Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

the hole. So sounds the beeskep when the days are wet, and its little people pack the cells more tightly with the sweat of heaven or the moisture of the stars, as the elder Pliny thought it.

There was something in this stifled indication of the people's inner lives that used to make Sir Andrew yearn to know them closer. He knew them at their work-none better; every man by name: he knew them in their outdoor recreations, but he felt that there was more to know, more vital things and paramount, within the poorer dwellings of his village, which he could not enter. How he wished it was a ship again, and he at liberty to take a lanthorn and go through the crowded depths, asking if all was well with comrades.

But that, on land, was a joy reserved for a Captain's women: Aunt Amelia stood his watch, more of the martinet than he had ever been on the Bellerophon, ohiding the sloven, menacing the ne'er-do-well with threats of trouble at the factor's office. She undertook the duty in a missionary spirit; felt herself a daring soul, landing (backed by Norah Grant) on jeopardous sands in Raratonga. I would not say exactly that the people loved her, how can you love a lady who asks what the dinner - pot contains, and has views of a maiden kind about the ease with which the size of a family may be restricted?

They would fly from the open stairheads when they saw her coming, to put fresh pawns

[ocr errors]

on the bed or hurriedly pile the unwashed breakfast dishes in the bunker. And Watty Fraser, being a lonely man without a woman-body, only with a fiddle, which is better company, had been compelled to train a gander. "Jock they called it-a bachelor bird of great antiquity, hating the very sight of frocks. He lived upon the gutter, and he held the entrance to the wynd where Orpheus and the fiddle shared a garret. 'Twas a stirring thing to see the bird with his neck extended, and a baleful eye, padding with nightmare feet in chase of bairns whose naked legs were pimpled with their terror. His hiss expressed a very orgasm of fury that became more sinister at the sight of women, who never ventured down the wynd but fearfully, prepared to pull their skirts about their ankles.

"Well done, Jock!" would Orpheus cry, looking out at his garret window.

The blackness of the heathen isles lay, therefore, on the wynd where Watty dwelt, for Aunt Amelia daren't venture near it.

She appealed to Captain Cutlass for an edict from the factor's office to proscribe all geese of either sex, and he only laughed at her. "What, Jock!" he cried, "my old friend, Jook! I couldn't look a goose in the face again if I deported Jock. The gander is a sacred bird; the Romans used to carry a golden one in their processions.'

[ocr errors]

"The Romans would do anything!" said Aunt Amelia.

"Look out! There's Jock!" cried Norah, warningly, that

[graphic]

known as "my yin." The feudal days were gone, and "Tilda Birrell, with Miss Amelia in her room, swithered to lay down her knitting till she reached the middle of the needle. Perhaps the affable Norah's presence helped a lot in the nonchalance of this reception: Norah was a universal favourite, and she liked Miss Birrell's tea, which always tasted like a masking from the Cranford urn, though made in a wondrous pot that her father had carried in his knapsack from the looting of Pekin.

"You're not married yet, Miss Norah!" said the law yer's housekeeper, as usual, twinkling with her brother's fun. "You must haste-ye and look about ye, and no' be left in the lurch like me!"

Oh, there's many a splendid chance at fifty," was Miss Norah's joke — an old among maids of hopeful spirit.

one

But never a word, you may be sure, about the poet: in Schawfield one might joke on anything except a rumour of engagements, far too serious a thing.

That day Amelia was unusually deaf, sure sign of a change of weather, and her eyes kept darting restlessly in search of hints. It was impossible for any human being to be so alert in following a conversation as she thought herself at that particular

moment.

"And how is Sir Andrew keeping?" "Tilda asked, plying the Pekin teapot.

"I asked that this morning," answered Norah, "and he said,

'I'm feeling so well that if I felt any better I should be heartily ashamed of myself.' He couldn't very well be more emphatic, could he?"

"He's well looked after," pointed out his aunt-the common boast of wives in the "lands" she had just been visiting. "He was saddling the mare to go to Mr Beswick's when we left."

"But Andy does not always ride when he saddles," said her niece. "And whether he gets to Schawfield House or not depends how long his conscience operates. You drove him to it, aunt; he admitted he had been remiss with Mr Beswick, but you never can tell with Andy: who knows but he may meet a charming caravan of gipsies?

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

I

"And Miss Colquhoun? saw her gallop out this afternoon, said "Tilda genially, at which her elder guest gave a little start and cocked an

ear.

"To the moor as usual," said Norah. "Pen loves to haunt the moor: she's a great dreamer."

"Eh? What!" cried her aunt, astonished. " Schemer, did you say?"

"Dreamer, aunt, not schemer. I'm saying to Miss Birrell that Pen is a terrible dreamer."

"You always mumble, in the town," said Miss Amelia querulously. "I wondered what you meant," and she helped herself to another cookie. She looked relieved, but from that single word misapprehended rose a rose a thought before unknown to her in spite of her great

[merged small][ocr errors]

experience in vicarious romance. 'Tilda Birrell's cookies weren't quite so good to-day as they used to be. In another moment they would seem a good deal

worse.

"How's her arm, Miss Grant?" asked "Tilda, unreflecting that a matter gossiped of in Schawfield village might be a holy secret in Fancy Farm.

"Oh, better long ago," said Norah, not surprised that what had been a secret from her aunt should be known to calmer people in the village.

"What is that about Pen, Norah ? I didn't catchsaid Miss Amelia quickly. "It's Pen's secret, aunt; only a scratch; Andy expected her to parry."

"A match! Marry! What are you talking of, my dear?" cried her aunt.

Miss Birrell had no sooner got her guests to the foot of the stair with decent circumstance than she was up again and stamping on the parlour floor, the signal for her brother in his den below. "I'm a sinful woman, James," said she; "but I thank the Lord for Miss Amelia's sad infirmity."

The clatter of horse on the noisy causeway filled each window in the street: she ran to hers, and saw the Captain and Penelope ride past.

"They'll overtake the ladies," she exclaimed to James, looking out behind her shoulder. "Isn't this the busy day wi' Providence?"

(To be continued.)

[ocr errors][merged small]

He had a cough

MY FRIEND MR SPUNGE.

As hollow as his hollow heart:

The wheeze was Nature, but the choke was Art.
He said: "I knew you for a toff,

First time I saw you." Playing chess we were,
And I was Blackburne's master, Lasker's equal,
And Lord knows all what else for sequel.
He played me soft as any dulcimer;

His touch

Was much

Like Pachmann's, coaxing Chopin; no wild clutch,
No brutal pound-he gentled me.

He stirred among my various strings,

A zephyr in an aspen-tree,

That moves to song and at the same time sings.
And O! the lungy way he spat,

And O! the cheesy sob, a thing to wonder at!

He quoted Browning, too, the swine!

For he had sucked a curate (and the curate's father's wine);
Read Mrs Humphrey Ward-

Yea, Toynbee Hall had shed

The chrism of Culchaw on his head;

Knew Wagner by the card

Hummed now in sentimental mood

"O du mein holder Abendstern,"

And then, more spry,

Lanced loud the Walkyr's ory

Letting you so discern

How much of soulful and of good

Lay prisoner behind the bars

Of his rickety cage,

Beating, in high-aspiring rage,

Weak wings that might not ever hope to reach the stars.

With a wan smile full of a whole world's pain,

He'd quote an In Memoriam quatrain,

Not half so brave as was his smile;

Then, in his seat would wilt and sag,

And sigh, and shiver, and shudder, and gulp,
And splutter into a bloody rag

A pint of pulmonary pulp

(His guile!),

« AnteriorContinuar »