“Now, once for all,” said Asher Skurge, “if I don’t get my bit o’ rent by to-morrow at four o’clock, out you goes, bag and baggage, Christmas-eve or no Christmas-eve. If you can’t afford to pay rent, you’d best go in the house, and let them pay as will.” And Asher girded up his loins, and left Widow Bond and her children in their bare cottage, to moan over their bitter fate.
And then came Christmas-eve and four o’clock, and no money; and, what was better, no Asher Skurge to turn out Widow Bond, “bag and baggage,” not a very difficult task, for there was not much of it. The cottage was well-furnished before Frank Bond’s ship was lost at sea, and the widow had to live by needlework, which, in her case, meant starving, although she found two or three friends in the village who were very sorry for her, or at all events said they were, which answered the same purpose.
However, four o’clock grew near—came—passed—and no Asher. It was not very dark, for there was snow—bright, glittering snow upon the ground; but it gradually grew darker and darker, and with the deepening gloom. Mrs Bond’s spirits rose, for she felt that, leaving heart out of the question, old Skurge, the parish clerk, dare not turn her out that night on account of his own character. Five o’clock came, and then six, and still no Asher; and Widow Bond reasonably thought that something must be keeping him.
Mrs Bond was right—something was keeping the clerk, and that something was the prettiest, yellow-haired, violet-eyed maiden that ever turned out not to be a dreadful heroine given to breaking up, and then pounding, the whole of the ten commandments in a way that would have staggered Moses himself. No; Amy Frith, the rector’s daughter, was not a wicked heroine, and now that she was busy giving the finishing touches to the altar-screen, and pricking her little fingers with holly till they bled, she would not let the old man go because young Harry Thornton, her father’s pupil, was there. And Amy knew that so sure as old Skurge took himself off, the young man would begin making love, which, though it may be crowned in a church, ought not to be made in the same place.
The young man fumed and fretted; and the old man coughed and groaned and told of his rheumatics; but it was of no use; the maiden pitied them both, and would have set them at liberty on her own terms, but remained inexorable in other respects till the clock chimed half-past six, when the candles were extinguished, the dim old church left to its repose, and the late occupants took their departure to the rectory, and the long low cottage fifty yards from the church gates.
“No; it couldn’t be done at any price—turn the woman out on such a night; the whole place would be up in arms; but he would go and see if there was any money for him;” and so Asher Skurge partook of his frugal tea by his very frugal fire, a fire which seemed to make him colder, for it was so small that the wintry winds, which came pelting in at keyhole and cranny, all hooted, and teased, and laughed at it, and rushed, and danced, and flitted round, so that they made a terrible commotion all about Asher’s chair, and gave him far more cause to complain of rheumatics than he had before.
So Asher buttoned himself up, body and soul too; he buttoned his soul up so tight that there was not space for the smallest, tiniest shade of a glance or a ray of good feeling to peep out; and then he sallied forth out into the night-wind, with his nose as sharp and blue as if it had been made of steel; and, as he hurried along, it split the frosty wind right up, like the prow of a boat does water, and the sharp wind was thus split into two sharper winds, which went screeching behind him, to cut up the last remains of anything left growing.
He was a keen man was Asher; as keen a man as ever said “Amen” after a prayer and didn’t mean it. Ill-natured folks said he only seemed in his element on Commination-day, when, after all the Curseds, he rolled out the Amens with the greatest of gusto, and as if he really did mean it, while the rector would quite shiver—but then the wind generally is easterly at commination time, in the cold spring. He used to boast that he had neither chick nor child, did Asher; and here again people would say it was a blessing, for one Skurge was enough in a village; and that it was a further blessing that his was a slow race. He was a cold-blooded old rascal; but for all that he was warm, inasmuch as he had well feathered his nest, and might by this time have been churchwarden; but he preferred being clerk, to the very great disgust of Parson Frith, who would gladly have been rid of him long enough before.
It did seem too bad to go worrying a poor widow for rent on a Christmas-eve; but nothing was too bad for Asher, who soon made the poor woman’s heart leap, and then sink with despair.
Old Skurge was soon back in his own room, and the wind at last blew so very cold that he indulged in the extravagance of an extra shovel of coals, and a small chump of wood, and then he drew his pipe from the corner and began to smoke, filling the bowl out of a small white gallipot containing a mixture, half tobacco, half herbs, which he found most economical; for it did not merely spin out the tobacco, but no dropper-in ever cared about having a pipe of “Skurge’s particular,” as it was named in the village.