There was a knock at the door of "The Plough and Crown," which, in
spite of its similarity to the title of a treatise, is the name of an
exceedingly cosy little inn less than twenty miles from the outskirts
of London. The landlady answered in person, presenting just the stout,
apple-cheeked, buxom appearance that any one would expect from the
owner of so cheery a hostelry.
"Good-morning to you, sir--and to you, miss," said the estimable woman,
as the unlocked door revealed an airman of solemn mien and a blushing
young lady whose hair had been blown into utter and captivating
disorder.
A very small dog appeared, irritably, from some subterranean passage,
and taking in the sight of strangers, proceeded to bark with such
energy that, with each effort, he was shunted several inches to the
rear, like a gun recoiling after discharge, until from very ill-temper
he barked himself completely off the scene and out of this history.
"Good-morning, madam," said the aviator. "This young lady and myself
would like to have breakfast at your house."
The girl glanced furtively at him. It was the first time she had heard
him speak in English.
"Bless your baby faces!" cried the good woman. "Come in out of the
chilly morning; though what you be doing at this hour is beyond the
likes o' me to fathomate" (a word which performed its function by being
thoroughly understood).
She led them into the coffee-room, where he removed his coat and
helmet, and threw them, together with the girl's flying-costume, over a
chair. A sleepy-eyed and slovenly young woman-of-all-work appeared on
the scene, and proceeded to build a wood fire in the grate; while the
landlady, after the manner of her kind, bustled about, shifting chairs,
colliding with the fire-making girl, removing glasses from the bar to
the table, from the table to the shelf, and back again to the bar
again, all the while talking incessantly, or making comfortable noises
when words failed her (which was very seldom), and in short, giving
that feeling of hospitable activity handed down from the good old days
when passengers used to arrive by coach at "The Plough and Crown."
"Madam," said the flying-man, seizing a moment when a more than usually
severe jolt against her assistant had deprived the good woman of
breath, "I must telephone the aerodrome at Hounslow to send for my
machine, so I shall stroll to the post-office down the road. In the
meantime--this young lady speaks no English----"
"Bless her heart! What heathen country----"
"----speaks no English," he persisted, "and has traveled a long
distance in the air----"
"Well, I've often said that----"
"----in the air," he repeated, stifling her philosophy in its birth,
"and I shall be grateful if you will give her any attentions that your
kind heart may suggest. She is cold, and I suppose she wants to make
herself look pretty."
"Leave her to me, the sweet innocent. If she were my own daughter, me
not having any, but----"
"When I return, may we have breakfast?"
"A simple breakfast 'twill have to be," said the hostess, emitting the
words with a forcefulness reminiscent of a geyser that has been
supporting on its chest a mountain which has obligingly shifted its
position. "Things is awful bad, and the Government don't trust no one
these days. But I'll see what I can get for you two children, for
you're an officer gentleman, and my own good man's in the army--London
Scottish he is, though he ain't any more Scottish than the Pope of
Rome; but he always had a fine figure, had my man--Jacob Wilson is his
name, for thirty year owner of "The Plough and Crown," which always is
welcome to them as wants a pint o' bitter or a bed for the night, and
always will be as long as Jacob Wilson or me is to be found in the
taproom when opening-time arrives."
After this announcement of the past and future policy of "The Plough
and Crown," the worthy woman seized a chair that was innocently gazing
out of the window, and placed it directly opposite a highly colored
picture of a young lady in pink, talking to a blue young gentleman,
while a yellow horse, in proportion a little larger than the horse of
Troy, looked soulfully at them over a hedge.
Having done this, she rested her hands on her hips and sighed like a
woman who knows she is overworked, but is resigned to her fate.
"Excuse me," said the airman politely, then turned to his companion,
who had been staring in wide-eyed bewilderment at the activities of
Mrs. Jacob Wilson.... Frowning heavily at his young passenger, he
inserted his pipe into his mouth, and left the inn without another
word, sauntering along the roadway, where hedges and meadow-larks and
cosy thatched cottages were combining in the merriest of madrigals on
the beauty of Old England.
Upstairs, in "The Plough and Crown," Pippa's toilet was being
superintended by the estimable proprietress, whose hospitality,
surmounting the difficulty of language, poured out in a stream of
garrulity.
She described to her little guest how Mr. Jacob Wilson first appeared
in kilts, causing her (Mrs. Jacob Wilson) to throw her apron over her
face and bid her lord and master go upstairs and clothe himself in
propriety. She further confessed that he was a poor correspondent
(though a man of deep intellect, for he was given to long spasms of
silence); but every time he wrote from the trenches, which was once a
month (though one month he had written twice, but in September--or was
it October?--he had not written at all)--at any rate, he always said
that he had a cold in his head and would she send his medicine, which
he had used for eight-and-twenty years, and which had never failed to
cure him.
After this testimony to Mr. Jacob Wilson's recuperative powers, despite
his susceptibility to colds, his wife became confidential, and told the
girl of the adoration showered on her during her honeymoon by the
aforesaid absent gentleman, together with other and romantic details
which, being told in the strictest confidence, naturally have no place
in these pages.
And the little girl from the Picardy mill-house listened. She may have
understood that somewhere in the landlady's bountiful breast a noble
heart was beating, that behind her cheerfulness lay the shadow of the
trenches, and that any moment "The Plough and Crown" might be robbed of
the good man who had marched away with the London Scottish.
She may have understood less than that--or more. Who knows?
Half-an-hour later the Airy Prince returned, and they sat down together
to a breakfast served to the tune of chortling fowls and the neighing
of a nearby horse, while the fire chuckled and crackled in enjoyment of
some joke of its own.
"Well, Pippa," said the Black Cat, seizing a moment when Mrs. Jacob
Wilson had absented herself from the room, "and what do you think of
the English?"
The girl of the mill-house pictured the only two she had met.
"I think," she said timidly, "that you are--how say you it--great
talkers, yes?"
"Bless my soul!" said he, cutting a loaf of bread with the melancholy
of an executioner beheading an esteemed relative; "aren't we?"