I closed it with a feeling of such keen disappointment that I had difficulty in suppressing tears.
"Won"t it play?" inquired Mr M"Swat.
"No; the keys stay down."
"Then, Rose Jane, go ye an" pick "em up while she tries again."
I tried again, Rose Jane fishing up the keys as I went along. I perceived instantly that not one had the least ear for music or idea what it was; so I beat on the demented piano with both hands, and often with all fingers at once, and the bigger row I made the better they liked it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
To Life--continued
Mr M"Swat very kindly told me I need not begin my duties until Monday morning, and could rest during Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. Sat.u.r.day, which was sickeningly hot and sultry, and which seemed like an eternity, I spent in arranging my belongings, brushing the dust from my travelling dress, and in mending a few articles. Next morning rain started to fall, which was a great G.o.d-send, being the first which had fallen for months, and the only rain I saw during my residence at Barney"s Gap.
That was a hideous Sabbath. Without a word of remonstrance from their parents, the children entertained themselves by pushing each other into the rain, the smaller ones getting the worst of it, until their clothing was saturated with water. This made them very cold, so they sat upon the floor and yelled outrageously.
It was the custom of Peter to spend his Sundays in riding about, but today, being deterred by the rain, he slept some of the time, and made a muzzle for one of his dogs, between whiles.
From breakfast to the midday meal I shut myself in my bedroom and wrote letters to my mother and grandmother. I did not rant, rave, or say anything which I ought not to have said to my elders. I wrote those letters very coolly and carefully, explaining things just as they were, and asked grannie to take me back to Caddagat, as I could never endure life at Barney"s Gap. I told my mother I had written thus, and asked her if she would not let grannie take me again, would she get me some other situation? What I did not care, so long as it brought emanc.i.p.ation from the M"Swat"s. I stamped and addressed these missives, and put them by till a chance of posting should arise.
Mr M"Swat could read a little by spelling the long words and blundering over the shorter ones, and he spent the morning and all the afternoon in perusal of the local paper--the only literature with which Barney"s Gap was acquainted. There was a long list of the prices of stock and farm produce in this edition, which perfectly fascinated its reader. The ecstasy of a man of fine, artistic, mental calibre, when dipping for the first time into the work of some congenial poet, would be completely wiped out in comparison to the utter soul-satisfaction of M"Swat when drinking in the items of that list.
"By d.a.m.n, pigs was up last Toosday! Thames the things to make prawfit on," he would excitedly exclaim; or--"Wheat"s rose a shillun a bushel!
By dad, I must double my crops this year." When he had plodded to the end, he started at the beginning again.
His wife sat the whole afternoon in the one place, saying and doing nothing. I looked for something to read, but the only books in the house were a Bible, which was never opened, and a diary kept most religiously by M"Swat. I got permission to read this, and opening it, saw:
"September
1st. Fine. Wint to boggie creak for a cow.
2nd. Fine. Got the chestnut mair shode.
3rd. Fine. On the jury.
4th. Fine. Tail the lams 60 yeos 52 wethers.
5th. Cloudy. Wint to Duffys.
6th. Fine. Dave Duffy called.
7th. Fine. Roped the red filly.
8th. Showery. Sold the gray mair"s fole.
9th. Fine. Wint to the Red hill after a horse.
10th. Fine, Found tree sheap ded in sqre pad.i.c.k."
I closed the book and put it up with a sigh. The little record was a perfect picture of the dull narrow life of its writer. Week after week that diary went on the same--drearily monotonous account of a drearily monotonous existence. I felt I would go mad if forced to live such a life for long.
"Pa has lots of diaries. Would I like to read them?"
They were brought and put before me. I inquired of Mr M"Swat which was the liveliest time of the year, and being told it was shearing and threshing, I opened one first in November:
"November 1896
1st. Fine. Started to muster sheap.
2nd. Fine. Counten sheap very dusty 20 short.
3rd. Fine. Started shering. Joe Harris cut his hand bad and wint hoam.
4th. Showery. Shering stoped on account of rane."
Then I skipped to December:
"December 1896
1st. Fine and hot. Stripped the weet 60 bages.
2nd. Fine. Killed a snake very hot day.
3rd. Fine. Very hot alle had a boagy in the river.
4th. Fine. Got returns of woll 7 1/2 fleece 5 1/4 bellies.
5th. Fine. Awful hot got a serkeler from Tatersal by the poast.
6th. Fine. Saw Joe Harris at Duffys."
There was no entertainment to be had from the diaries, so I attempted a conversation with Mrs M"Swat.
"A penny for your thoughts."
"I wuz jist watchin" the rain and thinkin" it would put a couple a bob a head more on sheep if it keeps on."
What was I to do to pa.s.s the day? I was ever very restless, even in the midst of full occupation. Uncle Jay-Jay used to accuse me of being in six places at once, and of being incapable of sitting still for five minutes consecutively; so it was simply endurance to live that long, long day--nothing to read, no piano on which to play hymns, too wet to walk, none with whom to converse, no possibility of sleeping, as in an endeavour to kill a little of the time I had gone to bed early and got up late. There was nothing but to sit still, tormented by maddening regret. I pictured what would be transpiring at Caddagat now; what we had done this time last week, and so on, till the thing became an agony to me.
Among my duties before school I was to set the table, make all the beds, dust and sweep, and "do" the girls" hair. After school I had to mend clothes, sew, set the table again, take a turn at nursing the baby, and on washing-day iron. This sounds a lot, but in reality was nothing, and did not half occupy my time. Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing much to put on it; and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr M"Swat and Peter did not wear white shirts, and patronised paper collars. Mrs M"Swat did the washing and a little scrubbing, also boiled the beef and baked the bread, which formed our unvaried menu week in and week out. Most peasant mothers with a family of nine have no time for idleness, but Mrs M"Swat managed things so that she spent most of the day rolling on her frowsy bed playing with her dirty infant, which was as fat and good-tempered as herself.
On Monday morning I marshalled my five scholars (Lizer, aged fourteen; Jimmy, twelve; Tommy, Sarah, and Rose Jane, younger) in a little back skillion, which was set apart as a schoolroom and store for flour and rock-salt. Like all the house, it was built of slabs, which, erected while green, and on account Of the heat, had shrunk until many of the cracks were sufficiently wide to insert one"s arm. On Monday--after the rain--the wind, which disturbed us through them, was piercingly cold, but as the week advanced summer and drought regained their pitiless sway, and we were often sunburnt by the rough gusts which filled the room with such clouds of dust and grit that we were forced to cover our heads until it pa.s.sed.
A policeman came on Tuesday to take some returns, and to him I entrusted the posting of my letters, and then eagerly waited for the reply which was to give me glorious release.
The nearest post-office was eight miles distant, and thither Jimmy was dispatched on horseback twice a week. With trembling expectancy every mail-day I watched for the boy"s return down the tortuous track to the house, but it was always, "No letters for the school-missus."
A week, a fortnight, dragged away. Oh, the slow horror of those never-ending days! At the end of three weeks Mr M"Swat went to the post unknown to me, and surprised me with a couple of letters. They bore the handwriting of my mother and grandmother--what I had been wildly waiting for,--and now that they had come at last I had not the nerve to open them while any one was observing me. All day I carried them in my bosom till my work was done, when I shut myself in my room and tore the envelopes open to read first my grannie"s letter, which contained two:
MY DEAR CHILD,
I have been a long time answering your letter on account of waiting to consult your mother. I was willing to take you back, but your mother is not agreeable, so I cannot interfere between you. I enclose your mother"s letter, so you can see how I stand in the matter. Try and do good where you are. We cannot get what we would like in this world, and must bow to G.o.d"s will. He will always, &c.
_Mother"s Letter to Grannie_