“Ye mind our Alice, how pleased she used to be when ye called her over of an evening? Dear to be sure, what a bonny little maid she was, and what a pride we used to take in her. And now to think that poor creetur’ what come here to-day is her. There, I could ha’ cried to see her in that wold patched dress—’ees, an’ I did cry when she did tell I how she do often go hungry.”
“Well, I’m dalled if she shall go hungry while she bides wi’ us,” cried the farmer, sitting suddenly upright in his chair. “Let Master Ned emmygrate so soon as he pleases, an’ let the poor maid come to us—an’ the brats too. She’ll know what ’tis for a while, to eat wi’out stintin’. Let her come an’ bide so long as she likes—the longer the better, say I—the longer she’s shut o’ that n’er-do-weel o’ a husband the better pleased I’ll be.”
The following week Alice and her children took up their abode at her old home. Alice was pale and nervous at first, but soon regained her self-possession. The farmer was almost boisterous in his welcome.
After tea Mrs Bolt, with a wink at her daughter, installed the little boy in the chair before referred to, at his grandfather’s side, an arrangement in which the latter acquiesced silently, yet with evident pleasure. Abel watched him with round inquisitive eyes while he filled and lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair, crossed his legs luxuriously. Presently, possessing himself of a bit of stick which lay beside the hearth, the child wedged it in a corner of his own small mouth, and trotting back to his chair, settled himself in it, in as close an imitation of his grandfather’s attitude as the differences of age and size, and a slight difficulty in distinguishing his right leg from his left, would admit of. Abel the elder stared for a moment, and then, realising the state of affairs, nudged his wife with a delighted chuckle.
“Look at that,” he exclaimed. “He be a sharp little chap if ever there was one. Ye shall have a better pipe nor that to smoke, sonny.”
The farmer was as good as his word, and on the next day purchased a supply of sugar-sticks, one of which he gravely handed to his grandson every evening before lighting his own pipe.
Whether it was because the little fellow was won over by this practical proof of consideration and regard, or whether the affinity which the women-folk were so fond of talking about, really existed, it is certain that before the Blanchard family were a week in the house, the two Abels were practically inseparable. Whether toddling along a furrow in his grandfather’s wake, or riding one of the farm horses, or perched on top of a pile of mangolds, the child was his grandfather’s constant companion.
Alice almost insensibly fell back into the ways of her girlhood, and, as the days passed, her youth itself seemed to return to her. She grew plump and rosy, sang as she went about her work, played with her little ones as though she were a child herself. Had it not been for the presence of the children, indeed, Mrs Bolt often declared she could have fancied old times were back again, and their maid had never left them. The good food, the freedom from petty anxieties, had no doubt much to do with this happy change, but it was chiefly brought about by the new hope in her heart which grew and brightened day by day.
One morning, however, Mr Bolt, coming back unexpectedly from the field where he had been ploughing, and happening to take a short-cut through the orchard, came upon Alice who was hanging out clothes to dry. Now it was Mrs Bolt’s custom to let the world know that she had been washing, by setting the linen to dry in front of the house; the larger articles being draped on clothes-lines that ran from the corner of the milk-house wall to the post by the wood-shed, while the smaller were neatly spread upon the hedge. But here was Alice setting up a private clothes-line of her own, and hanging garments on it—not her own, or her children’s garments, as her father first supposed, but socks and shirts, even a pair of nankeen trousers.
“What mid ye be doin’ here?” he enquired, at the top of his voice, and so suddenly that poor Alice dropped her basket.