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old is your eldest?” I asked.
“Fanny — she’s fourteen. She’s out service at Websters. Then Jim, as is thirteen next month — let’s see, yes, it is next month — he’s gone to Flints — farming. They can’t do much — an’ I shan’t let ’em go into th’ pit, if I can help it. My husband always used to say they should never go in th’ pit.”
“They can’t do much for you.”
“They dun what they can. But it’s a hard job, it is, ter keep ’em all goin’. Wi’ weshin’, an’ th’ parish pay, an’ five shillin’ from th’ squire — it’s ‘ard. It was diff’rent when my husband was alive. It ought ter ‘a been me as should ‘a died — I don’t seem as if I can manage ’em-they get beyond me. I wish I was dead this minnit, an’ ’im ’ere. I can’t understand it: ’im as wor so capable, to be took, an’ me left. ‘E wor a man in a thousand, ‘e wor — full o’ management like a gentleman. I wisht it was me as ‘ad a been took. ‘An ‘e’s restless, ‘cos ‘e knows I find it ‘ard. I stood at th’ door last night, when they was all asleep, looking out over th’ pit pond — an’ I saw a light, an’ I knowed it was ’im-cos it wor our weddin’ day yesterday — by the day an’ th’ date. An’ I said to ’im, ‘Frank, is it thee, Frank? I’m all right, I’m gettin’ on all right’— an’ then ‘e went; seemed to go ower the whimsey an’ back towards th’ wood. I know it wor ’im, an’ ‘e couldna rest, thinkin’ I couldna manage —”
After a while we left, promising to go again, and to see after the safety of Sam.
It was quite dark, and the lamps were lighted in the houses. We could hear the throb of the fan-house engines, and the soft whirr of the fan.
“Isn’t it cruel?” said Emily plaintively.
“Wasn’t the man a wretch to marry the woman like that,” added Lettie with decision.
“Speak of Lady Chrystabel,” said I, and then there was silence. “I suppose he did not know what he was doing, any more than the rest of us.”
“I thought you were going to your aunt’s — to the Ram Inn,” said Lettie to George when they came to the cross-roads.
“Not now — it’s too late,” he answered quietly. “You will come round our way, won’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
We were eating bread and milk at the farm, and the father was talking with vague sadness and reminiscence, lingering over the thought of their departure from the old house. He was a pure romanticist, forever seeking the colour of the past in the present’s monotony. He seemed settling down to an easy contented middle age, when the unrest on the farm and development of his children quickened him with fresh activity. He read books on the land question and modern novels. In the end he became an advanced radical, almost a socialist. Occasionally his letters appeared in the newspapers. He had taken a new hold on life.
Over supper he became enthusiastic about Canada, and to watch him, his ruddy face lighted up, his burly form straight and nerved with excitement, was to admire him; to hear him, his words of thoughtful common sense all warm with a young man’s hopes, was to love him. At forty-five he was more spontaneous and enthusiastic than George, and far more happy and hopeful.
Emily would not agree to go away with them — what should she do in Canada, she said — and she did not want the little ones “to be drudges on a farm — in the end to be nothing but cattle”.
“Nay,” said her father gently, “Mollie shall learn the dairying, and David will just be right to take to the place when I give up. It’ll perhaps be a bit rough and hard at first, but when we’ve got over it we shall think it was one of the best times — like you do.”
“And you, George?” asked Lettie.
“I’m not going. What should I go for? There’s nothing at the end of it only a long life. It’s like a day here in June — a long work day, pleasant enough, and when it’s done you sleep well — but it’s work and sleep and comfort — half a life. It’s not enough. What’s the odds? — I might as well be Flower, the mare.”
His father looked at him gravely and thoughtfully.
“Now it seems to me so different,” he said sadly, “it seems to me you can live your own life, and be independent, and think as you like without being choked with harassments. I feel as if I could keep on — like that —”
“I’m going to get more out of my life, I hope,” laughed George. “No. Do you know?” and here he turned straight to Lettie. “Do you know, I’m going to get pretty rich, so that I can do what I want for a bit. I want to see what it’s like, to taste all sides — to taste the towns. I want to know what I’ve got in me. I’ll get rich — or at least I’ll have a good try.”
“And pray how will you manage it?” asked Emily.
“I’ll begin by marrying — and then you’ll see.”
Emily laughed with scorn —“Let us see you begin.”
“Ah, you’re not wise!” said the father sadly — then, laughing, he said to Lettie in coaxing, confidential tones, “But he’ll come out there to me in a year or two — you see if he doesn’t.”
“I wish I could come now,” said I.
“If you would,” said George, “I’d go with you. But not by myself, to become a fat stupid fool, like my own cattle.”
While he was speaking Gyp burst into a rage of barking. The father got up to see what it was, and George followed. Trip, the great bull-terrier, rushed out of the house shaking the buildings with his roars. We saw the white dog flash down the yard, we heard a rattle from the hen-house ladder, and in a moment a scream from the orchard side.
We rushed forward, and there on the sharp bank-side lay a little figure, face down, and Trip standing over it, looking rather puzzled.
I picked up the child — it was Sam. He struggled as soon as he felt my hands, but I bore him off to the house. He wriggled like a wild hare, and kicked, but at last he was still. I set him on the hearth-rug to examine him. He was a quaint little figure, dressed in a man’s trousers that had been botched small for him, and a coat hanging in rags.
“Did he get hold of you?” asked the father. “Where was it he got hold of you?”
But the child stood unanswering, his little pale lips pinched together, his eyes staring out at nothing. Emily went on her knees before him, and put her face close to his, saying, with a voice that made one shrink from its unbridled emotion of caress:
“Did he hurt you, eh? — tell us where he hurt you.” She would have put her arms around him, but he shrank away.
“Look here,” said Lettie, “it’s here — and it’s bleeding. Go and get some water, Emily, and some rags. Come on, Sam, let me look and I’ll put some rags round it. Come along.”
She took the child and stripped him of his grotesque garments. Trip had given him a sharp grab on the thigh before he had realised that he was dealing with a little boy. It was not much, however, and Lettie soon had it bathed, and anointed with elder-flower ointment. On the boy’s body were several scars and bruises — evidently he had rough times. Lettie tended to him and dressed him again. He endured these attentions like a trapped wild rabbit — never looking at us, never opening his lips — only shrinking slightly. When Lettie had put on him his torn little shirt, and had gathered the great breeches about him, Emily went to him to coax him and make him at home. She kissed him, and talked to him with her full vibration of emotional caress. It seemed almost to suffocate him. Then she tried to feed him with bread and milk from a spoon, but he would not open his mouth, and he turned his head away.
“Leave him alone — take no notice of him,” said Lettie, lifting him into the chimney seat, with the basin of bread and milk beside him. Emily fetched the