"An" Seth Bede"s been to me this morning to say he wished me to tell Your Reverence as his brother Adam begged of you particular t" allow his father"s grave to be dug by the White Thorn, because his mother"s set her heart on it, on account of a dream as she had; an" they"d ha" come theirselves to ask you, but they"ve so much to see after with the crowner, an" that; an" their mother"s took on so, an" wants "em to make sure o" the spot for fear somebody else should take it. An" if Your Reverence sees well and good, I"ll send my boy to tell "em as soon as I get home; an" that"s why I make bold to trouble you wi" it, His Honour being present."
"To be sure, Joshua, to be sure, they shall have it. I"ll ride round to Adam myself, and see him. Send your boy, however, to say they shall have the grave, lest anything should happen to detain me. And now, good morning, Joshua; go into the kitchen and have some ale."
"Poor old Thias!" said Mr. Irwine, when Joshua was gone. "I"m afraid the drink helped the brook to drown him. I should have been glad for the load to have been taken off my friend Adam"s shoulders in a less painful way. That fine fellow has been propping up his father from ruin for the last five or six years."
"He"s a regular trump, is Adam," said Captain Donnithorne. "When I was a little fellow, and Adam was a strapping lad of fifteen, and taught me carpentering, I used to think if ever I was a rich sultan, I would make Adam my grand-vizier. And I believe now he would bear the exaltation as well as any poor wise man in an Eastern story. If ever I live to be a large-acred man instead of a poor devil with a mortgaged allowance of pocket-money, I"ll have Adam for my right hand. He shall manage my woods for me, for he seems to have a better notion of those things than any man I ever met with; and I know he would make twice the money of them that my grandfather does, with that miserable old Satch.e.l.l to manage, who understands no more about timber than an old carp. I"ve mentioned the subject to my grandfather once or twice, but for some reason or other he has a dislike to Adam, and I can do nothing. But come, Your Reverence, are you for a ride with me? It"s splendid out of doors now. We can go to Adam"s together, if you like; but I want to call at the Hall Farm on my way, to look at the whelps Poyser is keeping for me."
"You must stay and have lunch first, Arthur," said Mrs. Irwine. "It"s nearly two. Carroll will bring it in directly."
"I want to go to the Hall Farm too," said Mr. Irwine, "to have another look at the little Methodist who is staying there. Joshua tells me she was preaching on the Green last night."
"Oh, by Jove!" said Captain Donnithorne, laughing. "Why, she looks as quiet as a mouse. There"s something rather striking about her, though. I positively felt quite bashful the first time I saw her--she was sitting stooping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house, when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a stranger, "Is Martin Poyser at home?" I declare, when she got up and looked at me and just said, "He"s in the house, I believe: I"ll go and call him," I felt quite ashamed of having spoken so abruptly to her. She looked like St. Catherine in a Quaker dress. It"s a type of face one rarely sees among our common people."
"I should like to see the young woman, Dauphin," said Mrs. Irwine. "Make her come here on some pretext or other."
"I don"t know how I can manage that, Mother; it will hardly do for me to patronize a Methodist preacher, even if she would consent to be patronized by an idle shepherd, as Will Maskery calls me. You should have come in a little sooner, Arthur, to hear Joshua"s denunciation of his neighbour Will Maskery. The old fellow wants me to excommunicate the wheelwright, and then deliver him over to the civil arm--that is to say, to your grandfather--to be turned out of house and yard. If I chose to interfere in this business, now, I might get up as pretty a story of hatred and persecution as the Methodists need desire to publish in the next number of their magazine. It wouldn"t take me much trouble to persuade Chad Cranage and half a dozen other bull-headed fellows that they would be doing an acceptable service to the Church by hunting Will Maskery out of the village with rope-ends and pitchforks; and then, when I had furnished them with half a sovereign to get gloriously drunk after their exertions, I should have put the climax to as pretty a farce as any of my brother clergy have set going in their parishes for the last thirty years."
"It is really insolent of the man, though, to call you an "idle shepherd" and a "dumb dog,"" said Mrs. Irwine. "I should be inclined to check him a little there. You are too easy-tempered, Dauphin."
"Why, Mother, you don"t think it would be a good way of sustaining my dignity to set about vindicating myself from the aspersions of Will Maskery? Besides, I"m not so sure that they ARE aspersions. I AM a lazy fellow, and get terribly heavy in my saddle; not to mention that I"m always spending more than I can afford in bricks and mortar, so that I get savage at a lame beggar when he asks me for sixpence. Those poor lean cobblers, who think they can help to regenerate mankind by setting out to preach in the morning twilight before they begin their day"s work, may well have a poor opinion of me. But come, let us have our luncheon. Isn"t Kate coming to lunch?"
"Miss Irwine told Bridget to take her lunch upstairs," said Carroll; "she can"t leave Miss Anne."
"Oh, very well. Tell Bridget to say I"ll go up and see Miss Anne presently. You can use your right arm quite well now, Arthur," Mr. Irwine continued, observing that Captain Donnithorne had taken his arm out of the sling.
"Yes, pretty well; but G.o.dwin insists on my keeping it up constantly for some time to come. I hope I shall be able to get away to the regiment, though, in the beginning of August. It"s a desperately dull business being shut up at the Chase in the summer months, when one can neither hunt nor shoot, so as to make one"s self pleasantly sleepy in the evening. However, we are to astonish the echoes on the 30th of July. My grandfather has given me carte blanche for once, and I promise you the entertainment shall be worthy of the occasion. The world will not see the grand epoch of my majority twice. I think I shall have a lofty throne for you, G.o.dmamma, or rather two, one on the lawn and another in the ballroom, that you may sit and look down upon us like an Olympian G.o.ddess."
"I mean to bring out my best brocade, that I wore at your christening twenty years ago," said Mrs. Irwine. "Ah, I think I shall see your poor mother flitting about in her white dress, which looked to me almost like a shroud that very day; and it WAS her shroud only three months after; and your little cap and christening dress were buried with her too. She had set her heart on that, sweet soul! Thank G.o.d you take after your mother"s family, Arthur. If you had been a puny, wiry, yellow baby, I wouldn"t have stood G.o.dmother to you. I should have been sure you would turn out a Donnithorne. But you were such a broad-faced, broad-chested, loud-screaming rascal, I knew you were every inch of you a Tradgett."
"But you might have been a little too hasty there, Mother," said Mr. Irwine, smiling. "Don"t you remember how it was with Juno"s last pups? One of them was the very image of its mother, but it had two or three of its father"s tricks notwithstanding. Nature is clever enough to cheat even you, Mother."
"Nonsense, child! Nature never makes a ferret in the shape of a mastiff. You"ll never persuade me that I can"t tell what men are by their outsides. If I don"t like a man"s looks, depend upon it I shall never like HIM. I don"t want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look disagreeable. If they make me shudder at the first glance, I say, take them away. An ugly, piggish, or fishy eye, now, makes me feel quite ill; it"s like a bad smell."
"Talking of eyes," said Captain Donnithorne, "that reminds me that I"ve got a book I meant to bring you, G.o.dmamma. It came down in a parcel from London the other day. I know you are fond of queer, wizardlike stories. It"s a volume of poems, "Lyrical Ballads." Most of them seem to be twaddling stuff, but the first is in a different style--"The Ancient Mariner" is the t.i.tle. I can hardly make head or tail of it as a story, but it"s a strange, striking thing. I"ll send it over to you; and there are some other books that you may like to see, Irwine--pamphlets about Antinomianism and Evangelicalism, whatever they may be. I can"t think what the fellow means by sending such things to me. I"ve written to him to desire that from henceforth he will send me no book or pamphlet on anything that ends in ISM."
"Well, I don"t know that I"m very fond of isms myself; but I may as well look at the pamphlets; they let one see what is going on. I"ve a little matter to attend to, Arthur," continued Mr. Irwine, rising to leave the room, "and then I shall be ready to set out with you."
The little matter that Mr. Irwine had to attend to took him up the old stone staircase (part of the house was very old) and made him pause before a door at which he knocked gently. "Come in," said a woman"s voice, and he entered a room so darkened by blinds and curtains that Miss Kate, the thin middle-aged lady standing by the bedside, would not have had light enough for any other sort of work than the knitting which lay on the little table near her. But at present she was doing what required only the dimmest light--sponging the aching head that lay on the pillow with fresh vinegar. It was a small face, that of the poor sufferer; perhaps it had once been pretty, but now it was worn and sallow. Miss Kate came towards her brother and whispered, "Don"t speak to her; she can"t bear to be spoken to to-day." Anne"s eyes were closed, and her brow contracted as if from intense pain. Mr. Irwine went to the bedside and took up one of the delicate hands and kissed it, a slight pressure from the small fingers told him that it was worth-while to have come upstairs for the sake of doing that. He lingered a moment, looking at her, and then turned away and left the room, treading very gently--he had taken off his boots and put on slippers before he came upstairs. Whoever remembers how many things he has declined to do even for himself, rather than have the trouble of putting on or taking off his boots, will not think this last detail insignificant.
And Mr. Irwine"s sisters, as any person of family within ten miles of Broxton could have testified, were such stupid, uninteresting women! It was quite a pity handsome, clever Mrs. Irwine should have had such commonplace daughters. That fine old lady herself was worth driving ten miles to see, any day; her beauty, her well-preserved faculties, and her old-fashioned dignity made her a graceful subject for conversation in turn with the King"s health, the sweet new patterns in cotton dresses, the news from Egypt, and Lord Dacey"s lawsuit, which was fretting poor Lady Dacey to death. But no one ever thought of mentioning the Miss Irwines, except the poor people in Broxton village, who regarded them as deep in the science of medicine, and spoke of them vaguely as "the gentlefolks." If any one had asked old Job Dummilow who gave him his flannel jacket, he would have answered, "the gentlefolks, last winter"; and widow Steene dwelt much on the virtues of the "stuff" the gentlefolks gave her for her cough. Under this name too, they were used with great effect as a means of taming refractory children, so that at the sight of poor Miss Anne"s sallow face, several small urchins had a terrified sense that she was cognizant of all their worst misdemeanours, and knew the precise number of stones with which they had intended to hit Farmer Britton"s ducks. But for all who saw them through a less mythical medium, the Miss Irwines were quite superfluous existences--inartistic figures crowding the canvas of life without adequate effect. Miss Anne, indeed, if her chronic headaches could have been accounted for by a pathetic story of disappointed love, might have had some romantic interest attached to her: but no such story had either been known or invented concerning her, and the general impression was quite in accordance with the fact, that both the sisters were old maids for the prosaic reason that they had never received an eligible offer.
Nevertheless, to speak paradoxically, the existence of insignificant people has very important consequences in the world. It can be shown to affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many evil tempers from the selfish and many heroisms from the sympathetic, and, in other ways, to play no small part in the tragedy of life. And if that handsome, generous-blooded clergyman, the Rev. Adolphus Irwine, had not had these two hopelessly maiden sisters, his lot would have been shaped quite differently: he would very likely have taken a comely wife in his youth, and now, when his hair was getting grey under the powder, would have had tall sons and blooming daughters--such possessions, in short, as men commonly think will repay them for all the labour they take under the sun. As it was--having with all his three livings no more than seven hundred a-year, and seeing no way of keeping his splendid mother and his sickly sister, not to reckon a second sister, who was usually spoken of without any adjective, in such ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time providing for a family of his own--he remained, you see, at the age of eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation, but saying laughingly, if any one alluded to it, that he made it an excuse for many indulgences which a wife would never have allowed him. And perhaps he was the only person in the world who did not think his sisters uninteresting and superfluous; for his was one of those large-hearted, sweet-blooded natures that never know a narrow or a grudging thought; Epicurean, if you will, with no enthusiasm, no self-scourging sense of duty; but yet, as you have seen, of a sufficiently subtle moral fibre to have an unwearying tenderness for obscure and monotonous suffering. It was his large-hearted indulgence that made him ignore his mother"s hardness towards her daughters, which was the more striking from its contrast with her doting fondness towards himself; he held it no virtue to frown at irremediable faults.
See the difference between the impression a man makes on you when you walk by his side in familiar talk, or look at him in his home, and the figure he makes when seen from a lofty historical level, or even in the eyes of a critical neighbour who thinks of him as an embodied system or opinion rather than as a man. Mr. Roe, the "travelling preacher" stationed at Treddleston, had included Mr. Irwine in a general statement concerning the Church clergy in the surrounding district, whom he described as men given up to the l.u.s.ts of the flesh and the pride of life; hunting and shooting, and adorning their own houses; asking what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?--careless of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes where they did not so much as look on the faces of the people more than once a-year. The ecclesiastical historian, too, looking into parliamentary reports of that period, finds honourable members zealous for the Church, and untainted with any sympathy for the "tribe of canting Methodists," making statements scarcely less melancholy than that of Mr. Roe. And it is impossible for me to say that Mr. Irwine was altogether belied by the generic cla.s.sification a.s.signed him. He really had no very lofty aims, no theological enthusiasm: if I were closely questioned, I should be obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old "Feyther Taft," or even to Chad Cranage the blacksmith. If he had been in the habit of speaking theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family affections and neighbourly duties. He thought the custom of baptism more important than its doctrine, and that the religious benefits the peasant drew from the church where his fathers worshipped and the sacred piece of turf where they lay buried were but slightly dependent on a clear understanding of the Liturgy or the sermon. Clearly the rector was not what is called in these days an "earnest" man: he was fonder of church history than of divinity, and had much more insight into men"s characters than interest in their opinions; he was neither laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious in alms-giving, and his theology, you perceive, was lax. His mental palate, indeed, was rather pagan, and found a savouriness in a quotation from Sophocles or Theocritus that was quite absent from any text in Isaiah or Amos. But if you feed your young setter on raw flesh, how can you wonder at its retaining a relish for uncooked partridge in after-life? And Mr. Irwine"s recollections of young enthusiasm and ambition were all a.s.sociated with poetry and ethics that lay aloof from the Bible.
On the other hand, I must plead, for I have an affectionate partiality towards the rector"s memory, that he was not vindictive--and some philanthropists have been so; that he was not intolerant--and there is a rumour that some zealous theologians have not been altogether free from that blemish; that although he would probably have declined to give his body to be burned in any public cause, and was far from bestowing all his goods to feed the poor, he had that charity which has sometimes been lacking to very ill.u.s.trious virtue--he was tender to other men"s failings, and unwilling to impute evil. He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.
Such men, happily, have lived in times when great abuses flourished, and have sometimes even been the living representatives of the abuses. That is a thought which might comfort us a little under the opposite fact--that it is better sometimes NOT to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.
But whatever you may think of Mr. Irwine now, if you had met him that June afternoon riding on his grey cob, with his dogs running beside him--portly, upright, manly, with a good-natured smile on his finely turned lips as he talked to his dashing young companion on the bay mare, you must have felt that, however ill he harmonized with sound theories of the clerical office, he somehow harmonized extremely well with that peaceful landscape.
See them in the bright sunlight, interrupted every now and then by rolling ma.s.ses of cloud, ascending the slope from the Broxton side, where the tall gables and elms of the rectory predominate over the tiny whitewashed church. They will soon be in the parish of Hayslope; the grey church-tower and village roofs lie before them to the left, and farther on, to the right, they can just see the chimneys of the Hall Farm.
Chapter VI.
The Hall Farm.
EVIDENTLY that gate is never opened, for the long gra.s.s and the great hemlocks grow close against it, and if it were opened, it is so rusty that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stone-built pillars, to the detriment of the two stone lionesses which grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability above a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the brick wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, and all but the very corners of the gra.s.sy enclosure.
It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the gate--it is never opened. How it would groan and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy, handsome door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey, who had just seen his master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.
But at present one might fancy the house in the early stage of a chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double row of walnut-trees on the right hand of the enclosure would fall and rot among the gra.s.s, if it were not that we heard the booming bark of dogs echoing from great buildings at the back. And now the half-weaned calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel against the left-hand wall come out and set up a silly answer to that terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of milk.
Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; for imagination is a licensed trespa.s.ser: it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. Put your face to one of the gla.s.s panes in the right-hand window: what do you see? A large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare boarded floor; at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the floor, some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining-room. And what through the left-hand window? Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel, and an old box wide open and stuffed full of coloured rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which, so far as mutilation is concerned, bears a strong resemblance to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose. Near it there is a little chair, and the b.u.t.t end of a boy"s leather long-lashed whip.
The history of the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne. It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent and gra.s.s-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and resonant, the life at the Hall has changed its focus, and no longer radiates from the parlour, but from the kitchen and the farmyard.
Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year, just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day too, for it is close upon three by the sun, and it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser"s handsome eight-day clock. But there is always a stronger sense of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is pouring down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and lighting up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the cow-shed, and turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the channel to the drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are seizing the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as possible. There is quite a concert of noises; the great bull-dog, chained against the stables, is thrown into furious exasperation by the unwary approach of a c.o.c.k too near the mouth of his kennel, and sends forth a thundering bark, which is answered by two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted hens, scratching with their chicks among the straw, set up a sympathetic croaking as the discomfited c.o.c.k joins them; a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled as to the tail, throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends the calves are bleating from the home croft; and, under all, a fine ear discerns the continuous hum of human voices.
For the great barn-doors are thrown wide open, and men are busy there mending the harness, under the superintendence of Mr. Goby, the "whittaw," otherwise saddler, who entertains them with the latest Treddleston gossip. It is certainly rather an unfortunate day that Alick, the shepherd, has chosen for having the whittaws, since the morning turned out so wet; and Mrs. Poyser has spoken her mind pretty strongly as to the dirt which the extra number of men"s shoes brought into the house at dinnertime. Indeed, she has not yet recovered her equanimity on the subject, though it is now nearly three hours since dinner, and the house-floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering bra.s.s candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case and an oak table have got to such a polish by the hand: genuine "elbow polish," as Mrs. Poyser called it, for she thanked G.o.d she never had any of your varnished rubbish in her house. Hetty Sorrel often took the opportunity, when her aunt"s back was turned, of looking at the pleasing reflection of herself in those polished surfaces, for the oak table was usually turned up like a screen, and was more for ornament than for use; and she could see herself sometimes in the great round pewter dishes that were ranged on the shelves above the long deal dinner-table, or in the hobs of the grate, which always shone like jasper.
Everything was looking at its brightest at this moment, for the sun shone right on the pewter dishes, and from their reflecting surfaces pleasant jets of light were thrown on mellow oak and bright bra.s.s--and on a still pleasanter object than these, for some of the rays fell on Dinah"s finely moulded cheek, and lit up her pale red hair to auburn, as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was mending for her aunt. No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who was ironing a few things that still remained from the Monday"s wash, had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron and moving to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen glance of her blue-grey eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where Hetty was making up the b.u.t.ter, and from the dairy to the back kitchen, where Nancy was taking the pies out of the oven. Do not suppose, however, that Mrs. Poyser was elderly or shrewish in her appearance; she was a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion and sandy hair, well-shapen, light-footed. The most conspicuous article in her attire was an ample checkered linen ap.r.o.n, which almost covered her skirt; and nothing could be plainer or less noticeable than her cap and gown, for there was no weakness of which she was less tolerant than feminine vanity, and the preference of ornament to utility. The family likeness between her and her niece Dinah Morris, with the contrast between her keenness and Dinah"s seraphic gentleness of expression, might have served a painter as an excellent suggestion for a Martha and Mary. Their eyes were just of the same colour, but a striking test of the difference in their operation was seen in the demeanour of Trip, the black-and-tan terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily exposed himself to the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser"s glance. Her tongue was not less keen than her eye, and, whenever a damsel came within earshot, seemed to take up an unfinished lecture, as a barrel-organ takes up a tune, precisely at the point where it had left off.
The fact that it was churning day was another reason why it was inconvenient to have the whittaws, and why, consequently, Mrs. Poyser should scold Molly the housemaid with unusual severity. To all appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner work in an exemplary manner, had "cleaned herself" with great dispatch, and now came to ask, submissively, if she should sit down to her spinning till milking time. But this blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a secret indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth and held up to Molly"s view with cutting eloquence.
"Spinning, indeed! It isn"t spinning as you"d be at, I"ll be bound, and let you have your own way. I never knew your equals for gallowsness. To think of a gell o" your age wanting to go and sit with half-a-dozen men! I"d ha" been ashamed to let the words pa.s.s over my lips if I"d been you. And you, as have been here ever since last Michaelmas, and I hired you at Treddles"on statt.i.ts, without a bit o" character--as I say, you might be grateful to be hired in that way to a respectable place; and you knew no more o" what belongs to work when you come here than the mawkin i" the field. As poor a two-fisted thing as ever I saw, you know you was. Who taught you to scrub a floor, I should like to know? Why, you"d leave the dirt in heaps i" the corners--anybody "ud think you"d never been brought up among Christians. And as for spinning, why, you"ve wasted as much as your wage i" the flax you"ve spoiled learning to spin. And you"ve a right to feel that, and not to go about as gaping and as thoughtless as if you was beholding to n.o.body. Comb the wool for the whittaws, indeed! That"s what you"d like to be doing, is it? That"s the way with you--that"s the road you"d all like to go, headlongs to ruin. You"re never easy till you"ve got some sweetheart as is as big a fool as yourself: you think you"ll be finely off when you"re married, I daresay, and have got a three-legged stool to sit on, and never a blanket to cover you, and a bit o" oat-cake for your dinner, as three children are a-s.n.a.t.c.hing at."
"I"m sure I donna want t" go wi" the whittaws," said Molly, whimpering, and quite overcome by this Dantean picture of her future, "on"y we allays used to comb the wool for "n at Mester Ottley"s; an" so I just axed ye. I donna want to set eyes on the whittaws again; I wish I may never stir if I do."
"Mr. Ottley"s, indeed! It"s fine talking o" what you did at Mr. Ottley"s. Your missis there might like her floors dirted wi" whittaws for what I know. There"s no knowing what people WONNA like--such ways as I"ve heard of! I never had a gell come into my house as seemed to know what cleaning was; I think people live like pigs, for my part. And as to that Betty as was dairymaid at Trent"s before she come to me, she"d ha" left the cheeses without turning from week"s end to week"s end, and the dairy thralls, I might ha" wrote my name on "em, when I come downstairs after my illness, as the doctor said it was inflammation--it was a mercy I got well of it. And to think o" your knowing no better, Molly, and been here a-going i" nine months, and not for want o" talking to, neither--and what are you stanning there for, like a jack as is run down, instead o" getting your wheel out? You"re a rare un for sitting down to your work a little while after it"s time to put by."
"Munny, my iron"s twite told; pease put it down to warm."
The small chirruping voice that uttered this request came from a little sunny-haired girl between three and four, who, seated on a high chair at the end of the ironing table, was arduously clutching the handle of a miniature iron with her tiny fat fist, and ironing rags with an a.s.siduity that required her to put her little red tongue out as far as anatomy would allow.
"Cold, is it, my darling? Bless your sweet face!" said Mrs. Poyser, who was remarkable for the facility with which she could relapse from her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of friendly converse. "Never mind! Mother"s done her ironing now. She"s going to put the ironing things away."
"Munny, I tould "ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see de whittawd."
"No, no, no; Totty "ud get her feet wet," said Mrs. Poyser, carrying away her iron. "Run into the dairy and see cousin Hetty make the b.u.t.ter."
"I tould "ike a bit o" pum-take," rejoined Totty, who seemed to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time, taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her fingers into a bowl of starch, and drag it down so as to empty the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing sheet.
"Did ever anybody see the like?" screamed Mrs. Poyser, running towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue stream. "The child"s allays i" mischief if your back"s turned a minute. What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell?"
Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white suckling pig.
The starch having been wiped up by Molly"s help, and the ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting which always lay ready at hand, and was the work she liked best, because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and fro. But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her grey worsted stocking.
"You look th" image o" your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing. I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her work, after she"d done the house up; only it was a little cottage, Father"s was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i" one corner as fast as you clean it in another--but for all that, I could fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker than yours, and she was stouter and broader i" the shoulders. Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer ways, but your mother and her never could agree. Ah, your mother little thought as she"d have a daughter just cut out after the very pattern o" Judith, and leave her an orphan, too, for Judith to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when SHE was in the graveyard at Stoniton. I allays said that o" Judith, as she"d bear a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And she was just the same from the first o" my remembering her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different and wore a different sort o" cap; but she"d never in her life spent a penny on herself more than keeping herself decent."
"She was a blessed woman," said Dinah; "G.o.d had given her a loving, self-forgetting nature, and He perfected it by grace. And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I often heard her talk of you in the same sort of way. When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say, "You"ll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I"m taken from you, for she has a kind heart," and I"m sure I"ve found it so."
"I don"t know how, child; anybody "ud be cunning to do anything for you, I think; you"re like the birds o" th" air, and live n.o.body knows how. I"d ha" been glad to behave to you like a mother"s sister, if you"d come and live i" this country where there"s some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks don"t live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get married to some decent man, and there"d be plenty ready to have you, if you"d only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith ever did. And even if you"d marry Seth Bede, as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist and"s never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your uncle "ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he"s allays been good-natur"d to my kin, for all they"re poor, and made "em welcome to the house; and "ud do for you, I"ll be bound, as much as ever he"d do for Hetty, though she"s his own niece. And there"s linen in the house as I could well spare you, for I"ve got lots o" sheeting and table-clothing, and towelling, as isn"t made up. There"s a piece o" sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty spun--she was a rare girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the children couldn"t abide her; and, you know, the spinning"s going on constant, and there"s new linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where"s the use o" talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her senses, i"stead o" wearing yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you get, so as you"ve nothing saved against sickness; and all the things you"ve got i" the world, I verily believe, "ud go into a bundle no bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you"ve got notions i" your head about religion more nor what"s i" the Catechism and the Prayer-book."
"But not more than what"s in the Bible, Aunt," said Dinah.
"Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter," Mrs. Poyser rejoined, rather sharply; "else why shouldn"t them as know best what"s in the Bible--the parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn it--do the same as you do? But, for the matter o" that, if everybody was to do like you, the world must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was allays talking as we must despise the things o" the world as you say, I should like to know where the pick o" the stock, and the corn, and the best new-milk cheeses "ud have to go. Everybody "ud be wanting bread made o" tail ends and everybody "ud be running after everybody else to preach to "em, istead o" bringing up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as that can"t be the right religion."
"Nay, dear aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to forsake their work and their families. It"s quite right the land should be ploughed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them, so that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul"s wants while they are caring for the body. We can all be servants of G.o.d wherever our lot is cast, but He gives us different sorts of work, according as He fits us for it and calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in trying to do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help running if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn"t rest without running to help her and comfort her."
"Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, "I know it "ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours. You"d make me the same answer, at th" end. I might as well talk to the running brook and tell it to stan" still."
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in the yard, the grey worsted stocking making a steady progress in her hands all the while. But she had not been standing there more than five minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah, in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone, "If there isn"t Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming into the yard! I"ll lay my life they"re come to speak about your preaching on the Green, Dinah; it"s you must answer "em, for I"m dumb. I"ve said enough a"ready about your bringing such disgrace upo" your uncle"s family. I wouldn"t ha" minded if you"d been Mr. Poyser"s own niece--folks must put up wi" their own kin, as they put up wi" their own noses--it"s their own flesh and blood. But to think of a niece o" mine being cause o" my husband"s being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no fortin but my savin"s----"
"Nay, dear Aunt Rachel," said Dinah gently, "you"ve no cause for such fears. I"ve strong a.s.surance that no evil will happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything I"ve done. I didn"t preach without direction."
"Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction," said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. "When there"s a bigger maggot than usual in your head you call it "direction"; and then nothing can stir you--you look like the statty o" the outside o" Treddles"on church, a-starin" and a-smilin" whether it"s fair weather or foul. I hanna common patience with you."
By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and had got down from their horses: it was plain they meant to come in. Mrs. Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curtsying low and trembling between anger with Dinah and anxiety to conduct herself with perfect propriety on the occasion. For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a whispering awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when they stood on tiptoe to watch the G.o.ds pa.s.sing by in tall human shape.
"Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?" said Mr. Irwine, with his stately cordiality. "Our feet are quite dry; we shall not soil your beautiful floor."
"Oh, sir, don"t mention it," said Mrs. Poyser. "Will you and the captain please to walk into the parlour?"
"No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain, looking eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something it could not find. "I delight in your kitchen. I think it is the most charming room I know. I should like every farmer"s wife to come and look at it for a pattern."
"Oh, you"re pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat," said Mrs. Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain"s evident good-humour, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, who, she saw, was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.
"Poyser is not at home, is he?" said Captain Donnithorne, seating himself where he could see along the short pa.s.sage to the open dairy-door.
"No, sir, he isn"t; he"s gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the factor, about the wool. But there"s Father i" the barn, sir, if he"d be of any use."
"No, thank you; I"ll just look at the whelps and leave a message about them with your shepherd. I must come another day and see your husband; I want to have a consultation with him about horses. Do you know when he"s likely to be at liberty?"
"Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it"s o" Treddles"on market-day--that"s of a Friday, you know. For if he"s anywhere on the farm we can send for him in a minute. If we"d got rid o" the Scantlands, we should have no outlying fields; and I should be glad of it, for if ever anything happens, he"s sure to be gone to the Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if they"ve a chance; and it"s an unnat"ral thing to have one bit o" your farm in one county and all the rest in another."
"Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce"s farm, especially as he wants dairyland and you"ve got plenty. I think yours is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do you know, Mrs. Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I should be tempted to turn you out, and do up this fine old house, and turn farmer myself."
"Oh, sir," said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, "you wouldn"t like it at all. As for farming, it"s putting money into your pocket wi" your right hand and fetching it out wi" your left. As fur as I can see, it"s raising victual for other folks and just getting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along. Not as you"d be like a poor man as wants to get his bread--you could afford to lose as much money as you liked i" farming--but it"s poor fun losing money, I should think, though I understan" it"s what the great folks i" London play at more than anything. For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey"s eldest son had lost thousands upo" thousands to the Prince o" Wales, and they said my lady was going to p.a.w.n her jewels to pay for him. But you know more about that than I do, sir. But, as for farming, sir, I canna think as you"d like it; and this house--the draughts in it are enough to cut you through, and it"s my opinion the floors upstairs are very rotten, and the rats i" the cellar are beyond anything."
"Why, that"s a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should be doing you a service to turn you out of such a place. But there"s no chance of that. I"m not likely to settle for the next twenty years, till I"m a stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather would never consent to part with such good tenants as you."
"Well, sir, if he thinks so well o" Mr. Poyser for a tenant I wish you could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates for the Five closes, for my husband"s been asking and asking till he"s tired, and to think o" what he"s done for the farm, and"s never had a penny allowed him, be the times bad or good. And as I"ve said to my husband often and often, I"m sure if the captain had anything to do with it, it wouldn"t be so. Not as I wish to speak disrespectful o" them as have got the power i" their hands, but it"s more than flesh and blood "ull bear sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green again i" the sheaf--and after all, at th" end o" the year, it"s like as if you"d been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your pains."
Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. The confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force that overcame all resistance.
"I"m afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak about the gates, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain, "though I a.s.sure you there"s no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your husband. I know his farm is in better order than any other within ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen," he added, smiling, "I don"t believe there"s one in the kingdom to beat it. By the by, I"ve never seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser."
"Indeed, sir, it"s not fit for you to go in, for Hetty"s in the middle o" making the b.u.t.ter, for the churning was thrown late, and I"m quite ashamed." This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the captain was really interested in her milk-pans, and would adjust his opinion of her to the appearance of her dairy.
"Oh, I"ve no doubt it"s in capital order. Take me in," said the captain, himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.
Chapter VII.
The Dairy.
THE dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken for with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets--such coolness, such purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm b.u.t.ter, of wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring of red earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, grey limestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and hinges. But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on little pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of b.u.t.ter out of the scale.
Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, for it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from under long, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to him about the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for b.u.t.ter and cheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quant.i.ty but inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which had been bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty tossed and patted her pound of b.u.t.ter with quite a self-possessed, coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.
There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel"s was that sort of beauty. Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who professed to despise all personal attractions and intended to be the severest of mentors, continually gazed at Hetty"s charms by the sly, fascinated in spite of herself; and after administering such a scolding as naturally flowed from her anxiety to do well by her husband"s niece--who had no mother of her own to scold her, poor thing!--she would often confess to her husband, when they were safe out of hearing, that she firmly believed, "the naughtier the little huzzy behaved, the prettier she looked."
It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty"s cheek was like a rose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about her white sh.e.l.l-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low plum-coloured stuff bodice, or how the linen b.u.t.ter-making ap.r.o.n, with its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by d.u.c.h.esses, since it fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soled buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly have had when empty of her foot and ankle--of little use, unless you have seen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, for otherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she would not in the least resemble that distracting kittenlike maiden. I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue? I could never make you know what I meant by a bright spring day. Hetty"s was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circ.u.mventing you by a false air of innocence--the innocence of a young star-browed calf, for example, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, leads you a severe steeplechase over hedge and ditch, and only comes to a stand in the middle of a bog.
And they are the prettiest att.i.tudes and movements into which a pretty girl is thrown in making up b.u.t.ter--tossing movements that give a charming curve to the arm, and a sideward inclination of the round white neck; little patting and rolling movements with the palm of the hand, and nice adaptations and finishings which cannot at all be effected without a great play of the pouting mouth and the dark eyes. And then the b.u.t.ter itself seems to communicate a fresh charm--it is so pure, so sweet-scented; it is turned off the mould with such a beautiful firm surface, like marble in a pale yellow light! Moreover, Hetty was particularly clever at making up the b.u.t.ter; it was the one performance of hers that her aunt allowed to pa.s.s without severe criticism; so she handled it with all the grace that belongs to mastery.
"I hope you will be ready for a great holiday on the thirtieth of July, Mrs. Poyser," said Captain Donnithorne, when he had sufficiently admired the dairy and given several improvised opinions on Swede turnips and shorthorns. "You know what is to happen then, and I shall expect you to be one of the guests who come earliest and leave latest. Will you promise me your hand for two dances, Miss Hetty? If I don"t get your promise now, I know I shall hardly have a chance, for all the smart young farmers will take care to secure you."
Hetty smiled and blushed, but before she could answer, Mrs. Poyser interposed, scandalized at the mere suggestion that the young squire could be excluded by any meaner partners.
"Indeed, sir, you are very kind to take that notice of her. And I"m sure, whenever you"re pleased to dance with her, she"ll be proud and thankful, if she stood still all the rest o" th" evening."
"Oh no, no, that would be too cruel to all the other young fellows who can dance. But you will promise me two dances, won"t you?" the captain continued, determined to make Hetty look at him and speak to him.
Hetty dropped the prettiest little curtsy, and stole a half-shy, half-coquettish glance at him as she said, "Yes, thank you, sir."
"And you must bring all your children, you know, Mrs. Poyser; your little Totty, as well as the boys. I want all the youngest children on the estate to be there--all those who will be fine young men and women when I"m a bald old fellow."
"Oh dear, sir, that "ull be a long time first," said Mrs. Poyser, quite overcome at the young squire"s speaking so lightly of himself, and thinking how her husband would be interested in hearing her recount this remarkable specimen of high-born humour. The captain was thought to be "very full of his jokes," and was a great favourite throughout the estate on account of his free manners. Every tenant was quite sure things would be different when the reins got into his hands--there was to be a millennial abundance of new gates, allowances of lime, and returns of ten per cent.
"But where is Totty to-day?" he said. "I want to see her."