Amaryllis at the Fair Part 29

How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?

"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone, now he had obeyed her.

"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.

His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis, absinthe because of his weakness.

A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song, with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:--

The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?

And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?

All Insinuation Scorning; I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace, I only Know he's a very Red Face When he gets up in the Morning!

"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look main red in the marning, surely."

They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch, and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with him.

At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.

Iden came through into the dairy.

"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the floor!"

"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire--or anything?"

"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood--and chop it, as well as you. Why can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two hours to see you"--following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a b.u.t.ter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still, Mr. Duck; I don't mind _you_. What will you take?"

More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs.

Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house--I never saw anything like it!"

It was true.

There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight people--and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of food.

"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."

And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets; crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "G.o.d listens to those who pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me, the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and suns.h.i.+ne of an old farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!

"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning gone and nothing done; and the b.u.t.ter's not come yet!"

Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was done on Olympus.

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[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

AMARYLLIS went outside the court, and waited; Amadis rose and followed her. "Come a little way into the Brook-Field," she said.

They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path pa.s.sed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the strawberry patch which Iden had planted under the parlour window; by the great box-hedge where a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though Amaryllis's dress brushed the branches; by the espalier apple, to the little orchard-gate.

The parlour-window--there are no parlours now, except in old country houses; there were parlours in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern villas they have drawing-rooms.

The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree branches, planted beneath with strawberry; white blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests in the branches of the pear--that was Iden.

They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed heavily against the tall meadow-gra.s.s growing between the bars. The path was almost gone--grown out with gra.s.s, and as they moved they left a broad trail behind them.

Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have muttered to himself; they were trespa.s.sing on his mowing-gra.s.s, trampling it, and making it more difficult to cut.

Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the thick-stemmed b.u.t.ter-cups--branched like the golden candlestick, and with flowers of golden flame. For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw light back into the air.

Amadis began to drag behind--he could not walk much farther; they sat down together on the trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted. Even with his back leaning against a limb of the oak, Amadis had to partly support himself with his hands.

What was the use of such a man?--He had nothing but his absurdly romantic name from Don Quixote to recommend him.

That was the very thought that gnawed at poor Amadis's heart as he sat by her side. What use to care for him?

Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was a new gate, and he had been fitting it before he went in to lunch. His basket was of flag because the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools, chisels, and so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have everything right. The new gate was of solid oak, no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned, without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the farm, and kept till it was thoroughly fit, genuine English oak. If you would only consider Iden's gate you might see there the man.

This gateway was only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest possible charge.

Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to make _his_ gate in the hamlet; he sent for one ten miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages.

He was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his work to see that the least little detail was done correctly, till the fellow would have left the job, had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale. So he just stretched the job out as long as he could, and talked and talked with Iden, and stroked him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played it upon me and on William, That day in a way I despise." Till what with the planing, and shaving, and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and time, it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace gates, not of the Iden style.

Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber years before for this very purpose, and had watched the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would have made good oak furniture. There was nothing special or particular about this gateway; he had done the same in turn for every gateway on the farm; it was the Iden way.

A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit for a n.o.bleman's Home Park. I doubt, if you would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and made of such material on any great estate in the kingdom. For not even dukes can get an Iden to look after their property. An Iden is not to be "picked up," I can tell you.

The neighbourhood round about had always sneered in the broad country way at Iden's gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do _he_ want wi' such geates? A' ain't a got no cattle to speak on; any ould rail ud do as good as thuck geat."

The neighbourhood round about could never understand Iden, never could see why he had gone to such great trouble to render the homestead beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the orchard with pleasant eating apples in the place of the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"

All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood to be the acts of a "vool."

When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to have the great bushes that bore unusually fine May bloom saved from the billhook, that they might flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples--for the sake of the white blossom; so, too, with the hazel--for the nuts.

But what caused the most "wonderment" was the planting of the horse-chestnuts in the corner of the meadow? Whatever did he want with horse-chestnuts? No other horse-chestnuts grew about there. You couldn't eat the horse-chestnuts when they dropped in autumn.

In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the little circ.u.mstance of the hour. His gate was meant to last for years, rain and s.h.i.+ne, to endure any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in itself.

His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind--was at once his strength and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now stands--built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of little things, instead of lifting his mind higher.