Shanty the Blacksmith | Page 9

industry and self-denial. She told her that whatever she might hear
respecting her supposed parentage, she was merely a child without
pretentions, and protected from motives of love, and of love only; that
her protectors were poor, and ever likely to remain so, and that what
God required of her, was that when able, she should assist them as they
had assisted her in helpless infancy. As to religion, Mrs. Margaret
taught her what she 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