Chapter 7

"I shouldn't be worth my mate if I did get better," he says, reflectively, and without the faintest trace of bitterness. "Nought but lumber--in every one's road. Nay, I'd a deal sooner shift a'together. I've allus worked 'ard--it 'ud not coom nat'ral to be idle. I'm ready to go, if it's the A'mighty's will."

"Eh, He'll be like to tak' ye soon, feyther. He will--He'll tak' ye afore aught's long," says the daughter. "Raly," she adds, as she pilots her visitor downstairs after this consolatory remark, "it's a'most to be 'oped as He will."

Yet when He does, and poor feyther is carried away to his long home by his sons and cronies, there is genuine distress in the little household. When the daughter has got her "blacks," and drawn the club money, and the excitement of the funeral is over, she has leisure to miss the quiet presence, the familiar voice. She starts up at night many a time fancying she hears it, and weeps as she falls back on her pillow again. She polishes "feyther's cheer" reverently, and treasures his pipe, and sobs as she cuts up his clothes for suits for her little lads, and takes in his great-coat to make it fit her gaffer.

"It was a blessed release," she says, wiping her eyes, "an' we had a nice funeral, but it's lonely wi'out him."

"A nice funeral" is the most important of all desiderata, and many are the privations which the living cheerfully endure, that the dead may be interred with due respect and decorum. The most improvident of these people look forward to and prepare for the contingency, inevitable indeed, and yet deemed by other folk unutterably remote.

"Ah! it's bin a struggle to keep 'em," said a poor woman once, speaking of her little flock of ten healthy hearty children. "I've noan bin able to put by much, but theer's wan thing, I've got 'em all in a buryin'-club."

Now and then when the death has been preceded by a long illness, and the family exchequer has sunk low, the neighbours come to the rescue, and with characteristic straightforwardness and goodnature avert impending disgrace. One such case occurred here recently. The father of the family had been hovering for months between life and death, and when he "drew away" at last, wife and children were left absolutely without means. Nevertheless the funeral was beautiful, it was universally agreed. The wheelwright made a coffin free of charge, one of the farmers sent the necessary refection; each household in the village did something, one supplying a whole dress, one merely a hatband. When the time came for the procession to start, every child had its decent blacks, and though the question of how to live to-morrow was still unanswered, the poor widow, wiping her eyes behind her flowing veil, felt soothed and in a manner elated. No one could say but what her master had a gradely buryin'. She could not repress a certain honest pride, and, oddly enough, though the neighbours were quite aware that without their assistance this desirable appearance would never have been presented, they were none the less impressed, and felt that Mrs. ---- deserved great credit.

If sentiment be not common among us, there is no dearth of "feelin'," though it is sometimes exhibited in unusual and rather startling fashion. The doctor, for instance, was somewhat taken aback one day by the reply of a poor man with whom he had been condoling over the death of an only son.

"I tell ye," sobbed the inconsolable parent, "if it hadn't bin for what neighbours 'ud say, I'd ha' had th' little divil stuffed."

There is no rule without its exception, and, though our people are for the most part affectionate and tender-hearted in their own rugged way, I am bound to own there are some Stoics in our midst.

One old woman, in particular, whom I have known to be afflicted in a variety of ways, has never betrayed the least sign of emotion; whether she is incapable of it, or whether she heroically conceals it, I have been unable to discover.

She lost two sons in rapid succession after a few hours' illness.

"What did they die of?" asked some one sympathetically.

As a rule such a remark would have led to a flood of tearful and affectionate reminiscences, but this old lady was laconic.

"One deed of a Tuesday, and one of a Thursday," she replied.

The third son a short time afterwards, returning home from market slightly hazy in his ideas, was run over by an express train as he endeavoured to cross the line.

Next morning the body was found, horribly mutilated, and a porter was despatched to break the tidings to the bereaved mother. The man, overcome with the horror of the event, and full of compassion for the white-haired woman--who stood stolidly awaiting his message, evidently unsuspicious of its tenor--could scarcely find words with which to tell the news.

"There's bin an accident," he faltered, "we'n foun' a mon o' th' rails--dead--cut t' pieces by a train."

Old Lizzie stared at him in silence; then a light seemed to break in on her.

"Ah," she said. "Happen it's our Bill!"

And with that she turned on her heel and went upstairs to select a winding-sheet for him.

Some of our folks like to talk about their troubles. Over and over again they tell you, almost in the same words, exactly how it all came about. A poor woman pleats her apron and gazes at you with pathetic eyes, which she stops to wipe occasionally. The story has grown familiar to both relater and listener, and sometimes you are regaled not only with the tale itself, but with the repetition of your own comments thereon.

"I mind ye said so and so," she says, "an' it's often seemed to comfort me."

Clearly there is nothing for it but immediately to say it again, and you are rewarded by seeing the face brighten perceptibly, much as a child's brightens as it hears a well--known point in a familiar tale. These simple people are very like children.

But sometimes the pain is too great to be dilated on, and then a chance phrase or word, infinitely pathetic, betrays the depth of sorrow; sometimes there is silence more pathetic still.

Looking into a cottage, one day, where the week before a little child had been carried to the churchyard, I found the mother hard at work, ironing.

"I will not come in," I said. "You are busy."

"Nay, ma'am, coom your ways in an' sit ye down. There's no hurry. I'm nobbut puttin' away our Teddy's little clothes."

Not another word did she say in allusion to her sorrow, and no tears fell on the little worn garments. Poor little garments, so pathetically bringing to mind the wee lost personality! Darned socks which had covered active little feet; tiny short "knickers" patched at the knees; shabby coat--moulded, it would seem, into the very shape of the chubby figure--the mother ironed and polished them, and laid them in a tidy heap. As she worked she tried to talk of other things, but her face told its own tale, and I went away with an aching heart.

The men carry their troubles afield; manual labour dulls, if it does not altogether exorcise, them; some have other less creditable means of seeking oblivion. But the poor women, shut in in their little houses, with their anxieties and sorrow staring them in the face--God help them! So narrow are their lives, so few their experiences, that their thoughts must run perpetually in the same groove; everything which surrounds them, their "sticks" of furniture, their little household gods, are reminders of lost joys and present grief.

"Eh, I can scarce 'bide to see my mother's cheer," said a poor crippled girl to me. "Her 'an me was allus sat one aside o' t'other, an' now hoo's gone. Eh, I know I shouldn't complain, an' hoo's in a better place; but hoo's gone, ye see, an' I'm awful lonely. I keep settin' here all day, an' thinkin' of her, and fancyin' I hear her moanin'. Eh dear, yes, it's a shame for me, an' I know I ought to be glad hoo isn't sufferin' no longer. Eh, at th' last, ye know, Mrs. Francis, it were summat awful what hoo suffered. Oh yes, I _know_. But, ye see, when I'm sat here all day by mysel', an' when I see th' empty cheer, an' o' neets when I dream hoo's layin' aside o' me, an' then wakken up an' stretch out my arms--eh, dear o' me!"

Some of the neighbours thought this poor girl's grief excessive. Nancy indeed, who buried her own exceedingly ancient parent comparatively recently, bade her remember that she was not the only one who knew what it is to lose a mother. It is not, as a rule, considered quite decent to speak in other than cheerful tones of a bereavement which has occurred more than a year ago,--unless, of course, you are taking a general survey of your troubles, in which case it is allowable to include it as a proof the more that you have "supped sorrow." But Mary set etiquette at defiance. Out of the fulness of her heart her mouth spake. To all corners she must needs tell her loneliness and her sorrow.

One day, however, she received me with a bright face and a certain air of mysterious joy.

"Mrs. Francis, I scarce know how to tell ye, but it seems as if th' Lord Hissel sent me a bit o' comfort. Ye see, nobry had no feelin' for me here in village; they all towd me to resign mysel', an' that, an' it were wicked o' me to be ill-satisfied wi' th' A'mighty's will. But, ye see, I wouldn't seem able to give ower frettin'--I raly couldn't. Well but, last neet--I haven't towd nobry, because I didn't want to have 'em laughin', ye know, and, o' course, I dunnot set mich store by dreams; but still, it seemed to comfort me."

She looked at me appealingly, and, being assured of my sympathy, continued--

"Well, last neet I were very lonesome when I geet into bed, an' I began o' thinkin' o' my mother, an' wonderin' where hoo was. An' 'Eh, mother,' I says out loud, 'wheer _are_ ye, an' are ye thinkin' o' me, an' are ye in heaven?' An' I geet agate o' cryin' an' axin' mysel wheer was heaven, an' was hoo raly theer. Well, at last I dozed off, an' I had a dream. I thought I saw my mother, in her cap an' apron, an' wi' her sleeves rolled up--just same as hoo used to look when hoo was busy about th' house. An' I thought hoo coom along, lookin' fro' one side to t'other, as if hoo were seechin' soombry; an' I said, 'Here I am, mother.' An' hoo stood a moment, an' smiled. An' then"--sinking her voice and speaking hurriedly and excitedly--"I looked up at sky (we was out o' doors i' my dream), an' then I saw it all full o' light, and rays coomin', goldy rays, same as--same as ye see sometimes on a Christmas card; an' they coom down, an' gathered all about my mother, an' lapped her round. An' then I see her goin' up, up--reet into th' leet; an' then I wakkened. Eh, Mrs. Francis, dunnot ye think--dunnot ye raly think--as th' Lord sent me that dream to comfort me? Eh, I feel sure hoo's in heaven now, an' hoo's thinkin' o' me. I cannot tell ye how 'appy it mak's me."

"Eye hath not seen," says St. Paul, "ear hath not heard." Very different was poor Mary's vision. Think of it: the little old woman in her working dress, with the sleeves rolled up on her skinny arms--the "goldy rays, same as ye see on Christmas cards." But, nevertheless, even in her attic room she has had a glimpse of Paradise.

THE ROMANCE OF BROTHER JOHN

Mrs. Cross was gardening; it was an occupation in which she took great pleasure, not merely on account of her affection for the little plot of ground which she miraculously contrived to render bright at all seasons, but because it afforded her ample opportunities for supervising her neighbours' affairs. While she watered her stocks, or tied up her carnations, she was enabled to throw an occasional keen glance in at the open doorway on either side of her; she knew precisely what Mrs. Barnes had for dinner, and how large was Mrs. Frizzel's wash. Squatting back on her heels in the intervals of her labours, and negligently scratching her elbows or retwisting her untidy coil of hair, she would even hearken discreetly to such scraps of conversation as enlivened meal or toil. She knew all about Mrs. Frizzel's last letter from her daughter Susan, and could give the precise details of young Barnes' encounter with the stalwart yeoman who had supplanted him in the affections of his sweetheart. She would also hail from over the hedge the driver of any passing tradesman's cart, and was thus enabled to possess herself of the latest news from "town" a mile away. By craning her neck a little to the right she could catch a glimpse of the walls and roofs of this centre of activity, and by extending it in the other direction she had a peep of the high road, where sometimes as many as a dozen vehicles passed of an afternoon.

Her eyes were strained towards this favourite point of view on one particularly sultry August evening; her own hedge, even, was sprinkled with dust, while the double row which guarded the glaring stretch yonder was absolutely white.

Mrs. Cross's little garden was, however, a pleasant spot, even on this glowing, breathless afternoon. She had been watering her borders, and a delicious smell of damp earth mingled with the fragrance of the old-fashioned flowers beneath the mellow old walls of her cottage. A fine array of sweet-williams and larkspurs and hollyhocks stood in a row before them; jessamine and honeysuckle clung to the old brick and festooned themselves over the rickety porch. Between the green tendrils one got a glimpse of the picture within--the dresser with its wealth of shining crockery, the log-fire leaping merrily on the hearth, a little brown teapot winking in the glow, the table spread with a clean white cloth and set out for two. It made a pretty picture, yet, as has been said, Mrs. Cross perpetually turned her eyes towards the patch of high road which climbed painfully up between the dusty hedges. At last she was constrained to rise from her knees and take her stand by her little gate, where, with knitted brows and pursed-up lips, she remained on the watch, until at last her patience was rewarded by the sight of a woman's figure, clad in deep black, suddenly rounding the corner. She immediately smoothed her brow and composed her features to a becoming melancholy. Mrs. Cross was ever as ready to sympathise with her neighbours' misfortunes to their faces as she was to declare behind their backs that they were well-deserved. To-day, however, her countenance wore an expression of tempered woe, and her voice was only moderately dolorous, for the trouble which she was about to lament was a vicarious one.

"I've a-been on the look-out for you ever since tea-time, Mrs. Domeny, my dear. Thinks I constant, 'I wonder how Mrs. Domeny be a-gettin' on, and I wonder how the poor widow-man be a-bearin' up.' Come in an' sit ye down, do; ye must be mortal hot and tired, walkin' so far in your deep."

Mrs. Domeny, a chubby, buxom little woman, who found it hard to eliminate from her rosy face all trace of a cheerfulness which, however habitual, would have been unbecoming on the occasion of a sister-in-law's funeral, checked the smile with which she had been about to respond to her friend's invitation, and heaved a sigh instead.

"Well, jist for a minute, Mrs. Cross. There, to tell 'ee the truth, I'm fair wore out, what with a body's feelin's and a-walkin' so far i' the sun, and the dust a-gettin' down one's throat wi' every sob, so to speak. 'Ees, my dear, I'm terrible dry, an' I would like a cup o' tea, jist about! They hadn't nothin' but ham," she added, "yonder at Brother John's. 'Twas a bit salt. I always told poor Sarah as I did think she salted her hams too much; but, there! she be gone, poor soul, and it wouldn't become me to speak ill of her ham now."

"Ah, my dear," groaned Mrs. Cross, pouring out a cupful of the inky-looking fluid that had been stewing on the hob for the last hour and a-half. "Ah, my dear, all flesh is grass, as we do know. She was a dried-up-looking poor body, your sister-in-law; I al'ays did say so, ye mid remember. An' how did ye leave poor John?"

"He was in floods," responded Mrs. Domeny, her eyes filling with sympathetic tears. "In floods, I do assure 'ee. I did feel for en, I can tell 'ee. 'Twas through me as they did first get to know each other. 'Twas a very romantic marriage theirs was, Mrs. Cross; a real romance me an' Robert al'ays did call it."

"Ah!" commented her neighbour, half sympathetically, half interrogatively. She kicked the logs together with her flat shoe, drew a chair close to her visitor's, filled her own cup, and sat down with an expectant expression.

"'Ees, my dear, quite a romance, as you'll say when I've a-told 'ee. When my sister Susannah was laid up wi' her ninth, which was a twin, my dear, an' her husband out of work, and the other eight scarce able to do a hand's turn for themselves, she wrote to me an' axed me to come an' look after things a bit till she got about again. Well, I couldn't say no, ye can understand, so Robert got Janie Domeny, brother Tom's oldest girl, to come of a marnin' to see to en, an' I did go to poor Susannah. Well, 'twas at Susannah's, if you'll believe me," said Mrs. Domeny, with a solemnity which would have befitted the announcement of an event of national importance, "as I first came across poor Sarah."

"Well!" ejaculated Mrs. Cross, pausing with a large bite of bread and butter distending her cheek, and uplifting her hands. "Well, to think of it!"

"'Ees, as I often did say," resumed Mrs. Domeny, "it did seem from the very beginnin' as though 'twas meant to be. She was a-livin' next door to Susannah--hadn't long come, d'ye see, and didn't know any of the neighbours to speak on. But she an' me took to each other fro' the beginnin'. She were a staid women then, an' not over an' above well-lookin'--nay, I can't say as she was. But she was dressed very fayshionable an' nice, an' she was very pleasant to speak to, an' as for me, you know I'm of a very affectionate disposition; 'tis my natur' to cling, d'ye see. 'Ees, as I often do say to my 'usband, I am as clingin' as--as a worm. So, as I tell ye, we did take to each other fro' the first. Well, when Susannah was a-gettin' about, after the ninth day, ye know, I went home along, and Sarah did say to I, 'I'll come and see you, Mrs. Domeny, if I mid make so bold,' she says in her lady-like way.

"'To be sure, Mrs. Maidment,' says I--"

"Oh, she was a widow then?" interrupted Mrs. Cross. "There now, what notions folks do get in their heads. I al'ays made sure and certain as your sister-in-law was a single woman afore she was your sister-in-law."

"No, my dear," said Mrs. Domeny impressively. "She was a widow, Mrs. Cross, that's what she was. She'd a-buried her first poor husband--an' a very fine man he was by all accounts--nigh upon six year afore ever she took up wi' brother John."

"Indeed!" ejaculated Mrs. Cross, in a tone which signified that the fact redounded greatly to the credit of the late Mrs. John Domeny.

"'Ees, indeed," repeated the narrator triumphantly. "But where was I? 'To be sure, Mrs. Maidment,' says I, 'I'll be main glad to see you whenever ye can anyway make it convenient to come.' Well, one Sunday she did drap in just as my husband and myself was a-sitting down to our tea. So of course I did make her so welcome as I could, and did get out the best cups an' heat up a bit o' toast, and we was all as comfortable an' friendly as could be. But I noticed, Mrs. Cross, as how Mrs. Maidment's eyes was a-fixed constant on my husband; there, I couldn't choose but notice it, it seemed as if she had to look at him, d'ye understand. I thought at first maybe he had a spot on his face or some sich thing, but, no, it weren't that; and she did speak to en so respectful, and hearken so interested-like when he did say a word, which warn't often, ye mid be sure, for Robert bain't no talker."

"Dear to be sure, how strange," put in Mrs. Cross, again pausing in the act of mastication, and preparing to listen to further details with heightened interest.

"Strange!" echoed the other. "Wait till ye hear the rest, then ye'll think it strange. By-and-by Robert pushed away his cup, 'I think I'll step out for a bit of a pipe, Mary,' says he to I. 'I wish ye good day, ma'am,' says he, noddin' his head at Mrs. Maidment. The door had no sooner shut behind en," she continued, leaning forward and speaking slowly and with great unction, "than Sarah she looks me full in the face, and says she, 'Mrs. Domeny,' she says, 'I do admire your husband. I think,' she says, 'he be a beautiful man.'"

"T'ch, t'ch, t'ch," commented the listener, clicking her tongue, for her astonishment at the sudden development was too great to find vent in mere words.

"'I do admire your husband,'" repeated Mrs. Domeny impressively. "That was what she said, 'he be a beautiful man.' 'Well,' said I, 'I'll not say nay to that, Mrs. Maidment. Him an' me have been married now goin' on fifteen year, an' all I can say about en is as if I were free to choose again, I'd choose the same.'

"'Ah,' says she, giving a kind of sigh, this way, ye know" (here Mrs. Domeny sighed noisily). "'Ah, I knowed he was good by the very looks of him. I am sure,' says she, 'he must come of a very respectable family.' So of course I did tell her as the Domenys was well known and respected in all the country round, and was real good old Darset stock. 'There never was a Domeny yet,' says I, 'as wasn't a credit to the country.' 'Ah,' says she, sighin' again, 'and I d' 'low, ma'am, they do make very good husbands.'

"'Ye mid be sure they do,' says I; 'I can speak up for my own man, and I think Mrs. Tom and Mrs. Ned can do the same for theirs.'

"'Be they all married?' axes she, very quick.

"Well, I looked at her--it did seem a particular kind of question, so to speak, an' she took a fit of coughin'" (here Mrs. Domeny simulated a genteel and hesitating attack of the infirmity in question), "an' at last, says she, very earnest, 'Bain't there one of them at all as hasn't got a wife?'

"'There is Brother John,' says I; 'his missus died two years ago, come Michaelmas. He's a very quiet man,' says I, 'very quiet.'

"'Has he got a nice place?' says she.

"'Dear, to be sure,' says I, 'Brother John be very comfortable. He's got a good-sized house wi' a big garden, an' he do bring up a sight o' pigs an' chicken.'

"'That 'ud do me very well,' says Sarah. 'I've got a bank-book what is worth lookin' at!' And then she stood up. 'I should like to meet your brother John,' she did say; 'perhaps ye'll think it over, Mrs. Domeny?'

"'Oh, 'e--es, I'll do that,' said I. She did bid me good-bye then, an' so soon as ever she was gone I called Robert in and telled en the whole tale."

"I d' 'low he were pleased," put in Mrs. Cross, "about her admirin' of en, ye know."

"Well, he be a very modest man, Robert be; he didn't take much notice. 'Fancy that!' says he, when I did tell en."

"Fancy that!" had also been Mrs. Cross's inward comment, on first hearing of the effect produced by Mr. Robert Domeny on the impressionable Mrs. Maidment; for if truth be told he was anything but an Adonis. But she wisely kept her surprise to herself, and now once more clicked her tongue in token of appreciation.

"'Now, Robert,' says I," continued Mrs. Domeny, resuming her narrative tone, "'how would it be if we was to write to Brother John?'

"'What 'ud ye tell en?' says he; 'he'd mayhap not quite fancy the notion o' takin' up wi' a woman he did never set eyes on.' 'You just leave it to I,' says I; 'I bain't a-goin' to say nothin' at all about wedlock. I'll jist ax en to come to tea next Sunday, and I'll tell en as a very nice body what we've lately got acquainted wi' be a' a-comin' to tea, too; an' I'll jist set down, careless-like, as she have got a bank-book what is worth seein'. Jist no more nor that.'