Greene Ferne Farm. Richard Jefferies

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СКАЧАТЬ open view of the vale. The pool almost surrounded the garden—part moat, part fishpond, part mill-pool—and was crossed by a wooden bridge. There the moorhens swam and threw up their white-marked tails as they thrust their beaks under water; the timid dab-chick, which no familiarity with man can reassure, dived at the faintest footstep; the pike basked in the sunshine warming his cold blood, and the sturdy perch with tremulous tail faced the slow stream. By the stones of the sluice dark-green ferns flourished exceedingly. The sheep crept along the steep coombe-side cropping the short sweet grass; the shepherd sat on the edge and cut his own and his sweetheart’s name in the turf. Time was when Andrew could run up the hill there light as a hare. Now his slow walk, hard bearing on blackthorn staff, in summer went no farther than the green before the porch, where the sundial stood with the motto on its brazen face, bidding men to number none but the happy hours, and to forget the dark and shadowy—a bitter mockery at fourscore and ten. In winter he crept twice or thrice a day across the courtyard to the barn, where, despite steam, he kept three old men at work on the threshing-floor—not for charity, but because he liked to listen to the knock-knock of the flails.

      Ever round and round, without haste and without rest, went the massive wheel in the mill—ceaseless as the revolving firmament—to the clack of the noisy hopper and creak of the iron gudgeons, and the flousing splash of the mill-race. Hard as his own nether millstone was the heart of Andrew Fisher: does time soften the gnarled stem of the oak?

      So he sat by the open window in his beehive chair that summer afternoon drowsily listening to the mill. In the window was the escutcheon of his family in coloured glass, and the name “Fischere” in old-fashioned letters. Fishere of the Warren was fined one hundred pounds as a noted malignant in the days of fear and trembling that followed Worcester fight.

      The shadow stole forward on the dial, and there came the dull hollow sound of horse’s hoofs passing over the wooden bridge. Presently Jane the housekeeper, who, by virtue of her necessity to him in his infirmities, used no ceremony nor courtesy of speech, came in.

      “There be a paason wants to see thee,” said she.

      No answer.

      “Dost hear?”

      A grunt.

      “Wake up!”—shaking him.

      He struck at her with his blackthorn that ever lay between his knees.

      “Thee nistn’t hoopy at I—I can hyar as well as thee,” he growled.

      “A paason wants to see thee.”

      “Axe un in.”

      “Come in, you!” shouted the old hag, without going to the door. “Shall I put thee jug away?” This to Andrew, and meaning the jug of weak gin-and-water which he kept constantly by him to sip.

      “Let un bide.”

      Felix St. Bees came into the room. He had ridden up to ask for the hand of May, his darling. It was not a reception to encourage a lover.

      “Good afternoon, sir,” said Felix.

      “Arternoon to ee.” To Jane, “Who be it?”

      “Dunno.”

      “What’s your wull wi’ I?”

      “I want a little private conversation with you, sir.”

      “Get out, you!” to the ancient hag, who reluctantly walked from the room, but left the door ajar.

      “Wull ee shut the door?”

      Felix went and closed it. “This is a fine old house,” he began, trying to get en rapport before opening his mission.

      “Aw, eez.”

      “And a beautiful view.”

      “Mebbe.”

      “You have had great experience of life, sir.”

      “Likely zo.”

      Andrew had had a good education in his youth, but lapsed two generations ago into broad provincialism. Now it had got about (as such things will) that Andrew was backing Val Browne’s dark horse heavily, and May was anxious about her grandfather’s intercourse with the trainer, who, except in his employer’s eyes, was far from perfect. She dreaded lest he should be cheated and lose the money—not so much for the sake of the amount, but because at his age and with his terrible temper it was impossible to say what effect it might have upon his health. So Felix, as a clergyman, wished to warn the aged man; but a little nervous (as might be pardoned under the circumstances) he did not, perhaps, go about it the right way.

      “And you have seen, sir, how uncertain everything is—even the crops.”

      “Wheat be vine to year.”

      “Well, even your mill-wheel stops sometimes from accidents, I suppose.”

      “Aw, a’ reckon ull last my time. Wull ee drenk?”

      “No, thank you. The fact is I’m anxious to warn you about betting on Mr. Browne’s horse. He is upright—but—”

      “Hum!”

      In the depths of his beehive chair the glitter of the old man’s grey eye was not observed by Felix.

      “As you cannot get about and see for yourself, it seemed my duty to say something—for Miss Fisher’s sake.”

      “Aw!” ominously low and deep.

      “I say for Miss Fisher’s sake, because I am in hopes, with your permission, to visit her as her—her future husband, and as I am sure her happiness and—”

      Crash!

      The blackthorn whizzed by St. Bees’ head and smashed the jug on the table.

      “Jim! Bill! Jane! Jack!” shouted the old man, starting out of his chair, purple in the face. “Drow this veller out! Douse un in th’ hog-vault! Thee nimity-pimity odd-me-dod! (Little contemptible scarecrow) I warn thee’d like my money! Drot thee and thee wench!”

      Poor Felix could do nothing but beat a retreat with half a dozen grinning chawbacons watching him over the bridge. On hearing their master’s angry voice in the porch, they ran together from the rick-yard in the rear. For some distance Felix could hear the old man howling and telling the men to “zet th’ dogs at un.” When he got fairly out of sight of the mill his indignation disappeared in his sense of the ludicrous, and he burst into a hearty fit of laughter, and then sobered down again. “For,” thought he, “it is a wholesome doctrine—reverence for old age; and yet how little there is to revere! Ask this aged man’s advice—you would suppose he would tell you of the vanity of the world, and instruct you to turn your mind to higher things. Not at all; he would say, ‘Get money; dismiss all generous feelings: get money.’ In the last decade of a century of life his avarice prompts him to risk heavy sums on this horse. But I must write and explain that I do not want his hoards.”

      Calling at Greene Ferne on the way home to see May, he found everyone discussing the attitude of the labourers on the farm, who seemed inclined to neglect СКАЧАТЬ