LITMIR.BIZ

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dear, prepare yourself. Meg has got twins — yesterday. I went up to see how she was this afternoon, not knowing anything, and there I found a pair of bubs in the nest, and old Ma Stainwright bossing the show. I nearly fainted. Sybil dear, I hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry when I saw those two rummy little round heads, like two larch cones cheek by cheek on a twig. One is a darkie, with lots of black hair, and the other is red, would you believe it, just lit up with thin red hair like a flicker of firelight. I gasped. I believe I did shed a few tears, though what for, I don’t know.

      “The old grandma is a perfect old wretch over it. She lies chuckling and passing audible remarks in the next room, as pleased as punch really, but so mad because Ma Stainwright wouldn’t have them taken in to her. You should have heard her when we took them in at last. They are both boys. She did make a fuss, poor old woman. I think she’s going a bit funny in the head. She seemed sometimes to think they were hers, and you should have heard her, the way she talked to them, it made me feel quite funny. She wanted them lying against her on the pillow, so that she could feel them with her face. I shed a few more tears, Sybil. I think I must be going dotty also. But she came round when we took them away, and began to chuckle to herself, and talk about the things she’d say to George when he came — awful shocking things, Sybil, made me blush dreadfully.

      “Georgie didn’t know about it then. He was down at Bingham, buying some horses, I believe. He seems to have got a craze for buying horses. He got in with Harry Jackson and Mayhew’s sons — you know, they were horse dealers — at least their father was. You remember he died bankrupt about three years ago. There are Fred and Duncan left, and they pretend to keep on the old business. They are always up at the Ram, and Georgie is always driving about with them. I don’t like it — they are a loose lot, rather common, and poor enough now.

      “Well, I thought I’d wait and see Georgie. He came about half-past five. Meg had been fidgeting about him, wondering where he was, and how he was, and so on. Bless me if I’d worry and whittle about a man. The old grandma heard the cart, and before he could get down she shouted — you know her room is in the front —‘Hi, George, ma lad, sharpen thy shins an’ com’ an’ a’e a look at ’em-thee’r’s two on ’em, two on ’em!’ and she laughed something awful.

      “’‘Ello Granma, what art ter shoutin’ about?’ he said, and at the sound of his voice Meg turned to me so pitiful, and said: “‘He’s been wi’ them Mayhews.’

      “‘Tha’s gotten twins, a couple at a go, ma lad!’ shouted the old woman, and you know how she gives squeal before she laughs! She made the horse shy, and he swore at it something awful. Then Bill took it, and Georgie came upstairs. I saw Meg seem to shrink when she heard him kick at the stairs as he came up, and she went white. When he got to the top he came in. He fairly reeked of whisky and horses. Bah, a man is hateful when he reeks of drink! He stood by the side of the bed grinning like a fool, and saying, quite thick:

      “‘You’ve bin in a bit of a ‘urry, ‘aven’t you Meg. An’ how are ter feelin’ then?’

      “‘Oh, I’m a’ right,’ said Meg.

      “‘Is it twins, straight?’ he said; ‘Wheer is ’em?’

      “Meg looked over at the cradle, and he went round the bed to it, holding to the bed-rail. He had never kissed her, nor anything. When he saw the twins, asleep with their fists shut tight as wax, he gave a laugh as if he was amused, and said:

      “‘Two right enough — an’ one on ’em red! Which is the girl, Meg, the black ’un?’

      “‘They’re both boys,’ said Meg, quite timidly.

      “He turned round, and his eyes went little.

      “‘Blast ’em then!’ he said. He stood there looking like a devil. Sybil dear, I did not know our George could look like that. I thought he could only look like a faithful dog or a wounded stag. But he looked fiendish. He stood watching the poor little twins, scowling at them, till at last the little red one began to whine a bit. Ma Stainwright came pushing her fat carcass in front of him and bent over the baby, saying:

      “‘Why, my pretty, what are they doin’ to thee, what are they? — What are they doin’ to thee?”

      “Georgie scowled blacker than ever, and went out, lurching against the wash-stand and making the pots rattle till my heart jumped in my throat.

      “‘Well, if you don’t call that scandylos —!’ said old Ma

      “Stainwright, and Meg began to cry. You don’t know, Cyril! She sobbed fit to break her heart. I felt as if I could have killed him.

      “That old gran’ma began talking to him, and he laughed at her. I do hate to hear a man laugh when he’s half drunk. It makes my blood boil all of a sudden. That old grandmother backs him up in everything, she’s a regular nuisance. Meg has cried to me before over the pair of them. The wicked, vulgar old thing that she is —”

      I went home to Woodside early in September. Emily was staying at the Ram. It was strange that everything was so different. Nethermere even had changed. Nethermere was no longer a complete, wonderful little world that held us charmed inhabitants. It was a small, insignificant valley lost in the spaces of the earth. The tree that had drooped over the brook with such delightful, romantic grace was a ridiculous thing when I came home after a year of absence in the south. The old symbols were trite and foolish.

      Emily and I went down one morning to Strelley Mill. The house was occupied by a labourer and his wife, strangers from the north. He was tall, very thin, and silent, strangely suggesting kinship with the rats of the place. She was small and very active, like some ragged domestic fowl run wild. Already Emily had visited her, so she invited us into the kitchen of the mill, and set forward the chairs for us. The large room had the barren air of a cell. There was a small table stranded towards the fireplace, and a few chairs by the walls; for the rest, desert spaces of flagged floor retreating into shadow. On the walls by the windows were five cages of canaries, and the small sharp movements of the birds made the room more strange in its desolation. When we began to talk the birds began to sing, till we were quite bewildered, for the little woman spoke Glasgow Scotch, and she had a hare lip. She rose and ran towards the cages, crying herself like some wild fowl, and flapping a duster at the warbling canaries.

      “Stop it, stop it,” she cried, shaking her thin weird body at them. “Silly little devils, fools, fools, fools!!” and she flapped the duster till the birds were subdued. Then she brought us delicious scones and apple jelly, urging us, almost nudging us with her thin elbows to make us eat.

      “Don’t you like ’em, don’t you? Well, eat ’em, eat ’em then. Go on, Emily, go on, eat some more. Only don’t tell Tom — don’t tell Tom when ‘e comes in”— she shook her head and laughed her shrilling, weird laughter.

      As we were going she came out with us, and went running on in front. We could not help noting how ragged and unkempt was her short black skirt. But she hastened around us, hither and thither like an excited fowl, talking in her high-pitched, unintelligible manner. I could not believe the brooding mill was in her charge. I could not think this was the Strelley Mill of a year ago. She fluttered up the steep orchard bank in front of us. Happening to turn round and see Emily and me smiling at each other she began to laugh her strident, weird laughter, saying, with a leer:

      “Emily, he’s your sweetheart, your sweetheart, Emily! You never told me!” and she laughed aloud.

      We blushed furiously. She came away from the edge of the sluice gully, nearer to us, crying:

      “You’ve been here o’ nights, haven’t you, Emily — haven’t you?” and she laughed again. Then she sat down suddenly, and pointing above our heads, shrieked:

      “Ah, look there “— we looked and saw the mistletoe. “Look at her, look at her! How many kisses a night, Emily? — Ha! Ha! Kisses all the year! Kisses o’ nights in a lonely place.”

      She went on wildly for a short time, then she dropped her voice and talked in low, pathetic tones. She

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