In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

The parson had his daily service, but the most constant of his congregation, certainly in the mornings, was Auntie, who never failed.

Mrs. Estcourt brought visitors from the Hall to see her, not such as were unable to appreciate the goodness and sweetness of the old lady, but kindly-hearted ladies and gentlemen, and somehow these visitors afterwards in town, or wherever else they met the Squire, always inquired after Auntie. They felt they were the better for having seen and spoken with her.

To some it was a revelation that there were, in this self-seeking and somewhat coarse world, some highly-refined, unselfish spirits, the violets of the moral world.

As already said, every one in the place knew her story, but to her face no one alluded to it. Among the English peasantry there is a wonderful and beautiful delicacy of feeling such as often puts to shame those who belong to highly-cultured grades. The utmost done was to ask, “Please, miss, have you heard anything of Master John?”

Then a quiver would pass over the old face, the lip would tremble, and the eye fall, and she would shake her head, unable to give the denial in words.

Often and often did Mrs. Estcourt send to her grapes or peaches or melons from the conservatories at the Hall, and yet she knew that most of these good things were at once distributed by the old lady among the children as they swarmed out of school, or given to some sick body with a capricious appetite.

The farmers also or their wives sent her poultry, the children picked for her watercress, the poor women gave her eggs, and then Auntie had no rest until she had proclaimed to the parson and his wife, to the squiress, to all she knew, how good and generous these poor bodies had been to her.

And every day she sat at her window painting her pin-cushions or making the little crosses for book-markers, or setting them up on little card stands, or illuminating texts, and nodding and smiling to all passers-by in the road, and to the children as they came to school. Between school hours in wet weather many a little girl found a refuge in Auntie’s kitchen, there to eat her dinner and have warm milk or tea.

It was a sad prospect to Auntie when her sight began to fail. Resigned to the will of Heaven she ever was, but she regretted the inability into which she would fall of manufacturing comforting articles for the poor.

So years passed.