A constable and proper a.s.sistance was sent to Mrs. Churchill's. They stationed themselves in a back parlour which opened on a pa.s.sage leading to the butler's pantry, where the plate was kept. A little after midnight they heard the hall door open. Corkscrew and his accomplices went directly to the pantry; and there Mr. Spencer and the constable immediately secured them, as they were carrying off their booty.

Mrs. Churchill and Pomfret had spent the night at the house of an acquaintance in the same street. 'Well, ma'am,' said Mrs. Pomfret, who had heard all the news in the morning, 'the villains are all safe, thank G.o.d. I was afraid to go to the window this morning; but it was my luck to see them all go by to gaol. They looked so shocking! I am sure I never shall forget Felix's look to my dying day! But poor Franklin!

ma'am; that boy has the best heart in the world. I could not get him to give a second look at them as they pa.s.sed. Poor fellow! I thought he would have dropped; and he was so modest, ma'am, when Mr. Spencer spoke to him, and told him he had done his duty.' 'And did my brother tell him what reward I intend for him?' 'No, ma'am, and I'm sure Franklin thinks no more of _reward_ than I do.' 'I intend,' continued Mrs. Churchill, 'to sell some of my old useless plate, and to lay it out in an annuity for Franklin's life.' 'La, ma'am!' exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, with unfeigned joy, 'I'm sure you are very good; and I'm very glad of it.'

'And,' continued Mrs. Churchill, 'here are some tickets for the play, which I shall beg you, Pomfret, to give him, and to take him with you.'

'I am very much obliged to you, indeed, ma'am; and I'll go with him with all my heart, and choose such plays as won't do no prejudice to his morality. And, ma'am,' continued Mrs. Pomfret, 'the night after the fire I left him my great Bible and my watch, in my will; for I never was more mistaken at the first in any boy in my born days; but he has won me by his own _deserts_, and I shall from this time forth love all the _Villaintropic_ folks for his sake.'

SIMPLE SUSAN

CHAPTER I

Waked, as her custom was, before the day, To do the observance due to sprightly May.

DRYDEN.

In a retired hamlet on the borders of Wales, between Oswestry and Shrewsbury, it is still the custom to celebrate the 1st of May.

The children of the village, who look forward to this rural festival with joyful eagerness, usually meet on the last day of April to make up their nosegays for the morning and to choose their queen. Their customary place of meeting is at a hawthorn which stands in a little green nook, open on one side to a shady lane, and separated on the other side by a thick sweet-brier and hawthorn hedge from the garden of an attorney.

This attorney began the world with nothing, but he contrived to sc.r.a.pe together a good deal of money, everybody knew how. He built a new house at the entrance of the village, and had a large well-fenced garden, yet, notwithstanding his fences, he never felt himself secure. Such were his litigious habits and his suspicious temper that he was constantly at variance with his simple and peaceable neighbours. Some pig, or dog, or goat, or goose was for ever trespa.s.sing. His complaints and his extortions wearied and alarmed the whole hamlet. The paths in his fields were at length unfrequented, his stiles were blocked up with stones, or stuffed with brambles and briers, so that not a gosling could creep under, or a giant get over them. Indeed, so careful were even the village children of giving offence to this irritable man of the law, that they would not venture to fly a kite near his fields lest it should entangle in his trees or fall upon his meadow.

Mr. Case, for this was the name of our attorney, had a son and a daughter, to whose education he had not time to attend, as his whole soul was intent upon acc.u.mulating for them a fortune. For several years he suffered his children to run wild in the village; but suddenly, on his being appointed to a considerable agency, he began to think of making his children a little genteel. He sent his son to learn Latin; he hired a maid to wait upon his daughter Barbara, and he strictly forbade her _thenceforward_ to keep company with any of the poor children who had hitherto been her playfellows. They were not sorry for this prohibition, because she had been their tyrant rather than their companion. She was vexed to observe that her absence was not regretted, and she was mortified to perceive that she could not humble them by any display of airs and finery.

There was one poor girl, amongst her former a.s.sociates, to whom she had a peculiar dislike,--Susan Price, a sweet-tempered, modest, sprightly, industrious la.s.s, who was the pride and delight of the village. Her father rented a small farm, and, unfortunately for him, he lived near Attorney Case.

Barbara used often to sit at her window, watching Susan at work.

Sometimes she saw her in the neat garden raking the beds or weeding the borders; sometimes she was kneeling at her beehive with fresh flowers for her bees; sometimes she was in the poultry yard, scattering corn from her sieve amongst the eager chickens; and in the evening she was often seated in a little honeysuckle arbour, with a clean, light, three-legged deal table before her, upon which she put her plain work.

Susan had been taught to work neatly by her good mother, who was very fond of her, and to whom she was most gratefully attached.

Mrs. Price was an intelligent, active, domestic woman; but her health was not robust. She earned money, however, by taking in plain work; and she was famous for baking excellent bread and breakfast cakes. She was respected in the village, for her conduct as a wife and as a mother, and all were eager to show her attention. At her door the first branch of hawthorn was always placed on May morning, and her Susan was usually Queen of the May.

It was now time to choose the Queen. The setting sun shone full upon the pink blossoms of the hawthorn, when the merry group a.s.sembled upon their little green. Barbara was now walking in sullen state in her father's garden. She heard the busy voices in the lane, and she concealed herself behind the high hedge, that she might listen to their conversation.

'Where's Susan?' were the first unwelcome words which she overheard.

'Ay, where's Susan?' repeated Philip, stopping short in the middle of a new tune that he was playing on his pipe. 'I wish Susan would come! I want her to sing me this same tune over again; I have not it yet.'

'And I wish Susan would come, I'm sure,' cried a little girl, whose lap was full of primroses. 'Susan will give me some thread to tie up my nosegays, and she'll show me where the fresh violets grow; and she has promised to give me a great bunch of her double cowslips to wear to-morrow. I wish she would come.'

'Nothing can be done without Susan! She always shows us where the nicest flowers are to be found in the lanes and meadows,' said they. 'She must make up the garlands; and she shall be Queen of the May!' exclaimed a mult.i.tude of little voices.

'But she does not come!' said Philip.

Rose, who was her particular friend, now came forward to a.s.sure the impatient a.s.sembly 'that she would answer for it Susan would come as soon as she possibly could, and that she probably was detained by business at home.'

The little electors thought that all business should give way to theirs, and Rose was despatched to summon her friend immediately.

'Tell her to make haste,' cried Philip. 'Attorney Case dined at the Abbey to-day--luckily for us. If he comes home and finds us here, maybe he'll drive us away; for he says this bit of ground belongs to his garden: though that is not true, I'm sure; for Farmer Price knows, and says, it was always open to the road. The Attorney wants to get our playground, so he does. I wish he and his daughter Bab, or Miss Barbara, as she must now be called, were a hundred miles off, out of our way, I know. No later than yesterday she threw down my ninepins in one of her ill-humours, as she was walking by with her gown all trailing in the dust.'

'Yes,' cried Mary, the little primrose-girl, 'her gown is always trailing. She does not hold it up nicely, like Susan; and with all her fine clothes she never looks half so neat. Mamma says she wishes I may be like Susan, when I grow up to be a great girl, and so do I. I should not like to look conceited as Barbara does, if I was ever so rich.'

'Rich or poor,' said Philip, 'it does not become a girl to look conceited, much less _bold_, as Barbara did the other day, when she was at her father's door without a hat upon her head, staring at the strange gentleman who stopped hereabout to let his horse drink. I know what he thought of Bab by his looks, and of Susan too; for Susan was in her garden, bending down a branch of the laburnum tree, looking at its yellow flowers, which were just come out; and when the gentleman asked her how many miles it was from Shrewsbury, she answered him so modest!--not bashful, like as if she had never seen n.o.body before--but just right: and then she pulled on her straw hat, which was fallen back with her looking up at the laburnum, and she went her ways home; and the gentleman says to me, after she was gone, "Pray, who is that neat modest girl----?" But I wish Susan would come,' cried Philip, interrupting himself.

Susan was all this time, as her friend Rose rightly guessed, busy at home. She was detained by her father's returning later than usual. His supper was ready for him nearly an hour before he came home; and Susan swept up the ashes twice, and twice put on wood to make a cheerful blaze for him; but at last, when he did come in, he took no notice of the blaze or of Susan; and when his wife asked him how he did, he made no answer, but stood with his back to the fire, looking very gloomy. Susan put his supper upon the table, and set his own chair for him; but he pushed away the chair and turned from the table, saying--'I shall eat nothing, child! Why have you such a fire to roast me at this time of the year?'

'You said yesterday, father, I thought, that you liked a little cheerful wood fire in the evening; and there was a great shower of hail; your coat is quite wet, we must dry it.'

'Take it, then, child,' said he, pulling it off--'I shall soon have no coat to dry--and take my hat too,' said he, throwing it upon the ground.

Susan hung up his hat, put his coat over the back of a chair to dry, and then stood anxiously looking at her mother, who was not well; she had this day fatigued herself with baking; and now, alarmed by her husband's moody behaviour, she sat down pale and trembling. He threw himself into a chair, folded his arms, and fixed his eyes upon the fire.

Susan was the first who ventured to break silence. Happy the father who has such a daughter as Susan!--her unaltered sweetness of temper, and her playful, affectionate caresses, at last somewhat dissipated her father's melancholy.

He could not be prevailed upon to eat any of the supper which had been prepared for him; however, with a faint smile, he told Susan that he thought he could eat one of her guinea-hen's eggs. She thanked him, and with that nimble alacrity which marks the desire to please, she ran to her neat chicken-yard; but, alas! her guinea-hen was not there--it had strayed into the attorney's garden. She saw it through the paling, and timidly opening the little gate, she asked Miss Barbara, who was walking slowly by, to let her come in and take her guinea-hen. Barbara, who was at this instant reflecting, with no agreeable feelings, upon the conversation of the village children, to which she had recently listened, started when she heard Susan's voice, and with a proud, ill-humoured look and voice, refused her request.

'Shut the gate,' said Barbara, 'you have no business in _our_ garden; and as for your hen, I shall keep it; it is always flying in here and plaguing us, and my father says it is a trespa.s.ser; and he told me I might catch it and keep it the next time it got in, and it is in now.'

Then Barbara called to her maid, Betty, and bid her catch the mischievous hen.

'Oh, my guinea-hen! my pretty guinea-hen!' cried Susan, as they hunted the frightened, screaming creature from corner to corner.

'Here we have got it!' said Betty, holding it fast by the legs.

'Now pay damages, Queen Susan, or good-bye to your pretty guinea-hen,'

said Barbara, in an insulting tone.

'Damages! what damages?' said Susan; 'tell me what I must pay.' 'A shilling,' said Barbara. 'Oh, if sixpence would do!' said Susan; 'I have but sixpence of my own in the world, and here it is.' 'It won't do,'

said Barbara, turning her back. 'Nay, but hear me,' cried Susan; 'let me at least come in to look for its eggs. I only want _one_ for my father's supper; you shall have all the rest.' 'What's your father, or his supper to us? is he so nice that he can eat none but guinea-hen's eggs?' said Barbara. 'If you want your hen and your eggs, pay for them, and you'll have them.' 'I have but sixpence, and you say that won't do,' said Susan, with a sigh, as she looked at her favourite, which was in the maid's grasping hands, struggling and screaming in vain.

Susan retired disconsolate. At the door of her father's cottage she saw her friend Rose, who was just come to summon her to the hawthorn bush.

'They are all at the hawthorn, and I am come for you. We can do nothing without _you_, dear Susan,' cried Rose, running to meet her, at the moment she saw her. 'You are chosen Queen of the May--come, make haste.

But what is the matter? why do you look so sad?'

'Ah!' said Susan, 'don't wait for me; I can't come to you, but,' added she, pointing to the tuft of double cowslips in the garden, 'gather those for poor little Mary; I promised them to her, and tell her the violets are under a hedge just opposite the turnstile, on the right as we go to church. Good-bye! never mind me; I can't come--I can't stay, for my father wants me.'

'But don't turn away your face; I won't keep you a moment; only tell me what's the matter,' said her friend, following her into the cottage.

'Oh, nothing, not much,' said Susan; 'only that I wanted the egg in a great hurry for father, it would not have vexed me--to be sure I should have clipped my guinea-hen's wings, and then she could not have flown over the hedge; but let us think no more about it, now,' added she, twinkling away a tear.

When Rose, however, learnt that her friend's guinea-hen was detained prisoner by the attorney's daughter, she exclaimed, with all the honest warmth of indignation, and instantly ran back to tell the story to her companions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _'It won't do,' said Barbara, turning her back._]

'Barbara! ay; like father, like daughter,' cried Farmer Price, starting from the thoughtful att.i.tude in which he had been fixed, and drawing his chair closer to his wife.