" TUMMAS."
rpHERE'S a blackbird singing like a mad thing in the hazel copse, and the year is still so young, or rather the season so backward, that the shin boughs cannot hide his stout black figure as he swings in the midst with wide-open bill. It is a cold, late season ; but he does not care for that, knowing that housekeeping time has come, and that he must make quite sure of engaging the affections of the lady blackbird who is criticising his lyric effusions from the hedge before he starts on the serious business of house- hunting. The fields are still dim with the dead, wet winter- green, and the hedges as you look down into the drenched valley are like trails of wet black bonfire-ash ; but on the southward hill-slopes the season is quickening, and a certain orchard below the Parsonage bill has started out of its serious brown winter-growth into a sudden loveliness of youth and promise. The early pear-blossom has come, so white and fragile that it seems like an enchanted thing that may vanish at a breath; but there it hangs like a lost cloud in the twisted brown orchard-boughs, and the blackbird must have composed a lyric of his own about it, for he is getting shriller as the sun leaves the hillside.
In the spring. . . .! "Tummas Old, he be mortal rough to-day," says Prudence, the parish nurse, with an air of grave concern on her placid face. "I doubt he'll not last the season. 'Tis tueble tryin' for the aged when the year be changin'. March do search, they say, and April try, but May tell 'ee to live or die; so he've two hard monthses to fare through. Though happen Tummas '11 last 'un, for he's stubborn ! But a sinkin' in's innards he have, something cruel, and pains i' the spine o' his back, and him so thin that 'tis a wonder to see the bones of 'un. But when the aged will go a-cartin' like young bachelors, and wait two hour or more of a cold night to drin earner, when they'd a better be bidin' in chimney nook wi' their Bibles . . . ." "Tummas " courting ! So the fancy of even a great-grandfather may yield to the season and lightly turn . . . ! It seems incredible but for the obstinate matrimonial bias of most of the W— patriarchs. And "Tummas" is hardly a prize among widowers, for he is a wizened little bobbling figure, white-haired and red-eyed like a ferret, and incredibly bowed into the parody of a man with his stick that looks like a third leg. He is a great-grand- father, and lives chiefly on his children; but the parish helps him a little, and now and then he gets a bit mole-catching for the farmers. He " bides " in a queer little lair like a badger's hole ; to reach it you must go up Frog Lane, and into old Mrs. Reeder's garden, and make a circuit of the house and the fence and the water-butt, and then you find the door of " Tummas's " abode; but it is neat and clean enough, for his daughter, Mrs. Hawke, "does for 'un," as she says, "with a conscience." "Tummas" courting ! But it is true, and this last time of asking has come very near cutting "Tummas " off in the bloom of his perennial hopefulness ; and, indeed, Mrs. Hawke, herself a grandmother, seems rather sorry that the Reaper refrained this time from mowing down her parent like a weather-beaten teazle.
The Hawke family, have a point of family pride which has been deeply outraged by their sire's inveterate habit of matri- mony. " Tummas" is eighty-four now, and two years since his wife died. Within eight months he repaired the loss of his sixty years' companion by proposing to another widowed soul of seventy-five, in open defiance of all the proprieties.
• The village stood aghast, and his scandalised family tried to stop the match by every means in their power. ,They repre- sented the heartlessness of such conduct, the unsuitability of the match, the loss of social position it would entail on both parties, and the ridicule that his family would undergo; but "Tummas" and his bride-elect were firm, and at last Mrs. Hawke determined on the extreme measure of a publics pro- test. Morning church was assembled, farmers and miners stacked in rows with pewfuls of their families, and the village consciousness was roused from its usual plethoric Sabbath calm by observing " Tummas " awaiting with a coy expression the moment for giving out the banns. Banns are not too common in W—, and when the men and maidens are about to be "cried" in church the village experiences a thrill of interest and emotion unknown in populous places, where "hatches, matches, and despatches" are things of everyday occurrence. Once two unprincipled characters cheated the congregation of its lawful sensation by sneaking off and getting married at the Registrar's ; but they were "made to feel it" when they came back, and such a breach of parochial trust has not since occurred. So there was considerable excitement when, towards the close of the Second Lesson, the congregation became aware of a subdued but agonised discussion going on in its midst. "Thee ought to do 'un, for sure thou didst. 'Tis waft that a female should cry out in church," said a strangled feminine whisper, which only elicited a gruff "Nay, that I wunn't ; do't thysel ; 'a bain't my feytber and 'a may bide for I." But here the banns broke in : "Thomas Old, widower, of this parish, and Eliza Redding, of the parish of Clayton, widow. This is for the first time of asking." And Mrs. Hawke, flustered but resolute, and red in the face with a sense of her conspicuous position, rose up, nervously gripping a stolid husband by the collar. "I forbid they banns, I do!" she cried; and then, the deed done, and the honours of the situation crowding in on her mental vision, she remained standing, flushed with triumph, and still gripping the back of her husband's honest mahogany neck till it was telescoped into the slack of his Sunday collar by her excited clutch. " Sit down, woman, do 'ee now," mumbled he; and "Come to the vestry at the close of the service," said the Rector without apparent concern ; and Mrs. Hawke subsided into her seat in a whirl of conflicting emotions, too agitated to observe the effect of her protest on "Tummas," who sat with his mouth ajar, but not perceptibly daunted. When Mrs. Hawke's eye at last fell on him she was soberly elated. Now at least " feyther " was baffled, and her valiant deed had its reward. But her hopes experienced a rude reverse after a triumphal progress to the vestry in the face of an admiring and speculative congregation. Impossible to imagine, but Parson's authority was found to be of no avail. " Tummas " was no youngling of the flock, but a sheep of ripe age. "Eighty-two year he be, and shame to think on for's foolishness," allowed the aggrieved daughter, shocked to find that the Church could not violently dislodge this elderly wanderer from the thicket of error that he had chosen. "If he wants to marry, you can't stop him," said the rector, "unless he's crazy ; but he's not that." And his promise of a pastoral admonition gave Mrs. Hawke little comfort. "For he be martal stubborn," said she. It was hard. All her heroism had been fruitless. One had better be a Dissenter and choose one's minister, if they could do no more than this ; and she returned crestfallen to join the ninety-and-nine righteous on the bridge, while the wandering sheep triumphed in the background. But popular feeling was against him, and be would have been mobbed at the wedding if the Squire bad not strolled casually down and stood in evidence near the porch, where his magisterial eye daunted the rioters. So " Tummas " led his bride unmolested to his lair, where the three Chippendale chairs, the chest, and the set of blue jugs had probably more bold on her affections than the ferret-like person of " Tummas" himself. "Her weren't much of a woman," even dispassionate neighbours allowed that ; and though the second Mrs. Old did not actively illtreat "Tummas," her "common ways" were gall to his family, and they regarded it as a judgment and a dispensation when a bad autumn removed her the year following. Now, surely, " granleyther " would be content to "bide quiet in chimney nook," and be "done for" like a well-conducted patriarch, and let his family get some benefit from his parish dole. But no! " Tummas's " zeal for experiment grew with experience, and the " blacks " in which he had mourned his first wife had hardly got their creases smoothed out for his second, than behold the twice-widowed one looking round for a third !
His family was distracted, and talked of "getting 'un put away," but feared to plunge into the unknown dangers of the law that must be fathomed before that desirable event could be brought about, for " Tummas's " faculties were regrettably acute, and much manceuvring would have been needed to get him into a " sidl'um." " Tummas " belongs to a type not uncommon in remote villages. He is an entirely primitive creature, whose sensibilities never have been much more acute than one can suppose those of a turnip to be, and he seems to share the turnip quality of becoming tougher and stringier with age, until at last, when a wet season sets in, he will dis- appear suddenly in a pulp. But this time fate interposed on Mrs. Hawke's behalf, and for some reason " Tummas " lost the favour of the fair. Nobody would have him. " Tummas " was annoyed, and his family rejoiced solemnly when news came of the first rebuff. Mrs. Eliza Gooding, of Featherbed Lane, had bidden " Tummaa " "think shame of hissen for an old soft" when he had with some precipitation suggested that she should take possession of him, the chairs, and the blue jugs. Mrs. Gooding had chairs and jugs of her own, and did not want to be encumbered with a " Tummas " at her time of life. " Fve had enough to do to tend myself, I have, and can't be bothered with he," said Mrs. Gooding, who had no illusions about the estate of matrimony, and knew that your first duty is to feed your husband, and your second to wash his shirts. " Tummas," baffled, tried again, this time a spinster woman, who might be expected to receive his advances with something more like gratitude. But here he miscalculated. Sixty years' unbiassed observation of the habits of mankind had reduced Eliza Shanks's philosophy to the simple formula: "Queer critters, they menfolk. Less one meddles wi' they, less they'll trouble 'ee" ; and " Tummas" was again rejected with more firmness than politeness.
These affairs of the heart of course became common property, and " Tummas's " family, sensitive on the point of their parent's idiosyncrasy, were driven wild by hearing it discussed everywhere. "It were disgracin' his family," said Mrs. Hawke, though her husband said: "Let 'un wed and be hanged to 'un." But now his daughter's heart was wrung by the double ignominy of a parent silly enough to try to wed, and too silly to succeed. Hope, however, sprang eternal in the breast of " Tummas," and in the neighbouring town of B— he succeeded in finding a widow woman who appeared to regard him with becoming warmth; and one morning he shocked his family anew by announcing that she was coming out to W— for the purpose of seeing his home and accept- ing his hand. But when she arrived, it turned out that " Tummas," made cautious by rebuffs, had wrapped up his proposal so diplomatically that the lady had only construed it into an invitation to spend a day in the country. Mrs. Hawke, perceiving her advantage, pressed it to the utter discomfiture of her parent, and the lady from B— returned home estranged for ever. This was the occasion on which " Tummas " caught the chill which came so near conclusively blighting his octo- genarian ardour. But the ministrations of Prudence and his daughter revived him—though they might have been pardoned for "letting him go "—and shortly after " Tummas" was met descending Frog Lane at a bririk toddle. A weird old figure he was, clad in an ancient blazer of the Squire's, and looking like the picture of Old Age in a book of emblems. He was a mixture of the comic and the grisly, for he was shrunk, and bowed, and aged; but his sunken red eye gleamed with a fitful twinkle, and his figure had a ghastly animation, as if an ancient skeleton should walk abroad in the sun to terrify careless livers. Mrs. Hawke was standing at her gate bard by, making the worst of the situation with a gloomy relish. " Peart " said she. "A bit too peart he be to please L 'A wunn't niver bide to whum nor stay aisy in a chair marnin's as an aged man should. 'A be more trouble nor ten childern, along o's marryin' ways, for 'tie fair scandalous at the age of 'en to think to such folly. 'A do go here and there and out o' my sight for iver, and can't be smacked like a little 'un, nayther. But we'm gwain to send 'un over to B— come June, to bide along o' my sister as '11 go there shortly. Her be masterful truly, and feyther '11 be bested by she! But 'a do last, at the age of 'un, that 'tis a merracle, and I shouldn't niver wonder to see 'un get another wife yet before he be put i' the dirt. And truly I'd rather follow 'un to's grave, I would, for then I'd know where he were to," said. the dutiful daughter, gazing regretfully after her parent. But " Tummas " does not mean to give her the chance just yet!
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