The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson BurnettЧитать онлайн книгу.
he cried, the tears streaming down his florid cheeks. “Who is the young she-devil? Ods bodikins, who is she?”
For a second or so the servants stared at each other aghast, not knowing what to say, or venturing to utter a word; and then the nurse, who had come up panting, dared to gasp forth the truth.
“’Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry,” she stammered—“my lady’s last infant—the one of whom she died in childbed.”
His big laugh broke in two, as one might say. He looked down at the young fury and stared. She was out of breath with beating him, and had ceased and fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, breathing defiance and hatred. Her big black eyes were flames, her head was thrown up and back, her cheeks were blood scarlet, and her great crop of crow-black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little virago face, as if it might change into Medusa’s snakes.
“Damn thee!” she shrieked at him again. “I’ll kill thee, devil!”
Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh.
“Clorinda do they call thee, wench?” he said. “Jeoffry thou shouldst have been but for thy mother’s folly. A fiercer little devil for thy size I never saw—nor a handsomer one.”
And he seized her from where she stood, and held her at his big arms’length, gazing at her uncanny beauty with looks that took her in from head to foot.
CHAPTER III
Wherein Sir Jeoffry’s boon companions drink a toast
Her beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of limb, and great growth for her age, would have pleased him if she had possessed no other attraction, but the daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so amused him and suited his roystering tastes that he took to her as the finest plaything in the world.
He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made friends with her, but at first she would have none of him, and scowled at him in spite of all he did. The brandy by this time had mounted to his head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor oftenest making him gamesome. He felt as if he were playing with a young dog or marking the spirit of a little fighting cock. He ordered the servants back to their kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, and the men concealing grins which burst forth into guffaws of laughter when they came into their hall below.
“’Tis as we said,” they chuckled. “He had but to see her beauty and find her a bigger devil than he, and ’twas done. The mettle of her—damning and flogging him! Never was there a finer sight! She feared him no more than if he had been a spaniel—and he roaring and laughing till he was like to burst.”
“Dost know who I am?” Sir Jeoffry was asking the child, grinning himself as he stood before her where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had lifted her.
“No,” quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn down, her handsome owl’s eyes verily seeming to look him through and through in search of somewhat; for, in sooth, her rage abating before his jovial humour, the big burly laugher attracted her attention, though she was not disposed to show him that she leaned towards any favour or yielding.
“I am thy Dad,” he said. “’Twas thy Dad thou gavest such a trouncing. And thou hast an arm, too. Let’s cast an eye on it.”
He took her wrist and pushed up her sleeve, but she dragged back.
“Will not be mauled,” she cried. “Get away from me!”
He shouted with laughter again. He had seen that the little arm was as white and hard as marble, and had such muscles as a great boy might have been a braggart about.
“By Gad!” he said, elated. “What a wench of six years old. Wilt have my crop and trounce thy Dad again!”
He picked up the crop from the place where she had thrown it, and forthwith gave it in her hand. She took it, but was no more in the humour to beat him, and as she looked still frowning from him to the whip, the latter brought back to her mind the horse she had set out in search of.
“Where is my horse?” she said, and ’twas in the tone of an imperial demand. “Where is he?”
“Thy horse!” he echoed. “Which is thy horse then?”
“Rake is my horse,” she answered—“the big black one. The man took him again;” and she ripped out a few more oaths and unchaste expressions, threatening what she would do for the man in question; the which delighted him more than ever. “Rake is my horse,” she ended. “None else shall ride him.”
“None else?” cried he. “Thou canst not ride him, baggage!”
She looked at him with scornful majesty.
“Where is he?” she demanded. And the next instant hearing the beast’s restless feet grinding into the gravel outside as he fretted at having been kept waiting so long, she remembered what the stable-boy had said of having seen her favourite standing before the door, and struggling and dropping from the settle, she ran to look out; whereupon having done so, she shouted in triumph.
“He is here!” she said. “I see him;” and went pell-mell down the stone steps to his side.
Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. ’Twould not have been to his humour now to have her brains kicked out.
“Hey!” he called, as he hurried. “Keep away from his heels, thou little devil.”
But she had run to the big beast’s head with another shout, and caught him round his foreleg, laughing, and Rake bent his head down and nosed her in a fumbling caress, on which, the bridle coming within her reach, she seized it and held his head that she might pat him, to which familiarity the beast was plainly well accustomed.
“He is my horse,” quoth she grandly when her father reached her. “He will not let Giles play so.”
Sir Jeoffry gazed and swelled with pleasure in her.
“Would have said ’twas a lie if I had not seen it,” he said to himself. “’Tis no girl this, I swear. I thought ’twas my horse,” he said to her, “but ’tis plain enough he is thine.”
“Put me up!” said his new-found offspring.
“Hast rid him before?” Sir Jeoffry asked, with some lingering misgiving. “Tell thy Dad if thou hast rid him.”
She gave him a look askance under her long fringed lids—a surly yet half-slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had the cunning wit and shrewdness of a child witch.
“Ay!” quoth she. “Put me up—Dad!”
He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having been too many years bemuddled with drink, but he had a rough instinct which showed him all the wondrous shrewdness of her casting that last word at him to wheedle him, even though she looked sullen in the saying it. It made him roar again for very exultation.
“Put me up, Dad!” he cried. “That will I—and see what thou wilt do.”
He lifted her, she springing as he set his hands beneath her arms, and flinging her legs over astride across the saddle when she reached it. She was all fire and excitement, and caught the reins like an old huntsman, and with such a grasp as was amazing. She sat up with a straight, strong back, her whole face glowing and sparkling with exultant joy. Rake seemed to answer to her excited little laugh almost as much as to her hand. It seemed to wake his spirit and put him in good-humour. He started off with her down the avenue at a light, spirited trot, while she, clinging with her little legs and sitting firm and fearless, made him change into canter and gallop, having actually learned all his paces like a lesson, and knowing his mouth as did his groom, who was her familiar and slave. Had she been of the build ordinary with children of her age, she could not have stayed upon his back; but she sat him like a child jockey, and Sir Jeoffry, watching and following her, clapped his hands boisterously and hallooed for joy.
“Lord, Lord!” he said. “There’s not a man in the shire