“Oh! but it is,” put in my love hastily.
“Axin’ yo’r pardon, it isn’t. An’ what aw mean to say is a felly may mak’ ducks an’ drakes o’ his own brass, an’ nob’dy’s onny right to say owt. But when it comes to lakin’ wi’ other folk’s gear he cannot be too careful. So aw’n come to th’ concloosion—”
“Well?” we all cried.
“To talk th’ matter ovver fully wi’ mi’ owd mother. Oo’s nobbut a simple body yo’ may think, an’ a working woman all th’ days o’ her life; but aw’n ne’er known her wrong yet, an’ aw reckon oo’s too old to begin.”
We all burst out laughing at what seemed, as the writer says, “a lame and impotent conclusion,” but I fancy there was a glimmer of a tear in Ruth’s eye as she jumped up and began to side the breakfast things and put fresh water on to boil for my father’s morning stirabout. But Miriam said:
“That’s a good and a wise thought of yours, Jim. And I’m sure Ruth and Mr. Holmes would be very pleased if you could prevail on your good mother to come up here some afternoon and have tea with us. Let me play hostess, Ruth. Can’t I give a tea-party out of this wonderful fortune of mine?”
“We don’t kill a pig every day,” supplemented Jim.
“Next Thursday night, then,” decided Ruth. “I’ll see father doesn’t get called out that night, and there’s no service for a wonder. And what do you say to asking Enoch Hoyle? He’s been among th’ cloth all his life, and should know something about it.”
“Oh! Enoch’s reight enough,” admitted Jim, “if he’ll nobbut keep off religion, which aw tak’ to be a matter needin’ a mighty bit o’ larnin’ to understan’; though why it sud be soa it ’ud puzzle a plain man to explain. Aye, we’ll ha’ Enoch. But nob’dy else. ‘Too monny cooks spoil the broth,’ as aw’n heard mi owd mother say.” And Jim, after shaking Miriam heartily by the hand and slapping me on the sound side of my back, set off Digglewards, Ruth finding it necessary to show him as far as the garden gate, though there was light enough by now, for we had lingered an unconscionable time over our meal, and surely Jim knew his way well enough by this time to find the gate blindfold.
And then began the preparations for that never-to-be-forgotten feast. Miriam insisted that her money should pay for all, and that there should be no stint. And Ruth let herself go. She had a natural genius for cooking, but up to that day she had, she declared, been like the ancient Israelites in Egypt, required to make bricks without straw. I had once aggravated her by telling her I had read that in France no one was considered a good cook who could not make ten different savoury dishes out of an old boot sole, and I am not sure that she had not tried to make a hot-pot out of an old slipper stewed with potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. But now!—my mouth waters yet as I think of the store of good things that the unwearying Enoch, who had been requisitioned as fetcher and carrier, brought up from Slowit to Pole Moor—what pokes of flour, parcels of raisins, and currants, and almonds, and baking powder, and tea, and coffee, and sugar. I myself beat eggs and cut pork into pieces like dice till my shackle ached—a huge pork-pie was to be what a friend of mine, who knows the lingo, tells me I ought to call the pièce de résistance of that immortal feast. There was to be white bread and brown bread, muffins hot and muffins cold, currant cake—not shouting cake, mind you, but rich, creamy cake, stuffed with fruit—seed cake, hardcakes, custards, blancmange, wobbly jellies of all the colours of the rainbow, mince-pies, apple charlotte, a stuffed chine, a roast goose with apple sauce, a boiled fowl with boiled ham, and that crowning glory, the pork-pie. My father would shuffle into the kitchen in his old list slippers, ever down at the heel, and raise his eyes and hands in mute protest against this sinful prodigality, only to be driven forth with laughter and caresses at the point of the rolling-pin. But worst offender of all was that sad deceiver, Enoch Hoyle, who smuggled into the kitchen a bottle of Jamaica rum, purchased at his own cost and charge, vainly endeavouring to excuse himself by the pretext that mincemeat wouldn’t keep without some mak’ of spirits, and that unless we’d what he called brown cream in our tea we should all die of indigestion. I don’t know what that goodly spread cost Miriam, but it was worth it all to see those two bonnie lasses in clean print frocks, their sleeves rolled up above their elbows, displaying their white rounded arms, picking raisins and currants, cutting candied lemon, kneading dough, pricking loaves and teacakes, dusting table tops with flour, greasing tins with larded paper, raking fires, banging oven doors, plucking fowls, paring apples, and all the while singing, and laughing, and joking, and ordering me and poor Enoch about without a with-your-leave or by-your-leave, or any ceremony whatever. Depend upon it your true woman loves to be bustling in her kitchen when she has plenty to go at.