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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Polly is learning to play beautifully," mused Phronsie, nursing one foot contemplatively, as she curled up on the floor. "And Ben is to be a capital business man, so Papa Fisher says, and Joel is going to buy up this whole town sometime, and Davie knows ever so many books from beginning to end, but what can I do?"
"He's a Portuguese mixed breed; a kind o' sun-scorched subject, like a good many of you Southerners. A nigger's mother never had him, you may bet your 'davie on that. There's as much white blood in his jacket as anybody's got, only them Portuguese are dark-lookin' fellers. He's no fool his name's Manuel, a right clever feller, and the owners think as much of him as they do of the Skipper."
There was a similar reformation in the outward man of Davie Gellatley, who met them, every now and then stopping to admire the new suit which graced his person, in the same colours as formerly, but bedizened fine enough to have served Touchstone himself.
But it was the anxious look that came over Davie's face that struck him painfully. That Davie, whose character for straightforwardness and courage no one doubted his grandfather's right hand, the staff and stay of the whole household that Davie should be found turning aside, ever so little, from what was open and right, hurt the minister greatly.
"Come up here, right away!" went back again from Polly. So up the stairs trudged the two boys, and presented themselves rather sheepishly before the big chair. "What was that noise?" she asked; "what have you been doing?" "Twasn't anything but the pail," answered Joel, not looking at her. "We had something to eat," said Davie, by way of explanation; "you always let us."
Phronsie drew a long breath of relief that no one was killed. Davie gazed at Abram's mother in great satisfaction. "Tell us some more," he said. "An' I might as well have flung off that red shawl," she went on, ignoring his request, "if I could a' got out that pin, for it was all smutched up, fallin' in that mess, an' I couldn't put it on my back.
The Queen then visited Queen Mary's rooms, being shown, like other strangers, the closet where her ancestress had sat at supper on a memorable night, and the stair from the chapel up which Ruthven, risen from a sick-bed, led the conspirators who seized Davie Rizzio, dragged him from his mistress's knees, to which he clung, and slew him pitilessly on the boards which, according to old tradition, still bear the stain of his blood.
Some people were of opinion, that Douce Davie had been rather surprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriages or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of society as a necessary evil, a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in the imperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which we ought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and the creature-comforts of wife and bairns.
"I don't want to go if Joel can't," said Davie, slowly, and turning his back to the red rag-wagon waiting out in the road. He twisted his fingers hard, and kept saying, "No, I don't want to go, Polly, if Joel can't." "All right, Davie," said Polly, beginning to cuddle him; "only you must remember, Mr. Biggs won't go again this summer out to Mrs. Pettingill's, most likely."
One thing more: we've got to have officers, and as I know you'll not be bold to pick from among yourselves, I'll save you the trouble. Kipping from this time on will be chief mate. You'll take his things aft, and you'll obey him from now on and put the handle to his name. Paine will be second mate. That's all. Go forward." Kipping and Davie Paine! I was thunderstruck.
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