Part 14

“When my ankle was getting well, there came a neat maidservant to the cottage one day, and said that Miss Pringle wished to see me at six o’clock precisely; and wondering what she could want with me, I made myself uncomfortable in my best clothes and limped up the village to her back door. I was shown into a very neat parlour, where Miss Pringle sat in a stiff chair knitting.

“She was the old maid of our village, and when I’ve told you that, you know a good bit about her. She was a tightish sort of an old maid—tight in the lips, and tight in her dress, and tight, so they said, in her purse-strings too; but you shall form your own opinion of that presently. She had neat curls on each side of her head, and a neat thin nose, rather large, and she sat a bit forward and looked at you as if she’d found a speck of dirt on you somewhere. I always felt as if I had a smut on my nose when Miss Pringle was speaking to me.

“‘Come in, John Reynardson,’ says she. ‘You may stand on that bit of matting by the door. What is the matter with your foot?’

“‘Sprained my ankle, ma’am, climbing a tree with Nelly Green.’

“‘With Nelly Green?’ says Miss Pringle. ‘Then Nelly Green ought to be ashamed of herself! Boys may be monkeys if they like, but not girls. Tell Nelly Green I’m ashamed of her!’”

“Did she say that?” asked Mrs. Reynardson.

“She did, and she never liked Nelly Green too much after that. She asked me several times afterwards if that monkey-girl was ashamed of herself.” Here the farmer stopped a minute to laugh. “And I always told her she wasn’t. No more she was—not a bit!

“Well, she told me frankly that she didn’t like boys—and that was very kind of her!—but I could have told her so myself as soon as ever I was put on the matting and had my face looked at for smuts. Miss Pringle was not one of that soft kind of single ladies who think all boys angels—not she! But, bless her old soul! the Jackdaw, as Nelly and I used to call her, because of her grey head and her black dress and her pecking way—the Jackdaw was nearly as lucky a bird for me as the magpie—in the long run, that is.

“She told me she wanted a boy to look after her pony and carriage, and as I was recommended by the Vicar, and was strong and active, she would offer me the place. But I wasn’t to climb trees, and I wasn’t to spin halfpence, and I wasn’t to do this, and I wasn’t to do that, and lastly, I wasn’t to keep animals about the house. ‘Mind,’ she said, shaking her nose and her forefinger at the same time, ‘I allow no pet animals about this house, so if you take my offer you must give up your rabbits.’

“‘Yes, ma’am,’ says I, though I hadn’t any; but her nose was so tight when she said that, that I knew I had better hold my tongue.

“Then she took me through her garden, making me pull up some weeds by the way, and lay them neatly in a heap in a corner, with a spadeful of ashes on them to keep the seeds from flying; and so to her little stable, where she showed me the pony and harness, and a little whitewashed room upstairs where I was to sleep. It was as neat as herself, and over the bed was a large piece of cardboard with three words on it—‘Tidiness, Punctuality, Obedience.’ Very good words for a lad just beginning to serve the Queen,” added the farmer, “and very good they were for me too; but if I’d stuck hard to them all three I shouldn’t be here now, as you shall hear.

“So I said very humbly that I was very thankful to take the place, if my parents agreed; and when I got home they were very thankful too. And then I went off to find Nelly, and hold a council of war about poor Mag.

“We went up to the hillock and the three elms to be out of the way. Nelly cried a bit when she heard that our climbing days were over, and that I was to be what she called slave to a Jackdaw; but she dried her eyes on her frock on my telling her that she should come and see the pony when the Jackdaw was off her perch; and then we had our council of war. I told her exactly what Miss Pringle had said—that she allowed no pets about the house. Nelly’s mother was just as bad, and no one at my home could be trusted to feed a young bird regularly; so we were rather beaten, and I was for giving Mag his liberty.

“Nelly gave her hair a toss over her face, and sat down on the wet grass to think for a minute. Then she tossed it back again, looked up, and said, ‘Johnny, you old noodle, the stable isn’t the house, is it now?’

“She was a sharp one, you see—always was, and always has been. Men are a bit half-hearted and shy-like; but it’s the women that know how to find a hole in your hedge, and make a good broad gap for us to jump through.”

“Do you know Nelly Green still, Mr. Reynardson?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, my boy, I know her,” he answered; “and she’s not grown blunt yet. Well, she it was that decided that, after waiting a week to see if the Jackdaw would come poking about the stable or not, she should bring Mag to me there, if all went well, and see the pony too; and in the meantime she was to go twice a day to our cottage and feed him. And when she had made the hole in the hedge, I jumped through, and never minded a prick or two I got—meaning in my conscience, you know—from the brambles.

“All did go well; Miss Pringle—I really don’t like calling her the Jackdaw now she’s dead and gone—soon found I was handy, and as she disliked the smell of stables, she gave up pecking round there after the first day or two. So Nelly brought round Mag by the back way through the fields, and I hung up his cage in the hayloft, by the window looking away from the house and garden.

“And now my story really begins,” he went on; “and I’d be glad if you’d give me a flick with the whip now and again, for I’m as bad as my old mare at a jog-trot.

“I settled down into my place with a good heart, and soon got fond of the pony. Mag, up in the hayloft, escaped Miss Pringle’s notice, and though the cook found him out, she was a good-natured body and held her tongue. Nelly paid me many visits, stealing round to my stable by the fields; and she made the gap in our hedge so much bigger that once, in the Jackdaw’s absence, both she and Mag had a ride on the pony in the paddock.

“Mag grew to be nearly a year old, and the cleverest bird you ever saw; I had hard work to keep him in his wicker cage, for he was always pulling away at the door-fastening with his bill. One warm morning in spring I was sent for to take Miss Pringle’s orders, and found her sitting at her desk in her parlour, with the window open, and the garden scents coming into the room. I stood on the matting as usual while she wrote a note. She then gave it to me, and told me to take it to a village three miles away, but first to get the carriage ready, as she was going for a drive, and should be away all the morning. She was very gracious, and less tight about the lips than usual, I fancied.

“‘If I am not back after your dinner, John,’ she said, ‘come and tidy up this bed under the window, for I shall have to sow my annuals soon.’

“I got the pony ready, and off she went, holding the reins and whip as if ponies were almost as unruly animals as boys. Then I started for my walk, delivered the note, and turned homewards by a field-path to try for a look at the hounds, for they had met that day near our village. I missed them, however; but on getting over a stile I saw a gentleman in scarlet trying to catch his horse. He had been thrown, and his horse was having a fine time of it; grazing quietly till his master was within a yard or two of him, and then throwing up his heels and scampering off. Of course I joined in the chase, for I was pretty well used to these tricks from our pony; and the gentleman, who was out of breath, sat down and watched me. It was a long job, but at last I pinned him in a corner, and brought him, well pleased, to his master, who praised me kindly, and put his hand in his pocket as he mounted.

“He had only a sovereign, which seemed to puzzle him. First he put it back again, and was beginning to tell me to ‘come over to his place and I should have half-a-crown.’

“‘But it’s far,’ he said, ‘and I’m off to London to-night. I can trust you, can’t I?’ he added, turning a pair of very pleasant blue eyes on me. ‘Whom do you work for?’

“‘Miss Pringle at Cotteswell,’ I answered, touching my hat.

“‘Very well,’ he said; ‘you take the sovereign and get it changed, and I’ll send my groom over for the change to-morrow.’

“I thought he might have sent the groom over with the half-crown; but I fancy he liked trusting me, and thought he might forget to send the groom, as in fact he did.