Operas Every Child Should Know Part 18

"Martha--take it, if you please," Martha looked at him haughtily, and turned her back on him. Poor Lionel was distracted and abashed.

"Well, really, I don't--I don't know just what to do myself," he declared, as his brother snorted with satisfaction at Lionel's discomfiture.

"Well," said Lionel, hesitating a moment; then he took his hat and hung it up himself; then Plunkett picked up _his_ cloak and waited upon _him_self.

"A pretty kettle-of-fish, I should say," he muttered. "Well, then, to your spinning!"

"To our spinning?" they cried in unison.

"Yes, yes, to your spinning," Plunkett returned testily. "Do you expect to do nothing but entertain us with conversation? To your spinning, I said." Then all at once the women burst out laughing.

"Are ye good for nothing?" Plunkett shouted, in a greater rage. "Come, we've had enough of this! You go and bring those spindles," and Plunkett shouted this so loudly that the girls were downright frightened at last.

"Oh, do not scold us," Martha entreated, shrinking back.

"No, no, brother, let us be gentle."

"Stuff! Now, girls, you get at that spinning wheel as I tell you."

The two girls looked at each other. They no longer dared carry matters with a high hand, and yet how could they spin? They knew no more how to spin than did a couple of p.u.s.s.y-cats. After going up to the wheels and looking at them in wonder, they exclaimed:

"I can't."

"What?" yelled Plunkett.

"We--we don't know how."

"Well, upon my soul!" Plunkett cried. "Now you two sit down there as quick as you can." They sat as if they were shot. Plunkett seemed very much in earnest. "Now turn those wheels!"

"They--they will _not_ turn," they cried, trying and making an awful botch of it.

"Twist the thread," Lionel instructed with much anxiety.

"O Lord! It _won't_ twist, they _won't_ turn. Oh, good gracious! We can't! we can't do it at all."

"Now then, look at this," Plunkett cried, and he took Nancy from the chair, and seated himself at the spinning wheel; and Lionel unseated Martha--gently--and took her place, and then the fun began. "Now watch--and we will teach you something about this business."

This way set the wheel a-flying, Set it whirring, set it flying.

Work the treadle with a will.

While an even thread you're plying, Never let your wheel be still.

Come, you will not lose by trying, I can see you have good will.

And while the girls joined in this gay spinning song, the men buzzed an accompaniment of "Brr, brr, brr," and the fun waxed fast and furious, the men spinning faster and faster every moment, the girls becoming more and more excited with watching and trying to learn--because they now saw that there was nothing for them but to begin business; and more than this, they began almost to like the farmer chaps. After a moment, first one began to laugh, then another, till suddenly they all dragged off into a merry "ha, ha, ha!"

Look! How the busy task he's plying, Hercules is at the wheel; Look, I too can set it flying, Scold me if I do it ill

Nancy--or rather Julia--sang, as she took a turn at it. All had turned to fun and frolic, and now even Lady Harriet--or Martha--could not withstand the temptation to try her hand; so down she sat, and away she went spinning, and singing with the best of them. Suddenly Nancy upset her wheel, Plunkett gaily threatened her, and away she ran, with Plunkett chasing after her. In a minute they had disappeared, and Martha was left alone with Lionel.

"Nancy--Julia--where are you? here! don't leave me--" Martha cried.

"Have no fear, gentle girl," Lionel said, detaining her. "There is no one who will hurt you." Martha regarded him with some anxiety for a moment, then became rea.s.sured.

"No--I will not be afraid," she thought. "This stranger has a kind way with him. True, they are strange in their ways--to me--but then I am strange in my ways--to them."

"Come! I'll promise never to be impatient with you nor to scold you if you do not get things right. I am sure you will do your best," he gently insisted, trying to put her at her ease. "To tell the truth--I am desperately in love with you, Martha."

"Oh, good gracious--it is--so sudden----" she gasped, looking about for some chance of escape. "Don't, sir! I a.s.sure you I am the worst sort of servant. I have deceived you: as a matter of fact, I know almost nothing of housework or farm work--I----"

"Well, at least, you know how to laugh and while the time away. Never mind about the work--we shall get on; we'll let the work go. Only sing for me--come, let us be gay."

"Alas! I do not feel gay----"

"Then sing something that is not gay. Sing what you will--but sing,"

he urged. He was more in love with her every moment, and not knowing what else to do Martha sang--"'Tis the Last Rose of Summer!"

By the time the song was sung, Lionel had quite lost his head.

"Martha, since the moment I first saw thee, I have loved thee madly.

Be my wife and I will be your willing slave--you may count on me to do the spinning and everything else, if only you will be my wife. I'll raise thee to my own station." This was really too much. Martha looked at him in amazement.

"Raise me--er--" In spite of herself she had to laugh. Then, with a feeling of tenderness growing in her heart, she felt sorry for him.

"I am sorry to cause you pain, but really you don't know what you are saying. I----" And at this crisis Nancy and Plunkett came in, Plunkett raising a great to-do because Nancy had been hiding successfully from him, in the kitchen.

"She hasn't been cooking," he explained; "simply hiding--and I can't abide idle ways--never could--now what is wrong with you two?" he asks, observing the restraint felt by Lionel and Martha; but before any one could answer, midnight struck.

"Twelve o'clock!" all exclaimed.

"All good angels watch over thee," Lionel said impulsively to Martha, "and make thee less scornful."

For a moment, Plunkett looked thoughtful, then turning to Nancy he said manfully, while everybody seemed at pause since the stroke of midnight.

"Nancy, girl, you are not what I sought for--a good servant--but some way, I feel as if--as if as a wife, I should find thee a good one. I vow, I begin to love thee, for all of thy bothersome little ways."

"Well, well, good-night, good-night, sirs," Nancy cried hastily and somewhat disconcerted. To tell the truth, she had begun to think kindly of Plunkett. Plunkett went thoughtfully to the outer door and carefully locked it, then turned and regarded the girls who stood silently and a little sadly, apart.

"Good-night," he said: and Lionel looking tenderly at Martha murmured, "Good-night," and the two men went away to their own part of the house, leaving the girls alone.

"Nancy----" Martha whispered softly, after a moment.

"Madame?"

"What next?--how escape?"

"How can we go?"

"We must----"