Cruel Barbara Allen

Cruel Barbara Allen, by David
Christie Murray

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Title: Cruel Barbara Allen From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories,
Volume II. (of III.)
Author: David Christie Murray
Release Date: August 1, 2007 [EBook #22208]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRUEL
BARBARA ALLEN ***

Produced by David Widger

CRUEL BARBARA ALLEN.
By David Christie Murray

From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories By David Christie Murray In
Three Volumes Vol. II.
Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly 1882
CHAPTER I.
Christopher was a fiddler and a man of genius. Educated people do not
deny the possibility of such a combination; but it was Christopher's
misfortune to live amongst a dull and bovine-seeming race, who had
little sympathy with art and no knowledge of an artist's longings. They
contented themselves, for the most part, with the belief that Christopher
was queer. Perhaps he was. My experience of men of genius, limited as
it may be, points to the fact that oddity is a characteristic of the race.
This observation is especially true of such of them as are yet
unrecognised. They wear curious garments and their ways are strange.
The outward and visible signs of their inward and spiritual graces are
familiar to most observers of life, and the aesthetic soul recognises the
meaning of their adornments of the hair and their puttings on of apparel.
Genius may be said in these cases to be a sort of mental measles
exhibited in sartorial form, and it may be supposed that but for their
breaking out there would be some fear of their proving fatal. There are
reasons for all things, if we could but find them; yet where is the social
philosopher who will establish the nexus between a passion for
Beethoven and the love of a bad hat? Why should a man who has
perceptions of the beautiful fear the barber's shears? There were no
social philosophers to speak of in the little country town in which
Christopher was born and bred, and nobody in his case strove to solve
these problems. Christopher was established as queer, and his
townsfolk were disposed to let him rest at that. His pale face was
remarkable for nothing except a pair of dreamy eyes which could at
times give sign of inward lightnings. His hair was lank; his figure was
attenuated and ungraceful; he wore his clothes awkwardly. He was
commonly supposed to be sulky, and some people thought his tone of
voice bumptious and insolent. He was far from being a favourite, but
those who knew him best liked him best, which is a good sign about a
man. Everybody was compelled to admit that he was a well-conducted

young man enough, and on Sundays he played the harmonium gratis at
the little Independent chapel in which that pious and simple pair, his
father and mother, had worshipped till their last illness. Over this
instrument Christopher--let me admit it--made wonderful eyes,
sweeping the ceiling with a glance of rapture, and glaring through the
boarders at the ladies' school (who sat in the front of the gallery) with
orbs which seemed to see not. The young ladies were a little afraid of
him, and his pallor and loneliness, and the very reputation he had for
oddity, enlisted the sympathies of some of them.
Whatever tender flutterings might disturb the bosoms of the young
ladies in the galleries, Christopher cared not. His heart was fixed on
Barbara.
Barbara, who surely deserves a paragraph to herself, was provokingly
pretty, to begin with, and she had a fascinating natural way which made
young men and young women alike unhappy. She bubbled
over--pardon this kitchen simile--with unaffected gaiety; she charmed,
she bewitched, she delighted, she made angry and bewitched again. The
young ladies very naturally saw nothing in her, but a certain pert
forwardness of which themselves would not be guilty, though it should
bring a world of young gentlemen sighing to their feet. Barbara was
nineteen, and she had a voice which for gaiety and sweetness was like
that of a throstle. Christopher had himself taught her to sing. His own
voice was cacophonous and funereal, and it was droll to hear him
solemnly phrasing 'I will enchant thine ear' for the instruction of his
enchantress. But he was a good master, and Barbara prospered under
him, and added a professional finish and exactness to her natural graces.
She lived alone with an old uncle