The new place was in Somerset, thirty-five to forty miles from their native village, and Ierat as shepherd at the manor-house farm on a large estate would have better wages than he had ever had before and a nice cottage to live in. Martha was delighted with her new home—the cottage, the entire village, the great park and mansion close by, all made it seem like paradise to her. Better than everything was the pleasant welcome she received from the villagers, who looked in to make her acquaintance and seemed very much taken with her appearance and nice, friendly manner. They were all eager to tell her about the squire and his lady, who were young, and of how great an interest they took in their people and how much they did for them and how they were loved by everybody on the estate.
It happens, oddly enough, that I became acquainted with this same man, the squire, over fifty years after the events I am relating, when he was past eighty. This acquaintance came about by means of a letter he wrote me in reference to the habits of a bird or some such small matter, a way in which I have become acquainted with scores—perhaps I should say hundreds—of persons in many parts of the country. He was a very fine man, the head of an old and distinguished county family; an ideal squire, and one of the few large landowners I have had the happiness to meet who was not devoted to that utterly selfish and degraded form of sport which consists in the annual rearing and subsequent slaughter of a host of pheasants.
Now when Martha was entertaining half a dozen of her new neighbours who had come in to see her, and exhibited her baby to them and then proceeded to suckle it, they looked at one another and laughed, and one said, "Just you wait till the lady at the mansion sees 'ee—she'll soon want 'ee to nurse her little one."
What did they mean? They told her that the great lady was a mother too, and had a little sickly baby and wanted a nurse for it, but couldn't find a woman to please her.
Martha fired up at that. Did they imagine, she asked, that any great lady in the world with all her gold could tempt her to leave her own darling to nurse another woman's? She would not do such a thing—she would rather leave the place than submit to it. But she didn't believe it—they had only said that to tease and frighten her!
They laughed again, looking admiringly at her as she stood before them with sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks, and fine full bust, and only answered, "Just you wait, my dear, till she sees 'ee."
And very soon the lady did see her. The people at the manor were strict in their religious observances, and it had been impressed on Martha that she had better attend at morning service on her first Sunday, and a girl was found by one of her neighbours to look after the baby in the meantime. And so when Sunday came she dressed herself in her best clothes and went to church with the others. The service over, the squire and his wife came out first and were standing in the path exchanging greetings with their friends; then as the others came out with Martha in the midst of the crowd the lady turned and fixed her eyes on her, and suddenly stepping out from the group she stopped Martha and said, "Who are you?—I don't remember your face."
"No, ma'am," said Martha, blushing and curtsying. "I be the new shepherd's wife at the manor-house farm—we've only been here a few days."
The other then said she had heard of her and that she was nursing her child, and she then told Martha to go to the mansion that afternoon as she had something to say to her.
The poor young mother went in fear and trembling, trying to stiffen herself against the expected blandishments.