It was a principle with Uncle Isaac to neglect no opportunity of reciting at large the excellences of any person of the smallest importance with whom he might be acquainted; or the excellences which that person might be supposed to desire credit for: if in his actual presence, so much the better. Nothing could be cheaper, and on the whole it paid very well. At worst, it advertised an amiable character; and there remained off-chances of personal benefit. Moreover the practice solidified Uncle Isaac’s reputation among his acquaintances. For here, quoth each in his turn, was plainly a man of sagacious discernment. The old postman, however, was merely uneasy. To his mind it was nothing but a matter of course that when his son died, the widow and children should come under his own roof, and it was as a matter of course that he had brought them there. But Bessy’s mother said simply:—“Yes, gran’dad’s been a good one to us, always.” She, as well as the children, called him “gran’dad.”
“Yes,” proceeded Uncle Isaac, “an’ ‘im with as much to think about as a man of edication too—wonderful. Why there’s nothink as ‘e don’t know in astronomy an’—an’—an’ insectonomy. Nothink!”
“No, not astronomy,” interjected old May, a little startled by both counts of the imputation. “Not astronomy, Mr. Mundy.”
“I say yes,” answered Uncle Isaac, with an emphatic slap on the knee. “Modesty under a bushel’s all very well, Mr. May, all very well, but I know—I know! Astronomy, an’ medicamedica an’ all the other classics. I know! Ah, I’d give best part o’ my small property, sich as it is, for ‘alf your edication, Mr. May!”
It was generally agreed in the family that Uncle Isaac was very “close” as to this small property of his. Nothing could induce him to speak of it with any particularity of detail, and opinions varied as to its character. Still, whatever it was, it sufficed to gain Uncle Isaac much deference and consideration—the more, probably, because of its mysterious character; a deference and a consideration which Uncle Isaac could stimulate from time to time by cloudy allusions to altering his will.
“Well,” observed Mr. Butson rising from his chair, “education never done me much good.”
“No, unforchnately!” commented Uncle Isaac.
“An’ I’d prefer property meself.” Mr. Butson made toward the door, and Uncle Isaac prepared to follow.
At this moment a harsh female voice suddenly screamed from the darkness without. “Lor’! I almost fell over a blessed ‘ousel,” it said, and there was a shrill laugh. “We’ll ask ‘em the way back.”
Old May stepped over the threshold at the sound; but the magnificence was stricken from the face of Mr. Batson. His cheeks paled, his mouth and eyes opened together, and he shrank back, even toward the stairfoot. Nobody marked him, however, but the children, for attention was directed without.
“Djear! which way to the Dun Cow?”
“See the lane?” answered the old postman. “Follow that to the right an’ you’ll come to it. It’s a bit farther than through the wood, but ye can’t go wrong.”
“Right!” There were two women and a man. The screaming woman said something to the others in a quieter tone, in which, however, the word “tiddlers” was plain to hear, and there was a laugh. “Good-night, ole chap,” she bawled back. “Put ‘em in a jam-pot with a bit o’ water-creese!”
“Full o’ their games!” remarked the old man with a tolerant smile, as he turned toward the door. “That was the person as said I’d catch it for gettin’ my clothes wet, as we came past the Dun Cow.”
The voices of the beanfeasters abated and ceased, and now Mr. Butson left no doubt of his readiness to depart. “Come,” he said, with chap-fallen briskness, “we’ll ‘ave to git back to the others; they’ll be goin’.” He took leave with so much less dignity and so much more haste than accorded with his earlier manner that Mr. May was a trifle puzzled, though he soon forgot it.
“Good-night, Mr. May, I wish you good-night,” said Uncle Isaac, shaking hands impressively. “I’ve greatly enjoyed your flow of conversation, Mr. May.” He made after the impatient Butson, stopped half-way to the gate and called gently:—“Nan!”
“Yes, uncle,” Mrs. May replied, stepping out to him. “What is it?”
Uncle Isaac whispered gravely in her ear, and she returned and whispered to the old man. “Of course—certainly,” he said, looking mightily concerned, as he re-entered the cottage.
Mrs. May reached a cracked cup from a shelf, and, turning over a few coppers, elicited a half-crown. With this she returned to Uncle Isaac.
“I’ll make a note of it,” said Uncle Isaac as he pocketed the money, “and send a postal-order.”
“O, don’t trouble about that, Uncle Isaac!” For Uncle Isaac, with the small property, must not be offended in a matter of a half-crown.
“What? Trouble?” he ejaculated, deeply pained. “To pay my—”
“‘Ere—come on!” growled Mr. Butson savagely from the outer gloom. “Come on!” And they went together, taking the lane in the direction opposite to that lately used by the noisy woman.
“Well,” old May observed, “we don’t often have visitors, an’ I was glad to see your Uncle Isaac, Nan. An’ Mr. Butson, too,” he added impartially.
“Yes,” returned Bessy’s mother innocently. “Such a gentleman, isn’t he?”
“There’s one thing I forgot,” the old man said suddenly. “I might ha’ asked ‘em to take a drop o’ beer ‘fore they went.”
“They had some while they was waitin’ for tea. An’—an’ I don’t think there’s much left.” She dragged a large tapped jar from under the breeding-box at the window, and it was empty.
“Ah!” was all the old man’s comment, as he surveyed the jar thoughtfully.
Presently he turned into the back-house and emerged with a tin pot and a brush. “I’m a goin’ treaclin’ a bit,” he said. “Come, Johnny?”
The boy pulled his cap from his pocket, fetched a lantern, and was straightway ready, while Bessy sat to her belated tea.
The last pale light lay in the west, and the evening offered up an oblation of sweet smells. All things that feed by night were out, and nests were silent save for once and again a sleepy twitter. Every moment another star peeped, and then one more. The boy and the old man walked up the slope among the trees, pausing now at one, now at another, to daub the bark with the mixture of rum and treacle that was in the pot.
“It’s always best to be careful where you treacle when there’s holiday folk about,” said Johnny’s grandfather. “They don’t understand it. Often I’ve treaded a log or a stump and found a couple sittin’ on it when I came back—with new dresses, and sich. It’s no good explainin’—they think it’s all done for practical jokin’. It’s best to go on an’ take no notice. I’ve heard ‘em say:—‘Don’t the country smell lovely?’—meanin’ the smell o’ the rum an’ treacle they was a-sittin’ on. But when they find it—lor, the language I have heard! Awful!”…
The boy was quiet almost all the round. Presently he said, “Gran’dad, do you really like that likeness I made of mother?”
“Like