If Mr. Joseph Foxley had but known the sentiments animating the couple
of maiden breasts that awaited his Saturday visits in Ipswich, he would
have been genuinely surprised. The truth is Mr. Joseph was rather
what is termed a general lover. He liked the sex in its entirety.
Collectively he loved all women and belonged to that hand-pressing
section of humanity which I have alluded to as mischievous. Were there
not at least five young ladies in town, at whose houses he visited, and
who were more or less interested in the young Englishman as he in them?
Did Miss Charlotte dream of them or Miss Maria at the rectory? If so,
they never dared to ask Mr. Joseph to give any account of his doings
in town, although they managed to glean what he did with himself in the
village. He respected Charlotte Dexter enough to intend at some future
day to tell her a little more about himself and his brother than he had
yet done; as for Miss Maria, she only bored him and fed his contempt.
“When a rather elderly old girl giggles after everything she says,
conversation is difficult and sympathy out of the question,” he had said
to his brother! When Mr. Joseph had known these young ladies for four
years, Miss Maria took her revenge in _her_ way, that was by marrying
the younger brother of Mr. Simon P. Rattray, partner in the mill and the
red brick house by the river. The vision of becoming the cherished wife
of an English aristocrat and going home to reside in a manor house built
in the sixteenth century, with occasional visits to London and glimpses
of the Royal Family had gradually faded, and she accepted the less
rose-coloured lot that Mr. Lyman B. Rattray offered her, sitting in her
father's study, with his hair very much brushed up on one side and very
much flattened down on the other, a white tie and light-yellow duster
adorning his spare person.
Such was the American of those days--twenty years ago--there are none
such now I allow.
Miss Maria, who was considered “very English,” shuddered as she regarded
him. It so fell out that it being Saturday, Mr. Joseph was just then
passing--“kind of happening along” Mr. Rattray would have said--_en
route_ to the Inn and his brother, on foot in spite of the dusty road
and the hot August sun, clad in trim tight knickerbockers and carrying
an immense bunch of red field lilies, a gun, and a leather satchel over
his shoulder. Slight and straight and cool, he looked the picture of a
contented cheerful energetic young English man. Along the road he came
whistling an old country tune. Miss Maria who had sighted him afar off,
begged her visitor's pardon and went to the window to arrange the blind.
How her heart warmed to that cruel Mr. Joseph, how she loved him
then just for that last moment! Her heart--that foolish old maid's
heart--beat quickly, beat thickly, she remembered to have read something
somewhere about people who could will other people to look at them, to
speak to them, to even think of them, to move across a room at their
pleasure. If she could but do that! She did try, with her fingers
clenched on the blind, and her eyes fixed on Mr. Joseph, she did wish
with all her might that he would turn his head and see her at the
window and wave his hand gallantly as he had done on one or two previous
occasions. Then she would beckon and he would run across and entering
the room disconcert this odious Mr. Lyman B. Rattray and put an end to
his stony wooing. But alas! for Miss Maria and her mesmeric powers! The
harder she tried, the less she succeeded. On came Mr. Joseph, supremely
unconscious of the injured heart beating behind the windowpane. At one
moment it seemed as if he were about to turn and look in her direction.
A very brilliant wild yellow canary crossed over his head and lit on a
small shrub just inside the garden paling. Had it remained there, would
Miss Maria have ever become the wife of Mr. Lyman B. Rattray? No one
knows, for the canary flew away again to the other side of the road and
Mr. Joseph's eyes followed it In a moment he was past, and the chance
was gone for ever. Miss Maria left her window and sat down opposite her
visitor. There was nothing to keep her now, nothing to give her courage
and hope for the future, new fire for her faded eyes, new strength for
her jaded limbs. Yet she was only thirty-four. How strange it is that
some unmarried women are old at that age, even while living in luxury
and surrounded by every care and all affection, while many a married
woman, though beset with trials and weaknesses and perhaps a brood of
restless little ones to pull her gown and get in the way of her busy
feet, retains her figure and her step, her smile and her complexion, her
temper and her nerves!
It but remained for Charlotte Dexter to take her revenge in her way.
Going very seldom out of her house, and never visiting at the Inn she
was really very ignorant of the doings of either Mr. George or Mr.
Joseph Foxley. Towards the one she had never been greatly drawn, for the
other she felt all the passion that only a supremely lonely woman can
feel in middle age for a man younger than herself who charms her as
a child, while he captivates her as a lover. Of Mrs. Cox and Milly
moreover, she hardly ever thought, and in fact had not seen the latter
for a long time. If she had it is not likely she would even have
recognized in the tall pale shapely young woman with braids of dark hair
and white linen cuffs fastened--must I tell it? with a pair of antique
monogram studs, the plump little handmaiden of four years back. As it
was, she only waited on day after day, to hear Mr. Joseph speak. Instead
of Mr. Joseph however appeared another and less welcome confidante. This
was the most malignant gossip in the village, Mrs. Woods, the wife of
the butcher, a tall red faced woman with high cheek-bones on which the
color seemed to have been badly smirched, watery eyes and a couple of
protruding yellow teeth. She looked more like a butcher than the butcher
himself who was a mild little man with soft silky fair hair and small
nervous fluttering hands. Yet he managed to summon sufficient character
to go on a tremendous burst--I know of no other word, every third or
fourth month and disappear for a week When these periodical eclipses
took place, his wife would come flying into the Inn with her bonnet
hanging round her neck and a large green and red plaid shawl streaming
out behind her.
“Where's Woods?” She would say. “Where's Woods? Give me Woods! Give 'im
up, I tell you; give 'im up now!”
But Woods was never found inside Mrs. Cox's neat dwelling, nor indeed
anywhere, although it had been whispered on, one occasion that he had
been seen in the back room of the little “Temperance Hotel” with the
male Methodist in attendance. This, of course, was clearly impossible.
It was this Mrs. Woods then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday
morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton
in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning
virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was
about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an
acceptable present to somewhat mitigate its appalling approach.
“I be at the Inn bright and early this morning Miss,” she began, “and
brought 'em their bit of fresh meat. And I'm bringin' you a bit as was
over, and it is'nt a bad piece for a stew, if you like a stew, Miss,
with an onion or two.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Woods,” said Charlotte, who had come out to
the front door and now stood on the lower step, looking over the cart.
“I'm afraid I can't settle with you just at present,” she said further,
with some effort, “you can call some other time when you are passing.
Will that do? and is it weighed?”
“It is, miss, and I'll not say a word about the payin'! Six pound and a
'alf, and Woods gone agen--I weighed it myself.”
“Oh! I am sorry to hear that,” said Charlotte. “Your husband gives you a
great deal of trouble. I am very sorry, and he is not at the inn?”
If Charlotte was guilty at that moment of purposely leading the
conversation up to this always for her most enthralling, most engrossing
subject, she soon enough received her punishment. On she went to her own
destruction.
“At the inn!” repeated the butcher's wife, with ineffable scorn on her
cruel mouth. She wiped her watery eyes and settled the refractory bonnet
before going on.
“No miss, he's not at the inn, and if he was sober, he wouldn't be at
the inn, and you'll never see him, nor me, nor 'Ide yonder, nor anyone
on us at all no more at the inn. For the inn's changed 'ands, miss.
There's an end of Mrs. Cox, who was a mother to many, if not to Woods.
There's an end to good old times and dancin' and singin', and honest
Robert, though he was a cross 'un--there's an end to it all now, miss,
for the inn's changed 'ands, and I'm the first in the village as knows
it.”
“Good gracious. Is it possible?” said Charlotte, genuinely surprised.
“Who can have succeeded Mrs. Cox and why? I thought she was so popular
and making so much money, and what--what will become of the Mr.
Foxleys?”
Mrs. Woods gave a triumphant grin. “It's them, theirselves, miss; it's
them that 'as it now. And the younger one will be marrying Milly in a
little while and settling down comfortable in the inn. It's gentlefolks
and aristocrats we'll have now at the inn, miss, and 'ard workin' people
like me and Woods may trudge all day and freeze all night, and never a
pot of beer or a warm at the kitchen fire and meat paid regular for year
in, year out!”
Charlotte stood aghast. The woman's injured volubility rushed past her
as a scene outside a railway car rushes past us, leaving only one idea,
one word caught at, as from the window through which we apprehend the
landscape, one scene or portion of a scene enchains the eye and lingers
in the mind though other scenes fly past in varied succession.
“Marry?” she repeated. “Marry! Milly, did you say? That is the girl,
isn't it, Mrs. Cox's niece? Which--”
“Ay,” said the woman, “that's Milly, the 'ired girl; she's no I more
than that, if she be her aunt's niece. And 'ard work for one's niece.
Me and Woods, if we'd 'ad one, would have done better for her nor that,
makin' her work like a slave or a dummy. Cows, and pigs, and poultry,
and dish-washing, and scrubbing, and lamps, and starched fronts, and
fine gentlemen--but she's well paid, she's well paid. She's to marry one
of the fine gentlemen, Mr. Joseph it is, and they're to live on at the
Inn with Milly as mistress, and her fine husband behind the bar, very
like. Well, good-mornin', Miss Dexter; I wish you joy of the mutton. Me
and Woods often says--we'll take this or that little Dexter's Oak, but
it's most times forgot, for Woods is 'alf crazed, Miss Dexter, and I've
got to do the whole. Good-mornin'.”
Having adjusted her bonnet and the donkey-cart to her satisfaction, Mrs.
Woods drove off rather disappointed on the whole at Miss Dexter's calm
demeanour. Astonishment, perplexity, doubt, contempt and disgust she had
undoubtedly shown, but not a single sigh of weakness. Charlotte Dexter
was not the woman to swoon or lament or even turn pale as her sister
Ellen would have done. But when she came into her house and sat down in
her lonely parlour, she enacted a scene which would have petrified with
astonishment any inhabitant of the prosy little village in which she had
dwelt so long and indeed many other people as well, for when you and I,
dear reader, go to see one of these emotional plays in which the
French actress writhes on the sofa; grovels on the floor, rolls up her
handkerchief into a ball or tears it into strips, prays, weeps, curses,
censures, implores, looks at herself in the glass until she is on the
point of going mad, and strides about the stage as no woman in real
life has ever been seen to stride, ending by throwing herself across an
arm-chair as rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she
is in a “dead faint”--I say, that when we see all this performed by a
travelling “star,” and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a
Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid
Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they
understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions,
even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid,
most commonplace person in the theatre has gone through some crisis,
some tragedy as thrilling, as subtle and as terrible as the scene
we have just witnessed. “Not out of Paris,” we say, “can such things
happen?” Do we know what we are saying? Is it only in Paris that hearts
are won and tossed aside this night--as in the play? Is it only in Paris
that honor is forgotten and promises are broken this night--as in the
play? Is it only in Paris that money allures and rank dazzles, and a
dark eye or a light step entrances, this night--as in the play? Is it
only in Paris that nature is human and that humanity is vile, or weak,
or pure, or firm, as this night in the play? Oh! in that obscure little
Canadian village, a lonely old maid locked her door that morning and
pulled down her blind that the daylight might not come in and see
her misery, might not mock even more malignantly than the ignorant,
impertinent and hard-hearted woman who had dealt her this blow. Like
most women in such a crisis, she lost the habit of thought. Reason
entirely deserted her, and she never dreamed but that it was true. For
when a women has to own to herself that she holds no dominion over a
man, that it is only too perfectly clear that the impulse of loving is
all on her side and that she has neither anything to expect nor anything
to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his attitude
to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere,
worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a noble object in
such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of
hope, all sentiment, all passion even, retreat and fall away from her,
leaving either a cold, bitter, heartless petrifaction, in a woman's
clinging robe, or the Fury that is the twin sister of every little
red-lipped, clear-eyed girl born into the world. She never dreamed
but that this story was true. In fact so entirely had her woman's wit
deserted her, she said to herself of _course_ it was true. Her brain
could work sufficiently to conjure up hints, phrases, words, looks,
events, accidents that all bore testimony to the truth of the
extraordinary tale. For it was extraordinary. Miss Dexter herself was
the great grand-daughter of an Admiral, and the grand-daughter of a
judge, and as such, respected all these accidents of birth which we
are supposed to ignore or at least not expected to recognize in a new
country. That such men as the Mr. Foxleys could make themselves as
completely at home in the Inn as rumor had frequently asserted, and with
truth, seemed at all times monstrous to her. She had lived so long out
of England, over thirty years now, that she had forgotten the sweet
relations that prevailed there between the aristocracy or landed gentry
and their inferiors. The Mr. Foxleys were simply doing in Canada what
they would have done had they been still in England, only they were
assisted in so doing by the unusually English surroundings in which they
found themselves. Miss Dexter looked around her in the yellow inclosed
light. There was a sampler in a frame, worked by herself when a little
child, another exactly similar, worked by Ellen, a couple of fine old
family portraits in heavy gilt frames, half a dozen ivory miniatures
scattered about on the walls, some good carvings in ivory, a rare old
Indian shawl festooned over the wooden mantle-board, a couple of skins
on the floor, a corner piece of furniture known as a “whatnot” crowded
with bits of egg-shell china, birds' eggs and nests, a few good
specimens of spar and coral and a profusion of plants everywhere. It was
all neat, respectable, even dignified, superior. There was no such other
room in the village. In the village? There were not many at that time
even in the town. Sooner than part with the eggshell china or the Indian
shawl the Miss Dexters had suffered the pains of poverty and hunger;
these cherished reminders of an absent father and an artistic youth
could never be lost or borne away by the hands of a stranger. And how
glad those foolish Miss Dexters had been to possess such beautiful and
interesting objects when it pleased Mr. George Foxley to drink tea out
of the cups on summer afternoons on the verandah of the little cottage
looking up into the splendid vault of the mighty oak, or when Mr. Joseph
would wind the Indian shawl round his silly head in the winter evenings
when the draughts of cold air would rush in through the thin walls.
These and other memories crowded into Charlotte Dexter's brain as
she looked around her room, crowded thick and fast, crowded fast and
furious, surged, broke, leaving an empty moment of perfect blankness,
then crowded again thicker, faster, surged and seethed and then broke
again, leaving in the void of perfect blankness this time a fixed idea,
a resolve, a determination, seen in the dark like a luminous point of
phosphorus.
That afternoon as Farmer Wise was driving slowly along the road, the
main road leading through Ipswich to the town, he was accosted by Miss
Dexter from her verandah. She had her jacket on and held her bonnet in
her hand.
“Can you give me a seat as far as the Albion?” said she. “I would have
sent a message to you yesterday if I had known I was going. But if it
will not trouble you--”
“Oh! no trouble no trouble at all, Miss Dexter,” replied Farmer Wise.
“I'm sorry I've only the waggon to offer ye. But I'm takin' in apples as
you see, nine barrel of 'em, and only a waggon will do for them.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Miss Dexter, hurriedly trying on her
bonnet. “Can you wait a moment? I won't be longer, Mr. Wise, it is just
to lock the back door.”
The farmer nodded and drew up under the shade of Dexter's oak. It was
a beautiful afternoon late in November, characterized by the clear
cold air, the blue and gold of the sky, and the russet coloring of the
foliage that mark the close of the Autumnal season. He looked in at
Miss Dexter's little garden, admirably neat and well-trimmed; dahlias,
hollyhocks, sweet William and asters, though done with blossoms, still
bore their green leaves unsmitten by the frost. The windows appeared
full of flowers too, but the blinds were skimp and faded and drawn down
behind them. He started when he noticed this, for he knew the outer
aspect of the house well, and had never seen such a thing before, except
in case of sickness or death. The honest farmer thought and thought
until Miss Dexter reappeared and assisted by him, got up in her place
beside him. Even after that he went on thinking, and I must here tell
you that it was not the first time Farmer Wise's thoughts had dwelt so
persistently upon his companion and her house and personal history.
For twelve years he had nursed a kind of mild distant passion for Miss
Dexter at the Oak, unguessed at by her and his family, and only half
understood by himself. He could not have said he was in love with her.
He had been in love once when he married his first wife, who bore him
a triad of splendid sons, one “keeping store” in the Western States and
the other two at home on the farm, all three great giants of fellows,
handsome in the fields or at barn-doors or in market-waggons, but plain
on Sundays in black coats or at evening dances in the big ball-room
at the Inn, when they would shuffle noisily through cotillons or labor
clumsily through a Highland Schottische.
For himself, Farmer Wise was an honest, sincere, good-hearted man, a
maker of money and a spender thereof--witness the fine red ploughs,
the painted barns, the handsome team, Kentucky bred, and the inner
decorations of his house, situated about five miles out of Ipswich, on
the main-road. After Mr. Simon P. Rattray, he was the representative man
of the district, although he did not come so closely into contact with
the villagers. This _penchant_ for the elder Miss Dexter had been a
gradual, a slow but very sure and steady thing. Her father's death had
increased it, so had that of Ellen her sister, and the farmer lived too
far away to know as much as other people knew about the advent of the
Mr. Foxleys. Had there been a sister or a daughter, or a wife or a
mother, or an aunt or a cousin about the farm, he would have known very
quickly. As it was, the girl who did the housework on the farm was as
ignorant of gossip, its existence and the laws which govern its nature,
as any male farm hand could be. When Farmer Wise put up his horses
at the Inn three or four times a year, and sat down in the cheerful
bar-room to drink a glass of whisky with his feet to the fire if it were
winter, or a taller glass of Belfast ginger ale if it were summer, did
he never notice Mrs. Cox? Mrs. Cox, well-to-do and popular herself,
fresh, blooming and hearty, a young woman yet, and just the woman one
would say, for him, and above all, the woman who thought most of him
and ran to change her cap--the black one with the knot of rusty widow's
crape--for the smart new one that held the velvet pansy when she saw the
team coming. There's where he should have chosen the second time, there
was the woman he should have noticed instead of poor, proud, foolish
Charlotte Dexter, whom he half feared as a “lady born,” and who held
in her heart, had he only knew it, the image of Mr. Joseph Foxley. The
farmer got on with the English gentlemen at the Inn whenever he saw them
“first-rate,” and it was of them he began most unsuspiciously to talk
when he and Miss Dexter had crossed the bridge, ascended the hill on
the other side of the river, and the team were settling to their work
as they entered upon the dreary eight miles called the Plains which lay
between them and the city. The farmer was consciously happy as he moved
his ponderous body slightly nearer to his companion and tucked her in
with his great hands, a single touch of one of them hurting her thin
frame as if they were made of iron or stiff rope. He thought he was
gentle too--poor man--but long years of manual labor had changed the
natural soft flesh to the consistency of leather, in which immense
muscles and joints seemingly of marble had been imbedded.
Besides, there was the delicate touch of another hand, as fine, as soft
as a woman's and yet almost as strong as the farmer's, in her mind,
a hand whiter than her own, though somewhat freckled, a hand that had
taper fingers and well-kept nails, a hand that bore an antique seal ring
and a fine pearl, a hand alas that had often retained her own in its
warm clinging pressure, and once--only once, and that was three years
ago--clasped her unresisting waist for a moment in the dark under the
Oak while her sister fumbled at the gate. And just as she cherished
these memories of Mr. Joseph, so did the widowed farmer retain the few
occasions in his mind on which he had met Miss Dexter, spoken with her,
given her a “lift” into town or up the road to the village store, for
this was not the first use she had made of his gallant good nature and
the Kentucky team.
He looked down at her now as they drove along in silence and noticed her
thin black gown, her short jacket, her bit of black veil drawn over her
bonnet, and her dingy travelling-bag with its tarnished clasp, and he
heaved a sigh.
Charlotte was a “sizeable woman” thought Farmer Wise “and wants a good
live garment sometimes, to bring her figure out and make more of it and
do justice to it. A shawl now! How much would a good shawl be? I miss
a woman round the place; I wouldn't know what to ask for. I might ha'
stopped nigh the Inn and asked Mrs. Cox.” Ay, you might Farmer Wise, and
have done another mischievous thing, upsetting Mrs. Cox for a week as
she waited for a parcel from town and breaking her heart altogether as
day after day followed and no parcel arrived.
“I ha' never seen the ekil of those Mr. Foxleys yonder,” began the
honest farmer as something to start a conversation with. “I ha' never
seen their ekil.”
“Oh!” said Miss Dexter. “Yes? In what way?”
“So gentle and so funny as they be. Gentlemen both of them with delicate
hands and fine clothes--”
“Yes, yes,” murmured Miss Dexter under her breath, clutching at her bag
and closing her eyes.
“And not above anybody or anything going. I see the pale one this day,
and pale he is and weak they say, enough to be walked about on the
girl's shoulder--I see him to-day as I passed the Inn, he was on a long
chair out in the bit of paved yard, you know Miss Dexter, and when he
saw me he raises his head and says 'Farmer Wise, is that you?'” May be
you don't remember just how he speaks. He speaks better now nor when he
came, and his brother too. At first It was all in a jumble like one word
run into the other and hard to understand at least for us country folks.
But now 'tis a bit clearer, more as you speak, begging your pardon,
Miss Dexter, for noticing that or anything else that concerns you, Miss
Dexter. And I says, stopping these fellows a bit. “Yes it's me. I'm on
my way to town with nine barrels of apples.”
“How many?” he calls out again.
“Nine,” I replies.
“Let's taste one,” he says.
“A barrel?” I says, and Milly, the girl, she come oat by the door, with
another quilt to put over him, laughing, and showing her teeth, rare
ones too, they be and says she. “Throw us down one, Farmer Wise,” and I
did, for I had a couple in my pocket, and here's the tother, “now Miss
Dexter, if you see your way to eatin' it now in the waggon alongside of
me, or will you wait till we get to the Albion?” Charlotte Dexter put
her hand out mechanically and took the apple, a large red one, from
the farmer who again managed to hurt her as his great wrist touched her
fingers for an instant. He blushed perceptibly and moved a little nearer
still. And how unconscious Charlotte Dexter was of his mere presence,
let alone tender thoughts, except when he hurt her!
“I have heard this morning, that is I believe everyone has known for
some time, though it is only spoken about generally today, for the
first time, that Mrs. Cox is giving up the Inn. Her niece, the girl
you mention, is going to be married--indeed, it is one of those
gentlemen--the Mr. Foxleys--whom she is to marry, and they will take the
Inn out of Mrs. Cox's hands.”
The farmer was as surprised as she had been.
“Well,” he ejaculated “didn't I say I'd never seen their ekil? Milly's
going to marry one of the Mr. Foxleys? Which--”
“It is Mr. Joseph,” returned Miss Dexter, staring down at the apple in
her lap. “The youngest one, you know. He is a very merry young gentleman
and always has something to say. I daresay it will be a very comfortable
arrangement.”
“But it's a great thing for Milly,” said her companion, “it'll be a
great thing for her. She'll live in the tone, no doubt and may be cross
the ocean to see his home and his parents--it'll be a great thing for
Milly. A gentleman born! Ay, ay; ay, ay!”
“No, no,” said Miss Dexter, irritably. “Don't I tell you, Farmer Wise,
that they will live on at the Inn? These young gentlemen like comfort,
like being waited upon. They do this in order to insure--in order
to--oh! it is difficult to explain my meaning, but you must see, Farmer
Wise, that it is not a proper marriage at all, it is a very sad thing
for the girl, I should consider, and some one--some friend should tell
her so. She can never be a lady, and what kind of life will it be for
him, a gentleman born, as you say, when he could have chosen too,
where he liked. My great grandfather, Mr. Wise, was an Admiral, and
my grandfather was a Judge. My father was a member of a respected
profession, although not brought up to it in early life, and _none_
of my relations, or ancestors _ever_ married out of their own proper
circle, except my poor father. He made a most perverse and foolish
marriage, Farmer Wise, which though only lasting a few years, brought
sorrow and trouble and poverty and oppression to his family.”
“Ay, ay,” said the farmer, softly. He was thinking still about those
down-drawn blinds.
“Ay, ay. You're right in the main, Miss Dexter--yes, you're right in the
main. Now, I thought I'd ask ye--I said to myself this morning, when I
see Miss Dexter the next time, her as is a lady, and no mistake, I'll
ask her--what would you say, or what your sister have said if someone
here right in this village, that is, there in Ipswich, I mean of course,
someone who wanted to just be kind and lend an 'elpin 'and, had asked
ye--or her--say her--had asked her anytime to marry him, startin'
fair, startin' fair, with a year to think on it. And a comfortable 'ome
awaitin' 'er with two 'ired girls to do the work and plenty of hands
on the farm and the best of cheese and butter and the Harmonium in the
parlor and drives to and fro' the Church and behind it all a--solid
man--a solid man--what do ye think she'd 'uv said?”
Was ever man more in earnest, now that it had suddenly broken from him
after all these years, than honest Farmer Wise? The team jogged on, but
the reins were lying loosely in their owner's hands.
“I thought I'd ask ye,” he repeated looking away from his companion. “I
thought I'd ask ye.”
Miss Dexter had hardly gathered the import of his speech. She looked up
startled.
“My sister?” she said with increased irritability. “Ask my sister?
What do you mean? I never knew that anybody here, in the village, had
proposed to her, or dared--dared to think of her at all as a possible
mate--wife, whatever it is you mean. Surely you don't mean yourself,
Farmer Wise! It would never enter your head, I am sure, to propose to my
sister!”
“No it never did,” said the farmer quietly.
“Then it is someone else? Really, you must tell me, if you know anything
about it, Farmer Wise. But I think you are making some mistake, it is
quite impossible that anyone in the village--any native of the village,
or indeed any native of this country should so far forget himself as to
propose to my sister.”
“Of course,” said the farmer as quietly, “it is quite impossible. No one
'ud 'av done it. No one did do it, that I know on. But I thought I'd ask
ye. And about yourself, too? There'd be no gettin' ye to forget all--all
that has been and to take up with things as they be, to be makin' a new
start, startin' fair, as I said, startin' fair, both parties agreed to
think a year on it, and one party to save up and buy nothin' till the
year 'd be out and then the other party to give the word for both to
take 'ands and make the start together! For what's past is past, and
what's done is done, and ye can't make this out the old country any more
nor ye can bring back those that are gone, which they wouldn't be, I
'low to say, if they'd stayed behind in it. This” said the farmer, in
a louder firmer voice, indicating with his whip the dreary pine forests
that bordered the road on either side, “isn't the old country. I come
from it myself, and I know it taint. Them rustlin' leaves ain't the old
country, heaps of brown and yella up to your knees after a while, nor
yet this road, nor that sky, nor this waggon, nor them apples, nor them
horses. Nor me myself. I'm no longer old country. I'm fond of it--sho!
I'm fonder of it now than I was forty years ago, when I come away from
it, I'm fonder of it every year that goes by. But it's the New Country
that's made me, that's give me all I have and more than all I want, and
accordin' I'm grateful to it, and wouldn't turn my back on it. No Miss
Dexter I wouldn't, and so I says, to all as come out to it, it's better
to try and forget the past, or at least as much of it as 'll bear
forgetting in order to let you live, and to take up with things as they
be, and not lookin' always to things as they were, and to make the
best of what the New World has to offer to ye And I don't think that in
England--God bless her--to-day, you 'll find a finer team, nor redder
apples, nor an easier going waggon, nor even a prettier sky, than that
there yella light breakin' all over the landscup like!”
There was perfect silence after that. It had suddenly dawned upon
Charlotte Dexter with accession of disgust and embittered hostility that
the farmer's words related to himself. What new and hateful complication
was this to be reminded by such an ill-timed declaration of the ironical
in her life which had always been near enough to her apprehensions!
Anything and everything but what she wanted, she could have. It had
always been so. A dark frown gathered on her forehead, she clutched her
bag and drew herself away from the side of the honest farmer.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” she cried. “Such words can
have nothing to do with me. I could not disgrace myself and my father's
family by allying myself with anybody out here, least of all, one of the
working classes, or a farmer. You are very inconsiderate, Farmer Wise,
and I must ask you to distinctly understand that even conversation on
such a subject is quite out of the question. I cannot even discuss
it with you or with anyone in your position. I have told you what my
connections are; what my family is, you have now, I hope, some correct
idea, and you will see how utterly impossible it is that I should, even
to better my circumstances which I admit are somewhat precarious, make
such a _mésalliance_--such a mistake, I mean, as you refer to.
“Well,” said the farmer very quietly this time. “You're right in the
main, Miss Dexter, you're right in the main. But I thought I'd ask ye, I
thought I'd ask ye. Far from harm bein' done, there's only good, there's
only good, for now you understand me and I understand _you_ and thank ye
for your confidences and there's an end on it.”
So begun, so ended the honest man's wooing. Did he suffer disappointment
as Miss Dexter's contemptuous eye and her irritated tone showed him--ah!
how plainly--she was forever out of his reach? Was an idol broken, a
dream dissolved, a blossom nipped, or hope murdered, just as much, in
the case of this comfortable placid unimaginative elderly farmer as in
the case of younger, warmer, more impetuous, more idealistic men? If
so, Farmer Wise was as self-contained as the best actor among them and
handed Miss Dexter out at the Albion with as gallant, though cautious
politeness and sat as far away from her at the hotel tea table and met
her in the hall afterwards with as severe an air, as if the situation
were perfectly pleasant and completely ordinary. He asked her when she
would be going back, and learnt that she would pass the night at the
Albion, returning to the village by the Saturday's stage.
“Then shall I take a seat for ye?” asked the willing farmer.
“No” said Miss Dexter, who appeared to be in a great hurry, “I can
arrange in the morning, thank you.”
“In any case, ye're sure ye won't want a 'lift' again, Miss Dexter,”
said the farmer respectfully, though there might have been the least
tinge of irony in the tone. “I'm not goin' back myself till to morrow.”
“No, thank you,” returned Miss Dexter for the last time.
The Albion was a small hotel or tavern situated just on the outskirts of
the town, which did a flourishing business with the country people. Two
roads, the Ipswich and the Richmond, formed a sort of junction before
its door, one leading into the fine agricultural district or valley
of Richmond, Guernsey and Trenton, and the other following, the dreary
Plains through Ipswich to Orangetown, a thriving little community of
mills and saws and booms and planks picturesquely situated on the Upper
Orange River.
There was always a knot of farmers round the Albion, all of them English
or Scotch or native Canadians born of British parents. A French-Canadian
would have been hoisted on a table and examined minutely all over, hair,
eye, skin and costume, had one been present. But though the men were
respectable and decent and hard-working and most of them earned a good
income and few of them drank or gambled it away, they were noisy, smoky,
staring fellows for companions and Miss Dexter, having walked some
distance to a shop, made a purchase, and returned to the parlor of the
hotel while it was yet light, uncertain what to do with herself or
where to go to escape the bustle and clatter of tongues. Farmer Wise
was smoking in the bar, she had seen him as she passed in, and the mere
sight of him, with his head up against the counter, and his legs out
on a chair made her shudder. She sat in the parlor listening to the
intolerable noise, heavy delf and cutlery being momentarily banged down
on tables and chairs, an occasional broken plate and whirling pewter mug
or kitchen spoon reaching her ear with more than usual reverberation.
Then would come a volley of laughter, oaths, and bets on next week's
races from the bar, then more breaking of china from the scullery, the
stamping of horses in the stable, then the bar door would be closed and
comparative silence ensue. In one of these intervals, the girl who had
waited at the tea-table appeared in the parlor and inquired of Miss
Dexter if she would like a fire put in the wood stove that stood on a
square of zinc in the middle of the room. It came as a relief from
the nervous broodings that were settling down on her mind occupied in
introspection neither healthy nor cheerful, and she eagerly assented.
When the fire burned up, she opened the door that she might see the
blaze and spread out her thin hands to it and put her cold feet to its
warmth. Then for the first time she unclasped her bag and taking out her
purchase, looked at it. The shop she had gone into was a druggist's, and
her purchase had been a small bottle of a bluish fluid that she now held
up to the light and looked at long and steadily but with no change in
her countenance. The bar-door opened with a creak and closed with a
bang. She started and replaced the bottle in the bag and put the bag
over her arm as before. For a long time she sat before the fire warming
first one foot, then the other and never looking away from the blaze.
When half-past ten came, so did the girl with a lamp and two damp towels
for Miss Dexter who took them without opening her mouth much to the
astonishment of the girl, who though taciturn herself was well used to
speech and “language” from all she came in contact with, and who was
also struck with the fact that the strange lady had never removed her
bonnet or jacket “since she come in the house.”
She would have had additional ground for surprise had she known that the
strange lady did not remove them even upon reaching her own room, but
lowering the lamp, lay down fully dressed upon the bed still clasping
her small travelling bag in her hands, and slept until seven o'clock
in the morning. She then rose and hastily straightening her attire,
descended to the dining-room, partook of ham and eggs. Upon the close
of this meal, she went up again to the parlor and sat slightly back from
the window that overlooked the main road until twelve o'clock, when she
partook of the dinner served to the travellers at the Albion, including
Farmer Wise who had sold his apples and soon after dinner hitched up
ready to go homewards. After dinner she went up as before to the parlor
and sat there again. Two o'clock came, half past two, three o'clock, and
Miss Dexter began to look along the road in the direction of the town.
Half-past three found her, still looking along the road. Four o'clock
came, half-past four, then five. She grew visibly uneasy, walked to and
fro in the little parlor, sat down again. Half-past five, the clatter
in the kitchen which had been silent for a little while renewed itself.
Six!! The men stumped into their tea, and the girl ascending asked Miss
Dexter if she was coming down to hers.
“No,” said Miss Dexter, “I expect to have a late tea at home, thank you.
And I am just going in a moment or two.”
Ten minutes past six. The late November afternoon had almost entirely
faded, it would soon be dark. A quarter past six and Miss Dexter,
looking continuously out of her window perceived the figure she had
waited for so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you
have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and
responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air,
good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk,
_débonnair_, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking
and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got
in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily.
Now it is, or it looks like--yes, it is--a genuine florist's bouquet.
Something to open the eyes of the Ipswich villagers. A gorgeous wired
platoon of roses, and smilax tuberose and mignonette--Mr. Joseph, Mr.
Joseph, what does this mean, who is this for? On he came, brisker, more
_débonnair_, more smiling than Miss Dexter had ever seen him in her
life. Her breath came fast as he neared the window. Exchanging a word
with the hostler and a couple of laboring men who stood almost in the
centre of the road Mr. Joseph passed on, looking down with a smile at
the bouquet in his hand. Miss Dexter then arose and quietly settling her
bonnet at a glass walked out of the hotel having paid her small bill at
dinner-time.
She walked steadily on in the direction of Ipswich in the wake of Mr.
Joseph who did not appear to be walking as fast as usual himself. So by
straining every nerve as we say--in reality, walking as she had never
attempted to and dreamt of walking in her life--she slowly but surely
gained upon the unconscious Mr. Joseph. They were about in the middle of
the plains, that dreary bit of road bordered by pine forests on either
side when Miss Dexter found she could distinguish the _clink, clink_ or
jingle of his watch-chain, a thing of steel links which she knew well by
sight as well as by sound as it struck against the buttons of his coat.
Slowly Miss Dexter gained on him, until it was necessary either to
accost him or pass him. Which did she mean to do? Dark as it was rapidly
growing, Mr. Joseph, in half turning his head to observe something in
the trees or sky, became conscious of a figure close behind him. The
path was narrow, for he had left the middle of the road since passing
the Albion, and he stepped aside with his usual ready politeness to
allow the lady room to go on before him. But in a moment he recognized
Miss Dexter. She waited for him to speak.
“I--really, why--is it possible it is you, my dear Miss Dexter? I never
knew you took such lonely walks so far from home. You don't mean to say
you've walked out from town?”
For an answer, Miss Dexter, who had previously unclasped her bag and
taken out the bottle, lifted her right hand and threw the contents over
Mr. Joseph.
“In the name of God!” shrieked the unfortunate man, warding off as he
imagined a second attack. But Miss Dexter had done her work and stood
rigid, unmovable, stony as marble, the bag fallen at her feet, her hands
fallen straight down at her sides. Mr. Joseph had sunk upon the ground
moaning and writhing, but through all the torture of the terrible pain
he was suffering, he thought of nothing but the inconceivable brutality
of the act itself. Why had she done it?
“I suppose it is vitriol,” he gasped. “Was it an accident--or--did
you--mean--to--do it? How have--I--injured--you? Oh--say--say--”
He could get no further for a few moments in the appalling consciousness
of that living fire which had burnt into his poor eyes and played round
his poor temples. Otherwise he was not injured, for Miss Dexter's aim
had been a faulty one and nearly all the contents of the bottle had in
reality descended on the ground.
“Say--say” he went on. “Which it is? My--dear--Miss Dexter--I
am--sorrier for you--than--for--myself, and cannot imagine--oh! Good
God, I shall be blind, blind--ah!!--”
Charlotte Dexter still stood in the rapidly darkening air, a stem,
rigid, immovable figure. It was too soon for remorse. That would come in
good time. But a certain pity stole over her as she gazed at the huddled
mass on the ground before her, which a short time ago, had been the gay,
laughing, upright Mr. Joseph.
“Are you suffering very much?” She said at length in her ordinary voice.
“Good God! How--how--can you ask? Again--tell me--was it--an accident?”
“No,” she replied still in her most ordinary voice. “No. It was no
accident. It _is_ vitriol, and I _did_ mean to throw it.”
“It is horrible,” groaned Mr. Joseph, still in agony on the ground where
he had sunk at first. “And you will not--fiend that you appear now
to be--though Heaven knows--I thought you sweet and womanly enough
once--you will not--tell me why! It is infamous!”
“Yes, it _is_ infamous,” returned Charlotte Dexter. “It _is_ horrible,
and I am a fiend. I am not a woman any longer. I once was, as you say,
sweet and womanly enough for--for what? Joseph Foxley. For you to come
to any house and my sister's house, and blast _her_ life and strike
_her_ down as you thought you would strike me, for this and that and for
much more, but not enough for truth and honesty and an offer of marriage
in fair form, not enough for common respect and decent friendship.”
“My dear lady,” said Mr. Joseph with great difficulty, “there was no one
I--”
“And all that time, when I thought you at least free, at least your own
master, at least unbiased and unbound, for unlike a gentleman you never
hinted to me of these--other ties--you were engaged to this miserable
girl, this common drudge, the scullery-maid of a country inn. You, you,
you!”
“My dear lady,” said Mr. Joseph again with greater difficulty than
before, “I--upon my word--I have--I--”
Charlotte Dexter, suddenly regaining the use of her limbs, bent down
quickly and peered into the poor sightless face. Mr. Joseph had fainted.
She owned no fear yet however, though it was now quite dark, and five
miles lay between them and her own door. Pity was just giving away to
remorse. What if she had killed him? She bent down again but found
that there was no fear of that and even consciousness appeared to be
returning. At this moment the sound of wheels struck her ear. Nearer
and nearer it came and she soon descried a waggon coming along the road
sharply in which sat one man. The rest of the waggon was empty and as it
was proceeding in the direction of the village, into that, she made up
her mind, should Mr. Joseph be put. As it drew near, she stepped out of
the dark shade of the pines and bade the man stop.
“Whose there!” said he, “What's here? What's the matter? Why, if it
ain't Miss Dexter!”
“Yes,” said she, stooping to assist her unfortunate companion. “How do
you do, Farmer Wise! I--do you know Mr. Foxley--Mr. Joseph Foxley--is
here--can you just see him--if you have a lantern, or, will you help me
to get him into the waggon?”
Farmer Wise forgot Miss Dexter and her family pride in an instant,
though at first sight the feeling of injury had somewhat revived, and
he made haste to come to her relief. He found Mr. Joseph just coming to
himself.
“Why, why, what's the matter?” said the Farmer. “It minds me of old
times, this, when highway-men and tramps were a-infestin' the road and
a-lyin' in wait for honest travellers--in the Old Country of course,
Miss Dexter, not here, not here. Yet somethin's been at work here, eh!
Mr. Joseph, or else I'm much mistaken. Here, lend an 'and, Miss Dexter;
now, sir, can you see me?”
“Not very well,” gasped poor Mr. Joseph. “It's dark, I know,” said the
farmer, “and I hadn't begun carrying my lantern yet. Never mind Here,
now, place your foot there--are ye hurt anywhere that I may touch
ye--tell me where I hurt ye, if I do--now then, the other foot--
“There, now it's done! Miss Dexter, ma'am there's an old blanket at the
back there, lie him on that. Put his head down and let him look straight
up at them stars and he'll soon get himself, I warrant. If I knew where
ye were hurt, perhaps I could bind ye up. There's no wound,” anxiously.
“No,” said Mr. Joseph. “Thank you, Farmer Wise. I am--much--better--really.
I was unconscious!”
“Ay,” said the farmer, “A little, and can you stand the joltin' now, are
ye sure? For if ye are, we'll drive on.”
“Stay a moment,” said Mr. Joseph. “I had some flowers--a bouquet--in my
hands when I--fell. I can't see--very well--in this light--look for me,
will you!”
“I do spy somethin' white on yonder ground where you was when I came up.
Maybe it's a pocket-handkerchief, may be it's the flowers you dropped.”
The former sprang down and returned with two articles one of which--the
bouquet he gave to Mr. Joseph, the other, a small bottle--he put in his
own pocket The bouquet was as fresh and untumbled as when it emerged
from the careful florist who had prepared it. Not a single drop of the
fiery liquid had fallen upon it nor scorched its fragrant beauty and it
presently lay upon the face of the suffering man, healing with its cool
moist sweet leaves and petals his poor scarred skin.
“I won't ask him,” thought the farmer, “I won't ask him. But what are
they doin' here together? Well, I won't ask that neither. And why did
not she came out by the stage as she said? I won't ask that neither.
There's three things I needn't go for to enquire into. But a little
general conversation in a nice kind of way, neither spyin' nor lyin' may
do him good and not be altogether despised by the--the other party.” He
looked back and could dimly see Mr. Joseph sitting up on the blanket. He
had removed his hat, and his hands were pressed to his head. Charlotte
Dexter was in the furthest corner of the waggon, a dark, stern, ominous
figure.
“Strange that you and me _are_ goin' home together, Miss Dexter, after
all,” said the farmer.
“Miss Dexter drove in to the Albion alongside of me yesterday, sir,
and I ask her if so be she need a second lift back to-day, and she said
'no.'”
“Ah!” said Mr. Joseph. “Yesterday, did you say? I was--to have--come
out--yesterday--in answer to my brother's note--but I could not
manage--it. I wish,” with a grim attempt at the old humor--“I had, 'pon
my soul I do.”
“Your brother is well, I hope, sir?” said the farmer. “Don't talk too
much, I beg of ye, Mr. Joseph. To see ye with yer hands like that!”
“It is--better--easier--that way,” returned Mr. Joseph. “My brother
is well for him, thank you. You know, he is--not strong
he--is--never--perfectly well.”
“D--” said the farmer to himself. “Of course, of course, I know. I see
him yesterday morning, pale like and weak, but smiling and lookin' happy
enough too, I tell ye.”
“Ah, yes” said Mr. Joseph, again lying down and pressing the flowers to
his hot lips. “I--these flowers--are for him and--her.”
“Her!” said the farmer.
“Milly, you know. Ah--perhaps you haven't heard. My brother is going
to--marry Milly, Mrs. Cox's niece, you know.”
An absolutely death-like stillness prevailed in the waggon. The Kentucky
team jogged on. The stars shone down on poor Mr. Joseph turning up his
sightless orbs to their beauty and majesty, and on the passion of grief
and remorse that now surged in Miss Dexter's suffering breast.
“It may be vanity,” thought Farmer Wise as the bridge and the river
and Dexter's Oak came in sight one after the other, “it may be vanity,
though I'm too old a man to be much given to that, but I can't help
thinkin' I'm a wiser man than I was yesterday by a good lot. I don't
half know what's happened, but somethin's goin' on, whether it's
understandable or not to me and the likes of me, I don't know as yet,
and I don't think I'll try to find out. If ifs bad it'll come out fast
enough, and if it's good, leavin' it alone maybe will make it a little
better. But here we are,” he continued aloud, “at Dexter's Oak. What's
to be done, Miss Dexter, now, and with you, Mr. Joseph? Of course, I'll
take you straight to the Inn--as for Miss Dexter--”
“I will get out at once,” said the unhappy woman. “You are sure you can
take him to the Inn all right and--and--lift--that is--without--”
“Oh, I guess so,” said the farmer, grimly relapsing into an Americanism
that was just beginning to leaven the whole country. “I guess I'll
take care on him, and as for gettin' him out at the Inn, there's plenty
there. Good-night Miss Dexter, take care there!--now you're all right”
Charlotte Dexter, with a long look at the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph,
leapt from the waggon and sped through the gate up to her desolate
dwelling.
“Ah!” sighed the farmer to himself, one great long sigh that stirred his
hardy frame to its centre. He never sighed like that again either for
Charlotte Dexter or any other woman.
The next mile they traversed in silence broken only by occasional moans
from Mr. Joseph which moved the old farmer to wonder and dismay that
almost unnerved him.
Presently Mr. Joseph murmured some word the farmer did not catch all at
once.
“Is he out of his mind on top of it all!” he said to himself, and
listened.
“Farmer Wise,” said the same low voice, “are we near the Inn?”
“Just there, Mr. Joseph.”
“On the little bridge yet?”
“Just come on it, Mr. Joseph.”
“Ah! Can you--stop your horses?”
“Certainly. There! Now what is it?” Mr. Joseph sat up.
“I am in your waggon--the market waggon, Farmer Wise, I think?”
“Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't tell where we are, I see, being so much
shook.”
“No. That's not it,” said Mr. Joseph. “I--are you on the seat--the front
seat, Farmer Wise?”
“Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't make me out by this queer light, and I don't
wonder. The stars is beautiful, but they don't make up for havin' no
moon.”
“No. That's not it either, Farmer Wise. Did you say the stars were
shining? Orion, I suppose, and the Bull and the rest of them! Can't
you--try--like a dear old fellow--can't you--tell what's the matter with
me? You say you are sitting on the front seat, and I--have no doubt but
that you are, but your voice sounds so much further away--so very much
further away than that--and when one--can't--see you, Farmer Wise,--”
A frightful pause.
“Can't see me, can't see me! Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph! Not blind--God
forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! But I thought it, I
thought it, and so, out it come! But it is'nt that! Ye'll forgive me for
sayin' the word out to ye like that! It isn't that!”
“I'm afraid it is, Farmer Wise. It can be--nothing--else.'
“If, as you say, the stars are shining and to be sure they generally are
about--this time--of night, and if, as you say, you are sitting directly
opposite me on the front seat of your waggon, and I have no reason
to doubt it, if this is so, and I--can see neither--these stars
shining--nor you--yourself--dear old fellow--on the seat before me--it
can be, I fear--nothing else.”
“And how--”
“Ah! I can't--quite remember. Some time, perhaps, I'll tell you
how--shall I go to my brother or--how can I?”
“Mr. Joseph,” entreated the farmer, seizing one of those delicate hands
and patting it as if it had been his own. “Will you come with me? I'll
make you comfortable, and have ye seen to and we'll find out about it
and what can be done, and that'll save your brother, look, and he not
strong! Come, Mr. Joseph! Lie down there as you was, just as ye was--God
forgive me for tellin' you to look up at them stars--and I'll speak a
word for you at the Inn, as we're passing. Won't that do, nor be better
than goin' in like that? Not knowin' either just what is the matter.
Come, Mr. Joseph! I'll drive straight home after that and make ye
comfortable for the night, and there'll be no--womankind, or, or anyone
to disturb ye, just me and the two boys--come, Mr. Joseph!”
“I am willing enough to go, old fellow,” answered Mr. Joseph with a
groan. “Willing enough to go anywhere, but where my brother--my poor
brother--is. Yes, it will be best. Drive on.”
The warm cheery Inn soon appeared in view. The firelight from the
bar and the lamp-light from the other rooms beamed out from the
red-curtained windows. The scrape of a fiddle came from the kitchen.
“Squires,” murmured Mr. Joseph, feebly. “He's always at it.” The farmer
pulled up the team at the pump corner one instant and looking around
descried not a soul in view. He got down and went to the side door
leading to the bar and opening it put his head in. Mrs. Cox herself was
dispensing early gin and water to three or four indolent but talkative
gentlemen before the fire. But she was not so busy as not to perceive
the farmer. Had she already had that cap on in which bloomed the violet
velvet pansy, Mr. Joseph's whereabouts might have been discovered, for
invariably on those occasions she accompanied the farmer not only to the
door but even to the very feet of the horses as he straightened up one
thing or loosened another and would often joke about the empty waggon or
the purchases made in the town which might happen to fill it.
But Farmer Wise left her no time even to adjust her head-dress, far from
changing it.
“Good evening, ma'am,” said he, with his head in the door. “No. Don't
trouble about Squires. He's hard at work, I can hear, and besides, I
don't want him. I'm late, and the boys will wait for their supper. I
just have to tell ye that I see Mr. Foxley in town, Mr. Joseph Foxley,
and he says how he can't come out till--say--Monday. He was stuck full
of work--he was indeed--and said positive--he couldn't come. But he
give me this for his brother and for--her,” producing the bouquet, which
caused a thrill of amazement and awe to pervade the loungers in the bar.
“For his brother and for--her,” said the farmer, taking a long stride
across the little room and giving it to Mrs. Cox. “I congratulate you,
ma'am, I do indeed.”
Before she could well answer, he had shut the door and mounting the
waggon drove away as quickly as he could. He was too full of thoughts
and plans concerning Mr. Joseph to notice that quick as he was, Mrs.
Cox, not waiting this time to change her cap, had come out to the door
and with her hand shading her eyes, was looking wistfully after the
departing team.