‘Nothing could have pleased me more,’ repeated Mr Bailey, ‘and nothing could have pleased me so much, unless twas the fine speech you made me, Dick.’
‘Ay, twas a middlin good speech, I’ll ’low,’ said Mykelborne. ‘Say, neighbours, what a mercy young Master Marden dint come five minutes sooner! Twould a been the moiderment and doom of my speech.’
‘So twould,’ agreed Mr Bailey.
But his thoughts were far away: he hardly knew what he said. He looked down the long vista of his past and wondered what his youthful fevers had portended, and by what miracle it chanced that he had lived to enjoy so rich and lingering an autumn. It was a moment of deep and tranquil beauty, and involuntarily he began seeking a phrase in which to enshrine it. Thereupon his soaring thoughts wheeled back into the small circle of here and now, and with a sudden renewal of excitement he remembered the volume his hand still clasped. His wife, watching him, knew that his fingers itched to be turning those enchanted pages. She interposed.
‘Fill up, neighbours,’ said she, ‘and make yourselves homely. And you, Rasmus—come you into my parlour for two-three minutes. They’ll give you leave, and take no hurt, seeing tis your birthday. I’ve something to shew ee, my dear.’
As the door closed upon them, Growcock rose to his feet, drank a pint in one draught, and gave a deep sigh of contentment. ‘Well, neighbours. Now speechifying be over, us can come back to comfortable talk.’ He turned to Tom Shellett. ‘I’ll ’low you never had word from that Seth of yourn after he done murder in Glatten Wood, Tahm?’
‘I never did,’ said Tom. ‘And he worn’t no son of mine nuther. That I’ll tellee.’
‘Did he do ut, d’ye think?’ asked Abel Sweet. ‘Some says yes, and some says no. A fine upstanden wench her was too. Twas a shameful thing if a did ut.’
‘A runned away, didn’t a?’ asked Growcock, challengingly.
‘A runned away sure enough,’ conceded Sweet.
‘Very well then. A did ut.’
‘No son of mine, tellee,’ cried Tom Shellett complainingly. ‘A countable fierce rogue was that one. I woon’t like to be in his shoes on Doomsday.’
‘And if you was,’ said Coachy Timms, ‘you’d be lost in ’em, Tahm, a liddle dry fellow like you. And Goddle Mighty ud never see shim of ye, I’ll ’low.’
‘Twill be a powerful great day, all said,’ remarked Mykelborne pensively, ‘when the trumpet do sound and blow us into the hand of the liven Gard, as the Book says.’
‘And a tolerable handful hell find us,’ said Coachy. ‘Kings and poor folk and sech, all cantering abroad in’s palm, as it might be in Nightingale Roughs.’
‘Doomsday——’ began Mykelborne.
‘I’ll tellee,’ said Coachy, warming to his theme, ‘I’ll tellee how tis, neighbours . . .’
We leave them talking.
