A Canadian Heroine. Mrs. Harry Coghill

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ she said, "are you disposed to go with me?"

      "Most thankfully," he answered. "I have been listening to half-a-dozen cases of trespass, not a single word of which I could understand. It will be doing me the greatest kindness to take me into civilized society."

      "I thought," she said laughing, "that you came to the backwoods to escape civilized society."

      "If I did," he replied, handing her into the pony-carriage, "it is quite clear that I made a happy mistake."

      "I am going first," she said, as soon as Bob was fairly in motion, "to the Parsonage. Mr. and Mrs. Bayne were to have been with us yesterday, but one of the children was ill, and I must inquire after it."

      Mr. Percy's politeness just enabled him to suppress a groan. He had seen Mrs. Bayne once, and not been delighted—and a sick child! However, duty before all. They stopped at the gate of the Parsonage. It was a tolerably large house, standing on a sloping lawn, overlooking the river on one side and the little town on the other; but the lawn was entered only by a wicket, so that Bob had to be fastened to the railing, while the visitors walked up to the house.

      The moment they were seen approaching three or four children ran out of the hall, where they were playing, and fell upon Mrs. Bellairs.

      "Don't eat me," she cried, kissing them all in turn. "Which is the invalid? Where is mamma?"

      "It was Nina," shouted a chorus; "she fell into the river. Mamma's in the house."

      By this time they had reached the door, and Mrs. Bayne appeared, having been attracted by their voices. She was a little woman, thin and worn, so worn indeed, by many children and many cares, that she looked fifty instead of thirty-five. She had on a faded dress, and her collar and cuffs had been soiled and crumpled by the attacks of her younger boys and girls, especially the fat baby she held in her arms; but she had long ago ceased to be embarrassed by the shabbiness of her toilette, or the inevitable disorder of her sitting-room. She found seats for her guests, and to do so pushed into the background the baby's cradle and an old easy-chair, in which the luckless Nina was sitting bundled up in shawls.

      Mrs. Bellairs took the baby, which instantly became absorbed in trying to pull out the long feather of her hat, drew her chair close to the little invalid, and began to inquire into the accident. Mr. Percy, determined to make the best of his circumstances, endeavoured to make friends with the heir of the house, a sturdy boy of nine or ten, but as the young gentleman declined to do anything, except put his finger in his mouth and stare, he found himself without other occupation than that of listening to the conversation of the two ladies.

      "It was the night before last," Mrs. Bayne was saying; "they were playing on the bank, and Miss Nina chose to climb into a tree that overhangs the river. Of course when she got up, the most natural thing in the world was that she should slip down again, but unluckily she did not fall on the grass, but into the water."

      Mrs. Bellairs shuddered. "What an awful risk!"

      "My dear, they are always running risks. I am sure among the seven there is always one in danger."

      "Well?"

      "Well, Charlie ran to the study to his papa, and when Mr. Bayne went out, there was Nina, who had been partly stunned by her fall, beginning to float away with the current. Fortunately she had fallen in so near the edge that the water was very shallow, and if she had been in possession of her senses, she might have dragged herself out I dare say; but, you know, the current is very strong, and her papa had to get into the river a little lower down and catch her as she was passing."

      "And she was insensible?"

      "Not quite when they brought her in, but then unluckily her wetting brought on ague again, and she was shivering all night."

      "Poor Nina!" and Mrs. Bellairs turned to the miserable pale child, who looked as if another shivering fit were coming on. "You must make haste and get better, and come and stay with Flo for a while. We never have ague."

      "You are fortunate," sighed Mrs. Bayne. "I wish that wretched swamp could be done something to."

      "So do I, with all my heart. I must tease William into giving the people no rest until they do it."

      "You will be doing us and our poor neighbours at the shanties no small service. Ague is dreadfully bad there just now."

      A frantic pull at Mrs. Bellairs' hat from the baby interrupted the conversation, and the visitors rose to go.

      When they were once more on the road Mrs. Bellairs turned laughingly to her companion, "Tell me," she said, "don't you agree with me that a visit to the Parsonage furnishes a tolerably strong argument in favour of a clergy such as the Roman Catholic?"

      "That is, an unmarried one? Are many of your clergymen's wives like Mrs. Bayne?"

      "If you mean are they worn out, overworked women? Yes, I believe so. How can they help it indeed, when one hundred a year is a very ordinary amount for a clergyman's income?"

      Mr. Percy shrugged his shoulders. "I agree with you entirely. No man ought to marry under those circumstances. But I wish you would enlighten me on one point—what are shanties?"

      "Log-houses of the roughest possible kind, such as are built in the woods for the gangs of lumberers; that is, you know, the men who cut down the trees and prepare them for shipping."

      "But Mrs. Bayne said something about shanties near here."

      "Yes. Beyond their house, there lies, along the river, a swamp of no great extent, which ought to have been drained long ago. Beyond that, on the edge of the bush, is a large saw-mill, and the families of the men employed at this mill live in shanties close by. Every spring and autumn the sickness among them is terrible, and sometimes there are bad cases all through the summer. But you may imagine what it is among those people in their wretched damp, unventilated homes, when even the Baynes suffer as poor little Nina is doing now, and did most of the spring."

      "Delightful country!" said Mr. Percy, "and people positively like to live here."

      "Yes!" replied Mrs. Bellairs, with spirit, "and with good cause. As for what I have been telling you, has not England been quite as bad? I have heard that in Lincolnshire, and the adjoining counties, not a lifetime ago, ague was as prevalent as in our worst districts. The same means which destroyed it there, will do so here; the work is half accomplished already, for this very road on which we are driving was, twenty years ago, little better than a bog along which it was not safe for a horse to pass."

      "Wonderful energy your people must have, certainly. Where are we going next?"

      Mrs. Bellairs was provoked. She was an ardent lover of her country; and to talk of its advantages and disadvantages with an interested companion was to her a keen pleasure; the intense indifference of Mr. Percy's reply, therefore, made her regard him for a moment with anything but goodwill. She gave Bob a sharp "flick" with her whip, and paused a minute before answering; when she did speak, it was with a little malice.

      "I suppose you have not yet had time to call on Maurice Leigh? I can take you there now if you like. I often go to see old Mr. Leigh."

      "Thank you. I saw young Leigh just now at William's office."

      "I am going to the Cottage then, that is, Mrs. Costello's."

      They were almost at the turning of the lane as she spoke, and directly СКАЧАТЬ