He was put about at that.

"Would you say as I didn't ought to meddle in her affairs no more?" he asked. "You see, I've comed to feel very kindly to the lovely creature, and I'd work my fingers to the bone to find the man worthy of her; but if I'm too pushing--"

"Pushing!" she said. "G.o.d's light! You be a lot too retreating, Jack, and always was. Because you've got a face full of character, unlike other men's, why for should you suppose 'twas a bug-a-boo to frighten the woman?

Don't your heart look out of your eyes, you silly man? How old are you?"

"Forty," answered Jack.

"And she's twenty-five, ain't she?"

"Who?" asked Jack.

"You did out to be put in an asylum, though, my son," said Mrs. Cobley.

"Milly Boon is the woman I'm aiming at, and it may or may not interest you to larn that she loves you better than anything on earth--you--you she loves, you gert tomfool!"

Jack looked as if he'd been struck by lightning and his pipe fell out of his mouth and broke on the hearth.

"'Tis most any odds you're mistook," he said, with a voice that showed what a shock he'd suffered. "Such things be contrary to nature."

"Nought's contrary to nature where a woman's concerned," answered Mrs.

Cobley as one who knew. "They be higher than nature, and a young woman in love defies all things but her Maker--if not Him."

"I'll see," said Jack; and he went to see instanter.

Mrs. Pedlar was keeping her bed for the moment with a tissick to the tubes, and when the man got there he found Milly busy over the ancient woman's supper. And, as he told her, he was glad she happed to be alone, though sorry for the reason.

And then in his direct, queer way he said:

"What's this I hear tell from my mother, Milly? She says you be got to love me?"

And something in his great, hungry eyes, and the very words in his question made it so plain as need be to Milly Boon that Jack was more than glad to hear the news. And she went up to him and kissed him; and then he very near throttled her.

'Twas a most happy and restful affair altogether; and when, about two hours after, poor Mrs. Pedlar croaked out over their heads for her soup, and axed Milly where she was got to be, the maiden cried out:

"I be in Jack Cobley's arms, Aunt Jane, and 'tis him owns the house, and us be going to get married direckly minute!"

No. III

JOHN AND JANE

If you be built on a grand scale, there's always people to feel the greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit one-sided, still there it is: greatness will be granted.

In the case of John Warner, he weren't a knave, but his greatness, so to call it, took the form of such a complete and wondrous selfishness that you was bound to own a touch of genius in the masterful way he bent all things to his purpose and came out top over his neighbours. The man was an only son, and what might have been chastened in his youth was fostered by a silly mother, who fell in love with his fine appearance and never denied him a pleasure she could grant. And his father weren't no wiser, so when, at five-and-twenty, he found himself an orphan and Wych Elm Farm his own, lock, stock, and barrel, young John Warner come to his kingdom with a steadfast determination to get the best he could for himself out of life and make it run to his own pattern so far as unsleeping wit of man could do.

He married a pretty woman with a bit of money and he altered a good few of his father's ways and used Jane Slowcombe's dowry to buy up a hundred acres alongside his own. The land had been neglected and wanted patience and cash; but where his lasting interests were concerned, John never lacked for one, nor stinted the other. He was a clever man and a charming man, and his cleverness and his charm appeared in many ways. Over the steel hand of sleepless selfishness John drew the velvet glove of good manners and nice speech. He created the false idea that he never wanted to do more than give and take in the properest spirit you could wish. He spoke the comfortablest words ever a farmer did speak to his fellow-creatures, and many a man was lost afore he knew it when doing business with John Warner, and never realised, till it came to the turn, how a bargain which sounded so well had somehow gone against him after all.

Of course, John prospered exceeding, for amongst his other gifts, he weren't afraid of work. He knew his business very well indeed, and always understood that it was worth his while to take pains with a beginner and paid him in the long run so to do. People felt a good bit interested in him, and though they knew there was a lot to hate in the man, yet they couldn't give a name to it exactly. When a fallen foe was furious and bearded John and shook a fist in his face, as sometimes happened, he'd look the picture of sorrow and amazement and express his undying regrets.

But he never went back on nothing, and near though he might sail to the wind, none ever had a handle by which to drag him before the Law. 'Twas just the very genius of selfishness that sped him on his way victorious every time.

He never took no hand in public affairs, nor offered for the Borough Council, nor nothing like that. He might have been a useful man in Little Silver, where we didn't boast more brains than we needed, nor yet enough; but John Warner said he weren't one of the clever ones and felt very satisfied with them that were, and applauded such men as did a bit of work for nothing out of their public spirit. For praise, though cheap, is always welcome, and he had a great art to be generous with what cost him nothing.

He'd pay a man a thought above his market value if he judged him worth it, and he often said that on a farm like Wych Elm, where everything was carried out on the highest grade of farming, 'twas money in any young man's pocket to come to him at all. And n.o.body could deny that either. And he never meddled in his neighbour's affairs, or offered advice, or unfavourably criticised anything that happened outside his own boundaries.

One daughter only John Warner had, and that was all his family, and her mother struck the first stroke against his happiness and content, for she died and left him a widower at five-and-forty. She fell in a consumption, much to his regret, after they'd been wedded fifteen years; and their girl was called Jane after her, and 'twas noted that though sprung of such handsome parents, Jane didn't favour either but promised to be a very homely woman--a promise she fulfilled.

Her father trained her most industrious to be his right hand, and she grew up with a lively admiration for him and his opinions. Farming interested her a lot, and men mildly interested her; but among the hopeful young blades with an eye on the future who offered to keep company and so on, there was none Jane saw who promised to be a patch on her parent, and after his worldly wisdom and grasp of life and shrewd sense, she found the boys of her own age no better than birds in a hedge. Indeed she had no use for any among 'em, but made John Warner her G.o.d, as he meant she should do; for, as she waxed in strength and wits, he felt her a strong right hand. In fact, he took no small pains to identify her with himself for his own convenience, and secretly determined she shouldn't wed if he could help it. Little by little he poisoned her mind against matrimony, praised the independent women and showed how such were better off every way, with no husband and family to fret their lives and spoil their freedom.

Jane was one, or two-and-twenty by now--a pale, small-eyed maiden with a fine, strong body and a great appet.i.te for manual work. There was no taint from her mother in her and she lived out of doors for choice and loved a hard job. She'd pile the dry-built, granite walls with any man, and do so much as him in a day; and folk, looking on her, foretold that she'd be rich beyond dreams, but never know how to get a pennyworth of pleasure out of all her money.

But Jane's one and only idol was her father, and for him she would have done anything in her power. She counted on him being good to live for ever, along of his cautious habits, and she'd give over all thought of any change in the home when the crash came and the even ripple of their lives was broke for her by a very unexpected happening.

Because, much to his own astonishment, John Warner found his mind dwelling on a wife once more--the last thing as ever he expected to happen to him.

Indeed the discovery fl.u.s.tered the man not a little, and he set himself to consider such an upheaval most careful and weigh it, as he weighed everything, in the scales of his own future comfort and success. He was a calculating man in all things, and yet it came over him gradual and sure that Mrs. Bas...o...b.. had got something to her which made a most forcible appeal and awakened fires he thought were gone out for ever when his wife died. As for Nelly Bas...o...b.., she was a widow and kept a shop-of-all-sorts in Little Silver and did well thereat, and Bas...o...b.. had been dead two years when his discovery dropped like a bolt out of a clear sky on John Warner.

It vexed him a bit at first and he put it away, after considering what an upstore a second wife would make in the snug and well-ordered scheme of his existence; but there it was and Nelly wouldn't be put away. So John examined the facts and came to the interesting conclusion that, in a manner of speaking, his own daughter was responsible for his fix. Because, being such a wintry fashion of female, she made all others of the s.e.x shine by contrast, and her father guessed it was just her manly, hard, bustling way that showed up the feminine softness and charming voice and general appealing qualities of Nelly Bas...o...b...

Nelly was a tall, fine woman of forty years old. Her hair was thick and dark, her eyes a wondrous big pair and so grey as the mist, and her voice to poor Jane's was like a blackbird against a guinea-fowl. Farmer, he dropped in the shop pretty often to pa.s.s the time of day and measure her up; and for her part being a man-loving sort of woman, who had lost a good husband, but didn't see no very stark cause why she shouldn't find another, she discovered after a bit what was lurking in the farmer's mind.

Then, like the rest of the parish, she wondered, for 'twas never thought that such an own-self man as Warner, and one so well suited by his daughter, would spoil his peace with another wife.

But n.o.body's cleverer to hide his nature than a lover, and Warner found himself burrowing into Nelly's life a bit and sizing up her character, though full of caution not to commit himself; and she was very near as clever as him, and got to weigh up his points, good and bad, and to feel along with such a man that life might be pleasant enough for a nature like hers. For she was a good manager with a saving disposition. She liked John's handsome appearance and reckoned the fifteen year between 'em would work to suit her. And, more than that, she hated her business, because a shop-of-all-sorts have got a smell to it like nothing else on earth, and Nelly found it cast her spirits down a bit as it always had done. She made no secret of this, and John Warner presently got to see she was friendly disposed towards him and might easily be had for the asking if he asked right. He took his time, however, and sounded Jane, where he well knew the pinch would come.

He gleaned her opinion casual on the subject of a woman here and there, and he found Jane thought well enough of Mrs. Bas...o...b.., whose shop was useful and her prices well within reason. But it was a long time before he made up his mind, the problem being whether to tell Jane of the thing he was minded to do before he done it, or take the step first and break it to her after. In the end he reckoned it safer to do the deed and announce it as an accomplished fact; because he very well knew that she would take it a good bit to heart and hate with all her might any other female reigning at Wych Elm but herself.

And meanwhile, all unknown to farmer, Jane chanced to be having a bit of very mild amus.e.m.e.nt with a male on her own account.

Martin Ball was known as 'the busy man of Little Silver,' and none but had a good word for him. He was a yellow-whiskered, stout, red-faced and blue-eyed chap with enough energy to drive a steamship. The folk marvelled how he found time for all he undertook. He was Portreeve of the district--an ancient t.i.tle without much to it nowadays--and he was huckster to a dozen farms for Okehampton Market. He also kept bees and coneys and ran a market-garden of two acres. He served on the Parish Council and he was vicar's warden. And numberless other small ch.o.r.es with money to 'em he also undertook and performed most successful. And then, at forty-two years of age, though not before, he began to feel a wife might be worked into his life with advantage, and only regretted the needful time to find and court the woman.

And even so, but for the temper of his old aunt, Mary Ball, who kept house for him, he would have been content to carry on single-handed.

He knew the Warners very well and Jane had always made a great impression on him by reason of her fearless ways and great powers and pa.s.sionate love of work; and though he came to see very soon that work was her only pa.s.sion, beyond her devoted attachment to her father, yet he couldn't but mark that such a woman would be worth a gold-mine to any man who weren't disposed to put womanly qualities first. Of love he knew less than one of his working bees, but maybe had a dim vision at the back of his mind about it, which showed him clear enough that with Jane Warner, love-making could never amount to much. He measured the one against t'other, however, and felt upon the whole that such a woman would be a tower of strength if she could only be got away from her parent.

And so he showed her how he was a good bit interested, and had speech with her, off and on, and made it pretty clear in his scant leisure that she could come to him if she was minded. It pleased her a good bit to find such a remarkable man as Ball had found time to think upon her, and she also liked his opinions and his valiant hunger for hard work. She'd even let herself think of him for five minutes sometimes before she went to sleep of a night, and what there was of woman in her felt a mild satisfaction to know there lived a man on earth she'd got the power to interest. Marriage was far outside her scheme, of course; but there's a lot that wouldn't marry for a fortune, yet feel a good bit uplifted to know they might do so and that a male exists who thinks 'em worth while.

So Jane praised Martin Ball and let him see, as far as her nature allowed, that she thought well of him and his opinions and manner of life; and he began to believe he might get her.

He touched it very light indeed to John Warner one day when they met coming home on horse-back, and then he found himself up against a rock, for when he hinted that Warner would be losing his wonderful daughter some time, the farmer told him that was the very last thing on earth could ever happen.

"Never," said John Warner. "The likes of her be her father's child to her boots. I'm her life, Ball, and there's no thought of marriage in her, nor never will be so long as I'm above-ground. She ain't that sort anyhow, and I'm glad of it."

He wanted it both ways, you see. In his grand powers of selfishness, John had planned to have Nelly for wife by now, and he'd also planned to keep his daughter, well knowing that no wife would do a quarter of what Jane did, or be so valuable on a business basis. Jane for business and Nelly Bas...o...b.. for pleasure was his idea.

And then John offered for Mrs. Bas...o...b.., after making it clear to her that he was going to do so and finding the running good. He put it in his masterly language and said that he'd be her willing slave, and hinted how, when he was gathered home, the farm would be her own for life and so on; and while knowing very well that John weren't going to be her slave or nothing like that, Mrs. Bas...o...b.. reckoned the adventure about worth while, having took a fancy to him and longing most furious to escape the shop-of-all-sorts. And so she said "Yes," though hiding a doubt all the time, and Warner, who hated to have any trouble hanging over him, swore he was a blessed and a fortunate man, kissed her on the lips, and went home instanter to tell Jane the news. He broke it when supper was done and they sat alone--her darning and him mixing his 'nightcap,' which was a drop of Hollands, a lump of sugar and a squeeze of lemon in hot water.

"I've got glad news for you, Jane," he said. "Long I've felt 'twas a cheerless life for you without another woman to share your days on a footing of affection and friendship and--more for your sake than my own--I've ordained to wed again. Not till I heard you praise her did I allow my thoughts to dwell on Mrs. Bas...o...b.., but getting better acquaint, I found her all you said, and more. A woman of very fine character--so fearless and just such a touzer for work as yourself, and, in a word, seeing that you did ought to have a fellow-woman to share your labours and lighten your load, I approached her and she's took me. And I thank G.o.d for it, because you and her will be my right and left hand henceforward; and the three of us be like to pull amazing well together. 'Tis a great advancement for Wych Elm in my judgment, and I will that the advantage shall be first of all for you."