out of you for nothing?” asked Mr. Nelson. He thrust half-a-crown into
the lad’s waistcoat pocket, saying that he must give it back again, if
he led the gentleman wrong. The gentleman had no time to go running
about the country on a fool’s errand; Allan must mind that. As Allan
touched his hat, and ran down the steps, Mr. Nelson observed that boys
with good hearts did not fly about in that way, as if they were merry,
on the day of their mother’s funeral.
“Perhaps he is rather thinking of saving his father,” observed the
surveyor.
“Well; save as many of them as you can. They seem all going to pot as it
is.”
When Allan burst in, carrying nothing of Abby’s, but having a little
color in his cheeks for once, his father sat up in his chair, the baby
suddenly stopped crying, and Moss asked where he had been. At first, his
father disappointed him by being listless--first refusing to believe
anything good, and then saying that any good that could happen now was
too late; and Abby could not help crying all the more because this was
not thought about a year sooner. It was her poor husband that had made
the stir; and now they were going to take his advice the very day that
he was laid in his grave. They all tried to comfort her, and said how
natural it was that she should feel it so; yet, amidst all their
sympathy, they could not help being cheered that something was to be
done at last.
By degrees, and not slow degrees, Woodruffe became animated. It was
surprising how many things he desired Allan to be sure not to forget to
point out to the surveyor, and to urge upon those he was to visit. At
last he said he would go himself. It was a very serious business, and he
ought to make an effort to have it done properly. It was a great effort,
but he would make it. Not rheumatism, nor anything else, should keep him
at home. Allan was glad at heart to see such signs of energy in his
father, though he might feel some natural disappointment at being left
at home, and some perplexity as to what, in that case, he ought to do
about the half-crown, if Mr. Nelson should be gone home. The morning
settled this, however. The surveyor was in his gig. If Allan could hang
on, or keep up with it, it would be very well, as he would be wanted to
open the gates, and to lead the way in places too wet for his father,
who was not worth such a pair of patent waterproof tall boots as the
surveyor had on.
The circuit was not a very wide one; yet it was dark before they got
home. There are always difficulties in arrangements which require
combined action. Here there were different levels in the land, and
different tempers and views among the occupiers. Mr. Brown had heard
nothing about the matter, and could not be hurried till he saw occasion.
Mr. Taylor liked his field best, wet--would not have it drier on any
account, for fear of the summer sun. When assured that drought took no
hold on well-dried land in comparison with wet land, he shook with
laughter, and asked if they expected him to believe that. Mrs. Scott,
whose combination with two others was essential to the drainage of three
portions, would wait another year. They must go on without her; and
after another year, she would see what she would do. Another had
drained his land in his own way long ago, and did not expect that
anybody would ask him to put his spade into another man’s land, or to
let any other man put his spade into his. These were all the
obstructions. Everybody else was willing, or at least, not obstructive.
By clever management, it was thought that the parties concerned could
make an island of Mrs. Scott and her field, and win over Mr. Brown by
the time he was wanted, and show Mr. Taylor that, as his field could no
longer be as wet as it had been, he might as well try the opposite
condition--they promising to flood his field as often and as thoroughly
as he pleased, if he found it the worse for being drained. They could
not obtain all they wished, where everybody was not as wise as could be
wished; but so much was agreed upon as made the experienced surveyor
think that the rest would follow; enough, already, to set more laborers
to work than the place could furnish. Two or three stout men were sent
from a distance; and when they had once cut a clear descent from the
ditch to the river, and had sunk the ditch to seven feet deep, and made
the bottom even, and narrowed it to three feet, it was a curious thing
to see how ready the neighbors became to unite their drains with it. It
used to be said, that here--however it might be elsewhere--the winter
was no time for digging; but that must have meant that no winter-digging
would bring a spring crop; and that therefore it was useless. Now, the
sound of the spade never ceased for the rest of the winter; and the
laborers thought it the best winter they had ever known for constant
work. Those who employed the labor hoped it would answer--found it
expensive--must trust it was all right, and would yield a profit by and
by. As for the Woodruffes, they were too poor to employ laborers. But
some little hope had entered their hearts again, and brought strength,
not only to their hearts, but to their very limbs. They worked like
people beginning the world. As poor Abby could keep the house and sew,
while attending to her little school, Becky did the lighter parts (and
some which were far from light) of the garden work, finding easy tasks
for Moss; and Allan worked like a man at the drains. They had been
called good drains before; but now, there was an outfall for deeper
ones; and deeper they must be made. Moreover, a strong rivalry arose
among the neighbors about their respective portions of the combined
drainage; and under the stimulus of ambition, Woodruffe recovered his
spirits and the use of his limbs wonderfully. He suffered cruelly from
his rheumatism; and in the evenings felt as if he could never more lift
a spade; yet, not the less was he at work again in the morning, and so
sanguine as to the improvement of his ground, that it was necessary to
remind him, when calculating his gains, that it would take two years, at
least, to prove the effects of his present labors.
VII.
It was observed by Woodruffe’s family, during one week of spring of the
next year, that he was very absent. He was not in low spirits, but
absorbed in thought, and much devoted to making calculations with pencil
and paper. At last, out it came, one morning at breakfast.
“I wonder how we should all like to have Harry Hardiman to work with us
again?”
Every one looked up. Harry! where was Harry? Was he here? Was he coming?
“Why, I will tell you what I have been thinking,” said their father. “I
have thought long and carefully, and I believe I have made up my mind to
send for Harry, to come and work for us as he used to do. We have not
labor enough on the ground. Two stout men to the acre is the smallest
allowance for trying what could be made of the place.”
“That is what Taylor and Brown are employing now on the best part of
their land,” said Allan; “that is, when they can get the labor. There is
such difference between that and one man to four or five acres, as there
was before, that they can’t always get the labor.”
“Just so; and therefore,” continued Woodruffe, “I am thinking of sending
for Harry. Our old neighborhood was not prosperous when we left it, and
I fancy it cannot have improved since; and Harry might be glad to follow
his master to a thriving neighborhood; and he is such a careful fellow
that I dare say he has money for the journey,--even if he has a wife by
this time, as I suppose he has.”
Moss looked most pleased, where all were pleased, at the idea of seeing
Harry again. His remembrance of Harry was of a tall young man, who used
to carry him on his shoulders, and wheel him in the empty water-barrel,
and sometimes offer to dip him into it when it was full, and show him
how to dig in the sand-heap with his little wooden spade.
“Your rent, to be sure, is much lower than in the old place,” observed
Abby.
“Why, we must not build upon that,” replied the father; “rent is rising
here, and will rise. My landlord was considerate in lowering mine to £3
per acre, when he saw how impossible it was to make it answer; and he
says he shall not ask more yet on account of the labor I laid out at the
time of the drainage. But when I have partly repaid myself, the rent
will rise to £5; and, in fact, I have made my calculations in regard to
Harry’s coming at a higher rent than that.”
“Higher than that?”
“Yes; I should not be surprised if I found myself paying, as
market-gardeners near London do, ten pounds per acre before I die.”
“Or rather, to let the ground to me for that, father,” said Allan, “when
it is your own property, and you are tired of work, and disposed to turn
it over to me. I will pay you ten pounds per acre then, and let you have
all the cabbages you can eat besides. It is capital land, and that is
the truth. Come--shall that be a bargain?”
Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty to Allan. He did not like to
see him so hard worked as to be unable to take due care of his own
corner of the garden;--unable to enter fairly into the competition for
the prizes at the Horticultural Show in the summer. Becky now, too,
ought to be spared from all but occasional help in the garden. Above
all, the ground was now in such an improving state that it would be
waste not to bestow due labor upon it. Put in the spade where you would,
the soil was loose and well-aired as needs be: the manure penetrated it
thoroughly; the frost and heat pulverized, instead of binding it; and
the crops were succeeding each other so fast, that the year would be a
very profitable one.
“Where will Harry live, if he comes?” asked Abby.
“We must get another cottage added to the new row. Easily done! Cottages
so healthy as these new ones pay well. Good rents are offered for
them,--to save doctors’ bills and loss of time from sickness;--and, when
once a system of house-drainage is set a-going, it costs scarcely more
in adding a cottage to a group, to make it all right, than to run it up
upon solid clay as used to be the way here. Well, I have a good mind to
write to Harry to-day. What do you think of it,--all of you?”
Fortified by the opinion of all his children, Mr. Woodruffe wrote to
Harry. Meantime, Allan and Becky went to cut the vegetables that were
for sale that day; and Moss delighted himself in running after and
catching the pony in the meadow below. The pony was not very easily
caught, for it was full of spirit. Instead of the woolly insipid grass
that it used to crop, and which seemed to give it only fever and no
nourishment, it now fed on sweet fresh grass, which had no sour stagnant
water soaking its roots. The pony was so full of play this morning that
Moss could not get hold of it. Though much stronger than a year ago, he
was not yet anything like so robust as a boy of his age should be; and
he was growing heated, and perhaps a little angry, as the pony galloped
off towards some distant trees, when a boy started up behind a bush,
caught the halter, brought the pony round with a twitch, and led him to
Moss. Moss fancied he had seen the boy before, and then his white teeth
reminded Moss of one thing after another.
“I came for some marsh plants,” said the boy. “You and I got plenty once
somewhere hereabouts, but I cannot find them now.”
“You will not find any now. We have no marsh now.”
The stranger said he dared not go back without them; mother wanted them
badly. She would not believe him if he said he could not find any. There
were plenty about two miles off, along the railway, among the clay-pits,
he was told; but none nearer. The boy wanted to know where the clay-pits
hereabouts were. He could not find one of them.
“I will show you one of them,” said Moss; “the one where you and I used
to hunt rats.” And, leading the pony, he showed his old gypsy
play-fellow all the improvements, beginning with the great ditch,--now
invisible from being covered in. While it was open, he said, it used to
get choked, and the sides were plastered after rain, and soon became
grass-grown, so that it was found worth while to cover it in; and now it
would want little looking to for years to come. As for the clay-pit,
where the rats used to pop in and out,--it was now a manure-pit, covered
in. There was a drain into it from the pony’s stable and from the
pig-styes; and it was near enough to the garden to receive the refuse
and sweepings. A heavy lid, with a ring in the middle, covered the pit,
so that nobody could fall in in the dark, and no smell could get out.
Moss begged the boy to come a little further, and he would show him his
own flower-bed; and when the boy was there, he was shown everything
else: what a cart-load of vegetables lay cut for sale; and what an arbor
had been made of the pent-house under which Moss used to take shelter,
when he could do nothing better than keep off the birds; and how fine
the ducks were,--the five ducks that were so serviceable in eating off
the slugs; and what a comfortable nest had been made for them to lay
their eggs in, beside the water-tank in the corner; and what a variety
of scarecrows the family had invented,--each having one, to try which
would frighten the sparrows most. While Moss was telling how difficult
it was to deal with the sparrows, because they could not be frightened
for more than three days by any kind of scarecrow, he heard Allan
calling him, in a tone of vexation, at being kept waiting so long. In an
instant the stranger boy was off,--leaping the gate, and flying along
the meadow till he was hidden behind a hedge.
Two or three days after this one of the ducks was missing. The last time
that the five had been seen together was when Moss was showing them to
his visitor. The morning after Moss finally gave up hope, the glass of
Allan’s hotbed was found broken, and in the midst of the bed itself was
a deep foot-track, crushing the cucumber plants, and, with them,
Allan’s hopes of a cucumber prize at the Horticultural Exhibition in the
summer. On more examination, more mischief was discovered, some cabbages
had been stolen, and another duck was missing. In the midst of the
general concern, Woodruffe burst out a-laughing. It struck him that the
chief of the scarecrows had changed his hat; and so he had. The old
straw hat which used to flap in the wind so serviceably was gone, and in
its stead appeared a helmet,--a saucepan full of holes, battered and
split, but still fit to be a helmet to a scarecrow.
“I could swear to the old hat,” observed Woodruffe, “if I should have
the luck to see it on anybody’s head.”
“And so could I,” said Becky, “for I mended it,--bound it with black
behind, and green before, because I had not green ribbon enough. But
nobody would wear it before our eyes.”
“That is why I suspect there are strangers hovering about. We must
watch.”
Now Moss, for the first time, bethought himself of the boy he had
brought in from the meadow; and now, for the first time, he told his
family of that encounter.
“I never saw such a simpleton,” his father declared. “There, go along
and work! Now, don’t cry, but hold up like a man and work.”
Moss did cry; he could not help it; but he worked too. He would fain
have been one of the watchers, moreover; but his father said he was too
young. For two nights he was ordered to bed, when Allan took his dark
lantern, and went down to the pent-house; the first night accompanied by
his father, and the next by Harry Hardiman, who had come on the first
summons. By the third evening, Moss was so miserable that his sisters
interceded for him, and he was allowed to go down with his old friend
Harry.
It was a starlight night, without a moon. The low country lay dim, but
unobscured by mist. After a single remark on the fineness of the night,
Harry was silent. Silence was their first business. They stole round the
fence as if they had been thieves themselves, listened for some time
before they let themselves in at the gate, passed quickly in, and locked
the gate (the lock of which had been well oiled), went behind every
screen, and along every path, to be sure that no one was there, and
finally, perceiving that the remaining ducks were safe, settled
themselves in the darkness of the pent-house.
There they sat, hour after hour, listening. If there had been no sound,
perhaps they could not have borne the effort; but the sense was relieved
by the bark of a dog at a distance, and then by the hoot of the owl that
was known to have done them good service in mousing, many a time; and
once, by the passage of a train on the railway above. When these were
all over, poor Moss had much ado to keep awake, and at last his head
sank on Harry’s shoulder, and he forgot where he was, and everything
else in the world. He was awakened by Harry’s moving, and then
whispering quite into his ear:--
“Sit you still. I hear somebody yonder. No--sit you still. I won’t go
far--not out of call; but I must get between them and the gate.”
With his lantern under his coat, Harry stole forth, and Moss stood up,
all alone in the darkness and stillness. He could hear his heart beat,
but nothing else, till footsteps on the path came nearer and nearer.
They came quite up; they came in, actually into the arbor; and then the
ducks were certainly fluttering. In an instant more, there was a gleam
of light upon the white plumage of the ducks, and then light enough to
show that this was the gypsy boy, with a dark lantern hung round his
neck, and, at the same moment, to show the gypsy boy that Moss was
there. The two boys stood, face to face, motionless from utter
amazement, and the ducks had scuttled and waddled away before they
recovered themselves. Then, Moss flew at him in a glorious passion, at
once of rage and fear.
“Leave him to me, Moss,” cried Harry, casting light upon the scene from
his lantern, while he collared the thief with the other hand. “Let go,
I say, Moss. There, now we’ll go round and be sure whether there is any
one else in the garden, and then we’ll lodge this young rogue where he
will be safe.”
Nobody was there, and they went home in the dawn, locked up the thief in
the shed, and slept through what remained of the night.
It was about Mr. Nelson’s usual time for coming down the line; and it
was observed that he now always stopped at this station till the next
train passed,--probably because it was a pleasure to him to look upon
the improvement of the place. It was no surprise therefore to Woodruffe
to see him standing on the embankment after breakfast; and it was
natural that Mr. Nelson should be immediately told that the gypsies were
here again, and how one of them was caught thieving.
“Thieving! So you found some of your property upon him, did you!”
“Why, no. I thought myself that it was a pity that Moss did not let him
alone till he had laid hold of a duck or something.”
“Pho! pho! don’t tell me you can punish the boy for theft, when you
can’t prove that he stole anything. Give him a whipping, and let him
go.”
“With all my heart. It will save me much trouble to finish off the
matter so.”
Mr. Nelson seemed to have some curiosity about the business; for he
accompanied Woodruffe to the shed. The boy seemed to feel no awe of the
great man whom he supposed to be a magistrate, and when asked whether he
felt none, he giggled and said “No;” he had seen the gentleman more
afraid of his mother than anybody ever was of him, he fancied. On this,
a thought struck Mr. Nelson. He would now have his advantage of the
gypsy woman, and might enjoy, at the same time, an opportunity of
studying human nature under stress--a thing he liked, when the stress
was not too severe. So he passed a decree on the spot that, it being now
nine o’clock, the boy should remain shut up without food till noon, when
he should be severely flogged, and driven from the neighborhood; and
with this pleasant prospect before him, the young rogue remained,
whistling ostentatiously, while his enemies locked the door upon him.
“Did you hear him shoot the bolt?” asked Woodruffe. “If he holds to
that, I don’t know how I shall get at him at noon.”
“There, now, what fools people are! Why did you not take out the bolt? A
pretty constable you would make! Come--come this way. I am going to find
the gypsy-tent again. You are wondering that I am not afraid of the
woman, I see; but, you observe, I have a hold over her this time. What
do you mean by allowing those children to gather about your door? You
ought not to permit it.”
“They are only the scholars. Don’t you see them going in? My daughter
keeps a little school, you know, since her husband’s death.”
“Ah, poor thing! poor thing!” said Mr. Nelson, as Abby appeared on the
threshold, calling the children in.
Mr. Nelson always contrived to see some one or more of the family when
he visited the station; but it so happened, that he had never entered
the door of their dwelling. Perhaps he was not himself fully conscious
of the reason. It was, that he could not bear to see Abby’s young face
within the widow’s cap, and to be thus reminded that hers was a case of
cruel wrong; that if the most ordinary thought and care had been used in
preparing the place for human habitation, her husband might be living
now, and she the happy creature that she would never be again.
On his way to the gypsies, Mr. Nelson saw some things that pleased him
in his heart, though he found fault with them all. What business had
Woodruffe with an additional man in his garden? It could not possibly
answer. If it did not, the fellow must be sent away again. He must not
burden the parish. The occupiers here seemed all alike. Such a fancy for
new labor! One, two, six men at work on the land within sight at that
moment, over and above what there used to be! It must be looked to.
Humph! he could get to the alders dryshod now; but that was owing
solely to the warmth of the spring. It was nonsense to attribute
everything to drainage. Drainage was a good thing; but fine weather was
better.
The gypsy-tent was found behind the alders as before, but no longer in a
swamp. The woman was sitting on the ground at the entrance as before,
but not now with a fevered child laid across her knees. She was weaving
a basket.
“Oh, I see,” said Woodruffe, “this is the way our osiers go.”
“You have not many to lose, now-a-days,” said the woman.
“You are welcome to all the rushes you can find,” said Woodruffe; “but
where is your son?”
Some change of countenance was seen in the woman; but she answered
carelessly that the children were playing yonder.
“The one I mean is not there,” said Woodruffe, “We have him safe--caught
him stealing my ducks.”
She called the boy a villain--disowned him, and so forth; but when she
found the case a hopeless one, she did not, and, therefore, probably
could not scold--that is, anybody but herself and her husband. She
cursed herself for coming into this silly place, where now no good was
to be got. When she was brought to the right point of perplexity about
what to do, seeing that it would not do to stay, and being unable to go
while her boy was in durance, she was told that his punishment should be
summary, though severe, if she would answer frankly certain questions.
When she had once begun giving her confidence, she seemed to enjoy the
license. When her husband came up, he looked as if he only waited for
the departure of his visitors to give his wife the same amount of
thrashing that her son was awaiting elsewhere. She vowed that they would
never pitch their tent here again. It used to be the best station in
their whole round--the fogs were so thick! From sunset to long after
sunrise, it had been as good as a winter night, for going where they
pleased without fear of prying eyes. There was not a poultry-yard or
pig-stye within a couple of miles round, where they could not creep up
through the fog. And they escaped the blame, too; for the swamp and
ditches used to harbor so much vermin, that the gypsies were not always
suspected, as they were now. Till lately, people shut themselves into
their homes, or the men went to the public-house in the chill evenings;
and there was little fear of meeting any one. But now that the fogs were
gone, people were out in their gardens, on these fine evenings, and
there were men in the meadows, returning from fishing; for they could
angle now, when their work was done, without the fear of catching an
ague in the marsh as they went home.