Friendly Brook - Page 2

too,' said Jesse. 'I told him 'fore ever you did. I told
him when the County Council tarred the roads up along.' He pointed
uphill, where unseen automobiles and road-engines droned past
continually. 'A tarred road, she shoots every drop o' water into a
valley same's a slate roof. 'Tisn't as 'twas in the old days, when the
waters soaked in and soaked out in the way o' nature. It rooshes off
they tarred roads all of a lump, and naturally every drop is bound to
descend into the valley. And there's tar roads both two sides this
valley for ten mile. That's what I told Jim Wickenden when they tarred
the roads last year. But he's a valley-man. He don't hardly ever
journey uphill.'

'What did he say when you told him that?' Jabez demanded, with a little
change of voice.

'Why? What did he say to you when _you_ told him?' was the answer.

'What he said to you, I reckon, Jesse.'

'Then, you don't need me to say it over again, Jabez.'

'Well, let be how 'twill, what was he gettin' _after_ when he said what
he said to me?' Jabez insisted.

'I dunno; unless you tell me what manner o' words he said to _you_.'

Jabez drew back from the hedge--all hedges are nests of treachery and
eavesdropping--and moved to an open cattle-lodge in the centre of
the field.

'No need to go ferretin' around,' said Jesse. 'None can't see us here
'fore we see them.'

'What was Jim Wickenden gettin' at when I said he'd set his stack too
near anigh the brook?' Jabez dropped his voice. 'He was in his mind.'

'He ain't never been out of it yet to my knowledge,' Jesse drawled, and
uncorked his tea-bottle.

'But then Jim says: "I ain't goin' to shift my stack a yard," he says.
"The Brook's been good friends to me, and if she be minded," he says,
"to take a snatch at my hay, I ain't settin' out to withstand her."
That's what Jim Wickenden says to me last--last June-end 'twas,'
said Jabez.

'Nor he hasn't shifted his stack, neither,' Jesse replied. 'An' if
there's more rain, the brook she'll shift it for him.'

'No need tell _me_! But I want to know what Jim was gettin' _at_?'

Jabez opened his clasp-knife very deliberately; Jesse as carefully
opened his. They unfolded the newspapers that wrapped their dinners,
coiled away and pocketed the string that bound the packages, and sat
down on the edge of the lodge manger. The rain began to fall again
through the fog, and the brook's voice rose.

* * * * *

'But I always allowed Mary was his lawful child, like,' said Jabez,
after Jesse had spoken for a while.

"Tain't so.... Jim Wickenden's woman she never made nothing. She come
out o' Lewes with her stockin's round her heels, an' she