LITMIR.BIZ

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was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know en, shepherd – a bachelor-man?’

      ‘Not at all.’

      ‘I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte, who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry away any – outside my skin I mane, of course.’

      ‘Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning.’

      ‘And so you see ’twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man’s generosity –’

      ‘True, Master Coggan, ’twould so,’ corroborated Mark Clark.

      ‘– And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket – so thorough dry that that ale would slip down – ah, ’twould slip down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You used to go wi’ me sometimes.’

      ‘I can – I can,’ said Jacob. ‘That one, too, that we had at Buck’s Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple.’

      ‘’Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was none like those in Farmer Everdene’s kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul.’

      ‘True,’ said the maltster. ‘Nater requires her swearing at the regular times, or she’s not herself; and unholy exclamations is a necessity of life.’

      ‘But Charlotte,’ continued Coggan – ‘not a word of the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain . . . Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get into Heaven when ’a died! But ’a was never much in luck’s way and perhaps ’a went downwards after all, poor soul.’

      ‘And did any of you know Miss Everdene’s father and mother?’ inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired channel.

      ‘I knew them a little,’ said Jacob Smallbury; ‘but they were townsfolk, and didn’t live here. They’ve been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were mis’ess’ father and mother?’

      ‘Well,’ said the maltster, ‘he wasn’t much to look at; but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart.’

      ‘Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o’ times, so ’twas said,’ observed Coggan.

      ‘He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I’ve been told,’ said the maltster.

      ‘Ay,’ said Coggan. ‘He admired her so much that he used to light the candle three times a night to look at her.’

      ‘Boundless love; I shouldn’t have supposed it in the universe!’ murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his moral reflections.

      ‘Well, to be sure,’ said Gabriel.

      ‘Oh, ’tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi Everdene – that was the man’s name, sure. “Man”, saith I in my hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that – ’a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times.’

      ‘Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!’ said Joseph.

      ‘O no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and silver.’

      The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr Coggan, after absently scrutinizing a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of his eye: –

      ‘Well, now, you’d hardly believe it, but that man – our Miss Everdene’s father – was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a while. Understand, ’a didn’t want to be fickle, but he couldn’t help it. The poor feller were faithful and true enough to her in his wish, but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me in real tribulation about it once. “Coggan,” he said, “I could never wish for a handsomer woman than I’ve got, but feeling she’s ticketed as my lawful wife, I can’t help my wicked heart wandering, do what I will.” But at last I believe he cured it by making her take off her wedding-ring and calling her by her maiden name as they sat together after the shop was shut, and so ’a would get to fancy she was only his sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh, ’a got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect picture of mutel love.’

      ‘Well, ’twas a most ungodly remedy,’ murmured Joseph Poorgrass; ‘but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a happy Providence kept it from being any worse. You see, he might have gone the bad road and given his eyes to unlawfulness entirely – yes, gross unlawfulness, so to say it.’

      ‘You see,’ said Billy Smallbury, ‘the man’s will was to do right, sure enough, but his heart didn’t chime in.’

      ‘He got so much better that he was quite godly in his later years, wasn’t he, Jan?’ said Joseph Poorgrass. ‘He got himself confirmed over again in a more serious way, and took to saying “Amen” almost as loud as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting verses from the tombstones. He used, too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children; and he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawares when they called; yes, and he would box the charity-boys’ ears, if they laughed in church, till they could hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety natural to the saintly inclined.’

      ‘Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things,’ added Billy Smallbury. ‘One day Parson Thirdly met him and said, “Good-morning, Mister Everdene; ’tis a fine day!” “Amen”, said Everdene, quite absent-like, thinking only of religion when he seed a parson. Yes, he was a very Christian man.’

      ‘Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel at that time,’ said Henery Fray. ‘Never should have thought she’d have growed up such a handsome body as she is.’

      ‘’Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face.’

      ‘Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with the business and ourselves. Ah!’ Henery gazed into the ashpit, and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge.

      ‘A queer Christian, like the Devil’s head in a cowl,* as the saying is,’ volunteered Mark Clark.

      ‘He is,’ said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a certain point. ‘Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would as soon tell a lie Sundays as working-days – that I do so.’

      ‘Good faith, you do talk!’ said Gabriel.

      ‘True enough,’ said the man of bitter moods, looking round upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable of. ‘Ah, there’s people of one sort, and people of another, but that man – bless your souls!’

      Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. ‘You must be a very aged man, maker, to have sons growed up so old and ancient,’ he remarked.

      ‘Father’s so old that ’a can’t mind his age, can ye, father?’ interposed Jacob. ‘And he’s growed terrible crooked, too, lately,’ Jacob continued, surveying his father’s figure, which was rather more bowed than his own. ‘Really, one may say that father there is three-double.’

      ‘Crooked folk will last a long while,’ said the maltster, grimly, and not in the best humour.

      ‘Shepherd

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