Chapter XVII

The action of the Dales in regard to Norah Veale did not pass unnoticed. "They do tell me," said humble folk quite far afield, "that Mr. Dale up to Vine-Pits hev adapted little Norrer Veale same as if 'twas his own darter; and I sin her myself ridin' to her schoolin' in Mr. Dale's wagon. I allus held that Abe Veale was born a lucky one, fer nobody ever comes adapting my childer; an' how hey he kep' out o' jail all his days, if 'tisn't the luck?"

Nearer home, so striking an instance of kindness encouraged the cottagers to do more freely what already they were doing with considerable freedom: that is, to regard Vine-Pits Farm, and especially the parts of it presided over by Mrs. Dale, as the proper place to go in all moments of embarrassment or tribulation. Thus the flagged path by the walnut tree, the wooden bench beneath the window, and the open kitchen door, tended to become a sort of court where Mavis had to listen to an ever-increasing number of applicants.

It used to be: "Muvver hey sent me to tell you at once, Mum, she isn't no better but a good deal worse, and the doctor hev ordered her some strong soup for to nourish her stren'th;" or "Mr. Scull's compliments, and might he hev the loan of some butter agin;" or "Mrs. Craddock wishes you, Mum, to read this letter which she hey written out of her sickbed, and every word of it is no more than the truth, as I can vouch for. Mr. Craddock in his cups last night punished her pore face somethin' frightful. She can't go to her work, and there's not so much as a bite of bread or a sip of milk in the house."

Mrs. Goudie declared that Mavis was often imposed upon; and, although Mavis herself wished to give wisely rather than blindly, endeavoring to govern warm impulse with cold reason, certainly very few people went away from the Vine-Pits back door empty-handed.

The gentry, in their turn, learned the commonly accepted fact that Mr. and Mrs. Dale were charitably-minded as well as prosperous, and thought all the better of them, asked for subscriptions, and invited cooperation in various good works. So that their fame was always shining with a steadier brightness, and one might say that nowadays there appeared to be only a single objection occasionally hinted against this fortunate couple. Certain very old-fashioned people refrained from patronizing Dale's business or praising his private life, because of the regrettable and notorious circumstance that he never went to church.

It could not be denied. During a good many years he had been to one funeral and two christenings; and, except for these rare occasions, had entirely abstained from attending any religious ceremonies. And Mavis too had gradually become slack in the performance of her spiritual duties. On Sunday mornings there was the dinner to think about. She still liked to cook the great weekly feast herself. Moreover, after six days of genuine labor, Sunday's fundamental purport as a day of rest is apt to overshadow its symbolic aspects as a day set apart for communion with things impalpable. The Abbey Church was too far off, even if it had not been out of the question for other reasons. It required a walk of two fat miles to get to Rodchurch, and one had to start early if one did not want to arrive there hot and flustered; again there was the risk of rain overtaking one in one's best dress. Every fine Sunday she used to talk at breakfast of intending to go to the morning service; and at dinner of intending to go to the evening service.

If she carried either the first or the second intention into effect, it was Dale's custom to go along the road and meet her returning. And this he now prepared to do, on a warm dry April morning, when obviously there could be no fear of rain and she had set out in her best directly after breakfast.

Dale loved the quiet and the freedom from interruption of these Sunday mornings; he enjoyed the luxury of being able to smoke in the office while he made up his books, and reveled in the lolling ease of the old porter's chair as he read Saturday's _Courier_ and the last number of _Answers_. To-day he was peculiarly conscious of the soothing Sunday hush that had fallen widely on the land. All the doors and windows stood open, so that the soft air flowed like water through and through the house, making it an undivided part of the one great generous flooding atmosphere, and giving sensations of vast space and free activities as well as those produced by guarded comfort and motionless repose. The only sounds that reached him were the droning of bees in a border of spring flowers, the pawing of a horse in the stables, the pipe of young voices in the orchard; and all three sounds were pleasant to his ear. How could they be otherwise; since they spoke of three such pleasant things as awakening life, rewarded toil, and contented fatherhood?

When presently he went up-stairs to change his coat, he stood by a window and looked down at the peaceful little realm that fate had given to him. The sunlight was glittering on the red tiles of the clustered roofs, the brown thatch of the ricks, and the white cobblestones of a corner of the yard; and the blossom of pears and apples was pink and white, as if a light shower of colored snow had just fallen on the still leafless trees. Beneath the orchard branches he could see his children and Norah playing among the daffodils that grew wild in the grass; the light all about them was faintly blue and unceasingly tremulous and he stood watching, listening, smiling, thinking.

He observed the gracefulness and slimness of his daughter's stockinged legs, and thought what a real little man his son seemed already, so sturdy on his pins. In his blue overalls he looked like a miniature ploughman in a smock-frock. Dale laughed when Billy scampered away resolutely, and Norah had to run to catch him.

"Le' me go," roared Bill.

"Na, na," said Norah, "you mustn't go brevetin' about so far. Bide wi' sister and me, an' chain the daffies."

And Dale noticed the musical note in Norah's voice, almost like a wild bird singing. It was a pleasure to him to see the little maid making herself so useful; and it corroborated what Mavis had told him about her being splendid in taking care of the chicks, as well as keeping them happy and amused.

He put on his black coat, fetched out a pair of brown dogskin gloves, and then, failing to find the silk hat, came to the top of the staircase and shouted for Mary.

"My hat, Mary. Where in the name of reason is my hat?"

His shouts broke the Sunday silence, filled the house with noise, went rolling through the open windows in swift vibrations. Norah Veale under the blossoming apple tree caught up the cry as though she had been an echo, and ran with the children after her.

"Mary, the master's hat. Mary, Mary! Master wants his hat."

Then she appeared at the foot of the stairs, with an anxious excited face and speaking breathlessly.

"Mary can't leave th' Yorkshire pudden, sir; but she says she saw Mrs. Dale with th' hat in her hand after you wore it on Wednesday to Manninglea."

"Yes, but where is it _now_, Norah?"

"I do think Mrs. Dale must have put it in the cupboard under the stairs to get it safe out of Billy's way."

And sure enough there the hat was. Both children pressed beside Norah to peep in with her when she opened the cupboard door. This hall cupboard was the most sacred and awe-inspiring receptacle in the whole house, because here were kept Dale's fireman's outfit always ready and handy to be snatched out at a moment's notice. Rachel gazed delightedly at the blue coat hanging extended, with the webbed steel on the shoulder-straps, at the helmet above, the great boots beneath, and the shining ax that dangled near an empty sleeve; but the sight was almost too tremendous for Billy. His lively young imagination could too readily inflate this shell of apparel with ogreish flesh and bone waiting to pounce on small intruders, and he clung rather timorously to Norah's skirt.

"Daddy," said Rachel, "I wis' you'd wear your helmet to-day."

"Oh, no, lassie, that wouldn't be seemly. This is more the thing for Sunday. Thank you, Norah." And having taken the silk hat, he laid his hand lightly on Norah's wavy black hair, and spoke to her very kindly. "Nothing like thought, Norah. I believe you've got a good little thinking-box under all this pretty hair, and you can't use it too much, my dear--specially so long as you're thinking about others."

Norah, with her blue eyes fixed on the venerated master's face, seemed to tremble joyously under the caress and the compliment. She and the children came out into the front garden and stood at the gate to watch Dale march away down the white road. He looked grandly stiff, black and large, in his ceremonious costume--a daddy and a master to be proud of.

He went only half-way to Rodchurch, and then sitting on a gate opposite the Baptist chapel indulged himself with another pipe. He made his halt here because several times when he had gone farther he had found Mavis accompanied by old Rodchurch acquaintances who had volunteered to escort her for a portion of the homeward journey, and he felt no inclination for this sort of chance society.

Not a human being, not even the smallest sign of a man's habitation, was in sight; not a movement of bird or beast could be perceived in the stretching expanse of flat fields, across which huge cloud shadows passed slowly; the broad white road on either hand seemed to lead from nowhere to nowhere, and Dale, meditatively puffing out his tobacco smoke and watching it rise and vanish, had that sense of deep and almost solemn restfulness which comes whenever we realize that for any reason we are cut off from the possibility of communication with our kind. For a few moments he felt as a man feels all alone at the summit of a mountain, in the depths of an untrodden forest, on the limitless surface of a calm ocean. Yet, as he knew, there were men quite near to him. Across the road, not fifty yards away, the brick walls of the Baptist Chapel were hiding many men and women. Perhaps it was the complete isolation of this ugly building, the house of prayer pushed away into the desert far from all houses of laughter and talk, that had induced the idea of isolation in himself.

If he listened, he could hear sounds made by men. Through the chapel windows there came a continuous murmur, like the buzzing of a monster bee under the dome of a glass hive--the voice of the pastor preaching his sermon. Then all at once came loud music, shuffling of seats, scraping of chairs; and a voluminous song poured out and upward in the silent air. Dale idly thought of this chorus as resembling the smoke from the pipe--something that went up a little way and faded long before it reached the sky.

The music ceased. The congregation were leaving the chapel. Dale got off the gate, put his pipe in his pocket, and watched the humble worshipers as they came toward him. He knew them nearly all, and gravely returned their grave salutations as they passed by. They were maid-servants and men-servants from Rodchurch, old people and quite young people, a few laborers and cottage-women; and they all walked slowly, not at first talking to one another, but smiling with introspective vagueness. Dale observed their decent costume, their sober deportment, and leisurely gait, observed also a striking similarity in the expression of all the faces. They were like people who unwillingly awake and struggle to recall every detail of the dream they are being forced to relinquish. Observing them thus, one could not fail to understand that, at this moment at least, they all firmly believed that their just-finished song had been heard a very, very long way up.

The road was empty again when the pastor came out and locked the chapel door behind him. He spoke to Dale with a gentle cheerfulness.

"Good day, friend Dale."

Dale, not too well pleased with this easy and familiar mode of address, replied stiffly.

"I wish you good day, Mr. Osborn."

"Good day. God's day. That's what it meant in the beginning, Mr. Dale."

And Dale, resuming his seat on the gate, watched Mr. Osborn go plodding away toward Vine-Pits and the Cross Roads. This pastor, who had succeeded old Melling a few years ago, was a short, bearded man of sixty, and he lived in lodgings on the outskirts of Rodchurch. Evidently he was not going home to dinner. Perhaps he had some sick person to visit, and he might get a snack at the Barradine Arms or one of the cottages. It was said that his father had been a rich linen-draper in some North of England town; and that he himself would have inherited this flourishing business and its accumulated wealth, if he had not insisted on joining the ministry. But he threw up all to preach the Gospel. Dale thought of the nature of the faith that would make a man go and do a thing like that. It must be unquestioning, undoubting; a conviction that amounted to certainty.

He did not see Mavis approaching. She called to him from a distance, and he sprang off the gate and hurried to meet her. Instinctively, as he drew near, he looked into her face, searching for the expression that he had noticed just now in those other faces. It was not there. She was hot and red after her walk; her eyes were full of life and gaiety; she seemed a fine, broad-blown, well-dressed dame who might have been returning from market instead of from church, and her first words spoke of practical affairs.

"Holly Lodge is let again, Will, and Mr. Allen says the new gentleman keeps horses--because he's having the stables painted. You ought to send a circular at once, and make a call without delay."

Dale took his pipe out of his pocket, and spoke in an absent tone.

"I've been thinking what a rum world it is, Mav."

"Yes, but a very nice world, Will;" and she slipped her arm in his, as they walked on together. "No, not another pipe. Don't take the edge off your appetite with any more smoking. There's good roast beef and Yorkshire pudding waiting for you. That is, if Mary hasn't made a mess of everything."