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In a resolute attempt not to get to Stamton that day, he had turned due southward from Easewood towards a country where the abundance of bracken jungles, lady's smock, stitchwork, bluebells and grassy stretches by the wayside under shady trees does much to compensate the lighter type of mind for the absence of promising "openings."
When he returned four days later, he astonished Johnson beyond measure by remarking so soon as the shop project was reopened: "I've took a little contraption at Fishbourne, O' Man, that I fancy suits me better." He paused, and then added in a manner, if possible, even more offhand: "Oh! and I'm going to have a bit of a nuptial over at Stamton with one of the Larkins cousins."
He went over to Stamton with a becoming frequency, and kissed all his cousins, and Miriam especially, a great deal, and found it very stirring and refreshing. They all appeared to know; and Minnie was tearful, but resigned. Mrs. Larkins met him, and indeed enveloped him, with unwonted warmth, and there was a big pot of household jam for tea.
But if not all roads, still a great majority of them, led by however devious ways to Stamton, and to laughter and increasing familiarity. Relations developed with Annie and Minnie and Miriam. Their various characters were increasingly interesting.
Polly, "where we might have some flowers in pots." "Not me," said Miriam. "I've 'ad trouble enough with Minnie and 'er musk...." They stayed for a week in a cheap boarding house before they moved in. They had bought some furniture in Stamton, mostly second-hand, but with new cheap cutlery and china and linen, and they had supplemented this from the Fishbourne shops.
Polly had marked the road that led to Stamton, that rising populous suburb; and as his bicycle legs grew strong his wheel with a sort of inevitableness carried him towards the row of houses in a back street in which his Larkins cousins made their home together. He was received with great enthusiasm.
Polly to the Stamton Wreckeryation ground that at least was what they called it with its handsome custodian's cottage, its asphalt paths, its Jubilee drinking fountain, its clumps of wallflower and daffodils, and so to the new cemetery and a distant view of the Surrey hills, and round by the gasworks to the canal to the factory, that presently disgorged a surprised and radiant Annie.
When tea was over he was left alone with Minnie for a few minutes, and an odd intimation of an incident occurred that left Mr. Polly rather scared and shaken. A silence fell between them an uneasy silence. He sat with his elbows on the table looking at her. All the way from Easewood to Stamton his erratic imagination had been running upon neat ways of proposing marriage.
"That's all right, O' Man," said Mr. Polly. "Not a bit of use for anything I can see." "Not a bit." "See any shops in Stamton?" "Nothing to speak of," said Mr. Polly. "Goo-night, O' Man." Before and after this brief conversation his mind ran on his cousins very warmly and prettily in the vein of high spring. Mr.
Larkins sketched the better side of their characters, and then the three young people went out to see something of Stamton. In the streets their risible mood gave way to a self-conscious propriety that was particularly evident in Miriam's bearing. They took Mr.
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