CHAPTER III.
Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect
his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny
Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple.
Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his mother rented a few
acres of grass-land from the squire, and it was now hay-time. And
Leonard, commonly called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow.
The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the many nooks of
the long, green village lane. And a thoroughly English cottage it was,
three centuries old at least; with walls of rubble let into oak frames,
and duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes of glass,
an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. There was about this
little dwelling all the homely rustic elegance which peasant life admits
of; a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few flower-pots were
placed on the window-sills; the small plot of ground in front of the
house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some large rough
stones on either side the little path having been formed into a sort of
rockwork, with creepers that were now in flower; and the potato-ground
was screened from the eye by sweet peas and lupine. Simple elegance, all
this, it is true; but how well it speaks for peasant and landlord, when
you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has some spare time and
heart to bestow upon mere embellishment! Such a peasant is sure to be a
bad customer to the alehouse, and a safe neighbour to the squire's
preserves. All honour and praise to him, except a small tax upon both,
which is due to the landlord!
Such sights were as pleasant to the parson as the most beautiful
landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He paused a moment at the
wicket to look around him, and distended his nostrils voluptuously to
inhale the smell of the sweet peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay
in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then moved
on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well-polished as they were,--
for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way,--on the scraper
without the door, and lifted the latch.
Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph
painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the
grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as
elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a
glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty
haymakers.
Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision
of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she
now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she
showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,--a countenance
from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment,
effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows
past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the
fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have
favoured the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in
the languid air and "within-doors" occupations of a town.
"Never mind me," said the parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick
courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I
will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny,--an excellent boy."
WIDOW.--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say it,--but so he is."
PARSON.--"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best
lad in the whole school at his Catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I
assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I
fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!"
WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).--"'Deed, sir, when
my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.
But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there
in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to
say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my good man smiled on
me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up,
and did not want me any more."
PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).--"You never hear anything of
the old folks at Lansmere?"
"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me nor the boy;
but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I wants
their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own father and
mother!"
PARSON.--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite
the same man after that sad event which--but you are weeping, my friend,
pardon me; your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in
another way."
WIDOW.--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o' pride in me!
and that's the reason they always looked down on me."
PARSON.--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a
year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him
when he grew up, as they ought."
WIDOW (with flashing eyes).--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such
thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him
a kind word sin' he was born!"
The parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's
hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride; but
he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in
the most irritable of all rancours,--namely, that nourished against one's
nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said, "Well,
time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we are
forgetting the haymakers. Come."
The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard
into the fields.
PARSON.--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny
should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have given
it away on the road."
WIDOW.--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed,--it is the will; as I felt when the
squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year he--that is,
Mark--died."
PARSON.--"If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be
long before the squire may put the two pounds on again."
"Yes, sir," said the widow, simply; "I hope he will."
"Silly woman!" muttered the parson. "That's not exactly what the
schoolmistress would have said. You don't read nor write, Mrs.
Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety."
"You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor sister; and
though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after him
when we came together."
