Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 32

"We will see to her, but you get no more work from me."

"Why, what's the matter, sir?"

"Matter! You might ask Josiah if he were here. You know well enough what you did-and now I am done with you."

"So help me G.o.d, I never-"

"Oh! get out of my way. You are a miserable, lying, ungrateful man, and I have done with you."

He walked away conscious of having again lost his temper, which was rare. The red-faced man he left stood still, his lips parted, the large yellow teeth showing. "It's that d.a.m.ned parson," he said.

Penhallow rejoined his wife. "What did he want?" she asked.

"Oh, work," he said. "I told him he could get no more from me."

"Well, James," she said, "that is the first sensible thing you have ever done about that man. You have thoroughly spoiled him, and now it is very likely too late to discipline him."

"Yes-perhaps-you may be right." He knew her to be right, but he did not like her agreement with his decision to be connected with even her mild statement that it had been better if long before he had been more reasonably severe and treated Lamb as others would have treated him. In the minor affairs of life Ann Penhallow used the quick perception of a woman, and now and then brought the Squire's kindly excesses to the bar of common sense. Sometimes the sentence was never announced, but now and then annoyed at his over-indulgent charity she allowed her impatience the privilege of speech, and then, as on this occasion, was sorry to have spoken.

Dismissing his slight vexation, Penhallow said presently, "He told me his mother was sick."

"She was not yesterday. I took her our monthly allowance and some towels I wanted hemmed and marked. He lied to you, James. Did you believe him even for a moment?"

"But she might be sick, Ann. I meant you to stop and ask."

"I will, of course." This time she held her tongue, and left him at Grace's door.

The perfect sweetness of her husband's generous temperament was sometimes trying to Ann in its results, but now it had helped her out of an awkward position, and with pride and affection she watched his soldierly figure for a moment and then went on her way.

Intent with gladness on fulfilling his wife's errand, he went up the steps of the small two-storey house of the Baptist preacher. He had difficulty in making any one hear where there was no one to hear. If at Westways the use of the rare bells or more common knockers brought no one to the door, you were free to walk in and cry, "Where are you, Amanda Jane, and shall I come right up?" Penhallow had never set foot in the house, but had no hesitation in entering the front room close to the narrow hall which was known as the front entry. The details of men's surroundings did not usually interest Penhallow, but in the mills or the far past days of military service nothing escaped him that could be of use in the work of the hour. The stout little Baptist preacher, with his constant every-day jollity and violent sermons, of which he had heard from Rivers, in no way interested Penhallow. When he once said to Ann, "The man is unneat and common," she replied, "No, he is homely, but neither vulgar nor common. I hate his emotional performances, but the man is good, James." "Then I do wish, Ann, he would b.u.t.ton his waistcoat and pull up his socks."

Now he looked about him with some unusual attention. There was no carpet. A set of oddly coloured chairs and settees which would have pleased Ann, a square mahogany table set on elephantine legs, completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs of a whitewashed room, where the flies, driven indoors by cool weather, buzzed on window gla.s.ses dull with dust. The back room had only a writing-table, a small case of theological books, and two or three much used volumes of American history. Penhallow looked around him with unusually awakened pity. The gathered dust, the battered chairs, the spider-webs in the darker corners, would have variously annoyed and disgusted Ann Penhallow. A well-worn Bible lay on the table, with a ragged volume of "Hiawatha" and "Bunyan's Holy War." There were no other books. This form of poverty piteously appealed to him.

"By George!" he exclaimed, "that is sad. The man is book-poor. Ann must have that library. I will ask him to use mine." As he stood still in thought, he heard steps, and turned to meet Dr. McGregor.

"Come to see Grace, sir?" said the doctor.

"Yes, I came about a little business, but there seems to be no one in."

"Grace is in bed and pretty sick too."

"What is the matter?"

"Oh, had a baptism in the river-stood too long in the water and got chilled. It has happened before. Come up and see him-he'll like it."

The Squire hesitated and then followed the doctor. "Who cares for him?" he asked as they moved up the stairs.

"Oh, his son. Rather a dull lad, but not a bad fellow. He has no servant-cooks for himself. Ever try it, Squire?"

"I-often. But what a life!"

The stout little clergyman lay on a carved four-post bedstead of old mahogany, which seemed to hint of better days. The ragged patch-work quilt over him told too of busy woman-hands long dead. The windows were closed, the air was sick (as McGregor said later), and there was the indescribable composite odour which only the sick chamber of poverty knows. The boy, glad to escape, went out as they entered.

Grace sat up. "Now," he said cheerfully, "this is real good of you to come and see me! Take a seat, sir."

The chairs were what the doctor once described as non-sitable, and wabbled as they sat down.

"You are better, I see, Grace," said the doctor. "I fetched up the Squire for a consultation."

"Yes, I'm near about right." He had none of the common feeling of the poor that he must excuse his surroundings to these richer visitors, nor any least embarra.s.sment. "It's good to see some one, Mr. Penhallow."

"I come on a pleasant errand," said Penhallow. "We will talk it over and then leave you to the doctor. Mrs. Penhallow wants me to roof your church. I came to say to you that I shall do it with pleasure. You will lose the use of it for one Sunday at least."

"Thank you, Squire," said Grace simply. "That's real good medicine."

"I will see to it at once."

The doctor opened a window, and Penhallow drew a grateful breath of fresh air.

"Don't go, sir," said Grace. The Squire sat down again while McGregor went through his examination of the sick man. Then he too rose to leave.

"Must you go?" said Grace. "It is such a pleasure to see some one from the outside." The doctor smiled and lingered.

"I suppose, Squire, you'll get Joe Boynton, the carpenter, to put on the roof? He's one of my flock."

"Yes," said Penhallow, "but he will want to put his old workman, Peter Lamb, on the job, and I have no desire to help that man any further. He gives his mother nothing, and every cent he makes goes for drink."

McGregor nodded approval, but wondered why at last the Squire's unfailing good-nature had struck for higher wages of virtue in the man he had ruined by kindness.

"I try to keep work in Westways," said Penhallow. "Joe Shall roof the chapel, and like as not Peter will be too drunk to help. I can't quite make it a condition with Joe that he shall not employ Peter, but I should like to." McGregor's face grew smiling at Penhallow's conclusion when he added, "I hope he may get work elsewhere." Then the Squire went downstairs with the doctor, exchanging brevities of talk.

"Are you aware, Penhallow, that this wicked business about Josiah has beaten Buchanan in Westways? Come to apply the Fugitive-Slave Act and people won't stand it. As long as it was just a matter of newspaper discussion Westways didn't feel it, but when it drove away our barber, Westways's conscience woke up to feel how wicked it was."

The Squire had had an ill.u.s.tration nearer home and kept thinking of it as he murmured monosyllabic contributions while the doctor went on-"My own belief is that if the November election were delayed six months, Fremont would carry Pennsylvania."

Penhallow recovered fuller consciousness and returned, "I distrust Fremont. I knew him in the West. But he represents, or rather he stands for, a party, and it is mine."

"I am glad to know that," said McGregor. "I am really glad. It is a relief to be sure about a man like you, Penhallow. I suppose you know that you are loved in the county as no one else is."

"Nonsense," exclaimed the Squire, laughing, but not ill-pleased.

"No, I am serious; but it leads up to this: Am I free to say you will vote the Republican ticket?"

"Yes-yes-you may say so."

"It will be of use, but couldn't I persuade you to speak at the meeting next week at the mills?"

"No, McGregor. That is not in my line." He had other reasons for refusal.

"Let us drop politics. What is that boy of yours going to do?"

"Study medicine," he says. "He has brains enough, and Mr. Rivers tells me he is studious. Our two lads fell out, it seems, and my boy got the worst of it. What I don't like is that he has not made up with John."