VIRGINIA POMEROY
Grey Tor Inn,
At the World's End,
Monday, May—
Mrs. MacGill, inspired by the zeal with which the rest are re-reading Hardy, Blackmore, Baring-Gould, and Phillpotts, has finished a book of each of these novelists who play the 'pipes of the misty moorlands.' She dislikes them all, but her liveliest disapproval is reserved for the first and last named. She finds them most immoral, and says that if she could have believed that such ill-conducted persons resided in Dartmoor or anywhere in Devonshire, she would not have encouraged the Grey Tor Inn by her presence. As to the language spoken by some of the characters, she is inclined to think no one could ever have heard it. 'There would be no sense in their using such words,' she explains triumphantly, 'for no one would understand them'; continuing the argument by stating that she once heard the Duke of Devonshire open a public meeting and he spoke in exceptionally good English.
All this makes me rather wicked, so when I went down to breakfast to-day I said cheerfully, 'Good marnin' to you! Marnin', Mrs. MacGill! How do 'e like my new gown, Cecilia?—it's flam-new! Marnin', Sir Archibald! I didn't know 'e in the dimpsey light; bide where you be, I'll take this seat.... Will I have bacon and eggs? Ess fay; there'll be nought else, us all knows that. There's many matters I want to put afore 'e to-day.... Do 'e see thickly li'l piece of bread 'pon the plate, Cecilia? Pass it to me, will 'e? I know I be chitterin' like a guinea-fowl, but I be a sort o' public merryman bringin' folks the blessing o' honest laughter.... Can us have blind up if 'tis all the same to you, Mrs. MacGill? I doan't like eatin' in the dark.'
Then when mamma said, 'Jinny!' in italics, and looked at me beseechingly, I exclaimed, 'Gaw your ways, mother! I ban't feared o' you, an' I doan't mind tellin' 'e 't is so.' When Sir Archibald, bursting with laughter, remarked it was a fine day, I replied, 'You'm right theer; did 'e ever see ought like un? Theer's been a wonnerful change in the weather; us be called 'pon to go downlong to Widdington-in-the-Wolds to-day to see the roundy poundies.
"Along by the river we'll ram'le about
A-drowin' th' line and a-ketchin' o' trout;
An' when we've got plenty we'll start ver our huomes,
An' tull all our doings while pickin' ther buones."'
By this time Mrs. MacGill, thoroughly incensed, remarked that there was no accounting for taste in jokes, whereupon I responded genially, 'You'm right theer! it's a wonnerful coorious rackety world; in fact, in the language of Eden, 'I'll be gormed if it ban't a 'mazin' world!'