Kitabı oku: «Mildred Arkell. Vol. 1 (of 3)», sayfa 12

"Charlotte, I have seen Mildred," he began as he entered. "She will spend the day with us on Friday, but I suppose you will call upon her to-morrow."

"No, I shan't," returned Mrs. Arkell. "She's nothing but a lady's-maid."

William answered sharply. Something to the effect that Mildred was a lady born and bred, a lady formerly, a lady still, and that he respected her beyond anyone on earth: in his passion, he hardly knew what he said. Mrs. Arkell was even with him.

"I know," she said—"I know you would have been silly enough to make her your wife, but for your better stars interposing and sending me to frustrate it. I don't suppose she has overcome the disappointment yet. Now, William, that's the truth, and you need not look as if you were going to beat me for saying it. And you need not think that I shall pay court to her, for I shall not. Whether as Mildred Arkell, your disappointed cousin, or as Mildred Arkell, Lady Dewsbury's maid, I am not called upon to do it."

William Arkell felt that he really could beat her. He did not answer temperately.

Mrs. Arkell could be aggravating when she chose; ay, and obstinate. She would not call on Mildred the following day, but three separate times did her handsome close carriage parade before the modest house of Mr. Peter Arkell, and never once, of all the three times, did she condescend to turn her eyes towards it, as she sat inside. Late that evening there arrived a formal note requesting the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Arkell's accompanying Miss Arkell to dinner on the following day.

"She's going to do it grand, Peter," said Lucy to her husband with a laugh, in the privacy of their chamber at night. "She's killing two birds with one stone, impressing Mildred with her pomp, and showing her at the same time that she must not expect to be admitted to unceremonious intimacy."

Only Mildred went. Lucy said she was not well enough, and Peter had lessons to give. The former unpretentious and, for Mr. Arkell, convenient dinner hour of one o'clock had been long changed for a late one. Mildred, fully determined not to make a ceremony of the visit, went in about four o'clock, and found nobody to receive her. Mrs. Arkell was in her room, the maid said. She had seen Miss Arkell's approach, and hastened away to dress, not having expected her so early. Would Miss Arkell like to go to a dressing room and take her bonnet off? Miss Arkell replied that she would take it off there, and she handed it to the maid with her shawl.

The drawing-room had been newly furnished since old Mrs. Arkell's time, as Mildred saw at a glance. She was touching abstractedly some of its elegant trifles, musing on the changes that years bring, when the door flew open, and a tall, prepossessing, handsome boy entered, whistling a song at the top of his voice, and trailing a fishing line behind him. There was no need to ask who he was; the likeness was too great to the beloved face of her girlhood: it was the same manner, the same whistle; all as it used to be.

"You are Travice," she said, holding out her hand; "I should have known you anywhere."

"And you must be Mildred," returned the boy, impetuously taking the hand between both of his, and letting his cherished fishing line drop anywhere. "May I call you Aunt Mildred, as Lucy does?"

"Call me anything," was Mildred's answer. "I am so glad to see you at last. And to see you what you are! How like you are to your father!"

"All the world says that," said the boy with a laugh. "But how is it that nobody's with you? Where are they all? Where's mamma?"

Springing to the door he called out in the hall that there was nobody with Miss Arkell, that she was waiting in the drawing-room alone. His voice echoed to the very depths of the house, and two slender, pretty girls came running downstairs in answer to its sound. There was a slight look of William in both of them, but the resemblance to their mother was great, and Mildred's heart did not go out yearning to them as it had to Travice. She kissed them, and found them pleasant, lady-like girls; but with a dash of coquetry in their manner already.

"I hope I see you well, Miss Arkell."

Mildred was bending over the girls, and started at the well-remembered tones, so superlatively polite, but freezing and heartless. Charlotte was radiant in beauty and a blue silk dinner-dress, with flowing blue ribbons in her bright hair. Mildred felt plain beside her. Her rich black silk was made high, and its collar and cuffs were muslin, worked with black. Nothing else, save a gold chain; the pretty chain of her girlhood that William had given her; nothing in her hair. She was in mourning for a relative of Lady Dewsbury.

"You have made acquaintance with the children, I see, Miss Arkell."

"Yes; I am so glad to do it. Peter has sometimes mentioned them in his letters; and I have heard much of Travice from Betsey—Mrs. Dundyke. Your sister charged me to give you her best love, Mrs. Arkell. I saw her on Friday."

"She's very kind," coldly returned Mrs. Arkell; "but I don't quite understand how you can have heard much of my son from her; that is, how she can have had much to say. Mrs. Dundyke had not seen him since he was an infant, until we were in town last year."

"I think Travice has been in the habit of writing to her."

"In the habit of writing to Aunt Betsey,—of course I have been!" interposed Travice. "And she writes to me, too. I like Aunt Betsey. And I can tell you what, mamma, for all you go on against him so, I like Mr. Dundyke."

"Your likings are of very little consequence at present, Travice," was the languidly indifferent answer of his mother. "You will learn better as you grow older. My sister forfeited all claim on me when she married so low a man as Mr. Dundyke," continued Mrs. Arkell to Mildred; "and she knows that such is my opinion. I shall never change it. She married him deliberately, with her eyes open to the consequences, and of course she must take them. I said and did what I could to warn her, but she would not listen. And now look at the way in which they are obliged to live!"

"Mr. Dundyke earns an excellent income; in fact, I believe he is making money fast," observed Mildred. "Their living in the humble way they do is from choice, I think, not from necessity."

Mrs. Arkell shrugged her pretty shoulders with contempt.

"We will pass to another topic, Miss Arkell, that one does not interest me. What are the new fashions for the season? You must get them at first hand, from your capacity in Lady Dewsbury's household."

Mildred would not resent the hint.

"Indeed, Mrs. Arkell, if you only knew how little the fashions interest either Lady Dewsbury or me, you would perhaps laugh at us both," she answered. "Lady Dewsbury lives too much out of the world to need its fashions. She is a great invalid."

Peter's wife was right in her conjecture, for Mrs. Arkell had hastily summoned a dinner party. Mr. Arkell took his revenge, and faced his wife in a morning coat. Ten inclusive; and the governess and Travice were desired to sit down in the place of Mr. and Mrs. Peter. It may be concluded that Mildred was of the least consequence present, in social position; nevertheless, Mr. Arkell took her in to dinner, and placed her at his right hand. All were strangers to her, excepting old Marmaduke Carr. Squire Carr was dead, and his son John was the squire now.

It was not the quiet evening Mildred had thought to spend with them. She slipped from the drawing-room at ten, Mrs. Peter's health being the excuse for leaving early. Mr. Arkell had his hat on at the hall door waiting for her, just as it used to be in the days gone by.

"But, William, I do not wish to take you out," she remonstrated. "You have your guests."

"They are not my guests to-night," was his quiet answer, as he gave his arm to Mildred.

Travice came running out. "Oh, papa, let me go with you!"

"Get your trencher, then."

He stuck the college cap on his head and went leaping on, through the gates and up the street, just in the manner that college boys like to leap. Mr. Arkell and Mildred followed more soberly, speaking of indifferent things. Mildred began talking of Mr. Carr.

"How well he wears!" she said. "Peter tells me he has retired from business."

"These three or four years past. He did wisely. Those who keep on manufacturing, only do it at a loss."

"You keep it on, William."

"I know. But serious thoughts occur to me now and then of the wisdom of retiring. There are reasons against it, though. Were I to give up business, we should have to live in a very different style from what we do now; for my income would be but a small one, and that would not suit Mrs. Arkell. Besides, I really could not bear to turn my workmen adrift. There are too many unemployed already in the town; and I am always hoping, against my conviction, that times will mend."

"But if you only make to lose, how would the retiring from business lessen your income?"

William laughed. "Well, Mildred, of course I do get something still by my business; but in speaking of the bad times, we are all apt to make the worst of it. I dare say I make about half what we spend; but that you know, compared to the profits of old days, is as nothing."

"If you do make that, William, why think at all of giving up?"

"Because the doubt is upon me whether worse times may not come, and bring ruin with them to all who have kept on manufacturing. Were I as Marmaduke Carr is, a lonely man, I should give up to-morrow; but I have my wife and children to provide for, and I really do not know what to do for the best."

"What has become of Robert Carr? Has he ever been home?"

"Never. He is in Holland still for all I know. I have not heard his name mentioned for years in the town. Old Marmaduke never speaks of him; and others, I suppose, have forgotten him. You know that the old squire's dead?"

"Yes; and that John has succeeded him. Did John's daughter—Emma, I mean—ever marry?"

"She married very well indeed; a Mr. Lewis. Valentine, the son and heir, is at home with his father; steady, selfish, mean as his father was before him; but I fancy John Carr has trouble with the second, Ben."

"Ben promised to be a spendthrift, I remember," remarked Mildred. "What is Travice gazing at?"

Travice had come to a stand-still, and was standing with his face turned upwards. Mr. Arkell laughed.

"Do you remember my propensity for star-gazing, Mildred? Travice has inherited it. But with him it is more developed than it was with me. I should not be surprised at his turning out an astronomer one of these days."

Did she remember it! Poor Mildred fell into a reverie that lasted until William said good night to her at her brother's door.

She was not sorry when her visit to Westerbury came to an end. The town seemed to look cold upon her. Of those she had left in it, some had died, some had married, some had quitted the place for ever. The old had vanished, the middle-aged were growing old, the children had become men and women. It did not seem the same native place to Mildred; it never would seem so again. Some of the inhabitants of her own standing had dwindled down to obscurity; others who had not been of her standing, had gone up and become very grand indeed. These turned up their noses at Mildred, just as did Mrs. William Arkell; and thought it excessive presumption in a lady's maid to come amongst them as an equal. She had persisted in going out to service in defiance of all her friends, and the least she could do was to keep her distance from them.

Mildred did not hear these gracious comments, and would not have cared very much if she had heard them. She returned to her post at Lady Dewsbury's, and a few more years passed on.

CHAPTER XV.
THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER

The tender green of early spring was on the new leaves of the cathedral elm trees. Not sufficient to afford a shade yet; but giving promise of its fulness ere the sultry days of summer should come.

The deanery of Westerbury was a queer old building to look at, especially in front. It had no lower windows. There were odd-looking patches in the wall where the windows ought to have been, and three or four doors. These doors had their separate uses. One of them was the private entrance of the dean and his family; one was used by the servants; one was allotted to official or state occasions, at the great audit time, for instance, when the dean and chapter held their succession of dinners for ever so many days running; and one (a little one in a corner) was popularly supposed to be a sham. But the windows above were unusually large, and so they compensated in some degree for the lack of them below.

Standing at the smallest of the windows on this spring day, was a young lady of some ten or twelve years old. She had a charming countenance, rather saucy, and great blue eyes as large as saucers. She wore a pretty grey silk frock, trimmed with black velvet—perhaps, as slight mourning—and her light brown hair fell on her neck in curls, that were apt to get untidy and entangled. It was Georgina Beauclerc, the only child of the Dean of Westerbury.

The window commanded a good view of the grounds, as the space here at the back of the cathedral was called—a large space; the green, inclosed promenade, shaded by the elm-trees, in the middle; well-kept walks outside; and beyond, all around, the prebendal and other houses. Opposite to the deanery, on the other side the walks, the elm-trees, and the grassy promenade, was the house of the Rev. Mr. Wilberforce, minor canon and sacrist of the cathedral, rector of St. James the Less, and head-master of the college school. Side by side with it was the quaint and small house once inhabited by the former rector of St. James the Less, an old clergyman, subject to gout, now dead and gone. The Rev. Wheeler Prattleton lived in the house now: he was also a minor canon, and chanter to the cathedral—that is, he held the office of what was called the chanter, which gave him the right to fix upon the services for the choir when the dean did not, but he only took his turn for chanting in rotation with the rest of the minor canons. On the other side the head-master's house was a handsome, good-sized dwelling, tenanted by a gentleman of the name of Lewis, who held a good and official position in connexion with the bishop, and had married the daughter of old Squire Carr, the sister to the present squire, and niece to Marmaduke. Beyond this, in a corner, was the quaintest house in the grounds, all covered with ivy, and seeming to have nothing belonging to it but a door; but the fact was, although the door was here, the house itself was built out behind, and could not be seen—its windows facing, some the river, some the open country, and catching a view of St. James the Less in the distance. Mr. Aultane, Westerbury's greatest lawyer, so far as practice went, though not perhaps in honour, lived here; and he held up his head and thought himself above the minor canons. In this one nook of the grounds a few private individuals congregated—it is not necessary to mention them all; but the rest of the houses were mostly occupied by the prebendaries and minor canons. In some lived the widows and families of prebendaries deceased.

Looking to the left, as Georgina Beauclerc stood at the deanery window, just beyond the gate that inclosed the grounds on that side, might be seen the tall red chimneys of the Palmery. It was, perhaps, inside, the worst of all the larger houses; but the St. John's came to it often because they owned it. They (the St. John's) were the best family in Westerbury, and held sway as such. Mr. St. John had died some years ago, leaving one son, about thirty years of age, greatly afflicted; and a young little son, by his second wife. But that young son was growing up now: time flies.

Georgina Beauclerc's great blue eyes, so clear and round, were fixed on one particular spot, and that appeared to be one rather difficult to see. She had her face and nose pressed against the glass, looking toward the college schoolroom, a huge building on the right of the deanery, just beyond the cloisters.

"They are late again!" she exclaimed, in a soliloquy of resentment. "I wish that horrid old Wilberforce was burnt!"

"Georgina!"

The tone of the reproof, more fractious than surprised, came from a recess in the large room, and Georgina turned hastily.

"Why, when did you come in, mamma? I thought you were safe in your bed room."

Mrs. Beauclerc came forward, a thin woman with a somewhat discontented look on her face, and a little nose, red at the tip. She had long given up all real rule of Georgina, but she had not given up attempting it. And Georgina, a wild, spoilt child, was in the habit of saying and doing very much what she liked. She made great friends of the college schoolboys, and had picked up many of their sayings; and this was particularly objectionable to the reserved Mrs. Beauclerc.

"What did you say about Mr. Wilberforce?"

"I said I wished he was burnt."

"Oh, Georgina!"

"I do wish he was scorched. It has struck one o'clock and the boys are not out! What business has he to keep them in? He did it once before."

"May I ask what business it is of yours, Georgina? But it has not struck one."

"I'm sure it has," returned Georgina.

"It has not, I tell you. How dare you contradict me? And allow me to ask why Miss Jackson quitted you so early to-day?"

"Because I dismissed her," returned the young lady, with equanimity. "I had the headache, mamma; and I can't be expected to attend to my studies when I have that."

"You have it pretty often," grumbled Mrs. Beauclerc; and indeed upon this plea, or upon some other, Georgina was perpetually contriving, when not watched, to get rid of her daily governess. "My opinion is, you never had the headache in your life."

"Thank you, mamma. That is just what Miss Jackson herself said yesterday afternoon. I paid her out for it. I sent her away with Baby Ferraday's kite fastened to her shawl behind."

"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Beauclerc.

"The kite was small, not bigger than my hand, but the tail was fine," continued the imperturbable Georgina. "You cannot imagine how grand the effect was as she walked along the grounds, and the wind took the tail and fluttered it. The college boys happened to come out of school at the moment; and they followed her, shouting out 'kites for sale; tails to sell.' Miss Jackson couldn't think what was the matter, and kept turning round. She'd have had it on till now, I hope, only Fred St. John went and tore it off."

Mrs. Beauclerc had listened in speechless amazement. When Georgina talked on in this rapid way, telling of her exploits—and to do the young lady justice, she never sought to hide them—Mrs. Beauclerc felt powerless for correction.

"What is to become of you?" groaned Mrs. Beauclerc.

"I'm sure I don't know, mamma; something good, I hope," returned the saucy girl. "Little Ferraday—I had called him up here to give him some cakes—could not think where his kite had vanished, and began to roar; so I found him sixpence and sent him into the town to buy another. I don't know whether he got lost or run over. The nurse seemed to think it would be one of the two, for she went into a fit when she found he had gone off alone."

"Georgina, I tell you these things cannot be permitted to continue. You are no longer a child."

The colloquy was interrupted by the entrance of the dean: a genial-looking man, with silver buckles in his shoes, and a face very much like Georgina's own. He had apparently just come in, for he had his shovel hat in his hand. The girl loved her father above everything on earth; to his slightest word she rendered implicit homage; though she waged hot war with all others in authority over her, commencing with Mrs. Beauclerc. She flew to the dean with a beaming face, and he clasped his arms round her with a gesture of the fondest affection. Mrs. Beauclerc left the room. She never cared to enter into a contest with her daughter before the dean.

"My Georgina!" came forth the loving whisper.

"Papa, is it one o'clock?"

"Not yet, my dear."

"I'm sure I heard the college clock strike."

"You thought you did, perhaps. It must have been the quarters."

"Oh, dear! I have been calling Mr. Wilberforce hard names for nothing."

"What has Mr. Wilberforce done to you, my Georgie?"

"I thought he was keeping the school in; and I want to speak to Frederick St. John."

They were interrupted. One of the servants appeared, and said a gentleman was asking permission to see the dean. The dean took the credential card handed to him: "Mr. Peter Arkell."

"Show Mr. Arkell up," said the dean. "Georgina, my dear, you can go to your mamma."

"I'd rather stay here, papa," she said, boldly.

One word of explanation as to this visit of Peter Arkell's. It had of course been his intention to get his son Henry entered at the college school, and to this end had the boy been instructed. Of rare capacity, of superior intellect, of sense and feeling beyond his years, it had been a pleasure to his teachers to bring him on: and they consisted of his father and mother. From the one he learnt the classics and figures; from the other music and English generally. Henry Arkell was apt at all things: but if he had genius for one thing more than another, it was certainly music. The sole luxury Mrs. Peter Arkell had retained about her, was her piano; and Henry was an apt pupil. Few boys are gifted with so rare a voice for singing, as was he; and his mother had cultivated it well: it was intended that he should enter the cathedral choir, as well as the school.

By the royal charter of the school, its number was confined to forty boys, king's scholars; of these, ten were chosen to be choristers: but the head master had the privilege of taking private pupils, who paid him handsomely. The dean had the right of placing in ten of these king's scholars, but he rarely exercised it; leaving it in the hands of the head master. Mr. Peter Arkell had applied several times lately to Mr. Wilberforce; and had received only vague answers from that gentleman—"when there was a vacancy to spare, he would think of his son"—but Peter Arkell grew tired. Henry was of an age to be in the school now, and he resolved to speak to the dean.

He came in, leading Henry by the hand. Georgina fell a little back, struck—awed—by the boy's wondrous beauty. The dean, one of the most affable men that ever exercised sway over Westerbury cathedral, shook hands with Peter Arkell, whom he knew slightly.

"I don't know that there's a vacancy," said the dean, when Mr. Arkell told his tale. "Your son shall have it, and welcome, if there is. I have left these things to Mr. Wilberforce."

At this juncture Miss Beauclerc threw the window up, and beckoned to some one outside. Had her mother been present she would have administered a reprimand, but the dean was absorbed with the visitors, and he was less particular than his wife. Georgina was but a child, he reasoned; she might be too careless in her manners now, but it would all come right with years. Better, far better see her genuine and truthful, if a little brusque, than false, mincing, affected, as young ladies were growing to be. And the dean checked her not.

"I know Mr. Wilberforce well, sir, and he has said he will do what he can," said Peter Arkell, in reply to the dean. "But I fear that I may have to wait an indefinite period. There are others in the town of far greater account than I, who are anxious to get their sons into the school; and who have, no doubt, the ear of Mr. Wilberforce. A word from you, Mr. Dean, would effect all, I am sure: if you would only kindly speak it in my behalf."

Dr. Beauclerc turned his head to see who was entering the room, for the door had opened. It was a handsome stripling, growing rapidly into manhood—Frederick, heir of the St. John's. He was already keeping his terms at Oxford; Mrs. St. John had sent him there too early; and in the intervals, when they were sojourning at Westerbury, he was placed in the college; not as an ordinary scholar; the private pupil, and the chief one too, of Mr. Wilberforce.

The dean gave him a nod, and took the hand of the eager, exquisite face turned to him. Like his daughter, he was a great admirer of beauty in the human face: it would often give him a thrill of intense pleasure.

"What is your name, my boy?"

"Henry Cheveley Arkell, sir."

The dean glanced at Peter Arkell with a half smile. He remembered yet the commotion caused in Westerbury when Miss Cheveley married the tutor, and the name brought it before him.

"How old are you?"

"Nearly ten, sir."

"If I could paint faces, I'd paint his," cried Georgina to young St. John, in a half whisper. "Why don't you do it?"

"I suppose you mean his portrait?"

"You know I do. But, Fred, is he not beautiful?"

"You may get sent away if you talk," was the gentleman's answer.

"Has he been brought on well in his Latin? Is he fit to enter as a king's scholar?" inquired the dean of Peter Arkell.

"He has been brought on well in all necessary studies, Mr. Dean; I may say it emphatically, well. I was in the college school myself, and know what is required. But learning has made strides of late, sir; boys are brought on more rapidly; and I can assure you that many a lad has quitted the college school in my days, his education finished, not as good a scholar as my son is now. I have taken pains with him."

"And we know what that implies from you, Mr. Arkell," said the dean, with a kindly smile. "You would like to be a king's scholar, my brave boy?"

"Oh yes, sir," said Henry, his transparent cheek flushing with hope.

"Then you shall be one. I will give you the first vacancy under myself."

They retired with many thanks; Frederick St. John giving Henry's bright waving hair a pull, as he passed him, by way of parting salutation.

"Papa! if you don't put that child into the college school, I will," began Georgina; her tone one of impassioned earnestness. "I will; though I have to beg it of old Wilberforce. I never saw such a face. I have fallen in love with it."

"I am going to put him in, Georgie. I like his face myself. But he can't go in until there's a vacancy. I must ask Mr. Wilberforce."

"There are two vacancies now, Dr. Beauclerc," spoke up Frederick St. John. "One of them is under you, I know."

"Indeed!"

"That is, there will be to-morrow. Those two West Indian boys, the Stantons, are sent for home suddenly: their mother's dying, or something of that. The master had the news this morning, and the school is in a commotion over it. If you do wish to fill the vacancy, sir, you should speak to Mr. Wilberforce at once, or he may stand it out that he has promised it," concluded Frederick St. John, with that freedom of speech he was fond of using, even to the dean.

"Stanton?" repeated the dean. "But were they not private pupils of the master's?"

"Oh dear no, sir, they are on the foundation. You might have seen them any Sunday in their surplices in college. They board at the master's house; that's all."

"Two dark boys, papa, the ugliest in the school," struck in Georgina, who knew a great deal more about the school than the dean did.

When Mr. Peter Arkell and Henry quitted the deanery, the former turned to the cloisters; for he had an errand to do in the town, and to go through the cloisters was the shortest way. He encountered some of the college boys in the cloisters, whooping, hallooing, shouting; their feet and their tongues a babel of confusion. Mr. Arkell looked back at them with strange interest. It did not seem so very long since he and his cousin William had been college boys themselves, and had shouted and leaped as merrily as these. Two or three of them touched their trenchers to Mr. Arkell: they were evening pupils of his.

Henry had turned the other way, towards his home. At the gate, when he reached it, the boundary of the cathedral grounds on that side, he found a meek donkey drawn up, the drawer of a sort of truck, holding a water barrel. A woman was in the habit of bringing this water every day from a famous spring outside the town, to supply some of the houses in the grounds. The water was drawn out by means of a contrivance called a spigot and faucet, and she was stooping over this, filling a can. Henry, boy like, halted to watch the process, for the water rushed out full force.

Putting in the spigot when the can was full, she was proceeding to carry it up the old stairs belonging to the gateway, above which lived one of the minor canons, when the first shout of the college boys broke upon her ear.

"Oh, mercy!" she screamed out, as if in abject fear; and Henry Arkell, who was then continuing his way, halted again and stared at her.

"Young gentleman," she said in a voice of appeal, "would you do me a charity?"

"What is it?" he asked. He was tall and manly for his years.

"If you would but stand by the barrel and guard it! The day afore yesterday, while my donkey and barrel was a stopped in this very spot, and I was a going up these here stairs with this very can, them wild young college gents came trooping by, and they pulled out the spigot and set the water a running. There warn't a drop left in the barrel when I got down. It was a loss to me I haven't over got."

"Go along," said Henry, "I'll guard it for you."

Unconscious boast! The boys came on in a roar of triumph, for they had caught sight of the water barrel. A young gentleman of the name of Lewis, a little older than Henry, was the first to get to the barrel, and lay his hand on the spigot.

"Oh, if you please, you are not to touch it," said Henry; "I am taking care of it."

"Halloa! what youngster are you? The donkey's brother?"

"Oh, don't take it out—don't!" pleaded Henry. "I promised the woman I'd guard it for her."

At this moment the woman's head was protruded through one of the small, deep, square loopholes of the ancient staircase; and she apostrophized the crew in no measured terms, and rather contradictory. They were a set of dyed villains, of young limbs, of daring pigs; and they were dear, good, young gentlemen, that she prayed for every night; and that she'd be proud to give a drink of the beautiful spring water to any thirsty day.