The Quiver, Annual Volume 10/1899

t town of Lettergort. There was no reason to hurry, and if there had been, Frisky, th

f a lily. She bore as if accustomed to it the jog-trot of the pony and the frequent ruts into which the

elds and the cattle as they passed. That had been a long, hot summer, and for

the sally-tree. Do you see, Pam? Now, I hope the poor fellow will get a h

a farmer going their

orning,

nour. How did the calv

evenahoola gave me thirty shillings apiec

in's. An' 'tis no use ke

do with the h

our. Wirra! 'tis a desperate summer. The hay

aydon would stop to ask after his household concerns. Everywhere they p

h, God bless him! an' him a rale gentleman an

eting, Pam," said her

while you chatted to you

d my cal

sold a thousan

hings won't be broken when we come to the rut by Murphy's gate. 'Tis a fo

, dad. What's the good

erbarry now, and he a lord, and he's getting the private road through his p

a pucker between her white brows. The violet-blue eyes under curling black lashes exact

dad. You should make Joh

n to pull one of his daug

r fellow, and he with a sick wife and an old m

ich had drooped at the corners when she was serious,

calves do wid

n Lord Inverbarry or Johnny Maher. You'r

t seems wrongdoing to them-at least, not to Johnny

other jolt. Simultaneously there was a crash at their

ockery, Pam. I hope it's no

ohnny Maher to see to the road. If it's his looking-glass, he'll have to

this is a public-school man. We'll have to furbish up f

tell you what it is," she said: "it's the glass for his bedroom window. It is all in

we're gentlefolk, though we're as poor as church mice. He won'

eing frozen and Frisky not being able to get to Lettergort! Do you remember Gwynne's face over the potato-cake the third day? Yet I'm sure Bridget had done her best.

tatoes probably didn't agree with him; they don't with everyone, you know, and Gwynne was dyspeptic. I don't k

s for him when every single chicken was a pet, and so tame, dear thing

wynne wanted them kil

, though Mary told him it was a proof of their friendliness towards him. He fired his bootjack after Mark Antony, yo

burying bones under Gw

daresay if he'd had time he'd have removed the bones to the garden. Howeve

m, we shan't complain. What a handsome, dashing fellow he was! I can see him now in

th a little sigh. "That

l lost-was i

d well lost,

ender intimacy existed betwe

am. It was an odd thing that his father should have r

n odd if he hadn't

world since I was at Oxford. I daresay the

u'll go mouthing Greek poetry till we think downstairs that the study chimney is on fire. And while you're growling and thunderin

my way, l

of your pupils that could follow you, only

hting the small-pox with all the heroic soul in his

heroically. And Sells would always have been a p

ad! Scholarship doesn'

uldn't be

ld fellow. From what you say, Pam, I'm as much of a failure a

you taught them better things. It isn't

e first part of her sentence. "Mick was a good boy; but no sc

amela. "Only for the noise he made you'd never know h

face suddenly

, Mary is always prudent. Don't behave with him as if you were all boys together. Now, that

s. "We were wild little colts of girls, then, with our hair down our backs. Besides, we never meant to leave Mick in the hayloft; we only

h Frisky, and drove you

ed us, dad, and sent M

ay with you. But what can one do with little girls? Then poor Mick. I

wo halves of the gate fastened together with a piece of string. Out of the lodge within poured a stream

ays gone with your father's dinner. You can't get down to open the gate, Pam? No, I see you can't; you're built in with parcels round your feet. H

re sedate since those days. It was about the same

left that post unmended five years. Why, it was only the other da

own avenue. While he was replacing the bit of string he kept up a running fire of j

so long letting things go that he even forgets t

at it. There was a rent of at least three inches

suppose he's used to young women with rents in their frocks. And I am a y

was like a prophecy of what "Trevithick's lad" was to bring-like the dawn of love

s if his head-pattings of the children would never come to an end. "Frisky's

into the little

r Frisky running away with you, why, bless me! he's had time to get old since he ran a

home for the next few days. Unhappy man, you little know how yo

ave a gasp of

verything is very clean-except my books; and I won't have t

and says she might as well be living among haythens, wid th' ould dust an' dirt the masther's for ever gatherin'. 'The

leman. "She wouldn't dare put

It's your vellum covers she's after chie

which bore a look of genuine d

eve the great clearing up will just end in what she herself calls a lick and a promise. I

ngly. "Why, good gracious! my classics in vellum! A damp cloth! And

long,"