Chapter XXXII
Mrs. Poyser "Has Her Say Out"
THE next Saturday evening there was much excited discussion at the
Donnithorne Arms concerning an incident which had occurred that
very day--no less than a second appearance of the smart man in
top-boots said by some to be a mere farmer in treaty for the Chase
Farm, by others to be the future steward, but by Mr. Casson
himself, the personal witness to the stranger's visit, pronounced
contemptuously to be nothing better than a bailiff, such as
Satchell had been before him. No one had thought of denying Mr.
Casson's testimony to the fact that he had seen the stranger;
nevertheless, he proffered various corroborating circumstances.
"I see him myself," he said; "I see him coming along by the Crab-
tree Meadow on a bald-faced hoss. I'd just been t' hev a pint--it
was half after ten i' the fore-noon, when I hev my pint as reg'lar
as the clock--and I says to Knowles, as druv up with his waggon,
'You'll get a bit o' barley to-day, Knowles,' I says, 'if you look
about you'; and then I went round by the rick-yard, and towart the
Treddles'on road, and just as I come up by the big ash-tree, I see
the man i' top-boots coming along on a bald-faced hoss--I wish I
may never stir if I didn't. And I stood still till he come up,
and I says, 'Good morning, sir,' I says, for I wanted to hear the
turn of his tongue, as I might know whether he was a this-country
man; so I says, 'Good morning, sir: it 'll 'old hup for the barley
this morning, I think. There'll be a bit got hin, if we've good
luck.' And he says, 'Eh, ye may be raight, there's noo tallin','
he says, and I knowed by that"--here Mr. Casson gave a wink--"as
he didn't come from a hundred mile off. I daresay he'd think me a
hodd talker, as you Loamshire folks allays does hany one as talks
the right language."
"The right language!" said Bartle Massey, contemptuously. "You're
about as near the right language as a pig's squeaking is like a
tune played on a key-bugle."
"Well, I don't know," answered Mr. Casson, with an angry smile.
"I should think a man as has lived among the gentry from a by, is
likely to know what's the right language pretty nigh as well as a
schoolmaster."
"Aye, aye, man," said Bartle, with a tone of sarcastic
consolation, "you talk the right language for you. When Mike
Holdsworth's goat says ba-a-a, it's all right--it 'ud be unnatural
for it to make any other noise."
The rest of the party being Loamsnire men, Mr. Casson had the
laugh strongly against him, and wisely fell back on the previous
question, which, far from being exhausted in a single evening, was
renewed in the churchyard, before service, the next day, with the
fresh interest conferred on all news when there is a fresh person
to hear it; and that fresh hearer was Martin Poyser, who, as his
wife said, "never went boozin' with that set at Casson's, a-
sittin' soakin' in drink, and looking as wise as a lot o' cod-fish
wi' red faces."
It was probably owing to the conversation she had had with her
husband on their way from church concerning this problematic
stranger that Mrs. Poyser's thoughts immediately reverted to him
when, a day or two afterwards, as she was standing at the house-
door with her knitting, in that eager leisure which came to her
when the afternoon cleaning was done, she saw the old squire enter
the yard on his black pony, followed by John the groom. She
always cited it afterwards as a case of prevision, which really
had something more in it than her own remarkable penetration, that
the moment she set eyes on the squire she said to herself, "I
shouldna wonder if he's come about that man as is a-going to take
the Chase Farm, wanting Poyser to do something for him without
pay. But Poyser's a fool if he does."
Something unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old
squire's visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs. Poyser
had during the last twelvemonth recited many imaginary speeches,
meaning even more than met the ear, which she was quite determined
to make to him the next time he appeared within the gates of the
Hall Farm, the speeches had always remained imaginary.
"Good-day, Mrs. Poyser," said the old squire, peering at her with
his short-sighted eyes--a mode of looking at her which, as Mrs.
Poyser observed, "allays aggravated me: it was as if you was a
insect, and he was going to dab his finger-nail on you."
However, she said, "Your servant, sir," and curtsied with an air
of perfect deference as she advanced towards him: she was not the
woman to misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the face of the
catechism, without severe provocation.
"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser?"
"Yes, sir; he's only i' the rick-yard. I'll send for him in a
minute, if you'll please to get down and step in."
"Thank you; I will do so. I want to consult him about a little
matter; but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not more. I
must have your opinion too."
"Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in," said Mrs. Poyser, as
they entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low in answer
to Hetty's curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pinafore stained
with gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against the clock and
peeping round furtively.
"What a fine old kitchen this is!" said Mr. Donnithorne, looking
round admiringly. He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-
chiselled, polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous.
"And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser. I like these
premises, do you know, beyond any on the estate."
"Well, sir, since you're fond of 'em, I should be glad if you'd
let a bit o' repairs be done to 'em, for the boarding's i' that
state as we're like to be eaten up wi' rats and mice; and the
cellar, you may stan' up to your knees i' water in't, if you like
to go down; but perhaps you'd rather believe my words. Won't you
please to sit down, sir?"
"Not yet; I must see your dairy. I have not seen it for years,
and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter," said
the squire, looking politely unconscious that there could be any
question on which he and Mrs. Poyser might happen to disagree. "I
think I see the door open, there. You must not be surprised if I
cast a covetous eye on your cream and butter. I don't expect that
Mrs. Satchell's cream and butter will bear comparison with yours."
"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. It's seldom I see other folks's
butter, though there's some on it as one's no need to see--the
smell's enough."
"Ah, now this I like," said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round at the
damp temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door. "I'm sure
I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter and cream
came from this dairy. Thank you, that really is a pleasant sight.
Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of
damp: I'll sit down in your comfortable kitchen. Ah, Poyser, how
do you do? In the midst of business, I see, as usual. I've been
looking at your wife's beautiful dairy--the best manager in the
parish, is she not?"
Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waistcoat,
with a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion of
"pitching." As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the
small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by
the side of a withered crab.
"Will you please to take this chair, sir?" he said, lifting his
father's arm-chair forward a little: "you'll find it easy."
"No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs," said the old
gentleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door. "Do
you know, Mrs. Poyser--sit down, pray, both of you--I've been far
from contented, for some time, with Mrs. Satchell's dairy
management. I think she has not a good method, as you have."
"Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that," said Mrs. Poyser in a hard
voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of
the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poyser
might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn't going to sit
down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr.
Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down in
his three-cornered chair.
"And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to let
the Chase Farm to a respectable tenant. I'm tired of having a
farm on my own hands--nothing is made the best of in such cases,
as you know. A satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I think
you and I, Poyser, and your excellent wife here, can enter into a
little arrangement in consequence, which will be to our mutual
advantage."
"Oh," said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of
imagination as to the nature of the arrangement.
"If I'm called upon to speak, sir," said Mrs. Poyser, after
glancing at her husband with pity at his softness, "you know
better than me; but I don't see what the Chase Farm is t' us--
we've cumber enough wi' our own farm. Not but what I'm glad to
hear o' anybody respectable coming into the parish; there's some
as ha' been brought in as hasn't been looked on i' that
character."
"You're likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbour, I assure
you--such a one as you will feel glad to have accommodated by the
little plan I'm going to mention, especially as I hope you will
find it as much to your own advantage as his."
"Indeed, sir, if it's anything t' our advantage, it'll be the
first offer o' the sort I've heared on. It's them as take
advantage that get advantage i' this world, I think. Folks have
to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em."
"The fact is, Poyser," said the squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser's
theory of worldly prosperity, "there is too much dairy land, and
too little plough land, on the Chase Farm to suit Thurle's
purpose--indeed, he will only take the farm on condition of some
change in it: his wife, it appears, is not a clever dairy-woman,
like yours. Now, the plan I'm thinking of is to effect a little
exchange. If you were to have the Hollow Pastures, you might
increase your dairy, which must be so profitable under your wife's
management; and I should request you, Mrs. Poyser, to supply my
house with milk, cream, and butter at the market prices. On the
other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have the Lower and Upper
Ridges, which really, with our wet seasons, would be a good
riddance for you. There is much less risk in dairy land than corn
land."
Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, his
head on one side, and his mouth screwed up--apparently absorbed in
making the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent with
perfect accuracy the ribs of a ship. He was much too acute a man
not to see through the whole business, and to foresee perfectly
what would be his wife's view of the subject; but he disliked
giving unpleasant answers. Unless it was on a point of farming
practice, he would rather give up than have a quarrel, any day;
and, after all, it mattered more to his wife than to him. So,
after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said mildly,
"What dost say?"
Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold
severity during his silence, but now she turned away her head with
a toss, looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and
spearing her knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly
between her clasped hands.
"Say? Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up any o'
your corn-land afore your lease is up, which it won't be for a
year come next Michaelmas, but I'll not consent to take more dairy
work into my hands, either for love or money; and there's nayther
love nor money here, as I can see, on'y other folks's love o'
theirselves, and the money as is to go into other folks's pockets.
I know there's them as is born t' own the land, and them as is
born to sweat on't"--here Mrs. Poyser paused to gasp a little--
"and I know it's christened folks's duty to submit to their
betters as fur as flesh and blood 'ull bear it; but I'll not make
a martyr o' myself, and wear myself to skin and bone, and worret
myself as if I was a churn wi' butter a-coming in't, for no
landlord in England, not if he was King George himself."
"No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not," said the squire,
still confident in his own powers of persuasion, "you must not
overwork yourself; but don't you think your work will rather be
lessened than increased in this way? There is so much milk
required at the Abbey that you will have little increase of cheese
and butter making from the addition to your dairy; and I believe
selling the milk is the most profitable way of disposing of dairy
produce, is it not?"
"Aye, that's true," said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opinion
on a question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was not
in this case a purely abstract question.
"I daresay," said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head half-way
towards her husband and looking at the vacant arm-chair--"I
daresay it's true for men as sit i' th' chimney-corner and make
believe as everything's cut wi' ins an' outs to fit int'
everything else. If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the
batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. How do I know whether the
milk 'ull be wanted constant? What's to make me sure as the house
won't be put o' board wage afore we're many months older, and then
I may have to lie awake o' nights wi' twenty gallons o' milk on my
mind--and Dingall 'ull take no more butter, let alone paying for
it; and we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the butcher on
our knees to buy 'em, and lose half of 'em wi' the measles. And
there's the fetching and carrying, as 'ud be welly half a day's
work for a man an' hoss--that's to be took out o' the profits, I
reckon? But there's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and
expect to carry away the water."
"That difficulty--about the fetching and carrying--you will not
have, Mrs. Poyser," said the squire, who thought that this
entrance into particulars indicated a distant inclination to
compromise on Mrs. Poyser's part. "Bethell will do that regularly
with the cart and pony."
"Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I've never been used t' having
gentlefolks's servants coming about my back places, a-making love
to both the gells at once and keeping 'em with their hands on
their hips listening to all manner o' gossip when they should be
down on their knees a-scouring. If we're to go to ruin, it shanna
be wi' having our back kitchen turned into a public."
"Well, Poyser," said the squire, shifting his tactics and looking
as if he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from the
proceedings and left the room, "you can turn the Hollows into
feeding-land. I can easily make another arrangement about
supplying my house. And I shall not forget your readiness to
accommodate your landlord as well as a neighbour. I know you will
be glad to have your lease renewed for three years, when the
present one expires; otherwise, I daresay Thurle, who is a man of
some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as they could
be worked so well together. But I don't want to part with an old
tenant like you."
To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have been
enough to complete Mrs. Poyser's exasperation, even without the
final threat. Her husband, really alarmed at the possibility of
their leaving the old place where he had been bred and born--for
he believed the old squire had small spite enough for anything--
was beginning a mild remonstrance explanatory of the inconvenience
he should find in having to buy and sell more stock, with, "Well,
sir, I think as it's rether hard..." when Mrs. Poyser burst in
with the desperate determination to have her say out this once,
though it were to rain notices to quit and the only shelter were
the work-house.
"Then, sir, if I may speak--as, for all I'm a woman, and there's
folks as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an' look on
while the men sign her soul away, I've a right to speak, for I
make one quarter o' the rent, and save another quarter--I say, if
Mr. Thurle's so ready to take farms under you, it's a pity but
what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in a house
wi' all the plagues o' Egypt in't--wi' the cellar full o' water,
and frogs and toads hoppin' up the steps by dozens--and the floors
rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing every bit o' cheese, and
runnin' over our heads as we lie i' bed till we expect 'em to eat
us up alive--as it's a mercy they hanna eat the children long ago.
I should like to see if there's another tenant besides Poyser as
'ud put up wi' never having a bit o' repairs done till a place
tumbles down--and not then, on'y wi' begging and praying and
having to pay half--and being strung up wi' the rent as it's much
if he gets enough out o' the land to pay, for all he's put his own
money into the ground beforehand. See if you'll get a stranger to
lead such a life here as that: a maggot must be born i' the rotten
cheese to like it, I reckon. You may run away from my words,
sir," continued Mrs. Poyser, following the old squire beyond the
door--for after the first moments of stunned surprise he had got
up, and, waving his hand towards her with a smile, had walked out
towards his pony. But it was impossible for him to get away
immediately, for John was walking the pony up and down the yard,
and was some distance from the causeway when his master beckoned.
"You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go spinnin'
underhand ways o' doing us a mischief, for you've got Old Harry to
your friend, though nobody else is, but I tell you for once as
we're not dumb creatures to be abused and made money on by them as
ha' got the lash i' their hands, for want o' knowing how t' undo
the tackle. An' if I'm th' only one as speaks my mind, there's
plenty o' the same way o' thinking i' this parish and the next to
't, for your name's no better than a brimstone match in
everybody's nose--if it isna two-three old folks as you think o'
saving your soul by giving 'em a bit o' flannel and a drop o'
porridge. An' you may be right i' thinking it'll take but little
to save your soul, for it'll be the smallest savin' y' iver made,
wi' all your scrapin'."
There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a waggoner may
be a formidable audience, and as the squire rode away on his black
pony, even the gift of short-sightedness did not prevent him from
being aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far
from him. Perhaps he suspected that sour old John was grinning
behind him--which was also the fact. Meanwhile the bull-dog, the
black-and-tan terrier, Alick's sheep-dog, and the gander hissing
at a safe distance from the pony's heels carried out the idea of
Mrs. Poyser's solo in an irnpressive quartet.
Mrs. Poyser, however, had no sooner seen the pony move off than
she turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look which
drove them into the back kitchen, and unspearing her knitting,
began to knit again with her usual rapidity as she re-entered the
house.
"Thee'st done it now," said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and
uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's
outbreak.
"Yes, I know I've done it," said Mrs. Poyser; "but I've had my say
out, and I shall be th' easier for't all my life. There's no
pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only
dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. I shan't
repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as th' old
squire; and there's little likelihood--for it seems as if them as
aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th'
other world."
"But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Michaelmas
twelvemonth," said Mr. Poyser, "and going into a strange parish,
where thee know'st nobody. It'll be hard upon us both, and upo'
Father too."
"Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may happen
between this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain may be
master afore them, for what we know," said Mrs. Poyser, inclined
to take an unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment which had
been brought about by her own merit and not by other people's
fault.
"I'M none for worreting," said Mr. Poyser, rising from his three-
cornered chair and walking slowly towards the door; "but I should
be loath to leave th' old place, and the parish where I was bred
and born, and Father afore me. We should leave our roots behind
us, I doubt, and niver thrive again."
