“it’s never a bit of good losing your temper,” remarked mrs. trimwell sagely. “you can say much more telling things if you don’t.”

she was clearing the luncheon table. john, from the depths of an armchair, made a sound slightly indicative of doubt.

“yes,” said mrs. trimwell firmly, in reply to the sound, “you can. losing your temper you never know what you are going to say, and as like as not you’ll say something as’ll hit back on yourself, and you be sorry you said later. keeping it you can have an eye to your neighbour’s weaknesses, and pull them out to show, so to speak.”

john seemed to recognize some truth in this statement.

“whose weaknesses,” he demanded, “have you been exposing?”

“he’s a captious man, is vicar,” said mrs. [pg 193]trimwell, and john perceived that her remark was not irrelevant. “he’s never been what you’d call pleased like in his mind that the biggest house to the place is a papist house, and yet now when they’re leaving he’s for railing against the new occupant that is to be, and him no papist at all, they say.”

“oh!” said john. he had fancied, be it stated, that mrs. trimwell herself was not what might have been termed cordial towards the interloper.

“i don’t say i’m wanting him at the castle myself,” pursued mrs. trimwell, in reply, it would seem, to john’s unspoken thought, “but lor’ bless you, ’tisn’t exactly his fault if he is the rightful heir, and it’s little more’n a child he is for all he’s a man grown. he come in here yesterday when i was stoning raisins for a cake. i don’t say at first i was pleased for to see him. but, ‘mrs. trimwell,’ says he, ‘i want to thank you for seeing to my foot. it’s a real doctor you are, for i’d never but a limp the next day.’ and he sat down, and watched me stoning of them raisins, eating one now and again for all the world like a great boy. and his eyes—have you seen his eyes, sir? you couldn’t no more say a harsh word to [pg 194]him than you could to my baby. he stayed chatting an hour and more, and i declare i thought ’twas only ten minutes.”

john laughed,—a curious little laugh.

“then this morning,” went on mrs. trimwell, “vicar come in. he’d seen him yesterday afternoon at the front door. wanted to know what he’d come for. as if a visitor can’t come to the house without me answering a penny catechism from vicar. i up and as good as told him that. and he began talking about loyalty to the family at the castle, and it’s never a word of loyalty he’s had for them, and i can tell you. we got to words a bit, and vicar’s temper isn’t never sweetened with the best sugar, but i kept mine. i called to mind a thing or two as he’d said of the family, and i let fall a hint now and again that i hadn’t forgotten it neither. it’s wonderful the way it riles a person if you’ve a good memory and let them know it.”

john grinned.

“i’ll not be repeating all he said,” pursued mrs. trimwell with dignity, “but i will say there were some things i didn’t expect to hear a parson say. but they’ll come back to himself. you can’t ever [pg 195]be real spiteful but they does. did i ever tell you about mrs. ashby and lydia ponsland?”

john intimated that she had not

“them two always had their knife into me, seeing that i gave them short shrift when they come here with gossiping lies of my husband drinking at the blue dragon over to whortley. lord love you, sir, he’s never touched a drop more’n was good for him since the day we married. i’ll not swear to before that, seeing as young men will be young men all the world over. anyhow i wasn’t going to listen to no lies from mrs. ashby and lydia ponsland, and told them they was liars to their face, which wasn’t perhaps the pleasantest hearing for them, though the truth. my words stuck, i’m thinking, and turned a trifle sour, and they planned a bit of revenge. ’twas the silliest thing they did, though cruel at that, and you’d never believe folks could have been that childish, if i didn’t tell you ’twas the gospel truth. ’twas christmas eve, and i was over to whortley for a bit of shopping. my husband was at home with the children, when five o’clock or thereabouts there come a ring at the front door. robert he goes to see what ’tis. there’s a man there, and a [pg 196]cart outside. ‘’tis the coffin for your wife,’ says he. robert, he fails all of a tremble, and never thinking, like a man, i couldn’t ha’ ordered my coffin anyhows if i’d been dead. he don’t understand it, and stays arguefying, and mortal frightened. in the middle of their speechifying i comes home, and i tell you it took me ten minutes and more to make him believe i hadn’t no call for a coffin yet awhile. ’twas them two as had ordered it, as i knew well enough, though couldn’t never bring it clear home to them. but they was paid for their evilness. mrs. ashby, she’s lost her money, and is in a two shilling attic at whortley this very day, and lydia’s down with rheumatic fever what the doctor says she’ll not be getting over this side of next christmas. when god pays he don’t pay in halfpence.”

the vigour with which mrs. trimwell brushed the crumbs from the cloth served to emphasize her statement.

“it was,” said john, “an astonishingly idiotic thing for them to do.”

“idiotic!” ejaculated mrs. trimwell, “i should think it was idiotic. but there, they’d lost their tempers and kept them lost for weeks; and if you [pg 197]mislay your temper like that it turns that sour you’d be surprised. i’m for thinking vicar hasn’t found his yet, nor will be finding it for a bit. but as i says to him, if a man finds his chance like this one has, you can’t be surprised if he takes it. if he don’t he’s a fool, and no more and no less. if you get a chance, take it, says i, if you don’t it goes off in a huff to somebody else.”

“then,” remarked john ruminatively, “it would be your advice that a chance should be taken at all hazards, even at the expense of someone else?”

mrs. trimwell looked dubious. it would appear that this aspect of affairs had not previously struck her.

“well, sir,” quoth she reflective, “i’ll own you have me there. i couldn’t give you no clear answer to that. it seems to me that the world’s all a bit of shoving and pushing, and slipping through gaps to the front when you see them. and if you don’t do the slipping, someone else will. i reckon it’s right enough if you’re not pushing your own folk and friends aside. when it comes to them, well, matters do get a bit awkward, i’ll allow. what do you think, sir?”

[pg 198]

john shook his head.

“frankly, mrs. trimwell, i don’t know.”

“well, to tell you the honest truth, sir, no more don’t i. it’s one thing to talk o’ the common-sense point of view, but when you come straight up to it, well, you sometimes wonders if it isn’t a bit more edgey and cornery than you cares about. ’tis a funny world.”

“it is,” said john fervently.