“The swallow twitters on the barn, The rook is cawing on the tree, And in the wood the ringdove coos, But my false love hath fled from me.
Like tiny pipe of wheaten straw, The wren his little note doth swell, And every living thing that flies, Of his true love doth fondly tell.
But I alone am left to pine, And sit beneath the withy tree; For truth and honesty be gone, And my false love hath fled from me.”
ABEL GOES TO SCHOOL AGAIN.—DAME DATCHETT.—A COLUMN OF SPELLING.—ABEL PLAYS MOOCHER.—THE MILLER’S MAN CANNOT MAKE UP HIS MIND.
ABEL went to school again in the spring, and, though George would have been better pleased had he forgotten the whole affair, he remembered the word in George’s young woman’s love-letter which had puzzled him; and never was a spelling-lesson set him among the M’s that he did not hope to come across it and to be able to demand the meaning of Moerdyk from his Dame.
Without the excuse of its coming in the column of spelling set by herself, Abel dared not ask her to solve his puzzle; for never did teacher more warmly resent questions which she was unable to answer than Dame Datchett.
Abel could not fully make up his mind whether it should be looked up among two-syllabled or three-syllabled words. He decided for the former, and one day brought his spelling-book to George in the round-house.
“I’ve been a looking for that yere word, Gearge,” said he. “There’s lots of Mo’s, but it bean’t among ’em. Here they be. Words of two syllables; M, Ma, Me, Mi; here they be, Mo.” And Abel began to rattle off the familiar column at a good rate, George looking earnestly over his shoulder, and following the boy’s finger as it moved rapidly down the page. “Mocking, Modern, Mohawk, Molar, Molly, Moment, Money, Moping, Moral, Mortal, Moses, Motive, Movement.”
“Stop a bit, mun,” cried George; “what do all they words mean? They bothers me.”
“I knows some of ’em,” said Abel, “and I asked Dame Datchett about the others, but she do be so cross; and I thinks some of ’em bothered she too. There’s mocking. I knows that. ‘What’s a modern, Dame?’ says I. ‘A muddle-headed fellow the likes of you,’ says she. ‘What’s a mohawk, Dame?’ says I. ‘It’s what you’ll come to before long, ye young hang-gallus,’ says she. I was feared on her, Gearge, I can tell ’ee; but I tried my luck again. ‘What’s a molar, Dame?’ says I. ‘’Tis a wus word than t’other,’ says she; ‘and, if ’ee axes me any more voolish questions, I’ll break thee yead for ’ee.’ Do ’ee think ’tis a very bad word, Gearge?” added Abel, with a rather indefensible curiosity.