Bessie Costrell | Page 2

for Eliza now, with no one but Jim's Louisa to look after her.
He grew rather downhearted as he trudged along, thinking. She and he had stuck together "a many year." There would be nobody left for him to go along with when she was gone. There was his niece Bessie Costrell and her husband, and there was his silly old cousin Widow Waller. He dared say they'd both of them want him to live with them. At the thought a grin crossed his ruddy face. They both knew about it--that was what it was. And he wouldn't live with either of them, not he. Not yet a bit, anyway. All the same, he had a fondness for Bessie and her husband. Bessie was always very civil to him--he chuckled again--and if anything had to be done with it, while he was five miles off at Frampton on a job of work that had been offered him, he didn't know but he'd as soon trust Isaac Costrell and Bessie as anybody else. You might call Isaac rather a fool, what with his religion, and "extemp'ry prayin', an' that," but all the same Bolderfield thought of him with a kind of uneasy awe. If ever there was a man secure of the next world it was Isaac Costrell. His temper, perhaps, was "nassty," which might pull him down a little when the last account came to be made up; and it could not be said that his elder children had come to much, for all his piety. But, on the whole, Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the Powers talked about in chapel every Sunday as Isaac did.
As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never a bit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But, "Lor' bless yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie." She wasn't one of your sour people--she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart. Many a pleasant evening had he passed chatting with her and Isaac; and whenever they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him. Yes, Bessie had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one he dared say he'd trust them.
"Well, how's Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?" said a woman who passed him in the village street.
He replied, and then went on his way, sobered again, dreading to find himself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with the bed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least, out in the air and the sun. There was always a thought in his mind, a fact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It had so stood for a long, long time. He walked through the village to-night, in spite of Eliza and his sixty years, with a free bearing and a confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the village knew, that he was not as other men.
He passed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a lane leading to the hill. Half-way up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxes and marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses, starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticed windows. They were, however, comparatively modern and comfortable, with two bedrooms above and two living-rooms below, far superior to the older and more picturesque cottages in the main street.
John went in softly, put down his straw dinner-bag, and took off his heavy boots. Then he opened a door in the wall of the kitchen, and gently climbed the stairs.
A girl was sitting by the bed. When she saw his whitish head and red face emerge against the darkness of the stair-hole, she put up her finger for silence.
John crept in and came to look at the patient. His eyes grew round and staring, his colour changed.
"Is she a-goin'?" he said, with evident excitement.
Jim's Louisa shook her head. She was rather a stupid girl, heavy and round-faced, but she had nursed her grandmother well.
"No; she's asleep. Muster Drew's been here, and she dropped off while he was a-talkin' to her."
Mr. Drew was the Congregational minister.
"Did she send for him?"
"Yes; she said she felt her feet a-gettin' cold, and I must run. But I don't believe she's no worse."
John stood looking down, ruefully. Suddenly the figure in the bed turned.
"John," said a comparatively strong voice which made Bolderfield start--"John, Muster Drew says you'd oughter put it in the bank. You'll be a fool if yer don't, 'ee says."
The old woman's pinched face emerged from the sheets, looking up at him. Bluish patches showed here and there on the drawn white skin; there was a great change since the