Jackanapes, Daddy Darwins Dovecot and Other Stories

Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's
Dovecot and Other Stories
by
Juliana Horatio Ewing

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Title: Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories
Author: Juliana Horatio Ewing
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7865] [This file was first posted on
May 28, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK,
JACKANAPES, DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT AND OTHER
STORIES ***

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JACKANAPES
DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT
AND OTHER STORIES
By
JULIANA HORATIO EWING.

[Illustration]
"If I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I
could lay on like a butcher, and sit like a Jackanapes, never off!"

KING HENRY V, Act 5, Scene 2.

JACKANAPES
CHAPTER I.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle
proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, The morn
the marshalling in arms--the day Battle's magnificently stern array! The
thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick
with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse:--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent.
Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine: Yet one would I
select from that proud throng. ----to thee, to thousands, of whom each
And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred,
whom to teach Forgetfuluess were mercy for their sake; The
Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for.
--BYRON.
[Illustration]
Two Donkeys and the Geese lived on the Green, and all other residents
of any social standing lived in houses round it. The houses had no
names. Everybody's address was, "The Green," but the Postman and the
people of the place knew where each family lived. As to the rest of the
world, what has one to do with the rest of the world, when he is safe at
home on his own Goose Green? Moreover, if a stranger did come on
any lawful business, he might ask his way at the shop.
Most of the inhabitants were long-lived, early deaths (like that of the
little Miss Jessamine) being exceptional; and most of the old people
were proud of their age, especially the sexton, who would be
ninety-nine come Martinmas, and whose father remembered a man who
had carried arrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. The Grey
Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who

kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any
one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything had happened.
She said that she had been taught that it was bad manners to do so "in a
mixed assembly."
The Grey Goose also avoided dates, but this was partly because her
brain, though intelligent, was not mathematical, and computation was
beyond her. She never got farther than "last Michaelmas," "the
Michaelmas before that," and "the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas
before that." After this her head, which was small, became confused,
and she said, "Ga, ga!" and changed the subject.
But she remembered the little Miss Jessamine, the Miss Jessamine with
the "conspicuous" hair. Her aunt, the big Miss Jessamine, said it was
her only fault. The hair was clean, was abundant, was glossy, but do
what you would with it, it never looked like other people's. And at
church, after Saturday night's wash, it shone like the best brass fender
after a Spring cleaning. In short, it was conspicuous, which does not
become a young woman--especially in church.
Those were worrying times altogether, and the Green was used for
strange purposes. A political meeting was held on it with the village
Cobbler in the chair, and a speaker who came by stage coach from the
town, where they had wrecked the bakers' shops,