to say – to say – don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning. He was excited and hurt.”
“Of course, of course,” said the vicar, pressing the little hand he held in both his. “How could any one judge a man harshly at such a time? Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“And with such a little ministering angel to intercede for him,” muttered the vicar, as the door closed. “Heigho! these things are a mystery, and it is as well that they should be, or I don’t know what would become of poor erring man.”
Volume One – Chapter Nine.
An Enlightened Englishman
On reaching the vicarage, Murray Selwood found one of the rooms made bright and comfortable with the furniture that had been sent in, and the table spread ready for a composite meal, half breakfast, half dinner, with a dash in it of country tea.
Everything was scrupulously clean, and Mrs Slee was bustling about, not looking quite so wan and unsociable as when he saw her first.
“I’ve scratted a few things together,” she said, acidly, “and you must mak’ shift till I’ve had more time. Will you have the pot in now? I put the bacon down before the fire when I saw you coming. But, lord, man, what have ye been doin’ to your hand?”
“Only bruised it a bit: knocked the skin off,” said Mr Selwood, smiling.
“Don’t tell me,” said Mrs Slee, sharply. “You’ve been faighting.”
“Well, I knocked a man down, if you call that fighting,” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw Mrs Slee hurriedly produce a basin, water, and a coarse brown, but very clean, towel, with which she proceeded to bathe his bleeding hand.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, as he took out his pocket-book. “You’ll find scissors and some sticking-plaister in there.”
“I don’t want no sticking-plaister,” she said, taking a phial of some brown liquid from inside a common ornament. “This’ll cure it directly.”
“And what may this be?” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw his leech shake the bottle, and well soak a small piece of rag in the liquid.
“Rag Jack’s oil,” said Mrs Slee, pursing up her lips, and then anointing and tying up the injured hand. “It cures everything.”
The vicar nodded, not being without a little faith in homely country simples; and then the rag was neatly sewed on, and an old glove cut so as to cover the unsightly bandage.
“Did they upset you?” she then queried.
“Well, no,” he said; and he briefly related what had taken place. “By the way, I hope that gentleman in the red waistcoat is no relation of yours. Is he?”
“Is he?” retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. “Is he, indeed! He’s my master.”
Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after.
“You’ve no spoons,” she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish.
“They are quite clean,” grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. “They were my grandmother’s, and she gave ’em to me when I was married – worse luck. I keep ’em there so as they shan’t be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs.”
“Does your husband drink, then?” said Mr Selwood, quietly.
“Is there anything he don’t do as he oughtn’t since they turned him out of the plan?” said the woman, angrily. “There, don’t you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don’t want to be.”
She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it’s being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar’s mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and – a minor consideration – his bruised hand.
“A queer set of people indeed,” he said, as he progressed with his hearty meal. “What capital bread, though. That butter’s delicious. Hah!” he ejaculated, helping himself to another egg and a pinky brown piece of bacon; “if there is any fault in those eggs they are too fresh. By Sampson, I must tell Mrs Slee to secure some more of this bacon.”
Ten minutes later he was playing with the last cup of tea, and indulging it with more than its normal proportions of sugar and milk, for the calm feeling of satisfaction which steals over a hearty man after a meal – a man who looks upon digestion as a dictionary word, nothing more – had set in, and Murray Selwood was thinking about his new position in life.
“Well, I suppose I shall get used to it – in time. There must be a few friends to be made. Hallo!”
The ejaculation was caused by some one noisily entering the adjoining room with —
“Now then, what hev you got to yeat?”
“Nowt.” was the reply.
The voices were both familiar, for in the first the vicar recognised that of the man in the red waistcoat – “My master,” as Mrs Slee called him.
“You’ve been cooking something,” he continued loudly.
“Yes. The parson’s come, and it’s his brakfast.”
“Brakfast at this time o’ day! Oh, then, it’s him as I see up at foundry wi’ them Glaires.”
“Don’t talk so loud, or he’ll hear you,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.
“Let him. Let him hear me, and let him know that there’s a free, enlightened Englishman beneath the same roof. Let him know that there’s one here breathing the free – free light – breath of heaven here. A man too humble to call himself a paytriot, but who feels like one, and moans over the sufferings of his down-trampled brothers.”
“I tell you he’ll hear you directly, and we shall have to go.”
“Let him hear me,” shouted Simeon, “and let him drive us out – drive us into the free air of heaven. It’ll only be a new specimint of the bloated priesthood trampling down and gloating over the sufferings of the poor. Who’s he – a coming down here with his cassicks and gowns to read and riot on his five hundred a year in a house like this, when the hard-working body of brothers on the local plan can preach wi’out having it written down, and wi’out cassicks and gowns, and get nothing for it but glory! Let him hear me.”
“Thou fulsome! hold thy stupid tongue,” cried Mrs Slee.
“Never!” exclaimed Simeon, who counted this his opportunity after being baffled in the forenoon. “I’ll be trampled on no more by any bloated oligarch of a priest or master. I’ve been slave too – too long. I’m starving now, but what then? I can be a martyr to a holy cause – the ’oly cause of freedom. Let him riot in his food
