Baruch remembered them well enough. Who that had ever seen them
could forget them?
'And it was I as took you! You wouldn't think it, my dear, though
he's always a-arguin', I do believe he'd love to go that walk again,
even with an old woman, and see them heavenly beeches. But, Lord,
how I do talk, and you've neither of you got any tea.'
'Have you lived long in London, Miss Hopgood?' inquired Baruch.
'Not very long.' 'Do you feel the change?'
'I cannot say I do not.' 'I suppose, however, you have brought yourself to believe in Mrs
Caffyn's philosophy?' 'I cannot say that, but I may say that I am scarcely strong enough
for mere endurance, and I therefore always endeavour to find
something agreeable in circumstances from which there is no escape.'
The recognition of the One in the Many had as great a charm for
Baruch as it had for Socrates, and Clara spoke with the ease of a
person whose habit it was to deal with principles and
generalisations.
'Yes, and mere toleration, to say nothing of opposition, at least so
far as persons are concerned, is seldom necessary. It is generally
thought that what is called dramatic power is a poetic gift, but it
is really an indispensable virtue to all of us if we are to be
happy.' Mrs Caffyn did not take much interest in abstract statements. 'You
remember,' she said, turning to Baruch, 'that man Chorley as has the
big farm on the left-hand side just afore you come to the common? He
wasn't a Surrey man: he came out of the shires.'
'Very well.'
'He's married that Skelton girl; married her the week afore I left.
There isn't no love lost there, but the girl's father said he'd
murder him if he didn't, and so it come off. How she ever brought
herself to it gets over me. She has that big farm-house, and he's
made a fine drawing-room out of the livin' room on the left-hand side
as you go in, and put a new grate in the kitchen and turned that into
the livin' room, and they does the cooking in the back kitchen, but
for all that, if I'd been her, I'd never have seen his face no more,
and I'd have packed off to Australia.'
'Does anybody go near them?'
'Near them! of course they do, and, as true as I'm a-sittin' here,
our parson, who married them, went to the breakfast. It isn't
Chorley as I blame so much; he's a poor, snivellin' creature, and he
was frightened, but it's the girl. She doesn't care for him no more
than me, and then again, although, as I tell you, he's such a poor
creature, he's awful cruel and mean, and she knows it. But what was
I a-goin' to say? Never shall I forget that wedding. You know as
it's a short cut to the church across the farmyard at the back of my
house. The parson, he was rather late--I suppose he'd been giving
himself a finishin' touch--and, as it had been very dry weather, he
went across the straw and stuff just at the edge like of the yard.
There was a pig under the straw--pigs, my dear,' turning to Clara,
'nuzzle under the straw so as you can't see them. Just as he came to
this pig it started up and upset him, and he fell and straddled
across its back, and the Lord have mercy on me if it didn't carry him
at an awful rate, as if he was a jockey at Epsom races, till it come
to a puddle of dung water, and then down he plumped in it. You never
see'd a man in such a pickle! I heer'd the pig a-squeakin' like mad,
and I ran to the door, and I called out to him, and I says, "Mr
Ormiston, won't you come in here?" and though, as you know, he allus
hated me, he had to come. Mussy on us, how he did stink, and he saw
me turn up my nose, and he was wild with rage, and he called the pig
a filthy beast. I says to him as that was the pig's way and the pig
didn't know who it was who was a-ridin' it, and I took his coat off
and wiped his stockings, and sent to the rectory for another coat,
and he crept up under the hedge to his garden, and went home, and the
people at church had to wait for an hour. I was glad I was goin'
away from Great Oakhurst, for he never would have forgiven me.'