“KNEW you’d like it, dear,” said Mr. Gleeson confidently. “I declared
the moment I saw the place, ‘Now this,’ I said to myself, ‘this will suit
the dear wife down to the ground.’ Just look at that bit over there.
(Wait a moment, driver.) Isn’t that simply—”
He gave a gesture which meant that the English language provided no
adequate words. His wife, with one hand upon his shoulder, offered an
“Ah!” of content.
“You must paint this,” he went on, recovering powers of speech. “You
must bring your easel and your white umbrella some morning when I’m busy,
and try to get this effect. See the top of the church spire above the
trees?”
“That there’s a oast house,” interrupted the driver.
“You will not forget that I shall have my duties in the village,” she
reminded him. “We are going to make life brighter, you know, for
everybody.”
“True!” he admitted. “It will require discretion.”
“And diplomacy.”
“Still, we’re not exactly amateurs. We bring something like a ripe
experience to the task. This will be child’s play after London. Think
of the difference in numbers. Driver, how many inhabitants are there in
Murford Green?”
“Can’t say as I ever counted ’em.”
“But speaking approximately.”
“Well,” said the driver, with deliberation, “speaking approximately, I
should say they was no better than they ought to be. And you’ll excuse
me, but I’ve got to get back to meet the five-eight, and if you and your
lady could give me what you may call permission to go on now without any
more pulling up, I shall jest do it. Otherwise I shan’t, and then Miss
Bulwer won’t let me never hear the last of it. That’s what she won’t!”
“Who is Miss Bulwer?”
“Look ’ere,” argued the driver, half turning in his seat. “I’ve answered
a pretty tidy number of questions sence we started from the railway
station, and I’m beginning to lose my voice, and I’m not far off from
losing my temper. But in reference to your question concerning, or
regarding, or affecting Miss Bulwer, my answer is, you’ll jolly soon find
out! Is that good enough for you, or isn’t it?”
“Merely a surface manner,” explained Mr. Gleeson, as the open fly
trundled on again. “You don’t know these people, my dear. A certain
veneer of brusqueness, but underneath that good pure gold. Simple
natures, I admit, but as honest and straightforward—Wonder,” dropping his
voice, “wonder how much he expects for this journey?”
“Pay him well,” suggested young Mrs. Gleeson, also in a whisper. “We
must make a good impression at the start. Say eighteen-pence.”
“Fortunately,” resuming ordinary tones, “both you and I will be protected
and saved by our keen sense of humour.” He smiled. “I expect our
arrival will flutter Murford Green pretty considerably. On an even
surface the slightest ripple shows.”
Both stood up in the open carriage on finding that the prophecy seemed to
receive full justification. Twenty or thirty men and lads were rushing
across the triangle of green, shouting wildly; in their hands they
carried stout hammers and long-handled axes; women cheered from doorways
of cottages. A few were distracted temporarily by sight of the station
fly, but, reproved by the others, they went on, atoning for the slight
delay by shrieking more loudly than the rest.
“Anything on, driver?”
“Something coming off,” answered the man. “I said what’d ’appen when
people began to lock up gates that’d been open for gen’rations and
gen’rations. I warned ’em, but they wouldn’t take no notice. And I
ain’t of’en wrong, neither,” concluded the driver.
“Don’t be frightened, dear,” urged Mr. Gleeson. “I’ll go out presently
and set it to rights. One wise word from an impartial person, and it
will all be over.”
The driver said at the destination that, times without number, he had
received three and six for the service, paid willingly; if the gentleman
had no more silver he supposed he would have to be content with three
shillings. In reply to contentions, the driver asked whether Mr. Gleeson
was aware of the price being asked, at the present moment, for oats, and
Mr. Gleeson having to admit that his knowledge on this subject was
incomplete, the driver retorted, “Very well then, what’s the use of
arguing? Why not pay up and look pleasant over it?” The fare obeyed the
first part of this recommendation. The two maids (sent on in advance
from Kensington) stood inside the gate, and caught the driver’s farewell
remark.
“Really, ma’am,” said the elder primly, “the manners of these people! I
thought I knew something about language, but I’ve learnt something the
three days we’ve been down here. Had a pleasant journey? Me and Sarah
have both been feeling humpish. I told her it would be all right soon as
ever you and the master came.”
Mr. Gleeson set out, immediately after a meal, to arrange the question
that was troubling Murford Green. He had changed into a Norfolk suit,
and as a further concession smoked a briar pipe; with a thick
walking-stick he prodded at dock-leaves on the green. Near one corner of
the triangle a meeting was being held, with a large-faced man shouting
excitedly from a Windsor chair. Mr. Gleeson, crossing over, added
himself to the audience.
“Well spoke,” sang the crowd, as the large man appeared to finish. “Very
well putt!”
“There’s my shop ’cross there,” shouted the orator, pointing to windows
that had “Crutchley, Butcher,” in marble letters overhead. “If any one
thinks I’ve broke the law, that’s where they can serve a summons.”
The crowd looked around at the village constable. The constable frowned
with the air of a man who had not entirely succeeded in making up his
mind.
“We’ve got our rights,” the butcher went on, “and I defy any one to say
the contrairy. If there’s anybody here who don’t agree with me, now’s
the time for him to step up and express his opinion. Free speech is our
motto and— What name, please?”
“My name is Gleeson,” announced the newcomer, “and I should like to say a
few words.”
“For the agitation, may I ask, or against?”
“My attitude,” said Mr. Gleeson, “is that of a peace-maker.”
The crowd grumbled; the butcher called for order. Mr. Gleeson ascended
the chair.
When, at the end of ten minutes, he stepped down, only the constable was
there to give him a hand. The constable accounted for the dispersal of
the crowd by pointing out that supper time was near, and on Mr. Gleeson
asking whether he thought the words spoken had produced any effect,
replied, cautiously, that it was difficult to say. The constable, as one
who had looked on at many struggles, gave the opinion that you could not
do better than let the parties fight it out and, this done, then
possibly, but not certainly, came the moment for you to interfere. Mr.
Gleeson felt bound, in reply, to mention that he had in his time been
called to the bar; intimated that, in circumstances such as these, it
seemed more fitting that he should give advice than take it.
“Now,” admitted the constable, “now you’re putting a different light,
sir, on the matter. To tell the truth, I wasn’t quite aweer who I was
talking to. I look on your arrival here, sir, as particular fortunate,
because you can back me up in any action I see fit to take.”
“Any correct action.”
“That’s the only way I’ve got of doing things. I’ve never yet made a
blunder, and I don’t suppose now I ever shall.”
“We are all of us liable to err,” pointed out Mr. Gleeson.
“Being liable to do a thing,” retorted the constable judicially, “and
actually doing it, is two entirely different matters. Shall I tell you,
sir, what idea has just come into my head?”
Permission given.
“This is the way I get ’old of notions,” went on the other
self-exultantly. “I may be walking along a quiet lane, or standing here,
as I am now, and all at once they come into my noddle like a—well, more
like a flash of lightning than anything else. It’s won’erful. Gives me
quite a turn for the moment. Guess what the notion is that I’ve just
thought of.”
The gentleman from London excused himself from making the attempt, and
found his arm hooked confidentially by the handle of the policeman’s
stick.
“I’ll bring over to your ’ouse this very evening two of the leaders of
this movement, or agitation, or whatever you like to call it. You take
down their evidence and to-morrow you go and call on Miss Bulwer. She’s
the lady who’s been trying to stop up this path. You talk it over with
her, you do, and settle it, and then announce your decision. As easy,”
concluded the policeman, detecting hesitation, “as easy as saying the
A.B.C.”
Two days later the constable, on receiving news from Crutchley, Butcher,
that the affair had been amicably settled, was able to state that the
village could reckon itself once more in debt to him, and mentioned the
case of a colleague at Middlesham who had recently been presented by
grateful inhabitants with a bicycle. Later came information that Miss
Bulwer had discharged her housemaid, with a month’s wages in lieu of
notice; the driver of the station fly, in the course of a chat with his
fare, ascertained the cause for her dismissal was that Miss Bulwer had
understood her (the housemaid) to say, before the Londoner’s call, that
she believed Mr. Gleeson was a bachelor, whereas the departing housemaid
declared she had only mentioned that he was clean-shaven. All the same
the decision of the arbitrator stood; Miss Bulwer was declared to be the
owner of the right of way, but graciously permitted the inhabitants to
use it. Few of the villagers had walked along the path before the locked
gate was placed there, and no one showed any anxiety to do so now that it
was thrown open.
“A most satisfactory beginning,” said Mr. Gleeson to his young wife.
“Nothing could be more auspicious. Now, we are about to take up the task
of breaking down some barriers on our own account. Your help, dear, will
be specially needed.”
“I haven’t your tact.”
“You have something better, my love,” he replied gallantly. “You have
charm. Together we ought to do a great work.”
“The place is beautifully quiet now,” she remarked.
“‘If there’s peace to be found in the world,’” quoted Mr. Gleeson, “‘a
heart that is humble may hope for it here.’”
“The girls are complaining.”
“They will soon become accustomed to the village and its surroundings.
It takes time for a Londoner to settle down. The silence,” he went on,
going to the window, “is to me most impressive.”
“It appears to strike them as being dull.”
That evening, when the two were consulting the local directory, taking
down names and perfecting arrangements, a sudden uproar started near the
open windows, and the servants came hurrying in to make protest against
the noise; Mary and Emma urged that the master ought to go out and see
what was happening. Looking through the open window the group could see
that every man, every lad, every woman carried articles capable of
producing clamour: some bore dustpans, some toy drums, some fire-irons.
Mr. Gleeson felt able to give an explanation to the affrighted woman. It
had, he believed, to do with bees; not quite certain about details, he
felt sure it concerned bees—swarming or something of the kind.
“I don’t want to be stung,” said cook nervously. “Wasps always make
straight for me!”
The crowd stopped at a house facing the green, and there the hullabaloo
increased to such an extent that Mr. Gleeson, finding his cap, announced
an intention of putting a stop to the row without further delay. The
women expected the turmoil would cease directly he reached the scene;
they observed that he spoke to one or two, remonstrating with them; the
folk seemed to be making an explanation, and he again used argumentative
gestures; they appeared to order him to go away and, after one or two
further efforts, he retired. The uproar continued.
“Not bees,” he announced, entering the room. “No! My dear, just send
the maids to the kitchen.”
The girls went.
“A primitive custom,” he explained, “with which I was not previously
acquainted. It seems a retired farmer living at the house in question
lost his wife three months ago.”
“Surely a strange way of expressing sympathy.”
“That is not exactly the idea. The retired farmer has married
again—married the nurse, and the village thinks it not quite right.”
“It isn’t right,” she declared warmly. “I consider the villagers are
quite justified in their action.”
“I don’t agree with you, dear.”
“If I died,” she contended, “and you married again in such a short time,
I should be very much gratified in looking down to find that people—”
“Why do you say ‘down’?” The contention in the Gleesons’ house rivalled
the demonstration in the roadway.