“Yes, I saw a big black crow come flying right over the roof about one o’clock; and then I knowed as some one was agoing, ’live or dead. But I never told her, feared to frighten her. Lord in heaven knows I didn’t.”
“And did you see anything else go by? A cat, or a dog, or a man or a woman, or anything else that did not usually come? Or did you hear any steps, anywhere near the house, or see anything more than usual?”
Polly shook her head, as if I was putting a crushing weight of thought on the top of it. And then she began to cry again, and her mother came up to protect her. She had cried when she heard that her mistress was gone; and she must not be allowed to cry again, or no one could tell what would come of it.
“Sweetie, tell the whole truth now. Got no need to be frightened. If perlice does come, they can’t do nothing at all to you, my dear. Seventeen children have I had, and none ever put thumb on the Bible.”
Mrs. Tompkins did not mean that her family failed to search the Scriptures, but that they had never been involved in criminal proceedings; nay, not even as witnesses.
“Well then, I think as I did see summat,” replied Polly under this encouragement. I would not have pressed her as I did, unless I had felt pretty sure that she was keeping something back. “It worn’t nothin’ to speak of much, nor yet to think upon, at the time.”
“Well, out with it, deary, whatever it was. All you have to do, is to speak the truth, and leave them as can put two and two together, to make out the meaning of it.”
Thus adjured, Polly, after one more glance to be sure that no policeman was coming, told her tale. It was not very much, but it might mean something.
“’Twur about four o’clock, I believe, and all the things was put back again after mucksing out the rooms, when missus said to me, ‘You run, Polly, and pick a little bit of chive down the walk there. I don’t want much,’ she says, ‘but what there is must be good, and just enough to cover a penny-piece, after I’ve chopped it up and put it together. I wants to have everything ready,’ she says, ‘just to make a homily when my husband comes home. I have got plenty of parsley in that cup,’ she says, ‘but he always likes a little bit of chive, to give it seasoning. And be sure you pick it clean,’ she says, ‘and it musn’t be yellow at the tip, or dirty, because if the grit gets in,’ she says, ‘it’s ever so much worse than having none at all.’ So I says, ‘All right, ma’am, I knows where it is; and you shall have the best bit out of all the row.’ ‘You’re a good girl,’ she says, ‘don’t be longer than you can help, and you shall have a cup of tea, Polly, before you go home, because you’ve worked very well to-day; nobody could ’a doed it better,’ says she. Well, I took a little punnet as was hanging in the kitchen, not to make it hot in my hands, you see, and I went along the grass by the gooseberry bushes,—you knows the place I mean, mother; and there was the chives, all as green as little leeks. As I was a-stooping over them, with my back up to the sky, all of a sudden I heer’d a sort of creak like, as made me stand up and look to know where it come from. And then I seed the old door, as used to be bolted always, opening just a little way, in towards me, though I was a good bit off; and then the brim of a hat come through, and I sings out, ‘Who’s there, please?’ There wasn’t no nose or eyes a-coming through the door yet; nor yet any legs, so far as I could see; but only that there brim, like the brim of a soft hat; and I couldn’t say for certain whether it were brown or black. ‘Nothing here to steal,’ I says, for I thought it wor some tramp; and then the door shut softly, and I was half a mind to go and see, whether there was any one out in the lane. But it all began to look so lonely like, and I was ordered not to stop, and so I thought the best thing was to go back, and tell the missus. But something came that drove it out of my mind altogether. For when I got back to the house she says, ‘Don’t you lose a minute, Polly, that’s a good girl. Run as far as Widow Cutthumb’s, and fetch half a dozen eggs. I thought I had four, and I have only got three,’ she says, ‘and I can’t make a homily for two people of three eggs. And my husband won’t eat a bit, unless I has some,’ she says.
“So I was off quick stick to Widow Cutthumb’s; and there, outside the door, I seen that Bat Osborne, the most owdacious boy in all Sunbury. ‘Halloa!’ says he, ‘Poll, you do look stunnin’. Got a baker’s roll a-risin’, by the way you be a-pantin’! Give us a lock of your hair, again’ the time when we gets old,’ he says. And afore I could give him a box on his ear, out he spreads his fingers, some way he must have learned—for I never could ’a doed it myself, no, that I couldn’t—and away goes all my black-hair down over all my shoulders, just the same as if it was Sunday going on for three years back. That vexed I were, I can assure you, Mr. Kit—well, mother knows best how I put it up that very same morning for the cleaning, and our Annie to hold the black pins for me—but get at him I couldn’t, to give him one for himself. He were half across the street, afore I could see out; and he hollered out some imperence as made all the others grinny. But I’ll have my change, afore next Sunday week, I will.