Part 8

“I hope so, I’m sure,” he replied. “’Tis a bad thing when ye come to think on’t, Sally, for the man to be laid by—him as has to earn the money to fill all the little mouths. Wet or dry, sick or well, off he has to go to his work. If a man didn’t do his work reg’lar he’d get turned off pretty quick. The women don’t remember that when they sit idle at home, without ever giving a thought to their husbands’ peace or comfort. Yet, if the husbands wasn’t there, what would become of them all? Did you find it hard work fillin’ that bucket this mornin’, Sally?”

“Terr’ble hard,” said Sally, with a quivering lip.

“Ah, I’m sorry for that. D’ye think ye’ll be able to chop sticks for to-morrow’s fire?”

“Ye oughtn’t to ask me to do such work,” said she, with a sob. “Ye know I’m not fit for it.”

“Winter an’ summer, year in, year out, I fill that bucket—and every evenin’, no matter how tired I may be, I chop them sticks. When I had the lumbago last year, I filled your bucket all the same, and when I sprained my wrist I managed to use the chopper with my left hand. Yet, if you’ve the least little ache or pain, you never do a hand’s turn, Sally. I ask you straight, is that fair?”

Sally gazed at him in silence, her lip still trembling, her eyes filled with tears.

“An’ if ye’d take a bit o’ pride in yourself an’ the childern,” he went on, “there’d be some pleasure in comin’ home. Yes, and I’d be glad, too, to save up an’ take ye for an outing now and again. But when I look at ye with the clothes dropping off ye, and a face that hasn’t as much as nodded at cold water, I feel—well, I feel that, if I wasn’t a proper temperance man, it’s to the public I’d go every night of my life.”

Sally looked down still without speaking.

“Just think of it,” he went on; “you have your share of work, no doubt; but I have mine too. If we each do our own, and pull together, we can get along right enough. Come, little ’ooman, see how nice you’ve made the place look—it didn’t take so very long, did it? An’ what a lot of mendin’ ye did this afternoon—not to mention the buttons I sewed on for ye,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye—“it wasn’t so very much trouble once ye set about it. Now, shall we make a fresh start? I’ll go to work to-morrow morning if you’ll get out your needles and thread, and throw them nasty silly story books in the fire. And let’s make the childern useful, my dear—a little bit o’ light work is as good as play to a child.”

Sally glanced up with an odd look, in spite of the tears that were still upon her face.

“I never heard ye make such a long speech in your life, Jim,” said she. “I wonder—I wonder if anybody’s been putting you up to all the games you’ve been playing this day. Mrs Spencer now—she called here yesterday—”

“She did,” said Jim, beginning to laugh a little. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Sally, the notion did come from her. Ye mustn’t be vexed, my dear; but I think ’twas a good notion. ‘If ever any folks should bear one another’s burdens,’ says the mistress, ‘it’s husband and wife.’ Come, Sally, I’ll do my best for you if you’ll do your best for me.”

Sally dried her eyes, and held out her hand to her husband: “I will,” she said.

She actually kept her resolution, and Jim had good reason to be grateful to his mistress for that happy thought of hers, though he sometimes said with a laugh, that she had taught him a lesson too, and that he would rather plant cabbages all day than sew on a dozen buttons.

HOW NED BLANCHARD EMIGRATED

ALICE BLANCHARD was wheeling the perambulator slowly along the most rutty curve of the “Drove,” or steep lane which led from the high road to the downs, when she caught sight of her father’s sturdy figure behind the almost leafless hedge. Farmer Bolt was a short, thick-set man, with more brown in hair and beard than was usual in a man of his years, and with a corresponding amount of unlooked-for vigour and energy in his sturdy frame. He was at work now on a task that would have been despised by most men of his standing. He was clipping one of his own hedges in fact, wielding his bill-hook with a rapidity and dexterity which did not prevent his keeping a sharp look-out on the movements of the men who were carting swedes at the further end of the field.

Alice wedged the “pram” firmly against the bank, pulled on the baby’s hood, which had fallen back, arranged its golden fluff of hair so that a becoming tuft appeared beneath the frill, and then going to the other end of the small vehicle made little Abel sit straight and smoothed out the creases in his pinafore.

“Ye’ve got your face all of a mess wi’ blackberries,” she said, in a vexed tone. “I don’t know whatever granfer’ll think of ’ee. There, I reckoned to tidy thee up in grandma’s room afore he see’d thee.”

As Abel was strapped fast in his seat, and could by no possibility have procured the blackberries without his mother’s aid, the reproach seemed a trifle unreasonable; but as Abel had not yet reached a time of life when he could discourse on feminine inconsequence, he merely smiled broadly, and repeated the word “b’ackberries” in an expectant tone.

“Bless your little heart,” said Alice. “That’s granfer, look-see, t’other side o’ the hedge. Ye must call out ‘granfer,’ when we get a-nigh en.”

She shook out her own dress, a somewhat faded print, and set her hat straight, apparently anxious to present as brave an appearance in her father’s eyes as in former days she had to those of her admirers.

A few years ago Alice Bolt had been the handsomest girl in the parish, and even now, though her figure had lost much of its roundness, and her curly dark hair was arranged with less skill, was pretty enough to call for a second glance from all who passed her.

But her blue eyes had acquired a scared look of late, and the bloom had faded in her cheeks. What else was to be expected? The wolf was always at the door, and the fear of it was perpetually present in the heart of the wife and mother.

Farmer Bolt, in the intervals of chopping at his twigs and superintending the leisurely tossing of “roots” into the cart, found time to scan the windings of the Drove, and had indeed observed his daughter long before she had caught sight of him. It may be presumed that he took note of her hasty endeavours to make herself and her family presentable, yet he appeared to be absorbed in his own labours when she halted beneath the bank on which he was stationed.

“Be that you, father? Look, Abel, look-see, ’tis granfer!”

Mr Bolt parted the thin screen of shoots surmounting the hedge and peered over.

“’Tis you, be it?”

“It’s me. I be just goin’ down to the house to have a chat wi’ mother.”

“Ah,” said the farmer.

He lifted his bill-hook and examined it as though he had never set eyes on it before; then he ran his finger thoughtfully along the edge.

“That’s granfer, look-see,” repeated Alice in a tone of assumed cheerfulness. “Look at granfer’s hedgin’ hook, Abel! Call ‘Granfer,’ lovey!”

“Gran-fer!” cried Abel, obediently.

It was the first time his grandfather had heard the child pronounce an articulate word, and at sound of it he was unable to resist the impulse to lean forward a little more and gaze down at the perambulator and its occupants.

“Learnt to talk, has he?” he enquired, ungraciously enough, yet eyeing the little fellow with a sort of curiosity.

“Well, he can only say a few words,” explained the mother, almost stammering in her haste to bring out the information before the grandfather’s interest had waned. “‘Granfer’ was one o’ the first words he said. He says it very plain, don’t he?”

“Plain enough,” responded the farmer, gruffly, and he let the twigs which he had been holding slap back again into their ordinary position.

“He’ve come on a good bit since ye see’d him last,” hazarded the mother. “Folks about us thinks he’s come on wonderful. Don’t ye think he’s come on, father?”

Her father parted the screen of twigs again, and as the bearded face was thrust forth once more, Abel junior tilted himself back in his place and gleefully shouted “Cuckoo!”

For the life of him the grandfather could not help smiling. He did not speak, but gazed at the child for a moment or two, the lines of his countenance relaxing.

“Cuckoo!” cried Abel junior, anxiously watching the upper twigs of the hedge.

“He thinks you’m playin’ a game wi’ en,” explained the mother tremulously.

“Oh,” said Farmer Bolt, reflectively. “Do he? It’s more in my line to work nor to play though.” He loosed the twigs which immediately flew back into place, and Baby Abel, imagining that this was done solely for his benefit cried “Cuckoo!” again, and watched the top of the hedge with dancing eyes. When the farmer, with apparent inadvertence, looked forth again, he threw himself back once more with uproarious laughter, kicking out at the same time with sturdy little feet, clothed in very battered boots.

“He do seem a jolly little chap too,” said the elder Abel, with the air of one making a concession. “T’other’s a girl, bain’t it?”

“Ees, she’s a girl. I called en Margaret after mother, same as the bwoy be Abel after you. We do think little Abel terr’ble like you, father.”

The farmer surveyed his descendant dubiously; and the two pairs of blue eyes met; the child’s twinkled in expectation of the renewal of the game, and by-and-by the old man’s began to twinkle too. As he glanced at the baby, however, his face clouded over.

“The maid be a regular Blanchard, though,” he said, in a vexed tone. “Yellow hair an’ all. There, when she do laugh she be the very image of her grammer, what used to drive a little donkey-cart wi’ rags and bwones, an’ sich, an’ what died in the Union.”

“The child can’t help that, an’ neither can Ned,” said Alice, with a sudden flash in her eyes. “The poor body did die when he were quite a little chap. ’Twas none of his fault if she did die in the Union. So soon as he could work he kept hisself.”

“It mid be none of his fault that his mother was what she was, but I d’ ’low ’tis your fault that my grandson should be what he is, belonging to trampin’ folks, wi’ a father as was born i’ the Union, and as’ll die i’ the Union I shouldn’t wonder. Did ever anybody see a ’ooman so downtrod as what you be, an’ you as was such a handsome maid. Why can’t the chap keep ye in a bit more comfort now he’s got ye? That’s what I want to know.”

“We’ve had a deal o’ trouble, father,” faltered Alice. “What wi’ the childer comin’ so fast, an’ what wi’ Ned breakin’ his leg this spring, we’ve been put about terr’ble.”

“Well, there’s no use cryin’ about spilt milk,” said her father, roughly. “Ye took the crooked stick an’ now ye must put up wi’ en. You as mid ha’ married as well an’ better nor any maid i’ the place, ye must go an’ take up wi’ a beggarly feller as I hired out o’ charity to begin wi’.”

“Ned always worked hard for his wage,” interpolated Alice, hotly, “always! He was worth the money ye paid en.”

“Ees, but I didn’t know that at first. I took en straight fro’ the Union wi’out no more character nor what the master up yonder could give en. An’ when I did do that I didn’t look to bein’ robbed o’ my only child. There, there’s no use talkin’. I must get on wi’ my work. Get along and chat wi’ mother if ye want to.”

“Cuckoo!” cried little Abel as the twigs were once more released; but Granfer did not respond. After an admonitory shout to one of the carters who had spent what he considered an undue time in consideration of the horizon, he resumed his labours with the bill-hook.

Mrs Blanchard trundled her perambulator onwards with a sore heart and an anxious face. Her transient anger had left her, and she reproached herself for having lost her temper.

“’Twas a bad start,” she thought, ruefully, “a very bad start. I d’ ’low I’ve spoilt my chance.”

Mrs Bolt was peeling potatoes when her daughter came to the door, but she laid down her knife with an exclamation of delight when she caught sight of her.

“’Tis never you, my dear, so early an’ all, an’ sich a long ways to come! To think o’ your travellin’ seven mile at this time o’ marnin’! Dear, to be sure, how Abel have come on! There, I never see’d a child shoot up like that. Bless his little heart, he be a fine child. An’ Baby too, she be a-comin’ on jist about.”

“Feel the weight of her,” said Alice, taking the child out of the perambulator and laying her in her mother’s arms; there was a pretty flush in her face and a light in her eyes.

Mrs Bolt weighed her small namesake, and uttered various disjointed exclamations of rapture.

“She be gettin’ sich a lot o’ hair, look-see,” continued the proud mother, jerking off the child’s hood. “An’ she’s got two teeth very near through. She be cuttin’ them early, bain’t she? An’ sich a good baby. There, she do sleep right through the night, an’ by day when I’m busy at my work, ye know, she’ll sit an’ suck at her titty wi’out a murmur.”

“She be a-lookin’ for it now,” remarked grandma.

The much chewed indiarubber ring was unearthed from beneath the baby’s cape, and the flat lozenge-shaped adjunct thereto thrust into her mouth, both women laughing delightedly on noting its possessor’s satisfaction.

“Come in, my dear, an’ sit down, do,” said Mrs Bolt. “I’m sure ye must be jist about tired. Come, Abel love, an’ see what grandma’s got for ’ee. A ripe apple won’t do en no harm,” she added, turning to Alice. “They golden pippins be beautiful to-year—jist so sweet as honey. I do r’ally think that dear child favours his granfer,” she exclaimed, as having reached the living-room, she divested Abel of his hat.

“I do wish father ’ud take to en!” ejaculated Alice, dropping into the elbow-chair. “We met en jist now hedgin’ in the Drove. He did seem to notice him a bit at first, but then he turned nasty about Ned as he do always do, an’ began glenin’ an’ carryin’ on about the Union.”

“There, love, don’t ye mind en; ye do want a lot o’ patience wi’ father. ’Tis what I do always say. Who’s to know it if not me? But he’ll come round in time—he’ll come round.”

“’Tis easy to say ‘in time,’” groaned poor Alice, “but we do find it so hard to get on now, mother. We’ve a-had sich bad luck, ye see. Ned had to spend the bit o’ money he’d saved on the furniture we wanted, an’ stockin’ the garden—’tisn’t as if we’d anybody to help us.”

Mrs Bolt eyed her daughter compassionately. She was a good-looking, fresh-coloured woman, with a kindly, good-natured face. Her daughter resembled her in complexion and build, but not in disposition, for Mrs Bolt was placid and easy-going, while Alice had inherited her father’s energy and quickness of temper. Mrs Bolt had been as much grieved as her husband at Alice’s unprosperous marriage, but, having protested in vain, resigned herself to the inevitable, and had indeed forgiven her daughter before the ceremony took place. Mr Bolt, too, had, to outward seeming, become reconciled with his daughter, though he steadily refused to permit her husband to cross the threshold, and to help the hapless couple in any way. Alice, too, was proud, and when her mother would have surreptitiously bestowed on her sundry dozens of eggs and pecks of potatoes, she had rejected the gifts.

“I won’t take nothin’ o’ father’s wi’out his consent,” she said once, bitterly. “An’ you do know so well as me, he’d rather let us all starve nor help Ned.”

“’Tis very hard, I’m sure,” said Mrs Bolt, now in a commiserating tone. “I did hope your husband ’ud better hisself, an’ earn better wage nor what father gived en. But he’s worse off now it seems.”

“He’s terr’ble bad off,” agreed Alice gloomily. “Jobs be so scarce round our way. An’ when Ned was out o’ work last spring along o’ his accident, we got into debt. There’s the interest to pay along wi’ everything else. We couldn’t afford to be too particular. Ned had to take the first place he could get—’tis but ten shillin’ a week he’s earnin’ now, along o’ havin’ a house free, ye know. But ten shillin’ a week’s soon gone.”

“’Tis, sure,” agreed her mother dolefully.

Alice looked up at the handsome, ruddy face now puckered with sympathetic distress, and hesitated.

It is sometimes harder to ask a favour from our nearest and dearest than from a stranger. “I wonder if you could guess what’s brought me this morning, mother?” she asked.

Mrs Bolt did not commit herself.

“Ned chanced to meet Jim Pike at Wimborne the other day. He had to go and haul coal, you know, fro’ the station. And Jim did tell en he were thinkin’ o’ leavin’ father arter Christmas an’ goin’ out abroad.”

“Ees,” said Mrs Bolt. “Jim be a-goin’ to emmygrate, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do. He’ve a had a letter from his brother what be livin’ out yonder in America, and do want en to j’ine en out there. Jim be fair set on the notion.”

“He did tell Ned as father had rose his wage to fourteen shillin’ a week. ’Tis good wage that, an’ there’s the house too. ’Tis a deal more nor what Ned be earnin’.”

“Oh,” said her mother, sinking her voice and casting a scared glance at her. “You was thinkin’ maybe father ’ud give your ’usband Jim’s place when he’ve a-left?”

“Well,” rejoined Alice, instantly on the defensive, “it do seem hard as father should be willin’ to pay away all that to a stranger when his own flesh an’ blood is pretty nigh starvin’. There! mother, I do assure ’ee there’s times when I wonder where I’m to get the next bit to put in little Abel’s mouth. Many a time I go hungry myself, an’ that’s not so very good for me nor for baby.”

“Dear heart alive!” groaned Mrs Bolt, dropping into the opposite chair and resting a hand on either knee. “God knows I’m broken-hearted to think o’ your bein’ in sich trouble—broken-hearted I be!”

“That little house o’ Jim Pike’s ’ud do us nicely,” went on Alice eagerly. “’Tis a snug little place, an’ it ’ud be nice to be near you, mother.”

“It would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, sucking in her breath, and exhaling it again with a deep sigh. “It would jist about. I’d love to have the childern trottin’ in an’ out, an’ you an’ me could help each other, Alice.”

“We could,” agreed Alice, eyeing her mother with pathetic anxiety.

“But father be sich a terr’ble one for stickin’ to a notion,” went on Mrs Bolt gloomily. “He’ve reg’lar took again’ your ’usband, reg’lar took again’ him he have.”

“Well, ’tis a hard world,” said Alice, rising hurriedly. “I’d best go home-along. There’s not mich use my bidin’ here—but I did have hopes. ’Tisn’t as if I was axin’ for a favour—I only want Ned to get the chance father be willin’ to give any other man. But we’ll never have a chance here—I see that. I wish to the Lard we could scrape up enough money to take us out abroad too. I’d be willin’ enough to emmygrate, and so would Ned—nobody wants us here!”

Mrs Bolt gazed at her daughter meditatively, laying a restraining hand upon her arm to prevent her departure.

“Jim Pike’s brother Robert, what emmygrated first, went travellin’ by hissel’,” she observed. “He didn’t take his wife an’ childern wi’ en—he couldn’t afford the expense, d’ye see, but as soon as he were doin’ well he sent for ’em to come an’ j’ine him.”

“Well?” said Alice doubtfully, as she paused.

“Well,” continued her mother, “there, sit ye down, my dear. I can’t say all what’s in my mind if I think you’m ready to rush off every minute. Sit down an’ let’s talk proper. Now see here, the notion did come to I all at once while ye was talkin’ jist now. Why shouldn’t Ned go out abroad wi’ Jim Pike an’ look for work out in Ameriky? You could come to us while ye was waitin’—father ’ud be pleased enough to have you an’ the childern.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Alice indignantly. She would have started from her chair again had not Mrs Bolt pinned her to her seat with one large heavy hand.

“Now don’t ye fly out like that, don’t ye,” went on the good woman, impressively. “I am but thinkin’ what’s for the best. You’m our own flesh an’ blood, as ye say yourself, an’ so’s the childer; father’d be fond enough o’ the childer if he was to have ’em nigh en. ’Tis but Ned as he’ve a-took again’.”

“Well, but I bain’t a-goin’ to desert Ned,” cried Alice, hotly. “My own ’usband what I’ve a-chose and what have a-been sich a good ’usband an’ sich a good father. I’m sure he’d work his fingers to the bwone for me an’ the childern!”

“Bide a bit, bide a bit,” returned Mrs Bolt. “I’ve been a-piecin’ of it out in my mind. If you an’ the little ones was once here, ye’d soon get round father—I d’ ’low he’d never want to part from ye again. There, ye be the only child what was spared to us. I can’t but think so soon as there was talk o’ your j’inin’ Ned in Ameriky he’d tell ye to send for him to come back again, sooner nor let ye go.”

Alice was silent for a moment, struck in spite of herself, by the idea.

“’Tis true,” she said. “There mid be a chance o’ that. Father used to be awful fond o’ me when I was a little maid, an’ I couldn’t but see he noticed the childern to-day. He said Abel was a jolly little chap. Abel was tryin’ to play cuckoo wi’ his granfer. He’s sich a friendly little feller, I can’t but think as father’d soon take to en.”

“I d’ ’low he would,” agreed Mrs Bolt, eagerly.

“As for poor baby,” went on her daughter, in an aggrieved tone, “I can’t see no sich great likeness to the Blanchards. Father will have it she takes after Ned’s mother—I can’t see that.”

“Nor I,” agreed the living grandmother, gravely, considering the sleeping baby.

“But still,” went on Alice, suddenly reverting to the main point from which she had been momentarily diverted by the various side issues which seemed to present themselves, “I couldn’t let Ned go travellin’ all by hisself. I couldn’t ever part wi’ en. Summat mid happen as I mid never know. An’ he midn’t get on out there—an’ he midn’t be able to find the money to come home wi’ if father was to let him come—Oh, mother!”

This latter exclamation was uttered in a totally different tone. She caught her breath with a gasp, her countenance suddenly illuminated.

“What’s to do?” cried Mrs Bolt eagerly. Little Abel, who had finished his apple, came trotting across the room to share in the excitement. But he was not destined to hear what was going on. Mrs Blanchard, leaning forward in her chair, whispered eagerly in her mother’s ear. The latter’s face, at first astonished, grew gradually alarmed, but finally assumed an expression of admiring delight.

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder but what it mid answer,” she said slowly. “I know father’d be overj’yed to have you an’ the childern here. But whatever ’ud your husband say?”

“Oh, I’ll manage Ned if you’ll manage father. ’Tis worth tryin’. Dear to be sure, how happy we mid be all livin’ together!”

“Father ’ull be fit to kill us all if he do find out.”

“He won’t find out. He can’t be vexed wi’ you anyhow. Ye need only say that I’ve a-told ye so, an’ axed ye to speak to en for I.”

“Well, that’s true. There, my dear, I’d be simply out o’ my wits wi’ joy. I’ve missed ye—there, I can’t tell ye how much I’ve missed ye.”

They clung together, half laughing, half weeping, and the remainder of Alice’s visit was spent in the congenial task of building castles in the air.

Farmer Bolt was rather taciturn at dinner-time, and his wife deemed it more prudent to postpone operations till a more favourable moment. In the evening, however, when milking was done, and tea over, and Mr Bolt drew up his chair to the fire and filled his pipe, he himself gave her the opportunity for which she had been hoping.

“Ye had Alice wi’ ye to-day?”

“Ees, she told me she’d passed ye in the Drove—how did ye think she was lookin’?”

The farmer smoked for a moment or two with a gloomy expression.

“She’ve fell away,” he said at last. “Fell away terr’ble.”