It is a goodly sight to see John Rosedew and his sister upon their way to church. She supporting the family dignity, with a maid behind her to carry the books—that it may please thee to defend us with a real footman!—just touching Johnʼs arm with the tips of her glove, because he rolls so shockingly, and even his Sunday coat may be greasy; then, if a little girl comes by, “Lady Eudoxia”—as the village, half in joke, and half in earnest, has already dubbed her—Lady Eudoxia never looks at her (they are so self–important now, even those brats of children!), but she knows by instinct whether that little girl has curtseyed. If she has, it is nicely acknowledged; but if she has not, what a chill runs down the ladyʼs rigid spine!
“John, did you see that”?
“See what, Doxy?—Three sugar–plums, my little dear, and a few of our cough–lozenges. I heard you cough last Sunday; and you may suck them in the sermon time, because they donʼt smell of peppermint, and they are quite as nice as liquorice. How is your mammy, my darling”?
“Well, John—well, Mr. Rosedew!—If you have no more sense of propriety—and so near the house of God—— ”
And Miss Eudoxia walks on in front, while the girl who failed to curtsey has thrust one brown hand long ago into the parsonʼs ample palm, and with the other is stoking that voracious engine whose vernacular name is “mouth”. Amy, of course, is at the school, where this little girl ought by rights to have been, only for her cough, which would come on so dreadfully when the words were hard to spell; and, when they meet Amy by the gate (the double gate of the churchyard—both sides only opened for funerals), how smooth, and rich, and calm she looks—calm, yet with a heart of triumph, as her own class clusters round her, and wonʼt even glimpse at the boys—not even the very smallest boy—one of whom has the cheek to whistle, and pretends that he meant the “Old Hundredth”.
But, in spite of all this Eudoxian grandeur, there was not a poor man in Nowelhurst—no, nor even a woman—who did not feel, in earnest heart, faith and good–will towards her. For the worldly nonsense was cast aside when she stood in the presence of trouble, and her native kindness and vigour shone forth, till the face of grief was brightened. Then she forgot her titled grandmother—so often quoted and such a bore, the Countess of Driddledrum and Dromore—and glowed and melted, as all must do who are made of good carbon and water. So let her walk into the village church with the pride which she is proud of, her tall and comely figure shown through the scarf of lavender crape, her dark silk dress on the burial flags, wiping dust from the memory of John Stiles and his dear wife Susan. And oh, Johanna, thou goodly fat cook–maid, dishing up prayer–books, and Guides to the Altar, and thy gloves on the top ostentatiously—gloves whose fingers are to thine as vermicelli to sausages: Johanna, spoil not our procession by loitering under the hollow oak to wink at thy sweetheart, Jem Pottles. Neither do thou, oh hollow oak, look down upon us, and tell of the tree only one generation before thee. Under thy branches, the Arab himself had better not talk of lineage. Some acorn spat forth, half–crunched and bedribbled, by the deer or the swine of the forest, and in danger perhaps of being chewed afterwards by the ancestors of royalty—our family–trees are young fungus to thee, and our roots of nobility pignuts.
CHAPTER X.
The scenery of the New Forest is of infinite variety; but the wooded parts may be ranged, perhaps, in a free, loose–branching order (as befits the subject), into some three divisions, which cross and interlace each other, as the trees themselves do.