Part 15

“Four year an’ two month,” responded Mrs. Sibley. “There, the very day after Mrs. Foyle were buried he did come to me an’ he says so plain-spoke as anything, ‘Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘here be you a lone woman wi’out no family, an’ here be I wi’ all they little childern. Will ’ee come an’ keep house for I an’ look after ’em all? Ye’ll not be the loser by it,’ he says. So I looks him straight in the face: ‘I bain’t so sure o’ that, Mr. Foyle,’ I says. ‘I do look at it in this way, d’ye see. A woman has her chances,’ I says. ‘I don’t think Sibley ’ull last so very long--they seldom does at the ’sylum--an’ then here be I, a lone woman, as you do say. I mid very well like to settle myself again; an’ if I go an’ bury myself so far away from town in a place where there’s sich a few neighbours, I don’t see what prospects I’ll have.’”

“Well, that was straightforward enough,” commented Mrs. Fry. “He couldn’t make no mistakes about your meanin’.”

“He could not,” agreed Mrs. Sibley triumphantly; “an’ what’s more, he didn’t. He up an’ spoke as plain as a man could speak. ‘Well, Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘there’s a Fate what rules us all.’ He be always a-sayin’ off bits o’ po’try an’ sich-like as he gets from the gravestones, ye know.”

“Ah,” remarked Mrs. Fry nodding, “being the sexton, of course, it do come nat’ral to ’en, don’t it?”

“‘There’s a Fate what rules us all,’ he says,” resumed Mrs. Sibley, “‘an’ we didn’t ought to m’urn as if we had no hope. If you was a free ’ooman, Mrs. Sibley--well, I’m a free man, and I’d make so good a husband as another. Maria did always find I so,’ he says.”

“Well, the man couldn’t have said more.”

“So you’d think. But why don’t he say summat now? There, I’ve a-kept his house an’ seen arter his childern for more nor four year. Time’s gettin’ on, ye know; I bain’t so young as I was.”

Mrs. Fry began a polite disclaimer, but was overruled by the other.

“I bain’t--’tisn’t in natur’ as I could be. I wer’ gettin’ a bit anxious this year when poor Sibley did seem to be hangin’ on so long, so I axed Rector to have ’en prayed for----”

“A-h-h-h?” ejaculated Martha, as she paused. “An’ that did put the Lard in mind of ’en, I should think.”

“It did put the Lard in mind of ’en,” agreed Mrs. Sibley with gusto. “The Lard see’d he warn’t no good to nobody in the ’sylum, an’ so he wer’ took.”

“An’ Foyle have never come forward?” remarked Mrs. Fry, after a significant pause.

“He’ve never made no offer, an’ he’ve never said a single word to show he were thinkin’ o’ sich a thing. Not _one word_, Mrs. Fry. I’ve given ’en the chance many a time. A month arter poor Sibley was buried I says to ’en, ‘Here be I now, Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘a widow ’ooman, the same as you be a widow man’.”

“An’ what did he say?” queried her neighbour eagerly.

“Oh, summat about the ’opes of a glorious resurrection,” returned Mrs. Sibley scornfully. “An’ another time I says to ’en, ‘Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘d’ye mind the talk what you an’ me did have when you first did ax I to keep house for ye?’ ‘What talk,’ says he. ‘Why,’ I says, ‘about me bein’ free an’ you makin’ a good husband.’ ‘Free,’ says he sighin’; ‘this life’s a bondage, Mrs. Sibley.’ An’ off he went.”

“Ah!” commented Mrs. Fry, “he wer’ thinkin’ o’ them verses what’s wrote on old Farmer Reed’s tombstone. I mind they do begin this way:--

‘This life is but a bondage, My soul at last is free.’”

“That’s it,” agreed Mrs. Sibley nodding. “I says to ’en this marnin’, ‘Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘the New Year’s a-comin’, an’ I think there ought to be some change in the early part of it for you an’ me.’ ‘I don’t want no changes,’ he says; ‘I’m very well satisfied as I be.’ I’m gettin’ desperate, Mrs. Fry.”

“Well, ’tis very onconsiderate,” returned Martha, “very. I’m sure ye’ve said all ye could an’ done all ye could. ’Tis hard, too, for a woman to have to go a-droppin’ hints an’ a-takin’ the lead in such a delicate matter. I’m sure I don’t know what to advise, my dear.”

Mrs. Sibley rubbed her nose, and gazed at her friend meditatively.

“I’m about the only ’ooman in this ’ere place as Foyle could get to keep house for him,” she remarked. “I’ll tell ’ee what I’ll do, Mrs. Fry--I’ll march! Leastways,” she added, correcting herself, “I’ll tell ’en I be goin’. We’ll see how he’ll like that.”

“Ye mid try it,” said Martha reflectively; “it ’ud be a bit ark’ard, though, if he was to take ’ee at your word.”

“He’ll not do that,” returned Mrs. Sibley, continuing emphatically: “Now, Mrs. Fry, my dear, I’ll expect ’ee to act the part of a friend by me. If he do ax ye to lend ’en a hand or send over Selina to help ’en, don’t ye go for to do no such thing.”

“I won’t,” promised Mrs. Fry.

“An’ if he do say anything to ’ee about my leavin’, do ye jist let on as my mind be quite made up.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Fry.

“I’ll start packin’ at once then, to show ’en as I be in earnest,” said Mrs. Sibley, with a dry chuckle as her friend rose.

No sooner had Mrs. Fry edged through the narrow door with her market-basket than Mrs. Sibley set to work.

When Mr. Foyle, who united the double functions of carrier and sexton, unhitched the horse from his van, and, having seen to the animal’s comfort, went indoors, he was surprised to find his children, who had preceded him into the house, standing with scared faces round the packing-case, which occupied the centre of the kitchen, while Mrs. Sibley, with an air of great determination, was stowing away various articles therein.

“Hullo!” cried he, pausing in the doorway. “What’s the matter here? Isn’t tea ready?”

“You’d best put on the kettle, Florence,” said Mrs. Sibley, turning to the eldest child. “I haven’t had time to ’tend to it. Oh, be that you, Mr. Foyle? Would you kindly hand me down that there clock? I’m afeard the childern mid break it. Henery, just roll up that door-mat an’ fetch it here.”

“Dear heart alive, what be about, Mrs. Sibley?” ejaculated honest Foyle. “You haven’t had no bad noos, I hope?”

“Oh, no noos at all, Mr. Foyle. Nothin’ noo do never come a-nigh this ’ere place. I be goin’ to have a bit of a change--I did tell ’ee this marnin’ as I wanted a change, didn’t I? I be a-goin’ to shift, Mr. Foyle.”

“To shift!” ejaculated the sexton.

He slowly unwound the lengths of black and white comforter which were swathed about his neck, gaping at her the while.

“You’d best make tea, hadn’t you?” remarked Mrs. Sibley, ostentatiously counting over the plated spoons which were her property. “Florence ’ud very likely scald herself.”

The sexton dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

“Ye bain’t goin’ away to-night!” he gasped.

Mrs. Sibley straightened herself and eyed him reflectively. It might be a little awkward to say she _was_ leaving that night, for if by chance he _did_ take her at her word, she had not the remotest notion of where she could go.

“Not to-night,” she said at length, with the air of one making a concession. “I reckon to-morrow ’ull be time enough.”

Florence laid down the teapot and approached, her eyes round with consternation.

“Ye’re never goin’ to leave us on Christmas Day!” she ejaculated. “Oh, Auntie!”

“Auntie” was the title unanimously bestowed on Mrs. Sibley by the young Foyles, and accepted by that lady pending its exchange for a more intimate one.

In a moment Florence burst into tears, and the other children immediately followed suit, little Rosanna being indeed so overcome by her feelings that she was constrained to lie on the floor and scream.

Mrs. Sibley stooped over her and set her on her feet. Beneath her stiff and somewhat chilly demeanour she had a warm enough heart, and was sincerely attached to her charges, particularly the youngest, whom she had brought up from infancy.

“Ye’ll have to get another Auntie, my dear,” she remarked, winking away a tear. “And ’tis to be hoped as she’ll take as good care of you as I’ve a-done.”

The sexton breathed hard, but did not venture to protest, and Henery, after rubbing his eyes on his jacket sleeve, inquired in a reproachful tone why Auntie was going away.

“I wants a change, my dears,” reiterated Mrs. Sibley, bestowing a gentle shake on Rosanna, as a means of bringing her round, for the child, following her favourite mode of procedure when her feelings were too many for her, was rapidly growing black in the face. “I did tell Father so this marnin’--Father knows. He bain’t surprised, I’m sure. What must be, must be!” summed up Mrs. Sibley oracularly. Thereupon casting an inquiring eye round the room, she descried the warming-pan, which was hanging behind the door, pounced upon it, and stowed it away in the packing-case on top of the hearthrug.

Silence reigned for some moments, broken only by the sobs of the children and the rustling of Mrs. Sibley’s packing-papers.

“Ye’d best give the children their tea, Mr. Foyle,” she remarked, looking up presently. “They be in need of it, poor things. There, don’t ye cry so, Florence. Ye’ll be gettin’ another Auntie soon--at least, I hope so. Though reelly I don’t quite see who ye can call in, Mr. Foyle, I don’t indeed. I passed the remark to Mrs. Fry to-day, an’ she said she was sure she didn’t know who you could turn to. Her own hands was full, she said. Poor ’Lina was worked a deal too hard for a maid of her age, already. Them was her words. But sit down to your tea, do, Mr. Foyle. Get the bread, Florence; ’tis time for you to be growin’ handy. ’Tis you as ’ull have to be keepin’ the house most like.”

It might have been the result of Florence’s emotion, or it might have been owing to the fact that the shelf was a high one and Florence’s arms were short, but in some way or other in reaching down the loaf she managed to tumble it into the coal-box.

Foyle rose hastily, pushed the child on one side, picked up the loaf, dusted it with his sleeve, set it on the table, and went out, banging the door behind him.

As the sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the path, Mrs. Sibley rose to her feet and smiled upon the children, who were now sobbing afresh.

“There, don’t ye make such a fuss,” she remarked soothingly. “Father’s a bit upset; ye mustn’t mind that. Get on with your teas, dears. There, ye may have a bit of jam to it to-night, as it’s Christmas Eve; and afterwards we’ll stick up some green, and you must all hang up your stockin’s and see what you’ll find there in the marnin’.”

Cheerfulness was immediately restored; little faces grimed by tears smiled afresh; plates were extended for plentiful helpings of blackberry jam, and soon little tongues were gleefully discussing the morrow’s prospects, and particularly the treasures which might be looked for in the stockings.

“But I’ve only got such a ’ittle stockin’,” lisped Rosanna, contemplating a chubby leg, which was, indeed, but imperfectly protected by about three inches of sock. “My stockin’ won’t hold half so much as the others.”

“There, I’ll lend you one of mine, then,” said Auntie, graciously; and, going to the chest of drawers in the corner, she drew forth a pair of her own substantial stockings, and presented one to the child.

As the children retired for the night, Henery paused beside her for a moment.

“You won’t truly go to-morrow, Auntie?” he pleaded coaxingly.

Mrs. Sibley paused a moment, and in the interval the sound of the sexton’s slouching step was heard without, and his hand fumbled at the latch.

“It do all depend on Father, Henery,” said Mrs. Sibley, raising her voice slightly. “He do know very well as I do want a change.”

Mr. Foyle entered, looking weary and depressed, and sat down in his customary chair. Mrs. Sibley cast a searching glance round the kitchen, and, possessing herself of a pair of spotted china dogs which adorned the mantel-piece, added them to her collection, and retired.

The sexton lit his pipe, and had been smoking in gloomy silence for some time, when Mrs. Sibley re-entered. Going to the dresser, and opening a drawer, she abstracted a number of oranges, nuts, crackers, and other such wares, and filled her apron with them.

“What be them for?” inquired the sexton diffidently.

“Why, they be surprises for the childern,” returned she.

“Ah,” rejoined John Foyle, “surprises, be they?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sibley, “they do look for ’em reg’lar, they do. I do always fill their stockin’s wi’ ’em every Christmas.”

“Oh,” said the sexton, “put their surprises in their stockin’s, do ’ee?”

Mrs. Sibley nodded and withdrew, leaving John sunk in profound thought.

“This ’ere be a vale o’ tears,” he remarked presently, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He rose, went to the table, turned up the lamp a little more, and fetching pen, ink and paper from the window-sill on which they usually reposed, sat down to indite a letter. It cost him much labour and thought, but, after all, it was a brief enough document. When completed it ran thus: “If Mrs. Sibley will meet Mr. Foyle in the churchyard to-morrow morning about nine o’clock when nobody’s about she will hear of something to your advantage. Yours truly, John Foyle.”

“I couldn’t,” said the sexton to himself, “put the question in any sort of public way. The childern is in and out, and the neighbours mid pop in. The churchyard is best and most nat’ral.”

He folded the letter, put it in an envelope, and addressed it; then, looking round, descried hanging over a chair-back one of Mrs. Sibley’s stockings--the fellow to the one she had lent little Rosanna.

“The very thing!” exclaimed John. “The Christmas surprises do always go in stockin’s. It’ll be a surprise for she, I d’ ’low--not but what she didn’t look for it,” he added with a grim chuckle.

He placed the letter in the stocking, fastened it securely with a loop of string, and, going cautiously upstairs, slung it over Mrs. Sibley’s door-handle. He paused a moment, winking to himself, and then made his way on tiptoe to his own room.

The usual Christmas bustle and excitement prevailed in the little household next morning. The children ecstatically compared notes over their fruit and toys; the sexton himself was quite unaccountably jovial, with a nervous kind of joviality nevertheless, hardly venturing to glance in Mrs. Sibley’s direction. She, on her side, wore a sedate, not to say chastened, aspect, and was attired in her deepest “weeds”.

Foyle’s jocularity diminished after a time, and he set off for the churchyard in a depressed and uncomfortable frame of mind. What was the woman driving at--what more in the name of goodness could she want?

He paced up and down the path nearest the gate for some time, and then, suddenly recalling the fact that he had not yet attended to the stove connected with the heating apparatus of the church, hurried off to accomplish this duty.

On his return he descried a tall figure in black making its way, not towards him, but towards that portion of the churchyard wherein reposed the mortal remains of the lamented Mr. Sibley.

After some hesitation the sexton followed, and Mrs. Sibley, having deposited a wreath of evergreens on the grave, turned round with a mournful expression.

“At such times as these, Mr. Foyle,” she remarked, “the mind do nat’rally feel m’urnful.”

“True, true!” agreed the sexton uncomfortably.

“He was a good husband, Mr. Foyle,” said the widow in a melancholy tone.

“To be sure,” said John doubtfully.

“I shall never look upon his like again,” resumed Mrs. Sibley, shaking her head.

The sexton glanced from her disconsolate face to the wreath of evergreens, and then back again. Mrs. Sibley was still shaking her head with an air of gentle resignation.

“I think I’ll be goin’,” said Mr. Foyle with sudden desperation. “I thought you did step out to this ’ere churchyard with another intention.”

Mrs. Sibley glanced at him in mild surprise.

“Ye didn’t chance to get no letter this marnin’, I s’pose?” continued the sexton with some heat.

“A letter!” repeated Mrs. Sibley.

“E-es, the letter what I did put in your stockin’ for a surprise,” added John emphatically.

Mrs. Sibley’s melancholy vanished as by magic; she smiled on the sexton, not only affably, but positively coyly.

“An’ it _was_ a surprise!” she exclaimed, “it _was_ indeed. E-es, Mr. Foyle.”

She paused again, and then, all scruples apparently vanquished by the delicacy of John’s attitude, she extended a bony hand from beneath the folds of her black shawl.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said.

THE CALL OF THE WOODS.

Monday.--Even to the most casual observer the day of the week would have been announced by the appearance of the rambling village; the new-budding hedges were remorselessly weighted with household gear, fresh from the tub; the very grassplots were whitened with the same; but the gooseberry bushes were as yet unadorned with extraneous trophies, for as every one knows, a thrifty rustic housewife relegates the washing and “getting up” of fine things to Tuesdays.

The orchard of that popular house of entertainment, known as “The Three Choughs,” the weather-beaten sign of which bore the partly obliterated presentment of a triplet of birds unknown to naturalists--the orchard of “The Three Choughs,” I say, was no exception to the general rule. From the gnarled branches of pear- and plum-tree depended many wavering tokens of Mrs. Cluett’s industry; the clothes lines were weighted with the like; and Alice, her rosy-cheeked daughter, went periodically to and fro from wash-house to hedge with a basket poised on one sturdy hip, or, for the sake of variety, set jauntily aloft on her curly head.

The bar was left to take care of itself; at that hour callers were unlikely. Noontide was past, evening had not yet come; if any stray wagoner or chance bicyclist were in need of refreshment he had but to uplift his voice, or to knock on the worn panels of the door leading from the taproom to Mrs. Cluett’s private premises. Many succeeding generations of knuckles had, indeed, removed the last vestige of paint from the panels in question, and indued them with a fine mellow tint of their own.

Nevertheless Mrs. Cluett was enjoying herself so much in the midst of her suds, so thoroughly absorbed in soaping and kneading and wringing, that such a summons was thrice repeated without effect; and it was not until Alice, returning from one of her expeditions to the hedge, chanced to glance casually at the taproom window that the impatient customer contrived to attract attention.

Seeing a man’s face peering discontentedly through the latticed panes, and hearing a corresponding voice repeatedly shouting, Alice set down her basket and hurried into the house.

“We don’t often have no one callin’ at this time o’ day,” she remarked with a pleasant smile, by way of greeting.

The man gave his order for a pint of beer without noticing the intended apology, and dropped into one of the wooden chairs allotted to customers.

Alice glanced at him askance as she set jug and glass before him. A tall young fellow, not more than twenty-five, with a face browned by sun and wind till it was as dark as a gipsy’s, thick, black hair, good features, and the strangest eyes that the girl had ever beheld in a human face. They were like hawk’s eyes, keen and clear, and with that fixed, far-away look peculiar to the eyes of a bird or beast of prey. Yet the man’s face was not a cruel face, and by-and-by, meeting Alice’s questioning gaze, he smiled hesitatingly.

Alice was a good girl, and had always been well looked after by her mother; but it was part of the business of life, as she conceived it, to enter frankly into conversation with all who chanced to need refreshment at “The Three Choughs;” and she was interested in each, from the oldest customer to the latest and most casual caller.

“Where be come from?” inquired Alice, now propping herself against the lintel of the door, and surveying the stranger with undisguised curiosity.

He wore corduroys and leggings, and yet was no gamekeeper; he carried a small bundle and a sturdy stick, but she felt sure that he was not a tramp.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, looking at her for a moment before replying; his words came at last slowly, as though he were unused to much speech.

“Yonder,” he said, “Chudbury way.”

Alice glibly ran through the names of several villages, with an interrogative pause after each, and the newcomer shook his head in every case, without, however, further attempting to enlighten her.

She stopped at length, evidently at a loss, and the man, setting down his glass, laughed suddenly, a joyous, good-humoured laugh, pleasant to hear.

“You be fair beat, my maid,” said he. “But I do ’low you’d not be so very much the wiser if I was to tell ’ee. I be come from Tewley Warren--that’s where I be come from.” He dropped his voice and his face clouded over. “That’s where I’ve a-lived all my life,” he added.

“Why have ’ee left now, then?” inquired Alice.

“I didn’t leave o’ my own free will--ye mid be sure o’ that,” said he.

Alice looked up inquiringly, and he continued after a pause, still slowly and somewhat hesitatingly, as though he found it difficult to lay hold of the words he needed.

“I did live there wi’ my wold father; and when he shifted to the New House, Squire wasn’t willin’ for I to go on a-livin’ there. He did want our place for one o’ the keepers--a married man wi’ a fam’ly--he didn’t hold, he said, wi’ lettin’ a young chap, same as I, bide there--he did turn I out--to speak plain.”

“Oh--h,” said Alice commiseratingly. “’Twas a bit hard, I d’ ’low.”

“It was mortal hard,” said he.

He raised the tumbler of beer to his lips, but set it down again untasted.

“To give Squire his due,” he said, “he did offer to keep I on for the same money what I did have when the wold man were livin’, but I wouldn’t have it. ‘No, sir,’ says I, ‘I bain’t a-goin’ to be takin’ orders in the place where I did use to be my own master’--’twas jist same as if I was my own master when my father were alive; he didn’t never interfere wi’ I, poor wold chap.”

It was perhaps Alice’s fancy that a momentary dimness veiled the hawk eyes--in any case it was only momentary.

“So here I be,” summed up the ex-warrener conclusively.

“Here you be,” echoed Alice; then, after a moment’s pause: “What be goin’ to do now?”

“I don’t know,” said the man.

“Where be goin’ to?”

“I don’t know,” he said again.