II

Swithin St. Cleeve lingered on at his post, until the more sanguine birds

of the plantation, already recovering from their midwinter anxieties,

piped a short evening hymn to the vanishing sun.

The landscape was gently concave; with the exception of tower and hill

there were no points on which late rays might linger; and hence the dish-

shaped ninety acres of tilled land assumed a uniform hue of shade quite

suddenly. The one or two stars that appeared were quickly clouded over,

and it was soon obvious that there would be no sweeping the heavens that

night. After tying a piece of tarpaulin, which had once seen service on

his maternal grandfather's farm, over all the apparatus around him, he

went down the stairs in the dark, and locked the door.

With the key in his pocket he descended through the underwood on the side

of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed

the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no

traces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a few

minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on

the other side of the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched

house, whose enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks,

could be seen even in the twilight. Over the white walls, built of chalk

in the lump, outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if drawn in

charcoal.

Inside the house his maternal grandmother was sitting by a wood fire.

Before it stood a pipkin, in which something was evidently kept warm. An

eight-legged oak table in the middle of the room was laid for a meal.

This woman of eighty, in a large mob cap, under which she wore a little

cap to keep the other clean, retained faculties but little blunted. She

was gazing into the flames, with her hands upon her knees, quietly re-

enacting in her brain certain of the long chain of episodes, pathetic,

tragical, and humorous, which had constituted the parish history for the

last sixty years. On Swithin's entry she looked up at him in a sideway

direction.

'You should not have waited for me, granny,' he said.

''Tis of no account, my child. I've had a nap while sitting here. Yes,

I've had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again, as usual.

The place was as natural as when I left it,--e'en just threescore years

ago! All the folks and my old aunt were there, as when I was a

child,--yet I suppose if I were really to set out and go there, hardly a

soul would be left alive to say to me, dog how art! But tell Hannah to

stir her stumps and serve supper--though I'd fain do it myself, the poor

old soul is getting so unhandy!'

Hannah revealed herself to be much nimbler and several years younger than

granny, though of this the latter seemed to be oblivious. When the meal

was nearly over Mrs. Martin produced the contents of the mysterious

vessel by the fire, saying that she had caused it to be brought in from

the back kitchen, because Hannah was hardly to be trusted with such

things, she was becoming so childish.

'What is it, then?' said Swithin. 'Oh, one of your special puddings.' At

sight of it, however, he added reproachfully, 'Now, granny!'

Instead of being round, it was in shape an irregular boulder that had

been exposed to the weather for centuries--a little scrap pared off here,

and a little piece broken away there; the general aim being,

nevertheless, to avoid destroying the symmetry of the pudding while

taking as much as possible of its substance.

'The fact is,' added Swithin, 'the pudding is half gone!'

'I've only sliced off the merest paring once or twice, to taste if it was

well done!' pleaded granny Martin, with wounded feelings. 'I said to

Hannah when she took it up, "Put it here to keep it warm, as there's a

better fire than in the back kitchen."'

'Well, I am not going to eat any of it!' said Swithin decisively, as he

rose from the table, pushed away his chair, and went up-stairs; the

'other station of life that was in his blood,' and which had been brought

out by the grammar school, probably stimulating him.

'Ah, the world is an ungrateful place! 'Twas a pity I didn't take my

poor name off this earthly calendar and creep under ground sixty long

years ago, instead of leaving my own county to come here!' mourned old

Mrs. Martin. 'But I told his mother how 'twould be--marrying so many

notches above her. The child was sure to chaw high, like his father!'

When Swithin had been up-stairs a minute or two however, he altered his

mind, and coming down again ate all the pudding, with the aspect of a

person undertaking a deed of great magnanimity. The relish with which he

did so restored the unison that knew no more serious interruptions than

such as this.

'Mr. Torkingham has been here this afternoon,' said his grandmother; 'and

he wants me to let him meet some of the choir here to-night for practice.

They who live at this end of the parish won't go to his house to try over

the tunes, because 'tis so far, they say, and so 'tis, poor men. So he's

going to see what coming to them will do. He asks if you would like to

join.'

'I would if I had not so much to do.'

'But it is cloudy to-night.'

'Yes; but I have calculations without end, granny. Now, don't you tell

him I'm in the house, will you? and then he'll not ask for me.'

'But if he should, must I then tell a lie, Lord forgive me?'

'No, you can say I'm up-stairs; he must think what he likes. Not a word

about the astronomy to any of them, whatever you do. I should be called

a visionary, and all sorts.'

'So thou beest, child. Why can't ye do something that's of use?'

At the sound of footsteps Swithin beat a hasty retreat up-stairs, where

he struck a light, and revealed a table covered with books and papers,

while round the walls hung star-maps, and other diagrams illustrative of

celestial phenomena. In a corner stood a huge pasteboard tube, which a

close inspection would have shown to be intended for a telescope. Swithin

hung a thick cloth over the window, in addition to the curtains, and sat

down to his papers. On the ceiling was a black stain of smoke, and under

this he placed his lamp, evidencing that the midnight oil was consumed on

that precise spot very often.

Meanwhile there had entered to the room below a personage who, to judge

from her voice and the quick pit-pat of her feet, was a maiden young and

blithe. Mrs. Martin welcomed her by the title of Miss Tabitha Lark, and

inquired what wind had brought her that way; to which the visitor replied

that she had come for the singing.

'Sit ye down, then,' said granny. 'And do you still go to the House to

read to my lady?'

'Yes, I go and read, Mrs. Martin; but as to getting my lady to hearken,

that's more than a team of six horses could force her to do.'

The girl had a remarkably smart and fluent utterance, which was probably

a cause, or a consequence, of her vocation.

''Tis the same story, then?' said grandmother Martin.

'Yes. Eaten out with listlessness. She's neither sick nor sorry, but

how dull and dreary she is, only herself can tell. When I get there in

the morning, there she is sitting up in bed, for my lady don't care to

get up; and then she makes me bring this book and that book, till the bed

is heaped up with immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, as

she leans upon her elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; then

she looks towards the tall glass; then she looks out at the weather,

mooning her great black eyes, and fixing them on the sky as if they stuck

there, while my tongue goes flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty words

a minute; then she looks at the clock; then she asks me what I've been

reading.'

'Ah, poor soul!' said granny. 'No doubt she says in the morning, "Would

God it were evening," and in the evening, "Would God it were morning,"

like the disobedient woman in Deuteronomy.'

Swithin, in the room overhead, had suspended his calculations, for the

duologue interested him. There now crunched heavier steps outside the

door, and his grandmother could be heard greeting sundry local

representatives of the bass and tenor voice, who lent a cheerful and well-

known personality to the names Sammy Blore, Nat Chapman, Hezekiah Biles,

and Haymoss Fry (the latter being one with whom the reader has already a

distant acquaintance); besides these came small producers of treble, who

had not yet developed into such distinctive units of society as to

require particularizing.

'Is the good man come?' asked Nat Chapman. 'No,--I see we be here afore

him. And how is it with aged women to-night, Mrs. Martin?'

'Tedious traipsing enough with this one, Nat. Sit ye down. Well, little

Freddy, you don't wish in the morning that 'twere evening, and at evening

that 'twere morning again, do you, Freddy, trust ye for it?'

'Now, who might wish such a thing as that, Mrs Martin?--nobody in this

parish?' asked Sammy Blore curiously.

'My lady is always wishing it,' spoke up Miss Tabitha Lark.

'Oh, she! Nobody can be answerable for the wishes of that onnatural

tribe of mankind. Not but that the woman's heart-strings is tried in

many aggravating ways.'

'Ah, poor woman!' said granny. 'The state she finds herself in--neither

maid, wife, nor widow, as you may say--is not the primest form of life

for keeping in good spirits. How long is it since she has heard from Sir

Blount, Tabitha?'

'Two years and more,' said the young woman. 'He went into one side of

Africa, as it might be, three St. Martin's days back. I can mind it,

because 'twas my birthday. And he meant to come out the other side. But

he didn't. He has never come out at all.'

'For all the world like losing a rat in a barley-mow,' said Hezekiah.

'He's lost, though you know where he is.'

His comrades nodded.

'Ay, my lady is a walking weariness. I seed her yawn just at the very

moment when the fox was halloaed away by Lornton Copse, and the hounds

runned en all but past her carriage wheels. If I were she I'd see a

little life; though there's no fair, club-walking, nor feast to speak of,

till Easter week,--that's true.'

'She dares not. She's under solemn oath to do no such thing.'

'Be cust if I would keep any such oath! But here's the pa'son, if my

ears don't deceive me.'

There was a noise of horse's hoofs without, a stumbling against the door-

scraper, a tethering to the window-shutter, a creaking of the door on its

hinges, and a voice which Swithin recognized as Mr. Torkingham's. He

greeted each of the previous arrivals by name, and stated that he was

glad to see them all so punctually assembled.

'Ay, sir,' said Haymoss Fry. ''Tis only my jints that have kept me from

assembling myself long ago. I'd assemble upon the top of Welland

Steeple, if 'tweren't for my jints. I assure ye, Pa'son Tarkenham, that

in the clitch o' my knees, where the rain used to come through when I was

cutting clots for the new lawn, in old my lady's time, 'tis as if rats

wez gnawing, every now and then. When a feller's young he's too small in

the brain to see how soon a constitution can be squandered, worse luck!'

'True,' said Biles, to fill the time while the parson was engaged in

finding the Psalms. 'A man's a fool till he's forty. Often have I

thought, when hay-pitching, and the small of my back seeming no stouter

than a harnet's, "The devil send that I had but the making of labouring

men for a twelvemonth!" I'd gie every man jack two good backbones, even

if the alteration was as wrong as forgery.'

'Four,--four backbones,' said Haymoss, decisively.

'Yes, four,' threw in Sammy Blore, with additional weight of experience.

'For you want one in front for breast-ploughing and such like, one at the

right side for ground-dressing, and one at the left side for turning

mixens.'

'Well; then next I'd move every man's wyndpipe a good span away from his

glutchpipe, so that at harvest time he could fetch breath in 's drinking,

without being choked and strangled as he is now. Thinks I, when I feel

the victuals going--'

'Now, we'll begin,' interrupted Mr. Torkingham, his mind returning to

this world again on concluding his search for a hymn.

Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they were

settling into their seats,--a disturbance which Swithin took advantage of

by going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paper

over knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, that

his lamp-light might not shine down. The absence of a ceiling beneath

rendered his position virtually that of one suspended in the same

apartment.

The parson announced the tune, and his voice burst forth with 'Onward,

Christian soldiers!' in notes of rigid cheerfulness.

In this start, however, he was joined only by the girls and boys, the men

furnishing but an accompaniment of ahas and hems. Mr. Torkingham

stopped, and Sammy Blore spoke,--

'Beg your pardon, sir,--if you'll deal mild with us a moment. What with

the wind and walking, my throat's as rough as a grater; and not knowing

you were going to hit up that minute, I hadn't hawked, and I don't think

Hezzy and Nat had, either,--had ye, souls?'

'I hadn't got thorough ready, that's true,' said Hezekiah.

'Quite right of you, then, to speak,' said Mr. Torkingham. 'Don't mind

explaining; we are here for practice. Now clear your throats, then, and

at it again.'

There was a noise as of atmospheric hoes and scrapers, and the bass

contingent at last got under way with a time of its own:

'Honwerd, Christen sojers!'

'Ah, that's where we are so defective--the pronunciation,' interrupted

the parson. 'Now repeat after me: "On-ward, Christ-ian, sol-diers."'

The choir repeated like an exaggerative echo: 'On-wed, Chris-ting, sol-

jaws!'

'Better!' said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who

got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not

very perceptible to other people. 'But it should not be given with quite

so extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes.

And, Nathaniel Chapman, there's a jauntiness in your manner of singing

which is not quite becoming. Why don't you sing more earnestly?'

'My conscience won't let me, sir. They say every man for himself: but,

thank God, I'm not so mean as to lessen old fokes' chances by being

earnest at my time o' life, and they so much nearer the need o't.'

'It's bad reasoning, Nat, I fear. Now, perhaps we had better sol-fa the

tune. Eyes on your books, please. Sol-sol! fa-fa! mi--'

'I can't sing like that, not I!' said Sammy Blore, with condemnatory

astonishment. 'I can sing genuine music, like F and G; but not anything

so much out of the order of nater as that.'

'Perhaps you've brought the wrong book, sir?' chimed in Haymoss, kindly.

'I've knowed music early in life and late,--in short, ever since Luke

Sneap broke his new fiddle-bow in the wedding psalm, when Pa'son Wilton

brought home his bride (you can mind the time, Sammy?--when we sung "His

wife, like a fair fertile vine, her lovely fruit shall bring," when the

young woman turned as red as a rose, not knowing 'twas coming). I've

knowed music ever since then, I say, sir, and never heard the like o'

that. Every martel note had his name of A, B, C, at that time.'

'Yes, yes, men; but this is a more recent system!'

'Still, you can't alter a old-established note that's A or B by nater,'

rejoined Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham was

getting off his head. 'Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let's have a

slap at Christen sojers again, and show the Pa'son the true way!'

Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being about

seventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent up

the pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatter

than the parson's. While an argument as to the true pitch was in

progress, there came a knocking without.

'Somebody's at the door!' said a little treble girl.

'Thought I heard a knock before!' said the relieved choir.

The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, 'Is Mr.

Torkingham here?'

'Yes, Mills. What do you want?'

It was the parson's man.

'Oh, if you please,' said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himself

round the door, 'Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir,

and could you call on her after dinner, if you ben't engaged with poor

fokes? She's just had a letter,--so they say,--and it's about that, I

believe.'

Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at once

if he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising,

and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers

assisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the

edge of the Bottom.