Shanty the Blacksmith | Page 9

herself knew and believed; but her views were dark and incomplete, she saw not half as much of the great mystery of salvation, as had been revealed to Shanty in his hut; yet, the desire of doing right in the sight of God, had been imparted to her, and this desire was a fixed principle, and did not appear to be affected by her want of knowledge. As to forms, Mrs. Margaret had her own, and she was very attentive to them, but she had very small opportunity of public worship, as there was no church within some miles of the Tower. In the meantime, whilst the old lady went plodding on in her own quiet way, teaching the little girl all she knew herself, Mr. Dymock was planning great things by way of instruction for Tamar. He was to teach her to read her native language, as he called the Hebrew, and to give her various accomplishments, for he had dipped into innumerable branches, not only of the sciences, but of the arts; and as he happened to have met with a mind in Tamar which was as rapid as his own, though far more plodding and persevering, the style of teaching which he gave her, produced far richer fruit than could possibly have been expected. But as Rome was not built in a day, neither must it be supposed that good Mrs. Margaret had not many a laborious, if not weary hour before her part of the care necessary to the well-rearing of the child, was so complete that the worthy woman might sit down and expect a small return; for, as she was wont to say, the child could not be made, for years after she could hold a needle, to understand that the threads should not be pulled as tight in darning as in hem stitch, and this, she would say, was unaccountable, considering how docile the child was in other matters; and, what was worst of all, was this,--that the little girl, who was as wild and fleet, when set at liberty, as a gazelle of the mountains, added not unseldom to the necessity of darning, until Mrs. Margaret bethought herself of a homespun dress in which Tamar was permitted to run and career during all hours of recreation in the morning, provided she would sit quietly with the old lady in an afternoon, dressed like a pretty miss, in the venerable silks and muslins which were cut down for her use when no longer capable of being worn by Mrs. Margaret. By this arrangement Tamar gained health during one part of the day, and a due and proper behaviour at another; and, as her attachment to Mrs. Margaret continued to grow with her growth, many and sweet to memory in after-life were the hours she spent in childhood, seated on a stool at the lady's feet, whilst she received lessons of needlework, and heard the many tales which the old lady had to relate. Mrs. Margaret having led a life without adventures, had made up their deficiency by being a most graphic recorder of the histories of others; Scheherazade herself was not a more amusing story-teller; and if the Arabian Princess had recourse to genii, talismans, and monsters, to adorn her narratives, neither was Mrs. Dymock without her marvellous apparatus; for she had her ghosts, her good people, her dwarfs, and dreadful visions of second sight, wherewith to embellish her histories. There was a piety too, a reference in all she said to the pleasure and will of a reconciled God, which added great charms to her narratives, and rendered them peculiarly interesting to the little girl. Whilst Tamar was under her seventh year, she never rambled beyond the moat alone; but being seven years old, and without fear, she extended her excursions, and not unseldom ran as far as Shanty's shed.
The old man had always taken credit to him self for the part he had had in the prosperity of the little girl, and Mrs. Margaret did not fail to tell her how she had first come to the Tower in Shanty's arms; on these occasions the child used to say,--"then I must love him, must not I ma'am?" And being told she must, she did so, that is, she encouraged the feeling; and on a Sunday when he was washed and had his best coat on, she used to climb upon his knees, for she always asked leave to visit him on that day if he did not come up to the Tower, as he often did, to ask for her, and being on his knees she used to repeat to him what she had been learning during the week.
He was very much pleased, when she first read a chapter in the