LITMIR.BIZ

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hear naught about your Uncle George nor your John William neither!" said Rhoda. "What's going to be done! You sit there, and do naught but talk."

      "Happen I could persuade t' steward to wait a piece," suggested Perris. "He's given other men time to pay. I can happen talk him round."

      "And happen you can't! He knows as well as you do that there's naught about the place," said Rhoda. "Where he does give time to pay, it's where a man has something to show. You've naught to show."

      Perris hung his head and blinked at the fire.

      "I can sell t' beasts and t' pigs," he said. "That 'ud make summat towards t' rent."

      "And leave the place barer than what it is! You'll not do aught of the sort. What's wanted," Rhoda continued, "isn't taking stuff off this place, but putting stuff on."

      "I could soon put some stuff on if I'd brass to do it with," said Perris. "But I've never had no luck. I expect ye haven't a bit o' money put aside out o' them cocks and hens, my lass?"

      Rhoda darted a look at him which made him shrink instinctively into his chair. She vouchsafed no answer to his question, but went on mechanically folding and wrapping. Suddenly she turned on Perris and snapped out a command.

      "Off you get to bed!" she said. "If all's as bad as you say it is, you'll have to stir yourself to-morrow, so you may as well get your rest. It's past nine o'clock now."

      Perris obeyed this order at once. He slipped off his boots and lumbered heavily up the chamber stairs. Hours after he had gone his wife worked at her task, her face clouded and her eyes sombre with thought. It was near midnight when she turned out the lamp, wrapped herself up, fully dressed, in an old rug, and lying down on the settle, fell instantly fast asleep.

Chapter III

       Table of Contents

      Rhoda wasted no words on her husband next morning until he had finished his breakfast, which meal he took in company with Pippany Webster, sitting at the same table, and making no distinction or difference between his man and himself. But that over, she drove Pippany out of the house-place with a look and a word, and turned on Perris, who, if she had not been between himself and the door, would have slipped away and escaped her for the rest of the morning.

      "Now, then, what're you going to do?" she demanded.

      Perris looked at her furtively.

      "Why, there's a bit o' fencin' wants attendin' to away i' yon five-acre," he answered. "I were thinking that you could happen give as a bit o' dinner to carry along wi' us, and then we'd make a full day's job on it."

      "You'll get your dinner here, and at the proper time," said Rhoda. "And you answer my question. I say—what're you going to do?"

      "Do about what, then?" Perris asked sullenly.

      "This rent. You're got to do something," she said. "I'm not going to be turned out like a beggar, if you are!"

      "There's nowt that I can do," replied Perris, scratching his head. "Leastways, not to-day. I might sell them beasts and pigs to-morrow when I go to market, but—"

      "You'll sell neither beasts nor yet pigs," declared Rhoda. "You're the sort that 'ud sell fifty pounds of stuff for twenty. You don't take a thing off this place!"

      Perris muttered, and scratched his head again.

      "Have it yer own way!" he said. "Have it yer own way, my lass!"

      "I wish I had had it my own way!" she retorted. "We shouldn't have been in this mess. Just you listen to me, Abel Perris! As like as not, the steward 'll be turning up here on Monday morning, first thing, just as he did last year. What's this place look like for him to peep and spy about in? Now then, you and that there Pippany set to work and put things to rights, and if you want your dinners at noon, and your suppers at six o'clock, mind you've something to show for 'em! I know what wants doing, and I know how much two of you can do, and if you haven't done what you ought to have done by twelve o'clock there'll be no dinner on this table. So now you know."

      Perris shambled out, muttering comments on his own folly in telling his affairs to a woman.

      "You can grumble and chunter as much as you like," Rhoda called after him, "but there 'll be neither bite nor sup, when dinner-time comes, if all them buildings aren't straight and this fold tidied up. There 'll be plenty for you to do to earn your supper after that."

      Perris murmured, but made instant preparation for obedience. He knew that Rhoda would be as good as her word; he also knew that she was right in what she said. The steward had a nasty habit of descending upon the smaller tenants when he came on his half-yearly visits, and when he did make such a descent the poked his long nose into every corner of farmstead and field. Perris felt himself to be an inject of suspicion already, and he knew that the steward would have no mercy upon him if he found things going to rack and ruin. He summoned Pippany from a lazy contemplation of the pigs, and entered unwillingly upon a day of hard work. By noon the buildings had been tidied up and made presentable; Rhoda came out from her ironing and looked them over; her approval was manifested in the fact that she gave each man a pint of ale with his dinner of boiled bacon. Experience had taught her to preserve the key of the barrel in her own possession, and Perris had known all the morning that there would be no beer unless her commands were obeyed. Similar conclusions made him and Pippany toil hard all the afternoon. By supper-time a great change had come over the place: Perris, indulging a certain foolish optimisim which was ingrained in him, felt it to be a pity that the steward could not drive up at that moment.

      Rhoda, having accomplished a long day's ironing, gave master and man their suppers and disappeared upstairs. When she came down again she was wearing her Sunday finery, and Perris, stretching his legs before the fire, stared at her.

      "Aw, where 're ye goin', mi lass?" he inquired.

      "Going?—I'm going to chapel, of course," answered Rhoda. "Isn't it the monthly week-night service?"

      "Nay, I didn't know," said Perris. "Well, I weern't offer to accompany yer, my lass—I'll just bide at home and smoke mi pipe. I'm over tired to go chappillin' when I've done mi day's labour but of course them 'at's religious is different."

      Rhoda made no reply. She opened the top drawer of the old bureau which stood in one corner of the house-place and took out a hymn-book and a handkerchief. From a gaily-decorated bottle she sprinkled a few drops of cheap scent on the handkerchief; carrying it and the hymn-book in her left hand, and taking her ivory-handled umbrella in her right, she went off without further word to her husband. The key of the beer-barrel was in her pocket; the last drop of whisky had been wasted in restoring Pippany Webster to consciousness; she had made herself assured that Perris had no money on him, and therefore could not visit the Dancing Bear. Accordingly, he could come to little harm during her absence at the religious exercises which she made a point of never missing.

      In addition to her charm of face and figure, Perris's young wife possessed a fine voice, of the quality of which she was by no means unconscious. If she had been less gifted she would have attended the parish church, but the church possessed a surpliced choir of men and boys, and had no need for a particularly strong soprano; and, moreover, anything beyond the most modest congregational singing was not much desired by its authorities. This sent Rhoda, who had no idea of allowing her talents to go unused, to the Methodists. These good people, a little time before the coming of Perris and his wife to Cherry-trees, had bought a second-hand American organ for their chapel, and had consequently turned their attention to something better in the way of music than they had previously attempted. They welcomed Rhoda with great enthusiasm, and immediately installed her as leader of the choir. It would have been difficult, indeed, to make her anything else, for her voice was strong and clear, and she led and controlled the hymn-singing in more senses than one. On summer evenings, when the doors of the chapel stood open, her powerful notes were heard far across the meadows outside, and the non-religious part of the surrounding population lounged over garden gates, or sat on the edge of the causeway, to listen with surprise and pleasure.

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