“Them that’s fash’d wi’ nae bairns iver happy mun be,
For we’ve yen, and she’s maister o’ baith thee and me.
“I can’t for the life o’ me get her to work,
Nor aw the lang Sunday to go near a kirk;
Nor frae week en’ to week en’ a chapter to read,
For the Bible ligs stoury abuin the duir-head.
“She yence cud ha’e crammel’d and writ her awn neame,
And Sunday and warday was teydey at heame:
Now to see her whol’d stockin’s, her brat, and her gown,
She’s a shem and a byzen to all the heale town.
“O wad she be guided, and stick to her wheel,
There’s nane kens how fain I wad see her dui weel.”
“_O Wife,” by Anderson._
THE house once cleared of the Frenchmen, Miss Wewitz’s first act was to
throw up all the windows of the best bed-room, amid an infinity of
lamentations as to the state of her property in that apartment—and
endless doubts as to the possibility of ever getting the smell of that
horrid tobacco smoke out of the curtains, or restoring the place to its
wonted cleanliness and sweetness.
This done, she mounted the stairs towards the linen-room, congratulating
herself on having got rid of the fellows without something dreadful
occurring between them and Chutney, the bare thoughts of which had
prevented her having a wink of sleep for the last two nights.
On entering the linen-room, there sat the figure in the same dejected
attitude as that in which Miss Wewitz had found it in the morning. The
schoolmistress began to grow alarmed at what she imagined to be the
extreme stubbornness of the girl; and addressing the figure in her most
impressive manner, said—
“I hope and trust, Miss, you have by this time been awakened to a sense
of the impropriety of your conduct.”
Miss Wewitz paused a moment or two for a reply, and obtaining no answer,
she continued, raising her voice—
“I did hope, Miss Chutney, I repeat, that you had become sensible of the
shameful manner in which you have been behaving for the last two days.”
Here she paused again.
“But,” she continued, finding no notice taken of her observation on the
subject of Miss Chutney’s penitence, “from your silence I am led to
believe that you still require some few hours more self-communion, to
bring you to a perfect consciousness of the wickedness of your ways.”
Miss Wewitz made another pause in her discourse, believing that the
girl’s sulkiness could not possibly hold out much longer; and then
proceeded to inform her, that, in consideration of her attention to her
French last “half,” if she chose to ask her pardon for all she had done,
she might leave her place of confinement, and go down stairs
immediately.
Still, to Miss Wewitz’s horror at what she could not but consider as an
instance of stubbornness unparalleled in the whole annals of scholastic
misdemeanours, not a syllable was spoken by way of reply to her liberal
offer.
“What am I to think of you?” she exclaimed, in the depth of her
indignation. “Are you aware what will become of you, if you persist in
your present line of conduct?” (Here she stopped once more.) “Are you
aware, Miss,” she cried, in a loud voice, as she grew angry at the
continued inattention to all she said—“that your behaviour is most
insulting to those whom it is your duty to respect? In all my long
experience, I never knew such wicked, wicked sulkiness on the part of
any of my pupils before. Well, Miss,” she added, as she bowed
sarcastically to the lay figure, “all I have to say is, that as it is
not my place to play the suppliant to you, I must leave you until such
time as your guardian arrives, and then we shall see, perhaps, whether
_his_ authority can make any impression on your stubborn nature.”
With this dignified remonstrance, Miss Wewitz turned round to leave the
room; and as she grasped the handle of the door, she thought she would
try one more appeal.
“Now, come, there’s a good thing,” she said, appealing tenderly to the
figure, “do give over your sulks, and come down stairs with me, like a
dear.”
But finding that neither remonstrances, upbraidings, nor entreaties
produced the least effect upon the object of her discourse, she turned
haughtily upon her heel and slammed the door after her, mentally
observing, as she descended the stairs, that she wouldn’t take it upon
herself to say what would be the end of that wicked, obstinate thing.
It was not long after Miss Wewitz’s visit to the linen-room that a loud
ring at the gate-bell, making it sound half across the Common, announced
the arrival of Miss Chutney’s guardian.
Miss Wewitz received the gentleman with great joy, for she was growing
quite alarmed at the peculiar and unaccountable conduct of the young
lady, and wished to consult her “friend” as to the best means of dealing
with her.
The schoolmistress was not long in detailing to her visitor all the
occurrences of the last two days, and concluded by informing him that
the young lady had partaken of no nourishment but a small piece of dry
bread during the entire forty-eight hours; and that she would really
take it as a personal obligation if he would exert his influence in
bringing her to a right sense of her conduct.
The guardian, who was a shipping agent in a “large way,” and had a habit
of talking of his ships on every possible opportunity, in such a manner,
that, christened as they mostly were after private and public
individuals, it was often difficult to understand whether he was
alluding to a thing of flesh and blood, or merely wood and iron.
“You astonish me, my dear madam,” he said, in as pompous a tone as
possible—for the gentleman was particularly anxious at all times to
produce an impression upon strangers—“Miss Chutney’s conduct reminds me
forcibly of our ‘Maria of North Shields.’”
“Indeed!” cried Miss Wewitz, judging from the name that the gentleman
alluded to some young lady-friend of his resident in that quarter of the
kingdom, and smiling blandly at the bare idea of the chance of adding
the said Maria to the list of her parlour-boarders.
“Yes,” returned the shipping agent; “our ‘MARIA’ was as pretty a little
thing as ever you set eyes on; but, you see, she was so queer about the
head, we couldn’t get her to steer the right course any how.”
“Bless me!” exclaimed the astonished Miss Wewitz, “you don’t say so.”
“Yes,” continued the shipping agent, leaning back in the easy chair, and
swinging his seals round and round; “but that’s a very common fault.
Why, there was our ‘ELIZA,’ that’s being overhauled now, she was so
cranky, that I’m sure she wanted ballast enough for six; but then, you
see, she was so long in the back, that she was always a-missing her
stays.”
“Dear me!—poor thing! she found them a great support to her, I dare
say,” observed the ingenuous Miss Wewitz, fancying that the said Eliza
was none other than a daughter of her visitor, and a young lady
suffering under weakness of the spine.
“But gentlemen in my way of business,” continued the shipbroker, “always
expect these kind of casualties. Now, only this last season, there was
my ‘Saucy Jane,’ that was coming from Russia with as much tallow and
hides as she could carry, when, hang me, if she didn’t go ashore at
Portsmouth; and the captain didn’t do his duty to her, and so she was
abandoned there.”
“Lord bless my heart, how shocking!” exclaimed the moral Miss Wewitz;
“but those seaport towns are dreadful places for all young persons; and
maybe, sir, there was not that strict attention paid to her in her early
days, that is so necessary to future well-being.”
“Oh, yes; but my Saucy Jane, you see, had every attention paid to her
that was requisite,” responded the pompous shipping agent. “She was
splendidly victualled, and, what was more, she had her full complement
of hands.”
“Her full complement of hands!” echoed the astounded schoolmistress. I
suppose he must mean that she wasn’t deformed; “but maybe your poor
Jane, sir, went astray through temptation; for, you know, it is said we
cannot serve two masters.”
“Not serve two masters!” exclaimed the man of ships; “why, I’ve several
masters, and I know many that would jump to serve them. But my time’s
precious; so if you’ll just let me step up to this young lady, I’ll just
give her a bit of a talking to, and see what can be done with her.”
Miss Wewitz, who was too glad to put an end to a conversation that was
far from interesting to her, owing to the apparent oddity of the
characters to which it referred, rose from her chair, and requesting the
gentleman to follow her, proceeded to conduct him up the stairs to the
linen-room.
The schoolmistress held back the door as she pointed to the figure of
the young lady, with her face still buried in her hands, and whispered
in the ear of the gentleman, “that she had been in the same attitude a
good part of the previous day, and the whole of that morning.”
The shipping agent advanced pompously into the room, and, as he stood in
the centre of the small apartment, he addressed himself to the figure,
saying—
“I have been requested to speak to you, in the name of my old friend,
your father, on the perverseness of your late conduct to your
preceptress, Miss Wewitz, and I have now to command you, in the name of
your parents, to leave your present position, and follow me and your
schoolmistress down stairs.”
To the ineffable astonishment of the guardian, not a limb of the form
before him moved.
“Do you hear, miss!” he exclaimed, stamping his foot on the boards, as
if to give additional force and authority to his commands,—“do you hear
me, I say! Get up this minute, when I command you!”
The semi-nautical gentleman was so unused to this utter disregard of his
orders, that when he saw not the least effort made to stir, even at the
end of his second appeal, he stood, as it were, dumbfoundered for a
moment, at the determination of the fancied school-girl.
Then he shouted sharply, and in a tone of extreme anger, “Miss Chutney,
I say!—Miss Chutney!—do you mean to rise from your present position, or
do you wish me to degrade you so far as to force you to do so?”
Still no movement was made; whereupon the impatient guardian, unable to
brook the slight any longer, seized the figure roughly by the arm, and
began shaking it violently.
In the act of so doing, the hands were forced down, and the black silk
apron fell from before the face, revealing the wooden features of the
artist’s model.
The schoolmistress no sooner discovered the trick that had been played,
and thought of the pains she had taken to expose her misfortune to the
young lady’s guardian, than she uttered a piercing shriek, and swooned
into the arms of the shipping agent.
“D——n it, madam!” cried the city gentleman, who had but little belief in
hysterics, fainting fits, or, indeed, any other of the feminine arts of
producing an impression, “this will never do;” and seizing the glass of
water that had been originally placed there, with the bread, for the
imprisoned Chutney, he dashed the whole contents into the lady’s face.
Miss Wewitz started up suddenly, and shaking the water from her hair,
till the sprinkles flew about as from a twirling mop, she hurried down
the stairs, shrieking, in her shrillest voice, “She’s gone! she’s gone!
she’s gone!”
In a minute the whole establishment were in the hall—staring in mute
astonishment at one another—and endeavouring to pacify the frantic
Wewitz.
No sooner did the schoolmistress set eyes upon her respected mother,
than she rushed madly to her, and told her that she had been the ruin of
her, and that if it hadn’t been for her, Miss Chutney would still have
been in the house: this so affected the elder Wewitz, that she began, in
her turn, to tear her hair; but, unfortunately, each time she clasped
her head, as if distracted, the front of her wig was seen to move
gradually round, until the natural parting stood right over one ear,
while the top-knot was seen projecting above the other.
The schoolmistress, who, notwithstanding the intensity of her agony,
observed the eyes of the shipping agent fixed upon the wig of her
respected mother, ordered her parent to retire to her room immediately,
and then endeavoured to apologize as best she could, for the
disappearance of his ward, to the shipping agent.
That gentleman was not to be appeased by any such means, however, and
left the house, vowing that he would commence an action at law against
her immediately for damages, and publish the transaction to the whole
world.
* * * * *
What poor Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys, their son and daughter, had been doing
all this while, must be reserved for the next chapter.
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