THE DOVE-COTE.
The next hour passed quickly. Averil had her book, and Annette amused
herself with looking out of the window. "How could one read," she
thought, "when the sun was shining, and the foals were frolicking
beside their mothers, and every green field had its picturesque group
of feeding cattle and sheep? It was like turning over the pages of a
picture-book. Now they came to a cluster of cottages with a little
Norman church, half hidden in trees; then a winding road; a clear,
silvery river, with gay little boats floating on it, with fine houses
beside it; then another pastoral scene, and so on. Is not the world
beautiful?" thought Annette, as the train stopped, and Averil beckoned
to her. She was almost sorry that the journey was over.
She heard Averil order a fly, and then followed her into a curious old
inn. They sat for a few minutes in a close, stuffy parlor, with a print
of the battle of Trafalgar over the fire-place.
"We have a mile and a half still to go," Averil said. "If I could only
walk through those delicious lanes! But old Jemmy always has to take
me. Ah! there comes our chariot. Rather a ramshackle affair, is it not,
Annette? But Jemmy and his old mare are both worthy creatures."
Annette had no fault to find with the lumbering wheezy vehicle; she
was looking delightedly at the rich hedge-rows with their wealth of
wild-flowers, at the rustic cottages with their gay little gardens,
at the green fields with browsing cattle. Every moment there was
something to admire. Presently they came to a sort of hamlet; there was
a village inn, with The Duck and Drake swinging on the old sign-board,
a few scattered cottages with heavy thatched roofs, and a small green
with snow-white geese waddling over it. Here Jemmy, a gray-haired,
wizen-faced man drew up of his own accord.
"There be the Dove-cote, surely," he said, pointing down a steep lane.
"I suppose there be no need to come further."
"No; the goose green will do. Come for me at the usual time, Jemmy, and
wait for me here;" and Averil dismissed him with a kindly nod.
Annette was looking round her in some perplexity. There were the inn
and the cottages, but where could the Dove-cote be? She could see no
house of any pretension, only in the distance, half-way down the lane,
there was a low gray roof half hidden in trees.
"Yes, that is the Dove-cote," observed Averil, walking in her usual
slow fashion across the little green, while the geese stretched
their long necks and hissed after her. "Is this not a sweet little
nook, Annette? How the children do love this lane! It is a perfect
play-ground for them. In autumn, when the blackberries are ripe, you
can see them with their little tin pails, scratching themselves with
the brambles, and half smothered with travelers' joy. Ah! there is
Daddy, sunning himself, with Bob asleep beside him. Well, Annette,"
unlatching a little white gate as she spoke, "welcome to the Dove-cote."
Annette was a good deal surprised. It was only a cottage, after all,
or, more correctly speaking, two cottages, for there were two stone
porches and two open doors; a long strip of flower-garden was on one
side, and a still narrower strip of smoothly mown turf on the other.
There was an elm-tree with a circular seat, on which an old man was
sitting, and a black terrier was curled up beside him.
"Well, Daddy, where is the Corporal?" asked Averil, in her clear voice,
as the old man rose up rather stiffly, and, leaning on his stick, gave
her a military salute. He was a very tall old man, with a long gray
beard, and his joints were not so supple as they used to be, for he
seemed to support himself with difficulty. As Averil spoke the terrier
gave a shrill bark of welcome, and came limping over the grass on three
legs, and Annette saw the fourth was missing.
"The Corporal is at work among the cabbages, and Snip is helping him,
ma'am. Snip's a terrible hand at digging. Corporal said to me as we
were smoking our pipes yesterday, 'Snip's a handy fellow. He will be
worth his salt presently. He puts his heart into things, Snip does, if
it is pulling up a weed or hoeing a potato-bed. He don't shirk work
like other boys of his age, don't Snip.'"
"I am glad to hear that," returned Averil. "The Corporal is not one
to bestow praise where it is not due. I was very anxious about poor
Snip. I was rather fearful how he might turn out. It would not do to
expect too much, Daddy. A city arab seldom has his fair chances. If you
had told me that he spent his day in turning somersaults and making
catherine-wheels of himself among the Corporal's cabbages, I should not
have been surprised."
The old soldier smiled grimly.
"Well, he has a refresher sometimes, and stands with his heels
uppermost when his feelings is too many for him--when he has had his
fill of pudding, perhaps. Mother Midge says it is by way of grace.
She finds the boy somewhat aggravating in the house. He is better out
among the pensioners; the pensioners are not so mortal particular as to
manners."
Averil broke into a merry laugh. Daddy was evidently a wag in his way.
There was a twinkle in his eye as he patted Bob, as though he had
enunciated a clever joke.
"We will go to them presently; but we must first pay our respects to
Mother Midge. Ah, Methuselah"--as a crippled jackdaw hobbled across
the grass, and greeted her hoarsely. "Is he not a wise-looking bird,
Annette? He and Bob are such friends. They are like Daddy and the
Corporal."
At that moment a little woman in gray, with a droll, weather-beaten
face and a pair of spectacles perched on the top of an absurdly small
nose, suddenly appeared on one of the porches, and clapped her hands
delightedly at the sight of her visitors.
"Dear me! if it is not Miss Willmot," she exclaimed, "and you are as
welcome as flowers in May. Come in out of the sun, my dear, and you
shall have a glass of Cherry's milk. She is yielding us a grand supply
just now, and, though I say it that should not, I don't believe there
is sweeter milk to be found anywhere."
"Wait a moment, Mother Midge," as the little woman was bustling away;
"I want you to speak to my new cousin first. Annette, this lady's name
is really Bennet--Miss Lydia Bennet--but she is always known among us
as Mother Midge."
"And it is a name I love, ever since dear little Barty gave it to me.
Poor little lamb! But he is better off now."
Mother Midge was no beauty, certainly. There was something comical,
something altogether incongruous, in the lined forehead and gray hair,
and the pert little nose and those bright, kittenish blue eyes. But she
had the sweetest voice in the world.
"But it is so strange a name," objected Annette, in her serious manner.
Averil seemed amused, but Mother Midge gave a little sigh.
"My dear young lady," she said, gently, "the name has never seemed
droll to me, for it was the last word dear little Barty ever spoke.
Shall I tell you about him? Miss Willmot found him--she finds them
all. He was a mere baby, and nearly skin and bone when he came here.
He and a sister a year or two older were turned on the streets to
beg, and the brute who owned them--I believe she called herself their
mother, only the dumb beasts have more compassion on their young--had
turned them out of doors to sleep. Oh! you look shocked; but one sees
such cases in the paper. The little creatures were found on a doorstep
one snowy evening. Deb had taken off her frock to wrap round Barty,
who was ill and coughing. Well, he did not last long--one could not
wonder at that, after all that exposure and ill-usage; but we made
him very happy as long as he lived. Mother Midge was the name he gave
me. No one knew what it meant, but Deb taught it to the others. Well,
I was sitting with him on my lap one afternoon--I knew the end was
near--and I was talking to him and Deb about heaven--for they were just
like heathens--and, baby as he was, Barty was as clever and acute as
possible. Just as I was talking, I felt his little bony hand creep up
to my neck; 'I don't want no 'eavens,' he whispered, hoarsely; 'I'd
like better to stop along of Deb and Mother Midge.' Those were his last
words. But maybe he has changed his mind since then," finished the
little woman, softly.
"And Deb! Where is Deb?" asked Annette, eagerly.
"Oh, you shall see her presently. Deb is my right hand. Now I must go
and fetch you the milk and a slice of home-made cake, for you must be
starving."
Annette looked round the room as Mother Midge trotted off. It was a
small room, and very simply furnished. There was a square of carpet
that did not quite cover the white boards; there were one or two
well-worn easy-chairs, a work-table, a comfortable-looking couch, and
some well-arranged book-shelves.
"This is the Midge's nest," observed Averil, who noticed Annette's
perplexity. "Ah! I see you are dying to question me; but there is
no time now. Mother Midge is a wonderful woman, though I dare say a
certain person, if she knew of her existence, would certainly call her
a plain, homely little body. But she has a great soul. She is one of
God's heroines!"
"My cousin, forgive me if I am pertinacious. Who are these people? I do
not understand."
"Lottie, when she wants to tease me, calls them my waifs and strays.
But they are no such things. This is my family. I lead two lives,
Annette. When things go wrong with me, and I get out of harmony with my
surroundings, I take refuge with Mother Midge and her children. Nothing
does me so much good. Hush! not a word of this at Redfern House. No one
knows of the Dove-cote but Lottie. Ah! here come our refreshments. Mind
you praise the cake, for if there be one thing on which Mother Midge
prides herself it is her seed-cake."
Annette ate and drank in a sort of dream. What new views in life were
opening before her! This, then, was Averil's secret--the little refuge
that the young heiress had provided for a few stricken creatures who
had fallen in the battle of life.
Annette was to hear all about it presently; now she could only look
round her and wonder, with a sort of touched reverence.
"Now we must go and see Jack," observed Averil, as she swept the crumbs
from her lap. "Annette, do you see there are two cottages? We have
added a new wing. There was no room big enough for the children, and no
place for them to sleep. This is the Corporal's room, as we call it,
where the old men sit and smoke their pipes. This"--as they entered a
clean, spacious room, with a long table and some forms, and a few gay
Scripture prints hanging on the walls--"this is where the children
live. They are with the Corporal now, all except Jack"--walking up to
the window, where there was a small couch covered with a red quilt.
"Well, my little man, how does the world go with you?"
"Thank you, ma'am, I'm spry!" returned a small chirping voice, and a
shock head, covered with rough, carroty hair, raised itself from the
pillow. Annette gave a pitying exclamation. Could it be a child's face,
with those hollow, sunken features, those lusterless, staring eyes?
A skeleton hand and arm were thrust out from the quilt. "I'm spry,
ma'am, and the Dodger is spry too. Come out, you varmint, when the
leddy's asking after your 'ealth!"--and Jack, panting, and with infinite
difficulty, extracted a miserable-looking gray creature, evidently a
veteran who had certainly run the tether of its nine lives, and was
much battered in consequence.
"Oh, the Dodger is spry, is he?" observed Averil, with much interest,
as the cat purred feebly, and began licking its lean sides. "But I hope
both you and he mean to get fatter with all your good living."
"Jack was found in a cellar, Annette," she continued, stroking the
shock head tenderly--"in a den of thieves. Some murder had been
committed in a drunken brawl. The gang had been obliged to seek a fresh
hiding-place, and Jack, who was crippled with hip disease, had been
left there, forgotten. The good city missionary who discovered him, and
told me the story, found him lying on a heap of moldy straw under the
grating, with the cat beside him. They were both nearly starved, and
half dead with cold--weren't you, Jack?"
"We was, ma'am, just so," was Jack's response. "The Dodger had brought
me a mouse, but I could not stomach sich food. Dodger hasn't nothing to
say to mice now. He feeds like an alderman, he does. Spry! that ain't
the word for it, ma'am--he is just bursting with enjoyment, is the
Dodger."
Averil smiled faintly; but as they left the room, she said in a low
voice, "How long do you think he will last, Mother Midge?"
Mother Midge only shook her head. "The dear Lord only knows that, Miss
Willmot. But they are making room for him and the Dodger up there,
surely."
Annette opened her eyes rather widely at this remark. But Averil
pressed her arm meaningly. "Don't take any notice," she whispered,
when the little woman had gone on a few steps. "This is only one of
her notions. She will have it that animals are to go to heaven too.
I have never heard her reason it out; but she is very angry if any
one ventures to dispute her theory. 'The whole creation groaneth and
travaileth together in pain,' she says, sometimes. 'But it will all be
set right some day.' I never argue against people's pet theories when
they are as harmless as this."
Mother Midge had preceded them into a small kitchen, where a diminutive
girl, with a sharp precocious face, was scouring some tins. A stolid
looking young woman, with rather a vacant expression, was basting a
joint. "That's Deb," remarked Averil, with a kindly nod to the little
girl, "and this is Molly."
A gleam of pleasure, that seemed to light up the coarse, heavy
features, crossed Molly's face at the sight of her.
"I'm fain to see you, ma'am," she muttered with a courtesy to the
strange lady, and then she turned to her basting again.
"Molly does wonders, and she is a first-rate teacher for Deb," observed
Mother Midge, as they left the kitchen. "I am not going to tell you
Molly's history, Miss Ramsay. I see no use in burdening young minds
with oversorrowful stories. It is grief for her child that has nearly
blunted poor Molly's wits. The little one had a sad end. But she is
getting over it a little--and Jack does her good. I hope for Molly's
sake Jack will be spared, for she just slaves for him. Now we will go
out in the kitchen-garden and see the Corporal."