North, South and over the Sea Part 17

All at once he pushed away plate and cup.

"Mum," he said, "if I mid make so bold I'd like to say summat. I've been a-thinkin'--couldn't I come back here?"

"Here!" echoed she in astonishment. "Here! to the workhouse?"

Giles nodded.

"Why, are you not happy at Mrs. Tapper's?"

"'E--es, oh, 'e--es, I haven't got no fault to find wi' she nor naught; but I--I'd like the Union best."

"Well, but you see, my dear Giles, the Union is meant for people who cannot live anywhere else. You have got plenty of money now, and--"

"I'd be willin' to pay," said Giles.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the matron.

The old man looked at her stolidly, but made no further remark.

"I'm sure I don't know what to say," she went on, after a pause. "I don't suppose such a thing has ever been heard of--I'm sure the guardians would never allow it."

"I'd pay handsome," said Giles. "You ax 'em, mum."

"Well, I will if you like; but don't you think you are very foolish?

There you are, a man of property, who can hold up your head with the best, and pay your way, and you want to come back here among a lot of miserable paupers."

"I've a-been twenty year here," observed Giles, making the statement in a dispa.s.sionate tone. "I know 'em all here, and I'm used to the ways. I couldn't never get used to no other ways, and no other folks.

I'd sooner bide, mum, if ye'd ax 'em to let me. I'd not give no trouble--no more n' I ever did, an' I'd pay for my keep."

"Well, well," said the matron, staring at him in puzzled amazement.

"Can I go up to 'em again for a bit?" queried the old man. "Me and Jim was in the middle of a game."

"Oh, yes, you can go up to them."

He rose, sc.r.a.ped his leg and pulled his forelock as usual, and backed out of the room, leaving his fine new hat on the ground beside his chair.

Coming upon it presently, the matron decided to return it herself to the owner; perhaps she was a little curious to see how he comported himself among his mates.

She opened the door of the old men's ward so quietly that no one noticed her entrance; the room was full of tobacco smoke, and the inmates were sitting or standing about as usual. Giles sat in his old corner, with Jim opposite to him; both had removed their coats, and the grizzled heads were bent together over the battered cards.

"You be in luck, Jim," Giles exclaimed as the matron closed the door.

"You've turned up a Jack!"

"THE WOLD LOVE AND THE NOO"

"Have ye heard the noos?" said Betty Tuffin, thrusting in her head at old Mrs. Haskell's open door.

"Lard, no, my dear," returned her crony, hastily dropping the crooked iron bar with which she had been drawing together the logs upon her hearthstone. "There, I never do seem to hear anything nowadays, my wold man bein' so ter'ble punished wi' the lumbaguey and not able to do a hand's turn for hisself. Why, I do a.s.sure 'ee I do scarce ever set foot out o' door wi'out it's to pick up a bit o' scroff, or a few logs--an' poor ones they be when I've a-got 'em. I can hardly see my own hand for the smoke. Step in, do, Betty love, an' tell I all what's to be told."

Betty had stepped in long before Mrs. Haskell had concluded her harangue, and had, by this time, taken possession of a comfortable corner of the screened settle, deposited her basket by her side, folded her arms, and a.s.sumed that air of virtuous indignation which denoted that she was about to relate the shortcomings of some third party.

"Dear, to be sure! Souls alive! Lard ha' mercy me, ye could ha'

knocked I down wi' a feather when Keeper told I--"

"A-h-h-h, them bwoys o' Chaffey's has been poachin' again I d' 'low,"

interrupted Mrs. Haskell eagerly. "Never did see sich chaps as they be.

A body 'ud think they'd know better nor to act so unrespectable-like.

Why, as my wold man do say sometimes, 'ye mid as well put your hand in Squire's pocket as go a-layin' snares for his hares an' rabbits--'tis thievin' whichever way ye do look at it,' he do say."

"Well, I don't agree wi' he," responded Betty with some heat. She had sons of her own who were occasionally given to strolling abroad on moonlight nights, and usually returned with bulging pockets. "I don't agree at all. The Lard made they little wild things for the poor so well as for the rich--same as the water what runs through Squire's park an' down along by the back o' my place. Who's to tell who they belongs to. A hare 'ull lep up on one side o' the hedge, an' then it'll be Squire's, an' it'll run across t'other side, an' then it's Maister's, an' then it'll come an' squat down in my cabbage garden--then I d' 'low 'tis mine if I can catch it."

Mrs. Haskell, who was too anxious to gossip to dally by the way in a disquisition on the Game Laws, a.s.sented to her friend's argument with somewhat disappointing promptness, and returned to the original subject of discussion.

"I be real curious to hear that there bit o' noos."

"You'll be surprised I d' 'low," said Mrs. Tuffin. "Ye mind Abel Guppy what went off to the war out there abroad wi' the Yeomanry? Well, they d' say he be killed."

"Dear, now, ye don't tell I so," said the other in a dispa.s.sionate, and if truth be told, somewhat disappointed tone. A death, though always exciting, was not after all so very uncommon, and when a man "'listed for a soldier," most of the older village folk looked upon his destruction as a foregone conclusion. "Killed, poor young chap!

His aunt Susan 'ull be terrible opset."

"I d' 'low she will be opset," said Betty meaningly, "and it bain't only along of him bein' killed, poor feller, but you'd never think, Mrs. Haskell, how things have a-turned out. Ye mind that maid up to Bartlett's what he was a-courtin'?"

"'E-es, to be sure I do. A great big bouncin' wench as ever I did see, wi' her red head an' all."

"Well, it seems afore poor Abel went out he wrote a paper an' give it to this 'ere maid, a-leavin' her everything as the poor chap had in the world."

"Mercy on me! But she be a-walkin' out wi' somebody else they tell me; she've a-took up wi' the noo love afore she did leave off wi' the wold."

"She have," agreed the visitor emphatically. "That be the very thing Susan 'ull find so cruel 'ard. She did say to I to-week afore she knowed her nevvy were killed, 'If any harm comes to en,' says she, 'it do fair break my heart to think as that good-for-nothing Jenny Pitcher 'ull have her pick of everything in this place. It bain't the same as if she'd truly m'urned for en, but she've a-taken up wi' a new young man,' says she, 'what walks out wi' her reg'lar.'--'My dear,' says I, 'if anything should happen to your nevvy, which the Lard forbid, she'll never have the face to come to ax for his bits o' things, seein' as she haven't been faithful to en.' 'She will though,' says Susan, an' 'tis the talk o' the place that _she will_.'"

Mrs. Haskell clapped her hands together. "Well, well! But what a sammy the chap was. He did ought to ha' made sure afore makin' sich a will.

It be a will, I suppose, my dear?"

"It be a will sure enough," said Mrs. Tuffin gloomily. "There, Susan did tell I as that there artful hussy made sure he got it signed an'

all reg'lar. There's a few pounds too in the savings bank--I don't know if she'd be able to get 'em out or not."

"Well, I never heerd such a tale. That maid must be a reg'lar Jezebel, Betty, that's what she must be. That hard-hearted, unfeelin'--Lard ha'

mercy me! Well, well, well!"

Betty took up her basket again, and was proceeding leisurely towards the door, shaking her head and uttering condemnatory groans the while, when she suddenly gripped her friend by the arm with an eager exclamation.

"There she be!--there's the very maid a-walkin' by so bold as bra.s.s with her young man along of her!"