_The Broken Man_
While Jeckie was busied in the village and Farnish, sighing after the
key of the beer barrel, was aimlessly wandering about the farm
buildings, there came into the kitchen, where Rushie was making ready
the dinner, a tall, blue-eyed, broadly-built youngster, whose first
action was to glance inquiringly at the clock and whose second was to go
to the sink in the corner to wash his brown hands. This was Joe, or
Doadie Bartle, about whom nobody in those parts knew more than that he
had turned up as a lad of fifteen at Applecroft some six or seven years
previously; had been taken in by Farnish to do a bit of work for his
meat, drink and lodging, and had remained there ever since. According to
his own account, he was an orphan, from Lincolnshire, who had run away
from his last place and gone wandering about the country in search of a
better. Something in the atmosphere of Applecroft had suited him, and
there he had stayed, and was now, in fact, Farnish's sole help on the
farm outside the occasional assistance of the two girls. There were folk
in the village who said that Farnish got his labour for naught, but
Jeckie knew that he had had twenty pounds a year ever since he was
eighteen, and had regularly put by one-half of his wages under her
supervision. Doadie Bartle, chiefly conspicuous for his air of simple
good nature, had come to be a fixture. Without him and Jeckie the place
would have gone to wrack and ruin long since, for Farnish had a trick of
sitting down when he should have been afoot, and gossiping in
public-houses when his presence was wanted elsewhere. It was because of
this--a significant indication, had there been anyone to notice it--that
Doadie was always treated to a pint of ale at dinner and supper, while
his master was rigorously restricted to a glass.
Doadie Bartle looked again at the clock as he finished wiping his hands
on the rough towel which hung from its roller behind the door. His
glance ended at Rushie, who was sticking a fork into the potatoes on the
hob.
"By gow, it's a warm 'un, this mornin'!" he said. "Where's Jeckie, like?
I could do wi' my pint now better nor later."
"You'll have to wait," answered Rushie, who had seen her father's
despairing glance at the delf-ledge. "She's gone out, and taken the key
with her."
Doadie looked disappointedly in the direction of the beer barrel, which
stood on its gantry just within the open door of the larder. Resigning
himself to the unavoidable, he walked out into the fold, where Farnish
leaned against the wall of the pig-stye, hands in pockets.
"I shall have to do a bit o' mendin' up this afternoon," said Doadie.
"Merritt's cows has been i' our clover; there's a bad place i'
t'hedge."
"Aye!" assented Farnish. There was no interest in his tone, and little
more seemed to be awakened when Rushie appeared at the kitchen window
and announced that dinner was ready. He shambled indoors, and, without
removing his hat, sat down at the head of his table, and began to cut
slices off the big lump of cold bacon, which, with boiled potatoes and
greens, made up the dinner. "Jeckie's no reight to run off wi' t'key o'
t'ale barrel," he grumbled. "Them 'at tews hes a reight to sup!"
"It's not much tewin' 'at you've been doin', I'll lay!" retorted Rushie,
who had long since learned the art of homely repartee from her elder
sister. "Ridin' about like a lord!"
"Now then, never mind!" growled Farnish. "Happen I done more tewin' nor
ye're aware on, mi lass! There's more sorts o' hard work than one."
Then, all three being liberally supplied, the three pairs of jaws set to
work, and the steady eating went on in silence until the sheep-cur,
chained outside the door to a dilapidated kennel, gave a short, sharp
bark. Rushie, who knew this to be a declaration of friendliness rather
than of enmity, ran and put the potatoes and greens on the hob to warm
up.
"Jeckie!" she said. "None been so long, after all."
Jeckie came bustling into the kitchen as Farnish, who knew her appetite,
pushed a well-filled plate towards her place. Without a word she took a
big earthenware jug from its hook, went to the larder, and rummaged in
her pocket for the key of the beer barrel. Presently the sound of the
gurgling ale was heard in the kitchen. Doadie Bartle's big blue eyes
glistened as he went on steadily munching. Farnish looked down at the
cloth, wondering if his elder daughter meant to be generous. The roseate
hopes set up in Jeckie's mind by her interview with George Grice
inclined her for once to laxity. When she came back with the ale she
gave her father a pint instead of a glass, and Farnish made an
involuntary mutter of appreciation. He and his man seized their measures
and drank deep. Jeckie, pouring out glasses for herself and her sister,
gave them a half-whimsical look; she had been obliged to tilt the barrel
a little to draw that ale, and she knew that its contents were running
low, and that the brewer's man was not due for two days yet.
The dinner went on to its silent end; the bacon, greens, and potatoes
finished. Rushie cleared the plates in a heap, and, setting clean ones
before each diner, produced a huge jam tart, hot and smoking from the
oven. Jeckie cut this into great strips and distributed them. Bartle,
still hungry, took a mouthful of his, turned scarlet, and reached for
his pot of beer.
"Gum! that's a hot 'un!" he said drinking heartily. "Like to take t'skin
offen your tongue, is that!" Then, with an apologetic glance in Rushie's
direction, and, as if to excuse his manners, he murmured, "Jam's allus
hotter nor owt 'at iver comes out o' t'oven, I think, and I allus
forget it; you mun excuse me!"
"Save toffee," remarked Farnish, with the air of superior knowledge.
"There's nowt as hot as what toffee is. I rek'lect 'at I once burnt
t'roof o' my mouth varry bad wi' some toffee 'at mi mother made; they
hed to oil my mouth same as they oil machines--wi' a feather."
When the last of the jam tart had vanished the two girls put their
elbows on the table, propped their chins on their interlaced fingers,
and seemed to study the pattern of the coarse linen cloth. Farnish got
up slowly; took down his pipe from the corner of the mantlepiece, and,
drawing some loose tobacco from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke.
Bartle, after rising and stretching himself, went over to a drawer in
the delf-ledge, and presently came back from it with a paper packet,
which he began to unfold. An odour of peppermint rose above the
lingering smell of the bacon and greens.
"Humbugs!" he said, with a broad grin, as he offered the packet to the
two girls. "I bowt three-pennorth t'last time I were i' Sicaster, and
I'd forgotten all abowt 'em. They're t'reight sort, these is--tasty
'uns."
Munching the brown and white bull's eyes, the sisters began to clear
away the dinner things into the scullery. Presently Rushie called to
Bartle to bring her the kettle and help her to wash up. When he had gone
into the scullery Jeckie, who was folding up the cloth, turned to her
father.
"About what you told me this morning," she said, in low tones.
"Something's got to be done, and, of course, as usual, I've got to do
it. I've been down to see George Grice."
Farnish started, and his thin face flushed a little. He was mortally
afraid of George Grice, who represented money and power and will force.
"Aye, well, mi lass!" he muttered slowly. "Of course there's no doubt
'at Mr. George Grice has what they call th' ability to help a body--no
doubt at all. But as to whether he's gotten the will, you know, why----"
"Less talk!" commanded Jeckie. "If he helps anybody it'll be me! And you
listen here; we're not going on as we have done. You're letting things
go from bad to worse. And you don't tell me t'truth, neither. I met
Stubley, and he says you never paid t'last half-year's rent. Now, then!"
"I arranged it wi' t'steward," protested Farnish. "Him an' me understand
each other; Mr. Stubley's nowt to do wi' it."
"You had the money," asserted Jeckie. "What did you do with it?"
"It went to them money-lendin' fellers," answered Farnish. "That's where
it went; they would have it, choose how! Ye see mi lass----"
"I'll tell you what it is," interrupted Jeckie. "You'll have to let me
take hold! I can pull things round. Now, you listen! Mr. George Grice is
coming up here this very afternoon, and him and me's going to get at a
right idea of how matters stand. And if he helps me to pay all off and
get a fresh start I'm going to be master, d'ye see? You'll just have to
do all 'at I say in future. You can be master in name if you like, but I
shall be t'real one. If you don't agree to that, I shall do no more! If
I put you right, in future I shall manage things; I shall take all that
comes in, and pay all that goes out. Do you understand that?"
Farnish accepted this ultimatum with an almost tipsy gravity. He
continued to puff at his pipe while his daughter talked, and when she
had finished he bowed solemnly, as if he had been a judge assenting to
an arrangement made between contending litigants.
"Now then," he said, in almost unctuous accents, "owt 'at suits you'll
suit me! If so be as you can put me on my legs again, Jecholiah, mi
lass, I'm agreeable to any arrangement as you're good enough to mak'.
You can tek' t'reins o' office, as the sayin' is, wi' pleasure, and do
all t'paying out and takin' in. Of course," he added, with a covert
glance in his daughter's direction, "you'll not be against givin' your
poor father a few o' shillin's a week to buy a bit o' 'bacca wi?--it 'ud
be again Nature, and religion, an' all, if I were left----"
"You've never been without beer or 'bacca yet, that I know of," retorted
Jeckie, with a flash of her eye. "Trust you! But now, when George Grice
comes, mind there's no keeping aught back. We shall want to know----"
Just then Rushie called from the scullery that the grocer was at the
garden gate in his trap, and Farnish immediately got out of his easy
chair, ill at ease.
"Happen I'd better go walk i' t'croft a bit while you hev your talk to
him, Jeckie?" he suggested. "Two's company, and three's----"
"And happen you'd better do naught o' t'sort!" retorted Jeckie. "You
bide where you are till you're wanted."
She went out to the gate to meet Grice, who, being one of those men who
never walk where they can ride, had driven up to Applecroft in one of
his grocery carts, and was now hitching his pony to a ring in the outer
wall. He nodded silently to Jeckie as he moved heavily towards her.
"Much obliged to you for coming, Mr. Grice," she said eagerly. "I take
it very kind of you. I've spoken to him," she went on, lowering her
voice and nodding in the direction of the kitchen. "I've told him,
straight, that if you and me help him out o' this mess that he's got
into, I shall be master, so----"
"Take your time, mi lass, take your time!" said the grocer. "Before I
think o' helping anybody I want to know where I am! Now," he continued,
as they walked into the fold and he looked round him with appraising
eyes, "it may seem a queer thing me living in t'same place, my lass, but
I've never been near this house o' yours for many a long year--never
sin' you were a bairn, I should think--it's out o' t'way, d'ye see! And
dear, dear, I see a difference! What!--there's naught about t'place! No
straw--no manure--no cattle--a pig or two--a few o' fowls!--Why, there's
nowt! Looks bad, my lass, looks very, very bad. Farnish has
nowt--nowt!"
Jeckie's heart sank like lead in a well, and a sickened feeling came
over her. "I know it looks pretty bad, Mr. Grice," she admitted, almost
humbly. "But it's not so bad as it looks. There's four right good cows,
and over a hundred and fifty head o' poultry. I know what the butter and
milk and eggs bring in!--and there's more pigs nor what you see, and
there's the crops. Come through the croft, and look at 'em. If there's
no manure in the fold, it's on the land, anyway--we've never sold
neither straw nor manure off this place. Come this way."
It was mainly owing to Jeckie, Rushie, and Doadie Bartle that what
arable land Farnish held was clear and free of weeds. The grocer was
bound to admit that the crops looked well; his long acquaintance with a
farming district had taught him how to estimate values; he agreed with
Jeckie that, granted the right sort of weather for the rest of the
summer and part of autumn, there was money in what he was shown.
"But then, you know, mi lass," he said as they returned to the house,
"it all depends on what Farnish is owing. This here money-lender 'at you
spoke of--he ought to be cleared off, neck and crop! Then there's a
year's rent. And there'll be other things. There's forty pounds due to
me. Before ever I take into consideration doing aught at all for
you--'cause I wouldn't do it for Farnish, were it ever so!--I shall want
to know how matters stands, d'ye see? I must know of every penny 'at's
owing--otherwise it 'ud be throwin' good money after bad. I'll none deny
that if what he owes is nowt much--two or three hundred or so--things
might be pulled round under your management. But, there it is! What does
he owe?--that's what we want to be getting at."
"I'll make him tell," said Jeckie. "We'll have it put down on paper.
Come in, Mr. Grice." Then, as they went towards the door of the house,
she added in confidential, hospitable tones, "I've a bottle o' good old
whisky put away, that nobody knows naught about--you shall have a
glass."
Grice muttered something about no need for his prospective
daughter-in-law to trouble herself, but he followed her into the
kitchen, where Farnish stood nervously awaiting them. The grocer, who
felt that he could afford to be facetious as well as magnanimous, gave
Farnish a sly look.
"Now then, mi lad!" he said. "We've come to hear a bit about what you've
been doing o' late! You seem to ha' let things run down,
Farnish--there's nowt much to show outside. How is it, like?"
"Why, you see, Mr. Grice," answered Farnish with a weak smile, "there's
times, as you'll allow, sir, when a man gets a bit behindhand, and----"
He suddenly paused, and his worn face turned white, and Grice, following
his gaze, which was fixed on the garden outside, saw what had checked
his speech. Two men were coming to the front door; in one of them Grice
recognised a Sicaster auctioneer who was also a sheriff's officer. He
let out a sharp exclamation which made Jeckie, who was unlocking a
corner cupboard, swing herself round in an agony of fear.
"Good God!" he said. "Bailiffs!"
The door was open to the sunshine and the scent of the garden, and the
sheriff's officer, after a glance within, stepped across the threshold
and pulled out a paper.
"Afternoon, Mr. Grice!" he said cheerfully. "Fine day, sir. Now, Mr.
Farnish, sorry to come on an unpleasant business, but I dare say you've
been expecting me any time this last ten days, eh? Levinstein's suit,
Mr. Farnish--execution. Four hundred and eighty-three pounds, five
shillings, and sixpence. Not convenient to settle, I dare say, so I'll
have to leave my man."
Jeckie, who had grown as white as the linen on the lines outside, stood
motionless for a moment. Then she turned on her father.
"You said it was only two hundred!" she exclaimed hoarsely. "You
said----" She paused, hearing Grice laugh, and turned to see him clap
his hat on his head and stride out by the back door. In an instant she
was after him, her hand, trembling like a leaf, on his arm.
"Mr. Grice! You're not going? Stand by us--by me! Before God, I'll see
you're right!" she cried. "Mr. Grice!"
But Grice strode on towards his trap; the tight lip tighter than ever.
"Nay!" he said. "Nay! It's no good, my lass. It's done wi'."
"Mr. Grice!" she cried again. "Why--I'm promised to your Albert! Mr.
Grice!"
But Mr. Grice made no answer; another moment and he had climbed into his
cart and was driving away, and Jeckie, after one look at his broad back,
muttered something to herself and went back into the house.
An hour later she and Rushie were mangling and ironing, in dead silence.
They went on working, still in silence, far into the evening, and Doadie
Bartle, after supper, turned the mangle for them. Towards dark Farnish,
who had already become fast friends with the man in possession, stole up
to his elder daughter, and whispered to her. Jeckie pulled the key of
the beer barrel from her pocket, and flung it at him.
"Tek it, and drink t'barrel dry!" she said, fiercely. "It's t'last
'at'll ever be tapped i' this place--by you at any rate!"