IN HOMESPUN

BY E. NESBIT

LONDON 1896

THESE tales are written in an English dialect--none the less adialect for that it lacks uniformity in the misplacement ofaspirates, and lacks, too, strange words misunderstanded of thereader. 

In South Kent villages with names ending in 'den, ' and out away onthe Sussex downs where villages end in 'hurst, ' live the plainpeople who talk this plain speech--a speech that should be sweeterin English ears than the implacable consonants of a northernkail-yard, or the soft one-vowelled talk of western hillsides. 

All through the summer nights the market carts creak along theLondon road; to London go the wild young man and the steady youngman who 'betters' himself. To London goes the girl seeking a'place. ' The 'beano' comes very near to this land--so near thatacross its marches you may hear the sackbut and shawm from thebreaks. Once a year come the hoppers. And so the cup of the hillsholds no untroubled pool of pastoral speech. This book thereforeis of no value to a Middle English scholar, and needs no glossary. 

E. NESBIT. 

KENT, _March_ 1896. 

CONTENTS

 THE BRISTOL BOWL BARRING THE WAY GRANDSIRE TRIPLES A DEATH-BED CONFESSION HER MARRIAGE LINES ACTING FOR THE BEST GUILTY SON AND HEIR ONE WAY OF LOVE COALS OF FIRE

THE BRISTOL BOWL

MY cousin Sarah and me had only one aunt between us, and that was myAunt Maria, who lived in the little cottage up by the church. 

Now my aunt had a tidy little bit of money laid by, which shecouldn't in reason expect to carry with her when her time came togo, wherever it was she might go to, and a houseful of furniture, old-fashioned, but strong and good still. So of course Sarah and Iwere not behindhand in going up to see the old lady, and taking hera pot or so of jam in fruiting season, or a turnover, maybe, on abaking-day, if the oven had been steady and the baking turned outwell. And you couldn't have told from aunt's manner which of us sheliked best; and there were some folks who thought she might leavehalf to me and half to Sarah, for she hadn't chick nor child of herown. 

But aunt was of a having nature, and what she had once got togethershe couldn't bear to see scattered. Even if it was only what she hadgot in her rag-bag, she would give it to one person to make a bigquilt of, rather than give it to two persons to make two littlequilts. 

So Sarah and me, we knew that the money might come to either orneither of us, but go to both it wouldn't. 

Now, some people don't believe in special mercies, but I have alwaysthought there must have been something out of the common way forthings to happen as they did the day Aunt Maria sprained her ankle. She sent over to the farm where we were living with my mother (whowas a sensible woman, and carried on the farm much better than mostmen would have done, though that's neither here nor there) to ask ifSarah or me could be spared to go and look after her a bit, for thedoctor said she couldn't put her foot to the ground for a week ormore. 

Now, the minister I sit under always warns us against superstition, which, I take it, means believing more than you have any occasionto. And I'm not more given to it than most folks, but still I alwayshave said, and I always shall say, that there's a special Providenceabove us, and it wasn't for nothing that Sarah was laid up with aquinsy that very morning. So I put a few things together--in Sarah'shat-tin, I remember, which was handier to carry than my own--and Iwent up to the cottage. 

Aunt was in bed, and whether it was the sprained ankle or the hotweather I don't know, but the old lady was cantankerous past allbelieving. 

'Good-morning, aunt, ' I said, when I went in, 'and however did thishappen?'

'Oh, you've come, have you?' she said, without answering myquestion, 'and brought enough luggage to last you a year, I'll bebound. When I was young, a girl could go to spend a week withoutnonsense of boxes or the like. A clean shift and a change ofstockings done up in a cotton handkerchief--that was good enough forus. But now, you girls must all be young ladies. I've no patiencewith you. '

I didn't answer back, for answering back is a poor sort of businesswhen the other person is able to make you pay for every idle word. Of course, it's different if you haven't anything to lose by it. SoI just said--

'Never mind, aunt dear. I really haven't brought much; and whatwould you like me to do first?'

'I should think you'd see for yourself, ' says she, thumping herpillows, 'that there's not a stick in the house been dusted yet--no, nor a stair swep'. '

So I set to to clean the house, which was cleaner than most people'salready, and I got a nice bit of dinner and took it up on a tray. But no, that wasn't right, for I'd put the best instead of thesecond-best cloth on the tray. 

'The workhouse is where you'll end, ' says aunt. 

But she ate up all the dinner, and after that she seemed to get alittle easier in her temper, and by-and-by fell off to sleep. 

I finished the stairs and tidied up the kitchen, and then I went todust the parlour. 

Now, my aunt's parlour was a perfect moral. I have never seen itslike before or since. The mantelpiece and the corner cupboard, andthe shelves behind the door, and the top of the chest of drawers andthe bureau were all covered up with a perfect litter and lurry ofold china. Not sets of anything, but different basins and jugs andcups and plates and china spoons and the bust of John Wesley andElijah feeding the ravens in a red gown and standing on a greencrockery grass plot. 

There was every kind of china uselessness that you could think of;and Sarah and I used to think it hard that a girl had no chance ofgetting on in life without she dusted all this rubbish once a weekat the least. 

'Well, the sooner begun the sooner ended, ' says I to myself So Itook the silk handkerchief that aunt kep' a purpose--an old one itwas that had belonged to uncle, and hemmed with aunt's own hair andmarked with his name in the corner. (Folks must have had a deal oftime in those days, I often think. ) And I began to dust the things, beginning with the big bowl on the chest of drawers, for aunt alwayswould have everything done just one way and no other. 

You think, perhaps, that I might as well have sat down in thearm-chair and had a quiet nap and told aunt afterwards that I haddusted everything; but you must know she was quite equivalent toasking any of the neighbours who might drop in whether that drattedchina of hers was dusted properly. 

It was a hot afternoon, and I was tired and a bit cross. 

'Aunts, and uncles, and grandmothers, ' thinks I to myself. 'O what astupid old lot they must have been to have set such store by allthis gimcrackery! Oh, if only a bull or something could get in herefor five minutes and smash every precious--oh, my cats alive!'

I don't know how I did it, but just as I was saying that about thebull, the big bowl slipped from my hands and broke in three pieceson the floor at my feet, and at the same moment I heard aunt thump, thump, thumping with the heel of her boot on the floor for me to goup and tell her what I had broken. I tell you I wished from my heartat that moment that it was me that had had the quinsy instead ofSarah. 

I was so knocked all of a heap that I couldn't move, and the bootwent on thump, thump, thumping overhead. I had to go, but I wasflustered to that degree that as I went up the stairs I couldn't forthe life of me think what I should say. 

Aunt was sitting up in bed, and she shook her fist at me when I wentin. 

'Out with it!' she said. 'Speak the truth. Which of them is it? Theyallar china dish, or the big teapot, or the Wedgwood tobaccojarthat belonged to your grandfather?'

And then all in a minute I knew what to say. The words seemed to beput into my mouth, like they were into the prophets of old. 

'Lord, aunt!' I said, 'you give me quite a turn, battering on thefloor that way. What do you want? What is it?'

'What have you broken, you wicked, heartless girl? Out with it, quick!'

'Broken?' I says. 'Well, I hope you won't mind much, aunt, but Ihave had a misfortune with the little cracked pie-dish that thepotatopie was baked in; but I can easy get you another down atWilkins. '

Aunt fell back on her pillows with a sort of groan. 

'Thank them as be!' she said, and then she sat up again, boltupright all in a minute. 

'You fetch me the pieces, ' she says, short and sharp. 

I hope it isn't boastful to say that I don't think many girls wouldhave had the sense to bring up that dish in their apron and to breakit on their knee as they came up the stairs, and take it in and showit to her. 

'Don't say another word about it, ' says my aunt, as kind and heartyas you please. 

Things not being as bad as she expected, it made her quite willingto put up with things being a bit worse than they had been fiveminutes before. I've often noticed it is this way with people. 

'You're a good girl, Jane, ' she says, 'a very good girl, and Ishan't forget it, my dear. Go on down, now, and make haste with yourwashing up, and get to work dusting the china. '

And it was such a weight off my mind to feel that she didn't know, that I felt as if everything was all right until I got downstairsand see those three pieces of that red and yellow and green and bluebasin lying on the carpet as I had left them. My heart beat fit toknock me down, but I kept my wits about me, and I stuck it togetherwith white of egg, and put it back in its place on the wool mat withthe little teapot on top of it so that no one could have noticedthat there was anything wrong with it unless they took the thing upin their hands. 

The next three days I waited on aunt hand and foot, and dideverything she asked, and she was as pleased as pleased, till I feltthat Sarah hadn't a chance. 

On the third day I told aunt that mother would want me, it beingSaturday, and she was quite willing for the Widow Gladish to come inand do for her while I was away. I chose a Saturday because that andSunday were the only days the china wasn't dusted. 

I went home as quick as I could, and I told mother all about it. 

'And don't you, for any sake, tell Sarah a word about it, or quinsyor no quinsy, she'll be up at aunt's before we know where we are, tolet the cat out of the bag. '

I took all the money out of my money-box that I had saved up forstarting housekeeping with in case aunt should leave her money to

Sarah, and I put it in my pocket, and I took the first train toLondon. 

I asked the porter at the station to tell me the way to the bestchina-shop in London; and he told me there was one in Queen VictoriaStreet. So I went there. 

It was a beautiful place, with velvet sofas for people to sit downon while they looked at the china and glass and chose which patternthey would have; and there were thousands of basins far morebeautiful than aunt's, but not one like hers, and when I had lookedover some fifty of them, the gentleman who was showing them to mesaid--

'Perhaps you could give me some idea of what it is you do want?'

Now, I had brought one of the pieces of the bowl up with me, thepiece at the back where it didn't show, and I pulled it out andshowed it to him. 

'I want one like this, ' I said. 

'Oh!' said he, 'why didn't you say so at first? We don't keep thatsort of thing here, and it's a chance if you get it at all. Youmight in Wardour Street, or at Mr. Aked's in Green Street, LeicesterSquare. '

Well, time was getting on and I did a thing I had never done before, though I had often read of it in the novelettes. I waved my umbrellaand I got into a hansom cab. 

'Young man, ' I said, 'will you please drive to Mr. Aked's in GreenStreet, Leicester Square? and drive careful, young man, for I have apiece of china in my hands that's worth a fortune to me. '

So he grinned and I got in and the cab started. A hansom cab isbetter than any carriage you ever rode in, with soft cushions tolean against and little looking-glasses to look at yourself in, and, somehow, you don't hear the wheels. I leaned back and looked atmyself and felt like a duchess, for I had my new hat and mantle on, and I knew I looked nice by the way the young men on the tops of theomnibuses looked at me and smiled. It was a lovely drive. When wegot to Mr. Aked's, which looked to me more like a rag-and-bone shopthan anything else, and very poor after the beautiful place in QueenVictoria Street, I got out and went in. 

An old gentleman came towards me and asked what he could do for me, and he looked surprised, as though he wasn't used to see such smartgirls in his pokey old shop. 

'Please, sir, ' I said, 'I want a bowl like this, if you have gotsuch a thing among your old odds and ends. '

He took the piece of china and looked at it through his glasses fora minute. Then he gave it back to me very carefully. 

'There's not a piece of this ware in the market. The few specimensextant are in private collections. '

'Oh dear, ' I said; 'and can't I get another like it?'

'Not if you were to offer me a hundred pounds down, ' said the oldman. 

I couldn't help it. I sat down on the nearest chair and began tocry, for it seemed as if all my hopes of Aunt Maria's money werefading away like the 'roseate hues of early dawn' in the hymn. 

'Come, come, ' said he, 'what's the matter? Cheer up. I supposeyou're in service and you've broken this bowl. Isn't that it? Butnever mind--your mistress can't do anything to you. Servants can'tbe made to replace valuable bowls like this. '

That dried my eyes pretty quick, I can tell you. 

'Me in service!' I said. 'And my grandfather farming his own landbefore you were picked out of the gutter, I'll be bound'--Godforgive me that I should say such a thing to an old man--'and my ownaunt with a better lot of fal-lals and trumpery in her parlour thanyou've got in all your shop. '

With that he laughed, and I flounced out of the shop, my cheeksflaming and my heart going like an eight-day clock. I was soflustered I didn't notice that some one came out of the shop afterme, and I had walked a dozen yards down the street before I saw thatsome one was alongside of me and saying something to me. 

It was another old gentleman--at least, not so old as Mr. Aked, --andI remembered now having seen him at the back of the shop. He wastaking off his hat, as polite as you please. 

'You're quite overcome, ' he said, 'and no wonder. Come and have alittle dinner with me quietly somewhere, and tell me all about it. '

'I don't want any dinner, ' I said; 'I want to go and drown myself, for it's all over, and I've nothing more to look for. My brotherHarry will have the farm, and I shan't get a penny of aunt's money. Why couldn't they have made plenty of the ugly old basins while theywere about it?'

'Come and have some dinner, ' the old gentleman said again, 'andperhaps I can help you. I have a basin just like that. '

So I did. We went to some place where there were a lot of littletables and waiters in black clothes; and we had a nice dinner, and Idid feel better for it, and when we had come to the cheese, I toldhim exactly what had happened; and he leaned his head on his hands, and he thought, and thought, and presently he said--

'Do you think your aunt would sell any of her china?'

'That I'm downright sure she wouldn't, ' I said; 'so it's no goodyour asking. '

'Well, you see, your aunt won't be down for three or four days yet. You give me your address, and I'll write and tell you if I think ofanything. '

And with that he paid the bill and had a cab called, and put me init and paid the driver, and I went along home. 

I didn't sleep much that night, and next day I was thinking allsermon-time of whatever I could do, for it wasn't in nature that myaunt would not find me out before another two days was over my head;and she had never been so nice and kind, and had even gone so far asto say--

'Whoever my money's left to, Jane, will be bound not to part with mychina, nor my old chairs and presses. Don't you forget, my child. It's all written in black and white, and if the person my money'sleft to sells these old things, my money goes along too. '

There was no letter on Monday morning, and I was up to my elbows inthe suds, doing aunt's bit of washing for her, when I heard a stepon the brick path, and there was that old gentleman coming round bythe water-butt to the back-door. 

'Well?' says he. 'Anything fresh happened?

'For any sake, ' says I in a whisper, 'get out of this. She'll hearif I say more than two words to you. If you've thought of anythingthat's to be of any use, get along to the church porch, and I'll bewith you as soon as I can get these things through the rinse-waterand out on the line. '

'But, ' he says in a whisper, 'just let me into the parlour for fiveminutes, to have a look round and see what the rest of the bowl islike. '

Then I thought of all the stories I had heard of pedlars' packs, anda married lady taken unexpectedly, and tricks like that to get intothe house when no one was about. So I thought--

'Well, if you are to go in, I must go in with you, ' and I squeezedmy hands out of the suds, and rolled them into my apron and went in, and him after me. 

You never see a man go on as he did. It's my belief he was hours inthat room, going round and round like a squirrel in a cage, pickingup first one bit of trumpery and then another, with two fingers anda thumb, as carefully as if it had been a _tulle_ bonnet just homefrom the draper's, and setting everything down on the very exactspot he took them up from. 

More than once I thought that I had entertained a loony unawares, when I saw him turn up the cups and plates and look twice as long atthe bottoms of them as he had at the pretty parts that were meant toshow, and all the time he kept saying--'Unique, by Gad, perfectlyunique!' or 'Bristol, as I'm a sinner, ' and when he came to thelarge blue dish that stands at the back of the bureau, I thought hewould have gone down on his knees to it and worshipped it. 

'Square-marked Worcester!' he said to himself in a whisper, speakingvery slowly, as if the words were pleasant in his mouth, 'Square-marked Worcester--an eighteen-inch dish!'

I had as much trouble getting him out of that parlour as you wouldhave getting a cow out of a clover-patch, and every minute I wasafraid aunt would hear him, or hear the china rattle or something;but he never rattled a bit, bless you, but was as quiet as a mouse, and as for carefulness he was like a woman with her first baby. Ididn't dare ask him anything for fear he should answer too loud, andby-and-by he went up to the church porch and waited for me. 

He had a brown-paper parcel with him, a big one, and I thought tomyself, 'Suppose he's brought his bowl and is wishful to sell it. ' Igot those things through the blue-water pretty quick, I can tellyou. I often wish I could get a maid who would work as fast as Iused to when I was a girl. Then I ran up and asked aunt if she couldspare me to run down to the shop for some sago, and I put on mysunbonnet and ran up, just as I was, to the church porch. The oldgentleman was skipping with impatience. I've heard of peopleskipping with impatience, but I never saw any one do it before. 

'Now, look here, ' he said, 'I want you--I must--oh, I don't knowwhich way to begin, I have so many things to say. I want to see youraunt, and ask her to let me buy her china. '

'You may save your trouble, ' I said, 'for she'll never do it. She'sleft her china to me in her will, ' I said. 

Not that I was quite sure of it, but still I was sure enough to sayso. The old gentleman put down his brown-paper parcel on the porchseat as careful as if it had been a sick child, and said--

'But your aunt won't leave you anything if she knows you have brokenthe bowl, will she?'

'No, ' I said, 'she won't, that's true, and you can tell her if youlike. ' For I knew very well he wouldn't. 

'Well, ' says he, speaking very slowly, 'if I lent you my bowl, youcould pretend it's hers and she'll never know the difference, forthey are as like as two peas. I can tell the difference, of course, but then I'm a collector. If I lend you the bowl, will you promiseand vow in writing, and sign it with your name, to sell all thatchina to me directly it comes into your possession? Good gracious, girl, it will be hundreds of pounds in your pocket. '

That was a sad moment for me. I might have taken the bowl andpromised and vowed, and then when the china came to me I might havetold him I hadn't the power to sell it; but that wouldn't havelooked well if any one had come to know of it. So I just saidstraight out--

'The only condition of my having my aunt's money is, that I neverpart with the china. '

He was silent a minute, looking out of the porch at the green treeswaving about in the sunshine over the gravestones, and then hesays--

'Look here, you seem an honourable girl. I am a collector. I buychina and keep it in cases and look at it, and it's more to me thanmeat, or drink, or wife, or child, or fire--do you understand? And Ican no more bear to think of that china being lost to the world in acottage instead of being in my collection than you can bear to thinkof your aunt's finding out about the bowl, and leaving the money toyour cousin Sarah. '

Of course, I knew by that that he had been gossiping in the village. 

'Well?' I said, for I saw that he had something more on his mind. 

'I'm an old man, ' he went on, 'but that need not stand in the way. Rather the contrary, for I shall be less trouble to you than a younghusband. Will you marry me out of hand? And then when your aunt diesthe china will be mine, and you will be well provided for. '

No one but a madman would have made such an offer, but that wasn't areason for me to refuse it. I pretended to think a bit, but my mindwas made up. 

'And the bowl?' I said. 

'Of course I'll lend you my bowl, and you shall give me the piecesof the old one. Lord Worsley's specimen has twenty-five rivets init. '

'Well, sir, ' I said, 'it seems to be a way out of it that might suitboth of us. So, if you'll speak to mother, and if your circumstancesis as you represent, I'll accept your offer, and I'll be your goodlady. '

And then I went back to aunt and told her Wilkinses was out of sago, but they would have some in on Wednesday. 

It was all right about the bowl. She never noticed the difference. Iwas married to the old gentleman, whose name was Fytche, the nextweek by special licence at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, Queen VictoriaStreet, which is very near that beautiful glass and china shop whereI had tried to match the bowl; and my aunt died three months laterand left me everything. Sarah married in quite a poor way. Thatquinsy of hers cost her dear. 

Mr. Fytche was very well off, and I should have liked living at hishouse well enough if it hadn't been for the china. The house wascram full of it, and he could think of nothing else. No more goingout to dinner; no amusements; nothing as a girl like me had a rightto look for. So one day I told him straight out I thought he hadbetter give up collecting and sell aunt's things, and we would buy anice little place in the country with the money. 

'But, my dear, ' he said, 'you can't sell your aunt's china. She leftit stated expressly in her will. '

And he rubbed his hands and chuckled, for he thought he had got methere. 

'No, but you can, ' I said, 'the china is yours now. I know enoughabout law to know that; and you can sell it, and you shall. '

And so he did, whether it was law or not, for you can make a man doanything if you only give your mind to it and take your time andkeep all on. It was called the great Fytche sale, and I made him paythe money he got for it into the bank; and when he died I bought asnug little farm with it, and married a young man that I had had inmy eye long before I had heard of Mr. Fytche. 

And we are very comfortably off, and not a bit of china in the housethat's more than twenty years old, so that whatever's broke can beeasy replaced. 

As for his collection, which would have brought me in thousands ofpounds, they say, I have to own he had the better of me there, forhe left it by will to the South Kensington Museum. 

BARRING THE WAY

I DON'T know how she could have done it. I couldn't have done itmyself. At least, I don't think so. But being lame and small, andnot noticeable anyhow, I had never any temptation, so I can't judgethose that have. 

Ellen was tall and a slight figure, and as pretty as a picture inher Sunday clothes, and prettier than any picture on a working day, with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulder and the colour in herface like a rose, and her brown, hair all twisted up rough anyhow;and, of course, she was much sought after and flattered. But Icouldn't have done it myself, I think, even if I had been soughtafter twice as much and twice as handsome. No, I couldn't, not afterthe doctor had said that father's heart was weak, and any suddenshock might bring an end to him. 

But, oh! poor dear, she was my sister--my own only sister--and it'snot the time now to be hard on her, and she where she is. 

She was walking regular with a steady young man, who worked throughthe week at Hastings, and come home here on a Sunday, and she wouldhave married him and been as happy as a queen, I know; and all herlooking in the glass, and dressing herself pretty, would have cometo being proud of her babies and spending what bits she could gettogether in making them look smart; but it was not to be. 

Young Barber, the grocer's son, who had a situation in London, hecome down for his summer holiday, and then it was 'No, thank youkindly, ' to poor Arthur Simmons, that had loved her faithful andtrue them two years, and she was all for walking with young Mr. Barber, besides running into the shop twenty times a day when nooccasion was, just for a word across the counter. 

And father wasn't the best pleased, but he was always a silent man, very pious, and not saying much as he sat at his bench, for he hadbeen brought up to the shoemaking and was very respected amongPevensey folks. He would hum a hymn or two at his work sometimes, but he was never a man of words. When young Barber went back toLondon, Ellen, she began to lose her pretty looks. I had neverthought much of young Barber. There was something common abouthim--not like the labouring men, but a kind of town commonness, which is twenty times worse to my thinking; and if I didn't like himbefore, you may guess I didn't waste much love on him when I seepoor Ellen's looks. 

Now, if I am to tell you this story at all, I must tell it verysteady and quiet, and not run on about what I thought or what Ifelt, or I shan't never have the heart to go through it. The longand short of it was that a month hadn't passed over our heads afteryoung Barber leaving, when one morning our Ellen wasn't there. Andshe left a note, nailed to father's bench, to say she had gone offwith her true love, and father wasn't to mind, for she was going tobe married. 

Father, he didn't say a word, but he turned a dreadful white, andblue his lips were, and for one dreadful moment I thought that I hadlost him too. But he come round presently. I ran across to the ThreeSwans to get a drop of brandy for him; and I looked at her letteragain, and I looked at him, and we both see that neither of usbelieved that she was going to be married. There was something aboutthe very way of the words as she had written them which showed theyweren't true. 

Father, he said nothing, only when next Sunday had come, and I hadlaid out his Sunday things and his hat, all brushed as usual, hesays--

'Put 'em away, my girl. I don't believe in Sunday. How can I believein all that, and my Ellen gone to shame?'

And, after that, Sundays was the same to him as weekdays, and thefolks looked shy at us, and I think they thought that, what withEllen's running away and father's working on Sundays, we was on thehigh-road to the pit of destruction. 

And so the time went on, and it was Christmas. The bells was ringingfor Christmas Eve, and I says to father: 'O father! come to church. Happen it's all true, and Ellen's an honest woman, after all. '

And he lifted his head and looked at me, and at that moment therecome a soft little knock at the door. I knew who it was afore I hadtime to stir a foot to go across the kitchen and open the door toher. She blinked her eyes at the light as I opened the door to her. Oh, pale and thin her face was that used to be so rosy-red, and--

'May I come in?' she said, as if it wasn't her own home. And father, he looked at her like a man that sees nothing, and I was frightenedwhat he might do, like the fool I was, that ought to have knownbetter. 

'I'm very tired, ' says Ellen, leaning against the door-post; 'I havecome from a very long way. '

And the next minute father makes two long steps to the door, and hisarms is round her, and she a-hanging on his neck, and they twoholding each other as if they would never let go. And so she comehome, and I shut the door. 

And in all that time father and me, we couldn't make too much ofher, me being that thankful to the Lord that He had let our dearcome back to us; and never a word did she say to me of him that hadbeen her ruin. But one night when I asked her, silly-like, andhardly thinking what I was doing, some question about him, fatherdown with his fist on the table, and says he--

'When you name that name, my girl, you light hell in me, and if everI see his damned face again, God help him and me too. '

And so I held my stupid tongue, and sat sewing with Ellen long days, and it was a happy, sad time, if a time can be sad and happy both. 

And it was about primrose-time that her time come, and we had keptit quiet, and nobody knew but us and Mrs. Jarvis, that lived in thecottage next to ours, and was Ellen's godmother, and loved her likeher own daughter; and when the baby come, Ellen says, 'Is it a boyor a girl?' And we told her it was a boy. 

Then, says she, 'Thank God for that! My baby won't live to know suchshame as mine. '

And there wasn't one of us dared tell her that God meant no shame orpain or grief at all should come to her little baby, because it wasdead. But by-and-by she would have it to lie by her, and we said No:it was asleep; and for all we said she guessed the truth somehow. And she began to cry, the tears running down her cheeks and wettingthe linen about her, and she began to moan, 'I want my baby--oh, bring me my little baby that I have never seen yet. I want to say"good-bye" to it, for I shall never go where it is going. '

And father said, 'Bring her the child. '

I had dressed the poor little thing--a pretty boy, and would havebeen a fine man--in one of the gowns I had taken a pleasure insewing for it to wear, and the little cap with the crimped borderthat had been Ellen's own when she was a baby and her mother'spride, and I brought it and put it in her arms, and it was clay-coldin my hands as I carried it. And she laid its head on her breast aswell as she could for her weakness; and father, who was leaning overher, nigh mad with love and being so anxious about her, he says--

'Let Lucy take the poor little thing away, Ellen, ' he says, 'for youmust try to get well and strong for the sake of those that loveyou. '

Then she says, turning her eyes on him, shining like stars out ofher pale face, and still holding her baby tight to her breast, 'Iknow what's the best thing I can do for them as love me, and I'mdoing it fast. Kiss me, father, and kiss the baby too. Perhaps if Ihold it tight we'll go out into the dark together, and God won'thave the heart to part us. ' And so she died. 

And there was no one but me that touched her after she died, for allI am a cripple, and I laid her out, my pretty, with my own hands, and the baby in the hollow of her arm; and I put primroses all roundthem, and I took father to look at them when all was done, and westood there, holding hands and looking at her lying there so sweetand peaceful, and looking so good too, whatever you may think, withall the trouble wiped off her face as if the Lord had washed italready in His heavenly light. 

Now, Ellen was buried in the churchyard, and Parson, who was alwaysa hard man, he would have her laid away to the north side, where nosun gets to for the trees and the church, and where few folks liketo be buried. But father, he said, 'No; lay her beside her mother, in the bit of ground I bought twenty years ago, where I mean to liemyself, and Lucy too, when her time comes, so that if the talk ofrising again is true we shall be all together at the last, askinsfolk should. '

So they laid her there, and her name was cut under mother's on theheadstone. 

Father didn't grieve and take on as some men do, but he was quieterthan he used to be, and didn't seem to have that heart in his workthat he always had even after she had left us. It seemed as if thespring of him was broken, somehow. Not but what he was goodnessitself to me then and always. But I wasn't his favourite child, norcould I have looked to be, me being what I am and she so sweet andpretty, and such a way with her. 

And father went to church to the burying, but he wouldn't go toservice. 'I think maybe there's a God, and if there is, I have thatin my heart that's quite enough keeping in my own poor house, without my daring to take it into His. '

And so I gave up going too. I wouldn't seem to be judging father, not though I might be judged myself by all the village. But when Iheard the church-bells ringing, ringing, it was like as if some onethat loved me was calling to me and me not answering; and sometimeswhen all the folk was in church, I used to hobble up on my crutchesto the gate and stand there and sometimes hear a bit of the singingcome through the open door. 

It was the end of August that Mr. Barber at the shop fell off aladder leading to his wareroom, and was killed on the spot; and Mrs. Jarvis, she says to me, 'If that young Barber comes home, as Isuppose he will, to take what's his by right in the eyes of the law, he might as well go and put his head into an oven on a baking-day, and get his worst friend to shove his legs in after him and shut thedoor to. '

'He won't come back, ' says I. 'How could he face it, when every onein the village knows it?'

For when Ellen died it could not be kept secret any longer, and aheap of folks that would have drawn their skirts aside rather thanbrush against her if she had been there alive and well, with herbaby at her breast, had a tear and a kind word for her now that shewas gone where no tears and no words could get at her for good orevil. 

I see once a bit of poetry in a book, and it said when a woman haddone what she had done, the only way to get forgiven is to die, andI believe that's true. But it isn't true of fathers and sisters. 

It was Sunday morning, and father, he was working away at hisbench--not that it ever seemed to make him any happier to work, onlyhe was more miserable if he didn't, --and I had crept up to thechurchyard to lean against the wall and listen to the psalms beingsung inside, when, looking down the village street, I saw Barber'sshop open, and out came young Barber himself. Oh, if God forgets anyone in His mercy, it will be him and his like!

He come out all smart and neat in his new black, and he waswhistling a hymn tune softly. Our house was betwixt Barber's shopand the church, not a stone's-throw off, anyway; and I prayed to Godthat Barber would turn the other way and not come by our house, where father he was sitting at his bench with the door open. 

But he did turn, and come walking towards me; and I had laid mycrutches on the ground, and I stooped to pick them up to go home--tostop words; for what were words, and she in her grave?--when I heardyoung Barber's voice, and I looked over the wall, and see he hadstopped, in his madness and folly and the wickedness of his heart, right opposite the house he had brought shame to, and he wasspeaking to father through the door. 

I couldn't hear what he said, but he seemed to expect an answer, and, when none came, he called out a little louder, 'Oh, well, you've no call to hold your head so high, anyhow!' And for the wayhe said it I could have killed him myself, but for having beenbrought up to know that two wrongs don't make a right, and'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay. '

They was at prayers in the church, and there was no sound in thestreet but the cooing of the pigeons on the roofs, and young Barber, he stood there looking in at our door with that little sneeringsmile on his face, and the next minute he was running for his lifefor the church, where all the folks were, and father after him likea madman, with his long knife in his hand that he used to cut theleather with. It all happened in a flash. 

Barber come running up the dusty road in his black, and passed me asI stood by the churchyard gate, and up towards the church; butsudden in the path he stopped short, his eyes seeming starting outof his head as he looked at Ellen's grave--not that he could see hername, the headstone being turned the other way, --and he put hishands before his eyes and stood still a-trembling, like a rabbitwhen the dogs are on it, and it can't find no way out. Then he criedout, 'No, no, cover her face, for God's sake!' and crouched downagainst the footstone, and father, coming swift behind him, passedme at the gate, and he ran his knife through Barber's back twice ashe crouched, and they rolled on the path together. 

Then all the folks in church that had heard the scream, they comeout like ants when you walk through an ant-heap. Young Barber washolding on to the headstone, the blood running out through his newbroadcloth, and death written on his face in big letters. 

I ran to lift up father, who had fallen with his face on the grave, and as I stooped over him, young Barber he turned his head towardsme, and he says in a voice I could hardly catch, such a whisper itwas, 'Was there a child? I didn't know there was a child--a littlechild in her arm, and flowers all round. '

'Your child, ' says I; 'and may God forgive you!'

And I knew that he had seen her as I see her when my hands haddressed her for her sleep through the long night. 

I never have believed in ghosts, but there is no knowing what thegood Lord will allow. 

So vengeance overtook him, and they carried him away to die with theblood dropping on the gravel; and he never spoke a word again. 

And when they lifted father up with the red knife still fast in hishand, they found that he was dead, and his face was white and hislips were blue, like as I had seen them before. And they all saidfather must have been mad; and so he lies where he wished to lie, and there's a place there where I shall lie some day, where fatherlies, and mother, and my dear with her little baby in the hollow ofher arm. 

GRANDSIRE TRIPLES

I WAS promised to William, in a manner of speaking, close upon sevenyear. What I mean to say is, when he was nigh upon fourteen, and wasto go away to his uncle in Somerset to learn farming, he gave me akiss and half of a broken sixpence, and said--

'Kate, I shall never think of any girl but you, and you must neverthink of any chap but me. '

And the Lord in His goodness knows that I never did. 

Father and mother laughed a bit, and called it child's nonsense; butthey was willing enough for all that, for William was a likely chap, and would be well-to-do when his good father died, which I am sure Inever wished nor prayed for. All the trouble come from his going toSomerset to learn farming, for his uncle that was there was a Roman, and he taught William a good deal more than he set out to learn, sothat presently nothing would do but William must turn Roman Catholichimself. I didn't mind, bless you. I never could see what there wasto make such a fuss about betwixt the two lots of them. Lord loveus! we're all Christians, I should hope. But father and mother wasdreadful put out when the letter come saying William had been'received' (like as if he was a parcel come by carrier). Father, hesays--

'Well, Kate, least said soonest mended. But I had rather see youlaid out on the best bed upstairs than I'd see you married toWilliam, a son of the Scarlet Woman. '

In my silly innocence I couldn't think what he meant, for William'smother was a decent body, who wore a lilac print on week-days and aplain black gown on Sunday for all she was a well-to-do farmer'swife, and might have gone smart as a cock pheasant. 

It was at tea-time, and I was a-crying on to my bread-and-butter, and mother sniffing a little for company behind the tea-tray, andfather, he bangs down his fist in a way to make the cups rattleagain, and he says--

'You've got to give him up, my girl. You write and tell him so, andI'll take the letter as I go down to the church to-night topractice. I've been a good father to you, and you must be a goodgirl to me; and if you was to marry him, him being what he is, I'dnever speak to you again in this world or the next. '

'You wouldn't have any chance in the next, I'm afraid, James, ' saidmy mother gently, 'for her poor soul, it couldn't hope to go to theblessed place after that. '

'I should hope not, ' said my father, and with that he got up andwent out, half his tea not drunk left in the mug. 

Well, I wrote that letter, and I told William right enough that himand me could never be anything but friends, and that he must thinkof me as a sister, and that was what father told me to say. But Ihope it wasn't very wrong of me to put in a little bit of my own, and this is what I said after I had told him about the friend andsister--

'But, dear William, ' says I, 'I shall never love anybody but you, that you may rely, and I will live an old maid to the end of my daysrather than take up with any other chap; and I should like to seeyou once, if convenient, before we part for ever, to tell you allthis, and to say "Good-bye" and "God bless you. " So you must findout a way to let me know quiet when you come home from learning thefarming in Somerset. '

And may I be forgiven the deceitfulness, and what I may call theimpudence of it! I really did give father that same letter to post, and him believing me to be a better girl than I was, to my shame, posted it, not doubting that I had only wrote what he told me. 

That was the saddest summer ever I had. The roses was nothing to me, nor the lavender neither, that I had always been so fond of; and asfor the raspberries, I don't believe I should have cared if therehadn't been one on the canes; and even the little chickens, Ithought them a bother, and--it goes to my heart to say it--a wholesitting was eaten by the rats in consequence. Everything seemed togo wrong. The butter was twice as long a-coming as ever I knowed it, and the broad beans got black fly, and father lost half his hay withthe weather. If it had been me that had done something unkind, father would have said it was a Providence on me. But, of course, Iknew better than to speak up to my own father, with his hay lyingrotting and smoking in the ten-acre, and telling him he was a-beingjudged. 

Well, the harvest was got in. It was neither here nor there. I haveseen better years and I have seen worse. And October come. I wasgetting to bed one night; at least, I hadn't begun to undress, for Iwas sitting there with William's letters, as he had wrote me fromtime to time while he was in Somerset, and I was reading them overand thinking of William, silly fashion, as a young girl will, andwishing it had been me was a Roman Catholic and him a Protestant, because then I could have gone into a convent like the wicked peoplein father's story-books. I was in that state of silliness, you see, that I would have liked to do something for William, even if it wasonly going into a convent--to be bricked up alive, perhaps. And thenI hears a scratch, scratch, scratching, and 'Drat the mice, ' says I;but I didn't take any notice, and then there was a little tap, tapping, like a bird would make with its beak on the window-pane, and I went and opened it, thinking it was a bird that had lost itsway and was coming foolish-like, as they will, to the light. So Idrew the curtain and opened the window, and it was--William!

'Oh, go away, do, ' says I; 'father will hear you. '

He had climbed up by the pear-tree that grew right and left up thewall, and--

'I ask your pardon, ' says he, 'my pretty sweetheart, for making sofree as to come to your window this time of night, but there didn'tseem any other way. '

'Oh, go, dear William, do go, ' says I. I expected every moment tosee the door open and father put his head in. 

'I'm not going, ' said William, 'till you tell me where you'll meetme to say "Good-bye" and "God bless you, " like you said in theletter. '

Though I knew the whole parish better than I know the palm of myhand, if you'll believe me, I couldn't for the life of me for themoment think of any place where I could meet William, and I stoodlike a fool, trembling. Oh, what a jump I gave when I heard a noiselike a heavy foot in the garden outside!

'Oh! it's father got round. Oh! he'll kill you, William. Oh!whatever shall we do?'

'Nonsense!' said William, and he caught hold of my shoulder and gaveme a gentle little shake. 'It was only one of these pears as Ikicked off. They must be as hard as iron to fall like that. '

Then he gave me a kiss, and I said: 'Then I'll meet you by theParson's Shave to-morrow at half-past five, and do go. My heart'sa-beating so I can hardly hear myself speak. '

'Poor little bird!' says William. Then he kissed me again and off hewent; and considering how quiet he came, so that even I couldn'thear him, you would not believe the noise he made getting down thatpear-tree. I thought every minute some one would be coming in to seewhat was happening. 

Well, the next day I went about my work as frightened as a rabbit, and my heart beating fit to choke me, trying not to think of what Ihad promised to do. At tea-time father says, looking straight beforehim--

'William Birt has come home, Kate. You remember I've got yourpromise not to pass no words with him, him being where he is, without the fold, among the dogs and things. '

And I didn't answer back, though I knew well enough it wasn'thonest; but he hadn't got my word. Father had brought me up carefuland kind, and I knew my duty to my parents, and I meant to do it, too. But I couldn't help thinking I owed a little bit of a duty toWilliam, and I meant doing that, so far as keeping my promise tomeet him that afternoon went. So after tea I says, and I do think itis almost the only lie I ever told--

'Mother, ' I says, 'I've got the jumping toothache, and it's that badI can hardly see to thread my needle. '

Then she says, as I knew she would, her being as kind an old soul asever trod: 'Go and lie down a bit and put the old sheepskin coatover your head, and I'll get on with the darning. '

So I went upstairs trembling all over. I took the bolster and pillowand put them under the covers, to look as like me as I could, and Iput the old sheepskin coat at the top of all; and as you come intothe room any one would have thought it was me lying there with thetoothache. Then I took my hat and shawl and I went out, quiet as amouse, through the dairy. When I got to the Parson's Shave there wasWilliam, and I was so glad to see him, I didn't think of nothingelse for full half a minute. Then William said--

'It's only one field to the church. Why not go up there and sit inthe porch? See, it's coming on to rain. '

So he took my arm, and we started across the field, where all thedays of the year but one you would not meet a soul. We went upthrough the churchyard. It was 'most dark, but I wasn't a bit afraidwith William's arm round me. But when we got to the porch and hadsat down, I was sorry I'd come, for I heard feet on the road below, and they stopped outside the lychgate. 

'Come, quick, ' says I, 'or we're caught like rats in a trap. If I amgoing to give you up to please father, I may as well please him allround. There's no reason why he should know I've seen you. '

'So we stole on our tiptoes round to the little door that is hardlyever fastened, and so through to the tower. Father being one of thebellringers, I knew every step. There's a stone seat cut out of thewall in the bellringers' loft, and there we sat down again, and Iwas just going to tell him again what I had said in the letter aboutbeing his sister and a friend, which seemed to comfort me somehow, though William has told me since it never would have him, whenWilliam, he gripped my hand like iron, and ''S-sh!' says he, 'listen. ' And I listened, and oh! what I felt when I heard footstepscoming up the tower. I didn't dare speak a word to him, and onlykept tight hold of his hand, and pulled him along till we got to thetower steps, and went on up. But I says to myself, 'Oh, what's myhead made of, to forget that it's practising night? and Him thechurch was built for only knows how long they won't be herepractising!' We went on up the twisted cobwebby stairs, with bits ofbroken birds' nests that crackled under our feet that loud I thoughtfor sure the folks below must hear us; and we got into the belfry, and there William was for staying, but I whispered to him--

'If you hear them bells when they're all a-going, you won't neverhear much else. We must get on up out of it unless we want to bedeaf the rest of our lives. '

And it was pitch dark in the belfry, except for the little greyslits where the shuttered windows are. The owls and starlings werefrightened, I suppose, at hearing us, though why they should havebeen, I don't know, being used to the bells; and they flew aboutround us liker ghosts than anything feathered, and one great owlflopped out right into my face, till I nearly screamed again. It wasall very, very dusty, and not being able to see, and being afraid tostrike a light, we had to feel along the big beams for our waybetween the bells, I going first, because I knew the way, andreaching back a hand every now and then to see that William wascoming after me safe and sound. On hands and knees we had to go forsafety, and all the while I was dreading they would start the bellsa-going and, maybe, shake William, who wasn't as used to it as Iwas, off the beams, and him perhaps be smashed to pieces by thebells as they swung. 

I don't know how long it took us to get across the belfry to thecorner where the ladder is that leads up to the tower-top. Williamsays it must have been about a couple of minutes, but I think it wasmuch more like half an hour. I thought we should never get there, and oh! what it was to me when I came to the end of the last beam, and got my foot down on the firm floor again, and the ladder in myhand, and William behind me! So up we went, me first again, becauseI knew the way and the fastenings of the door. And that part of itwasn't so bad, for I will say, if you've got to go up a long ladder, it's better to go up in the dark, when you can't see what's belowyou if you happen to slip; and I got up and opened the door, and itwas light out of doors and fresh with the rain--though that hadstopped now. 

Then William would take his coat off, and put it round me, for all Ibegged him not, and presently the tower began to shake and the bellsbegan, and directly they began I knew what they was up to. 

'O William, ' I says, 'it's Grandsire Triples, and there's fivethousand and fifty changes to 'em, and it's a matter of threehours!'

But he couldn't hear a word I said for the bells. So then I took hiscoat and my shawl, and we wrapped them round both our heads to shutthe bells out, and then we could hear each other speak inside. 

I'm not going to write down all I said nor all he said, which wasonly foolishness--and besides, it come to nothing after all. Butsomehow the time wasn't long; and it's a funny thing, but unhappyand happy you can be at the same time when you are with one you loveand are going to leave. William, he begged and prayed of me not togive him up. But I said I knew my duty, and he said he hoped I wouldthink better of it, and I said, 'No, never, ' and then we kissed eachother again, and the bells went on, and on, and on, clingle, clangle, clingle, chim, chime, chim, chime, till I was 'most dazed, and felt as if I had lived up there all my life, and was going tolive up there twenty lives longer. 

'I'll wait for you all my life long, ' says William. 'Not that I wishthe old man any harm, but it's not in the nature of things yourfather can live for ever, and then--'

'It ain't no use thinking of that, William, ' said I. 'Father is sureto make me promise never to have you--when he's dying, and I can'trefuse him anything. It's just the kind of thing he'd think of. '

Perhaps you will think William ought to have made more stand, foreverybody likes a masterful man; but what stand can you make whenyou are up in a belfry with the bells shouting and yelling at you, and when the girl you are with won't listen to reason? And you haveno idea what them bells were. Often and often since then I havestarted up in the bed thinking I heard them again. It was enough todrive one distracted. 

'Well, ' says William, 'you'll give me up, but I'll never give youup; and you mark my words, you and me will be man and wife someday. '

And as he said it, the bells stopped sudden in the middle of achange. The rain had come on again. It was very chill up there. Myteeth was chattering, and so was William's, though he pretended hedid it for the joke. 

'Let's get inside again, ' says he. 'Perhaps they are going home, andif they are not, we can stay there till they begin it again. '

So we opened the door and crept down the ladder. There was light nowcoming up from the bellringers' loft through the holes in the floor, and we got down to the belfry easy, and as we got to the bottom ofthe ladder I heard my father's voice in the loft below--

'I don't believe it, ' he was shouting. 'It can't be true. She's aGod-fearing girl. '

And then I heard my mother. 'Come home, James, ' she said, 'comehome--it's true. I told you you was too hard on them. Young folkswill be young folks, and now, perhaps, our little girl has come toshame instead of being married decent, as she might have been, though Roman. '

Then there was silence for a bit, and then my father says, speakingsofter, 'Tell me again. I can't think but what I'm dreaming. '

Then mother says--'Don't I tell you she said she'd got thetoothache, and she was going to lie down a bit, and I went to takeher up some camomiles I'd been hotting, and she wasn't there, andher bolsters and pillows, poor lamb, made up to pretend she was, andJohnson's Ben, he see her along of William Birt by the Parson'sShave with his arm round her--God forgive them both!'

Then says my father, 'Here's an end on't. She's no daughter o' mine. If she was to come back to me, I'd turn her out of doors. Don't letany one name her name to me never no more. I hain't got nodaughter, ' he said, 'and may the Lord--'

I think my mother put her hands afore his mouth, for he stoppedshort, and mother, she said--

'Don't curse them, James. You'll be sorry for it, and they'll havetrouble enough without that. '

And with that father and mother must have gone away, and the otherringers stood talking a bit. 

'She'd best not come back, ' said the leader, John Evans. 'Outa-gallivanting with a young chap from five to eight as I understand!What's the good of coming back? She's lost her character, and a galwithout a character, she's like--like--'

'Like a public-house without a licence, ' said the second ringer. 

'Or a cart without a horse, ' said the treble. 

There was only one man spoke up for me--that was Jim Piper at thegeneral shop. 'I don't believe no harm of that gal, ' says he, 'nomore nor I would of my own missus, nor yet of him. '

'Well, let's hope for the best, ' said the others. But I had a sortof feeling they was hoping for the worst, because when things goeswrong, it's always more amusing for the lookers-on than wheneverything goes right. Presently they went clattering down thesteps, and all was dark, and there was me and William among thecobwebs and the owls, holding each other's hands, and as cold asstone, both of us. 

'Well?' says William, when everything was quiet again. 

'Well!' says I. 'Good-bye, William. He won't be as hard as his word, and if I couldn't give you all my life to be a good wife to you, Ihave given you my character, it seems; not willing, it's true; butthere's nothing I should grudge you, William, and I don't regret it, and good-bye. '

But he held my hands tight. 

'Good-bye, William, ' I says again. 'I'm going. I'm going home. '

'Yes, my girl, ' says he, 'you are going home; you're going home withme to my mother. ' And he was masterful enough then, I can tell you. 'If your father would throw you off without knowing the rights orwrongs of the story, it's not for him you should be giving up yourhappiness and mine, my girl. Come home to my mother, and let me seethe man who dares to say anything against my wife. '

And whether it was father's being so hard and saying what he didabout me before all those men, or whether it was me knowing thatmother had stood up for us secret all the time, or whether it wasbecause I loved William so much, or because he loved me so much, Idon't know. But I didn't say another word, only began to cry, and wegot downstairs and straight home to William's mother, and we toldher all about it; and we was cried in church next Sunday, and Istayed with the old lady until we was married, and many a yearafter; and a good mother she was to me, though only in law, and agood granny to our children when they come. And I wasn't so unhappyas you may think, because mother come to see me directly, and shewas at our wedding; and father, he didn't say anything to preventher going. 

When I was churched after my first, and the boy was christened--inour own church, for I had made William promise it should be so ifever we had any--mother was there, and she said to me: 'Take thechild, ' she said, 'and go to your father at home; and when he seesthe child, he'll come round, I'll lay a crown; for his bark, ' shesays, 'was allus worse than his bite. '

And I did so, and the pears was hard and red on the wall as they wasthe night William climbed up to my window, and I went into thekitchen, and there was father sitting in his big chair, and theBible on the table in front of him, with his spectacles; but hewasn't reading, and if it had been any one else but father, I shouldhave said he had been crying. And so I went in, and I showed him thebaby, and I said--

'Look, father, here's our little baby; and he's named James, foryou, father, and christened in church the same as I was. And now Ihave got a child of my own, ' says I, for he didn't speak, 'dearfather, I know what it is to have a child of your own go againstyour wishes, and please God mine never will--or against yourseither. But I couldn't help it, and O father, do forgive me!'

And he didn't say anything, but he kissed the boy, and he kissed himagain. And presently he says--

'It's 'most time your mother was home from church. Won't you besetting the tea, Kate?'

So I give him the baby to hold, for I knew everything was all rightbetwixt us. 

And all the children have been christened in the church. But I thinkwhen father is taken from us--which in the nature of things he mustbe, though long may it be first!--I think I shall be a RomanCatholic too; for it doesn't seem to me to matter much one way orthe other, and it would please William very much, and I am sure itwouldn't hurt me. And what's the good of being married to the bestman in the world if you can't do a little thing like that to pleasehim?

A DEATH-BED CONFESSION

AND so you think I shall go to heaven when I die, sir! And why?Because I have spent my time and what bits of money I've had inlooking after the poor in this parish! And I would do it again if Ihad my time to come over again; but it will take more than that towipe out my sins, and God forgive me if I can't always believe thateven His mercy will be equal to it. You're a clergyman, and youought to know. I think sometimes the black heart in me, that startedme on that deed, must have come from the devil, and that I am hischild after all, and shall go back to him at the last. Don't look soshocked, sir. That's not what I really believe; it's only what Isometimes fear I ought to believe, when I wake up in the chill nightand think things over, lying here alone. 

To see me old and prim, with my cap and little checked shawl, you'dnever think that I was once one of the two prettiest girls on allthe South Downs. But I was, and my cousin Lilian was the other. Welived at Whitecroft together at our uncle's. He was a well-to-dofarmer, as well-to-do as a farmer could be in such times as those, and on such land as that. 

Whenever I hear people say 'home, ' it's Whitecroft I think of, withits narrow windows and thatch roof and the farm-buildings about it, and the bits of trees all bent one way with the wind from the sea. 

Whitecroft stands on a shoulder of the Downs, and on a clear day youcan see right out to sea and over the hollow where Felscombe liescuddled down close and warm, with its elms and its church, and itsbright bits of gardens. They are sheltered from the sea wind downthere, but there's nothing to break the wing of it as it rollsacross the Downs on to Whitecroft; and of a night Lilian and I usedto lie and listen to the wind banging the windows, and know that thechimneys were rocking over our heads, and feel the house move to andfro with the strength of the wind like as if it was the swing of acradle. 

Lilian and I had come there, little things, and uncle had brought usup together, and we loved each other like sisters until thathappened, and this is the first time I have told a human soul aboutit; and if being sorry can pay for things--well, but I'm afraidthere are some things nothing can pay for. 

It was one wild windy night, when, if you should open the door aninch, everything in the house jarred and rattled. We were sittinground the fire, uncle and Lilian and me, us with our knitting andhim asleep in his newspaper, and nobody could have gone to sleepwith a wind like that but a man who has been bred and born at sea, or on the South Downs. 

Lilian and I were talking over our new winter dresses, when therecome a knock at the side door, not nigh so loud as some of thenoises the wind made, but not being used to it, uncle sat up, wideawake, and said, 'Hark!' In a minute it come again, and then I wentto the door and opened it a bit. There was some one outside whobegan to speak as soon as he saw the light, but I could not hearwhat he said for the roaring of the wind, and the cracking of thetrees outside. 

'Shut that door!' uncle shouted from the parlour. 'Let the dog in, whatever he is, and let him tell his tale this side the oak. '

So I let him in and shut the door after him, and I had better haveshut to the lid of my own coffin after me. 

Him that I let in was dripping wet, and all spent with fighting thewind on these Downs, where it is like a lion roaring for its prey, and will go nigh to kill you, if you fight it long enough. He leanedagainst the wall and said--

'I have lost my way, and I have had a nasty fall. I think there issomething wrong with my arm--hollow--slip--light--hospitality begyour pardon, I'm sure, ' and with that he fainted dead off on thecocoanut matting at my feet. 

Uncle came out when I screamed, and we got the stranger in and puthim on the big couch by the fire. Uncle was nursing up with one ofhis bad attacks of bronchitis, the same thing that carried him offin the end, and the first thing he said when he'd felt the poorchap's arm down was--

'This is a bad break. Which of you girls will go and wake one of thewaggoners to fetch Doctor from Felscombe?'

'I will, ' I said. 

But before I went I got out the port wine and the brandy, and badeLilian rub his hands a bit, and be sure she didn't let him see herlooking frightened when he come to. 

Why did I do that? Because the Lord made me to be a fool--giving himher pretty face to be the first thing he looked at when he come toafter that long, dreary spell on the Downs, and that black journeyinto the strange place where people go to when they faint. 

But everything that there was of me ached to be of some use to him. So I went, and once outside the door it seemed easier to take BrownBess and go myself to Felscombe than to rouse the waggoners, whowere but sleepy and slow-headed at the best of times. So I saddledBrown Bess myself and started. 

It was but a small way across the Downs that I had to lead her, itbeing almost as much as both of us could do to keep our feet in thefury of the wind. Then you go down the steep hill into the village, and as soon as we had passed the brow, it was easy and I mounted. Iwas down there in less time than it would have taken to rouse one ofthose heavy-headed carters; and Doctor, he come back with me, walking beside Brown Bess with his hand on her bridle, he not beingby any means loth to come out such a night, because, forsooth, itwas me that fetched him. Oh yes! I might have married him if I hadwanted to, and more than one better man than him; but that's neitherhere nor there. 

When we got in, we found Lilian kneeling by the sofa rubbing theyoung man's hands as I had told her to, and his eyes were open, andthere was a bit of colour in his cheek, and he was looking at herlike as any one but a fool might have known he would look; and theDoctor, he saw it too, and looked at me and grinned; and if I hadbeen God, that grin should have been his last. No, I don't mean tobe irreverent, but it's true, all the same. 

Well, the arm was set, and when he was a bit easier we settled roundthe fire, and he told us that his name was Edgar Linley, and he wasan artist, and had been painting the angry sunset that had comebefore that night's storm, and got caught in the dusk and so losthis way, as many do on our Downs at home, some not so lucky as himto see a light and get to it. 

This Mr. Linley had a way with him like no other man I ever see; notonly a way to please women with, but men too. I never saw my uncleso taken up with anybody; and the long and the short of it was thathe stayed there a month, and we nursed him; and at the end of themonth I knew no more than I had known that evening when I had seenhim looking at Lilian; but he and Lilian, they had learned a deal inthat time. 

And one evening I was at my bedroom window, and I see them coming upthe path in the red light of the evening, walking very closetogether, and I went down very quick to the parlour, where uncle wasjust come in to his tea and taking his big boots off, and I sat downthere, for I wanted to hear how they'd say it, though I knew wellenough what they had got to say. And they came in and he says, veryfrank and cheery--

'Mr. Verinder, ' he says, 'Lilian and I have made up our minds totake each other, with your consent, for better, for worse. '

And uncle was as pleased as Punch; and as for me, I didn't believein God then, or I should have prayed Him to strike them both downdead as they stood. 

Why did I hate them so? And you call yourself a man and a parson, and one that knows the heart of man! Why did I hate them? Because Iloved him as no woman will ever love you, sir, if you'll pardon mebeing so bold, if you live to be a thousand. 

He would have understood all about everything with half what I havebeen telling you. As it is, I sometimes think that he understood, for he was very gentle with me and kind, not making too much ofLilian when I was by, yet never with a look or a word that wasn'tthe look and the word of her good, true lover; and she was veryhappy, for she loved him as much as that blue-and-white teacup kindof woman can love; and that's more than I thought for at the time. 

He was an orphan, and well off, and there was nothing to wait for, so the wedding was fixed for early in the new year; and I sewed ather new clothes with a marrow of lead in every bone of my fingers. 

A truly understanding person might get some meaning out of my wordswhen I say that I loved her in my heart all the time that I washating her; and the devil himself must have sent out my soul andmade use of the rest of me on that night I shall tell you aboutpresently. 

It was in the sharp, short, frosty days that brought in Christmasthat uncle came home one day from Lewes, looking thunder black, withan eye like fire and a mouth like stone. And he walked straight intothe kitchen where we three were making toast for tea, for Edgar wasone of us by this time, and lent a hand at all such little things asyoung folks can be merry over together. And uncle says--

'Leave my house, young man; it's an honest house and a clean, and nofit place for a sinful swine. Get out, ' he says, '"For without aredogs--"'

With that he went on with a long text of Revelation that I won'trepeat to you, sir, for I know your ears are nice, and it's out ofone of the plainest-spoken parts of the Bible. Edgar turned as whiteas a sheet. 

'I swear to God, ' he said, 'I wasn't to blame. I know what you haveheard, but if I can't whiten myself without blacking a woman

I'll live and die as black as hell, ' he says. 'But I don't needwhitening with those that love me, ' he says, looking at Lilian andthen at me--oh! yes, he looked at me then. 

I said, 'No, indeed, ' and so did Lilian; but she began to cry, andbefore we had time to think what it was all about, he had taken hishat and kissed Lilian and was gone. But he turned back at the dooragain. 

'I'll write to you, ' he says to Lilian, 'but I don't cross this dooragain till those words are unsaid, ' and so he was gone. 

Him being gone, uncle told us what he had heard in Lewes, and whatall folks there believed to be the truth; how young Edgar hadcarried on, as men may not, with a young married woman, the grocer'swife where he lodged, the end of it being that she drowned herselfin a pond near by, leaving as her last word that he was the cause ofit; and so he may have been, but not the way my uncle and the folkat Lewes thought, I'll stake my soul. God makes His troubles indozens; He don't make a new patterned one for every back. I wasn'tthe only woman who ever loved Edgar Linley without encouragement andwithout hope, and risked her soul because she was mad with lovinghim. 

But when uncle had told us all this with a black look on his face Inever had seen before, he said--

'Girls, I have always been a clean liver, and I have brought you upin the fear of the Lord. I don't want to judge any man, and Lilianis of age and her own mistress. It's not for me to say what sheshall or shan't do, but if she marries that scoundrel, she has mycurse here and hereafter, and not one penny of my money, if it wasto save her from the workhouse. '

After that we were sad enough at Whitecroft. But in two days come aletter from Edgar to Lilian; and when she had read it, she looked atme and said, 'O Isabel, whatever shall I do? I never can marrywithout dear uncle's consent, ' and I turned and went from herwithout a word, because I couldn't bear to see her arguing andconsidering what to do, when the best thing in the world was to herhand for the taking. 

All the next week she cried all day and most of the night. Thenuncle went to London, my belief being it was to alter his will, sothat if Lilian married Edgar, she should feel it in her pocket, anyhow, and he was to stay all night, and the farm servants sleptout of the house, and we were without a maid at the time. So Lilianand me were left alone at Whitecroft. 

Lilian and I didn't sleep in one room now. I had made some excuse tosleep on the other side of the house, because I couldn't bear towake up of mornings and see her lying there so pretty, looking likea lily in her white nightgown and her fair hair all tumbled abouther face. It was more than any woman could have borne to see herlying there, and think that early in the new year it was him thatwould see her lying like that of a morning. 

And that night the place seemed very quiet and empty, as if therewas more room in it for being unhappy in. When Lilian had taken hercandle and gone up to bed, I walked through all the rooms below, asuncle's habit was, to see that all was fast for the night. It was asI set the bolt on the door of the little lean-to shed, where thefaggots were kept, that the devil entered into me all in a breath;and I thought of Lilian upstairs in her white bed, and of how theday must come, when he would see how pretty she looked and white, and I said to myself, 'No, it never shall, not if I burn for ittoo. '

I hope you are understanding me. I sometimes think there issomething done to folks when they are learning to be parsons astakes out of them a part of a natural person's understandingness;and I would rather have told the doctor, but then he couldn't havetold me whether these are the kind of things Christ died to make HisFather forgive, and I suppose you can. 

What I did was this. I clean forgot all about uncle and how fond Iwas of Whitecroft, and how much I had always loved Lilian (and Iloved her then, though I know you can't understand me when I sayso), and I took all them faggots, dragging them across the sandedfloor of the kitchen, and I put them in the parlour in the littlewing to the left, and just under Lilian's bedroom, and I laid themunder the wooden corner cupboard where the best china is, and then Ipoured oil and brandy all over, and set it alight. 

Then I put on my hat and jacket, buttoning it all the way down, asquiet as if I was going down to the village for a pound of candles. And I made sure all was burning free, and out of the front door Iwent and up on to the Downs, and there I set me down under the wallwhere I could see Whitecroft. 

And I watched to see the old place burn down; and at first there wasno light to be seen. 

But presently I see the parlour windows get redder and redder, andsoon I knew the curtains had caught, and then there was a light inLilian's bedroom. I see the bars of the window as you do in theruined mill when the sun is setting behind it; and the light gotmore and more, till I see the stone above the front door that tellshow it was builded by one of our name this long time since; and atthat, as sudden as he had come, the devil left me, and I knew all ina minute that I was crouched against a wall, very cold, and my handshooked into my hair over my ears, and my knees drawn up under mychin; and there was the old house on fire, the dear old house, withLilian inside it in her little white bed, being burnt to death, andme her murderer! And with that I got up, and I remember I was stiff, as if I had been screwing myself all close together to keep fromknowing what it was I had been a-doing. I ran down the meadow to ourhouse faster than I ever ran in my life, in at the door, and up thestairs, all blue and black, and hidden up with coppery-colouredsmoke. 

I don't know how I got up them stairs, for they were beginning toburn too. I opened her door--all red and glowing it was inside! likean oven when you open it to rake out the ashes on a baking-day. AndI tried to get in, because all I wanted then was to save her--to gether out safe and sound, if I had to roast myself for it, because wehad been brought up together from little things, and I loved herlike a sister. And while I was trying to get my jacket off and roundmy head, something gave way right under my feet, and I seemed tofall straight into hell!

I was badly burnt, and what handsomeness there was about my face waspretty well scorched out of it by that night's work; and I didn'tknow anything for a bit. 

When I come to myself, they had got me into bed bound up withcotton-wool and oil and things. And the first thing I did was to situp and try to tear them off. 

'You'll kill yourself, ' says the nurse. 

'Thank you, ' says I, 'that's the best thing I can do, now Lilian isdead. '

And with that the nurse gives a laugh. 'Oh, that's what's on yourmind, is it?' says she. 'Doctor said there was something. MissLilian had run away that night to her young man. Lucky for her!She's luckier than you, poor thing! And they're married and livingin lodgings at Brighton, and she's been over to see you every day. '

That day she came again. I lay still and let her thank me for havingtried to save her; for the farm men had seen the fire, and had comeup in time to see me go up the staircase to her room, and they hadpulled me out. She believes to this day the fire was an accident, and that I would have sacrificed my life for her. And so I would;she's right there. 

I wasn't going to make her unhappy by telling her the real truth, because she was as fond of me as I was of her; and she has been ashappy as the day is long, all her life long, and so she deserves. 

And as for me, I stayed on with uncle at the farm until he died ofthat bronchitis I told you of, and the little wing was built upagain, and the lichen has grown on it, so that now you could hardlytell it is only forty years old; and he left me all his money, andwhen he died, and Whitecroft went to a distant relation, I came hereto do what bits of good I could. 

And I have never told the truth about this to any one but you. Icouldn't have told it to any one as cared, but I know you don't. Sothat makes it easy. 

HER MARRIAGE LINES

I

I HAD never been out to service before, and I thought it a grandthing when I got a place at Charleston Farm. Old Mr. Alderton wasclose-fisted enough, and while he had the management of the farm itwas a place no girl need have wished to come to; but now Mr. Alderton had given up farming this year or two, and young MasterHarry, he had the management of everything. Mr. Alderton, he stuckin one room with his books, which he was always fond of above a bit, and must needs be waited on hand and foot, only driving over toLewes every now and then. 

Six pounds a year I was to have, and a little something extra atChristmas, according as I behaved myself. It was Master Harry whoengaged me. He rode up to our cottage one fine May morning, lookingas grand on his big grey horse, and says he, through the stampingclatter of his horse's hoofs on the paved causeway--

'Are you Deresby's Poll?' says he. 

And I says, 'Yes; what might you be wanting?'

'We want a good maid up at the farm, ' says he, patting his horse'sneck--'Steady, old boy--and they tell me you're a good girl thatwants a good place, and ours is a good place that wants a good girl. So if our wages suit you, when can you come?'

And I said, 'Tuesday, if that would be convenient. '

And he took off his hat to me as if I was a queen, though I wasfloury up to the elbows, being baking-day, and rode off down thelane between the green trees, and no king could have lookedhandsomer. 

Charleston is a lonesome kind of house. It's bare and white, withthe farm buildings all round it, except on one side where the bigpond is; and lying as it does, in the cup of the hill, it seems toshut loneliness in and good company out. 

I was to be under Mrs. Blake, who had been housekeeper there sincethe old mistress died. No one knew where she came from, or what hadbecome of Mr. Blake, if ever there had been one. For my part I neverthought she was a widow, and always expected some day to see Mr. Blake walk in and ask for his wife. But as a widow she came, and asa widow she passed. 

She had just that kind of handsome, black, scowling looks thatalways seem to need a lot of black jet and crape to set themoff--the kind of complexion that seems to be playing up for thewidow's weeds from the very cradle. I have heard it said she washandsome, and so she may have been; and she took a deal of care ofher face, always wearing a veil when there was a wind, and her handsto have gloves, if you please, for every bit of dirty work. 

But she was a capable woman, and she soon put me in the way of mywork; and me and Betty, who was a little girl of fourteen fromAlfreston, had most of the housework to do, for Mrs. Blake would letnone of us do a hand's-turn for the old master. It was she must doeverything, and as he got more and more took up with his books therecome to be more and more waiting on him in his own room; and after abit Mrs. Blake used even to sit and write for him by the hourtogether. 

I have heard tell old Mr. Alderton wasn't brought up to be a farmer, but was a scholar when he was young, and had to go into farming whenhe married Hakes's daughter as brought the farm with her; and now hehad gone back to his books he was more than ever took up with theidea of finding something out--making something new that no one hadever made before--his invention, he called it, but I neverunderstood what it was all about--and indeed Mrs. Blake took verygood care I shouldn't. 

She wanted no one to know anything about the master exceptherself--at least that was my opinion--and if that was her wish shecertainly got it. 

It was hard work, but I'm not one to grudge a hand's-turn here or ahand's-turn there, and I was happy enough; and when the men came infor their meals I always had everything smoking hot, and just as Ishould wish to sit down to it myself: And when the men come in, Master Harry always come in with them, and he'd say, 'Bacon andgreens again, Polly, and done to a turn, I'll wager. You're the girlfor my money!' and sit down laughing to a smoking plateful. 

And so I was quite happy, and with my first six months' money I gotfather a new pipe and a comforter agin the winter, and as pretty ashepherd's plaid shawl as ever you see for mother, and a knittedwaistcoat for my brother Jim, as had wanted one this two year, andhad enough left to buy myself a bonnet and gown that I didn't feelashamed to sit in church in under Master Harry's own blue eye. Mrs. Blake looked very sour when she saw my new things. 

'You think to catch a young man with those, ' says she. 'You gells isall alike. But it isn't fine feathers as catches a husband, as theysay. Don't you believe it. '

And I said, 'No; a husband as was caught so easy might be as easygot rid of, which was convenient sometimes. '

And we come nigh to having words about it. 

That was the day before old master went off to London unexpected. When Mrs. Blake heard he was going, she said she would take theopportunity of his being away to make so bold as to ask him for aday's holiday to go and visit her friends in Ashford. So she andmaster went in the trap to the station together, and off by the sametrain; and curious enough, it was by the same train in the eveningthey come back, and I thought to myself, 'That's like yourartfulness, Mrs. Blake, getting a lift both ways. '

And I wondered to myself whether her friends in Ashford, supposingshe had any, was as glad to see her as we was glad to get rid ofher. 

That's a day I shall always remember, for other things than her andmaster going away. 

That was the day Betty and I got done early, and she wanted to runhome to her mother to see about her clean changes for Sunday, whichhadn't come according to expectations. 

So I said, 'Off you go, child, and mind you're back by tea, ' and Isat down in the clean kitchen to do up my old Sunday bonnet and makeit fit for everyday. 

And as I was sitting there, with the bits of ribbons and things inmy lap, unpicking the lining of the bonnet, I heard the back dooropen, and thinking it was one of the men bringing in wood, maybe, Ididn't turn my head, and next minute there was Master Harry had gothis hand under my chin and holding my head back, and was kissing meas if he never meant to stop. 

'Lor bless you, Master Harry, ' says I, as soon as I could push himaway, dropping all the ribbons and scissors and things in my flurry, 'how could you fashion to behave so? And me alone in the house! Ithought you had better sense. '

'Don't be cross, Polly, ' says he, smiling at me till I could haveforgiven him much more than that, and going down on his knees topick up my bits of rubbish. 'You know well enough who my choice is. I haven't lived in the house with you six months without finding outthere's only one girl as I should like to keep my house to the endof the chapter. '

He had that took me by surprise that I give you my word that for aminute or two I couldn't say anything, but sat looking like a fooland taking the ribbons and things from his hands as he picked themup. 

When I come to my senses I said, 'I don't know what maggot has bityou, sir, to think of such nonsense. What would the master say, andMrs. Blake and all?'

Well, he got up off his knees and walked up and down the kitchentwice in a pretty fume, and he said a bad word about what Mrs. Blakemight say that I'm not going to write down here. 

'And as for my father, ' says he, 'I know he's ideas above what'sfitting for farmer folk, but I know best what's the right choice forme, and if you won't mind me not telling him, and will wait for mepatient, and will give me a kind word and a kiss on a Sunday, so tosay, you and me will be happy together, and you shall be mistress ofthe farm when the poor old dad's time comes to go. Not that I wishhis time nearer by an hour, for all I love you so dear, Polly. '

And I hope I did what was right, though it was with a sore heart, for I said--

'I couldn't stay on in your folks' house to have secretunderstandings with you, Master Harry. That ain't to be thought of. But I do say this--'tain't likely that I shall marry any other chap;and if, when you come to be master of Charleston, you are in thesame mind, why you can speak your mind to me again, and I'll listento you then with a freer heart, maybe, than I can to-day. '

And with that I bundled all my odds and ends into the dresserdrawer, and took the kettle off, which was a-boiling over. 

'And now, ' I says, 'no more of this talk, if you and me is to keepfriends. '

'Shake hands on it, ' says he; 'you're a good girl, Polly, and I seemore than ever what a lucky man I shall be the day I go to churchwith you; and I'll not say another word till I can say it afore allthe world, with you to answer "Yes" for all the world to hear. '

So that was settled, and, of course, from that time I kept myselfmore than ever to myself, not even passing the time of day with ayoung man if I could help it, because I wanted to keep all mythoughts and all my words for Master Harry, if he should ever wantme again. 

II

Well, as I said, old Master and Mrs. Blake come back together fromthe station, and from that day forward Mrs. Blake was unbearablerthan ever. And one day when Mr. Sigglesfield, the lawyer from Lewes, was in the parlour, she a-talking to him after he'd been up to seemaster (about his will, no doubt), she opened the parlour door sharpand sudden just as I was bringing the tea for her to have it withhim like a lady--she opened the door sudden, as I say, and boxed myears as I stood, and I should have dropped the tea-tray but for mebeing brought up a careful girl, and taught always to hold on to thetea-tray with all my fingers. 

I'm proud to say I didn't say a word, but I put down that tea-trayand walked into the kitchen with my ear as hot as fire and my temperto match, which was no wonder and no disgrace. Then she come intothe kitchen. 

'You go this day month, Miss, ' she says, 'a-listening at doors whenyour betters is a-talking. I'll teach you!' says she, and back shegoes into the parlour. 

But I took no notice of what she said, for Master Harry, he hiredme, and I would take no notice from any one but him. 

Mr. Sigglesfield was a-coming pretty often just then, and Harry hecome to me one day, and he says--

'It's all right, Polly, and I must tell you because you're the sameas myself, though I don't like to talk as if we was waiting for deadmen's shoes. Long may he wear them! But father's told me he has lefteverything to me, right and safe, though I am the second son. Mybrother John never did get on with father, but when all's mine, we'll see that John don't starve. '

And that day week old master was a corpse. 

He was found dead in his bed, and the doctor said it was old age anda sudden breaking up. 

Mrs. Blake she cried and took on fearful, more than was right ornatural, and when the will was to be read in the parlour after thefuneral she come into the kitchen where I was sitting cryingtoo--not that I was fond of old master, but the kind of crying thereis at funerals is catching, I think, and besides, I was sorry forMaster Harry, who was a good son, and quite broken down. 

'You can come and hear the will read, ' she says, 'for all yourimpudence, you hussy!'

And I don't know why I went in after her impudence, but I did. Mr. Sigglesfield was there, and some of the relations, who had come along way to hear if they was to pull anything out of the fire; andMaster Harry was there, looking very pale through all hissun-brownness. And says he, 'I suppose the will's got to be read, but my father, he told me what I was to expect. It's all to me, andone hundred to Mrs. Blake, and five pounds apiece to the servants. '

And Mr. Sigglesfield looks at him out of his ferret eyes, and saysvery quietly, 'I think the will had better be read, Mr. Alderton. '

'So I think, ' says Mrs. Blake, tossing her head and rubbing her redeyes with her handkerchief at the same minute almost. 

And read it was, and all us people sat still as mice, listening tothe wonderful tale of it. For wonderful it was, though folded upvery curious and careful in a pack of lawyer's talk. And when it wasfinished, Master Harry stood up on his feet, and he said--

'I don't understand your cursed lawyer's lingo. Does this mean thatmy father has left me fifty pounds, and has left the rest, stock, lock and barrel, to his wife Martha. Who in hell, ' he says, 'is hiswife Martha?'

And at that Mrs. Blake stood up and fetched a curtsy to the company. 

'That's me, ' she said, 'by your leave; married two months comeTuesday, and here's my lines. '

And there they were. There was no getting over them. Married at St. Mary Woolnoth, in London, by special licence. 

'O you wicked old Jezebel!' says Master Harry, shaking his fist ather; 'here's a fine end for a young man's hopes! Is it true?' sayshe, turning to the lawyer. And Mr. Sigglesfield shakes his head andsays--

'I am afraid so, my poor fellow. '

'Jezebel, indeed!' cries Mrs. Blake. 'Out of my house, my younggamecock! Get out and crow on your own dunghill, if you can findone. '

And Harry turned and went without a word. Then I slipped out too, and I snatched my old bonnet and shawl off their peg in the kitchen, and I ran down the lane after him. 

'Harry, ' says I, and he turned and looked at me like somethingthat's hunted looks when it gets in a corner and turns on you. ThenI got up with him and caught hold of his arm with both my hands. 'Never mind the dirty money, ' says I. 'What's a bit of money, ' Isays--'what is it, my dear, compared with true love? I'll work myfingers to the bone for you, ' says I, 'and we're better off than herwhen all's said and done. '

'So we are, my girl, ' says he; and the savage look went out of hisface, and he kissed me for the second time. 

Then we went home, arm-under-arm, to my mother's, and we told fatherand mother all about it; and mother made Harry up a bit of a bed onthe settle, and he stayed with us till he could pull himselftogether and see what was best to be done. 

III

Of course, our first thought was, 'Was she really married?' And itwas settled betwixt us that Harry should go up to London to thechurch named in her marriage lines and see if it was a real marriageor a make-up, like what you read of in the weekly papers. And Harrywent up, I settling to go the same day to fetch my clothes fromCharleston. 

So as soon as I had seen him off by the train, I walked up toCharleston, and father with me, to fetch my things. 

Mrs. Blake--for Mrs. Alderton I can't and won't call her--was out, and I was able to get my bits of things together comfortable withouther fussing and interfering. But there was a pair of scissors ofmine I couldn't find, and I looked for them high and low till Iremembered that I had lent them to Mrs. Blake the week before. So Iwent to her room to look for them, thinking no harm; and there, looking in her corner cupboard for my scissors, as I had a right todo, I found something else that I hadn't been looking for; and, right or wrong, I put that in my pocket and said nothing to father, and so we went home and sat down to wait for Harry. 

He came in by the last train, looking tired and gloomy. 

'They were married right enough, ' he said. 'I've seen the register, and I've seen the clerk, and he remembers them being married. '

'Then you'd better have a bit of supper, my boy, ' says mother, andtakes it smoking hot out of the oven. 

The next day when I had cleared away breakfast, I stood looking intothe street. It was a cold day, and a day when nobody would be out ofdoors that could anyways be in. I shouldn't have had my nose out ofthe door myself, except that I wanted to turn my back on other folksnow, and think of what I had found at Charleston, for I hadn't eventold Harry of it yet. 

And as I sat there, who should come along but the postman, as is mysecond cousin by the mother's side, and, 'Well, Polly, ' says he, 'times do change. They tell me young Alderton is biding with yourfolks now. '

'They tell you true for once, ' says I. 

'Then 'tain't worth my while to be trapesing that mile and a quarterto leave a letter at the farm, I take it, especially as it's aregistered letter, and him not there to sign for it. '

So I calls Harry out, who was smoking a pipe in the chimney-corner, as humped and gloomy as a fowl on a wet day, and he was as surprisedas me at getting a letter with a London postmark, and registeredtoo; and he was that surprised that he kept turning it over andover, and wondering who it could have come from, till we thought itwould be the best way to open and see, and we did. 

'Well, I'm blowed!' says Harry; and then he read it out to me. Itwas--

'MY DEAR BROTHER, --I have seen in the papers the melancholy accountof our poor father's decease, and the disastrous circumstances ofhis second marriage; and the more I have thought of it, the more itseems to me that there was a screw loose somewhere. I had themisfortune, as you know, to offend him by my choice of a profession;but you will be glad to hear that I have risen from P. C. Todetective-sergeant, and am doing well. 

'I have made a few inquiries about the movements of our lamentedfather and Mrs. Blake on the day when they were united, and if thesame will be agreeable to you, I will come down Sunday morning andtalk matters over with you. --I remain, my dear brother, youraffectionate brother, JOHN. 

'_P. S. _ I shall register the letter to make sure. Telegraph ifyou would like me to come. '

Well, we telegraphed, though mother doesn't hold with such things, looking on it as flying in the face of Providence and what'snatural. But we got it all in, with the address, for sixpence, andHarry was as pleased as Punch to think of seeing his brother again. But mother said she doubted if it would bring a blessing. And on theSunday morning John came. 

He was a very agreeable, gentlemanly man, with such manners as youdon't see in Littlington--no, nor in Polegate neither, --and verychanged from the boy with the red cheeks as used to come past ourhouse on his way to school when he was very little. 

Harry met him at the station and brought him home, and when he comein he kissed me like a brother, and mother too, and he said--

'The best good of trouble, ma'am, is to show you who your friendsreally are. '

'Ah, ' says mother, 'I doubt if all the detectives in London, askingyour pardon, Master John, can set Master Harry up in his own again. But he's got a pair of hands, and so has my Polly, and he might havechosen worse, though I says it. '

Now, after dinner, when I'd cleared away, nothing would serve but Imust go out with the two of them. So we went out, and walked up onto the Downs for quietness' sake, and it was a warm day and soft, though November, and we leaned against a grey gate and talked it allover. 

Then says Master John, 'Look here, Polly, we aren't to have anysecrets from you. There's no doubt they were married, but doesn't itseem to you rather strange that my poor old father should have beentaken off so suddenly after the wedding?'

'Yes, ' I said, 'but the doctors seemed to understand all about it. '

Then he said something about the doctors that it was just as wellthey weren't there to hear, and he went on--

'Of course I thought at first they weren't married, so I set aboutfinding out what they did when they came to London; and I haven'tfound out what my father did, but I did pounce on a bit of news, andthat's that she wasn't with him the whole day. They came to CharingCross by the same train, but he wasn't with her when she went to getthat arsenic from the chemist's. '

'What!' says I, 'arsenic?'

'Yes, ' says John, 'don't you get excited, my dear. I found that outby a piece of luck once as doesn't come to a man every day of theweek. A woman answering to her description went into a chemist'sshop, and the assistant gave the arsenic, a shilling's-worth it was, to kill rats with. '

'And God above only knows why they put such bits of fools into ashop to sell sixpenny-worths of death over the counter, ' says Harry. 

'Now the question is: Was this woman answering to her descriptionreally Mrs. Blake or not?'

'It was Mrs. Blake, ' says I, very short and sharp. 

'How do you know?' says John, shorter and sharper. 

Then I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out what I had found inMrs. Blake's corner cupboard, and John took it in his hand andlooked at it, and whistled long and low. It was a little whitepacket, and had been opened and the label torn across, but you couldread what was on it plain enough--'Arsenic--Poison, ' and the name ofthe chemist in London. 

John's face was red as fire, like some men's is when they're goingin fighting, and my Harry's as white as milk, as some other men's isat such times. But as for me, I fell a-crying to think that anywoman could be so wicked, and him such a good master and so kind toher, and she having the sole care of him, helpless in her hands asthe new-born babe. 

And Harry, he patted me on the back, and told me to cheer up and notto cry, and to be a good girl; and presently, my handkerchief beingwet through, I stopped, and then John, he said--

'We'll bring it home to her yet, Harry, my boy. I'll get an order tohave poor old father exhumed, and the doctors shall tell us how muchof the arsenic that cursed old hag gave him. '

IV I don't know what you have to do to get an order to open up agrave and look at the poor dead person after it is once put away, but, whatever it was, John knew and did it. 

We didn't tell any one except our dear old parson who buried the oldman; and he listened to all we had to say, and shook his head andsaid, 'I think you are wrong--I think you are wrong, ' but that wasonly natural, him not liking to see his good work disturbed. But hesaid he would be there. 

Now, no one was told of it, and yet it seemed as if every one formiles round knew more than we did about it. 

Afore the day come, old Mrs. Jezebel up at the farm, she met me oneday, and she says, 'You're a pretty puss, aren't you, howking up mypoor dear deceased husband's remains before they're hardly cold?Much good you'll do yourself. You'll end in the workhouse, my finemiss, and I shall come to see you as a lady visitor when you'redying. '

I tried to get past her, but she wouldn't let me. 'I wish you joy o'that Harry, cursed young brute!' says she. 'It serves him right, itdoes, to marry a girl out of the gutter!'

And with that--I couldn't help it--I fetched her a smack on the sideof the face with the flat of my hand as hard as I could, and boltedoff, her after me, and me being young and she stout she couldn'tkeep up with me. Gutter, indeed! and my father a respectablelabourer, and known far and wide. 

There were several strangers come the day the coffin was got up. Itwas a dreadful thing to me to see them digging, not to make a graveto be filled up, but to empty one. And there were a lot of peoplethere I didn't know; and the parson, and another parson, seemingly afriend of his, and every one as could get near looking on. 

They got the coffin up, and they took it to the room at the Star, atAlfreston, where inquests are held, and the doctors were there, andwe were all shut out. And Harry and John and I stood on the stairs. But parson, being a friend of the doctor's, he was let in, him andhis friend. And we heard voices and the squeak of the screws as theywas drawn out; and we heard the coffin lid being laid down, and thenthere was a hush, and some one spoke up very sharp inside, and wecouldn't hear what he said for the noise and confusion that camefrom every one speaking at once, and nineteen to the dozen itseemed. 

'What is it?' says Harry, trembling like a leaf: 'O my God! what isit? If they don't open the door afore long, by God, I shall burst itopen! He was murdered, he was! And if they wait much longer, thatwoman will have time to get away. '

As he spoke, the door opened and parson came out, and his friendwith him. 

'These are the young men, ' says our parson. 

'Well, then, ' says parson number two, 'it's a good thing I heard ofthis, and came down--out of mere curiosity, I am ashamed to say--forthe man who is buried there is not the man whom I united in holymatrimony to Martha Blake two months ago last Tuesday. '

We didn't understand. 

'But the poison?' says Harry. 

'She may have poisoned him, ' said our parson, 'though I don't thinkit. But from what my friend here, the rector of St Mary Woolnoth, tells me, it is quite certain she never married him. '

'Then she's no right to anything?' said Harry. 

'But what about the will?' says I. But no one harkened to me. 

And then Harry says, 'If she poisoned him she will be off by now. Parson, will you come with me to keep my hands from violence, and mytongue from evil-speaking and slandering? for I must go home and seeif that woman is there yet. '

And parson said he would; and it ended in us, all five of us, goingup together, the new parson walking by me and talking to me likesomebody out of the Bible, as it might be one of the disciples. 

I got to know him well afterwards, and he was the best man that evertrod shoe-leather. 

We all went up together to Charleston Farm, and in through the back, without knocking, and so to the parlour door. We knew she wassitting in the parlour, because the red firelight fell out throughthe window, and made a bright patch that we see before we see thehouse itself properly; and we went, as I say, quietly in through theback; and in the kitchen I said, 'Oh, let me tell her, for what shesaid to me. '

And I was sorry the minute I'd said it, when I see the way thatclergyman from London looked at me; and we all went up to theparlour door, and Harry opened it as was his right. 

There was Mrs. Blake sitting in front of the fire. She had got onher widow's mourning, very smart and complete, with black crape, andher white cap; and she'd got the front of her dress folded back veryneat on her lap, and was toasting her legs, in her black-and-redchecked petticoat, and her feet in cashmere house-boots, very warmand cosy, on the brass fender; and she had got port wine and sherrywine in the two decanters that was never out of the glass-frontedchiffonier when master was alive; and there was something else in ablack bottle; and opposite her, in the best arm-chair that oldmaster had sat in to the last, was that lawyer, Sigglesfield fromLewes. And when we all came in, one after another, rather slow, andbringing the cold air with us, they sat in their chairs as if theyhad been struck, and looked at us. 

Harry and John was in front, as was right; and in the dusk theycould hardly see who was behind. 

'And what do you want, young men?' says Mrs. Blake, standing up inher crape, and her white cap, and looking very handsome, Harry saidafterwards, though, for my part, I never could see it; and, as shestood up, she caught sight of the clergyman from London, and sheshrank back into her chair and covered her face with her hands; andthe clergyman stepped into the room, none of us having the leastidea of what he was going to say, and said he--

'That's the woman that I married on the 7th; and that's the man Imarried her to!' said he, pointing to Sigglesfield, who seemed toturn twice as small, and his ferret eyes no better than button-holeslits. 

'That!' said our parson; 'why, that's Mr. Sigglesfield, thesolicitor from Lewes. '

'Then the lady opposite is Mrs. Sigglesfield, that's all, ' said theparson from London. 

'What I want to know, ' says Harry, 'is--is this my house or hers?It's plain she wasn't my father's wife. But yet he left it to her inthe will. '

'Slowly, old boy!' said John; 'gently does it. How could he haveleft anything in a will to his wife when he hadn't got any wife?Why, that fellow there---'

But here Mrs. Blake got on her feet, and I must say for the woman, if she hadn't got anything else she had got pluck. 

'The game's up!' she says. 'It was well played, too, though I saysit. And you, you old fool!' she says to the parson, 'you have oftendrunk tea with me, and gone away thinking how well-mannered I was, and what a nice woman Mrs. Blake was, and how well she knew herplace, after you had chatted over half your parish with me. I knowyou are the curiousest man in it, and as you and me is old friends, I don't mind owning up just to please you. It'll save a lot of timeand a lot of money. '

'It's my duty to warn you, ' said John, 'that anything you say may beused against you. '

'Used against a fiddlestick end!' said Mrs. Blake. 'I married RobertSigglesfield in the name of William Alderton, and he sittingtrembling there, like a shrimp half boiled! He got ready the kind ofwill we wanted instead of the one the old man meant, and gave it tothe old man to sign, and he signed it right enough. '

'And what about that arsenic, ' says I, --'that arsenic I found inyour corner cupboard?'

'Oh, it was you took it, was it? You little silly, my neck's toohandsome for me to do anything to put a rope round it. Do yousuppose I've kept my complexion to my age with nothing but coldwater, you little cat?'

'And the other will, ' says Harry, 'that my father meant to sign?'

'I'll get you that, ' says Mrs. Blake. 'It's no use bearing malicenow all's said and done. '

And she goes upstairs to get it, and, if you'll believe me, we werefools enough to let her go; and we waited like lambs for her to comeback, which being a woman with her wits about her, and no fool, shenaturally never did; and by the time we had woke up to our sevensenses, she was far enough away, and we never saw her again. Wedidn't try too much. But we had the law of that Sigglesfield, and itwas fourteen years' penal. 

And the will was never found--I expect Mrs. Blake had burnt it, --sothe farm came to John, and what else there was to Harry, accordingto the terms of the will the old man had made when his wife wasalive, afore John had joined the force. And Harry and John was thatpleased to be together again that they couldn't make up their mindsto part; so they farm the place together to this day. 

And if Harry has prospered, and John too, it's no more than theydeserve, and a blessing on brotherly love, as mother says. And if mydear children are the finest anywhere on the South Downs, that's bythe blessing of God too, I suppose, and it doesn't become me to sayso. 

ACTING FOR THE BEST

I HAVE no patience with people who talk that kind of nonsense aboutmarrying for love and the like. For my part I don't know what theymean, and I don't believe they know it themselves. It's only a sortof fashion of talking. I never could see what there was to like inone young man more than another, only, of course, you might favoursome more than others if they was better to do. 

My cousin Mattie was different. She must set up to be in love, andwalk home from church with Jack Halibut Sunday after Sunday, thelong way round, if you please, through the meadows; and he used tobuy her scent and ribbons at the fair, and send her a big valentineof lacepaper, and satin ribbons and things, though Lord knows wherehe got the money from--honest, I hope--for he hadn't a penny tobless himself with. 

When my uncle found out all this nonsense, being a man of properspirit, he put his foot down, and says he--

'Mattie, my girl, I would be the last to say anything against anyyoung man you fancied, especially a decent chap like young Halibut, if his prospects was anything like as good as could be expected, butyou can't pretend poor Jack's are, him being but a blacksmith's man, and not in regular work even. Now, let's have no waterworks, ' hewent on, for Mattie had got the corner of her apron up and her mouthscrewed down at the corners. 'I've known what poverty is, my girl, and you shan't never have a taste of it with my consent. '

'I don't care how poor I be, father, ' said Mattie, 'it's Jack I careabout. '

'There's a girl all over, ' says uncle, for he was a sensible man inthose days. 'The bit I've put by for you, lass, it's enough for one, but it's not enough for two. And when young Halibut can show asmuch, you shall be cried in church the very next Sunday. But, meantime, there must be no kisses, no more letters, and no morewalking home from churches. Now, you give me your word--and keep itI know you will--like an honest girl. '

So Mattie she gave him her word, though much against her will; andas for Jack, I suppose, man-like, he didn't care much about stayingin the village after there was a stop put to his philandering andkissing and scent and so on. So what does he do, but he ups and offsto America (assisted emigration) 'to make his fortune, ' says he. 

And never word nor sign did we hear of him for three blessed years. Mattie was getting quite an old maid, nigh on two-and-twenty, and Iwas past nineteen, when one morning there come a letter from Jack. 

My father and mother were dead this long time, so I lived with uncleand Mattie at the farm. What offers I had had is neither here northere. At any rate, whatever they were, they weren't good enough. 

But Mattie might have been married twice over if she had liked, andto folks that would have been quite a catch to a girl like hergetting on in years. She might have had young Bath for one, thestrawberry grower; and what if he did drink a bit of a Saturday? Hewas taking his hundreds of pounds to the Bank every week in canvasbags, as all the world knew. 

But no, she must needs hanker after Jack, and that's why I say it'ssuch nonsense. 

Well, when the letter come, I was up to my elbows in thejam-making--raspberry and currant it was, --and Mattie, she was downin the garden getting the last berries off the canes. My hands werestained up above the wrist with the currant juice, so I took theletter up by the corner of my apron and I went down the garden withit. 

'Mattie, ' I calls out, 'here's a letter from that good-for-nothingfellow of yours. '

She couldn't see me, and she thought I was chaffing her about him, which I often did, to keep things pleasant. 

'Don't tease me, Jane, ' she says, 'for I do feel this morning as ifI could hardly bear myself as it is. '

And as she said it I came out through the canes close to her withthe letter in my hand. But when she see the letter she dropped thebasket with the raspberries in it (they rolled all about on theground right under the peony bush, for that was a silly, old-fashioned garden, with the flowers and fruit about it anyhow), and I had a nice business picking them up, and she threw her armsround my neck and kissed me, and cried like the silly little thingshe was, and thanked me for bringing the letter, just as if I hadanything to do with it, or any wish or will one way or another; andthen she opened the letter, and seemed to forget all about me whileshe read it. 

I remember the sun was so bright on the white paper that I couldscarce see to read it over her shoulder, she not noticing me, noranything else, any more. It was like this--

'DEAR MATTIE, --This comes hoping to find you well, as it leaves meat present. 

'I don't bear no malice over what your father said and done, but I'mnot coming to his house. 

'Now Mattie, if you have forgot me, or think more of some otherchap, don't let anything stand in the way of your letting me know itstraight and plain. But if you do remember how we used to walk fromchurch, and the valentine, and the piece of poetry about Cupid'sdart that I copied for you out of the poetry-book, you will come andmeet me in the little ash copse, you know where. I may be preventedcoming, for I've a lot of things to see to, and I am going toLiverpool on Thursday, and if we are to be married you will have tocome to me there, for my business won't bear being left, and I mustget back to it. But if so I will put a note in your prayer-book inthe church. So you had best look in there on your way up onWednesday evening. 

'I am taking this way of seeing you because I don't want there to beany unpleasantness for you if you are tired of me or like some otherchap better. 

'I mean to take a wife back with me, Mattie, for I have done well, and can afford to keep one in better style than ever your fatherkept his. Will you be her, dear? So no more at present from youraffectionate friend and lover, JACK HALIBUT. '

I am quicker at reading writing than Mattie, and I had finished theletter and was picking up the raspberries before she come to theend, where his name was signed with all the little crosses round it. 

'Well?' says I, as she folded it up and unbuttoned two buttons ofher dress to push it inside. 'Well, ' says I, 'what's the best news?'

'He's come home again, ' she says. And I give you my word she didlook like a rose as she said it. 'He's come home again, Jane, andit's all right, and he likes me just as much as ever he did, Godbless him. '

Not a word, you see, about his having made his fortune, which Imight never have known if I hadn't read the letter which I did, acting for the best. Not that I think it was deceitfulness in thegirl, but a sort of fondness that always kept her from noticingreally important things. 

'And does he ask you to have him?' says I. 

'Of course he does, ' she says; 'I never thought any different. Inever thought but what he would come back for me, just as he said hewould--just as he has. '

By that I knew well enough that she had often had her doubts. 

'Oh, well!' says I, 'all's well that ends well. 

I hope he's made enough to satisfy uncle--that's all. '

'Oh yes, I think so, ' says Mattie, hardly understanding what I wassaying. 'I didn't notice particular. But I suppose that's allright. '

She didn't notice particular! Now, I put it to you, Was that thesort of girl to be the wife of a man who had got on like Jack had? Ifor one didn't think so. If she didn't care for money why should shehave it, when there was plenty that did? And if love in a cottagewas what she wanted, and kisses and foolishness out of poetry-books, I suppose one man's pretty much as good as another for that sort ofthing. 

So I said, 'Come along in, dear, and we will get along with thejam-making, and talk it all over nicely. I'm so glad he's come back. I always say he would, if you remember. '

Not that I ever had, but she didn't seem to know any different, anyhow. 

The next few days Mattie was like a different girl. I will say forher that she always did her fair share of the work, but she did itwith a face as long as a fiddle. Only now her face was all round anddimply, and like a child's that has got a prize at school. 

On Wednesday afternoon she said to me, 'I'm going to meet Jack, anddon't you say a word to the others about it, Jane. I'll tell fathermyself when I come back, if you'll get the tea like a good girl, andjust tell them I've gone up to the village. '

'I don't tell lies as a rule, especially for other people, ' I says;'but I don't mind doing it for you this once. '

And she kissed me (she had got mighty fond of kissing these last fewdays), and ran upstairs to get ready. When she come down, if you'llbelieve me, she wasn't in her best dress as any other girl wouldhave been, but she had gone and put on a dowdy old green and whitedelaine that had been her Sunday dress, trimmed with green satinpiping, three years before, and the old hat she had with all theflowers faded and the ribbons crumpled up, that was three year oldtoo, and the very one she used to walk home from church with him onSundays in. And her with a really good blue poplin laid by and a newbonnet with red roses in it, only come home the week before fromMaidstone. 

She come through the kitchen where I was setting the tea, and shetook the key of the church off the nail in the wall. Our farm wasfull a mile from the village, and half way between it and thechurch. So we kept one key, and Jack's uncle, who was the sexton, hehad the other. 

'What time was you to meet Jack?' I says. 

'He didn't say, ' said she; 'but it used to be half-past six. '

'You're full early, ' says I. 

'Yes, ' she says, 'but I've got to take the butter down to Weller's, and to call in for something first. '

And, of course, I knew that she meant that she had to call in forthat note at the church. 

Minute she was out of the way, I runs into the kitchen, and says toour maid--

'Poor Mrs. Tibson's not so well, Polly. I'm going over to see her. Give the men their tea, will you? there's a good girl. '

And she said she would. And in ten minutes I was dressed, and nicelydressed too, for I had on my white frock and the things I had had ata girl's wedding the summer before, and a pair of new gloves I hadgot out of my butter-money. 

Then I went off up the hill to the church after Mattie, even thennot making up my mind what I was going to do, but with an idea thatall things somehow might work together for good to me if I only hadthe sense to see how, and turn things that way. 

As I come up to the church I was just in time to see her old greengown going in at the porch, and when I come up the key was in thedoor, and she hadn't come out. Quick as thought, the idea come to meto have a joke with her and lock her in, so she shouldn't meet him, and next minute I had turned the key in the lock softly, and stoleoff through the church porch, and up to the ash copse, which Icouldn't make a mistake about, for there's only one within a mile ofthe church. 

Jack was there, though it was before the time. I could see his bluetie and white shirt-front shining through the trees. 

When I locked her in I only meant to have a sort of joke--at least, I think so, --but when I come close up to him and saw how well off helooked, and the diamond ring on his fingers, and his pin and hisgold chain, I thought to myself--

'Well, you go to Liverpool to-morrow, young man! And she ain't gotyour address, and, likely as not, if you go away vexed with her, youwon't leave it with your aunt, and one wife is as good as another, if not better, and as for her caring for you, that's all affectationand silliness--so here goes. '

He stepped forward, with his hands held out to me, but when he sawit was me he stopped short. 

'Why, Miss Jane, ' he said, 'I beg your pardon. I was expecting quitea different person. '

'Yes, I know, ' I says, 'you was expecting my cousin Mattie. '

'And isn't she coming?' he asks very quick, looking at me full, withhis blue eyes. 

'I hope you won't take it hard, Mr. Halibut, ' says I, 'but she saidshe'd rather not come. '

'Confound it!' says he. 

'You see, ' I went on, 'it's a long time since you was at home, andyou not writing or anything, and some girls are very flighty andchangeable; and she told me to tell you she was sorry if you weremistaken in her feelings about you, and she's had time to thinkthings over since three years ago; and now you're so well off, shesays she's sure you'll find no difficulty in getting a girl suitedto your mind. '

'Did she say that?' he said, looking at me very straight. 'It's notlike her. '

'I don't mean she said so in those words, or that she told me totell you so; but that's what I made out to be her mind from what shesaid between us two like. '

'But what message did she send to me? For I suppose she sent you tomeet me to-day. '

Then I saw that I should have to be very careful. So to get a littletime I says, 'I don't quite like to tell you, Mr. Halibut, what shesaid. '

'Out with it, ' says he. 'Don't be a fool, girl!'

'Well, then, ' I says, 'if it must be so, her words were these: "TellJack, " she says, "that I shall ever wish him well for the sake ofwhat's past, but all's over betwixt him and me, and--"'

'And what, ' says he. 

'There wasn't much besides, ' says I. 

'Good God, don't be such an idiot!' and he looked as if he couldhave shaken me. 

'Well, then, if you must have it, ' says I, 'she says, "Tell Jackthere's at least one girl I know of as would make him a better wifethan I should, and has been thinking of him steady and faithfulthese three years, while I've been giving my mind to far otherthings. "'

'Confound her!' says he, 'little witch. And who is this other girlthat she's so gracious to hand me over to?'

'I don't want to say no more, ' says I. 'I'm going now, Mr. Halibut. Good-bye. '

For well I knew he wouldn't let me go at that. 

'Tell me who it is, ' says he. 'What! she's not content with givingme the mitten herself, but she must insult me and this poor girltoo, who's got more sense than she has. Good Heavens, it would serveher right if I took her at her word, and took the other girl backwith me. '

He was walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, frowninglike a July thunderstorm. 

'Wicked, heartless little--but there, thank God! all women aren'tlike her. Who's this girl that she's tried to set me against?'

'I can't tell you, ' says I. 

'Oh! can't you, my girl? But you shall. '

And he catches hold of both my wrists in his hands. 

'Leave me go!' I cried, 'you're hurting me. '

'Who is it?'

I was looking down my nose very straight, but when he said that, Ijust lifted my eyes up and looked at him, and dropped them. 

I've always practised looking like what I meant, or what I wantedpeople to think I meant--sort of matching your looks and words, likeyou match ribbon and a bit of stuff. 

'So you're the girl, are you?' he cries. 'And she thought to put youto shame before me with her messages? Look here, I'm well off. I'mgoing to Liverpool to-night, and back to America next week. I wantto take a wife with me, and she says you have thought of me whileI've been away. Will you marry me, Jane?'

I just looked at him again, and he put his arm round me and gave mea good kiss. I had to put up with it, though I never could see anysense in that sort of stuff. Then we walked home together, veryslow, his arm round me. 

I daresay some people will think I oughtn't to have acted so, takingaway another girl's fellow. But I was quite sure she would getplenty that would play love in a cottage with her, and she did notseem to appreciate her blessings in getting a man that was well off, and I didn't see how it could be found out, as he was going awaynext day. 

Now, it would all have gone as well as well if I had had the senseto offer to see him off at the station, and I ought to have had thesense to see him well out of the place. But we all make mistakessometimes. Mine was in saying 'Good-bye' to him at the corner of thefour-acre and going home by myself, leaving him with three-quartersof an hour for 'Satan to find some mischief still for idle hands todo' in. 

I said 'Good-bye' to him, and he kissed me, and gave me the addresswhere to write, and told me what to do. 

'For I shan't have no truck with your uncle, ' says he. 'I marries mywife, and I takes her right away. '

It wasn't till I was going up the stairs, untying my bonnet-stringsas I went, and smoothing out the ribbons with my finger and thumb, for it was my best, that it come to me all in a minute that I hadleft Mattie locked up in that church. It was very tiresome, and howto get her out I didn't know. But I thought maybe she would betrying some of the other doors, and I might turn the key gently andaway again before she could find out it was unlocked. 

So up to the church I went, very hot, and a setting sun, and havinghad no tea or anything, and as I began to climb the hill my heartstood still in my veins, for I heard a sound from the church as Inever expected to hear at that time of the day and week. 

'O Lord!' I thought, 'she's tried every other way, and now she'sringing the bell, and she'll fetch up the whole village, and whatwill become of me?'

I made the best haste I could, but I could see more than one blackdot moving up the hill before me that showed me folks on their wayhome had heard the bell and was going to see what it meant. And whenI got up there they were trying the big door of the church, notknowing it was the little side one where the key was, and Jack, hecome up almost the same moment I did, and I knew well enough he hadcome to get that note out of her prayer-book for fear some one elseshould see it. 

'Here, I've got the key in my pocket, ' says he, and with that heopened the door, the bell clang, clang, clanging from the tower allthe time like as if the bellringer was drunk and had got a wager onto get more beats out of the bell in half an hour than the next man. 

Whoever it was that was ringing the bell--and I could give a prettygood guess who it was--didn't seem to hear us coming, and they wentup the aisle and pulled back the red baize curtain that hides thebottom of the tower where the ringers stand on Sundays, and therewas Mattie with her old green gown on, and her hair all loose anddown her back with the hard work of bellringing, I suppose, and herface as white as the bald-faced stag as is painted on the sign downat the inn in the village. And directly she saw Jack, I knew it wasall over, for she let go the rope and it swung up like a live thingover our heads, and she made two steps to Jack and had him round theneck before them all. 

'O Jack!' she cried, 'don't look like that. 

I came to fetch your letter, and somebody locked me in. '

Jack, he turned to me, and his face was so that I should have beenafraid to have been along of him in a lonely place. 

'This is your doings, ' says he, 'and all that pack of lies you toldme was out of your own wicked head. '

He had got his arm round her, and was holding on as if she wassomething worth having, instead of a silly girl in a frock threeyear old. 

'I don't know what you mean, I'm sure, ' I said; 'it was only ajoke. '

'A joke!' says he. 'Lies, I call it, and I know they're lies by thevery touch of her in my arm here. '

'Oh, well!' I said, 'if you can't take joking better than this, it'sthe last time I'll ever try joking with you. '

And I walked out of the church, and the other folks who had run upto see what was the matter come out with me. And they two was leftalone. 

I suppose it was only human nature that, as I come round the church, I should get on the top of a tombstone and look in to see what theywas doing. It was the little window where a pane was broken by astone last summer, and so I heard what they was saying. He wastrying to tell her what I had told him--quite as much for her owngood as for mine, as you have seen; but she didn't seem to want tolisten. 

'Oh, never mind all that now, Jack, ' she says, with arms round hisneck. 'What does it matter about a silly joke now that I have gotyou, and it's all right betwixt us?'

I thought it my duty to go straight home and tell uncle she was upin the church, kissing and cuddling with Jack Halibut; and he tookhis stick and started off after her. 

But he met them at the garden gate, and Jack, he came forward, andhe says--

'Mr. Kenworthy, I have had hard thoughts of you this three year, butI see you was right, for if I had never gone away, I should neverhave been able to keep my little girl as she should be kept, and asI can now, thanks be! and I should never have known how dear she hasloved me this three year. '

And uncle, like the soft-hearted old thing he is, he holds out hishands, and he says, 'God bless you, my boy, it was for your own goodand hers. '

And they went in to supper. 

As for me, I went to bed. I had had all the supper I wanted. Anduncle has never been the same to me since, though I'm sure I triedto act for the best. 

GUILTY

IT was my first place and my last, and I don't think we should havegot on in business as we have if it hadn't been for me being for sixor seven years with one of the first families in the county. Thoughonly a housemaid, you can't help learning something of their ways. At any rate, you learn what gentlefolks like, and what they can'tabide. But the worst of being housemaid where there's a lot ofservants kept is, that one or other or all of the men-servants issure to be wanting to keep company with you. They have nothing elseto do in their spare time, and I suppose it's handy having yoursweetheart living in the house. It doesn't give you so much troublewith going out in the evening, if not fine. 

The coachman was promised to the cook, which, I believe, often takesplace. Tim, the head groom, was a very nice, genteel fellow, and Idaresay I might have taken up with him, if I hadn't met with myJames, though never with John, who was the plague of my life. Tobegin with, he had a black whisker, that I couldn't bear to look at, let alone putting one's face against it, as I should have had tohave done when married, no doubt. And he had a roving black eye, very yellowy in the white of it, and hair that looked all black andbear's-greasy, though he always said he never put anything on itexcept a little bay rum in moderation. 

They tell me I was a pretty girl enough in those days, though looksis less important than you might think to a housemaid, if only shedresses neat and has a small waist. And I suppose I must think thatJohn really did love me in his scowling, black whiskery way. He wasa good footman, I will say that, and had been with the master threeyears, and the best of characters; but whatever he might havethought, I never would have had anything to do with him, even ifJames and me had had seas between us broad a-rolling for ever andever Amen. He asked me once and he asked me twice, and it was 'no'and 'no' again. And I had even gone so far as to think that perhapsI should have to give up a good place to get out of his way, whenmaster's uncle, old Mr. Oliver, and his good lady, came to stay atthe Court, and with them came James, who was own man to Mr. Oliver. 

Mr. Oliver was the funniest-looking old gent I ever see, if I maysay so respectfully. He was as bald as an egg, with a sort of frillof brown hair going from ear to ear behind; and as if that wasn'tenough, he was shaved as clean as a whistle, as though he had madeup his mind that people shouldn't say that it had all gone to beardand whiskers, anyway. He wrote books, a great many of them, and youmay often see his name in the papers, and he was for ever pokingabout into what didn't concern him, and my Lady, she said to me whenshe found me a little put out at him asking about how things went onin the servants' hall, she said to me--

'You mustn't mind him, Mary, ' she said; 'you know he likes to findout all that he can about everything, so as to put it in his books. '

And he certainly talked to every one he came across--even thestable-boys--in a way that you could hardly think becoming from agentleman to servants, if he wasn't an author, and so to haveallowances made for him, poor man! He talked to the housemaids, andhe talked to the groom, and he talked to the footman that waited onhim at lunch when he had it late, as he did sometimes, owing to himhaving been kept past the proper time by his story-writing, for hewrote a good part of the day most days, and often went up to Londonwhile he was staying with us--to sell his goods, I suppose. He worecurious clothes, not like most gentlemen, but all wool things, evento his collars and his boots, which were soft and soppy like felt;and he took snuff to that degree I wouldn't have believed any humannose could have borne it, and he must have been a great trial toMrs. Oliver until she got used to him and his pottering about allover the house in his soft-soled shoes; and the mess he made of hispocket-handkerchieves and his linen!

Mrs. Oliver was a round little fat bunch of a woman, if I may say soin speaking of master's own aunt by marriage, and him a baronet. Shehad the most lovely jewellery, and was very fond of wearing it of anevening, more than most people do when they are staying withrelations and there's no company. She never spoke much except tosay, 'Yes, Dick dear, ' and 'No, Dick dear, ' when they spoke to eachother; but they were as fond of each other as pigeons on a roof, andalways very pleasant-spoken and nice to wait on. 

As for James, he was the jolliest man I ever met, and cook said thesame. He was like Sam Weller in the book, or would have been if hehad lived in those far-off times; but footmen are more genteel nowthan they were then. 

Anyway, he hadn't been at the Court twenty-four hours before he wasfirst favourite with every one, and cook made him a Welsh rabbitwith her own hands, 'cause he hadn't been able to get his dinnercomfortable with the rest of us--a thing she wouldn't have done forSir William himself at that time of night. As for me, the first timehe looked at me with his jolly blue eyes--it was when he met mecarrying a tray the first morning after he came--my heart gave ajump inside my print gown, and I said to it as I went downstairs--

'You've met your master, I'm thinking'; and if I did go to churchwith him the very first Sunday, which was more than ever I had donewith any of the others, it was after he had asked me plain andstraight to go to church with him some day for good and all. 

Now, the next morning, quite early, I was dusting the library, whenJohn come in with his black face like a thundercloud. 

'Look here, Mary, ' he says; 'what do you mean by going to churchwith that stuck-up London trumpery?'

'Mind your own business, ' says I, sharp as you please. 

'I am, ' he says. 'You are my business--the only business I care adamn about, or am ever likely to. You don't know how I love you, Mary, ' he says. And I was sorry for him as he spoke. 'I would liedown in the dirt for you to walk on if it would do you any good, solong as you didn't walk over me to get to some other chap. '

'I am very sorry for you, John, ' says I, 'but I've told you, notonce or twice, but fifty times, that it can never be. And there areplenty of other girls that would be only too glad to walk out with ayoung man like you without your troubling yourself about me. '

He was walking up and down the room like a cat in a cage. Presentlyhe began to laugh in a nasty, sly, disagreeable way. 

'Oh! you think he'll marry you, do you?' says he. 'But he's justamusing himself with you till he gets back to London to his owngirl. You let him see you was only amusing yourself with him, andyou come out with me when you get your evening. '

And he took the dusting-brush out of my hand, and caught hold of mywrists. 

'It's all a lie!' I cried; 'and I wonder you can look me in the faceand tell it. Him and me are going to be married as soon as he hassaved enough for a little public, and I never want to speak to youagain; and if you don't let go of my hands, I'll scream till I fetchthe house down, master and all, and then where will you be?'

He scowled at that, but he let my hands go directly. 

'Have it your own way, ' he said. 'But I tell you, you won't marryhim, and you'll find he won't want to marry you, and you'll marryme, my girl. And when you have married me, you shall cry your eyesout for every word you have said now. '

'Oh, shall I, Mr. Liar?' says I, for my blood was up; 'before thathappens, you'll have to change him into a liar and me into a fooland yourself into an honest man, and you'll find that the hardest ofall. ' And with that I threw the dusting-brush at him--which was apiece of wicked temper I oughtn't to have given way to--and ran outof the door, and I heard him cursing to himself something fearful asI went down the passage. 

'Good thing the gentlefolks are abed still, ' I said to myself; and Ididn't tell a soul about it, even cook, the truth being I wasashamed to. 

Well, everything went on pretty much the same as usual for two orthree weeks, and I thought John was getting the better of hissilliness, because he made a show of being friendly to James and wasrespectful to me, even when we was alone. Then came that dreadfulday that I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred years old. Dinner was half an hour later than usual on account of Mr. Oliverhaving gone up to town on his business; but he didn't get home whenexpected, and they sat down without him after all. I was about mywork, turning down beds and so forth, and I had done Mrs. Oliver'sabout ten minutes, and was in my lady's room, when Mrs. Oliver's ownmaid came running in with a face like paper. 

'Oh, what ever shall I do?' she cried, wringing her hands, as theysay in books, and I always thought it nonsense, but she certainlydid, though I never saw any one do it before or since. 

'What is it?' I asked her. 

'It's my mistress's diamond necklace, ' she said. 'She was going towear it to-night. And then she said, No, she wouldn't; she'd havethe emeralds, and I left it on the dressing-table instead of lockingit up, and now it's gone!'

I went into Mrs. Oliver's room with her, and there was the jewel-boxwith the pretty shining things turned out on the dressing-table, forMrs. Oliver had a heap of jewellery that had come to her from herown people, and she as fond of wearing it as if she was slim andtwenty, instead of being fifty, and as round as an orange. We lookedon the dressing-table and we looked on the floor, and we looked inthe curtains to see if it had got in any of them. But look high, look low, no diamond necklace could we find. So at last Scott--thatwas Mrs. Oliver's maid--said there was nothing for it but to go andtell her mistress. The ladies were in the drawing-room by this time. So she went down all of a tremble, and in the hall there was Mrs. Oliver looking anxious out of the front door, which was open, itbeing summer and the house standing in its own park. 

'Mr. Oliver is very late, Scott, ' she says. 'I am getting anxiousabout him. '

And as she spoke, and before Scott could answer, there was his stepon the gravel, and he came in at the front door with his littleblack bag in his hand that I suppose he carried his stories in tosee if people would like to buy them. 

'Hullo! Scott, ' he says, 'have you seen a ghost?' And, indeed, shelooked more dead than alive. She gulped in her throat, but she couldnot speak. 

'Here, young woman, ' says Mr. Oliver to me, 'you haven't lost yourhead altogether. What's it all about?'

So I told him as well as I could, and by this time master had comeout and my Lady, and you never saw any one so upset as they were. All the house was turned out of window, hunting for the necklace;though, of course, not having legs, it couldn't have walked byitself out of Mrs. Oliver's room. All the servants was called up, even to the kitchen-maid; and those who were not angry, werefrightened, and, what with fright and anger, there wasn't one of us, I do believe, as didn't look as they had got the necklace on undertheir clothes that very minute. John was very angry indeed. 'Do theythink we'd take their dirty necklace?' he said, as we were going up. 'It's enough to ruin all of us, this kind of thing happening, andleaving the doors open so that any one could get in and walk clearoff with it without a stain on their character, and us left withnone to speak of. '

So when master had asked us all a lot of questions, and we were toldwe could go, John stepped out and said--

'I am sure I am only expressing the feelings of my fellow-servantswhen I say that we should wish our boxes searched and our rooms, sothat there shall be no chance for any one to say afterwards that itlays at any of our doors. '

And Mrs. Oliver began to cry, and she said 'No, no, she wouldn't putthat insult on any one. ' But Mr. Oliver, who hadn't been sayingmuch, though so talkative generally, but kept taking snuff at a ratethat was dreadful to see, he said--

'The young man is quite right, my dear; and if you don't mind, ' hesays to master, 'I think it had better be done. '

And so it was done, and I don't know how to write about it now, though it was never true. They came to my room and they looked intoall my drawers and boxes except my little hat-tin, and when theywanted the key of that, I said, silly-like, not having any idea thatthey could think that I could do such a thing, 'I'd rather youdidn't look into that. It's only some things I don't want any one tosee. '

And the reason was that I'd got some bits of things in it that I'dgot the week before in the town towards getting my things for thewedding ready, and I felt somehow I didn't want any one to see themtill James did. And they all looked very queer at me when I saidthat, and my Lady said--

'Mary, give me the key at once. '

So I did, and oh! I shall never forget it. They took out theflannel, and the longcloth and things, and the roll of embroiderythat I was going to trim them with, and rolled inside that, ifyou'll believe me, there was the necklace like a shining snakecoiled up. I never said a word, being struck silly. I didn't cry oreven say anything as people do in books when these things happen tothem; but Mrs. Oliver burst out crying, God bless her for it! and myLady said, 'O Mary, I'd never have believed it of you any more thanI would of myself!'

And Mr. Oliver he said to master, 'Have all the servants into thelibrary, William. Perhaps some one else is in it too. '

But nobody said a word to say that it wasn't me, and indeed howcould they?

I should think it's like being had up for murder, standing there inthe library with all the servants holding off from me as if I hadgot something catching, and master and my Lady and Mr. And Mrs. Oliver in leather armchairs, all of a row, looking like a bench ofmagistrates. I could not think, though I tried hard--I could onlyfeel as if I was drowning and fighting for breath. 

'Now, Mary, ' says Master, 'what have you got to say?'

'I never touched it, sir, ' I said; 'I never put it there; I don'tknow who did; and may God forgive them, for I never could. '

Then my Lady said, 'Mary, I can hardly believe it of you even now, but why wouldn't you let us have the key of your box?'

Then I turned hot and cold all of a minute, and I looked round, andthere wasn't a face that looked kind at me except Mr. Oliver's, andhe nodded at me, taking snuff all over his fat white waistcoat. 

'Speak up, girl, ' he said, 'speak up. '

So then I said, 'I'm a-going to be married, my Lady, and it was bitsof things I'd got towards my wedding clothes. '

I looked at James to see if he believed it, and his face was likelead, and his eyes wild that used to be so jolly, and to see himlook like that made my heart stand still, and I cried out--

'O my God, strike me down dead, for live I can't after this!'

And at that, James spoke up, and he said, speaking very quick andsteady, 'I wish to confess that I took it, and I put it in her box, thinking to take it away again after. We were to have been married, and I wanted the money to start in a little pub. '

And everybody stood still, and you could have heard a pin drop, andMr. Oliver went on nodding his head and taking snuff till I couldhave killed him for it; and I looked at James, and I could havefallen at his feet and worshipped him, for I saw in a minute why hesaid it. He believed it was me, and he wanted to save me. So then Isaid to master--

'The thing was found in my box, sir, and I'll take the consequencesif I have to be hanged for it. But don't you believe a word Jamessays. He never touched it. It wasn't him. '

'How do you know it wasn't him, ' says master very sharp. 'If youdidn't take it, how do you know who did?'

'How do I know?' I cried, forgetting for a moment who I was speakingto. 'Why, if you'd half a grain of sense among the lot of you, you'dknow why I know it's not him. If you felt to a young man like I feelto James, you'd know in your heart that he could not have done sucha thing, not if there was fifty diamond necklaces found in fiftypockets on him at the same time. '

They said nothing, but Mr. Oliver chuckled in his collar till I'dhave liked to strangle him with my two hands round his fat throat. And I went on--

'I'm as sure he didn't do it as I am that I didn't do it myself, andas he would have been that I didn't if he had really loved me, as hesaid, instead of believing that I could do such a thing, and tryingto save me with a black lie--God bless him for it. '

And James he never looked at me, but he said again, 'Don't mindher--she's off her head with fright about me. You send me off toprison as soon as you like, sir. '

And still none of the others spoke, but Mr. Oliver leaned back inhis chair, and he clapped his hands softly as though he was at aplay. 'Bravo!' he says, 'bravo!'

And the others looked at him as if they thought he had gone out ofhis mind. 

'It's a very pretty drama, very nicely played, but now it's time toput an end to it. Do you want to see the villain?' he says tomaster, and master never answering him, only staring, he turnedquite sharp and sudden and pointed to John as he stood near the doorwith his black eyes burning like coals. 'You took it, ' said Mr. Oliver, 'and you put it in Mary's box. Oh! you needn't start. I knowit's true without that. '

John had started, but he pulled himself together in a minute. Theman had pluck, I will say that. He spoke quite firm and respectful. 'And why should I have done that, sir, if you please, when all thehouse knows that I have been courting Mary fair and honest this twoyear?'

Mr. Oliver tapped his snuff-box and grinned all over his big smoothface. 'When you do your courting fair and honest, young man, youshould be careful not to do it in the library with the window open. I was in the verandah, and I heard you threaten that she shouldnever marry James, and that she should marry you; and that you wouldbe revenged on her for her bad taste in preferring him to you. '

John drew a deep breath. 'That's nothing, sir, is it?' he says tomaster. 'Every one in the house knows I have been sorry for a hastyword, and have been the best friends with both of them for thesethree weeks. '

Mr. Oliver got up and put his snuff-box on the table, and his handsin his trouser pockets. 'You can send for the police, William, ' hesaid to master, 'because as a matter of fact, I saw theblack-whiskered gentleman with the necklace in his hand. I did gethome late to-night, but not so late as you thought, and I came inthrough the open door and was up in my dressing-room when thatscoundrel sneaked into my wife's room and took the necklace to ruinan innocent girl with. What a thorough scoundrel you are, though, aren't you?' he said to John. 

Then John, he shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, 'It's all upnow, ' and he said to Mr. Oliver very politely, 'You are always fondof poking your nose into other people's business, sir, and I daresayyou'd like to know why I did it. Oh yes. You know everything, youdo, ' says John, growing very white, and speaking angry and quick, 'with your writing, and your snuff, and your gossiping with theservants, which no gentleman would do, and your nasty, sneaking, Jaeger-felt boots, and your silly old tub of a wife. I knew thatsmooth-spoken man of yours would believe anything against her, and Iknew he would never marry her after a set-out like this, and I knewI should get her when she found I stuck to her through it all, as Ishould have done, and as I would have done too, if she had takenfifty diamond necklaces. '

'Send for the police, ' said master, but nobody moved. For Mrs. Oliver, who had been crying like a waterworks ever since we camedown into the library, said quite sudden, 'O Dick dear! let him go. Don't prosecute him. See, he's lost everything, and he's lost her, and he must have been mad with love for her or he wouldn't have donesuch a thing. '

Now, wasn't that a true lady to speak up like that for him afterwhat he'd said of her? Mr. Oliver looked surprised at her speakingup like that, her that hardly ever said a word except 'Yes, Dickdear, ' and 'No, Dick dear, ' and then he shrugs his shoulders and hesays, 'You are right, my dear, he's punished enough. '

And John turned to go like a dog that has been whipped; but at thedoor he faced round, and he said to Mrs. Oliver, 'You're a goodwoman, and I'm sorry I said what I did about you. But for the otherI'm not sorry, not if it was my last word. '

And with that he went out of the room, and out of the house throughthe front door. He had no relations and he had no friends, and Isuppose he had nowhere to go with his character gone, and so ithappened that was truly his last word as far as any one knows. Forhe was found next morning on the level-crossing after the downexpress had passed. 

You never saw such a fuss as every one made of me and Jamesafterwards. I might have been a queen and him a king. But when itwas all over it stuck in my mind that he oughtn't to have doubtedme, and so I wouldn't name the day for over a year, though Mrs. Oliver had bought him a nice little hotel and given it to himherself; but when the year was up, Mr. And Mrs. Oliver came down tostay again, and seeing them brought it all back, and his havingtried to save me as he had seemed more than his having doubted me. And so I married him, and I don't think any one ever made a bettermatch. James says he made a better match, and if I don't agree withhim, it's only right and proper that he should think so, and I thankGod that he does every hour of my life. 

SON AND HEIR

SIR JASPER was always the best of masters to me and to all of us;and he had that kind of way with him, masterful and gentle at thesame time, like as if he was kind to you for his own pleasure, andordering you about for your own good, that I believe any of us wouldhave cut our hand off at the wrist if he had told us to. 

Lady Breynton had been dead this many a year. She hadn't come to herhusband with her hands empty. They say that Sir Jasper had been verywild in his youth, and that my Lady's money had come in very handyto pull the old place together again. She worshipped the ground SirJasper walked on, as most women did that he ever said a kind wordto. But it never seemed to me that he took to her as much as youmight have expected a warm-hearted gentleman like him to do. But hetook to her baby wonderful. I was nurse to that baby from the first, and a fine handsome little chap he was, and when my Lady died he waswholly given over to my care. And I loved the child; indeed, I didlove him, and should have loved him to the end but for one thing, and that comes in its own place in my story. But even those wholoved young Jasper best couldn't help seeing he hadn't his father'swinning ways. And when he grew up to man's estate, he was as wild ashis father had been before him. But his wild ways were the ways thatmake young men enemies, not friends, and out of all that came to thehouse, for the hunting, or the shooting, or what not, I used tothink there wasn't one would have held out a hand to my young masterif he had been in want of it. And yet I loved him because I hadbrought him up, and I never had a child of my own. I never wished tobe married, but I used to wish that little Jasper had been my ownchild. I could have had an authority over him then that I hadn't ashis nurse, and perhaps it might have all turned out differently. 

There were many tales about Sir Jasper, but I didn't think it was myplace to listen to them. 

Only, when it's your own eyes, it's different, and I couldn't helpseeing how like young Robert, the under-gamekeeper, was to theFamily. He had their black, curly hair, and merry Irish eyes, andhe, if you please, had just Sir Jasper's winning ways. 

Why he was taken on as gamekeeper no one could make out, for when hefirst came up to the Hall to ask the master for a job, they tell mehe knew no more of gamekeeping than I do of Latin. Young Robert wasa steady chap, and used to read and write of an evening instead ofspending a jolly hour or two at the Dove and Branch, as most youngfellows do, and as, indeed, my young master did too often. And SirJasper, he gave him books without end and good advice, and wouldhave him so often about him he set everybody's tongue wagging to atune more merry than wise. And young Robert loved the master, ofcourse. Who didn't?

Well, there came a day when the Lord above saw fit to put out thesunshine like as if it had been a bedroom candle; for Sir Jasper, hewas brought back from the hunting-field with his back broke. 

I always take a pleasure in remembering that I was with him to thelast, and did everything that could be done for him with my ownhands. He lingered two days, and then he died. 

It was the hour before the dawn, when there is always a wind, nomatter how still the night, a chilly wind that seems to find out themarrow of your bones, and if you are nursing sick folk, you bank upthe fire high and watch them extra careful till the sun gets up. 

Sir Jasper opened his eyes and looked at me--oh! so kindly. Itbrings tears into my eyes when I think of it. 'Nelly, ' he says, 'Iknow I can trust you. '

And I said, 'Yes, sir. ' And so he could, whatever it might havebeen. What happened afterwards wasn't my fault, and couldn't havebeen guarded against. 

'Then go, ' he said, 'to my old secretaire and open it. '

And I did. There was rows of pigeon-holes inside, and little drawerswith brass knobs. 

'You take hold of the third knob from the right, Nelly, ' said he. 'Don't pull it; give it a twist round. ' I did, and lo and behold! alittle drawer jumped out at me from quite another part of thesecretaire. 

'You see what's in it, Nelly?' says he. 

It was a green leather case tied round with a bit of faded ribbon. 

'Now, what I want you to do, ' he says, 'is to lay that beside mewhen it's all over. I have always had my doubts about the deadsleeping so quiet as some folks say. But I think I shall sleep ifyou lay that beside me, for I am very tired, Nelly, ' he said, 'verytired. '

Then I went back to his bed, where he lay looking quite calm andcomfortable. 

'The end has come very suddenly, ' says he; 'but it is best thisway. '

Then we was both quiet a bit. 

'I may be wrong, ' he went on presently, his face quite straight, buta laugh in his blue eye. 'I may be wrong, Nelly, but I think youwould like to kiss me before I die--I know well enough you'll do itafter. '

And when he said that, I was glad I had never kissed another man. And soon after that, it being the coldest hour of all the night, hemoved his head on his pillow and said--

'I'm off now, Nelly, but you needn't wake the doctors. It's verydark outside. Hand me out, my girl, hand me out. ' So I gave him myhand, and he died holding it. Whether I grieved much or little overmy old master is no one's business but my own. I went about thehouse, and I did my duty--ever since Master Jasper had been grown upI had been housekeeper. I did my duty, I say, and before the coffinlid was screwed down I laid that green leather case under the shroudby my master's side; and just as I had done it I turned roundfeeling that some one was in the room, and there stood young MasterJasper at the door looking at me. 

'All's ready now, ' I said to the undertaker's men, and called themin, and young Master Jasper, he followed me along the passage. 'Whatwere you doing?'

'I was putting something in the master's coffin he told me to putthere. '

'What was it?' he asked, very sharp and sudden. 

'How should I know?' says I. 'It's in a case. It may be some oldletter or a lock of hair as belonged to your mother. '

'Come into my room, ' he said, and I followed him in. He looked verypale and anxious, and when he'd shut the door he spoke--

'Look here, Nelly, I'm going to trust you. My father was very angrywith me about some little follies of mine, and he told me the othernight he had left a good slice of the estate away from me. Do youthink that packet you put in the coffin had anything to do with it?'

'Good Lord, bless your soul, sir, no, ' I said. 'That was no will orlawyer's letters, it was but some little token of remembrance he setstore by. '

'Thanks, Nelly, that was all I wanted to know. '

No one ever knows who tells these things, but it had leaked outsomehow that that slice of the estate was to belong to young Robertthe gamekeeper, and you may be sure the tongues went wagging above abit. But it seemed to me, if it was so, my master was right to makea proper provision for Robert as well as for Jasper. However, nobodycould be sure of anything until after the funeral. 

The doctor was staying in the house, and master's younger brother, besides the lawyer and young Master Jasper; so I had many things tosee to, and ought to have been tired enough to get to sleep easy thenight before he was buried. But somehow I couldn't sleep. I couldn'thelp thinking of my master as I had known him all these years. Himbeing always so gentle and so kind, and so light-hearted, it didn'tseem likely he could have had young Robert on his conscience all thetime; and yet what was I to think? And then my poor Jasper--I say'poor, ' but I never loved and pitied him less than I did that night. He had lost such a father, and he could go troubling about whetherhe had got the whole estate or not. So I lay awake, and I thought ofthe coffin lying between its burning tapers in the great bedroom, and I wished they had not screwed him down, for then I could havegone, late as it was, and had another look at my master's face. Andas I lay it seemed to me that I heard a door opened, and then astep, and then a key turned. Now, the master never locked his door, so the key of that room turned rusty in the lock, and before I hadtime to think more than that I was out of bed and in mydressing-gown, creeping along the passage. Sure enough, my master'sdoor was open, as I saw by the streak of light across the corridor. I walked softly on my bare feet, and no one could have heard me goalong the thick carpet. When I got to the door, I saw that what Ihad been trying not to think of was really true. Master Jasper wasthere taking the screws out of his father's coffin to see what wasin that green leather case. 

I stood there and looked. I could not have moved, not for theQueen's crown, if it had been offered me then and there. One afteranother he took the screws out and laid them on the little bedsidetable, where the master used to keep his pistols of a night. Whenall the screws was out he lifted the lid in both his arms and set iton the bed, where it lay looking like another coffin. Then he beganto search for what I had put in beside his father. 

Now, I may be a heartless woman, and I suppose I am, or how accountfor it? But when I saw my young master go to his father's coffinlike that, and begin to serve his own interest and his owncuriosity, every spark of love I had ever had for the boy died out, and I cared no more for him than if he had been the first comer. 

If he had kissed his father, or so much as looked kindly at the deadface in the coffin, it would have been different. But he hadn't alook or a thought to spare for him as gave him life, and hadhumoured and spoiled and petted and made much of him all his twentyyears. Not a thought for his father; all his thoughts was to findout what his father hadn't wished him to know. 

Now I was feeling set that Master Jasper should never know what wasin that green leather case, and I cared no more for what he thoughtor what he felt than I should have done if he had been a commonthief as, God forgive me, he was in my eyes at that hour. So I creptbehind him softly, softly, an inch at a time, till I got to where Icould see the coffin; and if you'll believe a foolish old woman, Ikept looking at that dead face till I nigh forgot what I was therefor. And while I was standing mazed like and stupid, young MasterJasper had got out the green case, and was turning over what was init in his hands. 

I got him by the two elbows behind, and he started like a horse thathas never felt even the whip will do at the spur's touch. Almost atthe same time my heart came leaping into my mouth, and if ever awoman nearly died of fright, I was that woman, for some one behindme put a hand on my shoulder and said, 'What's all this?'

Young Sir Jasper and I both turned sharp. It was the doctor. Hisears were as quick as mine, and he had heard the key too, I suppose. Anyhow, there he was, and he picked up the papers young Sir Jasperhad let fall, and says he, 'I will deal with these, young gentleman. Go you to your room. ' And Sir Jasper, like a kicked hound, went. Then I began to tell my share in that night's work. But the doctorstopped me, for he had seen me and watched me all along. Then hestood by the coffin, and went through what was in the little leathercase. 

'I must keep these now, ' he said, 'but you shall keep your promiseand put them beside him before he is buried. '

And the next day, before the funeral, I went alone and saw my masteragain, and gave him his little case back, and I thought I shouldhave liked him to know that I had done my best for him, but he couldnot have known that without knowing of what young Sir Jasper haddone, and that would have broken his heart; so when all's said anddone, perhaps it's as well the dead know nothing. 

And after the funeral we was all in the library to hear the willread, and the lawyer he read out that the personal property went toRobert the gamekeeper, and the entailed property would of course beyoung Sir Jasper's. 

And young Sir Jasper, oh that ever I should have called him myboy!--he rose up in his place and said that his father was a dotingold fool and out of his mind, and he would have the law of them, anyhow, and my late dear master not yet turned of fifty! And thenthe doctor got up and he said--

'Stop a bit, young man; I have a word or two to say here. '

And he up and told before all the folks there straight out what hadpassed last night, and how young Sir Jasper had willed to rob hisfather's coffin. 

'Now, you'll want to know what was in the little green leathercase, ' he says at the end. 'And it was this, --a lock of hair and awedding ring, and a marriage certificate, and a baptism certificate;and you, Jasper, are but the son by a second marriage; and SirRobert, I congratulate you, for you are come to your own. '

'Do I get nothing, then?' shrieked young Sir Jasper, trembling likea woman, and with the devil looking out of his eyes. 

'Your father intended you to have the entailed estates, right orwrong; that was his choice. But you chose to know what he wished tohide from you, and now you know that the entailed estates belong toyour brother. '

'But the personalty?'

'You forget, ' said the doctor, rubbing his hands, with a sour smile, 'that your father provided for that in the will to which you so muchobjected. '

'Then, curse his memory and curse you, ' cried Jasper, and flung outof the house; nor have I ever seen him again, though he did setlawyer folk to work in London to drive Sir Robert out of his ownplace. But to no purpose. 

And Sir Robert, he lives in the old house, and is loved as hisfather was before him by all he says a kind word to, and his kindwords are many. 

And to me he is all that I used to wish the boy Jasper might be, andhe has a reason for loving me which Jasper never had. 

For he said to me when he first spoke to me after his father'sfuneral--

'My mother was a farmer's girl, ' he said, 'and your father was afarmer, so I feel we come, as it were, of one blood; and besidesthat, I know who my father's friends were. I never forget thosethings. '

I still live on as a housekeeper at the Hall. My master left me nomoney, but he bade his heir keep me on in my old place. I am glad tothink that he did not choose to leave me money, but instead thegreat picture of himself that hung in the Hall. It hangs in my roomnow, and looks down on me as I write. 

ONE WAY OF LOVE

YOU don't believe in coincidences, which is only another way ofsaying that all things work together for good to them that loveGod--or them that don't, for that matter, if they are honestlytrying to do what they think right. Now I do. 

I had as good a time as most young fellows when I was young. Myfather farmed a bit of land down Malling way, and I walked out withthe prettiest girl in our parts. Jenny was her name, Jenny Teesdale;her people come from the North. Pretty as a pink Jenny was, and neatin her ways, and would make me a good wife, every one said, even myown mother; and when a man's mother owns that about a girl he mayknow he's got hold of a treasure. Now Jenny--her name was Jane, butwe called her Jenny for short--she had a cousin Amelia, who wasapprenticed to the millinery and dress-making in Maidstone; the twohad been brought up together from little things, and they was thatfond of each other it was a pleasure to see them together. I wasfond of Amelia, too, like as a brother might be; and when Jenny andme walked out of a Sunday, as often as not Amelia would come withus, and all went on happy enough for a while. Then I began to noticeJenny didn't seem to care so much about walking out, and one Sundayafternoon she said she had a headache and would rather stay at homeby the fire; for it was early spring, and the days chilly. Ameliaand me took a turn by ourselves, and when we got back to Teesdale'sfarm, there was Jenny, wonderfully brisked up, talking and laughingaway with young Wheeler, whose father keeps the post-office. I wasnot best pleased, I can tell you, but I kept a still tongue in myhead; only, as time went on, I couldn't help seeing Jenny didn'tseem to be at all the same to me, and Amelia seemed sad, too. 

I was in the hairdressing then, and serving my time, so it was onlyon Sundays or an evening that I could get out. But at last I said tomyself, 'This can't go on; us three that used to be so jolly, we'reas flat as half a pint of four ale; and I'll know the reason why, 'says I, 'before I'm twenty-four hours older. ' So I went toTeesdale's with that clear fixed in my head. 

Jenny was not in the house, but Amelia was. The old folks had goneto a Magic Lantern in the schoolroom, and Amelia was alone in thehouse. 

'I'll have it out with her, ' thinks I; so as soon as we had passedthe time of day and asked after each other's relations, I says, 'Look here, Amelia, what is it that's making mischief between youand me and Jenny, as used to be so jolly along of each other?'

She went red, and she went white and red again. 

'Don't 'e ask me, Tom--don't 'e now, there's a good fellow. '

And, of course, I asked her all the more. 

Then says she, 'Jenny'll never forgive me if I tell you. '

'Jenny shan't never know, ' says I; and I swore it, too. 

Then says Amelia, 'I can't abear to tell you, Tom, for I know itwill break your 'eart. But Jenny, she don't care for you no more;it's Joe Wheeler as she fancies now, and she's out with him thisvery minute, as here we stand. 

'I'll wring her neck for her, ' says I. Then when I had taken time tothink a bit, 'I can't believe this, Amelia, ' says I, 'not even fromyou. I must ask Jenny. '

'But that's just what you've swore not to do, ' says she. 'She'llnever forgive me if you do, Tom; and what need of asking when forthe trouble of walking the length of the road you can see themtogether? But if I tell you where to find them, you swear you won'tspeak or make a fuss, because she'd know I'd told you?'

'I swear I won't, ' says I. 

'Well, then, ' says Amelia, 'I don't seem to be acting fair to her;but, take it the other way, I can't abear to stand by and see youdeceived, Tom. If you go by the churchyard an hour from now, you'llsee them in the porch; but don't you say a word to them, and neversay I told you. Now, be off, Tom, ' says she. 

It was early summer by this time, and the evenings long. I don'tthink any man need envy me what I felt as I walked about the laneswaiting till it was time to walk up to the church and find out forcertain that I'd been made a fool of. 

It was dusk when I opened the churchyard gate and walked up thepath. 

There she was, sure enough, in her Sunday muslin with the violetsprig, and her black silk jacket with the bugles, and her arm wasround Joe Wheeler's neck--confound him!--and his arms were round herwaist, both of them. They didn't see me, and I stood for a minuteand looked at them, and but for what I'd swore to Amelia I believe Ishould have taken Wheeler by the throat and shaken the life out ofhim then and there. But I had swore, and I turned sharp and walkedaway, and I never went up to Teesdale's nor to my father's farm, butI went straight back to Pound's, the man I was bound to, and I wrotea letter to Jenny and one to Amelia, and in Amelia's I only said--

'DEAR AMELIA, --Thank you very much; you were quite right. 

TOM. '

And in the other I said--

Jenny, I've had pretty well enough of you; you can go to the devilyour own way. So no more at present from your sincere well-wisherTOM. 

'P. S. --I'm going for a soldier. '

And I left everything: my master that I was bound to, and my tradeand my father. And I went straight off to London. And I should havebeen a soldier right enough but that I fell in with a fireman, andhe persuaded me to go in for that business, which is just asexciting as a soldier's, and a great deal more dangerous, mosttimes. And a fireman I was for six or eight years, but I never caredto walk out with another girl when I thought of Jenny. I didn't tellmy folks where I'd gone, and for years I heard nothing from them. 

And one night there was a fire in a street off the Borough--a highhouse it was, --and I went up the ladder to a window where there wasa woman screaming, and directly I see her face I see it was Jenny. 

I fetched her down the ladder right enough, and she clung round myneck (she didn't know me from Adam), and said: 'Oh, go back andfetch my husband. ' And I knew it was Wheeler I'd got to go and find. 

Then I went back and I looked for Wheeler. 

There he was, lying on the bed, drunk. 

Then the devil says to me, 'What call have you to go and find him, the drunken swine? Leave him be, and you can marry Jenny, and letbygones be bygones'; and I stood there half a minute, quite still, with the smoke getting thick round me. Then, the next thing I knew, there was a cracking under my feet and the boards giving way, and Isprang across to Wheeler all in a minute, as anxious to save him asif he'd been my own twin brother. There was no waking him, it waslift him or leave him, and somehow or other I got him out; but thatminute I'd given to listening to Satan had very nearly chucked usboth to our death, and we only just come off by the skin of ourteeth. The crowd cheered like mad when I dragged him out. 

I was burned awfully bad, and such good looks as I'd had burnt offme, and I didn't know nothing plainly for many a long day. 

And when I come to myself I was in a hospital, and there was asweet-faced charity sister sitting looking at me, and, by the Lord, if it wasn't Amelia! And she fell on her knees beside me, and shesays, 'Tom, I must tell you. 

Ever since I found religion I've known what a wicked girl I was. OTom, to see you lying there, so ill! O Tom, forgive me, or I shallgo mad, I know I shall!'

And, with that, she told me straight out, holding nothing back, thatwhat she'd said to me that night eight years ago was a lie, nobetter; and that who I'd seen in the church porch with young Wheelerwas not Jenny at all, but Amelia herself, dressed in Jenny's things. 

'Oh, forgive me, Tom!' says Amelia, the tears runnin' over her nun'sdress. 'Forgive me, Tom, for I can never forgive myself! I knewJenny didn't rightly care about you, Tom, and I loved you so dear. And Wheeler wanted Jenny, and so I was tempted to play off thattrick on you; I thought you would come round to me after. '

I was weak still with my illness, but I put my hand on hers, and Isays, 'I do forgive you, Amelia, for, after all, you done it forlove of me. And are you a nun, my dear?' says I. 

'No, ' says she, 'I'm only on liking as it were; if I don't like themor they don't like me, I can leave any minute. '

'Then leave, for God's sake, ' says I, 'if you've got a bit of lovefor me left. Let bygones be bygones, and marry me as soon as I comeout of this, for it's worth something to be loved as you've lovedme, Amelia, and I was always fond of you. '

'What?' says she. 'Me marry you, and be happy after all the harmI've done? You run away from your articles and turned fireman, andJenny married to a drunken brute--no, Tom, no! I don't deserve to behappy; but, if you forgive me, I shan't be as miserable as I was. '

'Well, ' says I, 'if ever you think better of it let me know. '

And the curious thing is that, within two years, she did thinkbetter of it--for why? That fire had sobered Wheeler more thantwenty thousand temperance tracts, and all the Sons of the Phoenixand Bands of Hope rolled into one. He never touched a drop of drinksince that day, and Jenny's as happy as her kind ever is. I hear shedidn't fret over me more than a month, though perhaps that's onlywhat I deserved, writing to her as I did. And then Amelia shesaid--'No such harm done then after all. ' So she married me. 

Now, you see, if I'd listened to Satan and hadn't pulled Wheelerout, I shouldn't have got burned, and I shouldn't have got into thehospital, and I shouldn't have found Amelia again, and then whereshould I have been? Whereas now, we're farming the same bit of landthat my father farmed before us. And if this was a made-up story, Amelia would have had to drowned herself or something, and I shouldhave gone a-weeping and a-wailing for Jenny all my born days; but asit's true and really happened, Amelia and me have been punishedenough, I think; for eight years of unhappiness is only a few wordsof print in a story-book, but when you've got to live them, everyday of them, eight years is eight years, as Amelia and I shallremember till our dying day; and eight years unhappiness is enoughpunishment for most of the wrong things a man can do, or a womaneither for that matter. 

COALS OF FIRE

ALL my life I've lived on a barge. My father, he worked a barge fromLondon to Tonbridge, and 'twas on a barge I first see the light whenmy mother's time come. I used to wish sometimes as I could 'avelived in a cottage with a few bits of flowers in the front, but Ithink if I'd been put to it I should have chose the barge ratherthan the finest cottage ever I see. When I come to be grown up andtook a husband of my own it was a bargeman I took, of course. He wasa good sort always, was my Tom, though not particular about Sundaysand churchgoings and such like, as my father always was. It used tobe a sorrow to me in my young married days to think as Tom was sofar from the Lord, and I used to pray that 'is eyes might be openedand that 'e might be led to know the truth like me, which was vanityon my part, for I've come to see since that like as not 'e wasnearer the Lord nor ever I was. 

We worked the William and Mary, did Tom and me, and I used to thinkno one could be 'appier than we was them first two years. Tom was askind as kind, and never said a hard word to me except when he was inliquor; and as to liftin' his 'and to me, no, never in his life. Butafter two years we got a little baby of our own, and then I knew asI hadn't known what 'appiness was before. She was such a prettylittle thing, with yellow hair, soft and fluffy all over her head, the colour of a new-hatched duck, and blue eyes and dear littlehands that I used to kiss a thousand times a day. 

My mother had married beneath her, they said, for she'd been toschool and been in service in a good family, and she taught me toread and write and cipher in the old days, when I was a little kidalong of 'er in the barge. So we named our little kid Mary to belike our boat, and as soon as she was big enough, I taught 'er allmy mother had taught me, and when she was about eight year old myTom's great-uncle James, who was a tinsmith by trade, left us a bitof money--over L 200 it were. 

'Not a penny of it shall I spend, ' says my Tom when he heard of it;'we'll send our Mary to school with that, we will; and happen she'llbe a lady's-maid and get on in the world. '

So we put her to boarding-school in Maidstone, and it was liketearing the heart out of my body. And she'd been away from us afortnight, and the barge was like hell without her, Tom said, and Ifelt it too though I couldn't say it, being a Christian woman; andone night we'd got the barge fast till morning in Stoneham Lock, andwe were a-settin' talking about her. 

'Don't you fret, old woman, ' says Tom, with the tears standin' inhis eyes, 'she's better off where she is, and she'll thank us for itsome day. She's 'appier where she is, ' says 'e, 'nor she would be inthis dirty old barge along of us. '

And just as he said it, I says, ''Ark! what's that?' And we bothlistened, and if it wasn't that precious child standing on the bankcallin' 'Daddy, ' and she'd run all the way from Maidstone in 'erlittle nightgown, and a waterproof over it. 

P'raps if we'd been sensible parents, we should 'ave smacked 'er andput 'er back next day; but as it was we hugged 'er, and we huggedeach other till we was all out o' breath, and then she set up on 'erdaddy's knee, and 'ad a bit o' cold pork and a glass of ale for 'ersupper along of us, and there was no more talk of sendin' 'er backto school. But we put by the bit of money to set 'er up if sheshould marry or want to go into business some day. 

And she lived with us on the barge, and though I ses it there wasn'ta sweeter girl nor a better girl atwixt London and Tonbridge. 

When she was risin' seventeen, I looked for the young men to becomin' after 'er; and come after 'er they did, and more than one andmore than two, but there was only one as she ever give so much as akind look to, and that was Bill Jarvis, the blacksmith's son atFarleigh. Whenever our barge was lyin' in the river of a Sunday, hewould walk down in 'is best in the afternoon to pass the time of daywith us, and presently it got to our Mary walking out with 'imregular. 

'Blest if it ain't going to be "William and Mary" after all, ' saysmy old man. 

'He was pleased, I could see, for Bill Jarvis, he'd been put to hisfather's trade, and 'e might look to come into his father's businessin good time, and barrin' a bit of poaching, which is neither herenor there, in my opinion there wasn't a word to be said against 'im. 

And so things went along, and they was all jolly except me, but Ihad it tugging at my heart day and night, that the little gell as'ad been my very own these seventeen years wouldn't be mine nolonger soon, and, God forgive me, I hated Bill Jarvis, and Iwouldn't 'ave been sorry if I'd 'eard as 'arm 'ad come to him. 

The wedding was fixed for the Saturday; we was to 'ave a nice littlespread at the Rose and Crown, and the young folks was to go 'ome andstay at old Jarvis's at Farleigh, and I was to lose my Pretty. Andon the Friday night, my old man, 'e went up to the Rose and Crown tosee about things and to get a drink along of 'is mates, and when 'ecome back I looked to see 'im a little bit on maybe, as was onlynatural, the night before the weddin' and all. But 'e come backearly, and 'e come back sober, but with a face as white as my apron. 

'Bess, ' says 'e to me, 'where's the girl?'

'She's in 'er bunk asleep, ' says I, 'lookin' as pretty as a picture. She's been out with 'er sweet'eart, ' says I. 'O Tom, this is thelast night she'll lay in that little bunk as she's laid in everynight of 'er life, except that wicked fortnight we sent 'er toschool. '

'Look 'ere, ' says 'e, speaking in a whisper, 'I've 'eard summat upat the Rose and Crown: Bank's broke, and all our money's gone. I seeit in the paper, so it must be true. '

'You don't mean it, Tom, ' says I; 'it can't be true. '

''Tis true, though, by God, ' says 'e, ''ere, don't take on so, oldgirl, ' for I'd begun to cry. 'More's been lost on market-days, asthey say: our little girl's well provided for, for old Jarvis, 'e'sa warm man. '

'She won't 'ave a day's peace all 'er life, ' says I, 'goin'empty-'anded into that 'ouse. I know old Mother Jarvis--a cat: we'dbest tell the child, p'raps she won't marry 'im if she knows she'snothing to take to 'im, ' and, God forgive me, my 'eart jumped up atthe thought. 

'No, best leave it be, ' says my old man, 'they're fair sweet on eachother. '

And so the next morning we all went up to the church, me cryin' allthe way as if it was 'er buryin' we was a-goin' to and not 'ermarryin'. The parson was at the church and a lot of folks as knewus, us 'avin' bin in those parts so long; but none of thebridegroom's people was there, nor yet the bridegroom. 

And we waited and we waited, my Pretty as pale as a snowdrop in herwhite bonnet. And when it was a hour past the time, Tom, 'e ups andsays out loud in the church, for all the parson and me said ''Ush!''I'm goin' back 'ome, ' says 'e; 'there won't be no weddin' to-day;'e shan't 'ave 'er now, ' says my old man, 'not if 'e comes to fetch'er in a coach and six cram full of bank-notes, ' says 'e. 

And with that 'e catches 'old of Mary in one and and me in theother, and turns to go out of church, and at the door, who should wemeet but old Mother Jarvis, 'er that I'd called a cat in my wickedspite only the day before. The tears was runnin' down her fatcheeks, and as soon as she saw my Pretty, she caught 'er in 'er armsand 'ugged 'er like as if she'd been 'er own. 'God forgive 'im, 'says she, 'I never could, for all he's my own son. He's gone off fora soldier, and 'e left a letter sayin' you wasn't to think any moreof 'im, for 'e wasn't a marryin' man. '

'It's that dam money, ' says my goodman, forgettin' 'e was in church;'that was all 'e wanted, but it ain't what he'll get, ' says 'e. 'Youkeep 'im out of my way, for it 'ull be the worse for 'im if 'e comeswithin the reach of my fisties. '

And with that we went along 'ome, the three of us. And the sun kepta-shinin' just as if there was nothin' wrong, and the skylarksa-singin' up in the blue sky till I would a-liked to wring theirnecks for them. 

And we 'ad to go on up and down the river as usual, for it was ourlivin', you see, and we couldn't get away from the place whereeverybody knew the slight that had been put upon my Pretty. You'dthink p'raps that was as bad as might be, but it wasn't the worst. 

We was beginnin' June then, and by the end of August I knew thatwhat my Pretty 'ad gone through at the church was nothin' to whatshe'd got to go through. Her face got pale and thin, and she didn'tfancy 'er food. 

I suppose I ought to 'ave bin angry with her, for we'd always keptourselves respectable; and I know if you spare the rod you spoil thechild, and I felt I ought to tell her I didn't 'old with suchwickedness; so one night when 'er father, 'e was up at the Rose andCrown, and she, a-settin' on the bank with 'er elbows on 'er kneesand 'er chin in 'er 'ands, I says to 'er, 'You can't 'ide it nolonger, my girl: I know all about it, you wicked, bad girl, you. '

And then she turned and looked at me like a dog does when you 'itit. 'O mother, ' says she, 'O mother!' And with that I forgoteverything about bein' angry with 'er, and I 'ad 'er in my arms in aminute, and we was 'oldin' each other as hard as hard. 

'It was the night before the weddin', ' says she, in a whisper. 'Omother, I didn't think there was any harm in it, and us so nearlyman and wife. '

'My Pretty, ' says I, for she was cryin' pitiful, 'don't 'e take onso, don't: there'll be the little baby by-and-by, and us 'ull loveit as dear as if you'd been married in church twenty times over. '

'Ah, but father, ' says she; 'he'll kill me when 'e knows. '

Well, I put 'er to bed and I made 'er a cup of strong tea, and Ikissed 'er and covered 'er up with my heart like lead, and nobody asain't a mother can know what a merry-go-round of misery I'd got inmy head that night. And when my old man come 'ome I told 'im, and'Don't be 'ard on the girl, for God's sake, ' says I, 'for she's ourown child and our only child, and it was the night before theweddin' as should 'ave bin. '

''Ard on 'er?' says 'e, and I'd never 'eard 'is voice so soft, noteven when 'e was courtin' me, or when my Pretty was a little un, and'e hushin' her to sleep. ''Ard on 'er? 'Ard on my precious lamb? Itain't us men who is 'ard on them things, it's you wimmen-folk; theday before 'er weddin', too!'

Then 'e was quiet for a bit--then 'e takes 'is shoes off so as notto make a clatter on the steps near where she slept, and 'e comesout in a minute with my Bible in 'is 'and. 

'Now, ' says 'e, very quiet, 'you needn't be afraid of my bein' 'ardon 'er, but if ever I meet 'im, I'll 'ave 'is blood, if I swing forit, and I'm goin' to swear it on this 'ere Bible--so help me God!'

He looked like a mad thing; his eyes was a-shinin' like lanterns, and 'is face all pulled out of its proper shape; and 'e plumps downon 'is knees there, on the deck, with the Bible in 'is 'ands. Andbefore I knew what I was doin', I'd caught the book out of 'is'ands, and chucked it into the river, my own Bible, that my ownmother had given me when I was a little kid, and I threw my armsround his neck, and held his head against my bosom, so that hismouth was shut, and 'e couldn't speak. 

'No, no, no, Tom, ' says I, 'you mustn't swear it, and you shan't. Think of the girl, think of your poor old woman, think of the poorlittle kid that's comin', what ud us all do without you? And youhanged for the sake of such trash as that! Why, 'e ain't worth it, 'says I, tryin' to laugh. 

Then 'e got 'is 'ead out of my arms and stood lookin' about 'im, like a man that's 'ad a bad dream and 'as just waked up. Then 'esmacks me on the back, 'All right, old woman, ' says 'e, 'we won'tswear nothin', but it'll be a bad day for him when 'e comes a-nighthe William and Mary. '

So no more was said. And we got through the winter somehow, and thebaby was born, as fine a gell as ever you see; and what I said cometrue, for we couldn't none of us 'ave loved the baby more if itsfather and mother 'ad been married by an archbishop in WestminsterAbbey. And the folks we knew along the banks would have been kind tomy Pretty, but she wouldn't never show her face to any of them. 'I've got you, mother, and I've got father and the baby, and I don'twant no one else, ' says she. 

My Tom, he wasn't never the same man after that night 'e 'd got outthe Bible to swear. He give up the drink, but it didn't make 'im nocheerfuller, and 'e went to church now and then, a thing I'd neverknown 'im do since we was married. And time went on, and it wasAugust again, with a big yellow moon in the sky. 

My Pretty and the baby was in bed, and the old man and me, we wasjust a-turnin' in, when we 'eard some one a-runnin' along thetow-path. My old man puts 'is 'ead out to see who's there, and as 'elooked a man come runnin' along close by where we was moored, and 'ejumped on to our barge, not stoppin' to look at the name, and, 'ForGod's sake, hide me!' says 'e, and it was a soldier in a red coatwith a scared face, as I see by the light of the moon. And it wasBill Jarvis what 'ad brought our girl to shame and run away and left'er on 'er weddin' morn; and I looked to see my old man take 'im bythe shoulder and chuck 'im into the water. And Jarvis didn't seewhose barge he'd come aboard of. 

'I've got in a row, ' says 'e; 'I knocked a man down and he's dead. Oh, for God's sake, hide me! I've run all the way from Chatham. '

Then my old man, he steps out on the deck, and Jarvis, 'e see who itwas, and--'O my God!' says 'e, and 'e almost fell back in the waterin 'is fright. 

Then my old man, 'e took that soldier by the arm, and 'e open thedoor of the little cabin where my Pretty and 'er baby were. Then 'eslammed it to again. 'No, I can't, ' says 'e, 'by God, I can't. ' Andbefore the soldier could speak, he'd dragged him down our cabinstairs, and shoved 'im into 'is own bunk and chucked the covers over'im. Then 'e come up to where I was standin' in the moonlight. 

'What ever you done that for?' says I. 'Why not 'a give 'im up toserve 'im out for what 'e done to our Pretty?'

He looked at me stupid-like. 'I don't know why, ' says 'e, 'but Ican't'; and we stood there in the quiet night, me a-holding on to'is arm, for I was shivering, so I could hardly stand. 

And presently half a dozen soldiers come by with a sergeant. 

'Hullo!' cries the sergeant, 'see any redcoat go this way?'

'He's gone up over the bridge, ' says Tom, not turnin' a 'air, 'imthat I'd never 'eard tell a lie in his life before, --'You'll catch'im if you look slippy; what's 'e done?'

'Only murder and desertion, ' says the sergeant, as cheerful as youplease. 

'Oh, is that all?' says my old man; 'good-night to you. '

'Good-night, ' says the sergeant, and off they went. 

They didn't come back our way. We was a-goin' down stream, and wepassed Chatham next mornin'. 

Bill Jarvis, 'e lay close in the bunk, and my Pretty, she wouldn'tcome out of 'er cabin; and at Chatham, my old man, 'e says, 'I'mgoin' ashore for a bit, old woman; you lay-to and wait for me. ' Andhe went. 

Then I went in to my Pretty and I told her all about it, for sheknew nothin' but that Jarvis was aboard; and when I'd told 'er, shesaid, 'I couldn't 'a' done it, no, not for a kingdom. '

'No more couldn't I, ' ses I. 'Father's a better chap nor you and me, my Pretty. '

Presently my old man come back from the town, and he goes down tothe bunk where Bill Jarvis is lying, and 'e says, 'Look 'ere, Bill, 'says 'e, 'you didn't kill your man last night, and after all, it wasin a fair rough-and-tumble. The man's doing well. You take my tipand go back and give yourself up; they won't be 'ard on you. '

And Bill 'e looked at 'im all of a tremble. 'By God, ' says 'e, 'you're a good man!'

'It's more than you are, then, you devil, ' says Tom. 'Get along, outof my sight, ' says 'e, 'before I think better of it. '

And that soldier was off that barge before you could say 'knife, 'and we didn't see no more of 'im. 

But we was up at Hamsted Lock the next summer. The baby wasbeginnin' to toddle about now; we'd called her Bessie for me. Sheand her mother was a-settin' in the meadow pickin' the daisies, whenI see a soldier a-comin' along the meadow-path, and if it wasn'tthat Bill Jarvis again. He stopped short when he saw my Pretty. 

'Well, Mary?' says 'e. 

'Well, Bill?' says she. 

'Is that my kid?' says 'e. 

'Whose else's would it be?' says she, flashing up at him; 'ain't itenough to deceive a girl, and desert her, without throwing mud inher face on the top of it all? Whose else's should the child be butyours?'

'Go easy, ' says Bill, 'I didn't mean that, my girl. Look 'ere, says'e, 'I got out of that scrape, thanks to your father, and I want tolet bygones be bygones, and I'll marry you to-morrow, if you like, and be a father to the kid. '

Then Mary, she stood up on her feet, with the little one in 'erarms. 

'Marry you!' says she, 'I wouldn't marry you if you was the only manin the world. Me marry a man as could serve a girl as you served me?Not if it was to save me from hanging? Me give the kid a father likeyou? Thank God, the child's my own, and you can't touch it. I tellyou, ' says she, 'shame and all, I'd rather have things as they are, than have married you in church and 'ave found out afterwards what acowardly beast you are. '

And with that she walks past 'im, looking like a queen, and downinto her cabin; and 'e was left a-standin' there sucking the end ofhis stick and looking like a fool. 

'I think, perhaps, ' says I afterwards, 'you ought to 'ave let 'immake an honest woman of you. '

'I'm as honest as I want to be, ' says she, 'and the child is all myown now. ' So no more was said. 

And things went on the same old sleepy way, like they always do onthe river, and we forgot the shame almost, in the pleasure of havingthe little thing about us. And so the time went on, till one day atMaidstone a Sister of Charity with one of those white caps and a bigcross round her neck, come down to the water's side inquiring forTom Allbutt. 

'That's me, ' says my old man. 

'There's a young man ill in hospital, ' says she. 'He's dying, I'mafraid, and he wants to see you before he goes. It's typhoid fever, but that's over now; he's dying of weakness, they say. '

And when we asked the young man's name, of course it was BillJarvis. So we left my Pretty in charge of the barge, and my old manand me, we went up to the hospital. 

Bill was so changed you wouldn't 'ardly 'ave known 'im. From being afleshy, red-cheeked young fellow, he'd come to be as thin as askeleton, and 'is eyes seemed to fill half 'is face. 

'I want to marry Mary, ' says 'e. 'I'm dying, I can't do her and thekid no 'arm now, and I should die easier if she'd marry me here; thechaplain would do it--he said so. '

My old man didn't say nothin', but says I, 'I would dearly like herto be made an honest woman of. '

'It's me that wants to be made an honest man of, ' says Bill. Andwith that my old man, he took his hand and shook it. Then says Billwith the tears runnin' down his cheeks, --partly from weakness, Isuppose, for 'e wasn't the crying sort--'So help me God, I neverknew what a beast I was till that day I come to you in your bargeand you showed me what a man was, Tom Allbutt; you did, so, and I'vebeen trying to be a man ever since, and I've given up the drink, andI've lived steady, and I've never so much as looked at another girlsince that night. Oh, get her to be my wife, ' says 'e, 'and let medie easy. '

And I went and fetched 'er, and she came along with me with thechild in her arms; and the chaplain married them then and there. Idon't know how it was the banns didn't have to be put up, but it wasmanaged somehow. 

'And you'll stay with me till I die, ' says 'e, 'won't you, Mary, youand the kid?'

But he didn't die, he got better, and there isn't a couple happierthan him and Mary, for all they've gone through. 

And the doctor says it was Mary saved his life, for it was after hehad had a little talk with her that he took a turn for the better. 

'Mary, ' says 'e, 'I've been a bad lot, and you was in the right whenyou called me a coward and a beast; but your father showed me what aman was, and I've tried to be a man. You was fond of me once, Mary;you'll love me a little when I'm gone, and don't let the kid thinkunkind of her daddy. '

'Love you when you're gone?' says she, cryin' all over 'er face, andkissin' 'im as if it was for a wager; 'you ain't a-goin' to die, you're goin' to live along of me and baby. Love you when you'regone?' says she, 'why, I've loved you all the time!' she says.