I. Mrs. Birkin's Bonnet
II. A Philosopher of the Cotswolds
III. Especially Those
IV. At Blue House Lock
V. Keturah
VI. Mrs. Cushion's Children
VII. Sanctuary
VIII. A Cotswold Barmaid
IX. Fuzzy Wuzzy's Watch
X. The Dark Lady
XI. Her First Appearance
XII. "Our Fathers Have Told Us"
XIII. A Giotto of the Cotswolds
XIV. The Day After
XV. A Coup d'Etat
XVI. The Staceys of Elcombe House
XVII. A Soldier's Button
XVIII. Paul and the Playwright
XIX. A Misfit
XX. The Contagion of Honour
*CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS*
*I*
*MRS. BIRKIN'S BONNET*
The very first time that the baby went out the monthly nurse carried her
to see Mrs. Birkin; and as she marched with slow and stately tread up
the narrow garden path to the cottage, a swarm of bees settled all over
both infant and nurse. Fortunately the nurse was a Cotswold woman, and
knew full well that if a swarm of bees settles upon an infant during the
first month of its existence, and departs without stinging, it is a very
lucky omen. And people born in other parts of the world will agree as
to the good fortune of the latter contingency.
Mrs. Birkin in her porch, and the nurse in her cloak of bees, stood like
two statues in the hot sunshine of that September afternoon, the nurse
hardly daring to breathe, lest by some inadvertent movement she should
change so stupendous a piece of luck into disaster.
Presently the brown cloud lifted itself from the white bundle in the
anxious nurse's arms and passed with its own triumphant music to some
other place.
The baby still slept sweetly, oblivious alike of good or evil fortune.
Mrs. Birkin, her ruddy cheeks pale under the weather-stains of years,
came forth from her cottage as the nurse tottered to meet her, holding
out the baby and exclaiming hysterically: 'Take her, take her, and let
me sit down somewhere, for my legs won't bear me no longer!'
"The Lard be praised!" cried Mrs. Birkin, seizing the baby. "That there
lamb 'll be lucky an' good-lookin', an' she'll 'ave a good 'usban' for
sure. Bless 'er! Them bees knows what they be about, an' 'tis plain
they knew as you was Cotsal barn an' bred, an' wasn't none of them
faintin', scritchin' women as don't rekkerni'ze the Lard's voice, not
when 'E 'ollers in their yer."
Then, seated on the little wooden seats on each side of the tiny porch,
the women proceeded to sing the size and the exceeding beauty of the new
baby, who seemingly preferred the soothing lullaby of the bees, for she
woke up and "hollered" with surprising vigour.
A little later the baby paid her visits to Mrs. Birkin in a fine, white
perambulator, and, as that worthy woman put it, "You didn't know where
you was" before that remarkable infant toddled up the cobbled path to
the cottage quite unassisted.
Time slips by noiseless and fleet-footed in a quiet Cotswold village,
even as in noisier and more strenuous places, and "Squoire's little
darter" grew into "our young lady." To be sure, there were other young
ladies in the neighbourhood, for the village is large and cheery, with
many nice places around; but the other young ladies were in no way
remarkable. No swarm of bees had settled on any of them in infancy.
For it really seemed as if some of the sturdy sweetness of the bees had
passed into the baby they thus honoured. As was said of jolly Dick
Steele, "she was liked in all company because she liked it."
And now the village was upside down with excitement, for our young lady
was going to be married, and Mrs. Birkin was to have a new bonnet for
the great occasion.
Mrs. Birkin felt that she had an unusually important part to play in the
festivities attendant on this great event, for our young lady's father,
who had an excellent memory for dates, had decreed that the wedding-day
should be on the anniversary of the day on which, nineteen years before,
the swarm of bees had distinguished his daughter. Such a thing had
never happened since, though plenty of babies had come both to Mrs.
Birkin's village and the other villages round about, and you may be sure
that Mrs. Birkin knew all about every baby that arrived within a
ten-mile radius. She is an authority upon babies. She is one of those
women who is everybody's mother because she has no living children of
her own. In the churchyard, under the green mound that now marks the
humble resting-place of Mr. Birkin, there were once two tiny graves,
where, side by side, lay Mrs. Birkin's twin sons. And for the sake of
those two babies, dead these forty years, Mrs. Birkin's heart had kept
young and kind, and full of love for all other babies. So that it came
about that the very crossest infant ever born into a world it seemed to
find singularly unattractive was good with Mrs. Birkin, and in
consequence she was in great request with busy mothers.
Nor was it only the babies who loved Mrs. Birkin. Little girls brought
their dolls for her to dress, and little boys, even bad little boys,
whose grubby hands were against every other man, woman, or child in the
village, refrained from pillaging Mrs. Birkin's garden, and had been
known to weed it for her, all for love.
For months past, in fact, ever since our young lady's engagement was
announced, Mrs. Birkin had pondered the great question of the Bonnet.
She had not had a new bonnet for six years. Four years before that,
again, she had indulged in a widow's bonnet, in which, on Sundays, she
did honour to the memory of the departed Birkin; until the crape grew
green with age, and our young lady herself suggested that the time had
come when Mrs. Birkin's somewhat mitigated woe might find expression in
head-gear less indicative of intense gloom.
In our village, except of "a Sunday," the question of costume is
extremely simple. The men wear corduroy; the women, lilac or pink print,
with sunbonnet to match. There are those who wish that the wearing of
these uniforms extended to Sundays,--the villagers, in the week, are so
much more in harmony with the beautiful, grey, old houses,--but those
who, like "Squoire," love these people well, would not for the world
debar them from the wearing of that finery dear to the heart of woman in
cottage and castle alike.
Squoire drives a coach, and often on Saturday afternoons he will pull up
in the very middle of our one street and shout, "Any one for the town?"
And sure enough, three or four eager damsels and matrons bustle out of
their cottages, are packed in as inside passengers, and away goes the
coach to distant "Ziren," where country folk can see the shops and make
their purchases, Squoire bringing them and their bundles home in the
evening again, and never a penny to pay for carriage hire.
Three times lately had Mrs. Birkin made this journey to "Ziren," rightly
so called from its many fascinations. She had flattened her nose
against the plate-glass windows of that stately shop in the market-place
where there were displayed hats of the most bewitching beauty, and
fabrics so delicate that Mrs. Birkin fairly caught her breath at the
mere idea of any one daring to wear them. It was undoubtedly an
entrancing vision, that shop; but then nothing was priced, and there
were no bonnets in that window, and for a bonnet Mrs. Birkin had come to
look.
At the corner of Black Jack Street, not quite in the market-place, but
facing it, was another shop. Here there were hats and bonnets in
plenty, marked in plain figures for all to see, and there was one,
manifestly a bonnet "suitable for a elderly person," that positively
fascinated Mrs. Birkin. Of white straw was it, trimmed with scarlet
geraniums and elegant excrescences of watered ribbon of a delicate mauve
shade--a truly bridal bonnet, fitted to grace even the marriage of our
young lady herself. But its cost was twelve and sixpence, a truly
prohibitive price for Mrs. Birkin--"A'most a month's keep," she sadly
whispered to herself. She went away from that window. She walked right
round the market-place, she looked into every milliner's window, she
gazed upon other bonnets; but there was nothing to compare with the
creation compounded of scarlet geraniums and mauve ribbon in the shop in
Black Jack Street. All the same, Mrs. Birkin went home with only three
yards of scouring flannel to show for her day's shopping.
But she dreamed of the bonnet, and her waking hours were haunted by its
beauties. "I can't afford no more nor ten shillin's," she said to a
neighbour with whom she discussed the question. "Mebbe if I waits,
her'll get a bit faded, and they'll put un down in proice."
Thrice more did Mrs. Birkin avail herself of Squoire's kindness and
drive in the coach to Ziren, and on the third occasion she screwed up
her courage to enter the shop, and in trembling tones demanded of the
young lady behind the counter whether there was any chance of the
bonnet--for it still graced the window--"bein' a bit cheaper for cash.
I couldn't pay for un to-day," she added; "but next week I be comin' in
again, an' if so be as her were two shillin' less, I med manage un."
The young lady was good-natured and approachable. She even lifted the
bonnet from its stand in the window, and proposed that Mrs. Birkin
should try it on.
This Mrs. Birkin did, though her knees knocked together during the
process, and she was fain to confess that her handsome, sunburnt face
was assuredly "uncommon set off" when framed in the scarlet geraniums
and pale mauve ribbons.
"Of course I can't promise that it won't be gone before next week," said
the young lady. "It's a very attractive article; but if it is still
here, we might be able to meet you. You wouldn't like me to put it aside
for you, to make sure?" she suggested.
But here Mrs. Birkin was firm. "No," she said; "if so be as you has a
chanst to sell it, far be it from me to stand in your way. But if it be
still yer, when I do come back, then, if I've got the money, I'll 'ave
she. The ribbons is gettin' a bit faded," she added shrewdly; and with
this parting shot Mrs. Birkin hurried from the shop to buy yellow soap.
She was not well off, even as such a term is modestly read in a Cotswold
village community. For one thing, she was far too fond of giving. For
another, although she "went out days" when she got the chance, and was
as sturdy and healthy at sixty as many women are at forty, yet she could
no longer work in the fields in summer, a long day's haymaking being
more than she could stand. Squoire let her live in her cottage rent
free, for the departed Birkin had been one of his labourers; moreover,
his daughter was very fond of Mrs. Birkin, and that went a long way with
Squoire. He also had obtained for her of late, from certain mysterious
powers called "Guardians," an allowance of three and sixpence a week, so
that with what she could earn Mrs. Birkin got onfairly comfortably. The
bonnet money was money saved up for years against illness, but "Law
bless you!" she said, "'tis only once in a way. That there bonnet 'll
sarve me till I be put away in churchyard along of Birkin, an' if I
don't go foine to see that there blessed lamb married to her good
gentleman, when be I to go foine? You just tell me that."
The day of the wedding was drawing near. Only six days now till the
great day itself. But Mrs. Birkin was still bonnetless. In vain did she
count her savings over and over again; by no arithmetical process could
they be persuaded to amount to more than eleven shillings and fivepence
three farthings. Squoire sent round word that he would drive the coach
into Ziren that afternoon and that anybody might go that liked. Mrs.
Birkin went, carrying with her her whole worldly wealth.
Once in the market-place, she hurried to the shrine of the Bonnet. It
was still there, and on it was a card bearing the reassuring legend,
"Much reduced; only nine and elevenpence halfpenny."
Mrs. Birkin paused outside that she might savour the sweets of purchase
by anticipation. For fully five minutes did she stand gloating over the
bonnet--her bonnet, as she already felt it to be, and she was on the
point of entering the shop when she caught sight of a neighbour on the
other side of the road, one Mrs. Comley, who held by the hand a small
and exceedingly dirty boy about ten years old. His free hand was thrust
into one of his tearful eyes, and sobs shook his small frame. It was
plain that Ernie Comley was in grievous trouble. Mrs. Comley, too,
looked flushed and miserable. She was an unhealthy-looking, undersized
little woman whose somewhat dreary days were passed in futile attempts
to overtake her multifarious duties. Mrs. Comley was no manager; and it
was not surprising, for one weakly baby was hardly set upon its bandy
legs before another appeared to claim her whole attention. Comley was a
farm-labourer with twelve shillings a week, so that the charitable made
excuses for Mrs. Comley. Besides, she "did come from Birmiggum," and
the Cotswold folk felt that that explained any amount of slackness and
general incompetence.
It was not in the nature of Mrs. Birkin to pass by any one in trouble.
She forgot her bonnet for the moment, and hurried across the road to
inquire the cause of Ernie's tears. "We come by the carrier this
morning," Mrs. Comley explained,--it was like her to pay for the carrier
when "Squoire" would have brought her for nothing,--"I 'ad so much to
do, an' Ernie 'e done nothing but w'ine and cry somethin' dreadful all
the time because I told 'im plain 'e can't go to no weddin's, nor no
treats after, neither. Do you know what that boy've bin an' done?
'E've gone an' tore the seat clean out of 'is Sunday trowsies, an' there
ain't a bit of the same stuff nowhere. We've bin an' tried all over the
place; an' go in corderoys 'e shall not, shamin' me before all the
neighbours, as is nasty-tongued enough as it is. 'E be the most rubsome
child I ever see. There ain't no keepin' 'im in clothes, that there
ain't."
Mrs. Comley gave the "rubsome" Ernie a spiteful shake, which caused that
unhappy urchin to burst into renewed and louder sobs.
"There, there," said Mrs. Birkin, soothingly, "don't 'ee take on so!
There's sure to be summat as can be done, and I'm sartin of this, as our
young lady 'ad far sooner 'e come in 'is corderoys than stopped away.
She said most partic'lar as she 'oped _heverbody_ 'u'd come. There,
Ernie, then, don't 'ee take on so." And Mrs. Birkin patted the boy's
shoulder with a kind, comforting hand.
"I tell you as there ain't nothing as can be done," Mrs. Comley retorted
fretfully. "Them cloes is tore about shockin'. They wasn't new when 'e
got 'em, an' 'e be that rubsome they've all fell to pieces. 'Tain't
only the trowsies. And do you mean to tell me that 'e could go to hany
weddin' like this 'ere?"
Mrs. Birkin fell back a step that she might the better regard the
lachrymose Ernie, and sorrowfully she came to the conclusion that his
mother was right; for, indeed, his appearance was the reverse of festal.
Although his corduroy trousers had so far withstood his rubsome
tendencies, his jacket had given way at the elbows, and he looked
altogether as disreputable a small boy as could be met in a summer's
day.
"I tried to get 'im a suit at the Golden Anchor, if they'd only 'ave let
me take it on credit; but they be that 'ard--'cash with horder,' that's
their style. An' it's no manner of use me a-goin' to any of the big
tailors: they wouldn't so much as look at me. There, Ernie, do 'old
that row. You'll never be missed in all that crowd. No one 'll know
but what you was there."
This reflection seemed in no way to comfort Ernie, who burst forth into
a loud howl, and was dragged down the market-place by his weary and
incensed parent.
Mrs. Birkin stood where she was, immersed in thought. Across the road
the bonnet shop beckoned beguilingly, and her work-worn hand tightened
upon her purse. Slowly she crossed the road, and once more stood
staring at the bonnet. How beautiful it was! How brilliant its
geraniums, how crisp and dainty its bosses and twists of ribbon! "It be
like the bit o' carpet beddin' under Squoire's drawin'-room windows,
that 'a be," said Mrs. Birkin to herself.
She stared so hard at the bonnet that her eyes grew misty, and the card
with "much reduced" danced before her; but still she did not go into the
shop. She stood like a statue for nearly five minutes, still staring at
the bonnet; but she no longer saw it. What she saw was her own
potato-patch last autumn; and in it, hard at work, was Ernie Comley,
digging her potatoes for her because her lumbago was so bad.
"What do it matter for a hold image like me what I do wear?" she
muttered. Then she turned from the window that held her heart's desire,
and hurried down the market-place after Mrs. Comley and the rubsome
Ernie.
She found them staring gloomily into the window of the ready-made
clothes shop.
"You come in along o' me," she cried excitedly. "There's a suit in that
window, 'This style eight and eleven three,' as 'll just do for Ernie,
allowin' for growth. I'll buy it for un, an' you can pay me back a bit
at a time, as is most convenient. Come on in."
The suit was bought, and presently Ernie, dirty, and as cheerful as he
had been tearful a few minutes before, emerged from the doorway, hugging
a large brown-paper parcel.
"I must do my shoppin' sharpish," Mrs. Birkin said as she came out of
the shop, "or else Squoire 'll be back before I be ready. Good afternoon
to you. No; don't you never name it. 'Tis no more than you'd 'a' done
for me."
To herself she murmured as she hurried up the market-place, "I don't
suppose as she'll ever pay I, she's but a slack piece; but I couldn't
abear as that boy shouldn't 'ave none of the fun. We're none on us
young but once."
Mrs. Birkin's Sunday bonnet was black, and although a black dress for
best is not only permissible, but suitable, for an elderly cottager even
at a wedding, to wear a black bonnet upon so festive an occasion is to
commit a solecism of the most glaring kind.
Mrs. Birkin was a woman of much resource. Once the bonnet of her dreams
had become an impossibility, owing to the expense of Ernie Comley's
wedding garment, she set herself forthwith to manufacture another as
like the one in the shop window at Ziren as her means would allow.
To that end she purchased a small, a very small, pot of cream enamel;
red flowers, of a nondescript kind it is true, but still red, and plenty
of them for the money; and three yards of pale lavender ribbon. She
then picked all the trimming off her old bonnet, washed it, dried it in
the oven with the door well ajar, lest the precious thing should
"scarch." When dry, she enamelled it cream, inside and out, and when
the enamel in its turn had dried, she trimmed the rejuvenated bonnet
with the new flowers and ribbon. And a very imposing confection it
looked, and quite unlike anything to be seen in any window of the Ziren
shops. Mrs. Birkin herself felt certain misgivings about it; but she
had done her best, and by her best she must abide.
It happened that the night before the wedding our young lady's maid was
packing her going-away trunk, talking the while about the villagers and
their excitement over the morrow. This maid was "own niece" to Mrs.
Birkin, but she was not proud of the relationship. She was a smart
young woman who had travelled, and she looked down upon her simple old
aunt with, at the best, a tolerant sort of amusement.
"You'll see some wonderful costumes to-morrow, Miss," she said as she
folded dainty garments. "The whole village has got something new. My
old aunt now--not that you'll have time to notice such as she--but you
never saw such a bonnet as she's gone and trimmed for herself. A silly
old woman, that's what I call her. She'd saved up quite a nice bit of
money, and was going to have a new bonnet out of a shop in the town they
sets such store by, though 'tisn't much more than a village to them as
have travelled, is it, Miss? Well, what does she go and do but lend the
money as she'd saved for her bonnet to a woman in the village to buy a
suit for one of them nasty, mischievous little boys, so that he could
come to your weddin' and the treats an' that. 'Twasn't aunt told me,
else I'd have given her a piece of my mind. A fool and his money's soon
parted."
Our young lady turned almost fiercely upon her maid. "I think it was
perfectly lovely of Mrs. Birkin," she cried, with a ring in her voice
that warned that sharp girl she had in some way offended. "I wish there
were more people like her in the world. It would be a kinder, better
place. There's nothing here one half so beautiful as that bonnet of
hers."
The maid went on folding lace petticoats in silence, for there was a
sound of tears in her young lady's voice. She wondered at the curious
ways of the gentry; one never knew where to have them.
The church was packed for the wedding. Only the seats on one side of the
central aisle had been reserved for the guests; by special request of
the bride, the other side was kept for the villagers, first come, first
served, with no distinctions whatsoever. Mrs. Comley was there, with
Ernie, all new suit and hair-oil. Mrs. Birkin came a full hour and a
half before the service, and secured a corner seat next the aisle from
which wild horses could not have dragged her.
The priest had said his say, the organist was thundering the
wedding-march, the wedding was over, and the bride, her veil thrown back
from her radiant face, was coming down the aisle on her proud young
husband's arm. Mrs. Birkin, tearful and exultant, stood in her place
devouring the pretty spectacle with eager, kind old eyes. As the bride
reached Mrs. Birkin's pew she stopped, slipped her hand from the
bridegroom's arm, and turning, flung both her own, bouquet and all,
round Mrs. Birkin's neck. She kissed the old woman before the whole
church and whispered loudly in her ear: "Mrs. Birkin, dear, that's the
most beautiful bonnet I ever saw."
In another moment she was gone. The last pair of bridesmaids had
passed, and after them, visitors and villagers alike thronged into the
sunshine. Mrs. Birkin, her bonnet much awry, owing to the heavy bridal
bouquet, strayed out with the rest in a sort of solemn rapture. She had
been honoured above all other women on that great day.
"Wot did 'er say to you?" asked Mrs. Comley, enviously, when they got
outside.
Mrs. Birkin laughed. "Bless 'er sweet face!" she exclaimed
triumphantly, "if her didn't go and think 't was a bran' new bonnet as
I'd got on! I must 'a' made un over-smartish, that I must."
*II*
*A PHILOSOPHER OF THE COTSWOLDS*
It is possible that to the unobservant his great qualities were hidden:
all that they saw in him was a tall, shabby-looking old man, who walked
with that indescribable garden-roller sort of motion usually associated
with the gait of those who minister to us in the coffee-rooms of
hotels--an old man, who, professedly a jobbing gardener, looked like a
broken-down something else. Frequently they did not even take the
trouble to crystallise their doubt into a question, a sure and certain
measure towards its solution.
But there were those who saw beneath the surface, who were moreover
privileged to have speech of him--and he was always very ready to
converse, leaning on his spade the while, but with the air of one who
only just tolerated such interruption.--these would find that here was
one whose ideas were the result of reflection and observation, not mere
echoes of the local press; or, as is sometimes the case in other and
higher walks of life, those of the reviews or quarterlies.
To tell the truth, my philosopher could read but indifferently well, and
when he indulged in such exercises, as "of a Sunday," liked the print to
be large and black. As the halfpenny papers in no way pander to such
luxurious tastes in their readers, he was fain to take his news
second-hand, by word of mouth, thereby materially increasing its romance
and variety.
One day, _a propos_ of some flowers he was to take to the church for
Easter decorations, I asked him whether he was a churchman himself.
"No," he said slowly, stopping short and watching me somewhat anxiously
to seethe effect of this pronouncement, "I goes to chapel, they 'ollers
more, and 'tis more loively loike--I bin to church, I 'ave, don't you
think as 'ow I 'aven't sampled 'em both careful--but Oi be gettin' a
holdish man, an' them curicks is that weakly an' finnicken in their
ways, it don't seem to do me no sort o' good nohow. Not as I've nothin'
to say agen 'em, pore young gen'lemen; they means well, but they be that
afraid of the sound of their own voices, and they looks that thin and
mournful--I can't away with 'em." Here he shook his head sadly, as
though overcome with melancholy at the mere recollection.
"You are quite right to go where you feel you will get most good," I
said meekly. "Is Mr. Blank a very powerful preacher?"
Williams (that was his name) smiled a slow, crafty smile, shutting one
eye with something the expression of a gourmand who holds a glass of
good port between himself and the light. "Well, I don't know as I
should go so fur as to say as 'e's powervul, but 'e do 'oller an' thump
the cushion as do do yer 'art good to see, an' 'e do tell us plainish
where them'll go as bain't ther to yer 'im, but I bain't sure as 'e's
powervul. The powervullest preacher I ever 'ear was Fairford way at a
hopen-air meetin'--an' 'e was took up next day for stealin' bacon!"
Here he returned to his digging with the air of one who had said the
last word and could brook no further interruptions.
Regarding politics, Williams was even more guarded in his statements: I
could never discover to which side he belonged, even at a time when
party feeling ran particularly high, as our town had been in the throes
of two Parliamentary elections within the year. He seemed to regard the
whole of the proceedings with a tolerant sort of amusement--tolerance
was ever a feature of his mental attitude towards life generally. But
as to stepping down, into the arena and taking sides!--such a course was
far from one of his philosophical and analytic temperament. He listened
to both sides with a gracious impartiality that I have no doubt sent
each canvasser away equally certain that his was the side which would
receive the listener's "vote and interest."
"The yallers, they comes," he would say, wagging his large head to and
fro, and smiling his slow, broad smile, "an' they says, 'If our
candidate do get in, you'll see what us'll do for 'ee. 'E'll do sech
and sech, an' you'll 'ave this 'ere an' that.' But the blues, they went
and sent my missus a good blanket _on the chanst_."
"And for whom did you vote after all?" I asked with considerable
curiosity.
"Well, I bain't so to speak exactly sure," he said, scratching his head.
"I bain't much of a schollard, so I ups an' puts two crasses, one for
each on 'em, an' I goes an' marches along of two percessions that same
day, so I done my duty."
But his universal tolerance stopped short of his legitimate profession.
In matters horticultural he was a veritable despot, sternly discouraging
private enterprise of any sort. Above all did he object to what he was
pleased to call "new fanglements" in the way of plants, and in the
autumn had a perfect passion for grubbing up one's most cherished
possessions and trundling them off in the wheelbarrow to the rubbish
heap. One autumn a friend presented me with some rare iris bulbs, which,
knowing the philosopher's objection to "fancy bulbs," I secreted in a
distant greenhouse which he as a rule scornfully ignored. On a day when
some one else was benefitting by his ministrations I hastened to fetch
them, intent on planting them "unbeknownst," as he would have said.
Not a trace of them remained, and I had to wait until his next visit,
when I timidly asked if he happened to have moved them. "Lor' bless my
'eart! was them things bulbses? I thought as 'ow they was hold onions
and I eat 'em along of a bit of bread for my lunch. I remember thinkin'
as they didn't semm very tasty loike!"
On the subject of the then war there was no uncertain sound about his
views, and had he been a younger man his waiter-like walk would
doubtless have changed to the martial strut induced among the rural
population by perpetual practice of the goose-step. As it was, he
thirsted for news with the utmost eagerness, and hurried up one Sunday
morning to inform us that Lord Roberts had taken "Blue Fountain" about
two days after that officer had arrived in South Africa.
It was rumoured that a gentleman of pro-Boer proclivities proposed to
address like-minded citizens in the "Corn Hall." I fear he must have
had but a small following if, as I believe, the majority of the natives
were of like mind with my usually philosophic gardener. "I'd warm 'im,"
Williams exclaimed, digging his spade into the ground as though the
offending propagandist were underneath--"I'd warm 'im. I'd knock 'is
ugly 'ead off before 'e'd come 'is nasty Boerses over me. Let 'im go to
St. 'Elena and _mind_ 'em; then 'e'd know. 'Tain't no use for 'im to
come and gibber to the loikes of us 'as 'ave 'eard their goin's-on from
them as 'ave fought agen 'em, and minded 'em day by day and hour by
hour, till they was that sick and weary! ... Boers! I'd Boers 'im," and
with grunts and snorts expressive of intense indignation the philosopher
rested on his spade, glaring at me as though I were a champion of the
King's enemies--which Heaven forbid.
"It's like this 'ere," he said, after a moment's pause: "there's toimes
w'en the meek-'eartidest ain't safe if you worrits 'em, and these 'ere
be them sart of toimes."
When he became gardener to friends of mine, he was old and they were
young. His progress was slow and dignified, so were his manners. He
could wither a budding enthusiasm with a slow smile charged full of
scorn as effectually as a May frost withers the peach blossom. His own
omniscience was emphasised in such fashion as to make his employers
acutely conscious of their youth and ignorance. It is true that his
master was not so excessively young, but then neither was he
particularly well instructed in matters horticultural, and Williams had
but a poor opinion of a man who, while he could tell you the long Latin
name of every grass in the field and every weed in the hedgerow, had but
small appreciation of carpet bedding, and had been heard to remark that
a cabbage moth was really much prettier than a cabbage. Moreover, the
said master extended his liking for moths and butterflies to other
"hinsekses" of various and inferior sorts, and collected the same in
small glass tubes, of which he carried numbers in his pockets. When a
man is addicted to such "curus fads" as these, it is not to be expected
that an elderly and experienced gardener should so much as consult him
about things connected with his own craft.
Towards his mistress Williams showed an indulgent toleration; not that
he ever did what she asked him--oh dear, no! But still he permitted her
to "come anigh him," and shout her behests into his ear. He was
decidedly deaf at the best of times, and when suggestions were made of
which he disapproved his infirmity increased ten-fold.
Sometimes the "young missus"--she was really young, being still in her
teens--attempted a little gardening on her own account, as when she
planted crocus bulbs on a grassy bank facing the drawing-room windows.
She had hoped that Williams would not notice them, as that bank was
never mown till well on in the spring. But Williams not only noted but
disapproved their very earliest appearance. "A grass bank be a grass
bank," he asserted, "and bulbs a-growing be out of place," so he mowed
the grass assiduously and the crocuses came to nought.
"He really is a most aggravating man," exclaimed the young missus; "he
won't let one have a thing one wants."
However, the absolute monarchy of Williams was not destined to continue.
Even as he had ruled his master and mistress there arose another who
ruled not only them but Williams also. Where the young missus had
meekly suggested that certain things might be done in such a way as they
never were done, this personage had but to point a diminutive forefinger
in the direction of anything he coveted when Williams would hasten to
procure it for him with the greatest alacrity. He was not of imposing
stature, this new autocrat. When he first began to tyrannise over
Williams, he stood just about as high as that worthy's knee, and his
walk, in its uncertainty, strongly resembled that of Williams himself on
the night of the last election, when the Tory candidate was returned by
a majority of two votes.
But to return to the autocrat. He certainly interfered with Williams's
work, causing him to waste whole hours in hovering about near the drive
gate that he might catch a glimpse of his equipage as he set out for an
airing in a fine white coach propelled by a white-clad attendant.
Williams would not have been averse from occasional parleyings with the
attendant. She was young and pretty; but she had other and more lively
fish to fry, and would have scorned to do more than exchange the most
formal of passing courtesies with "that there deaf old gardener"--who,
however, was never so deaf but that the clear little voice calling
"_Wee_-ams" attracted immediate attention.
As time went on and the autocrat's steps grew steadier, the white coach
was abandoned, and whenever he could the late occupant thereof escaped
from the white-clad attendant and assisted Williams in his horticultural
operations--a course which he found infinitely preferable to going walks
with his nurse upon the high road. He upset all Williams's most
cherished theories, and, not infrequently, his practice. He insisted
upon helping to wheel manure from the stable-yard to the potato patch,
and fell into the manure-heap. He hung on to a big water-can that
Williams was carrying with such force that he spilled most of the
contents over himself, and he persisted in digging in such close
proximity to Williams that the senior gardener was fain to rest upon his
spade and admire his assistant. He possessed a garden of his own, a
chaotic piece of ground in which might be found specimens of everything
growing in the larger garden all mixed up anyhow. That Williams, who
but a few short years ago had objected to innocent crocuses upon a green
bank, should, with his own hands, have planted a beetroot cheek by jowl
with a Michaelmas daisy, and allowed a potato to flower in close
proximity to a columbine, seems incredible. But so it was.
"Bless 'is 'eart, 'e do like a bit of everythink," Williams would say,
wagging his head and beaming at the autocrat, who chattered incessantly
in the high, clear little voice that Williams found so easy to hear.
The young missus profited by the subjugation of Williams to do sundry
bits of gardening on her own account which he never discovered. As for
the "professor gen'leman," as the cottage children called him, he bowed
beneath the yoke of the autocrat with equal meekness. It is said that a
fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and it is certain that Williams
and his master understood each other perfectly as regards this one
subject.
In exchange for his instruction in gardening the autocrat occasionally
essayed to teach Williams grammar.
"You mustn't say 'he were,' Williams; you must say 'he was.' It's 'he
was; we were.' Do you understand?"
"Well, no, Mazter Billy, I can't say as I do; but I'll say 'we was' if
it do please you."
"No, no, Williams. 'We were.'"
"What do us wear, Mazter Billy?" Williams would interpose, resting on
his spade and smiling broadly at his own wit; while the autocrat broke
into delighted laughter, and the grammar lesson came to an end for that
day.
When the "professor gen'leman" engaged his gardener, that worthy
explained that he "didn't want no reg'lar 'alf-'oliday," but that during
the cricket season he would like an occasional afternoon off, as he was
an enthusiastic admirer of the national game. On the autocrat's fourth
birthday the old gardener presented him with a tiny cricket-bat, and
during the summer months gardening was varied by batting practice.
Williams was too old and too stiff to bat or run himself; but he bowled
to the little boy with a tennis-ball, and gave him gentle catches, and
these proceedings delighted Billy as much as they interfered with
Williams's proper business.
When the Fifth of November came, he made what Billy called a "most
'normous Guy Fawkes"--a real Guy Fawkes, stuffed with straw, and clad in
a cast-off coat and trousers of Williams's own, with a mask for a face,
the whole crowned by a venerable top-hat. It says much for the depth
and sincerity of Williams's affection for the autocrat that he should
have thus sacrificed a hat still bearing the smallest outward semblance
of such head-gear. For Williams himself never wore any other shape.
Winter or summer, his large bald head was protected from rain or sun by
a wide-brimmed and generally seedy tall felt hat. On Sundays it was a
silk one, carefully brushed, but decidedly smudgy as regarded outline.
All the children in the adjacent cottages were bidden to see the guy, as
Williams proudly cast it upon a large bonfire that he had been saving
for the occasion for many weeks. The professor gentleman let off
rockets, and even Billy himself was permitted to fire off several
squibs. It was altogether a great occasion, and was regarded in the
autocrat's family as a sort of apotheosis of Williams, for shortly
afterwards he fell ill, and grew worse so rapidly that he was removed to
the cottage hospital in the town. His cottage was very small, and his
wife very old, and the doctor is a man who has the very greatest
objection to letting people die for lack of proper care and attention.
His gentle old wife crept down the hill every day to see him, but her
accounts were far from cheering.
"'E be that deaf 'e can't yer what they do say, and 'e be that weak and
low nothin' don't seem to rouse 'im."
So Billy's father went down to the hospital to see Williams, and found
him lying, gaunt and ashen-coloured and still, in the straight white
bed. The ward was clean and sunny and comfortable, but Williams did not
seem to mend.
"He seems to have lost heart," said the cheery matron; "he's not so very
old, or so very ill, but that he might get round, but his deafness is
against him, and if he isn't roused he'll slip away simply because he
doesn't care to stop."
Billy's father leant over the bed and laid his hand on the gnarled
work-worn hand lying outside the white coverlet. Williams opened his
eyes and stared languidly at his master. Presently there lighted in the
tired old eyes a gleam of recognition.
"It be very quiet here," he muttered, "very lonesome and fur aff; them
doctors and nusses they mumbles so, I can't yer 'em, and I'd like to yer
summut.... I can allays yer Mazter Billy, 'e do talk so sensible----"
"He shall come and see you," said the visitor, loudly, right into the
old man's ear; but Williams shook his head wearily, and closed his eyes
again.
"What's the best time?" asked Billy's father of the matron. "I'll bring
the little lad--it might rouse him; he has always been so fond of him."
"The morning's the best time," she answered. "He sleeps so much. We can
but try it, sir."
Next day the autocrat--his rosy face very solemn, and his little soul
oppressed by the solemnity of the occasion--pattered across the
parqueted floor to the bedside of old Williams. The occupants of the
three other beds in the men's ward--it is quite a little
hospital--raised themselves and watched the pretty child with interest
as he put out his little gloved hand timidly to touch this strange new
Williams, lying so white and still in the clean, straight bed.
"Speak to him, sonnie!" said a voice at his ear.
"Williams!" whispered the child very low and timidly. Then, remembering
that he never used to speak to Williams like that, he said loudly,
"Williams, dear! the celery is very good."
Williams opened his eyes, and when he saw Billy a smile broke over his
face like the November sunshine itself.
"Didn't I say as 'e talked sensible?" he asked of the world in general.
Then, "So you be come at last, Mazter Billy!"
"Tell him you want him to 'get well!" whispered Billy's father.
"I wish you'd make haste and come home, Williams," Billy shouted; "I've
got to go walks wiv Nanna nearly every day now, and it's so dull."
"Do ee miss Oi, Mazter Billy?"
"'Course I do. We all do. Please get well, Williams! Aren't you tired
of stopping here?--though it's very pretty," he added hastily, fearing
lest he had said something rude; "but Mrs. Williams is very lonely, and
so am I."
"I be main tired, Mazter Billy. I don't seem to 'ave no sart o'
stren'th in me, I be a hold man----"
"There's such a lot of chrysanthemums in the drive, Williams, and in
your garden too," Billy continued, remembering his instructions to
"interest" the sick man, "and Trimmie has scratched up such a lot of
bulbs in the bed in the middle of the front lawn, and thrown the earth
all over the place."
Trimmie was the autocrat's fox-terrier, and his misdeeds were the only
subject upon which Williams ventured to disagree with that gentleman--on
occasion expressing a strong desire to thrash "that there varmint of a
dog" for sundry scratchings which his master only regarded with admiring
amusement.
For the first time for a whole long week Williams raised his head quite
two inches from the pillow, exclaiming:
"That there dog'll 'ave to be beat, scrattin' and scramblin' and spilin'
my garden----" and Williams dropped his head on the pillow again with an
emphatic bump.
Here the nurse interfered, and the autocrat, having succeeded in rousing
the patient rather more effectually than the authorities either
anticipated or desired, was led away.
Half an hour later the nurse approached his bedside.
"Here's your beef-tea, Mr. Williams!" she almost shouted; "you must try
and take it."
"Who be you a-hollerin' at?" growled the patient. "I'll take the messy
stuff without so much noise about it."
"I don't believe the old image is half so deaf as he makes out,"
whispered the nurse to the matron, feeling rather nettled at this
unexpected retort.
The old image kept muttering to himself all that day, and those who
listened heard remarks to the effect that there was no rest to be
expected this side of the grave, that he simply couldn't lie there and
think of his garden going to "wrack and rewing, all along of a slippety
varmint of a tarrier. Just let me catch him a-scrattin' in my borders,
and I'll give 'im what for."
The ultimate result of these mutterings being that, in another week,
Williams was discharged as convalescent, and by Christmas was well
enough to dictate to his mistress as to what greenery she might cut for
the decoration of the house.
"Ladies, they did cum," said he to his wife, "and did read in that there
'orspital, but they did spake so secret-like and quiet, I couldn't never
yer what it were all about; and the doctor 'e cum, and passun 'e cum,
but I didn't seem to take no sort of delight in none of 'em. Then
Mazter Billy 'e cum, and did talk the most sensiblest of the lot....
And, in spite of that there influinzy, yer Oi be!"
*III*
*"ESPECIALLY THOSE"*
They did not know that Billy had so many friends until he lay a-dying.
Then they knew.
It takes some of us more than four years to make one friend. Billy had
only lived four years altogether, but every one he knew was his friend,
and he knew every one in his little world.
"I want some ice for Master Billy's head!" said the parlour-maid. "He's
that feverish, doctor says it's to be kept on all the time."
Mr. Stallon, the fishmonger, looked grave.
"I haven't a bit of ice on the premises. It's ordered, but it won't be
here till to-morrow. Dear! dear! and to think as the little gentleman's
so bad!"
Mr. Stallon was a stout, seafaring-looking man, with a short brown
beard. He shook his head, and looked really sorry.
"Whatever shall we do?" cried the parlour-maid. "Whatever shall we do?"
"Do!" echoed Mr. Stallon. "Do! why, get some, to be sure. I'll go to
Farenam for it myself. Tell your lady she shall have it in a' hour or
so."
Mr. Stallon owned an inn as well as a fish-shop. He crossed the road to
his inn yard; there he harnessed his horse to his spring cart, and he
drove to Fareham for the ice. Billy's town is a very little one, but
Fareham, six miles off, is big, and Mr. Stallon got the ice. I'm afraid
that he drove furiously, and beat his horse. But he quite forgot to
charge for the ice, and no one ever thanked him for getting it. He
didn't mind, he was one of Billy's friends.
The Earl was another. The Earl is young, fresh-coloured, and chubby,
and somewhat lacking in dignity. He is an M.F.H. for all that, and
Billy was wont to go with him to the kennels, and knew all the old
hounds by name.
The Earl and Billy held long conversations on the subject of poachers.
Billy's sympathies were apt to go with the poachers; but that was the
fault of the Radical curate.
As for the curate, he and Billy were dear friends. He would spend long
sunny afternoons bowling slows, and twisters, and overhands to Billy,
and he could sing such charming songs.
One of Billy's peculiarities was that he exacted songs from all his
friends. Then he learnt them himself, and sang them in his turn. The
curate's favourite song was "For it's My Delight, On a Shiny Night." It
was this song that caused Billy's predilection for poachers.