CHAPTER XIV

July 18th.

The day was Friday; Phoebe's day to go to Buffington with eggs and chickens and rabbits; her day to solicit orders for ducklings and goslings. The village cart was ready in the stable; Mr. and Mrs. Heaven were in Woodmucket; I was eating my breakfast (which I remember was an egg and a rasher) when Phoebe came in, a figure of woe.

The Square Baby was ill, very ill, and would not permit her to leave him and go to market. Would I look at him? For he must have dowsed 'imself as well as the goslings yesterday; anyways he was strong of paraffin and tobacco, though he 'ad 'ad a good barth.

I prescribed for Albert Edward, who was as uncomfortable and feverish as any little sinner in the county of Sussex, and I then promptly proposed going to Buffington in Phoebe's place.

She did not think it at all proper, and said that, notwithstanding my cotton gown and sailor hat, I looked quite, quite the lydy, and it would never do. "I cannot get any new orders," said I, "but I can certainly leave the rabbits and eggs at the customary places. I know Argent's Dining Parlours, and Songhurst's Tea Rooms, and the Six Bells Inn, as well as you do."

So, donning a pair of Phoebe's large white cotton gloves with open- work wrists (than which I always fancy there is no one article that so disguises the perfect lydy), I set out upon my travels, upborne by a lively sense of amusement that was at least equal to my feeling that I was doing Phoebe Heaven a good turn.

Prices in dressed poultry were fluctuating, but I had a copy of The Trade Review, issued that very day, and was able to get some idea of values and the state of the market as I jogged along. The general movement, I learned, was moderate and of a "selective" character. Choice large capons and ducks were in steady demand, but I blushed for my profession when I read that roasting chickens were running coarse, staggy, and of irregular value. Old hens were held firmly at sixpence,

and it is my experience that they always have to be, at whatever price. Geese were plenty, dull, and weak. Old cocks,--why don't they say roosters?--declined to threepence ha'penny on Thursday in sympathy with fowls,--and who shall say that chivalry is dead? Turkeys were a trifle steadier, and there was a speculative movement in limed eggs. All this was illuminating, and I only wished I were quite certain whether the sympathetic old roosters were threepence ha'penny apiece, or a pound.

Everything happened as it should, on this first business journey of my life, which is equivalent to saying that nothing happened at all. Songhurst's Tea Rooms took five dozen eggs and told me to bring six dozen the next week. Argent's Dining Parlours purchased three pairs of chickens and four rabbits. The Six Bells found the last poultry somewhat tough and tasteless; whereupon I said that our orders were more than we could possibly fill, still I hoped we could go on "selling them," as we never liked to part with old customers, no matter how many new ones there were. Privately, I understood the complaint only too well, for I knew the fowls in question very intimately. Two of them were the runaway rooster and the gadabout hen that never wanted to go to bed with the others. The third was Cannibal Ann. I should have expected them to be tough, but I cannot believe they were lacking in flavour.

The only troublesome feature of the trip was that Mrs. Sowerbutt's lodgers had suddenly left for London and she was unable to take the four rabbits as she had hoped; but as an offset to that piece of ill-fortune the Coke and Coal Yard and the Bicycle Repairing Rooms came out into the street, and, stepping up to the trap, requested regular weekly deliveries of eggs and chickens, and hoped that I would be able to bring them myself. And so, in a happy frame of mind, I turned out of the Buffington main street, and was jogging along homeward, when a very startling thing happened; namely, a whole verse of the Bailiff's Daughter of Islington:-

"And as she went along the high road, The weather being hot and dry, She sat her down upon a green bank, And her true love came riding by."

That true lovers are given to riding by, in ballads, I know very well, but I hardly supposed they did so in real life, especially when every precaution had been taken to avert such a catastrophe. I had told the

Barbury Green postmistress, on the morning of my arrival, not to give the Thornycroft address to anybody whatsoever, but finding, as the days passed, that no one was bold enough or sensible enough to ask for it, I haughtily withdrew my prohibition. About this time I began sending envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to a certain person at the Oxenbridge Hydro. These envelopes contained no word of writing, but held, on one day, only a bit of down from a hen's breast, on another, a goose-quill, on another, a glossy tail-feather, on another, a grain of corn, and so on. These trifles were regarded by me not as degrading or unmaidenly hints and suggestions, but simply as tests of intelligence. Could a man receive tokens of this sort and fail to put two and two together? I feel that I might possibly support life with a domineering and autocratic husband,--and there is every prospect that I shall be called upon to do so,--but not with a stupid one. Suppose one were linked for ever to a man capable of asking,--"Did YOU send those feathers? . . . How was I to guess? . . . How was a fellow to know they came from you? . . . What on earth could I suppose they meant? . . . What clue did they offer me as to your whereabouts? . . . Am I a Sherlock Holmes?"--No, better eternal celibacy than marriage with such a being!

These were the thoughts that had been coursing through my goose- girl mind while I had been selling dressed poultry, but in some way they had not prepared me for the appearance of the aforesaid true love.

To see the very person whom one has left civilisation to avoid is always more or less surprising, and to make the meeting less likely, Buffington is even farther from Oxenbridge than Barbury Green. The creature was well mounted (ominous, when he came to override my caprice!) and he looked bigger, and, yes, handsomer, though that doesn't signify, and still more determined than when I saw him last; although goodness knows that timidity and feebleness of purpose were not in striking evidence on that memorable occasion. I had drawn up under the shade of a tree ostensibly to eat some cherries, thinking that if I turned my face away I might pass unrecognised. It was a stupid plan, for if I had whipped up the mare and driven on, he of course, would have had to follow, and he has too much dignity and self-respect to shriek

recriminations into a woman's ear from a distance.

He approached with deliberation, reined in his horse, and lifted his hat ceremoniously. He has an extremely shapely head, but I did not show that the sight of it melted in the least the ice of my resolve; whereupon we talked, not very freely at first,--men are so stiff when they consider themselves injured. However, silence is even more embarrassing than conversation, so at length I begin:-

Bailiff's Daughter.--"It is a lovely day."

True Love.--"Yes, but the drought is getting rather oppressive, don't you think?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"The crops certainly need rain, and the feed is becoming scarce."

True Love.--"Are you a farmer's wife?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh no! that is a promotion to look forward to; I am now only a Goose Girl."

True Love.--"Indeed! If I wished to be severe I might remark: that I am sure you have found at last your true vocation!"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"It was certainly through no desire to please YOU that I chose it."

True Love.--"I am quite sure of that! Are you staying in this part?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh no! I live many miles distant, over an extremely rough road. And you?"

True Love.--"I am still at the Hydropathic; or at least my luggage is there."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"It must be very pleasant to attract you so long." True Love.--"Not so pleasant as it was."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"No? A new proprietor, I suppose." True Love.--"No; same proprietor; but the house is empty."

Bailiff's Daughter (yawning purposely).--"That is strange; the hotels are usually so full at this season. Why did so many leave?"

True Love.--"As a matter of fact, only one left. "Full" and "empty" are purely relative terms. I call a hotel full when it has you in it, empty when it hasn't."

Bailiff's Daughter (dying to laugh, but concealing her feelings).-- "I

trust my bulk does not make the same impression on the general public! Well, I won't detain you longer; good afternoon; I must go home to my evening work."

True Love.--"I will accompany you."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"If you are a gentleman you will remain where you are."

True Love.--"In the road? Perhaps; but if I am a man I shall follow you; they always do, I notice. What are those foolish bundles in the back of that silly cart?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Feed for the pony, please, sir; fish for dinner; randans and barley meal for the poultry; and four unsold rabbits. Wouldn't you like them? Only one and sixpence apiece. Shot at three o'clock this morning."

True Love.--"Thanks; I don't like mine shot so early."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh, well! doubtless I shall be able to dispose of them on my way home, though times is 'ard!"

True Love.--"Do you mean that you will "peddle" them along the road?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"You understand me better than usual,--in fact to perfection."

He dismounts and strides to the back of the cart, lifts the covers, seizes the rabbits, flings some silver contemptuously into the basket, and looks about him for a place to bury his bargain. A small boy approaching in the far distance will probably bag the game.

Bailiff's Daughter (modestly).--"Thanks for your trade, sir, rather ungraciously bestowed, and we 'opes for a continuance of your past fyvors."

True Love (leaning on the wheel of the trap).--"Let us stop this nonsense. What did you hope to gain by running away?"

Bailiff 's Daughter.--"Distance and absence."

True Love.--"You knew you couldn't prevent my offering myself to you sometime or other."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Perhaps not; but I could at least defer it, couldn't

I?"

True Love.--"Why postpone the inevitable?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Doubtless I shrank from giving you the pain of a refusal."

True Love.--"Perhaps; but do you know what I suspect?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"I'm not a suspicious person, thank goodness!"

True Love.--"That, on the contrary, you are wilfully withholding from me the joy of acceptance."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"If I intended to accept you, why did I run away?"

True Love.--"To make yourself more desirable and precious, I suppose."

Bailiff's Daughter (with the most confident coquetry).--"Did I succeed?"

True Love.--"No; you failed utterly."

Bailiff's Daughter (secretly piqued).--"Then I am glad I tried it."

True Love.--"You couldn't succeed because you were superlatively desirable and precious already; but you should never have experimented. Don't you know that Love is a high explosive?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Is it? Then it ought always to be labelled "dangerous," oughtn't it? But who thought of suggesting matches? I'm sure I didn't!"

True Love.--"No such luck; I wish you would."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"According to your theory, if you apply a match to Love it is likely to 'go off.'"

True Love.--"I wish you would try it on mine and await the result.

Come now, you'll have to marry somebody, sometime." Bailiff's Daughter.--"I confess I don't see the necessity."

True Love (morosely).--"You're the sort of woman men won't leave in undisturbed spinsterhood; they'll keep on badgering you."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh, I don't mind the badgering of a number of men; it's rather nice. It's the one badger I find obnoxious."

True Love (impatiently).--"That's just the perversity of things. I could put a stop to the protestations of the many; I should like nothing better--but the pertinacity of the one! Ah, well! I can't drop that without putting an end to my existence."

Bailiff's Daughter (politely).--"I shouldn't think of suggesting anything so extreme."

True Love (quoting).--"'Mrs. Hauksbee proceeded to take the conceit out of Pluffles as you remove the ribs of an umbrella before re- covering.' However, you couldn't ask me anything seriously that I wouldn't do, dear Mistress Perversity."

Bailiff's Daughter (yielding a point).--"I'll put that boldly to the proof.

Say you don't love me!"

True Love (seizing his advantage).--"I don't! It's imbecile and besotted devotion! Tell me, when may I come to take you away?"

Bailiff's Daughter (sighing).--"It's like asking me to leave Heaven."

True Love.--"I know it; she told me where to find you,--Thornycroft is the seventh poultry-farm I've visited,--but you could never leave Heaven, you can't be happy without poultry, why that is a wish easily gratified. I'll get you a farm to-morrow; no, it's Saturday, and the real estate offices close at noon, but on Monday, without fail. Your ducks and geese, always carrying it along with you. All you would have to do is to admit me; Heaven is full of twos. If you shall swim on a crystal lake--Phoebe told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond; she was sitting beside it when I called, her hand in that of a straw- coloured person named Gladwish, and the ground in her vicinity completely strewn with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea with an ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its garden; their perches shall be of satin- wood and their water dishes of mother-of-pearl. You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herd--simply to be near you--for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture? It's a little like Claude Melnotte's, I confess. The fact is I am not quite sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the tabbies at the Hydro is like quaffing inebriating vodka after Miffin's Food! May I come to-morrow?"

Bailiffs Daughter (hedging).--"I shall be rather busy; the Crossed Minorca hen comes off to-morrow."

True Love.--"Oh, never mind! I'll take her off to-night when I escort you to the farm; then she'll get a day's advantage."

Bailiff's Daughter.--"And rob fourteen prospective chicks of a mother;

nay, lose the chicks themselves? Never!"

True Love.--"So long as you are a Goose Girl, does it make any difference whose you are? Is it any more agreeable to be Mrs. Heaven's Goose Girl than mine?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Ah! but in one case the term of service is limited; in the other, permanent."

True Love.--"But in the one case you are the slave of the employer, in the other the employer of the slave. Why did you run away?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"A man's mind is too dull an instrument to measure a woman's reason; even my own fails sometimes to deal with all its delicate shades; but I think I must have run away chiefly to taste the pleasure of being pursued and brought back. If it is necessary to your happiness that you should explore all the Bluebeard chambers of my being, I will confess further that it has taken you nearly three weeks to accomplish what I supposed you would do in three days!"

True Love (after a well-spent interval).--"To-morrow, then; shall we say before breakfast? All, do! Why not? Well, then, immediately after breakfast, and I breakfast at seven nowadays, and sometimes earlier. Do take off those ugly cotton gloves, dear; they are five sizes too large for you, and so rough and baggy to the touch!"