Orange Lily: Chapter VII

Author: May Crommelin

Date: 1879

Source: Orange Lily

Comments: A novel set in Carrowdore, County Down, in the 1860s

“Th’ expectant wee things, toddlin, stacher through,

To meet their Dad, wi’ flichterin noise and glee,

His wee bit ingle blinkin’ bonnilie.

His clean hearth-stane. his thrifty Wifie’s smile,

The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,

At service out, amang the farmers roun’;

Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin

A cannie errand to a neebor town.”—Burns.

The autumn came on with its yellow sunlight and temperate warmth, like pleasant middle-age; bringing more simple pleasures to our two little peasants. The wheat grew tawny gold, and the oats yellow; and at shearing-time all the farm-children followed in the track of the sickles closely; some to glean; some to play in the stooks. But Tom alone was thought able enough to bind the sheaves for the reapers, being so much the eldest; and held his head high on being told by Keag that he worked like a man. The hedgerows that year, along the fields, were thick with blackberry clusters; as big as the grapes in the greenhouses at the Castle, very nearly, said little Lily, who had once paid a visit to the Castle gardens by the favor of the gardener, and was fond of recalling the notable event to less happy mortals.

Then, later, the black bean-stooks dotted the country, and the sunsets were orange bands under gray skies; and the turkey flocks pecked and cried “p-ya!” through the stubble. There was a smell of frost in the air, thought Lily, sniffing the damp leaves stamped in the hedgerows. The children never liked the winter well, they agreed; yet still they had fine games in the stack-yard, hiding round the ricks; and—the good God be thanked who cares for little ones!—Tom was warmer clothed and better fed that cold weather than ever he remembered before, in the death-times of the year.

And thus four or five years passed, with their circling seasons; and yearly Lily Keag and Tom Coulter grew heartier and lustier, and fonder of each other. But few changes, and these trifling and gradual, occurred, meanwhile, in their pleasant lives. Up at the Castle, the Misses Alexander still led their gray, blameless existences; still strove to do good; and gradually found that the habit of benevolence, by strengthening, became less irksome—even pleasant, as, here and there, they gathered some first fruits of their labor. Gradually, as they read the grand old lessons of faith and love to sick or dying, these last seemed begotten in themselves. If not full sunshine, yet the delicate light of a summer’s eve came, and rested on their face.

One year the sisters had a new idea—a rare thing. They did not lay it aside, as people do who have a choice of such articles; but examined and talked it over with long hesitation. Then, one fine day, they went up to town, and, to their own surprise, put it into execution in a hurry by buying a large number of children’s books. Their plan was to establish at their own expense a small lending-library for the Ballyboly school children; and the good ladies felt nervously pleased with themselves.

At first it did very well. Every Saturday saw a troop of children going up the drive to the Castle, for some volume to be read on that half-holiday and on the Sabbath afternoon. Unfortunately, the sisters chose too many tales of that kind which, as nurses say of priggish children, are “too good to live!” Some exciting ones of fine, old reputation had, however, crept in as a flavoring—gallant and stirring stories, which Tom’s soul hankered to read when he got a peep at them in the hands of bigger boys who had first choice. And Lily again knew of certain more modern ones of American origin that the elder girls eagerly competed for; since their piety was sugared with love-making, and always finally rewarded by marriage. But, alas! on account of their more tender years, Tom and she could not hope for such delights for many a day.

At last the pair plotted to make mere age yield to deserving youth; and one Saturday found them at the Castle door long before their school-mates. By good luck the Misses Alexander were just coming in from the Castle gardens with their half-brother, the young Captain, who was owner of the estate.

“Dear me! Lily Keag, we are very glad to see you. And Tom Coulter, too!” said Miss Edith, in her gracious, abstracted manner.

“But you are far too early,” said Miss Alice, in a less vague voice; feeling that exact punctuality was a virtue that saved herself the trouble of going several times for books, so she could not now commend the children; which she liked to do on the smallest provocation. In general, both sisters showed a good deal of favor to Orange Lily, as the tidy child of one of their brother’s worthiest tenants; and to Tom for his sturdy self-reliance and honesty, which gave their shy minds less difficulty in understanding him.

The little lad touched his cap, the little lass dropped a courtesy; tokens of good-breeding somewhat rare in Ballyboly.

Said Tom, studying the nature of the carpet intently—

“The big ones always gets the nicest books; and I offered to swap a moss-cheeper’s nest and three eggs against another boy’s book last Saturday—but he wouldn’t; so I
thought to be beforehand with him this day.”

“Please, Miss Edith, there are some terribly nice books!” said the Orange Lily in a very small voice. “And—and—we don’t think any of the big ones want them half as much as we do.”

“O, don’t let ‘age go before honesty!’” cried young Captain Alexander, laughing, whom all the people of Ballyboly praised for his “free,” pleasant ways. What do you call terribly nice books now, eh, my man?”

“Sharks and sailors; or red Injins,” quoth Tom deliberately, though with some effort, and now gazing at the ceiling. “Not foothering stories about little lassies. There was one of Dr. Cumming’s a boy had that I liked well; and a history of the Reformation—yon was nice too.”

“And you read them?” asked his landlord, staring at this Ballyboly specimen.

Ay,” said Tom.

“Do you like them as well as the red Indians?”

“They’re different,” replied Tom, still more slowly, striving to explain that he hated his milk of instruction to be mixed with water, “but I like rightly what is good, and not non-sense.”

“And you?” asked the young man of Lily, with a quizzical smile, as he glanced round at his sisters’ faces, on which some consternation began to dawn.

The poor child’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She could answer the ladies with pretty propriety; but to be addressed by the Captain himself, who lived in London, and had often seen the Queen, and had killed dead no one knew how many Russians in the Crimea, as was thereabouts, commonly reported—this utterly crushed her courage. The very name of the craved-for book vanished clean from her mind, and she murmured, looking helplessly at Tom—

“I—forget.”

“She disremembers the name,” explained Tom, with a pitying air; adding confidentially to the others, “She’s something shy.”

“Can you not remember what it was about, my dear?” asked Miss Edith, smiling on the model child of the school; still as orange of hair and with as white a pinafore as when first they saw her, though both pinafore and hair were twice as long now as in those days.

Lily’s voice gently murmured, while her eyelashes swept her cheek—

It was—religious coortship for Sunday reading!”

At that came such a great laugh from the Captain that both the little peasants grew redder than usual; even Miss Alice could not control herself, and tittered. But Miss Edith cried kindly—

“And a very good description too. Come with me, my child, and you shall find it out for yourself.”

Her brother followed her, wishing to make amends.

“Look here, I have taken a fancy to this lad,” he said to his sister, “and if you have got my own old boys’ books still, you must lend them to him whenever he likes. Poor little chap! fancy him craving for reading!”

“Here they are,” said Miss Edith, leading the way to a closet stuffed full of childhood’s reminiscences, like an old memory. With glad, greedy eyes, Tom stared and beheld shelves above shelves of books with delightful covers, promising contents about lion slayers, prairie hunters, and North Pole seekers; besides histories and school-books he would certainly try his mind on too.

“Man!” said he, with a deep breath. “It’s grand!” Then, eying his benefactor, he added, in an outburst of gratitude, “I’ll raise you a hare, sir, any day you bring the hounds down to Mr. Keag’s; or near our own land.” (That was one small field.)

“Oh, Tom!” uttered Lily, with a sort of reproachful alarm.

“What is the matter? Have you got a pet hare, perhaps?” asked the Captain, kindly, smiling on the trim little maid, whose blue eyes he could see were widened with some kind of fear. Lily’s rosy-white cheeks became blush-roses.

“No, please, Captain Alexander. But his father beats him so dreadfully when he runs after the hounds—and I—” Her eyes suddenly looked as if they had been caught in the rain, and got a wetting. Every one around felt sympathy with and compassion for her, excepting Tom.

“Well! who minds a licking?” muttered that young scapegrace; his mouth firm set, his bright brown eyes fixed on the Captain’s face, as if sure of sympathy. The latter looked with favor on the strong, black-haired, ruddy youngster, but asked—“Is running after the hounds worth a beating?”

“Ay! a couple,” says Tom, “for my father asked Mr. Keag, as a favor, till box my ears for me too—and he does it well.”

“Upon my word, I can’t help agreeing with the boy,” exclaimed the Captain, and that cheery declaration in his manful voice hushed like a spell the beginnings of a gently excited duet on the theme, Be good, from his lady sisters. For his word was their self-elected law.

From this it will be inferred that, pleasant as Tom considered his life, it was not made unwholesomely soft to him. And, good lad though he was held to be in farm and cottage, no one, excepting perhaps Lily, considered him anything near perfection. Indeed, though his father was really fond of him, Tom was never likely to get “blue-mouldy for want of a bating.”

As the boy and girl went down the drive again, hugging their books, but every now and then opening the pages to gloat over their contents, little Coulter fervently exclaimed—

“I never thought such a heap of any gentleman in my life as of the Captain! I’d like bravely to be a soldier under him—I would that!”

“O, but—you’d have to go away! Don’t do that, Tom.”

“Still, mind you, when I see books like these, I think whiles I’d like to be a school-master,” meditated Tom feeling literary ardor, fed purely on a red Injin story he carried, flaming no less warmly than that for military glory within his bosom a moment before.

“But I thought you were so fond of the farming. Would you not like better to have a house like the Majempsys’?” said the gentle, wee voice beside him.

“Troth! and that would beat them all!” exclaimed Tom, veering round finally, at last, to his strongest point of attraction, like a magnetic needle which abnormal influences may have caused to sheer about wildly for a time. “I could have the land then; and take out the gun whiles; ay! and ride to the hounds now and again. Then in the evenings I’d read to you, Lily.” (The latter looked supremely happy at this arrangement.) “Only I’ll have to go gold-digging first to get the money; or else—join some pirates,” he ended, with a gloomy determination that he himself seemed rather to relish.

And Lily looked at him with admiration, yet fear for him struggling therewith in her little breast; but uttered no dissent. After many consultations about their common future, they had come to this wise decision some time ago; helped thereto by all the story-books Tom had begged or borrowed round the county. Their minds, like their bodies, had plainly grown since that evening when both agreed to share the pleasant farm-house by the sea, and all its store of goods and cattle, and foresaw nothing but a little time (itself an enjoyable abstract!) between their wish and its fulfilment. It may also be perceived that the schoolmaster’s denunciations of the Ballyboly dialect had taken effect upon the speech of both. Lily’s anxiety for self-improvement made her keep the door of her lips with constant care, so that she even spoke quite pretty to the baby, said her doting father. But Tom used English, it is to be feared, rather as the English once talked French, because it was considered modish so to do, and relapsed into broad northern pronunciation in all his moments of thoroughly vulgar enjoyment.

After that day, many a winter evening when Coulter would “daunder” up to the Keag’s farmhouse as was his frequent custom, to chat with his richer friend, James Keag, and when Tom’s bright face would appear behind him as they came out of darkness in to the glow of the farm kitchen, the latter would never fail to be greeted with an eager inquiry from Lily, “Have you brought your book?” Hans and Henry-Thomas would chime in noisily; and, when Tom, of course, produced whatever volume he had last borrowed from the Castle, he was given a stool near the new paraffin-lamp, and not far from the hearth, while the children gathered round him. Lily had first begun this custom; since the dutiful bent of her mind made her take interest in all the likings of those she loved, and laughably try to believe her tastes were the same. And her friendship for Tom was no longer singular, since her little brothers had now grown up to believe they felt fully as much love for him—indeed, worshipping him as such small boys would any elder one who taught them marbles and ball-play against the byre-wall, protected them at school, and would fight for them on any provocation. On the whole, although young Tom was still on no real footing of equality with the Keag children from a social point of view, yet his was felt to be an exceptional case; and neighborliness—perhaps superinduced by common isolation behind the bog—gratitude, and true liking caused his lower station to be at present kindly overlooked by the Keag elders, though not forgotten.

So—when the boys came and leant close against him to hear him read more about grizzly hears, and Lily, knitting her father’s coarse socks, stopped occasionally spell-bound to toss back her thick hair and fix clear eyes on his face, and little Osilla, who always clambered on Tom’s knee, shivered with fearful delight—then Mistress Keag herself, sonsy soul, would draw near, pausing awhile in her ceaseless duties of preparing supper, or clearing it away, or hanging the big boiler with the pigs’ food over the fire. And, at any pathetic passage, she would clack her tongue and cry, “My! but he has a fine voice. He reminds me of a boy I used to know in my young days, who would read out a murder in the newspaper so beautiful it would nearly bring the tears to your eyes. He took afterwards to crying ‘red herrings!’ through the country.” (Tom and Lily disliked the man who once sold red herrings.) Then she would disappear again into the gloom and cold of the back kitchen, where she loved groping amongst pots, barrels, and potatoes, under the impression that a good housewife must take part in the dirty work herself; albeit she kept a servant-girl to do it.

On this subject Lily had already a different opinion, young though she was; and her orderly ways, which saved her much time, and certain little analogical ideas—such as that her father, for instance, would never get the crops in if, while he was ploughing the back side of their hill, he could not trust the farm-servant to work alone in the front fields—though yet unspoken, might later cause some dissatisfaction in her good step-mother’s mind; who had come to “that time of life” when habits are crystallized, not to be easily melted again, nor admitting foreign elements of opinion. But, as yet, Lill had naturally no voice in the household management. So Tom read on; and by and by even the men would stop and listen awhile, the one nodding slow approval, the other ejaculating, “Remarkable! Verily most remarkable!” at all striking incidents of the story.

When, too, spring again lightened over the land, the farm children would beg Tom to read to them outside, in the long clear twilights. Chill though the air might seem to more delicately nurtured frames on those April evenings, they enjoyed themselves keenly, sheltered under the lee of some hedge dotted with faint green; while, maybe, a larch overhead was showing its pink cone-flowers, and the wee brown birds were hunting one another with gay twitters in and out bush and brake. O! the children loved well to be out, for those white twilights reminded them that dread winter, enemy of the poor and the birds, the shy hares, and most wild living things, was past, and summer, the blessed, beloved, the song-time and flower-time even of their harsh northern land, was coming; was still to be all enjoyed.

Order the new paperback edition of Orange Lily which includes an introduction, footnotes and a glossary of words by Dr Philip Robinson. The book also includes the short stories The Witch of Windy Hill and An Old Maid’s Marriage.

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