Part 57 (1/2)
”Master may have tutors as is clergymen to teach him, and Miss Helen may talk and try, but he's got it in him, and you can't get it out.”
”Who are you talking about, Maria,” said the old lady testily.
”That boy,” said Maria, shaking her head. ”It's of no good, he's got it in him, and nothing won't get it out.”
”Bless my heart!” cried Mrs Millett, thinking first of mustard and water, and then of castor-oil, ”has the poor fellow swallowed something?”
”No-o-o-o!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Maria, drawing the word out to nearly a foot in length.
”But you said he'd got something in him, Maria. Good gracious me, girl!
what do you mean!”
”Sin and wickedness, Mrs Millett. He comes of a bad lot, and Dan'l says he's always keeping bad company.”
”Dan'l's a chattering old woman, and had better mind his slugs and snails.”
”But the boy's always in mischief; see how he spoiled your silk dress.”
”Only spotted it, Maria, and it was clean water. I certainly thought it rained as I went under his window.”
”Yes, and you fetched your umbrella.”
”I did, Maria. But he's better now. Give him his physic regular, and it does him good.”
”Did you find out what was the matter with those salts and senny!”
”No, Maria, I did not. I had to break the gla.s.s to get it out; set hard as a stone. It was a good job he did not take it.”
Mrs Millett never did find out that Dexter had poured in cement till the gla.s.s would hold no more, and his medicine became a solid lump.
”Ah, you'll be tired of him soon,” said Maria.
”No, I don't think I shall, Maria. You see he's a boy, and he does behave better. Since I told him not, he hasn't taken my basting-spoon to melt lead for what he calls nickers; and then he hasn't repeated that wicked cruel trick of sitting on the wall.”
”Why, I see him striddling the ridge of the old stable, with his back to the weatherc.o.c.k, only yesterday.”
”Yes, Maria, but he wasn't fis.h.i.+ng over the wall with worms to try and catch Mrs Biggins's ducks, a very cruel trick which he promised me he wouldn't do any more; and he hasn't pretended to be a cat on the roof, nor yet been to me to extract needles which he had stuck through his cheeks out of mischief; and I haven't seen him let himself down from the stable roof with a rope; and, as I told him, that clothes-line wasn't rope.”
”Ah, you always sided with the boy, Mrs Millett,” said Maria; ”but mark my words, some of these mornings we shall get up and find that he has let burglars into the house, and Master and Miss Helen will be robbed and murdered in their beds.”
”Maria, you're a goose,” said the old housekeeper. ”Don't talk such rubbish.”
”Ah, you may call it rubbish, Mrs Millett, but if you'd seen that boy just now stealing--”
”Stealing, Maria?”
”Yes 'm, stealing into Master's study like a thief in the night--and after no good, I'll be bound,--you wouldn't be so ready to take his part.”
”Gone in to write his lessons,” said Mrs Millett. ”There, you go and get about your work.”