Her beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of limb, and great growth
for her age, would have pleased him if she had possessed no other
attraction, but the daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so
amused him and suited his roystering tastes that he took to her as the
finest plaything in the world.
He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made
friends with her, but at first she would have none of him, and scowled at
him in spite of all he did. The brandy by this time had mounted to his
head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor oftenest making him
gamesome. He felt as if he were playing with a young dog or marking the
spirit of a little fighting cock. He ordered the servants back to their
kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, and the men concealing grins
which burst forth into guffaws of laughter when they came into their hall
below.
"'Tis as we said," they chuckled. "He had but to see her beauty and find
her a bigger devil than he, and 'twas done. The mettle of her--damning
and flogging him! Never was there a finer sight! She feared him no more
than if he had been a spaniel--and he roaring and laughing till he was
like to burst."
"Dost know who I am?" Sir Jeoffry was asking the child, grinning himself
as he stood before her where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had
lifted her.
"No," quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn down, her handsome
owl's eyes verily seeming to look him through and through in search of
somewhat; for, in sooth, her rage abating before his jovial humour, the
big burly laugher attracted her attention, though she was not disposed to
show him that she leaned towards any favour or yielding.
"I am thy Dad," he said. "'Twas thy Dad thou gavest such a trouncing.
And thou hast an arm, too. Let's cast an eye on it."
He took her wrist and pushed up her sleeve, but she dragged back.
"Will not be mauled," she cried. "Get away from me!"
He shouted with laughter again. He had seen that the little arm was as
white and hard as marble, and had such muscles as a great boy might have
been a braggart about.
"By Gad!" he said, elated. "What a wench of six years old. Wilt have my
crop and trounce thy Dad again!"
He picked up the crop from the place where she had thrown it, and
forthwith gave it in her hand. She took it, but was no more in the
humour to beat him, and as she looked still frowning from him to the
whip, the latter brought back to her mind the horse she had set out in
search of.
"Where is my horse?" she said, and 'twas in the tone of an imperial
demand. "Where is he?"
"Thy horse!" he echoed. "Which is thy horse then?"
"Rake is my horse," she answered--"the big black one. The man took him
again;" and she ripped out a few more oaths and unchaste expressions,
threatening what she would do for the man in question; the which
delighted him more than ever. "Rake is my horse," she ended. "None else
shall ride him."
"None else?" cried he. "Thou canst not ride him, baggage!"
She looked at him with scornful majesty.
"Where is he?" she demanded. And the next instant hearing the beast's
restless feet grinding into the gravel outside as he fretted at having
been kept waiting so long, she remembered what the stable-boy had said of
having seen her favourite standing before the door, and struggling and
dropping from the settle, she ran to look out; whereupon having done so,
she shouted in triumph.
"He is here!" she said. "I see him;" and went pell-mell down the stone
steps to his side.
Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. 'Twould not have been to his humour
now to have her brains kicked out.
"Hey!" he called, as he hurried. "Keep away from his heels, thou little
devil."
But she had run to the big beast's head with another shout, and caught
him round his foreleg, laughing, and Rake bent his head down and nosed
her in a fumbling caress, on which, the bridle coming within her reach,
she seized it and held his head that she might pat him, to which
familiarity the beast was plainly well accustomed.
"He is my horse," quoth she grandly when her father reached her. "He
will not let Giles play so."
Sir Jeoffry gazed and swelled with pleasure in her.
"Would have said 'twas a lie if I had not seen it," he said to himself.
"'Tis no girl this, I swear. I thought 'twas my horse," he said to her,
"but 'tis plain enough he is thine."
"Put me up!" said his new-found offspring.
"Hast rid him before?" Sir Jeoffry asked, with some lingering misgiving.
"Tell thy Dad if thou hast rid him."
She gave him a look askance under her long fringed lids--a surly yet half-
slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had
the cunning wit and shrewdness of a child witch.
"Ay!" quoth she. "Put me up--Dad!"
He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having been too many years
bemuddled with drink, but he had a rough instinct which showed him all
the wondrous shrewdness of her casting that last word at him to wheedle
him, even though she looked sullen in the saying it. It made him roar
again for very exultation.
"Put me up, Dad!" he cried. "That will I--and see what thou wilt do."
He lifted her, she springing as he set his hands beneath her arms, and
flinging her legs over astride across the saddle when she reached it. She
was all fire and excitement, and caught the reins like an old huntsman,
and with such a grasp as was amazing. She sat up with a straight, strong
back, her whole face glowing and sparkling with exultant joy. Rake
seemed to answer to her excited little laugh almost as much as to her
hand. It seemed to wake his spirit and put him in good-humour. He
started off with her down the avenue at a light, spirited trot, while
she, clinging with her little legs and sitting firm and fearless, made
him change into canter and gallop, having actually learned all his paces
like a lesson, and knowing his mouth as did his groom, who was her
familiar and slave. Had she been of the build ordinary with children of
her age, she could not have stayed upon his back; but she sat him like a
child jockey, and Sir Jeoffry, watching and following her, clapped his
hands boisterously and hallooed for joy.
"Lord, Lord!" he said. "There's not a man in the shire has such another
little devil--and Rake, 'her horse,'" grinning--"and she to ride him so.
I love thee, wench--hang me if I do not!"
She made him play with her and with Rake for a good hour, and then took
him back to the stables, and there ordered him about finely among the
dogs and horses, perceiving that somehow this great man she had got hold
of was a creature who was in power and could be made use of.
When they returned to the house, he had her to eat her mid-day meal with
him, when she called for ale, and drank it, and did good trencher duty,
making him the while roar with laughter at her impudent child-talk.
"Never have I so split my sides since I was twenty," he said. "It makes
me young again to roar so. She shall not leave my sight, since by chance
I have found her. 'Tis too good a joke to lose, when times are dull, as
they get to be as a man's years go on."
He sent for her woman and laid strange new commands on her.
"Where hath she hitherto been kept?" he asked.
"In the west wing, where are the nurseries, and where Mistress Wimpole
abides with Mistress Barbara and Mistress Anne," the woman answered, with
a frightened curtsey.
"Henceforth she shall live in this part of the house where I do," he
said. "Make ready the chambers that were my lady's, and prepare to stay
there with her."
From that hour the child's fate was sealed. He made himself her
playfellow, and romped with and indulged her until she became fonder of
him than of any groom or stable-boy she had been companions with before.
But, indeed, she had never been given to bestowing much affection on
those around her, seeming to feel herself too high a personage to show
softness. The ones she showed most favour to were those who served her
best; and even to them it was always _favour_ she showed, not tenderness.
Certain dogs and horses she was fond of, Rake coming nearest to her
heart, and the place her father won in her affections was somewhat like
to Rake's. She made him her servant and tyrannised over him, but at the
same time followed and imitated him as if she had been a young spaniel he
was training. The life the child led, it would have broken a motherly
woman's heart to hear about; but there was no good woman near her, her
mother's relatives, and even Sir Jeoffry's own, having cut themselves off
early from them--Wildairs Hall and its master being no great credit to
those having the misfortune to be connected with them. The neighbouring
gentry had gradually ceased to visit the family some time before her
ladyship's death, and since then the only guests who frequented the place
were a circle of hunting, drinking, and guzzling boon companions of Sir
Jeoffry's own, who joined him in all his carousals and debaucheries.
To these he announced his discovery of his daughter with tumultuous
delight. He told them, amid storms of laughter, of his first encounter
with her; of her flogging him with his own crop, and cursing him like a
trooper; of her claiming Rake as her own horse, and swearing at the man
who had dared to take him from the stable to ride; and of her sitting him
like an infant jockey, and seeming, by some strange power, to have
mastered him as no other had been able heretofore to do. Then he had her
brought into the dining-room, where they sat over their bottles drinking
deep, and setting her on the table, he exhibited her to them, boasting of
her beauty, showing them her splendid arm and leg and thigh, measuring
her height, and exciting her to test the strength of the grip of her hand
and the power of her little fist.
"Saw you ever a wench like her?" he cried, as they all shouted with
laughter and made jokes not too polite, but such as were of the sole kind
they were given to. "Has any man among you begot a boy as big and
handsome? Hang me! if she would not knock down any lad of ten if she
were in a fury."
"We wild dogs are out of favour with the women," cried one of the best
pleased among them, a certain Lord Eldershawe, whose seat was a few miles
from Wildairs Hall--"women like nincompoops and chaplains. Let us take
this one for our toast, and bring her up as girls should be brought up to
be companions for men. I give you, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs--Mistress
Clorinda, the enslaver of six years old--bumpers, lads!--bumpers!"
And they set her in the very midst of the big table and drank her health,
standing, bursting into a jovial, ribald song; and the child, excited by
the noise and laughter, actually broke forth and joined them in a high,
strong treble, the song being one she was quite familiar with, having
heard it often enough in the stable to have learned the words pat.
* * * * *
Two weeks after his meeting with her, Sir Jeoffry was seized with the
whim to go up to London and set her forth with finery. 'Twas but rarely
he went up to town, having neither money to waste, nor finding great
attraction in the more civilised quarters of the world. He brought her
back such clothes as for richness and odd, unsuitable fashion child never
wore before. There were brocades that stood alone with splendour of
fabric, there was rich lace, fine linen, ribbands, farthingales,
swansdown tippets, and little slippers with high red heels. He had a
wardrobe made for her such as the finest lady of fashion could scarcely
boast, and the tiny creature was decked out in it, and on great occasions
even strung with her dead mother's jewels.
Among these strange things, he had the fantastical notion to have made
for her several suits of boy's clothes: pink and blue satin coats, little
white, or amber, or blue satin breeches, ruffles of lace, and waistcoats
embroidered with colours and silver or gold. There was also a small
scarlet-coated hunting costume and all the paraphernalia of the chase. It
was Sir Jeoffry's finest joke to bid her woman dress her as a boy, and
then he would have her brought to the table where he and his fellows were
dining together, and she would toss off her little bumper with the best
of them, and rip out childish oaths, and sing them, to their delight,
songs she had learned from the stable-boys. She cared more for dogs and
horses than for finery, and when she was not in the humour to be made a
puppet of, neither tirewoman nor devil could put her into her brocades;
but she liked the excitement of the dining-room, and, as time went on,
would be dressed in her flowered petticoats in a passion of eagerness to
go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gewgaws with men old
enough to be her father, and loose enough to find her premature airs and
graces a fine joke indeed. She ruled them all with her temper and her
shrewish will. She would have her way in all things, or there should be
no sport with her, and she would sing no songs for them, but would flout
them bitterly, and sit in a great chair with her black brows drawn down,
and her whole small person breathing rancour and disdain.
Sir Jeoffry, who had bullied his wife, had now the pleasurable experience
of being henpecked by his daughter; for so, indeed, he was. Miss ruled
him with a rod of iron, and wielded her weapon with such skill that
before a year had elapsed he obeyed her as the servants below stairs had
done in her infancy. She had no fear of his great oaths, for she
possessed a strangely varied stock of her own upon which she could always
draw, and her voice being more shrill than his, if not of such bigness,
her ear-piercing shrieks and indomitable perseverance always proved too
much for him in the end. It must be admitted likewise that her violence
of temper and power of will were somewhat beyond his own, notwithstanding
her tender years and his reputation. In fact, he found himself obliged
to observe this, and finally made something of a merit and joke of it.
"There is no managing of the little shrew," he would say. "Neither man
nor devil can bend or break her. If I smashed every bone in her carcass,
she would die shrieking hell at me and defiance."
If one admits the truth, it must be owned that if she had not had
bestowed upon her by nature gifts of beauty and vivacity so
extraordinary, and had been cursed with a thousandth part of the
vixenishness she displayed every day of her life, he would have broken
every bone in her carcass without a scruple or a qualm. But her beauty
seemed but to grow with every hour that passed, and it was by exceeding
good fortune exactly the fashion of beauty which he admired the most.
When she attained her tenth year she was as tall as a fine boy of twelve,
and of such a shape and carriage as young Diana herself might have
envied. Her limbs were long, and most divinely moulded, and of a
strength that caused admiration and amazement in all beholders. Her
father taught her to follow him in the hunting-field, and when she
appeared upon her horse, clad in her little breeches and top-boots and
scarlet coat, child though she was, she set the field on fire. She
learned full early how to coquet and roll her fine eyes; but it is also
true that she was not much of a languisher, as all her ogling was of a
destructive or proudly-attacking kind. It was her habit to leave others
to languish, and herself to lead them with disdainful vivacity to doing
so. She was the talk, and, it must be admitted, the scandal, of the
county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein she lived was a
boisterous hunting shire where there were wide ditches and high hedges to
leap, and rough hills and moors to gallop over, and within the region
neither polite life nor polite education were much thought of; but even
in the worst portions of it there were occasional virtuous matrons who
shook their heads with much gravity and wonder over the beautiful
Mistress Clorinda.