Zoe. Evelyn Whitaker
on which, as the men said, you got 'no forrarder' if you drank a hogshead, and Gray had no money to spare from the necessaries of life to spend on luxury, even the luxury of getting drunk.
He was in one way better off than his neighbours from a worldly point of view, in that he had not a large family as most of them were blessed with; for children are a blessing, a gift and heritage that cometh of the Lord, even when they cluster round a cold hearth and a scanty board. But Gray had only two sons, the elder of whom, Tom, we have seen at Zoe's christening, and who had been at work four years, having managed at twelve to scramble into the fifth standard, and at once left school triumphantly, and now can neither read nor write, having clean forgotten everything drummed into his head, but earns three shillings and sixpence a week going along with Farmer Benson's horses, from five o'clock in the morning till six in the evening, the long wet furrows and heavy ploughed land having made havoc of his legs, as such work does with most plough-boys.
The younger boy, Bill, is six years younger and still at school, and having been a delicate child, or as his mother puts it, 'enjoying bad health,' is not promising for farm-work, and, being fond of his book and a favourite at school, his mother cherishes hopes of his becoming a school-teacher in days to come.
But such is the perversity of human nature, that though many a Downside mother with a family of little steps envied Mrs Gray her compact family and the small amount of washing attached to it, that ungrateful woman yearned after an occupant for the old wooden cradle, and treasured up the bits of baby things that had belonged to Tom and Bill, and nursed up any young thing that came to hand and wanted care, bringing up a motherless blind kitten with assiduous care and patience, as if the supply of that commodity was not always largely in excess of the demand, and lavishing more care on a sick lamb or a superfluous young pig than most of the neighbours' babies received.
So when one evening in May, Gray came in holding a bundle in his arms and poked it into her lap as she sat darning the holes in Tom's stockings (she was not good at needlework, but she managed, as she said, to 'goblify' the holes), he knew pretty well that it was into no unwilling arms that he gave the baby.
'And a mercy it was as the darning-needle didn't run right into the little angel,' Mrs Gray always said in recounting the story.
He had been down to the village to fetch some tobacco, for the Grays' cottage was right away from the village, up a lane leading on to the hillside, and there were no other cottages near. Tom was in bed, though it was not eight yet—but he was generally ready for bed when he had had his tea; and Bill was up on the hill, a favourite resort of his, and especially when it was growing dark and the great indigo sky spread over him, with the glory of the stars coming out.
'He never were like other lads,' his mother used to say with a mixture of pride and irritation; 'always mooning about by himself on them old hills.'
The cottage door stood open as it always did, and Mrs Gray sat there, plainly to be seen from the lane, with Tom's gray stocking and her eyes and the tallow candle as near together as possible. She did not hear a sound, though she was listening for Bill's return, and, even though Tom's snores penetrated the numerous crevices in the floor above, they were hardly enough to drown other sounds.
So there was no knowing when the bundle was laid just inside the cottage gate, not quite in the middle of the brick path, but on one side against the box edging, where a clump of daffodils nodded their graceful heads over the dark velvet polyanthus in the border. Gray nearly stepped upon the bundle, having large feet, and the way of walking which covers a good deal of ground to right and left, a way which plough-driving teaches.
Mrs Gray heard an exclamation.
And then Gray came in, and, as I have said, did his best to impale the bundle, baby and all, on the top of his wife's darning-needle.
CHAPTER II
Mr Robins—Village Choirs—Edith—An Elopement—A Father's Sorrow—An Unhappy Pair—The Wanderer's Return—Father!—A Daughter's Entreater—No Favourable Answer—A Sleepless Pillow
The organist of Downside, Mr Robins, lived in a little house close to the church.
Mr Clifford the vicar was accounted very lucky by the neighbouring clergy for having such a man, and not being exposed to all the vagaries of a young schoolmaster, or, perhaps, still worse, schoolmistress, with all the latest musical fancies of the training colleges. Neither had he to grapple with the tyranny of the leading bass nor the conceit and touchiness that seems inseparable from the tenor voice, since Mr Robins kept a firm and sensible hand on the reins, and drove that generally unmanageable team, a village choir, with the greatest discretion.
But when Mr Clifford was complimented by his friends on the possession of such a treasure, he accepted their remarks a little doubtfully, being sometimes inclined to think that he would almost rather have had a less excellent choir and have had some slight voice in the matter himself.
Mr Robins imported a certain solemnity into the musical matters of Downside, which of course was very desirable as far as the church services were concerned; but when it came to penny-readings and village concerts, Mr Clifford and some of the parishioners were disposed to envy the pleasant ease of such festivities in other parishes, where, though the music was very inferior, the enjoyment of both performers and audience was far greater.
Mr Robins, for one thing, set his face steadily against comic songs; and Mr Clifford in his inmost heart had an ungratified ambition to sing a certain song, called 'The Three Little Pigs,' with which Mr Wilson in the next parish simply brought down the house on several occasions; though Mr Clifford felt he by no means did full justice to it, especially in the part where the old mother 'waddled about, saying "Umph! umph! umph!" while the little ones said "Wee! wee!"' To be sure Mr Wilson suffered for months after these performances from outbursts of grunting among his youthful parishioners at sight of him, and even at the Sunday-school one audacious boy had given vent on one occasion to an 'umph!' very true indeed to nature, but not conducive to good behaviour in his class. But Mr Clifford did not know the after effects of Mr Wilson's vocal success.
Likewise Mr Robins selected very simple music, and yet exacted an amount of practising unheard of at Bilton or Stokeley, where, after one or two attempts, they felt competent to face a crowded schoolroom, and yell or growl out such choruses as 'The Heavens are telling' or 'The Hallelujah Chorus,' with a lofty indifference to tune or time, and with their respective schoolmasters banging away at the accompaniment, within a bar or two of the singers, all feeling quite satisfied if they finished up altogether on the concluding chord or thereabouts, flushed and triumphant, with perspiration standing on their foreheads, and an expression of honest pride on their faces, as much as to say, 'There's for you. What do you think of that?'
If success is to be measured by applause, there is no doubt these performances were most successful, far more so than the accurately rendered 'Hardy Norseman' or 'Men of Harlech' at Downside, in which lights and shades, pianos and fortes were carefully observed, and any attempt on anyone's part, even the tenors, to distinguish themselves above the others was instantly suppressed. The result, from a musical point of view, was no doubt satisfactory; but the applause was of a very moderate character, and never accompanied by those vociferous 'angcores,' which are so truly gratifying to the soul of musical artistes.
Mr Robins was a middle-aged man, looking older than he really was, as his hair was quite white. He had some small independent means of his own, which he supplemented by his small salary as organist, and by giving a few music lessons in the neighbourhood. He had been in his earlier years a vicar-choral at one of the cathedrals, and had come to Downside twenty years ago, after the death of his wife, bringing with him his little girl, in whom he was entirely wrapt up.
He spoilt her so persistently, and his housekeeper, Mrs Sands, was so gentle and meek-spirited, that the effect on a naturally self-willed child can easily be imagined; and, as she grew up, she became more and more uncontrollable. She was a pretty, gypsy-looking girl, inheriting her sweet looks from her mother, and her voice and musical taste from her father. There was more than one young farmer in the neighbourhood who cast admiring glances towards the corner of the church near the organ, where the organist's pretty daughter sat, and slackened the pace of his horse as he passed the clipped yew-hedge by the church, to catch