M. E. Francis

“ Dada, taking him in his arms, upbraided the women-folk, and remarked indignantly that the child was not so big yet but what he could carry him if he was tired: and Maggie with a blush reminded her mother that Jim Fry was going to give them a lift to Shroton and back, and therefore there would be no need for Johnny to walk except just at the Fair itself; and Rosie observed that he didn’t seem to be one for catching cold, and, moreover, opined that he would look beautiful in his new suit, and that it did seem a pity that he couldn’t wear it where it could be seen. ”

“ And perhaps this tribute of respect was paid less to the emblem of their country’s greatness, less even to the memory of the poor young hero who had laid down his life for its sake, than to the brave little woman who stood unflinchingly at her post, and who felt her heart beat high with sacred triumph though the tears were raining down her face.
“I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!” p. ”

“ Nay, now, there’d be raison if ’twas an arm or a leg—but a body can see as well wi’ one eye as wi’ two.”
“Hark to the maid!” cried Mr. Fripp, with a great roar of laughter. “She d’ spaik like print. Well done, little un!”
“Well, I’m not fond of one-eyed folks if you be,” cried Susan sarcastically. “I’d not have a man without two eyes, not if I was to bide single all my life. I’d as lief be single as not—I’ve no fancy for wedlock.”
“Dear, dear,” said Fripp, “’tis terrible to hear how onraisonable the pore maid d’ talk! Take her home, do, Mrs. Adlam, an’ make her lay down.” ”

“ Johnny’s spirits rose more and more as the moments passed, and he presently found himself obliged not only to drum upon his father’s chest, but to jig up and down upon his shoulder, supporting himself by the crown of John Reed’s best Sunday hat.
“Hold hard!” cried his parent good-naturedly, when a more than usually ecstatic movement had well-nigh bonneted him. “Sit still, my lad. Where be climbin’ to, eh?”
“I’m lookin’ at the roundabouts,” chanted Johnny; “all the folks ridin’, and the harses goin’ up an’ down. There’s Maggie and Jim—and Rosie a-ridin’ behind! ”

“ Cross, “he can’t take after his father, poor, dear little hinfant. You said he was a black-haired man, didn’t you, Mrs. Frizzell? And Susan’s hair be just so yellow as the corn. I can’t call to mind as there be any red-haired folks in your family, or Frizzell’s either.”
“Very like the poor innocent do take after some o’ Mr. Griggs’ relations,” remarked another woman. “His mother, now—’tis strange how often I’ve a-known the first child be the very image o’ the father’s mother.” ”

“ Robbins receiving commands and admonitions alike in stolid silence. With stiff and feeble movements he helped the farmer to set before the ewes the provender which he had brought, and stood watching them with him while they precipitated themselves upon it.
“What a din they do make—a body can scarce hear his own voice,” cried Joyce, turning away at last.
“’Tis their natur’ like, master,” replied the shepherd, hobbling after him. “There’s little need of a-hearin’ one’s own voice with ewes and lambs about. It do take a man all his time to see to ’em.” ”

“ Frizzell returned in the evening alone, it having been arranged that Susan was to remain in Dorchester until Jim was sufficiently recovered for the marriage to take place. She looked very worn and pale and tired as she turned in at her garden-gate, and was anything but gratified to find the alert Mrs. Cross on the watch for her.
“Well, my dear, so you’ve come back wi’out her! ’Twas the right man, then, after all?”
“’Ees,” returned Mrs. Frizzell faintly, “’twas the right man. And him and Susie be to set up house so soon as he gets a bit better.” ”

“ There’s woman’s rights as well as woman’s feelin’s. Ah, if it wasn’t for that, Miss Clarke, maybe some of us gay young men would find your sex even more unresistible than we do already. But the notion of a Breach of Prom., Miss, is enough to steady the liveliest of us.” He leered at her out of his cunning little eyes, and continued emphatically: “Maybe you didn’t know, Miss Clarke, as when a good-for-nothing young chap same as Trooper Willcocks comes philandering arter a lady that lady can have the law on him if he goes too far. ”

“ Then all at once, no one knew how, the merry-making ceased, the cheerful jangling came to an end, the ringers loosing the ropes so suddenly that the bells continued to swing for some little time longer, sending forth occasional slow faint notes of most funereal sound. As anxious glances sought the church tower the flag was seen to have disappeared ”

“ Woolridge,” said the owner of the independent house, folding her arms and holding up her head with a certain assumption of dignity. p. 85“Them that has friends out there—them that has sons out there, they be the folks as wish the war was well over; and they do do it, Mrs. Woolridge—I d’ ’low they do.”
“An’ so they may,” retorted Mrs. Woolridge acidly. “I’m sure I can’t think what ever makes folks go to be soldiers! I wouldn’t have my son a soldier—no, not if he was to go down on his bended knees I wouldn’t agree.” ”

“ Adlam, ’tis surely. Well, Mother, let us give thanks where thanks be due. Lizzie, here, is a good set off to t’other one.”
“She’d better be,” retorted Mrs. Fripp, speaking loudly and decisively for Lizzie’s benefit. “I’d have no patience wi’ such goin’s on. I’d take a bit o’ broom-end to her instead o’ the doctor if I were Mrs. Adlam.”
“Well said!” chimed in a red-faced matron from the other side of the hedge. “It never does no good to spile childer. Says I to mine soon’s ever they grow up: ‘Now,’ I says, ‘I’ve gi’ed ye a good educassion, and now yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ I says.” ”

“ Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as there bain’t no funeral! ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything. If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done his last, Mr. Joyce. If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from me in England.”
“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey. They do say as the poor dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad. E-es, they do say so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for en no more nor you can now. ”

“ He! he! . . . It ’ud be the best joke ever known in Branston if it did come off, and the guv’nor ’d make the most of it. He’s uncommon tightfisted, the guv’nor is, though”—here his face clouded over—“none of the profits ’ud come my way I don’t think; best see what can be made out o’ the other chaps, p’r’aps. Come, we’ll work it some way. Blest if I’m going to have my long walk an’ my long talk for nothin’.”
A very anxious little group gathered round Mr. Cross when he entered the bar of the Three Choughs.
“Well?” cried Jim Hardy breathlessly. ”

“ And what be an army made on? Men. Do ye take me? There wouldn’t be no wall if there weren’t no stones, and there wouldn’t be no army if there weren’t no men. And more”—raising his voice as he warmed to his subject—“there wouldn’t be no wall if some o’ them stones wasn’t laid underground for the foundations; and there wouldn’t be no army if there wasn’t no fightin’, an’ some o’ the men wasn’t killed. An’ ’tis my belief, Mrs. Stuckhey, as your Joe, what has got killed an’ been put underground, is one o’ the foundations o’ the British army. ”

“ No one was more loud in commiserating this misfortune than Joseph Frisby.
“The ways of Providence be wonderful, as the Scriptur’s say, Jan Domeny,” he remarked one day. “Aye, ’tis what I often d’ say to myself: a man may plant and a man may water, but ’tis the Lard as gives the increase.”
“Well,” returned Jan, a little grudgingly, “I d’ ’low that He’ve a-gi’ed it to you, Mr. Frisby.”
“He have, Jan; He have!” agreed Joseph heartily. ”

“ But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw, haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us? Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey, and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard. We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos soon.”
But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic. To the country at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph, but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey, Riverton’s only soldier.
The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces. ”

“ Ye make an image in the likeness of the person as you know is trying to do you harm, and ye put it down to roast at a slow fire. Dear yes, I’ve often heard of it.”
“Well, then ye don’t seem to have heard the rights on it,” interposed Aunt Betty, indignant at this encroachment on her peculiar province. “There’s a deal more to be done than just set it down to roast same’s a chicken.”
“Then what must ye do?” inquired Kate in awe-struck tones. “Ah,” seized by a sudden thought, “I can mind it now. Ye must stick the image full of pins first.” ”

“ An’ Bob ’ud never carry ye.”
“Well, Chrissy ’ud do, right enough. He was a fine mare in his day—I never see a better—there isn’t a colt as I’ve a-had from en as haven’t turned out well. ’Ees, Tom mid drive en up from the lower mead to-morrow morn, an’ we’ll rub en down a bit and make en smart.”
“But ye’ll never go for to ride all the way, Granfer?” pleaded the anxious wife. “Ye’ll be joggled to pieces, an’ I’m sure your best trousers won’t be fit to be seen. There’s reason in all things. Ye’d best go in Joyce’s cart, an’ tie Chrissy at back till ye get near the town.” ”

“ Old Jim Cross continued to work without turning his head, and Jan Domeny smiled somewhat sarcastically.
“Why, ye see ’tis this way, Joseph,” said a large mild man, with an habitually puzzled expression of countenance; “we be pore folks, all on us; we’ve a many little mouths to feed, an’ not much to put in ’em. An’ what wi’ prices goin’ up an’ rent day a-comin’ round so often like, a man’s hand d’ seem to be always in his pocket, an’ it’s give, give, an’ pay, pay, ever an’ always, d’ye see? ”

“ Not a bit o’ green stuff, an’ not a set to put in the ground. Three-an’-six a week is every penny we have to look to, an’ ye may think it don’t go very far. Bread an’ tea, bread an’ tea, an’ not so much as a drop o’ milk to’t. My missus, she’s that cute along o’ me likin’ a drap now and then, she wouldn’t let the Union folk give it us in money—we jest hev an order for half a pound o’ tea once a week, an’ we takes out the rest in bread. Ah dear! a body has to be clever to live on it, I can tell ’ee. ”

“ If our own soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!”
Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her face with her trembling hands. Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and of toil!
“I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause. “’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was shut up over yonder. ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe didn’t have no hand in it.” ”