Here there was another laugh.
“When ye spoke o’ skeercrows,” observed Johnny Watkins, who had been silent much longer than he liked, “it minds me o’ a crewel turn one o’ they figgers served my poor mother. Father could never abide the sight o’ one since.”
Rhys looked encouragingly at Johnny. He was nothing loth to change the subject. “What was that?” he asked.
“It were when old Hitchcock were parson down at Crishowell. He and his lady had a great notion o’ each other, an’ when each fifth of August come round—bein’ their marriage-day—any one as did go to the Vicarage with a ‘good luck to ye, sir and madam,’ or ‘many happy returns o’ the day,’ got a bottle o’ beer from Madam Hitchcock to take home an’ drink their good health in. My mother, though she were a bit hard o’ seein’, did use to go, an’ never missed a weddin’-day from the time her come to the parish to the day her was taken up on high. One year, as her went, her peered over the garden wall an’ dropped a bob to the parson as he was in the midst o’ the onion-bed standing quiet an’ lookin’ at the fruit. At the house, the missis were at the window an’ her bobbed again. ‘Wish you luck o’ this day, ma’am,’ says she. ‘Thank you, Betty,’ says madam, smilin’ sweet. ‘And good luck to the Reverend Hitchcock that’s standin’ among the onions outside. Never did I see the reverend parson look so well an’ handsome,’ says mother, smilin’ an’ laughin’ more than was needful, her bein’ a bit bashful. The lady give a look at her so as poor mother were fairly dazed, an’ down come the window wi’ a bang an’ madam was gone. Mother waited there three-quarters of an hour full, until a lad were sent out to tell her to go home an’ no ale. One day as her an’ father was passin’, her said to father, says mother, ‘Hitchcock be a wonderful man for flowers. Never a day do I go by but he’s there squintin’ at them.’
“‘Lawk, you poor foondy[1] woman,’ says father, ‘do parson have straw round a’s legs? ’Tis the skeercrow.’ An’ when he found how the dummy had cheated him out o’ his beer, never could he look one i’ the face again. ’Twas crewel, that it was.”
[1] Foolish.
[CHAPTER IV
AT THE YEW-STUMP AND AFTER]
THE mist lifted a little as Rhys Walters left the Dipping-Pool and turned out of the watercourse on to smooth turf. He could not help smiling as he thought of Charley Turnbull’s misgivings, though in his heart he sympathized with them more than he would admit, even to himself.