[Greek: ou men gar tou ge kreisson kai areion, ae hoth homophroneonte
noaemasin oikon echaeton anaer aede gunae.]
Round the skirts of the plantation, and half-way down the hill, there
runs a thick fringe of wild cherry-trees. Their white blossom makes,
for three weeks in the year, a pretty contrast with the larches and
Scotch firs that serrate the long ridge above; and close under their
branches runs the line of oak rails that marks off the plantation from
the meadow.
A labouring man came deliberately round the slope, as if following
this line of rails. As a matter of fact, he was treading the
little-used footpath that here runs close alongside the fence for
fifty yards before diverging down-hill towards the village. So narrow
is this path that the man's boots were powdered to a rich gold by the
buttercups they had brushed aside.
By-and-bye he came to a standstill, looked over the fence, and
listened. Up among the larches a faint chopping sound could just be
heard, irregular but persistent. The man put a hand to his mouth, and
hailed--
"Hi-i-i! Knock off! Stable clock's gone noo-oon!"
Came back no answer. But the chopping ceased at once; and this
apparently satisfied the man, who leaned against the rail and waited,
chewing a spear of brome-grass, and staring steadily, but incuriously,
at his boots. Two minutes passed without stir or sound in this corner
of the land. The human figure was motionless. The birds in the
plantation were taking their noonday siesta. A brown butterfly rested,
with spread wings, on the rail--so quietly, he might have been pinned
there.
A cracked voice was suddenly lifted a dozen yards off, and within the
plantation--
"Such a man as I be to work! Never heard a note o' that blessed clock,
if you'll believe me. Ab-sorbed, I s'pose."
A thin withered man in a smock-frock emerged from among the
cherry-trees with a bill-hook in his hand, and stooped to pass under
the rail.
"Ewgh! The pains I suffer in that old back of mine you'll never
believe, my son, not till the appointed time when you come to suffer
'em yoursel'. Well-a-well! Says I just now, up among the larches,
'Heigh, my sonny-boys, I can crow over you, anyways; for I was a man
grown when Squire planted ye; and here I be, a lusty gaffer, markin'
ye down for destruction.' But hullo! where's the dinner?"
"There bain't none."
"Hey?"
"There bain't none."
"How's that? Damme! William Henry, dinner's dinner, an' don't you joke
about it. Once you begin to make fun o' sacred things like meals and
vittles--"
"And don't you flare up like that, at your time o' life. We're
fashionists to-day: dining out. 'Quarter after nine this morning I was
passing by the Green wi' the straw-cart, when old Jan Trueman calls
after me, 'Have 'ee heard the news?'' What news?' says I. 'Why,' says
he, 'me an' my missus be going into the House this afternoon--can't
manage to pull along by ourselves any more,' he says; 'an' we wants
you an' your father to drop in soon after noon an' take a bite wi' us,
for old times' sake. 'Tis our last taste o' free life, and we'm going
to do the thing fittywise,' he says."
The old man bent a meditative look on the village roofs below.
"We'll pleasure 'en, of course," he said slowly. "So 'tis come round
to Jan's turn? But a' was born in the year of Waterloo victory, ten
year' afore me, so I s'pose he've kept his doom off longer than most."
The two set off down the footpath. There is a stile at the foot of the
meadow, and as he climbed it painfully, the old man spoke again.
"And his doorway, I reckon, 'll be locked for a little while, an' then
opened by strangers; an' his nimble youth be forgot like a flower o'
the field; an' fare thee well, Jan Trueman! Maria, too--I can mind her
well as a nursing mother--a comely woman in her day. I'd no notion
they'd got this in their mind."
"Far as I can gather, they've been minded that way ever since their
daughter Jane died, last fall."
From the stile where they stood they could look down into the village
street. And old Jan Trueman was plain to see, in clean linen and his
Sunday suit, standing in the doorway and welcoming his guests.
"Come ye in--come ye in, good friends," he called, as they approached.
"There's cold bekkon, an' cold sheep's liver, an' Dutch cheese,
besides bread, an' a thimble-full o' gin-an'-water for every soul
among ye, to make it a day of note in the parish."
He looked back over his shoulder into the kitchen. A dozen men and
women, all elderly, were already gathered there. They had brought
their own chairs. Jan's wife wore her bonnet and shawl, ready to start
at a moment's notice. Her luggage in a blue handkerchief lay on the
table. As she moved about and supplied her guests, her old lips
twitched nervously; but when she spoke it was with no unusual tremor
of the voice.
"I wish, friends, I could ha' cooked ye a little something hot; but
there'd be no time for the washing-up, an' I've ordained to leave the
place tidy."