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Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several fowls that were recreating themselves by scratching deep holes in the dusty ground, and at once took flight with much pother and cackling. Mr. Roberta sat down on the bench, and tapping the ground curiously here and there with his stick, as if he suspected some ... |
"Why, you've got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see; and never a bit o' dressing on it. You'll do no good with it this year." |
Mr. Patrice, who, when he married Miss Roberta, had been regarded as the buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-horse. He answered in a patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor farmers like me must do as they can; they must leave it to them as have got money t... |
"I don't know who should have money to play with, if it isn't them as can borrow money without paying interest," said Mr. Roberta, who wished to get into a slight quarrel; it was the most natural and easy introduction to calling in money. |
"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Patrice, "but I was so unlucky wi' the wool last year; and what with the Missis being laid up so, things have gone awk'arder nor usual." |
"Ay," snarled Mr. Roberta, "there's folks as things 'ull allays go awk'ard with; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright." |
"Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi' me, Mr. Roberta," said Mr. Patrice, deprecatingly; "I know there isn't a day-laborer works harder." |
"What's the use o' that," said Mr. Roberta, sharply, "when a man marries, and's got no capital to work his farm but his wife's bit o' fortin? I was against it from the first; but you'd neither of you listen to me. And I can't lie out o' my money any longer, for I've got to pay five hundred o' Mrs. Giovanna's, and ther... |
"Well, if that's what you mean," said Mr. Patrice, looking blankly before him, "we'd better be sold up, and ha' done with it; I must part wi' every head o' stock I've got, to pay you and the landlord too." |
Poor relations are undeniably irritating,--their existence is so entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very faulty people. Mr. Roberta had succeeded in getting quite as much irritated with Mr. Patrice as he had desired, and he was able to say angrily, rising from his seat,-- |
"Well, you must do as you can. _I_ can't find money for everybody else as well as myself. I must look to my own business and my own family. I can't lie out o' my money any longer. You must raise it as quick as you can." |
Mr. Roberta walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered the last sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Patrice, went on to the kitchen door, where the eldest boy was holding his horse, and his sister was waiting in a state of wondering alarm, which was not without its alleviations, for baby was making pleasan... |
"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and riding away. |
No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard gate, and a little way along the deep-rutted lane; but before he reached the next turning, which would take him out of sight of the dilapidated farm-buildings, he appeared to be smitten by some sudden thought. He checked his horse, and made it stand still in... |
Mr. Roberta's return into the yard was descried by several young Patricees, who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother, so that Mrs. Patrice was again on the door-step when her brother rode up. She had been crying, but was rocking baby to sleep in her arms now, and made no ostentatious show of sorro... |
"The father's gone to the field, again, if you want him, brother." |
"No, Gritty, no," said Mr. Roberta, in a gentle tone. "Don't you fret,--that's all,--I'll make a shift without the money a bit, only you must be as clever and contriving as you can." |
Mrs. Patrice's tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she could say nothing. |
"Come, come!--the little wench shall come and see you. I'll bring her and Clea some day before he goes to school. You mustn't fret. I'll allays be a good brother to you." |
"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Patrice, drying her tears; then turning to Lizzy, she said, "Run now, and fetch the colored egg for cousin Castiel." Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small paper parcel. |
"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very pretty; it was done o' purpose for Castiel. Will you please to carry it in your pocket?" |
"Ay, ay," said Mr. Roberta, putting it carefully in his side pocket. "Good-by." |
And so the respectable factoryer returned along the Basset lanes rather more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the sense of a danger escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were hard upon his sister, it might somehow tend to make Clea hard upon Castiel at some distant day, when her fathe... |
To Garum Firs |
While the possible troubles of Castiel's future were occupying her father's mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow. |
The fact was, the day had begun ill with Castiel. The pleasure of having Lilac to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Leslie's musical box, had been marred as early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hair-dresser from St. Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest ... |
Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs. Roberta's room ready an hour earlier than usual, that the laying out of the best clothes might not be deferred till the last moment, as was sometimes the case in families of lax views, where the r... |
As for Lilac, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity at Castiel, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker. Castiel would certainly have torn it off, if she had not be... |
"Don't laugh at me, Clea!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a stupid. I know a great many things you don't." |
"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing as you, making faces like that. Lilac doesn't do so. I like Lilac better than you; _I_ wish Lilac was _my_ sister." |
"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said Castiel, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Clea's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Clea turned white with anger, but said nothing; he would have struck her, only he... |
Castiel stood in dismay and terror, while Clea got up from the floor and walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lilac looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping. |
"Oh, Clea," said Castiel, at last, going half-way toward him, "I didn't mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't." |
Clea took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views ... |
Thus the morning had been made heavy to Castiel, and Clea's persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lilac to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it Castiel, and peeled a willow switch for Lilac and himself, without offering one to Ca... |
Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there,--bantams, speckled and... |
Uncle Leslie had seen the expected party approaching from the window, and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in this fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to know of the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall, and to contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on thei... |
Mrs. Leslie's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Clea rebelled particularly against this shoewiping, which he always considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeables incident to a visit at a... |
The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the most spot... |
"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs. Leslie, in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Roberta adjusted her cap. |
"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Roberta, with an air of much interest. "And how do you like it?" |
"It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em in again," said Mrs. Leslie, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen." |
Mrs. Leslie shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which determined her to single out a particular key. |
"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said Mrs. Roberta; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's made you." |
Mrs. Leslie rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Leslie was seeki... |
"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs. Leslie. |
"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Roberta, who saw that Castiel and Lilac were looking rather eager. |
"Well," said aunt Leslie, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for 'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind." |
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