The Parson O' Dumford. Fenn George Manville

“Not I. I’m foreman, and get my wage reg’lar, and I don’t want none of their flummery. You should hear Ann go on about ’em.”

      “I beg your pardon, Banks,” said Mrs Glaire. “I might have known that you were too sensible a man to go to these meetings.”

      “Well, as to being sensible, I don’t know about that, Missus Glaire. Them two women folk at home do about what they like wi’ me.”

      “I don’t believe it, Joe,” said Mrs Glaire. “Daisy would not have grown up such a good, sensible girl if she had not had a firm, kind, sensible father.”

      “God bless her!” said Joe, and a little moisture appeared in one eye. Then speaking rather huskily – “Thank you, ma’am – thank you, Missus Glaire. I try to do my duty by her, and so does Ann.”

      “Is Ann quite well?”

      “Quite well, thank you kindly, ma’am,” said the foreman. “Don’t you be afeared for me, Missus Glaire. I worked with Richard Glaire, senior, thirty years ago, two working lads, and we was always best of friends both when we was poor, and when I saw him gradually grow rich, for he had a long head, had your husband, while I’d only got a square one. But I stuck to him, and he stuck to me, and when he died, leaving me his foreman, you know, Mrs Glaire, how he sent for me, and ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘good bye, God bless you! You’ve always been my right hand man. Stick to my son.’”

      “He did, Joe, he did,” said Mrs Glaire, with a deep sigh, and a couple of tears fell on her knitting.

      “And I’ll stick to him through thick and thin,” said the foreman, stoutly. “For I never envied Dick, his father – there, ’tain’t ’spectful to you, ma’am, to say Dick, though it comes natural – I never envied Master Glaire his success with his contracts, and getting on to be a big man. I was happy enough; but you know, ma’am, young Master Dick is arbitrary; he is indeed, and he can’t feel for a working man like his father did.”

      “He is more strict you see, Banks, that is all,” said Mrs Glaire, stiffly; and the foreman screwed up his face a little.

      “You advise him not to be quite so strict, ma’am. I wouldn’t advise you wrong, as you know.”

      “I know that, Joe Banks,” said Mrs Glaire, smiling pleasantly; “and I’ll say a word to him. But I wanted to say something to you.”

      “Well, I’ve been a wondering why you sent for me, ma’am,” said the foreman, bluntly.

      “You see,” said Mrs Glaire, hesitating, “there are little bits of petty tattle about.”

      “What, here, ma’am,” said the foreman, with a hearty laugh. “Of course there is, and always was, and will be.”

      “But they are about Daisy,” said Mrs Glaire, dashing at last into the matter.

      “I should just like to get hold of the man as said a word against my lass,” said Banks, stretching out a tremendous fist. “I’d crack him, I would, like a nut. But what have they been saying?”

      Volume One – Chapter Four.

      Daisy’s Father

      “Well,” said Mrs Glaire, who found her task more difficult than she had apprehended, “the fact is, they say she has been seen talking to my son.”

      “Is that all?” said the foreman, laughing in a quiet, hearty way.

      “Yes, that is all, and for Daisy’s sake I want it stopped. Have you heard or known anything?”

      “Well, to put it quite plain, the missus wants her to have Tom Podmore down at the works there, but the girl hangs back, and I found out the reason. I did see Master Dick talking to her one night, and it set me a thinking.”

      “And you didn’t stop it?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, sharply.

      “Stop it? Why should I stop it?” said the foreman. “She’s getting on for twenty, and is sure to begin thinking about sweethearts. Ann did when she was nineteen, and if I recollect right, little fair-haired Lisbeth Ward was only eighteen when she used to blush on meeting Dick Glaire. I see her do it,” said the bluff fellow, chuckling.

      “But that was long ago,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, excitedly. “Positions are changed since then. My son – ”

      “Well, ma’am, he’s a workman’s son, and my bairn’s a workman’s daughter. I’ve give her a good schooling, and she’s as pretty a lass as there is in these parts, and if your son Richard’s took a fancy to her, and asks me to let him marry her, and the lass likes him, why I shall say yes, like a man.”

      Mrs Glaire looked at him aghast. This was a turn in affairs she had never anticipated, and one which called forth all her knowledge of human nature to combat.

      “But,” she exclaimed, “he is engaged to his cousin here, Miss Pelly.”

      “Don’t seem like it,” chuckled the foreman. “Why, he’s always after Daisy now.”

      “Oh, this is dreadful!” gasped Mrs Glaire, dropping her knitting. “I tell you he is engaged – promised to be married to his second cousin, Miss Pelly.”

      “Stuff!” said Banks, laughing. “He’ll never marry she, though she’s a good, sweet girl.”

      “Don’t I tell you he will,” gasped Mrs Glaire. “Man, man, are you blind? This is dreadful to me, but I must speak. Has it never struck you that my son may have wrong motives with respect to your child?”

      “What?” roared the foreman; and the veins in his forehead swelled out, as his fists clenched. “Bah!” he exclaimed, resuming his calmness. “Nonsense, ma’am, nonsense. What! Master Dicky Glaire, my true old friend’s son, mean wrong by my lass Daisy? Mrs Glaire, ma’am, Mrs Glaire, for shame, for shame!”

      “The man’s infatuated!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, and she stared wonderingly at the bluff, honest fellow before her.

      “Why, ma’am,” said the foreman, smiling, “I wouldn’t believe it of him if you swore it. He’s arbitrary, and he’s too fond of his horses, and dogs, and sporting: but my Daisy! Oh, for shame, ma’am, for shame! He loves the very ground on which she walks.”

      “And – and” – stammered Mrs Glaire, “does – does Daisy care for him? Fool that I was to let her come here and be so intimate with Eve,” she muttered.

      “Well, ma’am,” said the foreman, thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure about that.”

      He was about to say more when Mrs Glaire stopped him.

      “Another time, Banks, another time,” she said, hastily. “Here is my son.”

      As she spoke Richard Glaire came into the garden with his hands in his pockets, and Eve Pelly clinging to one arm, looking bright and happy.

      The foreman started slightly, but gave himself a jerk and smiled, and then, in obedience to a gesture from his mistress, he left the garden and returned to the foundry.

      Volume One – Chapter Five.

      The Vicar’s Stroll

      The brick, as the vicar called it, was only another piece of slag; but he did not turn his head, only smiled, and began thinking that Dumford quite equalled the report he had heard of it. Then looking round the plain old church, peering inside through the windows, and satisfying himself that its architectural beauties were not of a very striking nature, he turned aside and entered the vicarage garden, giving a sigh of satisfaction on finding that his home was a comfortable red-brick, gable-ended house, whose exterior, with its garden overrun with weeds, promised well in its traces of former cultivation.

      A ring at a bell by the side post of the door brought forth a wan, washed-out looking woman, who looked at the visitor from top to toe, ending by saying sharply, in a vinegary tone of voice:

      “What d’yer want?”

      “To come in,” said the vicar, smiling. “Are you in charge