Bessie Costrell

Bessie Costrell, by Mrs.
Humphry Ward

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Title: Bessie Costrell
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
Release Date: July 26, 2007 [EBook #22128]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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COSTRELL ***

Produced by Al Haines

BESSIE COSTRELL
BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

AUTHOR OF
"ROBERT ELSMERE," "THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE,"
"MARCELLA," ETC.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO
1912

SCENE I
It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly
for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer
than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its
way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate
lattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the
wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk hill itself. Against
that glowing background lay the village, already engulfed by the
advancing shadow. All the nearer trees, which the daylight had mingled
in one green monotony, stood out sharp and distinct, each in its own
plane, against the hill. Each natural object seemed to gain a new accent,
a more individual beauty, from the vanishing and yet lingering sunlight.
An elderly labourer was walking along the road which led to the village.
To his right lay the allotment gardens just beginning to be alive with
figures, and the voices of men and children. Beyond them, far ahead,
rose the square tower of the church; to his left was the hill, and straight
in front of him the village, with its veils of smoke lightly brushed over
the trees, and its lines of cottages climbing the chalk steeps behind it.
His eye as he walked took in a number of such facts as life had trained
it to notice. Once he stopped to bend over a fence, to pluck a stalk or
two of oats. He examined them carefully; then he threw back his head
and sniffed the air, looking all round the sky meanwhile. Yes, the

season had been late and harsh, but the fine weather was coming at last.
Two or three days' warmth now would ripen even the oats, let alone the
wheat.
Well, he was glad. He wanted the harvest over. It would, perhaps, be
his last harvest at Clinton Magna, where he had worked, man and boy,
for fifty-six years come Michaelmas. His last harvest! A curious
pleasure stirred the man's veins as he thought of it, a pleasure in
expected change, which seemed to bring back the pulse of youth, to
loosen a little the yoke at those iron years that had perforce aged and
bent him; though, for sixty-two, he was still hale and strong.
Things had all come together. Here was "Muster" Hill, the farmer he
had worked for these seventeen years, dying of a sudden, with a
carbuncle on the neck, and the farm to be given up at Michaelmas.
He--John Bolderfield--had been working on for the widow; but, in his
opinion, she was "nobbut a caselty sort of body," and the sooner she
and her children were taken off to Barnet, where they were to live with
her mother, the less she'd cost them as had the looking after her. As for
the crops, they wouldn't pay the debts; not they. And there was no one
after the farm--"nary one"--and didn't seem like to be. That would make
another farm on Muster Forrest's hands. Well, and a good job.
Landlords must be "took down"; and there was plenty of work going on
the railway just now for those that were turned off.
He was too old for the railway, though, and he might have found it hard
to get fresh work if he had been staying at Clinton. But he was not
staying. Poor Eliza wouldn't last more than a few days; a week or two
at most, and he was not going to keep on the cottage after he'd buried
her.
Aye, poor Eliza! She was his sister-in-law, the widow of his second
brother. He had been his brother's lodger during the greater part of his
working life, and since Tom's death he had stayed on with Eliza. She
and he suited each other, and the "worritin' childer" had all gone away
years since and left them in peace. He didn't believe Eliza knew where
any of them were, except Mary, "married over to Luton"--and Jim and
Jim's Louisa. And