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“Me join ’em, ma’am? Not I,” said Banks, who seemed immensely tickled at the idea. “Not I. I’m foreman, and get my wage reg’lar, and I don’t want none of their flummery. You should hear Ann go on about ’em.”
“I beg your pardon, Banks,” said Mrs Glaire. “I might have known that you were too sensible a man to go to these meetings.”
“Well, as to being sensible, I don’t know about that, Missus Glaire. Them two women folk at home do about what they like wi’ me.”
“I don’t believe it, Joe,” said Mrs Glaire. “Daisy would not have grown up such a good, sensible girl if she had not had a firm, kind, sensible father.”
“God bless her!” said Joe, and a little moisture appeared in one eye. Then speaking rather huskily – “Thank you, ma’am – thank you, Missus Glaire. I try to do my duty by her, and so does Ann.”
“Is Ann quite well?”
“Quite well, thank you kindly, ma’am,” said the foreman. “Don’t you be afeared for me, Missus Glaire. I worked with Richard Glaire, senior, thirty years ago, two working lads, and we was always best of friends both when we was poor, and when I saw him gradually grow rich, for he had a long head, had your husband, while I’d only got a square one. But I stuck to him, and he stuck to me, and when he died, leaving me his foreman, you know, Mrs Glaire, how he sent for me, and ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘good bye, God bless you! You’ve always been my right hand man. Stick to my son.’”
“He did, Joe, he did,” said Mrs Glaire, with a deep sigh, and a couple of tears fell on her knitting.
“And I’ll stick to him through thick and thin,” said the foreman, stoutly. “For I never envied Dick, his father – there, ’tain’t ’spectful to you, ma’am, to say Dick, though it comes natural – I never envied Master Glaire his success with his contracts, and getting on to be a big man. I was happy enough; but you know, ma’am, young Master Dick is arbitrary; he is indeed, and he can’t feel for a working man like his father did.”
“He is more strict you see, Banks, that is all,” said Mrs Glaire, stiffly; and the foreman screwed up his face a little.
“You advise him not to be quite so strict, ma’am. I wouldn’t advise you wrong, as you know.”
“I know that, Joe Banks,” said Mrs Glaire, smiling pleasantly; “and I’ll say a word to him. But I wanted to say something to you.”
“Well, I’ve been a wondering why you sent for me, ma’am,” said the foreman, bluntly.
“You see,” said Mrs Glaire, hesitating, “there are little bits of petty tattle about.”
“What, here, ma’am,” said the foreman, with a hearty laugh. “Of course there is, and always was, and will be.”
“But they are about Daisy,” said Mrs Glaire, dashing at last into the matter.
“I should just like to get hold of the man as said a word against my lass,” said Banks, stretching out a tremendous fist. “I’d crack him, I would, like a nut. But what have they been saying?”
Volume One – Chapter Four.
Daisy’s Father
“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, who found her task more difficult than she had apprehended, “the fact is, they say she has been seen talking to my son.”
“Is that all?” said the foreman, laughing in a quiet, hearty way.
“Yes, that is all, and for Daisy’s sake I want it stopped. Have you heard or known anything?”
“Well, to put it quite plain, the missus wants her to have Tom Podmore down at the works there, but the girl hangs back, and I found out the reason. I did see Master Dick talking to her one night, and it set me a thinking.”
“And you didn’t stop it?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, sharply.
“Stop it? Why should I stop it?” said the foreman. “She’s getting on for twenty, and is sure to begin thinking about sweethearts. Ann did when she was nineteen, and if I recollect right, little fair-haired Lisbeth Ward was only eighteen when she used to blush on meeting Dick Glaire. I see her do it,” said the bluff fellow, chuckling.
“But that was long ago,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, excitedly. “Positions are changed since then. My son – ”
“Well, ma’am, he’s a workman’s son, and my bairn’s a workman’s daughter. I’ve give her a good schooling, and she’s as pretty a lass as there is in these parts, and if your son Richard’s took a fancy to her, and asks me to let him marry her, and the lass likes him, why I shall say yes, like a man.”
Mrs Glaire looked at him aghast. This was a turn in affairs she had never anticipated, and one which called forth all her knowledge of human nature to combat.
“But,” she exclaimed, “he is engaged to his cousin here, Miss Pelly.”
“Don’t seem like it,” chuckled the foreman. “Why, he’s always after Daisy now.”
“Oh, this is dreadful!” gasped Mrs Glaire, dropping her knitting. “I tell you he is engaged – promised to be married to his second cousin, Miss Pelly.”
“Stuff!” said Banks, laughing. “He’ll never marry she, though she’s a good, sweet girl.”
“Don’t I tell you he will,” gasped Mrs Glaire. “Man, man, are you blind? This is dreadful to me, but I must speak. Has it never struck you that my son may have wrong motives with respect to your child?”
“What?” roared the foreman; and the veins in his forehead swelled out, as his fists clenched. “Bah!” he exclaimed, resuming his calmness. “Nonsense, ma’am, nonsense. What! Master Dicky Glaire, my true old friend’s son, mean wrong by my lass Daisy? Mrs Glaire, ma’am, Mrs Glaire, for shame, for shame!”
“The man’s infatuated!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, and she stared wonderingly at the bluff, honest fellow before her.
“Why, ma’am,” said the foreman, smiling, “I wouldn’t believe it of him if you swore it. He’s arbitrary, and he’s too fond of his horses, and dogs, and sporting: but my Daisy! Oh, for shame, ma’am, for shame! He loves the very ground on which she walks.”
“And – and” – stammered Mrs Glaire, “does – does Daisy care for him? Fool that I was to let her come here and be so intimate with Eve,” she muttered.
“Well, ma’am,” said the foreman, thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure about that.”
He was about to say more when Mrs Glaire stopped him.
“Another time, Banks, another time,” she said, hastily. “Here is my son.”
As she spoke Richard Glaire came into the garden with his hands in his pockets, and Eve Pelly clinging to one arm, looking bright and happy.
The foreman started slightly, but gave himself a jerk and smiled, and then, in obedience to a gesture from his mistress, he left the garden and returned to the foundry.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
The Vicar’s Stroll
The brick, as the vicar called it, was only another piece of slag; but he did not turn his head, only smiled, and began thinking that Dumford quite equalled the report he had heard of it. Then looking round the plain old church, peering inside through the windows, and satisfying himself that its architectural beauties were not of a very striking nature, he turned aside and entered the vicarage garden, giving a sigh of satisfaction on finding that his home was a comfortable red-brick, gable-ended house, whose exterior, with its garden overrun with weeds, promised well in its traces of former cultivation.
A ring at a bell by the side post of the door brought forth a wan, washed-out looking woman, who looked at the visitor from top to toe, ending by saying sharply, in a vinegary tone of voice:
“What d’yer want?”
“To come in,” said the vicar, smiling. “Are you in charge of the house?”
“If yow want to go over t’church yow must go to Jacky Budd’s down street for the keys. I wean’t leave place no more for nobody.”
“But I don’t want to go over the church – at least not now. I want to come in, and see about having a room or two made comfortable.”
“Are yow t’new parson, then?”
“Yes, I’m the new parson.”
“Ho! Then yow’d best come in.”
The door was held open, and looking at him very suspiciously, the lady in charge, to wit Mrs Simeon Slee, allowed the vicar to enter, and then followed him as he went from room to room, making up his mind what he should do as he ran his eye over the proportions of the house, finding in the course of his peregrinations that Mrs Slee had installed herself in the dining-room, which apparently served for kitchen as well, and had turned the pretty little drawing-room, opening into a shady verandah and perfect wilderness of a garden, into a very sparsely furnished bed-room.
“That will do,” said the vicar. “I suppose I can get some furniture in the town?”
“Oh, yes, yow can get plenty furniture if you’ve got t’money. Only they wean’t let yow have annything wi’out. They don’t like strangers.”
“I dare say I can manage what I want, Mrs – Mrs – What is your name?”
“Hey?”
“I say, what is your name?”
“Martha,” said the woman, as if resenting an impertinence.
“Your other name. I see you are a married woman.”
He pointed to the thin worn ring on her finger.
“Oh, yes, I’m married,” said the woman, bitterly; “worse luck.”
“You have no children, I suppose?”
“Not I.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Sorry? I’m not. What should I have children for? To pine; while their shack of a father is idling about town and talking wind?”
“They would have been a comfort to you, may be,” said the vicar, quietly. “I hope your husband does not drink?”
“Drink?” said the woman, with a harsh laugh. “Yes, I almost wish he did more; it would stop his talking.”
“Is he a workman – at the foundry?”
“Sometimes, but Mr Dicky Glaire’s turned him off again, and now he’s doing nowt.”
“Never mind, don’t be downhearted. Times mend when they come to the worst.”
“No, they don’t,” said the woman, sharply. “If they did they’d have mended for me.”
“Well, well,” said the vicar; “we will talk about that another time;” and he took the two pieces of slag from his pocket, and placed them on the mantelpiece of the little study, where they were now standing.
“Some one threw them at yow?” said the woman.
“Yes,” said the vicar, smiling.
“Just like ’em. They don’t like strangers here.”
“So it seems,” said the vicar. “But you did not tell me your name, Mrs – ”
“Slee, they call me, Slee,” was the sulky reply.
“Well, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, “I have had a good long walk, and I’m very hungry. If I give you the money will you get me something to eat, while I go down the town and order in some furniture for this little room and the bed-room above?”
“Why, the Lord ha’ mussy! you’re never coming into the place this how!”
“Indeed, Mrs Slee, but I am. There’s half a sovereign; go and do the best you can.”
“But the place ought to be clent before you come in.”
“Oh, we’ll get that done by degrees. You will see about something for me to eat. I shall be back in an hour. But tell me first, if I want to get into the church, who has the keys?”
“Mr Budd” – Mrs Slee pronounced it Bood – “has ’em; he’s churchwarden, and lives over yonder.”
“What, at that little old-fashioned house?”
“Nay, nay, mun, that’s th’owd vicarage. Next house.”
“Oh,” said the vicar, looking curiously at the little, old-fashioned, sunken, thatch-roofed place. “And who lives there?”
“Owd Isaac Budd.”
“Another Mr Budd; and who is he?”
“Th’other one’s brother.”
“Where shall I find the clerk – what is his name?” said the vicar.
“Oh, Jacky Budd,” said Mrs Slee. “He lives down south end.”
“I’m afraid I shall get confused with so many Budds,” said the vicar, smiling. “Is that the Mr Budd who leads the singing?”
“Oh no, that’s Mr Ned Budd, who lives down town. He’s nowt to do wi’ Jacky.”
“Well, I’ll leave that now,” said the vicar. “But I want some one to fetch a portmanteau from Churley. How am I to get it here?”
“Mrs Budd will fetch it.”
“And who is she?”
“The Laddonthorpe carrier.”
“Good; and where shall I find her?”
