第70章 A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS(15)

'Then the folks came out of their pews,wondering down to the ground,and saying:"What do they mean by such wickedness!We shall be consumed like Sodom and Gomorrah!"'Then the squire came out of his pew lined wi'green baize,where lots of lords and ladies visiting at the house were worshipping along with him,and went and stood in front of the gallery,and shook his fist in the musicians'faces,saying,"What!In this reverent edifice!What!"'And at last they heard 'n through their playing,and stopped.

"Never such an insulting,disgraceful thing--never!"says the squire,who couldn't rule his passion.

"Never!"says the pa'son,who had come down and stood beside him.

"Not if the Angels of Heaven,"says the squire (he was a wickedish man,the squire was,though now for once he happened to be on the Lord's side)--"not if the Angels of Heaven come down,"he says,"shall one of you villanous players ever sound a note in this church again;for the insult to me,and my family,and my visitors,and God Almighty,that you've a-perpetrated this afternoon!"'Then the unfortunate church band came to their senses,and remembered where they were;and 'twas a sight to see Nicholas Pudding come and Timothy Thomas and John Biles creep down the gallery stairs with their fiddles under their arms,and poor Dan'l Hornhead with his serpent,and Robert Dowdle with his clarionet,all looking as little as ninepins;and out they went.The pa'son might have forgi'ed 'em when he learned the truth o't,but the squire would not.That very week he sent for a barrel-organ that would play two-and-twenty new psalm-tunes,so exact and particular that,however sinful inclined you was,you could play nothing but psalm-tunes whatsomever.He had a really respectable man to turn the winch,as I said,and the old players played no more.'

'And,of course,my old acquaintance,the annuitant,Mrs.Winter,who always seemed to have something on her mind,is dead and gone?'said the home-comer,after a long silence.

Nobody in the van seemed to recollect the name.

'O yes,she must be dead long since:she was seventy when I as a child knew her,'he added.

'I can recollect Mrs.Winter very well,if nobody else can,'said the aged groceress.'Yes,she's been dead these five-and-twenty year at least.You knew what it was upon her mind,sir,that gave her that hollow-eyed look,I suppose?'

'It had something to do with a son of hers,I think I once was told.

But I was too young to know particulars.'

The groceress sighed as she conjured up a vision of days long past.

'Yes,'she murmured,'it had all to do with a son.'Finding that the van was still in a listening mood,she spoke on:-THE WINTERS AND THE PALMLEYS

'To go back to the beginning--if one must--there were two women in the parish when I was a child,who were to a certain extent rivals in good looks.Never mind particulars,but in consequence of this they were at daggers-drawn,and they did not love each other any better when one of them tempted the other's lover away from her and married him.He was a young man of the name of Winter,and in due time they had a son.

'The other woman did not marry for many years:but when she was about thirty a quiet man named Palmley asked her to be his wife,and she accepted him.You don't mind when the Palmleys were Longpuddle folk,but I do well.She had a son also,who was,of course,nine or ten years younger than the son of the first.The child proved to be of rather weak intellect,though his mother loved him as the apple of her eye.

'This woman's husband died when the child was eight years old,and left his widow and boy in poverty.Her former rival,also a widow now,but fairly well provided for,offered for pity's sake to take the child as errand-boy,small as he was,her own son,Jack,being hard upon seventeen.Her poor neighbour could do no better than let the child go there.And to the richer woman's house little Palmley straightway went.

'Well,in some way or other--how,it was never exactly known--the thriving woman,Mrs.Winter,sent the little boy with a message to the next village one December day,much against his will.It was getting dark,and the child prayed to be allowed not to go,because he would be afraid coming home.But the mistress insisted,more out of thoughtlessness than cruelty,and the child went.On his way back he had to pass through Yalbury Wood,and something came out from behind a tree and frightened him into fits.The child was quite ruined by it;he became quite a drivelling idiot,and soon afterward died.

'Then the other woman had nothing left to live for,and vowed vengeance against that rival who had first won away her lover,and now had been the cause of her bereavement.This last affliction was certainly not intended by her thriving acquaintance,though it must be owned that when it was done she seemed but little concerned.

Whatever vengeance poor Mrs.Palmley felt,she had no opportunity of carrying it out,and time might have softened her feelings into forgetfulness of her supposed wrongs as she dragged on her lonely life.So matters stood when,a year after the death of the child,Mrs.Palmley's niece,who had been born and bred in the city of Exonbury,came to live with her.

'This young woman--Miss Harriet Palmley--was a proud and handsome girl,very well brought up,and more stylish and genteel than the people of our village,as was natural,considering where she came from.She regarded herself as much above Mrs.Winter and her son in position as Mrs.Winter and her son considered themselves above poor Mrs.Palmley.But love is an unceremonious thing,and what in the world should happen but that young Jack Winter must fall wofully and wildly in love with Harriet Palmley almost as soon as he saw her.