"My dear young master," said he, "I am almost broken-hearted; a trifleof money would engage the sergeant to give him up, if I could get itbefore they take him to the magistrate at the next town; and he, poorboy! desires no better, for they had made him drink more than he isaccustomed to do, or he never would have thought of leaving me: themoment he was sober he repented of it; but it is too late--I have nomoney, and they will soon be gone. Wretched old man that I am! what willbecome of me?"
"Pray do not grieve so, old John," said William; "I will return to mypapa directly, and I am very sure he will not leave you in distress. Iwill be back again in half an hour, so pray be comforted--your son shallnot be taken from you." And away he went, fully intending to do as hehad said he would; but unfortunately William was not to be dependedupon, for he continually deferred to another time what ought to be doneat the moment, and trifled away hours in which he had engaged to renderlittle services to people who depended upon his promises.
It is scarcely to be credited, that, anxious as he appeared to relievethe poor old man's distress, he should, before he got half way to hispapa's house, if not _forget_ the errand on which he was going with somuch seeming expedition, at least suffer a new object to draw off hisattention from the principal part of it; and that he should accept of aninvitation to dine, without once recollecting, that, unless the businesscould be settled immediately, the recruiting party would have left thevillage, and poor John would be abandoned to misery and distress.
Meeting with two young gentlemen who lived in the neighbourhood, andbeing invited by them to go and dine at their house, their servant wasdispatched, whilst they amused themselves in the wood; to ask his papa'sleave; and as it was readily granted, and he did not return tillevening, the recruiting party had left the village many hours before oldJohn had the means sent him of procuring his son's discharge.
William was extremely grieved when he perceived the sad effects hisneglect had occasioned, the agony of the poor old man, and the anger ofhis papa, who, after threatening to send him immediately back to school,took this opportunity of making him recollect how many times he hadbrought trouble and distress upon different persons by the unpardonablefault he was continually committing, through his trifling, unsteadydisposition, and assured him, that if he suffered so bad a custom togrow up with him, he would be pointed out as a man on whose word no onecould place the smallest confidence, and whose promises were of novalue--a frivolous, despicable character, with whom no worthy peoplewould associate. He then ordered his chaise to be got ready, and wentover to the market town; the magistrate was his particular friend, andhe had the pleasure (though not without some difficulty) of freeing theyoung man, and of sending him home to comfort and support his aged andafflicted father.
THE COUSINS.
Priscilla lost her mother when she was very young: her father was in theEast Indies, and she was taken home by his sister, Mrs. Hamilton, wholoved her for his sake, and shewed her the greatest kindness andattention; but her daughters, Emily and Lucy, were not both equally kindto their cousin. Lucy was very fond of her, but Emily was jealous andenvious, and could not bear the marks of tenderness bestowed upon her byher mother.
Priscilla had a most affectionate heart, and would cry for hourstogether, when she thought she had done any thing to make her cousinangry; which she imagined must certainly be the case (though she couldnot recollect what it could possibly be), for it never entered into herhead that any one could be displeased with her, when she had donenothing to offend them, and little suspected, that when she was praisedby her aunt for her even temper and constant good humour, for herattention to her lessons, and the progress she made in every thing sheundertook to learn, her kind and gentle manner towards the servants, andher charity and humanity to her fellow-creatures in distress: she had noidea that those praises increased the dislike which the ill-naturedEmily had conceived to her the moment she came into the house, who,instead of endeavouring to imitate her good qualities, took every methodin her power to cast a shade over them, and to fill every one's headwith tales to her disadvantage.
As they grew older, Emily's dislike to her cousin increased every hour,as did the amiable Priscilla's endeavours to soften it by every mean shecould employ, and by seeking every opportunity of obliging her. If Emilyhad any work to do, of which she appeared tired, Priscilla was sure tobe ready to finish it for her: if she wished for a nosegay, Priscillawould search over the whole village till she had procured the prettiestand sweetest flowers to make one for her; but all was to nopurpose--she hated her the more for the trouble she took to please her.
One day Mrs. Hamilton returned from the town, where she had been topurchase different things to send to her sister in Scotland; and,amongst the rest, a very beautiful netting-box, which she intended as apresent to her, was shewn to the young ladies, and greatly admired byall three. It was extremely delicate, and, after they had sufficientlyexamined its beauty, it was placed on a small table, with positiveorders from Mrs. Hamilton that it should not be touched; but returningin the evening from the house of a friend in the neighbourhood, withwhom she had dined, and recollecting that curiosity might lead some ofthe servants to open it, she took it up in the paper, as it lay on thetable, and locked it in a bookcase.
The following day, being busily employed in packing up the things shehad purchased for her sister, and thinking to put some cotton into thelittle netting-box, to preserve the winders and other things fromrubbing, how was she surprised at perceiving that the lining was greeninstead of pale pink, and that several parts of it were totallydifferent from that which she had purchased the day before!
Lucy said she was very sure it was not the same box her mamma had shewnto them; Emily was of the same opinion: but Priscilla only blushedwithout saying a word.
"Somebody has broken my box, and replaced it with another not half sopretty," said Mrs. Hamilton in an angry tone; "I had positively forbideither of you to touch it, and I insist on knowing which of you has donethis mischief."
"I am afraid," said Emily, pretending to feel extremely for her cousin'sconfusion, "that poor Priscilla has had the misfortune to break it; andindeed, mamma, if you will but observe how she blushes, and that she hasnot a word to say in her own defence, you need not have any doubt of thematter."
Priscilla assured her aunt that she had never touched her box after shehad shewn it to her; Emily gave the same assurance with regard toherself, and Lucy declared that she had not been in the room where itwas, from the time that her mamma went out, till she returned in theevening.
Mrs. Hamilton, determined to know the truth, asked the young ladies whatuse they had made of the guinea they had each received on new year'sday, saying her box had cost that sum, and could not have been replacedwithout an equal one.
"Here is mine," eagerly exclaimed Emily, "in my little work-trunk."
"Half of mine, my dear mamma," said Lucy, "you will recollect, I paidfor a box of colours, and some drawing paper; and here is the other halfin my purse."
"And where is _your_ guinea, Priscilla?" demanded Mrs. Hamilton.--"Andwhat is the reason, that, instead of shewing the same readiness withyour cousins to clear yourself, you only blush and hang down your head,without speaking a single word?"
"I cannot produce my guinea," answered Priscilla; "but believe me, mydear aunt, when I assure you that I never touched your box."
Emily, who had her reasons for wishing the subject might be dropped,though not from any motive of tenderness for her cousin, now earnestlyintreated her mamma not to inquire any farther into the matter, as itonly distressed the _poor thing_, and would make her utter a thousandfalsities. But old Martha, their maid, who had stood all the timepinching the strings of her apron, clasping her hands together, and thenlifting them up to heaven, with many other gestures which marked herimpatience, now no longer able to contain her indignation, burst outlike thunder, and asked Emily how she could possibly stand there,looking her mamma in the face, and presume to talk of _falsities_, whenshe must be con
scious she was at that moment guilty, not only of a mostterrible and wicked falsity, in accusing an innocent person of the faultshe had herself committed, but was also making the most ungratefulreturn that any one could be capable of, for an action which certainlydeserved the greatest praise, and which she must be conscious she owedto her cousin's generosity and kindness. She then proceeded to acquainther mistress, that walking with Priscilla round the garden, about halfan hour after she had left the house, and coming near the parlourwindow, which happened to be open, they had perceived the netting-boxlying on the marble hearth, broken into a dozen pieces, and Emily withher back towards them, picking them up; that Priscilla had, in a lowwhisper, entreated her in the most earnest manner not to speak; and thathaving stood a little aside, they had seen her go and throw all thepieces into the pond in the front garden, and then run up stairs as fastas possible.
"The dear Miss Priscilla," continued old nurse, "then begged me, as thegreatest of all favours, to go immediately into the town, to the shopwhere you had bought the netting-box, and with _her_ guinea to get oneexactly like it: and this I did to oblige her, and because it never wasin my power to refuse her any thing she asks, though I must say Ithought Miss Emily little deserved her kindness; for this is but one outof a hundred stories she has told of her, and ill-natured tricks she hasplayed her, in return for her constantly doing every thing she could tooblige her, and for the trouble she has taken so many times to hide herfaults. I thought the box I purchased so exactly like yours, Madam, thatI concluded you never would discover what had happened; and MissPriscilla was quite happy in thinking you would be spared the vexationof knowing it had been broken, and her cousin the anger which she wouldhave incurred, by disobeying your orders. We were, however,disappointed; but Miss Emily must have guessed, when her cousin couldnot produce her guinea, what use she had made of it; and that was thereason why she wished you to drop the subject, for she might wellsuppose her falsity and ill nature must at length be made known to you."
It is almost needless to add, that Emily entirely lost her mamma's goodopinion; Priscilla lived very happily from that time, affectionatelybeloved by Mrs. Hamilton and her cousin Lucy, and doated on by oldMartha, who never forgot to entertain her friends and acquaintance withthe story of the broken netting-box, so disgraceful to Miss Emily, andso much to the honour of her darling Priscilla.
THE TRAVELLERS.
At six o'clock on a fine morning in the beginning of September, Mrs.Cecil, with her daughter Matilda, stepped into a post-chaise in order tobegin a journey towards London.
The house she had for some time inhabited stood in a distant andromantic part of Wales, many miles from the public road, so that theycould advance but slowly, and often walked up steep hills, and overcraggy mountains, either from regard to their own safety, or becausethey were tired of the carriage.
Matilda, after riding a whole day, wished she could perform theremaining part of the journey on foot, and often urged her mamma (evenwhen the roughness of the road did not render it necessary) to get outof the chaise, that she might run up a rising ground, look round her,and pick up and examine a number of different things which caught hereye and struck her fancy; and Mrs. Cecil, who walked but slowly, wasoften left far behind, whilst her daughter made little excursions, andamused herself by talking to the country people.
The second day after their departure from home, she told her mamma shehad, in one of her rambles into a narrow lane, seen a poor boy in greatdanger of being beaten by a woman who appeared to be mistress of a smallcottage adjoining to that at the door of which he stood, and whothreatened to lay a stick (which she held in her hand) over hisshoulders, if ever he dared to touch her pears again. "But," saidMatilda, "the boy insisted that they were not her pears, but hisfather's, and that he was in his father's garden when he picked themfrom a bough which hung down almost into his mouth."
Mrs. Cecil observed, that it would indeed have been a hard case if theboy had been punished by a neighbour for eating his father's pears; butwhen Matilda farther informed her, that the woman said the tree grew in_her_ garden, and that the bough with which he had made so free,because it hung over the wall, was a part of it, she said that entirelyaltered the case; and asked Matilda, whether, when her sister had lostone of her gloves, and that it was found to have slid into _her_ drawer,she thought that accident made it her property, or whether it stillbelonged to her sister? or whether, if the little rose-tree, of whichshe was so fond, should in another year extend its branches so much, asto spread over a corner of her sister's garden, she imagined it wouldgive her a right to pluck all the roses which hung in her way, orwhether she should not look upon them as _her_ roses, as much as thosewhich were growing on the other parts of it? Matilda perceived she hadbeen wrong, and thanked her mamma for shewing her her error.
The travellers arrived towards evening at the foot of a steep craggyhill, and in compassion to the poor horses, they determined to walk tothe top of it. On gaining the summit, they saw an extensive common lyingbefore them; and Matilda, who was accustomed to make observations, andto reflect on every thing she saw, and who never lost an opportunity ofgaining information, asked her mamma if she did not think it a greatpity, that any part of the world should remain so barren anduncultivated, and, as it appeared to her, so intirely useless; wishing,at the same time, she had the power to change the whole common in aninstant into flourishing corn-fields and beautiful gardens.
Mrs. Cecil was just beginning to tell her daughter, that nothing wasmade which could be said to be entirely useless, when the post-boy camerunning up to inform her, that one of the wheels of the chaise wasbroken to pieces, and he did not know what he should do to get it up thehill.
"This is a sad accident indeed!" said Mrs. Cecil, "and I know not whatany of us are to do, for I do not see a single habitation near us."
"Bless you! my lady," answered the boy, "do but please to turn about,and you will see plenty of habitations. I be no stranger here; andthough there be no gentlefolks live in the place, I will be answerablefor finding you a clean, neat cottage, with homely fare, but a heartywelcome. The first you see, over there by the trees, belongs to my aunt:do, Madam, please to walk up to it, whilst I go seek for two or threemen to help me up with the _chai_."
During this speech, Mrs. Cecil had turned her head, and was veryagreeably surprised at seeing, very near the spot where she stood, alittle cluster of neat cottages among some trees, which, on ascendingthe hill, she had not perceived, having been equally struck, as Matildawas, with the extent of the plain before them.
They proceeded, as the post-boy had desired them, to the first cottage,where they found a woman busily employed in preparing her husband'ssupper, whilst four pretty little children, with ruddy complexions andsmiling faces, were eating milk with wooden spoons out of a large bowlwhich was placed in the midst of them.
The good woman received them very kindly, and offered them every thingher cottage afforded, such as milk, whey, brown bread, eggs, and somecommon but ripe and relishing fruit. Matilda expressed much wonder, thatshe found the means of procuring even the necessaries of life on ableak, wild common; and was extremely surprised when the woman assuredher that the common, which she seemed to think so little of, was whatfurnished them with the greater part of the comforts they enjoyed:telling her also, that if it were more fertile, and were to be inclosedand cultivated, it would be quite lost to them, because they were toopoor to be able to rent even the smallest portion of it. "As it is,"added she, "all the cottagers on this little spot have a right to feedtheir cattle, and to cut turf for their winter fire. Neither my cow normy goats cost me any thing; we have a little garden, which, between myhusband and myself, is kept in pretty good order, and produces as manyvegetables as we can make use of. I have plenty of poultry, which Icarry to market, and have milk to feed my pig; so that we have nothingto wish for, but that God may preserve our health, and continue to usthe blessings we enjoy."
Matilda was astonished at this account, and made many observa
tions toher mamma on the pleasure of finding people happier than she expected,which gave her the greatest satisfaction, as they were convincing proofsof the goodness of her disposition: and she did not fail to observe toher, that the mixture of fertile vallies, barren mountains, hills,woods, and plains, with which the earth is diversified, each in variousways, and at different seasons of the year, are productive of good tothe industrious.
Mrs. Cecil and Matilda were obliged to pass the night in the cottage:the next morning the wheel of the chaise being repaired, and havingsatisfied the good woman for the trouble they had given her, and madesome little presents to her children, they continued their journey; andbeing but a short distance from a small village, through which lay thehigh road to London, they arrived at that city without any accident, ormeeting with any thing farther, worthy of being related.
THE STRAWBERRIES.
Constance, Julia, and Dorothy had obtained their mamma's leave to spendthe afternoon with a young lady who lived at the distance of a mile anda half from their house; and as soon as they had dined, their maid beingordered to attend them, they set forward down a shady green lane, andacross the fields.
Nothing could be more agreeable and pleasant than the weather, or morebeautiful than the way they had to go; the hedges were full of thesweetest flowers, and the birds sung with more than usual harmony.Susan, the maid, was quite delighted; she stopped every moment to lookaround, and admire the beauties which presented themselves to her eyeson every side.
Not so her young ladies: they had each a reason why they could neitherenjoy the fragrance of the flowers, the music which echoed from everybush, nor any of the beauties which surrounded them.
A cup of sweets, that can never cloy: or, delightful tales for good children Page 7