Part 8 (2/2)

'So we pooked him back into the middle of the brook, an' we saw he went round the elber 'thout balkin', an' we walked quite a piece beside of him to set him on his ways. When we couldn't see no more, we went home by the high road, because we knowed the brook 'u'd be out acrost the medders, an' we wasn't goin' to hunt for Jim's little rotten old bridge in that dark--an' rainin' Heavens' hard, too. I was middlin' pleased to see light an' vittles again when we got home. Jim he pressed me to come insides for a drink. He don't drink in a generality, but he was rid of all his troubles that evenin', d'ye see? ”Mother,” he ses so soon as the door ope'd, ”have you seen him?” She whips out her slate an' writes down--”No.” ”Oh, no,” ses Jim. ”You don't get out of it that way, mother. I lay you _have_ seen him, an' I lay he's bested you for all your talk, same as he bested me. Make a clean breast of it, mother,” he ses. ”He got round you too.” She was goin' for the slate again, but he stops her. ”It's all right, mother,” he ses. ”I've seen him sense you have, an' he won't trouble us no more.” The old lady looks up quick as a robin, an' she writes, ”Did he say so?” ”No,” ses Jim, laughin'. ”He didn't say so. That's how I know. But he bested _you_, mother. You can't have it in at _me_ for bein' soft-hearted. You're twice as tender-hearted as what I be. Look!” he ses, an' he shows her the two sovereigns. ”Put 'em away where they belong,” he ses. ”He won't never come for no more; an' now we'll have our drink,” he ses, ”for we've earned it.”

'Nature-ally they weren't goin' to let me see where they kep' their monies. She went upstairs with it--for the whisky.'

'I never knowed Jim was a drinkin' man--in his own house, like,' said Jabez.

'No more he isn't; but what he takes he likes good. He won't tech no publican's hogwash acrost the bar. Four s.h.i.+llin's he paid for that bottle o' whisky. I know, because when the old lady brought it down there wasn't more'n jest a liddle few dreenin's an' dregs in it. Nothin'

to set before neighbours, I do a.s.sure you.'

'”Why, 'twas half full last week, mother,” he ses. ”You don't mean,” he ses, ”you've given him all that as well? It's two s.h.i.+llin's worth,” he ses. (That's how I knowed he paid four.) ”Well, well, mother, you be too tender-'carted to live. But I don't grudge it to him,” he ses. ”I don't grudge him nothin' he can keep.” So, 'cardenly, we drinked up what little sup was left.'

'An' what come to Mary's Lunnon father?' said Jabez after a full minute's silence.

'I be too tired to go readin' papers of evenin's; but Dockett he told me, that very week, I think, that they'd inquested on a man down at Robertsbridge which had poked and poked up agin' so many bridges an'

banks, like, they couldn't make naun out of him.'

'An' what did Mary say to all these doin's?'

'The old lady bundled her off to the village 'fore her Lunnon father come, to buy week-end stuff (an' she forgot the half o' it). When we come in she was upstairs studyin' to be a school-teacher. None told her naun about it. 'Twadn't girls' affairs.'

'Reckon _she_ knowed?' Jabez went on.

'She? She must have guessed it middlin' close when she saw her money come back. But she never mentioned it in writing so far's I know. She were more worritted that night on account of two-three her chickens bein' drowned, for the flood had skewed their old hen-house round on her postes. I cobbled her up next mornin' when the brook shrinked.'

'An' where did you find the bridge? Some fur down-stream, didn't ye?'

'Just where she allus was. She hadn't s.h.i.+fted but very little. The brook had gulled out the bank a piece under one eend o' the plank, so's she was liable to tilt ye sideways if you wasn't careful. But I pooked three-four bricks under her, an' she was all plumb again.'

'Well, I dunno how it _looks_ like, but let be how 'twill,' said Jabez, 'he hadn't no business to come down from Lunnon tarrifyin' people, an'

threatenin' to take away children which they'd hobbed up for their lawful own--even if 'twas Mary Wickenden.'

'He had the business right enough, an' he had the law with him--no gettin' over that,' said Jesse. 'But he had the drink with him, too, an'

that was where he failed, like.'

'Well, well! Let be how 'twill, the brook was a good friend to Jim. I see it now. I allus _did_ wonder what he was gettin' at when he said that, when I talked to him about s.h.i.+ftin' the stack. ”You dunno everythin',” he ses. ”The Brook's been a good friend to me,” he ses, ”an' if she's minded to have a s.n.a.t.c.h at my hay, _I_ ain't settin' out to withstand her.”'

'I reckon she's about s.h.i.+fted it, too, by now,' Jesse chuckled. 'Hark!

That ain't any slip off the bank which she's got hold of.'

The Brook had changed her note again. It sounded as though she were mumbling something soft.

THE LAND

When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald, In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field, He called to him Hobdenius--a Briton of the Clay, Saying: 'What about that River-piece for layin' in to hay?'

And the aged Hobden answered: 'I remember as a lad My father told your father that she wanted dreenin' bad.

An' the more that you neeglect her the less you'll get her clean.

Have it jest _as_ you've a mind to, but, if I was you, I'd dreen.'

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