“They do, for I heard one.”
“Certain-sure?”
“Yes. She told me afore that I should hear’n;
and so I did. They say she’s clever and
deep, and perhaps she charmed ’en to come.”
“And what then?”
“Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and
I went back; but I didn’t like to speak to her,
because of the gentleman, and I came on here again.”
“A gentleman—ah! What did she
say to him, my man?”
“Told him she supposed he had not married the
other woman because he liked his old sweetheart best;
and things like that.”
“What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?”
“He only said he did like her best, and how
he was coming to see her again under Rainbarrow o’
nights.”
“Ha!” cried the reddleman, slapping his
hand against the side of his van so that the whole
fabric shook under the blow. “That’s
the secret o’t!”
The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
“My man, don’t you be afraid,” said
the dealer in red, suddenly becoming gentle.
“I forgot you were here. That’s only
a curious way reddlemen have of going mad for a moment;
but they don’t hurt anybody. And what did
the lady say then?”
“I can’t mind. Please, Master Reddleman,
may I go home-along now?”
“Ay, to be sure you may. I’ll go
a bit of ways with you.”
He conducted the boy out of the gravel-pit and into
the path leading to his mother’s cottage.
When the little figure had vanished in the darkness
the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire,
and proceeded to darn again.
Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen.
Since the introduction of railways Wessex farmers
have managed to do without these Mephistophelian visitants,
and the bright pigment so largely used by shepherds
in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other
routes. Even those who yet survive are losing
the poetry of existence which characterized them when
the pursuit of the trade meant periodical journeys
to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular
camping out from month to month, except in the depth
of winter, a peregrination among farms which could
be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this Arab
existence the preservation of that respectability
which is insured by the never-failing production of
a well-lined purse.
Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it
lights on, and stamps unmistakably, as with the mark
of Cain, any person who has handled it half an hour.
A child’s first sight of a reddleman was an
epoch in his life. That blood-coloured figure
was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams which had
afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began.
“The reddleman is coming for you!” had
been the formulated threat of Wessex mothers for many
generations. He was successfully supplanted for
a while, at the beginning of the present century,
by Buonaparte; but as process of time rendered the
latter personage stale and ineffective the older phrase
resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman
has in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of
worn-out bogeys, and his place is filled by modern
inventions.
