"Nay, you don't know--you don't know. No man would be such a hound.
You don't know; but, by the Lord, you shall hear, here where you'm
standin', an' shall jedge betwix' me an' that pale 'ooman up yonder.
Stand there an' list to me.

"He was my lover more'n five-an'-thirty years agone. Who? That
'ooman's wedded man, Seth Bolverson. We warn't married"--this with
a short laugh. "Wife or less than wife, he found me to his mind.
She--she that egged you on to come an' flout me--was a pale-haired
girl o' seventeen or so i' those times--a church-goin' mincin' strip
of a girl--the sort you men-folk bow the knee to for saints. Her
father owned Sheba Farm, an' she look'd across on my man, an' had envy
on 'en, an' set her eyes to draw 'en. Oh, a saint she was! An' he, the
poor shammick, went. 'Twas a good girl, you understand, that wished
for to marry an' reform 'en. She had money, too. _I_? I'd ha' poured
out my blood for 'en: that's all I cud do. So he went.

"As the place shines this day, it shone then. Like a moth it drew 'en.
Late o' summer evenin's its windeys shone when down below here 'twas
chill i' the hill's shadow. An' late at night the candles burned up
there as he courted her. Purity and cosiness, you understand, an' down
here--he forgot about down here. Before he'd missed to speak to me for
a month, I'd hear 'en whistlin' up the hill, so merry as a grig. Well,
he married her.

"They was married three months, an' 'twas harvest time come round, an'
I in his vield a-gleanin'. For I was suffered near to that extent,
seem' that the cottage here had been my fathers', an' was mine, an'
out o't they culdn' turn me. One o' the hands, as they was pitchin',
passes me an empty keg, an' says, 'Run you to the farm-place an' get
it filled.' So with it I went to th' kitchen, and while I waited
outside I sees his coat an' wesket 'pon a peg i' the passage. Well I
knew the coat; an' a madness takin' me for all my loss, I unhitched it
an' flung it behind the door, an', the keg bein' filled, picked it up
agen and ran down home-along.

"No thought had I but to win Seth back. 'Twas the charm you spoke
about: an' that same midnight I delved a hole by the dreshold an'
buried the coat, whisperin', '_Man, come back, come back to me_!' as
Aun' Lesnewth had a-taught me, times afore.

"But she, the pale woman, had a-seen me, dro' a chink o' the
parlour-door, as I tuk the coat down. An' she knowed what I tuk it
for. I've a-read it, times and again, in her wifely eyes; an' to-day
you yoursel' are witness that she knowed. If Seth knowed--"

She clenched and unclenched her fist, and went on rapidly.

"Early next mornin', and a'most afore I was dressed, two constables
came in by the gate, an' she behind 'em treadin' delicately, an' _he_
at her back, wi' his chin dropped. They charged me wi' stealin' that
coat--wi' stealin' it--that coat that I'd a-darned an' patched years
afore ever _she_ cuddled against its sleeve!"

"What happened?" I asked, as her voice sank and halted.

"What happened? She looked me i' the eyes scornfully; an' her own were
full o' knowledge. An' wi' her eyes she coaxed and dared me to abase
mysel' an' speak the truth an' win off jail. An' I, that had stole
nowt, looked back at her an' said, 'It's true. I stole the coat. Now
cart me off to jail; but handle me gently for the sake o' my child
unborn.' When I spoke these last two words an' saw her face draw up
wi' the bitterness o' their taste, I held out my wrists and clapped
the handcuffs together like cymbals and laughed wi' a glad heart."

She caught my hand suddenly, and drawing me to the porch, pointed high
above Sheba, to the yellow upland where the harvesters moved.

"Do 'ee see 'en there?--that tall young man by the hedge--there where
the slope dips? That's my son, Seth's son, the straightest man among
all. Neither spot has he, nor wart, nor blemish 'pon his body; and
when she pays 'en his wages, Saturday evenin's, he says 'Thank 'ee,
ma'am,' wi' a voice that's the very daps o' his father's. An' she's
childless. Ah, childless woman! Childless woman! Go back an' carry
word to her o' the prayer I've spoken upon her childlessness."

And "Childless woman!" "Childless woman!" she called twice again,
shaking her fist at the windows of Sheba Farm-house, that blazed back
angrily against the westering sun.




WHEN THE SAP ROSE.

A FANTASIA.


An old yellow van--the _Comet_--came jolting along the edge of the
downs and shaking its occupants together like peas in a bladder. The
bride and bridegroom did not mind this much; but the Registrar of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages, who had bound them in wedlock at the
Bible Christian Chapel two hours before, was discomforted by a pair
of tight boots, that nipped cruelly whenever he stuck out his feet to
keep his equilibrium.

Nevertheless, his mood was genial, for the young people had taken his
suggestion and acquired a copy of their certificate. This meant five
extra shillings in his pocket. Therefore, when the van drew up at
the cross-roads for him to alight, he wished them long life and a
multitude of children with quite a fatherly air.

"You can't guess where I'm bound for. It's to pay my old mother a
visit. Ah, family life's the pretty life--that ever _I_ should say
it!"

They saw no reason why he should be cynical, more than other men. And
the bride, in whose eyes this elderly gentleman with the tight boots
appeared a rosy winged Cupid, waved her handkerchief until the vehicle
had sidled round the hill, resembling in its progress a very infirm
crab in a hurry.

As a fact, the Registrar wore a silk hat, a suit of black
West-of-England broadcloth, a watch-chain made out of his dead wife's
hair, and two large seals that clashed together when he moved.
His face was wide and round, with a sanguine complexion, grey
side-whiskers, and a cicatrix across the chin. He had shaved in a
hurry that morning, for the wedding was early, and took place on the
extreme verge of his district. His is a beautiful office--recording
day by day the solemnest and most mysterious events in nature. Yet,
standing at the cross-roads, between down and woodland, under an April
sky full of sun and south-west wind, he threw the ugliest shadow in
the landscape.

The road towards the coast dipped--too steeply for tight boots--down a
wooded coombe, and he followed it, treading delicately. The hollow of
the V ahead, where the hills overlapped against the pale blue, was
powdered with a faint brown bloom, soon to be green--an infinity
of bursting buds. The larches stretched their arms upwards, as men
waking. The yellow was out on the gorse, with a heady scent like a
pineapple's, and between the bushes spread the grey film of coming
blue-bells. High up, the pines sighed along the ridge, turning paler;
and far down, where the brook ran, a mad duet was going on between
thrush and chaffinch--"_Cheer up, cheer up, Queen!" "Clip clip, clip,
and kiss me--Sweet_!"--one against the other.

Now, the behaviour of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages
changed as he descended the valley. At first he went from side to
side, because the loose stones were sharp and lay unevenly; soon he
zig-zagged for another purpose--to peer into the bank for violets, to
find a gap between the trees where, by bending down with a hand
on each knee and his head tilted back, he could see the primroses
stretching in broad sheets to the very edge of the pine-woods. By
frequent tilting his collar broke from its stud and his silk hat
settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and
loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip--his boots were too
tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"--he
muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the right, just here."

But he could not find it here--perhaps his memory misgave him--and
presently turned with decision, climbed the low fence on his left,
between him and the hollow of the coombe, and dropped into the
plantation on the other side. Here the ground was white in patches
with anemones; and as his feet crushed them, descending, the babel of
the birds grew louder and louder.

He issued on a small clearing by the edge of the brook, where the
grass was a delicate green, each blade pushing up straight as a
spear-point from the crumbled earth. Here were more anemones, between
patches of last year's bracken, and on the further slope a mass of
daffodils. He pulled out a pocket-knife that had sharpened some
hundreds of quill pens, and looking to his right, found what he wanted
at once.

It was a sycamore, on which the buds were swelling. He cut a small
twig, as big round as his middle finger, and sitting himself down on a
barked log, close by, began to measure and cut it to a span's length,
avoiding all knots. Then, taking the knife by the blade between finger
and thumb, he tapped the bark gently with the tortoise-shell handle.
And as he tapped, his face went back to boyhood again, in spite of the
side-whiskers, and his mouth was pursed up to a silent tune.

For ten minutes the tapping continued; the birds ceased their
contention, and broke out restlessly at intervals. A rabbit across
the brook paused and listened at the funnel-shaped mouth of his hole,
which caught the sound and redoubled it.

"Confound these boots!" said the Registrar, and pulling them off,
tossed them among the primroses. They were "elastic-sides."

The tapping ceased. A breath of the land-ward breeze came up, combing
out the tangle that winter had made in the grass, caught the brook on
the edge of a tiny fall, and puffed it back six inches in a spray of
small diamonds. It quickened the whole copse. The oak-saplings rubbed
their old leaves one on another, as folks rub their hands, feeling
life and warmth; the chestnut-buds groped like an infant's fingers;
and the chorus broke out again, the thrush leading--"_Tiurru, tiurru,
chippewee; tio-tee, tio-tee; queen, queen, que-een_!"

In a moment or two he broke off suddenly, and a honey-bee shot out
of an anemone-bell like a shell from a mortar. For a new sound
disconcerted them--a sound sharp and piercing. The Registrar had
finished his whistle and was blowing like mad, moving his fingers
up and down. Having proved his instrument, he dived a hand into his
tail-pocket and drew out a roll, tied around with ribbon. It was the
folded leather-bound volume in which he kept his blank certificates.
And spreading it on his knees, he took his whistle again and blew,
reading his music from the blank pages, and piping a strain he had
never dreamed of. For he whistled of Births and Marriages.

O, happy Registrar! O, happy, happy Registrar! You will never get into
those elastic-sides again. Your feet swell as they tap the swelling
earth, and at each tap the flowers push, the sap climbs, the speck of
life moves in the hedge-sparrow's egg; while, far away on the downs,
with each tap, the yellow van takes bride and groom a foot nearer
felicity. It is hard work in worsted socks, for you smite with the
vehemence of Pan, and Pan had a hoof of horn.

*       *       *       *       *

The Registrar's mother lived in the fishing-village, two miles down
the coombe. Her cottage leant back against the cliff so closely, that
the boys, as they followed the path above, could toss tabs of turf
down her chimney: and this was her chief annoyance.

Now, it was close on the dinner-hour, and she stood in her kitchen
beside a pot of stew that simmered over the wreck-wood fire.

Suddenly a great lump of earth and grass came bouncing down the
chimney, striking from side to side, and soused into the pot,
scattering the hot stew over the hearth-stone and splashing her from
head to foot.

Quick as thought, she caught up a besom and rushed out around the
corner of the cottage.

"You stinking young adders!" she began.

A big man stood on the slope above her.

"Mother, cuff my head, that's a dear. I couldn' help doin' it."

It was the elderly Registrar. His hat, collar, tie, and waistcoat were
awry; his boots were slung on the walking-stick over his shoulder;
stuck in his mouth and lit was a twist of root-fibre, such as country
boys use for lack of cigars, and he himself had used, forty years
before.

The old woman turned to an ash-colour, leant on her besom, and gasped.

"William Henry!"

"I'm not drunk, mother: been a Band of Hope these dozen years." He
stepped down the slope to her and bent his head low. "Box my ears,
mother, quick! You used to have a wonderful gift o' cuffin'."

"William Henry, I'm bound to do it or die."

"Then be quick about it."

Half-laughing, half-sobbing, she caught him a feeble cuff, and next
instant held him close to her old breast. The Registrar disengaged
himself after a minute, brushed his eyes, straightened his hat, picked
up the besom, and offered her his arm. They passed into the cottage
together.




THE PAUPERS


I.

[Greek: ou men gar tou ge kreisson kai areion, ae hoth homophroneonte
noaemasin oikon echaeton anaer aede gunae.]


Round the skirts of the plantation, and half-way down the hill, there
runs a thick fringe of wild cherry-trees. Their white blossom makes,
for three weeks in the year, a pretty contrast with the larches and
Scotch firs that serrate the long ridge above; and close under their
branches runs the line of oak rails that marks off the plantation from
the meadow.

A labouring man came deliberately round the slope, as if following
this line of rails. As a matter of fact, he was treading the
little-used footpath that here runs close alongside the fence for
fifty yards before diverging down-hill towards the village. So narrow
is this path that the man's boots were powdered to a rich gold by the
buttercups they had brushed aside.

By-and-bye he came to a standstill, looked over the fence, and
listened. Up among the larches a faint chopping sound could just be
heard, irregular but persistent. The man put a hand to his mouth, and
hailed--

"Hi-i-i! Knock off! Stable clock's gone noo-oon!"

Came back no answer. But the chopping ceased at once; and this
apparently satisfied the man, who leaned against the rail and waited,
chewing a spear of brome-grass, and staring steadily, but incuriously,
at his boots. Two minutes passed without stir or sound in this corner
of the land. The human figure was motionless. The birds in the
plantation were taking their noonday siesta. A brown butterfly rested,
with spread wings, on the rail--so quietly, he might have been pinned
there.

A cracked voice was suddenly lifted a dozen yards off, and within the
plantation--

"Such a man as I be to work! Never heard a note o' that blessed clock,
if you'll believe me. Ab-sorbed, I s'pose."

A thin withered man in a smock-frock emerged from among the
cherry-trees with a bill-hook in his hand, and stooped to pass under
the rail.

"Ewgh! The pains I suffer in that old back of mine you'll never
believe, my son, not till the appointed time when you come to suffer
'em yoursel'. Well-a-well! Says I just now, up among the larches,
'Heigh, my sonny-boys, I can crow over you, anyways; for I was a man
grown when Squire planted ye; and here I be, a lusty gaffer, markin'
ye down for destruction.' But hullo! where's the dinner?"

"There bain't none."

"Hey?"

"There bain't none."

"How's that? Damme! William Henry, dinner's dinner, an' don't you joke
about it. Once you begin to make fun o' sacred things like meals and
vittles--"

"And don't you flare up like that, at your time o' life. We're
fashionists to-day: dining out. 'Quarter after nine this morning I was
passing by the Green wi' the straw-cart, when old Jan Trueman calls
after me, 'Have 'ee heard the news?'' What news?' says I. 'Why,' says
he, 'me an' my missus be going into the House this afternoon--can't
manage to pull along by ourselves any more,' he says; 'an' we wants
you an' your father to drop in soon after noon an' take a bite wi' us,
for old times' sake. 'Tis our last taste o' free life, and we'm going
to do the thing fittywise,' he says."

The old man bent a meditative look on the village roofs below.

"We'll pleasure 'en, of course," he said slowly. "So 'tis come round
to Jan's turn? But a' was born in the year of Waterloo victory, ten
year' afore me, so I s'pose he've kept his doom off longer than most."

The two set off down the footpath. There is a stile at the foot of the
meadow, and as he climbed it painfully, the old man spoke again.

"And his doorway, I reckon, 'll be locked for a little while, an' then
opened by strangers; an' his nimble youth be forgot like a flower o'
the field; an' fare thee well, Jan Trueman! Maria, too--I can mind her
well as a nursing mother--a comely woman in her day. I'd no notion
they'd got this in their mind."

"Far as I can gather, they've been minded that way ever since their
daughter Jane died, last fall."

From the stile where they stood they could look down into the village
street. And old Jan Trueman was plain to see, in clean linen and his
Sunday suit, standing in the doorway and welcoming his guests.

"Come ye in--come ye in, good friends," he called, as they approached.
"There's cold bekkon, an' cold sheep's liver, an' Dutch cheese,
besides bread, an' a thimble-full o' gin-an'-water for every soul
among ye, to make it a day of note in the parish."

He looked back over his shoulder into the kitchen. A dozen men and
women, all elderly, were already gathered there. They had brought
their own chairs. Jan's wife wore her bonnet and shawl, ready to start
at a moment's notice. Her luggage in a blue handkerchief lay on the
table. As she moved about and supplied her guests, her old lips
twitched nervously; but when she spoke it was with no unusual tremor
of the voice.

"I wish, friends, I could ha' cooked ye a little something hot; but
there'd be no time for the washing-up, an' I've ordained to leave the
place tidy."

One of the old women answered--

"There's nought to be pardoned, I'm sure. Never do I mind such a gay
set-off for the journey. For the gin-an'-water is a little addition
beyond experience. The vittles, no doubt, you begged up at the
Vicarage, sayin' you'd been a peck o' trouble to the family, but this
was going to be the last time."

"I did, I did," assented Mr. Trueman.

"But the gin-an'-water--how on airth you contrived it is a riddle!"

The old man rubbed his hands together and looked around with genuine
pride.

"There was old Miss Scantlebury," said another guest, a smock-frocked
gaffer of seventy, with a grizzled shock of hair. "You remember Miss
Scantlebury?"

"O' course, o' course."

"Well, she did it better 'n anybody I've heard tell of. When she fell
into redooced circumstances she sold the eight-day clock that was the
only thing o' value she had left. Brown o' Tregarrick made it, with
a very curious brass dial, whereon he carved a full-rigged ship that
rocked like a cradle, an' went down stern foremost when the hour
struck. 'Twas worth walking a mile to see. Brown's grandson bought
it off Miss Scantlebury for two guineas, he being proud of his
grandfather's skill; an' the old lady drove into Tregarrick Work'us
behind a pair o' greys wi' the proceeds. Over and above the carriage
hire, she'd enough left to adorn the horse wi' white favours an' give
the rider a crown, large as my lord. Aye, an' at the Work'us door she
said to the fellow, said she, 'All my life I've longed to ride in a
bridal chariot; an' though my only lover died of a decline when I was
scarce twenty-two, I've done it at last,' said she; 'an' now heaven
an' airth can't undo it!'"

A heavy silence followed this anecdote, and then one or two of the
women vented small disapproving coughs. The reason was the speaker's
loud mention of the Workhouse. A week, a day, a few-hours before, its
name might have been spoken in Mr. and Mrs. Trueman's presence. But
now they had entered its shadow; they were "going"--whether to the dim
vale of Avilion, or with chariot and horses of fire to heaven, let
nobody too curiously ask. If Mr. and Mrs. Trueman chose to speak
definitely, it was another matter.

Old Jan bore no malice, however, but answered, "That beats me, I own.
Yet we shall drive, though it be upon two wheels an' behind a single
horse. For Farmer Lear's driving into Tregarrick in an hour's time,
an' he've a-promised us a lift."

"But about that gin-an'-water? For real gin-an'-water it is, to sight
an' taste."

"Well, friends, I'll tell ye: for the trick may serve one of ye in the
days when you come to follow me, tho' the new relieving officer may
have learnt wisdom before then. You must know we've been considering
of this step for some while, but hearing that old Jacobs was going to
retire soon, I says to Maria, 'We'll bide till the new officer comes,
and if he's a green hand, we'll diddle 'en.' Day before yesterday,' as
you, was his first round at the work; so I goes up an' draws out my
ha'af-crown same as usual, an' walks straight off for the Four Lords
for a ha'af-crown's worth o' gin. Then back I goes, an' demands
an admission order for me an' the missus. 'Why, where's your
ha'af-crown?' says he. 'Gone in drink,' says I. 'Old man,' says he,
'you'm a scandal, an' the sooner you're put out o' the way o' drink,
the better for you an' your poor wife.' 'Right you are,' I says; an' I
got my order. But there, I'm wasting time; for to be sure you've most
of ye got kith and kin in the place where we'm going, and 'll be
wanting to send 'em a word by us."

*       *       *       *       *

It was less than an hour before Farmer Lear pulled up to the door in
his red-wheeled spring-cart.

"Now, friends," said Mrs. Trueman, as her ears caught the rattle of
the wheels, "I must trouble ye to step outside while I tidy up the
floor."

The women offered their help, but she declined it. Alone she put the
small kitchen to rights, while they waited outside around the door.
Then she stepped out with her bundle, locked the door after her, and
slipped the key under an old flower-pot on the window ledge. Her eyes
were dry.

"Come along, Jan."

There was a brief hand-shaking, and the paupers climbed up beside
Farmer Lear.

"I've made a sort o' little plan in my head," said old Jan at parting,
"of the order in which I shall see ye again, one by one. 'Twill be a
great amusement to me, friends, to see how the fact fits in wi' my
little plan."

The guests raised three feeble cheers as the cart drove away, and hung
about for several minutes after it had passed out of sight, gazing
along the road as wistfully as more prosperous men look in through
churchyard gates at the acres where their kinsfolk lie buried.


II.


The first building passed by the westerly road as it descends into
Tregarrick is a sombre pile of some eminence, having a gateway and
lodge before it, and a high encircling wall. The sun lay warm on its
long roof, and the slates flashed gaily there, as Farmer Lear came
over the knap of the hill and looked down on it. He withdrew his eyes
nervously to glance at the old couple beside him. At the same moment
he reined up his dun-coloured mare.

"I reckoned," he said timidly, "I reckoned you'd be for stopping
hereabouts an' getting down. You'd think it more seemly--that's what I
reckoned: an' 'tis down-hill now all the way."

For ten seconds and more neither the man nor the woman gave a sign of
having heard him. The spring-cart's oscillatory motion seemed to have
entered into their spinal joints; and now that they had come to
a halt, their heads continued to wag forward and back as they
contemplated the haze of smoke spread, like a blue scarf over the
town, and the one long slate roof that rose from it as if to meet
them. At length the old woman spoke, and with some viciousness, though
her face remained as blank as the Workhouse door.

"The next time I go back up this hill, if ever I do, I'll be carried
up feet first."

"Maria," said her husband, feebly reproachful, "you tempt the Lord,
that you do."

"Thank 'ee, Farmer Lear," she went on, paying no heed; "you shall
help us down, if you've a mind to, an' drive on. We'll make shift to
trickly 'way down so far as the gate; for I'd be main vexed if anybody
that had known me in life should see us creep in. Come along, Jan."

Farmer Lear alighted, and helped them out carefully. He was a clumsy
man, but did his best to handle them gently. When they were set on
their feet, side by side on the high road, he climbed back, and fell
to arranging the reins, while he cast about for something to say.

"Well, folks, I s'pose I must be wishing 'ee good-bye." He meant
to speak cheerfully, but over-acted, and was hilarious instead.
Recognising this, he blushed.

"We'll meet in heaven, I daresay," the woman answered. "I put
the door-key, as you saw, under the empty geranium-pot 'pon the
window-ledge; an' whoever the new tenant's wife may be, she can eat
off the floor if she's minded. Now drive along, that's a good soul,
and leave us to fend for ourselves."

They watched him out of sight before either stirred. The last decisive
step, the step across the Workhouse threshold, must be taken with none
to witness. If they could not pass out of their small world by the
more reputable mode of dying, they would at least depart with this
amount of mystery. They had left the village in Farmer Lear's cart,
and Farmer Lear had left them in the high road; and after that,
nothing should be known.

"Shall we be moving on?" Jan asked at length. There was a gate beside
the road just there, with a small triangle of green before it, and
a granite roller half-buried in dock-leaves. Without answering, the
woman seated herself on this, and pulling a handful of the leaves,
dusted her shoes and skirt.

"Maria, you'll take a chill that'll carry you off, sitting 'pon that
cold stone."

"I don't care. 'Twon't carry me off afore I get inside, an' I'm going
in decent, or not at all. Come here, an' let me tittivate you."

He sat down beside her, and submitted to be dusted.

"You'd as lief lower me as not in their eyes, I verily believe."

"I always was one to gather dust."

"An' a fresh spot o' bacon-fat 'pon your weskit, that I've kept the
moths from since goodness knows when!"

Old Jan looked down over his waistcoat. It was of good
"West-of-England broadcloth, and he had worn it on the day when he
married the woman at his side.

"I'm thinking--" he began.

"Hey?"

"I'm thinking I'll find it hard to make friends in--in there. 'Tis
such a pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so
soon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways
an' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an'
old-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning
almost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o'
my age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the
beginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's cow
an' the lawn-mowing machine--I doubt that anybody 'll enjoy it so
much as you always do; an' I've so got out o' the way o' telling the
beginning--which bain't extra funny, though needful to a stranger's
understanding the whole joke--that I 'most forgets how it goes."

"We'll see one another now an' then, they tell me. The sexes meet for
Chris'mas-trees an' such-like."

"I'm jealous that 'twon't be the same. You can't hold your triflin'
confabs with a great Chris'mas-tree blazin' away in your face as
important as a town afire."

"Well, I'm going to start along," the old woman decided, getting on
her feet; "or else someone 'll be driving by and seeing us."

Jan, too, stood up.

"We may so well make our congees here," she went on, "as under the
porter's nose."

An awkward silence fell between them for a minute, and these two old
creatures, who for more than fifty years had felt no constraint in
each other's presence, now looked into each other's eyes with a
fearful diffidence. Jan cleared his throat, much as if he had to make
a public speech.

"Maria," he began in an unnatural voice, "we're bound for to part, and
I can trewly swear, on leaving ye, that--"

"--that for two-score year and twelve It's never entered your head to
consider whether I've made 'ee a good wife or a bad. Kiss me, my old
man; for I tell 'ee I wouldn' ha' wished it other. An' thank 'ee for
trying to make that speech. What did it feel like?"

"Why, 't rather reminded me o' the time when I offered 'ee marriage."

"It reminded me o' that, too. Com'st along."

They tottered down the hill towards the Workhouse gate. When they were
but ten yards from it, however, they heard the sound of wheels on
the road behind them, and walked bravely past, pretending to have no
business at that portal. They had descended a good thirty yards
beyond (such haste was put into them by dread of having their purpose
guessed) before the vehicle overtook them--a four-wheeled dog-cart
carrying a commercial traveller, who pulled up and offered them a lift
into the town.

They declined.

Then, as soon as he passed out of sight, they turned, and began
painfully to climb back towards the gate. Of the two, the woman had
shown the less emotion. But all the way her lips were at work, and as
she went she was praying a prayer. It was the only one she used night
and morning, and she had never changed a word since she learned it as
a chit of a child. Down to her seventieth year she had never found it
absurd to beseech God to make her "a good girl"; nor did she find it
so as the Workhouse gate opened, and she began a new life.




CUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY


This century was still young and ardent when ruin fell upon Cuckoo
Valley. Its head rested on the slope of a high and sombre moorland,
scattered with granite and china-clay; and by the small town of
Ponteglos, where it widened out into arable and grey pasture-land, the
Cuckoo river grew deep enough to float up vessels of small tonnage
from the coast at the spring tides. I have seen there the boom of
a trading schooner brush the grasses on the river-bank as she came
before a southerly wind, and the haymakers stop and almost crick their
necks staring up at her top-sails. But between the moors and Ponteglos
the valley wound for fourteen miles or so between secular woods, so
steeply converging that for the most part no more room was left at the
bottom of the V than the river itself filled. The fisherman beside it
trampled on pimpernels, sundew, watermint, and asphodels, or pushed
between clumps of _Osmunda regalis_ that overtopped him by a couple of
feet. If he took to wading, there was much ado to stand against the
current. Only here and there it spread into a still black pool,
greased with eddies; and beside such a pool, it was odds that he found
a diminutive meadow, green and flat as a billiard-table, and edged
with clumps of fern. To think of Cuckoo Valley is to call up the smell
of that fern as it wrapped at the bottom of the creel the day's catch
of salmon-peal and trout.

The town of Tregarrick (which possessed a gaol, a workhouse, and a