“Your worship,” said I, “makes me
more proud than I well know what to do with.
Of all the things that please and lead us into happy
sleep at night, the first and chiefest is to think
that we have pleased a visitor.”
“Then, John, thou hast deserved good sleep;
for I am not pleased easily. But although our
family is not so high now as it hath been, I have
enough of the gentleman left to be pleased when good
people try me. My father, Sir Ensor, was better
than I in this great element of birth, and my son
Carver is far worse. Aetas parentum, what is
it, my boy? I hear that you have been at a grammar-school.”
“So I have, your worship, and at a very good
one; but I only got far enough to make more tail than
head of Latin.”
“Let that pass,” said the Counsellor;
“John, thou art all the wiser.” And
the old man shook his hoary locks, as if Latin had
been his ruin. I looked at him sadly, and wondered
whether it might have so ruined me, but for God’s
mercy in stopping it.
THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE
[Illustration: 464.jpg Illustrated Capital]
That night the reverend Counsellor, not being in such
state of mind as ought to go alone, kindly took our
best old bedstead, carved in panels, well enough,
with the woman of Samaria. I set him up, both
straight and heavy, so that he need but close both
eyes, and keep his mouth just open; and in the morning
he was thankful for all that he could remember.
I, for my part, scarcely knew whether he really had
begun to feel goodwill towards us, and to see that
nothing else could be of any use to him; or whether
he was merely acting, so as to deceive us. And
it had struck me, several times, that he had made
a great deal more of the spirit he had taken than
the quantity would warrant, with a man so wise and
solid. Neither did I quite understand a little
story which Lorna told me, how that in the night awaking,
she had heard, or seemed to hear, a sound of feeling
in her room; as if there had been some one groping
carefully among the things within her drawers or wardrobe-closet.
But the noise had ceased at once, she said, when she
sat up in bed and listened; and knowing how many mice
we had, she took courage and fell asleep again.
After breakfast, the Counsellor (who looked no whit
the worse for schnapps, but even more grave and venerable)
followed our Annie into the dairy, to see how we managed
the clotted cream, of which he had eaten a basinful.
And thereupon they talked a little; and Annie thought
him a fine old gentleman, and a very just one; for
he had nobly condemned the people who spoke against
Tom Faggus.
“Your honour must plainly understand,”
said Annie, being now alone with him, and spreading
out her light quick hands over the pans, like butterflies,
“that they are brought in here to cool, after
being set in the basin-holes, with the wood-ash under
them, which I showed you in the back-kitchen.
And they must have very little heat, not enough to
simmer even; only just to make the bubbles rise, and
the scum upon the top set thick; and after that, it
clots as firm—oh, as firm as my two hands
be.”
