Clara Vaughan, Volume 1 (of 3)

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER VI.

  Two or three days after this, I was keeping school in the dairy, theparlour being too small for that purpose, and the kitchen and "wash-up"(as they called the back-kitchen) too open to inroads from Suke and Tim.My class consisted of ten, or rather was eight strong, the two weames(big baby and little baby), only attending for the sake of example, andbecause they would have roared, if parted from the other children. Sothose two were allowed to spraddle on the floor, where sometimes theymade little rollers of themselves, with much indecorum, and betweenwhiles sat gravely sucking their fat red fingers, and then pointed themin a glistening state at me or my audience, and giggled with a largecontempt. The eight, who made believe to learn something, were the sixelder Huxtables, and two of Tim Badcock's "young uns." I marshalledthem, four on each side, against the low lime-whitened walls, which borethe pans of cream and milk. Little Sally, my head scholar, was veryproud of measuring her height, by the horizontal line on the milk-panwhere the glazing ended; which Tabitha Badcock, even on tiptoe, couldnot reach. They were all well "claned," and had white pinnies on, andtheir ruddy cheeks rubbed up to the highest possible polish, with yellowsoap and the jack-towel behind the wash-up door. Hence, I never couldrelieve them from the idea that Sunday now came every day in the week.

  I maintained strict discipline, and allowed no nonsense; but two saddrawbacks constantly perplexed me. In the first place, their ways wereso ridiculous, and they laboured so much harder to make me laugh, thanthey did to learn, that I could not always keep my countenance, and whenthe spelling-book went up before my face, they knew, as well aspossible, what was going on behind it, and peeped round or below, andburst out all together. The second drawback was, that Mrs. Huxtable, inspite of all my protests, would be always rushing in, upon errandspurely fictitious; and the farmer himself always found some specialbusiness in the yard, close to the wired and unglazed window, whenceevery now and then his loud haw-haws, and too audible soliloquies, "Dangme! wull done, Zally, that wor a good un; zay un again, cheel! zay unagain, wull 'e?" utterly overthrew my most solemn institutions.

  "Coom now, smarl chillers"--I addressed them in my unclassicalDevonshire dialect, for it kept their attention alive to criticise mewhen I "spak unvitty"--"coom now, e've a been spulling lang enough: stonround me now, and tull me what I axes you."

  Already, I had made one great mistake, by saying "round" instead of"raound," and Billy, the genius of the family, was upon the giggle.

  "Now thun, wutt be a quadripade?"

  "Ai knoo!" says Sally, with her hand held out.

  "Zo do ai," says Jack, thrusting forth his stomach.

  "Who wur axing of you?" I inquire in a stately manner. "You bain't thesmarl chillers, be 'e? Bill knows," I continue, but wax doubtful fromthe expression of Bill's face.

  "Ees fai," cries Bill, suddenly clearing up, "her be wutt moother zitson vor to mulk the coos. Bain't her now?"

  "Thee bee'st ony wan leg out, Bill. Now Tabby Badcock?"

  While Tabby is splashing in her memory (for I told them all last week),the farmer much excited, and having no idea what the answer should be,but hoping that one of his own children may discover it first, boldlyshows his face at the wired window, but is quite resolved to allow fairplay. Not so Mrs. Huxtable, who, in full possession of the case,suddenly appears behind me, and shakes her fist at poor puzzled Tabby."Thee'dst best pretend to know more than thy betters." She tries tomake Tabby hear, without my catching her words. But the farmer hotlyshouts, "Lat un alo-un, waife. Tak thee hon from thee mouth, I tull 'e.Spak up now, little wanch."

  Thus encouraged, Tabby makes reply, looking cross-wise at Mrs. Huxtable.

  "Plase, Miss, it be a beastie wi vour taials."

  "Raight," cries the farmer, with admiration conquering hisdisappointment; "raight this taime, ai'll tak my oath on it. I zeed wanto Barnstaple vair last year, and her wor karled, 'PhanominyQuadripade,' her Kirsten name and her zurname, now ai coom toracollack."

  Tabby looks elated, and Mrs. Huxtable chagrined. Before I can redressthe situation, a sound of heavy blows, delivered on some leatherysubstance, causes a new stir. All recognise the arrival of HerMajesty's mail, a boy from Martinhoe, who comes upon a donkey twice aweek, if there happen to be any letters for the village below.

  Out rush Mrs. Huxtable and Suke (who once received an epistle), and thechildren long to go, but know better. The boy, however, has only aletter for me, which is from Mrs. Shelfer (a cousin of Ann Maples), towhom I wrote a few days since, asking whether she had any rooms to let.Mrs. Shelfer replies that "she has apartments, and they are splendid,and the rent quite trifling;" so the mail is bribed with a pint ofcider, while I write to secure a new home.

  My departure being now fixed and inevitable, the women naturally beganto remonstrate more than over. It had been settled that Ann Maplesshould go with me, not to continue as my servant, but to find a placefor herself in London.

  My few arrangements, which cost me far more pain than trouble, were notlong in making; and after saying good-bye to all the dear littlechildren and weanies, and kissing their pretty faces in their littlebeds, amid an agony of tears from Sally, I was surprised, on enteringthe kitchen, to find there Mr. Beany Dawe. There was little time fortalking, and much less for poetry. We were to start at three in themorning, the farmer having promised to drive us to meet the coach inBarnstaple, whence there would be more than thirty miles of hilly roadto Tiverton, the nearest railway station. The journey to London couldthus be made in a day, though no one in the parish could be brought tobelieve it.

  The poet had been suborned, no doubt, by Mrs. Huxtable, and now detainedme to listen to an elegy upon the metropolis of England. I cannot stopto repeat it, neither does it deserve the trouble; but it began thus:--

  "Fayther was wance to Lonnon town, And a zed, zed he, whan a coom down, 'Don't e niver goo there, Ebenezer my son, For they mulks a coo, when her ain't gat none. They kapes up sich a hollerin, naight and day, And a Devonsheer man dunno the impudence they zay. Their heads and their hats wags regular, like the scratchers of a harrow, And they biles their taties peeled, and ates them in a barrow. They raides on a waggon top with their wives squazed up inside her, And they drinks black dose and yesty pops in the place of wholesome zider. They want take back anything they've zelled, And the beds can bite, and the cats can speak: And a well-dress'd man be a most compelled To channge his shirt in the middle of the week!'"

  "Lor," cried Mrs. Huxtable, "however could they do their washing? Theevayther must a been as big a liar as thee, Beany. Them gifts alwaysruns in the family."

  When, with remarkable patience, I had heard out his elegant effusion,the author, who had conceived much good will towards me, because Ilistened to his lays and called him Mr. Dawe, the author dived with adeep-drawn sigh into a hole in his sack, and produced in a mysteriousmanner something wrapped in greasy silver paper, and well tied up. Hebegged me to accept, and carry it about me most carefully and secretly,as long as I should live. To no other person in the world would he havegiven this, but I had earned it, as a true lover of poetry, and requiredit as a castaway among the perils of London. In vain I declined thepresent; refusal only confirmed his resolution. As the matter was of solittle importance, I soon yielded upon condition that I should firstexamine the gift. He gave me leave with much reluctance, and I wassurprised at the beauty and novelty of the thing. It was about the sizeof a Geneva watch, but rather thicker, jet black and shining, and of theexact shape of a human heart. Around the edge ran a moulding line orcord of brilliant red, of the same material as the rest. In the centrewas a white spot like a siphuncle. What it was I could not guess, butit looked like some mineral substance. Where the two lobes met, a smallhole had been drilled to receive a narrow riband. After putting methrough many guesses, Mr. Dawe informed me that it was a pixie's heart,a charm of unequalled power against witchcraft and assassina
tion, and toenthral the affection of a loved one. He only smiled, and rubbed hisnose, on hearing that I should never want it in the last capacity.Being greatly pleased with it, I asked him many questions, which he wasvery loth to answer. Nevertheless I extorted from him nearly all heknew.

  As he was sawing into boards a very large oak-tree, something fell fromthe very heart of it almost into his mouth, for poor Ebenezer was onlyan undersawyer. As he could not stop the saw without his partnersconcurrence, and did not wish to share his prize, he kicked some sawdustover it until he could stoop to pick it up unobserved. In all his longexperience of the woods, he had seen but two of these rare and beautifulthings, and now assured me that any sawyer was considered lucky whofound only one in the course of his career. The legend on the subjectwas rather quaint and graceful, and deserves a better garb than he or Ican furnish.

  "All in the olden time, there lived A little Pixie king, So lovely and so light of foot That when he danced the ring, The moonlight always shifted, to gaze upon his face, And the cowslip-bells uplifted, rang time with every pace.

  There came a dozen maidens, Almost as tall as bluebells; The cowslips hushed their cadence, And bowed before the true belles: The maidens shyly glancing, betwixt the cummer darts, Espied the monarch dancing, and lost a dozen hearts.

  He was fitted up so neatly, With dewdrops for his crown, And he footed it so featly He never shook them down. The maids began advancing, along a lily stem, Not to stop the monarch's dancing, but to make him look at them.

  The king could not afford them The proper time to gaze, But sweetly bowed toward them, At the turn of every maze: Till full of pretty faces, and his sandals getting worn, He was puzzled in his paces, and fell upon a thorn.

  The maidens broke the magic ring, And leaped the cummer dart; 'Alas, our little Pixie king, The thorn is in his heart!' They laid him in a molehill, and piteously they cried: Yet this was not the whole ill, for all the maidens died.

  Each took a spindled acorn, found Below a squirrel's nest, And set the butt against the ground, The barb beneath her breast: So truly she addressed the stroke unto her loving part, That when the acorn grew an oak, it held her little heart.'

  By no means a "little heart," it seemed to me, for a fairy to haveowned, but as large as it was loving. I assured Mr. Dawe that he wasquite untaught in fairy lore, or he never would have confounded fairieswith pixies, a different class of society. But he treated my learningwith utter contempt, and reasonably enough declared that he who spentall his time in the woods must know more than any books could tell.

  He also informed me, that the proper name for the lignified fairy heart,was a "gordit:" but he did not choose to tell me what had become of theother, which was not so large or handsome as this, yet it had saved hima month's sawing, and earned him "a rare time," which meant, I fear,that the proceeds had been spent in a very long cruise.

  After refusing all compensation, Mr. Dawe made his farewell in severalcouplets of uncouth but hearty blessing, begging me only to shake handswith him once, and venturing as a poet to prophesy that we should meetagain. The "gordit" was probably nothing more than a rare accretion, organglion, in the centre of an aged oak. However, it was very pretty;and of course I observed the condition upon which I had received it,valuing it moreover as a token of true friends.

  But how can I think of such trifles, while sitting for the last time inthe room where my mother died? To-morrow all the form and colour of mylife shall change; even now I feel once more my step on the dark trackof justice, which is to me revenge. How long have I been sauntering onthe dreary moor of listlessness and hollow weariness, which spreads, forso many dead leagues, below the precipice of grief? How long have Ibeen sauntering, not caring to ask where, and conscious of existenceonly through the nerves and fibres of the memory. The things I have beendoing, the duties I have discharged, the vague unlinked ideas, startlingme by their buffoonery to grief--might not these have all passed throughme, every whit as well, if I had been set against a wall, and wound upfor three months, and fitted with the mind expressed in the chuckle of aclock? Nay, worse than all--have I not allowed soft thoughts to stealthroughout my heart, the love of children, the warmth of kindness, thepleasure of doing good in however small a way? Much more of this, and Ishall learn forgiveness of my wrong!

  But now I see a clearer road before me. Returning health renews mygall. Death recedes, and lifts his train from the swords that fellbefore him. Once more my pulse beats high with hatred, with scorn ofmeanness, treachery, and lies, with admiration of truth and manhood, notafter the fashion of fools.

  But dare I mount the Judge's throne? Shall the stir of one frail heart,however fresh from its Maker's hand, be taken for His voice pronouncingright and wrong?

  These thoughts give me pause, and I dwell again with my mother. But inall the strength of youth and stern will, I tread them down; and am oncemore that Clara Vaughan whose life shall right her father's death.