In Homespun | Page 4

speech--a speech that should be sweeter in English ears
than the implacable consonants of a northern kail-yard, or the soft
one-vowelled talk of western hillsides.
All through the summer nights the market carts creak along the London
road; to London go the wild young man and the steady young man who
'betters' himself. To London goes the girl seeking a 'place.' The 'beano'
comes very near to this land--so near that across its marches you may

hear the sackbut and shawm from the breaks. Once a year come the
hoppers. And so the cup of the hills holds no untroubled pool of
pastoral speech. This book therefore is of no value to a Middle English
scholar, and needs no glossary.
E. NESBIT.
KENT, March 1896.

CONTENTS

THE BRISTOL BOWL 1 BARRING THE WAY 24 GRANDSIRE
TRIPLES 38 A DEATH-BED CONFESSION 58 HER MARRIAGE
LINES 75 ACTING FOR THE BEST 104 GUILTY 125 SON AND
HEIR 146 ONE WAY OF LOVE 160 COALS OF FIRE 170

THE BRISTOL BOWL

MY cousin Sarah and me had only one aunt between us, and that was
my Aunt Maria, who lived in the little cottage up by the church.
Now my aunt had a tidy little bit of money laid by, which she couldn't
in reason expect to carry with her when her time came to go, wherever
it was she might go to, and a houseful of furniture, old-fashioned, but
strong and good still. So of course Sarah and I were not behindhand in
going up to see the old lady, and taking her a pot or so of jam in
fruiting season, or a turnover, maybe, on a baking-day, if the oven had
been steady and the baking turned out well. And you couldn't have told
from aunt's manner which of us she liked best; and there were some
folks who thought she might leave half to me and half to Sarah, for she
hadn't chick nor child of her own.
But aunt was of a having nature, and what she had once got together
she couldn't bear to see scattered. Even if it was only what she had got
in her rag-bag, she would give it to one person to make a big quilt of,
rather than give it to two persons to make two little quilts.
So Sarah and me, we knew that the money might come to either or
neither of us, but go to both it wouldn't.
Now, some people don't believe in special mercies, but I have always
thought there must have been something out of the common way for
things to happen as they did the day Aunt Maria sprained her ankle.

She sent over to the farm where we were living with my mother (who
was a sensible woman, and carried on the farm much better than most
men would have done, though that's neither here nor there) to ask if
Sarah or me could be spared to go and look after her a bit, for the
doctor said she couldn't put her foot to the ground for a week or more.
Now, the minister I sit under always warns us against superstition,
which, I take it, means believing more than you have any occasion to.
And I'm not more given to it than most folks, but still I always have
said, and I always shall say, that there's a special Providence above us,
and it wasn't for nothing that Sarah was laid up with a quinsy that very
morning. So I put a few things together--in Sarah's hat-tin, I remember,
which was handier to carry than my own--and I went up to the cottage.
Aunt was in bed, and whether it was the sprained ankle or the hot
weather I don't know, but the old lady was cantankerous past all
believing.
'Good-morning, aunt,' I said, when I went in, 'and however did this
happen?'
'Oh, you've come, have you?' she said, without answering my question,
'and brought enough luggage to last you a year, I'll be bound. When I
was young, a girl could go to spend a week without nonsense of boxes
or the like. A clean shift and a change of stockings done up in a cotton
handkerchief--that was good enough for us. But now, you girls must all
be young ladies. I've no patience with you.'
I didn't answer back, for answering back is a poor sort of business when
the other person is able to make you pay for every idle word. Of course,
it's different if you haven't anything to lose by it. So I just said--
'Never mind, aunt dear. I really haven't brought much; and what would
you like me to do first?'
'I should think you'd see for yourself,' says she, thumping her pillows,