Chapter III: Part 3

No one was more rejoiced to hear of this doughty resolution than Mrs Domeny; though from certain heated altercations which sometimes took place on Saturday nights between the couple, it might be inferred that in spite of his pledge the good fellow was still troubled by certain rebellious hankerings. It was even whispered that now and then—on market-days for instance—Jess’s gait was wont to become unsteady and his speech a trifle thick, almost as of yore; but Farmer Old never appeared to notice these lapses from the path of rectitude, and Jess lost no measure of the respect with which he had inspired his fellow-labourers since he had first proposed to set them an example.

“JARGE’S LITTLE ’OOMAN”

IT was eight o’clock on a summer’s morning, and Farmer Ellery’s haymakers had duly assembled in his yard preparatory to setting forth for the field.

The long spell of fine weather appeared likely to break up at last, and if the hay in the forty-acre was to be carried that day, every hand was needed.

The farmer, mounted on his stout black horse, kept a sharp look-out as the folk came up, and those who were disposed to lag and to gossip quickened their pace as they took note of his expression. Several things had happened to put the master out of temper. One of the horses had suddenly gone lame, a wheel had come off the biggest waggon, and what was most provoking of all, though every pair of hands was wanted, as has been said, every pair of hands was not forthcoming.

Old John Robbins was down with his rheumatism again—and where was George Crumpler?

“Where’s George Crumpler?” Farmer Ellery enquired aloud, taking a rapid and frowning survey of the groups who had surrounded horses and waggons.

“Be Jarge Crumpler here?” echoed an officious voice.

And then the answer came, first from one side and then the other, “I han’t seen nothin’ o’ Jarge this marnin’;” and “He bain’t here, sir—I d’ ’low he bain’t.”

The farmer tightened his reins with an ominous look.

“He’s been at his tricks again, I suppose?”

While he was yet speaking a figure turned in at the gate and made its way quickly up to the “maister”; the figure of a short, thick-set woman in a print dress and sunbonnet. Drawing near, she uplifted a round, sunburnt face, and laid her hand tremulously upon the farmer’s rein.

“Please ye, sir, I’m sorry to say my ’usband bain’t so very well this marnin’.”

“Oh, isn’t he?” retorted Ellery, with a short, angry laugh. “He’s been taking something that hasn’t agreed with him, I suppose; it’s happened once or twice before.”

“He’ve had a fall,” the little woman nervously stammered.

“A fall, yes—it’s not the first time either. Cut his head open as usual, I suppose?”

The bystanders looked at each other, and a smothered “Haw, haw!” sounded here and there.

“He fell into a ditch once,” resumed Mr Ellery, with stern sarcasm. “Was it a ditch this time, or did he chance to knock himself against a wall?”

“He tripped over a log of wood,” returned Mrs Crumpler, diffidently; and the laughter of the bystanders began afresh.

“Here, you folks,” shouted the farmer, raising himself in his stirrups, “what are you all idling about for? Because one man’s an idle, good-for-nothing chap, are you _all_ to lose your time? I’m going to make an example of George Crumpler, and I’ll make an example of everyone what thinks he can play the fool and treat me this way. Stand out of my way, Mrs Crumpler—you know very well, and George knows very well, what he has to expect. I told him plain the last time he went drinking that if ever I lost another day’s work through him I’d send him packing. So he needn’t trouble himself to come here again. Let go of my rein.”

But Mrs Crumpler clutched it fast.

“Please ye, sir,” she said firmly, “there’s no occasion for ye to be at the loss of a day’s work along o’ Crumpler bein’ laid-up—I be come to take his place.”

“What,” cried Ellery, “you!”

“E-es, sir,” rejoined Mrs Crumpler with a kind of modest assurance. “I can work just so well as he. There’s nothin’ what he do do as I can’t do if ye’ll let me try.”

“Can ye drive a hayrake, then?” cried the farmer, with a laugh that was half-fierce and half-amused.

“Not a hayrake, no, sir,” rejoined the little woman after a moment’s reflection; “I shouldn’t like for to undertake a hayrake—but a cart or a waggon—I d’ ’low I could drive either o’ them just so well as anybody. And I could use a hand-rake, or I could toss up hay wi’ a pitchfork.”

“Yes, you’ve got such fine long arms, haven’t you?” rejoined Ellery, eyeing her diminutive proportions.

But Mrs Crumpler was not discouraged: “They mid be shart, sir, but they be terr’ble strong,” she returned; “feel o’ them.”

The farmer laughed again, but this time more good-naturedly.

“If you was to give me a trial, sir, I think you’d be satisfied,” pleaded Mrs Crumpler.

“Oh, you can try as much as you like,” returned the master, twitching the rein from her hand, and eyeing her with a smile that was not unkindly. “I don’t suppose you’ll make much hand of it, but you’re welcome to try.”

“Thank ’ee, sir,” she responded, fervently. “What be I to do then, please, sir?”

“Why, we’ll try what your arms are made of, since you’re so proud of ’em. You’ll find a pitchfork in that shed yonder. Be sprack and get it, and follow the rest o’ the folks up along.”

He chuckled as he watched her cross the yard and dive into the shed, reappearing in a twinkling with a pitchfork as tall as herself. Having seen her shoulder this and hasten away with it, he put his horse to a trot, and presently forgot all about Mrs Crumpler in attending to more weighty matters.

The little woman’s appearance in the field was greeted with a shout of laughter; but, nothing daunted, she made her way to the nearest waggon.

“I be come to lend a hand,” she declared; “I be come to take Jarge’s place.”

The announcement was treated as a good joke; old Joe Weatherby grinned down at her from the waggon, while Bill Frost paused with an immense bundle of hay poised on his fork.

“It bain’t much of a hand what you’ll be lendin’, Sally; I d’ ’low your arms won’t reach much further nor a child’s.”

“You’ll soon see that,” returned Sally valiantly; then, smiling up at Joe, she continued, “I d’ ’low a woman bain’t fit for much if she can’t take her husband’s place now an’ again when he be laid by the heels. How’s that to start wi’?”

She drove the prongs of her fork into the nearest haycock, and adroitly tossed a goodly truss to Joe, who proceeded to spread and trample it after the recognised fashion. “Now then, here’s another.”

Sally’s fork went backwards and forwards with so much speed and energy that Joe presently pleaded for mercy, announcing that she was ready for him before he could get ready for she.

But Bill laughed sardonically. “It be all very well now the wain be near empty. Bide a bit till the load do begin to grow.”

As the hay mounted higher and higher, indeed, in response to the combined efforts of himself and Mrs Crumpler, the poor little creature found the work more difficult to accomplish. She made strenuous efforts, holding her pitchfork at its extreme end, tossing the hay with all her strength, even jumping occasionally; but over and over again the truss tumbled down from her fork before she could cast it into its allotted place.

“I d’ ’low ye’ll have to give in,” said Joe, gazing down at her from his eminence.

“I ’on’t then!” said Sally; and then she burst into tears. “I can’t!” she explained between her sobs. “If I can’t do Jarge’s work the maister ’ull turn en off. He said so. Here, I’ll try again.”

“Nay now, nay now,” said Joe, “ye mid have the best ’eart in the world yet yer arms midden’t be no longer. Tell ’ee what—ye can be rakin’ the stuff together, while me and Bill do finish this lot, an’ when we do bring the waggon back ye can take my place on it.”

Sally dropped the apron with which she had been wiping her eyes, and thanked him gratefully; then, exchanging her fork for a wooden rake, she turned energetically to her new task.

By-and-by the waggon went creaking out of the field, and presently returned empty, whereupon Mrs Crumpler proudly clambered up on it. Her goodwill and energy were certainly unfailing; nevertheless, she presently discovered that something more was required for the successful loading of a waggon. It was very difficult to spread the hay evenly, and, trample as she might, she could not get it to lie as firmly as when Joe was in possession.

When Farmer Ellery rode round, he paused for quite a long while watching her operations, and though Sally worked feverishly hard, and feigned to take no notice of him, her heart beat so fast that she could scarcely breathe, and when he presently called her by name, she gave such a start that she dropped her pitchfork.

“I don’t think this job is altogether in your line, Mrs Crumpler,” said the farmer.

Sally timidly raised her eyes to his face, but could make nothing of it, half-hidden as it was by his great brown beard.

“I bain’t gettin’ on so very bad, thank ’ee, sir,” she answered, curtseying as well as she could on top of her load. “I’ll—I’ll be able to manage better with a little more practice.”

“Yes, and while you’re practising my hay will be sliding about all over the field,” he rejoined gruffly. “You’d best get down again and give up your place to Joe.”

Mrs Crumpler meekly slid to the ground, and came up to the farmer, remarking with an ingratiating smile which belied her anxious eyes, “I d’ ’low I’m best at rakin’.”

“I d’ ’low you are. But you undertook to fill George’s place. I don’t pay George for doing boy’s work.”

Mrs Crumpler cogitated with a troubled face for a moment, and then her brow cleared.

“I could come two days for Jarge’s one,” she cried triumphantly. “’Tis to be hoped he’ll be all right to-morrow and able to do his work, but I’ll come up this way, sir, if ye’ll let me.”

“Well, you’re a plucky little soul, I’ll say that for you,” remarked the farmer, more good-naturedly than he had yet spoken. “There, get your rake then.”

Mr Ellery’s words of eulogy were repeated by many voices when the men assembled at the dinner hour in the shady corner near the pool. Mrs Crumpler elected to go home for that meal, remarking cheerfully that she thought Jarge would be pretty well hisself by that time, and would be lookin’ out for a bite o’ summat.

“Maister hissel’ did tell her she was a good plucked ’un,” said Bill, “and so she be. I d’ ’low there bain’t many ’oomen as ’ud gie theirselves all that trouble for a chap like Jarge.”

“I could wish my missus ’ud take a leaf out of her book. There, the way the ’ooman do go on if I do take so much as the leastest drap.”

“My wold ’ooman wouldn’t put herself out for I, neither,” said another.

As they sat and watched the retreating figure of Mrs Crumpler hastening across the field, they felt themselves more and more injured, and were disposed to vent their grievances on their own women-kind, who presently appeared to minister to them.

“A few spuds,” remarked Bill, discontentedly prodding at the little basin from which his wife had just removed the cloth. “A few spuds and hardly so much grease to ’em as ’ll m’isten ’em. We’ve a-had a little ’ooman among us to-day as could show ’ee summat, my dear.”

“A ’ooman!” cried Mrs Frost, instantly on the alert.

“Oh, e-es,” responded Bill, shaking his head. “A ’ooman as knowed summat of the duties of a wife, didn’t she, Ed’ard?”

“Jist about,” said “Ed’ard” with his mouth full.

“A ’ooman what come down to take her husband’s place along o’ his bein’ a bit drinky to-day an’ not able to work. She did come to the maister so bold as a lion, an’ she did say, ‘Here be I, so well able to do a day’s work as he’—didn’t she?”

“Ah!” put in Joe, raising his head from a mug of cider which had just found its way into his hands, “an’ when she did find she couldn’t get on so fast as us menfolks, she says to maister, ‘I can do two days’ work then,’ says she, ‘to make up for it.’ That’s a ’ooman!” With a further shake of the head as a tribute to the absent Mrs Crumpler, Joe applied himself to the cider-mug again, but this last remark was taken up by several of his neighbours.

“That’s a ’ooman, indeed,” they said, and every man whose better-half chanced to be in attendance looked reproachfully at her as he spoke.

“Well, I’m sure,” exclaimed one irate matron, catching up her empty basket, “she must be a wonderful faymale whoever she mid be, but I’d like to know who looks after the house while she be traipsin’ about i’ the fields. Some folks has one notion o’ dooty an’ some has another. To my mind it’s more a ’ooman’s duty to see to things at home—to get her husband’s dinner an’ that—”

“There, ’tis just the very thing what she’ve gone home-along to do,” shouted Bill.

“An’ so tired as the creature was, too, wasn’t she?” said somebody.

“Ah! that was she,” rejoined somebody else. “There she was fair wore out. The perspiration was a-pourin’ down her face. ‘Sit down an’ rest, do, my dear,’ says I. ‘No,’ says she, ‘I must run home so quick as I can to get my Jarge’s dinner.”

“Jarge!” said Mrs Frost, with withering scorn, “Jarge! It’ll be that poor little down-trod Mrs Crumpler they be all keepin’ up such a charm about,” she explained contemptuously to her neighbour with the basket. “Mrs Crumpler—that poor little plain-faytured—”

“Handsome is as handsome does,” interrupted Bill; “I d’ ’low Jarge do think Sally hasn’t her match i’ th’ world.”

“‘You be a plucky little ’ooman,’” chanted old Joe, gazing maliciously at the crestfallen assemblage of matrons; “them was Farmer Ellery’s words: a plucky little ’ooman. Be there any cider left—?”

“Just a little,” said Bill.

“Hand it here, then,” cried Joe with a virtuous air; “we’ll drink Mrs Crumpler’s health.”

“Well,” said Mrs Frost, turning away with an indignant air, “I wouldn’t like to have Mrs Crumpler’s conscience, however plucky she mid be. A body would have thought ’twas bad enough to have a drunken husband wi’out teachin’ other folks to get into bad ways. Drink her health, indeed! Somebody did ought to speak to her.”

The suggestion was warmly taken up, and a select deputation of three immediately turned their steps in the direction of Mrs Crumpler’s cottage.

The matron with the basket, one Mrs Dewey by name, had volunteered to be spokeswoman; but she stopped short in the open doorway conscious of a certain diffidence, for Mr Crumpler, very pale in complexion and watery about the eyes, was up and seated in his elbow-chair by the fire.

Sally, who with a flushed and tired face was making hasty preparations for dinner, turned as Mrs Dewey paused on the threshold, and smiled cheerfully.

“Come in, do, Mrs Dewey, I haven’t a minute to shake hands—I be terr’ble busy. There, my poor husband did have a accident last night, an’ I be takin’ his place in the hay-field.”

“So we heared,” rejoined Mrs Dewey sedately.

She stepped in, followed by Mrs Frost and Jenny Weatherby, the remaining member of the deputation, a spinster with a father just as troublesome as anybody else’s husband. All took their seats in response to a hurried wave of Mrs Crumpler’s hand.

“Oh, ye’ve heared!” said Sally, looking from one to the other with a somewhat awkward laugh.

“E-es,” said Mrs Dewey, “we’ve heared. An’ we did hear the cause o’ your doin’ it, too.”

“Oh, an’ did you?” said Sally.

Mr Crumpler cleared his throat in an absent-minded kind of way, and looked abstractedly at the fire.

Mrs Frost, after waiting a second or two to see if Mrs Dewey would take the initiative, shot a severe glance in his direction, and then addressed herself to his wife, who, with symptoms of gathering irritation, not unmixed with perturbation, was now laying the table.

“E-es, Mrs Crumpler,” she said, in a loud, clear voice, “me and Mrs Dewey an’ Jenny Weatherby there, us felt it our dooty to step up an’ say a word or two to ye about it. ’Tis terr’ble bad example what you’ve a-been a-givin’ to-day, Mrs Crumpler.”

“Bad example!” gasped Sally, clapping down the tumbler which she had been ostensibly polishing, and whisking round sharply.

“Well, I don’t know what else you can call it,” put in Mrs Dewey indignantly. “I’m sure the men is hard enough to manage at the best o’ times, an’ when a ’ooman like you goes encouragin’ of ’em in their bad ways and wickedness, ’tis a shame and a disgrace, Mrs Crumpler.”

“A public shame, so ’tis,” exclaimed Jenny. Sally turned quite pale.

“Why, what have I done?” she cried.

“Done!” echoed the deputation in chorus.

“What have I done?” repeated Sally, with a stamp of the foot, and raising her voice so as to drown the outcry. “When my husband found hisself onfit to do his work this marnin’ I went out an’ did it for en, so as maister shouldn’t turn en away.”

“Ho, yes,” said Mrs Dewey, folding her arms, “that was what ye done; we all knows that well enough. Ye was a-boastin’ an a-braggin’ of it loud enough, I’m sure, settin’ yourself up an tryin’ to make every man o’ the place discontented and upset.”

“Me!” exclaimed Mrs Crumpler indignantly. “I’m sure I never opened my mouth to get a-boastin’ or anything o’ the kind.”

“Oh, didn’t ye!” retorted Jenny. “I heared my father say as you went an offered maister to do two days’ work to make up for one your husband had a-lost through bein’ drinky.”

“Well,” rejoined Sally, whose blood was now up, “that wasn’t boastin’.”

“’Twas a-settin’ yourself up above the rest of us and a-puttin’ notions into the men’s heads what be bad enough as ’tis,” cried Mrs Dewey.

“Why, they’ll all be expectin’ of us to do the same,” exclaimed Mrs Frost, “to be sure they will. The very next time Frost gets drunk he’ll up and ax me, as like as not, why I don’t do his work for en, same as Sally Crumpler.”

At this point, Mr Crumpler, whose shoulders might have been observed to heave during the last few moments, suddenly pushed back his chair and burst into a roar of laughter.

“Well done!” he cried. “Well done, Sally! I d’ ’low there b’ain’t a man in the place but what envies me.”

Thereupon the deputation turned upon him as one woman.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asked Mrs Dewey.

“You did ought to want to go and hide your head,” exclaimed Jenny.

“Sich a man as that didn’t ought to look honest folk i’ th’ face,” remarked Mrs Frost witheringly.

But Jarge laughed on, eyeing the three the while with so quizzical an air that they were positively discomfited. Finally he rose and made his way to the door—walking quite straight by the way—and politely requested the ladies to step out.

This they did, overturning a chair or two in their hasty passage.

Jarge closed the door, but, apparently struck by a sudden thought, opened it again and thrust his head through the aperture.

“I b’ain’t ashamed o’ myself, good souls,” shouted Mr Crumpler after the retreating figures, “but I tell ye what—I be jist about proud o’ my little ’ooman.”

Mrs Crumpler remained, however, somewhat discomposed by the recent event, and when she took her way fieldwards again, it was with a downcast countenance. Jarge would have accompanied her, but for the fact that, though he had regained control of his legs and could speak with comparative clearness, he continued to see double.

“An’ that mid be a bit awk’ard wi’ so many harses about,” he confided to Sally.

Moreover the wound in his head was sufficiently painful to make a further rest advisable. Sally set forth therefore alone, feeling tired and miserable enough. She was the most modest little creature in the world, and was filled with dismay at the notoriety she had so suddenly acquired. As the afternoon advanced she shrank more and more into her shell, for if the ill-will of the women had vexed and perturbed her, the boisterous admiration of the men annoyed her almost beyond endurance. The rough jests, the officious offers of aid, the loudly expressed praise were equally obnoxious to her. It was with unbounded relief that she saw the last waggon loaded, and prepared to depart from the field. She had shaken out her skirts, and was in the act of straightening her sunbonnet when she found herself suddenly seized from behind, and almost before she realised what was happening, was hauled by a dozen strong grimy hands on to the apex of the piled-up hay and there enthroned.

“Three cheers for the Queen o’ the Day!” shouted someone, and the cry was taken up by a score of lusty voices.

“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!”

“Let me down,” gasped Mrs Crumpler faintly; but an extra pair of horses had been harnessed to the waggon, and it was now rumbling forward at what seemed to her a dangerously rapid rate.

There sat the poor little woman on her sweet-smelling throne, the reluctant centre of all eyes, while the waggon went out of the field and down the village street surrounded by a shouting band of haymakers. Outraged matrons stood in the doorways raising indignant eyes to Heaven, delighted children ran after the convoy, adding their shrill voices to the chorus; last of all Jarge Crumpler himself, startled by the outcry, made his way to his own gate just as the triumphal procession drew up before it.

“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!” shouted Bill Frost; and “Hooray, hooray!” cried the bystanders.

Jarge himself, infected by the enthusiasm, shouted “Hooray” too, just as little Sally, very red in the face, came sliding down from the waggon.

As she heard him she stopped for a second, threw a reproachful glance at him, and then, bursting into smothered sobs, hurried into the house.

After a pause of bewilderment he hastened after her, while the haymakers, with a farewell cheer, continued their progress at a more leisurely pace, with a dozen children clinging to the tail-board of the waggon, and one or two of the more adventurous perched on the load itself.

Sally was crouching behind the door with her apron over her head, sobbing as if her heart would break.

“Missus!” said Jarge, becoming quite sober all at once, and seeing only the very distinct outline of one little sorrowful figure. “Missus!—little ’ooman!”

Sally jerked down her apron and gazed at him with eyes that were fierce through their tears.

“You did ought to be ashamed o’ yourself,” she cried brokenly.

Jarge looked down at her ruefully and drew a long breath.

“Well,” he said, “I d’ ’low I be!”

* * *

He repeated this statement on the following morning when he presented himself to Farmer Ellery, humbly petitioning that his fault might be overlooked, and promising to work an hour or two “extry” every day to make up for the time which had been lost.

“For I shouldn’t like my missus to come out a-workin’ any more,” he explained.

The farmer looked at him sharply, grunted, and finally agreed.

“I’ll give you another chance,” he said, “but I don’t know how long you’ll keep straight.”

“I be a-goin’ for to turn over a new leaf,” said Jarge firmly, and to everyone’s surprise he actually did.

ANN-CAR’LINE

LAMBING time is a very important epoch to farming folk, and particularly to farming folk in Dorset. The popular idea which associates the advent of these innocents with primroses and daffodils, budding hedges, and all the other adjuncts of spring does not obtain in this pre-eminently sheep-rearing county. It is in November when days are at their shortest, when the earth is at its barest, when cold rain falls, and not infrequently sleet or “snow-stuff,” as it is locally called, that the misguided younglings of the flock look their first upon a sodden and gloomy world. Midway in October their quarters are got in readiness, preferably in a corner of some upland field; the shepherd’s wheeled hut takes up its position in the midst of a sheltered space in the lewth of the hedge, straw-padded hurdles mark the enclosure, and sundry pens are made ready for the new arrivals and their dams. By day the shepherd himself may be seen, crook in hand and dog at heel, taking stock of his premises; and often at dusk the uncertain light of his lantern may be noted from afar.

On one particularly gloomy November evening young Timothy Kiddle, Farmer Hounsell’s new shepherd, made a careful inspection of his charges, lantern in hand; and after completing the tour of the fold sat down in an angle of the hurdle fence to smoke a quiet pipe. His hut had not yet been conveyed to its destined site, and till now he had slept at home; but one of the ewes seemed somewhat uneasy in her mind, and all things considered Timothy decided that it would be better to spend the night amid his charges.

He intended, of course, to watch, but having been exceptionally busy all day, soon dozed, and presently indeed fell into a sound sleep. This was no doubt highly reprehensible under the circumstances, particularly when one remembers that a lighted pipe was between his teeth, and that the whole place was strewn with straw.

He awoke with a start and a terrific throb of conscience, and was relieved to find himself in the dark; his pipe had dropped harmlessly into his lap, and the very lantern had burnt itself out. He rolled on to his knees, feeling cramped after his long sitting, and was about to stand upright when his attention was suddenly arrested by a curious sight.

At the further end of the long field, outlined against the hedge, and thrown into strong relief by the light of a lantern which stood on the ground beside her, was a girl, digging. He could see her distinctly, and could even note that she wore a white apron, that her sleeves were tucked up, and that she had no hat or covering of any kind on her head. She laboured with a will, but presently flung aside her spade, and, kneeling down, drew something from her bosom which she thrust into the hole she had made. As she bent over it, Timothy watching breathlessly from his post behind the hurdles saw and recognised her face. It was Ann-Car’line Bartlett, who lived in one of the cottages down in the dip yonder. Timothy had seen her several times, for she came regularly twice a day to buy milk at Hounsell’s farm. She had even seemed to him a nice, modest, quiet-spoken maid, and he wondered much at the nature of the task she was now accomplishing. Soon she was on her feet again, shovelling back the earth with feverish energy; then, taking up her lantern, she stepped towards the hedge, and stood there for a moment or two; but her back was turned towards Timothy, and, crane his neck as he might, he could not see what she was doing. Presently she turned about again, caught up her spade, and, squeezing herself through a gap in the hedge, walked away down the lane.

Timothy rose cautiously to his feet and looked after the bobbing lantern till it vanished from his sight, and then, feeling in his pocket for a fresh bit of candle, put it into his lantern, lit it, and ran to inspect the mysterious spot. First he examined the hedge, and after a minute scrutiny discovered a small cross cut deep into the bark of a stout holly sapling, which was evidently intended to serve as a landmark; next, carefully inspecting the ground in the neighbourhood, he came to the place where the earth had been recently disturbed. The field was a turnip field, and it would have been difficult on the morrow to distinguish the precise locality without some such precaution as the girl had taken; as Timothy knelt down to pursue his investigations he mentally commended her wisdom.

Depositing his lantern on the ground he scratched away the loose earth with his vigorous hands, and presently came to a little bundle. This, on being withdrawn and held to the light, proved to be a cheap printed cotton handkerchief which was carefully knotted about something hard and round. Timothy breathlessly removed this outer covering, and discovered to his astonishment a gold watch. A gentleman’s gold watch, as he said to himself, for it was a fairly large size, and there was a monogram on the lid, and two or three seals and charms—fallals Timothy dubbed them—appended to the ring.

Timothy sat back on his heels, opening eyes and mouth in astonishment.

“Well, I’m dalled!” he ejaculated under his breath. “That there nice, vitty little maid. Who’d ever think she’d be that artful. And that wicked!” he added severely.

After turning about the watch, and examining it on every side, he wrapped it up again, and restored it to its hiding-place.

“She must ha’ stole it,” he said to himself, as he threw in the earth again. “Certain sure, she must ha’ stole it. A poor maid like her doesn’t ha’ gold watches to throw about. If it was given to her she wouldn’t go and bury it in a field half a mile away from her home. No, ’tisn’t very likely. She stole it. That’s what she’s done, and she’ve a-hid it away here to keep it safe till she can pop it, or maybe sell it. Nobody ’ud ha’ knowed if I hadn’t chanced to look over the hurdle. It do really seem quite providential,” continued Timothy, who loved to use a long word, now and then, even in communion with himself, “to think I should ha’ falled asleep, and my lantern should ha’ went out like that, else the maid ’ud never ha’ dug so nigh to where I was sittin’.”

He rose to his feet now, stamping down the earth over the filled-in hole, and then loosening the surface with the toe of his big boot; as he turned away he laughed to himself.

“The maid little thinks as I do know her secret. I’ll watch—ah, sure, I’ll watch. I’m not wishful for to get her into trouble, but I’ll watch. When she comes to dig her treasure up again, I’ll ha’ summat for to say to her.”

With this resolution he made his way back to his charges; but throughout his oft broken slumbers that night he was haunted by the remembrance of Ann-Car’line’s secret; when he was not in fancy holding the watch in his hand or replacing it in its wrapper, he was sternly questioning the girl and receiving numerous and widely differing explanations of the mystery.

When he went about his work at early dawn he frequently glanced in the direction of the hiding place, and saw in imagination the little round packet lying snug at the bottom of its hole. A chance passer-by on the rough track on the other side of the hedge made him start—would he be likely to detect that the earth had been recently disturbed in that particular spot which Timothy knew of? Even when Mr Hounsell came up as usual to inspect the little flock, Timothy was careful to place himself immediately in front of him, whenever the farmer chanced to glance in the direction in question; so that his own burly form might serve as a screen to Ann-Car’line’s indiscretion.

“What be you a-turnin’ and a-turnin’ round me like that for?” enquired his master presently, with some sternness. “There you do make I quite giddy. You be jist same as a weathercock.”

Timothy had no answer ready on the moment; he looked up at the sky, and then at the distant horizon, and finally remarked that he didn’t think the wind was shiftin’ that much.

“I don’t say it be,” responded the farmer emphatically, “but I do say as you mid be a weathercock the way you do go on a-twistin’ and a-turnin’—there ye be again! What be the matter, man?”

Timothy set his hat more firmly on his head, cleared his throat, spat in his hands, and caught up a pitchfork, remarking that there was a deal to be seen to, and that weathercock or no weathercock, he ought to be shakin’ out the straw.

“There’s one o’ the ewes here as I don’t so very well like the looks on,” he said persuasively, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a quarter which he felt to be perfectly safe.

Thereupon Mr Hounsell forgot to animadvert further on his underling’s oddities, and immediately became immersed in more practical matters.

By chance the shepherd was obliged to betake himself to the farm that day on some errand; and, as he was hurrying back to his charges, he encountered Ann-Car’line, leisurely driving a flock of ducks towards a wayside pond. She had slung her sun-bonnet on one arm, so that her pretty hair caught such pale sunshine as was available on that November afternoon; and in one hand she held a long elder switch with a few yellow leaves dandling at its extremity. She responded to Timothy’s greeting with perfect serenity, her placid blue eyes appearing more limpid even than usual as she returned his gaze. When he was a few paces away from her, picking his steps carefully among her waddling flock, he heard her trill out a song as suddenly and sweetly as a robin might have done.

“Well, that beats all!” commented the shepherd. “There she do look I in the face so innocent as a baby, and she do sing out like a—like a angel. I can’t make nothing of it—nay, I can’t indeed.”

His hut had now been put into position, and he occupied it that night, and might have slumbered peacefully enough, for his sheep were quiet; yet he could not rest for thinking of Ann-Car’line and her secret.

“She mid ha’ found that watch,” he said to himself, “or she midn’t ha’ knowed ’twas wrong to take it. There, to think of it a-layin’ out there so as anybody what liked mid just stretch out his hand and take it. What ’ud the poor maid do then? She’d ha’ no chance of giving it back, or anything.”

Impelled by these reflections, Timothy presently got up and made a second pilgrimage to Ann Car’line’s hiding-place. In a very few minutes he had withrawn the watch from its wrapper, dropped it into his own pocket, and replaced it by a round smooth stone. He chuckled to himself as he folded the handkerchief about this and laid it in the hole.

“’Twill be a rare treat to see the maid’s face,” he said.

For greater safety he continued to carry the watch about his person, carefully testing his pocket night and morning to make quite sure there was no suspicion of a hole.

The knowledge of this possession made him look quizzically at Ann-Car’line when next he came upon her; and strange to say he found himself obliged to pass her house on the following day. She was busily engaged in scrubbing the doorstep, and on hearing his footfall turned round; and perceiving that he smiled, though somewhat oddly, smiled back, gaily and innocently enough.

“Dear, to be sure!” exclaimed Timothy, pausing; “you do seem in very good spirits, my maid.”

“Why, so I be,” replied the girl. “I han’t got nothing to make me sad, have I?”

“I don’t suppose you have,” said Timothy. “You was a-singin’ yesterday so gay as a lark.”

“Oh, I’m often singin’,” replied she. “I’d sing all day if I was let; it do help to pass the time away.”

“You can’t sing and scrub, though, I shouldn’t think,” said Timothy, tentatively.

“Can’t I?” retorted Ann-Car’line, and immediately dipped her brush in the pail and simultaneously lifted that marvellous clear voice of hers. It was a marvellous voice—fresh and true and ringing; she could send it up, up, to the very limit of the gamut, as it seemed, yet never lose sweetness or roundness.

“Can’t I sing and scrub?” she repeated, pausing to take breath and to soap her brush afresh.

“I never heerd nothin’ like it!” replied Timothy, enthusiastically. “Says I to myself yesterday, ‘It mid be a angel singin’,’ I says.”

“Oh, and did you?” said Ann-Car’line, growing pink with pleasure as she vigorously polished the doorstep.

“Yes, I did indeed,” returned the shepherd earnestly. “I should think you was a angel—or very near,” he added hastily, for at that moment he chanced to thrust his hand into his pocket, and came in contact with something hard and round.

“Very near—or, perhaps—I mid say—”

“I mid ha’ been summat very like a angel,” replied Ann-Car’line, squatting back on her heels and looking at him seriously. “I mid ha’ been a fairy.”

Here she lowered her voice and looked round cautiously.

“What do you mean?” enquired Timothy, stooping over her and speaking in the same tone.

“Hush! It’s a secret. Don’t let mother hear ye!”

The shepherd straightened himself again. “Ah, you’ve got secrets,” he said dispassionately; “yes, young maids has secrets what they don’t like the wold folks to hear on. But secrets is dangerous, my girl.”

And thereupon Timothy fingered the watch once more.

“There, what be so long a-doin’ for?” called out a sharp female voice from within the cottage. “I could ha’ cleaned that doorstep forty times while thou’rt thinkin’ on it.”

Ann-Car’line gathered up pail and brush, and hastened indoors, leaving Timothy to meditate on her mysterious words as he made his way towards the fold.

He frowned as he walked along, and struck at the hedge savagely with his crook.

“Fairies is nonsense-folk!” he exclaimed aloud once and again; “I can’t think as thikky maid can be so artful as she do seem.”

On the following Sunday, by some accident, he found himself next her in church, and, perceiving that he had no hymn-book, Ann-Car’line was kind enough to permit him to share hers. She looked as fair and innocent as a flower, and sang with all her heart. Timothy was quite carried away. Artful indeed! There wasn’t her match in the whole county of Dorset for looks, and he’d go warrant she was as good as she seemed.

When they emerged from the church he asked her to walk with him, and before half an hour had passed had begun to court her in form. He actually forgot, for the time being, all about the watch and his suspicions connected with it, and it was not until Ann-Car’line had unexpectedly broken a somewhat long and contented silence by a fragment of some gay little song—not a hymn-tune—that he remembered the phrase which had so much puzzled him a few days before.

“What was that you was a-sayin’ about bein’ a fairy?” he enquired, abruptly.

Ann-Car’line’s little white teeth flashed out in a mischievous smile. “I was axed once if I’d like to be a fairy,” said she. “Don’t ye think I’d make a very good one?”

“There’s no such folks as fairies,” returned Timothy. “Nobody couldn’t ha’ axed ye such a thing.”

“They did though!” retorted Ann-Car’line. “Says they, ‘You be a pretty maid—you’d make a very good fairy. Would you like to be one?’”

“Now that’s a nonsense tale,” said the shepherd firmly. “I’ll not put up wi’ no such stories. If you and me be to walk out, and to—and to—carry on reg’lar same as we’ve a-made up our minds to do, you did ought to have more respect for I. So don’t ye be a-comin’ to I again wi’ such made-up tales.”

The girl laughed again in a queer, little secret way that annoyed him still more.

“There must be truth between us,” he said, almost harshly. “You must tell me the truth about everything.”

He broke off, looking at her oddly; he did not intend to let her know how much he had found out for himself. She must confess everything to him of her own accord, and then he would stand by her through thick and thin.

Ann-Car’line, however, did not seem in the least impressed; she went on singing to herself under her breath, glancing maliciously at Timothy from time to time.

“I can’t help it if you don’t believe me,” said she, “and there’s nothin’ more as I can tell ye.”

“Nothin’ at all?” enquired the shepherd sternly. He thought he saw her change colour, but she shook her head emphatically.

“That’ll do,” said Timothy fiercely. “We’ve made a mistake, my girl, and ’tis best to say so straight out. If ye can look I in the face and tell I they things, ye b’ain’t the maid for I. Ye can find somebody else to keep company wi’. I’d sooner live lonesome all my days nor have a wife as wasn’t to be trusted; so I’ll bid ye good-day. But there’s one thing,” he added, turning round suddenly, “ye may find yourself in trouble sooner than ye think for, and ye may be glad enough to own up then. I’ll not be your sweetheart no more, but if ever you’re in trouble and will own up I’ll stand by ye.”

She looked at him for a moment oddly, half-fearfully, but recovering herself, turned upon her heel, muttering something about a likely tale, coupled with certain ejaculations intended to prove her entire content with the actual condition of affairs, and her scorn of the recalcitrant lover.

Timothy went home in high dudgeon, and taking out the watch gave it a little indignant shake.

“I’ve a good mind to put thee back where I found thee,” said he. “Yes, it ’ud serve her right if I put thee back and took no more notice of either of ye.”

But after a moment’s fierce reflection he put the watch back in his pocket again, and decided to wait.

Days passed and became weeks; Timothy frequently met Ann-Car’line, greeting her with a surly word or two, to which she responded by a saucy nod; sometimes he would hear her singing in the lanes, and would pause to listen when he thought himself unnoticed; and on Sundays, though they no longer shared the same hymn-book, his eyes frequently wandered to her face, and he was forced to confess to himself that though he knew her to be an artful, untruthful little maid, she looked, as he had so often said, “like a angel.”

At last the long-expected actually came to pass. He woke up suddenly, very early, one morning, and saw a lantern glimmering at the further end of the field. He immediately rose, put on his coat, and opening the door of the hut a little wider peered out into the darkness. It was not yet five o’clock, and here in the open field all was still as at midnight. The weather had “taken up” lately; the keen crispness of frost was in the air, and the sky was full of stars. The bobbing light yonder seemed to blink like one at first, but presently became steady, and all at once he heard, or fancied he heard, a faint cry.

“She’s found the stone,” said Timothy, and grinned to himself.

Now the light began to waver again, and, as Timothy expected, approached the hut. As it drew near, Ann-Car’line’s voice was heard calling piteously, “Mr Kiddle! Timothy—Timothy!”

The shepherd winked to himself, and answered with a low and muffled roar, intended to indicate that he had just been aroused from profound slumber.

“Oh, Timothy Kiddle!” cried the voice, “please come out a minute, I don’t know what to do. Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“Hold hard a minute!” cried Timothy. “I’m coming!”

He lighted his lantern and sallied forth. There stood Ann-Car’line, pressing close against the hurdle fence, the light which she held up falling upon her white scared face, and upon the handkerchief in her hand.

“What be doin’ here, my maid, at this hour?” enquired the shepherd sternly. “You did ought to be at home and a-bed. ’Tisn’t respectable to be wanderin’ about in the fields in the dark.”

“Oh, don’t be so cross,” pleaded the girl. “I wouldn’t come if I could help it. Oh dear! Oh dear! I’m in such trouble. You said I was to call you if I was in trouble.”

“I said you was to own up,” said Timothy, grimly. “You must start wi’ that.”

“I thought you’d be a bit kinder,” moaned Ann-Car’line, and two big tears rolled down her cheeks. “I—I—I had summat as I didn’t want the folks at home to see—I haven’t got nothin’ what locks—so I made a little hole at the bottom of the field yon—and I buried it. An’—an’—somebody’s been an’ stole it away, an’ put a stone in its place.”

“That’s a queer tale,” said Timothy. “Very near as queer a tale as the one you did tell I about bein’ axed to be a fairy.”

“Oh, but it’s true—it’s really true,” cried Ann-Car’line earnestly. “And the worst of it is the thing—what I hid—wasn’t mine.”

Timothy deliberately set down his lantern, and folded his arms on the top of the hurdle.

“You’ll have to come out wi’ the whole truth, my girl,” said he; “what was the thing ye hid?”

“’Twas a watch,” gasped the girl; “a gold watch.”

Timothy whistled under his breath. “And ’twasn’t yours, ye say?” he remarked after a pause. “Ye stole it then, did ye? Ye’ll be put in prison so sure as I be a-lookin’ at ye.”

“Stole it!” ejaculated Ann-Car’line with a little scream. “I did no such thing. ’Twas give me, but I didn’t want to take it an’ I said I’d give it back—and now I can’t,” she added with a burst of woe.

“Now look ye here, maidie,” cried Timothy, in a voice that had suddenly grown extremely wrathful, “this ’ere tale’s worse nor what I looked for. Who gave ye that watch? Come, make a clean breast on’t—else I’ll not lift a finger to help ye. It’ll have to come out first or last, and there’s less shame in telling me—what’s your friend—”

“I’m not ashamed,” interrupted Ann-Car’line, throwing back her head. “I have not done wrong. ’Twas a gentleman give me the watch, there!”

“Well, then you have done wrong!” said the shepherd, sternly. “What right had ye to take gold watches from gentlemen as ye dursen’t let your mother see. It bain’t a very nice story, that. Who is the gentleman?” he added fiercely. “What did he give ye the watch for?”

Standing up to the hurdle he seized the girl by the wrists, pinioning her fast.

“Lard, Timothy! Don’t pinch me so vicious—you be hurtin’ I. There, ’twas a actin’ gentleman what come wi’ a lot o’ others to the town in the summer. They was actin’ a play at the Corn Exchange, wi’ a lot o’ singin’ and dancin’ in it. This one was the head o’ the actin’ folks. I went there along o’ father, and he said he see’d me all the time the play was goin’ on—”

“Your father said that?” queried Timothy, sharply.

“No, the actin’ gentleman. He come upon me the next day, walkin’ along the lane and singin’—as I mid be the first day you did talk to I—and he did stop and speak.”

“What did he say?” growled Timothy, tightening his grip upon her wrists.

“Oh, he axed I a lot of questions, and he did say I wer’ a very pretty girl, and he did ax I would I like to be a fairy?”

“It was him said that,” interrupted the shepherd. “I never thought there was a word o’ truth in the tale.”

“There was, though. He meant a play-actin’ fairy, o’ course. He said all I’d have to do was to sing a bit, and dance a bit, and look nice, and I’d get a lot of money and see the world too.”

“So he said, and what did you say?” asked Timothy, as she paused.

“First I said I didn’t think mother could spare me, and then I said I didn’t think I’d like it, and then I said straight out I wouldn’t. But he wouldn’t take No,” said Ann-Car’line, opening her eyes very wide. “The more I hung back, the more he pressed—and at last he pulls out that watch an’ says he, ‘Now, my dear, think it over. We’ll be comin’ back again about Christmas-time,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you from now to then to make up your mind. And meanwhile there’s my watch for you to keep,’ says he—‘’twill show you I’m in earnest, anyhow. You can mark the flight of time with that,’ says he—he spoke so funny, ye know—‘and with every day that passes you must be the nearer to making up your mind to sayin’ Yes.’ Wasn’t it a queer notion?”

“A very queer notion, indeed,” said Timothy, grimly. “Well, and now ye’ve lost the watch—and what be ye goin’ to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure,” returned Ann-Car’line, sobbing afresh. “I shall never be able to look him in the face, when he comes for his answer.”

“So much the better,” said Timothy, rigidly. “He’ll not be in such a hurry to meddle wi’ young maids again, p’raps.”

“Oh, but he’ll be sure to think I sold it, or pawned it, or summat—he’ll maybe have the law on me.”

“Is that all what’s troublin’ ye?” said the shepherd, fixing her with a piercing gaze. “If anybody was to find that watch for ye, you wouldn’t want to go turnin’ into a fairy or any sich tomfoolery?”

“I shouldn’t—indeed I shouldn’t,” she cried earnestly. “Oh, Timothy, will ye help me to find it?”

“I don’t know but what I will,” said he—“if you’ll promise me—promise me faithful—faithful, mind, not to take no more notice at all of that play-actin’ gentleman. I’ll find that watch if ye’ll let me take it back to the man myself, and tell en so.”

“I will—I’ll promise,” sobbed she.

“It’s a bargain!” said Timothy, firmly. “Now then—let’s see what can be done. Was there nobody at all in the field when you did chance to bury that watch? Somebody must ha’ see’d ye do it, ye see, and then so soon as your back was turned, gone and dug it up again.”

“Oh, there was nobody there,” replied the girl, emphatically. “I watched and waited for ever so long before I made the hole—there wasn’t a sign of anybody. Your hut wasn’t up here then—I shouldn’t ha’ done it if it had a-been there, for I’d ha’ been afeard ye mid see me.”

“Yes,” agreed Timothy, “that’s true. I mid ha’ seen ye.”

“And nobody could tell where ’twas hid,” she pursued mournfully. “I scratched up the earth and made it look same as all the rest o’ the field. I shouldn’t ha’ found it myself if I hadn’t ha’ made a little sign to know it by.”

“Sich as a mark in the hedge?” suggested Timothy.

She stared at him.

“A little cross, as mid be, cut in a holly stem?” continued the shepherd.

“O-o-oh,” cried Ann-Car’line, “you horrid, unkind, teasin’ chap! I d’ ’low you was spyin’ on me all the time!”

For all answer Timothy dived to the depths of his pocket and produced by slow degrees, first the chain, and then the watch itself.

Ann-Car’line, uncertain whether to be more angry or relieved, burst into a series of disjointed exclamations, and finally ordered her lover to give her back that watch immediately.

“Nothin’ of the kind,” replied he, dropping it into his pocket again. “I’ll keep it for ye same as I’ve a-been doin’ all along. Says I to mysel’ when I see’d what you was arter—‘That there maid’ll be gettin’ into trouble,’ I says, ‘wi’out somebody interferes.’ And so I—”

“Oh, Timothy, did ye?” cried Ann-Car’line, melting all at once, “but ye needn’t ha’ gied me such a fright.”

“Ye shouldn’t ha’ had secrets from I, then,” returned he. “Well, we’ll ha’ no more secrets now, my girl, shall us? I’ll gi’e that watch back to the chap and send en about his business.”

“But he’ll think it so queer, won’t he?” said she, simpering.

“He’ll not think it a bit queer when I do tell en I be a-courtin’ of ye.”

“Oh, Timothy!” sighed Ann-Car’line.

And then Timothy Kiddle set his lantern on the ground, and, leaning over the hurdles, kissed her with great earnestness and satisfaction.

“Nothing like having a thing settled!” said he.