The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 37

"Our Bathsheba is of an inexhaustible good temper, stupid, and wonderfully stolid and gentle. She is never crusty, and is the untiring playmate of any child. The 'Lubber fiend' we call her sometimes in fun, for she seems to extend over acres of carpet when she takes a siesta in the drawing-room.

"'Has she a soul?' inquired a friend who admired the great gentle creature. 'I fear not,' was my reply; 'only a stomach.'

"Besides Bathsheba, we have a large retriever called 'Frolic.' He and Bath are given sometimes to running after people who go to the back door; they never bite, but growl, and bark if it is a complete stranger.

"On one occasion, an Irishman who had been employed to do some draining met with this hostile reception. ''Tis gude house-dogs,' said my guardian of the poultry grimly.

"On hearing that the Irishman had been frightened, I sought him, expressed to him my regrets, and said that, though big, the dogs were quite harmless. With ready wit he retorted: 'Begorra, it isn't dogs that I am afraid of, but your ladyship keeps lions.'"

"Just one more story," cry the children as I cease speaking, and Mrs.

Hamilton points to the clock, as their bedtime is long past. After a few minutes' pause, I continue:

"The other day I was told of a little girl who attended a distribution of prizes given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"She had won, you must know, a book as a reward for writing the best essay on the subject given, and, with the other successful children, was undergoing a _viva voce_ examination.

"'Well, my dear,' said the gentleman who had given away the prizes, 'can you tell me why it is cruel to dock horses' tails and trim dogs' ears?'

'Because,' answered the little girl, 'what G.o.d has joined together let no man put asunder.'"

An explosion of childish laughter follows my story, and then the little ones troop up in silence to bed. I sit on, quietly looking into the fire, and as I sit so the voices of my friends seem to grow distant, and I fall into a reverie.

[Sidenote: A Cornish story of a girl's sorrow.]

Daft Bess

BY

KATE BURNLEY BELT

Up and down the little pier they paced in quarter-deck fashion, each with his hands tucked deep down in the pockets of his sea-blanket coat, and his oilskin cap pulled well over his ears.

They were very silent in their walk, these three old men, who had watched the breakers come and go at Trewithen for over sixty years, and handled the ropes when danger threatened. Trewithen Cove had sheltered many a storm-driven ship within their memories, and there were grave-mounds in the churchyard on the cliff still unclaimed and unknown that had been built up by their hands.

Up and down, to and fro they went in the face of the flying spray, in spite of the deepening mist that was creeping up over the darkening sea.

Benjamin Blake--once the handiest craftsman in the cove--was the first to break the silence.

"'Tis a sa-ad night at sea, mates!" he shouted, and the roar of the waves nearly drowned the sound of his voice.

"Iss, tu be zure, Benjamin Blake!" shouted Tom Pemberthy in answer, "an'

'twill be a ba-ad job fer more'n wan boat, I reckin, 'gainst marnin'!"

Then Joe Clatworthy, whose opinions were valued highly in the settlement of all village disputes, so that he had earned for himself the nickname of "Clacking Joe," stood still as they once more turned their backs on the threatening sea, and said his say.

"A tell ee wot 'twill be, mates," he said solemnly and slowly. "You mark my wurrds ef it dawn't c.u.m truthy too,--there'll be terble loss uv li-ife out there tu-night," and he waved his hand towards the blackening sea, "an' us'll hev tu dig a fuu more graves, I reckin', c.u.m marnin'!"

"The Lard hev murcy!" said Benjamin Blake, and the three resumed their walk again.

Half an hour afterwards they were making their way along the one little street of which Trewithen boasted to their homes; for a storm--the roughest they had known for years--had burst overhead, and a man's life is a frail thing in the teeth of a gale.

At the top of the cliff and beyond Trewithen churchyard by the length of a field there stood a tiny cottage, in which lived Jacob Tresidder, fisherman, and his daughter Bess.

"Daft Bess" the children called her as they played with her on the sands, though she was a woman grown, and had hair that was streaked with white.

She was sitting now by the dying fire in the little kitchen listening to the storm without; the hands of the grandfather clock were nearing the midnight hour, and Jacob Tresidder lay in a sound sleep upstairs hearing nought. She was of the type of fisher-maid common to the depths of Cornwall. The soft rich colouring of her skin reminded one more of the sunny south, and her big brown eyes had always a glow in them.

To-night they were more luminous than ever as she sat by the fire watching the sparks flicker and die, as if the dawn of some hidden knowledge were being borne to them on the breath of the storm. The roar of the sea as it dashed up the face of the cliff seemed to soothe her, and she would smile and turn her ear to catch the sound of its breaking on the beach below.

And yet, seven years before, "Daft Bess" had been the brightest and prettiest girl in Trewithen, and the admiration of every lad in the country round! And Big Ben Martyn, who had a boat of his own, had been the pride of every girl! But he only cared for Bess and she for him. All their lives they had been together and loved,--and a simple, truthful love can only produce its own affinity, though in its travail it pa.s.s through pain and suffering, and, maybe, the laying down of life!

Ben Martyn was twenty-five, and his own master, when he asked Bess, who had just turned twenty, to be his wife.

"The cottage be waitin', Bess, my gurrl!" he whispered as they sat on the cliff in the summer night; she knitting as usual, and he watching the needles dart in and out. They were very silent in their love, these two, who had been lovers ever since they could paddle.

"'Tis so lawnly betimes!" he pleaded.

And Bess set his longing heart at rest.

"So soon as vather can spare I, Ben," she said; and she laid her knitting on the rock beside them, and drew his sea-tanned face close down beside her own. "Ee dawn't seek fer I more'n I seek fer ee, deary!"

and kissed him.

Thus they plighted their troth.

[Sidenote: One Dark Night]

Then came the winter and the hard work. And one dark stormy night, when the waves rose and fought till they nearly swept Trewithen out of sight, Ben Martyn was drowned.

He had been trying to run his boat into the shelter of the cove and failed, and in the morning his battered body lay high and dry on the quiet beach among the wreckage.

For weeks Bess lay in a high fever; and then, when the strain was greater than her tortured mind could bear, and she had screamed loud and long, something snapped in her brain and gave relief. But it left her without a memory, and with the ways and speech of a little child.

Her mind was a blank! She played with the seaweed and smiled, till the women's hearts were like to break for her, and the words stuck in the men's throats as they looked at her and talked.

"She be mazed, poor maid!" they said gently lest she should hear them.

"'Twould break Ben's heart ef ee knawed 'ur was so!"

That was seven long years ago. And to-night Bess seemed loth to leave the fire, but sat hugging her knees in a restless fashion, and staring at the blackening embers in a puzzled way. A tremendous blast struck the cottage, and nearly shook the kitchen window out of its fastenings. The wind came shrieking through the holes in the shutter like a revengeful demon, and retreated again with a melancholy groan.

It pleased Bess, and she hugged her knees the tighter, and turned her head and waited for the next loud roar. It came, and then another, and another, till it seemed almost impossible for the little cottage to hold out against its fury!

Then "Daft Bess" sprang from her seat with a cry of gladness, and ran out into the night!