Nurse Crumpet Tells The Story
by
Time. –A bitter January night in the year of
Grace 1669.
Scene. –Sunderidge Castle–The great hall–A
monstrous fire burning in the big fireplace–Nurse
Crumpet discovered seated on a settle–At her
either knee lean the little Lady Dorothy and her
brother, the young Earl of Sunderidge, Lord
Humphrey Lennox.
Nurse Crumpet. –Nay, now, Lady Dorothy, why wilt thou be at the pains o’ such a clamoring? Sure thou hast heard that old tale o’er a hundred times; and thou too, my lord? Fie, then! Wouldst seek to flatter thy old nurse with this seeming eagerness? Go to! I say thou canst not in truth want to hear me drone o’er that ancient narrative. Well, then, an I must, I must. Soft! Hold my fan betwixt thy dainty cheeks and the blaze, sweetheart, lest the fire-fiend witch thy roses into very poppy flowers. And thou, my lord, come closer to my side, lest the draught from the bay-window smite thee that thou howlest o’ th’ morrow with a crick i’ thy neck. Well, well, be patient. All in time, in time. Soft, now! Ye both mind that I was but a little lass when thy grandmother, the Lady Elizabeth Lennox, did take me to train as her maid-in-waiting. I was just turned sixteen that Martlemas, and not a fair-sized wench for my years either. Would ye believe? I could set my two thumbs together at my backbone in those days, and my ring-fingers would all but kiss too.
Lord Humphrey. –Ha! ha! Nurse, thy fingers would be but ill satisfied lovers under those conditions nowadays. Eh, Dolly?
Lady Dorothy. –Hold thy tongue for an unmannerly lad, Humphrey. Do not thou heed him, nurse, but go on with thy story.
Nurse Crumpet. –For all thy laughter, my lord, I’d a waist my garter would bind in those days, and was as light on my toes as those flames that dance i’ th’ chimney. Lord! Lord! how well I mind me o’ th’ first time that e’er I clapt eyes on Jock Crumpet! I was speeding home with a jug o’ water from the spring, and what with his staring as he stood at the road-side to let me pass, and what with a root i’ th’ way, I all but lost my footing. Yet did I swing round alone, holding fast my jug, and ne’er one blessed drop o’ water spilled I, for all my tripping. “By’r lay’kin!” quoth he, “thou’rt as light on thy feet as a May wind, and as I live I will dance the Barley Break with thee this harvesting or I will dance with none!” And i’ faith a was as good as his word, for by hook or by crook, and much scheming and planning, and bringing o’ gewgaws to my mother, and a present o’ a fine yearling to my father, that harvesting did I dance the Barley Break with Jock Crumpet. And a was a feather-man in a round reel.
Well, ’twas the year o’ my meeting with Jock, thou mindst. (And a cold winter that was–Christ save us! There be ne’er such winters nowadays. This night is as a summer noon i’ th’ comparison.) ‘Twas the year o’ my first meeting with Jock, and my lady, your grandmother, sent for me to the castle, to be her waiting-maid. Lord! ’twas a troublous time! What with joy at my good fortune, and sorrow at quitting my mother, I was fain to smile with one corner o’ my mouth and look grievously with the other, like a zany at a village fair. And Jock, he would not that I went, for that he could not see me, or consort wi’ me so often: Jock was aye honey-combed wi’ th’ thing ye call “sentiment.” A would grin on a flower I had wov’n in my locks by th’ hour together. And ’tis my belief a could a spun him a warm doublet out o’ the odds and ends o’ ribbon and what not he had filched from me when my eyes were elsewhere. And Jock–but ’tis neither here nor there o’ Jock. In those days thy grandmother had only one child, a little lass, the Lady Patience. And ne’er was man or maid worse named; for to call such a flibbertigibbet “Patience” were as though one should name a frisksome colt “Slumber,” or christen a spring brook “Quiet.” Patience, quotha! ‘Twas patience in truth a body had need of, who was thrown at all with her little ladyship. But there was ne’er so beautiful a maiden born in all the broad land of England; nor will be again–not though London Tower be standing when the last trump sounds. Meseemed she was an elf-sprite, so tiny was she; and her face like a fair flower, so fresh and pure. Her hair was shed about her face like sunlight on thistle-down, and her eyes made a shining behind it, like the big blue gems in her mother’s jewel-box. When she laughed, it was as water falling into water from a short height, with ripples, and little murmurs, and a clear tinkling sound. But she was ne’er more at rest than the leaves on an aspen-tree. Hither and thither would she flit, this way and that, up and down, round and round, backward and forward, about and about. I’ faith, ofttimes would I be right dizzy come nightfall, with following of her; for ere I had been at the castle a day, she took so mighty a fancy to me, that naught would do but she must have me for her maid; and so my lady, who (God pardon my boldness!) did utterly spoil her in all things, gave me unto her as a nurse-maid.–But sure ye are a-weary o’ this old tale!