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CHAPTER IX
AN ARCADIAN COURTSHIP

Sweetbriar Farm, when I went to visit my cousin there, seemed to me a crystallization of all the storied sweets of Arcadia as one reads of them in the poets and the dreamers. The house itself was some five hundred years old; it had diamond-paned windows framed in ivy; on one side, where there was no ivy, the grey walls were covered with clematis and honeysuckle and jessamine. There was a walled garden, gay with blossom; there was an orchard, where the blossom fell on lush grass in which golden daffodils sprang up. At the end of the orchard ran a stream, brown and mysterious, in whose deeper pools lurked speckled trout. All about the house and the garden and the orchard the birds sang, for the nesting and breeding season was scarce over, and at night, in a coppice close by, a nightingale sang its heart out to the rising moon.

Within the old farmstead everything was as Arcadian as without. The sitting-room – otherwise the best parlour – was a dream of old oak, old china, old pewter, and old pictures. It smelt always of roses and lavender – you could smoke the strongest tobacco there without offence, for the flower-scent was more powerful. A dream, too, was my sleeping-chamber, with lavender-kept linen, its quaint chintz hangings, and its deep window-seat, in which one could sit of a night to see the moonlight play upon garden and orchard, or of an early morning to watch the dew-starred lawn sparkle in the fresh sunlight. And, once free of the house, there was the great kitchen to admire, with its mighty hearth, its old brass and pewter, its ancient grandfather clock, its flitches and hams hanging, side by side with bundles of dried herbs, from the oaken rafters; and beyond it the dairy, a cool and shadowy place where golden butter was made out of snow-white cream; and beyond that, again, the deep, dungeon-like cellar where stood the giant casks of home-brewed ale – nectar fit for the gods.

Nor were the folk who inhabited this Arcadia less interesting than the Arcadia itself. My cousin Samuel is a fine specimen of an Englishman, with a face like the rising sun and an eye as blue as the cornflowers which grow in his hedgerows. There was his wife, a gay and bustling lady of sixty youthful years, who was never without a smile and a cheery word, and who, like her good man, had but one regret, which each bore with admirable resignation – that the Lord had never blessed them with children. There were the people who came and went about the farm – ruddy-faced and brown-faced men, young maidens and old crones, children in all stages of youthfulness. And there was also John William and there was Susan Kate.

John William Marriner – who was usually spoken of as John Willie – was the elder of the two labourers who lived in the house. He was a youth of apparently one-and-twenty years of age, and as straight and strong as a promising ash-sapling. Whether in his Sunday suit of blue serge, or in his workaday garments of corduroy, John Willie was a picture of rustic health – his red cheeks always glowed, his blue eyes were always bright; he had a Gargantuan appetite, and when he was not smiling he was whistling or singing. Up with the lark and at work all day, he spent his evenings in the company of Susan Kate.

Susan Kate was the maid-of-all-work at Sweetbriar Farm – a handsome, full-blown English rose of nineteen, with cherry cheeks and a pair of large, liquid, sloe-black eyes which made her white teeth all the whiter. It was an idyll in itself to see Susan Kate – whose surname was Sutton – milking the cows, or feeding the calves out of a tin bucket; it was still more of an idyll to watch her and John William hanging over the orchard gate of an evening, the day's work behind them and the nightingale singing in the neighbouring coppice.

It seemed to me that Mr. Marriner and Miss Sutton were certainly lovers, and that matrimony was in their view. Now and then they went to church together, Susan Kate carrying a clean handkerchief and a Prayer Book, John Willie carrying Susan Kate's umbrella. Sometimes they went for walks on a Sunday afternoon; I more than once encountered them on these occasions, and curiously observed the manner of their love-making. We invariably met in shady lanes or woodland paths – Mr. Marriner in his Sunday suit, with some hedgerow flower in his buttonhole, invariably came first, bearing Miss Sutton's umbrella, with which he would occasionally switch the grass; Miss Sutton, very rosy-cheeked, followed at a distance of two yards. They never seemed to hold any discourse one with the other, but if they looked sheepishly conscious, they were undeniably happy.

Into this apparent Paradise suddenly entered a serpent.

There came into the sitting-room one morning, when I happened to be alone there, a Susan Kate whom I had certainly not seen before. This Susan Kate had evidently spent a considerable part of the night in affliction – her eyes were red and heavy, and there was even then a suspicious quiver at the corners of her red and pouting lips. She laid the tablecloth, set the plates and the knives and forks upon the table as if it was in her mind to do an injury to them.

"Why, Susan Kate!" said I. "What is the matter?"

Susan Kate's only immediate answer was to sniff loudly, and to retire to the kitchen, whence she presently returned with a cold ham, uncarven as yet, and a crisp lettuce, either of which were sights sufficient to cheer up the saddest heart. But Susan Kate was apparently indifferent to any creature comforts. She sniffed again and disappeared again, and came back with the eggs and the toast and the tea.

"I'm afraid, Susan Kate," said I, with all the dignified gravity of middle age, "I'm afraid you are in trouble."

Susan Kate applied a corner of her apron to her left eye as she transferred a bowl of roses from the sideboard to the middle of the breakfast-table. Then she found her tongue, and I noticed that her hands trembled as she rearranged my cup and saucer.

"It's all that there Lydia Lightowler!" she burst out, with the suddenness of an April shower. "A nasty, spiteful Thing!"

I drew my chair to the table.

"And who is Lydia Lightowler, Susan Kate?" I inquired.

Susan Kate snorted instead of sniffing.

"She's the new girl at the Spinney Farm," she answered.

"Oh!" I said. "I didn't know they had a new girl at the Spinney Farm. Where's Rebecca got to?"

"'Becca's mother," replied Susan Kate, "was took ill very sudden, and 'Becca had to leave. So this here Lydia Lightowler come in her place. And I wish she'd stopped where she came from, wherever that may be!"

"Ah!" I said. "And what has Lydia Lightowler done, Susan Kate?"

Susan Kate, whose stormy eyes were fixed on something in vacancy, and who was twisting and untwisting her apron, looked as if she would like to deliver her mind to somebody.

"Well, it isn't right if a young man's been making up to a young woman for quite six months that he should start carrying on with another!" she burst out at last. "It's more than what flesh and blood can stand."

"Quite so, quite so, Susan Kate," I said. "I quite appreciate your meaning. So John Willie – "

"I had to go on an errand to the Spinney Farm last night," said Susan Kate; "to fetch a dozen of ducks' eggs it was, for the missis, and lo and behold, who should I come across walking in Low Field Lane but John William and Lydia Lightowler – a nasty cat! So when I saw them I turned and went another way, and when John William came home him and me had words, and this morning he wouldn't speak."

Here Susan Kate's tears began to flow afresh, and hearing the approach of her mistress she suddenly threw her apron over her head and rushed from the parlour, no doubt to have a good cry in some of the many recesses of the ancient farmstead. It was plain that Susan Kate's heart was fashioned of the genuine feminine stuff.

In the course of my walk that morning I crossed the field in which Mr. John William Marriner was performing his daily task. Usually he sang or whistled all day long, and you could locate him by his melody at least a quarter of a mile away. But on this particular morning – a very beautiful one – John William was silent. He neither whistled nor sang, and when I got up to him I saw that his good-natured face was clouded over. In fact, John William looked glum, not to say sulky. He was usually inclined to chat, but upon this occasion his answers were short and mainly monosyllabic, and I did not tarry by him. It was plain that John William was unhappy.

So there was a cloud over Arcadia. It appeared to increase in density. It was on a Tuesday when it first arose; after Wednesday Susan Kate wept no more, but went about with dry eyes and her nose in the air, wearing an injured expression, while John William conducted his daily avocations in a moody and sombre fashion. There were no more idylls of the orchard gate, and the farmhouse kitchen heard no merry laughter.

But on the next Monday morning I found Susan Kate laying the breakfast-table and showing undoubted signs of grief – in fact, she looked as if she had cried her eyes out. And this time there was no need to invite her confidence, for she was only too anxious to pour out her woes.

"He walked her to church and home again last night!" exclaimed Susan Kate, nearly sobbing. "And they sat in the same pew and sang out of the same book, same as what him and me used to do. And Bob Johnson, he saw them going down Low Field Lane, and he said they were hanging arms!"

"Dear, dear, dear!" said I. "This, Susan Kate, is getting serious."

"And it's the Flower Show at Cornborough this week," continued Susan Kate, "and he'd promised faithful to take me to it, but now I expect he'll take her – a nasty, mean, spiteful cat!"

"John William's conduct is most extraordinary," I said. "It is – yes, Susan Kate, it is reprehensible. Reprehensible!"

Susan Kate looked at me half suspiciously.

"I don't want to say nothing against John Willie," she said. "I know what's the matter with him. It's 'cause she dresses so fine – I saw her the first Sunday she came to church. And John Willie has such an eye for finery. But fine feathers makes fine birds. I could be just as fine as what she is if I hadn't had to send my wages home to my mother when father broke his leg the other week. There's a hat in Miss Duxberry's window at Cornborough that would just suit me if I could only buy it. I'd like to see what John Willie would say then. 'Cause I'm as good-looking as what she is, any day, for all she's got yellow hair!"

Then Susan Kate retired, presumably to weep some more tears. But next morning she was all pride again.

"He's going to take her to the Flower Show," she said, as she set the breakfast-table. "He told Bob Johnson so last night, and Bob told me this morning."

"That's very bad, Susan Kate," I said. "A man should never break his promise. I'm surprised at John William. Hasn't he said anything to you about it?"

"We haven't spoken a word to each other since I gave him a piece of my mind about meeting him and her in Low Field Lane," said Susan Kate. "Nay, if he prefers her to me he can have her, and welcome. I shall have naught no more to do with young men – they're that fickle!"

"Shall you go to the Flower Show, Susan Kate?" I inquired.

"No, I shan't!" snapped out Susan Kate. "They can have it to themselves, and then they'll happen to be suited."

I walked into Cornborough during the day and discovered the whereabouts of Miss Duxberry's shop. It was not difficult to pick out the hat to which Susan Kate had referred, nor to realize that the girl had uncommonly good taste, and that it would look very well indeed on her wealth of raven hair. A label attached to its stand announced that it came from Paris, and that its price was a guinea – well, Susan Kate was well worthy of twenty-one shillings'-worth of the latest Parisian fashion. Besides, there was John William's future to consider. So I dispatched the Paris hat to Sweetbriar Farm by a specially commissioned boy, who solemnly promised to remember with what duty he was charged.

That evening, after my return to the farm, and following upon my supper and a short conference with Susan Kate, I made my way to the courtyard, where Bob Johnson, the second "liver-in," was invariably to be found in his leisure moments, seated on the granary steps, and engaged either in plaiting whip-lashes or making whistles out of ash-twigs. Mr. Johnson was a stolid, heavy-faced, heavily-fashioned young gentleman of twenty, with just sufficient intelligence to know a plough from a harrow, and a firm conviction that the first duty of all well-regulated citizens was to eat and drink as much as possible. I gave him a cigar, at which he immediately began to suck as if it had been his own pipe, and passed the time of day with him.

"I suppose you'll be going to the Flower Show to-morrow?" I said.

Mr. Johnson shook his head over his whiplash.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered. "The master's given us a half-day off, but I'm none so great on them occasions. I doubt I shan't be present."

"Look here," I said, "would you like to earn half-a-sovereign?"

In order to emphasize this magnificent offer I drew the coin alluded to from my waistcoat pocket and let the evening sun shine on it. Mr. Johnson's eyes twinkled and he opened his mouth cavernously.

"How?" he said, and scratched his right ear.

"Now listen to me," I said; "to-morrow afternoon you're to put your best things on, and you're to take Susan Kate to the Flower Show. I'll give you two shillings to pay you in, and five shillings to take with you, and you shall have five shillings more when you come back."

Mr. Johnson scratched his ear again.

"Happen Susan Kate won't go," he said, dubiously. "I've never walked her out anywheres."

"Susan Kate will go with you," I said, decisively. "You be ready at three o'clock. And remember, you're not to say a word about this to anybody – not one word to John William. If you do, there'll be no ten shillings."

Mr. Johnson nodded his head.

"John Willie's going to the Flower Show," he remarked. "He's going with the new servant-lass at the Spinney Farm. Him and Susan Kate's fallen out. I say, mister!"

"Well?" I replied.

"I'm not a great one for lasses," said Mr. Johnson. "I don't want Susan Kate to think that I'm courting her. 'Cause I'm not going to."

"Susan Kate will quite understand matters," I said.

"Well, of course ten shilling is ten shilling," murmured Mr. Johnson. "Otherwise I should have stopped at home."

At half-past two next day I took up a position in the garden from which I could see the setting out to the Flower Show. Presently issued forth John William, clad in his best and sporting a yellow tea-rose – he marched valiantly away, but his face was gloomy and overcast. A quarter of an hour later Miss Sutton and Mr. Johnson appeared round the corner of the house. The lady looked really handsome in her best gown and the new hat, and it was very evident to my jaded eyes that she knew her own worth and was armed for conquest. There was a flush on her cheek and a light in her eye which meant a good deal. As for Mr. Johnson, who was attired in a black cut-away coat and slate-blue trousers, and wore a high collar and a billycock hat two sizes too small for him, he looked about as happy as if he were going to instant execution, and gazed miserably about him as though seeking some deliverance. He walked a yard in the rear of Susan Kate – and Susan Kate seemed to regard him as one regards a dog at heel.

It might have been about an hour and a half afterwards that Mr. Johnson came shambling down the meadow towards the farm – alone. He looked thoughtful, but infinitely relieved, as if some great weight had been lifted from his mind. I went out into the courtyard, and found him sitting on the wall of the well.

"You are soon home again," I remarked.

"Yes," he answered, "yes. I didn't see no call to stop there – Flower Shows is naught in my line. Of course I did what you said, mister – I took Susan Kate there, and went in with her, and walked her round."

"And where is Susan Kate?" I inquired.

Mr. Johnson took off the too-small billycock and scratched his head.

"Why," he said, "she's with John Willie. Ye see, when her and me got there I walked her round the big tent, and we met John Willie and that there Lydia Lightowler from the Spinney. Susan Kate took no notice of 'em, but passed 'em as if they were so much dirt, and John Willie he looked at us as black as thunder. Well, we went on, and we'd gotten to a quietish part when up comes John Willie by himself and gets hold of me by the arm. 'What does thou mean,' he says, fierce-like, 'by walking my lass out? Thee hook it, else I'll break every bone in thy body!' 'I didn't know Susan Kate were thy lass now,' I said. 'I thought ye'd quarrelled.' 'Hook it!' he says. 'Oh, very well,' I says. 'Ye can settle it among yourselves.' So I left Susan Kate with him and came home. Ye might give me that other five shilling now, if ye please, mister."

Then Mr. Johnson retired to assume more comfortable attire, and I went for a walk to meditate. And coming back in the soft twilight I came across John William and Susan Kate. They were lingering at the wicket gate, and his arm was round her waist, and just as I caught sight of them he stooped and kissed her.

That, of course, accounted for the extraordinary happiness in Susan Kate's face when she laid the cloth for supper.

CHAPTER X
THE WAY OF THE COMET

If he should happen to be alive (and if he is he must now be a very old man, and have had ample time for reflection about more things than one), Bartholomew Flitcroft will have heard of the comet which is now in our neighbourhood with what are usually described as mingled feelings. It is not quite within my recollection as to when it exactly was that the last comet of any note visited us; if Bartholomew exists, and has preserved his memory, he has better cause to know than most men. At least, that may be so or may not be so, because no one can ever tell how anything is going to turn out. When that particular comet had come and gone Bartholomew was a sorely disappointed man; whether he really had reason to be, no one will ever know.

As regards Bartholomew's status in the world, he was a smallish farmer at Orchardcroft – a middle-aged, raw-boned, hatchet-faced man, whose greatest difficulty in life was to make up his mind about anything. If an idea about sowing spring wheat or planting potatoes came into his head as he walked about his land, he would stand stock still wherever he was and scratch his ear and think and consider until his mind was in a state of chaos. He had always been like that, and, being a bachelor, he got worse as he got older. He would never do anything unless he had what he called studied it from every side, and once when one of his stacks got on fire he was so long in deciding as to which of the two neighbouring towns he would send to for the fire-engines that the stack was burned, and three others with it.

So far as was known to any one acquainted with him, Bartholomew never turned his attention to the subject of marriage until he was well over forty years of age. Whether it then occurred to him because his housekeeper married the butler at the Hall nobody ever could say with any certainty, but it is certain that he then began to look about for a wife. Naturally he exercised his characteristic caution in doing so, and he also hit upon a somewhat original plan. He kept his eyes open whenever he went to church or market, and, it being a fine spring and summer when the idea of matrimony came to him, he began to ride of a Sunday evening to the churches and chapels in neighbouring villages with a view to looking over the likely ladies. That was how he at last decided to marry Widow Collinson, of Ulceby.

Now, Widow Collinson was a pleasant-faced, well-preserved woman of some forty summers, whose first husband, Jabez Collinson, had had a very nice business as corn miller at Ulceby, and had consequently left her comfortably provided for. When he died she kept the business on, and it was said that she was already improving it and doing better than Jabez had done. Such a woman, of course, was soon run after, and all the more so because she had no encumbrances, as they call children in that part of the country; there were at least half-a-dozen men making sheep's eyes at her before Bartholomew came upon the scene. Whatever it was that made her take some sort of liking to Bartholomew nobody could understand, but the fact is that she did – at any rate, Bartholomew began riding over to Ulceby at least three times a week, and it was well known that the widow always gave him a hot supper, because the neighbours smelt the cooking. One night she cooked him a couple of ducks, with stuffing of sage and onions, and, of course, everybody knew then that they were contemplating matrimonial prospects. And those who were acquainted with Bartholomew's prevalent characteristic were somewhat surprised that he had made up his mind so quickly.

It was always considered in Orchardcroft that if it had not been for Mr. Pond, the schoolmaster, the marriage of Mrs. Collinson and Mr. Flitcroft would have been duly solemnized that very year. Bartholomew might have caused some delay at the post, but it was plain that he meant business if he once got off. And it was certainly the school-master who made him do what he did. He and Mr. Pond were near neighbours, and they had been in the habit of smoking their pipes in one or the other's house for many years. They would have a drop of something comforting, and sit over the fire, and Mr. Pond used to tell Bartholomew the news, because Bartholomew never read anything except the market reports and Old Moore's Almanack. And one night when they were thus keeping each other company and Bartholomew was thinking of Mrs. Collinson and her mill, Mr. Pond remarked, with a shake of the head —

"This is very serious news about this comet, Mr. Flitcroft."

"What news?" asked Bartholomew.

"Why about this comet that's hastening towards us," replied Mr. Pond.

"What's a comet?" inquired Bartholomew.

"A comet," said Mr. Pond, in the tones he used when he was teaching the children, "a comet is a heavenly body of fire which rushes round space at a prodigious rate of speed. It's rushing towards us now, sir, at millions and millions of miles a day!"

"How big is it?" asked Bartholomew.

"Much bigger than what our earth is, Mr. Flitcroft," answered the school-master. "Its tail is twenty millions of miles long."

"And you say it's coming here?" continued Bartholomew.

"So the scientific gentlemen are agreed, sir," said Mr. Pond. "Yes, this vast body of fire is rushing upon us as wild beasts rush on their prey. It may be mercifully turned aside and only brush us with its tail; it may crash right upon us, and then – "

Mr. Pond finished with an expressive "Ah!" and Bartholomew gaped at him.

"Is it all true?" he asked. "Is it in the newspapers?"

"The newspapers, sir, are just now full of it," replied the school-master. "It's the topic of the hour. Sir Gregory Gribbin, the great astronomer, says that we shall most certainly be crushed by the tail. And if the tail is composed of certain gases – as he thinks it will be – well!"

"What'll happen?" asked Bartholomew.

"We shall all be asphyxiated – smothered!" answered Mr. Pond, solemnly. "We shall be withered up like chaff by fierce fire."

When Mr. Pond had departed Bartholomew took up the Yorkshire Post, and for the first time ignored the market reports, over which he generally pored for an hour every evening. He read a lot of learned matter about the rapidly approaching comet, and he went to bed with his brain in a whirl. Next morning he ignored the market reports again, and let his coffee get cold while he read more about the comet.

It so chanced that Bartholomew was unable to visit Ulceby for several days after that, owing to sickness breaking out amongst his cattle, and when he next went the widow noticed that he looked much worried and was preoccupied. As the cattle were all right again, she wondered what was the matter, but at first got no satisfactory explanation. Bartholomew seemed unusually thoughtful, and twiddled his thumbs a great deal.

"I say," he said, "I – I think we'd better put off the idea of being wed until we see what this comet does – eh?"

"What comet?" asked the amazed widow.

"Why, this comet that's approaching," answered Bartholomew. "It's coming like a bullet. I was going to put the banns up both here and at Orchardcroft this week, but I don't see what use it is getting married if we're all going to be burned to ashes in the twinkling of an eye. I'll read you all the latest news about it."

With that Bartholomew, whom Mrs. Collinson was by that time regarding with mingled feelings of apprehension and something closely bordering on contempt, pulled out a quantity of newspaper cuttings which he had carefully snipped out of various journals – his taste for science having suddenly developed. He read out the astronomical terms with sonorous voice.

"It's a very serious thing," he said. "I think we must put matters off. The comet 'll be here soon."

"I suppose you're going to look out for it?" said Mrs. Collinson in a constrained voice.

"Why, me and Mr. Pond, our school-master, has bought a telescope," replied Bartholomew, grandly. "Yes, we propose to make what they call observations."

"I'm sure you couldn't be better employed," remarked Mrs. Collinson.

The next night, and the next, and the next again, and for several nights Mr. Pond and Mr. Flitcroft engaged in astronomical pursuits. Then, Sunday coming, Mr. Flitcroft heard strange news which sent him post-haste to his widow. She met him at her door – coldly. Mr. Flitcroft gasped out a question.

"Yes," she said, "it is true. Me and Mr. Samuel Green have been cried in church this morning, and I'm going to marry him. So now you know."

"But what shall I do?" cried Bartholomew, scratching his ear.

"Do?" said Mrs. Collinson. "You can do what your precious comet 'll do. Go back where you came from!"