ALICE BLANCHARD was wheeling the perambulator slowly along the most rutty
curve of the “Drove,” or steep lane which led from the high road to the
downs, when she caught sight of her father’s sturdy figure behind the
almost leafless hedge. Farmer Bolt was a short, thick-set man, with more
brown in hair and beard than was usual in a man of his years, and with a
corresponding amount of unlooked-for vigour and energy in his sturdy
frame. He was at work now on a task that would have been despised by
most men of his standing. He was clipping one of his own hedges in fact,
wielding his bill-hook with a rapidity and dexterity which did not
prevent his keeping a sharp look-out on the movements of the men who were
carting swedes at the further end of the field.
Alice wedged the “pram” firmly against the bank, pulled on the baby’s
hood, which had fallen back, arranged its golden fluff of hair so that a
becoming tuft appeared beneath the frill, and then going to the other end
of the small vehicle made little Abel sit straight and smoothed out the
creases in his pinafore.
“Ye’ve got your face all of a mess wi’ blackberries,” she said, in a
vexed tone. “I don’t know whatever granfer’ll think of ’ee. There, I
reckoned to tidy thee up in grandma’s room afore he see’d thee.”
As Abel was strapped fast in his seat, and could by no possibility have
procured the blackberries without his mother’s aid, the reproach seemed a
trifle unreasonable; but as Abel had not yet reached a time of life when
he could discourse on feminine inconsequence, he merely smiled broadly,
and repeated the word “b’ackberries” in an expectant tone.
“Bless your little heart,” said Alice. “That’s granfer, look-see,
t’other side o’ the hedge. Ye must call out ‘granfer,’ when we get
a-nigh en.”
She shook out her own dress, a somewhat faded print, and set her hat
straight, apparently anxious to present as brave an appearance in her
father’s eyes as in former days she had to those of her admirers.
A few years ago Alice Bolt had been the handsomest girl in the parish,
and even now, though her figure had lost much of its roundness, and her
curly dark hair was arranged with less skill, was pretty enough to call
for a second glance from all who passed her.
But her blue eyes had acquired a scared look of late, and the bloom had
faded in her cheeks. What else was to be expected? The wolf was always
at the door, and the fear of it was perpetually present in the heart of
the wife and mother.
Farmer Bolt, in the intervals of chopping at his twigs and superintending
the leisurely tossing of “roots” into the cart, found time to scan the
windings of the Drove, and had indeed observed his daughter long before
she had caught sight of him. It may be presumed that he took note of her
hasty endeavours to make herself and her family presentable, yet he
appeared to be absorbed in his own labours when she halted beneath the
bank on which he was stationed.
“Be that you, father? Look, Abel, look-see, ’tis granfer!”
Mr Bolt parted the thin screen of shoots surmounting the hedge and peered
over.
“’Tis you, be it?”
“It’s me. I be just goin’ down to the house to have a chat wi’ mother.”
“Ah,” said the farmer.
He lifted his bill-hook and examined it as though he had never set eyes
on it before; then he ran his finger thoughtfully along the edge.
“That’s granfer, look-see,” repeated Alice in a tone of assumed
cheerfulness. “Look at granfer’s hedgin’ hook, Abel! Call ‘Granfer,’
lovey!”
“Gran-fer!” cried Abel, obediently.
It was the first time his grandfather had heard the child pronounce an
articulate word, and at sound of it he was unable to resist the impulse
to lean forward a little more and gaze down at the perambulator and its
occupants.
“Learnt to talk, has he?” he enquired, ungraciously enough, yet eyeing
the little fellow with a sort of curiosity.
“Well, he can only say a few words,” explained the mother, almost
stammering in her haste to bring out the information before the
grandfather’s interest had waned. “‘Granfer’ was one o’ the first words
he said. He says it very plain, don’t he?”
“Plain enough,” responded the farmer, gruffly, and he let the twigs which
he had been holding slap back again into their ordinary position.
“He’ve come on a good bit since ye see’d him last,” hazarded the mother.
“Folks about us thinks he’s come on wonderful. Don’t ye think he’s come
on, father?”
Her father parted the screen of twigs again, and as the bearded face was
thrust forth once more, Abel junior tilted himself back in his place and
gleefully shouted “Cuckoo!”
For the life of him the grandfather could not help smiling. He did not
speak, but gazed at the child for a moment or two, the lines of his
countenance relaxing.
“Cuckoo!” cried Abel junior, anxiously watching the upper twigs of the
hedge.
“He thinks you’m playin’ a game wi’ en,” explained the mother
tremulously.
“Oh,” said Farmer Bolt, reflectively. “Do he? It’s more in my line to
work nor to play though.” He loosed the twigs which immediately flew
back into place, and Baby Abel, imagining that this was done solely for
his benefit cried “Cuckoo!” again, and watched the top of the hedge with
dancing eyes. When the farmer, with apparent inadvertence, looked forth
again, he threw himself back once more with uproarious laughter, kicking
out at the same time with sturdy little feet, clothed in very battered
boots.
“He do seem a jolly little chap too,” said the elder Abel, with the air
of one making a concession. “T’other’s a girl, bain’t it?”
“Ees, she’s a girl. I called en Margaret after mother, same as the bwoy
be Abel after you. We do think little Abel terr’ble like you, father.”
The farmer surveyed his descendant dubiously; and the two pairs of blue
eyes met; the child’s twinkled in expectation of the renewal of the game,
and by-and-by the old man’s began to twinkle too. As he glanced at the
baby, however, his face clouded over.
“The maid be a regular Blanchard, though,” he said, in a vexed tone.
“Yellow hair an’ all. There, when she do laugh she be the very image of
her grammer, what used to drive a little donkey-cart wi’ rags and bwones,
an’ sich, an’ what died in the Union.”
“The child can’t help that, an’ neither can Ned,” said Alice, with a
sudden flash in her eyes. “The poor body did die when he were quite a
little chap. ’Twas none of his fault if she did die in the Union. So
soon as he could work he kept hisself.”
“It mid be none of his fault that his mother was what she was, but I d’
’low ’tis your fault that my grandson should be what he is, belonging to
trampin’ folks, wi’ a father as was born i’ the Union, and as’ll die i’
the Union I shouldn’t wonder. Did ever anybody see a ’ooman so downtrod
as what you be, an’ you as was such a handsome maid. Why can’t the chap
keep ye in a bit more comfort now he’s got ye? That’s what I want to
know.”
“We’ve had a deal o’ trouble, father,” faltered Alice. “What wi’ the
childer comin’ so fast, an’ what wi’ Ned breakin’ his leg this spring,
we’ve been put about terr’ble.”
“Well, there’s no use cryin’ about spilt milk,” said her father, roughly.
“Ye took the crooked stick an’ now ye must put up wi’ en. You as mid ha’
married as well an’ better nor any maid i’ the place, ye must go an’ take
up wi’ a beggarly feller as I hired out o’ charity to begin wi’.”
“Ned always worked hard for his wage,” interpolated Alice, hotly,
“always! He was worth the money ye paid en.”
“Ees, but I didn’t know that at first. I took en straight fro’ the Union
wi’out no more character nor what the master up yonder could give en.
An’ when I did do that I didn’t look to bein’ robbed o’ my only child.
There, there’s no use talkin’. I must get on wi’ my work. Get along and
chat wi’ mother if ye want to.”
“Cuckoo!” cried little Abel as the twigs were once more released; but
Granfer did not respond. After an admonitory shout to one of the carters
who had spent what he considered an undue time in consideration of the
horizon, he resumed his labours with the bill-hook.
Mrs Blanchard trundled her perambulator onwards with a sore heart and an
anxious face. Her transient anger had left her, and she reproached
herself for having lost her temper.
“’Twas a bad start,” she thought, ruefully, “a very bad start. I d’ ’low
I’ve spoilt my chance.”
Mrs Bolt was peeling potatoes when her daughter came to the door, but she
laid down her knife with an exclamation of delight when she caught sight
of her.
“’Tis never you, my dear, so early an’ all, an’ sich a long ways to come!
To think o’ your travellin’ seven mile at this time o’ marnin’! Dear, to
be sure, how Abel have come on! There, I never see’d a child shoot up
like that. Bless his little heart, he be a fine child. An’ Baby too,
she be a-comin’ on jist about.”
“Feel the weight of her,” said Alice, taking the child out of the
perambulator and laying her in her mother’s arms; there was a pretty
flush in her face and a light in her eyes.
Mrs Bolt weighed her small namesake, and uttered various disjointed
exclamations of rapture.
“She be gettin’ sich a lot o’ hair, look-see,” continued the proud
mother, jerking off the child’s hood. “An’ she’s got two teeth very near
through. She be cuttin’ them early, bain’t she? An’ sich a good baby.
There, she do sleep right through the night, an’ by day when I’m busy at
my work, ye know, she’ll sit an’ suck at her titty wi’out a murmur.”
“She be a-lookin’ for it now,” remarked grandma.
The much chewed indiarubber ring was unearthed from beneath the baby’s
cape, and the flat lozenge-shaped adjunct thereto thrust into her mouth,
both women laughing delightedly on noting its possessor’s satisfaction.
“Come in, my dear, an’ sit down, do,” said Mrs Bolt. “I’m sure ye must
be jist about tired. Come, Abel love, an’ see what grandma’s got for
’ee. A ripe apple won’t do en no harm,” she added, turning to Alice.
“They golden pippins be beautiful to-year—jist so sweet as honey. I do
r’ally think that dear child favours his granfer,” she exclaimed, as
having reached the living-room, she divested Abel of his hat.
“I do wish father ’ud take to en!” ejaculated Alice, dropping into the
elbow-chair. “We met en jist now hedgin’ in the Drove. He did seem to
notice him a bit at first, but then he turned nasty about Ned as he do
always do, an’ began glenin’ an’ carryin’ on about the Union.”
“There, love, don’t ye mind en; ye do want a lot o’ patience wi’ father.
’Tis what I do always say. Who’s to know it if not me? But he’ll come
round in time—he’ll come round.”
“’Tis easy to say ‘in time,’” groaned poor Alice, “but we do find it so
hard to get on now, mother. We’ve a-had sich bad luck, ye see. Ned had
to spend the bit o’ money he’d saved on the furniture we wanted, an’
stockin’ the garden—’tisn’t as if we’d anybody to help us.”
Mrs Bolt eyed her daughter compassionately. She was a good-looking,
fresh-coloured woman, with a kindly, good-natured face. Her daughter
resembled her in complexion and build, but not in disposition, for Mrs
Bolt was placid and easy-going, while Alice had inherited her father’s
energy and quickness of temper. Mrs Bolt had been as much grieved as her
husband at Alice’s unprosperous marriage, but, having protested in vain,
resigned herself to the inevitable, and had indeed forgiven her daughter
before the ceremony took place. Mr Bolt, too, had, to outward seeming,
become reconciled with his daughter, though he steadily refused to permit
her husband to cross the threshold, and to help the hapless couple in any
way. Alice, too, was proud, and when her mother would have
surreptitiously bestowed on her sundry dozens of eggs and pecks of
potatoes, she had rejected the gifts.
“I won’t take nothin’ o’ father’s wi’out his consent,” she said once,
bitterly. “An’ you do know so well as me, he’d rather let us all starve
nor help Ned.”
“’Tis very hard, I’m sure,” said Mrs Bolt, now in a commiserating tone.
“I did hope your husband ’ud better hisself, an’ earn better wage nor
what father gived en. But he’s worse off now it seems.”
“He’s terr’ble bad off,” agreed Alice gloomily. “Jobs be so scarce round
our way. An’ when Ned was out o’ work last spring along o’ his accident,
we got into debt. There’s the interest to pay along wi’ everything else.
We couldn’t afford to be too particular. Ned had to take the first place
he could get—’tis but ten shillin’ a week he’s earnin’ now, along o’
havin’ a house free, ye know. But ten shillin’ a week’s soon gone.”
“’Tis, sure,” agreed her mother dolefully.
Alice looked up at the handsome, ruddy face now puckered with sympathetic
distress, and hesitated.
It is sometimes harder to ask a favour from our nearest and dearest than
from a stranger. “I wonder if you could guess what’s brought me this
morning, mother?” she asked.
Mrs Bolt did not commit herself.
“Ned chanced to meet Jim Pike at Wimborne the other day. He had to go
and haul coal, you know, fro’ the station. And Jim did tell en he were
thinkin’ o’ leavin’ father arter Christmas an’ goin’ out abroad.”
“Ees,” said Mrs Bolt. “Jim be a-goin’ to emmygrate, that’s what he be
a-goin’ to do. He’ve a had a letter from his brother what be livin’ out
yonder in America, and do want en to j’ine en out there. Jim be fair set
on the notion.”
“He did tell Ned as father had rose his wage to fourteen shillin’ a week.
’Tis good wage that, an’ there’s the house too. ’Tis a deal more nor
what Ned be earnin’.”
“Oh,” said her mother, sinking her voice and casting a scared glance at
her. “You was thinkin’ maybe father ’ud give your ’usband Jim’s place
when he’ve a-left?”
“Well,” rejoined Alice, instantly on the defensive, “it do seem hard as
father should be willin’ to pay away all that to a stranger when his own
flesh an’ blood is pretty nigh starvin’. There! mother, I do assure ’ee
there’s times when I wonder where I’m to get the next bit to put in
little Abel’s mouth. Many a time I go hungry myself, an’ that’s not so
very good for me nor for baby.”
“Dear heart alive!” groaned Mrs Bolt, dropping into the opposite chair
and resting a hand on either knee. “God knows I’m broken-hearted to
think o’ your bein’ in sich trouble—broken-hearted I be!”
“That little house o’ Jim Pike’s ’ud do us nicely,” went on Alice
eagerly. “’Tis a snug little place, an’ it ’ud be nice to be near you,
mother.”
“It would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, sucking in her breath, and exhaling it again
with a deep sigh. “It would jist about. I’d love to have the childern
trottin’ in an’ out, an’ you an’ me could help each other, Alice.”
“We could,” agreed Alice, eyeing her mother with pathetic anxiety.
“But father be sich a terr’ble one for stickin’ to a notion,” went on Mrs
Bolt gloomily. “He’ve reg’lar took again’ your ’usband, reg’lar took
again’ him he have.”
“Well, ’tis a hard world,” said Alice, rising hurriedly. “I’d best go
home-along. There’s not mich use my bidin’ here—but I did have hopes.
’Tisn’t as if I was axin’ for a favour—I only want Ned to get the chance
father be willin’ to give any other man. But we’ll never have a chance
here—I see that. I wish to the Lard we could scrape up enough money to
take us out abroad too. I’d be willin’ enough to emmygrate, and so would
Ned—nobody wants us here!”
Mrs Bolt gazed at her daughter meditatively, laying a restraining hand
upon her arm to prevent her departure.
“Jim Pike’s brother Robert, what emmygrated first, went travellin’ by
hissel’,” she observed. “He didn’t take his wife an’ childern wi’ en—he
couldn’t afford the expense, d’ye see, but as soon as he were doin’ well
he sent for ’em to come an’ j’ine him.”
“Well?” said Alice doubtfully, as she paused.
“Well,” continued her mother, “there, sit ye down, my dear. I can’t say
all what’s in my mind if I think you’m ready to rush off every minute.
Sit down an’ let’s talk proper. Now see here, the notion did come to I
all at once while ye was talkin’ jist now. Why shouldn’t Ned go out
abroad wi’ Jim Pike an’ look for work out in Ameriky? You could come to
us while ye was waitin’—father ’ud be pleased enough to have you an’ the
childern.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Alice indignantly. She would have started from her
chair again had not Mrs Bolt pinned her to her seat with one large heavy
hand.
“Now don’t ye fly out like that, don’t ye,” went on the good woman,
impressively. “I am but thinkin’ what’s for the best. You’m our own
flesh an’ blood, as ye say yourself, an’ so’s the childer; father’d be
fond enough o’ the childer if he was to have ’em nigh en. ’Tis but Ned
as he’ve a-took again’.”
“Well, but I bain’t a-goin’ to desert Ned,” cried Alice, hotly. “My own
’usband what I’ve a-chose and what have a-been sich a good ’usband an’
sich a good father. I’m sure he’d work his fingers to the bwone for me
an’ the childern!”
“Bide a bit, bide a bit,” returned Mrs Bolt. “I’ve been a-piecin’ of it
out in my mind. If you an’ the little ones was once here, ye’d soon get
round father—I d’ ’low he’d never want to part from ye again. There, ye
be the only child what was spared to us. I can’t but think so soon as
there was talk o’ your j’inin’ Ned in Ameriky he’d tell ye to send for
him to come back again, sooner nor let ye go.”
Alice was silent for a moment, struck in spite of herself, by the idea.
“’Tis true,” she said. “There mid be a chance o’ that. Father used to
be awful fond o’ me when I was a little maid, an’ I couldn’t but see he
noticed the childern to-day. He said Abel was a jolly little chap. Abel
was tryin’ to play cuckoo wi’ his granfer. He’s sich a friendly little
feller, I can’t but think as father’d soon take to en.”
“I d’ ’low he would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, eagerly.
“As for poor baby,” went on her daughter, in an aggrieved tone, “I can’t
see no sich great likeness to the Blanchards. Father will have it she
takes after Ned’s mother—I can’t see that.”
“Nor I,” agreed the living grandmother, gravely, considering the sleeping
baby.
“But still,” went on Alice, suddenly reverting to the main point from
which she had been momentarily diverted by the various side issues which
seemed to present themselves, “I couldn’t let Ned go travellin’ all by
hisself. I couldn’t ever part wi’ en. Summat mid happen as I mid never
know. An’ he midn’t get on out there—an’ he midn’t be able to find the
money to come home wi’ if father was to let him come—Oh, mother!”
This latter exclamation was uttered in a totally different tone. She
caught her breath with a gasp, her countenance suddenly illuminated.
“What’s to do?” cried Mrs Bolt eagerly. Little Abel, who had finished
his apple, came trotting across the room to share in the excitement. But
he was not destined to hear what was going on. Mrs Blanchard, leaning
forward in her chair, whispered eagerly in her mother’s ear. The
latter’s face, at first astonished, grew gradually alarmed, but finally
assumed an expression of admiring delight.
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder but what it mid answer,” she said slowly. “I
know father’d be overj’yed to have you an’ the childern here. But
whatever ’ud your husband say?”
“Oh, I’ll manage Ned if you’ll manage father. ’Tis worth tryin’. Dear
to be sure, how happy we mid be all livin’ together!”
“Father ’ull be fit to kill us all if he do find out.”
“He won’t find out. He can’t be vexed wi’ you anyhow. Ye need only say
that I’ve a-told ye so, an’ axed ye to speak to en for I.”
“Well, that’s true. There, my dear, I’d be simply out o’ my wits wi’
joy. I’ve missed ye—there, I can’t tell ye how much I’ve missed ye.”
They clung together, half laughing, half weeping, and the remainder of
Alice’s visit was spent in the congenial task of building castles in the
air.
Farmer Bolt was rather taciturn at dinner-time, and his wife deemed it
more prudent to postpone operations till a more favourable moment. In
the evening, however, when milking was done, and tea over, and Mr Bolt
drew up his chair to the fire and filled his pipe, he himself gave her
the opportunity for which she had been hoping.
“Ye had Alice wi’ ye to-day?”
“Ees, she told me she’d passed ye in the Drove—how did ye think she was
lookin’?”
The farmer smoked for a moment or two with a gloomy expression.
“She’ve fell away,” he said at last. “Fell away terr’ble.”
“She have,” agreed his wife with a sigh. “I d’ ’low ’tis a hard struggle
for she. There, she were a-tellin’ me she be often put to it to find a
bit to put in little Abel’s mouth—them was her very words. ‘An’ I do
often go hungry myself,’ says she, ‘an’ it bain’t so very good for me or
baby.’”
Farmer Bolt removed his pipe and glowered fiercely at his wife, as though
she were responsible for this pitiable state of affairs.
“An’ what could she expect,” he demanded, “when she took up wi’ that
dalled chap? She threw herself away on en—wouldn’t hear a word again’
him, an’ he can’t so much as keep her. What’s the chap good for if he
can’t earn enough to keep his wife an’ childer.”
“He’s a good worker, ye know,” said Mrs Bolt tentatively; “ye did never
have no fault to find wi’ en when he were wi’ us.”
“I find fault wi’ en now, though,” shouted her lord. “Why don’t he do
summat? Why don’t he turn his hand to summat? He’s all my daughter have
got to look to now. I says to her when she took en, ‘Alice,’ I says, ‘ye
must choose between Ned Blanchard an’ me.’ An’ she chose Ned Blanchard.
Well, let him do summat, then.”
“He be just a-thinkin’ o’ doin’ summat, my dear,” returned Mrs Bolt
mildly. “Alice were tellin’ I to-day he were goin’ to emmygrate.”
“What!” exclaimed the farmer aghast. “He be goin’ out abroad—he be goin’
to tole our Alice an’ them two little bits o’ childern out across the
sea? Well, mother, how ye can sit lookin’ at me—”
“Nay now, my dear, it bain’t so bad as that,” said Mrs Bolt, in the same
meek and ingratiating tone. “He be a-goin’ to look for work, that’s what
he be a-goin’ to do; an’ so soon as he’ve a-found it an’ have a-got a
comfortable home ready, then he’ll send for our Alice an’ the childern to
j’ine en. That’s the notion.”
“Oh,” said her husband, staring at her hard. “That’s the notion, be it?”
He sucked at his pipe for a moment or two, still fixing his unwinking
gaze upon her; finally, he enquired in a stern and disapproving tone what
she supposed would become of their daughter and her children in the
meantime.
“Well, that’s just it,” said Mrs Bolt gently. “’Tis that what brought
our Alice here to-day.”
The farmer grunted without speaking.
“The journey to Ameriky ’ull take every single shillin’ Ned Blanchard can
scrape together,” she continued.
“He be a-goin’ to send Alice an’ the childern to the workhouse I d’
’low,” remarked Mr Bolt, hitching his chair a little nearer to the hearth
and holding up one foot to the blaze. “He be a-goin’ to scuttle off wi’
hisself to Ameriky an’ leave his wife an’ family on the rates.”
“Nay now, nay now,” protested Mrs Bolt in a soothing tone. “You’d never
be the one to allow that, Bolt, you know you wouldn’t.”
“Me!” said Bolt, turning round with an expression of great surprise.
“What have I got to do wi’ it?”
“Why, ye know very well, my dear, you’d be the last to let sich shame
overtake your own flesh an’ blood. If Ned was once away, you wouldn’t
ha’ no objections to your own daughter a-comin’ back here for a while,
an’ your own grandchildern, would ye? They’d bring a bit o’ life about
this place, an’ it ’ud be nice to have our Alice goin’ about the house
again.”
There was a silence; Mr Bolt stirred up the contents of his pipe with the
end of a match and lit it again.
“Little Abel be wonderful like his mother in his ways,” went on Mrs Bolt;
“the very moral o’ what she used to be at his age. There’s her little
chair in the corner, look-see. He found it out to-day an’ fetched it
over aside o’ your chair, an’ sat hisself down in it—there, I declare for
a minute I thought our Alice was a child again.”
Mr Bolt squinted round at the chair, but did not commit himself by
speech. He was not an imaginative man, nevertheless the vision rose
before him of the curly-headed child who used to sit in that chair, and
whom he had loved as the apple of his eye. His wife put his thoughts
into words.
“Ye mind our Alice, how pleased she used to be when ye called her over of
an evening? Dear to be sure, what a bonny little maid she was, and what
a pride we used to take in her. And now to think that poor creetur’ what
come here to-day is her. There, I could ha’ cried to see her in that
wold patched dress—’ees, an’ I did cry when she did tell I how she do
often go hungry.”
“Well, I’m dalled if she shall go hungry while she bides wi’ us,” cried
the farmer, sitting suddenly upright in his chair. “Let Master Ned
emmygrate so soon as he pleases, an’ let the poor maid come to us—an’ the
brats too. She’ll know what ’tis for a while, to eat wi’out stintin’.
Let her come an’ bide so long as she likes—the longer the better, say
I—the longer she’s shut o’ that n’er-do-weel o’ a husband the better
pleased I’ll be.”
The following week Alice and her children took up their abode at her old
home. Alice was pale and nervous at first, but soon regained her
self-possession. The farmer was almost boisterous in his welcome.
After tea Mrs Bolt, with a wink at her daughter, installed the little boy
in the chair before referred to, at his grandfather’s side, an
arrangement in which the latter acquiesced silently, yet with evident
pleasure. Abel watched him with round inquisitive eyes while he filled
and lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair, crossed his legs
luxuriously. Presently, possessing himself of a bit of stick which lay
beside the hearth, the child wedged it in a corner of his own small
mouth, and trotting back to his chair, settled himself in it, in as close
an imitation of his grandfather’s attitude as the differences of age and
size, and a slight difficulty in distinguishing his right leg from his
left, would admit of. Abel the elder stared for a moment, and then,
realising the state of affairs, nudged his wife with a delighted chuckle.
“Look at that,” he exclaimed. “He be a sharp little chap if ever there
was one. Ye shall have a better pipe nor that to smoke, sonny.”
The farmer was as good as his word, and on the next day purchased a
supply of sugar-sticks, one of which he gravely handed to his grandson
every evening before lighting his own pipe.
Whether it was because the little fellow was won over by this practical
proof of consideration and regard, or whether the affinity which the
women-folk were so fond of talking about, really existed, it is certain
that before the Blanchard family were a week in the house, the two Abels
were practically inseparable. Whether toddling along a furrow in his
grandfather’s wake, or riding one of the farm horses, or perched on top
of a pile of mangolds, the child was his grandfather’s constant
companion.
Alice almost insensibly fell back into the ways of her girlhood, and, as
the days passed, her youth itself seemed to return to her. She grew
plump and rosy, sang as she went about her work, played with her little
ones as though she were a child herself. Had it not been for the
presence of the children, indeed, Mrs Bolt often declared she could have
fancied old times were back again, and their maid had never left them.
The good food, the freedom from petty anxieties, had no doubt much to do
with this happy change, but it was chiefly brought about by the new hope
in her heart which grew and brightened day by day.
One morning, however, Mr Bolt, coming back unexpectedly from the field
where he had been ploughing, and happening to take a short-cut through
the orchard, came upon Alice who was hanging out clothes to dry. Now it
was Mrs Bolt’s custom to let the world know that she had been washing, by
setting the linen to dry in front of the house; the larger articles being
draped on clothes-lines that ran from the corner of the milk-house wall
to the post by the wood-shed, while the smaller were neatly spread upon
the hedge. But here was Alice setting up a private clothes-line of her
own, and hanging garments on it—not her own, or her children’s garments,
as her father first supposed, but socks and shirts, even a pair of
nankeen trousers.
“What mid ye be doin’ here?” he enquired, at the top of his voice, and so
suddenly that poor Alice dropped her basket.
“Dear, to be sure, father, how you frightened me!” she exclaimed,
stammering.
“Who gave ye leave to make a dryin’-ground o’ my archard?” resumed the
farmer, striding up to her. “These here apple-trees wasn’t made to hang
clothes on. Whose clothes be these?”
All the pretty bloom fled from Alice’s face; for a moment she stood
gaping, unable to find an answer; then all at once she laughed—or tried
to laugh.
“Why, what a to-do,” she cried. “Whose clothes be they? Well, they be
man’s clothes, as ye can see—an’ you be the only man about this here
place, bain’t ye?”
An ominous pause ensued, during which Farmer Bolt, turning to the
clothes-line, closely examined the garments thereon.
“I’d be sorry to wear that shirt,” he remarked; “and when did ye ever see
me in trousers like them? They’m your ’usband’s—that’s what they be; an’
what be tellin’ lies about ’em for?”
Alice, who had always been known as a “spiritty maid,” fired up at this.
“I think it ’ud be a queer thing if I was to name my husband to ye,” she
responded. “Ye can never find a good word to say for him. ’Tis natural
enough for me to be unwillin’ to let his name pass my lips.”
“What be doin’ washin’ his clothes? I thought he’d emmygrated?” pursued
the father suspiciously.
“They are his clothes, then,” said Alice, with flashing eyes. “There,
they are his clothes; I’ll not deny it. I’ve a-washed ’em in the water
what the Lard gave us all free, an’ I be a-dryin’ of ’em in the air what
belongs so much to him as to you, father. An’ this here bit o’ rope’s
what was tied round my own box, so I d’ ’low he bain’t beholden to ye.”
Mr Bolt, slightly abashed, moved a few steps away, and then paused again.
“Be ye a-goin’ to send his washin’ out to Ameriky to en every week?” he
enquired.
His daughter made no answer, and Mr Bolt was obliged to go indoors to
seek for further information.
“When did Ned Blanchard emmygrate,” he enquired abruptly entering the
kitchen.
Mrs Bolt was stooping over the fire, and it was perhaps on this account
that her face became so red.
“Thursday was a fortnight, warn’t it?” she enquired. “Yes, Thursday was
a fartnight he shifted.”
“Ah,” said Farmer Bolt. “Them ships which goes back’ards and for’ards to
Ameriky must travel martal fast. Our Alice be a-hangin’ up his clothes
to dry in the archard now.”
“There, don’t talk sich nonsence, Bolt!” cried his wife sharply. “She be
but a-washin’ a few o’ the things what he left behind, o’ course.”
“That’s it, be it?” said Mr Bolt with a keen glance.
“That’s it,” rejoined Mrs Bolt, making a great rattle with the poker
between the bars of the grate. Mr Bolt eyed her for a moment or two in
silence, and then went slowly out again, jamming his hat firmly on his
head. Several times that day his wife and daughter encountered his fixed
gaze, but he asked no further questions.
On the following day, chancing to look backwards at his snug house in the
hollow, from the uplands where he was at work, he observed a white
streamer dangling from his own gate.
“They’ve tied a towel to the gate,” he murmured to himself. “What can
they be wantin’ carrier to call for?”
For by this simple expedient the carrier, journeying on the high road
above, became aware of the fact that the dwellers in the lane needed his
services. Farmer Bolt went on wondering all the way up that furrow and
all the way down again, and presently caught sight of the carrier’s van
turning down the lane. He continued to speculate while the green-hooded
vehicle turned into his own yard, emerged again, and finally came
crawling up the stony incline to the high road. Then Farmer Bolt, unable
any longer to restrain his curiosity, brought his horses to a standstill,
and leaving them to their own devices, hastened across the field to the
corner which the van must pass.
“That parcel what my wife gived ye just now, Jan,” he panted, as he
approached; “let’s have a look at it. I want to make sure it’s
addressed right. My wold ’ooman bain’t no great hand with the pen.”
“’Twas your daughter wrote the address,” returned the carrier. “I d’
’low it’ll be right enough.”
He produced the parcel, nevertheless, and the farmer hastily examined it.
The address was certainly set forth in a clear, legible hand:—
Mr EDWARD BLANCHARD,
c/o The Black Inn,
Sturminster.
To be left till called for.
He spelt it out slowly, thrusting out his underlip the while, with a
puzzled look.
“To be left till called for,” he repeated. “It do seem a queer thing
that. How be the man a-goin’ to call for it when he’ve emmygrated to
Ameriky.”
“Oh, and ’ave ’ee?” enquired the carrier, much interested.
“Ees, a fartnight ago.”
“Well, ’tis funny too; but I d’ ’low I must obey arders. Hand over that
parcel, farmer. I did ought to be gettin’ on; we’m a bit late as it is.”
Mr Bolt handed him the parcel, and the carrier whipped up his horse; but
the van had hardly rattled on a few yards before its driver was again
hailed.
“Hi! bide a bit!”
“Well?” said the carrier, turning.
Mr Bolt came alongside, red and breathless.
“Ye mid just ask the folks at the Black who they expects to call for that
there parcel,” he said. “I be a bit puzzled in my mind about it.”
“I will,” agreed the other; “but let me go now, good man, else I’ll never
get to Sturminster to ask about no parcels at all.”
Mr Bolt was in a stern and silent mood during the whole of that day, and
after tea, instead of settling down to his pipe with little Abel in his
chair beside him, strolled out Branston way to meet the carrier. He had
not long to wait before he heard the familiar creaking and rattling of
the rickety van, and presently the solitary light of its swinging lantern
came bobbing along between the hedges. The farmer repeated the procedure
of the morning:—
“Hi, bide a bit!”
“Hullo, be it you, Mr Bolt? Ah, I axed that there question.”
“Did ye?” said the farmer, planting himself in front of the horse on the
wet roadway.
“Ees. I d’ ’low there’s some mistake about Ed’ard Blanchard emmygrating.
He be to call for that parcel hisself.”
“Be he?” enquired Mr Bolt with starting eyes.
“He be. There was never no talk of his emmygrating, the folks at the
Black d’ say. He be a-workin’ under the same measter, an’ a-drivin’ o’
the same cart. He have shifted from the house he had to a lodging i’ the
town, but that’s all the emmygration he did do.”
“I see,” said the farmer, “Thank ’ee.”
“’Twas a funny thing as ye didn’t know, warn’t it?” remarked the carrier
as he gathered up the reins. “Blanchard’s your daughter’s husband,
bain’t he?”
“Ees, that’s right,” agreed Bolt. “I d’ ’low it be a funny thing.” He
turned away, and the van jingled past him and soon disappeared into the
darkness. Mr Bolt went slowly homewards, revolving this astonishing
discovery in his mind. He’d been tricked—that was what had happened.
They were all in it, Ned and Alice, and even his wife. They thought they
could fool him just as if he were a child. He knew what they were at.
They thought that once Alice and her children were established at the
farm he could never find it in his heart to turn them out again; but he
would soon show them whether he could or not. No doubt Master Ned
intended to come marching in by and by, expecting to be received with
open arms. They thought him, Farmer Bolt, a regular sammy, did they?
He’d let them know what sort of a sammy he was! Perhaps he could make
fools of them just as easily as they had made a fool of him. He stood
stock-still in the road all at once—an idea had flashed across him, a
scheme of vengeance quite as subtle as the offence, and moreover
appropriate. They—those deceivers—should find themselves caught in their
own trap!
He strode on now and presently burst impetuously into the family
living-room. Alice and his wife were sitting on either side of the fire;
little Abel had fallen fast asleep in his tiny chair, his curly head
drooping at a most uncomfortable angle over the arm. The farmer stopped
abruptly at sight of him.
“What’s that child doing here at this time o’ the evening?” he enquired,
roughly.
“He did beg so hard to sit up till granfer come back,” explained Mrs
Bolt, “we had to let en bide. There, nothin’ ’ud satisfy him. I give
him his sugar-stick, but that wouldn’t do. He said he must stop up an’
smoke his pipe wi’ granfer. He’s been a-savin’ it till ye come—there’s
but just the leastest little corner bit off, look-see.”
But granfer did not look. He sat heavily down in his chair and glared at
Alice, who was knitting a woollen comforter.
“What be doin’?” he enquired, savagely.
She glanced up with a smile. “You mustn’t look,” she said. “It’s a
Christmas present.”
“Ye be a-goin’ to send it out to Ned in Ameriky, I suppose,” he suggested
sarcastically.
“It’s not for Ned,” returned Alice quickly, and Mrs Bolt added in a
reproachful tone:—
“The poor maid be a-makin’ it for you, father.”
There was a pause, during which the farmer recalled his injury and
resolved not to be mollified.
“Christmas,” he said slowly. “Christmas. I d’ ’low Ned ’ull feel
hisself a bit lonely spendin’ Christmas in Ameriky. Ye’d best write an’
tell en to come back an’ spend it wi’ us.”
This was the scheme which the farmer had elaborated during his ireful
descent of the lane. He would tell Alice to send for her husband, and
she, carrying out her former plan of action, would pretend to write to
America and invite him to return, but as soon as Ned appeared he would
find he had met his match. Farmer Bolt would desire him and his family
to emmygrate out o’ that house, and never set foot in it again.
“That’ll surprise ’em all a bit, I d’ ’low,” said Mr Bolt vengefully to
himself.
He did not look at Alice as he spoke, half fearful of prematurely
betraying his anger; but after a moment, finding she did not reply, he
wheeled in his chair with an enquiring glance.
Alice had dropped her work on her lap and was leaning forward, gazing at
him with eyes that were full of tears.
“Well?” he asked impatiently. Before he realised what she was about she
had risen from her chair and thrown her arms round his neck.
“Oh, father,” she cried. “Oh, father, I can’t bear it! You’re so
good—so good to me, an’ I’ve been that wicked and deceitful!”
As she uttered the last word, the farmer, who at first had struggled to
free himself, became suddenly passive in her embrace.
“I have, I have,” she went on, sobbing. “There, mother, I be a-goin’ to
tell en everything. I couldn’t go on actin’ lies when he be so kind.
Oh, father, I’ve deceived ye shameful. Ned isn’t in Ameriky at all—he
never emmygrated. ’Twas jist a made-up story.”
Shaking with sobs she clung closer to her father, who still sat immovable
and looking straight before him.
“I don’t wonder ye can scarce believe it,” she wept. “I could never ha’
believed it o’ myself, but we was so wretched, Ned an’ me, an’ so
terr’ble bad off, an’ I thought if ye once had me back i’ my wold place
ye’d maybe get fond o’ me again—ye used to be so fond o’ me, father. I
thought ye’d maybe take to the childern—an’ that by-and-by ye’d maybe
forgive Ned, an’ gie en the carter’s place.”
“Oh,” said Mr Bolt, “that was it, was it?”
“Ye know ’twould be only nat’ral, my dear,” put in Mrs Bolt meekly. “Ye
wouldn’t be out o’ pocket by it, an’ ye’d be pervidin’ for your own flesh
an’ blood.”
Mr Bolt’s countenance changed; his wife’s suggestion was eminently
practical, and he could not help being struck by it. Nevertheless the
share she had taken in the recent plot was still too fresh in his memory
to admit of his parleying with her.
“There, wold ’ooman,” he cried, screwing himself round in his chair, “ye
needn’t be a-puttin’ your oar in. Ye’d better keep quiet. I wonder ye
dare look me in the face,” he added sternly.
“’Twasn’t mother’s fault—’twas me thought of it,” cried Alice quickly.
“’Twas me planfned it—”
“An’ ’twas very well planned too,” commented her father. “I only wonder
ye should ha’ thought I’d ever change my mind. Ye do know I be a man o’
my word, don’t ye?”
“I do, I do,” sobbed she, “but still—oh dear, father, haven’t we been
happy together these last few weeks, and haven’t ye got fond o’ little
Abel, an’ wouldn’t it be nice for us all to be friends? Ye did use to
say Ned was a terr’ble good worker,” she added wistfully.
Mr Bolt looked at first severe and then dubious; this was evidently an
aspect of the case which had not before presented itself. The rigidity
of his form relaxed in some degree, and for the first time since Alice’s
confession he cast on her a glance which, though reproachful, was not
unfriendly.
“’Tis true, that,” he said in a meditative tone, “’ees, ’tis true. Ye be
a truth-tellin’ maid as a rule, my dear. I wonder how you came to make
up such a lyin’ tale about the emmygration.”
As Alice hid her face he continued more kindly.
“There, we’ll say no more about that since ye owned up at the last. I
mid own up about summat too, as maybe ye wouldn’t like.”
Alice raised her head quickly, and Mrs Bolt dropped the poker, and turned
round. Little Abel, disturbed by the clatter, moved uneasily in his
sleep. The farmer looked from the women’s scared faces to that of the
child, and all at once smoothed the waving hair from his daughter’s
forehead and kissed her.
“I don’t know as I will, though,” he said. “Nay, some things is best
forgot. I d’ ’low I’ll forget this.”
“An’ ye’ll forgive as well as forget?” said Alice. Mr Bolt disengaged
himself gently, rose, and took a hurried turn about the room.
“I bain’t one what likes to go again’ my word,” he said after a moment’s
hard thinking. “I said I’d never let your husband cross my door—” Both
the anxious women exclaimed simultaneously; the farmer threw out his hand
to command silence.
“Bide a bit,” he said, “it’ll work out all right. When I said that about
your husband, Alice, I didn’t know he were going to be my carter. That’s
a different story, bain’t it? I shouldn’t wonder but what my carter mid
have to come in and out of the house for arders.”
As Alice went quickly towards him, her eyes shining and her bosom
heaving, he burst into a roar of laughter; and then, becoming suddenly
serious, caught her in his arms.
“There, write to your husband, love,” he said. “Write to en so soon as
ye like. Tell him”—he paused, and then began to laugh again, but
unsteadily, “tell him he can emmygrate back again, an’ while he be
waitin’ for Jim to give up the carter’s place, we’ll make shift to spend
a merry Christmas together.”