The Romantic Rigmarole of a time out of town

Chapter I Is, Naturally, The Beginning Of It

I took up an A B C Eailway Guide, turned my head away, and opened it at random. My thumb rested on Stillwater. I was bent on a holiday : Stillwater would do. It had a small population, it was entirely rural, and under thirty miles from London. A month or two amongst the sylvan joys of Stillwater would be just the thing. I began to pack my portmanteau. The mere thought of the early autumn landscape was delightful ; for London had become a mere stony desert, with lonely pavements, that echoed to one's solitary tread; and a great deal of roadway was " up." As I wandered, in my thoughtfully thoughtless way, amongst these reparations, I fell heavily into deep trenches every now and then. Yes ; it was time I left London. Outside my study window a man burnt pitch in a large caldron all day long, watching it closely, while his double was busy removing my doorstep.

I was better away ! B MANTIC RIGMAROLE. The driver of my cab got as near my abode as circumstances allowed, I afforded a gratuitous athletic entertain ment to the boiler of pitch and the remover of the domestic doorstep, and started. As I drove along to the Western terminus I told myself I was a sort of younger (and, I hope, better-looking) Dr. Syntax, about to do a tour, as he did, in search of the picturesque. I felt, too, with a blush, that, as a single man of seven-and-twenty, there might be also a little of that worthy doctor's other tour about my journey — I mean that one of his in search of a wife. Not that I felt the need of a wife. No single man, I take it, feels a chronic want of that sort. As a rule, he scorns the idea till he suddenly sees a goddess. Then it comes on him all in an instant, knocks him down quite flat, and stuns him so badly that he's altogether silly till the attack has passed.

It was not long before I was in the comfortable corner of a smoking carriage speeding westward. I was alone. " This trip," I said to myself, " shall pay its own expenses, for I will write exactly all I say and do, describe what I see, and the whole shall bear the stamp of truth. I'll have none of your garbled reports, half true, half false. If man kind and womankind take the least interest in looking at a mirror of life as seen during a stay in a rural village, then that sight shall be offered to their notice at a reasonable price." No jaded town-dweller, I felt quite sure, would grudge the few shillings which, in purchasing a copy of this true story, should go towards the expenses of him who wrote it. I would be so graphic (not Daily Graphic, nor Weakly), that in a large number of instances it would be felt, on perusal of what I wrote, that a direct economy lay in the book ; the purchaser need not leave town at all.

I would bring the scents, and breezes, and stubble fields and running brooks so powerfully to his notice that he could take his holiday for half-a-crown in my book ; and even in these days of cheap excursions, and collisions, and sudden deaths, no one need hope to get a time in the country for less than that. Further, there would be the other decided advantage, that by no possibility could there exist the danger of fever (typhoid and otherwise) which is, in our fallen con dition, so frequently wedded to the picturesque. Before the train reached the fifteenth milestone from London I felt myself almost a hero, venturing my person in a lion's den of unknown dangers to allow less courageous humanity, through my means, to pass within the veil and see what lay beyond it. In the instant of those thoughts I was recalled to every day life by a man entering the compartment by the pleasant means of walking slowly over my feet, first one and then the other.

He was a particularly heavy man. I had every means of knowing, and I repeat it without fear of con tradiction, he was. A porter dwelt in close attendance upon him, and stood obsequiously at the carriage door while the heavy man settled himself opposite me. "Beg pardon, Squire," said tbe porter then ; "but how did Jim get on, sir, at the Sessions ? " " He didn't get on at all ; he got off— discharged," replied the heavy man, with a commingling of conscious dignity and humour. b The porter grinned at the joke, and touched his hat as the train began to move on. Then the heavy man, who had a stern eye, turned it upon me — at its sternest. "I fear I trod upon your feet," he said, with imposing solemnity. Seeing that he was a man of importance, a chairman of the second Court, perhaps, at Quarter Sessions (than which I can think of nothing more important), it seemed best to mollify him so much as might be.

Therefore, I begged him not to mention it. I was accustomed to having my feet walked upon, and rather liked it from mere force of habit and old association. He looked very closely at me for an instant, as though to see if it were possible that any living creature, bearing human form, could dream of taking the unheard-of liberty of joking with a Justice returning from Quarter Sessions, finally gave up the idea as untenable, and unfolded a Globe, which the porter had purchased for him at the bookstall. As he held that paper sideways, to get the light upon it, I was able to see his face very well, and his occupation allowed me to study it. It was a clean-shaved, massive face of sixty, with eyes that had been so constantly employed in frowning down pre sumption of all sorts in people not recognizing tbe full importance of a Squire's position, that the frown had become habitual to them.

They frowned heavily at the unoffending Globe, till the delicate peach-colour of that print seemed almost a blush brought upon it by those awe-compelling eyes. The Squire was well dressed in dark clothes, and wore a tall hat — as became a Justice when in action. There was a look about him to suggest, somehow, " a word and a blow — the blow first," that wasn't reassuring. Nevertheless, I felt, in my eager study of mankind of all sorts, I couldn't let him escape without some slight cross examination and " trotting out." He'd never suspect such a courageous design on the part of any man : no harm would be done. I made up my mind to that, and said, civilly : " I beg your pardon, but is the next station Stillwater? " The Globe went down with a crash at my words, and the frowning eyes turned upon me with a flash in them as of a policeman's bull's-eye lately trimmed.

"Yes," he said, "it is." " Thanks, very much," I replied, with due meekness. " Going there ? " inquired the Squire, somewhat softened by the latter tone in my voice. "Yes." "Ah! pretty little place. Very quiet. I keep it very quiet ; I like villages kept quiet. I live there ; Stillwater chiefly belongs to me." " I guessed something of the sort from your manner," I replied. The words brought the eyes upon me again, closely. A wain I saw the question cross his mind : " Could I be laughing at him ? " and vanish as too impossible ; then the Squire said, " An artist, I suppose ? " " Not with a brush or pencil ; in words, perhaps," I replied. That staggered him for a moment. He took time to think it over and grasp what I meant. At last he said : " A — a writer?" " Yes, a writer." The Squire looked very closely at me, evidently trying to recognize my face from photos of celebrities he had seen in the London shops.

Meanwhile I looked hard at the Squire's boots. There is a good deal of character in boots. The Squire's were broad-welted, stout-soled ones, apparently designed for the subduing of wet land and root crops gener ally : if necessary, for kicking people. Failing in the endeavour to recognize me, I sank at once below contempt in the Squire's thoughts, and he sought tinted burial in The Globe once more. But at the third station he rose again, for the third station was Stillwater. "This," said the Squire, "is your destination." " Sir," I said, " I thank you ; and am aware of it." I felt it only right to speak in that way. We seemed suddenly to have relapsed into the Alexandrine period, with a touch of Sir Charles Grandison. I take colour from my surroundings very quickly. Even after the Squire, with a solemn bow, had departed in charge of a tall footman with a floury head like a mealy potato, the spell was on me lingeringly.

I found myself addressing the only porter at Stillwater Station in this wise : "I should esteem it a favour if you would inform me which is the best hostelry in the immediate vicinity." " D'yer mean a pub ? " inquired the porter. I assured him that, shorn of all Eastern figurativeness of expression, I meant a pub. " Blincoe's, the ' North Star,' is nighest," said the porter, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. I looked about me, while the porter held my bag. Stillwater Station holds rather an elevated position in the centre of flat grass meadows, fringed with tall elm-trees. The air at that breezy elevation comes freshly on one, bearing in it a soothing perfume as of distant cows. No houses are visible save a little gabled, creeper-clad inn close at hand —the "North Star." I told the porter the " North Star " would do, and followed him down an inclined plane to that abode of polarity.

The low bar was vacant, and the porter, placing my portmanteau upon it, tapped thrice with a large fist, and left me there. I waited : nobody came. I looked through a per spective of bar parlour, kitchen, scullery, red brick-paved yard, flanked with a ruddy pan or two standing edgewise, and so out, over a golden stubble field, straight to the dearest little church silhouetted against a background of flaming sunset. Nobody came. I knocked the bar on my own account, and a dog barked : that was all. I felt I coul'n't do better than study the view a little longer. As I did s ) I was grieved to have it marred by so prosaic a feature as a grunting pig plunging across the stubble field, pursued by a stout old man armed with a broomstick, and a stouter old woman armed with a chopper. The woman was much the fiercer of the two.

She seemed bent on turning that porcine animal into rashers if she got near enough. Evidently the pig knew it, and vowed she shouldn't. Suddenly it doubled, made straight for the bar, and came plunging heavily into it, grunting wildly. The two pursuers followed breathless in its wake. I closed the only means of escape in my direction, and stood facing the landlord and landlady of the " North Star " across the pig. "Could you oblige me with a bedroom here for a few nights ? " I asked. " 'Old on a minit, sir ; I'll be back d'rec'ly," said the landlord, with a strategic movement towards what was evidently a pig-sty on one side of my perspective. " Now, old woman ! " Nobly the old lady supported her lord, and between them they brought that pig to anchor ; then, panting, they both returned to the bar and heard my plea thereat.

The old man was a Rubens' Bacchus temporarily dis mounted ; I can give you no better description of him than that. His costume was shirtsleeves, brown wool cardigan (knitted), and antique trousers. His wife was a replica pro duced in the opposite sex. She wore a black silk gown, broadening down into a greasy degeneration of flounced skirt. I told them my modest wants, and they said there was a bedroom to spare, and that if I liked it at first sight, I could have it ; they also regretted that " the gal was hout " ; but added she'd be " in afore supper-time." Then the old lady opened a flap in the bar-counter, and asked me to follow her upstairs. The builders of houses in old time seem to have felt there was something immodest in stairways : for which reason they notched them into odd corners of walls and put wooden boarding or a lath plastering over them, adding a deceptive cupboard door at the bottom.

The " North Star " stairway was on this wise, so that when the landlady asked me to follow her upstairs, she straightway plunged into what I took to be a house-keeping cupboard, and disappeared. But when I took a like direction I saw a glimmer heavenward, and fell up that surreptitious flight of steps as quickly as any one else could have done it. It was really the sweetest little room when we reached it ; and it looked straight out, parallel with the railway, over the small stubble field, straight to the church and the sunset. The landlady stood, with clasped hands (and panting a little from the stair ascent and the weight of my portmanteau), watching the satisfaction written, as I felt sure it was, upon my expressive face. " This will do capitally ! " I said. The nature of that old woman seemed to be embittered.

Even the praises of her own room afforded her no real satisfaction. " There's the rooshin' o' the trains," she said, despond- " I shall soon get used to that," I murmured, with a tone of hope in the words. " Some people never gits used to it," replied the landlady, with melancholy persistence. " I shall require a small sitting-room where I can write," I said, gaily. " You have that, I suppose ? " " I won't deny as we 'ave," Mrs. Blincoe told me, nearly broken with grief at having to make the admission. "But it looks on the railway-line, an' 'as a most tremenjous draught settin' through it in windy weather." I assured the cheery old soul that if I had a hobby it lay in free ventilation and " through draughts," and sent her off with a peremptory order for a roast fowl at eight. Then I set out my belongings as I like them set out (I'm fussy), and after that went downstairs to try and get up a chat with the landlord.

" Very quiet here," said I, finding him behind the empty bar, smoking a clay pipe. Landlord Blincoe looked hard at me, and " reckoned as it were ; yes, uncommon quiet." " I'm very fond of coming to these villages and finding the ' oldest inhabitant,' and hearing all about the place," I told the landlord. He looked at me once more. I'm a queer-looking fellow, I believe, and I wear my hair rather long. It strikes me sometimes that my general appearance creates suspicion of my intentions. "Are you one o' them," asks the landlord, "as paints pictures ? — you know — three-legged stan' an' a umbrella ; them chaps as can't be 'appy a-looking at anything straight foer'ard, but must allus git 'skew-ways, at it, as it were ? " " No," I said ; " I like to look things straight in the face. I'm a writer."

" Noosepapers ? " inquired the landlord. " And books," said I. A bright thought seemed to strike mine host at once. " Look 'e 'ere," he said, beckoning me to get a glimpse of the pretty perspective. " If you goes out this way, at this time, an' makes for that theer churchyard, you'll see the oldest chap as we've got in Stillwater — Higgins by name — a-sittin' on a tombstone. 'E likes a bit of a jaw. Try 'im." I thanked the landlord, and said I would try him ; and so started off across the bristly stubble, that crackled underfoot, and soon came in sight of Higgins aforesaid.

Chapter II. The Story Of Bill

He was an extremely ancient man, and he sat on the flat top of a sunlit tomb. Time had gnarled him a good deal, and seemed half inclined to tie him into a knot, he was bent so much. As he sat there he rested his hands on an old stick that wasn't more crooked and knotted than its owner. Seeing that I, in my lazy wandering, stopped dead, close by him, he turned his blinking old eyes upon me, and seemed inclined for conversation. I felt I had indeed lighted on " the oldest inhabitant " ; and so, taking a seat on the tomb myself, made a remark to the antique gentleman. I made it rather in the manner of one speaking to himself; because it seemed quite probable that Time might have relieved the old fellow of his hearing by way of lightening him for the journey to the next world. But he wasn't deaf; he heard me at once.

" Old, sir? Yes, sir. Eighty-seven, sir, or may be eight, come next Lady Day, sir. All my life in this village, sir ? Yes, sir, ev'ry day o' it, 'ceptin' the year o' the Great Exhibition — ten year ago, I reckon — when I went to London along o' a excursion." I told him the Great Exhibition was nearer forty years ago than ten, and for the moment the fact seemed to shake him; but he was himself again directly. " Most like it be," he said. " Time goes that quick ! " Then he shifted his position a little, with a good deal of puffing and grunting, to get into a more easy attitude for talking to me, and thereby disclosed the inscription on the flat tomb on which he sat. It was in loving memory of "Alice Lee, aged seventeen." " A quiet village, sir ? Yes, sir, it be a very quiet village, in a gen'ral way — now as Bill ain't in it. 'E were the last man as caused what you may call a sheer in it.

Yes, sir ! " A tear dropped out of one of his old eyes as he spoke, and fell on his withered hand. He was so antique and dulled that he wasn't at all sure what the moisture meant, or where it came from, and looked up blinkily at the sky, muttering something about " skuddin' clouds"; seemingly under the impression the tear was a rain spot. I determined to hear the pathetic story of Bill ; and so got out a cigar-case. " Smoke, sir ? Ay ! I smokes right enough ! Not very often cigars, though. Thank 'ee kindly, sir ! Would yer mind holdin' the light tu it, sir ? — my 'and's that shaky." Tbe cigar was " that shaky " when he got it in his jaws, he was so old ; and when at intervals he held the cigar in his hand, it took him quite a long time to catch his mouth with it again as he dabbed at it, uncertain of touch.

Once, in some unaccustomed manœuvre, he mistook the end, and got the red-hot one between his old lips, and spluttered and choked till I thought he would have died. But he didn't. He survived it ; and presently went on with the story of Bill :— " Bill, you see, sir, were a bad 'un from the very fust. Yes, sir, he were. 'E were allus arter the game, yer see. A born poacher, Bill were. Afore 'e were twenty into jail 'e goes along o' poachin'. Squire be a very firm man, sir, as stan's no nonsense, you understan' (I recollected his weight on my feet, and understood), an' when Bill were caught poachin', why, inter jail 'e goes, in course, sir ; yes, sir. At last, bein' an uncommon good-lookin' chap, sir, Bill goes an' makes love to a 'ousemaid oop at the Squire's. An' she likes 'im an' 'e likes 'er.

It were mutual. An' so they walked out tergether on Sundays, an' likes each other more an' more (as, in such circumsf (traces, were only ter be ex pected), an' 'ad their banns called in this heer church, sir, an' were married theer, sir; yes, sir." Here the old fellow's cigar was out, and I had to hold the light to it for him because, though it was a still day, and no trouble with the match being blown out, there seemed so much danger of my friend igniting his hat brim, or his nose, or perhaps his ear, in his palsied efforts, that I felt bound to assist him. Getting him fairly under weigh at last, he proceeded steadily : — "Well, sir, they 'ad a daughter, sir; yes, sir — a little afore time, the folks said, sir. An' the folks did laugh, sir, at the idee o' a child in Bill's 'ouse : " ' Why ! ' says they, ' he'll kill that babby in 'is fust drunken fit, that 'e will ! ' But 'e di'n't, sir ; no, sir, not 'e ! 'E reg'ler took to that child, sir, did Bill ! 'E even give oop 'is wild ways, sir, an' worked more reg'ler at farm labourin', an' sichlike. 'E never so much as looked at 'is gun, sir, which were hung oop on a nail in the cottage, an' got rusty for want o' use ; it did indeed, sir !

That small child, sir, were a reg'ler stay to that theer big man, sir ; it were sir ; yes, sir ! As the time run by, you see, sir, the little 'un grew oop, gettin' prettier an' prettier ; an' they 'ad no more children. Bill 'uld laugh about it, sir, Bill would, an' say as 'ow they couldn't better theer fust try, an' so they'd made up theer minds ter stop, sir. Bill were a fine lookin' chap, as I towd yer ; an' 'is wife were likewise good lookin' too ; an' the child were consequently good-lookin', — gooder lookin' nor both on 'em. When she went ter school she were the sharpest gal in school, sir, she were, an' took all the best prizes ; an', in consequence, all the other gals in the village 'ated 'er. Yes, sir, they will so do, sometimes, sir. " That Bill, sir, got reg'ler ropped up in that young gal, sir ; 'e did, sir !

"When the gal, sir, were seventeen, sommat 'appened. You'll understan' me, sir, when I says sommat 'appened. Squire, sir, 'e 'ad a son. 'Mazin' fine young gent, sir, jest 'ome from college fur a bit. You'll understan' me, sir, sommat 'appened. But then, you see, sir. Bill 'ad often took Squire's game, sir, in days gone by. Theer be a law agin' that, sir. But when Squire's son fancied the gal as Bill were ropped up in, theer weren't no law agin' that, sir ; no, sir. " That gal, sir, were soon arterwards missin', she were ; an' a week later they found 'er body in the river — theer, jest by that cloomp o' withies, sir, beyond wheer the cows is. You sees it, I makes no doubt ; 'tis theer, though I can't rightly see it myself. Well, sir, what do Bill do (the very night as the body was found) but go an' get down 'is gun, sir, yes, sir, ac' begin a-brightenin' o' it oop, sir, yes, sir !

" ' Wheer be you a-goin', Bill ? ' asks 'is wife. ' Never you mind,' says Bill, all o' a trimble. ' Never you mind ! ' So 'e shoulders 'is gun an' hout 'e goes. Well, Squire's keepers found 'im in the wood, an' surprised 'im, an' charged 'im at the Bench wi' poachin'. 'E got a fortnight. Yes, sir, he did, sir, though he warn't arter no game, sir, not 'e. When 'e come out, sir, 'e seemed to ha' gone back as bad as ever 'e were afore the gal were borned, sir. 'E did ! Allus drunk ; allus dodgin' the keepers an' poachin' ; allus gettin' caught an' goin' ter jail fur it. " One day, sir, when 'e comes 'ome from jail, 'is wife calls, sir, from upstairs, when she heard 'is step, ' Bill, come oop ! ' So 'e goes oop. She were in bed, sir. ' Bill,' she says, ' that poor gal be took away, but another 'ave been give us.

Look 'ere, Bill ! ' An' she turns down the bed clothes, sir, an' shows 'im another little gal, sir ; yes, sir, jest borned. Bill, sir, 'e di'n't say nothin' not whatsomever, sir ; no, sir. 'E jest stood theer, a-trimblin' like a leaf, sir. Stron" Bill, sir, stood a-trimblin', sir. Then, still struck silent like, 'e goes downstairs, an' puts 'is old gun oop on the nails, sir, wheer it were afore 'e took to 'is bad ways agin. While L'e'were a-doin' o' it, sir, the nus as attended to 'is missus came runnin' down. ' Come oop, Bill ! ' she screetches out, all skeered like. ' Come oop, yer wife's a dyin' Bill ! ' So oop goes Bill. She were a-dyin' fast, sir ; yes, sir ! Some'ow 'er voice seemed a long way off like, an' very faint. ' Bill ! ' she says, ' I'm a-goin', Bill ! Promise, she says, ' ter give oop bad ways, an' stick ter the cbild: Bill!

" ' I promises solemn ! ' Bill says, says 'e. " 'Bill, I'm a-goin' faster,' she says. "Old my 'and " ' I be a-'oldin' o' it now,' Bill says. " Then she jest looked oop at 'im, grateful like, begins to say ' I'm a-goin' ' once more, an' she goes afore she said it." Another tear fell on the old man's withered hand, and he looked up, as at the commencement of his story, and muttered something about " skuddin' clouds," and went on : — " Bill took to that little gal, sir, as 'ard an' fast as 'e 'ad took to 'er sister as were drownded, sir ; yes, sir, 'e did ! But it were a delicate child, sir, very. Terrible 'ard to rear, sir. But 'e reared it ; an' 'e give oop all his wild ways, sir, an' worked steady, an' began ter git on again, sir. But Parson, sir, never liked 'im ; an' 'e never liked Parson.

Parson used ter 'int as 'is troubles was 'judgments' on 'im ; an' as 'ow 'is daughter's misfortune was the visitin' o' the sins o' the parent, sir ; yes, sir ; an' 'is wife's death likewise ; an' it kind o' riled Bill, sir ; 'e didn't zac'ly know why. So it warn't to say right atween Bill an' Parson, sir ; no, sir ; an' Parson wouldn't gi'e the parish gifts to Bill o' winter, sir, an' that made matters wus. So everythink seemed ter go the wrong way with Bill, sir. (It du with some people, sir, I've noticed, sometimes.) When the little gal were seven years old, one 'ard winter, sir, she took cold on cold, an' fresh uns afore she'd got rid o' them, sir; an' 'er boots wasn't sound ; an' Bill were out o' work, an' firin' skace, wi' things o' that sort. An' at last the little gal lay on a little bed in a corner o' the cottage, an' coughed an' coughed, an' couldn't fancy nothink to eat, sir. No, sir, she couldn't. An' Bill set over a few cinders in the grate, sir, wi' no money in 'is pockets, an' the child main bad, sir. V " ' Can't yer think o' nothink as you'd like ter eat, if so be as I could git it, my pet ? ' Bill arst 'er.

" ' Onny one thing, father dear,' says she. " ' An' what be that, my dear ? ' " 'A bit o' stewed rabbit, father,' she says. " Thin Bill gets oop out o' 'is cheer, an' shakes hisself, an' looks out o' the cottage winder. " It was a sharp winter's night, wi' the moon a-shinin'. " Bill, wi'out sayin' no word, goes an' reaches down 'is old gun as 'e'd not touched since that little gal were borned. ' I shan't be long, lovey,' 'e says, an' so goes out an' makes straight fur Squire's woods. " 'E worn't long afore 'e seed a rabbit runnin' athirt one o' the rides wheer the moonlight was a-shinin' brightest through the trees. 'E oops wi' 'is gun an' fires, an' kills 'im, picks 'im oop, an' begins goin' 'ome quick. But Squire's keepers 'ears, an' gets atween 'im an' 'is way 'ome, sir ; yes, sir. " ' Jail agin, Bill ! ' says one on 'em ; ' fur we knows yer.' ' Stan' out o' my path!' says Bill (fur 'e thought o' the little un, an' 'is blood were oop). ' None o' that,' says the keeper, fittin' 'is 'and on the trigger o' 'is gun.