from Portugal, you know. He is there – first-rate business, and will make his fortune, which is more than his father ever did.”
Mr. Menaida went to a closet, and produced a bottle.
“Come here, Jamie. I know what is good for you.”
“No – please, Mr. Menaida, do not. He has not been accustomed to anything of the sort. Please not, sir.”
“Fudge!” said Uncle Zachie, holding up a glass and pouring cherry-brandy into it. “What is your age? – seventeen or eighteen, and I am fifty-two. I have over thirty years’ more experience of the world than you. Jamie, don’t be tied to your sister’s apron-string. I know what is best for you. Girls drink water, men something better. Come here, Jamie!”
“No, sir – I beseech you.”
“Bless my soul! I know what is good for him. Come to me, Jamie. Look the other way, Judith, if I cannot persuade you.”
Judith sighed, and covered her face with her hands. There was to be no help, no support in Uncle Zachie. On the contrary, he would break down her power over Jamie.
“Jamie,” she said, “if you love me, go up-stairs.”
“Presently, Ju. I want that first.” And he took it, ran to his sister, and said:
“It is good, Ju!”
“You have disobeyed me, Jamie – that is bad.”
She stood on the threshold of further trouble, and she knew it.
CHAPTER VII
A VISIT
No sleep visited Judith’s eyes that night till the first streaks of dawn appeared, though she was weary, and her frail body and over-exerted brain needed the refreshment of sleep. But sleep she could not, for cares were gathering upon her.
She had often heard her father, when speaking of Mr. Menaida, lament that he was not a little more self-controlled in his drinking. It was not that the old fellow ever became inebriated, but that he hankered after the bottle, and was wont to take a nip continually to strengthen his nerves, steady his hand, or clear his brain. There was ever ready some excuse satisfactory to his own conscience; and it was due to these incessant applications to the bottle that his hand shook, his eyes became watery, and his nose red. It was a danger Judith must guard against, lest this trick should be picked up by the childish Jamie, always apt to imitate what he should not, and acquire habits easily gained, hardly broken, that were harmful to himself. Uncle Zachie, in his good-nature, would lead the boy after him into the same habits that marred his own life.
This was one thought that worked like a mole all night in Judith’s brain; but she had other troubles as well to keep her awake. She was alarmed at the consequences of her conduct in the lane. She wondered whether Coppinger were more seriously hurt than had at first appeared. She asked herself whether she had not acted wrongly when she acted inconsiderately, whether in her precipitation to protect herself she had not misjudged Coppinger, whether, if he had attempted to strike her, it would not have been a lesser evil to receive the blow, than to ward it off in such a manner as to break his bones. Knowing by report the character of the man, she feared that she had incurred his deadly animosity. He could not, that she could see, hurt herself in the execution of his resentment, but he might turn her aunt out of his house. That she had affronted her aunt she was aware; Mrs. Trevisa’s manner in parting with her had shown that with sufficient plainness.
A strange jumble of sounds on the piano startled Judith. Her first thought and fear were that her brother had gone to the instrument, and was amusing himself on the keys. But on listening attentively she was aware that there was sufficient sequence in the notes to make it certain that the performer was a musician, though lacking in facility of execution. She descended the stairs and entered the little sitting-room. Uncle Zachie was seated on the music-stool, and was endeavoring to play a sonata of Beethoven that was vastly beyond the capacity of his stiff-jointed fingers. Whenever he made a false note he uttered a little grunt and screwed up his eyes, endeavored to play the bar again, and perhaps accomplish it only to break down in the next.
Judith did not venture to interrupt him. She took up some knitting, and seated herself near the piano, where he might see her without her disturbing him. He raised his brows, grunted, floundered into false harmony, and exclaimed, “Bless me! how badly they do print music nowadays. Who, without the miraculous powers of a prophet, could tell that B should be natural?” Then, turning his head over his shoulder, addressed Judith, “Good-morning, missie. Are you fond of music?”
“Yes, sir, very.”
“So you think. Everyone says he or she is fond of music, because that person can hammer out a psalm tune or play the ‘Rogue’s March.’ I hate to hear those who call themselves musical strum on a piano. They can’t feel, they only execute.”
“But they can play their notes correctly,” said Judith, and then flushed with vexation at having made this pointed and cutting remark. But it did not cause Mr. Menaida to wince.
“What of that? I give not a thank-you for mere literal music-reading. Call Jump, set ‘Shakespeare’ before her, and she will hammer out a scene – correctly as to words; but where is the sense? Where the life? You must play with the spirit and play with the understanding also, as you must read with the spirit and read with the understanding also. It is the same thing with bird-stuffing. Any fool can ram tow into a skin and thrust wires into the neck, but what is the result? You must stuff birds with the spirit and stuff with the understanding also – or it is naught.”
“I suppose it is the same with everything one does – one must do it heartily and intelligently.”
“Exactly! Now you should see my boy, Oliver. Have you ever met him?”
“I think I have; but, to be truthful, I do not recollect him, sir.”
“I will bring you his likeness – in miniature. It is in the next room.” Up jumped Mr. Menaida, and ran through the opening in the wall, and returned in another moment with the portrait, and gave it into Judith’s hands.
“A fine fellow is Oliver! Look at his nose how straight it is. Not like mine – that is a pump-handle. He got his good looks from his mother, not from me. Ah!” He reseated himself at the piano, and ran – incorrectly – over a scale. “It is all the pleasure I have in life, to think of my boy, and to look at his picture, and read his letters, and drink the port he sends me – first-rate stuff. He writes admirable letters, and never a month passes but I receive one. It would come expensive if he wrote direct, so his letter is enclosed in the business papers sent to the house at Bristol, and they forward it to me. You shall read his last – out loud. It will give me a pleasure to hear it read by you.”
“If I read properly, Mr. Menaida – with the spirit and with the understanding.”
“Exactly! But you could not fail to do that looking at the cheerful face in the miniature, and reading his words – pleasant and bright as himself. Pity you have not seen him; well, that makes something to live for. He has dark hair and blue eyes – not often met together, and when associated, very refreshing. Wait! I’ll go after the letter: only, bless my soul! where is it? What coat did I have on when I read it? I’ll call Jump. She may remember. Wait! do you recall this?”
He stumbled over something on the keys which might have been anything.
“It is Haydn. I will tell you what I think: Mozart I delight in as a companion; Beethoven I revere as a master; but Haydn I love as a friend.
