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

there baby is feverish, and my man has had a hard day's work and wants his rest at night, and though 'tis true we have a spare room, yet I don't see as we can accommodate you. So they let you off--up at Kingston?"

"Yes, I was let off," answered Mehetabel, faintly.

"Hardly reckoned on it, I s'pose. Most folks sed as you'd swing for it. You mustn't try on them games again, or you won't be so lucky next time. The carpenter, Puttenham, has a bed at liberty, but whether he'll take you in I don't know."

Mehetabel rose, and went to the cottage of the wheelwright. The man himself was in his shop. She applied to his wife.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Puttenham. "They say you was off your head when you did it. How can I tell you're right in your intellecks now? You see, 'twould be mighty unpleasant to have anything happen to either Puttenham or me, if we crossed you in any way. I don't feel inclined to risk it. I mind when owd Sammy Drewitt was daft. They did up a sort of a black hole, and stuck he in, and fed him through a kind of a winder in the side, and they had the place cleaned out once a month, and fresh straw littered for him to lie on. Folk sed he ort to ha' been chained to the wall, but they didn't do that. He never managed to break through the door. They found him dead there one winter mornin' when the Hammer Ponds was froze almost a solid block. I reckon there's been nobody in that place since. The constable might send a man, and scrape it out, and accommodate you there. It's terrible dangerous havin' a maniac at large. Sammy Drewitt made a won'erful great noise, howlin' when the moon was nigh full, and folk as lived near couldn't sleep then. But he never knocked nobody on the head, as I've heard tell. I don't mind givin' you a cup o' tea, and some bread and butter, if you'll be quiet, and not break out and be uproarious. If you don't fancy the lock-up, there is a pound for strayed cattle. I reckon of that Mister Colpus keeps the key--that is if it be locked, but mostly it be open. But then there's no roof to that."

Mehetabel declined the refreshment offered her so ungraciously, and went to the cottage of Mrs. Caesar, the mother of Julia who had been dismissed from the service of Mr. Colpus.

Of her she made the same request as of the two last.

"I call that pretty much like cheek, I do," replied Mrs. Caesar. "Didn't you go and try to get into Colpus's, and oust my daughter?"

"Indeed, indeed, I did not."

"Indeed, you did. I heard all about it, as how you wanted to be took in at Colpus's when Julia was out."

"But Mrs. Caesar, that isn't ousting her. Julia was already dismissed!"

"Dismissed! Hoity-toity! My daughter gave notice because she was too put upon by them Colpuses. They didn't consider their servants, and give 'em enough to eat, and holidays when they wanted to go out with their sweethearts. And you had the face to ax to be taken there. No, I've no room for you;" and she shut the door of the house in Mehetabel's face.

The unhappy girl staggered away with her burden, and sank into a hedge. The evening was drawing on, and she must find a house to shelter her, or else seek out the cave where she had lodged before.

Then she recalled what Joe Filmer had said--that Iver had returned to the Ship. A light flashed through her soul at the thought.

Iver would care for her. He who had been her earliest and dearest friend; he, who through all his years of absence, had cherished the thought of her; he who had told her that the Ship was no home to him without her in it; that he valued Thursley only because she lived there; he who had clasped her with his arm, called her his own and only one; to him--to him--at last, without guilt, without scruples; she could fly to him and say, "Iver, I am driven from door to door; no one will receive me. Every one is suspicious of me, thinks evil of me. But you--yourself, who have known me from infancy--you who baptized me to save me from becoming a wanderer--see, a wanderer, homeless, with my poor babe, I come to you--do you provide that I may be housed and sheltered. I ask not for myself so much as for my little one! To Iver--to Iver--as my one refuge, my only hope!"

Then it was as though her heart were light, and her heels winged. She sprang up from where she had cast herself, and forgetful of her weariness, ran, and stayed not till she had reached the familiar porch of the dear old Ship.

And already through the bar window a light shone. The night had not set in, yet a light was shining forth, a ray of gold, to welcome the wanderer, to draw her in, with promise of comfort and of rest.

And there--there in the porch door stood Iver.

"What! Mehetabel! come here--here--after all! Come in at once. Welcome! A word together we must have! My little Mehetabel! Welcome! Welcome!"


CHAPTER L.


MOVE ON.

"Come in, little friend! dear Matabel! come into the kitchen, by the fire, and let us have a talk." His voice was cheery, his greeting hearty, his manner frank.

He drew her along the passage, and brought her into the little kitchen in which that declaration had taken place, the very last time she had been within the doors of the inn, and he seated her in the settle, the very place she had occupied when he poured out his heart to her.

Mehetabel could not speak. Her bosom was too full. Tears sparkled in her eyes, and ran down her cheeks. The glow of the peat and wood fire was on her face, and gave to it a color it did not in reality possess. She tried to say something, but her voice gave way. Half laughing in the midst of tears she stammered, "You are good to me, Iver."

He took the stool and drew it before the fire that he might look up into her agitated face.

"How have you come?" asked he.

"I walked."

"Where from--not Kingston?"

"Oh, no! only from Gorlmyn."

"But that is a long way. And did you carry the child?"

"Yes, Iver! But, oh! he is no weight. You have not seen him. Look at him. He is quiet now, but he has been very troublesome; not that he could help it, but he has been unwell." With the pride and love of a mother she unfolded the wraps that concealed her sleeping child, and laid it on her knees. The dancing light fell over it.

Iver drew his stool near, and looked at the infant.

"I am no judge of babies," he said, "but--it is very small."

"It is small, that is why I can carry him. The best goods are wrapped in the smallest parcels."

"The child looks very delicate--ill, I should say."

"Oh, no! it has been ill, but is much, much better now. How could even a strong child stand all that my precious one has had to go through without suffering? But that is over now. Now at length we shall have rest and happiness, baby and me, in each other." Then catching the child to her heart, she rocked herself, and with tears of love flowing, sang--


"Thou art my sceptre, crown and all."


She laid the child again on her lap and sat looking at it admiringly in the rosy light of the fire that suffused it. As the flames had given to her cheek a fictitious color, so did they now give to the infant a glow as of health that it did not actually possess.

"You must be tired," said Iver.

"I am tired; see how my limbs shake. That is why my baby trembles; but as for my arms, they are past tiredness, they are just one dead ache from the shoulder to the wrist."

"Are you hungry, Matabel?"

"Oh, no! All I want is rest, rest. I am weary."

Presently she asked, "Where is father?"

"He is away. Gone to the Dye House to see a cow that is bad. They sent for him, to have his opinion. Father is thought a great authority on cows."

"And Polly?"

"Oh! Polly," laughed Iver, "she's bundled off. Father has borne it like a philosopher. I believe in his heart he is rather pleased that I should have turned her neck and crop off the premises. It was high time. She had mastered the old man, and could make him do what she pleased."

"Whom have you got in her place?"

"Julia Caesar. She was sent away from the Colpuses for drawing the beer too freely. Well, here she can draw it whenever there are men who ask for drink, so she will be in her proper element. But she is only a stop gap. I engaged her because there really was for the moment no one else available, but she goes as soon as we can find a better."

"Will you take me?" asked Mehetabel, with a smile, and with some confidence that she would be gladly accepted.

"We shall see--there is another place for you, Matabel," said Iver. "Now let us talk of something else. Was it not a piece of rare good luck that I was stuck on the jury? Do you know, I believe all would have gone wrong but for me. I put my foot down and said, 'Not guilty,' and would not budge. The rest were almost all inclined to give against you, Matabel, but there was a fellow with a wist in his stupid noddle against capital punishment. He was just as resolute as I was, and between us, we worked the rest round to our way of thinking. But I should like to know the truth about it all, for it is marvellous to me."

"There is nothing for me to say, Iver," answered Matabel, "but that some words I uttered made Jonas spring back, and neither he nor I knew that there was a kiln behind, it was so overgrown with brambles, and he fell down that."

"And you laughed."

"Oh, Iver! I don't know what I did. I was so frightened, and my head was so much in a whirl that I remember nothing more. You do not really think that I laughed."

"They all said you did."

"Iver, you know me too well to believe that I was other than frightened out of my wits. There are times when a laugh comes because the tears will not break out--it is a gasp of pain, of horror, nothing more. I remember, at my confirmation, when the Bishop laid his hands on us, that the girl beside me laughed; but it was only that she was feeling more than she could give token of any other way."

"That's like enough," said Iver, and taking the poker he put the turf together to make it blaze; "I say, Matabel, they tell me that Jonas was a bad loser by the smash of the Wealden Bank, and that he was about to mortgage his little place. Of course, that is yours now--or belongs to