The Village Gossip CHAPTER 6.
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Almost blind with passion was Mary Green, as she strode away from the shop of Striker.
"A miserable, old, bleary-eyed, shambling beast!" she muttered, indignantly, at every few paces. "Oh! but he shall pay for this!"
As Nancy Wimble's cottage lay in the direct line of her journey homeward, Mary, as well from opportunity as inclination, turned aside to relate her adventure with the blacksmith. It needed but a single glance at her flushed, excited face, to tell Nancy that she had met with a strong rebuff; and, to encourage the freest communication, she said, without waiting for a word from her visitor —
"And so Striker hasn't given you any compensation?"
"Compensation!" exclaimed Mary. "Compensation, indeed! He has insulted me in the most outrageous manner!"
"You don't say so!" Nancy Wimble lifted eyes and eyebrows with an expression of the most profound astonishment.
"Yes, I do say. Now, what do you think he called my poor Fanny?"
"I'm sure I cannot tell."
"A miserable, old, good-for-nothing, bleary-eyed, shambling beast!"
"Mary Green!"
"And this isn't all, Nancy. Oh! I can't tell you how he abused me, up and down. And then, would you believe it, he caught hold of my arm with his great dirty hands, and pushed me out of his shop!"
"Oh, Mary Green!"
"It's the truth, Nancy; and my arm is black and blue now, where he seized hold of me."
"Dreadful! dreadful! It's a wonder he hadn't killed you."
"A thousand wonders," replied Mrs. Green. "I'm too thankful that I got away without some of my limbs being broken."
"You have cause to be," said Nancy. "But what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make him smart for it; that's what I'm going to do," was Mary Green's emphatic response.
"You'll not be true to yourself if you don't, that's all I have to say in the matter. Why, if he's allowed to go on in this way, there'll be no living in the village with him. If I was you, Mary, I'd go over to Elderglen, and see Mr. Sharp, the lawyer, at once. He'll bring him to his feelings mighty quick."
"Just what I'm going to do!"
At this moment a man alighted from a horse, and after fastening him to a post that stood in front of the door, entered the little shop where Wimble sat busy over his hammer, awl, and lapstone.
"Who's that, I wonder?" said Nancy, going instantly to the window.
Mary Green moved up to her side; but neither of them could make out the visitor.
"I think I've seen him before," said the latter; "but where and when, I cannot for my life tell."
"Wait until he goes away, and then we'll find out all about him."
But the man stayed so long that Mrs. Green became impatient to get home, and took her departure first; not, however before receiving from the shoemaker's wife the strongest repeated injunctions to go over to Elderglen, and get Sharp to bring a suit for damages against Striker.
The man who had called to see Wimble was none other than Sharp himself, as Nancy ascertained immediately on the departure of her visitor; for she then made an errand into her husband's shop, and was introduced to the lawyer.
"Oh, if I'd only known it was you," she said, the moment she understood that the visitor, or customer, as he wished to be considered, was Sharp. "Mary Green was here." The last sentence was addressed to her husband.
"Indeed!" responded the shoemaker. "Did she see Striker?"
"Oh yes! and the way he abused her was shocking." How the lawyer's eyes did brighten!
"Abused her! It isn't possible!" said Wimble.
"It is possible, though, and what is more — she says he caught hold of her, and pushed her out of his shop, bruising her arm most dreadfully."
"Assault and battery!" said Sharp.
"And what do you think it was all for?" asked the shoemaker, addressing the lawyer. "I'll tell you. He drove a nail the wrong way in shoeing Mary Green's mare, crippling the poor beast, it may be, for life; and Mary just went over to talk to him about it."
"She can make him pay for it," said the lawyer.
"So I told her."
"And what is more," spoke up Nancy, "she's going to make him do it. She wants to see you, Mr. Sharp, particularly; and, if you'll call at her house on your way home, you'll save her trouble, and do her a great favor into the bargain."
"Does she live in the little white cottage just at the foot of Beech Hill?" remarked the lawyer.
"Yes; that's her house. You'll call, won't you, as you go home?" urged Nancy.
"If I thought she really wished to see me, I'd call, certainly," said Sharp, affecting modesty and indifference.
"Well, she does want to see you, I can tell you that. It's a good way for her to walk over to Elderglen, and her mare is a cripple," said Nancy.
"I'll think about it," returned Sharp.
Soon after, he took his departure, and was at Mary Green's cottage almost as early as the excited widow herself. On mentioning his name, he met with a cordial reception, and found a client ready for his able services. Two suits were proposed, one for damages sustained in consequence of the injury to Fanny's foot; the other for assault and battery; and the lawyer was formally instructed to commence proceedings immediately. When he left the cottage of Mary Green, and took his way toward Elderglen, he had five dollars more in his pocketbook than was there when he entered — and the widow's purse was lighter by precisely that amount.
The night that followed the closing of this day, brought with it even greater disquietude than usual to the leading personages in Cedardale; for the shoemaker and his wife had managed to fan the fire of discord into a flame that burned with unusual fierceness. The saddest heart in the village was that of Mrs. Striker. A gleam of hope had shot suddenly across her heart; but how quick had all become even darker than before. She had looked for her husband's return at close of day with trembling interest. Alas! how her heart died within her as the darkness fell, and he remained absent to an unusual time. More than confirmed, at last, were all her worst fears, when she found him stupefied with drink, and asleep on his forge.
Yet, amid her grief and pain, there came one little ray of comfort to the heart of Mrs. Striker, the more grateful that it was so altogether unlooked for. Her eldest son, William, of whom the reader already knows something, was, we are sorry to say, a very bad and troublesome boy, whose appearance at home was generally the signal for discord. His father had little or no control over him, because he was despised on account of his intemperance; and he had not sufficient love for his mother to lead him to act in any obedience to her wishes. He followed therefore, mainly, the promptings of his own perverse inclinations. To the younger children, he had become a terror.
It was after sundown when the lad returned home. His little brother and sister were playing on the floor as he entered the house, and were in some trouble about a wooden horse which they in vain tried to harness to their wagon.
"Now don't touch it, Bill," cried one of the children, the moment they saw their brother; and each of them showed signs of fear, lest he should, as usual, either kick the playthings across the room, or appropriate them entirely to his own amusement.
The boy, however, showed no inclination to trouble them, but sat down quietly by a window, and, leaning his head upon his hand, appeared lost in thought. His mother noticed this unusual occurrence with some surprise.
For four or five minutes, the two children on the floor tried, but in vain, to adjust the harness of their wooden horse — their failure marked, every now and then, by angry or impatient exclamations. Attracted, at length, by their voices, the elder brother observed their efforts for some moments, and then said, with an unexpected kindness of manner —
"If you'll let me, I'll fix it for you."
"No you won't; you'll break it all in pieces," replied one of the children.
"I'll fix it all right, if you'll let me," said the lad, now rising and approaching the children.
The real interest and kindness in his tones were so apparent, that the two little ones permitted him to do for them as he proposed. In a few moments the horse was rightly harnessed to the wagon, and the children were drawing them about the floor with glad voices and countenances beaming with pleasure. William resumed his seat, and regarded them with looks of satisfaction.
"It was kind of you, William," said Mrs. Striker. The boy glanced up into his mother's face, and she could not help remarking a gentleness, and even beauty of expression, once so often visible on his countenance, yet faded, she had long since feared, forever.
Darkness came at length, and what was unusual, Mr. Striker had not yet returned to his family.
"How long your father stays out!" remarked Mrs. Striker, coming into the house, after having stood for some time at the door, straining her eyes into the dusky atmosphere, in the hope of seeing her husband's approaching form. "Come, William," she added, "won't you go with me over to the shop, and see what it is that keeps him away so long?"
But for the change in the boy's state of mind just manifested, Mrs. Striker would not have made this request. And even now she partly held her breath, in suspense, for the answer, lest it should be, as of old, an ill-natured rejection of her wishes. But, instead of this, the boy started to his feet in prompt obedience, saying as he did so —
"Yes, mother," in a voice so cheerful that it caused the heart of Mrs. Striker, even under the heavy weight which lay upon it, to bound upward with a pleasant emotion.
Their visit to the smithy resulted in finding the one they sought, sleeping heavily in a drunken slumber, upon the forge, from which the smouldering fires had long since gone out. After much trouble the husband and father was aroused to a semi-consciousness, and, supported on one side by his wife, and on the other by his son, led away to his home. On being taken into the room where he slept, he sank down upon the bed; and was, in a few moments, as entirely lost to external things as before his removal from the smithy.
By the side of the bed sat down poor Mrs. Striker, and sobbed aloud in the uncontrollable bitterness of her hopeless sorrow; and near her bent her son, weeping too, and deeply touched by his mother's grief. The mother soon perceived that her boy wept also — perceived it with surprise and something of a strange gladness — if such a word may be used for such a feeling.
Thus, amid her grief and pain, there came a little ray of comfort; and in it her heart recognized, tremblingly, the promise of a new light that would make less dismal, the darkness of her unhappy lot.
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