The Village Gossip CHAPTER 2.
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As there was not a great deal of money circulating in the neighborhood of Cedardale, the blacksmith, the shoemaker, the joiner, and even the schoolmaster — took grain and other products in return for their labor; so that most of the families resident in and around the village had need of the services of Mr. White, the miller.
One day Nancy Wimble, the shoemaker's wife, had occasion to go to the mill. She could have sent Dick as well; but, as she wanted to have a little gossip with the miller, she preferred going herself. The mill stood nearly a quarter of a mile from Nancy's dwelling; and so, borrowing, as was her custom on like occasions, the blacksmith's old brown horse, she took her bag of grain and departed on her errand.
The miller was grinding a grist when she arrived, and she was obliged, therefore, to wait until he was ready to attend to her. In the meantime, she plied with many questions the boy who had come with this grist, and whose family she knew very well. By these means she succeeded in gaining intelligence from the unsuspecting lad, of several private matters appertaining to the present state of the family. Over these her mind brooded, and she soon magnified into importance, mere casual things.
The miller was at last ready to grind her wheat. While the grain was passing from the hopper through the millstones, and thence by "conveyers" and "elevators" to the story above to be bolted, Mr. White, who was himself a little chatty, and quite willing to hear ill-natured things said of his neighbors, had a few words of gossip with Nancy Wimble.
"How is your neighbor Striker and family?" said he. "I see you have his old horse, as usual."
There was something in the miller's tone when he said "as usual" that Nancy did not exactly like. She replied to his question by a peculiar drawing down of her mouth and chin, and an elevation of her eyebrows, at the same time saying coldly —
"So, so — same old two-and-sixpence. And, by the by, Mr. White," added Nancy, in whose ears continued to sound the words 'as usual', "I heard Mrs. Striker saying some rather hard things about you, the other day."
"Of me! Hard things of me! What can she have to say of me, I would like to know?"
The miller's face flushed a little, and his voice showed that he was unpleasantly excited.
"Nothing more than the truth, I reckon," replied Nancy, affecting a careless air, and smiling as she spoke.
"Nothing more than the truth! Well, what was it? As you have excited my curiosity, the least you can do is to gratify it."
"It's of no consequence," said Nancy, "nothing to be minded. Hannah Striker was always a suspicious kind of body. She wouldn't trust her own father, I believe."
"Wouldn't trust her own father! What has that to do with me?"
"You remember the last bag of wheat you ground for her?" said Nancy, speaking low, and with the air of one who has something of importance to communicate.
"I do, certainly."
"Well — now you mustn't breathe a word of this — well, I happened to be in there a little while after she came back from your mill, and she was weighing the meal and measuring the shorts, and seemed to be all in a pucker about something. 'What's the matter?' said I, 'Is anything wrong?' She didn't make any answer at first, but went on weighing and measuring, until she at last appeared satisfied about something. 'Well, Hannah, what is it?' I now again asked. She took a long, deep breath, looked very important — you know she can look awfully so, when she pleases — and said: 'Something wrong here, Nancy — something wrong, depend on it. This grist doesn't measure out. And, do you know,' she went on to say, 'that there is a good deal of talk about White the miller. People are not satisfied. There's a screw loose somewhere, you may be sure.'"
"Grist didn't measure out! Screw loose! What does the hussy mean?" exclaimed the instantly excited miller, fairly sputtering out his words.
"Now don't fly off the handle all at once," said Nancy soothingly; yet inwardly delighted to see the effect of her barbed words.
"Fly off the handle, ha! Tell me that I am called a rogue and a cheat, and then say, 'Don't fly off the handle all at once.' What kind of stuff do you think I'm made of?"
"You're too touchy," replied Nancy Wimble, with great composure, "too touchy by far. Besides, who said anything about your being a rogue and a cheat? Not I, certainly."
"But Hannah Striker said that her grist didn't measure out, and that there was a screw loose in my mill."
"Well, if it didn't measure out, it didn't — that's all, neighbor White. And if Hannah's story is true, that there were two bushels and a peck in her bag of wheat, then there is something wrong, for I saw her meal weighed, and there was only eighty pounds."
"And how much would you have, mam?" inquired the miller sharply.
"Hannah says that she was entitled to ninety pounds."
"Indeed! Well, how did she figure it out?"
"She says that two bushels and a peck of wheat will make just one hundred pounds of flour."
"Ninety-eight pounds," replied the miller, "always taking it for granted that the wheat weighs sixty pounds — which Hannah Striker's didn't by a great deal."
"The cost, she said, would be just ten pounds in the hundred."
"She's wrong," said the miller. "I won't grind even the parson's grist for less than an eighth. That would have brought her meal from ninety-eight pounds down to eighty-six, even if the wheat had been up to the standard weight, which it was far from being."
This was so plain a statement of the case, that Nancy, who had encouraged the blacksmith's wife in her suspicions against the miller, and even related some of her own experiences and impressions, saw the matter in rather a different light than before. Had she been a right-minded, peace-loving woman, she could have at once extinguished the little flame her words had kindled. This, however, she was not. No peacemaker was Nancy Wimble, but a lover of discord. So, at once changing her tone and manner, she replied to the miller —
"That's just what I told her; but she was deaf as an adder to all reason."
Liars and busybodies should have good memories. But, it is to be noted that such is rarely the case, nature having provided, seemingly, the defect as an antidote to the poison that is under their tongues. How few there are, however, who wisely apply the antidote! The miller did not, in this case, although, but a little while back, Nancy had herself objected to the eighty pounds as insufficient.
"Just what I told her," repeated Nancy. "I know the wheat very well. They got it from old Gill. We had some of it, and it was a real cheat."
"Something wrong, ha! A screw loose! I'm to be called an old cheat and robber at this time of life, and by Hannah Striker? Better look to her drunken husband, and see that he doesn't lame any more of his neighbors' horses, while shoeing them, by driving nails the wrong way."
"So say I. And, by the way, it's my notion that Mary Green ought to make him pay smartly for crippling her mare. The animal won't he good for anything these six months to come. Her hoof, it is said, will come off."
"Six months!" replied the miller. "If in a year, it will be a wonder."
"Striker's going to the dogs fast enough," remarked Nancy. "He's drinking harder than ever. Some months ago, there was a talk of his moving away from Cedardale. I wish in my heart he would go."
"The family's no credit to the village, that's certain," said the miller.
"You might say a disgrace to the village, and not be much out of the way," insinuated Nancy.
"A disgrace, then, if you will have it so; and, if it comes in your way, you may tell them that I say so. Take too much money, ha! I'll never forgive Hannah Striker for that, as long as I live. Stephen White's honest, and every man, woman, and child knows or ought to know it. Take too much money! How did she think I got it? Didn't she stand by and see me weigh her flour?"
"She thinks, perhaps," replied Nancy, who had an exceedingly fertile imagination, "that there are two spouts leading from the millstones; one into the conveyers, and the other into a secret box or bag belonging to the miller."
Stephen White, who was sitting on a bag of grain when Nancy said this, sprang to his feet as suddenly as if there had been an explosion by his side.
"Two spouts! A secret bag! Did Hannah Striker dare to say that?" he cried, almost foaming with rage.
"No — no — don't misunderstand me. I didn't just say that Hannah used these exact words."
"Two spouts, indeed! Upon my word!" The miller had taken no heed to the evasive remark of Nancy Wimble. "I'm an old cheat — a robber! But she'll hear of it, she will! A secret box! Isn't it too much for mortal man to bear?"
"Now don't misunderstand me, neighbor White" said Nancy. "I didn't say that Hannah Striker told me that you had two spouts running from the millstones."
"Who did say it, then, I'd like to know?"
"I didn't say that anybody said it."
"You didn't?"
"No."
"Then what did you say?"
"That, perhaps, Hannah Striker thought so."
"Bah! Do you think I'm a fool or a dolt? Somebody has got up this lying story," answered the miller, who was not to be soothed by any evasions. "And until I know better, I shall believe it originated with Striker's wife. She's not too good for anything; that's my opinion of her."
"And mine is not the most flattering in the world" remarked Nancy. "Still, I wish you to remember distinctly, that I did not say Hannah originated this report."
"If she didn't, you did then," said the excited miller, who had the fault or merit, whichever it might he regarded, of speaking out, sometimes, whether to a person's face or behind his back, just what he thought of him.
"Me!" It was now Nancy's turn to be moved.
"Me, did you say, Stephen White?" and she crossed her arms, and fixed her indignant eyes on the miller's face.
"It lies between you, certainly," was answered, "and one of you will have to acknowledge its authorship, or give me some other authority. Do you think I'm going to rest under such a slander? If so, you are wonderfully mistaken. Stephen White values his good name far too highly. And now, if Hannah Striker actually said that I take, by secret means, more than is just, speak out plainly. I'm bound to know the author. At present, it lies between you and her. You can act as you please."
Nancy Wimble had indulged herself in a spirit of detraction and mischief-making a little too far; and she was now conscious of this. She tried to make light of the matter; but this wouldn't do. The miller, who was really correct in his dealings, and who loved to be thought an honest man, had been touched in too tender a place. If there was such a report about him, he was bound to know its author.
When he and Nancy parted, it was not with very amiable feelings toward each other; as the miller had refused to make light of what she had said, and persisted in asserting that the slander lay between her and the blacksmith's wife.
"What a mean, miserable fellow that Stephen White is," said Nancy Wimble, on going over to Hannah Striker's, for the purpose of returning the old brown horse she had borrowed.
"I always knew that" was Hannah's reply. "Have you weighed your meal?"
"No, I saw the miller weigh it."
"Take my advice, and weigh it yourself. I wouldn't trust his weights."
"He'd hardly have light weights," replied Nancy to this; "it would be so easily detected. Millers can use other and more secret means to double-charge."
"So I have heard. Secret spouts, and the like."
"That's it! — that's it" said Nancy, in a quick voice. "These are not so easily found out."
Hannah did not, in the conversation which followed, assert that miller White had such spouts, hard as Nancy tried to get her to do so. Enough, however, was said to enable Nancy to screen herself by its exaggeration and warped repetition, if the miller pressed his investigations as was threatened. She was hardly clear in her mind as to the policy of giving Mrs. Striker the benefits of Stephen White's opinion of herself and family, which she had provoked him to express so freely, as strong as was her natural inclination to do so. This inclination, encouraged by the thought that if she could get the miller and the blacksmith's family into a sharp quarrel, she might deflect attention from herself as the first instigator, turned the scale in her mind, and caused her to say —
"One thing is certain, Hannah, White never speaks well of anybody. He seems eaten up with envy."
"I've long seen that," replied Mrs. Striker.
"He has a grudge against you and your husband!"
"What is the reason?"
"Heaven knows. I reckon he can't find a good word for us in his dictionary."
"No, indeed; I'm sorry to say that he cannot. He speaks very hard of you," replied Nancy.
"He does, ha!" This declaration on the part of Nancy Wimble, at once fevered the mind of her auditor.
"I wouldn't have meddled in this matter, for I never like to make trouble between neighbors," said Nancy in a low insinuating voice, and with the air of one who was forcing herself, from duty, to serve a friend; "but, indeed, Hannah, it wouldn't be right for me to keep silence, when any one talks about a neighbor, as White talks about you."
"About us! how does he talk about us, please?"
"Well, Hannah, to tell you the honest truth, White says your family is a disgrace to the village of Cedardale, and he'll be glad of the day when you all move out of it. There! that's what he said — and my cheek burns to tell you; still, it's the honest truth, and you ought to know it. But isn't it a poison shame that he, of all others, should say so!"
Poor Mrs. Striker! With an intemperate husband, and the ever-present consciousness that they were becoming poorer and poorer every day, she carried always a weight upon her feelings. Too well did she understand that allusion was made to her weak, besotted husband, for whom, fallen as he was, there still lingered in her bosom much of the old tenderness. Striker was never ill-natured to her, even in his worst moments. If she talked to him about his habits, when sober, he would acknowledge his fault with strong self-condemnation, and promise amendment. She was never so unwise as to scold or use harsh and cutting words to him when he was in liquor; and so, in her suffering and sorrow, she was spared the heavy consequences that are visited on the heads of, alas! too many wives, who are cursed with drunken husbands. There was good in her life-companion, as well as evil; and she had ever tried to look at the good as steadily as possible — a difficult task, we must own.
All the quick anger which Nancy Wimble had at first conjured up, subsided under the mortification and sharp pain from which Mrs. Striker now suffered. Her flushed countenance became gradually pale. Once or twice she tried to speak, but a rising in her throat, warned her that in the attempt she would be overcome by her feelings. At last, in the fullness of her heart, she exclaimed —
"Oh, Nancy! Nancy! this is indeed hard!"
And covering her face with her hands, she wept silently, while the hot tears dropped fast from between her fingers, and fell upon the floor.
The shoemaker's wife was momentarily touched by this unexpected exhibition of feeling, and a passing emotion of regret stirred the surface of her icy heart. Then rising, she bid her weeping neighbor a hurried good day, and returned to her own home, to collect her thoughts, and plan some mode of avoiding any consequences to herself that might possibly arise from the quarrel she had so skillfully provided for the two families of the miller and blacksmith.
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