Chapter VII: Part 7

It was a bright, clear spring morning. A keen east wind was blowing the cherry-blossom about, and the narcissus and daffodils along the cottage path swayed beneath it; but the sun was shining, and it was a good drying day, so Letty had just set to at the week’s washing, and was standing with her arms white in suds, when she saw Frewin open the gate and come slowly—very slowly—up to the door. She dried her hands and went to open it.

He held out a black-edged letter towards her.

“I’m sure I ’ope it ain’t bad news,” said he sadly.

She took it with a frightened face, still drying her hands mechanically. He turned his back, preparing to depart; yet he waited until she had opened it.

A little low ripple of laughter broke from her.

“Well, I suppose I ought to be ashamed to laugh,” said she. “But, Lor’, it give me such a fright I can’t ’elp but be pleased. Ye see, my brother’s away at sea, and it do give ye a turn when ye get a thing like this. But it’s only to say as old Aunt Porter’s gone, and she’s been bedridden and childish this ten years, and I ’aven’t seed her for twenty! Mother’d say it weren’t seemly of me not to take on, but, truth to tell, I’m so pleased it ain’t Jim, I can’t seem to mind much.”

“O’ course not,” assented the postman. "Old folks is bound to go,"—and he sighed—“and when they’s lost their wits and their limbs ’tis but a ’appy release, as the saying is. Well, I’m glad it ain’t nothink wrong with yer brother,” he said as he turned to go. But he said it sadly, and sighed again.

Letty put the letter in her pocket, and lifted her eyes to his with their sweetest, kindest look.

“It’s very friendly o’ you to mind whether the news was good or bad,” said she with a little laugh. “I’m sure it ain’t many as’d care a rap. Do you mind all the black-edged letters as ye give round now?”

There was just a thought of roguishness in the smile, and just a suspicion of the old coquettish air in the tilt of the dainty face; but it must only have been from habit, for the pretty grey eyes were a little dewy still, and the voice had none of the usual raillery in its tone.

But Frewin did not answer her question, and his quiet young face was still sad and preoccupied as he said:

“I’m in trouble myself to-day. I’d be sorry to bring the same to anybody.”

Her expression changed at once; every trace of coquetry was wiped out of it in a twinkling. She came a step nearer to him.

“In trouble!” echoed she. “Now I _am_ sorry. But p’r’aps ye wouldn’t care to tell, me being but a stranger, so to speak.”

“I don’t know as you’re so much a stranger,” he began, and then he broke off. “I ha’n’t got nobody but mother,” he added in a moment, irrelevantly.

“What, she ain’t sick?” cried the girl quickly, with real feeling in her voice.

“Got to go to the ’orspital,” answered Frewin shortly. “It’s her eyes. They say as she’ll be stone blind if she don’t ’ave su’thing done immediate. They say as it’d be coward-like o’ me not to persuade her to it, for it’s sarten-sure to be all right; but, Lor’, I ain’t got no faith in doctors.”

Letty was silent—most likely she shared his opinion, and could find nothing consolatory to say, but her pretty face was full of sympathy. He allowed himself one piece of comfort; he looked at it. Their eyes met, and hers filled with tears; but not before she had poured something into his that was not only sympathy.

“Good-day,” said he quickly, and in another minute he was hurrying down the road.

But the wager was won, though the village little guessed it, and though Letty gave that part of the matter never a thought just then—never a thought till Bank Holiday came and went without her having so much as a bit of a swain for the day—never a thought till the girls came up and laughed at her, and pitied her for having spent it sitting alone in the chimney-corner.

Then she thought of it, but not as they imagined. She did not tell them that she might have had the handsome miller for a “walking-stick” without any trouble at all—that he had laughingly declared he was in luck’s way, since he was like to keep the gloves and get her company as well, upon which she had tossed her head with all those old airs of supremacy which so forsook her in her intercourse with Bob Frewin, and told him that he might keep the gloves and welcome, but that her company he should never have again; she did not tell them that she might have been winning her wager that very afternoon, but that the young postman had been obliged to use this one day off duty to take his mother up to the hospital; she did not tell them, because she was doing her very best to forget she had ever made that wager at all.

But she was destined to win it for all that. The operation on the old woman’s eyes passed off most successfully, and every morning and every evening as Bob Frewin strode up and down the village street, with his post-bag swinging in front of him, and his sorted bundle of letters in his left hand, Letty managed to be somewhere about in the garden or the porch just to hear the last news of the invalid.

When Saturday evening came, the weather, that had been wet all the week, cleared up for a fine Sunday; it was the very last Sunday that was left to win the wager in, but it was not on that account that Letty’s heart beat as she saw Frewin stop at the wicket, and not seeing her in the front garden, fumble a minute at the latch, and come half reluctantly up to the porch.

She was glad that she was in the orchard beside the house, taking down the linen that she had hung out in the morning to dry—for the big apple-tree, that was pink with budding bloom, sheltered her, and from behind the sheet that she was just going to unfasten from the line she could watch him unseen.

But she wondered whether her mother would say where she was, and she just edged a little further beyond her ambuscade as she saw him turn away from the door.

Her heart beat, but—yes, mother had told, or else he had seen her, for he came towards her through the side wicket.

Then she came forward, and her smile was so tremulous, and her cheeks so blushing, that he seemed to forget all his stand-offishness and any cause of offence that he might have, and to take heart of grace from her bashfulness.

“Ye are busy,” said he, “but I won’t keep ye long. Mother’s getting on first-rate, and the Sister has writ me a line for her. There’s a message for you in it.”

The grey eyes went up to his.

“I do call that kind,” said she. “What is it?”

It was the young man who blushed now.

“It’s a foolish message,” said he with a little laugh. “But mothers are that way. Anyway it don’t seem fair not to give it ye.”

“Oh, never mind,” faltered the girl, for there was a misgiving at her heart. But he had taken the letter out of his pocket.

“Tell Letty Cox,” he said, “as I thank her for her kindness to my lad in his trouble.”

“Kindness!” repeated she tremulously, and with downcast face.

“Well, when a feller’s a bit down, miss, ye wouldn’t think how it sort o’ cheers ’im up to ’ave somebody ’pear to care. It’s not many thinks of an old woman, but mother’s all the world to me.”

“O’ course she is,” murmured Letty.

“Leastways,” added the postman, rather darkly, “I didn’t think as I should ever think of another female but ’er again.”

“No,” said Letty softly.

“But there’s never no tellin’ what folks’ll do—man nor woman,” added Frewin wisely.

“No,” said Letty again.

And then there was a pause, during which she unfixed another white sheet from against the gentle blue of the evening sky.

“You’ll excuse me if I’m too free, miss,” said Frewin presently. “But you see—well, there, it was talk o’ the village, so ye must ’ave ’eard it with the rest! I was fooled once, and that’s the truth, and I don’t mean to be fooled again.”

There was no answer, and Letty’s face was somehow hidden behind the blushing blossom of a low branch of the apple-tree.

“So p’r’aps you’d excuse me,” he repeated, “if I was to ask you, as a plain man, whether you was a-walkin’ with Lambert o’ Bank ’Oliday when I was in town?”

The face emerged from behind its leafy screen, and was no longer tremulous but haughty.

“Well, it _is_ a queer question,” said she, “and no mistake! But,” she added quickly, seeing him turn away,—“well, there, I don’t mind answering: Mr. Lambert asked me, but I didn’t fancy ’im. I sat alone all day.”

And it may have been the shame of such a confession from an acknowledged village belle that called the blush again to her cheek.

“Ye don’t say so, now,” declared the man, pleased. “Ye see, ye took Lambert’s loan as against mine the other day at the station, and, one thing and another—well, there—a man ain’t goin’ to be fooled twice, you bet.”

At the last word she hung her head lower than ever, and there was another pause.

At last he said, sheepishly now: “But I don’t s’pose ye would walk with me next Sunday. Though it seems clearin’ up for a nice day.”

He waited for an answer, but none came. Only after a minute or so a little sound as of stifled sobbing came from behind the white screen.

“Lor, whatever is the matter?” cried Frewin aghast. “Is it me that’s upset ye, my dear? There, ye don’t need to come if ye don’t want to. Any girl can say a feller nay. There’s no ’arm done yet.”

But still she cried on.

“I’d come right enough,” faltered she at last, between the sobs. “But—but there _is_ ’arm done.”

And then suddenly she dried her eyes, and looked up at him with frank, fearless gaze.

“Your mother said as I’d been kind to ye, Mr. Frewin,” said she. “But I ’ain’t been—for I’ve behaved bad to ye. Yes, I ’ave. And ye said as you weren’t goin’ to be fooled again. And—and I like ye too well to fool ye, and that’s truth. And—and so I’d rather tell ye as I _’ave_ fooled ye already.”

His face went white, and he stared at her.

“Fooled me!” echoed he. “Not a bit of it!”

“Yes, I ’ave,” insisted she doggedly. “The girls said ye was a rude, surly chap as wouldn’t throw a word to any of us, and I swore I’d make you. And then Charlie Lambert dared me to, and wagered me a pair o’ gloves it’d be no go. It was just a lark,” said she half defiantly, but then added, with a tell-tale throb of the voice, “though you can’t say as I’ve ever done it.”

Frewin did not smile, the unconscious humour of the phrase did not seem to strike him; he was upset.

“It was a dirty trick to play on a chap,” said he at last, “and Lambert shall pay me out for it.”

“No, come, that ain’t fair,” said Letty quickly. “It _was_ a dirty trick, and I knew that soon as ever I’d done it, but it was me that did it, and it’s me as has got to pay.”

“Ye seem bound to stand up for Lambert,” growled Frewin.

Letty looked up; she clenched her fist.

“I _’ate_ ’im,” said she between her teeth. “Yes, I do,” she repeated, though half shame-facedly, as he gazed at her surprised. “I _’ate_ ’im, ’cos it was ’im as made me do it.”

“’Ate ’im, do you?” echoed Frewin, with the ghost of a contented smile. “Well, may be that’s fair.”

“I don’t care if it’s fair or no,” declared Letty stoutly. “May be it ain’t, for I’d ought to ha’ known better myself, but I ’ate ’im all the same. Though that ain’t no reason why you should mention the matter to ’im, for it stands to reason I’d no call to agree to what ’e said, and it’s me as ’as got to pay.”

“It was ’e ought to ha’ known better,” grumbled Frewin again, still with a scowl on his honest face, “for ’e’s a man, and you expect a man to know better nor a girl.” But, after a pause, the scowl fading just a trifle, and the smile broadening instead: “So you ’ate ’im, do you?” he asked once more.

Letty dried her eyes afresh, and it was her turn to smile just a wee little bit. She had watched these symptoms before—for was she not the village belle?—and even in the midst of her misery and remorse she could not help smiling as she recognized them under a new guise.

“O’ course I do,” she repeated emphatically. Then she turned and pulled down another sheet off the line, and another and another, till her arms were quite full.

Meanwhile Frewin stood watching her, indecision in every line of his face and figure. She was very pretty, very graceful about her work, very strong and hearty. Her fresh cheeks were pink even amid the pink blossom, and her golden hair shone against the golden sky, where the sun was setting on a bank of soft rose-washed grey clouds behind the trees of the orchard.

“I s’pose anyways ye are sure to be taken up to-morrow evening?” said he at last. “A pretty girl like you always is o’ Sundays.”

“Well, if you know as I’m taken up, I s’pose I must be,” said she with a little pout.

“Ye didn’t answer just now,” he said.

“Maybe ye didn’t ask,” retorted she.

“Well, there, I’ll ask now,” said he with a bit of a shame-faced laugh. “Ye ’ave got a way with ye, miss, and no mistake!”

“Don’t ask to please me,” she said with the old toss of the little head. But the smile took the venom out of the words, and Frewin bowed beneath it as he had been slowly bowing ever since he first felt the flash of it.

“No, I’ll ask to please myself,” said he. And he went up to her and took her one free hand in his. Then the blushes crept right up into the bright hair, and there was silence.

“But we won’t walk hereabouts,” murmured she after a pause. “I’d not like to meet—folks. I tell ye what I should like if mother ’ll spare me, and that’d be for to go off right early and up in the train to see yer poor mother.”

“Would ye now?” declared he, well satisfied. “She’d be rare and pleased. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

The grey eyes stole a look at him.

“And by-gones to be by-gones?” begged she timidly. “And not a word to Charlie Lambert?”

He frowned a little.

“That’s as I sees fit,” said he.

“No, it’s as I sees fit,” murmured she softly, and her face was very close to his.

He smiled vaguely.

“You leave Charlie Lambert to me,” she added presently. “He pretty soon knew I was off it as soon as I was on. He’s got a flea o’ mine in his ear a’ready, and ’e’ll ’ave another if ’e don’t look out. You leave ’em all to me.”

“I s’pose everybody’s bound to do yer bidding sooner or later,” laughed Frewin half ruefully, “me as well as most.”

“Yes, don’t you make no mistake about that,” smiled she. “And what’s more, don’t ye ever go for to fancy that because I was such a bold-faced silly as to lay that wager I ever went for to win it. If ever there was a man I _didn’t_ try to catch, it was you.”

Frewin laughed.

“Ye’ve caught me though,” said he.

“That’s as may be,” she said. “But I was too frightened at what I’d done to fish for you.”

“P’r’aps that’s ’ow ye caught me then,” he said. “And p’r’aps that’s ’ow I must needs forgive ye!”

So the wager was won, but never paid.

For the trip to town was so deftly managed from a neighbouring station in the early hours of the Sunday, that nobody guessed it had taken place; and on the evening of the same day upon the old bridge, Letty swore a bold, brave lie that she had lost what she declared she had never tried to win. The laugh against her was loud, but then so was her own in reply, and when, six weeks later, instead of accepting Mr. Lambert’s gloves, she accepted Bob Frewin himself, she was too happy to care which way the laugh went. But to tell the truth, folk are good-natured enough; and if the girls suspected Letty’s little fraud, and, nudging one another, declared she was a clever one, they had no objection to her triumph, for Charlie Lambert was the better match of the two, and he was left for somebody else.

A NE’ER-DO-WEEL

A NE’ER-DO-WEEL

Two women and a lad came down the hill towards the stream on a frosty January evening at sunset.

It had been a good typical Christmas, and though the snow had partially disappeared, the river ran grey in the cold air, and the frost sparkled on the twigs of willows and on the brown stalks of tall water plants upon the banks.

The lad lounged easily along with his cap on the back of his head, his hands in his breeches pockets, and his pipe in his mouth; but the women bore burthens—one a bundle of brushwood on her head, the other a sack of potatoes—and as they reached the bridge they stopped to rest them awhile on its old brick parapet.

“’Old yer row, do!” the boy was saying. “What do it matter to you whether old Jeremiah ’ave a-turned me off agin or no? Ain’t I my own master?”

“Oh, ye’re yer own master safe enough,” retorted the woman, a sharp-featured body of middle age. “There ain’t nobody as ’ll worrit ’emselves much over ye now ye’ve put yer pore mother underground. If that’s what ye wanted when ye set to work to break ’er ’eart, why ye’ve got it.”

“Well, I want it now anyways,” retorted the lad with a brutal laugh.

“You’re an ungrateful beast, that’s what ye are!” said the woman shrilly. “I’d ’ave guv ye bite and sup for a night or two, for my pore sister’s sake, till ye got work again; but I shan’t now.”

“Nobody asted ye to!” laughed the lad. “When ye guv me a shake-down before ye said ye did it for ’er, but ye wanted my earnin’s all the same. And when I was turned off the farm ye turned me out in the road. I’d sooner shift for myself, thank ye!”

“Do it, then!” retorted the woman. “It looks like it, it do, and you sent adrift agin this very night! Lord, to think the devil o’ drink can get into a lad afore ’e’s forgot ’is mother’s milk!”

“If you don’t stop that jaw I’ll——” began the boy.

But the other woman laid a hand on his arm. She had a fresher, plumper, kindlier face than her neighbour, and she gave him a little friendly push as she whispered—

“There, now, there, she’s yer own mother’s sister ye know. You go ’ome.”

“Mother’s sister be damned,” said the lad irreverently. “She’s come that dodge over me long enough. She wouldn’t lift a finger to ’elp me, and I won’t ’ave no more of ’er preachments. I ain’t got no one to think of, and what I earns I’ll spend as I please.”

“A jolly lot you ever did hanything else,” began the aunt afresh, but the neighbour stopped her mouth.

“Now you go ’ome, Nat, you go on ’ome,” reiterated she to the boy; and “Can’t ye see as yer on’y aggrawatin’ the lad, Mary Ann?” she whispered to the woman. “Let ’im be, do! Maybe ’e misses his ’ome and his pore mother more than you thinks for.”

But Nat laughed as he blew the ashes from his pipe.

“Ye needn’t trouble to speak up for me, marm,” he sneered. “Lord, she don’t ’urt me, bless you,” and he snapped his fingers in the direction of his relative. “A precious sight I ever cared for the women-folk’s jaw. Oh, yes, I’ll go _’ome_,” and something that somehow did not belong to the scowl flitted across the passionate young face that self-indulgence had so sorrowfully marred. “I’ll go _’ome_! But where I goes there I bides—ye ’ear that? No one ain’t got no right to interfere wi’ me. I won’t never darken _your_ doors no more, and if I’m a-goin’ to the devil I’ll go my own way.”

He stuck his cap on the back of his head again and his hands in his pockets, and lounged up the road singing a scrap of a low song in a louder voice than he could keep quite steady.

“It’s a pity, so it is,” murmured the stout woman, looking after him. “There was the makin’s of a nice lad in ’im once, I’ll be sworn.”

“You’re a new comer to the place,” retorted Mary Ann, “and that’s all you knows! If ’is pore mother didn’t fret the very guts out of ’erself a-tryin’ to bring ’im up respeckable! But the devil of ’is father were in ’im—that’s where it was. The low brute that man was! And died same as ’e lived. Found on the road—i’stead o’ dyin’ respeckable in ’is bed! As if ’e ’adn’t ha’ done the woman injury enough! Why—there was a Crowner’s inquest and all! But, Lor’, when all was said and done, I declare I niver spent a comfortabler ’alf hour than when I seed ’em nail ’im down! For, ye see, I says to myself: ‘Clara ’ll take on a bit, but she’s well rid on ’im. She can work to bring _one_ up, and the boy ’ll soon be able to work for ’er.’ Lord, I didn’t reckon as ’e’d be a wuss devil nor ’is father, bad luck to ’im!”

“May be ’is pore mother spoiled ’im, being but the one, so to speak,” said the other half apologetically.

“Spoiled ’im!” laughed the other, preparing to shoulder her burthen again. “I reckon she did! Many’s the time I swore she’d be punished for it!”

“Well, I s’pose she was,” said the neighbour simply. “There, pore soul, I’m sorry for ’er.”

“’E broke ’er ’eart, ’e did, the young scoundrel,” growled Mary Ann, as she hitched the bundle of brushwood forward on to her back. “And I’m sure I ’ope he’ll break his own neck.”

“Oh, come, don’t say that,” murmured the gentler spirit reprovingly. “I dare say ’e’s lonesome enough anyways.”

“Lonesome!” sneered the incensed relative. “Much use ’e made of ’er company when ’e’d got it! Out on the roads, or what not, from night till morn and more! Didn’t ye ’ear ’im say precious little ’e cared for the women’s jaw? Precious little ’e did. Precious little ’e cared for aught about ’er, pore soul. Why, ’e was dead drunk the very day of ’er funeral!”

Mary Ann trudged forward as she spoke, hurling the words out against the wind under the penthouse of her burthen, and the sympathetic neighbour, standing behind her with her hands in her hips, shook her head sadly.

“That was bad,” she murmured, “that was bad, sure enough.”

Then she too turned to take up her load.

The potatoes were heavy; she failed to raise them on to her back at the first effort.

Just then the gate on to the railway line slammed to, and a girl coming down on to the bridge hurried forward and gave her a lift with them.

“Thank ye, thank ye,” said the woman. And when she had settled her burthen comfortably, glancing up to see who had helped her, she added again: “Oh, thank ye. Ye’re a stranger in the parish, ain’t ye?”

The girl blushed. She was pretty enough, but she was thin and pale, not to say wan, and her cotton dress was poor covering for the wintry day, and her ill-fitting black jacket and shabby straw hat betokened an even greater poverty than was usual in the village.

She blushed as one who knew the tone and the words, and was wont to understand beneath them the insinuation, “You’re a tramp.”

But she was mistaken. The woman before her prided herself on knowing a respectable female when she saw her, and though poor and miserable, the girl did not look “a bad ’un.”

“I’m a-goin’ on further,” said she evasively.

“Oh!” said the woman again. Then, as not wishing to be inquisitive, she added, “Well, thank ye. I wish ye a good evenin’. It’s cold weather; it’s best to walk fast to keep warm.”

And she nodded, moving on quickly to suit her action to her words.

“Good evenin’,” said the girl.

But she did not follow the advice.

Though she carried but the smallest of little bundles, she rested it on the brick parapet as the women had done with their heavier loads, and stood looking down the river into the afterglow.

It was four o’clock. The sun had set, and the poplars that crossed the stream and the fields, dividing meadow-land from water-cress grounds, shot straight arrows against a pale crimson sky, that was cool even in its fire in the cold, crisp air. Every little bare twig on the slender, bare boughs of the poplars pointed upwards; the willows by the river, though less spare and less commanding, modestly followed their example; the sky might have been constraining with its tender glory, but the girl—after one glance around on the clear-cut winter landscape, so calm with the patience of waiting Nature, but so cruelly silent with the dearth of stirring life—fastened her eyes on the water and on the water alone.

The long strings of half-dead, slimy weed that swayed idly to and fro, attached and yet floating, like the traveller’s joy on a summer’s day a-moving in the wind—or better, yes, much better still—like some dank, clinging cotton stuffs, held to the gravel bed by some heavy weight, yet erring softly, saturated with much water, on the bosom of the stream—these seemed to fascinate her beyond the power to tear away her gaze.

At last she shivered—the frost was intense—and lifted her head and sighed, a long, miserable, moaning sigh. Then she put her hand in her pocket and drew forth a letter—a letter and a thimble.

The moon, that had risen in time to see the sun go down, had just crept high enough in the sky to shine through the bare branches of the elms in the meadow beside the lower stream: it shone now upon the paper which the girl held trembling in her hand.

“Don’t ye come back here,” said the letter. “There ain’t no work to be got ’ere, and I’ve my hands full enough to keep them as are left.”

There was more, but she did not read it. She crushed the paper in her hands, and let it flutter slowly down into the water, but the thimble she put back into her pocket. Then she rested her two elbows on the brick parapet and leaned her head in them and cried softly to herself, still looking down into the darkening water as it lapped to and fro over the swaying body of weeds.

A bell sounded from the village on the hill; it cut clear and sharp across the frosty air; it was the bell from the straw-plaiting factory, sending the girls home from their day’s work. She knew it well enough, and roused herself at the sound, moving her hand to take up her little bundle once more. But in the waning light she pushed it forward instead of grasping it, and, in spite of a quick clutch, it slipped over the rounded edge of the parapet and fell with a thud into the river below. She gave a little cry as she followed it with her eyes, leaning over a long way to try and descry it in the green water beneath.

But there was nothing to be seen but the same swaying, dank body of weeds. And presently she gave a low, harsh laugh, and shrugged her shoulders, and pulling her miserable little black jacket across her chest, as though to persuade it to cling more closely to her frail, shivering body, she turned away and walked quickly up the by-path that led to the high road above.

Lights were burning in the cottage windows along the village street, and from the little straw factory on the left-hand side beside the Baptist chapel, the women were pouring forth into the road—some gay, some weary, some young, and some middle-aged, some hurrying to other duties at home, some loitering to chatter and chaff—most of them noisy, but all of them busy with work done and to do.

The girl watched them askance, drawing back under the shadow of the hedgerow, for the moon had not risen far enough yet to illumine the way, and the shadows had grown dark. When all had passed by or dispersed she moved out again, and stepped up to the door whence they had issued, and which still stood ajar on to the road.

She knocked at it and a woman appeared.

“What d’ye want?” said she.

Her tone was not unkind but it was sharp—the tone of a woman with her hands full of work, and no time for those who have theirs empty. The girl answered surlily.

“I want work,” she said.

“Well, there ain’t none to be ’ad ’ere.”

“I’m used to the straw-plaiting and shape-sewing too,” said the girl more humbly.

“Well, ye must go elsewhere. We’re full up ’ere,” said the woman, “and shall be for weeks, as far as I know. ’Ave ye got a reference?”

The girl nodded.

“Sort of, I s’pose,” said the woman shrewdly.

“I’ve got my character,” repeated the girl doggedly.

“Well, ye must take it elsewhere then,” said the woman again. “I’m sorry for ye. Good-night.”

And she shut the door quietly.

The girl turned away. She did not speak, nor even mutter, nor even sigh. But her wan little face was set and hard.

She looked down the road towards the open country, and up it where the cottages clustered, and she chose the forward way.

Wayfarers had almost cleared out of the village street, for it was quite dark now and bitterly cold; fires were burning and supper was preparing behind frosty windows and scanty window-curtains. Here and there a weary labourer or hurrying house-wife trudged past, but most people were indoors by now, most people were at home.

The girl walked on till she came near to the public-house near the village-end, where the signpost points separate fingers up the fork of the road.

There was a solitary lamp above the post-office hard by, and she stopped under it and put her hand in her pocket; the thimble and one halfpenny was all that she drew out, and she put them back again.

Then she looked behind her.

There was no one by, no one coming, and she crept stealthily up to the window of the “public,” and laid her face against the cold pane, gazing into the light and brightness and warmth within.

There were four or five men clustered round a table near the fire, and a few more standing at the bar with a couple of girls.

One of them at the table was singing in a loud voice; he was young—very young—and it was a good voice, and whatever were the words, the ditty seemed to please the company.

There was a roar of laughter every now and then, and whenever he stopped a cry of “Go on, Nat, go on, lad! That’s right,” and so forth.

The boy grew more and more excited, and the men cheered, and the girls clapped their hands and bent themselves double with laughter, and then the men laughed again till they coughed and choked with their merriment.

The song was funny, or the point lay in the youth of the singer.

And the girl outside listened.

Twice she crept to the door, twice had the knob in her hand to open and go in, and twice her pluck seemed to fail. The song stopped, there was a lull within; the warmth drew her as a magnet, and the third time she turned the handle. But she stood with the door ajar; for on a sudden there was a sound of chairs moved, of scuffling, of quick words and quick retorts within; the laughter was changed to angry altercation, words of which she could not catch the sense were flung to and fro, and all at once a man threw the door wide, and the lad who had been singing was suddenly flung forth into the road.

The girl started back at the first noise, then turned and fled into the darkness.

But the boy stood where they had hurled him, and the men slammed the door to again behind him.

There had been furious words in his mouth when he had made his ignominious exit, but they had died suddenly away as though frozen in his throat, and his limbs, that had struggled to deal revenge on his foes, had become paralyzed, his hot face had turned white with fear; he stood as one petrified, horror-struck, gazing after the thin cotton dress that flitted away in the gloom.

The clamour went on within, some angry, some grossly laughing, some striving to pacify.

The landlord had come down to the door, and after looking out through the glass, had half opened it and had glanced out. But the lad had drawn aside under the eaves.

“Why didn’t ’e keep ’is ’ands off what weren’t ’is?” one was saying angrily.

“’E’s gettin’ too cheeky by ’alf,” said another.

“Well, ’e shan’t come into my bar no more,” declared the landlord decisively, turning back into the room. “Many’s the time I’ve ’ad a mind to say so afore, when ’is pore mother used to come a-loiterin’ and waitin’ out there in the cold to try and fetch ’im ’ome. Mighty little ’e ever cared for ’er, nor anythin’ as _she_ might ha’ said. But so long as ’e be’aved I ’adn’t the right to turn ’im out. ’E’s done for ’isself to-night though, and ’e don’t come in no more.”

“Good riddance too,” said one of the girls, settling her hair that had been loosened in the scuffle; and the landlord closed the door and drew the curtain across it.

But the lad outside made no effort to re-enter. He did not seem to have heard what had passed within his earshot.

He stood stock-still as they had left him, slowly rubbing his head with a trembling hand.

“Rot,” said he at last, to himself, with a feeble attempt at a laugh. “Ghosts! There ain’t no sich things as ghosts!”

Then he took a few steps forward, slowly and unsteadily, for he was drunk; not, however, in the direction of the village, and of his rough and lonely lodging, but between the hedges of the narrow lane beyond, where the figure had flitted before him.

Perhaps he had made a mistake; down that lane to the left stood the cottage, deserted now, where he had spent all the years of his life, alone—ever since he could remember—with the mother whom he had neglected and ill-treated, whom they all told him that he had killed.

The words buzzed wearily through his aching brain.

“Mighty little ’e ever cared for _’er_, nor anythin’ as _she_ might ha’ said!”

Yes, it was jolly true too!

And his own words, spoken an hour ago, echoed back again: “Precious little I ever cared for the women-folk’s jaw!”

It was as they said: he had killed her, and he had never cared for her, he had never mourned her, he had been drunk the day of her very funeral; he never missed her now.

He stumbled on. The winter twilight had faded long since, and the moon had slipped behind a cloud. The lane was quite dark, and he could no longer make out the swish of the white cotton skirt which he had fancied he had seen against the hedgerow. Nevertheless he stumbled on.

The old home lay close at hand; the well-known turning to it struck off here to the left. It stood in a field a little back from the road; there was an apple-tree in front of it and behind it, in the meadow that stretched down to the river, their cow used to feed in the days before his mother had had to sell her.

He stumbled on. Here, by the fence, she was wont to come down of a morning to see him off to work, of an evening to welcome him home, and—yes—often and often o’ night time to watch for him along the dark and lonely road, when he was coming home—as he was coming to-night—full of drink.

Home? Yes, it was home _then_, little as he had appreciated it.

He stopped at the fence, and steadied himself on its worn and worm-eaten bar.

The moonlight was leaking through the cloud again, and dimly lit the thatched roof of the cottage, whose blank windows and sealed door looked sadly across the field at him.

The latched gate was close to his hand: he opened it and went in, and the moon shone out more brightly.

The apple-tree was bare, the climbing blush rose and hardy canary-creeper on the porch were barren and leafless, the frost lay hard and crisp on the neglected garden path where he had often seen her watering the peonies and the sweet-william, or dressing the hollyhocks in some leisure moment. It was cold and lifeless now in the cold moonlight, but he saw it in sunlight and in summer, when the vegetables were green in the tiny plot of land, when the few sweet-peas scented the air, or when the apples were red on the tree.

He had never noticed any of it then, but now he was sure there had been sweet-peas and hollyhocks, and that he had seen his mother cutting the cabbages beyond them.

He scratched his head, he could not make himself out.

If it had been daylight no power would have led him to open that gate and steal into this forgotten corner, but even so he could not make himself out.

The cold air had been sobering him fast, but he told himself that he was drunk.

It was “jolly true enough” all that they had said: he hated his home, and had been in it as little as might be; he had broken his mother’s heart, and now that she was dead how could it be that he should either miss her or mourn her? Of course it could not be.

But still he lingered; the drink that was in him kept him warm, and he forgot the frost and saw the summer again.

And as he looked, the moon left the last of the cloud behind and shone out brilliantly; and there, beneath the apple-tree, he saw again the spare figure of medium height in the faded print gown, standing still as large as life.

His heart seemed to stop beating: there might be no such things as ghosts, but who was that figure standing there under the apple-tree?

It stirred now. Was it coming to meet him? He felt a cold sweat break out over his brow. No, it moved in the opposite direction—across the grass, past the cottage; it was moving in the direction of the river.

And he followed—as though he were _obliged_ to follow; slowly at first, as in a dream, but as the figure quickened its pace—more quickly too.

What was it, where was it going?

It moved lightly, more lightly than _she_ had done of late, and now it was hurrying—hurrying across the crisp meadow, whose damp marshiness the frost had seized fast—hurrying towards the river.

And he hurried too; without thought, blindly.

But the moon slid behind a cloud again, all grew dark, and the spirit—if spirit it was—was lost in the shadow.

Still he hurried; now he seemed to see it here—now there—he was not sure; perhaps it was all a dream. But his liquor had never served him so before—and he had often been worse drunk.

He was near upon turning back, when the moon fringed the cloud with silver again, and gradually showed him the figure, as clear as in daylight, standing upon the bridge that led across to the road.

He looked; it was facing him, but though in the white light and to his heated sense the features looked ghostly still, and the eyes wild and inhuman, there was something life-like about the creature, and even as he looked, it threw up its arms and took one leap forwards and downwards into the water.

Then he awoke; he was no longer drunk. He did not stop to think—he dashed forward, stripping off his coat as he ran, and pushed through the reeds on the river bank, and plunged into the stream.

The cold of the water was horrible—it took his breath away. But, as luck would have it, the stream here was not deep but swift, and it carried the body towards him; he clutched it, caught it, and, half swimming, half wading, brought it, in little more than a minute, safely on to the bank.

His teeth were chattering, but it was not with fright now; he had forgotten that he had once fancied this to have been a ghost.

It was a girl, and it lay motionless.

He stripped off the shoddy black jacket and wrung the water from it, then tried to wring it from the poor, clinging cotton skirts, that were stiffening with frost in the biting air; after that he chafed the cold body, and took off the worn boots and emptied the water out of them; and then he searched in his pockets, and drew forth a half-pint flat bottle, which he put to her lips.

A pungent odour of common spirit filled the air.

“It’s lucky I left a drop,” he murmured to himself, and a keener satisfaction than he had ever experienced even from drinking it himself filled him as he watched the colour slowly come back to the ashen face. But it took a deal of rubbing again before the eyes opened, before any breath seemed to come struggling through those pale lips. Several times he was for leaving her and running for assistance, because he was frightened.

But the village was far behind, and he was afraid she might die while he was gone; so he waited with a beating heart, and at last she moved and tried to speak.

“D’ye feel better now?” said he.

She nodded feebly.

He passed his hand under her head and set her up against his knee.

But the head drooped again, and she began to shiver.

“She didn’t ought to be ’ere,” he muttered to himself; “it’s freezin’ plaguey ’ard, and she soaked through.”

“D’ye think ye can walk?” said he to her ear.

She did not answer, and he scratched his head.

Then suddenly an inspiration came to him. He knew a way into the old home by the back; it would be empty and cheerless, but it would be safer than the frosty night air, and maybe he might be lucky enough to find a morsel of old wood with which he might light a bit of a fire.

It was worth trying, and without more ado he took the poor thing in his arms, and stumbled up the meadow with her.

She was light enough in all conscience, and she lay passive.

Yes, the rotten old door was broken, as he last remembered it, and he pushed it open and bore her in. The place was bare, but he lay her down beside the cold hearth, with her head against the chimney-corner, and ran to the outhouse. The luck was with him to-night as it was not wont to be: there were some remnants of brushwood scattered about; he swept together a handful, and with the matches that luckily were safe and dry in the pocket of the coat he had cast off, he soon kindled a bit of a blaze in the forsaken old dwelling-room.

Then he hung her jacket to dry and set to work again to rub her body.

The warmth revived her, she crept as close as she could to it, shivering still.

He took out the bottle again, his best notion of help; but she shook her head at the sight of it, and a sudden idea struck him.

“When did ye ’ave yer food last?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Maybe ye’re ’ungry?” he said.

And as she was still silent, he turned out his pockets again, and produced a broken bit of dry crust.

“It’s all I left o’ my dinner,” he said, “but it’ll stay yer stomach till ye can get ’ome.”

She let him put it into her hand, but she did not eat.

“It’s a queer thing,” said he ruminatingly, “women don’t seem to ’ave no pecker when they ain’t fit.”

She shivered again.

“Now, look ’ere,” said he, drawing out the spirit bottle once more, “ye’ve got to have another go at this or I’m damned, and then ye’ve got to eat that crust.”

He forced it on her, and she submitted, and then he added: “And as soon as ye can walk ye ought to go ’ome. Ye’ll catch yer death in them damp clothes.”

She was silent, and he stood watching her nibbling the crust, while he took a pull at the spirit himself.

A notion seemed to occur to him, and he paused with the flask in his hand.

“What did ye go and jump into the water for?” he said at last, perhaps thinking that what she _wanted_ was to “catch her death.”

And as still she was dumb, he added another to the string of his questions: “Where d’ye live?”

Then at last she answered.

“Nowhere,” said she bitterly.

He started.

“What, ain’t ye got no ’ome?” asked he.

“No,” she said.

He whistled.

“No more ’aven’t I,” he said.

“Nor yet no mother?” he added in a low voice after a while.

“No,” she said.

He looked round the ghostly, deserted old home—at the figure huddled by the hearth where another had been wont to cook his meals, at the empty window where a familiar chair had once stood.

“No more ’aven’t I,” he said. And after a pause he added with a half laugh, “P’raps ye ’aven’t even got no work?”

“No,” she replied for the third time.

And he laughed outright as he added again: “No more ’aven’t I!”

He walked to the window, and she struggled to her feet.

“So I guess ye _wanted_ to catch yer death,” he muttered.

She stood hanging over the blaze that was beginning to flicker down, and he with his back to her at the window gazing out into the garden, where the moonlight lay white and hard on the frosted walk and on the dreary, empty potato patch.

If his mother had been up-stairs she would have known what to do now. She had always known what to do somehow. And suddenly there crossed his mind a vision of her taking into the house a poor starved dog that had been hooted down the road by the village boys.

Yes, she would have known what to do. But she was not up-stairs.

“I s’pose there’s plenty as wouldn’t mind a-catchin’ their death,” murmured he, half to himself. “Folk as ’ave made a mess of it, or as ’aven’t got no one to work for.”

The girl at the fire threw up her head almost proudly.

“I ain’t what yer might think,” she said. “I ain’t done nothin’ wus than starve. They turned me off at the factory, but it weren’t no fault o’ mine.”

“Weren’t ye drunk?” asked the boy simply.

Her wan face flushed purple.

“Drunk!” said she. “I ain’t never been drunk in my life.” And she moved from him.

Then he flushed too—ashamed.

“I beg yer pardon,” he stammered. “It’s what they turn me off for—but o’ course ... I beg yer pardon!”

“Granted,” said she. “It’s likely ye should think so. But my dead mother might see me and welcome, for all the ’arm I’ve a-done, and that’s the truth!”

He shivered at the words and looked round.

“I wish I could say as much,” said he.

She looked at him and came a step nearer, but the sob that had risen in her throat at his unintentional insult had turned to a fit of coughing, and she could not speak.

He turned quickly to the hearth, and kicked the bits of stick together with his foot; but there was no more life in them, they were burnt out, and there were no more.

“Ye’re catchin’ yer death o’ cold,” repeated he testily. “I dursen’t advise ye to stop ’ere no longer. Let me show ye the way to the next village, if ye’re a stranger to the place. Leastways, I think there’s a parcel o’ ’ouses afore ye come to it, where ye might get a night’s lodgin’.”

She laughed harshly, and he stopped—confused.

He guessed her meaning.

“’Aven’t ye got no money?” asked he after a minute or two, timidly.

“No,” she answered, struggling fiercely with tears again. “I’ve been out o’ work this three weeks. Ye’d ha’ done best to leave me where I was!”

“Don’t say that,” said he quite gently. “The luck’s bound to turn.”

She stood quietly wiping a tear now and then, and he beside her turning his hand round and round in his breeches pocket.

At last he pulled the hand out and held it towards her: there was a silver coin in it.

“Ye’d best take it,” said he sheepishly. “I ’ad my week’s wage to-day, though they _’ave_ a-turned me off, and I can spare it nicely. It’ll get ye a bed and a bit o’ supper anyways.”

Her face flushed and her lip quivered again. But she took it.

“Ye’re very kind,” said she. “I ought to thank ye, I’m sure. If mother was alive...”

Her voice shook, and she didn’t finish the sentence.

He stepped to the hearth and took up her wretched little jacket that had lain there a-drying, handing it to her clumsily. Her last words echoed in his ears.

She took the jacket, and pushed her poor, thin arms into its shrunken sleeves; it was damp still, and it would not meet, even across her narrow chest.

“The luck’ll turn,” he repeated awkwardly. “It allers do turn—one way or t’other. Ye must try for work again at Hoo, yonder. There’s another factory there.”

“Seems as though God A’mighty did ought to give me another chance,” she said with a sigh, “if it were on’y for this. For I shan’t be able to pay ye back else.”

He had opened the cranky door, and they had passed out into the moonlit frostiness.

“Never think o’ that,” said he.

“I shall though,” she declared. “Ye must show me your ’ome, so as I shall know where to find ye to pay it back agin—when I do get work.”

“My ’ome!” echoed he.

And he turned and looked at the deserted cottage with its closed, silent windows.

From the chimney a faint line of smoke from the remnants of the fire that he had lit was stealing up straight into the calm, cold air—ascending steadily, like incense, into the sky.

He caught his breath.

“This’d be the best place,” he said. “I’ll come ’ere next Saturday night and see if ye’re anywheres about. I’d like to ’ear ’ow ye was a-gettin’ on, but I don’t want the money.”

They had crossed the garden by this time, and stood at the gate.

“I shan’t rest till I can bring it ye though,” said she. “I ’aven’t never borrowed from nobody afore. That was why ... _you know_...! P’r’aps I didn’t ought to ha’ took it now. But it seemed as though ... well, it seemed as though, if yer pulled me out o’ the water, I’d _got_ to keep the life in me! I couldn’t ha’ felt like taking it from no one else, I think. But there, ye’re a good sort, and I’ll owe it to you. But I’ll pay you—s’elp me God.”

She shoved the gate open and went out into the road, he following.