God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

fat face of Mrs. Spruce, a face which was tied up like a round red damaged sort of fruit in a black basket-like bonnet, fastened with very broad violet strings. Now Mrs. Spruce always paid the most pious attention to his sermons, and jogged her husband at regular intervals to prevent that worthy man from dozing, though she knew he could not hear a word of anything that was said, and that, therefore, he might as well have been allowed to sleep,—but on this occasion John was sure that even he failed to be interested in his observations on that ‘ornament,’ which she called ‘hornament,’ of the meek and quiet spirit, pronounced to be of such ‘great price.’ He realised that if any ‘great price’ was at all in question with her that morning, it was the possible monetary value of her new lady’s wardrobe. So that on the whole he was very glad when he came to the end of his ramble among strained similes, and was able to retire altogether from the gaze of the different pairs of eyes, cow-like, sheep-like, bird- like, dog-like, and human, which in their faithful watching of his face as he preached, often moved him to a certain embarrassment, though seldom as much as on this occasion. With his disappearance from the pulpit, and his subsequent retreat round by the back of the churchyard into the privacy of his own garden, the tongues of the gossips, restrained as long as their minister was likely to be within earshot, broke loose and began to wag with glib rapidity.

“Look ‘ee ‘ere, Tummas,” said one short, thick-set man, addressing Bainton; “Look ‘ee ‘ere—thy measter baint oop to mark this marnin’! Seemed as if he couldn’t find the ways nor the meanin’s o’ the Lord nohow!”

Bainton slowly removed his cap from his head and looked thoughtfully into the lining, as though seeking for inspiration there, before replying. The short, thick-set man was an important personage,—no less than the proprietor of the ‘Mother Huff’ public-house; and not only was he proprietor of the said public-house, but brewer of all the ale he sold there. Roger Buggins was a man to be reckoned with, and he expected to be treated with almost as much consideration as the ‘Passon’ himself. Buggins wore a very ill-fitting black suit on Sundays, which made him look like a cross between a waiter and an undertaker; and he also supported on his cranium a very tall top-hat with an extra wide brim, suggesting in its antediluvian shape a former close acquaintance with cast-off clothing stores.

“He baint himself,”—reiterated Buggins emphatically; “He was fair mazed and dazed with his argifyin’. ‘Meek and quiet sperrit’! Who wants the like o’ that in this ‘ere mortal wurrld, where we all commences to fight from the moment we lays in our cradles till the last kick we gives ‘fore we goes to our graves? Meek and quiet goes to prison more often than rough and ready!”

“Mebbe Passon Walden was thinkin’ of Oliver Leach,” suggested Bainton with a slight twinkle in his eye; “And ‘ow m’appen we’d best be all of us meek and quiet when he’s by. It might be so, Mr. Buggins,—Passon’s a rare one to guess as ‘ow the wind blows nor’- nor’-east sometimes in the village, for all that it’s a warm day and the peas comin’ on beautiful. Eh, now, Mr. Buggins?” This with a conciliatory air, for Bainton had a little reckoning at the ‘Mother Huff’ and desired to be all that was agreeable to its proprietor.

Buggins snorted a defiant snort.

“Oliver Leach indeed!” he ejaculated. “Meek an’ quiet suits him down to the ground, it do! There’s a man wot’s likely to have a kindly note of warnin’ from my best fist, if he comes larrupin’ round my place too often. ‘Ave ye ‘eard as ‘ow he’s chalked the Five Sisters?”

“Now don’t go for to say that!” expostulated Bainton gently. “‘E runs as near the wind as he can, but ‘e’d never be stark starin’ mad enough to chalk the Five Sisters!”

“Chalk ‘em ‘e HAS!” returned Buggins, putting quite a strong aspirate where he generally left it out,—“And down they’re comin’ on Wednesday marnin’. Which I sez yeste’day to Adam Frost ‘ere: if the Five Sisters is to lay low, what next?”

“Ay! ay!” chorussed several other villagers who had been, listening eagerly to the conversation; “You say true, Mr. Buggins—you say gospel true. If the Five Sisters lay low, what next!”

And dismal shakings of the head and rollings of the eyes from all parties followed this proposition.

“What next,” echoed the sexton, Adam Frost, who on hearing his name brought into the argument, showed himself at once ready to respond to it. “Why next we’ll not have a tree of any size anywhere near the village, for if timber’s to be sold, sold it will be, and the only person we’ll be able to rely on for a bit of green shade or shelter will be Passon Walden, who wouldn’t have a tree cut down anywhere on his land, no, not if he was starving. Ah! If the old Squire were alive he’d sooner have had his own ‘ead chopped off than the Five Sisters laid low!”

By this time a considerable number of the villagers had gathered round Roger Buggins as the centre of the discussion,—some out of curiosity, and others out of a vague and entirely erroneous idea that perhaps if they took the proper side of the argument ‘refreshers’ in the way of draughts of home-brewed ale at the ‘Mother Huff’ between church hours might be offered as an amicable end to the conversation.

“Someone should tell Miss Vancourt about it; she’s coming home to the Manor on Tuesday,” suggested the barmaid of the ‘Mother Huff,’ a smart-looking young woman, who was however looked upon with grave suspicion by her feminine neighbours, because she dressed ‘beyond her station’; “P’raps she’d do something?”

“Not she!” said Frost, cynically; “She’s a fine lady,—been livin’ with ‘Mericans what will eat banknotes for breakfast in order to write about it to the papers arterwards. Them sort of women takes no ‘count o’ trees, except to make money out of ‘em.”

Here there was a slight stir among the group, as they saw a familiar figure slowly approaching them,—that of a very old man, wearing a particularly clean smock-frock and a large straw hat, who came out from under the church porch like a quaint, moving, mediaeval Dutch picture. Shuffling along, one halting step at a time, and supporting himself on a stout ash stick, this venerable personage made his way, with a singular doggedness and determination of movement, up to the group of gossips. Arriving among them he took off his straw hat, and producing a blue spotted handkerchief from its interior wiped the top of his bald head vigorously.

“Now, what are ye at?” he said slowly; “What are ye at? All clickettin’ together like grasshoppers in a load of hay! What’s the mischief? Whose character are ye bitin’ bits out of, like mice in an old cheese? Eh? Lord! Lord! Eighty-nine years o’ livin’ wi’ ye, summer in and summer out, don’t improve ye,—talk to ye as I will and as I may, ye’re all as mis’able sinners as ever ye was, and never a saint among ye ‘cept the one in the Sarky Fagus.”

Here, pausing for breath, the ancient speaker wiped his head again, carefully flattening down with the action a few stray wisps of thin white hair, while a smile of tranquil and superior wisdom spread itself among the countless wrinkles of his sun-browned face, like a ray of winter sunshine awakening rippling reflections on a half- frozen pool.

“We ain’t doin’ nothin’, Josey!” said Buggins, almost timidly.

“Nor we ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” added Bainton.

“We be as harmless as doves,” put in Adam Frost with a sly chuckle; “and we ain’t no match for sarpints!”

“Ain’t you looking well, Mr. Letherbarrow!” ejaculated the smartly dressed barmaid; “Just wonderful for your time of life!”

“My time o’ life?” And Josey Letherbarrow surveyed the young woman with an inimitable expression of disdain; “Well, it’s a time o’ life YOU’LL never reach, sane or sound, my gel, take my word for’t! Fine feathers makes fine birds, but the life is more’n the meat and the body more’n raiment. And as for ‘armless as doves and no match for sarpints, ye may be all that and more, which is no sort of argyment and when I sez ‘what mischief are ye all up to’ I sez it, and expecks a harnser, and a harnser I’ll ‘ave, or I’ll reckon to know the reason why!”

The men and women glanced at each other. It was unnecessary, and it would certainly be inhuman, to irritate old Josey Letherbarrow, considering Ms great age and various infirmities.

“We was jest a-sayin’ a word or two about the Five Sisters—” began Adam Frost.

“Ay! ay!” said Josey; “That ye may do and no ‘arm come of it; I knows ‘em well! Five of the finest beech-trees in all England! Ay! ay! th’ owld Squire was main proud of ‘em---”

“They be comin’ down,” said Buggins; “Oliver Leach’s chalk mark’s on ‘em for Wednesday marnin’.”

“Comin’ down!” echoed Josey—“Comin’ down? Gar’n with ye all for a parcel o’ silly idgits wi’ neither rhyme nor reason nor backbone! Comin’ down! Why ye might as well tell me the Manor House was bein’ turned into a cow-shed! Comin’ down! Gar’n!”

“It’s true, Josey,” said Adam Frost, beginning to make his way towards the gate of the churchyard, for he had just spied one of his numerous ‘olive-branches,’ frantically beckoning him home to dinner, and he knew by stern experience what it meant if Mrs. Frost and the family were kept waiting for the Sunday’s meal. “It’s true, and you’ll find it so. And whether it’ll be any good speakin’ to the new lady who’s comin’ home on Tuesday, or whether the Five Sisters won’t be all corpses afore she comes, there’s no knowin’. The Lord He gave the trees, but whether the Lord He gave Oliver Leach to take ‘em away again after a matter of three or four hundred year is mighty doubtful!”

Old Josey looked stupefied.

“The Five Sisters comin’ down!” he repeated dully; “May you never live to do my buryin’, Adam Frost, if it’s true!—and that’s the worst wish I can give ye!”

But Adam Frost here obeyed the call of his domestic belongings, and hurried away without response.

Josey leaned on his stick thoughtfully for a minute, and then resumed his slow shuffling way. Any one of the men or women near him would have willingly given him a hand to assist his steps, but they all knew that he would be highly incensed if they dared to show that they considered him in any way feeble or in need of support. So they contented themselves with accompanying him at his own snail’s pace, and at such a distance as to be within hearing of any remarks he might let fall, without intruding too closely on the special area in which he chose to stump along homewards.

“The Five Sisters comin’ down, and the old Squire’s daughter comin’ ‘ome!” he muttered; “They two things is like ile and water,—nothin’ ‘ull make ‘em mix. The Squire’s daughter—ay—ay! It seems but only yeste’day the Squire died! And she was a fine mare that threw him, too,—Firefly was her name. Ay—ay! It seems but yeste’day—but yeste’day!”

“D’ye mind the Squire’s daughter, Josey?” asked one of the village women sauntering a little nearer to him.

“Mind her?” And Josey Letherbarrow halted abruptly. “Do I mind my own childer? It seems but yeste’day, I tell ye, that the Squire died, but mebbe