upon the great main road that crosses dartmoor from moretonhampstead to plymouth, and distant but half a mile from the little hamlet of postbridge, near the eastern arm of dart, there stand two cottages. here slopes the broad bosom of merripit hill upon the heart of the wilderness, and the cots, that appear on each side of the way, are built exactly alike—of yellow bricks and blue slates. they have doors of the same green shade and window blinds of white chintz; their woodwork is painted brown, and their chimney-pots are red. in every respect these habitations seem outwardly identical, save that one faces north, while the other, over against it, looks southerly. their gardens are of equal proportion, and contain the same class of cabbage, similar rows of tall scarlet-runner beans sprout from each little plot in summer, and patches of red lettuce, dusted over with soot to keep away the slugs, appear in both during springtime. once two men dwelt in these abodes, and they were wiser p. 300than their wives and maintained an amiable acquaintance, but avoided hot friendship.
when abel haycraft and his newly married mate arrived at the northern-facing cottage, henry mogridge, the water-bailiff, who dwelt in the cottage that looked south, paid him a visit and put the position briefly and forcibly:—
“’tis like this, mr. haycraft,” he said. “i be very glad to have you for a neighbour, an’ i hope you’ll like dartymoor, an’ prosper up here, an’ make good money at vitifer mine, where i’m told you be going to work; but this i’ll say, don’t let’s be too friendly—nor our women-folk neither. out of friendship i say it.”
“what a word!” said mr. haycraft, who was only twenty-one and of a sanguine nature, “why, i wants to be friends with everybody, if so be as they’ll let me. an’ my missis too.”
“that’s a very silly idea; but you’m young yet and will larn better come by an’ by. i mean this: you an’ me live a gert deal too close together to get too thick. we’m only human beings, an’ so sure as we get too trustful an’ too fond of listening to each other’s business, so sure us will end by having a mortal row. ’tis a thing so common as berries in a hedge. i ban’t saying a word against my old woman, mind you. she’s so truthful as light, an’ a christian to the marrow in her bones. nor yet be i p. 301hinting anything disrespectful of mrs. haycraft. far from it. but human creatures is mostly jerry-built in parts, an’ the best have their weak spots. there’s nought more dangerous on earth than a gert friendship struck up between folks who live close together ’pon opposite sides of the road. i’ve seed the whole story more than once, an’ i know what i say be true.”
abel haycraft considered this statement for a moment. then he spoke:—
“i suppose you’m right. an’ if by bad chance they was to fall out—i mean the women—us would have to take sides as a matter of duty. a husband—well, there ’tis.”
“so us would; but god forbid as our wives should have any quarrel, or you an’ me either; so we’ll just bide friendly with your leave; but not too friendly.”
“’tis a very good plan, i’m sure,” answered the younger; and that evening he told his wife about it after they had gone to bed.
mrs. haycraft felt great interest and enlarged abel’s vision.
“do ’e know what that means? it means as his good lady can’t be trusted, an’ the old man well knows it. i lay she’m the sort as makes mischief. well, don’t you fear. i’ll take care to keep her at arm’s length. i wasn’t born yesterday.”
“she’m a kind enough creature so far, i’m sure,” p. 302answered abel. “a motherly fashion of woman, an’ not so old as her husband by twenty years, i should judge.”
“’twas his way of giving us a warning, nevertheless,” declared honor haycraft. “or,” she added, “seeing as i was a red-haired woman, and thinking maybe that i had a short temper, she may have reckoned that—”
“not at all, not at all,” interrupted the husband, hastily. “do ’e think i’d have stood any such idea? god’s my judge, i’d have hit the man in the mouth if he’d said a word against you or your butivul colour.”
“if i thought she’d taken a dislike to me, because i was red, i’d never look at the woman,” said honor. “for that matter, i’m comelier far than her, though i say so.”
“an’ comelier than any other woman at postbridge, or on all dartymoor either,” declared abel, devoutly.
“i’ll be civil to her, then, but no more. an’ i wish her hadn’t brought over that gert dish of irish stew the day us comed in an’ were sinking for a morsel to eat; for us ate it, an’ licked the bones, an’ now she’ve got a hold on us.”
“not at all,” said the larger-minded man. “’tis a poor spirit as can’t stomach a kindness without worriting to pay it back. us’ll have a chance of p. 303doing her a good turn for sartain, living at her door same as we do. just let things go their own way, an’ they’ll go right. we’m all christian creatures, thank god, an’ there’s no reason because we live in a outlandish sort of place like this here that we should forget it.”
“all the same,” declared his plump, red girl, pouting, “i could wish as mr. mogridge hadn’t spoke them words. he’ve hurt my pride. i wasn’t going to jump down their throats. i’m not that sort.”
“’twas a bit chilly like, perhaps; but he’m older than us, an’ wiser, an’ he meant well.”
“he’m not wiser than you be, anyway. i believe, if us knowed, you’d find you made better money than what he do.”
“us’ll leave it at that, then; an’ now us’ll go to sleep, if you please.”
