# Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.
It is nine o'clock, and I am making my toilet for the night, and smiling to myself at a ridiculous story Jack told me just now about an old sailor down here. He would like to be devout, but has not time to save his soul, so has copied out the longest and finest prayer he knows of, and pinned it over his bedstead, and every night and morning, when he turns in and turns out, he looks towards it and says, "Thim's my sintiments, O Lord!" I have time, plenty, so there is no fear of my following his example. As ​I take a last look out of the window preparatory to jumping into bed, my attention is arrested by the extraordinary appearance presented by the hedge that lies on the other side of the road, which appears to be animated with what might be a row of uneven trees swaying to and fro, if, on this stirless night, there were wind enough to stir anything.
It is growing dark, and in the uncertain light it is difficult to pronounce distinctly on the phenomona; but I, nevertheless, come to the conclusion that the bobbing objects are hats, hats which may be reasonably supposed to have human beings inside them. Burglars! I say to myself promptly, and descend to Jack's room, which overlooks the back garden, not the front. He is not in bed, so returns with me, and surveying the enemy with some interest, squashes my theory by saying, "Burglars? Why, you little sawney, burglars hide, they don't hop up and down like Jacks-in-the-box; besides, there are too many of 'em!"
All at once a light breaks in upon me. I have surreptitiously read two or three words which have given me some small insight into the imbecile practices of courtships, and now I am able to put two and two together, while Jack, poor lad, is completely at sea.
"I know!" I say, nodding my head violently, "I know! it's lovers!"
Lovers!" repeats Jack, quite unimpressed, and in a most scornfully contemptuous voice: "how exactly like a girl with her silly notions! Who do you suppose they'd come after, miss; you?"
"No; but there is Tabitha, you know, and Balaam's Ass" (Balaam's Ass is our under nursemaid, whose obstinacy is so incurable that years ago we gave her the above name, which has stuck to her).
"Very likely either of them would get a lover, is it not?" asks ​Jack, peering about. "Perhaps you would not mind cook's having a chance?"
"It may be cook," I say, brightening up; "I heard James call her 'an old flirt' the other day, and she was so pleased."
"I should say it was cook," says Jack, grinning, "for one man would not be of much use in that quarter; perhaps if they all stood in a circle they might be able to clasp her charms. No, it's not cook, it's somebody or other in the school-room under, for I just saw one beast deliberately kiss his hand towards it. I'm going down to see who is there."
"Wait a minute for me," I say, furling an Elijah-like mantle around me, and so equipped, go down the stairs with him. We go into the school-room, but there is nothing there; nothing, that is to say, but Alice and Milly, who are sitting by the window in their white gowns. We retire and walk slowly up-stairs; half-way Jack stops short and looks at me. "It's not cook," he says deliberately, "and it's not Tabitha, nor Balaam's Ass, it's Alice."
Alice! I stand staring at him. "Are you mad?" I ask at last.
"No," he says, walking on, "but I'm disgusted. To think that those impudent———" the remainder of his speech is lost in a mutter. He is very young, but he has in him the germ of that dislike (so tenacious in the breasts of all Englishmen), that every brother, husband, or father has, to having his womankind looked upon too familiarly or too nearly by any stranger.
"What a row there will be when papa comes!" I say, drawing a deep breath.
"Serve her right, too," says Jack, as he vanishes into his bedroom, and I retire to bed with a troubled mind and a resolve to give my pretty sister a friendly warning to-morrow. Finding my opportunity, I put my arm round her neck, and, looking into her fresh face, that is not, I hope,
say, "If I were you I would not have quite so—so many, dear; there will be such a row when papa comes!" Alice laughs, blushes, and is about to answer when mother comes in, and no more is said.
We go out donkey riding this afternoon, everybody except Jack, who is too proud. A small drove of asses has been chartered for the occasion, and at the appointed hour they stand at the door meek and stubborn, each provided with a small boy, whose duty it is to "whip up" the aforesaid beast and make it "go." Amberley's charger staggers ominously as she mounts him; and, when seated, her long legs touch the ground, but she would rather die than be left behind, or prove unequal to the emergency, so she hitches them up and leads the van with some dignity, and, I think, much discomfort. Alice has the best beast; it has a broad back and a fat body, and she sits on it at her ease, shaded by her cool straw hat, under which her face takes no yellow reflections as does mine, looking as the queen of Sheba may have looked in her young and palmy days. Mother has insisted on our taking two or three of the fry, strong-backed, stout-limbed boys, of whom there is an endless succession after Dolly, so we make a goodly cavalcade as we jog away with our attendant gamins.
Now there are few things pleasanter than to idle along the Devonshire lanes in summer time on a well-grown, broad-backed, peaceable donkey; one is not at the trouble of walking, nor yet at the trouble of riding; one can just amble along at leisure, enjoying the air, the sky, and the light that quivers on the path through boughs that meet coolly overhead There is a dreamy sensation of utter rest as one wanders in and out of the tangle of lanes that ​seem to have no beginning and no ending, but to indulge this feeling, the boy with the stick, whose whacks, regular as a flail on a threshing-floor, fall upon your animal's hide, must be left behind: there is little romance in these darkly-shaded, flower-starred lanes to the tune of such music. We have a few mishaps by the way. Amberley is painfully thin, so is her beast, and their bones do not agree, so every now and then she slips noiselessly over his head and glides into the ditch or dusty road. We get used to it after a bit, so does she, and takes it as a matter of course. Dolly's steed walks into a turnstile and is with some difficulty disentangled. The fry have, to our great relief, long ago succeeded in goading their asses into a trot, and have vanished amid clouds of dust, closely followed by their attendant sprites, yelling with delight at the spirit their several protégés evince. At Alice's request our party of beaters has fallen behind, so we pace silently along the dim green lanes, meeting neither man nor horse; it is all as hushed, as still, and as solitary as an uninhabited island.
Lothfully we turn homeward at last, and are met at the house door by mother with the intelligence that the governor is coming to-morrow. Our jocund laughter ceases, we all dismount anyhow, and go indoors to sit down under the shock of the intelligence which (though we know it must arrive at some time or other) comes upon us like an ice-cold shower-bath. We all seem to have forgotten our days of bondage during this past fortnight. Farewell, dolce-far-niente days! We did not make half enough of you while you lasted; and now you are gone, and we shall never get any at all like you again! Farewell, social breakfasts, leisurely dinners, pleasant strolls, and general ease of body and soul! Farewell, donkeys, crabs, shrimps, rocks, seaweed, early walks, and natural conversation!
Now that those happy days are gone, I become aware that Jack and I did not half fill them. We might have got into so much ​more mischief, done so many more things, enjoyed ourselves twice as keenly. How shall we ever pull ourselves together by to-morrow? Morally speaking, we have fallen to pieces during the last fourteen days, but all that must be seen to at once. We must put on our stays, gird up our loins, and look sharply to our manners, morals, and clothes; the very expression of our faces must be altered, and our voices be brought down a great many notes. We must get out of that loose and ridiculous habit of laughing at everything and nothing; we must smooth the gay smiles out of our faces, and he or she who has any dimples must put them away for the present. The school-room must be set in order and some school books laid about to look as though they had been used, the dining-room must be polished till it winks again; James must be awakened from the sloth into which he has fallen, and the cook stirred up to punctuality; the fry must be promptly broken of the habit they have lately fallen into of tumbling down and cutting open their heads, noses, and legs; in short, the whole house and all that dwell therein must be thoroughly revised, weeded, and drilled against the ordeal of that awful to-morrow that is rushing upon us as fast as it can pelt. It does not seem half-an-hour ago that mother told us the news, and, lo! the night has passed away, the morning has come and gone, one o'clock has struck, and in the distance we hear the smart trot of horse's feet, and we know that behind that cheerful trot sits our uncheerful governor.
We are drawn up in well-brushed, well-scrubbed, solemn-faced ranks in the school-room. There is not one vagabond smile among the whole lot. And now he is in the hall, he is kissing mother, and in another minute stands before us. Why can I not infuse into my salute that warmth and alacrity that I did on wishing him good-bye on the Manor House doorstep? Why, indeed! As we pass in review before him, he looks at each from head to foot, but we all pass muster safely until he comes to the last of all, ​Alice. We know what is coming when his eye lights on a certain portion of that young woman's dress—nothing more or less, in short, than a crinoline row. The fact is Alice loves a big crinoline; papa, accustomed to the straight up and down charms of his mother and grandmother, hates it; and as sure as ever her petticoats swell beyond a certain limit, there is a fearful to-do, and the whole house is turned upside down, and out of windows. Now, Alice knows the length of tether permitted to her perfectly well, but she is under a mistaken impression that the more balloon-like her skirts, the more charming her pretty form appears; and when she wants to look particularly ravishing, puts on a little more crinoline, just as a South Sea islander puts on a little more paint: so that in the excitement and novelty of the Periwinkle life, she has forgotten her parent's little prejudices, and stands before him confessed in all her amplitude of five yards and a half.
It is odd that she should be caught, though, for her crinoline is like some magical flower that opens and shuts, expands and contracts, according to the state of the weather, i.e. papa's temper. If he is in an amiable or engrossed mood, she usually lets out an extra reef or two: if he is in a bad one, she collapses at a moment's notice, and looks like a folded butterfly: but Alice's admirers have evidently turned her ideas topsy-turvy.
"You disgusting spectacle!" says papa, deliberately looking at her from top to toe, "you object! Go to your room and take that vile barrel off, and if you ever dare appear before me in it again I'll pull it off and burn it."
Off goes Alice, whisking a pile of books from the table in her passage to the door: she does not mean to do it, poor, pretty Alice, it is only an evil trick played her by that fatal combination of whalebone and calico, but the governor thinks she does, and flies after her. Thank God, she is too old to have her ears boxed, and he soon returns: but, oh! we heartily wish we had no ears at all, ​as we sit for half an hour listening to his tirade against Alice, mother, Amberley, and his own evil fate in marrying to become the father of such a daughter. (It was the best thing he ever did in his life.)