Monday.--Even to the most casual observer the day of the week would
have been announced by the appearance of the rambling village; the
new-budding hedges were remorselessly weighted with household gear,
fresh from the tub; the very grassplots were whitened with the same;
but the gooseberry bushes were as yet unadorned with extraneous
trophies, for as every one knows, a thrifty rustic housewife relegates
the washing and “getting up” of fine things to Tuesdays.
The orchard of that popular house of entertainment, known as “The Three
Choughs,” the weather-beaten sign of which bore the partly obliterated
presentment of a triplet of birds unknown to naturalists--the orchard
of “The Three Choughs,” I say, was no exception to the general rule.
From the gnarled branches of pear- and plum-tree depended many wavering
tokens of Mrs. Cluett’s industry; the clothes lines were weighted with
the like; and Alice, her rosy-cheeked daughter, went periodically to
and fro from wash-house to hedge with a basket poised on one sturdy
hip, or, for the sake of variety, set jauntily aloft on her curly head.
The bar was left to take care of itself; at that hour callers were
unlikely. Noontide was past, evening had not yet come; if any stray
wagoner or chance bicyclist were in need of refreshment he had but to
uplift his voice, or to knock on the worn panels of the door leading
from the taproom to Mrs. Cluett’s private premises. Many succeeding
generations of knuckles had, indeed, removed the last vestige of paint
from the panels in question, and indued them with a fine mellow tint of
their own.
Nevertheless Mrs. Cluett was enjoying herself so much in the midst of
her suds, so thoroughly absorbed in soaping and kneading and wringing,
that such a summons was thrice repeated without effect; and it was
not until Alice, returning from one of her expeditions to the hedge,
chanced to glance casually at the taproom window that the impatient
customer contrived to attract attention.
Seeing a man’s face peering discontentedly through the latticed panes,
and hearing a corresponding voice repeatedly shouting, Alice set down
her basket and hurried into the house.
“We don’t often have no one callin’ at this time o’ day,” she remarked
with a pleasant smile, by way of greeting.
The man gave his order for a pint of beer without noticing the intended
apology, and dropped into one of the wooden chairs allotted to
customers.
Alice glanced at him askance as she set jug and glass before him. A
tall young fellow, not more than twenty-five, with a face browned by
sun and wind till it was as dark as a gipsy’s, thick, black hair, good
features, and the strangest eyes that the girl had ever beheld in a
human face. They were like hawk’s eyes, keen and clear, and with that
fixed, far-away look peculiar to the eyes of a bird or beast of prey.
Yet the man’s face was not a cruel face, and by-and-by, meeting Alice’s
questioning gaze, he smiled hesitatingly.
Alice was a good girl, and had always been well looked after by her
mother; but it was part of the business of life, as she conceived
it, to enter frankly into conversation with all who chanced to need
refreshment at “The Three Choughs;” and she was interested in each,
from the oldest customer to the latest and most casual caller.
“Where be come from?” inquired Alice, now propping herself against
the lintel of the door, and surveying the stranger with undisguised
curiosity.
He wore corduroys and leggings, and yet was no gamekeeper; he carried
a small bundle and a sturdy stick, but she felt sure that he was not a
tramp.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, looking at her for a moment
before replying; his words came at last slowly, as though he were
unused to much speech.
“Yonder,” he said, “Chudbury way.”
Alice glibly ran through the names of several villages, with an
interrogative pause after each, and the newcomer shook his head in
every case, without, however, further attempting to enlighten her.
She stopped at length, evidently at a loss, and the man, setting down
his glass, laughed suddenly, a joyous, good-humoured laugh, pleasant to
hear.
“You be fair beat, my maid,” said he. “But I do ’low you’d not be
so very much the wiser if I was to tell ’ee. I be come from Tewley
Warren--that’s where I be come from.” He dropped his voice and his
face clouded over. “That’s where I’ve a-lived all my life,” he added.
“Why have ’ee left now, then?” inquired Alice.
“I didn’t leave o’ my own free will--ye mid be sure o’ that,” said he.
Alice looked up inquiringly, and he continued after a pause, still
slowly and somewhat hesitatingly, as though he found it difficult to
lay hold of the words he needed.
“I did live there wi’ my wold father; and when he shifted to the New
House, Squire wasn’t willin’ for I to go on a-livin’ there. He did want
our place for one o’ the keepers--a married man wi’ a fam’ly--he didn’t
hold, he said, wi’ lettin’ a young chap, same as I, bide there--he did
turn I out--to speak plain.”
“Oh--h,” said Alice commiseratingly. “’Twas a bit hard, I d’ ’low.”
“It was mortal hard,” said he.
He raised the tumbler of beer to his lips, but set it down again
untasted.
“To give Squire his due,” he said, “he did offer to keep I on for
the same money what I did have when the wold man were livin’, but I
wouldn’t have it. ‘No, sir,’ says I, ‘I bain’t a-goin’ to be takin’
orders in the place where I did use to be my own master’--’twas jist
same as if I was my own master when my father were alive; he didn’t
never interfere wi’ I, poor wold chap.”
It was perhaps Alice’s fancy that a momentary dimness veiled the hawk
eyes--in any case it was only momentary.
“So here I be,” summed up the ex-warrener conclusively.
“Here you be,” echoed Alice; then, after a moment’s pause: “What be
goin’ to do now?”
“I don’t know,” said the man.
“Where be goin’ to?”
“I don’t know,” he said again.
At this moment Mrs. Cluett’s voice was heard calling aloud for her
daughter; that lady’s heavy foot presently sounded in the narrow
passage without, and she burst into the room.
“Dear, to be sure! Did ever a body see such a maid? Us so busy and
clothes not half done wi’! And here ye must stand gawkin’ and gossipin’
as if ’twas the middle of the week. There, drink up your beer, do, good
man, and let’s ha’ done wi’ it.”
She addressed these words to the newcomer in a somewhat softened tone,
and he nodded good-humouredly.
“All right, missus; I’ll not be long now,” he said, as he poured out
his second glass.
“There, for shame, mother, let the poor soul take his drink in peace,”
whispered Alice. “He’s come far--from Tewley Warren; he’ve a-been
turned out now his father be dead.”
Mrs. Cluett, with a soapy hand on either hip, surveyed the young man
curiously.
“I did use to know Warrener Baverstock well,” she remarked slowly.
“Warrener Baverstock up to Chudbury--e-es--I did use to know en.”
“He were my father,” remarked the other, with a momentary gleam of
pleasure in his eyes.
“He did use to come here often and often,” continued Mrs. Cluett,
emphatically. “He’d sit there--as mid be where you be a-sittin’
now--and he’d take his glass, he would; a most respectable man he were.
My poor husband were alive too in them days--ah, times is changed,
bain’t they? Here be I, a poor widow woman wi’ my own livin’ to get,
tho’ there’s them as did ought to be gettin’ it for I in my ancient
years.”
She paused to shake her head. Young Baverstock’s attention seemed to
have wandered during the latter part of her speech, and he sipped his
ale without evincing any curiosity as to the hint she had recently
thrown out. After the manner of her kind, however, she at once
proceeded to elucidate it.
“’Tisn’t as if I didn’t have somebody as did ought to be a-doin’ for I.
There’s my son--a big, strong, hearty chap--my right hand he did use to
be--there’s a deal to be done about this here place, ye know.”
“I do ’low there is,” agreed Baverstock absently.
“’Tisn’t only the public,” she continued, “tho’ I d’ ’low it be a bit
hard for two women to have to manage all they menfolk--but there’s a
bit of a farm to be seen to. Well, when I say a farm I do mean a couple
o’ cows and a few pigs and chicken and that; and we do always grow our
own spuds and greens, you know, and a few ranks o’ roots to help out
wi’ for the cows in the winter. A man be wanted for all that kind o’
work, and it do seem hard as I should have to throw away my dibs to
strangers when I mid have my own flesh and blood a-workin’ for nothin’.”
“It do,” agreed Baverstock, this time with more attention. “Why don’t
your son do it then?” he inquired after a pause.
“Why?” repeated Mrs. Cluett in a tone of deep disgust. “Because he’ve
a-been and gone and got married--that’s why, the unnat’ral fellow,” she
added witheringly.
The young man surveyed her without hazarding a remark; those strange
eyes of his remained as impassive as ever, but the corners of his mouth
turned slightly upwards.
“I warn’t a-goin’ to let en bring his wife here,” continued the old
woman. “I didn’t never fancy her, and ’twas again’ my will he did take
up wi’ her. ‘You don’t bring her here,’ I says.--‘Then I don’t stop
here,’ says he. ‘All right, my lad,’ says I, ‘ye can march!’ So he
marched. He be a-workin’ over to new brewery now--down in the town.”
Baverstock apparently considered that this communication called for no
comment; at all events he made none.
Mrs. Cluett, who had wrought herself up to the point of exposing the
full extent of her grievances, was no whit abashed by his silence,
however, and continued excitedly.
“The menfolk--there! they do seem to think a poor lone ’ooman fit for
nothin’ but to make a laughin’ stock on. Dear heart alive, ’tis enough
to drive a body silly! Us can’t seem to find a decent civil-spoke chap
nowheres, can us, Alice? The minute a thing is not to their likin’ up
they comes wi’ their sauce and their impudence, and off they goes.”