There against the white, dreary stretch of the frozen mere, all
woebegone and white in the light of the fire, was Jancis.
No sooner did I pull her in than she fell down dang-swang in a heap on
the floor. The poor girl! Never did I see such a pickle. Her clothes
were all torn, boots broken, hands and face scratched as if she’d been
through brier hedges, which it turned out after that she had, and
everything wringing wet as if she’d been dragged out of the mere. She’d
fainted dead away, and I’d enough to do to get her round. When she came
to, she told me she’d had no food for nearly two days, and she’d walked
all the way from Grimble’s in this weather.
To think of it! The long and the short of it was that she’d run away,
and she’d no money and no decent boots, and she had to slip away when
she could, which chanced to be when she hadna got her shawl.
She cried and cried.
“Oh, I couldna bear it, Prue! Oh, dear Prue, dunna scold! It was more
than anybody could bear. And when it came nigh Christmas and there was
no news, and all of ’em ten times worse, being mewed up with the hard
weather, oh, I _couldna_ bear it. And the girl at the cottage told me
that the last two dairymaids ran away as well. She said why didna I run
away, too? Partly she said it because she was sorry for me, and partly
because Alf Grimble, that’s her young man, was paying me attentions. So
she told me the best time to go, and kept ’em all out of the way, and
gave me some bread and meat and a bottle of milk, and promised to tell
them some tale to keep them from following me.”
She stopped a bit for breath, and there came from outside the sound of
Gideon’s cart-wheels creaking along in the snow.
“What be you going to say to Gideon?” I asked her.
“Oh, dunna let him be angered with me, Prue! Dunna! I canna bear any
more. When I tell you all I’ve been through, you’ll see I canna.”
Gideon came to the door, dragging the great log, that was the Christmas
brand, on a chain.
“Dunna turn me out, Prue! Whatever he do say, and however angered he be
at me losing the place he settled on, keep me for this night!”
So I said did she think any creature could make me turn her out at any
time, let alone in such weather? And I tucked her up on settle, and said
she must rest now, and afterwards she should have a sup of tea, and then
to bed, and all her troubles were over. Then she smiled and whispered—
“I love ye, Prue! You bin like the Saviour to me this night,” and so
fell asleep.
Times, seeing what came to pass, I’m main glad of that smile and that
whisper.
Eh, but Gideon was in a rage!
“Why, she’ll lose all the money,” he says, the first minute, “and she’ll
not only lose the money for the year and four months to come, but she’ll
lose the wages for the year and eight months she’s been there. If they
break their time, they get no money. You know that as well as I do.”
I asked how he could think of the money when she’d come to our door the
like of that, all draggled and half dead.
“You always were a fool, Prue,” he says, “and I suppose you always will
be.”
But my patience was out, and I talked to Gideon straight.
“I’d thank you to keep your tongue in leash this evening, Gideon! Here’s
Christmas, and Jancis come to you out of death’s arms, very nearly. For
it wanted but a little. If she’d lost her way again, so late, she’d have
been done. And seeing I’ve taken her in and she’s to have my bed, and
I’ve cossetted her for ye, she being your dear acquaintance, you’d ought
to be humble and grateful to me and to them above for the savation of
the poor child.”
“Dear to goodness! What a spitfire all in a minute!” says he. He laughed
a bit, being startled, for I wasna used to breaking out like that. Then
he went tramping into the kitchen.
“Well!” he says, very loud, for he wunna used to sick folks, and he
always seemed to think they were deaf. When Mother was sick, he’d shout
at her summat odd, though Mother had kept her hearing very well.
“Good evening, Sarn!” says Jancis, very small and weak.
“So you’ve raught back.”
“Ah!”
“Broke your time and all.”
She began to cry.
“Now then, dunna do that!” he says, quite taken-to. “Prue’ll give me
some more tongue if you cry. I amna to say a word, not to-night.
There’ll be summat to be said to-morrow, but I’m to leave you be
to-night. Well, how bin ’ee?”
He stood in the middle of the kitchen and shouted it at her, so I
couldna help but laugh.
“Nicely, thank you kindly, Sarn,” she says.
“You dunna do much credit to your pasture at Grimble’s. I’ll say that.
See young Camperdine ever?”
“No.”
“Got an acquaintance over yonder?”
“No, Sarn. You be my acquaintance for ever and ever.”
“Not Alf Grimble?”
“No. But he was sweet on me, a bit, and pestered me. That was why I ran
away.”
I never thought Jancis was so clever. But every woman’s clever when
she’s in love, I do believe. She was ever so white against the black
settle.
“I ran away because you be the only acquaintance I do want, Sarn.”
“So that was it! I’ll break Alf’s head for un come cattle-market.”
“No. Dunna, dunna!”
“So you ran away all those miles and miles because you didna like Alf,
and because I was your dear acquaintance?”
“Ah.”
“Give us a kiss, wench!”
I ran away into the dairy at that, and Pussy with me, for she was always
a bit skeered when Gideon was in. I skimmed and skimmed, and if I cried
a bit, who was the worse? For I wished I was on settle with a young man
shouting at _me_ from the middle of the kitchen, and then saying, “Give
us a kiss, wench!” And if you should ask what manner of young man would
I choose, I’d say as he’d wear a coat the colour of a May meadow, and
look at you with eyes full of power and knowledge till your soul turned
right over.
“I canna have what I want, Pussy,” I says. “But you can, for your wants
be easy got.”
And I gave her a great saucer of cream. I did! What would Gideon have
said if he’d known? But he’d got his cream in the kitchen.
“I’m giving you this, Pussy,” I says, “because I canna get my own cream.
It eases me to see somebody satisfied.”
She looked at me, frittened, thinking she must be going to get slapped
in a minute, since it was too good to be true. Then she lapped it up.
With that, I heard Mother calling.
“You’ve had that, anyway, Pussy,” I says. “And now, Mother, would ye
like some cream with your tea?”
“Why, yes, my dear. I do dearly like a drop of cream with my tea. But
what’ll Sarn say?”
“He’s busy lapping cream hisself, Mother.”
“Eh?”
Mother thought I was comic-struck.
“Well, in a manner of speaking. Jancis be come.”
“Jancis?”
“Ah. Runaway.”
“Dear to goodness!”
“Walked all the way, she did.”
“But why didna she go whome?”
I’d never thought of that. It seemed so natural she should come to us,
like a clemmed red-breast.
“She was afraid of Beguildy, I make no doubt, Mother.”
“Ah. You’ll have to go and tell Missis Beguildy.”
“Boxing Day, I’ll go. Let Jancis have her Christmas.”
“Be they, as you met say, lovering at all?”
“Ah. He was took by surprise, and he gave her a kiss afore he knew it.”
We laughed a bit.
“And now for your tea, Mother. There’s getting to be a real Christmassy
feeling. Cream all round! And after supper I’ll trim the house up with
holly.”
“Mind you get some cream yourself, my dear.”
As I went down the stair into the kitchen, where the two were sitting
very old-fashioned on the settle, I wondered what would be cream for me.
All in a minute, as I was scalding the tea, I knew.
“Jancis,” I said. “You’d ought to write to Mister Woodseaves and say
you’ve run away, or maybe he’ll be making shift to go over extra early
to write a letter for you.”
“A’ right, Prue, seeing it’s you and not me as writes, I dunna mind. But
he wunna go over there again.”
“Not go? For why?”
“I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow-day. I be so tired now.”
“All right,” I said, though I did long to hear about him.
“I’ll tell about running away to-night,” she said, but I told her supper
first.
“Draw up now and take bite and sup. Then you can tell us all about it,
and then I’ll write.”
I knew it would do her good to tell it. For when you’ve come through a
bad time, to tell of it takes the thorn out. So she told us how she’d
timed it to get to Lullingford on market day and ask Gideon to bring her
back, but took the wrong road in the hills, all looking the same in the
snow, and wandered far out of the way, and was benighted, and slept in
one of the huts that they make of furze for lambing-time; and how she
heard a breathing under the door, and thought it was the roaring bull of
Bagbury, but she cried out upon the Trinity three times, as loud as she
could, and it went away. Then she struggled on to Lullingford, going
across fields, not being able to find the road. She was chased by a
horse, which was worse than the roaring bull of Bagbury, and that was
when she crept through the hedge. When she got to Lullingford, Gideon
was gone, for he always started back as soon as he could. She went to
Kester’s, but he being away she could get no help there. She was afraid
to ask anybody else, for fear they’d send her back to Grimble’s, so she
started off again. But afore she’d gone far, she was so fainty that she
had to creep into a barn and wait till morning. Then when she got to the
woods, she thought of a short cut, and lost her way again. And indeed it
was no wonder, for in the woods about Sarn it inna all that easy to find
your way in summer even.
“Dear to goodness!” says Gideon, “you want a chap to look after you,
seemingly. Such a tale of foolishness I never heard.”
“And what Feyther’ll say passes me,” she went on. “He’ll be neither to
hold nor to bind. He’s very set in his ways now, and if you go agen his
plans he’s very crousty. If Mother knew, maybe she’d think of a way
out.”
“I’ll go and see your mother, come Boxing Day,” I said.
“It’ll be a funny thing if we canna invent summat to get the better of
an old moithered man, hoping you dunna mind me saying it.”
“Mind! You can say the worst you can think of about my dad, and I doubt
I shanna think it’s too much. And truly he _be_ moithered, book-learning
or no.”
“Set your heart at rest now. We’ll think of summat to give you time to
turn round. Maybe you could get another place. Or maybe Gideon——”
“If you mean, maybe Gideon’ll want to get wed, I say, in my own good
time and not afore. I’ve told Jancis if it’s a good harvest and we do
well I’ll be willing to get wed at Harvest Home. And she’s willing as
well.”
“I’m right glad. Loving’s never too early. And if you be fond of a girl,
you mun want her to be in your house, by fireside and table, indoors and
out.”
I was thinking of a little house not twenty miles away, as different as
could be from ours, and one in it as was a very obstinate bachelor, and
didna want any woman there, let alone poor Prue Sarn. I thought it was
about time I wrote the letter.
“What shall I say in your letter, Jancis?”
She said I was to say what I liked. So I fetched ink and paper and my
quill, and wrote it.
_Christmas Eve._
SARN.