Judith Vandeleur

“ The vicarage garden ran down to the churchyard on one side, and was bordered on the other by the ubiquitous little stream that wound itself in and out through the village like a shining ribbon. The flowers in the vicar's garden were mostly quaint, old-fashioned things. He knew nothing about flowers himself, but his housekeeper did, and he had the advantage of succeeding a man who had a passion for gardening, and who had stocked the place with bulbs, innumerable tulips, daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, and aconites, and little old-world hepatica and grape hyacinths. ”

“ She has improved very little in any respect except in her household arrangements; but though no power on earth could ever succeed in making her tidy, cleanliness has become her ruling passion. She scrubs, and rubs, and washes everything she can lay her hands on, and no future outbreak of fever or any other disease shall ever, she declares, be laid to her door. So out of evil will come good, and the Willowton of the future promises to be a very different place from the fever haunt it has been for the past half-century, if the doctor and the vicar and Annie Chapman can make it so. ”

“ Why couldn't the boy be brought in the ambulance like anybody else, I should like to know, without you having to carry him as if he was a baby! I haven't any patience with those Chapmans, that I haven't!"
"Well, nor have I—much," said the vicar reflectively. "That woman is the dirtiest of the whole row. It would be hard to beat her in the parish; but there is something about her—I don't know what it is. She never tells me lies or makes excuses; she never begs, and never complains of other people's good fortune, and is always good-tempered—bother her! ”

“ One would have thought that so excellent a work as the digging of the wells would be allowed to go on quietly, but unfortunately the fact that the scheme happened to have been originated by the vicar and the doctor was enough to make some people condemn it; and we all know, when once the thin end of the wedge of discontent and distrust has forced its way into anything, how difficult—nay, how often impossible—it is to dislodge it. And so it was that the men at the railway well, when they had dug to the depth of nearly fifty feet and had found no water, began to get impatient and disheartened. ”

“ This street, which is paved at the sides with nice old-world, ankle-twisting cobbles, boasts of two drapers', a chemist's, a saddler's, grocer's, and bootmaker's shops. Away in the less aristocratic parts of the village are the butchers and bakers, and the miscellaneous stores so dear to the country housewives. About the middle of the town, in the very widest part, is the bridge, and close to the bridge itself is the Wild Swan public-house, or rather hotel, as it calls itself. ”

“ Annie had brought Tom a bottle of his favourite fromerty and a large harvest-bun. Martin liked tea, so his daughter had a pot full of it rolled up in an old shawl to keep it hot, for Martin held that hot tea is the most cooling of drinks. "Drinkin' cold things when you're hot only makes you all the hotter!" Well, every one to his taste, and the big man preferred beer. He was a stranger, and the same man who had made such cruel remarks on Geo Lummis's muscles. ”

“ He certainly had been to America, to Australia, and to various ports in Europe, in his position as stoker on a merchant vessel; and he had seen a good deal of the seamy side of life, but not so much as he wished his listeners to believe, and was as bad a companion for a young fellow like George Lummis as could well be. The third man was a cripple. He came out daily on his crutches, and took up his position in the angle of the stone support, which stood out from the bridge a foot of so on to the road. He had a mild, weak face, in which a life's physical suffering was plainly to be read. ”

“ When I am at home I am a very busy man, Mr. Barlow. I am sub-agent to Lord Atherthy."
"Indeed, sir, indeed," said Mr. Barlow, with considerable relief and a palpable increase of respect. "And I'm sure it is very kind of you. We are as a parish immensely indebted to you; at least, ahem, we shall be when—-"
"When I find the water, eh? Well, I am not content with this place. I am rested now; I think we'll go on.—You, young man," addressing Geo, "can come alongside if you like, but not too near. Keep, like Mr. Barlow, a few paces behind me." ”

“ The doctor, to his great surprise, found her to be clever with her fingers, quick to learn how to bind up a cut or bathe a bad bruise; for the work of the rescuers was no easy task, and in their determined efforts to let nothing drop they often did themselves little trifling injuries which were all the better for being treated at once. Everybody was very kind to her, and her boy Tom up at the Union was getting through his fever well. There were crumbs of comfort to be gathered on the way, and Annie was not the woman to refuse them. ”

“ It is said that a drowning man sees all his life pass in review before his mental vision, and a wave of remorse for lost opportunities and wasted days swept over him as he stood on the brink, as it were, of eternity. And all the time those ominous words of Hayes were ringing—ringing—ringing in his ears—those ears that soon would be covered with the creeping icy flood. At last! at last! After an eternity of agony the aperture was once more was once more darkened; something was coming down—quick, quicker, the rope was running out from the windlass. ”

“ Crowe sat up with the sick man, who, until the fever had spent itself, was so strong that Geo had to put forth all his strength at times to hold him when the fits of delirium came on. Then came the inevitable weakness that follows fever, and so for a fortnight the vicar of Willowton lay between life and death.
"Quiet, nothing but absolute quiet, can save him," the doctor said. ”

“ He may never offer you advice, or criticise your actions; he may scarcely even presume to wish you good-morning, and when he comes to see you, you imagine he comes to pry into your private affairs. If he gives your boy a penny for opening a gate for him, you are certain he is "up to suffin'," and the luckless penny is nothing but bribery and corruption; in short, all that was right and commendable before is wrong and reprehensible now.
It was this that had happened to the vicar of Willowton, and strangely enough, everybody knew it but the vicar! ”

“ There are a good many of us in the south-west of England—Wiltshire, Dorset, Cornwall; I am a Wilts man myself."
"Oh, indeed, sir," said Geo because he had nothing else to say.
"You do it professionally, I conclude, then?" said Mr. Barlow, inwardly quaking lest Mr. Wilman should demand an exorbitant fee.
"Dear me, no—not at all. I do it quite in an amateur way, just for the love of it. A man must sometimes help his fellow-creatures. I am not a rich man. I can't do much in the way of money, but having this gift, I occasionally make use of it. ”

“ But old Jimmy was not there all day, for there were grateful convalescents in the persons of Tom Chapman and his friends, who took their turn as sentry.
So the sick man, so carefully tended within and so guarded without, still hung on between life and death. And as he lay there powerless and speechless, that fickle jade Popularity stole back to his side. Shyly, shamefacedly, almost fearfully, people began to speak well of the man who was in all probability going to give his life for their well-being. ”

“ Something in his voice made Milly glance up at him. The look on his face was the same one that Mr. Rutland had surprised on it a year ago.
"You're never going to do it yourself?" she exclaimed involuntarily.
"Not unless I have to," Geo answered quietly, and speaking as if to himself. "But it's got to be done, and I'm not a married man. Martin is, and so are the other two."
Milly did not answer. To those who follow dangerous callings in all ranks of life such an argument is unanswerable. Milly understood, and said nothing. ”

“ Lummis had been helping to nurse her. If only she could be left, her mother would come and see after her, she well knew; for the poor are always at their best in times of illness, and the way they help each other is a pattern to those above them. But the girl was very bad indeed, not likely to recover, and Mrs. Lummis could not look for help from the nearly worn-out mother. It was a comfort that Geo seemed to be so handy. ”

“ It was from this house that the vicar had carried off the patient for the little fever hospital on the side hill above the village. This fever hospital was a pet scheme of his and the doctor's. All through the dry spring they had been prophesying trouble, and had made themselves unpopular in consequence. Now, popularity is a very pleasant thing, and a very useful thing; but there are things better than popularity. Popularity is a fickle, faithless jade. She comes often unbidden and unsought, and sits down by a man's side, and while she is there he may do what he likes. ”

“ The doctor took out his pocket-book.
"Four cases in Gravel-pit Lane," he read, "two in the main street, three in the back alley. None of these are particularly dangerous ones, but they all require great care, as you know, and the difficulty is to prevent their relations feeding them with forbidden things."
"I know that well, sir," said the nurse sorrowfully; "I've had a great many sad experiences of that. Many a poor thing has died through being given solid food at a time when nothing but milk should have been allowed." ”

“ At any moment the springs might begin to work, and they might have escaped death from the fall of the well only to be drowned by the rising water. It was a truly awful predicament, and as it always happens when a real calamity overtakes any of their mates, those who had most reviled them for refusing to strike now came forward with offers of help, and even forbore to make unpleasant remarks of any sort. ”

“ The sudden summoning of the principal people in the parish was occasioned by the appearance of a "water-finder." This the chairman, a gentleman farmer of some local importance, well known in the hunting field, proceeded to explain in a disjointed, halting, and somewhat unconvincing manner. It was evident that he was half ashamed of yielding to what he knew most of his hearers would term foolish superstition, and others would fear as savouring of witchcraft and other forbidden things. ”

“ Everything, as you all know, that ordinary science and knowledge can show us has been exhausted, and with no result. We are in desperate case. We 'must have water, or we die.' It is true that our stream still runs, and some of our wells yield water; but it is polluted, and breeds fever in those who drink it. But all this is well known; it is idle to recapitulate it. I take it that all we have to decide is whether we accept Mr. Wilman's offer or not. I think there can be no doubt about it. 'The drowning man catches at a straw.' (Mr. Wilman will forgive the allusion.) I trust he is no straw ”

“ Rutland was at the Workhouse Infirmary when the news reached him. The doctor was there too, and the two gentlemen drove off at once to the scene of the disaster, where stood Annie Chapman with a white drawn face, her baby in her arms and three other little ones clinging to her skirts as usual. Martin's girl stood by her. The children were out of school, and they too were there, a hundred or more of them with wide eyes and horror-struck faces. What was not there was any sensible, capable man to take command and keep the crowd back ”

“ When one o'clock struck from the church tower the vicar sent the children to their homes, and with kindly firmness insisted on Annie Chapman's going back too and getting some refreshment. The children's needs was a good excuse.
"I would not keep you away if you wish to come back," he said. "No one has, alas, a greater right to be here than you. Come when the children are gone into school again. I will have the tarpaulin shelter that was taken down on account of the rain put up again, and you can rest there." ”

“ The little stream that runs under the bridge comes along through miles of cool meadows, now golden with buttercups, for it is May. It comes through many gardens and orchards, now white with apple blossom; and when it leaves the bridge it burrows underground for some little distance, and reappears at the foot of the cottage gardens, to lose itself in pleasant meandering through more flowery meadows, till it passes out of the ken of Heigham folks, and out of our story's picture. ”

“ It is so perennial, if you are disappointed in your hopes about one thing, you can always go on hoping about another. And the vicar was very happy in his hopes, though they were often doomed to disappointment. He had good health, good spirits, and a good conscience, and he scarcely knew what it was to have a headache or endure a sleepless night. Truly "a man to be envied," his friend the doctor said, "and there are not many like him!" ”