North, South and over the Sea Part 20

"I'm sure," protested Jenny plaintively, "'twas only out o' respect for you, Abel, that I set out the things. 'Twas out o' fond memory for you. You know you did say yourself when you was a-writin' out your will, 'I'll leave you all my things, Jenny, so as you'll think o'

me,'--an' I _did_ think o' you," she added, beginning to sob, "I'm sure I--I--I even wanted to put a bit o' black c.r.a.pe on your clock, but mother wouldn't let me."

"Well," interrupted Mrs. Pitcher apologetically, "I didn't think, ye know, it 'ud look very well to have c.r.a.pe about on my darter's weddin'-day. It wouldn't seem lucky. Or else I'm sure I wouldn't ha'

had no objections at all--far from it, Abel."

"But I'd ha' had objections," cried Sam, who had stood by swelling with wrath. "I do think my feelin's ought to be considered so much as yon chap's, be he alive or dead. It's me what's married your darter, bain't it?"

"It be, Samuel; 'e-es I d' 'low it be," returned Mrs. Pitcher, with a deprecating glance at the yeoman who was now rolling up the rug. "We all on us thought as Abel was dead, ye see."

"Meanin', I suppose, as if ye knowed he was alive I shouldn't ha' had her," retorted Sam explosively. "Well, I d' 'low, it bain't too late yet to come to a understandin'. Jenny be married to I, sure enough, but I bain't a-goin' to ha' no wives what be a-hankerin' arter other folks. She may take herself off out of this wi'out my tryin' for to hinder her. If she can't make up her mind to give over upsettin'

hersel' along o' he you may take her home-along, Mrs. Pitcher."

A dead silence ensued within the house, but Betty's strident tones could be heard without, uplifted in shrill discourse to curious neighbours.

"'E-es, d'ye see, he did write home so soon as he did get to Darchester, a-tellin' of his aunt as he was a-comin' private-like so as to surprise his sweetheart. And Susan, she did write back immediate an' say, 'My poor bwoy, there be a sad surprise in store for _you_.'

And then when he comed they did make it up between them to keep quiet till--"

"There's the clock, too," observed Abel, ending the pause at last.

"You can take the clock," cried Jenny, simultaneously recovering speech and self-possession. "Take the clock, Abel Guppy, and take yourself off. There ben a mistake, but it be all cleared up at last."

She stepped with dignity across the room, and slipped her arm through Sam's, who made several strenuous but ineffectual efforts to shake her off.

"You get hold o' he," cried Sam; "you cut along an' catch hold o' he.

It be he you do want."

"No, Samuel," said the incomparable Jenny with lofty resolution, "it bain't he as I do want. I mid ha' been took up wi' some sich foolish notion afore, bein' but a silly maid, but now I be a married 'ooman, an' I do know how to vally a husband's love."

The new-made bridegroom ceased struggling and gaped at her. Jenny, gazing at her former lover more in sorrow than in anger, pointed solemnly to the clock:--

"Take down that clock, Abel Guppy," she repeated. "I do know you now for what you be. I consider you've behaved most heartless an'

unfeelin' in comin' here to try an' make mischief between man an'

wife. I thank the Lard," she added piously, "as I need never ha' no more to do with you. Walk out o' my house, if ye please--"

"_Your_ house," interpolated Sam, a note of astonished query perceptible in his tone despite its sulkiness.

"'E-es," said Jenny firmly. "He shall never show his face inside the door where I be missis. Take down the clock, Abel Guppy," she repeated for the third time. "You'd best help him, Sam. He don't seem able to reach to it."

Enc.u.mbered as he was with newly-regained possessions, the yeoman had made but abortive attempts to detach the timepiece; and Sam, with a dawning grin on his countenance, now mounted on a chair, officiously held by one of the guests, and speedily handed it down.

After all it was the ill-used Abel Guppy who looked most foolish as he made his way to the door, loaded with his various goods, the relatives of bride and bridegroom casting scornful glances at him as he pa.s.sed.

Before he had proceeded twenty yards Sam ran after him with the bank-book, which the other pocketed without a word, while the bridegroom returned to the house, rubbing his hands and chuckling.

Jenny was already seated at the head of the table and received him with a gracious smile:--

"If you'll fetch another plate, Sam, my dear," she remarked, "I can begin for to cut the cake."

BLACKBIRD'S INSPIRATION

"What be lookin' at?" inquired Mrs. Bold, emerging from her dairy, and incidentally wiping her hands on a corner of her ap.r.o.n. "There ye've a-been standin' in a regular stud all the time I were a-swillin' out the churn."

Farmer Bold was standing at the open stable door, his grey-bearded chin resting on his big brown hand, his eyes staring meditatively in front of him. It was a breezy, sunny autumn day, and all the world about him was astir with life; gawky yellow-legged fowls pecked and scratched round his feet with prodigious activity, calves were bleating in the adjacent pens, while the very pigs were scuttling about their styes, squealing the while as though it were supper-time.

The wind whistled blithely round the corners of the goodly cornstacks to the rear of the barton, and piped shrilly through their eaves; the monthly roses, still ablow, swung hither and thither in the fresh blast, strewing the cobblestones with their delicate petals. In all the gay, busy scene only the figure of the master himself was motionless, if one might except the old black horse which he appeared to be contemplating, the angular outlines of whose bony form might be seen dimly defined in the dusk of its stable.

Towards this animal Farmer Bold now pointed, removing his hand from his chin for the purpose. "I wur a-lookin' at Blackbird," he said, "poor wold chap! He was a good beast in his day, but I d' 'low his day be fair done. Tis the last night what Blackbird 'ull spend in this 'ere stall."

"Why," cried Mrs. Bold quickly, "ye don't mean to say--"

"I mean to say," interrupted her husband, turning to her with a resolutely final air, "I mean to say as Blackbird's sold."

"Sold!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the woman incredulously. "Who'd ever go for to buy Blackbird?--wi'out it be one o' they rag-and-bone men, or maybe for a salt cart. Well, Joe," with gathering ire, "I didn't think ye'd go for to give up the faithful wold fellow after all these years, to be knocked about and ill-used at the last."

"Nay, and ye needn't think it--ye mid know as I wouldn't do sich a thing," returned her lord with equal heat. "I've sold en"--he paused, continuing with some hesitation, as he nodded sideways over his shoulder, "I've a-sold en up yonder for the kennels."

"What! To be ate up by them there nasty hounds? Joseph!"

"Come now," cried the farmer defiantly, "ye must look at it sensible, Mary. Poor Blackbird, he be a-come to his end, same as we all must come to it soon or late. He 've a-been goin' short these two years--ye could see that for yourself--and now his poor wold back be a-givin'

out, 'tis the most merciful thing to destroy en. They'll turn en out to-week in the field up along--beautiful gra.s.s they have there--and he'll enjoy hisself a bit, and won't know nothin' about it when they finish en off."

"I al'ays thought as we'd keep Blackbird so long as he did live,"

murmured Mrs. Bold, half convinced but still lamenting, "seein' as we did breed en and bring en up ourselves, and he did work so faithful all his life. Poor wold Jinny! He wur her last colt, and you did al'ays use to say you'd keep en for her sake. Ah, 'tis twenty year since I run out and found en aside of her in the paddock--walkin'

about as clever as you please, and not above two hours old. Not a white hair on en--d'ye mind?--and such big, strong legs! I was all for a-callin' en Beauty, but you said Beauty was a filly's name. And he did use to run to paddock-gate when he wur a little un, and I wur a-goin' to feed chicken--he'd know my very foot, and he'd come prancin' to meet I, and put his little nose in the bucket. Dear, to be sure, I mind it just so well as if it wur yesterday!"

The farmer laughed and stroked his beard.

"'E-es, he was a wonderful knowin' colt," he agreed, placidly.

"There's a deal o' sense in beasts if ye take notice on 'em and treat 'em friendly like. Them little lambs as we did bring up to-year was so clever as Christians, wasn't they? Ye mind the little chap we did call Cronje, how he used to run to I when he did see I a-comin' wi' the teapot? And Nipper--ye mind Nipper? He didn't come on so well as the others; he was sickly-proud, so to speak, and wouldn't suckey out o'

the teapot same as the rest. But he knowed his name so well as any o'

them, and 'ud screw his head round, and c.o.c.k his ears just as a dog mid do, when I did call en. Pigs, even," he proceeded meditatively, "there's a deal o' sense in pigs, if ye look for it. Charl', ye mind Charl', what he had soon after we was married? That there pig knowed my v'ice so well as you do. What I did use to come into the yard and did call 'Charl',' he'd answer me back, 'Umph.' Ho! ho! I used to stand there and laugh fit to split. Ye never heard anythin' more nat'ral. 'Charl',' I'd call; 'Umph' he'd go. Ho! ho! ho!"

The woman did not laugh; she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyes in the endeavour to penetrate the darkness of the stable. "Poor wold Blackbird," she said, "I wish it hadn't come to this. It do seem cruel someway. There, he did never cost 'ee a penny, wi'out 'twas for shoes, and he've a-worked hard ever sin' he could pull a cart--never a bit o' vice or mischief. It do seem cruel hard as he shouldn't end his days on the place where he was bred."

"My dear woman," said her husband loftily, "what good would it do the poor beast to end his days here instead of up yonder? He's bound to end 'em anyways, and we are twenty-two s.h.i.+llin' the better for lettin'

of en go to the kennels."

"Twenty-two s.h.i.+llin'?" repeated his wife.

"'E-es, not so bad, be it? The pore fellow's fair wore out, but still, d'ye see, he fetches that at the last, and 'tis better nor puttin' an end to en for nothin'. Ah, there be a deal o' money in twenty-two s.h.i.+llin'!"

Mrs. Bold sighed. Perhaps she knew almost better than her husband how much toil and trouble it cost to get twenty-two s.h.i.+llings together.

Twenty pounds of b.u.t.ter, twenty-two dozen eggs, eighty-eight quarts of milk! What early risings, what goings to and fro, what long sittings with cramped limbs and aching back, milking cow after cow in summer heat and winter cold, how many weary hours' standing in the flagged dairy before twenty-two s.h.i.+llings could be sc.r.a.ped together! She turned away, without another word.

Later in the evening poor old Blackbird was brought out of his stall, and, after receiving the farewell caresses of master and mistress, was led away, limping, to the kennel pasture.