THE ROMANCE OF BROTHER JOHN

Mrs. Cross was gardening; it was an occupation in which she took great pleasure, not merely on account of her affection for the little plot of ground which she miraculously contrived to render bright at all seasons, but because it afforded her ample opportunities for supervising her neighbours’ affairs.  While she watered her stocks, or tied up her carnations, she was enabled to throw an occasional keen glance in at the open doorway on either side of her; she knew precisely what Mrs. Barnes had for dinner, and how large was Mrs. Frizzel’s wash.  Squatting back on her heels in the intervals of her labours, and negligently scratching her elbows or retwisting her untidy coil of hair, she would even hearken discreetly to such scraps of conversation as enlivened meal or toil.  She knew all about Mrs. Frizzel’s last letter from her daughter Susan, and could give the precise details of young Barnes’ encounter with the stalwart yeoman who had supplanted him in the affections of his sweetheart.  She would also hail from over the hedge the driver of any passing tradesman’s cart, and was thus enabled to possess herself of the latest news from “town” a mile away.  By craning her neck a little to the right she could catch a glimpse of the walls and roofs of this centre of activity, and by extending it in the other direction she had a peep of the high road, where sometimes as many as a dozen vehicles passed of an afternoon.

Her eyes were strained towards this favourite point of view on one particularly sultry August evening; her own hedge, even, was sprinkled with dust, while the double row which guarded the glaring stretch yonder was absolutely white.

Mrs. Cross’s little garden was, however, a pleasant spot, even on this glowing, breathless afternoon.  She had been watering her borders, and a delicious smell of damp earth mingled with the fragrance of the old-fashioned flowers beneath the mellow old walls of her cottage.  A fine array of sweet-williams and larkspurs and hollyhocks stood in a row before them; jessamine and honeysuckle clung to the old brick and festooned themselves over the rickety porch.  Between the green tendrils one got a glimpse of the picture within—­the dresser with its wealth of shining crockery, the log-fire leaping merrily on the hearth, a little brown teapot winking in the glow, the table spread with a clean white cloth and set out for two.  It made a pretty picture, yet, as has been said, Mrs. Cross perpetually turned her eyes towards the patch of high road which climbed painfully up between the dusty hedges.  At last she was constrained to rise from her knees and take her stand by her little gate, where, with knitted brows and pursed-up lips, she remained on the watch, until at last her patience was rewarded by the sight of a woman’s figure, clad in deep black, suddenly rounding the corner.  She immediately smoothed her brow and composed her features to a becoming melancholy.  Mrs. Cross was ever as ready to sympathise with her neighbours’ misfortunes to their faces as she was to declare behind their backs that they were well-deserved.  To-day, however, her countenance wore an expression of tempered woe, and her voice was only moderately dolorous, for the trouble which she was about to lament was a vicarious one.