Mrs. Marchant offered a pointed remark concerning the indolent habits of London folk as compared with the early rising and the continuous industry shown by people living in the country. Called by a boy who required a weekly journal, she, without leaving the pavement, instructed him to look over the contents of the counter and help himself, adding a warning that sweets were not to be touched.
“I don’t want to miss nothin’,” she remarked.
Her neighbour, absorbed in the subject previously under discussion, replied to the effect that there was not so much going on in Hayford that one could afford to evade incident.
“I see her blind move,” screamed a small p. 45child excitedly. “I did! I see it move, quite plain.”
Her elders were giving reproof, and pointing out the risks incurred by children who told stories, when the green venetians of the first-floor room at the Windmill Inn went up. Interest in the one street of the village at once reawakened. A message was sent to the forge, and Sprules, the blacksmith, strolled out, drinking tea from a saucer. A tall girl stepped from the porch of the inn and whistled several times, called the word “Fuzzy!” in varying tones of insistence and appeal. Banks, the young grocer and draper, peered through his window over columns of flannel, and then came to the doorway, where, acknowledging her salutation, he bowed and blushed.
“Morning, everybody,” she said. “Any news? Has any one—”
“He’s been seen again, miss,” remarked Sprules, setting down his saucer on a windowsill, and advancing with respect. “Old Joe Baldwin were up at four this morning, and he caught sight of your dog; somewheres, so far as I understand him, away in that direction.” Sprules gave a vague flourish of p. 46his bare arm. “Consequently, you can take it from me that he ent left the neighbourhood up to the present.”
The others nodded.
“Unless I find him to-day,” announced the girl definitely, “I shall have to continue my journey.”
They made way for Mrs. Marchant. That lady gave up her broom to gain more freedom in argument, and stepped forward.
“My dear,” she said, in a motherly way, “I’m a tidy bit older than what you are, and it stands to reason I know more of the world. People come from far and wide to get my advice, they do, and none can’t ever complain that I sent ’em empty away.”
The rest gave a murmur that sounded like confirmation.
“Moreover, you’re only a Londoner, and that sort of hampers you. My experience, my dear, tells me that it don’t do to expect everything to ’appen all at once. Your dog—or rather the dog belonging to a gentleman military friend that you was taking charge of—slips his collar three days ago, whilst your train was stoppin’ at the station, and makes off. You, being tur’bly upset, p. 47you gives up your journey, and you offers ten shillin’ reeward. On my suggestion, you next day makes it two pound. Still acting on my racommendation, you, the foll’ing day, increases it to five.”
“That is more than I can really afford.”
“Never you mind ’bout that,” said the other, with a touch of impatience. “I’m only tellin’ you what happened. I’m a business woman, and I like to have everything straightfor’ard, and above board. I know all that occurs in Hayford, and if you leave yourself in my hands, you won’t go fur wrong. Your dog’s been seen, and that ought to be enough for you, to go on with.”
“If he could only catch sight of me, he’d come directly. Fuzzy is as fond of me as he is of his master.”
“But not near so fond, miss, I lay a pint,” interposed Sprules, with a wink to the others, “as what his master is of you.”
She regarded him with a steady gaze; the blacksmith tried to hum a tune, and failing in this, mentioned it was high time he went back to finish his breakfast.
“I have been walking around the neighbourhood,” the girl went on, “every day in the p. 48hope of finding him, and I haven’t succeeded. To-night, by the 6.37, I must go on, and—” with a break in her voice,—“I shall have to face Captain Stamford.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Marchant encouragingly, “you make it ten, and some’ing seems to tell me you’ll get your dog back.”
“That would mean giving up my holiday,” she answered doubtfully. Young Banks, draper and grocer, stepped forward: some one pulled at his apron. “But if you think it will increase the efforts of the villagers, I’ll do as you suggest.”
“Ten pound,” announced Mrs. Marchant, addressing the others in tones of authority, “to any one what brings this lady’s dog back here to The Windmill afore six o’clock this very evening.”
The small crowd broke up. Children were sent off to school, and instructed in audible voices to keep a wary look-out for Fuzzy. The constable came from his headquarters at a neighbouring village, and was told of the increase in the reward; he went on to communicate the information, far and near. Mrs. Marchant took the cork from a bottle of red ink and made a correction in the p. 49handwritten bill headed “Lost, Stolen or Strayed” that rested on a box of caramels in her window. At half-past nine the London girl in a brown costume with a conveniently short skirt and carrying a walking-stick, left The Windmill and strode off in a northerly direction, the landlord wishing her, with great heartiness, good luck in her search; she sang out that she would return for tea. Ten minutes’ grace, and a meeting was held near to the porch of the tavern, with Mrs. Marchant in a standing position, but obviously in the chair. She glanced around at the four men present.
“Some one go for Mr. Banks,” she ordered.
Sprules took charge of the task, and returned with the message that the young draper and grocer was making up his books; Banks had suggested the deliberation should go on as though he were present.
“I don’t want to complain of nobody,” commented Mrs. Marchant, “but Mr. Banks don’t seem to take the interest in public affairs like what he ought to do. Howsomever,” dismissing this point, “what we’ve got to consider now is whether we’ve come to what they call in the newspapers the crucial p. 50moment, or whether we ought to go on a bit further.”
“Young party seems fairly bent on getting away this evening,” remarked the owner of The Windmill. “In fact, I may tell you all she’s settled up her bill.”
“My idea is,” said Sprules, “that we’ve arrived at the limit. Enough is as good as a feast.”
“Is the dog all right?” asked Mrs. Marchant.
“Safe and sound,” replied the blacksmith, “where it’s been since it first slipped the collar. And I hope you won’t none of you forget that I’ve had to bear the axpense of feeding it.”
“That amounts to a mere trifle,” commented Mrs. Marchant curtly. “From what I know of you, Mr. Sprules, I’ll be bound you ent overdone it.”
“What might you mean by that, ma’am?”
“I mean what I say.”
“A civil question,” persisted Sprules, “requires a civil answer.”
“You’ve come to the wrong shop for that,” retorted the lady, with increasing heat. “When I speak, I speak plain, I do. If you p. 51must know what I was driving at it was that, ’cording to all reports, you’re the only one in your ’ouse who enjoys a hearty meal. What you can’t eat, you give to your wife and the children.”
The proprietor of The Windmill, an experienced man in the settlement of disputes by arbitration, and one frequently called upon to decide knotty points (such as the exact height of the late Lord Randolph Churchill, or the winner of the Oaks in ’94) found some trouble in bringing the discussion back to the item on the agenda. Before he succeeded in effecting this, Sprules had managed to tell Mrs. Marchant what he thought of her, and Mrs. Marchant told Sprules what she thought of him. Even when the original topic was again approached, the two eyed each other from opposite sides of the pavement; their lips continued to move without producing words.
“No occasion to quarrel,” said the innkeeper soothingly. “The amount ent large enough to justify that. When it’s all divided out equally—”
The tumult recommenced, and Mr. Banks, leaving his books, came to his doorway, a pen over each ear; he seemed tempted to give up p. 52business for pleasure, but, with an effort, returned to his shop. This time Mrs. Marchant and Sprules found themselves, by the sport of circumstances, in agreement; the rest, with the exception of the proprietor of The Windmill, nodded approval of their contention. The Windmill, they argued, had made a good profit out of the young lady; The Windmill must take this fact into consideration in formulating its claim. Fair was fair, all the world over. Similarly, right was right, no matter where you lived. The proprietor of The Windmill, almost in tears, declared that his habit was to charge customers the merest trifle over cost price; an error in addition had, he told them, been detected by the young lady in settling the account. Perceiving that the general sense of the meeting was against him, he mentioned that he had no desire to become unpopular, and he therefore left himself in their hands.
“By the by,” remarked some one, “didn’t the young party buy a couple of old brass candlesticks from Mr. Banks’s mother?”
The fact had escaped memory, but only this hint was necessary to recall it. It was not known how much had been paid for p. 53the articles, but the village felt justified in assuming they were not given away, and the question was how much ought to be deducted. Foreheads took additional wrinkles at the prospect of mental arithmetic, and Sprules had found, in his pocket, a short stump of wood which was once a pencil, when Mrs. Marchant, lowering her voice, made a proposition which instantly met with a chorus of approval. Young Banks had taken little or no share in the whole business; he was evidently entitled to no share in the profits. Young Banks, a strict Wesleyan, had, in the hearing of one, characterised the affair as shady, and he could scarcely object to being left out. It was agreed that nothing should be said to young Banks for the present, and the meeting broke up with smiles, expressions of mutual regard, warning fingers that urged secrecy. A small sub-committee went to inspect the captive dog at the back of Sprules’s forge.
Mr. Banks was noticed to be giving instructions at two o’clock that afternoon to his assistant: a few minutes later shutters went up and Banks, straw-hatted, and carrying a light cane, went off, at a good pace, as one determined to enjoy a long walk. The p. 54assistant, answering inquiries, said the procedure was in the nature of an experiment, and could be taken as part and parcel of the Early Closing scheme. At four o’clock Sprules brought out Fuzzy, and tied the defiant-looking Irish terrier to the anvil; in the forge, Sprules rehearsed to a smoked portrait of Mr. Gladstone, tacked on the wall, an account of the capture of Fuzzy, to be given to the young woman upon her return. Sprules was in the third repetition of this (for improvements occurred to him) when his name was called. He unfastened the dog and took it out, shading eyes with the disengaged hand from the afternoon sun.
“I’m oncommon glad to inform you, miss, that our efforts have at last— Oh, it’s you, Mr. Banks!”
“Yes,” said the young draper and grocer, “it’s me. I happened to meet the lady up near Watbury, and she asked me to come back here, to save her the walk, and to see about sending on her portmanteau. She’s found her dog.”
“She’s done what?”
“You know them nut trees as you go down the hill, on the left-hand side? Just beyond p. 55the bridge I mean. Extraordinary pleased about it, she is, naturally. And Fuzzy, of course, half off his head at seeing her again.”
“Mr. Banks,” said the blacksmith, distressedly, “let’s get this all clear. Do I onderstand from you that the dog I’ve got here, at the end of this piece of string, isn’t the animal the reeward was offered for?”
“The lady only lost one.”
Sprules rubbed the top of his head. Mr. Banks patted the dog, and tried to induce it to stand on its hind legs.
“Then what’s to be done with this yer animal? I’ve got no use for him. ’Sides which, he tried all he knew just now to bite me.”
“I’ve got an aunt living down the line,” said young Banks, regarding the dog critically, “and I owe her a birthday present. I had intended to give about five shilling for something.”
“The dog’s yourn!” said the blacksmith promptly.
Mr. Banks carried the portmanteau off in good time for the 6.37, and the dog, with a label bearing the address of his relative, went with him. At the station, he made an alteration in the wording of the label, and took the p. 56ticket for it that is furnished when a dog accompanies a passenger. There were no other customers for the train, and he and the one porter had an animated discussion concerning the new minister whose name was on the plan to take up duties shortly. The train came in; the porter went to the brake van to see to arriving luggage.
“You dear old Fuzzy!” cried the girl delightedly, as the dog with a single bound jumped into her compartment. “Mr. Banks, how can I thank you, and how much do I owe you?” She took charge of the portmanteau, and opened her purse.
“You don’t owe me nothing,” replied young Banks, reddening. The engine whistled. “But if you want to pay me, and you think your friend Captain Stamford wouldn’t object, you might—you might jest blow me a kiss as the train goes out!”