At threshing day, when I worked for the last time at the Mill, I noticed the new tendency in him. The Saxtons had always kept up a certain proud reserve. In former years, the family had moved into the parlour on threshing day, and an extra woman had been hired to wait on the men who came with the machine. This time George suggested: “Let us have dinner with the men in the kitchen, Cyril. They are a rum gang. It’s rather good sport mixing with them. They’ve seen a bit of life, and I like to hear them, they’re so blunt. They’re good studies though.”
The farmer sat at the head of the table. The seven men trooped in, very sheepish, and took their places. They had not much to say at first. They were a mixed set, some rather small, young, and furtive looking, some unshapely and coarse, with unpleasant eyes, the eyelids slack. There was one man whom we called the Parrot, because he had a hooked nose, and put forward his head as he talked. He had been a very large man, but he was grey, and bending at the shoulders. His face was pale and fleshy, and his eyes seemed dull-sighted.
George patronised the men, and they did not object. He chaffed them, making a good deal of demonstration in giving them more beer. He invited them to pass up their plates, called the woman to bring more bread, and altogether played mine host of a feast of beggars. The Parrot ate very slowly.
“Come, Dad,” said George, “you’re not getting on. Not got many grinders —?”
“What I’ve got’s in th’ road. Is’ll ‘a’e ter get ’em out. I can manage wi’ bare gums, like a baby again.”
“Second childhood, eh? Ah well, we must all come to it,” George laughed.
The old man lifted his head and looked at him, and said slowly:
“You’n got ter get ower th’ first afore that.”
George laughed, unperturbed. Evidently he was well used to the thrusts of the public house.
“I suppose you soon got over yours,” he said.
The old man raised himself and his eyes flickered into life. He chewed slowly, then said:
“I’d married, an’ paid for it; I’d broke a constable’s jaw an’ paid for it; I’d deserted from the army, an’ paid for that: I’d had a bullet through my cheek in India atop of it all, by I was your age.”
“Oh!” said George, with condescending interest, “you’ve seen a bit of life then?”
They drew the old man out, and he told them in his slow, laconic fashion, a few brutal stories. They laughed and chaffed him. George seemed to have a thirst for tales of brutal experience, the raw gin of life. He drank it all in with relish, enjoying the sensation. The dinner was over. It was time to go out again to work.
“And how old are you, Dad?” George asked. The Parrot looked at him again with his heavy, tired, ironic eyes, and answered:
“If you’ll be any better for knowing — sixty-four.”
“It’s a bit rough on you, isn’t it?” continued the young man, “going round with the threshing machine and sleeping outdoors at that time of life? I should ‘a thought you’d ‘a wanted a bit o’ comfort —”
“How do you mean, ‘rough on me’?” the Parrot replied slowly.
“Oh, I think you know what I mean,” answered George easily.
“Don’t know as I do,” said the slow old Parrot.
“Well, you haven’t made exactly a good thing out of life, have you?”
“What d’you mean by a good thing? I’ve had my life, an’ I’m satisfied wi’ it. Is’ll die with a full belly.”
“Oh, so you have saved a bit?”
“No,” said the old man deliberately, “I’ve spent as I’ve gone on. An’ I’ve had all I wish for. But I pity the angels, when the Lord sets me before them like a book to read. Heaven won’t be heaven just then.”
“You’re a philosopher in your way,” laughed George.
“And you,” replied the old man, “toddling about your backyard, think yourself mighty wise. But your wisdom ‘11 go with your teeth. You’ll learn in time to say nothing.”
The old man went out and began his work, carrying the sacks of corn from the machine to the chamber.
“There’s a lot in the old Parrot,” said George, “as he’ll never tell.”
I laughed.
“He makes you feel, as well, as if you’d a lot to discover in life,” he continued, looking thoughtfully over the dusty straw-stack at the chuffing machine.
After the harvest was ended the father began to deplete his I farm. Most of the stock was transferred to the Ram. George was going to take over his father’s milk business, and was going to farm enough of the land attaching to the Inn to support nine or ten cows. Until the spring, however, Mr Saxton retained his own milk round, and worked at improving the condition of the land ready for the valuation. George, with three cows, started a little milk supply in the neighbourhood of the Inn, prepared his land for the summer, and helped in the public-house.
Emily was the first to depart finally from the Mill. She went to a school in Nottingham, and shortly afterwards Mollie, her younger sister, went to her. In October I moved to London. Lettie and Leslie were settled in their home in Brentwood, Yorkshire. We all felt very keenly our exile from Nether-mere. But as yet the bonds were not broken; only use could sever them. Christmas brought us all home again, hastening to greet each other. There was a slight change in everybody. Lettie was brighter, more imperious, and very gay; Emily was quiet, self-restrained, and looked happier; Leslie was jollier and at the same time more subdued and earnest; George looked very healthy and happy, and sounded well pleased with himself; my mother with her gaiety at our return brought tears to our eyes.
We dined one evening at Highclose with the Tempests. It was dull as usual, and we left before ten o’clock. Lettie had changed her shoes and put on a fine cloak of greenish blue. We walked over the frost-bound road. The ice on Nethermere gleamed mysteriously in the moonlight, and uttered strange, half-audible whoops and yelps. The moon was very high in the sky, small and brilliant like a vial full of the pure white liquid of light. There was no sound in the night save the haunting movement of the ice, and the clear twinkle of Lettie’s laughter.
On the drive leading to the wood we saw someone approaching. The wild grass was grey on either side, the thorn trees stood with shaggy black beards sweeping down, the pine trees were erect like dark soldiers. The black shape of the man drew near, with a shadow running at its feet. I recognised George, obscured as he was in his cap and his upturned collar. Lettie was in front with her husband. As George was passing, she said, in bright clear tones:
“A Happy New Year to you.”
He stopped, swung round, and laughed.
“I thought you wouldn’t have known me,” he said.
“What, is it you, George?” cried Lettie in great surprise —“Now, what a joke! How are you?”— she put our her white hand from her draperies. He took it, and answered, “I am very well — and you —?” However meaningless the words were, the tone was curiously friendly, intimate, informal.
“As you see,” she replied, laughing, interested in his attitude —“but where are you going?”
“I am going home,” he answered, in a voice that meant “have you forgotten that I too am married”?
“Oh, of course!” cried Lettie. “You are now mine host of the Ram. You must tell me about it. May I ask him to come home with us for an hour, Mother? — It is New Year’s Eve, you know.”
“You have asked him already,” laughed Mother.
“Will