The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

He sat upon a little wooden bench, with the branches of a fine mulberry tree bending over and protecting him from the rising sun. Brushes and blacking lay near one end of the bench, and on a drooping branch of the mulberry tree hung a gentleman’s coat nicely brushed and left to the air.

From the spotless purity of his dress, you would have believed it impossible that this dainty-looking servant could have been performing the menial services which these objects would indicate; but at the very instant we present him to our readers, Turner had his left hand thrust up to the sole of a delicately shaped boot, and with the lightest and most graceful touch imaginable, was polishing it. Now and then he paused, looked at himself in the glittering surface, and fell to work again, not quite satisfied that the beloved image was thrown back with sufficient distinctness. He did not sing at his work. Turner took everything quite too seriously for that; still he kept up a faint, broken hum to the sound of his brush when in motion; but sometimes paused all at once, and fell into a reverie, holding the brush and boot in his hands, as if not entirely pleased with his ruminations.

At length the boot that he had been polishing seemed to be susceptible of no further brilliancy, and after holding it up to the sun and eyeing it with great satisfaction, he set it down, muttering, “Now for the other!” He drew out from beneath his bench the tattered and soiled mate, and held it up with a disgustful shake of the head. “Alhambra dust—I’ll swear to it—one, two, three—bah, it’s no use counting. Every night up there——” Here he began to scatter the dust from his master’s boots with angry vehemence.

“In search of the picturesque—fond of ruins—who believes it, I should like to know? One man don’t, I’m sure of that, and his name is Turner, Thomas Turner, of Greenhurst, but perhaps his opinion don’t amount to much; we shall see!”

Here Turner worked on, pressing his thin lips hard, and dashing away at the boot as if it had offended him mortally.

“Out all night—the whole entire night—comes home at break of day, and steals through old Turner’s room like a thief. Thought the old man asleep, as if Turner ever slept when things are going wrong with the boy.”

Here the old man grew languid in his movements; his eyes took a sadder expression, and his touch upon the boot was like a caress.

“Fear, why who knows what won’t come over him with these doings? His coat soaked with dew and stuck full of briars; his hair dripping with perspiration—everything at sixes and sevens; and instead of sleeping when he does get home, rolling about on his bed and trying to cheat the old man; lets him take away his clothes without saying a word; makes believe he’s asleep, as if I didn’t see that forehead working as it always does when things go wrong with him. He thinks to cheat old Turner—fudge!”

As the old man ceased, more and more earnest, his application to the boot became exciting enough; his elbow went to and fro like the play of a crank; his thin lips were gathered up into a knot, and he looked sternly around upon the coat and mulberry tree, as if challenging them to mortal combat.

That moment the little impish figure of an old woman, with a red kerchief twisted over her mummy-like forehead, and a faded dress of the same color, came suddenly round a corner of the Fonde, and stood eyeing him with a glance sharp and vigilant, like that of a rattlesnake at rest.