The Broom-Squire

"Money!" repeated Bideabout. "How much may it be?"

"I have not looked."

"Then look at it, once now (at once)."

He switched the whip with its white favor about, but kept his eye on Mehetabel.

"What did he give it you for?"

"As a wedding present."

"Gold, is it?"

"Gold and notes."

"Gold and notes. Hand 'em to me. I can count fast enough."

"The sum is fifteen pounds – dear, kind, old man."

"Fifteen pounds, is it? You might ha' lost it wi' your carelessness."

"I'll not be careless now."

"Good, hand it me."

"I cannot do that, Jonas. It is mine. Father said to me I was to keep it gainst a rainy day."

"Didn't you swear in church to endow me with all your worldly goods?" asked the Broom-Squire.

"No, it was you who did that. I then had nothing."

"Oh, was it so? I don't remember that. If you'd had them fifteen pounds then, and the passon had knowed about it, he'd ha' made you swear to hand it over to me – your lord and master."

"There's nothing about that in the Prayer-book."

"Then there ort to be. Hand me the money. You was nigh on losing the lot, and ain't fit to keep it. Fifteen pounds!"

"I cannot give it to you, Bideabout; father told me it was to be my very own, I was not to let it go out of my hands, not even into yours, but to husband it."

"Ain't I your husband?"

"I do not mean that, to hoard it against an evil day. There is no saying when that may come. And I passed my word it should be so."

He growled and said, "Look here, Matabel. It'll be a bostall road with you an' me, unless there's give on one side and take on the other."

"Is all the give to be on my side, and the take on yours?"

"In coorse. Wot else is matrimony? The sooner you learn that the better for peace."

He whipped the cob, and the brute moved on.

Mehetabel walked forward and outstripped the conveyance. Old Clutch was a specially slow walker. She soon reached that point at which moorland began, without hedge on either side. Trees had ceased to stud the heathy surface.

Before her rose the ridge that culminated where rose the gallows, and stood inky black against the silvery light of declining day behind them.

To the north, in the plain gleamed some ponds.

Curlew were piping sadly.

Mehetabel was immersed in her own thoughts, glad to be by herself. Jonas had not said much to her in the cart, yet his presence had been irksome. She thought of the past, of her childhood along with Iver, of the day when he ran away. How handsome he had become! What an expression of contempt had passed over his countenance when he looked at Bideabout, and learned that he was the bridegroom – the happy man who had won her! How earnestly he had gazed into her eyes, till she was compelled to lower them!

Was Iver going to settle at the Ship? Would he come over to the Punch-Bowl to see her? Would he come often and talk over happy childish days? There had been a little romance between them as children: long forgotten: now reviving.

Her hand trembled as she raised it to her lips to wipe away the dew that had formed there.

She had reached the highest point on the road, and below yawned the great crater-like depression, at the bottom of which lay the squatter settlement. A little higher, at the very summit of the hill, stood the gibbet, and the wind made the chains clank as it trifled with them. The bodies were gone, they had mouldered away, and the bones had fallen and were laid in the earth or sand beneath, but the gallows remained.

Clink! clink! clank! Clank! clink! clink!

There was rhythm and music, as of far-away bells, in the clashing of these chains.

The gibbet was on Mehetabel's left hand; on the right was the abyss.

She looked down into the cauldron, turning with disgust from the gallows, and yet was inspired with an almost equal repugnance at the sight of the dark void below.

She was standing on the very spot where, eighteen years before, she had been found by Iver. He had taken her up, and had given her a name. Now she was taken up by another, and by him a new name was conferred upon her.

"Come!" said Jonas; "it's all downhill, henceforth."

Were the words ominous?

He had arrived near her without her hearing him, so occupied had her mind been. As he spoke she uttered a cry of alarm.

"Afraid?" he asked. "Of what?"

She did not answer. She was trembling. Perhaps her nerves had been overwrought. The Punch-Bowl looked to her like the Bottomless Pit.

"Did you think one of the dead men had got up from under the gallows, and had come down to talk with you?"

She did not speak. She could not.

"It's all a pass'l o' nonsense," he said. "When the dead be turned into dust they never come again except as pertaties or the like. There was Tim Wingerlee growed won'erful fine strawberries; they found out at last he took the soil in which he growed 'em from the churchyard. I don't doubt a few shovelfuls from under them gallows 'ud bring on early pertaties – famous. Now then, get up into the cart."

"I'd rather walk, Jonas. The way down seems critical. It is dark in the Bowl, and the ruts are deep."

"Get up, I say. There is no occasion to be afraid. It won't do to drive among our folk, to our own door, me alone, and you trudgin', totterin' behind. Get up, I say."

Mehetabel obeyed.

There was a fragrance of fern in the night air that she had inhaled while walking. Now by the side of Bideabout she smelt only the beer and stale tobacco that adhered to his clothes.

"I am main glad," said he, "that all the hustle-bustle is over. I'm glad I'm not wed every day. Fust and last time I hopes. The only good got as I can see, is a meal and drink at the landlord's expense. But he'll take it out of me someways, sometime. Folks ain't liberal for nuthin'. 'Tain't in human nature."

"It is very dark in the Punch-Bowl," said Mehetabel. "I do not see a glimmer of a light anywhere."

"That's becos the winders ain't looking this way. You don't suppose it would be a pleasure to have three dead men danglin' in the wind afore their eyes all day long. The winders look downward, or else there's a fold of the hill or trees between. But I know where every house is wi'out seeing 'em. There's the Nashes', there's the Boxalls', there's the Snellings', there's my brother-in-law's, Thomas Rocliffe's, and down there be I."

He pointed with his whip. Mehetabel could distinguish nothing beyond the white favor bound to his whip.

"We're drivin to Paradise," said Jonas. And as to this remark she made no response, he explained – "Married life, you know."

She said nothing.

"It rather looks as if we were going down to the other place," he observed, with a sarcastic laugh. "But there it is, one or the other – all depends on you. It's just as you make it; as likely to be one as the other. Give me that fifteen pounds – and Paradise is the word."

"Indeed, Jonas, do you not understand that I cannot go against father's will and my word?"

The road, or rather track, descended along the steep side of the Punch-Bowl, notched into the sand falling away rapidly on the left hand, on which side sat Mehetabel.

At first she had distinguished nothing below in the blackness, but now something like a dead man's eye looked out of it, and seemed to follow and observe her.

"What is that yonder?" she asked.

"Wot is wot?" he asked in reply.

"That pale white light – that round thing glimmerin' yonder?"

"There's water below," was his explanation of the phenomenon.

In fact that which had attracted her attention and somewhat alarmed her, was one of the patches of water formed in the marshy bottom of the Punch-Bowl by the water that oozes forth in many springs from under the sandstone.

The track now passed under trees.

A glimpse of dull orange light, and old Clutch halted, unbidden.

"Here we be, we two," said Jonas. "This is home. And Paradise, if you will."

CHAPTER XIV

NOT PARADISE

At the moment that the cart halted, a black dog burst out of the house door, and flew at Mehetabel as she attempted to descend.

"Ha, Tartar!" laughed Jonas. "The rascal seems to know his reign is over. Go back, Tartar. I'll thrash you till the favor off my whip is beat into your hide, if you don't be quiet. Hitherto he has guarded my house, when I have been from home. Now that will be your duty, Matabel. Can't keep a wife and a dog. 'Twould be too extravagant. Tartar! Down! This is your mistress – till I get rid of you."

The dog withdrew reluctantly, continuing to growl and to show his fangs at Mehetabel.

In the doorway stood Sally Rocliffe, the sister of Jonas. Though not so openly resentful of the intrusion as was Tartar, she viewed the bride with ill-disguised bad humor; indeed, without an affectation of cordiality.

"I thought you was never coming," was Sarah's salutation. "Goodness knows, I have enough to do in my own house, and for my own people, not to be kept dancin' all these hours in attendance, because others find time for makin' fools of themselves. Now, I hope I shall not be wanted longer. My man needs his meals as much as others, and if he don't get 'em reglar, who suffers but I? Dooty begins at home. You might have had more consideration, and come earlier, Jonas."

The woman accorded to Mehetabel but a surly greeting. The young bride entered the house. A single tallow dip was burning on the table, with a long dock to it, unsnuffed. The hearth was cold.

"I didn't light a fire," said Mrs. Rocliffe; "you see it wouldn't do. Now you have come as mistress, it's your place to light the fire on the hearth. I've heard tell it's unlucky for any other body to do it. Not as I knows." She shrugged her shoulders. It seemed that this was a mere excuse put forward to disguise her indolence, or to veil her malevolence.

Mehetabel looked around her.

There were no plates. There was nothing to eat prepared on the kitchen table. No cloth; nothing whatever there, save the guttering candle.

"I didn't lay out nuthin'," said Mrs. Rocliffe; "you see, how was I to say you'd want vittles? I suppose you have had as much as is good for you away where you come from – at the Ship. If you are hungry – there's cold rabbit pie in the larder, if it ain't gone bad. This weather has been bad for keepin' meat. There's bread in the larder, if you don't mind the rats and mice havin' been at it. That's not my fault. Jonas, he had some for his break'us, and never covered up the pan, so the varmin have got to it. There's ale, too, in a barrel, I know, but Jonas keeps the key to that lest I should take a sup. He begrudges me that, and expects me to work for him like a galley-slave."

Then the woman was silent, looking moodily down. The floor was strewn with flakes of whitewash as though snow had fallen over it.

"You see," said Mrs. Rocliffe, "Jonas would go to the expense of whitenin' the ceilin', just because you was comin.' It had done plenty well for father and mother, and I don't mind any time it were whitened afore, and I be some years the elder of Jonas. The ceiling was that greasy wi' smoke, that the whitewashin' as it dried 'as pealed off, and came down just about. You look up – the ceilin' is ten times worse than afore. It looks as if it were measly. I wouldn't sweep up the flakes as fell off just to let Jonas see what comes of his foolishness. I told him it would be so, but he wouldn't believe me, and now let him see for himself – there it is."

With a sort of malignant delight the woman observed Mehetabel, and saw how troubled and unhappy she was.

Again a stillness ensued. Mehetabel could hear her heart beat. She could hear no other sound. She looked through the room towards the clock. It was silent.

"Ah, now there," said Sarah Rocliffe. "There be that, to be sure. Runned down is the weight. It wasn't proper for me now to wind up the clock. As you be the new mistress in the house, it is your place and dooty. I suppose you know that."

Then from without Mehetabel heard the grunts of the sow in the stye that adjoined the house, and imparted an undesirable flavor to the atmosphere in it.

"That's the sow in the pen," said Mrs. Rocliffe; "she's wantin' her meat. She hain't been galliwantin', and marryin', and bein' given in marriage. I'm not the mistress, and I've not the dooty to provide randans and crammins for other folks' hogs. She'll be goin' back in her flesh unless fed pretty smart. You'd best do that at once, but not in your weddin' dress. You must get acquainted together, and the sooner the better. She's regular rampagous wi' hunger."

"Would you help me in with my box, Mrs. Rocliffe?" asked Mehetabel. "Jonas set it down by the door, and if I can get that upstairs I'll change my dress at once, and make the fire, clean the floor, wind up the clock, and feed the hog."

"I've such a terrible crick in my back, I dussn't do it," answered

Sarah Rocliffe. "Why, how much does that there box weigh? I wonder

Jonas had the face to put it in the cart, and expect Clutch to draw it. Clutch didn't like it now, did he?"

"But how can I get my box in and carried up? Jonas is with the horse, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, he is minding the horse. Clutch must be made comfortable, and given his hay. I'll be bound you and Jonas have been eatin' and drinkin' all day, and never given Clutch a mouthful, nor washed his teeth with a pail o' water."

"I'm sure Joe Filmer looked to the horse at the Ship. He is very attentive to beasts."

"On ordinary days, and when nuthin' is goin' on, I dare say – not when there's weddin's and ducks and green peas goin' for any who axes for 'em."

The report that ducks and green peas were to form an element of the entertainment had been told everywhere before the day of the marriage, and it was bitterness to Mrs. Rocliffe to think that "on principle," as she put it, she had been debarred from eating her share.

"Ducks and green peas!" repeated she. "I s'pose you don't reckon on eating that every day here, no, nor on Sundays, no, not even at Christmas. 'Taint such as we in the Punch-Bowl as can stuff ourselves on ducks and green peas. Green peas and ducks we may grow – but we sells 'em to the quality."

After some consideration Mrs. Rocliffe relented sufficiently to say, "I don't know but what Samuel may be idlin'; he mostly is. I'll go and send my son Samuel to help you with the box."

Then with a surly "Good-night" the woman withdrew.

After a couple of minutes, she returned: "I've come back," she said, "to tell you that if old Clutch is off his meat – and I shouldn't wonder if he was – wi' neglect and wi' drawing such a weight – then you'd best set to work and make him gruel. Jonas can't afford to lose old Clutch, just becos he's got a wife." Then she departed again.

Jonas was indeed in the stable attending to the horse. He had, moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her hand was so unsteady that she extinguished the light. Where to find the tinder box she knew not. She felt for a bench, and in the darkness when she had reached it, sank on it, and burst into tears.

Such was the welcome to her new home.

For some time she sat with as little light in her heart as there was without.

She felt some relief in giving way to her surcharged heart. She sobbed and knitted her fingers together, unknitted them, and wove them together again in convulsions of distress – of despair.

What expectation of happiness had she here? She was accustomed at the Ship to have everything about her neat and in good order. The mere look round that she had given to the room, the principal room of the house she had entered, showed how ramshackle it was. To some minds it is essential that there should be propriety, as essential as that the food they consume should be wholesome, the water they drink should be pure. They can no more accommodate themselves to disorder than they can to running on hands and feet like apes.

It was quite true that this house would be given up to Mehetabel to do with it what she liked. But would her husband care to have it other than it was? Would he not resent her attempts to alter everything?

And for what purpose would she strive and toil if he disapproved of her changes?

She had no confidence that in temper, in character, in mind, he and she would agree, or agree to differ. She knew that he was grasping after money, that he commended no man, but had a disparaging word for every one, and envy of all who were prosperous. She had seen in him no sign of generosity of feeling, no spark of honor. No positive evil was said of him; if he were inclined to drink he was not a drunkard; if he stirred up strife in himself he was not quarrelsome. He over-reached in a bargain, but never did anything actually dishonest. He was not credited with any lightness in his moral conduct towards any village maid. That he was frugal, keen witted, was about all the good that was said, and that could be said of him. If he had won no one's love hitherto, was it likely that there was anything lovable in him? Would he secure the affections of his wife?

Thoughts rose and fell, tossed and broke in Mehetabel's brain; her tears fell freely, and as she was alone in the house she was able to sob without restraint.

Jonas had chained up Tartar, and the dog was howling. The pig grunted impatiently. A rat raced across the floor. Cockroaches came out in the darkness and stirred, making a strange rustling like the pattering of fine rain.

Mehetabel could hear the voice of her husband in the yard. He was thrusting the cart under a roof. He would be in the house shortly, and she did not wish that he should find her in tears, that he should learn how weak, how hopeless she was.

She put her hand into her pocket for a kerchief, and drew forth one, with which she staunched the flow from her eyes, and dried her cheeks. She put her knuckle to her lips to stay their quivering. Then, when she had recovered some composure, she drew a long sigh and replaced the sodden kerchief in her pocket.

At that moment she started, sprang to her feet, searched her pocket in the darkness with tremulous alarm, with sickness at her heart.

Then, not finding what she wanted, she stooped and groped along the floor, and found nothing save the flakes of fallen whitewash.

She stood up panting, and put her hand to her heart. Then Jonas entered with a lantern, and saw her as she thus stood, one hand to her brow, thrusting back the hair, the other to her heart; he was surprised, raised his lantern to throw the light on her face, and said: – "Wot's up?"

"I have been robbed! My fifteen pounds have been taken from me."

"Well I – "

"Jonas!" she said, "I know it was you. It was you who robbed me, where those men robbed my father. Just as I got into the cart you robbed me."

He lowered the lantern.

"Look here, Matabel, mind wot I said. In matrimony it's all give and take, and if there ain't give on one side, then there's take, take on the t'other. I ain't going to have this no Paradise if I can help it."

CHAPTER XV

IVER

Next day was bright; but already some rime lay in the cold and marshy bottom of the Punch-Bowl.

Mehetabel went round the farm with Bideabout, and with some pride he showed her his possessions, his fields, his barn, sheds and outhouses. Amongst these was that into which she had been taken on the night of her father's murder.

She had often heard the story from Iver. She knew how that every door had been shut against her except that of the shed in which the heather and broom steels were kept that belonged to Jonas, and which served as his workshop.

With a strange sense, as though she were in the hands of Fate thrusting her on, she knew not whither, with remorseless cogency, the young wife looked into the dark shed which had received her eighteen years before.

It was wonderful that she should have begun the first chapter of her life there, and that she should return to the same spot to open the second chapter.

She felt relieved when Jonas left her to herself. Then she at

once set to work on the house, in which there was much to be done.

She was ambitious to get it into order and comfort before Mrs.

Verstage came to visit her in her new quarters.

As she worked, her mind reverted to the Ship. Would she be missed there? Would the new maid engaged be as active and attentive as she had been? Her place in the hearts of the old couple was now occupied by Iver. However much the innkeeper might pretend to be hard of reconciliation, yet he must yearn after his own son; he must be proud of him now that Iver was grown so fine and independent, and had carved for himself a place in the world.

When the first feeling of regret over her departure was passed away, then all their thoughts, their aspirations, their pride would be engrossed by Iver.

Mehetabel was scouring a saucepan. She lowered it, and her hands remained inactive. Iver! – she saw him, as he stood before her in the Ship, extending his hands to her. She almost felt his grasp again.

Mehetabel brushed back the hair that had fallen over her face; and as she did so a tear ran down her cheek.

Then she heard her husband's voice; he was speaking with Samuel Rocliffe, his nephew; and it struck her as never before, how harsh, how querulous was his intonation.

During the day, Mrs. Rocliffe came in, looked about inquisitively, and pursed up her lips when she saw the change effected, and conjectured that more was likely to follow.

"I suppose nuthin' is good enough as it was – but you must put everything upside down?"

"On the contrary, I am setting on its feet everything I have found topsy-turvy."

To the great surprise of all, on the following Sunday, Bideabout, in his best suit, accompanied Mehetabel to church. He had never been a church-goer. He begrudged having to pay tithes. He begrudged having to pay something for his seat in addition to tithes to the church, if he went to a dissenting chapel. If religious ministrations weren't voluntary and gratuitous, "then," said Jonas, "he didn't think nuthin' of 'em."

Jonas had been disposed to scoff at religion, and to work on Sundays, though not so openly as on other days of the week. He went to church now because he was proud of his wife; not out of devotion, but vanity.

Some days later arrived a little tax-cart driven by Iver, with

Mrs. Verstage in it.

The hostess had already discovered what a difference it made in her establishment to have in it a raw and dull-headed maid in the room of the experienced and intelligent daughter. She did not regret what she had done – she had removed Mehetabel out of the reach of Iver, and had no longer any anxiety as to the disposal of his property by Simon. For her own sake she was sorry, as she plainly saw that her life was likely to run less smoothly in the future in her kitchen and with her guests. Now that Mehetabel was no longer dangerous, her heart unfolded towards her once more.

The young wife received Mrs. Verstage with pleasure. The flush came into her cheeks when she saw her, and for the moment she had no eyes, no thoughts, no welcome for Iver.

The landlady was not so active as of old, and she had to be assisted from her seat. As soon as she reached the ground she was locked in the embrace of her daughter by adoption.

Then Mehetabel conducted the old woman over the house, and showed her the new arrangements she had made, and consulted her on certain projected alterations.

Jonas had come to the door when the vehicle arrived; he was in his most gracious mood, and saluted first the hostess and then her son, with unwonted cordiality.

"Come now, Matabel," said Mrs. Verstage, when both she and the young wife were alone together, "I did well to push this on, eh? You have a decent house, and a good farm. All yours, not rented, so none can turn you out. What more could you desire? I dare be sworn Bideabout has got a pretty nest egg stuck away somewhere, up the chimney or under the hearth. Has he shown you what he has? There was the elder Gilly Cheel was a terrible skinflint. When he died his sons hunted high and low for his money and couldn't find it. And just as they wos goin' to bury him, the nuss said she couldn't make a bootiful corpse of him, he were that puffed in his mouth. What do you think, Matabel? The old chap had stuffed his money into his mouth when he knew he was dyin'. Didn't want nobody to have it but himself. Don't you let Bideabout try any of them games."