Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

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СКАЧАТЬ of never feeling frost again; and every bush, and tump, and hillock quite knows how to stand and look; when the creases of yellow grass, and green grass, by the roadside, leave themselves for explanation, till the rain shall settle it; and the thick hedge in the calm air cannot rustle, unless it holds a rabbit or a hare at play, – when all these things, in their quiet way, guide the shadowy lines of evening, and the long lanes of farewell, what can soothe the spirit more than the view of a boy on a donkey?

      Bonny, therefore, was in keeping with the world around him (as he always contrived to be) when he came home on Jack, that evening from a long day’s work at Shoreham. The lane was at its best almost, with all the wild flowers that love the chalk, mixed with those that hug the border where the chalk creams into loam. Among them Bonny whistled merrily, as his favourite custom was; to let the Pixies and the Fairies, ere he came under the gloom of the hill, understand that he was coming and nobody else to frighten them.

      Soothed with the beauty of the scene and the majesty of the sunset, Jack drew back his ears and listened drowsily to his master. “Britannia rule the waves” was then the anthem of the nation; and as she seemed to rule nothing else, though fighting very grandly, all patriotic Britons found main comfort in commanding water.

      The happiness of this boy and donkey was of that gleeful see-saw chancing, which is the heartiest of all. This has a snugness of its own, which nothing but poverty can afford, and luck rejoice to revel in. As a rich man hugs his shivers, when he has taken a sudden chill, and huddles in over a roaring fire, and boasts that he cannot warm himself, so a poor fellow may cuddle his home, and spread his legs as he pleases, for the sake of its very want of comfort, and the things it makes him think of; all to be hoped for by-and-by. And Bonny was so destitute, that he had all the world to hope for. He lived in a hole in the scarp of chalk, at the foot of the gully of Coombe Lorraine; and many of his delightful doings might have been seen from the lofty windows, if anyone ever had thought it worth while to slope a long telescope at him. But nobody cared to look at Bonny and scatter his lowly happiness – than which there is no more fugitive creature, and none more shy of inspection.

      Being of a light and dauntless nature, Bonny kept whistling and singing his way, over the grass and through the furze, and in and out the dappled leafage of the summer evening; while Jack, with his brightest blinkings, picked the parts of the track that suited him. The setting sun was in their eyes, and made them wink every now and then, and threw the shadow of long ears, and walking legs, and jogging heads, here and there and anywhere. Also a very fine lump of something might in the shadows be loosely taken to hang across Jack in his latter parts, coming after Bonny’s legs, and choice things stowed in front of them.

      The meaning of this was that they had been making a very lucky ’long-shore day at the mouth of the river Adur; and on their way home had received some pleasing tribute to their many merits in the town of Steyning, and down the road. Jack had no panniers, for his master could not provide such luxuries; but he had what answered as well, or better – a long and trusty meal-sack, strongly stitched at the mouth, and slit for inlet some way down the middle. So that as it hung well balanced over his sturdy quarters, anything might be popped in quickly; and all the contents must abide together, and churn up into fine tenderness.

      As for Bonny himself, the shadows did him strong injustice, such as he was wont to take from all the world, and make light of. The shadows showed him a ragged figure, flapping and flickering here and there, and random in his outlines. But the true glow of the sunset, full upon his face, presented quite another Bonny. No more to be charged as a vagabond than the earth and the sun himself were; but a little boy who loved his home, such as it was, and knew it, and knew little else. Dirty, perhaps, just here and there, after the long dry weather – but if he had been ugly, could he have brought home all that dripping?

      To the little fellow himself as yet the question of costume was more important than that of comeliness. And his dress afforded him many sources of pride and self-satisfaction. For his breeches were possessed of inexhaustible vitality, as well as bold and original colour, having been adapted for him by the wife of his great patron, Bottler the pigman, from a pair of Bottler’s leggings, made of his own pigskin. The skin had belonged, in the first place, to a very remarkable boar, a thorough Calydonian hog, who escaped from a farm-yard, and lived for months a wild life in St. Leonard’s Forest. Here he scared all the neighbourhood, until at last Bottler was invoked to arise like Meleager, and to bring his pig-knife. Bottler met him in single combat, slew him before he had time to grunt, and claiming him as the spoils of war, pickled his hams at his leisure. Then he tanned the hide which was so thick that it never would do for cracklings, and made himself leggings as everlasting as the fame of his exploit.

      With these was Bonny now endued over most of his nether moiety. Shoes and stockings he scorned, of course, but his little shanks were clean and red, while his shoulders and chest were lost in the splendour of a coachman’s crimson waistcoat. At least they were generally so concealed when he set forth in the morning, for he picked up plenty of pins, and showed some genius in arranging them; but after a hard day’s work, as now, air and light would always reassert their right of entrance. Still, there remained enough of the mingled charm of blush and plush to recall in soft domestic bosoms bygone scenes, for ever past – but oh, so sweet among the trays!

      To judge him, however, without the fallacy of romantic tenderness – the breadth of his mouth, and the turn of his nose, might go a little way against him. Still, he had such a manner of showing bright white teeth in a jocund grin, and of making his frizzly hair stand up, and his sharp blue eyes express amazement, at the proper moment; moreover, his pair of cheeks was such (after coming off the downs), and his laugh so dreadfully infectious, and he had such tales to tell – that several lofty butlers were persuaded to consider him.

      Even the butler of Coombe Lorraine – but that will come better hereafter. Only as yet may be fairly said, that Bonny looked up at the house on the hill with a delicate curiosity; and felt that his overtures might have been somewhat ungraceful, or at least ill-timed, when the new young footman (just taken on) took it entirely upon himself to kick him all the way down the hill. This little discourtesy, doubling of course Master Bonny’s esteem and regard for the place, at the same time introduced some constraint into his after intercourse. For the moment, indeed, he took no measures to vindicate his honour; although, at a word (as he knew quite well), Bottler, the pigman, would have brought up his whip and seen to it. And even if any of the maids of the house had been told to tell Miss Alice about it, Bonny was sure of obtaining justice, and pity, and even half-a-crown.

      Quick as he was to forget and forgive the many things done amiss to him, the boy, when he came to the mouth of the coombe, looked pretty sharply about him for traces of that dreadful fellow, who had proved himself such a footman. With Jack to help him, with jaw and heel, Bonny would not have been so very much afraid of even him; such a “strong-siding champion” had the donkey lately shown himself. Still, on the whole, and after such a long day’s work by sea and shore, the rover was much relieved to find his little castle unleaguered.

      The portal thereof was a yard in height, and perhaps fifteen inches wide; not all alike, but in and out, according to the way the things, or the boy himself, went rubbing it. A holy hermit once had lived there, if tradition spoke aright. But if so, he must have been as narrow of body to get in, as wide of mind to stop there. At any rate, Bonny was now the hermit, and less of a saint than a sinner.

      The last glance of sunset was being reflected under the eaves of twilight, when these two came to their home and comfort in the bay of the quiet land. From the foot of the steep white cliff, the green sward spread itself with a gentle slope, and breaks of roughness here and there, until it met the depth of cornland, where the feathering bloom appeared – for the summer was a hot one – reared upon its jointed stalk, and softened into a silver-grey by the level touch of evening. The little powdered stars of wheat bloom could not now be seen, of course; neither the quivering of the awns, nor that hovering radiance, which in the hot day moves among them. Still the scent was on the air, the delicate fragrance of the wheat, only caught by waiting for it, when the hour is genial.

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