Accordingly We Went To The
Little General Shop And Heard That Mr. Brownjohn Was Not At
Home.
His housekeeper, a fat, dark, voluble woman with
prominent black eyes, who minded the shop in the master's
absence, told us that Mr. Brownjohn had gone to a neighbouring
farm-house on important business, but was expected back
shortly.
We waited, and by and by he returned, a shabbily
dressed, weak-looking little old man, with pale blue eyes and
thin yellowish white hair. He could not put us up, he said,
he had no room in his cottage; there was nothing for us but to
go on to the next place, a village three miles distant, on the
chance of finding a bed there. We assured him that we could
go no further, and after revolving the matter a while longer
he again said that we could not stay, as there was not a room
to be had in the place since poor Mrs. Flowerdew had her
trouble. She had a spare room and used to take in a lodger
occasionally, and a good handy woman she was too; but now - no,
Mrs. Flowerdew could not take us in. We questioned him, and
he said that no one had died there and there had been no
illness. They were all quite well at Mrs. Flowerdew's; the
trouble was of another kind. There was no more to be said
about it.
As nothing further could be got out of him we went in search
of Mrs. Flowerdew herself, and found her in a pretty
vine-clad cottage. She was a young woman, very poorly
dressed, with a pleasing but careworn face, and she had four
small, bright, healthy, happy-faced children. They were all
grouped round her as she stood in the doorway to speak to us,
and they too were poorly dressed and poorly shod. When we
told our tale she appeared ready to burst into tears. Oh, how
unfortunate it was that she could not take us in! It would
have made her so happy, and the few shillings would have been
such a blessing! But what could she do now - the landlord's
agent had put in a distress and carried off and sold all her
best things. Every stick out of her nice spare room had been
taken from them! Oh, it was cruel!
As we wished to hear more she told us the whole story. They
had got behindhand with the rent, but that had often been the
case, only this time it happened that the agent wanted a
cottage for a person he wished to befriend, and so gave them
notice to quit. But her husband was a high-spirited man and
determined to stick to his rights, so he informed the agent
that he refused to move until he received compensation for his
improvements.
Questioned about these improvements, she led us through to the
back to show us the ground, about half an acre in extent, part
of which was used as a paddock for the donkey, and on the
other part there were about a dozen rather sickly-looking
young fruit trees. Her husband, she said, had planted the
orchard and kept the fence of the paddock in order, and they
refused to compensate him! Then she took us up to the spare
room, empty of furniture, the floor thick with dust. The bed,
table, chairs, washhandstand, toilet service - the things she
had been so long struggling to get together, saving her money
for months and months, and making so many journeys to the town
to buy - all, all he had taken away and sold for almost
nothing!
Then, actually with tears in her eyes, she said that now we
knew why she couldn't take us in - why she had to seem so
unkind.
But we are going to stay, we told her. It was a very good
room; she could surely get a few things to put in it, and in
the meantime we would go and forage for provisions to last us
till Monday.
It is odd to find how easy it is to get what one wants by
simply taking it! At first she was amazed at our decision,
then she was delighted and said she would go out to her
neighbours and try to borrow all that was wanted in the way of
furniture and bedding. Then we returned to Mr. Brownjohn's to
buy bread, bacon, and groceries, and he in turn sent us to Mr.
Marling for vegetables. Mr. Marling heard us, and soberly
taking up a spade and other implements led us out to his
garden and dug us a mess of potatoes while we waited. In the
meantime good Mrs. Flowerdew had not been idle, and we formed
the idea that her neighbours must have been her debtors for
unnumbered little kindnesses, so eager did they now appear to
do her a good turn. Out of one cottage a woman was seen
coming burdened with a big roll of bedding; from others
children issued bearing cane chairs, basin and ewer, and so
on, and when we next looked into our room we found it swept
and scrubbed, mats on the floor, and quite comfortably
furnished.
After our meal in the small parlour, which had been given up
to us, the family having migrated into the kitchen, we sat for
an hour by the open window looking out on the dim forest and
saw the moon rise - a great golden globe above the trees - and
listened to the reeling of the nightjars. So many were the
birds, reeling on all sides, at various distances, that the
evening air seemed full of their sounds, far and near, like
many low, tremulous, sustained notes blown on reeds, rising
and falling, overlapping and mingling. And presently from
the bushes close by, just beyond the weedy, forlorn little
"orchard," sounded the rich, full, throbbing prelude to the
nightingale's song, and that powerful melody that in its
purity and brilliance invariably strikes us with surprise
seemed to shine out, as it were, against the background of
that diffused, mysterious purring of the nightjars, even as
the golden disc of the moon shone against and above the
darkening skies and dusky woods.
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