Authors, English -- 20th century -- Biography; Reynolds, Stephen Sydney, 1881-1919
This morning they told me how my little hunchbacked Commodore died. He
had been ailing, they said; had come to look paler and more pinched in
his small sharp face. Then (it was a fisherman who told me this): "He
was in to house one morning, an' I thought as 'e were sleepin', an' I
said, 'Harry, will 'ee hae a cup o' tay; yu been sleeping an't 'ee?'
An' 'e says, 'No, I an't; but I been sort o' dreaming.' An' 'e said as
he'd see'd a green valley wi' a stream o' water, like, running down the
middle o' it, an' 'e thought as 'e see'd Granfer there (that us losted
jest before 'en) walking by the stream. A'terwards 'e sat on 's
mother's lap, like 's if 'e wer a child again, though 'e wer nearly
nineteen all but in size; an' 'e jest took an' died there, suddent an'
quiet like; went away wi'out a word; an' us buried 'en last January up
to the cementry on land."
So the _Moondaisy_'s luckiest fisherman packed up and went.
5
It is astonishing how hungry and merry these children are, especially
the boys. They rush into the kitchen at meal times and immediately make
grabs at whatever they most fancy on the table.
[Sidenote: _MAN AND GEN'LEMAN_]
"Yu little cat!" says their mother, always as if she had never
witnessed such behaviour before. "Yu daring rascal! Put down! I'll gie
thee such a one in a minute. Go an' sit down to once." Then they climb
into chairs, wave their grubby hands over the plates, in a pretence of
grabbing something more, and spite of the whacks which sometimes fall,
they gobble their food to the accompaniment of incessant tricks and
roars of shrill laughter. Never were such disorderly, hilarious meals!
If Tony is here they simply laugh at his threats of weird punishment,
and if he comes in late from sea, they return again with him and make a
second meal as big as the first. Sometimes, unless the food is cleared
away quickly, they will clamour for a third meal, and clamour
successfully. What digestions they must have to gobble so much and so
fast!
To judge by their way of talking, they divide the world into folk and
gentlefolk. "Who gie'd thee thic ha'penny?" Mrs Widger asked Jimmy.
"A man, to beach."
"G'out!" said Mabel. "Twas a gen'leman."
"Well...."
"Well, that ain't a _man_!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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