Then Mr. Johnson retired to assume more comfortable attire, and I went for a walk to meditate. And coming back in the soft twilight I came across John William and Susan Kate. They were lingering at the wicket gate, and his arm was round her waist, and just as I caught sight of them he stooped and kissed her.
That, of course, accounted for the extraordinary happiness in Susan Kate's face when she laid the cloth for supper.
CHAPTER X
THE WAY OF THE COMET
If he should happen to be alive (and if he is he must now be a very old man, and have had ample time for reflection about more things than one), Bartholomew Flitcroft will have heard of the comet which is now in our neighbourhood with what are usually described as mingled feelings. It is not quite within my recollection as to when it exactly was that the last comet of any note visited us; if Bartholomew exists, and has preserved his memory, he has better cause to know than most men. At least, that may be so or may not be so, because no one can ever tell how anything is going to turn out. When that particular comet had come and gone Bartholomew was a sorely disappointed man; whether he really had reason to be, no one will ever know.
As regards Bartholomew's status in the world, he was a smallish farmer at Orchardcroft—a middle-aged, raw-boned, hatchet-faced man, whose greatest difficulty in life was to make up his mind about anything. If an idea about sowing spring wheat or planting potatoes came into his head as he walked about his land, he would stand stock still wherever he was and scratch his ear and think and consider until his mind was in a state of chaos. He had always been like that, and, being a bachelor, he got worse as he got older. He would never do anything unless he had what he called studied it from every side, and once when one of his stacks got on fire he was so long in deciding as to which of the two neighbouring towns he would send to for the fire-engines that the stack was burned, and three others with it.
So far as was known to any one acquainted with him, Bartholomew never turned his attention to the subject of marriage until he was well over forty years of age. Whether it then occurred to him because his housekeeper married the butler at the Hall nobody ever could say with any certainty, but it is certain that he then began to look about for a wife. Naturally he exercised his characteristic caution in doing so, and he also hit upon a somewhat original plan. He kept his eyes open whenever he went to church or market, and, it being a fine spring and summer when the idea of matrimony came to him, he began to ride of a Sunday evening to the churches and chapels in neighbouring villages with a view to looking over the likely ladies. That was how he at last decided to marry Widow Collinson, of Ulceby.
Now, Widow Collinson was a pleasant-faced, well-preserved woman of some forty summers, whose first husband, Jabez Collinson, had had a very nice business as corn miller at Ulceby, and had consequently left her comfortably provided for. When he died she kept the business on, and it was said that she was already improving it and doing better than Jabez had done. Such a woman, of course, was soon run after, and all the more so because she had no encumbrances, as they call children in that part of the country; there were at least half-a-dozen men making sheep's eyes at her before Bartholomew came upon the scene. Whatever it was that made her take some sort of liking to Bartholomew nobody could understand, but the fact is that she did—at any rate, Bartholomew began riding over to Ulceby at least three times a week, and it was well known that the widow always gave him a hot supper, because the neighbours smelt the cooking. One night she cooked him a couple of ducks, with stuffing of sage and onions, and, of course, everybody knew then that they were contemplating matrimonial prospects. And those who were acquainted with Bartholomew's prevalent characteristic were somewhat surprised that he had made up his mind so quickly.
It was always considered in Orchardcroft that if it had not been for Mr. Pond, the schoolmaster, the marriage of Mrs. Collinson and Mr. Flitcroft would have been duly solemnized that very year. Bartholomew might have caused some delay at the post, but it was plain that he meant business if he once got off. And it was certainly the school-master who made him do what he did. He and Mr. Pond were near neighbours, and they had been in the habit of smoking their pipes in one or the other's house for many years. They would have a drop of something comforting, and sit over the fire, and Mr. Pond used to tell Bartholomew the news, because Bartholomew never read anything except the market reports and Old Moore's Almanack. And one night when they were thus keeping each other company and Bartholomew was thinking of Mrs. Collinson and her mill, Mr. Pond remarked, with a shake of the head—
"This is very serious news about this comet, Mr. Flitcroft."