Part 2

Then she banged another plate upon the table and added somewhat inconsequently, “I’ve no patience with en—nor you neither”.

Later in the day she was standing, knitting in hand, watching a brood of very young chickens which had made their appearance at an astonishingly early date. Despite this fact they were hardy, healthy little things, and Mrs. Joyce smiled as she watched them running in and out from under their mother, picking up the meal she threw them with great alertness and enjoyment.

Mrs. Joyce was a tall, large woman with sandy hair, from which the sun now brought out pretty lights. She had the temper which usually accompanies such hair, easily roused and as easily appeased. The mere sight of these yellow, fluffy chickens, the consciousness of the sunshine, and the fragrance, and suggestiveness, had filled her with a kind of hazy content. The wall-flowers yonder under the kitchen windows were already ablow, she observed. The pigs, too, were coming on nicely; the calf, which was bleating not unmusically in one of the outhouses, had had the good sense to be a heifer. Altogether Mrs. Joyce felt that the world was not a bad place and that life was worth living.

She was in this frame of mind when, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw the figure of Shepherd Robbins shambling slowly down the steep “pinch” of road that led to the farm gate. Perhaps it was the sudden contrast between that gaunt form, that haggard, melancholy face, and the surrounding brightness and prosperity that moved her, perhaps because, being a good-hearted woman in the main, she shared her husband’s regret at the course events were taking; in any case at sight of him her anger melted away, and a flood of genuine pity swept over her heart.

She went to meet Robbins at the gate and laid her hand kindly on his arm.

“Why, shepherd,” she said, and her pleasant voice assumed an inflection that was almost tender, “’tis never true what my husband tells me? You bain’t a-thinkin’ of leaving we? We couldn’t get on without ’ee.”

Sometimes an unexpected kind word from a person whom we have distrusted, and perhaps disliked, carries more weight than a similar one from a friend. Poor Robbins had been dogged and surly enough with the master whom he loved, but when the missus, with whom he had hitherto lived, as it were, on the defensive, spoke so gently and looked so kind, he gazed back at her astonished, softened, confounded.

And when she said again: “Why, shepherd, you bain’t goin’ to desert we?” he suddenly burst into tears.

“No ma’am,” he said brokenly. “I—I—what be I to do?” The tears were running down his face. “I d’ ’low I’d be loth to leave master.”

“Well, you mustn’t think on it,” returned Mrs. Joyce decidedly. “We couldn’t do without you. See—’tis all a bit o’ temper, bain’t it? You never truly meant to give notice?”

“I did, missus; I did,” sobbed the old man. “It bain’t temper neither, it—it be the notion, I think.”

“Yes, that’s all it be, sure,” said Mrs. Joyce, not in the least knowing what he meant, but speaking in soothing tones and patting his arm kindly; “’tis but a notion, Abel. Eight shillin’ bain’t so bad, you know—come. You’ll never want so long as you ’arn eight shillin’ a week—eight shillin’ a week ’ll keep you, wunt it?”

“Ay, it’ll keep me, missus—it bain’t that. But I do ’low it’ll be main hard to go up on pay-day wi’ ’em all, an’ take laiss nor any of ’em—me that has always took the most. They’ll all be castin’ eyes at me an’ talkin’ small o’ me. They’ll be sayin’, ‘Shepherd be takin’ bwoy’s wage. He bain’t worth his salt now, shepherd bain’t.’ It’s the notion o’ that, missus, as I can’t stand—nohow.”

“Oh, that’s what it be,” returned his mistress thoughtfully.

The excitement which rendered Robbins so unusually garrulous had flushed his cheeks and given light to his eyes. The woman’s heart was touched as she looked at him.

“Ay, ma’am, an’ another thing—the lad as I be to have help me, he’ll be a cheeky un very like—the ruck o’ lads be. He’ll think himself as good as me—better mayhap. He’ll be gettin’ same money as me, ye know. What’ll he think o’ me at my time o’ life? Adam Blanchard and Eddard Boyt they be gettin’ same as their grandsons I d’ ’low, but there! the boys be their grandsons, an’ if they don’t treat ’em respectful-like they can give ’em the stick.”

Mrs. Joyce was silent for a moment, her brows were knit and her lips compressed; she seemed to be turning over a problem in her mind. Suddenly her face lit up.

“Abel,” she said, “I’m o’ your mind arter all. I think instead o’ your master cuttin’ off your wages he ought to raise you. You ought to have some reward for your long years of faithful service. In my opinion your master ought to raise you to sixteen shillin’.”

Shepherd Robbins looked as though he scarcely heard aright.

“Why, missus!” he exclaimed, and paused overcome.

“Yes; if master raises you, nobody couldn’t vex you, an’ yet nobody couldn’t find aught amiss. The master ’ud tell ’em all ’twas but nat’ral after ye bein’ wi’ us so long an’ so punished wi’ rheumatics. It’s time he should do something more for ’ee. An’ so, he’d say, he’s goin’ to raise you an’ you be goin’ to keep a lad.”

Robbins still stared, astonishment and delight vying with each other in his face. “That ’ud be a different story!” he ejaculated.

“An’, you see, you could pick your own bwoy easy then—he’d be your bwoy; you could choose en for yourself, an’ send en away if he didn’t behave hisself. Would that do ye?” she asked with modest triumph.

“Do me!—ah, that it would! I did never expect so much. But master won’t hear on it, sure!”

“He will, though—I’ll see to that. ’Tis but your due, shepherd. I d’ ’low you deserve some reward; we bain’t onreasonable!”

She turned quickly, and went into the house, leaving Robbins radiant but still half incredulous.

He was forced to believe in his own good fortune, however, when at pay time Farmer Joyce announced the intended promotion of Shepherd Robbins, who, in view of his long service and failing health, was now to receive an increase of wages amounting to four shillings a week.

The shepherd bore himself with becoming modesty under the congratulations of his comrades. One or two of them were disposed to be envious, but for the most part they received the intelligence in an ungrudging spirit.

“They do say that you be goin’ to keep a bwoy, shepherd,” remarked the ploughman a little later, gazing at him with respectful admiration.

“Very like I be,” returned Abel loftily. He was not proud, but thoroughly aware of his own importance.

One of the other men, the father of a family, humbly mentioned that he had a fine well-grown lad at home that would, maybe, suit Mr. Robbins as well as another, and Abel graciously promised to think of it.

He went home thoroughly convinced that a piece of most unexpected good luck had befallen him, an opinion which was shared by all his neighbours. As for Mr. and Mrs. Joyce they kept their own counsel.

PRIVATE GRIGGS.

THE November landscape was sombre and melancholy enough; brown, newly-ploughed fields alternating for the most part with the tawny stubble of land that still lay fallow. A few withered leaves clung to the branches of trees and hedges; the sky was grey, the air heavy and yet cold. It was a fit day to hear news of trouble, Mrs. Frizzell thought, as her eyes roamed over the prospect, not vaguely as another woman’s might have done, but with a definite object in view.

She proceeded at a round pace up the lane, and along the high road, leaving it, after half a mile or so, to strike across the fields.

She was a small, energetic-looking woman, with hazel eyes and prematurely grey hair. Her usually cheerful face was deadly pale to-day, and its characteristically alert expression had given place to one of devouring anxiety.

Presently against the sky-line above a distant hedge appeared the head and shoulders of a man, and a little way in front of him the ears and crests of two horses. Mrs. Frizzell quickened her pace, making for a familiar gap in the hedge aforesaid, through which she presently squeezed herself.

The man, who had not seen her, continued his slow progress across the field. Without calling out to him she broke into a run, her feet sinking deep at every step in the newly turned-up soil; after a few minutes she reached him, panting, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

He looked round with a start, and brought his horses to a standstill.

“Martha! what brings ye out at this time o’ day?”

“Nothing good,” said Martha. She threw a hasty glance round. “Be there any one about?”

She spoke in a peculiarly loud and distinct key, and he answered in the low, mumbling tone habitual to deaf people.

“Nay, who should be about? There bain’t nobody here but myself.”

“I think I’ll go with ’ee to the top o’ the hill and make sure—I don’t want nobody to hear what I’ve a-got to tell ’ee. Go on—go on to the top o’ the drill.”

“I be to go forrard?” questioned her husband, staring at her stupidly.

“’Ees, take them harses up to the top o’ the drill, and then I’ll talk to ’ee.”

Frizzell admonished his horses to proceed, and went plodding on up the rising ground along which he had traced his furrow, glancing round every now and then at the set face of his wife as she plodded in his rear.

He was a big, blond, good-natured man, whose natural dulness of wit was intensified by his infirmity.

When they reached the brow of the hill Martha slipped in front of him, and standing on tip-toe, cast a searching glance round. A flock of sheep was penned in a corner of the adjacent turnip-field, a few rooks were waddling up the furrows nearer at hand; over their heads a heron was slowly sailing with wide, sweeping wings on his way to the river, but not a human creature was in sight.

“Well,” said John Frizzell as she turned towards him, “whatever be the matter, Missus? I wish you’d out wi’ it.”

“I have had a letter from my cousin Julia, Father, and she have telled me some bad noos about our Susan.”

John’s jaw dropped, and the colour forsook his face, leaving it pale beneath its tan.

“Why—be the maid took ill?” he inquired with a gasp.

“She bain’t well—and she bain’t like to be well. She’ve a-been ill-used, Father. There, the silly girl wouldn’t hearken to what I did al’ays tell her, an’ now she be sufferin’ for’t. She’ve been an’ took up wi’ a soldier, an’ so far as I can make out he made a purtence o’ marryin’ her; got some raskil to dress up as a minister, an’ put on the ring and all. The poor maid was sure she was married honest, but she kep’ it secret, for he dared her to tell any one wi’out he gave her leave. Well, an’ now he’ve a-gone off to the war, and left a letter for her sayin’ as how ’twere all humbug, an’ they wasn’t married at all, an’ hopin’ she’d forgive en.”

“My God!” said the poor father, and he brought his hand down on the plough-handle with a force that made the mild horses start, “My God! I wish I had en here—I’d smash en!”

“An’ that’s not all,” went on Mrs. Frizzell, in a choked voice; “there’s a little ’un upon the road—our daughter ’ull be disgraced afore the whole parish.”

“Disgraced!” cried John, his honest face as red as it had before been pale, “who says _disgraced_! ’Tain’t no fault o’ the poor child’s! She’ve a-been deceived and used cruel hard. Nobody ’ull not have a word to say against _her_.”

“Won’t they, though!” retorted his wife, who, though as sore at heart as he, thought it necessary to assume an aggressive tone. “Who do you suppose ’ull ever believe as the girl ’ud be so simple as to be took in and think herself married when she warn’t married? They don’t believe it in Darchester, I can tell ’ee. There, they’ve a-gone and sent her away from her situation; and Julia—why I can see as my own cousin Julia don’t half believe her story—she’ve wrote to say she ’opes I’ll come and take her away at once, as she don’t like her for to be comin’ to the house.”

“Well, write an’ tell her as you will take her away,” returned Frizzell in a kind of muffled roar. “I bain’t ashamed o’ my child, whatever other folks may be. Write an’ tell her as Father an’ Mother ’ull be fain to have her home, and won’t let nobody worrit her when she d’ get there. I’ll soon shut their mouths if they try to make out as she bain’t a-tellin’ the trewth!”

“Now, Father, you listen to I.” And here Martha laid both her hands upon his great round shoulders and fairly shook him in her eagerness. “I bain’t a-goin’ for to let her tell the trewth—not all the trewth. I’m willin’ she should say she got married to a soldier unbeknown to us, but I don’t mean to let the rest come out. I’m goin’ for to give out as he were killed in the war. That way he’ll be done wi’, so to speak—nobody ’ull be axin’ questions about en, or wonderin’ why Susan have come home.”

John Frizzell fairly gasped.

“Bless my heart!” he ejaculated, staring at his eager little wife. “Why, what a tale! I don’t much fancy tellin’ sich a pack o’ lies; nay, now”—and he rolled his head obstinately—“I bain’t a-goin’ to tell ’em. I’ll speak the trewth, and knock down them as says contrairy—I’ll be danged if I won’t!”

“Don’t ’ee be sich a fool, Father. You’ll do jist as I tell ’ee. I’ve al’ays held up my head, and Susan, she’ve al’ays been a bit high, an’ have a-kep’ herself to herself, and there be folks as ’ud be only too glad to go a-crowin’ over we, an’ a-backbitin’ of we. I bain’t a-goin’ for to give ’em no cause. You keep your mouth shut—that’s all as you’ve got to do. Keep your mouth shut, and if folks d’ come a-worrettin’ of ’ee wi’ questions, don’t ’ee let on for to understand. You be hard enough o’ hearin’ at all times, and you can jist make out to be a bit harder. You’ll have to do as I do bid ’ee, for I’ve telled Mrs. Cross jist now the story about Susan’s husband bein’ killed in the war, and his name an’ all—”

“Why, do ’ee know his name?” interrupted Frizzell, staring at her in a puzzled sort of way. “What be his name? The young raskil! If he bain’t killed out abroad, I’ll half murder en when he do come back.”

Martha’s face assumed a set expression.

“He don’t deserve for to come back,” she said, in a tone too low for her husband to hear. “There, it bain’t Christian to wish ill to nobody, but the A’mighty be just, and I can’t think as He’d let a blessin’ rest on that there wicked fellow. I don’t know his name no more nor you,” she shouted, turning to John, who was still muttering vengeance. “Julia didn’t tell I; but when Mrs. Cross axed straight out what his name mid be, I had to say summat. I weren’t a-goin’ for to tell her as I didn’t know, so I jist thought of a name as I seed in the paper o’ Sunday among the list o’ killed—Private Griggs—so I telled her ’twas that.”

John stared at her solemnly and with unwilling admiration.

“Ye be wonderful quick at makin’ out things, and I do suppose it bain’t no use for I to go against ye; but I don’t believe no good ’ull come o’ it. Mrs. Cross be a terrible one to talk—she’ll ha’ spread the tale over village by now.”

“She will,” agreed Martha. “’Tis jist for that I did tell her. I must be gettin’ back now,” she continued, in an altered tone. “Don’t ’ee be took back when ’ee see blinds down, Father.”

“Blinds down! What’s that for?”

“Why, because Private Griggs be killed,” returned Mrs. Frizzell grimly. “They’ll ha’ to be kep’ down till I’ve a-fetched the widow home.”

“The widow!” exclaimed John. And he fairly burst out crying. “My poor little Susie! My poor maidie!”

He turned his back to his wife and stood for a moment with his shoulders convulsively heaving; then, rubbing his eyes with one horny hand, he shouted huskily to the horses, ordered his wife gruffly to stand out of the way, and started off down the hill again.

Mrs. Frizzell struck off at right angles across the field, and made for home with all possible speed. Her heart was full, nigh to bursting, and the lump in her throat caused her almost intolerable physical distress, but she resolutely forced the tears back. This was no time for crying—there was too much to be done—too much to be thought of.

* * * * *

It was about noon on the following day when Mrs. Frizzell arrived at Susan’s lodging.

The poor girl ran to meet her with an inarticulate cry, and the mother, without looking at her, began to talk rapidly in her characteristically matter-of-fact fashion.

“I be come to take ’ee home, my dear—Father an’ me think ’tis best—you’d better be gettin’ your things together. There, I did start so early as I could, but I had to go into one or two shops, and it did take I sich a time to find out this place! Ye’d best make haste and do your packing; there’s the getting back to be thought on. You can put up all as you’ve a-got ’cept your black dress—ye can slip that on. I’ve got everythin’ else as ye be like to want here.”

“My black dress!” said Susie. “’Tis too good for travellin’, mother; this here blue be quite tidy.”

“Do what I tell ’ee,” said Mrs. Frizzell, sternly, looking up from the parcel which she was unfastening, and fixing her eyes for the first time on the girl’s pale, agitated face.

“Mother, why have you got your blacks on?” cried Susan in sudden alarm. “And, oh! what’s that in your hand?”

“’Tis a bonnet, my dear, and you be to put it on. Now, Susan, I haven’t said one cross word to ’ee, and I bain’t a-goin’ to say a cross word to ’ee; and Father and me have a-made up our minds to stand by ’ee, and we’ll not let nobody go a-worrettin’ of ’ee, or a-castin’ up at ’ee about what’s past. If ye did deceive we, ye’ve a-been punished enough for’t.”

“Oh, dear! an’ that’s true,” wailed Susan; and she threw herself into her mother’s arms, her big, babyish, blue eyes drowned in tears; her poor head, with its crown of golden hair, hidden on the bosom where it had so often lain in innocent infancy. “I was a wicked girl to deceive ’ee and dear Father, as was always so good to me. But he—Jim—said I wasn’t to tell no one, or he’d be gettin’ into trouble, as we wasn’t on the strength!”

“And what mid that mean, my dear?”

“I don’t know, Mother. Some soldiers’ talk. Some of ’em has leave to get married, an’ some hasn’t.”

“Ah-h-h-h, ye mid ha’ knowed he was up to some tricks—ye couldn’t be married right that way. Why, where was your lines, my dear?”

“He said he was a-keepin’ them for me, an’ he took me to a kind o’ tin buildin’, an’ said it was the soldiers’ chapel, and he knowed I always went to chapel, so he wouldn’t ax me to be married in church; and there was another man there, as he said was the minister. And he put the ring on my finger—Jim did—he did indeed”—and here Susan raised her head to look earnestly in her mother’s face—“and he did say the words, and all.”

“There, there, no need to talk more on’t. Ye’ve been voolish, my maid, and he’ve a-been wicked; and you be left to pay for it all. But you’ve got Father and Mother to look to, and if you’ll do as I do bid ’ee, nobody need know o’ the trick as has been played on ’ee. There, slip on your dress, my dear, and pop this bonnet on, and–”

“Mother, ’tis a widow’s bonnet,” gasped Susan. “Oh, don’t—don’t make me wear a widow’s bonnet! Oh, I can’t bear the sight of en; it do seem so unlucky, so dreadful!”

“Now be still, Susan; I don’t want no idle talk about ’ee, an’ no insultin’ remarks passed, and I’ve a-made out a story and you be to keep to’t. You be the Widow Griggs—that be your name; and your husband, what was a soldier, have a-been killed in this here war.”

“Oh, not killed; not killed!” cried the girl wildly. “Oh, Mother, don’t ’ee talk like that, for I can’t a-bear it. There, ’twould seem so wicked to be sayin’ sich things—the Lard mid make it come true. I can’t but feel as Jim be my husband; whatever he’ve a-done, and so bad as he mid be, I can’t ever feel anything else. He did mean to marry I some day when he’d got leave, and he’d ha’ done it if it hadn’t ha’ been for the war. If you call me a widow, I shall feel all the time as if Jim were really killed.”

Mrs. Frizzell folded her arms and gazed at her resolutely and severely.

“Susan, don’t let me hear ’ee talk like that—the man’s dead to you if he bain’t killed, an’ his name mustn’t ever be on your lips. I’m doin’ the best I can for ’ee, an’ I can’t think the Lard ’ud be angry with me for makin’ out a story what does no harm to nobody. As for that fellow, he be in the hands o’ the Lard—the Lard ’ull see to en. I leave en to the A’mighty.”

Mrs. Frizzell spoke with a certain almost terrible significance which made poor Susie’s blood run cold.

The stronger will gained the day, and a short time afterwards the Widow Griggs, clad in her “deep,” and sobbing in a heartrending fashion that had no pretence at all about it under her long veil, was led out of the house by her resolute little mother.

Mrs. Frizzell was by nature truthful, but in this emergency it must be owned that her veracity was exposed to tests from which it did not always escape unscathed.

When one of her neighbours asked her if she did not mean to apply for relief on her daughter’s behalf from some of the funds instituted for soldiers’ widows, she could reply boldly enough that such an appeal would be useless, as Private Griggs had married without leave, and Susan’s claim would therefore not be recognised. But when the sympathetic, but exasperatingly pertinacious Mrs. Cross—the gossip who had been chosen in the first instance to spread the news of Susan’s bereavement—plied her with questions anent her departed son-in-law, the poor woman occasionally found herself so completely cornered as to be obliged to invent appropriate answers.

Thus, before very long, it became known in the village that the late Private Griggs had been a tall, dark man, very well-looking; that he came from somewhere up the country; that his mother was breaking her heart about his loss, but his father did seem to bear up very well. They didn’t write often to Susan—no, for the poor dear were that undone she couldn’t a-bear so much as to hear his name mentioned; in fact, Mrs. Frizzell herself did scarcely ever mention it to her. (“And that’s true!” remarked the originator of this history, with infinite satisfaction.) No more didn’t Frizzell—indeed, poor Frizzell were that upset about it that the less said to en the better.

Sometimes Mrs. Frizzell was a little startled when these figments were recalled to her—many of them, indeed, were so much embellished by transmission from mouth to mouth that she scarcely recognised her own original creation; but she deemed it best to let the story pass.

“Let ’em please theirselves,” she murmured. “I didn’t say so much as that, but ’tis better to let ’em think so if it do satis_fy_ ’em. There,” she would add, when tormented by some particularly keen twinge of conscience, “’tis to be ’oped as the Lard will forgi’e me. I can’t believe as it ’ull be held agen me, seein’ as it’s for the sake of my own child.”

When poor Susan’s baby boy arrived great astonishment was elicited by the fact that the soft down which covered its little head was of a distinctly ruddy colour.

“Dear, to be sure,” remarked Mrs. Cross, “he can’t take after his father, poor, dear little hinfant. You said he was a black-haired man, didn’t you, Mrs. Frizzell? And Susan’s hair be just so yellow as the corn. I can’t call to mind as there be any red-haired folks in your family, or Frizzell’s either.”

“Very like the poor innocent do take after some o’ Mr. Griggs’ relations,” remarked another woman. “His mother, now—’tis strange how often I’ve a-known the first child be the very image o’ the father’s mother.”