Chapter Five.
The Round Robin.
And now that the white kitten was settled in its new home, the time was come for the departure of the grey one, and the day fixed when it should be taken to old Sally’s cottage. Maisie felt the parting a good deal, for it seemed to her that it was a very small weak thing to be sent out into the world to earn its living. It would have a very different life to Darkie and Blanche. They could dwell at ease, and need never catch mice except for their own pleasure; but the grey kitten had really hard work before it, and most likely would never be petted again after it left Fieldside. Maisie wondered whether the old cat, Madam, to whom she carefully explained everything, was at all worried and anxious about her children; but if so, she hid her feelings very well. Certainly she looked about a little after the white kitten had gone, and mewed once or twice in an inquiring sort of way, but she did not refuse comfort. On the contrary, when Maisie offered her some fish to distract her mind from her loss, she gobbled it up rather greedily, and even Darkie could not push his round head far into the dish.
“I expect,” said Maisie, “if Madam could choose, she’d much rather send Darkie away and keep the grey one; Darkie bothers her so.”
It was just after lesson time, and the children were making preparations to start with the kitten for old Sally’s cottage. Dennis was tying down the lid of a small hamper, and Maisie stood near, peeping through the crevices to see whether the kitten was comfortable.
“There,” said Dennis, as he tied the last knot; “I’m glad it’s we that have got to choose, and not Madam, I wouldn’t keep this mean-looking kitten for anything. Now Darkie will be a splendid cat.”
“Let me carry it,” said Maisie eagerly, and hugging the little basket with both arms, she followed Dennis rather sorrowfully out of the door which the kitten was not to enter again.
“I do hope,” she said on the way, “that they’ll be kind to it.”
“Oh, of course they will,” said Dennis; “don’t you remember old Sally said Eliza was quite silly over animals. That meant kind—extra kind.”
Old Sally and her daughter Anne were busy when the children arrived, for they had a job of work given to them by Mrs Solace, who wanted some old cushions re-stuffed. On opening these, they had found that feathers instead of down had been used, and they both had a great deal to say on the subject. It was, however, almost impossible to talk without coughing and choking, for their cottage was quite full of fluff and feathers floating about in the air. The children stood in the doorway, and explained their errand as well as they could.
“They’ve brought the kitten, mother,” screamed Anne.
Old Sally had just re-filled a cushion, and was holding it before her at arm’s-length.
“Is it fat enough?” she screamed back at her daughter.
“It isn’t fat at all,” said Maisie, who with Dennis was untying the hamper; “it’s a thin little kitten, but it’s very good.”
“Dear Miss Maisie,” said Anne, with a chuckling laugh, “it’s the cushion mother means, not the cat.”
What with old Sally’s deafness, and the increasing thickness of the air, in which the two old figures were dimly seen as through a woolly veil, conversation was really impossible. There were many questions Maisie would have liked to ask about the kitten’s future comfort, but she saw that they would be useless; so she contented herself with quietly saying good-bye to her favourite, and dropping a few secret tears over it. Dennis, however, had made up his mind to know one thing, and he advanced a little way into the cottage, and shouted: “Is Tuvvy at work to-day?”
Anne was seen indistinctly to nod in answer to this. “He’s got the sack, though,” she said. “He won’t be there not after next week.”
The blow had fallen! Both the children left the cottage in low spirits, and for some time walked along in silence; Maisie grieving for the kitten, and Dennis with his mind full of Tuvvy’s disgrace. He had so hoped Mr Solace would not send him away. And now the worst had come, and soon there would be no Tuvvy in the barn.
They had reached the middle of the rick-yard, and Maisie was casting her usual anxious glances round for the turkey-cock, when Dennis came to a sudden stop, and exclaimed:
“I know what I’ll do!”
“What?” said Maisie, looking at him inquiringly. She wished he would not stand still just there, but he spoke in such a determined manner that she knew it must be something important; so she stood still too, and waited for him to speak.
“I shall go and ask Mr Solace to let Tuvvy stop,” he said.
Maisie’s look changed to one of admiration, and almost of awe. “Shall you, really?” she said softly. “Do you think he will?”
“I don’t know,” replied Dennis, beginning to walk on very quickly, “but I shall try to make him.”
“But,” said Maisie, after a minute’s thought, “wouldn’t it be best to ask Tuvvy first to leave off having bouts?”
Although she was a girl, and younger than himself, Dennis was quite ready to acknowledge that Maisie had very sensible ideas sometimes. He now stopped again, and stared at her. It would certainly be better to get Tuvvy’s promise first, but he felt he must carry out the interview alone.
“Well,” he said slowly, “if I do, where will you wait? I couldn’t do it with you listening. Will you go back to old Sally’s?”
But that, Maisie, remembering the fluff, quite refused to do. She would go and see Mrs Solace, she said, and this being settled, she went towards the house, and Dennis turned to the barn where Tuvvy worked.
As he entered, and saw the familiar thin figure bending over the carpenter’s bench, he felt excited and nervous. How should he begin? As a rule, he did not talk much during these visits, and that made it more difficult now. He took his usual seat on a chopping-block near, and Tuvvy, after giving him one rapid sidelong glance, continued his work without speaking. He was making a ladder, and just now was arranging a heap of smoothly-turned rungs in neat rows. Dennis thought he had a rather shamefaced air, like the dog Peter when he knew he had done wrong. It was of no use to wait for him to make a remark, so he said carelessly:
“Is that going to be a long ladder?”
“Pretty tol’rable, master,” answered Tuvvy, his long lean fingers moving nimbly amongst the pieces of wood.
“Shall you finish it in a week?” was Dennis’s next question.
Tuvvy’s dark eyes flashed round at him for a second, but he only answered, “Pretty nigh.”
Dennis was silent for a little while. Then he gathered his courage for a great effort, for he felt that it was of no use to beat about the bush any longer.
“Mr Tuvvy,” he said, “I’m so sorry you’re going away.”
“Thank ye, master,” said Tuvvy; “so be I.”
“Why do you?” asked Dennis.
“’Cause the gaffer sacked me,” answered Tuvvy.
“But,” said Dennis, his courage rising, now that he had got into the thick of it, “he wouldn’t want you to go if he could help it. You’re a clever workman, aren’t you?”
“Folks say so,” answered Tuvvy modestly.
“Well,” said Dennis, “I mean to ask him to let you stop. Only you must promise me first not to have any more bouts.”
Tuvvy was so taken by surprise, that he stopped working and turned his whole face round upon Dennis, who sat, an upright little figure, on the chopping-block, with a flushed and eager face.
“Thank ye kindly, master,” he said, after a moment’s survey; “you mean well, but ’tain’t no use.”
“Why not?” asked Dennis, in a resolute voice.
“I couldn’t keep that there promise,” said Tuvvy, “not if I was to make it. There’s times when I can’t get past the Cross Keys; I’m drawed into it.”
“Why do you pass it, then?” asked Dennis.
“I don’t pass it, master, worse luck. I go in.”
“But I mean,” said Dennis, getting still redder in the face with the effort to explain himself, “why do you go by the Cross Keys at all?”
“Well, I have to,” said Tuvvy, “twice in the day. Once of a morning and once of a evening. I live at Upwell, you see, master.”
Dennis had never known or cared where Tuvvy lived, and indeed it hardly seemed natural to think of him in any other place than at work in the barn. It was odd to think he had a home in Upwell.
“Then,” he said thoughtfully, “you have to walk more than two miles each way.”
“All that,” said Tuvvy—“more like three.”
He bent over his work, and Dennis sat silent and rather despondent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. There was so little chance for Tuvvy, if he really could not pass the Cross Keys without being “drawed in.” There seemed nothing more to say. Presently, however, Tuvvy himself continued the conversation.
“Night’s the worst,” he said, “and winter worse nor any. It’s mortal cold working here all day, and a man’s spirit’s pretty nigh freezed out of him by the time work’s done. And then there’s the tramp home, and long before I get to the village, I see the light behind the red blind at the Cross Keys. It streams out into the road, and it says: ‘Tuvvy,’ it says, ‘it’s warm in here, and you’re cold. There’s light in here, and a bit of talk, and a newspaper; and outside it’s all dark and lonesome, and a good long stretch to Upwell. Come in, and have a drop to cheer you up. You don’t need to stop more’n five minutes.’ And then—”
Tuvvy stopped, raised his black eyebrows, and shook his head.
“Well?” said Dennis.
“Well, master,” repeated Tuvvy, “then I go in.”
“And do you come out in five minutes?” asked Dennis.
Tuvvy shook his head again: “It’s the red blind as draws me in,” he said, “and once I’m in, I stay there.”
“Mr Tuvvy,” said Dennis, after a pause, with renewed hope in his voice, “I’ve thought of something. Why don’t you go home across the fields? You wouldn’t have to pass the Cross Keys then, you see, and wouldn’t see the red blind, and it couldn’t draw you in.”
“There ain’t no way out into the road,” objected Tuvvy.
“There is,” said Dennis; “I’ve often been. You’d have to cross over part of one of Aunt Katharine’s fields, and then there’s a stile into the Upwell road. It’s as straight as anything.”
“Happen Miss Chester mightn’t like to see me tramping over her field,” said Tuvvy.
“She won’t mind a bit. Besides, I’ll ask her to let you. So that’s all right,” said Dennis jumping up, “and I shall go and speak to Mr Solace at once.”
He was nearly out of the barn when Tuvvy’s voice checked him.
“Hold hard, master,” it said; “I ain’t given that there promise you was talking on.”
“But you will,” said Dennis, coming close up to the carpenter’s bench, and looking earnestly up into Tuvvy’s dark face; “of course you will—won’t you?”
Tuvvy made no answer for a moment. He seemed puzzled to account for all this interest on Dennis’s part, but at length he held out a hand almost black from hard work, and said:
“Well master, here’s my hand on it. I’ll do my best.”
Dennis put his own into it seriously.
“That’s a bargain, Mr Tuvvy,” he said. “People always shake hands on bargains. And now it will be all right.”
Tuvvy raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
“Whether it is or whether ’tain’t,” he said, “you meant it kind, and I take it kind, master.”
Dennis himself had no doubts at all as he ran across the rick-yard to the farmhouse. Mr Solace was so good-natured, he was always ready to do what he was asked, and Dennis knew quite well that he and Maisie were favourites. He felt still more anxious now that Tuvvy should not be sent away, for since this talk with him, he seemed to have taken his affairs under his protection. Tuvvy seemed to belong to him, and to depend on him for help and advice, and Dennis was determined to do his very best for him. So it was with a feeling of great importance that he entered the housekeeper’s room, where he was told that he should find Mrs Solace and his sister. They were both there, and both very busy, for Mrs Solace was making meat-pies, and Maisie, covered from head to foot with a big white apron, was learning how to roll out paste.
“Did you want to see Andrew particularly, my dear?” asked Mrs Solace. “Fact is, he’s in the office, over his accounts, and don’t want to be disturbed. If it’s a message from Miss Chester, you could leave it with me, couldn’t you? and I’ll be sure he has it.”
“It isn’t a message from Aunt Katharine,” said Dennis. “It’s something I must say myself; something very important, indeed. Maisie knows it is,” he added, as Mrs Solace still hesitated.
She looked at the children with some perplexity in her good-humoured face. She did not want to disturb Andrew just now, whose temper was seldom ruffled except when he was at his accounts. On the other hand, Dennis and Maisie were both fixing such imploring eyes upon her that she could not bear to say “No.”
“Well, then,” she said, “you must just go and knock at the door and ask if you may go in. But don’t ye stay long, my dear, else Andrew’ll be vexed, and it’s I who’ll bear the blame.”
The office, where Mr Solace had retired to struggle with his accounts, was not a very business-like apartment. It was a small room with a door opening into the stable-yard, full of a great variety of articles, such as boots, whips, guns, walking-sticks, and pipes. In the window there was a big writing-table, covered with account-books and papers, and it was here that the farm men came to be paid on Saturday night. From his seat Mr Solace could see all that went on in the stable-yard, and could shout out orders to the men as they passed across it without leaving his chair. That was in summer, but now the window was shut and the room was quite full of the fumes of Mr Solace’s pipe, from which he was puffing angry clouds of tobacco, as he frowned over a great leather-bound book in front of him.
He was a man of about fifty, with iron-grey hair and very blue eyes which looked keenly out under bushy brows. They were kindly eyes, but they were eyes which could fix themselves commandingly on man or beast, and seemed used to having their commands obeyed. They were set in a face so bronzed and reddened by an outdoor life, that this colour was all the more striking, except to old Sally, who spoke lightly of them compared to others she “minded” in the family. “They weren’t nothing at all to what old Mr Solace’s was,” she said. “They were blue, if you like.”
Biting the top of his quill pen, and stamping his foot, when the figures were too much for his patience, the farmer had just travelled nearly up a long column, when a loud knock was heard at his door.
At first he only grunted impatiently, for he knew that if he let go his calculation for an instant, he was a lost man, and would have to add it all up again. But almost immediately the knock was loudly repeated.
“Come in,” he shouted, flinging down his pen and turning angrily towards the door. His gaze was directed to the height of a full-grown person, and he lowered it hastily to the level of Dennis’s small round head, and said in a softer tone: “Oh, it’s you, is it, my boy.”
Dennis marched straight in at once, and stood at the farmer’s elbow. He was not a bit afraid of Mr Solace, and had prepared just what he meant to say, so he began without a pause.
“I’ve come to ask you a favour, please.”
“And I wish you’d come at any other time,” said Mr Solace good-naturedly; “but as you’re here, out with it.”
Dennis’s favours were usually connected with jackdaws, or rabbits, or puppies, and no doubt this would be something of the same kind.
“It’s a bigger one than ever I’ve asked before,” continued Dennis, “and I want it more than anything I’ve wanted before.”
“Fire away!” said the farmer; “only make haste about it, because I’m busy.”
“I want you,” said Dennis, speaking slowly and solemnly, as he drew up closer, “to let Tuvvy stop.”
The farmer’s face changed. He gave a long low whistle.
“Did he send you to ask me that?” he said.
“No indeed,” replied Dennis indignantly; “I thought of it my very own self. He’s promised not to have any more bouts, if you’ll keep him on.”
Mr Solace got up and stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, looking down at Dennis.
“Well, my boy,” he said, “that’s a thing I must say ‘No’ to. I’m forced to, by Tuvvy himself. I don’t want to send him away. I shan’t get another such a clever chap in his place.”
“Then why do you?” asked Dennis.
“Because I can’t put up with him any longer; I’ve been too soft-hearted already. I’ve winked at his goings-on again and again, and I’ve let him off times out of number. But now my mind’s made up.”
“But he’s promised,” urged Dennis, “and he’s going to walk home the field-way, so as not to pass the Cross Keys. He says it’s the red blind that draws him in.”
“H’m,” said the farmer, with a short laugh. “He don’t want much drawing, I fancy. And as for his promises—I’ve had enough of Tuvvy’s promises.”
Dennis looked crestfallen. He had not expected this.
“Won’t you try him just this once more?” he pleaded.
“Now, look here, Master Dennis,” said the farmer; “you know most of my men. They don’t call me a hard master, do they?”
“No,” replied Dennis; “they say the gaffer’s very kind.”
“Well, but there’s another thing I’ve got to think of besides kindness, and that’s justice. It isn’t fair, you see, to the other men to let Tuvvy off. Why, if I did, I shouldn’t have a steady workman about the place soon, and serve me right. They’d say: ‘There’s that chap Tuvvy can do as he likes, and drink and leave his master in the lurch, and yet he’s no worse off. Why shouldn’t we do the same? What’s the good of being sober and steady, and sticking to our work, if we don’t get anything by it?’”
“But I’m sure,” said Dennis eagerly, “they’d all like Tuvvy to stop.”
“That’s the worst of it,” said Mr Solace, with an annoyed jerk of his head. “I should like him to stop too. He’s such a clever rascal with his head as well as his hands. A hint does for him, where another man wants telling all the ins and outs of a thing, and doesn’t get it right in the end. Tuvvy’s got a head on his shoulders, and turns out his work just as it ought to be. It’s a pleasure to see it. But then, perhaps just at a busy time when we’re wanting some job he’s at, he’ll break out and have a regular fit of drinking for the best part of a week, and leave us all in the lurch. It’s no use. I can’t and won’t put up with it, and I oughtn’t to.”
The farmer spoke as though arguing with his own weakness rather than with Dennis, who now ventured to ask: “If all the others wanted him to stay, would you let him?”
“I’ll have nothing to do with asking them,” said the farmer, spreading out his hands. “I’ll have nothing more to do with Tuvvy at all. I’ve given him up. Now you run away, my boy, and let me get to my business.”
Dennis stood for a minute, half uncertain whether he should put some more questions; but Mr Solace sat down to his desk, and grasped his pen with such determination, that he did not dare to make another attempt, and unwillingly left the office.
He did not, however, entirely give up hope. Dennis was a stubborn little boy, and when he had fixed his mind upon a thing, he did not soon leave off trying to get it. Could Aunt Katharine help him, he wondered, as he and Maisie ran home together. At any rate he would tell her all about it, and ask for her advice. But when she had heard the story, Aunt Katharine did not seem to have much advice to give.
“I don’t think you must worry Mr Solace any more, Dennis,” she said. “He knows best how to manage his own affairs and his own men. A little boy like you can’t understand such things. If the wheelwright behaves badly, of course he must lose his place.”
“But,” persisted Dennis, “Mr Solace really does want to keep him, I know, only he says it isn’t fair to the other men.”
“Well, you’d better get them to sign a Round Robin, then,” said Miss Chester, laughing; “I can’t interfere.”
She was hurrying away, as though there were no more to be said on the subject, but Dennis followed her.
“Oh Aunt Katharine,” he said earnestly, taking hold of her dress, “do wait a minute, and tell me what you mean by a Round Robin.”
Aunt Katharine was always willing to make things clear to the children if she could, and she now sat down patiently to explain to Dennis what a Round Robin was. When he quite understood, he ran quickly in search of Maisie that he might describe it to her before he forgot a word, and get her to help him in preparing one.