“Yes, father,” said Abby, raising her head. “That seems to be a thing that I can do; and it will be good for me to have something to do. Becky is the stoutest of us all, and…”

“I wonder how long that will last,” groaned the father.

“I am quite stout now,” said Becky; “and I am the one to help Allan with the garden. Allan and I will work under your direction, father, while your rheumatism lasts; and…”

“And what am I to do?” asked Moss, pushing himself in.

“You shall fetch and carry the tools,” said Becky; “that is, when the weather is fine, and when your chilblains are not very bad. And you shall be bird-boy when the sowing season comes on.”

“And we are going to put up a pent-house for you, in one corner, you know, Moss,” said his brother. “And we will make it so that there shall be room for a fire in it, where father and you may warm yourselves, and always have dry shoes ready.”

“I wonder what our shoe leather will have cost us by the time the spring comes,” observed Woodruffe. “There is not a place where we ever have to take the cart or the barrow that is not all mire and ruts; not a path in the whole garden that I call a decent one. Our shoes are all pulled to pieces; while the frost, or the fog, or something or other, prevents our getting any real work done. The waste is dreadful. Nothing should have made me take a garden where none but summer crops are to be had, if I could have foreseen such a thing. I never saw such a thing before, – never – as market-gardening without winter and spring crops. Never heard of such a thing!”

Becky glanced towards Allan, to see if he had nothing to propose. If they could neither mend the place nor leave it, it did seem a hard case. Allan was looking into the fire, musing. When Moss announced that the rain was over, Allan started, and said he must be fetching some of Abby’s things down, if it was fair. Becky really meant to help him; but she also wanted opportunity for consultation, as to whether it could really be God’s will that they should neither be able to mend their condition nor to escape from it. As they mounted the long flight of steps, they saw Mr. Nelson issue from the Station, looking about him to ascertain if the rain was over, and take his stand on the embankment, followed by a gentleman who had a roll of paper in his hand. As they stood, the one was seen to point with his stick, and the other with his roll of paper, this way and that. Allan set off in that direction, saying to his sister, as he went,

“Don’t you come. That gentleman is so rude, he will make you cry. Yes, I must go, and I won’t get angry; I won’t indeed. He may find as much fault as he pleases; I must show him how the water is standing in our furrows.”

“Hallo! what do you want here?” was Mr. Nelson’s greeting, when, after a minute or two, he saw Allan looking and listening. “What business have you here, hearkening to what we are saying?”

“I wanted to know whether anything is going to be done below there. I thought, if you wished it, I could tell you something about it.”

“You! what, a dainty little fellow like you? – a fellow that wears his Sunday clothes on a Tuesday, and a rainy Tuesday too! You must get working clothes and work.”

“I shall work to-morrow, Sir. My mother and my brother-in-law were buried to-day.”

“Lord bless me! You should have told me that. How should I know that unless you told me?” He proceeded in a much gentler tone, however, merely remonstrating with Allan for letting the wet stand in the furrows, in such a way as would spoil any garden. Allan had a good ally, all the while, in the stranger, who seemed to understand everything before it was explained. The gentleman was, in fact, an agricultural surveyor – one who could tell, when looking abroad from a height, what was swamp and what meadow; where there was a clean drain, and where an uneven ditch; where the soil was likely to be watered, and where flooded by the winter rains; where genially warmed, and where fatally baked by the summer’s sun. He had seen, before Allan pointed it out, how the great ditch cut across between the cultivated grounds and the little river into which those grounds should be drained; but he could not know, till told by Allan, who were the proprietors and occupiers of the parcels of land lying on either side the ditch. Mr. Nelson knew little or nothing under this head, though he contradicted the lad every minute; was sure such an one did not live here, nor another there; told him he was confusing Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown; did not believe a word of Mr. Taylor having bought yonder meadow, or Mrs. Scott now renting that field. All the while, the surveyor went on setting down the names as Allan told them; and then observed that they were not so many but that they might combine, if they would, to drain their properties, if they could be relieved of the obstruction of the ditch – if the surveyor of highways would see that the ditch were taken in hand. Mr. Nelson pronounced that there should be no difficulty about the ditch, if the rest could be managed; and then, after a few whispered words between the gentlemen, Allan was asked first, whether he was sure that he knew where every person lived whose name was down in the surveyor’s book; and next, whether he would act as guide to-morrow. For a moment he thought he should be wanted to move Abby’s things; but, remembering the vast importance of the plan which seemed now to be fairly growing under his eye, he replied that he would go; he should be happy to make it his day’s work to help, ever so little, towards what he wished above everything in the world.

“What makes you in such a hurry to suppose we want to get a day’s work out of you for nothing?” asked Mr. Nelson. He thrust half-a-crown into the lad’s waistcoat pocket, saying that he must give it back again, if he led the gentleman wrong. The gentleman had no time to go running about the country on a fool’s errand; Allan must mind that. As Allan touched his hat, and ran down the steps, Mr. Nelson observed that boys with good hearts did not fly about in that way, as if they were merry, on the day of their mother’s funeral.

“Perhaps he is rather thinking of saving his father,” observed the surveyor.

“Well; save as many of them as you can. They seem all going to pot as it is.”

When Allan burst in, carrying nothing of Abby’s, but having a little color in his cheeks for once, his father sat up in his chair, the baby suddenly stopped crying, and Moss asked where he had been. At first, his father disappointed him by being listless – first refusing to believe anything good, and then saying that any good that could happen now was too late; and Abby could not help crying all the more because this was not thought about a year sooner. It was her poor husband that had made the stir; and now they were going to take his advice the very day that he was laid in his grave. They all tried to comfort her, and said how natural it was that she should feel it so; yet, amidst all their sympathy, they could not help being cheered that something was to be done at last.

By degrees, and not slow degrees, Woodruffe became animated. It was surprising how many things he desired Allan to be sure not to forget to point out to the surveyor, and to urge upon those he was to visit. At last he said he would go himself. It was a very serious business, and he ought to make an effort to have it done properly. It was a great effort, but he would make it. Not rheumatism, nor anything else, should keep him at home. Allan was glad at heart to see such signs of energy in his father, though he might feel some natural disappointment at being left at home, and some perplexity as to what, in that case, he ought to do about the half-crown, if Mr. Nelson should be gone home. The morning settled this, however. The surveyor was in his gig. If Allan could hang on, or keep up with it, it would be very well, as he would be wanted to open the gates, and to lead the way in places too wet for his father, who was not worth such a pair of patent waterproof tall boots as the surveyor had on.

The circuit was not a very wide one; yet it was dark before they got home. There are always difficulties in arrangements which require combined action. Here there were different levels in the land, and different tempers and views among the occupiers. Mr. Brown had heard nothing about the matter, and could not be hurried till he saw occasion. Mr. Taylor liked his field best, wet – would not have it drier on any account, for fear of the summer sun. When assured that drought took no hold on well-dried land in comparison with wet land, he shook with laughter, and asked if they expected him to believe that. Mrs. Scott, whose combination with two others was essential to the drainage of three portions, would wait another year. They must go on without her; and after another year, she would see what she would do. Another had drained his land in his own way long ago, and did not expect that anybody would ask him to put his spade into another man’s land, or to let any other man put his spade into his. These were all the obstructions. Everybody else was willing, or at least, not obstructive. By clever management, it was thought that the parties concerned could make an island of Mrs. Scott and her field, and win over Mr. Brown by the time he was wanted, and show Mr. Taylor that, as his field could no longer be as wet as it had been, he might as well try the opposite condition – they promising to flood his field as often and as thoroughly as he pleased, if he found it the worse for being drained. They could not obtain all they wished, where everybody was not as wise as could be wished; but so much was agreed upon as made the experienced surveyor think that the rest would follow; enough, already, to set more laborers to work than the place could furnish. Two or three stout men were sent from a distance; and when they had once cut a clear descent from the ditch to the river, and had sunk the ditch to seven feet deep, and made the bottom even, and narrowed it to three feet, it was a curious thing to see how ready the neighbors became to unite their drains with it. It used to be said, that here – however it might be elsewhere – the winter was no time for digging; but that must have meant that no winter-digging would bring a spring crop; and that therefore it was useless. Now, the sound of the spade never ceased for the rest of the winter; and the laborers thought it the best winter they had ever known for constant work. Those who employed the labor hoped it would answer – found it expensive – must trust it was all right, and would yield a profit by and by. As for the Woodruffes, they were too poor to employ laborers. But some little hope had entered their hearts again, and brought strength, not only to their hearts, but to their very limbs. They worked like people beginning the world. As poor Abby could keep the house and sew, while attending to her little school, Becky did the lighter parts (and some which were far from light) of the garden work, finding easy tasks for Moss; and Allan worked like a man at the drains. They had been called good drains before; but now, there was an outfall for deeper ones; and deeper they must be made. Moreover, a strong rivalry arose among the neighbors about their respective portions of the combined drainage; and under the stimulus of ambition, Woodruffe recovered his spirits and the use of his limbs wonderfully. He suffered cruelly from his rheumatism; and in the evenings felt as if he could never more lift a spade; yet, not the less was he at work again in the morning, and so sanguine as to the improvement of his ground, that it was necessary to remind him, when calculating his gains, that it would take two years, at least, to prove the effects of his present labors.

VII

It was observed by Woodruffe’s family, during one week of spring of the next year, that he was very absent. He was not in low spirits, but absorbed in thought, and much devoted to making calculations with pencil and paper. At last, out it came, one morning at breakfast.

“I wonder how we should all like to have Harry Hardiman to work with us again?”

Every one looked up. Harry! where was Harry? Was he here? Was he coming?

“Why, I will tell you what I have been thinking,” said their father. “I have thought long and carefully, and I believe I have made up my mind to send for Harry, to come and work for us as he used to do. We have not labor enough on the ground. Two stout men to the acre is the smallest allowance for trying what could be made of the place.”

“That is what Taylor and Brown are employing now on the best part of their land,” said Allan; “that is, when they can get the labor. There is such difference between that and one man to four or five acres, as there was before, that they can’t always get the labor.”

“Just so; and therefore,” continued Woodruffe, “I am thinking of sending for Harry. Our old neighborhood was not prosperous when we left it, and I fancy it cannot have improved since; and Harry might be glad to follow his master to a thriving neighborhood; and he is such a careful fellow that I dare say he has money for the journey, – even if he has a wife by this time, as I suppose he has.”

Moss looked most pleased, where all were pleased, at the idea of seeing Harry again. His remembrance of Harry was of a tall young man, who used to carry him on his shoulders, and wheel him in the empty water-barrel, and sometimes offer to dip him into it when it was full, and show him how to dig in the sand-heap with his little wooden spade.

“Your rent, to be sure, is much lower than in the old place,” observed Abby.

“Why, we must not build upon that,” replied the father; “rent is rising here, and will rise. My landlord was considerate in lowering mine to £3 per acre, when he saw how impossible it was to make it answer; and he says he shall not ask more yet on account of the labor I laid out at the time of the drainage. But when I have partly repaid myself, the rent will rise to £5; and, in fact, I have made my calculations in regard to Harry’s coming at a higher rent than that.”

“Higher than that?”

“Yes; I should not be surprised if I found myself paying, as market-gardeners near London do, ten pounds per acre before I die.”

“Or rather, to let the ground to me for that, father,” said Allan, “when it is your own property, and you are tired of work, and disposed to turn it over to me. I will pay you ten pounds per acre then, and let you have all the cabbages you can eat besides. It is capital land, and that is the truth. Come – shall that be a bargain?”

Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty to Allan. He did not like to see him so hard worked as to be unable to take due care of his own corner of the garden; – unable to enter fairly into the competition for the prizes at the Horticultural Show in the summer. Becky now, too, ought to be spared from all but occasional help in the garden. Above all, the ground was now in such an improving state that it would be waste not to bestow due labor upon it. Put in the spade where you would, the soil was loose and well-aired as needs be: the manure penetrated it thoroughly; the frost and heat pulverized, instead of binding it; and the crops were succeeding each other so fast, that the year would be a very profitable one.

“Where will Harry live, if he comes?” asked Abby.

“We must get another cottage added to the new row. Easily done! Cottages so healthy as these new ones pay well. Good rents are offered for them, – to save doctors’ bills and loss of time from sickness; – and, when once a system of house-drainage is set a-going, it costs scarcely more in adding a cottage to a group, to make it all right, than to run it up upon solid clay as used to be the way here. Well, I have a good mind to write to Harry to-day. What do you think of it, – all of you?”

Fortified by the opinion of all his children, Mr. Woodruffe wrote to Harry. Meantime, Allan and Becky went to cut the vegetables that were for sale that day; and Moss delighted himself in running after and catching the pony in the meadow below. The pony was not very easily caught, for it was full of spirit. Instead of the woolly insipid grass that it used to crop, and which seemed to give it only fever and no nourishment, it now fed on sweet fresh grass, which had no sour stagnant water soaking its roots. The pony was so full of play this morning that Moss could not get hold of it. Though much stronger than a year ago, he was not yet anything like so robust as a boy of his age should be; and he was growing heated, and perhaps a little angry, as the pony galloped off towards some distant trees, when a boy started up behind a bush, caught the halter, brought the pony round with a twitch, and led him to Moss. Moss fancied he had seen the boy before, and then his white teeth reminded Moss of one thing after another.

“I came for some marsh plants,” said the boy. “You and I got plenty once somewhere hereabouts, but I cannot find them now.”

“You will not find any now. We have no marsh now.”

The stranger said he dared not go back without them; mother wanted them badly. She would not believe him if he said he could not find any. There were plenty about two miles off, along the railway, among the clay-pits, he was told; but none nearer. The boy wanted to know where the clay-pits hereabouts were. He could not find one of them.

“I will show you one of them,” said Moss; “the one where you and I used to hunt rats.” And, leading the pony, he showed his old gypsy play-fellow all the improvements, beginning with the great ditch, – now invisible from being covered in. While it was open, he said, it used to get choked, and the sides were plastered after rain, and soon became grass-grown, so that it was found worth while to cover it in; and now it would want little looking to for years to come. As for the clay-pit, where the rats used to pop in and out, – it was now a manure-pit, covered in. There was a drain into it from the pony’s stable and from the pig-styes; and it was near enough to the garden to receive the refuse and sweepings. A heavy lid, with a ring in the middle, covered the pit, so that nobody could fall in in the dark, and no smell could get out. Moss begged the boy to come a little further, and he would show him his own flower-bed; and when the boy was there, he was shown everything else: what a cart-load of vegetables lay cut for sale; and what an arbor had been made of the pent-house under which Moss used to take shelter, when he could do nothing better than keep off the birds; and how fine the ducks were, – the five ducks that were so serviceable in eating off the slugs; and what a comfortable nest had been made for them to lay their eggs in, beside the water-tank in the corner; and what a variety of scarecrows the family had invented, – each having one, to try which would frighten the sparrows most. While Moss was telling how difficult it was to deal with the sparrows, because they could not be frightened for more than three days by any kind of scarecrow, he heard Allan calling him, in a tone of vexation, at being kept waiting so long. In an instant the stranger boy was off, – leaping the gate, and flying along the meadow till he was hidden behind a hedge.

Two or three days after this one of the ducks was missing. The last time that the five had been seen together was when Moss was showing them to his visitor. The morning after Moss finally gave up hope, the glass of Allan’s hotbed was found broken, and in the midst of the bed itself was a deep foot-track, crushing the cucumber plants, and, with them, Allan’s hopes of a cucumber prize at the Horticultural Exhibition in the summer. On more examination, more mischief was discovered, some cabbages had been stolen, and another duck was missing. In the midst of the general concern, Woodruffe burst out a-laughing. It struck him that the chief of the scarecrows had changed his hat; and so he had. The old straw hat which used to flap in the wind so serviceably was gone, and in its stead appeared a helmet, – a saucepan full of holes, battered and split, but still fit to be a helmet to a scarecrow.

“I could swear to the old hat,” observed Woodruffe, “if I should have the luck to see it on anybody’s head.”

“And so could I,” said Becky, “for I mended it, – bound it with black behind, and green before, because I had not green ribbon enough. But nobody would wear it before our eyes.”

“That is why I suspect there are strangers hovering about. We must watch.”

Now Moss, for the first time, bethought himself of the boy he had brought in from the meadow; and now, for the first time, he told his family of that encounter.

“I never saw such a simpleton,” his father declared. “There, go along and work! Now, don’t cry, but hold up like a man and work.”

Moss did cry; he could not help it; but he worked too. He would fain have been one of the watchers, moreover; but his father said he was too young. For two nights he was ordered to bed, when Allan took his dark lantern, and went down to the pent-house; the first night accompanied by his father, and the next by Harry Hardiman, who had come on the first summons. By the third evening, Moss was so miserable that his sisters interceded for him, and he was allowed to go down with his old friend Harry.

It was a starlight night, without a moon. The low country lay dim, but unobscured by mist. After a single remark on the fineness of the night, Harry was silent. Silence was their first business. They stole round the fence as if they had been thieves themselves, listened for some time before they let themselves in at the gate, passed quickly in, and locked the gate (the lock of which had been well oiled), went behind every screen, and along every path, to be sure that no one was there, and finally, perceiving that the remaining ducks were safe, settled themselves in the darkness of the pent-house.

There they sat, hour after hour, listening. If there had been no sound, perhaps they could not have borne the effort; but the sense was relieved by the bark of a dog at a distance, and then by the hoot of the owl that was known to have done them good service in mousing, many a time; and once, by the passage of a train on the railway above. When these were all over, poor Moss had much ado to keep awake, and at last his head sank on Harry’s shoulder, and he forgot where he was, and everything else in the world. He was awakened by Harry’s moving, and then whispering quite into his ear: —

“Sit you still. I hear somebody yonder. No – sit you still. I won’t go far – not out of call; but I must get between them and the gate.”

With his lantern under his coat, Harry stole forth, and Moss stood up, all alone in the darkness and stillness. He could hear his heart beat, but nothing else, till footsteps on the path came nearer and nearer. They came quite up; they came in, actually into the arbor; and then the ducks were certainly fluttering. In an instant more, there was a gleam of light upon the white plumage of the ducks, and then light enough to show that this was the gypsy boy, with a dark lantern hung round his neck, and, at the same moment, to show the gypsy boy that Moss was there. The two boys stood, face to face, motionless from utter amazement, and the ducks had scuttled and waddled away before they recovered themselves. Then, Moss flew at him in a glorious passion, at once of rage and fear.

“Leave him to me, Moss,” cried Harry, casting light upon the scene from his lantern, while he collared the thief with the other hand. “Let go, I say, Moss. There, now we’ll go round and be sure whether there is any one else in the garden, and then we’ll lodge this young rogue where he will be safe.”

Nobody was there, and they went home in the dawn, locked up the thief in the shed, and slept through what remained of the night.

It was about Mr. Nelson’s usual time for coming down the line; and it was observed that he now always stopped at this station till the next train passed, – probably because it was a pleasure to him to look upon the improvement of the place. It was no surprise therefore to Woodruffe to see him standing on the embankment after breakfast; and it was natural that Mr. Nelson should be immediately told that the gypsies were here again, and how one of them was caught thieving.

“Thieving! So you found some of your property upon him, did you!”

“Why, no. I thought myself that it was a pity that Moss did not let him alone till he had laid hold of a duck or something.”

“Pho! pho! don’t tell me you can punish the boy for theft, when you can’t prove that he stole anything. Give him a whipping, and let him go.”

“With all my heart. It will save me much trouble to finish off the matter so.”

Mr. Nelson seemed to have some curiosity about the business; for he accompanied Woodruffe to the shed. The boy seemed to feel no awe of the great man whom he supposed to be a magistrate, and when asked whether he felt none, he giggled and said “No;” he had seen the gentleman more afraid of his mother than anybody ever was of him, he fancied. On this, a thought struck Mr. Nelson. He would now have his advantage of the gypsy woman, and might enjoy, at the same time, an opportunity of studying human nature under stress – a thing he liked, when the stress was not too severe. So he passed a decree on the spot that, it being now nine o’clock, the boy should remain shut up without food till noon, when he should be severely flogged, and driven from the neighborhood; and with this pleasant prospect before him, the young rogue remained, whistling ostentatiously, while his enemies locked the door upon him.

“Did you hear him shoot the bolt?” asked Woodruffe. “If he holds to that, I don’t know how I shall get at him at noon.”

“There, now, what fools people are! Why did you not take out the bolt? A pretty constable you would make! Come – come this way. I am going to find the gypsy-tent again. You are wondering that I am not afraid of the woman, I see; but, you observe, I have a hold over her this time. What do you mean by allowing those children to gather about your door? You ought not to permit it.”

“They are only the scholars. Don’t you see them going in? My daughter keeps a little school, you know, since her husband’s death.”

“Ah, poor thing! poor thing!” said Mr. Nelson, as Abby appeared on the threshold, calling the children in.

Mr. Nelson always contrived to see some one or more of the family when he visited the station; but it so happened, that he had never entered the door of their dwelling. Perhaps he was not himself fully conscious of the reason. It was, that he could not bear to see Abby’s young face within the widow’s cap, and to be thus reminded that hers was a case of cruel wrong; that if the most ordinary thought and care had been used in preparing the place for human habitation, her husband might be living now, and she the happy creature that she would never be again.

On his way to the gypsies, Mr. Nelson saw some things that pleased him in his heart, though he found fault with them all. What business had Woodruffe with an additional man in his garden? It could not possibly answer. If it did not, the fellow must be sent away again. He must not burden the parish. The occupiers here seemed all alike. Such a fancy for new labor! One, two, six men at work on the land within sight at that moment, over and above what there used to be! It must be looked to. Humph! he could get to the alders dryshod now; but that was owing solely to the warmth of the spring. It was nonsense to attribute everything to drainage. Drainage was a good thing; but fine weather was better.

The gypsy-tent was found behind the alders as before, but no longer in a swamp. The woman was sitting on the ground at the entrance as before, but not now with a fevered child laid across her knees. She was weaving a basket.

“Oh, I see,” said Woodruffe, “this is the way our osiers go.”

“You have not many to lose, now-a-days,” said the woman.

“You are welcome to all the rushes you can find,” said Woodruffe; “but where is your son?”

Some change of countenance was seen in the woman; but she answered carelessly that the children were playing yonder.

“The one I mean is not there,” said Woodruffe, “We have him safe – caught him stealing my ducks.”

She called the boy a villain – disowned him, and so forth; but when she found the case a hopeless one, she did not, and, therefore, probably could not scold – that is, anybody but herself and her husband. She cursed herself for coming into this silly place, where now no good was to be got. When she was brought to the right point of perplexity about what to do, seeing that it would not do to stay, and being unable to go while her boy was in durance, she was told that his punishment should be summary, though severe, if she would answer frankly certain questions. When she had once begun giving her confidence, she seemed to enjoy the license. When her husband came up, he looked as if he only waited for the departure of his visitors to give his wife the same amount of thrashing that her son was awaiting elsewhere. She vowed that they would never pitch their tent here again. It used to be the best station in their whole round – the fogs were so thick! From sunset to long after sunrise, it had been as good as a winter night, for going where they pleased without fear of prying eyes. There was not a poultry-yard or pig-stye within a couple of miles round, where they could not creep up through the fog. And they escaped the blame, too; for the swamp and ditches used to harbor so much vermin, that the gypsies were not always suspected, as they were now. Till lately, people shut themselves into their homes, or the men went to the public-house in the chill evenings; and there was little fear of meeting any one. But now that the fogs were gone, people were out in their gardens, on these fine evenings, and there were men in the meadows, returning from fishing; for they could angle now, when their work was done, without the fear of catching an ague in the marsh as they went home.