“Daniel,” cries my uncle, delighted, “one slug-shot. Box with the star t’ the box with the cross. Judy,” says he, “move aft alongside o’ that there roast veal!”
’Twas the beginning and end of this seeming difference of station....
John Cather took us in hand to profit us. ’Twas in the learning he had––’twas in every genteel accomplishment he had himself mastered in the wise world he came from––that we were instructed. I would have Judy for school-fellow: nor would I be denied––not I! ’Twas the plan I made when first I knew John Cather’s business in our house: else, thinks I, ’twould be a mean, poor match we should make of it in the end. I would have her: and there, says I, with a toss and a stamp, to my uncle’s delight, was an end of it! It came about in this way that we three spent the days together in agreeable employment: three young, unknowing souls––two lads and a maid. In civil weather, ’twas in the sunlight and breeze of the hills, ’twas in shady hollows, ’twas on the warm, dry rocks, which the breakers could not reach, ’twas on the brink of the cliff, that Cather taught us, leaving off to play, by my uncle’s command, when we were tired of study; and when the wind blew with rain, or fog got the world all a-drip, or the task was incongruous with sunshine and fresh air (like multiplication), 198 ’twas within doors that the lesson proceeded––in my library, which my uncle had luxuriously outfitted for me, when still I was an infant, against this very time.
“John Cather,” says I, one day, “you’ve a wonderful tongue in your head.”
’Twas on the cliff of Tom Tulk’s Head. We had climbed the last slope hand in hand, with Judith between, and were now stretched out on the brink, resting in the cool blue wind from the sea.
“A nimble tongue, Dannie,” he replied, “I’ll admit.”
“A wonderful tongue!” I repeated. “John Cather,” I exclaimed, in envious admiration, “you’ve managed t’ tell Judy in ten thousand ways that she’s pretty.”
Judith blushed.
“I wisht,” says I, “that I was so clever as that.”