The Parent's Assistant Part 14

'But I mean to do more than _pay you with words_,' said Sir Arthur. 'You are attached to your own family, perhaps you may become attached to me, when you come to know me, and we shall have frequent opportunities of judging of one another. I want no agent to squeeze my tenants, or do my dirty work. I only want a steady, intelligent, honest man, like you, to collect my rents, and I hope, Mr. Price, you will have no objection to the employment.' 'I hope, sir,' said Price, with joy and grat.i.tude glowing in his honest countenance, 'that you'll never have cause to repent your goodness.'

'And what are my sisters about here?' said Sir Arthur, entering the cottage, and going behind his sisters, who were busily engaged in measuring an extremely pretty coloured calico.

'It is for Susan, my dear brother,' said they. 'I knew she did not keep that guinea for herself,' said Miss Somers. 'I have just prevailed upon her mother to tell me what became of it. Susan gave it to her father; but she must not refuse a gown of our choosing this time; and I am sure she will not, because her mother, I see, likes it. And, Susan, I hear that instead of becoming Queen of the May this year, you were sitting in your sick mother's room. Your mother has a little colour in her cheeks now.'

'Oh, ma'am,' interrupted Mrs. Price, 'I'm quite well. Joy, I think, has made me quite well.'

'Then,' said Miss Somers, 'I hope you will be able to come out on your daughter's birthday, which, I hear, is the 25th of this month. Make haste and get quite well before that day; for my brother intends that all the lads and la.s.sies of the village shall have a dance on Susan's birthday.'

'Yes,' said Sir Arthur, 'and I hope on that day, Susan, you will be very happy with your little friends upon their play-green. I shall tell them that it is your good conduct which has obtained it for them; and if you have anything to ask, any little favour for any of your companions, which we can grant, now ask, Susan. These ladies look as if they would not refuse you anything that is reasonable; and, I think, you look as if you would not ask anything unreasonable.'

'Sir,' said Susan, after consulting her mother's eyes, 'there is, to be sure, a favour I should like to ask; it is for Rose.'

'Well, I don't know who Rose is,' said Sir Arthur, smiling; 'but go on.'

'Ma'am, you have seen her, I believe; she is a very good girl, indeed,'

said Mrs. Price. 'And works very neatly, indeed,' continued Susan, eagerly, to Miss Somers; 'and she and her mother heard you were looking out for some one to wait upon you.'

'Say no more,' said Miss Somers; 'your wish is granted. Tell Rose to come to the Abbey to-morrow morning, or, rather, come with her yourself; for our housekeeper, I know, wants to talk to you about a certain cake.

She wishes, Susan, that you should be the maker of the cake for the dance; and she has good things ready looked out for it already, I know.

It must be large enough for everybody to have a slice, and the housekeeper will ice it for you. I only hope your cake will be as good as your bread. Fare ye well.'

How happy are those who bid farewell to a whole family, silent with grat.i.tude, who will bless them aloud when they are far out of hearing!

'How do I wish, now,' said Farmer Price, 'and it's almost a sin for one who has had such a power of favours done him to wish for anything more; but how I _do_ wish, wife, that our good friend, the harper, was only here at this time. It would do his old warm heart good. Well, the best of it is, we shall be able next year, when he comes his rounds, to pay him his money with thanks, being all the time, and for ever, as much obliged to him as if we kept it. I long, so I do, to see him in this house again, drinking, as he did, just in this spot, a gla.s.s of Susan's mead, to her very good health.'

'Yes,' said Susan, 'and the next time he comes, I can give him one of my guinea-hen's eggs, and I shall show my lamb, Daisy.'

'True, love,' said her mother, 'and he will play that tune and sing that pretty ballad. Where is it? for I have not finished it.'

'Rose ran away with it, mother, but I'll step after her, and bring it back to you this minute,' said Susan.

Susan found her friend Rose at the hawthorn, in the midst of a crowded circle of her companions, to whom she was reading 'Susan's Lamentation for her Lamb.'

'The words are something, but the tune--the tune--I must have the tune,'

cried Philip. 'I'll ask my mother to ask Sir Arthur to try and find out which way that good old man went after the ball; and if he's above ground, we'll have him back by Susan's birthday, and he shall sit here--just exactly here--by this, our bush, and he shall play--I mean, if he pleases--that same tune for us, and I shall learn it--I mean, if I can--in a minute.'

The good news that Farmer Price was to be employed to collect the rents, and that Attorney Case was to leave the parish in a month, soon spread over the village. Many came out of their houses to have the pleasure of hearing the joyful tidings confirmed by Susan herself. The crowd on the play-green increased every minute.

'Yes,' cried the triumphant Philip, 'I tell you it's all true, every word of it. Susan's too modest to say it herself; but I tell ye all, Sir Arthur gave us this play-green for ever, on account of her being so good.'

You see, at last Attorney Case, with all his cunning, has not proved a match for 'Simple Susan.'

THE WHITE PIGEON

The little town of Somerville, in Ireland, has, within these few years, a.s.sumed the neat and cheerful appearance of an English village. Mr.

Somerville, to whom this town belongs, wished to inspire his tenantry with a taste for order and domestic happiness, and took every means in his power to encourage industrious, well-behaved people to settle in his neighbourhood. When he had finished building a row of good slated houses in his town, he declared that he would let them to the best tenants he could find, and proposals were publicly sent to him from all parts of the country.

By the best tenants, Mr. Somerville did not, however, mean the best bidders; and many, who had offered an extravagant price for the houses, were surprised to find their proposals rejected. Amongst these was Mr.

c.o.x, an alehouse-keeper, who did not bear a very good character.

'Please your honour, sir,' said he to Mr. Somerville, 'I _expected_, since I bid as fair and fairer for it than any other, that you would have let me the house next the apothecary's. Was not it fifteen guineas I mentioned in my proposal? and did not your honour give it against me for thirteen?' 'My honour did just so,' replied Mr. Somerville calmly.

'And please your honour, but I don't know what it is I or mine have done to offend you. I'm sure there is not a gentleman in all Ireland I'd go further to sarve. Would not I go to Cork to-morrow for the least word from your honour?' 'I am much obliged to you, Mr. c.o.x, but I have no business at Cork at present,' answered Mr. Somerville drily. 'It is all I wish,' exclaimed Mr. c.o.x, 'that I could find out and light upon the man that has belied me to your honour.' 'No man has belied you, Mr.

c.o.x, but your nose belies you much, if you do not love drinking a little, and your black eye and cut chin belie you much if you do not love quarrelling a little.'

'Quarrel! I quarrel, please your honour! I defy any man, or set of men, ten mile round, to prove such a thing, and I am ready to fight him that dares to say the like of me. I'd fight him here in your honour's presence, if he'd only come out this minute and meet me like a man.'

Here Mr. c.o.x put himself into a boxing att.i.tude, but observing that Mr.

Somerville looked at his threatening gesture with a smile, and that several people, who had gathered round him as he stood in the street, laughed at the proof he gave of his peaceable disposition, he changed his att.i.tude, and went on to vindicate himself against the charge of drinking.

'And as to drink, please your honour, there's no truth in it. Not a drop of whisky, good or bad, have I touched these six months, except what I took with Jemmy M'Doole the night I had the misfortune to meet your honour coming home from the fair of Ballynagrish.'

To this speech Mr. Somerville made no answer, but turned away to look at the bow-window of a handsome new inn, which the glazier was at this instant glazing. 'Please your honour, that new inn is not let, I hear, as yet,' resumed Mr. c.o.x; 'if your honour recollects, you promised to make me a compliment of it last Seraphtide was twelvemonth.'

'Impossible!' cried Mr. Somerville, 'for I had no thoughts of building an inn at that time.' 'Oh, I beg your honour's pardon, but if you'd be just pleased to recollect, it was coming through the gap in the bog meadows, _forenent_ Thady O'Connor, you made me the promise--I'll leave it to him, so I will.' 'But I will not leave it to him, I a.s.sure you,'

cried Mr. Somerville; 'I never made any such promise. I never thought of letting this inn to you.' 'Then your honour won't let me have it?' 'No; you have told me a dozen falsehoods. I do not wish to have you for a tenant.'

'Well, G.o.d bless your honour; I've no more to say, but G.o.d bless your honour,' said Mr. c.o.x; and he walked away, muttering to himself, as he slouched his hat over his face, 'I hope I'll live to be revenged on him!'

Mr. Somerville the next morning went with his family to look at the new inn, which he expected to see perfectly finished; but he was met by the carpenter, who, with a rueful face, informed him that six panes of gla.s.s in the large bow-window had been broken during the night.

'Ha! perhaps Mr. c.o.x has broken my windows, in revenge for my refusing to let him my house,' said Mr. Somerville; and many of the neighbours, who knew the malicious character of this Mr. c.o.x, observed that this was like one of his tricks. A boy of about twelve years old, however, stepped forward and said, 'I don't like Mr. c.o.x, I'm sure; for once he beat me when he was drunk; but, for all that, no one should be accused wrongfully. He _could_ not be the person that broke these windows last night, for he was six miles off. He slept at his cousin's last night, and he has not returned home yet. So I think he knows nothing of the matter.'

Mr. Somerville was pleased with the honest simplicity of this boy, and observing that he looked in eagerly at the staircase, when the house door was opened, he asked him whether he would like to go in and see the new house. 'Yes, sir,' said the boy, 'I should like to go up those stairs, and to see what I should come to.' 'Up with you, then!' said Mr.

Somerville; and the boy ran up the stairs. He went from room to room with great expressions of admiration and delight. At length, as he was examining one of the garrets, he was startled by a fluttering noise over his head; and looking up he saw a white pigeon, who, frightened at his appearance, began to fly round and round the room, till it found its way out of the door, and flew into the staircase.

The carpenter was speaking to Mr. Somerville upon the landing-place of the stairs; but, the moment he spied the white pigeon, he broke off in the midst of a speech about _the nose_ of the stairs, and exclaimed, 'There he is, please your honour! There's he that has done all the damage to our bow-window--that's the very same wicked white pigeon that broke the church windows last Sunday was se'nnight; but he's down for it now; we have him safe, and I'll chop his head off, as he deserves, this minute.'

'Stay! oh stay! don't chop his head off: he does not deserve it,' cried the boy, who came running out of the garret with the greatest eagerness--'_I_ broke your window, sir,' said he to Mr. Somerville. 'I broke your window with this ball; but I did not know that I had done it, till this moment, I a.s.sure you, or I should have told you before.

Don't chop his head off,' added the boy to the carpenter, who had now the white pigeon in his hands. 'No,' said Mr. Somerville, 'the pigeon's head shall not be chopped off, nor yours either, my good boy, for breaking a window. I am persuaded by your open, honest countenance, that you are speaking the truth; but pray explain this matter to us; for you have not made it quite clear. How happened it that you could break my windows without knowing it? and how came you to find it out at last?'

'Sir,' said the boy, 'if you'll come up here, I'll show you all I know, and how I came to know it.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: _'Stay! oh stay! don't chop his head off.'_]

Mr. Somerville followed the boy into the garret, who pointed to a pane of gla.s.s that was broken in a small window that looked out upon a piece of waste ground behind the house. Upon this piece of waste ground the children of the village often used to play. 'We were playing there at ball yesterday evening,' continued the boy, addressing himself to Mr.

Somerville, 'and one of the lads challenged me to hit a mark in the wall, which I did; but he said I did not hit it, and bade me give him up my ball as the forfeit. This I would not do; and when he began to wrestle with me for it, I threw the ball, as I thought, over the house.

He ran to look for it in the street, but could not find it, which I was very glad of; but I was very sorry just now to find it myself lying upon this heap of shavings, sir, under this broken window; for, as soon as I saw it lying there, I knew I must have been the person that broke the window; and through this window came the white pigeon. Here's one of his white feathers sticking in the gap.'

'Yes,' said the carpenter, 'and in the bow-window room below there's plenty of his feathers to be seen; for I've just been down to look. It was the pigeon broke _them_ windows, sure enough.' 'But he could not have got in had I not broke this little window,' said the boy eagerly; 'and I am able to earn sixpence a day, and I'll pay for all the mischief, and welcome. The white pigeon belongs to a poor neighbour, a friend of ours, who is very fond of him, and I would not have him killed for twice as much money.'

'Take the pigeon, my honest, generous lad,' said Mr. Somerville, 'and carry him back to your neighbour. I forgive him all the mischief he has done me, tell your friend, for your sake. As to the rest, we can have the windows mended; and do you keep all the sixpences you earn for yourself.'

'That's what he never did yet,' said the carpenter. 'Many's the sixpence he earns, but not a halfpenny goes into his own pocket: it goes every farthing to his poor father and mother. Happy for them to have such a son!'

'More happy for him to have such a father and mother,' exclaimed the boy. 'Their good days they took all the best care of me that was to be had for love or money, and would, if I would let them, go on paying for my schooling now, falling as they be in the world; but I must learn to mind the shop now. Good morning to you, sir; and thank you kindly,' said he to Mr. Somerville.