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Words: 30690 in 16 pages
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A YELLOW ASTER.
THE stable-yard of Waring Park seemed to be slightly off its head on a certain fine afternoon in June. Such an afternoon as it was, so sweet and so soft, so full of fragrant sleepy haze, that any sound louder than the sing-song of a cricket must have distracted any ordinary nerve-possessing mortal.
On this particular afternoon however, the sole occupants of the yard were the stable-boys, the groom's urchin, and the under-gardener's lad, and as none of these had yet reached the level of nerves, whilst the blood of all of them throbbed with the greed for illegal sport in every shape, their state of lazy content was in no way upset by a medley of blood-curdling shrieks, squeals, and gobbles that issued from the throats of a little boy and a big turkey which the boy was swinging round and round by the tail, from the vantage ground of a large smooth round stone, with an amount of strength that was preternatural, if one had judged by the mere length of him and had not taken into consideration the enormous development of the imp's legs and arms.
The stable-boys grinned, and smoked like furnaces as the show proceeded, and the other two cheered like Trojans, in the cruelty of the natural boy, and it might have gone badly for the turkey, if there had not swooped down upon him and his tormentor, just in the nick of time, a little lean wiry woman, armed with an authority, which even the imp, after one spasmodic struggle, saw best not to gainsay.
"Master Dacre, whatever do you do it for? Do you think the bird has no feelings? There is no sense in such goings-on."
"There is sense," spluttered the boy at full speed, "I like bein' swung and I like swingin' the turkey, and I'll learn him to like it too, and if he don't learn that anyway he'll learn something else, which is life's discerpline, which father says I'm learnin' when you whip me. If I want it, so does the turkey and wuss. I b'longs to higher orders nor beasts and birds."
Here the grins of the stable-boys broke into hoarse guffaws, and Mary's ire culminated in a sharp rebuke all round.
"Go to your work, you idle fellows. I told your father long ago, Jim, what 'ud be the latter end of you. As for you, Robert, I could cry when I think of your blessed mother!
"And what business have you in the yard," she cried, turning on the two younger sinners. "Be off with you this instant. 'Tis easy to see none of the men are about. You two, Jim and Robert, you'd be surprised yourselves if you could see what soft idiots you look with them stumps of pipes between your jaws.
"Look, Master Dacre, look at the bird's tail. Haven't you any heart at all? The creature might have been through the furze covert--"
"There's not a feather broke," said the boy, after a critical survey, "not one; I believe that tail were made for swingin' as much as my arms was."
For an instant words failed Mary and she employed herself hushing the bird into his pen. When she came back, Dacre had disappeared, and the yard seemed to be quite clear of human life, not to be traced even by the smell of shag tobacco.
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