The swinging open of a great gate at the further end of the field
disturbed the momentary silence which followed his words. The returning
haymakers appeared on the scene, leading Roger at their head, and
Innocent jumped up eagerly, glad of the interruption.
"Here comes old Roger!" she cried,--"bless his heart! Now, Robin, you
must try to look very stately! Are you going to ride home standing or
sitting?"
He was visibly annoyed at her light indifference.
"Unless I may sit beside you with my arm round your waist, in the
Pettigrew fashion, I'd rather stand!" he retorted. "You said
Pettigrew's hands were always dirty--so are mine. I'd better keep my
distance from you. One can't make hay and remain altogether as clean as
a new pin!"
She gave an impatient gesture.
"You always take things up in the wrong way," she said--"I never
thought you a bit like Pettigrew! Your hands are not really dirty!"
"They are!" he answered, obstinately. "Besides, you don't want my arm
round your waist, do you?"
"Certainly not!" she replied, quickly.
"Then I'll stand," he said;--"You shall be enthroned like a queen and
I'll be your bodyguard. Here, wait a minute!"
He piled up the hay in the middle of the load till it made a high
cushion where, in obedience to his gesture, Innocent seated herself.
The men leading the horse were now close about the waggon, and one of
them, grinning sheepishly at the girl, offered her a daintily-made
wreath of wild roses, from which all the thorns had been carefully
removed.
"Looks prutty, don't it?" he said.
She accepted it with a smile.
"Is it for me? Oh, Larry, how nice of you! Am I to wear it?"
"If ye loike!" This with another grin.
She set it on her uncovered head and became at once a model for a
Romney; the wild roses with their delicate pink and white against her
brown hair suited the hues of her complexion and the tender grey of her
eyes;--and when, thus adorned, she looked up at her companion, he was
fain to turn away quickly lest his admiration should be too plainly
made manifest before profane witnesses.
Roger, meanwhile, was being harnessed to the waggon. He was a handsome
creature of his kind, and he knew it. As he turned his bright soft
glance from side to side with a conscious pride in himself and his
surroundings, he seemed to be perfectly aware that the knots of bright
red ribbon tied in his long and heavy mane meant some sort of festival.
When all was done the haymakers gathered round.
"Good luck to the last load, Mr. Clifford!" they shouted.
"Good luck to you all!" answered Robin, cheerily.
"Good luck t'ye, Miss!" and they raised their sun-browned faces to the
girl as she looked down upon them. "As fine a crop and as fair a load
next year!"
"Good luck to you!" she responded--then suddenly bending a little
forward she said almost breathlessly: "Please wish luck to Dad! He's
not well--and he isn't here! Oh, please don't forget him!"
They all stared at her for a moment, as if startled or surprised, then
they all joined in a stentorian shout.
"That's right, Miss! Good luck to the master! Many good years of life
to him, and better crops every year!"
She drew back, smiling her thanks, but there were tears in her eyes.
And then they all started in a pretty procession--the men leading
Roger, who paced along the meadow with equine dignity, shaking his
ribbons now and again as if he were fully conscious of carrying
something more valuable than mere hay,--and above them all smiled the
girl's young face, framed in its soft brown hair and crowned with the
wild roses, while at her side stood the very type of a model
Englishman, with all the promise of splendid life and vigour in the
build of his form, the set of his shoulders and the poise of his
handsome head. It was a picture of youth and beauty and lovely nature
set against the warm evening tint of the sky,--one of those pictures
which, though drawn for the moment only on the minds of those who see
it, is yet never forgotten.
Arriving presently at a vast enclosure, in which already two loads of
hay were being stacked, they were hailed with a cheery shout by several
other labourers at work, and very soon a strong smell of beer began to
mingle with the odour of the hay and the dewy scent of the elder
flowers and sweet briar in the hedges close by.
"Have a drop, Mr. Clifford!" said one tall, powerful-looking man who
seemed to be a leader among the others, holding out a pewter tankard
full and frothing over.
Robin Clifford smiled and put his lips to it.
"Just to your health, Landon!" he said--"I'm not a drinking man."
"Haymaking's thirsty work," commented the other. "Will Miss Jocelyn do
us the honour?"
The girl made a wry little face.
"I don't like beer, Mr. Landon," she said--"It's horrid stuff, even
when it's home-brewed! I help to make it, you see!"
She laughed gaily--they all laughed with her, and then there was a
little altercation which ended in her putting her lips to the tankard
just offered to Robin and sipping the merest fleck of its foam. Landon
watched her,--and as she returned the cup, put his own mouth to the
place hers had touched and drank the whole draught off greedily. Robin
did not see his action, but the girl did, and a deep blush of offence
suffused her cheeks. She rose, a little nervously.
"I'll go in now," she said--"Dad must be alone by this time."
"All right!" And Robin jumped lightly from the top of the load to the
ground and put the ladder up for her to descend. She came down
daintily, turning her back to him so that the hem of her neat white
skirt fell like a little snowflake over each rung of the ladder,
veiling not only her slim ankles but the very heels of her shoes. When
she was nearly at the bottom, he caught her up and set her lightly on
the ground.
"There you are!" he said, with a laugh--"When you get into the house
you can tell Uncle that you are a Rose Queen, a Hay Queen, and Queen of
everything and everyone on Briar Farm, including your very humble
servant, Robin Clifford!"
"And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!" added Landon, with a quick
glance, doffing his cap. "Mr. Clifford mustn't expect to have it all
his own way!"
"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Robin, turning upon
him with a sudden fierceness.
Innocent gave him an appealing look.
"Don't!--Oh, don't quarrel!" she whispered,--and with a parting nod to
the whole party of workers she hurried away.
With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men. Then Robin,
turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders. He was a
person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner
of the farm when his uncle was dead. Landon went close up to him.
"Mr. Clifford," he said, somewhat thickly, "you heard what I said just
now? You mustn't expect to have it all your own way! There's other men
after the girl as well as you!"
Clifford glanced him up and down.
"Yourself, I suppose?" he retorted.
"And why not?" sneered Landon.
"Only because there are two sides to every question," said Clifford,
carelessly, with a laugh. "And no decision can be arrived at till both
are heard!"
He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily,
and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song:
"Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustily raking over the hay,
He was well aware of a bonny lass,
As she came wandering over the way.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!
"Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said,
Among the leaves that be so greene,
If I were a king and wore a crown,
Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!"
Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.
"Those laugh best who laugh last!" he muttered, "And a whistling
throstle has had its neck wrung before now!"
Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse. Passing through the hall,
which,--unaltered since the days of its original building,--was vaulted
high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see
Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did
all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage
rolling out pastry and talking volubly as she rolled:
"Ah! YOU'LL never come to much good, Jenny Spinner," she cried. "What
with a muck of dirty dishes in one corner and a muddle of ragged clouts
in another, you're the very model of a wife for a farm hand! Can't sew
a gown for yerself neither, but bound to send it into town to be made
for ye, and couldn't put a button on a pair of breeches for fear of
'urtin' yer delicate fingers! Well! God 'elp ye when the man comes as
ye're lookin' for! He'll be a fool anyhow, for all men are that,--but
he'll be twice a fool if he takes you for a life-satchel on his
shoulders!"
Jenny Spinner endured this tirade patiently, and went on with the
washing-up in which she was engaged, only turning her head to look at
Innocent as she appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, with her hair
slightly dishevelled and the wreath of wild roses crowning her brows.
"Priscilla, where's Dad?" she asked.
"Lord save us, lovey! You gave me a real scare coming in like that with
them roses on yer head like a pixie out of the woods! The master? He's
just where the doctors left 'im, sittin' in his easy-chair and looking
out o' window."
"Was it--was it all right, do you think?" asked the girl, hesitatingly.
"Now, lovey, don't ask me about doctors, 'cos I don't know nothin' and
wants to know nothin', for they be close-tongued folk who never sez
what they thinks lest they get their blessed selves into hot water. And
whether it's all right or all wrong, I couldn't tell ye, for the two o'
them went out together, and Mr. Slowton sez 'Good-arternoon, Miss
Friday!' quite perlite like, and the other gentleman he lifts 'is 'at
quite civil, so I should say 'twas all wrong. For if you mark me,
lovey, men's allus extra perlite when they thinks there's goin' to be
trouble, hopin' they'll get somethin' for theirselves out of it."
Innocent hardly waited to hear her last words.
"I'm going to Dad," she said, quickly, and disappeared.
Priscilla Friday stopped for a minute in the rolling-cut of her pastry.
Some great stress of thought appeared to be working behind her wrinkled
brow, for she shook her head, pursed her lips and rolled up her eyes a
great many times. Then she gave a short sigh and went on with her work.
The farmhouse was a rambling old place, full of quaint corners, arches
and odd little steps up and down leading to cupboards, mysterious
recesses and devious winding ways which turned into dark narrow
passages, branching right and left through the whole breadth of the
house. It was along one of these that Innocent ran swiftly on leaving
the kitchen, till she reached a closed door, where pausing, she
listened a moment-then, hearing no sound, opened it and went softly in.
The room she entered was filled with soft shadows of the gradually
falling dusk, yet partially lit by a golden flame of the after-glow
which shone through the open latticed window from the western sky.
Close to the waning light sat the master of the farm, still clad in his
smock frock, with his straw hat on the table beside him and his stick
leaning against the arm of his chair. He was very quiet,--so quiet,
that a late beam of the sun, touching the rough silver white of his
hair, seemed almost obtrusive, as suggesting an interruption to the
moveless peace of his attitude. Innocent stopped short, with a tremor
of nervous fear.
"Dad!" she said, softly.
He turned towards her.
"Ay, lass! What is it?"
She did not answer, but came up and knelt down beside him, taking one
of his brown wrinkled hands in her own and caressing it. The silence
between them was unbroken for quite two or three minutes; then he said:
"Last load in all safe?"
"Yes, Dad!"
"Not a drop of rain to wet it, and no hard words to toughen it, eh?"
"No, Dad."
She gave the answer a little hesitatingly. She was thinking of Ned
Landon. He caught the slight falter in her voice and looked at her
suspiciously.
"Been quarrelling with Robin?"
"Dear Dad, no! We're the best of friends."
He loosened his hand from her clasp and patted her head with it.
"That's right! That's as it should be! Be friends with Robin, child! Be
friends!--be lovers!"
She was silent. The after-glow warmed the tints of her hair to
russet-gold and turned to a deeper pink the petals of the roses in the
wreath she wore. He touched the blossoms and spoke with great
gentleness.
"Did Robin crown thee?"
She looked up, smiling.
"No, it's Larry's wreath."
"Larry! Ay, poor Larry! A good lad--but he can eat for two and only
work for one. 'Tis the way of men nowadays!"
Another pause ensued, and the western gold of the sky began to fade
into misty grey.
"Dad," said the girl then, in a low tone--"Do tell me--what did the
London doctor say?"
He lifted his head quickly, and his old eyes for a moment flashed as
though suddenly illumined by a flame from within.
"Say! What should he say, lass, but that I am old and must expect to
die? It's natural enough--only I haven't thought about it. It's just
that--I haven't thought about it!"
"Why should you think about it?" she asked, with quick tenderness--"You
will not die yet--not for many years. You are not so very old.
And you are strong."
He patted her head again.
"Poor little wilding!" he said--"If you had your way I should live for
ever, no doubt! But an' you were wise with modern wisdom, you would say
I had already lived too long!"
For answer, she drew down his hand and kissed it.
"I do not want any modern wisdom," she said--"I am your little girl and
I love you!"
A shadow flitted across his face and he moved uneasily. She looked up
at him.
"You will not tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"All that the London doctor said."
He was silent for a minute's space--then he answered.
"Yes, I will tell you, but not now. To-night after supper will be time
enough. And then--"
"Yes--then?" she repeated, anxiously.
"Then you shall know--you will have to know--" Here he broke off
abruptly. "Innocent!"
"Yes, Dad?"
"How old are you now?"
"Eighteen."
"Ay, so you are!" And he looked at her searchingly. "Quite a woman!
Time flies! You're old enough to learn--"
"I have always tried to learn," she said--"and I like studying things
out of books--"
"Ay! But there are worse things in life than ever were written in
books," he answered, wearily--"things that people hide away and are
ashamed to speak of! Ay, poor wilding! Things that I've tried to keep
from you as long as possible--but--time presses, and, I shall have to
speak--"
She looked at him earnestly. Her face paled and her eyes grew dark and
wondering.
"Have I done anything wrong?" she asked.
"You? No! Not you! You are not to blame, child! But you've heard the
law set out in church on Sundays that 'The sins of the fathers shall be
visited on the children even unto the third and fourth generation.'
You've heard that?"
"Yes, Dad!"
"Ay!--and who dare say the fourth generation are to blame! Yet, though
they are guiltless, they suffer most! No just God ever made such a law,
though they say 'tis God speaking. _I_ say 'tis the devil!"
His voice grew harsh and loud, and finding his stick near his chair, he
took hold of it and struck it against the ground to emphasise his words.
"I say 'tis the devil!"
The girl rose from her kneeling attitude and put her arms gently round
his shoulders.
"There, Dad!" she said soothingly,--"Don't worry! Church and church
things seem to rub you up all the wrong way! Don't think about them!
Supper will be ready in a little while and after supper we'll have a
long talk. And then you'll tell me what the doctor said."
His angry excitement subsided suddenly and his head sank on his breast.
"Ay! After supper. Then--then I'll tell you what the doctor said."
His speech faltered. He turned and looked out on the garden, full of
luxuriant blossom, the colours of which were gradually merging into
indistinguishable masses under the darkening grey of the dusk.
She moved softly about the room, setting things straight, and lighting
two candles in a pair of tall brass candlesticks which stood one on
either side of a carved oak press. The room thus illumined showed
itself to be a roughly-timbered apartment in the style of the earliest
Tudor times, and all the furniture in it was of the same period. The
thick gate-legged table--the curious chairs, picturesque, but
uncomfortable--the two old dower chests--the quaint three-legged stools
and upright settles, were a collection that would have been precious to
the art dealer and curio hunter, as would the massive eight-day clock
with its grotesquely painted face, delineating not only the hours and
days but the lunar months, and possessing a sonorous chime which just
now struck eight with a boom as deep as that of a cathedral bell. The
sound appeared to startle the old farmer with a kind of shock, for he
rose from his chair and grasped his stick, looking about him as though
for the moment uncertain of his bearings.
"How fast the hours go by!" he muttered, dreamily. "When we're young
they don't count--but when we're old we know that every hour brings us
nearer to the end-the end, the end of all! Another night closing
in--and the last load cleared from the field--Innocent!"
The name broke from his lips like a cry of suffering, and she ran to
him trembling.
"Dad, dear, what is it?"
He caught her outstretched hands and held them close.
"Nothing--nothing!" he answered, drawing his breath quick and
hard--"Nothing, lass! No pain--no--not that! I'm only frightened!
Frightened!--think of it!--me frightened who never knew fear! And I--I
wouldn't tell it to anyone but you--I'm afraid of what's coming--of
what's bound to come! 'Twould always have come, I know--but I never
thought about it--it never seemed real! It never seemed real--"
Here the door opened, admitting a flood of cheerful light from the
outside passage, and Robin Clifford entered.
"Hullo, Uncle! Supper's ready!"
The old man's face changed instantly. Its worn and scared expression
smoothed into a smile, and, loosening his hold of Innocent, he
straightened himself and stood erect.
"All right, my lad! You've worked pretty late!"
"Yes, and we've not done yet. But we shall finish stacking tomorrow,"
answered Clifford--"Just now we're all tired and hungry."
"Don't say you're thirsty!" said the old farmer, his smile broadening.
"How many barrels have been tapped to-day?"
"Oh, well! You'd better ask Landon,"--and Clifford's light laugh had a
touch of scorn in it,--"he's the man for the beer! I hardly ever touch
it--Innocent knows that."
"More work's done on water after all," said Jocelyn. "The horses that
draw for us and the cattle that make food for us prove that. But we
think we're a bit higher than the beasts, and some of us get drunk to
prove it! That's one of our strange ways as men! Come along, lad! And
you, child,"--here he turned to Innocent--"run and tell Priscilla we're
waiting in the Great Hall."
He seemed to have suddenly lost all feebleness, and walked with a firm
step into what he called the Great Hall, which was distinguished by
this name from the lesser or entrance hall of the house. It was a nobly
proportioned, very lofty apartment, richly timbered, the roof being
supported by huge arched beams curiously and intricately carved. Long
narrow boards on stout old trestles occupied the centre, and these were
spread with cloths of coarse but spotlessly clean linen and furnished
with antique plates, tankards and other vessels of pewter which would
have sold for a far larger sum in the market than solid silver. A tall
carved chair was set at the head of the largest table, and in this
Farmer Jocelyn seated himself. The men now began to come in from the
fields in their work-a-day clothes, escorted by Ned Landon, their only
attempt at a toilet having been a wash and brush up in the outhouses;
and soon the hall presented a scene of lively bustle and activity.
Priscilla, entering it from the kitchen with her two assistants,
brought in three huge smoking joints on enormous pewter dishes,--then
followed other good things of all sorts,--vegetables, puddings,
pasties, cakes and fruit, which Innocent helped to set out all along
the boards in tempting array. It was a generous supper fit for a
"Harvest Home"--yet it was only Farmer Jocelyn's ordinary way of
celebrating the end of the haymaking,--the real harvest home was
another and bigger festival yet to come. Robin Clifford began to carve
a sirloin of beef,--Ned Landon, who was nearly opposite him, actively
apportioned slices of roast pork, the delicacy most favoured by the
majority, and when all the knives and forks were going and voices began
to be loud and tongues discursive, Innocent slipped into a chair by
Farmer Jocelyn and sat between him and Priscilla. For not only the farm
hands but all the servants on the place were at table, this haymaking
supper being the annual order of the household. The girl's small
delicate head, with its coronal of wild roses, looked strange and
incongruous among the rough specimens of manhood about her, and
sometimes as the laughter became boisterous, or some bucolic witticism
caught her ear, a faint flush coloured the paleness of her cheeks and a
little nervous tremor ran through her frame. She drew as closely as she
could to the old farmer, who sat rigidly upright and quiet, eating
nothing but a morsel of bread with a bowl of hot salted milk Priscilla
had put before him. Beer was served freely, and was passed from man to
man in leather "blackjacks" such as were commonly used in olden times,
but which are now considered mere curiosities. They were, however,
ordinary wear at Briar Farm, and had been so since very early days. The
Great Hall was lighted by tall windows reaching almost to the roof and
traversed with shafts of solid stonework; the one immediately opposite
Farmer Jocelyn's chair showed the very last parting glow of the sunset
like a dull red gleam on a dark sea. For the rest, thick home-made
candles of a torch shape fixed into iron sconces round the walls
illumined the room, and burned with unsteady flare, giving rise to
curious lights and shadows as though ghostly figures were passing to
and fro, ruffling the air with their unseen presences. Priscilla
Priday, her wizened yellow face just now reddened to the tint of a
winter apple by her recent exertions in the kitchen, was not so much
engaged in eating her supper as in watching her master. Her beady brown
eyes roved from him to the slight delicate girl beside him with
inquisitive alertness. She felt and saw that the old man's thoughts
were far away, and that something of an unusual nature was troubling
his mind. Priscilla was an odd-looking creature but faithful;--her
attachments were strong, and her dislikes only a shade more
violent,--and just now she entertained very uncomplimentary sentiments
towards "them doctors" who had, as she surmised, put her master out of
sorts with himself, and caused anxiety to the "darling child," as she
invariably called Innocent when recommending her to the guidance of the
Almighty in her daily and nightly prayers. Meanwhile the noise at the
supper table grew louder and more incessant, and sundry deep potations
of home-brewed ale began to do their work. One man, seated near Ned
Landon, was holding forth in very slow thick accents on the subject of
education:
"Be eddicated!" he said, articulating his words with
difficulty,--"That's what I says, boys! Be eddicated! Then everything's
right for us! We can kick all the rich out into the mud and take their
goods and enjoy 'em for ourselves. Eddication does it! Makes us all we
wants to be,--members o' Parli'ment and what not! I've only one
boy,--but he'll be eddicated as his father never was--"
"And learn to despise his father!" said Robin, suddenly, his clear
voice ringing out above the other's husky loquacity. "You're right!
That's the best way to train a boy in the way he should go!"
There was a brief silence. Then came a fresh murmur of voices and Ned
Landon's voice rose above them.
"I don't agree with you, Mr. Clifford," he said--"There's no reason why
a well-educated lad should despise his father."
"But he often does," said Robin--"reason or no reason."
"Well, you're educated yourself," retorted Landon, with a touch of
envy,--"You won a scholarship at your grammar school, and you've been
to a University."
"What's that done for me?" demanded Robin, carelessly,--"Where has it
put me? Just nowhere, but exactly where I might have stood all the
time. I didn't learn farming at Oxford!"
"But you didn't learn to despise your father either, did you, sir?"
queried one of the farm hands, respectfully.
"My father's dead," answered Robin, curtly,--"and I honour his memory."
"So your own argument goes to the wall!" said Landon. "Education has
not made you think less of him."
"In my case, no," said Robin,--"but in dozens of other cases it works
out differently. Besides, you've got to decide what education IS. The
man who knows how to plough a field rightly is as usefully educated as
the man who knows how to read a book, in my opinion."
"Education," interposed a strong voice, "is first to learn one's place
in the world and then know how to keep it!"
All eyes turned towards the head of the table. It was Farmer Jocelyn
who spoke, and he went on speaking:
"What's called education nowadays," he said, "is a mere smattering and
does no good. The children are taught, especially in small villages
like ours, by men and women who often know less than the children
themselves. What do you make of Danvers, for example, boys?"
A roar of laughter went round the table.
"Danvers!" exclaimed a huge red-faced fellow at the other end of the
board,--"Why he talks yer 'ead off about what he's picked up here and
there like, and when I asked him to tell me where my son is as went to
Mexico, blowed if he didn't say it was a town somewheres near New York!"
Another roar went round the table. Farmer Jocelyn smiled and held up
his hand to enjoin silence.
"Mr. Danvers is a teacher selected by the Government," he then
observed, with mock gravity. "And if he teaches us that Mexico is a
town near New York, we poor ignorant farm-folk are bound to believe
him!"
They all laughed again, and he continued:
"I'm old enough, boys, to have seen many changes, and I tell you, all
things considered, that the worst change is the education business, so
far as the strength and the health of the country goes. That, and
machine work. When I was a youngster, nearly every field-hand knew how
to mow,--now we've trouble enough to find an extra man who can use a
scythe. And you may put a machine on the grass as much as you like,
you'll never get the quality that you'll get with a well-curved blade
and a man's arm and hand wielding it. Longer work maybe, and risk of
rain--but, taking the odds for and against, men are better than
machines. Forty years we've scythed the grass on Briar Farm, and
haven't we had the finest crops of hay in the county?"
A chorus of gruff voices answered him:
"Ay, Mister Jocelyn!"
"That's right!"
"I never 'member more'n two wet seasons and then we got last load in
'tween showers," observed one man, thoughtfully.
"There ain't never been nothin' wrong with Briar Farm hay crops
anyway--all the buyers knows that for thirty mile round," said another.
"And the wheat and the corn and the barley and the oats the same,"
struck in the old farmer again--"all the seed sown by hand and the
harvest reaped by hand, and every man and boy in the village or near it
has found work enough to keep him in his native place, spring, summer,
autumn and winter, isn't that so?"
"Ay, ay!"
"Never a day out o' work!"
"Talk of unemployed trouble," went on Jocelyn, "if the old ways were
kept up and work done in the old fashion, there'd be plenty for all
England's men to do, and to feed fair and hearty! But the idea nowadays
is to rush everything just to get finished with it, and then to play
cards or football, and get drunk till the legs don't know whether it's
land or water they're standing on! It's the wrong way about, boys! It's
the wrong way about! You may hurry and scurry along as fast as you
please, but you miss most good things by the way; and there's only one
end to your racing--the grave! There's no such haste to drop into THAT,
boys! It'll wait! It's always waiting! And the quicker you go the
quicker you'll get to it! Take time while you're young! That time for
me is past!"
He lifted his head and looked round upon them all. There was a strange
wild look in his old eyes,--and a sudden sense of awe fell on the rest
of the company. Farmer Jocelyn seemed all at once removed from them to
a height of dignity above his ordinary bearing. Innocent's rose-crowned
head drooped, and tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes. She tried to
hide them, not so well, however, but that Priscilla Priday saw them.
"Now, lovey child!" she whispered,--"Don't take on! It's only the
doctors that's made him low like and feelin' blue, and he ain't takin'
sup or morsel, but we'll make him have a bite in his own room
afterwards. Don't you swell your pretty eyes and make 'em red, for that
won't suit me nor Mr. Robin neither, come, come!--that it won't!"
Innocent put one of her little hands furtively under the board and
pressed Priscilla's rough knuckles tenderly, but she said nothing. The
silence was broken by one of the oldest men present, who rose, tankard
in hand.
"The time for good farming is never past!" he said, in a hearty
voice--"And no one will ever beat Farmer Jocelyn at that! Full cups,
boys! And the master's health! Long life to him!"
The response was immediate, every man rising to his feet. None of them
were particularly unsteady except Ned Landon, who nearly fell over the
table as he got up, though he managed to straighten himself in time.
"Farmer Jocelyn!"
"To Briar Farm and the master!"
"Health and good luck!"
These salutations were roared loudly round the table, and then the
whole company gave vent to a hearty 'Hip-hip-hurrah!' that roused
echoes from the vaulted roof and made its flaring lights tremble.
"One more!" shouted Landon, suddenly, turning his flushed face from
side to side upon those immediately near him--"Miss Jocelyn!"
There followed a deafening volley of cheering,--tankards clinked
together and shone in the flickering light and every eye looked towards
the girl, who, colouring deeply, shrank from the tumult around her like
a leaf shivering in a storm-wind. Robin glanced at her with a
half-jealous, half-anxious look, but her face was turned away from him.
He lifted his tankard and, bowing towards her, drank the contents. When
the toast was fully pledged, Farmer Jocelyn got up, amid much clapping
of hands, stamping of feet and thumping on the boards. He waited till
quiet was restored, and then, speaking in strong resonant accents, said:
"Boys, I thank you! You're all boys to me, young and old, for you've
worked on the farm so long that I seem to know your faces as well as I
know the shape of the land and the trees on the ridges. You've wished
me health and long life--and I take it that your wishes are honest--but
I've had a long life already and mustn't expect much more of it.
However, the farm will go on just the same whether I'm here or
elsewhere,--and no man that works well on it will be turned away from
it,--that I can promise you! And the advice I've always given to you I
give to you again,--stick to the land and the work of the land! There's
nothing finer in the world than the fresh air and the scent of the good
brown earth that gives you the reward of your labour, always providing
it is labour and not 'scamp' service. When I'm gone you'll perhaps
remember what I say,--and think it not so badly said either. I thank
you for your good wishes and"--here he hesitated--"my little girl here
thanks you too. Next time you make the hay--if I'm not with you--I ask
you to be as merry as you are to-night and to drink to my memory! For
whenever one master of Briar Farm has gone there's always been another
in his place!--and there always will be!" He paused,--then lifting a
full tankard which had been put beside him, he drank a few drops of its
contents--"God bless you all! May you long have the will to work and
the health to enjoy the fruits of honest labour!"
There was another outburst of noisy cheering, followed by a new kind of
clamour,
"A song!"
"A song!"
"Who'll begin?"
"Where's Steevy?"
"Little Steevy!"
"Steevy! Wheer be ye got to?" roared one old fellow with very white
hair and a very red face--"ye're not so small as ye can hide in yer
mother's thimble!"
A young giant of a man stood up in response to this adjuration,
blushing and smiling bashfully.
"Here I be!"
"Sing away, lad, sing away!"
"Wet yer pipe, and whistle!"
"Tune up, my blackbird!"
Steevy, thus adjured, straightened himself to his full stature of over
six feet and drank off a cupful of ale. Then he began in a remarkably
fine and mellow tenor:
"Would you choose a wife
For a happy life,
Leave the town and the country take;
Where Susan and Doll,
And Jenny and Moll,
Follow Harry and John,
While harvest goes on,
And merrily, merrily rake!"
"The lass give me here,
As brown as my beer,
That knows how to govern a farm;
That can milk a cow,
Or farrow a sow,
Make butter and cheese,
And gather green peas,
And guard the poultry from harm."
"This, this is the girl,
Worth rubies and pearl,
The wife that a home will make!
We farmers need
No quality breed,
But a woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake!"
[Footnote: Old Song 1740.]
A dozen or more stentorian voices joined in the refrain:
"A woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake."
"Bravo!"
"Good for you, Steevy!"
"First-class!"
"Here's to you, my lad!"
The shouting, laughter and applause continued for many minutes, then
came more singing of songs from various rivals to the tuneful Steevy.
And presently all joined together in a boisterous chorus which ran thus:
"A glass is good and a lass is good,
And a pipe is good in cold weather,
The world is good and the people are good,
And we're all good fellows together!"
In the middle of this performance Farmer Jocelyn rose from his place
and left the hall, Innocent accompanying him. Once he looked back on
the gay scene presented to him--the disordered supper-table, the easy
lounging attitudes of the well-fed men, the flare of the lights which
cast a ruddy glow on old and young faces and sparkled over the
burnished pewter,--then with a strange yearning pain in his eyes he
turned slowly away, leaning on the arm of the girl beside him, and
went,--leaving the merry-makers to themselves.