“For it will all be one trouble and one preparation, Will,” she said, “and we shall have but one asking of our guests. Yet we must have some extra merrymaking at a time like this, when you are going to enter into man’s estate and your own land at the same time.”
“Nay, mother,” said I, “what do I want more than to serve you?”
For, indeed, I cared not about their legal formalities, which would transfer the broad acres of Dale’s Field to me from those who had held them in trust. So long as they were ours and we were living upon them, I cared for nothing more.
“Nay,” said she, “my son must enter into his father’s possessions. Ah, Will, thou art so like thy father now. I think I see him in thee, just as he was two-and-twenty years ago. Well, but what shall we do at this feast, Will?”
“Nay,” said I, “I am no hand at that sort of thing, mother. Let us consult Jack Drumbleforth. He will know what we should do and tell us how to do it.”
And I went out and found Jack in our stackyard, where he was talking with Jacob Trusty, and carried him into the great kitchen, where my mother and Lucy were making fruit pies, and there we explained to Jack what it was we wished to do.
“Why,” said he, “what you want first of all, Mistress Dale, is to fill your larder with provisions. I warrant that everybody will be hungry and thirsty at a time like that.”
“If that be all,” said my mother, “nobody shall have cause to go away sorrowful.”
“Well, ’tis not all, but ’tis a great deal. What say you, now, if you have a great feast in the big barn? Or, come, ’tis fine weather, why not have it on the lawn outside here, and a dance to follow? You will ask all your friends, Will, and, indeed, make everybody who likes to come welcome.”
“Anyone shall be welcome who comes that day,” said my mother.
“We will have great things,” said Jack, rubbing his hands. “See to it that there is plenty to eat and drink, Mistress Dale, and I will do the rest. Come thou with me, Will, and we will talk matters over with Jacob Trusty.”
X
Of My Coming of Age
During the next few days Jack Drumbleforth was in his element. Naught pleased him so well as to be manager of a feast or entertainment, and he found vast delight in making plans how this or that should be done, and in what order the guests should sit, and so with a multitude of matters which would have caused me a great deal of discomfort. I was well pleased to have Jack close at hand at this time, for he took the weight off my shoulders and left me free, which was what I wanted.
The final arrangement come to between Jack and my mother, with Lucy thrown in as counsellor, was that we should have two entertainments, the first for the labourers and their wives and children, the second for our friends and acquaintance, and such of our own quality as might drop in upon us. This we thought to be better than entertaining all together, as it left us free to pay more attention to our guests than if they had all come upon one day. Again, said Jack, the men would feel more at home amongst themselves, and would cut their jokes and amuse themselves better than in the presence of their masters. So we fixed the entertainment for the labourers on the 24th of August, that being my birthday, and for our other friends on the 25th. These things being settled, my mother and Lucy set to work with a right good will, and very soon our larder began to look as if we were threatened with a siege. I was at that time always blessed with a good appetite—indeed, I thank God, I always have been—and it used to whet it to look through the latticed window and see the good things which their nimble fingers had shaped in honour of the coming feast. I used to call Jack Drumbleforth and bid him peep through the lattices too, at which Jack’s mouth would water, for he, too, was endowed with a healthy appetite, so that we were often forced to cut ourselves a great slice of cold pie, and wash it down with a quart of ale out of sympathy. Nor did we ever find that these slight refreshments interfered with our meals, though I have heard people say that to eat between breakfast and dinner is to spoil the latter.
It was no slight trouble to invite the guests to our entertainment, for my mother was anxious that all our acquaintance should come, and as many of them were hard to get at, I had no little riding about to do before I had got them all invited. As for the labourers, we decided that all who had ever done a day’s work for us at odd times should come, with their wives and families, and that all our present hands should have the privilege of asking a friend. In this way there was a goodly assemblage gathered together in our great barn when the day came. The barn, thanks to Jack Drumbleforth, had been very gaily decorated with boughs and flowers, and looked quite inviting as one entered it from the stackyard. My mother, indeed, said that she had never seen a prettier sight than it presented when all
