hard to do, any way, that won't, with that there overbearing Molly in
yourn."
We went on. A great hulking farmer as big as a giant, and looking as
though he had taken more than was good for him in the morning, came
lumbering along, pushing every one right and left. He threw his bold
eyes on one of the girls.
"What place be for you, my lass?"
"None o' yourn, master," was the prompt reply.
The voice was good-natured and pleasant, and I looked at the girl as the
man went shouldering on. She wore a clean light cotton gown, a smart
shawl all the colours of the rainbow, and a straw bonnet covered with
sky-blue bows. Her face was fairer than most of the faces around; her
eyes were the colour of her ribbons; and her mouth, rather wide and
always smiling, had about the nicest set of teeth I ever saw. To take
likes and dislikes at first sight without rhyme or reason, is what I am
hopelessly given to, and there's no help for it. People laugh mockingly:
as you have heard me say. "There goes Johnny with his fancies again!"
they cry: but I know that it has served me well through life. I took a
liking to this girl's face: it was an honest face, as full of smiles as
the bonnet was of bows. Mrs. Todhetley noticed her too, and halted. The
girl dropped a curtsey.
"What place are you seeking?" she asked.
"Dairy-maid's, please, ma'am."
The good Mater stood, doubtful whether to pursue inquiries or to pass
onwards. She liked the face of the girl, but did not like the profusion
of blue ribbons.
"I understand my work well, ma'am, please; and I'm not afraid of any
much of it, in reason."
This turned the scale. Mrs. Todhetley stood her ground and plunged into
questioning.
"Where have you been living?"
"At Mr. Thorpe's farm, please, near Severn Stoke."
"For how long?"
"Twelve months, please. I went there Old Michaelmas Day, last year."
"Why are you leaving?"
"Please, ma'am"--a pause here--"please, I wanted a change, and the work
was a great sight of it; frightful heavy; and missis often cross. Quite
a herd o' milkers, there was, there."
"What is your name?"
"Grizzel Clay. I be strong and healthy, please, ma'am; and I was
twenty-two in the summer."
"Can you have a character from Mrs. Thorpe?"
"Yes, please, ma'am, and a good one. She can't say nothing against me."
And so the queries went on; one would have thought the Mater was hiring
a whole regiment of soldiers. Grizzel was ready and willing to enter on
her place at once, if hired. Mrs. Thorpe was in Worcester that day, and
might be seen at the Hare and Hounds inn.
"What do you think, Johnny?" whispered the Mater.
"I should hire her. She's just the girl I wouldn't mind taking without
any character."
"With those blue bows! Don't be simple, Johnny. Still I like the girl,
and may as well see Mrs. Thorpe."
"By the way, though," she added, turning to Grizzel, "what wages do you
ask?"
"Eight pounds, please, ma'am," replied Grizzel, after some hesitation,
and with reddening cheeks.
"Eight pounds!" exclaimed Mrs. Todhetley. "That's very high."
"But you'll find me a good servant, ma'am."
We went back through the town to the Hare and Hounds, an inn near the
cathedral. Mrs. Thorpe, a substantial dame in a long cloth skirt and
black hat, by which we saw she had come in on horse-back, was at dinner.
She gave Grizzel Clay a good character. Saying the girl was honest,
clean, hardworking, and very sweet-tempered; and, in truth, she was
rather sorry to part with her. Mrs. Todhetley asked about the blue bows.
Ay, Mrs. Thorpe said, that was Grizzel Clay's great fault--a love of
finery: and she recommended Mrs. Todhetley to "keep her under" in that
respect. In going out we found Grizzel waiting under the archway, having
come down to learn her fate. Mrs. Todhetley said she should engage her,
and bade her follow us to the hotel.
"It's an excellent character, Johnny," she said, as we went along the
street. "I like everything about the girl, except the blue ribbons."
"I don't see any harm in blue ribbons. A girl looks nicer in ribbons
than without them."
"That's just it," said the Mater. "And this girl is good-looking enough
to do without them. Johnny, if Mr. Todhetley has no objection, I think
we had better take her back in the carriage. You won't mind her sitting
by you?"
"Not I. And I'm sure I shall not mind the ribbons."
So it was arranged. The girl was engaged, to go back with us in the
afternoon. Her box would be sent on by the carrier. She presented
herself at the Star at the time of starting with a small bundle: and a
little birdcage, something like a mouse-trap, that had a bird in it.
"Could I be let take it, ma'am?" she asked of Mrs. Todhetley. "It's
only a poor linnet that I found hurt on the ground the last morning I
went out to help milk Thorpe's cows. I'm a-trying, please, to nurse it
back to health."
"Take it, and welcome," cried the Squire. "The bird had better die,
though, than be kept to live in that cage."
"I was thinking to let it fly, please, sir, when it's strong again."
Grizzel had proper notions. She screwed herself into the corner of the
seat, so as not to touch me. I heard all about her as we went along.
She had gone to live at her Uncle Clay's in Gloucestershire when her
mother died, working for them as a servant. The uncle was "well-to-do,"
rented twenty acres of land, and had two cows and some sheep and pigs
of his own. The aunt had a nephew, and this young man wanted to court
her, Grizzel: but she'd have nothing to say to him. It made matters
uncomfortable, and last year they turned her out: so she went and hired
herself at Mrs. Thorpe's.
"Well, I should have thought you had better be married and have a home
of your own than go out as dairy-maid, Grizzel."
"That depends upon who the husband is, sir," she said, laughing
slightly. "I'd rather be a dairy-maid to the end o' my days--I'd rather
be a prisoner in a cage like this poor bird--than have anything to say
to that there nephew of aunt's. He had red hair, and I can't abide it."
* * * * *
Grizzel proved to be a good servant, and became a great favourite in the
house, except with Molly. Molly, never taking to her kindly, was for
quarrelling ten times a day, but the girl only laughed back again.
She was superior to the general run of dairy-maids, both in looks and
manners: and her good-humoured face brought sweethearts up in plenty.
Two of them were serious. The one was George Roper, bailiff's man on a
neighbouring farm; the other was Sandy Lett, a wheelwright in business
for himself at Church Dykely. Of course matters ran in this case, as
they generally do run in such cases, all cross and contrary: or, as the
French say, _à tort et à travers_. George Roper, a good-looking young
fellow with curly hair and a handsome pair of black whiskers, had not a
coin beyond the weekly wages he worked for: he had not so much as a
chair to sit in, or a turn-up bedstead to lie on; yet Grizzel loved him
with her whole heart. Sandy Lett, who was not bad-looking either, and
had a good home and a good business, she did not care for. Of course the
difficulty lay in deciding which of the two to choose: ambition and her
friends recommended Sandy Lett; imprudence and her own heart, George
Roper. Like the donkey between the two bundles of hay, Grizzel was
unable to decide on either, and kept both the swains on the tenter-hooks
of suspense.
Sunday afternoons were the great trouble of Grizzel's life. Roper had
holiday then, and came: and Lett, whose time was his own, though of
course he could not afford to waste it on a week-day, also came. One
would stand at the stile in one field, the other at a stile in another
field: and Grizzel, arrayed in one of the light print gowns she
favoured, the many-coloured shawl, and the dangerous blue-ribboned
bonnet, did not dare to go out to either, lest the other should pounce
upon his rival, and a fight ensue. It was getting quite exciting in the
household to watch the progress of events. Spring passed, the summer
came round; and between the two, Grizzel had her hands full. The other
servants could not imagine what the men saw in her.
"It is those blue ribbons she's so fond of!" said Mrs. Todhetley to us
two, with a sigh. "I doubted them from the first."
"I should say it is the blue eyes," dissented Tod.
"And I the white teeth and laughing face. _Nobody_ can help liking her."
"You shut up, Johnny. If I were Roper----"
"Shut up yourself, Joseph: both of you shut up: you know nothing about
it," interrupted the Squire, who had seemed to be asleep in his chair.
"It comes of woman's coquetry and man's folly. As to these two fellows,
if Grizzel can't make up her mind, I'll warn them both to keep off my
grounds at their peril."
One evening during the Midsummer holidays, in turning out of the
oak-walk to cross the fold-yard, I came upon Grizzel leaning on the
gate. She had a bunch of sweet peas in her hand, and tears in her eyes.
George Roper, who must have been talking to her, passed me quickly,
touching his hat.
"Good evening, sir."
"Good evening, Roper."
He walked away with his firm, quick stride: a well-made, handsome,
trustworthy fellow. His brown velveteen coat (an old one of his
master's) was shabby, but he looked well in it; and his gaitered legs
were straight and strong. That he had been the donor of the sweet peas,
a rustic lover's favourite offering, was evident. Grizzel attempted to
hide them in her gown when she saw me, but was not quick enough, so she
was fain to hold them openly in her hand, and make believe to be busy
with her milk-pail.
"It's a drop of skim milk I've got over; I was going to take it to the
pigs," said she.
"What are you crying about?"
"Me crying!" returned Grizzel. "It's the sun a shinin' in my eyes,
sir."
Was it! "Look here, Grizzel, why don't you put an end to this state of
bother? You won't be able to milk the cows next."
"'Tain't any in'ard bother o' that sort as 'll keep me from doing my
proper work," returned she, with a flick to the handle of the pail.
"At any rate, you can't marry two men: you would be taken up by old
Jones the constable, you know, and tried for bigamy. And I'm sure you
must keep _them_ in ferment. George Roper's gone off with a queer look
on his face. Take him, or dismiss him."
"I'd take him to-morrow, but for one thing," avowed the girl in a half
whisper.
"His short wages, I suppose--sixteen shillings a week."
"Sixteen shillings a week short wages!" echoed Grizzel. "I call 'em good
wages, sir. I'd never be afraid of getting along on them with a steady
man--and Roper's that. It ain't the wages, Master Johnny. It is, that I
promised mother never to begin life upon less than a cottage and some
things in it."
"How do you mean?"
"Poor mother was a-dying, sir. Her illness lasted her many a week, and
she might be said to be a-dying all the time. I was eighteen then.
'Grizzy,' says she to me one night, 'you be a likely girl and 'll get
chose afore you be many summers older. But you must promise me that
you'll not, on no temptation whatsoever, say yes to a man till he has
a home of his own to take you to, and beds and tables and things
comfortable about him. Once begin without 'em, and you and him 'll
spend all your after life looking out for 'em; but they'll not come
any the more for that. And you'll be at sixes-and-sevens always: and
him, why perhaps he'll take to the beer-shop--for many a man does,
through having, so to say, no home. I've seen the ill of it in my
days,' she says, 'and if I thought you'd tumble into it I'd hardly
rest quiet in the grave where you be so soon a-going to place me.' 'Be
at ease, mother,' says I to her in answer, 'and take my promise, which
I'll never break, not to set-up for marriage without a home o' my own
and proper things in it.' That promise I can't break, Master Johnny;
and there has laid the root of the trouble all along."
I saw then. Roper had nothing but a lodging, not a stick or stone that
he could call his own. And the foolish man, instead of saving up out of
his wages, spent the remnant in buying pretty things for Grizzel. It was
a hopeless case.
"You should never have had anything to say to Roper, knowing this,
Grizzel."
Grizzel twirled the sweet peas round and round in her fingers, and
looked foolish, answering nothing.
"Lett has a good home to give you and means to keep it going. He must
make a couple of pounds a week. Perhaps more."
"But then I don't care for him, Master Johnny."
"Give him up then. Send him about his business."
She might have been counting the blossoms on the sweet-pea stalks.
Presently she spoke, without looking up.
"You see, Master Johnny, one does not like to--to lose all one's
chances, and grow into an old maid. And, if I _can't_ have Roper,
perhaps--in time--I might bring myself to take Lett. It's a better
opportunity than a poor dairy-maid like me could ever ha' looked for."
The cat was out of the bag. Grizzel was keeping Lett on for a remote
contingency. When she could make up her mind to say No to Roper, she
meant to say Yes to him.
"It is awful treachery to Roper; keeping him on only to drop him at
last," ran my thoughts. "Were I he, I should give her a good shaking,
and leave----"
A sudden movement on Grizzel's part startled me. Catching up her pail,
she darted across the yard by the pond as fast as her pattens would
go, poured the milk into the pig-trough with a dash, and disappeared
indoors. Looking round for any possible cause for this, I caught sight
of a man in light fustian clothes hovering about in the field by the
hay-ricks. It was Sandy Lett; he had walked over on the chance of
getting to see her. But she did not come out again.
The next move in the drama was made by Lett. The following Monday he
presented himself before the Squire--dressed in his Sunday-going things,
and a new hat on--to ask him to be so good as to settle the matter, for
it was "getting a'most beyond him."
"Why, how can I settle it?" demanded the Squire. "What have I to do with
it?"
"It's a tormenting of me pretty nigh into fiddle-strings," pleaded Lett.
"What with her caprices--for sometimes her speaks to me as pleasant as a
angel, while at others her won't speak nohow; and what with that dratted
folk over yonder a-teasing of me"--jerking his head in the direction of
Church Dykely--"I don't get no peace of my life. It be a shame, Squire,
for any woman to treat a man as she's a-treating me."
"I can't make her have you if she won't have you," exploded the Squire,
not liking the appeal. "It is said, you know, that she would rather have
Roper."
Sandy Lett, who had a great idea of his own merits, turned his nose up
in the air. "Beg pardon, Squire," he said, "but that won't wash, that
won't. Grizzel couldn't have nothing serious to say to that there Roper;
nought but a day-labourer on a farm; _she couldn't_: and if he don't
keep his distance from her, I'll wring his ugly head round for him. Look
at me beside him!--my good home wi' its m'hogany furniture in't. I can
keep her a'most like a lady. She may have in a wench once a week for the
washing and scrubbing, if she likes: I'd not deny her nothing in reason.
And for that there Roper to think to put hisself atween us! No; 'twon't
do: the moon's not made o' green cheese. Grizzel's a bit light-hearted,
sir; fond o' chatter; and Roper he've played upon that. But if you'd
speak a word for me, Squire, so as I may have the banns put up----"
"What the deuce, Lett, do you suppose I have to do with my
women-servants and their banns?" testily interrupted the Squire. "I
can't interfere to make her marry you. But I'll tell you thus much,
and her too: if there is to be this perpetual uproar about Grizzel,
she shall quit my house before the twelvemonth she engaged herself for
is up. And that's a disgrace for any young woman."
So Sandy Lett got nothing by coming, poor unfortunate man. And yet--in
a sense he did. The Squire ordered the girl before him, and told her in
a sharp, decisive tone that she must either put an end to the state of
things--or leave his service. And Grizzel, finding that the limit of
toleration had come, but unable in her conflicting difficulties to
decide which of the swains to retain and which discard, dismissed the
two. After that, she was plunged over head and ears in distress, and for
a week could hardly see to skim off the cream for her tears.
"This comes of hiring dairy wenches at a statty fair!" cried wrathful
Molly.
* * * * *
The summer went on. August was waning. One morning when Mr. Duffham had
called in and was helping Mrs. Todhetley to give Lena a spoonful of jam
(with a powder in it), at which Lena kicked and screamed, Grizzel ran
into the room in excitement so great, that they thought she was going
into a fit.
"Why, what is it?" questioned Mrs. Todhetley, with a temporary truce to
the jam hostilities. "Has either of the cows kicked you down, Grizzel?"
"I'm--I'm come into a fortin!" shrieked Grizzel hysterically, laughing
and crying in the same breath.
Mr. Duffham put her into a chair, angrily ordering her to be calm--for
anger is the best remedy in the world to apply to hysterics--and took a
letter from her that she held out. It told her that her Uncle Clay was
dead, and had left her a bequest of forty pounds. The forty pounds to
be paid to her in gold whenever she should go and apply for it. This
letter had come by the morning post: but Grizzel, busy in her dairy, had
only just now opened it.
"For the poor old uncle to have died in June, and them never to ha' let
me hear on't!" she said, sobbing. "Just like 'em! And me never to have
put on a bit o' mourning for him!"
She rose from the chair, drying her eyes with her apron, and held out
her hand for the letter. As Mrs. Todhetley began to say she was very
glad to hear of her good luck, a shy look and a half-smile came into the
girl's face.
"I can get the home now, ma'am, with all this fortin," she whispered.
Molly banged her pans about worse than ever, partly in envy at the good
luck of the girl, partly because she had to do the dairy work during
Grizzel's absence in Gloucestershire: a day and a half, which was given
her by Mrs. Todhetley.
"There won't be no standing anigh her and her finery now," cried rampant
Molly to the servants. "She'll tack her blue ribbons on to her tail as
well as her head. Lucky if the dairy some fine day ain't found turned
all sour!"
Grizzel came back in time; bringing her forty pounds in gold wrapped-up
in the foot of a folded stocking. The girl had as much sense as one here
and there, and a day or two after her arrival she asked leave to speak
to her mistress. It was to say that she should like to leave at the end
of her year, Michaelmas, if her mistress would please look out for some
one to replace her.
"And what are you going to do, Grizzel, when you do leave? What are your
plans?"
Grizzel turned the colour of a whole cornfield of poppies, and confessed
that she was going to be married to George Roper.
"Oh," said Mrs. Todhetley. But she had nothing to urge against it.
"And please, ma'am," cried Grizzel, the poppies deepening and glowing,
"we'd like to make bold to ask if the master would let to us that bit of
a cottage that the Claytons have went out of."
The Mater was quite taken aback. It seemed indeed that Grizzel had been
laying her plans to some purpose.
"It have a nice piece o' ground to grow pertaters and garden stuff, and
it have a pigsty," said Grizzel. "Please, ma'am, we shall get along
famous, if we can have that."
"Do you mean to set up a pig, Grizzel?"
Grizzel's face was all one smile. Of course they did. With such a
fortune as she had come into, she intended herself and her husband to
have everything good about them, including a pig.
"I'll give Grizzel away," wrote Tod when he heard the news of the legacy
and the projected marriage. "It will be fun! And if you people at home
don't present her with her wedding-gown it will be a stingy shame. Let
it have a good share of blue bows."
"No, though, will he!" exclaimed Grizzel with sparkling eyes, when told
of the honour designed her by Tod. "Give me away! Him! I've always said
there's not such another gentleman in these parts as Mr. Joseph."
The banns were put up, and matters progressed smoothly; with one
solitary exception. When Sandy Lett heard of the treason going on behind
his back, he was ready to drop with blighted love and mortification. A
three-days' weather blight was nothing to his. Quite forgetting modesty,
he made his fierce way into the house, without saying with your leave
or by your leave, and thence to the dairy where Grizzel stood making-up
butter, startling the girl so much with his white face and wild eyes
that she stepped back into a pan of cream. Then he enlarged upon her
iniquity, and wound up by assuring her that neither she nor her "coward
of a Roper" could ever come to good. After that, he left her alone,
making no further stir.
Grizzel quitted the Manor and went into the cottage, which the Squire
had agreed to let to them: Roper was to come to it on the wedding-day. A
daughter of Goody Picker's, one Mary Standish (whose husband had a habit
of going off on roving trips and staying away until found and brought
back by the parish), stayed with Grizzel, helping her to put the cottage
in habitable order, and arrange in it the articles she bought. That sum
of forty pounds seemed to be doing wonders: I told Grizzel I could not
have made a thousand go as far.
"Any left, Master Johnny? Why of course I shall have plenty left," she
said. "After buying the bed and the set o' drawers and the chairs and
tables; and the pots and pans and crockeryware for the kitchen; and the
pig and a cock and hen or two; and perviding a joint of roast pork and
some best tea and white sugar for the wedding-day, we shall still have
pounds and pounds on't left. 'Tisn't me, sir, nor George nether, that
'ud like to lavish away all we've got and put none by for a rainy day."
"All right, Grizzel. I am going to give you a tea-caddy."
"Well now, to think of that, Master Johnny!" she said, lifting her
hands. "And after the mistress giving me such a handsome gownd!--and the
servants clubbing together, and bringing a roasting oven and beautiful
set o' flat irons. Roper and me'll be set up like a king and queen."
On Saturday, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and Tod
were passing the cottage--a kind of miniature barn, to look at, with
a thatched roof, and a broken grindstone at the door--and went in:
rather to the discomfiture of Grizzel and Mrs. Standish, who had their
petticoats shortened and their arms bare, scouring and scrubbing and
making ready for the morrow. Returning across the fields later, we saw
Grizzel at the door, gazing out all ways at once.
"Consulting the stars as to whether it will be fine to-morrow, Grizzel?"
cried Tod, who was never at a loss for a ready word.
"I was a-looking out for Mary Standish, sir," she said. "George Roper
haven't been here to-night, and we be all at doubtings about several
matters he was to have come in to settle. First he said he'd go on
betimes to the church o' Sunday morning; then he said he'd come here and
we'd all walk together: and it was left at a uncertainty. There's the
blackberry pie, too, that he've not brought."
"The blackberry pie!" said I.
"One that Mrs. Dodd, where he lodges, have made a present of to us for
dinner, Master Johnny. Roper was to ha' brought it in to-night ready. It
won't look well to see him carrying of a baked-pie on a Sunday morning,
when he've got on his wedding-coat. I can't think where he have got to!"
At this moment, some one was seen moving towards us across the field
path. It proved to be Mary Standish: her gown turned up over her head,
and a pie in her hands the size of a pulpit cushion. Red syrup was
running down the outside of the dish, and the crust looked a little
black at the edges.
"My, what a big beauty!" exclaimed Grizzel.
"Do take it, Grizzel, for my hands be all cramped with its weight," said
Mrs. Standish: who, as it turned out, had been over to Roper's lodgings,
a mile and a half away, with a view to seeing what had become of the
bridegroom elect. And she nearly threw the pie into Grizzel's arms, and
took down her gown.
"And what do Roper say?" asked Grizzel. "And why have he not been here?"
"Roper's not at home," said Mary Standish. "He come in from work about
six; washed and put hisself to rights a bit, and then went out with a
big bundle. Mrs. Dodd called after him to bring the pie, but he called
back again that the pie might wait."
"What was in the bundle?" questioned Grizzel, resenting the slight shown
to the pie.