The Seaboard Parish, Complete. George MacDonald

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      “Will you say it again, papa?” said Connie; “I do not quite understand it.”

      “I will, my dear. But I will do something better as well. I will go and write it out for you, as soon as I have given you something else that I have brought.”

      “Thank you, papa. And please write it in your best Sunday hand, that I may read it quite easily.”

      I promised, and repeated the poem.

      “I understand it a little better,” she said; “but the meaning is just like the primrose itself, hidden up in its green leaves. When you give it me in writing, I will push them apart and find it. Now, tell me what else you have brought me.”

      I was greatly pleased with the resemblance the child saw between the plant and the sonnet; but I did not say anything in praise; I only expressed satisfaction. Before I began my story, Wynnie came in and sat down with us.

      “I have been to see Miss Aylmer, this morning,” I said. “She feels the loss of her mother very much, poor thing.”

      “How old was she, papa?” asked Connie.

      “She was over ninety, my dear; but she had forgotten how much herself, and her daughter could not be sure about it. She was a peculiar old lady, you know. She once reproved me for inadvertently putting my hat on the tablecloth. ‘Mr. Shafton,’ she said, ‘was one of the old school; he would never have done that. I don’t know what the world is coming to.’ ”

      My two girls laughed at the idea of their papa being reproved for bad manners.

      “What did you say, papa?” they asked.

      “I begged her pardon, and lifted it instantly. ‘O, it’s all right now, my dear,’ she said, ‘when you’ve taken it up again. But I like good manners, though I live in a cottage now.’ ”

      “Had she seen better days, then?” asked Wynnie.

      “She was a farmer’s daughter, and a farmer’s widow. I suppose the chief difference in her mode of life was that she lived in a cottage instead of a good-sized farmhouse.”

      “But what is the story you have to tell us?”

      “I’m coming to that when you have done with your questions.”

      “We have done, papa.”

      “After talking awhile, during which she went bustling a little about the cottage, in order to hide her feelings, as I thought, for she has a good deal of her mother’s sense of dignity about her—but I want your mother to hear the story. Run and fetch her, Wynnie.”

      “O, do make haste, Wynnie,” said Connie.

      When Ethelwyn came, I went on.

      “Miss Aylmer was bustling a little about the cottage, putting things to rights. All at once she gave a cry of surprise, and said, ‘Here it is, at last!’ She had taken up a stuff dress of her mother’s, and was holding it in one hand, while with the other she drew from the pocket—what do you think?”

      Various guesses were hazarded.

      “No, no—nothing like it. I know you could never guess. Therefore it would not be fair to keep you trying. A great iron horseshoe. The old woman of ninety years had in the pocket of the dress that she was wearing at the very moment when she died, for her death was sudden, an iron horseshoe.”

      “What did it mean? Could her daughter explain it?”

      “That she proceeded at once to do. ‘Do you remember, sir,’ she said, ‘how that horseshoe used to hang on a nail over the chimneypiece?’ ‘I do remember having observed it there,’ I answered; ‘for once when I took notice of it, I said to your mother, laughing, “I hope you are not afraid of witches, Mrs. Aylmer?” And she looked a little offended, and assured me to the contrary.’ ‘Well,’ her daughter went on, ‘about three months ago, I missed it. My mother would not tell me anything about it. And here it is! I can hardly think she can have carried it about all that time without me finding it out, but I don’t know. Here it is, anyhow. Perhaps when she felt death drawing nearer, she took it from somewhere where she had hidden it, and put it in her pocket. If I had found it in time, I would have put it in her coffin.’ ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Do tell me the story about it, if you know it.’ ‘I know it quite well, for she told me all about it once. It is the shoe of a favourite mare of my father’s—one he used to ride when he went courting my mother. СКАЧАТЬ