_ It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the
independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied
and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a
little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the
county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon,
after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly
expressed, for my guidance in the new course of life on which I
was entering. I was to be a clerk under the engineer who had
undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to Hornby.
My father had got me this situation, which was in a position
rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the
station in which he was born and bred; for he was raising himself
every year in men's consideration and respect. He was a mechanic
by trade, but he had some inventive genius, and a great deal of
perseverance, and had devised several valuable improvements in
railway machinery. He did not do this for profit, though, as was
reasonable, what came in the natural course of things was
acceptable; he worked out his ideas, because, as he said, 'until
he could put them into shape, they plagued him by night and by
day.' But this is enough about my dear father; it is a good thing
for a country where there are many like him. He was a sturdy
Independent by descent and conviction; and this it was, I
believe, which made him place me in the lodgings at the
pastry-cook's. The shop was kept by the two sisters of our
minister at home; and this was considered as a sort of safeguard
to my morals, when I was turned loose upon the temptations of the
county town, with a salary of thirty pounds a year.
My father had given up two precious days, and put on his Sunday
clothes, in order to bring me to Eltham, and accompany me first
to the office, to introduce me to my new master (who was under
some obligations to my father for a suggestion), and next to take
me to call on the Independent minister of the little congregation
at Eltham. And then he left me; and though sorry to part with
him, I now began to taste with relish the pleasure of being my
own master. I unpacked the hamper that my mother had provided me
with, and smelt the pots of preserve with all the delight of a
possessor who might break into their contents at any time he
pleased. I handled and weighed in my fancy the home-cured ham,
which seemed to promise me interminable feasts; and, above all,
there was the fine savour of knowing that I might eat of these
dainties when I liked, at my sole will, not dependent on the
pleasure of any one else, however indulgent. I stowed my eatables
away in the little corner cupboard--that room was all corners,
and everything was placed in a corner, the fire-place, the
window, the cupboard; I myself seemed to be the only thing in the
middle, and there was hardly room for me. The table was made of a
folding leaf under the window, and the window looked out upon the
market-place; so the studies for the prosecution of which my
father had brought himself to pay extra for a sitting-room for
me, ran a considerable chance of being diverted from books to men
and women. I was to have my meals with the two elderly Miss
Dawsons in the little parlour behind the three-cornered shop
downstairs; my breakfasts and dinners at least, for, as my hours
in an evening were likely to be uncertain, my tea or supper was
to be an independent meal.
Then, after this pride and satisfaction, came a sense of
desolation. I had never been from home before, and I was an only
child; and though my father's spoken maxim had been, 'Spare the
rod, and spoil the child', yet, unconsciously, his heart had
yearned after me, and his ways towards me were more tender than
he knew, or would have approved of in himself could he have
known. My mother, who never professed sternness, was far more
severe than my father: perhaps my boyish faults annoyed her more;
for I remember, now that I have written the above words, how she
pleaded for me once in my riper years, when I had really offended
against my father's sense of right.
But I have nothing to do with that now. It is about cousin
Phillis that I am going to write, and as yet I am far enough from
even saying who cousin Phillis was.
For some months after I was settled in Eltham, the new employment
in which I was engaged--the new independence of my life--occupied
all my thoughts. I was at my desk by eight o'clock, home to
dinner at one, back at the office by two. The afternoon work was
more uncertain than the morning's; it might be the same, or it
might be that I had to accompany Mr Holdsworth, the managing
engineer, to some point on the line between Eltham and Hornby.
This I always enjoyed, because of the variety, and because of the
country we traversed (which was very wild and pretty), and
because I was thrown into companionship with Mr Holdsworth, who
held the position of hero in my boyish mind. He was a young man
of five-and-twenty or so, and was in a station above mine, both
by birth and education; and he had travelled on the Continent,
and wore mustachios and whiskers of a somewhat foreign fashion. I
was proud of being seen with him. He was really a fine fellow in
a good number of ways, and I might have fallen into much worse
hands.
Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of my weekly doings--my
father had insisted upon this; but there was so little variety in
my life that I often found it hard work to fill a letter. On
Sundays I went twice to chapel, up a dark narrow entry, to hear
droning hymns, and long prayers, and a still longer sermon,
preached to a small congregation, of which I was, by nearly a
score of years, the youngest member. Occasionally, Mr Peters, the
minister, would ask me home to tea after the second service. I
dreaded the honour, for I usually sate on the edge of my chair
all the evening, and answered solemn questions, put in a deep
bass voice, until household prayer-time came, at eight o'clock,
when Mrs Peters came in, smoothing down her apron, and the
maid-of-all-work followed, and first a sermon, and then a chapter
was read, and a long impromptu prayer followed, till some
instinct told Mr Peters that supper-time had come, and we rose
from our knees with hunger for our predominant feeling. Over
supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous
jokes, as if to show me that ministers were men, after all. And
then at ten o'clock I went home, and enjoyed my long-repressed
yawns in the three-cornered room before going to bed. Dinah and
Hannah Dawson, so their names were put on the board above the
shop-door--I always called them Miss Dawson and Miss
Hannah--considered these visits of mine to Mr Peters as the
greatest honour a young man could have; and evidently thought
that if after such privileges, I did not work out my salvation, I
was a sort of modern Judas Iscariot. On the contrary, they shook
their heads over my intercourse with Mr Holdsworth. He had been
so kind to me in many ways, that when I cut into my ham, I
hovered over the thought of asking him to tea in my room, more
especially as the annual fair was being held in Eltham
market-place, and the sight of the booths, the merry-go-rounds,
the wild-beast shows, and such country pomps, was (as I thought
at seventeen) very attractive. But when I ventured to allude to
my wish in even distant terms, Miss Hannah caught me up, and
spoke of the sinfulness of such sights, and something about
wallowing in the mire, and then vaulted into France, and spoke
evil of the nation, and all who had ever set foot therein, till,
seeing that her anger was concentrating itself into a point, and
that that point was Mr Holdsworth, I thought it would be better
to finish my breakfast, and make what haste I could out of the
sound of her voice. I rather wondered afterwards to hear her and
Miss Dawson counting up their weekly profits with glee, and
saying that a pastry-cook's shop in the corner of the
market-place, in Eltham fair week, was no such bad thing.
However, I never ventured to ask Mr Holdsworth to my lodgings.
There is not much to tell about this first year of mine at
Eltham. But when I was nearly nineteen, and beginning to think of
whiskers on my own account, I came to know cousin Phillis, whose
very existence had been unknown to me till then. Mr Holdsworth
and I had been out to Heathbridge for a day, working hard.
Heathbridge was near Hornby, for our line of railway was above
half finished. Of course, a day's outing was a great thing to
tell about in my weekly letters; and I fell to describing the
country--a fault I was not often guilty of. I told my father of
the bogs, all over wild myrtle and soft moss, and shaking ground
over which we had to carry our line; and how Mr Holdsworth and I
had gone for our mid-day meals--for we had to stay here for two
days and a night--to a pretty village hard by, Heathbridge
proper; and how I hoped we should often have to go there, for the
shaking, uncertain ground was puzzling our engineers--one end of
the line going up as soon as the other was weighted down. (I had
no thought for the shareholders' interests, as may be seen; we
had to make a new line on firmer ground before the junction
railway was completed.) I told all this at great length, thankful
to fill up my paper. By return letter, I heard that a
second-cousin of my mother's was married to the Independent
minister of Hornby, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at
Heathbridge proper; the very Heathbridge I had described, or so
my mother believed, for she had never seen her cousin Phillis
Green, who was something of an heiress (my father believed),
being her father's only child, and old Thomas Green had owned an
estate of near upon fifty acres, which must have come to his
daughter. My mother's feeling of kinship seemed to have been
strongly stirred by the mention of Heathbridge; for my father
said she desired me, if ever I went thither again, to make
inquiry for the Reverend Ebenezer Holman; and if indeed he lived
there, I was further to ask if he had not married one Phillis
Green; and if both these questions were answered in the
affirmative, I was to go and introduce myself as the only child
of Margaret Manning, born Moneypenny. I was enraged at myself for
having named Heathbridge at all, when I found what it was drawing
down upon me. One Independent minister, as I said to myself, was
enough for any man; and here I knew (that is to say, I had been
catechized on Sabbath mornings by) Mr Dawson, our minister at
home; and I had had to be civil to old Peters at Eltham, and
behave myself for five hours running whenever he asked me to tea
at his house; and now, just as I felt the free air blowing about
me up at Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and I
should perhaps have to be catechized by him, or else asked to tea
at his house. Besides, I did not like pushing myself upon
strangers, who perhaps had never heard of my mother's name, and
such an odd name as it was--Moneypenny; and if they had, had
never cared more for her than she had for them, apparently, until
this unlucky mention of Heathbridge. Still, I would not disobey
my parents in such a trifle, however irksome it might be. So the
next time our business took me to Heathbridge, and we were dining
in the little sanded inn-parlour, I took the opportunity of Mr
Holdsworth's being out of the room, and asked the questions which
I was bidden to ask of the rosy-cheeked maid. I was either
unintelligible or she was stupid; for she said she did not know,
but would ask master; and of course the landlord came in to
understand what it was I wanted to know; and I had to bring out
all my stammering inquiries before Mr Holdsworth, who would never
have attended to them, I dare say, if I had not blushed, and
blundered, and made such a fool of myself.
'Yes,' the landlord said, 'the Hope Farm was in Heathbridge
proper, and the owner's name was Holman, and he was an
Independent minister, and, as far as the landlord could tell, his
wife's Christian name was Phillis, anyhow her maiden name was
Green.'
'Relations of yours?' asked Mr Holdsworth.
'No, sir--only my mother's second-cousins. Yes, I suppose they
are relations. But I never saw them in my life.'
'The Hope Farm is not a stone's throw from here,' said the
officious landlord, going to the window. 'If you carry your eye
over yon bed of hollyhocks, over the damson-trees in the orchard
yonder, you may see a stack of queer-like stone chimneys. Them is
the Hope Farm chimneys; it's an old place, though Holman keeps it
in good order.'
Mr Holdsworth had risen from the table with more promptitude than
I had, and was standing by the window, looking. At the landlord's
last words, he turned round, smiling,--'It is not often that
parsons know how to keep land in order, is it?'
'Beg pardon, sir, but I must speak as I find; and Minister
Holman--we call the Church clergyman here "parson," sir; he would
be a bit jealous if he heard a Dissenter called parson--Minister
Holman knows what he's about as well as e'er a farmer in the
neighbourhood. He gives up five days a week to his own work, and
two to the Lord's; and it is difficult to say which he works
hardest at. He spends Saturday and Sunday a-writing sermons and
a-visiting his flock at Hornby; and at five o'clock on Monday
morning he'll be guiding his plough in the Hope Farm yonder just
as well as if he could neither read nor write. But your dinner
will be getting cold, gentlemen.'
So we went back to table. After a while, Mr Holdsworth broke the
silence:--'If I were you, Manning, I'd look up these relations of
yours. You can go and see what they're like while we re waiting
for Dobson's estimates, and I'll smoke a cigar in the garden
meanwhile.'
'Thank you, sir. But I don't know them, and I don't think I want
to know them.'
'What did you ask all those questions for, then?' said he,
looking quickly up at me. He had no notion of doing or saying
things without a purpose. I did not answer, so he
continued,--'Make up your mind, and go off and see what this
farmer-minister is like, and come back and tell me--I should like
to hear.'
I was so in the habit of yielding to his authority, or influence,
that I never thought of resisting, but went on my errand, though
I remember feeling as if I would rather have had my head cut off.
The landlord, who had evidently taken an interest in the event of
our discussion in a way that country landlords have, accompanied
me to the house-door, and gave me repeated directions, as if I
was likely to miss my way in two hundred yards. But I listened to
him, for I was glad of the delay, to screw up my courage for the
effort of facing unknown people and introducing myself. I went
along the lane, I recollect, switching at all the taller roadside
weeds, till, after a turn or two, I found myself close in front
of the Hope Farm. There was a garden between the house and the
shady, grassy lane; I afterwards found that this garden was
called the court; perhaps because there was a low wall round it,
with an iron railing on the top of the wall, and two great gates
between pillars crowned with stone balls for a state entrance to
the flagged path leading up to the front door. It was not the
habit of the place to go in either by these great gates or by the
front door; the gates, indeed, were locked, as I found, though
the door stood wide open. I had to go round by a side-path
lightly worn on a broad grassy way, which led past the
court-wall, past a horse-mount, half covered with stone-crop and
the little wild yellow fumitory, to another door--'the curate',
as I found it was termed by the master of the house, while the
front door, 'handsome and all for show', was termed the 'rector'.
I knocked with my hand upon the 'curate' door; a tall girl, about
my own age, as I thought, came and opened it, and stood there
silent, waiting to know my errand. I see her now--cousin Phillis.
The westering sun shone full upon her, and made a slanting stream
of light into the room within. She was dressed in dark blue
cotton of some kind; up to her throat, down to her wrists, with a
little frill of the same wherever it touched her white skin. And
such a white skin as it was! I have never seen the like. She had
light hair, nearer yellow than any other colour. She looked me
steadily in the face with large, quiet eyes, wondering, but
untroubled by the sight of a stranger. I thought it odd that so
old, so full-grown as she was, she should wear a pinafore over
her gown.
Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in reply to her
mute inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman's voice called out,
'Who is it, Phillis? If it is any one for butter-milk send them
round to the back door.'
I thought I could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to
the girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of
a room hat in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the
hall or house-place where the family sate when work was done.
There was a brisk little woman of forty or so ironing some huge
muslin cravats under the light of a long vine-shaded casement
window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began to speak. 'My
name is Paul Manning,' said I; but I saw she did not know the
name. 'My mother's name was Moneypenny,' said I,--'Margaret
Moneypenny.'
'And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,' said Mrs
Holman, eagerly.
'And you'll be her son. Sit down! I am right glad to see you. To
think of your being Margaret's son! Why, she was almost a child
not so long ago. Well, to be sure, it is five-and-twenty years
ago. And what brings you into these parts?'
She sate down herself, as if oppressed by her curiosity as to all
the five-and-twenty years that had passed by since she had seen
my mother. Her daughter Phillis took up her knitting--a long grey
worsted man's stocking, I remember--and knitted away without
looking at her work. I felt that the steady gaze of those deep
grey eyes was upon me, though once, when I stealthily raised mine
to hers, she was examining something on the wall above my head.
When I had answered all my cousin Holman's questions, she heaved
a long breath, and said, 'To think of Margaret Moneypenny's boy
being in our house! I wish the minister was here. Phillis, in
what field is thy father to-day?'
'In the five-acre; they are beginning to cut the corn.'
'He'll not like being sent for, then, else I should have liked
you to have seen the minister. But the five-acre is a good step
off. You shall have a glass of wine and a bit of cake before you
stir from this house, though. You're bound to go, you say, or
else the minister comes in mostly when the men have their four
o'clock.'
'I must go--I ought to have been off before now.'
'Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.' She gave her daughter some
whispered directions, and Phillis left the room.
'She is my cousin, is she not?' I asked. I knew she was, but
somehow I wanted to talk of her, and did not know how to begin.
'Yes--Phillis Holman. She is our only child--now.'
Either from that 'now', or from a strange momentary wistfulness
in her eyes, I knew that there had been more children, who were
now dead.
'How old is cousin Phillis?' said I, scarcely venturing on the
new name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by
it; but cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering straight to
the purpose.
'Seventeen last May-day; but the minister does not like to hear
me calling it May-day,' said she, checking herself with a little
awe. 'Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,' she
repeated in an emended edition.
'And I am nineteen in another month,' thought I, to myself; I
don't know why. Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine
and cake upon it.
'We keep a house-servant,' said cousin Holman, 'but it is
churning day, and she is busy.' It was meant as a little proud
apology for her daughter's being the handmaiden.
'I like doing it, mother,' said Phillis, in her grave, full
voice.
I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament--who, I could
not recollect--being served and waited upon by the daughter of
the host. Was I like Abraham's servant, when Rebekah gave him to
drink at the well? I thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest
way to work in winning him a wife. But Phillis never thought
about such things. She was a stately, gracious young woman, in
the dress and with the simplicity of a child.
As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my newfound cousin
and her husband; and then I ventured to name my cousin Phillis
with a little bow of my head towards her; but I was too awkward
to look and see how she took my compliment. 'I must go now,' said
I, rising.
Neither of the women had thought of sharing in the wine; cousin
Holman had broken a bit of cake for form's sake.
'I wish the minister had been within,' said his wife, rising too.
Secretly I was very glad he was not. I did not take kindly to
ministers in those days, and I thought he must be a particular
kind of man, by his objecting to the term May-day. But before I
went, cousin Holman made me promise that I would come back on the
Saturday following and spend Sunday with them; when I should see
something of 'the minister'.
'Come on Friday, if you can,' were her last words as she stood at
the curate-door, shading her eyes from the sinking sun with her
hand. Inside the house sate cousin Phillis, her golden hair, her
dazzling complexion, lighting up the corner of the vine-shadowed
room. She had not risen when I bade her good-by; she had looked
at me straight as she said her tranquil words of farewell.
I found Mr Holdsworth down at the line, hard at work
superintending. As Soon as he had a pause, he said, 'Well,
Manning, what are the new cousins like? How do preaching and
farming seem to get on together? If the minister turns out to be
practical as well as reverend, I shall begin to respect him.'
But he hardly attended to my answer, he was so much more occupied
with directing his work-people. Indeed, my answer did not come
very readily; and the most distinct part of it was the mention of
the invitation that had been given me.
'Oh, of course you can go--and on Friday, too, if you like; there
is no reason why not this week; and you've done a long spell of
work this time, old fellow.' I thought that I did not want to go
on Friday; but when the day came, I found that I should prefer
going to staying away, so I availed myself of Mr Holdsworth's
permission, and went over to Hope Farm some time in the
afternoon, a little later than my last visit. I found the
'curate' open to admit the soft September air, so tempered by the
warmth of the sun, that it was warmer out of doors than in,
although the wooden log lay smouldering in front of a heap of hot
ashes on the hearth. The vine-leaves over the window had a tinge
more yellow, their edges were here and there scorched and
browned; there was no ironing about, and cousin Holman sate just
outside the house, mending a shirt. Phillis was at her knitting
indoors: it seemed as if she had been at it all the week. The
manyspeckled fowls were pecking about in the farmyard beyond, and
the milk-cans glittered with brightness, hung out to sweeten. The
court was so full of flowers that they crept out upon the
low-covered wall and horse-mount, and were even to be found
self-sown upon the turf that bordered the path to the back of the
house. I fancied that my Sunday coat was scented for days
afterwards by the bushes of sweetbriar and the fraxinella that
perfumed the air. From time to time cousin Holman put her hand
into a covered basket at her feet, and threw handsful of corn
down for the pigeons that cooed and fluttered in the air around,
in expectation of this treat.
I had a thorough welcome as soon as she saw me. 'Now this is
kind--this is right down friendly,' shaking my hand warmly.
'Phillis, your cousin Manning is come!'
'Call me Paul, will you?' said I; 'they call me so at home, and
Manning in the office.'
'Well, Paul, then. Your room is all ready for you, Paul, for, as
I said to the minister, "I'll have it ready whether he comes on
Friday or not." And the minister said he must go up to the
Ashfield whether you were to come or not; but he would come home
betimes to see if you were here. I'll show you to your room, and
you can wash the dust off a bit.'
After I came down, I think she did not quite know what to do with
me; or she might think that I was dull; or she might have work to
do in which I hindered her; for she called Phillis, and bade her
put on her bonnet, and go with me to the Ashfield, and find
father. So we set off, I in a little flutter of a desire to make
myself agreeable, but wishing that my companion were not quite so
tall; for she was above me in height. While I was wondering how
to begin our conversation, she took up the words.
'I suppose, cousin Paul, you have to be very busy at your work
all day long in general.'
'Yes, we have to be in the office at half-past eight; and we have
an hour for dinner, and then we go at it again till eight or
nine.'
'Then you have not much time for reading.'
'No,' said I, with a sudden consciousness that I did not make the
most of what leisure I had.
'No more have I. Father always gets an hour before going a-field
in the mornings, but mother does not like me to get up so early.'
'My mother is always wanting me to get up earlier when I am at
home.'
'What time do you get up?'
'Oh!--ah!--sometimes half-past six: not often though;' for I
remembered only twice that I had done so during the past summer.
She turned her head and looked at me.
'Father is up at three; and so was mother till she was ill. I
should like to be up at four.'
'Your father up at three! Why, what has he to do at that hour?'
'What has he not to do? He has his private exercise in his own
room; he always rings the great bell which calls the men to
milking; he rouses up Betty, our maid; as often as not he gives
the horses their feed before the man is up--for Jem, who takes
care of the horses, is an old man; and father is always loth to
disturb him; he looks at the calves, and the shoulders, heels,
traces, chaff, and corn before the horses go a-field; he has
often to whip-cord the plough-whips; he sees the hogs fed; he
looks into the swill-tubs, and writes his orders for what is
wanted for food for man and beast; yes, and for fuel, too. And
then, if he has a bit of time to spare, he comes in and reads
with me--but only English; we keep Latin for the evenings, that
we may have time to enjoy it; and then he calls in the men to
breakfast, and cuts the boys' bread and cheese; and sees their
wooden bottles filled, and sends them off to their work;--and by
this time it is half-past six, and we have our breakfast. There
is father,' she exclaimed, pointing out to me a man in his
shirt-sleeves, taller by the head than the other two with whom he
was working. We only saw him through the leaves of the ash-trees
growing in the hedge, and I thought I must be confusing the
figures, or mistaken: that man still looked like a very powerful
labourer, and had none of the precise demureness of appearance
which I had always imagined was the characteristic of a minister.
It was the Reverend Ebenezer Holman, however. He gave us a nod as
we entered the stubble-field; and I think he would have come to
meet us but that he was in the middle of giving some directions
to his men. I could see that Phillis was built more after his
type than her mother's. He, like his daughter, was largely made,
and of a fair, ruddy complexion, whereas hers was brilliant and
delicate. His hair had been yellow or sandy, but now was
grizzled. Yet his grey hairs betokened no failure in strength. I
never saw a more powerful man--deep chest, lean flanks,
well-planted head. By this time we were nearly up to him; and he
interrupted himself and stepped forwards; holding out his hand to
me, but addressing Phillis.
'Well, my lass, this is cousin Manning, I suppose. Wait a minute,
young man, and I'll put on my coat, and give you a decorous and
formal welcome. But--Ned Hall, there ought to be a water-furrow
across this land: it's a nasty, stiff, clayey, dauby bit of
ground, and thou and I must fall to, come next Monday--I beg your
pardon, cousin Manning--and there's old Jem's cottage wants a bit
of thatch; you can do that job tomorrow while I am busy.' Then,
suddenly changing the tone of his deep bass voice to an odd
suggestion of chapels and preachers, he added. 'Now, I will give
out the psalm, "Come all harmonious tongues", to be sung to
"Mount Ephraim" tune.'
He lifted his spade in his hand, and began to beat time with it;
the two labourers seemed to know both words and music, though I
did not; and so did Phillis: her rich voice followed her father's
as he set the tune; and the men came in with more uncertainty,
but still harmoniously. Phillis looked at me once or twice with a
little surprise at my silence; but I did not know the words.
There we five stood, bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny
stubble-field, from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been
carried--a dark wood on one side, where the woodpigeons were
cooing; blue distance seen through the ash-trees on the other.
Somehow, I think that if I had known the words, and could have
sung, my throat would have been choked up by the feeling of the
unaccustomed scene.
The hymn was ended, and the men had drawn off before I could
stir. I saw the minister beginning to put on his coat, and
looking at me with friendly inspection in his gaze, before I
could rouse myself.
'I dare say you railway gentlemen don't wind up the day with
singing a psalm together,' said he; 'but it is not a bad
practice--not a bad practice. We have had it a bit earlier to-day
for hospitality's sake--that's all.'
I had nothing particular to say to this, though I was thinking a
great deal. From time to time I stole a look at my companion. His
coat was black, and so was his waistcoat; neckcloth he had none,
his strong full throat being bare above the snow-white shirt. He
wore drab-coloured knee-breeches, grey worsted stockings (I
thought I knew the maker), and strong-nailed shoes. He carried
his hat in his hand, as if he liked to feel the coming breeze
lifting his hair. After a while, I saw that the father took hold
of the daughter's hand, and so, they holding each other, went
along towards home. We had to cross a lane. In it were two little
children, one lying prone on the grass in a passion of crying,
the other standing stock still, with its finger in its mouth, the
large tears slowly rolling down its cheeks for sympathy. The
cause of their distress was evident; there was a broken brown
pitcher, and a little pool of spilt milk on the road.
'Hollo! Hollo! What's all this?' said the minister. 'why, what
have you been about, Tommy,' lifting the little petticoated lad,
who was lying sobbing, with one vigorous arm. Tommy looked at him
with surprise in his round eyes, but no affright--they were
evidently old acquaintances.
'Mammy's jug!' said he, at last, beginning to cry afresh.
'Well! and will crying piece mammy's jug, or pick up spilt milk?
How did you manage it, Tommy?'
'He' (jerking his head at the other) 'and me was running races.'
'Tommy said he could beat me,' put in the other.
'Now, I wonder what will make you two silly lads mind, and not
run races again with a pitcher of milk between you,' said the
minister, as if musing. 'I might flog you, and so save mammy the
trouble; for I dare say she'll do it if I don't.' The fresh burst
of whimpering from both showed the probability of this.
'Or I might take you to the Hope Farm, and give you some more
milk; but then you'd be running races again, and my milk would
follow that to the ground, and make another white pool. I think
the flogging would be best--don't you?'
'We would never run races no more,' said the elder of the two.
'Then you'd not be boys; you'd be angels.'
'No, we shouldn't.'
'Why not?'
They looked into each other's eyes for an answer to this puzzling
question. At length, one said, 'Angels is dead folk.'
'Come; we'll not get too deep into theology. What do you think of
my lending you a tin can with a lid to carry the milk home in?
That would not break, at any rate; though I would not answer for
the milk not spilling if you ran races. That's it!'
He had dropped his daughter's hand, and now held out each of his
to the little fellows. Phillis and I followed, and listened to
the prattle which the minister's companions now poured out to
him, and which he was evidently enjoying. At a certain point,
there was a sudden burst of the tawny, ruddy-evening landscape.
The minister turned round and quoted a line or two of Latin.
'It's wonderful,' said he, 'how exactly Virgil has hit the
enduring epithets, nearly two thousand years ago, and in Italy;
and yet how it describes to a T what is now lying before us in
the parish of Heathbridge, county----, England.'
'I dare say it does,' said I, all aglow with shame, for I had
forgotten the little Latin I ever knew.
The minister shifted his eyes to Phillis's face; it mutely gave
him back the sympathetic appreciation that I, in my ignorance,
could not bestow.
'Oh! this is worse than the catechism,' thought I; 'that was only
remembering words.'
'Phillis, lass, thou must go home with these lads, and tell their
mother all about the race and the milk. Mammy must always know
the truth,' now speaking to the children. 'And tell her, too,
from me that I have got the best birch rod in the parish; and
that if she ever thinks her children want a flogging she must
bring them to me, and, if I think they deserve it, I'll give it
them better than she can.' So Phillis led the children towards
the dairy, somewhere in the back yard, and I followed the
minister in through the 'curate' into the house-place. 'Their
mother,' said he, 'is a bit of a vixen, and apt to punish her
children without rhyme or reason. I try to keep the parish rod as
well as the parish bull.'
He sate down in the three-cornered chair by the fire-side, and
looked around the empty room.
'Where's the missus?' said he to himself. But she was there
home--by a look, by a touch, nothing more--as soon as she in a
minute; it was her regular plan to give him his welcome could
after his return, and he had missed her now. Regardless of my
presence, he went over the day's doings to her; and then, getting
up, he said he must go and make himself 'reverend', and that then
we would have a cup of tea in the parlour. The parlour was a
large room with two casemented windows on the other side of the
broad flagged passage leading from the rector-door to the wide
staircase, with its shallow, polished oaken steps, on which no
carpet was ever laid. The parlour-floor was covered in the middle
by a home-made carpeting of needlework and list. One or two
quaint family pictures of the Holman family hung round the walls;
the fire-grate and irons were much ornamented with brass; and on
a table against the wall between the windows, a great beau-pot of
flowers was placed upon the folio volumes of Matthew Henry's
Bible. It was a compliment to me to use this room, and I tried to
be grateful for it; but we never had our meals there after that
first day, and I was glad of it; for the large house-place,
living room, dining-room, whichever you might like to call it,
was twice as comfortable and cheerful. There was a rug in front
of the great large fire-place, and an oven by the grate, and a
crook, with the kettle hanging from it, over the bright
wood-fire; everything that ought to be black and Polished in that
room was black and Polished; and the flags, and window-curtains,
and such things as were to be white and clean, were just spotless
in their purity. Opposite to the fire-place, extending the whole
length of the room, was an oaken shovel-board, with the right
incline for a skilful player to send the weights into the
prescribed space. There were baskets of white work about, and a
small shelf of books hung against the wall, books used for
reading, and not for propping up a beau-pot of flowers. I took
down one or two of those books once when I was left alone in the
house-place on the first evening--Virgil, Caesar, a Greek
grammar--oh, dear! ah, me! and Phillis Holman's name in each of
them! I shut them up, and put them back in their places, and
walked as far away from the bookshelf as I could. Yes, and I gave
my cousin Phillis a wide berth, as though she was sitting at her
work quietly enough, and her hair was looking more golden, her
dark eyelashes longer, her round pillar of a throat whiter than
ever. We had done tea, and we had returned into the house-place
that the minister might smoke his pipe without fear of
contaminating the drab damask window-curtains of the parlour. He
had made himself 'reverend' by putting on one of the voluminous
white muslin neckcloths that I had seen cousin Holman ironing
that first visit I had paid to the Hope Farm, and by making one
or two other unimportant changes in his dress. He sate looking
steadily at me, but whether he saw me or not I cannot tell. At
the time I fancied that he did, and was gauging me in some
unknown fashion in his secret mind. Every now and then he took
his pipe out of his mouth, knocked out the ashes, and asked me
some fresh question. As long as these related to my acquirements
or my reading, I shuffled uneasily and did not know what to
answer. By-and-by he got round to the more practical subject of
railroads, and on this I was more at home. I really had taken an
interest in my work; nor would Mr Holdsworth, indeed, have kept
me in his employment if I had not given my mind as well as my
time to it; and I was, besides, full of the difficulties which
beset us just then, owing to our not being able to find a steady
bottom on the Heathbridge moss, over which we wished to carry our
line. In the midst of all my eagerness in speaking about this, I
could not help being struck with the extreme pertinence of his
questions. I do not mean that he did not show ignorance of many
of the details of engineering: that was to have been expected;
but on the premises he had got hold of; he thought clearly and
reasoned logically. Phillis--so like him as she was both in body
and mind--kept stopping at her work and looking at me, trying to
fully understand all that I said. I felt she did; and perhaps it
made me take more pains in using clear expressions, and arranging
my words, than I otherwise should.
'She shall see I know something worth knowing, though it mayn't
be her dead-and-gone languages,' thought I.
'I see,' said the minister, at length. 'I understand it all.
You've a clear, good head of your own, my lad,--choose how you
came by it.'
'From my father,' said I, proudly. 'Have you not heard of his
discovery of a new method of shunting? It was in the Gazette. It
was patented. I thought every one had heard of Manning's patent
winch.'
'We don't know who invented the alphabet,' said he, half smiling,
and taking up his pipe.
'No, I dare say not, sir,' replied I, half offended; 'that's so
long ago.' Puff--puff--puff.
'But your father must be a notable man. I heard of him once
before; and it is not many a one fifty miles away whose fame
reaches Heathbridge.'
'My father is a notable man, sir. It is not me that says so; it
is Mr Holdsworth, and--and everybody.'
'He is right to stand up for his father,' said cousin Holman, as
if she were pleading for me.
I chafed inwardly, thinking that my father needed no one to stand
up for him. He was man sufficient for himself.
'Yes--he is right,' said the minister, placidly. 'Right, because
it comes from his heart--right, too, as I believe, in point of
fact. Else there is many a young cockerel that will stand upon a
dunghill and crow about his father, by way of making his own
plumage to shine. I should like to know thy father,' he went on,
turning straight to me, with a kindly, frank look in his eyes.
But I was vexed, and would take no notice. Presently, having
finished his pipe, he got up and left the room. Phillis put her
work hastily down, and went after him. In a minute or two she
returned, and sate down again. Not long after, and before I had
quite recovered my good temper, he opened the door out of which
he had passed, and called to me to come to him. I went across a
narrow stone passage into a strange, many-cornered room, not ten
feet in area, part study, part counting house, looking into the
farm-yard; with a desk to sit at, a desk to stand at, a Spittoon,
a set of shelves with old divinity books upon them; another,
smaller, filled with books on farriery, farming, manures, and
such subjects, with pieces of paper containing memoranda stuck
against the whitewashed walls with wafers, nails, pins, anything
that came readiest to hand; a box of carpenter's tools on the
floor, and some manuscripts in short-hand on the desk.
He turned round, half laughing. 'That foolish girl of mine thinks
I have vexed you'--putting his large, powerful hand on my
shoulder. '"Nay," says I, "kindly meant is kidney taken"--is it
not so?'
'It was not quite, sir,' replied I, vanquished by his manner;
'but it shall be in future.'
'Come, that's right. You and I shall be friends. Indeed, it's not
many a one I would bring in here. But I was reading a book this
morning, and I could not make it out; it is a book that was left
here by mistake one day; I had subscribed to Brother Robinson's
sermons; and I was glad to see this instead of them, for sermons
though they be, they're . . . well, never mind! I took 'em both,
and made my old coat do a bit longer; but all's fish that comes
to my net. I have fewer books than leisure to read them, and I
have a prodigious big appetite. Here it is.'
It was a volume of stiff mechanics, involving many technical
terms, and some rather deep mathematics. These last, which would
have puzzled me, seemed easy enough to him; all that he wanted
was the explanations of the technical words, which I could easily
give.
While he was looking through the book to find the places where he
had been puzzled, my wandering eye caught on some of the papers
on the wall, and I could not help reading one, which has stuck by
me ever since. At first, it seemed a kind of weekly diary; but
then I saw that the seven days were portioned out for special
prayers and intercessions: Monday for his family, Tuesday for
enemies, Wednesday for the Independent churches, Thursday for all
other churches, Friday for persons afflicted, Saturday for his
own soul, Sunday for all wanderers and sinners, that they might
be brought home to the fold.
We were called back into the house-place to have supper. A door
opening into the kitchen was opened; and all stood up in both
rooms, while the minister, tall, large, one hand resting on the
spread table, the other lifted up, said, in the deep voice that
would have been loud had it not been so full and rich, but
without the peculiar accent or twang that I believe is considered
devout by some people, 'Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we
do, let us do all to the glory of God.'
The supper was an immense meat-pie. We of the house-place were
helped first; then the minister hit the handle of his buck-horn
carving-knife on the table once, and said,--
'Now or never,' which meant, did any of us want any more; and
when we had all declined, either by silence or by words, he
knocked twice with his knife on the table, and Betty came in
through the open door, and carried off the great dish to the
kitchen, where an old man and a young one, and a help-girl, were
awaiting their meal.
'Shut the door, if you will,' said the minister to Betty.
'That's in honour of you,' said cousin Holman, in a tone of
satisfaction, as the door was shut. 'when we've no stranger with
us, the minister is so fond of keeping the door Open, and talking
to the men and maids, just as much as to Phillis and me.
'It brings us all together like a household just before we meet
as a household in prayer,' said he, in explanation. 'But to go
back to what we were talking about--can you tell me of any simple
book on dynamics that I could put in my pocket, and study a
little at leisure times in the day?'
'Leisure times, father?' said Phillis, with a nearer approach to
a smile than I had yet seen on her face.
'Yes; leisure times, daughter. There is many an odd minute lost
in waiting for other folk; and now that railroads are coming so
near us, it behoves us to know something about them.'
I thought of his own description of his 'prodigious big appetite'
for learning. And he had a good appetite of his own for the more
material victual before him. But I saw, or fancied I saw, that he
had some rule for himself in the matter both of food and drink.
As soon as supper was done the household assembled for prayer. It
was a long impromptu evening prayer; and it would have seemed
desultory enough had I not had a glimpse of the kind of day that
preceded it, and so been able to find a clue to the thoughts that
preceded the disjointed utterances; for he kept there kneeling
down in the centre of a circle, his eyes shut, his outstretched
hands pressed palm to palm--sometimes with a long pause of
silence was anything else he wished to 'lay before the Lord! (to
use his own expression)--before he concluded with the blessing.
He prayed for the cattle and live creatures, rather to my
surprise; for my attention had begun to wander, till it was
recalled by the familiar words.
And here I must not forget to name an odd incident at the
conclusion of the prayer, and before we had risen from our knees
(indeed before Betty was well awake, for she made a practice of
having a sound nap, her weary head lying on her stalwart arms);
the minister, still kneeling in our midst, but with his eyes wide
open, and his arms dropped by his side, spoke to the elder man,
who turned round on his knees to attend. 'John, didst see that
Daisy had her warm mash to-night; for we must not neglect the
means, John--two quarts of gruel, a spoonful of ginger, and a
gill of beer--the poor beast needs it, and I fear it slipped Out
of my mind to tell thee; and here was I asking a blessing and
neglecting the means, which is a mockery,' said he, dropping his
voice. Before we went to bed he told me he should see little or
nothing more of me during my visit, which was to end on Sunday
evening, as he always gave up both Saturday and Sabbath to his
work in the ministry. I remembered that the landlord at the inn
had told me this on the day when I first inquired about these new
relations of mine; and I did not dislike the opportunity which I
saw would be afforded me of becoming more acquainted with cousin
Holman and Phillis, though I earnestly hoped that the latter
would not attack me on the subject of the dead languages.
I went to bed, and dreamed that I was as tall as cousin Phillis,
and had a sudden and miraculous growth of whisker, and a still
more miraculous acquaintance with Latin and Greek. Alas! I
wakened up still a short, beardless lad, with 'tempus fugit' for
my sole remembrance of the little Latin I had once learnt. While
I was dressing, a bright thought came over me: I could question
cousin Phillis, instead of her questioning me, and so manage to
keep the choice of the subjects of conversation in my own power.
Early as it was, every one had breakfasted, and my basin of bread
and milk was put on the oven-top to await my coming down. Every
one was gone about their work. The first to come into the
house-place was Phillis with a basket of eggs. Faithful to my
resolution, I asked,--
'What are those?'
She looked at me for a moment, and then said gravely,--
'Potatoes!'
'No! they are not,' said I. 'They are eggs. What do you mean by
saying they are potatoes?'
'What do you mean by asking me what they were, when they were
plain to be seen?' retorted she.
We were both getting a little angry with each other.
'I don't know. I wanted to begin to talk to you; and I was afraid
you would talk to me about books as you did yesterday. I have not
read much; and you and the minister have read so much.'
'I have not,' said she. 'But you are our guest; and mother says I
must make it pleasant to you. We won't talk of books. What must
we talk about?'
'I don't know. How old are you?'
'Seventeen last May. How old are you?'
'I am nineteen. Older than you by nearly two years,' said I,
drawing myself up to my full height.
'I should not have thought you were above sixteen,' she replied,
as quietly as if she were not saying the most provoking thing she
possibly could. Then came a pause.
'What are you going to do now?' asked I.
'I should be dusting the bed-chambers; but mother said I had
better stay and make it pleasant to you,' said she, a little
plaintively, as if dusting rooms was far the easiest task.
'Will you take me to see the live-stock? I like animals, though I
don't know much about them.'
'Oh, do you? I am so glad! I was afraid you would not like
animals, as you did not like books.'
I wondered why she said this. I think it was because she had
begun to fancy all our tastes must be dissimilar. We went
together all through the farm-yard; we fed the poultry, she
kneeling down with her pinafore full of corn and meal, and
tempting the little timid, downy chickens upon it, much to the
anxiety of the fussy ruffled hen, their mother. She called to the
pigeons, who fluttered down at the sound of her voice. She and I
examined the great sleek cart-horses; sympathized in our dislike
of pigs; fed the calves; coaxed the sick cow, Daisy; and admired
the others out at pasture; and came back tired and hungry and
dirty at dinner-time, having quite forgotten that there were such
things as dead languages, and consequently capital friends. _