Part 3

“If you’d believe it,” she was saying shyly, “there were a time when I were nigh to fancyin’ Mr. Hewson myself. Not that there iver were much atween us, and I don’t know as I could say ’e iver come nigh to askin’ me. But ’e were that kind and gentle, I thought as ’e’d make a nice, considerin’ ’usbin’, and I thought I could ha’ got him if I’d tried. But, Lor’, now I know ’e’ve so little sperrit, I don’t think as it’d ha’ suited at all.”

“Oh, don’t ye!” retorted Martha, with a good dash of honest viciousness in her tones which the other was too dense or too pre-occupied to notice.

“I ain’t got your ’ealth nor yet your managin’ ways, ye see,” Milly was murmuring on softly. “Not but what I do pity you, my dear....”

“Well, then, ye needn’t to do no such thing,” interrupted Mrs. Hewson sharply. “My man may be a bit soft o’ times—though ’ow you come to fancy it, I be sure I don’t know—but ’e don’t come masterin’ it over a body, nor yet ’e don’t spend his evenin’s at the ‘Public,’ and leave ’is wife alone at the fire-side. If I was a chatterbox I might ’ave a word to say ’bout bygones too! But, Lor’ bless me, I niver was one to boast! Nor yet to ’anker after showin’ up as I was once nigh upon makin’ a fool o’ myself!”

Martha laughed a rough laugh, and the ready eyes of the miller’s wife filled with tears.

“My word, I don’t know what ye mean!” faltered she with quivering voice. “But if anybody says as my Dan neglects ’is wife....”

“Well, there, least said soonest mended,” put in Martha Hewson hurriedly, for she had seen two dark forms coming up the hill in the moonlight. Her temper had been “up” at the slight which the other, in her foolishness, had dealt to her “man”; and she had not the smallest intention of hearing him made light of, however much she might grind him down herself. But being a good-natured soul at bottom, and not anxious moreover to give herself away, she was not going to have this silly conversation overheard.

“I don’t know as it is,” began the foolish little woman, swallowing her tears. “I shall tell Dan what ye said, and....”

“If ye do ye’ll ’ave to tell ’im who ’t were said he went to the ‘Public’ every night,” laughed Martha, jeering. But she added quickly: “There, ye mustn’t mind me. I’ve a rough tongue, but I don’t mean no ’arm. We’ve both on us ’ad a gossip and talked a bit o’ nonsense, but there bain’t no bones broke arter all. You dry yer eyes and show your ’usbin’ a jolly face. Look, ere ’e be! I must be gone. I be late as ’tis. We’s off to-morrer, and I’ve got the bits o’ things to put together. Good-night.”

Martha had seen that her own husband was with the other, and she did not intend him to come up that garden-path just then if she could help it.

“Good-night!” echoed the little woman, who, if none so clever as her friend by a long way, saw the point of what she had said very well. She concealed the signs of her perturbation as she was bid, and held out a meek, limp hand.

“Good luck,” whispered Martha, seizing the hand in her powerful grasp. “Mind you put lots o’ spunk into it all!”

And as she spoke the words she remembered the request that had been made to her by her one-time sweetheart as she came in!

Well, she had fulfilled it!

And without another word she sped down the walk, and was out on the downs before Dan Moss and her husband had reached the gate.

“What, ye be never off in such a darned ’urry!” cried the former as she came up to them. “I won’t stand that! Ye’ve got to come back and both on ye ’ave a drink for old times’ sake.”

“Thank you kindly,” said she. “We don’t often drink nothin’ but a glass o’ beer o’ dinner-time don’t Bill and me.”

“Well, ye’ll ’ave to this time,” insisted the man hospitably. “This pore man o’ yourn’s just pumped out.”

“Oh, ’e be right enough, bain’t ye, Bill?” said she.

“Yes, I be right enough,” agreed the man addressed, and wouldn’t have dared to admit the contrary.

“A warm posset’s the best thing for ’im when ’e gets to bed. So we’ll just get along and see to it.”

She buttoned his coat tight about his throat as she spoke, and gave him a friendly thump on the back.

“Yer wife’s tired,” she added. “She ought to turn in too. The brat ain’t very old yet.”

“Tired, be she?” said Moss, and scratched his head. “Well, if ye won’t, ye won’t,” he added presently. “So, it’s good-night to ye.”

“Good-night,” echoed the husband and wife in one breath as they turned down the hill.

Moss stood a minute looking after them, whistling a rowdy, popular song in a slow, contemplative sort of way.

Then he turned with a chuckle.

“Rum lot,” he said to himself as he opened his garden-gate.

At the porch the little wife stood waiting. Her eyes were dry and there was a pretty smile on her lips.

“Ye are nice and early to-night,” she said affectionately.

“Why, ye asked me to come ’ome early, didn’t ye?” he whispered, pinching her ear.

And she did not say that she always made that request without it’s being always attended to.

“But ye ain’t been lonesome this time,” he added. “’Aven’t you and Mrs. Hewson had a nice chat?”

“Yes,” she said doubtfully.

He laughed his jolly laugh.

“Ye don’t care over much for the woman, I can see,” chuckled he. “Well, she be a bit rumbustious though a well-meanin’ wench enough. I used to half-fancy ’er myself once, but she bain’t my style, I likes ’em cosier nor that.”

And he drew his wife’s smooth, fair head to his bosom and kissed her.

“See ’ere,” said he, “I’ve bought ye a present.”

He untied the brown-paper parcel and spread out a black silk dress.

Milly’s eyes shone and she clapped her hands.

“For me! What, niver!” she murmured.

“Oh, ain’t it!” he chuckled. “You should ha’ ’ad it long ago only I ’adn’t just got the cash ’andy. There!” and he threw it across to her merrily.

“You be kind to me, Dan,” whispered she, and she threw her arms round his neck.

Down in the hollow below the downs, Martha was hurrying her husband along. She had him by the elbow that she might the better urge him forward, and whenever he opened his mouth to speak she bade him hold his tongue, for though the moon was bright, the wind whistled from the nor’-west and the air was keen.

But she talked for two.

“To think of it, Bill!” laughed she. “There were a time when I was sweet on that great ’ulkin’ chap up yonder. Yes, and ’e on me, too! We’s changed our minds since then, ain’t we! He _’ave_ got a little ninny of a wife and no mistake! I wouldn’t stand bein’ chucked about as ’e do ’er. So I s’pose we be both best suited as we be.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” agreed Bill Hewson through his mufflers.

And then they reached the inn and went in to the warmth, and Martha Hewson saw her husband to bed.

THE BREAD-WINNER

THE BREAD-WINNER

Mother and daughter came toiling up the hill above the marsh-land, swinging a basket of linen between them. The daughter was but a little one—just eleven years old—but beginning to be fit to help mother a bit: and the mother herself was scarcely past thirty, though she had three younger than Sue to care for.

They came up fast, for there was a mass of purple cloud behind the town on the distant hill, and a still darker bank of it across the horizon out to sea, and the rain might come down again at any moment. It had been a bad season for laundresses, and the drying of clothes a very difficult job; there was another lot to get home to-night before going to bed if it could be managed: more than enough to do, yet not enough with it all to keep the six mouths filled, and Mrs. Wood was on her way to try for another family’s work.

“You get along ’ome with this, Sue,” she said to her child; “you can manage the basket alone now you be on the top, can’t ye? There be cold bacon in the cupboard for dinner. You lay it out ready: I’ve got to step in and see post-mistress. She ’ave let ’er ’ouse on the ’ill to a family from London. They say there be lots o’ children, and it’d be a good job for us if I could get ’er to speak for me.”

“I ’ope post-mistress won’t be nasty then,” said the child with wisdom that sat sadly on her chubby face and seemed to have no place in the innocent, brown eyes. “She caught father drunk last night when you guv ’im that postal order to git cashed, and she went on at ’im h’awful.”

The mother’s brow clouded. She seemed to find nothing strange in the child’s remark; it was evident that she was wont to make this little eldest daughter the confidante of her troubles—but her brow clouded with anger.

“Did she though?” cried she defiantly, her thin, delicately pretty face lighting up with a flame that gave it a momentary brilliancy of colouring. “And ’ose fault was it as father was drunk? It weren’t my earnin’s nor his’n neither as ’e spent on it, for ’e didn’t cash the paper till arter! It be them nasty do-nothin’s at the road-corners as tempts ’im and treats ’im, for the fun of ’earin’ ’im go on a bit merry, that’s what it be—and it be a burnin’ shame, it be!”

They had reached the top of the hill, and Mrs. Wood set the basket down on the flags just outside the doctor’s surgery. There were loiterers even now at the corner of the churchyard that was the centre of the village square, and she had raised her voice with the last words, and they had smiled.

She took the corner of her apron and wiped her mouth, that was quivering a little.

“There, never you mind, you go ’long ’ome, dear,” said she softly, as though she were half-ashamed. “It ain’t ’cos father ’as ’is drop as Miss ’Earn’s so set agin me, noways.”

“Why be it then, mother?” asked the little maid with natural curiosity. “She do seem to owe you some grudge, she do. And folks all callin’ of ’er so pious and Christian-like.”

“Never you mind,” repeated the mother again. “Them pious folk is allers the ones to be down on their neighbours.” And she stooped and lifted the basket to the child’s head. “Can ye manage it?” said she, “or shall I come to the corner with ye?”

“No, it be all right,” declared Sue, though she staggered a minute at first. And lifting a tiny arm to the load to steady it, she set off down the street towards where the cottages stood so close to the hill’s edge that one might have jumped off straight into the waste of blue mist below that was marsh-land and river unrolling to the sea.

Mrs. Wood watched her a minute to see that she was safe, and then she turned her back on the loiterers and went on towards the post-office.

One lad called out a greeting to her and asked who her mate was with, but she paid no heed though the others laughed. She shook her spare shoulders as she walked with a way that she had, and drew her spare little black jacket around her and held her little head, that had once been so pretty, well up, so that the thin nose was tilted, sniffing the cool air, and any one who knew her could have told that the next person she met would “catch it.”

The loiterers knew it, and laughed as they saw who the next person would be.

For it was her own man who came lounging across the churchyard. He was a great, hulking fellow who looked as though he could have taken the frail little body in one great hand and crushed it to death, yet the woman showed no fear of him. She just stood where she was and waited for him to reach the gate and come through to her, and though the laughter went on at the corner by which he must pass, and she knew very well what the joke was, she was nowise daunted nor even seemed to notice it.

And as the man came closer one could see that on the top of that great body there was a handsome, gipsy face with coal-black beard and hair curling crisply, and dark eyes that might have flashed if they would, but that were soft and velvety as those of his own little daughter, while the mouth smiled almost tremulously, showing a row of even, white teeth.

“Why ain’t ye at work?” said the wife as the Adonis came up.

“’Ere, Jerry, I wants a word with ye,” called one of the young fellows on the wall.

“You budge if you dare,” said the little woman, setting her lips together.

“Don’t ye stop to be bullied, man,” laughed another one yonder. “What be the good of a good time if ye pay for it next day this way?”

But the Adonis only smiled a charming smile, looking from one to the other.

“Why ain’t ye at work?” repeated his wife.

“It be close upon dinner-time,” answered the man good-humouredly. “It weren’t worth while goin’ up there for less nor ’arf a hour.”

“What—ye don’t mean to tell me ye ’aven’t been to work at all?” screamed the little woman. “’Close upon,’ indeed! ’Aven’t ye got turned off jobs times untold ’cos o’ ‘close upon’? It be allers ‘close upon’ dinner-time or tea-time or leavin’ off time wi’ you! If Major Dennis turns ye off again, ’e won’t take ye on no more, and you know that well enough!”

“I wouldn’t stand it, I wouldn’t,” laughed the demon at the corner.

Jerry looked doubtfully from one to the other, still smiling; then something that was almost a flash of anger came from the soft, dark eyes.

“And I be dashed if I do,” said he, taking off his cap and digging his great fingers into the crisp, black curls! “A man must ’ave ’is bit o’ leisure, damn it all! I’ve worked for the Major nigh upon five years....”

There was a roar of laughter at this, and Jerry himself smiled.

“Well, I mean countin’ the off-times,” he added, without the slightest touch of ill-humour.

“The times ’e ’ave turned ye off, ye mean, and took ye on again, eh?” put in the chorus.

“And I be darned if I be goin’ to work for ’im no more if I can’t do it my own way,” concluded the giant, without regarding the interruption otherwise than by his pleasant smile. “I ain’t got the ’ealth to keep it up mornin’, noon and night without so much as a breathing....”

“Or a whettin’ o’ yer whistle,” slipped in the other. “Yer back’s too long to stand the stoopin’, I’ll be bound!”

Jerry turned his smile into a laugh in polite recognition of the witticism, before he added his ultimatum. “And if ’e bain’t a-goin’ to be reasonable,” declared he, “well, I shall just chuck it! I’ve ’eard say there be a gardener wanted up at the ’Ill, and I shall apply for the sitivation.”

Jerry drew himself up to all his splendid height and looked round on his audience with dignity. But his wife spoiled the whole thing.

“Ye fool,” snarled she under her breath as this last proposition met with its well-deserved appreciation from the loungers; “can’t ye see as they be all a-laughin’ at ye? ’Ow are ye goin’ for to get a sitivation without no character? Come ’long ’ome do, for mercy’s sake, and ’ave yer dinner and get to work.”

She clutched at his arm to lead him away as she was sometimes able to do when he was in a good mood; for Jerry always found it easier to please anybody than to say them “nay,” and often would patiently do even his wife’s bidding—provided he was not in his cups—when he could, alas! descend even to the boot or the kitchen-poker at his need. But to-day, unluckily his wife was demanding submission when others were by to see, and these others the very ones over whom his wit had gained a supremacy of its own the night before in the hour of carouse. What man could brook this—least of all what man who had his position for popularity to maintain?

He drew his arm away.

“I tell ye the Major ’ll ’ave to be’ave very different to me afore I work for ’im agin,” reiterated he, and as the woman still nudged him: “You go and mind the children, Lucy,” he added loftily, “and leave me ’lone. Women-folk ain’t supposed to understand these ’ere things.”

His supporters cheered him loudly at this, and he moved across towards them, but Lucy Wood was not easily to be set aside. She knew that her influence with _him_ was for the moment in abeyance, but she turned to her tormentors.

“Ain’t ye ashamed o’ yerselves, a pack o’ idle young vagabonds, to sit there and make fun of a man as ’d ha’ been a good ’un enough if it weren’t for you and your likes?” cried she passionately. “If _you_ ’aven’t got no one to work for—though Lord knows there’s mothers dependin’ on ye if there ain’t wives and childer—can’t ye ’ave the grace to leave them alone as ’_as_?”

The woman’s voice was breaking, if not her spirit, and she had to pause for breath. A little bantam cock of a man, older than the rest, took his pipe from his mouth and snarled out an ugly oath at her.

Jerry, who wore a vexed look on his handsome face, murmured deprecatingly, “Easy, easy, mate!” but the man only retorted: “Well, send ’er ’ome and don’t be rid over by yer women-folk so meeklike, man,” and the giant, anxious to keep his good footing with his comrades, bid his wife once more be gone.

“You come ’ome to yer dinner and leave talkin’ stuff as ye can’t act up to and I’ll let ye be,” was all she said, and added, catching a nasty look in the little man’s face, and seeing the ill effect it was having on her own man: “Oh, I know what ye be up to, Casey, and it won’t be the first time ye’ve played me a bad turn this way, if it be the last. But I don’t care for your bad words, not I! It be your sort as be the curse o’ my man, and I’ll save ’im from ye if I can.”

It was an ill-judged remark, and she paid dearly for it.

Away from his mates Jerry might have been docile, but supported by them he was not going to be wife-ridden.

“You go ’ome and I’ll come when I please,” repeated he doggedly.

Lucy Wood knew the mood and knew that it was idle to fight it.

“Dinner-time’s dinner-time to-day,” was all she said. “Sue and me ’as got a sight a linen to get done, and I shall clear away sharp.”

“There’s a wife for ye,” said Casey facetiously. “Don’t let’s you and me get spliced, lads! That be ’ow the women study a man!”

“I pity the one as ’ll ’ave to study you, Jim Casey!” retorted Lucy. “And may be if she’ve got to earn the money as well as feed the childer, she won’t get time to study no one much.”

She turned as she spoke, and drew her jacket together with her old pettish movement.

“That be a nasty one!” laughed Casey. “But if I was ‘cheeked’ like that, I be blowed if I’d give a woman what I earned! No, I’d keep it for myself, I would.”

Lucy turned quickly. Up till now she had known well enough he would come home sooner or later, since he had no money wherewith to buy victuals. But now a sudden uneasiness seized her.

“’E ain’t got any now, any ways,” said she, looking at him. “’E don’t get ’is wage till to-night.”

Jerry quailed beneath her gaze. To do him justice, he had forgotten till this very moment that he had money in his pocket: it was such a very rare occurrence. His master, owing to a sudden departure, had paid him his due the evening before; he had faithfully promised to take it straight to his wife, but the tempters had come along, and a good part of it had already gone in the carouse of the night, which _she_ supposed he had owed to his friends.

“’Old on, Jerry; stick to it, man!” came from the group.

“Ye’ve never got your wage by now,” asked Lucy almost incredulously.

He did not answer, and her face went white; she had counted on this rare week’s money of his for so many little debts.

He lowered his eyes—he was genuinely sorry. The sight of her frail little body quivering with anxiety, of her frail little face going paler because of his selfish cruelty, reminded him vaguely of the day when she had been near to leaving him in consequence of what the doctor had called “grinding herself to death for a good-for-nothing husband.” He wondered if she was going to faint again now, as she had done then, when he had thought she was dead, and his heart turned sick.

But she did not faint—his silence had told her the truth, and she pulled herself together, as she always did in an emergency. She said nothing; she knew there was nothing more to be said—_then_; she just left him and went on up the road. But when she had gone a little way she turned half round and waited, and her man came up a few steps towards her.

“I’ll leave the cold bacon on the table ready for you,” said she, quite gently. “I may ’ave to go out with the linen.”

“Keep it up, old man,” came Casey’s rasping tones up the path, followed by a brutal laugh.

Jerry faced about towards him once more, and Lucy disappeared round the corner. She had no heart for the post-mistress then, and indeed she half guessed that that inquisitive woman had witnessed the scene on the green through the window-frame behind which she dispensed postal conveniences and morality to the village; it was bad enough to face Miss Hearn when she had no special reason to crow over one—it was impossible when she had.

Lucy was quite right. Miss Hearn had seen and heard everything, and was discussing it now with the doctor’s housekeeper, who had come in to send a postal order to her son.

“Poor soul!” the latter was saying in kindly commiserating tones, “I feel right down sorry for ’er, I do! A-slavin’ and a-killin’ of ’erself workin’ for that good-for-nothin’ lazy-bones! And a confinement thrown in most Christmas-times. Why, there’s been one every year since they was wed, to my certain knowledge—and there couldn’t be no more.”

“Since they was what?” repeated Miss Hearn, pursing her lips and wagging her head till the long, sleek ringlets on either side of her round, furrowed face shook sorrowfully.

“Well, they _was_ wed, though it might ha’ been sooner,” said the other, blushing a little, but smiling a little too; “there was only one of ’em born out o’ wedlock after all.”

“Ain’t one enough?” retorted the post-office lady distantly. “I scarce call it a wedding myself—when it ain’t at the right time. If that sort o’ thing weren’t made light of among ye, it wouldn’t ’appen. It ought not to be tolerated. It’s a disgrace to the parish.”

“Well, Lucy _was_ looked askance at at first,” answered the other, who, as the doctor’s right hand for many a year, considered herself competent to argue a question even with the post-office mistress. “I allers passed her by on the other side o’ the road myself. But ye must allow she did make ’im marry ’er, and virtue ’ave got to be rewarded, ’aven’t it? Else it ain’t no good a-practisin’ of it.”

“Virtue!” sniffed Miss Hearn. “A tardy reparation don’t wipe out sin.”

“Oh, I ain’t a-goin’ to defend sin,” said the elder woman hastily. “And o’ course Lucy ’adn’t no business to go runnin’ along dark lanes wi’ the man on moonlight nights! But there, the gal did what she could to make up—for you won’t go for to deny it wanted a bit o’ pluck to tie ’erself up to ’im! Why, it’s my belief, ’e beat ’er when ’e was drunk afore they was so much as wed—not to say nothink o’ goin’s on with them gals at the ’Arbour.”

“I wonder at yer bringin’ yer mouth to speak o’ such things,” said the post-mistress severely. “And if you ask me, I’d ’ave said pitch was best let alone anyways.”

But the humbler Chapel-goer was not daunted.

“Well, I never!” ejaculated she. “And you, a Church-woman! You’d never ’ave ’ad ’er not give Sue a name?”

“For one she give a name to, she’s brought three into the world to own a drunken sot and evil-liver for a father!” sneered Miss Hearn. “’Tis writ the sins o’ the fathers shall be visited on the children. No, no, you take my word for it,” added the lady dictatorially, “the sinful passions o’ man—not to say woman—is the root o’ the whole o’ that there business.”

“I never thought o’ that,” declared the housekeeper, a trifle shaken in her opinion. “Not but what I can’t deny she were dead gone on ’im. But, there, anyways she do ’ave a life on it,” she added irrelevantly; “and I do think ye might give ’er that job o’ work if ye could manage it, ma’am.”

Miss Hearn pursed her lips and moved away to fetch the order which both women had forgotten in the eagerness of their gossip.

This request put her back on the pedestal of her dignity.