Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in mill-society, `I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?'
`Nay, Miss - an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great frankness.
`I'm no reader, I arn't.'
`But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any very pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's "Pug's Tour of Europe" - that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would help you - they show the looks and ways of the people and what they do.
There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know - and one sitting on a barrel.'
`Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen.There ben't much good i' knowin'
about them.'
`But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke - we ought to know about our fellow-creatures.'
`Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss: all I know - my old master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, `If e'er I sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door.Nay, nay, I arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen.There's fools enoo - an' rogues enoo - wi'out lookin' i'
books for 'em.'
`O well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided views about Dutchmen, `perhaps you would like "Animated Nature" better - that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sun-fish, and a bird sitting on its tail - I forget its name.There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know.Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke?'
`Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep 'count o' the flour an' corn - I can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work.That's what brings folk to the gallows - knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their bread by.An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets.'
`Why you're like my brother Tom, Luke,' said Maggie, wishing to turn the conversation agreeably, `Tom's not fond of reading.I love Tom so dearly, Luke - better than any-body else in the world.When he grows up, I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together.I can tell him everything he doesn't know.But I think Tom's clever, for all he doesn't like books:
he makes beautiful whip-cord and rabbit-pens.'
`Ah,' said Luke, `but he'll be fine an' vexed as the rabbits are all dead.'
`Dead!' screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.
`O, dear Luke! What, the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe, that Tom spent all his money to buy?'
`As dead as moles,' said Luke, fetching his comparison from the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.
`O dear Luke,' said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears rolled down her cheek, `Tom told me to take care of'em, and I forgot.What shall I do?'
`Well, you see, Miss, they war in that far toolhouse, an'it was nobody's business to see to 'em.I reckon Master Tom told Harry to feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry - he's a offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is.He remembers nothin' but his own inside - an'
I wish it 'ud gripe him.'
`O Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day -but how could I, when they did not come into my head, you know? O, he will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits - and so am I sorry.O what shall I do?'
`Don't you fret, Miss,' said Luke, soothingly, `they're nash things, them lop-eared rabbits - they'd happen ha'died, if they'd been fed.Things out o' natur niver thrive.God A'mighty doesn't like 'em.He made the rabbits'
ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's.Master Tom 'ull know better nor buy such things another time.Don't you fret, Miss.Will you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm agoin' this minute.'
The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pig-sty, close by the brink of the Ripple.Mrs Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance: she exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle and possessed various works of art.
Maggie actually forgot that she had any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense with a wig.But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine, apparently of some foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their feast of husks.
`I'm very glad his father took him back again aren't you, Luke?' she said.`For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again.'
`Eh, Miss,' said Luke, `he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's feyther do what he would for him.'
That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank.