The Parson O' Dumford Part 39

"You will not take my advice, Banks," exclaimed Mrs Glaire. "But, look here, I have warned you, I have begged of you to help me, and you refuse."

"O' course I do," said Joe Banks, st.u.r.dily. "I'm not going to fight again my own flesh and blood on a question o' position. Look here," he continued, now speaking angrily, "I never was jealous of my old master's rise in life, and I stuck to him and helped him, and he made me promise to stick by and help his son; and that I'm going to do, for I don't believe if he'd been alive he'd ha' been owt but pleased to see his boy make up to my gal. It ain't my seeking: it's Master d.i.c.k's. He loves she, and she loves he, and before I'll step 'twixt 'em, and say as one workman's son's too big for the other workman's daughter, I'll be--.

No, I won't, not before you, Missus; and now good night, and I wish the strike well ended."

Joe Banks swung out of the room with all the st.u.r.dy independence of a man with a thousand pounds of his own, and then made his way home, while Mrs Glaire sat as it were stunned.

"What can I do? What can I do?" she muttered; and then sat thinking till Eve, looking very pale and ill, walked softly into the room, and knelt by her side, turning up her sad face and red eyes to those of the troubled mother.

"Aunt, dear," she whispered, "d.i.c.k has just come in, and gone up to his room. Shall we ask him to come down to us?"

"What for?" said Mrs Glaire sharply.

"Don't you think, Aunt, we ought to try and forgive him, and win him back?"

Mrs Glaire rose slowly, and went to a side table, from which she took a Prayer-book, and read from it the sentence beginning, "I will arise," to the end; and then, laying down the book, she took Eve's head between her hands, and kissed her white forehead gently.

"Eve, my child, yes, we ought to try and forgive him; I, for his cruel deceit of the woman who gave him birth; you, for his outrage against the woman who was to be his wife. I will forgive him, but he must come--he must arise and come, and seek for pardon first. While you--"

"Oh, Aunt, Aunt," moaned Eve, hiding her face in the elder's breast, "I never knew before how much I loved him."

"And you forgive him, child?"

"Yes, Aunt, I forgive," said Eve, raising her head, and looking sadly in the elder woman's face, "I forgive him, but--"

"But what, my child?"

"All that is past now--for ever."

Mrs Glaire did not speak for a few moments, but stood holding her niece's hand, looking straight away from her into vacancy, while from above there floated slowly down and entered the room the penetrating fumes of the cigar d.i.c.k was smoking in his bedroom, as with his heels upon the table, and a gla.s.s of spirits and water by his side, he amused himself by reading a French novel, growling every now and then as he came across some idiom or local phrase which he could not make out, and apparently quite oblivious of the fact that three women were making themselves wretched on his behalf.

Suddenly a low whistle was heard, and Mrs Glaire started.

"What was that?" she exclaimed.

Eve made no reply, but the two women remained listening, while it seemed to them that the sound had also been heard by d.i.c.k, who apparently crossed the room, and opened his window.

"He has gone to see what it means," said Mrs Glaire in a whisper. "I hope the strike people are not out."

Her head was running upon certain proceedings that had taken place many years before, during her husband's lifetime, when they had literally been besieged; but her alarm was unnecessary, for had she been in her son's bedroom, she would have seen that worthy open his window and utter a low cough, with the result that Sim Slee threw up a note attached to a stone, which the young man glanced at, and then said, "All right; no answer," and Slee went quickly off.

Richard opened the note, glanced through it, and read pa.s.sages half aloud.

"H'm, h'm. So sorry to leave you as I did.--Heart very sore.--Oughtn't to meet like that any more.--Pray let her tell father.--They would soon agree if all known.--Will not come any more to be deceitful."

"Won't you, my dear?" said d.i.c.k, aloud. "We'll see about that. I think I can turn you round my finger now, Miss Daisy. If not I'm very much mistaken. But we'll see."

He finished the note by twisting it up and using it to re-light his cigar, which he sat smoking, and listening as at last he heard his mother and Eve pa.s.s his room on their way to bed--the former for the first time in his life, without saying "Good night" to her son.

Volume 2, Chapter IV.

JOHN MAINE'S HEADACHE.

"Hallo, Johnny!"

"What, my lively boy."

"Look at his velveteens."

"And a silk hankercher too. Arn't he tip top?"

"Arn't you down glad to see your old mates again, Johnny?"

"Course he is; look at the tears in his eyes."

"Hey, mun, why don't you say you're glad to see us?"

"And why don't you speak?"

"Because," said John Maine, speaking slowly, as he stopped leaning on his thick staff in the middle of the road, "I'm not glad to see you, and I don't want to speak."

He looked very stern and uncompromising this young man, half bailiff, half farm servant in appearance, as he stood there in the lane, about a mile from Joe Banks's house, and facing the men who had kept up the conversational duet, for they were about as ill-looking a pair of scoundrels as a traveller was likely to meet in a day's march.

The elder of the two carried a common whip, and wore a long garment, half jacket, half vest in appearance, inasmuch as it was backed and sleeved with greasy fustian, and faced with greasy scarlet and purple plush, hanging low over his tightly-fitting cord trousers, b.u.t.toned at the ankles over heavy boots, while his head was covered with a ragged fur cap.

The younger man, whose hair was very short, wore the ordinary smock-frock euphoniously termed a "cow-gown," but as he was journeying, it was tucked up round his hips. This, with his soft wide-awake, and heavy unlaced boots, was bucolic enough, but there the rustic aspect ceased, for his face was sallow; he had a slovenly tied cotton handkerchief round his neck; and as he smoked a dirty, short clay pipe, he had more the aspect of a Whitechapel or Sheffield rough than the ordinary farming man of the country.

Taking them together, they seemed to be men who could manage a piece of horse-stealing, poach, rob a hen-roost, or pay a visit night or day to any unprotected house; and if "gaol" was not stamped legibly on each face, it was because nature could not write it any plainer than she had.

"He's gotten high in the instep, Ike," said the last man; "and what's he got to be proud on?"

"Ah, to be sure, what's he got to be proud on?" chuckled the other. "He wasn't always a stuck up one, was he?"

"I say, Johnny," said the first speaker, "keep that dog o' yourn away wilt ta, or I might give him something as wouldn't do him no good."

"Here, Top, down dog!" said the young man, and a rough-looking dog which had been snuffing round the two strangers showed his teeth a little and then lay down in the dusty road. "I don't want," continued the young man, "to be rough on men I used to know."

"Rough, lad; no, I should think not," said Ike, of the whip; and he gave it a lash, cutting off the heads of some nettles. "I knew he was all raight, Jem."

"I said," continued the young man, "that I didn't want to be surly to men as I used to know, and if you want a s.h.i.+lling or two to help you on the road, here they are. As for me, I've dropped all your work, and taken to getting an honest living."

"Oh, ho, ho!" laughed Ike, of the whip, giving it another flick, and making the dog jump. "Dost ta hear that, Jem?"

"Ay, lad, I hear him," said Jem, of the smock-frock, hugging himself as if afraid to lose what he considered particularly good; "I'm hearing of him. But come along, John; we won't be hard on such a honest old boy.

Show us the way to the dram-shop, or the nearest public, and we'll talk old times over a gill or two o' yale."

"You are going one way. I'm going the other," said John Maine, uneasily, for just then Tom Podmore pa.s.sed him, with big Harry, both of whom stared hard, nodded to him, and went on.

"Just hark at him, Ike," said Jem. "He's a strange nice un, he is.

Why, I'm so glad to see him that if he goes off that-a-way I shall stop in Dumford and ask all about him, and where he lives and what he's a doing."