THE WEATHERCOCK
Lydia French had a shop opposite the church. The little town or overgrown village had no market, but there were fairs held in the space before the church on one side and Lydia French’s shop on the other twice in the year. Both were cattle fairs, frequented by farmers. On such occasions bullocks ran about with tails lifted, yelling men and barking dogs behind and before them, and made either for the churchyard wall or for Lydia French’s shop window. The Oddfellows, moreover, held their annual feast there, and processionised behind a band, and waved banners and wore sashes, and ate and drank heartily at the “Peal of Bells.” On such occasions stalls were erected in the open space, where nuts were shot for, and barley-sugar-sticks and twisted peppermint rods and brandy-balls were sold, also ginger-pop and lemonade. On all these occasions Lydia French’s shop was full of customers. She, moreover, had a good clientèle in the entire parish, but experienced less difficulty in disposing of her goods than in getting her little bills paid.
But though there were defaulters, yet those who liquidated were in the majority, or Lydia French would not have been the prosperous woman she was. Her aspect breathed a fulness of purse and flush of comfort that were convincing. She could afford herself, on occasion, a silk gown. She made weekly expeditions to the bank to pay in hebdomadal profits. She had recently repapered her little parlour, and the paper was white and gold.
She was generous. When children put down their pennies for acid drops or almond rock, she always made the balance incline in their favour, to their great admiration; when their mothers bought calico, she was not particular to a quarter of a yard; and she was large-hearted—she subscribed equally to the missionaries of Church and Chapel.
Lydia French was a widow. She had been married but for a twelvemonth to a commercial traveller, who had in the brief year tried her forbearance and strained her means, and she had now been a widow of three years, and was without encumbrance.
Several had made advances to her, but she soon let commercial travellers understand that none of them need apply. There was one who trafficked in a “Life of Wellington,” with magnificent steel engravings, issued in parts, who laid siege to her; and when he would not take a “No” she refused to receive any more numbers of the series. Whereupon he threatened her with legal proceedings, averring that she had bound herself to Wellington from the cradle to the grave when she received the first part. She paid up rather than go into court, and nursed bitterness of heart against travellers thenceforth. The man whom she had married was bad enough; this Wellingtonian man was “wusser,” as she expressed it. It really was preposterous that such a woman, plump, prosperous, comely, should not find her man.
But, indeed, there were plenty of men who wanted her, only she was hard to please. A young farmer—she did not relish farm-work; she did not wish to give up the shop. The blooming butcher—she had an aversion for the trade. A handsome drover—he tippled. A Methodist class-leader—he was a teetotaller, and she liked her drop of mild ale.
But, finally she seemed to hesitate between two—John Newbold, the mason, and Jack Westcott—or, as the children called him, Jackie Waistcoat, the sailor.