Gold and Incense.

by Mark Guy Pea.r.s.e.

Chapter I

To think it is Jennifer Petch of whom I am going to tell--little Jennifer. How she would laugh if she only knew of it, that shrill, silvery laugh of hers. It was her great gift. Jennifer was a philosopher in the matter of laughing; and philosophy is mostly a matter of knowing how to laugh and when.

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And the village itself would wonder almost as much as Jennifer herself, for very few of them could see anything to write about in her. Village people do not see much in what they see always, and Jennifer had lived among them all her days. There was a time when some of the younger folks thought they owed her a little bit of a grudge. For Sam Petch was the tallest, and straightest, and handsomest of the village lads; and the maidens who strolled down the lane on a summer's evening would go home with fluttering hearts and delicious dreams if Sam had chanced to come that way, as somehow he generally did; and if he had loitered laughing with them in the lane, as he never minded doing.

There was Phyllis, light of hair and blue of eye, light of step and light of heart, and light of hand, as her b.u.t.ter showed--not one of the lads had any chance with her so long as Sam was free.

There was Chloe, she of the loose sun-bonnet, with gipsy face and gipsy eyes, who handled the rake so daintily, and drew the sweet hay together with such grace that n.o.body wondered if Sam Petch found it a great deal easier to turn his head that way than to turn it back again.

And on the Sunday night when the service was over, at the door of the little chapel, which was the village trysting place, there were half a dozen of the comeliest of the maidens, who found an excuse to linger talking, until Sam had gone his way.

It came on them all with an amazement of surprise, especially as events of that kind were always busily whispered abroad at the slightest hint, and often without any hint at all--"Sam Petch was going to be married."

"Who to?" asked everybody, brightening with wonder.

After every likely la.s.s had been guessed the voice fell, and the answer was given almost with a sense of wrong, "Why, to little Jennifer!

Whatever he can see in her I can't think."

For that matter, no more could Jennifer herself. Round and short of figure, red and brown of face, she had never so much as ventured to look at Sam, or to think of him either. And even now she was almost sorry for him that she was only plain little Jennifer, and not like Phyllis or Chloe.

And because the village maidens could see no reason for it in her looks they concluded that there must be some hidden wiliness, some depth of craft for which they were no match. They talked it over as they milked the cows, the white stream falling with its music into the pail. "She knew what she was doing, Jennifer did, a regular deep one." It was told in the lane with a laugh, as if each wanted to show that Sam was nothing to them, of course.

But the older folks talked of it differently. The women stood in the doorway of an evening with cl.u.s.ters of children about them, and according to them it was Sam who was the deep one. He knew what he was doing, did Sam. There were things, they said, and they spoke feelingly, that lasted longer than good looks and were worth more. And as the men came home with heavy steps from the day's work, with a smell about them like the smell of a field that the Lord hath blessed, they said that a little thrifty body like Jennifer was a prize for anybody to be proud of, and Sam Petch was a lucky fellow, that he was.

It was plain enough, whatever Jennifer thought--and she kept her thoughts mostly to herself--that Sam agreed with these older ones. He could not do enough to show his pride in Jennifer, and but that she refused all offers of finery, would have made his plain little sweetheart as gay as Phyllis or Chloe. Never an evening pa.s.sed but you met them walking leisurely together, the declared sign of courtship, which was also known as "keeping company." It was thus distinguished from marriage, for which the accepted sign was that the wife kept three yards behind.

But when Sam and Jennifer were married they still went on "keeping company;" even though his long stride needed three of Jennifer's short steps, she was never behind, and Sam would have taken steps as short as hers before she should be. And if it be true that light hearts make easy travelling, they might well keep together, up hill and down. A glance was enough to show that things were flourishing with them. Their cottage stood on the top of the hill, all set about with a garden fair, and at the side and back of the house grew "stuff" enough to send to market. Sam had rented a bit of a meadow where a couple of cows gave Jennifer the chance of showing her skill at clotted cream and b.u.t.ter.

There, too, a troop of fowls had their run, and away in a corner three pigs added to the importance of Sam and to the cares of Jennifer. She, thrifty soul, made enough out of her department to pay the rent; up early, and always at work, her song only ceasing to make way for her silvery laugh. The older folks repeated their opinion now as a prophecy fulfilled, and took to themselves as much credit as if the prediction had been the chief cause of the prosperity.

Before three years had gone Jennifer's department was increased by the birth of two st.u.r.dy little sons. They were both the image of Sam, so the women declared; but the men saw in each the image of their mother, and counted it a pity that they were not girls, for the like of Jennifer they reckoned scarce.

Chapter II

It was an evening toward the end of August, and the harvest was being gathered in. The fields on every side were dotted with the tented sheaves piled up as the custom is in the "catching" weather of the West, one sheaf reversed on the top of the cl.u.s.ter, so as to form a kind of roof. The long shadows of the shocks fell across the fields in the evening light. All the country was beautiful with that rich restfulness which comes in the autumn, as if the earth had finished its work. The glories of the sunset gave the sky a hundred delicate tints of gold and purple.

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Here and there the women brought the sheaves, whilst the men piled them on the wagons. Away over the hill country in the east the great harvest moon was rising.

Jennifer, busy as ever, had got her two little ones settled for the night, and now was preparing a dainty supper for Sam's return; the savoury smell of it filled the place.

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Then it was that, as to Job of old, one came breathless to the house with sad tidings. Sam had slipped from the stack and fallen on his head.

"Is--he--dead?" gasped Jennifer.

No, he was not dead; but he had not spoken since his fall, and was quite unconscious. A messenger had been sent for the doctor, and the men were bringing Sam home, and would be here in a few minutes.

Up the hill came the group with the injured man in their midst, to all appearance dead. A great hush fell on the village as they pa.s.sed slowly on, men in their shirt sleeves just as they had hurried in from the harvest field. The women and children stood at the doors with faces full of sympathy.

They bore him in at the little gate and through the garden and up the stairs, and laid him on the bed.

For weeks Sam lay on his bed, whilst day and night Jennifer waited on him.

The neighbours stopped the doctor to ask about him, and the answer was ever the same:

"He'll pull through; he'll pull through," and the doctor tightened his mouth and nodded his head; "but he would have been a dead man long ago if it had not been for that brave little wife of his."

Fracture of the skull and concussion of the brain, and a host of other ills, made it a desperate fight with death. But Jennifer fought and won. Even in his unconsciousness Sam seemed to know the touch of her hand, and it soothed him; and the tone of her voice, and the moaning ceased.

But bit by bit their little fortune was swept away. The savings of those three or four years were quickly spent; the cows had to be sold, and the meadow given up; the pigs and fowls were parted with.

The garden lay untended. And when, at last, the doctor had done with Sam, it was only to leave him an imbecile--helpless as a baby, and a great deal more troublesome--sometimes muttering to himself for hours together a round of unmeaning words; sometimes just crying all day long, and then again cross and peevish and perverse as any spoilt child.

The cottage was given up; they could not afford the rent of that.

Another was taken, the cheapest in all the village--one that was too bad for anybody else.

Half a crown a week and a loaf of bread from the parish was all that came in to supplement Jennifer's poor earnings of sixpence a day in the fields.

It was some few years after this had happened that I came to know Jennifer.

There she sat in the little chapel, her round and ruddy face without a wrinkle in it, all curves and dimples that were the settled homes of good humour and thankfulness; a face snugly surrounded by a black bonnet, set off with a clean white cap. Beside her were her two lads, their faces as clean and shining as plenty of soap and hard scrubbing could make them. You met her going home from the service, the short, round figure wrapped in a thick black shawl, trotting along with her hymn book in one hand and a big umbrella in the other, short and round like herself. The happy little lads went bounding before her, the three of them the very picture of gladness.

Yet it was almost wicked of Jennifer to look so comfortable, when all the parish knew that there was not a poor body for miles around that had so much trouble. She certainly had no business to be anything but the most mournful and melancholy soul that ever went grumbling along the highroad, if you can measure people's happiness by their circ.u.mstances.

Follow her as she turns down this narrow lane, skilfully picking her way in the mud. At the end of the lane is her cottage. One half of it has fallen, the cob-walls have given way, and the thatch hangs over the ruins. It was a wonder that what was standing did not follow, for there were cracks in the walls through which the wind whistled, and there were broken places in the roof through which the rain dripped.

But within was a greater sorrow than any that you could find outside. As Jennifer opens the door she hurries across the uneven floor to the rough settle by the fire. There is her husband--poor Sam!

As now she comes near and lays her hand upon his shoulder, the dull face is turned toward her with a smile. He tries to say something, but the mouth only opens without a word, and the tears fill his eyes. Jennifer bends and kisses him tenderly. "Poor dear," she says, as she gently strokes the hands that hold her own. "Poor dear, was he wanting us home again?"