Part 8 (1/2)
”If I am asked, and if your Mamma would wish it.”
”Oh, Mamma always lets us go, except once--when--when--”
”When what?”
”When I cried,” said Elizabeth, hanging down her head; ”I couldn't help it. It did seem so tiresome here, and she said I was learning to be discontented; but n.o.body can help wis.h.i.+ng, can they?”
”There must be a way of not breaking the Tenth Commandment.”
”I don't covet; I don't want to take things away from Ida, only to have the same.”
”Yes; but what does the explanation at the end of the Duty to our Neighbour say, filling out that Commandment?”
”I think I'll go and see what Susie is doing,” said Elizabeth.
Christabel sighed as the little girl walked off, displeased at having her repinings set before her in a graver light than that in which she had hitherto chosen to regard them.
She saw no more of her charges till tea-time, when the bell brought them from different quarters, Johnnie with such a grimy collar and dirty hands, that he was a very un-Sunday-like figure, and she would have sent him away to make himself decent, but that she was desirous of not over-tormenting him.
Sunday was always celebrated by having treacle with the bread, so the b.u.t.ter riot was happily escaped; and Bessie was not in a gracious mood, and the corners of her mouth provoked the boys to begin on what they knew would make her afford them sport. Hal first: ”I say, Bet, didn't Purday want his gun to-day at church?”
Elizabeth put out her lip in expectation that something unpleasant was intended, and other voices were not slow to ask an explanation.
”Shooting the c.o.c.ky-olly birds!”
A general explosion of laughter.
”I say (always the preface to the boy's wit), shall I get a jay down off the barn to stick into your hat, Betty?”
”Don't, Hal,” said such a deplorable offended voice, that Sam, who had really held his tongue at first, could not help chiming in,
”No, no; a c.o.c.k-sparrow, for her London manners.”
”No, that's for me, Sam,” said Christabel good-humouredly. ”A London-bred sparrow; a pert forward chit.”
She really had found a safety-valve; the boys were entertained, and diverted from their attack on their favourite victim, by finding everyone an appropriate bird; and when they came to ”Tomt.i.ts” and ”Dishwashers,” were so astonished at Miss Fosbrook's never having seen either, that they instantly fell into the greatest haste to finish their tea, and conduct her into the garden, and through a course of birds, eggs, and nests, about which, as soon as she was a.s.sured that there was to be no bird's-nesting, she was very eager.
Bessie ought to have been thankful that her persecutors were called off, but she was in a dismal mood, and was taken with a fit of displeasure that her own Christabel Angela was following the rabble rout into the garden, instead of staying in the school-room at her service.
The reason of her gloom was, that Miss Fosbrook had spoken a word that she did not choose to take home, and yet which she could not shake off. So she would neither stay in nor go out cheerfully, and sauntered along looking so piteous, that Johnnie could not help making her worse by plucking at her dress, by suddenly twisting her cape round till the back was in front, and pus.h.i.+ng her hat over her eyes, till ”Don't Johnnie,” in a dismal whine, alternated with ”I'll tell Miss Fosbrook.”
Christabel did not see nor hear. She had gone forward with a boy on either side of her, and Susan walking backwards in front, all telling the story of a cuckoo,--or gowk, as Sara called it in Purday's language,--which they had found in a water-wagtail's nest in a heap of stones; how it sat up, constantly gaping with its huge mouth, while the poor little foster-parents toiled to their utmost to keep it supplied with caterpillars, and the last time it was seen, when full-fledged, were trying to lure it to come out of the nest by holding up green palmers at some little distance before it. This was in the evening; by morning it was gone, having probably taken flight at sunrise.
Miss Fosbrook listened with all the pleasure the boys could desire.
She had read natural history, and looked at birds stuffed in the British Museum, or alive at the Zoological Gardens, on the rare days when her father had time to give himself and his children a treat; and her fresh value and interest in all these country things were delightful to the boys.
It was a lovely summer evening. The sun was low enough to make the shadows long and refres.h.i.+ng, as they lay upon the blooming gra.s.s of the wilderness, softly swaying in the breeze, all pale with its numerous chaffy blossoms, and varied by the tall b.u.t.tercups that raised up their s.h.i.+ning yellow heads, or by white clouds of bold- faced ox-eye daisies.
The pear-trees were like white garlands; the apple-trees covered with white blossoms and rosy buds; the climbing roses on the wall were bursting into blossom; the sky was one blue vault without a cloud.
Surely Elizabeth had no lack here of what was pretty. Then why did she lag behind, unseeing, unheeding of all, but peevishly pus.h.i.+ng off John and Anne, thinking that they always teased her worst on Sundays, and very much discomfited that Miss Fosbrook was not attending to her? Surely the fault was not altogether in what was outside her.