“I have but sixpence, and you say that won’t do,” said Susan with a sigh, as she looked at her favourite, which was in the maid’s grasping hands, struggling and screaming in vain.
Susan retired disconsolate. At the door of her father’s cottage she saw her friend Rose, who was just come to summon her to the hawthorn bush.
“They are all at the hawthorn, and I am come for you. We can do nothing without you, dear Susan,” cried Rose, running to meet her, at the moment she saw her. “You are chosen Queen of the May—come, make haste. But what is the matter? why do you look so sad?”
“Ah!” said Susan, “don’t wait for me; I can’t come to you, but,” added she, pointing to the tuft of double cowslips in the garden, “gather those for poor little Mary; I promised them to her, and tell her the violets are under a hedge just opposite the turnstile, on the right as we go to church. Good-bye! never mind me; I can’t come—I can’t stay, for my father wants me.”
“But don’t turn away your face; I won’t keep you a moment; only tell me what’s the matter,” said her friend, following her into the cottage.
“Oh, nothing, not much,” said Susan; “only that I wanted the egg in a great hurry for father, it would not have vexed me—to be sure I should have clipped my guinea-hen’s wings, and then she could not have flown over the hedge; but let us think no more about it, now,” added she, twinkling away a tear.
When Rose, however, learnt that her friend’s guinea-hen was detained prisoner by the attorney’s daughter, she exclaimed, with all the honest warmth of indignation, and instantly ran back to tell the story to her companions.
“Barbara! ay; like father, like daughter,” cried Farmer Price, starting from the thoughtful attitude in which he had been fixed, and drawing his chair closer to his wife.
“You see something is amiss with me, wife—I’ll tell you what it is.” As he lowered his voice, Susan, who was not sure that he wished she should hear what he was going to say, retired from behind his chair. “Susan, don’t go; sit you down here, my sweet Susan,” said he, making room for her upon his chair; “I believe I was a little cross when I came in first tonight; but I had something to vex me, as you shall hear.
“About a fortnight ago, you know, wife,” continued he, “there was a balloting in our town for the militia; now at that time I wanted but ten days of forty years of age; and the attorney told me I was a fool for not calling myself plump forty. But the truth is the truth, and it is what I think fittest to be spoken at all times come what will of it. So I was drawn for a militiaman; but when I thought how loth you and I would be to part, I was main glad to hear that I could get off by paying eight or nine guineas for a substitute—only I had not the nine guineas—for, you know, we had bad luck with our sheep this year, and they died away one after another—but that was no excuse, so I went to Attorney Case, and, with a power of difficulty, I got him to lend me the money; for which, to be sure, I gave him something, and left my lease of our farm with him, as he insisted upon it, by way of security for the loan. Attorney Case is too many for me. He has found what he calls a flaw in my lease; and the lease, he tells me, is not worth a farthing, and that he can turn us all out of our farm to-morrow if he pleases; and sure enough he will please, for I have thwarted him this day, and he swears he’ll be revenged of me. Indeed, he has begun with me badly enough already. I’m not come to the worst part of my story yet—”