Sabine Baring-Gould - The Broom-Squire

"I say," shouted he, "there's been a man killed, and here's a baby yelling, and I don't know what's the matter with it. I stumbled."

A man who was pulling off his boots started to his feet.

"Stop that darned noise," he said. "My wife – she's bad – got the fever, and can't abide no noise. Stop that din instantly, or I'll kick you out. Who are you, and what do'y mean rushing in on a fellow that way?"

The boy endeavored to explain, but his voice was tremulous, and the cries of the infant pitched at a higher note, and louder.

"I can't hear, and I don't want to," said the man. "Do you mind what I sed? My wife be terrible bad wi' fever, and her head all of a split, and can't bear no noise – and will you do what I say? Take that brat away. Is this my house or is it yours? Take that 'orrid squaller away, or I'll shy my boot at yer head."

"But," said Iver, "there's a man dead – been murdered up in the – "

"There'll be more afore long, if you don't cut. I'll heave that boot at you when I've counted thrice, if you don't get out. Drat that child! It'll wake my wife. Now, then, are you going?"

Iver retreated hastily as the man whirled his heavy boot above his head by the lace.

On leaving the house he looked about him in the dark. The cottages were scattered here and there, some in hollows by springs, others on knolls above them, without a definite road between them, except when two enclosures formed a lane betwixt their hedges.

The boy was obliged to step along with great care, and to feel his way in front of him with his foot before planting it. A quarter of an hour had elapsed before he reached the habitation of the next squatter.

This was a ramshackle place put together of doors and windows fitted into walls, made of boards, all taken from ruinous cottages that had been pillaged, and their wreckage pieced together as best could be managed. Here Iver knocked, and the door was opened cautiously by an old man, who would not admit him till he had considered the information given.

"What do you say? A man murdered? Where? When? Are the murderers about?"

"They have run away."

"And what do you want me to do?"

"Would you mind taking in the poor little baby, and going to help

Master Bideabout Kink to carry the body down."

"Where to? Not here. We don't want no bodies here."

The old fellow would have slammed the door in Iver's face had not the boy thrust in foot and knee.

Then a woman was heard calling, "What is that there, Jamaica? I hear a babe."

"Please, Mrs. Cheel, here is a poor little creature, the child of the murdered man, and it has no one to care for it," said the boy.

"A babe! Bless me! give the child to me," cried the woman. "Now then, Jamaica, bundle out of that, and let me get at the baby."

"No, I will not, Betsy," retorted the man designated Jamaica. "Why should I? Ask for an inch, and they'll have an ell. Stick in the toe of the baby, and they'll have the dead father after it. I don't want no corpses here."

"I will have the baby. I haven't set my eyes on a baby this hundred years."

"I say you shan't have nothing of the sort."

"I say I shall. If I choose to have a baby, who's to say me nay?"

"I say you nay. You shan't have no babies here."

"This is my house as much as yourn."

"I'm master I reckon."

"You are an old crabstick."

"You're an old broom-handle."

"Say that again."

"I say it."

"Now then – are you going to hit me?"

"I intend to."

Then the old man and his wife fell to fighting, clawing and battering each other, the woman screaming out that she would have a baby, the man that she should not.

Iver had managed to enter. The woman snatched at the child, the man wrenched it away from her. The boy was fain to escape outside and fly from the house with the child lest the babe should be torn in pieces between them. He knew old Cheel and his wife well by repute – for a couple ever quarrelling.

He now made his way to another house, one occupied by settlers of another family. There were here some sturdy sons and daughters.

When Iver had entered with the babe in his arms and had told his tale, the young people were full of excitement.

"Bill," said one of the lads to his brother, "I say! This is news. I'm off to see."

"I'll go along wi' you, Joe."

"How did they kill him?" asked one of the girls. "Did they punch him on the head?"

"Or cut his throat?" asked Bill.

"Joe!" called one of the girls, "I'll light the lantern, and we'll all go."

"Aye!" said the father, "these sort o' things don't happen but once in a lifetime."

"I wouldn't be out of seeing it for nuthin'," said the mother.

"Did he die sudden like or take a long time about it?"

"I suppose they'll inquitch him," said one of the girls.

"There'll be some hanging come o' this," said one of the boys.

"Oh, my! There will be goings on," said the mother. "Dear life,

I may never have such a chance again. Stay for me, Betsy Anne.

I'm going to put on my clogs."

"Mother, I ain't agoing to wait for your clogs."

"Why not? He won't run away."

"And the baby?" asked Iver.

"Oh, bother the baby. We want to see the dead man."

"I wonder, now, where they'll take him to?" asked the mother.

"Shall we have him here?"

"I don't mind," said the father. "Then he'll be inquitched here; but I don't want no baby."

"Nor do I nuther," said the woman. "Stay a moment, Betsy Anne! I'm coming. Oh, my! whatever have I done to my stocking, it's tore right across."

"Take the child to Bideabout," said one young man, "we want no babies here, but we'll have the corpse, and welcome. Folks will come and make a stir about that. But we won't have no babies. Take that child back where you found it."

"Babies!" said another, scornfully, "they come thick as blackberries, and bitter as sloes. But corpses – and they o' murdered men – them's coorosities."

"But the baby?" again asked the boy.

Iver stood in the open air with the child in his arms. He was perplexed. What should be done with it? He would have rubbed his head, to rub an idea into it, had not both his arms been engaged.

Large warm drops fell from the sky, like tears from an overcharged heart. The vault overhead was now black with rain clouds, and a flicker over the edge of the Punch-Bowl, like the quivering of expiring light in a despairing eye, gave evidence that a thunderstorm was gathering, and would speedily break.

The babe became peevish, and Iver was unable to pacify it.

He must find shelter somewhere, and every door was shut against the child. Had it not been that the storm was imminent, Iver would have hasted directly home, in full confidence that his tender-hearted mother would receive the rejected of the Broom-Squire, and the Ship Inn harbor what the Punch-Bowl refused to entertain.

He stumbled in the darkness to Jonas Kink's house, but finding the door locked, and that the rain was beginning to descend out of the clouds in rushes, he was obliged to take refuge in an out-house or barn – which the building was he could not distinguish. Here he was in absolute darkness. He did not venture to grope about, lest he should fall over some of the timber that might be, and probably was, collected there.

He supposed that he was in the place where Jonas fashioned his brooms, in which case the chopping block, the bundles of twigs, as well as the broom-sticks would be lying about. Bideabout was not an orderly and tidy worker, and his material would almost certainly be dispersed and strewn in such a manner as to trip up and throw down anyone unaccustomed to the place, and unprovided with a light.

The perspiration broke out on the boy's brow. The tears welled up in his eyes. He danced the infant in his arms, he addressed it caressingly, he scolded it. Then, in desperation, he laid it on the ground, and ran forth, through the rain, to the cottage of an old maid near, named Sally, stopping, however, at intervals in his career, to listen whether the child were still crying; but unable to decide, owing to the prolonged chime in his ears. It is not at once that the drums of hearing obtain relief, after that they have been set in vibration by acute clamor. On reaching the old maid's door he knocked.