you’ll give me a matter of minutes, I’ll polish up a bit and put on
mine. Perhaps you didn’t know as I’ve got some good broadcloth for my
back; but I have."
He called to his mother and went upstairs. Then, while he was absent,
the thin and slatternly woman known as Eliza Screech shuffled in and put
chairs for the Bowdens. She stood and rubbed her hands over each other
and listened to the noise her son made overhead. By certain sounds she
knew how his change of attire advanced.
"I hope you are on our side in this matter, ma’am," began Elias,
solemnly.
"Yes, I am, and always have been since I heard about it," she said.
"I’ve been at him night and day till he threatened to take the
wood-chopper to me. I can’t say what he thinks about it, for not a word
will he utter. He’s always chuckling to hisself, however. ’Tis a very
shameless thing to have happened, though very common. I’m sorry about
it."
She spoke kindly but indifferently.
"My girl is the same as him," declared Mr. Bowden. "’Shameless’ is the
only word to be used against her--a hardened giglet as keeps her own
secrets and did keep ’em till they would out. And, instead of going in
tears and sackcloth, she’s as gay as a lark and don’t care a button for
our long faces. Even to church she’ll come, if you can believe it. And
not a word of sorrow."
Mrs. Screech heard her son putting on his boots.
"Well, I hope that your way of saying things will catch hold on
William," she answered. "He’s a thoughtless man; but he was never fond
of the girls till he met your Dorcas, and ’twas a very great blow to him
he couldn’t take her."
"He must take her: that’s what we’ve come about," declared David.
Mrs. Screech shrugged her shoulders.
"There’s room here," she said, "and though us be a little down in the
world, I daresay for a pound or two we could mend up the glass and make
things vitty for Dorcas. I’m very fond of her, I may tell you. Here’s
William coming down, so I’ll go."
She left them, and a moment later Mr. Screech entered transformed. He
wore excellent black. He had brushed his hair and beard; he had washed
his hands and put on a pair of tidy boots.
"Now," he said, "perhaps you’ll let me know what I can do for you, Mr.
Bowden. Not long since there was a thing as you might have done for me;
but I got a very sour answer, if I remember right. However, you’ll find
me more reasonable if you come in reason."
"In reason and in right I come, William Screech. And well you know why
for I’m here," said the master of Ditsworthy. "You’ve seduced my
daughter Dorcas, and you cannot deny it."
"Yes, I can," answered Mr. Screech. "I can deny it and I can take my
Bible oath of it. I never seduced her, and I never even offered to.
I’ll swear she never told you that I seduced her."
"She’ll tell me nought."
"Then why d’you charge it against me?"
"Don’t fiddle with words," broke in David. "The question be simple, and
the answer be ’yes’ or ’no.’ Do you deny that you are the father of the
child she’m going to bear?"
"Certainly not. I am the parent; and a very proud man I shall be on the
day."
"Then why d’you say you didn’t seduce her?" cried David.
Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner.
"Better let your father talk," he said. "You childless men be rather
narrow in your opinions. He’s more sensible and more patient. Because
a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don’t follow
nobody’s seduced her. If anybody was seduced, ’tis me, standing here
afore you."
He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an
inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair.
"Explain yourself, William," he said.
"Well, I will. Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match,
that your daughter was a bit savage about it."
"She was. I allowed for that."
"You didn’t allow enough. You didn’t know what a clever girl Dorcas
was; and you didn’t know how well she understood me. None ever
understood me like her. I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for
nought--in your opinion. You didn’t know how witty I could be if I
chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head. But she knowed and
she trusted me. Pluck! Talk about this here prizefighter’s pluck and
your Rhoda’s pluck--Good Lord! there’s more valour in Dorcas than the
whole pack of you! She’s a marvel, she is. This be her work, master,
not mine. After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears,
she soon knowed what to do. And she done it; and I was very pleased to
help. And here we are."
Mr. Bowden gasped.
"Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family
way?" he asked.
"That’s the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing
else she could do. ’Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,’ I said, and my
bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the
world could trust me like that. ’’Twill larn my father and that
self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,’
said Dorcas to me; and I’m sure I hope it will. You must all try to be
sensibler without a doubt."
David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent
Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act.
"And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly.
"In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here’s my dear
Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother
cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at
her; and yet I ban’t allowed to make an honest woman of her; because
you’ve sworn afore witnesses that you’d sooner see her dead than Mrs.
William Screech. It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man
you are--never known to call back an opinion. Dorcas and me be halves
of a flail--one nought without t’other; but you’ve spoken. I shall be
very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you’ll bring it
up well to the Warren House."
This was too much for David.
"If you give us any more of your cheek, I’ll smash you where you sit,"
he said.
Billy shrugged his shoulders.
"Where’s the cheek? What a silly man you are! Ax your father if I’ve
said a syllable more than the truth. I’m only sorry about it. Of
course the likes of me, with my skilled inventions and general
cleverness, ban’t worthy to be your brother-in-law--you with your great
ideas and your five hundred pounds--left to you by somebody else. But,
maybe, your father may feel different. A father can understand a
father. ’Tis for him to speak now, not you, and say what he thinks had
better be done about his child--and mine."
"There’s only one thing to be done, and that afore the month is out,"
said Mr. Bowden. "And you know what, for all your sly jokes, Billy.
The pair of you have bested me. Well, I know when I’m beat. And the
sooner the wedding be held, the better for everybody’s credit."
Billy pretended immense surprise.
"You mean as you’ll call home all them high words, master?"
"Every one of ’em," answered Elias, calmly. "If I’d been a bit sharper,
I might have guessed as you and her would find a way. You have found
it--’tis vain to deny that. So there’s nothing to do but wed; and I
hope you’ll live to make good your promises; and so soon as you do, I’ll
be the first to up and own I misjudged you."
"That’s fair and sportsmanlike, master, and I’ll be as good as you; and
if my new rabbit trap don’t make you proud of me for a son-in-law, Elias
Bowden, you ban’t the honest man I think."
"It’s settled then," said David, rising, and eager to be away.
"On one condition," answered the other; "that me and Dorcas have a
proper show wedding, same as David here had. Us won’t have no hole and
corner sort of job; and there’s no reason why we should. Only us and
you know about it."
"She shall have a perfectly right and proper wedding, Billy," declared
Mr. Bowden.
"Very good," answered the other; "and the day after we’m married and my
Dorcas comes here to live, I’ll show you the trap, and save you twenty
pounds a year if a penny."
Mr. Screech rose and indicated that the interview was ended.
"The banns go up on Sunday," he said. "Have no fear of me. I’m in
quite so much of a hurry as anybody."
Mrs. Screech, who had heard everything from behind the door, crept off,
and the Bowdens departed, while Billy went as far as the gate with them.
"Please give Dorcas my respects, and tell her I’ll be up over to tea on
Sunday, if agreeable to all parties," he said.
"I will, William," answered Elias, mildly; "and ’twill be quite
agreeable, I assure you."
The victory was complete and time proved Mr. Screech a just and even
magnanimous conqueror. But for the moment the friction set up by his
methods of approaching matrimony caused not a few persons a little
uneasiness. While David had writhed before Billy’s satirical humours,
Rhoda Bowden also suffered; but she took herself off and thus escaped
direct contact with the cause of it. It happened that Dorcas was
restless after her father had set forth to see Mr. Screech. She had
wandered towards Coombeshead and finally--moved as many others were
moved--determined to seek Madge, and so win comfort, and wait with her
at ’Meavy Cot’ until David returned. Of the issue Dorcas felt no manner
of doubt. Mr. Screech longed to marry her, and his single-hearted
devotion was the finest element in a rather mean character. Marriage
Dorcas felt to be a certainty; but she was none the less eager to learn
how the great interview had fallen out and to what extent Billy had
punished his future brother-in-law. Mr. Screech especially despised the
Puritanical views of David; and Dorcas suspected that he might have
taken pleasure on this occasion in wounding rather deeply her brother’s
susceptibilities. She went to see Margaret, therefore, and felt sorry
to find Rhoda also at home. Her sister was in the garden; but Rhoda saw
the visitor some way off and departed leisurely without any interchange
of words. The red girl flushed and set her teeth in a sneer; the other
passed quickly into the Moor.
Then Dorcas entered and found Madge making a pudding. She sat down,
took off her sunbonnet, and nibbled a piece of raw rhubarb.
"Did you see Rhoda go off?" she asked.
"Never mind, ’twill come right. You know how she feels things."
"Feel! Don’t you think she feels, Madge. She’s hard as them stone
statues of women in church--a dead-alive, frozen beast! Feel! I wish
somebody would make her feel. Don’t you look like that. You’ve lived
with her now half a year and more. You know what she is."
"Be fair, Dorcas. She takes this a bit to heart; but that’s only what
all of us do."
"You don’t, and you needn’t pretend it--not like her, anyway. You’d
have done the same if your father had said you wasn’t to have David.
You’d have trusted David, same as I trusted Billy. Things like
her--Rhoda, I mean--why, good Lord! they’re not women; they ban’t built
to bring dear li’l, cuddling, cooing babbies into the world, like you
and me. All for yowling dogs and walking in the moonlight--_by
herself_! Pretty frosty sport that for a female creature with blood in
her veins!"
"It’s throwed her into a great trouble, and ’tis no good to deny it,"
said Margaret. "Of course the man will marry you, as you’ve told me in
secret, and no doubt David will come back presently in a good temper
about it; but Rhoda’s different. She’s rather terrible if a girl slips.
I’ve heard her say frightful things long before this--this business of
yours. ’Tis the point of view, Dorcas. You’m so good as a married
woman now, and me and you can talk; but Rhoda’s awful different--as the
maidens often be till they’m tokened. Then they begin to soften and
understand men-folk a bit better."
"Fool!" said Dorcas.
"She’ll take a bit of time to recover; but she’ll be at your wedding
with the best of us, if I know her."
"Not her! Mark me! She’ll never come inside my house or put a finger
to my childer. And God knows I don’t want her to."
"She will--she will. You’re too hard. She’ll grow wiser and more
understanding. She’s a very kindly, sensible girl in a lot of ways.
Only she’s made of sterner stuff than me and you. I wish I was so
noble-minded as her and so brave, I’m sure. She’s as plucky as David,
Dorcas. Nought on four legs can frighten her."
"Four legs!" said Dorcas. "I want for a man on two legs to frighten
her--ay, and master her and make her run about and do his will. But no
man will ever look at her. They want something to put their arms
around--not the sour, stand-offish likes of she. ’Tis no better than
facing the east wind to be along with her."
"Not at all, Dorcas. You’ll soon see different. She have a sort of
queer feeling in her that ’tis an awful horrid thing to give yourself
over to a man. I do believe she feels almost the same if a woman
marries. You’d think the whole race of women had received a blow in the
face when one takes a husband. She can’t talk of ’em with patience.
But us will get her a husband come presently. Then her eyes will open."
"Never--never!" foretold the other. "She’ll go single to her grave--and
a good riddance when it happens."
"Here’s David coming up the path," said Margaret, and both women went
out to meet him.
But Madge’s prophecy was only partly fulfilled. He brought, indeed, the
news that Mr. Screech was prepared to wed with Dorcas at the earliest
opportunity; but he showed no joy at the fact, and was indeed in an
exceedingly bad temper.
"What are you doing here?" he said to Dorcas, sternly. But she never
had been and never was likely to be brow-beaten by a man.
"Come to see Madge, seemingly, and hearing that you was gone with father
to have a tell with my William, I thought I’d wait and see what came of
it."
"Your William!" he said. "I wonder you don’t blush for yourself, Dorcas
Bowden."
"Ah! you must see a lot of things that make you wonder," she answered
insolently. "Not for myself did I ever blush; but for father, as forbid
me to marry the only chap that ever loved me, or was ever likely to.
What do I care? I suppose you and father, in your righteous wisdom,
have decided that we may be married now, anyway; and if you haven’t ’tis
no odds, because parson will mighty soon shout out the banns when we ax
him to do it."
"You’re a bad woman," said her brother, shortly, "and this is a very
brazen, shameless piece of work."
"That for you," she answered, flicking her fingers in his face. "I’m as
straight and honest and true as your wife, or Rhoda either. ’Tis her
that’s nasty and shameful, with her prudish ways, not me. And if I’ve
done anything to think twice about, ’tis father’s fault--and yours."
David was angry and turned to his wife.
"The less you hear of this sort of talk the better," he said. "I’ll
have no trollop here, fouling your ears with her lewd speeches."
"Call yourself a man!" sneered Dorcas. "Call yourself a man, to speak
of me like that. You know I loved the chap as faithful and true as a
bird its mate, and I was his wife just as much as Madge be yours in
everything but the jargon and the ring. And you turn round and call me
’lewd,’ because I did the only thing I could do to force father to say
’yes.’ ’Tis you that are lewd--you and yonder creature, who won’t see
me nor touch me no more; and so much the better for me." She pointed to
Rhoda, who was sitting a little way off calmly waiting for Dorcas to
depart.
"Larn from your wife to be larger-minded," she began again; then David
silenced her.
"Stop!" he thundered out. "Who are the likes of you--a common, fallen
woman--to preach to me? You get going out of this! I don’t want you
here no more, and I won’t have you here no more."
"Bah!" she answered. "You’re jealous of my William--that’s what you
are! Because you can’t do what he’s done!"
"Begone before I come back," he answered, "or I’ll wring your neck, you
foul-thinking slut! And look to it you treat her as I do, Margaret, or
there may come trouble between us."
He glanced at his wife darkly, then, in most unusual anger, left the
threshold and walked across to Rhoda.
"A pair of ’em," commented Dorcas. "And, please Heaven, they’ll both be
childless to their dying day. I hate the ground they walk on!"
"Don’t! don’t, for God’s sake, curse like that," cried the other, and
Dorcas, divining what she had done, was instantly contrite. Indeed, she
began to cry.
"I’m--I’m that savage; but not with you, Madge--never with you. Forgive
me for saying that. Of course you’ll have plenty of
children--plenty--more’n you want, for that matter. Never think you
won’t--such a lover of the little creatures as you be. You’ll make up
for lost time when you do start. And I hope you’ll love mine as well as
your own, for, barring me and Billy and Billy’s mother, there won’t be
many to love ’em."
Her words had turned Margaret’s thoughts upon herself and made her sad.
"Sometimes there comes an awful fear over me, Dorcas, that I shall have
none," she confessed. "’Tis all folly and weakness, yet you’d be
astonished how oft I dream I’m to have none. And if it fell out so, I
doubt David would break his heart."
"Don’t think such nonsense. Dreams never come true, and ’twill be all
right," declared Dorcas. "But now I’ll clear out, else he’ll bully you
for talking to me so long after what he threatened. And, David or no
David, you’ve got to be our friend, Madge; because there never was such
a dear, sweet creature afore, and never will be. And if ’tis a girl,
Billy have promised me I may call it ’Madge’; and I shall do."
Dorcas dried her eyes and prepared to depart, but the other bade her
wait a moment.
"A drop of milk you must have; and--and--I know ’twill be a dinky
darling, and I shall love it only less than you and your husband will,"
Margaret said.
Then Dorcas drank and set off homeward, fearing further trouble; but
with her father she had no painful scene, for by the time that Elias
returned to the warren, the humorous side of that day’s encounter had
struck him. He kept this to himself most firmly however; but, as a
result, he indulged in no anger. Instead he merely informed Dorcas that
Mr. Screech would marry her at the earliest possible moment on one
condition: the bridegroom insisted upon a wedding of ceremony and
importance.
*CHAPTER IX*
*COMMON SENSE AND BEER*
Certain persons of local note had gathered together for evening drinking
in the bar of ’The Corner House.’
Charles Moses, Bartley Crocker, Mattacott, and Ernest Maunder were
there; but interest chiefly centred in one just entered upon the state
of matrimony. The truth concerning his marriage was known to none
present but Mr. Crocker, and he kept the secret.
Mr. Moses chaffed Billy Screech, and Billy, whose wit was nimbler than
the shoemaker’s, answered jest for jest.
"As for cleverness, we well know you’re clever," declared Mr. Moses.
"You’ve got a clever face, Screech--a clever nose, if I may say so--’tis
sharp as one of my awls."
"My nose has a point, I allow," said Mr. Screech, "and your awl’s got a
point; but I’m damned if there’s much point to the things you say,
Moses. All the cleverness in your family was used up afore you come
into it, I reckon."
"I knowed the cleverest man that ever was seen in Sheepstor," said
Timothy Mattacott, slowly. "So does Maunder here. So clever he was
that he tried to walk faster than his own shadow, and he sowed a
barrow-load o’ bricks once, thinking as they’d grow up into a house."
"And what became of him?" asked Crocker.
"They put him away," said Mattacott. "He was afore the times. He’s up
along with the Exeter pauper lunatics to this hour, I believe."
"Samuel Edge was cleverer than that," declared Bartley. "And I’ll tell
you why: he weren’t content with anything as it stood, but must be
altering and changing and pulling down and building up."
"A foreigner from Bristol way," said Mr. Moses.
"Yes, and the great cleverness of the man undid him. There was an
egg-bottomed well to his house, you remember, ’Dumpling’?"
"I do remember," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "One of they egg-bottomed
wells the man had."
"And though it ran out more than enough water for all his needs, nothing
would do but he must cut his egg-bottomed well into a bell-bottomed
well. A pushing, clever chap."
Reuben took up the narrative.
"He went down hisself to do the work; and the sides fell in when he’d
under-cut a bit; and they didn’t get the carpse out for three days," he
said, gloomily.
"Yet an amazing clever man was Edge," concluded Bartley.
"Better he’d left well alone, however," ventured Mr. Screech. His jest
was greeted with a stare and an uncertain sort of laugh. The folk treat
a pun like a conjuring trick: they are dimly conscious that something
unusual has happened in conversation, but they cannot say what, and they
have no idea how it was done.
"If Edge was the cleverest man, which, for my part, I won’t allow,"
proceeded Moses, "then who was the cleverest woman, I wonder?"
"My wife," declared Mr. Shillabeer, instantly. "You must be just to the
dead, Charles, for they can’t defend their characters. But I say that
my wife was both the largest and best and cleverest woman that ever
comed here; and if anybody doubts it, let ’em give chapter and verse."
"Nobody does doubt it, ’Dumpling,’" said Bartley, in a soothing voice.
"There may be a smart female here and there yet, and there may be a
clever maiden or two coming on also; but never did any such grand
creature as Mrs. Shillabeer appear among us. Mr. Fogo used to tell
about her, and how you won her from a regular army of other men."
"True as gospel. There was a good few fighters after her besides
me--heavy weights too. She’d never have looked twice at anything less
than a fourteen stone man. In fact, to see any male short of thirteen
to fourteen stone beside her was a thing to laugh at. ’Twas when I was
in training for my fight with the old Tipton--years younger than me he
was all the same, that I won her. I was at a little crib out Uxbridge
way, and her father had me in hand, and she come out from Saturday to
Monday, and us went walking over fields. Then a bull runned at us, and
my girl weren’t built for running, but I got her over a stile somehow by
the skin of the teeth, and the bull helped me after her from the rear.
Horched me in the buttock, and I bled like a pig after. In fact, I
saved her life. And she knowed it; and when I offered myself ’twas
’Dumpling’ first and the rest nowhere, like the race-horse."
Mr. Maunder spoke.
"A faithful man to her memory. No doubt if the widow-men could all look
back on such partners, there’d be less marrying a second than we see
around us."
"In my case," declared the host, "I can’t forget her enough to think of
a second. Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of
her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being
town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or
the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in
mind of her. For whether ’twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or
one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman
happier. Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a
duck to water. So I can’t forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the
clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough. I say, ’Ah! how
my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;’ or ’how
my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird’s
nest with the eggs in it.’"
The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded.
"Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently
arrived. "He’d got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he
told me so."
Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased.
"He’ll never come no more, I’m afraid. ’Twas only the mill that kept
him so long. He must have London booming round him. He’s been in
hospital since he was here, for the doctors to cut a lump of flesh out
of his neck. But he’s very well again now; and busy about a coming turn
up between Tom King and an unknown."
"How do it feel to be among the race of married men, Billy?" asked Simon
Snell.
"’Tis a very proper feeling, Simon," answered the other. "In fact, I’ll
go so far as to say a man don’t know he’s born until he’s married. You
chaps--Bartley here and suchlike--talk of freedom. But ’tis all stuff
and nonsense. You ban’t free till you’m married; you be a poor,
unfinished thing without your own woman, and I should advise dashing
blades like you, Simon, and you, Timothy, to look around before the grey
hairs begin to thrust in. Thirty to thirty-five is the accepted time.
I’m thirty-three myself."