CHAP. VII
JACK'S SMOCK-FROCK
"WADING ACROSS THE ANGRY BOURNE."
Fairy's education had been a puzzle to Mrs. Shelley, though at first Jack had taught her to read and write, until she was five years old, when the problem had been solved by the rector, Mr. Leslie, who had always taken a great deal of notice of the pretty child, offering to let her learn with his girls of their governess, who was a Frenchwoman, and from that day Fairy's mornings and afternoons till four o'clock were spent at the rectory, and in the evenings Jack helped her to prepare her lessons for the next day.
By this means Jack learnt French, and had access to many books which would otherwise have been impossible for him to get hold of. He made the most of his opportunities, and was always far ahead of Fairy in all her studies except French, and in this Fairy was the teacher, and her silvery laugh was often heard to ring out merrily at Jack's English accent, for she had begun to learn it so early that her accent was perfect; indeed, she seemed to have a gift for languages, so quickly did she pick up French; but then she had a very quick ear and a talent for mimicry, both of which are great helps in learning a foreign language.
Once or twice John Shelley—who had a great dread lest his eldest son should spend too much time over books, time which, unless the book was the Bible, the simple shepherd thought wasted—had suggested that Charlie should help Fairy, and Jack look after the sheep, but Fairy soon settled this; Jack could not follow the sheep in the evenings, and as for Charlie, he could read and write and do a little ciphering, but he hated books, and was no use to her at all. The three boys had only been sent to the village school till they were twelve years old, when Jack had been taken away to follow the sheep and learn a shepherd's duties, Willie had gone to sea, and Charlie, for the present, worked in the garden, looked after the pigs and poultry, and helped his mother in various ways.
"When will Jack be in, John? I want him to do my arithmetic for me," said Fairy, helping herself to a kind of harvest cake, called in Sussex plum-heavy, a dainty that was heavy by nature as well as by name, and the way in which the shepherd and his boys devoured them spoke well for their digestive organs.
"As soon as he has folded the sheep—that is, about eight o'clock," said the shepherd.
And a little after eight, just as Fairy, after a deal of puckering of her pretty brows, had given up her sums in despair, Jack came in. He was a tall, fine, handsome lad of seventeen, darker than his brothers and more like Mrs. Shelley than the shepherd in appearance, with a look of keen, quick intelligence in his brown eyes, and a sweet smile which lighted up his whole face. He was quick in all his actions, and had laid aside his hated crook and changed his clothes, and washed and seated himself by Fairy's side before he had been ten minutes in the house. Mrs. Shelley looked with pride at her darling son as he bent his curly brown head over Fairy's slate, and in his clear voice, quite free from the Sussex brogue in which his parents and brothers spoke, explained decimal fractions to her.
Jack's manner to Fairy was rather a puzzle to his mother, for while it was more deferential than the shepherd's and less familiar than Charlie's, who, when he was clean, Fairy allowed to be on brotherly terms with her, at the same time he assumed a tone of intellectual superiority which Fairy quite acquiesced in and seemed to think quite natural, and yet she ordered him about just as she did the other boys, and he was certainly never so happy as when in her presence and doing her bidding.
Sometimes Mrs. Shelley feared for her boy's happiness, for though Fairy was only a child in age and everything else, Jack was five years older, and already his mother dreaded lest his affection and admiration should develop into a stronger feeling, although, for she was very ambitious for her boy, if she could know that in the far future Fairy would respond to the feeling, hope, and not fear, would have been the feeling with which she watched them.
When the sums were finished, Mrs. Shelley laid the cloth for supper, while Jack and Fairy discussed their plans for the next day.
"Where is father?" asked Jack, suddenly.
"Now coming in to supper; he is cross with you, you naughty boy, because you have not set the wheatear traps properly, and he only caught two dozen," said Fairy.
These wheatear traps are excavations in the turf, about a foot long, in the shape of a T. The birds run up the trenches and get entangled by the head in a noose.
"Well, that is five or six shillings, and there'll be another two dozen poor little things snared to-morrow," said Jack.
"More, I expect, Jack; your father has been after the traps himself this evening; but here he is, so don't mention them unless he does. Look what Fairy and I have been making for you, Jack. Show him, Fairy," said Mrs. Shelley, who was making a huge hasty pudding over the fire for supper.
"Yes, look here, Jack: a beautiful smock, a real smock! Isn't it lovely? John insisted on your wearing one, so we made it for your birthday; but don't look so unhappy, I have got a prettier present for you to-morrow," said Fairy, holding the heavy smock up in her tiny fingers.
"But why did you make me such a thing, mother? You might have known I could not possibly wear it," said Jack, flushing angrily, and ignoring Fairy's part in the manufacture of the unwelcome garb.
"Not wear it! What do you mean, Jack?" asked the shepherd, as he came in, followed by the other boys.
"Here's a joke! we shall have a row now," said Charlie, in an undertone, to Willie, boy-like, rejoicing in the prospect.
"I back old Jack to win this time," whispered Willie.
"Mean, father? Why, what I say. No power on earth shall induce me to wear a smock frock," said Jack, infusing all the scorn he could muster into the objectionable name of the still more objectionable thing.
It was some minutes before the shepherd could take in the full meaning of his son's words. He supposed there was some objection to this smock in particular, for as he wore a smock himself, and his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had done the same before him, it never occurred to him that Jack could object to smocks in general. Shepherds wore smocks; Jack was of course a shepherd because he, John Shelley, was a shepherd, therefore Jack must wear a smock.
"What is the matter with this smock? Is it too big, or too small, or what?" he asked, slowly.
"I don't know, I am sure, what size it is; I only know it is no use to me."
"But if you have not tried it on, how can you possibly tell? Put it on and let's see," said the shepherd, taking the smock from Fairy and handing it to Jack.
"I tell you, father, I won't wear a smock; it is bad enough to have to be a shepherd; wear a smock I won't," cried Jack, his eyes flashing dangerously.
John Shelley began to understand now; it was pride which was at the bottom of it—pride sprung from all this book-knowledge, which he had always prophesied would lead to no good, and pride which must be trampled upon at once. John had never understood his eldest son, and he could no more enter into the feeling which prompted Jack to shrink from wearing this badge of his lowly calling than he could understand his objection to snaring wheatears.
"And I tell you, Jack, I will have no more of this folly. It all comes from the books you are always poring over instead of attending to your work."
"When have I ever neglected my work? Summer and winter alike, from five in the morning till sunset, am I following the sheep," interrupted Jack, passionately.
"Hush, Jack, dear, hush!" whispered Mrs. Shelley.
"Remember you are speaking to your father; and now no more of this. I order you to put on that smock at once, and sit down and get your supper in it."
"And I refuse ever to put it on," replied Jack.
The shepherd advanced a step towards the angry lad; but Fairy, trembling for the consequences, caught hold of John's arm and held him back, while Mrs. Shelley stood between her husband and Jack, who was shaking with suppressed passion.
"Do you mean you refuse to obey me?" asked the shepherd.
"Yes, in this I do," answered Jack, fiercely.
"Then leave the house until you know how to behave," said the shepherd, seating himself quietly at the supper-table.
No need to tell Jack twice to go. Hungry as he was, having had nothing to eat since his early dinner, he turned at once on his heel, and muttering something about never entering it again, he went out and banged the door after him. The next moment Fairy was running after him, her lovely hair floating in the evening breeze as she hooked her arm in his and tried to keep up with his great hasty strides.
For ten minutes Jack stalked angrily along, so fast that Fairy had almost to run to keep up with him. He had turned sharp to the left on leaving the field in which the shepherd's house stood, and where he was going Fairy could not think, for the road they were in was only a kind of cart-drift leading to a stream which sprung out of the chalk hills, called the Winter-bourne, a mere tiny brook, which Fairy could leap dry-shod in summer; it was an angry rushing torrent in winter. It was a lovely July evening; the sun had set, but the after-glow still lingered in the western horizon; the pale blue sky was cloudless, and melted away into a delicate green and gold over the purple downs, which caught the golden reflection, and looked like golden hills in the evening light. About two miles to the left of Jack and Fairy lay the picturesque old town of Lewes in an amphitheatre of hills, the grand old castle and its ivy-covered walls forming the most attractive object in the picture; behind them, lay the soft rounded outlines of the range of downs, cold and grey under the darkening eastern sky. But Fairy was not much given to admiring sunsets or going into raptures over the Southdown scenery. She was hungry, and wanted to get back to supper as soon as she could persuade this tiresome angry Jack to come with her; and how to accomplish this was the problem she was anxiously trying to solve as she panted along by Jack's side. Her task would be only half done when she had succeeded in this, but this was the worst half. If she could only bring Jack to reason, she would soon persuade the shepherd to capitulate; he had never refused her anything in her life; many a time had she saved the boys from punishment; she was quite certain he would listen to her now. But Jack! She was by no means so sure of him; he required very delicate manipulation.
At last she stopped just as they reached the Winter-bourne, a harmless, innocent-looking little brook, whose violence in winter would have seemed incredible to Jack and Fairy if they had not once had a terrible experience of it.
It was when Fairy and Charlie were eight years old. Charlie having seen the brook the day before, swollen and rushing wildly along, challenged Fairy to wade through it; she, unconscious of the change, and remembering it only as a tiny stream which barely covered her little feet, accepted the challenge, declaring it was the easiest thing in the world to do; and the more Charlie protested she would never be able to succeed, the more determined Fairy was to try. But when they reached the bourne and Fairy saw, instead of a tiny brook, an angry stream thirty feet wide, rushing along, and disappearing under the turf, to rise again further on, and, as Charlie told her, run through the priory grounds, where it was deep enough to drown a cow, her heart sank within her.
"I told you so," said Charlie; "I said you could not do it, but you would not believe me."
"But I will do it. Look here, Charlie, it is not deep here, is it? It can't be, you know, we have often played at mud pies where it is now running; it won't come much above my knees," said Fairy, taking off her shoes and socks.
"You had better not go, Fairy. It mayn't be deep, but it is very rapid; you may be carried away with it," urged Charlie.
"Bah!" laughed Fairy, dipping her pretty feet into the cold water, and shrieking with delight.
"Well, wait a minute till I have taken off my shoes, and we'll go together. It will be up to our waists in the middle, I believe," said Charlie; and the next minute the two children were wading across the angry bourne, laughing and screaming with delight, as each step they took the stream ran stronger and deeper.
But as they neared the centre of the stream the laughter ceased, and suddenly a wild shriek from Fairy, who was taken off her feet, rent the air, and, to Charlie's horror, he saw her carried away by the angry stream towards the spot where it disappeared under the turf, a horrid, dark-looking ditch. He rushed back to the shore, hoping to have time to lean over the ditch and catch her before she disappeared under it, but as his feet touched the dry land Jack, who luckily had seen the pair going towards the Winter-bourne from the down where he was watching the sheep, and knowing it to be a dangerous place, had come to order them home. Jack now rushed to the spot, and leaning over the mouth of the ditch, caught Fairy before she was carried under it. Luckily for Charlie, Jack had left his crook behind him, or there is no telling what harm he might have done to the child in his rage; as it was, he seized him, and would have beaten him unmercifully only Fairy cried to him to come and wring the water out of her clothes for her.
She was none the worse for her adventure, since Jack, in spite of all their entreaties, remorselessly led the culprits home at once, and, in answer to their fears that Mrs. Shelley would be very angry, only hoped she would, and was even cruel enough, as Fairy told him, to say it served them right when the culprits were sent to bed as soon as Mrs. Shelley heard what had happened.
It was at this bourne that Fairy now stopped Jack, panting, and exclaiming, "Oh, Jack, do stop; I am so hot and tired, I can't walk another step."
"Fairy, why didn't you tell me before, child, and why did you come at all?" asked Jack, reproachfully, though in his heart pleasure at Fairy's coming was almost stronger than his anger with his father, which by this time had nearly vanished, for Jack's temper was as quickly over as it was roused.
"Why did I come? To bring you back to supper, of course; and why didn't I tell you before to stop? Because you would not have listened if I had when you were in such a rage, you tiresome, cross boy, you."
"I am not in a rage now, Fairy, only I am not going to wear a smock. But where is your hat? You will catch cold."
"Of course I shall; I feel rather chilly now. Do take me home, Jack, before it comes on bad," said the little hypocrite, who never caught cold by any chance.
"I'll go back to the house with you, Fairy, but I can't come in, you know. Father has turned me out."
"Oh, I know; John is as bad as you. Between you both you'll bring me and mother to a sick bed, quarrelling in this way. You ought both to be ashamed of yourselves, and all about a stupid smock frock. I don't know which is the silliest about it, you or John."
"I am sure, Fairy, you would not like to see me in a smock," interrupted Jack.
"I never said I should, but you need not have put yourself in such a temper about it, worrying me in this way, and teasing me when I am so hungry. Aren't you very sorry, sir?"
"Yes, you know I am, Fairy, but I can't and won't wear that smock. I'll keep it all my life, because you made it, but I will never——"
"Oh, do stop; I am so tired of that 'I won't wear a smock.' We will write a song for the next sheep-shearing, and that shall be the chorus. I am sure you will sing it most lustily. Now there's John to manage. Now, will you promise me faithfully to wait out here in the garden while I go and talk to him?"
"Yes, I promise," said Jack, as they reached the shepherd's house, and Fairy, leaving him outside, went in to propitiate his father.
The others were at supper, or at least, Mr. and Mrs. Shelley were sitting at the table; the boys had gone to bed.
"Where is Jack, Fairy?" asked Mrs. Shelley.
"He is outside, waiting for John to go and bring him in to supper, and I am so hungry; do go, John," said Fairy, putting one of her slender arms round the shepherd's neck.
John put up one of his brown weather-beaten hands, and took hold of the little delicate white hand resting coaxingly on his shoulder as he answered, "Fairy, Jack has behaved very badly."
"Perhaps he has, but he is very sorry," whispered Fairy.
"Well, for your sake I'll forgive him, then," said the shepherd, rising from his seat.
"Yes, but wait a minute, John. He is very sorry, but he won't wear a smock, so it won't be the least bit of use your asking him," said Fairy.
"I knew he wouldn't, and if Fairy can't persuade him it is no use your making any more fuss about it. Do, for goodness sake, drop it, John, and fetch the lad in to supper. You can't force a boy of his age as a child of twelve, and, after all, he does his work just as well without a smock as with one, so do let us have peace," said Mrs. Shelley, who had been arguing the vexed question with her husband during Jack's absence.
"That is not the point. The question is, who is to be master in this house, Jack or I?" said the shepherd, seating himself again.
"Nonsense! the only question is, are you going to drive your son, as good a son as man can have, away from his home to rack and ruin for the sake of a whim of yours? Times have changed since you were young; people don't do as they did. My mother followed the sheep in shearing-time, but that is no reason why I should do the same."
"Times may have changed, but sons still obey their fathers, and a man is still master in his own house, and if not he ought to be; at any rate, I mean to be master in mine," said John.
"And I mean to be mistress, and I say Jack shan't wear a smock. I hate the ugly things, and if Jack goes away I'll go away too," burst out Fairy, stamping her little foot, and then, as if half-alarmed and half-afraid of the effect of her words, she threw herself into Mrs. Shelley's arms, sobbing out, "and you are very unkind to me, as well as to Jack."
Fairy's violence surprised the shepherd into rising from his seat, but when she burst into tears he laid his hand on her golden head, and saying, "Well, well, well, we won't say any more about it," he went out of the house.
What passed between the shepherd and his son no one ever knew, but they came in to supper together a few minutes later, both of them rather grave, but on good terms with each other. And Jack never wore the smock.
(To be continued.)
[VARIETIES.]
Selfish Man!
"My darling little wife," said a husband, "you will be pleased to hear I have just insured my life."
"Yes, of course," replied the wife, "there it is again—another proof of how utterly selfish and inconsiderate men are, always thinking of themselves. Naturally, it never occurred to you to insure my life."
A Lesson in Courtesy.—"My child," said a father to his daughter, "treat everybody with politeness, even though they are rude to you. For remember that you show courtesy to others, not because they are ladies, but because you are one."
Snail Cough-mixture.—The following glimpse of an old lady's pharmacopœia in the middle of last century is got from a letter of Mrs. Delany's written in January, 1758:—"Does Mary cough in the night? Two or three snails boiled in her barley-water or tea-water, or whatever she drinks, might be of great service to her; taken in time they have done wonderful cures. She must know nothing of it. They give no manner of taste. It would be best nobody should know it but yourself, and I should imagine six or eight boiled in a quart of water and strained off and put in a bottle would be a good way, adding a spoonful or two of that to every liquid she takes. They must be fresh done every two or three days, otherwise they grow too thick."
The Truth about Wives.
Some wicked wits have libelled all the fair.
With matchless impudence they call a wife
The dear-bought curse and lawful plague of life;
A bosom serpent, a domestic evil.
* * * * *
Let not the wise these slanderous words regard,
But curse the bones of every lying bard;
All other goods by fortune's hand are given—
A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven.
A wife! Oh, gentle deities, can he
That has a wife e'er feel adversity?
Would men but follow what the sex advise,
All things would prosper, all the world grow wise.
—Pope.
A Novelist's Tale.—Why is a novelist an unnatural phenomenon? Because his tale comes out of his head.
Sunshine at Home.—No trait of character is more valuable in a woman than a sweet temper. Home can never be made happy without it. It is like the flowers that spring up in our pathway, reviving and cheering us. Let a man go home at night, wearied and worn by the toils of the day, and how soothing is a word dictated by a good disposition! It is sunshine falling on his heart. He is happy, and the cares of life are forgotten.
"What Does Yf Spell?"
"Bad spelling," says Benjamin Franklin in one of his letters, "is generally the best, as conforming to the sound of the letters and of the words. To give you an instance: a gentleman received a letter in which were these words, 'Not finding Brown at hom, I delivered your meseg to his yf.' The gentleman, finding it bad spelling, and therefore not very intelligible, called his lady to help him to read it. Between them they picked out the meaning of all but the yf, which they could not understand. The lady proposed to called her chambermaid, 'because Betty,' says she, 'has the best knack at reading bad spelling of anyone I know!' Betty came and was surprised that neither sir nor madame could tell what yf was.
"'Why,' says she, 'y—f spells wife; what else can it spell?'
"And, indeed, it is a much better, as well as shorter, method of spelling wife than doubleyou-i-ef-e, which in reality spells double-uifey."
The Height of Woman.—Given sixty-six inches as the average height of a man, the average height of a woman is sixty-three inches.—Charles Blanc.
Little Minds.—It is the characteristic of little and frivolous minds to be wholly occupied with the vulgar objects of life.—Blair.