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Grumble; "what with Eben Wicket scarcely cold in his grave, and John a thief, with his neck broke and heaven only knows what else besides." Nevertheless, that summer Noel Ploughman's sober, honest face was often to be seen in Mrs. Wicket's garden patch, among the beans and the lettuces. Who can say what they found in one another to admire?
Jeminy was building her a doll's house in Mrs. Wicket's tumbledown barn. It was the sort of work he liked to engage in; no one expected him to be accurate, it was only necessary to use his imagination. But Juliet, swinging her legs on top of the feed bin, regarded him with round and serious eyes. For in Juliet's opinion, Mr.
Tomkins, "that the minister isn't here to listen to you. Come along now; I've plenty still to do before supper. The widow Wicket's gate is down. But I've promised to set a fence for Farmer Barly first." "You need help, William," remarked Mr. Jeminy thoughtfully; "you need help. I must see what I can do." And he went home, down the hill, after Mr. Tomkins.
"We'll finish about that another time," she said, and with "another time" singing in his heart like a taut wire he verily enjoyed the rasping of the wicket's big lock as he turned away. The week wore round. Except M. De l'Isle, kept away by a meeting of the Athénée Louisianais, all were regathered; one thing alone delayed the reading.
Grumble thought he had been spending the afternoon at Mrs. Wicket's. "I have been to call on Mrs. Ploughman," he said. "There I met old Mrs. Crabbe." Then Mrs. Grumble hurried out into the garden to pick a mess of young beans for supper, because Mr. Jeminy liked them better than squash. The bowl of squash she returned to the ice box. "I'll eat it myself, to-morrow," she thought.
Wicket had done wrong in allowing herself to care for Noel Ploughman. For it seemed to the gossips that Mrs. Wicket's life was, by rights, no longer her own to do with. She was the earthly remains of a sinner; she had no right to enjoy herself. Two days later Noel Ploughman enlisted, "for the duration of the war." His grandmother accepted the congratulations of Mrs. Crabbe and the sympathy of Mrs.
He had a vague idea that he had set out in this direction upon a footpath more or less distinct, and making a volte-face, he saw that the path had come to a termination at a door in the high wall a wicket's length behind him. The voice he had heard was the voice of Gertrude, and the words it had spoken were: 'Ah! but my dear friend, that inevitable, that unceasing isolation of the mind!
The next day he started out early in the morning. When Mrs. Grumble asked him where he was going, he replied, "I must step over to Mr. Tomkins, to help him with something." From Mr. Tomkins he borrowed a saw, a plane, a hammer, and a box of nails. Then he hurried off to mend Mrs. Wicket's gate.
Wicket's a capable woman in things like that. Capabler than Miss Beal. There was no one else ever made me so comfortable. I have to say that about her; Mrs. Grumble's getting the best of care. And I'm looking after Juliet. Not that she's any trouble; she's as quiet as a mouse, playing all day long with her dolls." But Mrs. Ploughman could not find it in her heart to forgive Mrs.
When that happened there would be trouble for the side that was batting. Burgess, inspecting the wicket with Mr. Spence during the quarter to eleven interval, was not slow to recognise this fact. "I should win the toss to-day, if I were you, Burgess," said Mr. Spence. "Just what I was thinking, sir." "That wicket's going to get nasty after lunch, if the sun comes out.
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