CHAPTER XII.—A FAIR ARBITER.
There was a little uneasiness in Madge’s mind regarding the effect her note might have on Mr Hadleigh. She had no doubt that she had given the right answer, and was at rest on that score. But she had divined something of the rich man’s desolation, and she was grieved to be compelled to add in any way to the gloom in which he seemed to live. She wished that she could comfort him: she hoped that there would come a day when she would be able to do so.
It was a relief to her when at length she received this short missive:
‘I am sorry. I know that your refusal is dictated by the conviction that what you are doing is best. I hope you will never have cause to repent that you chose your way instead of mine.’
The foreboding which lurked in these words was plainly the reflection of his own morbid broodings, but like all strong emotion, it was infectious, and, reason as she would, she could not shake off its influence entirely. At every unoccupied moment an indefinable shadow seemed to cross the period between Philip’s going and return. There was only one way of getting rid of this impression—to be always busy. Fortunately that was the remedy nearest at hand; for with household duties, her uncle’s accounts and correspondence—considerably multiplied during harvest—and the preparation with her own hands of sundry useful articles for Philip to take with him on his travels, she had plenty to do, without reckoning the hours her lover himself occupied.
It was during one of those happy hours that Philip referred to the proposal made by his father, and laughingly asked if she would agree to it.
This was a trial which Madge had anticipated, and was yet unprepared to meet. She could not make up her mind whether or not to tell Philip about Mr Hadleigh’s letters. So, again she followed her maxim, and did what was most disagreeable to herself—kept the secret.
‘You know what I think about it, Philip,’ she answered; ‘and I know the answer you gave him.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Quite sure—you refused.’
‘And you are not sorry? Cruel Madge—you do not wish me to stay.’
‘What we wish is not always best, Philip.’
She looked at him with those quiet longing eyes; and he wished they had not been at that moment walking in the harvest-field, with the reaping-machine coming at full swing towards them, followed by its troop of men and women gathering up the shorn grain, binding it into sheaves and piling them into shocks for the drying wind to do its part of the work. Had they only been in the orchard, he would have given her a lover’s token that he understood and appreciated her sacrifice.
‘I am not prepared to give unqualified assent to that doctrine,’ he said, thinking of the inconvenient neighbourhood of the harvesters. ‘However, in this instance I did not do what I wished.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Oh, he gave me a lot of good advice.’
‘Did you take it?’ she demanded, smiling.
‘Well, you see if we were to take all the good advice that is offered us, there would be no enterprise in the world.’
‘I am going to show you one man who will take good advice.’
‘Who is that?’
‘There he is speaking to uncle.’
‘Why, that is Caleb Kersey. I never heard of him taking advice, as he is too much occupied in giving it; and a nice mess he is making of the harvest at our place.’
‘That is what I am going to see him about. I promised your father to make some arrangement with him; but he has been away in Norfolk, and I have had no opportunity of speaking to him until now.’
This Caleb Kersey’s name had suddenly become known throughout the agricultural district of the country—to the labourers as that of their champion; to the farmers as that of their bane. He was a man of short stature and muscular frame; bushy black hair; square forehead and chin; prominent nose and piercing gray eyes. When in repose or speaking to his comrades, his expression was one of earnest thoughtfulness; but it became somewhat sulky when he was addressing his superiors, and fierce with enthusiasm when haranguing a crowd.
He was not more than thirty; yet he had worked as a farm-labourer in all the northern and in several southern counties, thus becoming acquainted with the ways and customs of his class in the various districts. On returning to Kingshope he caused much consternation in the neighbourhood of that quiet village, as well as in the town of Dunthorpe, by forming an Agricultural Labourers’ Union, the object of which was to obtain better wages and better cottages.
The Union did secure some advantages to the mass of labourers; but it brought little to Caleb Kersey. The farmers were afraid to employ him, lest he should create some new agitation amongst their people; and a large number of the men who had been carried away by the first wave of this little revolution having profited by it, settled down into their old ways and their old habits of respect for ‘the squire, the parson, and the master.’ But Caleb remained their champion still, ready to be their spokesman whenever a dispute arose between them and their employers.
He had picked up a little knowledge of cobbling, and when he could not obtain farmwork, he eked out a living by its help.
‘It’s ’long ov them plaguy schools and papers,’ said Farmer Trotman one day to Dick Crawshay. ‘There ain’t a better hand nowhere than Caleb; but it was a black day for him and for us that he larned reading and writing.’
The stout yeoman of Willowmere was scarcely in a position to sympathise with this lamentation, for he had been in no way disturbed by Caleb’s doings. Most of his servants were the sons and daughters of those who had served his father and grandfather, and who would as soon have thought of emigrating to the moon, as of quitting a place of which they felt themselves to be a part, even if it were only to move into the next parish. So, Uncle Dick could say no more than:
‘I don’t have any trouble with my people. They seem to jog on pretty comfortable; and I daresay you’d get on well enough with Caleb if you only got the right side of him. I give him a job whenever there is one to give and he wants it; and he’s worth two any ordinary men. I wouldn’t mind having him all the year round if he’d agree. But that’s somehow against his principles.’
‘Ah! them principles are as bad as them schools for upsetting ignorant folks. Look at me: all the larning I got was to put down my name plain and straight; and there ain’t nobody as’ll say I haven’t done my duty by my land and cattle.’
This was a proposition to which Uncle Dick could cheerfully assent, and his neighbour was satisfied.
‘I want to speak to Caleb for a minute, uncle,’ said Madge as she advanced.
Uncle Dick nodded, and walked leisurely after the harvesters, accompanied by Philip.
‘Yes, miss,’ was the respectful observation of the redoubtable champion.
‘I am glad to see you back, because I have been wanting you for several days.’
‘What for, miss?’
‘Well, I want to know in the first place, are you engaged anywhere?’
‘Not at present.’
‘Then will you let me engage you for a friend of mine?’
‘I’d like to do anything to please you, miss; but maybe your friend wouldn’t care to have me.’
He said this with a faint smile, as if regretting that she had given herself any trouble on his account.
‘He is not only ready to take you, but is willing to let you select the hands who are to work under you for the whole of the harvest.’
‘That would be agreeable, if there is no bother about the wages.’
‘They will be the same as here.’
‘We wouldn’t want more than Master Crawshay gives.’
‘When can you get the hands together?’
‘In a day or two. But you haven’t told me where the place is, and I would have to know how much there is to cut.’
‘Now you are to remember that it is I who am engaging you, Caleb, although the place is not mine; and I want you to get people who will consent to do without beer until after work.’
‘You mean Ringsford,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m afeared’——
There she stopped him by laying her hand on his shoulder and saying with a bright smile: ‘I know you don’t take beer yourself, and you know how much the others will gain by dropping it. I want you to get this work done, Caleb; and there is somebody else who will be as much pleased with you for doing it as I shall be. Come now, shall I tell her that you refuse to be near her, or that you are glad of the chance?’
Caleb hung his head and consented. He knew that she spoke of Pansy.