The Portland Daily Press

THE PRESS.

[From All the Year Round.]

Mr. Bowker's Courtship.

CHAPTER I.

It was Saturday afternoon, and it was summer time. There could be no more excellent reasons given than these why Mr. Bowker should have engaged himself in the blissful work of idleness. Gay in a belcher handkerchief, which displayed itself in a flower-like knot of red and yellow at his throat; in trousers of moleskin, the more prominent part whereof were patched with snow-white patches; in an unstarched shirt of something like canvas; a billycock hat, utterly unconservative as to form, and a pair of huge boots, the tongues of which lolled with a thirst and a gaping look over the dusty dryness of the laces; Mr. Bowker lay upon his back on a green bank and listened to the twittering of the birds, and smoked his pipe, and was at peace with all mankind. His coat was rolled up and placed beneath his head for a pillow; the cool wind played about his face, and bore to him the scent of many green and flowering things; the brook murmured opposite, and beyond the brook the hay-meadow dozed in the sunshine. Beyond the hay-meadow, right away on the verge of the landscape, certain pit frames were visible, and certain mounds of mine refuse, and two or three tall chimneys. They smoked so lazily that afternoon, and looked so slim and delicate in the distance, that Mr. Bowker, though he knew them well, had visions of a cluster of giants lying in a rough semicircle, smoking enormously long cigars. For the day was so peaceful and so full of rest there, where Mr. Bowker lay in shadow, that it seemed impossible to fancy that anything was working. Mr. Bowker was by nature of a literary turn. He was by force of circumstances, a coal-miner. He was a thoroughly good, whole-hearted fellow, too, as most of his tribe are, despite the roughness of their exterior. Mr. Bowker had no love for solitude, as a rule, but that day he shunned his fellows. He had a tender palate for beer, yet that afternoon the Rosy Lass had opened her arms to him in vain. The Rosy Lass was a public-house in those parts, and at that hour, as Mr. Bowker knew, many of his chums sat in solemn circle round the kitchen, holding high debate on "whummers" and "game uns," and other holiday matters. Mr. Bowker himself was a keen pigeon-flyer, and his word was of authority on the breeding of game ones, yet he willingly held aloof from his companions, and aired himself in solitude. The plain truth about the matter was that William was in love.

The place has changed sadly since I knew it, but a score of years ago there were few lovelier spots in England than that in which Mr. Bowker lay that summer Saturday. Its beauty was of a very gentle type, and had no dazzling surprises in it. To walk straight out of that circle of ashes and fire, which men call the Black country, into the green lanes and tranquil fields which lay about it was like walking out of the howling noises of Ludgate hill on a week-day in the sacred quiet of St. Paul's; was like going home to see one's silver-haired, tranquil-minded mother after a year's grind in the city; was like a quiet dream in the midst of fevered fancies. It was like none of these things to Mr. Bowker, for he had never seen Ludgate, and never knew his mother, and had never been troubled with any fevered fancies. Yet he felt the benediction and the rest of it as completely, perhaps, as he would have done if he had been able to find a thousand similes for his enjoyment.

He was a well made young fellow at this time, with a look of sturdy manliness and rough good nature. Not love itself could quench the native humor of his soul, and he grinned behind his pipe in serio-comic derision of his own forlornness.

"It's a rum thing—luv," said he to himself. "It's a sort o' complaint like, summat arter the measles an' the hewpin' cuff; a sort o' thing a man's got to have some day or another. I'n got it bad an' no mistake. I suppose I'n got it about as bad as a mon ever had it. But Lord bless thee, Willy-yum, it's a sickness as wo'nt kill nobody. But it wo'nt do for me to be lyin' here all arternoon a doin' nothin'. I mote go whum empty-honded, I'll tak' some flowers wi' me."

Therewith Mr. Bowker arose and tying the sleeves of his coat loosely about his neck strayed along the lanes, and got together, in the course of the next hour, a presentable nosegay of late May early dog-roses and white fox-gloves. These, backed by a dozen or so prodigious ferns, he bound about with rushes from the brook. Love's purposed offering was some three feet in height, and wide and dense enough to screen the bearer from recognition from the side on which he carried it. It is the Black country fashion to do everything on a large scale, and Mr. Bowker might have passed, behind his bouquet, as one of the supernumeraries in the army which marched against Macbeth from Birnam Wood. Straying up Dead Man's Lane, he climbed Jacob's Ladder, and passed merrily Stevenson's hills, encountering here and there a friend and a friendly salute. The nosegay made it evident to the meanest observer that the bearer was "goin' a courtin'," and William endured a good deal of more or less pointed chaff as he took his homeward way. This was inevitable, and he was, of course prepared for it, and generally gave a good deal better than he got.

"Hello, Willy-yum," said one, par example, "a cove ud think as yo' took the second o' June for May day."

"Why, so I did," responded William cheerfully, "an' I'n been a getherin' some green stuff for yo' to play the fule in."

This was quite a home thrust of wit after the manner of the district. They who looked on at the brief tournament guffawed right joyfully.

"Yo' had him theer, Willy-yum," quoth one youth approvingly.

"Not me," returned William, complacently. "I wouldn't have him nowheer, not at a gift."

Leaving the discomfited foe behind, Mr. Bowker pursued his way and was encountered in the region of Scott's Hole by a certain retail bone-dealer and merchant in scrap-iron. The retail dealer had a humorous eye and a moist, full mouth, and bore other evidence in his quaintly carved countenance of the power of comic perception.

"Arternoon, Willy-yum," said the retail dealer.

"Arternoon, Sam you well," returned Mr. Bowker, with droll-eyed and expectant gravity.

"Goin' to plant them pretty things in the back garden, Willy-yum?" asked the retail dealer, with a show of friendly interest.

"No," said Mr. Bowker, placidly; "I gathered 'em to see how many fules ud ax me what I got 'em for."

"Arternoon, Willy-yum," said the retail dealer.

"Arternoon, Sam you well," returned Mr. Bowker, and lit a fresh pipe with feelings of strong self-approval.

Mr. Bowker lived on Paradise street and had manifold opportunities for conference with the object of his desires, who lived next door, and was, indeed, no other than the daughter of the retail merchant of bone and iron. The genial war of wit and word in which these two indulged made no sort of difference in their friendship, unless, indeed, it tended to cement it. Paradise street, in William's day, was something of a slum, and the fields which lay in front of his house, where the railway station now stands were frowzy and neglected, and produced no other crop than that of brick-bats and of hulking ends of timber. Here and there a broken and deserted shed, built for some forgotten purpose, went its way to ruin slowly, and added to the general desolation. Beyond those frowzy fields rose the gaunt frames and tall chimneys of many coal mines, and down the hill, on the Oldbury road, the everlasting furnaces gave the summer evening sky an angry glare. You could hear their roar and the dead thud of the steamhammer on any quiet night, and sometimes the clank of iron bars and pigs, as the boats beside the wharf were loaded, as though some great devilish Prometheus was bound there, breathing smoke and fire against imprisoning Jove, and shaking the chains that held him.

Etiquette reigns everywhere—even in the Black country. Mr Bowker dressed for the presentation of his nosegay. First of all he rolled his shirt-sleeves to his shoulders and blacked his boots. Then he took a copious bath under the pump in the yard, in view of his inamorata, who bade him a gracious good evening from her bedroom window, and was there plainly visible in her bodice, in the act of removing her curl-papers. His bath completed, William laid by the scrubbing-brush and the yellow soap, and hung the jack towel on the rack behind the kitchen door—for he was a lonely man at home as yet, and had in all things to shift completely for himself. Then putting on a false front with a wonderful pair of collars which fastened with a string behind and obscured his ears, and donning a suit of black and a very shiny hat, he set forth for an evening with his love. Armed with his nosegay, he tapped at the door and was admitted. In a second all was changed within him, and his hopes were chilled.

"Good night, Willy-yum, an' thank you," said Selina, as she took the flowers, "I think thee know'st Abraham."

Here she pointed to a young gentleman, who sat uneasily on the extreme edge of a sofa clothed in very crackly chintz. The young man sat, balancing his hat in his hands and blushing to his eyes. His false collars were even higher than Mr. Bowker's and his black clothes were shinier and had more overlapping folds in them. Surrounding his neck was a woolen comforter of many colors, the ends of which trailed on the floor as he sat. His eyes wandered with uncertain glare about the room, and encountering Mr. Bowker's, for a second, glided off and fixed themselves upon the ceiling. Mr. Abraham Gough worked in the same mine with Mr. Bowker. William had always rather looked down on this young man, and had sometimes used him as a chopping block to try wit's edge upon—and now it was evident that the despised one was here as a rival.

"Be you goin' to take a walk to-night, Selina?" Mr. Bowker asked, with such aspect of easy unconcern as he could wear.

"Why, yes I be, Willy-yum," Selina responded. "Mr. Gough here's been good enought' ax me to goo out wi' him."

William looked at Mr. Gough, and Mr. Gough, conscious of the gaze, looked harder at the ceiling than ever, taking the minutest interest in certain cracks which marked the plaster. The gaze continuing, Mr. Gough's glance wandered to the brass ornaments on the chimney-piece, and finding no place there, descended to the fire-irons, and with a growing air of discomforture wandered about the walls. Mr. Bowker's expression grew more and more scornful as he gazed, and at last he turned upon his sweetheart and asked:

"Will you have a mon wi' you to tek care o' your new catch, Selina?"

"If I could mak' sure of his bein' a gentleman," Selina replied, "p'rhaps I might."

"Oh!" said William with some bitterness, "If thee beest after gentlefolks I'n got nothing more to say."

"I don't see," responded Selina, flushing little, "as you need say anythin' at all. I'll say good night, Willy-yum."

"Good night, Selina," responded William, "and good-bye."

"Good bye, Mr. Bowker," said Selina.

"Good-bye, Miss Jukes," said Mr. Bowker.

Mr. Gough smiled at Mr. Bowker's dismissal. But I think it probable that, if Mr. Gough had known the tingling longing for his ears which just then possessed Selina's fingers, he would have smiled less broadly.

TO BE CONTINUED.