Emily of New Moon
“that I am too young to be married.”
“The younger the better--the less mischief ye’ll be after working with
them come-hither eyes. Get up, my nag, get up. The baste is tired. So
we’ll let him go at his own swate will. Here’s a bag av swaties for ye.
Ould Kelley always trates the ladies. Come now, tell me all about him.”
“About who?”--but Emily knew quite well.
“Your beau, av coorse.”
“I haven’t _any_ beau. Mr. Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about
such things.”
“Sure, and I won’t if ’tis a sore subject. Don’t ye be minding if ye
haven’t got one--there’ll be scads av them after a while. And if the
right one doesn’t know what’s good for him, just ye come to Ould Kelly
and get some toad ointment.”
Toad ointment! It sounded horrible. Emily shivered. But she would
rather talk about toad ointment than beaux.
“What is that for?”
“It’s a love charm,” said Old Kelly mysteriously. “Put a li’l smootch
on his eyelids and he’s yourn for life with never a squint at any other
gurrl.”
“It doesn’t _sound_ very nice,” said Emily. “How do you make it?”
“You bile four toads alive till they’re good and soft and then mash--”
“Oh, stop, stop!” implored Emily, putting her hands to her ears. “I
don’t want to hear any more--you couldn’t be so cruel!”
“Cruel is it? You were after eating lobsters this day that were biled
alive--”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t. If it’s true I’ll never, never eat one
again. Oh, Mr. Kelly, I thought you were a nice kind man--but those
poor toads!”
“Gurrl dear, it was only me joke. An’ you won’t be nading toad ointment
to win your lad’s love. Wait you now--I’ve something in the till behind
me for a prisent for you.”
Old Kelly fished out a box which he put into Emily’s lap. She found a
dainty little hairbrush in it.
“Look at the back av it,” said Old Kelly. “You’ll see something
handsome--all the love charm ye’ll ever nade.”
Emily turned it over. Her own face looked back at her from a little
inset mirror surrounded by a scroll of painted roses.
“Oh, Mr. Kelly--how pretty--I mean the roses and the glass,” she
cried. “Is it really for me? Oh, thank you, thank you! Now, I can have
Emily-in-the-glass whenever I want her. Why, I can carry her round with
me. And you were really only in fun about the toads!”
“Av coorse. Get up, my nag, get up. An’ so ye’re going to visit the
ould lady over at Praste Pond? Ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s full of Prastes. Ye can’t throw a stone but ye hit one. And hit
one--hit all. They’re as proud and lofty as the Murrays themselves.
The only wan I know is Adam Praste--the others hold too high. He’s
the black shape and quite sociable. But if ye want to see how the
world looked on the morning after the flood go into his barnyard on
a rainy day. Look a-here, gurrl dear”--Old Kelly lowered his voice
mysteriously--“don’t ye ever marry a Praste.”
“Why not?” asked Emily, who had never thought of marrying a Priest but
was immediately curious as to why she shouldn’t.
“They’re ill to marry--ill to live with. The wives die young. The ould
lady of the Grange fought her man out and buried him but she had the
Murray luck. I wouldn’t trust it too far. The only dacent Praste among
them is the wan they call Jarback Praste and he’s too ould for you.”
“Why do they call him Jarback?”
“Wan av his shoulders is a l’il bit higher than the other. He’s got a
bit of money and doesn’t be after having to work. A book worrum, I’m
belaving. Have ye got a bit av cold iron about you?”
“No; why?”
“Ye should have. Old Caroline Praste at the Grange is a witch if ever
there was one.”
“Why, that’s what Ilse said. But there are no such thing as witches
really, Mr. Kelly.”
“Maybe that’s thrue but it’s better to be on the safe side. Here, put
this horseshoe-nail in your pocket and don’t cross her if ye can help
it. Ye don’t mind if I have a bit av a smoke, do ye?”
Emily did not mind at all. It left her free to follow her own thoughts,
which were more agreeable than Old Kelly’s talk of toads and witches.
The road from Blair Water to Priest Pond was a very lovely one,
winding along the gulf shore, crossing fir fringed rivers and inlets,
and coming ever and anon on one of the ponds for which that part of
the north shore was noted--Blair Water, Derry Pond, Long Pond, Three
Ponds where three blue lakelets were strung together like three great
sapphires held by a silver thread; and then Priest Pond, the largest
of all, almost as round as Blair Water. As they drove down towards it
Emily drank the scene in with avid eyes--as soon as possible she must
write a description of it; she had packed the Jimmy blank book in her
box for just such purposes.
The air seemed to be filled with opal dust over the great pond and the
bowery summer homesteads around it. A western sky of smoky red was
arched over the big Malvern Bay beyond. Little grey sails were drifting
along by the fir-fringed shores. A sequestered side road, fringed
thickly with young maples and birches, led down to Wyther Grange. How
damp and cool the air was in the hollows! And how the ferns did smell!
Emily was sorry when they reached Wyther Grange and climbed in between
the gateposts whereon the big stone dogs sat very stonily, looking grim
enough in the twilight.
The wide hall door was open and a flood of light streamed out over the
lawn. A little old woman was standing in it. Old Kelly seemed suddenly
in something of a hurry. He swung Emily and her box to the ground,
shook hands hastily and whispered, “Don’t lose that bit av a nail.
Good-bye. I wish ye a cool head and a warm heart,” and was off before
the little old woman could reach them.
“So this is Emily of New Moon!” Emily heard a rather shrill, cracked
voice saying. She felt a thin, claw-like hand grasp hers and draw her
towards the door. There were no witches, Emily knew,--but she thrust
her hand into her pocket and touched the horseshoe-nail.
CHAPTER XXIII
DEALS WITH GHOSTS
“Your aunt is in the back parlor,” said Caroline Priest. “Come this
way. Are you tired?”
“No,” said Emily, following Caroline and taking her in thoroughly.
If Caroline were a witch she was a very small one. She was really no
taller than Emily herself. She wore a black silk dress and a little
string cap of black net edged with black ruching on her yellowish
white hair. Her face was more wrinkled than Emily had ever supposed a
face could be and she had the peculiar grey-green eyes which, as Emily
afterwards discovered, “ran” in the Priest clan.
“You may be a witch,” thought Emily, “but I think I can manage _you_.”
They went through the spacious hall, catching glimpses on either side
of large, dim, splendid rooms, then through the kitchen end out of it
into an odd little back hall. It was long and narrow and dark. On one
side was a row of four, square, small-paned windows, on the other were
cupboards, reaching from floor to ceiling, with doors of black shining
wood. Emily felt like one of the heroines in Gothic romance, wandering
at midnight through a subterranean dungeon, with some unholy guide. She
had read “The Mysteries of Udolpho” and “The Romance of the Forest”
before the taboo had fallen on Dr. Burnley’s bookcase. She shivered. It
was awful but interesting.
At the end of the hall a flight of four steps led up to a door. Beside
the steps was an immense black grandfather’s clock reaching almost to
the ceiling.
“We shut little girls up in that when they’re bad,” whispered
Caroline, nodding at Emily, as she opened the door that led into the
back parlour.
“I’ll take good care you won’t shut _me_ up in it,” thought Emily.
The back parlour was a pretty, quaint old room where a table was laid
for supper. Caroline led Emily through it and knocked at another door,
using a quaint old brass knocker that was fashioned like a chessy-cat,
with such an irresistible grin that you wanted to grin, too, when you
saw it. Somebody said, “Come in,” and they went down another four
steps--was there ever such a funny house?--into a bedroom. And here at
last was Great-Aunt Nancy Priest, sitting in her arm-chair, with her
black stick leaning against her knee, and her tiny white hands, still
pretty, and sparkling with fine rings, lying on her purple silk apron.
Emily felt a distinct shock of disappointment. After hearing that poem
in which Nancy Murray’s beauty of nut-brown hair and starry brown eyes
and cheek of satin rose had been be-rhymed she had somehow expected
Great-Aunt Nancy, in spite of her ninety years, to be beautiful still.
But Aunt Nancy was white-haired and yellow-skinned and wrinkled and
shrunken, though her brown eyes were still bright and shrewd. Somehow,
she looked like an old fairy--an impish, tolerant old fairy, who might
turn suddenly malevolent if you rubbed her the wrong way--only fairies
never wore long, gold-tasselled earrings that almost touched their
shoulders, or white lace caps with purple pansies in them.
“So this is Juliet’s girl!” she said, giving Emily one of her sparkling
hands. “Don’t look so startled, child. I’m not going to kiss you. I
never held with inflicting kisses on defenseless creatures simply
because they were so unlucky as to be my relatives. Now, who does she
look like, Caroline?”
Emily made a mental grimace. Now for another ordeal of comparisons,
wherein dead-and-gone noses and eyes and foreheads would be dragged
out and fitted on her. She was thoroughly tired of having her looks
talked over in every gathering of the clans.
“Not much like the Murrays,” said Caroline, peering so closely into
her face that Emily involuntarily drew back. “Not so handsome as the
Murrays.”
“Nor the Starrs either. Her father was a handsome man--so handsome that
I’d have run away with him myself if I’d been fifty years younger.
There’s nothing of Juliet in her that I can see. Juliet was pretty.
You are not as good-looking as that picture made you out but I didn’t
expect you would be. Pictures and epitaphs are never to be trusted.
Where’s your bang gone, Emily?”
“Aunt Elizabeth combed it back.”
“Well, you comb it down again while you’re in my house. There’s
something of your Grandfather Murray about your eye-brows. Your
grandfather was a handsome man--and a darned bad-tempered one--almost
as bad-tempered as the Priests,--hey, Caroline?”
“If you please, Great-Aunt Nancy,” said Emily deliberately, “I don’t
like to be told I look like other people. I look just like myself.”
Aunt Nancy chuckled.
“Spunk, I see. Good. I never cared for meek youngsters. So you’re not
stupid, eh?”
“No, I’m not.”
Great-Aunt Nancy grinned this time. Her false teeth looked uncannily
white and young in her old, brown face.
“Good. If you’ve brains it’s better than beauty--brains last, beauty
doesn’t. Me, for example. Caroline here, now, never had either brains
nor beauty, had you, Caroline? Come, let’s go to supper. Thank
goodness, my stomach has stood by me if my good looks haven’t.”
Great-Aunt Nancy hobbled, by the aid of her stick, up the steps and
over to the table. She sat at one end, Caroline at the other, Emily
between, feeling rather uncomfortable. But the ruling passion was still
strong in her and she was already composing a description of them for
the blank book.
“I wonder if anybody will be sorry when you die,” she thought, looking
intently at Caroline’s wizened old face.
“Come now, tell me,” said Aunt Nancy. “If you’re not stupid, why did
you write me such a stupid letter that first time. Lord, but it was
stupid! I read it over to Caroline to punish her whenever she is
naughty.”
“I couldn’t write any other kind of a letter because Aunt Elizabeth
said she was going to read it.”
“Trust Elizabeth for that. Well, you can write what you like here--and