Short Fiction

also nobody’s fault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer’s farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a backpedal and a swerve at this particular point of the road. Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard found the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey.

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something less than a week.

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a fortnight or so later appeared the following item:

“Brown saddle-horse, ‘The Brogue,’ bridegroom’s gift to bride.”

“Which shows,” said Toby Mullet, “that he knew nothing.”

“Or else,” said Clovis, “that he has a very pleasing wit.”

The Almanac

“Has it ever struck you,” said Vera Durmot to Clovis, “that one might make a comfortable income by compiling a local almanac, on prophetic lines, like those that the general public buy by the half million?”

“An income, perhaps,” said Clovis, “but not a comfortable one. The prophet has proverbially a thin sort of time in his own country, and you would be too closely mixed up with the people you were prophesying about to be able to get much comfort out of the job. If the man who foretells tragic happenings for the Crowned Heads of Europe had to meet them at luncheon parties and tea-fights every other day of the week he would not find his business a comfortable one, especially towards the last days of the year, when the tragedies were getting overdue.”

“I should sell it just before the New Year,” said Vera, ignoring the suggestion of possible embarrassment, “at eighteenpence a copy, and get a friend to type it for me, so that every copy I sold would be clear profit. Everyone would buy it out of curiosity, just to see how many of the predictions would be falsified.”

“Wouldn’t it be rather a trying time for you later on,” asked Clovis, “when the predictions began to ‘lack confirmation’?”

“The thing would be,” said Vera, “to arrange your forecast so that it couldn’t go very far wrong. I should begin with the prediction that the vicar would preach a moving New Year sermon from a text in Colossians; he has always done so since I can remember, and at his time of life men dislike change. Then one could safely foretell for the month of January that ‘more than one well-known family in this neighbourhood will be faced with a serious financial outlook which, however, will not develop into actual crisis.’ Every other head of a family down here discovers about that time of year that his household is living far beyond its income, and that severe retrenchment will be necessary. For April or May or thereabouts I should hint that one of the Dibcuster girls would make the happiest choice of her life. There are eight of them, and it’s really time that one of the family married or went on the stage or took to writing worldly novels.”

“They have never done anything of the kind within human memory,” objected Clovis.

“One must take some risks,” said Vera. “I should be on safer ground,” she added, “in predicting serious servant troubles from February to November. ‘Some of the best mistresses and house managers in this locality will be faced with vexatious servant difficulties, which will be temporarily tided over.’ ”

“Another safe forecast,” suggested Clovis, “could be fitted into the dates when there are medal competitions at the golf club. ‘One or two of the most brilliant local players will encounter extraordinary and persistent bad luck, which will rob them of the deserved guerdon of good play.’ At least a dozen men will think your prophecies positively inspired.”

Vera made a note of the suggestion.

“I’ll let you have an advance copy at half price,” she said; “on the other hand, I expect you to see that your mother buys one at market rates.”

“She shall buy two,” said Clovis; “she can give one to Lady Adela, who never buys anything that she can borrow.”

The almanac had a big sale, and most of its predictions came sufficiently near fulfilment to sustain the compiler’s claim to prophetic powers of an eighteenpenny standard. One of the Dibcuster girls made up her mind to be a hospital nurse and another of them gave up piano playing, both of which might be considered happy decisions, while the forecast of servant troubles and unmerited bad luck on the golf links received ample confirmation in the annals of the home and the club.

“I don’t see how she was to know that I was going to change my cook twice in seven months,” said Mrs. Duff, who easily recognised an allusion to herself as one of the best mistresses of the neighbourhood.

“And it’s come quite true about phenomenal vegetable products being recorded from a local garden,” said Mrs. Openshaw; “it said ‘a garden which has long been the admiration of the neighbourhood for its magnificent flowers will this year produce some marvels in the way of vegetables.’ Our garden is the admiration of everybody, and yesterday Henry brought in some carrots, well, you wouldn’t see anything to equal them at a show.”

“Oh, but I think that refers to our garden,” said Mrs. Duff, “it has always been admired for its flowers, and now we’ve got some Glory of the South parsnips that beat anything