Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/470

462 of turtle-doves! Now it so fell out that the writer of these lines was himself, on one occasion, an eye-and-ear witness to the wooing of a rustic couple involuntarily. It came about in this way.

When I was a boy, on a Sunday, I had set a trap to catch rats that scared the scullery-maid in the back kitchen, and caused her to drop my mother's best china. But as rat-catching was not considered by my parents a Sabbatical amusement, I set my traps on the sly when they were at church on Sunday afternoon, and I was at home with a cold. The housemaid was left in charge, and naturally admitted her lover to assist her in watching after the safety of the house. Both seated themselves in the kitchen, one in the settle, the other in a chair before the fire. When I, in the back kitchen, heard them enter, I was afraid to stir lest my parents should be informed of my proceedings, and the sanctity of the Sabbath be impressed tinglingly on me, across my father's knee, with the back of a hair-brush, a paper-knife, or a slipper. Accordingly I kept still.

Twenty minutes elapsed, and no words having passed I stole to the kitchen door and peeped through. The maid sat on the settle, the swain on the chair, unctuously ogling each other in silence.

After the lapse of twenty minutes by the clock, the youth lifted up his voice and said solemnly, "Mary, what be that there thing for?" and he pointed to a button above the kitchen range.

"That, Joshua, is the damper."

Again silence fell over the kitchen, only broken by the ticking of the clock. After the expiration of twenty minutes more, the youth further inquired, "And what be the damper for, Mary?"

"For to make the fire go a smother-like, Joshua," she replied.

Again twenty minutes elapsed: then I heard a