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.

From breakfast to the midday meal I shut myself in my bedroom and wrote
letters to my mother and grandmother. I did not rant, rave, or say
anything which I ought not to have said to my elders. I wrote those
letters very coolly and carefully, explaining things just as they were,
and asked grannie to take me back to Caddagat, as I could never endure
life at Barney's Gap. I told my mother I had written thus, and asked her
if she would not let grannie take me again, would she get me some other
situation? What I did not care, so long as it brought emancipation from
the M'Swat's. I stamped and addressed these missives, and put them by
till a chance of posting should arise.

Mr M'Swat could read a little by spelling the long words and blundering
over the shorter ones, and he spent the morning and all the afternoon in
perusal of the local paper--the only literature with which Barney's Gap
was acquainted. There was a long list of the prices of stock and farm
produce in this edition, which perfectly fascinated its reader. The
ecstasy of a man of fine, artistic, mental calibre, when dipping for the
first time into the work of some congenial poet, would be completely
wiped out in comparison to the utter soul-satisfaction of