Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps. Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer

"Atteridge," said Mrs. Pringle's supposed niece. "But call me Poppy, Mr. Jarvis – I shall feel more at home."

"Poppy!" chuckled Mr. Jarvis. "Ecod, and a rare pretty poppy an' all! Deary me – deary me!"

"The Atteridges was always a good-looking family," said Mrs. Pringle.

"I should think they must ha' been," said Mr. Jarvis, handing his guest some cold fowl and ham with an admiring look. "I should think they must ha' been, ma'am, judging by the sample present. So for what we're about to receive – "

Mr. Jarvis, Mrs. Pringle, and Miss Atteridge spent a very pleasant evening. The guest, in addition to great vivacity, talked well and interestingly, and it began to dawn upon the housekeeper that she really must have been in Canada, as she knew so much about life there. In addition to Miss Atteridge's conversational powers it turned out that she played the piano, and in response to Mr. Jarvis's request for a tune or two, she sat down to an ancient instrument which had not been opened within the recollection of Mrs. Pringle, and extracted what music she could from it. Mr. Jarvis was highly delighted, and said so.

"But if you're so fond of music, Mr. Jarvis, you should buy a new piano," said Miss Atteridge airily. "I've no doubt this has been a good one, but I'm afraid it's quite done for now."

"Happen I might if I'd anybody to play on it," said Mr. Jarvis, with a sly look.

"Oh, you could find lots of people to play on it," said Miss Atteridge.

When the guest had retired Mr. Jarvis mixed his toddy, and in accordance with custom, handed a glass to Mrs. Pringle.

"She's a rare fine lass, that niece o' yours, missis," he said. "You're welcome to ask her to stop as long as she likes. It'll do her good."

Next morning Mr. Jarvis, saying that he had business in the market-town, ordered out his smart dog-cart and the bay mare, and asked Miss Atteridge to go a-driving with him. They made a good-looking pair as they drove off, for the farmer, in spite of his five-and-fifty years, was a handsome and well-set-up man, with never a grey hair in his head, and he had a spice of vanity in him which made him very particular about his personal appearance.

Mr. Jarvis and Miss Atteridge were away all the morning – when they returned to dinner at half-past one both seemed to be in very good spirits. They and Mrs. Pringle were sitting in the parlour after dinner when the housekeeper perceived a cart approaching the house, and remarked upon the fact that it contained a queer-looking packing-case and was attended by two men who wore green baize aprons.

"Aye," said Mr. Jarvis, carelessly, "it'll be the new piano that I bought this morning for the young lady here to perform upon. You'd better go out, missis, and tell 'em to set it down at the porch door. If they want help there's John and Thomas in the yard – call for 'em. And we'll have the old instrument taken out and the new one put in its place."

Mrs. Pringle went forth to obey these orders, feeling somewhat puzzled. The young lady from Mr. Vavasour's was certainly playing her part well, and had begun early. But why this extraordinary complaisance on Mr. Jarvis's part – Mr. Jarvis, who could, when he liked, say some very nasty things about the household accounts? She began to feel a little doubtful about – she was not sure what.

That night the parlour was the scene of what Mr. Jarvis called a regular slap-up concert. For it turned out that Miss Atteridge could not only play but sing, and sing well; and Mr. Jarvis was so carried away with revived musical enthusiasm, that after telling the ladies how he used to sing tenor in the church choir at one time, he volunteered to sing such pleasing ditties as "The Farmer's Boy," "The Yeoman's Wedding," and "John Peel," and growing bolder joined with Miss Atteridge in duets such as "Huntingtower," and "Oh, that we two were maying." He went to bed somewhat later than usual, declaring to himself that he had not spent such a pleasant evening since the last dinner at the Farmers' Club, and next morning he made up a parcel of all the photographs and documents which Mr. Vavasour had sent him, and returned them to that gentleman with a short intimation that he had no wish for further dealings with him, and that if he owed him anything he would be glad to know what it was.

On the following Sunday Mr. John William Pringle, a pale-eyed young gentleman who wore a frock-coat and a silk hat, and had a habit of pulling up his trousers at the knees whenever he sat down, came, according to custom, to visit his mother, and was introduced to his newly-found relative. John William, after a little observation, became somewhat sad and reflective, and in the afternoon, when Mr. Jarvis and Miss Attendee had walked out into the land to see if there was the exact number of sheep that there ought to be in a certain distant field, turned upon his parent with a stern and reproachful look.

"And a nice mess you've made of it with your contrivings and plannings!" he said witheringly. "You've done the very thing we wanted to avoid. Can't you see the old fool's head over heels in love with that girl? Yah!"

"Nothing of the sort, John William!" retorted Mrs. Pringle. "Of course, the gal's leading him on, as is her part to do, and well paid for it she is. You wait till Stephen Jarvis reckernizes what he's been spending on her – there's the piano, and a new hat, and a riding-habit so as she can go a-riding with him, and a gipsy ring as she took a fancy to that day he took her to Stowminster, all in a week and less – and you'll see what the effect will be. You're wrong, John William!"

"I'm dee'd if I am!" said John William, angrily. "It's you that's wrong, and so you'll find. Something's got to be done. And the only thing I can think of," he continued, stroking a badly sprouted growth on his upper lip, "is that I should cut the old ass out myself. Of course, I could throw the girl over afterwards."

With this end in view Mr. Pringle made himself extraordinarily fascinating at tea-time and during the evening, but with such poor effect that at supper he was gloomier than ever. He went home with a parting remark to his mother that if she didn't get the girl out of the house pretty quick he and she might as well go hang themselves.

As Mrs. Pringle had considerable belief in John William's acumen she was conscience-stricken as to her part in this affair, and took occasion to speak to Miss Atteridge when they retired for the night. But Miss Atteridge not only received Mrs. Pringle's remarks with chilling hauteur, but engineered her out of her room in unmistakable fashion. So Mrs. Pringle wrote to Mr. Vavasour, saying that she thought the purpose she desired had been served, and she wished Miss Atteridge to be removed. Mr. Vavasour replied that her instructions should be carried out. But Miss Atteridge stayed on. And more than once she and the housekeeper, Mr. Jarvis being out, had words.

"As if you ever was in Canada!" said Mrs. Pringle, sniffing.

Miss Atteridge looked at her calmly and coldly.

"I lived in Canada for three years," she answered.

"A gal as goes to a agent to find a husband!" said Mrs. Pringle.

"No – I went to get employment as a lady detective," said Miss Atteridge. "Mr. Vavasour, you know, is a private inquiry agent as well as a matrimonial agent."

"And what did you come here for?" demanded Mrs. Pringle.

Miss Atteridge looked at her interlocutor with a still colder glance.

"Fun!" she said.

Then she sat down at the new piano and began to play the "Moonlight Sonata," and Mrs. Pringle went into the kitchen and slammed the parlour door – after which she wondered what John William would say next Sunday. On the previous Sunday he had been nastier than ever, and had expressed his determination to be dee'd at least six times.

But when the next Sunday came Miss Atteridge had departed. All Friday she had been very quiet and thoughtful – late in the afternoon she and Mr. Jarvis had gone out for a walk, and when they returned both were much subdued and very grave. They talked little during tea, and that evening Miss Atteridge played nothing but Beethoven and Chopin and did not sing at all. And when Mrs. Pringle went to bed, after consuming her toddy in the kitchen – Mr. Jarvis being unusually solemn and greatly preoccupied – she found the guest packing her portmanteau.

"I am going away to-morrow, after breakfast," said Miss Atteridge. "As I shall not be here on Sunday please say good-bye for me to Mr. John William."

John William, coming on Sunday in time for dinner, found things as they usually were at the Old Farm in the days previous to the advent of Miss Atteridge. Mr. Jarvis was in the parlour, amusing himself with a cigar, the sherry decanter, and the Mark Lane Express; Mrs. Pringle was in the front kitchen superintending the cooking of a couple of stuffed ducks. To her John William approached with questioning eyes.

"She's gone!" whispered Mrs. Pringle. "Went off yesterday. He's been grumpyish ever since – a-thinkin' over what it's cost him. Go in and make up to him, John William. Talk to him about pigs."

John William re-entered the parlour. Mr. Jarvis, who was of the sort that would show hospitality to an enemy, gave him a glass of sherry and offered him a cigar, but showed no particular desire to hear a grocer's views on swine fever. There was no conversation when Mrs. Pringle entered to lay the cloth for dinner.

"We've had no music this day or two," said Mrs. Pringle with fane cheerfulness. "Play the master a piece, John William – play the 'Battle of Prague' with variations."

John William approached the new piano.

"It's locked," he said, examining the lid of the keyboard. "Where's the key?"

Mr. Jarvis looked over the top of the Mark Lane Express.

"The key," he said, "is in my pocket. And'll remain there until Miss Atteridge – which her right name is Carter – returns. But not as Carter, nor yet Atteridge, but as Mrs. Stephen Jarvis. That'll be three weeks to-day. If John William there wants to perform on t' piano he can come then and play t' 'Wedding March'!"

Then John William sat down, and his mother laid the table in silence.

CHAPTER VI

BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS

It was close upon sunset when the derelict walked into the first village which he had encountered for several miles, and he was as tired as he was hungry. On the outskirts he stopped, looked about him, and sat down on a heap of stones. The village lay beneath him; a typical English village, good to look upon in the summer eventide. There in the centre, embowered amongst tall elm-trees and fringed about with yew, rose the tower and roof of the old church, grey as the memories of the far-off age in which pious hands had built it. Farther away, also tree-embowered, rose the turrets and gables of the great house, manor and hall. Here and there, rising from thick orchards, stood the farmhouses, with their red roofs and drab walls; between them were tiny cottages, nests of comfort. There were pale blue wisps of smoke curling up from the chimneys of the houses and cottages – they made the weary man think of a home and a hearthstone. And from the green in the centre of the village came the sound of the voices of boys at play – they, too, made him think of times when the world was something more than a desert.

He rose at last and went forward, walking after the fashion of a tired man. He was not such a very bad-looking derelict, after all; he had evidently made an attempt to keep his poor clothes patched, and had not forgotten to wash himself whenever he had an opportunity. But his eyes had the look of the not-wanted; there was a hopelessness in them which would have spoken volumes to an acute observer. And as he went clown the hill into the village he looked about him from one side to the other as if he scarcely dared to expect anything from men or their habitations.

He came to a large, prosperous-looking farmstead; a rosy-cheeked, well-fed, contented-faced man, massive of build, was leaning over the low wall of the garden smoking a cigar. He eyed the derelict with obvious dislike and distrust. His eyes grew slightly angry and he frowned. Human wreckage was not to his taste.

But the man on the road was hungry and tired; he was like a drowning thing that will clutch at any straw. He stepped up on the neatly-trimmed turf which lay beneath the garden wall, touching his cap.

"Have you a job of work that you could give a man, sir?" he asked.

The rosy-faced farmer scowled.

"No," he said.

The man in the road hesitated.

"I'm hard pressed, sir," he said. "I'd do a hard day's work to-morrow in return for a night's lodging and a bit of something to eat."

"Aye, I dare say you would," said the farmer, scornfully. "I've heard that tale before. Be off – the road's your place."

The derelict sighed, turned away, half-turned again. He looked at the well-fed countenance above him with a species of appealing sorrow.

"I haven't had a bite to eat since yesterday morning," he said, and turned again.

As he turned he heard a child's piping voice, and, looking round, saw the upper half of a small head, sunny and curly, pop up over the garden wall.

"Daddy, shall I give the poor man my money-box? 'Cause it isn't nice to be hungry. Shall I, daddy?"

But the farmer's face did not relax, and the derelict sighed again and turned away. He had got into the road, and was going off when the big, masterful voice arrested him.

"Here, you!"

The derelict looked round, with new hope springing in his heart. The man was beckoning him; the child, on tiptoe, was staring at him out of blue, inquisitive eyes.

"Come here," said the farmer.

The derelict went back, hoping. The man at the wall, however, looked sterner than ever. His keen eyes seemed to bore holes in the other's starved body.

"If I give you your supper, and a night's lodging in the barn, will you promise not to smoke?" he said. "I want no fire."

The derelict smiled in spite of his hunger and weariness.

"I've neither pipe nor tobacco, sir," he said. "I wish I had. But if I had I'd keep my word to you."

The farmer stared at him fixedly for a moment; then he pointed to the gate.

"Come through that," he said. He strode off across the garden when the derelict entered, and led the way round the house to the kitchen, where a stout maid was sewing at the open door. She looked up at the sound of their feet and stared.

"Give this man as much as he can eat, Rachel," said the farmer, "and draw him a pint of ale. Sit you down," he added, turning to the derelict. "And make a good supper."

Then he picked up the child, who had clung to his coat, and lifting her on to his shoulder, went back to the garden.

The derelict ate and drank and thanked God. A new sense of manhood came into him with the good meat and drink; he began to see possibilities. When at last he stood up he felt like a new man, and some of the weary stoop had gone out of his shoulders.

The farmer came in with a clay pipe filled with tobacco.

"Here," he said, "you can sit in the yard and smoke that. And then I'll show you where you can sleep."

So that night the derelict went to rest full of food and contented, and slept a dreamless sleep amongst the hay. Next morning the farmer, according to his custom, was up early, but his guest had been up a good two hours when he came down to the big kitchen.

"He's no idler, yon man, master," said Rachel. "He's chopped enough firewood to last me for a week, and drawn all the water, and he's fetched the cows up, and now he's sweeping up the yard."

"Give him a good breakfast, then," said the farmer.

When his own breakfast was over he went to look for the derelict, and found him chopping wood again. He saluted his host respectfully, but with a certain anxiety.

"Now if you want a job for a day or so," said the farmer, with the curtness which was characteristic of him, "I'll give you one. Get a bucket out of the out-house there, and come with me."

He led the way to a small field at the rear of the farmstead, the surface of which appeared to be very liberally ornamented with stones.

"I want this field clearing," said the farmer. "Make the stones into piles about twenty yards apart. When you hear the church clock strike twelve, stop work, and go to the house for your dinner. Start again at one, and knock off again at six."

Whatever might have been his occupation before the derelict worked that day like a nigger. It was back-aching work, that gathering and piling of stones, and the July sun was hot and burning, but he kept manfully at his task, strengthened by the hearty meal set before him at noon. And just before six o'clock the farmer, with the child on his shoulder, came into the field and looked around him and stared.

"You're no idler!" he said, repeating the maid's words. "I'll give you a better job than that to-morrow."

And that night he gave the derelict some clothes and boots, and next morning set him to a pleasanter job, and promised him work for the harvest, and the derelict felt that however curt and gruff the farmer might seem his bark was much worse than his bite. And he never forgot that he had saved him from starvation. But the derelict's times were not all good. Country folk have an inborn dislike of strangers, and the regular workers on the farm resented the intrusion of this man, who came from nowhere in particular and had certainly been a tramp. They kept themselves apart from him in the harvest fields, and made open allusion to his antecedents. And the derelict, now promoted to a small room in the house, and earning wages as well as board, heard and said nothing.

Nor did the farmer go free of gibe and jest.

"So ye've taken to hiring tramp-labour, I hear," said his great rival in the village. "Get it dirt cheap, I expect?"

"You can expect what you like," said the derelict's employer. "The man you mean is as good a worker as any you've got, or I've got, either. Do you think I care for you and your opinion?"

In fact, the farmer cared little for anything except his child. He had lost his wife when the child was born, and the child was all he had except his land. Wherever he went the child was with him; they were inseparable. He had never left it once during the six years of its life, and it was with great misgivings that in the autumn following the arrival of the derelict he was obliged to leave it for a day and a night. Before he went he called the derelict to him.

"I've come to trust you fully," he said. "Look after the child till to-morrow."

If the farmer had wanted a proof of the derelict's gratitude he would have found it in the sudden flush of pride which flamed into the man's face. But he was in a hurry to be gone, and was troubled because of leaving the child; nevertheless, he felt sure that he was leaving the child in good hands.

"It's queer how I've taken to that fellow," he said to himself as he drove off to the station six miles away. "I wouldn't have trusted the child to anybody but him."

The man left in charge did nothing that day but look after the child. He developed amazing powers, which astonished Rachel as much as they interested the young mind and eyes. He could sing songs, he could tell tales, he could do tricks, he could play at bears and lions, and imitate every animal and bird under the sun.

"Lawk-a-massy!" said Rachel. "Why, you must ha' had bairns of your own!"

"A long time ago," answered the man. "A very long time ago."

He never left his charge until the charge was fast asleep – sung to sleep by himself. Then he went off to his little room in the far-away wing of the house. And in an hour or two he wished devoutly that he had stretched himself at the charge's door. For the farmstead was on fire, and when he woke to realize it there was a raging sea of flame between him and the child, and folk in the yard and garden were shrieking and moaning – in their helplessness.

But the man got there in time – in time for the child, but not for himself. They talk in all that countryside to this day of how he fought his way through the flames, how he dropped the child into outstretched arms beneath, safe, and then fell back to death.

Upon what they found left of him the farmer gazed with eyes which were wet for the first time since he had last shed tears for his dead wife. And he said something to the poor body which doubtless the soul heard far off.

"You were a Man!" he said. "You were a real Man!"

And then he suddenly remembered that he had never known the Man's name.

CHAPTER VII

WILLIAM HENRY AND THE DAIRYMAID

The trouble at Five Oaks Farm really began when Matthew Dennison built and started a model dairy, and found it necessary to engage the services of a qualified dairymaid. A good many people in the neighbourhood wondered what possessed Matthew to embark on such an enterprise, and said so. Matthew cared nothing for comment; he had in his pocket, he said (as he was very fond of saying), something that made him independent of whatever anybody might think or say. It was his whim to build the model dairy, just as it is the whim of some men to grow roses or to breed prize sheep at great cost, and he built it. It was all very spick and span when it was finished, and the countryside admired its many beauties and modern appliances without understanding much about them. And then came the question of finding a thoroughly expert dairymaid.

Somebody – probably the vicar – advised Matthew to advertise in one of the farming papers, and he and his wife and their only son, William Henry, accordingly spent an entire evening in drafting a suitable announcement of their wishes, which they forwarded next day to several journals of a likely nature. During the next fortnight answers began to come in, and the family sat in committee every evening after high tea considering them gravely. It was not until somewhere about fifty or sixty of these applications had been received, however, that one of a really promising nature turned up. This was from one Rosina Durrant, who wrote from somewhere in Dorsetshire. She described herself as being twenty-five years of age, thoroughly qualified to take entire charge of a model dairy, and anxious to have some experience in the North of England. She gave particulars of her past experience, set forth particulars of the terms she expected, and enclosed a splendid testimonial from her present employer, who turned out to be a well-known countess.

Matthew rubbed his hands.

"Now this is the very young woman we want!" he said. "I've always said from the very beginning that I'd have naught but what was first-class. I shall send this here young person my references, agree to her terms, and tell her to start out as soon as she can."

"I'm afraid she's rather expensive, love," murmured Mrs. Dennison.

"I'm not to a few pounds one way or another," answered Matthew. "I'm one of them that believe in doing a thing right when you do do it. Last two years with a countess – what? What'd suit a countess 'll suit me. William Henry, you can get out the writing-desk, and we'll draw up a letter to this young woman at once."

William Henry, who had little or no interest in the model dairy, and regarded it as no more and no less than a harmless fad of his father's, complied with this request, and spent half-an-hour in writing an elegant epistle after the fashion of those which he had been taught to compose at the boarding-school where he had received his education. After that he gave no more thought to the dairymaid, being much more concerned in managing the farm, and in an occasional day's hunting and shooting, than in matters outside his sphere. But about a week later his father opened a letter at the breakfast-table, and uttered a gratified exclamation.

"Now, the young woman's coming to-day," he announced. "She'll be at Marltree station at precisely four-thirty. Of course somebody'll have to drive over and meet her, and that somebody can't be me, because I've a meeting of the Guardians at Cornborough at that very hour. William Henry, you must drive the dog-cart over."

William Henry was not too pleased with the idea, for he had meant to go fishing. But he remembered that he could go fishing every afternoon if it pleased him, and he acquiesced.

"I've been wondering, Matthew," said Mrs. Dennison, who was perusing the letter through her spectacles; "I've been wondering where to put this young person. You can see from her writing that she's of a better sort – there's no common persons as writes and expresses themselves in that style. I'm sure she'll not want to have her meals with the men and the gels in the kitchen, and of course we can't bring her among ourselves, as it were."