Chapter III: Part 3

A faint colour overspread the sallow cheek of the soldier’s mother, and there is no knowing how severe might have been her retort had not the long-expected form of the one-armed postman chanced to round the corner at this juncture, escorted by some five or six juvenile Blanchards.

As he drew near he was observed to fumble in his bag, and presently halted before the group of matrons, his face wreathed with smiles.

“I’ve got summat for ’ee to-day, Mrs. Stuckhey. Noos fro’ the front; a letter fro’ the soldier.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Susan, and her small black eyes twinkled as she thrust forward an eager hand.

The postman detached one letter from the packet which he drew forth from his bag, and, after it had passed from his possession, proceeded to tighten the string which was tied round the remainder, his teeth coming very deftly to the assistance of his fingers.

“He be with Buller, bain’t he?” he inquired, casting a sidelong glance at the mother as she hastily unfastened the envelope.

“E-es, he’s wi’ _Mr._ Buller,” corrected Mrs. Stuckhey.

“Mr. Buller! Be that what ye d’ call him?” and the postman’s keen eyes twinkled.

“Well, it do seem more respectful like for I. Joe, he do say the General; but it seems more natural for me to say Mr. Buller.”

“I thought it was Lord Buller,” observed Mrs. Blanchard doubtfully.

“Well, never mind; Buller’s enough for I,” said the postman. “Does your son chance to say if they’re pretty near Ladysmith now?”

His much-frayed string seemed somewhat knotted, and opportunities of hearing news direct from the front were sufficiently rare to justify a little extra care in disentangling it.

Mrs. Stuckhey drew forth and unfolded the missive, and her audience duly composed themselves. Even Mrs. Woolridge was conscious of a certain unwilling interest which she endeavoured to disguise by an attitude of indifference—head thrown back, nose screwed up, hands planted negligently on hips.

“My dear Mother,” read Mrs. Stuckhey, “It is with the greatest of
pleasure that I write these few lines hoping you are well as it
leaves me at present.”

This was merely the formula by which Soldier Joe, who was a person of some education, considered it necessary to inaugurate his letters; and the information which it ostensibly conveyed was not intended to be taken literally, as was proved by the fact that on one occasion this conventional statement had been immediately followed by the announcement that he was wounded and in hospital.

“I have got Back to the front Again and we are going to make another
start for Ladysmith before long.”

“Why, I thought they was close to Ladysmith by now,” interrupted the postman. “The papers said yesterday they was but eight mile away.”

“Ah, you can’t trust them papers,” said Mrs. Blanchard in a tone of conviction. “They do exaggerate, them papers; they just prints a lot o’ lies in ’em to make ’em sell.”

“Very like your son have made a mistake,” observed Mrs. Woolridge loftily. “Joe, he’s but young.”

“Well, it stands to reason as them that’s on the spot must know better what’s goin’ on nor them that’s miles an’ miles away,” retorted Mrs. Stuckhey with some heat. “This here noos comes direct.”

It did not seem to occur to any one that the tidings in question were three weeks old.

She fell to the reading of her letter again, spelling out the words slowly, and running the sentences one into another; indeed it might have been a little difficult to do otherwise, for Joe used capital letters impartially, and absolutely disdained stops.

“You may bet there won’t be no turning Back this time I hope you are
saving the Papers for me and I hope when Ladysmith is Relieved you
will hang out a Flag and give us Three cheers we deserve it I can
Tell you dear Mother when the bullets are whistling round you it is
not exactly Pleasant but they don’t like the cold Steel and I hope we
shall get near enough to give them that I should like a Dig at the
man what shot me give my best Love to Maria and Jane I Fancy you was
all thinking of me on Christmas day I hope you had Roast beef and
enjoyed yourselves we had only a Dirty old stew in hospital it will
be a Good day when I come home you must have a Ox ready and as many
spuds as would grow in the garden for two or three years dear Mother
I think there is no more this time give my love to all friends and
don’t Forget the Flag.

“From your loving son,

“JOSEPH STUCKHEY.”

“Ah!” commented the mother, wiping her eyes, “I d’ ’low we did think o’ him on Christmas Day. Maria—that’s my maid what’s in service at Bourne—she were here for her holiday; and Jane, my married daughter, you know, she come over wi’ her husband and childern. We’d ha’ been a merry party if Joe’d been here; but we did talk of him a’most wi’ every mouthful.”

The postman finished tying the last knot, and slung his bag round under his empty sleeve.

“I must be getting on,” he said. He would repeat items from Joe Stuckhey’s letter in the various villages through which he passed in making his round.

“Well, to be sure, ’tis nice to hear direct,” observed Mrs. Blanchard, slowly backing into her house, and almost tumbling over two of three of her offspring as she did so.

Mrs. Woolridge sniffed, scratched her elbows with an absent air, cast another frowning glance up the road, and finding her son was not in sight betook herself indoors.

The soldier’s mother went in too, sat down to her dinner—a cold one, for, being a washerwoman by profession, Monday was a busy day with her, and she would not waste time even in boiling herself a “spud” or two. She spread out Joe’s letter on the table and meditated over it while she ate.

“I’ll get a flag,” she said to herself. “E-es, I must get a little flag. And when my Joe do come back he shall have as good a bit of roast beef as I can buy, bless him!”

As she went about her work that day her gaze wandered, even more frequently than usual, to Joe’s portrait, which hung in a prominent position over the mantelpiece. This work of art had been presented by the young soldier to his mother soon after he had enlisted. He had not spared expense, and the result, though somewhat wooden in attitude and uneasy in expression, was eminently satisfactory to her.

While she wrung out her clothes or hung them on the line she crooned to herself the refrain of the popular ditty, “Tommy Atkins,” altering the name of the hero to suit her own taste:—

“Oh-h, Joey, Joey Stuckhey,
You’re a good one, heart and hand,
You’re a credit to your country,
And to all your native land.
May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true—

“And that it will, I’ll be bound; there never were a more lovin’ lad. How he did hug I, to be sure, afore he left last time.”

It will be observed that Susan’s reading of the line was not quite the same as that intended by the author of the song. She wiped her eyes, sighed, and resumed with renewed energy:—

“May your luck be never-failing,
May your love be ever true.
God bless you, Joey Stuckhey,
Here’s your country’s lo-o-o-o-ve to you!”

She threw so much expression into the last line that the word _love_ expanded into a polysyllable.

A few days later news flew round the parish that Ladysmith had actually been relieved; the authority vouched for being no less than that of her Majesty the Queen. The baker brought the news to Riverton. His eyes appeared ready to jump from his head with excitement as he made the announcement.

“You’ll be hearin’ bells a-ringin’ to-night,” he said. “Ah, they be runnin’ up flags all over the place a’ready. And they do say as they be a-goin’ to ’luminate.”

“Flags!” ejaculated Mrs. Stuckhey. “I must get a flag at once. I’ll start so soon as I’ve a-had my tea. I wish I’d a-got it afore; but my son—him that’s the only soldier here, you know, baker—he did say when he last wrote as they was but startin’ to relieve Ladysmith.”

“I can scarce believe as the noos be true,” observed pessimistic Mrs. Woolridge. “I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to get that flag if I was you.”

“Well, I should think the Queen ought to know,” retorted her neighbour with spirit. “I’m a-goin’ to get it, anyhow.”

“I’ll go along with ’ee, my dear,” cried Mrs. Blanchard, who was always ready for an outing. “I can’t afford no flags myself, but I’m sure I wish ’ee well, an’ am pleased at your son’s success. I’ve only got to give the childern their tea, and clean me a bit, and put on bonnet and shawl, and I’ll be ready.”

The baker’s cart jolted away and the two women hastened indoors. It took Mrs. Blanchard some time to complete her preparations, and it was past six o’clock by the time they reached the little town.

The market-place presented an unusually gay appearance: bunting floated from the church tower, the Corn Exchange, and all the principal buildings; rows of light were already appearing in many of the windows; groups of people stood about, laughing, talking, singing; many of them cheered as newcomers arrived upon the scene and were told the news.

Mrs. Stuckhey and her friend, having purchased the flag, attached themselves to one of the groups in question, and heard how the tidings had first come “down the line,” and how, subsequently, a telegram had arrived at the Royal George. Mrs. Stuckhey was in the act of expatiating on the information conveyed in her son’s letter when, with a mighty clang, the bells rang out.

“They’re at it,” cried a man, detaching himself from the knot of people the better to flourish his hat. “Three cheers for Buller and White. Hip—hip—hip—”

“Hurray!” roared the crowd.

Cling, cling, clang! chimed the bells.

Then all at once, no one knew how, the merry-making ceased, the cheerful jangling came to an end, the ringers loosing the ropes so suddenly that the bells continued to swing for some little time longer, sending forth occasional slow faint notes of most funereal sound. As anxious glances sought the church tower the flag was seen to have disappeared; moreover, it was observed that the kindred trophy which had proudly surmounted the Corn Exchange was being hauled down. What had happened—what was wrong?

The disappointing news soon flew from mouth to mouth: it was all a mistake. Ladysmith was not relieved after all. Someone had just telegraphed from London to say that there was no foundation for the report. The War Office had, in fact, declared it to be false.

“’Tis my belief as that there War Office don’t know so very much,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey, indignant in her disappointment. “When my son Joe was wounded they did send me a very nice letter, to be sure—Lord Lansdowne I believe it was from, and a beautiful hand his lordship do write—but he didn’t tell I nothin’ about it—not whether ’twas in his arm, or leg, or nowhere in partic’lar. So there, I just sent him a telegraft to ax how my son were, and he never took no notice. Don’t ’ee tell I as he knows what’s going forrard better nor the Queen.”

“Well, but they do say now as the Queen didn’t say nothin’,” said somebody ruefully.

The lights were being blown out, the flags removed; people were returning homewards. Mrs. Stuckhey, still unconvinced and irate, was constrained to follow their example, clutching her little sixpenny flag in its paper wrapper.

“Lard! how awful molloncolly that there bell do sound,” groaned Mrs. Blanchard dolefully. “Dear, to be sure, a body mid think as it were tollin’ for a funeral.”

“There, my dear, don’t ’ee talk so foolish,” responded Susan with some acerbity. “’Tis but the ringers as has left the ropes a-swingin’. I should be ashamed, Mary Blanchard, to go a-givin’ way like that, and you with all them childern, as ought to know better.”

“I be that nervish, d’ye see. Lard, I do feel shaky all over. I have a kind o’ porsentiment as summat have a-happened—that I have, and I can’t say no different, Mrs. Stuckhey, not if it be to please you.”

At this moment the pair were overtaken by a stout, elderly man, who, recognising them as he passed, turned to greet the person whom the news might be supposed to concern most nearly.

“Good evenin’ to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey; this here be very disapp’intin’, bain’t it?”

Susan responded with a little “dip,” for Farmer Joyce was the principal inhabitant of Riverton.

“E-es, sir, it be a bit disapp’intin’, I d’ ’low, but I reckon we’ll be hearin’ to-morrow as the good noos be true, and ’tis but the War Office what have made a mistake.”

“I dunno, I’m sure,” returned the farmer, heaving a deep sigh. “Them there Boers be a queer lot. I did never hear tell o’ sich folks. They do seem to be here, there, and everywhere, all at once as mid be—poppin’ up jist same as rabbits in warren. Ah,” he cried, delighted with his own simile, and anxious if possible to improve it, “it be jist same as if our troops were a-fightin’ o’ rabbits—rabbits wi’ guns,” he added with a chuckle.

“Well, my son do say as they don’t like the cold steel,” remarked Mrs. Stuckhey cautiously. “My son didn’t seem noways afeared on ’em. Says he, when he did last write, says he, ‘I should like a dig at the man what shot me’.”

“Ah, and did he?” said Mr. Joyce much impressed. “Well now, that was a good sayin’. A dig! Haw, haw?” here the farmer came to a standstill in the road to laugh more at his ease. “He’d like to give him a dig, would he?—haw, haw!—I d’ ’low he would. And ’tis but nat’ral, d’ye see, Mrs. Stuckhey,” he continued more seriously as he rolled forward again. “Nobody couldn’t blame the chap for wishin’ to stick the man as put a bullet in en—they couldn’t, indeed. Ye can’t expect a soldier to turn the other cheek, can ye now? But them Boers be jist same as rabbits—’tis what I do say constant. But we’ll ferret ’em out, yet—haw, haw, haw!—we’ll ferret ’em out, won’t us? Good-night to ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey, and good-night to you, Mrs. Blanchard. We’ll be a-lookin’ for good noos soon.”

But the next war-news which came to Riverton was tragic. To the country at large, indeed, the glorious capture of Hlangwane Hill was a triumph, but among the killed on that day chanced to be Private Joseph Stuckhey, Riverton’s only soldier.

The blinds were drawn down in his mother’s little cottage, and friends and neighbours went in and out with dolorous faces. Who shall tell how the tidings were first broken to her, the faltering incredulous words she said, her bewildered grief?

A day or two after her home was made desolate Farmer Joyce, standing by his gate, happened to see her returning from the town, accompanied by Mrs. Blanchard, both of them burdened with a multiplicity of small parcels.

“Ah,” he said, greeting her with a groan of sympathy, “ye’ll ha’ been gettin’ o’ your deep Mrs. Stuckhey.”

“E-es, sir, I did have a few little things to get afore Sunday. There weren’t no sich hurry as usual when there be a death in th’ family—no funeral, you know. Dear, to be sure, it do seem so strange to think as there bain’t no funeral! ’Tis what d’ seem to come harder nor anything. If there were but a grave as I could ’tend to: if I could but ha’ done his last, Mr. Joyce. If it had but pleased the Lard to ha’ took him from me in England.”

“Nay, now, don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Stuckhey. They do say as the poor dead bodies be treated wonderful respectful abroad. E-es, they do say so, indeed; and if your son had a-died in England somewhere up the country as where his reg’ment mid be, you couldn’t ha’ done his last for en no more nor you can now. I’ve a-been told as there be some graveyards, Mrs. Stuckhey—and not so far away neither—as be just same as rabbit warrens; you wouldn’t never think there was no co’pses in them at all.”

“Dear, now, to think of that!” ejaculated Susan, almost forgetting her grief in her scandalised amazement.

“E-es, indeed, they telled I that. Things mid be worse, ye see. Not but what I do sympathise for ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey. It be a terrible visitation—an’ you a lone woman, and him your only son—I d’ ’low it be a terrible visitation. There bain’t a single person in Riverton village as don’t feel for ’ee.”

“Ah-h-h, ’tis true, sir, ’tis true,” put in Mrs. Blanchard, shaking her head. “There do seem to ha’ comed quite a gloom over the place since the sad noos come. E-es, I may say so, quite a gloom. And us as was all rej’ycin’ such a few days ago about Ladysmith, you know, as weren’t relieved at all. Dear, yes, how well I do mind it. I did say then, didn’t I, Mrs. Stuckhey? as bell sounded just same as if ’twere a-tollin’. Them was my very words, and I did go all shivery down my back and feeled quite nervish. ’Twas a token, I do r’aly believe. There was bell a-tollin’ o’ Wednesday as ’twere Monday poor Joe was killed.”

“Ah, dear, ’tis that what comes most cruel hard of all,” groaned the poor mother. “There was I laughin’ and talkin’ wi’ the rest, and my poor Joe stiff an’ cold.”

“E-es, indeed, Mrs. Stuckhey,” returned the farmer, winking away a tear from his own kindly eyes, “it do seem hard, I d’ ’low; the ways o’ Providence be oncomprehensible, as the Bible do say. I d’ ’low, this here do seem very providential.”

“I don’t think I’d ha’ minded so much if he’d a-been struck down after they’d won the victory, d’ye see,” went on Susan. “Nay, I could ha’ bore it better—I could have felt as his life weren’t took for nothin’; but to think as he were cut off when they’d only just started as he did tell I in his last letter. That they took en and shot en and ’tweren’t no use.”

“Nay, now, don’t ’ee say that, Mrs. Stuckhey, don’t ’ee go for to say that.” And Farmer Joyce brought down his fist emphatically on the low wall near which he was standing. “He gave his life for summat, you may depend. ’Twas in doin’ good work as he fell; and that there work ull go on, and ull end well, and your son ull ha’ helped to make it end well. Now, see here, this be the way to look at it. A wall’s a wall, bain’t it?” And he brought down his fist upon the coping again.

Both women, staring blankly at him, acceded to this incontrovertible statement.

“Well, and an army’s an army—ye’ll admit that.”

They admitted it.

“Well, and what be a wall made on? Stones or bricks. This here wall be made o’ stones. And what be an army made on? Men. Do ye take me? There wouldn’t be no wall if there weren’t no stones, and there wouldn’t be no army if there weren’t no men. And more”—raising his voice as he warmed to his subject—“there wouldn’t be no wall if some o’ them stones wasn’t laid underground for the foundations; and there wouldn’t be no army if there wasn’t no fightin’, an’ some o’ the men wasn’t killed. An’ ’tis my belief, Mrs. Stuckhey, as your Joe, what has got killed an’ been put underground, is one o’ the foundations o’ the British army. An’ when that there army marches into Ladysmith, as it be sure to do, your Joe ull ha’ done as much as any man to get it there.”

Poor Susan smiled and wiped her eyes, and held up her head with a sort of pitiful pride.

“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, for them words,” she said. “They be a’most the first bit o’ comfort I’ve a-had.”

“I’m sure Mr. J’yce do speak beautiful,” murmured Mrs. Blanchard admiringly. “There, I never heared the like, not without ’twas out of a noospaper. I’m sure it did ought to comfort ’ee, Mrs. Stuckhey.”

“Nay, now, ’tis nothin’ to speak on,” returned Mr. Joyce modestly. “My mind do seem to turn to them parodies easy like. D’ye mind about the rabbits? ‘Rabbits wi’ guns,’ says I. Haw, haw! I can scarce tell how them notions do come to my mind.”

“It be wonderful, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “As I do tell Mrs. Stuckhey, it ought to comfort her, poor soul. Mrs. Stuckhey have just been a-layin’ out five-and-sixpence for something rather partic’lar—haven’t ’ee, my dear? I d’ ’low Mr. J’yce ’ud like to see what you’ve got in that there parcel.”

“He be welcome, I’m sure,” said Susan, wiping her eyes again and sniffing.

She drew from under her cloak a round object carefully enveloped in tissue paper.

“I’d like to show it to ’ee, sir, if I mid make so bold. There, I got me this wi’ a few shillin’ I’d been a-layin’ by for to make a kind o’ little feast for my son when he did come home. I wasn’t never expectin’ as he wouldn’t come home, ye know; there did seem to be so many of ’em a-fightin’.”

Poor mother! while her Joe had lived he had been for her the only soldier; now that he was dead her thoughts dwelt ceaselessly on the vast size of the army of which he had formed a part, and it seemed to her strange and hard that while thousands were spared her _one_ had been stricken down.

While she spoke she had removed the paper wrappers, and now held up to Mr. Joyce’s admiring, yet somewhat doubtful gaze, a large china wreath, such as may frequently be seen in village churchyards, composed of stiff white roses and conventional leaves.

“It be a beauty, Mrs. Stuckhey,” said the farmer hesitatingly. “There, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an ’andsomer one. But I’m wonderin’ how ye mean to manage about it, seein’ as, so to speak, there bain’t no grave—not handy, I mean. There be a grave, as I telled ’ee, and an honoured grave—the grave o’ the British soldier; but it wouldn’t be”—he coughed delicately—“convenient for ’ee to put wreaths on, I’m afeared; nay, I’m afeared it wouldn’t be easy.”

“Lard, no, sir, I wasn’t a-thinkin’ o’ usin’ it for the grave. Even if I was to send it to the War Office I couldn’t trust ’em to put it on for me. And it wouldn’t be no comfort anyhow wi’out I could see it there. Nay, I be a-going to hang this round my son’s likeness; ’twill be a kind of a memory of his grave as I can’t see it.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Joyce, deeply moved.

Poor Susan had begun to weep again, and Mrs. Blanchard was not slow to follow her example. They moved away together, and presently, entering Mrs. Stuckhey’s house, proceeded to hang the wreath over poor Joe’s picture. After much hammering of tacks and knotting of string the task was completed, and the dead soldier’s chubby boyish face greeted all beholders through its white garland.

“’Tis beautiful, I’m sure,” exclaimed Mrs. Blanchard, falling back a little and speaking in a tone of almost awestruck admiration. “The uniform, you know, and the goldy frame, and the white flowers—I never seed anything so handsome.”

“’Tis his due,” said Mrs. Stuckhey, and she was conscious of a return of the glow of pride with which she had, a little time before, listened to the farmer’s allegory, and with that pride came a faint vague sense of comfort: at least her hero was honoured.

The poor must be up and doing; not theirs is the luxury of nursing grief. Though Susan Stuckhey’s heart might be sore, and many hot tears might drop into the suds as she bent over her wash-tub, her clients’ clean clothes must be sent home. She could not manage, however, to be quite so prompt as usual this particular week, and it chanced that on the Thursday—contrary to all precedent—she was hanging up some of the finer garments on her line to dry, when she was startled by what seemed to be the sound of an explosion.

“They be blastin’ up yonder,” she said to herself, and went on with her task. But the sound was repeated several times, and the neighbours began to come to their doors and to look towards the town, whence the sound proceeded.

“It do seem like firin’,” said Mrs. Blanchard with placid interest.

By-and-bye, a lad came tearing down the lane, waving his hat and shouting.

“’Tis relieved!” he cried. “Ladysmith be relieved! ’Tis true this time. It be wrote up in the town ‘Official noos’. They be firin’ a cannon near the Royal George, and the flags is up, and there’s to be a procession this evenin’, and every one’s goin’ mad for joy!”

Mrs. Stuckhey’s knees shook under her; she dropped the handkerchief which she had been pinning up, and covered her face with her hands.

“There, don’t ’ee take on,” said Mrs. Blanchard, commiseratingly. “Ye’d be like to feel it, I know; dear, yes, ’tis to be expected.”

“Well, now, I should think Mrs. Stuckhey ought to be glad,” said Mrs. Woolridge, surveying the washerwoman critically from her doorstep. “There be mothers’ sons in Ladysmith so well as anywhere else; ah, sure there be. Many a woman’s heart has been a-breakin’ thinkin’ of ’em starvin’ and famishin’ there. ’Twouldn’t bring your son back a bit more if they was to perish o’ hunger. You ought to be glad like the rest of us.”

“I am glad,” gasped poor Susan; and with that she turned, leaving her basket, and went into her house.

Her gaze, blurred though it was with tears, instantly sought Joe’s portrait, and the honest goggle eyes of the picture looked back, as it seemed to her, with infinite sadness.

“Ladysmith is relieved,” they seemed to say; “the victory is won—and I was not there.”

When presently the door creaked slowly open and Mrs. Blanchard entered, moving unwieldily on tip-toe, she found Susan seated by her steaming wash-tub with her apron thrown over her head.

“Don’t ’ee fret, my dear,” she said soothingly. “There isn’t one in the village as don’t sympathise for ’ee; and we do all feel as our own j’y bain’t full, so to speak. There, we do say to ourselves: If our own soldier was wi’ the others how proud we mid be!”

Mrs. Stuckhey did not answer, but pressed her apron more closely to her face with her trembling hands. Poor hands—seamed and sodden and, as it were, pock-marked from perpetual immersion in the suds; knotted and distorted by hard and heavy work—what a tale they told of privation and of toil!

“I don’t agree wi’ Martha Woolridge,” went on the visitor after a pause. “’Tisn’t fair to say as you have no feelin’ for the poor folks as was shut up over yonder. ’Tis but nat’ral you should be sorry your Joe didn’t have no hand in it.”

Susan jerked down her apron, and her eyes flashed beneath their red and swollen lids.

“Who says he didn’t have no hand in it?” she cried. “He did have a hand in it! Didn’t ’ee hear what Farmer Joyce did say? My son Joe were one o’ the foundations o’ the army.” She rose as she spoke and crossed the kitchen, her small figure dignified, even majestic.

She fumbled in the old-fashioned chest of drawers and drew forth a paper packet. Returning, she laid it upon the table, casting, as she did so, a glance at once severe and resolute upon the astonished Mrs. Blanchard; then, taking her sweeping-brush from behind the door, she proceeded with much deliberation to knock off its head.

“In the name o’ fortun’, Susan Stuckhey,” ejaculated her friend, “what be you a-goin’ to do?”

“You’ll see for yourself in a minute,” returned Susan; and, armed with the broom-handle and the little parcel, she went upstairs.

Mrs. Blanchard went out, backing away from the house, and fixing her eyes wonderingly, almost incredulously, on Susan’s upper window. Following the direction of her glance, Mrs. Woolridge and a few other women who had meanwhile gathered together gazed also expectantly upwards. Presently the latticed casement was thrown open and a sudden gleam of blue and scarlet fluttered over their heads.

“Bless me, woman, whatever are you at?” cried Mrs. Woolridge in shocked and horrified tones. “Ye don’t mean to say as you can have the heart—”

Susan’s resolute face looked forth a moment above her waving banner.

“I be a-doin’ what my son Joe did tell I to do. I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to win!”

And when, later in the day, the town band paraded gaily through the village with a large following of enthusiastic patriots dancing, shouting, singing, the little mother strove valiantly to fulfil the second part of poor Joe’s behest—to give the three cheers for which he had called. But though she ran to her gate when the crowd first came in sight, and waved her arm above her head, only a strangled sob broke from her when she strove to raise her voice. But at sight of the small figure in its mourning dress, the little cotton Union Jack waving gallantly from the upper window of the dead soldier’s home, a sudden hush fell upon the musicians and their followers, and they passed the house in silence with bared heads and reverent tread.

And perhaps this tribute of respect was paid less to the emblem of their country’s greatness, less even to the memory of the poor young hero who had laid down his life for its sake, than to the brave little woman who stood unflinchingly at her post, and who felt her heart beat high with sacred triumph though the tears were raining down her face.

[Picture: “I be a-hangin’ out a flag for the victory as he’ve a-helped to
win!”]

A RUSTIC ARGUS.

IT was evening; most of the inhabitants of the old-world village were standing about their doorways, and a few of the more energetic were at work in their tiny patches of garden. It was noticeable that those among the men who had not betaken themselves to the allotments leaned in lordly fashion against their door-posts or lolled over the garden hedge, deeming, no doubt, that they had already borne their share of the burden of the day, and that such trifling supplementary labour as watering cabbages or tying up carnations might well be left to the women-folk.

Mrs. Fripp seemed to accept this state of things without protest. She was a stout woman, and the weather was warm. She had been busy all day at her wash-tub, and she groaned as she bent her bulky person over the flowers that would keep slipping away from her large, moist fingers just as she had deemed they were secure.

“Drat it!” she murmured under her breath, as a beautiful bloom slid from its stick for the fourth time.

“They be ticklish things,” observed Mr. Fripp from his station in the doorway, without taking the trouble to remove his pipe, and speaking in consequence somewhat indistinctly. “Ah, they be ticklish things. They d’ take a dale o’ patience.”

“That they do!” agreed his spouse heartily, standing upright, and straightening her broad back. She looked half absently up and down the sloping village street, which lay deep in shadow, save at the uppermost end, where the gables of the thatched houses were bathed in the evening glow, the light falling full upon the whitewashed chimney-stack of the little hostelry known as the “Pure Drop,” and creeping downwards along the irregular line of roofs until it terminated abruptly just where Mrs. Fripp’s wash-house jutted out into the street. Seen thus at this mystic hour there was much beauty about the little hamlet, which, indeed, at any time had a quaint charm of its own. The eaves of many of the roofs sloped downwards at certain points almost to the ground, overhanging here a mullioned window, and bulging out there into a minute and fantastically shaped gable. Creepers clung close to the whitewashed walls, hollyhocks stood in many a homely garden with the stateliness they might better have assumed in the pleasaunce of a queen; pigeons bowed and cooed on the sunlit apex of russet roof or golden stack; children played about the doorsteps or made pies of the dust in the road.

But Mrs. Fripp gazed on these things indifferently, her glance having fixed itself on a tall, angular woman’s figure which was at that moment travelling slowly towards her.

“’Tis never Mrs. Adlam steppin’ this way—come to look after Susan, I d’ ’low. Them two girls hey been gossipin’ in there this hour an’ more.”

“It’ll be about Tom Locke, I’ll warrant, that they’re a-talkin’,” agreed her lord, the black pipe wagging with every word, and being sucked at the conclusion of the sentence with evident relish. “Aye, aye; maids will get talkin’ about sweethearts an’ that. ’Tis naitral at their age, an’ this accident o’ pore Tom’s is oncommon onfart’nate. Good-day, Mrs. Adlam, ’tis powerful warm, ’tis, surely.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Mrs. Adlam hurriedly and abstractedly. “Good-day to ye, Mr. Fripp. Is Susan within?”

“Aye,” said Mr. Fripp, without moving his form from the door-post, “she’s sittin’ a bit wi’ our Lizzie. Our maid’s jest foldin’ a few clothes for her mother to iron to-morrow, an’ Susan’s sittin’ wi’ her.”

“Ah, neighbour, your Lizzie’s wonderful handy, they say,” responded Mrs. Adlam—without enthusiasm, however. “Now, my maid’s that delicate an’ nervous like, she’s no use at all at home, I may say. I’ve had to have doctor to her times an’ times, but ’tis no manner o’ use. She can’t do many things for herself, pore maid; an’ she can scarce abear to see me a-doin’ of ’em. ’Tis a nesh flower, neighbours. Why, she d’ run out o’ the room when I put our bit o’ beef of a Sunday to the fire, an’ she d’ very near faint if I go for to skin a rabbit.”

“Well, to think on’t!” said Mr. and Mrs. Fripp together, commiseratingly, but admiringly, too. Such a constitution as Susan’s was felt to be a credit to any village.

“Ah, ’tis a nesh flower,” repeated the mother with a kind of fretful triumph. “Laist time Doctor Richmond come I explained to him as well as I could how she be took, an’ I says to him: ‘Could you tell me, sir,’ says I, ‘what ’tis as ails my daughter?’ An’ he looks at me so earnest as he could, an’ he said ’twas—oh, a terrible long name—it always slips my mind, but it’s awful long. Wait a bit; I’ll have it in a minute. Ye mind that climbin’ tree as runs round the corner o’ the ‘Pure Drop’? It do have blue blossoms in the spring-time, hangin’ down summat o’ the natur o’ laburnum. You know, Mrs. Fripp—so fond of flowers as you be.”

“Aye, we had wan at my father’s place—he was gardener, ye know—I d’ call it to mind, now. Westonia, that’s what it be called. Nay, now; westeria—that’s it.”

“Ah, that’s it,” agreed Mrs. Adlam; adding, with impressive solemnity, “Well, that’s what’s the matter wi’ my Susan.”

“Very like,” assented Mrs. Fripp, who was an imaginative woman. “’Tis but a pore nesh thing, that creeper—never has no leaves till ’tis well-nigh done flowerin’.”

“Such fancies as she d’ take even in the way o’ courtin’,” resumed Mrs. Adlam. “Says she to me once: ‘Mother,’ says she, ‘don’t you count on me ever gettin’ wed, for I assure ye I abhor mankind.’”

“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mr. Fripp, much startled and infinitely scandalised. “’Twas an unnait’ral thing for a maid to say, sure. Never heard o’ such a thing. I be sorry for ye, Mrs. Adlam, that I be.”

“She takes them notions out o’ the books that she d’ read when she be porely,” returned the mother, apologetically. “Ah, that’s where she gets ’em; but I do assure you, neighbours, them was her very words. I don’t notice her no more than if she was a child. I did think a few months ago, in spite of all, that she’d be gettin’ settled so comfortable as she could be. Tom Locke ’s a good, studdy young chap, earnin’ a good bit, now. He’ll be havin’ the farm, too, when his father dies. But the maid is so upset about that accident, I don’t know whatever to do wi’ her. I thought she’d get over the feelin’ about his losin’ that eye; but it laisses so strong as ever. He came to our place this evenin’, an’ she did jump up an’ run straight away here. He’ve a-been waitin’ an’ waitin’, pore young man, but at laist he gets up, an’ says he: ‘I’ll go, Mrs. Adlam. Will ’ee tell Susan that if she wants to see me again, she can meet me up the lane at the wold place on Sunday?’”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fripp, gazing thoughtfully up the street again, and then suffering her glance to revert to Mrs. Adlam’s lean, anxious face, “’tis terrible hard for ’ee, ’tis indeed. I’m sorry for pore Tom, yet ’tis an awk’ard thing for a girl to wed wi’ a man as has but one eye. An’ Susan being so bashful an’ tewly seems to make it worse. Does he look terrible bad, Mrs. Adlam?”

Mrs. Adlam considered. “One side looks much the same as ever,” she said. “Aye, one eye’s jest like it always was, but t’other side”—She paused. “Well, there’s no eye at all t’other side.”

“Doctor took it out, did he?” inquired Fripp, deeply interested. “Well, Mrs. Adlam, ’tisn’t so bad but it mid have been worse—we must comfort ourselves so well as we can. If keeper hadn’t been by, an’ hadn’t out wi’s knife, same as he did, an’ took shots out o’ Tom’s eye at once, he’d very like have lost t’other one. As I say, it mid ha’ been worse.”

“Tom said jest now as doctor thought keeper’d ha’ done better to ha’ left his eye alone,” sighed Mrs. Adlam. “But there’s no tellin’—doctors is jealous folk; they can’t abear a body to do a thing for theirselves. Why, laist winter when I had the inflammation, an’ made mysel’ a drop o’ gruel wi’ rum in it to strengthen me a bit, Doctor Richmond was that vexed! Well, I must be goin’. Will ’ee call my maid, Mr. Fripp?”

The good man complied. Screwing his person a little sideways round the door-post, and turning his head over his shoulder, he bellowed forth, first the name of his own daughter and then that of Mrs. Adlam’s, at intervals of about a quarter of a minute, until there was a hasty banging of doors in the back premises, a patter of feet across the kitchen, and the two girls appeared simultaneously on the threshold. Susan Adlam, tall, fair, and blue-eyed, with the complexion of a rose-leaf, and hands so white that they told their own tale of selfishness and incapacity; Lizzie Fripp, dark, with a brown merry face, and a squat sturdy form. With a little more height and a little less breadth she might have been pretty.

“Oh, ’tis you, Mother,” said Susan, with a bashful wriggle. “Is Tom gone? I’m sure I hope he is. Don’t ask me to go home if he’s there, for I couldn’t abear to see en.”

Mrs. Adlam cast up her eyes to heaven, and then looked round with a certain melancholy pride.

“No, no! Come along, my dear, he’s gone; an’ I was to say if ye wanted to spaik to en again you was to meet en at the wold place o’ Sunday.”

“_I_ don’t want to see en again,” said Susan tossing her head.

“For shame!” cried little Lizzie. “I wonder at ye, Susan. The pore chap’ll break his ’eart. An’ what’s an eye, after all? ’Tisn’t real needful to a man—not like as if it was an arm now, so as he couldn’t work for ’ee, or a leg, so as he’d have to have a wooden un, an’ go _peggety-peg_ up church. Nay, now, there’d be raison if ’twas an arm or a leg—but a body can see as well wi’ one eye as wi’ two.”

“Hark to the maid!” cried Mr. Fripp, with a great roar of laughter. “She d’ spaik like print. Well done, little un!”

“Well, I’m not fond of one-eyed folks if you be,” cried Susan sarcastically. “I’d not have a man without two eyes, not if I was to bide single all my life. I’d as lief be single as not—I’ve no fancy for wedlock.”

“Dear, dear,” said Fripp, “’tis terrible to hear how onraisonable the pore maid d’ talk! Take her home, do, Mrs. Adlam, an’ make her lay down.”

“Come along then, Susan,” cried Mrs. Adlam with an air of chastened dignity; “come along, else you’ll be havin’ the westeria again.”

“Nay, now, Mother, ’tis _heasteria_ ye mean. Doctor said plain as the name of it was heasteria.”

“Lard, child, heast or west, ’tis all one. You come home wi’ me, do ’ee now, else you’ll be laid up.”

She drew one of the pretty white hands through her own bony arm and led her daughter gently away, supporting her with increasing solicitude, as the girl, conscious of attracting universal attention, began to limp and to stagger in the most interesting manner.

“Pore thing!” murmured Fripp commiseratingly. “She d’ seem to be falterin’. I d’ ’low ’tis a terrible visitation for Mrs. Adlam, ’tis surely. Well, Mother, let us give thanks where thanks be due. Lizzie, here, is a good set off to t’other one.”

“She’d better be,” retorted Mrs. Fripp, speaking loudly and decisively for Lizzie’s benefit. “I’d have no patience wi’ such goin’s on. I’d take a bit o’ broom-end to her instead o’ the doctor if I were Mrs. Adlam.”

“Well said!” chimed in a red-faced matron from the other side of the hedge. “It never does no good to spile childer. Says I to mine soon’s ever they grow up: ‘Now,’ I says, ‘I’ve gi’ed ye a good educassion, and now yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ I says.”

Though the education which the good lady in question had bestowed upon her progeny was known to be of a somewhat questionable order, and though the said progeny were by no means considered creditable to the community at large, the theory was so sound in itself that the Fripps agreed heartily; and the sentiment was endorsed by the village policeman, who for the last few minutes had been listening unobserved to the discussion.

“Ah,” he said, “that’s what I call straightfor’ard. ‘Yer claaws must keep yer jaaws,’ says you. If Susan Adlam had nothing to put into her mouth but what her ’ands got for her she’d starve, pore young craiture. But tis a very foolish business about Tom Locke. The young man’s a fine young man, doin’ well, an’ like to do better—an eye more nor less doesn’t alter his being a wonderful good match for the girl. But if she’s so set on his havin’ a pair, why doesn’t he get a mock un put in?”

“A mock eye!” exclaimed Mrs. Fripp in amazement. “My stars! I never heard tell o’ such a thing. You be jokin’ surely, policeman.”

“Nay, not I indeed. I knowed a man livin’ out Tipton way as lost his eye on account o’ a bit o’ blasted rock goin’ into it; an’ he went to Bristol an’ come back wi’ a beautiful new un—ye’d scarce know it from his own, only it were a deal handsomer.”

“D— my eyes!” murmured Mr. Fripp, not with any intentional profanity, but because the expletive seemed peculiarly adapted to the circumstances.

“Ah, I knowed him well. Many a time he’s took out the glass eye to let me see it. ’Twas a wonderful invention, an’ it cost I believe a sight o’ money. He didn’t wear it every day, but he allus put it in o’ market-days an’ Sundays. Ah, ’twas a curious thing to see en o’ Sundays, lookin’ at parson so wide-awake wi’ the glass eye, while t’other maybe was as drowsy as yours or mine mid be.”

“Well I never!” murmured Mrs. Fripp. “Somebody ought to tell young Locke about it,” she added, as an afterthought.

“’Tisn’t exactly the kind o’ subject a body ’ud think o’ namin’ to the pore man,” said the policeman, who was a person of refined feelings. “To say ‘Good-day to ye, an’ why don’t ye get a glass eye?’ ’ud seem a bit strange. Well, neighbours, I must be movin’ on. ’Tis a pity for the pore chap; but we must feel grateful for him as Providence didn’t see fit to try en no worse.”

On the next Sunday afternoon, after Lizzie had cleared away the dinner things, and fed the chickens, and scrubbed the faces of her little brothers and sisters previous to their departure for Sunday School, she donned her white straw hat, with its big red rose nodding triumphantly from a commanding position just over the centre of her forehead, pinned a posy of carnations and jasmine and southern-wood in the bosom of her blue dress, drew a new pair of cotton gloves over her plump hands, and sallied forth up the street to call on Susan.

She found Mrs. Adlam with her Sunday gown pinned back over a striped petticoat, her sleeves rolled up as high as Sunday sleeves would go, and a further protection against possible accidents in the shape of a large-bibbed apron shrouding the remainder of her Sabbath glories, hard at work washing up.

“Good-day, Mrs. Adlam. I jest called round to see how Susan mid be.”

“Good-day, Lizzie. Susan’s very bad, thank ye. She’s layin’ on her bed upstairs. Step up if you like.”

Lizzie stepped up, and found her friend reclining outside her patchwork quilt, absorbed in the perusal of a “penny dreadful” of the most thrilling type. Lizzie approached the bed, clumping sturdily with her well-polished best boots.

“Bain’t ye agoin’ to see pore Tom?” she inquired, without wasting time on preliminaries.

Susan looked up, startled: she had just got to that point in the narrative when the heroine, drawing herself up to her full height, informed the villain that she would be sooner clasped by a serpent than permit herself to be degraded by his embrace.

“What? No, I’m not going to see Tom Locke. My nerves is much too upset. Ye did give me a jump comin’ in that way, Lizzie.”

“He’ll be waiting up there for you to spaik to en.”

“Well, ’tisn’t my fault if he do. I never axed en to. I’m real fainty an’ porely to-day, Lizzie; couldn’t so much as go to church. Sit down, an’ let’s talk a bit. I seed yer father lookin’ arter me t’other night; I was walkin’ so queer, wasn’t I? I expect he thought I was lookin’ real bad.”

“No, I’ll not sit down,” said Lizzie. She planted her umbrella on the floor, and stared at the other girl for a moment without speaking.

“If he was to get another eye would ye look at en then?” she remarked at length, abruptly. “A mock un, I mane. They can be had easy, Policeman Blanchard says. No good to see out of, ye know, but jest to look at.”

“Oh, Lizzie, what a tale! He was makin’ fun o’ you.”

“No, he wasn’t. ’Twas to father he said it. He said he knowed a man Tipton way as had un—rale ’andsome—’andsomer nor his own. He wore it Sundays an’ ’olidays, an’ took it out week days for fear o’ accidents.”

“Well,” said Susan, consideringly, “if Tom were to get un perhaps I could forget it were a mock un; but he’d have to wear it always, that he would, else I couldn’t make believe ’twere real.”

“Well, I’ll go an’ tell en that. If he gets a real nice one ye’ll think on’t, won’t ye, Susan?”

“I dunno; I’ll see,” said Susan provisionally.

Lizzie marched towards the door without another word.

“’Tis a funny notion, though, yer takin’ it up like that,” cried Susan, suddenly awaking to the fact. “Be ye really goin’ to en now?”

“Yes, I be,” replied Lizzie, without turning her head; and down the stairs clattered she, and out into the air.

Leaving the village behind she ascended a steep, stony path, which led across a curious and antiquated bridge, and presently found herself in a shady lane bordered on both sides by high banks, where the hedgerows had long escaped all control of man, and grew in a wild and most picturesque tangle. Here thorn and gorse and wild apple crowded upon each other; golden maple was thrown into relief by the sturdier green of the elder; there the clustering berries of a guelder-rose, already turning red, made a wondrous patch of colour, while the tiny, soft-shelled hazel nuts shone out from the deep green leaves like pearls; over all the traveller’s-joy had flung its wealth of delicate blossom and clinging tendril, now swinging proudly from the topmost bough of a tall sapling, now creeping low amidst the brambles and the bracken. A yellow-hammer called to a brother occasionally from some swaying twig; little speckled half-fledged robins hopped along the path in front of Lizzie, taking occasional short flights when she came inconveniently near, but returning to peer up at her with large, yellow-rimmed, curious eyes.

Lizzie noticed none of these things. Had she had a mind to gaze upon the beauties of the prospect, she would have peered through the gaps in the green ramparts down to the plain, and away past the cultivated fields and the silver windings of the river to the distant roofs and chimney-stacks of the market town. One could obtain a beautiful view of the new brewery from here; the brickwork looked as red as red, and one could see the smoke rising from the great chimney. Ah, that was a view worth looking at; so all the villagers said, and Lizzie agreed with them.

But to-day she stared straight in front of her, with eyes as round and curious as those of the robins themselves; eyes which had, moreover, an alarmed expression entirely lacking to those of the bold, sociable little birds in question. Her heart was beginning to beat rather fast, and she was conscious of increasing trepidation as she drew near the trysting-place.

At a turn of the lane she could see a pair of long legs thrust out from a recess in the bank; then a hand idly brandishing a stick; at length a head moving amid the clustering leaves. When the rapid _clump_, _clump_ of her thick-soled boots reached his ears, the man rose quickly and came towards her. A tall, loose-limbed, young fellow, with a fringe of dark beard and whisker round his brown face; his hat was pulled rather forward over his brows, and his one remaining eye looked eagerly and anxiously towards the approaching figure.

One glance told him that the sturdy form was not that of his sweetheart, and he turned away, whistling to himself to hide his disappointment, and swishing absently at the wayside grasses. He expected the rapid steps to pass on; but, to his surprise, they slackened as they drew near, and then abruptly ceased.

“Good-day to ’ee, Mr. Locke.”

“Ah,” said Locke, “it’s Lizzie Fripp. Good-day, Lizzie, good-day.”

He turned unwillingly as he spoke. Though not by nature a sensitive man, he felt a little diffident as to the impression which his new disfigurement was likely to create when first beheld by a stranger.

“Ye be waitin’ for Susan?” said Lizzie, staring hard for a moment and then averting her eyes. “She’s—she’s not able to come to-day.”

“I thought as much,” said Tom gloomily. “I’ve been sittin’ here two hour an’ more. Did she send ye to me?” he added suddenly.

“No, I came myself. I wanted to tell ’ee somethin’, Mr. Locke,” blurted out Lizzie tremulously. “I d’ ’low that if you was to get a glass eye Susan ’ud love you jest the same as ever.”

A dark flush overspread the young farmer’s face, and a flash of anger appeared in his solitary orb.

“Did she tell ’ee to say this?” he asked, after a pause.