BINKS'S BIT O' TEACHIN'
An uproarious welcome awaited the captain's daughters as they stepped
out of their boat on the little pier belonging to the Vicarage.
Splutters and Shutters scrambled to meet the visitors, barking out
hospitality in their customary violent fashion. Behind them hobbled
Binks, eager to help 'Miss Theedory' fasten up the boat, privately
sceptical of the young lady's capacity to do so.
'Oh, Binks! How d'ye do?' politely asked Queenie, who, having
disembarked her waxen family, was endeavouring to protect them from the
frantic welcome of the terriers, both of which seemed ready to eat up
the doll-guests, so glad were they to see them.
'Sadly, missy; I'm but proper sadly!'
'What is it, Binks?' sympathetically asked Theo, shaking out her
blue-cotton skirts, and drawing on a pair of gloves, for Mrs. Vesey was
peculiarly dainty and sensitive about trifles. Though an invalid
herself, the poor lady was always exquisitely dressed, maintaining as a
reason that if the human body be the temple of Christ, then it must be
the bounden duty of the Christian owner not only to keep it wholesome,
but also to adorn it, making it fair without, to match the fairness
within. Not only in her own person did this dainty gentlewoman carry
out her theory, but she looked for it in the persons of her visitors.
Theo invariably respected her wishes by appearing before her trim and
trig.
'Tis jes' they rheumatics, Miss Theedory!' answered Binks cheerfully,
for all the world as if his aches and pains were so many honours. 'But
there, what's 'ee to expec' at sixty-seven? People's jints bain't made
to hold out for ever-'n-ever. Will 'um now?'
'No, they won't!' joined in Queenie comprehendingly. 'Miss Muffet's
jints are giving way, too. Just look, Binks!' She held up for
inspection an elaborately dressed lady, whose arms and legs were in
such a tremulous condition that their total lapse from the body to
which they belonged would have been no surprise.
'I shall ask father for some of that famous liniment of his, Binks,'
said Theo. 'I could send you over some in a little bottle; the boys
shall bring it this evening.'
'If you ask me candid, I should say that glue would be the best
liniment to patch _them_ jints!' Binks was stolidly contemplating the
loose condition of Miss Muffet's limbs.
'We're at cross purposes!' laughed Theo. 'Come along, Queenie; there's
Mrs. Vesey standing at the drawing-room window waving to us. We must
not keep her waiting. Can't you leave your doll-people in the boat,
dear? Binks will see that the dogs don't worry them to bits.'
'Ay, ay! That I will, missy. Bless 'em both, they're picters, they
two, as taut and trig as you please. God give 'em smooth seas to sail
over!' added the old man under his breath, as he watched the captain's
daughters cross the lawn above.
Time was, far back in years, when Binks had watched with pride such
another maiden as 'Miss Theedory,' the daughter God had given, or,
rather, had lent, for a little while, to the parents who idolised her.
The frosts of death nipped the human flower. Slowly, surely, it faded,
until the little home it had gladdened and made fair was empty and
dark, like the hearts left sorrowing. Long years ago though it was
since the blow had fallen, still not yet was the wound healed over.
Behind the austere front and grim temper of old Binks, the memory of
his maid Bessie lived fresh and fragrant as the girl herself had been.
There are some of us who, loyal ever to the love rooted deep in our
hearts, thus keep green the memory of those 'faces we have loved long
since, and lost awhile!'
'She's rare and sweet, is Miss Theedory,' murmured the weather-beaten
old man, when the sisters had disappeared, and he turned to fasten the
boat to the pier-head. 'But I make no doubt she've her peck o'
troubles, too, what with them limbs of young brothers, and the captain
so uplifted-like that he can't give a hand to help her rule 'em. Yes,
Miss Theedory has no easy life of it, though she be a born lady. 'Tis
a world o' ups and downs, this is.'
'Hilloa, Binks! Oh, I say!'
The old man wheeled round to find Geoff and Alick had unexpectedly
returned.
'Whatever's ado now? What's brought 'ee both back?' snapped the old
man crustily. The boys were anything but pleasant interruptions in his
eyes.
'Oh, we got tired waiting about for Jerry. He hasn't come yet. And
we've just seen our boat come into the pier, and we want it to go for a
row,' both boys spoke at once.
'Ye want the boat, do 'ee now? Well, then, ye can't get it, that's
all!' Binks faced round upon the boys, who were trying to push past
him and jump into the boat. 'Miss Theedory, she says, says she,
"Binks, I looks to you to see arter that boat for me!" and with that
she stepped up to the house, she and little missy, to see the mistress.
'Tain't likely I'm a-goin' to 'low her to find no boat waitin' for her,
bym-bye, when she's ready to go back 'ome. You jes' be off, young
musters!'
'That's all nonsense! It's no use of you showing fight. We mean to
have the boat. It's our boat, and Theo can walk home; do her good,
too.'
Alick spoke sullenly, and pushed past Binks on the slippery little
pier. But he reckoned without counting the cost. Binks, though
rheumatic and a trifle bent, still retained some of the strength that
had made him a byword as an athlete in his young days. With a touch of
angry red in his brown, wrinkled cheek, and a spark of wrath in his
deep-set eyes, he seized the boy neatly by the back of the collar and
the band of his Norfolk tweed jacket. It was useless for Alick to
splutter and howl and threaten. Old Binks swung him, as though he were
a kitten, over the edge of the pier, while Geoff fairly doubled up in a
wild ecstasy of laughter.
[Illustration: SWUNG HIM AS THOUGH HE WERE A KITTEN.]
'Tis this way I'll serve 'ee, if so be as you wants to, interfere wi'
me doin' of my dooty, young sir!' croaked out the sturdy old veteran.
'Let me down, I say, let me down! Oh, I'll pay you out!' screamed
Alick, maddened more by a sense of humiliation than of terror, for none
of the Carnegy name dreaded a ducking in the sea.
'There ye be, then!' Binks at last deposited his wriggling burden flat
on the pier. 'Now, p'raps ye'll understand the way an honest man
dispoges of obstructions in the path o' dooty! You're an obstruction,
you are, muster; and if so be as you lay the lesson to heart, the bit
o' teachin' on my part will be wuth while.'
'I'll pay you out. See if I don't!' repeated Alick, sidling hurriedly
off, with a parting shot in the shape of the coward's favourite threat.
'Oh, come!'--Geoff was at his heels,--'the old chap is very game. You
must allow, too, that he was in the right, Alick, and we were wrong.'
Clear-sighted Geoff never hesitated to render justice to others. But
Alick was different. Baffled and furious, he slouched away, hatching
secret revenge upon the old man who had so determinedly baulked his
will.