The Parson O' Dumford Part 4

"Look here, Podmore," said the vicar, firmly, "you said something about fools just now. You are not a fool, and you know it. You leave the ale alone--to the fools--and go back and get to work as hard, or harder, than you ever worked before. I shall see you again soon, perhaps bowl to you in the cricket field. As for your affairs, you leave them to me.

Do you know why Englishmen make the best soldiers?"

"Do I know why Englishmen make the best soldiers, parson?" said Podmore, staring. "No: can't say I do."

"Because, my lad, they never know when they are beaten. Now, you are not beaten yet. Good-bye."

He held out his hand, and the great grimy, h.o.r.n.y palm of the workman came down into it with a loud clap, and the grip that ensued from each side would have been unpleasant to any walnut between their palms.

Then they parted, taking different routes, and ten minutes later the Reverend Murray Selwood was walking quietly through the empty town street, quite conscious though that head after head was being thrust out to have a look at the stranger.

There was the usual sprinkling of shops and private houses, great blank red-brick dwellings, which told their own tale of being the houses of the lawyer, the doctor, and their newer opponents. Then there was the factory-looking place, with great gates to the yard, and a time-keeper's lodge inside, surmounted by a bell in its little wooden hutch. The throb of machinery could be heard, and the shriek of metal being tortured into civilised form came painfully to the ear from time to time. Smoke hung heavily in the air--smoke tinged with lurid flame; and above all came the roar of the reverberating furnaces, where steel or some alloy was being fused for the castings which had made out-of-the-way, half-savage Dumford, with its uncouth, independent people, famous throughout the length and breadth of the land.

There were very few people visible, for the works had not yet begun to pour forth their ma.s.ses of working bees, but there were plenty of big rough lads hanging about the corners of the streets.

"I wonder what sort of order the schools are in," said the new vicar to himself, as he neared the church, towards which he was bending his steps, meaning to glance round before entering the vicarage. "Yes, I wonder what sort of a condition they are in. Bad, I fear. Very bad, I'm sure," he added.

For at that moment a great lump of furnace refuse, or gla.s.s, there known as slag, struck him a heavy blow in the back.

He turned sharply, but not a soul was visible, and he stooped and picked up the lump, which was nearly equal in size to his fist.

"Yes, no doubt about it, very bad," he said. "Well, I'll take you to my new home, and you shall have the first position in my cabinet of specimens, being kept as a memorial of my welcome to Dumford."

"Well," he said, as he reached the church gate, "I've made two friends already, and--perhaps--an enemy. By Jove, there's another brick."

Volume 1, Chapter III.

AT THE FOUNDRY HOUSE.

Mrs Glaire lived in a great blank-looking red-brick house in the main street, two ugly steep stone steps coming down from the front door on to the narrow kidney pebble path, and encroaching so upon the way that they were known as the tipsy-turvies, in consequence of the number of excited Dumfordites who fell over them in the dark. Though for the matter of that they were awkward for the most sober wayfarer, and in a town with a Local Board would have been condemned long before.

The ugliness of the Foundry House, as it was called, only dwelt on the side giving on the street; the back opened upon an extensive garden, enclosed by mighty red-brick walls, for the greater part concealed by the dense foliage, which made the fine old garden a bosky wilderness of shady lawn, walk, and shrubbery.

For Mrs Glaire was great upon flowers, in fact, after "my son, Richard," her garden stood at the top of her affections, even before her niece, Eve, whom she loved very dearly all the same.

Mrs Glaire was a little busy ant of a woman, with a pleasant, fair face, ornamented with two tufts of little fuzzy blonde curls, which ought to have hung down, but which seemed to be screwed up so tightly that they took delight in sticking out at all kinds of angles, one or two of the most wanton--those with the rough ends--that had been untwisted by Mrs Glaire's curl-papers, even going so far as to stick straight up.

On the morning when the new vicar made his entry into Dumford, Mrs Glaire was out in her garden busy. She had on her brown holland ap.r.o.n, and her print drawn hood, the strings of which seemed to cut deeply into her little double chin, and altogether did nothing to improve her personal appearance. A little basket was in one hand half-filled with the dead leaves of geraniums which she had been snipping off with the large garden scissors she held in the other hand--scissors which, for fear of being mislaid, were attached to a silken cord, evidently the former tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of some article of feminine attire, and this cord was tied round her waist.

She had two attendants--Prince and the gardener, Jacky Budd--Jacky: for it was the peculiarity of Dumford that everybody was known by a familiar interpretation of his Christian name, or else by a _sobriquet_ more quaint than pleasant.

Prince was a King Charles spaniel, with the shortest of snub noses, the most protrusive of great intelligent eyes, and long silky ears that nearly swept the ground. Prince had a weakness, and that was fat. He had been fed into such a state of rotundity that he had long ceased running and barking, even at cats, against which he was supposed to have a wonderful antipathy, and he pa.s.sed his time after his regular meals in sleeping, when he was lying down, and wheezing when he was standing up, and never if he could possibly help it did he move from the position in which he was placed.

Jacky Budd, the gardener, was a pale, sodden-looking man, the only tinge of colour in his countenance being in his nose, and that tinge was given by a few fiery veins. He had a knack when addressed of standing with one thumb stuck in the arm-hole of his ragged vest, which was stretched and worn in consequence, and this att.i.tude was a favourite with him on Sundays, and was maintained just inside the south door till all the people were in church, when he went to his own sitting beneath the reading desk, for Jacky Budd, in addition to being a gardener, was the parish clerk.

Jacky had his weakness, like Prince, but it was very different from that of the dog; in fact, it was one that troubled a great many of the people of Dumford, who looked upon it with very lenient eyes. For though the gentleman in question had been suspended by the late vicar for being intoxicated in church, and saying out loud in reading the psalms, "As it (hic) was in the beginning (hic) is now (hic) and ever shall be (hic),"

he was penitent and forgiven at the end of the week, and he sinned no more until the next time.

The late vicar was compelled to take notice of the backsliding, even though people said he was troubled with the same weakness, for Miss Purley, the doctor's sister, burst out laughing quite loud in consequence of a look given her by Richard Glaire from the opposite pew.

Her brother was there, and to pa.s.s it off he made a stir about it, and had her carried out, to come back after a few minutes on tip-toe and whisper to two or three people that it was a touch of hysterics.

Those who knew Jacky could tell when he had been drinking from the stolid look upon his countenance, and Mrs Glaire was one of those who knew him.

"Come along, Prince," she cried in a shrill chirpy treble, and stooping down she lifted and carried Prince a few yards, to set him down beside a rustic flower-stand, rubbing his leg with the rim of the basket, and Prince went on wheezing, while his mistress began to snip.

Jacky followed slowly with a pot of water, a fluid that he held in detestation, and considered to be only useful for watering flowers.

"Now, Jacky," exclaimed his mistress, "these pots are quite dry. Give them all some water."

"Yes, mum," said Jacky; and raising the pot, he began with trembling hands to direct erratic streams amongst the flowers, then shaking his head, stopping, and examining the spout as if that were in fault.

"Stone got in it, I think," he muttered.

"You've been drinking again, Jacky," exclaimed his mistress, shaking the scissors at him threateningly.

"Drinking, mum! drinking!"

This in a tone of injured surprise.

"Yes, you stupid man. Do you think I don't know? I can smell you."

"Drinking!" said Jacky, putting his hand to his head, as if to collect his thoughts.

"Yes, so I did; I had a gill of ale last night."

"Now, Jacky, I won't have it," exclaimed Mrs Glaire. "If you try to deceive me I won't keep you on."

"What, and turn away a faithful servant as made this garden what it is, mum, and nursed Master d.i.c.k when he was a bit of a bairn no bigger than--"

Jacky stooped down to try and show how many inches high d.i.c.k Glaire was when his nursing days were on; and as the gardener placed his hand horizontally, it seemed that about six inches must have been the stature of the child. But this was a dangerous experiment, and Jacky nearly overbalanced himself. A sharp question from his mistress, however, brought him upright, and somewhat sobered him.

"Have you heard any more about that, Jacky?"

"'Bout Master Richard, mum?"

"Yes, Jacky. But mind this, I hate talebearing and the gossip of the place."

"You do, mum; you allus did," said Jacky, winking solemnly to himself; "but that's a fact."

"I won't believe it, Jacky," said Mrs Glaire, snipping off sound leaves and blossoms in her agitation.

"It's a fact, mum, and I don't wonder at your feeling popped."

"I'm not cross at all, Jacky," exclaimed Mrs Glaire, with her face working, "for I don't believe my son would stoop in that way."

"But it's a fack, mum; and you must send him away, or he'll be taking a wife from among the Midianitish women. That's so."

"Now, I don't want to hear gossip, man; but what have you heard? There, do stand still or you'll tread on Prince."