OLD Joseph Frisby stood at his garden gate one fine bright evening in
early spring. A dirty, disreputable-looking old vagabond was he, a
frequenter of the “Pure Drop,” “The True Lovers’ Knot,” “The Three
Choughs,” and every such place of entertainment within reach of his
tottering old legs. This evening he was perforce sober, for he had not
possessed a penny that he could call his own for several months, and the
landlords of the above-named hostelries had unanimously declined to give
him credit. As he stooped over the rickety gate, his lean bent old
figure clad in a tattered linen coat that had once been white, and nether
garments of inconceivably ancient and patched corduroy, he looked forlorn
and miserable enough; there was even a certain pathos in his unwashed,
unshaven face, and his small bleared eyes peered anxiously out of the
network of furrows which surrounded them. Every now and then he placed
his hand over his ear and turned his head as though listening, and
by-and-by the long expected sound for which he had been waiting made
itself heard.
The back door of the neighbouring cottage closed with a bang, and a man
came quickly round the house and down the tiny flagged path through the
little garden, which was already bright with primroses and double
daisies, and opened a gate similar to that on which Joseph was leaning.
He was a wiry elderly man, with a fresh-coloured face framed in iron-grey
whiskers. His garments were very much like those worn by Frisby, except
that they possessed the merit of being clean. He carried a basketful of
potatoes, and a spade and fork rested on his shoulder.
“Good evenin’, neighbour,” said Joseph, straightening himself, and
looking eagerly at him. “Ye be goin’ up to the ’lotments, I d’ ’low?”
“Aye,” said the other, glancing round, but without slackening his pace.
“I’m off to the ’lotments—pretty late, too; I must hurry.”
“Nay now, bide a bit; I want to speak to ye a minute, Jim. Lard! I’ve
waited here nigh upon an hour.”
“Oh, an’ did ye?” said the man called Jim, coming unwillingly back.
“Aye. Ye see ’tis this way. Neighbour Cross, I haven’t touched a drap
this three months, very near.”
“Han’t ye? Well, I’m glad on’t. I’m teetottle myself, an’ ’tis the only
way to get along, I do believe. I’m truly glad to hear ye han’t had no
drunks lately, Joe. Now that ye say so I do call to mind noticin’ that
ye’ve been a-walkin’ uncommon straight—aye, ’tis quite a while since you
was found in a ditch, ’tis sure, and ye haven’t been run in not this
year, I don’t think.”
“Aye,” agreed Joseph, with modest pride. “Ye’re quite right, Jim; I
haven’t been run in this year.”
He paused, rubbing his hands slowly together, and eyeing the well-filled
basket of “sets”.
“We’re gettin’ help from the parish now,” he resumed, “else we couldn’t
make out at all. My pore wife, ye see, she’s reg’lar crippled, an’ not
able to do nothin’, an’ I’m not fit for much—I’m falterin’, neighbour,
an’ farmers hereabouts has a bad opinion o’ me for some raison or
another—I can scarcely ever get a day’s work.”
“’Tis very onfart’nate for ’ee, Joe; ’tis that. But yer luck will change
very like. We must ’ope it will. Well, I must be gettin’ along.”
“Ye be goin’ to plant yer taters,” persisted Joseph; and stretching out
his lean old hand he took hold of the basket. “Them be real fine taters,
neighbour; chock-full of eyes. Lard! if I had but a few of these I’d
soon plant my bit of garden.”
“Haven’t ye got none this year?” inquired Jim, visibly stiffening.
“Not a single one, an’ no cabbage neither. I’m terribly badly off this
year—I don’t know however me an’ the poor body inside ’ll get on. Not a
bit o’ green stuff, an’ not a set to put in the ground. Three-an’-six a
week is every penny we have to look to, an’ ye may think it don’t go very
far. Bread an’ tea, bread an’ tea, an’ not so much as a drop o’ milk
to’t. My missus, she’s that cute along o’ me likin’ a drap now and then,
she wouldn’t let the Union folk give it us in money—we jest hev an order
for half a pound o’ tea once a week, an’ we takes out the rest in bread.
Ah dear! a body has to be clever to live on it, I can tell ’ee.”
He paused, leered insinuatingly in his neighbour’s face, and finally
murmured, still fingering the basket: “If ye was to let me have a few of
these now, neighbour, I could pay ye back i’ th’ autumn.”
Jim dexterously twisted his property away from the trembling hand.
“So that’s what ye’re at!” he cried. “Nay, nay, Joe; I’ve had enough o’
your payin’ back. I know what that manes. You an’ yer missus ’ud make
yer dinner off ’em, if ye didn’t chop the lot for a drink straight off.”
“No, no,” pleaded Joe, almost tearfully; “’tis too bad to say such
things, and take a pore man’s character away. I’ll gi’e ye me Bible
oath—dang me, an’ everythin’ reg’lar by the Book—that I’d put ’em
straight in the ground, Jim Cross.”
“Well, I can’t spare the taters, anyhow,” grumbled Jim. “I’m a pore man
an’ have to purvide for mysel’ an’ my family. I’m sorry I can’t obleege
ye, but so ’tis.”
He walked off, leaving poor old Joe staring blankly after him.
By and by a light quick tread was heard approaching from the opposite
direction, and a dapper-looking young fellow rounded the corner of the
lane, whistling to himself as he advanced. He, too, carried a fork, and
a half-filled sack was flung over his shoulder.
“Goin’ up to the ’lotments?” inquired Joseph falteringly.
“Yes, I’ve jest knocked off work, an’ am goin’ up there for an hour or
two before dark. Fine evenin’, Mr. Frisby.”
“Aye, sure,” said Joseph. “Ye’ve got a grand sackful there, Jan.”
“’Tis a big piece to fill up, Mr. Frisby. We han’t got above half enough
o’ our own. We’ll have to buy some.”
“I haven’t got _one_ to put in my bit o’ ground,” said Joseph
impressively. “What do ye think of that, Jan Domeny? Not one; no, nor
not so much as a stalk o’ cabbage.”
“Well now,” said Jan, “’tis very sad, that, Mr. Frisby. A sorrowful
tale, indeed. May-hap Parson ’ud help ye.”
“Nay,” returned Joseph lugubriously; “we be chapel folk, an’ Parson he
says he han’t got no faith in me.”
“Well, ’tis terrible onfart’nate for ’ee, I’m sure,” returned Mr. Domeny
unconcernedly. “But bad times can’t laist for ever. There’s comfort in
that, Mr. Frisby. The Lard trumpets the wind to the sore lamb, as
Scriptur’ says.”
Having delivered himself of this edifying aphorism, young Jan Domeny
hoisted his sack a little higher up on his shoulder, and strode on.
“They be all alike,” muttered Joe to himself; “they be a stony-hearted
lot. Not one among ’em ’ud gi’e a man a helpin’ hand. Dang ’em all!”
cried Joe, and he thumped upon the gate.
He turned and shuffled slowly towards the house, pushing open the door.
A little old woman was sitting, propped up by pillows, in an armchair
near the hearth. She was almost crippled by rheumatism, yet managed in
some inexplicable way to preserve a tolerable appearance of neatness and
cleanliness, both in her own person and in such of her surroundings as
came within reach of her poor distorted fingers. The hearth was tidy,
for instance, and the kitchen utensils and crockery on the little dresser
behind her chair were bright and clean. It must be supposed that her
husband, who would have been much the better for a share of her
attention, kept himself systematically out of reach.
“Well?” she inquired, eagerly looking up as he entered.
“Well, ’tain’t a bit o’ use. They’ll none o’ them do a thing for me.”
Mrs. Frisby sighed. “Come, sit down anyhow,” she said. “Supper’s ready,
an’ the tea’s drawed beautiful.”
Joe shambled over and sat down. His wife, leaning painfully forward in
her chair, moved the little brown teapot from the hob to the table, and
then, stooping again with yet more difficulty, took up a plateful of dry
toast and proffered it to the old man.
“There!” she said. “I made ye that for a bit of a change. The fire was
burnin’ up so clear an’ nice, I jest thought I’d do it. ’Twill be a nice
change for ’ee, Joseph—’twill sure.”
She spoke in a high quavering voice, peering anxiously the while at her
spouse.
He took a piece of toast and turned it over; then broke off a bit and
flung it on the table.
“’Tis as hard as flint, woman,” he said indignantly. “Where d’ye think I
can find teeth to bite en?”
“Nay now, ’tis not so ’ard as that comes to,” urged she. “I can bite en,
an’ I han’t got a single tooth left. Sop it in yer tea, do ’ee now, an’
it’ll slip down nice.”
“Slip down, indeed! It ’ud want a bit o’ butter, or a bit o’ graise for
that. But here us be—two old ancient folks as has lived in this parish
man an’ wife for fifty-two year, an’ they’ll not so much as gi’e us a
tater.”
[Picture: “They’ll not so much as gi’e us a tater”]
“Yes a tater ’ud be nice, sure,” quavered the old woman. “It ’ud be very
nice.”
“Or a bit o’ green stuff ’ud be nice,” went on Frisby emphatically. “I
could eat this bread if they’d gi’e I a bit o’ green to put to’t. But
no, ’tis ‘_Go away_, _I’ve nothin’ for ’ee_’ all round. There’s every
man an’ bwoy in the place workin’ up at the ’lotments, gettin’ the taters
into the ground as fast as ever they can stick ’em. If they was to gi’e
us half a dozen each they’d never miss it, an’ I could get my bit ’o
ground planted up. But no, they be all took up wi’ theirselves—never a
thought for we.”
Mrs. Frisby rubbed her shrivelled hands together, and sighed.
“Ah, ’tis hard,” she said; “’tis hard, sure.”
And then silence fell between the old couple, and each consumed their
meagre fare without any great appearance of appetite.
Presently Joseph set down his cup, pushed back his chair, and stood up.
“Where be goin’?” asked his wife querulously. “I never seed such a
fidget of a man.”
“I’m goin’ up to the ’lotments,” he responded curtly.
“Laive me a pail o’ water first, do, so as I can be washin’ up. I
reckoned ye’d ha’ helped me a bit to-night—rheumatics is terrible bad.”
Joseph took up the pail without a word and went out; presently an
excruciating creaking and squeaking was heard as he turned the rusty
handle of the windlass.
After some time he hobbled back, the water splashing from the overflowing
bucket at every step.
“Dear! what a mess the man d’ make!” groaned Mrs. Frisby. “Carry it
studdy, for the Lard’s sake. Now sit down, do ’ee, an’ gi’e me a hand.”
“Nay, I’m off,” responded her lord in surly tones; and in another moment
the garden gate creaked on its hinges, and his departing steps fell
heavily on the lane outside.
This somewhat circuitous path led first past a horse-pond, then skirted
the beautifully kept churchyard, with the ancient, ivy-grown edifice in
the centre. Then it darted off at an abrupt angle, apparently to avoid
encroaching on the farm premises in the rear of the church, where the
picturesque building which had once been a tithe-barn was now devoted to
humbler purposes. The lane ceased at its junction with the high road,
but crossing the latter, and following the footpath for a little way,
Joseph came to another lane which, after a few hundred yards, became a
steep ascent.
The blackthorn was still in flower here and there in the hedges, which
accounted, as the country folk would have said, for the peculiarly keen
and chilly quality of the evening blast; but the twisted twigs of the
more genial hawthorn were powdered, as it were, with a delicate dust of
green. Trailing tendrils of honeysuckle were already in full leaf, and
young saplings of elder stretched out slender bare limbs tufted at the
ends with crimson. Downy catkins, moreover, on many a willow bough gave
further promise of the rapid approach of the “Sweet o’ the Year;” and
there were violets in the banks, and here and there a patch of primroses;
and a glory of dandelions everywhere.
But poor old Joe Frisby, as he toiled painfully up the stony incline, had
no eye for any of these trivialities; his mind was set upon more weighty
matters—he was bent, indeed, upon nothing less important than an appeal
to the community at large. Singly the neighbours had rejected and
despised his petition; taken collectively they might, for very shame’s
sake, be moved to grant it. No man, as Joseph dimly felt, likes his
individual generosity to be overmuch counted upon; but a whole
community—each member making quite sure that his neighbour does as much
as he—may sometimes be persuaded to accede to a claim which all alike
acknowledge.
Now voices fell upon his ear, accompanied by the sound of spades at work.
An opening in the hedge revealed a gate towards which Joseph made his
way. On the other side lay the allotments; narrow strips of ground, most
of which were already broken up into brown ridges, while a few were still
encumbered with the lingering stalks of last year’s cabbages, or an
untidy growth of weeds. On this propitious evening the place seemed
alive with men and women; some delving, some hoeing, some cutting up the
“sets”—not a patch of ground but had its occupant. Every one was busy
and every one seemed merry. Jan Domeny, with coat flung off and
shirt-sleeves rolled high, was lustily chanting a three-year-old
music-hall ditty, which had just found its way to Dorset. Further away
the bent back of Jim Cross formed a moving arch against the sky-line; a
grandchild had joined him, and was trotting along beside him carrying the
basket of potatoes.
Joseph stood leaning over the gate for a little while, his eyes
travelling slowly from one group to another; after long hesitation he
passed in and walked deliberately up the grassy track which divided two
batches of the allotments. Many of the workers looked up a moment with a
word or nod of recognition, and Joseph nodded back, paused as if to
speak, hesitated, and then went on. At last he reached the centre of the
ground, and there came to a halt. He took off his battered hat,
flourished it to attract attention, and began, pitching his quavering
voice as high as he could:—
“Neighbours all, I’ve summat to say to ’ee.”
“Hello!” cried the man nearest to him, straightening himself and staring.
“Here’s old Joe Frisby turned Methody praicher.”
“Nay, he’ve a-jined the Salvation Army, sure,” cried another, who was
himself a regular subscriber to the “War Cry”.
“I know what he’s after,” muttered Jan, working away very diligently.
“Don’t you take no heed, none of you.”
“I’ve been countin’ of ye up,” pursued Joseph, leaning on his stick and
looking nervously round. “Here be twenty chaps workin’ in the ’lotments;
aye, twenty chaps, not reckonin’ women and childern, an’ ye be all
puttin’ in taters. An’ here am I wi’ my garden at home waitin’ to be
planted, an’ not a bit o’ seed to put in it.”
“I telled ’ee, didn’t I?” muttered Jan to his nearest neighbour. “I
knowed ’twas that he was at.”
“I’ve lived among ye man and bwoy for seventy-five year. Aye, an’ my
wife an’ me has been wed among ye fifty-two year. There she d’ sit at
home crippled, poor soul. We’ve nought in the world but what parish
gives us. Half a pound o’ tea a week, an’ some bread. Bread an’ tea,
neighbours, bread an’ tea; ’tisn’t very satisfyin’ to the innards. Me
an’ my wife was never great folks for mate, but we d’ like a tater to our
dinner, or a bit o’ green stuff. An’ so I’ve a-bin thinkin’—”
He looked round again, hesitatingly and pitifully.
“’Tis a mortal sight o’ taters as is here among ye between one an’
another—aye, a mortal lot. I d’ ’low”—again the pause and the appealing
glance—“if every man ’ud spare me a few like I’d get two or three ranks
made up without any of ye bein’ at much loss.”
The bystanders looked at each other, then each man glanced involuntarily
at his own store. None of them were over well endowed with this world’s
goods, and the calculations of each had been made to a nicety. Old Jim
Cross continued to work without turning his head, and Jan Domeny smiled
somewhat sarcastically.
“Why, ye see ’tis this way, Joseph,” said a large mild man, with an
habitually puzzled expression of countenance; “we be pore folks, all on
us; we’ve a many little mouths to feed, an’ not much to put in ’em. An’
what wi’ prices goin’ up an’ rent day a-comin’ round so often like, a
man’s hand d’ seem to be always in his pocket, an’ it’s give, give, an’
pay, pay, ever an’ always, d’ye see? Now my taters,” he cast a
calculating eye upon the half-filled sack at his feet, “they’ll not go so
far to make up three ranks for ourselves, an’ three ranks is the least we
can do wi’. Aye, wi’ a houseful of growin’ childern taters d’ last—well,
I mid say they lasses next to no time.”
His hearers drew a long breath of relief. If Ed’ard Boyt, who was well
known to be a poor man with a long family, had been imprudently generous,
what might not be expected of other folks who might be supposed better
able to afford him assistance?
“Aye, ’tis very true what Ed’ard says. Charity d’ begin at home. It ’ud
seem a bit ’ard to go a-buyin’ for oneself along of helpin’ a neighbour,”
said somebody.
“Aye, I d’ ’low ’tis true,” agreed another.
“True enough, sure!” chimed in a third.
“We be sarry for ’ee,” summed up a fourth; “aye, we be very sarry for
’ee, Joseph, but ’tis the onfart’nate natur’ o’ things as pore folks d’
have to do the best they can.”
Then, amid a general chorus of regretful approval, spades were plied, and
backs were bent as before.
Joe shambled back to the gate again, and stood for some time leaning over
it and staring at the toilers. His face was very red, and his loose
irregular under-lip trembled. A few furtive glances were cast in his
direction, but no one spoke, and after a time he turned and went down the
lane again, his bent form, clad in its shabby white coat, travelling
slowly past gap after gap in the hedge until it drifted out of the range
of vision of the workers. As he walked, however, his heart was hot
within him with rage and disappointment and a bitter sense of injustice.
“They’ll lave me to starve,” he said to himself; “an’ I’ve a-lived among
’em for seventy-five year.”
His sense of injury deepened each time that he recalled this fact, and he
shook his head vengefully.
As he tottered on his resentment gradually suggested to him a startling
plan of action. He thought of it all the way down the lane and across
the road, and along by the tithe-barn and the church, and by the time he
came to the horse-pond his mind was made up.
“A man must live,” he said. “If other folks won’t help en he must help
hisself.”
There was a fine moon that night, and had any one been abroad an hour or
so after midnight, he would have marked a white shape creeping slowly up
the lane which led to the allotments, and presently entering in at the
gate already described, and moving from one newly planted patch of ground
to another.
“Only three from Ed’ard because he’ve a-spoke me fair,” murmured Joseph
to himself; “an’ I’ll not take ’em altogether, neither. I wouldn’t lave
the pore chap wi’ a great gap in the rank.”
Joseph dropped something carefully into the sack which he carried over
his arm, and then he drew together the disturbed clods and patted them
down. Then waddling along with his legs across the drill he cautiously
removed another “set,” and then another.
“That’ll do for Ed’ard,” he muttered. “’Tis for feedin’ the pore, so the
Lard’ll make it up to en. Now, Jan, I’ll take a good few from ’ee,
because ye be a danged ’ard-’arted chap. An’ I don’t care where I d’
take ’em, nor if it do make gaps—nay, that I don’t. Ye’ve a-sowed, an’
ye’ve a-watered, so to speak, Jan, but I d’ ’low that it’ll sarve ’ee
right if the Lard don’t give ’ee no increase.”
He unearthed the “sets,” taking every precaution, however, to make the
ground look undisturbed. He went the rounds, in fact, till his sack was
nearly full, and then beat a retreat, carrying home his booty unobserved.
It chanced that Jim Cross, waking with the dawn, fancied he heard the
sound of a spade in the next garden. On his way to work, a little later
on, he observed that a goodly portion of Joseph’s patch of ground was
indeed freshly dug up. Joseph was standing by the gate as usual, and
nodded affably as his neighbour passed.
“I see ye’ve a-bin diggin’,” remarked Jim, pausing with a surprised
expression. “Looks as if ye was a-gettin’ the ground ready for taters.”
“Well, an’ maybe I am a-gettin’ the ground ready for taters,” returned
Joseph warmly. “I puts my trust where trust be due. My fellow-creatur’s
have a-turned their backs on me, so I looks to the Lard. Aye,” repeated
Joseph, turning up his eyes piously, “I looks to the Lard for ’elp, Jim
Cross. The Lard’ll purvide.”
Jim was much impressed.
“I’ve put me trust in Providence,” pursued Joseph, peering at him
cautiously out of the corner of his eye; “and to show as I’ve a-put my
trust in Providence, I’m a-gettin’ ready my bit o’ ground. When the Lard
sends me them taters, neighbour, he’ll find I ready.”
Jim looked hard at him, and Joseph folded his arms and looked back
steadily and mildly.
“I don’t bear ’ee no grudge, Jim,” he went on. “I don’t bear nobody no
grudge, but I do put my trust in the Lard.”
Jim went on his way, scratching his head from time to time, and casting
back sundry furtive glances at his neighbour, who suddenly appeared to
him in a new and impressive light.
When he disappeared Joseph went back to his digging, his countenance
still wearing an expression of aggrieved virtue. After much pondering on
his own conduct, and the circumstances which had led up to it, he had
come to look upon himself rather in the light of a martyr, and to
consider his recent action not only justifiable, but in a certain sense
inspired. He was, therefore, scarcely surprised when, late that evening,
Jim Cross came up to him with a deprecating air.
“Me an’ a few of ’em yonder have been a-talkin’ about you, Joseph,” he
remarked.
“Have ye?” responded Joseph, with an air of lordly unconcern.
“Aye. We was sayin’ it did seem a bit ’ard to disapp’int ’ee like, when
you was so trustful an’ patient, so we agreed as we’d try an’ spare ’ee a
few ‘sets’ between us. As I did say, the Lard’ll make it up to we; an’ I
d’ think He will, neighbour.”
“He will, sure,” agreed Joseph solemnly, as he held out his grimy hand
for the basket which Jim respectfully tendered him.
Next came Ed’ard Boyt with a small, a very small bagful, but a heart
overflowing with good-will. Joseph thanked him for his contribution
almost with the air of one bestowing a benediction.
“’Tis very well done of ’ee, Ed’ard; an’ ye’ll not be no loser. Nay,
you’ll see how things ’ll turn out wi’ ye.”
One after another they came, ending with Jan Domeny, whom Frisby received
a little distantly, but on the whole forgivingly.
“’Tis but a pore lot as ye’ve brought me, Jan. I d’ ’low as Ed’ard Boyt
have done better nor you. Aye, he’ve done very well for he, such a pore
man as he be, an’ such a long fam’ly as he have.”
“Why, we’ve a-had to buy, Mr. Frisby,” returned Jan apologetically. “But
there, I’ll see if we can spare a few more, an’ fetch ’em round
to-morrow.”
“To-morrow ’ll do very well,” agreed Joseph generously; and so they
parted.
Then Frisby fell to work with a joyful heart, setting out first of all
the potatoes which he had purloined, and which he had originally designed
to plant surreptitiously by night, intending, when the first shoots made
their appearance, to assure his neighbours that they had sprung
miraculously from the ground. This was better: moreover the second
edition of “sets” was much larger than the first, and he now found
himself in a position to stock his entire garden.
“The Lard ’elps them as ’elps theirselves,” he said to himself once more,
as he waded solemnly up and down the drills.
From that day forward Joseph Frisby was respected by all the village
folk. He had “got religion,” to begin with—more religion than anybody
had credited him with, and he had evidently been singled out by Heaven
for special favours. His crop prospered wonderfully; people were quite
amazed to see the marvellous return made by their contributions, and were
the more astonished because other small producers had not found it such a
very good year for taters. There were many gaps among the ranks at the
allotments, and it was noticeable that Jan Domeny, in particular, had
suffered severely.
No one was more loud in commiserating this misfortune than Joseph Frisby.
“The ways of Providence be wonderful, as the Scriptur’s say, Jan Domeny,”
he remarked one day. “Aye, ’tis what I often d’ say to myself: a man may
plant and a man may water, but ’tis the Lard as gives the increase.”
“Well,” returned Jan, a little grudgingly, “I d’ ’low that He’ve a-gi’ed
it to you, Mr. Frisby.”
“He have, Jan; He have!” agreed Joseph heartily.
“THE ONLY SOLDIER.”
A LITTLE group of houses nestling in the hollow near the church, about
half a mile from the village proper; all with tiled roofs more or less
the worse for wear, and in consequence highly picturesque, tiny patches
of flower-garden in front, and larger strips, devoted to vegetables, in
the rear. Some of these cottages stood back to back, others retired a
little from their fellows, and one shot out at a bold angle from its
neighbour with a certain independent air which was increased by the
rakish poise of its somewhat dilapidated chimney.
As the hands of the ancient grandfather’s clock in this last-named
dwelling-house approached the hour of noon, a short, spare, elderly woman
threw open the door and took up her position on the carefully whitened
step. She looked expectantly up the road in the direction of the
village, and of the town beyond.
Presently another couple of doors were thrown back, and two additional
figures—the figures of Mrs. Stuckhey’s nearest neighbours—also emerged
into the open and cast glances of anticipation in the same direction.
The coincidence seemed to strike one of the party, a fat woman with a
good-humoured face and untidy wisps of greyish hair escaping from the
control of the solitary and crooked brass hairpin which was supposed to
keep them in their place.
“We be all on the look-out, we mid say,” she remarked. “I be awaitin’
for the childern. ’Tis time they were home from school. I have to send
David on a message before he goes back after dinner.”
“My son d’ seen to be a bit late too,” chimed in the lady whose doorstep
was parallel to that of the last speaker; a somewhat vixenish-looking
person this, with a pinched and pointed nose, and a sour mouth that
seldom smiled. “He be kept awful busy up at the line,” she continued
fretfully. “He do seem to work twice so hard as he did since that there
old war began. I d’ wish it was ended, that I do.”
“There’s more than you wishes that, Mrs. Woolridge,” said the owner of
the independent house, folding her arms and holding up her head with a
certain assumption of dignity. “Them that has friends out there—them
that has _sons_ out there, they be the folks as wish the war was well
over; and they do do it, Mrs. Woolridge—I d’ ’low they do.”
“An’ so they may,” retorted Mrs. Woolridge acidly. “I’m sure I can’t
think what ever makes folks go to be soldiers! I wouldn’t have my son a
soldier—no, not if he was to go down on his bended knees I wouldn’t
agree.”
“Well, I don’t go so far as that,” returned Mrs. Stuckhey. “It d’ seem a
bit hard, I d’ ’low, to part wi’ ’em; but ’tis a fine thing for to serve
Queen and country, and I d’ feel so to speak proud o’ my Joe. E-es, I
mid say I am proud of him! It’s summat, after all, to think as he’s the
only soldier in the place—the only soldier in Riverton.”
“An’ a good job too,” retorted Mrs. Woolridge; “I’m glad there bain’t no
more on ’em. If there wasn’t no soldiers there wouldn’t be no wars; and
to my mind wars is wicked things—reg’lar flying in the face o’
Providence.”
“Nay, now,” put in good-natured Mrs. Blanchard, “I’m sure everybody, high
and low, the gentry and sich as we together, all d’ seem to think the
world o’ the soldiers. And it be quite natural as you should feel a bit
proud, Mrs. Stuckhey, my dear, seeing as your son is the only soldier as
comes fro’ this here village. Why, we was a-prayin’ for the soldiers
to-week, Mrs. Woolridge, so I can’t think as war can be anyways wicked.”
“E-es, indeed,” agreed Susan Stuckhey, addressing herself pointedly to
the last speaker, for she had been somewhat hurt by Mrs. Woolridge’s
remarks. “I d’ ’low I could very near ha’ cried o’ Sunday, when the
service was gi’ed out for the soldiers, seein’ as all the prayers in this
place was a-goin’ up for my Joe. I went round to the rectory afterwards,
and I did thank the Reverend. ‘’Tis very kind o’ ye, I’m sure, sir,’
says I, ‘to take so much trouble for my son.’ ‘What trouble, Susan?’
says he, looking a bit dazy like. ‘Why, the service, sir,’ says I. ‘All
the long prayers, and the collect, and all—for our soldiers, you know.
My Joe be the only soldier from Riverton.’ So now when he do meet me he
do al’ays ax, ‘Any noos, Susan, from our only soldier?’ That reminds me,
postman be late to-day, bain’t he? The mail do come in from abroad
to-day, d’ye see, and I’m on the look-out for a letter.”
Mrs. Blanchard and Mrs. Stuckhey craned their heads once more, peering
anxiously up the road; but Mrs. Woolridge remained ostentatiously
immovable.
“I thought that was what fetched you out,” she remarked ungraciously. “I
suppose you’ll ’low as postmen be o’ some use. It d’ seem to me as they
d’ serve their country just so well as soldiers; and there’s others as
serves their country too. I reckon as my son Robert d’ serve his country
better nor any soldier. What ’ud the country do wi’out trains?”
Mrs. Stuckhey smiled pityingly, and replied in a tone of dignified
amusement, “They be useful too, no doubt, in their way; but ye’ll hear
different to your notion, Mrs. Woolridge. ‘Soldiers of the Queen,’ you
know: they stand high, d’ye see—more partic’lar jest now. ‘Your
country’s love to you!’—nobody wouldn’t go for to say that to a postman,
would they now? nor yet to a man what was workin’ on the line.”
“And that’s true,” agreed Mrs. Blanchard.
Mrs. Woolridge tossed her head.
“Well, I think there’s a deal too much fuss made about them soldiers,”
she said—“not meanin’ your son in partic’lar, Mrs. Stuckhey, but the lot
of ’em; and I can’t think as the Lard’s blessin’ can rest on this here
war. It d’ stand to reason as it can’t—sendin’ up the price o’
everythin’, and makin’ it so hard for the poor to live. Why, the very
price o’ coal be doubled very near. Don’t tell me as the A’mighty can
approve o’ that.”
A faint colour overspread the sallow cheek of the soldier’s mother, and
there is no knowing how severe might have been her retort had not the
long-expected form of the one-armed postman chanced to round the corner
at this juncture, escorted by some five or six juvenile Blanchards.
As he drew near he was observed to fumble in his bag, and presently
halted before the group of matrons, his face wreathed with smiles.
“I’ve got summat for ’ee to-day, Mrs. Stuckhey. Noos fro’ the front; a
letter fro’ the soldier.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Susan, and her small black eyes twinkled as she thrust
forward an eager hand.
The postman detached one letter from the packet which he drew forth from
his bag, and, after it had passed from his possession, proceeded to
tighten the string which was tied round the remainder, his teeth coming
very deftly to the assistance of his fingers.
“He be with Buller, bain’t he?” he inquired, casting a sidelong glance at
the mother as she hastily unfastened the envelope.
“E-es, he’s wi’ _Mr._ Buller,” corrected Mrs. Stuckhey.
“Mr. Buller! Be that what ye d’ call him?” and the postman’s keen eyes
twinkled.
“Well, it do seem more respectful like for I. Joe, he do say the
General; but it seems more natural for me to say Mr. Buller.”
“I thought it was Lord Buller,” observed Mrs. Blanchard doubtfully.
“Well, never mind; Buller’s enough for I,” said the postman. “Does your
son chance to say if they’re pretty near Ladysmith now?”
His much-frayed string seemed somewhat knotted, and opportunities of
hearing news direct from the front were sufficiently rare to justify a
little extra care in disentangling it.
Mrs. Stuckhey drew forth and unfolded the missive, and her audience duly
composed themselves. Even Mrs. Woolridge was conscious of a certain
unwilling interest which she endeavoured to disguise by an attitude of
indifference—head thrown back, nose screwed up, hands planted negligently
on hips.
“My dear Mother,” read Mrs. Stuckhey, “It is with the greatest of
pleasure that I write these few lines hoping you are well as it
leaves me at present.”
This was merely the formula by which Soldier Joe, who was a person of
some education, considered it necessary to inaugurate his letters; and
the information which it ostensibly conveyed was not intended to be taken
literally, as was proved by the fact that on one occasion this
conventional statement had been immediately followed by the announcement
that he was wounded and in hospital.
“I have got Back to the front Again and we are going to make another
start for Ladysmith before long.”
“Why, I thought they was close to Ladysmith by now,” interrupted the
postman. “The papers said yesterday they was but eight mile away.”
“Ah, you can’t trust them papers,” said Mrs. Blanchard in a tone of
conviction. “They do exaggerate, them papers; they just prints a lot o’
lies in ’em to make ’em sell.”
“Very like your son have made a mistake,” observed Mrs. Woolridge
loftily. “Joe, he’s but young.”
“Well, it stands to reason as them that’s on the spot must know better
what’s goin’ on nor them that’s miles an’ miles away,” retorted Mrs.
Stuckhey with some heat. “This here noos comes direct.”
It did not seem to occur to any one that the tidings in question were
three weeks old.
She fell to the reading of her letter again, spelling out the words
slowly, and running the sentences one into another; indeed it might have
been a little difficult to do otherwise, for Joe used capital letters
impartially, and absolutely disdained stops.
“You may bet there won’t be no turning Back this time I hope you are
saving the Papers for me and I hope when Ladysmith is Relieved you
will hang out a Flag and give us Three cheers we deserve it I can
Tell you dear Mother when the bullets are whistling round you it is
not exactly Pleasant but they don’t like the cold Steel and I hope we
shall get near enough to give them that I should like a Dig at the
man what shot me give my best Love to Maria and Jane I Fancy you was
all thinking of me on Christmas day I hope you had Roast beef and
enjoyed yourselves we had only a Dirty old stew in hospital it will
be a Good day when I come home you must have a Ox ready and as many
spuds as would grow in the garden for two or three years dear Mother
I think there is no more this time give my love to all friends and
don’t Forget the Flag.
“From your loving son,
“JOSEPH STUCKHEY.”
“Ah!” commented the mother, wiping her eyes, “I d’ ’low we did think o’
him on Christmas Day. Maria—that’s my maid what’s in service at
Bourne—she were here for her holiday; and Jane, my married daughter, you
know, she come over wi’ her husband and childern. We’d ha’ been a merry
party if Joe’d been here; but we did talk of him a’most wi’ every
mouthful.”
The postman finished tying the last knot, and slung his bag round under
his empty sleeve.
“I must be getting on,” he said. He would repeat items from Joe
Stuckhey’s letter in the various villages through which he passed in
making his round.
“Well, to be sure, ’tis nice to hear direct,” observed Mrs. Blanchard,
slowly backing into her house, and almost tumbling over two of three of
her offspring as she did so.
Mrs. Woolridge sniffed, scratched her elbows with an absent air, cast
another frowning glance up the road, and finding her son was not in sight
betook herself indoors.
The soldier’s mother went in too, sat down to her dinner—a cold one, for,
being a washerwoman by profession, Monday was a busy day with her, and
she would not waste time even in boiling herself a “spud” or two. She
spread out Joe’s letter on the table and meditated over it while she ate.
“I’ll get a flag,” she said to herself. “E-es, I must get a little flag.
And when my Joe do come back he shall have as good a bit of roast beef as
I can buy, bless him!”
As she went about her work that day her gaze wandered, even more
frequently than usual, to Joe’s portrait, which hung in a prominent
position over the mantelpiece. This work of art had been presented by
the young soldier to his mother soon after he had enlisted. He had not
spared expense, and the result, though somewhat wooden in attitude and
uneasy in expression, was eminently satisfactory to her.
While she wrung out her clothes or hung them on the line she crooned to
herself the refrain of the popular ditty, “Tommy Atkins,” altering the
name of the hero to suit her own taste:—
“Oh-h, Joey, Joey Stuckhey,
You’re a good one, heart and hand,
You’re a credit to your country,
And to all your native land.
May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true—
“And that it will, I’ll be bound; there never were a more lovin’ lad.
How he did hug I, to be sure, afore he left last time.”
It will be observed that Susan’s reading of the line was not quite the
same as that intended by the author of the song. She wiped her eyes,
sighed, and resumed with renewed energy:—
“May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true.
God bless you, Joey Stuckhey,
Here’s your country’s lo-o-o-o-ve to you!”
She threw so much expression into the last line that the word _love_
expanded into a polysyllable.
A few days later news flew round the parish that Ladysmith had actually
been relieved; the authority vouched for being no less than that of her
Majesty the Queen. The baker brought the news to Riverton. His eyes
appeared ready to jump from his head with excitement as he made the
announcement.
“You’ll be hearin’ bells a-ringin’ to-night,” he said. “Ah, they be
runnin’ up flags all over the place a’ready. And they do say as they be
a-goin’ to ’luminate.”
“Flags!” ejaculated Mrs. Stuckhey. “I must get a flag at once. I’ll
start so soon as I’ve a-had my tea. I wish I’d a-got it afore; but my
son—him that’s the only soldier here, you know, baker—he did say when he
last wrote as they was but startin’ to relieve Ladysmith.”
“I can scarce believe as the noos be true,” observed pessimistic Mrs.
Woolridge. “I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to get that flag if I was
you.”
“Well, I should think the Queen ought to know,” retorted her neighbour
with spirit. “I’m a-goin’ to get it, anyhow.”
“I’ll go along with ’ee, my dear,” cried Mrs. Blanchard, who was always
ready for an outing. “I can’t afford no flags myself, but I’m sure I
wish ’ee well, an’ am pleased at your son’s success. I’ve only got to
give the childern their tea, and clean me a bit, and put on bonnet and
shawl, and I’ll be ready.”
The baker’s cart jolted away and the two women hastened indoors. It took
Mrs. Blanchard some time to complete her preparations, and it was past
six o’clock by the time they reached the little town.
The market-place presented an unusually gay appearance: bunting floated
from the church tower, the Corn Exchange, and all the principal
buildings; rows of light were already appearing in many of the windows;
groups of people stood about, laughing, talking, singing; many of them
cheered as newcomers arrived upon the scene and were told the news.
Mrs. Stuckhey and her friend, having purchased the flag, attached
themselves to one of the groups in question, and heard how the tidings
had first come “down the line,” and how, subsequently, a telegram had
arrived at the Royal George. Mrs. Stuckhey was in the act of expatiating
on the information conveyed in her son’s letter when, with a mighty
clang, the bells rang out.
“They’re at it,” cried a man, detaching himself from the knot of people
the better to flourish his hat. “Three cheers for Buller and White.
Hip—hip—hip—”
“Hurray!” roared the crowd.
Cling, cling, clang! chimed the bells.
Then all at once, no one knew how, the merry-making ceased, the cheerful
jangling came to an end, the ringers loosing the ropes so suddenly that
the bells continued to swing for some little time longer, sending forth
occasional slow faint notes of most funereal sound. As anxious glances
sought the church tower the flag was seen to have disappeared; moreover,
it was observed that the kindred trophy which had proudly surmounted the
Corn Exchange was being hauled down. What had happened—what was wrong?
The disappointing news soon flew from mouth to mouth: it was all a
mistake. Ladysmith was not relieved after all. Someone had just
telegraphed from London to say that there was no foundation for the
report. The War Office had, in fact, declared it to be false.
“’Tis my belief as that there War Office don’t know so very much,”
remarked Mrs. Stuckhey, indignant in her disappointment. “When my son
Joe was wounded they did send me a very nice letter, to be sure—Lord
Lansdowne I believe it was from, and a beautiful hand his lordship do
write—but he didn’t tell I nothin’ about it—not whether ’twas in his arm,
or leg, or nowhere in partic’lar. So there, I just sent him a telegraft
to ax how my son were, and he never took no notice. Don’t ’ee tell I as
he knows what’s going forrard better nor the Queen.”
“Well, but they do say now as the Queen didn’t say nothin’,” said
somebody ruefully.
The lights were being blown out, the flags removed; people were returning
homewards. Mrs. Stuckhey, still unconvinced and irate, was constrained
to follow their example, clutching her little sixpenny flag in its paper
wrapper.
“Lard! how awful molloncolly that there bell do sound,” groaned Mrs.
Blanchard dolefully. “Dear, to be sure, a body mid think as it were
tollin’ for a funeral.”
“There, my dear, don’t ’ee talk so foolish,” responded Susan with some
acerbity. “’Tis but the ringers as has left the ropes a-swingin’. I
should be ashamed, Mary Blanchard, to go a-givin’ way like that, and you
with all them childern, as ought to know better.”
“I be that nervish, d’ye see. Lard, I do feel shaky all over. I have a
kind o’ porsentiment as summat have a-happened—that I have, and I can’t
say no different, Mrs. Stuckhey, not if it be to please you.”
At this moment the pair were overtaken by a stout, elderly man, who,
recognising them as he passed, turned to greet the person whom the news
might be supposed to concern most nearly.
“Good evenin’ to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey; this here be very disapp’intin’,
bain’t it?”
Susan responded with a little “dip,” for Farmer Joyce was the principal
inhabitant of Riverton.
“E-es, sir, it be a bit disapp’intin’, I d’ ’low, but I reckon we’ll be
hearin’ to-morrow as the good noos be true, and ’tis but the War Office
what have made a mistake.”
“I dunno, I’m sure,” returned the farmer, heaving a deep sigh. “Them
there Boers be a queer lot. I did never hear tell o’ sich folks. They
do seem to be here, there, and everywhere, all at once as mid be—poppin’
up jist same as rabbits in warren. Ah,” he cried, delighted with his own
simile, and anxious if possible to improve it, “it be jist same as if our
troops were a-fightin’ o’ rabbits—rabbits wi’ guns,” he added with a
chuckle.
“Well, my son do say as they don’t like the cold steel,” remarked Mrs.
Stuckhey cautiously. “My son didn’t seem noways afeared on ’em. Says
he, when he did last write, says he, ‘I should like a dig at the man what
shot me’.”
“Ah, and did he?” said Mr. Joyce much impressed. “Well now, that was a
good sayin’. A dig! Haw, haw?” here the farmer came to a standstill in
the road to laugh more at his ease. “He’d like to give him a dig, would
he?—haw, haw!—I d’ ’low he would. And ’tis but nat’ral, d’ye see, Mrs.
Stuckhey,” he continued more seriously as he rolled forward again.
“Nobody couldn’t blame the chap for wishin’ to stick the man as put a
bullet in en—they couldn’t, indeed. Ye can’t expect a soldier to turn
the other cheek, can ye now? But them Boers be jist same as rabbits—’tis
what I do say constant. But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw,
haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us? Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey,
and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard. We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos
soon.”
But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic. To the country
at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph,
but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey,
Riverton’s only soldier.
The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends
and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces. Who shall tell how
the tidings were first broken to her, the faltering incredulous words she
said, her bewildered grief?
A day or two after her home was made desolate Farmer Joyce, standing by
his gate, happened to see her returning from the town, accompanied by
Mrs. Blanchard, both of them burdened with a multiplicity of small
parcels.
“Ah,” he said, greeting her with a groan of sympathy, “ye’ll ha’ been
gettin’ o’ your deep Mrs. Stuckhey.”
“E-es, sir, I did have a few little things to get afore Sunday. There
weren’t no sich hurry as usual when there be a death in th’ family—no
funeral, you know. Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as
there bain’t no funeral! ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything.
If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done
his last, Mr. Joyce. If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from
me in England.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey. They do say as the poor
dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad. E-es, they do say
so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the
country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for
en no more nor you can now. I’ve a-been told as there be some
graveyards, Mrs. Stuckhey—and not so far away neither—as be just same as
rabbit warrens; you wouldn’t never think there was no co’pses in them at
all.”
“Dear, now, to think of that!” ejaculated Susan, almost forgetting her
grief in her scandalised amazement.
“E-es, indeed, they telled I that. Things mid be worse, ye see. Not but
what I do sympathise for ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey. It be a terrible
visitation—an’ you a lone woman, and him your only son—I d’ ’low it be a
terrible visitation. There bain’t a single person in Riverton village as
don’t feel for ’ee.”
“Ah-h-h, ’tis true, sir, ’tis true,” put in Mrs. Blanchard, shaking her
head. “There do seem to ha’ comed quite a gloom over the place since the
sad noos come. E-es, I may say so, quite a gloom. And us as was all
rej’ycin’ such a few days ago about Ladysmith, you know, as weren’t
relieved at all. Dear, yes, how well I do mind it. I did say then,
didn’t I, Mrs. Stuckhey? as bell sounded just same as if ’twere
a-tollin’. Them was my very words, and I did go all shivery down my back
and feeled quite nervish. ’Twas a token, I do r’aly believe. There was
bell a-tollin’ o’ Wednesday as ’twere Monday poor Joe was killed.”
“Ah, dear, ’tis that what comes most cruel hard of all,” groaned the poor
mother. “There was I laughin’ and talkin’ wi’ the rest, and my poor Joe
stiff an’ cold.”
“E-es, indeed, Mrs. Stuckhey,” returned the farmer, winking away a tear
from his own kindly eyes, “it do seem hard, I d’ ’low; the ways o’
Providence be oncomprehensible, as the Bible do say. I d’ ’low, this
here do seem very providential.”
“I don’t think I’d ha’ minded so much if he’d a-been struck down after
they’d won the victory, d’ye see,” went on Susan. “Nay, I could ha’ bore
it better—I could have felt as his life weren’t took for nothin’; but to
think as he were cut off when they’d only just started as he did tell I
in his last letter. That they took en and shot en and ’tweren’t no use.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee say that, Mrs. Stuckhey, don’t ’ee go for to say
that.” And Farmer Joyce brought down his fist emphatically on the low
wall near which he was standing. “He gave his life for summat, you may
depend. ’Twas in doin’ good work as he fell; and that there work ull go
on, and ull end well, and your son ull ha’ helped to make it end well.
Now, see here, this be the way to look at it. A wall’s a wall, bain’t
it?” And he brought down his fist upon the coping again.
Both women, staring blankly at him, acceded to this incontrovertible
statement.
“Well, and an army’s an army—ye’ll admit that.”
They admitted it.
“Well, and what be a wall made on? Stones or bricks. This here wall be
made o’ stones. And what be an army made on? Men. Do ye take me?
There wouldn’t be no wall if there weren’t no stones, and there wouldn’t
be no army if there weren’t no men. And more”—raising his voice as he
warmed to his subject—“there wouldn’t be no wall if some o’ them stones
wasn’t laid underground for the foundations; and there wouldn’t be no
army if there wasn’t no fightin’, an’ some o’ the men wasn’t killed. An’
’tis my belief, Mrs. Stuckhey, as your Joe, what has got killed an’ been
put underground, is one o’ the foundations o’ the British army. An’ when
that there army marches into Ladysmith, as it be sure to do, your Joe ull
ha’ done as much as any man to get it there.”
Poor Susan smiled and wiped her eyes, and held up her head with a sort of
pitiful pride.
“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, for them words,” she said. “They be a’most the
first bit o’ comfort I’ve a-had.”
“I’m sure Mr. J’yce do speak beautiful,” murmured Mrs. Blanchard
admiringly. “There, I never heared the like, not without ’twas out of a
noospaper. I’m sure it did ought to comfort ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey.”
“Nay, now, ’tis nothin’ to speak on,” returned Mr. Joyce modestly. “My
mind do seem to turn to them parodies easy like. D’ye mind about the
rabbits? ‘Rabbits wi’ guns,’ says I. Haw, haw! I can scarce tell how
them notions do come to my mind.”
“It be wonderful, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “As I do tell Mrs.
Stuckhey, it ought to comfort her, poor soul. Mrs. Stuckhey have just
been a-layin’ out five-and-sixpence for something rather
partic’lar—haven’t ’ee, my dear? I d’ ’low Mr. J’yce ’ud like to see
what you’ve got in that there parcel.”
“He be welcome, I’m sure,” said Susan, wiping her eyes again and
sniffing.
She drew from under her cloak a round object carefully enveloped in
tissue paper.
“I’d like to show it to ’ee, sir, if I mid make so bold. There, I got me
this wi’ a few shillin’ I’d been a-layin’ by for to make a kind o’ little
feast for my son when he did come home. I wasn’t never expectin’ as he
wouldn’t come home, ye know; there did seem to be so many of ’em
a-fightin’.”
Poor mother! while her Joe had lived he had been for her the only
soldier; now that he was dead her thoughts dwelt ceaselessly on the vast
size of the army of which he had formed a part, and it seemed to her
strange and hard that while thousands were spared her _one_ had been
stricken down.
While she spoke she had removed the paper wrappers, and now held up to
Mr. Joyce’s admiring, yet somewhat doubtful gaze, a large china wreath,
such as may frequently be seen in village churchyards, composed of stiff
white roses and conventional leaves.
“It be a beauty, Mrs. Stuckhey,” said the farmer hesitatingly. “There, I
don’t believe I’ve ever seen an ’andsomer one. But I’m wonderin’ how ye
mean to manage about it, seein’ as, so to speak, there bain’t no
grave—not handy, I mean. There be a grave, as I telled ’ee, and an
honoured grave—the grave o’ the British soldier; but it wouldn’t be”—he
coughed delicately—“convenient for ’ee to put wreaths on, I’m afeared;
nay, I’m afeared it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Lard, no, sir, I wasn’t a-thinkin’ o’ usin’ it for the grave. Even if I
was to send it to the War Office I couldn’t trust ’em to put it on for
me. And it wouldn’t be no comfort anyhow wi’out I could see it there.
Nay, I be a-going to hang this round my son’s likeness; ’twill be a kind
of a memory of his grave as I can’t see it.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Joyce, deeply moved.
Poor Susan had begun to weep again, and Mrs. Blanchard was not slow to
follow her example. They moved away together, and presently, entering
Mrs. Stuckhey’s house, proceeded to hang the wreath over poor Joe’s
picture. After much hammering of tacks and knotting of string the task
was completed, and the dead soldier’s chubby boyish face greeted all
beholders through its white garland.
“’Tis beautiful, I’m sure,” exclaimed Mrs. Blanchard, falling back a
little and speaking in a tone of almost awestruck admiration. “The
uniform, you know, and the goldy frame, and the white flowers—I never
seed anything so handsome.”
“’Tis his due,” said Mrs. Stuckhey, and she was conscious of a return of
the glow of pride with which she had, a little time before, listened to
the farmer’s allegory, and with that pride came a faint vague sense of
comfort: at least her hero was honoured.
The poor must be up and doing; not theirs is the luxury of nursing grief.
Though Susan Stuckhey’s heart might be sore, and many hot tears might
drop into the suds as she bent over her wash-tub, her clients’ clean
clothes must be sent home. She could not manage, however, to be quite so
prompt as usual this particular week, and it chanced that on the
Thursday—contrary to all precedent—she was hanging up some of the finer
garments on her line to dry, when she was startled by what seemed to be
the sound of an explosion.
“They be blastin’ up yonder,” she said to herself, and went on with her
task. But the sound was repeated several times, and the neighbours began
to come to their doors and to look towards the town, whence the sound
proceeded.
“It do seem like firin’,” said Mrs. Blanchard with placid interest.
By-and-bye, a lad came tearing down the lane, waving his hat and
shouting.
“’Tis relieved!” he cried. “Ladysmith be relieved! ’Tis true this time.
It be wrote up in the town ‘Official noos’. They be firin’ a cannon near
the Royal George, and the flags is up, and there’s to be a procession
this evenin’, and every one’s goin’ mad for joy!”
Mrs. Stuckhey’s knees shook under her; she dropped the handkerchief which
she had been pinning up, and covered her face with her hands.
“There, don’t ’ee take on,” said Mrs. Blanchard, commiseratingly. “Ye’d
be like to feel it, I know; dear, yes, ’tis to be expected.”
“Well, now, I should think Mrs. Stuckhey ought to be glad,” said Mrs.
Woolridge, surveying the washerwoman critically from her doorstep.
“There be mothers’ sons in Ladysmith so well as anywhere else; ah, sure
there be. Many a woman’s heart has been a-breakin’ thinkin’ of ’em
starvin’ and famishin’ there. ’Twouldn’t bring your son back a bit more
if they was to perish o’ hunger. You ought to be glad like the rest of
us.”
“I am glad,” gasped poor Susan; and with that she turned, leaving her
basket, and went into her house.
Her gaze, blurred though it was with tears, instantly sought Joe’s
portrait, and the honest goggle eyes of the picture looked back, as it
seemed to her, with infinite sadness.
“Ladysmith is relieved,” they seemed to say; “the victory is won—and I
was not there.”
When presently the door creaked slowly open and Mrs. Blanchard entered,
moving unwieldily on tip-toe, she found Susan seated by her steaming
wash-tub with her apron thrown over her head.
“Don’t ’ee fret, my dear,” she said soothingly. “There isn’t one in the
village as don’t sympathise for ’ee; and we do all feel as our own j’y
bain’t full, so to speak. There, we do say to ourselves: If our own
soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!”
Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her
face with her trembling hands. Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it
were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and
distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and
of toil!
“I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause.
“’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was
shut up over yonder. ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe
didn’t have no hand in it.”
Susan jerked down her apron, and her eyes flashed beneath their red and
swollen lids.
“Who says he didn’t have no hand in it?” she cried. “He did have a hand
in it! Didn’t ’ee hear what Farmer Joyce did say? My son Joe were one
o’ the foundations o’ the army.” She rose as she spoke and crossed the
kitchen, her small figure dignified, even majestic.
She fumbled in the old-fashioned chest of drawers and drew forth a paper
packet. Returning, she laid it upon the table, casting, as she did so, a
glance at once severe and resolute upon the astonished Mrs. Blanchard;
then, taking her sweeping-brush from behind the door, she proceeded with
much deliberation to knock off its head.
“In the name o’ fortun’, Susan Stuckhey,” ejaculated her friend, “what be
you a-goin’ to do?”
“You’ll see for yourself in a minute,” returned Susan; and, armed with
the broom-handle and the little parcel, she went upstairs.
Mrs. Blanchard went out, backing away from the house, and fixing her eyes
wonderingly, almost incredulously, on Susan’s upper window. Following
the direction of her glance, Mrs. Woolridge and a few other women who had
meanwhile gathered together gazed also expectantly upwards. Presently
the latticed casement was thrown open and a sudden gleam of blue and
scarlet fluttered over their heads.
“Bless me, woman, whatever are you at?” cried Mrs. Woolridge in shocked
and horrified tones. “Ye don’t mean to say as you can have the heart—”
Susan’s resolute face looked forth a moment above her waving banner.
“I be a-doin’ what my son Joe did tell I to do. I be a-hangin’ out a
flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”
And when, later in the day, the town band paraded gaily through the
village with a large following of enthusiastic patriots dancing,
shouting, singing, the little mother strove valiantly to fulfil the
second part of poor Joe’s behest—to give the three cheers for which he
had called. But though she ran to her gate when the crowd first came in
sight, and waved her arm above her head, only a strangled sob broke from
her when she strove to raise her voice. But at sight of the small figure
in its mourning dress, the little cotton Union Jack waving gallantly from
the upper window of the dead soldier’s home, a sudden hush fell upon the
musicians and their followers, and they passed the house in silence with
bared heads and reverent tread.
And perhaps this tribute of respect was paid less to the emblem of their
country’s greatness, less even to the memory of the poor young hero who
had laid down his life for its sake, than to the brave little woman who
stood unflinchingly at her post, and who felt her heart beat high with
sacred triumph though the tears were raining down her face.
[Picture: “I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to
win!”]