Black, White and Gray, Amy Walton [universal ebook reader txt] 📗

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He bent over his work, and Dennis sat silent and rather despondent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. There was so little chance for Tuvvy, if he really could not pass the Cross Keys without being "drawed in." There seemed nothing more to say. Presently, however, Tuvvy himself continued the conversation.

"Night's the worst," he said, "and winter worse nor any. It's mortal cold working here all day, and a man's spirit's pretty nigh freezed out of him by the time work's done. And then there's the tramp home, and long before I get to the village, I see the light behind the red blind at the Cross Keys. It streams out into the road, and it says: `Tuvvy,' it says, `it's warm in here, and you're cold. There's light in here, and a bit of talk, and a newspaper; and outside it's all dark and lonesome, and a good long stretch to Upwell. Come in, and have a drop to cheer you up. You don't need to stop more'n five minutes.' And then--"

Tuvvy stopped, raised his black eyebrows, and shook his head.

"Well?" said Dennis.

"Well, master," repeated Tuvvy, "then I go in."

"And do you come out in five minutes?" asked Dennis.

Tuvvy shook his head again: "It's the red blind as draws me in," he said, "and once I'm in, I stay there."

"Mr Tuvvy," said Dennis, after a pause, with renewed hope in his voice, "I've thought of something. Why don't you go home across the fields? You wouldn't have to pass the Cross Keys then, you see, and wouldn't see the red blind, and it couldn't draw you in."

"There ain't no way out into the road," objected Tuvvy.

"There _is_," said Dennis; "I've often been. You'd have to cross over part of one of Aunt Katharine's fields, and then there's a stile into the Upwell road. It's as straight as anything."

"Happen Miss Chester mightn't like to see me tramping over her field," said Tuvvy.

"She won't mind a bit. Besides, I'll ask her to let you. So that's all right," said Dennis jumping up, "and I shall go and speak to Mr Solace at once."

He was nearly out of the barn when Tuvvy's voice checked him.

"Hold hard, master," it said; "I ain't given that there promise you was talking on."

"But you will," said Dennis, coming close up to the carpenter's bench, and looking earnestly up into Tuvvy's dark face; "of course you will-- won't you?"

Tuvvy made no answer for a moment. He seemed puzzled to account for all this interest on Dennis's part, but at length he held out a hand almost black from hard work, and said:

"Well master, here's my hand on it. I'll do my best."

Dennis put his own into it seriously.

"That's a bargain, Mr Tuvvy," he said. "People always shake hands on bargains. And now it will be all right."

Tuvvy raised his eyebrows doubtfully.

"Whether it is or whether 'tain't," he said, "you meant it kind, and I take it kind, master."

Dennis himself had no doubts at all as he ran across the rick-yard to the farmhouse. Mr Solace was so good-natured, he was always ready to do what he was asked, and Dennis knew quite well that he and Maisie were favourites. He felt still more anxious now that Tuvvy should not be sent away, for since this talk with him, he seemed to have taken his affairs under his protection. Tuvvy seemed to belong to him, and to depend on him for help and advice, and Dennis was determined to do his very best for him. So it was with a feeling of great importance that he entered the housekeeper's room, where he was told that he should find Mrs Solace and his sister. They were both there, and both very busy, for Mrs Solace was making meat-pies, and Maisie, covered from head to foot with a big white apron, was learning how to roll out paste.

"Did you want to see Andrew _particularly_, my dear?" asked Mrs Solace. "Fact is, he's in the office, over his accounts, and don't want to be disturbed. If it's a message from Miss Chester, you could leave it with me, couldn't you? and I'll be sure he has it."

"It isn't a message from Aunt Katharine," said Dennis. "It's something I _must_ say myself; something very important, indeed. Maisie knows it is," he added, as Mrs Solace still hesitated.

She looked at the children with some perplexity in her good-humoured face. She did not want to disturb Andrew just now, whose temper was seldom ruffled except when he was at his accounts. On the other hand, Dennis and Maisie were both fixing such imploring eyes upon her that she could not bear to say "No."

"Well, then," she said, "you must just go and knock at the door and ask if you may go in. But _don't_ ye stay long, my dear, else Andrew'll be vexed, and it's I who'll bear the blame."

The office, where Mr Solace had retired to struggle with his accounts, was not a very business-like apartment. It was a small room with a door opening into the stable-yard, full of a great variety of articles, such as boots, whips, guns, walking-sticks, and pipes. In the window there was a big writing-table, covered with account-books and papers, and it was here that the farm men came to be paid on Saturday night. From his seat Mr Solace could see all that went on in the stable-yard, and could shout out orders to the men as they passed across it without leaving his chair. That was in summer, but now the window was shut and the room was quite full of the fumes of Mr Solace's pipe, from which he was puffing angry clouds of tobacco, as he frowned over a great leather-bound book in front of him.

He was a man of about fifty, with iron-grey hair and very blue eyes which looked keenly out under bushy brows. They were kindly eyes, but they were eyes which could fix themselves commandingly on man or beast, and seemed used to having their commands obeyed. They were set in a face so bronzed and reddened by an outdoor life, that this colour was all the more striking, except to old Sally, who spoke lightly of them compared to others she "minded" in the family. "They weren't nothing at all to what old Mr Solace's was," she said. "They _were_ blue, if you like."

Biting the top of his quill pen, and stamping his foot, when the figures were too much for his patience, the farmer had just travelled nearly up a long column, when a loud knock was heard at his door.

At first he only grunted impatiently, for he knew that if he let go his calculation for an instant, he was a lost man, and would have to add it all up again. But almost immediately the knock was loudly repeated.

"Come in," he shouted, flinging down his pen and turning angrily towards the door. His gaze was directed to the height of a full-grown person, and he lowered it hastily to the level of Dennis's small round head, and said in a softer tone: "Oh, it's you, is it, my boy."

Dennis marched straight in at once, and stood at the farmer's elbow. He was not a bit afraid of Mr Solace, and had prepared just what he meant to say, so he began without a pause.

"I've come to ask you a favour, please."

"And I wish you'd come at any other time," said Mr Solace good-naturedly; "but as you're here, out with it."

Dennis's favours were usually connected with jackdaws, or rabbits, or puppies, and no doubt this would be something of the same kind.

"It's a bigger one than ever I've asked before," continued Dennis, "and I want it more than anything I've wanted before."

"Fire away!" said the farmer; "only make haste about it, because I'm busy."

"I want you," said Dennis, speaking slowly and solemnly, as he drew up closer, "to let Tuvvy stop."

The farmer's face changed. He gave a long low whistle.

"Did he send you to ask me that?" he said.

"No indeed," replied Dennis indignantly; "I thought of it my very own self. He's promised not to have any more bouts, if you'll keep him on."

Mr Solace got up and stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, looking down at Dennis.

"Well, my boy," he said, "that's a thing I must say `No' to. I'm forced to, by Tuvvy himself. I don't want to send him away. I shan't get another such a clever chap in his place."

"Then why do you?" asked Dennis.

"Because I can't put up with him any longer; I've been too soft-hearted already. I've winked at his goings-on again and again, and I've let him off times out of number. But now my mind's made up."

"But he's _promised_," urged Dennis, "and he's going to walk home the field-way, so as not to pass the Cross Keys. He says it's the red blind that draws him in."

"H'm," said the farmer, with a short laugh. "He don't want much _drawing_, I fancy. And as for his promises--I've had enough of Tuvvy's promises."

Dennis looked crestfallen. He had not expected this.

"Won't you try him just this _once_ more?" he pleaded.

"Now, look here, Master Dennis," said the farmer; "you know most of my men. They don't call me a hard master, do they?"

"No," replied Dennis; "they say the gaffer's very kind."

"Well, but there's another thing I've got to think of besides kindness, and that's justice. It isn't fair, you see, to the other men to let Tuvvy off. Why, if I did, I shouldn't have a steady workman about the place soon, and serve me right. They'd say: `There's that chap Tuvvy can do as he likes, and drink and leave his master in the lurch, and yet he's no worse off. Why shouldn't we do the same? What's the good of being sober and steady, and sticking to our work, if we don't get anything by it?'"

"But I'm sure," said Dennis eagerly, "they'd all like Tuvvy to stop."

"That's the worst of it," said Mr Solace, with an annoyed jerk of his head. "I should like him to stop too. He's such a clever rascal with his head as well as his hands. A hint does for him, where another man wants telling all the ins and outs of a thing, and doesn't get it right in the end. Tuvvy's got a head on his shoulders, and turns out his work just as it ought to be. It's a pleasure to see it. But then, perhaps just at a busy time when we're wanting some job he's at, he'll break out and have a regular fit of drinking for the best part of a week, and leave us all in the lurch. It's no use. I can't and won't put up with it, and I oughtn't to."

The farmer spoke as though arguing with his own weakness rather than with Dennis, who now ventured to ask: