Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
It is five o'clock in the morning. Through my open window come the pure notes of the lark's first song, the Cloth of Gold roses nod their creamy heads in at me, heavy with dew-drops, and whisper, "Come out! come out!" Yes, but surely they don't mean to say, "Come out and see a pig killed!" My mind has somehow or other made itself up, and though I every moment expect to hear Jack's footfall below, I am attired in a nightgown, no more. Who that has tasted the first spotless freshness of the early morning could go back to dull, senseless sleep in that white bed, yonder? When Jack is gone I will dress and go out into the lanes and fields, and get a bunch of fresh wild flowers. I will———there is Jack. I mount the window and present my white-robed form to his astonished and disgusted gaze.
"So you're not coming;" he asks in an indignant whisper, heedful of Amberley, whose room is below mine, but reassured by the rhythmic regularity of her snores. "So you're a———"
"Don't be angry," I say, imploringly, "I'm not a coward, and I'll do anything else you like, but I can't do that."
"Oh! I dare say," he says, scornfully, "I dare say! Well, I'm going, but before I go I may as well tell you that I'm disappointed in you. I thought, mind you, Nell, I thought you were plucky enough to be a boy; but I was mistaken, you're only a girl."
"I know I am," I say, almost in tears, "that's just why I can't go and see it—boys feel differently about those things!"
"I should hope so," says Jack, significantly, "I should hope so," and turns on his heel and goes his way, pigsty-wards, leaving me to the miserable conviction that he is perfectly right, and I am a very small and cowardly person indeed.
By-and-by I pluck up sufficient spirit to put on the despised female garments that I hate so thoroughly. How cumbrous, and useless, and ridiculous they are! how my gowns, petticoats, crinoline, ribbons, ties, cloaks, hats, bonnets, gloves, tapes, hooks, eyes, buttons, and the hundred and one et ceteras that make up a girl's costume, chafe and irritate me! what would I not give to be able to leave them all in a heap, and step into Jack's cool, comfortable, easy, grey garments? When I am dressed I go through Alice and Milly's room on tip-toe. A sunbeam is lying on Alice's nut brown head; a blackbird is singing on the window-sill, but she sleeps soundly on. Out in the garden the grass is all silvered over with dew, and the flowers are opening their beautiful eyes one by one; all night they have stood pale and still, but now, with the first quivering beams of the sun, they have awakened, and stirred, and trembled, turning eagerly towards their king, who is rising in such pomp of amber glory out of the great eastern plains of translucent sea-green sky. As yet there is that faint, chilly freshness in the morning air that is like some strange, intangible, wind-blown perfume, as though the breath of the moonlit night had tarried behind, and was merging itself into the dawning warmth of the morning.
There is a nameless stir and throb of expectancy in the air, as though all nature were awaiting the advent of her master; field and meadow, flower and garden, stretching out towards his golden splendour and swift, vivifying beams.
When I have fed the animals,—who are as wide-awake as though they had the work of the world to perform, instead of nothing to fill the long hours but sleeping and eating, while, strange contradiction! the human beings who have their lives to carve out, their names to make, and their souls to save, sleep soundly and long, awakened not by the sun or the birds, or because they have had rest enough, but because (oh, prosaic reason!) they are called,—I take my way across the dew-spangled meadows, where the cows are being milked, and John the milkman and Molly the dairymaid are sitting on contiguous stools, and flirting at the top of their voices, loudly confiding to each other those gentle secrets that are usually supposed to be of a somewhat private character.
There is nobody to listen though, save the brook, the birds, and me; and as I am behind them they are not put out of countenance by discovering that I have been an involuntary listener to their love talk. After all, I dare say, flirtation at five o'clock in the morning is as agreeable and amusing as at any other time, and a great deal more sweet and wholesome than in the evening. I do not get much of a nosegay, for June, bountiful month as she is, gives not half the wild flowers that follows spring's footsteps and gem her mantle so preciously; I only find some dog roses, travellers' joy, a few ragged robins, a handful of moon daisies, some meadow-sweet, and honey-suckle.
Turning into the orchard, I run against Jack coming from the opposite direction; he withdraws himself with dignity, but does not look very angry, so I proceed to try and make my peace after a sneaking feminine fashion.
"Was it very nice?" I ask, in a propitiatory tone.
"First-rate; wouldn't have missed it for anything."
"Did it squeak much?"
"Awfully; didn't you hear him? There will be some prime bacon though, and I shall take a ham back to school."
Bacon! ham! Three hours ago it was a breathing, enjoying, reasonable pig, now———
"It is Pimpernel Fair to-morrow," I say, suggestively, hoping by a change of subject to divert Jack's thoughts from my delinquencies, upon which I am certain they are running.
"I know; but it's no good, the governor won't let us go."
"Mother is going to ask him; let us pray that the answer may be favourable."
Eight o'clock strikes as we turn in at the back door, and at the sound we both start as if we had been shot. To drag off our hats, and make a rush for the breakfast-parlour, is the work of a moment; and by the skin of our teeth are we saved, for by great good luck the governor this morning enters the room at ten seconds past the hour, instead of on the stroke, as is his wont.
Now there are laws and laws in our house, to break either of which is a very serious matter, but to be late for prayers is crime. To fall sick, tear our clothes, tell lies, steal fruit, and roll in the flower-beds, is bad, and will be punished accordingly, but to be late for prayers!—far better were it for that luckless wight that he or she had never been born. I wonder if, when I am quite old, I shall ever be able to forget that awful sickening moment, when, having torn down the stairs at headlong speed, I found the door shut, and heard papa's voice booming away with angry fervour inside?
Our family devotions are conducted in a curious fashion, but one that is eminently satisfactory to our youthful and irreligious minds. The governor goes through chapter, prayer, and benediction as hard as he can pelt, without a moment's pause, from beginning to end, and when the chapter is ended, and we have rapidly reversed ourselves, we are scarcely settled on our knees when the book, closing with a smack on Amen! shoots us all up into the perpendicular again. Every now and then the morning scamper is agreeably diversified by the unseemly conduct of the canaries, who, when papa begins to read, begin to sing, and the louder he reads, the more shrilly they shriek, until he pauses to say, in a voice of thunder, "Take those wretched birds down!" then settles to his stride again with a furious countenance, while the culprits, from an abased position on the floor, twitter derisively.
Prayers being over, breakfast is brought, and partaken of much as the Jews partook of the Passover (save that we have seats), in hot haste and the shortest possible time.
I think papa's digestion has been murdered long ago, and ours are on the high road to destruction, but, fast as we eat our meals, we heartily wish we could do it faster and get away.
This morning we are cudgelling our brains as usual to find a remark that shall be neither too fresh, nor too stale, nor too familiar, nor too dangerous, for ventilation, and every natural subject that suggests itself to our minds we reject in turn. The governor would not understand it, or he would wonder at our impudence, or—something. We are all nervously anxious to talk; it is from no obstinacy or contumaciousness that we sit tongue-tied, but somehow the stream that flows so over-bountifully among ourselves is in his presence reduced to a few scanty drops. Amberley is pouring out the coffee, limp, and meek, and drab, and fair, with putty-coloured curls, concerning which we have never ceased to admire the self-restraint that has kept the governor from pulling them in his frequent rages.
Do you think it is going to rain, papa?" asks Alice, making her small votive offering in a voice that refuses to come boldly forth, but seems to be strangled half-way. The sky is one clear vault of blue, and it has not rained for a week.
"I don't know," says the governor crossly. Apparently he has seen the pumping-up process, and is not grateful for the effort.
Alice looks over at Milly with a glance that plainly says, "Your turn now;" for it is a point of honour with us that when one makes a remark, each shall follow in turn, and thus divide the labour of conversation.
"Dorley killed a lot more snails last night," says Milly, looking at papa; but the snails go the way of the weather, and no notice whatever is vouchsafed to this delicate morceau.
It is Jack's turn now, but he is stolidly eating his breakfast, with a mean and reprehensible indifference to his duty; therefore it devolves upon me.
"The pig was killed this morning," I say, starting with a tolerably loud voice, and dying gradually into a very little one. "It made such a noise!" But, alas! the pig goes the way of the snails and the weather.
There is an anxious silence, broken only by Amberley's meek voice offering the master of the house more coffee, but upon being told it is filthy stuff she collapses, as do we, and sit counting the moments to our departure. Jack sneezes violently, and we look at him gratefully; it makes an agreeable little diversion, but he must not do it twice, or he will be ordered out of the room. Papa has finished his bacon and coffee, and we are just thinking we may venture to rise and make our escape, when his angry voice makes us bound in our seats.
"Can't you talk, some of you?" he asks, eyeing us wrathfully "There you sit, gobble, gobble, gobble, with never a word among the whole lot, and behind my back you can bawl the house down; a set of wretched dummies!" And so he dismisses us with a few more expressions of admiration and good-will.
"I am afraid Pimpernel Fair looks rather bad," says Alice, when we reach the schoolroom.
"After all it is not much of it!" says Milly.
No, it is not; and in our heart of hearts we despise, with its one circus, its penny peep-show, and its fat woman; but it is better than nothing, and when one has looked upon nothing but the face of one's own family for twelve months, anything is agreeable to the eye, and now that it seems to be receding in the distance Pimpernel Fair appears very attractive indeed!
Amberley comes in—Amberley to whom it is given to labour heavily at the tillage of our brains, and whom we look upon as a sedate and amiable old cow, who never kicks up her heels or does anything unexpected, but gives down knowledge in any quantity or quality whenever we choose to apply for it. She is a queer creature, Amberley. We used to play her tricks, and try to drive her out as we did all our other governesses; but she opposed a passive resistance to all our endeavours, that in the end conquered us. We might as well have knocked our heads by the hour against a stone wall. For oh! she is so meek! Give us a passionate person, an impulsive person, a person who loudly declares she will have her own way, but a meek, obstinate woman, no one can stand against her!
Lessons begin, and after our different fashions we attack the Tree of Knowledge. Alice goes at it gaily, and with a good heart; Milly weeps at its prickly rind; I skirmish round it; and Dolly and Alan sit down before it with moderate appetite. Happy Jack! who goes by with his dog at his heels; and unlucky me, who possess the tastes and spirit of a boy, and the useless body and petticoats of a girl!