White Lilac; or the Queen of the May Part 20

Peter stood stolidly unconscious of her excitement, but he turned his quiet eyes upon the eager face lifted to his, and nodded kindly. Mr Benson caught sight of him and bustled up.

"Morning, Peter," he said briskly. "How's your mother?"

"Middling, thank you," said Peter, and without any further words he pointed at the basket on the counter.

"b.u.t.ter--eh?" said the grocer. "Well, I hope it's as good as the last."

He unpacked the basket and proceeded to weigh the b.u.t.ter, talking all the time.

"It's an odd thing to me how your b.u.t.ter varies. Now, the last month it's been as good again as it used to be. Of course in the winter there will be a difference because of the feed, I can understand that; but I can't see why it shouldn't be always the same in the summer. I don't mind telling you," he continued, leaning forward and speaking in a confidential tone, "that I'd made up my mind at one time to give it up.

People won't buy inferior b.u.t.ter, and I don't blame 'em."

"It's good this time, anyhow," said Peter.

"It's prime," said Mr Benson. "Is it the cows now, that you've got new, or is it the dairymaid?"

"The cows isn't new, nor yet the dairymaid," said Peter.

"Well, whichever it is," said the grocer, "the credit of the farm's coming back. Orchards Farm always had a name for its dairy in the old days. I remember my father talking of it when I was a boy."

Mrs Pinhorn, who had been standing near during this conversation, now struck sharply in:

"They _do_ say there was a brownie at the farm in those days, but when it got into other hands he was angered and quitted."

"That's a curious superst.i.tion, ma'am," said the grocer politely.

"There's folks in Danecross who give credit to it still," continued Mrs Pinhorn. "Old Grannie Dunch'll tell you ever so many tales about the brownie and his goings-on."

"Well, if we didn't live, so to say, within the pale of civilisation,"

said the grocer, sticking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, "we might think you'd got him back again at the farm. What do you say to that, Peter?"

Everyone knew that Peter believed in all sorts of crazy things, and when Mr Benson put this jocular question to him several people turned to see how he took it.

Lilac looked eagerly up at him also, for she had a faint hope that he might somehow know that she was dairymaid, and would tell them so. That would be a triumph indeed. At any rate he would stop all this silly talk about the brownie. She had heard Grannie Dunch's stories scores of times, and they were very interesting, but as to believing them--Lilac felt far above such folly, and held them all in equal contempt, whether they were of charms, ghosts, brownies, or other spirits. It was therefore with dismay that she saw Peter's face get redder and redder under the general gaze, and heard him instead of speaking up only mutter, "I don't know nothing about it."

Moved by indignation at such foolishness, and at the mocking expression an Mr Benson's round face, she ventured to give Peter's sleeve a sharp pull. No more words came, he only shuffled his feet uneasily and showed an evident desire to get out of the shop.

"Well, well," said the grocer, turning his attention to some money he was counting out of a drawer, "never you mind, Peter. If you've got him you'd better keep him, for he knows how to make good b.u.t.ter at any rate."

Everyone laughed, as they always did at Mr Benson's speeches, and in the midst of it Peter gathered up his money and left the shop with Lilac. She felt so ruffled and vexed by what had pa.s.sed, that she could hardly attend to his directions as he pointed out the different shops she had to go to. They were an ironmonger's, a linendraper's, and a china shop, and in the last he told her she must wait until he came to fetch her with the cart in about an hour's time. Lilac stood for a moment looking after him as he drove away to put up his horse at the inn. She was angry with Mr Benson, angry with the people who had laughed, and angry with Peter. No wonder folks thought him half-silly when he looked like that. And yet he knew twice as much as all of 'em put together. Only that morning when Sober had cut his foot badly with broken gla.s.s, it was Peter with his clumsy-looking gentle fingers who had known how to stop the bleeding and bind up the wound in the best way. But in spite of all this he could stand like a gaby and let folks make a laughing-stock of him? It was so provoking to remember how silly he had looked, that it was only by a determined effort that Lilac could get it out of her head, and bend her attention on Bella's ribbons and her aunt's pots and pans. When she had once began her shopping, however, she found it took all her thoughts, and it was not till she was seated in the china shop, her business finished, and her parcels disposed round her, that the scene came back to her again. Could it be possible that Peter put any faith in such nonsensical tales?

Grannie Dunch believed them; but then she was very ignorant, over ninety years old, and had never been to school. When Grannie Dunch was young perhaps folks did believe such things, and she had never been taught better; there were excuses for her. On one point Lilac was determined.

Peter's mind should be cleared up as to who made the b.u.t.ter. What had Mr Benson said about it? "The credit of the farm's coming back." She repeated the words to herself in a whisper. What a grand thing if she, Lilac White, had helped to bring back the credit of the farm!

At this point in her reflections the white horse appeared at the door, and Lilac and all her belongings were lifted up into the cart. Very soon they were out of the noisy stony streets of Lenham, and on the quiet country road again. She took a side glance at her companion. He looked undisturbed, with his eyes fixed placidly on the horse's ears, and had evidently nothing more on his mind than to sit quietly there until they reached home. It made Lilac feel quite cross, and she gave him a sharp little nudge with her elbow to make him attend to what she had to say.

"Why ever did you let 'em go on so silly about the brownie?" she said.

"You looked for all the world as if you believed in it."

Peter flicked his horse thoughtfully.

"There's a many cur'ous things in the world," he said; "cur'ouser than that."

"There ain't no such things as brownies, though," said Lilac, with decision; "nor yet ghosts, nor yet witches, nor yet any of them things as Grannie Dunch tells about."

Peter was silent.

"_Is_ there?" she repeated with another nudge of the elbow.

"I don't says as there is," he answered slowly.

"Of course not!" exclaimed Lilac triumphantly.

"And I don't say as there isn't," finished Peter in exactly the same voice.

This unexpected conclusion quite took Lilac's breath away. She stared speechlessly at her cousin, and he presently went on in a reflective tone with his eyes still fixed on the horse's ears:

"It's been a wonderful lucky year, there's no denying. Hay turned out well, corn's going to be good. More eggs, more milk, better b.u.t.ter, bees swarmed early."

"But," put in Lilac, "Aunt sprained her ankle, and the colt went lame, and you had to sell None-so-pretty. That wasn't lucky. Why didn't the brownie hinder that?"

Peter shook his head.

"I don't say as there _is_ a brownie at the farm," he said.

"But you think he helps make the b.u.t.ter," said Lilac scornfully.

Peter turned his eyes upon his companion; her face was hidden from him by her sunbonnet, but her slender form and the sound of her voice seemed both to quiver with indignation and contempt.

"Well, then, who _does_?" he asked.

But Lilac only held her head up higher and kept a dignified silence; she was thoroughly put out with Peter, and if he was so silly it really was no use to talk to him.

Conscious that he was in disgrace, Peter fidgeted uneasily with his reins, whipped his horse, and cast some almost frightened glances over his shoulder at the silent little figure beside him, then he coughed several times, and finally, with an effort which seemed to make his face broader and redder every minute, began to speak:

"I'd sooner plough a field than talk any day, but but I'll tell you something if I can put it together. Words is so hard to frame, so as to say what you mean. Maybe you'll only think me stupider after I'm done, but this is how it was--"

He stopped short, and Lilac said gently and encouragingly, "How was it, Peter?"

"I've had a sort of a queer feeling lately that there's something different at the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all of a sudden it rapped into my head what Grannie Dunch says about the brownie as used to work at the farm. 'Maybe,' I says to myself, 'he's come back.' So I didn't say nothing, but I took notice, and things went on getting better, and I got to feel there was someone there helping on the work--but I wasn't not to say _certain_ sure it was the brownie, till one night--"

"When?" said Lilac eagerly as Peter paused.

"It was last Saint Barnaby's, and I'd been up to Cuddingham with None-so-pretty. It was late when I got back, and I remembered I hadn't locked the stable door, and I went across the yard to do it--"

"Well?" said Lilac with breathless interest.

"So as I went, it was most as light as day, and I saw as plain as could be something flit in at the stable door. 'Twasn't so big as a man, nor so small as a boy, and its head was white. So then I thought, 'Surely 'tis the brownie, for night's his working time,' and I'd half a mind to take a peep and see him at it. But they say if you look him in the face he'll quit, so I just locked the door and left him there. When Benson talked that way about the credit of the farm, I knew who we'd got to thank. Howsomever," added Peter seriously, "you mustn't thank him, nor yet pay him, else he'll spite you instead of working for you."

As he finished his story he turned to his cousin a face beaming with the most childlike faith; but it suddenly clouded with disappointment, for Lilac, no longer gravely attentive, was laughing heartily.