PAGE 3
Nip-Cheeked Toney
by
At the stone-quarry the girls met again and stood still.
“You are too rough, you are,” said Tony to Babbett.
“Yes, you are so,” Bridget chimed in.
“He didn’t hurt you,” continued Tony, “and you went at him like a bull-dog.”
“I didn’t hurt him either,” answered Babbett; “I only fooled him. Why didn’t the jackanapes answer me? And, another thing, I don’t like the green-coat, anyhow. What does he mean by running through the whole village with us and making people think we want something of him? And what will Sepper[1] and Caspar think of it? I’m not such a good-natured little puss as you are; I don’t take things from counts or barons, nor barons’ gamekeepers either.”
[Footnote 1: Joseph; Joe.]
Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Sepper and Caspar, who had looked for their sweethearts at the cherry-bush in vain. Babbett now told the whole story so glibly that no one else could get a word in edgewise. As a good many smart things occurred to her while she was speaking, she put them into her own mouth, without being unnecessarily precise. People have a way of embellishing the recital of their own doings and sayings in this manner: it requires so much less readiness and courage to invent these things when the person at whom they are levelled is gone than when he is by.
Sepper expressed his hearty approval of Babbett’s proceedings, and said, “These gentry-folk must be stumped short the minute you begin with them.”
The gamekeeper certainly did not belong to the “gentry-folk;” but it was convenient to class him so, for the purpose of scolding the more freely about him.
Sepper gave an arm to Tony, his sweetheart, while Bridget hung herself upon the other. Caspar and Barbara walked beside them; and so they passed out through the hollow to take a walk.
Sepper and Tony were a splendid pair, both tall and slender, and both doubly handsome when seen together: among a thousand you would have picked them out and said, “These two belong together.” Sepper wore a style of dress half-way between that of a peasant and a soldier: the short flapping jacket set off in fine contrast the display of well-rounded limbs cased in the close-fitting military breeches. He looked like an officer in undress, so fine was the blending of ease and precision in all his movements.
At the top of the hill they saw the gamekeeper in conversation with the woodranger of Nordstetten. Sepper even observed that he was pointing toward them, and cleared his throat as if to prepare a sharp answer for the “gentleman,” who was still two hundred yards away. Then he put his arms around Tony’s neck and gave her a hearty smack, as a sort of broad hint for him who ran to read. This done, he walked on, whistling a lively tune, with something of a swagger.
His manner would have been still more emphatic if he had heard what the gamekeeper was saying to the woodranger, which was, “See! there she comes now. It is a girl as white as wax,–for all the world like the mother of God in the church: I never saw any thing like it in all my life.”
“Yes, I thought you meant her,” replied the woodranger “It’s the Poodlehead’s daughter: they call him Poodlehead because he has white curly hair like a lamb, just as the girl has, too. In the village they call her the maiden-blush, because she has such pretty red cheeks. The old parson knew what’s good, and wanted her for a cook; but it was no go. Poodlehead wiped his chops for him with a ‘No, thank ye.’ Tony will get her ten acres some day in this commune, and they say there’s more besides.”
The gamekeeper shook hands and took his leave before the party had quite reached him.
Sitting on an unploughed strip of land, between two fields,–such as take the place of fences in that hedgeless country,–our friends spent the afternoon in singing and kissing. Bridget had the worst of the game, for her sweetheart was with the soldiers at Heilbronn: who knows what he was about while his girl sat aside from the others with blushing face, playing with a flower and thinking of him? At dusk she was wanted to “fix up” the others: her own collar was in perfect trim, while the collars and the hair of her friends were all “mussed and fussed,” as she said, scolding good-naturedly.