Miriam - A Tale of Pole Hill and the Greenfield Hills by Daniel Frederick Edward Sykes

Author:Daniel Frederick Edward Sykes [Sykes, Daniel Frederick Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-03-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PASSING OF MOTHER SYKES.

IT must have been in the third or fourth week of my convalescence. I know I was allowed to get up for a few hours each day and sit by the fireside wrapped in a great shawl, and I kept Ruth busy making beef-tea and mutton-broth and rice puddings and custards. Fortunately, as she said, her hens had settled well down to laying, and eggs were plentiful. Dr. Dean had been very wroth when he heard about the home-brewed. He said it was of an inflammatory nature, and had put me on to barley water, a drink I’ve had a mortal loathing for ever since.

I was sat, as I have said, by the fire, very sick of my own company, and not finding it much improved by “The Call, to the Unconverted,” or the other goodly books my father exhorted me to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. I wondered then, and have often wondered since, how it is that your good books, or is it only your goody-goody books, are such dreary reading. I would cheerfully have swapped all the works on my reverend father’s shelves for an hour’s discourse with that cheerful sinner, Jim. Except, perhaps, Mr. Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Ah! there’s a book, if you like.

But, anyroad, there’s one good thing about even goody-goody books. Dr. Dean had been strict in his commands that I must be kept quiet and absolutely free from excitement, and no one can say there’s anything very exhilarating about Hervey’s “Meditations among the Silent Tombs” a work specially commended to me by one of the Pole Moor deacons. So little so did I find it that I was nodding off to sleep in the chair when Ruth came softly into the room.

“There’s Daft Billy downstairs,” she said in a low voice, “and father’s getting his thick boots and goloshes and gaiters on, and he’s put his Bible into his pocket. I can’t quite make out—Billy ’d say nowt, though I’d a hard try at him—but unless I’m very much mistaken things are moving down at Burnplatts.

“And me like a lump o’ lumber on th’ hearthstone,” I muttered impatiently.

“We’st know more than we do now when father comes back. I’ll have some hot potato cakes, with plenty of butter. Th’ price tea’s at it’s like dissolving pearls in wine, as I’ve read those pagan Romans used to do; but all th’ same, father’st have his dish of tea to-night, if I’ve to break into that pound my aunt Keziah brought me on my first birthday, though she did say it was not to be broken into till my wedding day. Then when father’s got his wet shoon off, an’ had his tea, and got his pipe nicely going, see if I don’t get it all out of him.”

“You’re like that lady of high quality I read about, Ruth. She boasted she could always keep her husband in a good humour. ‘How do you do it?’ someone asked. ‘I feed the brute,’ was her recipe.

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