SCENE I

It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate latticework of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk hill itself. Against that glowing background lay the village, already engulfed by the advancing shadow. All the nearer trees, which the daylight had mingled in one green monotony, stood out sharp and distinct, each in its own plane, against the hill. Each natural object seemed to gain a new accent, a more individual beauty, from the vanishing and yet lingering sunlight.

An elderly labourer was walking along the road which led to the village. To his right lay the allotment gardens just beginning to be alive with figures, and the voices of men and children. Beyond them, far ahead, rose the square tower of the church; to his left was the hill, and straight in front of him the village, with its veils of smoke lightly brushed over the trees, and its lines of cottages climbing the chalk steeps behind it.

His eye as he walked took in a number of such facts as life had trained it to notice. Once he stopped to bend over a fence, to pluck a stalk or two of oats; he examined them carefully, then he threw back his head and sniffed the air, looking all round the sky meanwhile. Yes, the season had been late and harsh, but the fine weather was coming at last. Two or three days'warmth now would ripen even the oats, let alone the wheat.

We ll, he was glad. He wanted the harvest over. It would, perhaps, be his last harvest at Clinton Magna, where he had worked, man and boy, for fifty-six years come Michaelmas. His last harvest! A curious pleasure stirred the man's veins as he thought of it, a pleasure in expected change, which seemed to bring back the pulse of youth, to loosen a little the yoke of those iron years that had perforce aged and bent him; though, for sixty-two, he was still hale and strong.

Things had all come together. Here was'Muster'Hill, the farmer he had worked for these seventeen years, dying of a sudden, with a carbuncle on the neck, and the farm to be given up at Michaelmas. He—John Bolderfield—had been working on for the widow; but, in his opinion, she was'nobbut a caselty sort of body,'and the sooner she and her children were taken off to Barnet, where they were to live with her mother, the less she'd cost them as had the looking after her. As for the crops, they wouldn't pay the debts; not they. And there was no one after the farm—'nary one'—and didn't seem like to be. That would make another farm on Muster Forrest's hands. We ll, and a good job. Landlords must be'took down'; and there was plenty of work going on the railway just now for those that were turned off.

[Illustration: The Village of Aldbury]

He was too old for the railway, though, and he might have found it hard to get fresh work if he had been staying at Clinton. But he was not staying. Poor Eliza wouldn't last more than a few days; a week or two at most, and he was not going to keep on the cottage after he'd buried her.

Aye, poor Eliza! She was his sister-in-law, the widow of his second brother. He had been his brother's lodger during the greater part of his working life, and since Tom's death he had stayed on with Eliza. She and he suited each other, and the'worritin childer'had all gone away years since and left them in peace. He didn't believe Eliza knew where any of them were, except Mary,'married over to Luton'—and Jim, and Jim's Louisa. And a good riddance too. The re was not one of them knew how to keep a shilling when they'd got one. Still, it was a bit lonesome for Eliza now, with no one but Jim's Louisa to look after her.

He grew rather downhearted as he trudged along, thinking. She and he had stuck together'a many year.'The re would be nobody left for him to go along with when she was gone. The re was his niece Bessie Costrell and her husband, and there was his silly old cousin Widow Waller. He dared say they'd both of them want him to live with them. At the thought a grin crossed his ruddy face. They both knew about it —that was what it was. And he wouldn't live with either of them, not he. Not yet a bit, anyway. All the same, he had a fondness for Bessie and her husband. Bessie was always very civil to him —he chuckled again—and if anything had to be done with it, while he was five miles off at Frampton on a job of work that had been offered him, he didn't know but he'd as soon trust Isaac Costrell and Bessie as anybody else. You might call Isaac rather a fool, what with his religion, and'extempry prayin, an that,'but all the same Bolderfield thought of him with a kind of uneasy awe. If ever there was a man secure of the next world it was Isaac Costrell. His temper, perhaps, was'nassty,'which might pull him down a little when the last account came to be made up; and it could not be said that his elder children had come to much, for all his piety. But, on the whole, Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the powers talked about in chapel every Sunday as Isaac did.

As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never a bit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But,'Lor bless yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie.'She wasn't one of your sour people—she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart. Many a pleasant evening had he passed chatting with her and Isaac; and whenever they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him. Yes, Bessie had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one he dared say he'd trust them.

'We ll, how's Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?'said a woman who passed him in the village street.

He replied, and then went his way, sobered again, dreading to find himself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with the bed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least, out in the air and the sun. The re was always a thought in his mind, a fact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It had so stood for a long, long time. He walked through the village to-night in spite of Eliza and his sixty years with a free bearing and a confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the village knew, that he was not as other men.

He passed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a lane leading to the hill. Halfway up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxes and marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses, starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticed windows. They were, however, comparatively modern and comfortable, with two bedrooms above and two living-rooms below, far superior to the older and more picturesque cottages in the main street.

John went in softly, put down his straw dinner-bag, and took off his heavy boots. Then he opened a door in the wall of the kitchen, and gently climbed the stairs.

A girl was sitting by the bed. When she saw his whitish head and red face emerge against the darkness of the stairhole, she put up her finger for silence.

John crept in and came to look at the patient. His eyes grew round and staring, his colour changed.

'Is she a-goin?'he said, with evident excitement.

Jim's Louisa shook her head. She was rather a stupid girl, heavy and round-faced, but she had nursed her grandmother well.

'No, she's asleep. Muster Drew's been here, and she dropped off while he was a-talkin to her.'

Mr. Drew was the Congregational minister.

'Did she send for him?'

'Yes; she said she felt her feet a-gettin cold and I must run. But I don't believe she's no worse.'

John stood looking down, ruefully.

Suddenly the figure in the bed turned.

'John,'said a comparatively strong voice which made Bolderfield start,'John—Muster Drew says you'd oughter put it in the bank. You'll be a fool if yer don't,'ee says.'

The old woman's pinched face emerged from the sheets, looking up at him. Bluish patches showed here and there on the drawn white skin; there was a great change since the morning, but the eyes were still alive.

John was silent a moment, one corner of his mouth twitching, as though what she had said struck him in a humorous light.

'We ll, I don't know as I mind much what'ee says,'Liza!'

'Sit down.'

She made a movement with her emaciated hand. John sat down on the chair

Louisa gave up to him, and bent down over the bed.

'If yer woan't do—what Muster Drew says, John—whatever wull yer do with it?'

She spoke slowly, but clearly. John scratched his head. His complexion had evidently been very fair. It was still fresh and pink, and the full cheek hung a little over the jaw. The mouth was shrewd, but its expression was oddly contradicted by the eyes, which had on the whole a childish, weak look.

'I think yer must leave it to me,'Liza,'he said at last.'I'll do all for the best.'

'No—yer'll not, John,'said the dying voice.'You'd a done a many stupid things—if I'adn't stopped yer. An I'm a-goin. You'll never leave it wi Bessie?'

'An who'ud yer'ave me leave it with? Ain't Bessie my own sister's child?'

An emaciated hand stole out of the bedclothes and fastened feebly on his arm.

'If yer do, John, yer'll repent it. Yer never were a good one at judgin folk. Yer doan't consider nothin—an I'm a-goin. Leave it with Saunders, John.'

The re was a pause.

Then John said, with an obstinate look,'Saunders'as never been a friend o'mine, since'ee did me out o'that bit o'business with Missus Moulsey. An I don't mean to go makin friends with him again.'

Eliza withdrew her hand with a long sigh, and her eyelids closed. A fit of coughing shook her; she had to be lifted in bed, and it left her gasping and deathly. John was sorely troubled, and not only for himself. When she was more at ease again, he stooped to her and put his mouth to her ear.

''Liza, don't yer think no more about it. Did Mr. Drew read to yer? Are yer comfortable in yer mind?'

She made a sign of assent, which showed, however, no great interest in the subject. The re was silence for a long time. Louisa was getting supper downstairs. John, oppressed by the heat of the room, and tired by his day's work, had almost fallen asleep in his chair when the old woman spoke again.

'John—what'ud you think o'Mary Anne Waller!'

The whisper was still human and eager.

John roused himself, and could not help an Astonished laugh.

'Why, whatever put Mary Anne into your head,'Liza? Yer never thought anythink o'Mary Anne—no more than me.'

Eliza's eyes wandered round the room.

'P'raps—'she said, then stopped, and could say no more. She seemed to become unconscious, and John went to call for Louisa.

In the middle of the night John woke with a start, and sat up to listen. Not a sound—but they would have called him if the end had come. He could not rest, however, and presently he huddled on some clothes and went to listen at Eliza's door. It was ajar, and hearing nothing he pushed it open.

Poor Eliza lay in her agony, unconscious, and breathing heavily. Beside her sat the widow, Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too, their heads bent. The re was an end of candle in a basin behind the bed, which threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash of the roof and on the cards and faded photographs above the tiny mantelpiece.

John crept up to the bed. The two women made a slight movement to let him stand between them.

'Can't yer give her no brandy?'he asked, whispering.

Mary Anne Waller shook her head.

'Dr. Murch said we wern't to trouble her. She'll go when the light comes—most like.'

She was a little shrivelled woman with a singularly delicate mouth, that quivered as she spoke. John and Eliza Bolderfield had never thought much of her, though she was John's cousin. She was a widow, and greatly'put upon'both by her children and her neighbours. Her children were grown up, and settled—more or less—in the world, but they still lived on her freely whenever it suited them; and in the village generally she was reckoned but a poor creature.

However, when Eliza—originally a hard, strong woman—took to her bed with incurable disease, Mary Anne Waller came in to help, and was accepted. She did everything humbly; she even let Louisa order her about. But before the end, Eliza had come to be restless when she was not there.

Now, however, Eliza knew no more, and the little widow sat gazing at her with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet. But after half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turning away to go back to bed, when the widow touched his arm.

'Won't yer give her a kiss, John?'she said, timidly.'She wor a good sister to you.'

John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told—the first time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then, stepping as noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away. A man shares nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to a death-bed as such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart. He was thankful to find himself in his own room again, and thought with dread of having to go back—for the end. In spite of his still vigorous and stalwart body he was often plagued with nervous fears and fancies. And it was years now since he had seen death—he had indeed carefully avoided seeing it.

Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summer dark, the new impression died away, and something habitual took its place— that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all the world to him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, for getting old, and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. He would have felt unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunk trembling from the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill the darkness, but for this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set him apart from his fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, of a good time coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on the bed, he pushed his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a wooden object that stood underneath. The contact cheered him at once. He ceased to think about Eliza, his head was once more full of whirling plans and schemes.

The wooden object was a box that held his money, the savings of a labourer's lifetime. Seventy-one pounds! It seemed to him an ocean of gold, never to be exhausted. The long toil of saving it was almost done. After the Frampton job, he would begin enjoying it, cautiously at first, taking a bit of work now and again, and then a bit of holiday.