Moth-Mullein/Chapter VI

the three men were gone, Moth put her head down on her knees and burst into tears, tears of shame and wrath. She had been unjustly treated. She had not hunted these three men; she had really needed milk, really needed boxes, really needed work. In her inner mind she had hoped that one or other of the three would come and throw himself at her feet, but she had not asked for milk, boxes, and pottle-plaiting in order to bring them there. She was very angry with all three; so angry, that had any one of them come back and offered himself to her she would have rejected him disdainfully.

She had been sobbing for some time, when again she heard steps, and again someone entered the kiln-mouth.

‘Brrh!’ said a voice, ‘I must shake myself like a dog. The wind is so high I cannot light a pipe out there, and I must dry my fingers before I can get at the lucifers.’

The voice was that of Dicky Duck.

The girl shrank further back. She put one hand over her mouth, the other she pressed against her bosom, to check the sobs. She would not for the world be found there by Dicky Duck.

Then, whilst his fingers were drying, he began to whistle. Dick had a sweet pipe, and he whistled with taste and in tune. He whistled now ‘Home, sweet home!’

All at once a compressed, struggled-against sob broke from the heart of Jessie.

Dick stopped his whistling.

Another sob. Now the convulsive emotion had got beyond her control.

‘There’s someone there, someone crying!’ exclaimed Dicky. ‘Who is it?’

No answer.

‘Anyone unwell?’

No answer.

‘Tell me who you are? I will not hurt you.’

No answer.

Then Dicky stepped in as far as he could go in the dark, and fumbled for his match-box, and struck a lucifer.

The match flared up and filled the white vault with light. Dick stood with it in his fingers, motionless, looking with open, astonished eyes at the girl.

‘Why,’ said he slowly, ‘it is Moth! Moth crying!’

He held the lucifer till the flame reached and burnt his finger, then he threw it away.

‘Moth,’ said he, when they were again in darkness.

She did not answer him.

‘Moth,’ said he again, with pity and tenderness in his voice. ‘I won’t say nothing to you till you’ve got over them there hickups.’

Presently she felt something on her face. He had removed the silk kerchief from about his throat, and with it was gently wiping the tears from her cheeks.

‘Lord,’ said he, ‘it have been raining, and has wetted you, awful.’

Still she said nothing. Her sobs ceased at last.

‘Now them hickups is over, said he, ‘suppose you stand up, Moth, and give me your arm, and——Lord! Moth, never another word, there’ll be no sale, you ain’t going to leave the cottage. You unpack whatever you have put away, and we’ll be married. Why, I put it to you. If you was to leave this part of the country, the moths and the caterpillars and the butterflies and the grubs of every description would multiply to that enormous extent, that the plagues of Egypt would be child’s play to the state of Greenhythe. For the good of your native country and for the keeping down of warmint you must remain and become Mrs Dicky Duck.’

‘Very well,’ said Jessie after a pause, ‘on one condition.’

‘And what is that?’

‘That we have a grand wedding.’

‘We’ll have the wedding as soon as the three banns have been called.’

‘Banns!’ exclaimed Jessie. ‘You don’t mean that we are to be married by banns? We must have a licence.’

‘That will cost a lot of money,’ said Dick, ‘and won’t make us faster together than banns.’

‘It is grander,’ said the girl.

‘There’s one advantage in our being married and that so soon after your father’s death, that it must be quiet.’

‘Did you not hear? I made it a condition we should be married in style.’

‘But why so, Moth, when we’re humble folk, and after what has happened hardly proper?’

‘Because, Richard, I want to show Sam Underwood, and Ben Polson, and Joseph Ruddle, aye, and Tom Redway, too, and Mr Parkinson, who is here because it is his vacation, that we can do handsomely without them. That we can have a carriage——’

‘A carriage, Moth!’

‘To be sure, a carriage and white favours, and everything of the best.’

‘It will cost a lot of money. We needn’t have a carriage. Think, Moth. It won’t cost less than a pound.’

‘A carriage and pair,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ll be taken to church in a carriage, and from church in a carriage, and in a carriage with a pair we will go on our honeymoon.’

‘I don’t think we can go anywhere,’ said Dicky; ‘it will come expensive.’

‘We must go and do all in style, so as to let those fellows see that we have money to spend as well as they.’

‘But I have not the money, Moth.’

‘Then you must borrow it. A carriage and pair, and white favours, and a honeymoon I will have’—she stamped impatiently. ‘Do you think I want you? I want a stylish wedding, and I take you for the sake of the wedding, and to make these men open their eyes.’

Moth Mullein carried her point. She was poor, she had nothing but her father’s furniture, and Dicky was poor, except in prospect of a good wage for tending to the woods. He had no money laid by, but Jessie would listen to no excuses. To satisfy her Dick had to borrow money, to borrow the carriage and horses of the host of the ‘Blue Boar,’ with promise to pay when he could. When the wedding took place Jessie drove to church, and drove slowly in state past the farm of Sam Underwood, the shop of Joseph Ruddle, the strawberry field of Ben Polson, and the plasterer’s yard of Tom Redway; yes, and past Mr Parkinson too, who stood on the kerb of his door and threw rice after her.

‘Now,’ said Jessie, with flashing eye, ‘now do you understand, Dick, why I insisted on a grand wedding?’

‘No, I do not, Moth.’

‘Because I wouldn’t have them say I took up with you because I could get no other: because, also, if we didn’t do it in style they might have laughed at such a handsome, tall girl as I am taking such a cock-sparrow as you. But they can’t laugh when they see us drive away as gentlefolks in a carriage and pair.’

‘It’ll cost a lot of money,’ sighed Dick.

‘There is one thing more,’ said Jessie as she laid aside her bonnet and fumbled in her pocket. ‘Do you remember unravelling a stocking I was knitting one day?’

‘I cannot say I do remember.’

‘But I do. Here it is!’ She held it under his eyes—in his face. Now I’ll take care that you are paid out for unravelling that stocking.’