“My Ben works there, as you know, and he says money’s scarce there, very scarce indeed. One of the men got turned off only t’other day.”

“Lor’, now, to think of that!” exclaimed Mrs Wishing in an awed manner. “An’ her in that bonnet an’ all them artificials!”

“There’s a deal,” continued Mrs Pinhorn, “in what Mrs White says about them two Greenways gals with their fine-lady ways. It ’ud a been better to bring ’em up handy in the house so as to help their mother. As it is, they’re too finnicking to be a bit of use. You wouldn’t see either of them with a basket on their arm, they’d think it lowering themselves. And I dare say the youngest ’ll grow up just like ’em.”

“There’s a deal in what Mrs Greenways’s just been saying too,” remarked the woman called Mrs Wishing in a hesitating voice, “for Mrs James White is a very strict woman and holds herself high, and ‘Lilac’ is a fanciful kind of a name; but I dunno.” She broke off as if feeling incapable of dealing with the question.

“I can’t wonder myself,” resumed Mrs Pinhorn, “at Mrs Greenways being a bit touchy. You heard, I s’pose, what Mrs White up and said to her once? You didn’t? Well, she said, ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and you’ll never make them girls ladies, try all you will,’ says she. ‘Useless things you’ll make ’em, fit for neither one station or t’other.’”

“That there’s plain speaking!” said Mrs Wishing admiringly.

Mr Dimbleby had not uttered a word during this conversation, and was to all appearance entirely occupied in weighing out, tying up parcels, and receiving orders. In reality, however, he had not lost a word of it, and had been getting ready to speak for some time past. Neither of the women, who were well acquainted with him, was at all surprised when he suddenly remarked: “It were Mrs Leigh herself as had to do with the name of Mrs James White’s baby.”

“Re’lly, now?” said Mrs Wishing doubtfully.

“An’ it were Mrs Leigh herself as I heard it from,” continued Dimbleby ponderously, without noticing the interruption.

“Well, that makes a difference, don’t it now?” said Mrs Pinhorn. “Why ever didn’t you name that afore, Mr Dimbleby?”

“And,” added Dimbleby, grinding on to the end of his speech regardless of hindrance, like a machine that has been wound up; “and Mrs Leigh herself is goin’ to stand for the baby.”

“Lor’! I do wish Mrs Greenways could a heard that,” said Mrs Pinhorn; “that’ll set Mrs White up more than ever.”

“It will so,” said Mrs Wishing; “she allers did keep herself to herself did Mrs White. Not but what she’s a decent woman and a kind. Seems as how, if Mrs Leigh wished to name the child ‘Lilac’, she couldn’t do no other than fall in with it. But I dunno.”

“And how does the name strike you, Mr Snell?” said Mrs Pinhorn, turning to a newcomer.

He was an oldish man, short and broad-shouldered, with a large head and serious grey eyes. Not only his leather apron, but the ends of his stumpy fingers, which were discoloured and brown, showed that he was a cobbler by trade. When Mrs Pinhorn spoke to him, he fingered his cheek thoughtfully, took off his hat, and passed his hand over his high bald forehead.

“What name may you be alludin’ to, ma’am?” he enquired very politely.

“The name ‘Lilac’ as Mrs James White’s goin’ to call her child.”

“Lilac—eh! Lilac White. White Lilac,” repeated the cobbler musingly. “Well, ma’am, ’tis a pleasant bush and a homely; I can’t wish the maid no better than to grow up like her name.”

“Why, you wouldn’t for sure wish her to grow up homely, would you now, Mr Snell?” said Mrs Wishing with a feeble laugh.

“I would, ma’am,” replied Mr Snell, turning rather a severe eye upon the questioner, “I would. For why? Because to be homely is to make the common things of home sweet and pleasant. She can’t do no better than that.”

Mrs Wishing shrank silenced into the background, like one who has been reproved, and the cobbler advanced to the counter to exchange greetings with Mr Dimbleby, and buy tobacco. The women’s voices, the sharp ticking of the clocks, and the deeper tones of the men kept up a steady concert for some time undisturbed. But suddenly the door was thrown violently back on its hinges with a bang, and a tall man in labourer’s clothes rushed into their midst. Everyone looked up startled, and on Mrs Wishing’s face there was fear as well as surprise when she recognised the newcomer.

“Why, Dan’l, my man,” she exclaimed, “what is it?”

Daniel was out of breath with running. He rubbed his forehead with a red pocket handkerchief, looked round in a dazed manner at the assembled group, and at length said hoarsely: “Mrs Greenways bin here?”

“Ah, just gone!” said both the women at once.

“There’s trouble up yonder—on the hill,” said Daniel, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and speaking in a strange, broken voice.

“Mary White’s baby!” exclaimed Mrs Pinhorn.

“Fits!” added Mrs Wishing; “they all went off that way.”

“Hang the baby,” muttered Daniel. He made his way past the women, who had pressed up close to him, to where the cobbler and Dimbleby stood.

“I’ve fetched the doctor,” he said, “and she wants the Greenways to know it; I thought maybe she’d be here.”

“What is it? Who’s ill?” asked the cobbler.

“Tain’t anyone that’s ill,” answered Daniel; “he’s stone dead. They shot him right through the heart.”

“Who? Who?” cried all the voices together.

“I found him,” continued Daniel, “up in the woods; partly covered up with leaves he was. Smiling peaceful and stone dead. He was always a brave feller and done his dooty, did James White on the hill. But he won’t never do it no more.”

“Poachers!” exclaimed Dimbleby in a horror-struck voice.

“Poachers it was, sure enough,” said Daniel; “an’ he’s stone dead, James White is. They shot him right through the heart. Seems a pity such a brave chap should die like that.”

“An’ him such a good husband!” said Mrs Wishing. “An’ the baby an’ all as we was just talking on,” said Mrs Pinhorn; “well, it’s a fatherless child now, anyway.”

“The family ought to allow the widder a pension,” said Mr Dimbleby, “seeing as James White died in their service, so to speak.”

“They couldn’t do no less,” agreed the cobbler.

The idea of fetching Mrs Greenways seemed to have left Daniel’s mind for the present: he had now taken a chair, and was engaged in answering the questions with which he was plied on all sides, and in trying to fix the exact hour when he had found poor James White in the woods. “As it might be here, and me standing as it might be there,” he said, illustrating his words with the different parcels on the counter before him. It was not until all this was thoroughly understood, and every imaginable expression of pity and surprise had been uttered, that Mrs Pinhorn remembered that the “Greenways ought to know. And I don’t see why,” she added, seizing her basket with sudden energy, “I shouldn’t take her up myself; I’m goin’ that way, and she’s a slow traveller.”

“An’ then Dan’l can go straight up home with me,” said Mrs Wishing, “and we can drop in as we pass an’ see Mrs White, poor soul. She hadn’t ought to be alone.”

Before nightfall everyone knew the sad tidings. James White had been shot by poachers, and Daniel Wishing had found him lying dead in the woods.

As the days went on, the excitement which stirred the whole village increased rather than lessened, for not even the oldest inhabitant could remember such a tragical event. Apart from the sadness of it,