The Parson O' Dumford Part 34

"Why, d.i.c.k, dear, how cross you have been," said Eve, while Mrs Glaire watched the game.

"Cross! Enough to make one," he cried, angrily; and then, mimicking the vicar's manner, "Good night, Miss Pelly. Thanks for a delightful evening."

"Well, I'm sure it was, d.i.c.k," said Eve; "only you would be so cross."

"And well I might, when you were flirting in that disgraceful way all the evening."

"Oh, d.i.c.k!" exclaimed Eve, reproachfully; and the tears stood in her eyes.

"Well, so you were," he cried, "abominably. If anybody else had been here, they would have said that you were engaged to be married to that cad of a parson, instead of to me."

The tears were falling now as Eve laid her hand upon her cousin's shoulder.

"d.i.c.k, dear," she whispered; "don't talk to me like that; it hurts me."

"Serve you right," he growled.

"If I have done anything to annoy you to-night, dear, it was done in all innocence. But you don't--you can't mean it."

"Indeed, but I do," he growled, half turning his back.

Mrs Glaire was sitting with her back to them, and still kept busy over her work.

"I am so sorry, d.i.c.k--dear d.i.c.k," Eve said, resting her head on the young man's shoulder. "Don't be angry with me, d.i.c.k."

"Then promise me you'll never speak to that fellow any more," he said, quickly.

"d.i.c.k! Oh, how can I? But there, you don't mean it. You are only a little cross with me."

"Cross!" he retorted; "you've hurt me so to-night that I've been wis.h.i.+ng I'd never seen you."

"Oh, d.i.c.k!" she exclaimed, as she caught his hand, and raised it to her lips. "Please forgive me, and believe me, dear d.i.c.k, that I have not a single thought that is not yours. Please forgive me."

"There, hold your tongue," he said, shortly; "she's looking."

Poor little Eve turned away to hide and dry her tears, and then Mrs Glaire, looking quite calm and satisfied with the prospect of events, said--

"Eve, my child, it is past eleven."

"Yes, aunt, I'm going to bed. Good night."

"Good night, Richard."

"Good night," he said, sulkily; and he bent down his head and brushed the candid white forehead offered to him with his lips, while, his hands being in his pockets, he at the same time crackled between his fingers a little note that he had written to Daisy, appointing their next interview, this arrangement having been forgotten in the hurry of the day's parting. And as he spoke he was turning over in his mind how he could manage to get the note delivered unseen by Banks or his wife, for so far as he could tell at the moment, he had not a messenger he could trust.

END OF VOLUME ONE.

Volume 2, Chapter I.

TO BULt.i.tUDE'S AND BACK.

Matters did not improve at Dumford as the days went on, and Murray Selwood found that he could not have arrived at a worse time, so far as his own comfort was concerned, though he was bound to own that the occasion was opportune for his parish, inasmuch as he was able to be of no little service to many of the people who, in a surly kind of way, acknowledged his help, and took it in a condescending manner, while, with a smile, he could not help realising the fact that the st.u.r.dy independent folks looked down upon him as a kind of paid official whom they were obliged to suffer in their midst.

He had secured a servant with great difficulty, for the girls of the place, as a rule, objected to domestic service, preferring the freedom and independence of working for the line-growing farmers of the neighbourhood, and spending the money earned with the big draper of the place. Not our independent friends, but Barmby the parish churchwarden, who coolly told the vicar that he could produce more effect upon the female population with a consignment of new hats or bonnets from town, than a parson could with a month's preaching; and it must be conceded to Mr Barmby that his influence was far more visible than that of his clerical superior.

All efforts to patch up a peace between the locked-out men and their employer were without avail, even though the vicar had seen both parties again and again.

"Let them pay for my machine-bands," said Richard Glaire--"Two hundred pounds, and come humbly and confess their faults, and I'll then take their application into consideration."

"But don't you think you had better make a greater concession?" said the vicar. "You are punis.h.i.+ng innocent and guilty alike."

"Serve 'em right," said Richard, turning on his heel, and leaving the counting-house, where Mr Selwood had sought him.

"What do you say, Mr Banks?" said the vicar.

"Well, sir, what I say is this," said Joe, pulling out and examining a keen knife that he took from his pocket, "what I say is this--that he ought to find out whom this knife belongs to, and punish him."

"That knife?"

"Yes," said Joe, grimly. "I've been well over the place, and I found this knife lying on a bench. It is the one used for cootting the bands; there's the greasy marks on it. Now, the man as that knife belongs to,"

he said, closing the blade with a snap, "is him as coot the bands."

"By the way, did you ever find the bands?" said the vicar.

"Find 'em, parson, oh yes, I fun 'em; chucked into one of the furnaces they weer."

"And burnt?"

"Well, not exactly bunt, but so c.o.c.kered up and scorched, as to be no more good. I only wish I knew who did it."

"It was a cowardly trick," said the vicar, "and I wish it were known, so that this unhappy strife might be stayed."

"Oh, that'll come raight soon," said Banks, drily. "Just wait till Master d.i.c.k has been over to the bank and seen how his book stands once or twice, and we'll soon bring this game to an end."

"And meanwhile the poor people are starving."

"Not they, sir," said Joe, with a chuckle. "People here are too saving.

They'll hold out a bit longer yet."

Joe remained to smoke a pipe amongst the extinct forges, while the vicar paid a morning call at the big house, to find Mrs Glaire and Eve gone for a walk, and Jacky Budd visible in the garden, fast asleep on a rustic chair, with the flies haunting his nose.

Turning from there he went down the street, and had to bow to Miss Purley, who was at the doctor's window, and to Miss Primgeon, who was at the lawyer's window, both ladies having been there ever since he pa.s.sed.

Then reaching the vicarage, it was to find that he had had a visitor in his turn in the shape of his churchwarden, Mr Bult.i.tude, "Owd Billy Bult.i.tude," as he was generally called in the town, just outside which he had a large farm and was reported to be very wealthy.

"Parish matters, I suppose," said the vicar; and he stood debating with himself for a few minutes as to whether he should go across the fields, ending by making a start, and coming across Richard Glaire deep in converse with Sim Slee, just by the cross-roads.

Something white was pa.s.sed by Richard to the gentleman of the plaid waistcoat, as the vicar approached, and then they moved on together for a few yards, unaware of the coming footsteps.

"That looks like coming to terms," said the vicar to himself, joyfully.