The landlord of the little tumble-down place took these visitations very philosophically: indeed it was noticeable that his spirits were uplifted in proportion to the rising of the springs, knowing, as he had reason to do, that this watery rising habitually produced elevation of another kind among his customers. For when one’s fields are flooded and one’s spirits damped, one is all the better able to appreciate an exhilarating glass, particularly when that glass is partaken of under peculiar and mirth-producing circumstances.
When Billy Clarke’s lower premises were under water, the topers were forced to migrate upstairs to the biggest bedroom, and there with a roaring fire in the tiny grate, packed themselves side by side upon the ancient four-post bed, and amid uproarious laughter devised every conceivable pretext for sending cross-grained Anne creaking down the slippery stairs, and clicking and sliding about on her pattens on the wet tiles below. The strife between her cupidity and her ill-temper was an endless source of amusement to her clients; Anne Clarke would walk a mile for twopence, it was said, but she took it out in “language”.
The dusk was gathering when Samuel Cross called upon this damsel, and, though “the water had been out” a few days before, it had now partially subsided. The “barton,” to be sure, was still more like a lake than a farm-yard, and Billy’s two cows, standing knee-deep in a dark slimy mess which once had been a manure heap of more than respectable dimensions, looked very forlorn and wretched. Anne, still clinking about on her pattens, wore a particularly forbidding expression on her frosty face as she paused on her way from the clothes-line, a basket of linen poised on her hip, to return the visitor’s salutation.
“’Tother way to the tap-room,” she added ungraciously.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Clarke. I come on a very different matter—a very delicate matter, and one which nearly concerns you.”
Anne fixed her most tractable eye upon him and considered; after a few minutes a light appeared to break in on her, and her face became almost pleasant.
“I d’ ’low ye be the lawyer feller, bain’t ye? Have ’ee come to say Father or me’s come in to a legacy?”
“Not exactly that, Miss Clarke, though I shouldn’t say there wasn’t money in it. You will find, Miss, that it will be to your advantage to place entire confidence in me.”
Anne hitched the basket a little higher up on her hip, assisting the operation by a jerk of her bony knee, and stared harder than ever; even the unmanageable eye assuming an expression of lively interest which was positively uncanny.
“What be to do?” she asked breathlessly.