Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories Part 6

The meaning of this is, that Captain Johnson is leaning over one side of her chair, whilst by the other bends a brother officer who is staying with him, and who has manifested an extraordinary interest in Lollo. He bends lower and lower, and Miss Jessamine calls to the Postman to request Lollo to be kind enough to stop, whilst she is fumbling for something which always hangs by her side, and has got entangled with her spectacles.

It is a two-penny trumpet, bought years ago in the village fair, and over it she and Captain Johnson tell, as best they can, between them, the story of Jackanapes' ride across the Goose Green; and how he won Lollo--the Gipsy's Lollo--the racer Lollo--dear Lollo--faithful Lollo--Lollo the never vanquished--Lollo the tender servant of his old mistress. And Lollo's ears twitch at every mention of his name.

Their hearer does not speak, but he never moves his eyes from the trumpet, and when the tale is told, he lifts Miss Jessamine's hand and presses his heavy black moustache in silence to her trembling fingers.

The sun, betting gently to his rest, embroiders the sombre foliage of the oak-tree with threads of gold. The Grey Goose is sensible of an atmosphere of repose, and puts up one leg for the night. The gra.s.s glows with a more vivid green, and, in answer to a ringing call from Tony, his sisters, fluttering over the daisies in pale-hued muslins, come out of their ever-open door, like pretty pigeons form a dovecote.

And, if the good gossips, eyes do not deceive them, all the Miss Johnsons, and both the officers, go wandering off into the lanes, where bryony wreaths still twine about the brambles.

A sorrowful story, and ending badly?

Nay, Jackanapes, for the end is not yet.

A life wasted that might have been useful?

Men who have died for men, in all ages, forgive the thought!

There is a heritage of heroic example and n.o.ble obligation, not reckoned in the Wealth of Nations, but essential to a nation's life; the contempt of which, in any people, may, not slowly, mean even its commercial fall.

Very sweet are the uses of prosperity, the harvests of peace and progress, the fostering suns.h.i.+ne of health and happiness, and length of days in the land.

But there be things--oh, sons of what has deserved the name of Great Britain, forget it not!--"the good of" which and "the use of" which are beyond all calculation of worldly goods and earthly uses; things such as Love, and Honor, and the Soul of Man, which cannot be bought with a price, and which do not die with death. "And they who would fain live happily EVER after, should not leave these things out of the lessons of their lives."

DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT.

PREAMBLE.

A summer's afternoon. Early in the summer, and late in the afternoon; with odors and colors deepening, and shadows lengthening, towards evening.

Two gaffers gossiping, seated side by side upon a Yorks.h.i.+re wall. A wall of sandstone of many colors, glowing redder and yellower as the sun goes down; well cus.h.i.+oned with moss and lichen, and deep set in rank gra.s.s on this side, where the path runs, and in blue hyacinths on that side, where the wood is, and where--on the gray and still naked branches of young oaks--sit divers crows, not less solemn than the gaffers, and also gossiping.

One gaffer in work-day clothes, not unpicturesque of form and hue. Gray, home-knit stockings, and coat and knee-breeches of corduroy, which takes tints from Time and Weather as harmoniously as wooden palings do; so that field laborers (like some insects) seem to absorb or mimic the colors of the vegetation round them and of their native soil. That is, on work-days. Sunday-best is a different matter, and in this the other gaffer was clothed. He was dressed like the crows above him, _fit excepted_: the reason for which was, that he was only a visitor, a revisitor to the home of his youth, and wore his Sunday (and funeral) suit to mark the holiday.

Continuing the path, a stone pack-horse track, leading past a hedge snow-white with may, and down into a little wood, from the depths of which one could hear a brook babbling. Then up across the sunny field beyond, and yet up over another field to where the brow of the hill is crowned by old farm-buildings standing against the sky.

Down this stone path a young man going whistling home to tea. Then staying to bend a swarthy face to the white may to smell it, and then plucking a huge branch on which the blossom lies like a heavy fall of snow, and throwing that aside for a better, and tearing off another and yet another, with the prodigal recklessness of a pauper; and so, whistling, on into the wood with his arms full.

Down the sunny field, as he goes up it, a woman coming to meet him--with _her_ arms full. Filled by a child with a may-white frock, and hair s.h.i.+ning with the warm colors of the sandstone. A young woman, having a fair forehead visible a long way off, and buxom cheeks, and steadfast eyes. When they meet he kisses her, and she pulls his dark hair and smooths her own, and cuffs him in country fas.h.i.+on. Then they change burdens, and she takes the may into her ap.r.o.n (stooping to pick up fallen bits), and the child sits on the man's shoulder, and cuffs and lugs its father as the mother did, and is chidden by her and kissed by him. And all the babbling of their chiding and crowing and laughter comes across the babbling of the brook to the ears of the old gaffers gossiping on the wall.

Gaffer I. spits out an over-munched stalk of meadow soft-gra.s.s, and speaks:

"D'ye see yon chap?"

Gaffer II. takes up his hat and wipes it round with a spotted handkerchief (for your Sunday hat is a heating thing for work-day wear), and puts it on, and makes reply:

"Aye. But he beats me. And--see there!--he's t'first that's beat me yet.

Why, lad! I've met young chaps to-day I could ha' sworn to for mates of mine forty years back--if I hadn't ha' been i't' churchyard spelling over their fathers' tumstuns!"

"Aye. There's a many old standards gone home o' lately."

"What do they call _him?_"

"T' young chap?"

"Aye."

"They _call_ him--Darwin."

"Dar--win? I should known a Darwin. They're old standards, is Darwins.

What's he to Daddy Darwin of t' Dovecot yonder?"

"He _owns_ t' Dovecot. Did ye see t' la.s.s?"

"Aye. Shoo's his missus, I reckon?"

"Aye."

"What did they call her?"

"Phoebe Shaw they called her. And if she'd been _my_ la.s.s--but that's nother here nor there, and he's got t' Dovecot."

"Shaw? _They're_ old standards, is Shaws. Phoebe? They called her mother Phoebe. Phoebe Johnson. She were a dainty la.s.s! My father were very fond of Phoebe Johnson. He said she allus put him i' mind of our orchard on drying days; pink and white apple-blossom and clean clothes.

And yon's her daughter? Where d'ye say t'young chap come from? He don't look like hereabouts."

"He don't come from hereabouts. And yet he do come from hereabouts, as one may say. Look ye here. He come from t' wukhus. That's the short and the long of it."

"_The workhouse!_"

"Aye."

Stupefaction. The crows chattering wildly overhead.

"And he owns Darwin's Dovecot?"

"He owns Darwin's Dovecot."

"And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about'!"

"Why, I'll tell thee. It was i' this fas.h.i.+on."