The Cuckoo in the Nest (Romance Classic). Mrs. Oliphant

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      “Go to the parlour, Mr. Gervase; that’s your place and not here. If you will have beer in the morning, which is so bad for you, I’ll bring it presently; but you know father won’t have you here.”

      “If you’ll have me, I don’t mind old Hewitt, not that!” said Gervase, snapping his thumb and forefinger.

      “But I do,” said Patience, with a frown. “Old Hewitt is my father, and those that don’t speak respectful of him had better get out of here, and out of there, too. I won’t have a man in the house that don’t know how to behave himself, if he was a dozen times the squire’s son.”

      The young man in question was a lanky youth, long and feeble upon his legs, with light hair longer than is usual, and goggle eyes, in which there was no speculation. He was very much cowed by Patty’s energetic disapproval, and looked as if about to cry.

      “Don’t go on at me like that, Patty, don’t, now! I’ll swallow old Hewitt, dirty boots and all, before I’ll have you frown. And do, do have done with your sweepin’ and bring us the beer. I never feel right in the morning till I have had my beer.”

      “If you didn’t have too much at night, Mr. Gervase, you wouldn’t want it in the morning.”

      “Well, and whose fault is that? I’ll drink no more beer. I’ve promised you, if——”

      “If!” said Patty: “it’s a big ‘if.’ If I’ll take you up on my shoulders, that ain’t fit for such a job, and carry you through the world.”

      “Come, that’s too bad,” said the young man. “Do you think I can’t take care of my own wife! I never had any intentions that weren’t honourable, and that you well know.”

      “You well know,” cried Patty, with a flush of anger, “that the mere saying you hadn’t is enough for me to bundle you neck-and-crop out of this house, and never to speak to you again.”

      “Well!” said poor Gervase, “you’re hard to please. If he can’t say that he means well, I don’t know what a fellow may say.”

      “If I were in your place, I’d say as little as possible,” said the maid of the inn.

      “What a one you are!” cried the young squire, admiringly. “When we’re married I’ll let you do all the talking. You’ll bring round the father and mother a deal sooner than I should. Indeed, they never hearken to me; but, Patty, when you speak——”

      “What happens when I speak?”

      “The very rector turns round his head. I’ve seen him do it at the church door.”

      “Pooh! the rector!” said Patty. “Tell me something a little fresher than that.”

      For, in fact, this young woman scorned the rector as one whom she could turn round her little finger. Had not she, ever since the days when she was the quickest at her catechism, the readiest to understand everything, the sharpest to take any hint, the most energetic in action, been known as the rector’s favourite and ally in all parish matters for miles around?

      “Is that all you think of him? but he’s of as good a family as we are; and I shouldn’t wonder,” said the young man, with a giggle, “if Mrs. Bethell were to die, as folk say, that he mightn’t come a-wooing to Patty, of the Seven Thorns, same as me.”

      “I should like to know,” said Patty, sharply, “what kind of company you’ve been keeping, where they dare to speak of me as Patty of the Seven Thorns? And I suppose you didn’t knock the fellow down that said it, you poor creature! you’re not man enough for that, though I know some——” said Patty, with an air of defiance. She had by this time carried out all her operations, and even drawn the beer, and waved off the thirsty customer before her, driving him, as if he had been a flock of geese, into the parlour, with its newly-sanded floor.

      “There!” she said, setting down her tray with a little violence; “it’s good stuff enough, but it puts no more heart and strength into you than if you was a mouse. Too much is as bad, or maybe worse, than none at all. And, I tell you, I know some that would no more hear me named disrespectful like that—or any way but Miss Hewitt, Mr. Hewitt of the Seven Thorns’ daughter—than I would demean myself to carrying on like a barmaid with every one that comes for a glass of beer into this house.”

      “I beg your pardon, Patty,” said the young man; “I meant no harm. When you’re Mrs. Gervase Piercey there’s never one of them will dare mention your name without taking off his hat.”

      “Oh, you block!” cried Patty, exasperated. She paused, however, with an evident sense that to make her meaning clear to him would be impossible; yet added, after a moment, “If I can’t be respected as Miss Hewitt, I’ll never seek respect under no man’s name. There’s your beer, Mr. Gervase; and as soon as you’ve drunk it I advise you to go back to your parents, for you’ll get no more here.”

      “Oh! Patty, don’t you be so cruel.”

      “I’ll be as cruel as I think proper. And I’ll draw father’s beer for them as I think proper, and nobody else. You’re the spoiled child at the Hall, Mr. Gervase, but no one cares that for you here!”

      And she, too, snapped her thumb and forefinger, in scorn of any subjection to ordinary prejudices, and shone radiant, in her defiance, in the homely scene to which she gave so much life. Patty was not a beautiful girl, as perhaps you may suppose. She had bright eyes, very well able to flash with indignation when necessary, or even with rage. She had a fine country complexion, with the gift, which is not so usual among the lowly born, of changing colour as her sentiments changed: flashing forth in wrath, and calming down in peace; and when she was excited, with an angry sparkle in her eyes, and the colour rising and falling, there was a faux air of beauty about her, which impressed the minds of those who exposed themselves to any such blaze of resentment. Her features, however, were not very good, and there was a hardness in the lines, which, no doubt, would strengthen in later years. She had a trim figure, a brisk light step, an air of knowing her own mind, and fully intending to carry out all its purposes, which made a great impression upon the shiftless and languid generally, and upon Gervase Piercey in particular. Perhaps Patty had a little too much the air, in her sharp intelligence, of the conventional soubrette, to have charmed a squire’s son of greater intellectual perceptions. But Gervase knew nothing about soubrettes, or any other types, theatrical or otherwise. He knew vaguely what he saw, but no more; and that sharp intelligence, that brisk energy, that air of knowing her own mind, was more captivating to him than anything he had ever seen. He, whom everybody snubbed, who was accustomed to be laughed at, who knew so much as to know that he never knew what to do until somebody told him, and often did not understand what was wanted of him then—threw himself upon Patty with all the heavy weight of his nature. He had never seen anything so admirable, so strong, or so fair. She never was afraid to do whatever she had a mind to. She never stood swaying from one foot to another unable to make up her mind. She was all swiftness, firmness, alertness—ready for anything. He almost liked her to be angry with him, though it sometimes reduced him to abject despair, for the sake of that sparkle, that flush, that exhibition of high spirit. Nobody, Gervase felt, would “put upon him” while Patty was near; nobody would push him aside, bid him to get out of the way. Even his father did this; and, what was still more, his mother too, when exasperated. But they would not, if Patty was there. Gervase was not only in love with her, which he was to the full extent of his abilities in that way, but he felt that his salvation lay in Patty, and that, with her to back him up, nobody would trample upon him any more.

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