At this speech the smile faded from Luke’s face; but, before he could utter a word in reply, another voice, evidently that of a female, chimed in from the cottage—
‘I’m sure, father, it be like you to be asking Brother Brown and the Brethren here of a Good Friday, as if we didn’t get enough of them every day i’ the year. However, coming they be, but we shan’t get the dinner over any the quicker with you standing racketing there!’
The speaker stood in the doorway, the red brick and the green creepers framing her as she stood. A comfortable looking woman, dressed in a clean cotton gown, with a coarse white apron tied round her waist. She was short and stout, with a brown good-humoured face and glossy black hair. She wore a cap the long ends of which were thrown over her shoulders and pinned behind, as if for freedom; her sleeves were rolled up nearly to the elbow, and her hands and arms were mottled brown and red with constant work in soap and water.
At sight of this figure, no other indeed than Mrs. Mark Peartree, or, as Madeline called her, ‘Aunt Jane,’ the good-humoured grin again took possession of Uncle Luke’s face. Passing through the little gate he made for the door and at once entered the house, while Madeline transferred her attentions to Uncle Mark.
‘It wasn’t any fault o’ Uncle Luke’s,’ she said, looking up into the weather-beaten face, ‘indeed, Uncle Mark, ’twas all on account o’ me that he was so long—I was up there with Polly Lowther, looking at the graves.’
In her eagerness to excuse her favourite, Madeline might have revealed the dreaded secret of the dance, but Uncle Mark, who had his own reasons for wishing to get the dinner quickly disposed of, patted her hand and said—
‘All right, Madlin, my lass;’ and, taking her small hot hand in his big horny first, led her into the house.
It was a very small house. A long narrow passage led from the front door to the back, and midway in the passage was a flight of narrow carpetless stairs. On the right opened out two rooms—a kitchen, and a parlour, as it was called. During the week, while the men were at work on the river, the parlour was carefully closed up. No fire was ever lit in it—it was dark, well polished, and genteel, with a bit of drugget for a carpet, a china shepherd and shepherdess, and several shells on the mantelpiece, and on the walls two highly illuminated pictures, one representing the Prodigal Son, the other Susannah and the Elders. But in the centre of the mantelpiece stood the crowning glory of the apartment—a small ‘weather-cottage’ made of wood, formed in the shape of a roofed shed, and containing two figures, one of ‘Darby’ and another of ‘Joan,’ standing on either side of a piece of wood, suspended in the centre by a quicksilver pole. When the weather was fine, Joan swung out, with her basket on her arm, as if going to market, and left Darby under cover; when it was wet, Joan retreated, and Darby emerged to brave the elements like a man. This weather-cottage was a miracle of art in Madeline’s eyes, and was regarded with no little reverence by all the members of the house. Indeed, the parlour altogether was a sanctuary, full of a pious clamminess and darkness, and even Mrs. Peartree never entered it without a certain awe, tempered with a sense of increased respectability. From week’s end to week’s end they remained in the red-tiled kitchen, while on Sunday evening, and indeed on every festive occasion like the present, the parlour was thrown open for the family use.