“Give us a toon on the peeany,” said Mrs M’Swat after the meal, when the dishes had been cleared away by Lizer and Rose Jane.  The tea and scraps, of which there was any amount, remained on the floor, to be picked up by the fowls in the morning.

The children lay on the old sofa and on the chairs, where they always slept at night until their parents retired, when there was an all-round bawl as they were wakened and bundled into bed, dirty as they were, and very often with their clothes on.

I acceded to Mrs M’Swat’s request with alacrity, thinking that while forced to remain there I would have one comfort, and would spend all my spare time at the piano.  I opened the instrument, brushed a little of the dust from the keys with my pocket-handkerchief, and struck the opening chords of Kowalski’s “Marche Hongroise”.

I have heard of pianos sounding like a tin dish, but this was not as Pleasant as a tin dish by long chalks.  Every note that I struck stayed down not to rise, and when I got them up the jarring, clanging, discordant clatter they produced beggars description.  There was not the slightest possibility of distinguishing any tune on the thing.  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.”

I tried again, Rose Jane fishing up the keys as I went along.  I perceived instantly that not one had the least ear for music or idea what it was; so I beat on the demented piano with both hands, and often with all fingers at once, and the bigger row I made the better they liked it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

To Life—­continued

Mr M’Swat very kindly told me I need not begin my duties until Monday morning, and could rest during Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday, which was sickeningly hot and sultry, and which seemed like an eternity, I spent in arranging my belongings, brushing the dust from my travelling dress, and in mending a few articles.  Next morning rain started to fall, which was a great God-send, being the first which had fallen for months, and the only rain I saw during my residence at Barney’s Gap.

That was a hideous Sabbath.  Without a word of remonstrance from their parents, the children entertained themselves by pushing each other into the rain, the smaller ones getting the worst of it, until their clothing was saturated with water.  This made them very cold, so they sat upon the floor and yelled outrageously.

It was the custom of Peter to spend his Sundays in riding about, but today, being deterred by the rain, he slept some of the time, and made a muzzle for one of his dogs, between whiles.