He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made friends with her, but at first she would have none of him, and scowled2 at him in spite of all he did. The brandy by this time had mounted to his head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor oftenest making him gamesome. He felt as if he were playing with a young dog or marking the spirit of a little fighting cock. He ordered the servants back to their kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, and the men concealing3 grins which burst forth4 into guffaws5 of laughter when they came into their hall below.
“’Tis as we said,” they chuckled6. “He had but to see her beauty and find her a bigger devil than he, and ’twas done. The mettle7 of her—damning and flogging him! Never was there a finer sight! She feared him no more than if he had been a spaniel—and he roaring and laughing till he was like to burst.”
“Dost know who I am?” Sir Jeoffry was asking the child, grinning himself as he stood before her where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had lifted her.
“No,” quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn8 down, her handsome owl’s eyes verily seeming to look him through and through in search of somewhat; for, in sooth, her rage abating9 before his jovial10 humour, the big burly laugher attracted her attention, though she was not disposed to show him that she leaned towards any favour or yielding.
“I am thy Dad,” he said. “’Twas thy Dad thou gavest such a trouncing. And thou hast an arm, too. Let’s cast an eye on it.”
He took her wrist and pushed up her sleeve, but she dragged back.
“Will not be mauled,” she cried. “Get away from me!”
He shouted with laughter again. He had seen that the little arm was as white and hard as marble, and had such muscles as a great boy might have been a braggart11 about.
“By Gad12!” he said, elated. “What a wench of six years old. Wilt13 have my crop and trounce thy Dad again!”
He picked up the crop from the place where she had thrown it, and forthwith gave it in her hand. She took it, but was no more in the humour to beat him, and as she looked still frowning from him to the whip, the latter brought back to her mind the horse she had set out in search of.
“Where is my horse?” she said, and ’twas in the tone of an imperial demand. “Where is he?”
“Thy horse!” he echoed. “Which is thy horse then?”
“Rake is my horse,” she answered—“the big black one. The man took him again;” and she ripped out a few more oaths and unchaste expressions, threatening what she would do for the man in question; the which delighted him more than ever. “Rake is my horse,” she ended. “None else shall ride him.”
“None else?” cried he. “Thou canst not ride him, baggage!”
“Where is he?” she demanded. And the next instant hearing the beast’s restless feet grinding into the gravel15 outside as he fretted16 at having been kept waiting so long, she remembered what the stable-boy had said of having seen her favourite standing17 before the door, and struggling and dropping from the settle, she ran to look out; whereupon having done so, she shouted in triumph.
“He is here!” she said. “I see him;” and went pell-mell down the stone steps to his side.
Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. ’Twould not have been to his humour now to have her brains kicked out.
“Hey!” he called, as he hurried. “Keep away from his heels, thou little devil.”
But she had run to the big beast’s head with another shout, and caught him round his foreleg, laughing, and Rake bent18 his head down and nosed her in a fumbling19 caress20, on which, the bridle21 coming within her reach, she seized it and held his head that she might pat him, to which familiarity the beast was plainly well accustomed.
“He is my horse,” quoth she grandly when her father reached her. “He will not let Giles play so.”
“Would have said ’twas a lie if I had not seen it,” he said to himself. “’Tis no girl this, I swear. I thought ’twas my horse,” he said to her, “but ’tis plain enough he is thine.”
“Put me up!” said his new-found offspring.
“Hast rid him before?” Sir Jeoffry asked, with some lingering misgiving23. “Tell thy Dad if thou hast rid him.”
She gave him a look askance under her long fringed lids—a surly yet half-slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had the cunning wit and shrewdness of a child witch.
“Ay!” quoth she. “Put me up—Dad!”
He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having been too many years bemuddled with drink, but he had a rough instinct which showed him all the wondrous24 shrewdness of her casting that last word at him to wheedle25 him, even though she looked sullen26 in the saying it. It made him roar again for very exultation27.
“Put me up, Dad!” he cried. “That will I—and see what thou wilt do.”
He lifted her, she springing as he set his hands beneath her arms, and flinging her legs over astride across the saddle when she reached it. She was all fire and excitement, and caught the reins28 like an old huntsman, and with such a grasp as was amazing. She sat up with a straight, strong back, her whole face glowing and sparkling with exultant29 joy. Rake seemed to answer to her excited little laugh almost as much as to her hand. It seemed to wake his spirit and put him in good-humour. He started off with her down the avenue at a light, spirited trot30, while she, clinging with her little legs and sitting firm and fearless, made him change into canter and gallop31, having actually learned all his paces like a lesson, and knowing his mouth as did his groom32, who was her familiar and slave. Had she been of the build ordinary with children of her age, she could not have stayed upon his back; but she sat him like a child jockey, and Sir Jeoffry, watching and following her, clapped his hands boisterously34 and hallooed for joy.
“Lord, Lord!” he said. “There’s not a man in the shire has such another little devil—and Rake, ‘her horse,’” grinning—“and she to ride him so. I love thee, wench—hang me if I do not!”
She made him play with her and with Rake for a good hour, and then took him back to the stables, and there ordered him about finely among the dogs and horses, perceiving that somehow this great man she had got hold of was a creature who was in power and could be made use of.
When they returned to the house, he had her to eat her mid-day meal with him, when she called for ale, and drank it, and did good trencher duty, making him the while roar with laughter at her impudent35 child-talk.
“Never have I so split my sides since I was twenty,” he said. “It makes me young again to roar so. She shall not leave my sight, since by chance I have found her. ’Tis too good a joke to lose, when times are dull, as they get to be as a man’s years go on.”
He sent for her woman and laid strange new commands on her.
“Where hath she hitherto been kept?” he asked.
“In the west wing, where are the nurseries, and where Mistress Wimpole abides36 with Mistress Barbara and Mistress Anne,” the woman answered, with a frightened curtsey.
“Henceforth she shall live in this part of the house where I do,” he said. “Make ready the chambers37 that were my lady’s, and prepare to stay there with her.”
From that hour the child’s fate was sealed. He made himself her playfellow, and romped39 with and indulged her until she became fonder of him than of any groom or stable-boy she had been companions with before. But, indeed, she had never been given to bestowing40 much affection on those around her, seeming to feel herself too high a personage to show softness. The ones she showed most favour to were those who served her best; and even to them it was always favour she showed, not tenderness. Certain dogs and horses she was fond of, Rake coming nearest to her heart, and the place her father won in her affections was somewhat like to Rake’s. She made him her servant and tyrannised over him, but at the same time followed and imitated him as if she had been a young spaniel he was training. The life the child led, it would have broken a motherly woman’s heart to hear about; but there was no good woman near her, her mother’s relatives, and even Sir Jeoffry’s own, having cut themselves off early from them—Wildairs Hall and its master being no great credit to those having the misfortune to be connected with them. The neighbouring gentry41 had gradually ceased to visit the family some time before her ladyship’s death, and since then the only guests who frequented the place were a circle of hunting, drinking, and guzzling42 boon43 companions of Sir Jeoffry’s own, who joined him in all his carousals and debaucheries.
To these he announced his discovery of his daughter with tumultuous delight. He told them, amid storms of laughter, of his first encounter with her; of her flogging him with his own crop, and cursing him like a trooper; of her claiming Rake as her own horse, and swearing at the man who had dared to take him from the stable to ride; and of her sitting him like an infant jockey, and seeming, by some strange power, to have mastered him as no other had been able heretofore to do. Then he had her brought into the dining-room, where they sat over their bottles drinking deep, and setting her on the table, he exhibited her to them, boasting of her beauty, showing them her splendid arm and leg and thigh44, measuring her height, and exciting her to test the strength of the grip of her hand and the power of her little fist.
“Saw you ever a wench like her?” he cried, as they all shouted with laughter and made jokes not too polite, but such as were of the sole kind they were given to. “Has any man among you begot45 a boy as big and handsome? Hang me! if she would not knock down any lad of ten if she were in a fury.”
“We wild dogs are out of favour with the women,” cried one of the best pleased among them, a certain Lord Eldershawe, whose seat was a few miles from Wildairs Hall—“women like nincompoops and chaplains. Let us take this one for our toast, and bring her up as girls should be brought up to be companions for men. I give you, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs—Mistress Clorinda, the enslaver of six years old—bumpers, lads!—bumpers!”
And they set her in the very midst of the big table and drank her health, standing, bursting into a jovial, ribald song; and the child, excited by the noise and laughter, actually broke forth and joined them in a high, strong treble, the song being one she was quite familiar with, having heard it often enough in the stable to have learned the words pat.
* * * * *
Two weeks after his meeting with her, Sir Jeoffry was seized with the whim47 to go up to London and set her forth with finery. ’Twas but rarely he went up to town, having neither money to waste, nor finding great attraction in the more civilised quarters of the world. He brought her back such clothes as for richness and odd, unsuitable fashion child never wore before. There were brocades that stood alone with splendour of fabric48, there was rich lace, fine linen49, ribbands, farthingales, swansdown tippets, and little slippers50 with high red heels. He had a wardrobe made for her such as the finest lady of fashion could scarcely boast, and the tiny creature was decked out in it, and on great occasions even strung with her dead mother’s jewels.
Among these strange things, he had the fantastical notion to have made for her several suits of boy’s clothes: pink and blue satin coats, little white, or amber38, or blue satin breeches, ruffles51 of lace, and waistcoats embroidered52 with colours and silver or gold. There was also a small scarlet53-coated hunting costume and all the paraphernalia54 of the chase. It was Sir Jeoffry’s finest joke to bid her woman dress her as a boy, and then he would have her brought to the table where he and his fellows were dining together, and she would toss off her little bumper46 with the best of them, and rip out childish oaths, and sing them, to their delight, songs she had learned from the stable-boys. She cared more for dogs and horses than for finery, and when she was not in the humour to be made a puppet of, neither tirewoman nor devil could put her into her brocades; but she liked the excitement of the dining-room, and, as time went on, would be dressed in her flowered petticoats in a passion of eagerness to go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gewgaws with men old enough to be her father, and loose enough to find her premature55 airs and graces a fine joke indeed. She ruled them all with her temper and her shrewish will. She would have her way in all things, or there should be no sport with her, and she would sing no songs for them, but would flout56 them bitterly, and sit in a great chair with her black brows drawn down, and her whole small person breathing rancour and disdain57.
Sir Jeoffry, who had bullied58 his wife, had now the pleasurable experience of being henpecked by his daughter; for so, indeed, he was. Miss ruled him with a rod of iron, and wielded59 her weapon with such skill that before a year had elapsed he obeyed her as the servants below stairs had done in her infancy60. She had no fear of his great oaths, for she possessed a strangely varied61 stock of her own upon which she could always draw, and her voice being more shrill62 than his, if not of such bigness, her ear-piercing shrieks63 and indomitable perseverance64 always proved too much for him in the end. It must be admitted likewise that her violence of temper and power of will were somewhat beyond his own, notwithstanding her tender years and his reputation. In fact, he found himself obliged to observe this, and finally made something of a merit and joke of it.
“There is no managing of the little shrew,” he would say. “Neither man nor devil can bend or break her. If I smashed every bone in her carcass, she would die shrieking65 hell at me and defiance66.”
If one admits the truth, it must be owned that if she had not had bestowed67 upon her by nature gifts of beauty and vivacity68 so extraordinary, and had been cursed with a thousandth part of the vixenishness she displayed every day of her life, he would have broken every bone in her carcass without a scruple69 or a qualm. But her beauty seemed but to grow with every hour that passed, and it was by exceeding good fortune exactly the fashion of beauty which he admired the most. When she attained70 her tenth year she was as tall as a fine boy of twelve, and of such a shape and carriage as young Diana herself might have envied. Her limbs were long, and most divinely moulded, and of a strength that caused admiration71 and amazement72 in all beholders. Her father taught her to follow him in the hunting-field, and when she appeared upon her horse, clad in her little breeches and top-boots and scarlet coat, child though she was, she set the field on fire. She learned full early how to coquet and roll her fine eyes; but it is also true that she was not much of a languisher74, as all her ogling75 was of a destructive or proudly-attacking kind. It was her habit to leave others to languish73, and herself to lead them with disdainful vivacity to doing so. She was the talk, and, it must be admitted, the scandal, of the county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein she lived was a boisterous33 hunting shire where there were wide ditches and high hedges to leap, and rough hills and moors76 to gallop over, and within the region neither polite life nor polite education were much thought of; but even in the worst portions of it there were occasional virtuous77 matrons who shook their heads with much gravity and wonder over the beautiful Mistress Clorinda.
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1
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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guffaws
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| n.大笑，狂笑( guffaw的名词复数 )v.大笑，狂笑( guffaw的第三人称单数 ) | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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abating
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| 减少( abate的现在分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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braggart
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| n.吹牛者；adj.吹牛的，自夸的 | |
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gad
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| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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wheedle
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| v.劝诱，哄骗 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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abides
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| 容忍( abide的第三人称单数 )； 等候； 逗留； 停留 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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romped
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| v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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42
guzzling
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| v.狂吃暴饮，大吃大喝( guzzle的现在分词 ) | |
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boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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45
begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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46
bumper
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| n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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48
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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49
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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50
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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51
ruffles
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| 褶裥花边( ruffle的名词复数 ) | |
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52
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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53
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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54
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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55
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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56
flout
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| v./n.嘲弄，愚弄，轻视 | |
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57
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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58
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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61
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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62
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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63
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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64
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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65
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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72
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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73
languish
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| vi.变得衰弱无力，失去活力，（植物等）凋萎 | |
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languisher
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| 衰弱、憔悴的人 | |
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ogling
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| v.（向…）抛媚眼，送秋波( ogle的现在分词 ) | |
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76
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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