Part 8 (2/2)

INTRODUCES WIDOW ROBERTSHAW

I have been having quite an exciting time lately. If you have never lived in a small hamlet of a hundred souls or thereabouts, with smaller tributary hamlets dropped down in the funniest and most unlikely places within easy walking distance, you do not know how very full of excitement life can be. Why, when I was living at No. 8 n.o.body displayed very much emotion when the jeweller at the end of the street suffered ”the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as the result of the undesired patronage of connoisseurs in diamonds; and even when we learned that the poor man had been found gagged and bound to his office chair and more dead than alive, the languid interest of the company was sufficiently expressed in the ”Hard luck!” of the gentlemen, and the ”What a shame!” of the ladies.

”That's the fire-engine,” someone would remark, as the horses dashed past to the clang of the warning bell; but we sent up our plates for a second helping of boiled mutton with never a thought as to the destination and fate of the brave fellows who might be about to risk their lives in a grim struggle with flame and smoke.

Murders and a.s.sa.s.sinations and suicides were discussed, if they had been conducted respectably, with the same air of commiseration as was employed when a fellow-boarder complained of headache; if they were not respectable we did not discuss them at all. It took a first-cla.s.s society scandal to really stir us, and then we gathered in groups and became thoroughly interested--the women, I mean, of course. The men were just as interested but not so ready to admit it, and professed to be debating politics. I sometimes wonder if what the Psalmist said in his haste might not have been affirmed more leisurely. However, that is nothing to the point; ordinarily, there is no denying the fact that we were bored, or perhaps I ought to adopt the modern expression and say ”blase.”

Here in Windyridge that word and its significance are unknown.

When old Mrs. Smithies' sow had a litter of seventeen pigs we all threw down our work and went across to congratulate her, and stopped each other in the street to discuss the momentous event, and to speculate on the difference it would make in that worthy lady's fortunes.

On the other hand, when old Woodman's dog, Caesar, was reported to have gone mad, we were wildly excited for the s.p.a.ce of one whole day, and spent our time in telling each other what dreadful things _might_ have happened if he had not been securely chained up from the moment the symptoms became ominous; and recalling lurid and highly-imaginative stories of men who, as the result of dog-bites, had foamed at the mouth, and had to be roped down to their beds. Which reminded someone else of the bull that old Green used to have, away yonder past Uncle Ned's, which went mad one Whitsuntide, and tore along the road three good miles to Windyridge, roaring furiously, and scattering the school children, who were a.s.sembled for the treat, in all directions; and badly goring this very dog Caesar, who had pluckily charged him.

This week's excitements began on Monday, when young Smiddles, who had been ”gas-acting,” according to his mother, ran his fist through the window-pane, and cut his arm very badly and even dangerously.

Smiddles' roaring must have rivalled that of old Green's bull, and, supplemented by his mother's screams, it served to rouse the whole village.

Smiddles' sister, a buxom young woman of plain appearance but sound sense, threatened to box the sufferer's ears if he did not ”stop that din,” and though much alarmed at the flow of blood, made some efforts to staunch it with her ap.r.o.n.

I had already gained an ill-deserved reputation for surgery, princ.i.p.ally on account of the possession of a medicine chest and an ”Ambulance” certificate, and my services were speedily requisitioned by the fleet-footed son of the next door neighbour, who bade me come at once, as ”Smiddles' lad” was ”bleeding to death on t' hearthstone.”

After I had prevented the realisation of this fatality by means of a tight bandage, and made the patient as comfortable as a sling permits, I despatched the mercuric youth to summon Dr. Trempest, as I was afraid some st.i.tches would be necessary, and went out to find the street buzzing with excitement, and my humble self regarded as only slightly less than super-human.

No sooner had this sensation died down than the village thermometer rose, two days later, to fever heat on the report that little Willie Jones had ventured to test the ice upon the huge water-b.u.t.t which occupied a slightly elevated position at the end of his father's house and was ”drownded dead for sure.”

Not a soul in the village knew what course to pursue under the circ.u.mstances, and every eager helper might have avowed with truth and sincerity that he had done the things he ought not to have done, and left undone the things he ought to have done; and it was fortunate for poor little Willie that my First Aid lessons had qualified me for dealing with an emergency of this kind.

Farmer Goodenough and I worked hard for an hour, and my arms ached with the effort, but at length the reluctant engine began to move, throbbing fitfully but with increasing strength; and hot flannels and heated bricks, with judicious but energetic rubbing, completed the treatment and brought life and colour back again, so that when the doctor arrived there was little left to be done.

I believe I was excited myself when it was all over, and if my head had not been fixed very solidly upon my shoulders it would certainly have been turned that day by the ridiculous and extravagant eulogies of my neighbours.

Then followed the great blizzard. I suppose our cousins across the water would have small respect for such an unpretentious specimen as we experienced, but to me it was a revelation of what old Mother Nature can do when she clenches her teeth and puts her hand to it.

A bright but grey sky overhung the earth when I set out soon after dinner for a brisk const.i.tutional, and I never for a moment antic.i.p.ated any change in the conditions. For some weeks past we had had alternations of frost and snow and thaw, and for several days the bare, brown earth had been frozen hard, and the roadway was furrowed as a field, with ice filling every rut and wrinkle.

It was an ideal day for a sharp walk, provided one's organs were sound and one's limbs supple, and though a thousand needles p.r.i.c.ked my cheeks and hands, and my ears smarted with the pinching they got, my whole body was soon aglow and I revelled in the encounter.

I took the downward road which winds slowly round to Marsland, and tried to discover the heralds of spring. On such a day everybody should be an optimist. I think I generally am as regards myself, whatever the weather may be like, but I must admit that so far I have had little cause for being anything else. It is only when I begin to dwell on the miseries of other people, and the wrongs which it seems impossible to put right, that the black mood settles upon me.

But on this particular day I felt on good terms with the world, and thought of the sunny days which lay ahead, and of the coming morning, when the heather bells would feel the warm breath of summer upon their face, and open their eyes in loving response to her kiss.

And here and there in the shelter of the hedges, and by the banks of the ice-bound stream where the bridge crosses it I found the heralds I sought--tiny shoots of green pus.h.i.+ng their way through the hard soil or the warm coverlet of faded leaves. By and by the icy fingers will have to relax their grasp, and the woods and hedgerows will be gay with the little fairy creatures, who dress so daintily in colours of a hundred hues for our enjoyment, and who smile, perhaps, to think what a limited monarchy King Frost maintains after all.

I am well known by now, and every farmer's boy who pa.s.ses me exchanges greetings, sometimes with a half-hearted movement of the hand in the direction of the cap, but oftener with the smile of recognition which betokens comrades.h.i.+p. For our relations are on the most cordial footing of strict equality; we are all workmen, each after his kind, servants of one Master; and if G.o.d gives us grace to use our opportunities as we ought we may all enter, even now, into the joy of the Lord. There is a vast difference, as I have learned, between servility and respectfulness, and I believe I am as much respected as the squire, though with less reason: and n.o.body is unduly deferential even to him.

The good women in the cl.u.s.ter of cottages down the lane waved their hands as I pa.s.sed, and a couple of maidens of tender years, one fair, the other with raven locks, ran out and seized each an arm, and escorted me a hundred yards along my way.

I sat on the bridge for a while at the foot of the hill, and it may have been the network of trees in the little wood which hid from my eyes the approaching storm. For with the suddenness of a panther it sprang upon me. There had been a fairly stiff breeze at my back, which had helped me along famously, taking toll of my ears for its fee, but now, as if its playful humour had been changed to madness, it lashed me mercilessly with knotted whips of frozen rain.

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