Read Ebook: Bulldog And Butterfly From Schwartz by David Christie Murray by Murray David Christie

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Ebook has 308 lines and 16502 words, and 7 pages

'You can't win a maid's heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,' pursued the old woman. 'If you'd ha' begun sprightly with the gell, you might ha' had a chance with her. "La!" says you, "what a pretty frock you're a-wearing to-day;" or "How nice you do do up your hair for a certainty."'

'I don't look on marriage as a thing to be approached i' that fashion,' said Thistlewood.

'Well,' returned the old woman, clicking her needles with added rapidity, 'I've always said there's no end to the folly o' men. D'ye hear that there cuckoo? Go and catch him wi' shoutin' at him. An' when next you're in want of toast at tay-time, soak your bread in a pan o' cold water.'

Thistlewood stood for a time in a rather dogged-looking silence, sometimes glancing at the notable woman and glancing away again. Her eye expressed a triumph which, though purely dialectic, was hard for a disappointed lover to endure, even whilst he refused to recognise his disappointment.

'I should regard any such means of gettin' into a maid's good graces as being despisable,' he said, after a while.

'Very well, my Christian friend,' the farmer's wife retorted, with a laugh. 'Them as mek bread without barm must look to spoil the batch.'

'I was niver of a flatterin' turn of mind,' said Thistlewood.

'You niver was, John,' responded Mrs. Fellowes, with an accent which implied something beyond assent.

He flushed a little, and began to tap at his corduroyed leg with the stick he carried, at first with a look of shamefaced discomfiture, and then with resolution. He finished with a resounding slap, and looked up with a light in his eyes.

'Well, John,' said the farmer's wife, clicking her needles cheerfully, 'I've not a word to say again the match. Win the wench and welcome. My dancin' days is pretty nigh over, but I'll tek the floor once more with pleasure, if you won't be too long in mekin' ready for me.'

'There's nothing more to be done at present, I suppose,' the lover said presently, 'and so I'll say good-bye for this afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes.'

With this he turned upon his heel, and marching sturdily down the path and across the little bridge, disappeared behind the withies and pollards.

The farmer's wife waited a while until he was out of hearing, and then, without turning her head, shrilled out 'Bertha!' The girl came silently downstairs and joined her in the doorway. The mother pursued her knitting in silence, a faint flicker of a humorous smile touching her face and eyes now and again. At length she spoke, looking straight before her.

'Why woot'ent marry the man?'

'Mr. Thistlewood?' asked Bertha, making the feeblest possible defence against this direct attack.

'Ay,' said her mother, 'Mr. Thistlewood to be sure. Why woot'ent marry him?'

'I like him well enough in a way,' the girl answered 'But I don't like him that way!

'What way?'

'Why--in a marrying way,' said Bertha.

'Pooh!' answered the notable woman. 'What's a maid know how she'd like a man?'

'I should have the greatest respect for him,' Bertha answered, wisely avoiding the discussion of this question, 'if he wouldn't come bothering me to marry him.'

'Ay! 'said her mother, assenting with a philosophic air. 'That's a wench's way. When a man wants nothing her'll give him as much as her can spare. But look hither, my gell! You listen to the words of a old experienced woman. There's a better love comes after the weddin', if a gell marries a worthy solid man, than ever her knows before it. If a gell averts from a man that's another matter. But if her can abide him to begin with, and if he's a good man, her'll be fond of him before her knows it.'

'I should never be fond of Mr. Thistlewood, mother,' the girl answered, flushing hotly. 'It's of no use to speak about him.'

'Did the man ever mek love to you at all,' the mother asked, 'beyond comin' here and barkin', "Wool't marry me?"'

'I wish you wouldn't talk of him, mother,' Bertha answered in a troubled voice. 'I respect him very highly, but as for marrying him, it's out of the question. I can't do it.'

'Well, well,' returned her mother, 'nobody's askin' you to do anything o' the sort. I'm trying to find your mind about him. It's high time 'twas made up one way or other. You've come to a marriageable age.'

'I'm very well as I am,' said Bertha, rather hastily. 'I'm not in a hurry to be married.'

'You've never been much like other gells,' said her mother, with a dry humorous twinkle which looked more masculine than feminine. 'But I reckon you'll be in about as much of a hurry as the rest on 'em be when the right man comes.'

At this moment a whistle of peculiar volume, mellowness, and flexibility was heard. The whistler was trilling 'Come lasses and lads' in tones as delightful as a blackbird's.

'Is this him?' said the old woman, turning upon her daughter.

Bertha blushed, and turned away. The mother laughed. A light footstep sounded on the echoing boards of the little bridge, and the human blackbird, marching gaily in time to his tune, flourished a walking-stick in salutation as he approached.

They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly, holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.

'I passed Thistlewood on my way here,' he said, laughing brightly. 'He looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y' ever notice what a cheerful-looking thing a frog is?'

He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.

'I don't like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,' she said a moment later.

'Don't you, Miss Fellowes?' asked Mr. Protheroe. 'Then it shan't be done in your presence again.'

'That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,' the girl said coldly.

'No, nor out of it,' said the young fellow, bowing with something of a flourish, 'if it displeases you.'

'Come in, Lane, my lad,' said the mother, genially. 'I've got the poultry to look after at this hour. Bertha 'll tek care of you till I come back again.'

Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in a minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched the ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what with them and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime favourite, and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.

When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself considerably apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser beside her, began to turn over its pages, stopping now and again to read a line or two, and rather ostentatiously disregarding her companion. He sat in silence, regarding her with a grave face for a minute or thereabouts, and then, rising, crossed the room and placed himself beside her, bending over her, with one hand resting on the dresser. She did not look up in answer to this movement, but bent her head even a little more than before above the book.

'I'm glad to be left alone with you for a minute, Miss Fellowes,' he began gently, and with a faint tremor and hesitation in his voice, 'because I've something very special and particular to say to you.'

There he paused, and Bertha with a slight cough, which was a trifle too casual and unembarrassed to be real, said, 'Indeed, Mr. Protheroe?' and kept her eyes upon the book.

'They say a girl always knows,' he went on, 'and if that's true you know already what I want to say.'

He paused, but if he expected any help from her in the way either of assent or denial, he was disappointed. He stooped a little lower and touched her hand with a gentle timidity, but she at once withdrew it.

'You know I love you, Bertha? You know you're dearer to me than all the whole wide world beside?'

Still Bertha said nothing, but the hand that turned the leaves of the book trembled perceptibly.

'I've come to ask you if you'll be my wife, dear! if you'll let me make you my lifelong care and joy, my darling! You don't guess how much I love you. You don't know how much your answer means to me.'

The girl rose, and, carrying the book with her, walked to the kitchen window and looked out upon the garden, the river, and the fields, without seeing anything. She was evidently agitated, and did not find an answer easily. Lane followed her, and when for a moment she dared to look up at him she encountered a look so tender, anxious, and ardent that she lowered her eyes in quick confusion. He seized her hand, and for a brief instant she let it rest in his.

'Speak to me,' he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. 'Tell me.'

'I don't understand you, Mr. Protheroe,' the girl said pantingly.

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