Seawell Children Of Destiny

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-918-5
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 258 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Excerpt: It is impossible for anything in this tame, latter day age to be compared with the marvels of fifty, sixty, seventy years ago. The worn-out, tired race declines to be awed, or delighted, or startled. Any more. Old Wonder is dead. People have lost the sense of admiration. It is the price paid for civilisation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Seawell, Molly Elliot

Leseproben

CHAPTER I.
The hot June sunshine poured down upon the great fields of yellow wheat at Deerchase, and the velvet wind swept softly over them, making long billows and shadowy dimples in the golden sea of grain. The air was all blue and gold, and vibrating with the music of harvest time—the reedlike harmonies of the wind-swept wheat, the droning of many bees, the merry drumming of the cicada in the long grass, and, above all, the song of the black reapers, as they swung their glittering scythes in the morning sun. One side of the vast field was skirted by purplish woods, through which went constantly a solemn murmur—the only sad note in the symphony. On the other side rose great clumps and groves of live oaks and silver beeches and feathery elms, shading a spacious brick house with innumerable peaks and gables. Beyond this house and its pleasure grounds a broad and glittering river went merrily on its way to the south Atlantic. Nature in this coast country of Virginia is prodigal of beauty, and bestows all manner of charms with a lavish hand. Here are found blue rivers and bluer skies, and pale splendours of moonlit nights and exquisite dawns and fair noons. Here Nature runs the whole gamut of beauty—through the laughing loveliness of spring mornings, the capricious sweetness of summer days, when the landscape hides itself, like a sulky beauty, in white mists and silvery rains, to the cold glory of the winter nights; there is no discord nor anything unlovely. But in the harvest time it is most gracious and love-compelling. There is something ineffably gay in harvest, and the negroes, those children of the sun, sang as merrily and as naturally as the grasshoppers that chirped in the green heart of the woods. The long row of black reapers swung their scythes in rhythm, their voices rising and falling in cadence with the cutting of the wheat. The head man led the singing as he led the reapers. After them came a crowd of negro women, gathering up the wheat and tying it into bundles—it was as primitive as the harvesting in the days of Ruth and Boaz. It was not work, it was rather play. The song of the reapers had an accompaniment of shrill laughter from the women, who occasionally joined in the singing— “When I was young, I useter to wait Behine ole marster, han’ he plate, An’ pass de bottle when he dry, An’ bresh away dat blue-tail fly.” The men’s voices rolled this out sonorously and melodiously. Then came the chorus, in which the high sweet voices of the women soared like the larks and the thrushes: “Jim, crack corn, I doan’ keer, Jim, crack corn, I doan’ keer, Jim, crack corn, I doan’ keer. Ole—marster’s—gone—away!” The last line was a wail; but the first lines were full of a devil-may-care music, which made some of the women drop their bundles of wheat, and, picking up their striped cotton skirts, they danced a breakdown nimbly. A dozen little negro boys carried buckets of water about the field to refresh the thirsty harvesters, and one negro girl, with her arms folded and a great pail on her head of whisky and water with mint floating around in it, was vociferously greeted whenever she appeared, and a drink from the gourd in the pail invariably caused a fresh outburst of song. Hot and bright as the fields were, it was not too hot and bright for these merry labourers. But there was a stretch of coolness and of shade on the edge of the woods where the dew still sparkled upon the blackberry-bushes and the grass and undergrowth. And in a shady place under a hawthorn bush sat a black-eyed little boy with a dog across his knees. They had for company a Latin book, which the boy made a lazy pretence of studying, wearing all the time a sulky scowl. But when he found that he could put the book to a better use than studying, by propping the dog’s head upon it so as to bring the tawny, intelligent eyes upon a level with his own, the scowl cleared away. His face, then, though full of archness and sweetness, was not altogether happy. He gazed into the dog’s eyes wistfully, for, although many people gazed upon him kindly, no creature in the wide world ever gazed upon him so affectionately as this one poor brute of a dog. Presently, while lost in a sort of dream, listening to the song of the reapers as it melted away in the distance, and following up pretty, idle fancies that danced before him like white butterflies in the sun, he heard a crashing behind him of a burly figure making its way through the leaves and grass, and an ungainly man, past middle age, and blear-eyed and snuffy, appeared before him. In the pure, fresh morning light he looked coarser, more dissipated than could be imagined; but when his voice rang out, not even the wood bird’s note put it to shame—it was so clear, so rich, so sweet. That voice was the one charm left to him. “Well, Lewis, my lad,” he cried out, “how are you and my old friend Horatius Flaccus getting on this deuced fine morning? Drat the dog—you always have him about.” “You shouldn’t drat him, Mr. Bulstrode,” answered Lewis, “because old Service likes Latin better than I do. He has scarcely blinked since I put the book in his paw.” “Dogs do like Latin,” answered Bulstrode, with a wink; “let me show you, sir.” Lewis burst out laughing at the idea that dogs had any taste for the classics; and the dog, withdrawing his head, showed his teeth in a snarl. “Snarl away, my friend,” said Bulstrode jovially, seating himself, with awkward comfort, on the grass. “I lay I’ll make you change your tune. Do you know—” Bulstrode’s pronunciation was not equal to the music of his voice, and he said “D’ye know.” “D’ye know, boy, that the two great powers to charm women and dogs are the eye and the voice? Now, as for my eyes—Lord, I never had any charm in ’em, and the life I’ve led wasn’t calculated to give ’em any. But see if that damned dog doesn’t stop his growling when I give him some first-class Latin.” Bulstrode took the book and began to read sonorously one of the longer odes. Lewis, whose black eyes were wonderfully expressive, was laughing to himself, the more so when, as Bulstrode rolled out the lines of rhythmic beauty, old Service ceased his growling and appeared to be listening gravely. Bulstrode put out his hand and drew the dog toward him, and in a little while Service was resting his head on Bulstrode’s knee and blinking placidly and solemnly into his face. “There you have it!” cried Bulstrode, slapping the book together. “Let me tell you, Lewis, in the old days, when my face was fresh and fair, I used to walk up and down the river bank at Cambridge, reciting these odes to a gang of undergraduates, and sometimes there’d be a don on the outskirts of the crowd. Don’t know what a don is? Well, I’ll tell you some day. And the reason my Latin and Greek are so much better than my English is because I learned my English from the vulgar. But my Latin and Greek I learned from the very finest old Latin and Greek gentlemen that ever were—the cream of the company, boy; and that and my voice are about the only decent things left about me.” “And your philosophy,” said Lewis, hesitating—“that great book you’re helping Mr. Skelton on.” “Philosophy—fudge!” cried Bulstrode carelessly. “There’s Skelton now, shut up in that musty library yonder”—jerking his thumb toward the Deerchase house—“grinding away at his system of philosophy; and here am I, the true philosopher, enjoying this infernally glorious harvest and these picturesque black people, that I never can get used to, no matter how long I live in this odd country. D’ye know what Kant says? Of course you don’t; so I’ll tell you. He says that two men, like him over yonder”—Bulstrode jerked his thumb again over his shoulder—“and your humble servant, engaged in pursuing abstract philosophy, are like two idiots who want a drink of milk; so one milks a post, while the other holds a sieve. That’s philosophy, my dear boy.” This puzzled Lewis very much, who was nevertheless accustomed to hearing Bulstrode pooh-poohing philosophy, while Mr. Skelton always uttered the word reverently. “You see yourself,” cried Bulstrode, giving his battered hat a rakish cock, “Skelton is a fine example of what enormous study and research will bring a man to, and I’m another one. He has been studying for twenty years to write the greatest book that ever was written. He’s spent the twenty best years of his life, and he’s got fifteen thousand books stored away in that grand new library he has built, and he’s bought me, body and soul, to help him out, and the result will be—he’ll never write the book!” Bulstrode slapped his hand down on his knee as he brought out the “never” in a ringing voice; the dog gave a single loud yelp, and Lewis Pryor jumped up in surprise. “You don’t mean it, Mr. Bulstrode!” he cried breathlessly, for he had been bred upon the expectation that a great work was being then written in the Deerchase library by Mr. Skelton, and when it was given to the world the planet would stop revolving for a time at least. Bulstrode had an ungovernable indiscreetness, and, the string of his tongue being loosed, he proceeded to discuss Skelton’s affairs with great freedom, and without regarding in the least the youth of his companion. “Yes, I do mean it. Skelton’s milking the post, and he’s hired me to hold the sieve. He’s been...