Christmas, A Happy Time | Page 8

and a good handful of grain was tossed to her;--then the beautiful little bantam had been nursed in a stocking, and was so tame that it would come and eat out of the hand;--then there was the fine old cock that crowed so loud he might be heard all over the parish, and a handful was thrown to him;--then there was the young one which the old one drove about so, that it could get nothing to eat;--Harriet made his necessities her care: but it was useless to throw him any: for the old cock would not allow him to come near the grain.
'Nasty greedy fellow,' said Elizabeth, 'I am sure there is enough for all, but the young cock cannot get a morsel.'
'I believe we must get rid of him,' observed Mrs. Mortimer; 'for it is miserable to see him driven about so.'
'He is to be killed next, Madam,' answered the poultry-maid, who now approached with two fowls hanging from her hands, from which drops of blood were falling.
Mrs. Mortimer moved away with the children: for she saw that Harriet turned pale at the sight of the blood.
'I cannot think how Jane can kill the fowls, mamma,' said Elizabeth; 'I am sure I could not, if we never had any at all.'
'I should be very sorry if you could, my dear little girl, for there is no necessity for your doing it; and without conquering your feelings of tenderness, you never could acquire the resolution to do it. In Jane's situation it was necessary for her to habituate herself to an employment which devolves to her as the rearer of the poultry: but I assure you it was a long time before she could first bring herself to deprive those creatures of life which she had been accustomed to look after and feed. And even now I believe when she can meet with the gardener or groom, she most generally employs them.'
'Are there no ducks, mamma?' said Frederick: 'we used to have such a number.'
'There is your old favourite drake just stopping under the gate,' replied Mrs. Mortimer: 'and we will follow him into the field, for it is rather cold standing still.'
They then went into the field, and after that came round to the green-house, where the gardener was very busily employed in gathering some beautiful grapes.
'How nice and warm it is here,' said several of the children, on entering the house. The gardener then approached to ask the young gentlemen how they did, and to tell them how much they were grown, and to say that he hoped they would like the grapes. John and Frederick answered all the old man's questions with kindness and civility; and as the young party were leaving the green-house, he asked them whether they should not want some flowers and evergreens against their little dance?
'Oh yes, if you please, gardener,' was the ready and quick answer:--'we may, mamma, may we not?' said Harriet, looking up at her mother before she gave her reply.
'The gardener may give you what he can spare,' replied Mrs. Mortimer. 'And gardener,' added she, looking back towards the green-house, 'desire your grandson to go into the copses, and bring home a little cart of holly, that we may have the kitchen well ornamented, when the tenantry come to their dinner.'
'He shall be sure to do it, ma'am,' replied the gardener. 'I look we shall have a merry Christmas, and I do like to see the room well dressed up.'
As Tom, the gardener's grandson, was a steady, well-behaved lad, Mrs. Mortimer allowed John and Frederick to accompany him to the copses, in search of the holly. Harriet and Elizabeth would, no doubt, very much have liked to belong to the party also, but they were easily convinced of the propriety of their not doing so, and were therefore satisfied to see their brothers drive off with Tom Harding, and return in two or three hours afterwards, walking by the side of the little vehicle, which then appeared a moving shrub of red-berried holly.
On Christmas-day the expected party met round the hospitable dinner-table of Mr. Mortimer, having all of them arrived on the preceding day at the grove, excepting the other branch of the Mortimer family, who attended their own parish church in the morning, and did not arrive till the hour of dinner.
The children of the village school, all in their new clothes, and with a sprig of holly in their bosoms and button holes, walked from the church to the Grove; and there partook, as they had been invited to do, of beef and pudding, and good home-brewed beer. The young Mortimers waited upon them at dinner, and before they left the Lodge, presented them each with a plumb cake; and Mrs. Mortimer gave them each an