Читать книгу The Setons (Historical Novel) - O. Douglas - Страница 5

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"When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With a hey ho hey, the wind and the rain."

Twelfth Night.

The Reverend James Seton sat placidly eating his breakfast while his daughter Elizabeth wrestled in spirit with her young brother.

"No, Buff, you are not to tell yourself a story. You must sup your porridge."

Buff slapped his porridge vindictively with his spoon and said, "I wish all the millers were dead."

"Foolish fellow," said his father, as he took a bit of toast.

"Come away," said Elizabeth persuasively, scooping a hole in the despised porridge, "we'll make a quarry in the middle." She filled it up with milk. "There! We've made a great deep hole, big enough to drown an army. Now—one sup for the King, and one for the boys in India, and one for—for the partridge in the pear-tree, and one for the poor little starved pussy downstairs."

Buff twisted himself round to look at his sister's face.

"Yes, there is. Ellen found it last night at the kitchen door. If you finish your breakfast quickly, you may run down and see it before prayers."

"What's it like?" gurgled Buff, as the porridge slid in swift spoonfuls down his throat.

"Grey, with a black smudge on its nose and such a little tail."

"Set me down," said Buff, with the air of one who would behold a cherished vision.

Elizabeth untied his napkin, and in a moment they heard him clatter down the kitchen stairs.

Elizabeth met her father's eyes and smiled. "Funny Buff! Isn't it odd his passion for cats? Oh, Father, you haven't asked about the party."

Mr. Seton passed his cup to be filled.

"That is only my second, isn't it?" he asked, "Well, I hope you had a pleasant evening?"

Elizabeth wrinkled her brows as she filled her cup. "Pleasant? Warm, noisy, over-eaten, yes—but pleasant? And yet, do you know, it was pleasant because the Thomsons were so anxious to please. Dear Mrs. Thomson was so kind, stout and worried, and Mr. Thomson is such an anxious little pilgrim always; and Jessie was so smart, and Robert—what a nice boy that is!—so obviously hated us all, and Alick's accent was as refreshing as ever. We got the most tremendously fine supper—piles and piles of things, and everybody ate such a lot, especially Mr. Taylor—'keeping up the tabernacle' he called it. I was sorry for Jessie with that little man. It is hard to rise to gentility when you are weighted with parents who will stick to their old friends, and our church-people, though they are of such stuff as angels are made, don't look well on the outside. I know Jessie felt they spoiled the look of the party."

"Poor Jessie!" said Mr. Seton.

"Yes, poor Jessie! I never saw Mr. Taylor so jokesome. He called her a 'good wee miss,' and shamed her in the eyes of the Simpsons (you don't know them—stupid, vulgar people). And then he sang! Father, do you think 'Miss Hooligan' is a fit song for the superintendent of the Sabbath school to sing?"

Mr. Seton smiled indulgently.

"I don't think there's much wrong with 'Miss Hooligan,'" he said; "she's a very old friend."

"You mean she's respectable through very age? Perhaps to us, but I assure you the Simpsons were simply stunned last night at the first time of hearing."

Elizabeth poured some cream into her cup, then looked across at her father with her eyes dancing with laughter. "I laugh whenever I think of Mrs. Taylor," she explained—"ma spouse, as Mr. Taylor calls her. I don't think she has any mind really; her whole conversation is just a long tangle of symptoms, her own and other people's. What infinite interests she gets out of her neighbours' insides! And then the preciseness of her dates—'would it be Wensday? No, it was Tuesday—no, Wensday it must ha' been.'"

Her father chuckled appreciatively at Elizabeth's reproduction of Mrs. Taylor's voice and manner, but he felt constrained to remark: "Mrs. Taylor's an excellent woman, Elizabeth. You're a little too given to laughing at people."

"Oh, Father, if a minister's daughter can't laugh, what is the poor thing to do? But, seriously, I find myself becoming horribly minister's daughterish. I'm developing a 'hearty' manner, I smile and smile, and I have that craving for knowledge of the welfare of absent members of families that is so distinguishing a feature of the female clergy. And I don't in the least want to be a typical 'minister's daughter.'"

"I think," said Mr. Seton dryly, "you might be many a worse thing." He rose as he spoke and brought a Bible from the table in the corner. "Ring the bell, will you? The child will be late if he doesn't come now."

Even as he spoke the door was opened violently, and Buff came stumbling in, with a small frightened kitten in his arms.

"Father, look!" he cried breathlessly, casting himself and his burden on his father's waistcoat. "It's a lost kitten, quite lost and very little—see the size of its tail. It's got no home, but Marget says it's got fleas and she won't let it live in her kitchen; but you'll let it stay in your study, won't you, Father? It'll sit beside you when you're writing your sermons, and then when I'm doing my lessons it'll cheer me up."

Mr. Seton gently stroked the little shivering ball of fur. "Not so tight, Buff. The poor beastie can scarcely breathe. Put it on the rug now, my son. Here are the servants for prayers." But the little lost kitten clung with sharp frightened claws to Mr. Seton's trousers, and Buff, liking the situation, made no serious effort to dislodge it.

The servants, Marget and Ellen, took their seats and instantly Marget's wrath was aroused and her manners forgotten.

"Tak' that cat aff yer faither's breeks, David," she said severely.

"Shan't," said Buff, glowering at her over his shoulder.

"Don't be rude, my boy," said Mr. Seton.

"She was rude to the little cat, Father; she said it had fleas."

"Well, well," said his father peaceably; "be quiet now while I read."

Elizabeth rose and detached the kitten, taking it and Buff on her knee, while her father opened the Bible and read some verses from Jeremiah—words that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Elizabeth stroked Buff's mouse-coloured hair and thought how remote it all sounded. This day would be full of the usual little busynesses—getting Buff away to school, ordering the dinner, shopping, writing letters, seeing people—what had all that to do with Baruch, the son of Neriah, who lived in the fourth year of Jehoiakim?

The moment prayers were over Buff leapt to his feet, seized the kitten, and dashed out of the room.

"He's an ill laddie that," Marget observed, "but there's wan thing aboot him, he's no' ill-kinded to beasts."

"Marget," said Elizabeth, "you know quite well that in your heart you think him perfection."

"No' me," said Marget; "I think no man perfection. Are ye comin' to see aboot the denner the noo, or wull I begin to ma front-door?"

"Give me three minutes, Marget, to see the boys off."

Two small boys with school-bags on their backs came up the gravelled path. "Here comes Thomas—and Billy following after. Buff! Buff!—where is the boy?"

"Here," said Buff, emerging suddenly from his father's study. "Where's my bag?"

He paid no attention to his small companion and Thomas and Billy made no sign of recognition to him.

"Are you boys not going to say good morning?" asked Elizabeth, as she put on Buff's school-bag. "Don't you know that when gentlefolk meet courtesies are exchanged?"

The three boys looked at each other and murmured a greeting in a shame-faced way.

"Can you say your lessons to-day, Thomas?" Elizabeth asked, buttoning the while Buff's overcoat.

"No," said Thomas, "but Billy can say his."

"This is singing-day," said Billy brightly.

Billy was round and fat and beaming. Thomas was fat too, but inclined to be pensive. Buff was thin and seemed all one colour—eyes, hair, and complexion. Thomas and Billy were pretty children: Buff was plain.

"Uch!" said Thomas.

"I thought you liked singing-day," said Elizabeth.

"We did," said Buff, "but last day they asked me and Thomas to stop singing cos we were putting the others off the tune."

"Oh!" said Elizabeth, trying not to smile. "Well, it's time you were off. Here's your Edinburgh rock." She gave each of them half a stick of rock, which they stuck in their mouths cigar-wise.

"Be sure and come straight home," said Elizabeth to Buff.

"You'd better not come to tea with us to-day, Buff," said Thomas. "Mamma said yesterday it was about time we had a rest."

"I wasn't coming," said the outraged Buff.

Elizabeth put an arm round him as she spoke to Thomas.

"Mamma has quite enough with her own, Thomas. I expect when Buff joins you you worry her dreadfully. I think you and Billy had better come to tea here to-day, and after you have finished your lessons we'll play at 'Yellow Dog Dingo.'"

"Hurray!" said Billy.

"And when we've finished 'Yellow Dog Dingo,'" said Buff, "will you play at 'Giantess'?"

"Well—for half an hour, perhaps," said Elizabeth. "Now run off, or I'll be Giantess this minute and eat you all up."