AN ACCIDENT
HAREBELL arrived first at the little cottage the next day. It was a picture, with its thatched roof, and beehives against the wall, and spring bulbs pushing themselves out of the ground. An old bed-ridden woman lived there, with a niece who looked after her.
The oak was magnificent, and spread its branches in all directions. Tom appeared, still smoking his pipe. He looked heavy-eyed and rather surly, but could not keep away from Harebell, and when she presented her rhyme to him, he read it slowly through, weighing every word.
She drew up her pony on the secluded side of the oak-tree. Tom leant against the old trunk, and scratched his head as he slowly read the verses.
"Hum!" he remarked, "I don't understand this here!"
"So never no more
Will I cross the door
Where beer is sold
Till I'm dead and cold."
"Will I be doin' it after I'm dead, d'you mean?"
"Oh no," said Harebell earnestly. "I hope you'll be in heaven then. You see 'cold' goes with 'sold'; if people are dead they're quite cold—my ayah told me they were. It means you'll never go into a public-house for all your life."
"That do seem hard," said Tom thoughtfully; then he read the last two lines and brightened up.
"Aye, that be it, missy. 'I'll go and get a wife.' First-rate poet you be!"