Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication, R. M. Ballantyne [read dune .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“Death seemed to cast his shadow over poor Moggy’s path all her life through. Shortly after this event Mr Hamilton died suddenly. This was a great blow to the housekeeper, for she was much attached to her old master, who had allowed her to keep her little grandson beside her under his roof. The sister survived her brother about five years. After her death the housekeeper returned to her old hut, where she has ever since lived on the interest of a small legacy left her by her old master. Little Willie, or wee Wullie, as she used to call him, was the light of old Moggy’s eyes, and the joy of her heart. She idolised and would have spoiled him, had that been possible; but the child was of a naturally sweet disposition, and would not spoil. He was extremely amiable and gentle, yet bold as a young lion, and full of fun. I do not wonder that poor old Moggy was both proud and fond of him in an extraordinary degree. The blow of his removal well-nigh withered her up, body and soul—”
“He died?” said Lucy, looking up at Flora with tearful eyes.
“No, he did not: perhaps it would have been better if the poor child had died; you shall hear. When Willie was six years old a gang of gypsies passed through this hamlet, and, taking up their abode on the common, remained for some time. They were a wild, dangerous set, and became such a nuisance that the inhabitants at last took the law into their own hands, and drove them away. Just before this occurred little Willie disappeared. Search was made for him everywhere, but in vain. The gypsies were suspected, and their huts examined. Suspicion fell chiefly on one man, a stout ill-favoured fellow, with an ugly squint and a broken nose; but nothing could be proved either against him or the others, except that, at the time of the child’s disappearance, this man was absent from the camp. From that day to this, dear little Willie has never been heard of.
“At first, the poor old grandmother went about almost mad with despair and anxiety, but, as years passed by, she settled down into the moping old creature you have seen her. It is five years since that event. Willie will be eleven years old now, if alive; but, alas! I fear he must be dead.”
“What a sad, sad tale!” said Lucy. “I suppose it must be because our Jacky is about the age that Willie was when he was stolen, that the poor woman has evinced such a fondness for him.”
“Possibly; and, now I think of it, there is a good deal of resemblance between the two, especially about the hair and eyes, though Willie was much more beautiful. You have noticed, no doubt, that Moggy wears a clean plaid—”
“Oh, yes,” interrupted Lucy; “I have observed that.”
“That was the plaid that Willie used to wear in winter. His grandmother spends much of her time in washing it; she takes great pains to keep it clean. The only mystery about the old woman is the old chest in one corner of her hut. She keeps it jealously locked, and no one has ever found out what is in it, although the inquisitive folk of the place are very anxious to know. But it does not require a wizard to tell that. Doubtless it contains the clothing and toys of her grandson. Poor old Moggy!”
“I can enlighten you on that point,” said Lucy, eagerly opening the lid of a small basket which hung on her arm, and displaying the small suit of Highland clothing in which Jacky had been conveyed home on the night when the Sudberrys were lost on the hills. “This suit came out of the large chest; and as I knew you meant to visit Moggy to-day, I brought it with me.”
The two friends reached the door of a small cottage as Lucy said this, and tapped.
“Come in!” gruffly said a man’s voice. This was one of Flora’s difficult cases. The man was bed-ridden, and was nursed by a grand-daughter. He was quite willing to accept comfort from Flora, especially when it took the shape of food and medicine; but he would not listen to the Bible. Flora knew that he liked her visits, however; so, with prayers in her heart and the Bible in her hand, she persevered hopefully, yet with such delicacy that the gruff old man became gruffer daily, as his conscience began to reprove him for his gruffness.
Thus, from hut to hut she went, with love to mankind in her heart and the name of Jesus on her lip; sometimes received with smiles and sent away with blessings, occasionally greeted with a cold look, and allowed to depart with a frigid “good-day!”
Lucy had often wished for some such work as this at home, but had not yet found courage to begin. She was deeply sympathetic and observant. Old Moggy was the last they visited that day. Flora was the only female she would tolerate.
“I’ve been tryin’ to say’t a’ night an’ I canna do’t!” she said stoutly, as the ladies entered.
“You forget the words, perhaps, dear Moggy—‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath—’”
“Na, na, I dinna forget them, but I canna say them.” So Flora sat down on a stool, and gently sought, by means of the Bible, to teach the old woman one of the most difficult lessons that poor human nature has got to learn in this world of mingled happiness and woe.
“Here! halloo! hi! Hobbs! I say,” shouted Mr Sudberry, running out at the front door, after having swept Lucy’s work-box off the table and trodden on the cat’s tail. “Where has that fellow gone to? He’s always out of the way. Halloo!” (looking up at the nursery window), “Mrs Brown!”
Mrs Brown, being deeply impressed with the importance of learning, (just because of Mrs Sudberry’s contempt thereof), was busily engaged at that moment in teaching Miss Tilly and Master Jacky a piece of very profound knowledge.
“Now, Miss Tilly, what is the meaning of procrastination?” (“Ho! hi! halloo-o-o-o,” from Mr Sudberry; but Mrs Brown, supposing the shout is meant for any one but herself; takes no notice of it.)
Tilly.—“Doing to-day what you might have put off till to-morrow.” (“Halloo! ho! don’t you hear? hi!” from below.)
Mrs Brown.—“No, you little goose! What is it, Jacky?”
Jacky.—“Doing to-morrow what you might have put off till to-day.” (“Hi! halloo! are you deaf up there?”)
Mrs Brown.—“Worse and worse, stupid little goose!”
Jacky, (indignantly).—“Well, then, if it’s neither one thing nor t’other, just let’s hear what you make it out to be—” (“Hi! ho! halloo! Mrs Bra–a–own!”)
“Bless me, I think papa is calling on me. Yes, sir. Was you calling, sir?” (throwing up the window and looking out.)
“Calling! no; I wasn’t ‘calling.’ I was shrieking, howling, yelling. Is Hobbs there?”
“No, sir; ’Obbs is not ’ere, sir.”
“Well, then, be so good as to go and look for him, and say I want him directly to go for the letters.”
“’Ere I am, sir,” said Hobbs, coming suddenly round the corner of the house, with an appearance of extreme haste.
Hobbs had, in fact, been within hearing of his master, having been, during the last half-hour, seated in McAllister’s kitchen, where the uproarious merriment had drowned all other sounds. Hobbs had become a great favourite with the Highland family, owing to his hearty good humour and ready power of repartee. The sharp Cockney, with the easy-going effrontery peculiar to his race, attempted to amuse the household—namely, Mrs McAllister, Dan, Hugh, and two good-looking and sturdy-limbed servant-girls—by measuring wits with the “canny Scot,” as he called the farmer. He soon found, however, that he had caught a Tartar. The good-natured Highlander met his raillery with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, and the use of hard words, so that it sometimes seemed to the domestics as if he really had some considerable power in argument. Worthy Mrs McAllister never joined in the debate, except by a single remark now and then. She knew her son thoroughly, and before the Sudberrys had been a week at the White House she understood Hobbs through and through.
She was wont to sit at her spinning-wheel regarding this intellectual sparring with grave interest, as a peculiar phase of the human mind. A very sharp encounter had created more laughter than usual at the time when Mr Sudberry halloed for his man-servant.
“You must be getting deaf; Hobbs, I fear,” said the master, at once pacified by the man’s arrival; “go down and fetch—”
“Pray do not send him away just now,” cried Mrs Sudberry: “I have something particular for him to do. Can you go down yourself, dear?”
The good man sighed. “Well, I will go,” and accordingly away he went.
“Stay, my dear.”
“Well.”
“I expect one or two small parcels by the coach this morning; mind you ask for ’em and bring ’em up.”
“Ay, ay!” and Mr Sudberry, with his hands in his pockets, and his wideawake thrust back and very much on one side of his head, sauntered down the hill towards the road.
One of the disadvantageous points about the White House was its distance from any town or market. The nearest shop was four miles off, so that bread, butter, meat, and groceries, had to be ordered a couple of days beforehand, and were conveyed to their destination by the mail-coach. Even after they were deposited at the gate of Mr McAllister’s farm, there was still about half a mile of rugged cart-road to be got over before they could be finally deposited in the White House. This was a matter of constant anxiety to Mr Sudberry, because it was necessary that someone should be at the gate regularly to receive letters and parcels, and this involved constant attention to the time of the mail passing. When no one was there, the coachman left the property of the family at the side of the road. Hobbs, however, was usually up to time, fair weather and foul, and this was the first time his master had been called on to go for the letters.
Walking down the road, Mr Sudberry whistled an extremely operatic air, in the contentment of his heart, and glanced from side to side, with a feeling amounting almost to affection, at the various objects which had now become quite familiar to him, and with many of which he had interesting associations.
There was the miniature hut, on the roof of which he usually laid his rod on returning from a day’s fishing. There was the rude stone bridge over the burn, on the low parapet of which he and the family were wont to sit on fine evenings, and commune of fishing, and boating, and climbing, and wonder whether it would be possible ever again to return to the humdrum life of London. There was the pool in the same burn over which one day he, reckless man, had
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