Part 20

Mrs. Cross looked dubious at first, but catching the other’s severe eye, shook her head once more in an impersonal way, and folded her arms with an appearance of great unconcern.

“The way that maid did go on,” pursued Mrs. Chaffey, “was scandalous, quite scandalous, I do assure ’ee. She cried an’ sobbed, and acskally tried for to dodge round to the door, but I were too quick for her. I nipped out first, and turned the key in the lock.

“Well, if you’ll believe me, jist about dinner-time, who should come walkin’ up to the house as bold as brass, but my gentleman himself, an’ before I could shut door in’s face if that little bold hussy didn’t call out to en from the window: ‘I’m locked in, Mr. Connor, I’m locked in!’

“‘Locked in, are ye?’ says he; an’ for the minute I was frightened at the looks of en.

“If ye’ll believe me, Mrs. Cross, the fellow walks straight into the house, makin’ no more o’ me nor if I wasn’t there. He pushes past I, and marches upstairs and bursts open the door o’ Jenny’s room.

“‘Locked in, are ye?’ he says. ‘I’ll soon settle that. Come down, asthore’--E-es, ’twas some such name as that he did call her--‘come down, asthore. I’ve a little word to say to ye, an’ I want this good lady to hear it as well as yerself.’

“‘I’ll call the police,’ I says. ‘I’ll call them in a minute,’ I says.”

“I’d a-done that, I’m sure,” cried Mrs. Cross. “I’m sure I would. Housebreakin’ ye know. _Did_ ye call ’em?” she added, as Mrs. Chaffey seemed to hesitate.

“Well, no, my dear,” returned that lady. “I did not. I was all shaky an’ trembley like. Besides,” she added, casting up her eyes, “I be always for peace, Mrs. Cross. ‘Peace an’ quietness,’ is my motto. I could no more break the law o’ Christian lovin’ kindness nor--nor anything, Mrs. Cross.”

“‘Now, Jenny, alanna,’” says the man, ‘you an’ me was talkin’ yesterday, so I may as well come to the p’int at once. I want a home, an’ you want a home.’

“‘You make a mistake,’ says I, ‘the girl does _not_ want a home. Jenny has got a good home--a better home nor she do deserve,’ I says.

“‘A pretty home!’ says he; ‘a prison! Don’t mind her, me darlin’. Just look me in the face, an’ tell me will ye have me?’

“‘I will,’ she says, so bold as brass--the little barefaced, impident wench! I did really blush for her.

“‘Then,’ says he, ‘I’ll put up the banns on Sunday, an’ the two of us ’ull be j’ined together before the month’s out.’

“Well! To think of the chap settlin’ everythin’ straight off, an’ she givin’ in wi’out so much as a question! I stood gawkin’ at ’em both, wi’ my tongue quite speechless. Then the chap goes up to Jenny, and says he:--

“‘I’m sorry we can’t walk out by ourselves,’ he says, ‘but we must do wi’out that.’ An’ before my very eyes, Mrs. Cross, he puts his arm round her waist, an’ kisses her. ‘I’ll strive to be a good husband to ye,’ says he, ‘an’ I’ll engage I’ll have the best little wife in the world.’

“Then he turns round to I an’ whips off his hat, jist out o’ pure impidence.

“‘Good mornin’ to ye, ma’am,’ he says; ‘I’m afraid its losin’ yer black slave ye’ll be.’”

“_Oh!_” interrupted Mrs. Cross, much scandalised. “Such a thing to say.”

“E-es, indeed,” responded Mrs. Chaffey, “an’ me as had a-been so good to her. I did tell her so, so soon as I’d got my breath. ‘Me, what has been a mother to ye,’ I did tell her, ‘that ye should go a-backbitin’ o’ I an’ a-sayin’ such things.’

“‘I never said nothin’, ma’am,’ says she.

“Such a story. It do stand to reason as if she must ha’ gone abusin’ o’ I.”

“Maybe he thought of hissel’ you was a bit hard on her,” said Mrs. Cross, struck by a brilliant idea.

The inspiration, however, was not a happy one apparently. Mrs. Chaffey took great umbrage, and it was, indeed, some time before her neighbour could pacify her sufficiently to induce her to continue her tale.

“I did talk to her kind, an’ I did talk to her sharp,” she resumed, in an aggrieved tone. “But no; she wouldn’t hear reason, an’ at last I did fair lose patience.

“‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘I be done wi’ ’ee; I’ll ha’ no more to say to ’ee from this out. If you do leave yer good home,’ I says, ‘an’ desert one what’s the same as yer mother, I be done wi’ ’ee. Mark my words,’ I did tell her, ‘this ’ere marriage’ll turn out unlucky. You’ll repent it all the days of your life.’”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Cross, sucking in her breath with gruesome relish. “An’ she did, Mrs. Chaffey, I should think. She _did_.”

“She did ought to,” returned Mrs. Chaffey, impressively, and paused.

“I d’ ’low she hasn’t done so very well for herself?” insinuated the other. “She hasn’t a-got such a very good home.”

Mrs. Chaffey rubbed her nose and coughed, but apparently did not feel called upon to enter into particulars as to the recreant Jenny’s domicile.

“Her man be out o’ work pretty often, I dare say?” hinted Mrs. Cross.

“Not as I’ve heerd on, so far,” returned her neighbour, in a tone which implied that Mr. Connor would probably find himself thrown upon the world in a very short time.

“Any family, my dear?”

“Two,” replied the widow. “Two childern, Mrs. Cross--a boy an’ a girl.”

“You haven’t ever seen them, of course?”

“E-es, my dear,” responded Mrs. Chaffey, with a superior air. “I do see ’em two or three times a year. I bain’t one for to bear malice. When her ’usband do drive her over on a Bank Holiday I could never have the ’eart for to shut my door i’ their faces.”

“Drive over!” exclaimed Mrs. Cross. “They must be free wi’ their dibs to go throwin’ ’em about on car-hire.”

“It don’t cost them nothin’,” said Mrs. Chaffey hastily. “’Tis their own trap.”

Mrs. Cross gasped.

“They keeps a trap! They must be pretty well off.”

Seeing that this remark was evidently unpleasing to her new friend, she obsequiously hastened to allude to what she felt sure must be a genuine grievance.

“An’ not a bit grateful, as you was a-sayin’ jist now! She don’t remember, I shouldn’t think, all what you’ve a-done for her. She don’t never make you no return I d’ ’low. She don’t never give ’ee nothin’, do she?”

“Nothin’ to speak of,” retorted the other, peevishly, and closed her mouth with a snap.

“Such as half a dozen fresh eggs, I suppose?” suggested Mrs. Cross. “She wouldn’t ever give ’ee a fowl now, would she? Would she?” she persisted, as Mrs. Chaffey did not answer. “I shouldn’t think she’d ever give ’ee a fowl. Lard, no, not a fowl--would she?”

Mrs. Chaffey was at length goaded into an answer.

“If she did it wouldn’t be so very much. I wouldn’t think meself at all beholden to her--no, that I wouldn’t. Seein’ that she’s got dozens of ’em a-runnin’ about her place, I don’t think I need be so very thankful if she do spare a couple every now an’ then, an’ a ham at Christmas, wi’ all the pigs they’ve got.”

“A ham!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross. “A _ham_! Why, they _must_ be doin’ pretty well!”

“Well--not so bad,” conceded Mrs. Chaffey, very unwillingly. “Connor, he did take a kind o’ little farm a few year ago, a kind o’ dairy farm. They’ve a-got pigs an’ chickens an’ sich-like--a deal of ’em. I hope there mayn’t be too many,” she added darkly. “I hope they mayn’t be a-livin’ too free an’ a-spendin’ too fast. I hope not. I hope there mayn’t be a day o’ reckonin’ comin’.”

She shook her head in an ominous manner, and Mrs. Cross hastened to follow her example.

“They bain’t a-layin’ anything by, ye may be sure,” she exclaimed conclusively.

A kind of spasm crossed the other lady’s face, and she rose hastily, remarking that if she didn’t begin to straighten up a bit she wouldn’t get the house put to rights before bedtime.

Mrs. Cross took the hint, rose likewise, and backed meditatively towards the door.

“Well, ’tis a strange tale what you’ve a-told I, Mrs. Chaffey, an’ I do feel for ye terr’ble. As for that there voolish----”

She paused suddenly, a slow grin dawning on her face.

“She don’t seem to ha’ done so very bad for herself, after all,” she remarked, and vanished.

SWEETBRIAR LANE.

“There they go,” said Grandmother Legg, “a-marchin’ off together so happy as a king and a queen.”

Susan Ball, a visitor from the town, craned her head round the door-post and gazed after the young couple with interest. David Samson, a big broad-shouldered, rather awkward looking young fellow was walking arm-in-crook with Rebecca Yeatman, Mrs. Legg’s orphan granddaughter. A little slender fair-haired thing, lissom and graceful in all her movements was Rebecca--she looked like an elf as she paced along beside her cumbersome lover.

“They’ve a-been a-courtin’ a long time, haven’t they, mum?” queried Miss Ball.

“They’ve a-been coortin’,” responded Grandmother Legg emphatically, “since they was no higher than nothin’ at all. Dear, yes! he’d come Sunday after Sunday same as if they was reg’lar coortin’ folk, an’ Rebecca, she’d lay down her doll, and fetch her hat, an’ walk off so serious as a grown-up maid. Poor Legg--he had all his senses then same as anybody else--he’d laugh fit to split he would.”

Miss Ball looked towards the chimney corner where Grandfather Legg was now installed and received from that worthy old gentleman a smile calculated to give any weak-minded person a “turn,” accompanied by some unintelligible remark delivered in a quavering treble. Miss Ball, who was not troubled with nerves, smiled back at him and nodded cheerfully.

“He haven’t got no wits at all now, mum, have he?” she inquired parenthetically of Mr. Legg’s better-half. “But we was a-talkin’ of Rebecca. I do ’low she an’ David ’ull be gettin’ married one o’ these days?”

Grandmother Legg screwed up her mouth and shook her head dubiously.

“I don’t know I’m sure,” she replied. “David he’s not earnin’ more nor ten shillin’ a week, nor likely to for a good bit, and Rebecca, she wouldn’t be much good at keepin’ house on such a little money. ’Tis a child, Miss Ball, nothin’ but a child. There, if you was to see the antics she do carry on wi’ David! I do truly wonder the chap has so much patience wi’ her. Sweetbriar Lane is where they do always go. ’Tis Coortin’ Lane, you know--so they do call it hereabouts--and a-many do go a-walkin’ there of a Sunday an’ they do tell I that Rebecca do seem to care for nothin’ but teasin’ and tormentin’ the poor boy. Mary Vacher--e-es, ’twas Mary--did tell I last week as she an’ her young man was a-walkin’ in Sweetbriar Lane o’ Sunday and she did see our little maid a-playin’ all manner o’ tricks on Davy. One minute she’d be runnin’ round a haystack, then when the poor chap ’ud run after her she’d trip off and hide behind an elder-bush. Mary did say she’d go dancin’ from one place to another just lettin’ him nearly catch her but poppin’ off the minute he’d come close.”

“Well, there now,” commented Susan, “it do seem childish, don’t it?”

“It be reg’lar nonsense I do tell her,” said Mrs. Legg severely; then relaxing--“but Mary Vacher did say ’twas really so good as a play to watch ’em. Her an’ her own young man stood lookin’ arter ’em a long while, she said. There, Rebecca ’ud go flyin’ up the path same as a bird or a butterfly; an’ every now an’ again she’d stop and smile round at Davy an’ beckon him, an’ off ’ud run poor Davy, hammerin’ arter her so hard as he could, an’ just as he’d be holdin’ out them great long arms o’ his off she’d go again. An’ she’s real fond o’ him, mind ye--’tisn’t as if she looked at anybody else.”

“Ye did ought to speak to her a bit sharp, mum,” said Miss Ball severely, “you did ought to scold her for it. They bain’t sensible, sich goin’s on.”

“Scold her!” ejaculated the other. “I mid just so well speak to the wall. I mid just so well expect that there settle to hear reason. She don’t mind me, what’s her own grandmother, no more nor if I was the cat. She haven’t got no respect for nothin’. I’ve see’d her pinch David’s arm when they was a-walkin’ up the church steps one day----”

“Never!” ejaculated the scandalised Susan.

“She did though! And she’ll carry on her antics up in the churchyard yonder--you know the churchyard up Sweetbriar Lane?--she’d as soon play off her tricks there as on the Downs. Even when she was a little bit of a maid she’d never run past the lychgate same as the other children--she’d go a-swingin’ round the pillars or a-climbin’ on the trestles, or she’d maybe pop through the gate and put her face up again the bars and dare David to kiss her. He dursn’t go nigh the place, poor boy, an’ she knowed that very well.”

“Well, well!” sighed Susan Ball, “I wouldn’t like to say nothin’ unkind o’ your granddaughter, Mrs. Legg, but ’tis to be hoped as she’ll not come to a bad end, mum.”

“’Tis to be hoped so,” agreed Mrs. Legg, “but there’s no knowin’.” She echoed Susan’s sigh but smiled the while; indeed it was evident that she looked on the misdemeanours of Rebecca with a certain tolerance, one might almost say satisfaction, as distinguishing her from the ordinary run of maidens.

Meanwhile Rebecca and David, having finished a somewhat discursive progress up Sweetbriar Lane, emerged on the Downs beyond. Here Rebecca took up a position on a sunny little gorse-crowned hillock and despatched him to a neighbouring copse with orders to collect some of the wild strawberries which grew there in abundance.

Nearly a score of journeys did David make to and from that copse, while Rebecca fanned herself with a beech-branch and gibed at him for his slowness.

“I do ’low you do eat more nor you do pick,” she remarked at last.

David stood stock still, indignant and disheartened.

“There’s no pleasin’ ye!” he cried. “I haven’t so much as ate one.”

“No more have I then!” exclaimed Rebecca; and uplifting her beechen fan she proudly showed him a pile of the ruddy berries neatly arranged on a flat stone beside her.

“There, you be to eat ’em all!” she announced with an imperative wave of the hand, “I did save ’em up for ye.”

“You must have half,” said he.

But Rebecca shook her head.

He sat down beside her on the short turf and placed the stone between them.

“Certain sure you must have some of ’em,” he cried. “I shan’t care to eat ’em if you don’t.”

“You be to eat ’em all,” reiterated Rebecca; “I’d like to watch ye.”

“Nay now, you must taste one,” said David, and leaning forward tenderly he endeavoured to force one into her mouth. But thereupon Rebecca set her little white teeth, jerked back her head, and uplifting a small but vigorous hand slapped his face with all her might.

“I won’t have ’em neither then!” cried he, flushing hotly and clambering to his feet. “You do go too far, you do.”

“I do go too far, do I?” retorted the freakish sprite. “Let’s go home then.”

Too much wounded to protest, David turned about and walked sulkily beside her as she tripped down the lane.

“A body never knows where to have ’ee, maidie,” he complained after a pause. “There’s times when you do seem so sweet as honey, and next minute I fair wonder if you do care a pin for me.”

The two were now walking under a hedge so tall that it almost arched over their heads; it grew on the summit of the high bank which bordered one side of the lane. A serried mass of greenery was this hedge; the star-like foliage of maple mingling with the rougher, darker green of hazel and guelder, while amid the stronger growths, delicate trailing wreaths of dog rose and sturdy bushes of wild sweetbriar flourished side by side. It was from this latter that the winding path took its name. The sweetbriar, indeed, grew so freely about the place that in the summer time all the air was filled with fragrance.

Rebecca seemed not at all moved by her lover’s lament; she gave a little laugh and continued the song she had been humming to herself.

“There’s times,” continued David warmly, “when I do truly think I’d do better to go off and coort some other maid.”

“Well, and why don’t ye?” inquired Rebecca blithely.

“I don’t know but what I will,” cried he. “Most maids ’ud give ye a kind word back when ye speak ’em fair, and ’ud say thank ye when ye do make ’em a present, and ’ud not go for to rub their cheeks after their sweetheart had given them a kiss.”

This was indeed an offence which Rebecca committed but too often. She darted from him now, and, approaching the bank, made two little upward springs at the hedge, bringing down with each a small trophy. One was a wild rose, the other a tuft of sweetbriar.

“Look ye, David,” said she, “which do ye like best of these two?”

“The sweetbriar o’ course,” cried he, recovering his spirits at once at what he took to be a sign of softening on her part, and his face wreathing itself with smiles as he stretched out his hand for the little sprig.

Rebecca waited till he had taken hold of it, and then with a sudden malicious squeeze of both her little hands, pressed his fingers close about the prickly stem.

“Ha’ done,” cried he in real displeasure, “that were a spiteful trick and one as I didn’t expect from ’ee, Rebecca. I d’ ’low I _will_ go off and ha’ done wi’ it.”

As he spoke, however, he fastened the bit of sweetbriar in his button-hole. Rebecca laughed and pointed to it.

“Sweetbriar has twice so many thorns as wild rose,” said she, “but ye like it best for all that. An’ if ye do go a-courtin’ any other maid ’twill be just the same. Ye’ll come back to I.”

Taking hold of the lappet of his coat she sniffed at the little sprig.

“Bain’t it sweet?” said she.

“’Tis sweet indeed,” returned he earnestly, and emboldened by her unwonted softness he did what any other lover under the circumstances would have done, and Rebecca, after a pause, loosed his coat and deliberately polished her cheek with her handkerchief.

Yet for all that David did not court another maid.

Not long after this the young pair were unexpectedly parted. David had an uncle who was a large sheep-farmer in Westmorland, and it was thought by all his family a great opening for the lad when this well-to-do and childless relative offered to take him into his employment. Every one rejoiced at David’s good fortune except David himself and his poor little sweetheart. Even he was not so much broken-hearted as Rebecca. David scarcely knew whether to be more afflicted or elated at the girl’s despair.

“I never reckoned you cared for I that much,” said he, as they went for their farewell stroll up the lane.

She looked at him reproachfully without speaking, her pretty blue eyes were drowned in tears, her mouth drooped, her little face looked very white and pitiful.

“There I shouldn’t ha’ said that,” cried he remorsefully. “Ye never loved anybody but me, did ye? An’ you’ll always be true--won’t ye?”

“Always! always!” she sobbed--“faithful an’ true, David. Whenever you do think of me you must always say that to yoursel’. Rebecca was a teasin’ maid, you may think, but she loved me an’ she’ll always love me--faithful and true.”

Then David in a kind of rapture of anguish, felt her arms about his neck--such little, light, slender arms--and her golden head sank upon his breast.

Before that time he had had many misgivings in thinking of the two years that must elapse before they again met, and had wondered to himself often if Rebecca would be likely to stick to him when he was no longer at hand; but now all such ignoble doubts died within him, and in spite of the knowledge that the morrow must part him from her, he was a proud and happy lad as he folded her in his arms.

In two years he would come back--his uncle had said he might come home for a holiday after two years. He would earn a lot of money and meanwhile they would write. They would often write; Rebecca wouldn’t be too partic’lar about blots or spellin’, would she? No, Rebecca was not in the mood to be particular about anything. Then David would give his word to write often.

“An’ whenever ye see a bit o’ sweetbriar, ye’ll think o’ me?” said Rebecca.

Yes, he would think of her then and always.

“I do want the sweetbriar to remind you o’ me,” went on the girl, “because--because--I reckon it’s like me--full of prickles. I’ve often been a bad maid to ye, Davy, haven’t I? Often an’ often I’ve pricked ye and hurt ye, but I’ve loved ye all the time.”

And thereupon David assured her he didn’t mind the prickles, and that there was nothing in all the world so sweet as the sweetbriar, and then having reached the top of the lane they kissed each other again and came home through the scented dusk full of a melancholy happiness.

The memory of that hour comforted David during the first weeks of separation, but as time went on the old habit of jealous distrust reasserted itself in some measure. Rebecca was a bad correspondent. The wilful little maid had never taken much pains to make herself a scholar and letter-writing was to her a matter of difficulty. David would brood over each scanty ill-spelt scrawl, torturing himself with doubts: Rebecca said so little--was she already beginning to forget him? She was so pretty, so gay--surely somebody else would “snap her up” while his back was turned.

Yet now and then a little word in one of Rebecca’s letters would make his heart thrill afresh with hope and love, and he would be filled with remorse for his unworthy suspicions. And when towards the end of autumn she sent him a sprig of sweetbriar saying that “it would mind him of her,” he carried the thorny trophy in his breast till it shrivelled and fell to pieces.

The northern winter was long and cold and the lad thought regretfully many a time of genial Dorset with its unseasonable flowers peeping out at all manner of times, its gleams of sunshine and blue sky even on the shortest days, the breeze rushing over the Downs, mild for all its freshness, and carrying with it always a hint of the sea not far distant. He dreamed of Dorset often, of his father’s little homestead, of the farm on which he had used to work, of the animals he had been wont to tend, of the church to which he had betaken himself Sunday after Sunday--but strangely enough, though he longed and almost prayed to dream of Rebecca, the vision which haunted his thoughts by day kept aloof from his pillow.

One night, however, he did dream of Rebecca, and his dream was so vivid that he could hardly believe that it was not indeed reality. He thought he saw her standing in the sunshine on the Downs at the top of Sweetbriar Lane; he was toiling up this lane at some distance from her, running, but after the manner of dreams, not seeming to make much progress, and she kept afar off, waving one little slender arm and calling:--

“I want you, David!” she cried. “Davy--Davy--I want you!”

Her voice was ringing in his ears when he woke; the sweat stood on his brow, and his heart was thumping violently.

“If she do want me, I’ll go,” he said.

It was not yet six months since he had left home; according to his contract another eighteen should elapse before he took a holiday, yet he did not hesitate for a moment. An unendurable longing was upon him; he was drawn by an inexplicable force. Without pausing to reflect on the possible consequences which might ensue, he rose, dressed and set forth on his journey before any one, even in that early household, was astir.

He had but little money, and his progress was necessarily slow, his resources only permitting him to travel a part of the way by train. He walked the rest, begging occasional “lifts” from good-natured waggoners.

It was nearly a week after that dream had come to him when he arrived late one afternoon at his native place. So travel-stained was he, so haggard and gaunt with fatigue and privations, that his old friends would have found it difficult to recognise him had he traversed the village; but Rebecca’s home lay on the outskirts and he made his way there immediately.