The shabby old farmyard, small and dingy as it might appear to one
more accustomed to the outside world, was a huge and magnificent place
to the untravelled. The gates, the doors, the barns, the stables, the
cow-sheds, the very puddles and the cart-ruts were tremendous. The
swing in the granary took you higher and gave you a more delicious
feeling than any other swing could. In fact, you doubted if there could
be found another swing in the whole wide world worthy to be called a
swing beside it. Then when you went to play at “houses,” couldn’t you
just wander off on to the rocky lots and pick and choose just what you
liked? That very big rock was the drawing-room, and all the little
rocks the chairs and tables. And over there by the flat rock you had
your dining-room, and a little further off was the kitchen.
But you didn’t reckon much of the kitchen. You saw that every day.
But drawing-rooms and dining-rooms! you didn’t often get into these
in real life, for in your house there was only a parlour with a
glorious thunder-and-lightning carpet. For all that, the parlour had
its attractions too. The family never sat in there unless there was
“company.” Then, of course, state had to be kept up. On ordinary
days you played about the kitchen and listened to the ghost stories
of the servant girl. And my! no duchess in the land could have been
more interesting to you than that girl. She belonged to the Salvation
Army, and could sing hymns that really _were_ interesting, not
like those you sang at church, which were so roundabout you couldn’t
understand them. This is what she used to sing, and the tune was so
catchy and easy you could never forget it:—
“The devil and me
We can’t agree,
I hate him
And he-e hates me.
He caught me once
But he let me go-o
From the land o-of si-in and woe.”
Then when she got tired of that she would break forth thus:—
“We’ll all go to glory when we die
(When we die).
Oh, we’ll all go to glory when we die
(When we die).
We’ll all go to glory—We’ll all go to glory
We’ll all go to glory when we die.”
There was something rousing about that last. When one has been told a
thing about six times with much vehemence, one begins to believe it.
But her resources did not end with the religious. Bless you, no! When
she was peeling the potatoes she gained inspirations for ghost stories.
“It was as black as pitch,” she would say, in a low voice. “And as he
was passing by the oak tree he saw something ghastly swinging from
the branches. It was the body of a woman who had been murdered twenty
years ago. And he saw her throat was cut. And all the way home he heard
footsteps following him. And when he got there he fell down dead.”
It was gruesome, as of course it was meant to be. But the teller had
her reward. Some three or four pairs of blue eyes were all fixed on
her, mouths open, breath coming in short gasps. And then, of course,
she had the satisfaction of knowing that the children dared not go to
bed at night, and the still greater satisfaction of knowing that they
were too ashamed to own up to their fear.
The most wonderful part about her was that she would stop quite calmly
in the most awful part to remove an eye from the potato she was
peeling, and then she would actually say, “Where did I get to? oh,
yes.” There was something uncanny about that girl, she had so much
_sang-froid_, and was never frightened at the workings of her own
brain, as so many of us are.
But if you were to be told all the marvellous deeds she did it would
fill a book. In the end she was married and went to live in America.
She married a Captain in the Salvation Army. Probably she fascinated
him as much as she had the farmer’s children.
But it would be a pity, whilst one is about it, not to mention another
of her great charms. On a Sunday afternoon, when the work was all done
and she was dressed in her best, and wearing a silver locket, having
inside it the picture of her young man, the Captain, she would begin
to rap, in a peculiar way, upon the kitchen table with her nails, and
this is what she said, keeping absolute time with the aforementioned
knockers,—
“Go to bed, Tom. Go to bed, Tom.
Father and mother and everyone.”
One day when she was in an extra good humour she showed the children
how to do it. And then it was glorious; you could just imagine them all
walking off to bed carrying a candle apiece.
There was a great deal of life going on about the farm—so, at least,
the children thought. At night, when the men-servants came in from
their day’s work, it was really quite cheerful.
They used to sit at the wooden table. Then there was oat bread, and
plain bread, and cheese, and beer, and milk, and porridge. Upon these
occasions the girl always gave herself a few extra airs and graces.
She would sing little snatches of songs that did not belong to the
Salvation Army, and altogether her manner was different from what it
had previously been. Those of the children who noticed this never
commented on it. She was a person with whom they could never take
liberties. The men-servants eyed her from a distance, but they never
thought of approaching nearer. They had respect for her, and then, of
course, they had been given to understand pretty early the mysteries of
the silver locket, and respected the other gentleman’s claim.
One of them, who was the most good-natured and the best worker of
the lot, used at times to chaff her, but she took it with stolid
indifference, and so he gave it up. His name was Bob, and he was
good-looking, with a square, open, ruddy face, bright blue eyes, and
fair hair. He could eat a quantity of cheese and bread, and a big basin
of porridge besides. The children used to sit round him on the form
whenever they got the chance. It was really marvellous the way he never
choked after gulping down a whole pint pot of beer.
The other men-servants were not so interesting. They couldn’t ride a
horse like him, they couldn’t walk like him, they couldn’t laugh like
him. He was, in fact, about perfect. They were a very large family at
the farm—too large for a poor man, or rather too large for an unlucky
man.
The farmer had not started life a poor man, that is speaking
relatively. His grandfather had died a miller and maltster, leaving
a fortune of some few thousands. But the son could never make things
pay. His father had died when he was quite a boy, and his mother had
carried on the business very efficiently till her son was of age. He
had wished to enter a certain firm in a certain large town, but perhaps
the ambition had not been strong enough, or his stern mother’s will had
been too strong, for he followed in his father’s footsteps, and, like
him, could not, as has been said, make it pay.
He married young, a very pretty wife, and he was very proud of her,
and she of him. But there is little doubt he was unfortunate in his
marriage too. She had always been used to plenty at home, for her own
brothers (she was an orphan) were on the whole good business men. It
was considered when she married that she was doing very well. There had
always been a certain amount of pride and reserve about her husband’s
family that held them up as very respectable. They were supposed to
have come of a good family, fond of fast living, who had fallen low.
Her own brothers, especially her eldest one, were all prosperous men
doing well; and what more natural than that she should suppose the
same of her husband? She knew him to be clever, well liked, greatly
respected, and much consulted by everyone. She therefore had no doubts
at all that he was making money and laying by for future years.
So one by one the little children came, and had all to be provided
for. Ten of them there were, and two died young. Her own health failed
as well, for she had never been strong, and there is no question that
doctors’ bills ran away with more money even than hungry mouths.
She was a wonderfully good housekeeper, scrupulously clean and neat
in everything. Hospitable too; perhaps too hospitable, seeing her
husband was the same. Hospitable people get encroached upon, you know.
The people who receive from them salve their consciences by making
themselves believe the givers are well off. Like most beliefs it is
rotten, and worse than rotten.
However, her health failed, and after the birth of her last child she
was never much better than an invalid. But long before this the mill
had been given up and a farm taken. That was a very bad stroke of
business. Farming in England so rarely pays, and millers on the whole
are prosperous.
So it was the farmer found himself at forty-four a poor man with a
large family. Not that he would admit he was poor. He lived on the same
scale as he had always lived, and his wife never for one moment dreamt
it was a hard struggle to make headway.
He was reserved, and he was sensitive, and lacking in that courage and
determination which are essential to the business man. He loved peace
above all things, and though energetic and industrious he seemed to
have no power of bringing this energy and industry to good account.
When, therefore, his wife, now an invalid, tried expensive medicine
after medicine in the hopes of recovery, he paid the bills cheerfully
and never complained. And she, thinking the money always ready, would
take perhaps but a little of this, or a little of that, and leave the
rest untouched. It was the struggle to recover a lost constitution.
Poor thing! who could blame her? And he—why, poor thing too!—he too
may be excused. But in the midst of this heavy strain upon his finances
there suddenly came heavy losses on the farm.
One year the potato crop entirely failed and other crops were poor
as well. Then the cows had pneumonia, and several had to be killed.
Seven calves were shot together in the little field at the back of the
farmyard. Then the sheep had footrot, and after that two horses died,
and both were good and valuable. They were very dark days, terribly
dark days, but never one word of complaint was heard to pass the
farmer’s lips.
Had he been wise he would have given the farm up then and there and
have turned his sons out into some business, or at least his eldest
son. But, unfortunately, his eldest son was no good at figures or books
or lessons, and though he had the best intention in the world to work,
and much pluck in sticking to what he could do, he seemed incapable
of taking any situation that befitted his position as the son of a
well-to-do and much-respected farmer. The second son, a lad of about
sixteen, was absorbed heart and soul in the farm. He loved it, and he
worked well on it, therefore it was as well he should stay there. The
third boy was a mere child of twelve. But besides having to think for
his sons, the farmer had also to bear in mind his daughters, and of
these he had five.
The eldest was a girl of about eighteen. She was tall and pretty, with
a certain distinction that made people turn to look at her. The second
girl was about fourteen, good-natured and easy-going at that age, as
after. The third was a girl of about eleven, fond of dressing, fond of
admiration, impulsive and warm-hearted. The fourth was a girl of five.
Very fat and very pretty. She was sturdy and fought to go to school
when she was three, so she went and stuck to it. The fifth was little
better than a baby, just turned four, puny and delicate.
So the farm was pretty full, you see, and it could be no light task to
provide suitably for them all.