Crowded Out! and Other Sketches Part 17

"Miss Dexter drove in to the Albion alongside of me yesterday, sir, and I ask her if so be she need a second lift back to-day, and she said 'no.'"

"Ah!" said Mr. Joseph. "Yesterday, did you say? I was--to have--come out--yesterday--in answer to my brother's note--but I could not manage--it. I wish," with a grim attempt at the old humor--"I had, 'pon my soul I do."

"Your brother is well, I hope, sir?" said the farmer. "Don't talk too much, I beg of ye, Mr. Joseph. To see ye with yer hands like that!"

"It is--better--easier--that way," returned Mr. Joseph. "My brother is well for him, thank you. You know, he is--not strong he--is--never--perfectly well."

"D--" said the farmer to himself. "Of course, of course, I know. I see him yesterday morning, pale like and weak, but smiling and lookin' happy enough too, I tell ye."

"Ah, yes" said Mr. Joseph, again lying down and pressing the flowers to his hot lips. "I--these flowers--are for him and--her."

"Her!" said the farmer.

"Milly, you know. Ah--perhaps you haven't heard. My brother is going to--marry Milly, Mrs. c.o.x's niece, you know."

An absolutely death-like stillness prevailed in the waggon. The Kentucky team jogged on. The stars shone down on poor Mr. Joseph turning up his sightless...o...b.. to their beauty and majesty, and on the pa.s.sion of grief and remorse that now surged in Miss Dexter's suffering breast.

"It may be vanity," thought Farmer Wise as the bridge and the river and Dexter's Oak came in sight one after the other, "it may be vanity, though I'm too old a man to be much given to that, but I can't help thinkin' I'm a wiser man than I was yesterday by a good lot. I don't half know what's happened, but somethin's goin' on, whether it's understandable or not to me and the likes of me, I don't know as yet, and I don't think I'll try to find out. If ifs bad it'll come out fast enough, and if it's good, leavin' it alone maybe will make it a little better. But here we are," he continued aloud, "at Dexter's Oak. What's to be done, Miss Dexter, now, and with you, Mr. Joseph? Of course, I'll take you straight to the Inn--as for Miss Dexter--"

"I will get out at once," said the unhappy woman. "You are sure you can take him to the Inn all right and--and--lift--that is--without--"

"Oh, I guess so," said the farmer, grimly relapsing into an Americanism that was just beginning to leaven the whole country. "I guess I'll take care on him, and as for gettin' him out at the Inn, there's plenty there. Good-night Miss Dexter, take care there!--now you're all right"

Charlotte Dexter, with a long look at the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph, leapt from the waggon and sped through the gate up to her desolate dwelling.

"Ah!" sighed the farmer to himself, one great long sigh that stirred his hardy frame to its centre. He never sighed like that again either for Charlotte Dexter or any other woman.

The next mile they traversed in silence broken only by occasional moans from Mr. Joseph which moved the old farmer to wonder and dismay that almost unnerved him.

Presently Mr. Joseph murmured some word the farmer did not catch all at once.

"Is he out of his mind on top of it all!" he said to himself, and listened.

"Farmer Wise," said the same low voice, "are we near the Inn?"

"Just there, Mr. Joseph."

"On the little bridge yet?"

"Just come on it, Mr. Joseph."

"Ah! Can you--stop your horses?"

"Certainly. There! Now what is it?" Mr. Joseph sat up.

"I am in your waggon--the market waggon, Farmer Wise, I think?"

"Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't tell where we are, I see, being so much shook."

"No. That's not it," said Mr. Joseph. "I--are you on the seat--the front seat, Farmer Wise?"

"Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't make me out by this queer light, and I don't wonder. The stars is beautiful, but they don't make up for havin' no moon."

"No. That's not it either, Farmer Wise. Did you say the stars were s.h.i.+ning? Orion, I suppose, and the Bull and the rest of them! Can't you--try--like a dear old fellow--can't you--tell what's the matter with me? You say you are sitting on the front seat, and I--have no doubt but that you are, but your voice sounds so much further away--so very much further away than that--and when one--can't--see you, Farmer Wise,--"

A frightful pause.

"Can't see me, can't see me! Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph! Not blind--G.o.d forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! But I thought it, I thought it, and so, out it come! But it is'nt that! Ye'll forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! It isn't that!"

"I'm afraid it is, Farmer Wise. It can be--nothing--else.'

"If, as you say, the stars are s.h.i.+ning and to be sure they generally are about--this time--of night, and if, as you say, you are sitting directly opposite me on the front seat of your waggon, and I have no reason to doubt it, if this is so, and I--can see neither--these stars s.h.i.+ning--nor you--yourself--dear old fellow--on the seat before me--it can be, I fear--nothing else."

"And how--"

"Ah! I can't--quite remember. Some time, perhaps, I'll tell you how--shall I go to my brother or--how can I?"

"Mr. Joseph," entreated the farmer, seizing one of those delicate hands and patting it as if it had been his own. "Will you come with me? I'll make you comfortable, and have ye seen to and we'll find out about it and what can be done, and that'll save your brother, look, and he not strong! Come, Mr. Joseph! Lie down there as you was, just as ye was--G.o.d forgive me for tellin' you to look up at them stars--and I'll speak a word for you at the Inn, as we're pa.s.sing. Won't that do, nor be better than goin' in like that? Not knowin' either just what is the matter.

Come, Mr. Joseph! I'll drive straight home after that and make ye comfortable for the night, and there'll be no--womankind, or, or anyone to disturb ye, just me and the two boys--come, Mr. Joseph!"

"I am willing enough to go, old fellow," answered Mr. Joseph with a groan. "Willing enough to go anywhere, but where my brother--my poor brother--is. Yes, it will be best. Drive on."

The warm cheery Inn soon appeared in view. The firelight from the bar and the lamp-light from the other rooms beamed out from the red-curtained windows. The sc.r.a.pe of a fiddle came from the kitchen.

"Squires," murmured Mr. Joseph, feebly. "He's always at it." The farmer pulled up the team at the pump corner one instant and looking around descried not a soul in view. He got down and went to the side door leading to the bar and opening it put his head in. Mrs. c.o.x herself was dispensing early gin and water to three or four indolent but talkative gentlemen before the fire. But she was not so busy as not to perceive the farmer. Had she already had that cap on in which bloomed the violet velvet pansy, Mr. Joseph's whereabouts might have been discovered, for invariably on those occasions she accompanied the farmer not only to the door but even to the very feet of the horses as he straightened up one thing or loosened another and would often joke about the empty waggon or the purchases made in the town which might happen to fill it.

But Farmer Wise left her no time even to adjust her head-dress, far from changing it.

"Good evening, ma'am," said he, with his head in the door. "No. Don't trouble about Squires. He's hard at work, I can hear, and besides, I don't want him. I'm late, and the boys will wait for their supper. I just have to tell ye that I see Mr. Foxley in town, Mr. Joseph Foxley, and he says how he can't come out till--say--Monday. He was stuck full of work--he was indeed--and said positive--he couldn't come. But he give me this for his brother and for--her," producing the bouquet, which caused a thrill of amazement and awe to pervade the loungers in the bar.

"For his brother and for--her," said the farmer, taking a long stride across the little room and giving it to Mrs. c.o.x. "I congratulate you, ma'am, I do indeed."

Before she could well answer, he had shut the door and mounting the waggon drove away as quickly as he could. He was too full of thoughts and plans concerning Mr. Joseph to notice that quick as he was, Mrs.

c.o.x, not waiting this time to change her cap, had come out to the door and with her hand shading her eyes, was looking wistfully after the departing team.

CHAPTER IV.

It was as Mr. Joseph had said. His brother, George Albert Dacre Foxley, of Foxley Manor, Notts, was indeed contemplating marriage with Milly, niece of Mrs. c.o.x, landlady of the Ipswich Inn. If it seem strange, remember that he had pa.s.sed the meridian of his years, health was gone, life rapidly pa.s.sing away and it was impossible now for him to make any new departure in his life or habits. He had become firmly attached to Mrs. c.o.x's comfortable _menage_ and wanted nothing more. Never in England, even while in the enjoyment of fairly good health and luxurious surroundings had he ever felt so completely at rest, satisfied with himself and his small immediate world, every want cared for, every wish guessed at, and the best of company to his idea--company that called for nothing but pure naturalness. He could smoke for hours in Mrs. c.o.x's kitchen, or in her neat yard or even in the chintz-hung drawing-room and no one would interrupt him with dissertations on politics, art or literature. Like all Englishmen of the quiet country-loving stamp, he cared little about politics except when some general crisis a.s.sented itself, and knew less about art or literature. He thought Wilkie and Landseer about the summit of the one and Byron the chief modern pillar of the other. Twenty years ago, Tennyson had not made a very deep impression on a mind of his calibre. Yet this handsome, quiet, delicate gentleman when he did choose to talk had such an audience as is not given to many men, for Mrs. c.o.x would leave her work (if she dared) and Milly would listen with her young eyes fastened in a kind of ecstasy on the dark ones turned to hers, and Squires would come along with his hands in his trousers pockets and his fiddle under his arm, and Bess would put her paws upon her master's knees and devour him with her own dark eyes--a quintette of friends unsurpa.s.sed in the world for loyal attachment and generous devotion. What if what he had to tell was but some simple story of hunting England, or some bald description of London life seen under the surveillance of a tutor fifteen or twenty years previous to the time of narration--he was their oracle, prophet, G.o.d, what you will, and they were his dearest, yes, his very dearest friends.

When Mr. Joseph appeared as one of this happy circle, it became more boisterous of course though not necessarily any happier, for it was already as happy as it could be. But the news from town and the occasional English mail, flowers and a cheap new novel--these were some of the simple delights that Mr. Joseph used to bring with him. During the first couple of years, both the brothers would saunter out to the Miss Dexters' or to the Rectory, Mr. Joseph in particular, never failing to appear on Sat.u.r.day nights at choir-practice and Sunday evening service--but Mr. George gradually discontinued his visits as I have hinted and towards the fourth year of his stay hardly ever went beyond the Inn. For at the back the small terraced garden met the orchard, and the orchard sloping down met a small pebbly brook, and the brook flowing along in sweet rippling fas.h.i.+on met the most charming of wheat covered golden meadows in which it was pleasant and good to stroll and which moreover all belonged to that matchless paragon among landladies, Mrs.

c.o.x. In those days people grew their own kitchen stuff, and their own fruit and their own grain, fed their own live stock, made their own b.u.t.ter and cheese, cured their own hams, laid their own eggs, even brewed their own beer. Now, everything is different, and let no confiding Englishman, allured by my tempting picture come out to Canada today in search of such a Utopia for he will not find it. Moreover all this pleasant prospect of wood and stream and meadow and orchard lay well _behind_ the Inn, let it be understood, and it was perfectly possible for Mr. George Foxley to have all the air, walking and exploration he desired and even a little shooting and fis.h.i.+ng if he wanted them without, as I have said, going beyond it. When he grew really weak, he was obliged to give up both the latter occupations of course, but he still walked or strolled a great deal, generally with Milly by his side. She would leave anything she was at when he called her and opening the little gate by the one hawthorn tree leading into the orchard, see him safe down the slope to the side of the little brook where she would give him her arm, and thus their walk would commence in earnest. Four years had brought a great change in Milly. New ideas, new habits, a.s.sociation with such thorough and high-bred gentleman and the natural desire to improve and grow worthy of such dearly esteemed company, had altered her completely. Where before she had been pink, now she was pale; thin, where she had been plump; her features actually aquiline from the girlish snub of the rounded contour four years back, her hair, three shades darker, her dress, almost that of a lady. The most perfect sympathy appeared to exist, and really did, between these two strangely met natures.

One day, they had sat down at the side of the brook as a couple of children would have done to cast in sticks and leaves and watch them float by. Sometimes these would get caught in the numberless little eddies that such a stream possesses and be whirled round and round until it was necessary to dislodge them and send them on their way after the others. One fine yellow leaf on this November day attracted Mr. Foxley's attention particularly, for it was obstinate in returning again and again to a cosy little bay formed by a couple of large stones. Often as he poked it out, back it came into the bay and anch.o.r.ed itself contentedly on the calm water.

Milly laughed.

"He has found a haven," said Mr. George. "Yes, without doubt he has found his haven. What do you think, Milly?"