Mary Anerley, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [the false prince .txt] 📗

when I have the most important work in hand. Any childish whim of yours matters more than hours and hours of hard labor."

"Oh, Willie, but you know how I try to help you, and all the patterns I cut out last week! Do come for once, Willie; if you refuse, you will never, never forgive yourself."

Willie Anerley was as good-natured as any self-indulged youth can be; he loved his sister in his way, and was indebted to her for getting out of a great many little scrapes. He saw how much she was in earnest now, and felt some desire to know what it was about. Moreover--which settled the point--he was getting tired of sticking to one thing for a time unusually long with him. But he would not throw away the chance of scoring a huge debt of gratitude.

"Well, do what you like with me," he answered, with a smile; "I never can have my own way five minutes. It serves me quite right for being so good-natured."

Mary gave him a kiss, which must have been an object of ambition to anybody else; but it only made him wipe his mouth; and presently the two set forth upon the path toward Bempton.

Robin Lyth had chosen well his place for meeting Mary. The lane (of which he knew every yard as well as he knew the rocks themselves) was deep and winding, and fringed with bushes, so that an active and keen-eyed man might leap into thicket almost before there was a fair chance of shooting him. He knew well enough that he might trust Mary; but he never could be sure that the bold "coast-riders," despairing by this time of catching him at sea, and longing for the weight of gold put upon his head, might not be setting privy snares to catch him in his walks abroad. They had done so when they pursued him up the Dike; and though he was inclined to doubt the strict legality of that proceeding, he could not see his way to a fair discussion of it, in case of their putting a bullet through him. And this consideration made him careful.

The brother and sister went on well by the foot-path over the uplands of the farm, and crossing the neck of the Flamburn peninsula, tripped away merrily northward. The wheat looked healthy, and the barley also, and a four-acre patch of potatoes smelled sweetly (for the breeze of them was pleasant in their wholesome days), and Willie, having overworked his brain, according to his own account of it, strode along loftily before his sister, casting over his shoulder an eddy of some large ideas with which he had been visited before she interrupted him. But as nothing ever came of them, they need not here be stated. From a practical point of view, however, as they both had to live upon the profits of the farm, it pleased them to observe what a difference there was when they had surmounted the chine and began to descend toward the north upon other people's land. Here all was damp and cold and slow; and chalk looked slimy instead of being clean; and shadowy places had an oozy cast; and trees (wherever they could stand) were facing the east with wrinkled visage, and the west with wiry beards. Willie (who had, among other great inventions, a scheme for improvement of the climate) was reminded at once of all the things he meant to do in that way; and making, as he always did, a great point of getting observations first--a point whereon he stuck fast mainly--without any time for delay he applied himself to a rapid study of the subject. He found some things just like other things which he had seen in Scotland, yet differing so as to prove, more clearly than even their resemblance did, the value of his discovery.

"Look!" he cried; "can anything be clearer? The cause of all these evils is not (as an ignorant person might suppose) the want of sunshine, or too much wet, but an inadequate movement of the air--"

"Why, I thought it was always blowing up here. The very last time I came, my bonnet strings were split."

"You do not understand me; you never do. When I say inadequate, I mean, of course, incorrect, inaccurate, unequable. Now the air is a fluid; you may stare as you like, Mary, but the air has been proved to be a fluid. Very well; no fluid in large bodies moves with an equal velocity throughout. Part of it is rapid and part quite stagnant. The stagnant places of the air produce this green scum, this mossy, unwholesome, and injurious stuff; while the overrapid motion causes this iron appearance, this hard surface, and general sterility. By the simplest of simple contrivances, I make this evil its own remedy. An equable impulse given to the air produces an adequate uniform flow, preventing stagnation in one place, and excessive vehemence in another. And the beauty of it is that by my new invention I make the air itself correct and regulate its own inequalities."

"How clever you are, to be sure!" exclaimed Mary, wondering that her father could not see it. "Oh, Willie, you will make your fortune by it! However do you do it?"

"The simplicity of it is such that even you can understand it. All great discoveries are simple. I fix in a prominent situation a large and vertically revolving fan, of a light and vibrating substance. The movement of the air causes this to rotate by the mere force of the impact. The rotation and the vibration of the fan convert an irregular impulse into a steady and equable undulation; and such is the elasticity of the fluid called, in popular language, 'the air,' that for miles around the rotation of this fan regulates the circulation, modifies extremes, annihilates sterility, and makes it quite impossible for moss and green scum and all this sour growth to live. Even you can see, Mary, how beautiful it is."

"Yes, that I can," she answered, simply, as they turned the corner upon a large windmill, with arms revolving merrily; "but, Willie dear, would not Farmer Topping's mill, perpetually going as it is, answer the same purpose? And yet the moss seems to be as thick as ever here, and the ground as naked."

"Tush!" cried Willie. "Stuff and nonsense! When will you girls understand? Good-by! I will throw away no more time on you."

Without stopping to finish his sentence he was off and out of sight both of the mill and Mary, before the poor girl, who had not the least intention of offending him, could even beg his pardon, or say how much she wanted him; for she had not dared as yet to tell him what was the purpose of her walk, his nature being such that no one, not even his own mother, could tell what conclusion he might come to upon any practical question. He might rush off at once to put the revenue men on the smuggler's track, or he might stop his sister from going, or he might (in the absence of his father) order a feast to be prepared, and fetch the outlaw to be his guest. So Mary had resolved not to tell him until the last moment, when he could do none of these things.

But now she must either go on all alone, or give up her purpose and break her promise. After some hesitation she determined to go on, for the place would scarcely seem so very lonely now with the windmill in view, which would always remind her henceforth of her dear brother William. It was perfectly certain that Captain Robert Lyth, whose fame for chivalry was everywhere, and whose character was all in all to him with the ladies who bought his silks and lace, would see her through all danger caused by confidence in him; and really it was too bad of her to admit any paltry misgivings. But reason as she might, her young conscience told her that this was not the proper thing to do, and she made up her mind not to do it again. Then she laughed at the notion of being ever even asked, and told herself that she was too conceited; and to cut the matter short, went very bravely down the hill.

The lane, which came winding from the beach up to the windmill, was as pretty a lane as may anywhere be found in any other county than that of Devon. With a Devonshire lane it could not presume to vie, having little of the glorious garniture of fern, and nothing of the crystal brook that leaps at every corner; no arches of tall ash, keyed with dog-rose, and not much of honeysuckle, and a sight of other wants which people feel who have lived in the plenitude of everything. But in spite of all that, the lane was very fine for Yorkshire.

On the other hand, Mary had prettier ankles, and a more graceful and lighter walk, than the Devonshire lanes, which like to echo something, for the most part seem accustomed to; and the short dress of the time made good such favorable facts when found. Nor was this all that could be said, for the maiden (while her mother was so busy pickling cabbage, from which she drove all intruders) had managed to forget what the day of the week was, and had opened the drawer that should be locked up until Sunday. To walk with such a handsome tall fellow as Willie compelled her to look like something too, and without any thought of it she put her best hat on, and a very pretty thing with some French name, and made of a delicate peach-colored silk, which came down over her bosom, and tied in the neatest of knots at the small of her back, which at that time of life was very small. All these were the gifts of her dear uncle Popplewell, upon the other side of Filey, who might have been married for forty years, but nobody knew how long it was, because he had no children, and so he made Mary his darling. And this ancient gentleman had leanings toward free trade.

Whether these goods were French or not--which no decent person could think of asking--no French damsel could have put them on better, or shown a more pleasing appearance in them; for Mary's desire was to please all people who meant no harm to her--as nobody could--and yet to let them know that her object was only to do what was right, and to never think of asking whether she looked this, that, or the other. Her mother, as a matter of duty, told her how plain she was almost every day; but the girl was not of that opinion; and when Mrs. Anerley finished her lecture (as she did nine times in ten) by turning the glass to the wall, and declaring that beauty was a snare skin-deep, with a frown of warning instead of a smile of comfort, then Mary believed in her looking-glass again, and had the smile of comfort on her own face.

However, she never thought of that just now, but only of how she could do her duty, and have no trouble in her own mind with thinking, and satisfy her father when she told him all, as she meant to do, when there could be no harm done to any one; and this, as she heartily hoped, would be to-morrow. And truly, if there did exist any vanity at all, it was not confined to the sex in which it is so much more natural and comely.

For when a very active