Summer dawn; a thousand delicate tints in the sky above and dewy world
beneath; birds stretching drowsy little wings and piping to each other;
dumb things waking up one by one and sending forth their several calls.
But as yet nothing seemed astir in the old house; the windows, open for
the most part, were still curtained; no thin spiral of smoke wound its
way upwards from the kitchen chimney. Ruddy shafts of light made cheer,
indeed, on the mullioned panes and the moss-grown coping, picked out
the stone-crops and saxifrages on the roof, ran along the stone gutter,
bathed the old chimney stacks with a glow that would seem to mock at
the empty hearths within.
Presently a great clucking and crowing was heard from the poultry-yard
at the rear of the house, and a moment or two after a little old lady
came trotting along the mossy path behind the yew hedge and picked her
way daintily between the apple-trees in the orchard. As she proceeded
she looked to right and to left as though in fear, yet her face was
wreathed in the broadest of smiles, and every now and then she uttered
an ecstatic chuckle. Now out at the wicket-gate and down the lane to
the right. Lo! standing outlined against the purple expanse of moor a
hundred paces or so from the gate an equipage was drawn up; two men
were stationed by the horses’ heads, one of whom hurried forward to
meet her, while the other stiffly climbed up on the box. The first,
a tall burly old man, wearing a white top-hat, an old-fashioned
embroidered waistcoat, and a spick-and-span suit of broadcloth,
beckoned eagerly as he hastened towards her, while the figure on the
box waved his whip, and jerked his elbow with every sign of impatience.
“So there ye be at last, my dear!” cried the old gentleman. “Blest if
I didn’t think they’d catched ye. Come along, hurry up! Let’s be off;
it’s close upon four o’clock.”
The lady, who was plump and somewhat short of breath, merely chuckled
again by way of rejoinder, and suffered herself to be hoisted into the
waiting chaise. It was an extremely old-fashioned chaise with a hood
and a rumble; the coachman was equally antiquated in appearance, and
wore a moth-eaten livery of obsolete cut and a beaver hat.
“Now off with ye, Jem,” cried the old gentleman in a stage whisper.
“Let ’em go, my lad. Don’t spare the cattle! We must be miles away from
here before the folks yonder have time to miss us. But whatever did
keep ye so long, Susan?” he inquired, turning to the lady.
“My dear,” said she, with a delighted giggle, “I’ve been to feed the
chickens.”
Thereupon her companion fell into a paroxysm of suppressed merriment,
growing purple in the face, and slapping his thigh in ecstacy. The old
coachman turned round upon the box and bent down his ear to catch the
joke.
“Missus has been to feed chicken, Jem,” laughed his master. “Ho! ho!
ho!--she wouldn’t leave out that part, ye may be sure.”
Jem grinned. “No, I d’ ’low she wouldn’t. Missus be a grand hand at
feedin’ chicken; she’ve a-had prac_tise_, haven’t she, Measter? I’ll go
warrant she have.”
“And I’ve been doing something else too, John,” continued she, when the
explosion had in some measure subsided. “See here!”
She opened the lid of the little covered basket which she carried, and
displayed three nosegays of white flowers.
“I thought we might wear these,” she remarked. “I very nearly brought
favours for the horses, too, but I was afraid it would excite remark.”
“And you were right,” said he; “but I think we’ve managed pretty well
to put ’em off the scent. Jem did drive a good bit along the Dorchester
road, and back very quiet over the heath. ’Twas very artful of ’ee, my
dear, to be talkin’ so innercent-like about Weymouth yesterday--they’ll
think we’ve a-gone there, for sure.”
The old lady drew herself up with a little conscious air.
“It takes a woman’s wit to think of them things,” she said: “But I do
feel sorry for them all, too. I left just a bit of a line for Mary to
say she wasn’t to be frightened and we was just gone for the day, and
they mustn’t think of looking for us. But I can’t help thinking it does
seem a shame. There, all the poor things will be comin’ from this place
and that place and bringing the children, and making ready their little
speeches, and getting out their little presents----”
The old man began to chuckle again.
She looked at him reproachfully, and he laughed louder and rubbed his
hands.
“’Tis very unfeeling of you to laugh like that, John. I’m sure it is.
Haven’t you got no feeling for your own flesh and blood?”
“If you come to that,” said John, “whose notion was it? Says I, ‘I do
wish,’ I says, ‘we could give ’em all the slip and spend the happy day
quiet by our two selves.’ And says you, ‘Why shouldn’t we, then?’ says
you. ‘Look here,’ you says, ‘why shouldn’t we do it over again, John?’
‘What?’ says I. ‘What we done fifty years ago,’ says you. ‘Well,’ I
says, and I say now, ‘it takes a woman’s cleverness to think o’ such
things.’ So here we be a-runnin’ away again, love; bain’t we?”
She extended her little mittened hand to him with a gracious smile that
had in it a droll assumption of coyness.
“There’s the ring, though,” said he; “that there ring ought to come
off, Susan, else it ’ull not seem real-like.”
His gnarled old fingers were already fumbling with the ring, but she
jerked away her hand quickly.
“No, indeed!” she cried. “Have it off! I wouldn’t have it off for a
thousand pounds. It’s never been off my finger all these years, John,
and I’m certainly not going to have it off to-day.”
She pinned the nosegay in his coat, assumed a similar decoration
herself, and handed one to Jem. Then they drove onwards with renewed
speed. Jem, following his master’s advice, was not sparing the cattle;
the old chaise rocked from side to side, the horses flew along the
road. They had now left the heath behind and found themselves on the
highway; the country was looking its best this fine sunny morning;
the hedges were still white with bloom; the leafage of the woods
through which they passed was yet untarnished by heat or dust; a spicy
fragrance was wafted towards them from the fir plantations; in the
villages the folks were beginning to stir; chimneys were smoking; women
moving to and fro, here and there a man sauntering fieldwards.
They looked after the rattling chaise with astonishment.
“I hope nobody will set up a hue and cry,” ejaculated the old lady
nervously. “There’s nobody coming after us, is there, Jem?”
“Don’t ye be afeared, mum,” returned Jem valiantly. “You sit still,
Mrs. Bussell; nobody’s thinkin’ o’ sich a thing, an’ if they was, we’d
soon leave ’em behind. I brought ye safe to Branston this day fifty
year ago, an’ I’ll do the same to-day, dalled if I don’t.”
“So ye did, Jem, so ye did,” exclaimed his master. “Dear heart alive,
do ye mind, Sukey, that time we heard such a clatterin’ behind us, and
you thought all was lost, and Jem turned right into Yellowham Wood. How
he done it I can never think. But we crope out of sight and the folks
rattled past. And ’twasn’t nobody thinkin’ of us at all. ’Twas young
Squire Frampton drivin’ for a wager.”
“Yes, my father was looking for us along the Dorchester road,” said
she, laughing again.
“He! he!” chimed in Jem, “I mind that well. ’Twas my cousin Joe what
took yon empty shay. He couldn’t for the life of en make out why he
were to ride so fast wi’ nobody inside. ‘Never you mind, Joe,’ says I,
‘ride away for your gold piece,’ I says. I weren’t a-goin’ to tell he
what was a-goin’ on. He weren’t to be trusted same as me. He understood
about the gold piece right enough, and, dally! he did understand Squire
Sherren’s horsewhip, too, when he comed up wi’ en and couldn’t make Joe
tell en where he was gone. I d’ ’low ye was half-way to Lunnon by that
time.”
“Poor Joe!” said Mrs. Bussell compassionately.
“Pooh!” exclaimed bluff old John, “a gold piece would mend many broken
bones. Well, my dear, I’m gettin’ sharp-set, what do ye say to a bit of
breakfast? Pull up at the first sheltered place you come to, Jem.”
“But let it be somewhere where you can keep a look-out,” put in the old
lady anxiously. “Don’t let’s be caught.”
By-and-by they arrived at a suitable place, and Jem duly pulled up,
and John brought out a well-packed hamper from the rumble, and Mrs.
Bussell made tea from a spirit-lamp, and dispensed goodly portions of
buttered roll, and ham, and hard-boiled eggs, and John and Jem took
turns to act sentry, and little Mrs. Bussell raised an alarm about
every five minutes and entered more and more into the spirit of the
enterprise. Her husband, setting his white hat rakishly on the back of
his head, and looking extremely jocose, endeavoured to throw himself
into the part which he had played a half-century before, but did not
altogether succeed in representing the trembling young lover, even
though he called the old lady by her maiden name, and delivered himself
of sundry amorous speeches with a fervour that was occasionally mixed
with hilarity.
“Faith, my dear,” he cried when she took him to task, “you must let me
talk as I please. I was your lover then, and I am your lover now, for
all we’ve been man and wife this fifty years. What signifies it whether
your hair is gold or silver, or whether you are fat or slim? Handsome
is as handsome does, I say, and you’ve a-been the best wife a man could
have.”
“La! John,” said she, and winked away a tear. John put out his rugged
old hand and gripped hers.
“The best wife a man could have,” he repeated earnestly. “Fifty
years!--I wish we mid have fifty years more together.”
“I wish we was back at the beginning,” said she. “I’d like to go
through it all over again, John. I’d take it all and be thankful--the
rough and the smooth, and the joy and the sorrow. Except maybe--poor
little Ben, you know--I don’t think I’d like to live through those
years again. How we hoped, didn’t we? And he was took at the last.”
“Well, ye have the other seven, Susan, my dear, alive and well, and
their children. Why, you mid say that one loss has been made up to ye
by more than a score of other blessings.”
Mrs. Bussell shook her head, but smiled, and presently wondered aloud
if John’s Annie would bring the baby.
“I’d like to have seen it, too,” she added. “I hope Mary will have
the sense to keep them. I told her a good many of them would stop the
night.”
“Somebody’s coming!” announced Jem at this juncture.
And then what a bustle and clatter ensued, what hasty packing of the
hamper, what tremulous climbing into the chaise on the part of the
“missus”; with what an air of firmness and resolution did the master
straighten his hat and square his shoulders as though preparing to defy
all pursuers. And after all it was only the mail cart bowling merrily
along; and the driver gave the runaway couple a cheery good-day as he
passed. Then, though they laughed long and loud over the false alarm,
they realised that the time was getting on, and that it behoved them to
hasten to their destination.
The little town of Branston was not yet very wide-awake when they did
arrive at the Royal George, and Jem pulled up with a flourish, and
threw the reins to a gaping stable-boy with as great an air as would
have befitted a coachman in the palmy days when the Flying Stage used
to change horses at Branston. The little old lady alighted demurely,
her husband supporting her while she planted first one neat little
foot, clad in a buckled shoe and clocked white stocking, on the
step, and then its fellow, and lifting her off bodily, with much the
same tender gallantry as that with which he had doubtless performed
a similar office fifty years ago. At his request, Mrs. Bussell was
conducted to the best private room; she seemed to have quite identified
herself with those bygone days, and clung to his arm fearfully as
they mounted the stairs; while in her husband past and present were
pleasantly mingled. Thus, when, having deposited his fair charge in the
George’s largest sitting-room, he strolled down to the lower premises
to give certain orders regarding the horses, he made no ado about
taking the landlord into his confidence.
“This ’ere is a runaway trip,” he remarked, with a jocular wink. “’Tis
our golden weddin’ day, and the missus and me had a notion o’ spendin’
it quiet, just by our two selves. They’re makin’ a great to-do at our
place--children and grandchildren comin’ from all sides, but we just
thought we’d give them the slip, and keep the day here same as we done
fifty year ago.”
“Ah,” put in the landlord, much interested, “I heard somethin’ about
that. You and your lady run off, didn’t ye?”
“We did,” returned John. “Her father, ye see, old Sherren--they did
use to call en Squire--she was the only child, and he reckoned on her
makin’ a grand match, takin’ up wi’ one o’ the reg’lar gentry, ye know;
but he wasn’t a bit better nor the rest of any of us yeoman farmers.
Well, I wasn’t much of a match in those days--my father had a long
family and not much to divide between us; but I liked the maid, and the
maid she did like me, so we took the law into our own hands. My missus,
she did use to go a-feedin’ of her chicken very early in the mornin’,
so the folks got accustomed to hearin’ her get up and go out before
daylight almost--and one mornin’ she did go out and she didn’t never go
back.”
“I remember,” cried the other, “you tricked them wi’ an empty
post-chaise, didn’t ye?”
“To be sure,” returned the old farmer chuckling. “’Twas Joe Boyt did
that. He did ride for all he were worth, the wrong way. And me and the
maid ran a couple of mile on our own legs, till we come to the high
road where Jem was awaitin’ for us wi’ the very same old shay as we
did drive over in to-day. I did swear I’d buy it if ever I had the
chance, and I’d take Jem into my service. And I did both.”
“The old Squire came round before long,” remarked the landlord; “yes,
I heard the tale often enough. There’s an old chap here as used to be
ostler in the old days, and he minds well how you and the lady came
here to hide, so to speak, till the coach came up.”
“That’s it!” cried old John delightedly, slapping his thigh to give
emphasis to his words. “The coach took us to Bath and we had the job
done there--licence, you know. And the missus and I, d’ye see, had
the notion o’ stoppin’ here to-day in memory of that time, and makin’
believe we was doin’ it over again. Between you and me,” said John,
poking the landlord in the waistcoat and winking knowingly, “I d’ ’low
my old woman does truly believe she is back in the old times again.
Women do seem to have a wonderful power of imagination. There, she was
a-feedin’ her chicken this mornin’, if ye please, just as she done the
mornin’ we made off.”
“Well, well,” commented the landlord. “You ought to let old ’Neas
Bright have a look at ye both. He’s up in the almhouse now, poor old
chap, through not bein’ able to work any more, but he’d hobble down if
he was to know ye were here.”
“Send for en, then, send for en,” cried John eagerly; “but look ye,
landlord--keep the secret. Don’t ye let the folks know who we are or
what we’ve come for, else maybe the children ’ull catch as yet.”
The landlord laughed and promised, and thereupon John went back to his
lady, whom he found peeping cautiously out at the Market Place from
behind the window curtain.
“Did you think about ordering dinner?” inquired she.
“No, my dear, I left that to you.”
“Oh, John,” she cried bashfully, “I feel nervous-like. I don’t want to
ring the bell and have folks starin’ at me. Go down again and order
it--at twelve sharp.”
“What shall we have?” he inquired.
“There now--to ask such a thing. Why, the same as we had this day fifty
year ago, of course.”
“And what was that?” asked he.
“Why, John, I never thought you would forget anything about that day.
We had a beefsteak-pudding and a boiled fowl with parsley-and-butter
sauce, and potatoes in their jackets, and greens.”
“So we had,” said John.
“And you had cheese and a crusty loaf, and I had a bit o’ rice puddin’.
And you had a tankard o’ best October ale, and I had a glass of sherry
wine. Don’t you remember, John, you would make me take the wine though
I wasn’t used to it and was afraid it might go to my head?”
“Yes, to be sure,” returned he. “Well, I’ll go and order all that.”
“And then come back to me--come straight back to me, John. Don’t stay
gossiping downstairs. I feel quite nervous.”
“Do you think this was the room we had?” inquired John, pausing
half-way to the door. “It don’t look the same somehow.”
“They’ve spoilt it with this new-fangled furniture,” returned she;
“but it is the same. I remember this little window at the end looking
towards the Market Place. Oh, John--see here.”
“What is that, my dear?”
“Why, look here at the corner of the pane. Here are our very name
letters, S for Susan, and J for John, and the true-lovers’-knot on the
top. I remember your scratching ’em quite well.”
“Why, so I did,” cried he. “I’d a glass-cutter in my big knife. Well,
to be sure! There they are--and here we are!”
“Here we are,” echoed she. “Thanks be to God for all His mercies.”
And thereupon she clasped both her little wrinkled hands round his arm
and gave it a tender squeeze, and he stooped down and kissed her round,
wholesome, pink old cheek.
Well, after John had ordered the dinner, and after old ’Neas Bright
had come limping down from the almshouse and had related divers
anecdotes, and drunk the couple’s health, and gone away rejoicing with
a half-crown piece in his pocket, John and Susan sat down behind the
screen which cut off one corner of the room from the rest, and gave
themselves up to repose and reminiscence.
Perhaps it was because they were so happy and so much absorbed in each
other, and also perhaps because they had both of them grown a trifle
hard of hearing of late years, that they did not notice a sudden bustle
and excitement in the street below.
Had they looked out they would have seen a string of vehicles
of different kinds drawn up just outside--spring-carts, gigs, a
waggonette, and last but not least, a waggon drawn by a team of
splendid farm-horses and filled to overflowing with country people.
All the occupants of these conveyances were dressed in holiday attire,
all wore enormous white nosegays, while the horses’ blinkers and the
drivers’ whips were alike decorated with snowy streamers. The door
opened suddenly, and some one ran round the screen.
“Why, there they are!” cried a child’s jubilant voice. “There’s grandpa
and grandma a-sittin’ hand-in-hand.”
And then from the staircase, and from the hall, and from the street
arose a sudden deafening cheer.
“I d’ ’low they’ve caught us!” cried John, with a whimsical glance
at his spouse; but she was already engaged in fondling the child and
scarcely heard him.
A moment afterwards the room was crowded with the descendants of the
old folks--three generations of them: middle-aged prosperous-looking
sons and daughters; rosy grandchildren and even one great-grandchild,
for young John’s Annie _had_ brought her baby, which proved to be the
finest child of its age that had ever been seen, and to have “come
on wonderful” since Mrs. Bussell last beheld it. And there was such
a kissing and hugging and scolding and laughing as had surely never
before been heard in that staid, respectable old room, and grandma
was very arch and coy on being reproached for her unkind notion, and
grandpa chuckled boisterously, and rubbed his hands, and Mary, the
only unmarried daughter, related how her suspicions had at first been
aroused on discovering that the chickens had been fed so early--all
the family knowing the history of that bygone ruse by heart; and how,
though she _did_ at first fancy they might have gone to Weymouth, she
had made inquiries in the neighbourhood, and had ascertained that a
chaise with three people wearing white nosegays had been seen driving
Branston-way very soon after daylight. And then John, the eldest son,
took up the tale, and related how they had settled to wait till all
the family had arrived, and how he had declared that the labourers and
their wives should not be baulked of their share of merry-making, and
how the whole party was come to keep the golden wedding at Branston.
“The folks are waiting for you outside now,” he concluded; “you’d best
show yourselves to them, else they’ll never forgive you.”
So over to the window marched the bridal couple, and there they stood
arm-in-arm, the illusion being a little damaged by the presence of
the baby which grandma would not relinquish, and by the background of
laughing folk, all of whom bore so strong a family likeness to their
progenitors that their relationship could not be doubted.
A rousing cheer went up once more, and John waved his hat in reply,
and Susan laughed and nodded, and was suddenly taken by surprise by a
dimness in the eyes and a choking sensation in the throat.
“I don’t know however I could have had the heart to run away from
them,” she murmured.
And then when the speeches had been made, and the presents delivered,
and the wedding-feast, supplemented by many substantial additions,
set forth upon the table, and when she sat down with John the elder
on her right and John the younger on her left, and Annie’s baby sound
asleep in her lap, and looked round at the kindly happy faces, she
surreptitiously squeezed her husband’s hand:--
“You and me was very happy this time fifty year,” she said, “but after
all--I don’t know--I d’ ’low this is best.”