The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

at her head;⁠—nothing to Ruby’s consternation, as it was a practice to which she was well accustomed. She picked it up, and returned it to him with a cool indifference which was intended to exasperate him. “Look ye here, Ruby,” he said, “out o’ this place you go. If you go as John Crumb’s wife you’ll go with five hun’erd pound, and we’ll have a dinner here, and a dance, and all Bungay.”

“Who cares for all Bungay⁠—a set of beery chaps as knows nothing but swilling and smoking;⁠—and John Crumb the main of ’em all? There never was a chap for beer like John Crumb.”

“Never saw him the worse o’ liquor in all my life.” And the old farmer, as he gave this grand assurance, rattled his fist down upon the table.

“It ony just makes him stoopider and stoopider the more he swills. You can’t tell me, grandfather, about John Crumb. I knows him.”

“Didn’t ye say as how ye’d have him? Didn’t ye give him a promise?”

“If I did, I ain’t the first girl as has gone back of her word⁠—and I shan’t be the last.”

“You means you won’t have him?”

“That’s about it, grandfather.”

“Then you’ll have to have somebody to fend for ye, and that pretty sharp⁠—for you won’t have me.”

“There ain’t no difficulty about that, grandfather.”

“Very well. He’s a coming here tonight, and you may settle it along wi’ him. Out o’ this ye shall go. I know of your doings.”

“What doings! You don’t know of no doings. There ain’t no doings. You don’t know nothing ag’in me.”

“He’s a coming here tonight, and if you can make it up wi’ him, well and good. There’s five hun’erd pound, and ye shall have the dinner and the dance and all Bungay. He ain’t a going to be put off no longer;⁠—he ain’t.”

“Whoever wanted him to be put on? Let him go his own gait.”

“If you can’t make it up wi’ him⁠—”

“Well, grandfather, I shan’t anyways.”

“Let me have my say, will ye, yer jade, you? There’s five hun’erd pound! and there ain’t ere a farmer in Suffolk or Norfolk paying rent for a bit of land like this can do as well for his darter as that⁠—let alone only a granddarter. You never thinks o’ that;⁠—you don’t. If you don’t like to take it⁠—leave it. But you’ll leave Sheep’s Acre too.”

“Bother Sheep’s Acre. Who wants to stop at Sheep’s Acre? It’s the stoopidest place in all England.”

“Then find another. Then find another. That’s all aboot it. John Crumb’s a coming up for a bit o’ supper. You tell him your own mind. I’m dommed if I trouble aboot it. On’y you don’t stay here. Sheep’s Acre ain’t good enough for you, and you’d best find another home. Stoopid, is it? You’ll have to put up wi’ places stoopider nor Sheep’s Acre, afore you’ve done.”

In regard to the hospitality promised to Mr. Crumb, Miss Ruggles went about her work with sufficient alacrity. She was quite willing that the young man should have a supper, and she did understand that, so far as the preparation of the supper went, she owed her service to her grandfather. She therefore went to work herself, and gave directions to the servant girl who assisted her in keeping her grandfather’s house. But as she did this, she determined that she would make John Crumb understand that she would never be his wife. Upon that she was now fully resolved. As she went about the kitchen, taking down the ham and cutting the slices that were to be broiled, and as she trussed the fowl that was to be boiled for John Crumb, she made mental comparisons between him and Sir Felix Carbury. She could see, as though present to her at the moment, the mealy, floury head of the one, with hair stiff with perennial dust from his sacks, and the sweet glossy dark well-combed locks of the other, so bright, so seductive, that she was ever longing to twine her fingers among them. And she remembered the heavy, flat, broad honest face of the mealman, with his mouth slow in motion, and his broad nose looking like a huge white promontory, and his great staring eyes, from the corners of which he was always extracting meal and grit;⁠—and then also she remembered the white teeth, the beautiful soft lips, the perfect eyebrows, and the rich complexion of her London lover. Surely a lease of Paradise with the one, though but for one short year, would be well purchased at the price of a life with the other! “It’s no good going against love,” she said to herself, “and I won’t try. He shall have his supper, and be told all about it, and then go home. He cares more for his supper than he do for me.” And then, with this final resolution firmly made, she popped the fowl into the pot. Her grandfather wanted her to leave Sheep’s Acre. Very well. She had a little money of her own, and would take herself off to London. She knew what people would say, but she cared nothing for old women’s tales. She would know how to take care of herself, and could always say in her own defence that her grandfather had turned her out of Sheep’s Acre.

Seven had been the hour named, and punctually at that hour John Crumb knocked at the back door of Sheep’s Acre farmhouse. Nor did he come alone. He was accompanied by his friend Joe Mixet, the baker of Bungay, who, as all Bungay knew, was to be his best man at his marriage. John Crumb’s character was not without many fine attributes. He could earn money⁠—and having earned it could spend and keep it in fair proportion. He was afraid of no work, and⁠—to give him his due⁠—was afraid of no man. He was honest, and ashamed of nothing that he did. And after his fashion he had chivalrous ideas about women. He was willing to thrash any man that