The Beth Book. Grand Sarah
tempestuously in almost all weathers. The headland itself was high, but the giant breakers often dashed up far above it, and fell in showers of spray on the grass at the top. There was a telescope in the window at the vicarage, and people used to come to see the sight, and went into raptures over it. Beth, standing out of the way, unnoticed, would gaze too, fascinated; but it was the attraction of repulsion. The cruel force of the great waves agitated her, and at the same time made her unutterably sad. Her heart beat painfully when she watched them, her breath became laboured, and it was only with an effort that she could keep back her sobs. It was not fear that oppressed her, but a horrible sort of excitement, which so gained upon her on that afternoon in particular that she felt she must shriek aloud, or make her escape. If she showed any emotion she would be laughed at, if she made her escape she would probably be whipped; she preferred to be whipped; so, watching her opportunity, she quietly slipped away.
At home the window of the sitting-room was still wide open, and as she ran down the street she noticed some country people peeping in curiously, and apparently astonished by the luxury they beheld. Beth, who was picking up Irish rapidly, understood some exclamations she overheard as she approached, and felt flattered for the furniture.
She ran up the steps and opened the front door: "Good day to ye all," she said sociably; "will ye not come in and have a look round? now do!"
She led the way as she spoke, and the country people followed her, all agape. In the hall they paused to wonder at the cocoanut matting; but when they stood on the soft pile carpet, so grateful to their bare feet, in the sitting-room, and looked round, they lowered their voices respectfully, and this gave Beth a sudden sensation of superiority. She began to show them the things: the pictures on the walls, the subjects of which she explained to them; the egg-shell china, which she held up to the light that they might see how thin it was; and some Eastern and Western curios her father had brought home from various voyages. She told them of tropical heat and Canadian cold, and began to be elated herself when she found all that she had ever heard on the subject flowing fluently from her lips.
The front door had been left open, and the passers-by looked in to see what was going on, and then entered uninvited. Neighbours, too, came over from the Irish side of the road, so that the room gradually filled, and as her audience increased, Beth grew excited and talked away eloquently.
"Lord," one man exclaimed with a sigh, on looking round the room, "it's aisy to see why the likes of these looks down on the likes of us."
"Eh, dear, yes!" a woman with a petticoat over her head solemnly responded.
"The durrty heretics," a slouching fellow, with a flat white face, muttered under his breath. "But if they benefit here, they'll burn hereafter, holy Jasus be praised."
"Will they?" said Beth, turning on him. "Will they burrn hereafter, Bap-faced Flanagan? No, they won't! They'll hunt ye out of heaven as they hunted ye out o' Maclone.
"Oh, the Orange militia walked into Maclone,
And hunted the Catholics out of the town.
Ri' turen nuren nuren naddio,
Right tur nuren nee."
She sang it out at the top of her shrill little voice, executing a war-dance of defiance to the tune, and concluding with an elaborate curtsey.
As she recovered herself, she became aware of her father standing in the doorway. His lips were white, and there was a queer look in his face.
"Oh! So this is your party, is it, Miss Beth?" he said. "You ask your friends in, and then you insult them, I see."
Beth was still effervescing. She put her hands behind her back and answered boldly —
"'Deed, thin, he insulted me, papa. It was Bap-faced Flanagan. He said we were durrty heretics, and – and – I'll not stand that! It's a free country!"
Captain Caldwell looked round, and the people melted from the room under his eye. Then Anne appeared from somewhere.
"Anne, do you teach the children party-songs?" he demanded.
"Shure, they don't need taching, yer honour," said Anne, disconcerted. "Miss Beth knows 'em all, and she shouts 'em at the top of her voice down the street till the men shake their fists at her."
"Why do you do that, Beth?" her father demanded.
"I like to feel," Beth began, gasping out each word with a mighty effort to express herself – "I like to feel – that I can make them shake their fists."
Her father looked at her again very queerly.
"Will I take her to the nursery, sir?" Anne asked.
Beth turned on her impatiently, and said something in Irish which made Anne grin. Beth did not understand her father in this mood, and she wanted to see more of him.
"What's that she's saying to you, Anne?" he asked.
"Oh – sure, she's just blessin' me, yer honour," Anne answered unabashed.
"I believe you!" Captain Caldwell said dryly, as he stretched himself on the sofa. "Go and fetch a hair-brush."
While Anne was out of the room he turned to Beth. "I'll give you a penny," he said, "if you'll tell me what you said to Anne."
"I'll tell you for nothing," Beth answered. "I said, 'Yer soul to the devil for an interfering hussy.'"
Captain Caldwell burst out laughing, and laughed till Anne returned with the brush. "Now, brush my hair," he said to Beth; and Beth went and stood beside the sofa, and brushed, and brushed, now with one hand, and now with the other, till she ached all over with the effort. Her father suffered from atrocious headaches, and this was the one thing that relieved him.
"There, that's punishment enough for to-day," he said at last.
Beth retired to the foot of the couch, and leant there, looking at him solemnly, with the hair-brush still in her hand. "That's no punishment," she observed.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean I like it," she said. "I'd brush till I dropped if it did you any good."
Captain Caldwell looked up at her, and it was as if he had seen the child for the first time.
"Beth," he said, after a while, "would you like to come out with me on the car to-morrow?"
"'Deed, then, I would, papa," Beth answered eagerly.
Then there was a pause, during which Beth rubbed her back against the end of the couch thoughtfully, and looked at the wall opposite as if she could see through it. Her father watched her for a little time with a frown upon his forehead from the pain in his head.
"What are you thinking of, Beth?" he said at last.
"I've got to be whipped to-night," she answered drearily; "and I wish I hadn't. I do get so tired of being whipped and shaken."
Her little face looked pinched and pathetic as she spoke, and for the first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this child – a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct – and his heart contracted with a qualm of pity.
"What are you going to be whipped for now?" he asked.
"We went to tea at the vicarage, and I ran away home."
"Why?"
"Because of the great green waves. They rush up the rocks – wish – st – st!" (she took a step forward, and threw up her little arms in illustration) – "then fall, and roll back, and gather, and come rushing on again; and I feel every time – every time – that they are coming right at me!" – she clutched her throat as if she were suffocating; "and if I had stayed I should have shrieked, and then I should have been whipped. So I came away."
"But you expect to be whipped for coming away?"
"Yes. But you see I don't have the waves as well. And mamma won't say I was afraid."
"Were you afraid, Beth?" her father asked.
"No!" Beth retorted, stamping her foot indignantly. "If the waves did come at me, I could stand