"_Hetty the Serving-maid"s Pet.i.tion to her Mother._"
"Dear mother, you were once in the ew"n [oven], As by us cakes is plainly shewn, Who else had ne"er come arter: Pray speak a word in time of need, And with my sour-looked father plead For your distressed darter!"
Nancy and Kezzy laughed; the younger at the absurd drawl, which hit off the Wroote dialect to a hair; Nancy indulgently--she was safely betrothed to one John Lambert, an honest land-surveyor, and Mr.
Wesley"s tyranny towards suitors troubled her no longer. But the others were silent, and a tear dropped on the back of poor Molly"s hand.
As Hetty took it penitently, Patty spoke again. "You are wrong, at all events," she persisted, "about papa"s being in the house, for I saw him leave it, more than half an hour ago, and walk off on the Bawtry road."
"He has gone to meet mother, then," said Kezzy, "and poor Sander will have to trudge the last two miles."
"Pray Heaven, then, they do not quarrel!" sighed Emilia, shutting the book.
"My dear!" Hetty a.s.sured her, "that is past praying for. She will be weary to death; and he, as you know, is in a mood to-day! Though you thought it unfeeling, I rejoiced when he announced he was not riding to Bawtry to meet her but would send Sander instead: for whatever news she brought he would have picked holes in it and wrangled all the way home. But this is his masterpiece. It contrives to get the most annoyance out of both plans. I often wonder"--here Hetty clasped her knee again, and, leaning back against the turf, let her eyes wander over the darkening landscape--"if our father and mother love each other the better for living together in one perpetual rasp of temper?"
"What is the hour?" asked Emilia.
Hetty glanced at the sun.
"Six, or a few minutes past."
"She cannot be here before half-past seven, and by then the moon will be rising. We will give her a regal harvest-supper, and enthrone her on the last sheaf. I have sent word to have it saved. And there shall be a fire, and baked potatoes."
Kitty clapped her hands.
"And," Hetty took up the tale, "she shall sit by the embers and tell us all her wanderings, like Aeneas, till the break of morning.
But before we bid Johnny Whitelamb desist from drawing and build a fire, let us be six princesses here and choose the gifts our mother shall bring home from town."
"You know well enough she has no money to buy gifts," objected Patty.
"Be frugal, then, in wishing, dear Pat. For my part, I demand only a rich Indian uncle: but he must be of solid gold. He should come to us along the Bawtry road in a palanquin with bells jingling at the fringes. Ann, sister Ann, run you to the top of the mound and say if you see such an uncle coming. Moll, dear, "tis your turn to wish."
"I wish," said Molly, "for a magic mirror." Hetty gave a start, thinking she spoke of a gla.s.s which should hide her deformity.
But Molly went on gravely. "I should call it my Why Mirror, for it would show us why we live as we do, and why mother goes ill-clothed and sometimes hungry. No, I am not grumbling; but sometimes I wish to _know_--only to _know!_ I think my mirror would tell me something about my brothers, and what they are to do in the world. And I am sure it would tell me that G.o.d is ordering this for some great end.
But I am weak and impatient, and, if I knew, I could be so much braver!" She ended abruptly, and for a moment or two all the sisters were silent.
"Come, Nancy," said Hetty at length. "Patty will wish for a harp, for certain"--Patty"s burning desire to possess one was as notorious in the family as her absolute lack of ear for music--"and Emmy will ask for a new pair of shoes, if she is wise." Emilia tucked a foot out of sight under her skirt.
"But I don"t understand this game," put in Kezzy. "A moment ago it was _Blue Beard_, and now it seems to be _Beauty and the Beast_.
Which is it?"
"We may need Molly"s mirror to tell us," Hetty answered lightly: and with that she glanced up as a shadow darkened the golden sky above the mound, and a voice addressed the sisters all. "Good evening, young ladies!"
CHAPTER V.
A broad-shouldered man looked down on them from the summit of the knoll, which he had climbed on its westward side; a tradesman to all appearance, clad in a dusty, ill-fitting suit. So far as they could judge--for he stood with the waning light at his back--he was not ill-featured; but, by his manner of mopping his brow, he was most ungracefully hot, and Molly declared ever afterwards that his thick worsted stockings, seen against the ball of the sun, gave his calves a hideous hairiness. She used to add that he was more than half drunk. His manner of accosting them--half uneasy, half familiar-- froze the Wesley sisters.
"Good evening, young ladies! And nice and cool you look, I will say.
Can any of you tell me if Parson Wesley"s at home?"
"He is not," Emilia answered. "He has gone towards Bawtry."
"Well now, that"s what the maid told me at the parsonage: but I thought, maybe, "twas a trick--a sort of slip-out-by-the-back and not-at-home to a creditor. I"ve heard of parsons playing that game, and no harm to their conscience, because no lie told."
"Sir!" Emilia rose and faced him.
"Oh, no offence, miss! I believe _you_; and for that matter the wench seemed fair-spoken enough, and gave me a drink of cider.
"Tis the matter of a debt, you see." He drew a sc.r.a.p of dirty paper from his pocket. "Twelve-seventeen-six, for repairs done to Wroote Parsonage; new larder, fifteen; lead for window-cas.e.m.e.nts, eight-six; new fireplace to parlour, one-four-six: ancettera.
I"m a plumber by trade--plumber and glazier--and in business at Lincoln. William Wright"s my name, and Right by nature." Here he grinned. "Your father would have everything of the best; Epworth tradesman not worth a d.a.m.n, excuse me, and meaning no offence.
So he said, or words to that effect. A very particular gentleman, and his nose at the time into everything. But a man likes to be paid, you understand? So, having a job down Owston way, I thought I"d walk over and jog his reverence"s memory."
"The money will be paid, sir, in due course, I make no doubt," said Emilia bravely. Some of her sisters were white in the face.
Hetty alone seemed to ignore the man"s presence, and gazed over the fields towards Epworth.
"Ah, "in due course!" Let me tell you, miss, that if all the money owing to me was paid, I"d--I"d--" He broke off. "I have ambitions, _I_ have: and a head on my shoulders. London"s the only place for a man like me. Gad, if _these_ were only full"--he slapped his pockets--"there"s no saying I wouldn"t up and ask one of you to come along o" me! There"s that beauty, yonder," he jerked his thumb at Hetty. "She"s the pick. My word, and you _are_ a beauty, bridling to yourself there, and thinking dirt of me. Go on, I like you for it: you can"t show too much spirit for William Wright." Molly"s hand closed over Hetty"s two, clasped and lying in her lap: Hetty sat motionless as a statue. "If only your father would trade you off against an honest debt--But you"re gentry: I knows the sort.
Well, well, "tis a long tramp back to Owston: so here"s wishing you good night, missies all. If I take back no money, and no pay but a pint of sour cider, I"ve seen the prettiest picter in all Lincolnshire; so we"ll count it a holiday."
He was gone. With the dropping of the sun a chilly shadow had fallen on the mound, and for some moments the sisters remained motionless, agonised, each in her own way distraught.
"The brute!" said Kezzy at length, drawing a long breath.
Hetty rose deliberately. "Child," she said, and her voice was hard, "don"t be a goose! The poor creature came for his money. He had the right to insult us."
She smoothed the dew from her skirt and walked swiftly down the slope.
At the foot of it Johnny Whitelamb had risen and was holding his drawing aslant, in some hope, perhaps, that the angle might correct the perspective of old Mettle"s portrait. Certainly it was a villainous portrait, as he acknowledged to himself with a sigh.
Parts of it must be rubbed out, and his right hand rummaged in his pocket and found a crust. But Johnny, among other afflictions, suffered from an unconscionable appet.i.te. While he doubted where to begin, his teeth met in the bread, and he started guiltily, for it was more than half eaten when Hetty swooped down on him.
"Quick, Johnny! run you to the woodstack while I unpack the baskets.
Mother will be arriving in an hour, and we are to give her supper out here, with baked potatoes. Run, that"s a good soul: and on your way get Jane to give you a tin of oatmeal--tell her I must have it if she has to sc.r.a.pe the bottom of the bin; _and_ a gridiron, _and_ a rolling-pin. We will have griddle-cakes. Run--and whatever you do, don"t forget the rolling-pin!"
Johnny ran with long ungainly strides, his coat-tails flapping like a scarecrow"s. The coat, in fact, was a cast-off one of Mr. Wesley"s, narrow in the chest, short in the sleeves, but inordinately full in the skirts. The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his great work, the _Dissertationes in Librum Jobi_, and in return the lad found board and lodging and picked up what sc.r.a.ps he could of Greek and Latin. He wrote a neat hand and transcribed carefully; his drawings were atrocious, and he never attempted a woodcut without gashing himself. But he kept a humble heart, and for all the family a devotion almost canine. To him the Rector, with his shovel-hat and stores of scholarship, was a G.o.d-like man; with his air, too, of apostolical authority--for Johnny, whom all Epworth set down as good for nothing, reflected the Wesley notions of the Church"s majesty.
In his dreams--but only in his dreams--he saw himself such a man, an Oxford scholar, treading that beatific city of which the Rector disclosed a glimpse at times; his brows bathed by her ineffable aura, and he--he, Johnny Whitelamb--baptized into her mysteries, a partic.i.p.ant with the Rector"s second son John, now at Christ Church-- of whom (he noted) the family spoke but seldom and with a constraint which hinted at hopes too dear to be other than fearful. Meanwhile he did his poor tasks, stayed his stomach when he could, and rewarded his employers with love.
He loved them all: but Hetty he worshipped.
He knew his place. For an hour past he had been sitting, as became a servant, beyond earshot of the sisters" talk, yet within call, should they summon him. Now the G.o.ddess had descended from her mountain with a command, and he ran toward the woodstack as he would have run and plunged into the water-d.y.k.e, had she bidden him.
He returned to find her waiting with her sleeves tucked above her elbows.
"Oh, Johnny--I forgot the tinder-box!" she cried.
He dropped his burdens and produced it triumphantly from his tail pocket.
"I thought of that!"
"But you must not!"--as he dropped on his knees and began to unbind and break up the sticks. "This is my business. I am going into service, in ten days--at Kelstein: and you must watch and tell me what I do amiss."