Chapter II (1)

Will Swan did not go to America. What he did was to find an engagement on a small boat that went to and from Bristol, bringing groceries, earthenware, timber, ovens from Bridgewater, and which conveyed slates from the Cornish quarries to that great mercantile city which goes on building, building without ceasing. He was away sometimes for a week; sometimes for a fortnight; now and then for over a month. America! He was not going to expatriate himself for a woman’s sake, when there was plenty of work to be found in his native land, or rather, on the seas that washed it.

The Bristol Channel looks upon the map as though in it could be only calm water, as in the estuary of the Thames. It is, however, not so. When the wind blows from the west, how the great Atlantic billows roll in, and with what fury do they recoil and strike the faces of their brother waves also seeking an entrance! They tread one another down; they overleap one another; they beat one another about, and leave a long line of foam down the centre of the Channel, the dust and wreckage of ten thousand broken waves.

And then, without. When Hartland Point has been turned, what a coast! The iron-black frowning cliffs stand up sheer from deep sea, and seem to say, “We look on all passers-by as foes; let none venture to approach us!”

And how the Atlantic billows heave there! It is no exaggeration to say that they run mountains high. Woe to the vessel, great or small, that enters or attempts to cross the great loop between Hartland and Trevose. It is a mouth to champ up and suck the life out of every boat that falls into it when the wind is inland.

Cicely heard that Will Swan had not gone to the States. She saw him occasionally in church, but when there he never looked her way. He stood up straight as a post, sang with lungs like the bellows of a blacksmith, in his blue jersey, his face brown as a coffee-berry fresh roasted, but his eye, blue as the summer sea, flashed and twinkled, but never on her.

She heard talk of him too. He was much at the Ship Inn; and Kate Varcoe, the daughter of the host, was a “likely lass,” cheerful, fresh-faced, with black dancing eyes. With Kate he chaffed and made merry. Cicely listened every Sunday to hear the banns called, but no—called they were not. Next, some one said that William had a sweetheart in Bristol.

Oh, in Bristol! Then why should not she show him that if he could be false she would be so also. For a while she allowed herself to be walked out by young Hannaway, a respectable youth, a carpenter by trade, who made the coffins for all the neighbourhood, and undertook in black for all the dead in that and the neighbouring parishes.

When next she encountered Will she was at the side of Hannaway. He was talking with some chums, and a burst of laughter from them pealed out after she had passed. Had he made some remark relative to her that had caused this merriment? Her cheeks burned. She was angry. She hated him. She was dull as a companion, and after three Sundays, as young Hannaway “got no forrarder” with her, he gave her up and took to walking with Kate Varcoe.

On the quay was a long bench, whereon the sailors and fishermen were wont to sit and yarn. There Will, when at home, sat and yarned also—now about ships, then about fish, about tobacco, and last about girls. He was boastful, and laughed and said that he had only to hold up his little finger and whistle, and half-a-dozen would perch on it. But this was so strange in Will, so different from his wont, that an old pilot who had known him from a child and now heard him, shook his head and said, “He’s not got that Ciss out of his head yet, I’ll swear.”

Then the news came that Cicely was ill—very ill; “something on the nerve,” so it was said, and others opined “her orgings were gone scatt.”

Will Swan asked no questions about her, but whistled “Black-eyed Susan” with his hands in his pockets. It was obvious he cared nothing for her.

Then she began to mend. The disease, whatever it was, went “off the nerve” again, or the “orgings” got patched up with powders or plaster. Very white and weak, Cicely sat at her window and looked out. One day she saw Will Swan coming along the way. “Is he about to ask after me?” she thought. No, he went by. He did not turn in at the familiar—at one time familiar—kitchen back entrance. He did not even look up at her window.

Now, at last, Cicely left our service. Her mother was dead, and some one was needed at home to keep house for her father. She left us without a word of regret. Indeed, she did not even say good-bye to my father and mother. My dear mother, in her sweet, gentle way, reproached her for it when they met.

“I thought, ma’am,” said Cicely, “if you’d wanted to say good-bye, you’d ha’ come to the kitchen to say it to me. ’Twasn’t for me to intrude.”

“Oh! Cicely, after so many years!”—my mother’s eyes filled. She really loved that girl, and from the depth of my heart I believe Cicely loved her, but she was too perverse to show it.

“Now,” said Cicely to herself, “I’ll have no more nonsense.” By which she meant that she would drive all thoughts of Will from her head. But this is easier said and resolved on than accomplished. And you, we will say, think that your thoughts, or fancies, are in your own power, that you can trifle with them, and, when you like, put them aside. But when the day comes that you _do_ wish thus to be rid of them, then you find yourself entangled, chained in the passion, and you cannot break from it. So was it with Cicely. She thought and worked for her old father more zealously and lustily than she had for us, but only thought the more continuously on, and suffered the keener for, young Will Swan.

Summer was over; autumn harvests were gathered in; Martinmas summer had brooded over the land, enveloping all in a warm, lovely haze; and then, suddenly came the change. Without warning an equinoctial gale burst on the coast, the summer was over, the brightness past—winter had come with gloom and sadness.

On the evening after it had been blowing great guns all day, the door was thrown open, and one of the coastguard looked in.

“Jan Crowe!” called he to Cicely’s father, who had charge over the lifeboat, “there’s the _Marianne_ wrecked.”

“The _Marianne_!”

Cicely uttered a cry. That was Will Swan’s vessel, or, rather, the vessel in which Will Swan was. She ran down to the beach. The sea was almost indistinguishable from the air, so lashed and shaken together was wave with wind, so intermingled were foam and rain. The air was filled with sound. The sands trembled with the beating of the surf on them. The whole sky was brown and blurred with clouds sweeping along from the west, inland, with screaming sea-birds peppered against the vapour, and salt tears dripping out of it; now driving in rushes, then staying and drawing up as a veil, and allowing the wind full play to riot and rend between the clouds and the ocean.

All colour was gone out of land and sea and sky—gone as though melted together into one medley of dull grey, never to be gathered together into pure colour again. No outlines were clear. The bold points of land that ran out into the sea were so be-hazed with spoondrift and rain that they had changed their appearance, they had lost their consistency, they seemed to waver and threaten to dissolve into the seething flood that beat about them.

None but an experienced eye could distinguish the _Marianne_ in the haze and tossing mass of sea.

Men and women, in fluttering garments, were on the beach, with their hands to their eyes screening them, gazing seaward.

Cries rose for the boat to be launched. But in such a sea it was not possible to do anything. The _Marianne_ was a wreck. No living being was on her. The captain of the coast-guard put his glass to his eye and looked steadily at the tossing—now seen, now obscured—patch that was once the _Marianne_. In the gathering darkness little could be distinguished.

“They’ve left her,” he said. “There’s none aboard but a dog. Hark! you can hear him bark.”

Those near held their breath.

“I can’t hear nothing,” said a seaman.

“You can if you look through my glass,” said the captain, “you can then both see and hear the little dog yapping. He wouldn’t be yapping like that unless he’d been left behind.”

“But where be they? There was Cap’n Thomas, and Simon Feathers, and Joe Wilcock, and Bill Swan.”

“Aye,” said another, “and there’s Tony Graves; his mother be here in a terrible take-on. ’Tis the first time the boy has been so far to sea.”

“Where be they?” asked the captain. “I can’t see anything of a boat. They’ve took to it, sure as I’m here, and just as certain she’s capsized.”

“Then they’ll be washed ashore, dead or alive,” said one.

“Of course they will. ’Tain’t no use trying the lifeboat when you know they’re not in the vessel. You don’t know where to look for ’em.”

So the shore was searched, and, first one, then another was recovered; the boy Tony first, alive and not much the worse; then Joe Wilcock dead, or so near death that there seemed no chance of recovering him. With the barbarous ignorance then common, he was thrown across a barrel to let the water run out of his lungs. He struggled, gasped, and was still.

Captain Thomas, a large stout man, holding to an oar, forged his way ashore, but he was much bruised and cut by having been beaten against sharp slate rocks like razors. He could not speak, but his eyes were lively, black eyes under white bushy brows. After a quarter of an hour he gasped out, “Where’s Tony? I stood my life to his mother I’d bring him safe home.”

“Safe he is,” said some one near.

“Then that’s right,” said the captain. “Where’s the rest?”

They could tell him only of Joe Wilcock. Feathers and Swan had not been washed ashore.

By this time it was night. Lanterns were flashing along the beach. Then up from the water came some one; it was Cicely, drenched to the skin, her hair streaming, but wet as seaweed. She was dragging in her arms a dark mass.

Some ran to her with lights. What she was heaving was Will Swan, conscious, for he looked at her, but speechlessly. The moment others drew nigh the girl released her load and disappeared.

The night became clearer. The wind shifted to the north, the clouds parted. Stars appeared in the patches of dark sky. The rain ceased, but the sea still thundered and gleamed white.

A knock at the cottage door of the old fellow who had charge of the lifeboat. He was out still, but Cicely opened and saw Will Swan before her with both hands extended.

She drew her hand back and looked coldly at him.

He was staggered, and said: “Well, Ciss!”

“Well,” she said, “what do you want here?”

Will stepped forward, and tried to put his arm round her to take a kiss. She thrust him from her impatiently.

For a moment he stood motionless, then he burst forth: “It was you—you who snatched me out of the water.”

“You are mistaken, it was Jacob Finch. I stood by. I would have done that for any one.”

Will became white as chalk; then almost in fury, as if he would have torn her, he cried: “Ciss! you be cruel to me and to yourself. I don’t care, say yes or no, fight or bite if you will, mine you shall be, or I will carry you in these arms and throw you and myself together over the cliff into the sea.”

He seized her in his strong arms, clasped her to his heart, and covered her face with kisses.

So, in a paroxysm of fury, was this courtship done.

And Cicely melted like wax against glowing iron. But only for a moment, and then said: “Well, if it must be, it must.”

Fifty years have passed since that day.

There is now an old seaman sits smoking his pipe on the bench, looking seaward, and he yarns with his mates, and is looked up to and listened to by the younger men. He has got strapping sons of his own. They are seamen as was their father. He has a daughter married, and the old chap is fond of taking one of his grandchildren out with him, to walk on the quay and sit on the old bench beside him or else on his knee.

That old man is Will Swan.

The Crowe, by holy matrimony, had become a Swan.

The pretty Cicely I remembered so long ago was now dead; and old Bill wore a black band round his blue jersey arm.

A day or two ago I was sitting by him on the bench.

He was silent for a long time, smoking and blowing clouds.

Presently he turned his face to me. I saw there was trouble in it.

“You knew my wife, sir?” he said.

“Indeed I did, since I was a little child.”

“I know you did.”

Then again silence.

Presently again his face turned, and he drew his pipe from his mouth and rested it on his knee.

“You’re a minister now, sir?”

“Yes; I am a parson.”

“Then p’r’aps you can tell me something.”

“I will tell you what I can.”

“You see, sir, Ciss was that won’erful sort of a woman. Though us was married for fifty years her never once in all that time would say as her loved me.”

Again a long pause; another smoke. Then a turn to me: “You _are_ a parson?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Well, you can tell me. When I get into life everlasting, do you think Ciss will meet me at the gates o’ Paradise and say: ‘What are you doin’ here now? Don’t you go bothering of me, _I_ don’t want you’?”

“All that is left behind,” said I, “all, all in the soil and dross of the grave. Above, the bright happy smile will break out, and the welcome, and the hands will be stretched out——”

“Thank you,” he said slowly. Great tears were in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. “I hopes the same, but I doubts it. There must be a terrible, mirac’lous change for that to come about. But things may happen past ’uman understanding, and even onions turn to apples, and jerseys to pea-jackets. No offence, sir,” and he touched his forehead.

THE WEATHERCOCK

THE WEATHERCOCK

Lydia French had a shop opposite the church. The little town or overgrown village had no market, but there were fairs held in the space before the church on one side and Lydia French’s shop on the other twice in the year. Both were cattle fairs, frequented by farmers. On such occasions bullocks ran about with tails lifted, yelling men and barking dogs behind and before them, and made either for the churchyard wall or for Lydia French’s shop window. The Oddfellows, moreover, held their annual feast there, and processionised behind a band, and waved banners and wore sashes, and ate and drank heartily at the “Peal of Bells.” On such occasions stalls were erected in the open space, where nuts were shot for, and barley-sugar-sticks and twisted peppermint rods and brandy-balls were sold, also ginger-pop and lemonade. On all these occasions Lydia French’s shop was full of customers. She, moreover, had a good _clientèle_ in the entire parish, but experienced less difficulty in disposing of her goods than in getting her little bills paid.

But though there were defaulters, yet those who liquidated were in the majority, or Lydia French would not have been the prosperous woman she was. Her aspect breathed a fulness of purse and flush of comfort that were convincing. She could afford herself, on occasion, a silk gown. She made weekly expeditions to the bank to pay in hebdomadal profits. She had recently repapered her little parlour, and the paper was white and gold.

She was generous. When children put down their pennies for acid drops or almond rock, she always made the balance incline in their favour, to their great admiration; when their mothers bought calico, she was not particular to a quarter of a yard; and she was large-hearted—she subscribed equally to the missionaries of Church and Chapel.

Lydia French was a widow. She had been married but for a twelvemonth to a commercial traveller, who had in the brief year tried her forbearance and strained her means, and she had now been a widow of three years, and was without encumbrance.

Several had made advances to her, but she soon let commercial travellers understand that none of them need apply. There was one who trafficked in a “Life of Wellington,” with magnificent steel engravings, issued in parts, who laid siege to her; and when he would not take a “No” she refused to receive any more numbers of the series. Whereupon he threatened her with legal proceedings, averring that she had bound herself to Wellington from the cradle to the grave when she received the first part. She paid up rather than go into court, and nursed bitterness of heart against travellers thenceforth. The man whom she had married was bad enough; this Wellingtonian man was “wusser,” as she expressed it. It really was preposterous that such a woman, plump, prosperous, comely, should not find her man.

But, indeed, there were plenty of men who wanted her, only she was hard to please. A young farmer—she did not relish farm-work; she did not wish to give up the shop. The blooming butcher—she had an aversion for the trade. A handsome drover—he tippled. A Methodist class-leader—he was a teetotaller, and she liked her drop of mild ale.

But, finally she seemed to hesitate between two—John Newbold, the mason, and Jack Westcott—or, as the children called him, Jackie Waistcoat, the sailor.

Both were fine men, and both had good characters; the first was somewhat too heavy, the latter somewhat too lively. But where is perfection to be found? In woman, perhaps—nay, certainly—not in man.

There was this advantage to whichsoever she cast the kerchief, that he would not require her to give up the shop. To the shop she was attached. The shop made her a power in the parish, brought her into relation with all, gave her consequence, and drew to her a good deal of money. This, then, was a _sine quâ non_—that she should keep the shop after marriage as before. Besides, she did not desire to have a husband always hanging about her, like a fly in hot weather, that will not be driven away. She was accustomed to independence. A man on the premises all day implied interference, and that she was determined not to tolerate.

Lydia French sat in her shop; no business was doing this day. She had made up her account to midsummer, and the balance was good; it made her feel good—like a bracing sermon or a melting hymn. She had taken stock—roughly. Everything was satisfactory. The little house was in excellent condition, she owned it; that is to say, on three lives, and she had paid Newbold’s bill for putting it in thorough repair. The chimney had smoked; that was cured by the new revolving cowl. The drain from the sink had emitted smells; that was rectified—Newbold had put down a stink-trap. Newbold was a useful man when any masoning work was required. Could she put up with him for always—for better, for worse?

She looked up, and looked out at her little window between the bottles of pink and pallid drops, and the withered oranges that would no longer sell, and the stay-laces, and the ginger-beer bottles, and the can of mustard, and the tin of biscuits. And she saw that which was to her a constant worry—the weathercock on the church spire.

In the great gale of the preceding November the cock had been blown on one side, the spindle on which for many years it had revolved had been bent over, so that now the poor bird lay on his back in mid-air, and could neither right himself nor turn with the wind.

Mrs. French, neat in herself, orderly in her house, above all, in the shop, could not endure to see what was out of place, inverted, useless. She had liked to know from which direction the wind blew. It had provided her with conversation with her customers. It had satisfied her sense of the fitness of things that the spindle on the spire should be upright, and that the vane should fulfil the object for which it was ordained.

Now more than six months had passed, and the cock was still reversed. She had remonstrated with the parson.

“My dear Mrs. French,” he had replied, “that is the affair of the churchwardens. I have badgered all my friends, and impoverished myself over the restoration of the church—I can do no more.”

She complained to the churchwardens. “Lor’ bless y’,” said they, “there be no levying o’ church-rates now, what can _we_ do?”

“It really is a scandal,” said Lydia. “And now the village feast is coming on, and the Oddfellows will march about, and the cock will——”

“Be an odd fellow, too, turned upside down, like many of the heads after ale and punch.”

“I don’t like it,” said Lydia. “I sees it with its blessed feet turned up and its comb down—helpless. It is real unchristian and inhuman to let it bide so.”

The churchwardens said, “Meddlin’ with aught on the steeple is darned expensive. Beside, ’tain’t everywhere you can find a steeplejack.”

So Lydia fidgeted and mused and schemed: that vane became the trouble of her life.

In at the shop door came simultaneously, from opposite directions, the builder and the mariner.

They had a curious knack, these men, of spying on each other, and of denying each other the opportunity of having a few words in private with the widow.

In this, however, the sailor had the advantage over the mason, for he was not daily engaged, as was the other. But Newbold so contrived that when he was absent, should Westcott endeavour to steal a march on him, his mother or his sister should invade the shop and so prevent privacy.

Which was the favoured swain neither could decide; but that was not wonderful, for Lydia had not decided for herself.

“Good-morning, mem,” said the mason. “I’ll just trouble you for an ounce of bird’s-eye.”

“And I’ll have same of Virginia shag,” said the sailor.

“Fine day, mem,” said Newbold.

“Which way is the wind?” asked the widow.

“East by nor’-east,” answered Westcott.

“Ah! then we shall have fine weather, and lasting for the revel.”

“Hope so,” said the mason.

“It is really distressing—I can now never tell the way of the wind. It is as bad as having a kitchen clock as won’t work. That there church stag——”

Mrs. French never spoke of the weathercock, but used the local term for a cock, which throughout Devon is invariably—a stag.

“Ah!” said Newbold.

“Well, now,” said Westcott.

“It really do seem a burnin’ shame to have the poor unfort’nate bird lyin’ on his back and kickin’ at the clouds, and that, too, on the day of the parish feast. What will folk say of us? That we’ve no public spirit left. The farmers might get up a subscription. Would it be so amazin’ expensive? Would they have to scaffold all the tower up, and to the top of the spire?”

“That’s the way masons ’ud set about it,” said Jack Westcott contemptuously.

“And pray how ’ud sailors do it?”

“Swarm up,” said Jack.

“Get along! That wouldn’t do it.”

“Yes, it would, I bet a guinea. I might, but you——” The sailor shrugged his shoulders.

“For the matter of that,” observed the builder, after musing a while, “I don’t see but what it might be done, and done at no terrible cost. There’s a sort of a window on each side of the spire, and I suppose it would be possible to run out planks and make a sort of a platform and set up a ladder agin the steeple.”

“Would it not be dangerous?”

“Oh, of course there’s nothing in that way without danger. But if it has to be done, it can be done.”

“I warrant I’d get up without any of your arrangements,” said the mariner.

“I daresay you might,” responded the builder slowly; “but what good would that be? You’ve more to do than spike a Jacky Tar at the top; you’ve got to remove the spindle, and that must be roped and let down with caution. There’s a deal of things belonging to all things,” said Newbold sententiously, “and that’s what escapes the likes of you.”

“I bet I’d do it!” said the sailor.

“I bet so would I!” said the mason.

“But,” added the latter, “I ain’t going to risk my precious life and sacrifice time and labour for nothin’.”

“Now look here,” said Westcott, “there be you and me hoverin’ round about this here lovely creetur, each sunnin’ of ourselves in her beamin’ eyes and neither on us gettin’ no closer, and both of us lusty fellows, one accustomed to masts and other to scaffold-poles——”

“I take you,” interrupted the mason; “we between us is to set the weathercock to rights out of love to this adorable female.”

“Not just precisely that,” said the mariner. “Between us won’t do. What if we each went up the steeple simultaneous, and from opposite sides? Wouldn’t the distance atween us be every foot of ascent lessenin’ and lessenin’, till our faces met at the top? And I bet a guinea we wouldn’t kiss there; we’d come to a grapple.”

“Really,” said the widow, with a shudder, “this is startling. A contest on the pinnacle of the spire between you—and all for me. I ain’t worth it.”

“Not worth it!” exclaimed the mason, and was about to fall on his knees, when the sailor pointed to his boot, and brandished his foot menacingly. “I can’t allow that—not in my presence.”

“We will draw lots who is to go up and attempt it,” said the mason.

“And who is to have fair field and no interference for courtin’,” said the mariner.

“Done! It shall be so!” said Newbold.

“I agrees,” said Westcott.

“Now there is one thing I bargain for,” observed the builder. “If he who first attempts it fails and falls, and gets squelched, don’t let the other take advantage, and shirk doing of it in his turn. Let him also venture like a man.”

“Like a man!” echoed the tar. “‘England expects every man to do his dooty.’”

“Come, shall we draw matches?”

“Matches! It’s a match for one alone.”

“Then toss up.”

“Toss up you are. And the winner has fair field and no just cause or impediment why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony.”

“Here is a penny,” said Newbold.

“A penny! You ought to blush the colour of the copper to suggest it. I will toss only gold for such a bloomin’ and lovely lady. Here is a sovereign. Heads or Royal Arms—which?”

“Heads for me!” said Newbold.

“And arms—them extended arms for me,” said Jack Westcott, with a leer at the widow.

The sailor tossed the sovereign.

“Heads!” he exclaimed.

“Best of three,” said the mason condescendingly.

“Tails!” said Jack, after the second toss.

Now all paused and looked at each other. The widow’s face expressed anxiety.

Up went the gold piece once more, whisking high, and Westcott caught it, but paused a moment before opening his palms.

“Come, man! Let us see our fate,” said Newbold.

The sailor raised his right hand, and the sovereign in his left disclosed the reverse of the coin uppermost.

“I’ve won!” said the builder. “It is I who am to have the first shot at the weathercock.”

“And I bide below with the lady,” said the mariner.

“Let me consider,” mused Newbold. “I have a little job on hand for Squire Theobald; it will take me about a week, and my ladders be all engaged. But I’ll tell you what. Monday week will suit me, and that will be time enough before the feast.”

“Oh, Mr. Newbold, do not be _too_ rash,” pleaded the widow.

“Ma’am, I would dare anything for you,” he answered gravely.

The tidings that John Newbold was going to ascend the spire and put the vane to rights produced lively satisfaction in the breasts of the villagers, and awoke vast curiosity to know how he would set to work to accomplish it.

The day was fine—grey with occasional drifts of fog, but nothing to signify, and there was happily no wind. Nearly every parishioner was out to observe proceedings. Nearly—not all; there were exceptions. Mrs. French did not quit her shop. It neither comported with her ripe dignity to be seen among the rabble staring up at the sky, nor with her affairs, for a crowd on the green promised customers for ginger-beer and lollipops.

To her came Jack Westcott.

“Good-morning, mem. I thought, with your good favour, I’d fill my pouch with Virginia shag. And I’d like—if you have no objection—to see how that chap goes about it from within, on your premises.”

The widow bowed.

“Do you think, Mr. Westcott, there is real danger? I should never forgive myself——”

“Lord bless you. That mason chap wouldn’t do nothing that would hurt the tip of his nose. You’ll see. He’ll just run out some planks and nail a strip o’ wood across, and lash his ladders as well as lean them agin the strip. Bless your angel face and shining eyes, he’ll make all secure for himself.”

“But, Mr. Westcott, it really looks a most perilous undertaking.”

“Not more so than this,” said the sailor, suddenly swinging himself over the counter. “Excuse me, lovely creature! But I can’t well see what goes on on the side of the shop door; there’s all them darned advertisements block it up. But here—if I may be so bold as to watch.”

“You can take a chair, Mr. Westcott.”

“Never! unless you take one as well.”

So, with a little complimenting and resistance, it was settled: the widow and the suitor seated themselves on her side of the counter on two chairs, and looked out through the shop window at the proceedings of the builder.

Now it was seen how he emerged from the lower window of the spire, and how cautiously a short ladder was set up against it, by which, when made secure, he mounted, and placed himself astride the gable. Then a larger ladder was advanced against the incline of the steeple, and set so as to reach a considerable way up. This the mason ascended, and by some means he secured the ladder.

“It’s as easy as telling lies,” said the sailor. “I believe there are iron crooks let into the steeple.”

“But it looks dreadfully insecure,” said the widow. “Do see! he is like a fly against a rod.”

“More like a bumble-bee,” said Jack.

“What if he was to lose his head?”

“Not such a risk to him as to me,” sighed the mariner.

“What _do_ you mean, Mr. Westcott?”

“Only I never can see any man swarmin’ up a mast or so but I feel an itch in my palms to be grapplin’ of somethin’. You’ll excuse me if I put my arm round and lay hold of the back of your chair.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, Mr. Westcott.”

“I don’t think that chair-back very firm,” observed Jack.

“Oh! do, do look!” exclaimed the widow. “He is on one ladder, and thrusting up another hands over head! and, oh! if his feet were to give way! if he were to stagger! if the ladder were to slip! oh, I feel—I feel quite giddy and faint.”

“Lean on me,” said Jack; “and—drat that chair-back! it is cracked. That’s more substantial and agreeable to both parties.” He slipped his arm round her waist. “England expects every man to do his dooty.”

“I really cannot bear to see poor dear Mr. Newbold thus risk his precious life.”

“Then don’t,” said Westcott; and rising, he brought close together the bottles of mixed sweets and almond-rock in the window. “There, now you can’t see nor be seen. Are you better, my angel?”

“Rather,” responded Lydia in a faint voice. “And yet I’m all of a tremble. What if he was to fall?”

“We’d mingle our tears over his grave,” said the sailor. “Now, look you here.”

“I can’t; I’ve such a swimming in my head. O Jack! I can still see something—a fog has swept over the top of the spire; or is it that my eyes are deceived? He’s gone! He’s gone!”

“It is so—a passing drift of vapour. He’s all right. It will cool him. Now, Lydia, this won’t do. You’ll fret yourself into a brain-fever if you look at him even between the interstices of sweetie-bottles and biscuit-tins. I must convey you where you cannot see him at all; and there’s no place better than inside the church. And, by ginger! there goes the parson. I’ll call him; he will let us in. And—Lydia, I took the precaution to have a license; it cost me half-a-guinea—here it is. You’d never be so unreasonable as to have that chucked away, so come along.”

“O Jack! I wouldn’t do anything as wasn’t right and honourable. He, up there”—with her chin she indicated the top of the spire, then enveloped in fog—“he’ll expect to have me if he brings down the stag.”

“Not a bit, my dear. Nothing was set down in writing, but I call you to witness—he who had the choice was to go up the spire and leave the coast clear for the other to propose, and to offer no just cause or impediment. Was it not so?”

“I did not quite understand it in that light.”

“But I did.”

“Will Mr. Newbold, though?”

“My dear Lydia, he is up in a fog. England expects every man to do his dooty. Here’s the license. Come along.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, with a triumphant air and firm stride, the builder entered the shop, dragging along an immense battered weathercock detached from the spindle. It had once been gilt, it was now in a rusty, measly condition. Within he saw the widow and sailor side by side.

“Done!” shouted he. “I’ve got the cock!”

“Done!” replied the mariner. “I’ve won the hen!”

“I’ve been up in the clouds,” said Newbold.

“And I _am_ in the seventh heaven. I’ve not been in the clouds like you. Let me introduce you to Mrs. Westcott!”

A PLUM-PUDDING

A PLUM-PUDDING

As far as man could suppose, every element that goes to make up happiness was united to bless Mr. and Mrs. Birdwood.

He was in easy circumstances; that is to say, he had earned enough money not to be obliged to work any longer, and had his own little house, and could keep a “slavey.” He was inoffensive in his pursuits, being fond of flowers, especially of roses, which he grafted; and what harm can there be in a man who loves gardening? Next to marrying a curate, a woman has a good certainty of her husband turning out amiable and orderly if he grafts roses. Then, again, he was in the prime of life, by no means bad-looking, amiable and placid. You could not study his face and not see that he was good-humoured. On the other hand, Mrs. Birdwood was comely, a lively woman, neat in shape, under thirty, and of a florid complexion—which ought to suit a man addicted to flowers.

She had made a good match, said her friends, for she was one of fourteen, and had come penniless to his arms. She had been Eliza Gubbins, and had dropped the Gubbins at the altar. No one could deny that she was the gainer when she acquired a name that carried with it a suggestion of piping and tooting and whistling and jug-jugging and cooing of all kinds of song-birds.

But there is a fly in every cup, a thorn to every rose, some bone in every joint you get from the butcher, a cloud in every sky.

Mr. Birdwood was of an over-placid and too easy-going nature to satisfy Mrs. Birdwood, who was impulsive, exacting, and sanguine.

He accepted connubial felicity as he did his meals—as something anticipated, necessary, and ordinary. Instead of exhibiting an effusion of gratitude to his wife for making him happy, he budded his roses, and divided his bulbs, and potted his tubers as though that were the main object of his life, instead of falling down and admiring that luminous transcendental being who had condescended to come into Jessamine Villa to be _his happiness_.

They had been married a twelvemonth—rather more. Eliza Gubbins had supposed that an enamoured swain, after marriage, would grow in love, like a conflagration, which increases as you add fuel. But it was not so; he was warm and approving, but never rose above blood-heat. Moreover, he had a provoking Christian name—Josiah—that he could not alter. Eliza had fed on poetry and romance in her maiden days, and the name, Josiah, had in it nothing poetical, no romance.

“I can’t call you Jos,” she said, “for that is the short for Joseph or Joshua.”

“Then call me Siah.”

“Sire. No, thank you; it would seem as though I regarded you as my sovereign.”

As yet there was no child, nor prospect of one. This fact might have been considered a reason why they should have been more than ever devoted to one another, as there was no distraction, no one else in the house to love, except the slavey, and she was, naturally, out of the question.

But it was not so. Mrs. Birdwood had nothing else to think about except the lack of ardour in Mr. Birdwood, and nothing else to do but fret over it.

“My dear,” said Josiah Birdwood one day at table, “my dear, I think Maggie Finch is just about your size and build.”

“Maggie Finch!—and who is she?”

“I mean the girl at Miss Thomas’s, the dressmaker’s.”

“Maggie Finch, indeed!” exclaimed Eliza, turning first red, then white. “And pray, what do you know about”—witheringly—“Maggie Finch?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear, only she is in Miss Thomas’s shop.”

“And what do _you_ know of Miss Thomas’s shop?”

“Why not, my dear? You go to Mr. Gardener’s—Mr. Gardener the tailor, I mean.”

“Of course, I do. I have tailor-made dresses.”

“Then why should not I go to the milliner’s to have a milliner-made suit?”

“It is preposterous. Maggie Finch, indeed! How do you know she is a Maggie?”

“Miss Thomas calls her so. Besides——”

“Well?” sternly eyeing him.

“I got her the situation.”

“Oh! I see! you got her the situation.”

“Yes. Her poor father——”

“I want to hear nothing of the poor father; it is poor Maggie you think of. I see all, clear as daylight—a Finch and a Birdwood match much better than a Gubbins and a Birdwood.” Then she burst into tears.

“My dear, be reasonable, and—kindly give me a spoonful of gravy; my bacon is dry.”

“How can you! How can you! Heartless, cruel man! Oh that I had married a commercial traveller!”

“A bagman, my dear!”

“You need not open your mouth, nostrils, and eyes with such a snorting affectation of surprise. I said it—a commercial traveller.”

“I did not know, my dear——”

“No. You did not know that I had a—a tender corner in my heart, a general predilection for commercials. They go about in flights, like humming-birds in the Brazilian forests.”

“Have you been in Brazil, dear?”

“No, I have not; but I have read of them. Living—animated jewels they are.”

“Which? The bagmen or the humming-birds?”

“I won’t speak to you any more. You purposely misunderstand me to insult me, that you may go off to your Maggie Finches.”

“There is only one, dear.”

“And so much the worse. You focus, you concentrate, on that wretched object the admiration, the love, of which I am bereaved. If you go gallivanting and meandering round dressmakers’ assistants, I can do the same. I will not be left out in the cold for any Maggie Finches, I can tell you. There are plenty of bagmen, as you call them—commercials is their proper designation—who would be only too glad, too proud, to lick the dust off my feet.”

“My dear, you are hot.”

“I have occasion to be hot.”

“And my tea is cold.”

“This is an outrage!”

Mrs. Birdwood rose and flounced out of the room. She rushed upstairs, casting at the slavey, _en passant_, a notice to quit, for no particular reason, but as a vent to her wrath; and she dashed into the bedroom, where nothing had as yet been put in order, and threw herself in the arm-chair and burst into a flood of tears. She remained for some time crying and fanning herself into a greater flame of wrath. Then she rose and went to the window. She saw her husband—he had taken off his coat, and he was digging in the garden. He had told her, the previous evening, that he expected hard frost, and would turn up the mould, that the slugs might be killed. Actually, after that scene, after those reproaches hurled at him, after that exposure, he was placidly digging, that the frost might kill the slugs.

Really the man was unendurable.

About an hour later he drew on his coat and came in, and brushed down his trousers and washed his hands.

Mrs. Birdwood lurked about watching. He went out at the front door, passed into the street, and disappeared. Mrs. Birdwood drew on her cloak, adjusted a hat, and followed.

She had hardly reached the gate before she saw Josiah turn in at a door to a shop some way up the street, over which was inscribed: “Thomas: Milliner and Dressmaker.”

“The die is cast. Flaunting his vices in the face of his wife! I, too, can be vicious. If he goes hunting dressmakers, I—even I—can seek commercial travellers.”

She set her lips. Her eyes glared. Her face was terrible in its wrath.

She hastened to retrace her steps, gathered together a few of her most valued and necessary goods, and left the house.

“There!” said she, slamming the iron gate after her. “There! Two can play at this game. If he deserts me, I also can desert him. Good-bye to Jessamine Villa! Oh that I had married a commercial!”

She took her way to the station. “Let me see,” said she; “I’ll go a-junketing to the seaside and enjoy myself. Happily I have money; he gave me enough to pay the monthly bills. Won’t he be surprised when he comes back from Finching to find me flown! Yes—I’ll go to Sandbourne and enjoy the sea breezes, and pick up shells and seaweeds, and look at the visitors, and perhaps a commercial or two may flit past my admiring eyes. Their manners are so elegant; they have such persuasive ways; their address is so engaging!”

Furnished with a ticket, she got into a second-class carriage. She was about to enjoy herself, so she would not go third—and she had money to spend.

There was a gentleman in the carriage. He had been seeing a number of large black boxes put into the luggage van. He took his seat after Mrs. Birdwood had ensconced herself in a corner, hoping to have a carriage to herself.

Off went the train.

As already said, Mrs. Birdwood was a comely woman, and this the other traveller perceived, and was unable to take his eyes off her. If a cat may look at a king, then surely a commercial may gaze on a pretty woman! Mrs. Birdwood did not like it, and put up her hand to let down her veil; unhappily, in her hurry at leaving, she had forgotten her veil.

“Christmas coming soon,” said the gentleman; “a time of holly and mince-pies—and above all, of mistletoe! I think I know some one who would like to be under a mistletoe bush with somebody else, unnamed.”

“And I think,” said Mrs. Birdwood, “I know some one who would like to have a bunch of holly with which to whack into somebody else—unnamed!”

“Going any distance, miss?” asked the bagman.

“I don’t quite know where I am going,” inadvertently replied the runaway wife. Then she bit her tongue in vexation at having said what she had.

“Let me recommend Sandbourne,” said he confidingly. “A charming place—beautiful beach. Excuse me, I think the ticket you hold—ah! it is for Sandbourne. How happy a coincidence! I am going there as well. If I can be of any assistance with your luggage, command me.”

“I have none.”

“Indeed! Going to friends?”

She was silent. Tears came into her eyes—tears of mortification and anger.

“My dear young lady,” said the fellow-passenger, “I trust I have not touched on any tender point. When lovely woman stoops to conquer—especially with tears as her weapons—she is irresistible.”

“Really, sir,” exclaimed Mrs. Birdwood, “I must request you to desist from these impertinences and this odious familiarity.”

“A thousand pardons—I am mute.”

On reaching Sandbourne station Mrs. Birdwood dismounted from the train, greatly relieved to be able to shake off the gentleman who had annoyed her. She sought out a modest inn, and then walked down to the shore.

“A pretty pass Josiah will be in,” thought she, “when he finds that I am gone! There will be ructions in the house. Well, if he will run after Finches, he must take the consequences. And Christmas coming on as well, and no comforts, no plum-pudding. I’ll be bound that Jemima will serve up the roast beef without any horse-radish—serve him right; and as to Yorkshire pudding, she can’t make it!—very glad. He’ll suffer where most sensitive. Oh!” She saw a large coloured poster. “A circus! I have not seen one since I was a girl. I will go.”

But she did not enjoy herself at the horsemanship. Her mind reverted to Jessamine Villa, and to a plum-pudding she had made a month ago, and had put away in a tin to be ready for Christmas. She wished she had brought it with her; but she had left it behind, locked up. Her husband knew nothing about it. The slavey was equally ignorant. Now that costly and excellent plum-pudding would be lost, for she would never go back to Jessamine Villa—never, never within the sound of the name of Finch.

That plum-pudding had been made from an excellent recipe given her by her mother—

“5 lb. suet, 4 lb. flour, 3 lb. bread-crumbs, 4½ lb. raisins, 3 lb. currants, 1½ lb. sugar, 1 lb. mixed peel, 1 pint old ale, 1 nutmeg, 6 teaspoonfuls salt, 2 quarts milk, 12 eggs; boiled 8 hours; a sufficient quantity for 9 puddings, 4 of which are large.”

She could rehearse it by heart. Of course, in the small establishment at Jessamine Villa nine puddings—four of which were large—were not required. But the late Mrs. Gubbins had been a woman with a large family and a larger heart, and she had been accustomed to send puddings to her married sons and daughters. Mrs. Birdwood had halved everything, and then had been able to give a pudding to an aunt at Bandon, another she had sent to a married brother in London, a small one she had reserved for a poor old woman who received her charities, and the rest were for Jessamine Villa consumption. And now——

“Dear, dear, dear!” sighed Mrs. Birdwood, not observing anything in the arena.

“I beg pardon—did you mean me?” asked a voice. She turned, and saw the commercial traveller beside her.

“No, sir!” she retorted sharply. “I alluded to the pudding; with raisins at fivepence, and only nine eggs a shilling, it is dear, very dear, inexpressibly dear.”

“I beg your pardon again; I don’t quite take it in.”

“The pudding was not for your consumption, sir.”

“You would confer on me, miss, a great favour if you would give me your name. A thousand apologies for asking.”

“My name is—” She choked; should she give her married or her maiden name? “Never mind.”

“And mine is Fisher. I am in the hosiery and haberdashery business. That is to say, I travel for a firm in that line. I am now staying at the ‘Woolpack.’”

“At the ‘Woolpack’! So am I!” she cried in dismay. “This will never do—no, never!”

She dashed out of the circus, went to the inn, removed her trifling effects, paid her bill, and departed to the “Red Lion.”

Next morning she came down to the coffee-room, and was dismayed to find there Mr. Fisher.

“Good gracious me!” she exclaimed, “I thought you were at the ‘Woolpack’?”

“So I was; but as it seemed to offend you, and I could not think of annoying a lady, I went back when the performance was over, paid my account, and departed to another inn—the ‘Red Lion.’”

“This will never do!” gasped Mrs. Birdwood. “I shall leave immediately!”

She hastened to the station and took the train for Bandon; she would go to her aunt. The plum-pudding had preceded her; if she followed, it was but like a player of bowls, who delivers his ball and then runs after it.

Her aunt was pleased to see her, and asked what occasioned this visit. Mrs. Birdwood made the excuse that she wished to see her before Christmas, and that she had friends in Bandon she also desired to see. She had not visited them since her—she gulped—her marriage. “I dare say, auntie, I may remain here a few days.”

“Delighted, my dear, to see you; but you do not intend to remain long—because Christmas is at hand—the day after to-morrow—and of course you will be back for that?”

Mrs. Birdwood looked down, and did not answer. Next morning she went to see friends. About mid-day she returned, when she was encountered by her aunt in the passage. “My dear—dreadful news! Have you heard?”

“Heard—no. What?”

“It comes from Jemima’s mother, your maid-of-all-work as you took from here at my recommendation. She writ to her mother yesterday evening; and it is shocking—orful!”

“What is it, aunt?”

Mrs. Birdwood turned white; that slavey had written that her mistress had run away, and—doubtless with amplifications of her own—run away with a commercial in the hosiery and haberdashery line, and had been seen with him at a circus at Sandbourne.

“You must prepare yourself for the worst,” said the aunt.

“I know it—I know it!” gasped Mrs. Birdwood.

“I don’t see how you can, as it only happened yesterday,” said the old lady.

“Well, tell me all—hold back nothing!”

“Your dear Josiah—he’s gone and scalded hisself to death, in trying to bile a plum-pudding for his Christmas dinner. The flesh is come off in collops—just like an over-boiled leg of veal—with rice, you know. Don’t cling to th’ bone. I had a rabbit too, once——”

Mrs. Birdwood uttered a cry; she did not stay to hear about the rabbit, but flew to the station. She was just in time to catch a train. She took her ticket for—she asked for one to Jessamine Villa, but the clerk said there was no such station; then she recalled the name of the town in the outskirts of which Jessamine Villa was situated.

Weeping, trembling, sick at heart, she sat in the third-class carriage, as she was whirled home—to the home she had left, to the husband she had deserted.

On reaching the station where she had to disembark she flew to the villa. From a distance she could see—the blinds were drawn down; but then it was evening, and a lamp was alight within—was it where he was laid out in his bones?

She burst in at the door, bathed in a dew of anguish as well as heat, rushed into the sitting-room, and found there Mr. Birdwood in an arm-chair by the fire, his foot up, reading a catalogue of horticultural structures.

“Well, my dear,” said he, “back again?”

“And you—you have been scalded?”

“Yes; my foot.”

“How?”

“Jemima said she couldn’t make a Christmas plum-pudding, and I said we must have one, so I tried my hand.”

“But the flesh—has it left the bone in collops?”

“No; I am blistered, that is all. I spilt the mess over my foot. It was not quite on the boil, I believe.”

“Goodness me! And how did you make the mess?”

“All right—raisins and flour.”

“No suet?”

“No.”

“No mixed peel?”

“Never thought of it.”

“Any old ale?”

“Of course not.”

“Nor eggs?”

“Did not suppose they were wanted.”