The Village Gossip CHAPTER 3.
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While Nancy Wimble was revolving in her mind the best mode of escaping the responsibility likely to rest upon her for getting the miller and the blacksmith into a quarrel, Mary Green came in to see her husband, with a pair of shoes that required mending. Mary had scarcely darkened the door of Wimble's little workshop, before Nancy, who had seen her pass the window, near which she stood at work, entered also.
"Good day, neighbor Green! How are you? and how are all the children?" inquired Nancy in her animated way.
"Quiet well, I thank you," replied Mrs. Green.
"How's your horse Fanny?" pursued Nancy.
The countenance of the visitor fell, at this question, and she replied —
"Bad enough. I'm afraid the poor creature will never he good for anything again."
"Indeed! Why, Mary, this is dreadful!" Nancy's countenance expressed great concern.
"It's very bad, certainly," returned Mrs. Green in a somber voice.
"What does Striker say about it?" asked the shoemaker.
"Say? What can he say? He's crippled the poor beast, and that is the beginning and the end of it."
"If it were my horse," said the shoemaker, with indignation, "it wouldn't be the end of it, by a great deal. Striker has injured your property — and he should pay for it."
"That he should," chimed in Nancy, "and if I were you, I'd make him do it. He was tipsy, of course, when he drove that nail the wrong way. If he will drink — then let him pay for the injury he does when drunk. It's rather hard that a poor widow like you, should have to suffer for his bad doings."
"So I think," replied Mary, who began to feel more distinctly conscious of the great wrong she had sustained, and now quite forgot the offer of the blacksmith to let her have his old brown horse whenever she might want him, so long as her mare was useless from her lame foot. "So I think. But what can a poor lone woman do?"
"There's as good a law for you as for any one else," said the shoemaker.
"Law?" Mary Green hardly comprehended her neighbor Wimble.
"Yes, law. It is made for the poor as well as for the rich. Indeed, I'm of Mr. Sharp's way of thinking — Mr. Sharp, who lives over at Elderglen. He says that the use of law is to protect the weak against the strong — the poor against the rich. The strong man and the rich man can protect themselves — it is only the poor and the weak that need protection."
"That's the right doctrine. I go in for that," spoke out Nancy Wimble, decidedly and with animation. "Yes, indeed! I'd have some kind of satisfaction out of Striker, or let him take the consequences. It will be a good lesson for him."
"He did offer," said Mrs. Green, now recollecting herself, "to lend me his old brown horse almost any time."
"His old brown horse!" Nancy Wimble spoke with contempt. "Does he think you'd ride his old brown horse, unless it were to the mill, or some such place? I'd like to see you riding to church, or even to Elderglen to visit your sister, on that miserable old rawbone! That was little better than an insult."
And so now it really seemed to Mary Green.
"I'll tell you what I would do," said the shoemaker. "I'd go to Striker, and be very plain with him. He's injured your property, and it is no more than right that he should pay all the damage. Say to him that while you are not disposed to be hard, you will expect him to make some reparation for the loss you have suffered. This is but fair and right; and, if he is an honest man, he will at once agree to pay you something. If he refuses, he is not honest, and should be made to do what is right. And be very sure that the law will bring him to his bearings mighty quick."
"He ought to pay you at least twenty dollars," remarked Nancy.
"Twice twenty," said the shoemaker. "Still, if he will pay you twenty dollars, I would take it, and so save trouble."
"I shall be perfectly satisfied with twenty," replied Mrs. Green, whose real loss in the matter was far from being so serious as her false friends were trying to make her believe. Fanny, the mare, whose hoof had been injured by the blacksmith's carelessness, passed, at any rate, two-thirds of her time in the stable, or roaming about the fields, for her owner rode her but seldom. And now that she was crippled for a season, there were a dozen neighbors from whom she could get a horse, and welcome, quite as often as she wished to ride.
For all this, the earnest way in which the shoemaker and his wife commented on the wrong she had suffered, and their positive declaration that she was entitled to, and ought to get damages, made her really believe herself a seriously injured woman.
"I'll go and see Striker this very day," said she warmly.
"That I would," urged the shoemaker. And "That I would," chimed in his wife.
Meanwhile, there was quite an exciting time at the blacksmith's. Poor Mrs. Striker still sat weeping, and with her face hidden by her hands, as at the departure of Nancy Wimble, when her husband, having need of some article in the house, came in from his shop. He saw, at a glance, that something was wrong, and said in a kind voice —
"Hannah."
But she neither moved nor made answer.
"Hannah," he repeated; "Hannah, what ails you?"
The only reply to this was a bursting sob, the more violent from a strong effort at repression. For a moment the unhappy woman wept bitterly. Her husband rarely, if ever, became impatient with, or angry toward his much-enduring, long-suffering wife. She had ever been a good wife to him, and well he knew it. And if ever he made resolutions of sobriety, they were prompted by affection for her. Alas! that these resolutions were so very, very weak. Now, he felt no impatience; but was touched by her affliction, and anxious to know the cause. So he sat down by her side, and laying his hand upon her arm, said —
"Hannah, dear, won't you say what is wrong? What makes you cry so?"
"Oh, John," replied the weeping wife, and as she lifted her tearful face, she pressed her hand tightly against her bosom, as if there was pain there, "I felt just now as if my heart would break."
"For what cause, Hannah? What new trouble has come?"
"It is from something I heard a little while ago," was replied.
"Brought by that idle gossip, Nancy Wimble, I suppose," said Striker, with a sudden anger in his voice.
"The words were no less sharp, because they came to my ears from her tongue," answered the wife.
"What did she say?"
"She was just from the mill."
"Yes."
"White, you know, has little good feeling for us."
"Quite as much as we have for him, I reckon. Well, what of Mr. White?"
"Nancy said that he had been speaking very hard of us, and, as a good neighbor, she thought it but right to repeat to me his language."
"What did he say?" The face of Striker had flushed instantly.
"He said that our family was a disgrace to Cedardale, and that he would be glad when we moved out of it."
Unexpectedly to Mrs. Striker, there came no burst of indignation from her husband at this announcement. The red anger which had burned on his face gradually gave place to a more pallid hue. Very still and silent he sat for almost a minute. He had withdrawn the hand at first laid tenderly upon the arm of his wife, and now, with his body erect, and his eyes fixed in thought, he seemed pondering deeply some newly-suggested question or purpose. At length, with a heavy sigh, he answered in a subdued voice —
"He had no cause to say this of you, Hannah. None in the world. O dear! I wish I had — "
What was in the mind of the blacksmith became no further apparent; for, rising up suddenly, he left the room and returned to his shop, where he resumed his work. He had stood by the anvil only a short time, when he laid down his hammer, and going to an old barrel in a corner of the shop, took therefrom a small flask of liquor, and was about raising it to his lips, when a thought flashing through his mind produced a pause. Slowly the hand which held the bottle receded from its elevated position. He stood musing and irresolute for some moments — sighed deeply — muttered some incoherent words between his teeth — then replaced the flask in the barrel, without having tasted its contents, and went back to his work.
There were better purposes in the mind of the blacksmith. He felt the shame his bad habits had brought upon his family; and his mind was struggling in the formation of good resolutions for the future. Alas! that these were so quickly to be scattered.
So soon as White, the miller, could make arrangements to leave his mill, off he started, boiling over with resentment, to see Mr. Striker about the slanders which his wife had been putting in circulation to his injury.
"Look here, Striker!" said he, on entering the old shanty where the blacksmith was sweating over his anvil, "I've got a crow to pick with you."
"Have you, indeed," was the blacksmith's answer, as he let his hammer rest on the block, and straightened himself up. The two men looked, each with contracting brow, into each other's face, for some moments.
"That busy-tongued wife of yours!" began the excited miller.
White saw, by the scowl of anger that instantly darkened the face of his neighbor, that the few words already spoken were likely to arouse the blacksmith's temper to a pitch beyond what he had calculated upon, and therefore checked the further utterance that was on his lips.
"If you don't leave my shop this instant, I'll throw you out, neck and heels!" cried Striker, the moment he found utterance.
The miller, at this unexpected retort, staggered back a pace or two in surprise and alarm. There was murder in the eyes of the blacksmith, and he saw it. What the end would have been, we know not, but, at that moment, a man rode up to the door of the smithy, and, dismounting, asked to have his horse shod. White, taking advantage of this, immediately retired — not, however, in a spirit of self-reproof for having spoken so roughly to the blacksmith, but full of anger against his neighbor.
"Pleasant village, this," remarked the stranger, as Striker took up the horse's foot, and began to prepare it for a new shoe.
"It may be to some. I've never found it so very pleasant," was the blacksmith's answer, made in a repellant tone.
"There's not a pleasanter village within fifty miles," continued the stranger, not appearing to notice the crusty mood of the smith.
"Glad you think so," answered Striker, his voice in no way modified.
"What's the matter, my friend?" asked the man, in a cheerful, good-natured voice. "Something must be wrong, or you would never answer a stranger's civil remark after this fashion."
"You want your horse shod, don't you?" Striker raised himself up, and looked with a scowling face at his customer as he asked this question.
"Oh, certainly. I've said as much already. What else could have brought me here?"
"Very well; be content with that!" sharply replied the smith.
Over the mild, benevolent face of the stranger, a middle-aged man, in the dress of a farmer, there passed a slight shadow. He did not seem either hurt or offended at the blacksmith's rudeness; but rather grieved to see him in such an unhappy state.
"Take care, my friend," said he, as he stood looking on while the smith was driving the nails into the horse's hoof, "I had a fine animal injured not long ago by a nail accidentally turned the wrong way."
Now this was touching a sore place; for, since the accident to Mary Green's mare, Striker had been annoyed a great deal by remarks upon his carelessness from one and another — not made in an over-kind spirit — and, in his present confusion of mind, it seemed that the stranger knew of this, and had made his last remark on purpose to woundhim.
The horse's foot dropped instantly to the ground. With erect body, and eyes flashing fire, the smith said fiercely —
"If you're afraid to have me shoe your horse, why did you bring him to me?"
"My good friend," said the farmer, in kind and soothing tones, "you seem to be in a strange mood today. The fact of having a horse injured in the way suggested, naturally enough makes me a little fearful, and causes me to utter a word of caution, almost involuntarily, whenever I see a blacksmith attempt to drive a nail. I can assure you that I meant no reflection on your skill whatever."
Striker muttered, in ill-natured tones, an incoherent reply, and then resumed his work.
The stranger deemed it wisest to make no further remark, and so remained silent, but observant, until the shoeing was completed. Then he paid the price asked for the service, mounted his horse, and rode off.
Scarcely had he left the shop, before Striker went to the barrel from which he had previously taken the flask of liquor, and did not turn from it until after drinking a deep draught of the fiery poison.
Meantime the stranger took his way toward the mill, whose great wheel he had seen slowly revolving in the distance. He found the miller in scarcely a better state of mind than the blacksmith — though with this difference — while the latter was blind and insolent in his ill-nature, the former was polite to his interrogator, but passionate in his denunciation of the blacksmith, whom he represented as the worst man in the village. "You may be thankful," said he, in conclusion, "that he hasn't crippled your horse for life."
Next the stranger stopped at the shoemaker's. Here he was treated with a running commentary upon all the leading personages of Cedardale; but he heard not of the existence of a single virtue in any one of them. The worst things were said of the miller and the blacksmith.
"Rather poor encouragement to settle in this neighborhood," said he. "What a pity that, where God has made all so perfect — that there should be no moral beauty."
And he rode thoughtfully away from Cedardale.
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