Part 16

At this moment Mrs. Cluett’s voice was heard calling aloud for her daughter; that lady’s heavy foot presently sounded in the narrow passage without, and she burst into the room.

“Dear, to be sure! Did ever a body see such a maid? Us so busy and clothes not half done wi’! And here ye must stand gawkin’ and gossipin’ as if ’twas the middle of the week. There, drink up your beer, do, good man, and let’s ha’ done wi’ it.”

She addressed these words to the newcomer in a somewhat softened tone, and he nodded good-humouredly.

“All right, missus; I’ll not be long now,” he said, as he poured out his second glass.

“There, for shame, mother, let the poor soul take his drink in peace,” whispered Alice. “He’s come far--from Tewley Warren; he’ve a-been turned out now his father be dead.”

Mrs. Cluett, with a soapy hand on either hip, surveyed the young man curiously.

“I did use to know Warrener Baverstock well,” she remarked slowly. “Warrener Baverstock up to Chudbury--e-es--I did use to know en.”

“He were my father,” remarked the other, with a momentary gleam of pleasure in his eyes.

“He did use to come here often and often,” continued Mrs. Cluett, emphatically. “He’d sit there--as mid be where you be a-sittin’ now--and he’d take his glass, he would; a most respectable man he were. My poor husband were alive too in them days--ah, times is changed, bain’t they? Here be I, a poor widow woman wi’ my own livin’ to get, tho’ there’s them as did ought to be gettin’ it for I in my ancient years.”

She paused to shake her head. Young Baverstock’s attention seemed to have wandered during the latter part of her speech, and he sipped his ale without evincing any curiosity as to the hint she had recently thrown out. After the manner of her kind, however, she at once proceeded to elucidate it.

“’Tisn’t as if I didn’t have somebody as did ought to be a-doin’ for I. There’s my son--a big, strong, hearty chap--my right hand he did use to be--there’s a deal to be done about this here place, ye know.”

“I do ’low there is,” agreed Baverstock absently.

“’Tisn’t only the public,” she continued, “tho’ I d’ ’low it be a bit hard for two women to have to manage all they menfolk--but there’s a bit of a farm to be seen to. Well, when I say a farm I do mean a couple o’ cows and a few pigs and chicken and that; and we do always grow our own spuds and greens, you know, and a few ranks o’ roots to help out wi’ for the cows in the winter. A man be wanted for all that kind o’ work, and it do seem hard as I should have to throw away my dibs to strangers when I mid have my own flesh and blood a-workin’ for nothin’.”

“It do,” agreed Baverstock, this time with more attention. “Why don’t your son do it then?” he inquired after a pause.

“Why?” repeated Mrs. Cluett in a tone of deep disgust. “Because he’ve a-been and gone and got married--that’s why, the unnat’ral fellow,” she added witheringly.

The young man surveyed her without hazarding a remark; those strange eyes of his remained as impassive as ever, but the corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards.

“I warn’t a-goin’ to let en bring his wife here,” continued the old woman. “I didn’t never fancy her, and ’twas again’ my will he did take up wi’ her. ‘You don’t bring her here,’ I says.--‘Then I don’t stop here,’ says he. ‘All right, my lad,’ says I, ‘ye can march!’ So he marched. He be a-workin’ over to new brewery now--down in the town.”

Baverstock apparently considered that this communication called for no comment; at all events he made none.

Mrs. Cluett, who had wrought herself up to the point of exposing the full extent of her grievances, was no whit abashed by his silence, however, and continued excitedly.

“The menfolk--there! they do seem to think a poor lone ’ooman fit for nothin’ but to make a laughin’ stock on. Dear heart alive, ’tis enough to drive a body silly! Us can’t seem to find a decent civil-spoke chap nowheres, can us, Alice? The minute a thing is not to their likin’ up they comes wi’ their sauce and their impudence, and off they goes.”

The young man gazed at her with an increasing interest:--

“You be short-handed now, then, be ye?” asked he.

Mrs. Cluett threw back her head with an ironical laugh.

“Short-handed! We be, so to speak, wi’out no hands at all. The last boy as worked here marched off o’ Saturday. Turned up his nose at his good victuals, and answered I back when I spoke my mind to him about it. I’m sure I don’t know where to look for another. And the ’taters bain’t all in yet, and there’s such a deal to do in this here place.”

Adam Baverstock pushed back his chair and gazed at her for a moment reflectively.

“I do ’low I mid serve your turn so well as another,” said he, in a calm and impartial tone, as of one in no way concerned in the issue.

Mrs. Cluett surveyed him dubiously, but Alice surreptitiously nipped her mother’s elbow.

“Do seem to be a likely chap,” she murmured.

Still with the judicial air befitting one about to conclude a bargain, Mrs. Cluett put various questions to the would-be assistant, her countenance brightening perceptibly as she ascertained that he had some knowledge of the management of cows, his father having kept one during the latter years of his life, that he knew all about pigs, that he didn’t care what he turned his hand to, and that he was by no means particular in the matter of wages.

“I don’t seem to know what to do next,” he explained. “I mid be lookin’ about me here, and I could fill in the time till you can light upon a man to your likin’. There’s one thing,” he added with that flicker of the lip which Alice had noted before, “I bain’t one as ’ull ever give ye impudence--I bain’t one as cares for much talk--I bain’t used to it, d’ye see. The wold man and me--there! There was weeks when we didn’t so much as give each other the time o’ day.”

“Dear, to be sure! To think o’ that now,” said Alice, whose tongue was wont to wag pretty freely. “Wasn’t it terr’ble lonesome for ye?”

“I didn’t ever feel it so,” returned Adam, “there’s a deal o’ company in the woods, and company as don’t want talkin’ to,” he added with a laugh.

Mrs. Cluett now proceeded to enter into practical details. Adam’s bundle contained, it seemed, all his worldly goods, a large wardrobe having been considered unnecessary in Tewley Warren, and such few sticks of furniture as the old man possessed having been purchased by his successor. He was therefore unhampered by any great need for space in his new quarters; yet he looked round the attic assigned to him with a clouded face, noting which, his mistress sarcastically inquired if he didn’t find it big enough.

“Oh, ’tis big enough,” he returned; “big enough if a man can breathe in it.”

He opened the tiny casement, and looked out:--

“I can see one tree,” he exclaimed, in a tone of relief.

“And what mid ye want with trees?” she inquired. “You won’t need to be lookin’ out much when ye’ve a-had a proper good day’s work.”

And thereupon, informing him that it was time to “sarve pigs,” and directing him as to the whereabouts of the meal-bucket, she descended to her own long neglected wash-tub.

Alice, however, still lingered in the passage, and observed that, as Adam took off his coat preparatory to setting to work, he paused, with an odd little laugh to himself.

“I was near forgetting you,” said he, peering into one of its capacious pockets and apparently addressing something inside.

“What have ye got there?” inquired Alice.

Adam carefully hung up the coat on a nail, thrust his hand into the pocket aforesaid, and produced a very small rabbit--a little furry ball with downy semi-transparent ears and bright beady eyes.

“I had to bring he along of I,” he explained, as he stroked the little creature which sat quite contentedly in his brown palm.

“How did you make en so tame?” asked Alice.

“I’ve had en nigh upon a week now. ’Tis thanks to I he warn’t made a stoat’s breakfast on. They stoats--they be terr’ble varmint. I be always on the look-out for ’em. Well, this here little chap was bein’ dragged along by a big ’un when I chanced to spy the pair of ’em. I made an end of Maister Stoat and I did take the little ’un home-along. He couldn’t feed hisself, poor little thing, but we made shift, didn’t us, little ’un? There, he can drink out of a teaspoon so sensible as a Christian.”

“Do ’ee let I give en a drap o’ milk now,” cried Alice eagerly.

The little rabbit justified his owner’s proud assertion, and after refreshing himself in the manner indicated, was comfortably stowed away in a hay-lined basket.

“I were pure glad to bring he along of I,” said Adam, for the nonce communicative; “he’ll mind me o’ the woods, d’ye see. And I’ve a-brought these, too.”

Thrusting his hand inside his waistcoat he brought out a few young fir shoots, green and tender, and deliciously aromatic as he bruised them with his strong fingers.

“Smell!” he exclaimed, thrusting them suddenly under Alice’s pretty little freckled nose.

She sniffed, and remarked without enthusiasm that it was a nice smell enough.

“There’s n’ar another like it,” said Adam gruffly; and replacing them in his bosom he strode away to attend to the wants of the pigs.

Decidedly the new man-of-all-work at the Three Choughs was a queer fellow; all who came to the place agreed in this estimate of him. He worked well, but yet, as Mrs. Cluett frequently averred, as if “he didn’t have no heart in it”; he was steady, civil, and obliging enough, but so silent, so unaccountably silent, that the regular visitors to the little inn could make nothing of him.

The only person who could ever induce him to talk was Alice Cluett, and then it was at rare moments, and upon odd, and, to her, uninteresting topics.

One evening he called out to her excitedly as she was crossing the little yard, declaring that he smelt the dew.

Alice paused beside him, inhaling the sweet air of the spring dusk with inquiring nostrils.

“They’ve a-been mowin’ over t’ Rectory to-day,” said she, “I see’d gardener gettin’ the machine out--’tis the first time this spring. ’Tis the cut grass what you do smell I do ’low.”

“Nay,” cried Adam eagerly, “’tis the dew. Who’s to know it so well as me, my maid? Haven’t I stood and smelt it time and again yonder in the woods at Chudbury? ’Tis the dew on the young leaves and the noo grass. I used to tramp it down, and then stan’ still to smell it. The Warren must be lookin’ fine now.”

Even in the dusk she could see his eyes dilate, and that tell-tale mouth of his curl upwards.

“And there’s scarce a tree to be seen here,” he sighed presently.

“Lard,” said practical Alice, “what a man you be, Adam! There’s plenty o’ things more worth lookin’ at than trees, I d’ ’low. There’s fields wi’ the crops comin’ on so nice, and the river, and the road wi’ all the folks’ traps an’ carts and wagons, and there’s the gardens wi’ flowers and ’taters and everything, and there’s men and women, an’--an’ maids,” she added, tilting her chin saucily.

Adam brought back his eyes from the distant vision upon which they had been feasting to another vision nearer at hand, and his face relaxed.

“Ah, there’s maids,” he agreed. “I never knowed any maid afore I knowed you, Alice. There’s times when----”

He broke off suddenly.

“There’s times when--what?” she inquired with interest.

“I could a’most be glad sometimes that I did come away from the Warren,” said he. “I’m glad to know ye, Alice.”

“Oh, and are ye?” rejoined she with a somewhat tremulous laugh.

“E-es,” returned Adam reflectively, “I’ve see’d maids now and then when I did use to come down to buy a few little oddments in the town, but I never took no notice of them--I never knowed any of them. I be glad to know you, Alice.”

Alice made no answer. She picked a leaf from the hedge and chewed it. Had it not been so dark Adam might have noticed the sudden rush of colour that overspread her face.

“The chaps hereabouts do often seem to go out a-walkin’ wi’ maids,” resumed Adam. “I were a-thinkin’--you and me mid go a-walkin’ sometimes.”

“We mid,” she agreed.

“Sunday, maybe?” suggested Adam, with a sudden note of exultation in his voice. “If you could get off for a good long bit, Alice, we mid step up to Oakleigh Woods. I haven’t been there yet, but they do tell I they’re splendid.”

“They’re nice enough,” said Alice, somewhat dubiously. “We’ll have to see what mother says,” she added.

“Do ye ax her then,” suggested Adam.

Alice moved away from him, and glanced back over her shoulder.

“Maybe I will,” said she.

Mrs. Cluett, on being consulted, was at first doubtful and inclined to be irate.

“This do seem like coortin’,” she remarked severely.

Alice twisted the corner of her apron without replying. It certainly did look rather like courting.

“Be you and that chap thinking o’ bein’ sweethearts?” resumed Mrs. Cluett.

Alice raised defiant dark eyes: “’Twouldn’t be no such very great harm if we was,” she returned. “He be a likely chap, Adam be; he’ve a-got a few pounds laid by, and if him an’ me was to make a match of it you wouldn’t need to pay en no wage.”

This was a practical aspect of the affair which had not hitherto struck Mrs. Cluett; her countenance relaxed.

“But he haven’t axed I yet,” said Alice discreetly.

Mrs. Cluett drew a long breath.

“Well I haven’t got no objections to your walking out wi’ he on Sunday, my dear,” she remarked condescendingly; and Alice dropped her apron and went away smiling.

Sunday came, and the pair duly set forth, Mrs. Cluett watching their departure from the kitchen window, not without some elation, for indeed her maid was, as she said to herself, a fine piece, and Adam, as he strode along by her side, was “so well set-up as a granadier”.

Alice chattered away gaily while they walked, tucking up her pretty blue skirt to show her starched white petticoat, while her curly head, under its rose-crowned hat, turned this way and that as they passed friends and neighbours. Other heads turned to gaze after her, and many jests and laughs were exchanged, and not a few sly innuendos as to the possible outcome of events. Alice would laugh and blush then, and glance surreptitiously at Adam; but the ex-warrener was more taciturn even than usual that day, and though his face wore a contented expression, he appeared to take little heed of his surroundings.

Presently the girl became silent, and by-and-by distinctly cross; she lagged a little behind Adam; once or twice she stumbled, and once paused, having tripped over a stone.

“What be to do?” inquired Adam, bringing down his eyes all at once from the horizon, where the irregular parti-coloured lines of Oakleigh Wood had hitherto held his gaze.

“You do walk so fast,” complained Alice, “and the road be so rough--and--” in a still more aggrieved tone--“all the other boys and maids what we do meet be a-walkin’ arm-in-crook.”

“Come,” said Adam diffidently, “us can do that too, I suppose.”

Alice curved her arm, and he, after a little practice, supported her elbow in the recognised fashion prescribed for courting-folk. He looked down at her with a softened expression as they advanced afresh.

“Be enjoying of yourself, my maid?” he inquired.

“E-es,” returned Alice dubiously. “Be you?”

“Jist about!” said Adam, at which she brightened visibly.

They now turned off the dusty road that for the last half-mile had climbed up almost perpendicularly, with the downs rolling away on one side and a carefully enclosed fir plantation skirting it on the other. A sheep-track that presently lost itself, wound away over the downs between patches of grass and low-growing thorn and elder bushes to where Oakleigh Wood spread its exquisite, undulating length invitingly before them. Adam quickened his pace; his whole face lightened and brightened in a manner of which it had not hitherto seemed capable; presently he began to sing in a rich ringing joyous voice, and Alice, clutching at his arm to stay his progress, exclaimed in amazement:--

“You do seem quite another man to-day!” she cried half petulantly.

“I d’ ’low I be another man,” answered he. “Let’s run, maidie, let’s run. Let’s get there.”

He caught her by the hand, and the girl, infected by his excitement, raced with him at her topmost speed. Off they flew over the springing turf and only paused, laughing, when they reached the shelter of the belt of firs which stood at the outskirts of the wood. The cool green fragrance was refreshing after that breathless race in the fierce sunshine; Alice’s eyes were dancing and her heart leaping, but Adam had suddenly become grave again; when he spoke it was in a subdued voice almost as if he were in church, the girl thought. Nevertheless he looked very tenderly at her as he touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“Now, maidie,” said he, “I be goin’ to show ye such things as ye did never see in your life--I be a-goin’ to let ye into a few of the secrets o’ this place.”

“Ye’ve never been here yourself afore,” protested Alice.

“I know ’em all the same,” returned Adam. “I do know all about woods. A squirrel, see! Look yon.”

“Where?” whispered Alice.

“On the big crooked branch there. Keep still, and he’ll come nigh us.”

As they stood motionless the little creature did indeed come frolicking downwards from bough to bough, pausing to glance at them, leaping away in feigned terror, returning for closer inspection, then, evidently deciding that they were not, and could never have been, alive, and were, in consequence, not dangerous, sitting up, chattering, a yard or two above their heads. He was presently joined by a friend, or it might be a rival; a lively discussion ensued, a mad scamper, a protracted chase, the two finally disappearing in the inner depths of the wood.

“Let’s go,” said Alice.

She had been amused and interested, but felt nevertheless somewhat disappointed. This was the strangest courting she had ever heard of: it seemed hardly worth while to have walked three miles on a Sunday afternoon merely to watch the antics of a couple of squirrels. But Adam was perfectly happy; for the first time since he had left the Warren he found himself in his element and at ease.

“If you do know how to treat ’em, birds and beasts is tame enough,” he remarked. “There, the very varmint ’ull be friendly wi’ you. There was a wold weasel yonder in the Warren what did use to have reg’lar games wi’ me. He knowed I were arter him, d’ye see, and he were that cunnin’ he did lead I a dance for months and months. I do ’low the creature ’j’yed it. When I did take en out o’ the gin at last he did grin up in my face as if he were a-sayin’ ‘ye be upsides wi’ me at last, wold chap!’--I could a’most have found it in my heart to let him go, but I dursn’t, along o’ my father. Hush, look!”

A green woodpecker was climbing up the tree near which they had halted; the pair watched him until he took wing, and then pursued their way. Alice’s heart was sinking more and more; she yawned once or twice in a frank, undisguised way, and walked ever more slowly.

“Hark!” cried Adam jubilantly, “the cuckoo. ’Tis the first time I’ve heard en--he be late to-year.”

“Have ye got any money about ye?” inquired Alice eagerly. “Turn it round quick, if ye have.”

“What for?”

“Why, for luck, sure. Didn’t ye know that? You must turn your money first time you do hear cuckoo cry so as you’ll have plenty more to-year.”

Adam’s fingers dropped from the waistcoat pocket where they had been vaguely fumbling.

“What’s money to me?” he muttered, as, with head thrown back and brows frowning with eagerness, he followed the course of certain black specks which at that moment were flying high over the wood.

“Wild duck!” he remarked presently.

Alice turned on him in desperation.

“Well, I be a-goin’ for to sit down,” she remarked. “I’ve a-brought a bit o’ summat to eat wi’ me.”

She produced from the little basket which she had carried sundry slices of cake which she offered to Baverstock.

“I did bring seed-cake a-purpose because you did say you liked it best,” she observed in an expectant tone. But Adam’s dark eyes continued to rove even while he ate, and his only response was inconsequent enough:--

“Don’t it taste good out o’ door?”

Alice edged away from him and munched in silence, and presently tears of mortification welled into her eyes. Adam, returning on tiptoe from a cautious expedition to inspect a nuthatch’s nest in the bole of a tree, suddenly took note of her woeful expression, and paused aghast.

“What be cryin’ for, maidie?” he asked in so kind a tone, that the tears rolled down upon her cheeks, and a little unexpected sob burst forth.

“I don’t know,” she murmured; then, petulantly: “I wish I hadn’t come!”

Adam’s face fell.

“Don’t ’ee like being here? I thought ye’d be so pleased.”

The sense of injury now overcame maidenly reserve.

“You do never say a word to I. You don’t so much as look at I. I mid be a stock or a stone,” she added passionately.

Adam surveyed her with dawning comprehension; during the silence that intervened the rustling of the leaves could be heard, the distant notes of a lark circling upwards from the downs beyond the woods, the chirp of nestlings, the irrepressible laughter of a gleeful squirrel. Perhaps all this cheerful bustle of the sunshiny spring awoke in the man’s breast certain hitherto dormant instincts. He, too, was young, and love and springtime go hand-in-hand. He stooped, laid a tentative forefinger gently under Alice’s round chin, tilted it slightly, and gazed down into the tearful eyes.

“Ye mustn’t cry, my maid,” said he, and then he kissed her.

They came out of the wood as the sun was sinking, hand-in-hand as before, but walking sedately now, and with a glow upon their faces other than the glow which was dyeing the fir-boles crimson, and making the gorse flame.

Alice was in the seventh heaven, and as for Adam, perhaps he too had learnt a new secret in the greenwood, the existence of which had been hitherto unguessed.

“Well?” said Mrs. Cluett as the couple parted by the yard door.

“Well,” returned Alice, with a conscious laugh.

“You do seem to be gettin’ along,” pursued the mother.

“E-es, we be gettin’ along,” conceded Alice, but no more would she say.