Children of the Dear Cotswolds

The very first time that the baby went out the monthly nurse carried her to see Mrs. Birkin; and as she marched with slow and stately tread up the narrow garden path to the cottage, a swarm of bees settled all over both infant and nurse. Fortunately the nurse was a Cotswold woman, and knew full well that if a swarm of bees settles upon an infant during the first month of its existence, and departs without stinging, it is a very lucky omen. And people born in other parts of the world will agree as to the good fortune of the latter contingency.

Mrs. Birkin in her porch, and the nurse in her cloak of bees, stood like two statues in the hot sunshine of that September afternoon, the nurse hardly daring to breathe, lest by some inadvertent movement she should change so stupendous a piece of luck into disaster.

Presently the brown cloud lifted itself from the white bundle in the anxious nurse's arms and passed with its own triumphant music to some other place.

The baby still slept sweetly, oblivious alike of good or evil fortune. Mrs. Birkin, her ruddy cheeks pale under the weather-stains of years, came forth from her cottage as the nurse tottered to meet her, holding out the baby and exclaiming hysterically: 'Take her, take her, and let me sit down somewhere, for my legs won't bear me no longer!'

"The Lard be praised!" cried Mrs. Birkin, seizing the baby. "That there lamb 'll be lucky an' good-lookin', an' she'll 'ave a good 'usban' for sure. Bless 'er! Them bees knows what they be about, an' 'tis plain they knew as you was Cotsal barn an' bred, an' wasn't none of them faintin', scritchin' women as don't rekkerni'ze the Lard's voice, not when 'E 'ollers in their yer."

Then, seated on the little wooden seats on each side of the tiny porch, the women proceeded to sing the size and the exceeding beauty of the new baby, who seemingly preferred the soothing lullaby of the bees, for she woke up and "hollered" with surprising vigour.

A little later the baby paid her visits to Mrs. Birkin in a fine, white perambulator, and, as that worthy woman put it, "You didn't know where you was" before that remarkable infant toddled up the cobbled path to the cottage quite unassisted.

Time slips by noiseless and fleet-footed in a quiet Cotswold village, even as in noisier and more strenuous places, and "Squoire's little darter" grew into "our young lady." To be sure, there were other young ladies in the neighbourhood, for the village is large and cheery, with many nice places around; but the other young ladies were in no way remarkable. No swarm of bees had settled on any of them in infancy. For it really seemed as if some of the sturdy sweetness of the bees had passed into the baby they thus honoured. As was said of jolly Dick Steele, "she was liked in all company because she liked it."

And now the village was upside down with excitement, for our young lady was going to be married, and Mrs. Birkin was to have a new bonnet for the great occasion.

Mrs. Birkin felt that she had an unusually important part to play in the festivities attendant on this great event, for our young lady's father, who had an excellent memory for dates, had decreed that the wedding-day should be on the anniversary of the day on which, nineteen years before, the swarm of bees had distinguished his daughter. Such a thing had never happened since, though plenty of babies had come both to Mrs. Birkin's village and the other villages round about, and you may be sure that Mrs. Birkin knew all about every baby that arrived within a ten-mile radius. She is an authority upon babies. She is one of those women who is everybody's mother because she has no living children of her own. In the churchyard, under the green mound that now marks the humble resting-place of Mr. Birkin, there were once two tiny graves, where, side by side, lay Mrs. Birkin's twin sons. And for the sake of those two babies, dead these forty years, Mrs. Birkin's heart had kept young and kind, and full of love for all other babies. So that it came about that the very crossest infant ever born into a world it seemed to find singularly unattractive was good with Mrs. Birkin, and in consequence she was in great request with busy mothers.

Nor was it only the babies who loved Mrs. Birkin. Little girls brought their dolls for her to dress, and little boys, even bad little boys, whose grubby hands were against every other man, woman, or child in the village, refrained from pillaging Mrs. Birkin's garden, and had been known to weed it for her, all for love.

For months past, in fact, ever since our young lady's engagement was announced, Mrs. Birkin had pondered the great question of the Bonnet. She had not had a new bonnet for six years. Four years before that, again, she had indulged in a widow's bonnet, in which, on Sundays, she did honour to the memory of the departed Birkin; until the crape grew green with age, and our young lady herself suggested that the time had come when Mrs. Birkin's somewhat mitigated woe might find expression in head-gear less indicative of intense gloom.

In our village, except of "a Sunday," the question of costume is extremely simple. The men wear corduroy; the women, lilac or pink print, with sunbonnet to match. There are those who wish that the wearing of these uniforms extended to Sundays,-the villagers, in the week, are so much more in harmony with the beautiful, grey, old houses,-but those who, like "Squoire," love these people well, would not for the world debar them from the wearing of that finery dear to the heart of woman in cottage and castle alike.

Squoire drives a coach, and often on Saturday afternoons he will pull up in the very middle of our one street and shout, "Any one for the town?" And sure enough, three or four eager damsels and matrons bustle out of their cottages, are packed in as inside passengers, and away goes the coach to distant "Ziren," where country folk can see the shops and make their purchases, Squoire bringing them and their bundles home in the evening again, and never a penny to pay for carriage hire.

Three times lately had Mrs. Birkin made this journey to "Ziren," rightly so called from its many fascinations. She had flattened her nose against the plate-glass windows of that stately shop in the market-place where there were displayed hats of the most bewitching beauty, and fabrics so delicate that Mrs. Birkin fairly caught her breath at the mere idea of any one daring to wear them. It was undoubtedly an entrancing vision, that shop; but then nothing was priced, and there were no bonnets in that window, and for a bonnet Mrs. Birkin had come to look.

At the corner of Black Jack Street, not quite in the market-place, but facing it, was another shop. Here there were hats and bonnets in plenty, marked in plain figures for all to see, and there was one, manifestly a bonnet "suitable for a elderly person," that positively fascinated Mrs. Birkin. Of white straw was it, trimmed with scarlet geraniums and elegant excrescences of watered ribbon of a delicate mauve shade-a truly bridal bonnet, fitted to grace even the marriage of our young lady herself. But its cost was twelve and sixpence, a truly prohibitive price for Mrs. Birkin-"A'most a month's keep," she sadly whispered to herself. She went away from that window. She walked right round the market-place, she looked into every milliner's window, she gazed upon other bonnets; but there was nothing to compare with the creation compounded of scarlet geraniums and mauve ribbon in the shop in Black Jack Street. All the same, Mrs. Birkin went home with only three yards of scouring flannel to show for her day's shopping.

But she dreamed of the bonnet, and her waking hours were haunted by its beauties. "I can't afford no more nor ten shillin's," she said to a neighbour with whom she discussed the question. "Mebbe if I waits, her'll get a bit faded, and they'll put un down in proice."

Thrice more did Mrs. Birkin avail herself of Squoire's kindness and drive in the coach to Ziren, and on the third occasion she screwed up her courage to enter the shop, and in trembling tones demanded of the young lady behind the counter whether there was any chance of the bonnet-for it still graced the window-"bein' a bit cheaper for cash. I couldn't pay for un to-day," she added; "but next week I be comin' in again, an' if so be as her were two shillin' less, I med manage un."

The young lady was good-natured and approachable. She even lifted the bonnet from its stand in the window, and proposed that Mrs. Birkin should try it on.

This Mrs. Birkin did, though her knees knocked together during the process, and she was fain to confess that her handsome, sunburnt face was assuredly "uncommon set off" when framed in the scarlet geraniums and pale mauve ribbons.

"Of course I can't promise that it won't be gone before next week," said the young lady. "It's a very attractive article; but if it is still here, we might be able to meet you. You wouldn't like me to put it aside for you, to make sure?" she suggested.

But here Mrs. Birkin was firm. "No," she said; "if so be as you has a chanst to sell it, far be it from me to stand in your way. But if it be still yer, when I do come back, then, if I've got the money, I'll 'ave she. The ribbons is gettin' a bit faded," she added shrewdly; and with this parting shot Mrs. Birkin hurried from the shop to buy yellow soap.

She was not well off, even as such a term is modestly read in a Cotswold village community. For one thing, she was far too fond of giving. For another, although she "went out days" when she got the chance, and was as sturdy and healthy at sixty as many women are at forty, yet she could no longer work in the fields in summer, a long day's haymaking being more than she could stand. Squoire let her live in her cottage rent free, for the departed Birkin had been one of his labourers; moreover, his daughter was very fond of Mrs. Birkin, and that went a long way with Squoire. He also had obtained for her of late, from certain mysterious powers called "Guardians," an allowance of three and sixpence a week, so that with what she could earn Mrs. Birkin got onfairly comfortably. The bonnet money was money saved up for years against illness, but "Law bless you!" she said, "'tis only once in a way. That there bonnet 'll sarve me till I be put away in churchyard along of Birkin, an' if I don't go foine to see that there blessed lamb married to her good gentleman, when be I to go foine? You just tell me that."

The day of the wedding was drawing near. Only six days now till the great day itself. But Mrs. Birkin was still bonnetless. In vain did she count her savings over and over again; by no arithmetical process could they be persuaded to amount to more than eleven shillings and fivepence three farthings. Squoire sent round word that he would drive the coach into Ziren that afternoon and that anybody might go that liked. Mrs. Birkin went, carrying with her her whole worldly wealth.

Once in the market-place, she hurried to the shrine of the Bonnet. It was still there, and on it was a card bearing the reassuring legend, "Much reduced; only nine and elevenpence halfpenny."

Mrs. Birkin paused outside that she might savour the sweets of purchase by anticipation. For fully five minutes did she stand gloating over the bonnet-her bonnet, as she already felt it to be, and she was on the point of entering the shop when she caught sight of a neighbour on the other side of the road, one Mrs. Comley, who held by the hand a small and exceedingly dirty boy about ten years old. His free hand was thrust into one of his tearful eyes, and sobs shook his small frame. It was plain that Ernie Comley was in grievous trouble. Mrs. Comley, too, looked flushed and miserable. She was an unhealthy-looking, undersized little woman whose somewhat dreary days were passed in futile attempts to overtake her multifarious duties. Mrs. Comley was no manager; and it was not surprising, for one weakly baby was hardly set upon its bandy legs before another appeared to claim her whole attention. Comley was a farm-labourer with twelve shillings a week, so that the charitable made excuses for Mrs. Comley. Besides, she "did come from Birmiggum," and the Cotswold folk felt that that explained any amount of slackness and general incompetence.

It was not in the nature of Mrs. Birkin to pass by any one in trouble. She forgot her bonnet for the moment, and hurried across the road to inquire the cause of Ernie's tears. "We come by the carrier this morning," Mrs. Comley explained,-it was like her to pay for the carrier when "Squoire" would have brought her for nothing,-"I 'ad so much to do, an' Ernie 'e done nothing but w'ine and cry somethin' dreadful all the time because I told 'im plain 'e can't go to no weddin's, nor no treats after, neither. Do you know what that boy've bin an' done? 'E've gone an' tore the seat clean out of 'is Sunday trowsies, an' there ain't a bit of the same stuff nowhere. We've bin an' tried all over the place; an' go in corderoys 'e shall not, shamin' me before all the neighbours, as is nasty-tongued enough as it is. 'E be the most rubsome child I ever see. There ain't no keepin' 'im in clothes, that there ain't."

Mrs. Comley gave the "rubsome" Ernie a spiteful shake, which caused that unhappy urchin to burst into renewed and louder sobs.

"There, there," said Mrs. Birkin, soothingly, "don't 'ee take on so! There's sure to be summat as can be done, and I'm sartin of this, as our young lady 'ad far sooner 'e come in 'is corderoys than stopped away. She said most partic'lar as she 'oped heverbody 'u'd come. There, Ernie, then, don't 'ee take on so." And Mrs. Birkin patted the boy's shoulder with a kind, comforting hand.

"I tell you as there ain't nothing as can be done," Mrs. Comley retorted fretfully. "Them cloes is tore about shockin'. They wasn't new when 'e got 'em, an' 'e be that rubsome they've all fell to pieces. 'Tain't only the trowsies. And do you mean to tell me that 'e could go to hany weddin' like this 'ere?"

Mrs. Birkin fell back a step that she might the better regard the lachrymose Ernie, and sorrowfully she came to the conclusion that his mother was right; for, indeed, his appearance was the reverse of festal. Although his corduroy trousers had so far withstood his rubsome tendencies, his jacket had given way at the elbows, and he looked altogether as disreputable a small boy as could be met in a summer's day.

"I tried to get 'im a suit at the Golden Anchor, if they'd only 'ave let me take it on credit; but they be that 'ard-'cash with horder,' that's their style. An' it's no manner of use me a-goin' to any of the big tailors: they wouldn't so much as look at me. There, Ernie, do 'old that row. You'll never be missed in all that crowd. No one 'll know but what you was there."

This reflection seemed in no way to comfort Ernie, who burst forth into a loud howl, and was dragged down the market-place by his weary and incensed parent.

Mrs. Birkin stood where she was, immersed in thought. Across the road the bonnet shop beckoned beguilingly, and her work-worn hand tightened upon her purse. Slowly she crossed the road, and once more stood staring at the bonnet. How beautiful it was! How brilliant its geraniums, how crisp and dainty its bosses and twists of ribbon! "It be like the bit o' carpet beddin' under Squoire's drawin'-room windows, that 'a be," said Mrs. Birkin to herself.

She stared so hard at the bonnet that her eyes grew misty, and the card with "much reduced" danced before her; but still she did not go into the shop. She stood like a statue for nearly five minutes, still staring at the bonnet; but she no longer saw it. What she saw was her own potato-patch last autumn; and in it, hard at work, was Ernie Comley, digging her potatoes for her because her lumbago was so bad.

"What do it matter for a hold image like me what I do wear?" she muttered. Then she turned from the window that held her heart's desire, and hurried down the market-place after Mrs. Comley and the rubsome Ernie.

She found them staring gloomily into the window of the ready-made clothes shop.

"You come in along o' me," she cried excitedly. "There's a suit in that window, 'This style eight and eleven three,' as 'll just do for Ernie, allowin' for growth. I'll buy it for un, an' you can pay me back a bit at a time, as is most convenient. Come on in."

The suit was bought, and presently Ernie, dirty, and as cheerful as he had been tearful a few minutes before, emerged from the doorway, hugging a large brown-paper parcel.

"I must do my shoppin' sharpish," Mrs. Birkin said as she came out of the shop, "or else Squoire 'll be back before I be ready. Good afternoon to you. No; don't you never name it. 'Tis no more than you'd 'a' done for me."

To herself she murmured as she hurried up the market-place, "I don't suppose as she'll ever pay I, she's but a slack piece; but I couldn't abear as that boy shouldn't 'ave none of the fun. We're none on us young but once."

Mrs. Birkin's Sunday bonnet was black, and although a black dress for best is not only permissible, but suitable, for an elderly cottager even at a wedding, to wear a black bonnet upon so festive an occasion is to commit a solecism of the most glaring kind.

Mrs. Birkin was a woman of much resource. Once the bonnet of her dreams had become an impossibility, owing to the expense of Ernie Comley's wedding garment, she set herself forthwith to manufacture another as like the one in the shop window at Ziren as her means would allow.

To that end she purchased a small, a very small, pot of cream enamel; red flowers, of a nondescript kind it is true, but still red, and plenty of them for the money; and three yards of pale lavender ribbon. She then picked all the trimming off her old bonnet, washed it, dried it in the oven with the door well ajar, lest the precious thing should "scarch." When dry, she enamelled it cream, inside and out, and when the enamel in its turn had dried, she trimmed the rejuvenated bonnet with the new flowers and ribbon. And a very imposing confection it looked, and quite unlike anything to be seen in any window of the Ziren shops. Mrs. Birkin herself felt certain misgivings about it; but she had done her best, and by her best she must abide.

It happened that the night before the wedding our young lady's maid was packing her going-away trunk, talking the while about the villagers and their excitement over the morrow. This maid was "own niece" to Mrs. Birkin, but she was not proud of the relationship. She was a smart young woman who had travelled, and she looked down upon her simple old aunt with, at the best, a tolerant sort of amusement.

"You'll see some wonderful costumes to-morrow, Miss," she said as she folded dainty garments. "The whole village has got something new. My old aunt now-not that you'll have time to notice such as she-but you never saw such a bonnet as she's gone and trimmed for herself. A silly old woman, that's what I call her. She'd saved up quite a nice bit of money, and was going to have a new bonnet out of a shop in the town they sets such store by, though 'tisn't much more than a village to them as have travelled, is it, Miss? Well, what does she go and do but lend the money as she'd saved for her bonnet to a woman in the village to buy a suit for one of them nasty, mischievous little boys, so that he could come to your weddin' and the treats an' that. 'Twasn't aunt told me, else I'd have given her a piece of my mind. A fool and his money's soon parted."

Our young lady turned almost fiercely upon her maid. "I think it was perfectly lovely of Mrs. Birkin," she cried, with a ring in her voice that warned that sharp girl she had in some way offended. "I wish there were more people like her in the world. It would be a kinder, better place. There's nothing here one half so beautiful as that bonnet of hers."

The maid went on folding lace petticoats in silence, for there was a sound of tears in her young lady's voice. She wondered at the curious ways of the gentry; one never knew where to have them.

The church was packed for the wedding. Only the seats on one side of the central aisle had been reserved for the guests; by special request of the bride, the other side was kept for the villagers, first come, first served, with no distinctions whatsoever. Mrs. Comley was there, with Ernie, all new suit and hair-oil. Mrs. Birkin came a full hour and a half before the service, and secured a corner seat next the aisle from which wild horses could not have dragged her.

The priest had said his say, the organist was thundering the wedding-march, the wedding was over, and the bride, her veil thrown back from her radiant face, was coming down the aisle on her proud young husband's arm. Mrs. Birkin, tearful and exultant, stood in her place devouring the pretty spectacle with eager, kind old eyes. As the bride reached Mrs. Birkin's pew she stopped, slipped her hand from the bridegroom's arm, and turning, flung both her own, bouquet and all, round Mrs. Birkin's neck. She kissed the old woman before the whole church and whispered loudly in her ear: "Mrs. Birkin, dear, that's the most beautiful bonnet I ever saw."

In another moment she was gone. The last pair of bridesmaids had passed, and after them, visitors and villagers alike thronged into the sunshine. Mrs. Birkin, her bonnet much awry, owing to the heavy bridal bouquet, strayed out with the rest in a sort of solemn rapture. She had been honoured above all other women on that great day.

"Wot did 'er say to you?" asked Mrs. Comley, enviously, when they got outside.

Mrs. Birkin laughed. "Bless 'er sweet face!" she exclaimed triumphantly, "if her didn't go and think 't was a bran' new bonnet as I'd got on! I must 'a' made un over-smartish, that I must."

It is possible that to the unobservant his great qualities were hidden: all that they saw in him was a tall, shabby-looking old man, who walked with that indescribable garden-roller sort of motion usually associated with the gait of those who minister to us in the coffee-rooms of hotels-an old man, who, professedly a jobbing gardener, looked like a broken-down something else. Frequently they did not even take the trouble to crystallise their doubt into a question, a sure and certain measure towards its solution.

But there were those who saw beneath the surface, who were moreover privileged to have speech of him-and he was always very ready to converse, leaning on his spade the while, but with the air of one who only just tolerated such interruption.-these would find that here was one whose ideas were the result of reflection and observation, not mere echoes of the local press; or, as is sometimes the case in other and higher walks of life, those of the reviews or quarterlies.

To tell the truth, my philosopher could read but indifferently well, and when he indulged in such exercises, as "of a Sunday," liked the print to be large and black. As the halfpenny papers in no way pander to such luxurious tastes in their readers, he was fain to take his news second-hand, by word of mouth, thereby materially increasing its romance and variety.

One day, à propos of some flowers he was to take to the church for Easter decorations, I asked him whether he was a churchman himself. "No," he said slowly, stopping short and watching me somewhat anxiously to seethe effect of this pronouncement, "I goes to chapel, they 'ollers more, and 'tis more loively loike-I bin to church, I 'ave, don't you think as 'ow I 'aven't sampled 'em both careful-but Oi be gettin' a holdish man, an' them curicks is that weakly an' finnicken in their ways, it don't seem to do me no sort o' good nohow. Not as I've nothin' to say agen 'em, pore young gen'lemen; they means well, but they be that afraid of the sound of their own voices, and they looks that thin and mournful-I can't away with 'em." Here he shook his head sadly, as though overcome with melancholy at the mere recollection.

"You are quite right to go where you feel you will get most good," I said meekly. "Is Mr. Blank a very powerful preacher?"

Williams (that was his name) smiled a slow, crafty smile, shutting one eye with something the expression of a gourmand who holds a glass of good port between himself and the light. "Well, I don't know as I should go so fur as to say as 'e's powervul, but 'e do 'oller an' thump the cushion as do do yer 'art good to see, an' 'e do tell us plainish where them'll go as bain't ther to yer 'im, but I bain't sure as 'e's powervul. The powervullest preacher I ever 'ear was Fairford way at a hopen-air meetin'-an' 'e was took up next day for stealin' bacon!" Here he returned to his digging with the air of one who had said the last word and could brook no further interruptions.

Regarding politics, Williams was even more guarded in his statements: I could never discover to which side he belonged, even at a time when party feeling ran particularly high, as our town had been in the throes of two Parliamentary elections within the year. He seemed to regard the whole of the proceedings with a tolerant sort of amusement-tolerance was ever a feature of his mental attitude towards life generally. But as to stepping down, into the arena and taking sides!-such a course was far from one of his philosophical and analytic temperament. He listened to both sides with a gracious impartiality that I have no doubt sent each canvasser away equally certain that his was the side which would receive the listener's "vote and interest."

"The yallers, they comes," he would say, wagging his large head to and fro, and smiling his slow, broad smile, "an' they says, 'If our candidate do get in, you'll see what us'll do for 'ee. 'E'll do sech and sech, an' you'll 'ave this 'ere an' that.' But the blues, they went and sent my missus a good blanket on the chanst."

"And for whom did you vote after all?" I asked with considerable curiosity.

"Well, I bain't so to speak exactly sure," he said, scratching his head. "I bain't much of a schollard, so I ups an' puts two crasses, one for each on 'em, an' I goes an' marches along of two percessions that same day, so I done my duty."

But his universal tolerance stopped short of his legitimate profession. In matters horticultural he was a veritable despot, sternly discouraging private enterprise of any sort. Above all did he object to what he was pleased to call "new fanglements" in the way of plants, and in the autumn had a perfect passion for grubbing up one's most cherished possessions and trundling them off in the wheelbarrow to the rubbish heap. One autumn a friend presented me with some rare iris bulbs, which, knowing the philosopher's objection to "fancy bulbs," I secreted in a distant greenhouse which he as a rule scornfully ignored. On a day when some one else was benefitting by his ministrations I hastened to fetch them, intent on planting them "unbeknownst," as he would have said.

Not a trace of them remained, and I had to wait until his next visit, when I timidly asked if he happened to have moved them. "Lor' bless my 'eart! was them things bulbses? I thought as 'ow they was hold onions and I eat 'em along of a bit of bread for my lunch. I remember thinkin' as they didn't semm very tasty loike!"

On the subject of the then war there was no uncertain sound about his views, and had he been a younger man his waiter-like walk would doubtless have changed to the martial strut induced among the rural population by perpetual practice of the goose-step. As it was, he thirsted for news with the utmost eagerness, and hurried up one Sunday morning to inform us that Lord Roberts had taken "Blue Fountain" about two days after that officer had arrived in South Africa.

It was rumoured that a gentleman of pro-Boer proclivities proposed to address like-minded citizens in the "Corn Hall." I fear he must have had but a small following if, as I believe, the majority of the natives were of like mind with my usually philosophic gardener. "I'd warm 'im," Williams exclaimed, digging his spade into the ground as though the offending propagandist were underneath-"I'd warm 'im. I'd knock 'is ugly 'ead off before 'e'd come 'is nasty Boerses over me. Let 'im go to St. 'Elena and mind 'em; then 'e'd know. 'Tain't no use for 'im to come and gibber to the loikes of us 'as 'ave 'eard their goin's-on from them as 'ave fought agen 'em, and minded 'em day by day and hour by hour, till they was that sick and weary! ... Boers! I'd Boers 'im," and with grunts and snorts expressive of intense indignation the philosopher rested on his spade, glaring at me as though I were a champion of the King's enemies-which Heaven forbid.

"It's like this 'ere," he said, after a moment's pause: "there's toimes w'en the meek-'eartidest ain't safe if you worrits 'em, and these 'ere be them sart of toimes."

When he became gardener to friends of mine, he was old and they were young. His progress was slow and dignified, so were his manners. He could wither a budding enthusiasm with a slow smile charged full of scorn as effectually as a May frost withers the peach blossom. His own omniscience was emphasised in such fashion as to make his employers acutely conscious of their youth and ignorance. It is true that his master was not so excessively young, but then neither was he particularly well instructed in matters horticultural, and Williams had but a poor opinion of a man who, while he could tell you the long Latin name of every grass in the field and every weed in the hedgerow, had but small appreciation of carpet bedding, and had been heard to remark that a cabbage moth was really much prettier than a cabbage. Moreover, the said master extended his liking for moths and butterflies to other "hinsekses" of various and inferior sorts, and collected the same in small glass tubes, of which he carried numbers in his pockets. When a man is addicted to such "curus fads" as these, it is not to be expected that an elderly and experienced gardener should so much as consult him about things connected with his own craft.

Towards his mistress Williams showed an indulgent toleration; not that he ever did what she asked him-oh dear, no! But still he permitted her to "come anigh him," and shout her behests into his ear. He was decidedly deaf at the best of times, and when suggestions were made of which he disapproved his infirmity increased ten-fold.

Sometimes the "young missus"-she was really young, being still in her teens-attempted a little gardening on her own account, as when she planted crocus bulbs on a grassy bank facing the drawing-room windows. She had hoped that Williams would not notice them, as that bank was never mown till well on in the spring. But Williams not only noted but disapproved their very earliest appearance. "A grass bank be a grass bank," he asserted, "and bulbs a-growing be out of place," so he mowed the grass assiduously and the crocuses came to nought.

"He really is a most aggravating man," exclaimed the young missus; "he won't let one have a thing one wants."

However, the absolute monarchy of Williams was not destined to continue. Even as he had ruled his master and mistress there arose another who ruled not only them but Williams also. Where the young missus had meekly suggested that certain things might be done in such a way as they never were done, this personage had but to point a diminutive forefinger in the direction of anything he coveted when Williams would hasten to procure it for him with the greatest alacrity. He was not of imposing stature, this new autocrat. When he first began to tyrannise over Williams, he stood just about as high as that worthy's knee, and his walk, in its uncertainty, strongly resembled that of Williams himself on the night of the last election, when the Tory candidate was returned by a majority of two votes.

But to return to the autocrat. He certainly interfered with Williams's work, causing him to waste whole hours in hovering about near the drive gate that he might catch a glimpse of his equipage as he set out for an airing in a fine white coach propelled by a white-clad attendant. Williams would not have been averse from occasional parleyings with the attendant. She was young and pretty; but she had other and more lively fish to fry, and would have scorned to do more than exchange the most formal of passing courtesies with "that there deaf old gardener"-who, however, was never so deaf but that the clear little voice calling "Wee-ams" attracted immediate attention.

As time went on and the autocrat's steps grew steadier, the white coach was abandoned, and whenever he could the late occupant thereof escaped from the white-clad attendant and assisted Williams in his horticultural operations-a course which he found infinitely preferable to going walks with his nurse upon the high road. He upset all Williams's most cherished theories, and, not infrequently, his practice. He insisted upon helping to wheel manure from the stable-yard to the potato patch, and fell into the manure-heap. He hung on to a big water-can that Williams was carrying with such force that he spilled most of the contents over himself, and he persisted in digging in such close proximity to Williams that the senior gardener was fain to rest upon his spade and admire his assistant. He possessed a garden of his own, a chaotic piece of ground in which might be found specimens of everything growing in the larger garden all mixed up anyhow. That Williams, who but a few short years ago had objected to innocent crocuses upon a green bank, should, with his own hands, have planted a beetroot cheek by jowl with a Michaelmas daisy, and allowed a potato to flower in close proximity to a columbine, seems incredible. But so it was.

"Bless 'is 'eart, 'e do like a bit of everythink," Williams would say, wagging his head and beaming at the autocrat, who chattered incessantly in the high, clear little voice that Williams found so easy to hear. The young missus profited by the subjugation of Williams to do sundry bits of gardening on her own account which he never discovered. As for the "professor gen'leman," as the cottage children called him, he bowed beneath the yoke of the autocrat with equal meekness. It is said that a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and it is certain that Williams and his master understood each other perfectly as regards this one subject.

In exchange for his instruction in gardening the autocrat occasionally essayed to teach Williams grammar.

"You mustn't say 'he were,' Williams; you must say 'he was.' It's 'he was; we were.' Do you understand?"

"Well, no, Mazter Billy, I can't say as I do; but I'll say 'we was' if it do please you."

"No, no, Williams. 'We were.'"

"What do us wear, Mazter Billy?" Williams would interpose, resting on his spade and smiling broadly at his own wit; while the autocrat broke into delighted laughter, and the grammar lesson came to an end for that day.

When the "professor gen'leman" engaged his gardener, that worthy explained that he "didn't want no reg'lar 'alf-'oliday," but that during the cricket season he would like an occasional afternoon off, as he was an enthusiastic admirer of the national game. On the autocrat's fourth birthday the old gardener presented him with a tiny cricket-bat, and during the summer months gardening was varied by batting practice. Williams was too old and too stiff to bat or run himself; but he bowled to the little boy with a tennis-ball, and gave him gentle catches, and these proceedings delighted Billy as much as they interfered with Williams's proper business.

When the Fifth of November came, he made what Billy called a "most 'normous Guy Fawkes"-a real Guy Fawkes, stuffed with straw, and clad in a cast-off coat and trousers of Williams's own, with a mask for a face, the whole crowned by a venerable top-hat. It says much for the depth and sincerity of Williams's affection for the autocrat that he should have thus sacrificed a hat still bearing the smallest outward semblance of such head-gear. For Williams himself never wore any other shape. Winter or summer, his large bald head was protected from rain or sun by a wide-brimmed and generally seedy tall felt hat. On Sundays it was a silk one, carefully brushed, but decidedly smudgy as regarded outline. All the children in the adjacent cottages were bidden to see the guy, as Williams proudly cast it upon a large bonfire that he had been saving for the occasion for many weeks. The professor gentleman let off rockets, and even Billy himself was permitted to fire off several squibs. It was altogether a great occasion, and was regarded in the autocrat's family as a sort of apotheosis of Williams, for shortly afterwards he fell ill, and grew worse so rapidly that he was removed to the cottage hospital in the town. His cottage was very small, and his wife very old, and the doctor is a man who has the very greatest objection to letting people die for lack of proper care and attention.

His gentle old wife crept down the hill every day to see him, but her accounts were far from cheering.

"'E be that deaf 'e can't yer what they do say, and 'e be that weak and low nothin' don't seem to rouse 'im."

So Billy's father went down to the hospital to see Williams, and found him lying, gaunt and ashen-coloured and still, in the straight white bed. The ward was clean and sunny and comfortable, but Williams did not seem to mend.

"He seems to have lost heart," said the cheery matron; "he's not so very old, or so very ill, but that he might get round, but his deafness is against him, and if he isn't roused he'll slip away simply because he doesn't care to stop."

Billy's father leant over the bed and laid his hand on the gnarled work-worn hand lying outside the white coverlet. Williams opened his eyes and stared languidly at his master. Presently there lighted in the tired old eyes a gleam of recognition.

"It be very quiet here," he muttered, "very lonesome and fur aff; them doctors and nusses they mumbles so, I can't yer 'em, and I'd like to yer summut.... I can allays yer Mazter Billy, 'e do talk so sensible--"

"He shall come and see you," said the visitor, loudly, right into the old man's ear; but Williams shook his head wearily, and closed his eyes again.

"What's the best time?" asked Billy's father of the matron. "I'll bring the little lad-it might rouse him; he has always been so fond of him."

"The morning's the best time," she answered. "He sleeps so much. We can but try it, sir."

Next day the autocrat-his rosy face very solemn, and his little soul oppressed by the solemnity of the occasion-pattered across the parqueted floor to the bedside of old Williams. The occupants of the three other beds in the men's ward-it is quite a little hospital-raised themselves and watched the pretty child with interest as he put out his little gloved hand timidly to touch this strange new Williams, lying so white and still in the clean, straight bed.

"Speak to him, sonnie!" said a voice at his ear.

"Williams!" whispered the child very low and timidly. Then, remembering that he never used to speak to Williams like that, he said loudly, "Williams, dear! the celery is very good."

Williams opened his eyes, and when he saw Billy a smile broke over his face like the November sunshine itself.

"Didn't I say as 'e talked sensible?" he asked of the world in general. Then, "So you be come at last, Mazter Billy!"

"Tell him you want him to 'get well!" whispered Billy's father.

"I wish you'd make haste and come home, Williams," Billy shouted; "I've got to go walks wiv Nanna nearly every day now, and it's so dull."

"Do ee miss Oi, Mazter Billy?"

"'Course I do. We all do. Please get well, Williams! Aren't you tired of stopping here?-though it's very pretty," he added hastily, fearing lest he had said something rude; "but Mrs. Williams is very lonely, and so am I."

"I be main tired, Mazter Billy. I don't seem to 'ave no sart o' stren'th in me, I be a hold man--"

"There's such a lot of chrysanthemums in the drive, Williams, and in your garden too," Billy continued, remembering his instructions to "interest" the sick man, "and Trimmie has scratched up such a lot of bulbs in the bed in the middle of the front lawn, and thrown the earth all over the place."

Trimmie was the autocrat's fox-terrier, and his misdeeds were the only subject upon which Williams ventured to disagree with that gentleman-on occasion expressing a strong desire to thrash "that there varmint of a dog" for sundry scratchings which his master only regarded with admiring amusement.

For the first time for a whole long week Williams raised his head quite two inches from the pillow, exclaiming:

"That there dog'll 'ave to be beat, scrattin' and scramblin' and spilin' my garden--" and Williams dropped his head on the pillow again with an emphatic bump.

Here the nurse interfered, and the autocrat, having succeeded in rousing the patient rather more effectually than the authorities either anticipated or desired, was led away.

Half an hour later the nurse approached his bedside.

"Here's your beef-tea, Mr. Williams!" she almost shouted; "you must try and take it."

"Who be you a-hollerin' at?" growled the patient. "I'll take the messy stuff without so much noise about it."

"I don't believe the old image is half so deaf as he makes out," whispered the nurse to the matron, feeling rather nettled at this unexpected retort.

The old image kept muttering to himself all that day, and those who listened heard remarks to the effect that there was no rest to be expected this side of the grave, that he simply couldn't lie there and think of his garden going to "wrack and rewing, all along of a slippety varmint of a tarrier. Just let me catch him a-scrattin' in my borders, and I'll give 'im what for."

The ultimate result of these mutterings being that, in another week, Williams was discharged as convalescent, and by Christmas was well enough to dictate to his mistress as to what greenery she might cut for the decoration of the house.

"Ladies, they did cum," said he to his wife, "and did read in that there 'orspital, but they did spake so secret-like and quiet, I couldn't never yer what it were all about; and the doctor 'e cum, and passun 'e cum, but I didn't seem to take no sort of delight in none of 'em. Then Mazter Billy 'e cum, and did talk the most sensiblest of the lot.... And, in spite of that there influinzy, yer Oi be!"

They did not know that Billy had so many friends until he lay a-dying. Then they knew.

It takes some of us more than four years to make one friend. Billy had only lived four years altogether, but every one he knew was his friend, and he knew every one in his little world.

"I want some ice for Master Billy's head!" said the parlour-maid. "He's that feverish, doctor says it's to be kept on all the time."

Mr. Stallon, the fishmonger, looked grave.

"I haven't a bit of ice on the premises. It's ordered, but it won't be here till to-morrow. Dear! dear! and to think as the little gentleman's so bad!"

Mr. Stallon was a stout, seafaring-looking man, with a short brown beard. He shook his head, and looked really sorry.

"Whatever shall we do?" cried the parlour-maid. "Whatever shall we do?"

"Do!" echoed Mr. Stallon. "Do! why, get some, to be sure. I'll go to Farenam for it myself. Tell your lady she shall have it in a' hour or so."

Mr. Stallon owned an inn as well as a fish-shop. He crossed the road to his inn yard; there he harnessed his horse to his spring cart, and he drove to Fareham for the ice. Billy's town is a very little one, but Fareham, six miles off, is big, and Mr. Stallon got the ice. I'm afraid that he drove furiously, and beat his horse. But he quite forgot to charge for the ice, and no one ever thanked him for getting it. He didn't mind, he was one of Billy's friends.

The Earl was another. The Earl is young, fresh-coloured, and chubby, and somewhat lacking in dignity. He is an M.F.H. for all that, and Billy was wont to go with him to the kennels, and knew all the old hounds by name.

The Earl and Billy held long conversations on the subject of poachers. Billy's sympathies were apt to go with the poachers; but that was the fault of the Radical curate.

As for the curate, he and Billy were dear friends. He would spend long sunny afternoons bowling slows, and twisters, and overhands to Billy, and he could sing such charming songs.

One of Billy's peculiarities was that he exacted songs from all his friends. Then he learnt them himself, and sang them in his turn. The curate's favourite song was "For it's My Delight, On a Shiny Night." It was this song that caused Billy's predilection for poachers.

The Earl could sing too. Of his répertoire the favourite was-

"She went and got married, that 'ard-'earted girl,

And it was not to a Wicount, and it was not to a Hearl."

Here Billy always interrupted, exclaiming delightedly, "That's you, you know!" and demanded the verse again.

There was one friend from whom Billy exacted no songs. This was old Williams, the gardener. He was a very good gardener, but deaf. Billy was the only person whom he could hear well. He really had no notion of singing, that gardener. So he told Billy tales in broad Gloucestershire instead, and Billy trotted after him, assisting in all his horticultural operations, and they loved each other.

But the fever had got a hold upon Billy, it was such a hot July.

At last a Sunday came, when those who loved him best feared that he could not last through the day. At morning service the curate gave it out that "the prayers of the congregation, are desired for William Wargrave Ainger"; then he paused, and with a ring of supplication in his voice, which startled the listening people, said, "little Billy Ainger, whom we love-who lies grievously sick."

"William Wargrave Ainger" had fallen on inattentive ears, but the familiar name struck home, and the congregation prayed.

In the pause which followed the words "especially those for whom our prayers are desired," the deaf gardener's voice was heard to say "Amen"; but no one smiled at him that Sunday.

The Earl had no surplice to take off, so he reached Billy's house first; but the curate caught him at the drive gate, for the curate ran.

There was no sound in the house but the voice of Billy's mother, singing to him, over and over again, the same old nursery rhyme. It ran:

"O do not come, but go away-

Away with your eyes that peep;

O do not come to Billy's house,

For Billy is going to sleep."

It has a quaint lilting tune, and Billy loved it, but he could not sleep.

His father came down to the Earl and the curate, and silently they followed him up into the darkened nursery. Billy smiled when he saw them. He could not speak, he was so tired.

His mother knelt at the head of his bed, singing tirelessly. His father knelt down at the other side, devouring the thin, flushed, little face with loving, sorrowful eyes. The curate knelt down at the foot of the bed, and the Earl, who made no attempt to wipe the tears from off his ruddy cheeks, knelt by a chair. By the darkened window sat the pretty hospital nurse, in her white cap and apron.

"O do not come to Billy's house," the mother's voice went on. Then she sang more softly, and suddenly there was silence:

Billy had gone to sleep.

The drive gate clicked, a quick step sounded on the gravel outside. It was the doctor. He came hastily into the room, and, stepping softly over to Billy's mother, lifted her up, and set her in a chair.

He took her place, laying his hand on the child's pulse, and on his forehead. Then he said in a whisper, "He'll do, he's gone to sleep."

The three men rose from their knees, as Billy's mother fell on hers, with the first tears she had shed, in all that weary week.

They followed the doctor out of the room, and crept downstairs into the hall. The doctor pushed Billy's father into the dining-room, saying, "You must give me some lunch. I want to see the little chap again, in twenty minutes or so-what the deuce was the matter with you all? Did you think he was dead?"

"I did," said the Earl, in an awestruck whisper.

"Go away!" said the doctor testily; "go away, you long-faced lunatics, and leave us in peace!"

The two young men turned and went into the drive, where they found Williams, waiting for news. The Earl went up to the old man, and put his mouth to his ear, saying loudly, and with pauses between each word-"He-is better-he's asleep-the doctor-says-he'll do."

Williams blew his nose noisily, in a large red handkerchief; then said huskily, "The Lard be praised! your lardship, the Lard be praised!"

Then the Earl and Williams shook hands; and the curate and Williams shook hands. The two young men shut the gate softly, and went down the road.

The curate went to lunch with the Earl. They had champagne, and the Earl grew frivolous, as his manner is; he has not much dignity, and he and the curate are old friends, for they were at Eton and "the House" together.

"I say, old chap!" said the Earl confidentially, "you were jolly careful that the Almighty should make no mistake, this morning."

The curate leaned back in his chair, and with more than a reminiscence of their college tutor in his manner, remarked, "In matters of importance, it is well to be strictly accurate."