Comin' Thro' the Rye

Front matter

COMIN' THRO' THE RYE

by

HELEN B. MATHERS

Seed Time: Chapter I

COMIN' THRO' THE RYE.

SEED TIME.

CHAPTER I.

"It is the admirer of himself and not the admirer of virtue that thinks himself superior to others."

ppoem|{fine} Poor Martha Snell, her's gone away; Her would if her could, but her couldn't stay; Her'd two sore legs and a baddish cough, But her legs it was as carried her off!’

That's mine. Have you got anything to-day, Alice?"

"Nothing," says our lovely sister, lifting her head from "Paley's Evidences," "but Nell has."

"Bring it out then!" says Jack, rapping the table smartly with his ruler.

Happy Jack! who is deterred from amusing himself by no such considerations concerning Scripture exercises and the like as lie heavy upon the rest of us; he is home for the holidays, and as his soul is supposed to be well weeded and watered by his pastors and masters while he is away, it is left in peace while he is at home.

"It is a little vulgar," I admit, looking round, "but then you know, you all like vulgar jokes. Not that this is a joke,—far from it, it is a veritable, properly authenticated family——"

"Business is business," says Jack, interrupting; "give us the epitaph first, and your remarks after."

ppoem|{fine} " 'Here lies the body of Betsy Binn, Who was so very pure within, She bust this outer shell of sin, And hatched herself a cherubim;"

"There! burst, not bust," says Jack, reprovingly; "don't expose your ignorance, Nell."

"It is not," I say, stoutly; "burst is quite a leisurely way of doing things. Bust gives you the idea of cracking all over like a chrysalis and flying straight up through the air, as Betsy did."

"I don't think it's as good as Thomas Woodhen," says Alice, gravely. "His widow showed so much sense in adapting herself to circumstances."

"Or that other one," says Milly, looking up—

ppoem|{fine} " 'Poor Martha Kitchen! her days were spent, She kicked up her heels and away she went.

"I like the baby's best," says Jack; "that one on an infant three months old, you know—

ppoem|{fine} 'Since I am so quickly done for I wonder what I was begun for?

"Nurse told me of one yesterday," says Milly, resting her elbows on a Pinnock, "that she saw with her very own eyes—

'Here lies the unworthy son of a worthy father.'

The stone was erected by the father."

"That is nasty," says Alice; "the others only show extraordinary levity. I wonder what the people were like who made them up?"

"Shaky as to their grammar," says Jack, "and sadly in want of a dictionary!"

"Would you like a grammatical one," I ask, "and a properly spelt one? I don't say it's a particularly good one."

"Good heavens!" says Jack, leaning forward. "Nell is,—yes—no—yes, she is positively blushing!"

"I am not!" I say, looking at them all steadily. "No one ever accused me of such a thing before!"

"Then, to what," asks Alice, laughing, "may we ascribe this sudden access of colour? Heat, modesty, shame, or pride at having made a rhyme? for I do believe you have."

"Heat!" I say, shortly; "how we shall broil in church!'

"Now then," says Jack, "we must not permit the first literary effort of the family to die for want of air, let's have it."

"It is not much of it," I say, apologetically, "but our riddles and epitaphs were running so low that I thought it was high time some new ones were invented, and anything is better than nothing, you know! Here it is—

ppoem|{fine} <>'Here lies the body of <>Helen Adair, <>Cruelly slain in the Flower of her <>Youth and Beauty, by <>Amberley's Nags.

P.S.—Amberley's Nags were the only horses visible at <>her funeral, for she died a Pauper.

"Ha! ha! ha!" goes Jack. Youth and beauty,' first-rate that."

"And Amberley does nag at Nell shamefully," says Alice.

"And you all say," I put in, standing up for my bantling, "that my extravagant tastes will bring me to want some day, do you not? Only I don't see how I can ever be very lavish on nothing."

"The governor tells us every day that we shall come to the—union," says Milly. "I wonder if it is very bad?"

"They separate the sexes," I say, looking fondly at Jack, who is whistling away at a pencil in utter ignorance of my affectionate glance, "and I should never like that."

"What's the matter with Amberley?" he asks, looking up. "Has she got spasms?"

"Bilious," I say, nodding. "She calls it sick headache, but I know better. She won't be able to get up till to-morrow, therefore can't harass our already too highly cultivated brains with Paley and Pinnock. I wonder why Sunday is called a day of rest? It is not to us."

"I wish the holidays would come," says Milly, sighing. "Why should we have them in July instead of June? It can't make any difference."

"Amberley is not going away for her holidays," says Alice; "her brother, who is sixty, has got the measles. Did I tell you about her boots yesterday?"

"No; what was it?"

"You know we walked into Silverbridge? Well, she went into Summers's to buy a pair of boots, and she managed to squeeze her feet into a pair much too small for her, then said to the old man, who was standing by with his mouth screwed up on one side, 'I think these will do, though they may hurt me a little at first.' 'Lor, miss,' said old Summers, that don't siggerfy, that ain't of no account, but I knows they'll bust!

"And after that delicate warning did she take them?" asks Jack.

"She did!"

"Let us hope then," says Milly, "that she will not wear them in one of our breathless scampers behind the governor, or she will come back without them!"

"I have done my exercise," says Dolly, speaking for the first time, "and so has Alan."

"Of course you have," says Jack; "did either of you ever do anything without the other? You eat, drink, weep, wipe up the blots from your copy-books with your noses, and, I believe, snore simultaneously!"

"I wonder how soon the bells will strike up," I say, walking to the window and looking out into the broad, peaceful fairness of the Sabbath morning. There is no sound of work or voices abroad, the court is very still, save for the voice of a thrush in the yew-tree yonder, who sings as gaily and loudly as though it were not Sunday at all, but common, homely week-day. The shrill bark of the grasshoppers sounds quite plainly from the lawn, the flowers are ruffled gently by the soft light wind; they have not changed their lovely garments or put on a different colour because it is Sunday, happier in this than we mortals who make it a point of honour to smarten ourselves up for the Lord's day, and yet never emulate those dainty blossoms in their delicate, heaven-dyed tints. The cocks and hens pace gravely by, dirty and disreputable as on any other day, and I look at them with attention, wondering whether either of them has laid an egg, a practice in very great disfavour among the tribe, and am inclined to think, from the sidelong strut and complacency of a youthful matron of the Brahma species, that she has done her duty in that state of life to which it has pleased Providence to call her.

"I shall kill that pair of black Hamburghs to-morrow," says Jack, nodding towards two straggling wretches (why are all his fowls so lean?), who are scratching in blessed unconsciousness of the Nemesis of impecuniosity that walks behind them. "I want three shillings, and I don't know any other way of getting it."

"Mamma won't buy any more of you," I say with conviction; "the last were so stringy and thin that she said she dared not, the governor would call on the poultry woman, and it would all come out."

"If he only knew," says Milly, "that after feeding their bodies in life he had to pay for their carcases in death, how comforting it would be to his feelings! and every morning, regularly, he says their heads shall be cut off before night."

"And they deserve it," says Jack with unusual viciousness, "for of all the ill-behaved brutes I ever came across, they are the worst. They never lay eggs, or grow fat, or do any of the things all other well-regulated fowls are supposed to do."

"Mr. and Mrs. Skipworth are coming to dinner," says Alice, 'to their quarterly festival, you know, and, thank goodness, we shall not be expected to talk. I wonder," she adds, with the gay laugh that never degenerates into a bellow like Jack's, or a cackle like mine, "whether she will wear her purple satin gown?"

"I hope so," says Jack unkindly; "for sooner or later I am certain that she will blow up in it, as Betsy Binn did, and sit calm and smiling in the midst of the purple ruins. Why should not the event take place to-day, indeed?"

Ding-dong! ding-dong! goes a squeaky little bell hard by, it is the voice of Silverbridge church, summoning its flock to worship. We are so near the churchyard that from our windows we can throw a pebble at the railings that close in the vault of our ancestors, by whose side we must all lie some day (if there is room), every one. There are so many of us though, that some will have to lie in state, and some simply, as poor folks do; those who go first will have the best place, those who go last the lower one. We do not pause to put away our books, but set off down the long passage and up the stairs and down more steps and up others, for the Manor House is built with the especial purpose of breaking the necks, legs, and arms of the inhabitants thereof, and though we, from long acquaintance, escape scot free, so do not stranger servants, who usually pitch head-foremost down one or other of the many pitfalls, and come heavily to grief. Our bedrooms are low and wide, opening one out of the other inconveniently enough, and they have latticed casements, through which the queen of flowers herself nods gaily in, reflecting herself in myriad shapes of crimson, yellow, white, and pink. Out of her beautiful breast drop those ugly parasites the earwigs, and make themselves very much at home among our hair-brushes and the simple appointments of our dressing-tables. As yet these latter are primitive enough: they hold a glass of flowers, a pincushion, a few trinket-cases, a ribbon or two, and that is all. We have no powder, or cosmetics, or appliances for painting the lily, but look in our glasses and see our faces, pretty or ugly, just as God made them. Alice's mirror gives back a dainty picture enough as she stands before it, tying the brown strings of her quakerish brown bonnet, that is just the colour of the soft love-locks that lie rich and smooth beneath. I wish that you could see her as she is at this moment, with the freshness of a wild rose in her exquisite cheeks, with the bloom of perfect health in her blue eyes, with the lovely severity of a sculptured Venus in the low white brow, and curved lips, and perfectly modelled cleft chin, and slender neck. We are very proud of our sixteen-year-old sister, our eldest and our only beauty! we are not a bad-looking family, people say, but none of us comes within a mile of Alice. Milly is handsome after a vigorous, determined fashion, with a pair of magnificent blue eyes, black lashed, and a shock of fair hair that sets straight out from her head in every direction. Now, if there is one thing for which we owe gratitude to the governor, it is for providing the family with such real, good, blue eyes. Reckoning his own and mother's, we number just twelve pairs among us; and by blue I do not mean that mixture of slate and grey, or green, so commonly misnamed blue, but a colour as pure and vivid as the tint of a flower, from the clear saucy blue of the forget-me-not to the deep purple that lurks in the heart of the violet. We are eleven boys and girls altogether, and I have said that we number twelve pairs of eyes of one colour, so it is plain there must be one exception to the general rule, and that is me. My eyes were green from the day of my birth, and will be green to the hour of my death; mamma calls them grey, but where one's personal appearance is concerned, it is always safer to believe one's enemies than one's friends.

"The governor is brushing his hat!" exclaims Jack, bursting in upon us spick and span in his correctly fitting gloves and tall hat, and we follow him precipitately. In the hall are assembled mamma, Dolly, Alan, and such of the young ones as are old enough to go to church, and the governor. He has finished brushing his hat and put it on his head, but as he is rummaging in a drawer for his gloves, he does not notice our late arrival. And now he sets out, mamma by his side, the procession is formed, and we all tail two and two behind them. Across the lawn, through the wicket-gate, in at God's Acre, past our ancestors Geoffrey and Joan, who lie in duplicate, marble effigy above ground, bleached bones below, flat on their backs, with their toes turned stiffly up, and their prim hands folded palm to palm. If the effigies are good likenesses, I should say that Geoffrey must have been an obstinate uncomfortable sort of old fellow, while Joan was pleasant to live with and very much under her lord's thumb. An impertinent rose-bush planted by Geoffrey's side is holding its sweet red blossom to his marble nose, and from it he seems to be turning away disdainfully, just as, maybe, he did in life from all fair and pleasant things. Under the porch, along the cool dark aisle we go, and file into the long pew that seems expressly made for a man with many children. Mamma sits at the top, papa at the bottom; and the great object of our Sunday morning existences is to get as far away from him and as near to her as we possibly can, hence various silent and rapid manœuvres behind his back that is as well for us that he does not suspect. To-day I am the hapless left-behind, and take my seat with a wrathful heart and a sickly smile that seeks to convey to my brethren the fact, that I do not mind my situation at all, indeed, rather like it than otherwise; there is, however, a covert grin on the row of triumphant faces to my right, that plainly informs me my little hypocrisies will not go down in that quarter. We all look upon the governor as a kind of bombshell, or volcano, or loaded gun, that may blow up at any moment, and will infallibly destroy whatever is nearest to him; therefore our fears are usually lively when ill-luck plants us very close to him.

As usual we are early, so we sit and watch the old village people come in prayer-book in hand, with the clean handkerchief folded on the top, and a rose or sprig of wallflower laid between, at which they will sniff between whiles, when they are not listening to an exposition of their sins, or looking to see if the quality has any new clothes on. The village hind comes in rosy faced and well greased, he has taken his weekly wash, put on his weekly clean-boiled rag, and with the bit of roast beef and pudding provided for his dinner lurking in his memory and tickling his nostrils, feels not unamiably disposed towards the wife of his bosom, and has no inclination to beat her as is his wont on week-days when he has a little spare time. In the gallery opposite sit the Sunday-school girls and ploughboys, an unruly tribe, impervious to the verbal remonstrances of Prodgers the schoolmaster, of which fact he is well aware, and possesses a more substantial claim to their regard in the shape of a stout cane, with which he discourses sweet music on their rustic backs, coming down with an inspiriting whack! in a pause of the sermon or interval of prayer.

Last Sunday he made a faux pas, for, being at the back of the gallery, and spying the unmannerly conduct of an obstreperous purple-cheeked lass in the first row, he leant forward to take summary vengeance on the same, but alas! she was "so near, and yet so far," and in striving to reach her he overbalanced himself, and fell upon a cluster of maidens of tender years, who howled dismally, while the cane succeeded in doing no more than poking the crown of the offender's bonnet in! We did not smile, and papa could detect no unseemly mirth on our faces when he glanced sharply up and down our pew, for we have by long practice acquired the art of laughing inwardly, and can be in ecstasies of amusement without moving a muscle of our countenances.

At last Mr. Skipworth is in his place and the service begins. The governor makes his amens as fervently and loudly as the clerk, and we all follow, down to the very smallest child; in fact, such a wave of hearty sound runs along our ranks as might almost suffice to blow a thin man off his legs if placed directly before us. And now we have all settled our backs against the hard pew, we have planted our feet firmly on our respective stools, and we have opened our hearts and ears widely for such spiritual comfort as Mr. Skipworth may think fit to administer. Papa turns himself about and, resting his elbow on the edge of the pew, has us all safely under his eye. The sermon begins, and though we fix our attention upon our pastor unwinkingly, we cannot follow his meaning, or indeed discover that he has any; his words beat upon our ears with a sense of wearying, empty babble. Is not a man supposed to select a text for the purpose of expounding it? But Mr. Skipworth does nothing of the sort. He walks up to it, it is true, and looks at us over the other side, he ambles round it, makes dashes at it, repeats it over and over again, but never really grasps its meaning and brings it home to us. In his ramblings he mentions Methuselah, and the name catching my wandering thoughts I fall to speculating about that old worldly-weary man, who must have been so tired of his life before God permitted him to lay it down. Surely his latter days were ghastly, grey, and lonely, with all his people and the friends of his youth lying in their graves, and no new ones to fill their places. At what period of his life, I wonder, may he have been considered to be growing a trifle elderly, and did his father whip him after he was a hundred years old? What must his tailor's bills have come to, and how many Mrs. Methuselahs and little Methuselahs may there have been? Papa is not much past forty, and he has eleven children; if he lived until he were nine hundred and sixty-nine years old, how many might he be reasonably supposed to have? That is a sum, and more than my head, unaided by slate or pencil, is good for. I have not half exhausted the subject when Mr. Skipworth blesses and dismisses us, and we are out again, pacing along the narrow path that divides these soft swelling green mounds that we call graves.

How I pity you, poor, patient, forgotten dead folk! I know that you are not here, that your spirits are transplanted to greater bliss or greater misery than the world ever gave you, but with my human heart I think of your bodies laid away in the earth's breast, not of your deathless freed souls. They have buried you away so deep that not a glimmer of God's sunshine can pierce through to your dark, narrow beds. You are hidden away so close that the gurgling song of the thrush, and the shrill call of the black-bird, can never reach or thrill you; though your best beloved were passing by, you could not stir one hair's breadth from your bondage; though you are cradled in the very heart of the earth, you cannot feel her throbbing pulses, smell her fresh flowers; her joy, her riches, and her sweetness are not for you—not for you! I am for you, O dead! just as some day some one will, perchance, be sorry for me, and looking down at the grass that grows over me, heave a sigh and say, Poor soul! and turn back, as I am doing, to the breath of God's air, the caress of His south wind, and the thousand thousand treasures that He has so bountifully poured into the hands of the living.

We pass into the garden, cool with the shadow of the dark-leaved beeches, a rambling queer old place, with many odd twists and corners infinitely dear to our hearts, for by their aid do we contrive to dodge the governor with surprising success. Away to the left is the kitchen garden, ample, well-stocked, closely guarded, before which we are wont to sit down with watering mouths, and hearts as sighing as ever was that of Petrarch after Laura. This, our paradise, is enclosed by an envious and abhorred wall, too high to climb, too dangerous to jump, over which we have all in turn jeopardized our necks and legs and come to cruel grief, as many a bruised shin and dismal lump attest, while the potato bed, which we always select to fall upon under a mistaken impression that it is softer than gooseberry bushes, could tell many a tale of shame and disaster. At the present moment, however, we are indulging in no such monkey tricks, we are walking two and two behind the governor, dutifully listening to his fulminations against Dorley, who has permitted two sticks and a stone to disgrace the velvet smoothness of the lawn. Dorley has been discharged without a character, departed from here to the union, from the union to gaol, and from gaol to the gallows, before we reach the house.

"There will be some fun at dinner to-day," says Alice as we go upstairs, "for Mrs. Skipworth had on her purple gown in church!"

Seed Time: Chapter II

CHAPTER II.

"There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail, nor no railing in a discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove."

We may not be a very uncommon family, I do not say we are; and we may be a very handsome family (with one or two exceptions), I do not say we are not; but I defy our worst enemy to accuse us of being a sociable family. We care for nobody, no, not we, and nobody cares for us! If we ever had any friends, which I strongly doubt, they have betaken themselves to foreign parts, or melted like snow, or died of a "waste" or—something; and as we have no relations—uncles, aunts, or cousins—we never see a soul. The truth is, papa quarrels with every man and woman he knows, on principle, and has come to the very end of his acquaintance, being (I think) heartily sorry that there is no one left that he can get a chance of being rude to.

Once a year or so, some determinately peaceful neighbour, who is fond of mother, and wishes to know how she fares, drives through our hospitable gates, and in fear and trembling pulls the creaking body of our front-door bell, rusty with disuse as was ever that one belonging to poor, down-trodden, cowardly Mariana, who, in my opinion, was never worthy of the honour of being sung in verse. The sound of that bell when it does ring strikes as much consternation to our souls as the last trump might; from far and near we gather to see the fun—doors open, heads are popped round corners, the footman rushes hither and thither, seeking to ascertain the whereabouts of "master," lest, unhappily, he usher the daring intruder into that awful presence, and thereby secure his own instant dismissal. In the distance is seen papa furiously dashing his hat upon his head, and rushing out of the house by some back door, while the air is pleasingly filled with his shouts of welcome. (It is needless to say that he hates callers even worse than his friends, and with an intensity that you will find nowhere, save in the breast of a well-born, well-educated English gentleman, whose house and family are all that could be wished, and who has nothing in the world to be ashamed of.) Meanwhile, the cause of the commotion cools her heels upon the door-step, and is at last admitted, much as though she were something dangerous, or had come from a fever hospital, or was suspected of having intentions on the spoons.

Once in every three months the Skipworths are invited to dinner, and there our entertainments end, for no other strangers eat of our salt from January to December. How is it papa has not succeeded in quarrelling with the reverend gentleman, I cannot imagine, for goodness knows he has tried hard enough. Mr. Skipworth, however, is one of those dear affectionate souls who find it absolutely impossible to quarrel with any one who has it in his power to bestow certain substantial gifts; and when the governor slaps him on the one cheek, he is Christian enough to offer to him the other, and what is more, look as if he liked it. He is talking to mother now; a stout, sleek, pear-shaped man, whose legs always seem to me to have been swallowed up by his body, as the lesser rods were by Aaron's. He has a smile that would butter the whole neighbourhood; a smile that Jack and I hate, and would wipe off his face with a duster if we could. Papa is talking to Mrs. Skipworth. How the broad June sun is flooding her purple gown and purpler face! How hot and kind and uneasy she looks, for her dress is stretched across her tight as a drum! Poor soul, she squints; not harmlessly, wonderingly, inoffensively, but diabolically, while one eye appears to be surveying the person she addresses, the other is firmly fixed on some one the other side of the room. Jack and I have worn ourselves out in speculations as to whether she can see with both eyes at once, or only one; whether she is literally able to keep her eye on two people at once, or whether she makes up her mind which eye she means to look out of, and drops that one and takes up the other at a moment's notice; in short, shifts the seeing power at will; whether—but our marvellings are not worth the writing down, Plain as she is, there is yet something very unique and interesting about her—she has no children! And as she is probably the only parson's wife on record who has not half a dozen, she deserves to be chronicled as an amazing and historical fact. Greatness has its drawbacks, however, and she is not satisfied with her childless home, her husband does not like it either, and I have seen him glance at our overflowing numbers with a scarcely concealed bitter envy that sends a pang, I am sure, to the womanly heart beating so warmly under the gorgeous satin yonder, that would never be on her back if little feet were gathered about her, little voices clamouring for milk and bread and butter. And now we are walking in to dinner, and Jack, taking an unfair advantage of my proximity to him, trips me up in such wise that I take a header into my pastor's ample back, and am only saved from ignominious disgrace by the fact that the governor is too far ahead to notice the slight scuffle.

I wonder why people always feel so much more hungry on Sundays than any other day! Is it the sermon, or is it because we have kept our mouths shut so long that we have not taken in enough air? Any way, we settle to our dinner in earnest, and there is a long satisfied silence. I come to the surface first and glance around me, thinking how very like animals we all look though we do use knives and forks and dinner-napkins.

Mrs. Skipworth looks uneasy; her dress certainly is tighter than it was in the drawing-room. Surely there will be an explosion soon. There is! She lays down her knife and fork, gives a mighty sneeze—a loud crack, as of hooks and eyes being violently divorced, is heard, then she settles herself in her chair and looks relieved. It is very strange, but there is no gaping fissure visible in front, therefore there must surely be one behind; yet James, who is at her back, has no speculation in his eye, and he does not offer to fetch a shawl to hide her ruins, so it can't be there. It is certainly very mysterious. How delightful it is to sit still and to know that we shall not be called upon to provide conversation; for of all the hard tasks the governor sets us, that is the hardest. When we were small children we were ordered to be silent, and bade never to open our lips in his presence. We never went to him in any of our childish joys or troubles, he took no interest in us; and we, who would have loved him if he had let us, came to have no feeling for him save that of fear. Now that we are growing up we are not afraid of him, but the old restraint lies heavy about us, and upon his bidding us to talk, lo! we find that the fountain is dry, and the harder we pump the less we bring up, and it is the daily puzzle of our lives to find "something to say," or to hit upon some safe subject concerning which we may furbish up a few remarks. We are not afraid of him; but, nevertheless, it is a degrading and mortifying fact that whereas, behind his back, we are as bold as lions, before his face we are meek as lambs, while our voices remain obstinately in our boots. If our lives depended on it we could not give one such Whoop! in his presence as we utter a hundred times a day when he is out of earshot.