The Broom-Squire, Sabine Baring-Gould [books to read this summer txt] 📗

die, you cannot finger the money."

"And if it did die, would it be mine?"

"Of course it would. By no other way can you get it, but, please Heaven, the child may grow to be a strong man and outlive you."

"It's wonderful weakly," said Jonas, meditatively.

"Weakly in the cradle is sturdy at the table," answered the solicitor, slightly altering a popular maxim.

"It's that peevish and perverse--"

"Then it takes after its father," laughed Mr. Barelegs. "You can't complain of that, Kink."

The Broom-Squire took his hat and stick and rose to leave.

Mr. Barelegs stayed him with a wave of the hand, and, "A word with you further, Mr. Kink. You gracefully likened me, just now, to your horse Clutch expecting his feed of oats after having served you well. Now I admit that, like Clutch, I have spent time and thought and energy in your service, and, like Clutch, I expect my feed of oats. I think we must have all clear and straight between us, and that at once. I have made out my little account with you, and here it is. You will remember that, acting on your instructions, I have advanced money in certain transactions that have broken down through the unfortunate turn in your affairs caused by the failure of the Wealden Bank. There is a matter of two hundred, and something you owe me for payments made and for services. I daresay you are a little put about now, but it will be useful to you to know all your liabilities so as to make provision for meeting them. I will not be hard on you as a client, but, of course, you do not expect me to make you a present of my money, and my professional service."

Jonas took the account reluctantly, and his jaw fell.

"I dare say," pursued the solicitor, "that among your neighbors you may be able to borrow sufficient. The Rocliffes, your own kinsmen, are, I fear, not very flush with money."

"Ain't got any to bless themselves with," said Jonas.

"But the Boxalls are numerous, and fairly flourishing. They have probably put away something, and as neighbors and friends--"

"I've quarrelled with them. I can't borrow of them," growled Bideabout.

"Then there are the Snellings--"

"I've offended them as well."

"But you have other friends."

"I haven't one."

"There is Simon Verstage, a warm man; he could help you in an emergency."

"He's never been the same with me since I married Matabel, his adopted daughter. He had other ideas for her, I fancy, and he is short and nasty wi' me now. I can't ask him."

"Have you then, really, no friends?"

"Not one."

"Then there must be some fault in you, Kink. A man who goes through life without making friends, and quarrels even with the horse that carries him, is not one who will leave a gap when he passes out of the world. I shall expect my money. If you see no other way of satisfying me, I must have a mortgage on your holding. I'll not press you at once--but, like Clutch, I shall want my feed of oats."

"Then," said Jonas, surlily, as he turned his hat about, and looked down into it, "I don't see no other chance of gettin the money than--"

"Than what?"

"That's my concern," retorted the Broom-Squire. "Now I'm goin' to see whether old Clutch is ready--or whether he be shammin' still."


CHAPTER XXXVI.


THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT.

Jonas found that old Clutch was not lavishing endearments on the gray mare over the intervening partition of stalls, but was lying down on the straw. Nothing said or done would induce the horse to rise, and the hostler told Bideabout that he believed the beast was really lame. It had been overworked at its advanced age, and must be afforded rest.

"He's a Radical," said the Broom-Squire. "You move that gray into another stable and Clutch will forget about his lameness, I dare swear. He's twenty-five and has a liquorish eye, still--it's shameful."

Bideabout was constrained to walk from Godalming to the Punch-Bowl, and this did not serve to mend his humor. He reached home late at night, when the basin was full of darkness, and the only light that showed came from the chamber where Mehetabel sat with her baby.

When Jonas entered, he saw by the rushlight that she was not undressed, and heard by her voice that she was anxious.

"The baby is very unwell, Jonas," she said, and extending her hand, lit a tallow candle at the meagre flame of the rushlight.

As the wick flared, so did something flare up in the face of the Broom-Squire.

"Why do you look like that?" asked Mehetabel, for the look did not escape her.

"Main't I look as I choose?" he inquired surlily.

"It almost seemed as if you were glad to hear that my poor darling is ill," complained she.

"Ain't I glad to be home after bein' abroad all day a-wackin', and abusin' of old Clutch, and then had to walk from Gorlmyn (Godalming), and the aggravation of knowin' how as the hoss be shakin' his sides laughin' at me for doin of it. Wot's up with the kid?"

"I really cannot tell, Jonas; he's been restless and moaning all day. I have not been able to get him to sleep, and I am sure he has had one or two fits. He became white and stiff. I thought he'd a-died, and then my heartstrings were like breaking."

"Oh, drat your heartstrings, I don't care to hear of them. So, you thort he was dyin'. Perhaps he may. More wun'erful things happen than that. It's the way of half the babies as is born."

"It will kill me if mine is taken from me!" cried Mehetabel, and cast herself on her knees and embraced the cradle, regardless of the sprigs of spiked leaves she had stuck round it, and burst into an agony of tears.

"Now look here," said Jonas; "I've been tried enough wi' old Clutch to-day, and I don't want to be worreted at night wi' you. Let the baby sleep if it is sleepin', and get me my vittles. There's others to attend to in the world than squawlin' brats. It's spoilin' the child you are. That's what is the meanin' of its goings-on. Leave it alone, and take no notice, and it'll find out quick enough that squeals don't pay. I want my supper. Go after the vittles."

Mehetabel lay in her clothes that night. The child continued to be restless and fretted. Jonas was angry. If he was out all day he expected to rest well at night; and she carried the cradle in her arms into the spare room, where the peevishness of the child, and the rocking and her lullaby could not disturb her husband. As she bore the cradle, the sprigs of butcher's broom and withered chrysanthemums fell and strewed her path, leaving behind her a trail of dying flowers, and of piercing thorns, and berries like blood-drops. No word of sympathy had the Broom-Squire uttered; no token had he shown that he regarded her woes and was solicitous for the welfare of his child. Mehetabel asked for neither. She had learned to expect nothing from him, and she had ceased to demand of him what he was incapable of giving, or unwilling to show.

Next morning Mehetabel was prompt to prepare breakfast for her husband. The day was fine, but the light streaming in through the window served to show how jaded she was with long watching, with constant attention, and with harrowing care.

Always punctilious to be neat, she had smoothed her hair, tidied her dress, and washed the tears from her face, but she could not give brightness to the dulled eye or bloom to the worn cheek.

For a while the child was quiet, stupefied with weariness and long crying. By the early light Mehetabel had studied the little face, hungering after tokens of recovering powers, glad that the drawn features were relaxed temporarily.

"Where are you going to-day, Bideabout?" she asked, timidly, expecting a rebuff.

"Why do you ask?' was his churlish answer.

"Because--oh! if I might have a doctor for baby!"

"A doctor!" he retorted. "Are we princes and princesses, that we can afford that? There's no doctor nigher than Hazelmere, and I ain't goin' there. I suppose cos you wos given the name of a Duchess of Edom, you've got these expensive ideas in your head. Wot's the good of doctors to babies? Babies can't say what ails them."

"If--if--" began Mehetabel, kindly, "if I might have a doctor, and pay for it out of that fifteen pound that father let me have."

"That fifteen pound ain't no longer yours. And this be fine game, throwin' money away on doctors when we're on the brink of ruin. Don't you know as how the bank has failed, and all my money gone? The fifteen pound is gone with the rest."

"If you had but allowed me to keep it, it would not have been lost now," said Mehetabel.

"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively, "but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like--and get a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown, and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and water, as they gives us."

Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed lids blue.

There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than a walk.

Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her trouble had long ago been quenched.

When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family, dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her treasure and laid it on her knees--the child was now quiet, through exhaustion.

"I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has been overlooked--ill-wished."

Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror.

"That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall. "Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast an evil eye on it."

The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind.

"Who has done it?" she asked below her breath.

"That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one who doesn't love the babe, that's sure."

"A man or a woman?"

Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant.

"A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left han' side."

Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless