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My School Days-E. Nesbit · Stories of Grit

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  Speaker 1: Part one of My school Days. This is a libervox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Cory Samuel My school Days by E. Nesbitt. Not
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  Speaker 1: because my childhood was different from that of others, Not
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  Speaker 1: because I have anything strange to relate, anything new to tell.
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  Speaker 1: Are these words written for the other reason? Rather that
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  Speaker 1: I was a child as other children. That my memories
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  Speaker 1: are their memories, as my hopes were their hopes, my
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  Speaker 1: dreams their dreams, my fears their fears. I open the
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  Speaker 1: book of memory to tear out some pages for you others.
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  Speaker 1: There is nothing here that is not in my most
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  Speaker 1: clear and vivid recollection. When I was a little child,
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  Speaker 1: I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I should
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  Speaker 1: be grown up, I might never forget what I thought
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  Speaker 1: and felt and suffered. Then let these pages speak for me,
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  Speaker 1: and bear witness that I have not forgotten Part one,
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  Speaker 1: Stuart plaid. When I was small and teachable, my mother
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  Speaker 1: was compelled to much travel and change of scene by
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  Speaker 1: the illness of my elder sister, and as she liked
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  Speaker 1: to have me more or less within reach. I changed
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  Speaker 1: schools as a place hunter changes his politics. The first
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  Speaker 1: school I went to was a Missus Arthur's at Brighton.
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  Speaker 1: I remember very little about the lessons because I was
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  Speaker 1: only seven years old, but I remember, to my inmost fiber,
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  Speaker 1: I remember the play There was a yard behind the house,
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  Speaker 1: no garden, and there I used to play with another
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  Speaker 1: small child, whose name I have forgotten, but I know
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  Speaker 1: that she wore a Stuart Plaid frock and that I
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  Speaker 1: detested her. On the first day of my arrival, we
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  Speaker 1: were sent into the playground with our toys. Stuart Plaid,
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  Speaker 1: as I must call her, having no other name, had
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  Speaker 1: a battered doll and three scallop shells. I had a
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  Speaker 1: very complete little set of pewter teethings in a cardboard box.
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  Speaker 1: Let's change for a bit, said Stuart Plaid, mingled politeness
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  Speaker 1: and shyness compelled my acquiescence. She took my new teethings,
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  Speaker 1: and I disconsolately nursed the battered torso of her doll.
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  Speaker 1: But this grew very wearisome, and I, feeling that the
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  Speaker 1: claims of courtesy had been fully met, protested mildly. Now
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  Speaker 1: then said Stuart Plad, looking up from the teethings, don't
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  Speaker 1: be so selfish. Besides, they're horrid, stupid, little tin things.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't give twopence for them, but I don't want
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  Speaker 1: you to give tenpence for them. I want them back.
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  Speaker 1: Oh no you don't, Yes, I do, said, I, roused
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  Speaker 1: by her deprecation of my property, and I'll have them too.
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  Speaker 1: So there, I advanced towards her. I am afraid, with
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  Speaker 1: some half formed determination of pulling her hair. All right,
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  Speaker 1: she said, you stand there and I'll put them in
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  Speaker 1: the box and give them to you. Promise, yes, if
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  Speaker 1: you don't move. She turned her back on me. It
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  Speaker 1: took her a very long time to put them in
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  Speaker 1: the box. I stood, tingling with indignation and a growing
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  Speaker 1: desire to slap her face. Presently she turned. You would
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  Speaker 1: have them back, she said, grinning unpleasantly. And here they are.
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  Speaker 1: She put them into my hands. She had bitten every
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  Speaker 1: single cup, saucer and plate into a formless lump. While
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  Speaker 1: I stood speechless with anger and misery, she came close
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  Speaker 1: to me and said tauntingly, there, now, aren't you sorry
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  Speaker 1: you didn't let me have them? I'll go home. I said,
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  Speaker 1: struggling between pride and tears. Oh no, you won't, said
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  Speaker 1: Stuart Plaid, thrusting her mocking face close to mine. And
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  Speaker 1: if you say a word about it, I'll say you
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  Speaker 1: did it and pinched me as well, and missus Arthur
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  Speaker 1: will believe me, because I'm not a new girl and
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  Speaker 1: you are. I turned away without a word, and I
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  Speaker 1: never did tell till now. But I never said another
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  Speaker 1: word to Stuart Plaid out of school. She tortured me unremittingly.
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  Speaker 1: When I had been at school a week or two.
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  Speaker 1: My paint box suffered at her hands, but I bore
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  Speaker 1: it meekly and in silence, only seeking to replace my
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  Speaker 1: Van Dyke brown by mud from the garden. Chinese white.
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  Speaker 1: I sought to manufacture by a mixture of chalk picked
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  Speaker 1: up on the sea shore and milk from my mug
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  Speaker 1: at tea time. It was never a successful industry. I
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  Speaker 1: remember the hot white streets, and the flies, and Brill's baths,
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  Speaker 1: and the western road, and the bitter pang of passing
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  Speaker 1: at the end of a long procession our own house,
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  Speaker 1: where always some one might be at the window, and
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  Speaker 1: never any one was. I used to go home on
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  Speaker 1: Saturdays and then all bitterness was so swallowed up in
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  Speaker 1: the bliss of the home returning that I actually forgot
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  Speaker 1: the miseries of my school life. But I was very
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  Speaker 1: unhappy there. Missus Arthur and the big girls were kind
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  Speaker 1: enough to me, but Stuart Plaid was enough to blight
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  Speaker 1: any lot. She blighted mine, and I suppose no prisoner
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  Speaker 1: ever hailed the falling of his fetters with a joy
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  Speaker 1: I felt when at last, after three or four days
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  Speaker 1: of headache and tears, I was wrapped in a blanket
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  Speaker 1: and taken home with the measles. When I got better,
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  Speaker 1: we went for the Midsummer holidays to a lovely cottage
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  Speaker 1: among the beech woods of Buckinghamshire. I shall never forget
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  Speaker 1: the sense of rest and delight that filled my small
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  Speaker 1: heart when I slipped out under the rustic porch at
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  Speaker 1: five o'clock the first morning and felt the cool velvet
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  Speaker 1: turf under my feet. Breton pavement had been so hard
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  Speaker 1: and hot. Then instead of the long rows of dazzling
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  Speaker 1: houses with their bow windows and green painted balconies, there
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  Speaker 1: were lovely trees, acacias and elms, and a big copper
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  Speaker 1: beach in the school walks. We had never found any
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  Speaker 1: flowers but little pink bind weed by the dusty roadside.
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  Speaker 1: Here there were royal red roses and jasmine, and tall
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  Speaker 1: white lilies, and in the hedge by the gate sweet
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  Speaker 1: briar and deep cupped white convolvulus. I think I saw
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  Speaker 1: then for the first time, how lovely God's good will ears.
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  Speaker 1: And ever since then, thank God, I have been seeing
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  Speaker 1: it more and more. That was a happy morning. The boys,
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  Speaker 1: whom I had not seen for ever so long because
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  Speaker 1: of the measles, were up already. Alfred had a rabbit
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  Speaker 1: for me, a white rabbit with pink eyes, in a
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  Speaker 1: hutch he had made himself. And Harry led me to
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  Speaker 1: a nook among the roots of the copper beech, where
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  Speaker 1: he showed me two dormice in an old tea caddy.
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  Speaker 1: You shall go shares in them if you like, he said.
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  Speaker 1: There was honey in the comb for breakfast, and new
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  Speaker 1: laid eggs, and my mother was there in a cool
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  Speaker 1: cotton gown, pouring out tea and powering with pleasure at
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  Speaker 1: having all her kittens together again. There were cool raspberries
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  Speaker 1: on the table, too, trimmed with fresh green leaves, and
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  Speaker 1: through the window we saw the fruit garden and its
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  Speaker 1: promise that was summer. Indeed, after breakfast, my mother called
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  Speaker 1: me to her. She had some patterns in her hand.
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  Speaker 1: You must be measured for some new frocks, Daisy. She said, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: how nice? What color? Wells? Nice white ones? And this
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  Speaker 1: pretty plaid. She held up a pattern as she spoke.
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  Speaker 1: It was a Stuart plaid. Oh not that, I cried,
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  Speaker 1: not this pretty plaid, darling. Why not? If you will
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  Speaker 1: believe me, I could not say why not? And the
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  Speaker 1: frock was made, and I wore it, loathing it till
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  Speaker 1: the day when I fell out of the apple tree,
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  Speaker 1: and it broke my fall by catching on a branch.
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  Speaker 1: But it saved my life at the expense of its own,
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  Speaker 1: and I gave a feast to all the dolls to
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  Speaker 1: celebrate its interment in the rag bag. I have often
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  Speaker 1: wondered what it is that keeps children from telling their
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  Speaker 1: mothers these things, And even now I don't know. I
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  Speaker 1: only know I might have been saved many of these
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  Speaker 1: big troubles if I had only been able to explain.
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  Speaker 1: But I wasn't, and to this day my mother does
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  Speaker 1: not know how and why I hated that Stuart plaid
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  Speaker 1: frock end of Part one, Part two of My school
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  Speaker 1: Days by E. Nesbitt. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Part two long division. I spent a year
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  Speaker 1: in the select boarding establishment for young ladies and gentlemen
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  Speaker 1: at Stamford, and I venture to think I should have
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  Speaker 1: preferred a penal settlement. Miss Fairfield, whose school it was,
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  Speaker 1: was tall and pale and dark, and I thought her
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  Speaker 1: as good and beautiful as an angel. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: now whether she was really beautiful, but I know she
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  Speaker 1: was good, and her mother, dear Soul, had a sympathy
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  Speaker 1: with small all folly in disgrace, which has written her
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  Speaker 1: name in gold letters on my heart. But there was
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  Speaker 1: another person in the house whose name I will not
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  Speaker 1: put down. She came continually between me and my adored
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  Speaker 1: Miss Fairfield. She had a sort of influence over me
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  Speaker 1: which made it impossible for me ever to do anything
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  Speaker 1: well while she was near me. Miss Fairfield's health compelled
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  Speaker 1: her to leave much to miss and I was, in
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  Speaker 1: consequence as gloomy as cynic as any child of my
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  Speaker 1: age in Lincolnshire. My chief troubles were three my hair,
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  Speaker 1: my hands, and my arithmetic. My hair was never tidy.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know why. Perhaps it runs in a family.
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  Speaker 1: For my little daughter's head is just as rough as
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  Speaker 1: mine used to be. This got me into continual disgrace.
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  Speaker 1: I am sure I tried hard enough to keep it tidy.
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  Speaker 1: I brushed it for fruitless hours, till my little head
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  Speaker 1: was so sore that it hurt me to put my
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  Speaker 1: hat on. But it would never look smooth and shiny
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  Speaker 1: like Katie Martin's, nor would it curl prettily like the
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  Speaker 1: red locks of Cissy Thomas. It was always a rough,
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  Speaker 1: impossible brown mop. I got into a terrible scrape for
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  Speaker 1: trying to soften it by an invention of my own.
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  Speaker 1: As we all know, Burley House is by Stamford Town,
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  Speaker 1: and in Burley Park we children took our daily constitutional.
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  Speaker 1: We played under the big oaks there and were bored
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  Speaker 1: to extinction, not because we disliked the park, but because
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  Speaker 1: we went there every day at the same hour. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Harry Martin, he wore striped stockings and was always losing
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  Speaker 1: his handkerchief, suffered from his hair almost as much as
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  Speaker 1: I did. So when I unfolded my plan to him
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  Speaker 1: one day in the park, he joyfully agreed. To help me.
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  Speaker 1: We each gathered a pocket full of acorns, and when
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  Speaker 1: we went to wash our hands before dinner, we cut
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  Speaker 1: up some of the acorns into little bits and put
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  Speaker 1: them into the doll's bath with some cold water and
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  Speaker 1: a little scent that Cissy Thomas gave us out of
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  Speaker 1: a bottle she had bought for twopence at the fair
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  Speaker 1: at home. This, I said, will be acorn oil scented
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  Speaker 1: acorn oil, will it, said Harry doubtfully, Yes, I replied,
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  Speaker 1: adding confidently, and there is nothing better for the hair.
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  Speaker 1: But we never had a chance of even seeing whether
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  Speaker 1: acorns and water would turn to oil, a miracle which
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  Speaker 1: I entirely believed. In the dinner bell rang and I
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  Speaker 1: only had time hastily to conceal the doll's bath at
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  Speaker 1: the back of the cupboard where Miss Hum kept her dresses.
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  Speaker 1: That was Saturday. Next day we found that Miss Hum's
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  Speaker 1: best dress, the blue silk with the Bismarck brown gimp,
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  Speaker 1: had slipped from its peg and fallen on to the
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  Speaker 1: doll's bath. The dress was ruined, and when Harry Martin
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  Speaker 1: and I owned up as in honor bound, Miss Fairfield
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  Speaker 1: was away in London, we were deprived of dinner and
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  Speaker 1: had a long psalm to learn. I don't know where
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  Speaker 1: the punishment affects the hair, but I thought next morning
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  Speaker 1: at prayers that Harry's tow crop looked more like bathe
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  Speaker 1: than ever. My hands were more compromising to me than
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  Speaker 1: any one would have believed who had ever seen their size.
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  Speaker 1: For in the winter especially, they were never clean. I
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  Speaker 1: can see now the little willow pat and basin of
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  Speaker 1: hard cold water, and smell the unpleasant little square of
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  Speaker 1: mottled soap with which I was expected to wash them.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how the others managed, but for me
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  Speaker 1: the result was always the same failure. And when I
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  Speaker 1: presented myself at breakfast, trying to hide my red and
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  Speaker 1: grubby little paws in my pinafore, Miss hum used to
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  Speaker 1: say show your hands, Daisy, yes, as I thought not
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  Speaker 1: fit to sit down with young ladies and gentlemen breakfast
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  Speaker 1: in a school room for miss Daisy. Then Miss Daisy
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  Speaker 1: would shiveringly betake herself to the cold, bare school room
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  Speaker 1: where the fire had but just been kindled. I used
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  Speaker 1: to sit cowering over the damp sticks with my white
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  Speaker 1: mug move spotted. It was I remember, and had a
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  Speaker 1: brown crack near the handle on a chair beside me.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes I used to pull a twig from the fire,
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  Speaker 1: harpoon my bread and butter with it, and hold it
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  Speaker 1: to the fire. The warm, pale, greasy result I called toast.
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  Speaker 1: All this happened when Miss Fairfield was laid up with bronchitis.
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  Speaker 1: It was at that time, too, that my battle with
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  Speaker 1: compound long Division began. Now I was not, I think,
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  Speaker 1: a very dull child, and always had an indignant sense
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  Speaker 1: that I could do sums well enough if any one
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  Speaker 1: would tell me what they meant. But no one did,
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  Speaker 1: and day after day the Long Division sums, hopelessly wrong,
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  Speaker 1: disfigured my slate and were washed off with my tears.
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  Speaker 1: Day after day I was sent to bed, my dinner
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  Speaker 1: was knocked off, or my breakfast or my tea. I
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  Speaker 1: should literally have starved, I do believe, But for dear
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  Speaker 1: missus Fairfield, she kept my little body going with illicit
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  Speaker 1: cakes and plums and the like, and fed my starving
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  Speaker 1: little heart with surreptitious kisses and kind words. She would
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  Speaker 1: lie in wait for me as I passed down the hall,
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  Speaker 1: and in a whisper called me into the store. Closet.
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  Speaker 1: It had a mingled and delicious smell of pickles and tea,
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  Speaker 1: and oranges and jam, and the one taper Missus Fairfield
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  Speaker 1: carried only lighted dimly the delightful mystery of its well
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  Speaker 1: filled shelves. Missus Fairfield used to give me a great
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  Speaker 1: lump of cake or a broad slice of bread and jam,
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  Speaker 1: and lock me into the dark cupboard till it was eaten.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I never taste black currant jam now without a strong
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  Speaker 1: memory of the dark hole of happiness where I used
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  Speaker 1: to wait, my sticky fingers held well away from my
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  Speaker 1: pinafore till Missus Fairfield's heavy step and jingling keys came
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  Speaker 1: to release me. Then she would sponge my hands and
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  Speaker 1: face and send me away, clean, replete, and with a
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  Speaker 1: better heart for the eternal conflict with long division. I
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  Speaker 1: fancy that when miss Fairfield came downstairs again, she changed
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  Speaker 1: the field of my arithmetical studies. For during the spring
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  Speaker 1: I seem to remember a blessed respite from my troubles.
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  Speaker 1: It is true that Miss hum was away staying with friends.
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  Speaker 1: I was very popular at school that term, I remember,
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  Speaker 1: for I had learned to make doll's bedsteads out of
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  Speaker 1: match boxes during the holidays, and my eldest sister's Christmas
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  Speaker 1: present provided me with magnificent hangings for the same Imagine
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  Speaker 1: a vivid green silk sash with brilliant butterflies embroidered all
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  Speaker 1: over it in colored silk and gold thread. A long
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  Speaker 1: sash too, from which one could well spare a few
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  Speaker 1: inches at a time for upholstery. I acquired many marbles
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  Speaker 1: and much gingerbread, and totally eclipsed Cissy Thomas, who had
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed the fleeting sunshine of popular favor on the insecure
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  Speaker 1: basis of paper dolls over. My memory of this term
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  Speaker 1: no long division cast its hateful shade, and the scolding
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  Speaker 1: my dear mother gave me when she saw my sashes,
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  Speaker 1: fair proportions, docked to a waistband and a hard knot
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  Speaker 1: with two brief and irregular ends, was so gentle that
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  Speaker 1: I endured it with fortitude and considered my ten weeks
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  Speaker 1: of popularity cheaply bought. I went back to school in
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  Speaker 1: high spirits, with a new set of sashes and some
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  Speaker 1: magnificent pieces of silk and lace from my mother's lavendered wardrobe.
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  Speaker 1: But no one wanted doll beds any more, and Cissy
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Thomas had brought back a herbarium, and the others all
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  Speaker 1: became botanists, and I, after a faint effort to emulate
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  Speaker 1: their successes, fell back on my garden. The seeds I
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  Speaker 1: had set in the spring had had a rest during
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  Speaker 1: the Easter holidays and were already sprouting greenly, but alas
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  Speaker 1: I never saw them flower, long divisions set in again again.
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  Speaker 1: Day after day, I sat lonely in the schoolroom, now
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  Speaker 1: like a furnace, and ate my dry bread and milk
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  Speaker 1: and water in the depths of disgrace, with the faux
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  Speaker 1: commencements and those revolting sums staring at me from my
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: tear blotted slate. Night after night I cried myself to
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  Speaker 1: sleep in my bed, whose coarse home spun sheets were
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  Speaker 1: hotter than blankets. Because I could not get the answers right.
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  Speaker 1: Even Miss Fairfield, I fancied, began to look coldly on me,
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  Speaker 1: and the other children naturally did not care to associate
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  Speaker 1: with one so deficient and arithmetic. One evening, as I
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  Speaker 1: was sitting as usual, sucking the smooth, dark slate pencil
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  Speaker 1: and grieving over my troubles with the heart broken misery
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  Speaker 1: of a child to whom the present grief looks eternal.
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  Speaker 1: I heard a carriage drive up to the door. Our
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  Speaker 1: schoolroom was at the back, and I was too much
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  Speaker 1: interested in a visitor, especially one who came at that
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  Speaker 1: hour and in a carriage, to be able to bear
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  Speaker 1: the suspense of that silent schoolroom. So I cautiously opened
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  Speaker 1: its door, and crept on hands and knees across the
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  Speaker 1: passage and looked down through the banisters. They were opening
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  Speaker 1: the door. It was a lady, and Missus Fairfield came
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  Speaker 1: out of the dining room to meet her. It was
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  Speaker 1: a lady in a black Moray antique dress and Paisley
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  Speaker 1: shawl of the then mode. It was a lady whose
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  Speaker 1: face I could not see because her back was to
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  Speaker 1: the red sunset light. But at that moment she spoke,
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  Speaker 1: and the next I was clinging round the moon skirts
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  Speaker 1: with my head buried in a Paisley shawl. The world,
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  Speaker 1: all upside down had suddenly righted itself. I, who had
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  Speaker 1: faced it alone, now looked out at it from the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: secure shelter of a moire screen. For my mother had
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  Speaker 1: come to see me. I did not cry myself to
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  Speaker 1: sleep that night because my head lay on her arm.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But even then I could not express how wretched I
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: had been. Only when I heard that my mother was
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  Speaker 1: going to the South of France with my sisters, I
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  Speaker 1: clung about her neck, and with such insistence implored her
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: not to leave me, not to go without me, that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I think I must have expressed my trouble without uttering it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: For when after three delicious days of drives and walks,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: in which I always had a loving hand to hold
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: my mother the left Stamford, she took me, trembling with joy,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: like a prisoner, reprieved with her. And I have never
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: seen or wished to see Stamford again. End of Part two,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Part three of My School Days by E. Nesbitt. This
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part three South
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: with the Swallows, With what delicious thrills of anticipation and
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: excitement I packed my doll's clothes On the eve of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: our journey. I had a little tin trunk with a
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: real padlock. I have it still by the way, only
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: now it holds old letters, and a bunch of violets,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and a few other little worthless things that I do
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: not often have the courage to look at Nowadays, it
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is battered now and the painters worn off, but then
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: it was fresh and shiny, and I packed all the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: doll's clothes in it with a light heart. I don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: remember anything about our leaving home or saying good bye
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to the boys, so I fancy that they must have
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: gone back to school some time before. But I remember
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the night passage from new Haven to Dieppe far too
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: vividly to care to describe it. I was a very
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: worn out little girl. Indeed, when we reached Rome and
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I lay for the first time in a little white
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: French bed, my mind was, I suppose, a little upset
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: by my soul's sorrows at Stamford and my body's unspeakable
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: discomforts on board the channel boat. And I was seized
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: with a horror of the words de bi de tabac,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: which I had noticed on our way from the station.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I associated them with the gravestone of my father. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: don't know why. I can only conjecture that the last
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: syllable of DeBie being the same as that of our name,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: may have had something to do with it. I lay
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: awake in the dark, the light from the oil lamp
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: in the street, came through the Persiennes, and fell in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: bright bars on the wall. As I grew drowsier, I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: seemed to read there in letters of fire de Bille
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: de Tobac. Then I fell asleep and dreamed that my
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: father's ghost came to me and implored me to have
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the horrible French inscription erased from his tomb, for I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: was an Englishman, he said. Then I woke rigid with terror,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and finally summoned courage to creep across the corridor to
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: my mother's room and seek refuge in her arms. I
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: am particular to mention this dream because it is the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: first remembrance I have of any terror of the dead
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: or of the supernatural. I do not at all know
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: how it had its rise, perhaps in the chatter of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: some nurse maid, long forgotten by and by. I should
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: like to tell you about some of the things that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: used to frighten me when I was a child. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: just now we are at Rome, where Joan of Arc
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: was burned, and where the Church of Saint Ure is.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Even then, the beauty of that marvelous Gothic church filled
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: me with a delight none the less intense for being
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: incomprehensible to me. We went too to Saint Catherine de Mont.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: The ceiling of the church was blue with gold stars.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I thought it very beautiful. It was very windy on
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the mount, i remember, and the sky outside was blue
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: like the church ceiling, with white clouds instead of gold stars.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: There was a stall a little way down the hill
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: where a white coughed woman sold crucifixes and medals, and
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: rosaries and pictures. My mother bought me a little painting
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of the church in an alabaster frame. It was, for
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: a long time one of my chief treasures. We went
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on to Paris. It was very hot and very dusty.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: It was the exhibition year. I went to the exhibition,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: which seemed to me large, empty and very tiring. I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: saw the Emperor and the pretty Empress driving in a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: carriage with their little son. The boy was about my
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: own age and wore a velvet suit and an embroidered
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: frilly collar. The crowd cheered them with wild enthusiasm. Three
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: years later, but this is not a history paper. The
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: pleasantest part of our stay in Paris was the time
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that my cousin Fred spent with us. He lived in
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Paris and knew that little girls like sweeties. Also, he
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: sang the comic songs of the day cafuslaeum, and it's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: really very unpleasant, and taught me their long and dreary words.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: He was very kind to me, and I remember him
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: with tenderness, though I have never seen him since. On
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the whole, though I had a real silver daisy brooch
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: bought at the exhibition, and more toys than could conveniently
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: be carried in my tea, I was glad to get
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: away from Paris. As this is not a guide book,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I suppose I must not tell you about tour and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the convent of Marmoutier. I expected a convent to be
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a dark and terrible place, with perhaps a nun or
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: two being built into the wall, and I was relieved
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to find a trim, well kept garden and a pleasant house,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: where kindly faced women in black gowns and white gimps
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: walked about breviary in hand. Nor must I linger at Poitier,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: where we saw gloves made, and I, to my intense delight,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was measured for a small pair of bright blue kid
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I liked Pothier, especially the old Byzantine church now used
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: as a stable. I picked up a bone there and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: treasured it for months. It was human, I was convinced,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and I wove many romances round the little brown relic,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: romances that considerably embittered the reality. When I came to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: know it, What's that? Alfred asked, picking the bone from
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: its resting place in cotton wool in my corner drawer
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: months afterwards, A human bone, I said, gravely. Alfred roared
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: with aggravating laughter. It's only half a fowl's back, you
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: little silly. Ashamed and confused, I flung the bone into
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the inmost recesses of the drawer and assured him that
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: he was mistaken. But he wasn't. We went from Poitier
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to Angulem. How often in school I have got into
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: trouble for tracing that root on the map of France,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: when I should have been tracing cap Greenee or the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: course of the Rhone. And so, by easy stages we
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: reached Bordeaux. Bordeaux is on fate. The great annual fair
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: was in progress. The big market place was covered with
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: booths filled with the most fascinating objects. I was very
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: happy at Bordeaux until it occurred to someone to take
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: me to see the mummies. After that, farewell the tranquil mind,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Farewell content. And here I cannot resist the temptation to
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: put a long parenthesis in my traveler's tale, and to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: write a little about what used to frighten me when
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I was little. And then I shall tell you about
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: my first experience of learning French. End of Part three,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Part four of My school Days by Enesbid. This LibriVox
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Part four in the dark.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: How can I write of it? Sitting here in the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: shifting shade of the lime trees, with the sunny daisied
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: grass stretching away to the border where the hollyhocks and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: lilies and columbar are, My ears filled with the soft
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: swish swish of the gardener's scythe at the other end
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of the garden, and the merry little voices of the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: children away in the meadow. Only by shutting my eyes
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and ears to the sweet sounds and sights of summer
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and the sun can I recall at all for you
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the dead silences, the frozen terrors of the long dark
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: nights when I was little and lonely, and very very
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: much afraid. The first thing I remember that frightened me
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: was running into my father's dressing room and finding him
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: playing at wild beasts with my brothers. He wore his
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: great fur traveling coat inside out, and his roars were
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: completely convincing. I was borne away, screaming, and dreamed of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: wild beasts for many a long night Afterwards. Then came
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: some nursery charades. I was the high born orphan whom
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: j were to steal, and my part was to lie
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: in a cradle and at the proper moment to be
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: carried away shrieking. I understood my part perfectly. I was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: about three, I suppose, and had rehearsed it more than once.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Being carried off in the arms of the gipsy, my
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: favorite sister was nothing to scream at, I thought, but
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: she told me to scream, and I did it. Unfortunately, however,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: there had been no dress rehearsals, and when on the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: night of the performance, the high born Orphan found itself
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: close to a big black bonnet and a hideous mask,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: it did scream to some purpose, and, presently, screaming itself
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: into some sort of fit or swoon, was put to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: bed and stayed there for many days, which passed dream
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: like but that old woman haunted my dreams for years,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: haunts them still. Indeed, I tell you I come across
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: her in my dreams to this day. She bends over
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: me and puts her face close to mine, and I
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: wake with a spasm of agonized terror. Only now it
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: is not horrible to me to waken in the dark.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I draw a few long breaths, and as soon as
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: my heart beats a little less wildly, I fall asleep again.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But a child who wakes from an ugly dream does
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: not fall asleep so quickly. For to a child who
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: is frightened, the darkness and the silence of its lonely
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: room are only a shade less terrible than the wild
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: horrors of dreamland. One used to lie awake in the silence, listening,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: listening to the pad pad of one's heart, straining one's
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: ears to make sure that it was not the pad
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: pad of something else, something unspeakable, creeping towards one. Out
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of the horrible, dense dark. One used to lie quite
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: quite still. I remember listening, listening, And when my nurse
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: came to bed and tucked me up, she used to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: find my pillow wet and say to the under nurse weakness.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: You know, the precious poppet doesn't seem to get any stronger.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: But my pillow was not wet with tears of weakness.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: These were the dews of agony and terror. My nurse, Ah,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: how good she was to me, never went downstairs the
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: supper after she found out my terrors, which she very
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: quickly did. She used to sit in the day nursery
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: with the door open a tiny crack, and that light
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: was company because I knew I had only to call
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: out and someone who loved me would come in and
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: banish fear. But a light without human companionship was worse
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: than darkness, especially a little light. Night lights deepening the shadows,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: with their horrid possibilities, are a mere refinement of cruelty.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And some friends who thought to do me a kindness
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: by leaving the gas burning low, gave me one of
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: the most awful nights I ever had. It was a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: strange house in Sutherland Gardens, a house with large rooms
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and heavy hangings, with massive wardrobes and deep ottoman boxes.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: The immense four post beds stood out about a yard
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: from the wall for some convenience of sweeping reason, I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: believe consider the horror of having behind you as you
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: lay trembling in the chill linen of a strange bed,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a dark space, no comforting solid wall that you could
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: put your hand up to and touch, but a dark
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: space from which, even now, in the black silence, something
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: might be stealthily creeping, something which would presently lean over
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you in the dark, whose touch you would feel, not
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: knowing whether it were the old woman in the mask
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: or some new terror that was torture of the first night.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: The next I begged that the gas might be left
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: full on. It was, and I fell asleep in comparative security.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: But while I slept came some thrifty soul, and, finding
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the gas burning to waste, turned it down, not out down.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I awoke in a faint light, and presently sat up
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in bed to see where it came from. And this
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: is what I saw. A corpse laid out under white draperies,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and at its foot a skeleton with luminous skull and
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: outstretched bony arm. I knew, somewhere far away and deep
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: down my reason knew that the dead body was a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: white dress laid on a long ottoman, that the skull
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: was the opal globe of the gas, and the arm,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the pipe of the gas bracket. But that was not
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: reason's hour. Imagination held sway, and her, poor little victim,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: who was ten years old then and ought to have
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: known better, sat up in bed hour after hour, with
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the shadowy void behind her, the dark curtains on each side,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and in front that horror. Next day I went home,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: which was perhaps a good thing for my brain. When
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: my father was alive, we lived in a big house
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: in Kennington Lane, where he taught young men agriculture and chemistry.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: My father had a big meadow and garden and had
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a sort of small farm there fancy a farm in Kennington.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Among the increase that blessed his shed was a two
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: headed calf. The heads and shoulders of this were stuffed
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and inspired me with a terror, which my brothers increased
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: by pursuing me with a terrible object. But one of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: my father's pupils, to whom I owe that and many
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: other kindnesses, one day seized me under one arm and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the two headed horror under the other, and thus equipped
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: we pursued my brothers. They fled shrieking, and I never
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: feared it again. In a dank, stone flagged room where
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: the boots were blacked and the more unwieldy chemicals housed.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: There was nailed on the wall the black skin of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: an emu. That skin, with its wiry black feathers that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: fluttered dismally in the draft, was no mere bird's skin
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to me. It hated me, It wished me ill. It
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: was always lurking for me in the dark, ready to
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: rush out at me. It was waiting for me at
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the top of the flight, while the old woman with
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the masks stretched skinny hands out to grasp my little legs.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: As I went up the nursery stairs. I never passed
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the skin without covering my eyes with my hands. From
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: this terror that walked by night. I was delivered by
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Missus to Cairns, now public analyst for Sheffield. He took
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: me on his shoulder, where I felt quite safe, reluctant
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: but not resisting to within a couple of yards of
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the e me you Now, he said, will you do
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: what I tell you? Not any nearer, I said, evasively.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Now you know I won't let it hurt you? Yes,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: then will you stroke it if I do first? I
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: didn't want to to please me. That argument was conclusive
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: for I loved him. Then we approached the black feathers,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I clinging desperately to his neck and sobbing convulsively. No, no, no,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: not any nearer. But he was kind and wise and
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: insisted his big hand smoothed down the feathers. Now, Daisy,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you know you promised give me your hand. I shut
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: my eyes tight and let him draw my hand down
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the dusty feathers. Then I opened my eyes a little bit.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Now you stroke it, stroke the poor emu? I did so,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Are you afraid? Now? Curiously enough, I wasn't. Poor mister
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Keirnes paid dearly for his kindness. For several weeks I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: gave him no peace, but insisted on being taken at
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: all hours of the day and night to stroke the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: poor emu. So proud is one of a new courage.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: After we left Kennington, I seemed to have had a
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: period of more ordinary terrors, of dreams from which to
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: awaken was mere relief, not a horror scarcely less than
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that of the dream itself. I dreamed of cows and dogs,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of falling houses and crumbling precipices. It was not till
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that night at Rouon that the old horror of the
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: dark came back, deepened, by superstitious dread. But all this
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: time I have not told you about the mummies at Bordeaux,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and now there is no room for them here. They
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: must go into the next chapter. End of Part four,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Part five of My School Days by in Nesbitt. This
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part five, The
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Mummies at Bordeaux. It was because I was tired of
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: churches and picture galleries, of fairs and markets, of the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: strange babble of foreign tongues, and the thin English of
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: the guide book, that I begged so hard to be
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: taken to see the mummies. To me, the name of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: a mummy was as a friend's name, as one Englishman
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: traveling across a desert seeks to find another of whom
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he has heard in that far our land. So I
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: sought to meet these mummies who had cousins at home
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: in the British Museum in dear dear England. My fancy
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: did not paint mummies for me, apart from plate glass cases,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: camphor boarded galleries and kindly curators, and I longed to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: see them as I longed to see home, and to
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: hear my own tongue spoken about me. I was consumed
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: by a fever of impatience for the three days which
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: had to go by before the coming of the day
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: on which the treasures might be visited. My sisters, who
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: were to lead me to these delights, believed too that
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the mummies would be chiefly interesting on account of their
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: association with Bloomsbury. Well we went, I and my best
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: blue silk frock, which I insisted on wearing to honor
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the occasion, holding the hand of my sister, and positively
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: skipping with delicious anticipation. There was some delay about keys,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: during which my excitement and was scarcely to be restrained.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Then we went through an arched doorway and along a
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: flagged passage. The old man who guided us explaining volubly
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in French as we went. What does he say? He says,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: they are natural mummies. What does that mean? They are
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: not embalmed by man, like the Egyptian ones, but simply
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: by the peculiar earth of the churchyard where they were buried.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: The words did not touch my conception of the glass
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: cases and their good natured guardian. The passage began to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: slope downward, A chill air breathed on our faces, bringing
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: with it a damp, earthy smell. Then we came to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: some narrow stone steps. Our guide spoke again, what does
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: he say? We are to be careful? The steps are
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: slippery and moldy. I think even then my expectation still
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: was of a long, clean gallery filled with the white
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: light of a London noon shed through high skylights on
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Egyptian treasures. But the stairs were dark, and I held
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: my sister's hand tightly. Down we went down down. What
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: does he say? We are under the church? Now these
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: are the vaults. We went along another passage, the damp,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: moldy smell increasing, and the clasp of my sister's hand
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: grew closer and closer. We stopped in front of a
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: heavy door barred with iron, and our guide turned a big,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: reluctant key in a lock that grated livoila, he said,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: throwing open the door and drawing back dramatically. We were
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: in the room before my sisters had time to see
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: cause for regretting that they had brought me. The vision
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of dry boards and white light and glass cases vanished,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: and in its stead I saw this a small vault,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: as my memory serves me, about fifteen feet square, with
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: an arched roof, from the center of which hung a
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: lamp that burned with a faint blue light and made
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the guide's candle look red and lurid. The floor was
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: flagged like the passages, and was as damp and chill.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Round three sides of the room ran a railing, and
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: behind it, standing against the wall with a ghastly look
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of life in death, were about two hundred skeletons. Not white,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: clean skeletons hung on wires like the one you see
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: at the doctor's, but skeletons with the flesh hardened on
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: their bones, with their long, dry hair hanging each side
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of their brown faces, where the skin in drying had
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: drawn itself back from their gleaming teeth and empty eye sockets.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Skeletons draped in moldering shreds of shrouds and grave clothes.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Their lean fingers, still clothed with dry skin, seemed to
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: reach out towards me. There they stood men, women, and children,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: knee deep in loose bones collected from the other vaults
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: of the church, and heaped round them. On the wall.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Near the door, I saw the dried body of a
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: little child hung up by its hair. I don't think
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I screamed or cried or even said a word. I
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: think I was paralyzed with horror. But I remember presently
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: going back up those stairs, holding tightly to that kindly hand,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and not daring to turn my head lest one of
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: those Charnel house faces should peep out at me from
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: some niche in the damp wall. It must have been
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: late afternoon, and in the hurry of dressing for the
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: table dot my stupor of fright must have passed unnoticed.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: For the next thing, I remember as being alone in
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: a large room, waiting, as usual for my supper to
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: be sent up for My mother did not approve of
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: late dinners for little people, and I was accustomed to
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: have bread and milk alone while she and my sisters dined.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It was a large room and very imperfectly lighted by
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the two wax candles in silver candlesticks. There were two
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: windows and a curtained alcove where the beds were. Suddenly
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: my blood ran cold. What was behind that curtain? Beds? Yes,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: whispered something that was I and yet not I. But
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: suppose there are no beds there now, only mummies, mummies, mummies.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: A sudden noise I screamed with terror. It was only
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the door opening to let the waiter in. He was
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a young waiter, hardly more than a boy, and had
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: always smiled kindly at me when we met, though hitherto
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: our intercourse had not gone farther. Now I rushed to
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: him and flung my arms round him, to his immense amaye,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and the near ruin of my bread and milk. He
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: spoke no English, and I know French, but somehow he
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: managed to understand that I was afraid and afraid of
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: that curtained alcove. He set down the bread and milk,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: and he took me in his arms, and together we
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: fetched more candles. And then he drew back the awful
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: curtain and showed me the beds, lying white and quiet.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: If I could have spoken French, I should have said yes,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: But how do I know? It was all like that
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: just now, before you drew the curtain back, as it was,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I said nothing, only clung to his neck. I hope
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: he did not get into any trouble that night for
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: neglected duties, For he did not attempt to leave me
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: until my mother came back. He sat down with me
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: on his knee and petted me and sang to me
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: under his breath, and fed me with the bread and milk,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: when by and by I grew calm enough to take it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: All good things be with him wherever he is. I
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: like best to think of him in a little hotel
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of his own, a quiet little country inn, standing back
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: from a straight road bordered with apple trees and poplars.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: There are wooden benches outside the door, and within a
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: whitewashed kitchen, where a plump, rosy faced woman is busy
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: with many cares, never busy enough, however, to pass the
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: master of the house without a loving word or a
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: loving look. I like to believe that now he has
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a little children of his own, who hold out their
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: arms when he opens the door, and who climb upon
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: his knees, clamoring for those same songs which he sang
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: out of the kindness of his boyish heart to the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: little frightened English child. Such a long, long time ago,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the mummies of Bordeaux were the crowning horror of my
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: childish life. It is to them, i think, more than
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: to any other thing, that I owe nights and knights
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear, and dread.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: All the other fears could have been effaced, but the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: shock of that sight branded it on my brain, and
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I never forgot it. For many years I could not
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: bring myself to go about any house in the dark,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: and long after I was a grown woman, I was
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: tortured in the dark watches by imagination and memory, who
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: rose strong and united, overpowering my will and my reason
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: as utterly as in my baby days. It was not
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: till I had two little children of my own that
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I was able to conquer this mortal terror of darkness,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and to each imagination her place under the foot of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: reason and the will. My children, I resolved should never
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: know such fear, and to guard them from it, I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: must banish it from my own soul. It was not easy,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: but it was done. It is banished now, and my babies,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: thank God, have never known it. It was a dark
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: cloud that overshadowed my childhood, and I don't believe my
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: mother ever knew how dark it was, for I could
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: not tell anyone the full horror of it while it
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: was over me, and when it had passed, I came
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: from it as one who has lived long years in
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: an enchanter's castle, where the sun is darkened, always might
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: come forth into the splendor of noontide. Such a one
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: breathes God's sweet air and beholds the free heavens with
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: joyous leaps of the heart. But he does not speak
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: soon nor lightly of what befell in the dark in
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the evil days in the Castle of the Enchanter. End
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: of Part five, Part six of My School Days by E. Nesbitt.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part six.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: She was the most beautiful person in the world. She
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: had brown eyes and pink cheeks, a blue silk dress,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: and a white bonnet with orange blossoms in it. She
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: had two pairs of shoes and two pairs of stockings,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and she had two wigs, a brown and a flaxen one.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: All her clothes took off and on, and there was
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: a complete change of them. I saw her first at
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: a bazaar and longed to possess her, but her price
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: was two guineas, and no hope mingled with my longing.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Here let me make a confession. I had never really
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: loved a doll. My affections up to that time had
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: been lavished on a black and white spotted penny rabbit
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: bought at a Kentish fare, But when I saw Renee,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: it seemed to me that if I could love a doll,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: this would be the one. We were at Pow, then
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in a select boarding house. I was bored with travel,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: as I believe all children are so large. A part
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: of a child's life is made up of little, familiar
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: playthings and objects. It has little of that historic and
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: artistic sense which lends color and delight to travel. I
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: was tired of wandering about, and glad to think we
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: were to stay in power for the winter. The bazaar
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: pleased me. It was got up by the English residence,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and their fancy work was the fancy work of the
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: church bazaars in England, and I felt at home among it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: And when my eyes rested on Renee, I saw the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: most delightful object I had seen for many weeks. I
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: looked and longed, and longed and looked, and then suddenly,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: in a moment, one of the great good fortunes of
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: my life happened to me. The beautiful doll was put
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: up to be raffled, and my sister won her. I
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: trembled with joy as she and her wardrobe were put
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: into my hands. I took her home. I dressed and
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: undressed her twenty times a day. I made her play
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: the part of heroine in all my favorite stories. I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: told her fairy tales and took her to bed with
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: me at night for company. But I never loved her.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I have never been able to love a doll in
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: my life. My mother came to me the next day,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: as I was changing Renee's wig, and said, don't you
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: think it's almost time that you began to have some
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: lessons again. I don't want my little girl to grow
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: up quite ignorant. You wouldn't like that yourself, would you.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I said, doubtfully, feeling that ignorance in
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: a grown up state was surely to be preferred to
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: a return to Stamford and Long Division. I'm not going
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: to send you to school, my mother hastened to ad doubtless,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: seeing the clouds that gathered in my face. I know
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: a French lady here who has a little girl about
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: your age, and she says that you can go and
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: live with her for a little while and learn French.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: And nice little girl, I asked, what is she like? Well,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: she's rather like your new doll. My mother laughed. When
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: it has the flaxen wig gone, think how nice it
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: will be to write letters home in French. I knew
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Miss hum could not write letters in French, and the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: prospect of crushing her with my new literary attainment filled
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: my wicked little heart. I should like to go and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: live with a little girl who is like my new Dolly,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: I said, if you will come and see me every day.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: So I went, my doll's clothes packed in their little
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: tin trunk, and I stood stealing shy side glances at Marguerite,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: who was certainly very like my doll, while my mother
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and her mother were exchanging last civilities. I was so
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: pleased with the new surroundings, the very French interior, the
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: excitement of being received as a member by a real
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: French family, that I forgot to cry till the fields
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of my mother's carriage had rolled away from the door.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Then I was left a little English child without a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: word of French, in the bosom of a French family.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: And as this came upon me, I burst into a
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: flood of tears. Madame Lord could speak no English, but
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: she knew the universal language, the language of love and kindness.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: She drew me to her ample lap, wiped my eyes,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: smiled at me, and chattered volubly in her own tongue
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: words whose sense was dead to me, but whose tone
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: breathed of tenderness and sympathy. By the time Mademoiselle Lord,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the only English speaking member of the family, came home
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: from her daily round of teaching, Marguerite and I were
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: unpacking my doll's clothes together and were laughing at our
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: vain efforts to understand each other. I learned French in
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: three months. All day I was with Madame Lord or Marguerite,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: neither of whom knew a word of English. It was
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: French or silence, and any healthy child would have chosen
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: French as I did. They were three happy months. I
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: adored Marguerite, who was I think the typical good child
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: of the French story books. She wore her hair in
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: a little yellow plait down her back. I do not
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: think we ever got into wilful mischief. For instance, our
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: starving the cat was quite unintentional. We were playing bandits
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in a sort of cellar that opened from the triangular
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: courtyard in front of the house, and it occurred to
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: us that Mimi would make an excellent captive princess. So
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: we caught her and put her in a hamper at
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the end of the cellar, And when my mother called
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: to take us home to tea with her, we rushed
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: off and left the poor princess still a prisoner. If
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: we hadn't been out that evening, we must have been
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: reminded of her existence by the search for her. But
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Madame Lorde, failing to find the cat, concluded that she
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: must have run away or met with an accident, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: did not mention the matter to us out of consideration
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: for our feelings, so that it was not until two
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: nights later that I started up in bed about midnight
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: and pulled Marguerite's yellow pigtail wildly. Oh, Marguerite, I cried,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Poor Mimi. I had to pull at the pigtail as
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: though it was a bell rope, and I had pulled
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: three times before I could get Marguerite to understand what
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: was the matter with me. Then she sat up in
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: bed rigid with a great purpose. We must go down
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and fetch her, she said. It was winter, the snow
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: was on the ground. Marguerite thoughtfully put on her shoes
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: and her dressing gown. But I, with some vague recollection
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: of barefooted pilgrims and some wild desire to make expiation
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: for my crime, went down barefooted in my night gown.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: The crime of forgetting a cat for three days was
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: well paid for by that expedition. We crept through the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: house like little shivering mice, across the courtyard, thinly sprinkled
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: with snow, and into that awful, black, yawning cellar, where
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: nameless horrors lurked behind each bit of shapeless lumber, ready
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to leap out upon us. As we passed. Marguerite did
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: not share my terrors. She only remarked that it was
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: very cold, and that we must make haste. We opened
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the hamper, fully expecting to find the captive dead, and
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: my heart gave a leap of delight when as we
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: raised the lid, the large white Mimi crept out and
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: began to rub herself against us with joyous purrings. I
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: remember so well the feeling of her soft, warm fur
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: against my cold little legs. I caught the cat in
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: my arms, and as I turned to go back to
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the house, my half frozen foot struck against something on
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: the floor. It felt silky. I picked it up. It
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: was Renee. She had also been a captive princess in
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: our game of bandits. She also had been shut up
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: here all this time, and I had never missed her.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: We took the cat and the doll back to bed
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: with us and tried to get warm again. Marguerite was
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: soon asleep, but I lay awake for a long time,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: kissing and crying over the ill used cat. I didn't
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: get up again for a fortnight. My barefooted pilgrimage cost
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: me a frightful cold and the loss of several children's
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: parties to which we had been invited. Marguerite, throughout my illness,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: behaved like an angel. I only remember one occasion on
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: which I quarreled with her. It was on the subject
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of dress. We were going to a children's party and
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: my best blue silk was put out for me to wear.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: I wish you wouldn't wear that, said Marguerite, hesitatingly. It
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: makes my gray cashmere look so old. Now I had
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: nothing else to wear but a brown frock, which I hated.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Never Mind, I said, hypocritically, it's better to be good
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: than smart. Everybody says so, and I put on my
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: blue silk when I was dressed. I pranced off to
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: the kitchen to show my finery to the cook, and
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: under her admiring eyes, executed my best curtsey. It began,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: of course, by drawing the right foot back. It ended
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: in a tub of clothes and water that was standing
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: just behind me. I floundered out somehow, and my first
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: thought was how funny I must have looked, And in
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: another moment I should have burst out laughing. But as
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I scrambled out, I saw Marguerite in the doorway, smiling triumphantly,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and heard her thin little voice say, the blue silk
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: can't mark the poor gray cashmere. Now an impulse of
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: blind fury came upon me. I caught Marguerite by her
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: little shoulders, and before the cook could interfere, I had
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: ducked her head first into the tub of linen. Madame
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Lord behaved beautifully. She appeared on the scene at this moment,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and impartial as ever. She slapped us both. But when
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: she heard from the cook the rights of the story,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: my sentence was bed. But Marguerite said her mother has
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: been punished enough for an unkind word. And Marguerite was
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: indeed sobbing bitterly, while I was dry eyed and still furious.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: She can't go, I cried, She hasn't got a dress.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: You have spoilt her dress, said Madame Lord coolly. The
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: least you can do is to lend her your brown one.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: And that excellent woman actually had the courage to send
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: her own daughter to a party in my dress, an
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: exquisite punishment to us both. Marguerite came to my bedside
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: that night. She had taken off the brown dress and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: wore her little flannel dressing gown. You're not cross, now,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: are you, she said. I did beg mother to let
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: you come, and I've not enjoyed myself a bit, and
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I've brought you this from the party. It was a
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: beautiful little model of a coffee mill, made in sugar.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: My resentment could not withstand this peace offering. I never
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: quarreled with Marguerite again, and when my mother sent for
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: me to join her at bannery, I wept as bitterly
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: at leaving Madame Lord as I had done at being
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: left with her. Cheer up, my darling, my cabbage, said
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the dear woman, as the tears stood in her own
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: little gray eyes. I have an instinct, a presentiment which
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: tells me we shall meet again, but we never have.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: End of Part six Part seven of My School Days
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: by E. Nesbitt. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Part seven Disillusion. I was sent with a servant from
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Pow to Banyuat. She soon dried my tears by reminding
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: me of the hideous blue and white knitted cuffs which
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: my hot and rebellious fingers had for weeks been busy
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: in knitting for my mother, and which I should now
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: be able to present personally. They were of a size
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: suitable to the wrist of a man of about eight feet,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: and the irregularities at the edge, where I had forgotten
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to slip the stitch were concealed by stiff little rutchings
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of blue satin ribbon. I thought of them with unspeakable pride.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: We reached Bannuet after dark, and my passion of joy
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: at seeing my mother again was heightened by the knowledge
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: that I had so rich a gift to bestow upon her.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: We had late dinner, in itself an event to me,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and then I tasted for the first time the delicious schmand'fen,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: a kind of open tart made of almond paste and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: oranges covered with a crisp icing or caramel. I have
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: never tasted this anywhere else, and though I have tried
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: again and again to reproduce it in my own kitchen,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: I have never obtained even a measure of success. Even
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to this delicacy. The thought of those blue and white
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: cuffs added flavor. After dinner, I slipped away and made
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: hay of the contents of my box till I found
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the precious treasures. I returned solemnly to the room where
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: my mother was sitting by the bright wood fire with
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the wax candles on a polished table. Mamma, I said,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: we called our mother's mamma in the sixties. I have
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: made your present all my very own self, and it's
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in here. Whatever can it be? Said my mother, affecting
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: an earnest interest. She undid the paper slowly. Oh what
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: beautiful cuffs, Thank you dear, And did you make them
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: all your very own self? My sisters all so looked
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: at and praised the cuffs, and I went happy to bed.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: When I was lying between the sheets, I heard one
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: of my sisters laughing in the next room. She was talking,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and I knew she was speaking of my precious cuffs.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: They would just fit a coal heaver, she said. She
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: never knew that I heard her, but it was years
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: before I forgave that unconscious outrage to my feelings. Banuey
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: de Bigorre is built in the midst of mountain streams.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Streams cross the roads, Streams run between the houses under
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: the houses. Not quiet, placid little streams such as meander
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: through our English meadows, but violent, angry, rushing, boiling little
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: mountain torrents, the thunder along their rocky beds. Sometimes one
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: of these streams is spanned by a dark arch and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: a house built over it. What good fortune that one
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: of them these houses should have been the one selected
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: by my mother on quite other grounds, of course. And
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: oh the double good fortune I even I was the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: sleep in the little bedroom actually built on the arch
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: itself that spanned the mountain stream. It was delightful, It
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: was romantic, It was fascinating. I could fancy myself a
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: princess in a tower by the rushing rhine as I
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: heard the four foot torrent go thundering along with a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: noise that would not have disgraced a full grown river.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: It had every charm the imagination could desire, but it
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: kept me awake till the small hours of the morning.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: It was humiliating to have to confess that even romance
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: and a rushing torrent did not compensate for the loss
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: of humdrum commonplace sleep. But I accepted that humiliation and
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: slept no more in the little room overhanging the torrent.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Next day was, I confess, tiresome to me, and I,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: in consequence, tiresome to other people. The excitement of coming
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: back to my mother had quickly worn off. My mother
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: was busy letter writing, so were my sisters. I missed
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Marguerite Mimi, even my lessons. There was something terribly unhomelike
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: about the polished floor, the polished wooden furniture, the marble
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: topped chest of drawers with glass handles, and the cold
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: grayness of the stone built houses outside. I wandered about
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: the swede of apartments every now and then, rubbing myself
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: like a kitten against my mother's shoulder and murmuring, I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: don't know what to do. I tried drawing, but the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: pencil was bad and the paper greasy. I thought of reading,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: but there was no book there that I cared for.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: It was one of the longest days I ever spent.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: That evening, my sister said to me, Daisy, would you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: like to see a shepherdess, a real live shepherdess. Now
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I had read of shepherdess's in my Conte de fay.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I knew that they wore rose wreathed watto hats, short
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: satin shirts, and flowered silk overdresses. That spinning was part
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: of their daily toil, and that they danced in village festivals,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: generally at moments when the king's son was riding by
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: to the hunt. Oh, I should like to see a shepherdess,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: I said, But do you mean a real one who
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: keeps sheep and spins and everything. Oh? Yes, she stands
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: at her cottage door and spins while she watches her sheep,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: and eats a beautiful kind of yellow bread made of
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: maize that looks and tastes like cake. I dare say
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: she would give you some if you asked her. The
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: mention of the shepherdess dissipated my boredom. I climbed on
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: my sister's knee and begged for a fairy story, and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: let it be about shepherdess's, I said. My sister had
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a genius for telling fairy stories. If she would only
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: write them now as she told them all, then all
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the children in England would insist on having her fairy
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: stories and none others. She told me a story that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: had a shepherdess in it, and a king's son, of course,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a wicked fairy, a dragon and a coach, and many
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: other interesting and delightful characters. I went to bed happy
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: in the knowledge that the fairy world was stooping to earth,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: and that the fairy world and this world of ours
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: would touch tomorrow and touch at the point where I
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: should behold the Shepherdess. I spent the next morning happily
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: enough in drawing fancy portraits of the Shepherdess, the king's son,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and the wicked fairy. My sister lent me her paint
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: and her best sable brush, and life blossomed anew. Under
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the influence of a good night's rest. In the afternoon,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: we started out to see the Shepherdess. Over the cobble
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: stones of the streets among the little mountain torrents. We
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: picked our way and came at last to green pastures
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: at the foot of the mountains. The Pyrenee were so
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: bright in their snow coats touched by the sun that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: our eyes could not bear to look at them. We
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: shall soon come to the shepherdess, said my sister cheerfully.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: You must not expect her to be like the ones
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: in fairy tales, you know, of course, not said I,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: but in my heart I did. We came presently to
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: a sloping pasture strewn with fragments of rock. There she is,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: said my sister, sitting on a stone, spinning with her
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: sheep round her. I looked, but could see no one
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: save one old woman, the witch. Probably where I don't
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: see her, I said. By this time we were close
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to the old woman. There's your shepherdess, said my sister
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: in English. Look at her nice quaint dress and the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: spindle and distaff. I looked, but such a sight had
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: no charms for me. Where was my flowered, silk wotto
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: hatted maiden? Where was her crook with the pink ribbons
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: on it? And as for the King's son, his horse
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: could never have ridden up this steep hill side. It
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: was a disenchanted world where I stood gazing sadly at
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: a wrinkle faced old woman in a blue woolen petticoat
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: and coorse linen apron, a gay colored shawl crossed on
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: her breast, a gay colored handkerchief knotted round her head.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: She had wooden shoes, and her crook was a common
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: wooden one with a bit of iron at the end,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: and not a ribbon nor a flower on it. But
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: she was very kind. She took us up to her
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: little hut among the rocks, and gave us milk and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: maize bread at my sister's request. The bread was like
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: sawdust or a bath bun of the week before last.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: But had it been ambrosia, I could not have tasted
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: a second mouthful. My heart was too full. I came
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: home in silence. My sister was sad because the little
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: treat had not pleased me. I did not mean to
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: be ungrateful. I was only struggling savagely with the misery
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: of my first disillusion. Like Missus over the way, I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: had looked for pink roses and found only foye motte.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: End of Part seven, Part eight of My School Days
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: by een Esbitt. This liprivox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Part eight. In Auverne, we were to leave Bannuay. Imagine
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: my delight when I found we were to travel not
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: by train, but in an open carriage. In this we
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: were to drive through the mountains, the mysterious snow clad
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: mountains into Spain, where the Alhambrough was, and oranges and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: Spanish nuts, and all sorts of delightful things. But alas
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: for my hopes, my brother at home in England chose
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: to have hooping cough, and so our horses heads were
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: turned north and farewell for ever to my visions of Spain.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: We drove through lovely country to the other Bannert bannuet
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: de Lauchamp. On the way we passed a large yellow
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: stone castle on a hill. Most of the castle was
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: in ruins, but a great square tower without door or window,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: still stood as strong and firm as on the day
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: when the last stone was patted into place with the trowel.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: We wandered round this tower in vain, trying to find
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: a door. But it is that there is no door,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: said our driver. At last, within that tower is buried
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: a treasure. Some day a great wind will blow, and
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: then that tower will fall to the ground, and then
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: the folks of the village will divide the treasure and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: become kings of France. It is an old prophecy, but
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: suggested my mother. As no one tried to get in
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and see if there really is a treasure, the driver
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: crossed himself. The saints forbid, he said, who are we
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: that we should interfere with the holy prophecy? Besides, the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: tower is haunted. We could not help wondering how far
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: the ghost and prophecy would have protected that tower from
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: English village boys. We drove on presently we stopped at
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: a little wayside shrine with the painted image of Saint
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: John in it and a little shell of holy water.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: At the side of that shrine was a stone with
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: an iron ring in it. Nothing more was needed to
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: convince me that this was the entrance to a subterranean
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: passage leading to the tower where the treasure was. Imagine
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the dreams that occupied me for the rest of the drive.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: If I could creep back at the dead of night
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: to the shrine, a thing which, as a matter of fact,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: I would much rather have died than attempted. If I
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: should pull up that heavy stone and go down the
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: damp subterranean passage and find the treasure in iron boxes,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: rubies and diamonds and emeralds and beautiful gold and silver dishes.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Then we should all be very rich for the rest
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: of our lives. And I could send Marguerite a talking
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: doll that opened and shut its eyes, and a pony carriage.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: And each of the boys should have a new paint
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: box with real moist colors, and as many sable brushes
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: as they liked, twenty each if they wanted them. And
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: I should have a chariot drawn by four tame zebras
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: in red and silver harness. And my mother should have
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: a gold crown with diamonds for Sundays, and a silver
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: one with rubies and emeralds for every day. And I
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: imagine I fell asleep at this point and awoke to
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: find myself lifted out of the carriage at Baut de Luchemp.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't go back and lift up the stone with
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the iron ring. But the dream was a serviceable one
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: and did duty nobly in idle hours for many a
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: long year. In fact, I come across it unexpectedly sometimes
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: even now. We spent a day or two at Bannuet
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: de Luchemp, and I believe it rained all the time.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: We drove in a drizzling rain across a rather gloomy country.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: To see the Cascade d'anfeur, as my memory serves me,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: we crossed a dreary plain and entered a sort of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: theater or semicircle of high black rocks. In the center
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: of the horseshoe. Down the face of the rock ran
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: a thin silver line. This was the Cascade d'anfeur, eminently
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: unimpressive first view. But when we got out of our
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: carriage and walked across the rough ground and stood under
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: the heavy shadow of the black cliffs, the thin white
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: line had changed and grown to a dense body of
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: smoothly falling water that fell over the cliff's sheer edge
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and disappeared like a column of green glass, into a
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: circular hole at the foot of the cliff. That hole
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: goes down down, said our guide. No one knows how far,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: except the good God who made it. The water did
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: not fill up the hole. An empty black space some
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: yards wide was between us and the falling water. Our
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: guide heaved a lump of rock over the edge. You
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: not hear it strike water, he said, And though we
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: listened for some time, we did not hear it strike anything.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: That was the horror of it. We drove on the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: next day to Saint Bertrand de Ming, a little town
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: on a hill with many steeples, whose bells answered each
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: other with sweet, jangling voices as we reached its gates
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: in the peace of the evening. Most of this driving
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: tour has faded from my mind, but I shall never
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: forget the drive from Orelac to Murat. We started late
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon because my sisters wished to see the
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Auverne Mountains by moonlight. We had a large open carriage
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: with a sort of rumble behind and a wide box
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: seat in front. The driver, a blue bloused Ruffian of
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: plausible manners, agreed to take us and our luggage to
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Murat for a certain price which I have forgotten. All
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: our luggage was packed upon his carriage. We too, were
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: packed in it, and we started about five miles from
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: the town. The driver halted and came to the door
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: of the carriage, Miss darm He said, a young relative
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: of mine will join us here. He will sit on
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: the box with me. My mother objected that, as we
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: were paying for the carriage, we had a right to
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: refuse to allow his friend to enter it as you will, madame.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: He said, calmly. But if you refuse to accommodate my
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: step son, a young man of the most high distinction,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: I shall place you and your boxes in the middle
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: of the road and leave you planted there. Three English
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: ladies and a little girl alone in a strange country,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: five miles from any town. What could we do? My
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: mother consented. A mile or two further on, two blue
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: bloused figures got up suddenly from their seat by the
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: road side. My father and brother in law, said our driver.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: My mother saw that protest was vain, so these two
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: were stowed in a rumble, and the carriage jolted on
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: more heavily. We now began to be seriously frightened. I
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: know I endured agonies of torture, no doubt. These were highwaymen,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: and at the new most convenient spot they would stop
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: the carriage and murder us all. In the next few miles,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: two more passengers were added to our number, a cousin
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: and an uncle. All wore blue blouses and had villainous
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: looking faces. The uncle, who looked like a paupoise and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: smelt horribly of brandy, was put inside the carriage with us,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: because there was now no room left in any other
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: part of the conveyance. The family party laughed and jolted
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: in a patois wholly unintelligible to us. I was convinced
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: that they were arranging for the disposal of our property
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: and our bodies after the murder. My mother and sisters
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: were talking in low voices in English. If we only
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: get to the half way house safe, she said, we
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: can appeal to the landlord for protection. And after a
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: seemingly interminable drive, we got to the half way house.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: It was a low, roughly built, dirty or beerge with
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: an uneven earthen floor, the ceilings, benches, and tables black
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: with age, just the place where travelers are always murdered
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: in Christmas stories. My teeth chattered with terror, but there
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: was a certain pleasure in the excitement all the same.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: We ordered supper. It was now near midnight, and while
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: it was being prepared, my mother emptied her purse of
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: awe save the money promised to the driver, and at
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: ten franc piece to pay for our suppers. The rest
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: of the money she put into a canvas bag which
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: hung round her neck, where she always carried her bank notes.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: The supper was like something out of a fairy tale,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: a clean cloth in itself, an incongruous accident in such
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: a place. New milk, new bread, and new honey. When
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: the woman brought in our bill, my mother poured out
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: her woes and confessed her fear of the driver's intentions.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Said the woman briskly, he's the best man in the world.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: He's my own son. Surely he has a right to
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: give his own relations a lift in his carriage if
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: he likes. But we had paid for his carriage. He
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: has no right to put other people in when we
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: are paying for it. Oh, yes, he has retorted the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: woman shortly. You paid him so much to take you
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: to Murat, and he will take you to Murat. But
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: there was nothing said about his not taking any one else.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: And he says now he won't take you on to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: Murrat unless you pay him double the fare you agreed for.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: His horses are tired. I should think they were muttered,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: my sister, considering the number of extra passengers they have dragged.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: My mother emptied her purse on the table. You see,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: she said, here is only the money I promised your son,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: and enough to pay for our suppers. But when we
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: get to Murat, I shall find money waiting for me,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: and I will give him what you ask. I believe
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: this conduct of my mother saved us, at any rate
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: from being robbed by violence. The inn stood quite by
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: itself in one of the loneliest spots and mountains of Auverne.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: If they had believed that we were worth robbing, and
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: had chosen to rob us, nothing could have saved us.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: We started again. My mother now began to make light
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: of the adventure, and my terror subsided sufficiently for me
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: to be able to note the terrible grandeur of the scenery.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: We passed through, vast masses of bare volcanic rock, iron
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: gray in the moonlight, with black chasms and mysterious gorges,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: each one eloquent of bandits and gnomes, and an absolute stillness,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: save for the rattle of our carriage, as though with vegetation,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: life too had ceased, as though indeed we rode through
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: a land death still under the enchantment of some evil magician.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: The rocks and the mountains beyond them towered higher and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: higher on each side of the road. The strip of
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: flat ground between us and the rocks grew narrower, till
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: presently the road wound between two vast black cliffs, and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the strip of sky high up looked bright and blue.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: The tall cliffs were on either side, and presently I
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: saw with dismay that in front of us the dark
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: cliff stretched right across the road. We seemed to be
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: driving straight into the heart of the rock. In another moment,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: with a crack of the whip and an encouraging word
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: or two, the driver urged his horses to a gallop,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: and we plunged through a dark archway in a pitch darkness.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: For with a jolt the carriage lamps went out. We
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: had just been able to see that we had passed
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: out of the night air into a tunnel cut in
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: a solid rock. Oh how thankful we were then that
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: the paupoise and all the rest of our driver's relations
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: had been left behind at the half way house. The
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: driver lighted the lamps again almost immediately. He seemed in
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: a better temper than before, and explained to us that
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: this was the great arch and the mountains, and to me,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: he added, it will be something for you to remember
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and to tell your children about when you are old,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: which was certainly true. That tunnel was unbearably long, as
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: we rattled through its cavernous depths, I could not persuade
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: myself that at any moment our drivers accomplices might not
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: spring out upon us and kill us there and then
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Who would ever have known? Oh the relief of seeing
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: at last a faint pinprick of light. It grew larger
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: and larger and larger, and at last, through another arch
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: we rattled out into the moonlight again. Of course, I
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: shall never know now how many of the terrors of
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: that night were imaginary. It is not pleasant even now
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: to think of what might have happened. And at last
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: we reached our journey's end, a miserable, filthy inn, and
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: with a thankful heart, saw the last of our blue
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: bloused driver. The landlady objected very strongly to letting us in,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: and we objected still more strongly to the accommodation which
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: she at last consented to offer us. The sheets were
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: gray with dirt, and the pillows grimed with the long
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: succession of heads that had lain on them. A fire
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: was the only good thing that we got at Marat.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: To go to bed was impossible. We sat round the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: fire waiting for daylight, and the first morning train my
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: mother took me on her knee. I grew warm and
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: very comfortable, and forgot all my troubles. Ah, I said,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: with sleepy satisfaction, this is very nice. It's just like home.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: The contrast between my words and that filthy, squalid inn
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: must have been irresistibly comic. For my mother and sisters
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: laughed till I thought they would never stop. My innocent remark.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: And some bread and milk, the only things clean enough
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: to touch. She had us all up wonderfully, and in
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: another twenty four hours my mother and sisters were all
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: saying to each other that perhaps, after all there had
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: been nothing to be frightened about. But all the same,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of that party would ever have
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: cared to face another night drive through the mountains of Auverne.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: End of Part eight, Part nine of My School Days
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: by y Nesbitt. This liprivox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: Part nine La Haye. After our experience in Auverne, the
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: rest of our travel was so flat as to have
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: faded almost entirely from my memory. As soon as we
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: reached England, I was sent to school, to a school
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: of which I shall have more to say. Presently. There
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: were only twenty girls. Missus mac Bean was one of
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: the best and kindest women who ever lived, a devoted
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: Christian with a heart large enough to take in all
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: her girls. If I could have been happy at any school,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: I should have been happy there. And I was not
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: actively unhappy, for I lived on my mother's promise that
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: in July I should go back to her again. Where
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: she was I didn't know, but I knew she was
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: looking for a pretty home for us. All I used
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: to write letters to her, addressed to Saint Martin's LeGrande,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: which I think I believed to be in Paris. At last,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: the news came that she had decided to live at
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Dinan in Brittany, and that in two short days I
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: was to go by boat and join her. One day passed.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: The next day, at dinner, I was hugging myself on
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: the thought of the morrow. To morrow. I said to
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: the girl next me, I shall be going to my
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: mother in France. Oh no, dear, said the governess. At
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: the foot of the table. Miss mac Bean says, you're
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: not going till Wednesday. With a crash, my card castle
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: came tumbling about my ears. Wednesday might as well have
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: been next year. It seemed so far off. I burst
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: into passionate weeping just as the servant placed a large
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: plate of steaming black currant pudding before me. I saw
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: through my tears how vexed Miss mac Bean looked. She
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: hadn't meant to break the news to me in this way. Come, Daisy,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: she said, after a while, don't cry, dear, Have some
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: black currant pudding. Nice black currant pudding. I don't want
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: any black currant pudding. I cried, I hate it. I
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: never want any pudding again. And with that I rushed
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: from the room. And from that day to this I
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: have no iver been able to tolerate black currant pudding.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: Everyone was very kind to me, but there was not
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: any one there who could at all understand the agony
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: that that delay cost me. I didn't care to eat.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't care to sleep, or play or read. When
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: my mother met me at Saint Malo on the following Thursday,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: her first words were, why how pale and ill the
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: child looks. My sister suggested that it was the steamboat,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: but I don't believe it was. I believe it was
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: the awful shock that came to me over the black
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: currant pudding, a long drive on a diligence by miles
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: and miles of straight white road, the fatigue of the
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: journey forgotten in the consciousness that I was going home,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: not to a hotel, not to a boarding house, but home.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: The small material objects that surround one's daily life have
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: always influenced me deeply. Even as a child, I found
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: that in a familiar entourage one could be contented, if
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: not happy. But hotels and boarding houses and lodgings have
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: always bored me to extinction. Of course, as a matter
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: of theory, one ought to carry one's intellectual atmosphere with
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: one and be independent of surroundings. But as a matter
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: of practice it can't be done, at least by me.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: I have a cat like fondness for things I am
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: accustomed to, and I am not singular in this respect.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: I once knew a woman who, after years of genteel
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: poverty and comfortless economy, had an opportunity of a new
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: life in comparatively affluent circumstances. Why ever, don't you accept it,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: I said, when she told me of it. I can't
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: make up my mind to it. She said, You see,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: I should have to leave the furniture I felt some
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: sympathy for her, though I hope that in her place
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: I should have been strong minded enough to make another chore.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: At last, the diligence drew up at a cross roads
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: where a cart was waiting, and to this our luggage
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: was transferred. It turned up one of the side roads,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: and we followed on foot. Upper hill wound the road,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: a steep wooded slope on one side, and on the
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: other a high clay bank set with dainty ferns. Here
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: and there a tiny spring trickled down to join the
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: little stream that ran beside the road. We turned a
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: corner by a farm through a herd of gaunt pigs,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: nearly as big as donkeys, the sight of which made
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: me clasp my mother's hand more tightly. Each pig had
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: a bar of wood suspended from his neck by a string,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: so that if he tried to stray through the hedge,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: the bar would catch and hold him back. All the
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: pigs tried to walk over this bar as it hung
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: against their fore legs. They never succeeded, but the action
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: gave them all the air of high stepping carriage horses.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: Then we walked a little further along the white road,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: and the cart turned in at a wooden gate. We
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: followed along the carriage drive, which ran along outside the
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: high red wall of the big garden, then through a
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: plantation of huge horse chestnut trees. To the left, I
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: could see ricks, cows, and pigs, all the bustle and
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: color of a farm yard. Two great brown gates swung
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: back on their hinges, and we passed through them into
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: the courtyard of the dearest home of my childhood. The
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: courtyard was square. One side was formed by the house, dairy,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: coach house, and the chicken house formed the second side.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: On the third side were stable, cow house and goat shed.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: On the fourth wood shed, dog kennel, and the great
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: gates by which we had entered. The house itself was
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: an ordinary whitewashed, slate roofed French country house, with an
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: immense walled fruit garden on the other side of it.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: There never was such another garden. There never will be. Peaches,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: apriy carts, nectarines, and grapes of all kinds lined the
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: inside walls. The avenue that ran down the middle of
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: it was of fig trees and standard peach trees. There
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: were raspberries, cherries, and strawberries and flowers, mingling with fruits
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: and vegetables in a confusion, the most charming in the world.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: Along the end of the garden was a great arcade
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: of black clipped ewes, so thick and strong that a
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: child could crawl on the outside of it without falling through.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: Above the dairy and coach house was an immense hayloft,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: a straw loft over the stable and cow house what
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: play rooms for wet days. Beyond the chicken house was
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: the orchard, full of twisted gray apple trees, beneath whose
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: boughs in due season the barley grew beyond a network
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: of lanes, fringed with maiden hair, led away into fairy land.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: My brothers eagerly led me around to show me all
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: the treasures of the new home. There was a swing
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: in the orchard. There were trees full of cherries, white
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: and black, and we may eat as many as we like,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: said Alfred. That afternoon we gathered a waste paper basket
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: full of cherries, and with strenuous greed, set ourselves to
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: empty it. We didn't succeed, of course, but the effort,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: so far as I remember, was attended by no evil consequences.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: We gave what we couldn't eat to the little black
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: English pig. Another of the treasures of the new home.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: There was a little black cow. There was a goat
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: who resented with her horns my efforts after goat's milk.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: I learnt to milk her afterwards, though, and she grew
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: very kind and condescending. Then there were two ponies, Punch
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: and Judy. And Punch, my brothers told me proudly was
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: for us to ride. This was the crowning happiness. We
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: had never had a pony of our own before. He
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: was a tiresome, pig headed little beast, that pony, but
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: we loved him dearly. He had a way of pretending
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: to be frightfully thirsty when you were out riding him,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: And when, in the kindness of your heart you let
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: him bend his head to a wayside pond for a drink,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: he would kick up his wicked little heels and over
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: his head you had to go. If he could rub
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: you off against a tree as you rode across the fields,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: he would do it with all the pleasure in life.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: He was rather good at jumping, and he and I
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: had some pleasant cross country expeditions. But if anything in
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the nature of the obstacle you put him at happened
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: to strike his fancy disagreeably, he had a clever way
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: of stopping short at the last moment, when, of course,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: you went over his head. He threw me three times
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: in this way one morning, but after that I was
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: up to him. End of Part nine, Part ten of
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: My School Days by Enair's bit. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Part ten Pirates and Explorers. That
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: summer was an ideally happy one. My mother, with a
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: wisdom for which I shall thank her all my days,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: allowed us to run wild. We were expected to appear
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: at meals with some approach to punctuality, and with hands
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: and faces moderately clean. Sometimes, when visitors were expected, we
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: were seized and scrubbed and clothed, and made to look
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: something like the good little children we were not. Then
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: my brothers fidgeted awkwardly on their chairs and tried to
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: conceal their hands and feet, while I nibbled a biscuit
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: or cake in an agony of shyness, not quite unrelieved
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: by sneaking appreciation of my fine dress, an appreciation for
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: which my brothers would never have forgiven me had I
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: been foolish enough to show it. But as a rule
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: we were left to go our own way, and a
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: very happy way it was. I don't mean that we
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: were neglected. My eldest sister was always a refuge on
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: wet days when a fairy story seemed to be the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: best thing to be had. In the midst of all
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: the parties, picnics and gaieties in which our elders were plunged,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: my other sister found time to read aloud to us
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: and to receive such confidences as we deemed it wise
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: to make concerning our plans and plays. We had gauged
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: the possibilities of the lofts correctly, with trusses of hay
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: or straw, a magnificent fort could be made. I usually
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: held the fort when the boys had built it, and
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: the weakness of the garrison was lessened by the introduction
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: of the two dogs, who defended it, with me nobly
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: understanding perfectly the parts they had to play. We got
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: the black pig up once, but that was a failure
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: when there was no time to organize a play. When
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: it was not worth while to begin anything, because dinner
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: or breakfast would be ready in a few minutes. It
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: was a constant delight to scale the wall behind the
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: stable and watch the great wooden wheel slowly dragged round
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: the circular stone trough where the apples for cider lay.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: The old blind white horse, harnessed to the wheel, went
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: sleepily round and round. You could hear the crunch crunch
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: of the apples as the great wooden wheel went over them,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: and smell the sweet scent of the crushed fruit as
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: you sat swinging your legs on the wall among the
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: yellow stone crop and sulfur colored snap dragon. Or if
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: you had the time to spare, what rapture to balance
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: yourself on the edge of the stone trough and walk
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: round it, just behind the big wheel, knowing that if
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: you slipped you might fall on a muddy track outside,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: but that you were much more likely to fall into
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: the trough itself, in which case your pinafore and stockings
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: we wore white stockings, then would be richly stained with
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: apple juice to the color of red rust. If the
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: farmer were in a good temper, he would sometimes take
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: you in to see the apples put in the press.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: You had to climb up by rough steps cut in
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: the beams. If the press was nearly full, at the top,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: on a little platform stood the farmer, drawing up the
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: crushed apples from below by bucketsful, and spreading them on
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: their bed of clean straw with a wooden shovel, a
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: layer of straw and a lair of apples. And when
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: the press was full, the big beams screwed down. We
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: hastened below to see the russet juice run out from
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: its stone channel into the great vats. Though the farmer
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: joined our house, it was not our property, but as
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: far as we children were concerned, it was just as
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: good as ours. For the farmer allowed us the same
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: privileges that he accorded to his own children. That is
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: to say, if the farmer were in a good temper,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: we might watch any of the farming operations. If he
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: were not, his own children had to keep out of
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: the way, and so had we. There was a delightful
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: pond in the field where the farm horses went to drink.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: It had a trampled muddy shore on one side, and
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: on the other a high bank of yellow clay. We
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: made a raft, of course, out of an old door,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: and two barrels and successfully sailed across to the Yellow Cliffs.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: How nice it would be, I said, if there were
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: a cave in these cliffs, we can have no end
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: of a good time and be pirates and things. You
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: don't suppose, said Alfred scornfully, that a pirate chief would
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: wait to find a cave. If he wanted one, he
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: would make one. Of course, I shall make one. I
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: don't believe you can, said Harry, and I in a breath.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: All right, said my brother. You'll see next morning, when
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: Harry and I went out to the field, there was
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Alfred ankle deep in water, shoveling out clay from the bank.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: What a big hole you've made, said I. I believe
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: I could get into it if I curled up very much, Ah,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: said my brother grimly. You thought I couldn't do it?
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: Do you mean to say you aren't going to let
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: us go shares? Said Harry, reading his brother's tone instantly,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: Not a share, said Alfred firmly. This is going to
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: be my cave, and if I find any one in
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: it without my leave, I'll throw him to the alligators.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: There aren't any alligators, said Harry. There are only ducks
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: and indeed there were several swimming about the yellow waters
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: of the pond. All right, said Alfred, cheerfully, sending a
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: large spade full of clay splashing into the pond. I'll
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: throw you to the ducks, then, I dare say they'll
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: do just as well. Alfred worked with what seemed to
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: us superhuman vigor, and before evening there really was a
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: hole in the clay bank big enough for him to
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: get into. If, as I said, he curled himself up
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: very much, he'll be tired of it tomorrow, said Harry
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: to me, privately, reasoning from his former experience of his brother,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: And then he'll let us have it. But the next
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: day we found that the roof of the cave had
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: fallen in. No one need want to have it now,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: I said, But I was mistaken. The landslip, while filling up,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: had enlarged the hole, so that when the loose clay
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: was cleared out, there was a space large enough for
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: us all to have got in, even with the dogs.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: Alfred twisted some straw into a rope and made it
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: with string into a rough mat. This he put at
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: the bottom of his rough cave. I timidly offered to
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: help with this, but my offers were sternly rejected. You
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: said I couldn't do it, he said, and I'll jolly
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: well show you I can. Harry came to me a
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: little later when I was feeding my rabbits. He's got
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: it all so nice, he said. He's roofed it over
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: with a hurdle, and he's put a bit of old
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: tarpaulin over it, and he's fastening it down with big
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: stones like the people in the Swiss family. Robinson, I
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: wish you'd let us share in it. Look here, I said,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: let's walk into town and get him a present. Then
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: he'll see we're sorry we said he couldn't do it.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: In the broiling sun, we walked the five miles into
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: the town and back, returning with a large green sugar
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: stick wrapped in colored paper, which had taken all our
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: halfpence to buy. With this, we approached the pond. Alfred
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: was sitting in his cave with the raft moored at
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: his feet. I waved the sugar stick in the air.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: Look here, Alfred, I said, here's a secret to pom
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: for you. We've been all the way to Dean and
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: to get it. And we're sorry, we said, you couldn't
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: you little duffers, he cried, I don't want your secret
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: to Pom. I only wanted you to say you were sorry.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: You needn't have walked five miles in a broiling sun
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: to do that. He'd like to come over, wouldn't you,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: he added, unmooring the raft. We really didn't mean to
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: vex you, I said, as he came across. Not another word,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: he said handsomely, and rode us to the cave. It
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: was a very soft cave, and we had no means
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: of breaking the secret upon, so we took it in
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: turns to suck it. Alfred, after some persuasion, consenting to
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: join us in the feast that so as not to
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: hurt our feelings. He said that cave was a joy
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: to us for many a day, though there was generally
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: at least half an inch of water in it, and
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: we didn't abandon it till the autumn rains had swelled
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: the pond water and raised it above the level of
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: our cave. It was a grand day for us when
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: we first discovered our stream. It was three or four
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: fields from our house and ran through a beautiful meadow
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: with sloping woods on each side. Its bottom was partly
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: of shining sand and stone, and in some places of
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: clay we built dams and bridges. With the clay. We
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: caught fish with butterfly nets in the sandy shallows. We
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: called it the nile, and pretended there were crocodiles in it,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: and that the rocks among the woods were temples and pyramids.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: One day Alfred proposed that we should try and find
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: the source of it. We shall have to travel through
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: a very wild country, he said, explorers always do, and
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: we shall want a good lot of provisions, for I
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: don't suppose we should get back before dinner time. So
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: you kids had better sneak as much bread and butter
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: as you can at breakfast, and I'll sneak what I
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: can out of the larder, and we'll start directly after
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: breakfast tomorrow. We secured a goodly stock of provisions in
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: an old nose bag which we found in the stables.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: But it was so heavy that we were glad to
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: hide it under the second hedge that we passed, and
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: go on with only what we could carry in our pockets.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: We struck the river the usual point. I think we
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: ought to wade up, said Alfred. There are no crocodiles
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: in this part of the river, but the lions and
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: tigers on the banks are something awful. So we waded
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: up stream, which is tiring work. Let me tell you,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: I don't see a single lion, I said, presently, But
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I saw a crocodile just now under that bank.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: So we got out and walked by the stream's edge
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: on the fine, short some warmed turf. But presently we
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: came to the end of the field. The stream ran
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: through a wood and we had to take to wading again,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: but the water was much shallower and it was easy.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: We ate some of our provisions, sitting upon a large, flat,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: moss covered stone in the middle of the stream. Then
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: we went on again. Harry began to get rather tired.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: We shall never find the source of the stream, he said,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't wonder if it's thousands of miles away, somewhere
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: up by Paris, I dare say, I vote. We turned back,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: but his suggestion was howled down by the exploring party,
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: and we went on through a meadow where the flax
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: was drying in stocks. Then through another wood we followed
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: the stream, and then with a thrill of delight, we
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: saw that the water ran from a little brick tunnel,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: the mouth of which was draped in a green veil
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: of maidenhair. I suppose it was about four feet high.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: You'll turn back now, said Harry triumphantly. For an answer,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: Alfred stooped and plunged into the darkness of the little tunnel.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: I followed, and Harry brought up the rear. It was
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: back breaking work, but the floor was smooth. If we
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: had had to pick our way, we could never have
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: done it, for Alfred had only a few matches, and
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: lighted one very occasionally. At last we found ourselves again
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: in a dazzling sunlight, and behold, our stream was meandering
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: through a wonderful swamp, full of grasses and curious flowers,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: whose like I have never seen elsewhere. Our stream got
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: narrower and narrower, but we followed it faithfully, and at last,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: crashing through a hedge, found ourselves and a roadway. Opposite us.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: In the high bank was a little stone basin into
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: which water trickled from above. From this basin, a narrow
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: stream of water, not more than a foot wide, ran
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: across the road and under the hedge. This was the
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: source of our stream. This a wayside well we had
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: passed a thousand times. We finished our provisions, and, knowing
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: now where we were, went home by road. The swamp
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: had coated us with black mud almost from head to foot,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: and in this condition we marched gaily into the garden,
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: where my mother was entertaining a company of rather smart
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: friends at afternoon tea. The sequel was bed end of
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: Part ten, Part eleven of My School Days by Ensbitt.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: The Slipper Fox is in the public domain. Part eleven.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: The happy memories of that golden time crowd thickly upon me.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: I see again the dewy freshness as of an enchanted
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: world that greeted us when we stole down carrying our
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: shoes in our hands, long before the rest of the
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: household was astir. I smell the scents of dead leaves
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: and wood smoke, and it brings back to me the
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: bonfires on autumn evenings, when we used to play at
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: red Indians and sit round the fire telling stories, and
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: when that palled, dig out from the gray and red
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: ashes the potatoes we had put there to roast and eat,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: the half cooked, blackened, smoke flavored dainties with keenest appreciation
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: the rare days when we went to Dinard and paddled
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: in the shallow waters of the bay between blue sky
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: and gold sand, picking limpets from the rocks, and wishing
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: for wooden spades, which Dinard then least did not produce.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: A Part of the infinite charm of those days lies
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: in the fact that we were never bored, and children
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: abhored much more often and much more deeply than their
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: elders suppose. I remember an occasion when some well meaning
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: friends persuaded my mother that my education was being neglected.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: I was sent to a select French school, Mademoiselle Fourchet's
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: in Devon, but owing to some misunderstanding, I arrived five
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: days before the other girls. Mademoiselle Fourchet kindly consented to
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: overlook the mistake and keep me till the other girls arrived.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: I had a paint box, which pleased me for the
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: first day, but the boredom of the other four days
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: is branded on my memory in gray letters. Mademoiselle Fourchet
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: was busy in visiting her friends and receiving them. She
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: took me out for a serious walk every day. We
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: walked for hour and then Mademoiselle Fourchet returned to her
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: visiting and I to the bear school room. I had
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: bought few books with me, and these I devoured in
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: an hour or two. There were no books in the schoolroom,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: but lesson books thumbed, dog's eared, and ink stained. There
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: was no one to talk to, save the severe cook,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: who was kind to me in her way, but didn't
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: understand children. There was a gray walled garden full of
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: fruit that I must not touch, and a locked bookcase
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: in Mademoiselle Fourchet's salon full of books that I must
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: not read. I was not conscious of being unhappy, only bored,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: bored to extinction. On the fourth day, I persuaded Mademoiselle
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Fourchet to vary our prim walk round the town. She
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: asked me where I would like to go, and I
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: said Lafontaine. Mademoiselle Fourchet meant to be kind according to
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: her lights, but she was the ideal school mistress, gray haired,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: prim bloodless. However, she conceded this to me, and I
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: was grateful. We started for Lafontaine. Lafontaine is one of
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: the show places of Divan as it has a natural
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: fountain of mineral water. There is a casino where balls
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: and fates and merrymakings are held, where bands play, and
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: little colored lamps glimmer in the trees. All this awakened
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: no associations, stirred nothing in me, for I had never
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: been to a fate at Lafontaine. But below the platform
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: on which the casino was built, ran a stream, our stream,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: our nile, on its way to join the river. The
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: sight of it was too much for me. I remembered
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: our happy exploring parties, the muddy dams we had built
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: across it. I thought of the rabbits and the garden
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: at home, and my brothers and my mother, And in
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: the midst of one of Mademoiselle's platitudes on the beauty
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: of the scene, I began to run. Mademoiselle Fourchet called
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: after me. She even ran a little, I believe, but
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: the legs of fifty and not a match for the
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: legs of ten. I ran faster and faster down the
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: avenue of Chestnuts. I reached our meadow, where our stream ran,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: just the same as in the days when I was
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: free to make a paradise of it. I ran on
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: and on up the slope over the cornfield, across the
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: road through our own meadow, and never stopped till I
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: flung myself into my sister's arms then, and not till
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: then the fact dawned upon me that I had run
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: away from school. I don't recall the explanations that must
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: have followed on my return. I know that I cried
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: a great deal and felt that I had committed an
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: awful crime. I couldn't explain my feelings to myself, but
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: I knew that in the same circumstances I should have
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: done the same again. Though I wept, how it felt,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: tears of penitence for having done it at all. I
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: think my mother must have understood something of what I
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: went through, for she did not send me back. Another
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: period of acute boredom came to me some years later,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: when I went to stay with some friends of my
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: mother's in the north of London. They lived in a
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: dreary square apart from the main thoroughfare, so that if
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: you looked out over the brown wire blinds, you never
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: saw anything pass but Butcher's and Baker's carts. If I
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: went for a walk, The sordid ugliness of Islington outraged
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: the feelings of a child who had always found her
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: greatest pleasures and life's greatest beauties in the Green Country.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: The people with whom I was staying were the kindest
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: hearted people in the world. They would have done anything
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: to please me if they had only known what I wanted.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: But they didn't know that was just it. The dining
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: room was mahogany and leather, with two books in it,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: the Bible and family Prayers. They stood on the sideboard,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: flanked on one side by a terracotta water bottle, oozing
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: sad tears all day into a terracotta saucer, and on
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: the other by a tea caddy. Upstairs, in the drawing room,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: which was only used on Sundays, were a few illustrated
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: gift books, albums and types of beauty arranged on a
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: polished oval walnut center table. The piano was kept locked.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: There were a few old bound volumes of good words
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: which I had read again and again. The master of
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: the house, a doctor, was, my mother tells me, a
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: man of brains, but I only saw him at meals,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: and then he seldom spoke. The lady of the house
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: had a heart full of kindness and a mind full
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: of court circular. She talked of nothing else. Her daughters
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: were kind to me in their way, and the game
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: I had with them were my only relaxation. The doctor
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: talked very occasionally of his patients, and this interested me.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: One night I went into the surgery and found the
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: bottles of medicine which his assistant had made up standing
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: in a row, waiting for their white paper wrappers. I
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: didn't in the least realize what I was doing when
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: I thought to escape from my boredom by mixing the
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: contents of these bottles in a large jug, and then
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: impartially filling up the bottles again with a mixture. When
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: I had filled and corked them all, I slipped away.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: It was done in pure mischief, with no thought of consequences.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: But when I woke that night in bed and suddenly
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: remembered that I had heard that medicines that were given
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: for some complaints were bad for others and absolutely harmful,
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: my heart stood still. Suppose some poor sick person died
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: whom doctor would have cured because I had mixed his
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: medicine with something else. I fully resolved to own up
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: the next morning, But the next morning I reflected that
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: perhaps some of the people that had taken my mixture
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: might die of it, and then I should be hanged
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: for murder. It seemed to me wiser to wait and
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: see what happened. If any one did die and Doctor
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: were accused of poisoning his patience, I would come forward
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: in a court of justice, as people did in the books,
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: and own that I and I alone had been to blame,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: making my confession among the sympathetic tears of usher and jury,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: the judge himself not remaining dry eyed. This scene so
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: much appealed to me that I almost forgot that before
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: it could be enacted, somebody would have to die of
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: my mixture. When I remembered this, I wept in secret.
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: When I thought of the scene in which I should
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: nobly own my guilt, I secretly exulted. I was not
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: bored now. Whatever else might be the effect of me
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: my mixtures, they had certainly cured my boredom. Day after
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: day passed by, in spasms of alternate remorse and day dreaming.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: Every day I expected Doctor to announce at dinner that
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: some of his patients had breathed their last in inexplicable circumstances.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: But he never said anything of the kind. And when
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: a week had passed, I was convinced that so good
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: a doctor never gave anybody any medicine that could do
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: them any harm in any condition, and that one of
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: his medicines was as good for any complaint as any others.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: Whether this was so, or whether someone had been a
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: witness of my act in the surgery and had remade
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: the mixtures, I shall never know. But in the reaction
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: following my anxiety, boredom settled down upon me more heavily
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: than ever. I wrote a frantic letter to my mother,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: begging her to take me away, for I was so
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: miserable I wished I was dead. Not having any stamps,
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: I gave this letter to missus Is to Post. I
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: don't suppose she thought she was doing any harm when
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: she opened and read it, and I hope she was
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: gratified by its contents. She added a note to my
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: mother begging her to accede to my request and to
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: take me away at once. It was years before I
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: forgave her for reading that letter, and to this day
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: I am afraid she has never forgiven me for writing it.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: My mother was at Penshurst at the time I was
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: sent down to her in deep disgrace, and my mother
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: received me with gentle reproaches that cut me to the heart.
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: My sister was exceedingly angry with me, perhaps with some cause,
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: and pointed out to me how ungrateful it was to
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: repay Missus by writing such a letter. I defended myself stoutly.
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: I wrote it for Mamma and not for her. And
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: though I was sorry for having hurt the feelings of
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: one that I knew had tried to be kind to me,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: yet I fear the verdict of my unregenerate heart was
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: serve her right. I felt that I was being unjustly blamed,
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: and though I was sorry, I would not say so.
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: And the next morning I wandered up through Penshurst Churchyard
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: and throw a little wicket gate into the park, where
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: the splendor or a blaze of buttercups burst upon me.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: The may trees were silver white, the skylarks singing overhead.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: I sat down under a white may tree. The spirit
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: of spring breathed softly round me, and when I got
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: up to go back, I was in love and charity
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: with all men and all women except missus. I'm sorry
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: if I have been naughty, I said, to my sister.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to be, but that will do, she said, skillfully,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: stopping my confidences. Now I do hope you are going
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: to try and be a good girl and not make
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: dear Mamma unhappy. I will be good, I said, Oh,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: I will, indeed, And as long as I stayed among
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: the golden buttercups and silver may bushes, I believe I
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: was moderately good. End of Part eleven. Part twelve of
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: My School Days by Enesbitt. The sliprivox recording is in
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Part twelve. When I began to write
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: of the recollections of my childhood, I thought that all
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: of those days which I remember could well be told
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: in these twelve chapters. But the remembrances of that long
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: ago time crowded thickly on me, and I wandered in
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: the pleasant fields of memory where time ceases to be.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: So my twelfth chapter is reached and finds me still
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: only ten years old, and finds me, moreover, with not
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: one tenth of the events of those ten years recorded.
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: If only one's memory were good for the events of yesterday,
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: of last week of last year, I have left myself
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: no space to tell you of my adventures in Germany
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: and France during the War of eighteen seventy, of my
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: English school days, of much that is not ever to
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: be forgotten by me. Since I must needs choose one
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: out of many remembrances, I choose my Kentish home dearer
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: to me than all. After many wanderings, my mother took
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: a house at Halstead, the Hall, it was called, But
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: the house itself did not lend itself to the pretensions
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: of its name. A long, low, red brick house that
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: might have been commonplace but for the roses and ivy
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: that clung to the front of it, and the rich,
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: heavy jasmine that covered the side. There was a smooth
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: lawn with chestnut trees round it, and a big garden
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: where flowers and fruit and vegetables grew together as they should,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: without jealousy or or class distinction, though when lever such
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: peonies as grew among our currant bushes, nor such apricots
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: as hung among the leaves on the sunny south wall.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: From a laburnum tree in the corner of the lawn,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: we children slung an improvised hammock, and there I used
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: to read and dream and watch the swaying green, gold
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: of leaf and blossom. Our garden ran round three sides
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: of a big pond. Perhaps it was true that the
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: pond did not make the house more healthy, it certainly
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: made it more interesting. Besides the raft, which was but
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: a dull thing. When the boys were away at school,
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: there were nooks among the laburnums and lilacs that grew
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: thickly round the pond, nooks where one could hide with
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: one's favorite books and be secure from the insistent and
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: irritating demands so often made on one's time by one's elders.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: For grown up people never thought of spoiling their clothes
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: by penetrating the shrubbery. Here, on many a sunny day
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: have I lounged away the morning, stifling conscience with missus
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: Ewing's tales, and refusing to remember the tangle of untidiness
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: in which I had left my room involved. For I
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: had a little room of my own, a little little
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: room with a long, low window and a window ledge
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: where bright plants in pots, encouraged by the western sun,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: withstood the intermittence of my attentions and blossomed profusely. My
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: bookcase stood by this window, an old mahogany bookcase with
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: a deep top drawer that let down to form a
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: writing table. Here I used to sit and write verse, verse,
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: always verse, and stream of the days when I should
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: be a great poet like Shakespeare or Christina Rozzetti. Ah me,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: that day is long in coming, but I never doubted
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: then that it would come. Here. I wrote and dreamed,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: and never showed my verses or told my dreams from
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: many a long month. But when I was fifteen I
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: ventured to show some verses to my mother. She showed
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: them to mister Jap, then editor of Good Words and
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: the Sunday magazine. And never shall I forget the rapture
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: of delight and of gratitude with which I received the
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: news that my verses had been accepted by and by
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: They were printed, and I got a check for a guinea,
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: a whole guinea. Think of it now. The day when
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: I should be a poet seemed almost at hand, had
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: I not had a poem printed. Besides the desk and
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: the well oiled key that formed so excellent defense against
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: the boys, For what young poet could ever set down
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: a line with the possibility of even the best loved
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: brothers looking over her shoulder. Room had another feature by
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: terms a terror and a charm. A little trap door
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: in the ceiling led to that mysterious and delightful region
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: between the roof and the beams, a dark passage leading
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: all round the house and leading to a deep and
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: abiding joy, to a little door that opened on the
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: roof itself. This, until the higher powers discovered it, was
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: a safer haven than even the shrubbery. Enclosed by four
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: pointed roofs of tiles, was a central space, safe secluded
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: whence one could see the world around one's self invisible
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: or at least unseen. Another trap door from the linen
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: closet by the boy's bedroom afforded them an equal access
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: to this same paradise. We kept a store of books
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: and good things in the hollow of the roof, and
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: many a pleasant picnic have we enjoyed there, happy vanished
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: days when to be on the roof and to eat
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: tinned pine apple in secret constituted happiness. It was an uneventful, peaceful,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: pleasant time. The only really exciting thing was the presence
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: within a stone's throw of our house, of our landlady's son,
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: who lived all alone in a little cottage standing in
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: the fields. He was reported mad by the world, eccentric
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: by his friends, but as we found him perfectly harmless.
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: His one delusion, as far as I know, was that
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: he was the rightful owner, nay more, the rightful tenant
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: of our house. And about once in six months he
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: used to terrify the whole household by appearing with a
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: carpet bag at the front door and announcing that he
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: had come to take possession. This used to alarm us
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: all very much, because if a gentleman is eccentric enough
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: to wish to take possession of another person's house, there
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: is no knowing what he may be eccentric enough to
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: do next. But he was always persuaded to go away peaceably,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: and I don't think we need have been so frightened. Once,
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: when he was in the drawing room being persuaded by
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: my mother, I peeped into the carpet bag he had
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: left in the hall. It contained three empty bottles that
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: had held mixed pickles, a loaf of bread, and a
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: barrister's wig and gown. Poor gentleman, I am afraid he
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: was very eccentric. Indeed, did I say that his existence
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: was our only excitement. Is it possible that I have
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: forgotten the dreadful day when my brother Alfred shot a fox?
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: He drew me mysteriously aside one morning after breakfast, Daisy,
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: He said, can you keep a secret? I could, I asseverated.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: He drew me into his room, locked the door, and then,
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: opening a cupboard, displayed the body of a big fox.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: Where did you get it? I shot it? Oh? Poor thing,
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: poor thing, indeed, repeated my brother indignantly. Don't you know
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: no one would ever speak to me again if they
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: knew I had shot a fox? Then why did you?
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: Was the natural rejoinder. I didn't mean to. I was
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: out this morning after woodpigeons and I saw something move
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: in the bushes. I thought it was a rabbit, and
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: I fired, and it was this. What shall I do
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: with it? Bury it? We can have a splendid funeral,
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: I said, you, baby. I was constantly forgetting that Alfred,
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: at seventeen, was grown up and that our old games
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: no longer interested him. Well, stuff it, then you will
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: hardly believe it. But we really did try to stuff
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: that fox. My brother skinned it skillfully enough, and we
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: buried the body. We bought a shilling book on taxidermy.
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: We spent many shillings on chemicals. We nailed the fox's
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: skin to the inside of the cupboard door and operated
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: on it. My interest in the process was not lessened
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: by the fact that I felt the fox, when stuffed,
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: must be kept from all eyes but our own, hidden
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: forever in the depths of that cupboard, lest the world
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: in general should find out that Alfred had shut a fox,
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: and that I had been an accessory after the fact,
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: and so should decline to ever speak to us again.
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: But we never stuffed it. We never even succeeded in
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: curing the skin, which after a while cried aloud for
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: vengeance so unmistakably that we had to take it out
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: and bury it secretly beside the body it had covered.
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: Both interments were conducted in the very early morning, before
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: even the maids were stirring, when the dew was gray
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: on the grass, and the scent of the wet earth
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: was sweet, eat and fresh. When all the fox was buried,
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: I breathed more freely. Perhaps no one would ever know,
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: and people would go on speaking to us. I remember.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: After the burial of the skin, we went for a
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: walk through the long wet grass, and came home with
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: wet feet and happy hearts. Oh those dewy mornings, the
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: resurrection of light and life in the woods and fields.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: Would that it were possible for all children to live
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: in the country where they may drink in consciously or unconsciously,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: the dear delights of green meadow and dappled woodland. The
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: delight in green things growing in the tender beauty of
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: the evening light on gray pastures, The glorious splendor of
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: the noonday sun on meadows golden with buttercups, the browns
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: and purples of winter woodlands. This is a delight that
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: grows with one's growth, A delight that age cannot wither
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: nor customs stale. A delight that the years, who take
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: from us so much, can never take away, can but
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: intensify and make more keen and precious nature never did
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: betray the heart that loved her. My book of memory
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: lies open always at the page where are the pictures
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: of Kentish cherry orchards, field and farm and gold dim
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: woodlands starred with primroses, light copses, where the bluebells and
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: wind flowers grow. Yes, bluebells and wind flowers to me
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: and to all who love them. Botanists who pull are
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: poor pretty things to pieces may call them hyacinths and anemonies,
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: And most plainly of all, among the dream pictures shows
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: our old garden at home. There is a gray walled garden,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: far away from noise and smoke of cities, where the
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: hours pass with soft wings among the happy flowers and
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: lovely leisure blossoms. Every day. There, tall and white, the
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: septral lily blows. There grow the pansy pink and columbine,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: brave hollyhocks, and star white jessamine, and the red glory
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: of the royal rose. There, greeny glow worms gem the
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: dusky lawn. The lime trees breathe their fragrance to the night.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: Pink roses sleep and dream that they are white, till
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: they wake to color with the dawn. There, in the
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: splendor of the sultry noon, the sunshine sleeps upon the
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: garden bed, where the white poppy droops a drowsy head
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: and dreams of kisses from the white full moon. And
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: there all day my heart goes wandering, because there first
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: my heart began to know the glories of the summer
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: and the snow, the loveliness of harvest and of spring.
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: There may be fairer gardens, but I know there is
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: no other garden. Half so dear because tis there this,
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: many many a year, the sacred, sweet white flowers of
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: memory grow. End of Part twelve, End of My School
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: Days by E. Nesbitt, recording by Corey Samuel