Old Dan’l was a character indeed, and for many years a mystery as well. He was a man of one object in life, and what that object was no one knew for thirty-five years.
He was by trade a tailor, and throughout the hours of daylight he sat cross-legged on his table near a very large window, viewed by all who passed along the road, but scarce looking away from his work to exchange a nod with a passer-by.
He shaved his face clean, that is to say he shaved it occasionally clean, but this was once a week only, on Saturday, and during the ensuing week a dusky shadow stole over cheek and chin that made Dan’l look anything but clean-shaved. He wore his hair short, but had thick and very protruding eyebrows.
He was a reticent man.
The tailor’s shop is often a place where many villagers congregate to have a chat, and the tailor is able to go on with his needlework in a mechanical fashion whilst conversing. But Daniel Coombe did not affect gossip and prattle; what he undertook he carried through with an almost grim persistency.
As the gamekeeper said: “Bless you, old Coombe, he do lay hold on and stick to a job just as a ferret do to a rabbit. There ain’t no gettin’ him to quit it.”
Coombe had a wife—the ugliest woman he could have picked up, but they lived contentedly enough together. They had no children. Had they possessed a family, a little more brightness and laughter would have entered into the household. Mrs. Coombe was a grumbler; she grumbled over her husband, over her house, over her work, over every thing and every person with which and with whom she was brought in contact. But Dan’l did not appear to mind it. He lived in a world of his own—his thoughts, his aspirations; and the mutter of discontent rumbled around him and rolled over his head, almost without his hearing it, certainly without his being moved by it.
No sooner was the sun set, and Dan’l could no longer ply his needle, than he put up his shutters. In these were two round orifices, and till late at night lamplight streamed forth into the road through these holes, that were as a pair of eyes glaring down the village street. What was he doing in his workshop at night? Certainly he was not cutting out and sewing. It was a well-known saying of his that with the set of sun was the set aside of work.
“I ain’t a-going to try my eyes and wear ’em out with needlework by lamplight,” said he.
Then what was his occupation after nightfall? Into his workshop he retired and bolted the door from within as soon as he had taken his evening meal.
Did he read? Was he a student of English literature? Was he a politician? He was no buyer of books, and subscribed to no other paper than the local weekly gazette.
It puzzled the parish. It roused curiosity. Then some boys climbed up outside the window to peer in through the holes in the shutters, but the noise of their scrambling, perhaps the appearance of their visages in the openings, showed Dan’l that he was having his privacy peered into, and before the urchins were able to observe what his occupation was, out went the lamp. He had extinguished it. The married women of the parish endeavoured to extract the secret from Mrs. Coombe; but she was either ignorant or uncommunicative.
“How should I know?” said she. “He has his megrims. I don’t meddle wi’ they. All I know is, he ain’t doing nothin’ as is good to nobody. But if it keeps him out o’ mischief and away from the public-house, naught I’ll say.”
Then the idea took hold that Dan’l was a wise man and could charm, stanch blood by his blessing, drive away warts, cure milk that would not turn to butter, and counteract ill wishes.
And to this he lent himself. He had not sought it. It was forced upon him. It might do good, he argued; it could do no harm. So his fame grew, and he was regarded with reverential awe. Whether he believed in his own efficacy as a healer, I cannot say; his gifts of healing were bruited about, his failures passed into the limbo of oblivion. He did not set store on his reputed powers, he rather disparaged them, or shrugged his shoulders and professed scepticism over them, and he always said: “Well, if good comes of it, it is not from me—you must know that—but from the great Healer of all. Some cures wi’ drugs, and some wi’ their touch. There are differences of administration.”
Dan’l Coombe was a regular churchgoer.
Woe betide the parson if, in preaching without a book, he quoted Scripture inaccurately. He became in time accustomed to find the tailor standing at the foot of the church steps awaiting him after service. Then would come the familiar touch of the hat, and, “I beg your pardon, sir, but did you not put in a the where there oughtn’t to be, in that there text from St. Paul to the Corinthians?”
Or else: “Please, sir, did you use the right word in that there quotation from the Acts?”
“Dear Mr. Coombe, I took the marginal rendering.”
“Oh, the margin. I don’t hold by that.”
Mr. Coombe was very much perplexed when the new version of the Scriptures was issued. It happily was not read in the parish church. I verily believe it would have driven him from it. “Nasty, lumpy thing,” he said; “it is like eatin’ bad-made porridge. Nothin’ smooth about it. Bits come in your mouth and teeth at every moment.”
He resented it as an immoral thing. “And to think,” said he, “that Christian money should ha’ been spent by Government out of our pockets to put this here stumbling-block in the way of the blind! It’s wicked, and I’ll vote against Government next ’lection.”
As already said, there had been an attempt made by scaling to peer in at the holes in Coombe’s shutter, to see him at his nightly occupation. It had failed. After that he pasted two pieces of oiled paper over the openings, and thus prevented any further observations being made.
So time went on, and his neighbours became accustomed to the two yellow eyes, and no longer actively concerned themselves about his doings, though still a good deal of puzzlement remained about his nightly doings.
“To my knowing,” said Mrs. Bacon to Mrs. Jones, “he had his lamp burning till half-past ten at night. Now he don’t burn a lamp all that time for the sake of wasting oil.”
“I’ll tell you something more,” said Mrs. Jones; “it isn’t oil only as he consumes, it is ink as well. He has bought ten penny ink-pots, and one wi’ red ink, at Miss Buck’s shop in a twelvemonth. What do he want wi’ so much ink? He can’t drink it.”
“He is writing a book. Take my word for it.”
“A book! What about? He don’t know nothing.”
“Poetry, perhaps. A man may write that with his head empty. Every fool knows that.”
“He don’t look like a poet—not when he’s unshaved.”
“I’ll tell you what—it may be his cures, and the way to strike wounds and white swellings.”
“Ah! there, that is more likely.”
And this purchase of penny pots of ink continued for thirty-five years. At the rate of ten a year, that would be three hundred and fifty pots of black ink. It was amazing. For what could he want so much ink? It was also ascertained that he sent by the carrier periodically to the market town for copy-books, and had them out in packets of a dozen at a time. What could he be putting into all those copy-books?
At last the mystery came out—not indeed to the whole parish, but into the ear of the rector was it revealed.
One Saturday evening the parson was informed that Mr. Coombe desired to speak with him very privately. The tailor was shown into the study. He brought with him a huge parcel strapped to his back.
Of this he relieved himself and placed it on the table.
“There, sir,” said he, “my life’s labour is accomplished. Now it is for the world.”
“What is it, Mr. Coombe?”
“You shall see, sir, you shall see. For thirty-five years have I been engaged on it every night. I have gone over the work most carefully three and four times, and I am quite certain that there is not an error in it. It has been my great labour to be strictly correct. I do not believe there is a the wrong. I began it thirty-five years agone last Friday, and last Friday I concluded it. Every man has his proper vocation and work to do. I found mine thirty-five years ago, and I have laboured at it unflaggingly since. It is done, and when the Lord pleases to call me, I shall be ready to go. But, sir—I don’t mean to deny it—I should ha’ been terrible sorry to ha’ submitted to be called away before I’d done the job.”
“I congratulate you on having accomplished what I am sure is a useful task. But what is it, Mr. Coombe?”
“You shall see, sir. You shall see.”
He went to his parcel and undid the string. There appeared an enormous pile of copy-books. He took from the heap two of them, and brought them to the rector.
“There, sir,” said he, “if you’d had this you would not have made—you’ll excuse my saying it—such a terrible lot o’ mistakes in quoting Scripture. It is, sir—IT IS—IT IS”—he raised himself and rubbed his hair up, then smoothed his fresh-shaven chin—“it is, sir, a dictionary of every word in Scripture, so that you have but to look out the word, and then you find where it comes in any book of the whole Bible.”
His face glowed with triumph.
“Just think, sir, what a boon to ministers of the Gospel! Just think what a help to teachers! How ever can English folk have got along for all this time without such an aid as this? It is better, sir, this, than conquering the Russians and taking of Sebastopol. It is grander this than Columbus discovering the New World. Now, what do you think, sir?”
“But, my dear Mr. Coombe——!”
“One moment, sir, and I shall have done. I intend to get it printed. It shall be ‘Coombe’s Dictionary of Bible Words,’ and will become a handbook in every library of God-fearing and Scripture-loving men and women. As for any profits from the sale, of that I care not—that’s no odds to me. It is the good it will do that I think of.”
“But, my dear Mr. Coombe——”
The rector rose and went to his shelf.
“The thing has already been done. Here it is: ‘Cruden’s Concordance to the Holy Scriptures.’ It was published in 1761, and has gone through innumerable editions since.”
The old man stood as though turned to stone.
“The thing already done!” he gasped.
The rector had no heart to say more. He bitterly regretted that he had blurted out the truth so abruptly.
“The thing already done! Thirty-five years spent for naught.”
Then he did up his packet again. But the tears dropped on it. This was to him a blow more crushing than he could bear.
He hoisted his parcel on his back, touched his forehead, but held the parson’s hand and wrung it, as speechlessly he left the house. His heart was too full for mere words.
The old man broke down rapidly after that. The object of his life was gone. The great ambition of his days was extinguished.
One day when he was being visited by the rector, as he lay on his death-bed, he said—
“Sir, I ha’ been thinking and worriting over my work o’ thirty-five years, and axing of myself whether it were all labour lost and time thrown away. It have fretted me terrible. But I seems to see now as it was not lost—not to me anyhow, for I got the Scriptur’ that into me that it became to me like the blood in my veins and the marrow in my bones—and it is my stand-by now.”
This is a sketch—no more—of a woman who was to me, and is still, a problem for a casuist to solve. How so, you shall hear in the sequel. But, to begin, you must know her life’s story.
Mary was, when a young married woman in a Cornish fishing-village, occupying a cottage at some little distance from the harbour. She must have been a fine woman then, she is fine in her old age.
“Ah!” said she, “you have been to Maker? Did you go about in a boat there?”
“Yes.” I had boated whilst staying in the place.
“And did you see the Lady Rock?”
“Yes, it was pointed out to me.”
“And the Dead Man’s Rock?”
“I think so.”
“Well, it is all along of the Lady Rock that I was a widow.”
“How so?”
“You have heard tell about the Lady?”
I had. The Lady is a little piece of white feldspar in a cliff that rises out of the sea, with a shelf before it, and this piece of quartz or feldspar bears a singular resemblance to the shape of a woman draped in white. Whenever the fishermen return with their trawls, they cast a few of the mackerel or herring they have caught on to the shelf before the White Lady, and, unless this be done, this oblation made, ill-luck will attend the fishermen on their next expedition; their nets will be caught and torn as by invisible hands in the deep, or no fish will enter the seines, or, worse still, the boat will capsize and possibly the fishermen on board will be drowned. The Dead Man’s Rock is another portion of cliff nearly horizontal, sometimes washed by the waves, and on this lies a mass of the same white spar, bearing something approaching the form of a corpse. But it demands more fancy to distinguish the corpse than the Lady.
“I will tell you the whole story, sir,” said Mary. “My husband, Thomas Trembath, was a fine standing-up man as you’d see anywhere. He was a fisherman, and a daring fellow. I don’t say he did not do a bit of smuggling now and then, but, lor’, sir! they all did, and if they didn’t, more shame to them, with their opportunities. Well, sir, I don’t say he was a Free-thinker, because he wasn’t, but he was a sort of no-thinker—no ways, if you can understand me. Well then, one day, as they was coming in after there had been a shoal, there was a lot of boats out that day, and as the boats went by, all the cap’ns threw a few whiting on to the ledge afore the Lady. But my Thomas he was a daring unconsiderate chap, and they’d caught a young dog-fish that day—the fishermen sometimes bring ’em home and gets a few pence by showing ’em, for they’re terrible mischievous beasts, and eat a lot of mackerel and whiting and just anything they can. Well, sir, will you believe it, when Thomas comes alongside of the Lady Rock, what did he do, in a fit o’ daring, but heave the dog-fish on to the shelf afore her!”
Mary paused and looked at me, expecting me to appear aghast at such an outrage.
“The other men, they was astounded and afraid after that—no man would go in the boat with him. And next time he wanted to go, they shook their heads, and said they weren’t going to court ill-luck. So Thomas—he was that reckless and regardless—he said he would go alone. And go alone he did. There was no wind and the sea was smooth—but he never came back. I reckon he alone couldn’t manage the boat and something went wrong. What it was I can’t tell—but he never came back. That’s what followed chucking of a dog-fish at the White Lady.”
After her husband’s death, Mary took to peddling. She was a middle-aged woman when I knew her, stoutly built, broad shouldered, with a hale and ruddy face; she wore short skirts, a man’s long greatcoat over her back, and a man’s hat on her head. Slung across her shoulder by a strap was a case that contained needles, thread, pins, and tape. She carried a staff, some four feet long, in her hand, not of bamboo but of ash, and she strode along the roads faster than a horse could walk.
There was not a farm, not a cottage within miles around, in which Mary was not known, and where she did not do business.
How she picked up a living on the things she sold was a marvel to me. The profits on each item can have been only small, and the amount of country she travelled over to sell these little articles was so great, that she must have worn out much shoe-leather.
She was abroad in all weathers and at all hours.
I said to her one day: “Why, Mary, are not you afraid in the lone lanes, at night?”
“Lor’, sir, not I. If there were a man as were imperent, I’d lay my stick across him, and he’d bite the dust. And as to spirits, I never meddles with them, and so they don’t meddle with me.”
“Spirits! Why, you never have the chance of interfering with their little games.”
She shook her head. “I won’t say that, sir,” she answered. “There’s queer things about at night, but I always gives ’em a good word and a text of Scriptur’, and they don’t hurt me.”
It used to be thought that a comet presaged war, that its tail tickled all the elements of irritation in the world and sent nations and kingdoms flying at one another. But this human comet, Mary Trembath, revolving in her elliptical orbits through the country, left peace and goodwill after her. She was an inveterate gossip, a chatterbox. She loved, when she had sold a paper of pins or a knot of tape, to sit and have a dish of tea and a bit of cake and talk, but never, so far as I am aware, did evil spring from what she said; on the contrary, she left those she had been with better disposed towards one another than they had been before.
A somewhat singular instance of this occurs to my memory.
There were two old ladies, spinsters both, who lived within a mile and a half of each other. One was the housekeeper to her brother, a farmer, who was a widower, and the other resided in a pleasant cottage of her own, surrounded by trees, smothered in laurels and snowberries that cut off sun and air, and made garden and house smell of mildew and moth. Now this old lady had a sharp tongue and a lively imagination, and had the credit of being a mischief-maker.
All at once a tremendous feud broke out between these spinsters. It involved more than themselves, their relations, their acquaintances also, in the village. Miss Spindle had said something very nasty and galling of Miss Shank that was absolutely untrue, but so injurious that Miss Shank vowed she would have the law of her.
Hearing of this, and finding the entire village agitated by the controversy, I tried to discover the truth—whether Miss Spindle really had spoken such cruel things of Miss Shank. I tracked the story from one to another, and found that gradually every objectionable expression and statement fell off en route as an assertion, and that what had actually been said was entirely harmless, for it was not said of Miss Shank at all, but of the shank-bone of mutton on which Miss Spindle had been making her meal. In fact, all this good lady had said was, that the shank had been served so often that it was becoming high and discoloured, and had best be hashed. Out of this a mountain of malignant insinuation and defamatory assertion had been evolved.
When I had got to the bottom of the story, I rushed off to Miss Shank to explain that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and ought to be put aside, and peace made. But the lady was furious; she turned on me as a mischief-maker and a meddlesome person for having dared to interfere. She knew that what Miss Spindle meant was to cast slurs at her, and she employed the mutton-bone as a subterfuge so as to avoid prosecution. There it was, worse than ever. I was out with one. I went to Miss Spindle. She was exasperated because Miss Shank had dared to believe that what she had spoken about the mutton applied to her, and she broke into a torrent of abuse of me for interfering in the matter.
There it was; I was out with the other.
As I retired disconsolately, I ran across Mary Trembath, and somehow, for my heart was full, I told her of my ill success.
“Leave it to me,” said Mary.
What was my amazement next Sunday to see Miss Spindle and Miss Shank embracing in the churchyard after service, and walking off arm-in-arm and chatting affectionately together!
How had this transformation in the women, this change in the situation, been brought about? Only with difficulty did I get at the bottom of it. Mary, whilst selling a hank of coloured wool to Miss Spindle, had contrived to hint to her that Farmer Shank, the widower, was terribly concerned over the quarrel, as he was actually much enamoured of the fair spinster who lived in the bower of laurels.
Then, Mary Trembath had gone to the farm of the Shanks, and had let out in confidence that Miss Spindle’s conscience so pained her over the mischief done, that she was sending for the lawyer to alter her will and make over Laurel Cottage and her few hundreds in the Three per Cents. to the woman she had so grievously injured.
When I learned this, I thought I would have it out with Mary. She pulled a face as I reproached her.
“Please, sir, I didn’t say it was so; I merely hinted such a thing might be. They jumped at the conclusion, and turned what might be into it is so.”
“But, Mary, it was not true.”
“How do you know that, sir?—all things are possible.”
That was Mary Trembath’s secret way of making smooth water wherever she went. She was not a deliberate liar, even for a good purpose; but she managed somehow to create impressions that served to bring quarrels to an end, to make people once indifferent to each other become fast friends, and to dispel pretty nearly every cloud that hung over a parish in which she peddled.
And now you will see how it is that, as I said, she provided me with a problem only a casuist can solve. Of course, it is never right to speak an untruth even for a good end. Mary was too conscientious to say straight out what was false, but she had a clever, subtle manner of bewildering people through her hints and suggestions, till she induced them to deceive themselves, and that always with a good object in view.
She was a peacemaker, eminently a peacemaker, but was she justified in the method she employed to make peace?
“Mother,” said John French, “you say that everybody has his place in the world, and his mission. I’d precious like to know what is Tim Slouch’s place and what his mission. It seems to me there never was such a chap for tumbling out of his place when he has got one, and bless’d if I know what good he can or does do, put him where you will.”
John French was a fine young fellow, the only son of a small farmer lately deceased, unmarried, who carried on the farm and was the pride of his mother.
Very much about the same time the Squire, who was riding round his estate to see how the planting was going on, what cottagers wanted repairs done to their roofs, torn by a late gale, what farmers needed additional sheds—for he was a man to see to these things himself—encountered the parson, who had been parishing. He drew rein.
“How d’ye do, rector? I say, I say. There is that Timothy Slouch out of work again. Upon my soul, I don’t know how the man could get on, were it not for Sela; and what the woman was thinking of when she took such a fellow—that beats my comprehension. They say that to every man there is a hole in the world into which he may be pegged, but that hole has not yet been found by Slouch.”
“I beg your pardon, Squire, he has found too many holes, and has never remained pegged into any one of them.”
“True, true. But, I say, I say. They must not starve. Though, bless my soul, a little starving might drive Timothy home into the first peg-hole that offers; but Sela—my wife has a great regard for her. So I have set the fellow a job.”
“And—what is that?”
“Well, I have given him the rhododendrons on the roadside and along the drives to peg down. It must be done, and now is the time. Surely he can do that. Fifteen shillings a week; and Sela picks up something.”
“I hear he has had notice to leave his cottage.”
“Yes—it is not mine, and—well, my agent has been peremptory with me. He says, ‘Give him work if you will, but I forewarn you it is throwing good money away; but do not get him rooted in the parish, or you will never be rid of him.’ ”
“Well,” said the rector, “he is not one of my sheep. He is in another parish, but Sela was—and why she married him——”
“Just what I say. But I say, I say—she was a poor girl, an orphan, and, I suppose, thought the man must find work, and would labour to maintain her.”
“And now she has to maintain him. Whatever can be the meaning of heaven in sending such men into the world?”
It was the rector who said that, and next moment he reproached himself for having said it.
Timothy—Slouch was not his surname, it was Luppencott, but every one called him Slouch, as expressive of the man, his walk and way, not only on the road and at his work, but throughout life’s course—Timothy had been brought up as a blacksmith, but had never advanced beyond blowing the bellows and hammering. He could do both, but not make a screw or bend a bar into a crook. All his experience had had no other effect than to convince his masters of his incapacity.
He lamed every horse he attempted to shoe, so that he was at once dismissed by the farrier to whom he offered his services. For a while he held a place as bellows-blower, at twelve shillings, but the blacksmith saw that he could get a boy at six who could do as well, and when Tim had the impudence to demand a full wage of fifteen the master dismissed him. “Tim,” said he, “I only took you on because I thought I might get some work out of you at the anvil. Why, confound you, you cannot even make a nail!”
Then Slouch heard that there was a new line being made at a distance, and he offered his services on that. As blacksmith he was not needed, but he was engaged as a navvy. But he did not remain long there; he was speedily dismissed. He did not arrive in time of a morning, he loitered over his work, and made other men loiter. What work he did, he did so badly that it had to be undone. So he came back, and brought no accumulation of wage in his pocket.
Next he offered himself to a blacksmith in a town distant ten miles, and was engaged. He kept the place about four months, returning to his wife every Saturday, and going back to his lodgings in the town on Sunday evenings. Then he was again out of work. He asked the Squire of the adjoining parish to give him employment. The reason why he was out of work was, said he, that what with the heavy rent he had to pay for his lodgings in the town, and what with the shoe-leather he wore out in his trudges to and fro, and on account of a sore foot, caused by an ingrowing nail on one of his toes, he was obliged to abandon his situation. Very likely this was all true, but it is also just as likely that the situation was closed up against him. His allegation was not inquired into. The Squire gave him his rhododendrons to peg.
“My dear,” said the Squire to his wife, “I think he cannot go wrong there—and for Sela’s sake we will give him the chance.”
Sela had been a poor girl who had attended to her mother, a widow confined for six years to her bed, or to a chair, and who had been maintained by the parish and such alms as were sent from the rectory and the hall.
When, finally, the mother died and Sela was left alone, she went into service at a farmhouse, where the mistress was somewhat of a termagant.
She did not long remain there, for Timothy Luppencott offered her his hand, his heart, and his hearth, and she accepted him. Sela had always been accustomed to poverty, and therefore did not shrink from the prospect of being the wife of a poor man. She had attended to a helpless mother; she found, when wedded, that she was tied to an almost helpless man.
Sela had been a good daughter, she was a good wife, and, in time, also a good mother. She had first one child and then another, and one of these proved rickety; very probably this was due to insufficiency of food. For Timothy when in work, and earning good wage, could not be relied upon to bring home a sufficiency for the support of his family. He was not a drunken man, but he went to the public-house, and he liked to enjoy himself. If there were a ploughing match, a harvest festival, a cricket match, a wild-beast show, a bazaar, Tim would be there. The work might go hang, he said, he must see the fun.
If Sela had seven shillings a week on which to clothe and feed herself and the children, she thought herself in luck’s way. When she was able she went out charing; but when the children arrived she could not do this, and then dire distress came on her.
She had been a particularly pretty girl, and she was a very sweet-looking woman, with great, soft brown eyes; but there was firmness about her lips.
Every one pitied Sela. She was as one born to trouble. She had a patient, suffering look about her brow and temples that told a tale of years of endurance and privation. But she did not murmur. She did not scold Tim. There was not the excuse for him, if he stayed at the tavern, that he was “jawed” at home.
“Really,” said the rector’s wife, “it is a satisfaction to give Sela any of the children’s old garments. She is wonderful with her needle. I did feel almost ashamed to let her have little Mary’s old school-dress, it was so frayed, so spotted, and so untidy. And will you believe it—her child was at church on Sunday in that identical gown! She had turned it, and contrived it in such a manner, that I could hardly believe my eyes. That is a woman to help, because every little help is put out to usury. But Timothy; oh, what a man he is!”
One Sunday, after service, the Squire awaited the rector as he left the church.
No sooner had the latter descended the avenue and the churchyard steps, than the Squire—without any other salutation than, “I say! I say!”—plunged into the matter that occupied his mind, and of which he desired to disburden himself.
“Rector, that Timothy Slouch.”
“Well, Squire?”
“I say—I say, you know that I set him the rhododendrons to pin down.”
“I know it.”
“Will you believe me—he has made a mess of the job.”
“I can believe a good deal of Slouch.”
“He has actually split them so as to get the refractory branches down, and where he has pegged, and not torn asunder, has done it so inefficiently that when his work is effected, in twenty-five minutes they have slipped their pegs out, and are erect as before.”
“How tiresome!”
“Yes, and he has half-ruined some of my choicest and most expensive varieties. He has riven and wrenched them about and knocked off the flowering buds. I was so angry I dismissed him. Not another day’s work shall he have from me. I am sorry—for Sela’s sake. But it cannot be helped.”
For three weeks Tim lounged about, said he was looking for work; but if he did, looked for it in the wrong quarters. Then he appeared before the rector—not of his own parish, but the parson whose wife had befriended Sela, and said that he had heard of work in South Wales. He had a cousin there who was in a colliery, and who wrote that there was always a place for a handy man, and above all for a blacksmith.
“Well,” said the rector hesitatingly—he saw what Tim was aiming at—“but exactly, are you the handy man?”
“I can turn my hand to anything. I have been in so many different situations. I have been blacksmith, and I have done farm-work, and recently, I may say, I have been a gardener.”
“I daresay you can turn your hand to anything, but can you keep it where turned?”
“One can but try. Luck so far has been against me. My notion is, sir, if you would draw me up a brief, I will try to collect money to take me to Wales, and when there and have got a situation, I will send for my wife and children to live there with me; one must first have a nest into which to put one’s doves.”
“Quite so. Well, we will give you one chance more.”
So the rector drew out a brief. It was cautiously worded; it contained a statement in accordance with Timothy’s representations.
Then he headed the subscription list with a pound. The Squire was next approached, and he gave thirty shillings, and his wife another ten.
Timothy spent a fortnight in rambling about the country asking for money, and he probably collected something like ten pounds.
Then off he started and was not heard of for a month. Inquiries were made about him from Sela. She had received no letter from him. Moreover, it leaked out that Slouch had carried away with him in his pocket all the money subscribed, and had not left a penny with his wife.
This made the neighbourhood very angry, the most angry were those who had not subscribed. Those who had, began to fear they had been hoaxed, but kept quiet; because no man likes to have it thought he has been imposed upon.
Presently, however, up turned Timothy. Work was slack in South Wales, he had been unable to find employ. The rector, very irate, sent for him, questioned him, and was convinced that the fellow had not been to Wales at all. He may have started with the intention of going there, that was all. The rector taxed him with it. Slouch was obliged, at last, to admit that he had not reached his destination. “You see, sir,” said he, “I got half-way and then heard such bad accounts, as hands was bein’ dismissed—that I thought it would be wasting money to go on.”
“Then you have brought some money back?”
“Well, no, sir, I can’t say I have. It comes very expensive travelling. But if your honour would be so good as to draw me up another brief——”
Then the parson flushed very red and bade the man be gone. Not another scrap of help should Slouch have from him.
And, indeed, Timothy found the whole district up in arms against him, and ready to kick him out of it, and would have done so—only that it pitied and respected Sela.
“Out he must go,” said the Squire. “He had notice to quit at Lady Day, and on Lady Day he goes and into no cottage of mine shall he come.”
Whither did he go? He wandered seeking shelter; every house was refused, till he came to John French.
A few hours later, Mrs. French exclaimed: “John! you don’t mean to tell me that you have let those good-for-naughts—the Slouches—into your cottage?”
“I have, mother, they cannot lie in the road under a hedge, and they were turned out to-day. Timothy has, at last, found an occupation—he is taken on to break stones for the road. He cannot go wrong in that. It is what any fool can do. As to the cottage, it is unoccupied, and has been for a twelvemonth. I have let him move his few sticks of furniture into it, and he is to pay me a weekly rent of a shilling. There is a bit of garden——”
“Which he will neglect.”
“Sela kept the garden where they were before, and she will attend to this. She has poultry.”
“Well—may you not regret it.”