In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

He lamed every horse he attempted to shoe, so that he was at once dismissed by the farrier to whom he offered his services. For a while he held a place as bellows-blower, at twelve shillings, but the blacksmith saw that he could get a boy at six who could do as well, and when Tim had the impudence to demand a full wage of fifteen the master dismissed him. “Tim,” said he, “I only took you on because I thought I might get some work out of you at the anvil. Why, confound you, you cannot even make a nail!”

Then Slouch heard that there was a new line being made at a distance, and he offered his services on that. As blacksmith he was not needed, but he was engaged as a navvy. But he did not remain long there; he was speedily dismissed. He did not arrive in time of a morning, he loitered over his work, and made other men loiter. What work he did, he did so badly that it had to be undone. So he came back, and brought no accumulation of wage in his pocket.

Next he offered himself to a blacksmith in a town distant ten miles, and was engaged. He kept the place about four months, returning to his wife every Saturday, and going back to his lodgings in the town on Sunday evenings. Then he was again out of work. He asked the Squire of the adjoining parish to give him employment. The reason why he was out of work was, said he, that what with the heavy rent he had to pay for his lodgings in the town, and what with the shoe-leather he wore out in his trudges to and fro, and on account of a sore foot, caused by an ingrowing nail on one of his toes, he was obliged to abandon his situation. Very likely this was all true, but it is also just as likely that the situation was closed up against him. His allegation was not inquired into. The Squire gave him his rhododendrons to peg.

“My dear,” said the Squire to his wife, “I think he cannot go wrong there—and for Sela’s sake we will give him the chance.”

Sela had been a poor girl who had attended to her mother, a widow confined for six years to her bed, or to a chair, and who had been maintained by the parish and such alms as were sent from the rectory and the hall.

When, finally, the mother died and Sela was left alone, she went into service at a farmhouse, where the mistress was somewhat of a termagant.

She did not long remain there, for Timothy Luppencott offered her his hand, his heart, and his hearth, and she accepted him. Sela had always been accustomed to poverty, and therefore did not shrink from the prospect of being the wife of a poor man. She had attended to a helpless mother; she found, when wedded, that she was tied to an almost helpless man.

Sela had been a good daughter, she was a good wife, and, in time, also a good mother. She had first one child and then another, and one of these proved rickety; very probably this was due to insufficiency of food. For Timothy when in work, and earning good wage, could not be relied upon to bring home a sufficiency for the support of his family. He was not a drunken man, but he went to the public-house, and he liked to enjoy himself. If there were a ploughing match, a harvest festival, a cricket match, a wild-beast show, a bazaar, Tim would be there. The work might go hang, he said, he must see the fun.

If Sela had seven shillings a week on which to clothe and feed herself and the children, she thought herself in luck’s way. When she was able she went out charing; but when the children arrived she could not do this, and then dire distress came on her.

She had been a particularly pretty girl, and she was a very sweet-looking woman, with great, soft brown eyes; but there was firmness about her lips.