Baring-Gould Sabine
The Broom-Squire
CHAPTER XXXV
THE ONLY CHANGE
Jonas Kink, after much objurgation and persuasion, had induced old Clutch to leave his stable at Guildford, and return home by way of Godalming.
But the horse was unfamiliar with the road. He had been ridden along it in reverse direction in the morning, but, as every one knows, a way wears quite a different aspect under such circumstances. Old Clutch was mistrustful. Having been taken such an unprecedentedly long journey, he was without confidence that his master might not prolong the expedition to a still further distance. Accordingly he was exceedingly troublesome and unmanageable on the road from Guildford, and his behavior served to work the temper of Jonas to the extremity of irritability.
The horse, on approaching Godalming, began to limp. Bideabout descended, and examined each hoof. He could see no stone there, nothing to account for the lameness of old Clutch, which, however, became so pronounced as he entered the street of the little town that he was obliged to stable the beast, and rest it.
Then he went direct to the offices of a small attorney of the name of Barelegs, who had been engaged on his business.
As he entered the office, Mr. Barelegs looked up from a deed he was reading, turned his head, and contemplated his client.
There was something in his manner that angered Jonas, already excited and inclined to be annoyed at trifles, and he said irritably, —
"You look at me. Mister Barelegs, just as does old Clutch when I come into the stable, expectin' a feed of corn, he does."
"And no doubt he deserves it."
"He thinks he does, but he don't."
"And no doubt he gets his feed."
"There is doubt about it. He gets it when I choose to give it, not when he glowers at me – that way, he's wonderful artificial is old Clutch."
"I dare be sworn, Mr. Kink, if he has served you well, he expects to be paid for it."
"He's an owdacious old Radical," observed Jonas. "Just now he's shamming lame, becos I rode him into Guildford, and he likes the inn here. There's an old broken-winded, galled gray mare, I reckon he's set his fancy on in the same yard, and I'm pretty sure this lameness means nothin' more nor less than that he wants to be a-courtin'. To see them two hosses, when they meet, rubbin' heads, is enough to make a fellow sick. And Clutch, at his age too – when he ort to be thinkin' of his latter end!"
"We've all our little weaknesses, Mr. Kink, man and beast alike.
You courted – not so long ago."
"I never courted in the ridic'lous fashion of other folks. I'd none of your yardin', and aiblen' to aiblen', and waistin'."
"What do you mean, Mr. Kink?"
"Don't you know the three stages o' courtin here? Fust o' all, the young pair walks each other about a yard apart – that's yardin'. Then they gits more familiar, and takes each other's arms. That's wot we calls in these parts aiblen' to aiblen', and last, when they curls their arms round each other, won'erful familiar, that's called waistin'. No, I never went through none o' them courses in my courtship. I weren't such a fool. But I was tellin' you about old Clutch."
"I want to hear about that party. What if he does not receive his feed. Doesn't he kick?"
Jonas laughed ironically.
"He tried that on once. But I got a halter, and fastened it to his tail by the roots, and made a loop t'other end, and when he put up his heels I slipped one into the loop, and he nigh pulled his tail off at the stump."
"Then, perhaps he bites."
"He did try that on," Jonas admitted, "but he won't try that on again."
"How did you cure him of biting?" asked the solicitor.
"I saw what he was up to, when I was a-grooming of him. He tried to get hold of my arm. I was prepared for him. I'd slipped my arm out o' my sleeve and stuffed the sleeve with knee-holm (butcher's broom), and when he bit he got the prickles into his mouth so as he couldn't shut it again, but stood yawnin' as if sleepy till I pulled 'em out. Clutch and I has our little games together – the teasy old brute – but I'm generally too much for him." After a little consideration Bideabout added, "It's only on the road I find him a little too cunnin' for me. Now he's pretendin to be lame, all 'long of his little love-affair with that gray hoss. Sometimes he lies down in the middle of the road. If I had my fowlin' piece I'd shoot off blank cartridge under his belly, and wouldn't old Clutch go up all fours into the air; but he knows well enough the gun is at home. Let old Clutch alone for wickedness."
"Well, Mr. Kink, you haven't come here to get my assistance against old Clutch, have you?"
"No," said Bideabout. "That's gospel. I ain't come here to tell about old Clutch; and it ain't against him as I want your assistance. It is against Iver Verstage, the painter chap at Guildford."
"What has he been doing?"
"Nuthin'! that's just it. He's made treasurer, trustee, or whatever you're pleased to call it, for my baby; and I want the money out."
"Out of his pocket and into yours?"
"Exactly. I don't see why I'm to have all the nussin' and feedin' and clothin' of the young twoad, and me in difficulties for money, and he all the while coaxing up a hundred and fifty pounds, and laying of it out, and pocketin' the interest, and I who have all the yowls by night, and the washin' and dressin' and feedin' and all that, not a ha'penny the better."
"How does this person you name come to be trustee for the child?"
"Becos his mother made him so; and that old idjot of a Simon Verstage, his father, goes and makes the sum bigger by addin' fifty pounds to her hundred, so now there's this tidy little sum lies doin no good to nobody."
"I cannot help you. You cannot touch the principal till the child is of age, and then it will go to the child, and not you."
"Why! that's twenty-one years hence. That's what I call reg'lar foreright (awkward); and worse than foreright, it's unreasonable. The child is that owdacious in the cradle, I shouldn't be surprised when he's of age he would deny me the money."
"The interest will be paid to you."
"What is that – perhaps sixpence in the year. Better than nuthin', but I want the lot of it. Look you here, Master Barelegs, I know very well that I owe you money. I know very well that unless I can raise two hundred pounds, and that pretty smart, I shall have to mortgage my little bit of land to you. I don't forget that. But I daresay you'd rather have the money down than my poor little bit of lean and ribby take out o' the common. You shall have the money if you'll help me to get it. If I can't get that money into my fingers – I'm a done man. But it's not only that as troubles me. It is that the Rocliffes, and the Snellings, and the Boxalls, and Jamaica Cheel will make my life miserable. They'll mock at me, and I shall be to them just as ridic'lous an object as was Thomas Rocliffe after he'd lost his Countess. That's twenty-three years agone, and he can't get over it. Up comes the Countess Charlotte on every occasion, whenever any one gets across with him. It will be the same with me. I told 'em all to their faces that I had got them into my power, and just as the net was about to snap – then the breaking of the bank upset all my reckonings, and spoiled the little game – and what is worse, has made me their sport. But I won't stand no nonsense from old Clutch, nor will I from them."
"I confess I do not quite understand about this money. Was it left by will?"
"Left by will right enough," answered Bideabout. "You see the old woman, Sanna Verstage, had a bit of property of her own when she married, and then, when it came to her dyin', she set to write a will, and wanted to leave a hundred pounds to the little twoad. But she called up and consulted Simon, and he sed, 'Put on another fifty, Sanna, and I'll make that up. I always had a likin' for Matabel.' So that is how it came about as I've heard, and a hundred pound came out of her estate, and Simon made up the other fifty. And for why – but to spite me, I dun know, but they appointed Iver to be trustee. Now, I'm in difficulties about the land. I reckon when I'm dead it will go to the little chap, and go wi' all the goodness drained out of it – acause I have had to mortgage it. Whereas, if I could touch that money now, there'd be nothing of the kind happen."
"I am very sorry for you," remarked the lawyer. "But that bequest is beyond your reach so long as the child lives."
"What's that you say?"
"I say that unless the poor little creature should die, you cannot finger the money."
"And if it did die, would it be mine?"
"Of course it would. By no other way can you get it, but, please
Heaven, the child may grow to be a strong man and outlive you."
"It's wonderful weakly," said Jonas, meditatively.
"Weakly in the cradle is sturdy at the table," answered the solicitor, slightly altering a popular maxim.
"It's that peevish and perverse – "
"Then it takes after its father," laughed Mr. Barelegs. "You can't complain of that, Kink."
The Broom-Squire took his hat and stick and rose to leave.
Mr. Barelegs stayed him with a wave of the hand, and, "A word with you further, Mr. Kink. You gracefully likened me, just now, to your horse Clutch expecting his feed of oats after having served you well. Now I admit that, like Clutch, I have spent time and thought and energy in your service, and, like Clutch, I expect my feed of oats. I think we must have all clear and straight between us, and that at once. I have made out my little account with you, and here it is. You will remember that, acting on your instructions, I have advanced money in certain transactions that have broken down through the unfortunate turn in your affairs caused by the failure of the Wealden Bank. There is a matter of two hundred, and something you owe me for payments made and for services. I daresay you are a little put about now, but it will be useful to you to know all your liabilities so as to make provision for meeting them. I will not be hard on you as a client, but, of course, you do not expect me to make you a present of my money, and my professional service."
Jonas took the account reluctantly, and his jaw fell.
"I dare say," pursued the solicitor, "that among your neighbors you may be able to borrow sufficient. The Rocliffes, your own kinsmen, are, I fear, not very flush with money."
"Ain't got any to bless themselves with," said Jonas.
"But the Boxalls are numerous, and fairly flourishing. They have probably put away something, and as neighbors and friends – "
"I've quarrelled with them. I can't borrow of them," growled
Bideabout.
"Then there are the Snellings – "
"I've offended them as well."
"But you have other friends."
"I haven't one."
"There is Simon Verstage, a warm man; he could help you in an emergency."
"He's never been the same with me since I married Matabel, his adopted daughter. He had other ideas for her, I fancy, and he is short and nasty wi' me now. I can't ask him."
"Have you then, really, no friends?"
"Not one."
"Then there must be some fault in you, Kink. A man who goes through life without making friends, and quarrels even with the horse that carries him, is not one who will leave a gap when he passes out of the world. I shall expect my money. If you see no other way of satisfying me, I must have a mortgage on your holding. I'll not press you at once – but, like Clutch, I shall want my feed of oats."
"Then," said Jonas, surlily, as he turned his hat about, and looked down into it, "I don't see no other chance of gettin the money than – "
"Than what?"
"That's my concern," retorted the Broom-Squire. "Now I'm goin' to see whether old Clutch is ready – or whether he be shammin' still."
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT
Jonas found that old Clutch was not lavishing endearments on the gray mare over the intervening partition of stalls, but was lying down on the straw. Nothing said or done would induce the horse to rise, and the hostler told Bideabout that he believed the beast was really lame. It had been overworked at its advanced age, and must be afforded rest.
"He's a Radical," said the Broom-Squire. "You move that gray into another stable and Clutch will forget about his lameness, I dare swear. He's twenty-five and has a liquorish eye, still – it's shameful."
Bideabout was constrained to walk from Godalming to the Punch-Bowl, and this did not serve to mend his humor. He reached home late at night, when the basin was full of darkness, and the only light that showed came from the chamber where Mehetabel sat with her baby.
When Jonas entered, he saw by the rushlight that she was not undressed, and heard by her voice that she was anxious.
"The baby is very unwell, Jonas," she said, and extending her hand, lit a tallow candle at the meagre flame of the rushlight.
As the wick flared, so did something flare up in the face of the
Broom-Squire.
"Why do you look like that?" asked Mehetabel, for the look did not escape her.
"Main't I look as I choose?" he inquired surlily.
"It almost seemed as if you were glad to hear that my poor darling is ill," complained she.
"Ain't I glad to be home after bein' abroad all day a-wackin', and abusin' of old Clutch, and then had to walk from Gorlmyn (Godalming), and the aggravation of knowin' how as the hoss be shakin' his sides laughin' at me for doin of it. Wot's up with the kid?"
"I really cannot tell, Jonas; he's been restless and moaning all day. I have not been able to get him to sleep, and I am sure he has had one or two fits. He became white and stiff. I thought he'd a-died, and then my heartstrings were like breaking."
"Oh, drat your heartstrings, I don't care to hear of them. So, you thort he was dyin'. Perhaps he may. More wun'erful things happen than that. It's the way of half the babies as is born."
"It will kill me if mine is taken from me!" cried Mehetabel, and cast herself on her knees and embraced the cradle, regardless of the sprigs of spiked leaves she had stuck round it, and burst into an agony of tears.
"Now look here," said Jonas; "I've been tried enough wi' old Clutch to-day, and I don't want to be worreted at night wi' you. Let the baby sleep if it is sleepin', and get me my vittles. There's others to attend to in the world than squawlin' brats. It's spoilin' the child you are. That's what is the meanin' of its goings-on. Leave it alone, and take no notice, and it'll find out quick enough that squeals don't pay. I want my supper. Go after the vittles."
Mehetabel lay in her clothes that night. The child continued to be restless and fretted. Jonas was angry. If he was out all day he expected to rest well at night; and she carried the cradle in her arms into the spare room, where the peevishness of the child, and the rocking and her lullaby could not disturb her husband. As she bore the cradle, the sprigs of butcher's broom and withered chrysanthemums fell and strewed her path, leaving behind her a trail of dying flowers, and of piercing thorns, and berries like blood-drops. No word of sympathy had the Broom-Squire uttered; no token had he shown that he regarded her woes and was solicitous for the welfare of his child. Mehetabel asked for neither. She had learned to expect nothing from him, and she had ceased to demand of him what he was incapable of giving, or unwilling to show.
Next morning Mehetabel was prompt to prepare breakfast for her husband. The day was fine, but the light streaming in through the window served to show how jaded she was with long watching, with constant attention, and with harrowing care.
Always punctilious to be neat, she had smoothed her hair, tidied her dress, and washed the tears from her face, but she could not give brightness to the dulled eye or bloom to the worn cheek.
For a while the child was quiet, stupefied with weariness and long crying. By the early light Mehetabel had studied the little face, hungering after tokens of recovering powers, glad that the drawn features were relaxed temporarily.
"Where are you going to-day, Bideabout?" she asked, timidly, expecting a rebuff.
"Why do you ask?' was his churlish answer.
"Because – oh! if I might have a doctor for baby!"
"A doctor!" he retorted. "Are we princes and princesses, that we can afford that? There's no doctor nigher than Hazelmere, and I ain't goin' there. I suppose cos you wos given the name of a Duchess of Edom, you've got these expensive ideas in your head. Wot's the good of doctors to babies? Babies can't say what ails them."
"If – if – " began Mehetabel, kindly, "if I might have a doctor, and pay for it out of that fifteen pound that father let me have."
"That fifteen pound ain't no longer yours. And this be fine game,
throwin' money away on doctors when we're on the brink of ruin.
Don't you know as how the bank has failed, and all my money gone?
The fifteen pound is gone with the rest."
"If you had but allowed me to keep it, it would not have been lost now," said Mehetabel.
"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively, "but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like – and get a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown, and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and water, as they gives us."
Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed lids blue.
There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than a walk.
Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her trouble had long ago been quenched.
When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family, dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her treasure and laid it on her knees – the child was now quiet, through exhaustion.
"I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has been overlooked – ill-wished."
Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror.
"That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall. "Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast an evil eye on it."
The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind.
"Who has done it?" she asked below her breath.
"That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one who doesn't love the babe, that's sure."
"A man or a woman?"
Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant.
"A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left han' side."
Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless infant, now on her lap.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the child – though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone, and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it."
"I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the weather is too cold, baby too ill."
Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she sobbed forth —
"A little fish swims in the well.
So in my heart does baby dwell,
The king has sceptre, crown and ball,
You are my sceptre, crown and all."
She went home sobbing, and hugging her child, holding it away from the house of Sarah Rocliffe, lest that woman might be looking forth at her window, and deepen by her glance the spell that held and broke down her child.
Towards evening fall Jonas returned.
Directly he crossed the threshold, with palpitating eagerness
Mehetabel asked —
"Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes," he answered curtly.
"What did he say?"
"He'd got a pass'l o' learned names of maladies – I can't recollect them all. Tain't like as I should."
"But – did he give you any medicine?"
"Yes, I had to pay for it too."
"Oh, Jonas, do give it me, and tell me, are you quite sure you explained to him exactly what ailed baby?"
"I reckon I did."
"And the bottle, Jonas?"
"Don't be in such a won'erful hurry. I've other things to do than get that put yet. How is the child?"
"Rather better."
"Better!" he echoed, and Mehetabel, who looked intently in his face, saw no sign of satisfaction, rather of disappointment.
"Oh, Jonas!" she cried, "is it naught to you that baby is so ill?
You surely don't want him to die?"
He turned fiercely on her, his face hard and gray, and his teeth shining —
"What makes you say that – you?"
"Oh, nothin', Jonas, only you don't seem to care a bit about baby, and rather to have a delight in his bein' so ill."
"He's better, you say?"
"Yes – I really do think it."
There was an unpleasant expression in his face that frightened her.
Was it the eye of Jonas that had blighted the child? But no – Karon
Boxall had said that it was ill-wished by a woman. Jonas left the room, ascended the stairs, and strode about in the chamber overhead.
Swaying in her chair, holding the infant to her heart, the sole heart that loved it, but loved it with a love ineffable, she heard her husband open the window, and then hastily shut it again. Then there was a pause in his movement overhead, and he came shortly after down the stairs. He held a phial in his hand – and without looking at Mehetabel, thrust it towards her, with the curt injunction, "Take."
"Perhaps," said the young mother, "as my darling is better, I need not give him the medicine."
"That's just like your ways," exclaimed the Broom-Squire, savagely. "Fust I get no rest till I promise to go to the doctor, and then when I've put myself about to go, and bring the bottle as has cost me half-a-crown, you won't have it."
"Indeed – it is only – "
"Oh, yes – only – to annoy me. The child is ill. I told the doctor all, and he said, that this would set it to rights and give it sleep, and rest to all of us." He was in a bad temper. Mehetabel did not venture to say more. She took the phial and placed it on the table. It was not wrapped up in paper.
Then Jonas hastily went forth. He had old Clutch to attend to.
Mehetabel remained alone, and looked at the medicine bottle; then she laid the infant on her knees and studied the little face, so blanched with dark rings round the eyes. The tiny hands were drawn up on the breast and clasped; she unfolded and kissed them.
Then she looked again at the phial.
There was something strange about it. The contents did not appear to have been well mixed, the upper portion of the fluid was dark, the lower portion white. How came this about? Jonas had ridden old Clutch home, and the movements of the horse were not smooth. The bottle in the pocket of Bideabout must have undergone such shaking as would have made the fluid contents homogeneous and of one hue. She held the bottle between herself and the light. There was no doubt about it, either the liquid separated rapidly, or had never been mixed.
She withdrew the cork and applied the mouth of the phial to her nose.
The scent of the medicine was familiar. It was peculiar. When had she smelt that odor before. Then she started. She remembered the little bottle containing laudanum, with the death's head on it, in the closet upstairs.
Hastily, her heart beating with apprehension, she laid her babe in the cradle, and taking the light, mounted to the upper chamber. She possessed the key of the cabinet in the wall. She had retained it because afraid to give it up, and Jonas had manufactured for himself a fresh key.
Now she unlocked the closet, and at once discovered the laudanum bottle.
It was half empty.
Some of it had been used.
How had it been used? Of that she had little doubt. The dangerous, sleep-bringing laudanum had been put into the medicine for the child. It was to make room for that that Jonas had opened the window and poured forth some of the contents.
A drop still hung on the top of the phial.
She shut and relocked the cupboard, descended, with dismay, despair in her heart, and taking the bottle from the table, dashed it into the fire upon the hearth. Then she caught her babe to her, and through floods of tears, sobbed: "There is none love thee but I – but I – but only I! O, my babe, my babe! My sceptre, crown, and all!"
In the blinding rain of tears, in the tumult of passion that obscured her eyes, that confused her brain, Mehetabel saw, heard nothing. She had but one sense – that of feeling, that thrilled through one fibre only attached to the helpless, suffering morsel in her arms – the infant she held to her breast, and which she would have liked to bury in her heart away from all danger, concealed from the malevolent eye, and the murderous hand.
All the mother's nature in her was roused and flared into madness. She alone loved this little creature, she alone stood between it and destruction. She would fight for it, defend it to her last breath, with every weapon wherewith she was endowed by nature.
After the first paroxysm of passion was passed, and a lull of exhaustion ensued, she looked up, and saw Bideabout enter, and as he entered he cast a furtive glance at the table, then at the child.
In a moment she resolved on the course she should adopt.
"Have you given the babe the draught?" he asked, with averted face.
"Not all."
"Of course, not all."
"Will it make baby sleep?" asked Mehetabel.
"O, sleep – sleep! yes – we shall have rest for one night – for many,
I trust. O, do not doubt. It will make it sleep!"
