CHAPTER I.

BURDECK.

SOMEWHERE between Wakefield and Doncaster, but much nearer Wakefield, there is a little village called Burdeck, which even in these days of progress is but a small place, and of no importance in any way. But in the days of which I am about to tell you something, it was so utterly insignificant, so little known except to the few who lived there, and to the nobleman of whose estate it formed part, that had it been swallowed up by an earthquake, some time might have elapsed before it was missed. Yet to the twenty or thirty families who lived there, Burdeck was just as interesting and important as London is to such of my readers as may happen to live there; nay, perhaps more important, because you know other places as well as London, while to the people of Burdeck, Burdeck was the world—with Wakefield at a distance. No coach came near Burdeck; it returned no member to Parliament; a newspaper would have been of little use, for there were few who could read, and fewer still who cared to do so.

In Burdeck it was held to be not quite commendable to do anything but what one's parents had done in their day. The farms were not very extensive, but the farmers throve and employed a good deal of labour, the labourers living in the little village. There was almost no actual poverty, and no discontent. Things were as they had always been, and therefore were as they ought to be. I do not mean that there was no grumbling; the Burdeckers were Englishmen, and they grumbled heartily at many things. At the weather, at the charges Giles the blacksmith made for shoeing horses, etc., at the extortion practised at the one little shop, at the length of time the cobbler took to "welt" the shoes; oh yes, they grumbled, but then they enjoyed it. If all these small afflictions had been removed, if the weather had always suited them, the blacksmith had lowered his prices, the bread, bacon, and cheese had been cheaper, and the cobbler more punctual, Burdeck would have been at a loss for something to talk about. There were many things they could have better spared than their little grumbles.

All this took place early in the present century, now growing very old. Of course in these enlightened days no one grumbles.

It was a lovely evening in June; the work of the day was done, and the labourers had reached home, and were most of them employed in making a solid meal, each in his own clean and comfortable kitchen. Burdeck was a very clean place. The good women, not being overworked, kept a bright look-out on each other, and to have a dirty, untidy house, or to send out one's children ragged and unwashed, were sins soon visited by general condemnation.

But if there was one cottage more trimly-neat, inside and outside, one garden better stocked with vegetables of the common sorts, and brighter with the sweet old common flowers than the rest, that cottage and garden belonged to Thomas Adderley, ploughman at the Hill Farm. For Thomas was a sober, industrious man, and he had a wife who was a treasure in herself; a good, busy, thrifty woman, who found time for many small industries, besides bringing up her family carefully and comfortably.

There was a certain peddler who went his rounds regularly in that part of the country, and he always brought to Mrs. Adderley a quantity of woollen yarn, which she knit up into stockings, mittens, cuffs, and comforters, all of which he bought from her at his next visit. Then, too, she kept bees, and every autumn a dealer from Wakefield came out with his light cart, and bought all her honey and spare wax. She also kept a few hens, and if she did not make money by her eggs, she saved money by them, which is as good; she seldom sold eggs, but the bacon went twice as far when there was a fine dish of fried eggs with it. She worked in the garden herself, and taught the children to help her, so that honest Thomas could rest after his hard day's work, instead of having to turn out after supper to dig his garden. There was a fine apricot on one side of the cottage door, and a pear on the other, and the Wakefield shopkeeper bought all the fruit. Mrs. Adderley pruned and trimmed those trees herself, and woe betide the child who should be so misguided as to touch the fruit.

"I'm saving up against a rainy day," she said, "and you must help instead of hindering. Look, now—I'll take down the box and show you my golden guineas. One of these days you may be very glad to get help from that box, and when you want it, you'll be welcome to it. But you must not waste our substance now. Health and strength don't last for ever, and I mean to have something saved against a rainy day."

But even before a "rainy day" came, mother's golden guineas were called upon for help. When Sam, the eldest son, set up the horse and cart by which he now earned such good wages, mother gave him every penny she had to help him, the rest he had saved himself. When Dolly, the only girl, married Harry Sands, mother's golden guineas bought some useful furniture for the young couple. And when poor Harry was killed by a kick from a vicious horse, within a year of his marriage, and Dolly broke her heart and died, leaving her baby to her mother's care, the guineas had to pay for the two funerals. Poor mother! Little joy had she in that expenditure, though you may be sure she was pleased to do things "creditably."

You may imagine that, with all these calls upon the hoard, the number of guineas was not at any time very great. There would often be only one, with a few silver coins on their way to be transformed into a second by-and-by. Mrs. Adderley always got her friend the peddler to take her silver and give her gold, for, she said, "one might be tempted to spend a shilling or two, when one would not break into a guinea." Sometimes there were three, and more than once there had been five—but at the time when my story opens there were actually ten! For Sam had saved up by degrees, and had repaid his mother what she had given him when he bought his horse, and the fruit and honey had been very abundant last year. They promised well now, and Mrs. Adderley, standing in her doorway on the evening in June of which I spoke, mentioned this pleasing fact to her good man Thomas, who was steadily eating bread, bacon, and eggs, and drinking milk, in the cheery kitchen.

Beside him sat his son Sam, and on his knee was perched little Dolly, his grandchild, now three years old, and the pet of the whole household. Mrs. Adderley's cup and plate showed that she had been partaking of the meal; and there were another cup and plate on the table, not used as yet.

"Come your ways in, woman," said Thomas, as he popped a specially crisp morsel of bacon into Dolly's ready mouth, "and finish your supper. I doubt Tom wants no supper to-night."

"Dear, dear, Thomas, I wish the lad was home! I don't know how he expects to keep a place if he behaves like this!"

"If he behaves like what?" inquired Thomas. "Come, my woman, you'll have to tell me."

"Well—but you won't be hard upon him, Thomas, for he's a spirity, wild lad, and hardness will only harden him.—Oh, there's old Jerry Dwight. Tom's always after him, with his talk of Hull and Liverpool and sea-going that he's always gabbling about. Maybe he'll know.—Master Dwight! Master Dwight! Stop a bit!" She ran to the little gate. "Did you see our Tom to-day, Master Dwight?"

"Did I see who?" said old Dwight, putting his hand up to his ear—only to gain time, for he heard well enough.

"Our Tom! He hasn't come home yet."

"Your Tom? Ah yes, Tom—young Thomas Adderley. A fine, strapping, stirring lad, is Tom. And don't you believe, Mrs. Adderley, that you'll ever make such another as Sam out of Tom. Tom has notions. You just give him a little money, and let him go seek his fortunes. Tom would—"

"Master Dwight, I'm not one bit obliged to you for giving words to such a notion. Seek his fortunes, indeed! Seek a halter, you mean. Your wanderers do mostly end like that. Since I can remember, only two lads left Burdeck, and one of them 'listed for a soldier, and was shot dead in forran parts. The vicar rode over on a week-day to tell his mother, and you might have heard her screams a mile off. And the other was hanged in York city for sheep-stealing. Tom's a little bit idle and rampagious, but he'll settle down and be a comfort yet, if you'll let him alone with your talk of seeking fortunes. If fortunes are so easy to come by, why didn't 'you' get one with all your wandering? You just leave my Tom alone—do now, Master Dwight; I ask it as a favour."

"I leave your Tom alone?" old Dwight piped up in his shrill, cracked voice. "You get Tom to leave 'me' alone, and 'tis little I shall run after him. Your Tom is just the plague of my life. I be three score and ten years old, and 'twould become me to be thinking frequent of my latter end. And just when I'm set down in a sunny corner most conformable for a quiet think, with maybe a little nap to rest me after it, comes your Tom, begging and praying to hear of my adventures when young. Not that I blame him, for he's got some spirit and is clever beyond most Burdeck folk, and no doubt he finds me better company than a lot of fellows that never saw anything but Burdeck, and can scarce believe that the sun shines on other places.

"I've been to Hull, I have; and was born in Liverpool, and was once in London. If you disbelieve me, ask my darter. No doubt Tom likes to hear what one like me can tell him. But, anyhow, I didn't eat him alive this time, for here he comes. Good evening, Mrs. Adderley. I must be getting towards home."

Mrs. Adderley looked, and beheld her hopeful Tom just parting from a boy and girl of about his own age—Lucy Trayner and one of her numerous brothers, part of a family which lived in the next cottage. Tom stood talking to Lucy for a few moments, then came on, meeting old Dwight on his way.

"You'll catch it, my boy," said Dwight; "there's your mother on the look-out for you."

Tom laughed and ran on—a fine, well-grown, handsome lad of about fifteen, tall for his age, and strong and active beyond the common.

"Tom, where have you been all this day? Master Minchin sent a lass to see about you, at twelve—and I thinking you had gone to your work like a good lad!"

"Well, mother, I told old Minchin last night that I'd never take hold of a hay-fork again for him at fourpence a day. I do a man's work, and he must give me a man's wages. I want to save some money. So, you see, it's not my fault I wasn't at work. And I've had a grand day in the oak wood with Lucy Trayner, and I'm as hungry as a wolf, so come along and give me my supper."

"Supper's over," she said, "and father's ill-pleased, and said you'd get no supper to-night."

Tom whistled a lively tune as they both walked up to the house.

Thomas Adderley was now standing in the doorway.

"Where have you been, Tom?" said he.

"In the wood, father."

"Not at your work at all, then? I suppose Farmer Minchin will be dismissing you now—as Farmer Bell did at Christmas, and Farmer Cunlip at Hallowmass! Tom, I never lifted my hand to one of ye yet, but seems to me you'd be the better for a leathering."

"Farmer Bell dismissed me because I said 'twasn't fair to make me work Christmas Day, minding his horses, without paying me for it. Farmer Cunlip said I was idle, but 'twas his own son was idle. Old Minchin didn't dismiss me—'I' dismissed him."

At these audacious words the whole family—father, mother, and Sam—exclaimed, "Oh, laws!" Even little Dolly said it, but she was a little late with it, and ended by a delighted burst of baby laughter.

"I haven't said aught to surprise you so. I told old Minchin I would not work for him any more at fourpence a day. I do as much as any of the men, and he knows it, and I want to be saving money. He said he'd see me further, so I didn't go to-day."

"Mother," said Thomas, "this boy of yours will be a credit to us yet. He'll come to the gallows as sure as eggs is eggs. The boldness of him! I've had too much patience with you, Tom, that's how 'tis. Go to bed this moment, without any supper, not so much as a crust. I'll go to Farmer Minchin, and see if he'll overlook your folly just this once. You're a boy till you're eighteen, as all Burdeck knows, and, boy or man, you're bound to do as good a day's work as you can. Let me hear no more of this nonsense. If Farmer Minchin won't take you back, I'll go to Giles the blacksmith. Little Ben that blows the bellows is sick, and I'll hire you to him. It's small pay, and Giles is as like to give you a blow as a word—but 'twill do ye good. Now, mother, not a bite of anything is he to get, but go to bed empty. Idle, saucy fellow, as doesn't know when he's well off!"

It was not often that quiet Thomas Adderley made so long a speech, and that he should scold one of his children was a thing unheard of, as he "left all that to the missus" generally.

Accordingly, every one was much impressed. Dolly cried; Mrs. Adderley looked vexed and sorry; Sam made his escape from the scene, and went to visit Jane Waters, the girl he was slowly "courting;" even Tom failed to whistle as he stole off to bed, and lay down, hungry and weary, to think over his evil doings.

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