"Never mind how I express it," said Grace, and I thought that rather independent of her, and it confirmed my conviction that she knew of some one too ready to make too much of her. "If you understand it, that is enough. But do come, darling George, you make us so sadly anxious about you. What should we do, if you fell ill? And your poor dear eyes that were so blue – the loveliest blue – oh, such a blue – "
She knew that her own were tenfold bluer, and mine no more than cigar-ash to them. Now a man can put up with a lot of humbug from a sister who is good to him; but he must be allowed to break out sometimes, or she herself will soon make nought of him. And all this unusual gush from Grace, because I had missed my supper beer. When she offered to kiss my poor lonely brow, it annoyed me, as I thought of being superseded.
"My dear child," I said, waving my hand towards the corner where Stoneman looked envious, "the light is very dim; but I really should have thought that you must have seen Mr. Stoneman there. Mr. Stoneman, allow me to apologise for my sister's apparent rudeness. I fear that she over-tries her eyes sometimes."
The stockbroker favoured me with a glance, as if he longed to over-try my eyes too; and then he came forward and offered his hand to my discomfited sister, with the lowest bow I ever did behold. All this was a delight to me; but neither of them for the moment seemed to be enjoying it.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Stoneman," said our Grace, recovering herself with a curtsey, as profound as his bow, and a thousand times more graceful. "Really I must take to spectacles. But I hope, as you have heard my little lecture, you will join me in persuading my dear brother to take a little more care of himself. He works all day long; and then at night he sits all by himself and thinks – as I thought he was doing when I came so in the dark."
After a few more words she left us, departing with a dignity which showed how wrong I must have been in suspecting her of levity.
"She is – she is – " Mr. Stoneman stopped, for he could not find anything grand enough. "Oh, I wish I might only call you George."
"With all my heart," I replied quite humbly, perceiving a touch of bathos, which in human affairs is almost sure to mean a return to common-sense. "All over the farm they call me George, at any rate behind my back."
"Then, my dear George, I will leave you now. I have had a most delightful visit; and I wish to go and think about it. But do not suppose for a moment that I shall cherish any foolish hopes. I know what I am, and what she is. Did you see how she walked from the table? And my cigar was smoking on it."
"Shall I tell you what to do, my friend?" I answered rather pettishly; "you are famous for strong decision, as well as quick sagacity. Exert a little of them now, and put away this weakness."
"It is not my weakness. It is my strength."
Before I could speak again, he was gone. And verily, when I went out of doors, and saw the stars in their distant gaze, and felt the deep loneliness of night, it struck me that perhaps this man was wise – to set his heart upon a constant love, some warmth and truth not far to seek, and one at least who would never fail to feel his thoughts and endear his deeds.
CHAPTER V
TICKNOR'S MEW
Some men there are whom it is a pleasure to observe at their daily work. How they swing their shoulders, and sway their arms, and strain the strong cordage of the bulky thigh, casting weight as well as muscle into the fight they are waging! And this pleasure should be made the most of, because it is growing very rare. I have heard my grandfather say, that when he was a boy, one man could do, ay and would insist on doing, more work in a day, than is now to be got out of three by looking hard at them – three men of the very same stock and breed, perhaps even that grandfather's own grandchildren. And the cause which he always assigned for this, though not a bad scholar himself, and even capable of some Latin, was the wild cram and pressure of pugnacious education. "The more a jug gurgles, the less it pours," was his simple explanation.
There is much to be said on the other side, especially as the things put into their heads are quick enough to go out again, and the Muses as yet have not turned the village-boy into a Ganymede; but the only man, on our little farm, who ever worked with might and main had never been at school at all, and his name was Robert Slemmick. To this man nothing came amiss, if only there was enough of it. He was not particularly strong, nor large of frame, nor well put together; but rather of a clumsy build and gait, walking always with a stoop, as if he were driving a full wheel-barrow, and swinging both arms at full speed with his legs. But set him at a job that seemed almost too heavy for him, and he never would speak, nor even grunt, nor throw down his tool and flap his arms, but tear away at it, without looking right or left, till you saw with surprise that this middle-sized man had moved a bigger bulk in the course of a day than a couple of hulking navvies.
But one fault he had, and a very sad fault, which had lost him many a good place ere now, and would probably bring him to the workhouse – he was what is called by those who understand such matters a "black buster." At the nearest approach I could make to this subject, sidling very carefully – for the British workman would be confidential rather to a ghost than to his own employer – it seems that there are two kinds of "busters." The white one, who only leaves work for a spree of a day or two, meaning to jollify, and to come back in a chastened vein, after treating all his friends, and then going upon trust; and the black, who is of a stronger mind. This man knows better than to waste his cash upon clinking glasses with a bubble at the top. He is a pattern for weeks and months together, pours every shilling on a Saturday night into the hands of his excellent wife – for it is his luck to have a good one – sits in a corner with his quiet pipe at home, and smiles the smile of memory when the little ones appeal to his wisdom. And so he goes on, without much regret for adventure, or even for beer, beyond the half-pint to which his wife coerces him.
Everybody says, "What a steady fellow Bob is! He is fit for a Guild, if he would only go to Church." He ties the Canary creeper up, and he sees to his cabbages, upon a Sunday morning. And the next-door lady shakes her head over the four-feet palings, with her husband upstairs roaring out for a fresher, after a tumble-down night of it. "Oh, if my Tom was like your Mr. Robert!" But Mrs. Bob also shakes her head. "Oh, yes, he is wonderful good just now."
Then comes the sudden break down, and breakaway. Without a word to any one, or whisper to his family, off sets Mr. Robert, on a Monday morning generally, after doing two good hours' work, before breakfast. Perhaps he has been touched on the virtuous road home, by a fine smell of beer at the corner, where the potboy was washing the pewters, and setting them in the sun for an airing; perhaps it was a flower that set him off, a scarlet Geranium, who can tell? Under some wild impulse he bolts and makes away; he is in the next parish, before his poor wife has given up keeping the tea-pot warm; and by the time she has knocked at the tool-house door, in the forlorn hope that he may be ill, he is rousing the dust of the adjoining county, still going straight ahead, as if the Devil were after him. And that last authority alone can tell how Bob lives, what he thinks of, where his legs and arms are, whence his beer flows down to him, for a month, or even half-a-year, or nobody knows how long it is.
This Robert Slemmick had been in our employment ever since last Candlemas, and had only broken out once as yet, in the manner above described. Excepting only that little flaw, his character was excellent, and a more hard-working, obliging, intelligent man never came on any premises. When I took him back after his escapade, I told him very plainly that it would not be done again; and he promised to stick to his work, and did so. But not a word to me, or anybody else, as to why he went away, or whither, or what he had been doing, or how he got his living. Knowing how peculiar the best men are – otherwise could they be good at all? – I tried not to intrude upon the romance of his Beerhaven, but showed myself rather cold to him, though I longed to know about it.
"Master Jarge," said this man one day, when he was treading a hayrick, and I was in the waggon with the fork below; and it must according to the times have been the very day after Jackson Stoneman came to me, "Master Jarge, what would 'e give to know summut as I could tell 'e?"
He had had a little beer, as was needful for the hay; and I looked at him very seriously; reminding him thus, without harshness, of my opinion