Cranford Page #3

								

walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the
room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house.  He had
been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies,
with which he had been received.  He had been friendly, though the
Cranford ladies had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic
compliments in good faith; and with his manly frankness had overpowered
all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor.
And, at last, his excellent masculine common sense, and his facility in
devising expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an
extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies.  He himself
went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the
reverse; and I am sure he was startled one day when he found his advice
so highly esteemed as to make some counsel which he had given in jest to
be taken in sober, serious earnest.

It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked
upon as a daughter.  You could not pay the short quarter of an hour call
without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of
this animal.  The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker’s
Alderney; therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an
unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a lime-pit.  She moaned so
loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast
had lost most of her hair, and came out looking naked, cold, and
miserable, in a bare skin.  Everybody pitied the animal, though a few
could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance.  Miss Betsy
Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she
thought of trying a bath of oil.  This remedy, perhaps, was recommended
by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if
ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown’s decided “Get
her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma’am, if you wish to keep
her alive.  But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once.”

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she
set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney
meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.  I have watched
her myself many a time.  Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in
London?

                  [Picture: Meekly going to her pasture]

Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town, where
he lived with his two daughters.  He must have been upwards of sixty at
the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left it as a
residence.  But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a stiff
military throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made him
appear much younger than he was.  His eldest daughter looked almost as
old as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his
apparent age.  Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly, pained,
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