Aunt Rachel Part 10

"Lord o' mercy!" replied the feminine voice, "what do you want to shout a body deaf for? Brag and swagger was what I said, Sennacherib. But if you think as a mother's heart is agoing to be overcome by that sort o'

talk, and as I shall turn my back upon my very own born child, you've fell into the biggest error of your lifetime."

Rachel rapped again somewhat louder than before.

"Canst choose betwixt that young rip and me," replied Sennacherib.

"That's right; let the parish know your hard-heartedness! Theer's somebody knockin' at the door. Go and tell 'em what you've made up your wicked mind to--do!"

Sennacherib thrust his head into the hall and stared frowningly at the visitor through his spectacles.

"Good-morning, sir," said Rachel, with frigid politeness. "I called for the purpose of paying my respects to Mrs. Eld. If the moment is inauspicious I will call again."

At the sound of her voice Mrs. Sennacherib appeared--a large woman of matronly figure but dejected aspect. She had been comely, but thirty years of protest and resignation had lifted the inner ends of her eyebrows and depressed the corners of her mouth until, even in her most cheerful moments, she had a look of meek submission to unmeasured wrongs.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Sennacherib, sailing round her husband and down the hall, "it's Miss Blythe! Come in, my dear, and tek off your cloak and bonnet. I'm glad to see you. I wondered if you was never comin' to see me. And how be you?" She bent over the little figure of her guest and buried it in an embrace like that of a feather-bed. "It's beautiful weather for the time o' year," she continued, almost tearfully, "and I have been a-thinking of makin' a call upon you; but I'm short of breath, and Eld is such a creetur he'd rather see a body stop in the house as if it was a prison, than harness the pony and drive me half a mile, to save his life."

"Short o' breath!" said Sennacherib. "Thee talkest like one as is short o' breath! Her talks enough," he added, addressing the visitor, "to break the wind of a Derby race-hoss."

"Ah," said his wife, shaking her head in a kind of doleful triumph, "Miss Blythe won't ha' been long i' the village afore her'll know what manner o' man you be, Sennacherib."

"I'll leave thee to tell her," said Sennacherib, with a grunt of scorn.

"If I'd ha' been the manner o' man you'd ha' liked for a husband, I _should_ ha' been despisable. My missis"--he addressed his wife's visitor again--"ought to ha' married a door-mat, then her could ha'

wiped her feet upon him wheniver the fancy took her."

With this he took his hat from a peg, stuck it at the back of his head, and marched out at the open front door.

"Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Sennacherib, "you did a wise thing when you made up your mind to be a single woman. The men's little more than a worrit--the best of 'em--and even the childern, as is counted upon for a blessin', brings trouble oftener nor j'y."

The visitor pinched her lips together and nodded, as if to say there was no disputing this glaring statement. The hostess, stooping over her, untied her bonnet-strings as if she had been a child, helped her to remove her mantle, and then ushered her into a sitting-room which looked upon a well-cultivated garden.

"I wouldn't say," pursued the hostess, "as I'd got a bad husband--not for the world. But he's that hard and unbendin' both i' little things an' big uns. I've suffered under him now for thirty 'ear, but I niver counted as he'd put the lad to the door and forbid his mother to speak to him. Though as for that, my dear, he may forbid and go on forbiddin'

as long as theer's a breath in his body, but a mother's heart is a mother's heart, my dear, though the whole world should stand up again her."

"Precisely," said Rachel.

"The lad's just as unbendin' as his father," pursued Mrs. Sennacherib, "though in a lighter-hearted sort of a way. He's as gay as the lark, our Snac is, even i' the face o' trouble, but there's no more hope o' movin'

him than theer'd be o' liftin' the parish church and carryin' it to market. He's gone and married again his father's will, and now his father's gone an' made his last dyin' testyment an' cut him off wi' a s.h.i.+lling. He'll get my money, as is tied on me hard an' fast, and that's my only comfort."

"They may be reconciled," said Rachel. "We must try to reconcile them."

"Reconcile Sennacherib Eld!" cried the wife, dolefully. "Ah, my dear, you don't know the man. Why, who's that? There's somebody a-walkin' in as if the house belonged to 'em."

A young man in a stand-up collar, and trousers supernaturally tight, appeared at the open door and nodded in a casual manner.

"Mornin', mother," said the young man, cheerfully. "Wheer's the governor?"

Mrs. Sennacherib screamed, and running at the new-comer began to embrace him and to kiss him and cry over him.

"Theer, theer!" he said, after kissing her off-hand. "Tek it easy."

"Oh, Snac!" cried his mother, "if father should come in what should we do?"

"Do?" said the younger Sennacherib, "why, set me down afore the kitchen fire, an' mek me happetizin' afore he sets to work to eat me. How be you, mum?"

The younger Sennacherib's face was gay and impudent, with that peculiar mingling of gayety and impudence which seems inseparable from freckles.

His face was mottled with freckles, and the backs of his hands were of a dark yellowish brown with them.

"This is Miss Rachel Blythe," said his mother, "as was at school with me when I was a gell. This is my poor persecuted child, Miss Blythe."

"Me, mum!" said the persecuted child, standing with his feet wide apart, and bending first one knee and then the other, and then bending both together. "The governor's out, is he?"

"He's only just gone," returned his mother. "But, Snac, you'll only anger him, comin' in i' this way. You'd better wait a bit and let things blow over."

"Well," said Snac, "I shouldn't ha' come for any-thin' but business. But I've got a chance o' doin' a bit o' trade with him. He's had his mind set on Bunch's pony this two 'ear, an' Bunch an' him bein' at daggers drawn theer was niver a chance to buy it. But me an' him bein' split, old Bunch sells me the pony, and I called thinkin' he might like to have it."

He laughed with great glee, and flicked one tightly clad leg with the whip he carried.

"Wait a bit, Snac," his mother besought him. "Let it blow over a bit afore approachin' him."

"Wait for the Beacon Hill to blow over!" said Snac, in answer. "I've no more expectations as the one 'll blow over than th' other. He'll do what he says he'll do. That's the pattern he's made in. I've got no more hopes of turnin' the governor than I should have if I was to go and tell a hox to be a donkey. It's again his natur' to change, and nothing short of a merracle 'll alter him. But as for livin' at enmity with him--wheer's the use o' that? He's all the feythers I've got, or am like to find at my time o' life, and I must just mek the best on him."

"A most commendable and Christian resolution," said Rachel, decisively.

"Very nice and kind of you to say so, mum," Snac answered, setting his hat a little more on one side, and bending both knees with a rakish swagger. "You can tell the governor as I called, mother. The pony's as genuine a bit of blood as is to be found in Heydon Hay. The p'ints of a hoss and a dog is a thing as every child thinks he knows about, but bless your heart theer's nothing i' the world as is half so difficult t' understand, unless it is the ladies." There was such an air of compliment about the saving clause that Rachel involuntarily inclined her head to it. "You'll tell the governor as I was here, mother," Snac concluded, stooping down to kiss her.

"You mustn't ask me to do that, Snac," she answered. "I dar' not name your name."

"Rubbidge!" said Snac, genially. "Does he bite?"

"It's for your sake, Snac," said his mother, "not for mine. But I dar'

not do it."

"Well, well, mayhap I shall light upon him i' the village. If I shouldn't, I'll look in again. Good-mornin', mother, and good-day to you, mum. I'm just goin' to drop in on Mr. Ezra Gold, seein' as I'm this way. I'm told he wants to part with that shorthorn cow of hisn, and I'm allays game for a bit o' trade."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Sennacherib, shaking her doleful head. "He'll part with everythin' earthly, poor man, afore he's much older."

"Why," cried Snac, "what's the matter with the man?"

"The young uns see nothin', Miss Blythe," said Mrs. Sennacherib, shaking her head again, but this time with a sort of relish. "But old experienced folks can tell when any poor feller-creetur's time is drawing nigh. His father went just at his time o' life by the same road as he's a-takin'."

"Well, what road is he takin'?" her son demanded.

"Look at his poor hands," said Mrs. Sennacherib, with a pitying gusto.

"As thin as egg-sh.e.l.ls, and with no more color in 'em than there is in that cha-ney saucer. Hark to that dry cough as keeps on a hack-hack-hackin' at him."

"Pooh!" cried young Sennacherib. "He's been like that as long as I can remember him."

"Mark my words," his mother answered, with a stronger air of doleful relish than before, "he'll niver be like that much longer."