"Well, Grace, you will lose very little if you don't. It is one of my brother's worst failings that he gives away fermented liquor to the lower orders inconsiderately. It encourages them in the bad habits to which they are only too prone, even when discouraged."
"Oh no, Aunty! Cripps is the soberest of men. And he does take his beer with such a relish, it is quite a treat to see him. Oh, if I could only see his old cart now, jogging along, like a man with one prong!"
"Grace! Miss Oglander! Your metaphor is of an excessively vulgar description!"
"Is it, Aunty? Then I am very sorry. I am sure I didn't mean any harm at all. Only I was thinking of the way a certain one-legged fiddler walks—but, Aunty, all this is so frivolous! With all the solemn duties around us, Aunty——"
"Yes, my dear, I do wish you would think a little more of them. Every day I do my best. Your nature is not more corrupt than must be, with all who have the sad phronema sarkos; but unhappily you always exhibit, both in word and action, something so—I will not use at all a harsh word for it—something so sadly unsolemn."
"What can I do, Aunt? It really is not my fault. I try for five minutes together to be solemn. And then there comes something or other—how can I tell how?—that proves too much for me. My father used to love to see me laugh. He said it was quite the proper thing to do. And he was so funny (when he had no trouble) that without putting anything into anybody's head, he set them all off laughing. Aunty, you would have been amused to hear him. Quite in the quiet time, almost in the evening, I have known my father make such beautiful jokes, without thinking of them, that I often longed for the old horn lanthorn, to see all the people laughing. Even you would laugh, dear Aunty, if you only heard him."
"The laughter of fools is the crackling of thorns. Grace, you are nothing but a very green goose. Even a stray lamb would afford me better hopes. But knock at the wall with the poker, my dear, that Margery Daw may come in to prayers."
CHAPTER XXVI.
RUTS.
There are few things more interesting than ruts; regarded at the proper time, and in the proper manner. The artists, who show us so many things unheeded by our duller selves, have dwelled on this subject minutely, and shown their appreciation of a few good ruts. But they are a little inclined sometimes to mark them too distinctly, scarcely making due allowance for the vast diversity of wheels, as well as their many caprices of wagging, according to the state of their washers, the tug of the horse, and their own wearing, and a host of other things. Each rut moreover has a voice of its own; not only in its first formation, but at every period of depression in the muggy weather, or rough rebellion in a fine black frost, and above all other times in the loose insurrection of a thaw. There always is a bit of something hard and something soft in it; jags that contradict all things with a jerk; and deep subsidence, soft as flattery.
There scarcely could be a finer sample of ruts than was afforded by a narrow lane, or timber-track, at the extreme north-western outskirt of Stow Forest. Everything here was favourable to the very finest growth of ruts. The road had once been made, which is a necessary foundation for any masterpiece of rut-work; it then had been left to maintain itself, which encourages wholesome development. Another great advantage was that the hard uniformity of straight lines had no chance here of prevailing. For though the course was not so crooked, as in some lanes it may have been, neither was there hedge, or rail, or other mean constriction; yet some fine old trees insisted now and then, from either side, upon their own grand right of way, and stretched great arms that would sweep any driver, or horseman, backward from his seat, unless he steered so as to double them.