But the mother never knew what was in the heart of the father of her children. That he loved play she knew, but what matter that if he did not lose at play? It was in truth a pride to her that when other women complained aloud of their own men and how the scanty earnings of the land were lost at that table in the inn, she need not complain, and when one cried out to her, “If my poor wretch were but like that pretty man of yours, goodwife, his fingers are faery somehow, so that the money crawls to them of its own accord, seemingly, upon the gaming table—a very lucky woman be you, goodwife!” she smiled complacently and she did not often blame him for his play unless it served as excuse for some other cause of quarrel.
And she did not blame him deeply that he could not work steadily hour after hour in the fields as she did, though at the moment she might lay about him sharply with her tongue. She knew that men cannot work as women do, but have the hearts of children always in them, and she was used now to working on in her steady way while he flung down his hoe and laid himself upon the grass that grew on the footpath between this field and the next and slept an hour or two. But when she said aught to him in her scolding way, which was but the way, after all, her tongue was used to speak, for secretly she loved him well, he would answer, “Yes, and sleep I may for I have worked enough to feed myself.”
She might have said, “Have we not the children then and shall not each do what he is able to make more for them?” But this she did not say because it was true the children seemed ever hers and hers alone, since he did nothing for them. Besides, her tongue was not so adroit as his to find an answer.
But sometimes her wrath would come up hotly and then it would come with more than her usual scolding speech. Once or twice in a season a quarrel would go deep with her and give an unused bitterness to her tongue. When the man bought some foolish trinket in the market with the silver he had taken for the cabbage there, or when he was drunken on a day that was not a holiday, then she would grow angry and well-nigh she forgot she loved him in her heart. This was a deep fierce anger too, which smouldered and broke forth so many hours after his misdeed that the man had almost forgot what he had done, for it was his way to forget easily anything that did not please him, and when her anger came up in her like this she was helpless against it and it must out.
On such a day one autumn he came home with a gold ring on his finger, or one he said was gold, and when she saw it her anger came up and she cried in the strangest, hottest way, “You—and you will not take your share of our common bitterness of life! No, you must needs go and spend the scant bit we have for a silly ring to put upon your little finger! And whoever heard of a good and honest poor man who wore a ring upon his finger? A rich man, he may do it and nothing said, but if a poor man does it, has it any good meaning? Gold! Whoever heard of a gold ring bought for copper?”
At this he shouted at her, his face rebellious as a child’s, his red lips pouting, “It is gold, I tell you! It is stolen from some rich house, the man who sold it told me, and he showed it to me secretly upon the street as I passed, and he had it under his coat, and let me see it as I passed—”
But she sneered and said, “Yes, and what he saw was a silly countryman whom he could trick! And even though it were gold, what if it be seen upon your finger in the town some day and you be caught and thrown into a gaol for thief and then how will we buy you out again, or even feed you in the gaol? Give it to me and let me see if it be gold!”
But he would not give the toy to her. He shook himself sullenly as a child does and suddenly she could not bear him. No, she flew at him and scratched his smooth and pretty face and she beat him so heartily that he was aghast at her and he tore the ring from his finger scornfully but half frightened, too, and he cried, “There—take it! Very well I know you are angry because I bought it for my own finger and not for yours!”
At this she felt fresh anger, because when he spoke she was astonished to know he spoke the truth, and it was secret pain to her that he never bought any trinket to put into her ears or on her fingers as some men do for their wives, and this she did think of when she saw the ring. She stared at him and he said again, his voice breaking with pity for himself and his hard life, “You ever do begrudge me the smallest good thing for myself. No, all we have must go for those brats you breed!”
He began to weep then in good earnest and he went and flung himself upon the bed and lay there weeping and making the most of his weeping for her to hear, and his old mother who had
