Greene Ferne Farm Part 19

"I wooll kiss ee," said Tummas st.u.r.dily.

"Thee shatn't."

There was some struggling, but Tummas succeeded with less difficulty than he expected. The damsel was relenting under the influence of long and faithful attentions. Tummas, like a wise man, hit while the iron was hot, and pressed for the publication of the banns.

"Aw," said Rause, at last, with a finished air of languid weariness, as if quite worn out with importunity, that could not have been much improved on in a drawing-room, "aw, s'pose us med as well, you. If thee woot do't, _I_ can't help it, can 'ee?"

So the beautiful moonlight streamed down calmly upon the white ricks, the white loaded waggon, and the white stubble on the slightly rising ground. Still the blare of the bra.s.s echoed back from the house, the drum boomed, and the fiddle's treble sounded over the mead where white skirts flickered round and round. But the mother's heart, as she stood for a minute alone in her chamber gazing out at the night, was far, far away with her daughter, and almost as much with that other girl who had been to her as a second child.

In the barn the sweet fresh scent of flowers and wheat had long since been overcome by the fumes of tobacco. Big as the barn was, it was full of smoke and the odour of pipes and ale. Hedges and Ruck, not able to do much dancing, had come back, and sat in chairs in the doorway, very happily hobn.o.bbing with Augustus to fill their gla.s.ses. At last, however, whether it was the unwonted whirling of the dance, or whether it was the x.x.xx ale, these two old cronies fell out, and abused each other as only old cronies can, to the intense amus.e.m.e.nt of the bystanders. These crowded up to listen to their mutual revelations.

"Thee shaved the brook," said Ruck, shaking his fist. "Thee scooped out the ground on the Squire's side, wur the bend wur, and put the mud on thy side. I'll warn thee took nigh three lug of land."

"I only straightened un," explained Hedges, "when I cleaned un out. A'

wur terrable crooked."

"Aw! [with scorn]. Thee put all the straightness thee own side a-wuver!"

"Thee bist allus pinching the king's highway," shouted Hedges, stung by this last taunt, and only withheld from battle by two strong labourers.

"Thee cuts thy hedges by the road inside, and lets um grow out on the green, a-most into the road. A sort of a rolling-fence, doan't ee zee!"

"Beer in, bark out," said Pistol-legs, sententiously.

The Squire, hearing the noise, came across from the house; and at sight of him the two would-be combatants quieted down; when Augustus thrust a great double-handled mug between them, from which they had to drink in token of restored amity.

"They won't know nothing about it to-morrow morning," said Augustus, as a man of experience, slightly unsteady on his own legs. "They'll forget all about it."

"I thenks it be a-most time to go whoam," said Pistol-legs, rising with some difficulty. "Here, Dan'l!" to one of his numerous descendants.

"Let I hould on by thee."

It was abundantly evident that Pistol-legs was right; it was time to go home. Shortly afterwards the Squire returned again, and announced that the feast was over; when the a.s.sembly separated peacefully, after the wont of country folk, though for half an hour or more there came distant "Hurrays" and cheering as the groups went down the road.

About two o'clock in the morning, Jabez the shepherd, with his dog Job at his feet, was found astride of a stile in the meadows. He had stuck close to the barrel all day, and was roaring, at the top of a voice accustomed to shout across half a mile of down, the veracious ballad of "Gaarge Ridler's Oven," of noted memory:

"When I goes dead, as it med hap, Why, bury me under the good ale-tap!

Wi' voulded arms thur let me lie, Cheek by jowl my dog and I!"