Joanna Godden Part 4

"He said he had the power to sell as he thought proper--otherways I was going to ask for you."

An angry flush drowned the freckles on Joanna's cheek.

"That's Fuller, the obstinate, thick-headed old man...."

Bates's round face fell a little.

"I'm sorry if there's bin any mistaake. After all, I aun't got the beasts yet--thirty s.h.i.+llings a head is the price he asked and I paid. I call it a fair price, seeing the time of year and the state of the meat market But if your looker's bin presuming and you aun't pleased, then I woan't call it a deal."

"I'm pleased enough to sell you my beasts, and thirty s.h.i.+llings is a fairish price. But I won't have Fuller fixing things up over my head like this, and I'll tell him so. How many of 'em did you buy, Mr.

Bates?"

"I bought the lot--two score."

Joanna made a choking sound. Without another word, she turned and walked off in the direction of the hurdles where her sheep were penned, Bates and Alce following her after one disconcerted look at each other. Fuller stood beside the wethers, his two s.h.a.ggy dogs couched at his feet--he started when he suddenly saw his mistress burst through the crowd, her black feathers nodding above her angry face.

"Fuller!" she shouted, so loud that those who were standing near turned round to see--"How many wether-tegs have you brought to Lydd?"

"Two score."

"How many did I tell you to bring?"

"The others wurn't fit, surelye."

"But didn't I tell you to bring them?"

"You did, but they wurn't fit."

"I said you were to bring them, no matter if you thought 'em fit or not."

"They wurn't fit to be sold as meat."

"I tell you they were."

"No one shall say as Tom Fuller doan't bring fit meat to market."

"You're an obstinate old fool. I tell you they were first-cla.s.s meat."

Men were pressing round, farmers and graziers and butchers, drawn by the spectacle of Joanna G.o.dden at war with her looker in the middle of Lydd market. Alce touched her arm appealingly--

"Come away, Joanna," he murmured.

She flung round at him.

"Keep dear--leave me to settle my own man."

There was a t.i.tter in the crowd.

"I know bad meat from good, surelye," continued Fuller, feeling that popular sentiment was on his side--"I should ought to, seeing as I wur your father's looker before you wur your father's daughter."

"You were my father's looker, but after this you shan't be looker of mine. Since you won't mind what I say or take orders from me, you can leave my service this day month."

There was a horror-stricken silence in the crowd--even the lowest journeyman butcher realized the solemnity of the occasion.

"You understand me?" said Joanna.

"Yes, ma'am," came from Fuller in a crushed voice.

--8

By the same evening the news was all over Lydd market, by the next it was all over the Three Marshes. Everyone was repeating to everyone else how Joanna G.o.dden of Little Ansdore had got shut of her looker after twenty-eight years' service, and her father not been dead a month.

"Enough to make him rise out of his grave," said the Marsh.

The actual reasons for the turning away were variously given--"Just because he spuck up and told her as her pore father wudn't hold wud her goings on," was the doctrine promulgated by the Woolpack; but the general council sitting in the bar of the Crown decreed that the trouble had arisen out of Fuller's spirited refusal to sell some lambs that had tic. Other p.r.o.nouncements were that she had sa.s.sed Fuller because he knew more about sheep than she did--or that Fuller had sa.s.sed her for the same reason--that it wasn't Joanna who had dismissed him, but he who had been regretfully obliged to give notice, owing to her meddling--that all the hands at Ansdore were leaving on account of her temper.

"He'll never get another plaace agaun, will pore old Fuller--he'll end in the Union and be an everlasting shame to her."

There was almost a feeling of disappointment when it became known that Fuller--who was only forty-two, having started his career at an early age--had been given a most satisfactory job at Arpinge Farm inland, and something like consternation when it was further said and confirmed by Fuller himself that Joanna had given him an excellent character.

"She'll never get another looker," became the changed burden of the Marsh.

But here again prophecy failed, for hardly had Joanna's advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared simultaneously in the _Rye Observer_ and the _Kentish Express_ than she had half a dozen applications from likely men. Martha Tilden brought the news to G.o.dfrey's Stores, the general shop in Brodnyx.

"There she is, setting in her chair, talking to a young chap what's come from Botolph's Bridge, and there's three more waiting in the pa.s.sage--she told Grace to give them each a cup of cocoa when she was making it. And what d'you think? Their looker's come over from Old Honeychild, asking for the place, though he was sitting in the Crown at Lydd only yesterday, as Sam Broadhurst told me, saying as it was a shame to get shut of Fuller like that, and as how Joanna deserved never to see another looker again in her life."

"Which of the lot d'you think she'll take?" asked G.o.dfrey.

"I dunno. How should I say? Peter Relf from Old Honeychild is a stout feller, and one of the other men told me he'd got a character that made him blush, it was that fine and flowery. But you never know with Joanna G.o.dden--maybe she'd sooner have a looker as knew nothing, and then she could teach him. Ha! Ha!"

Meanwhile Joanna sat very erect in her kitchen chair, interviewing the young chap from Botolph's Bridge.

"You've only got a year's character from Mr. Gain?"

"Yes, missus ..." a long pause during which some mental process took place clumsily behind this low, sunburnt forehead ... "but I've got these."

He handed Joanna one or two dirty sc.r.a.ps of paper on which were written "characters" from earlier employers.

Joanna read them. None was for longer than two years, but they all spoke well of the young man before her.

"Then you've never been on the Marsh before you came to Botolph's Bridge?"

"No, missus."

"Sheep on the Marsh is very different from sheep inland."