Bristol Bells: A Story of the Eighteenth Century

came slowly in sight, which she recognised as Mrs Henderson's. If Jack was driving it, she wou

orse, who knew his way in the district as well or better

ryda exclaimed. 'Ja

s sleepy eyes and called

u take me up, I am

down into the dirty road w

n like this,' for poor Bryda's self-possession suddenly forsook her

'and I'll take you home, but

s leg, and whined as if to say, 'I know she will be safe now,' waited with his red tongue lolling out of his big mouth, panting h

e you. Why, you are six miles from D

adam Lambert's. That will be a help. I am no use at the farm, Aunt Dolly is always telling me so; and now, now

don't believe it,' Jack

t I

hetic ears, which he received with sundry ejaculations,

mpathetic, had only

undrel, don't you do it, and go to Br

away. Why, yesterday, I wanted to go for my own pleasure, now I must go to try and help. Perhaps Madam Lambert will

orts for yourself

me of getting Bryda to Bristol was to be

y,' he said, 'and you

ore Monday. I shall try to make Madam Lambert take me. She is a sort of relation, you know

e you a servant while I'm alive. You are t

is simple-hearted young man whom Nature had designed for a farmer, but whose ambitious mother had willed that he should be a silversmith and jeweller, in the fond hope that he might succeed his childless uncle in his Bristol business, Bryd

n. He had shut his Latin primer and his English grammar when he left Wells, and had never opened a book since, except his prayer book on Sundays, and then he could scarcely spell out the verse of the psalms, and shouted Tate and Brady to the accompanime

re 'Z was, and is still preferred before 'S, making the speech of

upright in word and deed. Shams were hateful to him, and he would not try to seem

e by the entrance to B

Madam Lambert. You put it under the loose stone in yon wall, and I'll be here at daybrea

d, and Jack was standing, with the reins i

, will tha

l have the letter ready. But

if she is, it's no odds to

ld finish his sente

at the farm going

'cleaned up' for the afternoon, and seated at the table cutt

of Bryda at the open

had yours at Mistress Henderson's?' This with a sniff of contempt. '

y notice of these re

s grand

d. The last brood of chicks are dying fast as they can. It's all along with Goody Fenton's evil eye. I

little incr

e said, 'if she came this way

ducking stool, and serve her right. I'

ft had died out of the land, and she rather liked to hear the stories of elves and fairies, good spiri

h gold, and flying through the air of the still summer nights on the backs of the shy, spotted moths which blundered over the moor, when none were there to see, in chase of a will-of-the-wisp, whose lantern, darting hither and thith

se and Betty's-Betty, whose wailing cry struck her grandfather's ear when he ret

hen compared with the bitter knowledge of to-day. But with the knowledge came tender regr

as the one object of her life, but she ran upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Betty, and found her there, as she expected, e

n him,' Bry

ho?' Be

s hard as nails. He

ow did you get

d, 'do get me a bit of something t

kept you a currant dumpling in the oven,

ld rather h

are, and however perplexed, t

a cup of cider. Then she said,-'I feel fit for anything now, and no

er, but she did not quite see

wants

g, and the stock sold, and that dreadful young Squ

it all. I suppose it is lawful, if the paper was signed by grandfather, but I should like to tell the whole story to a man who know

omance as well as of keen desire to do somethi

n the line of duty than her beautiful sister. But the two sisters were, as often happens, so entirely different in character that one cannot be judged

as no division of he

herself, and to any of the few acquaintances of their own age whom the sisters knew, and she

kety table, where Bryda's few books lay-books well worn and studied, books which fed her romance-two vo

ressions were somewhat quaint, and yet she was free from the stilted and flowe

y a 'decayed gentlewoman' in a neighbouring large village, who had undertaken to instruct her

d the pronouns, but Miss Darcy still kept school at Pensford,

aled it with a pink wafer, and addressed it to 'Mrs Lambert, Dowry Squa

coping-stone of the wall, and then with a sense of relief went through the dewy orchard and out on the moor, w

as well try to get mine there. Then people will ask who is Beta-for I shall call myself Beta. I know that is the Greek for B-and it soun

out the dead lamb. Let me try, so many

lambkin lying

d while stranger

o frisk among

to skip in v

bkin, death is

weary wight wo

trouble of th

to grief, and p

Death? We get

ff like thee ou

oes the spirit

attle's o'er,

er are th

me to a

r hair, making its own soft music as it whispered to the flowe

I know he won't. Poor old Jack, he is kind and good, if he is stupid. But everyone can't be clever. The young Squire looked as if he knew a good deal; and he was very handso

he orchard close behind her,