For days after hearing it her good friend could think of nothing but
Jennifer's story. His own gifts to the new chapel and that of the others
seemed poor and little beside her offering--it was the mite which was
more than they all had given. He felt that he could not rest until he
had found for her something better than the ill-paid toil in the fields.
As he rode on his way he chanced to see a notice announcing the sale of
a coppice of some twenty acres, freehold. Here was the opportunity of
serving Jennifer, and at once he made haste to avail himself of it. The
bit of ground was bought, coppice and all. Then he made his way to her
house.
[Illustration]
It was seldom that any one passed her cottage, and when he saw it he was
distressed and ashamed that he had not done anything for her before.
Jennifer had just got home, tired and wet and cold. He came into the
cheerless place and sat down.
"I had no idea that your cottage was in such a wretched state, Jennifer;
I wonder you could live in it," he began.
"Well, 'tis wonderful how comfortable we do get on in it, sir." And
Jennifer spoke as cheerfully as ever. "I s'pose if it was better we
should have to pay more, so we must set one thing against another, you
know."
"Well, I am going to build you another--a new one; I have made up my
mind to that. And look, Jennifer, you shall have it for your own as soon
as I can get it up, and you can pay me for it."
"I daresay, sir," laughed Jennifer, and she wondered that her friend
could seem to joke on such a subject.
"But I mean it," said he, "and, of course, I am going to put you in the
way to do it."
"Thank you, sir," said Jennifer, quite unable to see any meaning in the
promise. "You see, there's the Guardians, what will they say and all if
I do go living in a fine new house?"
"The Guardians! Oh, you must go and tell them that you don't want any
more of their money or their loaf either."
"But, sir," said Jennifer, trying to laugh, yet almost too bewildered to
succeed, "half crowns and loaves of bread won't grow out of a new house
any more than an old one, you know."
"Well, Jennifer, that is what I have come to see you about. Your boys
are growing up quite big lads now. What are you going to do with them?
What are they--twelve or thirteen years old at least?"
"Just about, sir. I have given them so much head learning as I can. I
suppose they must be going out for to do something; but there, 'tis
terrible hard for to think about their going away."
"Oh, but I don't think they need go away, Jennifer. I have come to tell
you that I have bought that piece of coppice over there. Now, what I
have been thinking is this. You and your boys can cut it all down, and
make up the faggots with the underwood, and sell it for what it will
fetch. That shall go toward the new cottage. And when the land is
cleared I will let it to you, and the boys can turn it into potato
ground."
Poor Jennifer sat down without a word. She could not take it all in so
suddenly and it bewildered her. Clinging to the old ways of her life,
and satisfied with the simple round, she shrank from so large a venture,
involving so many changes.
"Well, what do you say?" asked her friend, somewhat disappointed that
she did not see all the advantages which were so plain to him.
"I don't know what to say, sir. 'Tis very kind of you. But----"
"But what, Jennifer?"
"I was going to say, if you don't mind, I should like one day more in
the fields to think it all over. 'Tis a wonderful place for thinking
about anything. And nobody but the heavenly Father to talk to."
"Yes, Jennifer, take a day by all means." And he rose to go. "Only
remember that you will make out of the coppice more in a month than you
can make in the fields in a year; and be your own mistress, too, and
come and go as you like."
"In a month!" she said gravely. "Then I am afraid I should be putting my
heart in the broken teapot, instead of my money."
However, the next day's thought in the fields showed her a hundred
advantages for the boys in the proposal, whatever it might mean for her
husband and herself. And the cottage, too; the very suggestion of a new
one seemed to make the cracks bigger and the leaks worse. Something
would have to be done if she stayed there. So it was settled, yet not
without a sigh. This was to be her farewell of the fields.
The sun was setting as she took up her hoe and turned homeward. At the
gate she stayed a minute or two, as if to say good-bye. To her eyes the
scene was almost sacred. There were the fields with all the young growth
of the early spring, and beyond this was the rough outline of the hedges
where the rabbits played. There were the hills where the brown trees
reached up to the firs, and from beyond which there often came the roar
of the ground swell when the great Atlantic breakers thundered on the
shore. The very birds had been her company and friends, and she loved
them every one--the lark that went soaring upward with an evening hymn;
the thrush and the blackbird that piped from the tree top; the rooks
that went slowly homeward, a very cloud in the sky, all had come as if
to solace and gladden her, and she blessed them all. Her heart went out
in thanks to God, as the memory of a thousand mercies rose within her.
She took the old worn mittens from her rough, red hands with a sigh,
and shut the gate as if she were shutting that chapter of her life.