A leading character in the community was old Ann, the wife of old Geordie. She managed to live an active life, although bent almost double by long-standing rheumatism. It was marvellous how she could maintain her equilibrium, with that extraordinary gait and figure. But she was cheery old woman, kind to all dumb creatures and dearly beloved by them in return. It was a picture to see her sallying forth from her door-way, her blue bed-gown tied round her waist by her blue linsey apron, which was almost always full of potato skins or bran, or corn, for one class or another of the subjects in her little kingdom; while a blue serge petticoat completed her uniform. Winter or summer she never wore a bonnet. It was rumored she possessed one of extraordinary dimensions, date unknown, in a corner of a huge chest, which was supposed to contain other superfluities. But it never appeared. The little church was too far off for old Ann to join the scattered congregation, bent and infirm as she was; and so on Sundays, a clean cap was put on, and she sat with her suffering mistress in the farm kitchen, while the sweet old lady read in her own peculiar Westmoreland intonation, the solemn narratives of the Old Testament and the precious teachings of the New. The widow, though helplessly bound to her easy chair, had always a very earnest and feeling prayer to pour, forth into the listening ear of Almighty Love, before the little service was concluded; and then the aged women shook hands, while the one said "God bless thee, Ann," and the other said "God bless thee, mistress."
But to return to the large "following" which always attended the clump, clump, of old Ann's heavy wooden and iron-shod clogs, * wherever she went in the farm premises. First there were the turkeys, the turkey-cock being a formidable fellow, the martinet of the yard, who hectored and domineered over everybody and everything, with the single exception of old Ann, towards whom he was as gentle as a dove.
* The shoes of the country: they are soled with wood, and then shod with iron, and make a prodigious noise.
Then there were the guinea-fowls picking daintily about, with round backs, and refined, not to say affected gait; while every evening there was enacted that little scene which is so peculiarly their own—the cock bird always flying to the top of the highest chimney and there shouting, "Come back! Come back!" as if he were recalling lost companions. Next there were the geese, which used to walk out into the meadows that bordered upon the beck * in long Indian file, the most experienced and responsible gander leading the way, a trustworthy young one bringing up the rear: comparatively uninteresting creatures they were, save for their self-sacrificing love of their young, in whose defence, if attacked by strange dogs, they would lay down their lives.
* The local name for "stream."
Then there were ducks without end, and cocks and hens innumerable, quaking, crowing, cackling, screaming about the desirable contents of old Ann's linsey apron, and besetting her wherever she turned.
She treated them all as dear friends, talked incessantly to them, in return for their vociferous addresses. "Coom, lad, coom along with thee this gait. Well, lile * lassie! Get awa', wilt thoo?" Thou hast a kindly heart, old Ann. Thou would'st not willingly hurt a single thing: and when a violent end has to be put to the happy little lives of thy many pets, it costs thy loving nature more than thou would'st like to tell. Those who have studied the ways of the feathered creatures, as thou hast done, know that there are fine distinctions of character, and beautiful adaptations of that mysterious instinct which is the gift of their kind Creator, that the careless and indifferent observer has never discovered or even suspected.
* "Lile" is almost invariably used for "little" in the country districts of Westmoreland.
They are alluded to here, not for the sake of crowding the canvas with pictures of animal life, but in order to cultivate a loving interest in the happiness of the living things around our daily path. They are, many of them, helpless in themselves, and entirely dependent on our good will. By all means, let there be as much innocent happiness as there can be in this selfish world. Let consideration for the comfort of animals, as long as their poor lives last, (and this life, remember, is their little all,) be a regular part of the home-training of children; and then the beautiful world we live in would not be such a scene of oppression and wrong as it is.