The Parson O' Dumford
“I didn’t send for you about that,” said Mrs Glaire, hastily.
“No!” said Joe, quietly.
“No,” said Mrs Glaire, clearing her throat and speaking rather excitedly. “You know I spoke to you once before, Joe Banks, about – about – ”
“There, don’t beat about, Missus,” said Joe, with a happy smile spreading over his countenance. “I know, about Master Dick and my Daisy.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire, “and I spoke to my son about it.”
“Did you?” chuckled Joe. “Well, I never spoke a word to my gal.”
“I spoke to my son,” continued Mrs Glaire, “and pointed out the impossibility and impropriety of his proceedings.”
“Did you, though?” chuckled Joe. “Why, lor’ a mercy, Missus, what’s the good o’ being so proud? Flesh and blood’s flesh and blood all the world over.”
“I talked to him earnestly upon the point,” said Mrs Glaire, not heeding the interruption.
“Theer, theer,” said Joe, smiling. “What good was it? why did you do it?”
“And my son saw the force of my remarks, and gave me his promise that he would see Daisy no more.”
“Ah, he did, did he?” chuckled Joe. “He promised you that?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Glaire, angrily; “and he has broken his promise.”
“Of course he has,” said Joe, chuckling. “You might ha’ known it. When a young couple like them comes together, it’s no use for the old uns to try and stop it. They’ll manage it somehow. They’re sure to be too many for you.”
“Joe Banks, you put me out of patience,” cried Mrs Glaire, angrily. “Can you not see how important this matter is?”
“Important? Of course I do,” said Joe, quietly, “a very important step for both of ’em.”
“Listen!” cried Mrs Glaire; “things are coming to a crisis, and for your sake they must be stopped.”
“Strikes me,” said Joe, bluntly, “that you’re thinking a vast more of yourself, Missus Glaire, than of me.”
“I’m thinking of the future of my son and of your daughter, Mr Banks,” said Mrs Glaire.
“So am I,” said Joe, quietly; “but you’re so proud.”
“I tell you, man, that I met them this evening together in the wood,” cried Mrs Glaire. “My son, with Daisy, your child, in his arms.”
“Ah, you did, did you, Missus?” said Joe, chuckling. “He was kissing of her, I suppose.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, indignantly.
“Well, I thought as much,” said Joe, quietly. “The lass had got a rare red face when I met her as she come in.”
“Do you hear what I say?” cried Mrs Glaire angrily. “I say I saw them to-night in the wood, after he had promised me to give her up.”
“Oh, yes,” said Joe, in a calm, unruffled way, “I heard you say so, and if you’d been in the wood every day for the past month, I’d bet you’d ha’ sin ’em. They’re often theer.”
“Joe Banks!” cried Mrs Glaire, half rising from her chair.
“Theer, theer, Missus, what’s the good o’ making a fuss, and being so proud? I’ve give my Daisy a good eddication, and she’s quite a scholard. She can write as pretty a letter as any one need wish to see, and keeps accounts beautiful.”
“Joe Banks, you are blind,” cried Mrs Glaire, passionately. “I want to save your child from shame, and you – ”
“Howd hard theer – howd hard theer, Missus,” cried Joe, rising; and his rugged face flushed up. “I respect you, Missus Glaire, like a man, and I don’t wonder as it touches your pride a bit, but I won’t sit here and hear you talk like that theer. My Daisy’s as good and honest a girl as ever stepped, and I’d troost her anywheers; while, as to your son, he’s arbitrary, but you’ve browt him up as a gentleman, and do you think I’m going to believe he means harm by my darling? No, no, I know better.”
“But, you foolish man – ”
“Missus Glaire, I won’t call you a foolish woman; I’ve too much respect for you; but I think so, and I think as it isn’t me as is blind, but some one else. Theer, theer, what’s the good of kicking again it. They’ve made up their minds to come together, and you may just as well let ’em by the gainest coot, as send ’em a long ways round. But, theer, Missus, don’t think like that of your own flesh and blood. Why, Missus, am I to respect your son more than you do yoursen?”
“Dick has deceived me,” cried Mrs Glaire, with the tears running down her cheeks.
“Well, but it won’t anser,” said Joe, calming down. “He’s fond o’ the lass, and he was standing ’tween her and you,” he continued, smiling at his own imagery. “You was pulling one way and she was pulling the other, and young love pulled the strongest. Of course it did, as was very natural.”
“Will you send Daisy away, and try and stop it?” cried Mrs Glaire, angrily.
“No, I won’t do neither,” said Joe, stoutly. “Why should I? What call is there for me to go again my master and make my lass miserable, because you think she ain’t good enough for your boy?”
“Then I must act, Joe Banks,” said Mrs Glaire, “for see her he shall not.”
“Theer, theer, what can you do?” chuckled Joe. “Better let things go their own way.”
“I tell you, man, that for your daughter’s sake, you ought to put a stop to this.”
“I can’t stop it,” said Joe, smiling; “nor no one else. You tried, and found you couldn’t, so what could I do? Let ’em alone, and my Daisy shan’t disgrace you; and look here, if it’s money, I’ve got a thousand pounds saved up, and it’s all hers. Theer!”
“Man, man, what can I say to you?” said Mrs Glaire, checkmated by the obstinate faith of Banks in her son.
“Nowt,” said Joe, sturdily; “what’s the good o’ talking? Take my advice, Missus Glaire – let things bide.”
Mrs Glaire wrung her hands in despair as she gazed enviously in the frank, bluff workman’s face, and wished that she could feel the same calm trust in the boy who had been her sole thought for so many years, and as she gazed Joe Banks said sturdily:
“Look here, Missus, no offence meant; but they do say as marriages is made in heaven.”
“Yes, Joe, marriages,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, passionately.
“Well, I weer a-talking about marriages,” said Joe, quietly; “so you take my advice and let things bide.”
“You will not take my advice, Banks,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire. “But, look here, I have warned you, I have begged of you to help me, and you refuse.”
“O’ course I do,” said Joe Banks, sturdily. “I’m not going to fight again my own flesh and blood on a question o’ position. Look here,” he continued, now speaking angrily, “I never was jealous of my old master’s rise in life, and I stuck to him and helped him, and he made me promise to stick by and help his son; and that I’m going to do, for I don’t believe if he’d been alive he’d ha’ been owt but pleased to see his boy make up to my gal. It ain’t my seeking: it’s Master Dick’s. He loves she, and she loves he, and before I’ll step ’twixt ’em, and say as one workman’s son’s too big for the other workman’s daughter, I’ll be – . No, I won’t, not before you, Missus; and now good night, and I wish the strike well ended.”
Joe Banks swung out of the room with all the sturdy independence of a man with a thousand pounds of his own, and then made his way home, while Mrs Glaire sat as it were stunned.
“What can I do? What can I do?” she muttered; and then sat thinking till Eve, looking very pale and ill, walked softly into the room, and knelt by her side, turning up her sad face and red eyes to those of the troubled mother.
“Aunt, dear,” she whispered, “Dick has just come in, and gone up to his room. Shall we ask him to come down to us?”
“What for?” said Mrs Glaire sharply.
“Don’t you think, Aunt, we ought to try and forgive him, and win him back?”
Mrs Glaire rose slowly, and went to a side table, from which she took a Prayer-book, and read from it the sentence beginning, “I will arise,” to the end; and then, laying down the book, she took Eve’s head between her hands, and kissed her white forehead gently.
“Eve, my child, yes, we ought to try and forgive him; I, for his cruel deceit of the woman who gave him birth; you, for his outrage against the woman who was to be his wife. I will forgive him, but he must come – he must arise and come, and seek for pardon first. While you – ”
“Oh, Aunt, Aunt,” moaned Eve, hiding her face in the elder’s breast, “I never knew before how much I loved him.”
“And you forgive him, child?”
“Yes, Aunt, I forgive,” said Eve, raising her head, and looking sadly in the elder woman’s face, “I forgive him, but – ”
“But what, my child?”
“All that is past now – for ever.”
Mrs Glaire did not speak for a few moments, but stood holding her niece’s hand, looking straight away from her into vacancy, while from above there floated slowly down and entered the room the penetrating fumes of the cigar Dick was smoking in his bedroom, as with his heels upon the table, and a glass of spirits and water by his side, he amused himself by reading a French novel, growling every now and then as he came across some idiom or local phrase which he could not make out, and apparently quite oblivious of the fact that three women were making themselves wretched on his behalf.
Suddenly a low whistle was heard, and Mrs Glaire started.
“What was that?” she exclaimed.
Eve made no reply, but the two women remained listening, while it seemed to them that the sound had also been heard by Dick, who apparently crossed the room, and opened his window.
“He has gone to see what it means,” said Mrs Glaire in a whisper. “I hope the strike people are not out.”
Her head was running upon certain proceedings that had taken place many years before, during her husband’s lifetime, when they had literally been besieged; but her alarm was unnecessary, for had she been in her son’s bedroom, she would have seen that worthy open his window and utter a low cough, with the result that Sim Slee threw up a note attached to a stone, which the young man glanced at, and then said, “All right; no answer,” and Slee went quickly off.
Richard opened the note, glanced through it, and read passages half aloud.
“H’m, h’m. So sorry to leave you as I did. – Heart very sore. – Oughtn’t to meet like that any more. – Pray let her tell father. – They would soon agree if all known. – Will not come any more to be deceitful.”
“Won’t you, my dear?” said Dick, aloud. “We’ll see about that. I think I can turn you round my finger now, Miss Daisy. If not I’m very much mistaken. But we’ll see.”
He finished the note by twisting it up and using it to re-light his cigar, which he sat smoking, and listening as at last he heard his mother and Eve pass his room on their way to bed – the former for the first time in his life, without saying “Good night” to her son.
Volume Two – Chapter Four.
John Maine’s Headache
“Hallo, Johnny!”
“What, my lively boy.”
“Look at his velveteens.”
“And a silk hankercher too. Arn’t he tip top?”
“Arn’t you down glad to see your old mates again, Johnny?”
“Course he is; look at the tears in his eyes.”
“Hey, mun, why don’t you say you’re glad to see us?”
“And why don’t you speak?”
“Because,” said John Maine, speaking slowly, as he stopped leaning on his thick staff in the middle of the road, “I’m not glad to see you, and I don’t want to speak.”
He looked very stern and uncompromising this young man, half bailiff, half farm servant in appearance, as he stood there in the lane, about a mile from Joe Banks’s house, and facing the men who had kept up the conversational duet, for they were about as ill-looking a pair of scoundrels as a traveller was likely to meet in a day’s march.
The elder of the two carried a common whip, and wore a long garment, half jacket, half vest in appearance, inasmuch as it was backed and sleeved with greasy fustian, and faced with greasy scarlet and purple plush, hanging low over his tightly-fitting cord trousers, buttoned at the ankles over heavy boots, while his head was covered with a ragged fur cap.
The younger man, whose hair was very short, wore the ordinary smock-frock euphoniously termed a “cow-gown,” but as he was journeying, it was tucked up round his hips. This, with his soft wide-awake, and heavy unlaced boots, was bucolic enough, but there the rustic aspect ceased, for his face was sallow; he had a slovenly tied cotton handkerchief round his neck; and as he smoked a dirty, short clay pipe, he had more the aspect of a Whitechapel or Sheffield rough than the ordinary farming man of the country.
Taking them together, they seemed to be men who could manage a piece of horse-stealing, poach, rob a hen-roost, or pay a visit night or day to any unprotected house; and if “gaol” was not stamped legibly on each face, it was because nature could not write it any plainer than she had.
“He’s gotten high in the instep, Ike,” said the last man; “and what’s he got to be proud on?”
“Ah, to be sure, what’s he got to be proud on?” chuckled the other. “He wasn’t always a stuck up one, was he?”
“I say, Johnny,” said the first speaker, “keep that dog o’ yourn away wilt ta, or I might give him something as wouldn’t do him no good.”
“Here, Top, down dog!” said the young man, and a rough-looking dog which had been snuffing round the two strangers showed his teeth a little and then lay down in the dusty road. “I don’t want,” continued the young man, “to be rough on men I used to know.”
“Rough, lad; no, I should think not,” said Ike, of the whip; and he gave it a lash, cutting off the heads of some nettles. “I knew he was all raight, Jem.”
“I said,” continued the young man, “that I didn’t want to be surly to men as I used to know, and if you want a shilling or two to help you on the road, here they are. As for me, I’ve dropped all your work, and taken to getting an honest living.”
“Oh, ho, ho!” laughed Ike, of the whip, giving it another flick, and making the dog jump. “Dost ta hear that, Jem?”
“Ay, lad, I hear him,” said Jem, of the smock-frock, hugging himself as if afraid to lose what he considered particularly good; “I’m hearing of him. But come along, John; we won’t be hard on such a honest old boy. Show us the way to the dram-shop, or the nearest public, and we’ll talk old times over a gill or two o’ yale.”
“You are going one way. I’m going the other,” said John Maine, uneasily, for just then Tom Podmore passed him, with big Harry, both of whom stared hard, nodded to him, and went on.
“Just hark at him, Ike,” said Jem. “He’s a strange nice un, he is. Why, I’m so glad to see him that if he goes off that-a-way I shall stop in Dumford and ask all about him, and where he lives and what he’s a doing.”
John Maine turned cold, while the perspiration stood upon his forehead, for just then Sim Slee came along in the other direction, eyed the party all over, and evidently took mental notes of what he saw.
“What is it you want of me?” said the young man, hoarsely.
“Want, lad?” said Ike; “we don’t want nowt of him, do we, Jem? We’re only so glad to see an old mate again, that we don’t know hardly how to bear it.”
“That’s it, Ike,” said Jem. “And don’t you think as he’s stuck up, mind you. See how glad he is to see his owd mates again. Say, Johnny, ‘It’s my delight of a shiny night,’ eh?”
“Hush!” exclaimed John Maine, starting.
“All right,” said Jem. “Got a pipe o’ ’bacco ’bout you?”
John Maine took a tobacco-pouch from his pocket, and held it out to the speaker, who refilled his dirty pipe, looked the pouch all over, and then transferred it to his pocket.
“Look here, Ike,” said the fellow then, “we won’t keep Johnny any longer. He’s off out courting – going to see his lass. Don’t you see the bood in his button-hole. He’ll see us again when he comes to look us up, for we shall pitch down in one of the pooblics.”
“Raight you are, lad; he’ll find us out. Do anything now, Johnny? Ought to be a few hares and fezzans about here. Good-bye, Johnny, lad; give my love to her.”
The two men went off laughing and talking, leaving John Maine gazing after them, till they disappeared round a bend of the lane on the way to Dumford, when brushing the perspiration from his face with one hand, he staggered away, kicking up the dust at every step till he reached a stile, upon which he sank down as if the elasticity had been taken out of his muscles. His head went down upon his hands, his elbows upon his knees, and there he remained motionless, with the dog sitting down and watching him intently, after trying by pawing and whining to gain his master’s attention.
Neither John Maine nor his ill-looking companions had gone far, before a head and shoulders were raised slowly up over the hedge, so that their owner could peer over and look up and down the lane. The countenance revealed was that of Thomas Brough, the keeper, who had evidently been sitting on the other side, partaking of his rural lunch, or dinner; for as he parted the green growth, to get a better view, it was with a big clasp knife, while his other hand held a lump of bread, ornamented with bacon.
He spoke the next moment with his mouth full, but his words were quite audible as he said —
“I thowt that thar dog would ha’ smelt the rat, but a didn’t. So I hadn’t got you now, Jack Maine, hadn’t I? I’m a rogue, am I, Jack? I sold the Squire’s rabbuds, did I? and pocketted t’ money, did I? Wires, eh? Fezzans and hares, eh? Now, what’ll old Bultitude and Miss Jess say to this? I’ll just find out what’s your little game.”
He strode hastily off, parting the hazels, and making a short cut across the copse, while John Maine sat on the stile thinking.
What was he to do – what was he to do? Were all his struggles to be an honest man to be in vain? Yes, he had joined parties in poaching, down about Nottingham, but he had left it all in disgust, and for years he had been trying to be, and had been, an honest man. He had lived here at Dumford four years – had saved money – was respected and trusted – he was old Bultitude’s head man; and now these two scoundrels – men who knew of his old life – had found him out, they would expose him, and he should have to go off right away to begin the world afresh.
“I’ve tried enew; I’ve tried very hard,” he groaned. “I left all that as soon as I saw to what it tended, and knew better; and now, after all this struggle, here is the end.”
What was the use? he asked himself; why had he tried? What were honesty and respectability, and respect to such as he, that he should have fought for them so hard, knowing that, sooner or later, it must come to this?
What should he do? The words kept repeating themselves in his brain, and he asked himself again, What?
Suppose he told them all at the farm – laid bare the whole of his early life, how he had found himself as a boy thrown amongst poachers. It had been no fault of his, for he had hated it – loathed it all. Suppose he told Mr Bultitude – what then?
Yes, what then? Old Bultitude would say – “We’re all very sorry for you here, but if it got about that I’d kept a regular poacher on my farm, what would the squire say? And what about my lease?” And Tom Brough! Good heavens, if Tom Brough should learn it all!
It was of no use; that man would blast his character gladly, and the end of it all was that he must go!
Yes, but where? Where should he go? Somewhere to work for awhile, and get on, and then live a life of wretchedness, expecting to see some old associate turn up and blast his prospects. No; there was no hope for such as he! All he could do was to join some regiment at Lincoln or Sheffield, enlist – get on foreign service, and be a soldier. A man did not want a character to become a good soldier.
And about Jessie?
His head went lower, and he groaned aloud as this thought flashed across his mind, for his load seemed more than he could bear.
“Anything the matter, John Maine?”
The young man leaped up to find himself face to face with Mr Selwood, whose steps had been inaudible in the dusty road, and John Maine’s thoughts had been too much taken up for him to notice the whine of recognition by the dog, who had leaped up and ran forward to welcome the vicar.
“Bit of a headache, sir, bad headache – this heat, sir,” stammered the young man.
“Liver out of order – liver – not a doubt about it,” said the vicar. “What a strange thing it is nature couldn’t make a man without a liver and save him all his sufferings from bile. Come along with me to the Vicarage. I’m getting in order there now, and I’ll doctor you, and go and tell Mr Purley myself that I’ve been poaching on his preserves. Why, what’s the matter, man?”
John Maine had started as if stung at certain of his latter words.
“Bit giddy, sir; strange and bad now it’s come on,” he stammered.
“That’s right; you’re better now. Sitting with your head down. I’ll doctor you – no secrets: tincture of rhubarb, citrate of magnesia, and a little brandy. I’ll soon set you right. You mustn’t be ill. This is cricket night, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir; but they haven’t played since the strike.”
“Perhaps they will to-night, and I shall come to the field. Well, come along.”
“But really, sir – I – that is – ”
“Now look here, John Maine, I’m the spiritual head of the parish, and you must obey me. I can’t help being a man of only your own age – I shall get the better of that. Now if I had been some silver-headed old gentleman, you would have come without a word; so come along. I’ll go back. You are decidedly ill – there’s no mistake about it.”
To John Maine’s great surprise, the vicar took his arm, and half led him back towards Dumford, chattering pleasantly the while.
“I met Mr Simeon Slee as I came along, and he cut me dead. He’s a very nice man in his way, but I’m afraid he works so hard with his tongue, it takes all the strength out of his arms.”
“He’s strange and fond o’ talking, sir,” said John Maine.
“Yes; but words are only words after all, and if they are light and chaffy, they don’t grow like good grain. Bad thing this strike in the town, Maine. Lasted a month now.”
“Very bad, sir.”
“Ah, yes. You agricultural gentlemen don’t indulge in those luxuries, and I’m glad to see that the farm people are very sober.”
“Yes, sir, ’cept at the stattice and the fair.”
“Stattice?” said the vicar, inquiringly.
“Yes, sir, status – statute-hiring, you know, when the servants leave. They call it ‘pag-rag’ day here.”
“Ha, do they?” said the vicar; “well, I suppose I shall learn all in time. What may ‘pag-rag’ mean?”
“They call it so here, sir,” said the young man, smiling. “They say a man pags a sack on his back, and I suppose it means they carry off their clothes then.”
“I see,” said the vicar; “and you have some strange characters about at such times? By the way, I saw a nice respectable couple turn in at the Bull and Cucumber, as I came by. They’d got poacher stamped on their faces plainly. – Head bad?”
“Sudden stab, sir, that’s all,” said John Maine, holding his hands to his head and shuddering.
“Ah, you must go back and lie down as soon as I have done with you, or else I must find you a sofa for an hour. We’ll see how you are. Perhaps we’ll walk home together.”
“No, no, sir, I shall be all right directly. Don’t do that, sir. Mr Bultitude – ”
“Mr Bultitude has too much respect for you, John Maine, to let you go about in a state of suffering; so just hold your tongue, sir, for you’re my patient.”
A few minutes after he laid his hand on the gate, with the effect of making Jacky Budd start up from his seat on the bottom of a large flower-pot, and begin vigorously hoeing at some vegetables in the now trim garden.
The vicar saw him and laughed to himself, as he led the way up to the door, glancing up the street as he did so, and seeing, with a feeling of uneasiness, that there were knots of men standing about in conversation, as if discussing some important subject.
The door stood wide open, as if inviting entrance, and flowers were now blooming in profusion on every side, for what with the rough work of Tom Podmore and Big Harry, supplemented by the efforts of Jacky Budd and the parson himself, the garden was what the sexton called a “pictur.”
“Come in here, Maine,” said the vicar, opening the door of his study; and the young man followed, peering round as he did so, for this was his first visit to the vicar’s dwelling, and the result of a month’s residence was shown in the change that had come over the place.
But at the end of the first fortnight, one of Mr Bultitude’s waggons had been run down to the station three times to fetch “parson’s traps,” and “parson’s traps” were visible on all sides, the Reverend Murray Selwood being, to use his own words, “rather cursed with wealth.”
