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Various - Tales from Many Sources

V >> Various >> Tales from Many Sources



Tales

From Many Sources

Vol. V.


New York

Dodd Mead & Company

1886

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. BY JULIANA H. EWING. 1

WILD JACK. FROM TEMPLE BAR. 87

VIRGINIA. BY MRS. FORRESTER. 145

MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON VOYAGE. FROM BELGRAVIA. 172

NUMBER 7639. BY MARY FRANCES PEARD. 137

GONERIL. BY A. MARY F. ROBINSON. 239

OUT OF SEASON. FROM TEMPLE BAR. 266




LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE

INTRODUCTORY.


Lob Lie-By-The-Fire--the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him--is a rough
kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country
homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no grander
wages than

"--to earn his cream bowl duly set."

Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of rest, for

"--When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the Lubber-fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength."

It was said that a Lob Lie-by-the-fire once haunted the little old Hall
at Lingborough. It was an old stone house on the Borders, and seemed to
have got its tints from the grey skies that hung above it. It was
cold-looking without, but cosy within, "like a north-country heart,"
said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of sentiment, and kept a commonplace
book.

It was long before Miss Kitty's time that Lob Lie-by-the-fire first came
to Lingborough. Why and whence he came is not recorded, nor when and
wherefore he withdrew his valuable help, which, as wages rose, and
prices rose also, would have been more welcome than ever.

This tale professes not to record more of him than comes within the
memory of man.

Whether (as Fletcher says) he were the son of a witch, if curds and
cream won his heart, and new clothes put an end to his labours, it does
not pretend to tell. His history is less known than that of any other
sprite. It may be embodied in some oral tradition that shall one day be
found; but as yet the mists of forgetfulness hide it from the
storyteller of to-day as deeply as the sea fogs are wont to lie between
Lingborough and the adjacent coast.



THE LITTLE OLD LADIES.--ALMS DONE IN SECRET.


The little old ladies of Lingborough were heiresses.

Not, mind you, in the sense of being the children of some mushroom
millionnaire, with more money than manners, and (as Miss Betty had seen
with her own eyes, on the daughter of a manufacturer who shall be
nameless) dresses so fine in quality and be-furbelowed in construction
as to cost a good quarter's income (of the little old ladies), but
trailed in the dirt from "beggarly extravagance," or kicked out behind
at every step by feet which fortune (and a very large fortune, too) had
never taught to walk properly.

"And how should she know how to walk?" said Miss Betty. "Her mother
can't have taught her, poor body! that ran through the streets of Leith,
with a creel on her back, as a lassie; and got out of her coach (lined
with satin, you mind, sister Kitty?) to her dying day, with a bounce,
all in a heap, her dress caught, and her stockings exposed (among
ourselves, ladies!) like some good wife that's afraid to be late for the
market. Aye, aye! Malcolm Midden--good man!--made a fine pocket of
silver in a dirty trade, but his women'll jerk, and toss, and bounce,
and fuss, and fluster for a generation or two yet, for all the silks and
satins he can buy 'em."

From this it will be seen that the little old ladies inherited some
prejudices of their class, and were also endowed with a shrewdness of
observation common among all classes of north-country women.

But to return to what else they inherited. They were heiresses, as the
last representatives of a family as old in that Border country as the
bold blue hills which broke its horizon. They were heiresses also in
default of heirs male to their father who got the land from his uncle's
dying childless, sons being scarce in the family. They were heiresses,
finally, to the place and the farm, to the furniture that was made when
folk seasoned their wood before they worked it, to a diamond brooch
which they wore by turns, besides two diamond rings, and two black lace
shawls, that had belonged to their mother and their Auntie Jean, long
since departed thither where neither moth nor rust corrupt the true
riches.

As to the incomings of Lingborough, "It was nobody's business but their
own," as Miss Betty said to the lawyer who was their man of business,
and whom they consulted on little matters of rent and repairs at as much
length, and with as much formal solemnity, as would have gone elsewhere
to the changing hands of half a million of money. Without violating
their confidence, however, we may say that the estate paid its way, kept
them in silk stockings, and gave them new tabbinet dresses once in three
years. It supplied their wants the better that they had inherited house
plenishing from their parents, "Which they thanked their stars was not
made of tag-rag, and would last their time," and that they were quite
content with an old home and old neighbours, and never desired to change
the grand air that blew about their native hills for worse, in order to
be poisoned with bad butter, and make the fortunes of extortionate
lodging-house keepers.

The rental of Lingborough did more. How much more the little old ladies
did not know themselves, and no one else shall know, till that which was
done in secret is proclaimed from the housetops.

For they had had a religious scruple, founded upon a literal reading of
the scriptural command that a man's left hand should not know what has
right hand gives in alms, and this scruple had been ingeniously set at
rest by the parson, who, failing in an attempt to explain the force of
Eastern hyperbole to the little ladies' satisfaction, had said that Miss
Betty, being the elder, and the head of the house, might be likened to
the right hand, and Miss Kitty, as the younger, to the left, and that if
they pursued their good works without ostentation, or desiring the
applause even of each other, the spirit of the injunction would be
fulfilled.

The parson was a good man and a clever. He had (as Miss Betty justly
said) a very spiritual piety. But he was also gifted with much
shrewdness in dealing with the various members of his flock. And his
word was law to the sisters.

Thus it came about that the little ladies' charities were not known even
to each other--that Miss Betty turned her morning camlet twice instead
of once, and Miss Kitty denied herself in sugar, to carry out benevolent
little projects which were accomplished in secret, and of which no
record appears in the Lingborough Ledger.



AT TEA WITH MRS. DUNMAW.


The little ladies of Lingborough were very sociable, and there was, as
they said, "as much gaiety as was good for anyone" within their reach.
There were at least six houses at which they drank tea from time to
time, all within a walk. As hosts or guests, you always met the same
people, which was a friendly arrangement, and the programmes of the
entertainments were so uniform, that no one could possibly feel awkward.
The best of manners and home-made wines distinguished these tea parties,
where the company was strictly genteel, if a little faded. Supper was
served at nine, and the parson and the lawyer played whist for love with
different partners on different evenings with strict impartiality.

Small jealousies are apt to be weak points in small societies, but there
was a general acquiescence in the belief that the parson had a friendly
preference for the little ladies of Lingborough.

He lived just beyond them, too, which led to his invariably escorting
them home. Miss Betty and Miss Kitty would not for worlds have been so
indelicate as to take this attention for granted, though it was a custom
of many years' standing. The older sister always went through the form
of asking the younger to "see if the servant had come," and at this
signal the parson always bade the lady of the house good night, and
respectfully proffered his services as an escort to Lingborough.

It was a lovely evening in June, when the little ladies took tea with
the widow of General Dunmaw at her cottage, not quite two miles from
their own home.

It was a memorable evening. The tea party was an agreeable one. The
little ladies had new tabbinets on, and Miss Kitty wore the diamond
brooch. Miss Betty had played whist with the parson, and the younger
sister (perhaps because of the brooch) had been favoured with a good
deal of conversation with the lawyer. It was an honour, because the
lawyer bore the reputation of an _esprit fort_, and was supposed to
have, as a rule, a contempt for feminine intellects, which good manners
led him to veil under an almost officious politeness in society. But
honours are apt to be uneasy blessings, and this one was at least as
harassing as gratifying. For a somewhat monotonous vein of sarcasm, a
painful power of producing puns, and a dexterity in suggesting doubts of
everything, were the main foundation of his intellectual reputation, and
Miss Kitty found them hard to cope with. And it was a warm evening.

But women have much courage, especially to defend a friend or a faith,
and the less Miss Kitty found herself prepared for the conflict the
harder she esteemed it her duty to fight. She fought for Church and
State, for parsons and poor people, for the sincerity of her friends,
the virtues of the Royal Family, the merit of Dr. Drugson's
prescriptions, and for her favourite theory that there is some good in
everyone and some happiness to be found every where.

She rubbed nervously at the diamond brooch with her thin little mittened
hands. She talked very fast; and if the lawyer were guilty of feeling
any ungallant indifference to her observations, she did not so much as
hear his, and her cheeks became so flushed that Mrs. Dunmaw crossed the
room in her China crape shawl and said, "My dear Miss Kitty, I'm sure
you feel the heat very much. Do take my fan, which is larger than
yours."

But Miss Kitty was saved a reply, for at this moment Miss Betty turned
on the sofa, and said, "Dear Kitty, will you kindly see if the
servant--"

And the parson closed the volume of "Friendship's Offering" which lay
before him, and advanced towards Mrs. Dunmaw and took leave in his own
dignified way.

Miss Kitty was so much flustered that she had not even presence of mind
to look for the servant, who had never been ordered to come, but the
parson relieved her by saying in his round, deep voice, "I hope you will
not refuse me the honour of seeing you home, since our roads happen to
lie together," And she was glad to get into the fresh air, and beyond
the doubtful compliments of the lawyer's nasal suavity--"You have been
very severe upon me to-night, Miss Kitty. I'm sure I had no notion I
should find so powerful an antagonist," etc.



MIDSUMMER EVE.--A LOST DIAMOND.


It was Midsummer Eve. The long light of the North was pale and clear,
and the western sky shone luminous through the fir-wood that bordered
the road. Under such dim lights colours deepen, and the great bushes of
broom, that were each one mass of golden blossom, blazed like fairy
watch-fires up the lane.

Miss Kitty leaned on the left arm of the parson and Miss Betty on his
right. She chatted gaily, which left her younger sister at leisure to
think of all the convincing things she had not remembered to say to the
lawyer, as the evening breeze cooled her cheeks.

"A grand prospect for the crops, sir," said Miss petty; "I never saw the
broom so beautiful." But as he leaned forward to look at the yellow
blaze which foretells good luck to farmers, as it shone in the hedge on
the left-hand side of the road, she caught sight of the brooch in Miss
Kitty's lace shawl. Through a gap in the wood the light from the western
sky danced among the diamonds. But where one of the precious stones
should have been there was a little black hole.

"Sister, you've lost a stone out of your brooch!" screamed Miss Betty.
The little ladies were well-trained, and even in that moment of despair
Miss Betty would not hint that her sister's ornaments were not her sole
property.

When Miss Kitty burst into tears the parson was a little astonished as
well as distressed. Men are apt to be so, not perhaps because women cry
on such very small accounts, as because the full reason does not always
transpire. Tears are often the climax of nervous exhaustion and this is
commonly the result of more causes than one. Ostensibly Miss Kitty was
"upset" by the loss of the diamond, but she also wept away a good deal
of the vexation of her unequal conflict with the sarcastic lawyer, and
of all this the parson knew nothing.

Miss Betty knew nothing of that, but she knew enough of things in
general to feel sure that the diamond was not all the matter.

"What is amiss, sister Kitty?" said she. "Have you hurt yourself? Do you
feel ill? Did you know the stone was out?"--"I hope you're not going to
be hysterical, sister Kitty," added Miss Betty anxiously; "there never
was a hysterical woman in our family yet."

"Oh dear no, sister Betty," sobbed Miss Kitty; "but it's all my fault. I
know I was fidgeting with it whilst I was talking; and it's a punishment
on my fidgety ways, and for ever presuming to wear it at all, when
you're the head of the family, and solely entitled to it. And I shall
never forgive myself if it's lost, and if it's found I'll never, never
wear it any more." And as she deluged her best company pocket-handkerchief
(for the useful one was in a big pocket under her dress, and could not be
got at, the parson being present), Church, State, the royal family, the
family Bible, her highest principles, her dearest affections, and the
diamond brooch, all seemed to swim before her disturbed mind in one sea
of desolation.

There was not a kinder heart than the parson's toward women and children
in distress. He tucked the little ladies again under his arms, and
insisted upon going back to Mrs. Dunmaw's searching the lane as they
went. In the pulpit or the drawing room a ready anecdote never failed
him, and on this occasion he had several. Tales of lost rings, and even
single gems, recovered in the most marvellous manner and the most
unexpected places--dug up in gardens, served up to dinner in fishes, and
so forth. "Never," said Miss Kitty, afterward, "never, to her dying day,
could she forget his kindness."

She clung to the parson as a support under both her sources of trouble,
but Miss Betty ran on and back, and hither and thither, looking for the
diamond. Miss Kitty and the parson looked too, and how many aggravating
little bits of glass and silica, and shining nothings and
good-for-nothings there are in the world, no one would believe who has
not looked for a lost diamond on a high road.

But another story of found jewels was to be added to the parson's stock.
He had bent his long back for about the eighteenth time, when such a
shimmer as no glass or silica can give flashed into his eyes, and he
caught up the diamond out of the dust, and it fitted exactly into the
little black hole.

Miss Kitty uttered a cry, and at the same moment Miss Betty, who was
farther down the road, did the same, and these were followed by a third,
which sounded like a mocking echo of both. And then the sisters rushed
together.

"A most miraculous discovery!" gasped Miss Betty.

"You must have passed the very spot before," cried Miss Kitty.

"Though I'm sure, sister, what to do with it now we have found it I
don't know," said Miss Betty, rubbing her nose, as she was wont to do
when puzzled.

"It shall be taken better care of for the future, sister Betty," said
Miss Kitty penitently. "Though how it got out I can't think now."

"Why, bless my soul! you don't suppose it got there of itself, sister?"
snapped Miss Betty. "How it did get there is another matter."

"I felt pretty confident about it, for my own part," smiled the parson
as he joined them.

"Do you mean to say, sir, that you knew it was there?" asked Miss Betty,
solemnly.

"I didn't know the precise spot, my dear madam, but----"

"You didn't see it, sir, I hope?" said Miss Betty.

"Bless me, my dear madam, I found it!" cried the parson.

Miss Betty bridled and bit her lip.

"I never contradict a clergyman, sir," said she, "but I can only say
that if you did see it, it was not like your usual humanity to leave it
lying there."

I've got it in my hand, ma'am!"
"Why
He's got it in his hand, sister!"

cried the parson and Miss Kitty in one breath. Miss Betty was too much
puzzled to be polite.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"The diamond, oh dear, oh dear! _The diamond!_" cried Miss Kitty. "But
what are you talking about, sister?"

"_The baby_" said Miss Betty.



WHAT MISS BETTY FOUND.


It was found under a broom-bush. Miss Betty was poking her nose near the
bank that bordered the wood, in her hunt for the diamond, when she
caught sight of a mass of yellow of a deeper tint than the mass of
broom-blossom above it, and this was the baby.

This vivid color, less opaque than "deep chrome" and a shade more
orange, seems to have a peculiar attraction for wandering tribes.
Gipsies use it, and it is a favorite color with Indian squaws. To the
last dirty rag it is effective, whether it flutters near a tent on
Bagshot Heath, or in some wigwam doorway makes a point of brightness
against the grey shadows of the pine forest.

A large kerchief of this, wound about its body, was the baby's only
robe, but he seemed quite comfortable in it when Miss Betty found him,
sleeping on a pillow of deep hair moss, his little brown fists closed as
fast as his eyes, and a crimson toadstool grasped in one of them.

When Miss Betty screamed the baby awoke, and his long black lashes
tickled his cheeks and made him wink and cry. But by the time she
returned with her sister and the parson, he was quite happy again,
gazing up with dark eyes full of delight into the glowing broom-brush,
and fighting the evening breeze with his feet, which were entangled in
the folds of the yellow cloth, and with the battered toadstool which was
still in his hand.

"And, indeed, sir," said Miss Betty, who had rubbed her nose till it
looked like the twin toadstool to that which the baby was flourishing in
her face, "you won't suppose I would have left the poor little thing
another moment, to catch its death of cold on a warm evening like this;
but having no experience of such cases, and remembering that murder at
the inn in the Black Valley, and that the body was not allowed to be
moved till the constables had seen it, I didn't feel to know how it
might be with foundlings, and--"

But still Miss Betty did not touch the bairn. She was not accustomed to
children. But the parson had christened too many babies to be afraid of
them, and he picked up the little fellow in a moment, and tucked the
yellow rag round him, and then addressing the little ladies precisely as
if they were sponsors, he asked in his deep round voice, "Now where on
the face of the earth are the vagabonds who have deserted this child?"

The little ladies did not know, the broom bushes were silent, and the
question has remained unanswered from that day to this.

There were no railways near Lingborough at this time. The coach ran
three times a week, and a walking postman brought the letters from the
town to the small hamlets. Telegraph wires were unknown, and yet news
travelled quite as fast then as it does now, and in the course of the
following morning all the neighbourhood knew that Miss Betty had found a
baby under a broom bush, and the lawyer called in the afternoon to
inquire how the ladies found themselves after the tea party at Mrs.
General Dunmaw's.

Miss Kitty was glad on the whole. She felt nervous, but ready for a
renewal of hostilities. Several clinching arguments had occurred to her
in bed last night, and after hastily looking up a few lines from her
common-place book, which always made her cry when she read them, but
which she hoped to be able to hurl at the lawyer with a steady voice,
she followed Miss Betty to the drawing-room.

It was half a relief and half a disappointment to find that the lawyer
was quite indifferent to the subject of their late contest. He
overflowed with compliments; was quite sure he must have had the worst
of the argument, and positively dying of curiosity to hear about the
baby.

The little ladies were very full of the subject themselves. An active
search for the baby's relations, conducted by the parson, the clerk,
the farm-bailiff, the constable, the cowherd, and several
supernumeraries, had so far proved quite vain. The country folk were
most anxious to assist, especially by word of mouth. Except a small but
sturdy number who had seen nothing, they had all seen "tramps," but
unluckily no two could be got together whose accounts of the tramps
themselves, of the hour at which they were seen, or of the direction in
which they went, would tally with each other.

The little ladies were quite alive to the possibility that the child's
parents might never be traced, indeed the matter had been constantly
before their minds ever since the parson had carried the baby to
Lingborough, and laid it in the arms of Thomasina, the servant.

Miss Betty had sat long before her toilette-table that evening, gazing
vacantly at the looking-glass. Not that the reflection of the eight
curl-papers she had neatly twisted up was conveyed to her brain. She was
in a brown study, during which the following thoughts passed through her
mind, and they all pointed one way:

That that fine little fellow was not to blame for his people's
misconduct.

That they would never be found.

That it would probably be the means of the poor child's ruin, body and
soul, if they were.

That the master of the neighbouring workhouse bore a bad character.

That a child costs nothing to keep--where cows are kept too--for years.

That just at the age when a boy begins to eat dreadfully and wear out
his clothes, he is very useful on a farm (though not for these reasons).

That Thomasina had taken to him.

That there need be no nonsense about it, as he could be brought up in
his proper station in life in the kitchen and the farm yard.

That tramps have souls.

That he would be taught to say his prayers.

Miss Betty said hers, and went to bed; but all through that midsummer
night the baby kept her awake, or flaunted his yellow robe and crimson
toadstool through her dreams.

The morning brought no change in Miss Betty's views, but she felt
doubtful as to how her sister would receive them. Would she regard them
as foolish and unpractical, and her respect for Miss Betty's opinion be
lessened thenceforward?

The fear was needless. Miss Kitty was romantic and imaginative. She had
carried the baby through his boyhood about the Lingborough fields whilst
she was dressing; and he was attending her own funeral in the capacity
of an attached and faithful servant, in black livery with worsted frogs,
as she sprinkled salt on her buttered toast at breakfast, when she was
startled from this affecting daydream by Miss Betty's voice.

"Dear sister Kitty, I wish to consult you as to our plans in the event
of those wicked people who deserted the baby not being found."

The little ladies resolved that not an inkling of their benevolent
scheme must be betrayed to the lawyer. But they dissembled awkwardly,
and the tone in which they spoke of the tramp-baby roused the lawyer's
quick suspicions. He had a real respect for the little ladies, and was
kindly anxious to save them from their own indiscretion.

"My dear ladies," said he, "I do hope your benevolence--may I say your
romantic benevolence?--of disposition is not tempting you to adopt this
gipsy waif?"

"I hope we know what is due to ourselves, and to the estate--small, as
it is--sir," said Miss Betty, "as well as to Providence, too well to
attempt to raise any child, however handsome, from that station of life
in which he was born."

"Bless me, madam! I never dreamed you would adopt a beggar child as your
heir; but I hope you mean to send it to the workhouse, if the gipsy
tramps it belongs to are not to be found?"

"We have not made up our minds, sir, as to the course we propose to
pursue," said Miss Betty, with outward dignity proportioned to her
inward doubts.

"My dear ladies," said the lawyer anxiously, "let me implore you not to
be rash. To adopt a child in the most favorable circumstances is the
greatest of risks. But if your benevolence _will_ take that line, pray
adopt some little boy out of one of your tenants' families. Even your
teaching will not make him brilliant, as he is likely to inherit the
minimum of intellectual capacity; but he will learn his catechism,
probably grow up respectable, and possibly grateful, since his
forefathers have (so Miss Kitty assures me) had all these virtues for
generations. But this baby is the child of a heathen, barbarous, and
wandering race. The propensities of the vagabonds who have deserted him
are in every drop of his blood. All the parsons in the diocese won't
make a Christian of him, and when (after anxieties I shudder to foresee)
you flatter yourself that he is civilized, he will run away and leave
his shoes and stockings behind him."

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