Terry
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Rosa Mulholland >> Terry
The road grew worse and worse to the pony's feet, and at last he made a
great stumble and went crash down on his knees on some sharp stones. Terry
went over his head, but fortunately alighted sitting on the frozen grass
by the roadside.
She was soon on her feet, and so was the pony, but the poor little animal
was bleeding at the knees, and Terry knew that she must not mount him
again. She broke the ice on a pool and bathed his wounds with her
handkerchief. She was crying as she wiped away the blood.
"Oh, Jocko, Jocko, I'm so sorry I hurt you! I never thought of such a thing
as the frost or the fog! Oh dear, what shall I do to make you well, and how
shall I get you home? And oh, Jocko, we haven't got any eggs!"
Kisses and pats on his nose may have been comforting to Jocko, but he could
not give his little mistress any assurance on the subject.
"If I could even see the way to get home!" said Terry; "but it seems as if
the whole world were full of nothing but wool and feathers! And I can't
guess which was the side I came by."
She tore her handkerchief in two and made a wet bandage for each of Jocko's
knees, and then she could do no more, and sat down by him on the roadside
to wait till the fog should clear up a little. Her teeth began to chatter
with cold, and she felt altogether miserable.
"And I meant to be so good, and I thought it would go so well--and oh,
those eggs! How can one ever know what things are going to turn into?"
Suddenly she heard a rumbling sound which she knew must be a cart coming
along the road, though she could not see it. She moved the pony and herself
carefully in against the bank on the roadside, so that they might not be
run over, and then waited anxiously to see what would come out of the fog.
Very soon a horse's head appeared, then his body, and afterwards the cart
he was drawing, and the frosty-red face of the driver who was sitting on a
load of turf on the cart.
"Hullo!" shouted the man. "What on airth are you doin' there in the dyke,
little missy?"
"Oh," cried Terry, "I've broken my pony's knees, and I can't ride him, and
I couldn't see the way to Connolly's farm, and even if I did now I don't
know how to get there with Jocko!"
"Connolly's farm! Would it be Mike Connolly Mac you would be lookin' for?"
"Oh, I suppose it is!" said Terry. "I only just heard it called Connolly's
farm. And Nurse said it was down somewhere, and I came out to look for
fresh eggs to give Gran'ma a surprise for breakfast."
"And now what would be your name, little lady, an' who would be your
gran'ma?"
"My name is Terencia Mary, and my grandmama is Madam Trimleston," said
Terry.
The man gave a whistle of surprise.
"Faith and Missus Nancy might look afther ye betther," he said. "I know
her, and I'll give her a piece of my mind. To send a child like you out for
eggs, ridin' on glassy roads, and in such a fog as this!"
"Oh, she didn't send me! I came myself, and she didn't know anything about
it. I took the pony myself, to give them a surprise."
"Then I think you behaved very bad, miss, an' you deserved to be knocked
about. But the pony did no wrong, and you've hurted him!"
"Bad again!" groaned Terry; "and I felt so good. You are not a kind man,"
she added, looking at him with big tears in her blue eyes. "I'm not going
to ask you to do anything for me. Only, if you would just tell me where
Connolly's farm is perhaps I can get there if the fog would only go. I can
walk Jocko there, and Connolly will take care of him."
"I declare, but you have the pluck for a brigade of soldiers," said the
carter. "But come now, missy, I'm not goin' to lave you in the lurch
thataway. And first an' foremost Connolly's farm is away over yonder, two
miles from Trimleston House in the opposite direction; you took the wrong
road from the first."
"Oh!" groaned Terry; "and must I go home straight with Jocko's knees
broken, and without the eggs?"
"An' thankful you ought to be to get there," said the carter, "you an' the
pony, without any bones broken. But how do you think you're goin' to get
home itself, now, missy?"
"You're the unkindest person I ever knew," said Terry. "I didn't think
there was so unkind a man in the world. Everyone was always kind to me
before."
"It's my notion that they've been too kind to you, little missy. However,
not to be the unkindest in the world, I'll make a try to bring you home
myself. I'll just tie the pony to the back of the cart an' he'll follow,
and you get up here beside myself, and we'll face back to Trimleston."
"But you were going the other way. You'll be late for your own business,"
cried Terry.
"Never mind, missy; business'll have to wait. We can't lave a young lady
and a pony with cut knees foundherin' on the roadside," said the carter.
And so the pony was tied to the cart, and Terry was hoisted to a seat on
the turf beside the carter.
At any other time she would have asked to be allowed to take the reins and
drive the cart, but just now she felt too cold and miserable and crushed,
too unhappy about Jocko, and too utterly defeated in the matter of the
eggs, to do anything but huddle up in her nook among the turf sods and
struggle against a threatened burst of weeping.
[Illustration]
The carter drove on slowly, in silence, looking back now and again to see
that the pony was all right, but taking no further notice of Terry. The fog
was beginning to lift a little, so that one could see here and there a bit
of the roof of a little house, or a thorn bush. At last the carter said:
"Well, missy, what about thim eggs? Were they raly for Gran'ma's
breakfast?"
"Oh, don't talk about them!" cried Terry. "It's the worst of the whole
thing. I thought it wasn't wrong because she misses her eggs so much, and
our hens won't lay, and Nurse said they had some at Connolly's farm--and oh
dear!"
Terry here gave way to her despair, and burst into sobbing and weeping.
"Well now, little missy, cheer up! I wouldn't say but what we might find a
couple of eggs here in one of the houses as we go along."
"Oh, could we? I've got money to pay for them. And it wouldn't be half so
bad if I could only be in time with the eggs for Gran'ma's breakfast."
"Aisy now, aisy!" said the carter as he drew up opposite to a little gray
stone house where some hens were picking about the doorway. "I would bet a
sack of potatoes to a bag of meal that one o' thim very hins is afther
layin' an egg, by the cluck of her!"
He shouted and whistled, and a woman came to the door.
"Do you happen to have any new-laid eggs about the place, ma'am?" asked the
carter.
"Why then, I have three," said the woman, "nice an' warm from the nest.
Would ye be wantin' thim?"
"Oh yes, please!" cried Terry, and pulled out her little purse. "Do pay for
them, thank you," she said to the carter, "and please give her plenty of
money, for I am so glad to get them!"
"Well now, missy, why would ye be trustin' me with this?" said the man,
taking the purse. "Sure maybe I'd be robbin' you."
"Oh no, you wouldn't!" said Terry; "you're a great deal kinder than I
thought you were at first."
The purchase was made. There was no basket, and Terry was glad that she had
three nice, soft pockets in her coat, into each of which she put an egg.
After that the cart jogged on more quickly than before, as the fog had
lifted so far as that Terry could see all around her.
"I see someone awfully like Turly; just there in the distance," said Terry.
"Do you see, Mr.--"
"My name's Reilly," said the carter.
"Thank you, Mr. Reilly. I'm dreadfully afraid it's Turly!"
"Who is Turly, and why are you afraid it's him?"
"Turly is my brother, Turlough Trimleston. I'm afraid because he oughtn't
to be out riding on a donkey this foggy morning."
"No more nor his sister riding on a pony. I hope he hasn't broken the
donkey's knees," said Reilly.
"I hope not. I don't think so, or he wouldn't be riding it. It really is
Turly, and he won't be at home to tell Nurse what has become of me.--Oh,
Turly, Turly, why did you come after me when I told you not to?"
"I said I would come," said Turly.
Reilly had pulled up while Turly was being interviewed. The little boy sat
on a bare-backed donkey, himself looking rather at loose ends, with
evidences of having dressed himself hastily without any finishing-up from
Nurse Nancy.
"How did you ever do it, Turly?"
"How did you do it?" said Turly. "Of course I just walked into the stable
and looked about for a horse. I tried to sit on them all, but I couldn't,
for they were too wide. Then I spied the donkey. There was no saddle for
him, so I took him as he was. And how did you like Connolly's farm, Terry?
And is this Connolly?"
"Oh dear no, Turly! This is Mr. Reilly. Jocko and I were lost in the fog,
and we didn't get at all near Connolly's. And Mr. Reilly found us and got
me some eggs. But oh, Turly, poor Jocko's knees are cut, for he slipped in
the frost and I let him down."
"Never mind! They'll come all right again," said Turly. "Lally will look
after him."
"We may as well hurry up then," said Reilly, "if I'm ever to get on the
road again with my load of turf."
Then they began to move on again, the cart with Terry and Reilly, and Turly
riding the bare-backed donkey behind, side by side with Jocko, who seemed
very glad of their company.
As they turned off the high-road they saw Nurse Nancy standing at the foot
of the avenue, evidently looking out for them in great anxiety. The cart
stopped before her.
"Oh, you terrible childher! You dreadful little girl! I wonder I am alive
since six o'clock this morning!"
"You were sound asleep then, Nursey. I heard you snoring. And you won't
call it dreadful when you see the eggs. The only terrible thing is Jocko's
knees. I'm awfully sorry about that, indeed I am. I'd rather it had been my
own knees!" cried Terry, running to the back of the cart to examine poor
Jocko's injuries.
"The pony's knees!" shrieked Nurse, throwing up her hands and her eyes in
despair.
"I tell you Lally will make him all right!" said Turly. "Ponies and men
don't make a row over a scratch as women do!"
"If Lally cures him I'll give him all my pocket-money for a year," said
Terry, wiping her own eyes and patting Jocko's nose. "Oh, here is Mr.
Lally! Do you think you can cure poor Jocko's knees, Mr. Lally?"
"So you're at your thricks again, Miss Terry! Sorra ever such a young lady
was born in this mortial world before!" said Lally. "Now what will your
gran'ma be sayin' to you this time, Miss Terry?"
"Oh, Gran'ma! I hope she hasn't had her breakfast yet, Nursey. Just look at
the lovely fresh eggs Mr. Reilly got me!"
"An' I scourin' the counthry all round about Connolly's farm lookin' for
ye!" said Michael Lally indignantly, as he examined Jocko's knees.
"And have they really got plenty of eggs at Connolly's?" cried Terry. "For
only three will not last very long, you know."
"Here, Missus Nancy, for all the sakes will you take your childher out o'
my road?" cried Lally. "A nice scoldin' I'll be gettin' over again from
Madam when she hears of it."
"Oh no, she won't! Not when she get's her egg, and I tell her about it,"
said Terry.
And then Reilly gathered up his reins, laughing, and went rattling his cart
of turf down the road. Lally led away the pony, and Nancy and the children
returned to the house.
CHAPTER VI
A BRASS HELMET
Madam's breakfast was ready, and there was just time to cook the new-laid
egg and put it on the tray.
Terry got behind the open door, and great was her delight when she heard
Granny say:
"Why, Nancy, you don't mean to tell me that this is a new-laid egg! Where
can you have got it?"
"A nice little hen laid it for you, madam," said Nancy, "and may be there's
more where it come from."
"That is very good," said Granny. "What are the children doing at present,
Nancy?"
"They're just about goin' to get their breakfast, madam."
"Isn't it rather late for their breakfast?" said Granny.
"Both of them's been out, madam, and have got appetites like young
troopers," said Nancy evasively.
Terry listened with the keenest disappointment. Was Nancy not going to tell
Granny that it was she, Terry, who had got her that egg for her breakfast?
When the nursery meal appeared, Terry rushed forth her grievance.
"Oh, Nursey, you never told Granny who got her that egg! And after all the
trouble I took!"
"The trouble you took was all boldness and disobedience," said Nancy, "and
it's just the way you're to be punished by not letting her know. It isn't
to screen you that I'm not tellin' her the whole of your conduct, but only
just that I won't have her sick about it. It wasn't you at all that got the
eggs, but Misther Reilly; for there you were stuck in the dyke, with the
pony hurted, an you as far off as to-morrow from Connolly's farm."
"It's a worse punishment than if you beat me," said Terry. "And you said I
had an appetite like a trooper, and I haven't, for I can't eat a bit."
"You're a jolly goose, then!" said Turly. "Breakfast's awfully good, I can
tell you."
"If you don't eat, it doesn't matter," said Nurse. "It'll maybe make you
think again before you set off to run into such dangers. If your head had
come against a stone when the pony went down--"
"But it didn't," said Terry. "It wasn't the least bit like that. I just
came sitting on the grass quite comfortably. And I tried to get to
Connolly's, and I didn't want Jocko to be hurt."
"It isn't the least use talking to you," said Nancy; "but I've another
punishment for you. I've been talking to Madam about your practising, and
you've got to begin to it. I told her you'd be forgettin' all your music,
and she said you'd betther go to it afther breakfast this very mornin'."
Now if there was one thing in the world that Terry hated it was her
"practising". To sit hammering out five-finger exercises on a piano in a
lonely room, making a dreary, monotonous noise, trying to turn in her
fingers and thumbs at the right places, and doing the same thing over and
over again, while the hands of the clock crept slowly round; all this meant
a penance which was torture to the active little creature.
However, Terry accepted her sentence in silence. She never thought of
disobeying a direct command like this; for it was true, as she had often
said, that she never did a thing which she believed at the time to be
wrong. It would be clearly wrong to refuse to do her practising when Nurse
and Gran'ma had decreed that it was to be done, and so she recognized that
the hated ordeal must be faced.
She got out her "music", sheets covered with wicked-looking black notes,
having figures and crosses marked above them in pencil to show her where
to put her little fingers, which were always sure to get themselves in the
wrong places. Before descending to the large lonely drawing-room where the
practising had to be done, Terry made one last appeal to fate by opening
the door of Granny's bedroom ever so little and speaking in. Granny might,
after all, not be so severe in this matter as Nurse Nancy.
"Gran'ma, dear," said a little plaintive voice, "do you think I need go to
my practising quite so soon in the holidays?"
"Yes, my darling," answered Madam from among the curtains of her bed. "You
know your mother will expect you to play something pretty for her as soon
as she comes home."
Then Terry strove no more against her doom, but went down to the
drawing-room.
The drawing-room was a handsome old-fashioned apartment, but with that
depressing atmosphere which gathers into rooms, especially large ones,
which have ceased to be much lived in. The curtains drooped sorrowfully,
the carpet had a lonely, untrodden look; the chairs had an air of not
expecting to be sat upon, some Elizabethan portraits on the walls showed
stiff wooden personages, who seemed to have driven all the living persons
out of the room. When the piano was opened, the black and white keys
appeared cold and uninviting to the touch.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Terry. "An hour's practising! It is just twelve by
the clock now, and I shall have to strum till one!"
[Illustration]
She spent all the time she could in screwing the music-stool to the right
height for her little figure. It was no sooner up high enough than she
found she wanted it to go down, and then it would go down too low. At last
it was just as right as it could be, and there was nothing more to be done
with it.
Then the first two notes were struck by Terry's two little thumbs. How
strange and audacious they sounded in the silence of the lonely room! Terry
glanced over her shoulder at the pictures, and saw a long-faced man in a
pointed collar looking at her severely.
"Oh, how can I?" she exclaimed, dropping her hands into her lap. "How can I
if he goes on like that?"
She tried again, however, and this time succeeded in running a five-finger
exercise once up and once down.
"I forget how to do it, my fingers are all on the wrong notes. Miss
Goodchild says I have a taste for music. How can I have when I hate a
piano? I love beautiful sounds when I hear them, but these are not
beautiful sounds. I can't make anything but a dismal noise. Even the
long-ago people on the walls object to it. But I must do it again or it
won't be practising;" and this time Terry ran the five-finger exercise up
and down two or three times without stopping before she let her hands drop
again from the keys.
Suddenly a bright idea struck her.
"I wonder what o'clock it is!" she said to herself. "I must have been at
least half an hour in this room."
She got down from the high stool and walked slowly across the long room,
feeling that she was getting rid of a little time by restraining her usual
rapid movements. Arriving at the door she stood with her back to it for a
few moments, gazing all around.
"Could it ever have been a real everyday place to live in, like Granny's
sitting-room upstairs, or the day nursery? Granny says it was a lovely,
comfortable room when she was going about, and everybody was in it every
day. And certainly there are a lot of nice things in it, if they were only
shaken about. But there's nobody to shake them, and it's awfully ghosty,
and I do so feel afraid the ghosts will hear my bad playing and come to me.
Now, I'm sure it must be half an hour, and I may go and look at the clock!"
She slipped out of the door and closed it behind her quickly, as if she
feared invisible hands might catch her unawares to keep her within. Up two
flights of stairs she went, and looked at the clock on the landing.
"Only ten minutes past twelve!" she exclaimed in dismay. "Oh, that dreadful
old clock must have stopped herself on purpose! Now, I will just watch to
see. I don't believe she's moving at all." And Terry put her back against
the wall and fixed her eyes on her enemy.
"No; she's going," said Terry, as the minute-hand made a slight onward
jerk, "but she has gone slow just the very morning I have got to practise."
She went down to the hall, slowly, counting the steps, and stood in the
hall looking at everything as if she had never been there before.
"I wonder if I might curl in behind that door with a story-book," she
thought, "or even with nothing at all; where I could hear the sounds of the
other parts of the house! But no, I couldn't. I know it would be wrong,
because I've got to be a whole hour at my practising. And I don't want to
have two wrongnesses in one day, bad as I am."
She returned at once to the drawing-room, and, seating herself again at the
piano, went steadily up and down a whole scale, trying seriously to turn in
her thumbs at the right places and to put her fingers where they ought to
be when she wanted them. She really worked hard for five minutes, and then
stopped and congratulated herself that the hour must be nearly over.
"But I must play over Gran'ma's little tune," she said to herself.
"Gran'ma's so fond of it, and it is pretty, only I don't like his being
killed. Malbrook was killed, I know he was. Gran'ma told me so."
She got out an old music-book of Madam's young days, and turned to a page
on which were a number of small tunes of a few bars each, and each marked
with a name.
She began to play the old air of Malbrook, very sweetly and plaintively, so
as quite to justify Miss Goodchild's opinion that she had a taste for
music. But at the last bar Terry's little hands fell limp, and she burst
out crying.
"I know he was killed!" she said; "and what with Jocko's knees and
everything I can't bear it. I wonder if Turly would come down and sit with
me; that is if my hour isn't up."
Alas! the pitiless old clock informed her that she had still at least half
an hour of penance to undergo. Perceiving this she stole up softly to the
nursery.
"Turly, dear! Are you there, Turly?"
"Oh yes, I'm here!" said Turly. "Have you done your practising?"
"No, I haven't. I wish I had. And will you come down and sit with me,
Turly? The drawing-room is so lonely, and the time gets on so slow."
"It's silly to be lonely," said Turly. "I'm not a bit lonely here with my
bricks. But of course I'll come with you."
"Oh, thank you, Turly! Is Nursey with Gran'ma?"
"Yes."
"What does she look like, Turly?"
"Like always," said Turly.
"Is her nose long, Turly?"
"Isn't it always the same, Terry?"
"No, it isn't. When Nurse is angry her nose gets long and her mouth goes
down at the corners. And when she's pleased they both shorten up again."
"I didn't look at her as much as that," said Turly.
So Turly came and played in the drawing-room while Terry went on with her
practising. He made a play for himself which was not particularly good for
the furniture. A long train of wagons was constructed of chairs put on
their sides and one or two small old spider tables with their spindle legs
in the air. Turly dressed himself in a few of Granny's best oriental
embroideries, and armed himself with the brass fire-irons.
"It's war, you know!" he explained to Terry. "Play Malbrook again. But I'm
not going to be killed, I can tell you. I'd just like to see anybody trying
to do it."
"Oh, Turly, you must be killed, because you have no helmet! Oh, I know
where I can get you one!"
Terry sprang up and flew to where a small palm was standing, its garden-pot
enclosed in one made of Benares brass. She quickly lifted the palm out of
the brass pot, carried the pot across the floor, and turned it downwards,
like an extinguisher, on Turly's head. It just took his head in, coming
down a little over his eyes.
[Illustration]
"Now you are perfect!" cried Terry, clapping her hands.
"It isn't exactly all right," said Turly. "I should want to see a little
better. Push it a little farther back on me, Terry."
Terry tried to do so, but the pot would not move.
"My head is stuck into it," said Turly. "I'm afraid it will never come
off."
"Oh, Turly!"
"Never mind. I'll go on with the fighting, and perhaps some fellow will
shoot it off. My wagons are running away, and I must run after them."
In this manner the practising got finished, and the children hastened to
restore the furniture to its usual state in the room before the appearance
of Nurse Nancy, who might now be expected to look in at any moment. Two or
three times Turly had tried to remove his helmet, but had failed, and so it
was left on his head till all was in order. At last, however, the children
were confronted with a difficulty. The helmet had to come off Turly's head,
and it wouldn't.
"Oh, Turly, it must come off!" said Terry.
"Says it won't," said Turly. "Got wedged. Wish it was a little bit more up,
that a fellow could see better. Don't bother, Terry, perhaps it'll change
its mind. Won't it be a joke to see Nurse's face?"
The door opened on the moment, and the expected face was seen. Nurse Nancy
stood amazed.
"Turly, what do you mean by using your Gran'ma's nice things in such a
manner? That's one of the beautiful ornaments your uncle sent her from
India. Take it off directly, and put the palm back into it."
"It doesn't like the palm, Nurse. It would rather have me!" cried Turly,
dancing about impishly at the same time, trying to shake the pot off his
head by the movement.
"Do you mean to be disobedient, Turlough?"
"The pot is awfully disobedient," said Turly. "I tell you it won't come
off."
"We'll see about that," said Nurse Nancy, putting her hands to the pot. But
to her consternation it refused to move.
"Shake your head out of it, Turly!"
"I shook and shook, and it only gets tighter on. If I shake any more it
will come down about my neck, and my eyes will be gone up into it, and my
mouth and my nose!"
Here was a state of things. Nurse looked ready to faint, as she thought of
her boy being smothered before her eyes in a Benares pot.
"Oh, Turlough! why did you do anything so wild as putting your head into
that pot?"
"He didn't, Nursey," said Terry, trembling and pale. "It was I who put it
on his head for a helmet."
"I can believe it, Terencia Mary," said Nurse. "You are always the
ringleader. And why did they call you Mary, like your gentle mother and
grandmother? There's no Mary-ness in you, you shocking girl, that couldn't
do your little bit of practising without running after helmets."