LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2510, 25 April 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

MRS PENNY'S LITTLE MISTAKES. Just on the brow of a gently sloping hill, commanding a rich anil varied view, on one tide of a road cut into the solid hill, Btood Elmholt Charoh. Crowning the oppoais bank wbb an Ivy.clod, gray, stone wall, behind whioh two solemn yews kept slee..»y watch on the 'churchyard ; and, behind the yews, also solidly built of tho gray stone of the diatriot, and keeping homely state with its mullioned wiedows, was Klmholt House, the residence of no leas a personage than Mrs Penny, who now sits with a sort of blue woolloa antimacassar over her plantiful frowsy iron-gray ringlets, deeply immersed in a political pamphlet. The room i» barely and somewhat inoongrously furnished. There are homely, uncushioaed Windaor chairs ; a iglaln deal table, scantily covered by a threadbare common cloth, and other farniture<aot quite too forgone to be rejected from the kitchen of a house where the exoheqaor ia very limited.

Mrs Penny's studies were interrupted by a load but not unkindly voice outside. ' Put ft down, I t-ell'ee. I won't ha'e thee do it.' With a enort, Mrs Penny tossed down her politics and strode out with musouline tread. '■" Let the boy alone, Penny,' said I won't have you interfere with him.' 'I tell 'ee.' said Mr Penny, for it was he, 'he shan't fling stones at the jenny-wrens. They bo Uodamoighty's birds.' Mr Penny was a hale looking old mun, rather florid, with wiry gray beard and moustache, and somewhat bowed in figure. He wore gaiters, corduroy breeches, and a drab coat with brass buttons, which looked as though it' had farmed part of some discarded livery. The boy, who was the subject of the threatened altercation stood irresolute, with the stone in his hand, and his eye on the hush where the jenny-wren had disappeared. Juit in the niok of time a blackbird started out, and, that the stone might not be wasted, he hurled it at the golden -billed lover of oherrles, and then ran off laughing, ' Ay, ay,' said Mr Penny ; ' dang the blackbuds, Hurl at they if thee likes ' Mrs Penny pushed her blue antimacassar a little more on one side, hltobeJ up her dress in nautical fashion, and retired to pursue the interrupted consideration of woman's rights. Sha was a lady of good birth, respectable education, and fairly well endowed with 'good gifts.' She had been left an orphan before she was out of her teens, and having '■ always very strong opinions as to woman's 1 ability to do anything that men could do—- ' and do it better, too—with a marked par- ' tlality for a oonntry life and for independence, it was not long after she became her ' own mistress that she took toto her own ' hands the farm on which Elmholt House I stood, and began to manage it on strictly ' original principles, although she condescended to dip Into Virgil for a hint sometimes. The neighbours occasionally made J merry at her expense when she oommitted a " more egregious mistake than usual, but she

bore such jests as reached her ear with imperturbable gooi humour. There was an element of practicality in her natuie, however, which led her at times to oonteroplate the necessity of considering her ways. Penny occupied the nominal position of steward on the farm, but Miss Gurteen was too much an autocrat to admis of this posi tion being more than nominal. His advice she by no means felt bound to follow, though she did not prohibit it. He had, on one occasion, urged the necessity of having mire sheep on tha fa'm, and as this suggestion seemed to be reasonable, she purchased a small but beautiful flock on what she thought to be favourable terms. ' Well, Penny, what do you think of the shaep ?' she aaked, after he bad returned from inspecting them. Penny, whose faoe was unusua'ly rel and rlg'd in the lines of it, opened his lips to reply, and a loud laugh, which he had been at much pains to suppress, took the opportunity to escape. 'Have you lost your senses, man,'said Miss Gurteen angrily, ' that you behave in that way before me ?' 'I beg pardon, miss," he said recovering his gravity with an effort that nearly choked him ' I couldn't help It.' ' Penny, you're a great baby,' said his mistress ; ' that'* what you are; and now about the sheep ' ' Why, lor' bless you. miss ' He stopped suddenly, grew purple In the face, resolutely compressed his mouth, turned his head, and burst into an uncoatrolable roar of laughter. Miss Gurteen looked on with amazement. When the paroxysm was over, she said, severely : ' Penny, you've been taking too much cider.'

«I haven't had a drop o' zlder sin'—ever so long,' said he, substituting an indefinite phrase, as it flashed upon him he had just refreshed himself with a cup in the kitohen. ' But they sheep—they be all rams I' Some time after this Miss Gurteen, who had been me Htsting muoh, said—'Penny, I've bean thinking about those sheep ; I shall always be making mistakes.' 1 Like enough, miss,' said he, with all the gravity he oould command, ' I can only see one way to keep cleir of them,' she went on ; ' I shall have to marry you.' PenDy grinned from ear to esr. • Oh man,' she said petulantly, ' don't grin like that; it makes me siok ; what do you say to it ? ' ' Well, miss,' said he, 'if you be willin' I

be.' And with b.ief wooing Miss Gurteen became Mrs Penny. The relations between the pair were scarcely altered. She remains autocrat still, and he, good easy man, was still steward, with bat little increased re sponsibility. Ho was placid and obedient, and their life was happy enough. In the ourse of time a son and heir was bora—the young malignant! whom we found casting stones at the jenny-wrens, then about fourteen years of age, a plump, well-grown, affectionate boy. Mrs Penny had from his birth destined him for the churoh, the living of Elmholt being in her gift, and the lad, with a placidity which would have done no disoredit to hia father, aoqule3oed ia the destiny. Not that he felt any special vocation for that Bacred office, of whioh he wonld even (the yonng scapegrace) with considerable humour make fun when he made hia way into the kitohen, and extemporised a pulpit with a couple of cbaifs, and a surplice with a tablecloth, to tho infinite merriment of the servants. This proclivity cf the boy for finding companionship iu the kitohen was Mrs Penny's greatest trouble. She had been at infinite pains to make him understand that he was a gentleman, and must avoid • low company,' euoh as that afforded by the servants and—his father. That ' Penny' should prefer to sit iu the klto;>en, smoking his pipe and chatting With the labourers after his day's work, was natural and right ; he belonged to ' that class of people ' ; but her son was expected to keep st*te with her In the parlour, or in a di.iiitied promenade up and down the filbert walk. 'Gus opposed to this arrangsment a passive resistance. When caught and marohed oft with Mrs Penny's hand in his collar, he made no coinplaint, toak his book or hii pencil, listened to his lecture, and rendered obedience so long as the mate: nsl eye was on him ; but the moment he was released from that stern gaz9, he slipped back with unimpaired cheerfulness, and with as much perseverance as a

moth pursues ifco own shadow on the ceiling, evidently regarding the parlour existence aa mer.iy parenthetical. ' tie will grow out of it,' said Mrs Penny, when she cautioned her steward not to encourage him in the practice. But he did not grow out of it. Even after his experiences at a genteel boarding-shcool, he would came back to shudder away from the dull deooram of the gentlefolks' quarter of his homo to the coßicess, warmth, freedom, and fun of the common folks. Gradually, too, there grew up in his mind a painful sense cf his father's position. It did not come to him early, for from his babyhond his fa'.her had been always a quiet, good humored cipher, and the perception of strangeness in conditions rendered so familiar to us comes slowly and comes late. In him it came Burcly, and while he grew more studiously polita with bis mother, he grew more and more affectionate with his father. He loved to walk round tee fluids with hlrn, pick up from him scraps of natural history and f jlk-iore, lister, to his broad but innocent jokes, his kindly gossip of village affairs. ' Ooliege will knock all that out of him,' paid Mrs Ponny, wheo she win, v.ith some- | thing of reticent prido, giving » Lint of her

trouble to tho rector, but college did nothing of the kind.

'ejus passed through his career respectably, though without attaining any distinction, but he oame back to Elmholt with a tisced determination, which ho was quite prepare 1 to maintain, that he would net be a parson. 1 Eh, lad,' said his father to him once, soon after ho left college, * I ain't fit company for the likes o' thee. You go talk to your mother." 'Ah, you sly old gentleman.' answered 'Gus, taking his arm as he did so; 'what mlsohlef are you thinking of that you want to be quit ot me. I have just had a very long talk with mother, »nd now I am «oming to have a long talk with you.' '.the old gentleman was inwardly delighted He was immensely proud of this tall, tine, handsome, happy son, such a fine scholar and such a fine gentleman, and yet so companionable. His pride notwithstanding, the old man said,— ' Eh, lad, th'oert pleasant to me as harvest to a hay suok ' (a hedjje-sparrow) ; ' but don't 'ee go for to vex your mother. Her'll he like a dry dook' (water course) ' wi' outen thee yet.' •What a Belf-willed old boy it is.' said 'Gus, smiling ; 'no ; I am coming with you, and with nobody el»e, for I have something very particular to say to you.' ' Well, lad, welL It makes day bright to me to have thee; but thee musn'c vex theo mother.' ' That's just what I'm afraid I shall have to do,' replied 'Gus gravely, 'and that is what I wanted to tell yon. You know mother has always intended me to be rector at Klmholt?' ' Yes, z»rtln.' ' Well. I never shall be. lam not going Into the Church.' The old man stopped abruptly, and looked with awe-struck dismay in his son's face, as he ejaculated, ' Soissors !' T/h»re was a whole world of wonderment and horror in the acclamation.

•No,'said the youns; man, 'I cannot do it. I have never thought serioutly about the matter till quite la'ely, but, as the time came near when I ehould have to take orders, I was obliged to look It in the face and I am sure I am not fitted for such a position. I could not take up that work as a tra 'o, or a mere profession. I don't feel called upon to censure those who do; but suoh a course would be ntterly hateful to me. I could niver respeot myself, nor could I look for re3pect from others. I shall be very sorry to vex mother. If it were a matter of inolination only, knowing how her heart is set on it, i think—but one never knows—l think I should have given way and said nothing about my feelings ; but, as a clergyman, 1 should be a conscious humbug and a hypo<rPe, and I won't be that for anybody. I wouldn't try to be it even for you.' •What you say is right good, lad,' Baid the old man with unwonted decision ; ' It's orubbin' (food) *to me to hear thee say it. I didn't think thee had so much grit in thee. But it'll vex your mother more'n anything sin I've known she. Her'll be wild about it. Don't thee tell it right cut, but break it to she bit by bit like.' The conversation was earnest and prolonged, but it travelled, as is the wont of familiar talk, very much in a circle, and did not g-> beyond what has been indicated, though father and son varied tho form of expression from time to time. Meanwhile Mrs Penny had been engaged in a moHt interesting tete-a-tete. An old schoolfellow of hers—now a widow in com fortablo circumstances, with a married son and two unmarried daughters—had made a call at Klmholt Farm, and Mrs Penny, who had lately meditated muoh on her son's settlement in life, with oharaoteriatic frankness hid proposed a match between him j'.nd Mrs Burrowes's daughter. The proposal met with a gracious reception, for 'Gus was a decidedly eligible young man. The living of Elmholt was more than oomfortable, and Mrs Penv.y, though not stingy, was frugal, and had always lived below her income ; to that he would inherit from her no inconsiderable property. He was a healthy, good-lookiog, almost handsome young fellow, frank and modest, high-spirited, and without a particle of vice. Any mother might be well pleased to find such a son-in-law, and Mrs Birrowes, who oould almost answer for her daughter, saw no obstacle in the way of the match, unless it lay in the young man's inclinations. ( To be continued )