Part 11 (1/2)

”I am not,” said Antony smiling.

”Not got a maid at all?” queried the other.

Antony shook his head.

The man opened his eyes. ”Lord love 'ee, what do un want wi' a cottage, then! Yu'd best be takin' oop wi' a wife. There's a sight of vitty maids tu Byestry, and 'tis lonesome like comin' home to an empty hearth and no supper. There's Rose Darell, her's a gud maid, and has a bit o' money; or Jenny Horswell, her's a bit o' a squint, but is a fair vitty maid tu t'cleanin'; or Vicky Mathers, her's as pretty as a picter, but her's not the money nor the house ways o' Rose or Jenny,” he ended with thoughtful consideration.

Antony laughed, despite the fact that inwardly he was not a trifle dismayed. He had no mind to have the belles of Byestry thus paraded for his choice. Work, he had accepted with the conditions, but a wife was a very different matter.

”Sure, I'm not a marryin' man at all, I am not,” he responded, a hypocritical sigh succeeding to the laugh.

”Crossed?” queried the man. ”Ah, well, doan't 'ee go for to get down on your luck for one maid. There's as gud blackberries hangin' on t'bushes as ever was plucked from them. And yu'm tu young a chap tu be thinkin' o'

yurself as a sallybat, and so I tells 'ee.”

Antony smothered a spasm of laughter.

”It's not women folk I'm wanting in my life,” responded he, still with hypocritical gloom.

”Tis kittle cattle they be, and that's sartain, sure,” replied the other, shaking his head. ”But 'twas a rib out o' the side o' Adam the first woman was, so t'Scripture do tell we, and I reckon us men folk do feel the lack o' that rib nowadays, till us gets us a wife.”

Antony was spared an answer, a fact for which he sent up devout thanks.

They had made another leftward turn by now, and come upon a cottage set a little way back from the road,--a cottage with a wicket gate between two hedges, and a flagged path leading up to a small porch, thatched, as was the cottage.

”Here us be,” said the man.

Antony's heart gave a sudden big throb of pleasure. The little place was so extraordinarily English, so primitive and quaint. True, the garden was a bit dilapidated looking, the apple trees in the tiny orchard to the left of the cottage quite amazingly old and lichen grown; but it spelled England for him, and that more emphatically than any other thing had done since his arrival in the Old Country.

Antony dismounted from the trap, then lifted Josephus and his bag to the ground. This done, he began to feel in his pocket for some coins. The man saw the movement.

”That bain't for yu,” he replied shortly, ”t' Doctor will settle wi' I.”

And Antony withdrew his hand quickly, feeling he had been on the verge of a lapse.

”Here's t'key,” remarked the man. ”And if yu feel like a pipe one o'

these evenin's, yu might coom down tu t'village. My place is over opposite t'post office. I be t'saddler. Yu'll see t'name Allbut George over t'shop.”

Antony thanked Mr. Albert George, and then watched the patriotically named gentleman turn his horse, and drive off in the direction of the coast. When the trap had vanished from sight, he heaved a sigh of relief.

”Josephus,” he remarked, ”it will need careful practice and wary walking, but I fancy I did pretty well.” And then he opened the garden gate.

He walked up the little path, and fitted the key with which Allbut George had provided him, into the lock. He turned it, and pushed open the door.

It gave at once into a small but cheerful room, brick-floored, with a big fireplace at one side. An oak settle stood by the fireplace; a low seat, covered with a somewhat faded dimity, was before the window; there was a basket-chair, two wooden chairs, a round table, a dresser with some highly coloured earthenware crockery on it, a corner cupboard, and a grandfather's clock. There was a door behind the settle to the right of the fireplace, and, in the opposite corner, stairs leading to a room or rooms above.

Antony put his bag down on the table and went to investigate the door. It led into a tiny scullery or kitchen, provided solely with a small range, a deal table, a chair, a sink, and a pump. In one corner was a box containing some pieces of wood. In another corner was a galvanized bucket, a broom, and a scrubbing-brush. He glanced around, then came back into the sitting-room, and made his way to the stairs.

They led direct into a bedroom, a place furnished with a camp bed covered with a red and brown striped blanket; a small, somewhat rickety oak chest of drawers, a rush-bottomed chair, a small table, a corner washstand, and a curtain, which hid pegs driven into the wall. A door led into a small inner room over the kitchen scullery. Antony opened the door. The room was empty. Widow Jenkins had had no use for it, it would appear. Or, so Antony suddenly thought, perhaps all Widow Jenkins's furniture had been removed, and what at present occupied the place had been put there solely on his account.

He crossed to the window, and pushed it back. It looked on to a tiny vegetable garden, in much the same state of neglect as the front garden, and was separated from a field yellow with b.u.t.tercups by a low hawthorn hedge. Beyond the field was a tiny brook; and, beyond that again, a copse. There was not a sound to break the silence, save the dripping of the rain from the roof of the cottage, and, in the distance, the low sighing note of the sea. The silence was emphasized by the fact that for the last week Antony had had the hum of traffic in his ears, and had but this moment come from the noise of trains and the rattle of a shaky dog-cart.