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"Sky-high, sky-high, twitter-twitter, sky-high-higher-higher," sang the lark, and he fluttered and circled round and round, making the air about him echo again and again with the merry song he was singing a song so sweet, so bright and sparkling, that the birds of Greenlawn stopped to listen to the little brown fellow with the long spurs and top-knot, whistling away "sweet and clear, sweet and clear," till he rose so high that the sounds came faintly, and nothing could be seen of him but a little black speck high up against the edge of the white flecky cloud; and still the sweet song came trilling down so soft and clear, that the birds clapped their wings and cried "Bravo!" while the jackdaw said he would take lessons from the lark in that style of singing, for he thought it would suit his voice, and then he was quite offended when the thrush laughed, but begged pardon for being so rude.
The cans could no more froth with the white reaming milk without this accompaniment of slaps and adjurations than Speckly, Flecky, and the rest could take their slow, thoughtfully considerate, and sober way from the hill pastures into the yard without Meg at the gate of the field to cry: "Hurley, Hurley, hie awa' hame!" to the cows themselves; and "Come awa' bye wi' them, fetch them, Roger!" to the short-haired collie, who knew so much better than to go near their flashing heels.
But among all the persons and things on board that puzzled me, and filled me most with strange emotions of doubt, misgivings and mystery, was the Gunner a short, square, grim man, his hair and beard grizzled and singed, as if with gunpowder. His skin was of a flecky brown, like the stained barrel of a fowling-piece, and his hollow eyes burned in his head like blue-lights.
Good, plain, common cookin', Jinny'll do; make a good pone o' bread, bile her taters far, her corn cakes isn't extra, not extra now, Jinny's corn cakes isn't, but then they's far, but, Lor, come to de higher branches, and what can she do? Why, she makes pies sartin she does; but what kinder crust? Can she make your real flecky paste, as melts in your mouth, and lies all up like a puff?
As I was bending over her and Paul was thrusting open the shutters, letting in a flood of sunshine and flecky leaf-shadows, a firm, rapid step came down the hall, and a vigorous woman, with a tanned face and a clean, faded gingham dress, stopped short in the doorway with an expression of stupefaction. Mrs.
Occasionally, as Jess and Meg lifted their stools, they gave Flecky or Speckly a sound clap on the back with their hand or milking-pail, with the sharp command of "Stan' aboot there!" "Haud up!"
Here Meg became so violently agitated that Flecky, suffering from the manner in which Meg was doing her duty, kicked out, and nearly succeeded in overturning the milk-pail. Meg's quickness with hand and knee foiled this intention, but Flecky succeeded quite in planting the edge of her hoof directly on the Cuif's shin-bone.
But really the interruptions did not affect Ebie Farrish or any other of the byre-visiting young men, any more than the rattling of the chains, as Flecky and Speckly arranged their own business at the end devoted to imports. These sharp words of command were part of the nightly and morningly ceremony of the "milking" at every farm.
The older and staider animals Marly, and Dumple, and Flecky came stolidly homeward, their heads swinging low, absorbed in meditative digestion, and soberly retasting the sweetly succulent grass of the hollows, and the crisper and tastier acidity of the sorrel- mixed grass of the knolls.
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