The Dales were beginning to prosper now, but their first winter had
been an anxious, difficult time.
Dale had made a common mistake in his calculations, and experience
soon taught him that what is known as good-will, the most delicate and
sensitive of all trade-values, can not by a mere stroke of the pen be
transferred from one person to another. Solid customers turned truant;
the business went down with terrifying velocity; and old Bates, who
loyally came day after day to advise and assist, spoke with sincere
regret. "William, I never foretold this. I must see what can be done.
I'll leave no stone unturned." And he trotted about, touting for his
successor, tramping long miles to beg for a continuance of favors that
had unexpectedly ceased, but usually returning sadly to confess that
his efforts had again been fruitless. They were gloomy evening hours,
when the old and the young man sat together in the office by the
roadway; and at night Mavis used to hear her sleeping husband moan and
groan so piteously that she sometimes felt compelled to wake him.
"What is it?" Awakened thus, he would spring up with a hoarse cry, and
be almost out of the bed before she was able to restrain him.
"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I
simply couldn't let you go on being tormented."
"That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream.
I've enough that's real."
"Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand--in
the end. I _know you are_. Besides, if not--then we'll try something
else."
She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once
more.
The fact was that Bates had been respected by the well-to-do and loved
by the humble; and Dale, out here, remained an unknown quantity.
Anything of his fame as postmaster that had traveled along these two
miles from Rodchurch did not help him. He was not liked. He felt it in
the air, a dull inactive hostility, when talking to gentlefolks'
coachmen or giving orders to his own servants. The coachmen could take
no pleasure in patronizing him, nor the men in working for him. Mr.
Bates advised him once or twice to cultivate a gentler and more
ingratiating method of dealing with the people in his employ.
"Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;--but it'd
be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them
bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then,
William--you don't know how far it goes sometimes."
"What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit.
Every stroke o' bad luck I've had--every chance where they might step
in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a
situation for me--it's just as if they were a row o' turnips."
And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements
seemed to be making war against him--such wet days as made it
impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from
somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two
horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February
gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods;
and last of all _rats_. The unusual amount of land water had driven
them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh,
William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are
the worst foe. _One_ rat will mess up a mountain of grain."
About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in
comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering
and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands,
the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed
swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong
with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb
to the top of it on the long ladder.
Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a
cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door.
"You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't
goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself
to a misfortune."
But Mavis insisted on struggling through the doorway, into the rude
embrace of the weather. Great branches of the walnut tree were waving
wildly, while little twigs and buds flew from apple trees like dust;
the rain, not in drops but as it seemed in solid packets, struck her
face and shoulders with such force that she could scarcely stand
against it; a shallow wooden tub came bounding to her along the
flagged path and passed like a sheet of brown paper; and just as she
got to the corner of the buildings from which she could obtain a view
of the rick-yard, thirty feet of pale fencing lay down upon the
beehives and the rhubarb bed without a sound that was even faintly
audible above the racket of the storm.
But she had no eyes for anything except her husband, and no other
thought than of the horrible peril in which he was placing himself.
Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's
weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it
steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken
loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and
cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that
should have held the sheet hiss and dart like serpents.
It seemed to her that the rick was as high as Mont Blanc, and that
even on a placid summer day no one but a lunatic would want to scale
it. Then she screamed, and went rushing forward.
Dale, in the act of clambering from the top rung of the ladder, had
been blown off, and was hanging to a rope over the edge of the stack.
With extreme difficulty the men moved the ladder, and he succeeded in
getting on it again.
"Gi't up, sir. 'Tis mortally impossible." As well as Mavis, every one
of them shouted an entreaty that he would come down.
Probably he did not hear them, and certainly he did not obey them. He
went up, not down. Then for half an hour he fought like a madman with
the flapping sheet, and finally conquered it.
Mavis, as she stared upward, saw the gray clouds driving so fast over
the crest of the stack that they made it seem as if the whole yard was
drifting away in the opposite direction; while her man, a poor little
black insect painfully crawling here and there, desperately writhed as
new billows surged up beneath him, labored at the rope, seemed to use
feet, hands, and teeth in his frantic efforts against the overwhelming
power that was opposed to him. She felt dazed and giddy, sick with
fear, and yet glowing with admiration in the midst of her agonized
anxiety.
To the men it was a wonderful and exciting sight that had altogether
stirred them from their usual turnip-like lethargy. When the master
came down, all shaking and bleeding, they bellowed hearty compliments
in his ear.
"Now," said the old charwoman, when Mr. and Mrs. Dale returned to the
kitchen, "you've a 'aad a nice skimmle-skammle of it, sir, an' you
best back me up to send the missis to her bed, and bide there warm,
and never budge. I means it," she added, with authority. "You ben't to
put yourself in a caddle, Mrs. Dale, an' I know what I be talkin' of."
After this the men appeared to work better for Dale; perhaps still
somewhat sulkily whenever he pressed them, continuing to be more or
less afraid of him, but not so keenly regretting the loss of their
white-haired old master.
The storm had brought back the floods, and they were now worse than
anything that anybody remembered having ever seen. The feeding sources
of the Rod River had broken all bounds; the lower parts of Hadleigh
Wood had become a quagmire; and the volume of water passing under the
road bridge was so great that many people thought this ancient
structure to be in danger of collapsing. Over at Otterford Mill, the
stream swept like a torrent through a chain of wide lakes; Mr. Bates'
cottage was cut off from the highroad, and the meadows behind the
neighboring Foxhound Kennels were deep under water.
In these days Dale took to riding as the easiest means of getting
about; and one afternoon when he had gone splashing across to see Mr.
Bates, thence to pay a visit of polite canvass at the Kennels, and was
now returning homeward by the lanes, he heard a dismal chorus of cries
in the Mill meads.
Forcing his clumsy horse through a gap in the hedge, he galloped along
the sodden field tracks to the shifting scene of commotion. Three or
four idle louts, a couple of children, and a farm-laborer were running
by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing
at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center
of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious
season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically
watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy
attempt at a rescue.
"'Tis Veale, sir. A'bram Veale, sir. Theer!" And all the cries came
loud and hearty. "Theer he goes ag'in. I see 'un come up and go under.
Oo, oo! Ain't 'un trav'lin'!"
"Catch th' 'orse!" shouted Dale; and next moment it was a double
entertainment that offered itself to hurrying spectators.
The water, charged with sediment from all the rich earth it had
scoured over, was thick as soup; its brown wavelets broke in slimy
froth, and its deepest swiftest course had a color of darkly shining
lead beneath the pale gleams of March sunshine. In this leaden glitter
the two men were swept away, seeming to be locked in each other's
arms, their heads very rarely out of the water, their backs visible
frequently; until at a boundary fence they vanished from the sight of
attentive pursuers who could pursue no further; and seemed in the
final glimpse as small and black as two otters fiercely fighting.
"Laard's sake," said one of the louts, "I'd 'a' liked to 'a' seen 'em
go over the weir and into the wheel--for 'tis to be, and there's
nought can stop it now."
The event, however, proved otherwise. Before the submerged weir was
reached a kindly branch among the willows, stretching gnarled hands
just above the flood level, gave the ready aid that no louts could
offer. Here Dale contrived to hang until people came from the mill and
fished him and his now unconscious burden out of their hazardous
predicament.
This little incident so stimulated Dale's servants that they began to
work for him quite enthusiastically. It occurred to them that he was
not only a good plucked 'un, but that, however hard his manner, his
heart must possess a big soft spot in it, or he could never have so
"put himself about for a rammucky pot-swilling feller like Abe Veale."
Veale was truly a feckless, good-for-little creature. By trade a
hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the
skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense
family. His wife had long since died; her mother, a toothless old
crone, kept house for him and was supposed to look after the younger
children; but generally the Veales and their domestic arrangements
were considered as a survival of a barbaric state of society and a
disgrace in these highly polished modern times. People said that Veale
was half a gipsy, that his boys were growing up as hardy young
poachers, and that every time he got drunk at the Barradine Arms he
would himself produce wire nooses from his pocket, and offer to go out
and snare a pheasant before the morning if anybody would pay for it in
advance by another quart of ale.
Drunk or sober now, he widely advertised a sincere sense of obligation
to his preserver. He bothered Dale with too profuse acknowledgments;
he came to the Vine-Pits kitchen door at all hours; and he would even
stop the red-coated young gentlemen as they rode home from hunting, in
order to supply them with unimpeachable details of all that had
happened. He told the tale with the greatest gusto, and invariably
began and ended in the same manner.
"You sin it in th' paper, I make no doubt, but yer can 'aave it from
me to its proper purpus. Mr. Dale he plunged without so much as
tekking off of his getters and spurs." And then he described how,
stupefied by his mortal danger, he treated Dale more like an enemy
than a savior. "I gripped 'un, sir, tighter than a lad in his senses
'd clip his sweetheart;" and he would pause and laugh. "Yes, I'd 'a'
drowned 'un as well as myself if he'd 'a' let me. I fair tried to
scrag 'un. But Mr. Dale he druv at me wi' 's fist, and kep' a bunching
me off wi' 's knees, and then when all the wind and the wickedness was
gone out o' me, he tuk me behind th' scruff a' the neck and just
paddled me along like a dummy."
At this point Veale would pause to laugh, before continuing. "Nor that
wasn't all, nether. So soon as Mr. Dale catched his own breath he give
me th' artificial respreation--saved my life second time when they'd
lugged us on the bank. I was gone for a ghost; but I do hear--as
they'll tell 'ee at th' mill--Mr. Dale he knelt acrost me a
pump-handling my arms, pulling of my tongue, and bellows-blowing my
ribs for a clock hour;" and Veale would laugh again, spit on the
ground, and conclude his story. "Quaarts an' quaarts of waater they
squeedged out of me afore the wind got back in--an' I don't seem's if
I'd ever get free o' the taste o' that waater. Nothing won't settle
it, no matter how 'ard I do try."
The gentry who smilingly listened, knowing Veale for a queer rustic
character of poor repute, gave him sixpences to assist in his efforts
to quench an abnormal thirst. Talking together, they decided that the
hero of the tale had done rather a fine thing in a very unostentatious
way, and it occurred to several of them that pluck ought to be
rewarded. If the chance came they would encourage Dale. The M.F.H. in
fact made up his mind to reconsider matters, and see if he could not
before long let Dale have an inning at the Kennels.
Throughout this period and well into the hot weather of June Mavis was
stanchly toiling, both as clerical assistant in the office and
general servant in the house. It was she who did most of the cooking,
no light task since meals had to be supplied for the carter and two of
the other men. Mary always worked with a will; but old Mrs. Goudie,
who came for charring twice a week, used to say that, in spite of
being handicapped by the state of her health, the mistress worked
harder than the maid.
A swept hearth, a trimmed lamp, and the savory odor of well-cooked
food, were what Dale might be sure of finding at the evening hour; and
Mavis tried to give him something more. He must have peace at the end
of the day, and thus be able to forget the day's disappointments, no
matter how cruel they had been. She would not let him talk about the
business at night. She said he must just eat, rest, and then sleep;
but she allowed him to read, provided that he read real books and
magazines, not his ledgers or those horrid trade journals.
So after their supper they used to sit in the pleasant lamplight very
quietly, near together and yet scarcely speaking to each other,
feeling the restful joy of a companionship that had passed into that
deeper zone where silence can be more eloquent than words. He was
reading political economy for the purpose of opening his mind,
"extending the scope of one's int'lect," as he said himself, and she
watched him as he frowned at the page or puckered up his lips with a
characteristic doggedly questioning doubtfulness. Certainly no words
were needed then to enable her to interpret his thought. "Look here,
my lad"--that was how he was mentally addressing a famous author--"I'm
ready to go with you a fair distance; but I don't allow you to take
me an inch further than my reasoning faculty tells me you are on the
right road." When he frowned like this, she smiled and felt much
tenderness. He would always be the same obstinate old dear: ready to
set himself against the whole weight of immemorial authority, whether
in literature or everyday life.
She did not read, but with a large work-basket on a chair by her knees
continued busily sewing until bedtime. And the tenderness that she
felt as she stitched and stitched was overwhelmingly more than she
could feel even for Will. When her work itself made her smile, all the
intellectual expression seemed to go out of her face, and it really
expressed nothing but a blankly unthinking ecstasy, whereas her smile
at her husband just now had shown shrewd understanding, as well as
immense kindness. In fact, at such moments, only the outer case of
Mavis Dale remained in the snug little room, while the inward best
part of her had gone on a very long journey. She could not now see the
man with his book, or the walls of the room; the lamp had begun to
shine with ineffable radiance; and she was temporarily a sewing-woman
in paradise, stitching the ornamental flounces for dreams of glory.
Her baby, a girl, was born at the end of June, exactly three-quarters
of a year from the beginning of their new existence. The mother had
what is called a bad time, and was slow to recover strength.
Nevertheless, she was able to suckle the infant, who did well from its
birth and throve rapidly.
It was during the convalescent stage, one evening when he had come up
to sit by her bedside, that Dale told her they had at last turned the
corner.
"Yes," he said, "orders are dropping in nicely. We're getting back all
the good customers that slipped away from me, and some bettermost
ones--such as the Hunt stables--that Mr. Bates himself had lost. You
may take it as something to rely on that we're fairly round the corner
of our long lane."
Then, holding her hand and softly patting it, he praised her for the
way in which she had helped him. "You've been better than your word,
Mav; you've supported me something grand."
And he added that henceforth he should insist on her doing less work,
at any rate less household work. "There's more valuable things than
burning your face over the kitchen fire, and roughing your arms with
hot water. I'm going to be done with that messing of the men; I'm
arranging their meals on another basis; I mean to keep house and yard
as two distinct regions. And as to you, old lady, I intend to turn
your dairy knowledge to account. Don't see why we shouldn't keep a cow
or two--and poultry--and cultivate the bees a bit. Kitchen garden too.
And, look here, I've engaged Mrs. Goudie to come every day instead of
twice a week--and we shall want a nurse."
But Mavis flatly refused to have any hired person coming between her
and the transcendent joy of her life. She had waited long enough for a
baby, and she proposed to keep the baby to herself.
"However successful you come to be," she said to her husband,
earnestly, "I shouldn't like you to make a fine lady of me. I want to
go on feeling I'm useful to you. That's my pleasure--and if good luck
took it from me, I'd almost wish the bad luck back again."
"Hush," he said, gravely. "Don't speak of such a wish, even in joke."
"I only meant I'd wish for the time since we came here. I wasn't
thinking of anything before then."
"All right;" and he stooped over her, and kissed her. "You've bin
talking more'n enough, I dare say. Take care of yourself, and get well
as fast as may be. For I can't do without you."
"That's what I wanted to hear."
"You don't take it for granted yet?"
"No. I want you to say it every time I see you."
"Good night--an' happy dreams."
"Will!" Mavis' voice was full of reproach. "Are you going without
kissing the baby?"
Then Dale came back from the doorway, stooped again, and making his
lips as light as a butterfly's wings, kissed his first-born.
Before September was over Mavis had not only recovered her ordinary
health, but had entered into such stores of new energy that nothing
could hinder her from getting back into harness. She herself was
astonished by her physical sensations. Languors that had seemed an
essential part of her temperament ever since girlhood were now only
memories; she felt more alive when passive now than during extreme
excitement in the past; her whole body, from the surface to the bones,
appeared to be larger and yet more compact. Even the muscles of her
back and legs, which ought to have been relaxed and feeble after weeks
of bed, had the tone and hardness that only exercise is supposed to
induce; so that when standing or walking she experienced a curiously
stimulating sense of solidity and power, as if her hold upon the
ground was heavier and firmer than it had ever been, although she
could move about from place to place with incredibly more lightness
and ease.
These new sensations were strong in her one morning when, Dale having
risen at dawn, she determined to take a ramble or tour of inspection
before the day's work began; and with the mere bodily well-being there
was a mental vigorousness that made the notion of all future effort,
whether casual or persistent, seem equally pleasurable.
She came out through the front garden, and pausing a moment thought of
all the things that ought to be done at the very first opportunity.
This neglected garden was a mere tangle of untrimmed shrub and
luxuriant weed, with just a few dahlias and hollyhocks fighting
through the ruin of what had been pretty flower borders; and she
thought how nice it would all look again when sufficient work had been
put into it. Some of the broken flagstones of the path wanted
replacing by sound ones; the orchard trees were full of dead wood; and
the door and casements of the house sadly needed painting. Her
thoughts flew about more strenuously than the belated bees that were
searching high and low for non-existent pollen. This front of their
house would look lovely with its casements and deep eaves painted
white instead of gray; and if bright green shutters could at some time
or other be added to the windows, one might expect artists to stop and
make sketches of the most attractive homestead in Hampshire.
She kissed the tips of her fingers to that rearward portion of the
building where Mary guarded the cradle, and then went through the gate
and along the highroad.
It was a misty morning--almost a fog--the sun making at first but
feeble attempts to pierce through the white veil. There would come a
faint glow, a widening circle of yellow light; then almost immediately
the circle contracted, changed from gold to silver, and for a moment
one saw the sun itself looking like a bright new sixpence, and then it
was altogether gone again. Out of the mist on her right hand floated
the song of birds in a field. No rain having fallen during this month
of September, the ground was dry and hard as iron, but the roadway lay
deep in dust, and a continuous rolling cloud followed her firm
footsteps. The air was sweet and fresh, although not light to breathe
as it is in spring. One felt something of ripeness, maturity,
completion--those harvest perfumes that one gets so strong in
Switzerland and Northern Italy, together with the heavier touch of
sun-dried earth, decaying fruit, turning fern. When the birds fell
silent Mavis took up their song, walked faster; and all things on the
earth and in the heaven over the earth seemed to be adding themselves
together to increase the sum of her happiness.
She loved, and was loved; she lived, and had given life--bud, blossom,
and fruit, all nature and she were now in harmony.
Presently the wood that stretched so dark and so grand on her left
tempted her from the highroad. This was her first real walk, and she
decided to make it a good one. She would aim for the Hadleigh rides,
and, going on beyond Kibworth Rocks to the higher ground, get a view
of the new buildings. Will had gone across to the far side of
Rodchurch and could not be back to breakfast. It would not therefore
matter if she were a little late.
She passed rapidly through open glades, to which the great oaks and
beeches still made solid walls. The foliage of the beech trees was
merely touched with yellow here and there, while the oaks showed no
sign of fading color, and beneath all the lower branches there were
splendid deep shadows wherever the undergrowth of holly did not fill
up the green wall. This was the true wild woodland, remnant of the
ancient forest, the place of virgin timber, dense thickets, and
natural openings, that tourists always praised beyond anything else.
The stream ran babbling through it, with pretty little pools,
cascades, and fords, all owning names that spoke of bygone times--such
as White Doe's Leap, Knight's Well, and Monk's Crossing. Locally it
was not, of course, so highly esteemed. Cottagers said it was "a
lonesome, fearsome bit o'country," and, whether because of the ugly
memories that hung about it, or in view of extremely modern stories of
disagreements between Chase guardians and poachers, considered it an
undesirable short cut after dark from anywhere to anywhere.
To-day it seemed to Mavis friendly and pleasant as well as beautiful.
The mist slowly rising was now high overhead, so that one could see to
a considerable distance. Some fern-cutters in shirt-sleeves and slouch
hats were already at work, cutting with rhythmic precision, calling to
one another, and whistling tunefully.
One or two of them greeted her as she passed.
By the time she reached the straight rides and the fir trees the sun
came bursting forth bravely, the shadows just danced before vanishing,
the mist broke into rainbow streamers, and then there was nothing more
between one's head and the milky blue sky. She walked within a
stone's-throw of Kibworth Rocks, and did not feel a tremor, scarcely
even a recollection. People nowadays came here from Rodchurch and
Manninglea on Sunday afternoons, making it the goal for wagonette
drives, wandering up and down, and gaping at a scene rendered
interesting to them merely because it had once been the background of
tragedy; and Mavis was thinking more of these Sunday visitors than of
the dead man, as she hurried through the sunlight so near the spot
where he had lain staring with glassy eyes throughout the darkness of
a July night.
She thought of him a little later, when she stood on the higher ground
looking at what live men were constructing in fulfilment of his wish,
and her mind did not hold the least tinge of bitterness. At present
the Barradine Orphanage was simply an eye-sore to miles and miles of
the country-side, but no doubt, as she thought, it would be all very
fine when finished. The bad weather of the winter had caused progress
to be rather slow; the red brickwork was only about ten feet out of
the ground, but a shell of scaffolding enabled one to trace the
general plan. It would be a central block with two long, low
dependencies, apparently, and, as it seemed, there were to be terraces
and leveled lawns all about it; a great deal of clearing work as well
as building work would, however, be necessary before the whole thing
could take shape and explain itself properly. She stood outside one of
its new ugly fences, and wondered if Mr. Barradine's trustees had,
after all, chosen the site wisely. Poor old gentleman, it would be
unkind if his last fancies received scant attention. It was rather
nice of him to have this idea of doing good after his death, to plot
it all, and put it down on paper with such painstaking care.
Truly she was thinking of him now as though he had been a total
stranger, some important person that she had known well by name but
never chanced to meet. She listened to the faint clinking of
bricklayers' trowels, watched men with hods going slowly up and down
ladders, men carrying poles, men unloading half a dozen carts; thought
what a quantity of money was being expended, and how grateful in the
future the little desolate children would be when their costly home
was ready for them; and only as it were by accident did she remember
that she too had cost the estate money, and perhaps also ought to be
grateful. But she had long since ceased to think about the legacy.
What the yokels would call her "small basket fortune" had served a
purpose handsomely, and there was an end of it. The man from whom it
came had gone as completely as the morning mist went when the sun
began to shine.
The harm he had done her was nothing. If she purposely dragged out its
memory, it seemed much less strong and actual than half one's dreams.
Incredible that little more than a year ago she had been in such dire
and dreadful trouble.
She struck the highroad again a little way short of the Abbey Cross
Roads, and came swinging homeward with long strides, feeling healthy,
hungry, happy. And the nearer she drew to home, the deeper grew the
happiness. "Oh, what a lucky woman I am," she said to herself.
And with a quite unconscious selfishness that is an essential
attribute of joy, and that makes all very successful and contented
people think themselves singled out, watched over, and especially
guided by fate, she blessed and applauded the beneficently omniscient
Providence which had given just enough worry in her youth to enable
her to appreciate comfort in mature years, which had delayed
motherhood until she could best bear a hearty child, which had wiped
out Mr. Barradine and restored her husband's love, which, last of all,
had removed Aunt Petherick from North Ride and sent her to live at the
seaside.
A small thing, this, perhaps; and yet a Providential boon, a filling
of one's lap with bounties. There would have been great awkwardness in
having Aunt so near, but forbidden to darken one's door. Will was very
firm there: Auntie was not to be admitted at Vine-Pits on any pretext
whatever. But it had all worked out so neatly, without the least
friction. The new owner of the Abbey wanted North Ride. He had,
however, been very kind about the lease or the absence of a lease, and
had paid the tenant for life, as she described herself, to surrender
possession. Auntie, one might therefore say, was not at all badly
treated.
As the master was away and no kind of state necessary, she breakfasted
in the kitchen with Mary and Mrs. Goudie. Her baby was asleep in its
cradle, which she gently swung with her foot while eating; and the
three women all spoke whisperingly. The pots and pans were shining,
the hearthstone was white as snow, and through the open doorway one
had a pretty little picture of the back pathway, the end of the barn,
and a drooping branch of the walnut trees. From the yard beyond came
sounds of industrious activity--the rumble of a wagon being pulled
from the pent-house, the thump of sacks being let down on the pulleys,
and the intermittent buzz of a chaff-cutting machine.
Presently somebody appeared on the pathway, and came slowly and shyly
toward the door.
"Oh, bother," said Mary. "If it isn't Mr. Druitt again."
"Good mornin', mum," said the visitor, diffidently. "Would you be
doing with an egg or so?"
Mr. Druitt had been introduced by Mrs. Goudie as the higgler, or
itinerant poulterer and greengrocer, who served the house in Mr.
Bates' time. He was a thin middle-aged man, with light watery eyes, a
straggling beard, and an astoundingly dilatory manner. He used to pull
his pony and cart into the hedge or bank by the roadside, and leave
them there an unconscionable time, while he pottered about the back
doors of his customers, offering the articles that he had brought with
him, or trying to obtain orders for other articles that he would bring
next week; and although apparently so shy himself, no bruskness in
others ever seemed to rebuff him. His arrival now broke up the
breakfast party, and was accepted as a signal that the day's labors
must really be attacked. Mrs. Goudie and Mary pushed back their chairs
with a horrid scrooping noise, Mavis got up briskly, the baby awoke
and began to cry.
"No, thank you, Mr. Druitt. Nothing this morning."
"I've some sweet-hearted cabbages outside."
"No, thank you."
"It's wonderful late to get 'em with any heart to 'em. I'll fetch
'em."
Thus, as was usual, the higgler went backward and forward between the
door and his cart; and Mavis, with the baby on her arm, at intervals
inspected various commodities. Eventually she purchased a capon for
the Sunday dinner, paid for it, and bade Mr. Druitt good-by.
"Good-by, mum--and much obliged."
But then, quite ten minutes afterward, his shadow once more fell
across the kitchen floor. He had not really gone yet. Here he was back
again at the kitchen door, staring reflectively at his grubby little
pocketbook.
"Beg pardon--but did I mention the side o' bacon I've been promised
for Tuesday. It's good bacon."
Mavis Dale with courteous finality dismissed him; but Mary, whose
ordinarily red cheeks had become a fiery crimson, spoke hotly and
angrily.
"Drat the man. I've no patience with him. He ought to know better,
going on so."
"But what harm does he do, poor fellow," said Mavis, indulgently,
"except muddling away his own time?"
"He's up to no good," said Mary; and she flounced across to the door,
and looked out at the now empty path. "Hanging about like that! Why
can't he keep away? I don't want him."
Mrs. Goudie, at the sink, screwed up her wrinkled nut-cracker face,
and chuckled.
"No, mum, she don't want un. But he wants she."
And, astonishing as it might seem, this was truly the case. The
higgler had fallen in love with Mary; and she, apparently without a
single explicit word, had understood the nature of the emotion that
stirred his breast. He had somehow surrounded her with an atmosphere
of admiration--anyhow he had made her understand.
Mavis laughed gaily, and chaffed Mary about her conquest; and
henceforth she more or less obliterated herself when this visitor
called, and allowed the servant to conduct all transactions with him.
Mary was always very stern, disparaging his goods, and beating down
his prices; while he stood sheepishly grinning, and in no wise
protesting against her harshness. He now of course stayed longer than
ever, indeed only withdrew when Mary indignantly drove him away.
"Be off, can't you?" cried Mary. "I'm ashamed of you."
"Haw, haw," chuckled Mrs. Goudie. "Don't she peck at un fierce."
"Yes, Mary," and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused. "I do think you're
rather cruel to him."
"'Twill be t'other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps."
Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work. "I ain't afeard o'
that day, Mrs. Goudie. He isn't going the right way to win me, I can
tell him. I hate his sly ways."
Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the
prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making
tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship. Except for the
disparity of years it seemed a desirable match. It was known that he
had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the
down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered
him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.
And thus Mary's little romance, announcing itself so abruptly and
developing itself so slowly, brought still another new interest to
Vine-Pits kitchen. It was something vivid and bright and even
fantastic in the midst of solidly useful facts, like the strange
flower that blooms on a roadside merely because some high-flying
strong-winged bird has carelessly happened to drop a seed.
"What," thought Mavis, "can any of us do without love? And where
should we be without the odd chances that bring love to us?"