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CHAPTER IV.
“Aud Adam Olliver.”

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“Though old, he still retain’d

His manly sense and energy of mind,

Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;

He still remembered that he once was young;

His easy presence checked no decent joy,

Him even the dissolute admired; for he

A graceful looseness, when he pleased, put on,

And, laughing, could instruct.”

Armstrong.

THE nearest neighbour to Nathan Blyth was an old farm labourer called Adam Olliver, who for forty years and more, as man and boy, had toiled and moiled on Gregory Houston’s farm. He had now reached an age at which he was unequal to prolonged and heavy labour, and so he spent his time in cutting and trimming the farmer’s hedges—his thoughtful master giving him to understand that though his wages were to be continued as usual, he was at full liberty to work when it pleased him, and to rest when he chose. The old man used to ride to and from his labour on a meek and mild old donkey, which rejoiced in the name of Balaam, and which was never known to travel at any other pace than a slow jog-trot, or to carry any other rider than his master. No sooner did old Balaam become conscious that he was bestridden by any unfamiliar biped, than he curved his neck downwards, placed his head between his knees, elevated his hinder quarters suddenly into mid-air, and ejected the unwelcome tenant of the saddle, and with so brief a notice to quit, that he had generally completed an involuntary somersault, and was landed on Mother Earth, before he knew the nature of the indignity to which he had been subjected.

Adam was somewhat short in stature, thick-set in form and frame; his hair was short and grizzly, and his thick iron-grey eyebrows overarched a pair of twinkling blue eyes, full of keen insight and kindly humour. His fustian coat and battered “Jim Crow,” like his wrinkled and sun-browned features, were “weather-tanned, a duffil grey,” and, like his own bending frame, were a good deal worse for wear. A pair of old corduroy nether garments, buttoned at the knees, with gaiters of the same material, affording a peep at the warm, coarse-ribbed, blue worsted stockings underneath, with hobnailed boots armed with heel and toe-plates, all helped to make up a very quaint and favourable picture of his class—a class common enough upon the Yorkshire farms.

Adam Olliver’s talk was the very broadest Doric of the broadest dialect to be found amid all the phonetic fantasies of England, and his responses to the inquiries of tourists and others, not “to the manner born,” who asked the old hedge-cutter the way, say to Kesterton or Hazelby, were given in what was, to all intents and purposes, high Dutch to the bewildered listeners. They would have been left in glorious uncertainty as to his meaning, but that Old Adam’s energetic and oratorical action generally sufficed to speed the querist in the right direction. He was an honest, upright, intelligent Christian, was Adam, and an old-standing member of the little Methodist society, which had managed to hold its own in the village of Nestleton, and which, for want of a chapel, held its meetings in Farmer Houston’s kitchen. All the villagers held the old man in respect, and few there were who did not enjoy “a crack o’ talk” with the old hedger. His odd humour, sound piety, and practical common sense, were expressed in short, sharp, nuggety sentences, which hit the nail on the head with a thump that drove it home without the need of a second blow. But I hope to give Adam Olliver abundant opportunity to speak for himself, and will say no more than that his “Aud Woman,” as he called his good wife Judith, or Judy in Yorkshire parlance, had been the partner of his joys and sorrows for nearly forty years, and was still a buxom body for her age; that of his three children, Jake the eldest, was Farmer Houston’s foreman; Pete, the second, was seeking his fortune in America; and Hannah, a strapping good-looking lass of nineteen, was under-housemaid at Waverdale Hall, and that all of them will ever and anon appear in the true and impartial village annals I am here recording.

On the evening of a fine spring day, Old Adam, having made Balaam snug and comfortable in a little thatched, half-tumble-down outhouse which did duty for a stable, and having despatched his frugal evening meal, was seated on a small wooden bench outside his cottage door, enjoying the fragrance of some tobacco which Pete had sent him, using for that purpose a short black pipe of small dimensions, strong flavour, and indefinite age.

“Hallo! Adam; then you are burning your idol again,” said Blithe Natty, who had sauntered round for a little gossip.

“Hey,” said Adam, “you see he’s like a good monny idols ov another sooat. He tak’s a plaguey deal o’ manishin’. He’s a reg’lar salimander. Ah’ve been at him off an’ on for weel nigh fotty year, an’ he’s a teeaf ’un; bud,” said he, with a twinkle in his eye, “Ah’ll tak’ good care ’at he ends i’ smook.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Natty, as he leaned his arms on the little garden gate, and swung it to and fro. “I can’t tell how it is you enjoy it so. It would soon do my business for me.”

“Why, ‘there’s neea accoontin’ for teeast,’ as t’ aud woman said when she kissed ’er coo, bud ah reckon you’ve tried it, if t’ truth wer’ knoan; an’ y’ see, it isn’t ivverybody,” with another twinkle, “’at ez eeather talents or passevearance te mak’ a smooker. Like monny other clever things, its nobbut sum ’at ez t’ gift te deea ’em. There’s Jim Raspin, noo; he’s been scrapin’ away on a fiddle for a twelvemonth, an’ when he’s deean ’is best, he can nobbut mak’ a grumplin’ noise like a pig iv a fit. Ah can’t deea mitch, but ah can clip a hedge an’ smook a pipe, an’ that’s better then being a Jack ov all trayds an’ maister o’ neean.”

Here the old man blew out a long cloud of curling smoke, and laying down his short pipe by the side of him, he gave a low chuckle of satisfaction at having come out triumphant from an attack on the only weakness of which he could be convicted.

“Ah see,” said he, “’at you’ve getten Lucy yam ageean, an’ a feyn smart wench she is. They say ‘feyn feathers mak’s feyn bods,’ but she’s a bonny bod i’ grey roosset, an’ depends for her prattiness mair on ’er feeace an’ manners then on ’er cleease.”

“Yes,” said Natty, well pleased with this genuine compliment on his darling; “Lucy is a fine lass and a good ’un, and makes the old house, which has been gloomy enough, as bright as sunshine.”

“God bless ’er,” said the old man, warmly; “an’ if she gets t’ grace o’ God she’ll be prattier still. There’s neea beauty like religion, Natty, an’ t’ robe o’ righteousness sets off a cotton goon as mitch as silk an’ velvet.”

“Hey, that’s true enough,” said Nathan Blyth; “an’ Lucy’s all right on that point. She isn’t a stranger to religion. She loves her Bible and her Saviour, and her conduct is all that heart can wish.”

“Ah’s waint an’ glad to hear it,” said Adam. “Meeast o’ d’ young lasses noo-a-days seeam to me te mind nowt but falderals an’ ribbins. They cover their backs wi’ tinsel an’ fill their brains wi’ caff till they leeak like moontebanks, an’ their heeads is as soft as a feather bed.

‘Mary i’ the dairy

Wad fain be a fairy,

Wi’ wings an’ a kirtle o’ green;

Mary spoils ’er butter,

Puts t’ good wife in a flutter,

A lazy good-for-nothing quean.

Silly, silly Mary!

Bid good-bye te the fairy,

Leeak te the butter an’ the cheese;

Be quick an’ ’arn the siller.

Marry Matt the Miller,

Then live as happy as you pleease.’”

“Who’s going to marry Matt, the miller, I wonder, Adam Olliver?” said Lucy Blyth, suddenly peeping over her father’s shoulder by the garden gate.

“Odd’s bobs,” said the startled hedger; “‘you come all at yance,’ as t’ man said when t’ sack o’ floor dropt on his nob. Why, Lucy, me’ lass, is it you? Ah’s waint an’ glad to see yer’ bonny feeace ageean. Come in a minnit. Judy! Judy! Here’s somebody come ’at it’ll deea your and een good te leeak at.”

Out came Judith Olliver, in her brown stuff gown and checked apron, a small three-cornered plaid shawl across her shoulders, and with her white hair neatly gathered beneath a cap of white muslin, double frilled and tied beneath the dimpled chin—as comely and motherly an old cottager as you could wish to see.

“Dear heart,” said Mrs. Olliver, as Lucy kissed her cheek, looking on the bright girl in unconstrained admiration, “Can this be little Lucy Blyth?”

At that moment a fine, tall, gentlemanly youth of some two-and-twenty summers, paused as he passed the garden gate. Turning his open handsome face toward the speaker, his eyes fell on the radiant beauty of the blacksmith’s daughter; he recognised the features of his childish “sweetheart” with a thrill of something more than wonder, and, resuming his walk, “Master Philip” repeated again and again Judith Olliver’s inquiry, “Can this be little Lucy Blyth?”