Chapter III: Part 3

Miss Hearn had been shocked to see that the children looked less neat than formerly, and were more rarely sent to school, and shook her curls quite viciously when she declared that she should turn the woman out after all if she didn’t pay her rent next quarter; and Miss Hearn would have been more bitter than ever if she had heard the whisper that ran round to the effect that poor Lucy had been known to take her drop of comfort at times when she was most low. But the kindlier neighbours kept her secret and tried to screen her. Only they shook their heads too when the scarlet fever appeared in the village, and Tom and ’Lizabeth took it, and the doctor upbraided the mother for carelessness, and perhaps they might have been more down upon her still, but that the boy died, and the mother collapsed entirely, so that there was nothing for it but to help with the other children and nurse the woman—because there was no one else to do it.

Thanks to these good folk and the handy and patient little elder daughter, Lucy was creeping slowly back to life again, but it was helplessly and unwillingly, and the doctor’s old housekeeper was trying to put a little spirit into her this pleasant autumn day.

“Why, it’s a real treat to see ye out again, my dear,” she was saying cheerily. “And ye look nicely; don’t she, Sue?” she called to the little girl who was tidying up busily within.

The child came to the door to shake a duster; her plump, rosy checks were thinner and sallower than of yore, and her round, brown eyes less bright.

“Yes,” she said, speaking cheerfully, but looking across rather doubtfully at the invalid; “mother do look a bit spryer.”

“Why, ye’d be about agin in no time if ye’d but use a little h’effort yerself,” declared the old woman. “Doctor says so, and I’m sure ’e’d ought to know, seein’ as ’e brought ye through them h’awful times ye used to ’ave afore yer ’usbin’ was took.”

Lucy’s white face flushed as with anger.

“I didn’t ’ave no sich h’awful times as I’ve ’ad since!” she whined. “There was summit to get better for then.”

The child bit her lip and went indoors. There was silence for a moment while one could hear her clattering the irons down to the fire ready for the bit of laundry-work she was trying hard to keep pace with against the time mother should be fit to take it up again.

“Ye didn’t ought to talk so, Mrs. Wood,” said the woman. “What, ’aven’t ye got your childer?”

“What ye’ve got don’t giv ye back what ye ’aven’t got,” she said, in the same peevish tone.

“But ye ought to think o’ yer duty,” said the other.

Lucy flushed again.

“Oh, I’ve done my duty ’s well as most,” she said. “I don’t feel no call to be ’shamed. As for the gals, Sue be fit for service now, and I’ve ’eard of a place for ’er down town, and my sister ’ave promised to ’ave ’Lizabeth out to the ’Arbour till she be old enough to do for ’erself.”

“Ain’t ye afraid o’ lettin’ a gal grow up at the ’Arbour?” said the woman. “Don’t ye know what most o’ them comes to? And they do say....”

“What do they say?” cried Lucy fiercely.

“Lor’ a mercy,” said the woman, “ye didn’t ought to catch a body up so sharp. I was only a-goin’ to say as they do say the air down by them mud-banks ain’t ’ealthy for growin’ childer.”

“Oh, was that all?” said the widow, turning her face away.

The woman beside her shook her head, and lifted her eyes as much as to say that this was altogether past her comprehension; then, presently, as though to start a new subject of conversation, she said, cheerfully:

“’Ave ye ’eard as that Jim Casey ’ave got two years this time? ’E did ought to ha’ got it long ago, but....”

She stopped suddenly, for Sue had come up behind her and was tugging at her dress and making signs to her behind the mother’s back.

At first the old woman only gaped at the child, but slowly she seemed to grasp the situation, and nodding and winking at her knowingly, finished up lamely enough with: “but there, never mind, it don’t signify.”

The sick woman turned round and saw the child.

“Ye don’t need to worry, Sue,” said she, in just the same spiritless tone as before. “I don’t take no ’eed o’ Jim Casey now. There was a time I’d ha’ been pleased to be even with ’im for a-leadin’ astray of yer pore father but, Lor’, ’tain’t no use now. I thought I was pleased ’e’d come to grief that night ’e done ’is worst, but, Lor’, it didn’t bring me my man back, and I don’t know now as it ’d ’elp me if Jim Casey was to swing.”

“Lor’ a mercy!” ejaculated the old woman again.

And Sue wiped away a tear with the corner of her little apron; but the mother did not heed.

“Come, there, now,” said the housekeeper, presently, “if ’ere don’t come post-mistress to cheer ye up a bit! She told me she should step up this arternoon to see ye ’bout the family’s washin’ up at the ’Ill. Old Widow Collins died last week, ye know, and she thinks she can git it for ye, may be.”

“I don’t want none o’ Miss ’Earn’s favours,” snapped Lucy. “She wouldn’t gi’ me the job when I wanted it—she can keep it now.”

“Well, I’m sure,” sighed the other. “Ye didn’t ought to be so ungrateful, ye didn’t. Anyways, ye’ll ’ave to tell her so yerself, for I’m sure I won’t.”

“Oh, I’ll tell ’er,” said Lucy.

And the old woman stood aside in the doorway as the post-mistress—the pink of respectability in rusty black—came slowly up the steps.

“Pleased to see ye yerself again,” said she, in tones that were meant to be kind.

“Thank you,” replied Lucy curtly. “I’m not sure as I know what that is.”

Miss Hearn stared. She was forced to suppose that illness had affected Mrs. Wood’s brain, for a mere laundress could never dare be impertinent to _her_!

“Well, anyways on the road to work again,” said she conciliatingly. “And I’ve brought ye a nice job,” she went on, with a patronizing shake of her greasy black ringlets. "Pore old Mrs. Collins ’ave gone at last"—this with a pious closing of the lids over the little black eyes—“so I’ve asted the missus at the ‘’Ill ’ouse’ to take ye on i’stead.”

“Thank ye; I ain’t fit for no more work yet,” said the widow ungraciously.

“Nonsense!” declared the post-mistress authoritatively. “Ye’re in a good way to be better nor ever ye’ve been in yer life, ain’t she, ma’am?” turning to the old housekeeper, who still stood aside.

“The master do say she ’ave pulled through wonderful,” allowed the person addressed.

“I ain’t never goin’ to be the same no more,” declared Lucy obstinately, setting her lips tightly, and drawing her skinny little body together with her own petulant movement.

“Ye ’aven’t got no business to talk so,” persisted the post-mistress sharply. “Ye can be what you choose.”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to be no different, then,” repeated Lucy doggedly. “And I won’t take in no more work, thank ye.”

She tried to rise, but Miss Hearn held her with a mighty eye.

“Woman, do you know as you’re settin’ up yer ’orn against the Lord God A’mighty?” said she solemnly. “And do you know as you’ll be punished h’awful?”

“I been punished a’ready,” said Lucy.

“And if ye don’t do as ye ought by them as ye’ve brought into this sinful vale, ye’ll be punished worse,” decreed Miss Hearn.

“Them above ’as done their worst by me,” said Lucy, with a wan smile. “I don’t h’expec’ no more from them, and they don’t need to h’expec’ no more from me.”

Miss Hearn lifted her hands to heaven in silent horror.

“There, now, ye know ye care for the childer,” said the old housekeeper, from the doorway.

At the kind tones the tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes.

“There be enough for them,” she said.

“Not if ye pay yer way as ye should do,” said the post-mistress sententiously. “Folk ’as been kind cos o’ yer misfortune, but ’tain’t in reason they should keep it up. I’ve ’eard tell as ye ’an’t so much as paid for the smart funeral ye thought fit to ’ave a year ago.”

A spark of anger flew to Lucy’s weary eyes.

“Then it’s a lie!” she cried. “If I’d owed for the bread I put into the children’s mouths, I’d ha’ paid for that! And I don’t see what business it is o’ nobody’s neither if I chose to spend my money so as my own ’usbin’ should be nailed down in a coffin better nor some.”

She ended in a whimper, and sat shaking, the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. But the post-mistress had no mercy. She was incensed at being thus set at naught, and put no guard on her tongue.

“Ye’ll ’ave them children on the parish,” she said, “and a disgrace to ye it’ll be! Ye ’ad wits enough and spunk enough so long as ’e was to do for! Didn’t ye wrong ’em enough whiles ’e was livin’ but what ye must wrong ’em worse now the Lord ’ave mercifully delivered ye from ’im? I’m ashamed of ye, Lucy Wood! And all for the sake o’ a drunken blackguard as couldn’t so much as keep ’isself to ye!”

Lucy had said she would never be the woman she was; but in a moment all her old energy returned to her.

“What d’ye mean?” she said.

“Well, if ye don’t know ye’d p’ra’ps best should,” said the post-mistress, half ashamed yet determined to have her say. “I mean as yer man....”

But she stepped aside hurriedly, for Lucy had risen tottering to her feet, and stood pointing to the road.

“Get out o’ ’ere!” interrupted she fiercely, her whole little body trembling with rage. “I know well enough what ye mean! But if ye dare so much as breathe a word agin my man in my ’ouse, I’ll knock ye down them stairs.”

All Miss Hearn’s elderly blood flew in a purple flood to her face.

“Hush, for mercy’s sake, ye don’t know what ye’re sayin’,” cried the old housekeeper in a frightened whisper.

“Yes, I do,” she said, quietly now. "Sue"—seeing the child standing in the doorway with a white and terrified face—“Sue, don’t be frightened, but come ’ere. We ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave father made light of, be we? Miss ’Earn says I ought sooner to ha’ schooled you and ’Lizbeth than ’ave bought yer father a decent coffin. But ye ain’t o’ that mind, I know!”

The child had come out on to the little terrace.

“No, mother,” said she valiantly, though in a low voice.

Lucy drew the girl to her and put her arm round her waist.

“We’ll stand up agin’ ’em when they take to makin’ light o’ yer father, anyways,” panted she, as she watched Miss Hearn pound down the stairs, muttering as she went. “And I’d take it very kindly o’ you if you’d see as the neighbours ’ears o’ this and understands my meanin’,” she added faintly, turning to the other old woman as she sank exhausted back into her chair.

“Yes, yes, don’t you worry now,” said the latter, sorely perplexed and scared as she tried to soothe her. “They’ll ’ear it all fast enough.”

“Sue be a good girl,” added the mother, patting the child feebly. “I ain’t long for this world, but so long as I’m ’ere they sha’n’t speak ill o’ my Jerry when I’m by, and Sue’ll stand by me in that.”

“Nobody won’t do it agin,” said the old woman. And then to the girl in an undertone: “Get ’er to bed, dear. I’ll run and tell the doctor. I’m afeard she might ha’ done ’erself a mischief.”

And she too stumped down the broken steps.

“I know I ’aven’t done the best for you and the little ’uns since father went,” whimpered the mother. “But father were allers fust, and I never couldn’t do nothin’ when ’e weren’t by. Ye’ll forgive me for it, Sue, and p’r’aps God will too.”

The child did not answer for a moment. Then she said simply:

“O’ course father were allers fust.”

And wearily the mother repeated:

“Yes, father were allers fust.”

HIS LITTLE MAID

HIS LITTLE MAID

The waning of the hot midsummer day spread its mellow sunlight and its long shadows across the marsh-land beside the sea. The haymakers had been busy since daybreak; men, women and children labouring through the hot hours, when the whole level was one scarcely varied monotony of golden haze on soft-green meadows and pastures that grew yellower as they neared the yellow beach; when the sun caked the pale brown earth in the furrows between the crops and drew faint odours from the rush-grown banks of the dykes where the moor-hen hid and the yellow iris bloomed; when the blue waves sparkled, and the shots and shades of the shallows purpled beneath the sun shining on the sea, and brought the only sense of freshness that came to the sun-steeped plain.

But now slender amethyst clouds barred the horizon and shed parallel shadows where the sky and sea melted together; the long line of white foreland to left grew clearer beneath the slanting rays; the sun was near to setting and the labourers were near to their rest.

Tom Wycombe stood beside the last waggon upon which he had just helped to hoist the last load of hay.

It was not his own land, though he had his bit up on the hill behind the old gateway of the ancient town. But he had given his day’s work to a farmer, as many another neighbour had done likewise.

He was a man somewhere near fifty on its wrong side, square and fair and rough-visaged, but the neighbours said kind of heart though sparing of speech.

But then he was a widower, and it was said he had never been the same man since he had become so, saving all his words and all his gentleness for his little mite of a motherless daughter—all the kin that he had.

As he stood now, wiping his brow with his hand, he glanced about him as though seeking something, and a woman guessing his mind, answered the unasked question,

“She be down by the river,” she said, “with farmer Daring’s lad.”

The man looked uneasy.

“Ain’t no one looking after ’em?” asked he.

The woman smiled.

“Ye be over timid about that child, Mr. Wycombe,” she said. “Ye cosset ’er more than her mother would ha’ done. And ye didn’t ought to, ye know. You’ll make ’er that tender and fearsome, she won’t be fit to stand up to the world.”

The man did not reply; he turned away to give a last hoist to the hay as the waggon moved off. He was used to these remarks from kindly busy-bodies, and he never paid more than scant attention to them, but went his own way as he listed.

“’E be downright silly over ’er, that’s what ’e be,” declared the woman confidentially to a girl who had been working beside her.

“Be ’e ’er dad?” asked the girl, who was a stranger in the parish.

The woman laughed.

“What makes ye ask that?” said she.

“Well,” said the girl, “’e looks old to be ’er dad. I thought ’e might be ’er gran-dad.”

“Oh, I see,” said the woman. “No, he ain’t ’er gran-dad.”

“Married a bit on in life p’r’aps,” said the other, tying the strings of her sun-bonnet and speaking without any particular interest.

“That’s it,” assented the woman, “and more fool ’e. ’E _would_ ’ave a young wife, and a pretty ’un too—and ’e turned forty.”

“Well, small blame to ’im there,” laughed the girl. “And so long as she were pleased....”

“She!” sneered the woman. “Why ’e was rich, and he married nothin’ but a shrimper’s darter down at the Harbour! ’Er face was ’er fortune if ever one was, for she ’adn’t a brass farthing beside.”

They had gathered their rakes and forks together, and were making their way across a little dyke into the road that wound across the marsh-land to the village on the hill.

“Then the little ’un be like her mother,” said the younger woman. “She don’t favour ’er father any way.”

“She be more like ’er mother than she be like Tom Wycombe, sartin sure,” laughed the woman. “But that ain’t saying much. ’Er mother were darker in the skin nor she be.”

“But they say she were rare ’andsome,” said the girl. “And now she’s dead and buried, and ’im alone!”

“Yes, died in childbed, and ’im alone this four years and more to mind that child. That’s what comes o’ marryin’,” said the woman, who was a spinster.

“Pore soul!” murmured the girl feelingly, thinking of her own pretty face and the pretty face that was underground. And added with keener interest: “But ’e doated on er, o’ course.”

“Doated on ’er? I b’lieve ye,” sniggered the elder. “’E was a fool over ’er, and she knew it.”

“That’s why ’e be so soft on the little ’un, you bet,” declared the girl wisely.

“That’s as may be,” said the woman. “’E’s mothered and fathered ’er ever since she was born, at any rate. And _that_ set on his own way with ’er too, ye wouldn’t believe! Won’t never take no advice from nobody. And she’ll get the top ’and of ’im—same as ’er mother did! See if she don’t! ’E be a downright ninny over ’er.”

The man strode past as she spoke, and Mrs. Goodenough gave a start.

“Eavesdroppers don’t never ’ear no good o’ themselves,” remarked she sententiously.

But Tom Wycombe had heeded neither the first nor the last remark.

His work was done and he was hastening to his child; he neither cared for nor noticed any one else.

The sun, when it set, shed just as warm a glow over his heart as it did over the marsh-land, though he did not put two and two together about it. From the village on the hill, the flaming sky that reddened behind the solemn buttresses of the ancient church, sent soft and palpitating reflections over the quiet land that lay stretched below; and the tender radiance reached to his patient spirit also. For he too had waited through the hot hours for this blessed eventide that lay so calm and peaceful a touch upon the seething earth, and the red in the west was the signal for his rest and for his reward.

He hastened towards the one thing in the world that he loved—glad, eager, and a little anxious as he always was when his little maid was, even a stone’s throw, away from him.

And as he drew near to the river-bank where he had been told that she was playing, his vague uneasiness began to take a sort of shape. For there was a little knot of children gathered there—and they were not noisily fighting or playing—but standing huddled together gazing into the water, and two of them, who were girls, were crying, and one, who was a boy, was stripping off his little jacket.

Wycombe dashed forward—throwing his harvesting tools on the ground as he ran, and pulling off his coat.

The children parted as they saw him, speechless with terror; their silence told him the truth, but he needed no telling—he had known it was his Daisy who was in the water.

“Where?” was all he said, breathless.

“There, under the bridge,” cried a lad, pointing.

It was an awkward spot; he plunged and dived once, without success. But the second time the little petticoats bubbled up before his eyes: he seized them and scrambled up the bank with her, a little, inert mass under his arm.

Mrs. Goodenough and the girl who was a stranger, had come running up, and other neighbours followed.

“’Ot blankets and ’ot water to ’er feet,” said one; “and a drop o’ spirit in ’er inside be the thing,” suggested another; and a third, more practical, ran up the steep bank towards the village, saying she would fetch the doctor and get things ready in the cottage agin’ Mr. Wycombe carried her up.

He had thrown himself upon the little body, breathing into it with all his might, though with little knowledge of how to effect restoration.

But luckily the little one had been in the water but a moment, and she was strong and lusty. In a few minutes she began to stir, then to open her eyes, and then to cry, and at that the man seized her in his arms and pressed her to his warm heart, and, waving the curious and sympathizing little crowd aside, leapt to his feet and strode up the hill with her on his neck.

It was late. The afterglow had died away, leaving no more than a warm memory in the softer blue of the night sky, and a subtle sense of colour that had been, in the fast darkening marsh-land where faint vapours and floating mists were rising upon the dykes.

The doctor had been and gone, the neighbours had been cleared out ruthlessly, and Tom Wycombe sat content once more beside the calmly sleeping child. Her pretty rings of soft brown hair lay curling over the white pillow, or creeping against her rich little sunburnt face, where even now the fresh red colour glowed so warm and healthfully. Ruddy lips were parted by a gentle breathing, and heavy lids with long lashes veiled eyes that even Tom Wycombe, who was no poet, could have told were blue in the waking as the blue sea beyond the green marsh-land.

Every one said that Daisy was the prettiest child in the village as her mother had been its handsomest woman, in her different style.

Well enough had Tom Wycombe been aware of this latter fact, and surprised enough, too, that Milly Moss had agreed to take him for a mate—older than she and plain as he was—when there were so many lads sighing around her. Twice he had asked and twice had been refused, but the third time she had consented, and he had asked himself no questions of why or wherefore, but had simply rejoiced in his luck. And she had been a good wife: a bit quiet—as, indeed, she had always been with him, even before marriage—but always dutiful, and he loved her as the working man is not always inspired to love his wife, and did all in his power to make up to her for the one disappointment of those happy years of wedded life—the disappointment of childlessness.

Then at last a little one had come to them, and with her coming the mother had died.

At first he had scarce wished for the sight of the child who had cost him his wife; but as that feeling slowly faded, it gave place to just as ardent a worship of the babe who was wife and daughter in one to him, and he adored her blindly as he had adored the mother, and lived for nothing else.

She stirred now, and he sprang to her side.

One dimpled brown arm was flung over the white coverlet and the other fat hand pushed the golden-brown curls off the forehead. Then those blue eyes—blue as speedwells in the spring hedges—opened wide, and when they lighted on him the red mouth smiled.

“Dad—I be too ’ot,” said she.

“’Ot,” echoed he, alarmed, feeling her brow as the most careful mother would have done. “May be ye’ve too many bed-clothes on. Ye see, ye was cold when we put ye to bed.”

And he pulled the padded quilt off her.

“Yes,” said she, “I know, ’cos I tummled into the river. It _was_ cold. ’Oo pulled me out, Dad?”

“Why, I did, o’ course,” replied the man jealously. “’Oo else should? But little girls mustn’t run away from their Daddies so far another time and get playin’ by nasty rivers.”

“Tain’t a nasty river,” said the child, “I like it. But I won’t go tummling in no more, Dad. ’Cos it frights ye, don’t it?”

“It do!” agreed the man fervently.

“And I might ha’ been drownded dead, I might,” added Daisy with impressiveness, though of course without any understanding of the words which she repeated merely as she had heard them from his lips when enjoining caution upon her. “And then what would my poor old Dad ha’ done, wivout ’is little maid?”

“Whativer would he?” repeated Wycombe with a shudder, realizing the terror in quite a different manner! And he sighed so deeply and looked so scared that she was frightened too.

“But I bain’t goin’ away now, be I, Dad?” asked she, sitting up in bed, uneasiness in the blue eyes.

Then he smiled, and folding her in his rough arms kissed her passionately.

“No, darlin’, please God ye won’t never go away from your old Dad—not so long as ’e be above ground,” added he, beneath his breath.

She flung her little arms round his neck and hugged him, and after a few minutes, still softly kissing her, he said: “And now Daisy must kneel up like a good girl and say ’er prayers ’cos she was too cold to say ’em when she went to bed, and she’s got to thank God for sparin’ of ’er to ’er old Dad.”

And the little creature turned round dutifully and knelt, in her coarse white night-dress, upon the little white bed, with her curly head dusky in the twilight and her innocent face—tuned to momentary seriousness—clear against the solemn blue of the night sky behind the window-pane, and thanked God, as she was bid, for sparing her to her dear Dad.

Then with a little laugh of satisfaction at a duty performed, and sleep weighing the long lashes down once more, she turned and let him tuck her up again in the cot, and nestled down as before into her pillow.

He watched her till she had dropped to sleep, and then he went out to smoke his evening pipe on the bench beside the garden door. And as he looked through the warm dusk across the warm plain to the sea, he kept repeating to himself the words: “Thank God for sparin’ ’er to ’er old Dad!” And his rugged, emotionless face was tender and solemn as he said them, and there were tears in his eyes, but he brushed them hurriedly away with his coat-sleeve as a knock sounded on the outer door. The cottage looked to the sea, and its pretty garden overhung the cliff above the wide marsh-land, but one door opened on to the road opposite the ancient Abbey Church, whence the quavering clock was even now striking its nine slow strokes. It was too late for a visitor, in all conscience, and Tom Wycombe saw no reason why he should say “Come in.” He did not say it, but the latch was lifted nevertheless, and Mrs. Goodenough stepped warily into the cottage.

“And ’ow be our pretty little pet now?” said she, stealing up to the cot in spite of the fact that Wycombe stood forbiddingly in front of it, trying to bar the way. “Why, she looks as sound as a bell and as sweet as clover,” added she, turning down the coverlet to peep at the child. “But ye didn’t ought to keep ’er so ’ot, Mr. Wycombe. ’Tain’t ’olesome for children.” And she drew off a blanket as she spoke.

A spasm of anger flew to the man’s heart.

“Thank ye,” said he shortly, replacing the covering, “but I’ll manage my own child my own way, if _you_ please. And I’ll thank you not to interfere.”

Mrs. Goodenough flushed.

“Oh, very well,” said she. “Then it weren’t no sort o’ good my turnin’ out at this time ’o night. I thought as you might need a woman to make that poultice as I ’eard the doctor order for ’er chest if she should cough.”

“No, thank ye,” said he in the same tone. “I can make a poultice as well as most. But Daisy ain’t coughed once, and she don’t fancy poultices.”

“Oh, and she ain’t never to ’ave nothin’ as she don’t fancy, o’ course!” sneered the woman. “Ye’d best bring ’er up a borned lady! She won’t never ’ave no cause to ’ide ’er ’ead and be thankful for what she can get—no, not she, I s’pose!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the man. “She’ll ’ave what I can give ’er so long as I be above ground. It’d be queer if she didn’t and she my only one.”

“Yes, but ye won’t be above ground for ever, Tom Wycombe. Ye be old—and she but a mite. And then what’ll she do? Folk may look askance at her then as don’t now, mind ye! A pretty piece o’ goods you’re a-makin’ of ’er to stand what she’ll ’ave to stand!”

“What’ll she ’ave to stand?” asked Wycombe, suspicious, though he knew not of what.

“Well, I’ve give ye warnin’s enough,” began the busybody evasively, drawing her shawl pettishly around her preparatory to departure; but the man interrupted her with a muttered oath.

“Yes, warnin’s enough and to spare, thank ye,” said he. “Daisy’s to my likin’, and I don’t care to ’oo’s else’s she be or no! She be my child, and I’ll bring ’er up as I please and be damned to them as don’t approve.”

Mrs. Goodenough flushed. She was wont to be thought an oracle upon all subjects connected with children, because she had, in her youth, been a nurse for a year or so; and she had vowed in the village that she would make Tom Wycombe hear reason about this brat.

She had vowed it, and instead of that, she was being sworn at for her pains; it was too much.

She flushed, and her anger bubbled.

“For shame on ye, then, Tom Wycombe, for a godless ungrateful wretch!” shrieked she. “Oh, ye’ve ’ad warnin’s enough, ’ave ye! Well, ye shall jist ’ave this one afore I’ve done wi’ ye! She be yer own child, be she? Just you make quite sure o’ that afore ye swear at yer old friends, a-worritin’ as to ’ow ye shall bring ’er up!”

Her anger had bubbled and boiled over; it would not go down all at once, though she was frightened at the effect of her words.

For Wycombe had turned not white but blue: his features twitched, his lips trembled, but no words came from them.

“If it weren’t as I ha’ knowed ye this twenty year, and closed yer pore mother’s eyes for ye fifteen year ago come Martinmas, and was with that pore wife o’ yours in ’er trouble, I’d ha’ spoke long ago, I would,” said the woman, as though trying to find good reason and excuse for her hastiness. “I allers said as ye did ought to know and you wastin’ yerself on that brat! And them’s my feelin’s.”

Tom Wycombe found his voice.

“Get o’ my ’ouse!” stammered he, in a low sort of growl like a dog about to spring.

“Well, I never!” retorted the woman, but she turned a bit pale.

“Get o’ my ’ouse,” panted the man again, “and don’t dare come to me with no more cowardly lies!”

At the word the flush flew back to her cheek.

“Lies!” shrieked she. “Ask the neighbours, ask the ’ole parish, ask the parson if it be a lie as this ’ere brat be Ben Forester’s!”

A shudder ran through him: she noticed it.

“But, Lord love ye,” she said with a brutal laugh, “_you_ know well enough ’tain’t no lies! A blind bat ye was, I know, and so terrible sot on that woman, ye was the very one to be made a ninny on. But the wind do blow, and when smoke flies in yer face ye be bound to wonder where the fire be! _You_ knowed they was old sweet’earts same as others did! Why didn’t ye see to it as they shouldn’t ’ave a chance to get so chummy? Pore soul, she weren’t all bad-like, p’r’aps! It were kind of agin ’er will. I was sorry for ’er, I was, when she took to pinin’ wus ’n ever as soon as ’e were gone to sea, and she in the family way! Why, the little un’ was born afore ’er time, if ye mind, the very night the _Mary Jane_ went down with all ’ands. And as like that pore lad as two peas, it were, when I first dressed it! Why, you won’t go for to say Daisy be like you, I reckon! Nor yet like ’er mother, seein’ as yer wife was black-eyed as a gipsy. But there be none so blind as them as won’t see!”

Mrs. Goodenough had moved towards the door as she finished this speech, her back half turned towards the man, who was standing by the fender. She laughed again as she spoke the last words, the flush of anger still on her cheek.

But it paled once more as she turned to him for a last thrust.

He had stooped and had taken up the poker that lay at his feet: his face was horrible to behold. Wycombe had the name of a kindly man in deed, though surly and chary of speech; everybody said he had spoiled his wife, and was gentle to every woman for her sake; but Mrs. Goodenough opened his door and fled from him that night.

Tom Wycombe heaved a deep sigh.

That awful peevish, maddening voice rambling on, like cinders dropping on a wound, had nearly driven him crazy. If she had not gone away he would have hunted her forth with blows. He had never beaten a woman in his life—he had never raised his hand on a man—but he knew that he must have fallen upon that woman now.

Slowly—for he was cold and stiff though it was a June night—he dragged himself to the door and locked and bolted it. Then he went to the recess in which stood the child’s cot, and drew the curtains in front of it—curtains which he had put up with his own hand to keep her tiny chamber sacred, and to shield her tender little head from the night draughts.

After he had done that, he let himself drop wearily into his old chair by the empty hearth, and sat gazing vacantly into the dead embers. He could not think—he was stunned; only he felt old for the first time—very old, older than his fifty odd years.

Without, the summer night had, for a short space, dropped the whole cloak of its darkness upon the wide plain. Unconsciously, he was glad of it: glad that the moon was hidden behind a deep bank of cloud that had overlapped the horizon and was gradually creeping up the sky: glad that, as he looked through the door, left open because of the heat, he could scarcely make out the cabbages and sweet-peas in his terrace garden: glad that the darkness covered him—that the earth could not see his misery.

He sat, stupid, almost senselessly stupid, not trying to realize his woe. But gradually the blood flowed back to his brain, and with it the power of thought came to him; the woman’s words, though he had scarcely been conscious of them all at the time, came dropping back into his recollection, and, with the remembrance of each careless thrust, the tide of his conviction slowly but surely gathered strength till it flooded his reason and rushed in at last and swamped his soul in terrible certainty.

He had told the woman to get out of his house, he had longed to kill her for what she had said—but it was not because he had not believed her.

Alas! if he had not believed her perhaps he could have done it! But from the first word that she had spoken an awful fore-knowledge that he should have to _come_ to believe her had been borne in upon him.

Yes, Ben Forester, the good-looking, easy-going, pleasant-spoken sailor-lad whom his wife had known all her life down at the Harbour, who had been away at sea when he had wooed her—but who had come back—who had come back!

But why, if she loved Ben, had she married him? The answer was easy enough. She had a brute of a drunken father, and neither kith nor kin beside. Her only chance of escape from a life of slavery, spiced with blows, was marriage, and—fancied as she had been by many—he was the only one who had offered her that. Ben was a rolling stone that gathered no moss, and he was sure enough Ben had never offered her marriage. Why, yes, she had told him the very day he asked her last, that his was the only offer she had had!

He could hear her now, aye, and see her too! There—down on the beach, on a warm October night with the after-glow, still a fire in the west, casting rosy reflections over the sea, and the harvest moon rising red behind the hill.

Why had he been so eager to get her that he had never noticed how listless she was—how gently anxious to withdraw from his kiss? He called it all to mind now.... If Ben had not been away at sea—even then ... but he would have hated him a little sooner, that is all, and he would not have had those five years.

It was no use hating him now, he was dead. And Milly was dead and could never tell the truth....

Never tell the truth? Why, she _had_ told it! In a flash there rose up before him the scene of her death-bed—the moment that he had thought till then was the bitterest that life could bring to him.

“Ye won’t ’ate ’er, Tom! Ye won’t never visit it on _’er_, come what may! Oh, do promise me that!” she had cried. “’Tain’t _’er_ fault, no ways, Tom!”

And he had promised, not knowing what he promised. She had been weak, delirious, he had thought, and he had supposed she had meant that he was not to hate the child for being the cause of the wife’s death.

He remembered to have said in his haste that he _should_ so hate the little one, little guessing how it might ... how it _might_ come true!

Yes, he remembered that he had said: “I couldn’t never forgive ’er, Milly, if ye was to die and leave me ’cos of ’er.”

And then she had said what she had said.

But of course he knew now what she had meant by her passionate prayer! And he had promised that which he could not perform!

The little one moved and moaned in her sleep. He started instinctively towards her, the long habit of five years compelling; then remembrance rushed upon him and choked him, and he sat down again, moaning himself. Ah, could it be that those idle words of his were going to come true under this different stress—that he was going to hate her—his little maid whom he had reared and nursed as a mother nurses her first-born? Had he indeed blindly promised that which he could not perform?

Remembrance rushed in upon him.

Now that the veil was lifted the past lay vivid and hard before him, as the familiar marsh-land would lie to-morrow morning, when the kindly night had lifted her cloak and the whole world would smile, bright and garish, with never a covered place, with never a secret, and different, different from yesterday!

It had been a good world on the whole till now, but now he was fain to say in his haste that it had never been good! For he remembered that Milly had never had any happiness in it save that which she had had apart from him; he remembered that her sunniest days had been those when the _Mary Jane_ was in port, and she had asked leave to walk down to the harbour to see her father; or when Ben Forester had come up to the village—never, as he recollected, consenting to come in to the cottage—but certainly, oh, most certainly wandering with _her_ along the quiet lanes, or upon the lonely downs while he was at work.

Why remember any more? Why torture himself with further proof? He was quite soundly enough convinced. He saw that he ought to have guessed it long ago. He scarcely even blamed them—they were dead. He blamed himself: himself for having so often asked her to have him; himself for not guessing; himself for having been a fool, and for having been _old_. Yes, there had been the mischief—he had been too old to understand, and it was hard he had not been too old to love.

His anger was slowly dying out, but with the fire of his wrath was dying also the fire of his life.

He felt very old.

Milly had been taken from him, but Daisy had been left, and she had made life new for him—she had made him young. But Milly had gone from him afresh to-day, and she had taken Daisy away with her. There was no one left to him, and he knew that he was too old ever to begin caring for anything again—ever to make another clutch at life in its fulness.

His appointed days he would have to run, and to that end he must needs work that he might eat; but the savour of work was gone, for the savour of life was gone—with his child.

He sat there beside the dead hearth and faced it all out, while the cool dawn crept slowly into the sky behind the downs, first putting out the stars in the blue-black heaven, then softly washing it with faintest grey, then slowly streaking it and flushing it with violet and with rose and with gold.

Rising out of the plain, a red-roofed town caught the first of the morning light, its buildings clustered thick on a steep hill crowned by an ancient church that was pinnacled upon its summit, its feet girdled by the pale purple mists of the marsh which the sun would soon pierce and disperse.

Many a time had he seen that crown take the earliest wave of the morning as though it were the first thing that the new day looked at, but he had never noticed it before as he noticed it now, remembering that it was in that very church he had wed his wife; in that same town he had been wont to take his little maid to buy her new shoes, or the stuff for her best frocks.

But the dawn was waxing into daybreak; the clouds had vanished with the night; the town was reddening, the marsh was yellowing, the river was pearling silver-white: the sun rose.

The world was bright and light as he had foreseen it: full of hope, full of work, full also of prying curiosity and eager, cruel cheerfulness.

The day was here, darker for him now than the night—and he knew that he must face it.

He went to the little recess behind which was the child’s cot and drew aside the curtains.

She was sleeping still, and there was a little flush on her cheek that would have troubled him at any other moment. But as he looked he saw her with fresh eyes—he saw the round face, the dimple in the chin, the clear skin, the golden-brown curly hair, and even the eyes that, when open, were as veronicas in the sunshine: the skin, the eyes, the hair, and the dimple of Ben Forester. Yes, he saw it all now in one complete picture. His wife had been oval-faced, ox-eyed, sallow-hued—and he—he was but a sandy nondescript. He saw it—and one last great wave of hate swept over his heart. In the little person of the child he saw Ben Forester before him, and the morning sky swam red in his sight.

Daisy awoke. Daddie had forgotten to draw the chintz curtain that shaded the little window opposite to her bed, and the first sunbeam shot straight at her eyes and lifted the curtains there and shone into the blue depths beneath.

She stirred, rubbing the eyes with her chubby fists, then she called out “Dad!”

She did not generally need to call at all, but this morning she called twice—then a third time, lustily; then she sat up in her cot and looked round, and seeing the room empty she began to cry.

Still Dad did not come to his little maid—to his little maid who had unconsciously learnt to think that to cry was the safe way to get everything she wanted.

The garden door stood open; the scent of the morning dew on the earth came stealing in with here and there a whiff from the sweet-pea hedge beyond the path; the sun was slanting across the threshold, and had almost reached her bed. She slipped down and ran to the door with her feet bare; she knew that she should get a scolding for that, but she was frightened, and she risked it.

What she saw when she got to the threshold did not stop her tears.

The June lilies were a-bloom against the grey wall at the garden’s edge; the wall was low and the lilies were higher—they stood white and tall against the green marsh and the blue sea in the distance.

In front of the lilies on the grass plot Daddie knelt on the ground with his head bowed down on the garden wall. She was too little to be definitely alarmed, but she was vaguely frightened, and she cried louder than ever.

Then as he did not immediately respond she gathered her little night-dress about her and trotted across the wet turf towards him.

“Daddie, Daddie!” cried she, shaking him, “I wants to get up; I wants my breakfast!”

A shiver ran through him; then slowly he pulled himself up by the wall and sat on it as though he were afraid to stand on his feet; he passed his hand across his face and through his hair: Daisy thought his face looked very funny.

She stopped crying, but fright was still in the blue eyes as she gazed at him with her finger in her mouth. Instinctively she felt that something was amiss.

“Has ’oo been to bed in the garden?” she asked in a puzzled way—“be ’oo very sleepy and cold like me was when me tummled into the river?”

He nodded his head.

“Be ’oo still frightened ’cos me tummled in? She won’t never go for to do it again. ’Cos whatever would ’oo do wivout me?” said she, trying to console. But he only groaned, and she was sore puzzled.

Then his eyes fell on her little night-dress and on her bare, brown feet, and automatically he said what he would have said on any other occasion:

“Ye didn’t ought to ha’ come out with no frock and no shoes and stockings on,” said he. “Run in directly, like a good girl.”

He spoke in a low, dull voice; but she was reassured at getting the expected scolding, and stopped the whimper that she was about to start upon afresh.

“Ain’t ye comin’?” said she. “I want my breakfast.”

“Well, run in and get dressed, and I’ll get it for ye,” said he.

She looked at him again, still a little puzzled that he did not kiss her, that he did not hasten to do all her bidding, but on the whole consoled, since things seemed to be resuming their ordinary routine of getting dressed and having breakfast.

So she took her finger out of her mouth and gathered up her night-dress again and ran back through the morning dew.

On the threshold she turned to see if he were coming; the sun shone on her golden head and into her blue eyes; her little robe gleamed white in it, but on her creamy cheeks was the flush of recent sleep: she was like the morning dew herself—and like the spring-time.

He gazed at her fascinated—but he gazed as one who looks through a heavy mist into a great distance; he gazed at her as though she were already only a memory.

Not an hour afterwards he was leading her out into the distance himself. No soul had been stirring in the village as the two had passed through the silent little street and under the old gateway, down the hill.

Alone and unnoticed they took their way across the wide marsh that glistened with the sunlight on the mists of the night; she was prattling gaily—the “long journey” on which he had told her they were going, was a great treat, and so was the wearing of her best blue frock on a week-day: but his face was heavy, and he did not look at her.

Daisy jumped along at his side; her saucy chatter which had called many a smile to the dull face where others rarely saw anything but gloom—woke never a ghost of one to-day.

But she was too much excited to notice that.

“Be we goin’ to buy a new frock?” she cried in high glee as they neared the town on the marsh. “It were a good job it were the old one as I messed when I tummled into the river, weren’t it, Dad? And it were a good job I weren’t drownded, weren’t it?” she added, loth to leave a subject which she felt invested her with an additional importance.

He groaned, but she was too much pre-occupied to hear it.

“We’ll ’ave a pink frock, this time, won’t we, Dad? ’cos it were such a good job I didn’t get drownded,” she insisted. “You said we wouldn’t ’ave blue again, and I want pink, so I will ’ave it, won’t I?” And she kept on repeating “won’t I?” until he was forced to reply.

But he only said: “We ain’t goin’ to buy no frocks to-day.” And as he said it he struck off towards the lower road that skirted the base of the hill.

“But I’d rather see the shops, Daddie,” declared she. And as he took no notice, she added fretfully: “’Tain’t the right way to the sweet shop—no ’tain’t.”

It was the first time he had ever refused her an innocent wish; his heart tightened as he answered:

“We ain’t got no time to buy sweets to-day. We’se got a long way to go. Ye must come along like a good girl, and maybe ye shall ’ave some sweets another time.”

“Does ’oo promise?” said she authoritatively.

And with the tightening at his heart again, he said: “I promise!”

They struck out again on to the sun-scorched marsh-land beyond the town. She was a sunny-souled babe, and she was reconciled, but as the heat began to pour down on them, she began to flag.

“Where be we goin’, Daddie?” she would ask. “To the se’side? I ain’t never been to this se’side before. Be it a far beach?”

“Yes,” he would answer, “it be a very far beach.”

Then, presently: “Ain’t we goin’ to ’ave no dinner, Dad? I’d rather go ’ome. I be tired.”

“Soon,” he would reply; but the complaints multiplied.

“I don’t want to go no further,” was the next. “Daddy carry Daisy on his back!”

At first he had tried to be deaf to this last request; he had a vague feeling that he _dared_ not take her in his arms.

But the old habit of the past five years was upon him still. He could not endure that the little footsteps should lag painfully, and that the little voice that had been so dear to him should plead in vain.

“Daddie, Daddie,” it cried, “don’t ye ’ear?”

He heard, he heard well enough!

A sob rose in his throat, and he turned away that the child might not see tears on his old cheeks. But he stooped down and lifted her on to his back. And then he could hear her laugh for contentment, and could feel her nestle her head down against his, as she slowly dropped to sleep.

A farmer, driving across that distant marsh-land, met them thus. Months afterwards he told it in the village on the hill.

Two months and more had passed by: where the plain had been at its greenest against a sea—blue beneath the hot sun and east winds of spring—it was golden now with the gold of the harvesting, and brown with the seeds of many grasses that nodded heavy heads in the western breezes.

The cottage on the cliff was sad and quiet.