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Updated: May 19, 2025
Worthless to begin with, it had stood in the dust, heat, and wind so long that every sign that it had once made music had deserted it. I closed it with a feeling of such keen disappointment that I had difficulty in suppressing tears. "Won't it play?" inquired Mr M'Swat. "No; the keys stay down." "Then, Rose Jane, go ye an' pick 'em up while she tries again."
Lizer certainly acted upon this principle, as a photo of her, which had been taken by a travelling artist, bore evidence that for the occasion she had arrayed herself in two pairs of ill-fitting cuffs, Peter's watch and chain, strings, jackets, flowers, and other gewgaws galore. "There ain't no such person as Madame Melber; it's only a fairy-tale," said Mrs M'Swat.
I looked for something to read, but the only books in the house were a Bible, which was never opened, and a diary kept most religiously by M'Swat. I got permission to read this, and opening it, saw: September 1st. Fine. Wint to boggie creak for a cow. 2nd. Fine. Got the chestnut mair shode. 3rd. Fine. On the jury. 4th. Fine. Tail the lams 60 yeos 52 wethers. 5th. Cloudy. Wint to Duffys. 6th. Fine.
With this idea in my head, sinking ankle-deep in the dust, and threading my way through the pigs and fowls which hung around the back door, I went in search of my master. Mrs M'Swat was teaching Jimmy how to kill a sheep and dress it for use; while Lizer, who was nurse to the baby and spectator of the performance, was volubly and ungrammatically giving instructions in the art.
I fretted over them a good deal, and put them under my pillow; and as I had not slept for nights, and was feeling weak and queer, I laid my head upon them to rest a little before going out to get the tea ready. The next thing I knew was that Mrs M'Swat was shaking me vigorously with one hand, holding a flaring candle in the other, and saying: "Lizer, shut the winder quick.
There was no one to whom I could turn for help. M'Swat would believe the story of his family, and my mother would blame me. She would think I had been in fault because I hated the place. Mrs M'Swat called me to tea, but I said I would not have any. I lay awake all night and got desperate. On the morrow I made up my mind to conquer or leave. I would stand no more.
Six dogs, two pet lambs, two or three pigs, about twenty fowls, eight children which seemed a dozen, and Mrs M'Swat bundled out through the back door at our approach.
With the few individuals who chanced to come M'Swat would sit down, light his pipe, and vulgarly and profusely expectorate on the floor, while they yarned and yarned for hours and hours about the price of wool, the probable breeding capacity of the male stock they kept, and of the want of grass never a word about their country's politics or the events of the day; even the news of the "Mountain Murders" by Butler had not penetrated here.
But when M'Swat left home for three weeks Jim got so bold that I resolved to take decisive steps towards subjugating him. I procured a switch a very small one, as his mother had a great objection to corporal punishment and when, as usual, he commenced to cheek me during lessons, I hit him on the coat-sleeve.
"She'll be surprised wen she sees Peter," said a little girl in an audible whisper. Mrs M'Swat vouchsafed the information that three had died between Peter and Lizer, and this was how the absent son came to be so much older than his brothers and sisters. "So you have had twelve children?" I said. "Yes," she replied, laughing fatly, as though it were a joke.
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