Aunt Rachel.
by David Christie Murray.
PREFACE.
A critic, otherwise almost altogether friendly, protests, in reviewing a recent book of mine, that no rustics ever would, could, or will talk in real life as the rustics in that work are made to talk by me. Since this criticism might apply still more pointedly, if it were true, to "Aunt Rachel" than to "Rainbow Gold," I desire to say a word or two in self-defence. A little, a very little, of the average rustic would go a long way in fiction. But I do not profess to deal with the average rustic. I deal, and love to deal, with the rustic exceptional, the village notable and wiseacre. Observant readers will have noticed that the date of one story is 1853, and that the epoch of the other is remoter by a dozen years. In my boyhood, in the Staffordshire Black Country, the rustic people were saturated with the speech of the Bible, the Church Service, and the "Pilgrim"s Progress." It is otherwise to-day, and their English, when it pretends at all to a literary flavor, is the English of the local weekly paper. The gravity, the slow sententiousness, and purposed wisdom of the utterances of more than one or two knots of habitual companions whom I can recall, were outside the chances of exaggeration. Often these people were really wise and witty.
They were the makers of the local proverbial philosophy, and many of their phrases are alive today. I recall and could set down here a score of the quaintest bits of humor and good-sense, and one or two things genuinely poetical, which were spoken in my childish hearing. But I refrain myself easily from this temptation, because I have not written my last Black Country story, and prefer to put these things in a form as near their own as I can achieve. I only desire to say that I have _not_ exaggerated, but have fallen short of the characteristics I have had to deal with.
D. Christie Murray.
Rochefort, Belgium, December, 1885.
AUNT RACHEL.
A Rustic Sentimental Comedy.
CHAPTER I.
A quartette party--three violins and a "cello--sat in summer evening weather in a garden. This garden was full of bloom and odor, and was shut in by high walls of ripe old brick. Here and there were large-sized plaster casts--Venus, Minerva, Mercury, a goat-hoofed Pan with his pipes, a Silence with a finger at her lips. They were all sylvan green and crumbled with exposure to the weather, so that, in spite of cheapness, they gave the place a certain Old-world and stately aspect to an observer who was disposed to think so and did not care to look at them too curiously. A square deal table with bare top and painted legs was set on the gra.s.s-plot beneath a gnarled apple-tree whose branches were thick with green fruit, and the quartette party sat about this table, each player with his music spread out before him on a portable little folding stand.
Three of the players were old, stout, gray, and spectacled. The fourth was young and handsome, with dreamy gray-blue eyes and a ma.s.s of chestnut-colored hair. There was an audience of two--an old man and a girl. The old man stood at the back of the chair of the youngest player, turning his music for him, and beating time with one foot upon the gra.s.s. The girl, with twined fingers, leaned both palms on the trunk of the apple-tree, and reposed a clear-colored cheek on her rounded arm, looking downward with a listening air. The youngest player never glanced at the sheets which the old man so a.s.siduously turned for him, but looked straight forward at the girl, his eyes brightening or dreaming at the music. The three seniors ploughed away business-like, with intent frownings, and the man who played the "cello counted beneath his breath, "One, two, three, four--one, two, three, four," inhaling his breath on one set of figures and blowing on the next.
The movement closed, and the three seniors looked at each other like men who were satisfied with themselves and their companions.
"Lads," said the man with the "cello, in a fat and comfortable voice, "that was proper! He"s a pretty writer, this here Bee-thoven. Rewben, the hallygro"s a twister, I can tell thee. Thee hadst better grease thy elbow afore we start on it. Ruth, fetch a jug o" beer, theer"s a good wench. I"m as dry as Bill Duke. Thee canst do a drop, "Saiah, _I_ know."
"Why, yes," returned the second-fiddle. "Theer"s a warmish bit afore us, and it"s well to have summat to work on."
The girl moved away slowly, her fingers still knitted and her palms turned to the ground. An inward-looking smile, called up by the music, lingered in her eyes, which were of a warm, soft brown.
"Reuben," said the second-fiddle, "thee hast thy uncle"s method all over. I could shut my eyes an" think as I was five-and-twenty "ear younger, and as he was a-playin". Dost note the tone, Sennacherib?"
"Note it?" said the third senior. "It"s theer to be noted. Our "Saiah"s got it drove into him somehow, as he"s the one in Heydon Hay as G.o.d A"mighty"s gi"en a pair of ears to."
"An" our Sennacherib," retorted Isaiah, "is the one as carries Natur"s license t" offer the rough side of his tongue to everybody."
"I know it"s a compliment," said the younger man, "to say I have my uncle"s hand, though I never heard my uncle play."
"No, lad," said the old man who stood behind his chair. "Thee"rt a finer player than ever I was. If I"d played as well as thee I might have held on at it, though even then it ud ha" gone a bit agen the grain."
"Agen the grain?" asked the "cello-player, in his cheery voice. "With a tone like that? Why, I mek bold to tell you, Mr. Gold, as theer is not a hammer-chewer on the fiddle, not for thirty or may be forty mile around, as has a tone to name in the same day with Rewben."
"There"s a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller," said the old man, who had a bearing of sad and gentle dignity, and gave, in a curious and not easily explainable way, the idea that he spoke but seldom and was something of a recluse. "There"s a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller, but the fiddle is not a thing as can be played like any ordinary instryment.
A fiddle"s like a wife, in a way of speaking. You must offer her all you"ve got. If she catches you going about after other women--"
"It"s woe betide you!" Sennacherib interrupted.
"You drive her heart away," the old man pursued. "The fiddle"s jealouser than a woman. It wants the whole of a man. If Reuben was to settle down to it twelve hours a day, I make no doubt he"d be a player in a few years" time."
"Twelve hours a day!" cried Sennacherib. "D"ye think as life was gi"en to us to pa.s.s it all away a sc.r.a.pin" catgut?"
"Why, no, Mr. Eld," the old man answered, smilingly. "But to my mind there"s only two or three men in the world at any particular s.p.a.ce o"
given time as has the power gi"en "em by Nature to be fiddlers; that is to say, as has all the qualities to be masters of the instryment. It is so ordered as the best of qualities must be practised to be perfect, and howsoever a man may be qualified to begin with, he must work hour by hour and day by day for years afore he plays the fiddle."
"I look upon any such doctrine as a sinful crime," said Sennacherib.
"The fiddle is a recrehation, and was gi"en us for that end. So, in a way, for them as likes it, is skittles. So is marvils, or kite-flyin", or kiss-i"-the-ring. But to talk of a man sittin" on his hinder end, and draggin" rosined hosshair across catgut hour by hour and day by day for "ears, is a doctrine as I should like to hear Parson Hales"s opinion on, if ever it was to get broached afore him."
"Ruth," called the "cello-player, as the girl reappeared, bearing a tray with a huge jug and gla.s.ses, "come along with the beer. And when we"ve had a drink, lads, well have a cut at the hallygro. It"s marked "vivaysy," Reuben, an" it"ll tek thee all thy time to get the twirls and twiddles i" the right placen."
Ruth poured out a gla.s.s of beer for each of the players, and, having set the tray and jug upon the gra.s.s, took up her former place and position by the apple-tree.
"Wheer"s your rosin, "Saiah?" asked Sennacherib.
"I forgot to bring it wi" me," said Isaiah. "I took it out of the case last night, and was that neglectful as I forgot to put it back again."
"My blessid!" cried Sennacherib, "I niver see such a man!"
"Well, well!" said the "cello-player, "here"s a bit. You seem to ha"
forgot your own."
"What"s that got to do wi" it?" Sennacherib demanded. "I shall live to learn as two blacks mek a white by-an"-by, I reckon. There niver was a party o" four but there was three wooden heads among "em." The girl glanced over her arm, and looked with dancing eyes at the youngest of the party. He, feeling Sennacherib"s eye upon him, contrived to keep a grave face. The host gave the word and the four set to work, Reuben playing with genuine fire, and his companions sawing away with a dogged precision which made them agreeable enough to listen to, but droll to look at. Ruth, with her chin upon her dimpled arm, watched Reuben as he played. He had tossed back his chestnut mane of hair rather proudly as he tucked his violin beneath his chin, and had looked round on his three seniors with the air of a master as he held his bow poised in readiness to descend upon the strings. His short upper lip and full lower lip came together firmly, his brows straightened, and his nostrils contracted a little. Ruth admired him demurely, and he gave her ample opportunity, for this time he kept his eyes upon the text. She watched him to the last stroke of the bow, and then, shifting her glance, met the grave, fixed look of the old man who stood behind his chair. At this, conscious of the fashion in which her last five minutes had been pa.s.sed, she blushed, and to carry this off with as good a grace as might be, she began to applaud with both hands.
"Bravo, father! bravo! Capital, Mr. Eld! capital!"
"Theer," said Sennacherib, ignoring the compliment, and scowling in a sort of dogged triumph at the placid old man behind Reuben"s chair, "d"ye think as _that_ could be beat if we spent forty "ear at it? Theer wa"n"t a fause note from start to finish, and time was kep" like a clock."
"It"s a warmish bit o" work, that hallygro," said old Fuller, in milder self-gratulation, as he disposed his "cello between his knees, and mopped his bald forehead. "A warmish bit o" work it is."
"Come, now," said Sennacherib, "d"ye think as it could be beat? A civil answer to a civil question is no more than a beggar"s rights, and no less than a king"s obligingness."
"It was wonderful well played, Mr. Eld," the old man answered.
"Beat!" said Isaiah. "Why it stands to natur" as it could be beat. D"ye think Paganyni couldn"t play a better second fiddle than I can?"
"Ought to play second fiddle pretty well thyself," returned Sennacherib.
"Hast been at it all thy life. Ever since thee was married, annyway."
"Come, come, come," said the fat "cello-player. "Harmony, lads, harmony!
How was it, Mr. Gold, as you come to give up the music. Theer"s them as is ent.i.tled to speak, and has lived i" the parish longer than I have, as holds you up to have been a real n.o.ble player."
"There"s them," the old man answered, "as would think the parish church the finest buildin" i" the king-dom. But they wouldn"t be them as had seen the glories of Lichfield cathedral."
"I"m speakin" after them as thinks they have a right to talk," said the other.