North, South and over the Sea Part 22

"Oh, go on, Joseph!" exclaimed Mrs. Bold, with heightening colour, turning Blackbird about as she spoke, and propelling him before her towards the stall. "I couldn't do nothin' else nor want to keep him,"

she added in an aggrieved tone, "when he come to the dairy door--he come actually to the dairy door!--same as if he knowed 'twas his last chance."

The farmer did not answer, but in spite of himself a dawning expression of interest was perceptible on his face.

"'E-es, an' he must ha' broke through a hedge to get out; he be cut about terrible wi' thorns."

"They did padlock th' gate when I sent en back last time," returned Joseph gruffly, adding, in the same tone, "Ye'd better sponge they sore places a bit after breakfast, and get dust out of 'em."

Mrs. Bold installed Blackbird in his old quarters, and hastened to the house.

The meal which ensued was at first a somewhat silent one. In spite of her satisfaction at having gained her point, Mrs. Bold felt somewhat remorseful for the tactics she had employed; and her husband stolidly munched his bread and bacon with a solemn, not to say gloomy, countenance.

All at once, however, he began to roll his head from side to side, while the colour on his already rubicund face deepened so much that his wife gazed at him in alarm, dreading the ensuing outburst. But when after long repression the explosion actually took place, it proved to be one of harmless and jovial laughter.

"What is it?" inquired Mrs. Bold, laughing delightedly too, though she knew not at what.

"I've bin a-thinkin' o' summat. Dear heart alive, Mary, the queer notions as do seem to be a-comin' into our heads all this week! D'ye mind my sayin', 'I never knowed as you was a ha.r.s.e'? Ha! ha! Ye couldn't say much to that, could 'ee? And when I think o' you standin'

in yard jist now, wavin' the teapot and tuckin' the little pig under your arm! 'Bottle-feedin' suckin'-pigs weren't in the marriage contract,' says you. Ho! ho! ho! Whatever put it i' your head to say that, I can't think."

"I didn't really mean it, my dear," said Mary penitently, though she laughed still.

"I dare say not, but I've bin a-thinkin' 'tis a pity your pet bain't a size or two smaller--he be sixteen hands if he be a inch--else maybe ye'd like to have en in here a-layin' on the hearthrug."

Then husband and wife laughed long and loud, and their little difference was forgotten as their eyes met.

THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM

On one particular Sunday in August, a brilliant sunny, breezeless day, such a day as would under ordinary circ.u.mstances conduce to certain drowsiness even in the most piously disposed, the church-goers of Little Branston were preternaturally alert, if not quite so attentive as usual. For behold! Corporal Richard Baverstock, Widow Baverstock's only son, and the father of Matilda Ann, the three-year-old darling of the village, had returned from the wars with a very brown face, a medal, two or three honourable scars, and, it was whispered, a pocketful of "dibs."

Every one knew about Corporal d.i.c.k, the sharp boy who had been the general pet and plaything in early years, much as his own "Tilly Ann"

was now; the das.h.i.+ng soldier, whose occasional visits to his native place in all the glories of uniform had caused on each occasion a flutter of excitement which had endured long after his own departure; the hero of romance, whose sudden appearance with a beautiful bride, wedded secretly somewhere up the country, had made more than one pretty maid's heart grow sore within her, and caused many wiseacres to shake their heads; the disconsolate young widower whose year-old wife had been laid to rest in the churchyard yonder, immediately after the birth of their child; the boy-father, bending half wonderingly over the blue-eyed baby on his mother's knee; the warrior, wounded "out abroad," whose letters had been pa.s.sed from hand to hand in the little place, and conned over and admired and marvelled at till old Mrs.

Baverstock, when each mail came to hand, found herself raised to a pinnacle of honour to which otherwise she would never have dared to aspire--he had come home now for a brief blissful fortnight before rejoining his regiment at the depot. Not one of the congregation there present but had heard of his return on the previous day, and of how he had almost knocked over the old mother in the vehemence of his greeting, and how he had caught up Tilly Ann and hugged her, and some said cried over her; and how he had almost within the hour walked up to the little cemetery and knelt by his wife's grave, which, the neighbours opined, "howed a wonderful deal o' feelin' in the man as 'twas a'most to be expected he'd ha chose a second by now."

"But they d' say, my dear, as the women out abroad be a terrible ugly lot, and most of 'em black. Tisn't likely as Corporal Baverstock 'ud so much as look at any o' they, arter pickin' sich a vitty maid for his first missis."

It was Mrs. Cousins who made this remark to Mrs. Adlam, as they paced together along the flagged path that led to the church porch; and it is not surprising that both ladies felt constrained to turn their heads when the martial tread of Soldier d.i.c.k resounded up the church a few moments later.

Jenny Meatyard nudged Maggie Fripp.

"Do 'ee see his medal?" she inquired in a whisper.

Maggie nodded. "That there korky uniform do suit en wonderful well."

Two village mothers exchanged glances of tender approbation, for, clinging to Corporal Baverstock's hand, and taking preposterously long steps in the endeavour to keep pace with his strides, was Tilly Ann, in her best starched white frock, and with her yellow hair curled in a greater profusion of corkscrew ringlets than her granny had ever yet achieved.

"Bain't it a pictur'?" one pair of motherly eyes seemed to say to the other, and I think many of the good simple folk performed their devotions all the better because of the consciousness of the two happy hearts, the man's and the little child's, beating in their midst.

The service once over, friends and neighbours gathered round the young soldier outside the church door. Those nearest spoke to him; those less fortunate, on the outskirts of the little crowd, contented themselves with admiring comments.

"He d' seem to have filled out, though he have been punished so terrible out yonder."

"My dear, they did tell I as his poor leg was all one solid wownd.

D'ye mind how Mrs. Baverstock did take on, pore 'ooman. And well she mid."

"Well she mid, indeed. Ah! 'tis a comfort to see as Corporal Baverstock d' seem able to walk so well as ever. I see Mrs. Baverstock didn't come to church--'tis a wonder."

"Nay, no wonder at all. It bain't likely as the poor body could leave her Sunday dinner the very first day her son be a-comed home. She's busy, that's what she be."

"Ah! to be sure. There, Lard now, look at Tilly Ann! He've a-got her up in his arms. Dear, to be sure, 'tis a beautiful sight, they two faces side by side. The maid doesn't favour her daddy a bit--nay, 'tis the very pictur' o' the pore wife."

"'E-es; she had that yellow hair, and them great big blue eyes. There, I've a-got a china cup at home what be jist the same colour. 'Tisn't nat'ral for a maid to have eyes that blue. I wouldn't mention it to Mrs. Baverstock, nor yet to d.i.c.k, but I shouldn't wonder at all if Tilly Ann was to follow her mother afore very long, pore little maid."

"Ah! they do say as when a young mother be took like that, as often as not she'll keep on a-callin' and a-callin', till the pore little thing she've a-left behind fair withers away."

While this cheerful line of prognostication was being followed up beyond her ken, Tilly Ann sat bolt upright in her father's arms, looking round her with a proprietary air, and occasionally patting his cheek with a broad dimpled little palm. She was a tall, well-made child, plump and fair, with rosy cheeks and st.u.r.dy limbs that would in themselves have given the lie to any dismal croakings; it was no wonder that "daddy's" eyes perpetually rested on her with a glow of pride.

"And she were quite a little 'un when ye did last see her, weren't she, Corporal?" said some one. (In Branston the good folk were punctilious with regard to t.i.tles.) "Ye'd scarce ha' knowed her I d'

'low if ye'd met her on the road."

"Know her," said Corporal Baverstock, "I'd know her among a thousand!

'Tis what I did write to my mother. Says I, 'I'd pick her out anywheres, if 'twas only by the dimple in her chin.'"

The bystanders nodded at each other; they remembered that particular letter well, and had much appreciated the phrase in question.

"To be sure, Corporal, so ye did, so ye did. And the maid have a dimple sure enough. There, 'tis plain for all folks to see."

Tilly Ann turned up her little face, and her father kissed the cleft chin with sudden pa.s.sion. Then he tossed her up in his arms and laughed.

"Many a time I've a-thought o' that dimple," he observed, in rather an unsteady voice, "and wondered if I'd ever set eyes on it again."

"And look at her curls," said a woman admiringly. "They be a-sheenin'

like gold to-day. She thinks a deal o' they curls, don't 'ee, Tilly?

If anybody axed her for one she'd al'ays say she was a-savin' on 'em up for daddy--didn't 'ee, Tilly?"

Tilly Ann, overcome with coyness, buried her face in her father's shoulder, and giggled, wriggling her little fat body the while, and drumming on his side with her lace-up boots.

"Hold hard there!" cried he. "Them boots of yourn be so bad as a pom-pom. Come, we must be lookin' up the wold lady. Say Ta-ta, and we'll be off."

One blue eye peeped out shyly from beneath the forest of curls, one little sunburnt hand was waved comprehensively; a smothered voice uttered the necessary "Ta-ta," with an accompaniment of chuckles and wriggles, and the soldier, clasping his burden more tightly, and nodding laughingly right and left made his way towards home.

No one, looking at Mrs. Baverstock as she stood at her doorway in her neat black stuff gown, the sleeves of which were decently drawn down to her very wrists, would have guessed at the magnitude of the culinary labours in which she had been employed. The beef was now done to a turn, the "spuds" boiled to a nicety; she had made pastry of the most solid description, which was even now simmering in the oven--I use the word "simmering" advisedly, for in the generosity of her heart she had not spared the dripping. The tea was brewed, hot and strong, the teapot, singed by long use, standing on the hob. There was a crusty loaf, a pat of b.u.t.ter indented in the middle with one of d.i.c.k's regimental b.u.t.tons, and a plate of cakes, hard as the nether--millstone and very crumbly, having been purchased from the distant town at the beginning of the week in expectation of this auspicious day.

"Well, mother, this be a spread!" cried the soldier, good-humouredly, as he set the child upon her legs. "I haven't sat down to such a meal as this since I left old England. 'Tis fit for a king."