the youngest trees saw quite well that, however rigid with Miss Eudoxia the gliding form might be, it was poised for a dart and a hide behind them at every crossing shadow.
But fortune favours the brave. She won her own little sallyport without the rustle of a blackberry–leaf, and thereupon rushed to a hasty and ostrich–like conclusion. She felt quite sure that, after all, none but the waters and winds could tell the tale of her little coquetry. Beyond all doubt, Cradock Nowell was deep in the richest mental metallurgy, tracing the vein of Greek iambics, as he did before his beard grew; and she never, never would call them “stupid iambics” again.
Cradock, who had seen her, but turned away immediately (as became a gentleman), did not, for the moment, know his little Amy Rosedew. A year and a half had changed her from a stripling, jumping girl to a shy and graceful maiden, dreadfully afraid of sweethearts. She had not been away from Nowelhurst throughout that year and a half, for her father could not get on without her for more than a month at a time, and all that month he fretted. But the twins had spent the last summer in Germany, with a merry reading (or talking) party; and their Christmas and Easter vacations were dragged away in London, through a strange whim of Sir Cradock Nowell; at least, they thought it strange, but there was some reason for it.
Young Cradock Nowell was not such a muff as to be lost in Greek senarii; no trimeter acatalectics of truest balance and purest fall could be half so fair to scan; not “Harmony of the golden hair”, and her nine Pierid daughters round the crystal spring, were worth a glance of the mental eye, when fortune granted bodily vision of our unconscious Amy. But he did not stand there watching mutely, as some youths would have done; for a moment, indeed, he forgot himself in the flush of admiration. The next moment he remembered that he was a gentleman; and he did what a gentleman must have done – whether marquis or labourer: he slipped away through the bushes, feeling as if he had done some injury. Then the maiden, glancing round, caught one startled glimpse, as Nyssia did of the stealthy Gyges, or Diana of Actæon. From that one glimpse she knew him, though he was so like his brother; but he had failed to recognise the Amy of his boyhood.
CHAPTER IX
Miss Eudoxia was now the queen of the little household, and the sceptre she bore was an iron one to all except her niece. John – that easy, good–natured parson, who, coming in from the garden or parish, any summer forenoon, would halt in the long low kitchen, if a nice crabbed question presented itself, take his seat outright upon the corner of the ancient dresser, and then and there discuss some moot point in the classics, or tie and untie over again some fluffy knot historical (which after all is but a pucker in the tatters of a scarecrow); and all the while he would appeal to the fat cook or the other maid – for the house only kept two servants; and all the while Miss Amy, διαφυλάττουσα θέσιν would poke in little pike–points of impudence and ignorance – John, I must confess at last, was threatened so with dishclouts, pepper, and even rolling–pins, that the cook began to forget the name of Plato (which had struck her), and the housemaid could not justly tell what Tibullus says of Pales.
“John, you are so lamentably deficient in moral dignity! And the mutton not put down yet, and the kidney–beans getting ropy! If you must sit there, you might as well begin to slice the cucumber. I dare say youʼd do that even”.
“To be sure, Doxy; so I will. I sharpened my knife this morning”.
“Doxy, indeed! And before the servants! I am sure Johanna must have heard you, though she makes such a rattle in there with the rolling–pin, like a doctorʼs pestle and mortar. She always does when I come out, to pretend she is so busy; and most likely she has been listening for half an hour, and laughing at your flummery. What do I care about Acharnius? – now donʼt tell me any jokes, if you please, brother John; with butter on both your legs, too! Oh, if I could only put you in a passion! I might have some hopes of you then. But I should like to see the woman that could; you have so little self–respect”.
“Eudoxia, that is the very converse of Senecaʼs proposition”.
“Then Seneca didnʼt know how to converse, and I wonʼt be flouted with him. Seneca to me, indeed, or any other heathen! Let me tell you one thing, John Rosedew” – Miss Eudoxia now was wrathful, not nettlesome only, but spinous; perhaps it would be rude to hint that in this latter word may lurk the true etymon of “spinster” – “let me tell you one thing, and perhaps youʼll try to remember it; for, with all your wonderful memory, you never can tell to–morrow what I said to–day”.
“Surely not, dear Doxy, because you talk so much. It is related of that same Seneca that he could repeat – ”
“Fiddlesticks. Now you want to turn off the home–truth you feel to be coming. But you shall have it, John Rosedew, and briefly, it is this: Although you do sit on the dresser, your taste is too eclectic. You are a very learned man, but your learning gilds foul idols. You spend all your time in pagans’ company, while the epistles and gospels have too little style for you”.
“Oh, Aunt Eudoxia, how dare you talk to my papa like that, my own daddy, and me to hear you? And just now you flew into a pet because you fancied Johanna heard him call you ‘Doxy’. I am astonished at it, Aunt Doxy; and it is not true, not a word of it. Come with me, father, dearest, and we wonʼt say a word to her all the afternoon”.
Even young Amy saw that her father was hit very hard. There was so much truth in the accusation, so much spiteful truth – among thy beauties, nuda veritas, a smooth skin is not one – that poor John felt as if Aristophanes were sewn up henceforth in a pig–sack. He slunk away quietly to his room, and tried to suck some roots Hebraic, whence he got no satisfaction. He never could have become a great theological scholar. After all, a man must do what God has shaped his mind for. So in a week John Rosedew got back to his native element; but sister Doxyʼs rough thrust made the dresser for many a month like the bottom of a pincushion, when the pins are long, and the bran has leaked out at the corner.
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