A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
because he had been as good as his word about the stable.
The key was brought, and she held it up half playfully, and said,
“There, sir, I deliver you this upon conditions: you must only use it
when the weather is quite dry, because the grass in the meadow is
longer, and will be wet. Do you promise?”
“Yes, mamma.”
“And you must always lock the gate when you come back, and bring the
key to one place--let me see--the drawer in the hall table, the one
with marble on it; for you know a place for every thing is our rule. On
these conditions, I hereby deliver you this magic key, with the right
of egress and ingress.”
“Egress and ingress?”
“Egress and ingress.”
“Is that foreign for cowslips, mamma--and oxlips?”
“Ha! ha! the child's head is full of cowslips. There is the dictionary;
look out Egress, and afterward look out Ingress.”
When he had added these two words to his little vocabulary, his mother
asked him if he would be good enough to tell her why he did not care
much about all the beautiful flowers in the garden, and was so excited
about cowslips, which appeared to her a flower of no great beauty, and
the smell rather sickly, begging his pardon.
This question posed him dreadfully: he looked at her in a sort of comic
distress, and then sat gravely down all in a heap, about a yard off, to
think.
Finally he turned to her with a wry face, and said, “Why _do_ I,
mamma?”
She smiled deliciously. “No, no, sir,” said she. “How can I get inside
your little head and tell what is there? There must be a reason, I
suppose; and you know you and I are never satisfied till we get at the
reason of a thing. But there is no hurry, dear. I give you a week to
find it out. Now, run and open the gate--stay, are there any cows in
that field?”
“Sometimes, mamma; but they have no horns, you know.”
“Upon your word?”
“Upon my honor. I am not fond of them with horns, myself.”
“Then run away, darling. But you must come and hunt me up, and tell me
how you enjoyed yourself, because that makes me happy, you know.”
This is mawkish; but it will serve to show on what terms the woman and
boy were.
On second thoughts, I recall that apology, and defy creation. “THE
MAWKISH” is a branch of literature, a great and popular one, and I have
neglected it savagely.
Master Compton opened the iron gate, and the world was all before him
where to choose.
He chose one of those yellow stripes that had so attracted him. Horror!
it was all buttercups and deil a cowslip.
Nevertheless, pursuing his researches, he found plenty of that
delightful flower scattered about the meadow in thinner patches; and he
gathered a double handful and dirtied his knees.
Returning, thus laden, from his first excursion, he was accosted by a
fluty voice.
“Little boy!”
He looked up, and saw a girl standing on the lower bar of a little
wooden gate painted white, looking over.
_“Please_ bring me my ball,” said she, pathetically.
Compton looked about; and saw a soft ball of many colors lying near.
He put down his cowslips gravely, and, brought her the ball. He gave it
her with a blush, because she was a strange girl; and she blushed a
little, because he did.
He returned to his cowslips.
“Little boy!” said the voice, “please bring me my ball again.”
He brought it her, with undisturbed politeness. She was giggling; he
laughed too, at that.
“You did it on purpose that time,” said he, solemnly.
“La! you don't think I'd be so wicked,” said she.
Compton shook his head doubtfully, and, considering the interview at an
end turned to go, when instantly the ball knocked his hat off, and
nothing of the malefactress was visible but a black eye sparkling with
fun and mischief, and a bit of forehead wedged against the angle of the
wall.
This being a challenge, Compton said, “Now you come out after that, and
stand a shot, like a man.”
The invitation to be masculine did not tempt her a bit; the only thing
she put out was her hand, and that she drew in, with a laugh, the
moment he threw at it.
At this juncture a voice cried, “Ruperta! what are you doing there?”
Ruperta made a rapid signal with her hand to Compton, implying that he
was to run away; and she herself walked demurely toward the person who
had called her.
It was three days before Compton saw her again, and then she beckoned
him royally to her.
“Little boy,” said she, “talk to me.”
Compton looked at her a little confounded, and did not reply.
“Stand on this gate, like me, and talk,” said she.
He obeyed the first part of this mandate, and stood on the lower bar of
the little gate; so their two figures made a V, when they hung back,
and a tenpenny nail when they came forward and met, and this motion
they continued through the dialogue; and it was a pity the little
wretches could not keep still, and send for my friend the English
Titian: for, when their heads were in position, it was indeed a pretty
picture of childish and flower-like beauty and contrast; the boy fair,
blue-eyed, and with exquisite golden hair; the girl black-eyed,
black-browed, and with eyelashes of incredible length and beauty, and a
cheek brownish, but tinted, and so glowing with health and vigor that,
pricked with a needle, it seemed ready to squirt carnation right into
your eye.
She dazzled Master Compton so that he could do nothing but look at her.
“Well?” said she, smiling.
“Well,” replied he, pretending her “well” was not an interrogatory, but
a concise statement, and that he had discharged the whole duty of man
by according a prompt and cheerful consent.
“You begin,” said the lady.
“No, you.”
“What for?”
“Because--I think--you are the cleverest.”
“Good little boy! Well, then, I will. Who are you?”
“I am Compton. Who are you, please?”
“I am Ruperta.”
“I never heard that name before.”
“No more did I. I think they measured me for it: you live in the great
house there, don't you?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“Well, then, I live in the little house. It is not very little either.
It's Highmore. I saw you in church one day; is that lady with the hair
your mamma?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“She is beautiful.”
“Isn't she?”
“But mine is so good.”
“Mine is very good, too, Ruperta. Wonderfully good.”
“I like you, Compton--a little.”
“I like you a good deal, Ruperta.”
“La, do you? I wonder at that: you are like a cherub, and I am such a
black thing.”
“But that is why I like you. Reginald is darker than you, and oh, so
beautiful!”
“Hum!--he is a very bad boy.”
“No, he is not.”
“Don't tell stories, child; he is. I know all about him. A wicked,
vulgar, bad boy.”
“He is not,” cried Compton, almost sniveling; but he altered his mind,
and fired up. “You are a naughty, story-telling girl, to say that.”
“Bless _me!”_ said Ruperta, coloring high, and tossing her head
haughtily.
“I don't like you _now,_ Ruperta,” said Compton, with all the decent
calmness of a settled conviction.
“You don't!” screamed Ruperta. “Then go about your business directly,
and don't never come here again! Scolding _me!_ How dare you?--oh! oh!
oh!” and the little lady went off slowly, with her finger in her eye;
and Master Compton looked rather rueful, as we all do when this
charming sex has recourse to what may be called “liquid reasoning.” I
have known the most solid reasons unable to resist it.
However, “mens conscia recti,” and, above all, the cowslips, enabled
Compton to resist, and he troubled his head no more about her that day.
But he looked out for her the next day, and she did not come; and that
rather disappointed him.
The next day was wet, and he did not go into the meadow, being on honor
not to do so.
The fourth day was lovely, and he spent a long time in the meadow, in
hopes: he saw her for a moment at the gate; but she speedily retired.
He was disappointed.
However, he collected a good store of cowslips, and then came home.
As he passed the door out popped Ruperta from some secret ambush, and
said, “Well?”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
“WELL,” replied Compton.
“Are you better, dear?”
“I'm very well, thank you,” said the boy.
“In your mind, I mean. You were cross last time, you know.”
Compton remembered his mother's lessons about manly behavior, and said,
in a jaunty way, “Well, I s'pose I was a little cross.”
Now the other cunning little thing had come to apologize, if there was
no other way to recover her admirer. But, on this confession, she said,
“Oh, if you are sorry for it, I forgive you. You may come and talk.”
Then Compton came and stood on the gate, and they held a long
conversation; and, having quarreled last time, parted now with rather
violent expressions of attachment.
After that they made friends and laid their little hearts bare to each
other; and it soon appeared that Compton had learned more, but Ruperta
had thought more for herself, and was sorely puzzled about many things,
and of a vastly inquisitive mind. “Why,” said she, “is good thing's so
hard, and had things so nice and easy? It would be much better if good
things were nice and bad ones nasty. That is the way I'd have it, if I
could make things.”
Mr. Compton shook his head and said many things were very hard to
understand, and even his mamma sometimes could not make out all the
things.
“Nor mine neither; I puzzle her dreadful. I can't help that; things
shouldn't come and puzzle me, and then I shouldn't puzzle her. Shall I
tell you my puzzles? and perhaps you can answer them because you are a
boy. I can't think why it is wicked for me to dig in my little garden
on a Sunday, and it isn't wicked for Jessie to cook and Sarah to make
the beds. Can't think why mamma told papa not to be cross, and, when I
told her not to be cross, she put me in a dark cupboard all among the
dreadful mice, till I screamed so she took me out and kissed me and
gave me pie. Can't think why papa called Sally 'Something' for spilling
the ink over his papers, and when I called the gardener the very same
for robbing my flowers, all their hands and eyes went up, and they said
I was a shocking girl. Can't think why papa giggled the next moment, if
I was a shocking girl: it is all puzzle--puzzle--puzzle.”
One day she said, “Can you tell me where all the bad people are buried?
for that puzzles me dreadful.”
Compton was posed at first, but said at last he thought they were
buried in the churchyard, along with the good ones.
“Oh, indeed!” said she, with an air of pity. “Pray, have you ever been
in the churchyard, and read the writings on the stones?”
“No.”
“Then I have. I have read every single word; and there are none but
good people buried _there,_ not one.” She added, rather pathetically,
“You should not answer me without thinking, as if things were easy,
instead of so hard. Well, one comfort, there are not many wicked people
hereabouts; they live in towns; so I suppose they are buried in the
garden, poor things, or put in the water with a stone.”
Compton had no more plausible theory ready, and declined to commit
himself to Ruperta's; so that topic fell to the ground.
One day he found her perched as usual, but with her bright little face
overclouded.
By this time the intelligent boy was fond enough of her to notice her
face. “What's the matter, Perta?”
“Ruperta. The matter? Puzzled again! It is very serious this time.”
“Tell me, Ruperta.”
“No, dear.”
“Please.”
The young lady fixed her eyes on him, and said, with a pretty
solemnity, “Let us play at catechism.”
“I don't know that game.”
“The governess asks questions, and the good little boy answers. That's
catechism. I'm the governess.”
“Then I'm the good little boy.”
“Yes, dear; and so now look me full in the face.”
“There--you're very pretty, Ruperta.”