Dorset dear

by M. E. Francis

THE WORM THAT TURNED.

“Where be goin’, William?”

“Oh, I be jest steppin’ up to the Pure Drop.”

And William Faithfull brought back his abstracted gaze from the horizon, where it habitually rested when it was not required for practical purposes in the exercise of his profession, and fixed itself somewhat shamefacedly on his interlocutor.

He was a tall, loose-limbed man, of about forty, with an expression of countenance chronically dismal, except at such times when he was employed in some particularly genial task, such as making a coffin, or repairing the church trestles, when his neighbours averred that he became quite lively, and even whistled as he worked.

His crony now returned his glance with a jocular one, and slapped his thigh ecstatically.

“Well, I never seed such a chap! Faithfull by name and faithful by natur’—ah, sure you are. Why, ’tis nigh upon twelve year, bain’t it, since ye started coortin’ Martha Jesty?”

“Somewhere about that,” replied William; and his countenance, already ruddy in the sunset glow, assumed a still deeper tint.

“Well, I never!” returned the other with a shout of laughter. “She be gettin’ on pretty well, now—I d’ ’low she’ll be a staid woman by the time you wed her.”

William shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

“Well,” he said, after a pause, “I d’ ’low she be worth waitin’ for. She be wonderful clever, Martha be—an’ that sprack! No, I don’t regret it—not at all I don’t.”

“Bain’t the wold man anyways comin’ round?” inquired his friend with his head on one side.

“No,” returned Faithfull gloomily. “Not at all. But he be so terr’ble punished, poor wold chap, one can’t expect rayson off he.”

“’Tis the rheumatics, bain’t it?” was the next query in a commiserating tone.

“’Tis the sky-attics,” replied the carpenter, not without a certain pride in his pseudo-father-in-law’s distinguished ailment. “There, he be so scraggled as anything—all doubled up by times. Martha do say he goes twisty-like same as a eel, when it do take en real bad.”

“Lard, now!” ejaculated the other.

“’E-es,” said William, shaking his head—“that’s how it do take en. So, as Martha do say, ye can’t expect the onpossible. ‘If my father,’ says she, ‘be so scram-like in his out’ard man, how can ye look for en to act straight-forrard? He’ve a-set his mind again’ the notion of us gettin’ wed, so we must just wait till he be underground. And then,’ says she, ‘I’ll not keep ’ee waitin’ a minute longer.’”

“Well, that’s handsome,” agreed the friend, “but I’m afeard, William, that there complaint bain’t like to carry en off very soon—no, not so very soon. Nay, I’ve a-knowed folks keep on a-livin’ in a way that ’ud surprise ye, as was fair bent in two wi’ pains in all their j’ints. I reckon you’ll very like go first yerself, William.”

After a pause of deep depression the carpenter’s face lighted up.

“The sky-attics, d’ye see, Tom,” he explained condescendingly—“the sky-attics is a new-fayshioned ailment, an’ a deal dangerouser nor the wold rheumatiz an’ newralgy and sich. Why, when I did mention to Parson t’other day about wold Jesty’s sky-attics he did laugh. ‘Sky-attics,’ says he. ‘Then he’ll be like to go up’ards afore very long,’ says he. Well, so long, Tom; I must be steppin’ up-along now.”

“Ye’ll find the wold fellow a bit tilty,” remarked Tom; “whether them there ’attics was troublin’ en or not I can’t say, but he was a-shoutin’ an’ a bally-raggin’ o’ that poor faymale while I was drinkin’ my drap o’ beer jist now, till I wonder she wasn’t dathered.”

William’s recent elation disappeared; he vouchsafed no comment on the unwelcome news, however, but with a sidelong nod at his crony, shambled away, swinging his long limbs as though every joint of them was loose.

The Pure Drop was situated a stone’s throw from the village, and stood at the junction of four cross-roads; a most excellent position, which enabled it to waylay, as it were, not only the inhabitants of the hamlet as they set forth for or returned from their day’s vocations, but to capture most of the travellers who journeyed that way—cyclists galore, wagoners, dusty pedestrians. It must be owned that the aspect of the little place was inviting enough to tempt even a teetotaller; the low red-brick house overgrown with creepers, the mullioned windows winking brightly in the sun in summer, and in winter letting streams of ruddy firelight flow forth. It was so clean and airy, so cosy and trim, that those who went thither for the first time vowed they would return again, and old customers nodded knowingly, and declared that the place had not its like in the country. The liquor was good, while prudent folk who called for tea might have it, and a crusty home-baked loaf into the bargain, and a roll of fresh butter of Martha’s making.

Then Martha herself—though she was no longer in the first bloom of youth, she was a tidy, clean-skinned, pleasant-looking little body; and if her eye was sharp and her tongue ready, she was none the less popular on these accounts; every one got hauled over the coals from time to time, and when it was not your turn it was pleasant enough to see other folks made to look foolish.

Miss Jesty was standing in the open doorway when her lover came up, and immediately made a warning sign to him.

“Ye mustn’t come in to-night, William. Father—there! he’s something awful this evenin’, an’ he’ve a-been on the look-out for ye, so to speak, ever since dinner-time. Whenever the door do go, ‘There,’ he’ll cry, ‘is that that good-for-nothin’ William Faithfull?’ Or if there’s a knock, ‘’Tis that sammy o’ thine, for sure,’ he’ll say.”

“Oh, an’ does he?” returned poor William, with a deeper expression of melancholy.

Martha nodded portentously.

“Ye mustn’t come in to-day,” she said with decision; “no, not even for a minute. Father, he did say to I jist now, as whatever happened he wouldn’t have no cwortin’ here. ‘If ye can have the heart to think about cwortin’ when I’m so bad as I be,’ says he, ‘I’ll take an’ alter my will.’ So there’s nothin’ for it but for you to turn about an’ go home again.”

“I weren’t so much thinkin’ o’ cwortin’ this evenin’, Martha,” said the swain very meekly. “I wer’ lookin’ for a drap o’ beer—I be terr’ble dry.”

Martha hesitated for a moment, and in this interval a kind of bellow sounded from the interior of the house.

“That’s him,” she cried in terror. “No, William, ye can’t have no beer to-night. I dursen’t stay another minute. Go home-along, do, an’ if ye be so thirsty as that comes to, can’t ye get a bottle o’ ‘pop’ off Mrs. Andrews?”

William gazed at her blankly, but before he could protest his charmer had disappeared within the house, and he was forced very dolefully to retrace his steps. He did indeed purchase the bottle of “pop,” but found it by no means exhilarating; in fact, as he laid his head on the pillow that night he was tempted to think he might pay too high a price even for the hope of becoming one day Martha’s husband.

When on the following Sunday evening, however, he walked in the shady lane hand-in-hand with his sweetheart, he forgot how irksome was this time of trial, and listened with the melancholy satisfaction which was his nearest approach to cheerfulness (on ordinary occasions) to the glowing picture with which she depicted the reward earned by his constancy.

“I do r’alely think as poor father be a-breakin’ up,” she remarked consolingly. “When winter comes I reckon he’ll not be able to hold out. Well,” she added piously, “’tis what comes to us all, soon or late, an’ I’m sure he be well prepared, for I don’t think he’ve a-had a day’s health this twenty year. ’Twill be a mercy when he do go, poor wold man. An’ the winter ’ud be a very nice time for us to get married, William; ’twould suit us very well, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah, sure,” said William, with a slow smile.

“We shouldn’t be so busy then, d’ye see,” resumed Martha. “The harvestin’ ’ud be done an’ the potato-gettin’; an’ there wouldn’t be so many by-cyclists—there’s not so much goin’ backwards an’ forrards in winter-time. We shouldn’t be at much loss if we was to take a holiday.”

“Ah,” said William, with mournful rapture, “you was thinkin’ of us takin’ a holiday, was ye, Martha?”

“I thought we mid go to London,” cried Miss Jesty triumphantly. “I have always longed to go to London an’ see the sights there, an’ go to the theayters. There! Susan Inkpen as wed Miller Dewey did go up to London for her honeymoon.”

“For her what?” interrupted Faithfull.

“For her honeymoon—her weddin’ journey—the jaunt what folks do take when they gets wed.”

“Oh, to be sure,” said the carpenter. “An’ you an’ me be to go to London for our honeymoon, be we?”

“’E-es,” cried Martha with a chuckle. “We’ll have a rale week’s pleasurin’, you an’ me. If ’tis winter-time—as most like ’twill be, on account o’ poor father’s sky-attics, you know—the pantomines ’ull be goin’ on. Susan Dewey did go, an’ she said they was the wonderfullest things, wi’ fairies an’ mermaids, an’ sich-like, an’ Clown an’ Pantaloon a-knockin’ of each other about. There, she an’ her husband did fair split their sides wi’ laughin’.”

William appeared to survey this prospect stolidly, and made no comment, and Miss Jesty continued eagerly:—

“Then there’d be the Waxworks, an’ the Zoo, where all the wild beasts is kept; an’ we’d go an’ see the Tower o’ London, where all the king’s jools an’ suits of armour is set out, an’ we’d go to Westminster Abbey——”

“What’s that?” inquired Mr. Faithfull dubiously.

Martha was taken aback for a moment.

“Susan went to see it,” said she hesitatingly, “so I s’pose ’tis worth lookin’ at. ’Tis a wold ancient church.”

“A wold church?” repeated William, shaking his head. “I d’ ’low I shouldn’t care so much to see that. I’d sooner wait till ’twas done-up fresh-like. I never cared at all for goin’ into our church till the Rector had it cleaned and painted-up so good as new. I think ’t ’ud be a foolish kind o’ thing to go trapesin’ off to yon—what-d’-ye-call-it—Abbey till they get it repaired.”

“Maybe not,” agreed Martha cheerfully; “there’s plenty more to be seen wi’out that. Well, I hope the Lord ’ull spare father so long as it be good for en, poor dear man, but if he was to be took, I hope as it may be in the winter, William.”

William, who had been trailing beside her arm-in-crook, suddenly stopped short and faced her with a determined air.

“Whether he do go in winter or whether he do go in summer, Martha,” said he, “you an’ me must be called home so soon as he be laid underground, mind that.”

And having come to the turn in the lane where they usually parted, William went his way, leaving Martha somewhat in doubt whether to be pleased at this proof of ardour or indignant at the sudden display of spirit.

A wilful woman is proverbially supposed to have her way, yet it sometimes happens that, even when she proposes, Heaven disposes events otherwise than she would have had them. Thus, though Martha Jesty had made arrangements for her father to depart this life in the winter—a time when business should be conveniently slack—that worthy old gentleman was removed from this earthly sphere in the very height of summer, when the harvest was in full swing, and more than an ordinary number of tourists halted daily for refreshment at the Pure Drop.

Tidings of this melancholy event were imparted to William by a group who entered his yard on the morning of the occurrence, each eager to be the first to tell the news. That old Mr. Jesty was gone was an incontrovertible fact, but none of the newsmongers could agree as to the precise ailment which had carried him off. He had had a bit of a cold for a day or two, but while some said it had turned to “browntitus,” others were sure it was “poomonia,” and one shrill-voiced old lady delivered it as her opinion that nothing short of an “apple-complex” could have carried him off that sudden.

Beyond sundry “ohs” and “ahs” and grunts indicative of surprise and sympathy, William made no remark, though when one facetious bystander observed that it would be his turn next—a somewhat obscure phrase, which might be interpreted in a variety of ways—he grinned appreciatively.

No sooner had the gossips departed, however, than he went indoors and assumed his coat, and immediately betook himself, not to the Pure Drop, but to the Rectory.

“The Reverend,” as his parishioners frequently called him, was sitting in his study, tranquilly reading his Times, when William Faithfull was ushered in.

“You’ll have heard the noos, sir,” he began abruptly; “old Abel Jesty up to the Pure Drop, he’s gone at last.”

“Oh!” said the Rector, looking rather startled; “that’s sudden, isn’t it?”

“’E-es,” said William, with a wooden face; “sudden but not unpre-pared. Martha has been a-lookin’ for en to go this ten year.”

“Oh!” said the Rector again, this time a little uncertainly.

“’E-es,” resumed William; “I thought I’d call an’ tell ye, so as ye need lose no time in settling things.”

“About the funeral, I suppose you mean?” put in the clergyman as he paused.

“No,” said William, who was gazing not only over the Rector’s head, but apparently through the wall at some distant sky-line; “about the weddin’—mine an’ Martha’s. Ye mid call us over on Sunday.”

“Really, William, I think that is too sudden,” said the Rector; “why, the poor old man won’t have been dead a week!”

“He be so dead as ever he’ll be,” returned William, still gazing impenetrably at that far point in an imaginary horizon. “Martha an’ I have a-made it up years ago, an’ settled as she’d not keep me waitin’ no longer after her father was took. I’ll thank ye to call us home, sir.”

And with that he scraped a leg and pulled his forelock and withdrew, leaving the Rector, half-scandalised, half-amused, murmuring to himself as the door closed something about “funeral baked-meats,” which William set down as a “bit o’ voolishness”.

He found Martha plunged in the most praiseworthy grief, thereby much edifying the neighbours who had gathered together to condole with her; but William, who could only see the other aspect of the affair, immediately beckoned her on one side and informed her of the step he had taken.

“Lard!” cried she, genuinely taken aback, “whatever made ye do that? Why, father ’ull only be buried o’ Thursday. You shouldn’t ha’ done it wi’out axin’ me. ’Tis too sudden. The folks ’ull say we’ve no decency.”

“Let ’em say what they like,” returned William firmly. “I’ll keep to my ’greement, an’ I expect you to do the same. ’Twas drawed out ten year ago an’ more. I’ve stuck to my word, an’ you must stick to your’n.”

“’Twill be a very onconvenient time,” said Martha reflectively. “Three-week come Monday—the middle of August that’ll be, jist when we do take more money nor any other month in the year.”

William cracked his finger joints one after another with great decision, but made no verbal reply.

“There, I’ve a-been lookin’ forward to our honeymoon all these years,” complained Martha, fresh tears rushing to her eyes; “it’ll be a shame, I declare, if we have to give it up! I’ve never took a holiday, no, not since mother died. I don’t see how we can get away then, William.”

“I don’t care so much about gettin’ away,” said Faithfull resolutely. “’Tis the weddin’ I do want. I’ll not have no shilly-shally. I’ve a-told ye hundreds of times as I wouldn’t wait a day longer nor I could help—an’ I won’t wait. You’d best make up your mind to it.”

“Why, whatever’s come to ye?” cried Martha, really angry. “’Tis downright indecent to go upsettin’ me like this in the midst o’ my trouble. ’Tisn’t for you to be namin’ the day either. Jist you keep a civil tongue in your head, William, an’ have a bit o’ patience—maybe about Michaelmas——”

“Michaelmas!” ejaculated the carpenter, catching up his hat and fixing it firmly on his head. “I’ll tell you summat, Martha—I’m goin’ to get married o’ Monday three-week, whatever you mid be. If ye can’t make up your mind to it there’s them as will. I’ll go warrant my cousin Sabina, over to Sturminster, ’ud have me if I was to ax her. Her an’ me was always very thick. Gully, that’s her husband, left her very comfortable, an’ she has but the one little maid.”

Martha thereupon came round in a twinkling, and flinging herself into his arms, promised to agree to everything he wished. A tender scene ensued, at the end of which William suggested that he had better go upstairs to measure the poor old man for his coffin.

When he came down again he found Martha in the midst of her cronies, to whom she had imparted, with a kind of regretful elation, the extreme pressure which William had brought to bear upon her with regard to their approaching nuptials, all her hearers being much impressed and edified by the recital.

She turned to her lover as he was about to leave the house:—

“Ye’ll not be chargin’ me nothin’, I shouldn’t think,” she remarked with mournful archness.

William, who had not hitherto considered the matter, hesitated for a moment, and then observed handsomely:—

“Nothin’ but the price of the wood, my dear. You shall have the labour free.”

“Lard bless the man!” cried she, with some irritation. “I believe he’s goin’ to make out a bill for it. Why, don’t ye see, William, if we’re to be man an’ wife in three-week, ’twill be but takin’ the money out o’ one pocket to put it in the other?”

“And that’s true,” agreed the friends in chorus.

After a pause, during which the carpenter had thoroughly mastered the situation, he turned to his intended, and, with a sudden burst of generosity, informed her that he would make her a present of the whole thing.

“I haven’t gied you so very much afore now,” said he, “but I’ll make you a present of this, my dear, an’ welcome.”

And he walked away, while Martha, looking after him through her tears, observed that there wasn’t a better-natured man in the whole of England.

William, indeed, was in such good humour at the approaching fruition of his hopes that Martha found him more amenable than ever to her views.

Therefore, when, a day or two after the funeral, she encountered him on his way to the tailor’s, where he intended, as he informed her, to order his wedding-suit, she was emboldened to lay her hand on his arm and beseech him tearfully to be married, like her, in “deep”.

“’Twill show proper feelin’,” said she. “All the neighbours ’ull know that you are showin’ respect to poor father; an’ since ye’ll be jist comin’ into the family, ’twill be but decent as you should wear black for him what’s gone.”

William, who had been dreaming of a certain imposing stripe which had dazzled him, days before, in the tailor’s window, among the pile labelled “Elegant Trouserings,” now dismissed with a sigh the alluring vision, and promised to appear in mourning as requested.

But when later on Martha unfolded to him another plan, he gave in his adherence to it with some reluctance. It was no less a proposition than that they should take their honeymoon by turns.

“You see,” she explained, “it just falls out that the weddin’s the very week o’ the Branston show—the house ’ull be full from morn till night for three days or more; an’ we turn over enough that week to pay the year’s rent, very near. ’Twouldn’t do for us both to be away.”

William gazed at her with a more rueful face than she had ever yet beheld in him.

“Dear now! don’t you take on,” urged Martha. “I thought, d’ye see, I’d just pop up to London for a few days by myself, an’ you can stop an’ mind the house, an’ maybe some time in the winter we mid both on us take a few days together somewhere.”

William gazed at her reproachfully.

“Ye didn’t ought to want to go a-pleasurin’ wi’out I,” said he.

“No more I would, my dear,” returned his future better-half, “if it could be helped. But ’twas yourself as named the day, an’ if ye won’t have it put off——”

The carpenter, with a vigorous shake of the head, intimated that he certainly would not have it put off.

“Well, then,” summed up Martha triumphantly, “ye must agree to let me have a bit o’ honeymoon. ’Tis what every bride expects, an’ ’tis the one thought what have kept my heart up all these years. I’ve always promised myself this holiday afore I settled down to wedded life.”

William stared at her gloomily, but made no further opposition; and she informed him in a cheerful tone that he need not fear her staying away too long.

“We’ll have the weddin’ o’ Monday mornin’,” said she, “quite private-like. The neighbours all know we can’t have a great set-out here, on account o’ poor father. An’ you can carry my bag to the station directly we leave church, an’ I’ll be back again Saturday night, so as we can go to church together Sunday mornin’. Will that do ye?”

“’Twill have to do me, I s’pose,” returned William, still with profound melancholy.

“’Tis by your own wish, ye know,” said the bride; “if you hadn’t held out for us to be married all in such a hurry, I’m sure I should have been glad for us to take our honeymoon together, my dear. But ye can’t have everythin’ in this world.”

“No,” agreed Faithfull, with a groan; “no, that ye can’t. ’Twould ha’ been more nat’ral-like to go on our honeymoon together; but what must be, must be.”

On the Monday morning the much-discussed wedding took place; bride and bridegroom were alike clad in new and glossy black, Martha’s blushing countenance being scarcely visible beneath her crape “fall”.

The villagers were all much impressed; there is nothing indeed that the rustic mind so thoroughly appreciates as the panoply of woe, and to find this mourning ceremonial united with marriage pomp was felt to be a rare privilege, and, as such, productive of sincere admiration.

When the wedded pair left church, their friends and neighbours hastened to offer congratulations, attuned to a becoming note of dismalness, which intimated that condolence lay behind; and it was a rude shock for all when William was suddenly hailed in a tone of most discordant cheerfulness. A tall, black-eyed woman had suddenly rushed forward and seized him by the hand.

“There, now! So I wasn’t in time after all! I made sure I’d get here soon enough to see the weddin’. I did always say I’d come to your weddin’, didn’t I, William? I thought it very unkind of ye not to ax me.”

“’Twas very private-like, d’ye see, Sabina,” said William, who had been energetically pumping her hand up and down. “Martha, here—I mean Miss Jesty, no, I mean Mrs. Faithfull—she did want it private, along of her father being dead.”

“Have ye been a-buryin’ of en to-day?” interrupted the newcomer with an awe-struck glance at his sable garb. “No, no—of course not. But why did ye go for to get married in deep?”

“My ’usband,” said Martha repressively, “thought it but right to show respect to them that’s gone, Mrs. Gully—I think ye said your cousin’s name was Gully, William; I s’pose this is your cousin?”

“’E-es, to be sure,” agreed the owner of that name, cheerfully. “Half-cousin, if ye like it better—our mothers was two brothers’ daughters.”

“Indeed,” said Martha stiffly. “I must wish ’ee good-day now, for William an’ me be in a hurry to catch train.”

Mrs. Gully’s jaw dropped, but the carpenter, after hastily explaining that they weren’t having any party along of the mourning, invited her to come home and take a bite o’ summat with him and his wife before they went to the station.

A frown from Martha intimated that she considered this hospitality ill-timed, but William stuck to his point, and they all three turned their steps together towards the Pure Drop.

“I think I’ll hurry on an’ change my dress,” remarked Martha, after stalking on for some moments in silence.

She was not going to travel in her best black and get the crape all messed about with dust.

“Don’t mind me, William, my dear,” said Sabina, when the bride had left them. “If you’re wanting to change your deep, ye’d best hurry on, too, maybe.”

“I’ve no need to change my suit,” returned William sorrowfully. “I bain’t a-goin’ on the honeymoon.”

“What!” cried the widow, in astonishment. “She’s never goin’ to leave ye on your weddin’ day?”

“She be,” said Mr. Faithfull slowly. “It do seem a bit hard, but we couldn’t both on us leave the house, an’ she haven’t a-had a holiday for twenty year. Ye see, it fell out this way—”

And he proceeded to explain the circumstances, already related, on which Mrs. Gully animadverted with much warmth.

They were still discussing the matter when Martha rejoined them in the private room of the Pure Drop, where a slight refection had been set forth.

This was partaken of hastily, and for the most part in silence, and at its conclusion Mrs. Faithfull jumped up and took a ceremonious farewell of her new cousin. William shouldered his wife’s bag and set forth beside her. Martha beguiled the walk to the station by a variety of injunctions, all of which the new landlord of the Pure Drop promised to heed and obey. It was not until she had actually taken her seat in the railway carriage that she found time for sentiment, and then, embracing her husband, she expressed the affectionate hope that he would not be lonely during her absence.

William clambered out of the compartment and carefully closed the door before he answered:—

“Well, I shan’t be altogether that lonely. Sabina—she be a-comin’ to keep I company till ye come back.”

“Never!” cried Mrs. Faithfull, thrusting a scared face out of the window. “You don’t mean to say ye took on yerself to ax her to stop in my house?”

The whistle sounded at this juncture, but William walked beside the train as it slowly moved off.

“I didn’t ax her. ’Twas she herself as did say, when she heerd you were a-goin’ for to leave I all by mysel’, says she, ‘I’ll tell ’ee what, Will’um; I’ll take a holiday, too, an’——’” A loud and prolonged shriek from the engine drowned the remainder of the sentence, and the train steamed away, the last sign of the new-made bride being the agitating waving of a protesting hand from the carriage window.

The carpenter was smoking a ruminative pipe, about four o’clock on that same afternoon, in the doorway of the snug little hostelry of which he now found himself master, when he was suddenly hailed by a distracted voice from the road.

“William! for the Lard’s sake, William, do ’ee come and ketch hold of this here bag!”

William removed his pipe, stared, and then wedging the stem firmly in the corner of his mouth, rushed down the path and up the roadway.

“Bless me, Martha, be ye comed back again? Tired o’ London a’ready?”

“No, my dear, I didn’t ever get so far as London,” cried Martha, thrusting the bag into his hand, and throwing herself in a heated and exhausted condition upon his neck. “I didn’t go no further than Templecombe. There, I’d no sooner started nor I did feel all to once that I couldn’t a-bear to leave ’ee. I fair busted out a-cryin’ in the train.”

“Did ye?” said Faithfull, much gratified.

“I did indeed,” resumed his wife. “‘Oh,’ says I, ‘how could I ever treat en so unfair,’ says I, ‘arter all them years as him an’ me was a-walkin’? Oh,’ says I, ‘when I think of his melancholy face, an’ this his weddin’ day an’ all.’ So I nips out at Templecombe, an’ gets another ticket, an’ pops into the train as were just startin’ Branston-way—an’ here I be.”

“Well, an’ I be pure glad to see ye,” cried William heartily.

They had by this time reached the house, and Mrs. Faithfull, still breathless with fatigue and agitation, stared anxiously about.

“Where is she?” she inquired in a whisper.

“Who?” said William, setting down the bag.

“Why, your Cousin Sabina!”

“Oh, her!” said William, with something like a twinkle in his usually lack-lustre eye; “she be gone home-along to fetch her things an’ lock up her house. She says she’ll come back to-morrow mornin’ first thing.”

“Well, but we don’t want her now, do we?” cried Martha, trembling with eagerness. “I was thinkin’ maybe after all, ye’d fancy a bit of a holiday, William. Ye might drop her a bit of a line an’ say ye was goin’ to take the first honeymoon yerself. I fancy ye’d like London very well, William. You should have the first turn, by right, the man bein’ master; an’ I mid be able to run up for a couple o’ days at the end o’ the week. Here’s my ticket, d’ye see; you could catch the last train, you know, an’ then, as I tell ’ee, I’d come an’ j’ine ye.”

“That won’t do,” said William firmly; “nay, ’twon’t do.”

“Why not?” gasped Martha.

“Ye may pop that ticket in the fire,” said William, speaking slowly, and suffering his countenance to relax gradually. “’Tain’t no manner of use to I. I—be—a-goin’—for to stop—an’ keep—my—honeymoon—here—along of ’ee.”