The Maid of SkerBlackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
The Maid of Sker
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Foundlings -- Fiction; Romance fiction; Wales -- Fiction
Not even so much as a doll had been saved from the total wreck of her
fortunes; and when I beheld her wistful eyes set one day upon Bunny's
doll--although only fit for hospital, having one arm and one leg and no
nose, besides her neck being broken--I set to at once and sharpened my
knife upon a piece of sandstone. Then I sought out a piece of abele,
laid by from the figure-head of a wrecked Dutchman, and in earnest I
fell to, and shaped such a carving of a doll as never was seen before or
since. Of course the little pet came, and stood, and watched every chip
as I sliced it along, with sighs of deep expectancy, and a laugh when I
got to the tail of it; and of course she picked up every one, not only
as neatest of the neat, but also accounting them sacred offsets of the
mysterious doll unborn. I could not get her to go to bed; and it was as
good as a guinea to me to see the dancing in her eyes, and the spring of
her body returning.
"'E can make a boofely doll, old Davy; but 'e doesn't know the yay to
dess a doll."
"You are quite wrong there," said I, perceiving that I should go up, or
down, according to my assertion; and it made her open her eyes to see me
cut out, with about five snips, a pair of drawers quite good enough for
any decent woman. And she went to bed hugging the doll in that state,
and praying to have her improved to-morrow.
At breakfast-time mother Jones dropped in, for she loved a good
salt-herring, and to lay down the law for the day almost; as if I knew
scarce anything. And I always let her have her talk, and listened to it
gravely; and clever women, as a rule, should not be denied of this
attention; for if they are, it sours them. While she was sucking the
last of the tail, and telling me excellent scandal, my little lady
marched in straight, having finished her breakfast long ago, and bearing
her new doll pompously. The fly-away colour in her cheeks, which always
made her beautiful, and the sparkle of her gleeful eyes, were come again
with pleasure, and so was the lovely pink of her lips, and the proper
aspect of her nose. Also she walked with such motherly rank, throwing
her legs with a female jerk--it is enough for me to say that any
newly-married woman would have kissed her all round the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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