Sabine Baring-Gould - The Broom-Squire

"Look here, Mehetabel, I've not been a marrying man. Wife and family cost too much. I've been saving and not spending. But this can't go on forever. All good things come to an end some time. It has come to this, I must have a woman to mind the house. My sister and I have had a tiff. You know her, Sarah Rocliffe. She won't do as I like, and what I want. So I'll just shut the door in her face and make a long nose at her, and say, 'Got some one else now.'"

"So," exclaimed Mehetabel, the color rushing to her cheeks in anger, "you want me as your housekeeper that you may make a nose at your sister and deny her the house."

"I won't have any other woman in my house but yourself."

"You will have to wait a long time before you get me."

"I mean all fair and honorable," said Jonas. "I didn't say housekeeper, did I? I say wife. If any chap had said to me, Bideabout, you are putting your feet into a rabbit net, and will be caught, and – '" he made a sign as if knocking a rabbit's neck to kill it – "I say, had any one said that, I'd a' laughed at him as a fool."

"You may laugh at him still," said the girl. "No one that I know has set any net for you."

"You have," he sniggered. "Aye, and caught me."

"I!" laughed Mehetabel contemptuously, "I spread a net for you? It is you who pursue and pester me. I never gave you a thought save how to make you keep at arm's length."

"You say that to me." His color went.

"It is ridiculous, it is insulting of you to speak to me of netting and catching. What do I want of you save to be let go my way."

"Come, Mehetabel," said the Broom-Squire caressingly, "we won't quarrel about words. I didn't mean what you have put on me. I want you to come and be my wife. It isn't only that I've had a quarrel with my sister. There's more than that. There is something like a stoat at my heart, biting there, and I have no rest till you say – 'I'll have you, Jonas!'"

"The stoat must hang on. I can't say that."

"Why not?"

"I am not obliged to give a reason."

"Will you not have me?"

"No, Bideabout, I will not. How can I take an offer made in this way? When you ask me to enable you to be rude to your sister, when you speak of me as laying traps for you; and when you stay me on my road as if you were a footpad."

Again she made an attempt to go in the direction of the hayfield.

Her bosom was heaving with anger, her nostrils were quivering.

Again he arrested her.

"If you will not let me go," said she, "I will call for help. Here comes father. He shall protect me."

"I'll have you yet," said the Broom-Squire with a sneer. "If it ain't you that nets me, then it'll be I net you, Mehetabel."

"We must have cake and ale for the hayfield," said Mrs. Verstage.

"Of ale there be plenty in the house, but for cake, I must bake.

It ort to ha' been done afore. Fresh cakes goes twice as fast as

stale, but blessin's on us, the weather have been that changeable

I didn't know but I might put it off to anywhen."

This was said on the morrow of the occurrence just described.

Whilst Mrs. Verstage was engaged in the baking she had not time for much talk, but she asked abruptly: "What's that as to Bideabout? Father said he'd come on you and him, and you was both in a sort o' take on."

Mehetabel had no reason for reticence, and she told the hostess of the suit of the Broom-Squire, and of the manner in which he made his proposal. Mrs. Verstage said nothing at the time. She was occupied – too occupied for comments. But when the cake was in the oven, she seated herself at the kitchen table, with a sigh of relief, and beckoned to Mehetabel to do the same.

Mrs. Verstage was warm, both on account of the heat of the morning, but also because she had been hard at work. She fanned herself with a dish, and as she did so looked at the girl.

"So – the Broom-Squire offered himself, did he?"

Mehetabel made a sign in the affirmative.

"Well," continued the hostess, "if he weren't so good a customer here he would be suitable enough. But yet a good wife will soon cure him. A hudger (bachelor) does things as a married man don't allow himself."

Mehetabel looked questioningly at the landlady.

She said: "There must be good stuff in a man, or marriage won't bring it out."

"Who says there ain't good stuff in Bideabout?"

"I have never seen the glint of it."

"You don't see the iron ore as lies under the sand, but there it is, and when wanted it can be worked. I like a man to show his wust side forefront. There's many a man's character is like his wesket, red plush and flowers in front and calico in rags behind hid away under his coat."

Mehetabel was surprised, troubled. She made no response, but color drifted across her face.

"After all," pursued Mrs. Verstage, "he may ha' come here not after liquor, but drawed by you. Then you see he's been alone all these years, and scriptur' saith it ain't good for a man to be that. They goes sour and mouldy – men do if unmarried. I think you'd be fulfillin' your dooty, and actin' accordin' to the word o' God if you took him."

"I – mother! I!" The girl shrank back. "Mother, let him take some one else. I don't want him."

"But he wants you, and he don't want another. Matabel, it's all moonshine about leap year. The time never comes when the woman can ax the man. It's tother way up – and Providence made it so. Bideabout has a good bit o' land, for which he is his own landlord, he has money laid by, so folks tell. You might do worse. It's a great complerment he's paid you. You see he's well off, and you have nothin'. Men generally, nowadays, look out for wives that have a bit o' money to help buy a field, or a cow, or nothin' more than a hog. You see Bideabout's above that sort o' thing. If you can't have butter to your bread, you must put up wi' drippin."

"I'm not going to take Bideabout," said Mehetabel.

"I don't say you should. But he couldn't a took a fancy to you wi'out Providence ordainin' of it."

"And if I don't like him," threw in the girl, half angry, half in tears, "I suppose that is the doings of Providence too?"

Mrs. Verstage evaded a reply to this. She said: "I do not press you to take him. You are kindly welcome to stay on with us a bit, till you've looked about you and found another. We took you up as a babe and cared for you; but the parish allowance was stopped when you was fourteen. It shan't be said of us that bare we took you in and bare we turn you out. But marry you must. It's ordained o' nature. There's the difference atwixt a slug and a snail. The snail's got her own house to go into. A slug hasn't. When she's uncomfortable she must go underground."

The hostess was silent for awhile. Mehetabel said nothing. Her cheeks burned. She was choking.

Mrs. Verstage went on: "There was Betsy Purvis – she was a bit of a beauty, and gave herself airs. She wouldn't have Farmer James, as his legs was so long, he looked like a spider – and she wouldn't have Odger Kay, as his was too short – he looked like a dachs-dog. It came in the end she married Purvis, who had both his legs shot off in the wars, 'cos and why? she couldn't get another. She'd been too finical in choosin'."

"Are you tired of me?" gasped the girl. "Do you wish to be rid of me?"

"Not at all," answered the landlady. "It's becos we're so fond of you, father and I, that we want to see you well settled."

"And father – does he wish me to take Bideabout?"

Mrs. Verstage hesitated.

"He hasn't said that right out. You see he didn't know for certain Jonas were hoppin' about you. But he'd be tremendous pleased to have you well married."

"And you think I should be well married if I became Bideabout's wife?"

"Of course. He's a great catch for the likes of you, who belong to nobody and to no place, properly. Beggars mustn't be choosers."