The Maid of SkerBlackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
The Maid of Sker
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Foundlings -- Fiction; Romance fiction; Wales -- Fiction
The £5 note was for Mother Jones, to help our Bunny with spring-clothes,
and to lay out at her discretion for my grandchild's benefit, supposing
(as I must needs suppose) that Churchwarden Morgan, in face of his
promise, would refuse indignantly to accept a farthing for the child's
nourishment. He disappointed me, however, by accepting four pound ten,
and Mrs Jones was quite upset; for even Bunny never could have eaten
that much in the time. Charles was a worthy man enough (as undertakers
always are), but it was said that he could not do according to his
lights, when fancy brought his wife across them. Poor Mother Jones was
so put out, that she quite forgot what she was doing until she had spent
the ten shillings of change in drawers for her middle children. And so
poor Bunny got nothing at all; nor even did poorer Bardie. For this
little dear I had begged to be bought, for the sake of her vast
imagination, nothing less than a two-shilling doll, jointed both at knee
and elbow, as the Dutchmen turn them out. It was to be naked (like
Parson Chowne's folk), but with the girls at the well stirred up to make
it more becoming. And then Mother Jones was to go to Sker, and in my
name present it.
All things fail, unless a man himself goes and looks after them. And so
my £5 note did; and when I was able to follow it, complaint was too
late, as usual. But you should have seen the village on the day when our
Captain Drake--as we delighted to call him--found himself for the first
time able to carry out his old promise to me, made beneath the very
eyes of his true-love, Isabel. The thought of this had long been chafing
in between his sense of honour, and of duty set before him by the
present Naval Board. And but for his own deeper troubles, though I did
my best for ease, he must have felt discomfort. If I chose, I could give
many tokens of what he thought of me, not expressed, nor even hinted;
yet to my mind palpable. But as long as our Navy lasts, no man will dare
to intrude on his Captain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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