Australian Tales - Setis

try to depict the life-long loves of an affectionate old couple, which
delicate task has certainly more of novelty to recommend it, for few
persons make old folks the hero and heroine of a romantic tale. Love
stories usually end with marriage (though I do not see why they should),
but the mutual love of my two worthy old friends will not end with my
story, and I hope — indeed I feel sure — it will live for ever.
Dear reader! if you knew David Dovecott and his amiable wife, I am
sure you would love them as warmly as I do. The mellow tints of a
summer evening's sky are not more pleasing to gaze on than the
benevolent faces of that genuine pair, and their faces are true indices of
their warm hearts. If you are fortunate enough to know them, and can
appreciate a simply told tale of honest, enduring affection, take a
favourable opportunity of asking Davey to relate his first love
impressions, and his marital experience of forty years, and you will have
an entertainment far surpassing the Lancashire bellringers' striking
melodies. Those who cannot have the superior pleasure of hearing the
story from the old man's lips, may — if they choose — read my account
of it, which, as I transcribe, I fancy I see him sitting in his verandah on a
pleasant evening, with his devoted wife beside him, her eyes swimming
in loving kindness, and her silvery hair braided over a countenance
which might have been photographed for the emblem of mortal
goodness. Here then I begin his story, which I wish I could give in his
own rich racy style.
“It is — let me see — sixty-six years come the fourteenth of next July,
since I first saw my own darling Nanny here,” began Mr. Dovecott,
chuckling his smiling wife under the chin at the same time. “Sixty-six
years ago: that is a long time, Mr. Boomerang, but I remember it as
distinctly as though it were but last Christmas Day. I was going home
from Dame Tingle's school, at the end of our village, and was knocking
down butterflies with my empty dinner-bag, when I almost ran up against
a little girl, about five years old, dressed in a short blue print frock, and a
round straw hat; but with only one shoe on. She was standing near to the
crossing-place of the brook, crying: so I went up to her and said —
“ ‘What is the matter, little girl!’ ‘I have lost my shoe,’ she answered,
wiping her eyes on her frock. ‘Where did you lose it?’ said I. ‘I was
picking a waterlily, and I slipped off that rough stone, and my shoe came
off and swam away down the brook. Hoo — o — boo — o — o! What
shall I do?’ ‘Don't cry, little girl,’ said I, ‘I'll try and find your shoe for
you. Here, hold my dinner-bag.’
“So I pulled off my shoes and stockings, and rolled up my trousers, and
away I paddled into the brook. I soon found the shoe, which had a little
hole in the side, so it had not floated far. I wiped it as dry as I could with
my pinafore, and gave it to her; when she sat down on the grass and put
it on. She certainly looked pleased, but I don't think she said thankee. I