Part 23 (1/2)
Prudence returned to her dwelling, where she kept a school; and Grace, glad to escape the old dame's piercing eyes, went into the garden to look upon the more pleasing countenance of her master, who said, ”You have made a good beginning, cheeld, only hold to it, and we shall get on very well; come now and help me weed a flower-bed, that I may show 'e what to pull up and what to let grow.” She weeded so handy and minded her master's instructions so well, that he, to show his satisfaction, when a bed was finished, clasped her in his arms and kissed her, saying, ”I can't tell 'e any other way how well pleased I am at your handy work.” She redoubled her efforts to please him that he might again show his satisfaction.
Time pa.s.sed so pleasantly in the beautiful garden--which Grace thought must be like Paradise--that they forgot the dinner hour, till the boy came home from school and ran out into the garden, shouting, ”Dadda!
Dadda! I want my dinner; An' Prue always had it ready in time.” ”Run in my good girl,” said his father; ”give him bread and honey with milk to drink, or anything to stop his squalling, we can have apple-pie; pick a few of the ripest from yonder tree.”
Having given Bob his dinner, Grace gathered such golden apples as she never beheld till then, indeed, she thought them too rich to cook, and that their perfume was enough to satisfy one, for roses and gilly-flowers were less sweet to her seeming.
Dinner over and Bob sent to school, master and maid pa.s.sed a pleasant afternoon in the garden gathering fruit. Prudence, having sent her scholars home, took a nap, for she had talked herself sleepy over the horn-book. She soon waked up, however, and hurried over to find that Grace had gone a milking, and Robin was in a quillet (paddock), near by, grooming his horse. Seeing all about the house in apple-pie order, she looked rather sour, for the crabbed dame dearly liked to spy faults; that's how she was so much disliked by Grace; so without a word to anyone in the garden-dwelling, she tucked up her skirts and picked her way back to her own house, mumbling, ”It seems my room es more welcome than my company, but we shall see how long they will get on without my advice.”
Grace found her new life so pleasant that she took no count of time; months pa.s.sed like a summer's day; she never thought of her old home or people, for all her care was to please her agreeable master. Of a morning he frequently rode away through the wood dressed like a gentleman going a hunting; and Grace took delight to keep his boots polished, and to buckle on his silver spurs that she might see him mount and ride away in gallant style. Grace always wondered where her master got out of the wood; she had gone a long way on the road he took, but saw no end of the winding, shady, alleys.
He always told her to be sure not to leave his grounds; on no account to venture outside the orchard gate during his absence; and, for her life, not to go near the high rock, for at its foot--hidden by thickets--there was a low hole, from which Bucca-dhus often issued, and carried away people who were nevermore seen here. One afternoon, however, when Robin was away and the boy at school, Grace felt weary of being so long alone or with only the poultry--that followed her everywhere about the place,--and went to the outer gate. On seeing a pleasant walk winding along by the waterside, where all was shady and quiet, she pa.s.sed out and down the road till near the high rocks; she wondered whither the bowery path led; thought she heard the sea murmuring, and had a mind to go farther on, when all her thoughts were put to flight by hearing a voice say, ”Stop there, my sweet pretty maid; I'll soon be down by the river-side and give thee a diamond ring.” Looking up towards the place whence the voice came, she saw, on the topmost stone, a dark man dressed like a sailor, who then made signs for her to pa.s.s farther down the road. Grace hastened in, followed by the screaming hens, which roused the dogs, and their barking alarmed An' Prudence, who hurried over, gave her a good scolding, threatened to tell Robin how, by her gadding about, she had narrowly escaped being carried away. As Grace was still uneasy from fear, she waited up for her master and made a pie; he seemed well pleased to have a hot one for his supper, and the girl to pull off his boots; seeing her disturbed, he asked what was the matter; she confessed her fault with tears, and promised never to disobey him again. ”I'll let it pa.s.s,” said he, ”as it's the first time you have disobeyed;” and, to a.s.sure her of his forgiveness, he treated her to a cordial that produced sweet sleep and pleasant dreams.
Grace finding her master well pleased that she had waited up for him, continued to do so in spite of all An' Prudence told her. ”Now since thou hast again scorned my counsel, I'll leave thee to thy devices,”
said she, one day; ”as if Robin wanted thee, forsooth, to unbuckle his spurs or pull off his riding boots, and to cook him a supper that he is better without.”
Contrary to the austere dame's advice, Grace continued to take her own way, and her master seemed pleased; she wanted for nothing, yet she was always saying to herself, ”Whatever can be in that locked-up parlour and the chambers that I am forbidden to enter?” At last, from always thinking about what didn't at all concern her, the fool--she couldn't rest by night or by day. One afternoon whilst An' Prue was cleaning up the parlour,--not thinking Grace was near,--she suddenly went out and left the door ajar; that instant the curious maiden peeped in, and spying lots of rare pretty things, she stepped over the drussel, and saw what she took to be conjuring implements, and trembled to behold--on shelves, in cupboards, and elsewhere about the room--men's heads, and heads and shoulders without arms; over the fire-place there were even whole bodies of small ones, all turned to stone; they were whiter than corpses and quite naked, like what she had heard of in old folks'
stories as being done by enchantment; she didn't stay to notice much more and was leaving the room backwards when the old dame, coming behind, thumped her head and exclaimed, ”Now thou perverse strollop since thou hast entered the forbidden room to thy cost, thou shalt work in it for a punishment; so take the waxed cloth and rub up that piece of furniture,” continued she, in pointing to a long dark chest, that looked to Grace like a coffin resting on a table-frame, ”Rub, rub away, rub harder and quicker till thou canst see thy poking nose in it, and stop thy whimperan or I'll crack thy numbscull.” Grace burst out crying but still rubbed away so hard that she lifted the article off its legs or its frame, and, falling back with a jerk, something within it gave out a doleful sound so like a dying groan that she,--thinking it must be the voice of a spirit or of an enchanted body confined therein--was overcome with fright and fell down in a fit.
Prudence fearing for the consequences, pulled her out by the heels in great haste but not before Robin was informed, by a wailing from the chest or coffin, that something had gone wrong in his private apartment.
When Grace came to her senses he said to her, ”Ignorant chit thou art become so froward as not to regard Aunt Prudence in anything; this is thy second act of disobedience, for the third there's no forgiveness, and if thou any more seekest to gratify thy troublesome curiosity against my desire thou wilt have to get a new place, so beware.”
After this it was many days ere Grace's master sang to her or played with her again, as was his wont, and she redoubled her efforts to please him and show her regret till he again kissed her to prove that the past was forgiven.
A sight of the forbidden appartment, however, only served to make Grace more dissatisfied because she couldn't understand all the mysteries of the place and its inmates. She noticed that the boy looked very knowing for one of his age, and thinking that by means of the ointment he saw things invisible to her, she resolved to try its effects; and, one morning, when her master had gone away, she took double the quant.i.ty used daily for Bob's eyes and rubbed them on her own; it made them smart so much that she thought them to be turning inside out or bursting from her head.
To ease their burning pain she ran down and washed them in the pool.
Looking into the water--a minute after--when her eyes ceased smarting a little, she saw there, deep down, what looked like another world with trees, birds, and people in great numbers; the people were so small that many of them perched themselves on branches amongst the birds. Yet what surprised her most was to see her master below moving from place to place among them; he was here, there, and everywhere. Being somewhat frightened she left the pool and soon after, on looking around the orchard, there, too, she saw small people and amongst them her master dressed in his hunting-suit. ”Now I know for sure that this is an enchanted place,” said she to herself, ”my handsome master must be a conjuror, and in spite of their fern-seed I shall soon discover more.”
Grace pa.s.sed that day very uneasy and in the evening Robin came home with several strange people bearing baskets of cakes and other dainties such as she had never before seen; these being placed away Robin told her to put the boy to bed and that she wasn't wanted below stairs any more for that night.
The dissatisfied maid went to bed but not to sleep, for in a few hours she heard the ringing of cups and gla.s.ses with other sounds which made it known to her that a banquet was being held in the stone-people's apartment.
Over a while she heard singing and music there; the entry and staircase being dark she crept down, and peeping through the partly open door, saw two smart gentlemen, besides her master, and three ladies dressed in white trimmed with green. In their ears, round their necks, and on their arms, the ladies wore diamonds that shone like stars; but most of her attention was drawn to a fair haired one who sat beside the long box or coffin, and, by thumping on it with both hands for dear life she made the body or spirit within it give out finer music than a dozen fiddlers all in a row could make with their fiddles playing altogether, so she said.
From her dark corner she listened and watched till the music ceased and the company rose to depart; then, from her chamber window, she spied Robin in the garden kiss the ladies all round, on taking leave.
Grace cried herself asleep, but for why she couldn't tell.
In the morning she found the parlour door locked, and seeing gla.s.ses, china, and other things, on the kitchen table, she washed and placed them on their shelves, and did her morning work; when her master came in and, seeing all in order, said she was a good girl, put his arm around her and was going to show his satisfaction in his usual way. But she repulsed him saying, ”Go and kiss your little white and green ladies; you shall touch me no more; for you arn't of common human kind, but a changeling small-body that for nine years at a time can appear as such; yet with all your fern-seed none of 'e can deceive me any longer by your enchantment and what not.”
”Hold thy foolish clack thou silly girl,” said he, ”thy head is turned with old folks' drolls; there's nothing uncommon here, 'tis only thy ignorance that makes thee think so. But I see,” he continued with a stern air, ”that thou hast rubbed thy eyes with the green ointment, and now as I find that nothing can lay thy impertinent curiosity, or check thy prying into what don't concern thee, we must part. Thy last year will be ended to-morrow, so prepare at once to leave early in the morning, and I will take thee behind me on horseback over the hills to the place in which I found thee, for thou wilt never be able to find the way back alone.”
Seeing that all her promises of amendment were of no avail, and that Robin and Prudence--who was now reinstated--determined on her departure, Grace with much grief packed up her fardel, and from what her master and old sour Prudence had given her, from time to time, she had a good stock of clothing. She didn't know what wages was due to her, poor fool, nor how long she had lived there, for years had pa.s.sed like a summer's day, until she longed to know too much. She was almost heart broken to leave the flowers that she loved like living things, the poultry she had reared, the pigeons that nested over the wood-corner ate from her hand and followed her over the place; the rabbits and hares that played about the garden and in the house; above all she grieved to part with a tame robin that kept in the dwelling and sang whenever she entered it.
Besides it fretted her to find that old sour Prudence was brought back to be mistress of Robin's garden-dwelling.
The discreet dame, however, not knowing what might turn up, took care to keep Chypons--as the place in which she resided was called. She was very proud of her snug habitation, because, a little below the carn, a foot-bridge crossed the stream close by her house and n.o.body lived so near it as to interfere with her wise management.