Part 18

They were cutting Farmer Fowler’s largest hayfield; it was eleven o’clock, and the men had just “knocked off” for the light meal known in those parts as “nuncheon”. A big flagon of cider was being passed round from one to the other, accompanied by goodly slices of bread and cheese. The farmer himself stood a little apart under the shade of a large elm which grew midway in the hedgerow that divided this field from its neighbour, paying a half scornful attention to the scraps of talk with which the labourers seasoned their meal. He himself was not given to self-indulgence, and inwardly chafed at the loss of this half-hour from the busiest time of the day. He had worked as hard as any of his men, and was, indeed, hardly to be distinguished from them, except by the better quality of his clothes. He was a tall, strong-looking fellow, with a face as sunburnt as any of theirs, and arms as muscular and brown. He was coatless, and wore a great chip hat; his shirt-sleeves were rolled up above his elbows, and his shirt was open at the throat. Two teams of horses stood in the shadow of the hedge, plucking at the twigs or stretching down their necks towards the grass which they could not reach; the vast field, half cut, lay shimmering before him in a blaze of light; the dome overhead glowed almost to whiteness, for the sun at this hour was intolerably hot. Yet even as the master gazed, impatiently longing for the moment when he could set his hinds to work again, he saw a figure rapidly crossing the field, looking from right to left, as though in search of some one. It was the figure of a young woman; so much he could divine from the shapely outline and springing ease of motion, but her face was at first lost to him under the deep shade of her broad-brimmed hat. She approached the group of labourers first, and made some query in a tone too low for him to distinguish the words. He saw his foreman, however, turn towards the tree beneath which he himself stood and jerk his thumb over his shoulder. Evidently the young woman had come in search of him.

She made her way towards him, walking more slowly, and indicating by her aspect a certain amount of diffidence. A comely girl--he could see that now--dark-eyed, dark-haired, and glowing with health and life.

“If you please, sir,” she began timidly, “I came--my father sent me. It’s about the taxes.”

She drew from her pocket a little blue paper of familiar aspect; the demand-note for the rates collected four times a year by the Overseers of the Branstone Union. The angry colour glowed in Jacob Fowler’s face as he twitched the paper from her hand.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he cried; “what have you got to do with it?”

“I am Isaac Masters’ daughter, of Little Branstone,” she said hastily. “He collects the rates for our parish, but he’s very ill in bed. He’s had a stroke, poor Father has, and I’m doing his work for him.”

“He should have known better than to send you to me,” returned Jacob, still wrathfully. “I never heard sich a tale i’ my life. Sendin’ a maid to collect the rates! Dally! Where will the women-folk stop?”

“Nobody else made any objection,” said the girl, with a little toss of her head. “I’ve got it all right, except yours; and Father thought I’d best come and ask for it.”

“Then you can tell your father as he did make a very great mistake,” thundered Fowler. “’Tis bad enough to be bothered about they dalled rates wi’out havin’ a woman set up over you.”

He tore the paper into fragments as he spoke, scattering them to the breeze. “There, you jist turn about and go home-along, my maid, and tell your father that’s my answer. If your father bain’t fit to do his work hissel’, he did ought to get somebody else to do it for ’en--some other man. The notion o’ sendin’ a maid! I never did hear o’ sich a piece o’ cheek!”

The girl, without waiting for the end of his indignant commentary, had turned about as he had advised, and was now walking swiftly away, her head held very high, angry tears on her thick lashes. Jacob impatiently jerked out his watch; it wanted still ten minutes of the time when work would have to be resumed. He dropped the watch into his pocket again, whistling under his breath, a good deal out of tune. Once more fragments of the men’s talk reached his unwilling ears.

“That be Bethia Masters, that be--a wonderful good maid. They d’ say the wold man ’ud be fair lost wi’out her. The Parish Council did give her leave to take his place for a bit so long as there was a chance he mid get better.” “She be a shapely maid and a vitty one.” “E-es, she’s well enough; looks a bit tired now, walkin’ i’ the heat three mile here and three mile back.” “E-es, and a sarcin’ at the end o’t,” chuckled one old fellow under his breath. “Our maister, he did gi’ ’t to her! I heerd ’en. Our maister bain’t partial to payin’ rates at any time, and he didn’t reckon for to hand over his money to a ’ooman.”

Farmer Fowler watched the retreating figure idly; it was true she was a shapely maid. How lightly and rapidly she walked: ’twas a long way, too--three miles and more. He could have wished he had not been quite so hard with her. He might have asked her to sit down and rest for a while; he might have offered her a glass of cider. He almost wondered at his own outburst of irritation as he looked back on it now, and watched the girl’s retreating form with an increasing sense of shame.

The toilsome day was over at last, the horses stabled, the men fed. Farmer Fowler was smoking the pipe of peace in his trellised porch with a pleasant sense of weariness. It was good to rest there under the honeysuckle in the twilight, and to think of how much had been accomplished during the long sunny hours which had preceded it.

The sound of a light foot caused him to raise his eyes, which he had partially closed a few moments before, and the ensuing click of the garden gate made him sit upright and crane forward his head. A girl’s figure was making its way down the little paved path, a girl’s voice once more greeted him tremulously.

“If you please, Mr. Fowler, I’m sorry to trouble you, but----”

Jacob Fowler in the evening was a different person to the Jacob Fowler of the fields; he stretched out his hand and drew her forward by the sleeve.

“Sit down, my maid,” he said; “sit ye down. You’ve a-had a longish walk, and for the second time to-day, too.”

Bethia came into the shadow of the porch; her face looked pale in the dim light, and he could see the bosom of her light dress rise and fall quickly with her rapid breath.

“If you please, sir,” she began again, “I know you’ll be vexed, but Father, he’s very much undone about the taxes. He’ll be gettin’ into trouble, he says, if he doesn’t send the money off to-morrow. He made me come back and ask you again. We’d take it very kind if you’d let us have what’s owing, sir.”

Her tremulous tone smote Jacob; stretching out his big hand once more, he patted her shoulder encouragingly.

“There, don’t ye be afeard, my maid; don’t ye. I’ll not bite ye.”

A dimple peeped out near Bethia’s lip. “You very nearly did bite me this morning,” she said.

“Nay, now,” returned Jacob, smiling beneath his thick beard, “I weren’t a-goin’ to bite ye; I was on’y barkin’, maid. Lard, if you did know I, you’d say wi’ the rest of ’em that my bark was worse nor my bite. There! what about this trifle o’ money as I owe for the rates? How much is it? Dally! I don’t know how ’tis, but it fair goes agen me to pay out money for taxes. It do seem so unfair when a man’s farm’s his own--land and house and all--for Government to go and say, ‘You’ve a-got a house, and you’ve a-got land as your father and grandfather have a-bought wi’ their own money--you must pay out for that, my lad; you must hand over whatever we pleases to ax for.’ ’Tisn’t as if they’d consult a man. If they was to say to I, ‘Mr. Fowler, you be a warmish man, and there’s a good few poor folk up i’ the union; what be you willin’ to allow us for them?’ I’d call that fair enough, and I’d tell ’em straight-out what I _was_ willin’ to ’low. But no; they goes and settles it all among theirselves wi’ never a word to nobody, and jist sends out a paper wi’out by your leave or wi’ your leave. ‘You _be_ to pay so much, whether you do like it or whether you don’t.’ ’Tain’t fair.”

“I dare say it isn’t, sir,” rejoined Bethia, very meekly; “but I’m not askin’ you on account of the Government--I’m just askin’ you for Father’s sake. He’s fretting terribly, and the doctor says he oughtn’t to upset himself.”

“Well, I don’t mind if I do make an end o’ this here business for your father’s sake, maidy; but I d’ ’low I’d jist so soon do it for yours.”

“For mine!”

“E-es, because you do ask I so pretty. I did speak a bit sharp to ye this mornin’, but it was along o’ being vexed wi’ the Government--I wasn’t really vexed wi’ _you_, my dear.”

Bethia began to laugh; her little white teeth flashed out in the most charming way--her bright eyes lit up. Jacob gazed at her with increasing favour.

“I bain’t vexed wi’ you, my dear,” he repeated affably, and then suddenly standing up, darted into the house. In a few minutes he emerged again carrying a little packet, which he handed to her.

“It be all there, wrapped up i’ that bit o’ paper; you’d best count it and see as it be right. Will ye take a glass o’ milk or summat?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Fowler; I’m very much obliged, but I think I must be getting home now. It’s growin’ dark, and my father will be anxious.”

“Wouldn’t you like nothin’?” insisted Jacob. “A posy o’ flowers or summat? There’s a-many of ’em growin’ i’ the garden, and nobody ever thinks for to pick ’em.”

“Of course not; a man does not care for such things, I know. You live all alone, don’t you, Mr. Fowler?”

“All alone, my maid, since my poor mother died. She went to the New House fifteen year ago. I’m what you mid call a reg’lar wold bachelor, I be.”

He threw out this last remark with such an obvious wish to be contradicted that Bethia hastened to return, “Not so old as that, I’m sure, Mr. Fowler. My father always speaks of you as a young man.”

“I be jist upon farty,” returned Jacob, with surprising promptitude. “Farty; that be my age. Not so old for a man.”

“Not at all old,” returned Bethia very politely; then, extending her hand, “I’ll say good-night now, sir.”

“Won’t you have a posy, then? Do. Help yourself, my maid. I’ll walk a piece o’ the way home wi’ you, and then you needn’t be afeard.”

“Very well, and thank you kindly.”

She followed him out of the porch, and up a path that led round the house to the old-fashioned garden at the rear, where there were roses, and lilies, and pinks, and sweet-williams growing in a glorious medley. She uttered little shrieks of delight, as she ran hither and thither, breaking off here a cluster of roses, there a lily-head. Jacob stalked silently behind her, clasp-knife in hand, cutting ten stalks where she had culled one, until at last a very sheaf of flowers rested in his arms.

“I’ll have to go all the way to carry it for you,” he remarked in a satisfied tone.

Bethia turned and clapped her hands together. “Oh, what a lot! I never thought you were going to get all those for me. How shall I ever thank you?”

“I’ll carry it for you,” repeated Jacob. “This way out, my dear; there’s a little gate jist here.”

A faint after-glow still lingered on the horizon, but already the silver sickle of the young moon appeared in the transparent sky. A bat circled round their heads from time to time, yet some love-lorn thrush serenaded his mate somewhere not far off, his liquid ecstatic notes filling the air, as it seemed. Great waves of perfume were wafted to Bethia’s nostrils as she paced along beside the farmer, whose tall figure towered over her, the silhouette of his face showing clear above the irregular line of hedge.

As they walked he questioned her from time to time, and learned how the girl had only come back to live with her parents within the past year, having been absent for some time teaching in a school at Dorchester.

“School-teachin’!” commented Jacob. “That be how you do speak so nice and clear. I speak awful broad myself--never had much eddication.”

“Hadn’t you?” returned Bethia, with interest.

“Nay, never had no time for that. My father, he died when I were a lad, and my mother weren’t one as could manage a farm so very well. She was a bit soft, my poor mother, and very easy taken in. So I did put shoulder to the wheel, and I mid say I’ve been a-shovin’ of it ever since.”

“I wonder you didn’t get married, Mr. Fowler,” said Bethia, with perhaps a suspicion of archness in her voice.

Jacob only grunted in reply, and an embarrassed silence fell between them, and remained unbroken till they had reached Little Branstone village.

Jacob accompanied the girl down the by-lane which led to her home, and followed her into the kitchen; there, however, he refused to stay, in spite of Mrs. Masters’ civil request that he would sit down and rest.

“Nay,” he returned gruffly, “I’ll be gettin’ home-along now; I only come so far to carry this here posy.”

Depositing his fragrant sheaf upon the table, he nodded right and left at mother and daughter, and withdrew.

“Dear! Well, to be sure! Dear heart alive, Bethia, ye could ha’ knocked I down wi’ a feather when he come marchin’ in. Lard ha’ mercy, maidy, you be clever to ha’ got Jacob Fowler for a beau. That there man do fair hate women of all sarts. There, he do never so much as look at one--and to think of him a-walkin’ all that long ways jist for to carry them flowers! He did give you the flowers, too, I suppose?”

“Yes,” returned her daughter; “but you mustn’t call him my beau, please, Mother. He only meant to be polite.”

“Well, I’m sure he did never try to be polite to any maid afore,” returned Mrs. Masters with conviction. “They do say he were crossed i’ love when he were a young ’un. Did he give ’ee the money, child?”

“Yes, Mother, and was very nice and kind altogether. I think he was sorry for Father when I told him how ill he’d been.”

“Oh, to be sure, that’s it,” agreed her mother jocosely. “All they flowers be for Father, too, I d’ ’low. Come, let’s fetch ’em up to ’en.”

Poor old Masters, ill though he was, chuckled feebly on hearing the marvellous tale, and expressed in quavering tones his belief that his daughter was a-doin’ pretty well for herself.

The girl, who had lived till now absolutely heart-whole, could not repress a certain flutter of excitement, and passed the next few days in a state of expectancy; but Jacob Fowler gave no further sign of life. Though he appeared at church on Sunday, he kept his face religiously turned away from the pretty tax-gatherer’s, and at the conclusion of the service rushed from the door without pausing to look round.

Bethia bit her lip, and instead of dallying a little, as was her custom, to chat with one or other of her acquaintance, hastened home.

“Were Farmer Fowler there, my dear?” inquired her mother.

“Yes, but he didn’t speak to me--he didn’t take a bit of notice of me. Put that notion out of your head, Mother--there’s nothing at all between him and me.”

Soon the attention of the little household was entirely absorbed by a more acute and immediate cause of trouble: poor old Masters, after a brave struggle, and in spite of the adjurations of his neighbours, found himself unable to “hold on”; he loosed his feeble grasp of life suddenly at last, and went out, as his wife sorrowfully remarked, “like the snoff of a candle.”

After the funeral was over, the question of ways and means stared the mother and daughter in the face. Mrs. Masters did a little business--a very little business--with a small general shop; it was quite insufficient to support them. Her health was not good, and Bethia was determined not to leave her; there was no opening for her as a teacher in that village, and such sums as she might earn by taking in sewing would add very little to their modest income. She resolved to make a bold appeal to the Parish Council for permission to continue to fill her father’s place.

“I could do it every bit as well as a man,” she averred. “I have done it during the last few months. The accounts are all in order--I have found no difficulty anywhere. Do let me try, gentlemen.”

The gentlemen in question were at first taken aback, then amused, finally moved. After all, they said to each other, there was no reason why the girl should not try. As long as the duties were discharged exactly and punctually, there was no reason why they should not be undertaken by a woman as well as by a man.

“But there must be no favouritism, Miss Masters,” said one, with a twinkle in his eye; “no letting off of any particular friend. You must be firm, even with your nearest and dearest. If people don’t pay up after two or three applications, you must harden your heart and take out a summons.”

“I will,” said Bethia seriously.

In a few days the news of her installation as assistant overseer spread through the place, one of the first to hear of it being Jacob Fowler.

Bethia was standing in the kitchen shelling peas one morning when his knock came at the door, almost immediately followed by the appearance of his large person from behind it.

“Be this here true what I’ve a-heard?” he inquired abruptly. “Be it true as you be a-goin’ to carry on this rate-collecting same as your father did do?”

“Yes, Mr. Fowler,” answered Bethia, not without a certain pride. “The Parish Council gentlemen think I can do it just as well as anybody; and I’m glad to say they’ve agreed to let me try.”

“_I_ don’t agree, then,” cried Jacob violently. “It bain’t at all fit nor becomin’ for a young ’ooman same as you to be a-goin’ about from house to house, visitin’ folks and axin’ them for their money. It bain’t proper, I tell ’ee.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Bethia, with a toss of her pretty curly locks. “What’s it to you, Mr. Fowler, anyhow?”

“I don’t like it,” growled Fowler. “Will you go and ax folks for it, same as you did ax I?”

“I shall leave a little note first,” said Bethia, with a very business-like air, “a demand-note, you know. If they don’t pay up I shall call personally.”

“It bain’t the right thing for a faymale,” repeated Fowler sourly; “least of all for a young faymale. Folks ’ull be givin’ ye impidence.”

“Oh, no, they won’t,” returned Bethia with dignity. “I’m not one that anybody could take liberties with, Mr. Fowler.”

He stood leaning against the table frowning.

“Will ye ax ’em rough-like, or will ye ax ’em civil?” he inquired, after ruminating for a while.

“Why, of course I shall be civil, Mr. Fowler.”

“Will ye ax ’em so civil as ye did ax I?” he insisted with a kind of roar.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” stammered the girl, taken aback for a moment. “Yes,” recovering herself, “certainly I shall. There’s no reason why I should make any difference between you and anybody else.”

“You tell I that to my face! You’ll go a-speakin’ ’em soft and a-smilin’ at ’em pretty, jist same as ye did do to I! Dalled if I do allow it! Dalled if I do, I say!”

“Really, Mr. Fowler,” said Bethia with spirit, “I don’t know what you mean. It’s very rude of you to talk to me like that, and I do not see why you should interfere. I shall be business-like and polite, as I always try to be with every one, and I shall be firm too. The Law will support me just the same as if I were a man.”

“Dalled if I do allow it,” repeated Jacob, still in a kind of muffled bellow. “A British ratepayer I be, and have a-been this twenty year and more, and I say I bain’t a-goin’ to allow it. I know my rights so well as any man, and I bain’t a-goin’ to be put upon by a ’ooman. I bain’t a-goin’ to allow any young faymale to be took out of her proper place and set up where she’s no business to be. I’ll have no faymale tax-collectors a-gaddin’ about this here parish if I can prevent it. I’ll protest, maid, see if I don’t, and, what’s more, not one farden o’ rates will I pay into any faymale hands.”

Bethia, more and more irritated by his manner, thought it time to assert herself finally; and withdrawing her hands from the basin of peas, and looking him full in the face, she returned, with great firmness, “Won’t you, Mr. Fowler? Then I’ll make you.”

“Lard ha’ mercy me! Listen to the maid!” exclaimed Jacob, bursting into a fit of ironical laughter. “‘I’ll make ye,’ says she. Look at her,” pointing at the girl’s slender form. “That be a good un! I tell ’ee, Miss Masters, you’ll find it a bit hard to make I do anything I’ve not got a mind to do.”

Bethia took up a pod again and split it viciously. “I’ve got the Law at my back,” she remarked.

“Ho! ho! ho!” chuckled Jacob, this time with unfeigned merriment. “Listen to her! The Law at her back indeed! Such a little small back it be! Why, maidy, I could jist finish ye off wi’ one finger!”

“I’m not talking of brute force,” said Bethia, with flashing eyes. “The Law is stronger than you, Mr. Fowler. Now, if you’ll kindly go away and let me get on with my work, I’ll be much obliged.”

But Jacob did not take the hint. He sat down on the table instead, and watched the girl as, with an affectation of ignoring his presence, she moved about, filling her saucepan at the tap, peeling the potatoes, setting them on to boil. She did everything swiftly, deftly, and gracefully, holding her head very erect meanwhile, and being a little sharper in her movements than usual on account of her inward irritation. By-and-by Mrs. Masters came creaking down the narrow stairs, and started back at the sight of the farmer.