The White Peacock Part 61

"Silly boy-no, it's myself."

"I'm sure I've made no complaint about you."

"Not likely-but I wish you'd let me go."

"I'm a strong man to hold you, aren't I? Look at my muscular paw!"-he held out his hands, frail and white with sickness.

"You know you hold me-and I want you to let me go. I don't want to--"

"To what?"

"To get married at all-let me be, let me go."

"What for?"

"Oh-for my sake."

"You mean you don't love me?"

"Love-love-I don't know anything about it. But I can't-we can't be-don't you see-oh, what do they say,-flesh of one flesh."

"Why?" he whispered, like a child that is told some tale of mystery.

She looked at him, as he lay propped upon his elbow, turning towards hers his white face of fear and perplexity, like a child that cannot understand, and is afraid, and wants to cry. Then slowly tears gathered full in her eyes, and she wept from pity and despair.

This excited him terribly. He got up from his chair, and the cushions fell on to the gra.s.s:

"What's the matter, what's the matter!-Oh, Lettie,-is it me?-don't you want me now?-is that it?-tell me, tell me now, tell me,"-he grasped her wrists, and tried to pull her hands from her face. The tears were running down his cheeks. She felt him trembling, and the sound of his voice alarmed her from herself. She hastily smeared the tears from her eyes, got up, and put her arms round him. He hid his head on her shoulder and sobbed, while she bent over him, and so they cried out their cries, till they were ashamed, looking round to see if anyone were near. Then she hurried about, picking up the cushions, making him lie down, and arranging him comfortably, so that she might be busy. He was querulous, like a sick, indulged child. He would have her arm under his shoulders, and her face near his.

"Well," he said, smiling faintly again after a time. "You are naughty to give us such rough times-is it for the pleasure of making up, bad little Schnucke-aren't you?"

She kept close to him, and he did not see the wince and quiver of her lips.

"I wish I was strong again-couldn't we go boating-or ride on horseback-and you'd have to behave then. Do you think I shall be strong in a month? Stronger than you?"

"I hope so," she said.

"Why, I don't believe you do, I believe you like me like this-so that you can lay me down and smooth me-don't you, quiet girl?"

"When you're good."

"Ah, well, in a month I shall be strong, and we'll be married and go to Switzerland-do you hear, Schnucke-you won't be able to be naughty any more then. Oh-do you want to go away from me again?"

"No-only my arm is dead," she drew it from beneath him, standing up, swinging it, smiling because it hurt her.

"Oh, my darling-what a shame! oh, I am a brute, a kiddish brute. I wish I was strong again, Lettie, and didn't do these things."

"You boy-it's nothing." She smiled at him again.

CHAPTER VI

THE COURTING

During Leslie's illness I strolled down to the mill one Sat.u.r.day evening. I met George tramping across the yard with a couple of buckets of swill, and eleven young pigs rushing squealing about his legs, shrieking in an agony of suspense. He poured the stuff into a trough with luscious gurgle, and instantly ten noses were dipped in, and ten little mouths began to s...o...b..r. Though there was plenty of room for ten, yet they shouldered and shoved and struggled to capture a larger s.p.a.ce, and many little trotters dabbled and spilled the stuff, and the ten sucking, clapping snouts twitched fiercely, and twenty little eyes glared askance, like so many points of wrath. They gave uneasy, gasping grunts in their haste. The unhappy eleventh rushed from point to point trying to push in his snout, but for his pains he got rough squeezing, and sharp grabs on his ears. Then he lifted up his face and screamed screams of grief and wrath unto the evening sky.

But the ten little gluttons only twitched their ears to make sure there was no danger in the noise, and they sucked harder, with much spilling and s...o...b..ng. George laughed like a sardonic Jove, but at last he gave ear, and kicked the ten gluttons from the trough, and allowed the residue to the eleventh. This one, poor wretch, almost wept with relief as he sucked and swallowed in sobs, casting his little eyes apprehensively upwards, though he did not lift his nose from the trough, as he heard the vindictive shrieks of ten little fiends kept at bay by George. The solitary feeder, shivering with apprehension, rubbed the wood bare with his snout, then, turning up to heaven his eyes of grat.i.tude, he reluctantly left the trough. I expected to see the ten fall upon him and devour him, but they did not; they rushed upon the empty trough, and rubbed the wood still drier, shrieking with misery.

"How like life," I laughed.

"Fine litter," said George; "there were fourteen, only that d.a.m.ned she-devil, Circe, went and ate three of 'em before we got at her."

The great ugly sow came leering up as he spoke.

"Why don't you fatten her up, and devour her, the old gargoyle? She's an offence to the universe."

"Nay-she's a fine sow."

I snorted, and he laughed, and the old sow grunted with contempt, and her little eyes twisted towards us with a demoniac leer as she rolled past.

"What are you going to do to-night!" I asked. "Going out?"

"I'm going courting," he replied, grinning.

"Oh!-wish _I_ were!"

"You can come if you like-and tell me where I make mistakes, since you're an expert on such matters."

"Don't you get on very well then?" I asked.

"Oh, all right-it's easy enough when you don't care a d.a.m.n. Besides, you can always have a Johnny Walker. That's the best of courting at the Ram Inn. I'll go and get ready."

In the kitchen Emily sat grinding out some st.i.tching from a big old hand-machine that stood on the table before her: she was making shirts for Sam, I presumed. That little fellow, who was installed at the farm, was seated by her side firing off words from a reading book. The machine rumbled and rattled on, like a whole factory at work, for an inch or two, during which time Sam shouted in shrill explosions like irregular pistol shots: "Do-not-pot--" "Put!" cried Emily from the machine; "put--" shrilled the child, "the soot-on-my-boot,"--there the machine broke down, and, frightened by the sound of his own voice, the boy stopped in bewilderment and looked round.

"Go on!" said Emily, as she poked in the teeth of the old machine with the scissors, then pulled and prodded again. He began "-boot-but-you--" here he died off again, made nervous by the sound of his voice in the stillness. Emily sucked a piece of cotton and pushed it through the needle.

"Now go on," she said, "-'but you may'."

"But-you-may-shoot":-he shouted away, rea.s.sured by the rumble of the machine: "Shoot-the-fox. I-I-It-is-at-the-rot--"

"Root," shrieked Emily, as she guided the stuff through the doddering jaws of the machine.

"Root," echoed the boy, and he went off with these crackers: "Root-of-the-tree."

"Next one!" cried Emily.