, but engineered her out of her room
in unmistakable fashion.  So Mrs. Pringle
wrote to Mr. Vavasour, saying that she thought
the purpose she desired had been served, and
she wished Miss Atteridge to be removed.
Mr. Vavasour replied that her instructions should
be carried out.  But Miss Atteridge stayed on.
And more than once she and the housekeeper,
Mr. Jarvis being out, had words.

"As if you ever was in Canada!" said
Mrs. Pringle, sniffing.

Miss Atteridge looked at her calmly and coldly.

"I lived in Canada for three years," she
answered.

"A gal as goes to a agent to find a husband!"
said Mrs. Pringle.

"No—I went to get employment as a lady
detective," said Miss Atteridge.  "Mr. Vavasour,
you know, is a private inquiry agent as
well as a matrimonial agent."

"And what did you come here for?" demanded
Mrs. Pringle.

Miss Atteridge looked at her interlocutor
with a still colder glance.

"Fun!" she said.

Then she sat down at the new piano and
began to play the "Moonlight Sonata," and
Mrs. Pringle went into the kitchen and slammed
the parlour door—after which she wondered
what John William would say next Sunday.
On the previous Sunday he had been nastier
than ever, and had expressed his determination
to be dee'd at least six times.

But when the next Sunday came Miss Atteridge
had departed.  All Friday she had been
very quiet and thoughtful—late in the
afternoon she and Mr. Jarvis had gone out for a
walk, and when they returned both were much
subdued and very grave.  They talked little
during tea, and that evening Miss Atteridge
played nothing but Beethoven and Chopin and
did not sing at all.  And when Mrs. Pringle
went to bed, after consuming her toddy in the
kitchen—Mr. Jarvis being unusually solemn
and greatly preoccupied—she found the guest
packing her portmanteau.

"I am going away to-morrow, after breakfast,"
said Miss Atteridge.  "As I shall not be
here on Sunday please say good-bye for me to
Mr. John William."

John William, coming on Sunday in time for
dinner, found things as they usually were at
the Old Farm in the days previous to the
advent of Miss Atteridge.  Mr. Jarvis was in the
parlour, amusing himself with a cigar, the
sherry decanter, and the *Mark Lane Express*;
Mrs. Pringle was in the front kitchen
superintending the cooking of a couple of stuffed
ducks.  To her John William approached with
questioning eyes.

"She's gone!" whispered Mrs. Pringle.
"Went off yesterday.  He's been grumpyish
ever since—a-thinkin' over what it's cost him.
Go in and make up to him, John William.
Talk to him about pigs."

John William re-entered the parlour.  Mr. Jarvis,
who was of the sort that would show
hospitality to an enemy, gave him a glass of
sherry and offered him a cigar, but showed no
particular desire to hear a grocer's views on
swine fever.  There was no conversation when
Mrs. Pringle entered to lay the cloth for dinner.

"We've had no music this day or two," said
Mrs. Pringle with fane cheerfulness.  "Play
the master a piece, John William—play the
'Battle of Prague' with variations."

John William approached the new piano.

"It's locked," he said, examining the lid of
the keyboard.  "Where's the key?"

Mr. Jarvis looked over the top of the *Mark
Lane Express*.

"The key," he said, "is in my pocket.
And'll remain there until Miss Atteridge—which
her right name is Carter—returns.  But
not as Carter, nor yet Atteridge, but as
Mrs. Stephen Jarvis.  That'll be three weeks
to-day.  If John William there wants to perform
on t' piano he can come then and play t'
'Wedding March'!"

Then John William sat down, and his mother
laid the table in silence.





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.. _`BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS

.. vspace:: 2

It was close upon sunset when the derelict
walked into the first village which he had
encountered for several miles, and he was as tired
as he was hungry.  On the outskirts he stopped,
looked about him, and sat down on a heap of
stones.  The village lay beneath him; a typical
English village, good to look upon in the
summer eventide.  There in the centre,
embowered amongst tall elm-trees and fringed
about with yew, rose the tower and roof of the
old church, grey as the memories of the far-off
age in which pious hands had built it.  Farther
away, also tree-embowered, rose the turrets and
gables of the great house, manor and hall.
Here and there, rising from thick orchards,
stood the farmhouses, with their red roofs and
drab walls; between them were tiny cottages,
nests of comfort.  There were pale blue wisps
of smoke curling up from the chimneys of the
houses and cottages—they made the weary man
think of a home and a hearthstone.  And from
the green in the centre of the village came the
sound of the voices of boys at play—they, too,
made him think of times when the world was
something more than a desert.

He rose at last and went forward, walking
after the fashion of a tired man.  He was not
such a very bad-looking derelict, after all; he
had evidently made an attempt to keep his poor
clothes patched, and had not forgotten to wash
himself whenever he had an opportunity.  But
his eyes had the look of the not-wanted; there
was a hopelessness in them which would have
spoken volumes to an acute observer.  And as
he went clown the hill into the village he looked
about him from one side to the other as if he
scarcely dared to expect anything from men or
their habitations.

He came to a large, prosperous-looking farmstead;
a rosy-cheeked, well-fed, contented-faced
man, massive of build, was leaning over the low
wall of the garden smoking a cigar.  He eyed
the derelict with obvious dislike and distrust.
His eyes grew slightly angry and he frowned.
Human wreckage was not to his taste.

But the man on the road was hungry and
tired; he was like a drowning thing that will
clutch at any straw.  He stepped up on the
neatly-trimmed turf which lay beneath the
garden wall, touching his cap.

"Have you a job of work that you could give
a man, sir?" he asked.

The rosy-faced farmer scowled.

"No," he said.

The man in the road hesitated.

"I'm hard pressed, sir," he said.  "I'd do a
hard day's work to-morrow in return for a
night's lodging and a bit of something to eat."

"Aye, I dare say you would," said the farmer,
scornfully.  "I've heard that tale before.  Be
off—the road's your place."

The derelict sighed, turned away, half-turned
again.  He looked at the well-fed countenance
above him with a species of appealing sorrow.

"I haven't had a bite to eat since yesterday
morning," he said, and turned again.

As he turned he heard a child's piping voice,
and, looking round, saw the upper half of a
small head, sunny and curly, pop up over the
garden wall.

"Daddy, shall I give the poor man my
money-box?  'Cause it isn't nice to be hungry.
Shall I, daddy?"

But the farmer's face did not relax, and the
derelict sighed again and turned away.  He had
got into the road, and was going off when the
big, masterful voice arrested him.

"Here, you!"

The derelict looked round, with new hope
springing in his heart.  The man was beckoning
him; the child, on tiptoe, was staring at him out
of blue, inquisitive eyes.

"Come here," said the farmer.

The derelict went back, hoping.  The man at
the wall, however, looked sterner than ever.
His keen eyes seemed to bore holes in the
other's starved body.

"If I give you your supper, and a night's
lodging in the barn, will you promise not to
smoke?" he said.  "I want no fire."

The derelict smiled in spite of his hunger and
weariness.

"I've neither pipe nor tobacco, sir," he said.
"I wish I had.  But if I had I'd keep my word
to you."

The farmer stared at him fixedly for a
moment; then he pointed to the gate.

"Come through that," he said.  He strode
off across the garden when the derelict entered,
and led the way round the house to the kitchen,
where a stout maid was sewing at the open door.
She looked up at the sound of their feet and
stared.

"Give this man as much as he can eat,
Rachel," said the farmer, "and draw him a
pint of ale.  Sit you down," he added, turning
to the derelict.  "And make a good supper."

Then he picked up the child, who had clung
to his coat, and lifting her on to his shoulder,
went back to the garden.

The derelict ate and drank and thanked God.
A new sense of manhood came into him with
the good meat and drink; he began to see
possibilities.  When at last he stood up he felt like
a new man, and some of the weary stoop had
gone out of his shoulders.

The farmer came in with a clay pipe filled
with tobacco.

"Here," he said, "you can sit in the yard and
smoke that.  And then I'll show you where you
can sleep."

So that night the derelict went to rest full of
food and contented, and slept a dreamless sleep
amongst the hay.  Next morning the farmer,
according to his custom, was up early, but his
guest had been up a good two hours when he
came down to the big kitchen.

"He's no idler, yon man, master," said
Rachel.  "He's chopped enough firewood to
last me for a week, and drawn all the water,
and he's fetched the cows up, and now he's
sweeping up the yard."

"Give him a good breakfast, then," said the
farmer.

When his own breakfast was over he went to
look for the derelict, and found him chopping
wood again.  He saluted his host respectfully,
but with a certain anxiety.

"Now if you want a job for a day or so,"
said the farmer, with the curtness which was
characteristic of him, "I'll give you one.  Get
a bucket out of the out-house there, and come
with me."

He led the way to a small field at the rear of
the farmstead, the surface of which appeared
to be very liberally ornamented with stones.

"I want this field clearing," said the farmer.
"Make the stones into piles about twenty yards
apart.  When you hear the church clock strike
twelve, stop work, and go to the house for your
dinner.  Start again at one, and knock off again
at six."

Whatever might have been his occupation
before the derelict worked that day like a nigger.
It was back-aching work, that gathering and
piling of stones, and the July sun was hot and
burning, but he kept manfully at his task,
strengthened by the hearty meal set before him
at noon.  And just before six o'clock the farmer,
with the child on his shoulder, came into the
field and looked around him and stared.

"You're no idler!" he said, repeating the
maid's words.  "I'll give you a better job than
that to-morrow."

And that night he gave the derelict some
clothes and boots, and next morning set him to
a pleasanter job, and promised him work for
the harvest, and the derelict felt that however
curt and gruff the farmer might seem his bark
was much worse than his bite.  And he never
forgot that he had saved him from starvation.
But the derelict's times were not all good.
Country folk have an inborn dislike of
strangers, and the regular workers on the farm
resented the intrusion of this man, who came
from nowhere in particular and had certainly
been a tramp.  They kept themselves apart
from him in the harvest fields, and made open
allusion to his antecedents.  And the derelict,
now promoted to a small room in the house, and
earning wages as well as board, heard and said
nothing.

Nor did the farmer go free of gibe and jest.

"So ye've taken to hiring tramp-labour, I
hear," said his great rival in the village.  "Get
it dirt cheap, I expect?"

"You can expect what you like," said the
derelict's employer.  "The man you mean is as
good a worker as any you've got, or I've got,
either.  Do you think I care for you and your
opinion?"

In fact, the farmer cared little for anything
except his child.  He had lost his wife when the
child was born, and the child was all he had
except his land.  Wherever he went the child
was with him; they were inseparable.  He had
never left it once during the six years of its life,
and it was with great misgivings that in the
autumn following the arrival of the derelict he
was obliged to leave it for a day and a night.
Before he went he called the derelict to him.

"I've come to trust you fully," he said.
"Look after the child till to-morrow."

If the farmer had wanted a proof of the
derelict's gratitude he would have found it in
the sudden flush of pride which flamed into the
man's face.  But he was in a hurry to be gone,
and was troubled because of leaving the child;
nevertheless, he felt sure that he was leaving
the child in good hands.

"It's queer how I've taken to that fellow," he
said to himself as he drove off to the station six
miles away.  "I wouldn't have trusted the child
to anybody but him."

The man left in charge did nothing that day
but look after the child.  He developed amazing
powers, which astonished Rachel as much as
they interested the young mind and eyes.  He
could sing songs, he could tell tales, he could do
tricks, he could play at bears and lions, and
imitate every animal and bird under the sun.

"Lawk-a-massy!" said Rachel.  "Why, you
must ha' had bairns of your own!"

"A long time ago," answered the man.  "A
very long time ago."

He never left his charge until the charge was
fast asleep—sung to sleep by himself.  Then he
went off to his little room in the far-away wing
of the house.  And in an hour or two he wished
devoutly that he had stretched himself at the
charge's door.  For the farmstead was on fire,
and when he woke to realize it there was a
raging sea of flame between him and the child,
and folk in the yard and garden were shrieking
and moaning—in their helplessness.

But the man got there in time—in time for the
child, but not for himself.  They talk in all that
countryside to this day of how he fought his
way through the flames, how he dropped the
child into outstretched arms beneath, safe, and
then fell back to death.

Upon what they found left of him the farmer
gazed with eyes which were wet for the first time
since he had last shed tears for his dead wife.
And he said something to the poor body which
doubtless the soul heard far off.

"You were a Man!" he said.  "You were a real Man!"

And then he suddenly remembered that he
had never known the Man's name.





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.. _`WILLIAM HENRY AND THE DAIRYMAID`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   WILLIAM HENRY AND THE DAIRYMAID

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The trouble at Five Oaks Farm really began
when Matthew Dennison built and started a
model dairy, and found it necessary to engage
the services of a qualified dairymaid.  A good
many people in the neighbourhood wondered
what possessed Matthew to embark on such an
enterprise, and said so.  Matthew cared nothing
for comment; he had in his pocket, he said (as
he was very fond of saying), something that
made him independent of whatever anybody
might think or say.  It was his whim to build
the model dairy, just as it is the whim of some
men to grow roses or to breed prize sheep at
great cost, and he built it.  It was all very spick
and span when it was finished, and the
countryside admired its many beauties and modern
appliances without understanding much about
them.  And then came the question of finding
a thoroughly expert dairymaid.

Somebody—probably the vicar—advised
Matthew to advertise in one of the farming
papers, and he and his wife and their only son,
William Henry, accordingly spent an entire
evening in drafting a suitable announcement of
their wishes, which they forwarded next day to
several journals of a likely nature.  During the
next fortnight answers began to come in, and
the family sat in committee every evening after
high tea considering them gravely.  It was not
until somewhere about fifty or sixty of these
applications had been received, however, that
one of a really promising nature turned up.
This was from one Rosina Durrant, who wrote
from somewhere in Dorsetshire.  She described
herself as being twenty-five years of age,
thoroughly qualified to take entire charge of a
model dairy, and anxious to have some
experience in the North of England.  She gave
particulars of her past experience, set forth
particulars of the terms she expected, and enclosed
a splendid testimonial from her present
employer, who turned out to be a well-known
countess.

Matthew rubbed his hands.

"Now this is the very young woman we
want!" he said.  "I've always said from the
very beginning that I'd have naught but what
was first-class.  I shall send this here young
person my references, agree to her terms, and
tell her to start out as soon as she can."

"I'm afraid she's rather expensive, love,"
murmured Mrs. Dennison.

"I'm not to a few pounds one way or
another," answered Matthew.  "I'm one of
them that believe in doing a thing right when
you do do it.  Last two years with a
countess—what?  What'd suit a countess 'll suit me.
William Henry, you can get out the writing-desk,
and we'll draw up a letter to this young
woman at once."

William Henry, who had little or no interest
in the model dairy, and regarded it as no more
and no less than a harmless fad of his father's,
complied with this request, and spent half-an-hour
in writing an elegant epistle after the
fashion of those which he had been taught to
compose at the boarding-school where he had
received his education.  After that he gave no
more thought to the dairymaid, being much
more concerned in managing the farm, and in
an occasional day's hunting and shooting, than
in matters outside his sphere.  But about a week
later his father opened a letter at the
breakfast-table, and uttered a gratified exclamation.

"Now, the young woman's coming to-day,"
he announced.  "She'll be at Marltree station
at precisely four-thirty.  Of course somebody'll
have to drive over and meet her, and that
somebody can't be me, because I've a meeting of the
Guardians at Cornborough at that very hour.
William Henry, you must drive the dog-cart over."

William Henry was not too pleased with the
idea, for he had meant to go fishing.  But
he remembered that he could go fishing
every afternoon if it pleased him, and he
acquiesced.

"I've been wondering, Matthew," said
Mrs. Dennison, who was perusing the letter through
her spectacles; "I've been wondering where to
put this young person.  You can see from her
writing that she's of a better sort—there's no
common persons as writes and expresses
themselves in that style.  I'm sure she'll not want
to have her meals with the men and the gels in
the kitchen, and of course we can't bring her
among ourselves, as it were."

Matthew scratched his head.

"Deng my buttons!" he said.  "I never
thought o' that there!  Of course she'll be what
they call a sort of upper servant, such as the
quality have.  Aye, for sure!  Well, let's see
now—I'll tell ye what to do, missis.  Let her
have the little parlour—we scarce ever use
it—for her own sitting-room, and she can eat there.
That's the sensiblest arrangement that I can
think on.  Then we shall all preserve our
various ranks.  What do ye say, William Henry?"

William Henry said that he was agreeable to
anything, and proceeded to make his usual
hearty breakfast.  He thought no more of his
afternoon expedition until the time for setting
out came, and then he had the brown mare
harnessed to a smart dog-cart, and set off along
the roads for Marltree, five miles away.  It was
a pleasant afternoon in early April, and the land
had the springtide's new warmth on it.  And
William Henry thought how happy he would
have been with his fishing-rod.

Marltree is a junction where several lines
converge, and when the train from the south
came in several passengers alighted from it to
change on to other routes.  Amongst this crowd
William Henry could not detect anything that
looked like the new dairymaid.  He scrutinized
everybody as he sat on a seat opposite the train,
and summed them up.  There was a clergyman
and his wife; there was a sailor; there were three
or four commercial travellers; there were some
nondescripts.  Then his attention became
riveted on a handsome young lady who left a
carriage with an armful of books and papers
and hurried off to the luggage-van—she was so
handsome, so well dressed, and had such a good
figure that William Henry's eyes followed her
with admiration.  Then he remembered what
he had come there for, and looked again for the
dairymaid.  But he saw nothing that suggested
her.

The people drifted away, the platform
cleared, and presently nobody but the
handsome young lady and William Henry remained.
She stood by a trunk looking expectantly about
her; he rose, intending to go.  A porter
appeared; she spoke to him—the porter turned
to William Henry.

"Here's a lady inquiring for you, sir," he said.

The lady came forward with a smile and held
out her hand.

"Are you Mr. Dennison?" she said.  "I am
Miss Durrant."

William Henry's first instinct was to open his
mouth cavernously—his second to remove his hat.

"How do you do?" he said, falteringly.  "I—I
was looking about for you."

"But of course you wouldn't know me," she
said.  "I was looking for you."

"I've got a dog-cart outside," said William
Henry.  "Here, Jenkinson, bring this lady's
things to my trap."

He escorted Miss Durrant, who had already
sized him up as a simple-natured but very
good-looking young man, to the dog-cart, saw her
luggage safely stowed away at the back, helped
her in, tucked her up in a thick rug, got in
himself, and drove away.

"I'm quite looking forward to seeing your
dairy, Mr. Dennison," said Miss Durrant.  "It
must be quite a model from your description."

William Henry turned and stared at her.
She was a very handsome young woman, he
decided, a brunette, with rich colouring, dark
eyes, a ripe mouth, and a flashing smile, and
her voice was as pleasing as her face.

"Lord bless you!" he said.  "It isn't my
dairy—I know nothing about dairying.  It's
father's."

Miss Durrant laughed merrily.

"Oh, I see!" she said.  "You are Mr. Dennison's
son.  What shall I call you, then?"

"My name is William Henry Dennison," he replied.

"And what do you do, Mr. William?" she asked.

"Look after the farm," replied William
Henry.  "Father doesn't do much that way now—he's
sort of retired.  Do you know anything
about farming?"

"I love anything about a farm," she answered.

"Do you care for pigs?" he asked, eagerly.
"I've been going in a lot for pig-breeding this
last year or two, and I've got some of the finest
pigs in England.  I got a first prize at the
Smithfield Show last year; I'll show it you when
we get home.  There's some interest, now, in
breeding prize pigs."

With such pleasant conversation they whiled
the time away until they came in sight of Five
Oaks Farm, on beholding which Miss Durrant
was immediately lost in admiration, saying
that it was the finest old house she had ever
seen, and that it would be a delight to live
in it.

"Some of it's over five hundred years old,"
said William Henry.  "And our family built it.
We don't rent our land, you know—it's our own.
Six hundred acres there are, and uncommon
good land too."

With that he handed over Miss Durrant to
his mother, who was obviously as surprised at
her appearance as he had been, and then drove
round to the stables, still wondering how a lady
came to be a dairymaid.

"And I'm sure I don't know, Matthew," said
Mrs. Dennison to her husband that night in the
privacy of their own chamber, "I really don't
know how Miss Durrant ought to be treated.
You can see for yourself what her manners
are—quite the lady.  Of course we all know
now-a-days that shop-girls and such-like give
themselves the airs of duchesses and ape their
manners, but Miss Durrant's the real thing, or
I'm no judge.  Very like her people's come
down in the world, and she has to earn her own
living, poor thing!"

"Well, never you mind, Jane Ann," said
Matthew.  "Lady or no lady, she's my dairy-maid,
and all that I ask of her is that she does
her work to my satisfaction.  If she's a lady,
you'll see that she'll always bear in mind that
her present position is that of a dairymaid, and
she'll behave according.  We'll see what the
morrow brings forth."

What the morrow brought forth was the
spectacle of the dairymaid, duly attired in
professional garments of spotless hue, busily
engaged in the performance of her duties.
Matthew spent all the morning with her in the
dairy, and came in to dinner beaming with
satisfaction.

"She's a regular clinker, is that lass!" he
exclaimed to his wife and son.  "I've found a
perfect treasure."

The perfect treasure settled down into her
new life with remarkable readiness.  She
accepted the arrangements which Mrs. Dennison
had made without demur.  Mrs. Dennison,
with a woman's keen observation, noted that she
was never idle.  She was in and about the dairy
all day long; at night she worked or read in
her own room.  She had brought a quantity of
books with her; magazines and newspapers were
constantly arriving for her.  As days went on,
Mrs. Dennison decided that Miss Durrant's
people had most certainly come down in the
world, and that she had had to go out into it
to earn her own living.

"Just look how well she's dressed when she
goes to church on a Sunday!" she said to
Matthew.  "None of your gaudy, flaunting
dressings-up, but all of the best and quietest,
just like the Squire's lady.  Eh, dear, there's
nobody knows what that poor young woman
mayn't have known.  Very likely they kept their
horses and carriages in better days."

"Doesn't seem to be very much cast down,"
said Matthew.  "The lass is light-hearted
enough.  But ye women always are fanciful."

While Mrs. Dennison indulged herself in
speculations as to what the dairymaid had been,
in the course of which she formed various
theories, inclining most to one that her father
had been a member of Parliament who had lost
all his money on the Stock Exchange, and while
Matthew contented himself by regarding Miss
Durrant solely in her professional capacity,
William Henry was journeying along quite
another path.  He was, in fact, falling head over
heels in love.  He received a first impression
when he saw Miss Durrant at Marltree station;
he received a second, and much stronger one,
next morning when he saw her in the spotless
linen of the professional dairymaid.  He began
haunting the dairy until the fact was noticed by
his mother.

"Why, I thought you cared naught about
dairying, William Henry," she said, one day at
dinner.  "I'm sure you never went near it when
your father was laying it out."

"What's the use of seeing anything till it's
finished and in full working order?" said
William Henry.  "Now that it is in go, one
might as well learn all about it."

"Well, ye couldn't have a better instructress,"
said Matthew.  "She can show you something
you never saw before, can Miss Durrant."

Miss Durrant was certainly showing William
Henry Dennison something he had never seen
before.  He had always been apathetic towards
young women, and it was with the greatest
difficulty that he could be got to attend
tea-parties, or dances, or social gatherings, at all of
which he invariably behaved like a bear who
has got into a cage full of animals whom it does
not like and cannot exterminate.  But it became
plain that he was beginning to cultivate the
society of Miss Durrant.  He haunted the
dairy of an afternoon, when Matthew
invariably went to sleep; he made excuses to bring
Miss Durrant into the family circle of an
evening; he waylaid her on her daily constitutional,
and at last one Sunday he deliberately asked
her to walk to church with him at a neighbouring
village.  And at that his mother's eyes were
opened.

"Matthew," she said, when William Henry
and Miss Durrant had departed, "that boy's
smitten with Miss Durrant.  He's making up to her."

Matthew, who was disposed to a peaceful
nap, snorted incredulity.

"Ye women take such fancies into your
heads," he said.  "I've seen naught."

"You men are so blind," retorted Mrs. Dennison.
"He's always going into the dairy—he's
been walks with her—he's always getting me to
ask her in here to play the piano——"

"And uncommon well she plays it, too!"
grunted Matthew.

"—and now he's taken her off to church!"
concluded Mrs. Dennison.  "He's smitten,
Matthew, he's smitten!"

Matthew stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Well, well, my lass!" he said.  "Ye know
what young folks are—they like each other's
company.  What d'ye think I sought your
company for?  Not to sit and stare at you, as if you
were a strange image, I know!"

"Well, it all went on and ended in the proper
way," said his wife, sharply.  "But how do you
know where this'll end?"

"I didn't know that aught had begun," said
Matthew.

Mrs. Dennison, who was reading what she
called a Sunday book, took off her spectacles
and closed the book with a snap.

"Matthew!" she said.  "You know that it's
always been a settled thing since they were
children that William Henry should marry his
cousin Polly, your only brother John's one child,
so that the property of the two families should
be united when the time comes for us old ones
to go.  And it's got to be carried out, has that
arrangement, Matthew, and we can't let no
dairymaids, ladies as has come down or not,
interfere with it!"

Matthew, who was half asleep, bethought
himself vaguely of something that had been
said long ago, when Polly was born, or at her
christening—when the right time came, she and
William Henry, then six years old, were to wed.
John, Matthew's younger brother, had gone in
for trade, and was now a very well-to-do
merchant in Clothford, of which city he had been
mayor.  Matthew woke up a little, made a rapid
calculation, and realized that Polly must now be
nineteen years of age.

"Aye, aye, my lass," he said, "but you've got
to remember that whatever fathers and mothers
says, children don't always agree to.  William
Henry and Polly mightn't hit it off.  Polly'll
be a fine young lady now, what with all them
French governesses and boarding-schools in
London and Paris, and such-like."

"Our William Henry," said Mrs. Dennison,
with heat and emphasis, "is good enough for
any young woman of his own class.  And a man
as owns six hundred acres of land is as good
as any Clothford worsted merchant, even if he
has been mayor!  And now you listen to me,
Matthew Dennison.  I had a letter yesterday
from Mrs. John saying that she believed it
would do Polly good to go into the country, as
she'd been looking a bit poorlyish since she
came back from Paris, and asking if we could
do with her for a few weeks.  So to-morrow
morning I shall go over to Clothford and bring
her back with me—I've already written to say
I should.  We haven't seen her for five
years—she was a pretty gel then, and must be a
beauty by now, and we'll hope that her and
William Henry'll come together.  And if you
take my advice, Matthew, you'll get rid of the
dairymaid."

Matthew slowly rose from his chair.

"Then I'm denged if I do aught of the
sort!" he said.  "Ye can fetch Polly and
welcome, missis, and naught'll please me better
than if her and William Henry does hit it off,
though I don't approve of the marriage of
cousins as a rule.  But I'm not going to get rid
of my dairymaid for no Pollies, nor yet no
William Henrys, nor for naught, so there!"

Then Mrs. Dennison put on her spectacles
again and re-opened her Sunday book, and
Mr. Dennison mixed himself a drink at the
sideboard and lighted a cigar, and for a long time
no sound was heard but the purring of the cat
on the hearth and the ticking of the grandfather
clock in the corner.

Miss Mary Dennison duly arrived the next
evening, under convoy of her aunt, and received
a cordial and boisterous welcome at the hands
and lips of her uncle and cousin.  She was an
extremely pretty and vivacious girl of nineteen,
golden-haired and violet-eyed, who would have
been about as much in place in managing a
farmstead as in presiding over a court of law.
But Mrs. Dennison decided that she was just
the wife for William Henry, and she did all that
she could to throw them together.  In that,
however, no effort was needed.  William Henry and
his cousin seemed to become fast friends at
once.  On the day following Polly's arrival he
took her out for a long walk in the fields; when
they returned, late for tea, there seemed to be a
very excellent understanding between them.
After that they were almost inseparable—there
was little doing on the farm just then, and there
was a capable foreman to see after what was
being done, so William Henry, much to his
mother's delight, began taking Polly for long
drives into the surrounding country.  They used
to go off early in the morning and return late in
the afternoon, each in high spirits.  And
Mrs. Dennison's hopes rose high, and her spirits were
as high as theirs.

But there were two things Mrs. Dennison
could not understand.  The first was that Miss
Durrant was as light-hearted as ever, and as
arduous in her labours, in spite of the fact that
William Henry no longer went walks with her
nor took her to church.  The second was that
when he and Polly were not driving they spent
a considerable amount of time in the model dairy
of an afternoon with Miss Durrant, and that
unmistakable sounds of great hilarity issued
therefrom.  But she regarded this with
indulgence under the circumstances.

"When they're together," she said, "young
folks is inclined to make merry.  Of course I
must have been mistaken about William Henry
being smitten with the dairymaid, considering
how he's now devoted to his cousin.  He was no
doubt lonelyish—young men does get like that,
though I must say that William Henry never
did show himself partial to young ladies."

However partial William Henry may or may
not have been to young ladies in the past, it was
quite certain that he was making up for it at that
stage of his existence.  The long drives with
Polly continued, and Polly came back from
each in higher spirits than ever.  Mrs. Dennison
expected every day to hear that her dearest
hopes were to be fulfilled.

And then came the climax.  One evening,
following one of the day-long drives, William
Henry announced to the family circle that he
was going to Clothford next morning, and
should require breakfast somewhat earlier than
usual.  By nine o'clock next day he was gone,
and Mrs. Dennison, not without a smirking
satisfaction, noticed that Polly was uneasy and
thoughtful, and developed a restlessness which
got worse and worse.  She tried to interest the
girl in one way or another, but Polly slipped off
to the dairy, and spent the entire day, except
for meal-times, with Miss Durrant.  When
evening and high tea came she could scarcely
eat or drink, and her eyes perpetually turned to
the grandfather clock.

"If William Henry has missed the five-thirty,
my dear," said Mrs. Dennison, "he's certain to
catch the six-forty-five.  He were never a one
for gallivanting about at Clothford of an
evening, and——"

And at that moment the parlour door opened
and William Henry walked in.

The girl stood up, and Matthew and his
wife, watching keenly, saw her turn white to
the lips.  And William Henry saw it, too,
and he made one stride and caught her by the
hands.

"It's all right, Polly," he said.  "It's all
right!  See!"

He drew a letter from his pocket, tore the
envelope open, and handed his cousin the
enclosure.  She glanced its contents over as if
she were dazed, and then, with a wild cry of
joy, threw her arms round William Henry and
fairly hugged him.  And then she threw herself
into the nearest chair and began to cry
obviously from pure happiness.

"Mercy upon us, William Henry Dennison,
what's the meaning of this?" exclaimed
William Henry's mother.  "What does it mean?"

William Henry picked up the letter.

"It means this, mother," he said.  "That's a
letter from Uncle John to Polly, giving his full
consent to her marriage with a young gentleman
who loves her and whom she loves—I've been
taking her to meet him for the past month (that's
why we went for those long drives), and a real
good 'un he is, and so says Uncle John, now
that at last he's met him.  You see, Polly told
me all about it the first day she was here—and,
why, of course——"

With that William Henry went out of the
room in a meaning silence.

"Of course," said Matthew; "of course, if
my brother John approves of the young man,
it's as good as putting the hall-mark on gold
or silver."

Polly jumped up and kissed him.  Then she
kissed Mrs. Dennison.

"But, oh, Polly, Polly!" said Mrs. Dennison.
"I meant you to marry William Henry!"

"But I don't love William Henry—in that
way, aunt," replied Polly.  "And besides,
William Henry loves——"

And just then William Henry made a second
dramatic appearance, holding himself very
stiffly and straight, and leading in Miss Durrant.

"Father and mother," he said, "this lady's
going to be your daughter."

.. vspace:: 2

So the trouble at Five Oaks Farm came to
a good ending.  For everybody was satisfied
that the best had happened, and therefore was
happy.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SPOILS TO THE VICTOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SPOILS TO THE VICTOR

.. vspace:: 2

The man of law, bland, courtly, old-world
mannered, tilted back his chair, put the tips of
his fingers together and smiled at the
grey-haired, hard-featured man who sat, grim and
silent, on the other side of his desk.

"My dear Mr. Nelthorp!" he said, in the
tone of one pronouncing a final judgment.  "It
doesn't matter a yard of that tape what either
Sutton or his solicitors say.  We know—know,
mind!—that it is utterly impossible for him to
take up the mortgages.  He is at your mercy."

Martin Nelthorp stared hard at Mr. Postlethwaite's
smiling face—somewhere far back in
his mental consciousness he was wondering why
Postlethwaite always smiled in that bland,
suave manner when he dispensed advice from
his elbow-chair.  It was a smile that seemed to
be always on hand when wanted, and it was
never so sweet as when disagreeable things
were to be dealt with.  It seemed to Martin
Nelthorp that there was nothing to smile at in
the matter they were discussing—certainly there
was no humour or pleasure in the situation for
the immediate subject of discussion, Richard
Sutton.  But Mr. Postlethwaite continued to
smile and to hold his head a little on one side,
watching his client from between half-closed
eyelids.

"At your mercy," he repeated softly.  "Ab-so-lute-ly
at your mercy."

Martin Nelthorp shook his great frame a
little—as a mastiff might if suddenly stirred
into activity.  He was a big man, and his burly
figure seemed to fill the office; his voice, when
he spoke, was very deep and strong.

"What you mean," he said, fixing his keen
grey eyes on the solicitor, "what you mean is
that if I like I can ruin him?"

Mr. Postlethwaite smiled and bowed.

"You apprehend my meaning exactly, my
dear sir," he said blandly.  "Ruin is the word."

"It's not a very nice word to hear or to
use in connection with any man," said Martin
Nelthorp.

Mr. Postlethwaite coughed.  But the smile
remained round his clean-shaven lips.

"The ruin of most men, my dear friend," he
said oracularly, "is brought about by themselves."

"Just so," said Martin Nelthorp.  "All the
same, the finishing touch is generally put to
things by somebody else.  You're sure Sutton's
as badly off as what you make out?"

Mr. Postlethwaite fingered his papers and
turned to some memoranda.  He scribbled
certain figures on a scrap of paper and faced his
client.

"The position, my dear Mr. Nelthorp," he
said, "is exactly this.  You hold a first and
second mortgage on Sutton's flour mill and on
his house and land—in fact, on his entire
property, and the sum you have advanced
represents every penny of the full value.  You are
now wanting, principal and interest, exactly
nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty-three
pounds, ten shillings, and fourpence.  He
cannot pay this money—indeed, I question
if he could by any chance find one-fourth of
it, and you are in a position to foreclose at
once."

"You mean that I can sell him up?" said
Martin Nelthorp bluntly.

"Lock, stock, and barrel!" replied Mr. Postlethwaite.

Martin Nelthorp rubbed his chin.

"It's no very nice thing to ruin a man—and
his family with him," he remarked.

Mr. Postlethwaite again coughed.  He took
off his gold-rimmed glasses and affected to
exercise great care in polishing them.

"Is there any particular reason why you
should consider Sutton before considering
yourself?" he said softly.

Martin Nelthorp's face darkened, and a
hard, almost vindictive look came into his eyes.
The hand which held his ash-plant stick
tightened about it.

"No!" he said.  "That there isn't!  On
the contrary——"

"Aye, just so, just so!" said the solicitor.
"Of course, that's an old tale now, but old
wounds will rankle, my dear sir, old wounds
will rankle!"

Martin Nelthorp stared hard at Mr. Postlethwaite
from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows.
He got up slowly, and buttoned his great
driving-coat and put on his broad-brimmed,
low-crowned hat, still staring at the man of law.

"Well, I'll bid you good day," he said
"It's time I was getting home, and I've still to
meet a man at the George and Dragon.  Do
no more in that matter till you see me again—of
course, Sutton doesn't know that I bought
up the two mortgages?"

"He hasn't an idea of it, my dear sir,"
answered the solicitor.

Martin Nelthorp hesitated a moment, then
nodded as if to emphasize what he had just
said, and again exchanging farewells with
Mr. Postlethwaite, went out into the market-place
of the little country town, now relapsing into
somnolence at the end of an October day.  He
stood at the foot of Mr. Postlethwaite's steps
for a moment, apparently lost in thought, and
then moved slowly off in the direction of the
George and Dragon.  The man whom he
expected to meet there had not yet arrived; he
sat down in the parlour, empty of any presence
but his own, and gave himself up to reflection.
At his mercy—at last!—after nearly thirty
years of waiting, at his mercy!  The only
enemy he had ever known, the only man he
had ever had cause to hate with a bitter,
undying hatred, was now by the decrees of destiny,
by the whirling of fortune's wheel, brought
within his power.  If he pleased, he, Martin
Nelthorp, could ruin Richard Sutton, could
turn him out of the old place in which the
Suttons had lived for generations, could sell
every yard of land, every stick of furniture that
he possessed, could leave him and his—beggars.

And as he sat there in the gloomy parlour,
staring with brooding eyes into the fire, he said
to himself—Why not?  After all, it had been
said in a long distant age—*An eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth*!  Again he said to
himself—Why not, now that the hour and the
opportunity had come?

Nelthorp let his mind go back.  He was
now nearly sixty, a hale, hearty man, the biggest
and cleverest farmer in those parts, rich,
respected, made much of by the great folk,
looked up to by the little; a man of influence
and power.  He was going down into the
valley of life under a fine sunset and soft
evening airs, and there were few who did not
envy him a prosperous career and the prospect
of a green old age.  But Martin Nelthorp had
always carried a trouble, a rankling sorrow in
his breast, and he was thinking of it as he sat
staring with sombre eyes at the dull red glare
of the sullen cinders in the grate.  It was the
worst sort of sorrow that could befall a man of
his type of character, for he was both sensitive
and proud, quick to feel an injury or a slight,
slow to let the memory of either pass from him.
It is said of a Yorkshireman that he will carry
a stone in his pocket for ten years in
expectation of meeting an enemy, and turn it at the
end of that time if the enemy has not chanced
along.  Martin Nelthorp might have turned his
stone twice, but he would have done so with no
feeling of vindictiveness.  There was nothing
vindictive about him, but he had a stern,
Israelitish belief in justice and in retribution.

The incidents—mean, ignoble—of his wrong
came up before him as he sat there waiting, and
their colours were as fresh as ever.  Five-and-twenty
years before he had been on the verge
of marriage with Lavinia Deane, celebrated all
the countryside over for her beauty and her
vivacity.  Everything was arranged; the
wedding-day was fixed; the guests invited; the
bride's finery sent home.  Suddenly came news
that made women weep and men smile.  Almost
on the eve of the wedding Lavinia ran
away with Richard Sutton, and was married to
him in a distant town.  It was a bad business,
said everybody, for Richard Sutton had been
Martin Nelthorp's bosom friend from childhood,
and was to have been his best man at the
wedding.  Nobody could conceive how the
thing had come about; the girl had always
seemed to be in love with Martin, and had
never been seen in company with Sutton.  But
there the facts were—they were married, and
Martin Nelthorp was a bitterly disappointed
and wronged man.  The man who broke the
ill news to him would never speak of how he
received that news, of what passed between
them, or of what he said on hearing of the
falseness of his sweetheart and the treachery of his
friend, but it was commonly rumoured that he
swore some dreadful oath of vengeance on the
man and woman who had wrecked his life.
And the neighbours and the people of the
district watched eagerly to see what would
happen.

But years went on and nothing happened.
Richard Sutton and his wife stayed away from
the village for some time; there was no
necessity for their immediate return, for Sutton had
a fine business as a corn-miller and could afford
to appoint a capable manager in his absence.
But they came back at last, and as Martin
Nelthorp's farm was within a mile of the mill, the
busybodies wondered how things would go
when the two men met.  Somehow they never
did meet—at least, no one ever heard of their
meeting.  Nelthorp kept himself to his farm;
Sutton to his mill.  Years went by, and things
resolved themselves into a state of quiescence
or indifferentism: the men passed each other
in the market-place or on the highroad and
took no heed.  But keen-eyed observers used
to note that when they passed in this way
Sutton used to go by with averted head and
downcast eye, while Nelthorp strode or rode on with
his head in the air and his eye fixed straight
before him.

Whether there had been a curse put upon
them or not, Sutton and his wife did not thrive.
Almost from the time of their marriage the
business went down.  In his grandfather's and
father's days there had been little competition;
the opening up of the countryside by railways
made a great difference to Sutton's trade.  His
machinery became out of date, and he
neglected to replace it with new until much of his
business had slipped away from him.  One way
and another things went from bad to worse; he
had to borrow, and to borrow again, always
hoping for a turn in the tide which never came.
And eventually, through the instrumentality of
Mr. Postlethwaite, everything that he had was
mortgaged to Martin Nelthorp.

Martin, during these years, had prospered
exceedingly.  He had been fortunate in
everything in his life, except his love affair.  He
had money to begin with—plenty and to spare
of it—and he knew how to lay it out to the
best advantage.  He was one of the first to see
the importance of labour-saving machinery and
to introduce it on his land in good time.  Again,
there was nothing to distract his attention from
his land.  He put all thought of marriage out
of his head when Lavinia proved false to him;
indeed, he was never afterwards known to
speak to a woman except on business.  For
some years he lived alone in the old farmhouse
in which he had been born.  Then his only
sister lost her husband, and came to live with
Martin, bringing with her her one child, a boy,
who had been named after his uncle.  Very
soon she, too, died, and the boy henceforward
formed Martin's one human interest.  He
devoted himself to him; educated him; taught
him all that he himself knew of farming, and
let it be known that when his time came his
nephew would step into his shoes.  The two
were inseparable; now, when the boy had come
to man's age and the man had grown grey, they
were known for many a mile round as Old
Martin and Young Martin.

Old Martin knew, as he sat by the parlour
fire, that the old feeling of hatred against
Richard Sutton was by no means dead within
him.  He had robbed him of the woman he
loved, the only woman he ever could love, and,
as the solicitor had said, the old wound still
rankled.  Well, it was in his power now to
take his revenge—his enemy was at his feet.
But—the woman?  She, too, would be ruined,
she would be a beggar, an outcast.  It would
be turning her out on the road.  Well—his face
grew stern and his eyes hard as he thought of
it—had she not once turned him out on a road,
longer, harder to tread than that?  *An eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth....*

It never occurred to him to ask himself if
there were any children who might be affected.

The man who presently came in to keep his
appointment with Martin remarked afterwards
that he had never known Mr. Nelthorp so hard
and determined in bargaining as he was that evening.

When the bargaining was done Martin
Nelthorp got on his horse and rode home to his
comfortable fireside.  It was always a pleasure
to him to get under his own roof-tree after a
long day on the land or an afternoon at market
or auction.  There was the evening meal in
company with his nephew; the easy-chair and
the newspaper afterwards; the pipe of tobacco
and the glass of toddy before going to bed.
And Old Martin and Young Martin, as most
folk thereabouts were well aware, were more
like companions than uncle and nephew; they
had many tastes in common—hunting,
shooting, sport in general, and the younger man
was as keen a farmer as the elder.  There
was therefore no lack of company nor of
conversation round the parlour fire at the Manor
Farm.

But on this particular night, for the first time
since either of them could remember, there was
an unusual silence and restraint round the
supper-table.  Both men as a rule were good
trenchermen—a life in the open air helped
them to hearty and never-failing appetite.
This night neither ate much, and neither
seemed disposed to talk much.  Old Martin
knew why he himself was silent, and why he
was not inclined to food—he was too full of
the Sutton affair.  But he wondered what made
his nephew so quiet, and why he did not
replenish his plate after his usual fashion.  As
for Young Martin he had his own thoughts to
occupy him, but he, too, wondered what made
the elder so obviously thoughtful.

Old Martin remained quiet and meditative
all the evening.  He held the newspaper in his
hands, but he was not always reading it.  He
had his favourite pipe between his lips, but he
let it go out more than once.  Young Martin
was similarly preoccupied.  He affected to
read the *Mark Lane Express*, but he was more
often staring at the ceiling than at the printed
page.  It was not until after nine o'clock, at
which hour they generally began to think of
bed, that any conversation arose between them.
Young Martin started it, and with obvious
confusion and diffidence.

"There's a matter I wanted to mention to
you to-night, Uncle Martin," he said.  "Of
course, I won't speak of it if you've aught
serious to be thinking of, but you know I never
keep aught back from you, and——"

"What is it, my lad?" asked the elder man.
"Speak out—I was only just studying about a
business matter—it's naught."

Young Martin's diffidence increased.  He
shuffled his feet, became very red, and opened
and shut his mouth several times before he
could speak.

"It's like this," he said at last.  "If you've
no objection I should like to get married."

Old Martin started as if he had been shot.
He stared at his nephew as though he had said
that he was going to fly.

"Married!" he exclaimed.  "Why, my
lad—goodness be on us, you're naught but a
youngster yet!"

"I'm twenty-six, uncle," said Young Martin.

"Twenty-six!  Nay, nay—God bless my
soul, well, I suppose you are.  Time goes on
so fast.  Twenty-six!  Aye, of course," said
Old Martin.  "Aye, you must be, my lad.  Well,
but who's the girl?"

Young Martin became more diffident than
ever.  It seemed an age to him before he could
find his tongue.  But at last he blurted the
name out, all in a jerk.

"Lavinia Sutton!"

Martin Nelthorp dropped his pipe and his
paper.  He clutched the back of his elbow-chair
and stared at his nephew as he might have
stared at a ghost.  When he spoke his own
voice seemed to him to be a long, long way off.

"Lavinia Sutton?" he said hoarsely.  "What—Sutton
of the mill?"

"Yes," answered Young Martin.  Then he
added in a firm voice: "She's a good girl,
Uncle Martin, and we love each other true."

Old Martin made no immediate answer.  He
was more taken aback, more acutely distressed,
than his nephew knew.  To cover his confusion
he got up from his chair and busied himself in
mixing a glass of toddy.  A minute or two
passed before he spoke; when he did speak
his voice was not as steady as usual.

"He's a poor man, is Sutton, my lad," he said.

"I know that," said Young Martin stoutly.
"But it's Lavinia I want—not aught from him."

"He's in a very bad way indeed," remarked
the elder man.  "Very bad."

Young Martin made no reply.  Old Martin
took a long pull at the contents of his glass and
sat down.

"I didn't know Sutton had children," he said
absently.

"There's only Lavinia," said his nephew.

Lavinia!  The reiteration of the name cut
him like a knife: the sound of it sent him
back nearly thirty years.  Lavinia!  And no
doubt the girl would be like her mother.

"You're no doubt aware, my lad," he said,
after another period of silence, during which
his nephew sat watching him, "you're no doubt
aware that me and the Suttons is anything but
friends.  They—the man and his wife—wronged
me.  Never mind how.  They wronged me—cruel!"

Young Martin knew all about it, but he was
not going to say that he did.

"That was not Lavinia's fault, uncle," he
said softly.  "Lavinia—she wouldn't wrong
anybody."

Old Martin thought of the time when he had—faith
in women.  He sighed, and drinking off
his toddy, rose heavily, as if some weight had
been put on him.

"Well, my lad," he said, "this is one of those
things in which a man has to choose for
himself.  I shouldn't like to have it on my
conscience that I ever came between a man and a
woman that cared for each other.  But we'll
talk about it to-morrow.  I'm tired, and I've
got to look round yet."

Then he went out to fulfil his nightly task,
never neglected, never devolved to any one
else, of looking round the farmstead before
retiring to rest.  His nephew noticed that he
walked wearily.

Outside, in the fold around which horses and
cattle were resting or asleep in stall or byre,
Martin Nelthorp stood and stared at the stars
glittering high above him in a sky made clear
by October frost.  He was wondering what it
was that had brought this thing upon him—that
the one thing he cared for in the world
should seek alliance with the enemies of his life
who now, by the ordinance of God, lay in his
power.  He had given Young Martin all the
love that had been crushed down and crushed
out; he was as proud of him as if the lad
had been his own son by the woman he
cared for; he meant to leave him all that he
had; he was ambitious for him, and knowing
that he would be a rich man he had some
dreams of his nephew's figuring in the doings
of the county, as councillor or magistrate—honours
which he himself had persistently
refused.  And it had never once come within his
scheme of things that the boy should fix his
affections on the daughter of the enemy—it had
been a surprise to him to find out that he even
knew her.

Martin Nelthorp walked up and down his
fold and his stackyard for some time, staring
persistently at the stars.  Though he did not
say so to himself, he knew that that astute old
attorney, Postlethwaite, was right when he said
that old wounds rankle.  He knew, too, that
however much a man may strive to put away
the thought from himself, there is still enough
of the primitive savage left in all of us to make
revenge sweet.  And he had suffered through
these people—suffered as he had never thought
to suffer.  He looked back and remembered
what life had been to him up to the day when
the news of a man's treachery and a woman's
weakness had been brought to him, and he
clenched his fists and set his teeth, and all the
old black hatred came welling up in his heart.

"He shan't have her!" he said.  "He shan't
have her!  A good girl!—what good could
come of stock like that?"

Then he went indoors and up to his chamber,
and Young Martin heard him walking up and
down half the night.  When he himself got
down next morning his uncle had gone out:
the housekeeper, greatly upset by the fact,
seeing that such a thing had never happened
within her fifteen years' experience of him, said
that the master had had no more breakfast
than a glass of milk and a crust of bread,
and she hoped he was not sickening for an
illness.

At that moment Martin Nelthorp was riding
along the russet lanes towards the market-town.
There had been a strong frost in the
night, and the sky above him was clear as only
an autumn sky can be.  All about him were
patches of red and yellow and purple, for the
foliage was changing fast, and in the hedgerows
there were delicate webs of gossamer.  Usually,
as a great lover of Nature, he would have seen
these things—on this morning he rode straight
on, grim and determined.

He was so early at Mr. Postlethwaite's office
that he had to wait nearly half-an-hour for the
arrival of that gentleman.  But when
Mr. Postlethwaite came his client lost no time in
going straight to his point.

"I want all papers of mine relating to that
Sutton affair," he said.  "Before I settle what
I shall do I must read through 'em myself.
Give me the lot."

Mr. Postlethwaite made some would-be facetious
remark as to legal phraseology, but Martin
Nelthorp paid no attention to it.  He carried
the papers away with him in a big envelope,
and riding straight home at a smart pace, took
them into the little room which he used as an
office, and went carefully through them merely
to see that they were all there.  That done,
he tore certain of them in half, and enclosing
everything in another cover, he addressed it to
Richard Sutton.

Then Old Martin went into the parlour and
found Young Martin there, cleaning a gun.  He
clapped him on the shoulder, and the young
man, looking up, saw that something had gone
out of his elder's eyes and face.

"Now, my lad!" said Old Martin cheerily.
"You can marry the girl—and you can go and
make the arrangements this morning.  And
while you're there you can give this packet to
Richard Sutton—he'll understand what it is."

Then, before his nephew could find his
tongue, Martin Nelthorp strode over to the
kitchen door and called lustily for his breakfast.





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.. _`AN ARCADIAN COURTSHIP`:

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   CHAPTER IX


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   AN ARCADIAN COURTSHIP

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Sweetbriar Farm, when I went to visit my
cousin there, seemed to me a crystallization of
all the storied sweets of Arcadia as one reads
of them in the poets and the dreamers.  The
house itself was some five hundred years old;
it had diamond-paned windows framed in ivy;
on one side, where there was no ivy, the grey
walls were covered with clematis and
honeysuckle and jessamine.  There was a walled
garden, gay with blossom; there was an orchard,
where the blossom fell on lush grass in which
golden daffodils sprang up.  At the end of the
orchard ran a stream, brown and mysterious, in
whose deeper pools lurked speckled trout.  All
about the house and the garden and the orchard
the birds sang, for the nesting and breeding
season was scarce over, and at night, in a
coppice close by, a nightingale sang its heart
out to the rising moon.

Within the old farmstead everything was as
Arcadian as without.  The sitting-room—otherwise
the best parlour—was a dream of old oak,
old china, old pewter, and old pictures.  It smelt
always of roses and lavender—you could smoke
the strongest tobacco there without offence, for
the flower-scent was more powerful.  A dream,
too, was my sleeping-chamber, with lavender-kept
linen, its quaint chintz hangings, and its
deep window-seat, in which one could sit of a
night to see the moonlight play upon garden
and orchard, or of an early morning to watch
the dew-starred lawn sparkle in the fresh
sunlight.  And, once free of the house, there was
the great kitchen to admire, with its mighty
hearth, its old brass and pewter, its ancient
grandfather clock, its flitches and hams
hanging, side by side with bundles of dried herbs,
from the oaken rafters; and beyond it the dairy,
a cool and shadowy place where golden butter
was made out of snow-white cream; and beyond
that, again, the deep, dungeon-like cellar where
stood the giant casks of home-brewed
ale—nectar fit for the gods.

Nor were the folk who inhabited this Arcadia
less interesting than the Arcadia itself.  My
cousin Samuel is a fine specimen of an
Englishman, with a face like the rising sun and
an eye as blue as the cornflowers which grow in
his hedgerows.  There was his wife, a gay and
bustling lady of sixty youthful years, who was
never without a smile and a cheery word, and
who, like her good man, had but one regret,
which each bore with admirable resignation—that
the Lord had never blessed them with
children.  There were the people who came and
went about the farm—ruddy-faced and
brown-faced men, young maidens and old crones,
children in all stages of youthfulness.  And
there was also John William and there was
Susan Kate.

John William Marriner—who was usually
spoken of as John Willie—was the elder of the
two labourers who lived in the house.  He was
a youth of apparently one-and-twenty years of
age, and as straight and strong as a promising
ash-sapling.  Whether in his Sunday suit of
blue serge, or in his workaday garments of
corduroy, John Willie was a picture of rustic
health—his red cheeks always glowed, his blue
eyes were always bright; he had a Gargantuan
appetite, and when he was not smiling he was
whistling or singing.  Up with the lark and at
work all day, he spent his evenings in the
company of Susan Kate.

Susan Kate was the maid-of-all-work at
Sweetbriar Farm—a handsome, full-blown
English rose of nineteen, with cherry cheeks
and a pair of large, liquid, sloe-black eyes which
made her white teeth all the whiter.  It was an
idyll in itself to see Susan Kate—whose
surname was Sutton—milking the cows, or feeding
the calves out of a tin bucket; it was still more
of an idyll to watch her and John William
hanging over the orchard gate of an evening, the
day's work behind them and the nightingale
singing in the neighbouring coppice.

It seemed to me that Mr. Marriner and Miss
Sutton were certainly lovers, and that
matrimony was in their view.  Now and then they
went to church together, Susan Kate carrying
a clean handkerchief and a Prayer Book, John
Willie carrying Susan Kate's umbrella.
Sometimes they went for walks on a Sunday
afternoon; I more than once encountered them on
these occasions, and curiously observed the
manner of their love-making.  We invariably
met in shady lanes or woodland paths—Mr. Marriner
in his Sunday suit, with some hedgerow
flower in his buttonhole, invariably came
first, bearing Miss Sutton's umbrella, with which
he would occasionally switch the grass; Miss
Sutton, very rosy-cheeked, followed at a
distance of two yards.  They never seemed to hold
any discourse one with the other, but if they
looked sheepishly conscious, they were
undeniably happy.

Into this apparent Paradise suddenly entered
a serpent.

There came into the sitting-room one morning,
when I happened to be alone there, a Susan
Kate whom I had certainly not seen before.
This Susan Kate had evidently spent a
considerable part of the night in affliction—her
eyes were red and heavy, and there was even
then a suspicious quiver at the corners of her
red and pouting lips.  She laid the tablecloth,
set the plates and the knives and forks upon the
table as if it was in her mind to do an injury to them.

"Why, Susan Kate!" said I.  "What is the matter?"

Susan Kate's only immediate answer was to
sniff loudly, and to retire to the kitchen, whence
she presently returned with a cold ham, uncarven
as yet, and a crisp lettuce, either of which
were sights sufficient to cheer up the saddest
heart.  But Susan Kate was apparently indifferent
to any creature comforts.  She sniffed
again and disappeared again, and came back
with the eggs and the toast and the tea.

"I'm afraid, Susan Kate," said I, with all the
dignified gravity of middle age, "I'm afraid
you are in trouble."

Susan Kate applied a corner of her apron to
her left eye as she transferred a bowl of roses
from the sideboard to the middle of the
breakfast-table.  Then she found her tongue, and I
noticed that her hands trembled as she
rearranged my cup and saucer.

"It's all that there Lydia Lightowler!" she
burst out, with the suddenness of an April
shower.  "A nasty, spiteful Thing!"

I drew my chair to the table.

"And who is Lydia Lightowler, Susan
Kate?" I inquired.

Susan Kate snorted instead of sniffing.

"She's the new girl at the Spinney Farm,"
she answered.

"Oh!" I said.  "I didn't know they had a
new girl at the Spinney Farm.  Where's
Rebecca got to?"

"'Becca's mother," replied Susan Kate, "was
took ill very sudden, and 'Becca had to leave.
So this here Lydia Lightowler come in her
place.  And I wish she'd stopped where she
came from, wherever that may be!"

"Ah!" I said.  "And what has Lydia Lightowler
done, Susan Kate?"

Susan Kate, whose stormy eyes were fixed on
something in vacancy, and who was twisting
and untwisting her apron, looked as if she would
like to deliver her mind to somebody.

"Well, it isn't right if a young man's been
making up to a young woman for quite six
months that he should start carrying on with
another!" she burst out at last.  "It's more
than what flesh and blood can stand."

"Quite so, quite so, Susan Kate," I said.
"I quite appreciate your meaning.  So John
Willie——"

"I had to go on an errand to the Spinney
Farm last night," said Susan Kate; "to fetch
a dozen of ducks' eggs it was, for the missis,
and lo and behold, who should I come across
walking in Low Field Lane but John William
and Lydia Lightowler—a nasty cat!  So when
I saw them I turned and went another way,
and when John William came home him and
me had words, and this morning he wouldn't
speak."

Here Susan Kate's tears began to flow
afresh, and hearing the approach of her mistress
she suddenly threw her apron over her head
and rushed from the parlour, no doubt to have
a good cry in some of the many recesses of the
ancient farmstead.  It was plain that Susan
Kate's heart was fashioned of the genuine
feminine stuff.

In the course of my walk that morning I
crossed the field in which Mr. John William
Marriner was performing his daily task.
Usually he sang or whistled all day long, and
you could locate him by his melody at least a
quarter of a mile away.  But on this particular
morning—a very beautiful one—John William
was silent.  He neither whistled nor sang, and
when I got up to him I saw that his
good-natured face was clouded over.  In fact, John
William looked glum, not to say sulky.  He
was usually inclined to chat, but upon this
occasion his answers were short and mainly
monosyllabic, and I did not tarry by him.  It
was plain that John William was unhappy.

So there was a cloud over Arcadia.  It
appeared to increase in density.  It was on a
Tuesday when it first arose; after Wednesday
Susan Kate wept no more, but went about with
dry eyes and her nose in the air, wearing an
injured expression, while John William
conducted his daily avocations in a moody and
sombre fashion.  There were no more idylls of
the orchard gate, and the farmhouse kitchen
heard no merry laughter.

But on the next Monday morning I found
Susan Kate laying the breakfast-table and
showing undoubted signs of grief—in fact, she
looked as if she had cried her eyes out.  And
this time there was no need to invite her
confidence, for she was only too anxious to pour
out her woes.

"He walked her to church and home again
last night!" exclaimed Susan Kate, nearly
sobbing.  "And they sat in the same pew and
sang out of the same book, same as what him
and me used to do.  And Bob Johnson, he saw
them going down Low Field Lane, and he said
they were hanging arms!"

"Dear, dear, dear!" said I.  "This, Susan
Kate, is getting serious."

"And it's the Flower Show at Cornborough
this week," continued Susan Kate, "and he'd
promised faithful to take me to it, but now I
expect he'll take her—a nasty, mean, spiteful cat!"

"John William's conduct is most extraordinary,"
I said.  "It is—yes, Susan Kate, it
is reprehensible.  Reprehensible!"

Susan Kate looked at me half suspiciously.

"I don't want to say nothing against John
Willie," she said.  "I know what's the matter
with him.  It's 'cause she dresses so fine—I saw
her the first Sunday she came to church.  And
John Willie has such an eye for finery.  But
fine feathers makes fine birds.  I could be just
as fine as what she is if I hadn't had to send
my wages home to my mother when father broke
his leg the other week.  There's a hat in Miss
Duxberry's window at Cornborough that would
just suit me if I could only buy it.  I'd like to
see what John Willie would say then.  'Cause
I'm as good-looking as what she is, any day,
for all she's got yellow hair!"

Then Susan Kate retired, presumably to
weep some more tears.  But next morning she
was all pride again.

"He's going to take her to the Flower Show,"
she said, as she set the breakfast-table.  "He
told Bob Johnson so last night, and Bob told
me this morning."

"That's very bad, Susan Kate," I said.  "A
man should never break his promise.  I'm
surprised at John William.  Hasn't he said
anything to you about it?"

"We haven't spoken a word to each other
since I gave him a piece of my mind about
meeting him and her in Low Field Lane," said
Susan Kate.  "Nay, if he prefers her to me he
can have her, and welcome.  I shall have naught
no more to do with young men—they're that
fickle!"

"Shall you go to the Flower Show, Susan
Kate?" I inquired.

"No, I shan't!" snapped out Susan Kate.
"They can have it to themselves, and then
they'll happen to be suited."

I walked into Cornborough during the day
and discovered the whereabouts of Miss Duxberry's
shop.  It was not difficult to pick out
the hat to which Susan Kate had referred, nor
to realize that the girl had uncommonly good
taste, and that it would look very well indeed
on her wealth of raven hair.  A label attached
to its stand announced that it came from Paris,
and that its price was a guinea—well, Susan
Kate was well worthy of twenty-one shillings'-worth
of the latest Parisian fashion.  Besides,
there was John William's future to consider.
So I dispatched the Paris hat to Sweetbriar
Farm by a specially commissioned boy, who
solemnly promised to remember with what duty
he was charged.

That evening, after my return to the farm,
and following upon my supper and a short
conference with Susan Kate, I made my way to the
courtyard, where Bob Johnson, the second
"liver-in," was invariably to be found in his
leisure moments, seated on the granary steps,
and engaged either in plaiting whip-lashes or
making whistles out of ash-twigs.  Mr. Johnson
was a stolid, heavy-faced, heavily-fashioned
young gentleman of twenty, with just sufficient
intelligence to know a plough from a harrow,
and a firm conviction that the first duty of all
well-regulated citizens was to eat and drink as
much as possible.  I gave him a cigar, at which
he immediately began to suck as if it had been
his own pipe, and passed the time of day with him.

"I suppose you'll be going to the Flower
Show to-morrow?" I said.

Mr. Johnson shook his head over his whiplash.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered.  "The
master's given us a half-day off, but I'm none
so great on them occasions.  I doubt I shan't
be present."

"Look here," I said, "would you like to earn
half-a-sovereign?"

In order to emphasize this magnificent offer
I drew the coin alluded to from my waistcoat
pocket and let the evening sun shine on it.
Mr. Johnson's eyes twinkled and he opened his
mouth cavernously.

"How?" he said, and scratched his right ear.

"Now listen to me," I said; "to-morrow
afternoon you're to put your best things on, and
you're to take Susan Kate to the Flower Show.
I'll give you two shillings to pay you in, and
five shillings to take with you, and you shall
have five shillings more when you come back."

Mr. Johnson scratched his ear again.

"Happen Susan Kate won't go," he said,
dubiously.  "I've never walked her out anywheres."

"Susan Kate will go with you," I said,
decisively.  "You be ready at three o'clock.
And remember, you're not to say a word about
this to anybody—not one word to John William.
If you do, there'll be no ten shillings."

Mr. Johnson nodded his head.

"John Willie's going to the Flower Show,"
he remarked.  "He's going with the new
servant-lass at the Spinney Farm.  Him and
Susan Kate's fallen out.  I say, mister!"

"Well?" I replied.

"I'm not a great one for lasses," said
Mr. Johnson.  "I don't want Susan Kate to think
that I'm courting her.  'Cause I'm not going to."

"Susan Kate will quite understand matters,"
I said.

"Well, of course ten shilling is ten shilling,"
murmured Mr. Johnson.  "Otherwise I should
have stopped at home."

At half-past two next day I took up a position
in the garden from which I could see the setting
out to the Flower Show.  Presently issued forth
John William, clad in his best and sporting a
yellow tea-rose—he marched valiantly away, but
his face was gloomy and overcast.  A quarter
of an hour later Miss Sutton and Mr. Johnson
appeared round the corner of the house.  The
lady looked really handsome in her best gown
and the new hat, and it was very evident to my
jaded eyes that she knew her own worth and
was armed for conquest.  There was a flush on
her cheek and a light in her eye which meant a
good deal.  As for Mr. Johnson, who was
attired in a black cut-away coat and slate-blue
trousers, and wore a high collar and a billycock
hat two sizes too small for him, he looked about
as happy as if he were going to instant
execution, and gazed miserably about him as though
seeking some deliverance.  He walked a yard
in the rear of Susan Kate—and Susan Kate
seemed to regard him as one regards a dog at heel.

It might have been about an hour and a half
afterwards that Mr. Johnson came shambling
down the meadow towards the farm—alone.
He looked thoughtful, but infinitely relieved, as
if some great weight had been lifted from his
mind.  I went out into the courtyard, and found
him sitting on the wall of the well.

"You are soon home again," I remarked.

"Yes," he answered, "yes.  I didn't see no
call to stop there—Flower Shows is naught in
my line.  Of course I did what you said,
mister—I took Susan Kate there, and went in with
her, and walked her round."

"And where is Susan Kate?" I inquired.

Mr. Johnson took off the too-small billycock
and scratched his head.

"Why," he said, "she's with John Willie.
Ye see, when her and me got there I walked her
round the big tent, and we met John Willie and
that there Lydia Lightowler from the Spinney.
Susan Kate took no notice of 'em, but passed
'em as if they were so much dirt, and John
Willie he looked at us as black as thunder.
Well, we went on, and we'd gotten to a quietish
part when up comes John Willie by himself and
gets hold of me by the arm.  'What does thou
mean,' he says, fierce-like, 'by walking my lass
out?  Thee hook it, else I'll break every bone
in thy body!'  'I didn't know Susan Kate were
thy lass now,' I said.  'I thought ye'd
quarrelled.'  'Hook it!' he says.  'Oh, very well,'
I says.  'Ye can settle it among yourselves.'  So
I left Susan Kate with him and came home.
Ye might give me that other five shilling now,
if ye please, mister."

Then Mr. Johnson retired to assume more
comfortable attire, and I went for a walk to
meditate.  And coming back in the soft twilight
I came across John William and Susan Kate.
They were lingering at the wicket gate, and his
arm was round her waist, and just as I caught
sight of them he stooped and kissed her.

That, of course, accounted for the extraordinary
happiness in Susan Kate's face when
she laid the cloth for supper.





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.. _`THE WAY OF THE COMET`:

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   CHAPTER X


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   THE WAY OF THE COMET

.. vspace:: 2

If he should happen to be alive (and if he is
he must now be a very old man, and have had
ample time for reflection about more things
than one), Bartholomew Flitcroft will have
heard of the comet which is now in our
neighbourhood with what are usually described as
mingled feelings.  It is not quite within my
recollection as to when it exactly was that the
last comet of any note visited us; if
Bartholomew exists, and has preserved his memory, he
has better cause to know than most men.  At
least, that may be so or may not be so, because
no one can ever tell how anything is going to
turn out.  When that particular comet had
come and gone Bartholomew was a sorely
disappointed man; whether he really had reason
to be, no one will ever know.

As regards Bartholomew's status in the
world, he was a smallish farmer at
Orchardcroft—a middle-aged, raw-boned, hatchet-faced
man, whose greatest difficulty in life was to
make up his mind about anything.  If an idea
about sowing spring wheat or planting potatoes
came into his head as he walked about his land,
he would stand stock still wherever he was and
scratch his ear and think and consider until his
mind was in a state of chaos.  He had always
been like that, and, being a bachelor, he got
worse as he got older.  He would never do
anything unless he had what he called studied
it from every side, and once when one of his
stacks got on fire he was so long in deciding as
to which of the two neighbouring towns he
would send to for the fire-engines that the stack
was burned, and three others with it.

So far as was known to any one acquainted
with him, Bartholomew never turned his attention
to the subject of marriage until he was well
over forty years of age.  Whether it then
occurred to him because his housekeeper married
the butler at the Hall nobody ever could say
with any certainty, but it is certain that he then
began to look about for a wife.  Naturally he
exercised his characteristic caution in doing so,
and he also hit upon a somewhat original plan.
He kept his eyes open whenever he went to
church or market, and, it being a fine spring
and summer when the idea of matrimony came
to him, he began to ride of a Sunday evening
to the churches and chapels in neighbouring
villages with a view to looking over the likely
ladies.  That was how he at last decided to
marry Widow Collinson, of Ulceby.

Now, Widow Collinson was a pleasant-faced,
well-preserved woman of some forty
summers, whose first husband, Jabez Collinson,
had had a very nice business as corn miller at
Ulceby, and had consequently left her
comfortably provided for.  When he died she kept
the business on, and it was said that she was
already improving it and doing better than
Jabez had done.  Such a woman, of course,
was soon run after, and all the more so because
she had no encumbrances, as they call children
in that part of the country; there were at least
half-a-dozen men making sheep's eyes at her
before Bartholomew came upon the scene.
Whatever it was that made her take some sort
of liking to Bartholomew nobody could understand,
but the fact is that she did—at any rate,
Bartholomew began riding over to Ulceby at
least three times a week, and it was well known
that the widow always gave him a hot supper,
because the neighbours smelt the cooking.
One night she cooked him a couple of ducks,
with stuffing of sage and onions, and, of course,
everybody knew then that they were contemplating
matrimonial prospects.  And those who
were acquainted with Bartholomew's prevalent
characteristic were somewhat surprised that he
had made up his mind so quickly.

It was always considered in Orchardcroft
that if it had not been for Mr. Pond, the
schoolmaster, the marriage of Mrs. Collinson and
Mr. Flitcroft would have been duly solemnized
that very year.  Bartholomew might have
caused some delay at the post, but it was plain
that he meant business if he once got off.  And
it was certainly the school-master who made
him do what he did.  He and Mr. Pond were
near neighbours, and they had been in the habit
of smoking their pipes in one or the other's
house for many years.  They would have a
drop of something comforting, and sit over the
fire, and Mr. Pond used to tell Bartholomew
the news, because Bartholomew never read
anything except the market reports and Old
Moore's Almanack.  And one night when they
were thus keeping each other company and
Bartholomew was thinking of Mrs. Collinson and
her mill, Mr. Pond remarked, with a shake of
the head—

"This is very serious news about this comet,
Mr. Flitcroft."

"What news?" asked Bartholomew.

"Why about this comet that's hastening
towards us," replied Mr. Pond.

"What's a comet?" inquired Bartholomew.

"A comet," said Mr. Pond, in the tones he
used when he was teaching the children, "a
comet is a heavenly body of fire which rushes
round space at a prodigious rate of speed.
It's rushing towards us now, sir, at millions and
millions of miles a day!"

"How big is it?" asked Bartholomew.

"Much bigger than what our earth is,
Mr. Flitcroft," answered the school-master.  "Its
tail is twenty millions of miles long."

"And you say it's coming here?" continued
Bartholomew.

"So the scientific gentlemen are agreed, sir,"
said Mr. Pond.  "Yes, this vast body of fire is
rushing upon us as wild beasts rush on their
prey.  It may be mercifully turned aside and
only brush us with its tail; it may crash right
upon us, and then——"

Mr. Pond finished with an expressive "Ah!"
and Bartholomew gaped at him.

"Is it all true?" he asked.  "Is it in the
newspapers?"

"The newspapers, sir, are just now full of
it," replied the school-master.  "It's the topic
of the hour.  Sir Gregory Gribbin, the great
astronomer, says that we shall most certainly
be crushed by the tail.  And if the tail is
composed of certain gases—as he thinks it will
be—well!"

"What'll happen?" asked Bartholomew.

"We shall all be asphyxiated—smothered!"
answered Mr. Pond, solemnly.  "We shall be
withered up like chaff by fierce fire."

When Mr. Pond had departed Bartholomew
took up the *Yorkshire Post*, and for the first
time ignored the market reports, over which he
generally pored for an hour every evening.
He read a lot of learned matter about the
rapidly approaching comet, and he went to bed
with his brain in a whirl.  Next morning he
ignored the market reports again, and let his
coffee get cold while he read more about the
comet.

It so chanced that Bartholomew was unable
to visit Ulceby for several days after that,
owing to sickness breaking out amongst his
cattle, and when he next went the widow
noticed that he looked much worried and was
preoccupied.  As the cattle were all right
again, she wondered what was the matter, but
at first got no satisfactory explanation.
Bartholomew seemed unusually thoughtful, and
twiddled his thumbs a great deal.

"I say," he said, "I—I think we'd better
put off the idea of being wed until we see what
this comet does—eh?"

"What comet?" asked the amazed widow.

"Why, this comet that's approaching,"
answered Bartholomew.  "It's coming like a
bullet.  I was going to put the banns up both
here and at Orchardcroft this week, but I don't
see what use it is getting married if we're all
going to be burned to ashes in the twinkling of
an eye.  I'll read you all the latest news about it."

With that Bartholomew, whom Mrs. Collinson
was by that time regarding with mingled
feelings of apprehension and something closely
bordering on contempt, pulled out a quantity
of newspaper cuttings which he had carefully
snipped out of various journals—his taste for
science having suddenly developed.  He read
out the astronomical terms with sonorous voice.

"It's a very serious thing," he said.  "I think
we must put matters off.  The comet 'll be here
soon."

"I suppose you're going to look out for it?"
said Mrs. Collinson in a constrained voice.

"Why, me and Mr. Pond, our school-master,
has bought a telescope," replied Bartholomew,
grandly.  "Yes, we propose to make what they
call observations."

"I'm sure you couldn't be better employed,"
remarked Mrs. Collinson.

The next night, and the next, and the next
again, and for several nights Mr. Pond and
Mr. Flitcroft engaged in astronomical pursuits.
Then, Sunday coming, Mr. Flitcroft heard
strange news which sent him post-haste to his
widow.  She met him at her door—coldly.
Mr. Flitcroft gasped out a question.

"Yes," she said, "it is true.  Me and
Mr. Samuel Green have been cried in church this
morning, and I'm going to marry him.  So now
you know."

"But what shall I do?" cried Bartholomew,
scratching his ear.

"Do?" said Mrs. Collinson.  "You can do
what your precious comet 'll do.  Go back where
you came from!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BROTHERS IN AFFLICTION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   BROTHERS IN AFFLICTION

.. vspace:: 2

It used to be said all over the countryside that
you might go for a long day's march and search
all the towns and villages you came across
and then return home without finding such an
example of David-and-Jonathan-like affection
and devotedness as was seen in the lives of
Thomas and Matthew Pogmore.  To begin
with, they were twins who had lost both parents
before they themselves attained to manhood;
this sad occurrence seemed to draw them
closely together, and at the age of fifty they
were still living, bachelors, in the ancient
farmhouse wherein they had first seen the light of
day.  They had never ran after women, young
or otherwise, and everybody who knew them—as
everybody did—said that they would live
and die single.  Some uncharitable people said
they were much too mean to marry, for they
had a great reputation for economy and were
well known to look at both sides of a sixpence
a long time before they parted with it.  And
yet there were other people who wondered that
they never had married, for they were both
well-set-up, good-looking, rosy-cheeked,
well-preserved men, who had been handsome in early
manhood and were still good to look upon.  In
all respects they were very much alike in
appearance—they were alike, too, in the fact that
each possessed a pair of small, sly eyes which
always seemed to be on the outlook.

The domestic life of Thomas and Matthew
in their old farmhouse was one of quiet and
peaceful days.  They were well-to-do, and the
land they farmed was good.  They had a
housekeeper, some ten years their senior, who
knew all their ways.  They lived the most
regular of lives.  At eight o'clock they
breakfasted.  From nine until one they were out and
about their fields or their folds.  At one they
dined, glanced at the newspaper, smoked a
pipe, drank one glass, and took a forty seconds
nap, each in his own easy-chair.  When they
were thus refreshed they went out into the land
again until half-past five, when high tea was set
in the parlour.  After its consumption—and
they were hearty eaters—the spirit-case was set
out with the cigars, and the peaceful duties of
the evening began.  Sometimes they read more
of the newspapers; sometimes they talked of
pigs or turnips or the different qualities of
artificial manure.  And at precisely ten o'clock,
having consumed exactly so much grog and
smoked exactly so many pipes or cigars, they
retired to bed and slept the sleep of the
innocent.  It was a harmless life and very soothing.

This life, of course, had its occasional
variations.  There was, for instance, the weekly
market-day, when they attended the little town
four miles off, did business, dined at the
ordinary and took their market allowance.  They
were generous about the latter, as they were in
all matters of food and drink, but nobody ever
saw them market-merry—they were much too
cautious and wise for that.  Then there were
occasional fair-days to attend, and sometimes
they journeyed into distant parts of the country
to buy sheep or cattle—these occurrences made
a break in life for them, but it was seldom that
their well-fed forms were not found one on
each side of the hearthrug when the shades of
evening fell.

And then, greatly to the astonishment of
Matthew, Thomas suddenly began a new
departure.  As a rule the brothers rode home
together from market; there came a period when
he was missing when going home time arrived,
and Matthew had to go home without him.
On three occasions he got back late, and made
excuses.  He began to make more excuses
about riding into the market-town of an
evening, and his twin-brother was often left alone.
Matthew grew alarmed, then frightened.  And
when at last he realized that Thomas, when he
went off in this mysterious way, invariably
dressed himself up, Matthew broke into a cold
sweat and dared to voice a horrible suspicion.

"He's after a woman!"

He glanced round the comfortable parlour
and thought what it might mean if Thomas
introduced a wife into it.  She would, of
course, want to alter everything—women always
did.  She would say that cigars made the
curtains smell, and forbid the decanters to be
brought out until bed-time.  And she would
expect, no doubt, to have his easy-chair.  The
prospects were terrible.

"Who can she be?" he wondered, and his
consternation was so great that he let his cigar
go out and his grog turn cold.

Thomas came home that night with very
bright eyes and a distinguished air.  He mixed
himself a drink and enthroned himself in his
easy-chair.

"Matthew, my lad!" he said in his grandest
manner.  "Matthew, I've no doubt that people
have oft wondered how it was that we never
entered into the matrimonial condition of
life."

Matthew shook his head sadly.  Something
was coming.

"Matrimony, Thomas," he answered feebly,
"matrimony, now, is a thing that never occurred
to me."

Thomas waved his hand comprehendingly.

"Just so, just so, Matthew," said he.  "Of
course, we were too young to think about such
things until—until recently.  A man shouldn't
think of them things until he's come to an age
of discretion."

Matthew took a moody sip of the contents of
his glass.

"Was you thinking of that state of life
yourself, Thomas?" he inquired.

Thomas grew in grandeur and importance
until he looked like a large frog.

"I was about to make the announcement,
Matthew," he said, "the important announcement
that I am about to lead to the altar
Mrs. Walkinshaw——"

"What, her of the Dusty Miller!" exclaimed
Matthew, naming a well-known hostelry in the
market-town.

"Mrs. Walkinshaw—Mrs. Thomas Pogmore
as will be—certainly is proprietor of that house,
Matthew," replied Thomas.  "Yes, she is!"

"Well—well!" said Matthew.  "Ah, just
so."  He glanced at his brother with the sly
Pogmore expression.  "I should think she's
got a pretty warmly-lined purse, eh, Thomas?—he
was a well-to-do man, was her first
husband."

"I have no doubt Mrs. Thomas Pogmore as
will be can bring a nice little fortune with her,
Matthew," said the prospective bridegroom,
with great complacency, "a ve-ry nice little
fortune.  There'll be what the late Mr. Walkinshaw
left, and what she's saved, and there'll
be the goodwill of the business, which should
make a pretty penny."

"And there's no encumbrances, I think,"
remarked Matthew.

"There is no encumbrances," said Thomas.
"No, it's a comfortable thing to reflect upon is
that.  I—I couldn't abear to have a pack
of—of children about the place."

Matthew glanced about him once more and
once more sighed.

"Well, of course, it'll make a difference," he
began.

Thomas raised a deprecatory hand.

"Not to you, Matthew!" he said.  "Not in
the least, brother.  Mrs. Thomas Pogmore as
will be knows that one-half of everything here
is yours.  It'll only mean buying another
armchair, which can be placed in the middle of the
hearth there."

"Well, of course, with having been in the
public line she'll know what men is," said
Matthew, somewhat reassured.  "I couldn't
like to see anything altered in the old place
nor my habits interfered with."

Mr. Thomas Pogmore intimated that everything
would continue on the old lines, and
presently marched off to bed, humming a gay tune.
He was evidently in high good humour with
himself, and he continued to be so for some
weeks, during which period Mrs. Walkinshaw,
who was a handsome, black-eyed widow of
presumably forty-five, occasionally drove over
and took tea with the twins, possibly with the
view of getting acquainted with her future
home.  She was a sprightly and vivacious
dame, and Matthew thought that Thomas had
shown good taste.

And then came a night when Thomas, arriving
home earlier than usual, entered the parlour
looking much distressed, threw himself into a
chair and groaned.  That he felt in a very bad
way Matthew immediately deduced from the
fact that he neglected to supply himself with
spirituous refreshment.

"What's the matter, Thomas?" inquired the
younger twin.

Thomas groaned still more loudly.

"Matter!" he exclaimed at last, making a
mighty effort and resorting to the decanters
and cigars.  "Matter a deal, Matthew.  I
dare say," he continued, after he had drunk his
potion with a suggestion of its being bitter as
aloes, "I dare say I should have been warned,
for there's a many proverbs about the frailty and
deceit of women.  But, of course, never having
had aught to do with them I was unarmed for
the contest, so to speak."

"Then she's been a-deceiving of you,
Thomas?" asked Matthew.

"Deceived me cruel," sighed Thomas.  "I
shall never believe in that sex again."

Matthew blew out a few spirals of blue smoke
before he asked a further question.

"I could hope," he said at last, "I could
hope, Thomas, that it were not on the money
question?"

Thomas shook his head dolefully, afterwards
replenishing his glass.

"It were on the money question, Matthew,"
he said.  "I understood that she'd come to me
with a considerable fortune; a very considerable
fortune!"

"Well?" asked Matthew, breathlessly.

Thomas spread out his hands with a
despairing gesture.

"All passes from her if she marries again!"
he said tersely.

"Is it true?" inquired Matthew.

"Told me so herself—this very evening,"
answered Thomas.

A dead silence came over the farmhouse
parlour.  Thomas lighted a cigar and smoked
pensively; Matthew refilled his churchwarden
pipe and puffed blue rings at the ceiling,
whereat he gazed as if in search of inspiration.  It
was he who spoke first.

"It's a bad job, this, Thomas," he said; "a
very bad job.  Of course, you'll not be for
carrying out your part of the arrangement?"

"I have been cruel deceived," said Thomas.

"At the same time," said Matthew, "when
this here engagement was made between you,
you didn't make it a condition that the fortune
should come with her?"

"No-o!" answered Thomas.

"Then, of course, if you throw her over she
can sue you for breach of promise, and as
you're a well-to-do man the damages would be
heavy," remarked Matthew.

Thomas groaned.

"What must be done, Thomas, must be done
by management," said the younger twin.  "We
must use diplomacy, as they term it.  You
must go away for a while.  It's a slack time
with us now, and you've naught particular to
do—go and have a fortnight at Scarborough
Spaw, and when that's over go and see Cousin
Happleston at his farm in Durham; he'll be
glad to see you.  And while you're away I'll
get the matter settled—leave it to me."

Thomas considered that very good advice
and said he would act on it, and he went off to
his room earlier than usual in order to pack a
portmanteau, so that he could set off from the
immediate scene of his late woes early next
morning.  When he had departed Matthew
mixed himself his usual nightcap, and, having
taken a taste of it to see that it was according
to recipe, proceeded to warm his back at the
fire, to rub his hands, and to smile.

"It were a good conception on my part to
speak to Lawyer Sharpe on that matter," he
thought to himself.  "I wonder Thomas never
considered of it."

He drew a letter from his breast-pocket, and
read it slowly through.  This is what he read—

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"PRIVATE
10, *Market Place, Cornborough*,
*May* 11, 18—.

.. vspace:: 1

"MR. MATTHEW POGMORE.

.. vspace:: 1

"DEAR SIR,—In accordance with your
instructions I have caused the will of the late
Mr. Samuel Walkinshaw, of the Dusty Miller
Hotel in this town, to be perused at Somerset
House.  With the exception of a few trifling
legacies to servants and old friends, the whole
of the deceased's fortune was left unconditionally
to the widow, there being no restriction of
any kind as to her possible second marriage.
The gross personalty was £15,237 odd; the
net, £14,956 odd.  In addition to this the
freehold, good-will, stock and furniture of the
Dusty Miller was also left to the widow.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"I am, dear sir, yours faithfully,
    "SAMUEL SHARPE."

.. vspace:: 2

Matthew folded this epistle carefully in its
original folds and restored it to his pocket, still
smiling.

"Ah!" he murmured.  "What a thing it is
to have a little knowledge and to know how to
take advantage of it!"

Then he, too, retired to bed and slept well,
and rose next morning to see his twin-brother
off, bidding him be of good cheer and
prophesying that he should return a free man.
Left alone, he chuckled.

Matthew allowed some days to elapse before
he went into Cornborough.  Mrs. Walkinshaw
looked somewhat surprised to see him, though
of late he had taken to visiting the house
occasionally.  As a privileged visitor he passed into
her private parlour.

"And pray what's become of Thomas these
days?" she inquired, when Matthew was
comfortably placed in the cosiest chair.

Matthew shook his head.  His manner was
mysterious.

"Don't ask me, ma'am," he said, sorrowfully.
"It's a painful subject.  Of course, however,
between you and me and the post, as the saying
is, Thomas has gone to Scarborough Spaw,
ma'am."

"To Scarborough!" exclaimed Mrs. Walkinshaw.
"What for?"

Matthew sighed and then gave her an expressive look.

"He's very fond of a bit of gay doings, is
Thomas, ma'am," he said.  "Likes to shake
a loose leg, now and then, you understand.
It gets a bit dull at our place in time.  But
I'm all for home, myself."

Mrs. Walkinshaw, who had listened to this
with eyes which grew wider and wider, flung
down her fancy sewing in a pet.

"Well, upon my word!" she exclaimed.
"Gone gallivanting to Scarborough without
even telling me.  Then I'll take good care he
never comes back here again.  A deceitful old
rip!—I don't believe he was ever after
anything but my money, for I tried a trick on him
about it the other night, and he went off with a
face as long as a fiddle and never said
good-night.  Old sinner!"

"We're all imperfect, ma'am," remarked
Matthew.  "Only some of us is less so."

Then he proceeded to make himself agreeable,
and eventually went home well satisfied.
And about five weeks later Thomas, whose
holiday had been prolonged on Matthew's
advice, received a letter from his twin-brother
which made him think harder than he had ever
thought in his life.

.. vspace:: 2

"DEAR BROTHER" (it ran),—"This is to tell
you that you can return home safely now, as I was
married to Mrs. Walkinshaw myself this
morning.  I have decided to retire from farming,
and she will retire from the public way of
business, as we find that with our united fortunes
we can live private at Harrogate and enter a
more fashionable sphere of life, as is more
agreeable to our feelings.  Business details
between you and me can be settled when you
return.  So no more at present, from your
affectionate brother,

.. vspace:: 1

"MATTHEW POGMORE.

.. vspace:: 1

"P.S.—You was misinformed in your
meaning of what Mrs. Matthew Pogmore meant
when she spoke of her fortune passing at her
second marriage.  She meant, of course, that
it would pass to her second husband.

.. vspace:: 1

"P.S. again.—Which, naturally, it has done."

.. vspace:: 2

After this Mr. Thomas Pogmore concluded
to go home and lead the life of a hermit
amongst his sheep and cattle.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MAN OR A MOUSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MAN OR A MOUSE

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   PROLOGUE

.. vspace:: 2

The cleverest man I ever knew was at the
same time the wisest and kindest-hearted of
men.  Not that the possession of wisdom, nor
the grace of kindness to his fellow-creatures,
made him clever in a high degree, but that when
I was in the journeyman stage of learning,
feeling my feet, as it were, he gave me what I have
ever since known—not considered, mind you,
but known—to be the best and most invaluable
advice that one creature could give to another.
It was this—put into short words (and, mind
you, this man was a big man, and a very
successful business man, inasmuch as he raised one of
the biggest concerns in his own town out of sheer
nothing, and died a rich man, having used his
wealth kindly and wisely at a time when things
were not what they are now)—

"Poskitt—tha'rt nowt but a young 'un!
Tha's goin' inta t' world, and tha'll find 'at
theer'll be plenty o' men to gi' thee what they
call advice.  Now, I seen all t' world o' Human
Nature, and *I'll* gi' thee better advice nor
onnybody 'at tha'll ever find—'cause I know!
Listen to me—

"(i.) I'steead o' trustin' nobody, trust
ivverybody—till thou finds 'em out.  When
thou finds 'em out (if thou ivver does), trust
'em agen!  Noä man's a bad 'un, soä long
as ye get on t' reight side on him.  An' it's
yer own fault, mind yer, if ye doän't.

"(ii.) Doän't think ower much about makkin'
Brass.  It's a good thing to mak' Brass,
and a good thing to be in possession on it,
but Brass is neyther here nor theer unless ye
ware it on yer friends.  Save yer Brass as
much as ye can.  Keep it for t' rainy
Day—ye never know when that rainy Day's
comin'—but don't skrike at a sixpence when
ye know that a half-crown wodn't mak' a
diff'rence.  Doän't tak' yer sweetheart to
market, and let her come home wi' a penny
ribbon when ye know in yer own heart 'at ye
might ha' bowt her a golden ring.

"(iii.) To end up wi'—trust ivvery man ye
meet—not like a fool, but like a wiseacre.
Love your neighbours—but tak' good care
that they love you.  If ye find that they don't,
have nowt to do with 'em—but go on loving
'em all the same.  If theer's Retribution, it
weern't fall on you, but on them.  But at th'
same time, ye must remember that ivvery one
on us mak's the other.  An', to sum up all
the lot, ivvery man 'at were ivver born on this
earth mak's himself."



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   I

.. vspace:: 2

In one of those old Latin books which I
sometimes buy in the old book-shops in the
market-towns that I visit, out of which I can
pick out a word or two, a sentence or two
(especially if they are interleaved with schoolboys'
attempts at cribs), there is a line which I,
at any rate, can translate with ease into
understandable English—a line that always puts me
in mind of my old, wise friend's blunt sayings—

   |  "*Every man is the maker of his own fortune.*"

And that's why I am going to tell you this story
of a man who did Three Things.  First: Made
Himself a Millionaire.  Second: Lived in a
Dream while he was in the Process.  Third:
Came out of the Dream—when it was all too
late.

Now we will begin with him.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   II

.. vspace:: 2

Samuel Edward Wilkinson, when I first
knew him, was a small boy of twelve who, in
the privacy of the back garden of a small
provincial grammar-school, ate tarts and apples
which he never shared with his school-fellows.
He was the last of a large family—I think his
mother succumbed to the strain of bearing him,
the tenth or eleventh—and he had the look of
a starved fox which is not quite certain where
the nearest hen-roost is.  The costume of small
boys in those days—the early forties—did not
suit him; the tassel of his peaked cap was too
much dependent upon his right eyebrow, and
the left leg of his nankeen trousers was at least
an inch and a half higher than its corresponding
member.

"Poskitt," he said to me, the first time that I
ever indulged in any real private conversation
with him, "what shall you do when you leave
Doctor Scott's?"

"Go home," said I.

He was eating one of his usual jam-tarts at
the time, and he looked at me sideways over a
sticky edge of it.

"Poskitt—what's your father?" he asked.

"My father's a farmer—but it's our own
land," said I.

He finished his tart—thoughtfully.  Then he
took out a quite clean handkerchief and wiped
the tips of his fingers on it.  He looked round,
more thoughtfully than before, at the blank
walls of Doctor Scott's back garden.  I was
sensible enough even at that age to see that he
was regarding far-away things.

"My father," he said, after an obvious
cogitation, "is a butcher.  He makes a lot of money,
Poskitt.  But there are eleven of us.  I am the
eleventh.  When I leave school——"

He stopped short there, and from his trousers
pocket drew out two apples.  You may think
that he was going to give me one—instead of
that he looked them over, selected what he
evidently considered the best, bit into it, and
put the other back in his pocket.

"When I leave school," he resumed, "I mean
to go into business.  Now, what do you think
of business, Poskitt?"

I was so astonished, boy as I was, to hear
this miserable mannikin talking as he did, that
I dare say I only gaped at him.  Between his
bites at his apple he continued his evidences of
a shrewd character.

"You see, Poskitt," he said, "I've thought a
great deal while I've been here at Doctor
Scott's.  I don't think much of Doctor Scott—he's
very kind, but he doesn't tell any of us
how to make money.  Your father's got a lot
of money, hasn't he?"

"How do you know?" I said, rather angrily.

"Because," said he, quite calmly, "I see him
give you money when he comes to see you.
Nobody gives money away who hasn't got it.
And you see, Poskitt, although my father makes
a lot of money, too, he doesn't give me
much—sixpence a week."

"How do you get your tarts and your apples,
then?" I asked.

He gave me one more of those queer glances

"My mother and my sisters send me a
basket," he answered.  "Of course, Poskitt,
we've got to get all we can out of this world,
haven't we?  And I want to get on and to make
money.  What do you consider the best way to
make money, Poskitt?"

I was so young and irresponsible at that time,
so full of knowledge of having the old
farmstead and the old folks and everything behind
me, that I scarcely understood what this boy
was talking about.  I dare say I gave him a
surly nod, and he went on again—very likely,
for aught I remember, eating the other apple.

"You see, Poskitt," he said, "there's one
thing that's certain.  A man must be either a
man or a mouse.  I won't be a mouse."

I was watching his face—I was at that time
a big, ruddy-faced lad, with limbs that would
have done credit to an offspring of Mars and
Venus, and he looked the sort that would
eventually end in a shop, with white cheeks
above and a black tie under a sixpenny
collar—and a strange revulsion came to me, farmer
and landsman though I was.  And I let him go on.

"I won't be a mouse, Poskitt!" he said, with
a certain amount of determination.  "I'll be a
man!  I'll make money.  Now, what do you
think the best way to make money, Poskitt?"

I don't think I made any answer then.

"I've thought it all out, Poskitt," he resumed.
"You see, there are all sorts of professions and
trades.  Well, if you go into a profession,
you've got to spend a great deal of money
before you can make any.  And in some trades
you have to lay out a good deal before you can
receive any profit.  But there are trades, Poskitt,
in which you get your money back very quickly—with
profit.  Now, do you know, Poskitt, the
only trades are those which are dependent on
what people *want*.  You can't live without food,
or clothes, or boots.  Food, Poskitt, is the most
important thing, isn't it?  And why I talked to
you is because I think you're the wisest boy in
the school—which trade would you recommend
me to enter upon?"

"Go and be a butcher!" I answered.  "Like
your father."

He shook his head in mild and deprecating fashion.

"I don't like the smell of meat," he said.
"No—I shall take up some other line."

Then, as the smell of dinner came from the
dining-room, he added the further remark that
as our parents paid Doctor Scott regularly once
a quarter, we ought to have our money's worth,
and so walked away to receive his daily share
of it.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   III

.. vspace:: 2

Samuel Edward Wilkinson duly left school,
and became, of his own express will, an apprentice
to a highly respectable grocer who enlarged
upon his respectability by styling himself a
tea merchant and an Italian warehouseman.
The people who visited the shop (which was
situate in a principal street in an important
sea-port town) were invariably impressed by the
powder-blueness of the sign and by the
red-goldness of the letters which stood out so
plainly from the powder-blue.  It had a cachet
of its own, and the proprietor had two daughters.
But Samuel Edward was then scarcely over
fourteen years of age, and as his parents and
the proprietor were of a distinctly Dissenting
nature, his time was passed much more in
stealing sugar-candy out of newly-opened boxes,
and in attending prayer-meetings at the nearest
chapel, than in following the good example of
London 'prentices of the other centuries.  In
fact, by the time Samuel Edward Wilkinson
was nineteen years of age, he was not merely a
money-grubber, but that worst of all things—a
tradesman who looks upon God Almighty and
the Bible as useful weights to put under an
illegal scale.  And as Samuel Edward gained
more of his experience in the knowledge of his
fellow make-weighters, the more he began to
believe less in his fellow-men—with the natural
result that certain women who were not his
fellows suffered.

As he grew up, Samuel Edward, naturally,
had to live somewhere else.  His master had no
room in his house for apprentices who had
approached to maturity.  But, like all masters
of that early-Victorian age, he knew where
accommodation in a highly Christian family
was to be had, and Samuel Edward found himself
*en famille* with a middle-aged dressmaker
and a pretty child whose sweet sixteenity was
much more appealing than the maturer charms
of his master's daughters.  Samuel Edward was
not without good looks, and the child fell in
love with him, and remained so for longer years
than she had counted upon.  But Samuel
Edward was as philandering in love as he was
pertinacious in business, and the idea of
marriage was not within his immediate purview.

"At what age do you think, a man ought to
marry, Poskitt?" he said to me during one of
his periodical visits to the old village, he being
then about two-and-twenty.

"When he feels inclined, and means it," said I.

"Of course, Poskitt, a man should never
marry unless he marries money," he continued.
"For a young man in my position, now, what
would you say the young woman ought to be
able to bring?"

I had sufficient common sense even at that
age to make no reply to this question.  I let
him go on, silent under his sublime selfishness.

"Don't you think, Poskitt, that it's only right
that when a man marries a woman he should
expect her to make a certain amount of
compensation?" he said.  "It's a very serious thing,
is marriage, you know, Poskitt.  Anybody with
my ambition—which is to be a man and not a
mouse, or, in other words, to pay twenty
shillings in the pound, and keep myself out of the
workhouse—has to look forward a good deal.
Now there's a young lady that I know of—where
I lodge, in fact—that's very sweet on me,
but I don't think her mother could give her
more than a couple of hundred, and, of course,
that's next to nothing.  You see, Poskitt, I
want to have a business of my own, and you
can't get a business without capital.  And
money's very hard to make, Poskitt.  I think—I
really think—I shall put off the idea of
getting married."

"That's the very wisest thing you can do," I
said.  "But you'd better tell the young lady so."

"Well, you see, Poskitt," he answered, stroking
his chin, "the fact is—there are two young
ladies.  The other one is—my cousin Keziah.
Now, of course, I know Keziah will have money
when her father dies, but then I don't know
when he will die.  If I could tell exactly when
he'll die, and how much Keziah will have, I
should make up my mind—as it is, I think I
shall have to wait.  After all, it really doesn't
make such a great deal of difference—one
woman is about as good as another so far as
marriage is concerned, Poskitt, isn't she?  The
money's the main thing."

"Why don't you go and find a rich heiress,
then?" I asked.

"Ah!" he replied.  "I only wish I could,
Poskitt!  But you must remember that I've no
advantages.  My father's only a butcher, and
trade is trade, after all.  You've great
advantages over me—your people own their
land—you're nobs compared to what I am.  But I shall
make myself a man, Poskitt.  There's only one
thing in the world that's worth anything, and
that's money.  I'm going to make money."



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   IV

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I never saw Samuel Edward Wilkinson again
for a great many years—in fact, not until he
came back to the village to marry his cousin
Keziah.  It was then publicly announced that
Samuel and Keziah had been engaged since
early youth—but anybody who knew anything
was very well aware of the truth that the
marriage was now hastened because Keziah's father
was dead and had left her a thousand pounds.
During those intervening years Samuel Edward
had been steadily pursuing his way towards
his conception of manhood.  He had spent
several years in London, and never wore anything
in the way of head-covering but a silk hat.

"Yes, Poskitt," he said, "it's taken me a
long time, but I've saved enough money at
last—with Keziah's little fortune thrown in, of
course—to buy my first master's business.  It's
a very serious thing, is business, you know,
Poskitt, and so is marriage.  But Keziah's a
capable girl, you know, Poskitt—very capable."

As Keziah was then quite forty years of age,
her capability was undoubted, but it seemed to
me that Samuel Edward had been a long time
making up his mind.

"And where's the young lady of the early
days?" I asked him.

He stroked his whiskers and shook his head.

"Well, you know, Poskitt," he replied, "it's
a very unfortunate thing that she, of course,
resides in the very town where I've bought my
business."

"Is she married?" I asked.

"No," he answered, "no—she's not married,
Poskitt.  Of course I couldn't think of
marrying her when Keziah was able to put her hands
on a thousand pounds.  After all, everybody's
got to look after Number One.  It's a very
anxious time with me just now, Poskitt, I do
assure you.  What with getting married and
setting up a business, I feel a great deal of
responsibility.  If you're ever our way (and I
expect you'll be coming to the cattle markets),
call in, and I'll show you the improvements I've
made.  It's a very fine position, Poskitt, but it's
a difficult thing in these days for a man to get
his own."

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   V

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Samuel Edward's name duly appeared in
blazing gilt on the powder-blue of the old sign,
and he and Keziah settled down in a suburban
street in company with a handmaiden and a
black-and-tan terrier.  Their lives were discreet
and orderly, and they went to the particular
Dissenting community which they affected at
least once every Sabbath Day.  At eight o'clock
every morning Samuel Edward repaired to
business; at seven in the evening he returned
home to pour out his woes to Keziah.  One of
his apprentices had done this; an assistant had
done that; a customer had fled, leaving a bill
unpaid.  Keziah, who was as keen on
money-making as her husband, was invariably
sympathetic in these matters, which were about the
only things she understood, apart from her
knowledge that her thousand pounds was in the
business.  She and Samuel Edward were both
resolved on making money.

And suddenly came a thunderstorm over their
sky.  The little dressmaking lady, having been
formally engaged to Samuel Edward for long
years, finding herself jilted, suddenly awoke to
the knowledge that she had a spirit, and caused
the faithless one to be served with a writ for
breach of promise.  And Samuel Edward's
men of law, going into the matter, told him that
he had no defence, and would have to pay.

Samuel Edward took to his bed, and refused
to be comforted.  Keziah wept, entreated,
cajoled, threatened—nothing was of use.  All
was over, in Samuel Edward's opinion.  The
other side wanted the exact amount represented
by Keziah's dowry—one thousand pounds.
Samuel Edward lay staring at the stencilled
wall-paper, and decided that life was a distinct
disappointment.  He would die.

Then Keziah took matters in hand.  She,
with the help of an astute man, paid the
thousand pounds—whereupon the little dressmaker,
who was still well under forty, promptly
married another.  And then Keziah literally
tore Samuel Edward out of bed, shook him into
life, and gave him to understand that from that
day forward he would have to work harder,
earlier, and later than he had ever done before.
And Samuel Edward fell to—under a ceaseless
and never-varying supervision.



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   VI

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"I'm a warm man, you know, Poskitt," he
said to me many a long year after that.  "A
warm man, sir!  There's nobody knows except
myself, Poskitt, how much I have.  No, sir!
Made it all, you know.  Look at my business,
Poskitt!—one of the biggest and best businesses
in the country.  Twenty different
establishments.  Four hundred employees.  Bring
my own tea from Ceylon and China in my own
ships.  All the result of energy, Poskitt—no
sitting still with me, as you rustics do—no, sir!"

Now let us analyze what this man really was.
Because Keziah literally drilled him into the
pulling of himself together after his first great
slap in the face, he began to amass money, and
very soon so deepened his boyish instincts that
money became his fetish.  Money—money—money—nothing
but money!  He estimated the
value of a man by the depth of that man's purse;
he thoroughly believed, with the Northern
Farmer, that the poor in a lump are bad.  And
at last he was a very rich man indeed—and
then found, as all such men do, that he had no
power to enjoy his wealth.  He could travel—and
see nothing, for he did not understand what
he saw.  He could buy anything he liked—and
have no taste for it.  The little dressmaker had
children—he had none.  And as his wealth
increased, his temper grew sour.  He had never
read anything beyond his trade journal and his
newspaper, and therefore he had nothing to
think about but his money.

And so I come back to what my old friend
said in his bluff Yorkshire fashion—

"Doän't think ower much about makkin'
Brass!  It's a good thing to mak' Brass, and
a good thing to be in possession on it, but
Brass is neyther here nor theer unless ye
ware it on yer friends."

And whether Samuel Edward Wilkinson
considered in the end of his days that he had
made a man of himself, or whether he had, after
all, a sneaking idea that he was little more than
a mouse, I can't say.  But his great idea (that
he could buy so many people up ten times over
and feel none the worse) had a certain pathos
in that fact, that even to his dull brain there
came at times the conviction that when the end
came he would be as poor as any mouse that
ever crept into its hole.





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.. _`A DEAL IN ODD VOLUMES`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   A DEAL IN ODD VOLUMES

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It was baking-day at Low Meadow Farm,
and the kitchen being rendered unusually hot
by the fact that it was also a blazing afternoon
in July, Mrs. Maidment, in the intervals of
going to the oven, sat in a stout elbow-chair at
the kitchen door and fanned herself with her
apron.  She was a comfortably built lady of
at least fifty, and heat told upon her, as she
had remarked several times since breakfast.
Her placid, moon-like countenance, always
rosy, was now as fiery as a winter afternoon's
sun, and when she was not fanning herself she
mopped her brow with one of her late husband's
handkerchiefs, which she had taken from a
drawer in the press as being larger than her
own, and therefore more suitable for the
purpose.

While she sat at the door Mrs. Maidment
glanced at the prospect before her—at the
garden, the orchard, the fields beyond where
the crops were already whitening to harvest.
Her thoughts were of a practical nature.

"I'm sure if Maidment can look down from
Above," she murmured, "he'll say it's all in
very good order.  He never could abide
naught that were not in proper order, couldn't
Maidment.  And if we only get a good
harvest——"

At that moment the widow's thoughts were
interrupted by the sudden clicking of the side
gate.  She turned and saw a strange man
leading an equipage into the yard.  The equipage
consisted of a very small pony, which looked
as if a generous feed of corn would do it good,
and of a peculiarly constructed cart, very
shallow in body, and closed in at the top by two
folding doors—it resembled nothing so much,
in fact, as a cupboard laid flat-wise and
provided with wheels.  As for the person who led
in this strange turn-out, and at whom
Mrs. Maidment was staring very hard, he was a
somewhat seedy-looking gentleman in a
frock-coat which was too large and trousers which
were too short; there was a slight cast in his
right eye, but there was no mistaking the would-be
friendliness of his smile.  He bowed low as
he drew the pony towards Mrs. Maidment, and
he removed a straw-hat and revealed a high
forehead and a bald head.  Mrs. Maidment
stared still harder.

"Good-afternoon, ma'am," said the stranger,
bowing again.  "Allow me to introduce myself,
ma'am, as a travelling bookseller—it's a
new departure in the book trade, and one that
I hope to do well in.  Permit me to show you
my stock, ma'am—all the newest volumes of
the day by the most famous authors."

He threw back the folding-doors of his cart
with a flourish and stepped aside.  The July
sun flashed its fierce beams on row upon row
of flashily-bound, high-coloured volumes in
green and scarlet and much fine gold.

"The very latest, I assure you, ma'am," said
their vendor.

Mrs. Maidment fanned herself and gazed at
the glory before her.

"Well, I don't know, master," she said.
"I'm not one for reading myself, except the
newspaper and a chapter in the Bible of a
Sunday.  But my daughter's fond of her
book—she might feel inclined.  Here, Mary
Ellen!—here's a man at the door selling books."

Miss Mary Ellen Maidment, a comely
damsel of nineteen with bright eyes and
peach-like cheeks, emerged expectant from the
kitchen.  The itinerant bookseller greeted her
with more bows and smiles.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Mary Ellen, lifting
up her hands.  "What a lot of beautiful
books!"

"Your ma said you were fond of your book,
miss," said the owner of this intellectual
treasure mine.  "Yes, miss, this is an especially
fine line.  What's your taste, now, miss?
Poetry?"

"I like a good piece," answered Mary Ellen.

The itinerant selected two gorgeously bound
volumes, and deftly balancing them on the
palm of one hand, pointed to their glories with
the outstretched forefinger of the other.

"'The Complete Poetical Works of Mrs.
H*ee*mans,'" he said.  "A very sweet thing
that, miss—one of the best articles in the poetry
line."  He pointed to the other.  "'The
Works of the late Eliza Cook.'  A very
superior production that, miss.  It was that
talented lady who wrote 'The Old Arm-Chair,'
of which you have no doubt heard."

"I learnt it once at school," said Mary Ellen.
"Have you got any tales?"

"Tales, miss—yes, miss," replied the vendor,
setting Mrs. Hemans and Miss Cook aside,
and selecting a few more volumes.  "Here's
a beautiful tale by the talented Emma Jane
Worboise, the most famous authoress of her day."

"Is there any love in it?" asked Mary Ellen.

"My daughter," broke in Mrs. Maidment,
"likes books with love matters and lords and
ladies in 'em—she reads pieces of 'em to me
at nights."

"That, ma'am, is the only sort I carry," said
the book-proprietor.  "Now, miss, just let me
show you——"

In the end Mary Ellen purchased one tale
which dealt with much love and many lords and
ladies, and another which the seller described
as a pious work with a strong love interest, and
recommended highly for Sunday reading.
She also bought Mrs. Hemans, because on
turning over her pages she saw several lines
which she thought were pretty.  And while she
went up-stairs to fetch her purse Mrs. Maidment
asked the stranger inside to drink a jug
of ale.  One can imagine his sharp glance
round that old farmhouse kitchen, with its
lovely old oak furniture, its shining brass and
pewter, its old delf-ware....

"You don't happen to have any old books
that you want to clear out of the way, do
you, ma'am?" he said, when he had been paid,
and was drinking his ale.  "I buy anything
like that—there's lots of people glad to get
rid of them.  I've a sack full of 'em now under
the cart there.  Of course, they're worth
nothing but waste paper price.  That's what I
have to sell them at, ma'am."

"Why, there's some old books in that chest
there," said Mrs. Maidment, pointing to an old
chest in the deep window-seat.  "I'm sure I've
oft said we'd burn 'em, for they're that old and
printed so queer that nobody can read 'em.
Let him look at 'em, Mary Ellen."

What treasures were they that the wandering
merchant's knowing eyes gazed upon?  He
gazed upon them for some time, according to
the eye-witnesses, before he spoke, examining
each book with great care.

"Aye, well, ma'am," he said at last.  "Of
course, as you say, nobody could read them
now-a-days.  I'll tell you what—I'll give miss
here three new books out of the cart for them,
and you can pick for yourself, miss!"

Mary Ellen exclaimed joyfully—and the old
books went into a sack.

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It was not until the next year that a Summer
Boarder from London took up temporary
quarters at Low Meadow Farm.  According to
the account which Mrs. Maidment gave to her
gossips of him he was a very quiet gentleman
who, when he wasn't rambling about the fields
and by the streams, was reading in the garden,
and when he wasn't reading in the garden was
writing in the parlour.  And the books he had
brought with him, she said, were more than the
parson had.

One day, the Summer Boarder, rummaging
in a cupboard in his bedroom, saw, on a
top-shelf, an old, dust-covered book, and took it
down and knocked the dust off and opened it.
And then he sank in a chair, gasping.  There,
in his hand, lay a perfect copy of a fifteenth-century
book, so rare that there is no copy of it
in either the British Museum or in the
Bodleian Library—no, nor at the Vatican!

He stared at it for a long time, and then,
carrying it as some men would carry a rare
diamond, he went down to the kitchen, where
Mrs. Maidment was making plum-pies.

"This is a queer old book which I found in
my cupboard, Mrs. Maidment," he said.  "May
I look at it?"

"Aye, and welcome, sir!" said Mrs. Maidment.
"And keep it, too, sir, if you'll accept
of it.  Eh, we'd a lot of old stuff like that in
that box there in the window-place, but last
year——"  And then the Summer Boarder
heard the story of the travelling bookseller.

"And I'm sure, sir, it were very kind of the
man," concluded Mrs. Maidment, "and I've
always said so, to give Mary Ellen three new
books, and bound so beautiful, for naught but
a lot of old rubbish that nobody could read!"

Then the Summer Boarder went out into the
garden and faced a big Moral Problem.





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.. _`THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE

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   I

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I suppose there never was a man in the world
who was as full of pride as Abraham Kellet
was on the morning of the day which was to see
him made Mayor of Sicaster.  That particular
9th of November, as I remember very well, was
more than usually dismal and foggy—there
were thick mists lying all over the lowlands
and curling up the hill-sides as I drove into
the town to take part in the proceeding of the
day (for I was an old school-fellow of
Abraham's, and he had graciously invited me to
witness his election), but I warrant that to his
worship-to-be no July day ever seemed so
glorious nor no May-day sun ever so welcome
as the November greyness.  All men have their
ambitions—Abraham's one ambition since
boyhood had been to wear the mayoral chain, the
mayoral robes, to sit in the mayoral seat, to be
the chief magistrate of his adopted town, to
know himself its foremost burgess, to have
everybody's cap raised to him, to have himself
addressed by high and low as Mr. Mayor.  It
was a worthy ambition, and he had worked hard
for it—now that at last he was within an ace of
fulfilling it his pride became apparent to
everybody.  It was not a vaunting pride, nor the
pride which is puffed up, but the pride of a man
who knows that he has succeeded.  He was a
big-framed, broad-countenanced man, Abraham
Kellet, who put down a firm foot and showed a
portly front, and after it was settled that he
was to be the next Mayor of Sicaster his tread
was firmer than ever and his front more portly
as he trod the cobble-paved streets of the little
town.  I can see him now—a big, fine figure
of a man of not much over fifty, his six feet of
height invariably habited in the best
broadcloth; his linen as scrupulously white and
glossy as he himself was scrupulously shaven;
his boots as shining as the expensive diamond
ring which he wore on the little finger of his
left hand.  Decidedly a man to fill a mayoral
chair with dignity and fulness, was Abraham
Kellet.

I thought as I rode into Sicaster that eventful
morning of the story of its new mayor's life.
Like myself, Abraham was the son of a farmer,
but whereas my father was a man of considerable
substance, his was a poor man who had to
work hard, early and late, to make a living out
of a farm the land of which was poor.  I have
always had an idea that it was my father who
paid for Abraham's schooling at Sicaster
Grammar School, though it is but an idea,
because he was the last man in the world to let
his left hand know what his right hand did.
Anyway, Benjamin Kellet was a poor man, as
things go, and had a growing family to keep,
Abraham being the eldest, and none of his other
children got more education than the village
school afforded for the customary fee of
two-pence a-week.  Why Abraham went from the
village school to Sicaster Grammar School was
because he was regarded as a very promising
youth, whose education ought to be improved.
The village school-master, in fact, when
Abraham was twelve years old, said that he could
not teach him any more—no very great thing
in those days when nothing was taught but
reading, writing and arithmetic, with perhaps a
smattering of English history and a little
grammar and geography—and that it was no
use his staying any longer at the red-tiled
school-house, which lay under the shadow of
the church.  Possibly the parson and my father
(who was vicar's churchwarden for many a long
year before his death) put their heads together
about Abraham.  However the case may have
been, Abraham was sent to Sicaster Grammar
School with the understanding that he was to
remain there two years, when it would be time
for him to be apprenticed to some trade.  He
made his entrance there the same day that I
did—that was where I got to know him better.  I
had known him, of course, all along, but not
intimately, because my mother had insisted on
having a governess for my two sisters—both
dead now, many a long year ago!—and so I
had never gone to the village school, nor had
I mixed much with the village boys.  But when
I was nine years old, my father said I had had
quite enough of apron-strings, and I must go to
Sicaster Grammar School, as soon as the next
half began.

"To Sicaster Grammar School!" said my
mother, speaking as if my father had said I
was to go to the Cannibal Islands.  "Why,
Sicaster's six miles off!  The child can't walk
twelve miles a day and learn his lessons as well."

"Who wants him to?" asked my father.
"He can have the little pony and phaeton and
drive himself in and out.  I'll buy another for
you and the girls.  And there's that eldest lad
of Keller's—he's going, too, and he can drive
with him."

"And his dinner?" said my mother.

"Give him it in a basket every day," replied
my father.  "And—put plenty in for two.  He
can share with young Kellet."

That was how I came to go to school with
Abraham Kellet.  I used to set off with the
little pony-phaeton at a quarter to eight every
morning and pick Abraham up at the end of the
lane which led to his father's farm.  At first he
used to bring his dinner with him, but it soon
became an understood thing that his dinner was
in my basket—we made no pretence, and had
no false ideas about it on either side.  We used
to jog into Sicaster with great content, put the
pony and trap up at the King George and go
to school.  In winter we used to eat our meat
pasties and our fruit pies and drink our milk
in one of the class-rooms; in summer we spread
our cloth under the trees on a certain knoll in
the play-ground.  And afternoon, school over
we jogged home again as easily as we had come.

I have no great recollection of what I did at
school, except that I had the usual healthy
boy's dislike of mere book-learning, and was
always unfeignedly glad when half-past four
struck.  Horses and dogs and the open air,
cricket and fishing, and running after the
fox-hounds when they came our way, appealed much
more to me than anything else.  I believe
Abraham did most of my home exercises as
we drove to and from school.  As for himself
he learned all he could—within certain limits.
He would have nothing of Latin or Greek, but
he slaved like a nigger at French, and during
play-hours was always scheming to get into the
company of the French teacher.  He cared
little about history, but a good deal about
geography—French, arithmetic, and, above all,
book-keeping were Abraham's great loves.
His handwriting brought tears of joy and pride
into the eyes of the writing-master; his figures
might have been printed; his specimens of
book-keeping would have done credit to a
chartered accountant.

The reason of Abraham's devotion to these
particular subjects was this—he had set his
mind on being a—Draper.  Not a small, pettifogging
draper, to deal in cheap lines of goods,
but a draper of the big sort who would call
himself Silk Mercer.  There stood in the
centre of the market-place at Sicaster such an
establishment—it was the daily sight of it which
inspired Abraham's dreams.  A solid, highly
respectable establishment it was—though it
would be thought old-fashioned now, it was
considered to be something very grand then,
and in its windows were set out the latest
London and Paris fashions.  There was a
severely plain sign in black and gold over the
windows under the Royal Arms, with an equally
plain inscription—Paulsford and Tatham, Silk
Mercers and Drapers to H.M. the Queen.

"That's where I mean to be apprenticed,
Poskitt," said Abraham, as we set out one
afternoon across the market-place.  "That's the
trade I fancy.  No farming for me.  Farming!
Slaving all day after a plough and coming
home up to your eyes in clay and as tired as a
dog—and then nothing to show at the year-end!
No, thank you!"

"That's not my father's life," I said.

He shook his head knowingly.

"Your father's a rich man," he said.  "I
know.  I keep my eyes open.  No—I'm going
into that business."

I looked at him, trying to imagine him behind
a counter, selling laces and ribbons.  He was
a big, heavy boy, whose clothes were always
too small for him, and it seemed to me even
then that it would look queer to see such big
hands handling delicate things.

"That's why I give so much attention to
figures and to French, you see, Poskitt," he
said presently.  "You can't get on in business
unless you're good at figures and book-keeping,
and if you can speak French you're at a great
advantage over fellows who can't, because you
stand a chance of being sent over to Paris to
see and buy the latest fashions."

"Give me farming and a good horse and a
good dog and gun!" said I.

"Yes," he said, "but you were born with a
silver spoon in your mouth.  I've got my way
to make.  I shall make it.  I'll be Mayor of
Sicaster some day."

The first step towards Abraham's attainment
of that wish came when he left the Grammar
School and was duly apprenticed to
Messrs. Paulsford and Tatham.  He was then fourteen,
and because of his big frame, heavy
countenance, and solemn expression, looked older.
I used to see him in the shop sometimes when
I went there with my mother or sisters—he
assumed a tailed coat at a very early age and
put on the true manner with it.  His term of
apprenticeship, as was usual in those days, was
seven years—whether his indentures were
cancelled or not I do not know, but he was buyer
to the firm at eighteen and manager when he
was twenty-one.  He became known in Sicaster.
His conduct was estimable, and everybody
spoke well of him.  Six days of the week found
him at his post from eight to eight, and on
Saturdays till ten; the seventh found him
diligent in attendance on the services of the
Church, and in teaching in the Sunday-school.
He lodged with a highly-respectable widow
lady, the relict of a deceased tradesman,
and he was never known to pay anything
but the most decorous attention to young women.

In this way ten years of Abraham's life
passed—to all outward appearance with
absolute smoothness.  The wiseacres of Sicaster,
especially those who congregated in snug
bar-parlours and smoked their pipes and drank their
grog of a winter's evening, wagged their heads
and said that young Kellet must be saving a
pretty penny, and that he well knew what he
was about.  And I believe that few people,
either in Sicaster itself, or in the neighbourhood,
were at all surprised when it was suddenly
announced in the *Sicaster Sentinel* that
the old-established business of Messrs. Paulsford
and Tatham had, because of the great age
and failing health of the sole remaining partner,
Mr. Jonas Tatham, been sold to their manager,
Mr. Abraham Kellet, who would in future carry
it on in his own name.

So now the old sign came down and a new
one went up, and Abraham was no longer the
watchful, ubiquitous manager, but the
lynx-eyed omnipresent master.  The look of power
came into his eyes and manner; he trod the
streets and crossed the market-place with the
tread of a man who had a stake in the town.
Men who knew him as an apprentice boy were
quick to "sir" him; some, to cap him; he had
shown that he could make money.  Everybody
knew now that he was going to write his name
in large letters on the rolls of Sicaster, whereon
there were already a good many names that
were not of inconsiderable note.

And then, just as Abraham seemed to have
settled down to the opening stages of a brilliant
commercial career of his own building, a great
calamity happened.  It happened just when it
might have been least expected to happen—for
all things seemed auspicious for Abraham's
greatness.  He had bought a handsome house
and was furnishing it handsomely.  He had
just become engaged to the daughter and only
child of Alderman John Chepstow, who was a
heiress in her own right and might be expected
to inherit her father's considerable fortune in
due time.  Fortune seemed to be smiling upon
him in her widest and friendliest fashion.
Suddenly she frowned.

One night the quiet, sleeping streets of
Sicaster were suddenly roused to hitherto
unknown noise and activity.  The rushing of feet
on the pavement, the rattle of horses' hoofs on
the cobble-stones, the throwing up of
casements, the inarticulate cries of frightened
people—all these things culminated in one
great cry—*Fire*!  And men and women rushing
into the market-place saw that the stately
old shop, Paulsford and Tatham's for sixty
years, and Abraham Kellet's for two, was on
fire from top to bottom, and that high above the
holocaust of flame a thick cloud of black smoke
rose slowly towards the moon-lit sky.

Kellet's, late Paulsford and Tatham's, was
burnt to the ground ere the daylight came.
There was one small fire-engine in the
basement of the Town Hall, which spat at the fire
as a month-old kitten spits at a mastiff, and
when the brigades arrived from Clothford,
twelve miles away in one direction, and Wovefield,
eight in another, there was little but a
few walls.  They who saw it, told me that
Abraham Kellet, arriving early on the scene
and seeing the hopelessness of the situation,
took up his stand on the steps of the market-cross,
opposite, and watched his property burn
until the roof fell in.  He never uttered a word
all that time, though several spoke to him, and
when all was over, he turned away home.
Then a reporter tugged at his elbow, and
asked him if he was insured.  He stared at the
man for a moment as if he was mad; then he
nodded his head.

"Yes—yes!" he answered.  "Oh, yes!"

Everybody was very sorry for Abraham
Kellet—although he was insured against fire it
seemed to the Sicaster folk that a disaster like
this must cripple his business.  But they did
not know Abraham.  He seemed to be the only
person who was really unconcerned, and he
immediately developed a condition of
extraordinary activity.  There was a large building
in the town which had been built as a circus—before
ten o'clock of the morning after the fire
Abraham had taken this and had sent circulars
round announcing that his business would be
carried on there until his new premises were
built.  He added that the temporary premises
would be ready for the reception of customers
in four days.  Then he completely
disappeared.  People laughed, and said that he
must have lost his reason.  How could he have
temporary premises open in four days when
every rag of his stock had perished?  How
could he make that old circus, damp and musty,
into a place where people could go shopping?

But Abraham was one of those men who
refuse to believe in impossibilities.  How he
managed to do it, no one ever knew who was
not actively concerned.  But when the
temporary premises were opened the old circus had
been transformed into a sort of bazaar, and
there was such a stock as had never been seen
in the old shop.  The whole town crowded
there, and the county families came, and
everybody wanted to congratulate Abraham.  But
having seen the temporary premises fairly
going, Abraham was off on another track—he
was busy with architects about the plans of the
new shop.  He laid the foundation stone of that
himself, well within a month of the big fire.

The new shop was finished and opened just
twelve months later—competent critics said it
was as fine as a London or Paris shop,
excepting, of course, for size.  The day after the
opening Abraham married Miss Chepstow, and
indulged himself with a week's holiday.  Then
Mr. and Mrs. Kellet settled down in their fine
house to a life of money-making and social
advancement.  And Abraham in time had
leisure to devote to municipal affairs and
became a councillor, and then an alderman, and
at last reached the height of his ambition and
saw the mayoral chair and chain and robes
before him—close at hand.

"*I've got my way to make.  I shall make it.
I'll be Mayor of Sicaster some day!*"



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   II

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I thought of all those things, as one will,
half-unconsciously, think of memories when
something recalls them, as I rode into Sicaster
that chilly and foggy November morning to
take part in the grand doings which always
mark the election of a new mayor in that
historic town.  There would be ample
opportunity for Abraham to display his greatness.
First the election in the Council Chamber in
the Town Hall; then the procession through
the market-place to the parish church; finally,
the mayoral banquet in the evening—Abraham,
I said to myself, thinking of the time when I
used to drive him to school and he shared my
dinner, would (as we say in these parts) be in
full pomp all day.

I was chilled with my ride, and when I had
seen my mare stabled at the King George I
turned into the bar-parlour to take a glass of
whisky.  There were several townsmen hob-a-nobbing
there, as they always do when there
is a general holiday in the town (and not seldom
when there isn't!), and, of course, all the talk
was of the mayor-elect.  And one man, a
tradesman, who as I knew (from sad experience
on market-days) was uncommonly fond of
hearing himself talk, was holding forth on the
grandeur of those careers which begin at the
bottom of the ladder and finish at the top.

"The self-made man, gentlemen," he was
saying when I entered, "the self-made man
is the king of men!  What is a Peer of the
Realm, gentlemen—yes, I will even go further,
and with all respect say, what is the Sovereign
in comparison with the man who has made
himself out of nothing?  Our worthy mayor-elect——"

"Why," said another man, interrupting the
wordy one and espying me, "I believe Mr. Poskitt
there used to drive Abraham into school
in Sicaster here when they were lads together.
Wasn't that so, Mr. Poskitt, sir?"

"You are quite right, sir," I replied, "and
Mr. Kellet used to say in those days that he
would be Mayor of Sicaster."

"Aye, look there now, gentlemen!" exclaimed
the loquacious one.  "That just proves
the argument which——"

But I gave no heed to him—as I have said,
I got enough of him on market-days, and my
attention had been attracted to a man, a stranger
(you know how quickly we country-folk always
spot a man who does not belong to us), who
sat in a corner of the bar-parlour, which, as I
should say, you are all very well aware, is a
dimly-lighted room.  He sat there, apart from
everybody, a glass on the table before him, a
cigar in his hand—and the cigar had been
lighted, and had gone out, and while the other
men talked he made no attempt to relight it,
but sat quietly listening.  He was an oldish
man, well dressed in clothes which were, I
considered, of foreign cut and material; his hair
was grey and rather long and tangled about
his eyes, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat well
pulled down over his brows.  "An artist
gentleman," I thought, and then thought no
more about him and finished my whisky and
went out into the market-place.

My invitation was to Abraham's private
house, from which, in accordance with custom,
he was to be escorted by a few private friends
to the Town Hall at eleven o'clock.  It was a
fine, indeed a noble house, standing in the
market-place exactly in front of his shop, and
the interior was as grand as the exterior—paintings
and gildings and soft carpets and luxuries
on all sides.  Abraham kept a man-servant by
that time, and I was conducted in state up a
fine staircase to the drawing-room, where I
found a goodly company already assembled—the
Vicar, and the Town Clerk, and some of the
aldermen and big-wigs of the place, and
Abraham in his usual—but new—attire of
broadcloth and white linen, and his wife and two
daughters in silks and satins, and everything
very stately.  There were rare wines set out
on the tables, but I took a drop more whisky.
And presently Abraham grasped my arm and
led me across to one of the windows overlooking
the market-place.

"Poskitt!" he said, in a low voice, "do
you remember when you used to drive me into
school and share your dinner with me?"

"I do," said I.

He waved his hand—a big white hand, with
a fine diamond ring sparkling on it—towards
the shop and then around him.

"Didn't I say I would be Mayor of Sicaster?"
he said.

"You did," said I.

He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his
waistcoat—a favourite trick of his when he
stood in the middle of his shop, looking about
him—and spread himself out like a turkey-cock.

"And before noon I shall be, Poskitt!"
he said.  "The poor lad has become the
great——"

He suddenly broke off there, and I saw his
broad countenance, which was usually ruddy,
turn as white as paste.  He leaned forward,
staring through the window with eyes that
looked like to start out of his head.  And
following his glance I saw, standing on the
opposite side of the market-place, and staring
curiously at Kellet's house, the stranger whom
I had seen a quarter of an hour before in the
bar-parlour of the King George.  He looked
from window to window, up, down, and
sauntered carelessly away.

Abraham Kellet pulled himself together and
glanced suspiciously at me.  There was a
queer look on his face and he tried to
smile—and at the same time he put his hand to his
heart.

"Don't say anything, Poskitt," he said,
looking round.  "A slight spasm—it's nothing.
The excitement, eh, Poskitt?  And—it's time
we were making a move."

He went back to the middle of the room and
asked his company to join him in a final glass
before setting out for the Town Hall, at the
same time bidding his wife and daughters to
be off to their places in the gallery set apart for
ladies.  And I noticed when he helped himself
to a drink that he filled a champagne glass
with brandy, and drank it off at a gulp, and that
his hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his
lips.  Others, no doubt, noticed that too, and
set it down to a very natural nervousness.  He
laughed, somewhat too boisterously, at an
old-fashioned joke which the Vicar (who was as
fond of his fun as he was of old port) made—that,
too, might have been put down to nervousness.
But I attributed neither the shaking
hand nor the forced laughter to nervousness—it
seemed to me that Abraham Kellet was
frightened.

I told you that it was the custom in those
days for the mayor-elect to be accompanied
from his private residence to the Town Hall
by a company of his friends—it was a further
custom that each man walking in this little
informal procession should carry what we then
called a nosegay, and is now-a-days called a
bouquet, of flowers.  And so as we filed down
the wide staircase of Abraham Kellet's house,
each of us received at the hands of the
man-servant a fine posy of such autumn blooms as
were procurable.  Thus decorated we went out
into the market-place, passing between two
groups of people who had gathered on either
side the entrance to see the mayor-elect leave
his house.  They set up a hearty cheer as
Abraham's burly figure came in sight, and that
cheering continued all the way to the Town
Hall, with an occasional blessing thrown in
from old women who hoped, later in the day,
to be sharers in the new mayor's bounty.
Abraham walked through the market-place with
erect head and smiling face, nodding and
bowing right and left, but I, walking just behind
and a little on one side of him, saw that he
kept looking about him as if he were searching
for a face.

The Town Hall was full when Abraham's
party arrived—full, except for the seats which
they had reserved for the favoured.  Those for
our party were in the front row of the
right-hand gallery—when I had got into mine I took
a leisurely survey of the scene.  The Town
Hall at Sicaster is a chamber of some size and
pretensions—at one end is a wide and deep
platform, behind which is a sculpture representing
the surrender of Sicaster Castle at the time
of the Civil War, and upon this platform,
arranged in their due order of precedence, were
already assembled the aldermen and councillors
of the borough.  They sat in semicircles
round the platform—in the middle space stood
a velvet-covered table on which were set out
the ancient insignia of Sicaster, the mace, the
cap of maintenance, the seal, the Bible.
Behind this table were set three chairs, the one in
the middle being placed on a sort of dais, a
much more imposing one than those which
flanked it.  In front of the platform were seats
for the grandees of the town, extending
half-way down the hall, the remainder of which was
open to the public, who had already packed it
to its full extent.  The right-hand gallery, in
which I sat, was reserved for friends of
members of the corporation; the opposite gallery for
ladies, and in the front row there, immediately
overlooking the platform, were Mrs. Kellet and
her daughters, proud and beaming.  The
gallery at the rear of the hall was, like the lower
half below, thrown open to the public.  And
glancing its packed rows over I saw, sitting
immediately over the clock in the centre of the
balustrade, the man whom I had seen in the
King George and afterwards staring at
Abraham Kellet's house.

He was sitting with his elbows fixed on the
balustrade in front of him, and his chin propped
in his hands, staring intently at the scene and
the people.  It seemed to me (and even twenty
years ago, when I was only a matter of fifty
odd years old, I flattered myself a bit on
reading people's faces!) that he was recognizing,
calling to mind, noting the differences which
time makes.  Without moving body or head,
he let his eyes slowly search the galleries on
either side of him just as they were searching
the platform when I first saw him.  And I
began to wonder with a vague uneasiness who
this man was and what he did there.  Was he
a mere stranger, actuated by curiosity to see an
old English ceremony, or was he there of set
purpose?  And why had Abraham Kellet been
moved at sight of him?  For I was sure he had.

There was a bustle and a stir, and the
outgoing Mayor, accompanied by his deputy, the
Town Clerk, and the other officials came on to
the platform, accompanied by Abraham Kellet
and two or three other aldermen, who passed
to their usual seats.  I saw Abraham, as he
sat down, glance around the crowded hall with
that glance which I had noticed in the marketplace.
And I saw, too, that he did not see the
man who sat over the clock.  But now that
Abraham was there, on the platform, in his
aldermanic robes, the man had no eyes for
anything but him.  He watched him as I have
seen a cat watch the hole out of which it knows
a mouse is going to emerge.

The proceedings began.  As Abraham's
proposer and seconder moved his election,
Abraham seemed to swell out more and more and
his wife's beam assumed a new dignity.  All
the civic virtues were his, according to
Alderman Gillworthy; it was he who, as Chairman
of the Watch Committee, had instituted a new
system of clothing for the police; it was he
who, as Chairman of the Waterworks
Committee, had provided Sicaster with pure
drinking water.  Mr. Councillor Sparcroft
dealt more with his moral virtues, remarking
that Alderman Gillworthy had exhausted the
list of their friend's municipal triumphs.  He
reminded the Council that Abraham was a
shining example of rectitude, and drew the eyes of
the whole assemblage on Mrs. Kellet and her
daughters when he spoke of him feelingly as
a model husband and father.  He referred to
him as a Sunday-school teacher of well over
thirty years' standing; as vicar's churchwarden
for over twenty; he was connected with all the
benevolent societies, and the poor knew him.
Then the councillor, who was celebrated for
his oratory, turned to the business side of
Abraham's history and sketched his career in
trenchant sentences and glowing colours.  His
humble origin—his early ambitions—his
perseverance—his strenuous endeavours—his
misfortune at a time when all seemed fair—his
mounting, Phoenix-like, from the ashes—his
steady climb up the mountain of success—his
attainment of its topmost height—all these
things were touched on by the councillor, who
wound up a flowery speech with a quotation
from Holy Scripture—"Seest thou a man
diligent in business?—he shall stand before
kings!"

There was no opposition to Abraham Kellet—the
Council was unanimous.  He was duly
elected Mayor of Sicaster—the three hundred
and seventy-fifth since the old town received its
charter.

I suppose there had never been such a
moment of emotion in Abraham Kellet's life as
when, duly installed in the mayoral chair,
wearing the mayoral robes, invested with the
mayoral chain, he rose to make his first speech
as chief magistrate of Sicaster.  For once the
pomposity of manner which had grown upon
him slipped away; he seemed to revert to a
simple, a more natural self.  He looked round
him; he glanced at his wife and daughters;
he caught my eye—it was a full moment before
the applause which had greeted the Mayor's
rising had died away that he could command
himself to speak.  When he spoke his first
sentences were nervous and hesitating, but he
gained confidence when he began to refer to
Sparcroft's references to his career as a tradesman.

"You see before you one," he said, "who
never knew what it was to fear a difficulty, who
refused to believe in obstacles, who always
meant to march on with the times, and who——"

He paused there for a second, for he was
troubled with a slight cough that morning, and
in that second a voice, penetrating, cold and
sharp as steel and as merciless as the implacable
avenger's hand when it drives steel home,
rang out across the hall—

"*And who burned his shop in order to get the
insurance money!*"

I have never had a clear recollection—no,
I never had a clear realization—of what
followed.  I remember a sea of white, frightened
faces, a murmur of voices, of seeing the man
behind the clock stretching an accusing finger
across the space between the gallery and the
platform.  And I remember Abraham Kellet,
palsy-stricken, gripping the table before him
and staring, staring at the accusing finger and
the man behind it as one might stare at the Evil
Thing.  It seemed hours before that second
passed and a cry, more like the cry of a lost
soul than of a man, burst, dryly, hoarsely, from
his lips—

"*Aynesley!  Come back!*"

Then in all his mayoral finery he fell heavily
across the table, and the mayoral chain rattled
against the mace which had been carried before
many an honest predecessor for twice two
hundred years.

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There was no procession to church that day
and no mayoral banquet that night, but Sicaster
had plenty to talk of, and it is a gossip-loving
town.  And the shameful story was all true.
The fire of many a long year before was a
clever piece of incendiarism on Abraham
Kellet's part, and his manager Aynesley had
detected his guilt and had been squared by
Abraham, who had subsequently endeavoured,
to put a nice phrase on it, to have him removed.
And Aynesley had sworn revenge, and had
worked and schemed until he, too, was a rich
man—and he had bided his time, waiting to
pull Abraham from the pinnacle of his glory
just as he reached it.

Vanity of vanities—all is vanity!  It is time
for our nightcaps.

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   GOOD-NIGHT.

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   RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
   BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
   BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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