The Maid of Sker

before she could dance on the kitchen table with only one hand to hold her up, and a pleasure it was to look at her. And laugh with her little funny face, and nod her head, she would, as if she saw to the bottom of everything. And when she were scarce turned the twelvemonth, she could run, like⁠—oh, just like anything, and roll over and over on the grass with her ‘Pomyolianian dog,’ as she called him, and there wasn’t a word in the language as ever come amiss to her, but for the r’s or the y’s in it. Words such as I could lay no tongue to, she would take and pronounce right off, and then laugh at herself and everybody. And the way she used to put her hands out, laying down the law to all of us⁠—we didn’t want a showman in the house so long as we had Miss Bertha, or ‘Bardie,’ as she called herself, though christened after her mother. Everybody, the poor little mite, she expected everybody to know her name and all about her; and nothing put her in such a passion as to pretend not to know who she was. ‘I’se Bardie,’ she used to cry out, with her little hands spread, and her bright eyes flashing; ‘I’se Bardie, I tell ’a; and evelybody knows it.’ Oh yes, and she never could say ‘th’⁠—but ‘niss’ and ‘nat,’ for this and that. And how angry she used to be, to be sure, if anybody mocked her, as we used to do for the fun of it. But even there, she was up to us, for she began to talk French, for revenge upon us, having taken the trick from her mother.

“Likewise the boy was a different child altogether in many ways. He scarcely could learn to speak at all, because he was a very fine child indeed, and quiet, and fat, and easy. He would lie by for hours on a velvet cushion, and watch his little sister having her perpetual round of play. Dolls, and horses, and Noah’s arks, and all the things that were alive to her, and she talking to them whiles the hour⁠—he took no more notice than just to stroke them, and say, ‘Boo, boo!’ or ‘Poor, poor!’ which was nearly all that he could say. Not that he was to blame, of course, nor would anyone having sense think of it, especially after he took the pink fever, and it struck to his head, and they cut his hair off. Beautiful curls as was ever seen, and some of them in my drawer upstairs now, with the colour of gold streaking over them. Philip his name was, of course, from Sir Philip, and being the heir to the title; but his clever sister she always called him ‘little brother,’ as if he was just born almost, when he weighed pretty nearly two of her.

“Sir Philip, the good old gentleman, was away in foreign parts, they said, or commanding some of the colonies, up to the time when these two twins were close upon two years old, or so. I remember quite well when he came home with his luggage marked ‘General Bampfylde’; and we said it was disrespectful of the Government to call him so, when his true name was ‘Sir Philip.’ He had never seen his grandchildren till now, and what a fuss he made with them! But they had scarcely time to know him before they were sadly murdered; or worse, perhaps, for all that anyone knows to the contrary. Because Sir Philip’s younger son, Captain Drake Bampfylde, came from the seas and America, just at this time. No one expected him, of course, from among such distant places; and he had not been home for three years at least, and how noble he did look, until we saw how his shirts were cobbled! And everyone all about the place said that his little finger was worth the whole of the Squire’s body. Because the Squire, his elder brother, and the heir of Sir Philip, was of a nature, not to say⁠—but I cannot make it clear to you. No one could say a word against him; only he were not, what you may call it⁠—not as we Devonshire people are⁠—not with a smile and kind look of the eye, the same as Captain Drake was.

“This poor Captain Drake⁠—poor or bad, I scarce know which to put it, after all I have heard of him⁠—anyhow his mind was set upon a little chit of a thing, not more than fifteen at this time. Her name was Isabel Carey, and her father had been a nobleman, and when he departed this life he ordered her off to Narnton Court. So she did at an early age; and being so beautiful as some thought, she was desperate with the Captain. They used to go walking all up in the woods, or down on the river in a boat, until it was too bad of them. The Captain, I daresay, meant no harm, and perhaps he did none; but still there are sure to be talkative people who want to give their opinions. If Charley had carried on so with me, whatever should I have thought of myself?

“Well, there was everybody saying very fine things to everybody, gay doings likewise, and great feasts, and singing, and dancing, and all the rest. And the Captain hired a pleasure-boat, by name the ‘Wild Duck of Appledore;’ and I never shall forget the day when he took a whole pack of us for a sail out over Barnstaple bar and back. I was forced to go, because he needs must take the children; and several even old people were sick, but no one a quarter so bad as me. And it came into my mind in that state, that he was longing, as well as welcome, to cast us all into the raging sea. However, the