'What was the use when the poor dear was only seven year old? What
call was there for him to come to a blessed innocent like that? I
did tell him to look in when my husband was took, for I know as
before we were married there was something atween him and that gal
Sanders. He never would own up to me about it, and I thought as he
might to a clergyman, and, if he did, it would ease his mind and make
it a bit better for him afterwards; but, Lord! it warn't no use, for
he went off and we didn't so much as hear her name, not even when he
was a-wandering. I says to myself when the parson left, "What's the
good of having you?"'
Mrs Caffyn was a Christian, but she was a disciple of St James rather
than of St Paul. She believed, of course, the doctrines of the
Catechism, in the sense that she denied none, and would have assented
to all if she had been questioned thereon; but her belief that
'faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone,' was something
very vivid and very practical.
Her estimate, too, of the relative values of the virtues and of the
relative sinfulness of sins was original, and the rector therefore
told all his parishioners that she was little better than a heathen.
The common failings in that part of the country amongst the poor were
Saturday-night drunkenness and looseness in the relations between the
young men and young women. Mrs Caffyn's indignation never rose to
the correct boiling point against these crimes.
The rector once ventured to say, as the case was next door to her,'It is very sad, is it not, Mrs Caffyn, that Polesden should be so addicted to drink. I hope he did not disturb you last Saturday
night. I have given the constable directions to look after the
street more closely on Saturday evening, and if Polesden again
offends he must be taken up.'
Mrs Caffyn was behind her own counter. She had just served a
customer with two ounces of Dutch cheese, and she sat down on her
stool. Being rather a heavy woman she always sat down when she was
not busy, and she never rose merely to talk.
'Yes, it is sad, sir, and Polesden isn't no particular friend of
mine, but I tell you what's sad too, sir, and that's the way them
people are mucked up in that cottage. Why, their living room opens
straight on the road, and the wind comes in fit to blow your head
off, and when he goes home o' nights, there's them children a-
squalling, and he can't bide there and do nothing.'