Out in the Forty-Five Part 2

"Not just what?" says my Aunt Kezia.

"Ye'll be best to find oot for yersel, Mrs Kezia, I'm thinkin'."

And off trudged Sam after jelly, and we got no more out of him.

I wonder where the living creature is that could stand Hatty! There was I at work this morning in the parlour, when in she came--there were Sophy and f.a.n.n.y too--holding up something above her head.

"'Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride!'" sang Hatty. "Look what I've found, just now, in the garret! Oh yes, Miss Caroline, you can look too."

"Hatty, if you don't give me that book this minute--!" cried I. "I did think I had hidden it out of search of your prying fingers."

"Dear, yes, and of my bright eyes, I feel no doubt," laughed Hatty.

"You are not quite so clever as you fancy, Miss Caroline. Carlisle is a charming city, but it does not hold all the brains in the world."

"What is it, Hatty?" said Sophy. "Don't tease the child."

"Wait a little, Miss Sophia, if you please. This is a most interesting and savoury volume, wherein Miss Caroline Courtenay sets down her convictions on all manner of subjects in general, and her unfortunate sisters in particular. I find--"

"Hatty, do be reasonable, and give the child her book," said f.a.n.n.y. "It is a shame!"

"Oh, you keep one too, do you, Miss Frances?" laughed Hatty. "I had my suspicions, I will own."

"What do you mean?" said f.a.n.n.y, flushing.

"Only that the rims of your pearly ears would not be quite so ruddy, my charmer, if you were not in like case. Well, I find from this book that we are none of us perfect, but so far as I can gather, f.a.n.n.y comes nearest the angelic world of any of us. As to--"

"Hatty, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you have been so dishonourable as to read what was not meant for any one to see."

"My beloved Sophy, don't halloo till you are out of the wood. And you are not out, by any means. You are vulgar and ill-bred, my dear; you say 'coom' and 'boot,' and you are only fit to marry a country curate, and cut out shirts and roll pills."

"I say what?" asked Sophy, disregarding the other particulars.

"You say 'coom' and 'boot,' my darling, and it ought to be 'kem' and 'bet'," said Hatty, with such an affected p.r.o.nunciation that Sophy and f.a.n.n.y both burst out laughing.

"What do you mean?" said Sophy amid her laughter.

"Then--f.a.n.n.y, my dear, you are not to escape! You are better bred than Sophy, because you take castor oil--"

"Hatty, what nonsense you are talking!" I cried, unable to endure any longer. But Hatty went on, taking no notice.

"But you drop your r's, deah, and say deah Caroline,--(can't manage it right, my dear!)--and you are slow and affected."

"Hatty, you know I never said so!" I screamed.

"Then as to me," pursued Hatty, casting her eyes up to the ceiling, "as to poor me, I am--well, not one of the angels, on any consideration. I tease my sweetest sister in the most cruel manner--"

"Well, that is true, Hatty, if nothing else is," said f.a.n.n.y.

"I have 'horrid glazed red cheeks,' and I eat like a plough-boy; and I don't take castor oil. Castor oil is evidently one of the Christian graces."

"How can you be so ridiculous!" said Sophy. "See, you have made the poor child cry."

"With pa.s.sion, my dear, which is a very wicked thing, as I am sure my Aunt Kezia would tell her. A little castor oil would--"

"What is that about your Aunt Kezia?" came in another voice from the doorway.

Oh, I was so glad to see her!

"Hoity-toity! why, what is all this, girls?" said she, severely.

"Hester, what are you doing? What is Cary crying for?"

"Hatty is teasing her, Aunt," said f.a.n.n.y. "She is always doing it, I think."

"Give me that book, Hester," said my Aunt Kezia; and Hatty pa.s.sed it to her without a word. "Now, whom does this book belong?"

"It is mine, Aunt Kezia," I said, as well as my sobs would let me; "and Hatty has found it, and she is teasing me dreadfully about it."

"What is it, my dear?" said my Aunt Kezia.

"It is my diary, Aunt Kezia; and I did not want Hatty to get hold of it."

"She says such things, Aunt Kezia, you can't imagine, about you and all of us."

"I am sure I never said anything about you, Aunt Kezia," I sobbed.

"If you did, my dear, I dare say it was nothing worse than all of you have thought in turn," saith my Aunt Kezia, drily. "Hester, you will go to bed as soon as the dark comes. Take your book, Cary; and remember, my dear, whenever you write in it again, that G.o.d is looking at every word you write."

Hatty made a horrid face at me behind my Aunt Kezia's back; but I don't believe she really cared anything about it. She went to bed, of course; and it is dark now by half-past five. But she was not a bit daunted, for I heard her singing as she lay in bed, "Fair Rosalind, in woful wise," [Note 2.] and afterwards, "I ha'e nae kith, I ha'e nae kin."

[Note 3.] If Father had heard that last, my Aunt Kezia would have had to forgive her and let her off the rest of her sentence.

I have found a new hiding-place for my book, where I do not think Hatty will find it in a hurry. But when I sit down to write now, my Aunt Kezia's words come back to me with an awful sound. "G.o.d is looking at every word you write!" I suppose it is so: but somehow I never rightly took it in before. I hardly think I should have written some words if I had. Was that what my Aunt Kezia meant?

Note 1. This and similar expressions are Northern provincialisms.

Note 2.

"Fair Rosalind, in woful wise, Six hearts has bound in thrall; As yet she undetermined lies Which she her spouse shall call."

Note 3. Perhaps the most plaintive and poetical of all the popular Jacobite ballads.

CHAPTER TWO.

TAWNY EYES.