a bit o’ money—in all some twenty-five pounds—a little more or less.
Now, that wi’ the ten pound Julia has lent to the old gem’man makes
thirty-five, and if it be doubled, as you say, it will be forty-five.
Now, if I’d a matter of about a hundred pound, I’d take Yatton Farm, and
would stock it; it ain’t a terrible big place, and I could manage it.
What say you? would old Jack Hannaford double the twenty-five as well as
the ten?”
“Sure he would.”
“Then I’ll risk it, and yet I’d like to be sure first. I think I’ll see
if he doubles Julia’s loan. If he do that, then I’ll trust him in the
same way with the rest—twenty-five. But you say I must wait a month.”
“Oh dear no, two days suffice. Pigs fatten, as dandelions blow, all of a
night in Americay.”
“Well, I can but try.”
“Don’t go to the grave till Thursday, and we’ll be there together. We’ll
see; maybe the money may then be doubled, maybe it won’t.”
“Very well, Thursday; I’d be afraid to go alone.”
On the following Thursday Eli Rattenbury appeared at the cottage door;
Richard Redlake was awaiting him.
“Look here,” said he, pouring out a sack of gold on the table,
“twenty-five sovereigns. Won’t somebody be pleased?”
“I believe you,” said Eli, “let’s make haste.”
So the two men went to the churchyard. No one was about—no one observed
them.
“I don’t know where Julia put the money,” said Rattenbury.
“But I do,” said Dick. “Here in the middle, and sure enough, here is a
jam pot, and something in it, on my word! Money—gold—Eli. Well, now,
they do turn cash over up there pretty smart. How much is it? Twenty
sovereigns, as I’m a man. By George, Eli, all this mine?”
“Certainly, it is the interest on the loan.”
“But for three days!”
“They’re wun’nerful generous over yonder, to Americay.”
“And I can take it in all honest conscience?”
“To be sure you may. If not yours, whose is it?”
“Then, Eli Rattenbury, I don’t think I’ll put any more out to interest.
I’ve done so well with this that I’ll bide content.”
And Richard put the twenty sovereigns in with the twenty-five. Then he
looked up into Rattenbury’s face.
“What’s the matter, man? got a stomach ache?”
“I ain’t well, I’ll go home. Don’t y’ think now ’twould be fitty to share
with me?”
“Not at all, Eli; the loan was mine. The interest accordin’ is mine.
Suppose you now go and put a little money under the turf and see if Jack
Hannaford will treat you in the same way? You don’t look comfortable as I
likes to see you, Eli; go home and sleep and dream again.”
FROM DEATH TO LIFE
FROM DEATH TO LIFE
The alteration of parochial boundaries by Act of Parliament has done away
with some curious anomalies that had survived from the first formation of
parishes in England—that is to say, done away with them so far as rating
is concerned, but not ecclesiastically.
The anomalies to which I refer are the odd, outlying patches, like
islets, belonging to one parish, and yet surrounded by others. There are
counties in England that have their insulated portions; and the same
is very general with regard to parishes. How this came about is not
difficult to discover. It was due to the ancient holders of estates, who
liked to have their properties united ecclesiastically. There was such a
detached patch of parish at Sugden. It was three miles from the parish
church; it was encompassed on all sides by the parish of Walmoden; but as
the story I am going to tell relates to the time before the rectification
of parochial boundaries, the cottagers of this islet were rated as
Sugdenian, and for all matters ecclesiastical looked to Sugden as their
parish church. If they wished to be married, their banns were called
at Sugden; if they were to be buried, double fees were demanded at
Walmoden, and, as the cotters were very poor, they went to lay the dust
of their kinsfolk at Sugden. Indeed, unless they had been very poor, they
would not have lived at Woodman’s Well, as the islet was called, for it
was away from the high-road, it was distant from neighbours, it consisted
of a hamlet containing two houses and a half.
The half-house was a whole cottage whose roof had fallen in, leaving,
however, one end partially covered, in which an old woman, who gathered
herbs, told fortunes, and charmed white swellings, kept up a precarious
existence under a tottering chimney. She was not alone; she had a
daughter. The two cottages were in partial collapse; their thatch was
mouldy, rotten, but not broken through, and the wooden casements were
decayed, but not in pieces. If the present tenants were to vacate these
houses, their owner believed that he would not be able to find others who
would take them and give rent for them. They had been erected on lives,
and it was probable that when they fell in to the landlord, they would
fall in altogether. By law, of course, he could insist on the holder of
the property keeping them in repair; but then, precisely, this holder was
an old man living a hundred miles away, and was impecunious; consequently
his legal right was as good as no right at all.
Those who occupied the cottages were: in the first, a mason and his wife;
that is to say, the mason was the tenant in the eye of the law, but
his occupancy was casual, and his wife saw but little of him. She was
a weakly woman, with one child, a frail little creature of two years,
a lovely child with fair hair and blue eyes. The father was fond, very
fond of his little Rosie; but he was fonder of good company at the
public-house.
In the second house lived a widow, with her son, Jack Weldon; a fine,
strapping lad, with an open face, honest brown eyes always on the
twinkle, and a flexible mouth that was ever on the quiver with a laugh.
His was an irresistible face. You could not look at it without a smile.
There was in it nothing grotesque, certainly nothing deformed, but it was
inexpressibly comical. The eyes, the mouth, and an upright jet of hair,
like the crown of a cockatoo, were mirth-provoking. Jack was infinitely
good-natured, very kind to his mother, and a favourite in the hamlet—that
is to say, with his neighbours, the mason’s wife and the white-witch.
Owing to the temptation of living surrounded by woods and downs, where
rabbits multiplied, he was a bit of a poacher, and he kept the two houses
and a half supplied with rabbit-meat. Ostensibly and actually he was a
ploughboy. His sporting was done at night and on Sundays.
His good-humour, his drollery, would have made Jack a popular man at the
public-house; but happily, his tenderness to his mother and his love of
sport drew him home when the day’s work was over, and he preferred laying
snares in the wood to sitting boozing at the table in the tavern.
Thomas Leveridge was the mason. He was a man good at heart, but weak—weak
as water—fond of politics and of argument. Election-time was thought to
be not far distant; Thomas had not been home for a fortnight. It is true
his work was at a distance of ten miles, and he walked to it on Mondays
and returned on Saturdays. But of late he had not been home even for the
Sundays; because—well, it was a long trudge, and because—well, his wife
was cranky, and because—well, the child had been fretting and crying all
night, and he had not enjoyed a good sleep when he was at home.
Thomas Leveridge loved his wife, and he loved his babe, loved his home,
but he loved politics better, loved his pleasure better, loved himself
most of all.
Now, unhappily, there was a serious and far-reaching reason why the child
had fretted and cried. It was sickening for scarlet fever. This he did
not suppose was the case. “Children alway be squealin’ when they teeths,”
he said. “They sleeps by day and ’owls o’ nights. ’Tis their natur’. But
to me as has to work, it’s discompoging.”
So Thomas Leveridge departed with his bundle on the Monday morning,
whistling, went to his work, heard that a dissolution was in the air, was
neglectful of his work, got dismissed, went about canvassing throughout
the district, and did not receive the letter which had been sent to
tell him that his child was dangerously ill. No, nor the second letter
to inform him that little Rosie was dead; no, nor the third letter to
entreat him to return for the funeral.
What Mrs. Leveridge would have done without the assistance of her
neighbours I cannot say. Little Rosie had been her mother’s one joy, one
solicitude, one ambition. Neglected by her husband, in a dilapidated
house, delicate in health, and weak of body, the poor woman had but one
sunbeam to enlighten her life; and that sunbeam was her child, and that
light was now darkness.
She was wholly overcome, broken-hearted, despairing. Jack Weldon’s mother
came to the aid of the unhappy woman, and saw to everything, and strove
to comfort her. Jack ran to announce the death to the relieving officer,
ordered the coffin of the carpenter at Sugden, and arranged with the
sexton about the grave. He did more: he went to the town where Thomas
Leveridge worked, in hopes of finding him; but could learn only that he
had been dismissed by his master, and was all over the country drinking
and canvassing. Unable to trace him, he had to return to Woodman’s Well.
At this very time Kate Westlake, the white-witch’s daughter appeared,
a brown-faced, bright-eyed, pleasant girl, for whom there was not
accommodation in the collapsed cottage. She had been in service in a
farm; but owing to bad times the farmer had thrown up his tenement, and
she had been obliged to leave and look out for a new situation. Meanwhile
she came home and found the house she had left practically roofless.
Difficulties settle themselves somehow, and this difficulty among others;
and this is the way in which it settled itself. Kate went into the
cottage of the Leveridges. Mrs. Leveridge needed to have some one with
her by night as well as by day, and was very glad to accept the attention
and help of the good-natured young girl. Mrs. Weldon could not be always
with her; and not only were preparations to be made for the funeral, but
also the poor woman’s health and spirits were so shaken that the ordinary
household duties were beyond her powers.
The day of the funeral arrived. Little Rosie was placed in her coffin of
plain deal. She had been so small, had become so light through sickness,
that the coffin was no weight to speak of. The poor mother was without
means, the father was nowhere to be found; he was in no club—that is to
say, in no benefit club. He was a member of three political clubs, that
brought in no benefit at all, but entailed payments. The funeral must be
carried out in the most economical manner. Of neighbours there were only
the inmates of Woodman’s Well. Owing to the insulated position of this
cluster, the population of the circumfluent parish of Walmoden did not
regard itself as responsible for sympathy. At a child’s funeral it was
not etiquette for ardent spirits to be provided; consequently the funeral
arrangements were of the most meagre description, and the number of
sympathisers few. Jack was to tuck the little coffin under his arm and
carry it to Sugden churchyard, and of mourners there would be but Mrs.
Weldon and Kate Westlake. The old witch undertook during their absence to
keep company with the bereaved mother, who had not the strength to follow
the corpse three miles to its last resting-place.
On the way another woman would fall in, who lived in an old octagonal,
abandoned toll-gate, and had a passion for funerals, and went to every
interment, whoever it might be that was buried, an acquaintance or a
stranger.
The day was lovely. Wood-doves cooed in the coppice, and blackbirds
fluted; in the blue sky compact white clouds drifted like icebergs in
a still ocean. Jack Weldon had done his best to assume a mourner’s
appearance: he had put on a black round cap with crape about it, a black
coat, but could not muster other than brown continuations. His mother had
hunted up his father’s Sunday pair; but his father had been a short and
stout man. These would not fit the length of Jack’s legs, and about the
waist would have been double, like a Jaeger jersey.
“We must do what we can,” said the widow; “nobody expects us to do more.
I’ll stitch a black crape band round the leg above the knee. Gentlefolks
does it on the arm.”
By this method the snuff-coloured continuations of Jack were given a
suitably lugubrious expression. If they were not black, they tried to
look funereal.
“After all,” said Mrs. Weldon, “you don’t expect for babies what you do
for grown-ups.”
So the procession started, and augmented itself on the way by the
contingent from the toll-gate.
The woman from the latter was of an age agreeable with that of Mrs.
Weldon. The way was long. It comported with the occasion to move slowly.
That two old women, both naturally prone to gossip, should walk all the
way in silence, was not to be expected; and they were soon in full flow
of conversation, carried on in an undertone.
But if it was impossible for two old women to walk three miles in
silence, so was it impossible for two young people to do so.
Jack ought to have led the way, followed by Kate; but Jack was burdened,
and lagged accordingly, and Kate had an impulsive spirit, and therefore
forged ahead.
“I say, Jack,” said Kate, “be Rosie terrible heavy?”
“Weighs no more than a feather,” answered he. “Poor mite, she wasted away
to nothing at all.”
“I asked because I thought you seemed tired.”
“I tired?”
“Well, you look hot.”
“Hot I be—it is the weather. I’m perspiring wonderful, and can’t get at
my pocket-handkerchief—it is in the pocket next the coffin.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll wipe your face,” said the girl. “But you must
stand still and stoop.”
Jack halted, bowed, and Kate passed her white cambric pocket-handkerchief
over his face.
“Thank y’,” said the bearer. “It’s terrible refreshing, and smells
beautiful.”
“That’s scent I put on it,” explained the girl.
Meanwhile the old women were in lively converse. The black strip round
Jack’s leg had started them; they diverged to the scandal of Thomas
Leveridge being away when his child died, and not being present at the
funeral.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Mrs. Weldon, “men are monsters. They’ve
no more feelings than have traction engines. I wish we could get along
without them.”
“But Jack?”
“Ah! Jack is a good son. I’m not speaking of lads, but of married men.
There is poor Mrs. Leveridge, left without a shilling; and whatever she
would have done had not Jack caught her a rabbit, I do not know. It all
comes of politics.”
“You’re right there,” said the woman from the toll-gate; “when they get
politics into their heads, it’s worse than beer. They can get the better
of liquor with a good sleep, but of politics”—she shook her head and
sighed. “I’ll tell y’ what it is,” continued Mrs. Weldon. “It’s our own
faults that the men get that rampageous. We give in to them too much. My
husband never went after ale or politics; but then I taught him his duty
from the beginning.”
“That’s it—it all comes of beginning well,” said the toll-gate mourner.
“It’s the same with dogs and with poultry. Lor’ bless you, if I didn’t
take the stick to my cochin-china, he’d be all over the kitchen.”
“I’d never advise any girl to marry,” said Mrs. Weldon.
“Nor I neither,” was the reply; “it’s a pity they won’t take advice—they
are that wilful.”
Both couples were interrupted in their respective conversations by a
rattle of wheels, shouts, a waving of colours, and up came a light
cart occupied by a couple of men, one driving, both vociferating, one
brandishing a whip, the other waving a parti-coloured sheet attached to
a stick. The cart was drawn by a donkey with coloured rosettes, and was
urged forward by the whip, at the end of which was a favour, accentuated
with a bunch of thorns. The donkey, stung by the thorns, frightened by
the yells, was galloping, and the banner was streaming in the air.
“Hurrah! Vote for Popjoy!” yelled the man with the flag as he flourished
it over his head, and, swinging round the corner, the donkey came almost
against the bearer with the coffin, and swerved so suddenly that the
banner-bearer lost his balance, and was precipitated from the cart into
the road, and fell at the feet of Jack Weldon.
“What are you doing there?” shouted the fallen man. “I’ll have a law
passed to get the likes of you transported for life!”
He tried to rise, but found that he could not, and began to swear.
Then Mrs. Weldon pushed forward.
“Thomas!” she cried, in a voice harsh with indignation, “do you know
where you be? and to whom you speak, you ill-conditioned tadpole?”
“I know well enough. I’m on the road—and I’ve hurt my leg somehow.”
“Do you know what you be?” again exclaimed Mrs. Weldon.
“I should think I did. I’m a free and enlightened elector.”
“Look up, Thomas Leveridge, from where you lie, stopping your little
Rosie on the way to her grave.”
“Ah!” threw in the woman from the toll-gate, “if you, her own father,
won’t come home to see your own sick and dying child, we, who’re no
relations, must bury her without consideration of you.”
Then up came the companion of the prostrate man, who by this time had
mastered the ass.
“I say, Thomas Leveridge! what’s to be done?” he asked.
The man on the road did not answer at once; he looked with glazed eyes
and quivering mouth at the little chest. He tried to speak, but he could
not. He tried to raise himself, but was powerless.
“Shall we get you into the cart?” asked his comrade.
“Ay,” answered Leveridge; “take me home. I can’t go nowhere else. Poor
Marianne!”
Some hours later the little funeral party returned to Woodman’s Well,
without the deal chest, walking at an accelerated pace—or rather, let me
say that the old women walked fast; the young mourners lagged. Eventually
they got home, and Jack entered the cottage of the Leveridges. Without
a word he ascended the rickety staircase. It was strewn with scraps of
coloured paper, on which were stray letters of the exhortation, “Vote for
Popjoy!”
He might have been following a paper-chase; for at intervals along the
road, down the lane, these coloured scraps had shown the way to the
cottage. They had fallen from the hand of the injured man as he had been
conveyed home, and on his way had torn the posters, and strewn them.
On the bed in the upper chamber lay Thomas Leveridge. A surgeon had
already been there, and had pronounced the hip dislocated and a bone
broken. He had replaced the joint and had spliced the bone. Leveridge
was condemned to occupy his bed for some weeks. Beside him sat his wife,
with red eyes and pale cheeks; on the floor was a cradle, empty; and she,
inadvertently, was rocking it with her foot. Her heart was too full for
words.
Jack looked at the man. Leveridge had turned his face to the wall, and
was breathing hard; and at intervals a convulsive movement interrupted
his long-drawn inspirations. He put up his hand to lay hold of the
coverlet and draw it over his shoulder, and it shook—he could catch hold
of nothing.
Jack did not speak. He thought: Let him cry, it will do him good. Tears
will wash out his fault; and a fault it was in him to neglect home, even
for his political party. Home claims first duties, then come others.
If we begin the other way on, we are setting a steeple weathercock
downwards, and laying the foundations in the clouds.
Presently Leveridge turned his face round, but would not let the light
shine on his eyes; therefore he moved it on the pillow to where it was
crossed by the shadow of his wife. Then he sighed and said, “Such a child
as was my Rosie! There is no angel in heaven like her. Dear me! I was all
for patching of the Constitution, and never mended up my own house. I am
a mason, and did not put a bit of plaster to that crack in the wall; and
the wind blew in on my little Rosie, and the draught killed her. I’m sure
if I were dying——”
“You are not dying,” said his wife; “you are only laid by for a bit.”
“Ay,” said Thomas, “I’m tied to home by my leg, and serve me right; and
now I can’t go to the poll.” He began to kick about.
“You must not do that,” said Mrs. Leveridge. “The doctor said you were to
lie still.”
“I can’t help it, Marianne,” said the mason. “I’m real hearty glad I
can’t go to the poll. It just serves me right, and touches me where
I’m most tender. When I think of what I have done in leaving you alone,
and my Rosie ill, I feel that ashamed as I’d like to dive under the
bedclothes and never come up no more. Now look here, Jack. You are not a
married man, nor thinking of it.”
“No,” said Jack, retreating a step; “I’m rather too young, thank you
kindly.”
“No offence, it was well meant,” said the mason. “What I was going to say
to you——But there, I hear your name called below. Run and see who wants
you.”
The young man descended the stairs. At the foot stood Kate with a
newspaper in her hand.
“Were you calling me?” asked Jack.
“I wanted to know if you’d be so very good as to go over the
advertisements with me,” said Kate timidly. “I am a poor scholar; and I
want to know if there is something in the paper that might suit me.”
“I’ll do it,” said Jack. He took the newspaper and spread it out on the
kitchen table under the latticed window. “Let’s see—what do you want?”
“Go right through, if you please.”
“‘Messrs. Hampton will sell by auction this day that desirable——’”
“No, Jack, I’m not going to stand that.”
“‘Tenders are invited for new offices.’”
“That’s hardly in my way.”
“‘Three thousand gentlemen’s cast-off suits, overcoats, boots——’”
“No, I shouldn’t know what to do with them all.”
“‘Electrical engineering. A vacancy for an articled pupil.’”
Kate hesitated. “I don’t quite understand. I can feed pigs, bake, and
milk. Is it anything to do with that?”
“No; as far as I can make out, it has to do with electioneering.”
“Then I’ll have nothing to say to it. Go on to the next.”
“‘Bake,’ you said. Then here goes. ‘Wanted at once, a man well up in
smalls. State salary.’”
“But I’m not a man. Is there nothing that will suit me?”
“Here is something new,” said Jack, and he began to laugh.
“‘Matrimony.—Bachelor, tall, handsome, healthy, good social position,
possessing gold mines, and £2000 per annum, wishes to meet with a lady
with view to marriage. Send full particulars. State age. Send photo.
Thoroughly genuine.’”
“That’s the situation for me, to a hair! Do answer, Jack. I’m twenty-one.”
“But the photo?”
“I have none.”
“Then what is the good of answering? There will be such a run on this
gentleman.”
“You think so, Jack?”
“Sure of it.”
“But not such desirable females as me.”
“There’s no photo,” said the young man sternly.
“But I can get myself photygraphed.”
“And by that time he will be caught up.”
“You think so?”
“Sure of it.”
“It is very hard to find a place.”
“I don’t quite know what you want. Here are a pair of roller-skates
advertised, and here is a light phaeton.”
“No,” said Kate decidedly. “That’s not matrimonial, and it’s matrimonial
I like: read another.”
“There is no other.”
“Then read over the first again.”
Jack did so. Kate mused.
“Look here, Jack,” said she. “Write for me and give a good description;
and say I’ll be photygraphed the first opportunity.”
“That’s no good—he’ll think you colour yourself too high.”
“But if _you_ describe me, Jack.”
“Well—here goes. Bright eyes, rosy cheeks, with a little dimple just at
the corner of the mouth, and dark hair that shines, and lips—” Jack threw
down the paper on the floor, put his foot on it, and burst forth with,
“Drat it! If it’s matrimonial you want, come along with me back to Sugden
to the parson, and we’ll ask him to read the banns next Sunday. But
perhaps you’re too tired?”
“I—I tired? Bless you, I could run all the way.”
* * * * *
After a few weeks Thomas Leveridge was able to get about; and though he
could not go at once to a distance for work, he was able to do small
jobs near home. The squire came to Woodman’s Well. Complaints had been
made by the sanitary officer that the cottages were ruinous and unhealthy.
“I’ll tell you what,” said he to Leveridge, “I will have them put
into thorough repair and send the bill to old Rumage, who’s got the
life-rights. If he won’t pay, then the cottages are mine.”
“And may I do them up?”
“Most assuredly.”
“That is famous,” said the mason; “then I shall have time to whitewash
and make sweet before the wedding.”
“Wedding? What wedding? I thought there had been a burial—that the place
was insanitary, and that——”
“Well, sir, out of Death cometh Life. A funeral sometimes leads to a
marriage.”
* * * * *