The Settlers at Home | Page 5

a thing that is more brown and rusty every time it is dipped. I will give the folk a pair of cups that shall tempt them to drink--a pair of cups as white as milk."
"They will not long remain white: and those who broke the glasses will be the more bent upon spoiling your cups, the more pains you spend upon them."
"I hope the Redfurns will not happen to hear of them. We need not blab; and the folk who drink the waters go their way, as soon as they have done."
"Whether the Redfurns be here or there, my boy, there is no want of prying eyes to see all that the poor foreigners do. Your mother is watched, it is my belief, every time she dips her cup; and I in the mill, and you in the garden. There is no hope of keeping anything from our enemies."
Seeing Oliver look about him uneasily, Mr Linacre reproached himself for having said anything to alarm his timid boy: so he added what he himself always found the most comforting thought, when he felt disturbed at living among unkind neighbours.
"Let them watch us, Oliver. We do nothing that we need be ashamed of. The whole world is welcome to know how we live,--all we do, from year's end to year's end."
"Yes, if they would let us alone, father. But it is so hard to have our things broken and spoiled!"
"So it is; and to know what ill-natured talk is going on about us. But we must let them take their own way, and bear it as well as we can; for there is no help for it."
"I wish I were a justice!" cried Mildred. "How I would punish them, every one!"
"Then I wish you were a justice, my dear; for we cannot get anybody punished as it is."
"Mildred," said Oliver, "I wish you would finish the cabbages. You know they must be done; and I am very busy."
"Oh, Oliver! I am such a little thing to plant a whole cabbage bed. You will be able to come by and by; I want to help you."
"You cannot help me, dear: and you know how to do the cabbages as well as anybody. You really cannot help me."
"Well, I want to see you then."
"There is nothing to see yet. You will have done, if you make haste, before I begin to cut. Do, dear!"
"Well, I will," replied Mildred, cheerfully. Her father caught her up, and gave her one good jump down the whole flight of steps, then bidding her work away before the plants were all withered and dead.
She did work away, till she was so hot and tired that she had to stop and rest. There were still two rows to plant; and she thought she should never get through them,--or at any rate, not before Oliver had proceeded a great way with his carving. She was going to cry; but she remembered how that would vex Oliver: so she restrained herself, and ran to ask Ailwin whether she could come and help. Ailwin always did what everybody asked her; so she gave over sorting feathers, and left them all about, while she went down the garden.
Mildred knew she must take little George away, or he would be making confusion among the feathers that had been sorted. She invited him to go with her, and peep over the hedge at the geese in the marsh; and the little fellow took her fore-finger, and trotted away with his sister to the hedge.
There were plenty of water-fowl in the marsh; and there was something else which Mildred did not seem to like. While George was quack-quacking, and making himself as like a little goose as he could, Mildred softly called to Ailwin, and beckoned her to the hedge. Ailwin came, swinging the great spade in her right hand, as easily as Mildred could flourish George's whip.
"Look,--look there!--under that bank, by the dyke!" said Mildred, as softly as if she had been afraid of being heard at a yard's distance.
"Eh! Look--if it be not the gipsies!" cried Ailwin, almost as loud as if she had been talking across the marsh. "Eh dear! We have got the gipsies upon us now; and what will become of my poultry? Yon is a gipsy tent, sure; and we must tell the master and mistress, and keep an eye on the poultry. Sure, yon is a gipsy tent."
Little George, thinking that everybody was very much frightened, began to roar; and that made Ailwin talk louder still, to comfort him; so that nothing that Mildred said was heard. At last, she pulled Ailwin's apron, so that the tall woman stooped down, to ask what she wanted.
"I do not think it is the gipsies," said she. "I am afraid it is worse