The Parson O' Dumford

How Joe was going to dispose of a round of toast after the meal he had already devoured was a problem; but Daisy darted a grateful look at him, made the toast – which was not eaten – and then, after the things were cleared away, read for an hour to her father, straight up and down the columns of the week-old county paper, till it was time for bed, without a single interruption.

But Mrs Banks made up for it when they went to bed, and the last words Joe heard before going to sleep were —

“Well, Joe, I wash my hands of the affair. It’s your doing, and she’s your own bairn.”

And Joe Banks went to sleep, and dreamed of seeing himself in a new suit of clothes, throwing an old shoe after Daisy as she was being carried off by Richard Glaire in a carriage drawn by four grey horses, the excitement being such that he awoke himself in the act of crying “Hooray!” while poor Daisy was kneeling by her bedside, sobbing as though she would break her heart.

Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.

Sim Slee Sees Another Opening

“Here, just hap me up a bit,” said Sim Slee to his wife, as he lay down on a rough kind of couch in their little keeping-room, as the half sitting-room, half kitchen was called; and in obedience to the command, Mrs Slee happed him up – in other words, threw a patchwork counterpane over her lord.

“If you’d come home at reasonable times and tak’ thee rest you wouldn’t be wantin’ to sleep in the middle o’ the day,” said Mrs Slee, roughly.

“Ah, a deal you know about things,” grumbled Sim. “You’d see me starved with cold before you’d stir, when I was busy half the night over the affairs of the town.”

“I’stead o’ your own,” grumbled Mrs Slee.

“Howd thee tongue, woman,” said Sim. “I’m not going to sleep, but to think over matters before I go and see Joe Banks this afternoon. I can think best lying down.”

Mrs Slee resumed her work, which was that of making a hearthrug of shreds of cloth, and soon after Sim was thinking deeply with his mouth open, and his breath coming and going with an unpleasant gurgle.

As soon as he was asleep, Mrs Slee began busily to prepare the humble dinner that was cooking, and spread the clean white table for her lord’s meal. A table-cloth was a luxury undreamed of, but on so white a table it did not seem necessary.

When all was ready, she went across the room and touched Sim, who opened his eyes and rose.

“That’s better,” he said. “I feel as tiff as a band now. Where’s the Rag Jack’s oil?”

Without a word, Mrs Slee went to a little cupboard and produced a dirty-looking bottle of the unpleasant-looking liquid, one which was looked upon in the district as an infallible cure for every kind of injury, from cuts and bruises down to chilblains, and the many ailments of the skin.

“How did you do that?” said Mrs Slee, sharply, as her husband held out a finger that was torn and evidently festering.

“Somebody was nation fast the other day, and pulled me off the foundry wall.”

“Where you’d got up to speak, eh?” said Mrs Slee.

“Where I’d got up to speak,” said Sim, holding his hand, while his wife dressed it with the balm composed by the celebrated Rag Jack, a dealer who went round from market to market, and then tied it up in a bit of clean linen.

“That’s better,” said Sim, taking his place at the table. “What is there to yeat?”

“There’d be nothing if it was left to you – but wind,” said his wife, sourly, as she took the lid off a boiler, hanging from the recking-hooks of the galley balk, and proceeded to take out some liquid with a tea-cup.

“But, then, it ain’t,” said Sim, smiling. “You see, I knew where to pick up a good missus.”

“Yes,” retorted his wife, “and then tried to pine her to dead for all you’d do to feed her. Will ta have a few broth?”

“Yes,” said Sim, taking the basin she offered him and sniffing at it. “Say, wife, you’ve been waring your money at a pretty rate.”

“I’ve wared no money ower that,” said Mrs Slee. “Thou mayst thank parson for it.”

“Yah!” growled Sim, dipping his spoon, and beginning angrily; “this mutton’s as tough as a bont whong.”

“There, do sup thee broth like a Christian, if thee canst!” exclaimed Mrs Slee. “Wilt ta have a tate?”

Sim held out his basin for the “tate” his wife was denuding of its jacket, and she dropped it into the broth.

“Say!” exclaimed Sim, poking at the potato with his spoon, “these taters are strange and sad.”

Mrs Slee did not make any reply, but went on peeling potatoes one by one, evidently in search of a floury one to suit her husband, who objected to those of a waxy or “sad” nature. But they were all alike, and he had to be content.

“I’ll have a few more broth,” said Sim, at the end of a short space of time, and before his wife had had an opportunity to partake of a mouthful; and this being ladled out for him and finished, Sim condescended to say “that them broth wasn’t bad.”

“Have you got any black beer?” he now asked.

Mrs Slee had – a little, and the bottle of black beer, otherwise spruce, being produced, Sim had a teaspoonful of the treacly fluid mixed in a mug of hot water with a little sugar; and then, leaving his wife to have her meal, he rose and went out.

A week had passed since the discovery of the loss of the bands, and though Sim had been dodging about and watching in all directions, he had never once hit upon Joe Banks alone, so he had at last made up his mind to go straight to his house, and, to use his own words, “beard the lion in his den.”

A good deal had taken place in the interval, and among other things, Richard Glaire, in opposition to the advice of his mother and Banks, had applied for a warrant against Tom Podmore, for destroying or stealing the bands; but as yet, from supineness or fear on the part of the local police, it had not been put in force.

For things did not look pleasant in Dumford; men were always standing about in knots or lounging at the doors of their houses, looking loweringly at people who passed. There had been no violence, and, in a prosperous little community, a week or two out of work had little effect upon a people of naturally saving habits and considerable industry; but those who were wise in such matters said that mischief was brewing, and it was reported that meetings were held nightly at the Bull and Cucumber – meetings of great mystery, where oaths were taken, and where the doors were closed and said to be guarded by men with drawn swords.

“Hallo, Sim Slee, off preaching somewhere?” said a very stout man, pulling up his horse as he overtook Sim on his way to the foreman’s house. He was indeed a very stout man, so stout that he completely filled the gig from side to side, making its springs collapse, and forming a heavy load for his well-fed horse.

“No, I ain’t going preaching nowheer, Mester Purley,” said Sim, sulkily, as he looked up sidewise in the speaker’s merry face.

“I thought you were off perhaps to a camp meeting, or something, Sim, and as I’m going out as far as Roby, I was going to offer you a lift along the road.”

There was a twinkle in the stout man’s eyes as he spoke, and he evidently enjoyed the joke.

“No, you warn’t going to offer me a ride, doctor,” said Sim. “Do you think I don’t know?”

“Right, Sim Slee, right,” said the doctor, chuckling. “I never gave a man a lift on the road in my life, did I, Sim? Puzzle any one to sit by my side here, wouldn’t it?”

“Strange tight fit for him if he did,” said Sim.

“So it would, Sim; so it would, Sim,” laughed the doctor. “I’ve asked a many though in my time; ha – ha – ha.”

“That you have, doctor,” said Sim, looking at the goodly proportions of the man by his side. For it was Mr – otherwise Dr – Purley’s one joke to ask everybody he overtook, or any of his convalescent patients, if they would have a lift in his gig. He had probably fired the joke as many times as he was days old; but it was always in use, and it never struck him that it might grow stale.

“What’s the matter with your hand, Sim?” said the doctor, touching the bound-up member with his whip.

“Bit hurt – fell off a wall,” said Sim, thrusting it in his breast.

“And you have been poisoning it with Rag Jack oil, eh? I’ll be bound you have, and when it’s down bad you’ll come to me to cure it. Say, Sim, some of your fellows knocked the young master about pretty well – he’s rare and bruised.”

“I wish ivery bit of gruzzle in his body was bruzz,” said Sim, fiercely.