Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine

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      "I could not wish a better time than when you are in a blaze of glory."

      The young man who spoke was Archelaus Tubb, son of the captain of the slate quarry. He was a simple, good-humoured, not clever young man. Strongly built, with sparkling eyes and a merry laugh, he was just such a fellow as would have made his way in the world, had he been endowed with wits. He was not absolutely stupid, but he was muddle-headed. He succeeded in nothing that he undertook. He had been apprenticed to a carpenter, and at the expiration of three years was unable even to make a gate.

      He tried his hand at gardening, and dug graves for potatoes, and put in bulbs upside down. He had faculties, but was incapable of applying them, or was too careless to call them together and concentrate them on his work. There seemed small prospect of his earning wage above that of a day-labourer.

      ​He had fair hair, an honest face, always on the alert for a laugh. As he had been unqualified for any trade, his father had given him work in the quarry, but therein he earned but a labourer's wage, fourteen shillings a week.

      Thomasine reseated herself on the lowest step but one, and put her feet on the lowest, and crossed her hands on her lap.

      "Arkie," said she; "I am going away from Court, the life here is too dull for me. I want to see the world."

      "Where are you going, Tamsin?"

      "Not to bury myself in a place where nothing is doing, again."

      "Nothing doing! There is plenty of work on a farm."

      "Work!" scorned Thomasine. "Who wants work now? not I—I want to go where there are murders and burglaries and divorces—into a place where there is life."

      "Queer sort of life that," said Archelaus, casting himself down on the lowest step.

      "I want to be where those things are done and talked about," said Thomasine; "what do I care about how the corn looks, and whether the sheep have the foot-rot, and what per stone is the price of bullocks? Now—you need not sit on my feet."

      "I will choose a higher step," said the lad; then he stepped past her, and seated himself on that above her.

      "Upon my word, Tamsin," he said, "you have wonderful hair. It is like mother's copper kettle new scoured, and spun into spiders' threads. Some red hair," continued he, "is coarse as wire, but this," he put his fingers through the splendid waves, "but this——"

      "Is not for you to meddle with," said Thomasine. "Shall I make my fortune with it in the world?"

      She stood up, and stepped past him, and seated herself on the step immediately above that he occupied.

      "In the world!" repeated Archelaus. "What world—— ​that where murders and burglaries and divorces are the great subject of talk?"

      "Aye—in the world where something is doing, where there is life, not in the world of mangold-wurzel."

      "I do not know, Tamsin," said the lad dispiritedly. "I hope not."

      "Why not? I am not happy here. I want to be where something is stirring. "Why," said Thomasine with a flash of anger in her cheek and eye and the tone of her voice—"Why am I to be a poor farm girl, and Miss Arminell Inglett to have all she wishes? She to be wealthy, and I to have nothing? She to be happy, and I wretched? I suppose I am good-looking, eh, Arkie?"

      "Of course you are," said he; "but, Tamsin, I cannot talk to you as you are behind me."

      "I do not care to see your face," said the girl, "the back of your collar and coat are enough for me. Is that your Sunday wide-awake?"

      "Yes—what have you against it?"

      "Only that there is a hole in it, there"—she thrust her finger through the gap in the crown, and touched his scalp.

      "I know there is, Tamsin; a coal bounced on to it from the fire."

      "Without bringing light to your brain."

      "I shall change my place," said Archelaus; he stood up, stepped past the girl, and seated himself above her.

      "Now," said he, "I can look down on, and seek for blemishes in your head."

      "You will find none there—eh! Arkie? Shall I make my fortune with my hair? Coin it into gold and wear purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day? That is what I want and will have, and I don't care how I get it; so long as I get it. My head and hair are not for you."

      ​Then she stood up, strode past Archelaus, and planted herself on the step higher than that he occupied.

      "This is a queer keeping company, tandem fashion, and changing the leader," laughed Archelaus.

      "We are not keeping company," answered Thomasine. "Tandem is best as we are, single best of all."

      "I don't see why we should not keep company," said the lad.

      "I do," answered Thomasine sharply; "have I not made it plain to you that I didn't want a life of drudgery, and that I choose to have a life in which I may amuse myself?"

      "Let us try to sit on the same step," said Archelaus, "and then we can discuss the matter together, better than as we are, with one turning the back on the other."

      "There is not room, Arkie."

      "I'll try it all events," said he, as he got up and seated himself beside her. "Now we are together, and can keep steady if one puts an arm round the other."

      "I will not be held by you," said she, and mounted to the step above; then she burst out laughing, and pointed. "Do y' look there," she said, "there is a keeping of company would suit you."

      She indicated a pair that approached the farm. The man was lame, with a bad hip, and his right hand was furnished with two fingers only—it was Samuel Ceely. His maimed hand was thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, and on his right arm rested the coarse red hand of Joan Melhuish.

      "Do y' look there!" exclaimed Thomasine, "are they not laughable? They have been courting these twenty years, and no nigher marriage now than when they began, it might be the same with us, were I fool enough to listen and wait for what you offer."

      "It is no laughing matter," said the lad, "it is sad."

      "It is sad that she should be such a fool! Will his ​fingers grow again, and his hip right itself? She should have looked about for another lover twenty years ago, now it is too late, and I take warning from her. You, Arkie, are like Samuel Ceely, not in body but in wits, crippled and limping there."

      "Tamsin!" exclaimed Arkie, "you shall not speak like that to me." He stood up and stepped to where she was, and seated himself again beside her. That was on the highest step, and they were now both with their backs to the granary door. He tried to take her hand.

      "No, Arkie," she said, "I speak seriously, I will not be your sweetheart. I like you well enough. You are a good-tempered, nice fellow, very good natured, and always cheerful, but I won't have you. I can't live on fourteen shillings a week, and I won't live in the country where there is nothing going on, but cows calving and turnips growing. СКАЧАТЬ